People before Profit are up in arms over the creation of a study abroad campus for the American Catholic Ave Maria University at the former Mount Melleray monastery.
While dozens of excited locals flocked to this weekend’s opening Mass, PBP decided to use its three per cent of vote share to moan about the Catholic church leasing the property to Ave Maria, taking the chance to link it to redress for abuse survivors.
In a scathing attack over the weekend, they proposed a “100 per cent Retribution tax” to be imposed on all commercial leases, land sales or property involving the Catholic Church. They won’t be happy until all Catholic land is seized. If that doesn’t expose the extremism of the far left, I’m not sure what will.
The former Cisterian monastery in County Waterford is now home to the US university’s study abroad campus. There, US students will take Ave Maria courses including theology, philosophy and science, as well as Irish-focused subjects including Irish history and language. This, out of all things to be angry about, has PBP seeing red.
Excitement has been building in recent weeks, led by the Americans who have taken over the restoration of the sprawling and much-loved West Waterford Abbey. Since July, they have been posting lively social media videos in which they show followers the restoration.
The videos have tons of likes and shares and happy comments from all kinds of people.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m so dirty. That’s because I’m building everyone a bar,” Daniel Schreck. Chief Strategy Officer, Director of The Institute at Ave Maria University tells the camera in an upbeat social media video posted late July.
“Check it out – I’ve got some old beautiful skirting from the Church – this was not an altar – and then I got an old counter top. It’s solid oak. My sons Jimmy, Joseph, Charlie and I are making this – so this is the pub right here. We’re going to have a Guinness tap in here and we’ve got plumbing and electricity.”
Schreck excitedly points to the spire of Mount Melleray through the gleaming stained glass windows. “Not a bad place to have a couple of Guinness – and if you turn around this way, there are little baby calves.”
Another video captures the restored Church as the bells ring out again for the first time since the Abbey shut in January 2025. It’s idyllic.
“This has been the spiritual and cultural anchor of West Waterford, and I dare say Ireland, for two hundred years – and we’re bringing it back for the people of Ireland, and our students,” he adds.
In another video, Schreck said he felt a sadness when he came to the Abbey 18 months ago to read a notice that the gift shop had shut.
“Today we plant a small seed – we’ll open the shop back again and we’ll open the Church back to public Mass on Sundays. And hopefully you can drop by and have a coffee too in the beautiful courtyard,” he tells social media.
Mount Melleray has an astounding history and it’s a beautiful place. It was the first monastery built in Ireland after the Reformation largely because of the grit and determination of the Cisterians, and the generosity of the people from the surrounding towns. It is a joy for many that it is being reopened.
In an Ireland where a sizeable portion of closed down convents and monasteries are being taken from communities – who funded them in the first place – and turned into dilapidated IPAS centres, this is somewhat of a triumph.
I for one would thank, rather than begrudge, the Americans who appreciate Mount Melleray’s beauty and meaning and have taken it upon themselves to reopen the Abbey in partnership with the Cisterian order.
What Mount Melleray needed was a set of new custodians in a position to pour money into it and carry on its 200-year tradition of prayer, work, hospitality, and education. What’s even better is that locals are being warmly invited back.
The Bishop of Waterford and others are to be commended for overseeing such rejuvenation at a time when the Church in Ireland largely waves a white flag of surrender.
“If you used to come here on Sundays for Mass, please come back to Mass,” viewers are told in a recent video. “If you used to get a coffee or go to the museum over there, or gift shop, come back there. All the proceeds go back to the Abbey. And if you’re just curious, come visit us and find out.”
All 97 students currently enrolled at Mount Melleray are Ave Maria students from the university’s main campus in Florida, having travelled to Ireland for a semester abroad.
The university has said that it hopes eventually to have Irish students study there too. What’s not to like?
But of course, there are always spoiled sports. And in this case, it is the radical leftists in People Before Profit who have dedicated the last few days to fear-mongering about “how a right-wing Catholic university has taken over.” What nonsense.
The same liberals who want public buildings to be used to accommodate the rest of the world have an issue when something is being given back to the local community, when something of value is being conserved.
PBP moaned that the institution will “have no educational status, no planning for education and avail of tax free status to create a MAGA beachhead in Ireland.”
“The abbey’s legal planning status is for hostelry and pilgrim lodging. It has no legal permission to operate as a commercial, international third-level campus,” it ranted online.
“This is an unapproved, unzoned ideological training ground financed by a US billionaire who funds far-right political lobbying.”
Such nonsense. Can PBP provide any evidence of what political training (of American, not Irish students) it says is taking place on the campus? Most of all, the tax claim is staggeringly misleading – we all know that simply pointing to charitable status does not establish tax avoidance.
If PBP is telling us the Mount Melleray arrangement dodges tax, then they should go ahead and tell us – which tax? Which legal entity, and under which statutory exemption? Throwing around words like “zero status,” “MAGA beachhead” and “tax-free” is ridiculous.
Into the bargain, Ave Maria University has already engaged in planning discussions with Waterford County Council.
When the Catholic Church, as derided and shrinking and beaten down as it is in this country, gets one small win, it cannot be allowed. We shouldn’t pay much attention to the predictable outrage. But we should be aware of just how radical People Before Profit really are.
The attack on Mount Melleray is wacky and extreme. The constant misery of PBP is completely at odds with the positivity generated by this development both far and wide. Just let people enjoy it.
It’s not unfair to say that had Ave Maria not stepped up, Mount Melleray would just have been another IPAS centre. Things seemed to be heading in that direction – it housed Ukrainian refugees in 2022.
That same year, some 37 religious orders offered 450 rooms, including in monasteries, convents, retreat centres and parochial homes to people fleeing Ukraine.
There have been plenty of identifiable examples of religious buildings becoming full-blown IPAS centres – including the Old Convent in Mayo which became an IPAS accommodation centre in Ballyhaunis.
The convent took in 266 asylum seekers in 2021 – and to this day, it remains an IPAS centre. Most of them will remain that way.
And unless People Before Profit have been living under a rock, such plans have been almost universally and deeply unpopular. Think of Enniscorthy and Kilcock in Kildare.
The plans to repurpose the former Mercy Convent in Templeshannon into an IPAS facility were fought tooth and nail with some 2,000 residents who signed a petition against the plan.
The community said they were fearful of the risks inherent in ramming an IPAS centre full of single men beside a pre-school and a childcare centre, and within 50 metres of an all-girls secondary school. Mount Melleray’s transformation shows that better things are possible, and that locals can be put first.
The reality is that plenty of people in Ireland – including the few in People Before Profit who didn’t go to private schools – would have missed out on a decent education if it wasn’t for Catholic education and schools. Religious ethos still makes a difference in education, and as the State school survey told us, the majority of parents would like to keep it, thank you very much.
People Before Profit prove once again that they are the ones who are irrelevant – and more importantly, frighteningly intolerant of anything that does not conform to their own worldview.