Building Religious Communities (2)

NUNS AT WORK


FARMING NUNS


NUNS' VOWS (aka LADYWELL CONVENT)


Ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, intercede pro devoto femineo sexu!

Building Religious Communities (1)

CONVENT BUILDERS


NUNS BUILD SCHOOL IN AUSTRALIA


NUNS LEARN WOODWORK


Ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, intercede pro devoto femineo sexu!

Making the News (Part 7)

Another highlight of the year, to judge by the frequency with which it appears in the Pathé archive, is the annual meeting of the Catholic Truth Society.

Dante and the Church. The Most Reverend Dr. Codd, Reverend R. Fleming, Count Plunkett and other distinguished Clergy who read papers at the Catholic Truth Society Conference in 1921.

Catholic Truth Conference 1923. Mr Kevin O'Higgins delivers address at the Mansion House, Dublin. Ireland.

His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, and other members of Irish Hierarchy, who are taking part in the Catholic Truth Conference in Dublin, 1926.

Catholic Truth Week 1928. Members meet at Mansion House Dublin for their annual conference.

Making the News (Part 6)

For some reason, Pathé newsreels feature parades of the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland or Boys Brigade in a great many of their newsreels.

Blessing and distribution of Shamrock at the Franciscan Church of the Immaculate Conception (Adam and Eve's), Merchant's Quay, Dublin, to the Catholic Boys' Brigade.

St. Patrick's Day ceremonies, 1920 - a combination of military and religion. Many Boy Scouts lined up at outdoor ceremony in square. Blessing & Presentation of a troop flag of the 26th Dublin St Columba's Troop, Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland, at Iona Road.

Catholic Boys' Brigade. Demonstration by the newly founded company at Stillorgan, Ireland, 1923.

Father Philip O.F.M. distributes the National Emblem to the Catholic Boys Brigade in 1924.

Inspection and Presentation of Shamrock to the Visitation Troop of Catholic Boy Scouts at Fairview, Dublin, by Rev. F.T. Grogan, C.C., 1928.

"Interesting Scout Ceremony - The Rev. Father J. Flanagan blesses and presents the first Troop Flag to the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland (Fairview Troop) in 1928.

At a Dublin Scouts Ceremony, Very Rev. Canon Waters, PP, blesses the Flag of St. Peter's Troops at Dalymount in 1930.

In support of the Marino Church Fund, 2,000 Catholic Boy Scouts parade at Croke Park in 1930.

Making the News (Part 5)

The Eucharistic Congress

In honorem Domini atque in amabilem Patricii memoriam (Book of Armagh)

The first Eucharistic Congress was held in 1881 under Pope Leo XIII. The 31st International Eucharistic Congress was held in Dublin from 21st to 26th June, 1932. The Eucharistic Congress in Dublin commemorated the 15th centenary of the beginning of the mission of St. Patrick. The culmination of the Eucharistic Congress was a Pontifical High Mass in the Phoenix Park. The turning of the first sod of the construction of the High Altar by Archbishop Byrne is seen above.

The Eucharistic Congress was also the first great occasion for the outpouring of devotion by Irish Nation of their devotion to their Eucharistic Lord and to His Vicar on Earth in its newly won freedom. They took pride in honouring His Eminence, Lorenzo, Cardinal Lauri, who was, at the time, Major Penitentiary of the Holy See, as the Legate of Pope Pius XI to the Congress.

The event saw the use of cutting-edge technology, such as spectacular lighting effects, skywriting, and the largest personal-address (PA) system in the world. A high power station was established in Athlone to coincide with the staging of the Eucharistic Congress. 2RN, 6CK and Athlone became known as "Radio Athlone" or "Radio Áth Luain," the forerunner of RTÉ Radio. Radio Éireann” in 1938. From one point of view, the Eucharistic Congress was to radio in Ireland what the 1952 Coronation was to television in England

Pathé also has footage of National and International Eucharistic Congresses in Chicago and in New York (1926), Bologna (1927), Melbourne and Teramo and Cleveland (1935), Tripoli and Terracina (1937), New Orleans (1938), Algeria (1939), Nancy (1949), Rennes (1956), and Bombay (1964).

The Patrician Congress

The Patrician Holy Year, to mark the 15th centenary of the death of St. Patrick, was opened on 17th March of that year in St. Patrick's Cathedral City of Armagh. Cardinal MacIntyre of Los Angeles was the Papal Legate to the events. The occasion was also marked by the first visit of a President of Ireland to Armagh.

The Patrician Congress in Dublin was inaugurated by the Papal Legate to that event, Cardinal Agagianian, on 15th June of that year. Throughout the nine-day congress, a special Congress Candle lit from a fire kindled on the Hill of Slane, burned in O'Connell Street. The culmination of the Patrician Congress was the Pontifical High Mass in Croke Park on Sunday, 25th June, 1961.

The Congress is covered, somewhat incongrously, about 9 minutes into the Pathé review of 1961.

Making the News (Part 4)

In this Part, I'm going to take a look at coverage of other religious events in Ireland by Pathé newsreels.

Corpus Christi Processions

The Corpus Christi Procession was a feature of Catholic life not only in Ireland but throughout the Church since the establishment of the feast in the 13th Cent. However, Ireland took a particular pride in honouring Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, for example, in Galway in 1924, in Artane in 1924 and 1925, the Irish Defence Forces in the Curragh Camp in 1925, Navan in 1930, in Bandon in 1941,

May Processions

As with Corpus Christi Processions, usually in June, the Irish made great efforts to honour Our Lady in her month of May. Good examples are found at Inchicore in 1921, then at Mount Argus in 1922 and 1923. However, Inchicore returned to pride of place again in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1931.

Other Events

Pathé also covered the procession of the Franciscan Third Order in Killarney in 1921 and, in 1926, the celebrations marking the centenary of the arrival of the Dominicans in Waterford. In 1926, Sodalities are shown processing into St. Andrew's Church, Westland Row, Dublin. The Mullingar Confraternity processes in 1927.

The Patrician Year

In 1961, Ireland celebrated the 1,500th anniversary of the death of St. Patrick. Pathé newsreels cover the celebrations in Dublin and Armagh. I would also include the coverage of St. Patrick's Day for 1950.

Making the News (Part 3)

Back in August, 2009, I posted twice on the Pathé newsreels available online. Part 1 covered the Bishops of Kildare and Leighlin (Drs. Foley, Cullen and Keogh). Part 2 covered Archbishop Byrne of Dublin (although this clip of his enthronement in 1921 was omitted). In Part 3, I want to look at the newsreel coverage of other Irish Prelates.

Archbishops of Armagh

Michael, Cardinal Logue (1840-1924) was elevated to the Archiepiscopal and Primatial See of Armagh in 1887. He was created Cardinal in 1893. He is shown attending the meeting of the Irish Hierarchy at Maynooth in 1921 and shown again before entering the Conclave that was to elect Pope Pius XI. His death in 1924 was the subject of a newsreel.

Patrick, Cardinal O'Donnell (1856-1927) succeeded Cardinal Logue as Archbishop of Armagh in 1924. He is seen here visiting Dundalk, a town in his Archdiocese, in 1926, the year he was raised to the purple of the Cardinalate. Also in 1926, his Eminence attended the famed Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. There are some outtakes from the same scene. His funeral, the following year, was also covered in newsreels.

Joseph, Cardinal McRory (1861-1945), was elevated to Armagh in 1928 and to the purple in 1929. In 1938, his Eminence blessed the new Mother House of the Columban Missionaries, the Maynooth Mission to China, at Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath. In 1942, he was in Dublin to celebrate Mass in celebration of the Episcopal Jubilee of Pope Pius XII.

John, Cardinal D'Alton, Archbishop of Armagh (1882-1963) was appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1946 and was created Cardinal in 1953. His death was marked both in Dublin and in Armagh.

In 1963, in the last ceremony in the Traditional Rite, Archbishop, later Cardinal, Conway, was enthroned as Archbishop of Armagh.

Archbishop of Cashel and Emly

In 1910, Most Reverend Dr. Fennelly, the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, conducted a ceremony at the Rock of Cashel.

Archbishop of Melbourne

It's hard to say where the Archbishops of Melbourne stood in order of precedence in the Irish Hierarchy but Archbishop Mannix stood head and shoulders above them all. In 1920, protests about the outrageous mistreatment he received at the hands of English Armed Forces was protested in London. He visited a partly free Ireland in 1925. The principal consecrator of Dr. Mannix was Dr. Fogarty of Killaloe (see below for Ardagh and Clonmacnoise).

Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray

In 1931, Dom Stanislaus Hickey received the Abbatial Blessing as Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray Abbey in the Knockmealdown Mountains just to the North and East of Cappoquin, Co. Waterford. It is interesting to note that the Blessing took place in the old Abbey Church, which was soon to be replaced. Dom Stanislaus, likewise, was to be replaced in April of 1933 by the noted Dom Celsus O'Connell. Mount Melleray celebrated its centenary in August 1933, on which occasion Cardinal McRory (see above) laid the foundation stone of the new Abbey Ahurch. Preparations for building were started immediately, but the actual work did not start until January 1935. The striking new Church was completed and solemnly blessed in November of 1940.

Bishop of Kilmore

In 1937, Most Reverend Dr. Michael Lyons (d. 1949) was consecrated Bishop of Kilmore at the then Cathedral Church of St. Patrick in Cavan Town, Co. Cavan. Dr. Lyons also celebrated the centenary of the Little Sisters of the Poor in 1939.

Dr. Lyons was responsible for the building, between 1938 and 1942, of the present Cathedral in Cavan, the Cathedral of St. Patrick and St. Felim. It was, thus, one of the last cathedrals to be built in Ireland. It post-dates the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar, the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of Meath, by three years. Only Galway's Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas, consecrated on its titular feast, 15th August, 1965, post-dates it.

Cavan Cathedral has the almost unique distinction among Irish Cathedrals in having the full length of its Altar Rails intact. Mirabile Dictu! Like its near neighbour, Longford Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise (see below), it uses the column as a principal feature.

Bishop of Cork

In 1920, the Most Reverend Dr. Daniel Coholan, Bishop of Cork, presided at the funeral (also here) of Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, who had died a prisoner of the English. He is to be seen from about 2 minutes and 14 seconds in the first and at 2 minutes 50 seconds in the second. Dr. Coholan himself died in 1952 and was buried from his Cathedral Church. Dr. Coholan was at the heart of the struggle for Independence, witnessing not only the escalation of the War of Independence but also the ravages of the Black-and-Tans who shot and harrassed his Priests and People as well as burning a large area of the City of Cork in reprisal for the efforts of the Irish Volunteers.

Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise

In 1927, the funeral of Bishop Hoare of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise was filmed at the Cathedral Church of the Diocese in Longford Town, Co. Longford. Dr. Hoare having been appointed to the See in 1895, was 32 years as Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise.

One of Dr. Hoare's early acts as Bishop was to establish scholarships to the Diocesan College, St. Mel's College. He was equally concerned with the state of the library system that was being developed through the Carnegie Trust. He wrote: "I think the Organising Committee should have nothing to do with the Carnegie institution unless it allows you to select your own books," which was a measured compared with that taken by his confrere, Dr. Fogarty of Killaloe:

"I will have nothing to do with a Carnegie Library. I have seen some of these institutions. They are storehouses of wretched novels and semi-pagan stuff of the same cultural level as penny illustrated papers from England, which, I am sorry to say, our people buy and smoke like opium, with the same narcotic effect on their brains and better life. We have enough of that poison without taxing the people to supply more of it. What advantage are the ratepayers, already overburdened, from the mountains of Kinnitty to the bogs of Edenderry, going to get from supplying out of their slender purse lounges and novels to the cigarette-smoking, idle, mooning youths of Tullamore and like towns; for no one else is going to resort to your fanciful treasure houses? Any money that Ireland has to spare, even to the extent of millions, should be first of all put into making secure that cardinal industry on which her life depends. When that essential structure is made perfect, then we can think of libraries."

Dr. Fogarty, although he was 'only' the Bishop of Killaloe, was, in fact, an Archbishop and reigned in Killaloe from 1904 to 1955.

Dr. Hoare was succeeded as Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise by Dr. McNamee who was to participate in the Second Vatican Council and die in office in 1966, having reigned over the Diocese for 39 years.

Making the News (Part 2)

Having looked at the Pathé newsreels for the Bishops of Kildare and Leighlin, I can't leave the subject without drawing your attention to one of their contemporaries, a lesser-known Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Edward J. Byrne, who also features frequently in the collection.

One of Archbishop Byrne's most notable distinctions was that he rose from being a Curate to being Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland in slightly over a year. He had been Vice President of the Irish College, Rome, from 1901 to 1904, when he returned to Ireland to become the Curate of the Pro-Cathedral Parish in Dublin. He remained there until 1920, when he was created Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin (and titular of Pegae, although the Archdiocesan website says Spigaz) and in the following August he succeeded Archbishop William J. Walsh as Archbishop.

Archbishop Byrne was ruled the Diocese of Dublin just as it became the Capital of the new State. The pastoral opportunities were now the greater. Archbishop Byrne was instrumental in efforts to end and to mitigate the disastrous Civil War. He is shown at the Catholic Truth Society conference in 1926.

He witnessed the expansion of the City of Dublin. The newsreels show him blessing five new Churches: the Church of St. MacCullin in Lusk in 1922 (other film here); the Church of St. Brigid in Killester in 1925 (other film here); the Church of St. Vincent de Paul in Marino in 1926 (other film here), by which time his left had has begun to tremble visibly*; the Garrison Church in Arbor Hill in 1927; and at Crooksling Sanitorium (now St. Brigid's Hospital) in 1928.

Also in 1928, he is shown meeting pioneering pilots. The pilots in question, Captain James Fitzmaurice, Captain Hermann Köhl and Baron Ehrenfried von Hünefeld, had just made the first transatlantic aircraft flight from East to West.

In 1929, Archbishop Byrne hosted the celebrations for the centenary of Catholic Emancipation. In 1932, he was responsible for the preparations for the Eucharistic Congress.

His later years were marked by illness - Parkinson's Disease* - and withdrawal from most public appearances. One exception was the Requiem Mass for Pope Pius XI in 1939. As is only fitting, his funeral in 1940 is also covered in the newsreels.

Making the News

The Pathé newsreels, short movies shown before the main feature in cinemas, are an excellent source of social history. Three Bishops of Kildare and Leighlin from the early twentieth century made the news.

The first is Bishop Patrick Foley. A native of the Diocese, he was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin (and titular Bishop of Amyclae) at the relatively young age of 38 in 1895. He became Ordinary only a year later on the death of Bishop Lynch. Bishop Foley was to occupy the See of Kildare and Leighlin for thirty years, through the struggle for Home Rule, the First World War, the War of Independence and the Civil War. The image above, a still from the newsreel report of the sod-turning ceremony of the Carlow Sugar Factory in 1926.

The second is Bishop Matthew Cullen, also a native of the Diocese. He became bishop in 1927, following the untimely death of Bishop Foley a year earlier. Although his episcopate was relatively short, not quite nine years in fact, he made an outstanding contribution to the Country through his support for Gaelic athletics and language, and also to the Church through his support for the newly founded Saint Patrick's Missionary Society with its headquarters in his own native Parish at Kiltegan. The still above is taken from the newsreel report of the blessing the foundation of the new buildings at Clongowes Wood College in 1929.

The third is Bishop Thomas Keogh, another native of the Diocese, who became Bishop in 1936 in succession to Bishop Cullen. He remained as Bishop until 1967, when he became the first Irish Bishop to resign in accordance with the novel rules that had been established by Pope Paul VI's Motu Proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae in August, 1966. (Please note: sometimes Motu Proprios are taken seriously!)

Bishop Keogh can be seen in the newsreel report of the opening of the Portarlington Power Station in 1950. The newsreel report from which the stills image above is taken is a report of the centenary celebrations of the Dominican College, Newbridge, in 1952. Bishop Keogh is seen standing to the camera's right of Archbishop O'Hara who was then Papal Nuncio to Ireland. After his retirement Bishop Keogh was created titular Bishop of Turris Tamalleni and lived a further two years. The fortieth anniversary of his death (and the centenary of his ordination) were marked by St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association with a Requiem Mass in his native Parish.