Street Wise – Kiltoom

This series of articles for the Westmeath Independent is run in conjunction with the Street Wise Athlone series on Athlone Community Radio which is broadcast on Wednesdays during Athlone Today at 2.30pm and repeated on Thursday mornings at 10am on The Brekkie Show.

Athlone Miscellany with Gearoid O'Brien

Kiltoom is a civil parish and an electoral division in South Roscommon, the Catholic parish is the extensive parish of Kiltoom and Cam. The townland of Kiltoom (from the Irish: Cill Tuama, possibly the church of St. Tuama or more likely the church of the tomb) is located on the western shore of Lough Ree, the townlands which border it are: Carrick, Carrowmurragh, Carrownderry and Moyvannon. The parish has been well served by local historian Willie Gacquin in his monograph ‘Roscommon before the Famine: the parishes of Kiltoom and Cam, 1749-1845’, which was published by Irish Academic Press in 1996. My assumption about the derivation of the placename being the church of the tomb is based on the fact that the first church in the village was built on a tumulus or burial mound close to which is a holy well known as Tobar Pádraig or St. Patrick’s Well.

Kiltoom in Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837

According to Lewis’s Dictionary “Kiltoom is a parish in the barony of Athlone, County Roscommon. It is 5 miles N.W. of Athlone, on the road to Roscommon, containing 4514 inhabitants. The parish, which is situated on Lough Ree, comprises 7510 acres, as applotted under the Tithes Act, the soil is light and fertile, and the lands are generally in a profitable state of cultivation, the system of agriculture is improved and there is a moderate portion of bog. The scenery is pleasantly diversified.

The principal seats are Hodson Bay, that of L. Hodson Esq, pleasantly situated on the Shore of Lough Ree in tastefully disposed grounds commanding a fine view of the lake and the River Shannon; Grove of J. Sproule Esq; New Park of Mrs Smythe, a handsome residence pleasantly situated and Rockhill, of E. Hodson Esq.

The living is a vicarage, in the diocese of Elphin, united by act of council to the vicarage of Camma, together forming the Union of Kiltoom, in the patronage of the bishop, the rectory is impropriate in the Incorporated Society.

The tithes amount to £155, of which £65 is payable to the impropriates and the remainder to the vicar; the gross tithes of the benefice are £200. The glebe-house is situated about a mile from the church; the glebe comprises c20 acres. The church, which is in good repair, was built in1785 by a gift of £390 from the Board of First Fruits; the tower is castellated and the occasional residence of Sir Frederick Trench.

The R.C. parish is co-extensive with that of the Established Church, a spacious chapel is now being built. There is a private school in which there are about 45 children.

Link with the Cluniacs

The earliest church in Kiltoom was probably part of an early Christian settlement, not unlike that at Clonown and Drum but I can find no documentary evidence to confirm this. The archaeological evidence on the ground suggests a date of the twelfth or early thirteenth century for the extant remains of the early church at Kiltoom. However, we do know that like Drum by the fifteenth century the church at Kiltoom was serviced by monks from the Cluniac priory in Athlone. After the reformation it seems there was no Catholic church in the parish until the nineteenth century. The presence of mass rocks in both Kiltoom and Cam suggests that during the Penal Times the worship of Catholics was held outdoors in safe locations for some time before mass houses were built in Feamore and Curraghboy in the 18th century.

The Legacy of Fr O’Neill

Fr Terence G O’Neill (1797-1837) was parish priest of Kiltoom and Cam at the time of Catholic Emancipation. He quickly set about the task of building some badly needed churches for his flock and was responsible for building both the church in Curraghboy and the church in Ballybay. Both churches, though now greatly altered, are still serving the needs of their parishioners, surely a testament to the sterling work of Fr O’Neill. The church in Curraghboy was built in 1830 and was dedicated to St Brigid, following the Second Vatican Council this church was modernised and re-modelled. It was solemnly blessed by Bishop Vincent Hanly in March 1969. The church in Ballybay was, perhaps, his final project as he died in 1837, perhaps his early death explains why the church was not originally dedicated to a particular saint as was the custom. However, following extensive renovations it was officially opened and dedicated as the Church of the Risen Christ, by Bishop Dominic Conway, in July 1974.

Fr Terence O’Neill was also highly committed to the ideal of education and started a programme of building National Schools in the parish in 1832. It seems very likely that his trojan work for the parish took its toll on his health and helps to explain his untimely death at just forty years of age.

Bishop John Reddington

Bishop John Reddington was a native of the parish. He was born in Rackans in June 1910, his parents were John Reddington and Catherine Reddington (nee Butler) who farmed in Rackans. His mother was related to the Butlers in The Square in Athlone. He joined the Society of African Missions and was ordained in 1934. Twenty years later, in 1954, he was the first bishop to be consecrated in the Church of SS Peter & Paul in Athlone. For the next twenty years he served as Bishop of Jos in Nigeria, retiring in 1974. He died in Dublin in 1994.

Two Interesting Men

It is well over 40 years ago since I first came across a book called “And That’s No Lie”, it was brought to my attention by the late John Kenny, of Newpark, Kiltoom. I knew Mr Kenny, who was then in his late 70s because he was a member of the Old Athlone Society and also because he had published a little book called ‘The Countryman’s Verse’ the previous year bringing together a selection of his poems which had been published in The Roscommon Champion.

John Kenny was himself a very interesting character, born in Glasgow to a Scottish mother and an Irish father. When he was less than two weeks old his mother died and his grandmother brought him back to Ireland to be reared in Kiltoom. He left school at the age of twelve to work on the farm and he spent the rest of his life in Kiltoom. Because he knew that I wrote poetry but that our styles were very different he once wrote to me and put in brackets after his name ‘The Scutchgrass Poet”

The book “And That’s No Lie” is the story of John Linehan (registered as John Lenahan) who was born in 1874 to Patrick Lenahan (a herd for Mr Murray of Rockhill), and his wife Catherine McLaughlin of Rackins. Like John Kenny, he left school early and worked initially in the Kiltoom area, but with a reference from the local parson he got a job as a coachman in Moyglare in Maynooth, where he worked for Captain Tuckett. While working in Moyglare he went to a dance and met a Cork girl, Margaret Crowley, and fell in love with her. However, shortly after they met Margaret emigrated to America and he decided to follow her. In America he worked for a Mr Talbot whose wife, Beatrice Bill Talbot, recorded John’s story for posterity. It is a great read.

Next article: Hodson Bay

You can read previous articles in this series here