Times past: A rector and a giant telescope!

Robert Leech, rector of Drumlane, Belturbet was an expert on the German flute, his and local history. The Derry man’s arrival in Cavan, saw his opinion of local archaeology often appear in the newspapers. Leech, was Church of Ireland rector of Drumlane between 1874 to 1907, remaining there in retirement, he died in May 1909.

In April 1878, his irritation was directed at the archaeological sites listed under the Preservation of Irish Monuments Act, which listed Drumlane Abbey only for Co Cavan. Leech’s letter to the Cavan Weekly News editor, asked, how can it be, apart from Drumlane, not a single abbey, or church, ‘or cromlech of any kind whatever, has been thought worthy of the least attention.’ It’ s not too late, said Leech, to alter the neglectful matter. Cavan, was not perhaps as rich in monuments as some counties, but had its fair share, for only, he wrote, ‘a cold-hearted Irishman’ could look without emotion on the remnant foundations of God’s ancient houses. The men who built these abbeys, said Leech, had made our native land illustrious.

Drumlane Abbey was founded by St Aiden, otherwise called Madoc (Madog), a royal prince of Leinster, whose capital was Ferns, Co. Wexford. The visitor will be disappointed to find Ferns is little more than a country village, said Leech, a castle the remains of which still stood in parts of a ‘tolerable state of preservation.’ Upon enquiry, a certain castle chamber was put in use by a local Orange Lodge.

During Elizabethan times, Ferns castle was home to Lady Catherine Masterson, wife to the governor of Wexford. Before England invaded, the ‘cruel conquest’, as Leech put it, Ferns stretched from the banks of the Slaney right back to where the village some three miles distance lies.

St Aiden was persuading the people to abandon druidism as he journeyed to Co Cavan, lands having been granted by the local chieftains to him. Centuries later, in the grounds of the Abbey, still stood a piece of wall, ’by far the most ancient masonry’ in that part of the country. The old Church and Round Tower, by Act of Parliament now preserved, was in Leech’s view modern when compared to the Abbey’s remains. ‘The Round Tower is one of the most remarkable in Ireland, not so perfect as some, but interesting from its architecture’, enthused the Reverend, adding, ‘the lower half is composed of sandstone, which could nowhere have been found in this locality, and must have been brought from a considerable distance.’ The meaning of two birds carved on the tower caused ‘considerable speculation’ to Leech.

The round tower, supposed Leech, was built as a sepulchre for the bones of Irish chieftains’, their removal later to Belfast, probably to be ground to dust.

Trinity Abbey

The old Holy Trinity Abbey, on Trinity Island, Lough Oughter, was founded by Claras Mac Mailin circa 1249, its windows and doors ‘beautifully formed of stone’, carefully carved with artistic skill, its Romanesque doorway now incorporated into St. Feidhlimidh’s Cathedral. Some of the stones from the original door, went missing, Leech believing he had located one, a memento in the home of a family in Monery, Crossdoney. Another decorative stone, he discovered in the house of Mrs Bennett, Crossdoney, telling the Cavan Weekly News in 1878, ‘how long it had lain there I know not, probably it is there still.’

Rev Leech asked for local help to record monuments: ‘I think there is still time to get the best and most remarkable of them (monuments) preserved under the recent Act. Perhaps those who live near them may take a friendly hint and bestir themselves.’

Peate's giant telescope

John Peate a Methodist preacher, fascinated by the heavens, was born in Drumskelt, Co. Monaghan on 6 May 1820. Developing a 62 inch reflective giant telescope glass for the American University Observatory in 1898, his research appeared in the Smithsonian publication, Holcomb, Fitz, and Peate: Three 19th Century American Telescope Makers, by Robert P. Multhauf.

John, was Thomas and Mary Peate’s first-born, emigrating seven years later to Quebec, Canada, his father worked as a master bricklayer. Having lived in several Canadian cities, the family made a final move in 1836 to Buffalo, California. John Peate having apprenticed with his father, was a bricklayer for sixteen years.

In 1851, John converted to his mother religion, becoming a Methodist minister. In his probationary term serving nineteen different appointments in fourteen cities and towns ‘in northwestern Pennsylvania, northeastern Ohio, and southwestern New York.’ At a revival in Jamestown, New York, Peate converted 500 souls. Peate toured Europe in 1859, visiting Ireland and England; including the Middle East where an interest in astronomy developed.

Back in America, Peate studied astronomy, his library became filled with such matter. In 1870, he made his first three-inch refractor, followed by ‘a six inch refractor or reflector’ mounted at Chautauqua and Jamestown, New York, and afterwards ‘in his own observatory at Greenville.’ From then, making reflectors only, as was noted by F, W. Preston and William J. McGrath jnr. in 1936.

In 1893, the seventy-three-year-old announced he would build a telescope the width of a poster on the wall of the Eerie Methodist Conference, measuring sixty-two inches. Contracting the Standard Plate Glass Company of Butler, Pennsylvania at a cost of $1,600, with other parts made by Hodge Manufacturing, the ‘polishing and figuring’ of the mirror took 750 hours before being silvered.

Completed in 1897, Peate tested it ‘on the heavens in the starless region under Corvus (constellation of Corvus).’ The telescope piece was deposited in the American University, but never mounted. Following Dr. Peate’s death in 1903, it was forgotten, until moved to the Smithsonian Institute in the 1930s. For many years, Peate’s giant telescope was the largest in America.