Mount Melleray Abbey () is a

Trappist The Trappists, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (, abbreviated as OCSO) and originally named the Order of Reformed Cistercians of Our Lady of La Trappe, are a Religious order (Catholic), Catholic religious o ...

monastery in Ireland, founded in 1833. It is situated on the slopes of the Knockmealdown Mountains, near

Cappoquin Cappoquin (), also sometimes spelt Cappaquin, is a town in western County Waterford, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is on the Munster Blackwater, Blackwater river at the junction of the N72 road (Ireland), N72 national secondary road and the R ...

Diocese of Waterford {{Use Irish English, date=February 2020 The Diocese of Waterford was established in the year AD 1096. It was merged with the Bishop of Lismore, Ireland, Diocese of Lismore on 16 June 1363 to form the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore. The merged ...

. It closed in 2025.

History

The

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

order itself dates back to the 12th century. Following the suppression of monasteries in France after the French Revolution, dispossessed monks had arrived in England in 1794 and established a monastic community in Lulworth,

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

. Following the Bourbon Restoration, the monks returned to France in 1817 to re-establish the ancient Melleray Abbey in

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

. Within ten years, the restored monastery had two hundred members, of whom around seventy were Irish. During the

July Revolution of 1830 The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after the first of 1789–99. It led to the overthrow of King Charles X, the French B ...

, the monks were again persecuted and the French abbot of Melleray sent Waterford-born Vincent Ryan to found an abbey in Ireland. Ryan initially rented a property in

Rathmore, County Kerry Rathmore () is a small town in County Kerry, Ireland, lying immediately west of the border with County Cork. Rathmore is divided into two parts, one being the main commercial centre, and the other being the administrative centre where the scho ...

. Sixty-four Cisterican monks landed at Cobh from France on 1 December 1831. The land in Rathmore proved unsuitable for housing the monastery and Ryan looked to County Waterford, where Sir Richard Keane, 2nd Baronet of

Cappoquin House Cappoquin House also known as Belmont is an 18th-century classical-style mansion overlooking the town of Cappoquin in County Waterford, Ireland, Republic of, Ireland. The house is the seat of the Keane baronets, Keane Baronets of Belmont a ...

had offered a tract of 600 acres of barren mountain land. The monastery was founded on 30 May 1832 at Scrahan,

. In the work of reclaiming the soil, the brethren were assisted by the local people, among them the parish of Modeligo. On the feast of St Bernard, 1833, the foundation stone of the new monastery was blessed by William Abraham,

Bishop of Waterford and Lismore The Bishop of Waterford and Lismore is an episcopal title which takes its name after the city of Waterford and town of Lismore in Ireland. The title was used by the Church of Ireland until 1838, and is still used by the Roman Catholic Church. Hi ...

. It was called Mount Melleray in memory of the motherhouse.Mount Melleray
Ordre Cistercien de la Stricte Observance. In 1835 the monastery was created an abbey, and Ryan, unanimously elected, received the abbatial blessing from Abraham, this being the first abbatial blessing in Ireland since the Protestant

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. It was from Mount Melleray that a small colony of monks was dispatched to found the English Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in 1835.

Daniel O'Connell Daniel(I) O’Connell (; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Irelan ...

supported the endeavor, and visited the abbey in 1838. Ryan undertook the work of completing the abbey but died on 9 December 1845. His successor, Joseph Ryan, resigned after two years. Bruno Fitzpatrick succeeded as abbot in September 1848. In 1849, he founded New Melleray Abbey, near

Dubuque, Iowa Dubuque (, ) is a city in Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. The population was 59,667 at the 2020 United States census. The city lies along the Mississippi River at the junction of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, a region ...

, U.S.A., and, in 1878, Mount Saint Joseph Abbey,

Roscrea Roscrea () is a market town in County Tipperary, Ireland. In 2022 it had a population of 5,542. Roscrea is one of the oldest towns in Ireland, having developed around the 7th century monastery of Crónán of Roscrea, Saint Crónán of Roscrea, p ...

County Tipperary County Tipperary () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary (tow ...

, Ireland. He also founded the Ecclesiastical Seminary of Mount Melleray. Originating in a small school formed by Ryan in 1843, it was developed by Fitzpatrick and his successors. During his July 1849 visit to neighbouring Dromana House, Scottish essayist

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...

paid a visit to Mount Melleray and described the abbey in some detail, noting particularly the huge vats of " stirabout" or porridge the monks prepared for a large number of

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

refugees that waited for food at the entrance to the monastery: "Entrance; squalid hordes of beggars, sit waiting" and "nasty tubs of cold stirabout (coarsest I ever saw) for beggars"(p. 90). He notes that the monastery "must have accumulated several thousand pounds of property in these seventeen ... years, in spite of its continual charities to beggars." In 1900 the "Kilgrovan Stones", five stones with

Ogham inscription Roughly 400 inscriptions in the ogham alphabet are known from stone monuments scattered around the Irish Sea, the bulk of them dating to the fifth and sixth centuries. The language of these inscriptions is predominantly Primitive Irish, but a ...

s, found in 1857, were transferred to the Abbey by Patrick Power. Fitzpatrick died 4 December 1893, and was succeeded by Carthage Delaney, who was blessed 15 January 1894, and presided over Mount Melleray for thirteen years. His successor was Marius O'Phelan, solemnly blessed by Richard Alphonsus Sheehan, Bishop of Waterford, 15 August 1908. O'Phelan resumed building on the abbey, buying the great cut limestone blocks from Mitchelstown Castle (28 miles west), which had been looted and burnt by the IRA in 1922. In 1925, the owners of Mitchelstown Castle dismantled the ruins and the stones were transported from Mitchelstown by steam lorry, two consignments a day for at least five years. As the Abbey was being laid out, O'Phelan died and his successor, Celsus O'Connell, continued to the monumental task. He opted for a more prominent site directly over the mortal remains of 180 of his fellow Cistercians. The monks ended up with far more stones than they needed and these were eventually stacked in fields around the monastery. In 1954 six monks (eight more in 1955) went to found a small Trappist abbey in a remote, rural area of New Zealand, the Southern Star Abbey. Eamon Fitzgerald, abbot of Mount Melleray, was abbot general of the order from 2008 to 2022. Mount Melleray Abbey closed in January 2025. The remaining six monks joined Mount Saint Joseph Abbey, Roscrea.

Abbots

* Vincent de Paul Ryan (1833-1845) * Joseph Mary Ryan (1846-1848) * Bartholomew (Bruno) Fitzpatrick (1848-1893) * John (Carthage) Delaney (1894-1908) * Richard (Marius) O'Phelan (1908-1931) * Stanislaus Hickey (1931-1933) * Celsus O'Connell (1933-1957) * Finbar Cashman (1957-1971) * Pól Ó hAonusa (Paul Hennessy) (1971–75) * Edward Ducey (1976-1980) * Justin MacCarthy (1980-1989) * Eamon Fitzgerald (1989 - 2008) * Augustine McGregor (2010-2014) * Boniface McGinley (acting abbot) * Richard Purcell (2017–2021) previously abbot of Mount Saint Joseph Abbey, Roscrea (2009-2017).

In literature

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

mentions Mount Melleray in " The Dead", a short story in his 1914 collection ''

Dubliners ''Dubliners'' is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. It presents a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were writ ...

''. It is famous in literature due to

Seán Ó Ríordáin Seán Pádraig Ó Ríordáin (3 December 1916 – 21 February 1977), sometimes referred to as an Ríordánach, was an Irish language poet and later a newspaper columnist. He is credited with introducing European themes to Irish poetry, and is wi ...

's poem in (1952).

Boarding school

Since its early days, Mount Melleray educated both clerical and lay students. In 1972 it was announced that the boarding school was to close and it closed in 1974. In June 2019 the Mount Mellery College Past Pupils held its reunion in Melleray. In 1977 the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland held its jubilee celebrations at Mount Melleray and in 1979 the former boarding school was acquired by the organisation, now part of

Scouting Ireland Scouting Ireland () is one of the largest youth movements on the island of Ireland, a voluntary educational movement for young people with over 45,000 members, including over 11,000 adult volunteers . Of the 750,000 people between the ages of 6 ...

, and developed it into the Mount Melleray National Scout and Activity Centre.

Past pupils of Mount Melleray College

* Peter Callanan - former Cork County Councillor, and member of Seanad Eireann * John Carroll - Bishop of Lismore, Australia * Henry Doyle - medical doctor and Australian politician * Jeremiah Doyle - Irish missionary in Australia who became a Bishop of Lismore * John Dunne - Bishop of Bathurst, Australia * Eamon Fitzgerald - the first Irishman to serve as Abbot General of the order of Cistercians * William Henry Grattan Flood - author, composer and musicologist, student 1872-1876 * Tom Hayes - former minister of state, senator and TD for South Tipperary * Michael Hurley - teacher, theologian, and co-founder of the Irish School of Ecumenics * James Maher (1840-1905) - Bishop of Port Augusta, Australia (1896-1905) *

Bartholomew MacCarthy Bartholomew MacCarthy (12 December 1843, in Conna, Ballynoe, County Cork – 6 March 1904, in Inniscarra, Co. Cork) was a scholar and chronologist who wrote extensively on Early Irish literature. He was educated at Mount Melleray Abbey, Semina ...

- historian and Irish language scholar * Daniel Mullins (1929-2019) - Bishop in the Archdiocese of Cardiff (1987-2001) * James O’Gorman - second prior of New Melleray Abbey * Michael Olden - former president of

Maynooth College St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth (), is a pontifical Catholic university in the town of Maynooth near Dublin, Ireland. The college and national seminary on its grounds are often referred to as Maynooth College. The college was of ...

* Patrick Phelan - Bishop of Sale, Victoria, Australia * Michael Kennedy Ryan - priest, teacher, and chairman of Thurles G.A.A. Club * Thomas Ryan - Bishop of Clonfert, Ireland * Clement Smyth — first prior of New Melleray Abbey

References

;Attribution *

External links

Mount Melleray Abbey website

(archived 2006) {{Authority control Religious buildings and structures in County Waterford 1833 establishments in Ireland Trappist monasteries in the Republic of Ireland Cistercian monasteries in the Republic of Ireland