It was fortunate that on the day we called to see Mr Mick McGinty of Cloghanmore, his brother-in-law Mr Paddy McGlynn (of Ardbat and Glasgow) was on a visit and we had the benefit of their combined recollections of the building of the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Glenfin. What a story of activity they unfolded.

Group of workmen engaged on the building of the Church in 1928. Also included in the group are Annie Breslin and Marian Houston. Sadly, no member of this group survives.

According to them, a donation of £4,000 left by Mr McElwee of Meenlaharry, Cloghan for a new Church in Glenfin, started it off. There was an annual collection of four shillings per house being taken up for a number of years, and then on a day in June 1925, the first burst of activity reached Glenfin - the foreman came to employ local labour to assist the tradesmen who were due to arrive later. There were upwards of one hundred applicants for ten jobs, but only able-bodied married men with families were employed. The contractor was Mr McDonald from Dundalk, and the men lucky enough to get jobs were:

	Jimmie McGlynn (known locally as Himmie)
	Donal Partlan; Patrick McGinty, Letterhillue
	Jimmy Gallagher, known as Jimmie Dubh
	Patrick McDermott of Milltown
	Paddy Boyce of Aughaveagh
	William McGowan

And later Johnnie Boyce Junior of Aughaveagh who returned from America. These men worked with handbarrows and as the work progressed they carried hods. The nipper on the job, the man who made tea, fetched and carried, was Michael McKelvey, Gortness. Also employed were Paddy McMenamin, Paddy McDermott, Stragally, and James Carlin, Tonduff.

Over in Mountcharles, they began cutting and dressing stones and putting them in railway wagons at Mountcharles Station and railed them thence to Cloghan where they were unloaded on to carts and brought to the site by horse power. The quarrying of ordinary stones began in James Bonner's quarry in Brockagh, Barney Martin was carting sand daily from Martin's pit in the Milltown. River sand was brought from the Reelin and from Big Jim Kees of Altnapaste.

No matter what it says in records, Mick McGinty says he and John Boyce of Cloghanmore cut the first sods. The way it happened was that the two of them were at the site one day before work began, the contractor Mr McDonald wanted to have a look at the 'bottom' under the site and he set the two of them to dig deep holes. Mick started near the main door and John dug up behind where the altar is now. They went down till they hit the hard gravel. Mr McDonald gave them five shillings for their work, which they considered very generous of him, since a labourer's pay at that time was half-a-crown a day. The labouring men employed by Mr McDonald were paid twenty-eight shillings a week.

Names that stuck in their memories of the visiting craftsmen were Mick Copus, Peter Matthews, foreman's name was Neil Colburn, there were two McGivern brothers, Patrick McCann was a foreman mason, Paddy Lawless, Patrick Plunkett, a Mr Shields and a Mr McKevitt, both of whose first names were forgotten.

Some of them lodged around in local houses, but eventually they all finished up in the Brockagh region.

Brockagh took on all the trappings of a boom town!

The parish priest is reported to have said that the building might turn out to be damp, because there was as much porter drunk as would mix all the mortar.

Did You Know?

In the year 1538, the Catholic faith in the Finn Valley was at its lowest ever ebb when the obligation of Sunday Mass was not taken seriously, and the average Catholic made use of the Sacraments of Confession and Communion only once a year.

Vividly remembered was the man who attended the slaters. He wore a pad on his head, he put seven of the huge stone slates on his head and walked up a thirty foot ladder without touching the load with his hands. He walked down again with his hands in his pockets.

An artisan came from Belfast to carve the pillars, his name was Jack May. In true artist fashion he had very long hair which made it's way out through his hat. He had a set of carving chisels which needed special tempering, Conal Harkin did them a few times and then young Dan Arnold of Kiltyferrigal, who had a portable forge, kept them in order until his task was finished.

All these men walked from Brockagh to their work every morning, and walked back again in the evening. It is on record that the Belfast men said a bicycle was only a one way vehicle in Glenfin, it was all right for coming down, but no use at all going up.

The Chapel Bell - June 2002

When the chapel bell, which was then in it's present position, rang, it could be heard all over the parish, but as soon as the roof went on the chapel, the sound was muffled for all places above Brockagh

Romances of course entered into the enterprise. The foreman, Neil Colburn, married Margaret McGlynn of Moneen and they set up house in Hannas of Corlecky. Mick Copus, a carpenter, married Rose Ann Breslin of Brockagh, and a grandson of hers visited Brockagh as late as the nineteen seventies.

How all things work together for good is surely demonstrated in the story of Mr Anthony Carlin, the man who donated the high altar. He was a very fine looking man who bought a horse off a neighbour, the horse proved unsatisfactory and he went to court about it. He lost the case and incurred costs and expenses which cleaned him out, and left him with the price of his passage to America. He called in America at the house of a rich man who had a neighbour girl from Glenfin employed. The rich man's daughter happened to be looking out the window, and in no time at all he was calling at the front door and the rich man's daughter became Mrs. Anthony Carlin. When the late Very Rev. Peadar McGlinchey P.P. was visiting America in the twenties, he met the Carlins and persuaded them to donate the high altar to Glenfin.

One thing the strangers found amazing was the name of the shop in Kiltyferrigal, now owned by Miss N. Hone. The shop was owned by Miss Mary Gallagher, whose father was the first man to bring tea up to Glenfin, and Mary had married Mr Jimmie Gallagher. Some people would ask the nipper to go to Mary Harkin's for tobacco and the next person would say he was to go to Jimmie Gallaghers. It surprised them no end to find out there was only one shop. Mrs. Gallagher survived her husband by many years and when she died it was announced at her funeral mass that she had left their entire life savings to the church building fund.

The last Mass in the old chapel was a funeral Mass for Mrs. McCool (nee Foy) of Kinaderry. The grand opening attracted an overflow congregation, and at the collection taken up, Mr McDonald paid the biggest single subscription, £5.

Bishop Hannigan's plaque in the Church

The first sermon was preached by a Redemptorist, Fr. Coyle, and Paddy McGlynn (Ardbat and Glasgow) remembers clearly Mr Peter McMenamin (Peadar Teague Mor) of Ardlaghan setting out for the ceremony on a saddled horse.

There were twenty side cars and traps, and the rest of the overflow congregation came walking. Some time afterwards there was a mission which attracted so many people to it's closing that it had to be conducted in the open air.

The first baby baptised was James Hannigan, who afterwards became the first person to be ordained there, and went on to become Monsignor Hannigan (later Bishop). One of the first Funeral Masses in the new Church was for his mother who died shortly after his birth.

The first marriage solemnised in the new Church was between David Fitzgerald, Cloghanbeg and Rose Magee, Garvan.