see in one place the word 'Church,' while near by is printed 'R.C. Chapel.' This custom has its roots far back in the time when it was attempted to extend the doctrines of the Reformation to Ireland. Then wherever the authority of the government prevailed, the church belonging to the Catholics was taken from them; the priest was expelled; and a Protestant minister was installed. But the law went much farther, and forbade under fearful penalties the celebration of Mass—penalties for both priest and congregation. As the people had now no churches, the custom began of celebrating Mass in the open air, always in remote lonely places where there was little fear of discovery. Many of these places retain to this day names formed from the Irish word Affrionn [affrin], the Mass; such as the mountain called Knockanaffrinn in Waterford (the hill of the Mass), Ardanaffrinn, Lissanaffrinn, and many others. While Mass was going on, a watcher was always placed on an adjacent height to have a look-out for the approach of a party of military, or of a spy with the offered reward in view.
After a long interval however, when the sharp fangs of the Penal Laws began to be blunted or drawn, the Catholics commenced to build for themselves little places of worship: very timidly at first, and always in some out-of-the-way place. But they had many difficulties to contend with. Poverty was one of them; for the great body of the congregations were labourers or tradesmen, as the Catholic people had been almost crushed out of existence, soul and body, for five or six generations, by the terrible Penal Laws, which, with careful attention to details, omitted nothing
that could impoverish and degrade them. But even poverty, bad as it was, never stood decidedly in the way; for the buildings were not expensive, and the poor people gladly contributed shillings coppers and labour for the luxury of a chapel. A more serious obstacle was the refusal of landlords in some districts to lease a plot of land for the building. In Donegal and elsewhere they had a movable little wooden shed that just sheltered the priest and the sacred appliances while he celebrated Mass, and which was wheeled about from place to place in the parish wherever required. A shed of this kind was called a scallan (Irish: a shield, a protecting shelter). Some of these scallans are preserved with reverence to this day, as for instance one in Carrigaholt in Clare, where a large district was for many years without any Catholic place of worship, as the local landlord obstinately refused to let a bit of land. You may now see that very scallan—not much larger than a sentry-box—beside the new chapel in Carrigaholt.
And so those humble little buildings gradually rose up all over the country. Then many of the small towns and villages through the country presented this spectacle. In one place was the 'decent church' that had formerly belonged to the Catholics, now in possession of a Protestant congregation of perhaps half a dozen—church, minister, and clerk maintained by contributions of tithes forced from the Catholic people; and not far off a poor little thatched building with clay floor and rough walls for a Roman Catholic congregation of 500, 1000, or more, all except the few that found room within kneeling on
the ground outside, only too glad to be able to be present at Mass under any conditions.
These little buildings were always called 'chapels,' to distinguish them from what were now the Protestant churches. Many of these primitive places of worship remained in use to a period within living memory—perhaps some remain still. When I was a boy I generally heard Mass in one of them, in Ballyorgan, Co. Limerick: clay floor, no seats, walls of rough stone unplastered, thatch not far above our heads. Just over the altar was suspended a level canopy of thin boards, to hide the thatch from the sacred spot: and on its under surface was roughly painted by some rustic artist a figure of a dove—emblematic of the Holy Ghost—which to my childish fancy was a work of art equal at least to anything ever executed by Michael Angelo. Many and many a time I heard exhortations from that poor altar, sometimes in English, sometimes in Irish, by the Rev. Darby Buckley, the parish priest of Glenroe (of which Ballyorgan formed a part), delivered with such earnestness and power as to produce extraordinary effects on the congregation. You saw men and women in tears everywhere around you, and at the few words of unstudied peroration they flung themselves on their knees in a passionate burst of piety and sorrow. Ah, God be with Father Darby Buckley: a small man, full of fire and energy: somewhat overbearing, and rather severe in judging of small transgressions; but all the same, a great and saintly parish priest.
That little chapel has long been superseded by a solid structure, suitable to the neighbourhood and its people.
What has happened in the neighbouring town of Kilfinane is still more typical of the advance of the Catholics. There also stood a large thatched chapel with a clay floor: and the Catholics were just beginning to emerge from their state of servility when the Rev. Father Sheehy was appointed parish priest about the beginning of the last century. He was a tall man of splendid physique: when I was a boy I knew him in his old age, and even then you could not help admiring his imposing figure. At that time the lord of the soil was Captain Oliver, one of that Cromwellian family to whom was granted all the district belonging to their Catholic predecessors, Sir John Ponsonby and Sir Edward Fitzharris, both of whom were impeached and disinherited,
On the Monday morning following the new priest's first Mass he strolled down to have a good view of the chapel and grounds, and was much astonished to find in the chapel yard a cartload of oats in sheaf, in charge of a man whom he recognized as having been at Mass on the day before. He called him over and questioned him, on which the man told him that the captain had sent him with the oats to have it threshed on the chapel floor, as he always did. The priest was amazed and indignant, and instantly ordered the man off the grounds, threatening him with personal chastisement, which—considering the priest's brawny figure and determined look—he perhaps feared more than bell book and candle. The exact words Father Sheehy used were, 'If ever I find you here again with a load of oats or a load of anything else, I'll break your back for you: and then I'll go up and break your master's back too!' The