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An Irish Benedictine Adventure: Dom Francis Sweetman (1872-1953) and Mount St Benedict, Gorey
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
On 11 January 1913 the following article, signed by ‘Me Fein’, appeared in an Irish periodical of pronounced nationalist views under the heading ‘Wexford Again. More Language Compulsion’:
Compulsion in educational matters seems to revolt some good souls in Wexford, and the following flash will possibly electrify Mr Fanning of the County Council of that model county. (By the way, it seems to be rapidly becoming the ‘model county’ for Irish Ireland wobbling and drunkenness prosecutions.) A school has been established at Gorey for some years by the Benedictine Fathers, for the better class young Irishmen, and it will be of interest to note some features of that educational establishment.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1989
References
1 The Leader, 11 January 1913, p. 548.
2 The community of nuns now resident at Kylemore were founded at Ypres in the Low Countries in 1665 and remained there until they were shelled out in 1914. They fled to England and then to MacMine, County Wexford. In 1922 they moved to Kylemore Casde where they conduct a school. See Nolan, P., The Irish Dames of Ypres (Dublin, 1908)Google Scholar.
3 Glenstal was founded in 1927 from the abbey of Maredsous in Belgium as a memorial to the great Irish Benedictine abbot of Maredsous, Dom Columba Marmion (1858-1923). Glenstal started life as a priory with an ‘arts and crafts’ school attached. This school was closed in 1945 and the monastery became an abbey in 1957. The abbey school proper was first opened in 1932.
4 Gwynn, A. and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval Religious Houses, Ireland (London, 1970), p. 103 Google Scholar.
5 For a discussion of the Schottenklöster see Dilworth, M., Scots in Franconia (London, 1974)Google Scholar.
6 Biographical details of Dom Sweetman come from the various memoirs referred to later in the notes and from the MS Fasti Gregoriani 1793-1932, Downside Abbey Archives (henceforth DAA) which has brief lives of all monks of Downside.
7 See Birr, H. N., Downside (London, 1902)Google Scholar.
8 See DRev 33 (1914), p. 216.
9 D.AA VII.A.3 e (III) Mount St Benedict’s, Gorey, Co. Wexford. Copy of a personal memoir of Dom John Sweetman by Dean C. M. Gray Stack given to Old Wexford Society in March 1978, p. 72.
10 Ibid. Copy of unpublished typescript, originally intended for publication in a series produced by the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland entitled Great Educators, Adventure in Education Father Sweetman & Mount St Benedict by M. Dillon, O.S.B. (henceforth Dillon), p. 73.
11 DAA. VII.A.3 e (III) Abbot’s Archives, Gorey Files. Printed ‘Evidence’ ‘in reply to alleged charges against Father Sweetman; taken on 19 April 1925, in the presence of Mr Gavan Duffy, BX., Count OUyrne, and Arthur Cox, Solicitor for Father Sweetman’ (henceforth Evidence), p. 5.
12 Ibid. VII.A.3 e (i) Copy of letter from Abbot H. E. Ford to Bishop J. Browne, 7 April 1905.
13 Ibid. Letter from Bishop J. Browne to Abbot H. E. Ford, 10 April 1905.
14 Dillon, p. 7.
15 Ibid.
16 Dillon, p. 16.
17 Ibid., p. 25.
18 Ibid., p. 36.
19 B. O Cathaoir, ‘Father Sweetman and Mount St Benedict’, The Irish Times, 16 September 1981.
20 Evidence, p. 20.
21 Dillon, p. 24.
22 Evidence, p. 18.
23 Ibid.
24 Dillon, pp. 4-5.
25 DAA. VII.A.3 e (II) (‘First draft—not put in at Rome’ of ‘Comments on Rt Rev. Bishop of Fern’s [sic] petition on Gorey), 8 November 1920.
26 S. O’Buachalla, ‘Education in the First and Second Dàil’; Administration (Journal of Irish Public Administrators), 25 (1977), pp. 64-5.
27 D.AA VII.A.3 e (ii). Abbot H. L Ramsay to Bishop W. Codd, 30 April 1925 (printed letter).
28 Ibid., 2 July 1925 (printed letter).
29 Ibid., C. D. Gooldcn, OSB, writing to The Irish Independent, 20 October 1926 (reprinted and appended to letters referred to in notes 27 and 28 above).
30 The conflicts of these years are chronicled in DAA both in VII A3 e (ii) & (iii) and in Abbot’s Archives, Gorey Files. The papers preserved include letters, accounts and newspaper cuttings. Mount St Benedict remained in Downside’s possession until 1977. For David Knowles see A. Morey, David Knowles (London, 1979).
31 DAA Abbot’s Archives, Gorey Files. The speech was delivered on 8 September 1935.
32 Ibid. Copy of letter from J. F. Sweetman to Bishop J. Staunton, 17 March 1940.
33 Ibid. Letter from Bishop J. Staunton to Abbot R. S. Trafford, 29 March 1940.
34 See article in Enniscorthy Guardian, 28 February 1970, announcing the formation of a committee to erect a suitable monument to Father Sweetman.
35 M. Tierney, The Mount during the War Years’, The Gorey Detail, 7 (1983), unpaginated.