Inside the Kylemore Abbey

I was quite enamored with the look of Kylemore Abbey. It had the looks of a castle but it is actually an abbey. It turns out I was right, Kylemore Abbey used to be someone’s castle until it was sold several times until it ended up with the Benedictine nuns. It was a bit strange to learn that nun who are supposed to be an examples of simplicity would be living in a former castle. Sometimes fate does play with you. I think it all turned out okay since the nuns operated a school which served the educational needs of the nearby towns up until the year 2010. Since we were running out of time to explore the abbey, we quickly went in.

I have been to a few castles here in Ireland and I must say that they look quite different from what I imagined them to be. I would be imagining images of thrones and all but this looked more like a very nice house. I don’t know how much of the old mansion was used by the nuns but it would have been a bit strange if they did. The halls were large and ornate, hardly surprising since this used to be a castle. I think it was harder to imagine this to be an abbey rather than a castle. I would like to think that the nuns helped preserve the old layout keeping part of the abbey to themselves while opening the abbey for tours.

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