THE IRISH CISTERCIANS 
 
 past anfc present. 
 
 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
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THE 
 
 IRISH CISTERCIANS: 
 
 past artfc present. 
 
 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
 
 PERMIS.SU SUP BRIO HUM 
 
 DOLLAR!), PRINTING HOUSE, DUPLIN. 
 
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 CONTENTS. 
 
 chap. page 
 
 I. — The Holy Rule of St. Benedict and the 
 
 Founding of his Order 5 
 
 II.— Decline of the Benedictine Order and 
 
 Establishment of that of Citeaux ... 8 
 
 III. — Progress of the New Order and its Intro- 
 
 duction into Ireland n 
 
 IV. — Monastic Buildings Described 17 
 
 V. — The Order Takes Root in Ireland 21 
 
 VI. — Death of St. Malachy and St. Bernard, and 
 
 Extension of the Order ... ... ... 25 
 
 VII. — Rise of Mellifont : its Prestige and Spolia- 
 tion 29 
 
 VIII. — Influence of the Cistercians in Ireland 
 from their Introduction till the Sup- 
 pression of Monasteries 34 
 
 IX. — The Suppression of Monasteries and De- 
 struction of Manuscripts 42 
 
 X. — The Irish Cistercians during the Penal 
 
 Times 50 
 
 XI. — The Expulsion of the Trappists from France, 
 
 and the Foundation of Mount Melleray 58 
 
 XII. — Mount Melleray and its Two Latest Filia- 
 tions ... 63 
 
 XIII. — Foundation of Mount St. Joseph : its Present 
 
 Condition n 66 
 
 XIV. — Life in a Trappist Monastery ... 77 
 
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THE IRISH CISTERCIANS: 
 
 past ant> present 
 
 ♦ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Holy Rule of St Benedict and the Founding of 
 his Order. 
 
 The Rule of St. Benedict is an epitome of Chris- 
 tianity. a learned and mysterious abridgment of all 
 the doctrines of the Gospels, all the institutions of 
 the Holy Fathers, and all the counsels of perfection. 
 Here prudence and simplicity, humility and courage, 
 severity and gentleness, freedom and dependence, 
 eminently shine. Here correction has all its firm- 
 ness, condescension all its charm, command all its 
 vigour, and subjection all its repose ; silence, its 
 gravity, and words their grace ; strength, its exer- 
 cise, and weakness its support.” These are the words 
 of the eloquent Bossuet, quoted by Montalembert in 
 his Life of St, Benedict in the “ Monks of the West,” 
 and which he supplements by a paragraph of his 
 own, quite as eulogistic and as worthy of the sub- 
 ject he ornaments with his usual graceful style. 
 “ But,” he writes, “ there is something which speaks 
 with a still greater eloquence than that of Bossuet 
 in honour of the Benedictine Rule. It is the list of 
 saints it has produced; it is the tale of conquests 
 which it has won and consolidated throughout the 
 
 2 
 
6 
 
 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 West, where for eight centuries it reigned alone ; the 
 irresistible attraction which it had for bright and 
 generous minds, for upright and devoted hearts, for 
 souls enamoured of solitude and sacrifice ; the bene- 
 ficent influence which it exercised upon the life of 
 the secular clergy, warming them by its rays to such 
 a point that, purified and strengthened, they seemed 
 for a time to identify themselves with the children 
 of St. Benedict. It is distinguished, above all, by 
 the contrast between the exuberant life of faith and 
 spirituality in the countries where it reigned, and the 
 utter debasement into which the Oriental Church 
 had fallen.” 
 
 The great Saint who composed this Rule (which, 
 according to St. Hildegarde, St. Antoninus, and 
 several Councils, was written under the direct in- 
 spiration of the Holy Ghost) retired, when only 
 fourteen years old, to a gorge in the iEquian Hills,, 
 called Subiaco, about fifty miles east of Rome, and 
 there, by appalling austerities, prepared himself for 
 the task, which he completed thirty-five years later 
 on, A.D. 530. This masterpiece of wisdom has won 
 for its saintly author the title of “ Legislator of 
 Western Monks.” Before completing his Rule, the 
 man of God had removed to Monte Casino, where, 
 indeed, the great work of his apostolate commenced 
 for it was from that centre of monasticism that all 
 the great Benedictine monasteries sprang, till they 
 civilized the nations and changed the whole face of 
 Europe. Thence St. Placid, the favourite disciple 
 of St. Benedict, issued forth with thirty companions 
 in 534, to found a monastery in Sicily ; and from 
 that same venerated sanctuary the youthful deacon, 
 St. Maur, went into Gaul, to begin the work which 
 his successors for ages carried on with a zeal and 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 7 
 
 perseverance that won conquests for their Order 
 such as no other had achieved. The humble begin- 
 ning for a mission afterwards so filled with benedic- 
 tions, was m no way commensurate with its 
 magnitude. St. Benedict gave him only four com- 
 panions and a copy of the Rule, written with his 
 own hand ; and with these the obedient disciple set 
 forth. Having arrived at the banks of the Loire, St. 
 Maur suffered a bitter disappointment, for Innocent, 
 the Bishop of Mans, who had invited him thither, 
 was dead, and his successor refused to admit him 
 into his diocese. St. Maur then directed his steps into 
 Anjou, where the governor of the province received 
 him joyfully; bestowed on him one of his own 
 domains whereon to build a monastery, and placed 
 his son under his care to be instructed and trained 
 by him in the religious life. Such was the origin 
 of the first Benedictine monastery in France, called 
 at first Glenfeuil, and, later on, by the name of “ St. 
 Maur on the Loire,” from its holy founder. 
 
 A certain obscurity hangs over the propagation 
 of this monastic body from the time it gained a 
 foothold in France till it superseded its powerful 
 rivals who followed the Rule of St. Columbanus — 
 which at one period enjoyed in France a greater 
 share of popular favour. The Rules of St. Benedict 
 and St. Columban were observed conjointly in some 
 monasteries there, but eventually, that of St. Bene- 
 dict reigned supreme. We find it recorded that the 
 ancient abbeys of Lerins, Marmoutier, and Condat, 
 which were famous for their schools, and the host 
 of learned men who studied in their halls, ex- 
 changed the Rule introduced from the east by St. 
 Athanasius for that of St. Benedict. This latter 
 extended its conquests from province to province. 
 
8 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 carrying everywhere with it the blessings of civi- 
 lization ; and St. Benedict’s children became apostles 
 and intrepid pioneers of Christianity to the Allemani 
 and the tierce tribes of the North. Mabillon says 
 Germany is indebted to them for its conversion to 
 Christianity, for the institution of Cathedral bodies, 
 and for its knowledge of the sciences and of agri- 
 culture. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Decline of the Benedictine Order and Establishment 
 of that of Citeaux. 
 
 Unfortunately, like every human institution, this 
 famous monastic Order proved the mutability and 
 instability of man’s earthly condition. In three cen- 
 turies from its foundation it lost much of its lustre 
 and showed symptoms of decay. To reform it and 
 restore its primitive fervour, the Councils of Frank- 
 fort, in 791, and of Arles, in 813, promulgated laws 
 to cut off abuses, principally those that originated 
 with the adoption of abbots in commendam y who 
 at that early period overturned the discipline of 
 the houses subject to their sway. Again, in the 
 Council of Trosly, held in 909, the Fathers deplored 
 the evils of the time, and the ruinous condition of 
 monasteries, consequent on the invasion of the bar- 
 barians, and set about rebuilding those that had 
 been plundered and burned by them. It was about 
 that time that William, Duke of Aquitaine, founded 
 the famous Abbey of Cluny, and placed it under 
 B. Bernon as first abbot. Bernon was succeeded in 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 9 
 
 the abbatial office by St. Odo, who was styled “ the 
 glory and restorer of the Benedictine Order,” and 
 whose sanctity attracted a multitude of novices who 
 exhibited in their persons living models of all mon- 
 astic virtues. The great Cluny itself, after having 
 produced many learned and holy men, and after 
 having had 314 monasteries subject to it, lapsed 
 from its first fervour. By the close of the eleventh 
 century many abuses had crept into its hallowed 
 precincts, which sorely afflicted those of its inmates 
 who still retained their primitive fervour. These 
 delinquencies were not so glaring as is generally 
 supposed, but they undoubtedly tarnished the lustre 
 of a state whose beauty consists in the simple adhe- 
 sion to every line of duty and the letter of the Rule. 
 
 But the watchful providence of God, who ever 
 zealously guards the best interests of His devout 
 servants, was pleased to raise up within that historic 
 Order, men full of the spirit of its holy founder, to 
 restore once more the scattered stones of the sanc- 
 tuary. When Cluny’s fame was on the wane, St. 
 Robert governed a large community at Molesme, in 
 the diocese of Langres; and after ineffectual attempts 
 to maintain strict observance among his disciples, he, 
 with about twenty-one of the more fervent, resolved 
 to abandon that abbey, and to select a spot more 
 retired, where they hoped to live in accordance with 
 the primitive customs and traditions of the Order. 
 The spot selected by them was in the midst of a 
 dense forest, called Citeaux or Cistercium, in the 
 diocese of Chalons and province of Burgundy, in 
 France. This new monastery was founded on Palm 
 Sunday, St. Benedict’s Day, the 21st March, 1098, 
 and from it the new Order, which then sprang into 
 existence, was called Cistercian. It was known also 
 
10 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 in aftertimes as Bernardine, or Claraval, from St. 
 Bernard and his famous Abbey of Clairvaux, St. 
 Robert was not destined to complete the great work 
 just begun; for, before he had well commenced the 
 Reform, he received a Papal mandate to return to 
 Molesme and resume the government of that house. 
 His two principal associates, however, were well 
 fitted to give the final touch to the masterpiece 
 which he had faintly outlined : these zealous men 
 were St. Alberic and St. Stephen Harding, who 
 placed the new Order on a firm basis by obtaining 
 authority from Rome for its foundation, and immu- 
 nity from all external influence from whatsoever 
 quarter it might come. For long years their patience 
 was cruelly tried both by frequent deaths in the 
 community and by harassing doubts lest their aus- 
 tere manner of life might not be pleasing to Almighty 
 God. After some time a young man presented him- 
 self at the gate of the monastery, and sought admis- 
 sion for himself and thirty companions. That day 
 was the dawn of triumph to the afflicted spirits of 
 the abbot and his community; for on it might the 
 words of the prophet be well applied to them and to 
 the nascent Order : “Enlarge the place of thy tent, 
 and stretch out the skins of thy tabernacles, spare 
 not: lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes, 
 for thou shalt pass on to the right hand, and to the 
 left: and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and shall 
 inhabit the desolate cities/' ( Isaias , liv. 2.) 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 11 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Progress of the New Order and its Introduction into 
 Ireland. 
 
 The new postulant was the great St. Bernard, then 
 in his twenty-third year. His companions were his 
 own brothers, his uncle and many relatives, who were 
 descended from the proudest houses of that province, 
 and had been nurtured in the lap of luxury. In 
 the Cistercian Annals he is called the “ Propagator ” 
 of the Order ; for of him it has been said, “ that 
 having drawn by words of fire his whole family 
 after him into Citeaux, all the world followed him 
 thither.’' Within five years from* the date of his 
 entrance, nine new houses of his Order were founded, 
 the third being Clairvaux, of which he was appointed 
 first abbot. This glorious saint, “ whose voice,” says 
 our own D’Arcy Magee, “ thrilled the Alps and filled 
 the Vatican,” founded in his lifetime 160 monasteries 
 direct from Clairvaux, and with admirable prudence 
 governed in his own abbey a community seven 
 hundred in number, among whom were a son of the 
 reigning monarch of France, sons of archdukes and 
 scions of the noblest houses of Burgundy, many 
 learned and renowned clerics, amongst the rest 
 Bernard, or Peter, of Pisa, afterwards Pope Fugenius 
 III. The influence of the saint spread far and wide ; 
 for, when, at the command of the Sovereign Pontiff*, 
 he issued forth from his beloved solitude to quell a 
 schism in the Church, to preach a crusade, or to com- 
 pose some political quarrel, whole multitudes accom- 
 panied him back to Clairvaux to live under him, 
 attracted by the sweet odour of his sanctity, and the 
 stupendous miracles which attested it. 
 
12 
 
 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 When his fame was at its zenith, a holy Irish 
 prelate journeying to Rome longed to see and con- 
 verse with this wonderful man, whose name had 
 reached even to this distant land, and to behold the 
 monastic life restored by him to its primitive purity, 
 as it once adorned ancient Erin, and won for it the 
 proud title of “ Island of Saints and learned men.” 
 This holy pilgrim was our own Saint Malachy. 
 Warm was the greeting he received from the Abbot 
 of Clairvaux, and there and then sprang up a mutual 
 friendship, which grew in sincerity and intensity, 
 and ended not in death. St. Malachy would fain have 
 said : “ This is my resting place, here will I dwell ; 
 for I have chosen it.” But it was not to be then ; 
 for the critical condition of the Church in Ireland at 
 that time required his prudent guidance and the light 
 of his shining example ; so he proceeded to Rome, 
 where he cast himself at the feet of the Sovereign 
 Pontiff, and begged permission to resign his See and 
 enrol himself amongst the disciples of St. Bernard. 
 Innocent II., who then sat in the Chair of Peter, 
 would on no account consent, but after having given 
 him many marks of esteem and affection, dismissed 
 him to his own country. 
 
 St. Malachy visited Clairvaux a second time, and 
 having informed his friend of the Popes decision, 
 he singled out four of his travelling companions and 
 committed them to St. Bernards care, adding : “ I 
 most earnestly conjure you to retain these disciples 
 and instruct them in all the duties and observances 
 of the religious profession, that hereafter they may 
 be able to teach us.” And he predicted : “ They shall 
 become for us a seed, and nations who, though long 
 hearing of the name of monk, yet never saw one, 
 shall be blessed in this seed.” It does not enter 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 13 
 
 into the scope of this brief sketch to detail the fierce 
 controversies which the second clause of this predic- 
 tion gave rise to. Suffice it to say, that the most 
 learned of our writers, ancient and modern, disallow 
 and discredit its historical accuracy, or maintain it 
 was applicable only to certain parts of the nation. 
 
 That the two saints kept up a correspondence rela- 
 tive to the projected foundation, which was deter- 
 mined on by them, is evident from St. Bernard’s 
 letters to his friend, in one of which he writes : 
 “ Meanwhile, according to the wisdom bestowed on 
 you by the Almighty, select and prepare a place for 
 their reception, which shall be secluded from the 
 tumults of the world, and after the model of those 
 localities whicli you have seen when amongst us ; 
 for the time approaches when, through the opera- 
 tion of Divine grace, we shall be able to produce 
 new men from the old.” 
 
 Accordingly, St. Malachy set about procuring a 
 suitable site for the foundation of the new monas- 
 tery, and selected Mellifont, a sequestered valley on 
 the banks of the River Mattock, which here enters a 
 remarkable cleft or ravine about four miles from 
 Drogheda, Co. Louth, and forms the boundary be- 
 tween the latter county and that of Meath. Donogh 
 O’Carroll, Prince of Oriel, the lord of the territory, 
 freely granted it to God and SS. Peter and Paul ; 
 endowed it with many broad acres, and munificently 
 contributed both wood and stone towards the erec- 
 tion of the building. 
 
 St. Malachy was the governing spirit that pre- 
 sided over and pushed on the works to completion 
 for the reception of the new colony which St. Ber- 
 nard was about to send him at his earnest request. 
 “ We send you back,” writes St. Bernard, “ your 
 
14 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 dearly-betoved son and ours, Christian, as fully 
 instructed as was possible in those Rules which 
 regard our Order, hoping, moreover, that he will 
 henceforth prove solicitous regarding their observ- 
 ance/' With Christian came bis three countrymen 
 — his fellow-novices at Clairvaux, and some French 
 monks, to make up the number thirteen, thus repre- 
 senting our Blessed Lord and His twelve Apostles. 
 This was a sacred number when founding religious 
 establishments in the good old times, and mention 
 is expressly made of it in St. Bernard’s life, where 
 it is related that this saint and twelve companions 
 set out from Citeaux, to found the far-famed 
 Clairvaux. Our old Irish saints, too, manifested a 
 singular predilection for this mystic number under 
 like circumstances. A writer in “ Duffy’s Magazine” 
 quotes an ancient author who speaks thus of tins 
 Irish custom : “ These hoi}' emigrations of the Irish 
 were distinguished by a peculiarity, never, or but 
 very seldom, found among other nations. As soon 
 as it became known that any eminent monk had 
 resolved to undertake one of these sacred expedi- 
 tions, twelve men of the same Order placed them- 
 selves under his command, and were selected to 
 accompany him.” 
 
 The pioneers of the Cistercian Order in this 
 country arrived in 1142. Some will not admit this. 
 They will have it that St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin, 
 had adopted the Cistercian Rule in 1139. In fact, 
 almost all our historians fix this date for St. Mary’s 
 Abbey, Dublin. And the annals of that abbey, lately 
 edited by Mr. Gilbert, give that year as the one in 
 which it exchanged the Benedictine for the Cister- 
 cian Rule, in imitation of its mother-house, Savigny, 
 in France. Now, this mistake (for such it is) arose 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 15 
 
 in the former instance by the historians copying 
 from Ware, who took it from said annals, according 
 to Doctor Lanigan. And that the compiler of the 
 annals themselves may have been mistaken, is quite 
 possible from the fact that, as early as 1217, a 
 decree of the General Chapter of that year com- 
 manded all the abbots of the Order to search out 
 and discover the precise date of the foundation of 
 their respective houses, and to furnish same to the 
 Cantor of Citeaux in the following year; for, said 
 the statute : “ Much disagreement had existed by 
 the inaccuracy of those dates.” Mr. Gilbert is of 
 opinion that the writing in the annals belongs to 
 the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Doctor Lanigan 
 says, in the text in his “ Church History,” that 
 Mellifont was the first Cistercian house in Ireland, 
 in proof of which he adduces in a foot-note the 
 inference to be drawn from the absence of all allu- 
 sion in St. Malachy’s and St. Bernard’s letters to 
 the presence of Cistercian monks in Ireland before 
 that time. According to a modern and very trust- 
 worthy historian of the Order, St. Mary’s became 
 united with Savigny in 1139, and with it adopted 
 the Cistercian Rule in 1147.* Probably, on account 
 of the distance, Savigny placed it under Bilde- 
 was, in Shropshire, a few years later. A very 
 powerful argument, too, in favour of Mellifont’s 
 claim to priority of establishment, is founded on 
 the fact that the Abbot of Mellifont was almost 
 
 * Pere Gaillardin, in his “ History of the Trappists of the 
 19th Century,” quotes the Annals of Citeaux to prove that the 
 Abbot of Savigny attended the General Chapter of the Order at 
 which Pope Eugene III. presided in 1 148, and was then admitted 
 into the Order of Citeaux with the thirty monasteries subject 
 to him. His monastery of Savigny was assigned fifth place on 
 the list from Citeaux. 
 
16 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 invariably authorized by the General Chapter to see 
 all the decisions of that body which had reference 
 to the houses of the Order in this country faithfully 
 carried out. It was he who was commissioned to 
 provide that the Irish abbots would repair to the 
 General Chapter every fourth year, and to appoint 
 three to attend there annually by rotation. When 
 he himself deserved correction, the Abbot of Clair- 
 vaux administered it. Sometimes the Abbots of 
 Mellifont and St. Marys were deputed conjointly 
 to attend to some local business ; but the name of 
 the Abbot of Mellifont was always first in order in 
 the instrument of delegation. It was he who, in 
 1275, applied to the General Chapter for permission 
 to make a commemoration of SS. Patrick, Malachy, 
 and Bridget, in the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, 
 which is daily recited in choir. Many other instances 
 might be given to show that he acted, and was 
 recognised, as premier abbot of his Order in Ireland. 
 Whenever abbots assembled for any purpose, the 
 precedence was given to him whose house could 
 claim greater seniority. Therefore, from the above 
 remarks, Mellifont has an undoubted right to be 
 considered the first Cistercian monastery in Ireland. 
 
 With Christian came a certain Brother Robert, 
 a French monk, who was a skilful architect. To 
 him was entrusted the planning of the abbey build- 
 ings, which he executed in such a manner that they 
 excited the wonder of those who beheld them. 
 These buildings served as a model for the other 
 Cistercian houses in Ireland. Mellifont itself was 
 an exact counterpart of Clairvaux, in accordance 
 with St. Bernard’s express wish, that it should be, 
 as may be remembered from the letter to St. Malachy 
 already cited 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 17 
 
 A noteworthy feature in the old Irish Cistercian 
 monasteries is that they were all built in valleys, 
 and on the right banks of the rivers, in whose 
 immediate vicinity they are invariably found. 
 Indeed, the Cistercians always settled down in 
 valleys, and hence their place in the old adage is 
 properly assigned them. “ Benedict loved the hills, 
 Bernard the valleys, Francis the towns, and Ignatius 
 the large cities” A copious stream of water was 
 indispensably necessary to the Cistercian monks for 
 the proper working of their mills, and the irrigation 
 of their fields and gardens. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Monastic Buildings Described . 
 
 That those first Cistercian monks brought with 
 them into this country a new style of building, is 
 admitted by all who have studied the question. Mr. 
 Brash, in his book entitled “ Ecclesiastical Archi- 
 tecture in Ireland,” thus alludes to it : “ There can be 
 no question but that the great improvement which 
 took place in Irish ecclesiastical architecture in the 
 middle of the twelfth century must be attributed to 
 the introduction of the Cistercian Order into Ireland, 
 which was the means of making quite a revolution 
 in her church architecture.” The peculiarity of 
 style, and the close resemblance of their churches to 
 one another in general and in detail, attracted the 
 attention and excited the admiration of savants, 
 who, like Mr. Sharpe, have published works exclu- 
 sively on Cistercian architecture. To these monks 
 also belongs the honour of having been the first to 
 
18 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 manufacture bricks in Ireland, and to use them for 
 building purposes. 
 
 It is true that no strict adhesion to a fixed plan 
 was prescribed by the Constitutions of the Order, 
 except that the church should be cruciform ; yet 
 an admirable uniformity was maintained in the dis- 
 position of the buildings at all times and in all 
 countries. It was ordained that all the churches 
 should be dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the glori- 
 ous Patroness and Protector of the Order. It may 
 be interesting to describe the use and meaning of 
 the different buildings that go to make up a Cister- 
 cian monastery. They were constructed in the 
 form of a quadrangle, having, on the north side, 
 the church, which was always cruciform. This 
 will be described elsewhere ; for the present let 
 us leave it by the door where the aisle adjoins 
 the southern transept, and step into the Cloister. 
 This latter was what may be termed a spacious hall 
 communicating with the different parts of the 
 monastery. It had generally a lean-to roof, was 
 groined, and was lighted from one side by mullioned 
 windows. It formed a square, and the enclosed 
 space was called the cloister garth. Texts from 
 Scripture were inscribed on its walls to promote 
 that recollection which its inmates strove to main- 
 tain. Through it processions filed on certain occa- 
 sions, and made stations or pauses, during which 
 stated anthems were sung, as prescribed in the 
 Manuals, called Processionals. That portion adjoin- 
 ing the southern transept was called the east walk 
 of the cloister, and was connected with the Sacristy, 
 Chapter-house, Library, and Scriptorium. The pur- 
 poses of Sacristy and Library are too well known 
 to need explanation. In the Scriptorium, with 
 which every monastery in olden times was provided. 
 
R E F K CTORY. 
 
u *m$iry 
 
 !*U 
 
 ^ ^Uhuis 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 19 
 
 were executed those illuminated manuscripts that at 
 the present day excite wonder and baffle imitation. 
 There, too, in all weathers, over the sheet of vellum, 
 sat and worked the patient, gifted transcriber, till 
 the herculean task was complete, and the bright eye 
 lost its lustre, and the deft fingers grew quite stiff*. 
 In the Chapter-house the abbot and community 
 assembled daily after Prime to hear the Marty rology 
 and a chapter of the Holy Rule of St. Benedict read: 
 hence its name of Chapter. Therein was practised 
 that humiliating monastic exercise so crushing to 
 vanity, so appalling to self-love — the public decla- 
 ration by each one of his external breaches of 
 rule and custom, and there reprehension was ad- 
 ministered by the superior, who enjoined suitable 
 penances, according to the gravity of each specific 
 act. There, too, the community deliberated on matters 
 of grave import, and voted by ballot for the admis- 
 sion of novices to profession. It was always a hand- 
 some building, its roof supported by rows of columns, 
 with raised stone benches, round the walls, for the 
 use of the monks, and having at the eastern end the^ 
 abbatial seat raised a few steps and surmounted by 
 the arms of the monastery carved in wood. There, 
 too, the abbots were laid to rest a few paces distant 
 from that chair they occupied in life. It was a 
 solemn reminder to them to temper justice with 
 mercy in all their administrative acts, when they 
 beheld at their feet the tombs of their predecessors 
 level with the pavement, and contemplated the 
 adjacent spot allotted to themselves. 
 
 Off’ the southern walk was the. refectory, on the 
 ground storey, having the dormitory overhead. 
 The position of the refectory varied, sometimes run- 
 ning parallel and sometimes at right angles with 
 this portion of the cloister, according to the situation 
 
20 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 of the different monasteries. Clustering round the 
 refectory, and in its immediate vicinity, were the 
 kitchen, with its monster hearths, and enormous 
 chimneys ; the pantries, sculleries, etc. About mid- 
 way in this cloister, and projecting into the enclosed 
 space, was often the lavatory of the community — 
 this being considered a central position for it — and 
 a plentiful water supply was easily procurable 
 from the stream which ran into and through the 
 kitchen. In the western walk was the entrance to 
 the guest-house, which ran parallel with it. Adjoin- 
 ing the guest-house was the hospice for the poor and 
 strangers, whose creature comforts were there at- 
 tended to with no stinted hand ; and, finally, side 
 by side with the church was the northern walk, 
 extending the whole length of the nave back to the 
 southern transept. This was called the reading 
 cloister, for it was supplied with benches, and fitted 
 up for reading. Here each even ing the public lecture, 
 which served as meditation for the following morning, 
 was read from a tribune facing the seat of the abbot, 
 who always presided at this exercise in person. 
 Beyond this quadrangle, further south, and forming 
 a continuation of the range of buildings, were the 
 workshops, in which the monks exercised the various 
 arts and trades. For these silent, maligned workers, 
 “ toiled at and spun ” the fabrics of which their 
 garments were made, prepared the materials, dyed, 
 cut them out, and sewed them. St. Benedict wished 
 that all branches of industry should be carried on 
 within the walls of the monastery, and that it 
 “ should be so constructed, that all necessaries be 
 found within the enclosure, so that it might not be 
 necessary for the brethren to go beyond it, which 
 would be injurious to their souls. (Rule, chap, lxvi.) 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 21 
 
 Apart from the workshops were the cattle yards, 
 where the greatest attention was paid to the selection 
 and improvement of stock. Around all was reared a 
 lofty wall, called the enclosure wall, that served to 
 isolate the inhabitants of the monastery from the 
 outer world. Far away, beyond the enclosure, 
 extended in “ woods and pasture ” the abbey lands, 
 which, as a rule, had been converted by the untiring 
 labours of the monks from a howling wilderness 
 into picturesque groves and smiling meadows. This 
 explanation may serve as a reply to the wild and 
 oftentimes amusing conjectures of some writers, who 
 have essayed to describe the ruins of our ancient 
 abbeys, and to assign their uses to the various 
 portions that remain. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Order takes Root in Ireland. 
 
 At Mellifont, then, was deposited that seed which 
 St Malachy predicted would be fruitful in blessings 
 to many nations. The soil was congenial, and the 
 religious instincts of the people warmed to a system 
 that coincided very closely with the traditions of 
 their national saints and the founders of the Irish 
 religious Orders. Was it not said : “ The ancient 
 Irish Church was a monastic Church ; most of its 
 prelates were abbots, and most of its priests monks. 
 It was founded by monks, and it grew and flourished 
 under them ; organized by monasteries, taught by 
 monasteries, and worked by monasteries.” And 
 again, Gorres, the German historian, writes: “When 
 we look into the ecclesiastical life of this people, we 
 
 3 
 
22 
 
 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 are almost tempted to believe that some potent 
 spirit had transported over the sea the cells of the 
 valley of the Nile with all their hermits, its monas- 
 teries with all their inmates, and settled them in 
 this western island ; an island which in three cen- 
 turies gave 800 saints to the Church, won over to 
 Christianity the north of Britain and a large part 
 of Germany, and, while it devoted the utmost atten- 
 tion to the sciences, cultivated with special care the 
 mystical contemplation in her communities as well 
 as in the saints whom they produced.” Notwith- 
 standing that the harassing wars with the Danes, 
 and the ruin and desolation that everywhere marked 
 the path of these fierce marauders, all but completely 
 stamped out the older monastic Order in the country, 
 yet the traditions of these bygone glories lingered 
 in the affections of the Irish people, a race that ever 
 yearns after the supernatural. 
 
 And now at Mellifont one beheld a line of monks, 
 clad in white, like St. Patrick and his disciples, 
 filing out of the great gate of the abbey, all bearing 
 implements of husbandry, which they were seen to 
 ply with unwonted skill and vigour as they delved 
 the soil and prepared it for tillage, and so laid the 
 foundations of the marvellous fertility that blessed 
 their labour. Their chanting in choir, too, had 
 a something in its modulated rhythm that stirred the 
 very hearts of a people ever keenly alive to the 
 influence of music, and produced the happiest devo- 
 tional results, as the “ Pure Gregorian ” never fails 
 to do, when rendered by the well-trained voices of 
 men whose souls are in their work. So in a short 
 time these attractions told on the religious instincts of 
 the visitors to Mellifont, and novices poured in, eager 
 to join an Order which appealed to their noblest 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 23 
 
 aspirations and enkindled in them the desire of a 
 higher and holier life. Nor were there wanting 
 other motives equally irresistible ‘to men of deep 
 religious sentiments to induce them to embrace this 
 new Order, as, for instance, interviews with the 
 saintly abbot, who, having lived under the great St. 
 Bernard, was wont to recount the marvels he had 
 seen and heard at Clairvaux. The glorious Saint 
 Bernard was accustomed to enter the novitiate 
 where the novices, then over one hundred in number, 
 were assembled, to cheer them with his burning 
 words. On one particular occasion that holy man 
 thus concluded one of these discourses, all of which 
 sounded like prophetic utterances stamped with 
 Divine authority : “ Ye shall be happy, my brethren, 
 if ye persevere in the practices of our holy Order; for 
 this is the true way, the straight way, the royal 
 road that conducts to the enjoyment of eternal bliss ; 
 for I declare to you in all sincerity that I have 
 seen several times, not during my sl^ep, nor in a 
 dream, but in full wakefulness, while at meditation, 
 I have seen, I say, the souls of our choir religious, 
 lay brethren and novices, just after being separated 
 from their bodies, pass from this valley of tears into 
 the bosom of God, and mount without any obstacle 
 even unto the highest heaven. This concerns you, 
 too, my dear children, and not only you, but also 
 all who shall succeed you and persevere in the service 
 of God in this Order , for all shall be saved.” Abbot 
 Christian did not fail either to inform those of his 
 acquaintance of the promises made by an angel 
 to St. Benedict himself, which are thus recorded : 
 “That patriarch was assured by a heavenly messenger 
 that the Lord, Who rewards the humble, was disposed 
 to grant him any favour he would ask ; but the man 
 
24 
 
 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 of God protested he had already received too much 
 of His bounty that he should dare solicit new 
 favours.” To whom the angel replied : “ Know, 
 then, that the Lord bade me tell you He promises 
 you five things — 1st. Your Order shall last till the 
 end of the world. 2nd. At the end of time it shall 
 remain faithful to the Church of Rome, and shall 
 strengthen a large number in the faith. 3rd. Nobody 
 shall die in this Order without being in the state of 
 grace. They who live unholily in it, who shall 
 abandon the Rule, shall be confounded, and shall 
 either be expelled or shall apostatize. 4th. All who 
 shall persecute your Order, if they will not repent, 
 shall die prematurely, or reprobates. 5th. All 
 who love your Order shall die happy deaths.” As 
 a matter of course, Abbot Christian took occasion 
 to explain that Cistercian monks were children of 
 the wonderful Saint Benedict, and that they aimed 
 at nothing more than the literal observance of his 
 Rule, and hence that to them appertained a share 
 in these consoling promises. 
 
 Surely these were powerful incentives to a re- 
 ligious people to adopt a Rule of strict observance, 
 albeit it entailed much mortification and total self- 
 renunciation, as St. Benedict reminds his followers : 
 “ For by their profession they have renounced all 
 right, even to their own bodies and their own 
 •wills.” (Rule, chap, xxxiii.) But here again this 
 new institution presented no difficulty to them; for 
 were not the Rules of the Irish legislators rigid in 
 points of abstinence, fasting, and long and weary 
 vigils ? St. Columbkille prescribed for his followers : 
 “ Three labours in the day, viz. — prayer, work, and 
 reading.” And again he counselled them to have 
 “ a mind fortified and steadfast for white martyr- 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 25 
 
 dom,” i.e., self-mortification and penance. So it 
 is no wonder that Mellifont soon saw her children 
 increase in number, and found herself in a position 
 to send out new colonies. The first of these was 
 Bective-on-the-Boyne ; the second was at Newry, 
 where the present town stands, and the third was 
 Boyle, Co. Roscommon. That of Newry wa3 
 founded at St. Malachy s earnest request. We have 
 still a copy of the charter of its foundation — the 
 only one extant of a monastery of the Order 
 founded before the Norman invasion. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Death of St. Malachy and St. Bernard , and Exten- 
 sion of the Order. 
 
 Taking events in consecutive order, the next to 
 relate is St. Malachy’s happy passage from this life, 
 which occurred at Clair vaux, in the arms of his 
 friend, St. Bernard, in 1148. All the Cistercian 
 historians maintain that St. Malachy received the 
 habit of the Order from St. Bernard during one of 
 his visits to Clairvaux, and now, on his death-bed, he 
 exchanged cowls with his friend. St. Bernard, we 
 are told, wore this relic of the dear departed on 
 solemn occasions during the remainder of his life. 
 At his obsequies he delivered a touching panegyric 
 on him, full of tenderest affection. 
 
 In 1150 Abbot Christian was chosen Bishop of 
 Lismore, and appointed Legate of the Holy See in 
 this country by Pope Eugenius III., who had been 
 his fellow-novice at Clairvaux. He resigned his 
 
26 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 episcopal and other dignities in 1180, and retired to 
 O’Dorney, a monastery of his Order in the Co. 
 Kerry, where he died, and was buried in 1186. He 
 was commemorated in the English Martyrolog^es 
 on the 18th March. The place of his birth was in 
 that stretch of country lying between Dungarvan 
 and Lismore. The Four Masters thus describe him : 
 “ He was,” they say, “ chief head of the West of 
 Europe, Legate of the Successor of Peter, the only 
 head whom the Irish and foreigner obeyed, chief 
 paragon of wisdom and piety, a brilliant lamp which 
 illumined territories and churches by preaching and 
 
 good works After having founded churches 
 
 and monasteries (for by him were repaired in Ireland 
 every church which had been consigned to decay 
 and neglect, and they had been neglected from time 
 remote), after leaving every good rule and every 
 good moral in the Church of Ireland re- 
 
 signed his spirit to Heaven.” 
 
 St. Bernard survived his friend, St. Malachy, five 
 years, and died in 1153, after having founded, as 
 before mentioned, 160 monasteries, and filled the 
 world with admiration of his wonderful gifts and 
 supereminent sanctity. He lived to see over 500 
 houses of his Order arise from the humble cradle at 
 Citeaux, and did more to propagate and lift it into 
 public estimation than even the founders themselves. 
 Mabillon writes thus of his advent to Citeaux and 
 subsequent influence in the Order: “ From the time 
 of St. Benedict, if I mistake not, there has been no 
 happier year than that 1113, when Bernard, with the 
 thirty companions he had gained to Christ, entered 
 Citeaux ; for, by their example, men of every age, 
 country and condition, seeing that what seemed im- 
 possible was not above human strength, flocked in 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 27 
 
 such numbers into the Cistercian family that it 
 became the largest, the noblest and the most widely- 
 diffused portion of the Benedictine heritage — nay, 
 itself a most noble Ord£r.” The Saint beheld Pope 
 Eugenius III. preside at the General Chapter, and 
 witnessed St. Louis himself present at its delibera- 
 tions. “ B. Bernard,” says Pope Alexander III., in 
 the letter for his canonization, “ endowed with the 
 prerogative of singular grace, not only shed from 
 his own person the lustre of eminent sanctity, but 
 diffused through the whole Church of God the light 
 of faith and morality.” 
 
 It was not, however, granted him to hear read the 
 autograph letter addressed by Pope Innocent III., in 
 the year 1200, to the Abbot of Citeaux during the 
 General Chapter, which is, perhaps, the most flatter- 
 ing of the many encomiums heaped by the Sovereign 
 Pontiffs on the Order. His Holiness wrote : “ He 
 Who knows all things, even the secret emotions of 
 the heart, knows with what affection I love you, 
 and carry you in my bosom with a charity the more 
 lively as the fame of your holy institute is more 
 widely diffused ; and what consolation we have in 
 beholding you, the odour of good example to those 
 who love the name of God. You are always at the 
 feet of our Lord, hearing with Mary sweet words in 
 a profound humility ; and you assist by your fervent 
 prayers those who are engaged in the cares of 
 Martha. You ascend with Moses to the mountain 
 top to beseech the Lord for us who are united with 
 J oshua in combating the enemies of God’s people. 
 You afflict your bodies by continual watching, and 
 mortify them by fasts which are seldom broken. 
 You labour at the work of charity, and are content 
 with little, that you may the more abundantly assist 
 
28 
 
 The Irish Cistercians 
 
 the poor. You are indigent in all things that re- 
 gard yourselves, but rich when you carry succour 
 to others. You have nothing; yet you seem to 
 possess all things. You lay^ip treasures in heaven, 
 where neither rust consumeth, nor thieves break 
 through and steal. You esteem not this your 
 abiding-place ; for, like the Apostle, you look for 
 a mansion 'not built with hands, but eternal in 
 heaven.’ ” 
 
 In this encomium the Pope epitomizes the Rule, 
 and gives the very pith and marrow of its strict 
 observance, as enjoined, enforced, and practised for 
 the first two hundred years of its existence without 
 intermission or diminution of fervour At the date 
 of that singular letter the Order numbered 1,800 
 houses. With increase in numbers came also a pro- 
 portionate joy to the Church, for the Cistercians 
 a carried heaven by violence 99 and filled the vacant 
 thrones with amazing rapidity. So frequent and 
 numerous were the applications for the beatifi- 
 cation of members of the Order, that it was decreed 
 b y the General Chapter, held in 1255, that no 
 further steps would be taken in future for the 
 canonization of any of its subjects, howsoever con- 
 spicuous they may have been for holiness, “ lest 
 these solemn proclamations of sanctity might 
 diminish due respect for holiness and destroy that 
 tone of fervour and generous emulation so necessary 
 for the support of the austere life of Citeaux.” 
 
 A modern historian of the Order, Dr. Janauschek ? 
 a Cistercian monk in Austria, writing of that 
 period, which he justly styles its golden age (1134- 
 1344), says : — “ The Cistercians of those times, being 
 real and thorough monks, soon surpassed the once 
 influential inhabitants of Cluny in agricultural 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 29 
 
 pursuits. Their monasteries sent forth preachers of 
 the Gospel. Their farms, which in course of time 
 became seats of learning, were then the centre 
 points and models of economy and husbandry, and 
 even now they are praised for their extraordinary 
 success in every branch of culture. Bishops, princes 
 and town corporations, gave grounds and funds for 
 new settlements, and called upon the practical 
 monks to take charge of their hospitals and schools. 
 Soon also new colleges of the Order were founded 
 for the extensive studies of Theology and Philosophy 
 in Paris, Metz, Toulouse, Wurtzburg, and Oxford. 
 The development and universal extension of the 
 Roman and Gothic styles are due in great part to 
 our Order.” To follow its fortunes in its native 
 France during the intervening centuries till its 
 expulsion at the revolution, would be outside the 
 scope of these pages ; so we return to note its pro- 
 gress and final extinction at home. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Rise of Melli font: its Prestige and Spoliation. 
 
 The Order increased rapidly and prodigiously in 
 Ireland, and from the centre to the sea in many a 
 sheltered valley rose the lofty spire that mutely 
 pointed upwards to that blessed land where the 
 “ wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at 
 rest,” till, as O’Daly informs us, there were twenty- 
 four “ grand ” Cistercian abbeys in this country 
 before the English invasion. Truly had the Order, at 
 its inauguration in this country, “ kings for nursing 
 
30 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 fathers, and queens for nurses,” for at the consecra- 
 tion of the Church of Mellifont, in 1157, there 
 assembled a vast concourse of “ chiefs and ladies 
 bright” to grace it and show their fealty to the 
 Ard Righ of Erin, Maurice McLaughlin, who also 
 attended in person. It was a veritable mustering 
 of the clans — a memorable day for the Irish Church, 
 which beheld the ruler of the nation doing homage 
 to her and honouring her prelates, who were there 
 in goodly numbers. Gelasius, the primate, per- 
 formed the sacred function, assisted by Christian, 
 its first abbot, and sixteen other bishops, “and,” 
 say the annals, “ all the other abbots and priors in 
 Ireland.” The gifts of the Ard Righ are recorded, 
 as well as those of O’Carroll and Tiernan O’Rourke, 
 Prince of BrefFni. A noble lady was present, the 
 wife of this prince, whose name is associated with 
 all the misfortunes of her unhappy country. She 
 was the famous Dervorgilla. In her piety and 
 innocence she bestowed sixty ounces of gold, a 
 chalice of the same precious metal to the high altar 
 of the church, and ornaments to its nine other 
 altars. It was here this Helen of Erin ended her 
 days in 1193, after having expiated, let us hope, the 
 sins of her youth. 
 
 Mellifont then became a “flame on the hill -top, 
 sentinelling the provinces, startling the wicked, 
 cheering the good, and beaconing the struggling, 
 lighting up the gloom of ignorance, and preserving 
 always around it a genial, moral atmosphere of 
 sanctity and learning.” It became the mother- 
 house of eight other noble abbeys, and was a nursery 
 of bishops and saintly men. Malchus, one of its 
 monks, is commemorated in the Cistercian Menology. 
 In 1177, Charles, its abbot, was raised to the bishop- 
 
Chapter Room. 
 
THt 
 Of IHt 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 31 
 
 ricof Emly. In 1191 Abbot Maelisa was promoted 
 to the see of Clogher. The list of promotions is too 
 long to enter into detail, as abbot after abbot, and 
 private members, too, ruled successfully the flock 
 of Christ in the ranks of the hierarchy. This 
 “Monasther Mor,” as it was called, from the splendour 
 and magnificence of its buildings (in size it was 
 second only to St. Mary's, Dublin, which was one of 
 the finest in Ireland), continued to flourish with un- 
 diminished lustre long after the invasion, when, 
 from its position on the borderland of the Pale (it 
 was just outside), it often bore the rude assaults of 
 the lawless Anglo-Norman barons. This house of 
 God, like many others in Ireland in those troubled 
 times, was made a target between the contending 
 parties, and its castellated entrance and strong tur- 
 reted walls defended it from many a foraging party. 
 The Normans, who came forsooth to reform religion 
 in this country ! spared nothing — sacred or profane ; 
 they pillaged, burned, and ruined the dwellings of 
 the saints at Clonmacnoise and Inniscathy, and im- 
 ported discord into the sanctuary itself. An arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, an Englishman, was known by the 
 sobriquet of “ Scorch-villain,” in the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century, from his having summoned the 
 tenants of his church lands to produce their titles, 
 which, when they did, he cast into the fire. English 
 clerics, often men of inferior worth and limited 
 abilities, were intruded into the richest Irish bene- 
 fices purely on political grounds, to the exclusion of 
 the well-deserving natives. Racial hatred sprang 
 up as a consequence of the arrogance of the English ; 
 and altar was raised against altar, and church pitted 
 against church. In the monasteries composed of 
 both nationalities it was difficult to totally quell 
 
32 
 
 The Irish Cistercians 
 
 the animosities and partialities arising from kinship 
 with leaders on either side— the alternative was 
 adopted of debarring one or other of these races 
 from entrance into some houses. So in 1250 no 
 Englishman would be allowed to make his profession 
 at Mellifont. Here again our historians are at 
 fault, for they tell us that the General Chapter 
 severely rebuked the monks for it. But it was in 
 the year 1275 that a general allusion was made to 
 the custom prevailing in some monasteries of ex- 
 cluding novices on account of their nationality. 
 Afterwards, the English element prevailed at Melli- 
 font, and Irish novices were refused admittance 
 there. In 1380 the famous Statute of Kilkenny 
 was framed, which forbade the mere Irish from 
 making their profession in monasteries within the 
 Pale, though nearly all those monasteries had been 
 founded and richly endowed by native princes. The 
 allusions to Mellifont from the middle of the four- 
 teenth century till its suppression, are few and 
 mostly uninteresting, so that little of the history of 
 the times can be gleaned from reading them. The 
 abbot was lord of a vast tract of country, so vast, 
 that we are told he could ride on the property of 
 the abbey from the sea at Drogheda to the River 
 Shannon. He had power of life and death over his 
 vassals, but we never find a single instance recorded 
 in which he exercised such a power. He sat as a 
 peer in Parliament with right of suffrage and pre- 
 cedence before all the other Irish abbots. There is 
 still extant a list of eighteen abbots of Mellifont, 
 from Christian, the first, to Richard, the last, who 
 actually inhabited it. Its possessions had, from 
 some unrecorded cause, dwindled down to 3,000 
 acres at the suppression, when 150 choir monks* 
 
Past and Present, 
 
 33 
 
 besides lay-brothers and servitors, served the Lord 
 in it, and it was sold for £141. In 1566 a lease of 
 it was granted to Sir Gerald Moore “ on account 
 of important services which he rendered to the 
 Crown ” since his coming into Ireland a few years 
 previously. His son was created first Baron of 
 Mellifont by King James, and he fixed his residence 
 there, converting the abbey church into a dwelling - 
 house. Verily, a happy change that for St. Ber- 
 nard's and St. Malachy’s foundation ! Was the 
 Francis Moore, who is accused by Curry, in his 
 “History of the Civil Wars/' of having perpetrated 
 such fiendish barbarities in 1641, a son of this latter ? 
 Mellifont still continued to havg titular abbots long 
 after its suppression and sacrilegious appropriation, 
 and we find Patrick Barnewall receiving novices 
 into the Order at Drogheda, in his hiding-place 
 there, in 1640, and sending them to Belgium and 
 elsewhere to complete their studies. The Moore 
 Family seem to have had a turn for religion, as they 
 removed from Mellifont to Monasterevan, another 
 Cistercian abbey, which they christened Moore 
 Abbey, a name it bears to this day. This change 
 was effected by the marriage of Lord Charles Moore 
 in 1641, with Jane, only child of Adam Loftus, 
 third Viscount Ely, and grandniece to the Protestant 
 Archbishop of Dublin, who cruelly and unjustly con- 
 demned Dermod O’Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, 
 to death. We are told that one of these reformers 
 of Mellifont had the statues of the Twelve Apostles, 
 that once adorned the abbey church, removed into 
 his hall, clad in scarlet uniforms, with muskets on 
 their shoulders, to do duty there. In 1727, the fifth 
 Earl of Drogheda, descendant of Charles Moore, 
 mentioned above, sold Mellifont to Mr. Balfour, of 
 
34 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 Townley Hall, Co. Louth, from which period it fell 
 into a ruinous condition. Early in this century a 
 mill was erected amongst the ruins, but this, too, has 
 disappeared. Some of the beautiful doorways had 
 been sold and carted away before that time. In 
 1884 excavations were made under the directions of 
 the Board of Irish Church Commissioners, laying 
 the foundations bare and showing the original 
 ground plan of Ireland’s first Cistercian Monastery. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 % 
 
 Influence of the Cistercians in Ireland from their 
 Introduction till the Suppression of Monasteries . 
 
 In attending to the career of Mellifont, the rise, 
 progress, and extension of the Order have been only 
 slightly touched on, although many other of its 
 abbeys deserve notice. Some, such as Holy Cross, 
 Boyle, Knockmoy, and Assaroe, or Ballyshannon, 
 were remarkable for their beautiful architecture 
 and the many learned and saintly men who once 
 inhabited them, and who have left their footmarks 
 on the sands of time. Of Boyle, Dr. Janauschek 
 writes, “ that he knows few houses of the Order 
 which produced so many bishops and learned men.” 
 In fact, the early founders of the Order in Ireland 
 were noted for their sanctity and learning; so 
 much so, that the first abbot of almost every 
 monastery of this institute was elevated to the 
 episcopacy. Albin O’Mulloy, abbot of Baltinglass, 
 afterwards Bishop of Ferns, defended the saintly 
 character of the Irish clergy at the Synod held in 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 35 
 
 Christ Church, Dublin, against the foul charges 
 levelled at them by the lying Gerald Barry. The 
 “ Book of Leinster,” one of the most precious of our 
 old Irish manuscripts, was compiled by Finn 
 O'Gorman, Bishop of Kildare, and formerly Abbot 
 of Newry, and St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny, 
 was restored by Felix O’Dullany, Bishop of Ossory, 
 who had been the first abbot of Jerpoint, in which 
 monastery he was buried on the north side of the 
 church, near the high altar. 
 
 His tomb is still there. In former times pil- 
 grimages were wont to be made to it, and many 
 miracles were wrought at it. He is enrolled 
 amongst the Beatified of the Order. These are 
 only a few names culled at random from the roll of 
 honour, which, certainly for length and the bright 
 lustre reflected from it on the nation, stands unique 
 in the history of our country. 
 
 Reading over the annals of this country, one is 
 amazed at the hold the Order obtained and main- 
 tained on the affections of the people — from the 
 king to the humblest of his vassals. Bishops re- 
 signed their sees and put on the Cistercian habit, 
 as Mathew O’Heney, Archbishop of Cashel and 
 Legate of the Holy See, and Felix O’Ruadan, 
 Archbishop of Tuam, at Holy Cross and St. Mary's, 
 Dublin, respectively. Many more such examples 
 might be cited did space permit. Not only distin- 
 guished ecclesiastics, but even kings and nobles, 
 sought in the quiet of the Cistercian cloisters that 
 peace which the world cannot give nor take away. 
 Cathal O’Conor, King of Connaught, the founder 
 of Knockmoy, Co. Galway, and of eleven other 
 monasteries, which he munificently endowed with 
 land enough to support as many marquisates, ex- 
 
36 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 changed his crown for the habit of the Order, and 
 died in that abbey in 1224. Many of the O’Kelly 
 sept, of Hy-Many, followed his example by embrac- 
 ing the Order at Knockmoy, as did the MacDermots 
 at Boyle, and the O’Donnells at Ballyshannon, etc. 
 For nearly two centuries the Order increased and 
 prospered, enjoying undivided affection and esteem. 
 Then new competitors arrived in the children of 
 St. Francis and St. Dominic, who attracted to them- 
 selves a share of popular favour. But to the credit 
 of all, no rivalry or jealousy existed between them, 
 except, indeed, that the Franciscans at times good- 
 humouredly complained that the fishponds of the Cis- 
 tercians were more productive than theirs. The 
 monks of St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin, gave to tjie 
 Dominicans the first house which the sons of St. 
 Dominick occupied in Ireland, and which was 
 situated in the exact spot where the Four Courts 
 now stand. The Cistercians, however, maintained 
 precedence over all the other Religious Orders 
 in Ireland down to the suppression, when 
 they numbered forty-two monasteries of men 
 and two convents of nuns. Other Orders were* 
 perhaps, more numerous, but none were more 
 influential pr respected. Eleven of their abbots had 
 right to seats in the Irish House of Peers, almost 
 one-half of the number that all Religious Orders 
 combined were entitled to. Ware, however, say& 
 that with the exception of the abbots of Mellifont 
 and St. Mary’s, Dublin, they seldom availed them- 
 selves of this right. The abbot of Holy Cross 
 enjoyed the title of earl, which was confirmed to 
 him by charter from King John. His earldom was 
 styled “ County of Cross,” but was merged in the 
 County of Tipperary during the Protectorate. They 
 (the Irish Cistercians) were exempted by Alexander 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 37 
 
 IV., in 1257, from the payment of tithes for such 
 lands as they held on their own hands. 
 
 They shared in all the storms that swept over 
 this unhappy country from the invasion till their 
 final suppression. And that at times discipline 
 became relaxed, ought not to surprise us, as there 
 was no security for even their lives in times of 
 turmoil, during the inroads and “ cattle spoils ” of 
 which we read in history. Many decisive battles 
 were fought in their immediate vicinity, and the 
 vanquished sought sanctuary in the abbeys. The 
 Norman barons seemed to have been seized with 
 periodical fits of sacrilegious frenzy, during which 
 they robbed and profaned all sacred edifices that 
 came within their reach. They evinced a decided 
 greed of sacred things, movable and immovable 
 hence, the inmates of many a Cistercian monastery 
 were dispersed and forced to seek shelter in the woods, 
 with their relatives, or with some powerful pro- 
 tector. Even Bruce, who came as a friend to Ireland, 
 spared no church nor monastic establishment ; and 
 after his departure the annalists thus animadvert 
 on the retaliation practised by the English on this 
 country : “ From the Shannon to Innishowen they 
 spared neither church nor saint.” Certainly, in 
 after years, the descendants of these same barons, 
 with a few honourable exceptions, made a poor stand 
 for their religion. One noble house was enriched 
 by the plunder of fifteen monasteries (seven of them 
 a free gift from Henry VIII,), and its revenues rose 
 from ten thousand to fifty thousand pounds sterling, 
 in consequence. In his “Irish Church History,” 
 the V. Rev. Sylv. Malone gives an impartial narrative 
 of the troubles undergone by the Church in Ireland 
 in those gloomy times, which the student even of 
 
 4 
 
38 
 
 The Irish Cistercians 
 
 our civil history will find well worth referring to. 
 That religion could at all have survived those days, 
 proves once more God’s continual providence over it. 
 
 As promoters of agriculture the Cistercians 
 proved great benefactors to this country, for, by 
 their example and encouragement, the people were 
 led to adopt the more approved methods of tillage ; 
 and it was a custom with the whole Order to erect 
 agricultural schools at their abbeys, where youths 
 w~ere trained to this branch of industry. D’Arcy 
 Magee writes : “ The Cistercian monks seem to be 
 the first who lifted agriculture into importance in 
 this country.” They farmed large tracts of lands, 
 and let out more to tenants under very favourable 
 conditions, receiving payment for them chiefly in 
 kind, which was necessary for the support of large 
 establishments, that were refuges for the poor and 
 strangers. Constantly residing in the monasteries, 
 and in daily contact wfith the people, they are 
 acknowledged to have been the best and most 
 indulgent landlords : they afforded a ready market 
 for the produce of the parish, and expended their 
 whole rents amongst the people. With their 
 revenues they fed the poor and relieved the sick ; 
 they dispensed hospitality to the pilgrim and the 
 stranger; they educated the young and provided 
 for the orphan; they introduced manufactures, 
 built churches, schools, etc. Very soon after the 
 spoliation of the monasteries the tenants were 
 harassed by their new masters, and Dymmok, who, 
 about the year 1600, accompanied Essex to Ireland 
 in some official capacity, thus describes their condi- 
 tion then : “ The soil is generally fertile, but little 
 and badly manured, by reason of the great exactions 
 of the lords upon their tenants. For the tenant 
 
Past and Present^ 
 
 39 
 
 •doth not hold his lands by any assurance for a term 
 of years, or life, but only at the will of his master ; 
 so that he never builds, repairs, or encloses the 
 ground ; but whensoever the lord wills is turned 
 out, or departs at his most advantage/' .... 
 The monks were merely almoners in certain cases, 
 where tracts of land or bequests were entrusted to 
 them to support a number of poor people, or to 
 educate and furnish a dower to children of parents 
 in reduced circumstances. Dugdale gives credit to 
 the monks for their hospitality and liberality, and 
 writes : “ Nor is it a little observable that whilst the 
 monasteries stood, there was no Act for the relief of 
 the poor, so amply did those houses give succour to 
 them that were in want ; whereas, in the next age, 
 viz., 39 Elizabeth, no less than eleven bills were 
 brought into the House of Commons for that 
 purpose/' And again he says ; “ They ” (the monas- 
 teries) “ were infirmaries for the sick, hospitals for 
 the decayed or crippled artisans, or the outcast 
 foundling. They were the shelter of respectful 
 sympathy for the orphan maiden and the desolate 
 widow. In a word, they were the mansions of 
 religion, in which the hungry were fed, the naked 
 clothed, and the dead buried ; in which charity was 
 bestowed without grudging, and accepted without 
 humiliation, and they were inns for the wayfarer." 
 That at the dissolution this liberality was practised 
 by the Irish Cistercians, was admitted, and was 
 urged as a plea to the king for their preservation 
 by the very men who could be least suspected of 
 partiality towards them. When the Lord Deputy 
 and Council in Ireland received King Henry's order 
 for the suppression of some more monasteries, they 
 sent him a joint petition to spare certain of them. 
 
40 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 Amongst these were St. Mary's, Dublin, and Jer- 
 point, County Kilkenny, both Cistercian abbeys. 
 They wrote: “For in these houses commonly, and 
 in such like, in default of common inns which are 
 not in this island, the king's deputy and all other 
 his grace’s council and officers, also Irishmen, and 
 others resorting to the king’s deputy in their 
 quarters, are and have been most commonly lodged 
 at the cost of said houses.” And the Abbot of St. 
 Mary’s petitioned for exemption from the general 
 dissolution, alleging: “Verily, we be but stewards 
 and purveyors to other men’s uses for the king’s 
 honour, keeping hospitality and many poor men, 
 scholars and orphans.” 
 
 That the Irish Cistercian monks were learned 
 men themselves, and promoters of learning, goes ;• 
 without saying ; for from the very introduction of 
 the Order down to the middle of the last century, 
 they are commended in the annals of our country 
 as men of literary acquirements of no mean order. 
 
 As early as 1245 the General Chapter decreed that 
 there should be a college for the study of Theology 
 in one monastery of each province, to which the 
 young monks from the other houses were to repair. 
 
 In 1281 the course was enlarged, and all useful 
 branches were enjoined to be taught there. About 
 a century later a fresh impulse was given, and strict 
 injunctions placed on the abbots to encourage 
 studies amongst their brethren. Some of the most 
 distinguished scholars in Ireland took the habit of 
 the Order after having achieved renown in the 
 schools, and these were engaged teaching the 
 juniors. There were seminaries attached to all, or 
 nearly all. the monasteries, and Dr. John Roche, 
 Bishop of Ferns, writing to Rome in 1629, after 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 41 
 
 having visited Meath, speaks of the once fampus 
 school of Mellifont. “ Lazy, ignorant monks/' were 
 the cant terms applied to all religious immediately 
 after the suppression of the monasteries by their 
 enemies and by those who shared their sacrilegious 
 spoil, when none w T as found to defend the dispersed 
 members : and we sometimes hear these epithets 
 applied to them still. Their maligners would thus 
 create a palliative for their own criminal participa- 
 tion in the destruction of monasteries. But Protes- 
 tant writers of note, such as Maitland, have deemed 
 it a duty, as he says, to “ rub off some of the dirt 
 which has been heaped upon monasticism.” And in 
 the same page he says : “ They ” (the monasteries) 
 “ were beyond all price in those days of misrule 
 and turbulence — as repositories of the learning 
 that then was, and well-springs for the learning 
 which was to be — as nurseries of art and science, 
 giving the stimulus, the means, and the reward to 
 invention, and aggregating around them every 
 head that could devise, and every hand that could 
 execute.” One of the grandest productions on the 
 monastic life of the past issued from the pen of the 
 late Father Dalgairns while he was still an Angli- 
 can minister. During the Oxford movement, when 
 the promoters of it undertook to edit the “ Lives of 
 the English Saints,” the life of St. Stephen Harding 
 fell to his lot, and nobly did he perform the task, 
 ably and truthfully vindicating the monks against 
 their slanderers. His epitome of the Rule and 
 customs of the order is wonderfully accurate and 
 impartial. With a few slight modifications to meet 
 the requirements of the times, it represents the 
 daily routine of duty as practised in a Trappist 
 monastery at the present day. Yet, in face of what 
 
42 
 
 The Irish Cistercians 
 
 has been truthfully and impartially written by 
 conscientious Protestants — men of learning and 
 authority — there are found, even now, some who 
 adhere to the old prejudices and aspersions, and 
 ban the monks as having been mere drones in 
 society, and obstructions to progress. With such 
 there is no contending; to convince them of the 
 truth would be impossible. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Suppression of the Monasteries and the 
 Destruction of Manuscripts . 
 
 For four hundred years, in sunshine and in storm, 
 this Order subsisted and made its mark upon the 
 pages of our country’s history, supplying bishop 
 after bishop to the Irish Church without inter- 
 mission, even at a time when its first fervour had 
 somewhat cooled, and down to the fatal year 1538. 
 It can be safely stated that 58 members of the 
 Cistercian Order governed various dioceses in Ire- 
 land down to the Reformation, as may be seen in 
 Ware and other writers. At the suppression, and 
 immediately after, members of the Order were 
 found amongst the episcopacy. Richard O’Ferral, 
 Abbot of Granard, was promoted to the See of 
 Ardagh, and Thomas O’Fihely, Abbot of Manister, 
 Co. Limerick, to the See of Achonry ; he was after- 
 wards translated to Leighlin. But the doom of the 
 Cistercians is decreed. A libertine king, instigated 
 by greedy courtiers, turns his covetous eyes upon 
 the rich old abbeys, whose plunder would go far to 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 43 
 
 replenish his depleted coffers. The tyrant's will 
 prevails (for who with a regard for his life dare 
 oppose it), and by one fell stroke the 376 mon- 
 asteries of the seven different Religious Orders in 
 Ireland are declared suppressed ; and their lands, 
 chattels, chalices, books, are all sequestered to the 
 Crown. No formal, well-founded charge was 
 brought against their inmates ; indeed, a few years 
 previously this same king, in an Act of Parliament, 
 had declared that “ Thanks be to God, religion is 
 right well kept ” (in those same monasteries). The 
 Four Masters sorrowfully recount this act of 
 impiety, and some of its results : “ A heresy and 
 new error (sprang up) in England through pride, 
 vain-glory, avarice and lust, and through many 
 strange sciences, so that the men of England went 
 into opposition to the Pope and Rome . . . They 
 destroyed the Orders to whom worldly possessions 
 were allowed . . . They broke down the mon- 
 
 asteries, and sold their roofs and bells, so that from 
 Arran of the Saints to the Iccian Sea* there was 
 not one monastery that was not broken and shat- 
 tered, except a few in Ireland, of which they took 
 no notice or heed. They afterwards burned the 
 images, shrines and relics of the saints of Ireland 
 and England.” . . . And how they gutted the 
 
 old hallowed spots of Erin is again graphically 
 described by those learned sons of St. Francis : 
 e ‘ Clonmacnois was plundered and devastated by the 
 English of Athlone, and the large bells were taken 
 from the Cloigtheach (bell-tower). There was not 
 left, moreover, a bell, small or large, an image, or 
 an altar, or a book, or a gem, or even glass in a 
 
 * Now called St. George’s Channel. 
 
44 
 
 Thjs Irish Cistercians: 
 
 window from the wall of the church out, which was 
 not carried off.” 
 
 It may be interesting to show the mode of pro- 
 cedure adopted by the wily, unscrupulous Commis- 
 sioners appointed by Cromwell, King Henry’s Vicar- 
 Genera l. These Commissioners suddenly pounced 
 upon an unsuspecting monastery, demanded all the 
 keys, books and papers, and took an inventory of 
 all its goods, both within doors and without. The 
 records of such seizures are misleading, as they 
 generally term them peaceful and voluntary sur- 
 renders on the part of the expelled monks. Certain 
 documents, containing surrender of the monastery 
 and its appurtenances, were presented to the abbot 
 and monks for signature, and assigning a trivial 
 pension to each individual in case of compliance 
 with this formality ; but signature or no signature, 
 they could not avert the fate that awaited them. 
 Refusal to comply was met by expulsion, without 
 the provision of one shilling for their future main- 
 tenance ; or it may be, the abbot and a few more 
 were hanged from the nearest tree to terrorize the 
 neighbouring monks into making “ voluntary ” sur- 
 render. With a very few ignoble exceptions (in 
 which the heads of houses bartered their consciences 
 for worldly pelf, and accepted grants of their 
 abbeys from the king in reward for acknowledging 
 his supremacy) the monks protested against the 
 sacrilegious intrusion of the spoiler so long as the 
 abbey roof protected them, and in nearly all cases 
 held firm to the end against the tyrant’s offers, thus 
 shutting themselves out from every favour and 
 consideration of the Commissioners. In F. Gasquet’s 
 “ History of the Suppression of the English Monas- 
 teries,” an account of one of the scenes then enacted is 
 
Past and Pkesent. 
 
 45 
 
 given by an eye-witness, who was a boy at the time. 
 After having told how the Commissioners, having 
 secured the keys, etc., caused all the stock of the 
 monastery to be driven into their presence, he says : 
 “ And when they had done so, they turned the abbot 
 and all his convent and household forth of the doors. 
 This thing was not a little grief to the convent and 
 all the servants of the house, departing one from 
 another, and especially such as with their conscience 
 could not break their profession. It would have 
 made a heart of flint melt and weep to have seen 
 the breaking-up of the house, the sorrowful depart- 
 ing of the brethren, and the sudden spoil that fell 
 the same day of their departure from their home. 
 And everyone had everything good, cheap, except 
 the poor monks, friars or nuns, who had no money 
 to bestow on anything. This appeared at the sup- 
 pression of an abbey hard by me, called Roche Abbey 
 
 (Cistercian) But such persons as afterwards 
 
 bought their corn (the monks’), or hay, or such like, 
 finding all the doors either open or the locks plucked 
 down, or the door itself taken away, went in and 
 took what they found and filched it away. 
 
 “ Some took the service books that lay in the 
 church and put them upon their wain “ coppes ” to 
 piece them ; some took windows of the hay-loft and 
 hid them in their hay, and likewise they did of 
 many other things. The church was the first thing 
 that was put to spoil, and then the abbot’s lodging, 
 dorter and f rater, with the cloister and all the 
 buildings thereabout within the abbey walls. . . . 
 It would have pitied any heart to see what tearing 
 up of lead (from the roofs), what plucking up of 
 boards and throwing down of spires. And when 
 the lead was torn off and cast into the church, and 
 
46 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 the tombs in the church all broken . . . all 
 
 things of price either spoiled, carried away, or 
 defaced to the uttermost. The persons who cast 
 the lead into fodders plucked up all the seats in the 
 choir, wherein the monks sat when they said service, 
 and burned them and melted the lead therewith, 
 although there was wood plenty within flight shot 
 of them. . . . Yea, even such persons were con- 
 
 tent to spoil them that seemed not two days before 
 to allow their religion, and do great worship and 
 reverence at their Masses and other services, and 
 all other of their doings. This is a strange thing to 
 consider, that they who could this day think it to 
 be the house of God, the next day (did hold it as) 
 the house of the devil, or else they would not have 
 been so ready to have spoiled it. 
 
 “ For a better proof of this, I demanded, thirty 
 years after the suppression, of my father, who had 
 bought part of the timber of the church and all the 
 timber of the steeple, with the bell-frame, with 
 other partners therein (in the steeple hung eight 
 — yea, nine bells) .... whether he thought 
 well of the religious persons and the religion then 
 used. And he told me ‘ Yea ; for/ said he, ‘ I saw 
 no cause to the contrary.’ ‘ Well/ said I, ‘ then how 
 came it to pass you were so ready to destroy and 
 spoil what you thought so well of ? ’ ‘ Might I not 
 
 as well as others have some profit from the spoil of 
 the abbey/ ? said he, ‘ for I saw all would away, and 
 therefore I did as others did.’ 
 
 “ No doubt there have been millions that have 
 repented the thing since, but all too late. And thus 
 much, upon my knowledge, touching the fall of 
 Roche Abbey. . . . By the fall of this, it may 
 
 be well known how all the rest were used.” 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 47 
 
 F. Gasquet, O.S.B., from whose learned work the 
 above quotation is taken, has thrown floods of light 
 on a subject that hitherto was almost exclusively 
 treated of by Protestants, and not always in an 
 impartial manner. It were desirable someone would 
 do as much to elucidate the fate of our Irish 
 monasteries. 
 
 Marsham thus writes of the destruction of those 
 abodes of peace : — “ Our monasteries have long since 
 perished ; nor have we any footsteps left of the 
 piety of our ancestors besides the battered walls 
 and deplorable ruins. We see, alas ! we see the 
 august churches and stupendous monuments dedi- 
 cated to the eternal God — than which nothing can 
 now be more effaced, under the specious pretence 
 of superstition most filthily defiled and expecting 
 utter destruction. Horses are stabled at the altar 
 of Christ, and the relics of martyrs are dug up.” 
 
 By order of the king all the gold and silver plate 
 of the suppressed monasteries, with the jewels and 
 principal ornaments, also the lead and bells, were 
 reserved as his special perquisite. The piety of our 
 ancestors had richly ornamented and encased the 
 shrines containing the relics of the saints, but all 
 these were now, alas ! seized as a prey by this ruth- 
 less tyrant and his favourites. It was thus the 
 relic of the True Cross, which for centuries was 
 preserved at Holy Cross Abbey, Co. Tipperary, 
 came into the hands of the Earl of Ormond, who, 
 however, demised it to the Cistercians when Holy 
 Cross Abbey would revert to them again. So vigi- 
 lant were the king’s commissioners, that after they 
 had demanded possession of any abbey, it was 
 impossible for the monks to secrete any of their 
 valuables ; and we find it mentioned that the Abbot 
 
48 
 
 The Irish Cistercians; 
 
 of Fountains, England, was threatened to be prose- 
 cuted by them for perjury, for endeavouring to 
 abstract a few gems from a reliquary. 
 
 It was chiefly at that time that the treasures of 
 the magnificent libraries were carried off and cast 
 to the winds. Manuscripts, which occupied decades 
 of years in compilation, and were worth a kings 
 ransom, were either consigned to the flames or scat- 
 tered, torn in shreds, to the winds of heaven, or were 
 given to the soldiers for wadding for their muskets. 
 We find no direct allusion to the treasures thus 
 wantonly destroyed in many of the Cistercian 
 monasteries ; but the matter is treated of as having 
 been the ordinary sequence of each act of spoliation. 
 Incidentally we are told of the valuable collection 
 of books in Jerpoint Abbey, in an account of the 
 Augustinian Convent of Callan, “noted for its 
 learned community, its library rich in manuscripts, 
 holding a duplicate copy of all the rare works in 
 the library of the celebrated Abbey of Jerpoint.” The 
 monasteries had served as banks for the safe-keeping 
 of title-deeds, testaments, documents, &c., belonging 
 to the principal families, who entrusted them to the 
 monks as the safest custodians ; but all were scat- 
 tered or destroyed, and that with malice prepense , 
 in order to make away with all claims to the restora- 
 tion of estates in future. The grantees of monastic 
 property were in a special manner more interested 
 than others in the appropriation of the annals, &c. } 
 of the houses that fell to their lot, as accounts of 
 the rents and privileges of the houses were contained 
 in them, and invariably the libraries formed part 
 and parcel of the monastery proper. 
 
 The wanton destruction of manuscripts was a 
 constant practice of the English in this country since 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 49 
 
 the invasion, and Elizabeth gave orders to Carew 
 and Sydney to search out and destroy all Irish 
 manuscripts. During her reign the possession of 
 such manuscripts was sufficient warrant that the 
 owner was addicted to treasonable practices, a crime 
 then and there punishable with death. Bale, after- 
 wards Protestant Bishop of Ossory, thus alludes to 
 the vandalism perpetrated after the suppression. 
 
 Some (libraries) they sold to the grocers and soap- 
 sellers, and some they sent over the sea to the book- 
 binders, not in small numbers, but, at times, whole 
 shipfuls, to the wonder of foreign nations. I know 
 a merchant man that bought the contents of two 
 noble libraries for forty shillings price. This stuff 
 hath he occupied in the stead of grey paper by the 
 space of more than ten years, and yet he hath store 
 enough for as many years to come.” Dr. Lynch, 
 also, in his “ Cambrensis Eversus,” attests that “ the 
 English laboured with Vandal earnestness in plunder- 
 ing our Irish documents and again he writes : “ It 
 is a fact well authenticated by the testimony of the 
 last generation, that while Ireland was wasted by 
 the flames of war, the queen’s troops, wherever they 
 were quartered through the country, rifled the houses 
 of friends and foes indiscriminately, and carried off 
 all the Irish manuscripts.” .... Dr. David Rothe, 
 Bishop of Ossory, writing in 1614, refers to this 
 wholesale destruction : “ If any members of the 
 Government received intelligence of a fragment of 
 manuscript history being in the possession of a 
 private individual, it was at once either begged or 
 bought; but if neither money nor entreaty was 
 strong enough, then threats and commands imme- 
 diately followed, which it would imperil one’s life 
 to resist But the course adopted by this president 
 
50 
 
 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 (Carew) in one province had been already adopted 
 throughout Ireland by Sir Henry Sydney and pre- 
 ceding governors, who swept away in one mass 
 everything that they could lay hands on ; so that 
 one of their most special instructions, when deputed 
 to govern this island, would appear to have been to 
 annihilate with the most unsparing hand every 
 monument of the history of Ireland” Under the 
 circumstances it is surprising that even a fragment 
 of our country’s history has been transmitted to 
 our day 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Irish Cistercians during the Penal Times . 
 
 Neither the rose, nor the lily, was wanting to the 
 garland woven for the Irish Church by the Cister- 
 cians ; for when they were called upon to give 
 proof of the faith that was in them, they freely 
 gave their heart’s blood in testimony of it. Im- 
 prisonment, torture and death were meted out to 
 them in their monasteries, and in some instances, to 
 as many as forty together. Short shrift was made 
 of the Irish monks by the hirelings imported from 
 France and Germany for the destruction of their 
 sacred homes. The Abbey of Boyle can reckon two 
 of its abbots amongst the martyrs, one of them, 
 Gelasius O’Cullenan, is styled by Cistercian writers 
 who lived at the time of his glorious victory, “ the 
 light of our age, the ornament of the Order, and 
 the glory of all Ireland.” It is impossible to deter- 
 mine the exact number that inhabited each of the 
 monasteries, but they had diminished considerably 
 from the close of the fourteenth century, when 
 
Melleray Abbey, France. 
 
THE 
 
 OP THt 
 
 UNIVERSITY r— ' 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 51 
 
 Europe was desolated by the terrible pestilence 
 which carried off whole communities together. 
 Friar Clyn in his Annals, expresses a doubt that 
 one would be spared to continue his work. We 
 have not, as in the case of most of the English 
 monasteries, the particulars furnished by the 
 Records of the Tower, wherein are found lists of 
 the pensions given, and which were allotted to the 
 monks of the suppressed houses. The Irish generally 
 refused such compromise. After their expulsion 
 the monks lingered around their monasteries, hoping 
 for the advent of better days, when they might be 
 permitted to resume possession of their loved sanc- 
 tuaries, endeared to them by the tenderest associa- 
 tions of piety. Some, indeed, regained their lost 
 abbeys and settled down in them once more during 
 a short period in Queen Mary’s reign ; but her death 
 dispelled their hopes, and on the accession of Queen 
 Elizabeth they were sent adrift with a price on 
 their heads. Even then some of them were pro- 
 moted to govern dioceses. Dr. William Walsh, 
 Bishop of Meath, had been a monk at Bective. This 
 saintly prelate was cast into prison where he suf- 
 fered great hardships and was put to the torture. 
 He escaped from prison, fled to Portugal, and died 
 in the college of the Cistercians in the town of 
 Alcala. Dr. Maurice Fitzgibbon, Archbishop of 
 Cashel, had been Abbot of Manister, Co. Limerick. 
 He, too, died an exile in Spain. These few names 
 do not by any means exhaust th# list of Cister- 
 cians who were appointed bishops during those sad 
 and perilous times, but they suffice to show their 
 devotion to the Church, even in face of the most 
 violent persecution. 
 
 Henriquez, a Cistercian historian who met some 
 
52 
 
 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 exiled members of the Irish communities on the 
 Continent, and learned their experiences from their 
 own lips, thus describes the condition of the monas- 
 teries in a book published by him in 1620 : “ The 
 monasteries were earthly paradises ; they now 
 became the abode of demons ; for the voice of 
 prayer was substituted blasphemy, and instead of 
 the daily sacrifice of thanksgiving nought was 
 witnessed but abominations and crimes. Some of 
 our Order, full of affliction and misery, fled from 
 the sword which impended over them, others were 
 murdered or burnt to death in their convents ; all 
 the monasteries were levelled to the ground. The 
 heretics were more eager in pursuit of our religious 
 as our monasteries were numerous and rich. In a 
 short time they were completely destroyed/’ In 
 this same work he gives an extract from a letter 
 addressed to himself by an Irish exile from Com- 
 postella, in 1617, describing the sufferings of the 
 Cistercians under Elizabeth. The writer may have 
 witnessed the destruction of the monastery of 
 Ballyshannon, for it subsisted till 1607. Immedi- 
 ately after the “ Flight of the Earls ” its thirty 
 inmates shared the same fate as their brethren 
 some seventy years previous. Its abbot, Eugene 
 O’Gallagher, was slain on the occasion. The writer 
 goes on . to say : “ Whilst the diabolical rage of the 
 heretics destroyed the churches and monasteries, 
 and profaned them with sacrilegious hands, the 
 constancy of tke Cistercians in offering up their 
 lives for Christ’s sake, was most remarkable, and 
 deserving all praise ; and as many of their sacred 
 houses were scattered throughout the country, so 
 innumerable monks of that Order, by martyrdom 
 attained their heavenly crown.” 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 53 
 
 Yet, despite all these difficulties and dangers, 
 superiors continued to admit subjects into the 
 Order, Ayhom they sent abroad to complete their 
 studies either in their monastery at Bordeaux 
 (winch belonged to the Irish Cistercians from the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century), or in other 
 places, whence they returned to labour on the Irish 
 mission. At this time their thinned ranks were 
 recruited chiefly from the monastery of Nucale, in 
 Spain, and these new-comers established a congrega- 
 tion in Ireland called of St. Malachy and St. 
 Bernard, of Which Dr. Patrick Plunket (uncle and 
 tutor to the martyred primate), afterwards Bishop 
 of Meath, was superior-general as Abbot of St. 
 Mary’s, Dublin. For about forty years, i.e. 9 from 
 1610 to 1650, at intervals during a lull in the per- 
 secution, they recovered actual possession of their 
 ruined abbeys and refitted them for Divine worship. 
 A little earlier in the century a certain Cistercian 
 priest became famous for the miracles and the 
 marvellous cures wrought through his prayers. He 
 was respected by Protestants and Catholics alike, and 
 discharged the functions of his sacred office without 
 interference from the former. It is even related by 
 Henriquez, quoted above, who was his contemporary, 
 that he was summoned to the court of the English 
 king, and furnished with a passport, to cure a lady 
 of the court who was hopelessly ill, and that, 
 having cured her, he had an interview with the 
 king himself, who expressed his royal gratitude. 
 His name was Candid Furlong, a native of Wexford. 
 He died at Wexford on the 8th April, 1616, after 
 having laboured five years on the Irish mission. 
 
 In St. John’s Church, Waterford, then in the 
 hands of the Cistercians, a novel sight was witnessed 
 
 5 
 
54 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 when, on Trinity Sunday, 1625. Dr. Thomas Fleming,. 
 Archbishop of Dublin, blessed three abbots in that 
 old Benedictine Church. * 
 
 The new abbots were Patrick Barnewall, Abbot 
 of Mellifont ; John Madden, Abbot of Graigue; and 
 Laurence Fitzharris, Abbot of Innislaunaght, the 
 Abbots of Holy Cross and Kilcooley being the 
 assisting prelates. This is the last abbatial blessing 
 performed in public that we read of until our 
 own day. About the same time, some six or seven 
 of the old abbeys had communities of very learned 
 and zealous men, and their numbers seem to have 
 been on the increase till Cromwell’s inhuman edicts 
 scattered them and wrecked all hope of return. 
 We have the names of three Cistercian abbots who 
 were driven by him into exile — Thomas Tobin, 
 Abbot of Kilcooley ; John Cantwell, Abbot of 
 Jerpoint ; and Louis Cantwell, Abbot of Holy Cross. 
 The Order did not die out then, for we read that two 
 of its abbots attended a provincial synod held 
 at Cashel in October in 1685, under the Most Rev. 
 Dr. Brennan, Archbishop of Cashel. Strange, 
 neither their names nor those of the houses of 
 which they were titular abbots were given. It is 
 simply stated after the names of those assisting at 
 it that two Cistercian Abbots were also present. 
 The last abbot of this Order of whom we have 
 authentic record was Thomas Cogan, Abbot of Holy 
 Cross, who died in that abbey in 1700. A few 
 monks must have been still in possession of that 
 same abbey, for we read that Brother Thomas 
 Lahey died in it and was buried there in 1727. In 
 1737 a few Cistercians took up their abode in the 
 old dismantled abbey of Knockmoy, Co. Galway, 
 but having been reported to Parliament they were 
 
Mount St. Bernard’s Abbey, Leicestershire, 
 
 See p. 63. 
 
I Hi i P 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 55 
 
 summarily ordered to quit. The last monk of the 
 Order of whom we find mention was Father Thomas 
 McCormack, who was registered at Nenagh in 1752 
 as Parish Priest of Holy Cross. 
 
 The picturesque ruins of the Irish Cistercian 
 monasteries, now lorn and desolate, strike a sym- 
 pathetic chord in every heart that possesses a spark 
 of the true faith, and fill his soul with solemn reflec- 
 tions on the inscrutable ways of God, Who permits 
 impious men to wreck His holy places, and rob the 
 poor of their “patrimony” and Himself of the “praise 
 perennial ” that once ascended from those now muti- 
 lated shrines, that for ages were resonant with hymns 
 and sacred canticles. “ Time,” writes an English 
 Protestant, “ hath left the deep traces of his de- 
 stroying hand upon their crumbling walls ; and the 
 passing footsteps of bygone years, as they hurried 
 on in their march to eternity, have worn away the 
 quaint carvings from pillar and shrine. Where the 
 setting sunbeams once gilded the deep-dyed windows, 
 now waves the monumental ivy with a solemn 
 motion, as if it kept time to the sobbing wind 
 that moans mournfully among the ruins. The deep 
 and mellow voices of the monks who here chanted 
 the holy canticles have died away ; even the high 
 and arched roof, which gave back the rolling echoes, 
 is gone ; the vaulted and pillared aisles, where the 
 sounds were prolonged or lost, are fallen, and the 
 long green grass waves in the silent choir.” Such 
 a picture might represent the condition of nearly 
 all those models of artistic beauty that flourished 
 in our beloved country, and attest, even in their 
 ruins, the piety and munificence of our fathers. Of 
 some, not a stone upon a stone has been left to mark 
 their site, as at Kilbeggan and Newry. What little 
 
56 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 remains of St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin, was unearthed 
 a few years ago, and the beautiful chapter-room in 
 which Silken Thomas threw down the Sword of 
 State was then cleared out, through the exertions 
 of Mr. Patrick Donnelly and a few friends. Duiske, 
 or Graig-na-managh, Co. Kilkenny, is the only one 
 to-day in which the Divine mysteries continue to 
 be celebrated. It was given to the Catholics by 
 Lord Dover in 1809, and it has since been used as 
 a parish church. Tintern and Monasterevan are 
 inhabited as residences , the one by the Colclough 
 family, the other by the Marquis of Drogheda. 
 How the stones in the walls, the tiles in the pave- 
 ments, must cry out against such profanation. 
 
 Ah ! those stones of the old Cistercian abbeys 
 have each a secret to tell, could it be extracted from 
 them. How many plots have been hatched within 
 hearing of them ? In Monasterevan, probably, was 
 concocted the bloody butchery of Mullaghmast by 
 Francis Cosby, Sheriff of Kildare, and Provost- 
 Marshal of Leinster, who for some time resided 
 there. Manister, Co. Limerick, beheld its com- 
 munity of forty monks put to the sword before the 
 Blessed Sacrament in its church, by Malby in 1579. 
 From Boyle Abbey, Co. Roscommon, O’Donnell 
 issued forth on August 15th, 1598, to the battle of 
 the Curlew Mountains, where he gained a signal 
 victory over the troops of Elizabeth. Each of the 
 old Cistercian abbeys has its own tale, but that tale 
 is untold and their history is unwritten.* It is re- 
 freshing to consider that, out of all the suppressed 
 monasteries in Ireland, only ten fell to the lot of the 
 
 * For an interesting account of Holy Cross, see the “ Trium- 
 phalia ” of Fr. Hartry, a monk of that Abbey, lately edited, 
 with a learned introduction, by the Rev. Denis Murphy, S.J. 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 57 
 
 old Irish. The O’s and the Mac’s seem to have had 
 a decided ahhorrence of such sacrilegious plunder. 
 God be praised, it is related in proof of their con- 
 stancy to the true faith, that there were not two 
 hundred Irish Protestants in the country at the 
 death of Queen Elizabeth, despite confiscations, 
 fines for recusancy, and even the famine and but- 
 cheries which laid Ireland waste, and reduced the 
 population to 500,000. The persecuting viceroy. 
 Sir Arthur Chichester, was often heard to exclaim 
 that “ he knew not how this attachment to the 
 Catholic faith was so deeply rooted in the hearts of 
 the Irish, unless it was that the very soil was in- 
 fected and the air attainted with popery ; for they 
 obstinately prefer it to all things else — to allegiance 
 to their kings, to the care of their own posterity, 
 and to all their hopes and prospects.” 
 
 Whilst the Irish Church was bleeding at every 
 pore, the Cistercian Order flourished on the con- 
 tinent, especially in its native France; and though 
 it was not so rigid in its discipline then as when, 
 some few centuries previous, it had passed into a 
 proverb that “the whole world was Cistercian” (the 
 communities were so numerous and large, that the 
 General Chapter issued a mandate that no novices 
 should be admitted for one year), yet, even then it 
 produced many able historians in Spain, Germany 
 and Belgium. Towards the end of the 17th century 
 lived the famous monastic reformer, Abbot John de 
 Ranee, to whom the Order owes so much, and from 
 whose house, La Trappe, those following his reform 
 got the name of Trappists. To his celebrated abbey 
 the unfortunate King James II. was accustomed to 
 repair annually, after his flight and abdication, to 
 make a spiritual retreat, and there the unhappy 
 
58 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 monarch met and recognised one of his former 
 adherents, who, after having staked his all in his 
 service, was then leading the life of a recluse near 
 the monastery. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Expulsion of the Trappists from France and 
 Foundation of Mount Melleray. 
 
 The year 1791 was one of dire calamity for France, 
 the eldest daughter of the Church ; calamities such 
 as never befel a Christian land, and from the effects 
 of which she suffers to this day. It would seem as 
 if the demons were let loose upon her, to deluge 
 her with impiety, infidelity, and bloodshed. In the 
 general upheaval and destruction of Religious Orders 
 the French Trappists shared to the full, and they 
 were plundered and banished. Under the guidance 
 of Dom Augustine L’Estrange, then Master of 
 Novices at La Trappe, a handful of them fled into a 
 Protestant Canton in Switzerland, where they 
 were received by the civil authorities. This same 
 Dom Augustine was connected with Ireland through 
 his mother, a Miss Lalor, whose family were origi- 
 nally from Kilkenny. Into Switzerland the vic- 
 torious soldiers of the French Republic burst in 
 their wave of conquest, and the Trappists fled 
 before them into Russia. Banished thence, they 
 wandered through several countries till at length 
 a colony of them which intended to proceed to 
 Canada, there to found a settlement with the con- 
 sent of the British Government, arrived in London 
 to take shipping from that port. Having missed 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 59 
 
 the out-bound vessel nothing remained for them 
 but to wait for the next. In the meantime, Mr. 
 Weld, an English Catholic gentleman, offered them 
 site whereon to erect a monastery in England, 
 which they gratefully accepted. This was in 1794. 
 Soon their numbers were augmented by French re- 
 fugee priest^, among whom was a doctor of the 
 Sorbonne, a very remarkable man, destined to 
 govern that community in perilous times. His 
 name was Dr. Saulnier, known in after years as 
 Abbot Antony. This revival of the Order in the 
 United Kingdom had all its old attractions for the 
 Irish, who rushed across the Channel and put on 
 the Cistercian habit at St. Susan’s, Lulworth, as 
 the monastery was called. But the bigotry of 
 some in England at that time raised a clamour 
 ’against harbouring in their midst that object of 
 Protestant aversion, a monastic establishment, so 
 that to appease the popular ferment, the Prime 
 Minister sought to impose restrictions on the Trap- 
 pists to which they could not submit, and they 
 were sent back to France in 1817. Abbot Antony 
 had the good fortune to secure by purchase an old 
 monastery of the Order, called Melleray, in the 
 diocese of Nantes, Brittany, and there, on August 
 the 17th of that year, the community, consisting of 
 sixty-four members, settled down to the old routine 
 of duties, and revived the ancient spirit of the 
 Order. Here, too, they were discovered by the 
 ever-adventurous Irish, and the old striking cha- 
 racteristic of the race, expatriation in the cause of 
 religion, manifested itself ; for every county in Ire- 
 land was more than once represented in that com- 
 munity. Even swordsmen of the famous Brigade 
 sought there a quiet asylum after “ wars alarms,” 
 
60 
 
 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 and proved in their persons that military discipline- 
 may be made tributary to monastic obedience, which 
 forms the very groundwork of the religious life. 
 
 In 1830 local jealousies and unfounded sus-^ 
 picions of disloyalty led to the temporary sup- 
 pression of Melleray, and the expulsion of the 
 British subjects. At that time manjf influential 
 persons in and about Dublin expressed a wish 
 to have a Community of Trappists in Ireland,, 
 and Abbot Antony gladly availing of this pious 
 desire, in the midst of his sorrows addressed a letter 
 to the Archbishop of Dublin, which he sent by Father 
 Vincent Ryan* Prior of Melleray. In this letter 
 occurs the following passage : “ May our wishes, my 
 Lord, be realized. May Ireland again present that 
 fervour and piety which rendered her eminent even 
 among the Catholic kingdoms of the universe. May 
 the children of St. Bernard and Abbe de Ranee, 
 even in these later days — days of sorrow and general 
 defection from the faith — repeople once more your 
 solitudes, and console the Church for the losses which 
 she daily deplores, and which seem to bring us to 
 the borders of those unhappy times, when, as our 
 Divine Master informs us, 4 faith will be found no- 
 longer on the earth .’ 99 The project of establishing 
 a house in the archdiocese fell through, chiefly for 
 want of a proper site. 
 
 Father Vincent was then authorized to seek a 
 refuge elsewhere, which he found more difficult than 
 he had anticipated. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of 
 Dublin, recommended him to wait on Daniel O’Con- 
 nell, and to seek his counsel and co-operation, which 
 he freely and readily gave. The Liberator intro- 
 duced Father Vincent to influential gentlemen in 
 Dublin, who also promised him friendly assistance.. 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 61 
 
 Mrs. Kelly, Superioress of the Presentation Convent, 
 Killarney, wrote to Father Vincent, informing him 
 that her nephew, who had just then purchased a 
 farm some twelve miles from Killarney, was willing 
 to offer it to him on favourable terms. After many 
 unsuccessful attempts to secure a proper site, and 
 after having inspected several places in remote parts 
 of Ireland which were represented to him as eligible 
 for his purpose, Father Vincent accepted as a tem- 
 porary refuge the farm at Rathmore which Mr. 
 M'Donogh, Mrs. Kelly’s nephew, kindly placed at 
 his disposal. Matters were hastening towards a 
 crisis with his brethren in France since his departure 
 from his monastery, and now he received intelligence 
 that a French warship was conveying them to Cove, 
 the present Queenstown. The expelled Religious, 
 about seventy in number, were received by the 
 people of Cork with all the generosity of their race, 
 and during the interval that has since elapsed their 
 friendship towards the Trappists has been undi- 
 minished. Father Vincent could never forget their 
 kindness to him in his dire necessity. Soon after 
 the monks had settled down at Rathmore, Father 
 Vincent was informed that Sir Richard Keane, of 
 Cappoqain, was willing to let him a tract of mountain 
 land, and, being encouraged by the local clergy, he 
 visited the place on which Mount Melleray now 
 stands, then a barren waste of brown heather, now 
 smiling with verdure like an oasis in the desert. 
 The name it bore was suggestive of its uninviting 
 qualities ; it was called Scrahan — barren. A tract 
 of about 500 acres of this land was made over by 
 Sir Richard Keane, which his son and successor 
 when granting a lease in after years, increased 
 by 200 acres more. The only house upon it was a 
 
62 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 game-keeper’s lodge, and that was in a ruinous con- 
 dition. This was in 1832. How different from the 
 coming of the first Cistercians seven centuries before, 
 is the return now of their persecuted successors ? 
 These latter are welcomed, not by kings and fearless 
 chieftains, but by their impoverished descendants, 
 who, nevertheless, take them to their hearts as 
 lovingly, share with them their purses, however 
 scanty, and give them on all sides a true cead mille 
 failthe, for the Cistercians are associated with the 
 proudest period of their country’s history, and recall 
 the memories of her former greatness. 
 
 How wonderful are God’s ways in His dealing 
 with His creatures ! How clearly does He prove 
 His unlimited resources, and man’s utter insignifi- 
 cance by His total disregard for human standards of 
 reasoning when He wills to execute a project that 
 seems impossible to our way of thinking ! All this 
 is exemplified in the erection of Mount Melleray 
 and the transformation of a sterile mountain slope 
 into fields of waving corn and smiling meadows. 
 When Father Vincent took possession of that waste, 
 all he was possessed of was a tenpenny piece, but he 
 knew that the Lord himself would be his banker, 
 and he was not disappointed. In 1833 he laid the 
 first stone of the Monastery, and in 1838 the Divine 
 Office was chanted in the new church for the first 
 time. All honour to the clergy and people of the 
 surrounding districts who travelled miles to aid the 
 monks in erecting fences and tilling the land. In 
 1835 the Holy See raised Mount Melleray into an 
 abbey. Father Vincent Ryan was unanimously 
 chosen abbot by his brethren, and was blessed by 
 the Most Rev. Dr. Abraham in his private chapel at 
 Waterford. In the same year some English mem- 
 
Mount Melleray Abbey, Cappoquin. 
 
 See p. 63. 
 
GSiiy i if turn 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 63 
 
 bers of that community passed over to England and 
 founded Mount St. Bernard’s Abbey, Leicestershire, 
 on a farm given them by Mr. de Lisle Phillips. 
 It will be evident to all that the new Abbey of 
 Mount Melleray was so called from the parent house, 
 Melleray, in France, whence the Irish monks were 
 expelled. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Mount Melleray and its Two Latest Filiations. 
 
 Abbot Vincent, whilst attending to the erection 
 of the monastery, devoted much attention to the 
 wresting of the barren moor immediately surround- 
 ing it from its native state of wildness and unpro- 
 ductiveness. Both works went on simultaneously, 
 for the stones that went to make up the buildings 
 were dug up with incredible labour in the process 
 of subsoiling. Patch after patch was reclaimed and 
 laid out for cultivation ; fences were made and trees 
 were planted, which, flourishing as they did in an 
 ungrateful soil, prove that his example might be 
 profitably imitated by proprietors of waste lands 
 and by the Government. Visitors to Mount Melleray 
 now little dream how those hardy monks toiled to 
 create the well-fenced farm which lies embowered 
 in verdant groves in the midst of a sterile mountain, 
 or how often they were during the first years of the 
 new monastery at their wits’ end how to procure a 
 scanty meal for the morrow. Now, its graceful 
 spire pointing heavenward crowns a noble pile of 
 buildings where pilgrims of all conditions receive a 
 hospitable welcome. Perhaps next to its fame for 
 
64 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 the holiness of its inmates is the renown of its 
 seminary in every quarter of the globe. At this 
 seminary about 130 ecclesiastical students receive 
 a preparatory training under an able and devoted 
 staff of professors, members of the community, 
 while hundreds of missionary priests in every clime 
 lovingly regard it as their Alma Mater, and, with 
 deep gratitude, attribute their zeal, and, under God, 
 a goodly share of their success in the ministry, to 
 the indelible impressions made on their youthful 
 minds when sojourning at “the old home on the 
 mountain.” There are also two day-schools, one quite 
 close to the abbey, conducted by the monks, for the 
 poor boys of the district ; the other outside the 
 entrance gate, for girls, in charge of teachers under 
 the National Board. More than 150 pupils attend 
 these schools and receive a liberal allowance of 
 wholesome food daily at the monastery. 
 
 The present flourishing condition of this famous 
 monastic establishment, which rivals any of the old 
 Cistercian abbeys of pre-Reformation days, is mainly 
 due to the untiring energy and enlightened direction 
 of the venerable abbot, the Right Rev. Dr. Fitzpatrick, 
 who, for five and forty years, has shaped its path 
 of progress and advancement. The seminary and 
 poor schools have been developed by him, and under 
 his fostering care they have attained their present 
 status and efficient condition. The Rev. John 
 O’Hanlon, the learned author of the “ Lives of the 
 Irish Saints,” when concluding his “ Life of St. 
 Malachy,” thus refers to Mount Melleray : “ A 
 numerous and fervent community has been congre- 
 gated under the spiritual direction of saintly abbots, 
 and the blessings of heaven have descended in 
 abundance not only on the population of the sur- 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 65 
 
 rounding neighbourhood, but on pious pilgrims from 
 the most distant parts of Ireland who have sought 
 a temporary retreat within those hallowed cloisters, 
 where the distractions and cares of this world rarely 
 intrude or become altogether unheeded when they 
 are superseded by that wise solicitude which refers 
 to the soul's eternal interests/' 
 
 At the accession of Abbot Fitzpatrick to the 
 government of Mount Melleray in 1848, the com- 
 munity was very large, and in a condition to send 
 out a new colony ; he, therefore, determined to found 
 a new monastery ; but as Ireland was then deci- 
 mated by the famine, and as his funds were low — 
 just barely sufficient to support his own establish- 
 ment — he selected the United States for the intended 
 foundation. The final arrangements were made, 
 and in 1850 possession was taken of the new settle- 
 ment by the community destined for it. It is very 
 remarkable that the two first superiors of New 
 Melleray, as it was called, were promoted to bishop- 
 rics in America : these were the Right Rev. James 
 O'Gorman, Bishop of Nebraska, and the Right Rev. 
 Clement Smith, Bishop of Dubuque, in which latter 
 diocese the monastery is situated. 
 
 Scarcely had the gloom which shrouded Ireland 
 during the terrible famine years disappeared, than 
 generous hearts, filled with a love for sacrifice, 
 turned to Mount Melleray, there to devote them- 
 selves to God in rigid penance and intercessory 
 prayer. Member after member knocked for admis- 
 sion till the community increased and the numbers 
 swelled to over one hundred. About the year 1875 
 Count Moore, of Mooresfort, Tipperary, expressed 
 his earnest wish to found a second Trappist monas- 
 tery in Ireland, and the abbot, acceding to his 
 
66 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 request, decided on founding it when a proper site 
 could be procured. Early in 1878 it was intimated 
 to the Count that a residence was for sale with a 
 demesne of more than 400 Irish acres attached, 
 situated in the King's County, and about two miles 
 from Roscrea. After inspecting it and consulting 
 with the Abbot of Mount Melleray, who also visited 
 the place, the Count concluded the purchase and 
 munificently presented it to the monks, who took 
 formal possession of it on the first day of March, 
 1878. They changed its name from Mount Heaton 
 into Mount St. Joseph, in honour of the holy foster- 
 father of our Blessed Lord, in whose month and 
 under whose patronage it came into their possession 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Foundation of Mount St Joseph — its Present 
 Condition . 
 
 At the time that Mount Heaton passed into the 
 hands of the monks the grand old mansion was in 
 a dilapidated condition, and its once beautiful 
 gardens and surroundings bore all the traces of 
 “ Time's effacing finger ” and long neglect. It can- 
 not fail to be interesting to give some particulars 
 of its history since it passed from The O'Carroll until 
 it became a monastic establishment. Francis 
 Carroll, a reputed Protestant, lived there in 1641, 
 but he must have forfeited it after the civil war of 
 that year, for Edward Heaton, one of Cromwell's 
 officers, received possession of it, which was con- 
 firmed to him by letters patent. Many are the 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 67 
 
 racy anecdotes told yet of this doughty warrior 
 around the firesides of the surrounding country. 
 How he foreclosed a mortgage on a neighbouring 
 brother-at-arms, who shot him as he sailed in a 
 small boat on the river within view of his residence, 
 and how the murderer was hanged from the branch 
 of a gnarled oak that grew on a low sand-hill, which 
 from him derives its name of Harold’s hill. This 
 oak survived the storms of two hundred years, and 
 was pointed out with much interest until it fell a 
 few years ago ; a blighted and withered stump is all 
 that now remains. In the Down Survey reference 
 is made to Ballyskenach or Mount Heaton, and it is 
 thus described : “ The soyle thereof is for the most 
 part a^rrable and pasture, with some shakeing bog 
 belonging to it. On it stands the stump of a castle 
 and some Irish cabbins.” Francis Heaton, pre- 
 sumably son and heir of the above-mentioned 
 Edward, lived in it in 1695. In 1731, William 
 Armstrong, of Farney Castle, near Thurles, married 
 Mary, third daughter and heiress of said Francis 
 Heaton, and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Robert 
 Curtis, M.P., Inane House, Roscrea. This William 
 Armstrong resided there, and was succeeded by his 
 brother, the Right Hon. John Armstrong, who, 
 when death drew near, had all his cattle driven 
 beneath his bedroom window, and caused himself to 
 be borne to it that he might take a last, long, lin- 
 gering look on the truly fairy scene beneath him. 
 
 This good gentleman was succeeded by his son, 
 William Henry Armstrong (a staunch anti-unionist), 
 who in 1809 married Bridget, only daughter of 
 Colonel Charles M'Donnell, of Stone Hall, Co. Clare. 
 In 1816 he retired to the Continent, and, not intend- 
 ing to return, he sold Mount Heaton and other 
 
b8 
 
 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 estates of his in different parts of this county. A 
 General Taylor purchased Mount Heaton from the 
 Duke of York, and fixed his residence there. He 
 beautified the place exceedingly ; with his refined 
 taste and abundant wealth he restored it to more 
 than its pristine splendour. After his death, it 
 passed to his spinster sisters during the minority 
 of his nephew, Taylor Read, Esq. In the meantime 
 the Hutchinson family rented a portion of the 
 property, and resided in the mansion house. Mr. 
 Hutchinson, as agent, had the management of the 
 whole estate (which stretched away far beyond the 
 demesne proper), and won for himself the affection 
 of the poor, who revere his memory to this day. 
 In those good old times it is recorded, as a proof of 
 the sporting propensities of the local gentry, that 
 they maintained five packs of foxhounds between 
 Roscrea and Nenagh, a distance of fifteen miles. 
 Mr. Hutchinson was master of one of these packs. 
 When Mr. Taylor Read attained his majority he 
 came to reside at Mount Heaton, and married Miss 
 Walsh, a Catholic lady, of Kilkenny, He died soon 
 after, leaving an only child, a daughter, Mary. 
 Mrs. Read did not long survive her husband, and 
 left the orphan child heiress to the property. Miss 
 Read was ordered to the South of France by her 
 medical advisers, and was educated in a convent 
 there. In her absence a portion of the demesne 
 was rented by Mr. Rhodes, of Roscrea, who lived in 
 the house till Miss Read came of age in 1878, and, 
 as already related, caused the place to be sold. She 
 then retired with her aunts, the Misses Walsh, of 
 Kilkenny, to Pau, in the south of France, where she 
 died a few years ago. 
 
 To return to the monks. In a few weeks after 
 
View from Rere of Guest House, Mount St. Joseph Abbey, Roscrea. 
 
 See p. 69. 
 

 . 
 
 
Past and Present. 69 
 
 obtaining possession of the property, a new com- 
 munity was selected from Mount Melleray and sent 
 to occupy Mount St. Joseph, as it shall henceforth 
 be called. The Very Rev. D. Athanasius Donovan, 
 who had for several years discharged the office of 
 Procurator at Mount Melleray, was appointed first 
 Superior. Great, indeed, must have been the 
 surprise of the colony from the mountain when 
 having arrived at the spacious entrance gate, they 
 advanced through rows of noble forest trees that 
 spanned the avenue, and when, on rounding an 
 abrupt turn, they beheld the venerable mansion 
 grey and time-stained, perched on a gentle rise in 
 the midst of charming sylvan scenery. This old 
 4t dial of ages ” then presented a woe-begone appear- 
 ance — of all its ancient beauty there lingered 
 scarcely a trace. With an Elizabethan front flanked 
 with towers, and a rere in the solid, though less 
 pretentious style of more modem architecture, it 
 pleaded haughtily for glories gone. The surround- 
 ings were truly fairy-like, though shorn of many 
 of their enchanting bowers and shady walks, which 
 combined in times past to make it the fairest spot 
 in North Tipperary or King’s County. The view 
 from the river front was lovely indeed, especially 
 when the rays of the setting sun were reflected in 
 the Brosna, transforming its silver wavelets into a 
 veritable sheet of molten gold. The out -offices were 
 roofless, and the stables that once housed the 
 prancing, champing steeds, were tenantless and open 
 to the four winds of heaven. The gardens were 
 covered with tangled weeds, and the vineries and 
 conservatory were all in ruins. Such was the con- 
 dition of this spot of predilection when the Trappist 
 community, thirty-three in number, of whom eight 
 
 6 
 
70 
 
 The Irish Cistercians*. 
 
 were priests, took up their abode there in March, 
 1878. To adapt the old mansion to the require- 
 ments of a monastery was not very difficult, con- 
 sidering the simple lives of the monks; in the 
 basement were refectory, kitchen, and cowl hall; 
 on the ground floor were fitted up a temporary 
 oratory, a chapter-room, and a few small chapels, in 
 one of which two Masses were daily celebrated for 
 the convenience of the laity whose piety led them 
 to frequent the new monastery from the very 
 beginning, while the upper floor was turned into 
 dormitories by erecting some five or six couches in 
 each room according to its size. The Most Rev. 
 James Ryan, the late Coadjutor Bishop of Killaloe, 
 paid the community an early visit, bade them a 
 hearty welcome, and imparted to them and to their 
 work his saintly benediction. 
 
 a Unless the Lord build the house they labour in 
 vain who build it.” So thought the Trappists 
 when, on looking round them at Mount St. Joseph, 
 they reflected that there a monastery was to be 
 erected. That it would be built, was to them a 
 positive certainty, for the work was God’s, and it 
 was bound to prosper : yet how the thing was to 
 be accomplished seemed a mystery. Plenty of 
 building material — blue limestone — lay buried in 
 their farm, sand pits and limekilns were ready for 
 use ; but how to work them was a problem to be 
 solved ; for funds they had none. They borrowed 
 sufficient wherewith to stock the farm, which, to- 
 gether with various sums arising from the sale of 
 timber grown on the place, constituted their whole 
 working capital, and the nucleus of a building 
 fund. St. Benedict reminds the superior “ that he 
 is to seek first the kingdom of God, and His justice, 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 71 
 
 and that all these things shall be added unto him.” 
 Moreover, it was no small encouragement to remem- 
 ber that in poor holy Ireland no pious work was 
 left unfinished for want of funds ; and also that 
 Mount Melleray itself had been founded without 
 one shilling piece in the exchequer of its founder 
 when he took possession of it. Confiding, therefore, 
 in God’s goodness, the monks opened the quarries, 
 began dressing the stones, and on Ascension Day, 
 May 24th, 1879, the first stone of the new church 
 was laid by the Right Rev. Dr. Fitzpatrick, Lord 
 Abbot of Mount Melleray. 
 
 The plans, were furnished by Mr. William H. 
 Beardwood, of Dublin, architect, a gentleman who 
 has devoted much time and attention to this parti- 
 cular branch of his profession. 
 
 Subscription cards were distributed, which 
 realized sufficient wherewith to defray some of the 
 building expenses. During the progress of the 
 work a local Protestant gentleman expressed his 
 surprise to an acquaintance, a pious Catholic, richer 
 in faith than in worldly goods, how such a gigantic 
 building could be brought to completion by the 
 monks, and received this characteristic reply, worthy 
 of record : “ With my penny, and with this man’s 
 penny — that is how we Catholics build our 
 churches.” In ’79, ’80, and ’81, this country was 
 undergoing one of her periodical famines, and cries 
 of distress and applications for relief were heard from 
 every quarter of the land. It is surprising, there- 
 fore, and totally beyond comprehension, that a 
 magnificent church could in these years be raised 
 mainly by the pennies of the poor. Yet, so it was. 
 The shell of the church being finished off in 1881, 
 the first public ceremony was performed in it Sep- 
 
72 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 tember 18 th of that year, when the late Most Rev. 
 Dr. Ryan, Coadjutor Bishop of Killaloe, dedicated 
 it to the Lord. Three years later it was solemnly 
 consecrated, together with five of its twelve hand- 
 some altars, by the Most Rev. Dr. O’Callaghan, 
 Bishop of Cork, assisted by Most Rev. Dr. Ryan, of 
 Killaloe ; and the Abbots of Melleray, in France , of 
 Mount Melleray, in Ireland ; of Mount St. Bernard, 
 England ; and of Gethsemani, U. S., America. 
 
 This interval of three years was employed in 
 internal arrangement — erecting altars, &c. ; also in 
 remodelling the tumble-down out-offices, to serve as a 
 temporary monastery, and in building a portion of a 
 new wing or walk of the cloister, to form a com- 
 munication between the church and the rest of the 
 offices. The old stables were roofed in and made 
 to serve as a dormitory. Thus an improvement 
 was made in the old state of things, and the com- 
 munity moved into the new portion of the monas- 
 tery on St. Patrick’s Day, 1884, resigning the old 
 mansion to the exclusive use of guests who came to 
 make retreats. In the same year a diocesan sub- 
 scription was authorized by the late Most Rev. Dr. 
 Ryan, the ever faithful friend of the new commu- 
 nity, and almost every parish in this large diocese 
 contributed most generously. With the proceeds, 
 the loan that had been raised to build the new 
 church was nearly cleared off. 
 
 Hitherto, ladies who wished to pass a few days 
 on retreat at the monastery were prevented from 
 availing themselves of so precious an advantage by 
 want of accommodation in its vicinity ; at the 
 urgent request then of many who eagerly wished 
 for it, a handsome building, with comfortable rooms 
 for their special use, was erected just outside the 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 73 
 
 avenue gate. A lady writer thus dilates on the 
 interior of the “ Ladies’ Retreat,” no doubt as an 
 encouragement to visitors to go and see for them- 
 selves : “ Two exquisitely furnished reception 
 
 rooms open off a tiled hall — the one dining-room 
 style, ruby carpet and morocco chairs, the other an 
 aesthetic study in olive green. The bed-rooms, 
 twenty in number, open off two corridors running 
 parallel to one another, and, in truth, they are very 
 great contrasts to anchorites’ cells.” At the monas- 
 tery the lady visitors receive a cordial welcome 
 from the brothers in attendance, who assiduously 
 look after their creature comforts during their stay. 
 Special rooms are allotted to their use during the 
 day, and in the evening they retire to the Ladies’ 
 Retreat described above. A line is drawn beyond 
 which ladies are not permitted to enter ; but the 
 day runs pleasantly between attendance at the 
 Masses and offices, and their own private devotions 
 in the church, varied by a turn on the “ Mound,” a 
 pretty knoll crowned with evergreens, and inter- 
 sected by gravel walks through fragrant shrubs, 
 and provided with rustic seats whereon to rest and 
 listen to the myriad songsters of the grove. Some 
 more adventurous souls set out in company for a 
 quiet stroll by the hedgerows, or climb the hills at 
 the rere of the house, and from their summit catch 
 delightful views of the distant Devil’s Bit mountains 
 on one side, or Slieve Bloom on the other. 
 
 After the consecration of the church in 1884, the 
 Most Rev. Dr. Ryan, late Coadjutor Bishop of Kil- 
 laloe, in his paternal solicitude to promote the 
 welfare of Mount St. Joseph, expressed his desire 
 to have it canonically erected to the dignity of an 
 abbey, and for that purpose applied to the Superiors 
 
74 
 
 The Irish Cistercians 
 
 of the Order, who sanctioned it, and submitted his 
 Lordship’s request to Rome. His Holiness, Pope 
 Leo XIII., was graciously pleased to order a Brief 
 to be expedited raising the new monastery into an 
 abbey, and conferring on it all the honours, rights, 
 and privileges of abbeys of the Cistercian Order. 
 The community of Mount St. Joseph was now 
 entitled to choose an abbot, and, accordingly, in 
 August, 1887, they proceeded to an election. Their 
 choice fell on the Right Rev. J. Camillus Beardwood, 
 a professed Priest of Mount Melleray, who accepted 
 the onerous position, and was solemnly blessed on 
 the 30th October following, in the Abbey Church, 
 by Monsignor Persico, the Papal Envoy, in presence 
 of a vast assemblage, who thronged to witness so 
 novel a spectacle, the like of which had not been 
 seen in Ireland for well-nigh three hundred years. 
 With the accession of the new abbot, a fresh impulse 
 was given to the whole system under his immediate 
 direction, and very material progress has been made 
 since then. His attention was attracted at the out- 
 set to the need of supplementing labour somehow, 
 and he set himself to utilize the water-power on 
 the premises by erecting a turbine wheel, which 
 now works a saw-mill and other useful machines in 
 the farmyard. The increasing numbers of his 
 community soon demanded the building of a new 
 dormitory and refectory, which he planned after the 
 old Cistercian models. It was a serious undertaking, 
 considering his limited resources ; but his confidence 
 was in the Lord, whose resources are infinite, and 
 he knew that as it was God’s work it was bound to 
 prosper. With the same bright confidence he looks 
 forward to the completion of the monastery and of 
 the other necessary works now on hands. He relies 
 
The Church, Mount St. Joseph Abbey,. Roscrea. 
 
 See p. 75. 
 
rut imm 
 
 h M tfit 
 
 *&]7 OF 1LUM& 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 75 
 
 much also on the assistance of the devout clients of 
 Mary and St. Joseph for generous aid in so meri- 
 torious a cause. It is often said, and truly, that 
 the “ work of God progresses slowly,” and that 
 every religious undertaking of magnitude must 
 strike root under the shadow of the Cross. Mount 
 St. Joseph is no exception to the rule ; yet withal 
 it is even now predicted that before many years it 
 will be a flourishing institution, emulating the 
 fame of the old monastic bodies presided over by 
 St. Kieran at Seigher, and St. Cronan at Roscrea. 
 
 Now, the traveller who has not seen this house of 
 God during the years that have intervened since its 
 foundation, and since the spot was known as Mount 
 Heaton, will pause with wonder when on reaching 
 the bend in the avenue the massive, many-gabled 
 church bursts upon his view, with the venerable 
 mansion crowning the height at a little distance 
 beyond. But let him advance. At his left is a 
 hedged enclosure with a few raised mounds, having 
 a small metal cross at the head of each, bearing the 
 name of the brother who reposes underneath, and 
 the date of his death. This is the cemetery of the 
 monks, with its “noteless burial stones.” Over 
 the principal entrance to the church is a mural 
 tablet, stating that the sacred edifice is dedicated to 
 God under the invocation of His Immaculate Mother. 
 The church is about 200 feet long by 60 feet wide, 
 and 70 feet high. It consists of nave, aisles, 
 chancel, and transepts, like all the old Cistercian 
 Churches, but differs from them in the provision 
 for the tower, which, instead of being placed 
 at the “ crossing,” will rise over the southern tran- 
 sept, and to which access will be obtained by a 
 spiral staircase in the south-west angle. This latter 
 
76 
 
 The Irish Cistercians : 
 
 was built with the church, but the tower is a part 
 of the programme for the future. At present the 
 two magnificent bells, named respectively after St. 
 Cronan and St. Kieran, are placed outside on an 
 elevated platform, and surrounded with louvred 
 framing. In the old churches the tower rose over 
 the “ crossing ” where the transepts intersect the 
 nave, and it was sometimes called the “ lantern.” 
 
 To one standing at the western door the sight of 
 the church is imposing, with its rows of limestone 
 pillars and Gothic arches ; its clerestory windows 
 and many altars. Far away in the distance are 
 seen the high altar and three beautiful lancet win- 
 dows of stained glass, representing the principal 
 mysteries of our Blessed Saviours birth, death, and 
 resurrection. There are three altars in the portion 
 of the church allotted to the use of the people who- 
 frequent it for the sacraments and to hear Mass. 
 Three priests attend daily in the confessional from 
 early morning till night, and the convenient situa- 
 tion of the abbey renders it quite possible for in- 
 habitants of the neighbouring towns to go there by 
 rail, assist at Mass, approach the sacraments, and 
 return home by mid-day. To the rere of these 
 altars is the rood-screen, and over it, supported by 
 a beam resting on corbels, is the Holy Rood itself. 
 Beyond the rood-loft is the choir of the monks, 
 where every night and seven times each day they 
 chant the praises of the Lord. Almost all the win- 
 dows of the aisles are of stained glass, the work of 
 native artists, of the firm of Early and Powell, 
 Dublin, and the gifts of pious donors, either as 
 ex-votos or memorials to deceased relatives. The 
 subjects are chiefly Irish saints. South of the 
 church is the refectory, a spacious hall, and over it 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 77 
 
 is the dormitory, a large, well-ventilated room, 
 capable of accommodating from 70 to 80 monks. 
 The entire building is 180 feet long by 30 feet 
 wide, and 32 feet high. The external walls are 
 everywhere built of rock-faced ashlar, which pre- 
 sents a massive, bold, and yet aesthetic appearance. 
 Much has been done, but much more remains un- 
 done till God’s own time. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Life in a Trappist Monastery : a Plea for it ; and 
 Conclusion . 
 
 Dr. Johnson said “he envied not the man whose 
 piety did not receive a new glow when standing 
 amidst the ruins of Iona. ,, And why ? Was it 
 from its being the resting-place of so many kings 
 and heroes, or as being a profaned shrine, whence 
 issued age after age in the past the praise perennial 
 of the monks ? Certain it is, the learned doctor 
 wrote very strongly and favourably of the monastic 
 institute as tending to solace the cares of man’s 
 earthly condition, and as a balmy retreat in which 
 to end one’s days. Thus he writes: “In monasticism 
 the weak and timid may be easily sheltered, the 
 weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. 
 Those retreats of prayer and contemplation have 
 something so congenial to the mind of man, that 
 perhaps there is scarcely one that does not purpose 
 to close his life in pious abstraction with a few 
 associates, serious as himself.” Very orthodox all 
 this ; but rather poetic from one of his temperament. 
 
78 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 if history belies him not. Another Protestant 
 gentleman describes his sensations of unfeigned 
 delight in traversing the deserted aisles and corri- 
 dors of a ruined abbey, and expresses a desire to 
 visit it at lonely midnight, when “ churchyards 
 yawn and graves give up their dead,” in order that 
 he may be favoured with a view of the spirits of 
 the old monks, its former inhabitants, who he thinks 
 must yet haunt the spot at that uncanny hour. 
 
 To disabuse many of their erroneous notions re- 
 garding the life led in a Trappist monastery, it may 
 be well to shear off its romance, and to give an 
 epitome of the daily routine as found in practice. 
 Let one picture to himself a large, airy building, 
 with two rows of couches by the walls, each couch 
 partitioned off from the other, and occupying a 
 space of seven feet by four and a-half. The furni- 
 ture consists of a straw mattress and bolster, a blue 
 serge coverlet, and a blanket or two. The entrance 
 is screened off by a thin curtain of cotton ; a monk, 
 fully dressed, but without shoes, is enjoying the 
 sleep of the just. Fancy that it is two o’clock, a.m., 
 and that the reveille has broken in upon his peaceful 
 slumbers. Behold, he springs to his feet like a 
 vigilant soldier, arms himself with the sign of the 
 Cross, slips on his shoes, draws back the screen of 
 his couch, and silently proceeds from the dormitory 
 through the cloister, keeping close to the wall. 
 Having taken holy water at the church door, he 
 glides noiselessly up the aisle to the crossing, where 
 he salutes our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament with 
 a profound bow, seeks his stall in choir, and there, 
 at that solemn hour, in the dim but devotional light 
 of the sanctuary lamp, makes his morning oblation, 
 renewing on his knees the sacrifice of his life to his 
 

 St. Joseph Abbey, Roscrea. 
 
 See p. 75. 
 
TO LIBRA Ry 
 
 of m 
 
 kftlVERSlTY Of iLUHQIS 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 79 
 
 Maker, adoring and blessing Him. Figure after 
 figure steals in till the stalls are occupied by their 
 several owners in less than three minutes from the 
 reveille ; and then on the stilly night air comes the 
 booming of the church bell, waking echoes through 
 the woods and dells, and inviting the whole world 
 to praise the Lord, “ for He is good ; for His mercy 
 endureth for ever.” At the sound of the bell the 
 monks stand in choir facing the altar till the abbot’s 
 signal is heard ; then with one impulse they all fall 
 on their knees, and, like Daniel of old, place their 
 knuckles on the ground, and, in this reverential 
 posture, salute the Queen of Heaven by responding 
 to the Angelic Salutation (Ave Maria), which the 
 abbot intones. The Little Office of the Blessed 
 Virgin (Matins and Lauds) continues until half -past 
 two, when a half-hour is devoted to meditation, 
 that spiritual food which recreates and invigorates 
 the souls of the devout. Let the worldly man 
 approach that sacred temple then, with, perhaps, 
 the storm howling without and sighing in low 
 murmurs through the aisles, deep and lasting will 
 be the impression produced. “ Verily,” he will 
 exclaim , 44 the Lord is here, and this is the portal of 
 heaven.” Even in the summer that early hour is 
 equally calculated to fill the mind of man with 
 heavenly thought, and to lift him above the world 
 of sense. At the close of the meditation, or towards 
 three o’clock, the first faint rays of morning light 
 break in through the stained-glass windows, and 
 fill the church with fantastic shades and colours, 
 and the songsters in the groves chant their matins 
 in a flood of sweetest melody. The Canonical Office 
 commences at three, during which the monks stand, 
 except that at the Gloria , at the end of each 
 
80 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 psalm, they step out of the stalls and bow pro- 
 foundly in honour of the Adorable Trinity. They 
 sit during the Lessons. 
 
 The spirit of the world condemns as old- 
 fashioned and out of keeping with present-day 
 requirements a life like this, forgetful that a 
 life of immolation and intercessory prayer, a life 
 that day by day and year by year imposes on 
 those who adopt it the obligation of penance and 
 the singing of God’s praises in His temple, is an 
 atonement in some degree for the sins of that world 
 which neglects and offends Him. Our Blessed Lord 
 once said to St. Teresa during a vision : — “ Woe to 
 the world were it not for monks and nuns.” Picture 
 a body of men at that early hour calling in unison 
 on all creatures to bless the Lord, the heavens and 
 earth to exalt him ; and ignore, if you can, their 
 services to the Church of God, which ever sanctions 
 and safeguards such institutes. Lauds are finished 
 at four o’clock, unless the Office of the Dead is to be 
 recited, which, with the Trappists, is of frequent 
 occurrence, for deceased members of the Order, and 
 for their relatives and benefactors. Lauds over, 
 some of the priests vest for Mass; two being 
 especially appointed weekly to say Masses at the 
 Blessed Virgin’s and St. Joseph’s altars for living 
 and deceased benefactors. The lay-brothers serve 
 the Masses, and generally assist at four or five each 
 morning. The choir-monks and priests who are 
 not engaged in celebrating Mass either prolong their 
 devotions in the church or retire to the cloisters for 
 pious reading and the study of the Sacred Scriptures. 
 Masses succeed each other until half-past five o’clock, 
 when the choir brethren assemble for the Office of 
 Prime, which, as well as all the other “ Hours ” of 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 81 
 
 the day is sung. The Little Office of the Blessed 
 Virgin, too, is recited in public, and .precedes the 
 Canonical Office. Ever since the-rfoundation of the 
 Order the Holy Mother of God is honoured "by 
 the Cistercian Monks with special devotion, and 
 wonderful is the protection accorded to the institute 
 and its members by this benign Mother. When 
 giving the white habit to St. Alberic, she promised 
 to defend and protect the Order to the end of time ; 
 and when a certain Pope was bent on suppressing 
 it, she appeared to him and threatened to remove 
 him from his dignity if he persisted in his design ; 
 “ for,” said this august Mother, “ this Order is very 
 dear to me.” Prime is over at six, and all proceed 
 to Chapter, where the abbot explains the Holy 
 Rule of St. Benedict, receives the public accusation 
 of faults committed against it or against the customs 
 of the Order, and enjoins suitable penances. Mass 
 is then said in the secular church, and again at seven 
 o’clock, at which many people assist and communi- 
 cate. At a quarter-past seven a collation, consisting 
 of bread and coffee, or milk, is partaken of in the 
 refectory ; and at a quarter to eight all enter choir 
 for the Office of Tierce and the community High 
 Mass, which last about one hour and a-half. Imme- 
 diately after Mass the monks proceed to the Cowl- 
 hall, where they put off their cowls, tie up their 
 robes, put on strong shoes, and go out to the fields in 
 single file, following the superior, where they are 
 employed in various field labours according to the 
 season of the year. In the early spring, both at 
 Mount Melleray and Mount St. Joseph, they pre- 
 pare the ground for the reception of young trees, 
 which they cultivate in large numbers. Their work 
 in the fields is interrupted at half-past eleven, when 
 
82 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 they repair to the church for the Office of Sext, 
 after which there is another interval for work, during 
 which the juniors attedd their classes — Humanities, 
 Philosophy, Theology, &c. — and the priests apply 
 themselves to study in their cells. At two the 
 Office of None is sung, and all go in procession from 
 the church to the refectory for dinner. Vegetables, 
 pea-soup, milk, and bread, without any seasoning 
 or butter, constitute this, their principal meal* 
 during seven months of the year. 
 
 Dinner is followed by an interval for reading and 
 prayer till a quarter-past four, when Vespers are 
 sung ; then a quarter of an hour's meditation and 
 another interval for reading or private devotions till 
 six, when the Lecture is read in the Chapter-room 
 for another quarter of an hour, and all go to the 
 church for the Office of Compline and the Salve. 
 The Angelus concludes this well-spent day, and 
 after a short examine all leave the church, receiv- 
 ing holy water at the door from the abbot, and 
 retire to the dormitory to rest their weary bodies. 
 Needless to say, no narcotics are necessary to pro- 
 mote sleep ; for scarcely have their heads touched 
 the pillow, hard though it be, than “Nature's 
 nurse " puts in an appearance. And apropos of 
 the Trappist’s bed, it is said “ that it is hard to lie 
 on it, but sweet to die on it." This is the daily life 
 of a choir-monk from September 14th to Easter 
 Sunday, when the exercises vary somewhat, and 
 two meals are allowed, owing to the additional 
 amount of out-door work to be done. 
 
 Where are the lay-brothers all the time ? The 
 tradesmen in their neat, tidy shops ply their various 
 crafts till the bell summons the choir-monks to the 
 u Hours " in the church: Then they, either singly 
 
Past and Present, 
 
 83 
 
 or in groups, say their office, which is a certain 
 number of Paters and Aves recited on the beads. 
 Their workshops have many pious objects hung on 
 the walls, and often in the course of their toil will 
 their eyes catch sight of the hallowed symbol of 
 salvation, reminding them of Him who died for 
 their sakes, and who beholds with complacency the 
 profession of their faith in Him, and their love for 
 Him, accentuated in no mistakable manner by 
 the life they have adopted. Others are employed 
 in domestic affairs, and all give assistance in the 
 working of the farm. At monasteries of the Order 
 there are occupations found adapted to every 
 capacity. Tradesmen have ever been in requisition ; 
 and skilled hands in any department, from the 
 agricultural labourer upwards, find there a haven 
 of rest, and that peace which the world cannot give 
 nor take away. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the life practised in 
 Trappist monasteries at the present, as it was at 
 the very infancy of the Order, with a few slight 
 modifications to suit the altered times. Now, as 
 then, St. Bernard’s definition of the Order holds 
 good. “ Our Order,” says the saint, “ is humility, 
 peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Our Order is 
 silence, fasting, prayer, and labour, and, above all, 
 to hold the more excellent way, which is charity.” 
 And again the saint asks : “ Is not that a holy state 
 in which a man lives more purely, falls more rarely, 
 rises more quickly, walks more cautiously, is be- 
 dewed with grace more frequently, is purged more 
 speedily, and rewarded more abundantly ? ” To 
 those who expressed wonder at the austerities of 
 the Cistercian Rule, he replied : — “ You see our 
 cross, but not the unction which accompanies it.” 
 
84 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 And he added that a powerful incentive to embrace 
 this painful manner of life is the reflection that 
 “ no security is too great when eternity is at stake.” 
 What are you doing, young men,” he was wont to 
 exclaim, “ who offer the flowers of your youth to 
 the devil, and the dregs of old age to God ? It is 
 more secure, with Abel, to offer the first fruits to 
 God.” 
 
 At the present day these words seem to find an 
 echo and response in the hearts of many young 
 men, and at Mount St. Joseph, as well as at Mount 
 Melleray, the numbers are ever increasing. In the 
 former, the community numbers forty members, all 
 told, of whom eleven are priests. In the latter 
 famous Abbey over seventy fervent monks serve 
 the Lord with admirable regularity, having amongst 
 them nearly thirty priests. Despite penal laws, and 
 divers vicissitudes, Ireland is still a monastic nation, 
 and ever clings to the traditions which link her 
 with her glorious past. She adheres tenaciously 
 and with passionate love to the old customs — so she 
 has never swerved from her attachment to the old 
 faith, or turned aside to adopt the innovations of 
 heresy. Never for a moment did she falter when 
 in the death-grip of her persecutors : never did 
 she renounce her rights as a nation, and so to-day 
 the Irish Church stands forth, her old vitality 
 renewed and invigorated after centuries of struggle. 
 Her children manifest their fondness for all that 
 reminds them of her first apostles and early saints, 
 and with the same generosity they immolate them- 
 selves in the old manner of life that entails, in St. 
 Columba’s words, the “ White martyrdom.” 
 
 Of all the existing Orders in Ireland at present, 
 the Cistercian most closely resembles the old 
 
Interior of Church, Mount St. Joseph Abbey, Roscrea. 
 
 See p. 76. 
 
Past and Present. 
 
 85 
 
 Columbian, which prescribed frugal fare, long vigils, 
 and the daily singing of the psalms in choir. 
 Hence the reverence which it inspires in a religious 
 people. But it will be alleged that the spirit of 
 the age is opposed to Monasticism, and that monks 
 are selfish in seeking their own perfection instead 
 of helping others heavenward in some of the active 
 Orders. The world has ever been inimical to what- 
 ever curbed its vicious tendencies, and the spirit of 
 the age chafes under every restraint from whatsoever 
 quarter it comes. The precepts and counsels of the 
 Gospel reduced to practice is a constant unpleasant 
 reminder of its own delinquency; therefore is it 
 hostile to monks. Bergier, in his Dictionary of 
 Theology, at the word “ monk,” acquits them of the 
 charge of this selfishness when he writes : “ On the 
 other side, it is not true that the monks by re- 
 nouncing the world become useless to the world, or 
 to the succour of their kind ; there are several 
 ways of contributing to the common weal, and it is 
 permitted us to make a selection. It shall never be 
 useless to pray assiduously for our brethren ; to give 
 them the example of Christian virtues ; to prove to 
 them that one can find happiness, not in indulging 
 the passions, but in restraining them. This is the 
 end of the monks. Whenever they could have been 
 useful to society in any other manner they never 
 shirked it.” And St. Bernard says, in defence of 
 the isolation of monks from commerce with the 
 world, and their practice of contemplation, that, 
 t; to give one's self to God is not idleness, but is the 
 most important business of all.” 
 
 Perhaps there are few things so strikingly beau- 
 tiful in the Church of God as the delightful variety 
 of Religious Orders that deck the stainless spouse of 
 
 7 
 
86 
 
 The Irish Cistercians: 
 
 Christ ; each order, it is true, has primarily in view 
 the personal sanctification of its members, but the 
 ways and means are different. Cardinal Bona, 
 himself a Cistercian Monk, writes : “ The Church, 
 
 like a garden of pleasures, is adorned with many- 
 coloured flowers, represented by the varieties of 
 her sacred orders and rites.” And a Carthusian 
 Father remarks: “ The difference of monastic orders 
 arises from the difference of dispositions of men ; 
 for what pleases one would not be grateful to 
 another ; what would benefit one would be hurtful 
 to another. Some like solitude, others society ; one 
 loves contemplation, another action ; and it was for 
 this reason that the Holy Fathers instituted so 
 many different modes of life, as conducive to salva- 
 tion.” The, Cistercian Order has received the sanction 
 of one hundred Popes, from Pascal II. to Leo XIII. 
 The sphere of its utility is not diminished to-day 
 any more than in mediaeval times ; and especially 
 in this age is the example of men who renounce 
 the world and themselves, and practise literally the 
 Gospel counsels, of absolute necessity against the 
 laxity of the times. Whilst the zealous missionary 
 is being spent with toil, the prayer of the retired 
 Trappist strengthens his hands, and often that 
 irresistible force effects more conversions than the 
 burning words of apostolic men. St. Teresa in her 
 cell could number as many neophytes as fell to the 
 lot of the glorious apostle of the Indies, St. Francis 
 Xavier. Each monastery is like a city on a 
 mountain-top ; it signals to men both near and afar 
 to seek the things that are above, to fly the things 
 that prejudice their salvation. Hear what a Pro- 
 testant has to say of them : “ Somehow we read 
 without much surprise the ascetic and self-denying 
 
Past and Present, 
 
 87 
 
 lives of those who existed in times long antecedent 
 to our own ; and though we admire and wonder at 
 the results of a faith and love which exalted them 
 so far above the worldlings of their day, we find 
 no difficulty in believing the narrations of their 
 deeds of heroism. But when we find the very orders 
 founded by them in extremest austerity brought 
 down in the unchanged traditions of their severity to 
 our own day, and see men carrying out these princi- 
 ples, cognizant of all the refinements and luxury of 
 the nineteenth century, and surrounded by the mat- 
 ter-of-fact class who characterize religious devotion 
 as romance, or the luxurious and worldly-minded 
 class who look upon it as contemptible insanity, or 
 the self-righteous who behold it with envy, and un- 
 generously cavil at all who differ from their own 
 bigoted notions ; then, indeed, we begin to inquire 
 what there is in a religion which can perpetuate 
 the virtues of mediaeval times, and enable them still 
 to flourish in this profligate age.” 
 
 That the Trappists do not neglect the means of 
 advancement, intellectual and otherwise, may be 
 seen from the fact that in twenty-two houses of 
 the Order printing presses are in full swing, and 
 that to many of them schools, principally of agri- 
 culture, are attached. If the man who causes a 
 blade of grass to grow is a benefactor to his kind, 
 how beneficent, then, is the avocation of those who 
 study and reduce to practice the most approved 
 methods of tillage, and, by their example and 
 encouragement, give a stimulus to the advancement 
 of others. 
 
 The Order is taking fast hold again on the affec- 
 tions of bright and generous hearts, who recognise 
 in its ancient constitutions ready means to secure 
 
88 
 
 The Irish Cistercians t 
 
 that peace and comfort which, according to St. Paul, 
 abound in those in whom the sufferings of Christ 
 abound. They feel called to adopt the rigid paths 
 of mortification and corporal austerities, being con- 
 vinced, with St. Chrysostom, that “ fasting purifies 
 the mind, calms the senses, subjects the flesh to the 
 spirit, renders the heart humble and contrite, dis- 
 perses the clouds of concupiscence, extinguishes the 
 lust of passion, and lights up the fire of chastity.” 
 
 Solitude, too, is another powerful means of pro- 
 moting the spiritual interests of religious men. 
 Pere Ravignan calls it the “ mother-country of the 
 strong.” “ Silence,” he says, “ is their prayer.” 
 And even a profane author writes: “What a strange 
 power there is in silence ! How many resolutions 
 are formed, how many sublime conquests are 
 effected, during that pause when the lips are closed, 
 and the soul secretly feels the eye of her Maker 
 on her ! ” 
 
 At the present time the number of Cistercian 
 monasteries throughout the world amounts to 
 eighty-two, of which fifty-two are governed by 
 abbots, and the remaining thirty by titular priors 
 or other superiors. There are in all 3,869 monks, 
 of whom 1,179 are priests. The “devout female 
 sex” is represented by 114 convents of Cistercian 
 nuns, inhabited by 3,270 sisters. Of the superioresses 
 who govern these houses, eighty-five are abbesses ; 
 all the others get the title of prioress. 
 
 Hitherto the reformed Cistercians of La Trappe 
 have been governed by Vicars-General, one for each 
 of the three congregations ; viz., of Melleray, 
 Septfons, and Westmal. At the instance, however, 
 of the Holy See, all the superiors of these three 
 congregations were invited to hold a Plenary General 
 
Trappist Monks Haymaking. 
 

 
Past and Present. 
 
 89 
 
 Chapter at Rome, in the month of October, 1892, 
 with a view to assimilating their observances and 
 uniting under one head, who should thenceforth be 
 called General. The wishes of the Holy Father 
 were fully realized, and he issued a Brief, dated 
 17th March, 1893, uniting the three observances in 
 one Order, and confirming the election of the Right 
 Reverend Dom Sebastian, Abbot of Septfons, in 
 France, as First General of the Reformed Cistercians 
 of La Trappe. 
 
 Day by day, and several times each day, do the 
 fervent prayers of the Trappists ascend for the 
 needs of Holy Church, as also fbr those who by 
 their alms assist them to carry on their charitable 
 works for the poor, and to follow out their calling. 
 Their benefactors, living and dead, have the advan- 
 tage of special Masses, Communions, Offices and 
 Prayers enjoined on their behalf, besides being 
 made participators in all the good works of the 
 monks, according to St. Bernards expresss wish. 
 “We eat their bread,” said the saint; “we ought 
 also eat their sins.” The poor have at every monas- 
 tery of the Order a special brother told off to wait 
 on them exclusively, and to minister to their wants 
 with all charity and kindness. 
 
 Abbe Ratisbonne’s vindication of the Cistercian 
 Order, in his “ Life of St. Bernard,” may aptly 
 conclude these pages on the Cistercians, past and 
 present. 
 
 “ The merely rational man does not understand 
 the spiritual man’s austerities ; he sees no further 
 than the surface of things, and condemns as blame- 
 able extravagances the mortifications which tend 
 to purify his earthly life. Confounding, in his 
 ignorance, human nature, as it came out of the 
 
90 
 
 3 0112 077828322 
 
 The Irish Cistercians. 
 
 hands of God, with human nature now contaminated 
 by sin, he asks if God endowed it with so marvel- 
 lous a sensibility never to know enjoyment ? — if 
 God gave it organs never to be used ? — if God can 
 take delight in the sufferings of man ? This is to 
 ask why Christianity was founded on the Cross ? — 
 why Christ Himself suffered and died ? The 
 doctrine of suffering and tears is not an after- 
 refinement of Christian morality ; it is the expres- 
 sion and promulgation of the very laws and 
 inevitable realities of our earthly existence. This 
 mortal life, which terminates in death, is but a 
 course of suffering necessary for the destruction of 
 our perverted nature. Blessed are they who give 
 themselves voluntarily to this work, instead of 
 waiting for the last day to do by violence that 
 which should have been the gradual work of a 
 whole life/' 
 
 End. 
 
 Laus Deo semper .