PIONEER BISHOP: L A W R E N C E SCANLAN, 1843-1915 BY ROBERT J. DWYER*
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few miles below the cathedral town of Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, the River Suir runs softly by the ruins of Holy Cross Abbey, on its way to the sea by storied Clonmel and bustling Waterford. It is one of the best preserved of the ancient Irish monastic foundations, imposing even now, with much of its flamboyant tracery still intact. It was founded in 1169 as an offshoot of the Cistercian abbey of Monaster-aneany, which Turlock O'Brien had endowed in 1150, and it owed its Charter to Donal More O'Brien, King of Thomond. Earlier in that century, the Pope had sent to Muchertach O'Brien, Donal's ancestor, a relic of the True Cross, and it was to enshrine this precious memento that the splendid fabric of the monastery was raised, one of the noblest of the churches of Munster. 1 Century after century, the great abbey church brooded over the Suir, its vaults echoing to the slow cadences of the Cistercian chant, its magnificent reliquary of the Cross enriched by the votive offerings of countless pilgrims. Then, under Henry VIII of England, came its supression, with a venal abbot, William O'Dwyer, bargaining for the possession of its revenues for his lifetime. W i t h Mary Tudor's accession, however, the monks returned, and the monastic life seems to have survived even Elizabeth's grant of the demesne to that Butler of Ormonde who betrayed his country. As late as 1632 the sacred relic of the Cross was venerated there, and the church, though sadly dismantled, used for divine service. Then the monks withdrew to Kilkenny, and the abbey was left to desolation and decay. Even so, in the eyes of the faithful it remained a holy place, visited by throngs who remembered that once it housed a sliver of the True Cross on which Christ died. 2 *The Very Reverend Monsignor Robert J. Dwyer is the Rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, Salt Lake City. He is a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America, is an authority on Western history, is the author of The Gentile Comes to Utah, and is Vice President of the Utah State Historical Society. 'Edmund Curtis, A History of Medieval Ireland (London, 1938), 80. •J. B. Cullen, "Holy Cross Abbey," Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1910), VII. 406-07; cf. ibid., VIII, 108b.
