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We are pleased to have turned up some very interesting information on the 1761 chalice uncovered in St. Mary’s some months back.
Inscription around base of chalice:
“This Chalice belongs to the Parish of LUCAN bought by the Parish Priest Patrick Fay 1761”
(4231 etched on bottom)
We had no record of Rev Patrick Fay, and St. Mary’s was not yet built at the time. Thanks to local genealogist Mary Jackson, who knows people in places that matter, such as Diocesan Archivist Noelle Dowling, the following emerged.
“The first Parish Priest of Lucan and Palmerstown was probably Fr Patrick Fay.
He was born in Dublin in 1725 and studied in Salamanca where he was ordained in 1753. He continued with further studies until 1757 when he returned to Dublin.
It seems he went to wherever he was required during the next few years. His first real appointment as parish priest was in 1771 when he was sent to Balrothery (Balbriggan). He remained there until 1777 when he was transferred to St. James’. He remained there until his death in 1786.
Shortly before his death he was made a Canon of the Prebendary of Dunlavin (became a member of the Metropolitan Chapter who served as advisors to the Archbishop).”
(from an unknown source in the Diocesan Archives).
Over the centuries, the Parishes of Lucan, Clondalkin and Palmerstown changed around somewhat. Around the time Fr. Fay came, Lucan and Palmerstown had just broken away from Clondalkin making a separate parish. The parishes all united again at a later date, and Lucan finally became a parish in its own right in 1953.
Fr Fay was succeeded in Lucan by Fr Michael Hall in 1770. Then came Fr Andrew Toole in 1786 and Fr Michael Ryan in 1788. Fr. Ryan had been CC in St Andrews from 1783. He left Lucan in 1798 and returned to St. Andrews. John Dunne came in 1798.
A mystery solved?
Fr. Ryan’s connection with both Lucan and St. Andrews might explain how a register of Lucan Baptisms and Marriages for those years, got in with St. Andrew’s, Westland Row Registers!
While the list of clergy for Lucan for the early years is incomplete, the following are listed:
From 1323 to the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, the names of two clergy who had charge of St. Marys were John Route 1395 and Thomas Hunt 1409. 1680 saw Oliver Doyle in Lucan.
During the 1800s, the following are listed:
Fr. James McCarten, who was murdered on the Hill of Lucan (Chapel Hill), in 1807.
1837 – Matthias Kelly
1855 – John Moore
1883 – James Baxter
1860 – Edward Dunne
1885 –Daniel Deasy
1887 – James Hickey
1888 – William Donegan, who wrote ‘Lucania’.
Mary Mulhall
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