An Irish monk has taken the commercial world by surprise after been named in a list of the top 100 Irish-American businessmen thanks to his €1,800 coffins. Br Brendan Freeman, a 71-year-old monk, based in Peosta, Iowa, has been named alongside industrial tycoons and business moguls in the list compiled by Irish American Magazine.
The publication said, "the executives profiled here represent some of the most powerful corporations in the world.”
But that is not how Br Freeman who has both Irish and American citizenship and his fellow monks at New Melleray Abbey would describe themselves or their decade old Trappist caskets business.
These men have dedicated their lives to prayer but must support themselves and their 160-year-old monastery founded and built by Irish monks.
"We’re not meant to be in the business world - but we have to support ourselves,” explained Br Freeman, who is now in his 26th year of leading the abbey.
Br Freeman said that he had to look to another source of income after cash from the order’s farming operation was no longer enough to support the monks.
And 10 years ago, he founded Trappist Caskets, which uses labour provided by the monks and timber taken mostly from the Abbey’s extensive forests to produce wooden caskets and urns.
Under his leadership the business has grown five-fold over the last decade and now sells about 1,500 coffins yearly worth a staggering €2.7million. ‘I don’t think it’s unseemly for a monk to be a business leader,”” he insisted.
“Every abbey produces something they sell to support themselves.”
Br Freeman is already planning New Melleray's next foray into the business world with Abbey Beef, organic Angus Beef raised on the abbeys farm.
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