Templeorum Parish History (served Garryduff- the Durney family)

http://templeorumparish.com/owningchurch.html

The parish chapel was at Templeorum as early as 1600. During the Cromwell occupation, or in 1715 or 1745, mass was held in secret locations, often out of doors.

Due to the anti-Catholic Penal Laws, Catholic property ownership was a problem, so church building was difficult. Between 1790 and 1830, priests were building new chapels for Catholic worship and encouraging weekly attendance at Mass. Weekly attendance was difficult for the poor who usually walked to get to chapel.

In the mid 1700's Father Thomas Lalor served the church in Templeorum and also offered Mass at Piltown and Owning, in rented spaces, riding horseback between these locations. His first curate was father John Gogarty who began in 1783.

1798 saw a vicious civil war in neighboring Wexford County.

In Owning a rented barn at Ballinacronny was used for Mass until the chapel at Piltown was built in 1798, and the Owning chapel about the same time. The Owning chapel was built near a medieval church.  This served the people of the Bessborough Estate. The early chapel was a simple thatched building and the poor people stood or knelt on mats.

In 1850 a lease from the Earl of Bessborough was obtained to build the new chapel at Owning. "Comfortable farmers" those with 20 acres or more, would have paid most of the costs. The chapel shows in a map of Owning village dated 1812 and was probably completed by 1800. Pews did not come until 1900. Those that were too infirm to kneel or stand did not attend.

Owning chapel was completed in 1798. It had both pew seating in the nave and galleries overhead for the choir and organ. Parish families would have paid for family pews to be made.

http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?type=images&county=KK&regno=12403905

(see pictures on drive)

Baptisms- name, father, mother, date

there are several graces here- Ellen b 7-10-1804 dtr of Thos and Mary GRace and John b 19 NOv 1804 son of Thomas and Marg Grace

Owning and Templeorum Parish- churches attended by the Durney's and Walshes

Church of the Assumption, Piltown 1905 photo with gate from 1860

Introduction to Garryduff, Kilkenny in 1850

Garryduff 1850

1- Description of Garryduff
2- families of Garryduff
3- Sundays-Templeorum Parish and religion
4- Market Days and Fair Days-Piltown
5- Famine, the earl and lady of Bessborough and Emigration


The tiny townland of Garryduff sat at the foot of a gently rising mountain. One of the Walsh Hills, it lay to the west of the townland, so the lush green fields of Garryduff caught the morning sun from the east and enjoyed its warmth all through the day until evening fell. Then, when the residents had finished their days work, they could sit for a few cherished moments to watch the sun set slowly behind the hillside, creating a rosy spectacle of color that only God could provide. The air swiftly turned cooler as darkness fell, and soon candles lit up the windows of the 16 cottages which lined the narrow road. Smoke rose from the chimneys as the women prepared the evening meal.

The cottages were similar; small and simple. They were made of fieldstone or white washed concrete, some with thatched roofs, others with shingles, some with only a few windows, others with more which allowed more light inside. One or two chimneys provided a fire for cooking and warmth for the cold evenings. Wood was scarce so peat was generally used for fuel. Always left burning or piled with warm smoldering ashes, the peat in the hearth produced an earthy, almost mystical scent that forever made the locals think of home. Pots hung over the open hearth, and a welcoming tea kettle could be easily warmed to singing nearly any hour of the day. A simple wooden table and a few chairs sat near a treasured hutch where the family’s dishes, cups, and saucers were proudly displayed. This room entertained family and friends alike; a separate room housed the beds, and those who were very fortunate might even have a third or forth room or loft for the children’s beds. The floors were usually beaten earth, swept clean by the proud housewife. On the walls were hung a few pictures, and symbols of the religion which guided their lives.

They were more than neighbors, these villagers who lived in the cottages and toiled in the fields. They formed a close kinship group and nearly everyone was related in one way or another across the generations. A strong circle of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and numerous cousins allowed the children of Garryduff to grow up in a secure extended family. Neighbors with the same family names lived in the same cottages from one generation to the next; none were strangers here. The Durney’s, Cuddihy’s, Malone’s, Kenneally’s, Nowlans, Bolger’s and Ryan’s had inhabited this hamlet for as long as anyone could remember. They experienced all of the typical friendships and rivalries that exist in all small places.

Many of the children had similar names. The Irish tradition was to name the first son after his paternal grandfather, and the second after his maternal grandfather. Girls names, too, sometimes followed this tradition, the eldest being named for their maternal grandmother, the next the paternal grandmother. So cousins names clearly displayed their shared heritage; Daniel Durney, Patrick Durney and John Durney all had eldest sons named Thomas, who had likely been the paternal grandfather of the boys. Other common names were John, James, Michael and Daniel. With girls, Mary, Margaret and Bridget were common. Most families were large; new babies were welcomed every two years or so, and the young mothers who had finished nursing infants were soon pregnant again. Not all of the babies survived; childhood health was precarious. Doctors were few and medicine was mostly home remedies and common sense.

Behind the cottages each family had outbuildings on the farm. One to store the peat, another for their farm animals, and perhaps another for fowl. Most families had at least one milk cow, to provide milk and butter to the family. Pigs were raised as well, mostly to be brought to Piltown on market day as a cash crop. A few lucky families had a donkey to pull the plow or a cart. Horses, too, were forbidden to Catholic families. The fields were plowed by hand plow or by donkey plow, and although wheat and oats were sometimes grown, the main crop was potatoes. The “lumpers” were served with lots of milk and butter, and this formed the main diet of many families.

The townland of Garryduff consisted of 520 acres of farmland. The fields were divided by carefully tended hedgerows. Each farmer tended a plot of land; usually 20-30 Irish acres (30-50 acres.) Some farmers leased a larger plot of land together and subdivided plots to farm; such was the case with the Durney’s, Bolgers, Whelan’s and Nowlan’s who together leased 166 Irish acres in 1850. Some subleased land to other farmers or small holders known as cottiers. Others, including the widowed, elderly and impoverished, leased only a house and small garden. But none of them owned the cottages they lived in or the land that they farmed. As Catholics, they were forbidden to own land of their own. In Garryduff, all of the land belonged to the Earl of Bessborough. Twice a year the tenant farmers paid him rents based on the value of the property they lived on.

It had not always been so. From the ancient days of Strongbow’s English invasion, this land had belonged to the Walsh “Lords of the Mountain.” Married into the Butler and Fitzgerald clan, the Owning Walshes held great power and wealth. But with the coming of Cromwell, the Catholic Walshes forfeited the surrounding townlands; Garryduff, Mullinbegg, Templeorum, Oldcourt, Corbally...these and more were granted to Cromwell’s captain Sir John Ponsonby, the ancestor of the Earl of Bessborough, who now held all the former Walsh lands. The bones of the Walsh lords now lay ensconced in the ruins of the church at Owning, mere memories of days gone by, when the Irish ruled themselves.

Sundays

Although mysterious Druidic stone monuments still dotted the countryside, from the time of St. Patrick this area had been fiercely Catholic. During medieval times, great abbeys had ruled throughout Ireland, and in Owning, there were rocky ruins of a medieval church. But with the coming of Cromwell, the faithful had been routed, the priests persecuted, and secret Masses were quietly held, often out of doors. But the English plan to force the faithful to convert to Protestantism by taking away all rights and privileges did not succeed in Ireland. The people of Garryduff may have had little, but they had a great and steadfast faith.

So on Sundays, the families of Garryduff could be seen walking a mile or two down the road to the chapel at Owning. In the 1700’s the chapel had been a simple whitewashed building with a thatched roof, where the faithful knelt on the woven hay mats on an earthen floor. But by 1800 the Church of the Assumption, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was built just across from the stone ruins of the medieval church. The people from Garryduff and the surrounding townlands contributed whatever they could; pennies from the poor cottiers and laborers or more substantial contributions from more prosperous farmers. Many volunteered their labor to help with the construction of the new chapel. In the beginning parishioners stood and knelt to worship, but in time there were a few benches for seating. Some prosperous families donated money for a family pew where they would sit each Sunday. Gradually improvements were made on the interior; soon the new chapel had stone floors and white washed walls, with galleries on either side of the altar and a choir at the back. It was an edifice in which the parishioners could take pride. Here marriages took place, children were baptized, and the dead were mourned and buried in the adjoining cemetery. The circle of life revolved around the rites of the Church. The parish priests who shepherded this flock were hard working and highly respected.


Piltown, the Earl of Bessborough, and the Famine

The mountain dominated their landscape, rising above the townland and fields. A narrow, rocky path led from behind the fields and circled around gently until it reached the very top of the hill, and from this great vantage point, those who had ventured the climb could look down on the houses and farms where they spent their days, and turn to see farmlands and villages for miles around, some places where they had been before and others they had heard of. From here they could dream of worlds far beyond the bit of Ireland that they could see, across the vast ocean, where precious letters came from faraway friends and relatives telling of a different life, where hope was abundant, and where families were flourishing on farms they now owned for themselves.

Just visible four miles directly south lay the village of Piltown, built by the Earl of Bessborough. The village was a market and post town which sat between Carrick on Suir and Waterford City. In 1831 it had about 102 houses. Anthony's hotel was a rest stop for horses delivering mail along the way. It was the largest of the estate villages owned by the Earl of Bessborough and he meant for it to be a model estate village. Besides the hotel, the village had a court house, post office, and market building, two national schools (one for boys and one for girls) a guard barracks, a dispensary, and a forge. The Earl even set up an accommodation for destitute widows here. On the quay, over 100 vessels delivered goods each year and Piltown traded with both Waterford and Carrick on suir in the 1830's to 1850's. By 1841 Piltown village had grown to 700 people.

The Earl lived in a splendid estate just outside of the tidy little town. His great mansion, also called Bessborough, was built in 1747 and was surrounded by a fine park of hundreds of acres. His total estate covered over 27,000 acres of farmland. The Earl had lodges built for the workmen of the estate...carpenters, stonemasons, and gamekeepers. His wife was a good lady, caring of the villagers, and during the famine a soup kitchen was opened in Piltown. The Earl further supported families in need by providing work constructing stone walls around the huge estate. Unlike less scrupulous landlords of the time, the Earl was known to write off rents during the famine, and generally did not evict tenants. Mass starvation did not affect the area as much as other places in Kilkenny, although fevers took their toll. There was a poor house at Carrick on Suir, however, which was soon crowded with unfortunates from this part of Kilkenny.

Sources:

The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory by William Carrigan Vol. 4

1905, Seals, Bryers and Walker (ebook; Google Books)

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