BY JOHN FITZGERALD
On Saturday, the Kilkenny Heritage Walkers celebrated part of the city’s proud past with a visit to St Canice’s Catholic Church. However, the group had another reason for stepping onto the sacred ground of the building and the impeccably kept church grounds.
They called to say a hearty farewell to a dedicated PP. Fr. Jim Murphy had steered his parish along the Highway to Heaven for the duration of his tenure. He had won the hearts of the faithful in the district, serving out his term with compassion, diligence, and a keen devotion to the needs, spiritual and temporal, of his flock.
Fr. Jim will be leaving to take up a post elsewhere at the end of August, as part of a Diocesan reshuffle. While such reappointments are common, locals will miss the Man of God who fulfilled his role as pastor with great honour, even as they prepare to welcome the next PP.
Historian Paddy Neary, who compiled an attractive and studiously detailed booklet on the story of St. Canice’s Catholic Church, gave a wide-ranging talk on the subject. As he spoke, he took the group from the Church entrance into the bucolic, sunlit garden of the Parochial House, to which Fr. Jim had granted access for the occasion. From the garden you can see the spires of three churches on the skyline… St. Mary’s Cathedral and the Black Abbey being the other two.
Under a pale blue sky, and against a backdrop of luscious flora, and swallows fluttering overhead, he recalled that the church marked its 200th anniversary last year. Its construction in 1824 was an achievement that defied the odds back then because the Penal Laws still held sway.
The superb architectural features and the magnificence of its overall design did justice to the faith of the people it served for two centuries, Paddy recalled, as did the fine-cut limestone dressings that display top-class masonry, the decorative plasterwork resulting from a high level of artisanship; and the heavenly stained glass panels.
The new bell installed in 1953 had pealed before the arrival of the walkers…denoting a wedding ceremony that Fr. Jim performed. It was one of the many joyous occasions that the bell had announced to the parish in the past six decades, along with daily calls to prayer and the inevitable grief implicit in its tolling for the departed.
On the day of its installation, flags and bunting adorned the church grounds as a choir sang Faith of our Fathers. On Saturday, a quieter atmosphere prevailed. With the wedding party dispersing, a few of the walkers sat quietly on the base of the high-mounted bell as Paddy spoke.
Having completed the visit, the group bid farewell to Fr. Jim Murphy, wishing him well in his new parish.
The Kilkenny Heritage Walkers will be back on the history trail next Saturday, exploring another part of that “Other Country” of the past.
