The first of a dozen life-size statues of thirteenth-century
Cistercian monks have been erected in Graiguenamanagh, Co. Kilkenny.
The monuments are a project by Graiguenamanagh Tidy Towns Committee
to enhance the area and create a tourist trail for visitors to the town,
where Duiske Abbey was one of the first Cistercian settlements in
Ireland.
The first two monk statues have been erected, recalling the
Cistercians farming activities, with one harvesting wheat and the second
carrying a sheep’s fleece and a set of shears.
A further ten statues will be erected in due course, creating an
integrated public art display in the grounds of the abbey along the
banks of the River Barrow.
The Tidy Towns Committee hopes this will
enhance the stay of visitors who come to the town mainly to visit the
Abbey, which is now restored as a functioning church.
They will now be able to walk in the footsteps of the monks and see
the various activities by which they made their living eight hundred
years ago.
Each of the solid granite monk statues costs approximately €3,000 and
the Committee hopes to pay for the initiative by inviting members of
the public to sponsor a monk, which they can have created to look like
themselves or a loved one.
The sponsors will be allowed decide the
height, size, weight, facial features and stature of the individual monk
they pay for.
It is suggested that having a statue of a monk erected could be a fitting memorial to a loved one.
The Committee is drawing on expertise on the way of life in Cistercian abbeys for advice on the design process to ensure that the statues accurately reflect the residents of Duiske Abbey in the 1200s.
The Committee is drawing on expertise on the way of life in Cistercian abbeys for advice on the design process to ensure that the statues accurately reflect the residents of Duiske Abbey in the 1200s.
The
Cistercians established Duiske Abbey in 1204 and brought monks from
Wiltshire in England to build it up.
Two decades later, the community had 36 monks and 50 lay brothers and
was one of Ireland’s largest.
It survived until the time of the
infamous King Henry VIII who suppressed it in 1536, and after that the
abbey fell into decay and the property passed to the Earls of Ormond.
The church was returned to Graiguenamanagh’s Catholic community in
1812 and in the 1980s was restored as the town’s working parish church.