Its Ruins and Associations.   A GUIDE AND POPULAR HISTORY. Permissu Superiorum. Published by JAMES DUFFY & CO., Ltd. , DUBLIN, FOR THE CISTERCIANS, MOUNT ST. JOSEPH ABBEY, ROSCREA. 1897. Printed by Edmund Burke & Co. , 61 & 62 GREAT STRAND STREET, DUBLIN....

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 remaining 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 b

THE RUINS. O f the many historic ruins 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 countless 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 pas

ST. MALACHY FOUNDS MELLIFONT. A t the time that Saints Robert, Alberic, and Stephen Harding were laying the foundation 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 predilecti

AN EPITOME OF THE RULE OBSERVED AT MELLIFONT AT ITS FOUNDATION AND FOR ABOUT A CENTURY AND A HALF AFTERWARDS. I n the foregoing verses St. Bernard summarises 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 and wide extremes, men’s minds were profoundly moved by the world-wide reputation and discourses of an outspoken, fearless monk, who confirmed his words by incontestable and stupen

MELLIFONT TAKES ROOT AND FOUNDS NEW HOUSES OF THE ORDER. T he history of Mellifont may be justly said to reflect the concurrent history of Ireland. It is so intimately connected and interwoven with that of our country, 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

MELLIFONT CONTINUES TO FLOURISH UNDER SUCCESSIVE EMINENT SUPERIORS. A 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 devoted 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

MELLIFONT IN TROUBLOUS TIMES. S 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

THE SUPPRESSION OF MELLIFONT. T he Religious Orders, which succeed each other in the Catholic Church, are subject 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 o

MELLIFONT BECOMES THE HOME OF A NOBLE FAMILY—IS SOLD, AND IS DELIVERED UP TO RUIN AND DECAY. T he long line of distinguished men being thus rudely and abruptly terminated at Mellifont, 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 Mellifont had its Annalist and its Annals like all the other monasteries of the Order in Ireland; for Bishop Nic

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 1226, returned to Mellifont where he died. Mathew, 1289. Michael, 1293. William M’Buain. Hugh O’Hessai

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

INVENTORY OF ESTATES OF MELLIFONT. Richard Conter, 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 Clut———, 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