Tadhal Phàdraig: St Patrick’s Goal
Monday 26 January, 9pm, BBC ALBA
THE LONG JOURNEY TO EASTER ROAD
HIBS’ hopes of silverware may be over for another season but Easter Road is home to at least two new cups – more than 100 years after the Hibees first won them.
St Patrick’s RC Church on the Cowgate, where the club was founded, has returned the legendary 19th century trophies to the football club to help emphasise the historical links to the club founded in 1875, in order to promote a £2m fundraising campaign to repair the historic but rundown church.
The trophies are some of the oldest in Scottish football and have been hidden away in the church safe, unknown to fans and Edinburgh City Council.
(left to right) Fr Ed Hone, Parish Priest of St Patrick's Church, Hibs legend Pat Stanton and Cardinal Keith O'Brien, handing over the two 19th century footballing trophies to Hibs at Easter Road.
The new documentary, ‘Tadhal Phàdraig: St Patrick’s Goal’, to be shown on BBC ALBA provides a unique story of unrecognised National treasures. Tadhal Phàdraig, directed by David Martin and produced by Mactv, is a portrait of a church with a big history and even bigger ambitions.
The cups are not the only treasures to have emerged from St Patrick’s. In 2002, priests discovered in their living room a painting, ‘Mass in a Connemara Cabin’, by Irish artist Aloysius O’Kelly worth over half a million pounds, that art historians thought had been lost forever. The painting is currently on loan to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.
Discoveries were also made, on the church ceiling, of hidden works of national significance by Edinburgh artist Alexander Runciman and money from the appeal fund will be used to fully uncover the 200-year-old Runciman Murals.
St Patrick’s also made the news during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival when priests took the unusual decision to offer confession to non-Catholics.
However, St Patrick’s is perhaps best known worldwide for its moves to have factory worker Margaret Sinclair, who is buried at the church, as Edinburgh’s first saint.
In the programme Cardinal Keith O’Brien tells how he has discussed her cause with the Pope, while Hibs legends Pat Stanton and Lawrie Reilly reflect on their footballing triumphs – and the club that began at St Patrick’s.
As the church embarks on its massive fundraising mission, Parish Priest Fr Ed Hone explains why Hibs fans, Sir Jimmy Savile and a cat called Fred could play key roles in restoring the building to its former glory.
Tadhal Phàdraig: St Patrick’s Goal will be shown on BBC ALBA on Monday 26 January at 9pm.