An extract from “On the Way: The Journey of the People of Muckno” by Gary Carville
The Hanratty family controlled the benefice of Muckno for most of the time until 1531. In that year Magonius Hanratty was obliged to resign the benefice because he had slain a priest.
Rev Magonius Hanratty Resigned in 1531
Rev James O’Duffy 1531
Rev Philip O’Duffy circa 1605-1607
Rev Constantine Duffy 1670
Rev Brian O’Hellin (Holland) 1681
Rev Owen Mulligan 1704
Rev Patrick Carr 1731
Rev Pierce Duffy 1744
Rev Francis Coyle 1782
Rev Edward Maguire 1788-1818
Rev James Duffy 1820-1838
Rev Archdeacon James McMeel 1838-1861
Rev Canon Peter Birmingham DD 1861-1882
Rev Canon John Hoey 1882-1895
Rev Canon James Meegan 1895-1908
Rev Canon Patrick Callan 1908-1915
Rev Canon Felix McKenna 1915-1928
Rev Canon Andrew J Maguire 1929-1952
Rev Canon James O’Daly 1952-1959
Rev Canon John McKenna 1959-1973
Rev Canon John J Tomany 1973-1983
Rev Canon Vincent Morris DD 1983-2001
Rev Canon John McCabe 2001-2010
Rev Canon Patrick McHugh 2010-2019
Rev Canon Shane McCaughey 2018 – 2020
Rev Adrian Walshe 2020- to Date
CURATES:
Rev Patrick McLearney 1830-1836
Rev William Gleeson 1837-1838
Rev John McLaughlin 1839-1840
Rev Patrick Maguire 1839-1840
Rev Patrick Hughes 1840-1842
Rev Patrick Smyth 1842-1853
Rev Joseph McPhillips 1842-1846
Rev Patrick McKenna 1853-1856[1]
Rev James McArdle 1855-1860
Rev Thomas Murphy 1857-1861
Rev John Kelly 1861-1865
Rev Patrick Donnelly 1862-1863
Rev Patrick Cunningham July-December 1863[2].
Rev John Smyth 1863-1864
Rev Peter Byrne 1864-1865
Rev Bernard Duffy 1865-1876
Rev Francis McNally 1874-1877 & 1881-1887.
Rev Francis Connolly 1876-1879[3]
Rev John Rooney 1878-1880
Rev Thomas Gallagher July-August 1880
Rev Patrick McConnan 1880-1884
Rev Arthur Hughes 1885
Rev Michael O’Doherty 1888-1889
Rev Joseph Campbell 1889-1891
Rev Francis Ward 1891-1896[4]
Rev Joseph Rapmund 1891-1894
Rev James McPhillips 1894 – 1895 & 1897-1900[5]
Rev Charles Quinn 1895-1904[6]
Rev James Marron 1896-1897
Rev John Meenan 1900-1902
Rev Mark Clinton 1902-1914
Rev John J Ward July-December 1904,
November 1919- December 1920 &
November 1921 -1930
Rev Bernard Maguire 1904-1906
Rev Patrick Fitzpatrick 1906-1907
Rev Michael Donnelly 1907-1910[7]
Rev John F Timoney 1911-1917
Rev P J Cullinan 1914-1919
Rev Eugene Hackett 1917-1920
Rev Francis Hackett 1920-1922
Rev Peter Kavanagh Apr-Oct 1921 & Oct 1924-1957
Rev Michael McElroy Apr-June 1922
Rev James P McKenna 1922-1924
Rev Edward McGahan 1923-1925
Rev James McManus 1926-1947[8]
Rev Laurence Murray 1930-1932[9]
Rev John J McKenna 1932-1941[10]
Rev Peter Finnegan 1942-1944
Rev Victor Marron 1944-1947
Rev James H Duffy 1947-1963
Rev Patrick McKenna 1947-1970[11]
Rev Gerard Ferguson 1957-1962
Rev Philip Connolly 1962-1964
Rev Patrick Scahill 1963-1977
Rev Hubert Rooney SMM Dec 1965-Aug 1966
Rev Denis Dolan Aug 1966-Jan 1967 & Sept 1968-Aug 1972
Rev Patrick O’Reilly Jan 1967- Aug 1968
Rev Peadar Ó Corragáin July-Aug 1970
Rev James A Doody Nov 1970- May 1971
Rev Gerard Timoney Aug 1971-Dec 1972 & May-July 1973
Rev Gerard Jennings Sept 1972-May 1973
Rev John Halton Jan 1973-Aug 1976
Rev Lorcan Lynch Aug 1973-1978
Rev Michael Daly 1976-1980
Rev John Finnegan 1977-1988
Rev Laurence T Duffy 1978-1994
Rev Thomas Coffey 1980-1990
Rev Colin Cleary 1988-1989
Rev Arthur McCann CP Jan-Sept 1990
Rev Gerry Whyte SScc 1990-1992
Rev John A Flanagan 1990-2003
Rev Michael Jordan 1992-2001
Rev Terence McElvaney 1994-1997
Rev Kevin Duffy 1997- 2015
Rev Adrian Walshe 2003 – 2015
Rev Leo Creelman 2015- 2019
Rev Nicholas Maanzo 2019- 2020
Rev Stephen Duffy 2018 to Date
PRIESTS INTERRED IN MUCKNO[12]
Priests buried at Mullandoy:
It is likely that there are many priests buried at Mullandoy, the ancient church of this parish. Fr Edward (Edmund) Maguire, who was PP at the time of the building of the first Catholic church in the town of Castleblayney, is mentioned as being buried there following his death in June 1818. He was the last priest to be known by the title of ‘PP of Muckno and Upper Clontibret’.
Priests buried at St Mary’s, Castleblayney:
Fr Patrick Cunningham CC, died 12th December 1863.
Fr Ross MacMahon, Monagor, died March 12 1873.[13]
Canon John Hoey PP, died 13th July 1895.
Fr Francis Ward CC, died 9th September 1896.
Canon James Meegan PP, died 3rd March 1908
Fr Michael Donnelly CC, died Christmas Day 1910.
Canon Patrick Callan PP, died 15th March 1915.
Canon Felix McKenna PP, died 12th December 1928.
Fr Laurence Murray, CC, Broomfield, died 15th November 1944.
Canon Andrew J. Maguire PP, died 29th February 1952.
Fr Francis Gallagher, died, 7th May 1956.
Canon James O’Daly, PP, died 3rd July 1959.
Fr Bernard Maguire, Ret’d, Hope Castle, died 4th June 1964.[14]
Fr Patrick McKenna CC, died 29th April 1970.
Canon John McKenna PE, died 13th March 1978.
Canon John Tomany, PE, died 13th January 1987.
Fr Francis McKenna, PE, Clogher, died 24th May 1987.[15]
Fr Peadar Livingstone CC, Clogher, died 8th December 1987[16].
Fr Eugene R Murphy SM, died 25 November 1988.[17]
Canon Vincent Morris DD, PE, died 23rd July 2009.
There is a also a Rev Patrick Hanratty, Drumacon, mentioned on a headstone in the cemetery. The date of death is given as 9 April 1873. Also mentioned on the headstone are other members of his family. The headstone was one of those re-located when the church extension was built in the 1950s.[18] We cannot presently find any reference to him in the records of Clogher diocese except for the admission of a P. Hanratty as a student of St Macartan’s College in 1864.[19] He may have been a deacon at the time of his death.
Priests buried at Oram:
There is only one priest interred in the cemetery at Oram, Dr Owen Francis Rooney DD.
Dr Rooney was a native of Tullyhattina, a descendant of the Owen Rooney who was the first Catholic in Muckno parish to obtain a lease following the penal laws, in 1753. Dr Rooney was born on 10 October 1895 and studied for the priesthood at Salamanca in Spain. Following his ordination on 16 May 1920, he pursued post-graduate studies and obtained a doctorate in divinity.
Dr Rooney was appointed a member of the staff of St Macartan’s college in Monaghan in 1921. He is remembered as a very popular teacher among his students. He appears to have spent a lot of his free time at home in Muckno because his signature appears regularly on the baptism and marriage registers during the 1920s. He contracted tuberculosis and spent a little time in Switzerland. He suffered a re-lapse and following after a few weeks’ illness he died on 18 January 1932, aged just thirty six years.
At the time of his death, Dr Rooney was eulogised in the following terms:
An ideal Professor who endeared himself to all who were privileged to know him … His outstanding gifts of mind and heart, and sunny disposition, made him admired and beloved by all. The great intellect is no more, the generous heart is stilled but his memory lives on and his example will be an inspiration in St Macartan’s for many a generation[20].
[1] Fr McKenna died here on 28 December 1856. He studied for the priesthood in the Irish College, Paris and Muckno was his only appointment. He was a native of Errigal Truagh and his body was interred in Clara cemetery. See, Irish Catholic Directory (1858), p. 212. See also, McKenna, Parochial Records, Vol. I, p. 447. The Freeman’s Journal of 7 January 1857 refers to Fr McKenna’s death but records his name incorrectly as ‘McNally’.
[2] Fr Cunningham died here on 12 December 1863 following a fever which he contracted a week earlier while on a sick call in the parish. His body is buried in St Mary’s Cemetery where the priests and people of the parish erected a monument over his grave. He was a contemporary at St Macartan’s College of the historian and solicitor, Denis Carolan Rushe, who refers to him in his papers.
[3] A native of Clogher, Fr Connolly completed his studies for the priesthood in Louvain. He contracted Tuberculosis and his medical advisers persuaded him to go from Muckno to work in a warmer climate. He went to Auckland, New Zealand, arriving there early in 1880. He died there a few months later, on 9 July 1880. See, McKenna, Parochial Records, Vol. I, pp. 447-8.
[4] Fr Ward was a native of the parish of Killeevan. He entered St Macartan’s College while Fr John Hoey, the future PP of Muckno, was PP of Killeevan. He was present at Canon Hoey’s death in July 1895. Fr Ward died suddenly on 9 September, 1896 and his grave is beside that of his mentor, outside of the southern transept of St Mary’s, Castleblayney.
[5] McKenna omits Fr McPhillips’ first period in Muckno.
[6] Fr Quinn’s appointment here was somewhat unique. He was a native of the parish, from Longfield, where he was born in October 1854, the son of Patrick & Mary Quinn (also nee Quinn). He studied in Paris before his ordination to the priesthood in either 1876 or 1877. Following his ministry in his native parish, he was appointed administrator of Tydavnet and became PP of that parish in 1905. He died in October 1918 and his grave is at the front of St Mary’s, Urbleshanny. I am grateful to Elizabeth Smyth, Conabury, and Bishop Joseph Duffy for making this information available to me.
[7] Died here Christmas Day 1910.
[8] The number of Curates was increased from two to three in October 1926 to provide for chaplaincy to the new County Home, which was opened then.
[9] Fr Laurence Murray, a native of Kilmore & Drumsnatt (Corcaghan-Threemilehouse) parish, died while serving as CC in Broomfield (Donaghmoyne parish) on 15 November 1944, but he was buried in Castleblayney.
[10] Was later to be PP of Muckno 1959-1973.
[11] Popularly known as ‘Big Fr Pat’, he died suddenly here on 29 April 1970. Though born in County Meath, he belonged to a branch of the MacKennas of Truagh which gave many priests and a bishop to Clogher diocese. Following his ordination in 1931 he was CC in Monaghan before being sent on loan to Edinburgh for a time. Later he was CC in Carrickroe, Bundoran and Clones before his appointment here in November 1947.
[12] This is no more than a short list of the priests whose bodies we know to be interred in the cemeteries of Muckno parish. Future lists will surely add to and correct this simple record.
[13] See Donnelly Journal, 12 March 1873.
[14] Fr Maguire was a native of Crumlin in Ederney parish, County Fermanagh. Following his ordination in 1898 he served in Kilmore diocese for some years before being appointed CC in Clones in 1906. He later served in Pettigo, Garrison, Latton and Ballybay before going to the USA in 1910. He retired to Hope Castle where he served as chaplain for some years before his death.
[15] See Appendix IV – Secondary Education.
[16] A native of West Street, where his parents ran a jeweller’s shop, Fr Livingstone was born in 1932. His father, James Livingstone, was also an elected member of Castleblayney UDC for a number of terms. Fr Livingstone was educated at Beech Corner and St Macartan’s College before entering Maynooth. He was ordained to the priesthood in Carrickmacross in 1957 and was a member of the teaching staff of St Michael’s College, Enniskillen, including a period as its President, before his appointment to Broomfield in Donaghmoyne parish in 1978. He retired to Clogher in 1986. He was an accomplished historian. Among his many written works are The Fermanagh Story (1969) and The Monaghan Story (1980).
[17] Fr Murphy was a native of York Street and was ordained in 1937. He taught for many years in the Marist College in Leeson Street, Dublin and also in Dundalk. He spent much of his retirement in Castleblayney and assisted willingly in parish liturgical life.
[18] My thanks to Michael Murphy, sacristan, for this information.
[19] St Macartan’s College 1840-1890, p. 153.
[20] Centenary Souvenir, St Macarten’s Seminary 1940, (Drogheda: 1940), p. 212.