The following is offered as a contribution towards a history of St Dympna’s Catholic Church in Dunoon. All of the information below has been published previously in the Dunoon Gazette but it has been reproduced at the request of Mrs Veronica Shelton.

An important source of information on the story of Dunoon in Northern NSW is the Dunoon Story compiled by former residents Mr and Mrs I.R. Johnston and published by the Hall Committee to mark the official turning on of the Dunoon-Channon Water Supply 29 May 1971. A revised edition was reprinted by the Pre-School Association in 1982. The booklet relies heavily on living memory but there is ample reference to the Northern Star newspaper, particularly to the correspondent called “Traveller” who made frequent contributions during 1905. There is reason to doubt the accuracy of some of Traveller’s reports particularly when his informant was Alfred Friedman the store keeper.
It should be remembered that the name Dunoon was applied originally to the area now know as Modanville. Duncan Currie selected portion 56 in the parish of North Lismore in 1871. There he built a substantial house which he named “Dunoon” for his birthplace in Scotland. It seems that he seldom lived in that house but its name became attached to the immediate locality and gradually migrated north with the school. The Modanville store now stands on that first selection of Duncan Currie. It was seventeen years later that Currie selected portion 7 in the parish of Dunoon. For some strange reason the parish boundary bulges south to enclose this later selection. Meanwhile Currie had selected and disposed of several other portions across the road in the parish of North Lismore.
The first Dunoon School was opened in 1884 very near the site of the present Modanville school just seven miles from Lismore. But the population was developing further north and there was pressure to relocate the school. The first move happened in 1891. That put the school two miles further out along the new road, opposite the cemetery, which was much larger then than it is now. Originally the main road ran much further east. The original road to the Channon began at that major bend around the present nut factory. When the main road was relocated it incorporated part of that original Channon road. The new school was in that section. Portion 1 in the parish of Dunoon is at that bend just opposite the nut factory grounds. Portions 1 to 6 were all on the eastern side of the road and it was part of portion 6 that was to become the nucleus of the new village. By the time the school moved to its present location in 1921 the village of Dunoon was well established. Unlike other villages, including the Channon, the village of Dunoon was not gazetted by Government. It grew naturally.
Portion 6 had been selected by Michael Donoghue in June 1879. By September 1902 he had paid off the money owing on his conditional purchase and been granted a deed of title. Under the terms of the Crown Land Alienation Acts, a selector could take on partners, he could lease or mortgage his selection or he could sell it, but he could not subdivide his land so long as the purchase was still conditional. Once Donoghue had his deed of title he was able to subdivide his property and he had an interested buyer. There were two bends in the road as it passed Donoghue’s selection and it was at the second bend, where the garage now stands, that three acres of land were transferred to Charles Jacob Lowenthal1 on 2 May 1904. On the very same day about a third of that block was transferred from Lowenthal to Isaac Friedman. The man who built his house and post office store at the site of the present post office was invariably known as Alfred Friedman.
The following year, the surveyor Joseph Bede Kelly drew up and registered Deposited Plan 4890. There were fifteen allotments in all but numbers 6 and 7 already belonged to Friedman and Lowenthal. In the Northern Star of 4 September 1905, Traveller reported, among other things, the auction of “Killarney Grove Estate” held on the ground on Wednesday 30 August, detailing the buyers and the prices paid. The first of these sales was not recorded in the Titles office till 20 February 1907 and the last on 4 March 1911. Lots 4 and 5 were reported to be have been bought by Friedman at a high price, but the titles office show Lowenthal as the owner till he transferred those allotments to Friedman several years later. (In the Star of 26 July 1905 Traveller had reported that Alfred Friedman had sold the two acres adjoining his store at a satisfactory figure. This is certainly not supported by the evidence in the Titles Office. Lowenthal sold off parts of his two acres but retained some of his original lot till his death in 1925)
The first Catholic church in Dunoon was built on lot 12. Here we have another discrepancy. In a separate, contributed, section of the Dunoon Story, we are told that Michael Donoghue donated the land for the first Catholic Church in 1907. Traveller reported that P.J. Wilson had paid £28 at auction. This was comparable with the prices reportedly paid on the other twelve allotments. The ownership of lot 12 was transferred to Patrick Wilson on 2 April 1907 and registered on 21 May. This was not inconsistent with the land being donated, as the titles office never showed price paid or what was on the land in question and it was usual for church land to be held by one or more trustees. And we read elsewhere that Mass was being celebrated in the home of Patrick Wilson long before any church was built in Dunoon. Who better to be the first trustee for the church land? Lester and Veronica Shelton eventually bought that Wilson home and Mrs Shelton still lives there.
The road is still at two levels as it passes through that saddle area where the first Catholic church was built in 1907, and the item in the Dunoon Story refers to sulkies getting “nearly bogged on the bottom dirt road leading to the church grounds. Consequently there was a move made to have the church moved to a better position.” It is recorded that Messrs Jack Williams and Lattimore were the contractors who re-erected the church in its new position. The new land was also donated by Michael Donoghue. (Was this the son of the original selector? He had inherited the land from his father in May 1921.) The transfer of the new allotment was effected on 18 March 1927 and registered on 16 May that year. The new owners were named as The Right Reverend John Carroll, Joseph Bede Kelly, Terence Bernard McGuire and Venerable Michael Quinn as joint tenants. The Dunoon Story implies that the church was relocated in 1921. If this was the case, then it could well have been that the elder Michael Donohue was the donor of both sites.
It seems that lot 12 reverted to Donoghue. The Post office had been conducted in the general store with Alfred Friedman being appointed post master on 1 December 1904, and he was succeeded in turn by Percy Walkley and H.J. Boyle. But the post office and telephone exchange were eventually moved further north along the main street. It was conducted in a special room in the boarding house until this was destroyed by fire. It seemed that the service might then lapse, but the community rallied to raise funds to build a small office on land donated by Michael Donoghue. The land involved was the site of the first Catholic church. Apparently the long serving post mistress Annie McGuire lived in the tiny post office building. When the automatic telephone exchange was established it was located adjacent to the post office on the same lot (#12). The telephone exchange remains but there is little sign of the post office building. Lola Thompson succeeded her husband as post mistress when her husband died. She remarried and moved the post office into her new husband’s house on the adjacent lot 11. Bernie Ramsey succeeded Lola Keech as postal manager and eventually moved the post office back to the very site of Alfred Friedman’s post office store. Lot 1 in the original subdivision is now empty and seems to be enclosed as part of St. Dympna’s grounds, but the site of the present church and the adjacent house were not included in DP4890.
There is a gentle irony in the fact that the Dunoon Story follows its segment on the Catholic Church with a tribute to Miss Gaffney their long time organist. She was still an active musician long after the Dunoon Story was published. Portions 3 and 4 had been selected by Henry Sharpe, a policeman from Armidale. The electricity substation stands on Portion 3 and until the recent tornado the Anglican church of St Matthew stood on land originally given by Henry Sharpe from portion 4. Miss Gaffney and her sister had eventually inherited the residue of portion 4 from their mother, and that was her home for many years.
(Endnotes)
1. I am using the spelling on the deed held in the Titles Office in Sydney, but elsewhere the spelling is Loewenthal