Cape Breton's Magazine

With Mungie MacNeil of lona Rear From Conversations with Ed Binns and Cape Breton's Magazine (I understand you've waited on quite a few men--priests.) Mungie MacNeil: I looked after them practically all my working days! (The priest in a community takes on such a difficult job.) Yes, he sure does. You have to work with them to know how difficult it is for them. It's a hard life. No matter what the parish is, there's going to be some parts that are going to be hard.... (What do you mean by hard, though? Were people mean to him?) Oh, no, they wouldn't do that. But you know, in the years gone by, they'd be kind of poor. They'd be pay? ing the priest just so much every year, each household. It's not like that now.... Long ago there was a levy left on the people: $6 a family for the year. And he had to keep a house, and a housekeeper. His sister kept house for him, and he used to have a girl in, a girl with him. That was the first priest we remember. His sister just lived with him; it was her home. But he paid a girl to help her. (So he was dependent on the community.) On the community. Of course, he'd get help, different people. And then, some people would come, that had money. They'd give him some money. Nearly every stranger that would come. (The priests) were dependent on (the community), but they got money be? sides that. People away, people that left the parish and they got good jobs, they'd send them money. And they'd come home and visit, give a donation. They were never without money. They were never hard up. Margket (Mungie) and Sadie MacNeil Cape Breton's MAGAZINE • Number Fifty-Nine Wreck Cove, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia BOC IHO Publications Mail Registration Number 3014