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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.

      ***

      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.

      ***

      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.

      ***

      Recovery for Edward was slow, and he had time to read and to reflect. He travelled to recuperate in the Scottish Highlands and into his hands came the recently published Historical Sketches of the Native Irish by the Scottish Baptist Minister, Christopher Anderson. Over two decades, Anderson had made a detailed survey of the state of the Irish language, with a particular interest in Ireland’s coastal islands, and Historical Sketches was the fruit of this work. Reading the book induced a conversion-style experience in the classic evangelical mode for Edward, and directed his interest towards the evangelisation of the Irish-speaking people in the west.

      Christopher Anderson could not speak Irish but had developed an enthusiastic appreciation for the native Irish culture and language, and came to the view that enlightenment should be brought to the Irish people through the medium of their own native tongue. The use of the Irish language, he believed, would ‘operate like the insertion of a leaven’ to lead the destitute people of the west of Ireland towards the truth and towards a better life.13 Christopher Anderson’s book had a profound life-changing effect on the frail, recuperating Edward. It was like the final piece of a jigsaw that was building piece by piece in his imagination, providing the lifelong spark for his future life’s work. He would credit his reading of Historical Sketches with the origins of the Achill Mission.

      A quarter of a century afterwards, when William Krause and Christopher Anderson died within weeks of one another, Edward reflected on the profound influence of two very dissimilar men on his life: Krause, ‘cold and reserved’, Anderson ‘affectionate, bland and open-hearted’.14 The pair provided him with the intellectual foundations for his daunting Achill project.

      A vision was taking shape in Edward Nangle’s imagination, a vision that took seed among the drumlin hills of County Cavan and was motivated by a premillennial urgency and a belief in the biblical prophecy that the Lord’s coming was imminent. He would build nothing less than an exemplary Christian colony in the most deprived and remote location on Ireland’s west coast. It would be an oasis of civilisation in the midst of superstition and squalor. He could see it in his mind’s eye: neat, orderly houses with vegetable gardens and whitewashed walls; a community conducting itself with piety, sobriety and industry; scriptural schools buzzing with the laughter of children; the people learning the Bible, the source of all truth, in their native tongue; and a people transformed beyond all recognition.

      It was a daring and ambitious concept. Could Edward Nangle’s ambition possibly be realised and, if so, where?

CHAPTER TWO

      The Most Destitute Spot

      in Ireland

      ‘The

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