Abbot elected at County Waterford Cistercian monastery

A famous County Waterford Cistercian community in the foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains elected a new Abbot recently.  

On November 3, the Cistercian Community at Mount Melleray elected as Abbot Dom Augustine McGregor who was superior at Mount Melleray at the time of his election.  

He had previously been Abbot in Mellifont in County Louth from 2004 to 2010 and had worked with the Cistercian Order in Norway. 

Dom McGregor replaces fellow Dubliner Dom Eamon Fitzgerald who, in September 2008, became the first Irishman ever to be appointed head of the worldwide Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance commonly known as Trappists. 

The order worldwide consists of well over 2,000 monks and some 2,000 nuns.  

Currently there are five Cistercian monasteries in Ireland with 100 monks located at Mount Melleray in Waterford, Mount Saint Joseph Cistercian Abbey in Roscrea, County Tipperary, Mellifont Abbey Collon, County Louth, Bethlehem Abbey in Portglenone, County Antrim and Bolton Abbey in Moone, County Kildare. 

There is also a monastery of some 35 Cistercian nuns in Saint Mary's Abbey in County Waterford. 

All the Irish monasteries are part of the Strict Observance Order of Cistercians, which was constituted into a separate religious order by Pope Leo XIII in 1892. 

One of its better-known monks in modern times was the late Thomas Merton, an American spiritual writer whose books continue to well.

SIC: CIN/IE