Bective Abbey

About

Bective Abbey is located on a high northern bank of the Boyne River, half way between Navan to the north, and Trim to the south west, and less that one kilometre (.62 of a mile) south east off the R161 from Connell’s Cross.

Under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, and called the Abbatia de Beatitudine, from which it is thought that the name Bective is a corruption, it was founded in 1147AD for the Cistercian Order by Murchard O’Melaghlin, King of Meath. It is the only building erected for the Order in County Meath. Its mitred abbot was a Baron in the Parliament of the Pale. Nearby to the Abbey once stood Bective Castle, erected in 1014AD and believed to have been, apart from the country’s many Round Towers, one of the earliest stone buildings in Ireland. The locale gave the title of Earl of Bective to the Taylor family.

Read more at:
https://heritageireland.ie/unguided-sites/bective-cistercian-abbey/