Rock House should have been preserved

I SPENT one day in baby room at the old St. Angela’s girls national school in Castlebar, writes Tom Gillespie. I was there as a support for my younger sister, Carol, who started school that day. I remember sitting in at a desk with her as Mother Lawrence welcomed us to the class.

There is little else I recall of that day but I was not the only boy in the room - who else was there I can’t remember.

The school was run by the Sisters of Mercy and members of the order resided in Rock House on Rock Square. The school was behind that building, the entrance to which was between the side of Rock House and the long avenue leading to the Military Barracks, and you passed the nuns’ chapel on the way to the school.

Rock House, sadly, is no more. It was demolished illegally overnight in what can only be described as an act of vandalism, the destruction of an historic building.

It was an imposing building and it should have been preserved for the people of the town and in memory of the Sisters of Mercy who first came to the county town 162 years ago.

When the nuns did vacate the dwelling in 1999 it was ransacked and set alight on several occasions by intruders but the demolition of Rock House was a disgrace.

I was in Rock House just once, on a marking for The Connaught Telegraph, during a West Mayo constituency election in the 1970s when politicians canvassed the nuns.

I am indebted to historian Tom Higgins who traced the tenure of the Mercy Sisters in Castlebar in his book Through Fagan’s Gates - The Parish and People of Castlebar Down the Years.

Interestingly, it was the then editor of The Connaught Telegraph, Frederick Cavendish, who played a major part in securing Rock House for the nuns.

Mr. Higgins wrote: “Before the Famine, Fr. Richard Gibbons, the parish priest, had plans to introduce the Sisters of Mercy to Castlebar.

“In January 1845 a public meeting was held in the old chapel, presided over by Fr. Gibbons, with the aim of providing a site for a new convent.

“Fr. Gibbons approached the third Earl of Lucan with a view to getting a suitable site. The Third Earl refused, stating that the law precluded the establishment of monastic institutions in Ireland.

“A lawyer on the committee pointed out that this was not so and Lord Lucan had to admit that he was simply opposed to the establishment of the Sisters of Mercy in Castlebar.

“There the matter rested. Fr. Gibbons did not survive to see his plans coming to fruition. This was reserved for his successor as parish priest, Archdeacon John MacHale.

“The Third Earl still held sway in Castlebar. Where would the parish priest find a site for a building? However, a few gentlemen came to his rescue. These included Frederick Cavendish, Matthew Gibbons, Michael Walsh and Martin Sheridan, and with the help of a local solicitor, Edmund MacHale, who made a donation of £538, Rock House was purchased for £1,375 on December 15, 1852.

“The Galway community of the Sisters of Mercy responded to Archdeacon MacHale’s request to establish the convent. On May 31, the Feast of St. Angela, 1853, Sr. Margaret White, superior, and four others arrived at Rock House in what was described as ‘an old lumbering stage coach’, accompanied by Archdeacon MacHale and one of his curates, Rev. Michael Curley. They received a great welcome from many friends assembled there to met them.

“When they had occupied Rock House, once known as Lord Lucan’s Bank, the sisters set about converting the offices at the rear into temporary classrooms for the education of the poor and illiterate of Castlebar. Henceforth the building was known as St. Angela’s Convent. Girls were catered for at the school, and boys up to the age of nine.

“The population of Castlebar in 1853 was about 4,020, a reduction of 22 per cent since 1841. The town and parish were still suffering from the effects of the Great Famine. Poverty, malnutrition, illness and disease were rampant.

“The sisters visited the sick in the town, they visited the County Infirmary in the Mall (the county hospital of those days), and the prison (where Mayo General Hospital how stands) and, initially, the workhouse.

“In many families, both parents had died during the Famine, leaving the children abandoned and destitute. Orphans were taken into Rock House and cared for by the sisters.

“The pupils at St. Angela’s school who could afford to paid a penny a week, as the school was not under the National Board of Education. There, the poor and illiterate began their education, and adults were prepared for the sacraments.

“Grove House in Charles Street was leased to the sisters as a private school for boarders and the better-off post-primary pupils, and also as a special school where lacemaking was taught. When this school opened there were 140 girls and 12 boys on the rolls.”

Further on in the book Mr. Higgins tells how growing numbers meant that a new school building was needed.

He wrote: “On September 12, 1894, the foundation stone for the new primary school was laid and a new St. Angela’s school was blessed and opened on May 31, 1897.”

This was where I sat with my sister in the 1950s. These classrooms were closed when the new St. Angela’s was opened in the Lawn on this month (December) in 1961.

The significance of the Sisters of Mercy in Castlebar cannot be overemphasised. They have served the town and the community well for over 160 years and it is shocking to see the site of Rock House, where the sisters once thrived, is now in ruins.

Perhaps, an effort should be make to mark the site with a suitable monument or plaque to recognise the role and dedication of the Sisters of Mercy to the people of Castlebar.