On Christmas Eve, the 28 nuns who call St Mary’s Abbey at Glencairn, Co Waterford, their home will be joined by people from all over the country to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It will be a joyous occasion for many reasons, not least of which is that after almost two years, the scaffolding has come down and the renovated and updated abbey has been revealed. It takes some courage to embark on a multimillion euro redevelopment of any building, but when it’s the home of a religious order there’s a special type of courage required. And this courage is something that Sr Maire Fahy, a Galway woman who has been abbess at Glencairn for 15 years, and her community have in spades.

“Our numbers have held up very well. Over the years it’s maintained at between 30-40. We are at 28 now but we have a steady stream of young women going through formation and this takes six years. So we would be confident numbers will go back over 30 again,” says Sr Maire.

Every option on the table

Five years ago, St Mary’s reached a crossroads. Numbers were holding and young women were showing a continued interest in pursuing the religious life. However, apart from maintenance, nothing had been done with the living quarters or facilities at the abbey since it was built in 1927.

“There had been no changes, no modernisation. The place was cold, damp and difficult and expensive to heat. It really wasn’t suitable for today’s entrants.”

The community looked at every option, including abandoning St Mary’s, but for a finish they decided to remain and begin a €3m redevelopment of the abbey.

“There were many reasons for staying. The cemetery where all our community are buried was a big reason in favour of staying. We renovated the church a few years ago and it would have been a shame to leave it.

“Glencairn and the land around it is ideal for solitude and silence so in the end we decided to have faith and invest in the future,” she says.

The first priority was the bedroom block where dormitory accommodation has been replaced by 20 bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. A stunning refectory with views out over the Blackwater River is a great addition. But that’s only the start of it.

The card department has been renovated, as has the laundry, scullery, food store and kitchen. A new well and waste water wetlands treatment centre has been installed. So too has a miscanthus burning boiler, which is located in the farmyard and is piped into the abbey. This boiler is responsible for the biggest single change at St Mary’s, according to Sr Marie.

“It has transformed the place. Everywhere is warm and dry and the cost savings are huge. The boiler is labour-intensive in that on very cold days it needs to be fed twice but manual labour is part of our life so it’s a small price to pay.”

All through the build, they had to ensure that all archaeological elements were carefully maintained. A gable end wall, which had been destroyed in a fire years ago, was restored to its original state.

The community has held numerous fundraising events under the guidance of St Lily Scullion and Sr Maire says it’s been “quite miraculous” how money has come in.

“The RTÉ Would you Believe School of Love programme gave fundraising a great boost and we are up to date with repayments. It’s been a blessing that we have done this together. We have been guided by community consensus. We’ve also had great support from the design team, Quinn architects from Limerick, and builders O’Gorman Construction from Ardfinnan.

Securing St Mary’s for the future

Having gone this far, the community have now decided to finish the job by re-roofing the south and west wings, which house the novitiate, infirmary, chaplaincy and old guest house, and this work should be completed by March 2017.

“When this work is done, we then have to consider what to do about a hospitality centre, which is very much part of Cistercian life. We have something special to offer people – peace, time to listen to the inner spirit and time to encourage people who are facing difficulty. With the community we create a place of prayer and peace in this fragmented and violent world. But we need proper facilities to accommodate visitors.

“The work has secured St Mary’s for another 100 years. If ever there was a building that could impact the spirit in a positive manner, then this is it. It has given our community a great sense of security, joy, identity and hope. We now have a decent place to offer women who might be interested in joining us. We have great faith in the future.” CL

St Mary’s Abbey

Glencairn, Lismore, Co Waterford

Tel: 058-56168 | www.glencairnabbey.org

The story so far

The story of the Cistercian nuns in Glencairn goes back to 1927. At the time, the abbot of Mount Melleray was building a new church at the monastery and wanted to locate suitable stone for it. He was advised to check out Glencairn, which is a few miles from Lismore. He didn’t find any stone but instead the perfect location for a new abbey.

At that time, there were no Cistercian nuns in Ireland. Indeed, there hadn’t been any since the Reformation. Young Irish women who had a vocation either joined a different order or made their way to Holy Cross Abbey in Dorset where a Cistercian abbey for women already existed.

There were talks about extending that abbey at the time or making a new foundation, and a decision was made in favour of the latter and so St Mary’s Abbey came into being.

The Cistercian code is very much around self-sufficiency, so establishing a working farm at Glencairn was a priority. The farm was stocked from Melleray and worked by three of its monks. Melleray also built a refectory and dormitory block and remained there until the first 13 nuns arrived in 1932. At its height, numbers at St Mary’s reached 48 nuns and for most of its existence numbers have hovered between 30 to 40 nuns. Today the abbey is home to 28 nuns and they are hopeful numbers will go back over 30 in the near future.

A sense of expectation

The four weeks leading up to Christmas at St Mary’s Abbey is a quiet time where silence is observed more closely. There is a sense of waiting for the coming of the Lord. There are no family visitors over this period as it is a period for private prayer, silence and reading.

On Christmas Eve, the church is filled for midnight mass. While the community usually arise for vigils at 4am, on Christmas morning they get a lie-in until 6am. There are no visitors on Christmas Day. St Stephens’s day is a time for family visits and the start of a week off where there’s time to relax and watch films, among other things. And then the pattern of the year begins again.

Self-sufficient sisters

Part of the philosophy of the Cistercian order is that communities must support themselves. And that’s also the case at Glencairn. The abbey is surrounded by arable farmland, some of which is leased. Currently they are bed and breakfasting a bunch of suckler cows and weanlings.

There are 17 acres set aside for miscanthus production and this feeds a boiler that supplies heat to the abbey and all its facilities. The miscanthus is harvested from the end of March to early May. However, this can be a bit of a difficulty as there’s a shortage of equipment locally.

Installing the boiler was an expensive business and it had been hoped that Waterford LEADER partnership would have grant-aided it. However, the Department of the Environment ruled that St Mary’s was ineligible to apply for a grant as it was a religious organisation. It was felt any grant received would ultimately be for the furtherance of religion. This was despite the fact that St Mary’s already received a Single Farm Payment, Farm Improvement Scheme grant and a grant for miscanthus. It was a disappointment at the time.

Apart from the farm, the nuns also have a business making Eucharistic breads and another that makes religious, seasonal and greeting cards. The fully equipped card department is now housed in the renovated coach house and is a lovely, bright, airy facility. Cards are sold mainly by word of mouth and they also sell wholesale to local shops.