In London in the 18th century there was a concerted effort by rich Catholics and the Catholic Church to alleviate the poverty and misery of their less fortunate countrymen. The Benevolent Society of St Patrick (1783) and the older Irish Charitable Society (1704) are manifestations of this, (There’s a Welcome on the Mat), another is St Patrick’s Church in Soho Square.
The area around Soho Square was known as The Rookeries and was just about as insalubrious as you can imagine. Hogarth’s Gin Lane conjures up the area and its populace in the middle of the 18th century. Discriminatory legislation against Catholics was partly to blame and it wasn’t until the second half of the 18th century that the Anglican Establishment felt confident enough to reverse this injustice.
The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 was the spur for an Irish Franciscan Friar, Father Arthur O’Leary, to lease Carlisle House in the square and in 1792 it became a Catholic chapel where Catholics could worship and receive help. Father O’Leary enlisted the assistance of a large group of prosperous London Irish Catholics to realise this.
It was a hundred years later that the present St Patrick’s was built on the site, designed by John Kelly of Leeds practice Kelly and Birchall. Appropriately, the first Service was on St Patrick’s Day 1893. Essentially Italianate, it has Doric pilasters outside, Corinthian inside and after a £3.5 million restoration six years ago looks smashing. The contrast between the brick exterior and the light-drenched, marble-floored interior is worth looking at. The portico has the Papal Arms and a statue of St Patrick above
This central London church has a connection with St Peter’s in Drogheda and the Tyburn Martyrs, (A Fisherman’s Tale). The link is St Oliver Plunkett, whose head has been revered at St Peter’s since 1921; rather grisly. I used to gaze at it with fascination as a child. It resembles a large walnut. Another relic of St Oliver is at St Patrick’s, body part unspecified.
Archbishop Plunkett was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1681. Every year there is a procession from Newgate prison to Tyburn which stops at St Patrick’s. So that’s the triple link.
Cross-over readers from Hello magazine will be interested to know that Danny la Rue was an altar server and Tommy Steele was married here.
According to the newspaper the World of 5th March 1792 one George Bryan ( jnr) was a Vice President of the Benevolent Society of St Patrick at a meeting in the London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street. This might have been our man – in August that year he is said to have been in Paris.