Until 1896, a small community of friars lived quietly at Multyfarnham friary. There were two friars in the community, hardly ever more than three. Their way of life remained much as it had been during the 18th century, except, of course, that they no longer administered the parish.
They enjoyed full religious freedom. Although regulars were excluded from the benefits of the Catholic Emancipation Act, they did not incur the legal penalties and disabilities to which, in theory, they remained liable. Theirs was a quiet ministry.
Being remote, the friary attracted little public notice. Only occasionally did were there visitors and the bishop of the diocese and his clergy always remained on the friendliest terms with the friars.
On the feast of Portiuncula Indulgence (August 2) and on the feast day of St. Francis (October 4) the bishop and priests of the neighbouring parishes visited the friary and assisted in the work of the confessional and sometimes preached a sermon appropriate to the occasion.
The friars enjoyed the affection of the people, who turned to them for sympathy, encouragement, and advice, in times of trouble and sorrow. After visiting the Abbey about 1867, Dean Cogan wrote, “the friars are prosecuting their mission of charity, and are venerated by the faithful, as of old.”
The following anecdote, as given by a T. M. Healy and widely circulated as being true, deserves to be quoted, as reflecting in humorous fashion the feeling of popular veneration for the friars.
“When Dr. Nulty was consecrated bishop, he visited his native place to see his mother. She would not receive him, however, because in the midst of the plague which followed the famine, he remitted Lenten fasts. He sent for her to ask an explanation, and she came reluctantly but ordered him not to come near her until he justified his remissions.
‘Oh, Tom,’ she cried, ‘dare you excuse your flock from God’s holy fasts?’ ‘Well mother’ he answered, ‘there’s hunger and pestilence all round.’ ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but the friars of Multy say you are wrong.’ ‘Now,’ he asked, ‘don’t you think I’ve as good judgement as the friars of Multyfarnham?’ Snapping her fingers at him, she retorted, ‘Not at all, boy. How could you, at your age!’”
“Letters and Leaders of My Day” is a two-volume memoir by Irish nationalist T.M. Healy, published in 1928 by Thornton Butterworth in London describing his life and the political landscape of Ireland.
Friary Lands – Changing Ownerships
On December 11, 1807, the friary lands were mortgaged to Sir Richard Levinge. But by 1830 they had passed, on lease, to Sir George Montgomery. Sir George Montgomery (1765 – 1831) was the 2nd Baronet of Magbie Hill (or Macbie Hill) in Peeblesshire, Scotland. He was a British Army officer who later became a Tory politician, briefly serving as a Member of Parliament for Peeblesshire in 1831.
He inherited the baronetcy from his father, Sir William Montgomery and was the son of Anne Evatt. Three years later the lands had reverted to a Col. Reynell. In 1835 the Earl of Donoughmore was the friar’s landlord; from him they held forty-six acres of land at the yearly rent of £80. From that date until 1891, and perhaps a few years later, the lands remained in the Donoughmore family, though they were held at various times by different members of the family.
Finally, on May 1, 1904, the lands passed into the ownership of the friars when Fr Peter Begley OFM executed an agreement under the provisions of the Land Act of 1903 for the purchase of lands. In 1943 the friars redeemed the Land Purchase Annuity payable in respect of the money advanced to them in 1904 by the Land Commission for the purchase of the friary lands, and from that point, they held the lands as owners in fee simple free of annuity. After passing through the hands of many owners, the property seized from the friars in 1540, had, after a lapse of almost four centuries, returned to the Franciscan community at Multyfarnham.
A New Dawn
Ever since the 19th century had dawned, and especially in the years following the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act, the Catholic Church in Ireland had been going from strength to strength. Vocations to the priesthood were numerous. Religious communities of men and women dedicated to mission work, or to teaching and works of mercy, sprang up in cities and towns all over the country. Cathedrals and parish churches rose in stately magnificence of elegant dignity in almost every diocese and parish in Ireland.
New and well-equipped secondary schools brought higher education to those who beforehand had no access to it. In the midst of this widespread resurgence of Catholic life, the Franciscans had not been altogether indifferent. They had built new churches, friaries and convents or had enlarged and improved those already in existence.
Nevertheless, as the 19th century drew to a close, it was more strongly felt in Franciscan circles in Rome, that the time had come for a more vigorous Franciscan revival in Ireland. It was thought that the Irish friars, living among a people predominantly and intensely Catholic, should have little difficulty in re-establishing Franciscan life in the fullness of regular observance and discipline. The future was to justify the viewpoint, and to vindicate in a wonderful manner, the foresight, and the courageous efforts of those along the lines on which it had flourished, sometimes in spite of great difficulties, down to the middle of the 17th century, and later.