Irish Priests and the Isle of Man

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 41, 19 October 1922, Page 45

Irish Priests and the Isle of Man

Disturbed conditions at home have compelled many Irish holiday-makers to turn their eyes on the Isle of Man, which is reaping what in other years was Ireland’s own holiday-making harvest. The Irish tourist who visits the Isle of Man will be interested to learn that it was due to the efforts of an Irish missionary that the Catholic Church was restored in the Island. Towards the end of ■« o * # # # the eighteenth century, the number of Catholics living in the Isle of Man was only 25. In the year 1813 the Rev, Miles MacFarlane settled in the Island, and set about the work of building a little church close to the ancient site of St.- Bridget’s Convent. Father MacFarlane died in the year 1814, and in 1826 the work he had so nobly begun was carried on by the Rev. Mathew Gahan, S.J., one of the staff of Clongowes Wood College. <X*>