Archdeacon Cavanagh was a priest with a very deep interior life who followed severe penitential exercises, even to the point of wearing a hairshirt.    This was discovered by one of his sisters who came to see him in during a sickness near the end of his life.    No priest in Ireland could have had a more modest dwelling, a thatched three roomed cottage with whitewashed walls and a few small windows.    He is reputed to have had no bank account because he gave away everything that he had.   The following brief extract describing the Archdeacon’s countenance and manner is taken from an 1880 account in the “The Weekly News” written by T.D Sullivan:

“So liberal is his stature that … he towers over men of average height… his forehead is lofty, his face long and full of healthy colour, his features regular and firm, his eyes blue, full and expressive, his whole air denoting gentleness and benevolence. he speaks with an easy fluency… I find him to be a most gentlemanlike, amiable and excellent clergyman, full of life and kindness…what charms me most of all is his fatherly tenderness in speaking to his own poor people”