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MELLIFONT ABBEY,
GO. LOUTH:
h ||ttitt$ anil A^%ti(mUu.
A GUIDE
AND
POPULAR HISTORY.
• A house of praj'er, once consecrate
To God's high service — desolate !
A ruiu where once stood a shrine !
Bright with the Presence all divine I"
(}V. Chalterton Dix.)
i'ermtssu superiorum.
^ublis^jb bg
JAMES DUFFY & CO., Ltd., DUBLIN,
FOR
THE CISTERCIANS,
MOUNT ST. JOSEPH ABBEY, ROSCRL'A.
1897.
prinlfb bii
Edmund Burke & Co.,
6l & 62 GREAT STRAND STREET, DUBLIN.
Annex
INTRODUCTION.
In the following pages an attempt is made to describe
the ruins of Mellifont as they now appear, and to explain
the uses, or probable uses, that the buildings yet remain-
ing must have served when the monks dwelt there.
Obviously, some important structural alterations were
made when changing the venerable Abbey into a fortified
residence ; nevertheless the ruins exhibit, on the whole,
the characteristics of the primitive plan and style in
which Mellifont, as well as all the Cistercian monasteries
both in this country and on the Continent, were built.
The explanation is founded on reliable authority, being
gleaned from most authentic sources, such as, Les Monu-
ments Primitifs de La Regie Cistercienne, which is a
copy of the Rule drawn up by the Founders of the
Order ; the Monasticon Cisterciense ; Violet Le Due ;
Juhainville, Etudes sur VEtat interieur des Abbayes
Cisterciennes au XII. et au XIII. siecle ; Meglinger,
Iter Cisterciense ; La Vie de Saint Bernard, by Vacan-
dard, etc.
As no Records, or Chronicles of Mellifont now exist,
the historical part of the compilation has been derived
from different sources, chiefly from our old Annals — The
Annals of the Four Masters; those of Boyle, of
St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin; Clyn and Douiing's ; and
of Clonmacnois ; Ware's Bishops, etc. ; the Miscellaiiy of
2057981
vi PREFACE.
the ArchcGological Society; Ussher's Sylloge ; Morrin's
Calendars of Patent Rolls, etc. The part relating to
disciplinary subjects was drawn principally from Martene's
Thesaurus Anecdotorum, Vol. IV., which contains the
Decrees of the General Chapter of the Cistercian Order,
also, from the Constitutiones et Privilegia, Menologium,
and the Fasiculus Sanctoruni Ordinis Cisterciensis,
by Henriquez ; Originum Cisterciensium, tom. I , Jan-
auschek ; VHistoire de La Trappe, Gaillardin, etc. The
vindication of monks in general, from the aspersions cast
on them by their enemies, and the facts appertaining to
the Rebellion of 1641, are borrowed exclusively from
Protestant sources, — Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum,
Tanner's Kotitia Monastica, Maitland's Dark Ages,
Leiand's History of Ireland, Temple's History of the
Insurrection, 1641, Tichborne's History of the Siege of
Drogheda, Carte's Ormond, etc.
These by no means exhaust the list of authors con-
sulted and ^^tilised, but they show how far apart the
pieces lay which have been stitched together to form a
consecutive narrative. The compiler has endeavoured to
compress the matter into the smallest possible space in
order to make the little book accessible to all at a
moderate price ; and he has preferred to allow^ others to
speak rather than to thrust his own opinions on the
reader. Finally, he has borne in mind throughout, the
trite saying, Magna est Veritas et prwvalebit.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
THE RUINS ...... 1
CHAPTER II.
bT. MALACHY FOUNDS MELLIFONT . . .33
CHAPTER III.
AN EPITOME OF THE RULE OBSE*RVED AT MELLIFONT AT
ITS FOUNDATION, AND FOR ABOUT A CENTURY AND
A HALF AFfERWARDS . . . .41
CHAPTER IV.
MELLIFONT TAKES ROOT AND FOUNDS NEW HOUSES OF
THE ORDER . . . . . .50
CHAPTER V.
MELLIFONT CONTINUES TO FLOURISH UNDER SUCCESSIVE
EMINENT SUPERIORS . . . . .58
CHAPTER VI.
MELLIFONT IN TROUBLOUS TIMES . . . 67 •
CHAPTER VII.
THE SUPPRESSION OF MELLIFONT . . .85
CHAPTER VIII.
MELLIFONT BECOMES THE HOME OF A NOBLE FAMILY —
IS SOLD, AND IS DELIVERED UP TO RUIN AND DECAY 101
APPENDIX.
I. — LIST OF ABBOTS OF MELLIFONT. . .128
II. — CHARTER OF NEWRY . . . .129
III. — INVENTORY OF ESTATES OF MELLIFONT . 131
fist 0f Illustrations.
General View op Mellifont
Plan of Clairvaux
Plan of Mellifont Abbey
Gateway (Porter's Lodge) .
North Window of Chapter- House
Doorway of Chapter-House
Interior of Chapter- House .
Interior of Lavabo (Octagon)
Arch of Lavabo (Octagon) .
South Wall of Lectorium .
Frontispiece
At p. 4
15
19
23
35
43
47
63
MELLIFONT ABBEY,
CO. LOUTH:
Its 3^uius antr Associations,
CHAPTER I.
THE RUINS.
"Look, stranger ; where these stones in ruin lie.
Here in the old, grey times a holy thing
Rose up — a cloistered pile ; but time swept by
And smote the sanctuary with his reckless wing."
(From the Swedish, by J. E. D. Bethune.)
F the many historic ruias which dot our
country and attest its former greatness,
few attract so much attention, and invite
so close a study as our monastic remains,
pre-eminent amongst which are those of the
ancient historic Abbey of Mellifont. In count-
less pages of our Annals the name appears. In
the records of sieges, battles and insurrections, from the
day on which a colony of St. Bernard's monks from world-
famed Clairvaux, came and settled in its tranquil valley,
till having passed through many vicissitudes, as an abode
of piety and wide-spread beneficence, it became a baronial
residence, and finally lost its prestige as the site of a mill,
whose remains contrast incongruously with those of such
a precious memorial.
And what was Mellifont ? It was the first house of the
Cistercian Order in Ireland ; founded, endowed and en-
riched by native princes and saintly prelates ; the mother
A
i ME1>L1F0NT ABBEY,
of saints and scholars ; and at one time, the admiration of
our land, as a gem of rare architectural beauty.
Before going back to the shadowy past, let us endea-
Tour to trace amongst its ruins the outlines of the ancient
buildings, and to explain the special use and meaning of
each in the monastic economy, when white-robed monks
trod its cloisters, and knelt and prayed before the altars
in its church. Each of the Cistercian churches and
monasteries was built upon a uniform plan, with some
slight modifications, arising perhaps in all instances from
peculiarities of site and local difficulties. Around the
whole pile of monastic buildings, and girdling an area of
some thirt}' acres or more, comprising gardens, orchards,
meadows, ran a high wall, called the "Enclosure Wall,"
which served to isolate the denizens of the cloister, and
prevent as far as possible all ingress of the world. En-
trance within the precincts of the monastery was obtained
through a spacious and lofty gate-house occupied by a
trusty Lay-Brother, whose duty it was to receive visitors,
and dispense hospitality to the poor and the way-farer ;
thus he formed a connecting link between his brethren
within and the world without, from which they were cut
ofif. Extending on either side of this gate-house, or
" Porter's Lodge," as it was known in monastic language,
was a range of buildings for the exclusive use of strangers
of every grade. There were the Hospice proper, an
infirmary for the sick poor, with stabling also, in the
immediate vicinity, for the horses of travellers : —
" Whoever passed, be it barou or squire,
Was free to call at the abbey and stay ;
No guerdon or gift for bis lodging pay,
Tuough he tarried a week with its holy choir."
The old tower which is passed as one approaches the
ruins of Mellifont, was the "Porter's Lodge," and right
MELLIFONT ABBEY. S
under it ran the avenue which led to the abbey, but
which was converted into a mill-race when Mellifout had
reached its last stage of degradation. The present road-
way was constructed in order to give access to the mill.
The remains of old walls can still be traced stretching on
both sides of the tower, and prove its ancient purpose in
connection with Cistercian usage, as described above.
Some gate-houses of Continental monasteries, which have
till now subsisted intact from the eleventh or twelfth
century, bear a striking resemblance to this one at
Mellifont. That of Aiguebelle, in particular, near Grignan,
in the Department of Drome, France, most closely
resembles it.
There can be no doubt that a pile of buildings once
occupied and enclosed the whole space from the old gate-
way to the church, forming a rectangle, of which the
church was the fourth side. The precise purposes these
buildings served at Mellifont can now be only conjectured;
for, in different monasteries, local wants determined in a
great measure the allocation of this site to uses which
varied with the circumstances of each community. That
is not, however, to be understood of what are called the
" Regular Places ;". for these were held to be indispensable,
and occupied almost the same position in every monastery.
The intervening space here between the gate-house and
the church is now covered over with the debris of ancient
buildings, which local tradition says once occupied the
side of the hill on which, and about where, a few modern
cottages now stand.
Approaching nearer to the ruins, a modern mill obtrudes
itself upon the scene, and one cannot help wishing it
transported beyond the plane of his observation.*
* The " Tourist Company " have recently fitted up a compartment
of the old mill, where a cheap and substantial lunch can be had by
visitors who may desire it.
4 MKLLIFOiNT ABBEY.
Arrived at what is now the entrance gate, the visitor
beholds in front of hiin the four remaining sides of what
was once an octagonal building, and somewhat nearer on
his left, a small roofless edifice. These are commonly, but
erroneously, called the " Baptistery " and " St. Bernard's
Chapel." Their true purposes shall be explained further
on. Immediately at his feet now, extend the sites of
the church, and of the once magnificent cloisters. Of
these latter not a trace remains, except a mere outline on
the green sward, and a few squares of concrete to indicate
the position once occupied by them. The plan of the
church extends to right and left : the western portion of
the nave running towards the river (see Plan), and the
entire length is dotted at intervals with blocks which
mark the sites of the piers. These concrete blocks were
laid by order of Sir Thomas Deane, under whose direction
the excavations were made here some few years ago.
The length of the nave cannot now be ascertained with
certainty, but judging from the position occupied by
some very old w^alls at the south-western side, it may be
roughly stated to have been 120 feet ; while 54 feet
6 inches was the width of the whole church, including
the aisles. These latter were each 10 feet wide. The
nave had seven bays, and like all Cistercian churches, it
was divided into two parts by the Rood-loft and Choir-
screen, which stood about midway. This Rood-loft
served a twofold purpose ; on it was a lectern, where the
Lessons of the night-offices were read by the monks in
rotation, and thereon the Abbot announced the Gospel
proper to each festival, chanting or reading it, according
as the office was sung or merely recited, after which, with
crosier in hand, he gave his solemn benediction. It
answered, too, as a partition between the choir of the
monks and the stalls of the Lay Brethren ; the former on
i
Entrance.
11. Former Novitiate.
Abbot's House.
12. Cloisters.
Guest House.
13. Stairs to Dormitory.
Stablea.
Churcb.
14. Calefacl-ory.
I.'5. Refectory.
IB. Kitchen.
Cull for Books (Common Box).
17. Lavabo (Octagon).
The amplcr^o
Dormitory.
18. Cemetery.
19. St. Bernard's Cell.
Piirloiir,
20. The Prior's Chambers.
23. Lesser CloUter.
34. Hall for Thesea.
2.5. Theological Sciiool.
26. Intirmary.
27. Common Room of the Infiri
6 MELLIFONT AHBKY.
the eastern, the latter on the western side of it. This
Choir-screen formed a sort of reredos to the two altars,
which were invariably found in this position in the
churches of the Order. On these altars were offered up
daily Masses for living and deceased benefactors — a
practice which continues in the Order and which dates
back to the foundation of the Cistercian Institute.
Further west was a tribune or gallery, where guests and
the dependants of the monastery assisted at Divine
Service, Office and Mass. Inside the Rood-loft, was the
Choir proper, which extended thence to the Chancel, or
" Presbytery Step," as it is called in monastic parlance.
A small space was provided between the Choir and the
Chancel, in order to allow a passage to those who pro-
ceeded from the Sacristy to the High Altar within the
Chancel. Two rows of stalls ran down on each side the
length of the nave. These stalls were generally of carved
oak, and were artistically tinished. The outer rows were
for the novices, and the backs of their stalls formed the
desks used by the professed monks, whereon they rested
the ponderous tomes containing the sacred psalmody.
During the High Mass the stalls next the Chancel were
used, and the place of honour, that is, the first stall on
the Epistle, or south side, was given to the Abbot. The
Prior, as second superior, occupied the first on the
opposite, or Gospel side. The other monks according to
seniority occupied the stalls on either side. On the other
hand, at Matins and at all the offices, except that in
connection with High Mass, the Abbot's and Prior's
stalls were farthest from the Chancel, and next the Rood-
loft, and the order of the monks was reversed. In token
of his jurisdiction the Abbot's crosier was fixed at his
stall. The Cistercian monks call this Rood-loft the
''Jube" from the first word spoken by the reader when
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 7
he asks the blessing before commencing the Lessons.
The whole nave here at Mellifont seems to have been
paved with beautiful tiles ; a few of which may yet be
seen in their position near the great pier on the north
side. At the intersection of the transept with the nave,
is the space called the " Crossing," or " Lantern." Over
this rose the bell-tower, which was supported on solid
piers, from two of which sprang the Chancel arch, and
from the two others, that of the nave. These piers were
formed of clustered columns, but their remains (about
live feet high), vary both in dimensions and in style,
manifesting, thereby, the partial renovation that took
place from time to time. The material of which the
whole building was constructed is a butf-coloured sand-
stone not found in the vicinity of Mellifont, but brought,
it is said, from Kells, some twenty miles away ; a thing
not very difficult, seeing that the river is so convenient.
Some, again, are of opinion that the stone was brought
from Normandy ; which seems to be improbable.
The total length of the transepts is 116 feet; the width
54 feet. The northern one is some four feet longer than
the southern. They seem to have had aisles, an unusual
arrangement in churches of the Order. In the northern
transept were six chapels, the piscinas of which are still
to be seen in the piers adjoining. The number of these
piscinas cannot fail to strike one as something very
singular. Their presence is accounted for in this way.
At the date of the foundation of Mellifont and for
centuries later, it was the custom for priests of the Order
to wash their hands at the foot of the altar before com-
mencing Mass, the server pouring water on his hands,
which he dried with a towel that had been previously
laid on the altar. The water used was then cast into the
piscina. It was also the custom with them, at that time.
S MELLIFONT ABBEY.
to descend from the altar when they had consumed the
Sacred Species out of the chalice and to wash their
fingers over the piscina.
This northern transept seems to have been a favourite
spot for interments; for during the excavations numerous
skulls were found there. At Clairvaux, the corresponding
site was strewn with the graves of bishops, who selected
it as the place wherein to rest after life's weary struggle.
No record or memorial of these survives, or of any of the
dead interred at Mellifont, to point out the occupant of
a single grave. In the northern wall of this transept is a
beautiful door-way with jambs of clustered columns. Hard
by, the wall was pierced to make a loop-hole when Mellifont
was transformed into a fortress. On one side of the door-
way are the remains of what must once have been a superb
chapel ; on the opposite side are a few steps of a spiral
stair-case, formed in the thickness of the wall, which led
up to the tower, as is to be seen at Graignamanagh,
Co. Kilkenny, and other houses of the order in Ireland.
The level of the floor here is some five or six feet lower
than the adjacent road-way which was raised by the
accumulated rubbish of former buildings that extended
along the hill-side where the cottages now stand.
The southern transept may have had its six altars also.
The aisle seems to have been built up, and when the
alterations which took place in the whole fabric in the
fifteenth century were made, a large portion of this
transept would appear to have been allocated to the uses
of a sacristy. No trace of a sacristy remains elsewhere,
and this would be a very convenient place to utilise as
one. The remains of some walls lead us to suppose such
an arrangement probable. In Cistercian monasteries, a
stair-case in this transept near the cloister led thence to
the dormitory, but no remains of such a stairs have been
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 9
discovered at Mellifont. When Sir Thomas Deane had
the earth and rubbish, or, as he calls it, the " grassy
mound," removed, he discovered the foundations of two
semi-circular chapels in each transept, in a line with the
site occupied by the High, or principal Altar. (See the
dotted lines in the Ground Plan). Describing them, Sir
Thomas writes : " Within the circuit of the external walls
are the foundations of an earlier church which indicate
four semicircular chapels, and two square ones between.
Of this church we have no distinct record, but the bases
of semi-detached pillars would indicate the date given for
the erection of Mellifont." These four semi-circular
chapels in line with the High Altar, formed an exact
counterpart of the church of Clairvaux which was erected
in 1135, and which by St. Bernard's express wish, served
St. Malachy as the model for Mellifont.
The chancel terminated in a square end, and was 42
feet deep by 26 feet wide. It was raised about six inches
over the floor of the nave, and a slab of limestone
extended the entire width with which the tiled pavement
was flush. Almost in the centre of the chancel, that is
to say, nearly midway between the two piers, are two
sockets sunk in sandstone blocks. What uses they served
cannot be affirmed wath certainty. However, it may be
conjectured that they served to receive the supports on
which a violet curtain was suspended during Lent, screen-
ing the " Sanctuary." This curtain spanned the space
from pier to pier. The custom is still preserved in the
Order. Here on this central spot, a lectern was placed, at
which the sub-deacon at Solemn Masses sang the Epistle.
Here, too, the celebrant of the Community Mass on
Sundays blessed the water with which he sprinkled the
brethren, who presented themselves two by two before
him. It was here, also, that the Abbot blessed the
10 MELLIFOIST ABliEY.
candles, ashes, and palms, on Candlemas-day, Ash "Wednes-
day, and Palm Sunday respectively. This was called the
" Presbytery Step," and the whole space within the
chancel, the " Sanctuary."
The basis on which the High Altar was built still
remains. It is distant some few feet from the eastern
wall, in order to allow a passage for the monks, who on
Sundays and Festivals received Holy Communion at this
altar, after which they walked around it in single file, and
passing on by the Gospel, or northern corner, returned to
their stalls in the nave. The basis is ten feet long
by three and one half feet wide. On the Epistle, or
southern side, are the piscina surrounded with a dog-
tooth moulding, and the remains of the sedilia or stalls,
which were occupied by the celebrant, deacon, and sub-
deacon at High Mass. Under these sedilia a tomb was
discovered during the excavations. A skull and some
bones, together with a gold ring, were raised from their
resting-place ; the bones were replaced and covered with
the slab of concrete now seen at this spot, but the ring
was sold by a workman and could never be recovered.
No inscription or tradition identifies the occupant of the
hallowed grave. Could it have been that of the famous
Dervorgilla? She was certainly buried at Mellifont, but
unfortunately, we do not know the spot where her
remains were laid when " life's fitful fever" was over ; or
it may have been the resting-place of Thomas O'Connor,
or of Luke Netterville, both, successively, Archbishops of
Armagh ; for they, also, were buried at Mellifont.
On the opposite, or Gospel side, is an arched recess
having an ornamental moulding around it. This would
seem to have been the Founder's tomb, or rather, the
remains of it. In the Cistercian Constitutions no special
place was allotted for the tombs of Founders, and only the
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 11
indefinite permission was given, that they, kings and
queens, bishops and such like exalted dignitaries, might
be buried within the churches of the Order. A general
custom, however, prevailed in Ireland of appropriating to
the Founder's tomb a space iu the northern wall of the
chance], and directly at right angles with the High Altar.
Others, besides Founders, were buried on the north side
in the chancel. Thus, in the Annals of St. Mary's
Abbey, Dublin, we are told that Felix O'Ruadan, who
had been a great benefactor to that house, was buried in
the chancel of the abbey church, on the north side.
And Felix O'Dullany, the first Abbot of Jerpoint, and
afterwards Bishop of Ossory, was interred on the north
side of the High Altar, at Jerpoint.
The door on this side of the chancel is a puzzle, as in
no other church of the Order is one found in this position.
There is no evidence of a building having adjoined with
which this door communicated, so that its use is un-
known. Quite close to this door there is a shallow recess
in the wall, which may have been a provision for the
Abbot's throne, when he officiated pontifically, as that
is the site usually occupied by it. Some five or six feet
high of the chancel walls is all that is left standing ; and,
though not up to the window level, what remains of the
cut stone and water-tabling gives an idea of the beauty
of the whole, and what a loss we have sustained by its
destruction.
In the original church, that is, the one erected in St.
Malachy's time, there were ten altars we are told, but on
the ground plan seven only are shown. Two more at
least were in front of the Rood-loft or Juhe, and the
remaining one very probably was in one of the aisles.
The church of Mellifont was remarkable, not so much for
its vast dimensions, as for its architectural beauty ; yet,
12 MELLIFOiNT AJilJEY.
in this it was surpassed by St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin.
Sir Thomas Deane writes : " From the fragments of the
church which remain, it is easy to trace the vicissi-
tudes the building underwent. I have great doubt that
any portions of the structure above ground are those of the
earliest church erected on the site, or date as far back as
1157, which is given as the year of its consecration. . . .
The details of the piers (the older ones) are in my
opinion a century or more later in date. They still indi-
cate a foreign type, and the arrangements and obvious
plan show that the transepts as well as the nave had
aisles. . . . Portions of the piers discovered are of the
fifteenth century, other parts of the church of the four-
teenth. ... A second portion dates probably from
1260, another from 1370, and another from 1460. I am
not prepared to follow from the history of the Abbey the
causes of such restorations ; but it is certain that rebuild-
ings of portions of the church occurred from time to time,
and that violence or decay was the cause." Neither to
violence nor to decay can the alterations be attributed,
which the church underwent at the three periods
mentioned by Sir Thomas, but rather to the practice then
common to the whole Order, chiefly in the monasteries of
Great Britain and Ireland, of adopting the advancing
changes in the Gothic style, and to the laudable efforts of
the monks to make the House of God worthy of Him as
far as art and skill could be made subservient to that
purpose. Thus in the Annals of Fountains and Furness,
there are abundant proofs of this constant change going
on in those monasteries even down to the date of their
suppression. One Abbot considered the eastern window
too low and narrow, and had it enlarged; another thought
the tower rested on too slender a basis, and he built
substantial piers and flanked them on the outside with
buttresses, and so with others.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. IS
To better understand the surroundings, it will be neces-
sary to bear in mind the general plan on which all
Cistercian monasteries were built. On this subject there
is a good deal of misapprehension, even on the part of
those who seem to have given close attention to the
matter. The church and buildings necessary for large
communities were so arranged as to form a square,
thereby combining simplicity with economy. It is said
that the monks borrow^ed this idea from the form of a
Roman villa. The church formed the first or northern
side (for in temperate and cold climates the other build-
ings, as tbey lay to the south, were sheltered by the
church.) The sacristy, chapter-house, and other halls were
on the east ; the calefactory, refectory, and kitchen on
the south ; and the Domus Conversorum completed
the square on the west. Within this square were the
cloisters, always contiguous to the main buildings, and
forming a communication with all the parts of the
monastery. Tbey were a sort of covered ambulatory,^
whose roof rested on the one side against the main
buildings, and on the other was supported by open orna-
mental arcades, which, however, in these climates were
glazed. The cloisters were often vaulted iu richly
moulded stonework, and were fitted up with benches for
reading, chiefly on the side adjoining the church. The
space or quadrilateral area enclosed by them was called
the Cloister- Garth, in the centre of which a statue or
handsome fountain stood.
The cloisters were generally entered fz'om the church
by the south aisle, at the point where it adjoins the
transept; but here, at Mellifont, the entrance was direct
from the south transept itself. This a glance at the
ground-plan will show; though it may have been otherwise
in the primitive church ; for, when it underwent altera-
14 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
tions, the transepts were widened by the addition of an
aisle to each ; and, the cloister being thus encroached on,
a change was necessary in it also.
Adjoining the transept, and at right angles with the
cloister, on the left, was a narrow hall or cell which
contained books, chiefly the Sacred Scriptures, and the
writings of the Fathers. This cell, which had no
window, was called the " Armarium Commune," or
"Common Box;" for its contents were common to all
the monks. Its situation was convenient to the reading-
cloister, which lay along the south wall of the church.
In this cell the monks were provided with an abundant
supply of good books, but treatises on the Canon and
Civil Laws were forbidden to be kept in it : the Prior
was charged with the custody of these. Behind this
cell, and communicating only with the church, the
Sacristy was placed ; but, as before observed, there is no
trace of one here. Some writers on monastic ruins,
confidently assure their readers that this cell was a
prison, and that it was called the "Lantern;" casting
upon the monks all responsibility for the name, and
supposing them to have formed it on the lucits a non
lucendo principle, seeing the cell was dark. The error
was all their own ; for the Lantern, as has been already
shown, was in the tower over the crossing of the church ;
and the true use of this cell has just been stated above.
Here (at Mellifont), in close proximity to the transept,
is the ruined two-storied building we saw as we ap-
proached, and which, from its present striking appearance,
must have been one of the most beautiful within the
ancient abbey's precincts. This is commonly, but
erroneously, known as " St. Bernard's Chapel." Why
it was reputed to have been a chapel, must be from the
close resemblance it bears to one. It was, in reality, the
From Photo by W. Lawrence, Dublin.
Gate\7ay (Porter's Lodge.) See page 2.
IG MELLIFONT ABBEY.
Chapter-house. That it was, is quite evident to anyone
who has studied the plans of Cistercian monasteries :
(a), from the position it occupies, and (h), from the
internal arrangement and decorations such as are found
in other like edifices of the Order in Ireland. A stone
bench ran around the inside of the building, and which,
when covered with a rush mat, served as a seat for the
monks. In Graignamanagh Abbey, Co. Kilkenny, the
ancient Chapter-house still remains, closely resembling
this one at Mellifont, both in style and ornamentation, as
well as in dimensions. The historic Chapter-house of
St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, which was unearthed a few
years ago, exhibited in every detail a striking resem-
blance to this also. That at Graignamanagh was
remarkable for its beauty. At the entrance to it from
the cloister, was a magnificent arched doorway, con-
taining within it three smaller arches of blue marble,
beautifully carved. A grand central column, called by
the inhabitants of the district, the " Marble Tree,"
supported the roof. It stood eight feet high from base to
capital, whence the branches spread to meet the corre-
sponding ribs on the groined roof.
Sir William Wilde describes the Chapter-house at
Mellifont, as he saw it in 1850. He says : " It must
have been one of the most elegant and highly em-
bellished structures of the Norman or Early English
pointed style in Ireland." He calls it a Crypt ; for it
Avas overlaid, and surrounded up to a high level by heaps
of rubbish. He goes on to say : " It has a groined roof
underneath another building evidently used for domestic
purposes, and was probably part of the Abbot's apart-
ments. The upper room, which contains a chimney,
must have been a pleasant, cheerful abode, and its
windows commanded a charming prospect down the
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 17
valley, with a view of the distant hills peeping up from
the south-west. The building is 30 feet long, by 19 feet
wide. There are no remains of muUions or tracery of
the east window. At present, there are two lights on
each side; but upon a careful examination of the
masonry both within and without the building, it is, we
think, apparent that in the original plan, the upper
window on each side alone existed, the others being
evidently subsequent innovations. The original windows*
are still beautiful, deeply set, and, though their stone
mullions are rather massive, each forms, with the tracery
at the top, a very elegant figure. The internal pilasters,
which form an architrave for the northern window,
spring from grotesque heads, elaborately carved, and
which appear as if pressed down by the superincumbent
weight. A fillet of dog's-tooth moulding surrounds the
internal sash. A projecting moulding courses round the
wall, about two feet from the ground, which, while it
dips dowm to admit the splayed sill of the upper or
original windows, continues unbroken by the lower ones,
an additional proof that the latter did not exist in the
original plan of the building. Three sets of short
clustered columns, four feet high, one in the centre, and
one in each angle, spring from this course, and terminate
in elaborately carved floral capitals, which differ slightly
one from the other. The centre rod of this cluster
descends as far as the floor. From these spring the ribs,
which form the groining of the roof. . . . The grand
architectural feature, and most elaborate piece of carving,
was the door-way, formed of a cluster of columns, very
deeply revealed on the inside, but apparently plain on
the outside. . . . Nearly the whole of the western end
* See Illustrcalion, p. 19.
18 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
has fallen, so that nothing but the foundations of this
very splendid door-way now remain. A figure of it
has, however, been preserved in Wright's Louthiana
(reproduced here),* published in 1755, where we read
that it was 'all of blue marble, richly ornamented and
gilt,' but ' which,' the author adds, ' I was informed was
sold and going to be taken to pieces when I was there.'
All the pillars and carved stone work of this building
were at one time painted in the most brilliant colours,
the capitals light blue, the pillars themselves red ;
portions of this paint still remain in the curves and
amongst the foliage."
The Chapter-house i* is little changed since Sir William
Wilde penned the foregoing, and time seems to have
dealt leniently with this magnificent ruin. One of the
windows has had its mullions restored under the Board
of Works ; a number of curious objects — capitals, corbels,
and portions of arches and cut stone, flooring tiles, etc.,
has been collected there, and a gate to guard them has
been erected by Mr. Balfour, the owner of the ruins and
surrounding property. It is very dubious that the upper
story ever served as a part of the Abbot's lodgings, as
these are generally found further east. This room may
have been the muniment room. It has two port-holes
remaining, relics of the days when Mellifont was turned
into a fortified castle, and the cry of fierce, contending
men was heard on this hallowed spot, over the graves of
the sainted dead. In the first volume of The Dublin
Fenny Journal, there are very interesting articles from
the pen of a Mr. Armstrong, a native of the locality.
He tells us that this Chapter-house was converted into a
banqueting-hall by the Moore family, and that in his
time (1832), it was used as a pig-sty.
* See IllustKition, p. 23. + See Illustration, p. 35.
From Photo ^y ^- Laiorence, Dubli7i.
North Window or Chapter-Hocse. See p. 17.
20 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
Another account of the fate of the beautiful arched
door-way of blue marble is, that it was lost at a game of
piquet, and the lucky winner, whose name, unfortunately,
has not been handed down to us, had it removed to his
mansion, and set up as a chimney-piece. The floor of the
Chapter-house is now laid with some of the tiles which
were found in the church during the excavations, in order
to preserve them from destruction or appropriation by
" relic-hunters." Abbots, generally, chose the Chapter-
house of their abbeys for their burial place ; but, as no
grave was found here, when the rubbish was removed,
during the excavations, we may conclude that the Abbots
of Mellifont were buried either in the church, or in the
cemetery with their monks.
The glazed tiles and their manufacture were a
specialty with the old Cistercians, in these; countries.
Similar tiles are seldom met with amongst the ruins of
other churches. Here at Mellifont, those found are red
and blue, and the vast majority have the legend Ave
Maria inscribed on them ; others are impressed with a
Fleur de lis, a cock, or some typical device. It is Avell
known, that specimens of tiles found at Fountains, in
Yorkshire, bear a close resemblance to these. There,
the motto of that monastery was impressed on the tiles
discovered — "Benedicite fontes Domino'^ — "Ye fountains
bless the Lord." No doubt, here, too, some bore the
motto of Mellifont, if only they could be found.
A very pertinent question arises now : how could this
small building give sitting accommodation, not only to
one hundred and fifty monks, which this monastery is
said to have had, but even to a third of that number ?
It seems impossible. It may be that, on becoming
numerous, they used as Chapter-house some other
building no longer standincr. At Graignamanagh, the
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 21
monks, finding their Chapter-house too SQiall, converted
the eastern window of it into a door, and built a large
and spacious hall, as a new Chapter-house, the old one
sersring as an ante-chamber to it. No such addition had
been made here ; for the window remains intact.
What a change has come over this grand old Chapter-
house since it saw its Abbot, who ranked as a peer of
the realm, walk up its centre with solemn and stately
tread, and mount the steps which led to his seat, on the
east ; and the grave assemblage of white-robed monks
enter in silence, and take their places on either side,
while one of them sang at the Lectero, the Martyrology,
and a chapter of St. Benedict's Rule ! From this
custom of having a chapter of the E,ule sung there every
morning, this apartment derives its name. In the
interval, between the singing of the Martyrology and the
chapter of St. Benedict's Rule, one of the priests gave
out certain prayers, to which all responded. These
prayers were chiefly petitions to the Lord, that He
would deign to bless and guard them during the coming
day ; for the hour of chapter, or of the assembling of the
Brethren, was generally aboitt 6 am. The Abbot then
explained the chapter which had been sung, dwelt on
the obligations incumbent on his hearers, by their
profession, to observe the teaching which St. Benedict
inculcated by his Rule ; then called for the public self-
accusations of breaches of monastic discipline (external
faults only), and imposed penances commensurate with
each transgression. The Chapter-house was the hall
wherein were held the deliberations or councils relative
to the administration of temporalities, and here novices
were elected or rejected by secret ballot.
On leaving the Chapter-house one finds himself again
on the site of the eastern walk or alley of the Cloister, as
22 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
it is called, and proceeding along it southward, one sees
a wall some seven or eight feet high without door or
window of any sort. It is doubtful that this was portion
of the ancient building; for then Mellifont would not
have followed the general plan of all the houses of the
Order. That it was not one of the original buildings is
probable, both because the masonry is more modern, and
the remains of an old building running at right angles with
it were found when the excavations were made a few
years ago in the potato garden, at the rere of this wall.
That old structure measured about fourteen feet wide.
It is shown on the ground plan. In the plan of Clair-
vaux, of which Mellifont is said to have been a counter-
part, a long narrow hall ran off the Cloister here, parallel
with the Chapter- house. It was called the "Auditorium"
or " Parlour." It was there that each choir monk's share
in the manual labour was assigned him every day by the
Prior. There, too, confessions were heard, and the monks
might speak to the Prior or Abbot on necessary matters ;
for the adjoining Cloister was a place of strict silence.
As at Clairvaux, the novitiate was placed further south
where the novices Avere trained in their duties by a
learned and experienced monk, who, according to St.
Benedict, " would know how to gain souls to God."
Over the buildings on the ground story, that is, over
the Sacristy, Chapter-house, Parlour, and Novitiate, was
the Dormitory, which was entered by a stair-case, in the
south-eastern angle of the transept, on one side, and by
another stairs at the junction of the east and south walks
of the Cloister. When the monastery at Mellifont was
changed and remodelled after Clairvaux (for this latter
underwent a substantial change in 1175), the monks mav
have used the old Parlour as a passage leading to other
buildings which covered that plot of ground beyond the
i^lJ':slj4l--.--».v-.--v'---!MiJl«aJ
A. Scntt d- Son, Architects.. Drorjheda.
Doorway of CHAVTER-HofsE. See p. IS.
24 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
Cliapter-house, now a potato garden. In the plan of
Clairvaux, all the space in that direction is covered with
buildings. (See plan of Clairvaux.) In the general view
of Mellifont, given in frontispiece, the plot whereon these
buildings stood is that where the man is seen tilling the
garden. But if one ascend the hill, keeping close to the
ruins, it will be evident how suitable a place it was for
building on, and the remains of walls peep up here and
there over the surface. The level at that spot is, indeed,
much higher than in the Cloister, or Chapter-house, but
that is partially caused by the debris of ruined buildings
which has accumulated there.
At the extreme end of this eastern walk of the Cloister
and at right angles with it, are the remains of what was
once a spacious building. It had a fire-place at the
eastern end, and a door which led out into another build-
ing that formely adjoined it. It is 96 feet long by 36
feet wide. No idea can be formed now as to its original
use. In some monasteries of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, chiefly the more considerable ones, there was a
spacious room or hall located as this was, and furnished
with benches and writing-desks, where the monks studied
and wrote. It was called the " Lectorium" or Beading
room. It must not, however, be confounded with the
Scriptorium, which was the official quarters of the copyist.
It is well to remark here that the plot of ground lying
north of this building was not dug up during the excava-
tions, but only skimmed over in order to trace the course
of some walls which at intervals appeared above the
surface ; but, even this slight investigation was sufficient
to reveal the outlines of numerous buildings that once
extended in that direction and covered that whole area.
Again comparing the site with Clairvaux, we find
that the Infirmary and its surroundings would lie in that
direction.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 25
At the extreme end of the easleru walk of the Cloister
wliere it joins the southern one, are the remains of a
stairs, Avhich formerly led up to the Dormitory from this
part of the monastery, as at Clairvaux. Near it is what
is commonly called a vault, an arched chamber measuring
sixteen feet by fourteen. It has a chimney, and it
would seem to have had a narrow window also on the
outer or southern end. Here is where the Calefactory
stood in almost all the old Cistercian monasteries. This
Calefactory was heated by a stove, at which the monks
warmed themselves after their long vigils in winter ;
but their stay there was restricted to one quarter of an
hour. Pope Eugenius III., when a monk at Clairvaux,
under St. Bernard, had charge of the stove there, as was
commemorated by an inscription over the door of the
Calefactor}'. A son of the King of France discharged
the same lowly office afterwards at Clairvaux, as the
Annals of the Order testify.
Adjoining this vault is a covered passage, having an
entrance into the next building, which runs parallel with
it. Its purpose cannot now be known. It may be that
the vault or Calefactory had been converted in later
times into a store-room for necessaries which were brought
thence by this covered way into the Refectory, which is
the next building. The Refectory measures 4S feet by
24. A few coarse flags remain in their original position,
from which it may be inferred that the whole floor was
once formed of them. In its western wall was the turn-
stile, through which the food was served from the
kitchen that adjoined the Refectory on that side.
Now, we come to the great puzzle, the remains of
the octagon building, which was commonly called the
Baptistery. Sir William Wilde, who saw it as it was in
1848, calls it the oldest and by far the most interesting
26 MELLIFONT ABHKY.
architectural remains in the whole place ; and he goes on
to describe it : * " This octagonal structure, of which only
four sides remain, consists of a colonnade or series of
circular-headed arches, of the Roman or Saxon character,
enclosing a space of 29 feet in the clear, and supporting
a wall which must have been, when perfect, about 30
feet high. Each external face measures 12 feet in length,
and was plastered or covered with composition to the
height of 10 feet, where a projecting band separates it
from the less elaborate masonry above. The arches -f- are
carved in sandstone, and spring from foliage-ornamented
capitals, to the short supporting pillars, the shaft of each
of which measures 3 feet 5 inches. The chord of each
arch above the capitals is 4 feet 3 inches. Some slight
difference is observable in the shape and arrangement of
the foliage of the capitals, and upon one of the remaining
half arches were beautifully carved two birds ; but some
Goth has lately succeeded in hammering away as much
of the relieved part of each, as it was possible. The
arches were evidently open, and some slight variety
exists in their mouldings. Internally a stone finger-
course encircled the wall, at about six inches higher than
that on the outside. In the angles between the arches
there are remains of fluted pilasters at the height of the
string-course, from which spring groins of apparently the
same curve as the external arches, and which, meeting in
the centre, must have formed more or less of a pendant,
which, no doubt, heightened the beauty and architectural
effect. Like the pillars and stone carvings in the
Chapter-house, this building was also painted red and
blue, and the track of the paint is still visible in several
places. The upper story, which was lighted by a
window on each side of the octagon, bears no architectural
* Hee Illustration, p. jn. t See Illustration, p. 47.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 27
embellishment which is now visible." He then adds,
how Archdall, in his Monasticon, asserted that a cistern
was placed on the upper story, whence water was
conveyed by pipes to the different parts of the monastery ;
hut shows how such an arrangement would have been
impossible, on account of the weakness of the walls, and
the position of the windows.
This building was known, in monastic terminology, as
the " Lavabo." A fountain of water issued in jets from
a central column, and fell into a basin, in which the
monks washed their hands, before entering the Refectory
for their meals. It is quite easy, from the construction
of the roof, to imagine a number of branches springing
from the capital of the column, and meeting the ribs of
the groined roof, in the same manner, as the "Marble
Tree," in the Chapter-house of Graignamanagh. Drains
in connection with this building were discovered when
the excavations were made, and Sir Thomas Deane is of
opinion, that it was surrounded on the outside by a
wooden verandah, or shed. Certainly, in the plan of
Clairvaux, a low building is shown, adjoining the Lavabo,
at its east and west ends; but no use is assigned it.
Very probably it was the Lavatory. Petrie thinks the
Lavabo may have been built as far back as 1165, but
that can hardly be held ; for Clairvaux had not been
remodelled till 1175, and it had no such ornamental
structure in the time of St. Bernard, ^e remarks, too,
that fragments of bricks were discovered in the building,
and says they were never employed earlier in any other
building in Ireland. It is now certain, that it was the
monks of Mellifont who first manufactured bricks in this
country. This Lavabo was not isolated or detached from
the Cloister, but, as at Clairvaux, a door led from one
into the other, opposite the entrance into the Refectory;
2f:j MELLIFONT AHBKY.
and, sioce the excavations, portions of the door-way are
visible. Some small shafts and their bases remain.
Even at the present day, in one of the most recently
constructed monasteries of the Order (near Tilburg,
Holland), what might be termed a semi-octagonal Lavabo,
having its fountain and basin, has been built. It answers
the same purpose as those in ancient times.
By keeping the Lavabo before one's mind, one can form
an idea of the Cloister itself; which, consisting of arcades,
closely resembled this in every detail, except that these
were glazed, and in all probability its walks had a lean-to
roof. The site of the east walk of the Cloister is easily
traced, and the places occupied by the piers being now
concreted, mark their positions. This eastern walk was
21 feet 6 inches wide. The opposite, or western one, was
some 19 feet 6 inches ; that on the south, 14 feet ; and the
north one, adjoining the church, and which was usually
the Reading-Cloister, may also have been 14 feet. Thus,
we would have an enclosed space or Garth, 100 feet square.
Beside the Refectory lay the Kitchen, which was a small
building, and around it are the ruins of smaller structures,
which may have been store-rooms in connection with it.
Under the Kitchen ran a copious stream of water which
carried off all the refuse. It is remarkable that at
Clairvaux similar remains are found in exactly the same
position relatively to the Kitchen there. With the
Cistercians, the Kitchen was always square ; with the
Benedictines, it was round. To the rere of the Kitchen,
and almost directly opposite the covered passage, is the
old well which was covered over for a long time, but was
discovered, and re-opened in 1832. Near it a portion of
the old wall fell in, but the masonry, owing to the singu-
larly cohesive character of the mortar, holds together
despite the action of the elements.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 29
Of the western walk of the Cloister no trace remains,
and only a tottering wall of the Domus Conversorum,
which once adjoined it, is standing. There is no trace
either of the northern walk, though this was the most
important of all. There the monks read and copied, in
cells called " carrols," which were placed near the windows.
When not employed in chanting the Masses and Offices in
the church, or busied with domestic concerns, or working
in the fields, the monks passed all their intervals here
occupied with study. The Abbot had a chair here also ;
and, from a raised pulpit opposite it, one of the monks
read aloud every evening, the lecture before Compline, at
which the whole community assisted.
Turning westward and approaching the Eiver Mattock,
we enter, at the left, an enclosed space, bounded by the
river on one side, and by the remains of the outer wall of
the Domus Conversorum on the other, we find ourselves
in a potato garden, which, on close observation, appears
strewn with pieces of bones. This was "God's Acre" at
Mellifont, the cemetery of the monks. Some forty or
fifty years ago, a Scotchman, who then rented the mill and
a farm adjoining it, perceiving that the clay of this old
cemetery was particularly rich and loamy, dug a spit off it
a foot deep or more, and carted it out on his fields for
top-dressing. Amongst the stuff so carted were human
bones of all kinds, skulls, etc. ! ! ! This was done in a
Christian land, and no protesting voice was raised against
the horrid profanation ! ! The cemetery is shown in the
general view at the extreme left, where the plot of ground
appears laid out in ridges and surrounded by a wall.
The Eiver Mattock flows peacefully still by the old
abbey as it did over seven centuries ago, when its course
being first arrested, it was harnessed and compelled to
take its share in many useful and profitable industries.
80 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
One old solitary yew tree casts its shadow on its water
and bears it company amid the surrounding ruin and
desolation — sad and sympathising witnesses of Mellifont's
fallen greatness. No bridge now spans the river here,
though formerly it was probably arched over, and the
slopes upon the Meath side were laid out in terraces and
gardens. The present mill was built over one hundred
years ago, together with some out-offices; the latter,
being situated almost midway in the nave of the church,
were removed when the excavations were made. The
mill has not been worked during the last thirty years.
When Mr. Armstrong wrote his interesting papers on
Mellifont, in the Dublin Penny Journal, 1832-33, a few
cabins nestled under the shadow of the old ruins.
The last building that deserves notice is the small
ruined edifice on the hill, which, after the suppression of
the monastery, was used as a Protestant place of worsliip.
Sir William Wilde was of opinion that it dates from the
fourteenth or fifteenth century. The western gable which
rises in the centre into a double belfry contains a pointed
door-way, and above, but not immediately over this, is a
double round-arched window. One small narrow light
occupies the eastern gable. At a few paces in front of
this building there stood, at the time Sir William
examined it, two very plain and very ancient crosses, one
having a heart engraven on it encircled by a crown of
thorns, and the other having a fleur de lis on the arm.
The latter cross has disappeared, but the former can still
be seen prostrate on the ground, in that half of the old
cemetery beyond the road-way, that is, on the side to the
south. After the suppression, this was used as a Protestant
burial-ground, though the presence of Catholic emblems
would go to prove that it was once Catholic. Of late
years the interments here have been but few. We are
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 31
nowhere told, nor does any tradition still linger to
indicate the former use of this ancient building, but it is
most probable, that it was the church in which the tenants
and dependants of the Abbey assisted at Mass and other
religious functions — in a word, that it was the parish
church of Mellifont, which was served hy the monks.
This seems to be the most likely explanation ; for the law
of " Enclosure," that law of the Church which debarred
females from entering within the monastic enclosure,
("Septa monasterW^ as it is called), was in full force at
the Dissolution of monasteries, as appears from the
Decrees of the General Chapters of the Order about that
time, and also from the Episcopal Registers of some of the
English dioceses which have lately been published. In
these latter are found reports of the bishops, who, either
officially or by delegation, visited some monasteries and
adverted to the law of enclosure as an important point of
monastic discipline. This old structure, then, would have
been constructed purposely outside the wall for the use of
the tenants. Such a chapel is still to be seen outside the
enclosure at Bordesley Abbey, an old Cistercian monastery
in Worcestershire, of which we are expressly told, that it
was the place in which the monks, tenants, domestics, etc.,
attended Mass. Another purpose may be assigned to this
old chapel at Mellifont, as that attached to the College, or
Seminary, which once flourished there. The surrounding
hill is locally and traditionally known as College-Hill, and
the old road which passes over it and leads to Townley
Hall, is called the College Road.
Little more remains to be said of the ruins or of the
site itself. Standing on this hill and looking into the
valley beneath, we are struck by its singular natural
features. It would seem as if the waters of the Mattock
had been suddenly dammed up, and that the pent-up
82 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
waters, bursting their barriers, hollowed out this sheltered
little valley, after the angry element had cleared away the
rocks and other obstructions ; and having swept it clear of
the rubbish, made it a fit and proper place whereon to
rear a temple to the true God, in which praise and sacri-
fice might for ever be offered to Him. No buildings seem
to have been constructed on the Meath side, as no traces
of them remain. In this, Mellifont differed from Clair-
vaux, whose buildings filled the valley and spread out
wings high up the hills on either side of the River Aube.
Just due south from where we have been standing, on
the hill, and distant about a few hundred yards, the Guide
will show a singular earth- work, shaped. like a moat, and
having an elevated mound in the centre. From the
presence here of old conduits built with masonry, there
can be no doubt that this was a reservoir to contain a
copious supply of water which flowed from wells on the
hill. Lower down than this moat, that is, at the rere of
the Chapter-house, lies buried beneath some feet of soil
the Abbot's house, where Mellifont's puissant rulers
received their guests, and whose hospitable board was
honoured by the presence of kings and bishops, as well as
chiefs and warriors bold in all their pomp and panoply.
It is doubtful that any vestige of the enclosure wall
remains, nor can it be conjectured even, what, or how
much, space it embraced. As we ponder over the scene,
Keats' words find an echo in our hearts: —
" How changed, alas ! from that revered abode
Graced by proud majesty in ancient days.
Where monks recluse those sacred pavements trod, -
And taught the unlettered world its Maker's praise."
MELLTFONT ABBEY. 33
CHAPTER II.
ST. MALACHY FOUNDS MELLIFONT.
'Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this worhl dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day,
For what are men better than sheep and goats,
That nourish a blind life within the brain.
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend ?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."
(Lord Tennijson. )
T the time that Saints Robert, Alberic, and
Stephen Harding were laying the founda-
tion of the Cistercian Order, in the dense
forest of Cistercium, or Citeaux, whence the
Order derives its name, or to be more
precise, in 1098, a lovely little boy eight years
old, with golden hair and dove-like eyes, and
■with nobility of birth stamped in every lineament of his
features, was playing in his father's chateau at Fontaines,
near Dijon, in France. This child of predilection was the
great St. Bernard, who is justly styled the Propagator of
that Order which was then in a struggling condition. It
has become a proverb, "that the child is father of the
man," and a very clever writer exclaims — " Blessed is the
man whose infancy has been watched over, kindled, and
penetrated by the eyes of a tender and holy mother." It
was St. Bernard's singular privilege to have such a
mother, one who sedulously watched over his youthful
c
34) MELLIFONT ABBEY.
days, and inspired him with a love of all virtues. Hence
we are told, that even in early childhood, he evinced a
love of piety that was remarkable, and that he constituted
his mother the grand model which he was hound to copy.
He considered it the summit of his ambition to do all
things like his mother — to pray like her, to give alms and
visit the sick poor like her; for this noble lady was wont
to go along the roads unattended, carrying medicine and
nourishment to the indigent. He distinguished himself
at the public school where he received his education, and
returned to the paternal mansion where he soon after
experienced his first great sorrow in the death of his
loving mother. He was now approaching manhood, and
he must needs select a state of life befitting his high
birth. At that time, only two professions were worthy of
the consideration of young noblemen — the Church or the
Army. With Bernard's distinguished talents, a bright
and rosy future presented itself before his youthful
imagination, and then the eloquent persuasions of his
relatives, who promised him their powerful patronage,
were not wanting to arouse his ambition ; but, the image
of his saintly mother dispelled all dreams of promotion,
and her pious instructions, which sank deep into his young
heart, acted as potent antidotes against the allurements of
worldly pomp and short-lived honours. After much
reflection he made up his mind to renounce ail honours,
and to become a monk. By his irresistible pleadings he
gained over his four brothers, with other relatives and
friends, to the number of thirty, and at their head,
presented himself at the gate of the Abbey of Citeaux,
where St. Stephen Harding joyfully admitted them. Two
years later we find him leaving that monastery as the
Abbot of a new colony, on his way to found Clairvaux,
being then in his twenty-fifth year. Here, his light could
36 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
no longer remain hidden, but burst forth into a luminous
flame whose splendour aroused and powerfully influenced
the whole Christian world. The Bishop of Chalons, in
whose diocese Clairvaux was situated, was the first to
discover the transcendent abilities and eloquence of the
youthful Abbot. At his request, St. Bernard consented to
deliver a course of sermons in the churches of his diocese,
which were productive of incalculable good, and spread
the fame of the zealous preacher. Priests as well as
laymen, attached themselves to him and accompanied him
to Clairvaux on his return from those missions. One of
the Saint's biographers cries out — " How many learned
men, how many nobles and great ones of this earth, how
many philosophers have passed from the schools or
academies of the world to Clairvaux to give themselves
up to ihe meditation of heavenly things and the practice
of a divine morality." His fame reached even to Ireland,
and we are told that in this country the little children
were wont to ask for the badge of the Crusaders which
the Saint distributed. In a word, his voice was the most
authoritative in Europe. Kings and princes dreaded him,
and accepted him as arbitrator in their quarrels. Even
Popes themselves sought his counsel. In his lifetime, his
own disciple, Bernard of Pisa, occupied the Chair of Peter,
as Eugenius III. It may be truthfully said, that St.
Bernard reformed Europe and infused a new spirit into
the monastic orders. Even Luther does not hesitate to
place him in the forefront of all monks who lived in his
time; of him he writes: "Melius nee vixit nee scripsit
quis in universe coetu monachorum."
Whilst the Church in France was reaping the benefit
of the holy Abbot's preaching and example, a zealous
Irish prelate was actively and successfully eugaged in
eradicating vice which sprang up in this country, as a
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 37
consequence of the long-protracted wars with the Danes,
and the demoralising effects of intercourse with that
people. Nevertheless, Ireland had then its saints and
scholars, and the ancient seats of learning, such as
Armagh, Bangor, Lismore, Clonard, and Clonmacnoise
were once more inhabited by numerous communities.
This saintly prelate was St. Malachy, who, being on his
way to Rome, heard of the sanctity of the great St.
Bernard, and would fain pay him a visit. This visit
would St. Malachy have gladly prolonged ; for then and
there sprang up a mutual affection, which, writes our own
Tom Moore, " reflects credit on both." St. Malachy was
so enamoured with what he witnessed at Clairvaux, and
particularly with the wise discourses of the learned
Abbot, that he determined to become one of his disciples.
Innocent IL, who then ruled the flock of Christ, on
the Saint seeking his permission to retire to Clairvaux,
would not hearken to his request, but giving him many
marks of his esteem, appointed him his Legate in
Ireland, and commanded him to return thither. If
St. Malachy might not live at Clairvaux in the midst of
the fervent men whom he there beheld earnestly intent
in the great work of mortification and expiation, he
resolved, at least, to have a colony of them near him in
his own country, that by their prayers and example, they
might promote God's glory, and in a measure, repeat the
glorious traditions of the ancient monastic ages in
Ireland. In furtherance of this happy project, he singled
out four of his travelling companions, whom he gave in
charge to St. Bernard, with these words: "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." On receiving an assurance of a hearty
38 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
compliance from St. Bernard, he took cordial leave of his
friend and returned to Ireland. Not long after he sent
more of his disciples to join those whom he had already
left at Clairvaux, and on their arrival, St. Bernard wrote
as follows : " The Brothers who have come from a distant
land, your letter and the staff you sent me, have afforded
me much consolation in the midst of the many anxieties
and cares that harass me. . . . Meanwhile, according to
the wisdom bestowed on you by the Almighty, select and
prepare a place for their reception, which shall he
secluded from the tumults of the world, and after the
model of those localities which you have seen amongst
us." The place selected by St. Malachy as the site of
the future monastery, was the sequestered valley watered
by the River Mattock, situated about three and one half
miles from Drogheda, Co. Louth, and much resembling
Clairvaux, which, too, was located in a valley, shut in by
little hills on all sides. Donogh O'CarrolI, Prince of
Oriel, the lord of the territory, freely granted the site to
God and SS. Peter and Paul, munificently endowed the
monastery with many broad acres, and supplied wood
and stone for the erection of the buildings. This grant
was made in either 1140 or 1141. The charter of
endowment by O'Carroll has not been found.
It would appear from another letter of St. Bernard
to St. Malachy, that he had sent some monks from
Clairvaux to make preparations for those w^ho were to
immediately follow, and that already their number was
augmented at Mellifont by the accession of new members
from the surrounding district, who had joined them on
their appearance in that locality. In this same letter St.
Bernard writes : " We send back to you your dearly-
beloved son and ours. Christian, as fully instructed as was
possible in those rules which regard our Order, hoping.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 39
moreover, that he will henceforth prove solicitous for
their observance." This Christian is commonly supposed
to have been archdeacon of the diocese of Down. He
was certainly first Abbot of Mellifont, and his name shall
turn up in connection with important national events
later on. With Christian came a certain Brother Robert,
a Frenchman, a skilful architect, who constructed the
monastery after the model of Clairvaux.
That these were the pioneers of the Cistercian Order
in Ireland cannot for one moment be doubted, both from
the very important fact, that the Abbot of Mellifont took
precedence of all the Abbots of his Order in this country,
and also, because it is an historical fact, that St. Mary's
Abbey, Dublin, the other claimant for priority, did not
exchange the Benedictine for the Cistercian Rule till,
at earliest, 1148, when the Abbot of Savigni in France,
with the thirty houses of his Order (Benedictine) subject
to his jurisdiction, were admitted into the Cistercian
family by Pope Eugenius III., who presided at the
General Chapter of the Cistercians that year. St. Mary's
was founded from Buildewas, in Shropshire, and this
latter was subject to Savigni.
Various reasons are assigned for the adoption by these
ancient monks of the name Mellifont, which signifies
" The Honey Fountain." Some are of opinion it had a
spiritual signification, and had reference to the abundance
of blessings which would flow, and be diffused over the
whole country from this centre, through the unceasing
and fervent intercessory prayer of its holy inmates; for
next to their own sanctification, their neighbour's wants
claimed and received their practical sympathy. Like
divine charity it gushed forth from hearts totally devoted
to God's service and interests, and this zeal would be
halting and incomplete did it not embrace the spiritual
40 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
and temporal concerns of their fellow mortals. Others
derive the name from a limpid spring which supplied the
monks with a copious, unfailing stream of sweet water,
which had its source in Mellifont Park about one quarter
of a mile distant, and which was conducted V)y pipes
through the various parts of the monastery. This seems
a very plausible account, and as the spring rose at a high
level, it had sufficient pressure to obviate the necessity
of a cistern as was erroneously supposed in connection
with the Lavabo.
It was customary with the old Irish Cistercians to give
their monasteries symbolical names at their foundation,
and these names often denoted some local feature or
peculiarity. Thus, Newry was called of the " Green
Wood," from the abundance of yew trees around the
monastery there; Corcomroe, Co. Clare, was known under
the title of the " Fertile Rock ;" Baltinglas, Co. Wicklow,
as the "Valley of Salvation," etc.
It is said that the " Honey Fountain" had its source
in Mellifont Park, but it seems that few of the present
generation living in the vicinity of Mellifont know or
appreciate its virtues. In the Ordnance Survey, it is
stated that it rose in Mellifont Park, which was formerly
a wood, and that to the north of the well, a few trees still
remained at the time of the Survey, when the farm
belonged to a Mr. James Curran.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 41
CHAPTER III.
AN EPITOME OF THE RULE OBSERVED AT MELLIFONT AT ITS
FOUNDATION AND FOR ABOUT A CENTURY AND A HALF
AFTERWARDS.
" Here man more purely lives ; less oft doth fall ;
More promptly rises ; walks with stricter heed ;
More safely rests ; dies happier ; is freed
Earlier fi'om cleansing fires ; and gains withal
A brighter crown."
(^Saint Bernard.)
'N the foregoing verses St. Bernard sum-
marises the manifold advantages accruing
from the profession and practice of the
rule which he and his fellow abbots drew up
for their followers. In that age of chivalry
yj j^ and wide extremes, men's minds were profoundly
moved by the world-wide reputation and dis-
courses of an outspoken, fearless monk, who confirmed his"
words by incontestable and stupendous miracles. Then,
it was nothing unusual to see the impious sinner of
yesterday become a meek repentant suppliant for
admission into some monastery to-day, where he could
expiate and atone for his former grievous excesses. The
innocent, also, sought the shelter of the cloister from the
contaminating influences of a corrupt and corrupting
world ; and in the spirit of sacrifice presented themselves
as victims to God's outraged justice. At that same
period, that is, about the middle of the twelfth century,
there was witnessed an unwonted movement towards
42 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
monasticism in its regenerated condition, as the Church
Annals abundantly testify. This happy tendency was
mainly due to St. Bernard's influence and popularity, and
was well illustrated by the saying of the historian :
" The whole world became Cistercian."
In essaying to reform St, Benedict's Rule, the first
Fathers of the Cistercian Order sought only to restore its
primitive simplicity and austerity, but they, nevertheless,
added some wise provisions which established their reform
on a firm basis, and which the experience of ages proved
to be indispensable. First of all, it was ordained, that all
houses of the Order should be united under one central
controlling power, and that all the Superiors should meet
annually for deliberation on matters appertaining to the
maintenance of discipline and the correction of abuses.
This assembly w^as called the General Chapter, over
which the Abbot of Citeaux presided as recognised head
of the Order. Till then, no such institution existed, and
an Abbot General, as we may call him, had it in his
power, from incapacity or any other cause, to disorganise
a whole Order. Under the General Chapter such a
catastrophe Avas impossible. Besides this wise enactment,
St. Stephen drew up what he called the " Chart of
Charity," by which it was ordained that the abbot of a
monastery who had filiations (that is, offshoots or houses
founded directly from that monastery) subject to him,
should visit them annually either in person or by proxy,
and minutely inquire into their spiritual, disciplinary,
and financial condition. The abbots of those filiations
were bound to return the visit during the year; but
they did so in quality of guest and not as "Visitor," the
official title of the Abbot of the Parent House ; or,
" Immediate Father," as he is called. Thus the bands of
discipline were kept tightly drawn, and harmony, with
I
44 Ml'JLLlFONT AliBEY,
uniformity of observance, was maintained throughout the
entire Order,
The denizens of the Cloister at that time consisted of
two great classes, who, indeed, enjoyed alike all the
advantages of the state, but differed in their functions
and employments. One was busied with the cares of
Martha, the other was admitted to the privilege of
Mary. The former were employed chiefly in domestic
duties, and various trades, and were entrusted with the
charge of the granges or outlying farms. These were
the Lay Brothers. Frequently their ranks were aug-
mented by the noble and the learned, who, unnoticed and
unknown till their holy death, guided the plough, delved
the soil, or tended the sheep and oxen in the glades of
the forest. The other class resided in the monastery and
devoted their time to the chanting of the Divine Office,
alternating with study in the Cloister and manual labour
in the fields and gardens. These were the choir monks.
Their dress was white. By vigorous toil and strict
economy, these good old monks wrested a competency
from their farms, and freely shared their substance with
the needy and the stranger. They exhibited to an
astonished world a practical refutation of its corrupt
maxims and habits. Thus by their very lives, they
preached most efficaciously ; for by their contempt of
worldly honours and pleasures they gave proof abun-
dant of the faith that enlightened them to recognise
the sublimity of the Gospel truths ; of the hope that
sustained them to courageously endure temporal privations
for the sake of future rewards; and of the charity that
prompted them to liken themselves to Jesus Christ, their
Master, who, being rich, became poor for their sakes.
Some may be inclined to consider all this as the effect of
monkish extravagance, weak-mindedness, and folly ; but
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 45
modern investigation, instituted and carried to a success-
ful issue by honest Protestant writers, has brushed aside
such calumnies as hackneyed catch-words, and has proved
that beneath the monk's cowl, there were found hearts as
warm and minds as broad as in any state or grade of
society. It must also be remembered, that for centuries
the monks were the teachers Avho moulded and fashioned
the youth of the upper and middle classes.
Two o'clock A.M. was the usual hour for rising, when
the monks, obedient to the Sacristan's signal, rising
from their straw pallets and slipping on their sandals (for
they slept fully dressed, as the poorer classes of the time
are said to have done,) they left the Dormitory by the
stairs that led down to the southern transept, and
proceeding noiselessly, they reached the Choir where
they immediately renewed the oblation uf themselves to
God. Then the Office of Matins was commenced, and
it Avith Lauds occupied about one hour. On solemn
festivals the monks rose at midnight, and the Office lasted
over three hours ; for then the whole of it was sung.
Matins and Lauds over, they proceeded to the Reading-
cloister to study the Psalms, or Sacred Scripture, or the
Fathers: some prolonged their devotions in the church,"
where with clean, uplifted hands, tliey became powerful
mediators betw^een God and His creatures; too many of
whom, alas, ignore their personal obligations. At that
time, too, the priests might celebrate their Masses, as the
ancient Rule gave them liberty to select that hour if they
felt so inclined. We do not know how many priests were
amongst the Religious at Mellifont soon after its establish-
ment, but they must have numbered about twenty, since
there were ten altars in the church. And judging by the
number of priests in other monasteries of the Order at that
period, this figure is not too high. "We know that in
4G MELLIFONT AUIJEY.
1147, there were fifty priests at least at Poutigny,
one of the four first houses of the Order. About five
o'clock the monks assembled ia Choir for Prime, after
which they went to Chapter, where the Martyrology and
portion of the Rule were sung, as has been already ex-
plained. Chapter over, they entered the Auditorium, where
they took off and hung up their cowls, and each went
thence to the manual labour assigned him by the Prior.
In winter, nearly all went out to work in the fields, grubb-
ing up brushwood and burning it, and so preparing the
ground for cultivation. After some hours spent in labour,
they returned to the monastery where they had time for
reading ; they then went to Choir for Tierce and High
Mass. During winter the Mass was sung before going out
to work. In summer they dined at 11.30, after which
an hour was allowed for repose, and None being sung they
resumed their labour in the fields. In winter, dinner was
at half-past two; the evening was spent in study and in
chanting the Offices of Vespers and Compline, and at
seven they retired to rest. Ia summer the hour for
repose was eight o'clock. The Office of Completoriura or
Compline always closed the exercises of the day, and all
passed before the Abbot, from whom they received holy
water as they left the church. Each went straight to his
simple couch where sweet repose awaited him after his
day of toil and penitential works. His frugal vegetable
fare, without seasoning or condiment, barely sufficed for
the wants of nature, and even this was sparingly doled
out to him ; for during the winter exercises, that is, from
the 14th of September to Easter, he got only one refection
daily except on Sundays, when he always got two. Wine,
though allowed in small quantities at meals in countries
where it was the common drink, was not permitted here,
but in its stead, the monks used beer of their own
L_
<r..'
.,...>,ti>i^^^i>:^^-'^
From Photo by W. Lawrence, Dublin.
Arch of Lavabo (Octagon.) See p. 26.
48 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
brewing. Their raiment consisted of a white woollen
tunic of coarse material and a strip of black cloth over the
shoulders, and reaching to below the knees, gathered in at
the waist with a leathern girdle. Over these, when not
employed in manual labour, was worn the long white
oarment with wide sleeves, called the cowl. The tunic was
the ordinary dress of peasantry in the twelfth century, and
was retained by the reformers of St. Benedict's Rule, partly
because it was the prescribed dress of the monks, and
partly as an incentive to humility ; a mark of the perfect
equality which reigned in monasteries, and which removed
all distinction of class.
Such was the ordinary routine of life led at Mellifont,
but then certain officials filled important offices which
necessarily brought them in constant contact with the
outer world. Such, for instance, was the Cellarer, who
had charge under the Abbot of the temporalities of the
monastery, and catered for all the wants of the com-
munity. Some were deputed to wait on the guests and
strangers, while others cared the sick poor in the hospice
with all charity and tenderness. For the maintenance
of the sick poor large tracts of land or revenues arising
from house-property were very often bequeathed by pious
people, and the monks were then their almoners ; but,
with or without such a provision from outside, the
monks did maintain these establishments from their
own resources.
The Abbot entertained the guests of the monastery at
his own table, dispensing to them such frugal fare as was
in keeping with the Rule ; for meat was not allowed to
be served, except to the sick. He had his kitchen and
dining-hall apart, but in every other respect, he shared
in all the exercises with his brethren. Though he
occupied the place of honour and of pre-eminence in the
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 49
monastery, yet he was constantly reminded in the Rule,
that he must not lord it over his monks, hut must
cherish them as a tender parent. His object in all his
ordinances should be to promote the welfare of the flock
entrusted to him, for which he should render an account
on the last day.
From this relation of the manner of life at Mellifont,
we see that it was in strict conformity with St. Bernard's
definition of the Cistercian Institute, when he writes :
" Our Order 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."
I>
50 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
CHAPTER IV.
MELLIFONT TAKES ROOT AND FOUNDS NEW HOUSES OF THE
ORDER.
"Even thus of old
: Our ancestors, within the still domain
Of vast Cathedral or Conventual church,
Their vigils kept ; where tapers day and night
On the dim altars burned continually,
In token that the House was evermore
Watching to God. Religious men were they ;
Nor Avould their reason tutored to aspire
Above this transitory world, allow
That there should pass a moment of the year
When in their land the Almighty's service ceased."
( Wordsworth.)
;HE history of Mellifont may be justly said
to reflect the concurrent history of Ireland.
It is so intimately connected and inter-
woven with that of our countr}-, that they
touch at many points, and we can collect
matter for both as we travel back along the
stream of time and observe the footprints on
the sands, where saint, and king, chieftain, bishop, and
holy monk, have left their impress and disappeared, to
be succeeded later on by the baron and his armed
retainers. How different the Ireland of to-day from the
Ireland that Christian, the first Abbot of Mellifont,
beheld when he and his companions settled down in the
little valley, in the laud of the O'Carroll ! How many
changes have passed over it since, leaving it the poorest
country in Europe, though one of the richest in natural
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 51
resources ! But these considerations appertain to the
politician ; they do not lie within the scope of the present
writer. Next to building their church and monastery,
the first care of the monks on their immediate arrival at
Mellifont, w^as to prepare the soil for tillage; for, judging
from the nature of the surroundings, it must have been
overrun with dense brushwood, unbroken, save at distant
intervals, by patches of green sward. Most houses of the
Order in Ireland had to contend with similar conditions
at their foundation ; of Dunhrody, Co. Wexford, we are
expressly told, that the monk sent by the Abbot of
Buildewas to examine the site of the future monastery,
found on it only a solitary oak surrounded by a sivamp.
But these old monks were adepts in the reclamation of
waste lands, and soon the hills rang with the instruments
of husbandry. Pleasant gardens and fertile meadows
rewarded their toil, and their example gave a stimulus to
agriculture, which, till then, was neglected by a pastoral
people. At the same time, they manufactured bricks in
the locality, and employed them in their buildings.
Then rumour on her many wings flew far and near, and
spread the fame of the new-comers to that remote valley,
and soon the monastery was crowded with visitors intent
on seeing the strangers and observing closely their
manner of life. The sight pleased them. The ways of
these monks accorded with the traditions handed down
of the inhabitants of the ancient monasteries, before the
depredations of the Danes, and the hearts of a highly
imaginative race, with quick spiritual instincts, were
attracted towards St. Bernard's children. Immediately
began an influx of postulants for the Cistercian habit, and
every day brought more, till the stalls in the Choir were
filled, and Abbot Christian's heart overflowed with glad-
ness. In consultation with St. Malachy, Abbot Christian
52 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
decided on founding another monastery, as his own could
no longer contain the now greatly-increased community.
A new colony was sent forth from it, and thus in two
years from the foundation of Mellifont, was established
** Bective on the Boyne." Some say that Newry, which
was endowed by Maurice M'Loughlin, King of Ireland, at
St. Malachy's earnest entreaty, was the first filiation of
Mellifont. The charter of its (Newry) foundation happily
has come down to us, but it bears no date. However,
O'Donovan, who translated it into English from the Latin
original in MS. in the British Museum, says it was
written in IIGO. As it is the only extant charter granted
to a monastery by a native king before the Invasion, a
copy of the translation is given in the Appendix.
Under the patronage, then, of St. Malachy and the
native princes, and by the skill, industry, and piety of its
inmates, Mellifont rose and prospered, and merited an
exalted place in popular esteem. The monastery was in
course of construction, and their new church nearing
completion, when a heavy trial befell the monks in the
death of their unfailing friend, wise counsellor, and loved
father, St. Malachy, which took place at Clairvaux, in the
arms of St. Bernard, A.D. 1148. St. Bernard delivered a
most pathetic discourse over the remains of his friend,
and wrote a consoling letter to the Irish Cistercians,
condoling with them on the loss they and the whole
Irish Church had sustained on the death of St. Malachy.
He, later on, wrote his life, and willed, that as they
tenderly loved each other in life, so in death they should
not be separated. Their tombs were side by side in the
church of Clairvaux, till their relics, enshrined in
magnificent altars, with many costly lamps burning before
them, were scattered at the French Revolution, and the
rich shrines were smashed and plundered. Portions of
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 53
their bodies were, however, preserved by the good, pious
people of the locality, and their heads are now preserved
with honour in the cathedral of Troyes, France. The
writers of the Cistercian Order claim St. Malachy as
having belonged to them ; for, they say that being
previously a Benedictine, he received the Cistercian habit
from St. Bernard during one of his visits to Clairvaux.
They add that St. Bernard exchanged cowls with him,
and that he wore St. Malachy 's ever after on solemn
festivals. The Saint's life is so well known that it needs
no further notice here. Before his death, he saw three
houses founded from Mellifont, namely, Bective, Newry,
and Boyle.
Two years after St. Malachy's death, that is, in 1150,
the monks of Mellifont experienced another serious loss
when their venerated Abbot, Christian, was appointed
Bishop of Lismore, and Legate of the Holy See in
Ireland, by Pope Eugenius III., who had been his fellow-
novice in Clairvaux. Christian's brother, Malchus, was
elected to the abbatial office in his stead. Malchus
proved himself a very worthy superior, and Mellifont
continued on her prosperous coarse, so much so, that in
1151, or nine years from its own. establishment, it could
reckon as many as six important filiations, namely,
Bective, Newry, Boyle, Athlone, Baltinglas, and Manister,
or Manisternenay, Co. Limerick.
In 1152, St. Bernard passed to his reward, after having
founded IGO houses of his Order, having edified Christen-
dom by the splendour of his virtues, and astonished it by
his rare natural gifts, which elevated him far above all
his contemporaries. From the moment that he accepted
the pastoral staff as Abbot of Clairvaux, till his death,
that is, during the space of forty years, he was the figure-
head of his Order in whom its whole history was merged
54 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
during that long period. In fact, he became so identified
with the Order to which he belonged, that it was often
called from him, Bernardine ; or, of Claraval, from his
famous monastery; and it was in a great measure owing
to his influence, and in grateful acknowledgment of the
splendid services which he rendered the Church in
critical times, that Sovereign Pontiffs heaped so many
favours on it. He was the fearless and successful
champion of the oppressed in all grades of society, and
all looked up to him as their guide and instructor. And
yet this paragon of wisdom, this stern judge of the evil-
doer, was remarkable for his naturalness and affectionate
disposition. On the occasion of his brother Gerard's
death, he attempted to preach a continuation of bis
discourses on the Canticle of Canticles, but his affection
for his brother overcame him, and after giving vent to his
grief, he delivered a most touching panegyric on his
beloved Gerard. To the last moment of his life he
entertained a most vivid recollection of his mother, and
cherished the tenderest affection towards her memory.
It may be doubted, that any child of the Church ever
defended her cause with such loyalty and success. One
stands amazed on readijig what the Rev. Mr. King writes
in his Church History of Ireland, where he taxes St.
Bernard with superstition, because the Saint relates in
his Life of St. Malachy, how that holy man wrought
certain miracles. So evident were St. Bernard's own
miracles, that Luden, a German Protestant historian,
calls them "incontestable." 'Twere supreme folly to
accuse a man of St. Bernard's endowments and culture,
of the weakness that admits or harbours superstition,
which generally flows from ignorance, or incapacity to
sift matters, and to test them in their general or parti-
cular bearings. Oq the whole, Protestant writers speak
and write approvingly of him.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 55
In that year (1152), a Synod was held at Mell, which,
according to Ussher, is identical with Mellifont, though
now a suburb of Drogheda is known by that name.
Other Irish writers say that this Synod was held at Kells.
At it Christian, then Bishop of Lisniore and Legate of
the Holy See, presided. In the Annals of the Four
Masters it is related, that a "Synod was convened at
Drogheda, by the bishops of Ireland, with the successor
of Patrick, and the Cardinal, John Paparo," etc.
O'Donovan, quoting Colgan, tells us that Mellifont was
known as the " Monastery at Drogheda."
In this same year occurred the elopement of Dervor-
gilla, wife of Tiernan O'Rourke, Prince of Brefny, with
Dermod M'Murchad, King of Leinster. She is styled
the Helen of Erin, as it is commonly supposed that her
flight with Dermod occasioned the English Invasion.
When O'Rourke heard of her departure, he was " marvel-
lously troubled and in great choler, but more grieved for
the shame of the fact than for sorrow or hurt, and,
therefore, was fully determined to be avenged." It is
mentioned in the Annals of Clonmacnois that O'Rourke
had treated her harshly some time previous, and that her
brother M'Laughliu connived at her conduct. Dervorgilla
(which means in Irish, The True Pledge), was forty-four
years of age at the time, whilst O'Rourke (who was blind
of one eye) and M'Murchad, were each of them sixty-two
years old. O'Rourke was the most strenuous opponent
of the English at the Invasion, and was treacherously
slain by a nephew of Maurice Fitzgerald at the Hill of
Ward, near Athboy, in 1172. He was decapitated, and
his head hung over the gates of Dublin for some time.
It was afterwards sent to King Henry, in England.
From 1152 to 1157 the monks attracted no attention
worth chronicling; for during these five years they
56 MELLIFONT ABBI-Y,
passed by unnoticed in our Annals. It is, however,
certain that they were busily engaged in the completion
of their church and in making preparations for its solemn
consecration. And what a day of rejoicing that memo-
rable day of the consecration was, when Mellifont beheld
the highest and holiest in Church and State assembled to
do her honour ! This ceremony far eclipsed any that had
been witnessed before that in Ireland. What commotion
and bustle filled the abbey, the valley, and the sur-
rounding hills ! A constantly increasing crowd came
thronging to behold a sight which gladdened their hearts
and aroused their piety and admiration. For, there stood
the Ard High (High King) of Erin, surrounded by his
princes and nobles in all the pride and pageantry of state,
the Primate Gelasius, and Christian, the Papal Legate,
with seventeen other bishops, and almost all the abbots
and priests in Ireland. Then the solemn rite was per-
formed, and many precious offerings were made to the
monks and to their church — gold and lands, cattle, and
sacred vessels, and ornaments for the altars, were be-
stowed with a generosity worthy of the princely donors.
O'Melaghlin gave seven-score cows and three-score ounces
of gold to God and the clergy, for the good of his soul.
He granted them, also, a townland, called Fiunabhair-na-
ninghean, a piece of land, according to O'Donovan, which
lies on the south side of the Boyne, opposite the mouth
of the Mattock, in the parish of Donore, Co. Meath.
O'CarroU gave sixty ounces of gold, and the faithless but
now repentant Dervorgilla presented a gold chalice for
the High Altar, and cloths for the other nine altars of
the church.
Mellifont looked charming on that propitious occasion,
and presented a truly delightful picture, with its beautiful
church and abbey buildings glistening in the sun in all the
M ELL 1 FONT ABBEY. 57
purity and freshness of the white, or nearly white,
sandstone of which they were composed. Yet, beautiful
as were the material buildings, far more so were those
stones of the spiritual edifice, the meek and prayerful
cenobites, who were gathered there to adore and serve
their God in spirit and in truth. From that valley there
arose a pleasing incense to the Lord — the prayers, and
hymns, and canticles, which unceasingly resounded in
that church from hearts truly devoted to God's worship,
and dead to the world and themselves.
58
MKLI.IKOJST ABBEY.
CHAPTER V.
MELLIFONT CONTINUES TO FLOURISH UNDER SUCCESSIVE
EMINENT SUPERIORS.
" This is no common spot of earth,
No place for idle words or mirth ;
Here streamed the taper's mystic light ;
Here flashed the waving censers bright ;
Awhile the Church's ancient song
Lingered the stately aisles along,
And high mysterious words were said
Which brought to men the living Bread."
{W. Chatterton Dix.)
FTER the consecration of their church the
monks settled down to their ordinary-
quiet way. The erection of the monastic
buildings had hitherto kept them occupied ;
now that these were completed, they de-
voted their attention to the improvement of
their farms, which they tilled with their own
hands, and to the embellishment of their immediate
surroundings. Even at this early period of her history,
Mellifont was a hive of industry where all the trades
flourished and many important arts were encouraged.
At that time hired labour was sparingly employed by the
monks; for they themselves bore a share in the work of
the artisans as well as in the ordinary drudgery of tillage^
Labour placed all on a footing of equality whilst it gave
vigour to the body by healthy exercise in the open air.
Perhaps, this healthy exercise was one of the secrets of
the longevity for which the monks were remarkable.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 59
Regularity of life continued for years contributes to a
state of health which dispenses with physicians. Where-
ever monks settled down they inomediately erected mills
for grinding corn, for preparing and finishing the fabrics
of which their garments were made, etc. St. Benedict
enjoined on his monks the necessity of practising all the
trades and arts within the walls of the monastery, so that
they need never leave their enclosure for the purpose, or
under the pretext, of having their work done by externs.
Eleven years passed without Mellifont receiving any
notice from our native chroniclers, and then at the year
1168, it is recorded, that Prince Donogh O'Carroll, the
Founder, died and was buried in the church there.
Ware tells us that bis tomb and those of other remark-
able personages had been in the church. As it Avas an
almost general custom in Ireland, that the Founders of
religious houses were interred on the north, or Gospel
side of the High Altar, so it may be justly inferred that
he was buried within the chancel, and that the recess on
the north side is where his monument was erected.
Thus, King Charles O'Connor's tomb occupies the same
place in Knockmoy Abbey, Co. Galway, of which he was
Founder. So, too, in Corcomroe Abbey, Co. Clare, the
tomb of Conor O'Brien, King of Thomond, grandson of
the Founder of that abbey, is still to be seen in a niche in
the wall on the north side of the High Altar. No doubt
they were buried under the pavement. The ancient
Statutes of the Order permitted kings and bishops to be
buried in the churches, but assigned no particular part
as proper to them.
In 1170, a monk named Auliv, who had been expelled*
* The Annals of Ulster simply state " for the monks of Ireland did
banish him (Auliv) out of their abbacy, through lawful causes." The
Four Ma><ters tell us it was the monks of Drogheda who had expelled
€0 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
from Mellifont, instigated Manus, the King of Ulster, to
commit an " unknown and attrocious crime," as the
Annals of the Four blasters call it ; that is, to banish
the monks whom St. Malachy brought to Saul, Co. Duwn,
and to deprive them of everything they were possessed of.
Instances of Avicked men deceitfully entering monasteries,
at that time and at other periods of monastic history, are
given, but invariably the guilty party is severely censured,
and it is related that his fellow-monks rid themselves of
him. St. Bernard himself was deceived by his secretary,
Nicholas, who afterwards left the Order. " He went out
from us," said the Saint, " but he did not belonsf to us."
The Order was spreading rapidly in Ireland, and the
filiations from Mellifont in their turn sent out new
filiations, till most of the picturesque valleys in this
country sheltered and nurtured thriving establishments ;
so much so, that O'Daly tells us " there were twenty-five
grand Cistercian abbeys in Ireland at the Invasion."
But then a new era dawned on this unhappy nation, and
might usurped the place of right, cruel unending strife
and fierce jealousies were imported into the country, and
it became one vast battle-field. Ireland would have
assimilated the two contending races, but their amalga-
mation would have been detrimental to English interests
in this kingdom, and hence by statute, by bribe, by all
means available, the representatives of that Crown only
him from the abbacy foi" his own crime. A writer iu the Dahlia Penny
Journal, ] 835-36, says this Auliv was Abbot of the monastery of St.
Mary de Urso, near the West Gate, Drogheda. He quotes some old
Annals without particularising them. And Dalton, in his History of
Drogheda, tells us that Auliv had been Abbot of that same Abbey of
St. Mary's, Drogheda, and was expelled. Dalton evidently confounds
this monastery with Mellifont. No Cistercian Community had power
to depose their abbot, such power being vested in the General Chapter
of the Ordoi .
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 61
too successfully kept the feuds alive. Fain would they
have made the Church an instrument for the furtherance
of these ulterior purposes, but, whilst she stood firm as an
integral part of Peter's Rock, neither English bribes nor
English wiles could subjugate her. True, Englishmen:
were appointed to the richest benefices within the Pale to
which the Euglish kings had the right of presentatioD,
and these strove, with as much zeal as the knight or
baron, to extend the boundaries of the shire-lands. But
the Irish prelates, by their disinterestedness, and their
personal and episcopal virtues, saved the Church from
the degradation that imperilled her. We shall see the
result of this policy as we proceed.
Judging, by analogy, from the progress of society in
other countries, and from the relative cumber of monas-
teries founded in them and in Ireland before the Invasion,
it may be conjectured that the monastic system in all its
branches would have produced in this country the same
fruits in agriculture, in learning, and in the arts, as are
attributed to it in the history of other nations ; and, in a
special manner, it would have helped, by the unity of
government enforced in Religious Orders, to bind together
the discordant elements of society. Quite different, how-
ever, was it in Ireland ; for the sphere of action of each
monastery was cramped, and confined within a certain
radius, beyond wdiich its influences were not felt, nor
regarded otherwise than in a hostile spirit, or at best as
an object of suspicion.
In 1172, the Abbot of Mellifont was sent to Rome on
an embassy by King Roderic O'Connor. We are not told
its nature.
In 1177, Charles O'Buacalla, then Abbot of this
monastery, was elected Bishop of Emly, where he died
within a month after his consecration. In 1182, King
62 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
Henry II. granted to the Abbot and community of
Mellifont a confirmation of their possessions, and three
years later, King John, at that time styled Lord of
Ireland, renewed the confirmation while he was residing
at Castleknock, during his brief visit to this country, in
1185, the thirty-second year of his father's reign. A
copy of the Charter may be seen in the Miscellany of the
Archaeological Society, Vol. I., page 158. The original,
which is one of the earliest of the Anglo-Irish documents
that have come down to us, is preserved in Trinity
College, Dublin. By this Charter King John confirmed to
the monks of Mellifont the "donation and concession"
which his father made to them. By it he confirmed to
the monks " the site and ambit of the abbey, with all its
appurtenances, namely, the grange of Kulibudi (not on
the Ordnance map), and Munigatinn (Monkenewtown),
with its appurtenances, the granges of Mell and Drogheda
(in Irish Droichet-atha, that is, bridge of the ford) and
their appurtenances, and Rathmolan (Rathmullen) and
Finnaur (Femor), with their appurtenances, the grange of
Teachlenni (Stalleen), and the grange of Kossnarrigh
(Rossnaree), with their appurtenances, the townland of
Culen (CuUen) and its appurtenances, the grange of
Cnogva (Knowth), the grange of Kelkalma (not known
now), with their appurtenances, Tuelacnacornari (not
known), and Callan (Collon), with their appurtenances, and
the grange of Finna ( ) with its appurtenances."
He also confirms the grants of two carucates of land made
to the monks by Hugh de Lacy, viz., of Croghan and
Bally bregan (?), and also one carucate of kind given by
Robert of Flanders, called Crevoda, now Creewood, two
miles west of Mellifont.
In 1186, St. Christian O'Connarchy, or Connery, who
had been the first Abbot of Mellifont and afterwards
(54 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
Bishop of Lismore and Legate of the Holy See, died, and
was buried at O'Dorney, Co. Kerry, a monastery of his
Order, which was founded in 1154, from Manister-Nenay.
He had resigned all his dignities six years before, in order
the better to prepare himself for a happy death. He was
enrolled in the Calendar of the Saints of the Cistercian
Order, and his festival was kept in England in pre-Refor-
mation times, on the 18th March. In the eulogy of him
in the Cistercian Menology it is said, " that he was
remarkable for his sanctity and wonderful miracles, and
that next to St. Malachy, he was regarded by the Irish
nation as one of its principal patrons," even down to the
time that that was written, A.D. 1630. An Irish gentle-
man who visited Italy in 1858, wrote from Venice to a
friend, that he had seen amongst the fresco paintings
which covered the wall of the beautiful church of Chiara-
valla, the first Cistercian monastery founded in Italy, a
painting of St. Malachy; also one entitled, "S. Christi-
anus ArcMeps. in Hibemia Cisterciensis" — "St. Chris-
tian, a Cistercian monk, and Archbishop in Ireland." The
error in ranking him as Archbishop probably arose from
his having succeeded St. Malachy as Legate. It was in
his Legatine capacity that he presided at several Synods,
chiefly the memorable one convened by King Henry at
Cashel, in 1172.
About the same time, there died at Mellifont, a holy
monk named Malchus, who is said to have been St.
Christian's brother and successor in the abbatial office, as
has been related above. Ussher, quoting St. Bernard,
positively asserts that he was St. Christian's brother.
And Sequin, who, in 1580, compiled a Catalogue of the
Saints of the Cistercian Order, mentions Malchus in that
honoured roll, and styles him " a true contemner of the
world, a great lover of God, and a pattern and model of
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 65
all virtues to the whole Order." He says, " he was one
of St. Malachy's disciples iu whose footsteps he faithfully
followed, and that he was renowned for his sanctity and
learning, as well as for the many miracles he wrought."
His feast was kept on the 28th of June.
In 1189, Rudolph, or Ralph Feltham, Abbot of
Furness, died and was buried here. And in the same
year, died Murrogh O'Carroll, cousin of the Founder, near
whom he was interred.
la 1190, Pope Clement III, issued a Bull addressed
to the General Chapter of the Cistercian Order, dated
July 6th of that year, enrolling St. Malachy in the
Calendar of Saints, and appointing the 3rd of November
for his festival.
At that same General Chapter, it was decreed that the
Irish Abbots be dispensed from attending the General
Chapter annually, and it was decided that they should
be present every third year; and a few years later, the
Abbot of Mellifont was charged to select three of their
number who should repair thither every year.
In 1193, Dervorgilla died at the monastery of Mellifont.
The Annals of the Four Masters and other Annals
simply relate the fact of her having died there in the
yoth year of her age, without alluding to the place of her
sepulture.
In that year, also, portions of the Relics of St. Malachy
were brought to Mellifont and were distributed to the
other houses of the Order in Ireland. Several of our
Annals say that the Saint's body was brought over from
Clairvaux, but that is obviously a mistake; for until the
French Revolution, the bodies of St. Malachy and St.
Bernard occupied two magnificent altar-tombs of red
marble within the chancel, at Clairvaux. A charter,
dated 1273, is still extant, whereby Robert Bruce, the
66 MELLIFONT ABBKY.
rival of John Baliol for the Scottish Crown, conveys his
land of Ostieroft to the Abhot of Clairvaux for the
maintenance of a lamp before St. Malachy's tomb in that
church. And the General Chapter of the Order held in
1323, when raising the Saint's festival to a higher rank,
expressly mentioned that his body " rested " at Clairvaux.
Meglinger, a German Cistercian monk, who visited Clair-
vaux in 1667, and wrote a description of that famous
abbey as he beheld it, says that he was shown the heads
of Saints Malachy and Bernard, which were preserved in
silver cases. He also mentions the superb altar-tombs
of the two Saints. Later on, the two celebrated Bene-
dictine monks, Dom Mart^ne and Dom Durand, when
in quest of MSS., called at Clairvaux, and were shown
the tombs and heads of the Saints. It is scarcely
necessary to remark that this respect and veneration
were entertained for the tombs only because they con-
tained the bodies of the holy men.
In 1194, Abbot Moelisa, who then governed Mellifont,
was made Bishop of Clogher.
MELLIFONT ABBEY.
67
CHAPTER VI.
MELLIFONT IN TROUBLOUS TIMES. .
" But I must needs confess
That 'tis a thing impossible to frame
Conceptions equal to the soul's desires ;
And the most diflScult of tasks to keep
Heights which the soul is competent to gain."
( Wordsworth.')
IXTY years of uninterrupted prosperity
have passed over Mellifont, during which
period it has been honoured by princes
and people alike, and even the English
Kings have marked their esteem for it by
heaping fresh favours on it. It was still
flourishing in 1201, when Thomas O'Connor,
Archbishop of Armagh, whom the Annals of St. Mary's
Abbey, Dublin, style "a noble and worthy man," chose
it as his burial-place, and was buried there with great
honour. He was brother to Roderick O'Connor, King
of Connaught. It was at his instance that Joceline wrote
his Life of St. Patrick.
In 1203, King John " of his own fee" granted a new
charter confirming that given by his father some years
before, and also giving the monks free customs, together
with the fishery on both sides of the Boyne.
In 1206, Benedict and Gerald, monks of Mellifont, were
deputed by Eugene, Archbishop of Armagh, to wait on
the King and to tender him, on the Archbishop's behalf,
three hundred marks of silver and three of gold for
68 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
restitution of the lands and liberties belonging to that
See. It was the King's custom to appropriate the
revenues of the vacant bishoprics, and on the confirmation
by the Pope of the bishop-elect, he issued a writ of
restitution of the temporalities, or episcopal possessions
and rights. The King, in order to keep the temporalities
the longer, often refused his "conge d'elire," without
which an election was invalid by the civil law. Soon
after the Invasion, King Henry II. held in his possession,
pending the appointment of new prelates, one arch-
bishopric, five bishoprics, and three abbeys, here in
Ireland.
In 1211, Thomas was Abbot, and seven years later,
Carus, or Cormac O'Tarpa, Abbot, and presumably
immediate successor to Thomas, was made Bishop of
Achonry, which See he resigned in 1226, and returned to
Mellifont, where he died that same year, and Avas buried
there. Some two-and-one-half miles north of Mellifont,
and one-half mile east of Collon, between that village and
Tinure, there is a crossing of the roads still popularly
known as "Tarpa's Cross." Local tradition has it that
this Cormac O'Tarpa, when Abbot, was wont to walk
daily from the monastery to this spot.
About that time, or in 1221, Mellifont, from some
unrecorded cause, fell from its first fervour, but only for
a very brief period ; for the remedy applied effected a
thorough reform. In the Statutes of the Order for that
year, the General Chapter authorised the Abbot of Clair-
vaux to set things right by bringing in monks from other
monasteries, and so, as it were, infuse new and healthier
blood into the monastic life there. As no further mention
is made of the matter, the trouble, whatever its nature
was, must have been permanently removed.
In 1227, Luke Netterville, Archbishop of Armagh, was
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 69
buried here. It was he who, three years previous, founded
the Dominican monastery in Drogheda, of which, now,
only the Magdalen Tower remains. And in that year
(1227), Gerald, a monk of Mellifont, was elected Bishop
of Dromore.
In 1229, the King granted to the Abbot and Com-
munity of Mellifont a Tuesday market in their town of
Collon.
In 1233, the General Chapter authorised all the Abbots
of the Order to have the Word of God preached on
Sundays and festivals, to their servants and retainers, in
some suitable place. And in 1238, the King gave a new
confirmation to the monks of Mellifont.
In 1248, the General Chapter granted permission to
the English and Irish Abbots of the Order, to hold
deliberations on important local matters in their respec-
tive countries. The Abbots of Mellifont, of St. Mary's
Abbey, Dublin, and of Duiske, Co. Kilkenny, were
empowered to convoke all the other Irish Abbots of the
Order for consultation; the assembly thus somewhat
partaking of the nature of a Provincial Chapter.
In 1250, no Englishman would be admitted to pro-
fession at Mellifont. In 12G9, David O'Brogan, who had
been a monk of this house, and afterwards Bishop of
Clogher, was buried here. In 1272, Hore Abbey, near
Cashel, was founded from Mellifont. In 1275, the General
Chapter decreed that in the admission of novices into the
Order there should be no question of nationality.
Hitherto, the Cistercians confined themselves, in dis-
charging the offices of their sacred ministry, to their
guests, servants, and the sick poor in the hospitals at
their gates ; but now, the altered circumstances of the
times demand a change in their usages and impose
fresh burdens on them, for which they get no credit.
70 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
The new Orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic had
settled down in this country, and were attracting a
large percentage of the young men, who, till then,
entered the ranks of the Lay Brethren, and managed the
granges, or outlying farms, under the Cellarer. In
consequence, therefore, of the insufficiency of their
numbers to work the farms profitably, it was found
necessary to lease these granges to tenants, and hence the
origin of many villages and towns that, in several
instances, arose on the site of the granges. The chapel
attached to the grange (for every grange had its chapel
for the use of the Brothers in charge) was converted into
a parish church for the new population that clustered
around it. Of this church the monks became the pastors,
except when it lay at too great distance to be served from
the monastery; in which case, the monks employed
secular priests. They built schools also, where the
children of the tenants and dependants received gratui-
tously from the monks themselves, an education similar to
that at present imparted in our primary schools.
Though the study of Sacred Scripture, Theology, and
Canon Law was encouraged in the Order from its founda-
tion ; yet it was not until 1245 that studies were fully
organised by drawing up a curriculum that should be
obligatory. In that year it was ordained by the General
Chapter that in every Province there should be a central
monastery to which the monks should repair to read the
prescribed course of studies under members of the Order,
who had graduated at some university. We are not told
which of the Irish monasteries was selected as the House
of Studies ; but, in 1281, the General Chapter decided and
decreed that in all the larger abbeys such Houses of
Studies should be established.
There is an entry in the Annals of St. Mary's Abbey, at
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 71
the year 1281, giving the price of cattle at that time. As
it is interesting it is given here : viz., twenty shillings
each for a horse, a cow, or a bullock.
In 1306, Mellifont first experienced the baleful effects
of racial jealousies and bickerings ; for the monks could
not, or would not, agree to elect an Abbot ; and during
their dissensions, the King seized the possessions of the
monastery. We are not informed how matters terminated
on that occasion.
In 1316, the General Chapter ordered that the English,
Welsh, and Irish Abbots should send some of their monks,
in proportion to the number in their respective monasteries,
to the University of Oxford, to be educated there. A few
years previous, the Earl of Cornwall endowed at Oxford
the College of St. Bernard (now St. John's), for the
Cistercians. How far the Irish monks availed of this
college cannot be known ; probably those within the Pale
did largely benefit by it. One who obtained an unenviable
notoriety by his intemperate invectives against the
Mendicant Orders, was educated there — Henry Crump, an
Englishman, and monk of the Abbey of Baltinglas. But
it is very dubious that the " mere Irish" ventured to cross
its threshold. They would abstain from doing so from
prudential motives.
The fourteenth century was ushered in by the re-
petition of feuds between the Anglo-Irish and the Irish ;
and, as it grew older, the former fought amongst them-
selves, with Irish auxiliaries on both sides. It may be
here remarked, as a curious historical fiict, that it was the
Irish who fought the battles for the English Crown in
Ireland ; it was they, too, who retained their country
subject to that dominion, according to Sir John Davis
{Discoverie, p. 639) ; for no army ever came out of
England from the time of King John, except the expedi-
72 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
tioT)ary army of Richard II. The few forces subsequently
sent over, until the twenty-ninth year of Queen Elizabeth,
"were to quell the rebellions of the English settlers.
The most disastrous calamity in Ireland in this century,
next to the great plague of 1348, or the "Black Death," as
it was called, was Bruce's invasion in 1315. Friar Clyn
tells us in his Annals, that Bruce and his followers " went
through all the country, burning, slaying, depredating,
spoiling towns and castles, and even churches, as they
■went and as they returned." As a result the country
was visited by a dreadful famine, and, moreover, the Pope,
writing to the Archbishops of Dublin and Cash el in 1317,
alludes to scandals, murders, conflagrations, sacrileges,
and rapine, as following from that invasion. Though
Bruce failed in his object to overthrow the English power
in Ireland, yet he so far succeeded, that he weakened it
considerably.
In the year 1316 (according, to Ussher), O'Neill
addressed his famous Remonstrance to Pope John XXII.,
in which, amongst other complaints, he remarked, that the
religious communities were prohibited by the law from
admitting anyone not an Englishman into monasteries
within the Pale. In response to this, the Pope sent two
Cardinals to investigate the matter, and also wrote a
letter to King Edward II., exhorting him to adopt merciful
measures towards the Irish. The letter had not much
efifect, and the cruelties and injustice continued; but,
about twenty years later, there was exhibited an unpre-
cedented tendency on the part of the Anglo-Irish and the
Irish towards incorporation. The Irish people clung to
the great Geraldine family with a romantic afifection which
that chivalrous race fully reciprocated. So, too, did
they lean towards the rivals of the Geraldines, the
Ormondes, and to other Anglo-Irish barons, who, likewise,
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 73
had adopted Irish customs and sirnames. Eoglish power
in this country had grown to be regarded as merely
nominal, and the administration of the law and the office of
Lord Deputy could no longer be committed to one or other
of the two principal families (the Geraldine or Ormonde),
to whom the Deputyship had been usually entrusted.
To preclude the danger of these haughty noblemen
attempting to arrogate the state of the independent native
chieftains, and to firmly establish the English power, a
Parliament, which assembled at Nottingham, in the
seventeenth of Edward III. (1343), enacted laws for the
reformation of the Irish Government. A few months
previous to the sitting of this Parliament, Sir Ralph Ufford
had been sent over as Lord Deputy, to stamp out this
incipient spirit of independence, and to impede the fusion
of the two races. This nobleman, by rigid and cruel
measures, executed the nefarious intentions of the Eng-
lish Parliament. He appropriated the goods of others,
plundered, without discrimination, the clergy, the laity, the
rich and the poor; assigning the public welfare as a
pretext. He broke down the pride of the Earl of
Desmond, and for a while seized his estates ; but, on
Ufford's recall to England and the appointment of Sir
Walter. Bermingham as his successor, Desmond was re-
stored to royal favour. Gradually the old animus was
revived, and old dormant jealousies between the two races
were awakened, until, in the year 1376, the "Statute of
Kilkenny" threw the whole nation into a state of com-
motion and chaos, and aroused a fierce hatred between
the Anglo-Irish and the later arrivals from England, who
were styled by that Act, " the English born in Eugland."
The latter despised the former and called them " Irish
Dogg;" the Anglo-Irish retorted, giving them the name
of "English Hobbe," or churl. These bickerings were
74 MELLIFONT AllBEY.
reprobated by the said Statute, which, at the same time,
banned the whole race of the native Irish. Sir John
Davis writes of it : " It was manifest from these laws
that those who had the government of Ireland under the
Crown of England intended to make a perpetual separa-
tion between the English settled in Ireland and the
native Irish, in the expectation that the English should
in the end root out the Irish." And another Englishman
writes of this Statute : *' Imagination can scarcely devise
an extremity of antipathy, hatred, and revenge, to which
this code of aggravation was not calculated to provoke
both nations " (Plowden, Historical Revieiv of the State
of Ireland.) The foregoing summary of the condition of
affairs in Ireland in the fourteenth century has been
given, in order to illustrate and explain the bald historical
facts handed down to us having reference to Mellifont
during the same period.
It will be remembered that in the year 1316, O'Neil
complained to the Pope that Irishmen were by law
excluded from entering monasteries within the Pale ;
accordingly, we read that in 1322, the monks of Mellifont,
amongst whom the English element then prevailed,
would admit no man to profession there who had not
previously sworn that he was not an Irishman. Cox,
who derives his information from some old document in
the Tower of London, tells us that in 1323, the General
Chapter of the Order strongly denounced this pernicious
practice, but there is no such decree, nor is there any
allusion to it in Martene at that date. That spirit seems
to have been gratifying to King Edward II. ; for, in 1324,
he complained to the Pope of the violation of the law of
exclusion, and Nicholas of Lusk, who was then Abbot,
was superseded ; very likely, was summarily deposed, for
the infraction of it.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 75
At that very time, some of the other Cistercian
monasteries under the protection of the native chieftains,
and totally composed of Irishmen, were in a most
prosperous condition, and merited the genuine esteem of
princes and people. Thus, the Abbey of Assaroe, or
Ballyshannon, under the fostering care of the Princes of
Tyrconel, attained celebrity by the regularity of its
monks and the learuing and sanctity of its Abbots, three
of whom were made Bishops at no distant intervals. Of
Boyle Abbey, Co. Roscommon, the same can also be said ;
for it throve and flourished without royal favour or
charter. On the other hand, Mellifont had a plethora of
charters, for which the monks there must have paid
dearly. But, surrounded as it was by covetous and not
over-scrupulous neighbours in lawless times, such safe-
guards were decidedly necessary. So, in 1329, Edward
III. granted them a confirmation of all former privileges,
together with the right of free warren in all their manors ;
and again in 1848, he gave them a fresh confirmation,
with the right to erect a prison in any of their lands in
the Co. Meath, and also the power to erect a pillory and
gallows in their town of Collon. The Abbot then, as a
temporal lord over his own manors, had power of life and
death over his vassals therein ; but he never exercised the
authority so vested in him by condemning anyone to
death, nay, even, he refrained from adjudicating on civil
matters, as is seen by dispensations granted by Popes to
Irish Cistercian Abbots freeing them from the obligation
of acting as Justices.
It is recorded that in 1329, in the battle in which the
Louth men killed their new Earl, John Birmingham,
" there fell Caech O'Carroll, that famous tympanist and
harper, so pre-eminent that he was a phoenix in his art,
and with him fell about twenty tympanists who were his
70 MEL LI FONT ABBEY.
scholars. He Avas called Caech O'CarroU because his
eyes were not straight, but squinted ; and if he was not
the first inventor of chord music, yet of all his prede-
cessors and contemporaries, he was the corrector, the
teacher, and director."
How it fared with Mellifont during the fearful pesti-
lence that ravaged all Europe in 1348, is not related.
Friar Clyn, the Franciscan Annalist, wrote of it: — " That
pestilence deprived of human inhabitants, villages and
cities, and castles and towns, so that there was scarcely
found a man to dwell therein." The mortality ia the
religious houses was very great, and in some instances,
only a few monks were left out of large and numerous
communities. It is said that in these countries the
religious Orders never recovered from the loss of the best
and most learned of their members who were then swept
away.
In 1351, Abbot Reginald was charged, as if it were a
crime, and found guilty, of having within two years
collected of his own money, and from the Abbots of
Boyle, Knockmoy, Bective, and Cashel, and of having
remitted the sum of 664 florins to the Abbot of Clairvaux,
while war was being waged between England and France.
But there was no treason or treasonable intent in that ;
for the money was to defray the current expenses of the
Order, and was levied off every monastery in proportion
to the resources of each. Richard, Coeur de Lion,
Alexander II. of Scotland, and Bela IV. of Hungary had,
in their day, contributed largely to this fund.
In 1358, the Abbot of Mellifont made good his claim
to three weirs upon the Boyne, at Rosnaree, Knowth, and
Staleen ; but, in 1366, he was indicted at Trim, for
erecting an unlawful weir at Oldbridge, when the Jury
found against him, and he was ordered to reduce the weir
MELLIFONT ABBKY. 77
to a certain breadth and space, and he, himself, was
sentenced to a term of imprisonment ; but, on his paying
a fine of £10 to Roland de Shalesford, the sheriff of the
Co. Meath, this sentence was commuted. Ten years
later, John Terrour, successor to this Abbot, was sued for
obstructing the King's passage of the Boyne.
In the years 1373 and 1377, the Abbot was summoned
to attend Parliaments held at Dublin and Castledermot
respectively. In the former Parliament, one hundred
shillings were ordered to be levied from him, as his
portion of the subsidy granted to the Lord Justice,
William de Windesore, by the same Parliament. In
1380, the King gave a special mandate that no mere
Irishman should be admitted to profession in this abbey.
In 1381 and 1382, the Abbot attended Parliaments held
in Dublin, and in 1400, the King granted a royal con-
firmation of all the land, manors, and liberties, bestowed
on the abbey by former charters ; and in 1402, he
pardoned the Abbot and monks for their having admitted
Irishmen to profession. However, they were mulcted
in the sum of £50. In 1415, Leynagh Bermingham,
William Davison, and John D'Alton were committed to
the custody of the Abbot to be kept by him as hostages
for the allegiance of their respective fathers. In 1424,
the Abbot, with the Archbishop of Armagh and Nicholas
Taafi'e, was appointed Justice and Conservator of the
Peace for the Co. Louth.
The allusions to Mellifont during the remainder of this
century are very few and uninteresting. Whether, or
not, it shared the fate of many other Irish monasteries
at that time and had no regular Abbot, but one who was
called Abbot in commendam, is not known ; but the
presumption is that it had not a regular Abbot. These
Abbots in commendam were not monks, or members of
78 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
any Religious Order; but secular clerics, not necessarily
in Holy Orders. Sometimes, especially when the abuse
had reached its greatest height in the fifteenth century,
they were even laymen; nevertheless, they enjoyed the
revenues of the abbeys committed to them, with the style
and title of Abbots, but exercised no spiritual jurisdiction
in their abbeys. This latter was confided to regular
Priors who were selected by their own Religious superiors.
When laymen held the abbeys in commendam they
commonly resided in them with their wives, families,
retinues, servants, etc., to the distraction and interference
with the monks in their regular observances, and finally,
to the complete subversion of discipline. At that very
time this pernicious practice had brought the whole
Order to the brink of ruin ; for we find the General
Chapter on several occasions deploring the injuries
inflicted on religion, and lamenting the havoc wrought
by it, and they decided to send three of their number to
Rome to implore the Pope's protection against the
growing evil. Still, it survived, more or less, in these
countries till the Reformation. Scotland suffered more
from it, apparently, than Ireland did, as can be seen from
the lists furnished by Brady in his Episcopal Succession.
In 1476, the Abbot of Mellifont complained, that
"owing to oppressions and extortions within the County
of Louth and Uriell, his monastery was greatly indebted
and impoverished." Certain it is, that for some time
previous, it had fallen from its former regularity and
fervour; but, through the zeal and tact of Abbot Roger
who then governed it, it regained its wonted prominence
amongst the most observant monasteries. In 1479, this
same Roger having set forth to the King that he had
"Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical of all persons within his lands,
as well secular as ecclesiastical, the King, out of his love
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 79
to the Cistercian Order, granted to the Abbot and his
successors, the Jus cle excommunicatis capiendis, and
episcopal jurisdiction," (Stat. Roll. 19 Ed. IV., c. 5.)
The former privilege refers to the concession made to the
Church by the first clause of the Statute of Kilkenny, and
which had been confirmed by subsequent Parliaments for
centuries after its first enactment. Under the headino: —
"The Church to be free — Writ De Excommunicato
capiendo," the clause proceeds to ordain, " that Holy
Church shall have all her franchises without injury, ....
and if any (which God forbid) do to the contrary, and be
excommunicated by the Ordinary of the place for that
cause, so that satisfaction be not made to God and Holy
Church by the party so excommunicated within a month
after such excommunication, that then, after certificate
thereupon being made by the said Ordinary into the
Chancery, a writ shall be directed to the Sheriff, Mayor,
Seneschal of the franchise, or other officers of the King, to
take his body, and to keep him in prison without bail,
until due satisfaction be made to God and Holy Church,
etc." By episcopal jurisdiction is here meant the civil
rights and privileges appertaining to the episcopal office,
and enjoyed at that time by bishops over their subjects,
lay and clerical. And as to the spiritual, quasi-episcopal
jurisdiction — the Abbots of the Order had that as well as
exemption in relation to their own monks from the very
foundation of the Order; but by a Decree dated 28th
September 1487, Pope Innocent VIII. granted to all
Cistercian Abbots quasi-episcopal jurisdiction over their
tenants, vassals, subjects, and servants. By this Decree,
the Pope " took all the Abbots, Abbesses, Monks and
Nuns of the Order under his special protection, together
with all their goods, vassals, subjects, and servants, and
exempted and freed the same from all jurisdiction,
80 MliLLIFOXT ABBEY.
superiority, correction, visitation, subjection and power
of Archbishops, Bishops and their Vicars, etc., .... and
subjected them immediately to himself and the Holy-
See." This Decree is given in full in the Privilegia
Ordinis Cisterciensis, p. 179.
That the Abbots of the Order exercised that privilege in
this country cannot be doubted. We read an instance of
it in the Triumphalia, so ably edited hy the late Father
Denis Murphy, S.J., where, even after the Council of
Trent and so recently as 1621, a certain secular priest, who
had been appointed by the Abbot of Holy Cross to the
pastoral charge of the parish attached to that abbey and of
one or more outlying parishes subject to the same Abbot,
denied after some time, that he had his faculties from the
said Abbot, but rather from the Archbishop, or his Vicar.
The controversy lasted long, but finally, it was decided
in the Abbot's favour, and Dr. Kearney, then Archbishop
of Cashel, acknowledged the Abbot's title. And again,
in the Spicelegium Ossoriense there is a letter from
Dr. O'Reilly, Archbishop of Armagh, written to the
Propaganda in 1633, in which he complained that the
Cistercians claimed the privilege of " Visitation, Correc-
tion, Sum/moning to Synods, Approbation to hear
confessions, together ivith entire and absolute episcopal
jurisdiction!' And a further proof in favour of the
practice is found in the fact that laymen who acquired the
suppressed monasteries of the Order claimed and exercised
that same privilege. Thus, in 1622, Archbishop Ussher
in a Report of Bective parish said it belonged to
Bartholomew Dillon, Esq. of Riverstown, his Majesty's
farmer of the impropriate property. " This church
belongeth to the Abbey of Bectiffe, in the possession of
the said Mr. Dillon, who pretendeth to have an exemption
from the Lord Bishop's jurisdiction, and doth prove wills
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 81
and grant administrations." And in 1744, Harris writes
of Newry, where once was a Cistercian Abbey also: "A
mitred Abbot formerly possessed the lordships of Newry
and Mourne, and exercised therein Episcopal Jurisdiction,
which after the dissolution of the Abbey was done by the
temporal proprietor, and at the present Robert Needham,
Esq., to whom the town and manor belong, enjoys an
exempt Jurisdiction within the said manors, and the seal
of his court is a Mitred Abbot in his Albe sitting in a
chair, and supported by two yew trees with this inscrip-
tion : ' Sig ilium exemptce Jurisdictionis de Viride
Ligno alias N'eivry et Mourne.'"' Which in English
means, the seal of the Exempt Jurisdiction of Newry and
Mourne. Verily! this savours of Popery; for, it was
from the Pope the monks received their exemption. A
modern example of this Papal concession, exercised in the
Anglican Church, is to be found in the case of the Dean
of Westminster who is immediately under the jurisdiction
of her Gracious Majesty the Qaeen, and consequently
exempt from that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is
as successor to the Abbot of Westminster that he claims
and is allowed that privilege of exemption ; for the Abbot
was immediately subject to the Pope in pre-Reformation
times.
The Abbot of Mellifont was implicated in the rebellion
of Lambert Simnel ; for in 1488, he received pardon from
the King for his offences in that connection. The close
of the fifteenth century found Mellifont recovering and
maintaining its old prestige amongst the Religious Orders
of this country, and with the dawning of a new century, it
had regained its former level, from which a host of
circumstances had conspired to drag it down and to
degrade it. These circumstances have been already
detailed and need not be here repeated.
F
82 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
In civil matters, Ireland in the first quarter of the six-
teenth century, presented the same, or nearly the same,
condition as she did more than three centuries before,
when the English first landed on her sliores. The Pale
was literally bounded by the Liffey and the Boyne, and
the old feuds, the long-protracted wars between the
Anglo-Irish and the natives still subsisted. The regular
administration of the law was limited to the four counties
adjoining the capital, called the " Four Obedient Counties."
It seeems incontestable that religion was in a flourishing
condition in this country during the period ; for an
unwonted activity and fervour animated both clergy and
people, as can be inferred from the number of religious
houses established ; the frequency of Synods held denoting
zeal and regularity on the part of the prelates convening
them ; and the common practice, so much then in vogue,
of visiting, through a spirit of penance and devotion, the
Holy Places at home and in far-off countries. Our Annals
prove this to demonstration. But, it must be borne in
mind that the spirit of exclusion was still in full force
amongst the Anglo-Irish clergy, and no Irishman was
eligible for benefices within the Pale. Learning, which is
ever the handmaid of true piety, found its home as in
ancient times amongst the two classes of the clergy, the
secular and regular. The number of learned works
published at that time clearly proves it. Amongst the
many eminent men who then adorned the Church in
Ireland, Maurice O'Fihely, Archbishop of Tuam, ranks
foremost. His biographers, for he had many, inform us,
that he " was eminent for his extraordinary knowledge in
Divinity, Logic, Philosophy, and Metaphysics," that he
published a Dictionary of the Holy Scriptures, and was
styled by his contemporaries at home and abroad, "The
Flower of the World." He had been a Franciscan Friar
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 83
before his promotion to the See of Tuam, but did not long
survive his appointment.
Now, capital has been made by some writers out of a
description of the Church in Ireland taken from the State
Papers, Part III., Vol. II., pp. 15, 16. If it reflected a true
picture, a Reformation would indeed have been needed,
but not the kind introduced by Henry VIII., nurtured
by Edward VI., and propagated with fire and sword by
Elizabeth. Tbe Report states: "Some sayeth, that the
prelates of the Church and the clergy is much the cause
of all the mysse order of the land, for there is no arch-
byshop, ne bysshop, abbot, ne prior, parson ne vicar, ne any
other person of the church, high or lowe, greate or smalle,
Englysh or Irish e, that usythe to preach the worde of
Godde, saveing the poor fryers beggars."
" Some sayeth" — Who were these " Some," or what was
their assertion worth ? Were they parties who benefited
by the disturbance of the old order of things at the
Suppression, and so suspected of having been partial, and
eager to seek any and every palliation for the State Church
as by law established. Now every student of Irish history,
as contained in our Annals, knows that that anonymous
statement is unwarranted by fact. It will suffice to take
two instances, as we find them recorded in Dowling's
Annals about this time, to show the fallacy of the
accusation of wholesale neglect of preaching the Word of
God. Of Nicholas Maguire, Bishop of Leighlin, 1490-
1512, Dowling (Protestant Chancellor of Leighlin) writes:
" When he was Prebendary of Ullard, he preached and
delivered great learning with no less reverence, being in
favour with the King and nobility of Leinster, v/ho,
together with the Dean and Chapter, elected him Bishop
of Leighlin." And of Maurice Deoran, or Doran, who a
few years later succeeded him in Leighlin, Dowling again
84 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
writes : " He was a most eloquent preacher." It cannot
be denied that at that time some Church dignitaries
affected the airs and magnificence of worldly magnates,
nor that they gave scandal to their flocks by their ab-
senteeism. Other abuses, no doubt, existed, but the
watchful providence of God had made provision for their
removal through His authorised ministers. But, alas ! a
new condition of affairs shall soon arise. The most power-
ful political engine ever fabricated for the extension of the
English power in Ireland shall b? introduced, one which
shall eventually break up the tribe lands, annihilate the
sway of the ancient chieftains, and reduce their im-
poverished descendants to the condition of serfs and
menials. And this shall be called reforming the Church !
Even in this revolution, Mellifont shall play her part, and
become revolutionized and misappropriated.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 85
CHAPTER VI I.
THE SUPPRESSION OF MELLIFONT.
" No more shall Chtvrity with sparkling eyes,
And smiles of welcome, wide unfold the door,
Where pity listening still to nature's cries,
Befriends the wretched and relieves the poor."
(Keats.)
r^
^ f^^:M^l^. HE Religious Orders, which succeed each
"^ ~ IS^^^ other in the Catholic Church, are subject
-^f *^ to laws similar to those that govern the
productions of nature. They grow from
feeble and imperceptible seeds, increase,
flourish, and bear fruit ; then decrease, fade, and
fall to the ground. But they have produced a
fruit, which contains within it the germs of a new seed-
time, and which bursts forth vigorously from the decaying
sheath to reproduce its never-failing kind. This work of
reproduction and subsequent expansion is aided, directed,
and encouraged by him, to whom is divinely committed
the government of the Church ; and when pseudo, self-
styled reformers essay the difficult task, their true
character is unmasked in the inevitable ruin and desola-
tion which follow, instead of the order and rehabilitation
which were promised. Bluff Kiug Hal, or the ^[errie
Monarch, as Henry VIII. was familiarly and affectionately
called by his loving subjects in the beginning of his reign,
was in need of money to squander on his passions and
pleasures. In his newly assumed character, therefore, of
Head of the Church in his dominions (which, by Act of
8() MELLIF(JNT ABBEY.
Parliament, lie made it high treason to deny), he suppressed
the lesser monasteries whose annual income did not
exceed £200. This was done, forsooth, in the interests of
religion ! ! ! The proceeds of the confiscation were soon
dissipated, and the wily Cromwell, whom the King had
appointed his Vicar- General, suggested the suppression
and appropriation to the King's uses, of all the monas-
teries within the realm. Again it is his zeal for the
promotion of God's glory that is pleaded as bis motive for
the nefarious deed. Three years before, when addressing
the Houses of Parliament in behalf of the measure for the
suppression of the lesser monasteries, he publicly gave
thanks to God, that in the large communities "religion is
right well kept and observed." And yet, what a meta-
morphosis in such a short space! All had now fallen
away, and had inexplicably sunk into all manner of
iniquity ! Spelman, in his History of Sacrilege, tells
the mode adopted by this model Reformer to carry his
motion for investing in the Crown the property of all the
Religious Orders. " The King sent for the Commons," he
tells us, " and informed them he would have the Bill pass,
or take off some of their heads." This they knew to be
no empty threat ; and pass the Bill they did on that
memorable day of May 13, 1539. The Lords, as a body,
voted for it; partly through a feeling of jealousy towards
the Churchmen, who enjoyed no inconsiderable share of
the monarch's confidence and favour, and so they rejoiced
at whatever promised to destroy this good understanding
between them ; and partly through cupidity, for they
hoped for a share in the booty. The Bishops at that
juncture are blamed for their weakness in complying with
so unjust a proceeding; but they were divided in their
councils; some considering it the less of two evils to
sacrifice the Religious houses, in the hope that the
MKLLIFONT ABBEY. 87
misunderstanding between tlie King and the Pope would
be soon adjusted and the monks restored, yielded to the
King; others, unworthy of their office, as it must be
admitted, worldly men, courtly prelates, who dreaded the
King's displeasure, obsequiously obeyed his mandate.
Besides his greed for gold, the King had another potent
motive for suppressing the monasteries, one that gave a
zest to this disgraceful act: he wanted the further to spite
the Pope by inflicting such an unheard-of injury on
religion. Other motives, too, were not wanting, such as
state policy, so the King alleged, and the want of constant
affection towards his person on the part of the Religious,
particularly in his new capacity. This, Lord Herbert
(who was no friend of the monks) admits in his Life of
the King. His Lordship writes : " The monks were
looked upon as a body of reserve for the Pope, and always
ready to appear in his quarrels." Perhaps, their oppo-
sitiou to the King's assumption of spiritual power
precipitated matters. At all events, one of them, zealous
for God's law, had the courage to reproach him to his face
in a sermon preached at Greenwich before the King's
marriage with Anne Boleyn. This fearless champion of
justice, this intrepid son of St. Francis, thus addressed the
dissolute monarch: — "I am that Micheas, King, whom
you will hate because I must tell you truly that this
marriage is unlawful; and I know that I shall eat the
bread of affliction and drink the water of sorrow ; yet,
because our Lord has put it in my mouth, I must speak
it." And when he and another faithful brother friar were
brought before the King's council, who rebuked them, and
declared them deserving of being shut up in a sack, and
thrown into the Thames, for the boldness of their language
in the matter of the King's marriage, his companion
smiling said : " Threaten these things to the rich and
8(S MEI.LIFONT A1JI3ET.
dainty persons, vvho are clothed in purple, and fare
delicionsly, and have their chiefest hope in this world ;
for we esteem them not, but are joyful, that, for the
discharge of our duty we are driven hence; and, with
thanks to God, we know the way to heaven to be as ready
by water as by land." (Stowe, Church Chronicle.)
It was not, then, for dissoluteness of morals, nor for
illiteracy, nor for backwardness in preaching the Word of
God, nor yet for being drones in society, that the monks
were turned from their peaceful homes. The true cause
was, that the King knew, and his criminal advisers also
knew, that the monasteries were as impregnable fortresses,
which in defence of truth and justice, would hold out
firm against seductive bribes, and the most appalling
threats ; hence they must be swept away under plea of
general corruption of morals, etc., and their properties
held up as a bait to draw over proselytes to the new order
of things. The historian, Lingard, writing of the attitude
of the monks towards the King's supremacy in spiritual
matters, says : "Secluded from the world, the Religious
felt fewer temptations to sacrifice their consciences to the
commands of their Sovereign, and seemed more eager to
court the crown than to flee the pains of martyrdom,"
Here, in Ireland, one of the King's advisers counselled
him to suppress some of the monasteries, and to convert
them into residences for young noblemen, who would
promote and defend the King's interests. Patrick Finglas,
created by Henry VIII. Chief Baron of the King's
Exchequer, and afterwards Lord Chief Justice, wrote a
book entitled : " A Breviate of the getting of Ireland and
of the decay of the same," in which he recommends the
suppression of the monasteries bordering on the Pale,
" because they were giving more aid and supportacion to
the Irish than to the King." "Let the Abbeys," he goes
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 89
on to say, "be given to young lords, knights, and gentle-
men out of England, which shall dwell upon the sanae."
This advice seemed good to the King, and it was literally
carried out, but to far greater extent than this astute
lawyer had anticipated.
Mellifont, in common with the other Religious establish-
ments in Ireland within grasp of the King (for in Ulster,
they were free from molestation under O'Neil and
O'Donnell), must have heard with dismay the rumours
afloat about a general suppression, and grief and con-
sternation must have filled the hearts of the monks.
Was it possible, they asked, that the King, whose person
they respected, whose laws they obeyed, would drive
them forth, wanderers over the world, which many of
them had renounced in early youth ; and now, without
adequate provision, were they, in their declining years,
to perish by the roadside ? Were their beautiful church,
their loved cloister, their shady groves, no more to shelter
them, and were they to sever connection with a spot
endeared to them by so many holy associations? Yes,
it is true, alas ! for the Abbot of St. Mary's, Dublin,
being nearer authentic sources of information, has heard
it and has sent word, that sentence is passed on all, and
their doom has sounded; for the following Royal Com-
mission was forwarded to the Deputy, with peremptory
orders to have it executed forthwith : —
Royal Commission directed to John Allen, Chancellor;
George, Archbishop of Dublin ; William Brabazon, Vice-
Treasurer ; Robert Cowley, Master of the Rolls ; and
Thomas Cusacke, Esq. ; reciting, " That from the informa-
tion of trustworthy persons, it being manifestly apparent
that the monasteries, abbeys, priories, and other places of
Religious or Regulars, in Ireland, are at present in such a
state, that in them, the praise of God and the welfare of
90 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
man are next to notliing regarded ; tlie Regulars and
nuns dwelling there being so addicted, partly to their own
superstitious ceremonies, partly to the pernicious worship
of idols, and to the pestiferous doctrines of the Roman
Pontiif, that unless an effectual remedy be promptly
provided, not only the weak, low order, but the whole
Irish people, may be speedily infected to their total
destruction. To prevent, therefore, the longer continu-
ance of such Religious men and nuns in so damnable a
state, the King (having resolved to resume into liis hands
all the monasteries and Religious houses for their better
reformation, to remove from them the Religious men and
women, and to cause them to return to some honest mode
of living and to true religion,) directs the Commissioners
to signify this his intention to the heads of Religious
houses ; to receive their resignations and surrenders
willingly tendered ; to grant to those tendering it liberty
of exchanging their habit and of accepting benefices
under the King's authority; to apprehend and punish
such as adhere to the Roman Pontiff and contumaciously
refuse to surrender their houses ; to take charge for the
King's use of the possession of those houses, and assign
competent pensions to those who willingly surrender."
{Patemt and Close Rolls, Chancery, Ireland, Morrin,
1539-40, April 30, Henry VIII., 30^, p. 55.)
Most marvellous, indeed, and sudden, and quite un-
precedented in history, was this utter decadence from
godliness to " idolatry and the pestiferous doctrine of the
Roman Pontiff " on the part of 100,000 persons within
the space of three short years ! But, behold ! the godly
monarch will reform them (supposing they needed
reform) in the fashion recorded in the old English
proverb: "The devil amended his dame's leg; when he
should have set it right, he brake it quite in pieces."
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 91
That the Deputy, Lord Gray, did uot consider the monks
and nuns an effete body, addicted to evil practices, will
appear evident from the letter he addressed to Cromwell,
and which was signed by his Council. It bears date 21st
May 1589 :—
"May it please your honourable Lordship to be
advertised, that by the report of Thomas Cusacke and
others repaired lately out of the realm of England into
this land, it hath been openly bruited the Kind's grace's
pleasure to be, that all the monasteries within this land
should be suppressed, none to stand. Amongst which,
for the common v/eal of this land, if it might stand with
King's most gracious pleasure by your good Lordship's
advertisement, in our opinion it were right expedient
that six houses should stand and continue, changing their
habit and rule into such sort as the King's grace shall
will them: which are namely, St. Mary's Abbey, adjoining
Dublin, a house of white monks (Cistercian.s) ; Christ
Church, a house of canons situated in the middle of the
City of Dublin ; Grace Dieu Nunnery, in the County
Dublin; Connell, in the County Kildare ; Kenlys or
Kells, and Jerpoint (this latter Cistercian also), in the
County Kilkenny. For in these commonli/, and in
others such like, in default of common inns, which are not
in this island the King's Deputy and all others his
Grace's Council and Officers, also Irishmen and others
resorting to the King's Deputy in these quarters is and
hath been most commonly lodged at the cost of the said
houses. Also, in them, young vien and children, both
gentlemen's children and others, both of man hind and
woman kind be brought up in virtue and in tlie
Englishe tongue and behaviour to the great charge of
the said liouscs ; that is to say, the woman kind of the
whole Euglishie of this land, for the most part, in the said
nunnery, and the man kind in the other houses."
02 MELLIFONT ABBKY.
And the Abbot of St. Mary's, petitioning soon after for
exemption from the general suppression, pleads in a letter
to the same Cromwell: "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."
All petitions are unavailing; the King is inexorable;
and St. Mary's and Mellifont, and the others included in
the original list must go down before the despot's unholy
will, untried, unheard, but Avith the nation's regret, those
alone excepted, who thirsted for and shared the sacri-
legious booty. Before the lamp of piety and learning be
extinguished for ever in Mellifont, let us take a parting
glance at it, so that the contrast may be the more marked
as we note its vicissitudes later on.
In that bright July morning (1539), when the bell
summoned the monks of Mellifont to matins for the last
time, the sun rose over as fair a picture as could well be
conceived, when its brilliant rays shot floods of light
through the woods and valley, and gilt the quivering
tree-tops with lustrous gold. And the enormous piles of
white masonry looked whiter for the glinting of the
sun-beams, and many a fantastic shadow was cast on the
tesselated pavement in the church by the " dim religious
light " of the gorgeous stained glass windows. The
statues of the Twelve Apostles looked down patronisingly
from lofty pedestals, and bore the minds of the beholders
aloft, to where the guerdon awaits the faithful soldier of
Christ when his term of service here below shall have
expired. Loud rose the rhythmic measure of the majestic
Gregorian Chant rendered by over one hundred full-
voiced singers on that beautiful morning, ere yet the
skylark shook the dew-drops from his wings, or intoned
his early carol o'er the meadows by the Boyne. The
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 93
pealing of the organ sounded loud and louder as they
chanted their solemn Mass, but to many who then took
part in that sacred function, its plaintive notes presaged
the speedy end of their time-honoured establishment,
which at any moment may receive the fatal visit of the
Commissioners. In its internal economy it was wisely
and worthily governed, its community numbered 150
Choir monks, besides Lay Brothers and familiars, its
schools were prosperous, and from their widespread repu-
tation, merited the title of " famous " which was accorded
them. The children of the monks' tenants received a
free education here ; moreover, the monks conducted a
school, which we would now call a seminary, where
gentlemen's children and others were taught the higher
branches suited to prepare them for their career in after-
life. Their peaceful valley was screened on every side
from wintry blasts by tasteful plantations, useful and
ornamental ; for a thickly planted orchard, chiefly of
apple and pear trees, which covered both sides of the
River Mattock from the mill to where the bridge now
spans the river, survived till within the memory of many
still living who describe it as having been so dense that
one could cross the valley on the tops of them. The
grounds surrounding the monastery were laid out with
commendable taste ; the lands yielded plentiful crops,
and supported numerous herds of cattle. The hill south-
east of the abbey was covered over with oak of gigantic
size — the growth of centuries — and on the Meath side
were screens of valuable timber. Their tenants were
contented and prosperous ; for the monks were indulgent
landlords. Their rents were paid in kind, and for the
rest, they found a ready market always at the abbey,
where a huge supply of provisions was constantly needed
for the strangers and the poor who sought and found a
ready welcome there.
04 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
The spiritual wants of the tenants and dependants
were attended to by one of the monks, John Byrrel,
whose name occurs first in the list of those belonging
to Mellifoiit to whom pensions were granted. He is
styled Parson of Mellifont. It is probable, too, that
others of the abbey priests ministered to Tullyallen
parish (though it is scarcely probable that the present
parish is conterminous with the old one), to Monk-
newtown and Donore; for in the English Episcopal
Registers, twelve volumes of which have been recently
published, it is noted that their brethren in England
served the parishes in the immediate vicinity of the
monasteries : and, moreover, we find in the list of
pensioners of other Cistercian houses in Ireland, the
names of three or more, in the same monaster}', who
are called parsons. Medical advice and medicine were
dispensed gratis at the Abbey. The sick poor were
visited and cared for in their homes by physicians
employed by the monks; they were also admitted into the
hospital at the gate. On fixed days weekly, the poor of
the locality came for and received loaves of bread which
were specially baked for them, and meat in abundance,
with beer, was distributed to them. In those days there
were no poor laws; for the monks provided for all the
wants of tlio indigent. The monks were in constant touch
with all cla.^ses of society, at least the principal officers
were, and they were the advisers, as well as the instructors,
of all. Tlie History of the English Abbeys of the Order,
or the fragments that have survived the vandalism of the
Dissolution, and which have been published by impartial
Protestants, clearly prove that this picture of far-reaching
and ungrudging beneficence is by no means fanciful.
(See Ruined Abbeys of Britain, by Frederick Ross.)
The Abbot of Mellifont took a prominent place in the
MELLIFONT ABBEY. <).5
councils of the nation. He ranked as a Peer, and had a
seat in the House of Lords before all the other Pteligious
superiors, twenty-three more of whom were privileged to
sit there. He was bound to supply a certain number of
horsemen for the King's musters, and to maintain them at
his own charge. Tradition has it that he could ride on
his own territory from the sea at Drngheda to the
Shannon at Athlone, but this requires confirmation. He
owned some 4,000 acres at the suppression, extending on
the south side of the Boyne from Drogheda to Rossnaree,
and on the north, to Slane, including the fisheries and five
salmon weirs on the river. He rented the fishing of six-
teen corraghs at Oldbridge, for which he got £13 13s. 4d.
annually. The toiun of Tullyallen belonged to him. It
was then in a flourishing condition, but has fallen since
from its rank as a town to that of a mere village,
composed of a few scattered cottages. The district was
then populous; for another village grew up near the
Abbey occupied by tradesmen and dependants who were
constantly employed by the monks. It was called Doagh.
It is now level with the field. It stood a quarter of a
mile north-west of Mellifont, beyond the Mattock. Its
site is an elevated plateau, locally known as the Doagh
Meadows. The entire annual revenue of the Abbey was
estimated at £316, which, allowing for the difference in value
of money since, would be equivalent to an income of close
on £4,000 at the present day. On that the monks main-
tained themselves and a large staff of servants, "kept
hospitality, and many poor men, scholars, and orphans."
The Abbot entertained his guests daily at his own table
in a spacious building apart from the monks' quarters, and
was a man of light and leading, unlike the helpless
imbecile portrayed by Scott in his novels. The Abbot
was chosen, often from some distant monastery, for his
96 MELLIFONT ABBEY,
aptitude " in goveruing souls," which was the paramount
consideration with St. Benedict in the selection of a
superior. He should be learned, and sound both in
doctrine and morals, to be entrusted with such a charge.
It is only too true that unworthy persons, contrary to the
Canons, were sometimes intruded into the position by
powerful relatives, and they, alas ! generally brought
disgrace on religion.
As to the spiritual condition of Mellifont at the time
of its suppression, it was certainly on a high level. No
charge was brought against that community, on that score,
even by its worst enemies ; none but the general ones
mentioned in the Commission. In truth and in fact, the
observances then in force at Mellifont were identical with
those introduced by Abbot Christian and practised at
Clairvaux by St. Bernard and his saintly companions.
If they were " idolatrous," and " superstitious," and
savouring of the " pestiferous doctrines of the Roman
Pontiff," so must have been the ancient practices of the
Cistercians ; and wonderful indeed was it, that till King
Henry and his advisers discovered it, our ancestors, for
four hundred years at least, approved of and took part in
these same practices without a suspicion of the " perni-
cious" errors they were now found to contain ! In the
matter of discipline alone was there any decadence, and
then the altered conditions of the times demanded some
modifications. The use of flesh meat three days in the
week was introduced, and instead of manual labour, other
duties were substituted, such as teaching, copying, study,
etc. In their daily lives, we are told by Rev. Dr. Gasquet,
O.S.B., perhaps the greatest living authority in such
matters, that the Cistercians at that time differed little
from the Benedictines.
Such was the condition of Mellifont on that fatal day,
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 97
the 23rd July 1539, when the Commissioners, with an
armed band, demanded admission and surrender, in the
King's name. Remonstrance with them was vain, and
the usual formality was gone through. They seized on
the charters, registers, ledgers, etc., together with the
keys of the treasury and store-rooms ; took an inventory
of all the possessions of the monastery, and sealed the
Library and strong room. They, then, summoned the
Abbot and all the monks to the Chapter-house, to sign
the Act of Surrender. In the Calendar of Patent and
Close Rolls, Chancery, Ireland, Henry VIII. (edited by
James Morrin), the synopsis of it is given as follows at
p. 135 : — " Surrender of the Abbey or House of the Blessed
Virgin Mary at Mellyfount, in the County of Louth, by
Richard Contoure, Abbot, with the consent of the
Convent ; and of the church, belfry, cemetery, manors,
lands, and all its possessions in the counties of Dublin,
Kildare, and Carlow, with all charters, evidences, muni-
ments, goods, utensils, ornaments and jewels." — July 23,
SI''. (1539). " Endorsed on the preceding surrender is a
memorandum that the Abbot and Convent, assembled in
the Chapter-house, voluntarily acknowledged the preced-
ing surrender, delivered it into the hands of the Lord
Chancellor, and prayed it might be enrolled in Chancery,
in ]}evpetiiain rei meinoriam. Witness, George, Arch-
bishop of Dublin; Wm. Brabazon, Vice-Treasurer; Robert
Cowley, Master of the Rolls." July 23, 31°.
How often have these " voluntary" surrenders been
Haunted by writers hostile to the monks, as if the farce of
signing the document which made them beggars were a
free act ! They were anxious, forsooth, to shake off the
burden of their religious obligations, through the facile
dispensation so liberally accorded by the new Head of the
Church, in the flush of his accession to ecclesiastical
G
98 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
supremacy! The late scholarly and liberal-minded Deau
Butler, Protestant Rector of Trim, wrote thus on the
subject: — "The form of surrender then executed omitted
no property which could belong to the house
There were added their charters, evidences, writings and
manuscripts, their goods, chattels, utensils, ornaments,
jewels, and debts, all these were granted to the King, to
be disposed of at his good pleasure, without appeal or
complaint, and the unhappy men were forced to declare,
that they thus deprived themselves of house and home
of their oivn free ivill, and that they put an end to a
venerable institution, to which they were bound by so
many solemn obligations, certain just and reasonable
causes thereto moving their minds and their consciences."
{Register of the Priory of All Hallows. Preface, p.
xxix.)
The next step was, there and then, to auction off all the
moveables of the monastery, except the jewels of the rich
reliquaries, chalices, and other sacred vessels, with the
plate and bells, which formed the King's special perquisite.
The whole artistic woodwork of the church (choir and
waiuscotting) was smashed in pieces, and even the very
tombs of the founders and others interred there, were sold
and carted off. For a description of the work of destruc-
tion, as related by an eye-witness of such vandalism at the
suppression of an English Cistercian monastery, see The
Irish Cistercians, p. 45. The sale realised £141 7s. 3d.,
but no detailed account is given of the sum that each
article fetched. According to another Commission ad-
dressed to John Allen, Chancellor; William Brabazon,
Vice-Treasurer ; and Robert Cowley, Master of the Bolls;
dated May 20, 1539, the proceeds of such sales were
ordered to be allocated " to pay the officers and servants
of the Crown." When the church and monastery were
MKLLIFONT ABBEY. 99
dismantled, and every article of value, no matter how
trifling, had been removed, the order to clear out the
monks was promptly given and executed ; and the gates
were shut behind them. Whither they went nobody
cared, and whither to go was a problem to themselves
difficult to be solved ; for without money or provision, they
were in a worse condition than the most destitute of
beggars. The hoary old walls caught up their groans
and lamentations on that day, as with breaking hearts
they looked upon each familiar spot for the last time.
This is one of the secrets the old stones of the few
remaining buildings yet withhold from us. Mellifont
beheld many moving spectacles during the four centuries
of her existence, but none, perhaps, so deeply affecting as
when her 150 children, amongst whom were the aged,
tottering on the brink of the grave and leaning for support
on some younger brethren, turned their back upon their
happy home where they enjoyed an anticipated paradise.
As the sad procession slowly gained the top of the hill,
many a time they turned to take a last farewell look at
their beloved monastery, till it faded from their view for
ever. A few shillings each were allowed them for their
immediate wants, but of that multitude only thirteen and
the Abbot received pensions. This grant was fixed for
them three days after their expulsion, after which they all
disappear from the scene as effectually as if the Boyne
had engulphed them.
The following entries are found in the Patent and Close
Rolls Calendar, Henry VIII., pp. 59, 60 : " Pension of
£40 Ir. to Richard Contour, late Abbot of Mellyfount,
payable out of the parishes of Kuockmohan, Donowre,
and Monkenewton, with clause of distress." — Sept. 10,
1539. And at p. CO, ihid., "Pension to John Byrrell,
late parson of Mellifount, £3 6s. 8J.; to Thomas Bagot,
100 MKLLIFONT ABBEY.
£4; to Peter Rewe, 40/-; to Thomas Aleu, 53/4; to
William Norreis, 40/-; to Robert Nangle, 40/-; to Patrick
Contour, 53/4 ; to William Veldon, £3 Os. 8d. ; to Patrick
Lawles, 40/- ; to John Ball, 40/- ; to Clement Bartholo-
mewe, 20/- ; to Phelim O'Neil, 20/- ; payable out of the
rents and lands of the parishes of Knoekamowan, Donower,
and Montuewton " (Monknevvtown), 2G July, 1539.
Thus, then, were these fourteen provided for, but, of
the others, not one received a single shilling, except, as
has been said, a mere pittance that sufficed to procure
them a few nights' shelter. This is no picture drawn
from fancy; it is a well-authenticated fact, that where a
peaceful surrender was not given or signed, no provision
whatsoever was made for those who so refused. They
were given a trifle at their expulsion, and turned adrift to
swell the army of beggars, or to perish, as they did in
hundreds, of hardships to which they were unaccustomed.
The imagination cannot now well conceive the heartless,
wanton cruelty then practised on the expelled Religious ;
who, if they had betrayed their consciences and taken the
oath of Supremacy, might have staved off, at least for a
time, the calamities that befell them. But only for a
time; for in some instances where the monks, through
mistaken notions, obeyed the Royal mandate, they shared
the fate of their more steadfast brethren, owing to the
insatiable rapacity of the King and his advisers. To
those of the expelled who were priests, the hope was held
out to them, in case of "free surrender," that they should
be promoted to the first vacant benefices. As not one of
the Religious expelled from Mellifont is enrolled on the
list of those promoted to vacancies during that or the
subsequent reigns, it is obvious that they held fast to
their principles, and denied the Kiug's Supremac}', an
acknowledgment of ^yhich was indispensable before pro-
MKLLIFONT ABBEY. 101
motion. All honour to them for their generous sacrifices,
which made them worthy to be the last who saw the
venerable institution reel and fall beneath the despot's
blows. Their noble attitude was befitting the close of a
work which was inaugurated with such splendour amid a
nation's rejoicing. Like the setting sun, Meilifont dis-
appeared in a halo of glory.
CHAPTER VIII.
MKLLIFONT BECOMES THE HOME OF A NOBLE FAMILY — IS
SOLD, AND IS DELIVERED UP TO RUIN AND DECAY.
" ilute is the matin bell, whose early call
Warn'd the grey fathers from their humble beds ;
No midnight taper gleams along the wall,
Or, round the sculptur'd saint its radiance sheds."
(^Keats.)
/HE long line of distinguished men being
thus rudely and abruptly terminated at
Meilifont, with the suppression of the
monastery, all memorials of their history
were lost, and no trace of them has been
left. Not a book, nor cross, nor chalice, register,
nor chartulary remains. It appears that Meili-
font had its Annalist and its Annals like all the other
monasteries of the Order in Ireland ; for Bishop Nicolson,
who wrote his "Irish National Library" in 1724, says:
" The Annals of Ireland from the foundation of this
Abbey in 1142 to the year 1500, are, or were lately, in
the hands of some of the learned men of this kingdom."
He does not tell us the name of the compiler, but only
102 MtLLIFONT AHIJKY,
the fact that they had been written at Mellifont. These
are not cited by later writers, so they, also, must have
perished long since. At the suppression of monasteries,
the archives, chronicles, and registers were carefully
sought by the Commissioners, because they contained
correct information on the value and extent of the
possessions of each house respectively ; and the more
extensive these were, the more sedulously were the records
sought for. Hence it is that because the Cistercian Order
had large possessions, the manuscripts were all seized aud
handed over with the monasteries to the grantees. The
monks could not possibly take one away with them. So
their history is now derivable from other sources, which,
at best, are very meagre. Mellifont, which occupied so
prominent and respected a position during its career,
would not be found inferior to other houses of the Order
in the number of its learned and remarkable men, were
its ancient documents now available ; and, judging from
the long roll of distioguished men, who in every depart-
ment of knowledge rendered the Order illustrious in other
countries, we may safely allot a respectable quota of the
same to Mellifont. De Yisch compiled his Writers of the
Cistercian Order in 1656, and Sartorius published a
large tome in 1700, each containing notices of the illus-
trious men of the Order. No less than sixty-three large
folio pages of this latter work are occupied with the
names of the learned men, and the dates at which they
flourished. He places all in distinct categories, and so we
have St. Bernard heading the list, after whom come the
Grammarians, next follow the Poets, Orators, Historians,
Philosophers, Mathematicians, Astronomers, Musicians,
then Doctors of Canon aud Civil Law, and Doctors of
Theology ; finally, Professors in universities, and others,
whose general attainments precluded classification. As
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 103
these works were written after the suppression of the
monasteries in these countries, the materials relating to
the Irish and English monasteries having passed into
hostile hands or been destroyed, were no longer accessible.
Ireland was ever remarkable for the thirst for learning
displayed by her children, and for the singular pro-
ficiency attained by them, when the opportunity for it
was afforded ; we may, then, justly conclude that learning
and the polite arts found a homo at Mellifont. For this
latter branch, the beautiful buildings would, of them-
selves, suffice as an argument in favour of an advanced
state of culture and refinement.
It is worthy of note, that neither the Irish people, nor
the representatives of the Government in this country,
brought, much less substantiated, any direct charges
against the Irish monks, prior to the suppression. Hence
it is, that their maligners had to import, for use against
them, the staple arguments commonly used in England,
and there only by venal scribblers, and those who profited
by the downfall of the monks. To such the learned and
impartial Protestant historian, the Rev. Doctor Maitland,
adverts, when after giving credit to the monks for their
having been benefactors to mankind, he writes in his
preface to the Dark Ages: — "In the meantime, let me
thankfully believe that thousands of the persons at whom
Robertson, and Jortin, and other such very miserable
second-hand writers, have sneered, were men of enlarged
minds, purified affections, and holy lives, that they were
justly reverenced by men, and, above all, favourably
accepted by God, and distinguished by the highest honours
which He vouchsafes to those whom He has called into
existence, that of being the channels of His love and mercy
to their fellow-creatures." And in our own time, the
Guardian, an English Protestant newspaper, when re-
104 MELLIFONT ABIiKY.
viewing tlie Rev. Doctor Gasqiiet's, O.S.B., learned work,
Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, approvingly
cites, amongst others, the following paragraph: — "The
voices raised against the monks were those of Cromwell's
agents, of the cliques of the new men and of his hireling
scribes, who formed a crew of as truculent and as filthy
libellers as ever disgraced a revolutionary cause. The later
centuries have taken their tale in good faith, but time is
showing that the monasteries, up to the day of their fall,
had not forfeited the good will, the veneration, the affection
of the English people." Mr. Lecky, too, with his usual
candour and liberality, writes: — "Monastic institutions
were the only refuges of a pacific civilisation ; the only
libraries, the only schools, the only centres of art, the only
refuges for gentle and intellectual natures ; the chief
barriers against violence and rapine ; the chief promoters
of agriculture and of industry." {The Political Value' of
History, p. 14. London, 1892.)
The monks being now expelled, Mellifont was delivered
up to desecration and ruin ; the silence of the tomb reigned
supreme, and the voice of prayer was heard no more ; no
longer did the bells from the tower send forth their
cheering notes over the surrounding district to raise the
hearts of the toiler to Heaven. These sweet toned bells,
the gift of some priucel}^ benefactor, had been, with all
the other moveable property, carried off by the spoiler.
The Abbey, with all its spiritual and temporal possessions,
was given, in 1541, to Laurence Townley, for 21 years.
They passed by reversionary lease to Brabazon, in
1546. In 1551, they were leased to the same for 21
years more, and in 1566, they came by reversionary lease
to Edward Moore, the founder of the Drogheda family,
who, at that time, came into Ireland, as a soldier of for-
tune. {Ai^pendix to the Rejyort of the Deputy-Keeper of
the Rolls and Grants of Elisabeth.)
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 105
This Edward Moore, who was accompanied by Ids
brother John, the founder of the Charleville family (now
extinct), was descended from an ancient Kentish House.
He fixed his residence at Mellifont, changing the church
into a dwelling, which he strongly fortified against the
attacks of the Ulster Irish, The statues of the Twelve
Apostles, which once occupied places in the church, he
caused to be removed to the hall, clad in red uniforms,
with muskets on their shoulders, as a protest, no doubt,
against " Popish idolatry," It is even said that he suifered
the Founder's tomb, and those of others, or such portions
of them as still were left, to remain as part of his domestic
arrangements, without his being disturbed by such solemn
surroundings. He was knighted by the Deputy, Sir Wm.
Drury, and dying soon after, was succeeded by his son.
Sir Garret, to whom Mellifont, with six other dissolved
monasteries, and all their spiritualities (that is, the
revenues of them, right of patronage, etc.) and tempora-
lities, were granted in fee. By these means, was adhesion
to the Crown purchased and services to it rewarded —
services, which bore no equivocal meaning ever since the
Invasion, as the Irish knew by long and bitter experience.
At this time, the Church, as by Law Established,
became part and parcel of the State, and its most
obsequious servant. Its ministers looked to the civil
power for patronage, and even hoped for promotion
through the officials of the Court; but only in a few
instances were the livings worth the asking, as the
greater part of their temporalities were bestowed on lay-
men, favourites of the Queen, We have a picture of the
state of that Church in Ireland, soon after the suppression
of monasteries, drawn by the Lord Deputy himself, in a
letter to Queen Elizabeth. They who would fain believe
in the blessed advantages which flowed from the Dissolu-
lOG MELLTFONT AliBEY.
tion of Monasteries, and the introduction of the new-
religion, may take to heart the lesson it teaches. Sir
Henry Sydney wrote to the Queen in April, 1576, on the
condition of the diocese of Meath : — " There are within
this diocese," he writes, " 224 parish churches, of which
number, 105 are impropriated to sundry possessions ; no
parson or vicar resident on any of them, and a very simple
or sorry curate for the most part appointed to serve them ;
among which number of curates, only eighteen were found
to be able to speak English, the rest being Irish ministers,
or rather, Irish rogues, having very little Latin and less
learning and civility In many places the very
walls of the churches are thrown down, very few chancels
covered; windows and doors ruined and spoiled. There
are 52 parish churches in the same diocese which have
vicars endowed upon them, better served and maintained
than the others, yet badly. There are 52 parish churches
here, residue of the first number of 224, which pertain to
divers particular lords; and these, though iu better state
than the others commonly, are yet far from well." He
concludes by saying : — " But yet j^our Majesty may believe
it, that upon the face of the earth where Christ is professed,
there is not a church in so miserable a case." Lord
Grenville, in his Past and Present Policy of England
fovjards Ireland, when commenting on Sydney's letters,
from one of which the above is an extract, writes : — " Such
was the condition of a church which was half a century
before rich and flourishing, an object of reverence and a
source of consolation to the people. It was now despoiled
of its revenues ; the sacred edifices were in ruins, the
clergy were either ignorant of the language of their flocks,
or illiterate and uncivilised intruders ; and the onlv ritual
permitted by the laws was one of which the people neither
comprehended the language nor believed the doctrines ;
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 107
and this is called establishing a reformation." That this
condition of affairs was not confined to any particular
diocese, but rather was the state in all, is evident from
the sketch given by Spenser in his View of the State of
Ireland. " They" (the ministers), he says, " neither read
the Scriptures nor preach to the people, nor administer
the Communion .... only they take the tithes and
offerings, and gather what fruit else they may of their
livings It is a great wonder to see the zeal
between the Popish priests and the ministers of the
Gospel ; for they spai'e not to come out of Spain, from
Rome, and from Rheims, by long toil and dangerous
travelling thither, where they know peril of death
aw^aiteth them, and no reward or riches are to be found,
only to draw people to the Church of Rome." Such were
the immediate fruits of the Reformation as admitted and
described by Protestant contemporaries.
One of the first proprietary acts of Sir Edward Moore,
on his acquiring Mellifont, seems to have been to cut
down and sell some of the magnificent timber planted by
the monks. The old wooden house, so long an object of
curiosity in Drogheda, and which was taken down in
1824, was chiefly composed of oak obtained from Mellifont
Park. It was situated at the angle formed by the
junction of Laurence Street and Shop Street, and was
erected by Nicholas Bathe, as an inscription in raised
characters, each six inches in length, testified. This
inscription was on the Laurence Street side, " Made . Bi .
Nicholas . Bathe . in . the . ieare . of. our . Lord . God . 1570 .
Bi . Hiu . Mor . Carpenter."
In 1592, Red Hugh O'Donnell, fleeing from Dublin
Castle, where he had been detained a close prisoner, was
received and kindly treated by Sir Edward Moore, at
Mellifont. His reception is thus related in the Life of
108 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
Red Hugh, edited with notes by the late Father Denis
Murphy, S.J. : — " After crossing theBoyne near Drogheda,
Red Ilugh and his companion mounted their horses,
and proceeded about two miles from the river, where they
saw a dense bushy grove in front of them on the road they
came, and a large rampart all around it, as if it was a
kitchen-garden. There was a fine mansion (called the
great monastery), belonging to an illustrious youth of the
English, by the side of the wood. He was much attached
to O'Neil He (O'Donnell) went into the house
and was entertained ; for he was well known there especi-
ally more than in other places."
In 1599, according to the family pedigree, Sir Garret
Moore and Sir Francis Stafford were the only English
house-keepers in the County Louth; all the lands being
wasted by the Ulster rebels. The next important event
at Mellifont was the great O'Neil's surrender there to
the Deputy, Lord Mountjoy, on the 24th March, 1602.
The Lord Deputy sent Sir Garret Moore, as an old
acquaintance of O'Neil's, with Sir Wra. Godolphin to
parley with him, and O'Neil returned with them to
Mellifont, where (on his knees, it is said by English
writers,) he made his submission to the Deputy. Here,
again, we have further proof of what has been stated
before, that it was Irishmen who retained this country for
the English Crown ; for when Sir George Carew sat down
before Kinsale, where O'Neil Avas defeated, his army
consisted of three thousand men, of whom two thousand
were Irish.*
Five years later, that is, in 1607, O'Neil was again at
* It is not generally known that it was an Irishman who, on the fata
day of Aughriin, as St. Ruth rode to victory waving his cap, pointed him
out to the gunner whose faithful shot deprived St. Ruth of his head and
the Irish Army of a valiant General.
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 109
the " fair mansion of Mellifont to bid good-bye for ever to
his good friend, Sir Garret, the fosterer of his son John,"'
He tarried two days with him, and then said farewell.
Having given his blessing, "according to the Irish fashion,"
to every member of his fiiend's household, he and his suite
took horse, and rode rapidly by Dundalk on his way to
Lough S willy, where a ship awaited him to bear him from
his native land for ever.
By an Inquisition taken on the 14th June, 1G12, the
possessions of this Abbey were found as follow : — " The
site, a water-mill, a garden, an orchard, a park called Legan
Park, the old orchard containing two acres ; the silver
meadow, nine acres ; the wood meadow, ten acres j and
the doves' park ; 80 acres of underwood ; Killingwood,
being great timber, containing twelve acres ; Ardagh,
twenty acres, being the demesne lands ; and the grange
and town of Tullyallen," etc.
In 1615, July 20th, Sir Garret was created Baron
Moore of Mellifont, by King James I. In 1619, Baron
Moore obtained a royal grant of St. Mary's Abbey,
Dublin, from the same King ; and in 1621, he was created
a Viscount, with the title of Viscount Moore of Drogheda.
St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, passed from the family some
fifty years later.
As has been said, no trace of the expelled religious
remains after the suppression of Mellifont. It, however,
may be assumed, that some few of them lingered around
the hallowed spot to which their affections clung, and that
they shared the labours and dangers incident to the
Catholic missionaries of the period, as is well known
their brethren in other parts of Ireland did after their
expulsion. It cannot now be ascertained whether, or not,
an unbroken line of titular Abbots of Mellifont was
maintained after the dissolution of the Abbey ; but, in
110 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
1623, an oratory in Drogheda, belonging to the Cistercians,
was served by five or six Fathers of the Order under
Patrick Barnewall, who had been appointed Abbot of
Mellifont by the Pope; and in 1625, he received the
abbatial benediction in the church of St. John, in
Waterford, at the hands of the Most Rev. Thomas
Fleming, Archbishop of Dublin. This Patrick Barnewall
belonged to the Bremore branch (Co. Dublin) of the
ancient and illustrious family of that name. After having
studied the Humanities, Philosophy, Theology, and Canon
Law in the Universities of Douay and Paris, he was ordained
priest, and discharged missionary duties in Drogheda.
In a sketch of his life given by a fellow-labourer, it is
related, that one night as he lay awake, St. Bernard
appeared to him and told him he would be a monk of his
Order. Though he relished the idea, yet he did not
immediately correspond with his inclinations till he was
grievously afflicted with a severe sickness, when he re-
membered the vision, and being urged b}' his two sisters,
who had consecrated themselves to God, he entered the
Novitiate of the Order in Kilkenny, and was at once
restored to health. Soon after his profession he was
appointed Abbot of Mellifont by Apostolic authority ; and
he admitted novices into the Order at his " hiding-place"
at Drogheda, whom he sent to be educated at the
Cistercian College, Louvain, and to other Continental
Colleges. He was a very learned man, particularly in
Canon Law, and was consulted as an authority on this
subject. During the siege of Drogheda, in 1641, his
goods were seized and himself cast into prison, but
through the influence of some powerful relatives he was
liberated. He died in his father's house in September,
1644, and was buried in the church of Donore, which
formerly belonged to Mellifont. John Devereux, a native
MELLIFONT ABBEY. Ill
of the Co. Wexford, who had been educated at Louvaiu,
was appointed by the Pope, Abbot of MelHfont, in 1G48.
He, with Father Luke Bergin and Father Patrick Grace,
both natives of Co. Kilkenny, Father Malachy O'Hartry, a
native of Waterford, Father John Bryan, a native of
Drogheda, and Father Piunket, constituted the new
community of Cistercian monks under Abbot Patrick
Barnewall, when he opened the oratory in Drogheda, in
1623. Whether all or any of them perished in the general
massacre of Drogheda, under Cromwell, we cannot tell,
but they disappeared thenceforth, and John Devereux
seems to have been the last titular Abbot of Mellifont.
In the Eebellion of 1641, Mellifont and its owner. Lord
Charles Moore, son of Garret, the first Viscount, became
involved. On the 21st November, just a short time after
the outbreak, the rebels under Sir Phelim G'Neil, when
on their way to besiege Drogheda, made a halt at Tully-
allen, and " sent a party of 1,300 foot down to Mellifont,
the Lord Moore's hout^e, which their design was suddenly
to Surprise ; but, contrary to their expectation, they found
there twenty-four musketeers and fifteen horsemen, who
very stoutly defended the house as long as their powder
lasted. The horsemen, when they saw themselves beset
so as they could no longer be serviceable to the place,
opened the gates, issued out and made their passage
through the midst of the rebels, and so, notwithstanding
the opposition they made, escaped safe to Drogheda.
The foot having refused to accept of the quarter at the
first offered, resolved to make good the place to the last
man ; they endured several assaults, slew one hundred-
and-forty of the rebels, before their powder failed them ;
and at last they gave up the place upon promise of
quarter, which was not kept, for some of them were
killed in cold blood, all were stripped, and two old
112 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
(lecrepid men slain, the house ransacked and all the goods
carried away."
The above is from Sir John Temple's History of the
Irish Rebellion, and it has been quoted by Catholics and
Protestants alike when alluding to ]\Iellifont ; they each
add, however, a little spice to suit the palates of their
respective readers. Of this attack on Mellifont we have
no less than four versions, two of which deserve but little
credence, viz., that already given, and that of Dean
Bernard. The account given by the latter is fuller, and
enters more minutely into detail, so that some particulars
tax the capacity of the most credulous ; as, for instance,
when he tells us that twenty-four musketeers killed one
hundred -and-forty rebels though they had only " six
shots " of powder, " some only four," and that they
rammed in six bullets together, and how each shot killed
several. Verily, every bullet had its billet there ! That
be sharp practice without doubt ! He also tells, how the
loss on the part of the garrison was thirteen killed,
'• whom a Friar ivas so forivard for deed of charity as
to 'procure them burial in the church adjoining.^'
Thank goodness, he has the grace to credit even a Friar
with some remnant of humanity ! He does not say that
the rebels stripped all. They could not have done so ;
for eleven escaped to Drogheda. These godless Papists
capped their iniquity in this holy man's estimation when
they "threw a fair church Bible into the mill-pond."
The last charge on the sheet is — " Their best language to
them all was ' English dogs,' ' rogues,' etc."
Before producing the other two versions, let us examine
the characters of both these witnesses as drawn by Protes-
tant writers. Sir John Temple wrote his History in 1656,
from the "Depositions" preserved then in Dublin Castle,
but Avhich are now in Trinity College. These "Deposi-
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 118
tions" comprise the list of murders, burnings, etc., said
to have been perpetrated by the Irish on the English
Protestants during the war, and fill thirty-two volumes.
He was some time Privy Councillor, but was removed by
Ormonde, and Carte tells how " two traitorous and
scandalous letters against his Majesty written by Temple
were read in Committee." And Dr. Nalson, another
Protestant writer, accuses him of having been in league
with the Parliamentarians, whom Ormonde describes as
those who became the "murderers of his (the King's)
royal person, the usurpers of his rights, and destro}ers of
the Irish nation ; by whom the nobility and gentry of it
were massacred at home, and led into slavery, or driven
into beggary abroad." In 1674, Temple protested that
the work was published without his knowledge, as appears
from State Papers, Dublin edition, p. 2.
Dean Bernard was Primate Ussher's chaplain, and like
his master, was a Puritan. During the siege of Drogheda
he watched over the Primate's library lest the rebels
should attack the magnificent palace which had been
built with the fines from the recusants. He was after-
wards Cromwell's chaplain and almoner, in either of
which capacities, it would be quite unreasonable to expect
justice to the Irish from him.
As to the " Depositions" themselves, they are summarily
dealt with by the Rev. Dr. Warner, another English
Protestant historian of that Eebellion. " There is no
credit to be given to anything that was said by these
Deponents which had not others' evidence to confirm it."
And again, the same Dr. Warner, who went through the
drudgery of perusing and examining these " Depositions,"
says : "As a great stress has been laid upon this collection
in print and conversation, and as the whole evidence of
the massacres turns upon it, I spent a great deal of my
H
114 MEJ.LHONT AJJBEY.
time exaujiuiug the books; and I am sorry to say, that
they have been made the foundation of much more
clamour and resentment than can be warranted by truth
and reason." It was in them that Temple found the
story of the ghosts of the murdered Protestants, in the
River Bann, at the Bridge of Portadown, shrieking for
revenge, and one in particular, who was seen there from
the 29Lh December to the end of the following Lent! ! !
He sets down the number of English and Protestants who
were " murdered in cold blood, destroyed some other way,
or expelled out of their habitations in two years by the
Irish, as exceeding 300,000," though, according to Petty,
there were not at the outbreak of the Rebellion 20,000
English Protestants in Ulster, where nearly all the
murders were said to have been committed. Dr. Warner
also tells how he saw in the Council books at Dublin, the
letter which the Commissioners of the Irish Parliament
wrote to the English Parliament, urging them to show no
mercy to the Irish, hut rather, to revenge the murders
and massacres committed by them. They tell them,
"that besides eight hundred-and-forty-eight families, there
were killed, hanged, burned, and drowned, six thousand
and sixty-two." Dr. Warner considers 2,000 about the
correct number. A prodigious number to be sure, but
how far less than Temple's 300,000. Warner says, finally,
at p. 296 of his work so often cited : " It is easy enough
to demonstrate the falsehood of every Protestant historian
of this Rebellion."
The Rev. Mr. Carte, an English Protestant clergyman,
who wrote the celebrated Life of the Duke of Ormonde,
tears all Temple's assertions in pieces, and demonstrates
from indubitable authority the falsehoods of his state-
ments. Writing of these "Depositions" he says, at Vol.
II., p. 263 : "Anyone who has ever read the examinations
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 115
and depositions which were generally given on hearsay,
and contradicting one another, must think it very hard
upon the Irish, to have all those without distinction to be
admitted as evidence." And in the Preface to the collec-
tion of Letters affixed to the Life he alludes to the
" uncertain, false, mistaken, and contradictory accounts,
which have been given of the Irish Uebellion, by parties
influenced by selfish views and party animosities, or
unfurnished with proper and authentic materials and
memoirs."
It is obvious from the first pages of Temple's History
what the scope of the work is. It is a gross libel on the
whole Irish nation from the earliest times. In one page,
he twice applies to them the epithet of a beastly race,
and, no doubt, worthy to be rooted out, to make room for
Royalists of his type, who worshipped the rising sun.
Carte, in his Life of Ormond, Vol. II., p. 135, gives an
account of the attack on Mellifont as follows : — " This
detached body of the northern rebels appeared on
November 21st in sight of the town of Drogheda, within
four miles of it, presuming (as was imagined) upon some
party within the place. Sir H. Tichburne, Governor of
Drogheda, had the week before sent a party of fifteen
horse and twenty-two foot to Mellifont (formerly an
Abbey of Bernardino monks, founded by Donagh O'Car-
roU, prince of Ergall, about A.D. 1142, but then an house
of the Lord Viscount Moore's, three miles from town), as,
well as to secure that place from the incursions of roving
parties, as to keep abroad continual sentinels and scouts,
that might inform him of the rebels' motions. His orders
were not well observed, nor his party so vigilant as they
ought to have been ; for on the 21st, the rebels on a
sudden encompassed the house, and (after the soldiers'
powder was spent) took it Avith a loss of some one hundred
116 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
and twenty of their own number (among which were
Owen M'Mahon and another captain), and eleven of the
soldiers, with most of the arms. As the Irish were
breaking into the house on all sides, the troopers causing
the great gate to be opened, sallied out, and opening
themselves a way through the body of the rebels, got safe
with the rest of the foot soldiers sore wounded to
Drogheda." This may be accepted as a true, unvarnished
account of this much magnified attack ; especially as
Tichburne himself, who cannot be accused of partiality
towards the Irish, and who was Governor of Drogheda at
the time of its occurrence, seems to have been Carte's
authority for it, as appears from a reference to a letter
written by Tichburne to Ormond, but not given in the
collection of Letters mentioned above. There is no
question here of quarter given, or of faith broken ; no
cold-blooded murders, no gruesome picture of gory corpses
unburied, nor of fiendish glee on the part of rebels dancing
round their watch-fires in presence of their stark and
naked victims strewn around ! ! ! Pity such absurdity
should be believed or repeated in our time, when it should
have been relegated to the same lumber-heap as the story
of the ghosts of the Bann !
We have yet another account from a paper or Report
published in London by two parties who only give their
initials, T. A. and P. G. It was "printed by Edward
Blackmore, at the Angel, in Paul's Churchyard, in 1642,"
and is now to be found in the Contemporary History of
Affairs in Ireland, so ably edited by Sir John Gilbert, at
Vol. I., Part II., p. 420. There is a discrepancy in the
dates, but that is immaterial, as only one attack is said to
have been made. It tells us, "That on the same day
(April 30), three or four hundred rebels came before
Mellifont, three or four miles from Drogheda, where Lord
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 117
Moore had left on Tuesday before a garrisoa of four-
score foot and about thirty horse ; the rebels plaid hotly
upon them until the horse were ready within ; but as
soon as the horse Avere ready, they, with the foot, sallied
out, and killed about thirty of the rebels." This cannot
be far from the truth, as it seems to be free from the
exaggerations in which Tichburne dealt, when recounting
the numerical strength of his and the enemy's forces,
ascribing to the latter poltroonery and cowardice in
action, and crediting them with excessively heavy losses.
The predisposing cause, why the Ulster Irish were
ready for rebellion was the misery the native inhabitants
endured since the Plantation of the six forfeited counties,
some thirty odd years before. Even the remnants of the
estates allowed them by the Crown were filched from
them by the greed and cunning of unscrupulous Com-
missioners, who enriched themselves on the ruin of the
Irish. Prendergast {Gromiuellian Settlement, pp. 49-50,)
thus describes the condition of the old Irish nobility and
gentry then : — " Little they (the Planters, Avho got the
forfeited estates) thought or cared how the ancient owner,
dispossessed of his lands, must grieve as he turned from
the sight of the prosperous stranger to his pining family ;
daughters, without prospect of preferment in marriage ;
sons, without fit companions, walking up and down the
country with their horses and greyhounds, coshering on
the Irish, drinking and gaming and ready for any
rebellion ; most of his high-born friends wanderino^ in
poverty in France and Spain, or enlisted in their armies."
The immediate cause of the Rebellion is thus stated: —
" A letter was intercepted coming from Scotland to one
Freeman of Antrim giving an account that a Covenantincr
army was ready to come to Ireland under General Lesly,
to extirpate the Eoman Catholics of Ulster, and leave tb*^
118 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
Scots in possession of that province; that resolutions to
that effect had been taken at their private meetings, as
well as to levy heavy fines on such as would not appear
at their kirk for the first and second Sunday, and on
failure the third, to hang at their own doors without
mercy, such as remained obstinate " (Carte's Ormond,
Vol. I., p. 160). This notion prevailed universally amongst
the rebels, and was chiefly insisted on by them as one of
the principal reasons of their taking up arms.
The Rebellion broke out, then, on the 23rd October,
1641, and the actors in it were a " tumultuous rabble "
as Ormond called them, intent chiefly on plundering and
driving off the English settlers, yet before the end of the
month the principal towns of the North were in their
hands. Leland, a Protestant historian, writes : — " That
in the beginning of the insurrection, it was determined by
them that the enterprise should be conducted in every
quarter, with as little bloodshed as possible " (History of
Ireland, Vol. III., p. 101). At p. 1.31, the same historian
writes: — "The Lords Justices might have stamped out
the insurrection at once had Ormond's advice to levy a
large number of troops been attended to ; for the Irish
were then formidable only in numbers, and not six
hundred of them had proper arms. But their purpose
was rather to fan it, in order to gratify their personal
greed by extensive forfeitures." Warner, who has been
so often quoted before, writes at p. 176 of his History: —
" It is evident from the Lords Justices' letter to the Lord
Lieutenant that they hoped for an extermination, not of
the mere Irish only, but of all the old English families
who were Roman Catholics." They issued a most
truculent order to Ormond " to burn, kill, spoil, waste,
destroy, the rebels, their relatives, houses and property."
One of these Lords Justices is thus referred to by Carte :
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 110
" He was a man of mean extract, scarcely able to read
and write . . . plodding, assiduous, and indefatigable,
greedy of gain, and eager to raise a fortune ; which it is
not difficult for a man of indifferent parts to do, when he
is not hampered with scruples about the ways of getting
it" (Ormond,Yo\.J.,ip. 190). This same Lord Justice,
with three members of the Privy Council, was put under
arrest for disobedience to his Majesty, King Charles, and
for complicity with his enemies, the Parliamentarians of
England. The Lord Justice was deposed and imprisoned,
but he retained his ill-gotten property.
As has been said, the rebels became masters of the
principal towns in the North without meeting any check,
when they attacked Mellifont. Lord Moore was then in
Drogheda with Sir Henry Tichburne, the Governor, with
whose policy and methods he, both before and afterwards,
identified himself; and, as an active agent of the Lords
Justices, he was specially odious to the Irish. During the
siege of Drogheda, he more than once, by his alertness
and personal bravery, saved the town from falling into the
hands of the besiegers. With the exception of Lord
Moore and a few of the older families, both the Lords
Justices themselves (who governed the country in the
absence of the Lord Lieutenant), and their ruthless
instruments were men of no fortune ; or, were such as
became enriched by the plunder of the Irish. Tichburne,
in a letter to his lady, alludes to one of the commissions
entrusted to him for execution, in which fiendish work
Lord Moore was associated with him. After his return
from the burning of Dundalk,* which he left a smoulder-
ing heap of ruins, he describes the results : — " There was
neither man nor beast to be found in sixteen miles,
* The Puritans admitted that Sir Pheliin O'Neil did not commence
Lis alleged massacres until after the sacking and burning of Dundalk.
120 MKLLIFOiNT ABBEY.
between the two towns of Drogheda and Dundalk ; nor
on the other side of Dundalk, in the County of Monaghan,
Dearer than Carrickmacross, a strong pile twelve miles
distant" (Tichburne's Siege of Drogheda, ^. 320). And
in tlie same page he says, all this magnificent ruin and
desolation were inflicted on the peasantry " without one
penny of charge to the State, and that for the space of
seven months, all under his command subsisted on the
spoils" taken from the unfortunate people in that district.
" The country and fields about Dundalk," he says, " were
abounding in corn, which I allocated to the several
companies, etc." The ghosts of the Bann must have been
glutted with vengeance ! ! !
And now Lord Moore's career is drawing to a close.
After having been engaged in many successful skirmishes,
raids, and minor actions, he burned with a desire for the
honour of measuring swords with the great Owen Roe,
who had defeated all the forces hitherto sent against him,
and, according to O'Neil's Diary, he affected to despise
O'Neil. He was therefore dispatched with a body of troops
to dislodge that consummate strategist from a position
occupied by him at Portlester Mill, within five miles of
Trim. Borlase tells us that Lord Moore was killed in that
engagement, August 7th, 1643, "through the grazing of
a cannon bullet which he foresaw, yet took not warning
enough to evade." The Author of the Aphorismical Dis-
covery, who is commonly supposed to have been O'Neil's
secretary, gives another account of his death. It is right
to mention that this author was by no means a monk, nor
was he a clergyman at all, as is evident from his apology
in the Introduction, where he tells the reader that he was
by profession a " sworde carrier," and that it was " alienat "
to that profession to aspire to literary avocations. "The
General" (O'Neil), he writes, " not well pleased with his
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 121
gunner, for he perceaved he shooted too high, and did
little hurte, the peace was charged, the Generall tooke a
perspective glasse, and saw wheare my Lord Moore stoode.
It being charged, the Generall did levell the same against
Moore, gave fire, his aime was soe neare home, that he
hitted him a little above his corpise, wherupon all
dismembred, presently fell dead, the trunke of his bodie
fallinge downe, and some of his members whisling in the
aire to take possession by flight in some other field, or
make such speede to accompany his soul to hell to be
assured for winter quarter next springe."
Lord Moore was succeeded by his son Henry, who, when
Governor of Dundalk, in 1645, was more than suspected
of plotting with the Parliamentarians to deliver up that
town to Monroe. He was relieved of his charge by Ormond,
who was then Lord Lieutenant, and being a minor, was
sent by him to England (out of harm's way), to the Court,
where he was kindly received by the Kiog, who ordered
livery to be granted him of his father's lauds {Carte,
Vol. IV., p. 154.) Lady Alice, his mother, was, it appears,
inveigled into a plot at the same time to deliver up
Drogheda to the Scots ; for a wax impression of the keys
of the gates having been given her, she caused the gun-
smith of the troop, which Lord Henry commanded, to
make false keys ; but, being discovered, her ladyship, with
others, was sent to Dublin. There, on examination before
the Council, they confessed all. (Ibid.) Her Ladyship's end
was a tragic one, as we read in Lodge's Peerage. " Lady
Alice, younger daughter of Sir Adam Loftus, Viscount
Elye, who broke her leg near the fort (Drogheda) by a fall
from her horse (occasioned by a sudden grief arising from
the first sight of St. Peter's Church, Drogheda, where her
dear lord lay buried), on Wednesday, 10th June, 1649,
and dying the 13th of a gangrene, was that night buried
by him in the family tomb."
122 MELLIFONT ABREY.
There is another entry at the same place in Lodge.
" Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Moore, sixth son of the first
VivScount Mellifont, and brother to Lord Charles who was
killed at Portlester Mill, who was an officer in the army
for the reduction of Ireland, and in 1654<, had a pension
from the then Government of 10/- a week, and five of his
brother Charles' children had £3 17s. a week in 1G65, out
of the district of Trim" (Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, Vol.
IL, pp. 99-100). This Francis Moore had been an officer
in the King's army, but soon after the arrival in Ireland
of Jones, the Parliamentarian General, he went over to
him and took the Dundalk troops with him. It was
from Cromwell's government he had his pension, but the
pensions granted to Lord Charles' children were continued
to them after the Restoration, and Lord Henry mentioned
above, was created Earl of Drogheda, in 1661, — thus
confirming the historic truism, that the ungrateful Stuarts
heaped favours on their enemies and treated their best
and most devoted adherents with cold indifference. As
an illustration of this we have the instance of one of the
chief actors in those troublesome times, Sir John Clot-
worthy, changing sides three times: — first, fighting in the
King's name and commission against the Ulster Irish ;
next, siding with the Parliamentarians, his Majesty's
deadliest enemies, and going over to England as the
spokesman of a deputation sent to the Parliament of
England to protest against the return of King Charles IL,
on rumour of peace and terms being negotiated between
them; again, on King Charles' arrival in England, hieing
over to tender his homages and congratulations — and lo !
the reward of his fidelity and loyalty (?) — he was created
Viscount Massereene. It is only one instance of several
hundreds that may be cited. The i^nfortunate rebels
whose banner bore the legend, " Vlvat Carolus Rex" —
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 123
'• Long live King Charles," and who remained faithful to
him to the last, were, by an irony of fate, robbed and
banished by the Cromwellians, who were put in possession
of their estates and confirmed in them by Charles II. ! 1 !
In the foregoing pages, the authorities quoted are
Protestants, and all, without exception, hostile to the
Irish. Their testimony, nevertheless, is favourable to the
rebels, save where the question of religion crops up, then
their prejudice blinds their judgment, and hurries them
into most glaring absurdities. One more fact about that
saddest page of our history. Before the outbreak of the
Civil War in 1G41, there were 1,200,000 Irish Catholics
in the country ; at its close in 1652, the number had
fallen to 700,000, and these were ordered under pain of
death to transplant to Connaught — the remnant of a broken
and plundered race ! ! !
Henr}^ the first Earl of Drogheda, did not long enjoy
his honours; nor did his son and successor, Charles, who
was succeeded by his brother Henry, the third Earl, who,
on the eve of the ever-memorable Battle of the Boyne,
entertained a party, amongst whom was one of King
William's highest officers. On the morrow, July the 1st,
the booming of King William's fifty pieces of "dread
artillery" echoed along the hills and the valley of the
Boyne, and shook the old abbey walls to their very
foundations ; and on that night, the oaken rafters of
Mellifont rang to the cheers and toasts of the "glorious,
pious, and immortal memory" of the Prince of Orange, on
whose side Earl Henry commanded that day a regiment
of foot. It may be interesting to mention here, that on
the morning of the battle, the Irish Catholic soldiers wore
scraps of white paper on their caps — emblematic of the
livery of France ; the followers of the Prince of Orange
wore green boughs torn off the trees.
124 MELLIFONT ABBEY.
Charles, Lord Moore, son of Henry, the third Earl,
married Jane, heiress of Arthur, Viscount Ely, who
received as her portion the suppressed Abbey of Monas-
terevan, a Cistercian monastery founded by O'Dempsey,
in the 12th century. It was called Rosglas by the Irish,
and the Valley of Roses, in the list of monasteries of the
Order in Ireland. When it came into Earl Charles'
possession, he changed the name to Moore Abbey, and
made it his residence. The sons of this Lord Charles,
Henry and Edward, became earls successively, and Edward,
the fifth earl, having settled down permanently at Monas-
terevan, sold Mellifont and some of the property in its
immediate vicinity to Mr. Balfour of Townley Hall, in
1727.
The condition of Ireland at that time was truly deplor-
able. The Penal Laws were in full force against the
unfortunate Catholics, who were reduced to a state little
better than slavery. Dr. Johnson wrote of them some
fifty years later: — "The Irish are in a most unnatural
state ; for we see there the minority prevailing over the
majority. There is no such instance, even in the ten
persecutions, as that which the Protestants of Ireland
have exercised against the Catholics. Did we tell them
we conquered, it would be above board ; to punish them
by confiscations and other penalties was monstrous injus-
tice" (Boswell, at 1773).
With the Moore family departed also the very shadow
of Mellifont's diminished greatness, and " time's effacing
finger" almost completely obliterated what was once a
gorgeous national monument, which stood out clearly as
a finger-post on the ways of time. Gradually the fabric
fell into decay, the owl hooted on the landing of the grand
stair-case, and the daw and martin flitted unmolested
through the deserted halls. The gardens and walks and
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 125
bowers disappeared beneath a crop of tangled brushwood,
the product of neglect. Soon the roof fell in, the walls
became seamed with many rents and toppled over with
a crash; then Mellifont, the "Honey Fountain," the
Monasthir Mor, or Great Abbey, as it was called, the
foundation of saints and kings, the abode of the pious and
the learned, the house pre-eminently of prayer, the asylum
of the poor and friendless, became a shapeless acccumula-
tion of rubbish. True, a mill was erected about 100
years ago close to the site of the church, and, no doubt, it
was told to strangers who then visited the ruins by people
who professed to know all about monks, that it had more
activity and exhibited more of the bustle of life than
when the silent, slumbering monks dwelt there. But a
mill in that hallowed spot was a huge incongruity and a
wanton disregard for all its honoured associations. In
1884, the few remaining ruins became vested in the Board
of Works, and the excavations which revealed the plan of
the church, as described in Chapter I., were carried out.
It only remains to be said that in Mr. Balfour of Townley
Hall, the estimable gentleman who now owns Mellifont
and some of the property formerly belonging to it, his
tenants have found a liberal and generous benefactor, who
enjoys the merited esteem and respect of all who know
him.
As one ascends the hill over Mellifont, and, pausing on
its summit, gazes on the lovely scenery around him,
particularly along the valley of the Boyne, which Young
called one of the completest pictures he had ever seen,
then glances at the quiet valley beneath him, and
remembers what prominent parts those who once trod
that favoured spot played in our country's chequered
history, his soul is filled with solemn thoughts too big for
utterance. There, came the firm and gentle, yet daunt-
126 MELLIFONT AUBEV.
less, Malachy side by side with Oriel's proud Chief, and
hand in hand, they knelt and prayed and consecrated it
to the living God for ever. Thereon, rose up the magnifi-
cent temple on which neither cost nor labour was spared,
that it might be worthy of Him Who deigns to dwell in
tabernacles made by man ; and generation succeeded
generation of monks, who calmly dwelt in that peaceful
valley, which, by their skill and enterprise, they converted
into a garden of delights and a terrestrial paradise. The
bishop and the king found there a resting-place when
life's weary struggle was over, and their end was sweet-
ened by the cheering hopes of a glorious immortality.
The poor man and the homeless found there a welcome
and a shelter, their wants being liberally attended to ; and
the blessings of a free education and of spiritual consola-
tions were diffused on every side from that centre of
learning and piety. The knight and baron came, the
belted man of war made his home there, enjoyed his
ephemeral honours, but he, too, is gone, severing all
connection with it both by name and title, leaving no
trace behind. The king and the knight have been
brushed aside ; and the old chess-board, Mellifont, alone
remains. Impressed vi^ith these reflections, we take a
glance beyond the grave, and there, we behold these
actors pass before the great, most just, and supreme
Judge, to receive the requital of their deeds, and to each
is meted out reward or punishment according to his
deserts. We, too, the spectators, are hastening towards
that same goal ; our future is indubitably in our own
hands, according as we do or do not now live up to our
convictions, and the dictates of our consciences.
And, now, we cannot help asking ourselves, what shall
Mellifont's future be ? At present it is a blank ; but,
shall the lamp of piety and learning be rekindled, and
MELLIFONT ABBEY. 127
the light burst forth auew there as in the days of its
splendour ? We know not ; but we do know that,
although God's ways are inscrutable, His wisdom and
power are infinite. To Him be all glory for ever and
ever. Amen.
APPENDIX I.
LIST OF ABBOTS OF MELLIFONT.
Saint Christian O'Connarchy, Founder and first Abbot,
Bishop of Lismore and Legate of the Holy See, 1150.
Blessed Malchus, brother of preceding.
Charles O'Buacalla, 1177, made Bishop of Emly.
Patrick, term of office not known.
Maelisa, appointed Bishop of Clogher in 1194.
Thomas, 1211.
Carus, or Cormac O'Tarpa, elected Bishop of Achonry in 1219,
resigned that See in 1 226, returned to Mellifont where he died.
Mathew, 1289.
Michael, 1293.
William M'Buain.
Hugh O'Hessain, resigned 1300.
Thomas O'Henghan.
Radulph, or Ralph O'Hedian.
Nicholas of Lusk, 1325.
Michael, 1333.
Roger, 1346.
Reginald, 1349.
Hugh, 1357.
Reginald Leynagh, died 15th August, 1368.
John Terrour, 1370.
[There is no record of the names of Abbots in this interval.]
Roger, 1472.
John Logan.
Henry.
John Warren.
Roger Boly.
John Troy, 1486-1500.
Thomas Harvey, died 20th March, 1525.
Richard Conter, the last regular Abbot, pensioned in 1540.
As will be observed, the line of succession is incomplete
between the years 1370 and 1472; and it is impossible now
to fill in the gaps. The List is taken from Ware's Ccenobia
Cisierciensia in Ilibernia, and Dalton's History of Drogheda.
APPENDIX. 129
APPENDIX II.
THE CHARTER OF NEWRY,
Copied and translated from the Original in the British
Museum, from a copy given by John O'Donovan in Dublin
Penny Journal, 1832-33, p. 102.
Maurice M'Laughlin, King of all Ireland, to all his Kings,
Princes, Nobles, Leaders, Clergy and Laity, and to all and
each the Irish present and to come, GREETING.
Know ye that I, by the unanimous will and common
consent of the Nobles of Ultonia, Ergallia (Oriel), and
O'Neach (Iveagh), to wit of Donchad O'Carroll, King of all
Ergallia, and of Murchad his son. King of O'Meitb, and of the
territory of Erthur, of Conla, King of Ultonia, of Donald
O'Heda, King of O'Neach (Iveagh), have granted and
CONFIRMED, in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Patrick,
and St. Benedict, the Father and Founder of the Cistercian
Order, to the monks serving God in Nyvorcintracta (Newry)
as a perpetual and pure donation, the land of O'Cormac,
whereon was founded the monastery of Athcrathin, with its
lands, woods, and waters, Eaancratha, with its lands, woods,
and waters, Crumglean, with its lands, woods, and waters,
Caselanagan, with its lauds, woods, and waters, Lisinelle, with
its lands, woods, and waters, Croa Druimfornac, with its
lands, woods, and waters, Letri, Corcrach, Fidglassayn, Tir-
morgannean, Connocol, etc. These Lands with their Mills,
I have confirmed to the aforesaid monks of my own proper
'gift, for the health of my soul, that I may be partaker
of all the benefits of masses, hours {i.e. vespers and matins),
and prayers that shall be offered in the Monastery itself, and
to the end of time.
And because I have founded the Monastery of Ybar cin-
tracta (Newry), of my own free will, I have taken the monks
so much under my protection, as sons and domestics of the
I
130 APPENDIX.
faith, that they may be safe from the molestations and incur-
sions of all men.
I will also that, as the Kings and Nobles of O'Neach
(Iveagh), or of Ergallia (Uriel), may wish to confer certain
lands on this Monastery, for the health of their souls, they
may do so in my lifetime, while they have my free will and
licence, that I may know what and how much of my Earthly
Kingdom, the King of Heaven may possess for the use of His
poor Monks.
The Witnesses and Sureties are: —
Giolla MacLiag, Archbishop of Armagh, holding the Staff of
Jesus in his hand.
Hugh O'Killedy, Bishop of Uriel (Clogher.)
Muriac O'Coffay, Bishop of Tirone (Derry.)
Melissa Mac in Clerig-cuir, Bishop of Ultonia (Down.)
Gilla Comida O'Caran, Bishop of Tirconnell (Raphoe.)
Eachmarcach O'Kane, King of Fearnacrinn and Kennacta
(now Barony of Keenaght, Co. Londonderry.)
O'Carriedh, the Great; Chief of Clan Aengusa, and Clan Neil.
Cumaige O'Flain, King of O'Turtray (Antrim.)
Gilla Christ O'Dubhdara, King of Fermanagh.
Eachmarcach O'Ffoifylain.
Maelmocta MacO'Nelba.
Aedh (Hugh) the Great Magennis, Chief of Clan-Aeda, in
O'Neach Uladh (Iveagh.)
Dermot MacCartan, Chief of Kenelfagartay (Kinelearty.)
Acholy MacConlacha, Gill-na-naemh O'Lowry, Chief of Kinel
Temnean.
Gilla Odar Ocasey, Abbot of Dundalethglass (Downpatrick.)
Hugh Maglanha, Abbot of Inniscumscray (Iniscourcy.)
Angen, Abbot of Dromoge, and many other Clerics and Laics.
APPENDIX. 131
APPENDIX III.
INVENTORY OF ESTATES OF MELLIFONT.
Richard Center, the last Abbot of Mellifont, was, on the
23rd July, 1539, seized of two messuages, 167 acres of arable
land, 10 of pasture, 5 of meadow, and 5 of pasture in
Glut , with a salmon weir; £13 13s. 4d. annual rent,
arising from 16 fishing corraghs at Oldbridge, together with
the tithe-corn of the same, all of the annual value, besides
reprises, of £27 18s. 8d. ; also a messuage in Shephouse, with
the tithe-corn thereof, of the annual value, besides all reprises,
of £4 17s. 8d. 3 three messuages, 120 acres of arable land, 20
of meadow, — a fishery, and a boat for salmon-fishing in
Komalane, together with the tithe-corn thereof, of the annual
value, besides all reprises, of £15 3s. ; 3 messuages, 2 cottages,
a water-mill, — a fishing- weir, 120 acres of arable land, 3 closes,
containing 6 acres of mountain in Schahinge, together with
the tithe-corn, of the annual value, besides all reprises, of
£12 6s. 8d.; 2 messuages, — 20 acres of meadow and pasture
in Donnore, together with the tithe-corn thereof, of the
annual value, besides all reprises, of 115/4; 2 messuages,
8 cottages, 46 acres of arable land, and 2 of meadow in Doo ,
together with the tithe-corn thereof, of the annual value,
besides all reprises, of £5; 4 messuages, 18 cottages, 39 acres
of arable land, and 3 of meadow in Glassehalyine, together
with the tithe-corn thereof, of the annual value, besides all
the reprises, of £5 18s. 8d. ; 124 acres of arable land,
and 10 of meadow in Graungethe, together with the tithe-corn
thereof, of the annual value, besides all reprises, of £14 19s. 4d.;
a messuage and cottage, 45 acres of arable land, and 15 of
meadow and pasture, in , together with the tithe-corn
thereof, of the annual value, besides all reprises, of £3 8s. 4d,;
4 messuages, 9 cottages, 64 acres of arable land, and 4 in
meadow in Balranny, together with the tithe-corn thereof, of
the annual value of , messuages, with 19 acres
132 AI'PKNDIX.
of arable land ia Kordoraghe, together with the tithe-corn
thereof, of the annual value, besides all reprises, of 16/-;
7 messuages, 10 cottages, 18G acres of arable land, 8 of
meadow, and 40 of pasture and brushwood in , with
the tithe-corn thereof, of the annual value, besides all reprises,
of XI 2 3s. ; a messuage, two cottages, 120 acres of arable land,
a fishing-weir, called Broraey's weir, and the fishery there, a
water-mill in , with the tithe-corn thereof, of the
annual value, besides all reprises, of £16 5s.; 7 messuages,
one cottage, 227 acres of arable land, and 10 of meadow in
Bally fadocke, together with the tithe-corn thereof, of the
annual value, besides all reprises, of ; 4 messuages,
20 acres of arable land, and 4 of meadow in Kinoyshe,
together with the tithe-corn thereof, of the annual value,
besides all reprises, of £10 3s. 8d. ; 4 messuages, 46 acres of
arable land, and 4 of meadow in Kellystone, with the tithe-
corn thereof, besides all reprises, of the annual value of
£4 5s. 4d. ; 2 messuages, 3 cottages, 60 acres of arable land,
6 of pasture, and 4 of meadow iu Oracamathane, together
with the tithe-crown thereof, of the annual value, besides all
reprises, of ; 4 messuages, 8 cottages, 124 acres of
arable land, a salmon-weir, called Monktone, a water-mill in
the town-land of Rosmore, together with the tithe-corn thereof,
of the annual value, besides all reprises, of ; 3 mes-
suages, 6 cottages, 126 acres of arable land, 6 of meadow, and 6
of meadow in Gyltone, together with'the tithe-corn thereof, of
the annual value, besides all reprises, of £6 4s. 8d; 5 mes-
suages, 8 cottages, 141 acres of arable land, the fourth part of
an acre of meadow, and 6 of common pasture in Dromen-
hatt, otherwise, Newton of Knockamothane, together with the
tithe-corn thereof, of the annual value, besides all reprises, of
£8 9s.; 6 messuages, 140 acres of arable land, 4| of meadow
in Radrenage, together with the tithe-corn thereof, of
the annual value, besides all reprises, of £7 12s.; 3 messuages,
8 cottages, 120 acres of arable land, 6 of meadow, 6 of pasture
in Calm, together with the tithe-corn thereof, of the annual
APPENDIX. IS'S
value, besides all reprises, of £6 173. ; 3 messuages, 60 acres of
arable land, 60 of pasture, and 4 of meadow in Stareaaghe,
with the tithe-corn thereof, of the annual value, besides all
reprises, of £o Ss. 8d.; the tithe-corn of the townland of
inserathe and Balregane, near Donnore and below the
parish of Mellifont, of the annual value of £2 ; the tithe-corn
of the town of Monamore, of the annual value of £2 13s. 4d. ;
the rectory of Baliestore, of the annual value of ; and
the chapels of Grangegeythe and Knockamothane, parcel of
the rectory of Mellifont, of the annual value of all the
said rectories being appropriated to the Abbot and his succes-
sors, and, together with the said lands, etc., are lying and
situated in the Co. of Meath. The Abbot was also seized of a
small house in the town of Drogheda, in the tenure of Thomas
Tanner, annual value 13/4, and also of another house in the
tenure of Roger Samon, of the annual value of 8/-, with 2/-
rent from the Mayor and commonalty of Drogheda.
The above is from the Monasticon Hibernicum. It by no
means contains a full inventory of the possessions of Mellifont
at the time of its suppression, only the property belonging to
it in the County Meath. In the same Monasticon we read,
"By an inquisition taken 14th June, 1612, the possessions of
this Abbey were found as follow : — The site, a water-mill, a
garden, an orchard, a park called Legau Park, the old orchard
containing two acres, the silver meadow 9 acres, the wood
meadow 10 acres, and the doves' park; 80 acres of underwood;
Killing wood, being great timber, containing 12 acres; Ardagh,
20 acres, being the demesne lands, and the grange and town
of Tullyallen, containing 27 messuages and 260 acres; Der-
veragh, 5 messuages and 213 acres; Mell, 2 messuages and 60
acres; Ballymear, alias Ballyremerry, 2 messuages and 60
acres ; Sheepgrange, no tithe, 8 messuages and 245 acres ;
Little Grange, 4 messuages and 62 acres ; Beckrath, 2 mes-
suages and 63 acres; Cubbage, 4 messuages and 103 acres;
Ballygatheran, no tithe, 6 messuages and 132 acres; Salthouse,
7 messuages and 238 acres; Staleban, 11 messuages and 160
134 APPENDIX.
acres; Vinspocke, 6 messuages and 90 acres; Morragh, no
tithes, 11 messuages and 120 acres; Ballypatrick, 8 messuages
and 120 acres; in Collon, a water-mill and 23 acres, <£6 13s. 4f).
annual rent out of the said town, and the tithes thereof;
Bally macskanlan, a castle, no tithe, and 120 acres; Cruerath,
Ballyraganly and Donnore, in the parish of Mellifont, with
the tithes and altarages, all in this county" (Louth). Here
follow the possessions belonging to the Abbey in the County
Meath, and which have been given.
THE END.
ADVERTISEMENTS.
THQs. W^- & JN. KELLY,
89 LOWER GARDINER STREET, DUBLIN,
ESTABLISHED 1824.
Offices— 1 & 2 WESTMORELAND STREET, DUBLIN.
(Next Bank of Irelakd.)
We respectfully solicit from the Hierarchy and Clergy a con-
tinuance of their valued patronage for the
imported by us for the use of the Altar, and which we have for so
many years supplied throughout Ireland, England, and the Colonies ;
having full confidence in, and every assurance of, its guaranteed
purity.
Annexed we give a facsimile of the brand and impression of the
capsule, and beg to say we do not send out any Altar Wine in bottle
without using these precautions. The Rich Altar Wine has Green
Capsule, the Medium Altar Wine has Red Capsule, and the Dry
Altar Wine has Blue Capsule.
Price, including
Bottles and Carriage,
21s. per doz. Is. per
dozen allowed for
Altar Wine bottles,
wlien returned in
good condition, car-
riage paid.
FACSIMILE OF
BLUE CAPSULE
FOR DRY ALTAR WINE.
FACSIMILE OF
GREEN CAPSULE
FOR RICH ALTAR WINE.
FACSIMILE OF
RED CAPSULE
FOR MEDIUM ALTAR WINE.
In other WINES we
hold a large and well-
assorted stock, to-
gether with the finest
SPIRITS, both Irish
and Foreign.
As advertinementt
frequently appear which
are likely to confuse our
names with those of other
firms, intending purchas-
ers should make inquiries
as to the identity of the
firms and addresses with
ichom they are dealing.
THQs W^- & JN. KELLY,
89 LOWER GARDINER STREET, DUBLIN.
Offices— 1 & 2 WESTMORELAND STREET, DUBLIN.
(Next Bank of Ireland.)
135
ADVERTISEMENTS.
TODD, BURHS & CO.,
(LIMITED),
MAET STEEET, AND JERVIS STEEET,
DVBLXN,
AND
ETJE PAUL LE LOM, PARIS.
THE LARGEST STOCK OF
HIGH CLASS DRAPERY -
E=- AND FURNITURE
IN THE KINGDOM.
IRISH MADE GOODS OUR SPECIALITY.
STRICTLY MODERATE PRICES.
136
ADVERTISEMENTS.
Messrs. CLERY & CO.
AVE completed extensive alterations
in connection with their
COMPLETE HOUSE FURNISHING
DEPARTMENTS.
FOUR NEW GALLERIES have been added, and
the Furniture, China and Glass, Carpet, and Curtain
Showrooms are now the most extensive in Ireland.
BEDROOM SUITES in all the Fashionable Woods,
Drawingroom Suites, Diningroom Suites, Sideboards,
Overmantels, Wall and Library Furniture, French
and Italian Bedsteads, Axminster and Brussels
Carpets, Turkey Carpets, Parisian and Indian Eugs,
Silk Tapestries, Lace Curtains.
A Magnificent Stock at very Moderate Prices.
COMPLETE HOUSE FUMISHERS.
CLERY & CO., DUBLIN.
137
^5^
32 DAME STREET, DTJBLITT.
PATRICK DONEGAN
Successor to JOHN DONEGAN
(The only House of that name in the Trade. )
Silver Monstrances . '. '. . . from £10 to £80
Chalices . . . . . . £3 10s. to £50
Ciboriums . . . . . . £3 10s. to £40
Pyxes . . . . . . 15s. to 40s.
Oil Stocks ...... 18s. to 27s.
Thuribles and Boats . . . . £10 to £20
Altar Cruets and Traj's . . . . £5 to £15
Altar Lamps . . . . . £10 to £50
Do. new designs, very richly chased and em-
bossed with monograms, figures of saints, etc. . £20 to £100
PLATED ON WHITE METAL.
Plated Monstrances (new approved silver gilt Lunettes) £4 to £30
Cases for Lunettes . . . . 123. 6d. to £2 10s.
Chalices (silver cup and paten) . . . £3 to £8
Ciboriums (silver cup and cover) . . £3 to £8
Sanctuary Lamps, plain or chased . . £1 to £20
Cruets and Trays (mounted on cut glass) . 15s. to £3 lOa.
Thuribles (in sizes) .... 15s. 18s. to 30s.
Do. (in best quality) . . . 32s. 6d. to GOa.
Boats, 6s. to 10s. ; best quality . . . 15s. to 20s.
Paschal Candlesticks, all Brass . . . £3 lOs. to £10
Do. do. in Wood . . . £1 to £3
Tenebrae Candlesticks, all Brass . . . £8 to £20
Chandeliers to light Churches, 7 to 18 lights . . £10 to £20
Coronas and Brass Sanctuary Lamps (in various designs) £1 to £10
Brass and plated fancy standing Lamps . . 3s. to £5
Altar Branches in great variety of designs, 3, 5, 7, 9,
etc., lights . . . . . . £1 to £10
New designs in Branches and Standing Lamps.
ALTAR CANDLESTICKS.
Set of Six Altar Candlesticks in Polished Brass.
Lacquered (Gothic style) . . . . £2 to £40
In Roman and French style . . . £2 to £30
Price Lists on Application.
Candlesticks, Branches, etc., Re-polished and Lacquered as new.
Goods Repaired, Re-plated, and Gilt in best manner.
138
ADVERTISEMENTS.
E. CLARKE a SON,
SILK MBBCBES
AND
THE POPULAR HOUSE
FOR
LADIES' AND CHILDREN'S
OUTFITTING.
EVERY REQUISITE STOCKED.
PRICES MODERATE.
1 SHOP ST. & 1 WEST ST.,
DROGHEDA.
139
^g ?!jpr i?Haje9t5's ^SW^ ISopal aetlera ^oatent.
PETER LYONS,
MANUFACTURER OF
PRIZE MEDAL BREAD
AND CONFECTIONERY,
OBTAINED
Bronze Medal and Grand Diploma of Honour at Bakers' and
Confectioners' International Exhibition, held in Koyal
Agricultural Hall, London, 1896 ;
ALSO OBTAINED
Second Prize and 2 Diplomas for High Class Confectionery
in open competition against all Confectioners in the
United Kingdom, held in London, 1895.
RSAD il]\rii.I.V5IS REPORT.
REPORT from Sir Charles A. Cameron, M.D., D.RH. (Cambridge),
F.R.C.S.I., M.R.C.P.L, F.I.C., Professor of Chemistry, R.C.S.I.,
Medical Officer of Health for Dublin ; City and County Analyst.
"City Laboratory, Municipal Buildings, Cork Hill,
Dublin, i6th Jilarch^ 1897.
" I have examined a specimen of Bread submitted to me for that purpose by Mr. Pete«
Lyons, of Drogheda. I found it to be free from adulteration and impurity. It contained
in 100 parts 33.15 per cent of water — much less than is usually met with — 0.84 per cent of
Ash, and 66.0 per cent of Albumen Starch, and it was very white, and evidently made
from the very best quality flour. It was properly fermented, uniform in texture, and
well baked. "CHARLES A. CAMERON."
CERTIFICATE OF ANALYSIS.
"Analytical Laboratory, ii & 12 Great Tower Street, London, E.C.,
28M November, 1895.
" I hereby certify that I have carefully examined, both chemically and microscopically,
specimens of the Cakes manufactured by Mr. Peter Lyo.ns, Drogheda, and I can
express a very favourable opinion as to their wholesome, digestive, and dietetic properties.
They have been judiciously prepared from the choicest materials, are particularly in-
Yiting to the taste, and have been carefully and thoroughly baked.
"GRANVILLE H. SHARPE, F.C.S., Analytical and Consulting Chemist (late
Principal of the Liverpool College of Chemistrj-), Author of 'Qualitative and
Quantitative Analj'si^,' late Lecturer on Chemistry and Technology to the
'Liverpool School of Science,' Lecturer on Chemical Technology to the 'City
and Guilds of London Institute,' Member of the Society of Chemical Industry,
late Consuhing Chemist to the Mineral Heater Trade Review, &c., Fellow
of the Berlin Chemical Society."
PETER LYONS,
MODEL MACHINE BAKERY AND CONFECTIONERY,
112 WEST STSEET, DROGHEDA.
uo
AD VERTIS EME N TS .
PLAIN AND FANCY BREAD,
CHOCOLATE AND SWEETS IN GREAT VARIETY,
— CAI.I. TO —
W. T. SKEFFINGTON'S
BAKERY AND CONFECTIONERY,
79 and 80 WEST ST,, DROGHEDA.
FEEDING STUFFS OF ALL DESCRIPTIONS,
FRESH FRO]\I THE BEST MILLS,
AT LOWEST PRICES.
CAN BE HAD ALWAYS AT
W. T. SKEFFINGTON'S '"70^*^1?.'"**
79 & 80 WEST ST., DROGHEDA.
141
ADVERTISEMENTS.
MURTAGH'S MEDICAL HALL,
SHOP STREET, DROGHEDA.
ESTABLISHED 1873,
Accuracy, Neatness, and the correct
dispensing of Physicians' Prescrip-
tions a Speciality.
Fancy Perfumes, Toilet Soaps, Nail
and Tooth Brushes, and every Toilet
Requisite kept in Stock.
A Large and Varied Assortment of Foreign
Mineral Waters, including Hunich, Janos,
Apenta, Rubenes & Contrexeville Waters.
Night Bell.
THOMAS WHELEHAN, L.P.S.L,
Manager.
142
ADVERTISEMENTS.
JJXCBLLBNCB and jgjCONOMYI
^ARIBTY and ^ALUEM
These are the Pour Factors which combine to make
LUKE J. HEALY'S
The Most Desirable House in the District for
Pure Drugs,
Patent PHedicines^
^^ Veterinary Preparations,
and Toilet Requisites.
Every Article Stocked is of the Highest Quality, and ia its respective
class, the best obtainable. All Drugs are of Purest Manufacture, and
are Stocked only in such quantities, and at such intervals, as will
ensure them being always Fresh and Reliable.
ARTISTS^ :5^.EQUISITES and
PHOTOGRAPHIC lVtATERIAI.S.
Everything New and Up-to-Date, and the Latest Productions in these
Departments Stocked as soon as they appear.
YOU HAVE MISSED A GREAT TREAT!
If you have never tried L. J. HEALY'S Celebrated
MINERAL WATERS.
Ask for Ms Lemonade, Ginger Beer, Soda Water and Ginger Ale.
LUKE J. HBALY,
Chemist, Mineral Water Manufacturer & Wine Merchant,
!l & 82 West Street, Drogheda.
143
ADVERTISEMENTS.
J. MAGEE,
(Successor to E. M'Donough,)
113 WEST STREET, DROGHEDA.
Direct Importer of the following Eminent
Shippers' Sparkling Wines : —
POMMERY & (JPlENO.
AYALA & CO.
GIESLER & CO.
&. H. MUMM & CO.
CHAELES HEIDSIECK & CO.
KELLY'S DRY, MD RICH ALTAR WINES
ALWAYS L\ STOCK.
PORTS, SHERRIES, CLARETS, Etc., Etc.
J. JAMESON <& SON WHISKEY,
10 TO 12 YEARS OLD.
144
ADVERTISEMENTS.
WHITE HORSE HOTEL,
WEST STREET,
DROGHEDA.
(HIS Old-Established and AVell-Managed Hotel
occupies the most central position in Drogheda.
Sanitary Arrangement perfect. Unrivalled for its
Comfort.
EXCELLENT CUISINE, FINE WINES,
AND MODERATE CHARGES.
Table d'Hote Dinner supplied from One
to Two o'clock, daily.
GOOD SMOKING & BILLIARD ROOMS.
BATH EOOMS, RECENTLY ERECTED AT A LARGE OUTLAY.
POST-HORSES AND CARRIAGES KEPT.
Moderate Charges and Special Terms for Parties.
Bus attends principal Trains from Dublin & Belfast.
145
ADVERTISEMENTS.
F. KELLY
Invites attention to the great value he offers in
GENTLEMEN'S AND YOUTHS'
TAILORING AND OUTFITTING
(Also Boys' Ready-Made Clothing.)
CLERICAL TAILORING is one of the most important
and successful Departments with him, and perfect Fitting
(Guaranteed) his Speciality.
A large and Varied Stock of Clerical Cloths always on hand.
Prices extremely moderate, and Fitting a Speciality.
F. KELLY (Successor to E. Clarke & Son),
2 WEST STREET, DROGHEDA.
Established 1846.
JOHN CALLAGHAN,
Uttrt^ant bailor,
2 SHOP STREET, DROGHEDA.
CLERICAL SUITS A SPECIALITY.
146
ADVERTISEMENTS.
IF YOU WANT A GOOD REFKESHING CUP OF TEA
TRY
M'QUILLAN'S Is. lOd. BLEND,
A PERFECT, IDEAL TEA.
Once Tasted always Bought, and never Forgotten. Note Address —
JAMES J. M^QUILLAJff, 31 Shop St., Dro^Iieda.
PORTS, SHERRIES, MARSALAS, CLARETS, BURGUNDIES, &c.
ALSO
JOHN JAMESON'S FAMOUS OLD MALT, Guaranteed
Under Distiller's Seal, for wliich
JAMES J. M'aiTILLAN
IS JUSTLY NOTED.
31 SHOP STREET, DROGHEDA.
TEA. (UNEQUALLED VALUE.)
We buy all our Teas by comparison, and for cash. We are
therefore in a position to give our Customers and the Public
a better Tea for less money than they can buy elsewhere.
Prices 1/2, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, 1/10, 2/-, & 2/4 per lb.
.5 lbs. sent post free to any address.
Guinness's XX Brown Stout in Bottle and on Draught.
Do. XXX Invalid Stout, 2/4 per dozen.
Bass' Pale Ale in Bottle and on Draught.
Do. No. 1 Strong Ale (ten guinea) in Bottle.
Allsopps' Light Dinner Ale, 1/3 per dozen.
WINES, BRANDIES, JAMAICA ETJM, HOLLAND, OLD TOM,
AND SLOB aiNS, LiaUEURS AND CORDIALS,
OF THE FINEST QUALITY AT LOWEST WHOLESALE PRICE.
Specialists in Jolin Jameson & Sons' 6 year old Malt, 24s. per gallon.
Do. Do. 5 year old do. 20s. per gallon.
DUFFY BROTHERS, 19 WEST ST., DROGHEDA.
147
ADVERTISEMENTS.
PUItE A1.TAR ^riMK
OF THE
DOMIIVICAIV FATHERS, CORPO SAXTO COLLEGE,
1. 1 S B O N.
Every process of making from the selecting of the grapes to the
filling of the Wine into casks is superintended by the priests
themselves.
PRICE 20/ PER DOZEN,
Carriage paid to your nearest Railway Station.
This Wine is very much appreciated by a large number of the
Clergy. Certificates of analysis and samples free on application.
Is. per dozen allowed for empty Bottles returned, carriage free.
J. & J. BOYLE, 37 WEST STREET, DHOGHEDA.
AGENTS FOR DUBLIN AND NORTH OF IRELAND,
ESTABLISHED 1786.
Telegrams :
"ELCOCK DROGHEDA."
LUKE J. BLCOCK,
^utttonecr, Faluet,
WOOL AND SHARE BROKER,
148
ADVERTISEMENTS.
WILLIAM BANNON,
20 WEST STREET, DROGHEDA,
Merchant Tailor, Clothier and Outfitter.
All Goods disposed of on most moderate terms.
READY-MADE CLOTHING A SPECIALTY.
A large Assortment to select from.
m
Gents' Ties, Shirts, Braces, etc., always la Stock.
A TRIAL RESPECTFULLY SOLICITED.
JOHN J. KENNY,
it
5 SHOP STREET,
DROGHEDA.
HIGH- CLASS
SANITARY PLUMBING AND GASFITTING.
I. F. BRAXIGA^f, R.M.P.C,
House Furnishing and Builders' Ironmonger, Plumber,
Gasfitter, Coppersmith, Church and House BeUfitter.
PUMPS SUPPLIED AND FITTED.
18 SHOP STREET, r>ROGHEDA.
1 TRIMGATE STREET, NAVAN.
149
ADVERTISEMENTS.
J. NOLAN,
Frxnfer, Boaksellcr, SfaHoner, Neiusagenf,
Toy and Fancy Goods Warehouse
11 LAURENCE STREET,
JOHN COLLINS,
32 & 33 SHOP STRSST, DROGHEDA.
IRONMONGER. HOUSE FURNISHER,
PLUMBER & IMPLEMENT AGENT.
ESTABLISHED 123 YEARS.
BELEEK GOODS. -
Tea Services, Vases, Ornaments, Crosses, Fonts, etc.,
At Very Low Prices.
PETER McQuillan,
iroiiur, Chandlor S: ©il Jmprtq,
90 WEST STREET,
150
ADVERTISEMENTS.
THOMAS LYONS,
&ROCEE, BAKER,
Corn, Meal, and Flour Merchant,
54 & 63 TRIMTY STREET,
DROGHEDA.
PATKICK DEEW,
YICTUILLEH,
8 WEST STREET, DROaHEDA.
BEEF & MUTTON OF BEST QUALITY,
A/ways in Stock at Lowest Prices.
WILLIAM TAAFFE,
GENERAL MERCHANT,
ARDEE.
ESTABLISHED 1863.
Drapery.
Ready-made Clothing.
Boots and Shoes.
JBepartments :
Seeds and Manures.
Timber, Iron and CoaL
Ironmongery.
Paints, Oils and Colours.
Commissioner for Affidavits in the Supreme Court of Judicature.
DISTRICT STAMP DISTRIBUTOR.
151
ADVERTISEMENTS.
IMPERIAL HOTEL,
DUNDALK.
fN this long established and popular Hotel will be found
Large and Airy Bedrooms, and Comfortable Sitting
Kooms.
CHARGES MODERATE. BUSSES ATTEND ALL TRAINS.
The Proprietor and Staff leave nothing undone to secure the comfort
of Visitors.
PATRICK O'TOOLE, Proprietor.
?P Wl IP 'O
m
^ a, ^ ^ 4^^ ^
Restaurant and Dining Rooms,
11 (fe 12 EARL STREET, DUNDALK,
CONFECTIONER and FANCY BISCUIT BAKER.
Creams, Jellies, Blanc-manges, and Christening Cakes.
Balls, Suppers, Pic-Nic, and Wedding Parties, supplied on the shortest
notice.
THE IRISH CISTERCIANS;
PAST AND PRESENT.
Second Edition is in preparation for the Press, and wiU
soon be ready.
I Ilustratei.
Price Is. nett; By Post, Is. 2d. ^ V.
152
ADVERTISEMENTS.
THE IRISH TOURIST.
Published Monthly during the Tourist Season.
Full of Interesting and Useful Information, and Photo-
graphic Illustrations.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
VISIT IRELAND.
A Concise, Descriptive, and Illustrated Guide to Ireland.
THE BEST GUIDE EVER
OFFERED FOR
6d.
THE IRISH GOLFERS' ANNUAL:
CONTAINING :
Club Directory, and Description of Principal Links,
Together with a large amount of Information most
useful to Golfers.
PRICE ONE SHILLING.
Tlie F. W. GROSSLEY PUBLISHING CO., LTD.,
24a Nassau Street, Dubi:.in.
ADVERTISEMENTS.
GREAT NORTHERNJAILWAY CO. (IRELAND).
ROYAXi MAZZ. ROUTS
liKTWKKN
NORTH OF ZRZ:i.ilNB &. EirCI.A.ND Via KZNCSTO'Wir
And i:XPRZ:SS service via north "WAT^Js (DVBX.IN)
or GRESSrORE and HOI.YHEA.D.
Direct service of Trains and .Steamers with every comfort and cron-
venienee. Special Messenger in charge of Luggage between London
and Kingstown.
FASTEST AND MOST DIRECT SERVICE
liKTWUK.V
IRELAND AND SCOTLAND Via BELFAST, and MAIL SERVICE TWICE
EVERY EVENING, Via ARDROSSAN and Via GREENOCK.
Cheap Fares between Dublin and other Stations with Glasgow and Edinburgh
An Omnibus runs from the Great Northern Railway Terminus at
Belfast on arrival of the train due at 9.0 p.m., and convej's Passengers,
with their personal luggage, for the Ardrossan Mail Steamer. It also
conveys Passengers from the incoming Steamers leaving Donegall Quay
at 7.10 a.m. in time for the 7.30 a.m. train from Belfast to Dublin, etc.
Dining, Luncheon and Breakfast Cars are run on the principal trains
between Dublin and Belfast, and also through between Belfast and
Kingstown Pier, thus saving all transferring at Dublin.
Tourists' Tickets are issued at Dublin, Londonderry, Belfast,
and the principal Great Northern Stations :
To WARRENPOINT, for Rostrevor, Newcastle, the Mourne Moun-
tains, and County Down Coast, including Hotel Accommodation.
„ GREENORE. for Carlingford Lough.
„ ENNISKILLEN and Bundoran, for Lough Erne, including Hotel
Accommodation.
„ BUNCRANA, Rosapenna, Dunfanaghy, for the Donegal High-
lands, including Hotel Accommodation.
„ DROGHEDA, for the Valley of the Boyne.
„ HOWTH, for Hill of Howth and Dublin Bay.
„ MALAHIDE, including Hotel Accommodation.
„ CONNEMARA and Killarnev.
., PORTRUSH, for the Giants'" Causeway. ,. -
Circular Tours have also been arranged, emb|&cing all places
of most interest in the country, and giving a succession of picturesque
scenery, and the finest shooting and fishing in Ireland.
The fares are low, and reductions made when two or more persons
travel together.
Tourists travelling by the Great Northern Railway will find their
comfort and convenience studied in every respect.
Passengers landing at Londonderry or Queenstown from the American
Steamers can book at greatly reduced fares, to the principal Stations
in Ireland, also to Scotland and England.
To obtain the Company's Time Tables, Illustrated Guides and
Programmes, and full information as to the fares, routes, excursion
arrangements, etc., apply to the Superintendent of the Line. Amiens
Street Terminus, Dublin. HENRY PLEWS,
Dublin, 1897. Ge>eral Manac.ek.
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
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