€1m project to restore church at heart of town for 200 years

By the groves of Blackwater and Tallow by the Bride

Fare thee well lovely Deise, I’m leaving tonight’

Two lines from one of my favourite songs, all about Waterford city and county.

You know, we all recall ‘County Songs’ which traditionally we heard ring out in Croke Park in September when the All-Ireland finals were played. Though it’s a long time since Waterford had that honour, hope springs eternal.

I just love the words of this grand song, which traverses across the county and mentions so many of the big and small places in Waterford.

Though a proud Corkman, I suppose Waterford is the county I’ve been to most often over the last six decades. Sure, we’ve only to pass through Leary’s Cross, Aghern, Conna and Curraglass, and hey presto, we’re in Tallow.

Long ago when I was but a child in the 1960s, that was a well travelled road as almost weekly we’d make the journey to the greyhound track in Youghal. As one travels from Tallow on by what was Barnidge’s public house and onto the Halfway Bar, you weave in and out of Cork and Waterford. Here, where West Waterford meets East Cork, the county boundaries cross over and back across that road.

When the Munster Championship is in full swing, you’ll easily know your location without Google Maps or Sat Nav - no, the red and white, and blue and white fluttering flags tell of pride of place in the hurling heartlands.

Though our greyhound adventures are long since finished, Tallow was still very much on our horizon for several reasons. 

A combination of children’s days out and fruit picking meant that every summer we made our way to McDonnell’s Fruit Farm to pick strawberries. Oh, wasn’t it just glorious?

The days were sunny and as you picked you ate and there was no limit - sheer bliss!

Now, strawberries are delicious - I still think that half a century later - but eating a huge feed of ’em had unintended consequences and we often had to stop the Volkswagen car several times on the homeward journey!

Wilsie McDonnell was in charge along with his family and, of course, his wife Rosie. Her mother was Ellen Arnold from Bartlemy Cross - we were close cousins and hence always got a great deal on the pounds and pounds of strawberries we purchased - Mam was great at making the strawberry jam!

Oft times on our way home we might stop at Mulcahy’s Bar on West Street - Joan Mulcahy was a first cousin of my grandmother, through Leahy lineage.

In the late 1960s, Granny Twomey often spent a few days each summer in Mount Melleray and Tallow was on that route too. Mam often called into Cunningham’s shop for something you couldn’t get anywhere else - pig rings, bluestone, metal rat-traps, paraffin oil, or maybe a scarce roll of mottled wallpaper!

Last Saturday evening, I went to Mass in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Tallow. Seldom enough would I go to the Saturday Mass - being a bit of a traditionalist and preferring the Sabbath version.

There are exceptions to every rule of course and my second cousin Nora O’Brien, nee Sheehan, was being remembered with a Month’s Mind Mass.

Before Mass, I visited her grave in the well-maintained cemetery. I noticed scaffolding erected at one side of the church. Being of a curious nature, I asked a few questions! Soon the full story of the lovely church - its past and planned-for future - was being explained to me.

Work on the construction of the building began in the mid-1820s -a few years before Catholic Emancipation - and was completed in 1827. From 1812 until his death in 1830, Fr Denis O’Donnell was the parish Priest of Tallow and he was the main driver behind the Church building project.

I was shown a plaque in his honour in the Church - his mortal remains lie under the altar. It states he ‘led the people in the building of this Church’. It was Fr O Donnell, along with other clergy, that celebrated the first Mass in the Church on Saturday, November 24, 1827.

When the Schools Collection Project was undertaken in the 1930s, one Tallow pupil wrote that 8,000 people lived in the town a century before.

Regarded as one of the ‘most Catholic and nationalist’ towns in Co Waterford, Tallow was well served by its church down the years. It is unique in design - as if planned as a ‘once-off’ project.

The beautiful stained-glass windows are truly magnificent, giving different hues in morning and evening sunshine. Some of the stunning wall mosaics were painted by artists from Italy who were sent to this country by the Vatican as Ireland emerged from the awful shadows of the Penal Laws. The ceilings are truly works of art and one can only surmise at the manner in which they were constructed and decorated over two centuries ago.

That was in the era of ‘plenty help’ as regards manual labour, but long before metal scaffolding, extension ladders or power tools were even being contemplated.

Time takes its toll on all buildings and soon the reason for the scaffolding I had seen was explained to me. A major programme of renovation and refurbishment has just begun after months of planning. Work on the roof and walls will have to be undertaken over the next four or five years.

My ‘guide’ explained the various stages into which the renovations will be divided. The total cost could well be €1million - sounds small enough when you say it quickly! Written down it looks like €1,000,000, wow, that’s some undertaking.

Stage by stage is the way forward and a first phase costing over €100,000 will commence shortly. A letter outlining the Church Renovation Project, setting up a fund, was recently distributed.

As I walked up the church last Saturday I thought of one line from that letter: “This is the place where we were baptised, received our first holy communion, were confirmed, married and where we will spend our last few hours” - how true.

Of course, churches aren’t packed as regularly as in times past, but every faith community needs a ‘home’ and the people of Tallow are determined to ensure their 200-year- old church will continue to serve the community into the future.

Tallow is a small town but has a big heart, and places like it have often ‘punched above their weight’ in sporting terms - hurling, football, soccer, horse-racing and many other pursuits.

A local committee has been formed to spearhead and drive the project and fundraising has started. It’s certainly a mammoth task but, you know, people everywhere do have a ‘gra’ for their own church in their own place and it’s the same in Tallow.

Time is of the essence as the longer the work is left undone, the cost of repair will be greater. Tallow people at home and abroad are being asked to help out and no doubt they will display real generosity.

On the high ground above the town of Tallow, the tall and proud tower house of Lisfinny Castle still stands. Uninhabited now but in good condition, this was the scene of tumultuous happenings during the Land War of the 1880s. Jasper Douglas Pyne was of the Pyne family of Ballyvolane House near Castlelyons. He lived at Lisfinny in the 1880s. He was elected MP for Waterford in 1885 and was sympathetic to the plight of tenant farmers and very opposed to the ‘land grabbers’ who were waiting to take possession of vacant farms.

Pyne was very outspoken and the police set out to arrest him. He barricaded himself in an upstairs portion of the old castle - having destroyed the ground floor entrance! He had plenty food and water and addressed huge crowds from a basket on a pulley 30ft above the ground as police looked on in dismay.

Pyne’s stand gained publicity nationwide and the name Tallow became synonymous with standing up for and speaking out for right.

The spirit shown by it people in supporting Pyne, who was their advocate, has shone like a beacon down through the ages.

The descendants of those Tallow men and women now face into another major challenge but they won’t be found wanting.