The Abbey That Refused to Die, by John Egan

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Sunday Miscellany 6 min 1 speaker 6 chapters transcribed 6 hours ago

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How did a childhood lesson with Uncle Father Tommy shape the narrator’s view of generosity?

John Egan 0:00

When I was eight years old, I learned a very valuable lesson from my kindly uncle Father Tommy. I was kicking a leather football against the back wall of our house in Castle Bar. Not much bounce left in that joke, said a smiling father Tommy, who had just parked his black Volkswagen Beetle in our yard. Yeah, it's leaking air. Every time I pump it up, it only lasts for about twenty minutes. I'm saving up to buy a new ball, I explained. Father Tommy came to us for his lunch every Friday, and we always had fish, pan fried whiting in breadcrumbs. As my eight sisters and myself took our places at the good table over which a freshly starched cloth had been placed, we Father Tommy stretched out his hand to me, upon which I could see two shiny half crowns.

What made Ballintubber Abbey historically significant before Father Tommy’s involvement?

John Egan 0:56

Put these towards your new ball, he said. I was caught completely off guard, and because my mother was sitting right beside him at the top of the table, I was flummoxed, and said something like Oh that's far too much money, Uncle Tommy. I I couldn't take that. Without a further word, he returned the five shillings to his pocket. Not another word was said about my ball, but Later I imagined that mamma must have been quite proud of my good manners, but I was completely gutted and have never forgotten that sorry episode. The year was nineteen sixty eight, and our uncle Father Tommy Egan was by then one of the best known priests in Ireland. Because he had restored Balantubber Abbey, a church which became renowned all over the world.

How did Father Tommy fund the restoration of the abbey without using public money?

John Egan 1:48

About a decade earlier, suffering from poor health, Father Tommy had been assigned to Ballantubur to minister to the spiritual needs of its one hundred thirty five families. A quiet backwater located about eight miles from Castle Bar, it was supposed to provide Father Tommy with fresh air and an untaxing regime. Surrounded by a patchwork of small stone walled farms, close to the limestone shores of Lochara, Ballantubber was the site of a partially ruined thirteenth century abbey founded in the year twelve sixteen by Cochle Krujarigo Connor, the High King of Connuct. Uncle Tommy was passionate about Irish history and soon realized that the abbey had been built on a site where in the fifth century Saint Patrick himself had carried out baptisms, which gave the place its name, Bolya on Tuber Podrig, the townland of the Well of Patrick, anglicized to Ballantubber.

John Egan 2:51

In his research, Father Tommy discovered that Ballantubur had featured in papal letters in the fifteenth century. The abbey was burned twice, suppressed, proscribed, formally dissolved during the reign of Henry VIII, and partially destroyed by Cromwell's forces in sixteen fifty three. But it was never utterly destroyed, and the faithful continued without fail to gather for mass in the ruins of the abbey. When Father Tommy landed there as a curate, it was already known as the only royal abbey in Ireland to have been in continuous use as a place of worship for almost eight centuries.

What storytelling tactics did Father Tommy use to attract American donors?

John Egan 3:33

When he took the notion to restore it, Uncle Tommy cleverly created the tagline. The abbey that refused to die was Father Tommy had decided not to seek public funds for the restoration work, so he asked his parishioners to provide him with the names and addresses of all their American relatives and friends. He began sending off personalized fundraising requests. Later he travelled to the US and secured several major donors. Father Tommy was a masterful storyteller and communicator. He had a way of making the Abbey's history accessible to all. Americans were rightly impressed to learn that it was already two hundred seventy five years old when Christopher Columbus discovered their continent, that it was older than Westminster Abbey, and that the son of Grania Whale, Mayo's pirate queen, was buried in its churchyard.

John Egan 4:34

As the donations flowed in, the

How did the 1966 consecration ceremony highlight the abbey’s revival?

John Egan 4:36

Including a weekly postal order to the value of two shillings and sixpence from a devout old age pensioner in St. Helens, Lancashire. The restoration works began in earnest. Journalists from all four provinces, as well as reporters from Radio Televisharin and Life magazine in the US, descended on Balantubber to report on what was happening.