E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 38999-h.htm or 38999-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/38999/pg38999-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38999/38999-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/mellifontabbeyco00dubl Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). The original text includes intentional blank spaces. This is represented by ____ in this text version. [Illustration: GENERAL VIEW. _From Photo by W. Lawrence, Dublin._] MELLIFONT ABBEY, CO. LOUTH: Its Ruins and Associations. A Guide and Popular History. "A house of prayer, once consecrate To God's high service--desolate! A ruin where once stood a shrine! Bright with the Presence all divine!" (_W. Chatterton Dix._) Permissu Superiorum. Published by James Duffy & Co., Ltd., Dublin, for the Cistercians, Mount St. Joseph Abbey, Roscrea. 1897. Printed by Edmund Burke & Co., 61 & 62 Great Strand Street, Dublin. INTRODUCTION. In the following pages an attempt is made to describe the ruins of Mellifont as they now appear, and to explain the uses, or probable uses, that the buildings yet remaining must have served when the monks dwelt there. Obviously, some important structural alterations were made when changing the venerable Abbey into a fortified residence; nevertheless the ruins exhibit, on the whole, the characteristics of the primitive plan and style in which Mellifont, as well as all the Cistercian monasteries both in this country and on the Continent, were built. The explanation is founded on reliable authority, being gleaned from most authentic sources, such as, _Les Monuments Primitifs de La Règle Cistercienne_, which is a copy of the Rule drawn up by the Founders of the Order; the _Monasticon Cisterciense_; _Violet Le Duc_; _Jubainville, Etudes sur l'Etat intérieur des Abbayes Cisterciennes au XII. et au XIII. siècle_; _Meglinger, Iter Cisterciense_; _La Vie de Saint Bernard_, by Vacandard, etc.