Heritage Week shines a light on St Baithin’s rich history

For generations, St Baithin’s Church has stood as a spiritual and architectural landmark in St Johnston.

During Heritage Week recently, parishioners and visitors gathered for a fascinating exhibition that traced the Church’s remarkable story.

The foundation stone was laid on April 4, 1857 and the Church was built in the form of a Latin cross, as can be seen clearly from aerial images. 

Prior to its opening, in December 1860, Massgoers attended Church at the Walk Mill in the townland of Classygowan - a Mass house built on land donated by the Duke of Abercorn.

The Church is dedicated to St Baithin and indeed the historical name of the parish, Taughboyne, is a softened down version of Teach Baithin (the house of Baithin).

Designed by the renowned architect Edward W Godwin, the new Church situated on an acre of ground purchased free of rent and perpetuity for the sum of £61 from a Mr Doherty of nearby Blueball. 

The masonry and tiling on the new building was by Samuel McIlwee of Carrigans, James Adams from Culmore in Derry looked after the timber works and William Crampshey from Manorcunningham took care of the staining and varnishing.

READ NEXT: Concerns with fire safety and residents' protection at Stranorlar HSE facility

A series of stained glass windows were sourced from Bariff and Company in Dublin - who also supplied the original high altar - to provide ‘dim, soft religious light’. 

The windows, one of which, on the south transept, depicts a full-length figure of St Baithin, have not changed since the Church’s construction almost 170 years ago.

Upwards of £2,000 was spent on the Church’s erection and a debt stood at £400 by the time it opened. The parish priest of the time, Fr James Stephens, left himself personally responsible, but it was hoped this would be removed by “the charity and liberality of the public”.

Indeed, in February 1861 Fr Stephens wrote in the Derry Journal, singling out one Miss Bridget Coyle, a resident in Ulster County, New York, a niece of Taughboyne parishioner Gilly Mulloy. Miss Coyle lived in New York with her brother and aided in a significant fundraising effort across the Atlantic. 

The American Irish were said to have played a prominent part in contributing to the building fund with Fr Stephens’ “untiring exertions” also remarked upon at the time.

By this point in history, it was less than 60 years since St Johnston, which previously returned two members to the Irish parliament and had its own court, became a disenfranchised borough following the Acts of Union in 1800. 

On the day of the Church’s official opening, on December 9, 1860, Fr Stephens hosted a luncheon that helped to raise £200 towards the Church debt. Admission to the opening was by ticket only with reserved seats going for five shillings. Gallery seats were priced at three shillings and other tickets cost two shillings.

 A special train was laid on from Derry and Strabane, taking attendees from all parts in between, on the day with people disembarking at St Johnston Railway Station, the platform visible from the elevated site of the Church.

The dedication sermon was preached by Rev Daniel McGettigan, the PP in Ballyshannon who would become the Bishop of Raphoe the following year. It was remarkable to see, some time later, that the list of subscriptions - which the paper said “includes names of persons belonging to all ranks and denominations” - was published in full. When there were renovations made in the late 1890s, the donations list ran to almost a full broadsheet page in the Derry Journal. 

In January of 1861, an Andrew Clarke, from Inchany near Strabane, sent a contribution through the Post Office, but this was not received by Fr Stephens. 

It was the “fifth remittance of the same kind that made away” in connection with the Post Office department. Fr Stephens, in an article in the newspaper, called for a surveyor from the Post Office to be sent down and “a searching investigation made into this wholesale robbery”. 

There remain other pointers to the ancient past. Parishioners attending Mass will enter by passing a holy water font at the door, which was formerly a baptismal font made for the Church’s opening in 1860.

Above the Tabernacle, in the shadow of St Baithin’s window, there hangs a tapestry depicting the Last Supper. It was purchased by Brendan McBrearty in Jerusalem in 1978, and he gave it to his brother Paddy, who subsequently gifted it to Dr Cunnea, the parish priest, in 1979.

A temporary altar used in Houston’s Supermarket - a since-demolished building on Main Street - for five months in 1981 during renovations now acts as an altar in the graveyard.

 Following those renovations, Holy Mass resumed in the Church on New Year’s Day in 1982.The sanctuary today replaced a previous marble high altar, altar rails and wooden pulpit. 

A fundraising concert was initially held in 1968 to aid with the post-Vatican II renovations of the Church, which was rededicated by the new Bishop of Raphoe, Seamus Hegarty, in May 1982. It was Bishop Hegarty’s first official engagement outside of Letterkenny following his ordination as the Bishop of Raphoe and he adopted the altar and walls on a day when the congregation overflowed to the steps of the Church.

Recent months have seen the congregation again gather in large numbers for celebrations to mark the diamond jubilee of Monsignor Dan Carr - who served for 35 years as the parish priest - and the golden jubilee of St Johnston-born missionary priest Fr Oliver McCrossan. 

There is also a real sense of pride in the village’s first bishop, with Bishop Niall Coll ordained as Bishop of Ossory in 2023. In 1988, Fr Niall Coll was ordained on the same day as Fr Joseph O’Donnell - who sadly passed away in 2019. 

Other ordinations from the parish include Carrigans brothers, Fr Vincent and Fr Kevin McDevitt who were ordained for the Holy Ghost Fathers and the Marist Fathers in 1968 and 1969 respectively, Fr Joseph Gillespie from Main Street, St Johnston who was ordained for the Legionaries of Christ in 1993 and the most recently ordained Fr Declan Gibson from Castletown.