Local History: Archbishop John MacHale - ‘The Lion of the Fold’

PART ONE

By Tom Gillespie

THE souvenir programme printed by The Connaught Telegraph to mark the official opening of MacHale Park on Sunday, June 15, 1952, contained many articles about Castlebar in that period including a lengthy piece on Archbishop John MacHale, ‘The Lion of the Fold of Judah’, condensed from an article in ‘The Cross’, by J.J. Collins, Castlebar

He wrote about the Archbishop: The story to this illustrious Prelate is so interwoven with the memorable happenings, religious and political, of the time, that to write about him is to write about almost all of the historic events if the 19th century.

The 70 years that have elapsed since he laid down his crozier, that for six and fifty years he wielded as bishop of his native Diocese of Killala and later as Archbishop of Tuam, have but served to confirm the verdict of his contemporaries, who regard his as one of the most remarkable men of that period.

To envisage the rise to fame of John MacHale as the exemplar of the high and noble principles he fearlessly championed it will be necessary to hark back for a moment to the days of his early life at the foot of Nephin Mor, which towers over the picturesque village of Lahardane.

When he first saw the light of day, the ancient faith and language of his race were proscribed by alien laws; freedom lay buried in a restless grave, trampled upon by the powerful and ruthless forces of tyranny and bigotry.

He was only in his eighth year when he saw the French and their Irish auxiliaries march up the slopes of Barnageeha to Castlebar, where they routed the British.

He witnesses, to his horror, the aftermath, when, after the recapture of Castlebar, he saw the martyred remains of his beloved pastor, Father Andrew Conroy, who had baptised him and whose Mass he had served, carried down those same slopes after he had been hanged from a tree on the Green in Castlebar, by the notorious Denis Browne, on a trumped-up charge of treason. Thus was the future Archbishop brought into early contact with English injustice.

An inquiring mind such as his wanted to know why these things could be, and, assisted by his hedge-school teacher, Martin Callaghan, a profound scholar, he traversed the pages of Ireland’s chequered history.

Father Conroy’s fate, and the treachery that compressed it, left an indelible impression on John MacHale’s youthful mind, an impression that remained with him to the end of his days.

Having spent three years in Castlebar, where he learned Greek and Latin at a school conducted by Patrick Staunton, his progress was so rapid that his uncle, Father Richard MacHale, who succeeded Father Conroy as Parish Priest of Lahardane, informed the Bishop, Dr. Bellew, who, thereupon, appointed young MacHale to a bursarship in Maynooth College.

He passed the entrance examination with unusual distinction, and, after his ordination in 1814, he was selected as Professor of Theology, being then only 23 years of age.

The next six years were confined to the classroom and to study, and here he had splendid opportunities for completing the edifice of that erudition for which he had laid the foundation during his college course.

About this time (1820) the Kildare Street Society, which had embarked some years earlier on a project to provide education for poor Catholic children ‘without endangering their Faith’ (sic), began a very sinister attempt to undermine that Faith by introducing into the schools Protestant Bibles and tracts.

Perceiving their subtle tactics, John MacHale raised the cry of alarm and, under the nom-de-plume ‘Hicrophilos’, letters pregnant with fiery indignation at such wanton treachery appeared in the press.

Daniel O’Connell, attracted by the force of the letters, opened a correspondence with the Professor, which closed only with the Liberator’s life. It was O’Connell who described Dr. MacHale as ‘The Lion of the Fold of Judah’.

When, five years later, the aged Bishop of Killala, Dr. Waldron, applied to Rome for a coadjutor, Professor MacHale was chosen with the right of succession.

The young Bishop launched out stronger than ever against the proselytising schools of the Kildare Street Society and attacked the Government for the support they were giving them.

The celebrated Bishop, Dr. Doyle, under the signature of ‘J.K.L.’, and O’Connell entered the ranks to give their adherence to the principles espoused by Dr. MacHale.