If Archbishop Marcel Gervais puts into force his on-again-off-again decision to close St. Brigid's Church, it will mark a whimpering end to a rich institutional history.

Like so many, the story began in high hope, 116 years ago.

In the late 19th century, francophones and anglophones were still worshipping together at the Basilica, the only Catholic church in Lower Town.

It was an awkward arrangement, obviously. And when the anglophone community, mostly Irish, began asking for their own church, their pleas fell upon sympathetic ears. His Grace Archbishop Joseph Thomas Duhamel called a meeting at the Basilica in March 1888 to determine how strong the sentiment for a new church actually was.

Support was not unanimous. Some felt the meeting was premature. Others felt the inconvenience of having two languages was not great enough to justify a move to a new church, which, among many worshippers, might create a sense of dislocation.

The English-speaking curate of the Basilica, Father J.T. McGovern, may have clinched the discussion. The question did not turn merely on convenience, he suggested. In a separate parish, the priest in charge would be more intimately linked with his congregation. The spiritual business of the congregation would be expedited.

A motion to build a new church was offered and passed by a large majority.

Archbishop Duhamel wasted no time. A committee of five was struck to choose a site and prepare plans. Matters rolled quickly.

James R. Bowes was chosen as architect. He was an experienced architect, the designer of a police station and the Congregational Church that stood at the corner of Elgin and Albert street until the 1950s. James Bowes had learned his trade from his father, the better known John Bowes, who had done work on the Parliament buildings. The chief contractor was John Lyons.

The work went quickly. On May 12, 1889, Archbishop Duhamel laid the corner stone -- and the masons, the roofers and the plasterers set to.

Just 15 months later, on Sunday, May 3, 1890, the church, with 2,300 in attendance, was officially opened.

The Daily Citizen said Archbishop Duhamel, in full green pontifical vestments, "reverently led a procession three times around the sacred walls and performed the usual consecrating ceremony." Rev. Father Drummond, a celebrated Jesuit preacher from Montreal, delivered the sermon, which had a title that must have gratified the parishioners: It is the House of God and the Gate of Heaven.

Father Drummond also gave an evening lecture of daunting sobriety. Education, he said, had "an evil tendency to neglect the cultivation of memory," as the Daily Citizen paraphrased it.

Moreover, it failed to discipline the human imagination, which, "running wild, often destroyed the well-spring of menis immortal souls."

The collections that first day amounted to $600, a huge amount for the time and a good first instalment on the $75,000 that construction had cost.

Mr. Bowes' church had an eclectic design. The exterior, in its detailing and its rounded arches, looked Romanesque. The interior, with its fan vaulting, was more Gothic.

From press reports, the opening was a triumph for Mr. Bowes -- in retrospect, a good thing, because only 20 months later he died in a house fire in Hanford, California.

The name St. Brigid's was probably an easy choice. Irish Catholics in Upper Town had named their church after St. Patrick. For the new church in Lower Town, the name of Ireland's female patron saint would easily come to mind. St. Brigid, born around the year 450, was known as a miracle worker and a builder of churches who won many converts in pagan Ireland.

Presumably, the first baptisms and marriages happened very quickly. The Golden Jubilee Booklet that the church published in 1939 gives no dates, unfortunately -- but the first male child baptized was Frederick George Burns, and the first female child was Mary Brown. John Bingham and Elizabeth Devine were the first couple married.

The first priest was the Very Rev. Canon Peter McCarthy, who took charge in 1890. Born in Ireland, he moved with his parents, while still a child, to Pembroke. Later he studied at the University of Ottawa, and in 1877 was ordained by Archbishop Duhamel.

Father McCarthy was only in his early 50s when he died in 1904, but already the parish was flourishing. Many important societies were already operating, including the St. Jerome Sewing Society, which made clothes for the poor; the Father Matthew Temperance Society; the League of the Sacred Heart, and many more.

For a time, St. Brigid's had local renown as an incubator for young athletes. The St. Brigid's Young Men Association turned out skilled players in hockey, football, baseball, lacrosse and other sports. The hockey contingent was particularly impressive, and included many who went on to some level of professional play. Few of the names would ring bells now, but that of King Clancy would. In 1921, the 17-year-old debuted on the original Ottawa Senators as the youngest player in the NHL.

Among other victories, in 1919 the St. Brigid's Hockey Team and St. Brigid's Football Team were both senior city champions. In 1920, the St. Brigid's Track Team was city champion.

The days of athletic glory were short-lived. In the early 1920s, the church closed its sports program, the "dashing cavaliers of the ice, gridiron, track and ring leaving the field with their heads held high," as the Golden Jubilee booklet put it.

Priests, sports teams, generations of congregants came and went, but one constant for nearly half a century was Mrs. Thomas Stringer, who played the organ from the first Easter celebration, in 1890, till her retirement in April 1938. The Stringer family was devout, with a son becoming a priest, and a daughter, a nun.

The church in those simpler days offered simple recreation.

In the church's first decade, the St. Jerome Society would offer an annual picnic in which hundreds of parishioners of all ages would board the steamer Empress and ride down the Ottawa River to Besserer's Grove, an annual excursion that ended when the Empress was finally mothballed.

Just after the turn of the century, St. Brigid's altar boys would have an annual sleigh-ride, which would take them 15 kilometres to Aylmer. Along the way, 30 boisterous boys were known to chant, "Hay and oats for the upper-town goats, cakes and pies for the lower-town boys."

At Aylmer, they'd have supper, and then return, usually in far colder weather.

St. Brigid's was a vital parish for many years, but in recent decades, attendance fell.

New communities began to arrive, however, including many Filipino immigrants.

There was a time in the late 1980s when the church became a focus of controversy in the Catholic community.

In 1986, four young conservative priests, on the invitation of Archbishop Joseph-Aurele Plourde, took over the church and established a congregation of the Oratory of St. Phillip Neri. Conservatively minded and opposed to many of the changes that resulted from Vatican II, the priests restored some Latin to the Mass, used much incense in the services, introduced Gregorian chant, and eliminated female altar servers.

Hundreds of Catholics nostalgic for pre-Vatican II practices began attending, and the congregation grew significantly. However, many opposed the changes, and after three years, the Oratorians were asked to leave.

For 14 years, Rev. Pedro Arana, a Filipino, has been the parish priest.

Archbishop Gervais has announced he intends to sell the historic church and amalgamate the congregation with nearby Notre-Dame Cathedral. The church needs many repairs that are too expensive to be feasible, he says.

Historic designations on the municipal and provincial levels may tie the archbishop's hands in this matter. If the building cannot be taken down and cannot be used for other than its historic purpose, there may be no buyer in prospect.

That's no problem for many of St. Brigid's congregants. They celebrate the church's history and hope that it continues.

117 Years of Leadership at St. Brigid's Church

1890-1904: Rev. Peter McCarthy

1904-1915: Rev. John Sloan

1915-1937: Rev. Thomas Patrick Fay

1937-1943: Canon George O'Toole

1945-1957: Rev. Francis Corkery

1957-1971: Rev. Vincent Hogan

1971-1973: Rev. Joseph T. O'Donnell

1972: Temporal administration

1972: Rev. Kenneth Keeler

1973-1979: Rev. Joseph Edward Lunney

1979-1984: Rev. John Patrick Heffernan

1984-1987: Rev. Albert Cosgrove

1987-1989: Rev. William Ashley, Oratorian

1989-1992: Rev. Harold McNeil,

1992-1994: Rev. Clarence Lavigne

1994-2006: Rev. Pedro Arana

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On the web for seven-day subscribers: Read Lee Berthiaume's Thursday story about St. Brigid's and see a gallery of photos by David McKinley under Editor's Pick.

www.ottawacitizen.com

Ran with fact box "117 years of leadership at St. Brigid'sChurch", which has been appended to the story.