Centenary of the Carmelite Church

Whitefriars Street

A hundred years ago — on the 11th November, 1827, the newly-

built Church of the Calced Carmelites in Whitefriars Street was

solemnly consecrated by the Most Rev. Daniel Murray,

Archbishop of Dublin. The building of this Church marks the

return of the Carmelites to their original Dublin foundation of

1278, which was confiscated by Henry VIII in 1539. This return

was made by the Carmelite Prior, Father John Spratt, the best-

known member of the Order of Calced Carmelites since the

Emancipation period.

The Church of 1827 had its entrance in Whitefriars Street. The

entrance in Aungier Street was not made until 1852. The side

of the Church adjoining York Row has necessarily remained

the same, but successive enlargements in 1856, 1868 and 1891,

have greatly altered the Church of Father Spratt, and greatly

increased the size and accommodation, in the course of the

century. The original Church cost about €4,000.

Archbishop Murray laid the foundation stone on the 25th of

October, 1825. The original Church is exactly represented by

the present Church, measured in a straight line from the High

Altar to Whitefriars Street door. The length is 200 feet. The

original breadth, which may still be easily distinguished, was

34 feet. The building is of stone, covered with Roman cement.

The famous old statue of the Blessed

Virgin and Child, carved in Irish oak,

has stood in this Church since it was

built, the Church also being dedicated to

Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The statue

was in St. Mary's Abbey, on the North

side of Dublin, in the reign of Henry VII.

When that Abbey was confiscated by the

founders of the Protestant religion, the

statue was condemned to be burned.

The back portion was actually burned,

the remaining portion being long left

face downward, and the upper hollow

used as a pig trough. We hear of it again,

early in the eighteenth century, set up in

the old Parish Church of St. Michan's, Mary's Lane, which was

in charge of the Jesuits until their suppression in 1773. When

the new Church was opened in Anne Street in 1817, the statue

was left in the old Church, which became a School. It came

shortly afterwards to a sale shop, where it was purchased by

Father Spratt in 1822, and set up in the new Carmelite Church,

on the Epistle side of the High Altar, the same position as it

had occupied in Mary's Lane Chapel. In 1915 the white plaster,

which had covered it for many years, was removed, and the

dark colour of the Irish oak became visible once more. In the

same year it was placed above the Altar of Our Lady, and the

Shrine of Our Lady of Dublin was formally erected. This was

begun by Rev. J. L. McCabe, and completed a few years later.

It is an object of great devotion to the faithful. The architect of

the Church was George Papworth, who held a high place

amongst the architects of that period. One of a well-known

English family of architects, he was born in 1781, and died in

1855. He settled in Dublin in 1806. He was son of John

Papworth, architect. His nephew, Edgar Papworth, was

distinguished as a sculptor. George was a pupil of his elder

brother, John Buonarotti Papworth, a notable architect in

England. George's son, Collins Papworth, was an architect in

Melbourne. George Papworth's first remarkable work in

Ireland was the monument to John Philpot Curran in

Glasnevin Cemetery, designed from the tomb of Scipio

Barbatus. He was also the architect of the Pro-Cathedral,

Marlborough Street, 1815-26, which was finished about a year

before the completion of the Carmelite Church. Papworth also

designed the King's Bridge, also finished in 1827, spanning the

Liffey, a piece of work which was greatly admired. He was

architect of many fine private residences, amongst them

Portumna Castle, Co. Galway, for the Marquess of Clanricarde;

Kilcornan, in the same County, for Sir Thomas Redington ;

and Kenure House, Rush, Co. Dublin, for Sir Roger Palmer.

The Church was built, principally by the exertions of Father

Spratt. John Spratt was born in Cork Street, Dublin, in the last

days of 1795. He was baptized in the Parish Church of St.

Catherine, Meath Street, on the 5th of January, 1796. As a boy

he served Mass in St. Catherine's, and also in the Carmelite

Church, Ash Street, which was not very far from his residence.

He became attached to the Carmelites, and this attachment

continued, notwithstanding their removal from Ash Street to

a place rather more distant from his home. In 1806 they went

to reside in a house in French Street, now Upper Mercer

Street, behind which they had a Church in Cuffe Lane. The last

vestige of the Carmelite Church and Convent in Ash Street was

swept away a few years ago, when the old buildings were

demolished to make way for the new houses.

The old Convent in French Street

disappeared similarly when that area

was cleared recently, but the Church in

Cuffe Lane exists still, and may easily be

distinguished by the Cross within the

Gothic arch over the door. This humble

Church was Father Spratt's Temperance

Hall for many years. As a Church it was

destined to be superseded by the

splendid edifice in Whitefriars Street, of

which the Centenary is now being

commemorated.

John Spratt was of a most religious and excellent disposition.

He was on friendly terms with the Carmelites in French Street.

One of them in particular, a Father O'Farrell, took special care

of his education. He soon manifested a vocation for the Order,

and in August, 1816, he left Dublin to make his studies in

Cordova. Places of Catholic education were still few and far

between in Ireland, and going to Spain was but continuing the

tradition of the penal days, which were scarcely at an end. The

many fine churches he saw in Spain contributed, no doubt, to

his determination to build a new Carmelite Church in Dublin.

John Spratt was received into the Carmelite Order in their

Convent of Cordova, went through his novitiate, and in due

time made his profession. Besides the usual vows he made, as

was the custom in Spain, a vow to defend the Immaculate

Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Patroness of the

Order, a doctrine which he lived to see defined in 1854. John

Spratt, while at Cordova, lived in the Convent dedicated to the

Carmelite Saint, Albert of Sicily, to whom he had ever

afterwards the greatest devotion. After he built Whitefriars

Street Church, the well called St. Albert's Well was annually

blessed by him on the Feast of St. Albert, the 7th of August,

with a relic of the Saint. A few years ago St. Albert's Well was

revived. It is now an ornament of the porch. John Spratt was

ordained Priest in this College of St. Albert.

Father Spratt visited Granada, Malaga and Seville, and finally

sailed from Cadiz for Dublin, where he was stationed at the

Convent at No.12 French Street, beside the little Church in

Cuffe Lane. Father Spratt soon became prior here. Before he

built the Church he opened his first school in Longford Street

in 1822. In 1824 he removed to a larger school on the western

side of Whitefriars Street. When the Commissioners of

National Education were appointed in 1831, he placed the

School under the Board. In 1850 he secured, with the help

of Lord Cloncurry, the building on the eastern side of that

street called the Old Methodist House, and this continued to

be the School until the years 1895-6, when the present fine

School was built by Father John Hall, Provincial of the Order,

who was then Manager of the School. Many additions and

improvements have been made since then, and other

necessary additions are in contemplation and actually in

progress. The Managers of the School during the last half-

century have been Rev. Patrick O'Farrell, Rev. John Hall, Rev.

Thomas Davis, Rev. Robert Power, Rev. Michael A. O'Reilly,

and Rev. W. J. Brennan.

Whitefriars Lane, now Whitefriars Street, is first mentioned,

as far as is known, in 1577, nearly forty years after the

confiscation of the Convent. The name was changed to

Whitefriars Street, about two hundred years ago; when

another Whitefriars Lane, intersecting the Street and leading

to Aungier Street, came into existence.

The old Dublin foundation of the Carmelites appears on

Speed's Map, 1610, as White Friars, its popular name. Over

three centuries had then lapsed since its foundation, and

seventy years since its suppression. The Ancient Order of

Mount Carmel, which had flourished for many ages in the Holy

Land, was introduced into Europe in the thirteenth century,

naturally by Crusaders. The Barons de Vesci and Grey brought

the first Carmelites to England in 1241,

Carmelite Church Whitefriar Street 1826

Carmelite Church Whitefriar Street – Interior 1826

and a more illustrious Crusader, St. Louis, brought them to

France in 1254. They had many houses in England, and

considerable remains of their Convents and Churches still

exist at Hulne, Aylesford and Coventry. They were Confessors

to the sovereigns of the House of Lancaster, and were famous

for their opposition to Wycliffe and his tenets. In this

connection, Thomas Netter, called “of Walden," is well known.

The name of the Order has been curiously perpetuated in

London in the names of streets and districts. A certain

distinguished native of Dublin made the names of Carmelite

House and Carmelite Street famous in the world. The London

house of the Carmelites was called — like the Dublin —

Whitefriars, and its surrounding precinct, adjoining the

Temple, attained a wider but more doubtful fame, long after

the Carmelites had ceased to occupy it. The right of sanctuary

was preserved after the suppression of the monasteries, so that

this part of London, also called Alsatia, became the refuge of

lawless characters, and so continued until the sanctuary was

abolished in 1697. This district is best known to most readers

by the vivid picture of its condition in the reign of James I.,

drawn by Sir Walter Scott in The Fortunes of Nigel. Macaulay

says the precinct was called Whitefriars from “the white

hoods” of the Carmelites, but our readers are aware that all the

cloak of the Carmelites is white as well as the hood.

The Carmelites enjoyed great favour with the Kings of

Scotland, and had many houses in that country. The ruins of

one still exist at South Queensferry.

They came to Dublin, the first Irish foundation, in 1278. The

houses in Ireland and Scotland ceased to belong to the English

Province in 1305. The Dublin house was founded by Sir Robert

Bagot, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. He was shortly

afterwards granted the Manor of the Rath, outside Dublin, and

Bagotrath Castle and Baggot Street were called after him. The

former stood, until the end of the eighteenth century, on the

northern side of the present Upper Baggot Street, not far from

St. Mary's Church, Haddington Road.

Bagot established the Carmelites in what was then the south-

eastern suburb of Dublin, on a piece of ground which he

purchased from the Abbey of Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow. Ever

since that time, Whitefriars has been one of the most popular

religious foundations in Dublin. Several Chapters of the

Carmelite Order were held here, and many assert that it was a

Studium Generale or General House of Studies. The Irish

Parliament met here in 1333. Many privileges were granted to

the Carmelites, notably by Richard II., in 1394, and by his

successor and supplanter, Henry IV., in 1400. There were

many Carmelite Bishops in Ireland in the thirteenth and

fourteenth centuries.

The Dublin precinct of Whitefriars, comprising about thirty

acres, was separated by Bride Street from St. Patrick's

Cathedral and the Manor of St. Sepulchre, the residence of the

Archbishop of Dublin. Within a short distance were three

ancient churches which have long since disappeared —

St. George's, St. Stephen's, and St. Peter's. St. George's stood

in a street called from it George's Lane, now South Great

George's Street, near Chequer Lane, now Exchequer Street.

St. Stephen's from which Stephen's Green and Stephen Street

are named, stood in the latter Street, and was the chapel of a

Leper Hospital. On its site Mercer's Hospital has since been

built. St. Peter's, called “del hille," was situated between

Whitefriars and St. Stephen Street. The Carmelites had charge

of this ancient Church and its extensive Parish.

The rural character of the district may, perhaps, be best

comprehended from reading the description of Whitefriars,

when suppressed by Henry VIII, in 1539. It comprised, besides

buildings, "an orchard, seven gardens and two meadows." The

name of the last Prior was William Kelly. The Convent and

lands were granted by Henry VIII to Nicholas Stanihurst, and

afterwards passed, in the beginning of the seventeenth

century, to Francis Aungier, subsequently created Lord

Longford, which title became extinct in 1704. Aungier Street,

the name of which dates from 1670, and Longford Street, are

named after this family. Lord Longford lived in the house now

numbered 19 Great Longford Street. A lady of this family

married in 1656 Sir James Cuffe, from whom Cuffe Street is

named.

The Carmelite Church and Old Priory in 1914

New Church Entrance and Priory in 1916

It is said that a theatre was opened in 1734 on the site of

Whitefriars. Rocque's Map of Dublin, in 1756, shows this

theatre on the northern side of Great Longford Street. The bell

of the Carmelite Convent of 1539 is said to have been used in

the nineteenth century in the Theatre Royal, Dublin, and to

have perished with that theatre by fire in 1880. In the latter

half of the nineteenth century the name was conferred on an

adjoining lane, of Sir Thomas Arthur, who leased the

Whitefriars Estate from the Earl of Longford. Besides the

Dublin house, the Carmelites are said to have had twenty-

seven other Convents in Ireland. There are houses now, in

addition to those in Dublin and Terenure, at Kildare, Moate,

Knocktopher, Co. Kilkenny, and Kinsale.

The Dublin Carmelites are said to have lived, in the

seventeenth century, like almost all the Religious Orders, in

Cook Street, but the first Church opened by them after the

suppression was in Ash Street, off the Coombe. This was in

1728, according to the unknown Protestant author of Roman

Catholic Chapels in Dublin, A.D., 1749, edited, with important

additions, by the Bishop of Canea, for the Catholic Truth

Society of Ireland. This authority states that it was Father

Francis Lehy, O.C.C., who opened the Church in Ash Street. As

the owner of the property in Ash Street refused to renew the

lease, the Carmelites were forced to leave in 1806. They

removed to a locality not so remote from Whitefriars as Ash

Street, namely to No. 12 French Street, called since I860

Upper Mercer Street. The house was the second from the

corner of Upper Digges Street. Behind it, in Cuffe Lane, stood,

and still stands, the humble little Church which was for about

twenty years, the predecessor of Whitefriars Street — a

striking contrast.

By this time (1806) the neighbourhood of Whitefriars had

quite changed its character since the suppression. It was no

longer a rural district outside the City wall, or a distant south-

eastern suburb. French Street, like the other fine streets

adjoining, built in the end of the seventeenth and beginning of

the eighteenth centuries, was a high-class residential district.

French Street and French Walk, the adjoining western side of

St. Stephen's Green, were so called because they were the

favourite dwelling-place of the Huguenots, then a very

prominent body in Dublin life. Cardinal Newman lived,

seventy years ago, at 6 Harcourt Street, Sir Jonah Barrington

in the eighteenth century at No. 14. John Philpot Curran lived

in Fade Street and in Redmond's Hill. The sculptor Hogan

lived, in the nineteenth century, in Digges Street. The

celebrated Dublin poet, James Clarence Mangan, worked as

clerk, a century ago, at 6 York Street, to Kenrick, a scrivener,

two of whose sons were Archbishops in the United States.

The famous Charles Robert Maturin lived at the present 41

York Street. Sir Walter Scott stayed, in the summer of 1825, at

10 Stephen's Green, North, now part of the Stephen's Green

Club. Mrs. Hemans died at 36 Stephen's Green, and Robert

Emmet was born at 124 Stephen's Green.

North-west of Whitefriars, Swift was born at Hoey's Court,

Werburgh Street, and Burke at 12 Arran Quay. The last two

were probably the greatest writers of English born in Ireland.

Mrs. Jameson, a well-known writer, on Shakespeare, was born

in Golden Lane, which appears in Speed's Map as Crosse Lane.

In the middle of the eighteenth century Bishop Street was

Great Boater Lane; Drury Lane, now Street, was Little Boater

Lane; Glover's Alley was Rapparee Alley: and Bow Lane, off

Aungier Street, was spelled Beaux Lane. The northern side of

St. Stephen's Green was Beaux Walk, the southern Leeson

Walk, and the eastern, Monk's Walk.

One of the unfulfilled projects of the Dublin Wide Streets

Commissioners in the eighteenth century was the making of a

great thoroughfare from St. Stephen's Green to St. Patrick's

Cathedral. This Street must have passed near the site of

Whitefriars.

We learn accidentally, from the records of old Dublin trials,

that Wood Street, early in the eighteenth century, and Peter's

Row, early in the nineteenth, were good residential streets. But

a great change was made by the building of Carlisle Bridge in

1794. Before that, Essex Bridge, the predecessor of Grattan

Bridge, was the last Bridge. The old Custom House stood

beside it. Capel Street was then, as Grafton Street is now, the

promenade of Dublin. Grafton Street was a street of fine

private residences. In the early part of the century it had been

a road connecting Trinity College with St. Stephen's Green.

But the building of the new bridge was followed by the

transformation of the Grafton Street houses into shops.

Fashion, like commerce, flitted further east, and the fine

streets near Whitefriars fell from their high estate. Thomas

Moore was born at 12 Aungier Street in 1779, and lived there

for the first twenty years of his life.

Shortly after the building of the Church, the house fronting

Aungier Street and next to York Row was secured and became

the Convent. On the 9th of June, 1840, the foundation stone

was laid of extensive additions which were made to this house.

Between thirty and forty years after the opening of the Church,

a frontage equal to that of six additional houses numbered in

the street, had been secured, and the Aungier Street entrance

to the Church was made in 1852. But much of the building

added was very old, being the town residence of the Wolfe

family of County Kildare, ennobled by the title of Viscount

Kilwarden. This was demolished in 1915 and the new house

built by the late Rev. Joseph L. McCabe, who was then Prior.

The first Prior in Whitefriars Street, and builder of the original

Church and Convent, Father Spratt, received the Degree of

Doctor of Divinity from Rome in 1829. He visited Rome in

1835, and Pope Gregory XVI gave him the body of St.

Valentine, Martyr, from the cemetery of St. Hippolytus. It was

deposited with great ceremony under the High Altar in a vase,

the Archbishop, Dr. Murray, presiding at the High Mass which

followed, on the 10th of November, 1836.

In 1834 Dr. Spratt became one of the honorary secretaries of

the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers' Society, a very old Dublin

charity. He devoted great attention to this office up to his

death. In 1842 he opened a Magdalen Asylum. After some

years the inmates were sent to the Asylum conducted by the

Sisters of Charity in Donnybrook, and St. Mary's Asylum,

Mecklenburgh Street, of which Gloucester Street is the

successor.

In 1840 Dr. Spratt joined Father Mathew in his crusade

against intemperance. He converted the old Carmelite Church

in Cuffe Lane into a Temperance Hall, where he administered

the temperance pledge every night. It is said that he gave the

pledge to 500,000 persons during his lifetime, and he was

actually so engaged when his death came. Dr. Spratt is,

perhaps, better remembered in Dublin as a Temperance leader

than in any other capacity.

He was also an active member of the Humane Society for the

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Nothing is more remarkable

in his life than his readiness to co-operate in any good cause,

with philanthropists, many of whom were not Catholics. He

used to begin his addresses to the people with the words: “To

the charitable and humane."

After the Synod of Thurles in 1850 the Committee for founding

the Catholic University was formed, Dr. Spratt, then Prior in

Whitefriars Street, was one of the honorary secretaries. The

Catholic University was opened in 1854, under the Rectorship

of the eminent convert, Dr. Newman. It is said that Dr. Spratt

had in attendance at that time, in his new National School,

begun in 1850 in Whitefriars Street, between 1,500 and 1,800

children.

In 1856 Dr. Spratt founded the Dublin Catholic Young Men's

Society, which had its headquarters in Denmark Street. Good

lectures were delivered to this Society by some of the' most

distinguished men of that day. The Society held a great

meeting in 1859 to sympathise with Pius IX, who was

threatened with the loss of some part of his territory.

He also founded about this time the Blind Asylum, in

conjunction with the Very Rev. Dr. William Yore, Parish Priest

of St. Paul's, Arran Quay. This Asylum is now in Merrion,

where the Sisters of Charity are in charge. In 1832 Dr. Spratt

published the “Parents’ Guide," and shortly afterwards the

prayer-book called the “Carmelite Manual," which went

through several editions and is still very popular. Besides

various sermons he published a tract showing the evils of

intemperance, which had an extensive sale. Also a treatise on

the Blessed Eucharist in controversial form, and a Eulogium

of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Dr. Spratt was very constantly occupied with his charitable

works, his Schools, his Temperance Hall, the Roomkeepers'

Society and St.Peter's Orphanage. He had established the last

institution as long ago as before he built the new Church.

In 1860 he founded St. Joseph's Night Refuge, Brickfield Lane,

for poor women of good character. The building acquired by

him for this purpose was the Stove Tenter House for stretching

and drying the cloth of the once numerous local weavers. It

was erected in 1815 at a cost of £14,000, by a well-known

Dublin philanthropist, Thomas Pleasants, who died in 1818,

aged ninety. When the charitable Dr. Spratt had founded this

Refuge, he visited it every night for the remaining eleven years

of his life. It has long been under the care of the Sisters of

Mercy. At about the same time, Dr. Spratt took a prominent

part in the movement to abolish Donnybrook Fair, which had

degenerated.

He was engaged in administering the temperance pledge to

two poor women, in the Carmelite Convent, Aungier Street, on

Whit Sunday, the 27th of May, 1871, when he died suddenly.

His funeral was a striking testimony to the estimation in which

he was held. His monument, an Irish Cross, may be seen to the

right of the entrance to the O'Connell Monument in Glasnevin.

A contemporary of Dr. Spratt was the Very Rev. Dr. Thomas

Bennett. He was born at Arless, Queen's County, early in the

nineteenth century. While still young he entered the Carmelite

Order. He had a superior intellect and enjoyed the great

advantage of studying and residing at the famous College of

Louvain, of which so much has been heard in the European

War and since. In the early fifties of the nineteenth century,

Dr. Bennett was sent to the Whitefriars Street Convent as

Commissary General and Visitor. He was Provincial until

1864, when he was succeeded by Dr. Spratt, who remained

Provincial until his death. During Dr. Bennett's term of office,

extensive additions and improvements were made to the

Church, including the Aungier Street entrance; and the

Aungier Street frontage of the Carmelite Convent received

extensive additions.

In 1854 Dr. Bennett founded the Carmelite Seminary, 41

Lower Dominick Street. This was a Day School, taught by

members of the Community in Aungier Street. For about a

year and a half before that date, they had been teaching in

rooms in the house 42 Jervis Street. The house in Dominick

Street, a fine specimen of an old Dublin house, had been for

many years the town residence of the Earls of Howth. The last

private resident was the Countess of Clanricarde, whose son-

in-law was Lord Howth. She was a Catholic, a daughter of Sir

Thomas Burke, Bart., of Marble Hill, Co. Galway. She lived in

this house for about thirty years, and died very old on the 26th

of March, 1854. After her death the house was sold to the

Carmelites and became the School. William John Fitzpatrick

says, in his “Life of Father Burke," that the Countess, knowing

that the Dominican Fathers, then in Denmark Street, intended

to build their Church soon in Lower Dominick Street, wished

that they should make No. 41 their Convent.

This house received much notice in the evidence at the famous

Tichborne trial in the seventies. This was the longest trial on

record in England. Roger Tichborne, the heir to an old English

baronetcy and estate, was an officer in a cavalry regiment

quartered in Dublin in the early fifties. He was often invited to

balls at 41 Lower Dominick Street, by his kinswoman, the

Countess of Clanricarde. He sailed from Rio Janeiro on the

20th of April, 1854, in the “Bella," a ship which was never

again heard of and was presumed to have been lost with all on

board. In the late sixties, a man living in Australia asserted

that he was Roger Tichborne, and claimed the title and estate.

Then the trial began. Amongst the other witnesses examined

were the last Earl of Howth, then Viscount St. Lawrence, his

sister, Lady Catherine Wheble, and Mr. Charles Granby Burke.

All three swore that they had often met Roger Tichborne at 41

Lower Dominick Street, and that, in their opinion, the

claimant was not he. On the 103rd day of the trial he was

declared nonsuited. His trial at bar for perjury lasted from

April, 1873, until the following February. He was convicted

and was in prison for ten years. The cost to the Tichborne

estate of resisting his claim was over £90,000, and the trial at

bar cost about as much.

The School which was founded in Howth House, lasted until

1902. The Carmelites built a handsome chapel in the rear of

the house, abutting on the lane. Many citizens and residents of

Dublin, some of whom became distinguished, received their

education in this School. Many of these were priests of the

Diocese of Dublin. The house is now a Convent and School of

the Sisters of the Holy Faith.

Terenure College, Dublin

Another School which dates from the Provincialship of the

Very Rev. Dr. Bennett, is the Carmelite College, Terenure,

which was founded in 1860. Terenure (Tír an iubhair), land of

the yew trees, like most localities near the city, is found to be

in Norman occupation very shortly after the invasion of

Ireland by that race. From the reign of King John until the

Civil Wars of the seventeenth century, a period of over four

hundred years, Terenure was the property of one of the most

powerful families of the Pale, the Barnewalls. Two branches of

this family enjoyed the peerages of Trimleston and Kingsland.

The Terenure branch possessed for exactly the same period of

time, the ancient Castle of Drimnagh, not far off. The first

Barnewall of Terenure and Drimnagh is said to have been the

sole survivor of his family after a great fight at Berehaven.

Later incidents in the history of the family, form the subject of

a romance by the late Dr. Robert Dwyer Joyce, entitled The

Rose of Drimnagh.

But it is in the Restoration period that we find Terenure most

closely connected with great names in history. It was granted

by Charles II to Richard Talbot, afterwards Earl of Tyrconnel,

James II's Catholic Viceroy of Ireland. He was a son of Sir

William Talbot, Baronet, of Carton, Maynooth, afterwards the

residence of the Duke of Leinster. These Talbots were a branch

of the Malahide family. Tyrconnel was appointed Lord

Lieutenant by James II, and died in Limerick during the siege.

His widow survived until 1730, dying at the Convent of the

Poor Clares, North King Street, Dublin, which she had

founded. She was Frances, sister of Sarah Jennings, the

famous wife of the famous John Churchill, Duke of

Marlborough.

It is probable that Terenure was often visited in those days by

Peter Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, brother of Tyrconnel. For

many years of his early manhood he was a Jesuit. But, having

ceased to be a member of that Society, he was appointed

Archbishop of Dublin in 1669. It has been asserted by some

writers that Talbot, while a Jesuit, received Charles II into the

Catholic Church at Cologne in 1656. But the best historical

authorities do not credit this story, and declare that the King

did not become a Catholic until he was on his deathbed. Peter

Talbot was unjustly apprehended in connection with Titus

Oates's Plot in 1678, and after two years' captivity, died in

prison in 1680. There is little reason to doubt that, had he

survived but a few months longer, he would have been

executed, thus sharing the fate of his fellow-prisoner, Blessed

Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh.

Tyrconnel having been attainted as a Jacobite, Terenure was

granted to Edward Deane, a supporter of King William. The

Deane family remained in occupation of Terenure for nearly a

century. In 1753 the High Sheriff of the County of Dublin was

“Joseph Deane of Tyrenure." It was the Deane family who

brought the grounds of Terenure to such a pitch of beauty that

they were a kind of show place early in the nineteenth century,

and have remained so ever since.

To the Deanes succeeded the Shaws. The old portion of the

present College was built about a hundred and forty years ago

by this family. In 1796, Robert Shaw, of Terenure, married

Miss Wilkinson, of Bushy Park, and the family removed to that

place, where the present baronet still resides. They have also

owned and resided in Kimmage Manor, adjoining. Robert

Shaw, of Terenure, descended from an ancestor who is said to

have settled in England from Scotland, was an eminent banker

in Dublin and a Member of the Irish Parliament. His son, Sir

Frederick Shaw, was many years Recorder of Dublin and

Member of Parliament for Dublin University. Mr. George

Bernard Shaw, the well-known dramatist, is a member of this

family.

The Shaws were followed by the Bournes in the occupation of

Terenure House. They were well-known as proprietors of

stage-coaches, and lived in Terenure for about half a century.

The place has been described by several writers as exceedingly

beautiful and well cared for during their period of occupancy.

It was occupied for a few years by Mr. Alexander Hall, and he

was the last private resident.

In I860 the Carmelite Fathers of Whitefriars Street became

the possessors of Terenure, and have occupied it ever since. An

extensive addition was made to the College by Father Moore,

Provincial and President of the College, in 1878, and a more

extensive addition by Father Hall, Provincial, in 1894. Many

additions and improvements have been made there recently,

and the present President, Rev. R. B. Taylor, has quite a large

number of pupils.

As to the beauty of the grounds, we may quote John D'Alton,

whose History of the County of Dublin was published in 1838:

"Tyrenure succeeds ; with its magnificent gardens, hot-houses,

groups of trees, and shrubberies of evergreens, its grottoes,

urns and rustic seats, disposed through all the grounds: its fine

sheet of water, insulated banquetting-house, fishing temple,

winding walks, and picturesque bridges." Ten years earlier

Terenure had been the subject of a picture and an article in

Ireland Illustrated, a work brought out by George Petrie. The

“fine sheet of water," the lake, remains the chief attraction of

the grounds. There are also some particularly fine trees — a

splendid cedar, a huge, many-limbed chestnut, a tall ash in the

Dark Walk, a couple of beautiful American tulip trees, and,

above all, the magnificent beech-trees on the lake shore, near

the island, which is accessible by a bridge. The island

accessible only by water, is, as might be expected, in a state of

nature.

Another sphere of activity was opened to the community of

Whitefriars Street during Father Bennett's Provincialship

when they became Chaplains to the South Dublin Union in

November, 1861. They have been ministering there ever since

to the least prosperous and most hopeless section of the

population of Dublin. Three official Carmelite chaplains have

held office, but, owing to the extent and urgency of the work,

at least two are always actively employed there, and many

Carmelite Fathers have laboured there. The Foundling

Hospital was established here about the beginning of the

eighteenth century. There was never a Catholic Chaplain of

this Institution. The South Dublin Union was founded in 1838.

The first to hold the office was the Rev. George Canavan, P.P.,

St. James's, a native of the district. From 1848 to 1858, Father

O'Farrelly was Chaplain; from 1858 to 1861, Rev. L.C. P. Fox,

O.M.I. When the Carmelites were first appointed, Dr. Spratt

himself sometimes officiated, but the first Carmelite Chaplain

was the Rev. John Carr, the immediate successor of Dr. Spratt

in the Provincial-ship. He resigned in 1884, and died in 1893.

He was succeeded by the Rev. Andrew E. Farrington, and the

present Chaplain, Rev. R. T. Dillon, was appointed in 1905.

Another Chaplaincy held by the Whitefriars Street Carmelites

is that of Mercer's Hospital, founded in 1734 by Mrs. Mary

Mercer, so called, although a spinster, according to the fashion

of that day. This charitable institution has been of incalculable

benefit, not only to this, but to every part of Dublin, and even

to every part of Ireland. The late Father Peter M. Ward was

Chaplain here for many years.

When Mercer's Hospital was founded it was on the outskirts

of the city — almost in the country. The name of Mercer was

not conferred on the adjoining street until many years after the

foundation of the Hospital. Before that event, the whole street

was called Love Lane. The southern extremity consisted of

fields yet unbuilt upon, and practically suburban.

After these fields had disappeared, that portion was called

Little Cuffe Street. About 1773 the more northern street was

called Mercer Street, a name which it has borne ever since;

while the southern portion was called French Street, as it

adjoined French Walk, (the western side of St. Stephen's

Green), so named as many of the residents were French

Protestants or Huguenots. In 1860, French Street became

Upper Mercer Street. The site of Mercer's Hospital was not

almost but quite in the country when St. Stephen's Church,

built about 1224, and originally the chapel of a leper hospital,

isolated outside Dublin, stood here for four centuries.

Very Rev. Dr. Bennett became a Professor in All Hallows

College, and was for some years President. He remained there

for nearly thirty years. When the College was placed under the

direction of the Vincentian Fathers, he retired to Terenure,

where he died, at a very advanced age, on the 2nd of

November, 1897.

Father John Carr, already mentioned as Chaplain of the South

Dublin Union, succeeded Dr. Spratt as Provincial. Father Carr

was succeeded by the Very Rev. John Hartley, who was three

times Provincial, 1875 -1878, and 1884 -1891. Father Bartley

had also been Prior of Kildare and President of the Carmelite

Seminary, Lower Dominick Street.

During Father John Hartley's Provincialship, the Fathers of

the Irish Province of the Carmelites received charge of a Parish

in New York They have done much good work during the last

forty years in their Church in Twenty-Ninth Street. They have

Churches also at Tarrytown, Middletown, and Bronx, New

York. Father Southwell was the first Superior in New York.

Father Bartley died in 1895.

Father Michael A. Moore was Provincial from 1878 to 1881,

and he elected to hold the Presidency of Terenure College at

the same time. These were the successful years of the first

Intermediate Examinations.

In 1881 the Carmelites of the Irish Province made their first

settlement in Australia, the first to go being Fathers Butler,

Leybourne, Patrick Carr, Moses Byrne and Shaffrey. Father

Moore himself ministered in Australia, and was afterwards

Assistant-General. The Carmelites have Churches now in

Middle Park, Port Melbourne and Port Adelaide, Father

Moore died in 1895.

Rev. Andrew E. Farrington was twice Provincial, 1881-1884,

and from 1899 -1902. He was stationed in the late sixties at

Merthyr Tydvil, in South Wales. He was afterwards President

of Terenure College, and finally he was many years Chaplain

of the South Dublin Union. Father Farrington wrote many

spiritual books, also The French Clergy during the Revolution

and a Life of Dr. Spratt. This sketch is greatly indebted to the

last work for the facts of Dr. Spratt's life. Father Farrington

died in 1922.

Father John Hall was Provincial from 1891 to 1895. He had

been for many years previously Prior in Whitefriars Street,

where he had done much good work. He was also Manager of

Whitefriars Street School, and to him belongs the credit of

erecting the present splendid school. He built also a very large

and fine addition to Terenure College. Father Hall died in

1897.

Father Thomas Davis was Provincial from 1895 to 1899. He

had been previously Prior in Knocktopher. Father Davis was

Prior in Whitefriars Street, and was also Manager of the

School for many years. Father Davis died in 1904.

Father Thomas Bartley was Provincial from 1903 to 1906. He

had been a successful President of Terenure College from 1885

to 1891. Father Bartley died in 1915.

Father James Cogan was Provincial from 1913 to 1925. He had

ministered in Australia. He was also Superior in Terenure

College. He made a large extension of the Novitiate in

Ardavon. He has since then founded a Mission in England.

The present Provincial, Rev. Richard J. Colfer, was many years

a successful President of Terenure College. He was

Commissary General of the Province, and afterwards Superior

of a House in New York.

Father Michael A. O'Reilly was Provincial from 1906 to 1909.

He had been President of Terenure College from 1891 to 1899.

He was afterwards Manager of Whitefriars Street School for

many years. While Provincial he acquired Ardavon, Rathgar,

as the Novitiate in succession to Terenure. Father O'Reilly

died in 1925.

Father Edward P. Southwell was Provincial from 1909 to 1913.

Both before and after his tenure of this office he was Prior in

New York. Father Southwell died in 1922.

Rev. Peter M. Ward was several times Prior and Sub-Prior in

Whitefriars Street. He was many years President of the

Carmelite Seminary, Lower Dominick Street, and Chaplain of

Mercer's Hospital. He was also Director of the Carmelite

Tertiaries. Father Ward died at a very advanced age in 1916.

Rev. James Beahan was also Prior for several terms. He was

Secretary of the Roomkeepers' Society. Father Beahan died in

1922. Fathers Beahan and Ward ministered zealously in the

Church for very many years. They both lived in Whitefriars

Street during the whole term of their religious lives.

Rev. Nicholas A. Staples was Prior from 1895 -1899. Both

before and after his Priorship here he was Prior of Kildare.

He died in 1921.

Rev. Joseph L. McCabe was Prior from 1913 to 1919. He had

been previously Prior in New York, and had also been on the

Mission in Australia. Father McCabe made considerable

improvements in the Church. He also built the present fine

house as the residence of the community, replacing the old

residence of the Wolfe family of Kilwarden, which had become

ruinous. Father McCabe died on the 15th of January, 1927.

Further improvements have been made from 1919 to 1927. The

Shrine of Our Lady of Dublin, the new high gates of Our Lady's

Altar, the Well of St. Albert in its new form, and many other

improvements and additions in the Church date from this

time.

The Most Rev. Peter E. Magennis, Father General of the

Carmelites, the first Irishman to attain that high position, was

for some time a member of the Whitefriars Street community,

and President of the Carmelite Seminary, Lower Dominick

Street. He was also for many years in Terenure College.

Fr. Magennis had a long and eminently successful missionary

career in both America and Australia. Although a determined

opponent of emigration, he worked constantly to make easy

the initial struggles of Irish exiles in those countries. By his

unfailing benevolence and wide influence, he secured for

many an Irish boy and girl safety for their faith and a chance

of a successful career. His work will be long gratefully

remembered in Australia, where his friends are numbered

amongst men of most diverse views in politics and religion.

America, however, was the missionary country of his choice.

With a small band of fellow-priests, he toured the States of

North America and gave the lead to the well-known and

popular Carmelite missions in the States.

With a deep insight into human nature and a wide experience,

derived from his activities on the missions, he assumed the

supreme authority of the Order. The Holy Father, Benedict

XV., with whom he was on terms of personal friendship,

suggested to him to begin immediately a general visitation.

This visitation was productive of wonderful good. The

European War had placed an unbearable strain on the

convents of the Order in all tin combatant countries. In

Germany, Austria, Poland, and even in Italy, the toll of victims

and straitened resources left the provinces in a languishing

condition. He revived all these and placed them on a firm

footing.

During his Generalship the number of subjects of the Order

has increased over a hundred per cent. Amidst all his activities

he finds time for a good deal of literary work. He constantly

contributes articles to magazines and periodicals. His books

on the Scapular Devotion, the Sabbatine Privilege, the origin

and prerogatives of the Order, show profound knowledge and

high literary merit. His greatest literary achievement is the

monumental work entitled: “The Life and Times of the

Prophet Elias." His pen is ever active in defence of the ancient

Catholic practices and devotions, but his great predilection is

to promote, by writing, oratory and achievements, the honour

of the Order, and to defend the glories associated through the

centuries with the name of Mount Carmel.

The Grand Carmelite Confraternity of the Scapular in this

Church is the oldest Confraternity in Dublin. Its records date

from over a hundred and forty years ago. The Sacred Heart

Sodality for women, the Archconfraternity of the Sacred Heart

for men, the Children's Sodality, and the Children of Mary

have a very large and devout membership.

The Choir of this Church, of which Mr. A. E. Keane is organist,

is one of its principal attractions. It has long had the advantage

of the services of the distinguished Irish singer, Mr. J. C.

Doyle.

There is a Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in

Whitefriars Street. Its resources are strained to the utmost: for

charity naturally finds a more than sufficient outlet for

strenuous exertion in that poverty which must accompany a

poor district of Dublin where the streets have reached the age

of two centuries and a half.

As we look back over this brief history, what is it we see

running through its every line? What is it that shines out above

everything else? It is the faith of the people — that Catholic

faith of which they are justly proud, the faith that suffered, the

faith that triumphed. Our people's faith is their glory. It has

withstood the world's allurements of flattery; it has withstood

the world's persecutors. What a glorious history has our faith!

When first brought to Ireland, 1,500 years ago, it made her

distinguished among the nations. Churches, monasteries,

institutions of piety overspread the land. Her sons, fired with

Christian zeal, went forth from her shores, regardless of

danger, to make new conquests for Christ and His Church.

Their names, emblazoned on the catalogue of the Saints in the

different countries in Europe, tell us of their zeal and of their

success in bringing those who were in the darkness of

paganism into the bright light of Christianity. This was in the

days of Ireland's glory.

In the days of her misfortune her faith shines out even more

brilliantly. We are proud of the Ireland to which the world

turned in admiration when she was the seminary of Europe,

when her sons and daughters vied with one another in their

piety and learning: but we are more proud of her in the days of

her sorrow, when her faith was weighed in the balance and not

found wanting.

For centuries the waves of persecution beat against the faith of

our people, but all in vain. Ireland's enemies and the enemies

of her faith used all the weapons that wealth, power or cruelty

could invent to crush out, to extinguish, the light of faith. But

Ireland's faith grew brighter with every attack, defied their

power, scorned their wealth, stood firm as a rock in her

allegiance to her God.

Whitefriars Street Church has its history of battles fought and

won for the faith. We look back with pride upon the warm-

hearted co- operation between Carmelite Fathers and people.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel expects much from us all — present

and future generations of priests and people connected with

Whitefriars Street; she expects us to maintain undimmed the

brightest traditions of our predecessors, both priests and

people, some of the best and noblest types of Mother Church,

some of her ablest chieftains and defenders.

Let us now, as we enter upon a new century, begin another

chapter in the history of Whitefriars Street Church. Let us

write it large. Let us enhance in it, if possible, the tradition of

the past, and emblazon on it the hopes of the future. Above

and beyond all, let us write it luminous in the Book of Life,

where the breath of slander does not mar and where flattery

does not elate.