When Father John O’Brien was assigned the pastorate of Saint
Patrick Parish he knew the assignment would not be an easy one. The previous pastor had lasted about a year
and asked to be removed. It was 1848 and
the famine Irish were filling the tenements and hovels of Lowell’s Acre
neighborhood. Just a few doors down from
St. Pat’s could be found St. Mary’s church.
Was there really a need for two churches within yards from each other, or
were other things going on within the tight knit, but often divided,
community? What he found when he arrived
in Lowell was not good. Those who
remained at St Pat’s were very much the poorest of the poor. The neighborhood was riddled with tenements
and shanties. The odors of open garbage
and sewers pervaded the mishmash of what was supposed to be streets and alleys. Most dwellings were overcrowded with more new
people arriving daily. On top of all
this the church was in poor condition.
Though less than 20 years old there were problems with the building and
with a growing population, Father John, as he was lovingly known to his congregation,
knew he needed to do something grand to unite his people and give them a vision
of what could be done.
He came up with a plan, actually several plans. He would eventually build a school for the
neighborhood children. Education would
lead the Irish into the mainstream. He
also would want something done about health care; a place where the sick could
go to be cared for. But his piece de
resistance would be a new church. Not
another small wooden one, but one that would announce to Lowell and the growing
anti-Irish bigots that they were here to stay.
He would build the grandest building Lowell could claim. There was only one man whom he could entrust
to do the job- the Irish born architect, Patrick Charles Keely.
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| Courtesy: The Keely Society |
Coincidentally, or was it, both men were born in County
Tipperary, but it was Keely’s growing reputation as an ecclesiastical architect
and builder that fostered his reputation.
By the end of his life he would design over 600 churches and hundreds
more rectories, schools, and municipal building up and down the east coast and
west to Indiana. He was especially well
known in the Archdiocese of Boston as the designer of the Cathedral of the Holy
Cross. At the time he visited Lowell, he
was also working on the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, New
York. The two churches look amazingly
similar with mild differences. This was
a method employed by Keely as his popularity grew. Each church had its own unique style while
maintaining a basic set of plans. This
saved the parish money by using and reusing design plans with minimal
changes. Keely would have left the plans
with the church. In St Pat’s case these
went missing decades ago. We are told
that Keely made at least one visit to the Acre site, and the Sisters of Notre Dame
employed him to draw up plans for their own school which needed expansion. In the spring of 1870, he designed a new
boarding school for the Sisters at the cost of $5000.
St. Patrick’s was not the only Keely building in
Lowell. He also designed St Michael’s,
St. Peter’s and the Immaculate Conception.
Keely also offered a package deal bringing other artisans with him. For example, the murals in St Pat’s were done
by Gustav Kinkelin. The altars were
designed by the Joseph Sibbel Studio.
When St. Pat’s suffered fire damage in 1904, Keely’s firm was once again
called in to repair and improve the church structure. His son in law, James Houghton, had taken
over the business and completed the renovations, employing local workers and
quarry men when needed.
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| The Messenger, 1907 |
Keely’s Irish birth; his strong Catholic faith; his practice
of hiring locals; and his reputation for honesty made him the first choice for
many parishes and bishops. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in
Brooklyn, NY with a rather plain marker with just his last name to mark his
resting place. He worked right up to the
end, still refining plans and details until his death in 1879.
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