"There are now thirty-two churches and chapels in Dublin and its vicinity. In the diocese the total number of secular clergy is 287, and of regulars, 125; total, priests, 412. The number of nuns is 1150. Besides the Catholic university, with its ample staff of professors, there are in the diocese six colleges, seven superior schools for boys, fourteen superior schools for ladies, twelve monastic primary schools, forty convent schools, and 200 lay schools, without including those which are under the National Board of Education. The Christian Brothers have 7000 pupils under their instruction, while the schools connected with the convents in the diocese contain 15,000. Besides Maynooth, which is amply endowed by the state, and contains 500 or 600 students, all designed for the priesthood, there is the college of All Hallows, at Drumcondra, in which 250 young men are being trained for the foreign mission. The Roman Catholic charities of the city are varied and numerous. There are magnificent hospitals, one of which especially— the Mater Misericordiae—has been not inappropriately called 'The Palace of the Sick Poor'—numerous orphanages, several widows' houses, and other refuges for virtuous women; ragged and industrial schools, night asylums, penitentiaries, reformatories, institutions for the blind and deaf and dumb; institutions for relieving the poor at their own houses, and Christian doctrine fraternities almost innumerable. All these wonderful organizations of religion and charity are supported wholly on the voluntary principle, and they have nearly all sprung into existence within half a century."
Miss Fannie Taylor, an English lady, in a recent work entitled Irish Homes and Irish Hearts, admirably describes, from personal and minute examination, the efficiency, success, and untiring devotion of the numerous orders of holy women, whose houses everywhere are to be found in and around the capital. Every conceivable want, every ill that flesh is heir to, finds at their busy and gentle hands an alleviation and a soothing remedy. The daughters of the rich are taught their duties to themselves and to society; the children of the poor are gratuitously trained in all the necessary arts of life; the orphan has a refuge; the sick are visited and comforted; even the outcast woman, the loathing of the worldly of her own sex, is taken by the hand and gently led back to the path of virtue. Hospitals; asylums for the blind, the deaf and dumb, have been built by them, generally out of their own slender means; and even the raving maniac and drivelling idiot find a shelter and a home. Wherever death, sickness, poverty, ignorance, crime, or affliction is, there also is to be found the "sister," consoling, helping, teaching, admonishing, always gentle, patient, and cheerful. "I would speak," said the writer, in her introductory chapter, "of that marvellous net of religious institutions spread over the land, and of those deeds of charity which in reality form a powerful element in Irish life." Words as truthful as they are applicable.
Following Mr. Godkin in what he calls his "Inspection of Bishoprics," (Protestant of course,) we come to the diocese of Ferns, embracing the county of Wexford. "Here, then," says the inspector, "is a population that seems naturally fitted in a preeminent degree for the reception of Protestantism;" but he found himself mistaken. In the very cradle of Catholicity in Ireland he could not find even one out of every ten who even professed to be Protestants. He is equally surprised at the respect and veneration in which our blessed mother was held in this diocese of "industrious, self-reliant, and independent" men, and acknowledges his astonishment gracefully enough:
"I had plenty of proofs of this in the town of Wexford, where there are two splendid new churches, with grand towers, built almost exactly alike, in cathedral style; erected also at the same time, and chiefly through the exertions of the same priest. One of them is called the church of the Immaculate Conception, and the other the church of the Assumption; both, therefore, specially dedicated to the Virgin Mary. There could be no mistake about this in the mind of any one visiting these splendid places of worship, which are fitted up admirably with seats to the very doors, finished in the most approved style, and with a degree of taste that would do honor to the best cathedrals in England. Behind the high altar there is a very large window of stained glass, and a similar one of smaller dimensions at each side. To the right is Mary's chapel, with an altar brilliant and gorgeous in the extreme. There is a beautiful statue of the Virgin and Child, before which three lamps were burning during the day, and in the evening eight or nine dozen of candles are lighted, while ten or twelve vases are filled with a variety of flowers, kept constantly fresh, and producing the most brilliant and dazzling effects for the worshippers, who are nearly all attracted to this favorite altar, the beauty and splendor of which throw the altar of Christ completely in the shade. Generally, indeed, the Saviour appears only agonized on the cross, his hands fastened with nails, and the blood flowing from his pierced side, or else lying dead and ghastly in the sepulchre. It is only the Virgin that appears arrayed in beauty, crowned with majesty, and encircled with glory. Her altar in the Wexford church of the Assumption is decorated in the same style as the Immaculate Conception, but not with so much elaboration. Great local sacrifices must have been made for the erection and furnishing of these two churches, with their magnificent towers and spires, but much of the money came from Great Britain and the colonies; and to a question which I put on the subject to my guide, I received for answer that it came 'from all parts of the habitable world.'
"But, beautiful as those two new churches are, they are surpassed in internal decorations by the Franciscan church of this town. This is a perfect gem in its way so elegantly painted and ornamented, and so nicely kept, so bright and cheering in its aspect, and evincing such regard to comfort in all its arrangements, that we can easily conceive it to be a very popular and fashionable place of worship. It is not cruciform, but built in the shape of an L. To the left of the principal altar, at the junction of the two portions, stands in impressive prominence the altar of the Virgin Mary, which is covered by an elevated canopy, resting upon white and blue pillars with golden capitals. Upon the altar stands a beautiful marble statue of the Virgin. Three lamps burn constantly before it. One hundred candles are lighted round it in the evening with half a dozen gas-burners. Floral ornaments are in the greatest profusion and variety. There are four large stands on the altar floor, two others higher up on the pedestal, and a number of small vases with bouquets ranged on the altar. The friary attached to the church presents a picture of order, neatness, and cleanliness which seemed to be a reflection of the characteristics of the 'English baronies,' showing how national idiosyncrasies and social circumstances affect religion. In fact, a community of Quakers could not keep their establishment in better order than these Franciscans keep their friary. I observed a great contrast in this respect in the Roman Catholic establishments of Waterford and Thurles. Wexford, indeed, is quite a model town in the Roman Catholic Church. There are three other places of worship besides those already mentioned—the college chapel and the nunnery chapels, and certainly there are no people in the world, perhaps, not excepting the Romans themselves, more abundantly supplied with masses. There is a mass for workingmen at five o'clock in the morning, there are masses daily during the week at later hours, and no less than six or seven on Sundays in each of the principal chapels, or churches as they are now generally called. The college is a large building, and in connection with it is the residence of the bishop, Dr. Furlong."
What has here been remarked of Dublin and Ferns may be said with equal justice of other parts of Ireland. Kildare and Leighlin has its splendid cathedral, the corner-stone of which was laid in Carlow in 1828, by the celebrated Dr. Doyle. Cork has its fine churches, schools, and monasteries. Of the cathedral of the diocese of Kerry, Miss Taylor says:
"The great ornament of Killarney is the cathedral, the only one I have seen in Ireland worthy of the name. It is one of Pugin's happiest conceptions. The tower is not yet built, and this of course greatly detracts from the beauty of the exterior; but within, the great height of the roof, the noble pillars, the sense of space and grandeur, made one think of some of the beautiful cathedrals of old of our own and foreign lands."
In the archdiocese of Tuam, where some years since the Most Rev. Dr. Kelly, the predecessor of the present patriotic prelate, said that out of one hundred and twenty-one places of worship one hundred and six "were thatched cabins," there are now three hundred and eighty-seven churches, three hundred and eighty-two clergymen, and fifty-four religious houses.
Armagh has again risen from the ashes of the past, and again a beautiful metropolitan cathedral appears on the spot hallowed by St. Patrick. The corner-stone of this beautiful building was laid by the Most Rev. Dr. Crolly, primate, on the 17th of March, 1840. The increase of churches in this diocese from 1800 to 1864 has been ninety-three; convents and schools, twenty-four.