Movilla Abbey

By the seventh century, it had become one of the greatest monasteries in Ireland - a thriving centre of Celtic Christianity, a community of worship, prayer, study, mission and trade.

At the time, it was the only complete copy of the Bible in the whole of Ireland, and served to enhance Movilla's reputation nationally, as a unique centre of learning.

[4] During his stay at Movilla, Columba asked Finnian if he could spend some time examining the Abbey's precious copy of the Scriptures.

[citation needed] In addition to being a Christian centre of prayer, learning and mission, Movilla was known for its flourishing work in crafts, particularly bronze and glass.

They said: 'Without doubt the most important finds from the early monastery were those illustrating the skills of the craftsmen, who worked in iron, bronze and glass.

For example, a trial-piece, on which the bronzesmith rehearsed his designs of triangles, scrolls and arcs, and a glass-headed pin, decorated with discs and trails of different coloured glass.

The technical and artistic sophistication of such objects is certainly at variance with the impression of material poverty given by the simple timber houses and rather crude pottery...The excavation of a very small part of what was once an extensive monastic settlement has thus given...an insight into the skills of the early Christian craftsmen.

'[6] In the seventh century, Pope Honorius I sent an epistle to a number of Celtic churchmen, encouraging conformity to the Roman dating of Easter and cautioning against the Pelagian heresy.

[7][8] In the early eighth century, the bishop at Movilla was Colman, son of Murchu, who wrote a hymn to St. Michael the Archangel.

It begins: In Trinitate spes mea fixa non in omine Et archangelum deprecor Michaelem nomine In the Trinity my hope is fixed not in an omen,

On the north wall of the Augustinian abbey ruin are several tapered sandstone grave slabs with large crosses carved in relief in various designs.

[17][18] There are also numerous memorials from the early seventeenth century, two of which are especially notable: the tomb of the Corry Family, which is designed as a small Doric temple;[19] and the Parr Mausoleum, built in 1860 in the Gothic Revival style.

[22][23] In 1886, W. J. Patterson offered this information to the Annual Report of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club: Some years ago, a curious stone object was dug up in the burial ground which surrounds the ruins of the old Abbey Church of Movilla near Newtownards, Co. Down.

Patterson, however, rejected that idea on the grounds that the size of the block would have been totally disproportionate to the large socket; in fact, for a cross to have stood in the object's base, it would have required a shaft, or stem, 26 inches wide by 14 inches thick and “would have been of such a weight as to have burst out so frail a base, if the cross got the slightest lean to either side.”[25] Movilla Abbey, church of Augustinian Canons, is a State Care Historic Monument in the townland of Movilla, in Borough of Ards, at grid ref: J5035 7440.