Hundreds of students apply to study at US‑run third‑level campus in former Mount Melleray

Florida-based Ave Maria University is offering students the chance of 'a transformational semester of prayer, study, work, and adventure'

Mount Melleray Abbey, near Cappoquin, was closed over a year ago, almost two centuries after it was founded in the 1830s by a monk who returned to Ireland from the Cistercians’ monastery in Melleray, France.

Hundreds of American students have applied to travel to Waterford’s Mount Melleray Abbey this September to study at a new third‑level campus being established there by a US Catholic university.

Mount Melleray Abbey, near Cappoquin, was closed over a year ago, almost two centuries after it was founded in the 1830s by a monk who returned to Ireland from the Cistercians’ monastery in Melleray, France.