Letter from America thanking the people of Tipperary for cornerstone

Tom Wood, Cashel, has informed us of the following:

Monday July 14 1873.

From parishioners of Watertown, America, thanking the Cashel Town Council for the stone which the latter ordered to be forwarded from the Rock of Cashel to serve as a cornerstone for the Roman Catholic Church now in course of erection at Watertown.

Gentlemen. The fine stone which your generosity has furnished from the time honored Rock for the conversion of the new Watertown Church has arrived safely at its destination and we the undersigned deem it our duty to tender to you and the Reverend Mr Quirke in the name of the parish our most sincere thanks for the truly Irish way in which you have put a hand to our undertaking. We are none of us Tipperary men unless Col Crane the originator of the idea, and he only is as much as his great grandfather came from near Cashel. But this mattered little to us. We knew that the stone came from the sainted isle of our race and we asked no more.

Our lips pressed it with those mingled feelings of religion and patriotism inherent to the celtic heart and tears that stood in our eyes were not those of fear or shame, but of love and fidelity.
Your stone emblazoned with the cross and the shamrock shall be placed in bold relief in the wall of our new church to show to those who will come after us that at least the men of this generation were true alike to the faith of Christ and their national traditions.
W Corby, Rector. John O Connor. John Malloy. Michael Amis. W D Stacy. J Cran.