Things I Learned about Bells

Bells are special in several ways. They are large, ranging in weight from a few hundred pounds to several tons. A ring of ten bronze bells were installed in 1910 at St. Pat's in Montreal but they had remained un'rung since the fifties. Unrung that is until Luties and I rang them to announce the opening ceremonies of the 1976 Olympics.

We followed rotting ropes beginning at the chimestand that was in back of the organ pipes in the choir loft.


We made our way up through several flights of stairs through three distinct chambers in the belfry. Having both read Dante, we felt we were rising through Pigeon Hell (Pigeon skeletons, rotting pigeon carcasses, etc, Pigeon Purgatory (dead, rotting and nearly dead, trapped pigeons) and finally, the open air top floor of the Belfry: pigeon heaven ---where the bells hung high enough to swing above the sills so when the clappers hit the bell, the sound waves could fly as free as a bird, right into the open air.

We perfected our technique to achieve the best possible chords and tonal quality by getting the balls of clappers to strike crisply inside bell lips at just the right moment when the angles would project the loudest possible sounds. The smaller bells rang frequently because they could be swung fast and momentum could be maintained, the big ones took most of our attention and strength to keep them swinging. But what a thrill when the first big Ring of the Tenor Bell rang out in a tone so deep and rich that we looked up amazed and grinned of pure glee. Before we got the hang of it we probably sounded like Funkadelic meets John Cage. But by free swinging and gonging a variety of peals we finally settled on the repetitious delivery of our favorite musical lines.

The largest, called a Tenor Bell, is pictured, here:


I was delighted to learn that they fixed these bells. This blog got me searching the web for old Y bldg. photos and I found the North American Guild of Change Ringers.

One of my most treasured Montreal memories was walking toward the front of the Church and having the sixty-five year old pastor, Msgr. Matthew Dubee ("the Duber") walking briskly toward us. We were filthy and slapping each other's backs and yelling, "We DID it!!!" to each other, exuberantly.


His lips were moving, his finger was wagging. He was gesturing profusely at the belfry, and then waving his arms as the veins were bulging out of his temples. We were STONE COLD DEAF. We couldn't hear a damn thing. All the Churches were supposed to ring for 10 minutes but we were having so much fun we decided to ring for 40 minutes... ...our reasoning was we were Yanks and that's the way we felt it should be done since no one had heard these bells for so long and downtown was full of interesting echoes and far away from the Olympic Village, anyway.

Well, the big tenor bell sound carries far and wide and 40 minutes was enough time for the local Gendarmes to call the rectory and complain to the Duber about his bells. He really didn't care, in fact I remember in times like this one, he often get that Irish twinkle in his eye that he'd inherited from his mother. Our hearing returned in about a half hour, as we ate vanilla ice cream and sipped our cokes which we poured over ice in chilled glass mugs from his stock of six and a half ounce bottles. We watched, with a now relaxed Fr. Dubee, the rest of the opening ceremonies on a TV in his office.

In 80's the parishioners rebuilt the belfry and the bells are now rung by electronic hammers. I doubt they ring as loudly as they did that warm summer day in August, 1976 when two McGill men cavorted in celebration and brought long forgotten bells back to life in long loud peals of heraldry.

A bell hung in its usual position:
a. Stock
b. Stay
c. Slider
d. Blocks
e. Wheel
f. Groove of Wheel
g. Fillet
h. Ball of Clapper
i. Flight of Clapper
k. Cannons
l. Timber of Cage
m. Gudgeons
n. Lip of Bell