BEARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S TALKS DURING 2008

AUGUST

Beara Historical Society Heritage website

    The website of Beara Historical Society was officially launched on Friday night 29th August in Twomey’s Lounge Bar, Castletownbere. One of its members, John Kinns, the Society’s webmaster has been putting the website together for the past few months and gave the audience a live demonstration of its wealth of contents using a data projector running from a server to simulate how the website would be viewed on the Internet.

    Here you can access information on the Society’s activities, publications, outings, early history, map of Beara and a list of the townlands and their translation for each Beara parish.

    Another feature of this invaluable resource includes a Section of past reminiscences by local Author and Journalist Gerard Harrington mainly taken from his most popular series ‘Down Memory Lane’ penned over many years for the ‘Southern Star’, West Cork's weekly newspaper. 

    Of special interest is the Heritage Photograph Section, where people can upload interesting old photographs. Several Beara school groups, football teams and photos of the peoples of Beara, in many cases with names are already on the site. So far this section has over 400 photos and is fast becoming a growing, living snapshot of Beara’s past which will continue to be developed as time goes on.

    One of the Society’s aims is to make information on our history available not only to local communities but also a wider audience through the World Wide Web. Ways of doing this is through our website, publication of books on Beara's past heritage and locally with regular outings and indoor talks. The website would also be of interest to local schools who are involved in local history projects.

    As in past years, members of the Society are available to visit local schools and community groups to promote a better understanding of our past.

  Connie Murphy (Chairman, Beara Historical Society) thanked all the members for their continued support and John Kinns for his informative, entertaining talk, especial thanks went to Mine Hosts John and Kathleen Twomey for their support and hospitality.

SEPTEMBER

Billy O’Brien, Professor of Archaeology, U.C.C. has offered to give a guided tour of historical/archaeological sites to the north of Bandon on the afternoon of Sunday 14th September. Included are Clashanimud (Cashel) hillfort, Castlenalacht stone row, Gurranes ringfort and Caheravaghliar ringfort. As most of you know Billy and his students spent a number of summers excavating and surveying in Beara.

If enough members want to go, we have to arrange transport either with cars or perhaps (mini) bus. We would need to leave the Square by 1.30 pm at the latest. If you are interest (or not interested) in going, please let me know as soon as possible.

OCTOBER

Michael Hall, a member of our Society, has been researching documentary information on Beara for some time. He will give an illustrated talk on in Twomey’s Lounge on Monday 27th October at 8.30pm

The title of his talk is:

The castle and lands of the Clandermot McCarthys of Berehaven in the wake of the Desmond Rebellion

NOVEMBER

The next meeting of Beara Historical Society will be in Twomey’s Lounge on Monday 10th November at 8.30 pm. Heather Vickery of Bantry Historical Society will speak about:

 The Life and Times of William Martin Murphy

DECEMBER

The Annual General Meeting of Beara Historical Society was held in Twomey’s Lounge Bar on Monday 15th December before a large gathering of members. Events both indoors and outdoors, organised by the Society during the past year, were reviewed and discussed. Officers were then elected for 2009. President: Gerdie Harrington, Chairman: Connie Murphy, Vice-Chairman: Fachtna O’Donovan, Secretary: Brendan Finch, Assistant Secretary: Penny Durell, Treasurer: Maureen O’Driscoll, Assistant Treasurer: Monika Bernhardt.

Fachtna O’Donovan then gave a talk entitled The Life and Times of Fr. Denis Crowley of Derrymihan and San Francisco.

‘Fr Denis Oliver Crowley of Derrymihin West, Castletownbere and San Francisco - His Life and Works’

    The final talk of the year was given by Vice-chairman Fachtna O’Donovan at the AGM on Monday 15^th December. This was a illustrated presentation entitled ‘Fr Denis Oliver Crowley of Derrymihin West, Castletownbere and San Francisco - His Life and Works’.

    Beginning his talk, the speaker said: Denis Oliver Crowley was one of a group of remarkable men born in Castletownbere between 1846 and 1856 who in their lifetimes achieved great fame, but are nowadays almost forgotten. They include Timothy Harrington and his brother Edward, Standish O’Grady, William Martin Murphy, as well as Fr Crowley. Crowley is mainly remembered in Beara as a poet, due mainly to the fact that some of his poems were learned in local schools in former years, and that a book of his poems was to be found in many households. Also some of his poetry was published in national newspapers such as the Irish Independent at the turn of the century. But, as we shall see in this talk, he was much more than just a poet priest.

    Denis Oliver Crowley was born in Derrymihin, the seventh of ten children of Tade Crowley and his wife Mary (nee O’Sullivan). In most accounts of his life the year of his birth is stated to be 1852, but Riobard O’Dwyer in his book ‘Who Are My Ancestors?’ gives his date of birth as July 7, 1849.

    He received his early education in the nearby Brandy Hall School under the tuition of the fondly remembered Master William O’Dwyer. Like most young people of those times, he emigrated to the United States after his schooldays. Two fellow classmate friends accompanied him. One of them was Robert Dwyer of Church Gate, Castletownbere. He first settled in Boston where he gained employment in a printing house. There was at that time a large number of Beara exiles living in the Boston area.

    When Tim Harrington M.P. visited the city in 1890 as part of an Irish Party fundraising tour, he recorded in his American diary that he met up with many school acquaintances from Castletown Berehaven. Denis Crowley was closely associated with the four Dwyer brothers Robert, John, Dan and William. William Dwyer was later to start his own newspaper, The Brocton Searchlight. Like many of their race in that most Irish of American cities, they were very much involved in movements promoting Irish independence.
 

    In the year 1875 at the age of 23, Crowley set off by way of Panama to seek his fortune in the gold and silver mines on the Gold Coast. He was accompanied by Robert Dwyer and another friend from Castletownbere, Jeremiah (or Dermot) Lynch. They settled in Virginia City, Nevada, where a great fire occurred the same year of their arrival. Over 75 per cent of the city was destroyed in the fire including St. Mary of the Mountains Catholic Church. A new St. Mary’s Church was built within two years due to the sterling efforts of 6'4" Fr Paddy Manogue and 105 West Cork miners, of whom 98 came from the Beara Peninsula. There can be no doubt but that this number included Crowley, Dwyer and Lynch. The miners had tried to save the old church by pouring water on it but the mine owner, John Mackey, was more concerned about the fire reaching the mine and spreading into the underground shafts. He allegedly told Fr. Manogue that if the priest would permit his parishioners to save the mines, he would help rebuild the church. The new church built by the miners has been described as the ‘Mother of all Churches in Nevada’. It is an impressive two-storey Gothic Revival brick structure with rosewood balconies and stained-glass windows.

    Having earned enough money at the mines Denis fulfilled a long-held vocation to study for the priesthood. After studying at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore he was ordained for the Archdiocese of San Francisco on December 22, 1883, by Bishop Kean at the Cathedral, Baltimore. His name was published in the New York Times the following day as one of those ordained. In 1887 Archbishop Patrick O’Riordan appointed him President and Manager of the Youth’s Directory in San Francisco, a temporary home for friendless and abandoned boys. This charity was established the previous year in 1886 for the protection of homeless boys whose parents, from sickness or other misfortune, were unable to support or maintain them. The boys were provided with a home and support until they could be placed with good families as apprentices to learn some honest and useful occupation, or until they were otherwise provided for. Because it was not an orphanage, the Directory did not receive any aid from the State or city and was totally dependent on fundraising and donations. Much of its revenue came from the publication of a quarterly newspaper, St. Josephs Union, at a subscription of one dollar a year. Soon after taking charge of the home, Fr. Crowley secured the necessary funds with which to erect a four-storey building on a lot situated between 17 and 18 Streets on Howard.

    Over the following twenty or so years he built another three homes for the Directory as well as establishing an agricultural institute on the outskirts of the city where the children were taught all branches of horticulture. In 1889 he published his first book, A Chaplet of Verse by California Catholic Writers, as a means of raising funds for the home. This was a book of poetry by California poets and included three of his own, ‘Farewell to Solano’, ‘The Mountain Girth Valley of Beare’ and ‘Christmas Memories’. He dedicated the book to the “Solicitors and Friends of St. Joseph’s Union who are working so earnestly in a Noble Cause, this little volume is gratefully inscribed”. The ex-Governor of California Peter H. Burnett wrote a preface to the volume in which he paid tribute to the work of Fr Crowley.

    As well as his work with the Youth’s Directory, he was also president of the Playground Commission of San Francisco, and became known as ‘the Father of the Playground Movement’. His first playground was built between 7^th and Harrison Streets and was named ‘The Fr. Crowley Playground’ in his honour. Unfortunately this was demolished in 1930 to make way for the construction of the Bayshore Freeway, but another playground in nearby Franklin Square then took the name Fr. Crowley Playground. However this reverted back to Franklin Square again after a few years, and is still in existence and mainly used nowadays for football-playing Hispanics.

    On April 18, 1906, shortly after 5am, San Francisco was hit by a massive earthquake, causing the deaths of approximately 3,000 souls, with many more injured, and resulting in great devastation to the city. Despite this, the San Francisco Chronicle of May 1^st, 1906, reported that even though not one of the twenty or so institutions devoted to the housing and care of children passed through the earthquake without damage, only one life was lost, that of a baby less than 48 hours old in a maternity cottage. ‘At the Youth’s Directory’, the report continued, “Fr. D.O. Crowley marched the boys out in order and took them to a place of safety.”

    After this great calamity Fr. Crowley was appointed chairman of the Housing and Shelter Committee of the San Francisco Relief. Under his direction the committee built 1,400 houses for people who could match the small sum spent on construction. The houses were earthquake resistant due to their one-storey, lightweight and small size. He was also to become a member of the Rehabilitation Commission, vice-president of the Associated Charities of San Francisco, Trustee of the Red Cross and Relief Funds, on the committee of the Mission Promotion Association and a member of the Probation Committee of the Juvenile Court.

    In 1909 a select committee was appointed by the State to enquire into the causes of municipal corruption in San Francisco. Fr. Crowley was a member of this committee. However, when the report of the findings of the committee was published it was not signed by him and he gave his reasons in the following letter to the chairman which was included with the final draft: “Dear Mr. Denman, I have just gone over the report of your committee and heartily approve of the recommendations made at the end thereof. It is with great regret that on account of my sickness and absence from the city and many of our meetings I am unable to sign the findings. It is not because I disagree with any of them, but because I am unable to either agree or disagree with several, on account of my failure to hear the evidence on which they rest. You do not need to be assured that as far as my connection with the committee is concerned, I have never felt out of harmony with the ideals and aims of my confreres, nor any doubt as to the integrity or sincerity of their purpose. Yours sincerely, D. O. Crowley”.

    On January 3, 1908, Fr. Crowley met Pope Pius X in Rome. He was introduced to the Pontiff, along with 12 other notable San Franciscans, by Archbishop Riordan. This was reported in many of the newspapers of the time. (to be Continued.)

©Beara Historical Society 2010