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Many of those whose small subscriptions helped to build Enniscorthy Cathedral
must soon have known bitter hunger, starvation and death, or a long exile made
more lonely by memories of a silvered river flowing between green fields; by
the thought of a still churchyard looking across the valley where their bones
would never lie."
The essay lists the names in the old records, and they are the names of the
people I was brought up with: Byrne, Bolger, Clifford, Dempsey, Hendrick,
Kehoe, Roche, Walsh, Stafford, Sinnott, Cullen. And in l946, despite the
displacements of the past century, the author can place some of the donors'
relatives in the town: "The two sisters of David Byrne, victualler, Slaney
Street, Miss Byrne and Mrs Kennedy, died not so many years ago in Enniscorthy.
Denis Byrne, who was evicted from Ballyorril, was a brother of Mrs M Ennis,
Oulartard. His eviction caused much ill-feeling in the district. Paul Bolger,
who lived in the Shannon, was the grandfather of Mr Dan Bolger, Market Square.
Patrick Clifford, who was a carpenter, had a house in New
Street which his son now occupies...The descendants of Mrs Harris, Brownswood,
still live in the same place, as do those of Moses Harpur, Brownswood..."
The past is recent, alive, easy to get in touch with. I have a feeling that
the ease with which the list of subscribers connects with the town one hundred
years later is helped by the fact that there are hardly any buildings in the
town from before the time of which it speaks, and hardly any documents. History
can be vivid once the Catholic classes are rising and the new class of merchant
is prepared to build a cathedral, a monument to its power, in spite of the
famine raging among the lower orders. But before this time - l846 in Enniscorthy
- the Catholics are mainly silent. I know that one of my
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