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| MT. ST. JOSEPH'S ABBEY, ROSCREA, TIPPERARY. -The handsome modern church which is correctly represented, as regards its exterior, in the foregoing view, was founded on Ascension Day, May 24, 1879, when the first stone, dressed by the Trappist Monks themselves, was laid by the Right Rev. Dr. Fitzpatrick, Abbot of Mt. Melleray, county Waterford. Mr. W. H. Beardwood, of Dublin, furnished the plans, and partly superintended the construction of the sacred edifice. The exterior was finished in 1881, and, on September 18 of that year, the late Right Rev. Dr. Ryan, Coadjutor Bishop of Killaloe, and the Abbots of Melleray in France, Mount Melleray in Ireland, Mount St. Bernard in England and Gethsemani, in this republic, participated in the dedication of the church to the service of God. The ground on which it stands once belonged to the demesne of Mount Heaton, situated on the banks of the Brosna. It came into the possession of the Trappists by purchase, Mount Melleray, in Waterford, being the parent house of the new community. The latter reconstructed the buildings of the secular estate for the purposes of a monastery, altering everything by degrees, until now it is one of the finest monastic institutions in Ireland. In 1884, the new church was consecrated, and, at the desire of the late Bishop Ryan, of Killaloe, Lee XIII raised Mt. St. Joseph to the dignity of an abbey, "conferring on it all the honors, rights and privileges of abbeys of the Cistercian Order." The community chose the Right Rev. J. C. Beardwood for Abbot in 1887. |
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