Described as a ‘flowering garden of monasteries’, County Offaly, in the heart of the Irish Monastic Midlands, is best known archaeologically for the number and scale of the early medieval monasteries, which to this day continue to dominate the landscape. Between the fifth and seventh centuries evangelist monks arrived in what is now County Offaly, attracted by the region’s centrality and its proximity to four of the five medieval provincial boundaries. The landscape they entered was dominated by the River Shannon as well as series of winding glacial ridges, or eskers, which collectively provided routeways through the low-lying bog landscape. The native Irish monasteries thrived, especially in the ninth to tenth centuries, but started to decline following reforms by the church from the early twelfth century. Their influence waned further following the Anglo-Norman invasion, when new European style orders were increasingly constructed beside (or over) pre-existing native monasteries.