This exhibition opening in 2007 coincided with the 400th anniversary of the founding, in 1607, of the illustrious Franciscan college at Louvain in the Spanish Netherlands, now Belgium.

It includes religious silver and other material from several of the Franciscan houses, displayed together for the first time. Indeed, many of the pieces have never previously been publicly exhibited.

Noting and commemorating the work of the Franciscan Order in Ireland, it traces the history of the Franciscans and their houses during the turbulent period of the 17th Century and the penal laws of the 18th Century.

It does so in the main through the medium of religious silver, chalices, monstrances, processional crosses and other religious items that were protected and revered amid the upheavals and uncertainty of the time.

One of the earliest and most important exhibits is a processional cross, c. 1500 AD, from Multyfarnham in Co. Westmeath, one of the most important Franciscan friaries.

This exhibition has closed. The religious silver from the Franciscan Order is now located  in the What’s in Store? exhibition.