At Kerlogue, a short distance
outside Wexford, was a foundation of the Military Order
of the Knights Templars. It was abandoned long before
the so-called Reformation. Unnoticed and hidden, the
Altar Stone of the ancient Church of St. James remained
within the ruined walls. Then in Penal times when Mass
had to be celebrated in secret it was to the hidden ruin
of Kerlogue Monastery that Priest and people crept, in
the grey dawn of a Sunday morning, and the Altar Stone
was used once more.
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On the
return of better times the Altar at Kerlogue was again abandoned
almost forgotten, until in 1887 Father Luke Doyle, Adm., of Bride
Street had the Altar taken down and re-erected in the grounds of the
Church of the Assumption.
In 1956 Rev.
Michael O’Neill, Adm., had the Altar moved to its present resting
place in front of the Mission Cross, where it was in years past,
used as the Altar of Repose from which Benediction was given during
the annual procession of the Blessed Sacrament.
At each transfer of the Altar the stones composing the base were
carefully numbered, and it stands today exactly as it stood in the
old Monastery of Kerlogue.
The Cross at the back of the Altar is the Mission Cross which was
erected to commemorate the first great Parish Mission given by the
Redemptorist Fathers in 1858.