GRAIGUECULLEN

The Glories of Graiguecullen

Meanderings in the Parish

By Rose Madder

Croppy Hole

Carlow did not escape unscathed in that “year of darkened hearths and roofless homes, the year of ’98.”

Over six hundred were slaughtered in the streets, many more were burnt in their cabins on the outskirts of the town by the savage soldiery, and upwards of two hundred were executed.

Four hundred and seventeen of the victims were interred in a common grave in Graigue. The plot is now enclosed by a railing and a simple Celtic cross has been raised to their memory.

May they rest in Peace !

Killeshin and its Famous ruins

Killeshin hill occupies a commanding position overlooking the Barrow valley and the town of Carlow and several counties my be seen from its summit.

It marks the end of the Slieve Margy range and many legendary and historical tales are told in connection with it.

Its interest for us commences at the beginning of the 6th century when a monastery was founded there. St. Laserian, patron of the diocese and Abbot of Leighlin, received part of his early education at Gleann-Uisean as it was named from an association with Ossian son of Finn McCool.

Pillaged and burnt on many occasions the ruins existing to-day probably date from the 11th century.

The ancient doorway is in a remarkable state of preservation and archaeologists look on it as a rare example of Irish Romanesque architecture.

 

The mouldings and carvings are still to be discerned, together with part of an inscription, which fosters the belief that the church was erected in memory of a prince who was killed in the hunting field.

About one hundred years a go a wanton act of vandalism on the part of the man who owned the property where-on the ruins are situated deprived us on one of the more perfect round towers in the country, dating from the same period as the church.

 

Sp solidly was it constructed that in spite of its antiquity and height, it came to the ground practically intact when it was undermined. The church at present in use, was built well over one hundred years ago, and is dedicated to the Most Holy Cross. There are many in the parish who remember the annual walk on the first Sunday in May when the parishioners marched in procession to gain the Plenary Indulgence attached to the titular feast.

Sletty

St. Patrick marked the site of the first church. Sletty lies about a mile and a half to the north of Graiguecullen and marks a direct link with St. Patrick.

The National Apostle old and feeble though he was at the time, came all the way from Armagh to mark the site of the first church erected here. Earlier in his ministry he had visited Sletty and appointed Fiacc first Archbishop of Leinster.

 

Fiacc a widower with an only son, Fiacra, founded his first monastery on the Wicklow-Carlow border.

How long he remained there is not stated, but during his sojourn sixty of his spiritual sons went to heaven, so we may presume he was there for many years.

An angel appeared to him and directed him to the place where he was to make another foundation and where his body would await the Resurrection.

 

Fiacc was loath to change, and declared he would not build a church until Patrick, his master, would measure its dimensions and consecrate the site. On learning this, Patrick, as I have said, undertook the long and wearisome journey to comply with Fiacc’s request.

 

Fiacc was succeeded at Sletty by his son Fiacra who in some mysterious way, centuries later gave his name to the hansom cabs of Paris, and equally mysteriously he is looked upon as the patron of knitters in parts of Scotland, to the present day. As at Killeshin, many of the dead of the parish are interred at Sletty and wait the sound of Gabriel’s trumpet in the company of Fiacc and Fiacra.

 

Their remains lie under the shadow of a 13th century ruin and a tall granite cross, uninscribed, but said to date from St. Fiacc’s time. An ancient font belongs to the same period and lies within the ruin.

St. Mary’s College, Knockbeg, stands on portion of the old monastery lands and contains within its boundary the holy well of Saint Fiacc. The present rector of St. Mary’s, Father P. Swayne, has had the well enclosed by a neat railing. In St. Mary’s too, an ancient bell, formerly used at Killeshin, hangs in a little belfry over the College Chapel.

Old Derrig
A Retreat Beloved of J.K.L.

Very near to Graigue-Cullen, on the Killeshin road stands Old Derrig.

Within the peaceful walls and sunny garden of this un-pretentious old house, the great prelate Dr. Doyle, loved to linger.

 

He resided here for several years and fain would have lived the life of the hermit he so often playfully styled himself, but the woes and sorrows of his persecuted fellow Catholics haunted the peaceful quiet of his retreat.

In Old Derrig, in the intervals of his visitations and other Episcopal duties, he took up his pen and wrote the “Twelve Letters on the State of Ireland” that focused the attention of England as well as of Ireland and set both countries asking “Who if J.K.L.?” In these letters “James of Kildare and Leighlin” put forward such a valiant case for his cause that in the following year he was summoned to London to give evidence before the Lords and Commons in Committee on the disabilities of the Catholics of Ireland.

 

He paved the way for Emancipation with his evidence and apropos of this, the answer of one of the lords to a friend’s query: “How are you getting on with your examination of Doyle?” “Our examination of Doyle? Why, Doyle is examining us !” is illuminating.

 

On his return from this momentous journey his clergy in the diocese presented him with an illuminated address, and inaugurated a fund for the purchase of a residence for him and his successors in the See which “would fix the attention of posterity on the period and the prelate.”

 

Braganza was the house thus purchased and to it, he reluctantly transferred himself from Old Derrig.

He was deeply attached to the people of Graigue and it is told that at six a.m. during the summer months he was often to be found surrounded by his humble neighbours in the garden at Old Derrig.

In Braganza he took up the task of building the Cathedral and here, solaced during his last years by the companionship and counsel of Father James Maher, he passed to his eternal reward in 1834.

“The Graves", Carlow
The Burial Place of Bishops

Though not situated in Graigue-Cullen it will not come amiss to include this brief sketch of “The Graves,” as many of the dead of the parish have been interred in this tiny cemetery.

Here is an inscription from the tomb of a parishioner —

 

Ellen Keagan, who died 13th August, 1708.

Cherished the needy always, with plenty blesd

And may her soul enjoy eternal rest. Amen.

[The subjoined article was originally published in “The Irish Catholic.”]

******

On April 10, 1647, the Confederates, under General Preston, laid siege to Carlow Castle.

It was not by any means the first time in its history that the castle had been invested, but a particular interest is attached to this occasion. After sustaining the siege for nearly a month the garrison surrendered on May 2.

The significance of this victory for the Confederates can be gauged from the fact that Carlow was the last place of any importance in Leinster with the exception of Dublin that remained in the hands of the enemy.

Moreover, as described in the Rinnucini MSS., the town for one hundred and ten years had been a nest of heresy.

 

Small wonder, then, that the fall of this last outpost of the Pale should be the cause of much rejoicing.

On May 3 [the feast of the finding of the Holy Cross], a solemn Te Deum was sung in St. Mary’s Church, Kilkenny, in the presence of the Supreme Council of the Confederates and the civic authorities.

From this cameo it is easy to imagine what the humiliations, trials, and sufferings of the Catholics resident in the town must have been. Abundant evidence of the trail of the despoilers of the churches may be seen in the ruins abounding in the district.

Off the Beaten Track

About forty years previous to this event, the Earl of Thomond, then in possession of the castle, gave the Catholics of the town a small plot of land to bury their dead. This was soon after the accession of James I. This consecrated mould, for it is little else, is the subject of this brief article.

 

Comparatively few, beyond the townspeople, know of its existence, for though it is plainly visible from the river and towpath, these are off the beaten track, and its entrance from the main thoroughfare is reached by a lane that skirts the town dumping-ground, and there is no indication that this peaceful God’s acre lies beyond.

Very occasionally a funeral may be seen winding its way along this lane to “The Graves” as the burial ground is unpretentiously named, a small number still claiming the right of interment there.

Bishop James O’Keeffe

As may be expected, most of the stones are hoary and weatherbeaten, and the inscriptions undecipherable.

One in exceptionally good condition, with a neat railing enclosing the grave, attracts notice.

It marks the resting place of a former Bishop of the diocese, Dr. James O’Keeffe, and as the Latin inscription states, the stone was erected to his memory by an illustrious successor, Dr. Doyle, the great J.K.L.

 

Dr. O’Keeffe was elected to the See on November 7, 1751, and for thirty-six years he laboured strenuously. The following quotations from a panegyric by J.K.L. tend to show what manner of man he was :—

 

“Religion seemed to arise at his call from the grave in which it was buried, and the vineyard assigned to him changed from a state of desolation to comparative fruitfulness. God blessed his word and works in both of which he was powerful.” Another passage describes his wider activities: “He was the soul o the Irish Prelacy and laity.”

Educating Future Priests

With the relaxing of the Penal Code in 1782 he set about establishing a college for the training and educating of a domestic priesthood.

At this time he was old, and his sight was failing. He was without funds but with unlimited faith that God for whose glory he was striving, would help him out.

 

Planning to build his college in Tullow he was disappointed and secured a site adjoining the old parish church in Carlow instead. In order to be near the scene of operations he left his home in Tullow, humble as it was, and took up his abode in a mean hovel in Carlow.

 

He lived to see the building take shape, passing to his eternal reward in September, 1787. He expressed a wish that his remains should be buried in The Graves, and thanks to a faithful servant who had kept secretly from his master against the day of his burial, five pounds, a coffin and shroud for his interment were provided.

The Great J.K.L.

Dr. Doyle, whose home, Braganza, was adjacent to The Graves, writes :—

“Here he desired that his remains should be laid amidst the poor for whom he had lived, and with whom after death, he desired to be associated . . . I have often visited his naked grave and heaved a sigh to heaven over so much worth. I have enclosed with a railing the sod which covered him and raised a stone and inscribed his name on it over the spot where he lies entombed. I desire that my remains be gathered to his in the hope of accompanying him at the general resurrection to the presence of Our Lord.”

******

A contemporary of Dr. O’Keeffe, Dean Gernon, who was parish priest of Carlow and Killeshin during practically the whole time that the former was bishop, predeceased him by a few months, and his tombstone, too, is well preserved and the epitaph quite legible. Here it is :—

Rev. Dean Gernon, deceased March ye 4th, 1787, aged 80 years, Parish Priest of Carlow and Killeshin, thirty-six years.

Stay, child, be thine the tribute of a tear,

The pastor and the friend lies buried here;

He’s gone! Nor seek his merits to disclose,

For on the wings of hope they now repose.

From thee one sigh his manes to attend,

He was the honest and the generous friend.

No more, but let this tomb, this sculptured bust

Declare — alas! Here lies poor Gernon’s dust.

Say, calm he slumbers in you deep retreat,

Immured from envy and oppressive fate.

Aspiring fame insidious world adieu,

Pease here is found, anxiety with you.”

******

These are but two of the many of sterling worth who tended their flocks in the dark and bitter days that are gone, thank God. May they by the Barrow, and others of their ilk in quiet graves by many a river in Ireland, rest in peace.

Epilogue

Our pilgrimage is ended!

We have visited the places in the parish were saints meditated and prayed, laboured and taught. The heritage of the people of Graiguecullen is a precious one. Their forbears fought valiantly for Faith and Fatherland, and the loyalty that is the outstanding characteristic of Graigue men today, will guard the glorious legacy that has been bequeathed to them, and pass it on, enriched, to coming generation.

 

J.K.L. lived on neighbourly terms with the Graigue people and how he laboured for education ! He cherished the ambition to see “a well ordered male and female school in every parish in the united diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.2

 

That laudable ambition we must strive to achieve in Graiguecullen. The existing schools are antiquated and unsuitable for present needs, and now that the project has been launched let each and all strive to assist the esteemed pastor of the parish, Very Rev. P. O’Haire, in the good work of providing suitable schools.

 

Perchance, too, that these few pages may meet the eyes of some of the children of Graiguecullen now far from their native parish, exiles in distant lands.

Maybe, it will bring their minds back to their own schooldays within sound of the Barrow flowing gently over the weir, and inspire them to assist in the work. It if does the writer will be amply rewarded. May they remain staunch and true to their early teaching, and may St. Fiacc and our great Patron St. Patrick, guard them. Amen.

Prayer to St. Patrick attributed to St. Fiacc

Let us put our trust in Patrick, chief apostle of Erin. A bright flame, honourable illustrious his name. He baptised Gentiles; he battled with obdurate Druids. He overcame proud men by the aid of the King of bright heavens. He sanctified the fair plains of Erin. Great is the man to whom we pray.

Let us pray to Patrick, chief apostle, to save us on the judgment-day from eternal condemnation and from the evil designs of wicked demons. May god be with me, with the prayer of Patrick, Chief Apostle.

 

This article sent in by JJ Woods Aug 2007

(It was found in an old pamphlet about Graigue-Cullen which was published in 1937. Don't know if there are any other copies in existence)

Note from Michael Purcell:

Rose Madder was the pen name of  a lady who lived on the Athy road. The lady's name was Alice Treacy her two nieces live in her house now.

There is no copyright. It was published to raise funds for the building of St Clare church, Graiguecullen and published by Sean O Leary.

---

P.S.

My grandfather, William Purcell, of Tullow Street and his sons were the ones who re-coffined the four priests when they were re-interred in St. Clare's. My late Uncle Ger made a cross from some of the wood which came from Fr. Maher's coffin. I think some believed there was a cure in it but I don't know anything about its effectiveness.

Source: J.J. Woods c2007

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