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 History of the Discalced Carmelites in Australia
DANIEL MacEVEY
The funeral of Fr Daniel MacEvey in August 1860 was one of the biggest seen in the Western Districts of Victoria. Until 1982 it had been assumed he was a Franciscan friar and was considered one of their early pioneers. However, in the August 1982 "Footprints", published by the Melbourne Archdiocesan Historical Commission, Fr Patrick Conlon OFM identified MacEvey as a Discalced Carmelite. He is, therefore, the first Discalced Carmelite to come to and minister in Australia. In 1987, I requested Fr Fabian MacCormack OCD, the then Provincial Secretary, to search the archives for material relating to Fr Daniel MacEvey. The following account is based on that research. To understand his story the historical background of the Irish Province needs to be recalled.
When the Discalced Carmelites became separate from the ancient Order of Carmelites in 1593 the leadership was reluctant to allow the new Order to spread outside Spain and her dominions. As a result of papal intervention, however, foundations were made in Italy and then throughout Europe. In 1600 the Discalced Carmelites were divided into two separate Congregations. The houses outside Spain became part of the Italian Congregation completely distinct from the Spanish Congregation. The Italian Congregation had a strong missionary focus.
In 1621 Fr Thomas of Jesus (Sanchez Davila) founded the missionary seminary of St Albert in Leuven, Belgium. This was the same Thomas who initiated the desert monasteries of the Order at Bolarque, in 1591. In his time in Rome, from 1607, he was active in furthering the Church and Order's missionary endeavour. In 1610 he established the friars in Brussels, in the then Spanish Netherlands. St Albert's was founded to prepare missionaries for England, Ireland and Holland. Fr Simon Stock Doughty was the first English friar. He founded the English Carmelite mission in 1615.
The Irish Province
In 1625 Frs Paul Browne and Edward Sherlock arrived in Dublin to begin the
Carmelite mission in Ireland. They made use of the house of Mrs Browne, Paul's
mother, in Cork Street, Dublin and opened a popular chapel in the front parlour.
[For more information,
see the Irish Province's history] The mission prospered despite official harassment
and within 20 years there were 9 foundations: Dublin, Athboy, Drogheda, Ardee,
Galway, Limerick, Kilkenny, Kinsale and Loughrea. At the General Chapter of 1638
they were recognised as the Province of St Patrick. Within three years of its
foundation Cromwell embarked on a renewed campaign to eradicate Catholicism from
Ireland. In 1642 three friars, Fr Thomas Aquinas, Brothers Peter of the Mother
of God and Angelus of St Joseph were martyred.
The friars were outlaws for the greater part of the latter 17th Century. Conventual life was impossible in these circumstances. By 1720 there were only two houses, Wormwood Gate, Dublin and Loughrea. In 1743 they were dispersed once more, only to regroup two years later in Stephen's Street, Dublin. Due to the political and legal circumstances the life of the regular clergy at this time was exceptional. They understood themselves to be missionaries to the people. While living together they had a considerable degree of independence. The regular observance of common prayer, table and purse with the attendant habit, tonsure, abstinence and cloister were not observed. The clergy all wore the same semi-secular dress of white shirt and frilly cravat, black cutaway coat and knee breeches, silk stockings and buckled shoes. Clergy were not addressed as "Father" but as "the Reverend Mister" and were considered gentlemen. The Carmelites were known as the "Gentlemen of Clarendon Street", as the Franciscans were known as the "Gentlemen of Adam and Eve's". All the other Orders were similarly styled after their place of residence. It was only in the late 19th Century under Roman influence that the regular observance was introduced. It only prevailed after determined resistance from the missioners.
In 1793 the Carmelite friars bought a property in Clarendon Street and built a chapel which was opened in 1797. There is a ciborium in the sacristy of St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne inscribed "Clarendon Street Chapel 1799" with the crest of the Order. This relic was presumably brought to Australia by Fr Daniel MacEvey. There is no record that he sought permission to remove it from Clarendon Street.
During these years prospective recruits were drawn from either Gaelic speaking Connaught where Loughrea was situated or English speaking Leinster with its centre in Dublin. Language and other cultural differences made cooperation between the two houses difficult. Candidates for the Order were sent to the Continent for their novitiate and clerical studies. Mostly the Irish students were trained in houses of the Italian congregation. However, exactly where they were sent depended on the Provincial of the day. Strangely, some were sent to Spain. This caused difficulties because they had been professed in the Spanish Congregation. On their return to Ireland they then had to transfer to the Italian Congregation. This situation lasted until 1839 when the Spanish Congregation came to an effective end, when the religious were dispersed. The single Order of Discalced Carmelites we know today dates from Pius IX in 1875.
Daniel's Story
Daniel MacEvey was born in Dublin, in 1815. His name has a variety of spellings,
sometimes appearing as McEvey, McVeigh or Veigh. However he usually signed his
name "MacEvey". He presented himself as a postulant in 1831. The Provincial, Fr
John Francis L'Estrange, having himself trained in Spain, favoured sending recruits
to Spain. He noted in a letter of 7 October, 1831, to the General of the Italian
Congregation in Rome: "Three postulants, Henry Maguire, William Kinsella and Daniel
MacEvey have set out to Spain, to join the Order there." MacEvey made his novitiate
in Granada, in the Andalusian Province. He studied in Salamanca and was ordained
a deacon there in 1837. "The Banner of Belfast" newspaper in its obituary of MacEvey
stated he was ordained a priest in Salamanca in 1837, other sources give the date
as 1838 and the place as Maynooth.
From 1838 until 1842, MacEvey appears in the Irish Catholic Directory among the Carmelite priests in Clarendon Street. In 1841 MacEvey had set out for Australia. He arrived in Sydney on 28 January 1842. He does not appear to have asked the Provincial's blessing for this move. Indeed, he does not appear to have formally joined the Irish Province. On Christmas Day 1843, Fr Francis Nicholson (later, the Archbishop of Corfu) wrote from Rome to Fr Redmond O'Hanlon, the Irish Provincial: "I told the General you appear to regret having lost McVeigh (sic). He has consequently authorised me to tell you that, if you wish you can get him back, and you may profess him for our Italian Congregation, and if he will not join our missions in the East you can keep him in Ireland."
In Australia
Upon his arrival in Australia, MacEvey worked as a priest in the Yass and Queanbeyan
Districts. Bonaventure Geoghegan O.F.M. the first priest in the Port Phillip District
and later first Bishop of Adelaide (1859-64) and Goulbourn (died 1864, before
taking up his appointment) retired from Port Phillip in April 1842 and had gone
to Sydney. In September the same year he returned to Port Phillip taking with
him Daniel MacEvey. At first this partnership worked well. MacEvey celebrated
the first High Mass in "Australia Felix" at which Geoghegan preached on St Patrick's
Day, 1843. However, by May, Geoghegan was complaining, in his usual fashion, about
his assistant. In November 1844 MacEvey accompanied Archbishop John Bede Polding
OSB of Sydney and Archdeacon John McEncroe on visitation to the Western Districts.
In its obituary the "Banner of Belfast" claimed MacEvey had celebrated the first
mass in Belfast (Port Fairy, as it now named) during this missionary journey.
They were certainly a varied party: Polding, the English Benedictine with his
neo-gothic dream of a missionary-abbey-diocese and McEncroe the Irish democrat
campaigning for an Irish clergy for an Irish people along with MacEvey.
By 1845 relations between Geoghegan and MacEvey were such that they only communicated by letter, while living in the same house. MacEvey withdrew to Geelong from where, on 14 February 1845, he wrote to Geoghegan: "I candidly confess that past circumstances make my residence outside of Melbourne a very great desideratum to me and I believe to be absolutely necessary to my peace of mind - to obtain and preserve that tranquillity which we should have to discharge piously our religious duty. I aim at nothing else nor do I wish anything more." MacEvey remained at Geelong until May when he went to Parramatta. It was out of the frying pan into the fire. He soon took offence at some "noxious calumny so ungenerously implied" in a letter from Polding. He sent a copy of the Archbishop's, now lost, accusation to Geoghegan inviting him to disclaim responsibility for Polding's attitude to him. Geoghegan hotly denied any part in the affair and laid the blame at MacEvey's feet. He accused him of "capricious curiosity or suspicion" and pointed out that since leaving Port Phillip he had refused two appointments and had to "face home under the merited displeasure of your Archbishop". Polding had asked MacEvey to leave the mission.
Return to Ireland
MacEvey received a charitable welcome from O'Hanlon who was still Provincial.
He wrote to Geoghegan from Parramatta on 27 September, 1845: "I have received
a most kind and pressing invitation from Mr O'Hanlon to return immediately to
St Teresa's: he offers to receive me with 'open arms' and to make me a conventual
on my arrival; it is one of a series of indescribable kindnesses. He urges that
it is well known in Dublin that the Benedictine Order will supersede all the other
missionaries that are in Australia as soon as they are able to effect it, and
concludes with these words, 'Return instanter, take time by the forelock whilst
you have a friend at the helm'."
A letter from Rome to O'Hanlon in June 1846 speaks of his imminent return.
MacEvey is listed once more in the Catholic Directory from 1847 to 1854. His return
home was complicated by their being two Discalced Carmelite Congregations. In
1848 MacEvey at last joined the Italian Congregation. But, he sought to have precedence
in the community from his profession in the Spanish Congregation. He lost the
appeal he made to the General Definitory. O'Hanlon wrote, on 9 January 1850, to
the General: "Fr Daniel, displeased at the decision, is now reviving the question
relative to other Fathers of the Irish Province who were professed in Belgium
eight years ago. It is ungrateful of Fr Daniel to be causing this trouble over
so small a matter, seeing that after spending five years on the secular mission
in Australia he was received back into the Irish Province with every kindness."
Sadly, this is the last reference to MacEvey in the archives of the Irish Carmelites.
Australia, Once more
MacEvey left Clarendon Street for the last time in 1854. On 4 October, he left Southampton on the SS Argo and arrived in Melbourne on 6 December 1854. In 1848, the Irish Augustinian James Alipius Goold had been appointed the first bishop of Melbourne. Goold appointed MacEvey to St Francis' Cathedral and regularised his canonical situation. To this end he requested from Rome a decree of secularisation "for the good of the diocese". In 1855 the Carmelite General was informed of the application. The effect of this was that MacEvey ceased to be a Carmelite and became a secular priest of the diocese of Melbourne.
MacEvey was at St Francis' from 1855 to 1859. His great work was the building of the "Ladye Chapel". Goold laid the foundation stone on 6 January 1856. The building was completed and blessed in May 1858. Polding celebrated a Pontifical Mass, Goold blessed the chapel and Geoghegan preached. The effect was meant to be one of splendour, as the Melbourne "Argus" commented: "The new chapel presents one of the most beautiful interiors of which our city can boast…. Indeed, the only fault which can be found with the chapel is that it is too rich to harmonise with the rest of the buildings". In 1858 the members of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel donated one of the stained glass windows in the Ladye Chapel. It is probable that this group was under the direction of MacEvey as it slips from the records about the time he left Melbourne.
MacEvey went from St Francis' to Geelong in late 1859 and remained there until January 1860 when he moved to Belfast (Port Fairy), where he died on 2 August 1860. "The Banner of Belfast", of 4 August 1860, states that MacEvey left Melbourne because his health had failed so that he was obliged to leave the scene of his labours. He had thought of revisiting Ireland but because of the scarcity of clergy he was induced to remain in Victoria. "It was hoped that the comparative quiet of the country would repair his shattered health; but from the time of his arrival here he gradually sank until death terminated his sufferings."
"The Banner of Belfast" paid handsome tribute to Daniel MacEvey acclaiming his "exquisite taste" as shown in the magnificence of the interior of the Ladye Chapel attached to the Cathedral. It concludes, "He was a man of capacious and highly cultivated intellect, and as an eloquent and impressive preacher, stood in the front rank. He died in the 46th year of his age, and the 23rd of his ministry". The obituary refers to MacEvey's attachment to Clarendon Street Chapel, whose significance it explains in this way: "within the walls of which now historically celebrated edifice the struggle for Catholic Emancipation originated".
His funeral was one of the biggest seen in the Western Districts. The hearse was followed by "the vehicles of the clergy, the several magistrates, merchants and other residents, and a cavalcade of 240 horsemen to the Tower Hill cemetery…the body was carried to the grave followed by the vast assemblage."
Fr Redmond O'Hanlon fulfilled one last act of kindness for Daniel MacEvey. In 1862 he was asked by the English Benedictine Heptonstall, the agent of the Australian Bishops in England, to forward 50 pounds sterling to his mother.
References: Discalced Carmelite Archives, Dublin and "Footprints" and the
Melbourne Archdiocesan Historical Commission.
50 YEARS OF THE DISCALCED CARMELITE FRIARS
IN AUSTRALIA (1948-1998)
Contents::
Introduction
1. Daniel MacEvey - the first Discalced Carmelite
in Australia
2. Other Discalced Carmelites in Australia before
1948
3. The First Foundation
4. Chronology of the Friars in Australia (1948-2002)
5. A Who's Who
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