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HISTORY
Fr Tom Maguire
Fr
Tom Maguire was, perhaps, the most famous and most noteworthy of the many parish
priests of Inishmagrath.
Fr Tom Maguire was born in the parish of Kinawley, Co Fermanagh.
It seems that his family were descendants of the Maguires, the chieftains
of Fermanagh. Tom received his early
education at a classical school near Ballyconnell before going to study in Maynooth
College. He was ordained in 1816 in
Templeport, where his uncle, Fr Patrick Maguire was parish priest.
He was appointed curate in the same parish and in 1818 was appointed
parish priest of Drumreilly Lower. In
September 1825 he was appointed parish priest of Inishmagrath.
In the 1820’s the Catholic Church in Kilmore was totally unprepared for the
emerging New Reformation, a movement of evangelical Protestants who were making
a strong bid to win over poverty stricken Catholics to Protestantism.
These evangelicals were bitterly anti-Catholic and above all, fiercely
hostile to priests. The local
priests were, in general, ill-equipped to provide leadership to the laity who
had to confront these evangelicals. Fr
Tom Maguire, however, challenged one of the leading evangelicals in the country,
Rev Mr Richard Pope, to a debate.
The debate took place in the Lecture Room of the Dublin Institute in
Sackville St
(now
O’Connell St
), starting on Thursday, 19th April 1827.
It attracted media attention and huge crowds.
The debate lasted six days and, when it ended, Catholics were in no doubt
that Maguire was the clear winner. Daniel
O’Connell, who co-chaired the debate, commented “that this simple
unpretending priest from the bogs of Leitrim has given a death-blow to the
doctrines of the Established Church.” The
people of Dublin, by way of a spontaneous tribute, unyoked the horses from Fr
Tom's coach and pulled it along the streets of Dublin to his lodgings. Fr
Tom was now a national hero.
But Fr Tom’s difficulties with the evangelicals were far from over.
In May 1827 a Protestant inn-keeper in Drumkeeran, took a case against Fr
Tom, accusing him of seducing his daughter.
This action resulted in heightened tensions between the local Catholic
and Protestant communities, with some Protestant businesses being boycotted.
The case against Fr Tom was heard in December 1827.
Daniel O’Connell defended Fr Tom. The
jury returned a verdict in favour of Fr Maguire, awarding him six pence in
costs.
In 1828 Daniel O’Connell stood for election to the House of Parliament in Co
Clare. If he were to succeed, the
laws excluding Catholics from Parliament would have to be repealed.
Knowing this, Fr Tom visited Co Clare to exhort the people to support Mr
O’Connell. On Sunday 29th June he addressed
a meeting in Tulla and during the week he made speeches at the polling booths in
Ennis. O’Connell won the
election. Within a year the penal
Laws were repealed, Catholic Emancipation had been achieved and O’Connell was
hailed as the Liberator.
Fr Maguire supported O’Connell’s bid to secure the repeal of the Act of
Union. On 15th August
1833, he organised a great meeting on Sheena Hill at which he explained the aims
of the repeal Movement and exhorted the people to firmly back O’Connell.
Throughout these years Fr Tom was in regular demand as a preacher. The
debate with Pope had launched him on a career as a controversialist and popular
preacher who was in demand for Lenten sermons in Dublin's major churches, as
well as for charity sermons and sermons at the dedication of new churches.
He also preached in Britain, in cities such as Liverpool, Glasgow and
Bristol. On one occasion, he made use
of his oratorical skills to help raise funds for the churches he was building in
Inishmagrath. The Freeman’s
Journal of 15th August 1835, carried a report that “a charity
sermon will be preached in the Church
of
St Teresa
, Clarendon St, by Rev T. Maguire, PP of Inishmagrath,
to enable him to finish two chapels in that parish.” One
account of his preaching in in the Church of Adam and Eve (Dublin) reads as
follows: "Fr Maguire came from Leitrim and had a large and densely
packed audience who listened to him for fully two hours without a break.
His style was simple, his accent Irish and his arguments overwhelming."
Fr Tom was transferred to Ballinamore in 1835.
On 2nd December 1847 Fr Tom died suddenly near Ballinamore.
At first his death was thought to be by natural causes.
But when his brother and sister-in-law died within hours of each other it was decided
to hold post-mortems on all three bodies. All
three stomachs were found to contain considerable amounts of arsenic.
They had been poisoned. Two
people were tried for Fr Tom’s murder but they were acquitted.
While it’s possible that he may have been poisoned by Orangemen because
of his opposition to the New Reformation movement it is also possible that he
may have been the victim of the Molly Maguires, whom he had strongly opposed in
the Ballinamore area.
His
funeral was supposed to be the largest ever seen in Kilmore. As the
funeral procession left Ballinamore the parishioners unyoked the horses from the
hearse and pulled it to Kilnavart.
Fr Tom was buried at Kilnavart church, in Templeport.
A monument in memory of Fr
Tom can be seen at Kilnavart Church, Templeport, Co Cavan. The monument
can be seen to the right of the church in the above photo.
The inscription on the
monument, as we can see below, describes Fr Tom as a "renowned preacher and
patriot".
Charles Gavan Duffy described Fr Tom as follows:
"Tall with a benevolent expression of honest good nature on his face, he
was a favourite everywhere. A great controversialist, gifted with genuine
Irish wit, he was welcomed by all and was the heart and soul of every
assembly". He was undoubtedly one
Ireland's greatest preachers, so much so that, in a compendium of sermons called
Pulpit Themes, his name appears alongside contributions from men like
Cardinals Newman and Manning.
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