IRISH PRIEST CELEBRATED MARRIAGES FOR AUSTIN COLONISTS
(Please be aware this post was written in 2004 and published at that time in the Houston Chronicle (Houston, Texas) newspaper. Some of the news in this post, therefore, may not be current. Current and future posts on this blog may revisit and update news on this and other posts on this blog. If you have questions and/or suggestions, please send Mic a note using the comment page -Don’t forget to use the orange “subscribe” button to receive new posts-Thanks, Mic)
From April 1831 to August 1832 Father Michael Mulldoon an Irish born Catholic Priest associated with the Catholic Church in Mexico visited Texas which was at the time a province of Mexico and solemnized the marriages of many of Austin’s colonists. He was the first priest to administer Austin’s colonists’ spiritual needs. Because of his empathy toward the Texans he later he fell out of favor with Mexican authorities and left the country.
As a part of their colonization agreement with Empressario Stephen F. Austin and the Mexican government colonists in Austin’s Colony agreed to give political allegiance to Mexico, become Mexican citizens, conduct their official business in the Spanish language and practice the Roman Catholic religion.
While Catholicism was the state religion and most of the colonists were protestant in their beliefs and upbringing the settlers were content to keep religion low-keyed and private and live without religious leaders and organized churches.
Without benefit of legal and proper (meaning Catholic) marriages, however, families inheriting from their father or other family members had a legal entanglement. To overcome the problem a provision in the 1824 Mexican Constitution allowed couples to be married in bond by an Alcalde until their marriage could formalized by a priest. When the landholder in the family died local tradition allowed the property to remain in the family as if the marriage was legal.
And so it was. In 1831 Father Michael Mulldoon was made Curate and Vicar General for all the colonies by Mexican President Teran and sent to visit Texas and administer the spiritual needs of Austin’s colonists. Everywhere he went in the colony Father Mulldoon baptized children and adults and consummated the marriages of couples who sometimes had been living together for years and in many cases had children old enough to participate in the wedding.
DOWLING STATUE COMMEMORATES IRISH HEROES OF SABINE PASS
Aside from the parties and the parade one of the highlights of Houston’s annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration is the commemorative ceremony held at Houston’s first civic statue, the Dick Dowling monument in Hermann Park.
Ceremonies at the Dowling statue honor Dowling and his company, the Jefferson Davis Guards, a Houston recruited Irish Confederate company raised during the Civil War. Stationed at Fort Griffin on the Sabine River, a strategic waterway and entry point into Texas and Louisiana, the company, in 1863, successfully repulsed a Union naval incursion into Texas. During the battle Dowling and his men captured two Federal ships and 350 Union prisoners without suffering a single casualty to their unit.
This year’s ceremony will be held at 1 P.M. Sunday, March 14 at
the statue in Hermann Park which is located at approximately the 1800 block of North MacGregor Way.
THE IRISH SOCIETY
Houston’s Irish Society is always at the forefront of Irish happenings in Houston. Society members were instrumental in establishing the Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas and are staunch promoters of the creation of an Irish Cultural Center also planned for the University of St. Thomas. The society sponsors performing arts events, a lecture series and oral and written history programs.
Membership in the society is $35 annually for an individual and $50 for a family. For more information visit the society website at http://theirishsociety.org or email David O’Keefe at dokeefe@theirishsociety.org
BOOK TELLS STORY OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
The Texas Republic, an historical novel by Joe L. Blevins, tells the history of early Texas through the diary of Andrew, a free Black man from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The character of Andrew is intertwined in the history of the Republic as he meets all the heroes and experiences all the events that occurred during the days of the Republic of Texas from 1833 through 1846 shortly after Texas became a state of the United States.
The Texas Republic may be purchased online for $ 34.95 from Trafford Publishing’s website at http://www.trafford.com/robots/01-0542.html/ .
