Chapter 2 the Man & the Myth of Fr. Patrick Cuddihy

originally printed in the weekend bulletin of September 1, 2019

Records indicate that the day of the funeral of the beloved Fr. Farrelly, Bishop Fitzpatrick appointed his successor to lead Saint Mary’s Parish in Milford.  Father Patrick Cuddihy claims to have been born on Saint Patrick’s Day in 1809 in Clonmel, County Tipperary in Ireland, the youngest son of James and Mary (Mulcahy) Cuddihy; however, census registers have no record of that birth.  There is a Patrick Cuddihy born on April 6, 1809 in Cashel to James and Mary Cuddihy in the record of baptisms at the parish church there.  He received his seminary formation at the College of Saint Isadore, an Irish seminary in Rome and was ordained by Cardinal Zurla (the delegate of Pope Gregory XVI) in the Lateran basilica in rome on December 17, 1831.  He left Rome to return to his homeland on April 25, 1832, where he worked in parishes in and around Waterford for the next twenty years.  Fr. Cuddihy was a Franciscan priest, it is said he was tall and erect and of commanding appearance.  He was a personal friend of the great Irish orator Daniel O’Connell, taking part in the movement initiated by O’Connell for the Irish people and assisted at his funeral.  Perhaps it was the death of this great statesman and the realization that little change and few freedoms would arrive in Ireland in his lifetime that he began to consider pastoral work across the Atlantic Ocean.

His own memoirs detail that he left his native Ireland on September 24, 1852, on the great ship, Asia of the Cunard line, and arrived in New York City the following October 6^th.  He stayed a night at the Astor House before making his journey to Boston to meet with Bishop Fitzpatrick who he was introduced to by his friend Fr. Daniel Hearne, who preceded him from Ireland and was serving in Taunton.  Bishop Fitzpatrick sent him to the western edge of the diocese, to Pittsfield and while there he built churches in Great Barrington, North Lee and North Adams.  By his own admission, “After working earnestly for near five years in Pittsfield and all Berkshire, I came here (Milford) at my own request, having got tired of the over large territory of Berkshire.”  So, we can understand that he requested to be assigned to Milford, when the position became available in 1857. 

While he may have arrived in Milford tired of the demands of ministry in the Berkshires, he regained his energy and strength for the Catholics of Saint Mary’s Parish.  For forty-one years he ministered among them, not without controversy and conflict, but also with great achievement.  Many of the monuments that are icons and patrimony of the parish today were the genius of Fr. Patrick Cuddihy and stand as testimony to his zeal and love of the people here more than a century later.  The magnificent church on Winter Street, its accompanying bell tower and both of the bells that ring from its height are the fruits of the effort of Fr. Cuddihy.  Until recent times, Catholic education has been an important part of the life of the parish, an effort which began by the initiative of Fr. Cuddihy, constructing two schools and a convent to support that ministry.  And of course, his recognition of the need to expand the parish cemetery and to make a focal point of this newer area an Irish Round Tower, the only one known to exist outside of Ireland, were also due to his efforts.

Fr. Cuddihy had a commanding presence in Milford.  He built a church, not only of granite from his own quarry in the fields of Milford, but in the zeal and determination of his flock.  He challenged them, sometimes at his own peril and drew national resistance for some of his pastoral decisions, as we will see, but he touched and inspired his people who held his memory dear for generations as they passed his resting place in the tower he built. His arrival at Saint Mary’s Church changed the life of every Catholic here for generations, and the town as a whole.  He was indeed the substance of which legends in our midst are made.

This is a rare photo of Fr. Cuddihy at a younger age.  Though unidentified, Robin Philbin recommends that it is of Fr. Cuddihy given the profile of his nose and the signature sideburns that are evident in later photos of him at an older age.