Mourne Abbey, or Mourneabbey, (Irish: Mainstir na Móna) is a small civil and Roman Catholic parish in the barony of Barretts, northwest County Cork, Ireland.

The exact foundation date is not recorded but the earliest reference to it is 1290, when the 'master of Mora' witnessed a charter concerning Hospitaller properties in Dublin.

The enclosure would have had a substantial gatehouse and a range of domestic and agricultural buildings including a refectory, an infirmary, a guesthouse, a dormitory, stables, brewhouse, forge and so on.

It was closed down in 1541 after King Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries[3] and was granted by the crown to the McCarthys This abbey now lies in ruins, as does Barrett's Castle, on the nearby hilltop.

The castle was originally built by Cogans, the Anglo-Norman lords who founded the nearby town of Ballynamona and who donated the lands to the Hospitallers to build the abbey.

In early 1921, the IRA sought to destroy bridges, roads and make travel and communications difficult for British forces in the area.

Near the end of January 1921, a specially formed Mallow Battalion (flying) moved into the Mourne Abbey area where they lay in ambush a few times, but the expected enemy did not turn up.

[4] Column member John Moloney, in his witness statement for the Bureau of Military History (WS 1,036), recalled that early in the morning of 15 February 1921, he and his comrades took up positions behind a stone-faced fence on high ground at the western side of the Mallow-Cork road overlooking the intended ambush point.

Other armed IRA members gathered at Jordan's Bridge approximately one mile on the Cork side of Mourne Abbey Railway Station, with the intention to block traffic on the road.

The military on the right-hand side of the lorries jumped to the ground and moved up through a high bank towards a farm at Mourneabbey and towards the positions of the IRA Burnfort company who were armed with shotguns.