Boyle Abbey, the largest Cistercian foundation in Ireland, sits on a busy roadside but embodies the architectural spirit of bygone eras, writes Eileen Battersby.
The largest and among the most architecturally rewarding of the Cistercian houses in Ireland, Boyle Abbey, Co Roscommon, situated on the banks of the River Boyle, offers a dramatic interlude on the main Dublin to Sligo road. It has a typical Cistercian layout, a barrel-vaulted 12th-century chancel with 13th-century lancet windows, and it once would have had a large refectory building, the all-purpose "living" building central to Cistercian life. The daughter house of the great Mellifont Abbey in Co Louth, Boyle Abbey is recorded as having been founded in 1148 but the community of monks may not have finally settled there until 1161. It is constructed around the familiar rectangular cloister garth and at all times the visitor is aware of the abbey's transitional architectural style as well as its contrasting roles.
Today, standing within the complex and looking from the south west, at the nave at a point at which the Romanesque arches appear almost as if superimposed upon the later Gothic structures, it is difficult not to notice the passing traffic. Across the road is the approach to the busy market town of Boyle, while beside the abbey itself is a guest house. A series of holiday homes now occupy the outer wall of this majestic monument that is so important to the town's history. As always there is an uneasy ambiguity about this juxtaposition of the ancient with the modern. The abbey could now be said to stand in what is a suburb of Boyle.
Central to the Cistercian monastic life was rigorous discipline and a willingness to embrace physical labour. According to Ailred, abbot of Rievaulx, a strict follower of St Bernard's disapproval of monks given to too much chanting and too powerful a love of ornament, the Cistercian idea offered "everywhere peace, everywhere serenity and a marvellous freedom from the tumult of the world". The abbey's roadside location has lost this quality of peace, but it remains in its lovely daughter house, Abbeyknockmoy in Co Galway.
Some 60 years in construction, Boyle is now a ruin, albeit a well-preserved one. As noted by German art and architectural historian Britta Kalkreuter in Boyle Abbey and the School of the West, its choir or sanctuarium is "fully intact, apart from the roof and parts of the eastern gable". Admirers of the Boyle Arts Festival will recall that the Abbey provided an inspired setting, some years ago, for a production of Hamlet starring Fiona Shaw. The site is outside the town but close enough to have a place in the consciousness of Boyle's citizens without being taken for granted.
Nor has the well-kept monument itself been overly commercialised. German tourists stand to attention, photograph each other in turn and agree "this place has an ancient dignity". Conservation is ongoing but the abbey is not restored to the point of pastiche. Today's visitor enters via the gate house which now occupies what would have once been the west range, where the lay brothers lived - the Boyle community included choir monks who prayed and lay or working brothers.
On arrival at this gate house, the second of Boyle Abbey's purposes is brought sharply to mind - it was used as a garrison for some 200 years from the Elizabethan period. When the monks left, they were replaced by soldiers. Lance marks are visible above the entrance arch where returning horsemen would have blunted their weapon for the night. It is even more sobering to stand in the arcade section of the church and to be informed by the Dúchas guide that the army stabled its horses here.
Much has been written about Boyle Abbey, not only in the context of Cistercian life in Ireland but also its role in Irish history. That most energetic of antiquarians, Austin Cooper, sketched the abbey in February 1792 - even if, as Peter Harbison notes, he did this not in the field, but rather from the "comfort of his carriage". Boyle Abbey has had many faces while remaining the same.
Of major significance is its architectural legacy. Close on 50 years ago, the architect and pioneering architectural historian, Harold Leask (1882-1964), who was inspector of National Monuments between the years 1923 and 1949, completed his three-volume study, Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings. He gave the name "School of the West" to a group of about a dozen churches built west of the River Shannon during the first half of the 13th century that share specific architectural features, not found elsewhere in Ireland in buildings of the same period.
His was an important theory which has now been excitingly updated and reassessed by Britta Kalkreuter. Her thesis is extremely detailed and is argued historically and architecturally through a detailed comparative study of architectural features. Kalkreuter explores the impact of Cistercian settlement on architecture, particularly the apparent conflict between the "native" Cistercian houses and those founded by the Anglo-Normans. She also looks to the later Augustinian houses such as Ballintober, Cong and Inismaine, all in Co Mayo.
At the core of the text is a meticulous examination of Boyle Abbey itself; the text is quite specialist yet is brilliantly supported by an effective use of photographs, particularly of carved capitals, corbels and other stone features in the nave arcade - all of which is fascinating considering "the Cistercian pledge of ornament restriction". But as is obvious from much of the decoration, the animal and human figure designs are largely in the more ornate and familiar Hiberno-Romanesque style. She also points to the extent of the uncharacteristic fluted scallop ornament used throughout the Boyle chancel and transepts.
Also persuasive are her theories on the tension between vernacular and Cistercian influence in the "School of the West". She disputes previously accepted theories that the style had been determined by a particular group of travelling masons working in the area. As is obvious from both the timescale involved in its building and the diversity of styles, the abbey was the result of several phases of building - beginning with, as Kalkreuter points out, the entire eastern section of the church - excluding the present lancet windows and the tower - as well as the western crossing arch supporting it. Ultimately, she suggests 1218-20 as "the most probable date for the completion of the church in Boyle". The land belonged to the McDermots of Moylurg, prominent players in defending Connacht against Anglo-Norman attack throughout the 12th and 13th centuries. The abbey was therefore pitched at a strategic and pivotal point between the Anglo-Norman presence and the Irish. Not surprisingly, during its long building process it was sacked by William de Burgo in 1202. More than 30 years later it was raided and plundered again, this time by the English, but the monks were compensated.
Before this happened, there was an episode known as the Conspiracy of Mellifont. This refers to a power struggle involving the Anglo-Norman Cistercian abbeys and the Irish houses - the Abbot of Boyle lost, as did the other Irish abbots. Various abbots were dismissed but none of the Irish communities reacted well to their new Anglo-Norman or French abbots.
But what of the Cistercians? For us it is a word synonymous with superb church architecture. Although not the first of the continental monastic orders to arrive in Ireland, the Cistercians were initially introduced to this country by Malachy O'Morgair as a result of his friendship with and regard for St Bernard of Clairvaux. The architectural style would in time radicalise Irish ecclesiastical building practices, beginning during the 1130s.
The Cistercians, as Prof Roger Stalley of Trinity College, Dublin, observes in Early Medieval Architecture (Oxford, 1999), "objected to the wealth of the Benedictine houses, to their preoccupation with feudal rights and the management of estates". On walking down the nave, on one side the Romanesque, on the other the Gothic, there is the impression of one world, that of the spiritual at variance with temptation. Here alone, many hours may be spent in examining the carvings with their contrasting styles. It is also possible to detect individual mason's marks. There is a memorial on the far wall to the King family, and here another chapter of history intervenes. The Kings are essential to the story of Boyle.
Following the chaos of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the abbey became a barracks. In 1595, Hugh O'Neill stormed the site. Some time later, he decided to beg the queen's forgiveness, but left it too late. By then, it was 1603 and Elizabeth I died the day before he was to apologise. That year the abbey, with lands, was jointly leased to Sir John King - the first of the family who retained it until the 19th century - and a Sir John Bingley.
But for 200 years, until the end of the 18th century, it continued to serve as the barracks. Known as Boyle Castle during this period, the original monastery suffered, as its character was submerged beneath the functional demands of military occupation as well as the ravages of the Cromwellian terror. Curiously, its monastic self has reappeared, apparently surviving long after the soldiers had left. More imposing than romantic, Boyle Abbey now has to contend only with the traffic noise.
Boyle Abbey and The School of the West by Britta Kalkreuter is published by Wordwell at €34.92