March 18 is the feast of St Christian O’Conarchy of Mellifont Abbey, Co Louth. Mellifont was the first Cistercian foundation in Ireland, established in 1142 by Saint Malachy of Armagh with some help from the French connection he had established with Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. In the article below English writer Marian Nesbitt looks at the coming of the Cistercian Order to Ireland. She begins by acknowledging the chief founder of the Order, Saint Robert of Molesme, but naturally also pays tribute to the English monk, Stephen Harding. From there she sketches out the history of the Order in Ireland and takes in its famous foundations and some of its martyrs:

The Coming of the White Monks to Erin

The Celebrated ‘Abbey of the Virgin Mary

BY MARIAN NESBITT

IT is a well-established fact that practically all churches in the Cistercian Order are dedicated to Our Lady; and, it is scarcely necessary to add, that this same austere Order was in reality an offshoot of the great Benedictine stem, St. Robert, himself a Benedictine, being its holy founder. His original intention had been simply to carry out the Rule of his Father, St. Benedict, in all its primitive strictness; but, at the very outset, his plans were frustrated by the difficulty of finding monks willing to second his efforts (writes “Ave Maria.”) Such being the case, he, together with a few zealous companions, all anxious, like himself, to pursue a more rigid mode of life, established a monastery in the forest of Solesmes, near Chatillon, in the year 1075. Here the little community led an existence completely eremitical in its solitude and seclusion; but hot for long. Robert was not yet satisfied that their method of observance was in perfect harmony with the spirit of St. Benedict, and he therefore withdrew to a desolate spot called Citeaux (Citercium), some distance from Dijon, and there founded another monastery for those, says one of his biographers, “who should desire to follow the Benedictine Rule in its utmost rigor,” and who were destined to become known in.after time as Cistercians. It will be remembered that the saintly Stephen Harding, a monk from Sherborne Abbey, in England, and one of St. Robert’s successors at Citeaux, did wonders for the spread and perfection of the still new institute, besides being that member of his Order who had the honor of receiving into religion the young St. Bernard “with thirty of his kinsmen.” Stephen, too, it was who, later on, sent St. Bernard to found the famous Abbey of Clairvaux, whence came the first colony of Cistercians to Ireland, their appearance in the Island of Saints being coincident with that revival of monasticism brought about by the fervent efforts of St. Malachy O’Moore.

First Home.
It would seem that their first home was the celebrated “Abbey of the Virgin Mary” in Dublin, a house which, according to some writers, was originally established for Benedictines by Danes converted to Christianity; but an older tradition claims that it was the “pious work” of certain Irish princes as far back as 948. However this may be, it is admitted beyond question that, owing to the personal influence of St. Malachy, the noted abbey passed into the possession of the Cistercians in 1139. Nor is this surprising, when we remember that, as the dear friend of St. Bernard, Malachy was well aware of the saintliness and extraordinary adherence to religious discipline of the monks of Clairvaux. Their spirit was entirely in sympathy with the great object he had in view, viz., to promote the sanctification of the people by the presence of these cloistered men whose example and whose prayers night and day must surely oring showers of heavenly blessings on the land which was so dear to him.

“St. Mary’s,” we read, “was richly endowed, and its abbot took rank as a peer of, the realm.” Far, however, above these temporal advantages was its splendid record when the dark days of persecution descended, upon it. It was the first house of the Order to be seized by the sacrilegious commissioners of Henry VIII., and, of the fifty monks dwelling there at the moment, all were captured, cast, into prison to endure the unspeakable horrors of a Medieval dungeon; and finally led out to receive the martyr’s crown at a place called Ballyboght, some time in the year 1541.

Another great and well-known abbey, founded for the Cistercians at the request of St. Malachy, was that of Mellifont, County Louth. The most generous benefactor of this monastery, which was charmingly situated in a lovely valley — for St. Bernard loved the valley and Benedict the hill,— was Donogh O’Carrol, Prince, of Oriel; and Mellifont’s first community consisted of monks trained by St. Bernard himself at Clairveux. Amongst these religious were the four young Irishmen, sent thither by St. Malachy. The solemn ceremony of the consecration of the great abbey church took place in the presence of a large number of priests and prelates, as well as of the King of Ireland and many princes. We learn, moreover, that the royal offering on this occasion, made by King Murtagh, was “a hundred and forty oxen, sixty ounces of pure gold, and a townland near Drogheda.”

Bectiff.
On the banks of the Boyne, County Meath, there are the ruins of what was once a magnificent Cistercian abbey— that, namely, of Bectiff, endowed for the White Monks by Murchard O’Meaghljn, King of Meath, and dedicated to Our Lady (A.D. 1146). Beaubec, another Cistercian house in the same county, was built by Walter de Lacy, Lord of Meath, in the Thirteenth Century, and dedicated to the Blessed Mother of God and St. Laurence; whilst in the adjoining County of West Meath, yet another was erected for the same Order, on the site of the ancient monastery of Kilbeggan, founded by St. Becan in the Sixth Century. Again the community was supplied from Mellifont, and again the Immaculate Virgin was chosen as the patroness.

The abbey at Baltinglass, County Wicklow, endowed about 1148 by Diarmit MacMurrough, is interesting because an incident in connection with it gives us a vivid picture of the character of its inmates. When John Comyn, the English Archbishop of Dublin, convened a synod in Christ Church, Albinus O’Mulloy, Abbot of Baltinglass, and afterwards Bishop of Ferns, was present, and protested so convincingly and courageously ‘against certain abuses and scandals existing among the English and Welsh clergy that he succeeded in getting those evils removed,” despite the fact that Archbishop Comyn had insisted on the famous Gerald Barry coming forward to refute the charges made. Barry, though he did his utmost to defend his countrymen, at the same time felt compelled, in the interests of both justice and honor, to speak ‘in the highest terms of the exemplary lives of the devoted priests of Ireland, who “excelled in all virtues, being most diligent in prayer and study, and opposed to all worldliness; their austerity, too, was so great,” he added, that “most of them fasted until dusk every day.”

There was a very large and important Cistercian abbey at Boyle, County Roscommon. This house was endowed by MacDermott, Prince of Moylurg, and soon became one of the most renowned monastic institutions in Europe. Its church was consecrated with stately ceremonial, and placed under the protection of Our Lady. Seven years later however, in 1235, the cloistered calm of these holy religious was rudely broken. The English troops, commanded by Maurice Fitzgerald and Mac William Bourke, sacked the glorious abbey; though “the effects of their ravages,” we are told, were “soon repaired by the piety of the Irish faithful.” There are a number of noted and interesting persons whose names are connected with Boyle; amongst them one of its abbots, Dunchad O’Daly, known as the “Ovid of Ireland.”

Again, Dermot Roe MacDermot— a descendant of the noble founder — heard the divine call, and gladly resigned his rank and all earthly pleasures and ambitions (for he, too, was Prince of Moylurg), in order to become a monk in the abbey which had probably benefited not a little by his generosity while he was still in the world. Another member of the MacDermot family, Tumaltach, was abbot at the time of the dissolution or suppression of the monastery in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; whilst his successor, Father Gelasius O’Cullenan, who belonged to an old Connaught family, was to shed, not only the glory of a saintly and illustrious name, but the far higher honor of a sanctity crowned by martyrdom, on this celebrated house over which he had ruled wisely and so well.

Wonderful and Mysterious.
With extraordinary courage, he demanded that all the monastic lands and buildings should be restored to their rightful possessors by the apostate nobleman on whom they had been bestowed; and so wonderful and mysterious are the workings of divine grace, that this royal favorite gave back everything granted to him by Elizabeth’s agents; but what is more, his intercourse with the abbot, and the influence of the latter, or, rather, the beauty of his holiness, combined with the austere life led by him and his community, so wrought upon the erstwhile heretic that “he himself actually took the religious habit among them, after having given a most; edifying proof of the sincerity of his conversion.” Nevertheless, the insensate bigotry, so relentless and so vigilant in those so-called “spacious days,” was soon destined to put the abbot’s intrepidity and fortitude to a still more terrible test.

Father Gelasius was arrested in Dublin (15S0), liberty and all kinds of honours and rewards being offered to him on condition that he would renounce his faith as a Catholic, and conform to the new religion. Needless to say that he scorned to listen to such proposals, and was immediately sentenced to a most cruel death, which he met with such unshrinking courage, calmness and, indeed, holy joy, that all who were privileged to behold him before and during that awful ordeal, unhesitatingly declare him to have been “the pride of the Cistercian Order, the light of that century and the glory of all Ireland.”

Another of the earliest Cistercian houses established in Erin was undoubtedly that of Odorney, County Kerry, endowed by a member of the FitzMaurice family, in 1154; and, of course, dedicated to Our Lady. From the fact that its abbot took rank as a peer of the realm, it is evident that this abbey was one of those important houses of the Order. Here, too, that zealous prelate, Christian O’Conarchy, Bishop of Lismore and Legate Apostolic in Ireland, retired towards the close of his episcopal labors, and in this holy retreat died (1186).

There were two Cistercian monasteries in County Longford, both dedicated to the Mother of Our Lord — one at Shruel, and the other at Lerrha. The latter abbey suffered severely at the hands of the rough soldiers of Edward Bruce.

The White Monks at Newry.
The abbey of the White Monks at Newry was also one of the early Cistercian foundations. It was endowed by Maurice MacLoughlin, “Monarch of Ireland.” From its annals, we learn that in 1162 its library was destroyed by fire as well, as the “Yew Tree” said to have been planted by St. Patrick, and from which Newry derives its name.This was one of the monasteries which, because it had been established for the “mere Irish,” King Edward III., with a singular lack of what has been termed ‘the English love -of fair play,’ robbed it of all its possessions, granting most of the land to one of his English subjects. We also find that, by an iniquitous act, made some years later, Irish subjects were excluded from certain monasteries even in their own land. Such was the case in the Cistercian abbey at Tracton, County Cork.

The Abbey of Ashroe on the River Erne, near Ballyshannon in County Donegal, was built by Roderick O’Cananan, Prince of Tyrconnell, and was the home of many noted personages. A king of Tyrconnell, Donnell O’Donnell, went there to prepare for his end in 1240. Another member of the same family, Thomas MacCormac O’Donnell, an abbot of this monastery, renowned for his sanctity and learning, was consecrated Bishop of Raphoe, and another of its monks governed the See of Achonry. The whole of the property belonging to Ashroe was seized by the Elizabethan plunderers; and when the protectors of the monks, the noble O’Neills and O’Donnells, had at last been driven by the English into exile, the abbey was ruthlessly pillaged, and four Fathers, amongst whom was Father Edmund Mulligan, ‘the oldest of the Cistercians in Ireland,’ at different times during that awful period of persecution, laid down their lives for the faith they had professed with such heroic constancy.

The Abbey of Corcumroe, County Clare, “was royally endowed for the Order of Citeaux.” It, too, was under the patronage of Our Lady, and went by the name of “Abbey of the Fertile Rock,” probably because it stood not far from a celebrated holy well dedicated to St. Patrick on the very summit of Rosraly Mountain; while the surrounding neighborhood bore the charming title of the “Glen of the Monks.”

The Roches founded an abbey for the Cistercians at Fermoy, on the Blackwater; and as the years went on, Cistercian abbeys sprang up in other parts of the country, bringing holiness and learning wheresoever they were. We can not wonder, therefore, at the horror and indignation expressed by even the most hostile of the modern critics of the Catholic Church when reflecting on those wanton sacrileges and insensate destruction of , all that was beautiful and of prayer, as well as the run of the glorious buildings themselves, brought about by the suppression of the monasteries.

It has been truly said that “the priests of England and Scotland were by no means indifferent to the calamity which had fallen upon them also; but the efforts of heroic confessors among them could not prevail against the self-interest blinding the ignorant people of both those countries to the value of the treasure of which they were being deprived.” In Ireland, however, the fervour of the faithful, their devotedness to the suffering servants of God, and the immensity of the sacrifices they were called upon to make, seemed only to render more precious in their eyes that priceless heritage of Christian truth which they have preserved unsullied through the most cruel persecutions that it was their lot to endure.

The Cistercian Order is now represented in Erin by the Monasteries of Mount Melleray and Roscrea.

Freeman’s Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 – 1932), Thursday 17 February 1927, page 41

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