  We study the Abelian projection of SU(2) instantons in the Maximally Abelian
gauge. We find that in this gauge an isolated instanton produces a closed
monopole loop within its core and the size of this loop increases with the core
size. We show that this result is robust against the introduction of small
quantum fluctuations. We investigate the effects of neighbouring
(anti)instantons upon each other and show how overlapping (anti)instantons can
generate larger monopole loops. We find, however, that in fields that are
typical of the fully quantised vacuum only some of the large monopole loops
that are important for confinement have a topological origin. We comment on
what this may imply for the role of instantons in confinement and chiral
symmetry breaking.
