ANCIENT RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS OF ARDAGH.

I. SAINT BRIGID'S DOMINICAN CONVENT, LONGFORD.

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.

J. R.