Below is an extract from a paper read to the Royal Society of Antiquaries in Ireland by a 19th-century Anglican writer, the Reverend George Stokes. Although this 1892 work examines the life of St Fechin and the remains of his monastery, I have omitted the archaeological details. Stokes brings an interesting perspective as he gives a glimpse into contemporary attitudes, particularly in his reference to ‘romantic Irish notions’ versus ‘hard English facts’. Unlike Canon O’Hanlon, the Reverend Stokes has to convince his audience of the value of studying the miracle-laden life of Saint Fechin and I think he does this with good humour as well as good scholarship. In an era which was often marked by ill-tempered sectarian exchanges he pays a generous tribute to the Catholic hagiologists Friars Colgan and Mac Graidin. I also enjoyed the way in which he attributed the dissolution of the monasteries to the ‘sixteenth century’ sweeping over the land rather than to the Reformation! And the paper is worth reading alone for the wonderful story of the Anglo-Norman upstart who fails to show the proper respect for the native spiritual tradition and gets his comeuppance from St Fechin. It comes at the very end of the paper and I can’t help wondering what the Anglo-Irish Establishment worthies who comprised Stokes’ audience would have made of it.

St Fechin of Fore and His Monastery

by Rev. G.T. Stokes, D.D., Member of Council

I have undertaken to give the Society a sketch of St. Fechin of Fore and the existing remains of his monastery in the county of Westmeath, because it seems to me that this sketch will effect two purposes — (1) it will show the exceeding value of a great work far too much neglected by Irish students of their own past, history, I mean Colgan’s “Acts of the Ancient Irish Saints”; and then — (2) because it will show the vast importance of going and seeing personally the places where these ancient worthies lived and the remains of their buildings which have survived the wreck of ages. Now first let me tell who Colgan was. He was an Irishman, a Franciscan monk, who lived at Louvain, in the middle of the seventeenth century, about the time of Charles I. But though he lived in Belgium, he had spent all his early life in Ireland, for he was born in the county Donegal, and knew this country thoroughly, so thoroughly in fact that his testimony is even still of the greatest value concerning the geographical details, the names and places and traditions of this island about the year 1600. Let us reflect on the importance of this fact. Here we have a native scholar acquainted with all the literature of this country who lived before vast quantities thereof had perished, and who stood at a point of time when Ireland was practically in exactly the same condition as it was five hundred years before, as far as the social conditions of the country were concerned. The sixteenth century had indeed swept over the land and nominally dissolved the monasteries and the monastic bodies, but still here and there, even in the neighbourhood of great English fortresses like Athlone, the monasteries remained and were inhabited, so that scholar still worked in tho Franciscan monastery at Athlone and produced there the translation of the Chronicle of Clonmacnois now in T.C.D., and at the monastery of Donegal the Four Masters were engaged in their great task of preserving in the folios of their vast tomes the ancient annals of this country. Colgan had a wonderful store of literary material at his command, as we shall see from his account of St. Fechin. Now let me begin by telling you the story of this ancient Irish worthy. Fechin of Fore was a native of the county Sligo, and was born some time about the year 600.

Some sceptic may, however, hero come forward and demand, how do you know that any such man ever existed? Is not his life and career only a piece of that Irish romance of which you are always boasting, bearing no comparison at all as to truth and reality with the solid facts of which English history is composed? Some such calm assumptions we at times hear from our English friends, and sometimes too from certain Irish friends, who in this respect are often more English than the English themselves. Well, we can produce most satisfactory testimony on this point. St. Fechin’s existence and career and history are as certain as the existence of Bede or Augustine of Canterbury. Let me give a few authorities. Let us begin with Archbishop Ussher. He prints in the sixth volume of his works, as edited by Elrington, p. 477, an ancient catalogue of Irish saints extending from the year 433, and ending with 664. This ancient catalogue divided the Irish saints into three orders; the first which come with St. Patrick or belonged to his time; the second which belonged to the time of St. Columba. St. Jarleth of Tuam, and St. Kieran of Clonmacnois, or broadly the sixth-century saints; and lastly the third order which belonged to the seventh century, including among them Ultan of Ardbraccan, who was a bishop, and Fechin of Fore, Aileran of Clonard, St. Cronan, and many others who were presbyters. Ussher docs not find the slightest difficulty then in accepting the real existence of St. Fechin as proved by this ancient catalogue which in Usher’s time was at least five hundred years old.

Next let us take up Giraldus Cambrensis, a writer who visited Ireland and inspected its antiquities in the reign of Henry II., as the appointed friend and guardian of the young Prince John. And here I may remark that it is scarcely creditable to us that so few Irishmen or even Irish students of archaeology have read or even possess the works of Giraldus Cambrensis on Ireland, seeing that they can be had in English in Bohn’s series for the sum of 5s. Giraldus Cambrensis gives us express testimony concerning the existence and history of St. Fechin telling us in the 62nd Chapter of the second distinction of his Topography of Ireland, concerning the mill of St. Fechin which he made at Fore with his own hands, the churches which were sacred to the saint, the prohibition against women entering either the churches or the mill, and the punishment which overtook several of the soldiers of Hugh de Lacy, who having encamped at Fore for the night dared to disregard the laws of the saint and the reverence due to him. This evidence of Giraldus Cambrensis then is twelfth-century testimony showing that when the English came here St. Fechin was a well-known historical character, with his churches and his religious establishment. Now let us take up Colgan, and examine the two lives which he gives us. The first was written about the year 1400 by Augustine Mac Graidin, a celebrated writer of All Saints’ Island monastery in Lough Ree, about ten miles from Athlone, and just at the mouth of the river Inny, where it discharges into the Shannon.

All Saints’ Island is a beautiful spot, and possesses most interesting remains of Mae Graidin’s monastery, and it was with great regret indeed I found that we were obliged on our excursion to Lough Ree, in the summer of 1890, to turn back without visiting it. Believe one who has tried it, you cannot find a more interesting spot than this ancient monastery where five hundred years ago Augustine Mac Graidin wrote the life of St. Fechin which Colgan has reprinted for us. Mac Graidin himself, too, forms a most interesting personality. He was a diligent student and a copious writer, some remains and manuscripts of whom still survive in Trinity College among the Ussher MSS. What a pity some member of our society does not take up his history and literary remains and distinguish himself by producing a monograph on the subject. Augustine Mac Graidin doubtless felt a local interest in Fechin as a Meath or Weatmeath saint. Fechin’s monastery of Fore stands beside the river Glore, which river, according to legend, has a miraculous connexion with the monastery, as I shall hereafter show. The Glore falls into the Inny, and the waters of the Inny are within sight of the monastery of All Saints. But Colgan gives us still more ancient testimony than Mac Graidin. He tells us he had a number of ancient lives of the saint in the Irish language. One of these he had derived from a monastery founded by St. Fechin himself in an island off the Galway coast, and these Lives had originally been composed by St. Aileron of Clonard, or at any rate by some other contemporary of our saint. Out of these ancient Irish Manuscripts Colgan composed what is called the second Life of St. Fechin. It is, however, only Colgan’s extracts in Latin out of the Celtic Manuscripts. If these ancient Irish lives still exist among the Franciscan records, either here or in Rome or among the Manuscripts of the Bollandists in Brussels, they would form if published a very precious record of religious life in Ireland more than 1300 years ago. And then to crown the matter of our somewhat prolonged investigation, we have the express statement of the “Annals of the Four Masters,” that St. Fechin died in the great plague which swept over Ireland in the years 664 and 665, carrying off many of its most distinguished and most learned sons. I trust now that you can see we have even contemporary evidence of the life and work of St. Fechin just as good and sound as that which men have for the lives and work of English or Welsh saints of the same period.

Now let me give you a brief sketch of his life, St. Fechin was born in the south-western division of the county Sligo, that portion which now forms the diocese of Achonry, about the year 600. He came, like St. Columba, of a distinguished chieftain’s family, and from an early period devoted himself to an ascetic and anchorite life. He soon became a founder of religious establishments which extended all over the central districts of Ireland. He founded the Abbey of Ballysadare in Sligo, which was called Termon Fechin, and he or some of his disciples founded the monastery of Termon Fechin, near Drogheda, which from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries became the favourite residence of the Primates of Armagh. He established island monasteries on islets lining the Galway coast, where he was the first man to preach the Gospel, and baptize the inhabitants, showing us, as his earliest Lives do, that Paganism prevailed in the extreme west of this country, even after St. Columba had converted the Highlanders of Scotland. These monasteries continued in the islands of Ardoilen and Immagia till the time of Colgan, and from them Colgan obtained the most ancient manuscripts connected with our saint’s life. His labours seem to have dealt principally with a district of country extending from Dublin to Galway, or rather to Cong and Clifden, or broadly speaking the district now served by the Midland Great Western Railway. A careful study of his Lives is most interesting, as throwing light upon the social condition of this central portion of Ireland in the seventh century. We find him at Gort, for instance, in Galway, and Lough Cutra, a lake now included in Lord Gough’s demesne. We find him again and again at Naas, in the county Kildare. We get again and again glimpses of the social life of the common people as well as of the chiefs; and we have most interesting information about the residence of the King of Leinster, near Naas, and about the rath of Naas, and the great cross which down to the seventeenth century used to mark the site of its church and sanctuary. We find him again at Poulaphouca, or else at the Salmon Leap, concerning which an interesting story is told, illustrating the intense devotion of St. Fechin, and then above all we find him at Fore, in Westmeath, where the very buildings he erected 1200 years ago can still be seen….

[account of the monastery and its subsequent history follows]

…And then lastly, there is the thirteenth-century monastery, either of the Benedictines or Cistercians, built by the Nugents after the Anglo-Norman Conquest. This is a fine specimen of Norman architecture, and embodies very different notions, and a very different state of civilization from St. Fechin’s Church. It is very clear that the English builders wanted to have nothing to say or do with St. Fechin, save on one point, and that was, his lands and tithes and possessions, of which they completely possessed themselves. They built their monastery at quite the opposite side of the town from that where his monastery stood. They cleared out the ancient Celtic monks, and scoffed at their ancient history. Augustine Mac Graidin tells us in his Life of St. Fechin a curious story which illustrates the bitter hostility with which the new invaders regarded the ancient Celtic saints. You will find the story in the 18th chapter of Colgan’s first Life. I give you a literal translation of it : —

” It happened in the territory of St. Fechin, after the invasion of Ireland by the English, that a certain Englishman was vicar of St. Fechin’s Church. This man, detesting the Irish people, was accustomed to abuse St. Fechin, the patron of his church, with special contumely. But on a certain day when he entered the Church of St, Fechin, and knelt before the altar, a tall cleric approached to him. His body was emaciated, his appearance terrible, his face red with auger. The unknown rushed at the vicar as at a blasphemer, and struck him violently upon the chest with the staff he held in his hand. The vicar, astonished by his appearance, and sick on account of the intolerable blow, at once returned home, declaring that his assailant was St. Fechin whom he had abused and derided. As soon as he got to his house he took to his bed, and died in three days.’” And St. Fechin, you will observe, did not revive the blaspheming Englishman, which ought to be a warning to all, not only Englishmen, but Irishmen who scoff at their own country, its history, its scenery, or its antiquities; and with this healthful, useful, and timely lesson, I shall now conclude a Paper which has been unduly prolonged, but which will, I hope, lead many to make a personal acquaintance with a district of Ireland far too much neglected.

Rev. G.T, Stokes, ‘St Fechin of Fore and His Monastery’, Journal of The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol.II, Pt.1, 5th series, (1892), 1-12.

November 10 is the feast of Saint Áed Mac Bricc and below is a paper on his life and the locality associated with him by the nineteenth-century scholarly Anglican cleric, George T. Stokes.  As I remarked in my post for the saint last year, Rahugh in County Westmeath is only one of a number of places associated with this fascinating saint, but the Reverend Stokes gives a full account of the church there based on an excursion with the Antiquarian Society of which he was a member.

ST. HUGH OF RAHUE: HIS CHURCH, HIS LIFE, AND HIS TIMES.

BY THE REV. PROFESSOR STOKES, D.D., M.R.I.A.

THE great advantages connected with our one-day Excursions throughout the country were admirably illustrated for me by the examination last summer (August, 1896) of the ancient parish church of Rahue, belonging to the saint whose life and times I propose now to describe. St. Hugh, or St. Aedh, was one of the really primitive saints of Ireland, a friend and associate of St. Columba, and the apostle of Westmeath, the central county of Ireland. Westmeath is, from an archaeological and historical point of view, one of the most interesting districts of Ireland. East Meath has, indeed, more striking monuments in Tara, New Grange, and Telltown, but Westmeath surpasses it in the number of its archaeological remains. There is scarcely a field in parts of Westmeath where a rath of some sort is not found; while Sir Henry Piers’ “History of Westmeath,” written 200 years ago, Dean Swift’s poems on his Westmeath visits, Colgan’s” Acta Sanctorum,” and the Ordnance Survey Letters, four very different kinds of authorities, will show what a fruitful field for the investigator Westmeath offers. I shall take the subject in the following order, merely prefacing that the subject has been already touched upon by Dr. Reeves, our own Dr. Joyce, and by the Very Rev. A. Cogan, in his account of the Diocese of Meath. I shall inquire who St. Hugh of Rahue was, and then treat of the church and parish which bear his name; and I think we shall find, in both, interesting matter, illustrating how fruitful local study might be made by our Members resident in country districts.

Where, then, some one may ask, is Rahue? It is, I answer, a district in the county Westmeath, about 4 miles from Tullamore, on the Tyrrell’s Pass road. It is the very next parish to Durrow, and as such necessarily came much in contact with St. Columba’s celebrated religious community. Its present name is Rahue, which is simply a contraction of Rath-Hugh, which Ussher, in his ” Account of Meath Diocese,” makes Rathewe. The name bears its origin plain upon its face, and throws us back upon the ancient worthy whose personality still dominates the minds and memories of the people who live there, just as much as that of St. Columba dominates Durrow and Kells, Derry and Iona. Who, then, was St. Hugh, whose name is still embodied in the designation of this Central Ireland parish ? He was one of the genuine sixth-century Celtic saints of the Second Order, who helped much to propagate Christianity when a large portion of Ireland was still pagan. His birth was noble. He belonged to a branch of the royal family of that day descended from Conn of the Hundred Battles, who was famous in the second century. St. Hugh was a direct descendant of Niall of the Nine Hostages, who reigned in Ireland towards the conclusion of the fourth century, from whom, as I have elsewhere shown, Queen Victoria herself is also descended. St. Columba was also drawn from the same stock. He was great-great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages by one of his younger sons; while St. Hugh was that monarch’s great-great-grandson by his eldest son, Fiachach. His father’s name was Breacc or Bric, whence, in vulgar phrase, the Donegal people speak of him now as Hugh Mac Brackan, or Bishop Hugh Breakey, a form under which we should find it somewhat difficult to recognise our ancient missionary saint. O’Clery and Colgan place his birthplace in Killare, a well-known spot near the Hill of Usnach and the town of Ballymore, in Westmeath ; but for reasons, which I shall state hereafter, I think he was born in Rahue. His mother was a Munster woman, born in Tipperary, in the barony of Upper or Lower Ormond, a district which, at its nearest point, is not more than ten or fifteen miles distant from Rahue.

Just as it is with St. Columba, his cousin, so was it with St. Hugh. Prophecies gathered round his birth clearly modelled after Scripture fashion. A man of God, a prophet, came by his father’s house one day, and foretold to a little maid that her mistress would shortly bring forth a son, who, if he were born at the morning hour, would be great in the sight of God and of man. The maid reported this speech to her mistress, and she being evidently a strong-willed and determined lady, decided that the prophet’s conditions should be fulfilled. She sat down upon a large stone lying near, and though the pangs with which nature perpetually avenges the transgression of our first mother, Eve, were upon her, she avowed her determination that the child should not be born till the appointed time arrived. The ancient Life in Colgan then tells us how, at his birth, the baby’s head struck upon the stone whereon his mother had been sitting, and formed a hollow depression, the exact size of his head, and further informs us that the water which collects in this little hole still avails for the cure of all kinds of diseases. Now I will ask you to bear this miraculous story in mind, as I shall have hereafter to refer specially to it.

His Life then tells us how originally he was not destined for the clerical life. He was reared up among his mother’s people in northern Tipperary. It was only when his father died that he returned into Meath to claim his share in the paternal estate, of which his brothers sought to deprive him. He had lived up to this a very pure and steady life ; but he at once showed that he had an Irishman’s nature and temper, and was quite able to take care of himself after the fashion of his times. He went back to Rahue, his birthplace, determined to get his rights, and in order to secure his purpose the more effectually, he seized the daughter of a wealthy man living in his father’s neighbourhood, and carried her off to Tipperary, as many a man, following his example, has since done, trusting that the injured and outraged family would compel his brothers to surrender his share for the sake of their own daughter. His plan of campaign was well laid, but he omitted to take cognizance of his conscience, and of the power of the Church. On his road from Rahue to the North Riding of Tipperary, he had to pass by a monastery called Rathliphthen, where a notable saint, named Illandus, lived. This Illandus was a cousin of his own, being a descendant of Laeghaire, the King of Tara, whom St. Patrick converted. He had founded his monastery in the great forest of Fercall, over which he presided as bishop. St. Hugh, with his fair captive, stopped there for rest and refreshment, somewhere, I would suppose, in the neighbourhood of the modern Frankford, where afterwards stood the Molloy foundation of Kilcormack Abbey. St. Illandus heard a report of St. Hugh’s action, and was scandalised at his cousin’s conduct. He sent for him, expostulated with him, and was successful in calling him back from the dangerous paths on which he was entering. St. Hugh sent the young lady back to her friends, renounced the world, and entered the establishment of St. Illandus.

His Life, which can be read in Colgan, then tells of nothing else save his miracles and good works. He founded a monastery in the North Riding of Tipperary called Enach Midbrenin, a name and spot which I cannot identify. Some of his miracles are strange enough. One of them must have been rather inconvenient for his neighbours. There was a lake in North Tipperary in which there was a crannog, or fortified island, held by a band of robbers, who plundered all the adjoining country. They could not be got rid of in any way. So the troubled people resorted to the saint, who prayed, and one fine night lake, island, robbers, and all were removed miraculously across the Shannon into Connaught; so that evidently a thousand years before Cromwell, banishment into Connaught was regarded as a fate specially reserved for troublesome customers.

St. Hugh’s activity as a missionary was very great. The royal family descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, and from Laeghaire, or Leary, of Tara, seem to have been principal agents in the conversion of Ireland. Large numbers of them devoted themselves to the work amongst their countrymen, and their high social position ensured their success. The Celts, with their strong notions of loyalty to their princes, followed them therefore, en masse, into the bosom of the Christian Church. We are told, in Colgan’s “Life of St. Aid,” of the labours of St. Hugh among the islands of Lough Ree. He visited St. Rioch’s Abbey, on Inisbofin, now in ruins; the monastery of St. Henanus, a celebrated hermit, at Drumrainey, near Ballymore-Loughseudy, converting great multitudes throughout the county Westmeath, and specially among his own clansmen and relations, the Mac Geoghegans of Moycashel. He went north, too.

The Westmeath and Cavan lakes form a regular chain, by which an active oarsman can even still reach the waters of Lough Erne, and, in those early days, when the light and portable currach was in common use, must have proved a much-used highway from the central to the north-western parts of Ireland. Now-a-days, when everyone is looking out for a new and untried route to follow and explore, I might suggest that some should make the attempt to follow St. Hugh’s footsteps, and proceed by the route I have indicated, from Mullingar to Ballyshannon. For a trip right through the hills and lakes of Westmeath, Cavan, Leitrim, and Fermanagh, during weather such as we have enjoyed this summer would, I should think, prove an experience simply charming.

But to return to St. Hugh. St. Molaise was a very distinguished character in the sixth century. He was the founder of Inismurray, where his memory and image are still reverenced under the name of Father Molash. He was the founder also of the monastic establishment on Devenish Island, in Lough Erne, and he was the spiritual adviser and guide of the great St. Columba himself. St. Hugh also came to Lough Erne to seek his advice, and just as, by St. Molaise’s advice, St. Columba is said to have gone on his missionary expedition to Scotland, so by the same holy man’s advice St. Hugh may have gone off to Slieve Liag, where there remains to this day his oratory and holy well, on the very highest summit of that wild sea-cliff. As St. Molaise died in 563, this proves that St. Hugh’s activity must have been contemporaneous with that of St. Columba. He may, however, have been an older man, as St. Aed, or St. Hugh, died in the year 589, the very year St. Columbanus left the Hibernian Bangor for Gaul, and eight years before St. Columba, who departed this life, as I need scarcely remind you, on June 10th, 597.

This long story has been told simply as an introduction to the narrative of what I found at his church of Rahue, in Westmeath, which forms an extraordinary illustration of the truth, the accuracy, and the permanent character of Celtic tradition, as well as of the vast importance of the personal visitation of our ancient sacred places, and of investigation and inquiry conducted on the very spot. But let me not frighten you lest I should go on for ever. My story will not be a long one, though my preface was very prolonged.

On August 1st, I went to Rahue with a party of friends, one or two of whom were Members of our own Society. We first climbed a very fine moat surrounded by a double line of circumvallations, and capped by a crown of aged hawthorn-trees, the descendants of those with which it once was fortified. This moat, which is a very lofty one, is situated in the townland of Kiltobber, or ”Church of the Well,” and may have been the residence of St. Hugh’s father. It is distant little more than a quarter of a mile from his ancient church. We then visited the church and churchyard, which are situated beside Rahue House, whose owner, Mr. Newburn, acted as a very intelligent guide, and communicated to us all the traditions of the neighbourhood. The church is a primitive oblong, about 60 feet long and 20 feet wide. The churchyard is in a state of the most terrible confusion, the tombstones lying two or three deep within a circular cashel. I am sure there must be in that churchyard some rare treasures of ancient Celtic tombstones, going back a thousand years, if the confused mass were only intelligently investigated. St. Hugh’s holy well still flowing, still used, and still reverenced is situated about 250 yards east of the church; while last of all, and most interesting of all, through the kind assistance of Mr. Newburn, we lighted upon the very stone of which the ancient Life, in Colgan, speaks as that on which St. Hugh was born, about 200 yards south-west of the churchyard. It is an immense block of stone, lying in a ditch in the same field as the holy well. It is called, by the peasantry, St. Hugh’s tombstone. It has a large Celtic circle and cross incised upon its face. The arms of the cross extend beyond the circle. But the most curious thing about it is this; in the very centre of the circle there is a hole, the size of the crown of a human head, with a smaller hole beside it on the right, into which the elbow is to be inserted. The local living tradition is just as Colgan reports, that if the head of a person, afflicted with headache, be placed in the larger hole, the body supported meanwhile by the right arm, the disease will be cured by St. Hugh’s power. This is evidently not the gravestone, but the birthstone, of St. Hugh, which Colgan placed in the cemetery of Killare, in the same county, Westmeath. But, then, we must remember that Colgan was a Donegal man, and might easily make a mistake between the barony of Moycashel, which was, till 1641, or 1650, the property of St. Hugh’s own family, the Mac Geoghegans, and the barony of Rathconrath, which was beyond their limits.

It is well worth while, however, to go and pay a visit to Rahue to see this ancient sixth-century cross, just like one of those in Glen-Columcille, erected by St. Columba, for the purpose of teaching the rude pagans the primary lessons of the faith. Surely, as I have just said, nothing can prove better the abiding and trustworthy character of Celtic tradition than thus to find, in the year 1896, precisely the same traditions, and the same objects, as those which Colgan reported 250 years ago, and which the ancient Life he printed described 900 years ago, still existing in exactly the same shape, and that among people who never had heard of Colgan, and have had no other instructors save oral tradition. But, perhaps, the strangest point of all remains untold. Reading over, the other day, that charming work published by one of our own Members, Joyce’s ” Irish Names,” and consulting it, as I always do on the subject of our Celtic topography, I came across a notice of Rahue, which directed me to a Paper by Dr. Reeves, on the “Hymn of St. Aid, or St. Hugh.” You will find the Paper in the Proceedings, Royal Irish Academy, vol. vii., p. 92. This hymn once belonged to the famous Irish Monastery of Reichenau, on Lake Constance, and was published some forty years ago by Francis Joseph Mone, Director of the State Archives at Carlsruhe. This hymn was written in the eighth century, say about 750, by an Irish monk in that monastery, and it celebrates the power of St. Hugh, or St. Aid, in the very same matter of headaches, just in the same way as the ancient Life in Colgan, and the living tradition of the Rahue people celebrate it down to this day.

Rahue was of interest to me for another reason, and that, too, of a historical character. I knew that it had been, in modern times, the seat of a colony of Cromwell’s Ironsides, all of them extreme Puritans. They belonged almost entirely to the Anabaptist sect, the most violent and determined of the English Republican party. I knew that this colony was there early in the last century, and I wished to find out if any traces of it still survived. I was not disappointed in this respect again. I found, a little beyond the ancient church of St. Hugh, the ruins of an ancient Baptist chapel. In St. Hugh’s graveyard I found inscriptions in abundance, with those Scriptural names Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, and Sarah in which the Puritans delighted. The Rector of Tullamore, too, told me how he had baptized some of the last descendants of these Cromwellian colonists, and then, in the Record Office, I solved the riddle which always puzzled me, which was this What led this Anabaptist colony from England over to the centre of Ireland? I knew, indeed, that a similar colony of Baptists had settled not very far away in and around Cloughjordan, in the North Riding of Tipperary, and that their Baptist chapel had only become extinct early in this century; but then I also knew that the North Riding of Tipperary, and the Golden Vale, were largely settled by Cromwellian officers and soldiers.

This was not, however, the case with Westmeath. The documents in the Record Office solved the difficulty. Major William Low was the son of a Dublin citizen named John Low, whose tomb, dated 1638, stands in the churchyard of Chapelizod. Major William Low was a fierce Republican, obtained the rank of Major in Cromwell’s army, and was an ardent Anabaptist. He was one of those officers who were rewarded with grants of estates in various parts of the country. His share fell in Westmeath. He obtained the property of the Mac Geoghegans in Rahue and its neighbourhood, where he built a mansion-house, now in ruins, which he called Newtown Loe. If you take up that curious book, Lyons’ “Grand Juries of “Westmeath,” you will find the Low family occupying a high position on the Grand Jury all through the last century. Now in Major William Low’s will, dated 1678, the original of which is in the Record Office, you will find that he there leaves the sum of £4 per annum, charged on his real estate, for the support of a “baptized minister,” to preach at Newtown to the colony of English Anabaptists which he settled in Rahugh and its neighbourhood.

Rahue, then, I conclude, played no unimportant part in ancient times towards making Celtic Ireland what it once was religiously; and the same Rahue and its history gives us a glimpse into a stirring though bloody period, which largely contributed towards the Ireland of to-day, with its manifold questions social and political, economic and religious.

The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Volume 26 (1896), 325-335.

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