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 24th 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 16th 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 18th century as the Penal
Laws were relaxed. It was to fall victim
to an arson attack on the night of the 7th 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 16th 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 24th 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 16th 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 21st 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......
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