Boyle Abbey is a well preserved Cistercian Monastery founded in the 12th century. Though mutilated in the 17th & 18th centuries when it was used to accommodate a military garrison, Boyle Abbey retains its ability to impress visitors as one of the most formidable of the early Cistercian foundations in Ireland. Some of the abbey’s structures are still intact.

It was built in a period of transition between two architectural movements and one of the arches is clearly in Romanesque style, and the other in Gothic. Parts of the abbey have been restored including the 16th-century gatehouse.