Cross, also named Cross (Kilballyowen) is a parish in
County Clare
County Clare () is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster in the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern part of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council ...
, Ireland, and part of the Cois Fharraige grouping of parishes within the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Killaloe
The Diocese of Killaloe ( ; ) is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in mid-western Ireland, one of six suffragan dioceses in the ecclesiastical province of Cashel and Emly.
The cathedral church of the diocese is the Cathedral of Ss Peter a ...
.
Current (2022) co-parish priest is Michael Casey.
The history of the parish is a complicated one. In the time of father
Michael Meehan (1810-1878)
Loop Head formed just one parish under the name of "Moyarta and Kilballyowen". Before 1817 it was known as Kilballyowen. In 1878 it was split into the parishes of
Carrigaholt (eastern part of the peninsula) and Cross (western part of the peninsula). That recreated the medieval parishes in that area.
Churches
The main church of the parish is the Our Lady Of Lourdes Church in
Cross
A cross is a religious symbol consisting of two Intersection (set theory), intersecting Line (geometry), lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of t ...
. This church was built in 1958 as a replacement for an older church built in 1806.
The second church of the parish is the Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Mooneen,
Kilbaha. This church was built in 1857. It replaced the much fabled
Little Ark of Kilbaha, ran by
Michael Meehan (1810-1878).
The Little Ark of Kilbaha (1852-1857)
The Little Ark was effectively a mobile church, devised to circumvent the absolute refusal by the landlord Nicolas Westby and his agent Marcus Keane to allow a church near Kilbaha. In fact, Keane tried to sabotage any Catholic worship. A makeshift church in two cabins was quickly demolished by him. After the demolition, Fr. Meehan said mass under sheet covered tilted shafts of farmer carts but that was no success. Then he came with the idea of the mobile church, similar to the bathing boxes in use at
Kilkee at that time. At first the Ark was parked alongside a public road that was outside Keane's control. But the harassment-campaign went on and Fr. Meehan was prosecuted for creating a nuisance on the public road. Meehan won this case. Then he moved the cart to the foreshore, off the public road. Below the high watermark, the beach was free land. Keane did not stop and he went after the tenants who stored The Little Ark by evicting them and demolish their houses.
In the end Marcus Keane gave in as a trade off to securing the catholic vote to
Lord Francis Conyngham in parliamentary election in 1857. At 12 July 1857 the foundation of the new church, in the townland Moveen near Kilbaha, was blessed by bishop
Daniel Vaughan. The Little Ark is now on display in a side room of the Our Lady Star of the Sea Church.
References
{{Catholic parishes of County Clare
Parishes of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Killaloe