Bective Abbey, Co. Meath

Bective Abbey, located in the rolling countryside of Meath and overlooking a crossing over the legendary River Boyne, was a daughter house of Mellifont Abbey in nearby Co. Louth, the first Cistercian foundation in Ireland established in 1142 by St Malachy.

Bective was founded five years later by the king of Meath, Murchad Ua Máel Sechnaill, and became the second Cistercian monastery in Ireland.

The Cistercians were a closed order who wished to remove themselves from the outside world and in order to achieve this they had to be fully self-sufficient. This is reflected in the architecture of their buildings, whereby the church buildings and residential quarters were all self-contained within a single complex of buildings.

To feed the community of monks that resided here, they needed extensive agricultural lands, which were farmed by the monks and lay brothers, and at its foundation, Bective received a sizeable endowment of land surrounding the abbey, as well as fishing rights on the Boyne.

Bective also held several large estates known as granges elsewhere in Meath, which the monks leased to tenants and used this income to support the abbey and maintain its buildings.

Despite this, the monks appear to have struggled to maintain the abbey, and by the 15th century it was reduced in size and a fortified tower was built to accommodate the abbot at the south western corner of the cloister.

In the cloister is an image believed to represent the only known carving of St Bernard of Clairvaux in France, the founder of the Cistercians and mentor of St Malachy who first brought the order to Ireland.

Bective was dissolved in 1536, one of the first monasteries to be dissolved as part of the Tudor reforms that swept across Ireland and Britain. A year later the buildings were leased to Thomas Agard, who was part of the new English administration in Ireland during the reign of Henry VIII. Within a few years Agard had converted the abbey into a mansion house, built around the old cloister of the monks. Throughout the old abbey Agard inserted new, large windows and fireplaces to create a comfortable home for himself and his family.

Bective Abbey is a National Monument in state care since 1894 and managed by the Office of Public Works. These picturesque ruins are closed at this time to help protect you.