Categories
News

A summary of achievements for 2020.

While 2020 has been a strange year, as what the Friends of Clonmethan do is mainly outdoors, a fair bit has been achieved in the first year. The group set up on foot of a meeting in St David’s Church, Killsallaghan on 3rd January 2020. Since then, volunteers have cleared most of the graveyard, the old church is ivy free, and the gates were shot blasted and painted.

Reverend Aldhouse finaly got his tombstone (71 years later), we set up this website and work started on our application for funding to save the tower. A flood light has been installed and the straightening of headstones has begun. Finally a memorial to those who fought and fell in the First World War was erected.

Tanks so much to all involved in making this happen. A special thanks to Fingal Farm Home and Garden for donating flower bulbs and to Colm Flynn for helping with the gates.

Not bad for the first year. Onwards and upwards.

Categories
Uncategorized

100 years ago around Clonmethan

Looking back a century, to 1921, our country was coming to the end of the Anglo Irish war and heading into Civil War. To get a feel for the comings and goings of the time around Clonmethan and Fingal, the testimony of John Gaynor from the military archives is a nice read. Gaynor was a Captain in the Balbriggan Company of the Irish Volunteers.

The map below highlights the locations described. More can be found here.

Categories
History

Tithe Applotment Book 1833

Tithe Applotment Books are were compiled between 1823 and 1837 in order to determine the amount occupiers of agricultural holdings over one acre. The occupiers were due to pay tithes (taxes) to the Church of Ireland.

The National Archives has made these books available to the public.
There is a manuscript book for almost every civil (Church of Ireland) parish in Ireland. The books have the names of occupiers of each townland, the amount of land held and the sums to be paid in tithes.

A search by location shows the following for the parish of Clonmethan:

If you click on the word “search” above, you can get more detail, but below shows an example of what can be found under “Clonmethan”.

Categories
Uncategorized

Remembering parishioners who lost their lives at war

As the sun set on the evening of October 9th 2020, a plaque was erected in Clonmethan to remember those men who left the area over a hundred years ago as volunteers. With a vision of a better world in their hearts and minds, they left family thinking that they may well be home for Christmas. History has shown how wrong they were. A century has passed, the world has changed dramatically and they have been forgotten. Their remains lie all over the world, but their roots are still here in north county Dublin. So here in our little village with no loved ones left to mourn them, at the going down of the sun, we remember them.

Categories
Uncategorized

Abandoned Ireland – Tarquin Blake on St Mary’s

In 2015, Tarquin Blake published a book “Abandoned Churches of Ireland” – click on the image below to see the book’s website.

http://www.abandonedireland.com/Abandoned%20Churches%20of%20Ireland.html

The book contains some notes on St Mary’s Clonmethan. We will not reproduce the comments in full here (lest we break copyright), but some words from the book give us some insights in the story of St Mary’s.

According to Blake, the church was first mentioned in 1216. By 1654, the church was in a state of disrepair, but was rebuilt with the help of the Board of First Fruits in 1818. In 1834, the parish population was noted as including eight Church of Ireland members and over 600 Roman Catholics.

Blake nte sthe last marriage in the church was in 1917, and the last baptism in 1933. The church closed in 1960.

Categories
Uncategorized

Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and Rev Aldhouse

As you may have seen on some earlier posts, Rev F H Aldhouse was the last rector at St . Mary’s Clonmethan. It seems we – the Friends of Clonmethan – shared a common interest with him. Rev Aldhouse was a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, a society whose mission is to  ‘preserve, examine and illustrate all ancient monuments and memorials of the arts, manners and customs of the past, as connected with the antiquities language, literature and history of Ireland’ – see http://rsai.ie/about/. According to the society’s journal, (Vol 6, No 2), Rev Aldhouse as admitted as a member at a meeting held at ‘the Society’s Rooms, 6 St Stephen’s Green, 26 September 1916’. He was proposed by W. Cotter Stubbs, who was a member of the society’s council.

Categories
History

Photos of old abandoned churches

Here is a link to an article in Journal.ie from a few years ago showing some old churches around Ireland. Our church has been in a worse state than some of those shown, br great work has been done and fingers crossed, one day it may be restored to its former self.

Categories
Uncategorized

Remembering a Rector and War Chaplin

Postponed until a later date due to Covid 19 restrictions.

War-time France 1917 and bucolic North County Dublin – it is difficult to imagine two completely different places to work as a clergyman. However, that is what happened when Reverend Frederick Aldhouse swapped his parish in Oldtown for the battlefields of France.

A local community group The Friends of Clonmethan have been working  for some time to improve the churchyard and grounds of Saint Mary’s Church in Oldtown, the parish of Reverend Aldhouse. The church had become overgrown since its closure in 1960 but an active group of people have been working away – mowing the grass, removing ivy and restoring the entrance gates. All the work has been done against the background of Covid-19, while adhering to HSE protocols on Social Distancing.

On Friday 28th August at 7pm, Archbishop Michael Jackson will bless a new headstone to Reverend FH Aldhouse, the last resident Rector of the parish.  Also in attendance will be Rector Neal Phair from Swords Group of Parishes and Father John Keegan from Rolestown parish.  

A noted writer and poet, Reverend Aldhouse initially came to St Mary’s in 1914.  He saw service as a Chaplain in The First World War, returning to Clonmethan in 1919 where he remained as Rector until his death in August 1949. Frederick Aldhouse provided comfort to soldiers as their Padre during the Great War, to the Church of Ireland members of the village and to his neighbours and friends of all faiths.  Thanks to the efforts of the Friends of Clonmethan, his final resting place is marked with a beautiful headstone inscribed with some of his poetry.

Clonmethan Church is located 750 metres from the village of Oldtown on the R122 in the direction of Naul.

Categories
Uncategorized

Views from above

Some great work has gone on this week. Some of the Friends of Clonmethan were cleared for take-off – well, put into a boom lift – to clean off plaster and ivy from the upper reaches of the church. Some great views from on high.

Categories
Uncategorized

Remembering the Battle of Passchendaele…

Today marks the anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele which began on the 31st July 1917. We pay tribute to all who were involved. Here is a picture of wild poppies growing in a field in St. Margaret’s which feels very fitting for the day that’s in it.