But as the car pulled into the gravel courtyard, the sky began to clear.
The grey lifted, and there before us stood the great church against the wide Waterford landscape.
For nearly two centuries, the monastery had been a constant presence in West Waterford.
Then in early 2025, following discussions about the future of the Order in Ireland, the remaining monks relocated to Roscrea.
The lights went out and the place went silent.
Until recent developments brought them back on.
“I went into Barron’s and somebody said to me, ‘The lights are on in Melleray,’” Fr Martin Keogh PP of Cappoquin recalled. “That was the first news I’d heard.”
“There’s a lot of hope, but not a lot of knowledge,” Fr Keogh said. “People were devastated to see the monastery go. We grew up with Melleray in the background of our lives. So of course there’s excitement about something new coming.”
Last August, the Cistercians confirmed they were in discussions with a “like-minded community”, describing the possibility as the beginning of “a new chapter” that would honour Mount Melleray’s heritage while looking to the future. Those discussions have now matured into a concrete program.
How it came together
Ave Maria University, a Florida-based Catholic liberal arts institution, had been exploring the possibility of establishing a permanent study abroad campus. Its existing Rome programme, Chief Strategy Officer, Mr Daniel Schreck explained, revealed both the potential and the limitations of operating abroad.
“We currently have a Rome programme,” Mr Schreck said. “And it is a good programme, but ultimately it’s outsourced, so there are certain limitations, including scale.”
When discussions began about creating something more permanent, Ireland emerged as a possibility. “I joined in March,” Mr Schreck said. “I was probably two or three months into the job, and our president and a few professors started talking about this. And I said, this is just one thing that we need that we don’t have. And so that was the beginning of the process.”
Through conversations with Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan of Waterford and Lismore, contact was made with the Cistercians just as they were preparing to leave Mount Melleray in January 2025. The bishop, Mr Schreck recalled, had prayed for some time that a centre of Catholic liberal arts education might one day take root in his diocese.
“So it was the perfect timing,” he said. “The idea and the reality coincided.”
Dr Samuel Shephard, professor at Ave Maria University and now appointed Executive Director of the Mount Melleray campus, described what followed as “a long series of providential unfolding.”
“It’s been a conversation right from that point with the monks, with our university and with the bishop of the diocese,” Dr Shephard said. “It just moved incredibly rapidly.”
Having previously lived in Waterford, Dr Shephard said the project carried a personal resonance. “I’ve been coming to Mount Melleray for nearly 30 years,” he said. “My second daughter had her First Communion here. My wife has been on retreats here.”
“There are a whole number of strands in our lives which required significant discernment and upheaval, but which seemed incomplete,” he reflected. “And then suddenly, with Mount Melleray, a lot of those strands have come together.”
When a delegation from Ave Maria visited last March, some colleagues in Florida were unsure about the feasibility of the project. But after meeting the Cistercians, Fr Malachy Thompson and Dom Rufus Pound, they were convinced.
A continuity of prayer
For the Cistercians, the closure of Mount Melleray marked both sorrow and necessity. Fr John Dineen, who had lived at the monastery for 33 years, said the decision followed careful discernment among the Irish Cistercian communities.
“Three communities were in discussion about the future,” he explained. “The communities were getting smaller and more fragile. So it was to try to ensure the future of Cistercian life in Ireland that the three communities unite into one.”
A canonical vote in November 2024 formally suppressed the houses at Mount Melleray, Mellifont and Roscrea, establishing a single unified community based in Roscrea.
“To live is to change, and to be perfect is to change often,” Fr Dineen said, quoting St John Henry Newman. “We are living in a time of extraordinary change.”
“My hope was that Mount Melleray would give service to the Church in some way,” he said. “There’s a very long history here. It would be very nice if the tradition remained as a witness.”
Dom Rufus Pound, Superior of the new Cistercian community in Roscrea, sees the emerging partnership as part of that continuity.
“Our job is simply to pray,” Dom Rufus said. “To step into the river of prayer. The prayer of the Church and the prayer of Christ to the Father… There will be a continuity of the prayer that’s been going on here for 200 years,” he added. “Mount Melleray has always been iconic in Ireland. People look to it. It will still be a beacon.”
Fr Dineen expressed hope that the presence of Ave Maria could offer renewal at a challenging time.
“The Irish Church needs to build,” he said. “I just hope that Ave Maria would be something of a beacon.”
Partnership
“It’s important to say that we are not buying this [Mount Melleray], it remains a monastery. It remains in trust with the Cistercians, and that we’re in partnership with them and we seek to lease it, to have a long-term partnership where we discern and take steps together over time,” said Mr Schreck.
Ave Maria intends to operate what he described as “an instructional site” integrated with its Florida campus and accredited in the United States, but rooted in Ireland.
“Ave Maria doesn’t want to be tourists in Ireland,” Mr Schreck said, pointing to the appointment of Dr Shephard, collaboration with the Cistercians and the assembly of a locally based works team. “It really is an Irish project.”
Dr Shephard echoed this saying: “It’s by no means the intention to take over or replace the Cistercians. We’re very docile to what has been here.”
The work ahead
Practically, the project is being led by engineer and project manager Mr Seamus Savage, who assembled a largely local team and had previously worked on the restoration of Carton House in Maynooth.
“As an engineer and a project manager, I have to ask, what’s the plan? What’s the programme?” he said. The encouraging news, he explained, is that the monastery is already well suited to student life.
“This great big building doesn’t have to be changed a whole lot,” Mr Savage said. “You’re effectively moving forward to being a home for students who will do similar things to the previous occupants. From a conservation and Waterford County Council point of view, it’s a great fit.”
The project team includes structural engineers and conservation specialists, many with longstanding experience working at Mount Melleray. “Right away you’re tapping into the experience of professionals who know this place,” Mr Savage said. “Mount Melleray is in their veins.”
“These great old buildings let in rain,” he said. “They need maintenance.”
Services such as water, heating and sanitation must be upgraded to accommodate approximately 100 students. Planning permission may be required for a change of use, along with updated fire certification and disability access compliance. Pre-discussions have already taken place with Waterford County Council.
“We’re not taking any shortcuts,” Mr Savage said. “We know what’s at stake. We’ll be doing everything properly.”
What has struck him most is the goodwill encountered along the way: “I have never in 30 years dealt with so many professional people at council level who have such goodwill for a project,” he said. “They want this to happen.”
Local Impact
For many in West Waterford, Mount Melleray is not simply a historic building but part of family memory. First Communions, confessions, Sunday walks, tea in the shop, pilgrims passing along St Declan’s Way – the abbey has long been woven into ordinary life.
Ms Niamh McGuinness, Rural Recreation Officer for Waterford, described the monastery’s closure as “a big hit to the community”. The abbey grounds form part of established walking routes, and the departure of the monks left uncertainty not only about prayer but about access and continuity.
“When the monks left, people were very worried,” she said. “We were delighted to hear something might be happening.”
One local publican who met members of the visiting American delegation produced a photograph of his First Communion at the abbey. In a family group chat, word spread quickly: the lights were on again.
For many locally, the hope is that whatever shape the future takes, the abbey will once again echo with daily life.
Student life
While preparations continue in Ireland, anticipation has been building in Florida. At a launch event earlier this year, some 500 students attended. Within weeks, more than 300 applied for approximately 100 places in the proposed first intake this autumn.
Each applicant is being interviewed, not only for academic readiness but for openness to a different rhythm of life. The programme is designed less like a typical campus semester and more like an immersion shaped by the Cistercian charism.
“In our interviews, they’re really excited to enter into that monastic way of life,” Mr Schreck said.
The daily structure would include Mass, communal prayer and periods of silence. A vocational discernment component and early morning offices are also envisioned.
Dr Shephard, who teaches environmental science, described an exercise he assigns in Florida half an hour outdoors for three consecutive days without a phone. “The first day they’re twitching,” he said. “By the third day they’re noticing birdsong.”
He hopes Mount Melleray will offer something similar on a larger scale. “Prayer and study and work – embodied, practical existence,” he said. “This is going to be a home. I’m hoping this will be a three-month version of that. Just get rid of your phone, quieten down, be present, go up the hill. We’re hoping to rebuild some of the farm here, with pigs and chickens, and get out there and work. So it’s prayer and study and work, lived.”
The academic week would run Monday to Thursday, allowing extended time for pilgrimage and travel. Courses will include philosophy and theology alongside Irish-focused electives designed specifically for the Mount Melleray campus.
“We’re going to have Irish classes that aren’t available on the home campus,” Dr Shephard said. “Students usually take French or Spanish, here, that’s going to be Irish. One will focus on Irish saints and holy sites – we’ll study St Declan, for example, and then go down to Ardmore and spend time there. Another will explore the history of the Irish Church, from the early monastic foundations through periods of upheaval and renewal.”
Beyond the core academic programme, there are hopes for a wider cultural exchange rooted in place. Students may one day use Mount Melleray’s historic library, where volumes dating back centuries remain preserved. There is also discussion of Irish music and dance, sporting links with local clubs, and community events.
Ultimately, underlying the vision is a clear educational philosophy. “You’re trying to form the person,” Dr Shephard said. “Not just train for a job, but grow in virtue.”
Come and see
To those who may soon arrive, Fr Dineen offered simple advice:
“A place holds memory,” he said quietly. “It holds the faith that has been lived here. Just allow yourself to absorb that.”
If all proceeds according to plan, students will arrive in September. The buildings may change, and the faces certainly will. But if prayer and study once again take root on the mountainside, Mount Melleray’s long story will not have ended but turned a new chapter.