On June 12 or 13, 1730, Henry Gaynor of Black Castle sold, “all that the Friary of Multyfarnham, otherwise, called Multyfarnham, with the Two Orchards there unto belonging” to Arthur Reynell of Tullnally, Co Westmeath for £220.
For the next seventy-five years the Friary and the attached lands remained, it would seem, in the hand of the Reynells. But in 1860, by a deed of lease dated November 15, Fr Francis Dease OFM, then Guardian of the friary, leased from William Reynell for 61 years, at the yearly rent of £80, “all the Friary Lands of Multyfarnham containing forty-six acres, with the houses and Implements thereon.”
Two days later Fr Dease bought from Reynell “all the Trees and Timber on the said Friary Lands” and he was granted one year in which to cut down and carry away these trees. Obviously, Fr Dease contemplated some job of building that required a good deal of timber for its execution. He intended to “repair and improve the parish Chapel,” for in his will he left a sum of money for that purpose, or he hoped to re-roof and restore the old Friary church.
A little more than a year after these leases were taken out, Reynell mortgaged “the Friary and Friary lands of Multyfarnham,” to Sir Richard Levinge, High Park, Co Westmeath. No doubt Levinge renewed the lease made to Fr Dease.
But as we shall see later, Friary lands were soon to pass into the hands of a new owner. Yet to Fr Dease belongs the honour of having been the first friar, for almost three hundred years, to obtain a legal title to the use of the lands that were once the sole property of the friars.
Fr Thomas Conway, OFM
On the death of Fr Dease OFM on May 12, 1824, Fr Thomas Conway OFM, became acting Superior of the Friary. On July 13, 1825, he was appointed Guardian.
Fr Conway’s association with the friary was lengthy and important. Apart from two periods of about six years in all, he remained at Multyfarnham until 1848 and during most of that time he continued to function as Guardian. To his courageous initiative and persevering efforts are due the restoration of the Friary church and the re-establishment of the Multyfarnham community on the site of the ancient Friary buildings.
Thomas Conway was born in Cork City on November 5, 1792, and there, he entered, at about the age of twenty, the Franciscan Order. On October 19, 1816, he made his profession in Cork friary along with six others.
Three years later, on New Year’s Day 1819, Brother Anselm Conway OFM and Brother Paschal Hogan OFM arrived at St. Isidore’s College, Rome, to complete their studies. In September of that year, Brother Conway was ordained a priest. Returning to Ireland sometime later, Fr Conway was, in all probability appointed to Multyfarnham. He was certainly a member of the Multyfarnham community in May 1824.
On the death of Fr Dease, he became acting Superior. A capable and methodical man, he began at once to keep a detailed account of all monies received and expended at the friary. In Fr Conway’s neat, copper-plate hand, in the pages of the friary account books, one can form a fairly complete impression of domestic life in the friary during the years immediately preceding Catholic Emancipation.
The monies necessary for the running of the friary came from voluntary casual alms, from donations on the feast of Portiuncula, and the feast of St Francis, and from the sale of farm produce such as potatoes, butter, oats, and an occasional heifer, cow, or bullock. There was also the rent paid by those to whom the friary sub-let portion of the lands held by them as tenants.
But the main sources of income were, of course, the Sunday collections held in the parish chapels, a practice going back to the beginning of the 17th century and earlier, and the oats quest. The Fathers took their turn in making the collection and the quest.
Expenditure covered those innumerable items necessary to the physical well-being of the community, and the maintenance of the friary and church. On the whole, life was not unduly hard, indeed it would seem that a decent measure of comfort was attained. And under a competent Guardian like Fr Conway, the friary was run efficiently and economically, and without any hint of unwillingness to spend money where necessary.
A number of letters addressed to Fr Conway from neighbouring parish priests, and preserved in the Friary archives, show that the friendliest relations existed between the friars and the diocesan clergy. Many of these letters are appeals to the friars to say Mass in a parish church on some Sunday, or to assist in hearing confessions or at a requiem office and Mass, or to look after the parish in the absence of the parish priest.
Of formal community life there was little or none. During the latter part of the 17th century, and throughout the 18th, normal conventual life was simply impossible. The political circumstances of the time made it hard enough for the friars to maintain their corporate existence as unobtrusively as possible lest they should incur the wrath of a hostile government.
More important matters had to take precedence over the precise details of regular observance. Nor could they be expected to organise monastic observance in the limited space that must have been theirs in the “Multyfarnham Cabins” as one of them termed their abode. Not only had the religious habit to be discarded, but even clerical garb might not be worn with safety.
Hence it was hardly to be wondered at, that every vestige of organised community life should have disappeared in the face of difficulties which rendered their observance impossible. The result was that the traditions of community life were forgotten. The friars lived together much like a group of secular priests, under obedience, of course to the Guardian, and professing their two other vows of the religious life, but apart from any shared participation in community exercise.
But as the 19th century passed, and with it even the shadow of persecution, successive Provincials sought, in the course of their visitations, to gradually re-introduce the practices of community life. Yet the return to regular monastic life and discipline was extremely slow. It was not until after the Synod of Thurles that the friars began wearing their religious habits in their churches.
In a “monitum” (a formal admonition to an errant cleric and notice of the possibility of other penalty) of June 23 1852, the Commissary Visitator, Father P. F. O’Farrell OFM enjoined that the friars of Multyfarnham must wear the habit in the Friary and church, and that no friar must dare to say Mass without his habit. Of course, it should be remembered that oftentimes the community at Multyfarnham consisted of only two priests, a number too small to permit any real attempt to re-establish full conventual observance and discipline.
It was only in the closing years of the 19th century that it was possible to introduce again at Multyfarnham the full observance of the Franciscan Rule. Only then was the legacy of the penal days finally wiped out.