The growing spirit of discontent and political unrest which was manifesting itself among the Catholic rural population of Ireland through most of the latter half of the eighteenth century made itself strongly felt in Co Westmeath in 1797.
In June 1796, military action had been taken in the village of Multyfarnham. About the middle of the month, a company of soldiers been drafted into the village, perhaps because of rumours that the United Irishmen were active there. Yet such preventive measures mattered little, for on September 4 of 1798, the United Irishmen of Westmeath, “determined to make a diversion in favour of General Humbert.”
Assembling their forces, they marched to Wilson’s Hospital situated near the village of Multyfarnham, a charitable institution for Protestant men and boys and demanded to get possession of the weapons stored there. The Warden of the Hospital, who indiscreetly displayed much hostility towards them, was wounded and seized, and taken to Multyfarnham.
It is likely that he would have perished at the hands of the insurgents had not the parish priest of Multyfarnham, Fr. Moran OFM, interceded on his behalf.
In March 1799, “three persons, were indicted upon the Chalking Act, for cutting and wounding the Warden at Wilson’s Hospital, upon the 4th of September last, and capitally convicted.” A revealing postscript to 1798 at Multyfarnham is had in the entry in Bishop Plunket’s diary dated June 28, 1799. It was the day of his annual visitation of the parish and after mentioning, as was his custom, the numbers confirmed and the theme of his sermon, he adds: “Here Lord Granard and son, and General Barnett dined with the clergy.”
A strange reversal of history! A general of the English King army dining with the friars in the friary of Multyfarnham. The presence of the gallant general, and of Lord Granard and his son at the friars’ board, was simply a gesture of appreciation of Fr. Moran’s successful pleading with the insurgents for the life and liberty of the Warden of Wilson’s Hospital.
A Glimpse into the Friary
1798 passed, leaving a heritage of memories, tragic and inspiring. The Act of Union followed and despite controversies over the tricky question of the state payment of Catholic priests, and the thorny problem of the veto, a steady bettering of the relations between the Church and the government followed.
The new century was to see the church go from strength to strength. It was to witness a magnificent revival of Catholic life. Nor were the friars at Multyfarnham to remain unaffected by this resurgence of Catholic activity. Yet the turn of the century showed that the community had been shrinking steadily since the middle of the previous century.
In his reply to a questionnaire issued by Lord Castlereagh to the Irish hierarchy in 1800, Dr Plunket stated the parish priest of Multyfarnham was Franciscan, and that two Franciscan curates assisted him.
The income of the parish was £60. Three friars, as is clear from another section of the Bishop’s report, constituted the entire community in 1800. This number points to what was one of the great problems facing the Irish Franciscan Province in the first half of the nineteenth century, viz. a lack of sufficient vocations.
The steady falling off in numbers makes these fifty years rank among the most difficult in the then history of the Province. The decrease in vocations made it impossible to maintain many of the old foundations. After having held on to venerable Franciscan houses through the storms and trials of three hundred years, the friars had to abandon them when the tempest of the centuries had subsided, and years of peace had come again.
In Multyfarnham, however, the friars valiantly maintained their continuity with the past. Through the long years of the eighteenth century, and well into the nineteenth, the little thatched cabin gave them good service.
It sheltered an unbroken succession of friars and guarded a precious tradition. But the days of its usefulness were drawing to a close. The time was coming when the friars would cross its threshold for the last time.
Before they did so, a happy chance brought a tourist to their little abode; and to him we owe a description all too brief of this venerable house and an abiding vision of poverty and simplicity that takes one back to St Francis and the first Franciscans, to Rivo Torto and Portiuncula.
In the course of his leisurely wanderings through Ireland in 1813, that informative and entertaining traveller by the name of Atkinson, was attracted one day at Summerhill, Co. Meath, “to a convent of Franciscan friars, with one of whom, who I found to be an agreeable man, I had some conversation, on the public road near his friary. The homely aspect of this place (which I could not then visit, however expressive of content, furnished no striking refutation of the professed poverty of that order.” The friary to which Atkinson referred was that of Courtown, the last abode of the community that descended canonically from the friary of Trim.
Impressed by the little he had seen at Courtown, this vivacious and inquisitive traveller seized the first opportunity that came his way to visit a Franciscan friary. Later in 1813, his wanderings took him to Multyfarnham and to the Franciscan friary. Naturally, he described what he saw, and his first-hand impressions of the friary form a vivid picture of humble abodes and suggest something of the simple life of the friars, not only at Multyfarnham but elsewhere in Ireland, for almost two hundred years. He wrote:
“But in the prosecution of my journey homeward, I went to see the Friary of Multyfarnham, a ruin of great antiquity, and on my way from the village inn to that ruin, stepped into a friary, which is situated near it, and having solicited the indulgence of my reasonable curiosity, was conducted in a good natured manner by a sick, or rather impotent friary (who leaned on my arm), to an apartment ten or twelve feet square, which he called their oratory, but which, whether I regarded its dimensions or its furniture, was equally indicative of primitive simplicity and poverty. In one corner I perceived lying upon a bench, which I supposed was designed for the altar of the chapel, a surplice, in another spot I saw a stool [and] in a third, an article of furniture equally simple; and besides these I do not recollect to have seen any other furniture, save a small print of the crucifixion. The house, however, had an aspect of comfort, and in size and appearance, was similar to one of our Irish farmhouses.”
Atkinson portrays an oratory typical of many others in various parts of Ireland at that period. Doubtless that oratory had not changed much in the century and more that had elapsed since it was built. It was plain, even to inelegance.
It had no aesthetic graces. But it served the same purpose as the grand cathedrals and basilicas of Europe. The same sacrifice was offered up under its dripping thatch as under the mighty dome of St Peter’s, sometimes by stealth, in a hushed and fearful silence; and there, priests and people nourished a faith that spurned every bribe, which didn’t falter under threat of dungeon, fire and sword.