Glenade in the Time of the Penal Laws

transcribed at

Glenade in the Time of the Penal Laws  [duchas:4598450]

The penal laws appear at least in one instance to have been enforced in Glenade down almost to emancipation days.
At the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth the spiritual interests of the people of Glenade and Kinlough were instructed to a priest of the Franerscun order. Frier Cureen by name at that twice the Johnston family of Kinlough was all powerful. The then Lord and Master of Kinlough House had an only daughter to whom he was deeply attached. At Lullaghan  there lived a young man by the name of McGlain a fine handsome fellow well educated and for a Catholic rich. Miss Johnston and he met became mutually attached and the mater finished up by their making  a runaway marriage, Frier Curneen being the officiating clergy man. 
The Johnston family were deeply outraged but as the erring one and her "Papsit" husband left the country there remained only Frier Curneen to be avenged upon. For years the Johnstons pursued him but thanks to the people of Glenade, Kinlough, Dartry, and Rossinver their

Glenade in the Time of the Penal Laws  [duchas:4598451]

faithful priest who refused to desert his charge escaped those human bloodhounds. During all those years Frier Curneens sleeping place was some sheltered hidden hollow in the wild mountain that lies between Glenade and Lough Melvin. Two of his "Msss Houses", as they were called are still pointed out. One in Largydonnell all halfway up the mountain side and the other in Cloonawillen a townland in the parish of Kinlough. The level land between Glenade and the valley if Kinlough is remarkable stoney and is crossed by great stone fences any of which are over six feet in height and three or four feet in thickness. A road running through Cloonawillen was bounded by two such walls and at a wide turning of the road Frier Curneen had another "Mass House". A nude stone altar was inset in each wall with a nude figure of a crucifix carved in stone over each altar. When it was impossible owning to the wind to have lighted candles on one of the altar the Priest was able to offer mass at the opposite side of the road