The life and times of Fr. James Healy

Fr. Healy turns up as a minor character  in a number of the books I have scanned. Unfortunately, as Cameron points out, “Memories of Father Healy of Little Bray” singularly  fails to do him justice. Fr. Healy seems to have been a man to meet, not to read about. If there is any interest I may complete scanning the book sometime in the future. (KF. September, 2000)

One of the Healy’s of Healy’s Court

Birth and Boyhood - Francis Street in the Past - Te Deum for George III. - Dr. Kendrick - Cardinal MacCabe - ‘Liberty Birds’ - The White Quakers - Dr. Flanagan and. his Art Galleries - Rev. Patrick Murray, D.D. - Father Smith and his Practical Jokes – Anecdotes - The Lazarites – Castleknock - Donnybrook Fair.

healy.jpg (19415 bytes)‘I was born on December the 15th, 1824,’ said Father James Healy, ‘being one of twenty-three children.’ Several of his brothers and sisters died young, and were buried at Blue Bell, a rural graveyard near Dublin, once the happy hunting-ground of those who, for anatomical purposes, effected pre-mature resurrections.

His mother, Mary Meyler, came of a respectable family in Wexford. His father was a humourist, and is described as wearing, under almost every phase of circumstance, a broad smile. Traces of this unfailing geniality are found in the features of the son.

Dr. Mahaffy, F.T.C.D., writes of Father James: ‘His outward presence expressed perfectly the soul within. It would have been a common face but for the uncommon qualities which marked it, for it was broadened with smiles, lit up with a twinkling eye, refined by the thin nostril and mobile lips, which told of his delicate perception and his ready utterance - an utterance rich with the flavour of his origin. He was never at a loss for a kindly word; to meet him in the street was like passing suddenly into sunshine.’

Old John Healy shone too, but merely as a rough diamond. He had close business relations with Patrick Kehoe, of Francis Street, in whose family are traditionally preserved ana of his humour; but these turn merely oh local and personal traits. No one would have laughed more than John Healy if informed that he was descended from the ancient race of O’Hely, who are described by the Four Masters as ‘princely brughaidhs’ in 1309 [Archdeacon O’Rorke, in his ‘History of Sligo,’ vol. ii., p. 307, says that the ancestral home of the O’Helys was Ballinafad; but it would appear that their adventurous sons soon spread north and south, and, in the words of the old song,

‘From Ballinafad to Tanderagee,

Now, if you’re for sport, come along with me!’

There are, alas! tragic incidents in their tree. Bishop O’Hely was hanged on August 22, 1578, according to O’Renehan. At the trial O’Hely summoned his judge, Sir William Drury, to appear before the judgement-seat of God. Drury certainly died in October of that year]; nevertheless, there is some truth in the statement.

Vicissitude came; and the old race received its finishing touch in the operation of the. Penal Code, which, as Swift states, drove many a sept into the ranks of the coal-porters. Father Healy was once comparing notes with the Rev. Dr. O’Fay, P.P., Craughwell, on their respective travels in France, when the latter said, Of course you were au fait at the lingo?’ ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘I was only O’Hely at it.’ [Dr. O’Fay died on July 6, 1867. The Catholic Directory of that day says: ‘He Was a Doctor in Divinity, received the Roman pension, an honour seldom conferred but on Italians, was made a Knight of the Golden Spur, and Count of the Holy Roman Empire.’] About the same time a lady volunteered to him the information that she was of the ‘Dalys of Castle Daly,’ and asked what family did he belong to. His answer, which greatly amused the company, was, ‘I belong to the Francis Street branch of the Halys, of Castle Haly.’ When afterwards recounting this reply to an English friend, he substituted for Castle ‘Healy ‘Castle Street’ - a thoroughfare in Little Bray. ‘One Who Knew Him,’ with possibly a confused impression of the foregoing answer, writes in the Westminster Gazette that he replied to an inquiring lady ‘I’m one of the Healys of Healy’s Court.’ It does not appear that she followed up her query with ‘What number?’ which was said to a pretentious boaster who described his seat in the country as ‘The Court.’ The writer just quoted goes on to say that Father Healy, when further pressed as to the whereabouts of the natal spot, mentioned a lane in the slumbs of the city, proverbial for poverty and dirt. [I have dwelt on this point because I once heard a monk of great asceticism say - one who also possesses a keen sense of humour - that in Father Healy’s constant avowal of his origin, at the tables of the great, he showed a spirit of honest humility that did him more honour than even his wit.] This must be taken cum grano, as will be.

The name of Father Healy’s father does not appear in the Dublin Directory for 1824 - the year James was born - but later on he is described as ‘James Healy, Provision Merchant, 116, Francis Street.’ The title ‘Merchant’ usually denotes a status superior to the ordinary shopkeeper. That Father Healy was born in Francis Street, we know on his own authority. The Duchess of Marlborough once asked if he spoke French. ‘I ought, your Grace, for I was born in Francis Street,’ was his reply. And perhaps there was more in it than superficially appeared, for in the last century a French patois was often heard near his natal spot, traceable to the Huguenot silk-weavers who had settled there. Francis Street - so called from a Franciscan abbey, which has disappeared – is described in old records as a rural suburb; but it was finally embraced by squalid surroundings.

John Healy held his lease from Swift’s Hospital. It will be remmbered that Dean Swift endowed a madhouse-

‘To show by one satiric touch

No nation needed it so much.’

A block of houses belonging to Swift extended from Garden Lane to Marks Alley. John Healy’s house, which was one of them, is now absorbed into the larger premises of Patrick Kehoe, a well-known firm of bacon-curers.

Francis Street was no obscure parish when James Healy was born. It grasped Rathmines, Ranelagh, Miltown, and Harold’s Cross. In Francis Street lived at first John Keogh, the leader of the Catholics before O’Connell; and in its chapel meetings had been held in furtherance of emancipation when Curran and Grattan spoke, and students of Trinity College cheered them to the echo.

Until 1796 it was the mensal or archiepiscopal parish of the Diocese of Dublin. A flaming account is found in the Universal Magazine for 1789 of a great thanksgiving service here for the recovery of George III. Archbishop Troy and his suffragans officiated, while a splendid choir, in which many Protestants joined, sang the Te Deum. The traditions which James Healy imbibed fed and fostered his policy as a man.

Among incidents within his memory were the fights of which Francis Street was the arena. When one was about to come off, the inhabitants all put up their shutters, and the street seemed in a state of siege. He well remembered a man of proportions like Goliath with whom a smaller person declared that he would have it out. ‘Take care!’ exclaimed the latter; ‘I’m an awkward sort of fellow. Maybe it’s in the eye I’d hit you, ’ suiting the action to the word, and with a strength of effect that Bell’s Life could alone find suitable slang to describe! A form of challenge that Healy chanced to hear greatly amused him: ‘I never saw the broth that was too hot for me - or the mait that was too fat for me.’

There can be no doubt that Father Healy’s song, The Nowlans an’ Neals,’ which in after-years he often sang for a chosen few, derived its inspiration from those days. It described, very much in the style and spirit of the more recent ‘Killaloe,’ a faction fight between two stocks. This continued to such a late hour that candles had to be lit in order ‘to pick out the Nowlans from Neals.’ Such strange scenes were clearly traceable to encounters of a graver sort, which not many years before disgraced Dublin, and owed their origin to a feud between the Huguenot weavers and the butchers, whose ‘guild’ was that ‘of the B. V. Mary.’ On November 4, 1821, the Rev. Michael Blake [Afterwards Bishop of Dromore. Dr. Blake died in 1861.] preached a sermon on the necessity of an early religious education, and took occasion to refer to his sainted predecessor, Dr. Beatagh, in words highly useful to the local historian. ‘When he commenced his luminous career, many amongst you may remember the abject and shameful state of public morals. Ireland had then, as she has now, all the capabilities of greatness ; but being neglected, the richer she was in natural qualities, the more vicious and profligate she became. Her children were frequently seen on each side of the quays of your city, drawn up in battle array, armed against each other with bludgeons, rusty swords, and missile weapons; and on almost every public occasion the exuberance of her nature wantoned in excesses of the most lawless and barbarous kind. Education has, under God, nearly remedied all these evils Those factions, which formerly were wont to fill the community with alarm, have disappeared.’

Mrs. Healy died in middle age, and her sorrowing husband - if, indeed, a man whose features had acquired a pose of chronic enjoyment can have grieved long - paid the compliment to the happiness of first marriage by promptly entering on a second.

Among Healy’s more respectable neighbours in Francis Street - all familiar figures to him-were John Sweetman, a member of the Rebel Directory in ‘98; Joseph Denis Mullen, [Few would expect to find in a London publication of 1814 allusion made to a denizen of Francis Street. ‘Anacreon in Dublin’ (Stockdale, Pall Mall) sings:

‘Haste thee now, ingenious Mullen;

Though the Liberty is dull in

Manufacture, trade or pay,

Thou must form a cup to-day.’

The writer was Edmond Lenthal Swift, Keeper of the Regalia at the Tower. Letters to Mullen will be found in the O’Connell and Wellesley correspondence.] the popular orator, and eventually Governor of the Four Courts, Marshalsea; the Rev. Dr. Kenrick, P.P.; Gervais Taylor, well known at home and abroad; Edward MacCabe, afterwards Cardinal; and the Rev. Dr. Dawson, Dean of St. Patrick’s, nephew of the author of ‘Bumper Squire Jones.’

But there were other ‘Liberty birds,’ all characters in their way, ‘Zozimus,’ ‘Stoney Pockets,’ ‘Billy in the Bowl,’ Kearney, the singer, ‘Owny’ and ‘Hughy,’ not to speak of Joshua Jacob and Abigail Bayle, both White Quakers, but who afterwards became Catholics, and are buried at Glasnevin. Of all these people Father Healy had something to say.

The saintly Dr. Kenrick was uncle of the present Archbishop of St. Louis. One day he missed his hat, and having astutely peeped into Plunkett Street - a famous mart for old clothes - he found a woman in the act of selling it. ‘I only wanted it as a relic of your reverence,’ she said. ‘You Seem very anxious to get rid of it, then.’ ‘I was merely asking the value of it,’ rejoined the ready-witted crone.

Dr. Kenrick died soon after the recovery of his stolen hat, and a medal in commemoration of his worth was struck - one familiar to collectors of such things. A bust of him from the chisel of his friend and successor, Rev. Mathew Flanagan, is preserved at the presbytery, Francis Street. Flanagan, afterwards Chancellor of the diocese, was a pompous, austere man, tall, and of imposing presence. He showed skill in moulding objects in clay and afterwards transferring the result to marble, and, several of his works are still to be seen about the Church of St. Nicholas.

At a time when John Hogan was comparatively unknown, Flanagan secured his study in clay of a dead Christ, which he placed over the high altar. Having heard that some of the curates had gone up on a ladder to examine the work, he said to them in his nasal twang, ‘If you injured one finger of it, it is more than your miserable lives could ever atone for.’

Visitors’ came to see his art galleries. A small statue of Achilles wounded in the heel was made the subject of special contemporary notice. Canon Pope became his curate for a time, and imbibed the same tastes. One day Dr. Flanagan found a poor, ill-clad boy in an adjoining slum, who gave such promise as a draughtsman that be took him up and gave him pictures to paint; and this youth N. J. Crowley, became an Academician in the end. Dr. Flanagan’s works, though striking, all things considered, bore traces of the amateur. Father Healy used to describe the visit of a doctor (who had the reputation of being ‘a quiz’) to Flanagan’s art gallery. Pointing to a bust, ‘By Canova, sir?’ ‘No – I,’ and - feigning to be much struck by a picture - ‘Michael Angelo?’ ‘No - I.’

In 1834 James Healy is found a day-scholar, with Thomas Nedley, Edward Fottrell, J. C. Kelly, and others, at the Vincentian Seminary, 34, Usher’s Quay, Dublin. The Directory of the day describes it, from the above date until 1840, as simply ‘Day-school under the patronage of Most Rev. Dr. Murray, conducted by a number of clergymen’ These good fathers were technically known as ‘Lazarites,’ and will be found fully noticed when Healy becomes an alumnus of Castleknock. At the Usher’s Quay school James was shorter than his schoolfellows, and as one of them, Mr. Kelly, remembers, he always contrived when the class remained in line that his feet should rest on a projecting part of the surbase. Though a smart boy, he was no infant prodigy but he is described as quick in spirit, and one who could box to some purpose if aggressively approached.

After a few years the good Vincentians - the name by which its clerical managers are best known – gave up this school, when for a short time it continued to be carried on by their late usher, Mr. Michael Hickey, A.B. This usher had been popular with the boys, and one of the ‘archest’ of them told a new-comer that the quay derived its name in compliment to the pedagogue.

The priests of Francis Street, including the Rev. Patrick Murray, subsequently highly distinguished as Professor of Theology at Maynooth, were constant guests at John Healy’s table. ‘Little James’ was the incarnation of fun, and the source of infinite enjoyment to the curates. Amongst the latter was Father Smith, of whose love of a practical joke Canon Pope gave me many laughable anecdotes.

James, beside being a regular attendant at Catechism, was constantly in and out of the presbytery and vestry, and it was hard to control the explosions of laughter which, except at times of solemn duty, his quaint sallies provoked. ‘We must kill Healy, or, if we don’t, Healy will kill us,’ Father Smith was one day overheard to say. [Father Smith was an old man who, unpromoted, tottered into the tomb. The aorta, doctors say, is easily ruptured at advanced life by much emotion. There is no knowing what risks he may have run. Zeuxis, the artist, was so amused at the sight of a hag he had painted that he died in a fit of laughter. The aged philosopher, Chrysippus, died from a ‘side-splitter,’ and Tertullian relates that Licinius Crassus laughed himself to death from witnessing an ass trying to swallow some’ thistles.] Old Healy, addressing Gusty Grehan, asked, ‘Do you know my son James?’ proudly adding, ‘that’s himself!’ A story has it that the youngster once puzzled his father by describing the efforts of a fat pig to escape through a narrow door as ‘Bacon’s Essays,’ but I cannot quite satisfy myself as to its authenticity. Anything about bacon had always piquancy for both.

John Healy was a plain, straightforward trader, who scorned all affectation in describing his craft. Father Meehan, in his ‘History of the O’Tooles,’ remarks that ‘in Rome the man who sells bacon calls himself by a modest name,’ but ‘in Dublin the person who advertises gambs, jowls, pigs’ faces and middles, styles himself an Italian warehouse-man! O shades of Raphael and Angelo!’ adds Meehan in words eminently characteristic. The connection that subsisted to the end between Charles Meehan and James Healy is not the least interesting of the episodes in this modest history. [The guide to an Italian priest who had wished to see Dublin was dryly told that he should have taken the stranger round to show him all the Italian warehouses.]

Father Smith continued to be a favourite figure in Healy’s retrospects, and his example, in some respects, was not lost upon him. Smith was one of the most hospitable of men, and regularly every Tuesday gave a feast, to which the professors of Maynooth, Drs. Murray, Molloy and others, were bidden. Years rolled on, and the old curate, almost doubled in two, was a familiar and touching object; At last Dr., afterwards Cardinal, MacCabe, who, as a boy, had often served his Mass, dispensed Smith from duty. It may be added that he had property in his own right, and, furthermore, had been left £1,000 by Miss Sherlock, a near relation of the well-known Serjeant-at-Law. Some of her kinsfolk reported this bequest to Rome, and Smith’s exclusion from promotion is said to have been due to that circumstance.

In 1839 James Healy became a pupil, and subsquently a novice, in St. Vincent’s College, Castleknock, and it may be interesting to recall the circumstances in which ‘the Congregation of the Missions’ originated.

Early in the 17th century the Abbé Vincent, a tutor in the family of the Comtesse de Joigney, was hurriedly summoned to the death-bed of a man who, though he had often approached the Sacraments, now admitted, on inquiry, that several un-confessed crimes burthened his breast. Vincent was so successful with this sinner that the Countess urged him to preach near Amiens on the crime of making bad confessions. Vast numbers responded to his voice; his confessional was crowded, and the Countess conceived the good thought of founding an institute for conducting missions in rural districts. For this purpose the Archbishop of Paris offered the Collége des Bons Enfants, which the Countess duly endowed, and pious secular priests came to help Vincent de Paul. Urban VIII. by Bull in 1632 gave the congregation a threefold object - the sanctification of its own sons, the special work at first proposed, and the training of a very ascetic priesthood.

In 1632 the Fathers moved to the College of St. Lazare. Harvests of conversions year by year rewarded their labours, and in 1737 Vincent was canonized. There were now 84 houses of the institute, and among so many it is hardly surprising that some of the Fathers should have favoured Jansenism and refused to accept the Bull ‘Unigenitus’; but M. Bonnet, their prudent general, drew them from the gulf on which they stood. During the Reign of Terror St. Lazare was twice plundered, some of the Fathers were butchered, and the remainder driven from France. The Lazarites rose again like Lazarus from his tomb, but the Maison St. Lazare, from which women had been strictly excluded, became, as it remains to this day, a prison for women.

In 1835 the Rev. William Gwynne, D.D., who had long conducted a most respectable Protestant school at Castleknock, sold his establishment to the Vincentian Fathers. The now well-known college soon flourished on its site. The purchase included 40 acres of land and a ruined castle of much interest and antiquity, to which reference shall again be made.

Men of the present generation regard Castleknock as essentially a lay school; but it does not seem to have been so at first. The following announcement caught the eye one day of old John Healy, and decided him as to what he would do:

ST. VINCENT’S ECCLESIASTICAL COLLEGE,

CASTLEKNOCK.

Principal- Rev. P. Dowley.

This establishment was undertaken by the direction of the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, and in conformity with the expressed wishes of several of the clergy of the Diocese of Dublin. The study and exercises are directed to facilitate the entrance of students into ecclesiastical colleges, and to obviate the evils resulting from their presenting themselves as candidates for the sacred ministry without being acquainted with the nature of that holy state or the dispositions required for embracing it.

With all the higher branches of languages, Greek and Roman classics, modern and ancient history, geography, mathematics, etc., the study of the English language, the principles of composition, and the practice of public delivery, are particularly attended to.

Father and son were soon en route to Castleknock; passing through the undulating scenery of the Phoenix Park. Troops were being paraded on the 15 acres, cannon roared, and a feu de joie was discharged while the popular Viceroy, Lord Mulgrave, galloped along the red line. Some minutes later found father and son passing under Knockmaroon Hill and penetrating the tranquil enclosure of St. Vincent’s College.

From the nursery of childhood James Healy passed to the nursery of bishops. Patrick Moran, afterwards Bishop of Dunedin, New Zealand, entered Castleknock at the same time. The Vincentian Fathers - including Dr. Dixon, brother of the Primate; Lynch, afterwards Archbishop of Toronto; Gilloly, afterwards Bishop of Elphin; MacCabe, Bishop of Ardagh; and Dr. James Lynch, now Bishop of Kildare - solemnly received the new boys. The latter acted as ghostly director to the school.

I don’t know whether Healy made it a subject of confession, but it is certain that during a vacation ramble he visited Donnybrook Fair, with its deafening din of gong, trumpet and drum. Calvert’s theatre was there to harrow the soul with ‘Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood.’ Camped around were smaller stages, on which strode kings and clowns, queens and Columbines, and a peep-show, where, among other wonderful sights, Bonaparte was pointed out crossing the Alps in an open boat. Tents without end, in which people danced like mad, displayed outside all sorts of signs and legends, one of which Father Healy often quoted to amuse his friends:

‘This is the sign of the Cock;

Step in, my ould hen,

Empty your glass,

And fill it again.

Many a man took the bait,

‘Stept into a tent, and spent halt a Crown!

Came out, met a friend, and for love knocked him down,

With his sprig of shillalagh and shamrock so green.’

But James Healy was content to study the scene as a laughing philosopher. By the exertions of local clerics the time-honoured observance of Donnyrook Fair was, later on, suppressed; but the

Was for life or death, and brought more than one priest to his grave. For centuries Donnybrok Fair opened in August with ‘walking Sunday,’ and its orgies went on, night and day, for a week.

James Healy’s smartness was soon recognised at Castleknock, and gradually its lay school assumed large proportions.

As I how nothing about them, I will not venture to describe the doubtless frequent forewarnings of grace which may have marked him, like the youthful Timothy, for the priesthood Christ. “Unfortunately, we have not the records of the public examinations of these years,’ writes the present president. Mr. John Gannon was in the Humanity class with Healy, but he is unable to say that the youth was remarkable in any way, unless as a good ball-player. Captain Keogh, R.M., states that Healy acted as a monitor and instructed him in Virgil.

The Congregation of the Mission includes of late years many genial and pleasant men, whom to know is to love; but most of the earlier Fathers at Castleknock were ‘Northerns,’ with a demeanour which James regarded as austere and depressing. The sports that now attract so many visitors to the school on the hospitable call of its Rector were then wholly unknown. There were no running in sacks, no jumping, no marquees, no amateur bands. Solemnity was the order of the day. [On the other hand, Francis O’Beirne, who was at Castleknock with James Healy, described it to me, in 1841, as ‘the Happy Valley’; but his head was of a mould very different from that of James Healy.]

Father Hoaly has described a primitive and very ascetic Father who was much shocked by a reply be got when catechizing a sailor’s son:

‘What is cursing?’

‘Wishing ill to one’s neighbour.’

‘Cannot you give me a more comprehensive definition, child?’

’ --- your eyes, holy Father.’

The Fathers saw that James Healy had talent; they also saw that he had a vocation for the Church; and it was only natural that they should expect him to become a priest at Castleknock. He did not like to say ‘No,’ and at last entered the earlier stage of the noviciate preparatory to completing it at Paris. ‘He is one whom I can never forget,’ writes the venerable Bishop ‘Lynch; ‘I was so struck with his sterling virtue.’ [The Bishop, the sole survivor of the founders of Castleknock, adds a date which will be interesting to his friends useful for his future biographer: ‘On Saturday, January 9 , 1895, if God spares me, I will be in my 89th year.’]

The time James Healy was now spending was one of enforced silence - what were his thoughts? When we remember the vivacity of his mind, they must have been kaleidoscopic. ‘I loved to wander round the battlements of the old castle,’ he said, ‘and during part of the time I employed myself in throwing stones at the jackdaws which, with a great deal of talk, clustered at the top of the tower.’

But gradually the ruined castle was found to convey ‘sermons in stones.’ There were few graves of dead Fathers [On digging the grave of Father Plunkett, within the castle, a wonderful pagan cromlech was found, with human bones that fell to dust on exposure] to stumble over then; and some of his thoughts, it may be concluded, were given to the past history of the towering ruin, with its double lines of fortifications, from which trees and fern shoot up and proclaim the empire of nature over that once almost impregnable citadel. It was at one time held by the Danes, afterwards by Nial, monarch of Ireland. Within its walls the patriot prelate St. Laurence O’Toole nerved King Roderick O’Conor by his voice and blessing: from its pinnacle Owen Roe O’Neill denounced Oliver Cromwell.

O’Byrne, chieftain of Wicklow, was a name which never failed to interest James Healy, who will be found in after-years often entertaining the representative of that sept. Eibhleen - daughter of a former O’Toole - had been carried off by Roger Tyrrell, and locked up in the turret of Castleknock. Hearing footsteps at night on the stone stairs outside, she used a brooch to open a vein in her neck, and bled to death. Of this girl, who preferred death to dishonour, a Vincentian Father writes: ‘It was long a popular belief that at the hour of midnight a female figure robed in white might be seen moving slowly round the castle.’

Lady de Lacy was of a different type. In the absence of her husband, who had gone forth in the van of the Catholic army, she is found defending the same castle with 50 men against Ormond’s 4,000 foot and 500 horse, and by her prowess laying 400 of the besiegers low. Other memories recalled the march of Bruce to Castleknock, when the mingled music of pibroch and harp resounded through the peaceful valley. Holier thoughts succeeded the profane. St. Patrick, as St. Elvin records, had made a special mission to Castleknock. The Apostle, describing his visions, tells us that he heard, in his mind, a voice cry, ‘We pray thee, holy youth, to come and henceforth walk amongst us.’

These were thoughts no doubt highly suggestive, but James Healy, on reflection, felt that he could not ‘go and do likewise.’ A hurried line to his father announced this decision, and John Healy in a day or two proceeded to break the news to Dean Dowley. This ecclesiastic little James held in special awe. When the President came down, he found his visitor surveying, with seeming satisfaction, the furniture, pictures, and general surroundings. ‘You have got a beautiful place here!’ he said; ‘and, so far as I am concerned, I could live here for ever; but as for James, he says he can’t stay here at all.’

‘We had his trousseau ready,’ said good Bishop Lynch; [It does honour to this good man, who had the reputation of being one of the severest of the Fathers, that he felt far from annoyed with James Healy for breaking away from the Vincentian rule. Since the death of the latter, his lordship has addressed a letter to the committee of the Healy Memorial, proudly claiming him ‘as his old pupil and very friend,’ and enclosing £6 towards the object in view.] and it is not improbable that, had he remained, it would have given place at last to the rochet, cope, and pectoral cross, as in the case of is contemporaries, Kilduff and MacCabe. Possibly, too, he might have become a second Basil, who, in addition to his classical gifts and great skill in argument, is thus described by his bosom friend, St. Gregory Nazianzen: ‘Who more amiable than he? who as pleasant as he in social intercourse? who could tell a story with more wit? who could jest more playfully?’

A taste of this quality is found in a remark of James Healy’s in 1886 on meeting, after a long absence, his new Diocesan, who had just then grasped the ecclesiastical reins of Dublin. ‘My Lord, James O’Donnell’s mother once said to me, “If you had only behaved yourself, you might have been a bishop yourself now.”’

Chapter II.

‘The Repeal Year’ - Maynooth College entered - Peel endows it with £30,000 a Year - Dr. O’Hanlon - Dr. Murray - Destructive and Constructive Theologians - Anecdotes - Rev. Nicholas Callan -The Dunboyne House - The Round-robin.

James Healy came home aglow with memories of auld lang syne. The West End of Dublin is the reverse in character to the West End of London, but to him the dingy street seemed all couleur de rose. Father Patrick Murray, the quondam curate in, Francis Street, whom he had known and loved, was now winning golden opinions at Maynooth; and this thought was one of the attractions which beckoned Healy to Maynooth, the alma mater of the Irish priesthood, and the ancient home of the Geraldines.

Who should happen to be in Dublin during the then vacation at Maynooth but Dr Patrick Murray! He revisited Francis Street, and promised John Healy to share his family dinner. It was casually mentioned that evening that James had decided on entering Maynooth. Murray motioned him paternally to his side, and questioned him freely on ethics and logic. He was pleased with the replies, and after a further talk said: ‘These are the points on which you will be examined.’

In the autumn of 1843, when the youth of Ireland were marching in thousands to Tara, Mullaghmast, and Clontarf, under the banner of ‘Repeal,’ James Healy is found wending his way to Maynooth. Here he matriculated on September 11, 1843. The first course at Maynooth is classics, but he had no need to study that science. The second course is natural philosophy, which embraces metaphysics, logic, and ethics. James Healy went up for examination in logic conjointly with several other students, including Martin Barlow, afterwards P.P., St. Kevins. [Father Healy told some amusing stories of Barlow in after-life. Here is one. He was a man of much simplicity, and apt to attach credence to exaggerated statements. When returning to Dublin from Holyhead, he found a genial fellow-passenger in a gentleman with whom for some hours he paced the deck. In the course of conversation, Father Barlow alluded to one of the highest lights of the nobility who had filled the post of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. ‘I understand,’ he added, ‘he is very hard up, and that all the family plate is pledged.’ ‘That is very bad news for me, was the reply. ‘I am coming to Ireland to attend the marriage of my sister, who is about to become the wife of his son.’ The priest felt so stunned by the awkward blunder he had committed that he made no attempt at apology, but rushed down the stairs and sought refuge in his berth.]

All failed to pass with the exception of Healy. He entered for the class of natural philosophy, read that course one year, and theology - dogmatic and moral

• for three years, and in the academic year 1847-48 became a Dunboyne student under the Very Rev. John O’Hanlon.

James Healy was at Maynooth in 1845, when Peel increased from £8,000 to £30,000 its annual grant. [When the Irish Church was being disestablished, £372,331 was paid to Maynooth College in lieu of its grant. The bulk of this sum having been lent to an Irish Peer as a first charge his estates, it was lost .during the crisis of the Land Agitation] Dr. Montague, the President, was in the habit of conveying from Dublin - in an old post-chaise by which he travelled - the entire amount of each quarterly instalment of the Government grant, and he never lost, nor was in dread of losing, one farthing, although his route lay through Lucan, passing close to a tablet on the roadside recording the murder of a priest in 1807 by highwaymen.

Peel’s grant came opportunely, just before the Irish famine. Every student was entitled to £20 a year under this arrangement, and the £5 paid quarterly enabled not a few - who, unlike James Healey, came from a poor stock - to keep the spark of life in some aged parent, shivering by the mountain-side or bed-ridden on the earthen floor. The famine, which set in immediately after Peel’s bounty, and continued in its desolating effects for several years, left the class of people from whose ranks the priesthood mostly came unable to pay for a college course.

Father Healy held that, but for this timely endowment, the Church might have been reduced to a state bordering on ruin. There can be no doubt that the plague which desolated England in 1517, and again in 1528 and later, left candidates for the priesthood so few that numbers of ill-qualified men were accepted, and thus paved the way to the Reformation, or great schism, which rent Germany in 1517, and England in 1534.

No two men could be more unlike in characteristics than the great masters of theology under whom Healy read. Dr. O’Hanlon - the ablest canonist of his day - was a destructive, not a constructive, theologian. He loved to demolish orally the arguments of all his ecclesiastical contemporaries, and to scatter to the four winds of heaven the dust of some of the most treasured authorities in the past. He left not one line of writing behind him. It was his custom to trace on a slate his most carefully digested views, and, when the class was over for the day, to erase all with a sponge or the sleeve of his coat.

Different from the destructive theologian, Dr. O’Hanlon, Patrick Murray, Professor of Moral Theology, was essentially a constructive one. He produced a number of able books, especially one of great exhaustiveness on the Church, in which the tenets of every sect are elaborately and fairly stated. The ‘Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi’ was issued in three tomes, and is admitted to be the highest authority in the French and Roman schools. At the Vatican Council no book was more frequently quoted.

In his addresses to the class he constantly utilized his experiences whilst on the mission in Francis Street, and it was strange that he had so much to tell respecting that short period of ten months. These experiences were so purely professional that they claim not insertion here; but Healy was amused by his mention of ‘Fumbally’s Lane,’ from which Murray’s first sick-call came. Dr. Murray was a fine elocutionist, and, when he read aloud a favourite author for the students, a pin might be heard to drop. Father Healy copied this accomplishment to such purpose that people used to go to Little Bray, attracted by the manner in which he read the Gospel of the day. Dr. Murray was the spiritual father of a long sacerdotal family, two thousand priests having passed through his classes. Carlyle is hard on him, but to be abused by Carlyle is in itself high praise.

Dr. Murray was a native of Clones. A professor of Trinity College, in sitting next him at dinner, opened conversation by remarking, ‘Not a bad place is Clones.’ ‘Not a worse out of Hull’ (hell), was the reply. ‘I once preached in Clones,’ he told James Healy. ‘The chapel was packed. Coming near the end, I said, “One more word, and I have done!” “Oh, my darlint,” exclaimed an old woman, throwing up her hands, “that you may never be done!”’ This crone is said to have waxed indignant when afterwards told that he had gone to Larn (Larne) to preach.

Dr. Murray’s reputation as a preacher grew apace. His seeming concentration of thought on such occasions did not prevent him from observing vigilantly the effect produced on each face by his fervid words. They seared their way into stubborn hearts, or fell like manna around. O’Hanlon, on the other hand - a man of probably even greater mark than Murray - could not preach one word, and at times was somewhat absent. Ordinarily shrewd, no man could put his finger in O’Hanlan’s eye, but yet he has been known to do this to himself. ‘Once when engaged on a problem,’ observes Canon Pope, ‘he put into his eye a pinch of snuff! This mistake caused him great suffering, which led the great preceptor to say that ere long he might be obliged to announce “a vacancy for a pupil here.” Again, intending to throw two letters into the fire, he consigned to the flames a valuable snuff-box and the key of his room. [Very Rev. John O’Hanlon, D.D., to Rev. Peter Molloy, P.P.]

Dr. O’Hanlon was consulted on knotty points and cases of conscience by bishops all over the world. At Maynooth his fund of wit and drollery made his appearance welcome, when daily he joined the other professors at table. But for this reputation, he would probably have been raised by Rome to the Primacy. His name, which had been influentially recommended, was set aside, and the Rev. Paul Cullen, Rector of the Irish College at Rome, whose claims had not been urged, came to Armagh. The humour of which O’Hanlon had been full fed had matured that sense in his pupil.

The Professor under whom Healy read natural philosophy for one year was the Rev. Nicholas Callan, famous as the inventor of the Callan battery. Of general literature he was innocent, and on ‘Dr. Paddy Murray’ asking him if he had read ‘Nicholas Nickleby,’ Callan, thinking that some subtle allusion to himself was meant, replied ‘No, nor “Paddledy Pabbleby” either.’

Dr. O’Hanlon, as I have said, had charge of the Dunboyne establishment at Maynooth. Though James Healy became a student in the Dunboyne - a school usually regarded as embracing the pick of the college - he was not a hard reader. All he gathered was the cream sedulously administered by his fast friend, Henry Neville, afterwards the distinguished Professor of Theology. The bonds which subsisted through life between Neville and Healy were severed only by death. Canon Cahill, now parish priest of Tipperary; and James Kavanagh, afterwards the accomplished President of Carlow College, and vindicator of the Vatican decrees, were also with Healy in the Dunboyne. [Dr. Butler, Bishop of Cork, having’ succeeded to the peerage of Dunboyne, petitioned Pius VI. for a dispensation to marry, but without success. He then conformed to the Protestant religion, and married his cousin; but on his deathbed, in 1802, he returned to the fold, and left his property to endow the higher school long famous as the Dunboyne. His widow, known in society as the Dowager Lady Dunboyne, married Mr. Hubert Moore, and ‘survived ‘until the year 1867.]

It was of Cahill Healy said that he preached in Latin every Sunday, Latin being the name of the parish of which Cahill was then pastor. Kavanagh shared Healy’s sense of humour. At Carlow he once said to some ecclesiastical students, whose progress had not been rapid: ‘Gentlemen, if you don’t make better progress, you’ll have the tonsure by nature before you’re entitled to it in Orders.’ Somebody called James Kavanagh and James Healy the gems (Jems) of the school.

Mathew Flanagan, the parish priest of Francis Street, was secretary to the Board of Maynooth College, and had steadily held that any complaints as regards grievances which the Dunboyne students cared to make should be addressed to him, and not to the President. Some few complaints had previously failed to meet attention, but James Healy gave his fellows a glimpse of the procrastinating ways of this child of genius. Any letter from the students, he said, would possibly be found by Flanagan’s executor in place of book-marker in the Art Journal, or hidden away in a portfolio of Hogarth’s plates. At Healy’s suggestion they now formulated their demands in the form of a round-robin, on which it was impossible not to act. Flanagan was not a little puzzled and piqued by the round-robin which now perched on his desk. For some time he suspected James Healy as privy to it; but he finally relaxed and forgave him.

The Chapel House in Francis Street, which had long been regarded as an oasis in the Liberty, lost some prestige owing to the practical jokes of old Father Smith. Flanagan, however, still plied with unflagging zeal, the chisel and the brush, and unctuously mingled with his daily orisons the old, Latin, verse in which the liberal arts had been whilom summoned up. ‘Lingua, Tropus, Ratio, Numerus, Tonus, Angulus, Astra.’

But the time now approached when this good man must go. [Dr. Flanagan’s nerves had sustained a great shock by the death in his church, on a Christmas morning, of several persons who, on a false cry of ‘Fire!’ rushed in panic to the doors. When dying, he left his valuable library to the young. Catholic University; but Cardinal Cullen laid an embargo on it, and removed the books to Clonliffe.] He lost relish for food, and would consult his housekeeper as to something which might possibly prove appetising. Wild-fowl was suggested. ‘Pshaw! I’m sick of birds.’ ‘Thereupon,’ said Father Healy, ‘he turned to my father for counsel. What would he recommend? “Bacon, of course.” Dr. Flanagan, rather than hurt the feelings of his parishioner, consented to try what virtue might lie in a “mild cure.’’ ’

To the end Father James retained pleasant recollections of his sire’s craft. Long after, while driving in a gig with a man of the world, their way was blocked by a drove of pigs, and this person so far forgot himself in the presence of a priest as to exclaim, ‘D—n them !’ The memory of early days came back, and the priest quietly said, ‘I would rather see them saved.’

Chapter III.

Ordination and First Appointment - Dean Meyler’s Dinners - Archbishop Murray - Tom Moore - P. V. Fitz-Patrick - Smock Alley Presbytery Fifty Years Ago - Rev. Andrew O’Connell - Father Meehan and the Fiery Chariot of Elias - An Iron-clamped Coffin - Canon Roche - Zozimus -McCarthy, the Poet - Saul’s Court - Father Healy, Curate of Bray - Tinnahinch.

Father Healy entered on his duties as a priest during a period of sectarian excitement. A storm swept through England, owing to the Papal Bull - which, to quote the words of its denunciators, parcelled out the country into episcopal sees, or, as Cardinal Wiseman said, merely restored to England its ancient hierarchy - and the hurricane wrath soon reached Dublin. The young Levite, however, was only amused by the row, and enjoyed the joke of a brother priest, [Rev. Thomas Pope] that the English were stupid, because when the Pope sent them a bull they thought it a bore.

His first appointment was to the Church of St. Andrew, Westland Row, not as a curate, but as reader, entrusted with the duty of celebrating a daily Mass and attending the Sisters of Mercy, Baggot Street, as chaplain. At St. Andrew’s the Very Rev. Walter Meyler, Vicar-General And Dean of Dublin, presided - the first and last parish priest of Westland Row. He took an active part in the administration of the diocese, and by his counsel and influence ruled it quite as much as the ‘mild personage’ in the mitre noticed by Moore. [Thomas Moore refers to Meyler (‘Journals,’ vii. 299), and speaks of him as likely to succeed to the mitre of Murray. A priest’s dinner in Dublin is previously described (p. 106): ‘A good deal of singing by the reverends; one gave an Irish melody not badly. The Archbishop a mild, quiet personage. Moore and Murray both died in April, 1852. The registry of Moore’s birth is preserved in St. Andrew’s, Westland Row.]

Murray and Meyler had been fellow-curates in Liffey Street Chapel from 1807, and between them an affectionate friendship sprang up, which lasted through life. As a theologian and politician Meyler was essentially a moderate man, the reflex of his revered chief, Archbishop Murray, and, like him, too, he loved to dispense among friends, lay and cleric, a generous hospitality. He was the friend of Moore, whom he entertained more than once, and heard sing:

‘Fill the bumper fair!

Every drop we sprinkle

O’er the brow of Care,

Smooths away a wrinkle.

Wit’s electric flame

Ne’er so swiftly passes

As when through the frame

It shoots from brimming glasses.’

But the bard for whom a knife and fork was regularly laid was Patrick Vincent Fitz-Patrick, Assistant Registrar of Deeds, one of whose ‘squibs,’ addressed to Meyler, will be found in the Appendix. His role, though somewhat that of a Court jester, was really much higher. As a storyteller and improvisator he held a high repute, and Healy was not unmindful of the secret of his success. One epigram by ‘P. V.’ he was fond of quoting:

‘Dear reverend friends, whose taste pictorial

Preserves in windows, styled “memorial,”

Saints, soldiers, generous, jovial sinners,

Who win their glories by good dinners,

Oh! spare for us of fading sight

Some crystal panes of Heav’n’s pure light,

Rise we must grope our beads, for Prayer-Books

Must soon to ns be “closed,” or rare books.

And spite of “Ordo” or the “Ritual,”

You’ll make our “Tenebrae” perpetual.’

A host ‘talking wine’ with his guests, accompanied by courtly bows, was a time-honoured custom which died out in the fifties. ‘A joke of the day had it that ‘the man who did this should say, if a doctor, not ‘your health,’ but ‘my service to you.’ [Thackeray notices the advantage of this practice expecially in the case of a silent host: ‘Bob, my hey, what shall it be ‘ock or champagne ?’] Healy, describing Dean Meyler, said that his custom was to say frequently to the same guest, ‘Mr. —, have I had wine with you?’ or, ‘Have you drunk to me?’ If he replied, ‘Yes; I had that honour,’ he would never be asked again. One evening the question came, ‘Mr. Healy, are you drinking?’ ‘Yes, sir, like a young Dean,’ was his answer. Faces fell, and fears were felt by his friends that this reply would give offence; but nothing of the kind; henceforth the bean’s paternal attentions increased.

Meyler liked to have at his table young priests of promise; and no face was more familiar there than that of the Rev. Myles, now Canon, MacManus, whose lifelong relations with Healy began at this time. From Meyler Healy imbibed that love of hospitality as a host, and the tendency to Conservatism in politics, which characterized him ever after.

It should not be inferred that on such occasions as have been described much wine was drunk. I have often seen the Rev. John Kearney, when asked to take wine, pretend to fill his glass, holding the bowl of it as he did so in the belief that the feint would not be noticed. If any man made an overture to Father Meehan to take wine he would resent it.

A vacancy having occurred in the old city parish of SS. Michael and John’s, Father Healy was appointed curate by Archbishop Murray. Its pastor, the Very Rev. Andrew O’Connell, belonged to much the same type as Meylor, and eventually succeeded him as Dean. People knew him perhaps rather less as a host than as a visitor to the boudoir or conversazione; and after a day of toil he liked to move in cultured circles, where his genial presence and polished manners ,made him at all times welcome. His example lent, perhaps, a further influence in helping to shape the course and character of James Healy.

Another circumstance claims record. Healy’s appreciation of brain-power and of incisive retort was now daily fed by companionship with his fellow-curate, Charles Patrick Meehan, a man who, with great learning, acquired by a distinguished collegiate course in Italy, possessed a rare originality of character, blemished by eccentric traits, which the more courtly Healy viewed at this time with indulgence, and the intimacy thus begun continued to the end. Forty years after, as he stood by the death-bed of Meehan, in the same old house in Smock Alley, he brushed away a tear, the only thing, as he afterwards said, which seemed to have been brushed in that room for many a long day.

Healy had quaint memories of the old ‘chapel-house’ of SS. Michael and John’s when he and Meehan were fellow-curates. Meehan, as a ‘Young Irelander,’ was opposed to, the moderate party to which the parish priest belonged. nothing piqued the democratic priest more than when Dr. O’Connell would ask to dinner Lord Fingall and other Catholic Whigs; and he always chose the day on which his chief issued cards to give an opposition feat; but his hour would be five ‘clock, while O’Connell’s was much later.

Just as the distinguished guests would be arriving, festive sounds, with snatches of song and screams of laughter from Meehan’s room, agonized the more formal host, especially when Meehan’s shrill voice would be heard rowing the servants for neglecting to supply his guests with ‘more boiling water.’

But Father Healy had other stories of these days which ought not to be lost. It was with a sense of relief that O’Connell at last received from Archbishop Murray a letter offering him the parish of St. Mary, Haddington Road; and Meehan was not sorry to get rid of him. This parish embraced Irishtown, Ringsend, Sandymount, Donnybrook and Roebuck, and it was felt that the presentation of a brougham and horse would prove a useful tribute of affection. The hat, as usual, went round. A deputation, headed by Luke Dillon and Alderman Butler, both of Whig tendencies, waited on Meehan. It may be premised that chronic dyspepsia, from which, like Carlyle, he suffered all his life, sharpened his tongue. He affected not to know either of the two leading parishioners, and when Butler grandiloquently announced ‘the deputeetion,’ Meehan asked him to be good enough to speak English. The choleric little priest then took a small coin from off his chimney-piece. This, he said, was a bad halfpenny which had come to him in the weekly collection - possibly given by one of the persons there before him; ‘but yet,’ he added, holding it up, ‘if that little coin could purchase the reversion of the fiery chariot that conveyed Elias to heaven, I would not give it.’

Alderman Butler, the chief parishioner of SS. Michael and John’s, posed as a vocalist. When Healy dined with him, the host always sang ‘I saw from the bich when the morning was shining,’ thus murdering the first line of ‘Moore’s beautiful melody, ‘I saw from the beach.’ And Healy, determined not to be outdone, would sing Mangan’s ‘Time of the Barmecides ’ (And Richard Dalton Williams sang a parody on it, ‘The Days of the Barmaid’s Eyes.’); or, when the Alderman relaxed the formal gravity of a chairman, ‘The Nowlans and Neals.’

Soon after Father Healy’s appointment to SS. Michael and John’s he found himself much interested in a series of papers published by Mr. J. T. Gilbert, in which the older streets of Dublin were repeopled with men of the past, and long-hushed song and story heard once more within their crumbling walls. His lot was cast, and his work largely performed, in the cluster of streets thus described. SS. Michael and John’s, with its sparkling memories and chequered history, built on the site of old Smock Alley Theatre, is environed by Parliament Street, Castle Street, Hoey’s Court, Fishamble Street, Copper Alley, Saul’s Court, Christchurch Cathedral, the Royal Exchange, Crampton Court, Temple Bar, and ‘Hell’ (It’s true as that the deil’s in Hell or Dublin city.’ Burns.) or what remained of it - Wine Tavern Street and the ruins of the ‘Black Dog’ Prison on one side, and of the old Custom House on the other. Every recess in its vaults - once the pit of Smock Alley Theatre-was familiar to him. One small coffin contained the hallowed bones of Betagh; beside it lay Francis Magan, B.L., a then undiscovered informer, whose last instructions were that a yearly Mass was to be said by all priests of this church for the repose of his soul. Another coffin held the mortal part of Keogh, the famous preacher, whose powers of wit were second only to those of Healy himself. ’ Alas ! poor Yorick!’

But whose is that coffin of wonderful size and strength of build, bound at every joint with great clamps of iron? It is that of an old curate who had preceded Healy, the Rev. Michael Doyle. For years previous to his death he had in readiness this impregnable sarcophagus, which led to the remark that when the Day of Judgment came he would not be able to get out of it.

A brief epitaph enjoins his friends to pray for the repose of his soul, ‘and thus, even in the coffin,’ said Father Meehan, ‘he is a preacher of one of the Church’s most consoling dogmas.’ Doyle, while curate in SS. Michael and John’s, enjoyed the title of Archdeacon of Glendalough, just as Dr. Murray during 14 years that he was Archbishop discharged the duties of a curate in Liffey Street Chapel.

In April, 1849, the cholera broke out in Dublin, and continued to rage with relentless violence till the close of the year. Mr. Sutcliffe, one of the senior officials of the Hibernian Bank in that parish, tells me that such was Father Healy’s devotion to the dying that in one case he had to lie down beside a cholera patient in order to hear his last confession; and Mr. Hugh Kennedy says that he carried a sheaf of straw on his back for one who was suddenly stricken down.

Dr. O’Connell was succeeded by the Rev. Nicholas Roche, afterwards Canon, who, from a peculiar intonation which marked his homilies, was at once christened by Healy ‘Zozimus,’ in allusion to a well-known figure that stalked through Dublin lecturing on the life, conversion, and death of St. Mary of Egypt, and other sacred topics.

Roche was a little proud of the fact that Dublin Castle was under his aegis, and he regarded as parishioners the Viceroy and Secretary of State, who, recognising his claim, contributed to his schools. On the occasion of a loyal demonstration in Dublin, he got the gasfitter to erect at the entrance to the presbytery in Exchange Street certain elaborate designs, including ‘V.R.’; but a conspiracy among some local youths who worshipped the name of Emmet succeeded in cutting the pipes and plunging the place in utter darkness.

The young curate often met D. Florence McCarthy, the poet, with Meehan. McCarthy bad been at Maynooth studying for the Church, but was senior to Healy. The latter told as a happy *bon-mot *the reply of McCarthy to the query, ‘Are you related to James McCarthy the architect?’ ‘Jem an’ I [Gemini] are twins.’

The poet said that he was going to the ancient territory of Desmond to attend a grand celebration.

‘All the McCarthys will attend, including the McCarthy More,’ he said.

‘If all the McCarthys are to be there, there cannot be a McCarthy More,’ replied Healy.

SS. Michael and John’s was the first Catholic church of any pretension that, since the Reformation, had dared to lift its head in Dublin. Here, within a hundred yards of the spot where Handel first performed the ‘Messiah,’ Healy said his daily Mass amid the peals of a noble organ which proclaimed the monarchy of Mozart. The music of this *maestro *was soon after dethroned by Church authority in favour of the Cecilian, and Father James always regretted the change.

His Mass was at eleven o’clock. The senior curate, Father John Smyth, remarked that the punctuality with which Healy came out vested made him quite a model. Father Meehan replied that had the Mass been at seven perhaps less punctuality would have been observed. It being necessary to celebrate the holy sacrifice fasting, Healy of course was not a man to defer needlessly the morning meal, which was always his main support. (He never broke his fast between breakfast and dinner, which, when he dined out, rarely took place before eight o’clock p.m.)

His attic in the big brick chapel-house - dark and depressing, shut into a narrow lane by high houses in front - was yet a starry region, and the more enjoyable because it adjoined Meehan’s room. Father Smyth, his fellow-curate, was manager of a Catholic book-store opposite, and when Meehan sought to convince him from his window that better books might be chosen, it was pleasantly said that they argued from different premises.

For the next six years James Healy lived in Smock Alley, the life and soul of his fellow-labourers in parochial work, traversing rickety staircases where it was easier to break one’s neck than one’s fast, attending sick-calls in attic and cellar, and by his cheerful smile and consoling word bringing consolation and sunshine to many a darkened room.

An old crone usually waited on him at the presbytery, and evinced a kindly interest in his welfare. He came in one day very jaded, and threw himself in a chair, uttering a sepulchral groan. The old woman was polishing a grate - or as much as they ever do polish grates in priests’ houses - and, looking round, she said, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ ‘I believe I am in love,’ he replied, with that touch of hyperbole with which he sometimes made matter-of-fact people stare. Her reply was, ‘Troth, an’ I wouldn’t put it apast ye,’ and she resumed her toil. (It was in this spirit he said to a lady of rank who asked him on a visit to her palatial house, ‘When I come in after dining out, ma’am, you must allow me to go up by the backstairs.’)

The injunction:- ‘lightly tread, ‘tis hallowed ground,’ was literally followed by some persons light-fingered as well, who stealthily visited the chapels of Dublin. One day a man complained to the parish priest that while attending to his sermon a new hat, which he had placed behind him on the seat, had vanished. The curate interposed, ‘If you had given more attention to what you heard - “to watch as well as pray” - such a thing might not have happened.’

Between the years 1855 and 1857 five curates of St. Catherine’s, Meath Street, died - Fathers Fay, Ennis, Doyle, Murphy, and O’Neil. The pastor, Dr. Laphen, and his curate, Father McCabe, followed soon. A transfer of curates to fill two other vacancies in the same parish became necessary. ‘I am thinking of sending Gorman and Rorke to Meath Street,’ Archbishop Cullen said. ‘Better send Gerty and Rorke there, my lord,’ said Ilealy, alluding to the well-known firm of undertakers. (A newspaper was published in the parish of SS. Michael and John’s which probably lost nothing in wit by Healy’s proximity. The above firm having been appointed job-masters to the Lord-Lieutenant, the announcement was headed, ‘Bad news for the ---,’ naming a family who had already received several lucrative posts.)

The Rev. C. P. Meehan wrote at this time his ‘History of the O’Tooles,’ to which was prefixed a sort of autobiographic preface considerably longer than the history it introduced. An apparent allusion to Healy touches off his bright point neatly:

‘Have you seen Father H---?’ ‘Not yet, for I determined to visit the dead before calling on him. I know he is well, and living in a back-street in Dublin. He’s like a glow-worm, shining all the brighter for the obscurity of his atmosphere.’

One of his first sick-calls was to Saul’s Court. (About 1759, Laurence Saul, of Saul’s Court, Fishamble Street, a wealthy Catholic distiller, was prosecuted for having harboured a young lady who had sought refuge in his house to avoid being compelled by friends to conform to the Established Church. The Lord Chancellor, in the course of this trial, declared that the law did not presume an Irish Papist existed in the kingdom Saul, writing to Charles O’Conor, says: Since there is not the least prospect of such a relaxation of the penal laws as would induce one Roman Catholic to tarry in this place of bondage, who can purchase a settlement in some other land where freedom and security of property can be obtained, will you condemn me for saying that if I cannot be one of the first, I will not be one of the last to take flight?’)

Its two or three houses were then let in tenements, and presented a miserable relic of a more memorable occupancy. The street where the church stood was little better. The Corporation dubbed it Essex Street West, but Father Healy preferred to call it by the historic name of Smock Alley. Notwithstanding its proximity to Dublin Castle, its atmosphere remained democratic, but Healy, almost from the first, was in touch with squalor as well as wealth.

One day a letter came from Archbishop Cullen, transferring James Healy from Dublin to a curacy in the County Wicklow.

Dr. Johnson and the Rev. Sydney Smith have sought to show that no picturesque scenery, however beautiful, could equal in attraction lines of civic streets. But who would not exchange ‘Cork Hill’ for the ‘Sugar-loaf,’ or ‘Copper Alley,’ or even the ‘Jeweller’s Quay,’ for the ‘Valley of Diamonds’? Nevertheless, he found the change somewhat of a wrench at first, especially when friends with moistened eyes called to say ‘Good-bye,’ others to say ‘God speed.’

Bray was then a very different place from what it has since become. ‘When I first came to the parish, as Pastor of Bray,’ said the late Rev. Alexander Roache, ‘there was not a house between the main street and the sea-shore.’ But

Nothing is lost on him who sees

With the eye that feeling gave

For him there’s a story in every breeze

And a picture in every wave.’

This county, while abounding in scenes picturesque and memorable, was suggestive** of**pleasant thoughts. The misery - which for ages pressed to the earth the Irish race - was little known in Wicklow, and its people showed it. From many a cabin as he passed by; the merry movement of feet to the air of ‘The Kiluddery Hunt ’ might be heard. Enniskerry and Cuttlestown were then in Bray parish, and sick-calls had to be attended at great distances. One of the curates had often to ride to Glancree, a wild mountain region.

Apropos of this, a cleric from a still more inaccessible country told Healy that when going to say Mass on Sunday, his route lay across a steep mountain, which was sometimes covered with snow, and so slippery that he would be compelled to dismount from his horse and hold on to the tail. ‘Non tali auxilo !’ (‘We do not want such aid as that.’ exclaimed Healy on the moment, showing that he well remembered his Virgil.

A more active working priest had not been at Bray for many a day. The ozone of the sea was refreshing after the odours of the Liffey, and, braced and buoyant, he seemed everywhere at once. The ground he daily traversed was once Church property, but in the general suppression of religious houses it passed by grant to the ancestor of Lord Meath, the present owner. When the young priest passed Hollybrook, *en route *to say his morning Mass, visions of its former occupant, Robin Adair, so famed in song, would rise. Nor could Tinnahinch, the home of Grattan, be viewed unmoved. (Dr. Doyle, describing a visit to Tinnahinch in 1814, writes: ‘I can assure you that for some minutes the feelings excited within me were too strong for expression. I was enraptured with the situation of the man’s dwelling, but still more with the recollection of himself and our dear country, which, as he has said, “he had watched in her cradle and conducted to her tomb.” ‘Having gone on to see Powerscourt, Doyle adds, ‘We returned by Tinnahinch. I stopped, leaned over the wall, sighed, and said, ” Farewell !”’ (‘Life of Bishop Doyle,’ i. 62, 63). Father Healy was not as emotional as Dr. Doyle, but he showed his deep interest in Tinnahinch by preserving a beautiful painting of it by Sautelle Roberts, R.H.A. This picture is now in the possession of Lord Powerscourt.)

And there, in front of Loretto, where Father Healy often said Mass, was the sand-bank in which were found, shortly before, gigantic skeletons of men mingled with Roman coins of the Emperor Adrian. Were they the bones of the recreant Celts who sought to betray Ireland to Agricola?

One day Father Healy met two young ladies - one of them now Countess of Wicklow - ascending the hill on foot, and making fruitless efforts to urge on a reluctant ass harnessed to a miniature phaeton. They accosted the Padre in their distress, saying, ‘Oh, Father Healy, we’re so glad to meet you. *What shall *we do to make this beast proceed?’ ‘Go before him,’ said the Padre; ‘and he is a greater donkey than I take him to be if he do not follow you.’

General Contents. .