Franciscan Third Order Regular

Franciscan Third Order Regular. The earliest definite reference to members of the Third Order of St Francis in Ireland occurs in 1425 when they received a copy of the bull Supra montem containing their rule from Pope Martin V.

Between 1426 and 1537 48 friaries were founded for male (predominantly) and female tertiaries living in community. These communities, situated almost entirely in the west and north of Ireland, were initially subject to visitation by the Franciscan friars but the appointment of Thomas Oruayn (O'Ruane?) as visitator and provincial in 1456 suggests that by then they enjoyed a large degree of autonomy. Contemporary papal documents indicate that they acted as auxiliaries to the secular clergy in some areas and a 17th‐century source records that they were involved in education. Their provincial in 1600 was Donatus Cossaeus and a small number of them still survived in Ulster c.1616, but they appear to have died out completely shortly afterwards.

The secular Franciscan tertiaries (lay people living by the rule of the Third Order) also experienced a resurgence in the 15th century. Surviving references to them are few but are sufficiently dispersed geographically to indicate that they were a widespread phenomenon.

Colmán N. Ó Clabaigh