Star of the Sea Church, Quilty

"Lives of great men, all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the Sands of Time."

The Parish of Kilmurry-lbrickane is unique in many ways. It derived its name from its centuries-old parish Church, Cill Mhuire, now in ruins and fast returning to Nature. The present parish Church is in the village of Mullagh. As a token of the people's long devotion to Our Lady, it is also named, St. Mary's. Their loyalty to the Faith of their Fathers has prevailed through many tribulations and on Sundays throughout the centuries the people have flocked to Mass from the furthest reaches of the Parish. From the Clogher to the Hand, from Doolagh to Beal a'Clugga, they have thronged. A second Church was made available at Coore to help the eastern portion of the parish. Still the people along the west coast trudged to Mullagh. This century was almost twelve years old before the Village of Quilty got its own Church. The events prior to the building of that Church will be recorded forever in the Annals of the Brave. Yes indeed, the Sands of Time at Quilty are crisscrossed with the footprints of great men but the deepest impressions on those Sands have been made within living memory, to be precise, in 1907.

The village of Quilty has to be known to be understood. The people of Quilty are a very sincere, yet simple-living race. The principal livelihood is fishing and each family, though separate, are all united in one great clan; one for all, all for one. Their very means of living make them dependent on each other. Helping each other in times of trouble, even to the point of saving lives, is taken as a matter of course, just a way of life. Very often as a boy, I would cycle into Quilty from my home at Clonadrum, just two miles away, and listen for hours to the men tell tales of the sea, of great storms, of the great Quilty fishing fleet, long since dwindled, and return home dreaming of those heroes who risked their lives every day to make a living and who came back to port with the strength of their mighty arms and a prayer.

To appreciate the raw strength and awe-inspiring power of the sea, one should watch those pounding waves, white crests of foaming spray, come thundering in, seemingly in a private war with the cliffs at Quilty, during a storm. I watched one big storm on St. Stephen's Day, 1950 and learned a lesson that I shall never forget, respect for the forces of nature and respect for fisherfolk. In the height of the gale, I was assured very calmly that they had seen worse and continued about their chores, unimpressed.

A great storm hit the coast of Clare on Sept. 30th, 1907. The sea was one seething mass of wind-whipped white foam which battered the sea wall at Quilty and overflowed on to the road. That night everybody thanked God that none of their folk was at sea and went about their