The early history of the See of Ardagh is involved in much obscurity and
some little confusion. After Saint Mel, its first bishop, and Melchuo,
his brother and successor, for several centuries there is little
available information of the state of the diocese, the succession of its
bishops, or the condition of its religious foundations. For the most
part, up to the twelfth century, we find only the names of the bishops,
of which the meagre list is very incomplete and defective; in some
instances whole centuries are passed over, of which we have no published
record at all.
In the absence of other ecclesiastical monuments, the history of this
See, like many others, can be traced only in a fragmentary manner, as it
is found mixed up with the history of the several religious houses
scattered over it, or as it may be unravelled from the various legends
and traditions connected with them. These Religious foundations were
numerous in Ardagh, and some of them rank among the most ancient in the
island; thus, in the _Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick_, we find that
the two daughters of the Saint's old master, Milcho, after the death of
their father, took the veil in the convent of Augustin nuns, founded by
Saint Patrick at Cluain Bronach, near Granard in Teffia (Clonbroncy,
County Longford), which must, therefore, have been one of the most
ancient foundations for Religious women in Ireland. Time, and the hand
of the spoiler have dealt hardly with these old houses, and few traces
can be found of them to-day. The same may be said even of those more
modern ones, which, like the Dominican Convent of Saint Brigid,
Longford, or the Cistercian Abbey of Saint Mary, Granard, border more
nearly on the times of authentic and known history.
In the spoliations of Henry and Elizabeth, the convent lands were
granted away to laymen, and the edifices either razed to the ground, or
perverted to the uses of the new creed. The few that escaped
confiscation were soon deserted under the penal and relentless
persecution that followed, and the departing Religious carried with them
the records of most of our old foundations, which, if existing, are now
to be found only in the MSS. of the Munich, Barberini, Vatican, and
other continental libraries. Yet, from the earliest foundation of Saint
Mel, at Ardagh, or of Saint Columba, in Innismore, Lough Gowna, down to
the latest convent in the islands of Lough Ree, each has its story, its
legends and traditions, which we, perhaps, may live to tell. Of some
extensive ruins still remain, and about their ivied walls there clings
many an old legend and oft-told tradition, that yet may help to clear up
the obscure history of those times. In many instances, however, we must
confess, that few vestiges have escaped the ruthless hand of the
spoiler, and save a few crumbling ivy-covered walls, and the green
mounds that mark the last resting place of their dead, there is little
left, either of storied arch or cloistered aisle to tell of the extent
of the edifices, or of the zeal and labours of the pious souls who dwelt
within them.
The Dominican Convent of Saint Brigid, at Longford, was one of the most
modern of the religious foundations of Ardagh, having been founded by
one of the O'Ferralls in 1400. A sketch of its history will, however,
serve as a first contribution towards the early history of that ancient
church, and may perhaps prove interesting to the reader, as from local
circumstances it has been to us.
O'Heyne tells us, "This convent was built for the Dominicans in 1400, by
O'Ferrall, a very illustrious, ancient, and, for those times, powerful
dynast of Annaly". Harris, in his edition of _Sir James Ware's
Antiquities_, distinctly names Cornelius O'Ferrall, the Dominican Bishop
of Ardagh, as the founder. De Burgo, in his _Hibernia Dominicana_, from
which most of our information is taken, shows that in the year 1400, in
which the Convent of Saint Brigid was founded, Adam Lyons, a Dominican
Friar, succeeded Gilbert MacBrady in the See of Ardagh; that Adam Lyons
died in 1416, and was succeeded by Cornelius O'Ferrall, who was
consecrated in February, 1418, when the Convent of Saint Brigid had been
built and inhabited nearly eighteen years. Hence, it is very clear, that
if Cornelius O'Ferrall was the founder, it must have been before his
consecration as bishop, and very probably before his admission to
Religion as a Dominican. It is not improbable that, like others of his
name, he was dynast of Annaly before he assumed the mitre of Ardagh, and
that having in his boyhood been a pupil of the Dominicans, as we learn
from the Bull of his consecration, he had founded this convent for them
long before he thought of joining the order himself.
Cornelius O'Ferrall died, "celebrated for his liberality to the poor",
as Ware tells us, for which he was popularly known by the name
"_Eleemosynarius_", or the "_Almsgiver_", and he was buried in the Abbey
of Saint Brigid in 1424. The family of the O'Ferralls made repeated and
ample grants to the convent, and, after the example of Bishop Cornelius,
made the abbey their family burial place.
The church attached to the convent stood on the site now occupied by the
Protestant parochial church of Longford, on the north side of the river
Camlin. From it a raised causeway or road led through the meadows by the
river side, to the coenobium, or convent proper, which stood on the
opposite, or south side of the river, about a quarter of a mile distant.
This church was destroyed by fire, and the convent reduced to ruins in
1428. The extent and character of this first convent may be gathered
from O'Heyne, who says, it was a most extensive and magnificent
structure, as shown by the magnitude of the ruins still remaining in his
day (1750). The importance and influence which, in a very few years, the
abbey had been able to attain, may be inferred from the fact, that Bulls
were issued by several popes, granting indulgences to the faithful who
would contribute to its restoration.
Of these the Bull of Martin V., March 1429, informs us, that the convent
was of the "Strict Observance". From the Bull of Eugene IV., March,
1433, in the relation of the motives for granting the Indulgence, we
learn the character and extent of the disaster which had befallen Saint
Brigid's. "In consequence of the wars prevailing in these parts,
especially during the last six years, the church of St. Brigid at
Longford had been destroyed by fire, and all the other buildings of the
convent reduced to ruins. The necessary ornaments for decent celebration
of divine worship were wanting, and the Religious had been of necessity
compelled to pass to other houses". In a second Bull of the same pope,
July 1438, we are told, "the Church of Saint Brigid had been consumed by
fire, and _most_ of the convent buildings laid in ruins". The
devastation is thus in some sort limited, which in the first was
described as total.
The church was rebuilt, and the convent restored, but not at all on the
same scale of magnificence that O'Heyne so extols in the first. For
several centuries, however, it continued to exercise a great influence
on religion in the district, and to send forth able, fervent, and
illustrious pupils, to maintain and defend the faith, at home and
abroad. Thus we find Doctor Gregory O'Ferrall, an alumnus of Saint
Brigid's, Provincial of Ireland in 1644. Afterwards we find him lending
energetic aid to the confederate Catholics at Kilkenny. When the
treachery and intrigues of Ormond had seduced the Catholic chiefs into a
deceitful peace, without any guarantee for the free exercise of their
religion, the name of the Dominican provincial Gregory O'Ferrall is one
of the signatures to the spirited and indignant protest of the national
synod convened at Waterford in 1646, by the celebrated John Baptist
Rinuccini, to condemn the conduct of the men who had agreed to such a
peace, at once unjust, iniquitous, and pernicious to the Catholic cause,
which they had sworn to defend. "Gregory O'Ferrall", says O'Heyne, "was
a man of most meek and mortified appearance, and was esteemed by the
people a mirror of every virtue". He died in 1672.
Anthony O'Molloy, another alumnus of Saint Brigid's, was about the same
time procurator-general of the Dominicans in Ireland. For about forty
years he discharged, with wonderful zeal and ability, the dangerous duty
of conducting the newly-professed Dominicans of Ireland to Spain, and
then aiding and directing their return after the completion of their
ecclesiastical studies. This was at the time penal, and the delicate and
difficult task was performed at the constant risk of his life. His
labours, however, were crowned with singular success. He was known by
the name of Father Antony of the Rosary, because of his admirable
devotion to that pious exercise and to everything tending to the service
of the Blessed Mother of God, through whose intercession, in moments of
danger and difficulty, he is said, several times to have obtained
miraculous deliverance. He died about 1680.
Laurence O'Ferrall was, about the same time, sent from Saint Brigid's
as missionary apostolic into England, when the penal persecution of the
times left the flock stripped of a pastor. He was arrested and flung
into prison at London, where for more than a year he suffered many
hardships. After a time, through the mercy of God, he was discharged,
and fled to Belgium, where he long laboured under grievous illness,
brought on by this imprisonment. As soon as he was sufficiently
recovered, he set out again for England, but he was a second time
arrested and flung into prison as a returned friar. Through the
intercession of the Archduke Charles, afterwards Emperor Charles the
Sixth, who was then in England, he obtained his discharge as a German
subject, and was permitted to leave for Portugal. From thence he passed
into Spain, where he was appointed chaplain to the Irish Brigade serving
under Fitzjames Duke of Berwick. He died in 1708.
The names of other remarkable men, alumni of Saint Brigid's, might be
cited if space permitted. Even so late as 1756, not more than a century
ago, De Burgo speaks of James O'Ferrall, the prior, Nicholas Travers,
and Francis O'Ferrall, as surviving representatives of that convent.
Few traces of either church or convent now remain. The causeway leading
from the church to the abbey may still be recognized; and a crumbling
portion of ivy-clad wall, within the Protestant glebe, on the other side
of the river, shows where the coenobium stood. The lands attached to the
convent were granted away for ever to Richard Nugent by 4th and 5th
Philip and Mary. By 20th Elizabeth, this Friary, containing half an
acre, house, cottage, twenty-eight acres of land, and six acres of
demesne, was granted to Sir Nicholas Malby and his heirs, at 16s. per
annum. Finally, January 29, 1615, James I. bestowed this monastery on
Francis, Viscount Valentia. About 1756 the lands passed into the hands
of Thomas Pakenham, when he was created Baron Longford, on the death of
the last Baron Aungier, and the extinction of that ancient family. What
was the extent and precise position of the abbey lands it is now
impossible to tell. O'Heyne assures us they were ample and valuable, and
even if we look only to the extent embraced under the church and
coenobium, together with the townlands which, from their names, we can
still recognize as abbey property, as Abbeycartron, there can be little
doubt they were very extensive.
Among the legends preserved in connection with Saint Brigid's, the story
of the martyrdom of Bernard and Laurence O'Ferrall, who died there for
the faith in 1651, deserves to be recorded.
The short but brilliant struggle of the Confederate Catholics, marred by
divided councils and the incapacity of some of its chiefs, was over. The
seven years' war ended with an unsatisfactory peace, when the execution
of the King in January, 1649, threw the country once more into turmoil
and confusion. Then came the brief but sanguinary struggle against the
parliamentary army under Cromwell. After the fall of Drogheda, Wexford,
and other towns, in which massacres of the most fearful kind had been
perpetrated, the parliamentary army, broken up into scattered bands,
traversed the country in search of disaffected, and Papists, sacking and
plundering with a license and cruelty that spread terror and desolation
everywhere, so that there is scarce a hamlet or village in which the
memory of the savage deeds of Cromwell's soldiery is not dwelt upon with
horror to this day. A troop of these fanatics was stationed at Longford,
and in the terror of their presence and bloody deeds, the Convent of
Saint Brigid was abandoned, and the church deserted by the friars. Early
one morning, either by accident or treachery, two of the friars, who had
come there to pray, were seized by the soldiery. One of them, Bernard
O'Ferrall, attempted to escape, and was struck down with four-and-twenty
mortal wounds, in the doorway of the church, at the threshold of which
he was left for dead. He survived to be carried to a place of safety,
where he received the last Sacrament from one of the brotherhood who was
hiding in the neighbourhood. Laurence O'Ferrall, the other, was seized
within the church, and hurried before their officer by the exulting
soldiery, who anticipated a day's savage sport in roasting or hanging
the Popish priest, not an unusual amusement with them. He was recognized
by the officer as an adherent of the Catholic army during the late
troubles, and was ordered out for execution next day. A respite of three
days was granted at the intercession of some persons, whose advocacy the
martyr complained of, as unprofitable and unwelcome, and during the
three days' interval he ceased not to pray, with abundant tears, that
God would not suffer the palm of martyrdom to be snatched from him. On
the third morning, when led out for execution, he addressed the
assembled people from the scaffold in eloquent, fervent language, and
denounced the bloody persecutions and violence of the fanatics with such
force, that the officer in charge--stung to rage--ordered him to be
silenced with the rope, and flung off without further parley. He then
bade farewell to the people, and having placed his rosary around his
neck, and taken the crucifix in his right hand, he calmly arranged both
hands under the scapular of his habit, and submitted himself to the
executioner. After he had been cast off, and when he was hanging at the
end of the fatal rope, and life extinct, both hands were drawn from
under the habit, and uniting raised the crucifix over his head as the
symbol and pledge of his triumph. This most extraordinary sight made a
very great impression on the beholders, and the officer himself was so
much struck and terrified that he ordered the body to be at once cut
down respectfully, and gave it over to the people to be buried without
molestation. We find that a safe-conduct was even given to some of the
priests hiding in the neighbourhood to attend his obsequies, at which
the people too attended in an immense concourse. The story of Bernard
and Laurence O'Ferrall is only one of many instances of the bloody deeds
of that fearful time.
Whilst thus we close our sketch, we venture a hope that at no distant
day the present venerated successor of Saint Mel may, in the cause of
Catholic education, be able to introduce the cloistered sisters of Saint
Dominic to revive the name, the spirit, and the good works of the old
Dominican Convent of Saint Brigid.