St Michan's Parish

transcribed at

St Michan's Parish  [duchas:4388121]

The eighteenth century shows this district haunted by hunted Catholics with their Chapel in Ball Alley, and their schools existing by stealth in Church St. and Prapher Lane.  Towards its close came Miss Mullaly to lay the foundation of the busy school we know as the Presentation Convent, George's Hill; but these efforts quite subterranean were broken in on at the close of the eighteenth century when the Newgate Prison and the adjoining courthouse filled the people's mind by the illustrious prisoners who were there housed and tried.

The brothers Sheares met their doom at that iron gateway of the playground in Green St., and the courthouse in some midnight silence may yet give back an echo of the speech which Emmett made in the dock in 1803.

From the back windows of George's Hill Convent at this time was a full view of old Newgate Prison with the dark walls of its prison cells overshadowing the gruesome gallows tree whereon so many precious lives were sacrificed.

From the front windows of this convent can be seen the Old St. Michans Church with its tower built in 1095 by a large colony of Danes who had been converted to Christianity after the "Battle of Clontarf".  From its earliest days old St. Michans had a close connection with Christ Church.  For almost 500 years this historic church was the centre

St Michan's Parish  [duchas:4388122]

of catholic devotion, and the only parish church north of the Liffey.  In the reign of Elizabeth, Priest and Holy Sacrifice were driven from its hallowed walls.  Not till 1660 had the Catholics of North Dublin any central place of worship till the little church was built at the corner of Mary's Lane.

After the expulsion of the Jesuits from France they took refuge in this parish and ministered to the spiritual needs of the people in spite of persecution and decree of suppression in 1773.

In 1816 when the present parish church of St. Michans was built Mary's Lane Chapel was then utilized for many years as a school.  With the enlarging of George's Hill Convent Schools the need for this school in Mary's Lane Chapel no longer existed and course of time it was utilized as a stable up to about seven years ago.  Then a site was being cleaned in Greek St. for the erection of the present flats in the parish and this stable with similar buildings was demolished.  Some of the stones of this relic of the Penal Days were claimed by George's Hill Convent and now form the foundation of a Calvary erected in front of the school within the Convent boundary.  At the entrance to this Calvary is a slab with an inscription "What mean these stones?".

It is fitting that the nuns should desire to have these stones with their sacred memories honoured and that the children on their way in to school should pause to pray before the Crucified that they may be worth of the Heritage of Faith preserved for them by the blood and tears of their forefathers.