Dúchas describes Boyle Abbey as the most impressive surviving example in Ireland of a Cistercian Church of the early period.
But a new book on the abbey suggests that its inhabitants and architecture were not always Cistercian in the strict sense.
For anybody who thought church scandals were a recent phenomenon, a history of the Cistercians would indicate otherwise. While the order was established in France at the end of the 11th century as a reaction against the lax regimes of other orders, the Irish Cistercians tended to do things their own way.
In Boyle Abbey and the School of the West, Dr Britta Kalkreuter explains that rules imposed by the Chapter General in France on Irish-run abbeys in the first half of the 13th century included an order that "the admission of nuns to communities should henceforth be punished by excommunication and dismissal, since it had in the past resulted in scandal and indecent disorder".
Monks were also required to learn French or Latin, as opposed to using Irish, and there was also an issue of land being rented out without permission from the father abbot.
Attempts by the French to impose their rules and the angry response from the Irish have to be seen in the context of the then recent Anglo-Norman invasion and the fact that Anglo-Norman Cistercian monasteries had also been established by lords trying to consolidate their power.
These communities had strong English affiliations and included virtually no Irishmen, and were often seen as another aspect of the Anglo-Norman invasion. Such tensions laid the foundations for what is known as the Mellifont Conspiracy, when monks at a number of Irish abbeys rebelled against French delegations. There were riots and plots to get rid of the visitors.
Primarily a detailed academic study of the architecture of Boyle and a dozen other churches west of the Shannon, Dr Kalkreuter's book includes a section on the history of the abbey and the order. The churches she examined were given the title "School of the West" by architectural historian Harold Leask nearly 40 years ago.
Dr Kalkreuter, who studied for a time at Trinity College, was awarded a PhD from Cologne University for her work on Boyle and the other churches.
Now working in a Scottish university, she explains that because Boyle was not under Anglo-Norman control "something very special developed there". While she believes the uniform style of Cistercian churches has been overstressed, the ornamentation in Boyle is a clear breach of Cistercian rules. Visitors to the abbey can see intricate carvings of animals, birds and humans.
According to Dúchas, Boyle Abbey only gets a fraction of the visitors of other monuments in its care. Visitor numbers have grown to 12,000 a year compared to some 40,000 for Donegal Castle and 250,000 for Clonmacnoise. Boyle Abbey reopens to the public at the end of March.