management system: a special moral agent took charge of the moral and religious development of the tenants to the exclusion of any commercial duties. The role was central to the new order of converting the native Catholic population to the reformed religion.
Cavan town everywhere bears the stamp of the Farnham family, including the wide elegant Farnham Street built by the 5th Baron’s predecessors to cater for the burgeoning coach trade of the early nineteenth century. Here is the Farnham Centre and the Johnston County Library with a statue of a grim-looking 7th Baron Farnham at the entrance. Inside the library are the faded pages of Lord Farnham’s courthouse speech with its powerful message: convert the people to the reformed faith and prosperity and civilised living will follow. It was an address that brimmed with confidence and assurance.
Up until very recently, he told his audience, he was of the opinion that the superstitious attachment of the people to their priests was so strong, and the sway of the clergy over the minds of their flocks so absolute, that the idea of them adopting the reformed faith seemed far-fetched. But all that had changed in recent months, ever since 8 October when seventeen people had arrived at his home and read their recantations, rejecting Catholicism in favour of the reformed faith. Since then, the recantations had continued unabated on each successive Sunday and he was now convinced that the demeaning grip of Catholicism on the people could finally be broken forever.
It was no surprise, he said, that a fierce backlash against their work was underway. Had not four Catholic prelates – including the firebrand John MacHale from the County Mayo diocese of Killala – arrived in the town just a couple of weeks earlier, and made totally unfounded allegations that money, jobs and other briberies were used to bring about the Cavan conversions. They had even falsely claimed that ignorant and starving people had been carried in carts to Farnham House to revoke their faith.
‘There is,’ said Lord Farnham, ‘no thinking man who does not perceive in the preponderance of the Roman Catholic religion in this country, the fruitful source of most of the calamities and agitations with which it is afflicted.’7 Together, they must emancipate the Irish people from these chains and rescue them from their degrading bondage. It was their duty to advance the Reformation in Ireland.
The meeting overwhelmingly agreed to establish ‘The Cavan Association for Promoting the Reformation’ and nominated Lord Farnham as president. It was, for him, an unforgettable day and he returned, satisfied, to the comforts of his fine home where he and Lady Lucy planned to dine as usual with their new moral agent, appointed to his post a mere nine months earlier. The young man and his daughter had become as family to the childless Farnham couple.
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On 19 February, three weeks after the Cavan courthouse meeting, William Krause sat at his desk in his cottage home on the Farnham estate, overlooking a delightful parkland vista, as he wrote a letter to his sister. It was two and a half years since his wife’s death and the cottage was a tranquil refuge for him and his small daughter who, he wrote, was delighting him with her infant prattle.8
A reserved young man, described by some as aloof and cold, he was born in the West Indies and served as an officer of the British army at Waterloo. Well-educated and fashionable in his early years, a personal illness and his wife’s death brought about a change in character and a conversion experience now reflected in an exaggerated religious tone. Lord Farnham had selected him personally for the linchpin position of moral agent and he relished the work. It had been a hectic few months, leaving the cottage early in the morning and seldom returning until nine or ten at night; at times he was absent for two to three days at a time, calling to schools throughout the estate and visiting as many tenants as possible to improve their habits and moral living.
He was buoyed up by his new responsibilities, somewhat awed by what he perceived as the importance of what was happening on the estate: ‘Farnham’s system is altogether new in this country and the eyes of all Ireland are upon him.’ By improving the lot of his tenants, he was certain that his employer was inducing Catholics to free themselves from the bondage of their priests; if only other gentry across Ireland would likewise exert themselves, he believed that the Irish people would desert Catholicism and flock in their thousands to the reformed church. He knew beyond doubt that, in Cavan, he was at the centre of seismic and historic events: ‘In Ireland there is a shaking of the dry bones, and a stir throughout the country, such as never was known in the land.’9
Not far from William Krause’s peaceful cottage, another young man was feverishly absorbing the intense evangelical fervour in the Cavan district. He was witnessing first hand an exceptional moment in Irish history, the fervour of which permeated his being to bring about a psychological and spiritual tipping point. An accidental conversation with William Krause affected Edward Nangle profoundly.
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A dozen miles to the south-west of Cavan is the townland of Arva, on the shores of Garty Lough beneath Bruse Mountain, at the meeting point of three of Ireland’s four provinces: Connaught, Leinster and Ulster. The road winds and bends among the curving drumlin hills through a landscape of lake, woodland and hillock – a place where a person might find tranquillity and peace. A small, plain church sits on an elevation that slopes down to the lake at its rear, while a tower and porch added some years after the church’s construction relieve the building’s starkness.10
This inconspicuous place of worship was the focal point of the parish where the Trinity-educated curate, Edward Nangle, had already served for two years prior to Lord Farnham’s famous Cavan address. He was absorbing the fever of evangelical excitement in the area and the exciting model of Lord Farnham’s estate with its moral agency. A tall, thin, pale young man, Edward spoke in gentle tones, came across as serious and intense, and seldom appeared to smile or laugh. Yet, he could also display a surprising passion, according to a contemporary: ‘when animated, the most extraordinary fire lights up his eyes’.
His father, Walter, was of a staunchly Catholic family from Kildalkey, near Athboy, County Meath. Walter Nangle’s first and third wives were Catholic, his second – Edward’s mother – was Protestant and died when her son was just nine years old, a loss which appears to have left him with an emotional vulnerability that manifested itself in bouts of depression and mania.11
Overworked in his busy Arva ministry, Edward neglected his physical wellbeing. Frequently his breakfast consisted only of a crust of oaten bread and a glass of water; and after a hard day’s work, when mind and body had been taxed to their utmost strength, ‘the remnant of the oaten cake and another draught of water served for a dinner in his lonely lodging’.12 The elation of the Cavan evangelical explosion and his own psychological fragilities and poor physical wellbeing combined to bring about his personal collapse. A delicate, sensitive and overwrought personality had become strained to breaking point. He had to resign his Arva ministry, losing his only means of a livelihood and returning to his home place in Athboy.
Dr James Adams, a retired army surgeon in Athboy and a Nangle family friend, was worried about his guest who lay prostrate on his drawing room sofa, unable to speak, using sign language like one deaf and dumb. The young clergyman’s condition was precarious, one lung was gone and the other was at risk, and the doctor held out little hope for the young man’s recovery. But Edward Nangle was lucky as, throughout his life, he had the capacity to attract the goodwill of benefactors and patrons. People now entered his life who would provide a bedrock of assistance through this early illness and through his remarkable endeavours in future years.
James Adams’ brother, Dr Neason Adams, ran a successful medical practice at St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, and he and his wife, Isabella, took Edward under their care in their Dublin home. For the remainder of their lives, the childless Adams couple would go to exceptional lengths to support their volatile protégé and his family.
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Recovery for Edward
