Fore Abbey (Irish: Mainistir Fhobhair) is the old Benedictine Abbey ruin, situated to the north of Lough Lene in County Westmeath, Ireland.
Fore village, (sister parish of nearby St. Mary's Collinstown) is situated within a valley between two hills: the Hill of Ben, the Hill of Houndslow, and the Anchorland rise area. There can be found the ruins of a Christian monastery, which had been populated at one time by French Benedictine monks from Évreux, Normandy.
Fore, Fobhar is the anglicised version of the Irish name that signifies “the town of the water-springs” and was given to the area after Saint Feichin’s spring or well, which is next to the old church a short distance from where the ruined monastery still stands. It was St. Feichin who founded the ancient Fore Abbey around 630. By 665 (the time of the yellow plague) there were 300 monks living in the community.
Read more about Fore Abbey: A Benedictine Priory, Annalistic References, Seven Wonders of Fore, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words fore and/or abbey:
“It was the most wild and desolate region we had camped in, where, if anywhere, one might expect to meet with befitting inhabitants, but I heard only the squeak of a nighthawk flitting over. The moon in her first quarter, in the fore part of the night, setting over the bare rocky hills garnished with tall, charred, and hollow stumps or shells of trees, served to reveal the desolation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Abbey always reminds me of that old toast, “Above lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter, as though the dead were there.””
—Garrett Fort (1900–1945)