William Carrigan (1860-1924) was a scholarly priest, who laboured to chronicle the past before the Gaelic oral tradition was lost in an era of rapid population and language decline, writes Brendan Ó Cathaoir
His definitive History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory was published 100 years ago. To mark the centenary, a comprehensive index to Carrigan's four-volume work was launched in Kilkenny last month.
This index, compiled by Helen Litton, contains 20,000 entries. It supersedes the original, incomplete index and opens the riches of Carrigan's magnum opus to students of history, archaeology and genealogy in Ossory and farther afield. (It is available from the Ossory Diocesan Office: admin@ossory.ie, price €45.)
The new volume is, moreover, worth acquiring for Dr Fearghus Ó Fearghail's biographical essay. It builds on Fr Ó Fearghail's earlier writings, Ambrose Coleman's biography of Carrigan, and John Bradley's introduction to the 1981 edition of the History and Antiquities.
Carrigan was heir to a scholarly tradition stretching back to the anonymous compilers of the Red Book of Ossory, Bishop David Rothe, and the founders in 1849 of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, whose publication became the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries. Secondly, he possessed that sense of purpose which characterised the clerical scholars - other notable examples being John O'Hanlon and James O'Laverty - who emerged in the aftermath of Catholic emancipation.
William Carrigan was born in Ruthstown, Ballyfoyle, Co Kilkenny, the youngest of a family of 10. Both his parents spoke Irish but he did not - the language carried the stigma of poverty in post-Famine Ireland. He did, however, retain a lifelong interest in Irish and used it effectively in his work on placenames.
His father, a moderately well-off farmer, fostered an interest in antiquities and folklore. He showed him how to decipher inscriptions during Sunday outings to local graveyards, and extended hospitality to seanchaithe who recited Ossianic poems.
Carrigan spent five years in St Kieran's College, Kilkenny, and another five years in St Patrick's College, Maynooth. His interest in local history grew in Maynooth, where he used to steal surreptitiously up to the college library to read the works of John O'Donovan. Access to the library in the 1880s was permitted only to professors and postgraduates.
During various curacies, he spent almost all of his spare time collecting information and transcribing manuscripts. He gradually broadened his research beyond the purely ecclesiastical. He noted material on antiquarian excursions and made an annual "pilgrimage" to the Public Record Office in Dublin. He served in five parishes after leaving St Kieran's in 1886, where he taught for two years following ordination.
On being appointed diocesan historian by Bishop Abraham Brownrigg in 1890, he began to gather historical, archaeological and genealogical information in a more systematic way, eventually filling 166 notebooks. By the time he settled down to write in 1897, he had probably walked every townland in the diocese.
He surveyed each civil parish, recording items of archaeological and architectural interest with great accuracy. He gathered information on ancient churches and their patron saints, ruins and monuments, old graveyards and inscriptions, holy wells, raths, moats, castles and penal Mass stations. He noted the great changes which had occurred in the countryside since the pre-Famine Ordnance Survey letters of O'Donovan and Eugene O'Curry.
"Fr Willie", as he was known affectionately, went among the people more than other priests, always seeking information with a notebook to hand. In particular, he interviewed the elderly and Irish speakers, gathering old (sometimes conflicting) traditions, and making careful inquiries about placenames and surnames.
Many hours were spent copying his field notes into notebooks, often working by candlelight. Unsurprisingly, collating the immense amount of material he had collected exacted a toll on his nerves. The actual writing and rewriting of his history (with a quill pen) took six years. In 1903 he was elected to membership of the Royal Irish Academy.
His History and Antiquities appeared two years later. The Irish Times described it as a model of what every diocese should possess.
Carrigan had received considerable help from fellow priests, who eased his pastoral burdens. In the midst of wide acclaim, however, came a 115-page denunciation by the parish priest of Johnstown - motivated mainly by personal spite.
Carrigan liked to joke that his book did not pay for itself until it had been burnt. He received compensation after the remaining 160 copies and plates used to illustrate it were destroyed during the 1916 Rising.
He lived austerely and set little value on material things. He was largely indifferent to food and abstained from alcohol but was a habitual taker of snuff. His transport for most of his priesthood was a pony and trap which his father had bought him. He gave little thought to his own comfort, tramping wet fields and graveyards, rarely wearing an overcoat. He was noted for his generosity to the poor. Canon Carrigan was single-minded in his search for historical truth. For 37 years he spent some weeks each summer researching in the Public Record Office and in various Dublin libraries. His notebook collection preserves some of the invaluable records destroyed at the outset of the Civil War.