CISTERCIAN MONASTERY , ABBEYSHRULE
At twilight on 31st of December last in the final remaining hours of the dying Millennium
a large group of
parishioners held a prayerful vigil in the interior of the ancient Abbey. Thoughts
wandered to the history of a thousand
years passing. Ancestors buried in the immediate vicinity were remembered in prayers. Many
reflected on a thought that
if the very walls could speak what a story they might tell. What is not in doubt is the
fact that the very site on which we
stood was a place of Christian Worship at the dawn of the dying millennium.
It was not by chance that the Cistercians still some 200 years away chose this elevated
sand hill as the place where
they founded one of the very first daughter houses to Mellifont only some eight years
after establishing the mother
House at that latter place near Drogheda.
The origins of the Cistercian ethos in Ireland can be traced to a pilgrimage to Rome made
by St Malachy of Armagh
in 1140 ad. Having stopped at Clairvaux near Dijon in France he persuaded the great
St.Bernard to send some of his
religious followers to Ireland. Shrule Abbey became one of the first of eight daughter
houses to Mellifont in 1150
having been endowed by O`Farrell , Prince of the autonomous region of Annally (now
Co.Longford. ) The original
buildings were of a standard plan. Practically all have vanished save for the outlines of
some foundations. There
would have been a school for postulants ,a guesthouse, a water mill apart from the usual
dormitory ,cloisters ,
church etc. Very little of what would have been the impressive monastic structure remains.
The stone carved arches
of the cloisters were most likely flattened in the recorded despoilations of the abbey by
hostile raiders chiefly an
army of English speaking Norman descendants from the Lordship of Meath in 1476. Over the
centuries further
ravages occurred probably by hostile predators and indeed souvenir hunters leaving only
the bones of a once proud
edifice remaining. During the early part of the seventeenth century (1600-1650) the great
archway under the bell
tower facing east/west was blocked up leaving the rim only visible to-day. The original
church was turned into a
chapel of worship. (for who we are uncertain , a parish priest lies buried by the outside
south wall).
Immediately after its foundation the abbey enjoyed a golden period. It was one of the few
abbeys to escape the audit
of Stephen de Lexington , an English Abbot who carried out a visitation in 1215 purging
the order houses of
non-conformity to the Cistercian Code. In fact Shrule Abbey emerged with an enhanced
reputation and was
delegated to , in effect , take over the troubled Boyle Abbey and supervise the election
of an Abbot and conformity
there. In addition the Abbey was only one of three in the country to be allowed use the
Irish tongue in its liturgy.
Unhappily this was not to last and in common with many other houses the ruling class , in
this case the O`Farrell
,foisted abbots of their own to the detriment of religion. The names of abbots of the
thirteenth century and the
records of that period were destroyed in the great destruction of Mellifont in 1539 during
the reign of Henry VIII.
Abbots of the fourteenth century survive as follows ,-Luke (1302) ,Murchadh Mac Cathail
O`Fearghail (died 1354/5),
Muirgheas (died before 1400) , Reamonn O` Fearghail (appointed abbot 1400 ) , Gilbert
O`Maolchallan (abbot 1412
to 1428 ) Clanan O`Fearghail (abbot 1428-30 ) , Muirgheas Oscray (abbot 1430 - ) Clanan
O`Fearghail ( to 1455)
Cormac Mac Muircheartaigh (appointed 1455 ) ,Momhnall O`Fearghaill ( appointed 1485 may
have been the last
abbot as monastic life suffered a sharp deterioration at this point in history. At its
dissolution in 1539 the abbey held
an estate of over 4,000 acres covering most of the area of the half parish of Abbeyshrule
and including a significant
outsettlement at Ballnamanagh (the town of the Monks) beyond Colehill (219acres).
Eventually, after a few changes
the estate was granted to the Chief Justice , Robert Dillon of Kilkenny West. His
descendants were ennobled as the
Earls of Roscommon for services to the new religion and the King. They held on to their
estates until the Williamite
Wars when the then earl served in the privy council of James II. The lands appear sold at
that time to bankroll the
Jacobite cause.They passed from Nuttall to Choppyne to Harman (nee Shepherd). This started
the King Harman
Dynasty which survived in part as landlordship until the early part of the 1940`s. To-day
the abbey grounds are
vested in the local authority Longford County Council.
It would be fair to say that a sizable portion of the families of South County Longford
have ancestors buried within
its precinct. A small local group have been pressing for a badly needed preservation
program to protect what is
arguably South Co.Longford`s greatest historical site.
NOTE. The notes on the early part of the abbey are as a result of a collaboration between
the distinguished Cistercian
Historian , the late Fr. Colmcille , O.C. of New Mellifont and myself in the mid 1960`s