Is Saint John’s Church on Valentia the ‘most westerly Protestant church in Europe’?

The Church of Saint John the Baptist, Knightstown … built in 1860 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Valentia Island and its neighbouring islets are scattered with ancient cairns, dolmens, wedge tombs, standing stones, Ogham stones, a promontory fort, and the remains of churches and numerous beehive huts.

Mug Ruith, or Mogh Roith, ‘slave of the wheel,’ a mythological, powerful, blind druid of Munster, is said to have lived on Valentia Island. Legend says he could grow to an enormous size, and that his breath caused storms and turned men to stone.

But the first historical, recorded evidence of people living on the island is found in 1291, in the Papal taxations of Pope Nicholas IV, when a church on the island is valued at 13s 4d.

In church records, the parish was also known as Kilmore, but the list of vicars or rectors of Valentia only begins in 1627, when the Revd Donogh O’Giltenan was presented to the parish.

Canon John Warburton, who was Rector of Valentia in 1812-1830, was a younger son of Charles Morgan Warburton (1754-1826), Bishop of Limerick (1806-1820) and Bishop of Cloyne (1820-1826).

While Warburton was Rector of Valentia, he was the very model of a pluralist, absentee rector, and he was, at various time, also Vicar of Kill and Lyons in the Diocese of Kildare, Vicar of Loughill, Limerick, Rector of Drumcliffe or Ennis in Co Clare, and a minor canon or vicar choral of Cork and Cloyne cathedrals, Precentor of Ardfert (1811-1814).

He was also one of my predecessors as Precentor of Limerick (1818-1878), while his elder brother, Canon Charles Warburton, was one of my predecessors as Rector of Rathkeale in 1813-1855.

The Church of Saint John the Baptist, built at Kilmore in 1815, was designed by James Pain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Despite John Warburton’s lengthy absences from Valentia during his time as rector, a new Church of Saint John the Baptist was built at Kilmore in 1815, almost a generation before Knightstown was laid out and developed by Alexander Nimmo on behalf of the Knights of Kerry.

This was a Georgian hall and tower church, designed by the Limerick-based architect James Pain, a pupil of the renowned London architect John Nash. The Pain brothers were involved in designing many of the churches in the Diocese of Limerick including, it is said, Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, and Castletown Church.

The church could seat a congregation of about 60 people. However, as the Church of Ireland population of Valentia grew with the growth of Knightstown, the expansion of the slate quarry and the arrival of the transatlantic cable, the church became too small for the needs of a growing parish.

Successive generations of the Knights of Kerry are buried in the former chancel of Saint John’s Church in Kilmore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

A new church, also dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, was built in Knightstown in 1860, when the Revd Edward Lee Sandiford was Rector of Valentia (1848-1869). This is one of the last churches designed by Joseph Welland (1798-1860).

The stained-glass windows are memorials to the Knights of Kerry. The oak panelling and the mosaics in the chancel date from 1925.

The other rectors of Valentia include John Godfrey Day (1830-1847), later Dean of Ardfert (1861-1879), father of Bishop Maurice Day of Clogher and grandfather of Godfrey Day, Bishop of Armagh and Archbishop of Armagh; Abraham Isaac, later Dean of Ardfert (1894-1905); the Revd Alexander Delap, father of the marine biologist, Maude Delap (1866-1953); and George Lill Swain, later Dean of Limerick (1929-1954).

Other clergy on the island also served in developing scientific roles. For example, the Revd Thomas Kerr, who is buried in Saint John’s Churchyard in Kilmore, was also Director of the Meteorological Observatory on Valentia.

The sensory garden at Saint John’s Church in Knightstown was designed by Arthur Shackleton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The Church of Ireland population on Valentia began to fall in numbers with the loss of British officials in the early 20th century, moving the headquarters of the cable stations to London, and the eventual departure of the Knights of Kerry from Valentia.

Today, a sign claims the church in Knightstown is the ‘most westerly Protestant church in Europe.’ Although the church is closed this summer due to restoration and renovation works, it is normally open in summer from May to September, and the church is also the venue for an ecumenical Christmas service and regular musical recitals and lectures.

The Sensory Garden was designed by Arthur Shackleton to cater for people with disabilities and was opened by Bishop Michael Mayes in 2005.

Saint John’s Church is lovingly cared for by the churchwarden, Richard Williams, who also welcomed us to the former church at Kilmore and its churchyard and pointed us to the graves of the Knights of Kerry, the Delap family, and the marine biologist Maude Delap.

The Revd Michael Cavanagh has been the priest-in-charge of Kenmare, Kilcrohane, Dromod and Valentia since 2010.

The Church of Saint John the Baptist in Knightstown is closed this summer for renovation and restoration works (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Staying at the Royal Valentia Hotel, which once turned away a royal guest

The Royal Valentia Hotel … the intended royal guest could find no rooms in 1869 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

I have been staying for two nights on Valentia Island, off the Iveragh Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry. This island is one of Ireland’s most westerly points, is about 11 km (7 miles) long, 3 km (2 miles) wide, and has a population of 665.

I have been staying at the Royal Valentia Hotel, where tourism began on Valentia Island in 1833. The hotel has been run by the Kidd family since 2004, and has been restored lovingly over the past decade or two.

The hotel faces onto the harbour at Knightstown, the island’s main village. A car ferry runs a shuttle service from Knightstown to Reenard Point, near Cahersiveen, on the Ring of Kerry, throughout the day in the summer months (April to October). The island is also linked to the mainland by a bridge at Portmagee. There is a second, smaller village in the middle of the island at Chapeltown, halfway between Knightstown and the bridge.

The Valentia Island Slate Quarry opened in 1816 and soon gained a reputation around the world. The quarry expanded quickly and by the 1850s it employed 500 men on Valentia. Business and trade began to spring up around the quarry and one such business, described by its proprietor as a ‘neat and very comfortable little inn,’ opened its doors in 1833.

This inn was established at ‘The Foot’ before the village of Knightstown was fully developed. Knightstown was initially designed by the engineer Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832) in 1830-1831, shortly before he died, and it is one of the first planned villages in Ireland.

Knightstown began to develop in the early 1840s as the quarry was expanded and the works moved to the village. It In his designs, Nimmo envisaged a bridge as he lined up the main street with Renard Road on the mainland.

Meanwhile, Thomas Young, a carpenter, built the new hotel on the site of the old inn, and ran the hotel with his wife and family. At first it was known as the Valentia Hotel and later as Young’s Hotel.

The reputation of the hotel grew, and in 1858 Lord John Manners, a leading English politician and future Duke of Rutland, described the hotel as ‘the neatest, cleanest, most comfortable little hotel in all of Ireland.’

Lord and Lady Adare stayed at the hotel for two months in 1858 and later remarked that ‘there is no village or other miserable little cottages near to make it disagreeable.’

Prince Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, visited Valentia on 20 April 1858, accompanied by his personal tutor. His tour started in West Cork from 12-14 April and from there he sailed towards Co Kerry on the royal yacht Osborne. He visited the slate quarry in Valentia before going on to a two-week holiday in Killarney, but he never stayed on the island.

During a later 10-week stay in Ireland for military training in 1861, the Prince of Wales referred to his visit three years earlier, saying he had ‘conceived a strong attachment to the peasantry.’

A memory of sailing days on the main stairs in the Royal Valentia Hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Around this time, Valentia was also at the centre of a breakthrough in global communications. Efforts were being made to fund a transatlantic cable and Queen Victoria took a personal interest in the project. She exchanged formal messages with the US President James Buchanan during the brief period of the first successful cable in 1858.

Before the cable was laid, all communications were sent by boat and it took about two weeks for a message from Europe to reach North America and another two weeks to receive a reply.

A transatlantic cable was first proposed in 1845, but it was not until 1856 that the Atlantic Telegraph Company was registered with a capital of £350,000 (then about $1.4 million).

After some initial success in August 1858, a fully operational stable cable was established by Cyrus Field in 1866 and opened for business, cutting the communication time between the two continents to two minutes. The Cable Station remained in operation for the next 100 years, and during that time, Valentia Island took its place at the centre of world communications.

Queen Victoria sent her youngest son Prince Arthur (1850-1942), later Duke of Connaught, to visit Ireland in 1869. The Knight of Kerry, Sir Peter Fitzgerald, invited Prince Arthur to Valentia during his trip and when this invitation was accepted word was sent to reserve rooms at the island hotel.

The prince arrived at Renard Point on 22 April 1869 and was greeted by local people dressed in their holiday best. After a brief visit to the home of the Knight of Kerry at Glenleam House, Prince Arthur arrived at Young’s Hotel, and from then on it was known as the Royal Hotel.

However, while beds had been telegraphed for, they could not be had ‘at any price,’ according to the Freemans Journal, and it appears the prince did not stay overnight at the hotel. He ‘inspected the hotel and spoke kindly to Mrs Young.’ But he returned to Glenleam House later that evening. Dinner was hosted by the Knight of Kerry and the guests included the parish priest, Father Thomas Maginn. Soon after the visit, the hotel was renamed the Royal Valentia although the royal guest never stayed there. Prince Arthur took an Irish title when he became Duke of Connaught in 1874

Valentia had royal visitors once again in 1897 when the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George V and Queen Mary, visited the island.

The hotel was taken over by Timothy Galvin in 1901 and then by the Huggard family in 1937. The Huggard family bought up hotels along the local railway line and at one point owned the Royal Hotel Valentia, the Butler Arms Hotel in Waterville, the Carragh Lake Hotel and the Lake Hotel Killarney along with Ashford Castle in Connemara.

Since 2006 the Royal Valentia Hotel has been operated by the Kidd Family who have been restoring the hotel to its former glory over the past 14 years.

The Royal Valentia Hotel has been run by the Kidd family since 2006 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)