My interest in history started in the Boys’ National School on the Glen Road in Ballycastle where my father, God rest him, opened up the pages of Irish history and I got my first childish glimpse of how important the past is if we want to understand the present.
I’d have to say that when I went to the college in Ballina, my interest in history didn’t develop much because history, then was just a half subject for the Inter Cert and, in the college at the time, it wasn’t on the Leaving Cert at all. But luckily when I went to Maynooth 50 years ago this September, I discovered that you didn’t have to have history in the Leaving to study it for the degree . . .
Luckily too Tomás Ó Fiaich, later Cardinal, was then Professor of Modern History, and it was a joy studying under him.
I remember doing my history thesis on Bishop Dominick Bellew who was bishop of Killala from 1780 to 1813 and, almost half a century later, I was able to use some of my research in Tracing the Stem, Killala Bishops.
Since Maynooth I’ve retained and developed my interest in history, especially Church history and especially Killala diocesan history, but it’s only in the last 20 years or so that I’ve given it my proper attention.
It has become for me the compelling interest of my life and when Bishop John asked me a few years ago to go to Moygownagh and appointed me diocesan historian all my Christmases came together.
I’ve really enjoyed getting into print the fruits of my research over many years.
Sometimes people imagine that after I have a book published I start researching and writing another book and wonder how I can get so much together so quickly.
Fr. Paddy Hegarty, God be good to him, used to joke with me saying that I was writing books faster than he was able to read them but the truth is that most of the research that went in to the 3 volumes of Readings in Killala Diocesan history had been completed for years.
I also had the writings and the archives of Monsignor Edward MacHale as a background and foundation and in dedicating this book to him I’m acknowledging not just how helpful his research has been to me but the huge contribution he has made to Killala diocesan history.
I’m delighted that two of his nieces, Kit MacHale and Sr Mary MacHale, are here today.
I want to acknowledge too how helpful has been the research of Bishop Thomas McDonnell. I depended on it greatly for my book on Killala Bishops. Bishop McDonnell was very proud of Killala diocese and had a great interest in its history and he was a great believer too in the maxim that the first responsibility of the historian is to tell the truth.
While he could be very defensive about the Church he believed that history is history and that the truth should be told, no matter how difficult that truth might be . . . I think he was right in that, as the cliche has it, if we don’t learn from the past, we condemn ourselves to repeating our mistakes.
That much said my words this evening will be confined to saying Thanks to the many people who have helped me in writing the history of the diocese.
I have to start with thanking God because as most of you know I’ve had health problems over the last few years and there were times when I wondered if I would be able to keep going, so I’m grateful to God for the health of mind and body I’ve been blessed with . . . We never miss the water until the well runs dry.
I want to thank Bishop John Fleming for launching the book this evening but more importantly for his interest in and support for my work as diocesan historian.
I appreciate very much his active participation in this project and his commitment to it and the commitment of the diocese to it as well. Without all that it just wouldn’t have happened.
I want to thank my fellow clergy too for their help, support and patience. Putting this volume together was a bit like doing a huge jig-saw, knowing that many of the pieces would never be found . . . and yet slivers of information can start a search that can end up very productively or up a blind alley so I thank my fellow-priests for putting up with my impatience and my harassment over the last number of years as I scurried for information.
I want to thank my good friend Kevin Hegarty for his (kind) words and also for his help over the years . . . Whenever I’m in any doubt about diocesan history Kevin is my first port of call and I’ve long depended on his wealth of knowledge and if he hasn’t the answer to the question he invariably knows where it can be found . . .
I want to thank Sr. Nancy Clarke for her help with the listing of religious sisters . . . it was something of a nightmare trying to compile it and without Nancy’s help, I have to admit but it would have been jettisoned, long ago . . . I’ve no doubt that we didn’t locate everyone but if we didn’t it wasn’t Nancy’s fault! (It was handy to have two people compiling the list because if anyone has been left out – and I’m sure they have – I can blame Nancy and Nancy can blame me!)
I want to thank Canon David Crooks of the Church of Ireland for permission to use the listings of Church of Ireland clergy and members of the Presbyterian and Methodist churches for their help.
I want to thank Padraig Corcoran for the design and the printing, and for his expertise in handling all the technical side of the production. We’ve worked together for a long time now and I have come to value very much his support and his friendship over the years as well as the many cups of tea Geraldine made for us at all hours.
My thanks too to Fr. Michael Gilroy for organising this launch on behalf of the diocese, and for the time and effort he has put into it. I appreciate it very much.
Finally I want to thank my family and my friends for their support, their care and their love in so many different ways over so many years.
Let me end with this thought.
50 years ago this September I went to Maynooth and in many ways it’s been a roller-coaster time . . . in many ways too it’s been quite unbelievable.
What a lucky generation we’ve been to have lived through such a vibrant and exciting time for our country, for our world and for our Church.
Yes, there have been problems, and I don’t want to brush them aside, but remembering where we’ve come from, who would have believed where we’ve got to?
Michael Munnelly was born in Knockmoyle in Moygownagh parish in 1816 200 years ago this year and he was ordained in Maynooth in 1848. He was appointed as a curate in Kilmore Erris when the Famine was at its height. People were dying in hundreds around him, most of them living in one-roomed cabins with no chimney and no window . . .and Munnelly later told how he went around from cabin to cabin, ministering to people who were dying of starvation, many of whom had the fever . . . Munnelly wondered afterwards how he had escaped the cholera . . . The Mullet and Killala diocese and Ireland are light years away from those days . . . and when we talk about the trials of austerity (and it’s right that we should) we often have no idea of where we came from . . . (Incidentally Michael Munnelly’s great-great-great grandniece Betty Jackson is here this evening).
Just another example.
John Rowland was born in Ballycastle in 1903. He went to the college in Ballina and then emigrated to America where he was ordained for Rockford diocese, Illinois. He left the priesthood, after a few years. A brilliant student, he won a scholarship to the Sorbonne in Paris where he was conferred with a doctorate in physics; he taught for a time in Notre Dame university; he was employed in a senior capacity by the Ford Motor Company; he was a test pilot in the Second World War. What a loss he was to the Church; what a loss he was to Ireland. His grandniece, Cora Talbot, is here this evening.
I mention the stories of Michael Munnelly and John Rowland because they help to give us a sense of perspective, on the Catholic Church, on our country and on our diocese.
Perspective yes, but gratitude too. Gratitude for all the priests of this diocese, different characters, different individuals, different talents but with one thing in common: they faced the rising sun with faith and hope and love and whatever their failings or limitations, their hearts were in the right place: and I’d like to think that this book in some ways is a tribute not just to the 1115 priests in this dictionary but to the thousands of others whose names and stories have disappeared into the mists of history.
Bishop Tommy McDonnell used to say that we know more about priests in the past who were trouble-makers than we do about those who quietly went about their work serving the people.
This book is a tribute to them all, the trouble-makers, who are remembered and the dutiful whose names have disappeared from the record.
I feel both proud and humbled to be numbered among them.
Thank you.