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The Irish Abroad: Michael Condon in Scotland, 1845-1878

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Bernard Aspinwall
Bernard Aspinwall*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
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Extract

In May 1859, a beautifully printed card urging Revd Michael Condon to visit ‘La Plus Belle Dame de Greenock’ dropped through his letterbox. He had just arrived that day in his new parish of Cartsdyke. Given the prejudice encountered, the appalling living conditions, and the endless demands on him and his fellow clergy, their resistance to such charms seems remarkable. The Irish were allegedly ‘liars, blasphemous, ignorant, lying, thieving etc.’ And that was a Scottish priest speaking. Not surprisingly Condon could write to a Scottish priest. ‘I cannot wonder that being treated like a dog by your confrere, I should be classed among dogs by yourself.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 25: The Churches, Ireland and the Irish , 1989 , pp. 279 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1989

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References

1 Glasgow Archdiocesan Archives, Condon Diaries (hereafter cited as CD.), 1859, p. 625. The diaries are part later autobiography and part contemporary notes.

2 Revd D. McNab at Bathgate, quoted Free Press, 3 May 1862. The Aberdeen son of a Presbyterian convert and so automatically suspect to many Irish, he later emigrated in 1867 widi some parishioners from his wealthy chapel and established a successful church in Melbourne, Australia. He later became a missionary to the aborigines. Obituary in Scottish Catholic Directory (1897), pp. 254-6.

3 CD., Condon to Revd C. Reid, ujan. 1864;also to Revd. W. Gordon, 31 Dec. 1863:1850, p. 37 shows Condon’s frustration: ‘After the fever years of Glasgow and my journeyings for Campbeltown I fondly thought my missionary labours might end.’

4 CD, 1830, autobiographical entry, and James Handley, Thelrish in Scotland (Glasgow, 1947).

5 See Connolly, S. J., Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780-184; (New York, 1982)Google Scholar and Keenan, Desmond J., The Catholic Church in Nineteenth-Century Ireland: A Sociological Study (Dublin, 1983)Google Scholar.

6 See below. Revd Dr O’Brien, 1809-85, continued his friendship in Scotland. See for example CD,July 1846, p. 469,24 March 1860, p. 688,28 June, 24 August, 14 Dec, 1869. The founder of the Catholic Young Men’s Society, novelist and supporter of the 1868-75 Amnesty Movement, O’Brien found his organization used as an antidote to Fenianism. See Egan, M. J., Life of Dean O’Brien (Dublin, 1944)Google Scholar; Comerford, R. V., The Fenians in Context; Irish Politics and Society, 1848-81 (Dublin, 1985), pp. 112, 143, 187 Google Scholar. Thomley, David, Isaac Butt and Home Rule (London, 1964)Google Scholar.

7 See a copy of the petition distributed with the Glasgow Free Press, 7 May 1864. On’modernization’ see Elizabeth Malcolm, The Catholic Church and the Irish Temperance Movement, 1838-1901’, Irish Historical Studies, 23 (1982-3), pp. 1-16 and her Temperance and Irish Nationalism’in Ireland Under the Union: Varieties of Tension: Essays in Honour of T. W. Moody, ed. F. S. L. Lyons and R. A. J. Hawkins (Oxford, 1980), pp. 69-114.

8 Obituary in Scottish Catholic Directory, 1903, pp. 48-54. Also see Bernard J. Canning, Irish-Bom Secular Priests in Scotland, 1829-1979 (Greenock, 1979).

9 C.D., 1847, p. 504.

10 Robertson, Alexander, The P:apal Conquest (London, 1909), p. 156 Google Scholar. On the background see my ‘Popery in Scodand: Image and Reality, 1820-1920’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 22(1986), pp. 235-57.

11 See Handley, , The Irish, and his The Navvy in Scotland (Cork, 1970)Google Scholar.

12 Edinburgh, Scottish Catholic archives, Blairs Papers contain much correspondence of Bishop Murdoch from 1848 expressing such views.

13 See Handley, The Irish, and CD, 1857, p. 442.

14 See my The Scottish Dimension: Robert Montieth and the Origins of Modern Catholic Social Thought’, DRev. 97 (1979), pp. 46-68, and The Formation of the Catholic Community in the west of Scotland: Some Preliminary Outlines’, IR 33 (1982), pp. 44-57.

15 C.D., 1851, p. 65.

16 Hoppen, K. Theodore, Education, Politics and Society in Ireland, 1832-188; (Oxford, 1984), p. 174 Google Scholar.

17 C.D. 1838, p. 104. Also pp. 95-104; 1830, p. 92; 1841, p. 159. Also see Tocqueville, Alexis de, Voyages en Angleterre, ed. Meyer, P.J. P. (Paris, 1958), pp. 108–11 Google Scholar for Fitzgerald’s radical passions, which influenced Condon.

18 C.D. 1838, p. 117, also pp. 97-8 rejecting girls.

19 Ibid., 1841, no dace or page.

20 Ibid., 1841, pp. 121,137,174-6. Later after illness and about to depart for Glasgow he asked Fr Mathew if he might take a medicinal drink. The orator physically lifted him and literally threw him out of his Cork house, shouting that he would write to Bishop Murdoch to prevent any other drunkard going to Glasgow. Condon was terrified as Mathew came after him—to apologise for his terrible misunderstanding!

21 Ibid., 1841, pp. 137-58.

22 Ibid., no date or pagination.

23 Ibid., 1842; 1843, chapter 18.

24 Ibid., 1844, chapter 19.

25 C.D., 1844, chapter 19. On All Hallows see John Tracy Ellis, The Catholic Priest in the United Slates: Historical Investigations (Collegeville, Minn., 1971), pp. 21, 305.

26 C.D., 1842, no date, no pagination.

27 Ibid., 1842; Quigley wrote A Series of Letters in Answer lo the Rev. S. N. Berman’s Letters to Archbishop Hughes (Troy. N.Y., 1852); The Prophet of the Ruined Abbey (New York, 1854); Profit and Loss (New York, 1873); The Cross and the Shamrock (Dublin, 1000 edn.). He was later suspended by the Glasgow born Bishop Gilmore of Cleveland.

28 C.D., 1850, p. 12 on Scanlan. Also Constitutional, 31 Dec. 1851; C.D., 1845, p. 502. on McDermott. Born 1818, he left Scodand for the U.S.A. in 1846, he wrote Fr Jonathan or the Scottish Convert.

29 C.D., 1844, no date or pagination.

30 Ibid., 1848, p. 555. Also 1845, p. 457.

31 Ibid., 1845, p. 444.

32 Ibid., 15 Oct., 1846, p. 442 on his first sick call.

33 Ibid., 13 June 1847.

34 Ibid., 15 Oct 1846, pp. 442,484-5.

35 Ibid., 1847, p. 505, and also p. 524. His housekeeper was a Presbycerian minister’s illegitimate daughter.

36 Ibid., 14 Aug. 1849, pp. 600-3.

37 Ibid., 1848, pp. 513-14, 549-50, 559, 566.

38 Ibid., 1845, p. 356 and 1850, pl. 62.

39 Ibid., 1862, pp. 605-25.

40 C.D, 1849, p. 633; 1857, pp. 498-9 and many others.

41 Ibid., 1848, p. 558.

42 Ibid., 1848, pp. 559-63. On Revd S. Keenan see B.J. Canning, Irish-Bom Priests, pp. 168-70.

43 C.D., 16 Nov. 1849 to 1 May 1850, pp. 615-660 as per pagination. See 4-7 Dec. 1849, p. 628 on Mr Jellott.

44 Ibid., 1862, p. 368.

45 Ibid., 1845, p. 438.

46 Ibid., 1850, p. 594.

47 Ibid., 1849, p. 610. Bishop Smith wrote to Condon: ‘I am afraid you will discover that it is easier to contract for a fine church than to pay for its erection.’ Also see London, Farm Street, Jesuit archives, Scottish correspondence, 1857-9 for many grudging Scottish episcopal views.

48 C.D., 1852, p. 135; Aug. 1853, p. 206. Manning serves Condon’s Mass; u Dec. 185 3, p. 226 for the first choral Mass; 1855, p. 379, receives Monteith’s translation of The Hidden Treasure, places Caravaggio’s ‘Adoration of the Magi’ in the first benediction; p. 466 first sung litany.

49 Ibid., 1846, p. 453.

50 Ibid., 4 July 1849, p. 569.

51 Ibid., 1850, p. 544,Revd Driver.

52 Ibid., 9-15 Aug. 1849, Revd D.O’Keefe; 1866, p. 355. Also see J. H. Murphy, The Role of the Vincentian Mission in the Irish Counter Reformation of the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, Irish Historical Studies, 24 (1984-5), pp. 152-71. The assault is in C.D., 1862, p. 394.

53 C.D., 1869, p. 155; Edinburgh, Scottish Catholic archives, Blairs Papers, Bishop Murdoch to Dr Smith, 18 Oct 1848:’the best of our people continue to cross die Atlantic and by we will be left a congregation of beggars’.

54 C.D, Notebook, p. 156.

55 Ibid, 1841, p. 175.

56 Ibid., 1845, pp. 443-53 and General Soiree and Presentation to Revd Peter Forbes, 27 April 1846 (Glasgow, 1846), p. 8 for Condon’s temperance speech. Also P. Rogers, Fr Theobald Mathew (Dublin, 1944), pp. 78-80.

57 CD, 2 Feb., 21 July 1851.

58 Scottish Catholic Directory (1884), p. 288.

59 CD, 1862, p. 524. Also see Desmond J. Keenan, The Catholic Church in Nineteenth Century Ireland, p. 105 on alcohol consumption.

60 CD, 1862, p. 524 citing Mission book of 1850.

61 Ibid., 1862, p. 527 citing Mission book, 8 Feb. 1852.

62 Tablet, Jan. 1873 and B.J. Canning, Irish-Bom, pp. 134-5.

63 Tablet 11 June 1881, 19 Sept. 1885; C.D., 1862, p. 387.

64 Revd Pius, The Life of Fr Ignatius Spencer (Dublin, 1866), p. 497, also p. 398; C.D., 25 July 1861, 24 Aug. 1864, pp. 771-7.

65 Ibid., 8 Jan. 1852, p. 111; 22, 25 Jan. 1853 to meet Newman at Carstairs but he was called to trial in London; 26 Sept. 1864.

66 Ibid., 1849, p. 611.

67 Ibid., 1848. p. 557.

68 Ibid., 1859, p. 500. Condon had been to the coal face. Also see Gordon Wilson, Alexander MacDonald (Aberdeen, 1982).

69 C.D., Mar. 1858, widow Boyle. Also 1857, p. 447, re. Mr Stewart and allowing Mass on his property.

70 C.D., quoting Free Press, 6 June 1857; 1864 addenda to Propaganda. In 1860 Condon established die Greenock S.V.P. society, pp. 711-13. See my ‘The Welfare State within the State: The Saint Vincent de Paul Society in Glasgow, 1848-1920’, SCH 23 (1986), pp. 445-60.

71 Also C.D., 1851:6 Dec. 1850; 1861, p. 359; Tablet, 15 Mar. 1851.

72 Villeneuve-Arifat, Marie Therese de, Une Messe en Ecosse (Paris, 1857)Google Scholar.

73 Ibid., 1850, p. 56. Also see 1852, p. 123, £ 31. 16s. from France, including Henry V.

74 Ibid., 1860, p. 663. Empress Eugenie asked after Condon and his poetry.

75 Ibid., 1850, p. 38.

76 Ibid., 1851, p. 90; 3 Sept. 1858. Gerard, a convert, was the father of John, the Jesuit editor of The Month, and two popular novelist daughters, Dorothea and Frances.

77 Ibid., 14, 17 Dec. 1869. They had given Condon a horse in Hamilton.

78 See various American newspaper clippings in ibid., 1856, p. 446.

79 See for example Thebaud, Auguste J. SJ, The Irish Race in the Past and the Present (New York, 1878)Google Scholar, especially pp. 327-73, and E. D. Steele, ‘Cardinal Cullen and Irish Nationality’, Irish Historical Studies, 19(1974-5), pp. 239-60.

80 C.D., 26 Jan. 1852, p. 118 and 14 Aug. 1860.

81 Peter Doyle, The Education and Training of Roman Catholic Priests in the Nineteenth Century”, JEH 35 (1984), pp. 208-19.

82 e.g. C.D., 1858, p.347.

83 e.g. Ibid., Nov. 1849, pp. 612, 636 and 25 Mar. 1853.

84 Ibid., 1854, p. 281 and 7, 14, 21 Jan. 1856.

85 Ibid., 20 July 1859.

86 Ibid., 1852, p. 136.

87 Ibid., 1869, p. 644. Also J. Sharp, ‘Juvenile Holiness: Catholic Revivalism among Children in Victorian Britain’, JEH 35 (1984), pp. 220-38.

88 C.D., 23 Nov. 1847 and 1850, p. 591.

89 Ibid., 1862, p. 372. Archbishop Eyre later followed this policy.

90 Scottish Catholic Directory (1881), p. 98. As usual from Condon censuses, he found a fifth of the parish was under 13 years of age.

91 C.D., 1862, pp. 372, 374, 393; 28 Aug., Deery; 22 Dec. 1869, Godsil; 1, 22 Dec. 1870??

92 Bishop Murdoch to Revd Danaher, 15 Mar. 1852 quoted in Ibid., p. 263.

93 Ibid., Smith, 1850; McCafferty, 1858, pp.475 and 507; 1859. p. 642; Adelauer, 27 Nov. 1870; 2 Jan., 2 Mar., 12 May., 8 June, 11 July, 26 Aug., 5 Sept. 1871.

94 Ibid., 1852, p. 136; 1854, p. 244 and 1855, pp. 325-6.

95 Ibid., p. 329.

96 Ibid., 2 April 1856, p. 336.

97 Ibid., 1869, p. 405.

98 e.g., Ibid., 11, 18 Oct., 1 Nov., 20 Dec, 1862; 26 June 1877.

99 e.g., ibid., 1853, p. 195, Cahill; 1854, pp.244, 274, O’Brien; 1855, p. 339, Moriarty. J. S. McCorry, 1812-80, founder of the Amnesty movement, 1868-75 and a voluminous controversialist, he has 16 titles in the British Library catalogue, Scottish Catholic Directory (1881); Monteith loathed CahilPs oratory, C.D., 1853, pp. 193-5.

100 Ibid., 1853, p. 216. Smith refused to go, 1866, p. 362.

101 Ibid, 1854, p. 300.

102 See Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, C. S. Dessain et al. (eds), 31 vols (London, 1961-77), 18, pp. 20,26,410,446,451-52. Keane wrote numerous scholarly works, became professor of Hindustani, University of London and died unreconciled to the Church in 1912.

103 The main outlines are well known but some details here are new. See J. E. Handley, The Irish, pp. 199-231; D. McRoberts, ‘The Restoration of the Scottish Catholic Hierarchy in 1878’ in his Modem Scottish Catholicism, 1878-1978 (Glasgow, 1979), pp. 3-29; V. A. McClelland, ‘The Irish Clergy and Archbishop Manning’s Visitation to the Western District of Scodand, 1867’, Catholic Historical Review, 53 (1967-8), pp. 1-27 and pp. 229-50 and his ‘Documents Relating to the Appointment of A Delegate Apostolic For Scotland, 1868’, IR 8 (1957). pp. 93-8. A similar clash over Ireland and nationality raged around the American Brownson’s Quarterly Review (1856-61), especially after Revd Jeremiah Cummings attacked the All Hallows clergy.

104 CD, 1862, p. 376.

105 Ibid., 1847, p. 516. Revd R. Kelsh; 1849, p. 633, Revd McCann.

106 Glasgow archdiocesan archives, copy: C.D., Jottings, 1863-70. 17 Dec. 1862, 23 Oct. 1864. Bishop Gray appears as ‘Mr. Peculiar’ and Bishop Murdoch as ‘old woman’. Passions were further heightened by the former editor of the Free Press being charged with drunkenness and the present editor with sexual indecency.

107 As above. C.D., Revd S. Reid cited in letter, Condon to Revd P. Forbes, 23 Feb. 1864, also 4, 11 Dec. 1864. I have been unable to find Revd J. Dowd’s two scurrilous anti-Irish pamphlets.

108 Ibid., 1862, p.405.

109 Ibid., 1857, p. 435.

110 Ibid., 1864, Addenda, summarizing the submissions to Cardinal Barnabo, Propaganda and Condon to Bishop Murdoch, 4 Mar. 1864. The Western District, with only one priest per 5,000 Catholics, still refused to recruit any more All Hallows’ priests however cheap their provision.

111 Ibid., 1864, annual clerical meeting.

112 Ibid., 1864, entry summarizing submissions.

113 C.D., 29 Marc, 3, 17 May, 27 Sept. 1862. On Lavelle, a priest of Tuam under Archbishop MacHale, see R. V.Comerford, The Fenians, pp. 113-14. He wrote The Irish Landlord Since The Revolution (Dublin, 1870).

114 C.D., 1862, p. 381. Also Memorial to Cardinal Barnabo, 4 Mar. 1864.

115 Ibid., Correspondence, Barnabo to Condon, 19 April 1864.

116 Ibid., 1861, and Handley, The Irish, pp. 213-22.

117 C.D., 23 Nov. 1864, petition notes.

118 Ibid., Barnabo to Condon, 19 April 1864.

119 Ibid., Correspondence, Cardinal Barnabo, 7 Mr. 1866.

120 Ibid., 1845, p. 355, 9 April, 2 Sept. 1867. The character assassination of Revd Alexander Munro, a Presbyterian convert, is atrocious. Condon himself had been similarly accused in his early days. Part of the explanation may be Munro’s Scottish misgivings about Irish nationalism.

121 Ibid., 9 April 1867, letter to Cardinal Barnabo.

122 See Handley, The Irish.

123 Obituary in Scottish Catholic Directory (1903).

124 Condon lists six Glasgow pastorals condemning Irish revolutionary bodies, C.D., 1870. Also see J. F. McCaffrey, ‘Roman Catholics in Scotland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 21 (1983), pp. 275-300 and his ‘Politics and Catholic Community since 1878’ in McRoberts (ed.), Modern Scottish Catholicism, pp. 140-5 5. As in Ireland, Fenian weakness was related to the strength of the priests and parochial activities. See Short, K. R. M., The Dynamite War: Irish-American Bombers in Victorian Britain (Dublin, 1979), pp. 103–53 Google Scholar; MacDonagh, Oliver, Stales of Mind: A Study of Anglo-Irish Conflict, 1780-1980 (London, 1983), pp. 99–103 Google Scholar; Comerford, R. V., The Fenians, p. 112 Google Scholar. On the ambivalence of the Church see J. Newsinger, ‘Revolution and Catholicism in Ireland, 1848-1923’, European Studies Review, 9 (1979), pp. 457-80.

125 C.D., 3 May 1870, schools, 12 Oct. 1876, bazaar organizer. He notes his brother, Patrick, at the Hayes’ White House, 13 Mar. 1877. The later brief entries suggest a parish priest in a new bureaucracy.