The Church of the Holy Family of Nazareth of Aghintain

The Church of the Holy Family of Nazareth of Aghintain is one of the first church built after the penal times in Ireland.

It is believed it was built on the site of a mass rock  and a hedge school. It was one of the first churches built after the penal times. Father Philip McMahon, who is buried in Clogher Cathedral, was one of the last penal priests.

Father McMahon died in 1795 and left money in his will for three churches to be built, Aghintain, Church Eskra on the Forth Chapel.

This church was built by Father Patrick Bellew who was the curate in Clogher at the time. He lived in the cottage at Tullanvert, just at the wedding tree which Carleton talks about  in his stories.

The first reference of Argentine Chapel being built is recorded in Father McKenna’s

 ‘Parishes of Clogher’, it says … in an obituary notice of Hugh McCaffrey, Fivemiletown, who died 25th November 1878 aged 82 yrs it is stated that he was at the opening of Argentine church in the year 1816.

Hugh McCaffrey was a draper in Fivemiletown and there were no churches in this area until Aghintain was built.

Everyone came out from the town and surrounding townlands to attend mass.

At first it was a simple thatched building, and we know this due to Father James Nolan’s diary entries recently uncovered which gives the history of the church.

Father James Nolan was a parish priest in Aghintain from 1934 to 1964. In his diaries  Father Nolan captured the history of Argentine Chapel by talking to the older people.

His diaries include diagrams which show Aghintain as a little thatched building, the ground plans and although it doesn’t record who built the chapel it does record that in 1862 it was improved by the Hagan brothers who built the current chapel.

Originally the stained glass window did not exist until the 1930s during the next stage of improvements.