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St. Mary's parish, Athlone, in the county of Westmeath, occupies the North Eastern corner of the Diocese of Clonmacnois and touches on one side the Diocese of Meath, and on the other the Diocese of Elphin.
The parish is co-extensive with the barony of Brawney, the district in Westmeath ruled over by the ancient family of the O'Briens, descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages. For a long time the name was preserved only in the townland of Carrick O'Brien, but more recently a new estate has been built in the parish with the name Brawney.
The parish itself only came into existence in its present form in the mid-1400s, with the division of the previous parish of Ballyloughloe into the parishes of Athlone, Kilcleagh and Ballyloghloe. (Ballyloughloe and Kilcleagh today make up the Parish of Moate and Mount Temple).
St. Mary's parish takes up an area of some 10,070 acres on the east bank of the Shannon, and the 1986 diocesan census recorded a population of 13,273 Catholics, and some 357 non-Catholics. (The population of the parish in 1950 was 5,896, which had risen in 1955 to 6,297). Given that the population of Westmeath increased by 10% between 2002 and 2006, and observing the amount of building in the area, it is probable that the present population of the parish is considerably larger. It is hard to extrapolate anything close to exact figures, however, and it is important to remember that the population of Athlone town is split between this parish and that of St. Peter and Paul, on the western side of the Shannon.
St. Mary's Church
Tradition has it that there has been a church dedicated to Our Lady in the parish as far back as the beginning of the 12th century. The Franciscans arrived in 1235 and did have a church called St. Mary's, possibly on the site what is now the Radisson Hotel. Later on, in pre-Reformation times, the parish church was on the site of the present St. Mary's Church of Ireland. In 1603, the Catholics briefly repossessed their church here, but then a new church was built, of which the tower still remains. In 1651 the Puritans (Cromwell's forces) occupied the town and Catholics were expelled, though gradually allowed to return as labour. The priests were outlawed, with a price of £5 on their head.
After the Reformation, the next site we know of was in Irishtown (at the present day western end St Patrick's Terrace), which served as the parish church until 1795. In that year, a new church was built in Mardyke Street, on the site of what was the Royal Hoey carpark, and is now part of the new Gallico development., and served until the present St. Mary's was completed in 1861.
The foundation stone of St. Mary's was laid by Bishop Kilduff, a native of the parish, on 29th June 1857., in the presence of several thousand people. The architect was John Bourke (who had worked on the design of St. Mel's Cathedral), though the commonly
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