Let us return to the mid 1800’s. Butlersbridge and the surrounding area were situated in the parish of Castletara. According to local folklore the parish priest of Castletara, Rev. Thomas Brady P.P. (originally from Doocasson, Drung) when asked, had refused to build a chapel in the village. Bishop James Browne acting also as parish priest of Cavan parish (Urney and Annageliffe) undertook its construction on a site known as ‘The Pound Yard’, on condition that the following eight townlands of Castletara parish be transferred to the Cavan parish: Derrygarra Upper, Derrygarra Lower, Tullybuck, Plush, Stroane, Hackelty, Kilnalack and Drumcalpin. On the 30th of June 1866 the Anglo-Celt announcing the appointment of Fr. Bernard Conaty as parish priest of Castletara reported: ‘Henceforth, Butlersbridge will be served from Cavan.’
Hague – Church Architect
A great deal has already been written on the Hague family and their exceptionally fine contribution both locally and throughout the country, in both the construction and architectural areas. I have taken accounts from “A Celebration of the Life and Works of William Hague – Architect, 1836-1899”, compiled by the pupils and teachers of Butlersbridge National School in the year 2000, and information from Dr. Ciaran Parker's work “William Hague 1836-1899 – A Unique Architectural Legacy” (1999) and from the late Fr. Dan Gallogly in Breifne (1994 pp 309-444). Each of these publications contains a great deal of relevant information on our local church and on the Hague family.
St. Aidan's Church, Butlersbridge
During the eighteenth century mass was said in a thatched house at Coolboyogue, south of the village. This was used as a school-house during the week. By the middle of the next century a site nearer the village in the townland of Derrygarra was being used as a church.
The present church was built on land donated rent-free by the local landlord, the Earl of Lanesborough, a descendant of Stephen Butler.
The present church was built on land donated rent-free by the local landlord, the Earl of Lanesborough, a descendant of Stephen Butler.
The chapel site was previsouly occupied as a "pound yard". At one time the pound keeper was Sylvester Wallace (see ref http://www.irelandoldnews.com/Cavan/1848/FEB.html) Robert MORROW, James MONTGOMERY, and Patt MORROW -- having, with force and violence, taken away cattle from Sylvester WALLACE, pound -keeper, at Butlersbridge.
It was built to a design by William Hague and his father carried out the construction, which took over three years.
It was dedicated on 14 June 1863. The total cost was £1,400 – a vast sum well beyond the resources of a rural parish, where most people were lucky to have an annual income of £10 to £20. However, all debts were paid within a decade of the church's dedication.
In the early 1870s the church benefited from the good fortune of one of the many emigrants from the area, when Hugh Blessing, a native of Derrygarra, Butlersbridge who had found prosperity in New York, donated a set of stained glass windows at a cost of £150. Clergy everywhere were fund-raising with bazaars, concerts, collections and donations. A charity sermon by the famous Dominican preacher, Fr. Tom Burke O.P. took in £400 in 1870. Some clergy went to the United States to raise funds. The altar in Saint Aidan's Church was donated by an emigrant Rev. Aidan Brady of Inishbeg, Butlersbridge and Philadelphia.
St. Aidan’s is an early work of William Hague, and it contains architectural elements that were used elsewhere in mid nineteenth century church-building, such as the octagonal belfry. There are other motifs which were unique to Hague and which he was to use elsewhere, such as the polychromatic banding in the tracery of the windows. The design was praised by contemporaries, including the influential Dublin Builder, for its novel use of contrasted materials, which ‘thus compensate for the lack of ornament which the funds would not afford’.
In the early 1870s the church benefited from the good fortune of one of the many emigrants from the area, when Hugh Blessing, a native of Derrygarra, Butlersbridge who had found prosperity in New York, donated a set of stained glass windows at a cost of £150. Clergy everywhere were fund-raising with bazaars, concerts, collections and donations. A charity sermon by the famous Dominican preacher, Fr. Tom Burke O.P. took in £400 in 1870. Some clergy went to the United States to raise funds. The altar in Saint Aidan's Church was donated by an emigrant Rev. Aidan Brady of Inishbeg, Butlersbridge and Philadelphia.
St. Aidan’s is an early work of William Hague, and it contains architectural elements that were used elsewhere in mid nineteenth century church-building, such as the octagonal belfry. There are other motifs which were unique to Hague and which he was to use elsewhere, such as the polychromatic banding in the tracery of the windows. The design was praised by contemporaries, including the influential Dublin Builder, for its novel use of contrasted materials, which ‘thus compensate for the lack of ornament which the funds would not afford’.
St. Aidan / St. Mogue, the patron of Butlersbridge Church
St. Aidan, founder and patron of Ferns in Wexford, was a native of Cavan, where he was known as St. Mogue. Like Aidan, this was a diminutive form of the name Aedh (mo Aedh óg – my young Hugh), just as Aidan comes from Aedan (little Hugh).
He was born in the early sixth century to the south-west of present-day Ballyconnell, and studied with St. David in Wales, before returning to Ireland where he was probably the first person to introduce Christianity to the Cavan and Leitrim area. He founded the monastery of Drumlane, between Butlersbridge and Killeshandra, which was Cavan’s most important monastic centre in the Middle Ages.
Footnotes:
An interesting notice appeared in the 1824 Cavan Herald (26th October 1824), headed “Sporting Intelligence”
The hounds of the Cavan hunt will be on the ground at 11 o’clock on
Thursday next, at Butlersbridge; and on Monday next at Cullies; on the 11th
at Clarbawn-bridge; on the 15th at Cross-forts; on the 18th at Bleak-hill; on the 22nd at New Mills; on the 25th at Moyne-hall; and on the 29th inst., at Coolbeague Chapel.
Ted Donnelly also tells me of the field behind where the Chapel was located being known locally as the “Chapel Field”. It belonged to Joey Collins.
The Hague Family
The Hague family originally came from the townland of Plush near Butlersbridge. The architect's grandfather, also William Hague, moved to Cavan town about 1838 where he acquired an amount of house property in Hague's Row and College Street. His son, also William, was a building contractor and hardware merchant in Cavan. He owned the corn-mill in College St., as well as Brookvale Cottage near Cavan and Kilnacrott House, Ballyjamesduff. One of his three sons, William Jnr., became an architect and civil engineer about 1862. He moved to Dublin in 1863 and had offices or property in Dawson St., Upper Mount St. and Great Brunswick St. He was elected fellow of Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland about 1863. For nearly forty years he practiced as an architect, designing a lot of churches and buildings throughout Ireland. His headquarters were at 175 Great Brunswick Street. In 1872 he moved to 44 Westland Row. In 1876 he married Annie Vesey Daly of Eccles Street in St. Michan's Church, Anne Street, Dublin.
They had four children, William Vesey Hague writer and philosopher, Kathleen who became a nun in Roehampton, Anne Edith Mary and Joseph who went to sea. In 1899 William Hague died of pneumonia at his home at 21 Mount Street and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Mrs Bridget Brady (nee Hague) Rip who was a direct descendant of the Hague Family
Rev. Terence P. Cunnigham, D.C.L.
In an article on his colleague Fr Anthony Smith Carrickallen in Laragh wrote the following paragraph.
His first assignment (in Janurary 1857) was to the curacy of Castletara where Rev. John Matthews, his neighbour from Tullyunshin, was parish priest, although incapacitated through illness. He spent only ten months in this curacy and lodged probably in Castletara. He would have said Mass not only in Castletara chapel but also in John Reilly's shed which then served as a temporary chapel at Butlersbridge (on the right hand side on Andrew Boylan's lane).
Footnotes:
Thomas McGovern born in Derryheen, now living in Henies Cavan told me recently i.e. August 09 that when a child his family would travel by horse and trap to mass. Parking these at Mullavys and walking around the river bank to mass. Many other familes walked by the river including the Keegans and Carneys.
Footnote:
According to the late Phil McArdle, the cost involved in the construction of the Omagh Asylum severely weakened the finances of the Hague building firm.
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List of windows and furniture:
Windows on right hand side:
1st Pray for the deceased members of the O'Rourke and Lynch families
2nd Pray for the souls of Bernard, Mary Ann and Minnie Cosgrove
3rd Pray for the souls of Joseph and Thomas O'Reilly, Urney
4th Pray for the souls of Thomas Joseph Lane and deceased relatives, Post Office Butlersbridge.
Also inside front right hand door – men's side: Statue in wood - In memory of Patrick William Brady, Plush, who died 7/6/1938.
Windows on left hand side:
1st Pray for James Brady, Deceased, Inisbeg.
2nd Pray for James Rourke, Deceased. R. I. P.
3rd Pray for the deceased members of the Boylan Family, R. I. P.
4th Pray for the Deceased members of the O'Connor Family, R. I. P.
5th Pray for the souls of Thomas Joseph Lane and deceased relatives, Post Office, Butlersbridge.
Blessed Virgin Mary St. Joseph’s
(Left Side Altar) (Right Side Altar)
Pray for Mary Smith Brady Pray for Wm Brady
Donor her son Donor his son
Rev. Francis Aidan Brady, Rev. Francis Aidan Brady,
USA USA
Candles' Holder:
Easter 1958
Presented by Mr. & Mrs. Sean Fitzpatrick, Butlersbridge
to
St Aidan's Church
Confessional Boxes:
“Pray for the deceased relatives of the Teevan Family of Kilnaglare”