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Ave Maria University, a Florida-based conservative institution, announced study-abroad programme at former monastery
A US university seeking to establish an international campus at the former Cistercian monastery of Mount Melleray in Co Waterford has yet to apply for accreditation from Irish educational authorities.
The Department of Further and Higher Education confirmed it was open to educational institutions based in other jurisdictions such as the Florida-based Ave Maria University pursuing the development of campuses in Ireland. In a response to a query from The Irish Times, however, a spokesperson said that it “has not received any communications to date concerning the establishment of Ave Maria University in Ireland”.
Under Irish law, university status is protected, and the use of the word “university” is governed by the Universities Act 1997, it said. Any institution seeking to call itself a university must obtain approval from the Minister, James Lawless. Ave Maria University entered into a lease arrangement with the Cistercians to develop Mount Melleray, near Cappoquin in Co Waterford, as an educational institution after the monastery closed in 2025 .
Last February, it announced that it was setting up an international campus at the site.
“The Ireland Study Abroad Programme at our Mount Melleray campus offers students a fully integrated Ave Maria University experience rooted in Ireland’s rich Catholic heritage,” the institution announced on its website, where it declares its mission is “forming future saints”. “Set within a historic Cistercian monastery, the campus invites students into a rhythm of study, prayer and community life that is deeply formative.
Mount Melleray is an off-campus study-abroad instructional site of Ave Maria University operating under the university’s academic accreditation and administered by the Florida campus through its own faculty. ” Ave Maria University was initiated by US businessman and founder of Domino’s Pizza Tom Monaghan in Michigan in 1998. In 2006, he moved the university to Naples, Florida, where he invested €400 million of his own money in building the new campus and a new town.
There are more than 4,000 universities in the United States, and hundreds have a strong religious affiliation. Ave Maria is a relatively small institution, with fewer than 2,000 students estimated to attend, compared to more than 60,000 at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
In a 2006 feature on Monaghan’s plans for the new university and town of Ave Maria entitled “Halfway to Heaven”, Newsweek magazine reported the university represented “the culmination of a lifetime of spreading own strict interpretation of Catholicism”. Discussing his life as a millionaire Catholic who puts his money where his faith is, Monaghan indicated he was asking pharmacies in the new town not to stock contraceptives.
“I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don’t want to be on the sidelines,” he said. The Boston Phoenix that same year reported that Monaghan spoke at Boston College High School and lamented how graduates of US Catholic colleges and universities were not adhering to Catholic teaching on religious observance, sexual behaviour and opposition to abortion.
“We’re going to control all the commercial real estate so there’s not going to be any pornography sold in this town,” he said. “We’re controlling the cable system. The pharmacies are not going to be able to sell condoms or dispense contraceptives. ” Both the Cistercians and Ave Maria University were unsuccessfully contacted by phone and email for comment, but Monaghan did recently attend Mass at Mount Melleray, where he was welcomed by Bishop of Waterford and Lismore Alphonsus Cullinan.
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