and fought a war of defence across Munster. Gerald, known as the "Rebel Earl", was popular among his followers, but as the atrocities of the English incursion grew unbearable they gradually abandoned him. Fleeing with a few retainers, on 11 November 1583 he was murdered by Moriarty of Castledrum, at Glenagenty, five miles east of Tralee at Bóthar an Iarlaigh. Sir Nicholas Malby unsuccessfully attacked the castle in 1579. Askeaton Castle was then occupied by Lieutenant Patrick Purcell of the confederate Catholics. The English saw Askeaton as a threat while it was under Catholic rule. It was destroyed in 1652 by the Cromwellian captain Daniel Axtell, who hanged Patrick Purcell. The Lord Justice Sir William Pelham subsequently took possession. It was the end of the FitzGerald reign over Askeaton and Munster. The castle was transferred to the ownership of the English crown under Captain Edward Berkley. Franciscan Friary Gerald FitzGerald, 3rd Earl of Desmond, the legendary poet earl who is said still to sleep in a cave waiting to ride back on his silver-shod steed in Ireland's time of ultimate need, founded Askeaton Abbey in about 1389. It has cloisters with 12 arches on each side, an east window, mediaeval carvings, and a chapter room that is the final resting place of the martyrs Bishop Patrick O'Healy and Fr Conn O'Rourke. On 9 October 1579, after failing to take Askeaton Castle, the English commander Sir Nicholas Malby attacked the town and burned the friary, killing most of the friars, some in a gruesome fashion, and wrecked the ancestral tombs of the Desmonds, in a mean-spirited attack to take revenge on the earl in his impenetrable fortress. Monks returned to the friary only in 1627 but the community did not reach its former numbers until 1642. The community again abandoned the site in 1648 when Cromwell's forces neared Askeaton, and did not return until the 1650s. The friary permanently closed in 1740. St Mary's Church The present Catholic church was built in 1851, after the previous building near the Franciscan friary was totally destroyed by fire in 1847. It is built of local limestone and has stained glass windows. The window to the right of the transept shows the resurrection of Christ, and that on the left his ascension into heaven. In the centre of the nave are windows showing St Patrick receiving the two daughters of King Laoire, the King