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| GREY ABBEY, CO. DOWN. -This classic ruin is situated within a few miles of Mount Stewart, the Irish seat of the Marquis of Londonderry, in the historic county Down, noted, like its neighbor, county Antrim, for the bold stand made within its borders by the insurgent Presbyterian United Irishmen, against the British army, during the terrible social and political upheaval of 1798. The Abbey was founded, it is claimed, for a community of Cistercian Monks by the Princess Africa, daughter of the King of the Isle of Man and wife of the celebrated Norman military adventurer, Sir John de Courcy, in 1193. It stood the shock of war and the ravages of time, almost untouched by either, until the great rebellion of 1641, when it was destroyed by fire during a conflict between the English forces and the Irish army, under Sir Phelim O'Neill. Since then it has but a relic of former architectural splendor, although re-roofed and otherwise renovated by the Montgomery family, in 1685. Dr. Stephenson says of it: "The remains of the Abbey show it to have been a large and sumptuous building. The cast window of the church is a noble piece of Gothic structure, composed of three compartments, each six feet, and more, wide, and upwards of twenty feet in height. On each side of the altar, in the north and south walls, is also a stately window of freestone, neatly hewn and carved, of the same breadth as the great cast window, but somewhat lower." The Montgomery MSS, state that it is "called Grey Abbey from the order of Friars who once enjoyed it." |
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