Parish Priests of St. Michael's Parish

The light reflected in the window of the parochial house in Stanhope Place which I noticed earlier in the week had all the significance of a beacon of revival.  Sadly the parochial house, once one of the focal points for the parish of St. Michael’s, had been unoccupied in recent years while the Parish Priest who also had responsibility for Narraghmore and Moone parishes, resided in the rural tranquillity of Crookstown.  Our new Parish Priest has now occupied the early 19^th century stone fronted parochial house and by this very act has reaffirmed the importance of the Parish Priest living amongst the people he serves.  This is not to say that the parishioners of Narraghmore and Moone. deserve any less consideration but in terms of population numbers the parish of St. Michael’s must be seen as the first amongst equals in this part of the diocese. 

 

The parish of St. Michael’s was established I am told in 1670 and the only extant records relating to the priests in the parish record Fr. John Fitzsimons who was ordained a priest in 1673 at 23 years of age.  He had the distinction of being ordained by the then Archbishop of Dublin Oliver Plunkett and was appointed Parish Priest of St. Michael’s 24 years later.  It is interesting to note that his designation as Parish Priest referred to St. Michael’s, St. John’s, Churchtown, Kilberry and Nicholastown.  He was shown in government records as residing in Athy in 1704.

 

The next recorded Parish Priest was Fr. Daniel Fitzpatrick who was in charge of the parish in 1744 while living over the border in Queens County [now County Laois].  Fr. James Neill or  Nele, was Parish Priest of St. Michael’s from 1771 until his death on 28^th October 1789.  Fr. Maurice Keegan was a curate in Athy for 7 years from 1780 and transferred to nearby Castledermot as Parish Priest where he remained until 1789.  He returned that year to St. Michael’s as the Parish Priest and served in that capacity until 26th October 1825.  It was during his stewardship of the parish that the Parish Church, then located in Chapel Lane, was torched and burned to the ground.  It happened on the night of 7^th March, 1800 and was one of a number of Catholic churches in this area and throughout Ireland which were similarly burned out following the 1798 Rebellion.  Fr. Fitzpatrick lodged a claim for compensation with the Dublin Castle authorities and those proceeds and presumably further local funding financed the building of St. Michael’s Church, familiar to older residents of the parish which was demolished in 1960.

 

Following Fr. Fitzpatrick’s death in 1825 I have counted 18 Parish Priests who succeeded him, including the recently appointed Fr. Liam Rigney.  Amongst them was Fr. Andrew Quinn who was Parish Priest from 1853-1879.  A native of Eadestown, Naas, his brothers were Bishop James Quinn of Brisbane and Bishop Matthew Quinn of Bathurst.  Two other Parish Priests who in my young days were remembered in Athy were Canon James Germaine who presided over the parish for 13 years up to 1905.  Canon Mackey was another well remembered holder of the office from 1909-1928.  Both died in office and both are buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery.

 

Canon Patrick McDonnell, after whom McDonnell Drive was named, was Parish Priest from 1928-1956.  He was the old-style leader of his parish who to a youngster like me attending confessions in the early 1950s was a cross, contrary individual who was unable to deal kindly with the awkward silences of a dumb struck youngster.  My tale of woe has been told in a previous Eye, however now that I am approaching Canon McDonnell’s age I can understand and forgive him.

 

Amongst the Parish Priests of the past we have had a number of priests with interesting backgrounds.  Canon Owen Sweeney, who was a dynamic Parish Priest for 5 years from 1980, was the former president of Clonliffe College.  Fr. Gerard Tanham, Parish Priest from 2010, was director of the Dublin Institute of Adult Education for 10 years from 1981.  Both left their mark on the parish of St. Michael’s and are remembered with great fondness. 

 

In any lookback at the Parish Priests of our parish it would be remiss of me not to mention Fr. Philip Dennehy who first came to Athy as a curate in 1963.  He served for 10 years before returning as a Parish Priest in 1985, retiring 21 years later.  Now aged 86 years he remains in the parish as Parish Priest Emeritus, a much-loved pastor who has devoted the majority of his ordained life to the parishioners of the Parish of St. Michael’s.

 

The parish has gone through difficult times since the departure of Monsignor John Wilson in 2009 and the widening of the pastoral responsibility of the Parish Priest for the outlying parishes has increased the difficulties facing the present incumbent.  His decision to occupy the Parochial House in Stanhope Place goes a long way to reassuring his parishioners that the regeneration of St. Michael’s parish as a relevant and important part of community life in the area can be expected. 

Athy's Parish Priests (2)

Fr. James Doyle, Parish Priest of Athy, is buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery where his gravestone records that he was 64 years old when he passed away on 10^th November 1892.  He had served as a curate in Athy for 17 years and Parish Priest for 13 years.  I have been unable to locate the graves of six of his predecessors as Parish Priest of Athy, the seventh, Monsignor Andrew Quinn having died some time after he transferred to Dun Laoghaire.  The clerical career of his successor, Archdeacon Germaine, is recorded on the latter’s gravestone in St. Michael’s Cemetery as, ‘1 year a curate in Dunlavin, 23 years a curate in Castledermot, 15 years D.D. in Avoca’ before becoming Parish Priest of Athy where he served for 12 years and where he died on 18^th April 1905 aged 78 years.

Canon Edward Mackey was the next Parish Priest to die in office and his gravestone simply records ‘Edward Canon Mackey, In days gone by, P.P. Athy 1909 – 1928’.  Incidentally he died on 31^st March and not 21^st March as mentioned in last week’s article.  The whereabouts of the last resting place of Fr. Fintan Carroll who succeeded Canon Mackey is not known to me.  Fr. Carroll who transferred from Castledermot to take over responsibility for the Parish of St. Michaels died unexpectedly in May, just a few weeks after coming to Athy.  His was the shortest period as Parish Priest of any of the office holders stretching back to 1670, while the distinction of having the longest service belongs to Fr. Daniel Fitzpatrick, who, if records are accurate, served as Parish Priest for 46 years. 

Fr. Patrick McDonnell replaced the late Fr. Carroll on 11^th June 1928 and he remained as Parish Priest of St. Michaels until his death, aged 84 years on 1^st March 1956.  It is as Archdeacon McDonnell that he is remembered today by the older residents.  During the early part of his ministry in Athy he had a disagreement with the members of Athy Urban District Council over a remark made at a meeting of the Council when the Parish Priest and one of his curates, Fr. Maurice Brown, were nominated to the Council’s Library Committee.  The remark was not reported in the local press but nevertheless word got back to the Parish Priest who refused to take up the Council’s nomination.  The curate Fr. Brown who would later write a number of highly regarded books while he was Parish Priest of Ballymore Eustace felt compelled to follow the lead of his Parish Priest and so for a while the town’s Library Committee operated without the services of the local clergy.  Relationships between the local Church and civic leaders were obviously fully restored by 1952 when on the proposal of M.G. Nolan, seconded by P.L. Doyle, the Council agreed that its new housing estate at Holland’s Field should be named McDonnell Drive ‘to mark the deep appreciation of the people of Athy of the invaluable services rendered to the Parish by our beloved Parish Priest.’  It was a significant honour in view of the fact that Archdeacon McDonnell had still another four years to live.  When he died on 11^th March 1956 the Archdeacon was remembered as ‘gentle, unobtrusive, vain but not proud, easy of access and approach and very devoted to the confessional and Mass.’

My own memories of the old priest, for whom I often served Mass on one of the side altars, are coloured by my earliest contact with him.  As a 7 or 8 year old I was in a class brought by Sister Brendan to confessions at St. Michaels where one of the confessors that school morning and occupying a temporary confessional specially fitted up for him, was Archdeacon McDonnell.  At one stage during the confessions I forgot what I had to say, much to the annoyance of the elderly cleric who pushed his walking stick around the barrier between us and prodded me out of the confession box.  I never forgot or forgave and was always conscious of the disagreeable and grumpy cleric whenever I had to serve his Mass in later years.

Parish Priests in the 1950s and earlier seemed to have been fashioned from the same block, as his successor Fr. Vincent Steen who was Parish Priest for 11 years until 1967 was to my young eyes another stern authoritarian.  By the time he left for a Dublin parish on 26^th January 1967 I had been out of Athy for six years and another 15 years would pass before I returned. 

In the meantime Fr. John Gunning replaced Fr. Steen and after four years it was the turn of Fr. William Rogan to take over as Parish Priest.  Fr. Gunning had transferred to St. Anthony’s Clontarf and references to his time in Athy describe him as a priest ‘who endeared himself to the people he served.’  Fr. Rogan remained in Athy for nine years before transferring to another parish and he was replaced as Parish Priest by Fr. Owen Sweeney who had been President of Clonliffe College.  His brief five years in charge of St. Michael’s Parish was marked by an energy and a commitment to religious and social development within the parish which made Fr. Sweeney one of the most popular men to have held the position of Parish Priest in recent years.

Fr. Philip Dennehy, happily still with us, arrived in Athy as our Parish Priest in June 1985 having previously served in the town as a curate for ten years from 1963.  He proved to be a dedicated and inspiring Parish Priest, who having retired from the position remains on in St. Michael’s to help out in the parish. 

Monsignor John Wilson came to us in 2006 and transferred last month to the Parish of Ballymore Eustace.  His replacement, Fr. Michael Murtagh, on his first Sunday introduced himself as a Mayo man, a priest for 33 years whose first Parish was on the island of Inis Meáin where he spent three years followed by a similar period in Letterfrack.  Two years were next spent in Mulranny, another Parish in the Tuam dioceses before he transferred to the concrete jungle of city parishes in our capital city.  One of these Parishes was Killester, not too far from the Dublin Parish where I lived for 12 years and stories of the Mayo football enthusiast and priest have circulated far beyond the boundaries of Killester. 

Fr. Michael played minor football for his native county and the depth of his support for what in recent times has been the GAA’s most persistently luckless All-Ireland finalists is understandable.  The green and red of Mayo have featured on a few occasions on the morning of All-Irelands at services in Killester Church, while Fr. Michael officiated.  I particularly liked the story (believe me its true) where the Mayo curate happily indulged by his Kerry-born Parish Priest bedecked a baby pram in the Mayo colours on the morning of an All-Ireland final and pushed it up the aisle, parking it to the side of the altar.  At an appropriate time during the sermon he called upon a parishioner to approach the pram and open a large card which held up to the congregation read ‘Expecting SAM’.  Unfortunately even the prayers and support of the Killester parishioners were not sufficient to secure a Mayo victory over Meath so that on the Sunday after Mayo was defeated the pram again made its appearance, still bedecked in the Mayo colours and pushed up the aisle yet again by Fr. Michael.  This time when the card was removed from the pram and held up it read, ‘miscarried’.

When I heard the story and some of the other escapades involving our new Parish Priest I laughed heartily.  Fr. Michael Murtagh is as far removed from the stern authoritarian Parish Priest of the past as is possible to imagine.  The clerical austerity of 50 years ago and more is hopefully about to give way to a happy and inclusive relationship between parishioners and their Parish Priest.  Long may it be so.

Athy's Parish Priests(1)

St. Michael’s Parish Athy has had 20 parish priests since 1670, including several clerics who have been Archdeacons, Canons or Monsignors.  Church records indicate that Fr. John Fitzsimons was the local Parish Priest in 1670 at the height of the Penal Laws.  It was around the same time that a local Dominican Friar, Fr. Joseph Carroll, was imprisoned in Dublin.  The accession of the Catholic James II to the English throne in 1685 brought a brief respite for the Irish Catholics but following his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne the Penal Laws were again strictly enforced.  The Dominicans who had returned to Athy in 1630 after an enforced absence of almost 90 years were again forced to flee. 

Fr. Fitzsimons’s successor as Parish Priest was Fr. Daniel Fitzpatrick who ministered to his parishioners in Athy for 46 years from 1712.  During that time he lived outside the town and said Mass whenever and wherever he could.  The Dominicans returned to Athy around 1743 at a time when religious intolerance was on the wane.  That same year John Jackson, a member of Athy Borough Council, informed Dublin Castle ‘I cannot find there is or has been any popish priests or regular clergy in this corporation.  The priest lives in the Queens County about two miles from the town.’  The priest in question was Fr. Daniel Fitzpatrick, who in 1758 was succeeded by Canon James Nell. 

Interestingly the last entry in the Parish Baptismal records for 1758 was made on 24^th January of that year and was followed by a note explaining that the absence of records for the succeeding 10 months ‘was occasioned by the prosecution against the Rev. Mr. Callaghan.’  What was the nature of this prosecution I can’t say but it may well have been related to the Penal legislation then in place. 

Canon James Nell, following his appointment of Parish Priest of St. Michaels, remained in that position for 31 years.  His name appears in the list of those who at the Assizes in Athy on 16^th February 1793 took an oath denying the Pope’s temporal powers and subscribed to the Oath of Abjuration.  This was a requirement under a series of legislative enactments which reduced the penal restrictions on Dissenters and Catholics alike.  One such concession allowed priests, then resident in the country, to perform their clerical duties provided those duties were not carried out within a church with a steeple or a bell.

Canon Maurice Keegan, appointed P.P. in 1789, had as his Parish Church a small thatched building located in Chapel Lane, just off the High Street, now Leinster Street.  This is believed to have been erected in the middle of the 18^th century as the Penal Laws were relaxed.  It was to fall victim to an arson attack on the night of the 7^th of March 1800.  By all accounts it appears to have been a deliberate act of reprisal linked to ’98 rebellion activities in this area.  A malicious damage claim lodged by the Parish Priest resulted in the payment of £300 from government funds and this with €1,700 collected in the town financed the building of St. Michael’s Parish Church which was built in 1808 on marshy grounds between Clonmullin Commons and the River Barrow.

Patrick Kelly, originally from Kilcoo, wrote a history of the ’98 Rebellion which was published in 1842 and the book contained a letter from Rev. John Lalor (sic) P.P. Athy dated 16^th September 1841 which was authenticated by the Parish Priest of Westland Row Dublin.  This was the same Fr. John Lawler who was elected a Town Commissioner in 1842 following the abolition of Athy Borough Corporation the previous year.  The 21 elected Commissioners included not only the Parish Priest but also the Church of Ireland Rector, Rev. Frederick Trench. 

John Lawler was succeeded in 1853 by Andrew Quinn, the eldest of three brothers from Rathbane near the village of Kilteel, about six miles from Naas.  All of them were ordained priests for the Dublin Dioceses and the two younger brothers later became Bishops in Australia.  Andrew Quinn was one of the first students of the Irish College in Rome at a time when Ballitore-born Paul Cullen was Rector of that College.  Quinn was ordained in 1842.  Cullen would later be the Archbishop of Dublin and Ireland’s first Cardinal at a time when his former pupil was Parish Priest of St. Michael’s Athy.  Six years after Andrew Quinn became Parish Priest of Athy his brother Matthew was consecrated Bishop of Brisbane, Australia.  In 1865 the other brother Matthew Quinn was appointed as the first Bishop of Bathurst, Australia.

Bishop James Quinn was to the forefront in establishing Catholic schools run by religious orders in his Brisbane Dioceses and soon after his arrival in Brisbane in March 1861 he contacted his brother Fr. Andrew in Athy for help.  The Parish Priest approached Mother Mary Teresa Maher, Superior of the local Convent of Mercy and the Sisters of Mercy agreed to open a novitiate to receive and train postulants for the Brisbane Dioceses.  The first young girl to join the newly opened novitiate was Catherine Flanagan and others soon entered the Athy Convent to train for the Australian Mission.  The last of the postulants to enter the Athy Convent for the Brisbane Mission left Ireland on 24^th February 1868 following which the Athy novitiate closed.  Bishop James Quinn had an uneasy relationship with the Sisters of Mercy in Australia and history has not been kind to the County Kildare born Bishop who it is claimed exercised his Episcopal authority on monarchical lines.  His older brother Andrew seemed to have had his own problems in St. Michaels as evidenced by his announcement in 1867 that the biannual collections for the Christian Brothers Schools in the town could no longer be taken up in the parish.  ‘After five years of sad experiences I find myself unable to meet the necessary expenses.’  Fourteen years earlier he had withdrawn, amidst great controversy, similar collections for the local Dominican community. 

Fr. Andrew Quinn left Athy in 1879 to become Parish Priest of Kingstown, as Dun Laoghaire was then called, and he was replaced by Fr. James Doyle who had been a curate in Athy for many years.  He died in 1892 after a long illness, the local press reporting ‘though stern and reserved in appearance he was beloved by the poor who always called him Fr. James.’

Canon, later Archdeacon Germaine, was the next Parish Priest and the Golden Jubilee of his ordination was marked on 16^th April 1904 with the blessing of a marble pulpit which is still in use in the new St. Michael’s Church.  He died the following year and in his place arrived Canon Joseph Keeffe who before he transferred to Rathfarnham in 1909 improved and beautified the Parish Church.

Canon Edward Mackey was the next Parish Priest and he would preside over St. Michael’s Parish for the following 19 years.  During the First World War he joined local business and civic leaders on recruiting platforms in Emily Square to urge the men of Athy and district to enlist.  When he died on 21^st March 1928 the annalist for the local Sisters of Mercy Convent noted ‘Canon Mackey was a man of noble ideals and sound common sense and an eminent theologian.  Though adults might find his manner somewhat repelling, little children loved him.  While he laid dying, during the whole of the night, the Parochial house was surrounded by sorrowing parishioners reciting Rosaries.’ 

......TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK......