LUKE WADDING STREET MAY 2016
A year later I got a bit of a shock when I was inside this church taking some photographs. A priest started shouting very aggressively from the altar area demanding that I leave the property immediately. That was my last visit to this church.
I was surprised as I have checked with a number of priests over the years and they all advised that there was no need to seek permission to photograph the interior of a church except when a religious service is underway and assuming that I am not including members of the public in the photographs.
Luke Wadding, O.F.M. (16 October 1588 – 18 November 1657), was an Irish Franciscan friar and historian. Wadding was born on 16 October 1588 at Waterford to Walter Wadding of Waterford, a wealthy merchant, and his wife, Anastasia Lombard (sister of Peter Lombard, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland). Educated at the school of Mrs. Jane Barden in Waterford and of Peter White in Kilkenny, in 1604 he went to study in Lisbon and at the University of Coimbra.
Wadding founded the Pontifical Irish College for Irish secular clergy. In 1900, Wadding’s portrait and part of his library were in the Franciscan friary on Merchant’s Quay, Dublin. Through Wadding’s efforts, St Patrick’s Day became a feast day.
In the 1950s, a statue of Wadding was erected on the Mall in Waterford, adjacent to Reginald’s Tower and one of the city’s most prominent locations. The Waterford-born Franciscan’s literary, academic and theological attributes were denoted by a quill pen held poised in the statue’s right hand. More recently this statue was replaced by one of Thomas Francis Meagher. The figure of Luke Wadding was moved to a position at the entrance to the French Church, Waterford on Greyfriars.
