It contains several elements atypical of Franciscan architecture of the period, including wall passages and exterior access to its upper floor.

[3] According to legend, this settlement was originally to be formed a mile west of Timoleague, but all work done on that site by day would fall down by morning.

[4] Interpreting this as God's will that the friary be built elsewhere, Molaga supposedly placed a blessed candle on a sheaf of corn, and set it down the Argideen River, building his settlement on the spot that it came ashore,[5] in an area overlooking Courtmacsherry Bay.

[6] Though the friars were well established in Timoleague by 1320, the earliest surviving parts of the ruined friary date from later in the 14th century.

[16] According to the Annals of Ulster, in 1505 Patrick Ó Feidhil, a famous preacher in Ireland and Scotland, was buried in the friary.

[17] An important patron of the church was Bishop John Edmond de Courcy, along with his nephew James, 8th Baron Kingsale.

[18] John de Courcy was buried in the transept of the friary, but in the Cromwellian period his grave was desecrated and his bones thrown into the estuary.

[25] In 1612, Bishop Lyons came to Timoleague to disperse the friars but was repelled by an Irish force led by Daniel O'Sullivan.

[27] In 1629, four years after the death of King James, Richard Boyle was named Lord Justice and instigated the closure of religious buildings across Cork, putting increasing pressure on the friary.

[8] Despite these accounts, the friary was reportedly renowned for its School of Philosophy, established in 1620 and led by Owen O'Fihelly.

[17][2] Furthermore, in 1629 Mícheál Ó Cléirigh reportedly transcribed material from the Book of Lismore in the friary library.

[35] Though the Franciscan community dispersed by the mid-eighteenth century, individual friars remained in the area for several more decades.

[39] On 15 January 1848, Fr Matt Horgan, writing under the pen-name "Viator", wrote the following which was released in the Cork Examiner: "The walls [of the friary] are washed by the tide and some large breaches are already made in the burying ground, much to the disgrace of the lord of the soil, who must be either some heartless absentee, or a Gothic resident, having no feeling of fatherland; irrespective of its history or monuments, thinking only of bullocks, and knowing nothing, and caring less for the arts; blind to the beauties, with heart closed against the romance and poetry of the glorious past, and its mute but still eloquent memorials.

"Soon after the publication of these remarks, Colonel Robert Travers, the so-called "lord of the soil", had the walls of the friary grounds replaced, and a road built between them and the sea, all at his own expense.

[41] In 1892, Denham Franklin wrote that "The preservation of the abbey is mainly due to the care bestowed on it by the family of the present proprietor of Timoleague, Mr. Robert Travers, who did not allow the depredations unfortunately too common on our ancient buildings.

"In 1920, in response to the murder of three police officers by Irish nationalists, British soldiers desecrated the friary's burial ground.

[40][51] The window is narrower on the outside than it is on the inside, and the Eucharist was likely passed out by the monks on a spoon so as to avoid contact with a disease which was considered highly contagious at the time.

[51] The choir is the oldest part of the friary and may have originally been an early 13th-century castle or church that the Franciscans later added to.

[51][50] It features four widely splayed arched recesses in the north and south walls, separated by piers, one of which is now covered by the base of the tower.

A gift given by French sailors as thanksgiving for safe harbour following a storm at sea, it was originally a sculpture of Molaga's head, but the facial features have been completely eroded.

[50] When Donatus Mooney visited the friary in the 17th century, he noted that the ceilings above the refectory and the chapter room were supported by beams of carved oak.

In the 1800s, some local children supposedly entered the Fairy Cupboard and discovered a parchment manuscript beneath one of the flagstones, which they used as a football before the remainder was eaten by pigs.

[66] The earlier chalice is engraved with the words "Orate · Pro · Animabvs · Caroli · Dali · Et · Elizie · Browne · TimoLeagve."

It depicts a selection of the Instruments of the Passion: a central cross with a spear to one side and a stick with a sponge on the other.

The cross is depicted as the tree of life, with branches sprouting from its tip and base and shamrocks forming its head and arms.

[68] The chalice was likely a gift from the Dalys (Elizabeth Browne being Charles' wife) to the friars upon their return to the friary after its suppression in 1568.

[70] When the friary was burned, three friars supposedly fled via rowboat[71] and were found at sea by fishermen from Cape Clear Island, by which time two of them had died.

[69] It has remained in the safekeeping of his successors,[63] and an exact replica of the chalice is on permanent display in the local Catholic church.

[76] The Irish writer Seán Ó Coileáin wrote the c. 1913 poem Machtnadh an Duine Dhoilghiosaich about the ruins.