The Ruined Abbeys in Ireland

An 1889 article syndicated in the Australian press looks at the legacy of the historic Irish abbeys left either in ruins or in Protestant hands following the Reformation. There are a number of points of interest, first the mention of Glenbeigh in the opening paragraph relates to burnings and evictions, not in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, but to the evictions in County Kerry in the 1880s during the Land War. Then, despite enlisting John Wesley as a witness, we have a reminder that we are in a pre-ecumenical age with the description of cold Protestant rituals conducted at historic ecclesiastical sites.  I noted too the same wistful tone used to describe the lonely, windswept ruins in writings of this period about the 'Celtic church' employed here, as well as the same sense of regretful longing for a lost past. Even at Adare, where 'decay is arrested and beauty reigns', the writer still asks 'But who shall say that Mass will ever again be celebrated within its lonesome wind-swept wall?' The only ancient site where Mass was heard again was at Ballintubber Abbey (here spelt as Ballintoher), County Mayo. The article concludes with an evocative description of a type of 'hedge school' being conducted among its ruins:

THE RUINED ABBEYS IN IRELAND.

JOHN WESLEY said several things of us which are remembered. Most of them were very unkind, but some were involuntary tributes to our better nature. One thing he said was that the Irish are "an immeasurably loving people." Again, he declared that "the poor in Ireland, in general, are well-behaved; all the ill-breeding is among well dressed people." And he described certain dearly beloved brethren as "a well behaved, though genteel, congregation." All these remarks tend to prove that history repeats itself. Nor is the truth of that truism in any way depreciated by his expressions of astonishment at the immense quantity of ruins he found in Ireland. Of course, Wesley had not seen (for instance) the charred walls of the recently evacuated homes in Glenbeigh—the valley of fire, the valley of the evicted—but his days were not long after the Cromwellian wars, not a hundred years removed from the Williamite wars; and then, as now, our ruins of church, castle, and cabin, like our poor, were always with us. 

A certain number of our most important ruins have been restored, and retained in Protestant possession; and in such cases a cold ritual is followed in the ancient sanctuary of the faith by a scanty congregation, who fail to see the inconsistency of worshipping at an altar without a sacrifice. Of these are St. Patrick's and Christ Church, in Dublin, St. Canice's in Kilkenny, and the ancient Cathedral of Tuam. Another number have been preserved, in a sense, remaining ruins, beautified with gardens and well-clipped ivy; the entrance to the dark arched cloisters frowning under rose wreaths, as the Abbeys of Mucross and of Cong. In the lonely Franciscan abbey, which stands in Lord Dunraven's demesne, and is one of the famous group of ruins of Adare, near Limerick, decay is arrested and beauty reigns. But who shall say that Mass will ever again be celebrated within its lonesome wind-swept wall? When I saw it a few years ago summer rain was drifting through the delicate carved tracery of its shattered windows, weft of rain on a woff of sunshine, and a rainbow spanned the green and grey distance beyond it, one jewelled shaft lost in the thick, darkling forest trees over against the east, and the other dissolving its rose and saffron in the flying mists to westward that scudded before a light wind like an exodus of fairies from the gleaming and vanishing woodlands. There it stands, beautiful, like our everlasting hills, its open fretted arches, its mosses and lichens, forming part of our national wealth, as do the purples and violets and stern craggy crests of our mountains. The Franciscan Church of Adare was called in olden time Poor Abbey, as belonging to the Mendicant Friars—the friends, through grief and through danger, of the poverty-stricken Irish. Thomas, seventh Earl of Kildare, and his wife, Joanna, daughter of James, Earl of Desmond, were the chief founders of the abbey, and furnished it with glass windows, a bell of great value, and two silver chalices. Michael the Archangel was the patron of the church. Lord Dunraven believed that pictorial decorations were extensively used within it, "from the traces remaining on the tops.of the semi-circular arches surmounting the tombs, and on the surface of the revealed wall, a few of the patterns and patches of pale green and red being still visible." An old book of travels in Ireland says—"In this stately ruin are some remains of ancient painting yet to be seen, particularly a bishop, with his crozier and mitre, giving his benediction. St. Patrick, St. Brigid, and St. Columba are very conspicuous." 

Another and better example of our preserved but not restored ruin is Mucross, famous because of its dreamlike beauty of the scenery hallowed by the presence of its ancient sanctuary. Standing as it does within echo reach of the bugle call that rings around the Eagle's Nest, within a bird's short flight of the magic shores of Inisfallen, the sweet venerableness of Mucross has been recognised by more human eyes and hearts than have ever found their way into most of our ruined cloisters. Of it an old book tells that "the Festival of St. Francis, the patron saint, is celebrated herein the month of July, upon which occasion the peasantry assemble in great numbers to receive the benediction of their pastors and make their confessions among the tombs and ruined walls of this venerable building nothing can inspire a more sincere feeling of reverence and awe than a glimpse of the reverend minister seated on a tomb, within the dark and gloomy recesses of he abbey, attentively listening or fervently praying over the penitent prostrate at his feet,"

A pendant to this picture is the sketch of the ancient abbey of Askeaton, founded by an Earl of Desmond in 1420 for Friars Minor. Holmes, in his travels in Ireland in the end of last century, describes it as a noble ruin entirely of black marble, in many parts richly ornamented, particularly in the cloisters, the waters of the River Deal rising several feet up to its walls; in the centre of the abbey an aged yew tree surrounded by tombs and broken flags. In this place," says Holmes, "the priest celebrates Mass, unprotected from the inclemency of the weather—a circumstance which denotes either extreme poverty, or, what is stronger, ancient prejudice in favour of this venerated spot; for they frequently walk six or seven miles to this abbey to hear Mass, and go home again. Many parts of the cloisters are exquisitely polished by the accidental friction of the clothes of such as pass to and fro." It may be truly said that these old chroniclers present us with pictures of life which could not be made anywhere out of Ireland. 

Our ruins of this order, preserved and unpreserved, are almost innumerable, impressive alike from their own sacred forlornness and from the pathetic beauty of the landscape surrounding them. Yet another grouping may be made, a very small one unfortunately—that of the ruins of ancient shrines which have been restored and are in use for divine worship by the faithful of the present day. One of these is the White Abbey of the Trinitarians, at Adare, which was given by Lord Dunraven to the Catholics of Adare. He had previously converted the remains of the old Augustinian abbey into a parish church for the Protestants of the same place. The old Trinitarian abbey had been used as a ball-court, and there was a project on foot for fitting it up to be a markethouse. One day the Earl walked into the ruin, and standing gazing up at the venerable tower, he was heard to exclaim—" I will never give it to be a den of thieves!" Immediately afterward he sent for the parish priest (Rev. Fr. Lee, 1811), and the old Trinitarian abbey is now the Catholic Church of Adare. he traditions of the ancient abbey are interesting. The Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives was founded in 1198 by St. John of Martha and St. Felix of Valois, and was sanctioned by Pope Innocent III. Its object was the relief and liberation of the Christian captives who had fallen into the hands of the Mohammedans. The habit is a soutane and scapular of white serge, with a red and blue cross on the right breast. The Irish Trinitarians established themselves at Adare, under the shadow of the princely Greraldines. The Franciscan Father, Bonaventure Baron, himself of the noble family of the Geraldines, writing, in 1686, the "Annals of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives," mentions the blessed Arthur O'Niell as having been the Provincial of his Order in Ireland and Scotland. This O'Niell was the son of the great Irish chieftain, O'Niell, and died a martyr, preaching the faith in Asia in the year 1282. According to an ancient MS., now lost, he belonged to the house of the Order of Adare. 

It is now proposed to restore for purposes of Catholic worship the ancient Abbey of Ballintoher, county Mayo, the only pre-Reformation church in Ireland which has never at any time been forsaken as a place of worship by the people. Fr. Brennan, who has undertaken this worthy work, says:—

"For nearly seven hundred years it has been the only place of worship for the faithful of Ballintoher. Built in 1216 (according to 'Ware's Antiquities' on the site of a church founded seven centuries before by St. Patrick) for the canons regular of St. Augustine, by Cathal O'Connor, King of Connaught, and brother of the last monarch of Ireland, it flourished until the time of Henry VIII., when it shared the fate of the other confiscated abbeys and monasteries of the country. In the last days of the reign of Elizabeth it was completely dismantled. During the Cromwellian campaign 'of the seventeenth century cannon against mediaeval stone masonry' it escaped the attention of the Puritan soldiery, who, fortunately, did not penetrate the beautiful glen in which it is situated, on the northern corner or Lough Carra. Hence its fine architecture still remains perfect. But for the stone groined roof over the chancel, the worshippers have had for the last three hundred years no other roof but the dome of heaven; and in the frosts, snows, and rains of winter they may here be seen kneeling with bared heads, like their forefathers in centuries past. Through wars and persecutions and through penal days they have clung, as the ivy on its ruined walls, to this roofless but beautiful old sanctuary, on whose ancient altar stone the Holy Sacrifice has been offered for nearly seven consecutive centuries." 

A former effort to restore the church was interrupted by the famine. It is proposed to carry out the ancient Irish style of the architecture in effecting its restoration. It will be remembered that this Ballintoher was the ruined abbey in which Beranger, the French artist, on coming to sketch and ruminate among the solitary tombs, was startled to find a brisk scene of daily life being enacted— a schoolmaster holding school among the gravestones, his desk a monument larger than the rest, and the children sitting on broken stones around him, writing and casting accounts with chalk on the dark slate flags, made smooth by the disappearance of long obliterated names and inscriptions. — Dublin Correspondence Weekly Register.

 The Advocate, Saturday, 5 October 1889, p.10

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The Most Important Christmas Custom

We conclude the series on how Mass in the Penal Era in Ireland was presented to an Irish-American audience at Christmas time with a final offering from the Boston-based newspaper The Sacred Heart Review. In 'The Most Important Christmas Custom' the writer examines why the Christmas Midnight Mass was of such importance to the people of Ireland and suggests that it was because people were forced to gather before dawn during the penal era. He then goes on to draw a parallel between Our Lady and Saint Joseph being forced to retire to 'a cavern in the rock' when there was no room at the inn and the Irish people being forced by the penal laws to retire to underground caverns to celebrate the Mass. Thus once again we see it suggested that despite the harsh physical conditions in which the Christmas Mass was celebrated in Ireland at this time, the spiritual quality of the worship was something special:

 

THE MOST IMPORTANT CHRISTMAS CUSTOM.

"Of the Christmas customs of Catholic Ireland in its glory," wrote O. B. M. in the Catholic Columbian, a few years ago, "we have not even the records nor the traditions. All was destroyed. We have but the English records of laws that proscribed them, that intended to destroy the faith itself, and whose authors vainly thought they had succeeded. 

"But the faith survived in Ireland and Christmas in its essence survived with it. The laws of the persecutor aimed at the destruction of all things Catholic; but it singled out for special proscription the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Catholic religion was for the time banished, outlawed. The celebration of the Mass was especially penalised. For 276 years the Mass was proscribed and yet the Mass never ceased to be offered. The people retired to the hillsides, to the glens, and to underground caverns and there often before the dawn assembled around the altar whereon the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered. 

"In those years the Christmas Midnight Mass was, therefore, the great central observance; and it remains so to-day in Ireland as it does not in any other country. Some readers may remember the picture which Carleton in his 'Willy Reilly' draws of a Mass in the penal days celebrated in an underground cavern. How could a Christmas come nearer to the literal repetition of Bethlehem than a Midnight Mass in Ireland under such conditions? The central fact of Christmas is the presence of God the Saviour in the flesh. Here the people had Him present upon the altar. It was to a cavern in the rock that the Blessed Mother and Joseph retired, 'because there was no room for them in the Inn.' Here the Catholic people retired because they were hunted from the towns and even from the face of the earth but they had the Saviour present with them all, visible to the eyes of faith. The shepherds did not see the Godhead but believed the word that was given them from heaven and adored Him present on the Altar. 

"It is not strange, therefore, that in Ireland the early Mass on Christmas day is the great central fact of the celebration. Three hundred years during which it was their only consolation have trained the people to this. In the country districts it is now celebrated not at midnight but in the very early morning. But to the young, especially in this northern latitude, five o'clock on Dec. 25 is equivalent to midnight."

The Sacred Heart Review, Volume 54, Number 26, 11 December 1915.

 

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Mass in the Penal Days

We turn away today from accounts in the popular religious press on the theme of Christmas Mass in Penal Era Ireland to a sermon given by Archbishop John Joseph Glennon (1862–1946), a native of County Westmeath who served as Archbishop of St. Louis from 1903 until his death in 1946. Below is an extract from a 1910 sermon he delivered in Saint Patrick's Church in Montreal during the Eucharistic Congress. Although the Archbishop is not directly addressing the specifically seasonal aspects of Mass at the Penal Rock, nevertheless he alludes to many of the features we associate with it, from the 'sad-visaged' priest to the necessity for lookouts and the potentially dire consequences of discovery. Indeed, it is because both celebrant and congregation are so intently focused on the most solemn part of the liturgy that the authorities are able to close in. I note too that like other commentators Archbishop Glennon favourably compares the natural outdoor setting of Mass in the Penal Days with anything a gilded cathedral had to offer:

Mass in the Penal Days
From Sermon of His Grace, Archbishop Glennon at Montreal.
September 10th, 1910 

Extract from Sermon delivered by His Grace, Archbishop Glennon, of St. Louis, in St. Patrick's Church, Montreal, on September 10th, 1910, during the Eucharistic Congress

"IT is not inopportune that in this Eucharistic Congress, this litany of nations in the praise of their King, that I should speak a word, that I should strike a chord, though it be in a minor key,  for the nation whose apostle is patron of this sacred edifice, and whose exiled sons have made possible its building. I would pass by the days of the schoolmen, and come to those latter days, namely the penal times in Ireland, the long weary years when the Catholic Church was persecuted, when a price was set on every 'Mass priest', when the churches were alienated, desecrated, burned; and the entire country pillaged and its people driven to the mountains or into the sea. And this dread visitation, unlike the storm that passes, unlike the plague that eats its lethal way, not for a season, but for over three hundred years, brooded over the land, its darkness lighted only by the ascending fires of burning homes, or the gleaming swords of the brutal soldiers. It is easy to serve in fair weather: the test of devotion comes when human life is the forfeit. The Irish people stood the test, their land to-day is hallowed by the ashes of a hundred thousand martyrs of the Blessed Sacrament, while the survivors, praying their 'De profundis' for the dead, cling still to the 'Mass priest', and their fealty tried by fire is all the truer to their King. 

It was during the burning days that the 'Mass priest', sad-visaged and hunted, gathered his flock out in the mountain fastness, or in the shaded valleys. Knowing that the enemy was near, outposts were set so as to guard the approach, and give the signal of threatening danger. The candles were lighted, the priest puts on the sacred vestments. It is not a scene to attract the eye of the worldling; there are no marble columns, no tabernacle of gold, no fretted roof, no dim visted aisle, no organ pealing, no glorious chant, no censer swinging. But for people such as these around, love crowns all, love transforms all. For them the censor swings, for, is there not the perfume of the wild flowers that bloom there, of purple heath, of fragment hawthorn; vistas, there are, too, just as nature made them in rich nature's temple, for down the valley are the dim aisles of the forest trees. And for a sacrificial chant, they have the song of birds, and the murmur of their own heart's love, the love of Irish hearts for their faith and their Lord; of all others on this earth that we know of, the tenderest, the truest, the best.

Yet little time have they now to think of those things. The Mass is commenced. The priest has invoked the mercy of God— 'Lord have mercy on us'; he prays for the living and the dead. He reaches the solemn act that brings the Saviour down to His poor people. With bowed heads and reverent, the people murmur words of welcome, satisfied that, though by all the world forgotten, yet will He not forget them.

But why the alarm? Alas, these moments absorbed in worship are taken advantage of; the enemy, the soldiers of the King, are around them. The cry, repeated in the long ago, is heard again, We have no king but Caesar.' 'Down with the Mass'— 'Death to the Mass priest'— it is the tragedy of Calvary again, only to the tragedy is added the desecration. The blood of the Saviour and his priest flow together, and the dying lips of the priest whisper their last words on earth, 'Go, the sacrifice is over.' Quite true it is that the penal days in Ireland have ended long ago, and if the memory of them remain, it is not in bitterness nor revenge. No, they are thinking now, not of their persecutors, but how best they may honor and serve in the days of their religious freedom the King they followed during the long night of their persecution. Now they will restore him to the churches they build, churches to take the place of their older temples, from which He has been driven, and they have been despoiled. They will cross the seas bearing the standard of their King."

 

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The Sweet Christmas Bells

We are staying with the Boston-based newspaper The Sacred Heart Review for yet another illustration of how the image of Mass at Christmas time in Penal Era Ireland was presented to a late nineteenth-century Irish-American audience. The paper's 'Our Irish Letter' column offered its readers a romantic and sentimental vision of the old country where Irish exceptionalism is reflected in the claim that 'nowhere is the festive season more religiously observed than in this Catholic isle' because no other country has suffered quite as much as we have in order to do so. The focus of this 1894 piece, 'The Sweet Christmas Bells', by M.J. Roche, is therefore not so much on the image of the Mass Rock but rather on the history of the persecution that lay behind it. The reader is invited not to weep the penal days but instead to hail the courage, endurance and determination on the part of the Irish people and their heroic priests which allowed the faith to survive. Most interestingly of all is that the article concludes with a roll-call of Irish clerical martyrs which the author imagines being read out 'at many an Irish fireside on Christmas night' recalling a time 'when the history of the Irish struggle was written in the best, the purest, the holiest blood of Ireland':

THE SWEET CHRISTMAS BELLS.

Christmas is again with us, and "Our Irish Letter" of today extends to its thousands of readers the compliments of the season — A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, with many joyous returns. No need to remind our readers that "Our Irish Letter" columns, week after week, year after year, occupy Old Ireland's corner of the Sacred Heart Review. Scarcely a noteworthy incident has transpired in the Old Land since "Our Irish Letter" made its initial bow to our readers that has not been recorded in its columns. It's aim has been to edify and instruct while it faithfully depicts the Irish news, and strives to infuse into the minds of its readers an ardent and undying love for the faith and land of St. Patrick. Ever ready to raise its voice in behalf of Old Grannuale it has never been found wanting to spring to the aid of any patriotic movement. It has done good and enduring work for the Home Rule cause, and that its services are recognized and appreciated may be judged from the fact that it is invariably one of the first to be called upon for assistance when any project for the advancement of the Irish cause is launched forth by the Irish patriots of Massachusetts. But it is not our purpose to dwell upon politics while the merry Christmas bells are ringing forth their glad message of 'Peace on earth and good will towards men.' Accordingly we shift a slide, and, lo, a wondrous transformation is effected and we find ourselves transported by some invisible power to the Old Sod of the Isle of Saints. 

What a happiness it is for us to be privileged to pass Christmas-tide in dear old Ireland, for nowhere is the festive season more religiously observed than in this Catholic isle. Despite the cruel and oppressive laws of tyrants enacted for centuries, religion flourishes there as vigorously today, thank God, as it did before the penal laws. The blood of our forefathers shed copiously in streams for the faith, the sacrifices they were ever ready and willing to make for the sake of religion, have borne good fruit. Ireland's history is the glorious story of heroic and saintly lives, it brings before us the deeds of her devoted and patriotic sons, and depicts the bright picture of her martyrs and confessors and her gifted students. It tells us how they kept alive in dark and dismal caverns and on the mountain tops the torches of science and sanctity. It points out to us the glorious deeds of the Irish priesthood and shows us what they suffered for love of their country and religion. It incites us to purity of life and nobility of action and teaches us to prize and cherish the holy faith handed down to us at the cost of toil and blood and tears. It also teaches us that — 

We must not weep the penal days 

That sanctified our hills and plains; 

We must not shudder when we gaze 

At men that feared not death nor chains; 

In blood and tears 'neath penal laws 

Saint Erin's heart was purified; 

For holy Faith and Freedom's cause, 

Our martyred nation grandly died. 

 

When peaceful bloomed our garden land 

The hermit and the monk arose 

And every vale heard virgin-band 

Sing love of God, at evening's close; 

But when our air with war was red, 

From cells and caves Truth's soldiers came 

And every rock a glory shed, 

Around some Irish martyr's name. 

 

We will not weep the penal days, the days of the ruin of the dear old convents of the Irish Franciscans and Dominicans, when the inmates were driven forth at the point of the sword and scattered like sheep over the land. We will not weep the penal days which sorely tried Ireland's faith and Ireland's religion. Five pounds was set as a price upon the head of the friar or priest —the same price that was set upon the head of a wolf. They were hunted throughout the land, and when they fled for their lives from their convent homes, the Irish people opened their hospitable doors and said, "Come to us, saggarth aroon." Scattered with no shelter but the canopy of heaven; with no Sunday sacrifice to remind the people of God; no Mass celebrated in public and no Gospel preached; and yet they succeeded for three hundred years in preserving the glorious Catholic faith. The venerable ruins of the Irish abbeys and monasteries tell to this day the tale of Ireland's woe, of Ireland's sorrow. The persecution of the Irish friar, the Irish monk, the Irish priest brought sorrow and affliction to everybody in Ireland. There were upwards of eighty convents of religious —Franciscans and Dominicans —in Ireland before the penal days, and about a thousand priests of each order. Henry began his persecution and was succeeded by his daughter Elizabeth and at the close of the latter's reign, how many of the thousand Dominicans were there left in Ireland, do you think? There were a thousand before and only four of them left— only four. And all the rest of these Irish friars had stained their white habits with their hearts' blood shed for God and for their country. It took Queen Bess twenty years to try to plant the seedling of Protestantism on Irish soil. The ground was dug as for a grave, the blood of the nation was poured in to warm the seed and bring it forth. It never grew; it never raised its tiny head above the soil, it never bloomed. Protestantism could not find root on Irish soil and Ireland was as Catholic the day that Bess breathed her last at Hampton Court, gnawing the flesh off her hands in despair, and blaspheming God — Ireland was as Catholic that day as she was the day Henry the Eighth vainly commanded her first to become Protestant. 

With Elizabeth's death came a little breathing time, and in fifty years there were 600 Irish Dominican priests in Ireland again. They studied in Spain, in France and in Italy. These were the youth, the children of Irish fathers and mothers, who cheerfully gave them up, although they knew almost to a certainty that they were giving them to a martyr's death; but they gave them up for God. Smuggled out of Ireland, they studied in these foreign lands; and they came back again by night, and by stealth, and they landed upon the shores of Ireland; and when Cromwell came he found six hundred Irish Dominicans upon the Irish land. Ten years after — only a decade of years had passed — and again the Dominican friars assembled to count their numbers, and to tell how many survived, and how many had fallen. Only one hundred and fifty were left out of the six hundred; four hundred and fifty had perished — had shed their blood for their country or had been shipped to the Barbadoes as slaves. These are the thoughts recurring to us as we tread the soil of holy Ireland at Christmastide. Small wonder then that the Irish people are so proud of their faith. Do not the very moss-grown stones of the Irish ruins speak of their noble martyrs? As we trudge o'er hills and fields to the midnight Mass on Christmas eve, the grey walls of the Dominican and Franciscan monasteries, glistening in the moonlight, remind us how the Irish people gave up everything they had for years and years, as wave after wave of persecution rolled over them, rather than renounce their glorious faith or their glorious priesthood.

At many an Irish fireside on Christmas night is told the story of Dominick Collins, the faithful son of St. Ignatius, taken by the heretics in the fort at Berehaven and hanged by order of the cruel Mountjoy at Cork; of Maurice Eustace, young, generous and brave, executed at Dublin on pretense of treason against Elizabeth; of Father James Boyton, slain by the followers of Inchiequin at the sieege of Cashel of the Kings, while he administered the Sacrament to the dying defenders of the Holy Rock — Collins, Eustace, Boyton — these and hundreds of others of their order remind us of what the Jesuits did and suffered for Ireland in the penal days. The fate of Thaddeus O'Connell recalls the heroism of the Augustinians; Mulcahy of Clonmel, O'Kelly of Connaught, Fitzpatrick of Ossory vividly recall the patriotism and self-sacrifice of the secular clergy. The members of religious orders and the secular clergy were faithful to Ireland and freely poured out their blood for the cause of religion and freedom, and the Irish people suffered and fought and died like true martyrs, but faithful above all were the noble prelates of the Irish Church. Bishop after bishop, archbishop after archbishop in all the sees of Ireland died gloriously for the faith and the liberty of the Church of St Patrick. And it is to this old Catholic land that "Our Irish Letter" is devoted, to this old Catholic land it has taken its readers in spirit to the midnight Mass in the Irish chapel, to the Irish firesides where the turf blazes so brightly, and the joyous greeting of "God save all here" is heard every time a new-comer crosses the threshold to listen to the glorious tales of Irish faith and patriotism when the history of the Irish struggle was written in the best, the purest, the holiest blood of Ireland. 

M. J. Roche.

The Sacred Heart Review, Volume 13, Number 5, 22 December 1894.

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The Midnight Mass: A Christmas Incident of the Penal Days in Ireland

Yesterday we looked at the nineteenth-century lithograph 'A Christmas Mass in the Penal Days - The Alarm! containing all of the iconic elements of the people huddled together in the snow while the lookouts rush to warn the priest to flee from the approaching soldiers. Over the next few days we will look at some further examples of how this symbol of the Penal era appeared in the popular religious press, especially that aimed at Irish expatriate communities. We begin with a piece by the Irish-American poet Denis Aloysius McCarthy (1871-1931), who was based in Boston and a regular contributor to its Sacred Heart Review.  The Irish saints and martyrs were a favourite subject of McCarthy's poems, selections from which were often quoted by other writers in an age which enjoyed epic poetry.  In the article below, published in the December 25, 1897, edition of the Sacred Heart Review,  the writer begins with a poem telling of a hunted priest battling the winter wind and trying to evade the authorities to reach his lonely altar beneath the hill. Alas, in this case the warning to flee comes too late and the unfortunate soggarth will say the Midnight Mass no more. It is interesting to see that the poet suggests that despite the makeshift outdoor setting, the quality of the worship at the Mass Rock surpasses anything found at a cathedral. He then goes on to offer a sentimental reflection on what it is to be away from the old country at this time of the year. He seems keen to point out though that such nostalgia is not a denial of all the benefits which America has to offer and stresses the loyalty of the Irish to its banner of liberty. Indeed, McCarthy dedicated his 1906 anthology Voices from Erin 'To all who in their love for the new land have not forgotten the old':

 THE MIDNIGHT MASS.

A CHRISTMAS INCIDENT OF THE PENAL DAYS IN IRELAND.

BY D. A. MCCARTHY.

With stealthy step across the wold 

The hunted soggarth swiftly goes; 

The winter wind is blowing cold 

And round him drives the winter snows; 

But little does he heed the wind, 

The blinding snow, the dark morass; 

With many an anxious glance behind 

He goes to say the midnight Mass! 

 

For hours, with many a devious turn. 

He's led the chase by moor and fen. 

He's seen the village tapers burn, 

But dare not seek the haunts of men, 

For close upon his track have pressed, 

(His holy Faith the only cause) 

With horrid oath and ruffian jest, 

The minions of the Penal Laws. 

 

And woe to him, should evil hap 

Into their hands the priest betray; 

The raven o'er his corse should flap 

Her sable wings before the day! 

But fainter now have grown their cries, 

Their shots more distant than before, 

And hopes within his heart arise 

That he has baffled them once more! 

 

Ah, vain the hope of baffled foes! — 

A few more crafty than the rest 

Still dog his steps as on he goes, 

Still keep the chase with eager zest; 

But, all unconscious, fares he still 

By tangled wood and torrent dread 

To where, beneath a lonely hill, 

The Mass in secret may be said. 

 

"Oh, failte! failtel" —round him throng 

The remnant of his scattered flock, 

And Mass with neither chant nor song

 Is offered from a fallen rock; 

And never at cathedral shrine 

Were purer spirits wrapt in prayer

Than those who worshiped the Divine 

Before that lonely altar there. 

 

But, hark! The rite is scarcely done 

When rings a cry upon the breeze; 

"Up, Father — for your life — and run!" 

The soggarth rises from his knees— 

Too late! One muttered prayer to God, — 

A volley shakes the mountain-pass,— 

The priest lies dead upon the sod 

He'll say no more the midnight Mass! 

At Christmas time all hearts turn homeward. The present is forgotten, the future ceases to allure, and the past is before us again in all its brightest lights and tenderest shadows. We forget the long, dreary years of separation, the vicissitudes of time, the strange scenes and faces with which we have become familiar during many a day of exile; and, once more, the old home, the family circle, unbroken yet by absence, the loving faces of parents and of brothers and sisters, are presented to our gaze; and few indeed are the hearts that do not beat faster, and few are the eyes that are not dimmed with tears at the memory of old times. 

To the Irish exile, particularly, this season of Christmas is one of remembrances that are composed of mingled joy and sorrow. For Christmas in Ireland, as in no other country, is a day sacred to family life and love. It would seem, indeed, as if upon that land, ever faithful to the Church through ages of persecution,the Holy Family had showered the richest spiritual blessings, for the affection that obtains in pious Irish households among the various members of the family is akin to that love which bound together the three principal actors in the great mysterious drama at Bethlehem. It is therefore only natural that the thoughts of the Irish exile turn back to the old scenes that he may never again see in reality, and to the old friends whose hands he may clasp again only In dreams and "tears of memory," shed at Christmas time over the past are evidence of the deep and holy feeling for home which God has implanted in the hearts of the Irish people. 

The new country, with all its broadening influences, with its atmosphere of freedom, and the possibilities of material advancement that it affords, is very dear to the sons of the Green Isle who have sought and found shelter from oppression and bitter poverty beneath its starry flag. They have increased and multiplied. Their blood courses in the veins of the best and bravest of the citizens of the great republic. In peace they have tilled the fertile lands, and reared upon the boundless prairies the homes that were denied them in the land of their birth; and in war they have been the to grapple with the foes of their adopted country, shedding their blood freely in defense of a banner that is to them the symbol of liberty for themselves, and hope for the old land over the water. 

But the hearts go backward across the leagues of the Atlantic and the years of absence, to their motherland at Christmas. They hear Mass again in the little chapel. They see the gray-haired priest at the altar. They listen to the Christmas hymn of the humble village choir, than which the grandest cathedral chorus is, to them, not more solemn and inspiring. And around them are the friends of their youth, unchanged. 

Of course it is only a dream. But who can say that this return to old times does not make the hearts of the exiles better and braver, bringing them, through home ties, more close to the Babe of Bethlehem, in Whose cause their fathers bore persecution unflinchingly, and strengthening them against the enemies of their race and creed, who would rob them of their love for faith and fatherland. 

D. A. McC.

The Sacred Heart Review, Volume 18, Number 26, 25 December 1897.

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A Christmas Mass in the Penal Days

 

If there is one iconic image which can be said to encapsulate the Irish Catholic experience in the Penal era, then surely it must be that of the people gathering at a Mass Rock while lookouts keep watch for the authorities. The one above is called  'A Christmas Mass in the Penal Days - The Alarm! ' by Dublin cartoonist and illustrator John Dooley Reigh (1851-1914) and was first issued as a supplement to the December 20 issue of the newspaper United Ireland in 1884. [1] This late nineteenth-century lithograph has had a deep and long-lasting influence on the Irish Catholic imagination, and framed copies of it can still be found in Irish homes. In the article below, published almost thirty years later for an Irish-American audience, it is clear that the image has already resonated as a symbol of endurance and unbreakable commitment to their faith on the part of the Irish people.  Indeed, 'Midnight Mass in the Penal Days' became a staple among the articles in the popular religious press at this time of the year. One assumes that a picture of an open-air Mass on a balmy summer evening would not have achieved the same impact as this snow-covered setting.  The anonymous writer of the short piece in The Sacred Heart Review below certainly enters into the scene and almost imagines himself present as 'the bitter winter wind drives the cold sleet before it in stinging gusts' and 'the worshipers shiver in the rush of the pitiless blast'. Yet it is the willingness of the Irish people to endure these hardships in order to attend the Mass which is the reason why the faith survived and which leads the writer to conclude that there is a lesson here for us all:

MASS AND THE FAITH.

When people begin to lose reverence for the Mass, they soon begin to lose their faith altogether. Be faithful to the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament, we repeat, and you will infallibly save your soul. If you are cold and distant and careless toward these essential things you are surely on the broad road that leads to destruction. Why was it that Ireland got the wondrous privilege of preserving the Faith through so many long and blood-stained centuries? asks the Catholic Register and Canadian Extension. It was because of the devotion of her people to the most holy sacrifice. It is a cold heart that does not thrill at the heroic apostolic piety and zeal suggested by the picture of the "Midnight Mass in the Penal Days." Under a protecting bush, in the shelter of a rock, or in a cave in the hillside, are gathered the faithful few. The bitter winter wind drives the cold sleet before it in stinging gusts. The priest is at the rude altar, which is nothing more than a rockhewn shelf. The worshipers, close about him, shiver in the rush of the pitiless blast. On the outer hills and peaks, occupying posts of observation, are the sentinels. They are listening for the tramp of armed men, and watching for the deadly glint of bayonets in the chill white moonlight. For the "priest hunter," with his murderous and blasphemous crew, is abroad, and only the mercy of God can protect his prey. The tinkle of a little bell is heard, and every head is bowed, while on the wings of the night is borne the whispered welcome of Him Who has come down into their midst to comfort them: "Cead mile failte!"— " A hundred thousands welcomes, O Christ, the Son of the Living God!" Never in the history of men did the world witness anything more touching, more devoted, more sublime, than the faith and love of the Irish peasant and his priest for the mystery of the most holy sacrifice of the Mass, that merited for Ireland her perseverance in the true faith; and it is devotion to the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament that will merit the same glorious and priceless gift for ourselves. Let us be wise in good time and take the lesson to heart.

 
The Sacred Heart Review, Volume 49, Number 21, 10 May 1913.

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 [1] M. O'Sullivan and L. Downey, 'Mass Rocks', Archaeology Ireland (Spring 2014), p.26

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The De Profundis and the Irish Martyrs

On November 15, 1960 a decision taken by the Irish bishops at the Synod of Maynooth held four years earlier came into effect. It abolished the recitation of the De Profundis (Psalm 129) after the Mass, a liturgical practice peculiar to Ireland. A report of the decision appeared in the American Catholic paper The Catholic Standard and Times the following month: 

Irish Bishops Abolish De Profundis at Mass

DUBLIN (NC). —A custom dating from Ireland's penal times of reciting the De Profundis for the dead after Mass has been discontinued by order of the Irish Bishops.  The custom is believed to have been introduced during the 17th-century persecution of the Church by Ireland’s English rulers. Its original purpose was to pray for the souls of those who died under the harsh anti-Catholic laws of that period. Recitation after Mass of the De Profundis, the 129th psalm, was peculiar to Ireland. The Bishops decided to abolish the custom in 1956 at the Synod of Maynooth. Decrees resulting from the synod were approved by the Holy See, and went into effect on November 15. Church authorities emphasized that the omission of the De Profundis after Mass does not imply that Catholics should pray less for the dead. The intention of the Bishops was to focus the thoughts of Catholics at Mass on its central idea as a sacrifice.

The Catholic Standard and Times, Volume 66, Number 13, 16 December 1960. 

To learn more of the history of this custom I turned to the work of Father Sylvester Malone (1822–1906), a prolific contributor to the Irish Ecclesiastical Record and other nineteenth-century journals. He traced the liturgical use of the De Profundis in one of his books on Irish Church history noting that, as part of the financial arrangements with the Crown in the medieval abbey of Saint Thomas in Dublin, 'the chapter house, over and above what it was bound to, by its order, was under an obligation of saying, especially on All Souls Day, a De Profundis for the souls of the king, his ancestors, the aldermen, and of the citizens of Dublin'. He goes on to say

And here it is worth while to inquire whence the origin of the De Profundis after Mass, and so peculiar to Ireland. Various reasons are assigned for its use;  but I consider it took its rise from a desire to compensate for the loss of the divine offices for departed benefactors. Prayers in the office were not confined to Ireland. Cardinal Bona assures us that when the number of benefactors became large in every well-regulated community, instead of calling out the names of all benefactors the chanting of the De Profundis, with a suitable prayer, had been substituted. There had been an obligation of making a commemoration in the offices for a stated period or for ever. Hence, on their interruption, that most touching of the prayers for the dead was substituted.  Not, indeed, that there had been a strict obligation to do so. Besides the psalm De Profundis touchingly expressed the helpless state in which the Irish Church was placed by penal laws, and continued a protest against the false religion of the so-called Reformers. What wonder, then, that this prayer, warranted by many reasons during the days of persecution, should continue to the present day after Mass, when we find it in use in the early and middle ages even in Ireland. The Irish Church, so tenacious of ancient customs—its chorepiscopi, acolytes, exorcists, readers, its liturgies—what little reason for marvel that it retained its De Profundis called for by charity if not justice.

Another reason why the psalm in question may be looked on as a commutation for the offices is that it is affected by the same causes, and almost in the same way as the offices. The De Profundis is not said, I believe, at least generally after High Mass or solemn Mass for the dead. Well, even when religious orders were bound by vow to say the psalm De Profundis daily, they were inhibited from doing so on All Souls Day, and on the day of the death and burial. And this happened even though there had been a bequest left for the purpose of saying a De Profundis daily. Again, the nuns of the Monastery of Chagas by a decision of July, 1741, were allowed to chant the Responsory for the dead unless on the most solemn festivals, and even on these to recite it privately in choir, lest the pious disposition of testators should be frustrated. Gardelini also informs us (n. 4687) that there had been an immemorial custom in the Church of Milan, of repeating the 129th psalm (De Profundis) with a suitable prayer after the divine offices for the souls in purgatory, especially those of all benefactors. All this leaves no reasonable doubt that the De Profundis was intended in charity or justice as a compensation for the divine offices interrupted by persecution.

Rev. Sylvester Malone, Church History of Ireland in Two Volumes, Vol. II, 3rd edition, (Dublin, 1880), 219-222.

Interestingly, in an obituary for his father who died in 1997, contemporary Irish composer Patrick Cassidy recorded that his father had suggested using the De Profundis as a final chorus in a work on the Famine which he was struggling to complete. He went on to say:

My father strongly suspected that the Irish pre-Vatican II practice of the celebrant saying the De Profundis after every Low Mass may have had its origins during the Famine. Further research revealed that the practice was, in fact, more ancient. After he and my mother, Kathleen, contacted Archdeacon Cathal McCarthy, they discovered that "the most likely" and "most popular hypothesis" is that the De Profundis "was meant to be part, or really token, of various endowment Masses which, because of the outlawing of the Mass under the Penal Laws could not be said with any assurance."

 It would seem therefore that although the origins of the practice of praying the De Profundis lay in the medieval obligation to honour those benefactors who had endowed religious foundations, it later became linked with the memory of all those who had died during the Penal era, when the Mass itself was placed under restriction and death had to be faced without the comfort of a priest to minister to the dying. In hindsight it is perhaps remarkable that this practice survived in Ireland right up to the middle of the twentieth century.

 

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Mass in Ireland in the Penal Times

During the month of December I plan to explore the theme of 'Mass in the Penal Times', for although we will be celebrating the bicentenary of Catholic Emancipation in 2029, the era of persecution which began at the end of the seventeenth century continues to resonate in the Irish Catholic psyche, evoking an image of Mass rocks, hunted priests and heroic resistance by laypeople prepared to risk everything that their faith might survive. I hope to explore some of the realities behind this romantic imagery, but we will begin with an historical overview of the subject by Father Ambrose Coleman, O.P. The writer was born in England to Irish parents in 1858 and entered the Dominican Order in 1874.  He was a regular contributor to the religious press and produced a number of books including a translation of Father John O'Heyne's 1706 work The Irish Dominicans of the Seventeenth Century. Father Coleman delivered the paper below to the 20th International Eucharistic Congress held in Cologne in August, 1909 and there are some interesting specific cases contained within it. There is the former Bishop of Raphoe who died in 1861, for example, who recalled that as a child he had acted as a lookout for priest hunters while Mass was taking place in the open-air. Then there is 'the Ark of Carrigaholt', a structure on wheels shaped like a Victorian bathing hut, which ingeniously circumvented the opposition of Protestant landlords to the holding of the Mass for the tenants on their estates in West Clare in the 1850s. If nothing else, Father Coleman's paper makes it clear that there is more to Mass in the Penal Times than simply Mass Rocks and priest hunters as he covers a range of places and circumstances in which the Mass was held, some of which even survived long after the repeal of the penal legislation:

MASS IN IRELAND IN THE PENAL TIMES.

BY THE REV. AMBROSE COLEMAN, O. P.

[The following description of the dangers and difficulties under which Mass was celebrated in Ireland in the Penal Days, was one of the papers read at the recent Eucharistic Congress in Cologne.]

It is a remarkable historical fact that for two hundred and twenty-two years the holy sacrifice of the Mass was forbidden by law in Ireland, and it is an equally remarkable fact that during that long period of persecution the holy sacrifice never ceased to be offered up in every part of the land. No other country in the world can point to such a glorious record. In other countries, it is true, penal legislation against the Mass existed for an equally long period, but with the important difference that in some of them, such as Norway and Sweden, the faith was completely stamped out of the people after two or three generations, and in others, such as England, only a remnant of the people remained Catholic to the end; whereas the Irish people were just as Catholic to the end of the period as they were at the beginning, patiently bearing all the disabilities incurred by reason of their religion, a nation enslaved at the hands of a handful of bigoted Protestants, who possessed all power, influence, and wealth. In 1781, when the Penal Code first began to be relaxed, the whole population of Ireland, then estimated at two and three-quarter millions, was Catholic, with the exception of English, Scotch, and Continental Protestant settlers; while in England, at the same date, out of a population of six millions, there were only about sixty thousand Catholics, some thousands of whom were Irish immigrants. England for the two centuries previous had been a Protestant nation; Ireland had remained as it remains to the present day a nation of Catholics. 

First Efforts to Protestantize Ireland. 

The first endeavor to plant Protestantism into Ireland was made in the reign of Edward VI under the euphemism of introducing the English Liturgy. That this meant the banning of the Mass was clearly seen by the then Catholic Primate, George Dowdall, who made a vigorous stand for some time for the true faith, and then left the country in disgust, saying that he " Wolde never be bushope where th'olie masse was abolished." The attempt was an utter failure, and on Queen Mary ascending the throne shortly afterwards the old religion was restored. It is to Queen Elizabeth that we must attribute the introduction of Protestantism in a permanent form into Ireland. In 1559 the Act of Uniformity was passed, or supposed to have been passed, in a packed Parliament in Dublin. By this Act, the Book of Common Prayer was made obligatory on all the clergy and people, and all "Popish rites and superstitions," meaning, of course the holy sacrifice of the Mass, were forbidden by law. The Act remained in force in Ireland, with the exception of the short reign of James II till 1781 - that is, for a period of two hundred and twenty-two years.  

"Mass Houses" in Elizabeth's reign. 

The immediate effect of the Act was to drive the Bishops and priests out of all the churches of the country, except in the remote parts, where Elizabeth's power was not felt. Their places were taken by a crowd of horse-boys, laborers, shoemakers, and others, many of whom could not even read, who acted as nominal ministers, and were supposed to perform divine service. The clergy, seeing the people deprived at one stroke of all their places of worship, were forced to begin the practise of saying Mass in private houses, and of converting barns, stables, and ordinary cottages into chapels. These were known in Elizabeth's time, and down almost to our own days by the name of "Mass-houses," and the priests are referred to in the State papers as ''massing-priests." 

 Persecution in the Reign of James I. 

On the death of Elizabeth the Catholics were filled with the hope that they should enjoy toleration under her successor —James I, son of the saintly Mary Queen of Scots. And so they took possession of many of the churches that remained, and began to say Mass in them. This did not escape the vigilant eye of the Lord President of Munster. Writing from Waterford, he says:— "Masses infinite they have in their several churches every morning without any fear. I have spied them, for I chanced to arrive last Sunday, at five o'clock in the morning, and saw them resort out of their churches by heaps." The hopes of the Catholics were doomed to disappointment, and a most vigorous persecution followed for the next few years. Some years later a proclamation was issued against the clergy, the Lord Deputy intimating that the "late intermission of legal proceedings against them has bred such an extraordinary insolence and presumption in them that he was necessitated to charge and command them in his Majesty's name to forbear the exercise of their Popish rites and ceremonies." The Lord Deputy complains in a letter to Primate Ussher, that this proclamation was ill observed. 

The Iron Days Of Cromwell. 

During the terrible Cromwellian regime, when three-fourths of the country was parcelled out among the English soldiers and adventurers, and the great bulk of the people were driven into Connacht, the poor Catholics never showed greater constancy in their religion. Even in that awful period they heard Mass on every opportunity that offered. A letter from a Capuchin Father, who visited several of his brethren at that time, throws a remarkable light on the situation. A pathetic instance of the hardships borne by the priests at the time is that of an old Dominican Father, who during the Cromwellian period, had to hire himself out to one of the English planters as a shepherd. Exposed in this occupation to all the vicissitudes of the weather, he completely lost his sight, and then attired as a common beggar, with a wallet on his back, and led by a little boy, the poor old man, reverenced as a messenger from God, made his way from house to house, spending the last days of his life hearing the confessions of the people and consoling them in their afflictions.

A Rift in the Clouds. 

Not until 1782 was the Act of Uniformity, the principal weapon all along in the hands of the Persecutors, virtually repealed by an Act of Parliament (21-22 George III) by which priests, on taking the oath of allegiance, and registering their names, ages, and places of abode, were allowed to exercise their priestly office without being subject to the penalties of previous years. But the Act restricted them "from officiating in any church or chapel with a steeple or bell, or at any funeral in a church or churchyard, or from exercising any of the rites or ceremonies of the Popish religion, or wearing the habits of their order, save within their usual places of worship or in private houses, or from using any symbol or mark of ecclesiastical dignity or authority." The immediate effect of the Act was the building of churches and chapels without steeples or bells, in more open places than formerly, most of which have long since disappeared to make way for the noble ecclesiastical structures we see everywhere around us in Ireland. 

Intolerance of Bigoted Landlords.

But it must not be thought that by the passing of this Act of Parliament all the difficulties consequent on Catholic worship were at an end. The bigoted and intolerant Protestant landlords, who possessed practically all the land in the country, could not be induced, in numberless instances, to grant sites for Catholic churches and chapels, and very often in the lease given to Catholic tenants there was a clause against the sub-letting of any land for the purpose of building any Catholic place of worship or a Catholic school. Again, in the Protestant part of the North, which had just seen the formation of the aggressive Orange Society, based on deadly hatred of everything Catholic, it was impossible to build even a humble chapel for fear of its being wrecked or set on fire. The Most Rev. Patrick M'Gettigan, who died Bishop of Raphoe in 1861, used to relate that in his childhood he was often placed on the summit of a high rock to signal the approach of the priest-hunters, whilst in an adjoining hollow the parishioners were assembled around the temporary altar on which the Holy Sacrifice was offered up. As he advanced in years he became one of the acolytes whose duty it was to hold the candles in their hands, and prevent them from being blown out by the wind, for there were no candlesticks on the open-air altars of those days. As another instance, coming home to ourselves, I may refer to the case of my own maternal grandmother, who, when a child, had to hear Mass every Sunday and festival in a field in all weathers with the rest of the parishioners, while a priest said Mass in a hut in front, the people having to endure this hardship because no landlord would give a site for a chapel. This parish, I am glad to add, possesses at the present day one of the finest parish churches in Ireland. 

The Ark of Carrigaholt. 

To give another instance: I am well acquainted with a gentleman, a prominent merchant of the South of Ireland, who as a boy used to serve Mass regularly in what was known as the "Ark of Carrigaholt." This was a structure, built as a traveling van on wheels, with large glass windows all round, through which the priest and altar could easily be seen. It was devised as the only possible means of enabling the people of the parish of Carrigaholt to hear Mass. The local landlords were so bigoted that none of them would allow a chapel to be built on their lands, and prosecuted and evicted tenants who allowed Mass to be said even in a temporary shelter for the priest. The van was forbidden to enter any of the lands occupied by the tenants: hence the only place where the people, comprising several thousands, could hear Mass was at the cross-roads, the Ark being placed at the junction of the roads, and the people kneeling in four distinct groups along the four roads.

The present illustrious Archbishop of Sydney, his Eminence Cardinal Moran, devoted several years both in Ireland and in Australia to embody in his historical writings the living traditions that linger round these humble monuments of Penal days. No other historian has done half so much as he has to illustrate the ecclesiastical history of the times of persecution. 

Only Mud Huts Tolerated. 

In 1731 an order was issued by the Privy Council in Dublin to all the Protestant Bishops to send in an account of all the Mass-houses and Popish schools in their diocese, and the number of priests and friars officiating therein. Very detailed reports, from which we can gather a mass of interesting information, were sent in by them, and are to be found in the Irish Record Office, Dublin. Only mud huts were tolerated as places of worship, and where, owing to the rancor and aggressiveness of local magistrates, these were thrown down, the people had to betake themselves once more to the rock altars and the fields. 

A virulent persecution arose in 1744, owing to the invasion of Scotland by Prince Charles Stuart. Many priests were thrown into prison: others fled to Dublin, and Mass had to be celebrated once more in holes and corners. This state of things lasted for nearly a year, when a disastrous accident touched the heart of the Lord Lieutenant and moved him to allow the quasi-public celebration of Mass once more. The accident, which resulted in the death of a priest and nine other people, came from the giving way of the floor of a garret in Dublin, where the people had assembled secretly to hear Mass. 

Owing to the enormous increase of the population during the first part of the last century, and their abject poverty, the small chapels were able to contain only a small proportion of those who came to hear Mass. Montalembert, the illustrious French Catholic writer, who visited Ireland in 1729, vividly described the profound impression made on him by the devotion of the people at Mass regardless of the weather. Five years after Montalembert's visit, a public meeting of the Catholics of the Diocese of Killala sent a petition to the House of Commons, setting forth, amongst other things, that "in this diocese alone upwards of 30,000 souls are obliged on every Sunday to hear Mass under the canopy of Heaven." 

A Relic of the Past. 

A relic of the penal times are the Stations which are still held regularly in the houses of the people in some of the dioceses of Ireland. I once took part in one myself with the parish priest. At an early hour we made our way to the house, a poor cottage of two rooms, preceded by the clerk, carrying the altar requisites. We there found several of the neighbors already waiting for confession. The kitchen table was turned into an altar, and the parish priest and I were soon seated on chairs hearing the confessions of all who presented themselves. Then each of us said Mass in turn and gave Holy Communion. When the religious function was over the people came up one and one and made their half-yearly offering. Devout people of other lands might fear that these sordid surroundings might lead to a lack of reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, but such is by no means the case, and I can bear witness that I never came across a more devout congregation. Many priests have to spend three or four months of the year holding Stations from house to house in their parishes. 

Irish Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. 

One other instance of the piety of the people at Mass in the real Irish parts of the country and I have done. I was once saying Mass in one of the islands off the West coast when, at the Elevation, there was a general murmur among the congregation. Having been always used to profound silence at that solemn moment I was at a loss to account for it, but learnt afterwards that it was the custom of the people to welcome aloud the coming of Our Lord in their midst, using the old Irish greeting— Ceud mile failte, "A hundred thousand welcomes." The devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, so remarkable in Penal times, is not less so at the present day. The churches are all crowded on Sundays, and the absentees are few and far between. Would that that could be said of other Catholic countries. 

The Irish as Church Builders and Maintainers.

 "Another lesson learned in Penal times was that of supporting the needs of religion. At present the generosity of the Irish in supporting their priests, in building churches, in keeping up charitable institutions, is proverbial, not only as regards Ireland itself, but every country in which our people have set foot. It is the pence of the Irish poor that have built up most of the churches in England. It is the Irish emigrants that have built three-fourths of the churches in the United States, and all the churches in Australia and South Africa. Who could think that the down-trodden peasants—who worshiped for centuries in fear and trembling around the rock altars and in front of the mud-walled Mass-houses —could ever rise to take such a glorious part in the spreading of the Gospel through the world as they have done in the past century? Truly the ways of God are wonderful!

The Sacred Heart Review, Volume 42, Number 14, 25 September 1909, pp. 8-9.

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