When Valentia had just one church

THE Church of the Immaculate Conception in Knightstown has served the people of Valentia Island for over 100 years, having been built in 1914. Up to then the only Catholic church in Valentia was the old church in Chapeltown, which served about 3,000 people when the population peaked in the 1840s.

For many years the inconvenience was felt of having only one church for a Parish of the size and population of Valentia. The importance of the island had also increased as it became the headquarters of the Pioneer Cable Company which connected Ireland with the western continent of America.

The subsequent development of trana-Atlantic telegraphy brought to the island a new colony of operators and their families. Later on the island became a station for the Marconi Western Company which again enhanced it’s importance.

The following is a letter written on January 12, 1913, by his Lordship, the then Bishop of Kerry, John Mangan, to Rev William Keane, PP of Valentia Island.

My dear Fr Keane,

For years past I have been most desirous that a new church should be erected at Knightstown, Valentia. The circumstances of the place seemed to demand this as the population of Knightstown between the inhabitants of the place itself and those engaged at the Cable Station is very considerable. Besides these, you have at certain seasons of the year a large addition of a number of men from other places engaged in fishing.

It was very burdensome on all these people in order to comply with the obligation of attending Mass to be obliged to follow the priest to the only existing church, a poor one itself, which is a considerable distance from Knightstown.

The reasonable arrangement was that the priest should say one of his masses at Knightstown for the convenience of the people in the other parts of the island. I am very pleased to know that you are taking steps to supply a remedy for the undesirable state of things existing at present and that you are taking on yourself the onerous work of erecting a new church at Knightstown. Your undertaking has my unqualified approval.

Your own people have shown their deep sense of the necessity of the work by the very generous support they have already extended to it. I am hopeful that when the charitable faithful are made acquainted with the nature of your undertaking they too will help you. In time I shall give you my offerin, commending your laudable purpose to the clergy and faithful, and praying that God may bless it

Yours very faithfully, John Mangan, Bishop of Kerry.