A famous County Waterford Cistercian community in the foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains elected a new Abbot recently.
On November 3, the Cistercian Community at Mount Melleray elected as
Abbot Dom Augustine McGregor who was superior at Mount Melleray at the
time of his election.
He had previously been Abbot in Mellifont in
County Louth from 2004 to 2010 and had worked with the Cistercian Order
in Norway.
Dom McGregor replaces fellow Dubliner Dom Eamon Fitzgerald who, in
September 2008, became the first Irishman ever to be appointed head of
the worldwide Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance commonly known
as Trappists.
The order worldwide consists of well over 2,000 monks and some 2,000
nuns.
Currently there are five Cistercian monasteries in Ireland with
100 monks located at Mount Melleray in Waterford, Mount Saint Joseph
Cistercian Abbey in Roscrea, County Tipperary, Mellifont Abbey Collon,
County Louth, Bethlehem Abbey in Portglenone, County Antrim and Bolton
Abbey in Moone, County Kildare.
There is also a monastery of some 35 Cistercian nuns in Saint Mary's Abbey in County Waterford.
All the Irish monasteries are part of the Strict Observance Order of
Cistercians, which was constituted into a separate religious order by
Pope Leo XIII in 1892.
One of its better-known monks in modern times was the late Thomas
Merton, an American spiritual writer whose books continue to well.
SIC: CIN/IE