Summary
In their semester abroad of study, prayer, work, and travel, Ave Maria students will enter the rich monastic tradition of Mount Melleray Abbey.The Dead is one of the most important short stories in the English language, and Mount Melleray Abbey is a central character. Set amidst a Christmas party in Dublin hosted by two aging sisters, the tone of the evening shifts over dinner conversation as the historic Cistercian Abbey is introduced.
The monks live within a rhythm of work and prayer, displaying both heroic hospitality and “trying to make up for the sins committed by all the sinners in the outside world.” Not everyone at the dinner party understood what that meant; fewer still do today. The Cistercians in Ireland have lived this way for nine centuries.
A Second Campus
Mount Melleray Abbey is now Ave Maria University’s second campus: our biggest and most ambitious expansion since the founding of Ave Maria, Florida, almost 20 years ago. Steeped in 200 years of history, the Abbey counts some 600 acres and can accommodate 200 AMU students per year.
Rather than being tourists, our students will be incorporated into the rich monastic tradition of the Abbey. The same rhythm of ora et labora will now animate their lives over a semester of study, prayer, work, and travel.
As arguably Ireland’s most important monastery, the Abbey and its monks have mirrored the tumultuous history of Ireland. At their high point, the Cistercians had some 40 abbeys until they were systematically destroyed and plundered by Henry VIII, sending the Irish monks into exile.
Knockmealdown Mountains
It was not until Catholic emancipation in Ireland and the July Revolution in France that the Irish monks returned to Ireland from France, reestablishing monasticism in beautiful County Waterford in 1832.
There in Waterford amidst the Knockmealdown Mountains did the monks build a majestic abbey where they would go on to feed 500 hungry people per day during the Famine, develop water-powered workshops to bake their bread, establish thriving schools, and provide for the spiritual needs of the people in lovely Cappoquin and beyond. Mount Melleray was a spiritual, educational, cultural, and economic center.
Good Stewards
Providentially, we contacted the Cistercians just as they began to consolidate their monasteries in Ireland. The Cistercians needed good stewards to continue the Abbey and its mission for the next generation. The good bishop of Waterford and Lismore, Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan, prayed daily for a liberal arts university to come to his diocese.
AMU Professor Sam Shephard wanted to return to Ireland and plant the seeds of renewal therein. And, I wanted a signature study abroad program in Ireland to differentiate AMU and give our students yet another means by which to contemplate the truth and expand their imaginations to discover God’s abundant calling.
Rise Again
Most importantly, the people of Ireland who have been formed by Mount Melleray for two centuries questioned what would be next for their beloved Abbey; they wanted her to “rise again.” That our collective desires and prayers would come together at just the right moment is the definition of providence.
In September of 2026, Mount Melleray Abbey will officially enter its next chapter. We invite you to come and visit us. We invite you to follow that same monastic way of life that could not be extinguished through persecution, famine, or upheaval. That will be our task. Joyce’s dinner party may be over, but Mount Melleray remains the central character of the story.
