Search Results for 'Tom Nolan'

In 1990 – exactly 100 years after Sir William Gregory granted a 99-year lease on a section of land at Kiltartan Cross on which to build a schoolhouse – the Kiltartan Gregory Cultural Society was founded. Its aim was to restore the derelict red-brick schoolhouse, the very one commissioned by Sir William Gregory, and to preserve the history of Kiltartan for future generations. The next six years were spent doing just that.

Although St Kieran’s College was only 10 miles from the Kilroy’s home at Callan, Tom Kilroy and his four brothers were educated there as boarders. In those days, early 1950s, any journey beyond that of a pony and trap was an adventure.You had to take Tom Nolan’s bus to get from Callan to Kilkenny. The school buildings were a mixture of carved balconies, and entrance steps in neo-Gothic riot. Behind its extravagant exterior, lay a new Catholic church, proudly testifying the various Emancipation Bills in the previous century, which gave Catholics the freedoms to practice. St Kiernans’ was a typical diocesan college of the Diocese of Ossory. An important function was the education of young men to be priests.

St Attracta’s Church, Kiltartan was the scene of a joyful outpouring of faith last week as the parish celebrated the 175th anniversary of the opening of the church. The clergy, led by four Mass servers, walked in procession from the old church while the large outdoor bell was rung by Tommy Nolan. The faith journey of the parish was recalled by the chief celebrant, a native of the parish, Canon Martin Downey.