Would You Believe: School of Love

We spend a year behind the scenes in Ireland’s only female Cistercian Monastery, St Mary’s Abbey, where the women dedicate themselves to a life of silence, solitude and prayer.

Each day the cycle of monastic life continues for the women as they rise at 3.30am to sing the Lord’s praise and keep vigil with all those who wake during the night in fear, sadness or pain. They work as a community, surviving by their labour running businesses including Communion host production, greetings card printing and farming. The women, who include a former Central Banker, an IT specialist and a radio producer are committed to a challenging but uplifting way of life that is counter-cultural in the contemporary world.