By John Fitzgerald
Last week I recounted how the bells in Callan parish church rang out for all the sad and happy occasions…tolling to remind people of their religious obligations.
But other bells rang out an altogether different, less welcome message. They were the ones that jingled on Canon Carrigan’s pony and trap when he set off on his morality patrols in Callan and district.
The Canon ruled the roost in the 1920s twenties and early thirties. Peter Roughan remembered him coming to Callan.
He reminisced: “this uncommonly zealous man was of farming stock, like many of the Ossary priests, and this made him feel at home in the town. He was affectionately known as Father Pat, and his kindly voice and light-hearted sense of humour tempered his stern look and overtly conservative image.
“He was a great lover of the horse, and a good judge of one too. I was a junior clerk at Pat Grainger’s office when Fr. Carrigan dropped in, asking my boss to sell him a suitable Aylesbury trap. They were all the go in those days.”
Pat Grainger sold him the best trap that money could buy. And the devout priest, who rose quickly through the ranks of the Church to become a Canon, put his mode of transport to what he considered excellent use. It saw service in hundreds of morality patrols.
Not content with sermonizing about ethical behaviour and Christian values, he felt the calling to enforce, where possible, the teachings of the Church.
In particular, he had a concern for the immortal souls of young couples that he knew were meeting at isolated locations around Callan.
He feared that the effects of drink might cause good Catholic lovers to disobey the Church’s rule on abstaining from the “joys of marriage” until the official knot had been tied at the altar. To ignore that rule was a grave sin, he warned.
He was determined to stamp out all after-dance liaisons by direct clerical intervention. This he hoped to achieve by literally patrolling the Callan district, sometimes alone, though mostly accompanied by helpers, and reprimanding any unmarried couples he found acting suspiciously.
As can be imagined, young lovers came to loathe the sound of jingling bells on dark nights or evenings. They knew it could herald the arrival of the Canon and his band of Inquisitors.
Yet the bells were a blessing in that they forewarned couples of impending discovery. The cry: “The bells… It’s the Canon,” continued to echo in the minds and hearts of Callan folk long after the Man of God had passed to his Eternal Reward.
When they heard the jingling, and the accompanying sound of horses’ hooves, the couples beat a hasty retreat to escape a harsh and relentless telling-off. If caught by surprise, they would apologise profusely and beg forgiveness, according to the Canon’s occasional “progress reports” to the Bishop.
The Black and Tans, who were stationed for a brief period opposite the Big Chapel, took a serious dislike to the Canon. They frequently sprayed the church belfry with machine gun fire to record their displeasure with his wayward apostolic activities.
But a Lewis gun was no match for a Canon. He saw the bullet holes in the belfry as a “Sign from God” that he was on the right track. The Tans had a lot to answer for!
In his quest to eradicate immorality, he concentrated mainly on isolated or unfrequented spots, but fields, laneways, ditches, certain stretches of riverbank, and roadsides were all deemed potential sinning venues, as were the Fair Green, the Abbey Meadow, the shell of the old Augustinian church, and a number of derelict buildings.
Towards the end of his twenty-year tour of duty in Callan, he predicted that a day would dawn when the “Sanctity of Marriage” would “come under a more severe attack than even the one we have seen thus far in this parish.”
He believed that communists, liberal thinkers, and anarchists would lead the Irish people astray and persuade them to disregard Catholic teaching. He wondered if all his morality patrolling had been in vain.
