Hibernian FC & Canon Hannan
A special place in the history of St Patrick’s is reserved for Canon Edward Joseph Hannan, born in Ballingarry, Co Limerick, in Ireland’s south west, on 21st June 1836. He spent his early years in local primary education before joining St Munchin’s junior seminary in Limerick city. After two years, in 1855, he joined the missionary college of All Hallows in Drumcondra, Dublin, the training ground for priests who would be sent all over the globe to attend to the spiritual, and sometimes physical needs of the Irish diaspora, created by mass emigration following the Famine in Ireland in the 1840s. He was ordained in 1860.
As a 25 year old newly ordained priest, following a few weeks at what is now St Mary’s Cathedral, he arrived at St Patrick’s in 1861 to begin a 30 year commitment to the mission (parishes had not been re-instated by this time). And to the city of Edinburgh.
In Edinburgh, most of Canon Hannan’s parishioners lived in the slums surrounding the Cowgate, multiple families sharing rooms with little sanitation or light, prime conditions for disease to proliferate, and the temptations of drink on every corner and down each dark close. Many could not speak English. Those living in these conditions were unemployable.
Hannan saw the need to enable his parishioners to integrate with their new surroundings and become valued by their Protestant hosts as contributors to the well being of the city. The vehicles he chose were education, temperance and a devotion to family values. By 1865 he had opened a branch of the Catholic Young Men’s Society ( CYMS ) and persuaded Lord Provost William Chambers to lay the foundation stone of new premises at 16-28 St Mary’s Street in 1869. It became known as the Catholic Institute and the building – now a training and conference centre – is still owned by the Archdiocese. The building comprised a library, games room, reading and smoking rooms and a court for ball games lay behind it. On the first floor was a hall capable of holding over 900 people, which became known as St Mary’s Street Hall.
It was there that on 6th August 1875, Father Hannan and his young parishioner Michael Whelahan announced the formation of Hibernian Football Club, which celebrates its 150th birthday this year. More information here.
Father Hannan by that time had been 6 years as priest in charge of the mission. He made an impact on civic life by joining the Parochial and Schools boards and several other bodies associated with helping the poor of all creeds; he ensured gate money from Hibernian’s matches was donated to charities throughout Scotland; in addition to the Catholic Institute, he commissioned the building of the presbytery where our priests still live today, and what was St Ann’s school on the corner of South Gray’s Close and the Cowgate, subsequently St Ann’s community centre.
But the strains took their toll and at the age of only 55, he passed away on 24th June 1891. He had contracted influenza in the spring and refused to convalesce sufficiently. He was struck down by pneumonia and on medical advice retreated to the home of fellow priests Canon Smith and Father Mullen in Dunfermline but he never recovered. The last rites were read by his friend, the Jesuit Father Whyte of Sacred Heart in Lauriston. His funeral took place 2 days later, attended by a Who’s Who of the Scottish Catholic church, and the great and the good of the Edinburgh establishment, a tribute to the success of his efforts to build bridges between the Catholic and Protestant communities in the city and beyond. Some 2000 mourners followed the cortege from the church to his burial plot in the Grange cemetery, with thousands reported in the press as lining the route.
Following his death, a 14 foot high memorial was erected in the cemetery, and each year there is a service to mark his passing on the closest suitable date to 24th June. His birthday is also commemorated each year by Holy Mass at St Patrick’s a few days beforehand.
Edinburgh’s First Hibernian: The Mission of Edward Joseph Hannan
On Wednesday 6th August, the 150th anniversary of the founding of Hibernian Football Club, Mike Hennessy’s book, ‘Edinburgh’s First Hibernian’ will be published by Thirsty Books. Books will be available to buy at the Church and the author has graciously agreed that we will receive the profits of these sales as a donation to the Church. We will also be distributing books to those who have pre-ordered on the publisher’s website.
Edinburgh’s First Hibernian is the first biography of Edward Hannan, a Catholic priest who rose from poverty in rural Ireland to become one of the most influential figures in 19th-century Edinburgh. Hannan worked tirelessly in the medieval Old Town to provide Catholic boys with an education and a sense of fulfilment that could save them from falling into a life of crime.
It is a tale of charity and commitment in a city still dominated by its Protestant elite, a tale that culminates in the foundation of Hibernian Football Club by members of the city’s Irish community in 1875 – surely Hannan’s most permanent legacy to his fellow citizens.
Mike Hennessy should be thanked for rescuing Hannan from obscurity, but for much more, too. He writes with the passion of a lifelong Hibs fan and with a keen feel for the texture of the city streets he knew as a boy, and his book makes a significant contribution to Edinburgh’s social, religious and sporting history.
– Alan Forrest, Emeritus Professor of History, University of York
Mike Hennessy is a native of Edinburgh, born in 1952, missing by a month the moment Hibernian last won the Scottish League. After graduating in History from Stirling University, Mike left Scotland in the hope of fame and fortune, neither of which materialised, living and working in London, Paris and Barcelona before settling in his current abode in East Cheshire. In retirement, he has kept himself fully occupied with various good causes such as the Princes Trust, and most recently writing this, his first book, about the man whose former residence he passed every week in his youth without realising it. Author proceeds from the book will be donated to the Hibernian Historical Trust.