The bells, named Benedict, Scholastica, Joseph and Columba, were decorated and ready to be blessed before Mass on Wednesday, St Benedict’s Day.

“Just recently it was decided that Mount Melleray would be a good community going forward into the future. We needed an abbot and we elected Richard and he accepted.”

46-year-old Fr Brendan Coffey is the sixth Abbot of the Benedictine monastic community and succeeds Abbot Mark Patrick Hederman.

Psychiatrist, Norbertines and Gardaí knew as early as 1974 that Smyth was a paedophile.