Saint Malachy’s Church is a Catholic Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is located in Alfred Street, a short distance from Belfast City Hall , though it precedes that building by over 60 years. The Church is the focal point of the local parish community, also Saint Malachy’s, one of the 88 parishes in the Diocese of Down and Connor. It is third oldest Catholic Church in the city of Belfast.
In the beginning Saint Malachy’s was served by priests from St Mary’s Church, Belfast until the Parish of Saint Malachy was created in 1866 and Fr Geoffrey Brennan, a native of Kilkenny, was appointed Administrator. The first Parish Priest of Saint Malachy’s, a post created in 1909, was Fr Daniel McCashin.
The area of the city around Saint Malachy’s was dramatically re-developed from the early 1980s. That period of urban planning, and the age of the church itself, led to a deterioration in the condition of the brickwork meaning a full scale Restoration Programme which began in January 2008 and was completed in 2009 at a cost of £3,500,000. The interior of the Church was also restored.
The ornate stencilling around the Sanctuary, painted over in the 1950s, was restored as were the Altar Rails and the intricate mosaic floor. The Solemn Re-Opening and Dedication of the Altar was celebrated on 29 March 2009 by the Bishop of Down and Connor Dr Noel Treanor in the presence of the Bishop Emeritus Dr Patrick Walsh.
This was the first time that Saint Malachy’s had been closed for an extended period since the Church was opened in 1844. During the Restoration, Nuptial and Requiem Masses were celebrated in neighbouring Churches.
According to Brendan Behan when describing Russell Street, where he grew up, young girls ashamed of their homes would walk miles out of their way so as not to let others know where they lived.
Behan was born in the inner city of Dublin at Holles Street Hospital [where I was born] on 9 February 1923 into an educated working-class family. He lived in a house on Russell Street near Mountjoy Square owned by his grandmother, Christine English, who owned a number of properties in the area. Brendan’s father Stephen Behan, a house painter who had been active in the Irish War of Independence, read classic literature to the children at bedtime from sources including Zola, Galsworthy, and Maupassant; his mother, Kathleen, took them on literary tours of the city.
If Behan’s interest in literature came from his father, his political beliefs came from his mother. She remained politically active all her life and was a personal friend of the Irish republican Michael Collins. Brendan Behan wrote a lament to Collins, “The Laughing Boy”, at the age of thirteen. The title was from the affectionate nickname Mrs. Behan gave to Collins. Kathleen published her autobiography, “Mother of All The Behans”, a collaboration with her son Brian, in 1984.
Behan’s uncle Peadar Kearney wrote the Irish national anthem “The Soldier’s Song”. His brother, Dominic Behan, was also a renowned songwriter best known for the song “The Patriot Game”; another sibling, Brian Behan, was a prominent radical political activist and public speaker, actor, author, and playwright. Following Brendan’s death, his widow had a child with Cathal Goulding called Paudge Behan; the two men were described as “good friends”.
A biographer, Ulick O’Connor, recounts that one day, at age eight, Brendan was returning home with his granny and a crony from a drinking session. A passer-by remarked, “Oh, my! Isn’t it terrible ma’am to see such a beautiful child deformed?” “How dare you,” said his granny. “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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