In evidence Father Casey denied instituting a
boycott but in the interests of what he regarded as his legal right he took
peaceable possession of the parochial house when it was vacated by Mary Power
and asked that her registration of title to the property should be declared
inoperative. Father Casey claimed that the
recently deceased parish priest Father Tom Walsh – like his predecessors for
the previous 64 years – had acquired the property as a trustee for the
parish. Seeking to transfer it to
private use was a breach of trust and did not give any rights of ownership to
Miss Power. The Master of the Rolls
agreed that if it was trust property it could not be assigned for a
non-charitable purpose. Father Casey’s
legal team pointed out that since 1907 by a matter of Catholic Church
legislation all trust lands were vested in the bishop.
The legal team of Miss Power argued that as they
read the deed, the premises was not a trust but the property of the parish
priest. It appears that Father Walsh
purchased the parochial house and land under one of the Land Acts of that
period. He got approval from the parishioners
at a public meeting but he purchased it in his own name. Subsequently he passed the property on to
Miss Power as a means of settling his debt.
Pressing the case against Father Casey that he has hassled her and
caused her distress Miss Power cited the fact that when he was taking
possession of the vacant property he marched to the house together with a large
number of parishioners accompanied by a band!
The Master of the Rolls found that no evidence had been given
implicating Father Casey in any violence, intimidation or boycotting. In his opinion there was no question of
aggravation or damages or anything of that sort. Miss Power’s legal team were happy with that
finding and Father Casey left the witness box.
What remained to be settled concerned the fact that
Father Casey had entered the premises and remained in occupation. Father Casey’s legal team stated that in
regard to this, there were only two questions to be answered, a question of law
and a question of fact. The question of
law was whether a charitable trust attached to these premises. The question of fact was whether Miss Power
acquired legal ownership either through actual or constructive notice. If there was no trust, that would be the end
of the case. They proceeded to argue that
there was a charitable trust. The Master
of the Rolls said that the rights of successive ministers of a parish to reside
in the dwelling house occupied by their predecessors was not before him for the
first time. At one time he thought that
the Land Purchase Acts might result in many such cases. This did not now seem to be the case as far
as the Catholic Church was concerned.
The celibacy of the clergy, he said, was doubtless a great protection
against any attempt to divert houses or lands for church use to private
purposes. Most people would wish that
these residences should be used for a minister and his successors in the
parish. It should not be left, as in
this case it had been left, to the devotion, high principle and love of the
church which was engrained on the character of most of her sons. But these good intentions, love of the church
and high-mindedness were not sufficient to create, and impose upon an
individual, a trust in the eye of the law.
This situation was not confined to clergy only. In country places the doctor’s residence had
been the doctor’s residence for generations.
If an inquiry into the like of those persons were made it would, he
feared, be found that the process by which one doctor succeeded another in
these residences depended on generosity and good will.
Addressing the arguments of those whose parents and
grandparents had carried loads of materials for the building of the house for
the priest, the Master of the Rolls quoted from a school book of the time:
‘Jack has a horse and cart and can draw wood and stones in it.’ Alas their heroic efforts in the teeth of the
Great Famine back in 1845 did nothing to prevent the property falling into
private hands, 64 years later. Miss Power was the legal owner.
Father Casey promised that he would give up
possession within a fortnight. He was
shortly afterwards moved to another parish, perhaps in an effort to draw a line
under the whole sorry chapter. A new
Parochial House was built and a smaller plot of land was provided. The house at the centre of the whole
controversy has been in ruins for the past fifty years and is shrouded from
view by a clump of trees. The local
children, I’m sure, know nothing of what caused such grief and scandal back
then. They have enough of today’s variety
to cope with.
As for Mary Power she seems to have been quickly
reconciled to the community. Her married
niece inherited the property and she lived there for about forty years. She had a son who was a contemporary of
mine. In the early sixties they sold the
property and settled in Cork, forty miles away.
After a very brief period the house was never lived in again. A nephew of Mary Power became a priest in the
Waterford Diocese.
