Since becoming a part owner of St. Brigid’s Catholic Church in Lowertown, Patrick McDonald has worked hard to preserve its cultural legacy.
It was a St. Patrick’s Day service in the early nineties at St. Brigid’s Catholic Church and Patrick McDonald was day-dreaming.
He had just recently immigrated to Canada from Ireland, and St. Brigid’s was bringing him back.
Around him, a crowd of mainly Irish parishioners sat in the building’s century-old wooden pews. Rays of sunlight streamed through brilliantly coloured stained-glass windows, sending flecks of rainbow across the congregation.
On the balcony above, a musician played an antique organ with faded shamrocks on its pipes.
“Being here reminded me of home. It had the greens, there were shamrocks on the organ…There was a strong sense of Irish community,” he said. “I felt an immediate connection to the building. I fell in love with it.”
Fast forward to 2007 when a leaking roof and a dwindling congregation forced the Ottawa archdiocese to put the aging structure on the chopping block. Parishioners held bake sales, pancake breakfasts, and bazaars to save their church.
They even launched a lawsuit against the archdiocese.
But their efforts were unsuccessful and the future of the historic landmark remained unclear.
“That’s where I come into the story line I guess,” says McDonald in his brogue accent.
He, along with three other investors, all born in Ireland, came forth and bought St. Brigid’s from the archdiocese for $450,000, planning to turn it into an Irish arts and cultural centre.
McDonald quickly went from the pews to part owner.
“If you had asked me ten years ago if I would ever be an owner of this building, and be a part of this new phase in its life, I would have laughed heartily.”
“I guess fate had this in store for me,” says McDonald, whose wife is named Brigid.
But fate has not dealt the Irishman an easy hand; transforming a 120-year-old church into an arts and cultural venue is a daunting task. Drywall is peeling and hanging from parts of the ceiling and walls. The basement had to be torn up and is currently being remodeled. Hard decisions also have to be made about how much change is too much for the religious artifacts that remain in the building.
To do all this, McDonald, once a successful financial broker with CIBC, left his day job to make overseeing the renovations his fulltime occupation. He is at St. Brigid’s everyday, meeting with architects and planners, performers and contractors.
He is not paid for the countless hours he spends there, but the work is costing him. The renovations, which have no set completion date, are projected to come out at around $7 million; a significant amount of which is to be funded from the pockets of McDonald and the other investors.
“There’s all those phrases, ‘Don’t bite off more than you can chew,’ ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,’…Many people probably feel that I have,” he says.
“We’ll see.”
Maybe he has, but McDonald’s passion for the structure and faith in its transformation are obvious. Plans and anecdotes dance behind his bright green eyes.
“Here we have the stage area and that’s where the concerts will take place and this whole area here will be a foyer…Oh and here, this restroom is where a lady who came for an event fell asleep…"
“I guess we made the renovations a little too comfortable.”
He points and gestures, motioning towards history, seemingly unfazed by his unusual story. What arose this passion in him? What motivated a man who came to Canada looking for better economic opportunities to leave a lucrative career in finance to work for free in a noble, but extremely challenging, transformation?
When asked, the plans and anecdotes are replaced by reverence.
“This building is the centrepiece of Irish culture in Ottawa,” he says.
“It was built by the same poor Irish immigrants who built the Rideau Canal, people who scrimped and saved to build this church for their community.”
“It’s an immigrant story…I am an immigrant; I feel my involvement is just a new chapter.”
It is this connection to the history of St. Brigid’s that motivated McDonald to get involved. The church, aptly located between Cumberland, Murray, and St. Patrick streets, was built so that Ottawa’s Irish could have their own English-speaking Catholic Church in Lowertown. Construction began in 1888 and was completed in 1890. St. Brigid’s congregation quickly grew and was attended by notable figures such as Pierre Trudeau.
Its historic past has meant there’s never a dull moment in its reconstruction for McDonald.
“When we first bought it, I got a call from someone asking to buy the pew where Trudeau sat,” recalls McDonald.
He asked if the caller was interested in donating it to a museum.
“No, I want to burn it,” they said.
McDonald laughed.
“I don’t think he was a member of the Liberal Party.”
The rich history of the building is more than McDonald’s motivation though. It’s his inspiration.
“The men who built this church did it with their bare hands in less than two years, with little money and no technology . . .If they did that, then certainly we can bring it back to life.”
And although the repairs have yet to be finished, life has slowly returned to St. Brigid’s, now called St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities.
The venue has hosted several concerts and artists, such as Margaret Atwood and composer Howard Cable.
“I think he is beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” says Rosemary O’Brien, McDonald’s sister and one of the investors who purchased the church. “He knows that all the time that he has dedicated is going to be worth it.”
Worth it for McDonald, but not necessarily for some former St. Brigid’s parishioners who opposed turning the building into an arts and cultural centre.
“The parishioners wanted to save it so it would remain a church or a community outreach centre, but it wasn’t for us to decide,” says Patrick Murray, the lawyer who represents the suing parishioners.
But even those who oppose the plan still appreciate the work McDonald is doing.
“He kept it from being demolished and his heart is in the right place…I think he is doing a service for the Irish here,” says Murray. “He’s putting in a lot of hard work.”
McDonald’s hard work has not gone unnoticed.
Last year, Margaret Atwood read her work at St. Brigid’s. Amazed by the story of the church she asked to speak to those involved with making it happen.
McDonald introduced himself.
“Patrick McDonald, you are a saint,” she said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” he says. “I don’t know if my wife would agree.”
But he realizes he and the investors have done something big.
“Who knows if an arts and cultural centre is the best solution but it kept the building and its history alive and kept it for our community,” he said. “And that’s what’s important.”