Mayo People
Most Rev. Dr. John MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam
A Pen Picture of a Patriot of the Penal Days
Among the many of Ireland’s great prelates who, in the dark days of penal oppression, fought and struggled with voice and pen for the religious and national freedom of Ireland, that of the Rt. Rev. John MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam, occupies a well-deserved place of honour.
He was born in Tubbernavine, east of Mount Neptune in Western Connacht, in the parish of Adergood and the Barony of Tirawley in the spring of 1789. Some historians state that he was born in 1791, but the exact date cannot be ascertained as, owing to the troubled times, no proper records were then kept.
His parents were Patrick MacHale and his wife Mary. Her maiden name was Mulkieran, and both she and her husband belonged to the most highly respected families in Mayo.
John was their fifth son, and was, we are told, very delicate and puny at birth, and it took all his mother’s care and skill to maintain his young life during its first year.
The first twelve months being safely passed however, he began to thrive, and soon developed into a bright and healthy child.
Before he was five years old his education had begun in a hedge school. There he remained until his thirteenth year when he was placed under the care of Patrick Staunton who, in the town of Castlebar, conducted a school where he taught Latin, Greek and English.
A SAD MEMORY
One of John’s earliest memories, and one, indeed, which was impressed indelibly on his mind, was the murder of his old parish priest for whom he had often served Mass, Father Conry of Laherdane.
When, in 1798, General Humbert’s army landed in Killala, some of his officer, when passing through Tubbernavine, called at Father Conry’s home for refreshments.
When, finally, after a succession of meteoric victories, the French were defeated and routed, England’s spies and informers set to work with characteristic vigour.
For having given the French officers refreshments, Father Conry, was denounced, arrested and tried, and within an hour of his trial, hung from a tree in Castlebar.
That night the mourning people laid their martyred priest to rest. By the side of the coffin walked little John MacHale. He was weeping bitterly. Never more would he serve Mass for the kindly soggarth whom he loved. A great impression was made on his youthful mind by the tragedy, and it, no doubt, to a great extent, moulded his future outlook on English rule in Ireland.
From his earliest years he gave indications of unusual piety, and his mother, delighted at these leanings, in her boy, encouraged them by every means in her power.
It was not, however, destined that she would see her son attain he goal which she hoped and prayed might be his. God called her while he was still a student at Patrick Staunton’s school.
The loss of his mother was a grievous blow to John, and for a time he was disconsolate. When, eventually, he learned to master his grief, he returned to his studies to which he thereafter devoted himself wholeheartedly.
ORDAINED
In 1807 he entered Maynooth College. In the course of his studies there he distinguished himself by his brilliancy. A short time before he completed his course, so greatly were his superiors impressed by his learning and ability, that they appointed him to fill the Chair of Dogmatic Theology.
On July 25th , 1814, he received the Holy Order of Deaconship from the hands of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Murray, coadjutor to the Archbishop of Dublin, and on the following day, the Feast of St. Ann, he was ordained.
Following his ordination he remained at Maynooth carrying out his duties as Lecturer of Theology until 1825.
During this period at Maynooth he penned, under the nom do plume “Hierophieos”, the first of his contributions to public controversy.
CONSECRATED
In 1825 he was appointed Bishop of Maronia, and Coadjutor to Dr. Waldron, Bishop of Killala. On the 5th June, 1825, his consecration as Bishop-elect took place in the college chapel of Maynooth. The ceremony was performed by Dr. Murray, the then Archbishop of Dublin, assisted by Dr. Oliver Kelly, Archbishop of Tuam, and Dr. Patrick MacNicholas, Bishop of Achonry.
Dr. MacHale had the distinction of being the first prelate educated in Ireland since the reign of Elizabeth to take up duty in the west of Ireland.
His return to his native county was the occasion of great rejoicing on the part of his old friends and schoolmates. Rich and poor alike came out to welcome him and seek his blessing.
The twelve months following his return to Mayo were busy ones for Dr. MacHale. In 1825 the promulgation of the Holy Year of 1826 was announced by Pope Leo XII. In Ireland the news was received with the greatest joy. For months previous to the opening of the Holy Year, Dr. MacHale travelled throughout his diocese preparing the people and administering the sacraments.
BALLINA CATHEDRAL
Throughout the whole diocese here was at that period, scarcely a single decent edifice in which to offer up the Holy Sacrifice. Dr. Kelly, Archbishop of Tuam, in a statement made in 1825, stated that “There are about one hundred and six places of Catholic worship and of these there are about sixteen slated; the rest are thatched. In many instances Mass is said in the open air because they have no accommodation inside.
With the coming of Dr. MacHale, the long deferred hope of raising the means of erecting a worthy cathedral in the diocese took life again in the heart of old Dr. Waldron.
Into the work of realising this hope, Dr. MacHale threw himself heart and soul and, three years after his coming, had collected a sum of £1,800 and in the spring of 1827 the foundation stone of Ballina Cathedral was laid.
FAMINE
Continuing his appeal for funds, Dr. MacHale met with singular success, many of his most generous contributors being English Catholics. Work on the new edifice was thus enabled to proceed rapidly, and in the autumn of 1831 the first Mass was celebrated in the cathedral. When finally the edifice was completed, the total cost amounted to £12,000.
In 1831, following a partial failure of the 1830 crop, famine made its appearance in the west of Ireland. Despite everything which Dr. MacHale and those who assisted him, could do, many died from hunger and fever. In April, Dr. MacHale, writing to Earl Grey, gives a vivid pen picture of the miseries of his parishioners.
“It is my painful duty” he wrote, “to communicate through you to His Majesty’s Government that already some persons have fallen victim to this calamity. Last week, having visited a distant parish in the diocese, I learned the sad news that contagious disease, the effect of hunger, prevailed to a great extent; that in one instance the father, mother and three children were stretched on the same bed, without a morsel of food, without a penny to procure it or a human being to go in quest of relief”.
Towards the end of 1831, Dr. MacHale went on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he received a warm welcome from the Holy Father, Pope Gregory XVI.
In the spring of the following year, Dr. Kelly, Archbishop of Tuam, died at Albano, Italy were he had gone on account of his health.
His death was soon after followed by that of Dr. Waldron, Bishop of Killala, upon whose death Dr. MacHale became by right, Bishop of Killala, and eligible for appointment to the Archbishopric of Tuam.
To prevent the appointment of Dr. MacHale to the Metropolitan See of Connacht, the authorities at Dublin Castle and in London devoted all their efforts. On May 12th, 1834, we find Lord Palmerston, British Secretary of Foreign Affairs, writing to his brother:
“I am sending off a messenger to Florence and Rome to try and get the Pope not to appoint any agitating prelate Archbishop of Tuam”
APPOINTED ARCHBISHOP
These efforts were, however, ignored by the Holy Father and, in August, 1834, Dr. MacHale was appointed Archbishop of Tuam.
The news was received with the greatest joy throughout the length and breadth of Ireland and in his native county bonfires blazed and everywhere people rejoiced at the appointment.
A close bond of friendship existed between Dr. MacHale and Daniel O’Connell, and when the Repeal Movement was inaugurated by the latter in 1840 it had no more loyal member than Dr. MacHale
When, two years later, famine again made its appearance in Connacht, Dr. MacHale worked untiringly appealing and collecting funds for the famine-stricken people.
The tragedy of the years which followed – “The Black Forties” – when famine and pestilence swept the land, are too well known to need repetition. Ireland’s cup of sorrow was filled when O’Connell, his heart broken by the sufferings of his people, died in the summer of 1847 while on his way to Rome.
DAYS OF TRAGEDY
The news of his death was a bitter and tragic blow to Dr. MacHale. When the news was brought to him “the Archbishop withdrew into the college close at Tuam, walking up and down for hours, alone and in silence, communing with God, and praying for the soul of him whom he loved so well. It was a day of unutterable bitterness for the strong man who had battled so long for Ireland and who had lost the magic influence and companionship of the political chief of the nation. Surely he might well weep for Ireland and O’Connell”
In a pastoral letter which he issued from St. Jarleth’s on May 30th, 1847, Dr. MacHale wrote: “Instead of indulging in excessive grief, now, alas, unavailing, or in a grateful tribute of well-earned eulogies, ours is a duty far more consoling to his departed spirit, and one more congenial with the sacred ministry of God’s altar.
“Those alters, the illustrious champion, now no more, was instrumental in setting free. He gathered the people of our Israel ‘out of the lurking holes into which they were driven, heating, fusing, mounding and immense masses with the fire that he had instilled into them.
“It is a soothing reflection, in the midst of all our country’s calamities – that it not with us as with ‘those who have no hope’ – that our hearts echo the beautiful sentiments of the inspired language ‘that it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead’, and that the grave shuts not out those merciful consolations which may be brought to our benefactor’s soul by his surviving brethren”.
Of the work of over thirty years which still remained to Dr. MacHale after the death of the Liberator, it would not be possible, within the confines of a short article, to give even a brief outline. It will have to suffice to say that to the very end Dr. MacHale never wavered in his allegiance to his people. In every sense – labour, religion, education, self-government and tenant-right – he forever remained their unswerving champion.
He lived on to the ripe old age of ninety-one. In the autumn of 1881, when he was entering his ninety-first year, there appeared the first signs of dissolution. On October 26th of that year he was taken ill and, although he later rallied somewhat, the end approached fast and on November 7th, 1881, he passed to his eternal reward.
When his death became known, his flock and, indeed, the entire people of Ireland, were filled with intense grief for their loss. In a contemporary journal it was written: “A pillar has fallen in the Temple. A tower has tottered to the ground in Israel! John, Archbishop of Tuam, breathed his last at St. Jarlath’s yesterday evening, in the fifty-sixth year of his episcopacy, the sixty-seventh of his priesthood and the ninety-first year of his age”.
On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday his remains lay in state in St. Jarlath’s Cathedral during which time a continuous stream of people files past his bier paying their last respects. On Tuesday, the remains were laid to rest within the cathedral, his tomb being the first to be made there.
And so passed away one who, by his long and unswerving service to the Church and to Ireland, has earned for himself an immortal place in the history of the Irish nation.
Contact Information:
Ivor Hamrock, Local History Department, Castlebar Central Library, John Moore Rd, Castlebar, Co. Mayo.Email: ihamrock@mayococo.ie Phone: +353 (0)94 9047953