Boyle Abbey
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Mainistir na Búille | |
Monastery information | |
---|---|
Order | Cistercians |
Established | 1218 |
Disestablished | 1592 |
Diocese | Elphin |
People | |
Founder(s) | Mac Diarmada family |
Architecture | |
Status | Inactive |
Style | Cistercian |
Site | |
Location | Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland |
Coordinates | 53°58′25″N 8°17′49″W / 53.97361°N 8.29694°W |
Public access | Yes |
Official name | Boyle Abbey |
Boyle Abbey (Irish: Mainistir na Búille)[1] is a ruined Cistercian friary located in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland. It was founded by Saint Malachy in the 12th century.
History
In the 12th century, Saint Malachy became aware of two new monastic orders in France, the Cistercians and the Augustinians, and he decided to introduce both orders to Ireland in an effort to reform the old Irish church which he felt had fallen out of line with much of the rest of Christian Europe.[citation needed]
The first Cistercian Abbey was founded at Mellifont, County Louth in 1142.[2] St Malachy made arrangements that young aspirant Irish men who want to become Cistercians should be trained in St Bernard’s own monastery of Clairvaux or one of its daughter houses.[citation needed]
The Cistercians were invited to found an abbey in Moylurg as a daughter house of Mellifont. In 1148 Peter O’Mordha and twelve companions were sent to Connaught.<Annals of Boyle><1148> They tried Grellachdinach, Buniffi and Drumcunny before settling at Boyle. The monks being vegetarian required an amount of arable land adjacent to a monastery as well as the facility to be able to channel running water to the establishment. They were offered the Celtic monastery called Eas Mic nEirc or Assylin near a major river crossing called of Ath-Da-Larg or ‘the ford with two forks’, where roads leading north, south, east and west all converged. This monastery had either very few monks or none at all. Little is known of this monastery, beyond two references in the various annals and a visit by Saint Columba in 560.<Admmanan><Life of St Columba> So Taoiseach McGreevy, a local chieftain, negotiated and gave this Celtic monastery in "pure free and perpetual alms" (no strings attached) to the Cistercians. (Documentary evidence shows that the McGreevy's were still in this district one hundred years later, ca. 1258.)
The Cistercians were welcomed and over many years were given land grants of about 50,000 acres (200 km2) scattered west of the River Shannon in 27 out-farms called granges. The Cistercians found the site of Assylin unsuitable owing to its geography, it is a height above the river and eventually built on the present site a few kilometres to the east which was more conducive to their plans which dictated that running water should be on the site for cooking, washing and toilet requirements. It was also more suitable for essential ancillary facilities such as mills and fish ponds, one of which existed until relatively recent times.
Boyle Abbey was founded in 1161.[2]
The monastery prospered in the initial period, they made two foundations:
When the abbey was suppressed under Queen Elizabeth and the remaining assets given away, the new owner allowed the Cistercians to remain. The last abbot Gelasius Ó Cuileanáin was executed in Dublin in 1580.<Hogan Flannan><Gelasius O’Cullenan O.Cist., Martyr—Abbot of Boyle>
Architecture
The monastery was laid out according to the usual Cistercian plan, a church on the north side of a roughly rectangular cloister, with a chapter house for meetings of the monks on the second side, a kitchen and a refectory on the third, and probably storehouses and dormitory above on the fourth. Only small parts of the cloister survive, as it was turned into a barracks by the Elizabethans in 1592, and again by the Cromwellians who besieged it in 1645.
This, along with possible later stone quarrying, resulted in little of the cloister-garth surviving. Despite this, the ruins are impressive, dominated by a squat square tower that was added above the crossing sometime in the thirteenth century. The church adheres to the Cistercian canon in having a nave with side aisles, a
Today
The Abbey is now a
Australian connection.
A small piece of stone from the Abbey was carried to the other side of the world. Being placed on the monumental headstone of an Irishman Bartholomew Higgins in the Rookwood Necropolis Sydney Australia.
References
Notes
- ^ "Mainistir na Búille/Boyle". logainm.ie. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
- ^ a b Moore 2015, p. 2.
Sources
- Boyle Abbey Archived 26 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine at Ireland West
- Annals of Boyle
- Adammnan, Life of Columba.
- Annals of Lough Cé.
- Annals of Connaught
- Annals of the Four Masters
- Hogan Flannan, Gelasius O’Cullenan O.Cist., Martyr—Abbot of Boyle, From Hallel, A Review of Monastic Spirituality and Liturgy.
- Moore, Fionnbarr (2015). "The Cistercian Abbey of Boyle, Co. Roscommon". Archaeology Ireland. ISSN 0790-892X.
- Morgan Conal, The history of the Cistercian Abbey of Boyle, 1161-1584 (Roscommon Library 2017)
- O’Dwyer B W, Letters from Ireland 1228-1229 (Kalamazoo 1982).
- Sharkey P.A., The Heart of Ireland (Boyle 1927)
See also
- List of abbeys and priories in Ireland (County Roscommon)
Further reading
- Kalkreuter, Britta (2001). Boyle Abbey and the School of the West. Bray, Co. Wicklow: Wordwell. ISBN 1869857380.
External links
- Boyle Abbey - official site at Heritage Ireland