seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Litigation


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Discovery of the Derrynaflan Chalice

derrynaflan-chalice

The Derrynaflan Chalice, an 8th- or 9th-century chalice, is found as part of the Derrynaflan Hoard of five liturgical vessels on February 17, 1980 near Killenaule, County Tipperary. According to art historian Michael Ryan the hoard “represents the most complex and sumptuous expression of the ecclesiastical art-style of early-medieval Ireland as we know it in its eighth- and ninth-century maturity.” The group is among the most important surviving examples of Insular metalwork.

The hoard is probably secreted during the turbulent 10th to 12th centuries, when Viking raids and dynastic turmoil create many occasions when valuables are hidden. The early and later 10th century is marked by a particular concentration of hoarding in Ireland.

Derrynaflan, the site of an early Irish abbey, is a small island of dry land situated in a surrounding area of peat bogs, in the townland of Lurgoe, County Tipperary, northeast of Cashel. The monastery is an important foundation in the period preceding the Viking raids. The present modest ruins of a small Cistercian nave-and-chancel abbey church there, however, date from a later period.

The Derrynaflan Hoard is discovered on February 17, 1980 by Michael Webb from Clonmel and his son, also Michael, while they are exploring the ancient monastic site of Derrynaflan with a metal detector. They have permission of the owners of the land on which the ruins stand to visit the site but they have no permission to dig on the lands. A preservation order had been made in respect of the ruin under the National Monuments Act, 1930, so that it is an offence to injure or to interfere with the site. The discovery is initially kept secret for three weeks.

The behaviour of the Webbs, and nearly seven years of litigation, culminating in the Supreme Court action where they unsuccessfully seek over £5,000,000 for the find, leads to the replacement of Irish laws of treasure trove by the law in the National Monuments (Amendment) Act, 1994, with a new Section 2 being included in the legislation.

The Ardagh Chalice dates from around the same period, perhaps a century earlier, of the Derrynaflan Hoard and is found close by in neighbouring County Limerick. At the time, the ruling dynasty in Tipperary and most of Munster are the Eóganachta, while their longtime allies and possible cousins the Uí Fidgenti rule in the Limerick area. Feidlimid mac Cremthanin, king-bishop of Cashel, who becomes King of Munster in 821 and dies in 847, is a patron of the monastic foundation at Derrynaflan and has been suggested as a possible patron of the chalice.

As a masterpiece of Insular art, the Derrynaflan chalice is included in the exhibition “The Work of Angels: Masterpieces of Celtic Metalwork, 6th–9th Centuries AD” (London, 1989). The Derrynaflan Hoard is donated to the Irish State and the items are now on display in the National Museum of Ireland.


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First Priests Ordained at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth

The ordination of the first priests at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth takes place on June 6, 1800. The college is the “National Seminary for Ireland” and a Pontifical university located in the village of Maynooth, fifteen miles from Dublin.

The college is established on June 5, 1795, as The Royal College of St. Patrick, by act of the Parliament of Ireland, to provide “for the better education of persons professing the popish or Roman Catholic religion.” The College in Maynooth is originally established to provide a university education for Catholic lay and ecclesiastical students and is based in Riverstown House on the south campus from 1802. With the opening of Clongowes Wood College in 1814, the lay college is closed and the college functions solely as a Catholic seminary for almost 150 years.

The college is particularly intended to provide for the education of Catholic priests in Ireland, who until this Act have to go to the continent for training. The added value in this is the reduction of the number of priests returning from training in revolutionary France, with whom Great Britain is at war, thus hindering potential revolution. The value to the government is proved by the condemnation by the Catholic Church hierarchy of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and later support for the Act of Union.

In 1800, John Butler, 12th Baron Dunboyne, dies and leaves a substantial fortune to the College. Butler had been a Roman Catholic, and Bishop of Cork, who had embraced Protestantism in order to marry and guarantee the succession to his hereditary title. However, there are no children to his marriage, and it is alleged that he had been reconciled to the Catholic Church at his death. Were this the case, a Penal law demands that the will is invalid, and his wealth will pass to his family. Much litigation follows before a negotiated settlement in 1808 that leads to the establishment of a Dunboyne scholarship fund.

The land is donated by William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, who has argued in favour of Catholic emancipation in the Irish House of Lords. He lives nearby at Carton House and also at Leinster House. The building work is paid for by the British Government and parliament continues to give it an annual grant until the Irish Church Act 1869. When this law is passed the College receives a capital sum of £369,000. The trustees invest 75% of this in mortgages to Irish landowners at a yield of 4.25% or 4.75% per annum. This is considered a secure investment at the time but agitation for land reform and the depression of the 1870s erodes this security. The largest single mortgage is granted to the Earl of Granard. Accumulated losses on these transactions reached £35,000 by 1906.

The first building to go up on the site is designed by, and named after, John Stoyte. Stoyte House, which can still be seen from the entrance to the old campus, is a well-known building to Maynooth students and stands very close to the very historic Maynooth Castle. Over the next 15 years, the site at Maynooth undergoes rapid construction so as to cater to the influx of new students, and the buildings which now border St. Joseph’s Square are completed by 1824.

The Rev. Laurence F. Renehan (1797–1857), a noted antiquarian, church historian, and cleric, serves as president of St. Patrick’s from 1845 until 1857. Under Renehan, many of the college’s most important buildings are constructed by Augustus Pugin.

In 2015–16 there are approximately 80 men studying for the priesthood at Maynooth, 60 resident seminarians and approximately 20 non-residents.