The Little Ark of Kilbaha - A Chapel On Wheels

A story of the Irish Famine and protestant persecution.

Creative thinking by a priest after the Famine helped keep the Catholic faith alive in West Clare. The Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea in Kilbaha, West Clare, houses a unique historical artefact. What looks like a dilapidated toolshed is in fact a tiny portable chapel, used by Catholics here in the 1850s when their religion was suppressed by local landlords. Father Michael Meehan arrived in the parish in 1849 to a community struggling in the aftermath of the Famine and in need of pastoral care. Catholic Emancipation had been granted two decades earlier, but he was prevented from finding a dedicated place to celebrate Mass in the area by the local landlord's agents. He set up a makeshift altar on the foreshore of Kilbaha beach as it was, One place in all the area where the landlords had no power. Unfortunately, the weather proved to be so inclement that this did not work either. He asked a local carpenter to build him a hut on wheels with windows. As it came to be known, this little ark housed a small altar and was pulled down to the shoreline by a donkey for Sunday Mass. The story of the ark at Kilbaha spread and attracted many visitors. It also drew much attention to the landlord’s bigotry, and pressure was put on him to permit his Catholic tenants to practice their religion freely. In 1857, the foundation stone for the church of Our Lady Star of the Sea was laid, and when construction was complete, the little ark was given an honourable resting place. A stained glass window over the main entrance to the church commemorates the Little Ark of Kilbaha. This report for 'Radharc’ was broadcast on 19 December 1963. The reporter is Fr Peter Lemass.

The story of the Little Ark is over 150 years old. It's the story of a small wooden shack, no bigger than a garden shed, built as a tool to overthrow religious oppression and the landlords of the time. Led by one man, Father Michael Meehan, armed with the Little Ark, Father Meehan and his followers changed the face of Irish history.