Westmeath’s own Bethlehem on Lough Ree's shore

David Flynn

Along the shores of Lough Ree, near the spot where the three counties of Westmeath, Longford and Roscommon meet, lies the little townland of Bethlehem, which in many ways lies untouched by the ages and close to nature.

The townland of Bethlehem is less than 10 miles from Athlone and is located at the end of a series of crossroads, close to the townlands of Tubberclair and Ballynacliffy, both close to the Westmeath Longford border.

The River Shannon is the guardian of Bethlehem, keeping its identity of peace and serenity together.

There are little remains of the 17th century Poor Clares convent that once existed there. The little territory of the Bethlehem convent is on private land, owned for many years by the Strevens family.

Tagged cattle graze peacefully beside the water, similar to the oxen that grazed outside the crib in another Bethlehem, an aeon ago.

For almost 400 years, many historians and religious people have written about Ireland’s Bethlehem.

Cecily Dillon, the mother abbess of a convent in Merchant’s Quay, Dublin, originally founded the Bethlehem convent. Cecily’s family owned much of the Tubberclair area, near Bethlehem.

In 1630 the sisters were ordered out of Dublin by the English authorities at a time when their community numbered 19, including Cecily and her sister Eleanor. Included in the group were six of the Dillon women’s nieces.

These women decided to build a convent on the shores of Lough Ree on land belonging to the Dillon girls’ father, Sir Theobold. They had been an enclosed order in Dublin and the peacefulness and silence of the land beside the lake must have been a heavenly haven for them.

It was 1631 before the nuns moved in to their convent, naming it Bethlehem. The very name ‘Bethlehem’ evokes visions of Christ’s birth and a new beginning and this idea of a new birth or re-birth of their convent may have been significant to the nuns in their naming of the convent.

Sometime later their number increased in size to almost 60 nuns and they lived a tough life, which consisted of eating unpleasant food, working hard and constant prayer.

Historian Gearoid O’Brien wrote in the Westmeath Independent in 2011 that a Galway-born member of the Poor Clares, Sr Mary Bonaventure Browne, wrote of the early conditions at Bethlehem.

“It was situated in such a low and shadowed bog as the physicians wondered how such tender creatures (very delicately bred) could live therein; for in wet and rainy weather the water not only fell over them through the roof of the house but also in several places came up under the ground; besides that, all their houses were so low that their cells and all other rooms (except only the quire) were on the ground.”

Mother Cecily was elected as abbess no fewer than five times during their period at Bethlehem.

Despite it being in a remote lakeside area, the Bethlehem convent was visited by many dignitaries of the time, including Brother Mícheál O Cléirigh, chief compiler of the Annals of the Four Masters, and two Royal ladies of the time, the Duchess of Buckingham and Lady Wentworth, wife of the Lord Deputy of Ireland.

The nuns obeyed a vow of silence, said midnight prayers, and never ate meat or wore socks or shoes, instead relying on the wearing of a wooden sole on each foot.

The decision to build a Poor Clare convent at Nuns Island in Galway was taken at Bethlehem in 1641. It was accomplished in the following year and is there to this day.

By that time, the nuns were 10 years at Bethlehem, County Westmeath, but their time there was coming to an end.

The English forces in Athlone were under siege by the Confederates under the control of Cecily’s relation, Sir James Dillon.

The English suffered for lack of food and supplies, so went searching the countryside. Sir James feared the worst for the Bethlehem convent but the nuns held out until the soldiers were close by before fleeing. This was the second time in a decade the Poor Clares were forced out by the English.

They took little with them when they left the convent, and left all personal belongings behind as they crossed the lake.

It is said that they reached Nuns Island on Lough Ree, where they stayed on the night before Christmas Eve. They spent Christmas with friends of the Dillons.

When the English eventually arrived at Bethlehem, they desecrated the convent and then burned it.

The story goes that the drunken soldiers (who had been drinking their fill while they resided at the captured Ballynacliffey Castle, which is just three kilometres from Bethlehem) were attacked and delivered to their death by the owner of the castle, Oliver Boy Fitzgerald, and his men.

It was also said that two items survived the Bethlehem convent fire – the convent’s tabernacle and a wooden statue of Our Lady of Bethlehem.

The English evacuated Athlone in 1643, therefore prompting the nuns (who had lived with friends and relations in the countryside following the destruction of their convent) to begin again with a new convent in Athlone town under their former Mother Abbess, Cecily Dillon.

Unfortunately some years later it too suffered, under the hands of Cromwellian forces.

In summer, boats with tourists travel through Lough Ree, with many not knowing that they are sailing close to the area named for the town of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Muckanagh, Tubberclair, Glasson, Portlick and of course The Three Jolly Pigeons are landmarks close by. But the name of Bethlehem is not as widely known.

Rocks stretch out from the shore to meet the Shannon waters. Nature has the comfort to exist and grow in this little, largely-untouched townland.

This article is reproduced from our special festive publication, Christmas Cheer, in shops now.