The convent of Waterford is situated near the wharf, where the ships are moored. The church is still intact, and it is the burial place of many illustrious families. Mass is sometimes celebrated within the walls and sermons delivered. But the grounds which once surrounded the convent, and the garden are sadly changed, and the solitude devoted, in former days, to religious contemplation, has become the most densely populated portion of the city. The monastic buildings have been turned into secular purposes, the gardens cut up into streets, and houses erected on all sides. The owner of these houses are Catholics, yet they have never sought our permission to hold them. Perhaps, because they have been told by other ecclesiastics that they could do so with a safe conscience.
Some citizens have raised a superstructure in the church extending over all the nave and adjoining chapel. Here they have established an asylum for the poor, in which sixty old and decrepit people, unable to earn a living, have beds. The building is divided into two distinct parts, one for the men and the other for the women. Alms for their support is collected through the city. It is called the Hospital of the Holy Ghost ...65 Numbers of the citizens visit the Asylum on Sundays and festivals. They make offerings and supports as I have described when treating of Clonmel. In Waterford however, all the alms is expended on the poor. I do not know if this custom existed before the institution of the Hospital.
At present a few of the friars live in the city, in lodgings, as best they may. The inhabitants, who belong to Waterford by
I do not know when the convent was built, nor who was the founder, but I found the following words in the fragment of a MS. — ‘At the right-hand corner of the High Altar is the tomb of Sir Hugh Purcell, Knight, who was the founder of this convent.’This is not entirely conclusive. He may have been only a benefactor, nor is the day or year given.66 It is probable that Brother Nicholas67 of Gauthforda, who foretold his death to his brethren, as Pisanus related in his Liber Conformitatum, rests here. We may also conclude that this is the ancient convent which the same Pisanus calls Vasordia, and which he says belonged to the custody of Cashel; for the corrupt forms, which the names of places assume among foreigners, do not change or multiply the places themselves.