A CATHOLIC ANNIVERSARY IN BELFAST

New Zealand Tablet, 19 February 1914, Page 47

A CATHOLIC ANNIVERSARY IN BELFAST

Nothing can better bring to mind the amazing growth of Catholicity in Belfast during a hundred years than the fact that the first parish priest of Belfast died on New Year’s Day of the year 1814. This venerated pastor-of the northern city, Father Hugh O’Donnell, erected the first chapel in Belfast in 1784. So strong was the ascendancy faction in these days that it was till 1782 that they would entertain the proposal to permit the building of a small chapel on the spot where an old shed stood in Mill street. This edifice (St. Mary’s) was dedicated on May 30, 1784, and it is creditable to record that the Belfast Volunteer Company attended the ceremony in full dress—while the pulpit was a gift from Rev. William Bristow, Protestant Vicar of Belfast. It was not till the autumn of 1808 that Father O’Donnell got a second curate. In 1808 he built a second church (St. Patrick’s), but he resigned the parish in 1812, and died on January Ist, 1814. There are now ten parish churches in Belfast as well as two monastery churches. •