Kylemore Abbey

Kylemore Castle was built in 1868 as a private home for the family of Mitchell Henry, a wealthy doctor from London whose family was involved in textile manufacturing in Manchester, England. He moved to Ireland when he and his wife Margaret purchased the land around the Abbey, after having travelled there on their honeymoon in the mid-1840s. He became a politician, becoming an MP for County Galway from 1871 to 1885.

The castle was designed by James Franklin Fuller, aided by Samuel Ussher Roberts.[1] The construction of the castle began in 1867, and took the total of one hundred men and four years to complete. The castle covered approximately 40,000 square feet (3,700 m²) and had over seventy rooms with a principal wall that was two to three feet thick. The facade measures 142 feet (43 m) in width and is made of granite brought from Dalkey by sea to Letterfrack, and of limestone brought from Ballinasloe. There were 33 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 4 sitting rooms, a ballroom, billiard room, library, study, school room, smoking room, gun room and various offices and domestic staff residences for the butler, cook, housekeeper and other servants.

Margaret died in 1874, having contracted a fever on a visit to Egypt. Henry spent less time at Kylemore after her death, but built a Gothic chapel and family mausoleum as a memorial.[2] The mausoleum holds the bodies of Margaret Henry, Mitchell Henry and a great-grandnephew.

The Abbey remained in Henry's estate after he returned to England. The castle was sold to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester in 1903, who resided there for several years before being forced to sell the house and grounds because of gambling debts.

The community traces its roots to a Benedictine house in Brussels, founded by Lady Mary Percy in 1598. From Brussels a house was founded in Ghent; and from Ghent in Ypres. Ypres Abbey attracted the daughters of Irish nobility, as students and postulants. In 1920, the Irish Benedictine Nuns purchased the Abbey castle and lands after they were forced to flee Ypres during World War I. The nuns, who had been based in Ypres for several hundred years, had been bombed out of their Abbey during World War I. They were rescued by men of the 8th Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, a scene that was later reproduced in the Freeman's Journal. After they left Ypres they were evacuated to England where they remained until 1920.

The nuns ran a farm on the estate where they raised livestock and vegetables. The Abbey is an important employer in the area.[3]

The nuns continued to offer education to girls, opening a boarding school in 1923 and establishing a day school for girls from the locality. The school was the main educational establishment for most girls from Renvyle, Letterfrack and further afield for almost a century but it was forced to close in 2010.[4][5] The nuns have since been developing new education and retreat activities.

At the General Chapter, that was held in July 2022 at the Buckfast Abbey, the Kylemore Abbey was accepted to the English Benedictine Congregation along with two other new communities of nuns: Mariavall Abbey from Sweden and Jamberoo Abbey from Australia.[6]