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April 12, 2006

AN TOSTAL SOUVENIR PROGRAMME 1953 - CHAPTER 13

Chapter 13 of the An Tostal Programme is dedictaed to the original four penal churches which were in Kildare Town prior to the building of the present Parish Church.


PENAL DAY CHURCHES
 
SAINT BRIGID’S CHURCH
 
FOR THE fifty-five years prior to the building fo St. Brigid’s Church in 1833, there were at least four penal chapels built in Kildare. These were:
1. The Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Kildare, 1778. Father Philip Rouse, Canon of Kildare and P.P. of the parochial Church of the B.V.M. of Kildare with four other Canons and P.P.’s of Kildare diocese, in a document issued from Kilcock and dated 4th September, 1778, postulated for the appointment of Father Fleming, O.P., as bishop of Kildare—Arch. Hib. VIII. 211.
2. A very handsome country chapel built before 1770. “To the immortal honour of his Grace of Leinster, he was the first Protestant gentleman who set the noble example in this Kingdom of accommodating the Roman Catholics with a proper place of worship. To him the inhabitants of Kildare are indebted for a very handsome country chapel, but his liberality did not stop here. He made a compli­ment to the priest of that parish and his successors duly appointed by the See of Rome of a few acres of ground contiguous to the chapel at a peppercorn consideration”— Hibernian Journal, 10th Nov. 1794. Reference by Father Brady, Meath. At the time that Topham Bowden, an English traveller, visited Kildare in 1770, the chapel had already been built and the land acquired by the P.P., Father Nowlan. This chapel was destroyed in the 1798 Rising “The P.P. of Kildare received £460 for building a chapel in lieu of the one destroyed in the Rebellion— Freeman’s Journal, 21st, Oct., 1800.
              3. The Chapel of 1807 on the Fair-Green. Walker’s map of 1807 of the Curragh shows a Chapel on the present Fair-Green at the Railway Hotel corner.
4. The Ordnance Survey Map of 1837 shows a cruci­form or T shaped Chapel on Chapel Hill on parochial land at the south side of Mr. D. Behan’s garden. An entrance to it can be seen in the wall near Mr. Michael Rankin’s house.
St. Brigid’s Church was built in 1833 during the pastorate of Father Patrick Brennan. There is a tradition that Dan O’Connell was sponsor for the first bell used in the Church. A bell formerly hung over the gable facing Presentation Convent. The present bell dates from 1851.
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THE TOWER OF SAINT BRIGID'S CHURCH
 
[Arch. Hib. Refers to Archivum Hibernia a noted academic journal and in this case it is Volume VIII; peppercorn consideration is a peppercorn rent, a nominal rent; Hibernian Journal a newspaper; The Freeman’s Journal a newspaper first published in 1763; Henry Walker’s Map of 1807 shows the racing lodges of the Curragh and the racecourses – an original is framed and on display in the Reading Room in the History and Family Research Centre of Kildare Co. Library, Dr. Nua – Mario Corrigan]

Chapter 12 of the An Tostal Programme is dedictaed to the original four penal churches which were in Kildare Town prior to the building of the present Parish Church.

Posted by mariocorrigan at April 12, 2006 10:32 PM