St. Mochua

• St. Mochua, who founded Clondalkin Abbey, is believed to have brought Christianity to the Celbridge area around the time of St. Patrick. A well at the entrance to the present Community Centre was known as St. Mochua's well and was used to baptise people in early Christian times. This well was cemented over and an inscribed stone tablet was placed on the wall in 1783.

• St. Mochua's church and graveyard at Tea Lane are also dedicated to him and this church serviced Celbridge before St. Patrick's Church or the Mass House were built.

• The graveyard surrounding the old church was, until the start of the present century, the burial place of almost all the Celbridge families.

• Scoil Mochua was opened in two prefabricated buildings in 1985 as a Co-Educational Catholic School with an enrolment of 49 junior infants. It was named in honour of St. Mochua because of his links with the community and his great love of animals.

The Little Pets of St. Mochua

When Saint Mochua knelt to pray
Each morning at the break of day
There always was about the house
A rooster, fly and little mouse,
Three willing slaves to serve him well
And share his solitary cell.
The rooster every morning would crow
And waken him for matins, though
When he slept too sound to hear
The mouse came forth and nipped his ear,
And though he never had a clock
The mouse would call him, or the cock
And if he had to leave a book
From out some dusty hidden nook,
A fly with patience and with grace
Would sit for hours and mark the place.
(John Irvine)

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