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......

Glasnevin Cemetery

Glasnevin Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Ireland.  Nearly 1¼ million burials have taken place there since Daniel O’Connell and the Catholic Association acquired the land, which in 1832 received its first remains.  It is now regarded as an iconic embodiment of Ireland’s history in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, holding as it does the remains of so many of those who figured prominently in the struggle for Irish freedom.

I recently went on a guided tour of Glasnevin where the guide was Seamus Mac Thomáis who turned out to be a son of the late Eamonn Mac Thomáis, a man whose love for Dublin, its lore and its history was unrivalled.  Within the time allotted for the tour it was not possible to cover the entire 120 acres or even to refer to some of the many historic figures who have a final resting place in Glasnevin.  The Daniel O’Connell Memorial Round Tower is readily seen as one enters the cemetery and in the underground vault lies O’Connell with various members of the O’Connell family including a clerical relative from Kerry who was the last to be buried there 10 or 15 years ago.  The remains of Daniel O’Connell who died in Genoa on 15^th May 1847 were brought back to Ireland, minus his heart which was brought to Rome.  Accompanying the body was Fr. John Miley, a native of Narraghmore, who had travelled with O’Connell to Italy at the Liberator’s request.  Miley gave the funeral oration in the Pro Cathedral in Marlborough Street, Dublin on the morning of O’Connell’s funeral.

Nearby are the graves of nine of the ten men executed in Mountjoy Jail during ‘the Troubles’ including Kevin Barry and Frank Flood, whose remains were exhumed from Mountjoy in 2001.  The tenth man, Patrick Maher, was interned in accordance with the wishes of his family in County Limerick.  The adjoining grave is that of Roger Casement, whose body was returned a few years ago from Pentonville Jail where he was hanged in August 1916, despite the efforts of such notable writers as Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesteron and George Bernard Shaw, all of who were involved in a petition to save his life. 

The grave which appears to receive most visitors and is constantly covered in flowers is that of Michael Collins.  Not too far away is the grave of his girlfriend Kitty Kiernan, who married Felix Cronin three years after Collins’s death.  When she died in 1945 the love letters of Collins and Kiernan were found in shoe boxes amongst her  personal effects and they were published in book form by Gill and MacMillan in 1983 under the title ‘In Great Haste’.  The original letters were auctioned off in Dublin twelve years later and the former Fine Gael T.D. Peter Barry purchased them.  In contrast to the flower covered grave of Collins is the unadorned de Valera family grave some distance away where Eamon de Valera, his wife and some of his children are buried.  The modest gravestone belies the complex politician who presided over Irish politics for more than 50 years. 

O’Donovan Rossa’s final resting place stirred thoughts of Padraig Pearse’s famous oration at the old Fenian’s graveside which catapulted the then little known Pearse into a very prominent position within the Volunteer movement.  The Fenian John O’Leary who died 8 years before Rossa lies alongside James Stephens, the founder of the Fenian movement and nearby is the memorial to the Manchester martyrs Allen, Larkin and O’Brien. 

The graves of Brendan Behan and James Larkin were noticed but not mentioned as we moved through the cemetery, as was also the grave of James Fintan Lalor.  Charles Stewart Parnell had what is believed to have been the largest funeral ever seen in this country when on Sunday, 11^th October 1891 his remains were brought from the City Hall to Glasnevin Cemetery to be laid in the specially assigned plot not far from the O’Connell tomb. 

At the far end of the cemetery in that part first opened for burials is to be found the tomb of John Philpot Curran who died in London in 1817.  His remains were brought back to Ireland 17 years later as it was his dying wish to be buried in Irish soil.  The man who ostracised his daughter Sarah when he discovered that she was secretly engaged to Robert Emmet lies in a sarcophagus of a classical Roman type.

Not far from Curran’s tomb lies William J. Fitzpatrick, a prolific writer in the second half of the 19^th century, who produced one of the first books to stir my interest in Irish history.  ‘The Sham Squire’, published in 1866, dealt with the betrayal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his investigative work on Irish historical topics resulted in further books including ‘Ireland Before The Union’ and ‘The Secret Service Under Pitt’.  He also wrote a biography of Bishop Doyle of Carlow and produced an important study on the correspondence and life of Daniel O’Connell.  James Clarence Mangan was buried in the same area as Fitzpatrick and his writings, much of which appeared in ‘The Nation’ have recently been reissued as a multi volume publication.

As I passed on the footpath heading towards the section of the cemetery where the victims of the cholera epidemic of 1867 and the smallpox epidemic of 1872 were buried I saw the grave of Thomas H. Burke.  With Lord Cavendish the newly appointed Chief Secretary of Ireland, Burke who was his Under Secretary, was  murdered in the Phoenix Park on 6^th May 1882 by members of the Invincibles.

Separated by a footpath from the last resting place of the Fenians, O’Leary and Stephens is the grave of the faithful servant of Robert Emmet, Ann Devlin, who died in poverty in 1851 aged 70 years.  She spent two years in Kilmainham Jail as she underwent questioning in a vain attempt to get information about the 1803 insurgents and for over 40 years afterwards she lived in abject poverty until discovered by Dr. Richard Madden, chronicler of the United Irishmen.  He befriended her in her last years.  When she died she was buried in a paupers grave but Madden had her remains disinterred and laid in her present grave over which he placed a fitting memorial which read, ‘to the memory of Ann Devlin, the faithful servant of Robert Emmet, who possessed some rare and many noble qualities, who lived in obscurity and poverty and so died on the 18^th of September 1851, aged 70 years.  May she rest in peace.’

Robert Emmet’s grave has never been discovered but the grave of Ann Devlin is to many a fitting place to pay respects to the young Irishman who was hanged in Thomas Street, Dublin in 1803. 

Glasnevin Cemetery provides a fascinating reminder of our Irish history stretching back to the decade before the Great Famine.  The names recorded on the gravestones include many of those men and women who gave their energies and time for their country and in some cases their very lives.  Their presence in Glasnevin makes the cemetery a place of pilgrimage for students of Irish history.

Last week I found myself, just hours before flying out of Ireland, without the necessary documentation to permit me to fly.  I want to thank the officials from Kildare County Council who came to my assistance at very short notice and provided the necessary documentation which allowed me to travel.  It is not often I have reason to praise officials of Kildare County Council, but this is one such occasion.  Well done to all concerned.

Dominicans in Athy and Fr. Ross McCauley

Fr. Ross McCauley O.P. over the years gave comfort and solace to the dying and consoled the bereaved, all the time giving witness to his religious life as a Dominican priest.  Now Fr. McCauley has gone to join his maker and he who was born in Athy now rests in the Dominican plot in the town of his birth. 

How many other Athy men over the centuries left behind the lives of laymen to join the Order of Friars Preachers founded by St. Dominic in 1215?  I don’t know the answer to my own question and a definitive answer is unlikely ever to be furnished since it would require a check back over 852 years of the Dominican Foundation’s existence in our town.

The Dominicans in Athy are our link with a past which in truth is sometimes very difficult to appreciate and understand.  They arrived in the small medieval village located on the Marches of Kildare in 1257, just 50 years or so after the first French speaking Normans had settled in the area.  The  black cloaked Dominicans often referred to as Black Friars on account of their garb, were mendicant friars who depended on the generosity of the local people for their food and sustenance.

The first stone built priory was located on the east bank of the River Barrow in the area known to this day as ‘the Abbey’.  The Athy Priory must have been a substantial one, for within 30 years of the Dominicans coming to Athy the first of a number of Dominican Provincial Chapters were held here.  The initial land granted to the Dominicans for the siting of their Priory was followed by further land grants by several local benefactors, all of which added to the prestige of the local priory.  How many Dominican Friars or Brothers were based in the Priory in the early years we cannot say.  However, we can safely surmise that their numbers probably those to be found in today’s Priory.

We can also assume that none of those early Friars were Irish as the warlike Irish attacked the Norman settlers, including their priests, and many decades would pass before peaceful relationships were established and maintained.  In the meantime the Statutes of Kilkenny passed in 1366 as a result of growing concern at the apparent Gaelicisation of the Anglo Normans included amongst its provisions a prohibition on Irish men joining Orders such as the Dominicans.  Fr. Hugh Fenning O.P. in his recent publication on the Dominicans of Athy relates that it was at least a century later before two Athy Dominicans were noted as having Irish names. 

King Henry VIII granted a Charter to the inhabitants of Athy in 1515, thereby incorporating the medieval village as a Borough with an elected Sovereign and a Borough Council.  Little did anyone realise that within 30 years the same King Henry would suppress the Dominican Priory in the Borough of Athy.  An examination of the property belonging to the Dominicans of Athy at that time which passed to Martin Pelles, Constable of the Castle of Athy, included a church with a bell tower, a chapter house with a dormitory, kitchens, etc. and a garden over a half acre in size, as well as 25 acres on the outskirts of the medieval town.  We know that there was also a cemetery attached to the Priory, for several of those killed at the Battle of Ardscull in 1316 where Edward Bruce’s army fought the Anglo Normans were recorded as being buried in the Dominican Priory. The Friars’ ownership of an eel weir on the River Barrow was also the subject of a contemporary account in 1309 when several of the priests and brothers from the neighbouring Monastery of St. Johns were found guilty of stealing from the Dominican weir net.  Clearly the Dominican Priory in medieval Athy was a substantial complex and the Friars themselves were men who feared no-one, including the Kavanagh clan who attacked and burned their monastery just a year before Henry VIII decided to take possession of the religious houses of England and Ireland. 

The dispossessed Dominicans of 1540 were like the local people they served, subjected to the rigours of the Penal Laws and the expulsion of the Dominicans from Athy following the suppression of the Irish Monasteries lasted for 85 years or so.  The Dominicans were back in the town by the third decade of the 17^th century and their Priory figured prominently in the Confederate Wars fought in and around Athy during the 8 years to 1649.  Legend has it that General Preston after attacking Woodstock Castle subsequently set his guns against the Dominican Priory which was saved after an apparition was seen over the Priory.  However, its destruction soon followed at the hands of Lord Castlehaven, one of the Confederate leaders.  In the subsequent Cromwellian invasion a Dominican Priest, Richard Ovington, Sub Prior of Athy, was captured by Cromwell’s troops in Drogheda and put to the sword.  16 years later Fr. Raymond Moore, Prior of Athy, died in a Dublin prison where he was imprisoned as a result of religious prosecution.  A further period of religious prosecution, this time lasting 50 years or so, was to follow the Battle of the Boyne during which the Priory of Athy was without a Dominican presence.

Around 1730 or thereabouts the enforcement of the Penal Laws became somewhat lax and the Domincans were encouraged once again to return to Athy.  This time they based their Priory in a lane off Athy’s High Street, later called Leinster Street.  This lane, leading to the Commons of Clonmullin, was later named Chapel Lane, an obvious indication of the location of the Dominican Church in what was a back street of the town.

The history of the Dominicans in Athy continued thereafter without disturbance or interruption.  Today the Dominican Priory is to be found on the west bank of the River Barrow, almost directly opposite the original foundation site of the 13^th century.

Fr. Ross McCauley was part of a proud tradition of Dominican service stretching back over 750 years and his death reduces the number of elderly and not so young friars who now comprise the members of the Dominican Priory of Athy.  As the Friars grow old and as vocations to the priesthood remain at a low level the future of Athy’s oldest link with its historic past becomes more doubtful.  The Order of Friars Preachers, commonly called in the past the Black Friars, are part of our community’s history and the passing of a well loved Friar who first saw the light of day in our own town is a sad but timely reminder of the difficult future facing the Dominicans in Athy.