Rev. John J. Carroll
Pastor St. Thomas
A Patriotic Worker in the Gaelic Cause
As a slight Tribute
From the Author
Francis O'Neill
Nov 9 - 1913
Biography:
Reverend John J. Carroll, sometimes O’Carroll, was Pastor of St.Thomas Catholic Church in Hyde Park, a few blocks from O’Neill’s home. Born in Enniscrone, County Sligo in 1856, he came to the U.S. as an infant and was ordained in Chicago in 1879. A scholarly man, he was an expert in Gaelic languages and possessed what newspapers claimed was the only Gaelic-font typewriter in America. He wrote multiple books including treatises on Gaelic and in 1900, An Authentic History of Ireland: From the Earliest Times Down. On St. Patricks’ Day, he would give his sermons in Irish.
Father Carroll helped O’Neill translate tune names into Irish and is thanked in the introduction to Music of Ireland (1903). He was active in the Gaelic League in the U.S., serving for example as its Librarian in 1903.
The Diocese had granted Father Carroll an unusual lifetime appointment as Rector of St. Thomas, and by some accounts he grew inattentive and less effective as he aged. He was persuaded to retire in 1916 and passed away shortly after. His replacement, Thomas Shannon, was an energetic and highly effective fund raiser, who built a new school and a stunning new church in the “Prairie” style by 1919. Shannon did not speak well of his predecessor: “the old pastor had let all modern progress go quietly on its way. Progress was not injured, but the parish was; and the equipment, not having the sturdiness of progress, went into rapid and conclusive decay. The old pastor conveniently died in the odor of restful sanctity,” Shannon continued, and he began his program of energetic modern improvements.
By then O’Neill lamented what he saw as the Church’s lack of support for Irish culture. He was likely thinking of Shannon when he told Henry Mercer, in 1921, “All our Irish organizations, or practically all, are affiliated with the church and all the power which the Catholic Church wields is being exerted in behalf of the perpetuation of the faith and Church membership. Our Catholic clergy are mostly American born to them the music of their ancestors is of but little concern.” He made similar complaints in almost all of his surviving letters: the Church had abandoned Irish culture. In his day Catholic congregations went from mostly Irish to increasingly Italian, Polish, and Eastern European; the church could not afford to minister to the Irish alone.
[Michael O'Malley]
On Carroll see The National Cyclopedia of American Biography. J. T. White Company, 1897. p. 251; Chicago Tribune March 18, 1903 p. 5, July 18, 1916 p. 17.
On Shannon see his self-penned anonymous article “The Parish That Came Back.” The Ecclesiastical Review 61 (July 1919): 25–37.
"O’Neill, Francis to Henry Chapman Mercer,” March 6, 1921. Mercer Correspondence, Series 1 folder 73 (misc 291) January-March 1921. Mercer Museum Library, Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, PA.
Provenance:
From the Newberry Library, Chicago:
"This book came to the Newberry Library in the collection of John Mansir Wing (1845-1917). This copy of Irish Minstrels and Musicians: with numerous dissertations on related subjects came to the Newberry in November 1917, about a year after Rev. Carroll passed away. We purchased the copy from a Chicago bookshop called Powner’s Book Store, the Charles T. Powner Co. Rare and Standard Books. In 1917, the shop was about a mile from the Newberry at 37 N. Clark Street in the old Methodist Church Block. We also purchased another title, Compendium of Irish Grammar by E.W.O. Windisch, from the same dealer that month. Both titles were ordered November 13, 1917 and we received them via 'parcel post' on November 14, 1917."
Thanks to Aileen Dillane for supplying an initial scan of this page. Thanks also to Maggie Cusick, General Collections Services Librarian at the Newberry Library.