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.

Large Hall at the Kylemore Abbey

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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