St. Mary's Abbey, Glencairn
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Saint Mary's Abbey, sometimes known as Glencairn Abbey,[1] is a monastic community of nuns located in the townland of Glencairn, County Waterford, in Ireland. The community belongs to the Trappist branch of the Cistercian order, thus the nuns are also referred to as Trappistines.
Location
[edit]The abbey is located in the townland of Glencairn in County Waterford.[2] The townland, which is in electoral division of Castlerichard[3] (the original name of part of the abbey complex),[4] had a population of 59 people as of the 2011 census.[5]
History
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The original community of this monastic tradition had been welcomed to Ireland by St. Malachy in 1142. The monastery was founded in 1932 by nuns of Holy Cross Abbey—located at that time in Stapehill, Dorset, England—which itself had been founded in 1802 by a small group of refugee nuns from France, led by a nun who had been imprisoned in the Bastille during the French Revolution, and narrowly escaped being sent to the guillotine.[6] The land for the St Marys Abbey, had been bought for them by the Cistercian Mount Melleray Abbey.[7] The monks from Mount Melleray used to operate the farm. The chapel at Glencairn was built in 1930.[8]
This community was the first house of Cistercian nuns to be founded in Ireland since the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII (1536–41). To date it remains the only Cistercian community of nuns in Ireland. It went on to found Mount Saint Mary's Abbey in Wrentham, Massachusetts, in 1949, the first community of Cistercian nuns in the United States; and St Justina's monastery, Abakaliki, Nigeria in 1982.[9]
In 2014 the abbey featured in the RTE Would you Believe documentary School of Love.[10][11]
The community consists of 29 nuns, who support themselves in standard Cistercian practice through the farming of their 200-acre farm,[12] the baking of altar breads and providing greeting and spiritual cards for all occasions, both printed and handcrafted.[9]
Abbesses
[edit]In 2019, Sr. Marie Fahey was re-elected abbess, for her fourth six-year term. Former abbesses and superiors include:
- Sr Maura Mary Perry — 1932–1935 (Superior); 1935–1935 (Abbess)[13]
- Sr Gertrude Purcell — 1935–1944
- Sr Margaret Shaw — 1944–1950
- Sr Gertrude Purcell (2) — 1950–1955
- Sr Agnes Fahey — 1955–1958 (Sup. ad nutum)
- Sr Margaret Shaw (2) — 1958–1965
- Sr Imelda Power — 1965–1983
- Sr Dominic Lee — 1983–1995
- Sr Agnes O’Shea — 1995–2001
- Sr Marie Fahey OCSO[14] — 2001–present
References
[edit]- ^ "Glencairn Abbey". visitwaterford.com. Waterford City & County Council. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
- ^ "Power (Kilfane & Glencairn Abbey)". Landed Estates Database. University of Galway. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
- ^ "Glencairn Townland, Co. Waterford". townlands.ie. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
- ^ "Saint Mary's Abbey, Glencairn, Waterford". buildingsofireland.ie. National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
- ^ "CD171 - Waterford Population by Private Households, Occupied and Vacancy Rate". data.gov.ie. Central Statistics Office. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
Population [..] Townlands [..] Glencairn, Castlerichard, Co. Waterford [..] 59
- ^ "Website of the Trappist Order". ocso.org.
- ^ McCormack, Claire (13 June 2017). "Sisters are doing it for themselves: Meet Waterford's farming nuns". independent.ie. Farming Independent.
- ^ "Saint Mary's Abbey, Glencairn, Waterford". buildingsofireland.ie. National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
- ^ a b "Website of the Abbey". glencairnabbey.org.
- ^ "School of love - A Would you Believe Special". presspack.rte.ie. RTÉ. 20 April 2014.
- ^ "School of Love - Would you Believe (RTÉ)". Glencairn Abbey Youtube Channel – via youtube.com.
- ^ O'Sullivan, Valerie (25 December 2017). "A Year in the Life of Glencairn Abbey (Favourite Books of the Year)". Irish Times.
- ^ "Glencairn". Ordre Cistercien de la Stricte Observance: OCSO.
- ^ Harris, Arlene (27 April 2014). "The nuns story what life is really like in our only womens monastery". Irish Independent.
External links
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