Fr Michael Gaynor OFM
It is not known when Father Thomas Dillon, parish priest of Multyfarnham and Leney, died. He was living in 1751, but he was then an old man. Fr Michael Gaynor OFM, who succeeded to the parish on the death of Fr Dillon, assisted him during his declining years. Fr Gaynor was himself a native of the parish of Leney and a member of an old and distinguished Westmeath family. In 1733 he was given faculties to preach and hear confessions, and at the same time he was nominated Guardian of the convent of St John the Baptist in County Longford.
This appointment was renewed three years later. In 1741 he was designated Guardian of Kildare but this was most likely a titular guardianship, though it gave the holder the right to vote at Chapter. Three years later he was appointed Guardian of Athlone.
In 1748 he was transferred to Multyfarnham as Guardian, and he was re-appointed to that post 1751, 1757, 1759, and 1761. It is not known in what year he was appointed parish priest.
A chalice acquired by his parishioners during his pastorate bears the inscription:
“This chalice belongs to ye Chappel of Multifarnham and procured by Parishioners there of ye Revd. Michl. Gaynor their pastor, 1763.”
Fr Gaynor was living in 1770, for in that year the provincial Chapter declared him a Jubilarian, thus acknowledging that he had been a member of the Order for fifty years. We don’t know when he died but know this had occurred by 1782 for when Bishop Patrick Joseph Plunket, bishop of Meath, carried out a visitation of Multyfarnham parish in that year, Fr Thomas Moran OFM, was parish priest.
Indeed, considering Fr Gaynor’s advancing years, it is not improbable that Fr Moran had been pastor for a number of years prior to Dr Plunket’s visit of 1782.
Fortunately, Dr Plunket kept a record of his many diocesan visitations, and these notes, often very brief, convey an accurate impression, not only of his own great labours, but also of the condition of the church in his diocese. Naturally, the Bishop went on regular visitations to Multyfarnham, usually once a year. On each of these occasions he made brief notes of the numbers confirmed, and of the theme of his instruction. He usually dined with the friars, and sometimes spent the night with them.
Fr Thomas Moran OFM
Fr Gaynor was succeeded as parish priest by Fr Thomas Moran OFM. In 1772 he was given faculties to preach and hear confessions and c. 1781 was nominated Guardian of Clane.
This was probably a titular guardianship, though, as we have seen appointments of this kind gave the holder the title of the right to vote at Chapters. At all events, he was parish priest of Multyfarnham in 1782 and for the next 34 years he was pastor of the united parishes of Leney and Multyfarnham.
During those years he was re-appointed Guardian of the friary, and on one occasion at least, he was elected to the Provincial Definitory.
In the course of the long span of years when he administered the parish of Multyfarnham, Fr Moran witnessed a gradual but significant change in the status of the Catholic Church in the country. From the middle of the eighteeth century onwards, the government, realising that repressive measures against the Church had failed completely of their purpose, entered on a slow policy of appeasement.
Catholics, it was felt, must be relieved of the more galling political and social disabilities under which they lived and laboured. Hence there began a grudging repealing of the more obnoxious of the penal laws.
One by one, over several years, relief measures were passed that were designed to free Catholics from the intolerable restraints under which they had been compelled to live. Slowly but surely the spirit of religious intolerance began to wane and Fr Moran, his fellow-friars, the priests, and people of Ireland, saw slowly break the dawn of a better day.
A Visitor to the Friary
The Ireland of the eighteenth century was a happy hunting ground for numerous travellers. One antiquarian visitor was the Dutch-born Huguenot, Gabriel Beranger, who had settled in Dublin in 1771. When returning from a tour in Connaught, he spent some days at Mount Murray, and accompanied by the artist, Angelo Bigari a native of Bologna Italy, paid a visit to Multyfarnham on August 17, 1779. It is likely during this visit that Angelo Bigari created his famous drawing of the ruined friary building (opposite).
Gabriel Beranger stated the following about the visit to the Friars:
“A small, thatched convent of Franciscans. The Ref. Fathers came out, and invited us to refresh ourselves; went in, drank some bottles of good claret with them; found them learned gentlemen, well versed in antiquities.”
Controversy over Quest
In 1785 the friars of Multyfarnham felt impelled to intervene in a controversy that had been going on for two years between Dr Plunket, Bishop of Meath, and the Prior of the Dominicans at Mullingar friary.
In 1783 Fr Fitzgerald OP, Prior of the Dominican friary and acting on the instructions of his Provincial, Fr Thomas Netterville OP, wrote to Dr Plunket claiming the right to quest in the Mullingar district. The claim met with strong opposition from the bishop, and there followed some correspondence on the subject of the right of the Dominican friars to quest, a right which Dr Plunket strongly maintained did not exist.
On September 10, 1784, the bishop appointed a commission of four of his priests to examine the Dominican claims, and this commission upheld the view of Dr Plunket. At once the Dominicans appealed to Rome.
At this stage, the Multyfarnham friars intervened. While the matter was sub-judice at Rome, they addressed the following protest to the parties in the dispute:
We, the undernamed brethren of the house of Multyfarnham do give it as our opinion that the establishment of any other mendicant convent within our limits would be highly prejudicial to us, whereas in our present circumstances we can scarcely subsist by the collections of our benefactors. Dated at Multyfarnham, the 7th of September 1785.
Francis Dease, Guardian, Christopher Barnwall, Thomas Moran, Laurence Ballesty, Bartholomew Fagan, John McCormick