In June 1841, the following account of alleged priestly intolerance on Arran, appeared in the Protestant newspaper, The Statesman and Dublin Christian Record. It gives an account of how the islands were under the complete dominance of the local Roman Catholic priests. At the time there was no permanent Protestant clergyman stationed there and work on the new Episcopalian church in Cill Rónáin would not start until 1845, with completion in 1846 Here is the unsigned report about a letter by D Foley.
Popery in Arran.
The Statesman and Dublin Christian Record.
June 8, 1841.
Arran persecution.
The struggle between truth and error we do really believe is on the increase in Ireland and its petty dependencies and when it rises to its height, we know on which side victory must desend.
The letter of D Foley, a missionary on ARRAN ISLAND dated of the 31st instance and published in the Galway advertiser, gives the most extraordinary account of brutal treatment inflicted by the Roman Catholic priest or priests, not on Protestants or avowed converts to Romanism, but on the still-deluded members of the popish church in order to hinder the least intercourse of a kindly nature between them and Protestants and prevent, if possible, the spread of truth so fatal to the interest of the Holy See.
Where it not that we have ourselves witnessed similar, outrages perpetrated on defenceless Romanists by their tyrant priest, we could scarcely credit the report of the outrages committed on the miserable inhabitants of Arran against which the interference of a Roman Catholic magistrate was offered in vain.
The priest who exhibited on the occasion now referred to is named Jennings, but before this worthy divine appeared in single performance, we are told that two of the Rev party distinguished themselves by an assault on a poor man and his donkey, for having conveyed some baggage on the island for one of the scripture readers.
On Sunday after announcing at mass the curses of his church on all who should favourite Protestants, father Jennings cudgelled two of his congregation severely for having listened to the Bible.
The next day a man named Joyce underwent the same mild discipline from this minister of the gospel of peace, after which a second poor man was dragged out of his house by the furious zealot and cruelly beaten in the presence of many witnesses.
A man named Costello, was next threatened for having given lodgings to a Protestant and compelled to rid his house of the pestilence heretic;
A woman is threatened in like manner for carrying milk to the children of the protestants; a man named Gow is terrified by the same priest with the assurance of corporal chastisement because he was hardy enough to despise execrations from the altar;
while a woman named Curlin is abused and beaten mercilessly though in a delicate state of health, for some regard shown to the protestants on the island.
In fact we are obliged to break off our enumeration of crimes committed by this Herculan pastor and his enslaved people, as we find it would extend far beyond our present limits.
Yet, after all, we rejoice to learn that this brutality has produced a strong feeling of disgust towards the monster and that the efforts of this raging opponent of the gospel have completely failed to prevent the progress of inquiry.
Such ferocity in inverse ratio with the mind of the miserable agent, forwards, rather than retards, the religion of Christ.
…………………………………
The 19th century on the islands and in particular Árainn, saw a number of sectarian clashes over how to attain salvation and avoid the flames of Hell.
At the time of the accusation of brutality by Fr Jennings, the Parish Priest was John Loftus who had succeeded Michael Gibbons in 1840.
We have been unable to determine who the Fr Jennings mentioned in the report was. He may have been a curate or he may have been a visiting preacher.
There was a lot of religious agitation in 1841. This was the year that Presbyterian minister, Henry McManus from Virginia in County Cavan, visited Árainn.
Henry had spent some months at Roundstone in Connemara in 1840. It was there that he finished off his study of the Irish language.
It came in very handy for him at the pier in Galway in Spring 1841 after being refused passage to the islands on the suspicion that he was a “Jumper” or Protestant Bible reader.
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| A sketch from 1842 by William Makepeace Thackeray showing sailing craft at Galway. One was bound for Arranmore he reported. On a boat like this, Henry McManus travelled to Cill Rónáin, on a rough day in 1841. |
The bádóirí, who were returning home after delivering seaweed, had been warned about bringing men like Henry, into the islands.
Showing great determination and convinced that he was on God’s mission to save souls, Henry stormed aboard with the words, “Racaigh mé isteach in ainm Dé”
These few words in Irish were enough to convince Andrew, the skipper, to bring him, free of charge, to Cill Rónáin.
A very rough passage of 12 hours or so, followed. Henry was shown great kindness during the crossing by what he described as “the wilder looking of the two men”. He spent most of the voyage prostrate on the deck.
His stay on the island was not very successful as a boycott was ordered. He was marooned for some time until, with the help of an Islander he had previously clashed with over scripture, a visiting boat took him back to Galway.
In 1863 Henry published an account of his different missions to save the people of the west of Ireland.
A story for another day perhaps but his experience of threats and boycott was undoubtedly known to our letter writer of June 1841.
The census of 1841 recorded 3,521 people living on the three Arran Islands.
Árainn……………2612
Inis Meáin……….473
Inis Oirr…………..456
It’s likely that a number of Bible readers and preachers found a reception similar to the report of clerical attacks.
Highlighting how Roman Catholic islanders were suffering for their Christian kindness to Protestants, would have been a valuable propaganda asset for Protestant publications.
Bible Readers would travel the country offering to read passages of the Bible in English or Irish, in every house they visited. It’s likely that natural curiosity and native hospitality resulted in them occasionally being invited inside.
However, as tensions rose after some conversions, many priests followed John McHales’ instruction to condemn those who showed any interest.
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| Cill Rónáin in 1840. (Galway County Library.) |
In April 1841, newspapers carried a report of an unnamed Roman Catholic priest on Arran, being bound to the peace for his attacks on Bible Readers. The report goes on to outline sectarian behaviour which included the burning of a house.
In early March there had been a letter to the newspapers outlining what the writer termed the “persecution” of Protestants on the island.
The letter writer also mocked and belittled some of the Islanders religious rituals. This letter also made a reference in passing to the labours of the proselytising group, ‘Irish Church Mission Society’.
Shortly afterwards a letter appeared which pointed out that while the ‘Irish Society’ operated on the mainland, the islands were being looked after by HIS group, the Protestant ‘Missionary Society for the Islands off the Irish coast’
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| The Protestant Islands and Coast society which operated on many of the western islands. They would play a leading role in the ‘Bread War’ controversy of the 1860s. |
The man who wrote this correction was the Rev Charles Henry Seymour. He was a recently ordained curate in Tuam and had just spent some weeks on the island.
A fluent Irish speaker since his Mayo childhood, Charles had been working with the Protestant island and coastal mission which had two poorly attended schools on the island. This society employed the teachers and a number of Bible Readers.
According to Rev Seymour, life in 1841 would not have been possible on the island without the imposition of some form of order by the police and the local Catholic Magistrate in Kilmurvey.
Charles Seymour had a very distinguished and somewhat controversial career and ended up as Dean of the Anglican Archdioses of Tuam.
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| The thatched home of the local resident Magistrate, Patrick O’Flaherty of Cill Mhuirbhigh, can be seen in this 1839 sketch by William Wakeman. William sketched many of the islands landmarks including this one of Teampall Mhic Duach at the foot of Dún Aengus. (N.L.I.) |
It seems the islands were very disturbed at this time. They were owned by the Digby family of Landenstown County Kildare and the land agent was a very committed evangelical Protestant, George Thomson of Clonskeagh Castle in Dublin.
While the second reformation attempts were resented by almost all Roman Catholics, they were also opposed by a large number of Irish Protestants for their tendency to promote conflict and disharmony with their condescending attitude and patronising comments.
In many ways the proselytising societies were driven by English zealots. There was great excitement in 1852 when Rev Seymour was accused of falsifying Tuam convert numbers in order to promote donations.
The killer comment was that his society was exploiting ‘ that numerous and extremely nasty sisterhood - the Protestant Old Maids of England’. A view shared by numerous Irish Protestants.
The use of the Irish language by evangelical Protestant groups was seen by some as a form of cheating. The first translation of the Protestant Bible (66 books) into Irish was done in the 16th century.
In 1817 the British and Foreign Bible Society published ‘An Biobla Naomhtha’ which was probably the version used by the Protestant Bible Readers in Árainn.
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| The book of Genesis, as Gaeilge 1817 |
The Bible was used sparingly by the Catholic Church and the first Roman Catholic Bible (73 books) translation wasn’t published until the great priest, writer and Irish scholar, Peadar O Laoghaire, completed his work in the early 20th century.
The intrusion of Protestant evangelicals into his diocese was resisted fiercely by the Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, John McHale (1791-1881)
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| Archbishop John McHale who took the fight to the Protestant missions in Achill & Connemara |
What is known as the Second Reformation in Ireland, had its foundation in a call in 1822 by the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin William Magee, for mass evangelisation of the Roman Catholic population.
Daniel O’Connell’s success in the granting of Catholic emancipation in 1829 and his campaign for repeal of the union, caused both anger and fear in many Protestants.
The building of a new Catholic chapel in Eochaill by Michael Gibbons, shortly after the 1829 Catholic emancipation act, would have been a sign to redouble efforts at saving souls.
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| Map from Galway County Library showing the recently opened chapel in Eochaill and the ruin of an older church building across the road. |
We probably shouldn’t but on a lighter note, here is an old conversion story from the 19th century. An old man was telling of the lucky escape a neighbour of his had.
He had decided to change religions as things were very bad. The old man repeated how near he had come to damnation, but luckily, the night before his neighbour was due to become a Protestant, “he died”.
Tuam archdiocese included two evangelical hotspots, Achill and Connemara and those interested in finding out more about those times should read Miriam Moffet’s book Soupers and Jumpers or have a listen to Patricia Byrne’s Trasna na Tire lecture on Edward Nangle and the Achill Mission Colony
The endowing by the state, of the established Anglican Church was the cause of understandable resentment. The Tithe war in Ireland of the 1830s is evidence of this as many, and not just Catholics, resented paying a tax to fund a competing religion.
Bible Readers were subject to much abuse as many of them were converts from Roman Catholicism. Indeed a few priests changed religion during those times and Aran’s second permanent Protestant minister in 1855, is believed to have been baptised a Catholic.
That many changed religion over issues unconnected to hunger and want, is often overlooked.
The use of food and education to entice people to convert was widespread but to some extent, his violent opposition to the new system of nondenominational National Schools by Archbishop McHale, left the door open for evangelicals to take advantage.
In truth, both Catholic and Protestant churches fiercely opposed the idea of children of different religions and none, being educated together.
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| Children whose grandparents would have been schoolchildren back in 1841 Photo by Robert Welch. James Hardiman Library, Galway. |
Both churches recognised the importance of segregated education. Both knew that small children with an innate sense of justice, would come to reject the notion that the child who sat beside them or played with them in the schoolyard, was destined for the fires of Hell, just for being the wrong religion.
But back to the letter to the papers in 1841.
The credibility of the accusations is strengthened by the naming of those who were allegedly assaulted.
One unnamed Islander who helped a Bible Reader carry his possessions, was not only assaulted, but his poor ass got a beating too.
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| Asal Árainn. Perhaps descended from an ancestor who paid a price for carrying the books of a Bible Reader in 1841. Photo P A Ó Goill |
The next day a man named Joyce was beaten while another was dragged from his house and assaulted in front of his neighbours.
Following on from this a man named Costello was threatened for giving lodgings to a Protestant and forced to evict his lodger.
The Costello in question is undoubtedly from the same family who gave lodgings to another Protestant in the summer of 1898.
That Protestant was the writer John Synge and his opening lines from his famous book recount him listening through the floorboards in his bedroom, to conversations going on in the bar below.
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| Costello’s hotel where Synge stayed in 1898. It is located on the spot where the Bible Reader was evicted in 1841. |
A woman is threatened for selling milk to the Protestants. This was all part of the shunning of a community, undoubtedly on orders from the priest.
We came across a similar course of action when we wrote some years ago about the Aran Bread War of 1868/69.
The letter writer is mistaken when he refers to a man named Gow, being threatened for making known his disagreement with the priest’s orders from the altar.
Obviously, somebody reported his comments back to the priest. No episode in Irish history is complete without there being mention of a spy.
As those familiar with the islands and with the Irish language will realise he was the village blacksmith, the word Gow referring to his profession.
One possibility is that it was a Poitín smuggler from Connemara called Micil Riabhach Ó Niaidh (Nee). Micil’s forge was located in Mainistir.
Another possibility is that he was a Mullin, whose family smithy was located in the village of Cill Rónáin.
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| The late Matt Mullin, outside his old family forge. |
Historically, blacksmiths prided themselves on their skills and were not inclined to take orders from anybody. We noted this when writing about the blacksmith, Colman “Tiger” King and his relationship with the film director Robert Flaherty, during the making of the film Man of Aran .
The Kings had an air of independence about them which gives us a third possible opponent of the priests orders. We will never know.
The final accusation is probably the worst and tells how a woman named Curlin was badly beaten despite being in a poor state of health.
This was allegedly because she showed some friendship towards her Protestant neighbors. This was probably in the village of Cill Éinne where many can still remember the last Curlin to live on the island.
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| Cill Éinne in 1840. Map from Galway county library. |
If community relations were bad in 1841, they would deteriorate a lot more in 1842 with a report on a shameful episode.
It seems that the wife of a Protestant schoolteacher died and police had to be on hand during her burial as there were objections to her being buried in an island graveyard.
Some protesters were arrested but the most shocking part of the whole affair is that later that night, her grave was interfered with and the coffin exposed.
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| A truly shocking newspaper report from April 1842. |
It was always a very controversial issue as to who could be buried alongside Catholics.
Apart from non Catholics, those excluded included victims of suicide and unbaptised infants.
There are instances of controversy in more recent times than 1842.
In 1915, the Parish Priest confronted the relieving officer Martin Ned Bán O’Flaherty for having buried two victims of the Lusitania disaster inside the graveyard at Cill Éinne.
The relieving officer stood his ground and raised the matter with his employers, the Board of Guardians in Galway. They endorsed his decision and the priest’s threat of exhumation, led to him being ridiculed.
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| Relig Chill Éinne where two victims of the Lusitania sinking were buried in 1915. |
In 1941 the body of a young English airman, Alfred Tizzard, was recovered by two Cill Mhuirbhigh fishermen who gave him a Christian burial inside the local graveyard.
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| Flight Sargent Alfred Tizzard with his nephew Ron. His burial in Relig Chill Mhuirbhigh in 1941 would lead to a rebuke from the local priest. |
This would lead to repercussions at a later date.
You can read that story of the gravediggers and the priest HERE
We can only speculate but it’s likely that the incidents in 1841 and 1842 gave huge impetus to the Protestant authorities to build a permanent church, employ a permanent minister and have their own graveyard. This came to pass just a few years later.
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| The Church of St Thomas in Kilronan. Built in 1846, it wasn’t consecrated until 1853. This photo from around 1914 is from the National Library of Ireland. |
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| The derelict Protestant church in Cill Rónáin and the deserted and sadly neglected old Protestant graveyard. |
The past is a different world and must be viewed with an understanding of how people lived with the stresses and strains of being exploited by an absentee landlord and the almost absolute power of their priest.
We must also maintain caution when reading ancient newspaper reports as the politics of both Unionist (Protestant) and Nationalist (Catholic) newspapers could on occasion, be reflected in what was published and how it was interpreted.
The controversies of 1841 and 1842 would soon pale into insignificance with the arrival of An Gorta Mór or the great famine, which decimated the country and whose effects are felt in Ireland and elsewhere, to this day.
Michael Muldoon, December 2024
