Finding the stories of real lives in the churchyards of West Limerick

The ruins of Kilscannell parish church, between Rathkeale and Newcastle West, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

One of the downsides of not driving a car and living in an area with inadequate public transport is missing so many community events in the evening, including book launches. On the other hand, one of the advantages of living in an area like this in provincial Ireland is the large number of active local historians eager to continue their research and to publish their work.

I have missed two or three book launches in recent week, but recently two friendly neighbours brought around a copy of one of the books whose launch I had missed.

Mary Kury of Saint Kieran’s Heritage Association is a good example of historians like this. She recently published In Loving Memory: the Headstones in Clonagh, Coolcappa, Kilscannell and Rathronan Graveyards. I missed her book launch, but in the past week or two I have been poring over the signed copy she sent me.

Local historians mine reach seams and bring up the gems that provide the working material for academic historians. In this book, Mary Kury not only transcribes the gravestones and memorials in a number of churchyards and graveyards in West Limerick, but she also weaves through her text the stories of real-life people and their families.

Limerick was at the centre of the development of aviation and transatlantic air flights, as all who visit Foynes, or who have heard the story of Sophie Pierce, know. But Mary Kury also recalls the tragic story of a tragic air collision in Limerick almost 90 years ago. Sir Alan Cobham and ‘Cobham’s Flying Circus’ visited Limerick on 7 and 8 July 1933as part of a orld tour.

Tragedy struck when two planes collided, with the tail of lower plane being struck with Sir Alan’s plane. Cobham was unaware of the collision until he landed. The damaged plane spiralled to the ground, and the pilot, WR Elliott, and the passenger, 28-year-old William Ower, were killed. William Ower was the eldest son of William and Mary Ower of Newcastle West, and his father and his brother, who were in the queue waiting to go up, saw the tragedy unfold before their eyes. The two brothers are commemorated in Rathkeale, while their father William Ower is buried in Clonagh.

Patrick Hartigan, who is buried in Clonagh churchyard, was a local magistrate who lived in Reens. His two sons were killed in World War I: Luke Joseph Hartigan, of the 1st Battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers, was killed in action on 15 August 1917; three months later, his brother Edward Patrick Hartigan, a second lieutenant in the 57th Squadron in the Royal Flying Corps, was killed in action on 20 November 1917 at the age of 22. Both brothers are commemorated in Rathkeale.

The Smith O’Brien Mausoleum in Rathronan churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Rathronan Church was built in 1822 on the site of an earlier, mediaeval church, and is known for its associations with the patriot William Smith O’Brien and his family of Cahermoyle House. The O’Brien and Massy families have large mausoleums in the churchyard, and members of the Goold family of Athea are also buried in Rathronan churchyard.

Thomas Goold bought the Athea estate from the Courtenay family of Newcastle West and Earls of Devon, in 1817. His son, Wyndham Goold (1812-1854), as MP for Co Limerick in 1850-1854, and his daughter Augusta Charlotte married Edwin Richard Wyndham-Quin (1812-1871), 3rd Earl of Dunraven, who became a Roman Catholic in 1855; he lived at Adare Manor and reported on the discovery of the Ardagh Chalice. Another son, Archdeacon Frederick Goold (1808-1877), owned almost 11,000 acres in Co Limerick when he died in 1877.

The church in Kilscannell, with its square tower, was rebuilt in 1823 with a grant from the Board of First Fruits. The Chancellors of Limerick, who were rectors of Rathkeale, also held the parish of Kilscannell, and usually appointed a separate curate to look after the church. The last such curate was probably the Revd Clement Richardson in 1859-1864. His first wife, Mary Anne Richardson, died in 1865, and is commemorated with a plaque in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale. He later became a missionary in Canada with the Anglican mission agency SPG, now USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

Canon Samuel Wills was the first rector of Rathkeale (1872-1905) who was not Chancellor of Limerick and who was without a curate in Kilscannell. During his time, the church in Kilscannell burned down on Easter Day 1895. The weather was cold that morning, and the Rector of Rathkeale, Canon Samuel Wills, asked the sexton, Dan Eaton, to stoke up the fire. According to Mary Kury, Eaton was annoyed at the manner in which he was instructed and built a large fire in the stove. The roof above the stove pipe caught fire and the flames spread quickly, fanned by a strong breeze.

The rector, the sexton and the large congregation all escaped unharmed, but the church burned down. Although the church was fully insured, it was never rebuilt, and its ruins by the side of the road near Ardagh are a sad and lonely sight.

Even when memorial stones are missing, Mary Kury has interesting stories to tell. The Gibbins family once had a tomb inside the front wall of Kilscannell Church. She recalls the local story of the Revd Thomas Gibbins (1870-1927), who ‘was courting a young lady who rebuffed his advances. As he left her home, he met another clergyman coming to visit the woman. He drew a pistol and threatened to shoot the man. The second clergyman avoided being shot by circling his horse until help arrived.’

Thomas was taken to hospital and died in an asylum in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford.

The memorial plaque to Mary Anne Richardson on the north wall of Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, is in three languages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A multi-lingual memorial plaque in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale

The memorial plaque to Mary Anne Richardson on the north wall of Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, is in three languages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

On the north wall of Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick, there is a tri-lingual monument to a young mother of two who died at the age of 27.

This plaque, in Greek, Latin and English, reads:

ΙΧΘΥΣ

Sacred to the memory of
Mary Anne,
the beloved wife of
Clement Richardson CLK,
a beautiful daughter,
an affectionate sister,
a loving wife,
a devoted mother.
She died IX January 1865 aged XXVII years
leaving four children, two of these
with her were soon at rest,
two must ever feel their irreparable loss.
Her remains are buried in
Mount Jerome Cemetery Co Dublin

Vale Desideratissima! Illic Demum
conquiescam tecum
tecum in Christo consurcam

Γενηθητω Το Θελημα Σου

The word at the top of the monument, ΙΧΘΥΣ (Ichthys) is a Greek acronym or acrostic for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ (Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr), and translates as ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.’

The three-line valedictory in Latin near the end translates roughly as: ‘Farewell. I shall miss so much! May you rest in peace with Christ.’

The final line in Greek, Γενηθητω το θελημα σου (genithito to thelima sou), is a quotation from the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Thy will be done.’

But who was Mary Anne Richardson, and who was her husband, Clement Richardson CLK? Why is the monument in this church? And what happened to Clement and their children after Mary Anne died?

The Revd Clement William Henry Richardson was born in Dublin on 12 August 1830, one of the eleven children of William Richardson of Poolbeg Street, a solicitor and Proctor of the High Court of Admiralty. William Richardson’s father, the Revd Galbraith Richardson (1713-1780) was the rector of Errigle Keerogue, Co Tyrone, in the Diocese of Armagh.

Clement Richardson was baptised in Saint Mark’s Church on 12 December 1880, by the curate, the Revd Alexander Franklin. He entered Trinity College Dublin in 1848 and later graduated BA, proceeding MA in 1859. In the same year he received his MA, he married Mary Ann Barcroft, daughter of D Molloy, solicitor, in Monkstown Parish Church.

Clement was ordained deacon on 3 July 1859 and priest on 3 June 1860 by William FitzGerald, Bishop of Cork. But he was ordained for the Diocese of Limerick, and from 1859 to 1864 he was the Curate of Kilscannell, between Rathkeale and Newcastle West.

Between 1859 and 1864, Mary Anne and Clement were the parents of four children, including two sons who were born in Dublin on 7 August 1861 and 29 December 1864. Mary Anne died eleven days after the birth of h seer fourth child.

Clement resigned as curate of Kilscannell around the time of Mary Anne’s death, and I have been unable to find what he did for the next four or five years. But on 6 August 1868, he married again. His second wife, Louisa Maria Bonham Maunsell was born on 8 September 1842, the second daughter of the Revd Horatio Maunsell (1798-1882), the Rector of Drumbo, Co Down, and they were married in her father’s church.

But Louisa and Clement may have known each other before Mary Anne’s death, and may have first met when he was the curate in Kilscannell. Louisa came from a large family of eleven children. Her father, the Revd Horatio Maunsell, was the eleventh and youngest son of Daniel Maunsell, barrister, of Ballywilliam, near Rathkeale, Co Limerick, a grandson of Richard Maunsell, MP for Limerick City (1740-1761) and Mayor of Limerick in 1761. In the mid-19th century the Ballywilliam estate was in the parishes of Kilscannell and Rathkeale, and totalled 4,231 acres.

After this second marriage, Clement returned to ministry in 1869 as the chaplain to Hercules Edward Rowley (1848-1919), 4th Lord Langford, on his estate at Summerhill in Co Meath. But Clement and Louisa left Ireland in 1873, and moved first to the United States, and then to Canada, and seem to have spent the rest of their lives there.

In the US, he was briefly Assistant Minister at Christ Church in Norfolk, Virginia (1873-1874) and then Rector of Greenville, Tennessee (1874-1876). He then moved to Canada, and was the rector of two parishes in the Diocese of Montreal: Chambly, Quebec (1876-1880) and Shefford, Quebec (1880-1883).

In 1883, he became a missionary in St Eleanor, Prince Edward Island, with the Anglican mission agency, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), now USPG (the United Society Partners in the Gospel).

He stayed at St Eleanor in Prince Edward Island until 1887, and for at least the next two decades he worked in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia as a missionary priest.

The last record I have of him is his appointment in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1906, when he was 76. I have no record of Clement Richardson’s ministry and mission work. Nor do I know whether Clement and Louisa were the parents of any more children, or of what happened to his first two children, who were expected to ‘ever feel their irreparable loss.’

Did they ever think of Kilscannell or Rathkeale, or return to this parish in West Limerick?

I may never know, but the monument provides an interesting reminder of the links between this parish and SPG and USPG. I am taking part in the annual conference of USPG in High Leigh, Hertfordshire, next week.

The ruins of Kilscannell parish church, between Rathkeale and Newcastle West, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)