Mount Melleray Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in the foothills of the Knockmealdown mountains, now houses only six monks and will close this weekend
Fr Richard Purcell, abbot of Mount Melleray Abbey, during prayer in west Waterford . He is preparing for the closure of the Waterford monastery after almost 200 years. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times
The Cistercians voted in November to amalgamate their communities at three abbeys – Mount Melleray, Mellifont in Co Louth and Mount St Joseph in Roscrea, Co Tipperary – and to relocate to Roscrea on a temporary basis – due to falling numbers. Melleray was founded in 1832 by a group of 64 Irish Cistercian monks, who were forced to leave their monastery at Melleray in Brittany when the French revolution of 1830 led to the introduction of anticlerical laws. The monks sailed from France to Cobh.
The new monastery, with its square belfry soaring high against the furze and ferns of the Knockmealdown mountains, became home to hundreds of monks over the years. In the 1950s the numbers topped 150 priests and brothers. The numbers joining rose from five or six a year in the 1920s and 1930s to 10 to 20 a year in the 1940s and 1950s.
“The place was buzzing – the Cistercian monastic life is prayer, work study and manual labour, and everyone was involved in the farm,” he says.
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