Holy Cross Abbey

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This article is about Holy Cross Abbey in Tipperary, Ireland. For the Virginia, USA abbey of the same name, see Holy Cross Abbey, Virginia. See also Holy Cross Monastery.

Holy Cross Abbey on the River Suir

Holy Cross Abbey (Mainistir na Croise Noafa) is a restored Cistercian monastery in Holycross near Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, situated on the River Suir. It takes its name from a relic of the True Cross or Holy rood.

The fragment of that Holy rood was brought to Ireland by the Plantagenet Queen, Isabella of Angouleme^[1], around 1233. She was the widow of King John and bestowed the relic on the original Cistercian Monastery in Thurles, which she then rebuilt, and which was thenceforth thereby named Holy Cross Abbey.

With time, Holy Cross Abbey and the sacred relic of the True Cross became a place of great medieval pilgrimage, and with the Reformation, also a rallying-point for the dispossessed and victims of religious persecution. As a symbol and inspiration for the defence of the Catholic faith, resistance and the struggle for freedom, it also drew a complaint by Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to Queen Elizabeth I in 1567.

The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland recount that in 1601, Prince Hugh Roe O'Donnell, on his way to the Battle of Kinsale, true to his family arms and Constantinian motto (In Hoc Signo Vinces) and in anticipation of the battle to come at Kinsale, visited and venerated a relic of the True Cross (Holy rood) on the Feast of St. Andrew, on November 30, 1601 at Holy Cross Abbey. At that period it was a rallying point for the defence of religious freedom and for Irish sovereignty. From there he sent an expedition to Ardfert, to win a quick victory and successfully recover the territory of his ally, Fitzmaurice, Lord of Kerry, who had lost it and his 9-year old son, to Sir Charles Wilmot. It was the last victory before the defeat at Kinsale^[2]

The Holy Rood relic was last exposed for public veneration in 1632, and following the Cromwellian war, Holy Cross Abbey fell into ruins. Local people used the roofless ruins as a burial place after 1740. It became a scheduled national monument in 1880, “to be preserved and not used as a place of worship”.

However, as a result of a special legislation in the Dail on its 50th anniversary, 21 January 1969, the premier item passed, enabling Holy Cross Abbey to be restored as a place of Catholic worship, exceptionally for a national monument. The Sacristan of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican provided an authenticated relic of the Holy Cross , and the emblem of the Jerusalem Cross, or Crusader Cross, has been restored for the Abbey.^[3]

[edit] References

^ Holy Cross Abbey from The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII. Published 1910. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
^ The Life of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, Prince of Tyrconnell (Beatha Aodh Rua O Domhnaill) by Lughaidh O'Cleirigh (original Gaelic manuscript in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin), translated with notes by Rev. Denis Murphy, S.J., M.R.I.A., and published by Sealy, Bryers, & Walker, Dublin, 1893 (pages 304-307)
^ Holy Cross Abbey, by Thomas Morris, Irish Heritage Series, no. 55, published by Eason & Son Ltd, Dublin 1986. [ISBN 0-900346-75-2]