Tadhg Brennan memories

While isolating during the past few days I had an opportunity to go through papers I collected, stored away and it must be acknowledged forgot about for many years. Amongst those papers I found a letter from Tadhg Brennan which he wrote from 2 Beechgrove on 11th December 1995 with the opening paragraph, ‘After you had driven off I remembered a few other characters in Athy in my young days’. He then went on to write over six pages details of several of those characters as he called them, whom he remembered from Athy of the 1930s and 1940s. I found it interesting that he wrote of Archdeacon McDonnell, former Parish Priest of St. Michael’s, as one of those characters. Tadhg claimed he was ‘a priest ahead of his time’ who said first Mass every morning ‘in about 12-15 minutes’. Apparently, the same priest had a big following for confessions as he listened, never questioned, and invariably gave a penance of three Hail Marys. Tadhg claimed there was always a queue at his confession box, bigger on the altar side for it was said he was deaf in the left ear! Tadhg’s opinion of the Archdeacon, or Canon as he then was, was shaped in part by contrasting his style with that of his predecessor, Canon Mackey whom it was claimed attempted to control everything in the parish. Tadhg wrote: ‘Canon Mackey threatened my father to read him off the altar and possibly have him excommunicated because of some difference they had about the Catholic Young Men’s Society.’ Canon Edward Mackey, who was born five years after the Great Famine, was Parish Priest of Athy between 1909 and 1928. These years included periods of great civil unrest in Ireland and encompassed the years of the Great War. Canon Mackey supported the recruitment campaigns for the British Army during World War I and spoke at recruitment rallies in Emily Square. It was no wonder so many young men from the town enlisted when the local Parish Priest and civic leaders including Athy Urban District Council’s members supported the recruitment campaigns. Canon Mackey died on 31st March 1928 and is commemorated by the fine marble pulpit which was installed in the Parish Church and financed by the people of the parish of St. Michaels. Fr. Patrick McDonnell replaced Canon Mackey as Parish Priest, becoming a Canon in 1934 and Archdeacon in 1953. He died on 1st March 1956 and the local Urban District Council named the new housing estate built on Holland’s fields between the Kildare Road and the Dublin Road as McDonnell Drive. Several times I have come across references in the media and elsewhere to McDonald Drive. It’s correct name, McDonnell Drive, commemorates the man whom Tadhg Brennan regarded as ‘a priest ahead of his time’. Tadhg’s high opinion of Archdeacon McDonnell was not shared by me, for my abiding memory of that priest is his annoyance at my failure to say the Act of Contrition correctly when as a schoolboy in St. Joseph’s I was brought with my classmates by Sr. Brendan to have our confessions heard by the Parish Priest. I must have been 6 or 7 years old and annoyed at my faulty confession practice the Canon who was sitting at a makeshift confessional near the side altar rattled his walking stick at me, prompting me to run. In later years I served Mass for him at the same side altar, but the incident of the unfinished confession was never mentioned. One of the other men mentioned by Tadhg was ‘Sticker’ Ryan, whom he described as a great Labour party man who lived in Foxhill. Tadhg got to know ‘Sticker’ after Tadhg was elected as a Fianna Fáil urban councillor in the 1940s. Both men became great friends and had what Tadhg described as ‘many a heated argument and as many philosophical discussions’. ‘Sticker’ he described as a small determined man with a big heart and a great mind. Tadhg regarded ‘Sticker’ Ryan as one of the exceptional people he got to know through local politics and finished his references to him by writing ‘I would go so far as to say he was unique, a true follower of James Connolly.’ In my research over the years I have come across fleeting references to ‘Sticker’ Ryan but Tadhg Brennan’s letter of 26 years ago prompts me to chase up the story of the man who made such an impression on the retired State Solicitor/County Registrar. If there is anyone reading this article who can give me any information regarding ‘Sticker’ Ryan of Foxhill I would be delighted to hear from them. The Irish Times on Wednesday last under the headline ‘Kindness of Others inspired 40 years of contributing to the community’ told the story of 79-year-old Seamus O ’Doherty’s contribution to the people and town of Clonmel. In accepting the Community Hero of the Year Award Mr. O’Doherty spoke of his parents and the difficulties they faced after his father’s battalion was disbanded at the end of World War 2. ‘We were living in one room in a house in Clonmel. There was no electricity, no water, no heating. My mother cooked on a primus stove ….. what I remember was the kindness of neighbours.’ His story must remind us of the families who need our kindness this Christmas and indeed throughout the year. We must look out for our neighbours while helping those local groups such as the St. Vincent de Paul Society who do so much to alleviate the hardship experienced by so many parents and children, especially at Christmas time.