A lot of Vinny O’Malley’s life, household historical past and identification could be traced to the outdated St. Dominic’s church constructing in Portland’s West Finish.
It’s the place his Irish immigrant dad and mom got here to worship and discover a neighborhood of their new nation. It’s the place O’Malley went to high school and met lifelong buddies. And for the previous 20 years, as residence of the Maine Irish Heritage Heart, it’s been for O’Malley an emblem of his pleasure in his hometown, its lengthy Irish historical past and the way in which it welcomes immigrants.
The middle’s board and volunteers are planning to make use of $3 million in federal cash, introduced in December, to weatherize the constructing after years of water and wind harm. They plan to interchange the constructing’s slate roof and utterly restore its brickwork for the primary time because the church was inbuilt 1892. The federal allocation is by far the most important the Maine Irish Heritage Heart has ever gotten, eclipsing a $100,000 reward used for changing the heating system to gasoline a decade in the past. It’s additionally a transparent signal to O’Malley and others who care passionately concerning the middle and its mission that it’ll proceed to serve the neighborhood for years to come back.
“It’s not simple to explain how I really feel about this place. Lots of it’s pleasure,” mentioned O’Malley, 73, of Portland. “It’s simply half and parcel to who I used to be and who I’m, like tens of hundreds of different folks.”
The volunteers and workers who run the Maine Irish Heritage Heart need folks to know extra about their constructing and group, what it presents and what its future would possibly appear like. As a part of that effort, there can be a free open home on the middle on Sunday from 1-4 p.m. The open home follows town’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which can be held on Industrial Avenue beginning at midday Sunday.
Because it opened in 2003, about 5 years after the Diocese of Portland closed the church, the middle has been a volunteer, nonprofit group largely depending on grants and donations for repairs and renovations. The middle does have income from renting out the church and reception corridor for weddings, memorial providers, live shows and different occasions, however the $80,000 to $100,000 a yr working price range is simply sufficient to “preserve the lights on” and pay a small workers, mentioned Bob Kearney, board chair.
Water harm seen round a stained glass window on the Maine Irish Heritage Heart in Portland. Brianna Soukup/Employees Photographer
EXPENSE TOO GREAT
When the middle’s board realized a number of years in the past that cash for teams like theirs is perhaps obtainable by the federal Group Venture Funding program, they contacted the places of work of Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree and Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins.
In December, Pingree introduced that the $3 million for the middle was included within the fiscal 2023 authorities funding invoice. Kearney mentioned that, with out the $3 million, repairs to the roof and brickwork must be made a little bit bit at a time and stretched out over a few years. The years of damage on the bricks and roof could be seen within the huge quantities of water harm contained in the church’s predominant space and choir loft, together with the plaster and stained glass home windows. A half-dozen or so stained glass home windows on the State Avenue facet of the church constructing have been boarded as much as defend from additional climate harm. Usually after a storm, volunteers discover bricks or slate tiles on the sidewalks across the constructing.
Kearney mentioned, through the years, it hasn’t made sense for the middle to make main repairs contained in the church constructing whereas water retains leaking in. With the $3 million, the church will get a wholly new roof – nonetheless slate to adjust to historic district requirements – in addition to new copper flashing, new gutters and an entire repointing of all brickwork. The work will take up all the federal cash, at an estimated value of about $3.3 million, and may happen someday within the subsequent yr or two, typically on the identical time, Kearney mentioned, in order that the pricey building of scaffolding and platforms across the church will solely need to occur as soon as. At its highest level, the highest of the bell tower, the church is about 130 ft tall.
“I’m extremely proud to have secured federal funding to protect the Maine Irish Heritage Heart for future generations,” Pingree mentioned in a press release Friday. “For a lot of Irish households, St. Dominic’s Church was the middle of their neighborhood, celebrating weddings, baptisms, and cultural occasions, however after greater than 200 years, the historic construction wants repairs and updates.”
Pingree can be on the Maine Irish Heritage Heart on Tuesday to current a ceremonial “large test” for the $3 million and to tour the middle.
“With out her help, and her taking a look at what we actually wanted, we’d not have sufficient funding to do all this,” Kearney mentioned about Pingree’s efforts. “A small nonprofit like us can’t elevate that sort of cash all of sudden.”
Bob Kearney, the board chair on the Maine Irish Heritage Heart, proper, talks with Matthew Jude Barker, a historian and genealogist, on the Maine Irish Heritage Heart on Friday. Brianna Soukup/Employees Photographer
DOORS CLOSE, MISSION CONTINUES
The cornerstone for St. Dominic’s, Portland’s first Catholic parish, was laid on the nook of State and Grey streets within the metropolis’s West Finish in 1828. Although the most important Irish immigration to Maine and the US occurred after the large Irish famine of the 1840s, earlier famines and determined financial occasions in Eire fueled immigration within the 1820s and ’30s as effectively, mentioned Matthew Jude Barker, writer of “The Irish of Portland, Maine: A Historical past of Forest Metropolis Hibernians.” Irish immigrated to New England and the Northeast in giant numbers, partly as a result of these areas had many of the financial alternatives at the moment.
By round 1860, there have been an estimated 3,000 Irish-born residents dwelling in Portland plus about 1,000 of their kids, Barker mentioned. On the time, Portland’s complete inhabitants was simply over 26,000. A lot of the early Irish settlement in Portland was on the fringes of the Previous Port and the West Finish, across the intersection referred to as Gorham’s Nook, Maine State Historian Earle G. Shettleworth Jr. mentioned. At present the positioning is marked with a statue of famed Hollywood movie director John Ford, who grew up in Portland within the early 1900s, was baptized at St. Dominic’s and whose father ran a bar within the neighborhood.
By the Eighteen Eighties, the Irish Catholic inhabitants had grown to the purpose the place St. Dominic’s wanted to develop. A brand new, a lot bigger church was constructed on the positioning between 1888 and 1893. That’s the constructing that at the moment homes the Maine Irish Heritage Heart. O’Malley, whose personal dad and mom got here to Maine from Eire within the Nineteen Twenties, mentioned the parish had about 4,000 members when he was rising up within the Fifties and ’60s.
Like so many different church buildings, St. Dominic’s congregation dwindled as folks moved to the suburbs. Confronted with greater than $1 million in wanted repairs, the Diocese of Portland closed the church in 1998 and ultimately transferred possession to town. There have been proposals from builders to make use of the church for industrial functions, however the metropolis selected to promote the constructing for $1 to the group that grew to become the Maine Irish Heritage Heart.
The centerpiece is the church sanctuary, which seats 600-700 in oak pews and is lined with ornate stained glass home windows. Not like some Catholic church buildings, many of the glass is painted with flowers or patterns; only a few saints or different figures could be discovered. The sanctuary could be rented for weddings and different capabilities, in addition to live shows, although prior to now few years there have solely been a handful of every. The church’s choir loft is utilized by native painters, to work on their work quietly, and the middle typically holds artwork reveals.
The church basement, the place weekday Lots had been as soon as held, additionally options stained glass home windows and is rented out as a perform corridor or used for middle actions. The heritage middle holds numerous packages and occasions all year long in each the sanctuary and the basement perform corridor. On March 7, the church hosted a live performance of Irish music by Derek Warfield and the Younger Wolfe Tones. On Feb. 25, the middle hosted “Irish Voices: An Night of Irish Poetry, Artwork and Music.”
The downstairs setup for the upcoming open home on the Maine Irish Heritage Heart. Brianna Soukup/Employees Photographer
There’s additionally an Irish family tree middle and library within the former vestry, which is staffed on Fridays to assist folks with analysis. The middle presents family tree consultations and assist by appointment as effectively. The middle additionally has an archive of marketing campaign ephemera and different supplies from former Maine Gov. Joseph E. Brennan, in addition to a group associated to Ford’s profession.
Maine continues to be one of the vital Irish locations within the nation; it ranks fifth amongst U.S. states with the very best share of individuals with Irish ancestry, in accordance the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2016-2020 American Group Survey. Maine had 16.6% of its inhabitants claiming Irish ancestry, which was behind solely New Hampshire (20.2%), Massachusetts (19.8%), Rhode Island (17.6%) and Vermont (17%.)
The middle has about 400 members, however O’Malley and Kearney each say they’d prefer to make extra folks conscious of what it presents and what it may be used for, whereas additionally they work to protect it as an essential piece of Maine Irish historical past. They hope the open home Sunday and the eye the $3 million in federal cash has introduced will assist do this.
“We need to proceed making this an actual middle of neighborhood, for everybody,” O’Malley mentioned.
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