Glenstal Abbey is home to a community of Benedictine monks in County Limerick, Ireland, and is a place of prayer, work, education and hospitality. The monastery sits alongside a popular guesthouse and a boarding school for boys, housed within a 19th century Normanesque castle amidst five hundred magnificent acres of farmland, forest, lakes and streams.
Glenstal was once home to the Barringtons, a wealthy family of landowners and baronets. They built the castle in the 1830’s and were well-respected by local people, eventually leaving Ireland after the tragic death of their daughter in the Irish War of Independence. The castle was purchased by a local priest who invited monks from the Belgian Abbey of Maredsous to begin a community here in 1927.
The Abbey is part of the wider Benedictine family of the Congregation of the Annunciation – formerly known as the ‘Belgian Congregation’ – which has monasteries in Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.