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A Shared History
Presented over three pages:
[ Before St Margaret's ] - [ The 20th Century ] - [ The Building ]
The 20th Century
By the early 20th century, there were just four
families openly professing the Catholic faith in Lochgilphead - three
Italian and one of Irish origin.
There was no church, and Peter Ciarella, a schoolboy
in the 1920s, recalls Mass being celebrated in the building which today
is the opticians in Union Street.
"The Church had bought the house," Peter says, "and
we used a room there. The children used to go there for catechism every
day before school and Fr Collins, who stayed in the Royal Hotel -
what's now the Grey Gull - in Ardrishaig, used to come to Lochgilphead
in a pony and trap."
At school, other children started the day with their own religious instruction and Peter says: "We went into school after that."
In 1927, the nearest church was Oban - and the road
was even more difficult then than it is today. But as Peter says, only
the Ciarellas, the Capoccis, the Cascis, the O'Neills and a couple of
other families were practising Catholics.
He says: "In Tarbert there were McGlynns from
Donegal, but because of the conditions at that time, nobody dared to
say they were Catholic or they would have been thrown in the harbour."
Then the Marquis of Bute donated money to buy ground
in Lochgilphead for a Catholic church. The Marquis, grandfather of the
present Marquis, had built other churches and this latest one was
consecrated in September 1929.
Peter Ciarella says: "The young Marquis - the present
Marquis's father - used to come to Mass at Lochgilphead when he went
sailing through the Crinan Canal."
The first priest was a Monsignor Comon who bought a
house opposite the church. When the houses were built in Lorne Street,
he moved into No 1.
For a while after the Monsignor died, there was no
priest in Lochgilphead, but Canon Butler came across from Bute on the
midday boat many Saturdays to say Mass and went back to Rothesay on the
Monday. After his death, the 'singing priest' Sydney McEwan swept into
Lochgilphead and spent 17 years in the parish.
Canon Sydney McEwan with Eamonn Andrews, on "This is Your Life", televised on the BBC
Nationwide Network on Tuesday 16th October 1962. Standing far left is Peter Ciarella.
His was a unique ministry. Already famous as a
recording star, Peter believes he was sent to Argyll to raise funds to
finish Oban Cathedral, which was then at a standstill because of cash
flow problems. Certainly, he spent a lot of time on tour in Australia
and America, and because he wouldn't fly, these journeys were made by
boat and often took as long as six weeks to reach his destination.
Fr Sydney made changes in the 1950s, building the
parish house next to St Margaret's, which had been named for the
Marquis of Bute's wife.
Next: The Building
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A Shared History
