YouTube > Lucy (Hennessy) Jarratt recalls Father Varrily

YouTube Video of 93 year old Lucy (Hennessy) Jarratt recorded on September 9, 2010, as she recalls Father William Varrily, the parish priest at Holy Family Church in Bathurst. Father Varrily was quadri-lingual: he could speak Latin, English, French and Irish Gaelic. (more below)

Father Varrily was the Holy Family parish priest from 1877 to 1919. In 1919 he was transferred to the Miramichi and at some point became Monsignor which he remained until his death in 1928.

Father Varrily was from Galway, Ireland. He emigrated to Brookfield, Mass. and came to New Brunswick in 1863. He was ordained a Catholic priest in Montreal in 1868.

It is believed that Father Varrily was related to Francis McManus, MLA (Gloucester 1878-1886) who lived in the Doucet Hennessy house after marrying Marie Hache, daughter of Hilarion Hache and Marie Doucet (daughter of Charles Doucet).

Upon Mr. McManus's death, his wife Marie deeded the house and land to Father Varrily. In 1914 Father Varrily sold the house and land to Manus Kane, his niece and her husband, Patrick and Beatrice Hennessy.

Born in 1917, Lucy Jarratt, who you see here in this YouTube video, was the second Hennessy child born in the Doucet Hennessy house.

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