40 -year dedication to St Mary's Church in Clonmel honoured with Benemerenti Medal

When Eddie Sweetman took up his new role as clerk at St Mary’s Church in Clonmel over forty years ago, little did he think that his job would entail becoming godfather to children he didn’t know and bestman at a marriage between a couple he had never met.

But such was his role in the church and parish that nothing was ever too much for the genial Eddie to do.

It was that dedication that saw him recently presented with the Benemerenti Medal, awarded by the Pope to members of the clergy and laity for service to the church.

Benemerenti means ‘well deserving’ and that certainly applies to Eddie. “I’m very proud to receive it but it’s not something that I ever expected. I was just doing my job, doing something I loved”, says Eddie as he recalls his long-serving association with St Mary’s from the comfort of his Heywood Road home.

Parish priests and curates have come and gone, but Eddie Sweetman has been a constant presence in St Mary’s since he first took up the role in 1979. He is retired now – he deserves to be as he turns 93 in November – but looks back fondly on over four decades of service to Clonmel’s ‘mother church’.

As the years went on, he got to love the job more and more and no task was too big or too small. In his early years he had to cut the grass at the parish priest’s and curates’ houses, clean up the carpark as well as the multitude of jobs in the church itself, including keeping the church tidy and helping to prepare for masses, rosary, devotions, christenings, marriages and funerals.

Some of the more arduous jobs were later undertaken by FAS workers, but Eddie was always on hand for the indoor church duties. To parishioners, he was as much a part of St Mary’s as the priests.

“I loved meeting people and got on well with most people”, he says of his time as one of the best known sacristans in the diocese. He is well aware of the strong bond between the people of the Irishtown parish and their beautiful church. “It’s a fabulous building and I took great pride in helping to maintain it”, he says.

Eddie is known to generations of young boys – and later girls – who joined St Mary’s as altar boys. He prepared them for their role at masses and other services and always took a great interest in how they got on later in life. He also enjoyed welcoming new priests to the parish, and was thrilled to see many who served in St Mary’s, and then moved on elsewhere, return for his Benemerenti Medal presentation.

Eddie was born in Albert Street, even nearer to the church than his home today in Heywood Road. He was diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB) when he was eighteen and it was that diagnosis that played a part in him seeking the clerk’s job in the parish.

“I was admitted to hospital in Clonmel and spent from February to September there while waiting for a bed in a sanatorium. Eventually I got a bed in Wicklow and I spent twenty five months there. It was a hard time but I had a smile on the way there in the ambulance. We stopped in Kilkenny for a cup of tea and the place was like a cemetery – Tipperary had beaten Kilkenny in the championship the day before. I enjoyed that”, he says.

The stay in the sanatorium was a difficult time as Eddie’s father was dead and his mother had no way of visiting him. “I had just one or two visits during my time there”, he recalls now.

When Eddie returned home from hospital, he had a number of different jobs around town before eventually joining Clonmel Foods. He enjoyed his time there but the company doctor, Dr Magnier, advised him that a job in a drier environment would better suit him with his medical condition.

“There was a rumour around at the time that Paddy Fitzgerald was about to retire as clerk in St Mary’s parish. I spoke to a few people about applying for the job, and Miss Browne from Anne Street, who was vice-principal in the Technical School, suggested that I go to the parish priest and ask if I should put my name forward. So, I did, and I got the job”, he recalls.

Eddie had other parish connections by then. A fine singer, he had been a member of Ss Peter and Paul’s Choral Society before joining St. Mary’s Choral Society where he took part in a number of shows.

He quickly settled into the role of clerk, developing a good working relationship with the priests and always available to help parishioners when the need arose. Some jobs were beyond what he had expected when he first applied for the role.

“I remember Fr. John O’Brien doing house visitations and he came across a family that had just returned from England and he discovered that none of the children were baptised. So, he brought them all down to the church and he baptised them and I was godfather to about three of them”, he recalls with a smile.

“Another time a couple from the Traveller community came to the church to get married and they had no bestman and no bridesmaid. So, I ended up as bestman, and a woman who was cleaning the church at the time was bridesmaid. And that happened more than once”, remembers Eddie.

Eddie recalls another occasion when he had to stand as godfather but it wasn’t so well received. He was chairman of Clonmel Bohemians soccer club at the time and they were playing Waterford side Southend in the Munster Junior Cup. The first game in Waterford was drawn and the replay was fixed for the following Sunday in Clonmel.

“One of the players was to stand for a child at the christening but he was happy that the game would be finished in time for him to get to the church. But the referee’s car broke down on the way, the game was delayed and he didn’t get to the church. I had to tell his girlfriend that he wouldn’t make it and I stood for the child. She ate the head off me”, he says with a smile.

Eddie enjoyed his time with Clonmel Bohs, although he never played soccer himself. They played in the Waterford League and twice won the league and youth league. “That was great because we often got hammered by teams down there for years”, he says. They also won the Munster Junior Cup in 1968. Eddie was later involved with the Old Bridge club.

One job that Eddie never had ton do in St Mary’s was to ring the bell, as it was automated by the time he started work in 1979. However, on one occasion his colleague, Sean Dunphy, clerk in Ss Peter and Paul’s, asked him if he would ring the bell there while he was away.

“I never had to pull the rope, so he brought me over and showed me how to do it to ring the Angelus, and I nearly went up with the rope. I’ll never forget that night”, he jokes.

Eddie’s Benemerenti Medal was not the first medal awarded in the family. His father, Patrick, had a distinguished career in the British Army, serving in India and in World War One, and was honoured with the Military Cross at a ceremony in Collins Barracks in Cork. However, the war was a sad time for the family with two of Eddie’s uncles dying in Flanders, one each on his mother’s and father’s side.

Eddie’s late wife, Benny, had always been a great support to him during his years in St Mary’s. Sadly, Benny passed away in August 2022, after being ill for a number of years. Eddie now receives great care from his two nieces, Margaret Harvey and Patricia Ryan, daughters of his sister Alice. “They are so good to me”, he remarks. Eddie was also delighted that his son Liam and family travelled home from England for the medal presentation.

Looking back now on his forty four years in St Mary’s, Eddie Sweetman describes his time there as a ‘gift’. But it was as much a gift for the parish and for the church. All the recognition he has received is certainly ‘well deserving’.