Kylemore Abbey
Kylemore Abbey ( Irish Mainistir na Coille Móire ) is the oldest Irish Benedictine abbey . Founded in 1665, after several moves since 1920 , the monastery is housed in Kylemore Castle in Connemara , County Galway , which was completed in 1871 .
History of the monastery
The monastery was founded in Ypres (in today's Belgium ) in 1665 . It was intended to provide religious community for Irish women when Ireland was still under strict anti-Catholic laws. In 1682 the Benedictine order moved to Ireland. On the orders of King James II , the nuns had to move to Dublin in 1688 . In 1690 they returned to Ypres. The community finally left Ypres when the abbey there was destroyed in the First World War. First they fled to England , then to County Wexford , until they finally settled in Kylemore Castle in December 1920 to devote themselves to monastic life. In September 1923, the nuns opened an international boarding school and day school for local girls in Kylemore . In the 1980s there were 80 boarding school students and 120 day students in Kylemore. The students came primarily from mainland Europe, but also from the USA, Asia and County Galway . In the 1930s, two Indian princesses, nieces of Maharajah Ranjit, attended boarding school. In June 2010 the school was closed. The number of pupils was constantly falling, fewer and fewer nuns were working as teachers and the building was no longer safe and no longer suitable for modern school operations. The nuns also originally ran a small guesthouse , which was closed after a devastating fire in 1959. In addition to the buildings mentioned, there is also a small farm with an associated farmhouse about 200 m away.
History of the building
The castle and the Victorian wall garden of Kylemore were built by the industrialist and politician Mitchell Henry (1826–1910) and his wife Margaret Henry (1829–1874). The architects of the castle were James Franklin Fuller and Ussher Roberts. It took four years to build, from 1867 to 1871. The Henrys had nine children. Margaret Henry fell ill with dysentery during a vacation in Egypt and died within a few days on December 4, 1874. She was brought back to Kylemore and buried in the mausoleum built for her . When Mitchell Henry died on November 22, 1910, his ashes were also buried here by his wife's side. Between 1877 and 1881 Mitchell Henry had a Gothic church built in memory of his wife. In July 1903 the English King Edward VII , accompanied by his daughter Princess Victoria , was visiting Kylemore. There were rumors that the king wanted to buy the castle and use it as a royal residence, but it was probably too expensive for him. On September 22, 1903, Mitchell Henry sold the castle and lands to the Duke of Manchester and Duchess for £ 63,000 . The purchase was largely financed by his father-in-law, the oil baron Eugene Zimmermann. When he died in 1914, the London banker and real estate agent Ernest Fawke bought the property, who managed it until a new buyer was found. In 1920 the Benedictine Convent purchased the castle and 405 acres of land for a little over £ 45,000 .
Buildings and gardens
Monastery building
The main entrance hall of the abbey and the three adjoining rooms have been restored and are open to the public. The rest of the abbey is inhabited by the nuns and, earlier, by the boarding school students. The exterior of the abbey is made of granite , with a bell tower at the front . There used to be four entrance halls, today there are only two - the "Inner" and the "Outer Hall". The original oak parquet in both halls has been preserved. The Duchess of Manchester had the walls in the outer hall clad in Jacobean oak.
There is a beautiful oak staircase in the inner hall. To the left of the drawing room you can see the flag of Ramillies, which shows a harp . The flag was saved by the Irish Brigade at the Battle of Ramillies in 1706 and given to the nuns for safekeeping. It has been in their possession since then. The gallery room is three steps higher. This room was used by the Henrys for receptions and concerts . Here, too, the original oak paneling has been preserved.
In the upper part of the room there is an ornate gallery in which the family paintings of the Henrys used to hang. The drawing room was one of the Henrys' reception rooms; the nuns used it as a reading room. The furnishing of the room is from the time of the renovation in 1993. The common room used to consist of a breakfast and a morning room. In the Henrys dining room, portraits of King James II and old china and decanters from the Henrys can be seen.
Churches
The neo-Gothic church has the shape of a miniature cathedral with a crypt and angels spewing water . Inside the church, the arches are supported by blocks of Connemara marble. As the church was in very poor condition due to years of erosion, restoration work began in 1991 . They were financed by the European Regional Development Fund, bank loans and donations. Irish President Mary Robinson reopened the church building on April 28, 1995 . The facility received the AIB Better Ireland Heritage award for its successful restoration.
In 2013, near the visitor center, a building previously used as the school's gymnasium was converted inside into a monastic Benedictine church.
Neo-Gothic church at Kylemore Abbey
Interior of the Gothic Church
Chancel of the Benedictine Church
Margaret Henry Mausoleum
garden
The Victorian Walled Garden, laid out at the same time as the castle and designed by James Garnier , is one mile from the abbey. It has a size of 3.4 hectares , of which 2.4 hectares are surrounded by a brick and limestone wall. At the time of the Henrys it served not only as an ornamental, but also as an orchard and kitchen garden. After the property was sold in 1903, the garden overran, flourished again between 1920 and the 1940s and finally overgrown so much that only the foundations of the original 21 greenhouses on the northern slope remained. Only in 2000 was the garden reconstructed and reopened on the initiative of the nuns; They also had two of the greenhouses restored. A small river flows through the garden, separating the herb and vegetable garden from the flower beds. A visit to the garden and a shuttle bus ride to the garden are included in the tour of the palace.
Web links
Coordinates: 53 ° 33 ′ 42 " N , 9 ° 53 ′ 17" W.