Mass in a Connemara Cabin by Aloysius O'Kelly

In 19th Century Ireland, Penal Laws were enacted in an attempt to force both Irish Catholics and Protestant dissenters to accept the nationally established Church of Ireland. Only those who were members of the Church of Ireland could hold public office, and for many years the Catholic Church was repressed.

Catholic priests were outlawed, and in no church could public Masses be celebrated, so priests risked their lives to offer Mass clandestinely - sometimes on a rock outdoors, and sometimes in a Catholic home.

Like their priests, Catholic householders risked their lives to host a Mass.

In 1883, the Irish painter Aloysius O'Kelly painted a clandestine Mass celebrated in the home of an ordinary Catholic family in late nineteenth-century Connemara. Young girls, working men, and housewives kneel in reverence among tools of everyday life - a butter churn, pots, dishes, a lantern, and a chair - as Mass is celebrated at the kitchen table. 

Clandestine as this may be, neither the small congregation nor the young priest celebrating seem hurried or fearful of discovery. The priest’s silk chasuble, along with his black top hat and black coat, suggest he came here openly. The people are dressed in the red skirts and shawls of the Connemara people or other fashionable clothes.They are reasonably well-off: no one is shoeless.

The gathering highlights how the celebration of clandestine Masses united the Irish people, and brought Irish communities close to their priests. It is also an echo of domestic Masses celebrated throughout the world during times of persecution, from early Roman times to the present. 

Today the painting hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.