“Irish Catholics and nationalists, growing in confidence after the traumas of the 19th century, and striving to realise their aspirations, were not in a mood for irony at their expense from a Church of Ireland rector, even one who shared some of their vision”
Second Reading
Fr Kevin Hegarty 
A Belfast man, James Owen Hannay, became Church of Ireland rector in Westport in 1892, where he remained for 21 years. He abandoned a comfortable curacy in the salubrious pastures of Delgany for the picturesque vitality of life in a west of Ireland town.
His reputation does not rest on his religious endeavours. He was an author for whom the adjective ‘prolific’ is inadequate. He wrote 80 books, mostly novels, usually under the pseudonym of George A Birmingham. His list of titles also includes works of spirituality and theology, travelogues and reminiscences. As a novelist, he won praise from Graham Greene who claimed that ‘a vanished Ireland of crookery and good humour is preserved as perfectly in Birmingham’s best work as in The Playboy of the Western World’.
The first book that Birmingham wrote in Westport was on the wisdom of early Christian saints who lived in the desert. To pay for his children’s education he turned from this safe theme to the more lucrative world of novel writing.
It was also more dangerous. His early novels, especially ‘The Seething Pot’, and ‘Hyacinth’ attracted hostility from Irish Catholics and nationalists who sensed they were lampooned in them.
Catholic and Protestant relations in early 20th century Ireland were uneasy. It was a far cry from the cosy ecumenism that prevails today. Birmingham was inclined to cast a sardonic eye on Irish Catholic society, though he did appreciate its strengths. His involvement with the Gaelic League set him apart from the typical Church of Ireland clergyman and was regarded suspiciously by some members of his congregation. Irish Catholics and nationalists, growing in confidence after the traumas of the 19th century, and striving to realise their aspirations, were not in a mood for irony at their expense from a Church of Ireland rector, even one who shared some of their vision.
Birmingham’s autobiography, ‘Pleasant Places’, provides a revealing insight into life in a west of Ireland town 100 years ago.
He liked Westport. He recognised that it had been planned ‘with a certain feeling for dignity and beauty’, unlike most Irish country towns which were ‘higgledy-piggledy’, ‘sordid’ and ‘mean’. He was pleased with his ‘very gracious rectory’. He was less enamoured of his main church, the Church of the Holy Trinity, though he did admire its mural decorations.
Ninety-five per cent of the community were Roman Catholics. Birmingham and his curate had a congregation of 600, spread over four churches. Until the building of a fifth church at Belclare in 1902, a small congregation met every Sunday in a hay loft above a barn where the preacher’s words of wisdom were often drowned by ‘importunate trampling and neighing’ from the stalls below. Birmingham was impressed by the faith of his people, finding ‘a beautiful vein of mysticism in their religion’.
Westport was then a strictly hierarchical society. Even the butcher had a way of reminding you where you stood. The best cuts were allocated to customers of the highest social standing, in a strict order of preference. When Lord Sligo was in residence in Westport House no one else could get a sirloin.
Though Birmingham was sometimes deprived of the savour of sirloin, he and his wife Ada, and their four children lived well. Wages were low and food was cheap. He acquired possession of an island in Clew Bay with a tiny cottage on it. There the family spent the summers. The children romped, swam and sailed, their idyllic existence interrupted only by the arrival of term time at their Dublin boarding schools.
He employed a gardener and other household staff. Some of the maids he found wild and untrained. He was disturbed by the father of one of the servants who trenchantly advised him: “If Molly doesn’t behave herself, take the stick to her and lay it on good and strong. It is the only way to get goodness into girls like that. It is the way I’ve brought her up and she’s well accustomed to it.”
The ‘Mollys’ of that world had no power and little freedom to choose. Marriages were arranged for them. Love matches were frowned upon. A woman had to bring a dowry of money, land or cattle to the marriage.
Birmingham recalls marrying a couple who had never seen each other until the day of the service. After the signing of the register, the bridegroom tried to give his new bride ‘a hearty kiss’. She resisted, where upon he turned to Birmingham with an aggrieved air and said: “She ought not be shy now, your reverence, ought she?”
During Birmingham’s years in Westport, the old order of deference and subservience began to break up. The Land Acts gave tenants the power to shape their own destinies. The Congested Districts Board helped in the development of fishing and the cultivation of crafts. The provision of the Old Age Pension in 1908 helped alleviate poverty.
By 1913 Birmingham’s reputation as a writer was firmly established. His play, ‘General John Regan’, was staged in London. He was invited to lecture in the US. He decided to resign the rectorship and leave Westport. He always remembered it with affection. He had come to know the truth of what someone once told him: that ‘the real Ireland lies across the Shannon westwards’.
