First Communion

Our First Communion Day is a day we always remember, even if imperfectly as the passing years merge into decades.  I was reminded of my own First Communion when attending my second granddaughter Eva’s great day in the local Parish Church a few weeks ago.  Dress styles have changed in the intervening years.  The Sisters of Mercy have gone and so too has the Communion Day breakfast in the local convent which was a feature of First Communion Days in the 1940s and beyond.

What struck me forcibly as a child of the Second World War was the change in the trouser lengths of the young boys receiving their First Communion some weeks ago.  All wore long trousers – in my day short trousers were the norm until you reached 12 or 13 years of age.  I made my First Communion in 1949 (I’m guessing the year as family records were not then maintained as carefully as today when every major family event is recorded and documented with an unprecedented display of recorders, cameras and Ipads). Cameras were very scarce in the 1940s and the photograph taken in the People’s Park of my friends from Offaly Street on our First Communion Day is the only record any of us have of that day.  I can’t even recall the photograph being taken or remember who took the photograph.  It’s a documentary record more than 65 years old and recalls a time when none of us in the picture had much in terms of worldly goods but all of us had happy homes and loving parents who did the best they could for their children.

The passing years rest lightly until the time arrives when your own grandchildren are old enough to begin replicating the life lived by their parents parents two generations past.  I was reminded of this when a text message alerted me to the news that my first granddaughter, Rachel, all of 10 years of age scored 2 goals 5 points in a Gaelic football match between Athy and local rivals Castlemitchell.  The final score was Athy 2-7, Castlemitchell 2-3.  What a wonderful feat for a young girl of such tender years and surpasses anything ever achieved by her grandfather in a footballing career which saw him togged out not only with Athy but also Rheban, Kells and Monaghan.

Returning to the First Communion photograph the First Communicants pictured from right to left are Paddy Doody, Basil White, Teddy Kelly, Willie Moore and myself.  We were all from Offaly Street, with the exception of Paddy Doody who lived in Janeville.  Basil White and his older brother Andrew who lived in No. 5 Offaly Street when the Taaffes lived in No. 6 are now both dead.  Paddy Doody who has lived in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire for the past 53 years is recovering after a recent serious bout of ill health and my good wishes go to Paddy for a good recovery.  There were 12 children in the Doody family and remarkably seven of them emigrated to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, England where they now live.  Willie Moore, formerly of 7 Offaly Street, is now enjoying retirement in County Wexford, while Teddy Kelly after a lifetime working in Tegral is enjoying his retirement in Ashville. 

The photograph brings back memories, not so much of the First Communion Day, but rather of happy days in Offaly Street where young families lived and we youngsters played on the relatively traffic free street.  It was also the street of dreams, or more accurately the street to where the locals came each night to share in the fantasy world which played across the screen of Bob’s Cinema. 

Now that I look again at the photograph of the five Offaly Street chums I cannot be sure if it is a First Communion or a Confirmation Day photograph. 

Fr. Philip Dennehy and First Communion in St. Michael's Parish Church

Last Sunday at 10.30 a.m. Mass St. Michael’s Parish Church was once again the centre of our community.  The normally half filled pews were overflowing with Holy Communicants from Scoil Mhichil Naofa and Ballyroe National School, their parents, faith friends, grandparents and extended family relations and friends.  The occasion was First Communion for the happy youngsters who will remember forever the second major religious event of their lives.  This was a community event in which bystanders and well wishers alike with families and friends shared in the delightful occasion made all the more pleasant by Fr. McEvoy’s few well chosen words. 

One of the young communicants came from England to make her First Communion in the Parish Church from where her granny had been brought just weeks previously on her final journey to St. Michael’s cemetery.  First Communion Day was to have been a happy family occasion in which Granny O’Keeffe, although terminally ill, was to share with her grand-daughter.  It was not to be but the brave young girl received a comforting round of applause from all in the Parish Church on hearing of the sad passing of her granny.

The Parish Newsletter as usual carried announcements of births, deaths and marriages during the week and the passing of James Mulhall, late of Bleach Cottages who died in England caught my eye.  Long gone from our community, James Mulhall was one of the many who for one reason or another made their home abroad.  England provided for many of these emigrants a new way of life far removed from that which they had become accustomed to in their youth.  I did not know James Mulhall but his death in England announced in St. Michael’s Parish Newsletter marked an acknowledgement that once part of the local community you retain ties which bind until death. 

It was a coincidence that notice of his passing appeared the same morning as 51 youngsters stepped up to the altar to advance their spiritual journey which started with their baptism.  James Mulhall made that same short trip up the aisle on the day of his First Communion, supervised, no doubt as we all were in those days, by the Sisters of Mercy.  Times have changed.  The Sisters of Mercy have given way to Mary English and her team of lay teachers, while the fashionable elegance of the young communicants nowadays is a wonder to behold compared to the rather plain First Communion clothes of our time.  First Communion on Sunday was a truly memorable event for everyone involved and the crowded Church reinforced the community aspect of the ceremony.

Watching over it all, even if from a distance, was the man who on Saturday, 4^th June celebrates the 50^th anniversary of his ordination.  Fr. Philip Dennehy has served in Athy both as curate and Parish Priest.  He first came to our town as a young curate in 1963 with eight years experience as a priest, many of which were spent as a chaplain to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Dun Laoghaire and later still to St. Mary’s Hospital in Phoenix Park, both of which were hospitals for T.B. patients.  I had left Athy two years previously and cannot recall when I first met Fr. Dennehy.  However, I can never forget the occasion when he called to 5 Offaly Street where my parents lived, one November day in 1965.  He had come to comfort my parents following the death of my brother Seamus in a road traffic accident the previous evening.  Since visits are one of the important works of mercy performed by clergy in our community and Fr. Dennehy’s appearance that day with comforting and reassuring words was no doubt a task he has had to perform hundreds of times during his years in Athy.

It is ten years ago since I wrote an Eye on the Past on Fr. Dennehy on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood.  Ten years on he has amassed a total of thirty years in the parish of St. Michael’s, twenty of those years as our Parish Priest.

Philip Dennehy, although born in Midleton, Co. Cork would I feel have greater claim to Kerry ancestry.  Both his parents were born in the Kingdom and it was in St. Brendan’s College, Killarney that he ended his secondary schooling.  As a young school boy in Roscommon where his father was the Chief Superintendent of the Gardai, Philip Dennehy was a mass server and this he says inspired his early interest in the priesthood.  After finishing his Leaving Certificate in St. Brendan’s College in 1948 he entered the seminary in Clonliffe College in Dublin.  Following his graduation with a B.A. following a successful Arts course in University College Dublin, then located in Earlsfort Terrace, he transferred to Maynooth College.  Ordained in 1955 he was appointed chaplain to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Dun Laoghaire which was then a tuberculosis hospital, now the Rehabilitation Centre. 

Fr. Dennehy first arrived in Athy as a young curate in 1963 and he was to remain here for ten years, returning in 1985 when appointed Parish Priest of St. Michael’s by the late Archbishop McNamara.  The fifty years of Fr. Dennehy’s priesthood coincides with the twenty years he has spent as Parish Priest of this parish.  Both will be celebrated on Saturday, 4^th June with a mass at 7 o’clock in the evening, followed by a reception in the G.A.A. centre at Geraldine.

Again harking back to the Eye on the Past I wrote ten years ago, the words I used then are still appropriate when applied to the man who has guided the affairs of our parish for the past twenty years.

“Fr. Philip Dennehy has a most eloquent if sometimes understated way of putting his thoughts before his parishioners.  The obvious attention and care which goes into the preparation of his Sunday homilies is reflected in the meaningful words and phrases so often used by him to help his parishioners in their search for spiritual fulfilment.”

Congratulations and best wishes go to Fr. Dennehy on the Golden Jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood.  His curate from across the border, irrespective of how Laois fare in the first round of the Leinster Championships, will join the parishioners of St. Michael’s in celebrating a clerical life devoted for thirty years to the spiritual well being of our community, whose members have been and continue to be privileged in having such a dedicated and inspiring priest as their Parish Priest.

Pipe bands past and Holy Communions long ago

Athy has enjoyed a musical tradition extending over many decades, a tradition which gave it a succession of town bands. The earliest reference I have come across to a band in the town was in the early 1880s, when the then recently formed Catholic Young Men Society had a brass band. There had been many more local bands in the intervening years with pipe bands, fife and drum bands and brass all bands making use of the musical talents in the area.

Some weeks ago, I was given a photograph of St. Dominic’s Fife and Drum Band, which I understand was founded soon after the end of World War II. The members of the band practised in a shed at the back of Johnny Lynch’s house in Nelson Street. I have no other information about the band and would welcome hearing from anyone who can help me in that regard. The photograph with this article shows some of the band members and they have been identified, reading from left at the back, as Christy Lamon of Plewman’s Terrace, Jack Corcoran of Dooley’s Terrace, unidentified, Paddy Kavanagh of St Joseph’s Terrace and behind him his son Paddy “Twin” Power of the Dock. The next two men and the two men standing one in front of the other on the extreme right have not been identified. In the front row, from left, the first person is unidentified. The second young man is either Paddy Scott of Dooley’s Terrace or Brendan Murphy of Offaly Street, then Tom Perse of Blackparks, Mick “Bottler” Carroll of the Dock, Paddy Perse, brother of Tom Perse, Martin Cunningham of Levitstown and Noel Quinn of St John’s Lane. There has been great difficulty in identifying some of those photographed and, as always, I would welcome confirmation or correction of any name given by me.

The second photograph comes courtesy of Agnes Bergin. It’s possibly a first communion or a confirmation class photograph. The young boys are very well dressed and many of them sported badges which were common on the occasions of First Communion or Confirmations. The presence of three young women (presumably teachers) would confirm that the boys were not attending the Christian Brothers School, thereby suggesting it was a First Communion photograph. First Communion was taken while youngsters were still in St. Joseph’s School.

The only boy I can positively identify sitting sixth from left in the front row is Michael Kelly of Geraldine. Given that he is now approximately 86 years old, I figure the photo-graph was taken in or about 1930. It is probably too long ago for anyone to be able to identify others in the photograph. However, if you can do so, I would welcome hearing from you.