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Born: 25 November 1881, Killashee, County Longford
Entered: 07 September 1899, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1915, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1918,St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 13 September 1959, Loyola College, Watsonia, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Manresa, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death.

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

First World War chaplain.
by 1904 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
by 1918 Military Chaplain : 6th Yorks and Lancs Regiment, BEF France

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
James Magan was a real character with a boisterous sense of u and was a wonderful companion if one was not feeling depressed. His loud, melodious voice could annoy the more sensitive by his vociferous jokes on trams and buses, and he was good at “setting up” superiors by playing on their weaknesses, especially the provincial, Austin Kelly. His wit was captivating. When introducing himself he would say: “Magan's the name - James William Magan. James after St James, William after the Kaiser, and Magan after my Father.
Magan was a most devoted and respected pastor, especially good with young people. He was also very humble. and would even ask for advice about his sermons and retreat notes, even though he was highly skilled in preaching. He spoke the language of the people in simple terms, putting everyone at ease He even became an expert in the Australian accent.
He was educated at Castleknock College by the Vincentians, and Clongowes College, before he entered the Society at Tullabeg, 7 September 1899. After his juniorate there in mathematics and classics, he studied philosophy at Gemert, Toulouse province, 1903-06, and then taught at Mungret and Clongowes, 1906-12. Theology studies at Milltown Park followed, 1912-16, and tertianship at Tullabeg, 1916-17.
For a few years afterwards, Magan became a military chaplain with the 6th York and Lancasters, British Expeditionary Forces, 1917-19. Afterwards, he set sail for Australia, teaching first at Xavier College, 1920-22, then at St Aloysius' College, 1923-24, and finally spent a year at Riverview.
In Australia he had a most successful pastoral ministry, first at Lavender Bay, 1925-31, then as superior and parish priest of Richmond, 1932-36. He also worked at various times at Hawthorn, 1942-59.
Magan was a very colorful personality. He was an outstanding retreat-giver, and for twenty years gave the ordination retreat to the seminarians at Werribee. He also gave a retreat to the Cistercian monks at Tarrawarra. His short Sunday discourses were always full of bright, homely illustrations. His merry ways made him most approachable. He spoke to everyone that he met along his path, conferring on all and sundry unauthorised medical degrees. Many a junior sister he addressed as “Mother General”.
He regularly preached the devotions to the Sacred Heart during the month of June. Magan was above all a kindly, hospitable man, and definitely 'a man's man'. He died suddenly whilst giving a retreat to the priests of the Sale diocese at Loyola College, Watsonia.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 1st Year No 2 1926
Residence. S F XAVIER (Lavender Bay) :
Lavender Bay became an independent parish in 1921. Its First Pastor was Fr R O'Dempsey. He was succeeded by Fr R Murphy, who built the new school, enlarged the hall, and established four tennis courts. The present Pastor so Fr J Magan. All three are old Clongowes boys. The parish contains St, Aloysius' College, two primary schools and two large convents. Numbered amongst the parishioners is His Excellency the Apostolic Delegate.

Irish Province News 7th Year No 3 1932
Lavender Bay Parish
Father James Magan, S.J., took leave of Lavender Bay Parish at a meeting organized by his late parishioners to do him honour and to say farewell. During the proceedings several very complimentary speeches were addressed to him, and a number of substantial presents made.
The Catholic Press, commenting on the meeting, wrote “In the Archdiocese of Sydney there is no more genial priest than Rev. Father .J. Magan, SJ., who has just completed seven years as Superior of the Lavender Bay Parish, and has been transferred to the Jesuit house at Richmond, Victoria. His remarkable jovial disposition, a trait that puts his numerous callers in a friendly attitude, is the reflection of a generous heart which, allied with his high ideals of the priesthood, has made his pastorate on the harbour side a triumphant mission for Christ.Needless to say, during his stay at Lavender Bay, Father Magan won the esteem and respect of all who came in contact with him, especially the school children, in whom he took a great interest, His going is a great loss to the parish, especially to the poor, whom he was always ready to help, not only by giving food and clothing, but also money.

Irish Province News 35th Year No 1 1960
Obituary :
Fr James W Magan (1881-1959)

(From the Monthly Calenday, Hawthorn, October 1959)
The death of Fr. Magan came with startling suddenness, although we should have been prepared for it; for during the last year or so, he had been looking very frail, and aged even beyond his years. Had he lived till the 25th November, he would have been 78 years old. He was, however, so ready to undertake any apostolic work that no one dreamt, when he walked out of Manresa six days before, on the day of his Diamond Jubilee, to begin the first of two retreats to the Bishop and clergy of the diocese of Sale, at Loyola, that he would in a week's time be brought back to Hawthorn in his coffin for his Requiem.
The day he went to Loyola for that retreat was a memorable one for Fr. Magan, because it marked the sixtieth anniversary of his entrance into the Society of Jesus. Normally it would have been a festal day for him, celebrated amongst his fellow Jesuits and friends; but he elected to postpone the celebration of his Jubilee till the two retreats were over. He seemed, however, to have had some inkling that the end was at hand, for in saying goodbye to a member of the community at Hawthorn, he thanked him earnestly for kindness shown to him during the last few years.
Towards the end of the first retreat, Fr. Magan became ill and his place was taken by another priest during the final day. A doctor saw him and urged him to rest for a few days. He did as he was told and the sickness seemed to pass away, and although he did not say Mass on the morning of his death, he was present at Mass and received Holy Communion. He rested quietly during the day and appeared to be well on the mend and in particularly good form, but a visitor to his room at about 3 p.m. found him with his breviary fallen from his helpless hands. He had slipped off as if going to sleep, and I feel sure, just as he would have wished, quietly and peacefully, with no one by his side but his Angel Guardian, presenting him to the Lord, and it is hard to believe that when he met the Master in a matter of moments, he would not have indulged in his wonted pleasantry : “Magan's the name - James William Magan. James after St. James, William after the Kaiser, and Magan after my father”.
Fr. Magan was born in Kilashee, Co. Longford, Ireland. His school. years were spent partly at the Vincentians' College of Castleknock. and partly at the Jesuit College of Clongowes Wood in Kildare. His novitiate was made in Tullabeg, followed by his further classical and mathematical studies in the same place. There he had as one of his masters, Fr. John Fahy, afterwards the first Provincial of Australia. His philosophical studies were made at Gemert, Holland, after which he taught at Mungret and Clongowes Wood Colleges, before proceeding to Theology at Milltown Park, Dublin. There, in due course, he was ordained to the priesthood on the feast of St. Ignatius, 1915. His Tertianship in Ireland was interrupted at the outbreak of the First World War, when he was appointed Chaplain to the British forces in France and Belgium; and at the conclusion of the war he completed his Tertianship in the French Jesuit College, Canterbury, England.
His next important appointment was to Australia and his travelling companion was Fr. Jeremiah Murphy, for many years Rector of Newman College. He taught at Xavier College, Kew and St. Aloysius College, Milson's Point, Sydney; and he was Prefect of Studies at Aloysius and later at Riverview. But his obvious gifts for dealing intimately with souls induced Superiors to put him aside for parish work. He was parish priest at Lavender Bay and also at St. Ignatius, Richmond. For many years he was stationed at the Immaculate Conception Church, Hawthorn, where a splendid tribute to his memory paid by a church packed with priests, parishioners and friends from far and near, hundreds of whom received Holy Communion for the repose of his soul; and at the conclusion of the Requiem Mass a beautiful and perfectly true-to-life panegyric was preached by His Grace, Arch bishop Simmonds, who presided. There were present also in the Sanctuary, Bishop Lyons of Sale, who with his priests had just made with Fr. Magan the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius; Bishop Fox, the Auxiliary Bishop to Archbishop Mannix, and Fr. Swain, S.J., the English Assistant to Fr. General.
Fr. Magan was a colourful personality, whose coming to Australia was a great boon to our country. He was an outstanding retreat-giver to clergy and laity and for quite twenty years he gave the Ordination Retreat to generations of young Corpus Christi priests; many times also to various Jesuit communities in Australia, and to religious, nuns and Brothers throughout the length and breadth of our land. He was, I think, the first to give the annual retreat to the Cistercian monks at Tarrawarra, and wherever he went he left behind him happy memories and most practical lessons for the future.
“Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?” - “What is to prevent one driving home an important truth. in a merry way?” - seems to have been almost a cardinal principle with Fr. Magan. His short Sunday discourses were always full of bright homely illustrations, but there was no mistake possible as to the lesson he set out to teach.
His merry ways made him most approachable. He spoke to everyone that he met on the way, conferring on all and sundry unauthorised medical degrees, and many a junior nun, perhaps even a novice, was swept off her feet and constrained blushingly to disclaim the title, when addressed by His Reverence as “Mother General”.
He loved to tell the following incident where he met his own “Waterloo’. It was long ago in an almost empty tram in North. Sydney, Fr. Magan boarded it at the same time as a lady who was carrying a pet monkey. When the conductor came to take his fare, Fr. Magan said (possibly not in a whisper) : “Are monkeys allowed on this tram?” The conductor replied : |Get over there in the corner and no one will notice you”.
He was always very ready when asked to preach or to give a course of sermons on special occasions. I wonder how many times be gave the “Novena of Grace”, or how often he gave the Devotions of the Sacred Heart during the month of June? The writer remembers well how on one Saturday evening in June he was in the pulpit and he was speaking on the text : “Those who propagate this devotion will have their names written on My Heart, never to be effaced”. He told how he had been asked to give this course on Devotion to the Sacred Heart and how he would never, while he lived, decline such a request. “And why should I”, he said. “Did you not hear my text : ‘They shall have their names written on My Heart, never to be effaced’? Won't that be the day for the Magans!” he cried. And assuredly, if that honour is due to anyone, it would be due to him, for devotion to the Sacred Heart was, one might say, almost a ruling passion with him.
Some years passed by and Fr. Magan was very seriously ill. A critical operation was impending. The writer went to see him in hospital. “How are you, James?” I asked. “Weak, terribly weak”, he replied. “Still I think you are going to make good”, I said, “I don't know that I want to”, was his answer. “Well, James”, I said, “at any rate your name is written deep on His Heart, never to be effaced. I have no doubt of that”. His eyes filled with tears and they coursed down his cheeks, and be blurted out : “Please God. Please God”.
Yes, Fr. Magan was a devoted priest of God. Deep down in his soul, under the veneer of what Archbishop Simmonds called his rollicking humour, was a faith in God and a love of God, for Whom with might and main he strove in the Society of Jesus for sixty years. Multitudes of people are indebted to him. He had a heart of gold, as those who knew him best can testify, and he was a devoted, faithful friend. The writer', at any rate, believes that his name is written deeply in the Heart of Christ, never to be effaced.
J. S. Bourke, S.J.

◆ The Clongownian, 1918

Clongowes Chaplains

We should have liked to be able to give a series of letters from Army. Chaplains, Past Clongownians, and former members of the Clon gowes Community, describing their professional experiences. We made considerable efforts and received promises not a few. But in the end, all found that their life was too busy and too irregular to make formal composition of that kind possible, and they one and all shrank from the task. Very often, too, no doubt, there was the fear of the Censor in the background. But notwithstanding this we thought it would be of interest to many readers of the “Clongownian” if we pieced together from these letters the scattered fragments of news coll tained in them. And this is what we have done. We begin with Father Corr, who for several years most worthily filled the position of Editor to this Magazine, and to whom is due the magnificent Centenary Number, 1914

Father James Magan SJ

Father Magan is in France with the 6th Yorkshire and Lancashire. He has, perhaps, come in contact with more Clongownians than any other of our Chaplains. He it was who had charge of the funeral of Lieut. C Shiel, RFC, whose death is announced else where, and among CWC men present at the graveside was R L Rice. He has also come: across J J Keating and poor David, who has recently been killed, and George Maher and Dr Carroll and others. He paid us a short visit during the year, and some of his adventures would make very interesting reading were it not that space, and possibly DORA, will not allow us to record them. Some of his escapes were as amusing on after thought as they must have been nerve-racking at the time.

◆ The Clongownian, 1919

Clongowes Chaplains

Our last number gave an account of the work and experiences of those Army Chaplains who were connected with Clongowes either as boys or masters. Since then a number of those mentioned have found their way back to civil life.

The Armistice.
We are glad to have the opportunity of publishing an account of the Armistice “celebrations” and the events that followed, as viewed by one of our Chaplains, Father Magan, who found himself near Mons when the order (which, apparently, they did not get) to cease fire was given. Father Magan was attached to the 6th Yorks and Lancs. Regiment, and this letter was written home by him on the 20th of November last.

6th York and Lanc, Regiment,
B.E.F., 20/11/18

Dear Father Finlay, PC,

For the past few days I have been doing rather unusual work. I am in a little village one side of which is Belgian, the opposite side is French. It was peculiarly placed during the war, as no one was allowed to go from one country to the other, no one might cross the street or even bid good day to those on the other side. There was a church for each side and a Curé for each side. It is called Goegnes-Chaussée, about 13 kilometers from Mons. Well, this village is on the high road to Germany, so there are hundreds of our prisoners who got free somehow or other from the Germans. Some were let go, some broke away. The costumes are most varied. Some come as smart young Belgians in hard hats, collars and ties; others in khaki ; others half and half, khaki and civilian; others come in prisoner usiform; others in clothes supplied from home. To each and all I supply cigarettes, having got a good supply from the Weekly Dispatch Smokes Fund, and I bear those who want to go to confession.

I met Irish of many regiments - Dublins, Connaughts, RI Rifles, RI Regt, SI, Horse, Leinsters, Munsters. Also Eoglish, Scotch, Australians, Newzealanders, French and Italians.

The Belgians on the way back treated them right royally. At Charleroi the nuns bustled aside the now subdued Germans and got the Catholics to their first Mass for eight months, The Curé there in his sermon exhorted his congregation to see that none of the returning prisoners were short of anything, and tbey followed bis advice to the letter. All they had to spare in the way of clotbes, food and smokes was open to them, I never saw such gratitude as they felt to the Belgians.

When taken they suffered extraordinary privations. To get a drink on the way back last November or March they drank the water off the streets and got no other drink. In the prison cage watches and chains were freely given for a drink of water. They worked at forward dumps of rations or shells or as grooms to German bosses, some even as mess waiters. Food varied according to the chances of scrounging. Not even the mess waiters fared well, as tbe German officers' mess was exceedingly bad. Some always cooked and ate rats when they were lucky enough to kill one. Potato skins were washed and cooked - nettles were freely eaten Tobacco was a most peculiar mixture of leaves of all kinds. Many bring back samples of the blacker brand which is vile. A loaf cost 8 marks, and it was 8 men to a loaf. They were offered 200 marks for boots coming from England; clothes went 500 marks a suit, ie, £25. I saw an overall coat made from nettles and it looked fine. Ropes and sandbags and even towels were made of paper.

Mons
I paid a visit to the famous Mons. It is a fine town and not much damaged. There are shops with fair supplies, but everything is fearfully dear-a bar of chocolate, 2/6; an egg, 1/-,

Peace was a rather tame affair out here. It started as a rumour which no one believed. Then at 11 am. the bands played, The Curé of Aubrois, where I was, made a speech to congratulate the British for having saved Belgium. I translated it; there were three cheers for the King, for Belgium, and for France, and all went their way. For days we heard, as it were, far-off guns which were hard to explain, but it was caused by German dumps being fired.

The most wonderful part of the German retreat was the way they blew up the roads behind then. Every cross road was completely blown to pieces, leaving a huge hole which caused endless inconvenience. Miles of traffic was held up by it. Side roads and main roads suffered alike. The difficulty is that there is little or no road metal to be found to fill in these lioles. For a day or two no rations could come, even aeroplanes had to drop buliy and biscuits to the troops. The papers spoke of a dramatic order to cease fire, unfix bayonets. I heard nothing of it. The war fizzled out like a dying candle. and no one knew it. The prisoners all say it is wonderful how the Germans held out. They were playing the game of bluff; their transport was hopeless - even cows being used for limbers, their harness all ropes, and those paper ropes. Their men had lost their morale; at Aubrois they broke their rifles rather than go into the line. Their treatment of civilians would demand a whole letter, and I must say good-night.

I remain, etc.,

J W Magan SJ, CF

Behind the German Lines
We are indebted to another letter of Father Magan's for the following account of life in a Belgian occupied village :

The people told ine of the invasion. Everything was commandeered Brass of all kinds, knobs of doors, windows, beds, all bedding and loodstuffs. The great complaint was against the “Komandatur” (i.e., the town major and the police). If people were found boiling potatoes the police threw out the potatoes and a fine of 50 marks was imposed. Some had a procès verbal six times a week, and so marks each time. One woman had three in one day. She got up at 6 am - procès No I. She was caught talking with others in the street procès No 2. She lit a light in her house and went straight to shut the window, but was caught (all lights should be covered) - procès No 3. All cattle and hens had been taken, so the country was exceedingly poor. Still there remained some American Red-Cross supplies, cocoa and coffee, to which they treated us.

◆ The Clongownian, 1960

Obituary

Father James William Magan SJ

On a summer's evening exactly fifty years ago a lost new boy stood amid the pile of trunks on the Higher Line Gallery, searching his pockets for the nth time for a lost key. A voice behind him said: “Cheer up, young man, if I can't find a key to fit it, I can lend you a couple of sticks of dynamite”. That was a characteristic introduction to Father, then Mr James William Magan, or as he liked to say: “James for my patron saint, James the apostle, William for the Kaiser, Magan for my father”. There cannot be many who remember the boy who came to Clongowes from Castleknock nor even very many who can remember him as Gallery Prefect, but the recollections of those who do must be vivid and vital, for Mr James Magan was a vivid and vital person. The first and not the least important thing about him in those far-off days was his high spirits. Banging his great bunch of keys with a smile that was close to a grin, he would sweep down the gallery driving the laggards out to walk the track or play “gravel” with a jovial roar, “Omnes Ex!” (“All out”).

We boys were probably quite unaware of the tonic his good spirits and energy were when the monotony of school routine threatened. The office of Gallery Prefect is not the easiest position to fill on the Clongowes staff, though it may well be reckoned one of the most influential. Father James Magan filled it perfectly. He was a strict disciplinarian who was always just, and never harsh. If you deserved it he taught you your lesson, and that done he resumed at once the friendiy relations that were his habitual attitude to all men. The writer still remembers the astonishment with which he heard the ex-gallery prefect recommend him to a successor it was hard to believe he had ever been in trouble. But James Magan was no mere disciplinarian, he could hold a group around his desk under the clock talking first sport and then books and then almost imperceptibly the things that mattered. High spirits can be trying, and they can be a matter of mood or temperament. Father James' were never irritating for he was spontaneous, unselfconscious and always kind. And they were constant. Now constant good spirits through the days and months of a Gallery Prefect's commission and for fifty years to come are not an affair of mood or temperament, they are quite simply a virtue.

He carried the same bubbling energy into his class work. He had one group of the rejected by the experts from Father James Daly's carefully picked “Honours Boys”. These mathematical morons he pushed, one and all, through their exam, a few, to his undisguised delight, took higher honours than some of the chosen race.

After these first school years I met Father James only three times. Once when a tertian father, he brought all his old power to cheer to bear on a novice in some need of it. Again, when in a Captain's uniform and talking, as he liked to do, a special soldiers' jargon inter larded with French tags, he came back from the Somme and Paschendale with unbroken cheerfulness and a completely unheroic manner. It was an unexpected visit to Australia that gave me my last glimpse of him ten years or so before his death. He had been very ill, and his chances of life were put very low. I believe he knew it, but he certainly did not show it, and he was on his way from one retreat to another. He had no intention. of “resting”. Had we ever seen him rest? In the event he served a full sixty years and fell ill and died while actually engaged in giving a clergy retreat.

And here, perhaps an apology is due for a memory of Father James that omits any real account of his life work, his years as a teacher in Australia - he was prefect of Studies in Sydney's great school, Riverview; of the long labours, half a life time, as a parish priest, a preacher. The greatest authority in Australia said to the present writer: “Father Magan is undoubtedly one of the best preachers in Australia”, and added with a touch of Father James's own humour; “And he knows it”!!!

For twenty years he had given the ordination retreat at Corpus Christi, the seminary of the Melbourne archdiocese. And it was not surprising that Dr Symonds, the Coadjutor Archbishop, should comment on the tribute the great gathering of priests at Father James's funeral was to the man he eulogised with such affection and understanding. But all that and a great deal more is told elsewhere, here it is simply the wish of one old Clongowesman to express for all his contemporaries the gratitude and affection he feels for his “prefect” and the pride he feels in his school fellow.

To his sisters and to his nephews, Michael and John, we offer our sincere sympathy.

MB

Born: 22 February 1737, Rylane, Ennis, County Clare
Entered: 07 September 1755, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1762
Died: 08 November 1768, Arlington, Devonshire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Alias Johnson

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
A Nephew of Bishop Laurence Nihell, and was related to the Stackpoles and MacNamaras etc of Co Clare.
To his religious merits he added the distinction of eminence in classical literature.
He was prepared for death by Father Joseph Reeve SJ, who praises him very much in a letter written to his mother - Mrs MacGee, Rylan, Ennis”
(cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
JOHNSON, DAVID. His true name was Maghee. He was born in Ireland on the 22nd of February, 1737 : entered the Novitiate at Watten at the age of 18, and to his religious merits added the distinction of eminence in classic literature. In 1761, he was appointed Chaplain to the Mission of Arlington in Devonshire, where his Patron, John Chichester, Esq. shewed himself unconscious and unworthy of the treasure he might have possessed in such a pastor and companion. Death relieved this meritorious Father from his comfortless situation, on the 8th of November, 1768.

Born: 19 June 1737, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 21 May 1760, Madrid, Spain - Toletanae Province (TOLE)
Ordained: before 1771
Died: 01 March 1771, Rome, Italy - Toletanae Province (TOLE)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of James and Maria née Humphreys
1762-1765 After First Vows he was sent to Philosophy at Murcia
1765-1767 Sent for Theology at Alcalà when the Society was expelled from Spain in 1767
Date of his Ordination is unknown, but he was a Priest at the time of his death 01 Marhc 1771 in Rome
According to TOLE CAT for 1767, which carries annotations for later careers of TOLE, Magill was said to have LFET the Society 11 February 1768, but that he died in the Society in Rome 01 March 1771.

Born: 27 February 1851, Valetta, Malta
Entered: 09 May 1871, Milltown Park (HIB for Siculae Province - SIC)
Ordained: 1881
Final vows: 15 August 1890
Died: 29 March 1907, Sfax, Tunisia - Siculae Province (SIC)

Rector of the Infirmary in Piazza Ammalati, Catania, Sicily, Italy at the time of death

Marble merchants, stained glass manufacturers, art metal work and engineering contractors.

https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/

Born: 11 February 1818, Granard, County Longford
Entered: 20 September 1837, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province
Ordained: 1851
Final vows: 15 August 1855
Died: 26 April 1886, St Joseph’ Hospital, Philadelphia PA, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Part of the Gonzaga College, Washington DC, USA community at the time of death

Born: 22 June 1800, Slane, County Meath
Entered: 08 January 1825, Montrouge, Paris, France - Galliae Province (GALL)
Ordained: - pre Entry
Died: 11 June 1833, Ste Marie, Bardstown, KY, USA - Galliae Province (GALL)

Born: 08 November 1810, County Tyrone
Entered: 23 August 1834, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Died: 15 January 1836, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Born: 19 March 1824, Rush, County Dublin
Entered: 23 May 1858, Clongowes Wood College SJ, County Kildare
Final vows: 15 August 1868
Died: 18 March 1894, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

by 1871 at home for health

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He had been a number of years in the Metropolitan Police before Ent.

He was a Novice in Clongowes under Father Bracken.
After First Vows he was sent to Gardiner St, and worked there until he became invalided in 1870 and had to live outside the Society fro a few years.
1873-1888 He was Refectorian at Milltown.
1888 he was sent to Gardiner St again and lived there until his death 18 March 1894
He was very methodical in his work, and had a particular like of gardening, spending most of his free time at this. He was in every respect an edifying and exemplary religious.

Note from Francis Hegarty Entry :
He did return after some months, and there he found in Father Bracken, a Postulant Master and Novice Master, and this was a man he cherished all his life with reverence and affection. His second Postulancy was very long and hard - four years. He took the strain and was admitted as a Novice with seven others who had not had so trying a time as himself. He liked to say that all seven along with him remained true to their vocation until death, and he was the last survivor. They were John Coffey, Christopher Freeman, David McEvoy, James Maguire, John Hanly, James Rorke and Patrick Temple.

Born: 05 May 1825, Newgrange, County Meath
Entered: 07 October 1843, Hodder, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1856
Final vows: 02 February 1859
Died: 10 March 1904, Stonyhurst, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Older brother of Matthew (HIB) - RIP 1864

Born: 11 July 1859, Hobson’s Bay, Melbourne, Australia
Entered: 12 August 1890, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Final vows: 15 August 1902
Died: 18 November 1932, St Aloysius, Sevenhill, Adelaide, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Late on the evening of 30 ]uly 1890, John Maguire, a tall, bearded bushman, was the first to welcome to Loyola College, Greenwich, the novice master, Aloysius Sturzo, and the novices when they arrived from Melbourne. Later he entered the Society 12 August 1890.
He went to Riverview on 25 September 1891, and worked in second division, but took his vows at Greenwich, August 1892. He returned to Riverview until 1913, working as a steward and caring for the farm for many years. In 1899 a bull attacked him, and was subsequently shot by Sergeant Williams. In 1905 he made a dam to water the crops, and in 1906 he helped save the boatshed from a bushfire. In July 1907, he caught some boys taking oranges and troubling the hen man and, in 1911, he grew corn between first and second playing fields. He was very useful worker.
Maguire then went to Sevenhill doing domestic duties, working in the garden, and performing the duties of refectorian and infirmarian, sacristan and prefect of the church. He was much respected for his religious spirit, and for his silent unassuming sincerity He had a quiet but singular humour. He was buried in the crypt of the Sevenhill church.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 8th Year No 1 1933
Obituary :
Br John Maguire - Australia
Br. Maguire's birthday was 11th July, 1859. He entered the Society at Loyola, Sydney, 12th August, 1890. His life is soon told. Immediately after the noviceship he was sent to Riverview where he remained as Villicus to the year 1912 and was then transferred to Sevenhills. Here he remained to the end doing duty all the time, with the exception of two years as Villicus or Hortulanus. He died on Friday, 18th November 1932.
Perhaps some of his friends in Australia would be kind enough to send a short appreciation of his life to Province News.

Irish Province News 8th Year No 2 1933

Obituary :
Brother John Maguire continued
The Brother was born on board ship in Port Phillip within sight of Melbourne, and spent some of his early life on a farm in Western Australia before entering the Society in 1890.
With the death of Brother' Maguire Sevenhills has lost a figure that seemed to embody its spirit. The chief attraction of the place is the fine old Gothic church built by the Austrian
Brothers in 1868, but visitors found in Brother Maguire an object no less worthy of their attention. He- was always at hand ready to show them the church and its treasures. For this purpose his work in the afternoon took him to that part of the garden which commanded the road leading to the house. With rake in hand, or perhaps carrying a bucket he could be seen at his favourite place - venerable and saintly - as he hobbled about with his lame leg, his old clothes covering his massive frame, his old felt hat fringed with his silver hair.
On Sundays, at the same hour and with the same object in view, he sat in the church near the CTS book rack and read the pamphlets, or simply gazed at the tabernacle with hands crossed on his lap. Brother Maguire was a man of very few words, but when there was a question of carrying out his apostolate among the visitors, he became eloquent and spoke in a gentle earnest voice. He seldom looked one in the face while he spoke, but with eyes raised, and looking past the shoulder, he uttered his words quietly and deliberately, as if he were reading them from a book.It is said that' he possessed a fiery temper and on one occasion, when very anxious about something he made himself heard from the kitchen to the dairy, a distance of some 300 yards. Yet you would live with him a year on end, and find no evidence of this passion. The one passion which held him night and day was his zeal for souls. Few visitors, rich or poor, sightseers or sun-downers, escaped his attention once within his range, and few left him without receiving spiritual instruction, Well may it be said of him “The zeal of Thy House hath eaten me up”. it is hard to speak of his loss to the community. Space prevents entering into details. Let it suffice to say that his life in all respects was one of shining edification. He rose at 4.30 and called the community. After Mass and breakfast he began his daily round of duties. They were many and varied, for he was sacristan, gardener and general helper. In everything he was regular, thorough. In the last year of his life he became a little erratic, and as the year went by one grew less surprised to hear the bells rung at unaccustomed hours. His deafness increased, and was a source of endless worry. He knew he was failing, yet never a word of impatience or complaint.
Some one else is doing his work, and, possibly, doing it better, but no one will ever win, as Brother Maguire won the hearts of his fellow-religious during the long years he lived amongst them at Sevenhills.

Born: 15 June 1933, Glenfarne, County Leitrim
Entered: 01 July 1968, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Professed: 02 February 1981, Lusaka, Zambia
Died: 16 April 2020, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park community, Dublin at the time of death.

by 1980 at Lusaka Zambia (ZAM) working

Early Education as Grocer in Ireland and England; Rathmines Tech, Dublin; Catholic Workers College, Dublin

1970-1974 Milltown Park - Secretary to Provincial; Studying
1974-1975 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Studying Theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare
1975-1980 Milltown Park - Secretary to Provincial
1977 Studying Theology at Milltown Institute; Assistant Secretary to Provincial
1978 Tertianship in Tullabeg
1979 Member of Special Secretariat
1980-1984 Lusaka, Zambia - Secretary to Rector of St Dominic’s Major Seminary
1984-1987 Loyola House - Minister; Province Secretary
1985 Editor of Province Newsletter
1987-2020 Milltown Park - Province Secretary
1993 Canterbury, Kent, UK - Sabbatical at Franciscan Study Centre
1994 Administration in Provincial’s Office
2017 Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/br-john-maguire-sj-one-of-leitrims-treasures/

Br John Maguire SJ – ‘One of Leitrim’s treasures’
Brother John Maguire SJ died peacefully in Cherryfield Lodge nursing home, Ranelagh, Dublin, on 16 April 2020. Due to government guidelines regarding public gatherings, a private funeral took place on 18 April, followed by burial in Glasnevin Cemetery. A small number of relatives attended. Fr Bill Callanan SJ and Fr John K Guiney SJ represented the Jesuits. Around 100 messages were left on the online Condolences Book (RIP.ie), such was Brother John’s influence on the lives of lay people and religious over many decades. Many remember him for his quiet reassuring presence and for his wise judgement and administrative skills while working for the Irish Jesuit Province.
Brother John was born in Glenfarne, County Leitrim, in 1933. Before entering the Jesuits at 35 years old, he worked as a grocer in Ireland and England and attended Rathmines Tech and Catholic Workers College in Dublin. After his novitiate at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois, he worked as secretary to the Provincial and studied at Milltown Park, Dublin, followed by theology studies at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. He continued his studies and administrative work in Milltown Park and did his tertianship in Tullabeg, County Offaly.
From 1980 to 1984, Brother John was a missionary in Lusaka, Zambia, where he was secretary to the rector of St Dominic’s Major Seminary. He also took his final vows there.
Upon his return to Ireland, he worked as minister for the Loyola House community in Dublin, acted as Province secretary and editor of the Province newsletter. He continued his work as Province secretary, took a sabbatical at the Franciscan Study Centre in Canterbury, England, in 1993, and was involved with administration in the Provincial’s office right up until 2017. In recent years, he lived in Cherryfield Lodge nursing home, where he prayed for the Church and the Society of Jesus.
The private funeral which took place on 18 April was officiated by Fr Bill Callanan SJ and assisted by Fr John K Guiney SJ. Fr Guiney, director of Irish Jesuit Missions, thanked the four members of Brother John’s family who travelled from Leitrim on the morning of the funeral. He was grateful for their presence in the difficult circumstances where it was not possible to do a normal Jesuit funeral and to fully celebrate Brother John’s wonderful life as a Jesuit companion.
Fr Guiney thanked the Maguire family for giving Brother John to the Society and for his service of so many in Zambia and Ireland. He said that his gracious, gentle, dedicated and humble service touched the lives of so many down through the years. His sister Peggy was unable to attend because of government constraints, but she was well represented by her family. Brother John occupies the last place available in the old graveyard at Glasnevin Cemetery and the next Jesuit burial will take place in the new one.
A number of other Jesuits have expressed their condolences for the loss of their dear brother in the Lord. Tom Layden SJ, former Irish Provincial, commented:
“May John rest in the peace of the Risen Lord and may the hope of the resurrection bring comfort to his family and friends. I thank the Lord for John and his gifts of kindness, quiet competence and friendliness.”
Kevin O’Higgins SJ, Director of Jesuit University Support and Training (JUST) in Ballymun, said:
“It is lovely to see so many tributes to John. Like St Peter Faber, one of the first Jesuits, John was a ‘quiet companion’, always courteous, anxious to help, unfailingly kind and generous. After a lifetime of dedicated service, may he now rest peacefully in God’s love.”
Paddy Carberry SJ, former novice director and editor of Messenger magazine, commented:
“I have known John for many years, and worked closely with him at one time. He was always kind, obliging, gentle and good-humoured. I will miss him. I have offered Mass for him. My condolences to his family and to all who miss him.”
The Provincialate staff in Milltown Park remember him as a great colleague. They said:
“Brother John helped new staff settle into their jobs in so many little ways and was welcoming and good humoured to all who came into the office.
“We have memories of him loving the fun at coffee breaks, for his gifts of homemade biscuits and for his tin whistle playing.
“He was a gentleman in every sense with a lovely simplicity, albeit with a touch of delicious roguery! He was one of Leitrim’s treasures. May he rest in endless peace.”
Paddy Moloney, who used to visit Brother John in Cherryfield Lodge, also paid tribute to him.
“John was gentle, and was particular about any job he did. He liked the garden, flowers, was a player of the tin whistle and played in bands in his hometown. He was in a small 3 piece Irish music group in Dublin.
The other two remained his friends for life. My wife Aline worked as a receptionist in the Curia and knew him when he was well and said he was interested in people and she always found him helpful.”
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Born: 06 October 1834, Newgrange, County Meath
Entered: 17 February 1868, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1872, England
Final Vows: 15 August 1880
Died: 20 April 1894, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare

by 1871 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1877 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying

Younger brother of James (ANG) - RIP 1904

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He had an older brother James (RIP 1904) in the English Province and a nephew who was a Redemptorist.

After First Vows he was a Procurator as a Scholastic.
He studied Theology in England and was Ordained there.
1879 He was Minister in Tullabeg, and from 1880 until the College closed was also the Procurator.
1890 He was sent to Mungret.
1892 He was sent to Milltown.
1893 He was sent to Clongowes to take charge of the “small study”. He died there very suddenly of a fever 20 April 1894

Born: 31 October 1906, Rutland Street, Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1935, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1943, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 21 January 1993, Our Lady's Hospice, Dublin

Part of the Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin community at the time of death.

by 1958 at Holy Name, Manchester (ANG) working

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 82 : September 1995
Obituary
Fr Richard Maguire (1906-1993)

31st Oct. 1906; Born, Rutland Street, Dublin
Educated at St. Agatha's/Christian Bros., North Richmond Street, Dublin.
Employed as Solicitor's Clerk for 13 years.
7th Sept. 1935: Entered the Society at Emo
1937 - 1940: Philosophy at Tullabeg
1940 - 1944: Theology at Milltown Park
29th July 1943: Ordained
1944 - 1945: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1945 - 1952; Mission Staff, living at Emo
1952 - 1957: Mission Staff, living at Rathfarnham
1957 - 1960: Church work, Holy Name, Manchester
1960 - 1965: Mission Staff, living at Belvedere
1965 - 1969: Mission Staff, living at Manresa
1969 - 1973: Minister at Tullabeg
1973 - 1979; Chaplain to Incurables Hospital, Donnybrook, living at Milltown Park
1979 - 1989: Chaplain to Incurables Hospital, Donnybrook, living at Leeson Street.
1989 - 1993: Cherryfield Lodge
21st Jan. 1993: Died at Our Lady's Hospice, Harold's Cross

Richard was born in Dublin, educated by the Christian Brothers and worked as a solicitor's clerk for 13 years before entering the Jesuit Novitiate in 1935 at the age of 29. He was a member of the Legion of Mary before he entered and remained a Legionary at heart all his life.

After a short course of studies he was ordained in 1943, eight years after joining the Novitiate. Following Tertianship, he served on the Mission Staff for twenty-one years, ministered in the Church of the Holy Name, Manchester for three years, was Minister of the House in Tullabeg for four years and in later life spent sixteen years as chaplain to the Royal Hospital in Donnybrook, In his mission and retreat work he put a number of young men in contact with the Society and they became, and still remain, eminent and excellent Jesuits.

Richard was gifted with a beautiful singing voice and in early life received great commendation from Mrs. Boylan who taught singing and led a famous choir. Mrs. Boylan was the mother of Dom Eugene Boylan (Cistercian), and his Carthusian brother in Parkminster,

Richard acknowledged himself that the most suitable work for him was the chaplaincy to the sick, many of whom were incurably ill, in Donnybrook's Royal Hospital, and he was confirmed in his view by Father General in a personal letter on the occasion of his Golden Jubilee as a Jesuit in 1985. In 1989 he retired to Cherryfield Lodge but he battled bravely with declining health, away from his beloved Community in Leeson Street. Early in January 1993 he asked to be admitted to Our Lady's Hospice at Harold's Cross, and died there on January 21st. May he rest in peace.

Edward Keelaghan

Born: 15 June 1707, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 19 July 1722, Avignon, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1737, Strasbourg, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1740
Died: 05 February 1770, Speyer, Rhineland, Germany - Franciae Province (FRA)

Alias Louis de Magliore
Mission Superior 1761-1763 Missions at Martinique, Guadaloupe and Cayenne

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Taught Humanities for six years and Rhetoric for one, and was a Prefect of Studies for three. (Lyon)
1743 He left for the Mission to Martinique (FRA CAT 1746)

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ :
During studies he was at various Colleges inside and outside LUGD, finishing at Lyons
1743 Went to Martinique
1745-1755 At Guadaloupe, and in the latter part of this was Superior of that Mission
1755-1761 Returned to Martinique taking charge of a parish
1761-1763 Returned to Europe to report on the state of the Mission. The LUGD Provincial proposed sending him back as Socius to Fr John de la Marche with the right of Succession as Mission Superior of all the Missions at Martinique, Guadaloupe and Cayenne. He travelled back to the West Indies to carry out that task, but the Jesuits were expelled in 1763
1763 Returned to Europe and found refuge in Speyer and Baden in the Upper Rhine Province

◆ Fr Francis Finegan Sj :
He was probably brought up in France
1724-1727 After First Vows he was sent to study Rhetoric at Avignon and then Philosophy at Lyon and Dôle,
1727-1734 He was sent for six years Regency at Aix. he then studied completed his Philosophy at Dôle
1734-1737 He was sent to Dôle again for a year of Theology and then two at Strasbourg where he was Ordained 1737
1737-1739 Continued to study Theology at Strasbourg, probably with a view to teaching
1740-1743 Sent to teach Humanities at Vesoul and then at Irish College Poitiers
1743-1760 Volunteered for the Paris Mission in the West Indies and spent the next seventeen years in Martinique and Guadaloupe
1761 Returned to France as a result of a disagreement with Fr Lavalette, whose financial adventures had earned much condemnation for the Society. The Provincial in Paris, who had a high esteem for Maguire’s prudence and administrative ability, proposed to the General that he should become Superior in the West Indies but the dissolution of the Society in France and the confiscation of her possessions rendered this irrelevant.
1762 He found refuge at Speyer in the Upper Rhenish Province. He was in poor health there by 1770, but his date of death is not known

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Roger Maguire SJ 1707-1770
Fr Roger Maguire – usually called in French Louis de Magloire – was born in Ireland in 1707. He entered the Society at Avignon in 1722.

He went to Martinique in 1743 and then passed on to Guadaloupe where from 1745-1755 he was Superior of the Mission.

He returned t Europe in 1761 to report on affairs in the West Indies. He was sent back as Sociuus to the Superior Fr Jean de la Marche with right of succession. However, the French were expelled from the French islands in 1763, and Fr Maguire returned once again to Europe. Up to 1770, we have news of him working first in Spire and then in Baden.

Born: 19 January 1913, Belfast, County Antrim
Entered: 16 November 1931, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1945, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1948, Wah Yan College, Hong Kong
Died: 23 February 1971, Cahir, County Tipperary

Part of the Tullabeg, County Offaly community at the time of death.

by 1960 at Brophy Prep, Phoenix AZ (CAL) working
by 1962 at St Francis Xavier Phoenix AZ, USA (CAL) working

Died in a car accident.

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Death of Father Rory Maguire S.J.
R.I.P.

Father Rory Maguire, S.J., formerly of Wah Yan Colleges, Hong Kong and Kowloon, was killed in a road accident in Ireland on 23 February 1971, aged 58.

Father Maguire came to Hong Kong in 1947. His whole time here was devoted to education. He was principal of the afternoon school in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, and later was prefect of studies in Wah Yan College, Kowloon.

During much of his time in Hong Kong he suffered grievously from an intractable slipped disc. Ultimately he had to go to Arizona, where the extreme dryness of the climate helped him to a partial recovery. After a period there he was able to return to Ireland, but there was no prospect of his being able to stand up to Hong Kong humidity.

Requiem Mass for the repose of his soul will be celebrated at 6pm, today, Friday, 5 March, in the chapel of Wah Yan College, Kowloon.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 5 March 1971

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 46th Year No 3 1971

Obituary :

Fr Rory Maguire SJ (1913-1971)

Sudden death always leaves a sense of shock; sudden and violent death leaves one numb. When the news of Fr Rory Maguire's death in a car crash reached us on Tuesday, February 23rd, those of us who knew Fr Rory well were overwhelmed. He had left Dublin that day with Wilfrid Chan, SJ, to go to Cork. Near Cahir, about 2.30 p.m., the fatal accident occurred. Fr Rory was killed instantly and Wilfrid Chan was seriously injured. Fr Knight, CSSp, of Rockwell College, and Mr Carey of Cahir Vocational School, the occupants of the other car, were both injured but are now well on the road to recovery. Wilfrid Chan, after a long and painful time in St. Vincent's Hospital, Elm Park, is now back in Milltown Park and making satisfactory progress.
On Wednesday evening, February 24th, Fr Rory's remains were brought from Cashel Hospital to Gardiner Street Church. Those who travelled with the funeral will long remember the immense crowd awaiting the arrival at Gardiner Street - a tribute from so many people to one who during his life as a priest had been a sincere friend and unfailing helper to countless people in all walks of life. That tribute was repeated on Thursday morning in a packed Gardiner Street at concelebrated Mass. At Glasnevin he was laid to rest and one felt that each person at that graveside mourned for a personal loss. In his lifetime as a Jesuit he had endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact,
Fr Rory's life as a priest was lived in three continents. His early years, since he joined the Society in 1931, were all spent in Ireland. Those early years of study were not easy for him, but he applied himself to them with that spirit of duty and devotedness that were to be so characteristic of all his work in later years. After ordination in 1945 and tertianship in 1946-47, he went to Hong Kong. Those who worked with him on the mission during the long years he spent in the Far East, bear the highest tribute to his zeal and energy as a missioner, the impact he made on all he met and, above all, his tremendous influence on the boys he taught and guided for so many years in Wah Yan College.
It was in China that he contracted that back illness that was to stay with him until the end of his life and cause him so much suffering. After a disc operation in Hong Kong, he returned to Ireland and the next few years were spent in and out of hospital and always pain and discomfort. Yet, through all this, Fr Rory was always looking for something to do in the way of an apostolate. And in all those efforts the man, who was also the priest, shone out. No one, not even his closest friends, will ever know the work he did for people in those days.
On medical advice, he went to Arizona, to the Jesuit house in Phoenix and his next few years were spent there doing church work and teaching religion. After the years in Arizona, with little by way of improvement to his health, he returned to Ireland and joined the church staff in the Crescent, Limerick. The same devotion to duty, the same concern for people characterised his work there and his box in the church was a popular one. 1970 saw him transfer to Tullabeg and the mission staff. He was happy in this work as it gave him many opportunities to work.
His sympathy and his understanding, his unfailing good humour and his obvious sincerity won him many friends all over Ireland and England during his short time on the mission staff. A heart attack during the last year before his death forced him to retire from the too heavy work of travelling and preaching missions and he joined the Retreat House staff in Rathfarnham. This was his last appointment and in the short time he was to spend at this work he gave the same zeal, enthusiasm and effort. His life might be summed up in words written of another great Jesuit : “He was at home with all kinds of people and in many different worlds - this was part of his greatness - but his own personal world had at its centre that priestly and religious dedication to which he was heroically true to the end”. May he rest in peace and to his family, four brothers and one sister, deepest sympathy from all who were privileged to have known Fr Rory.

Loreto Convent, Bray, County Wicklow

Born: 22 October 1901, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Entered: 30 April 1971, Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin
Final Vows: 08 September 1981, Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin
Died: 14 March 1982, Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 57th Year No 3 1982

Obituary
Br Edward Maher (1901-1971-1982)

Although Br Ned was granted four score of years, his life as a Jesuit spanned little more than a decade. Before becoming “Brother” he had already filled the roles of father and grandfather. The present writer first made the acquaintance of Mr Ned Maher when he (Ned) came to have a chat with Fr Cecil McGarry about entering the Society. A very dapper man with a thin Ronnie Colman moustache; alert, brisk, humorous, at once affable and serious. All these adjectives could be applied to him twelve years later, right up to the time of his last (and really first) illness when it saddened e to see the alertness and humour fading into an almost puzzled resignation.
Ned was born in Philadelphia on 22nd October, 1901, was educated at Belvedere, Clongowes, UCD and Georgetown University. After a short spell working in a bank he took up business, in which he remained for the rest of his lay life. He entered the Society on 30th April, 1971, took his first rows on 29th April, 1973 and pronounced final vows on 8th September, 1981.
A jumble of memories comes to me as I remember Ned; his love for operatic works on stage or radio. The only holiday he allowed himself was a few days every year at 35 lower Leeson Street from which he could, with chosen companions, easily attend the operas at the Gaiety theatre. He was one of the few men I know who appreciated the works of Wagner.
Chess was a game he liked. I cannot say whether he was a skilful player, but he would take on any of the novices who knew how to play. Reading he loved, though within a rather restricted field. Surprisingly (though maybe not in a person of Wagnerian tastes) he focused his reading on the war histories and the memoirs of famous commanders. For one form of recreation he felt no attraction at all ... walking. We used joke him about never having seen the other end of our property, “Walking” for Ned was a purely functional exercise; to get to a bus or bank or post-office; and he hadn't any inclination to look at the birds of the air or the lilies in the field; they hardly existed for Ned.
Maybe I am remembering only the marginal things about Ned, the mere phenomena, as the existentialists would say. But surely it was in and through these “marginals” that one got to know and love the whole essence, flavour, tang and colour of the personality that was Ned. Devotion to crosswords, Curly Wee, Verdi and Puccini were always “in place”, in the place where “desipere” is the mark of a wise man.
So much for play. What about his work? Apart from one short and unsuccessful period as staff-manager in Mungret he was Bursar in Manresa House and secretary of the Retreat House. He really loved work; figures and account books were his delight. Being secretary to the Retreat House involved a huge correspondence especially with regard to booking-in retreatants. Since he was not too familiar with all the permutated titles of religious congregations, many an LSA sister would find herself on the list as OLA or vice versa. One day about five years ago I dropped in to see Ned and found him typing away in his tiny room, Thinking of the lovely house he had left I asked him to tell me honestly if he ever had moments of regret at leaving all that. He simply said “I would not want to be. anywhere else”.
It might be a bit too facile to write that Ned was a man close to God. He was of a generation that did not easily unburden the secrets of the heart. He belonged to the dutiful, carnest type of religious and was definitely conservative in his views on religious practice. But the surprising element in his make-up was his ability to combine these conservative attitudes with a marvellous and spontaneous capacity for getting along splendidly with younger people, especially with the novices. Because he was given the grace of living close to the young in the Society he was able to love them while rejecting, through incomprehension, or even antipathy, some of their tastes in music, clothes et cetera. The same was true on the part of the younger people. Love and respect in the Society goes beyond personal tastes in external things. The presence of the old and the young can be a blessing when both find the presence of the Lord in each other. It was this way with Ned and the novices.
Of course he never lost touch with the young of his own family and it was a source of great joy to him that his son Paul and daughter-in-law Mary kept in such close touch with him. His daughter Judith with her husband Michael were most attentive to him. It was a lovely sight on some Sunday afternoons to see the three generations of the Maher family strolling around the Manresa grounds:
Finally, just to remind those who knew him well of two familiar sayings of Ned: On being addressed at breakfast “How are you this morning, Ned?” his invariable and jocose reply was “Poorly, thank God”. And when a novice would tease him, as they constantly did, Ned would be heard to say in mock seriousness “Go away, BOY”.
Ned himself went away very peacefully at 4 am on the morning of 14th March with Fr Rector, his son Paul and his daughter Judith there to bid him a last farewell.

◆ The Clongownian, 1982

Obituary

Brother Ned Maher SJ

Although Br Ned was granted four score of years, his life as a Jesuit spanned little more than a decade. Before becoming a “brother” he had already filled the roles of father and grandfather. He has been described thus: “A very dapper man with a thin Ronnie Colman moustache; alert, brisk, humorous, at once affable and serious”. All these adjectives could be applied to him right up to his last (and really first) illness.

He was born in Philadelphia on 22nd October 1901, educated at Belvedere, Clongowes and UCD and Georgetown University. After a short spell working in a bank he took up business, in which he remained for the rest of his lay life. He entered the Society of Jesus on the 30th April 1971, took his first rows on 29th April 1973 and pronounced final vows on 8th September 1981.
Apart from one short period as staff manager in Mungret Br Ned was bursar in the Jesuit house in Dollymount and secretary of the Retreat House there. He really loved work; figures and account books were his delight. He had a great love of opera and reading and related very well indeed to the novices who live in Doilymount.

Of course he never lost touch with the young of his own family and it was a source of great joy to him that his son Paul and daughter-in-law Mary kept in close touch with him. His daughter Judith with her husband Michael were most attentive to him. Ned left this world peacefully at 4.00 a.m. on the morn ing of the 14th of March with his Rector, his son Paul and his daughter Judith there to bid him a last farewell.

James Maher was born at Donore, Bagenalstown, County Carlow, in 1793. Entered Carlow College, studied in Rome, and ordained 1821. Returned to Ireland. In 1844, spent two years in Rome. He stayed at the Irish College where his nephew Dr Paul Cullen was Rector.

Born: 19 March 1817, Athy, County Kildare
Entered: 06 August 1859, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final vows: 15 August 1871
Died: 01 November 1884, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 11 November 1861, Paulstown, County Kilkenny
Entered: 13 September 1879, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1894, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1900
Died 12 March 1942, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Younger brother of Thomas Maher - RIP 1917

Early education at St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg

by 1898 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
Came to Australia 1899

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Came from a very respected family and two sons were in the Jesuits. An older brother Thomas was in the Society - RIP 1917.

Note from John Naughton Entry :
1896 He finally returned to Gardiner St again, and was President of the BVM Sodality for girls, being succeeded by William Butler and Martin Maher in this role.

Note from Martin Maher Sr Entry :
He went from there to Willesden in London, and he died there 27 March 1917. His brother, Martin said the requiem Mass.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Martin Maher was educated at St Stanislaus' College, Tullabeg, and entered the Society from there in 1879. He came to Australia as a priest, working at Riverview from 1899 as prefect of studies. He held the same office at St Aloysius' College in 1901, and left in early 1902 to return to Ireland to become rector of The Crescent. He was one of the most respected administrators of the Irish province. After The Crescent, he was rector of Milltown Park, and served two terms as master of novices, as well as being socius to the provincial and a lecturer in theology.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 5th Year No 1 1929

Tullabeg :
Fr Martin Maher, Master of Novices, celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his entrance into the Society, 16th September. Fr Martin was ordained in 1894. He spent three years in Australia, returning to Ireland in 1902 as Rector of the Crescent. From that date he put in 16 years as Rector (Crescent, Tullabeg, Milltovlm). In 1905 he was appointed Socius to Fr Provincial, and held that office for 6 years. He has commenced his 13th year as Master of Novices. No wonder Fr. Martin received such a huge spiritual bouquet on the occasion of the Jubilee. Fr. Provincial, accompanied by his Socius, carried it down to Tullabeg and presented it in the course of the day. During the evening festivities, Fr. Provincial, and Fr, S. Bartley (Rector of Tullabeg) paid some very well earned compliments to the Jubilarian who made a most kindly reply.

Irish Province News 17th Year No 3 1942

Obituary :
Rev Martin Maher SJ

The death of Father Martin Maher took place at the Residence, Upper Gardiner Street, on 12th March. He was, born at Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny, in 1861, and on the completion of his secondary education at Knockbeg, Carlow, and at St. Stanislaus' College, Tullamore, entered the Society of Jesus in 1879 at Milltown Park. There also, in company
with his brother, the late Fr. Thomas Maher, SJ., he completed his philosophical studies, after which he attended University College, Dublin, whose professorial staff included many well-known Jesuit teachers like Fr. John O'Carroll, the famous linguist, Fr. Gerard Manly Hopkins, poet and literary critic, who was Greek professor, Fr. Denis Murphy and others.
In 1885 he began at Belvedere College with the late Fr. Thomas A. Finlay as Rector, his career as an educationalist to which he was to devote many fruitful years of his life both in Ireland and Australia. He was ordained priest in St. Francis Xavier's Church Gardiner Street, by Dr. William Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin on 29th July, 1894, and, on the completion of his theological studies which he pursued with remarkable distinction, was appointed professor of dogmatic theology, a subject he taught for 10 years. For long periods of his life he held posts of importance and responsibility, being Rector of the Sacred Heart College, Limerick, of the Novitiate, St. Stanislaus' College, Tullamore, and of the House of Higher Studies, Milltown Park, for some 20 years. He was Socius to the Provincial for 6 years and Master of novices for fourteen. He was attached to St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, from 1933 to his death, being in charge of the large sodality for young women, whom he addressed with unfailing regularity each week.
A man of great intellectual gifts and personal charm, he was of a quiet and self-effacing disposition. As a. priest of the Catholic Church he served her with rare oneness of purpose and with a profound love of her liturgy and ceremonies, and did much during his life to advance the study and appreciation of sacred music. A talented preacher and giver of retreats he was in much demand during his long life especially among religious communities.
As he would have wished, Fr. Maher died in harness. Up to Christmas he continued to direct his sodality, Then increasing weakness forced him to confine himself to the confessional, where he worked up to the week-end before his death.
He became aware some months before his death that the best medical skill could do nothing for him, and often spoke of his approaching end. On March 10th, two days before his death, he was able to celebrate Mass, but, at his own urgent request, was anointed that day. The following clay he remained in bed, but was so bright and cheerful that it was hard to realise the end was so near. That night it was arranged that he should be visited at short intervals. The Father who visited him at 4 a,m. found him sleeping peacefully, but two hours later he was found to have passed away. R.I.P.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Martin Maher1861 SJ 1712-1942
Fr Martin Maher will best be known in the Province as a Master of Novices, though he filled with success, many administrative and academical posts from Rector to Provincial Socius, from teacher of Humanities to Theology professor, He was Rector of Crescent, Tullabeg and Milltown Park over a space of twenty years, Socius to the Provincial for 6 years, and Master of Novices for fourteen.

Born at Paulstown in 1861, he entered the Society at Milltown in 1879. He was a gifted man who developed every talent the Lord gave him, a good preacher, a much sought after giver of retreats. He was very keenly interested in sacred music and the liturgy, and di much during his various periods of office to promote both.

A man of deep and simple piety, he was rather shy in manner and reserved. He was a model of the rules of modesty, most meticulous in his observance of the rules and completely dedicated to his duty of the moment, whatever it was, big or little. He told his novices that every day at the visit to the Blessed Sacrament, he used to pray for the grace of a happy death. His prayer was answered in a signal manner.

Although suffering from an incurable disease, he remained working up to two days before his death, dying as he wished, in harness and fortified by the last anointing on March 12th 1942.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1942

Obituary

Father Martin Maher SJ

“The passing of Father Martin Maher means to me the loss of a dear friend. This must be true too in the case of a great number he met in his long, devoted ministry. When last we met he reminded me that it was 51 years since he taught me Mathematics at Belvedere. I am glad his labours are over - I think he suffered a good deal in recent years. Pray accept my sympathy for yourself and his colleagues at Gardiner Street for the loss of this holy priest”.

These words of Richard Cruise are we think the most fitting tribute that we can pay to Fr Martin Maher in the short space at our disposal. Fr Maher taught in Belvedere in the five years preceding 1890 and again in 1899. Subsequently he held almost every possible position of trust and responsibility in the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, and, despite several severe illnesses, he worked for souls with the utmost devotion to duty right up to the week of his death on 15th March, 1942. Requiescat in pace.

◆ The Clongownian, 1942

Obituary

Father Martin Maher SJ

The death has occurred at St. Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner St., of Rev. Martin Maher, S.J., one of the best known members of the Jesuit community.

A brilliant educationist, he was an authority on liturgy and sacred music, and did much work in this direction in the training of youth.

Born in Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny, Father Maher was educated at Knockbeg College, Carlow, and St. Stanislaus College, Tullamore.

In 1879 he entered the Society of Jesus at Milltown Park. He completed his philosophical studies with his brother, the late Rev Thomas Maher SJ, and later entered University College, St Stephen's Green, where the members of the staff included such well known figures as Rev John O'Carroll, the famous linguist, and Rev Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, the poet and
literary critic.

In 1885 Fr. Maher became a teacher in Belvedere College under Fr Tom Finlay SJ, and he devoted many years in Ireland and Australia to this type of work.

On the completion of his theological studies he was ordained in Gardiner Street in 1894 by the late Archbishop Walsh. He read a brilliant theological course and was appointed Professor of Theology at Milltown, where he remained for ten years. He spent some years in Australia, where he did much valuable work.

He was formerly Rector of the Sacred Heart College, Limerick; the Novitiate, St Stanislaus College, Tullamore; and the House of Higher Studies, Milltown Park, altogether a period of over twenty years. He was Assistant Provincial for six years at Gardiner Street.

Since 1933 Father Maher was attached to Gardiner Street Church and was Director of the Young Women's Sodality, whom he addressed every Monday with unfailing regularity.

“Irish Independent”

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

Bonum Certamen ... A Biographical Index of Former Members of the Limerick Jesuit Commnnity

Father Martin Maher (1961-1942)

Of Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny, received his education at Knockbeg College and entered the Society in 1879. He was ordained in Dublin in 1894. Ever since his ordination, Father Maher was marked out for positions of high responsibility in the Irish Province. For some few years he was assistant lecturer in theology at Milltown Park when he was sent out to Australia where he spent three years, 1899-1902. His short stay in Australia was long remembered for his brilliant work as prefect of studies at Sydney. On his recall to Ireland, he was at once appointed to the rectorship of Sacred Heart College but three years later was summoned to other fields of responsibility. Until 1930 he held such positions of trust as rector and master of novices at Tullabeg, secretary to the Provincial and rector and professor of theology at Milltown Park. His later years were spent at Gardiner St Church, Dublin.

Born: 29 April 1860, Leighlinbridge, County Carlow
Entered: 2 October 1880, Manresa, Roehampton, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: September 1894, St Beuno's, Wales
Final vows: 2 February 1898, St Beuno's, Wales
Died: 3 September 1918, Petworth, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ David Murphy. "Maher, Michael". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Maher, Michael (1860–1918), Jesuit priest, philosopher, and psychologist, was born 29 April 1850 in Church St., Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow. Educated at the school of Mr Conwell in Leighlinbridge, he later entered the Jesuit college at Tullabeg, King's Co., where his uncle, Fr William Delany (qv), was serving as rector. He studied for a BA while at Tullabeg, eventually obtaining his degree from London University, to which Tullabeg was then affiliated.

In October 1880 he joined the English province of the Society of Jesus, entering its school for novices at Roehampton. On completion of his noviciate (1882) he began studying philosophy, and on obtaining his degree was appointed a philosophy lecturer at Stonyhurst College (1885–91). He took an MA in philosophy and economics through London University, graduating in 1887. Alongside philosophy he studied psychology and in 1890 published Psychology: empirical and rational, which was immediately recognised as a comprehensive textbook, well written and showing intellectual sophistication. It became a standard text in a number of universities, especially catholic universities, in both Europe and America; by 1918 it had run to nine editions and remained a key text until the 1930s.

Ordained at St Beuno's, north Wales, in September 1894, he spent some time in France before returning to Stonyhurst, where he again taught philosophy (1896–1903). In 1900 he was awarded a D.Litt. by London University for Psychology: empirical and rational. Appointed as superior of the Jesuit seminary at Stonyhurst in 1903, he later served as an examiner for the RUI (and subsequently for the NUI) and, from 1914, for the University of Edinburgh. In failing health, he went into semi-retirement in 1917 yet still tried to undertake some duties as a university examiner. He died 3 September 1918 at Petworth, Sussex.

While his best-known publication was Psychology: empirical and rational, he also wrote articles for the Dublin Review, the Month, and the original Catholic encyclopaedia. He later published Tationis Diatessaron (1903) and English economics and catholic ethics (1912).

John J. Delany and James Edward Tobin, Dictionary of catholic biography (1962); Catholic University of America, The new catholic encyclopaedia (1967), ix, 77; William Ellis, ‘Father Michael Maher’, Carloviana, no. 36 (1988–9), 27–8; information from Fr Fergus O'Donoghue, SJ, Jesuit archives, Dublin

◆ Carloviana No 36, 1988/89

“These great men in the great universities of the world have bowed down and paid tribute to the intellectual supremacy of our boy from Leighlin”

Father Michael Maher
Compiled by William Ellis

Michael Maher was born at Church Street, Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow on April 29, 1860. He attended the famous school of Mr. Conwell which had produced so many scholars of
Church and State. Among his school companions were the brothers, Patrick and John Foley who served the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin so well, Patrick as Bishop and John as
President of St. Patrick's College, Carlow.
At an early age Michael went to the famous Jesuit school of Tullabeg, Co. Offaly which was then under the rectorship of an uncle of his, the famous William Delaney, S.J., LLD. While attending that school he attained a B.A. degree from London University to which Tullabeg was then affiliated.
On October 2, 1880 he joined the English Province of the Jesuit Order at Roehampton. He began his philosophy course in 1882 and on its completion in 1885 he was appointed to the lay philosophers' staff at Stonyhurst College where he remained until 1891. During this time he took his M.A. degree in Philosophy and Economics from London University (1887).
Fourteen years after joining the Jesuits, Michael Maher was ordained at St. Beuno's College in North Wales, on September 23, 1894. After ordination he spent some time in France.
1896 saw him back in Stonyhurst lecturing to lay philosophers once again until 1903. In 1903 he became superior at St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, the Jesuit house of studies in
philosophy for young members of the Society.
In 1890 Michael Maher published his first edition of Psychology, a publication which he revised and updated nine tires before he died. He also contributed many articles to journals and magazines, including Dublin Review, The Month, Catholic Encyclopaedia.
It was his work in Psychology that was to bring him into the front ranks as a brilliant writer. The following extract is from an appreciation published at the time of his death in The Nationalist & Leinster Times :
“Several editions of his book were called for and each edition was revised and brought more up-to-date in view of the ever-widening sphere of modern psychological literature. The second edition, published in 1900 entitled “Psychology Empirical and Rational” was practically a new book and has gained for the author a world-wide reputation in this special
branch of scholarship. So prominent were the merits of this book that the Senate of the London University conferred on its author the Doctorate of Literature without any further test.
When it is known that this coveted distinction was conferred only ten times since the University of London was established... As a rule the reports of University examiners are very brief, and confidne themselves to a bald statement that such a candidate 'had qualified' or 'attained 'sufficient marks'.
In regard to Father Maher the examiners report that he had submitted as thesis a work entitled “Psychology Empirical and Rational”, and that in consideration of the special excellence of this thesis they recommend that the degree of Doctor of Literature be conferred on him without any further examination”. The examiners further report:- “The author is a good psychologist and a philosophical thinker of independent judgment; his criticisms prove the author to be a man of acute powers of mind, both in his special subject of Psychology and in the larger questions of Epistemology and Metaphysics, which the plan of the work includes.”
The writer of the appreciation continues:- “The foregoing statement was signed by Professor Stout of Oxford and by Professor Alexander, Victoria University, Manchester. These great men in the most famous universities of the world have bowed down and paid tribute to the intellectual supremacy of our boy from Leighlin." "Is not this something of which the people of Carlow, and the people of Leighlin, and above all the friends and relations of Father Maher may feel justly proud. He was a great scholar, a profound thinker, a brilliant writer, a veritable mine of intellectual wealth which was always at the service of the great cause of sound Christian education to which he had devoted his life. Let it be a comfort to his
many friends to remember that he has done a great work, the good effects of which will survive after we have all passed away."
Among the many posts that Father Maher held were, Examiner for the Diploma in Teaching for the Royal University of lreland, and on the foundation of the National University of Ireland he retained the same position.
During the last years of his life, Father Maher suffered from indifferent health and had to retire from active ministry. His Mass on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1917 was to be his last until the same Feast in 1918 when he was allowed to offer Mass again. On August 24 he celebrated his last Mass, for the next day he was confined to bed. He received the
Last Rites on the 27th.
Father Maher longed to die, and asked those around him to pray that he might do so, and hoped to be in Heaven for the feast of our Lady's Nativity, to whom he obviously had a great devotion. His prayers were answered for he died at Petworth, Sussex, England on September 3, 1918.
On Monday, September 23, 1918 an Office and Requiem Mass was celebrated for the repose of his soul in his native Leighlinbridge. Celebrant of the High Mass was Very Rev. James Coyle P.P. and among the large number of clergy present were his school companions. Most Rev. Dr. Patrick Foley, Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin and Very Rev. John Foley, D.D., President St. Patrick's College.
Sources : Letters and Notices, a Jesuit publication, The Nationalist & Leinster Times; Rev. T. G. Holt,S.J., Archivist English Province of the Society of Jesus, Harnlyn Dictionary of dates and anniversaries.

◆ Letters and Notices January 1919

Father Michael Maher - died at Petworth September 3rd, Second Notice

The graduate students of Fordham University, New York have written to the Rector of Stonyhurst to offer to the Fathers of the English Province their profound sympathy on the death of this greatly esteemed Father and to express the high estimate of his abilities and work entertained by all Catholic educationists in America. The following letter was addressed to Father Delaney SJ (Fr. Maher’s uncle) by the President of University College, Dublin, Sept. 8, 1918 : “I have just heard of the lamented death of Fr. Michael Maher, and I hasten to offer you my deepest sympathy in the great affliction which you have sustained. Fr. Maher seemed a year or two ago when coming to the University Examinations so well and active that one could hope for him many further years of fruitful labor, and continued distinction in that high domain of Catholic Science in which he had taken so great a place. Now that he has passed to his reward, many will remember with pride the one intellectual work which won him universal recognition, but I am sure that there will be joined to it by those who came into personal contact with him the memory of a sweet and lovable personality, modest and rare. That is the impression which I formed in my meetings with Fr Maher and in which I shall always regard his memory. With deepest sympathy my dear Fr. Delany, I am, yours very sincerely, Denis J. Coffey

◆ The Clongownian, 1919

Obituary

Father Michael Maher SJ

School Days
Father Michael Maher, who died last August in the South of England, was born in 1860 at Leighlin Bridge, Co. Carlow. He was sent to Tullabeg in 1871. After a short period there he was sent to Mount St Mary's Jesuit College, near Chesterfield, in England, Thence he returned to Tullabeg in 1876 to complete his studies. During this second period he passed in successive years Matriculation, First BA, and Second BA of the London University. At both colleges he was noted in three ways: first, as an ardent student constantly to be seen with a book in his hands, secondly, as a good cricketer - he was on the Elevens - and thirdly, as a very popular boy. A Tullabeg schoolfellow writes of him : “My general recollection is that he was always genial, good-natured, full of the milk of human kindness and utterly lovable. He was probably the most popular chap of my time”. And other testimonies to the same effect might easily be quoted. He always remained very attached to Tullabeg, and often spoke in later years about the old days there. One of his happiest days was certainly our Centenary in 1914 when he came to Clongowes to renew the old links with the survivors of his Alma Mater.

Early Years as a Jesuit
In 1880 he entered the novitiate of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, at Roehampton, near London. In 1885, after a brilliant course of study, he began at Stonyhurst College his work as a Professor of Philosophy. He took his London MA degree in that subject in 1887, and wrote the work which gained him a wide reputation, his Psychology, about which something must be said presently. He was ordained a priest in 1894. Two years later he resumed his work as Professor, a work which continued till 1903. Meanwhile, he had, in 1900, taken out his D Litt degree in the London University.

His “Psychology”
The first edition of this important work, which gained for the writer the MA degree of the London University, appeared in 1890. A new and enlarged edition in igoo gained for him his Doctorate. It was declared by the authorities of the University to be “of such special excellence as to justify the exemption of the author from further test”. His book has since passed through many editions and has become a standard text book, used the world over, and that not in Catholic schools alone. Besides his “Psychology” Father Maher published in 1893 “Tatian's Diatessaron”. He contributed to the “Catholic Encyclopædia” and wrote various articles for periodicals.

Superior and Educationist
In 1903 Father Maher was appointed Superior of the House of Studies, at Stonyhurst, in which all the members of the English Province and not a few of the Irish Province of the Jesuits pass several years. It is no more than the simple truth to say that all who lived under him left Stonyhurst with the kindliest memories of him, memories of many a kind act and of ever ready helpfulnes. He was always approachable, always cheerfully encouraging and friendly. During this period he interested himself in a very special way in education. Already he had for some time been Examiner in Education to the Royal University of Ireland, a position which he continued to hold in the National University till 1917. He taught Pedagogy in Stonyhurst, and at the time of his death was engaged on a work on that subject.

Last Years
In 1914 Father Maher was appointed to a position in Edinburgh, and about a year later his health began to break down. Every thing was done to reestablish it but he never fully rallied. The end came while he was at a sanatorium near Petworth in the South of England. There on September 3rd, 1918, he died a holy death, repeating the holy names until within a few moments of his last breath.

Those who have had the good for tune to make a retreat under Father Maher know that he was a man of deep spirituality and most earnest convictions. Those of the Irish Jesuits who knew him in Stonyhurst can testify to his deep and unalterable love of Ireland. The appreciation of his personality we have thought it well to leave to one in whom long and intimate acquaintance but deepened love and veneration.

-oOo-

Father Michael Maher SJ - A Personal Appreciation

It is not easy to put into a few words all that one would like to say about a friendship, intimate, unbroken, unclouded, which ex tended over a quarter of a century, yet that is what, by the courtesy of the Editor of this magazine I am asked to do in connection with the late Father Maher whose death must have made a gap in the lives of many though in none more so than in mine. We shall not look upon his like again, for it is rare to find such intellectual powers as he possessed con joined with the child-like simplicity and faith, the absolute modesty, the complete self-abnegation which were so completely his. Nor could anyone be in his company even for a brief period without recognizing his deep and essential holiness. His true life was not spent in this world.

I first made his acquaintance when he was Superior of St Mary's Hall at Stonyhurst, a place which it seems difficult to imagine without him, so perfectly was he adapted to it not merely by learning and expository power - both of which he possessed in no ordinary measure - but by a singular power of engaging and capacity for retaining the interests and affection of young men. However, it seemed good to his superiors that he should leave that place and go on the Mission in Edinburgh. As it turned our, it was an unfortunate choice, for the blighting blasts of that home of the east wind took effect on lungs predisposed to weakness and eventually led to the illness to which he has recently succumbed. I cannot think that, of his own choice, he would ever have left his beloved St Mary's, but he accepted the change with perfect willingness and a good heart and often wrote to me of the interest which he felt in his pastoral work - into which he threw himself wth a quite a characteristic ardour - and especially in his ministrations to the sick and wounded soldiers in hospital.

Then ill-health necessitated his abandonment of this sphere of action and he found himself relegated to the sanitorium of the English Province of the Society at Burton Hill, Petworth, Sussex, where, though none of us thought it at the time, he was to spend the remainder of his days. There, in fact, he died on September 3rd, tenderly cared for by Father McAleer SJ, himself a medical man, of whose constant kindness Father Maher was never tired of writing.

Father McAleer - carrying out a wish of my friend expressed a short time before he died - telegraphed to me the news that he was no more, and has since written, saying among other things : “Just after I finished saying the prayers for the dying and for the departing soul, he gave up his soul to God. He was conscious almost to the last moment, praying most fervently”. He was able, I am told, to say Mass daily from August 15th to 25th. Then his condition became too serious and he had to take to his bed. His great desire was to celebrate the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady in Heaven, and we may reverently hope that he experienced that joy.

Father Maher was so simple in his ways that, I think, many forgot what a learned man he was. His “Psychology” is a recognised text book - perhaps the best in existence - the world over, and it is by that that those who did sot know him personally will best remember him. No one, however, could really estimate the extent of his knowledge and, far more, his deep thought, who was not, as I was, for many years in constant correspondence with him on all sorts of difficult questions. Through his great and unfailing kindness everything which I have written which in any way touched upon religious or philosophical questions was submitted to his judgment, and what those writings, such as they are, owe to his criticisms and suggestions no one but he and I knew and he would never allow me to tell; nor can any one, but a novice like myself in such topics, know the sense of confidence given by the certainty that nothing would be i allowed to pass his careful scrutiny which might afterwards be susceptible of adverse criticism. The constant burden of his letters when returning MSS. or proofs was “Please do not think of mentioning my name”. I had to content myself with making general acknowledgment except in one case, which was so characteristic that it will bear mention, When writing a book on Vitalism (What is Life?) I found - as all must do - great difficulty in connection with the question of the vital principle or entelechy and the so-called “Law” of the Conservation of Energy, a difficulty which has never been met, and perhaps never can be met upon purely physical lines. Father Maher, then at Stonyhurst, took the trouble to write a short treatise for that is what it was on the subject, and sent it to me with directions that I was to do exactly what I liked with it. I could not possibly incorporate in my book such a statement without full acknowledgment and so I inserted it, giving the name of the treatise in a footnote, though as a matter of fact it never had been and, I think I am right in saying, never has been independently published. I may also now say, with grateful acknowledgment, that a large part of the chapter in my book, “The Church and Science”, relating to the vexed question of the creation of man's body, was written by him and inserted verbatim from his MS. He was good enough to do this during a stay at St Beuno's, and after careful consideration of the matter with his brethren in that place, but he would not allow me to mention his name. I think his death relieves me of the obligation of silence.

During his long illness I had many letters from him all breathing the same spirit of submission to the Will of God. I could quote many affecting passages but am writing away from home and many letters which I have preserved. In one of these he told me an interesting story of his joining the Society of Jesus, and incidentally I may say that I never learnt why he, an Irishman born and bred, joined the English and not the Irish Province. He had a great desire to join the Society, but his mother's circumstances - she was a widow - made it doubtful whether he ought not to remain in the world and work for her support. With that heroic courage characteristic of so many Irish Catholic mothers, she utterly refused to allow him to make the sacrifice and insisted on his following his vocation, saying that God would provide for her. Her faith was rewarded, not merely by an improvement in her circumstances, though that too was the case, but by seeing her son become an ornament to a Society which has had miany great and learned sons, but none more loved and venerated by those who really knew him than the man whom I, at least, shall never cease to mourn.

Bertram C A Windle

Born: 10 May 1885, Borrisoleigh, County Tipperary
Entered: 06 September 1902, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 16 May 1918, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1922, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 12 February 1924, Thurles, County Tipperary

Part of the Crescent College, Limerick community at the time of death

Educated at Mungret College SJ

by 1907 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1909
by 1910 returned to Australia

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
After his Novitiate he was sent to Stonyhurst for Philosophy and then to Australia for Regency.
He came back to Milltown for Theology, was Ordained there and after Tertianship he was sent back to Australia. However, a pernicious attack of anaemia meant that his passage on the ship to Australia was cancelled, and he slowly wasted away.
He died at the residence of his sister in Thurles 12 February 1924. During his illness the local clergy were most attentive, visiting him daily as his end drew near. He was also frequently visited by the Provincial John Fahy. His remains were brought to Thurles Cathedral. John Harty, Archbishop of Cashel presided. He was later buried at Mungret.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Thomas Maher entered the Society at Tullabeg in September 1902, and after novitiate and juniorate he studied philosophy at Stonyhurst in 1907. In mid-1910 he sailed for Australia and taught at So Patrick's College in 1911 in the middle school years. He was very successful teacher, and as a result was moved to Xavier College, 1912-15, as the second division prefect to fill an urgent vacancy. After returning to Ireland he developed pernicious anaemia, and died from this condition.

◆ The Xaverian, Xavier College, Melbourne, Australia, 1924

Obituary

Father Thomas P Maher SJ

Fr Thomas P Maher SJ, was born at Borrisoleigh, Co. Tipperary, and died at Thurles, Co. Tipperary, on 12th February, 1924, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. He received his early education at Borris, and entered the Apostolic School at Mungret College, Limerick, in 1901, He left Mungret in 1902, and entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus, Tullabeg, in the September of the same year. In 1906 Mr Maher was sent to St Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, Lancashire, to study philosophy.

In 1909, he came to Australia and was stationed for three years at St Patrick's, East Melbourne. He came to Xavier as Second Division Prefect in 1912 and reinained here till 1915. In this capacity he had the training of many future members of the championship football team of 1917. Although no footballer himself, he knew how to make footballers of others, so that Fr O'Keefe's work as coach in 1917 was considerably lightened by the excellent grounding which the best members of the team had received at Fr Maher's hands.

In 1915 he was sent back to Ireland to Milltown Park, Dublin, where he finished his theological studies. He was ordained on 16th May, 1918, and remained at Milltown until the August of 1919. During the year following his ordination, Fr Maher acted as chaplain to the George V Military Hospital, Dublin, and God Himself only knows how many souls were saved there by Fr Maher's agency. In 1917 he was teaching at Mungret College and was Director of the Holy Angels Sodality. In 1921 he went back after twenty years to make his tertianship at Tullabeg.

In 1922 Fr. Maher returned to Mungret as First Prefect, and in the August of the same year was transferred to the Crescent College, Limerick, where he acted as a teacher, Director of Our Lady's Sodality, and Sports Master. He volunteered for Australia, and was among those appointed to come here in August, 1923. His preparations were finished and his luggage sent on to London when he decided to have his teeth attended to. All of his teeth were taken out, but he seemed to make no improvement. Pernicious anæmia had set in and all hope of his travelling had to be put out of the question. He grew worse and worse, although there were a few spells of seening improvement. He spent much of his time with his sister in Thurles, so that he might have the benefit of his native air. He had a bad attack on 2nd February, and then grew steadily worse.

A Novena was being offered to Our Lady of Lourdes for his recovery, but it pleased God that Fr Maher should go to Himself and to Our Lady. He was conscious right up to the end, and died quietly and without a struggle on the morning of 12th February while the bell for Mass to be offered for him was ringing. A solemn Requiem Mass was offered for his soul in Thurles Cathedral in the presence of the Archbishop of Cashel and over fifty priests. After the Mass, the funeral of over seventeen vehicles set out for Mungret, forty-seven miles away. He was buried at Mungret
in the College cemetery.

Fr Maher's life was hidden and un eventful, but it was the life of a hero, just as his happy and holy death was the death of a saint. May his soul rest in peace.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1924

Obituary

Father Thomas P Maher SJ

Yet another of Mungret's Sons has gone home. He has “fought the good fight” and now He is in peace.

His was in a sense an uneventful career - at least in the world's eyes. He performed no great achievements, and yet he lived the life of a hero. and died the death of a saint. He was made of the stuff of which heroes are made. He was not extraordinarily gifted, but his dogged perseverance and determination overcame all obstacles. He fought and conquered. Whatever he got to do he did with his whole heart. He was made great in little things done well.

Born May 10th, 1885, he was the son of Mr Michael Maher of Borrisoleigh, Co Tipperary. He entered the Apostolic School, Mungret, September, 1901, where he remained until June, 1902. September 6th of the same year he entered the Society of Jesus at Tullabeg at the age of 17. He remained there until September, 1906, when he went to St Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, to study Philosophy. Three years later he was sent by his Superiors to Australia, in the Autumn of 1909, where, until 1912, we find him teaching at St Patrick's College, Melbourne. In that year, he went as Second Prefect to St Francis Xavier's College, Kew, Melbourne, and remained thers until 1915.

He was then. sent to do his theological sturlies at Milltown Park, Dublin, where he continued till August 1919. He was ordained to the Priesthood in 1918, and during the following year was Chaplain to George V Military Hospital. In this, his first public ministry, he acquitted himself of a difficult task very creditably. He was liked by all and it will only be known on the Judgment Day the numbers that he brought back to their duty. In 1920 he was on the teaching staff of his Alma Mater, and in 1921 he went to his Tertianship at Tullabeg.

In 1922 he came back to Mungret as First Prefect over the lay-boys. In August 1922, he went to the Sacred Heart College, the Crescent, Limerick, where, besides teaching, he had charge of the Sodality of BVM, and of the games. In the Winter of that year while giving retreats, he caught a cold, and this may have proved the beginning of his subsequent delicacy. By the Status of July 31st, 1923, he was destined for Australia. He had made preparations for leaving, had left the Crescent College, and had even sent forward his luggage to London - when it was found that his health would not permit of his travelling. His sickness proved to be pernicious anaemia, and for months he wasted away, not however without some spells of seeming improvement. Much of this time he spent in the house of his married sister in Thurles. In the midst of all his suffering he never lost his habitual cheerfulness. A novena was being made for his recovery in connection with the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. But Our Lady answered the prayers by taking him to herself. He passed away at Thurles on the 12th of February, 1924 - the day after Our Lady's feast, just as the bell for a Mass being offered for him, was ringing. Though greatly emaciated, he was conscious up to half an hour before the end. He died, aged 39.

A little more than a year ago we heard him preach St Francis Xavier's panegyric in the College chapel. It was a beautiful sermon, and began with the death-bed scene. We remember how he emphasised the loneliness of it, especially dying away from his brothers in religion because obedience so ordained. We little thought that obedience was to ordain the preacher's death away from his religious brethren. But we are glad it was in that sanctuary of Religion - an Irish home - and Mungret will not forget the first of her priest-sons to be buried in her sacred ground. RIP

Born: 29 September 1859, Paulstown, County Kilkenny
Entered: 09 September 1876, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1892
Final Vows: 02 February 1897, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 27 March 1917, Willesden, England

Part of the St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin community at the time of death.
Older Brother of Martin Maher - RIP 1942
Early education at St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg

by 1896 at Vienna Austria (ASR-HUN) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Came from a very respected family and two sons were in the Jesuits. A younger brother Martin was in the Society - RIP 1942.

Early education was at Carlow College and later at Tullabeg under William Delany.

he did his Philosophy and Theology at Milltown, and also did Regency at Clongowes, Belvedere.
After Tertianship under Father Bulow at Vienna, he was at Crescent, and became Vice-Rector.
1897 He was appointed Rector at Crescent 01 November 1897, and continued in that role until March 1902. During his rectorship he erected a new facade on the Church, purchased the magnificent bell and tried to improve the schools in Limerick.
He was on the Mission Staff for a while and then joined the Gardiner St community. He spent many years there and was particularly successful in his Catechism classes.
1914 Towards the middle of this year he began to show signs of failing health. He went for a short time to London as a Military Chaplain.
He returned to Ireland and took charge of the Public retreats.
Continuing to suffer poor health it was recommended that he go to Petworth in Sussex. He went from there to Willesden in London, and he died there 27 March 1917. His brother, Martin said the requiem Mass.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

Bonum Certamen ... A Biographical Index of Former Members of the Limerick Jesuit Commonality

Father Thomas Maher (1859-1917)

Brother of the preceding (Martin), entered the Society in 1876. He spent three years of his regency here, 1876-89 and returned later as prefect of studies in 1894. He was appointed vice-rector of the college in 1897 and later, rector, which office he held until 1902. From that year until his death, Father Maher was a member of the Gardiner St community.

Born: 25 September 1804, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 November 1823, Montrouge, Paris, France - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 20 December 1834, Stonyhurst
Final Vows: 15 August 1841
Died: 04 May 1879, Stonyhurst, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Early education in Humanities at Stonyhurst before Entry

1827 At a newly opened Jesuit school in London
1834 Ordained at Stonyhurst by Bishop Penswick 20 December 1834
1842-1847 After serving at Wardour Castle and St Ignatius Church, Preston, he was appointed Superior of the St Francis Xavier College (Hereford District), and of the Residence of St George (Worcester District), and residing as Chaplain at Spetchley Park.
1848-1851 Served the Shepton Mallet and Bristol Missions, also being Superior At St George’s.
1851-1858 Served on the London Mission
1858 he served the Great Yarmouth, Edinburgh, Worcester, London and Liverpool Missions, and then went to Stonyhurst for health reasons in 1872. He died there 04 May 1879 aged 75.

He was distinguished for his eloquence in the pulpit and skill as a Confessor. (Province Record)

Born: 11 November 1852, Co Roscommon
Entered: 05 October 1878, Milltown Park
Final Vows: 02 February 1889, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner St, Dublin
Died: 01 April 1917, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner St, Dublin

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Became a Postulant at Milltown early in 1878.

1881 He was sent to Gardiner St and carried out many duties there, including that of Infirmarian very successfully. When the famous Sicilian sacristan Azzopardi was showing signs of failing health, Thomas assisted him and eventually took complete charge - apart from a couple of years at Crescent as Sacristan. He carried on this work at Gardiner St for twenty-five years. His friendly manner and respect for all classes of people won him a lot of friends. He was an excellent religious, and gave great edification by his devotion to duty, as well as his patience and resignation during his short illness. He died after a week’s illness 01 April 1917 in Gardiner St.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Drapers Assistant before entry

Born: 31 December 1804, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 02 October 1827, Aix en Provence, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Died: 18 May 1866, Paris, France

Left Society of Jesus: 1830

Journalist in “Fraser’s” pseudonym Fr Prout

https://www.dib.ie/biography/mahony-francis-sylvester-father-prout-a5397

DICTIONARY OF IRISH BIOGRAPHY

Mahony, Francis Sylvester (‘Father Prout’)

Contributed by
Geoghegan, Patrick M.

Mahony, Francis Sylvester (‘Father Prout’) (1804–66), priest and humorist, was born 31 December 1804 in Cork, the second son of seven sons and four daughters of Martin Mahony, a woollen manufacturer, and his second wife, Mary Mahony (née Reynolds). Educated at Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare, he seemed destined for a career in the priesthood and was sent to St Acheul, Amiens (1819), and then to a Jesuit seminary in Paris. From there he went to Rome to study philosophy (1823–5), before returning to Clongowes to teach. A brilliant student and scholar, he was described as being the same in his youth as he was at his death: ‘caustic, irascible, opinionated, argumentative, [but] with a sharp sense of irony and satire’ (Mannin, 137).

Within two months of his return to Clongowes he was appointed master of rhetoric, but his rapid rise was halted abruptly after an ill-fated class outing to nearby Celbridge, in the course of which both students and master drank heavily and Mahony made a loud attack on the character of Daniel O'Connell (qv). There was uproar when the inebriated class returned past curfew, and Mahony was soon transferred to the Jesuit college of Fribourg, Switzerland. He went from there to Florence, where he was expelled by the Jesuits. Though he was ordained a secular priest in 1832, it seems he had persistent doubts about his vocation, which were shared by his superiors. He returned to Ireland in 1832 to assist in the Cork mission that was treating the cholera epidemic. The conflicts in his character resurfaced, however, and in 1834 he left suddenly after a serious disagreement with the local bishop. He moved to London, where he became a journalist and writer; for the rest of his life he was independent of church authority.

In 1834 Mahony began writing for Fraser's Magazine, and, like the other distinguished contributors, adopted a pseudonym – ‘Father Prout’; he also published as ‘Don Jeremy Savonarola’. Mahony had known a real Father Prout – Daniel Prout (qv), the parish priest of Watergrasshill, in his childhood – but in all other respects the character was the creation of his imagination. He invented biographical details and even a biographer; The reliques of Father Prout was published in 1837. His writing at this time was sharp and acerbic, and often brilliant: Thomas Moore (qv) was accused of plagiarism, O'Connell was regularly abused, and Prout won a wide readership. After a while Mahony's inspiration faded, and he moved to the staff of Charles Dickens's Bentley's Magazine. Conviviality was never Mahony's problem, but it seems alcoholism was, and in the engravings of the literary dinners, Thackeray, Coleridge and Carlyle are each shown with a glass of wine, whereas he is shown with three.

Deciding to travel on the Continent in 1837, from then on he lived abroad. He was Rome correspondent for the Daily News (1846–58), and Paris correspondent for the Globe from 1858 until his death. His health failed in the early 1860s and he became lonely and irritable. He burned his papers in his final days, and died 18 May 1866 at Paris. His body was brought back to Cork and he was buried in the vault of Shandon church. After his death he was remembered chiefly for ‘The bells of Shandon’, a nostalgic poem about Cork that may have been written when he was at Clongowes. It was the least of his works, but it achieved an enduring fame and became a popular song. Mahony was an erratic character, and his writing, sometimes spectacular, sometimes mediocre, reflected this.

Sources
Allibone; Webb; Cork Hist. Arch. Soc. Jn. (1892), 76–7; DNB; O'Donoghue; Ethel Mannin, Two studies in integrity: Gerald Griffin and the Rev. Francis Mahony (1954); D.Cath.B.; Robert Hogan (ed.), The Macmillan dictionary of Irish literature (1979) (under Prout); DIH; Welch; Boylan; Fergus Dunne, ‘A critical reappraisal of the texts and contexts of Francis Sylvester Mahony’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Sussex, Brighton, 2003)

Born: 30 September 1889, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1907, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1922, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1926, Sacred Heart College, Limerick
Died: 05 March 1956, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1914 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER) studying
by 1915 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Clongowes student then a year in France before entry. He was studying French in Lille for a year to prepare for his father’s business, then he entered.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 31st Year No 2 1956

Obituary :

Fr Jerome Mahony 1890-1956
Fr. Jerome Mahony, S.J., died almost suddenly, after an attack of cerebral haemorrhage, in St. Mary's, Emo, on March 5th. He was born in Dublin 66 years ago and educated at the Marist College, Leeson Street, and at Clongowes Wood. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1907 at St. Stanislaus' College, Tullamore, and later studied philosophy at Valkenburg, Holland, and at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire.
On his return to Ireland, Fr. Mahony taught in Clongowes Wood and Mungret College, Limerick, for six years preceding his theological studies at Milltown Park, Dublin, where he was ordained priest in 1922. He joined the teaching staff of the College of the Sacred Heart, Limerick, before beginning his long association with Mungret College in 1928.
Fr. Mahony was appointed Rector of the Jesuit Novitiate, Emo, in 1945. On relinquishing this post, he remained at St. Mary's as Latin professor to the novices and spiritual director of the community.
Fr. Mahony served the Society loyally and well in his many years of teaching, both in the colleges and the novitiate; and his four volumes of A History of the Catholic Church for Schools are a well-thumbed testimony to his thoroughness and zeal. His will be a household name in the school-world for years to come. (One of his own favourite stories was that of hearing one small boy in Clongowes say to another as he passed : “There's Hart."). In more ambitious vein is his unpublished study of some points in St. John's Gospel; and he also wrote a number of scriptural and liturgical pamphlets for the Messenger Office.
But his most useful service to the Society of Jesus was that which he constantly and edifyingly gave within our own communities. Without parade or pretension he was an excellent religious. His charity and kindliness was never-failing. He was at the disposal, not merely of his superiors, but of everyone. A dull supply, a manuscript to be typed, a boring visitor to be shown round, an untimely confession to be heard - these and a hundred such jobs seemed to fall as by right to the lot of Fr. Jerome. He was indeed, ad omnia. And then he turned up at recreation hour to liven his brethren with quip and comment and an amazingly varied repertoire of stories. In this alone he is a sore loss to the little community where the last happy decade of his life was spent.
For those who knew Jerome Mahony at all intimately his unaffected humility impressed even more than his charity. And that says much. The third degree of humility was no mere theory for him, a thing that he had marked read on some far-away October day of the Long Retreat. It seemed to be something. always unobtrusively - almost humorously - present. On occasions where a lesser man of greater natural talents might have sulked and, so doing, ruined himself and them, Fr. Jerome, accepting that he should be esteemed and accounted as one less wise, grew in the disconcerting wisdom of the saints.
Up to the day of his death he was at work on a new Menology for the Irish province. Whoever finishes this task might well find a place for him as an example of the man, so valuable in any group, who shirking no task however unpleasant or obscure, desires only to be of help.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Jerome Mahony SJ 1890-1956
“Up to the day of his death, Fr Jerome Mahony was working on a new Menology for the Irish Province. Whoever finished this task might well find a place for him as an example of a man, so valuable in any group, who, shirking no task, however unpleasant, desired only to be of help”. So wrote the obituarist of Fr Mahony. The prompting was unnecessary. Fr Jerome, by his cheerful, edifying and saintly life, easily merits a high place in these records.

He was born in Dublin in 1890, educated at Clongowes, entering the Society in1907.

He was a thorough Jesuit, giving of his best in the classroom for years on end, ever ready to shoulder unpleasant tasks that others might excuse themselves from, and yet not making himself out as a martyr for the community. In fact he was an ideal community man, every ready with a humorous story and witty retort, with a wit that had to barb to it.

He was an author of the History of the Catholic Church for use in schools, and left behind an unpublished study of St John’s Gospel together with numerous pamphlets of the “Messenger Office”.

In 1945 he was appointed Rector of Emo Park, where he died quite suddenly on March 5th 1956.

◆ The Clongownian, 1956

Obituary

Father Jerome Mahony SJ

The sudden, quite unexpected, death of Fr Jerome Mahony at Emo last March, following a cerebral haemorrhage, came as a shock to his very many friends both within and without the Society. He was not considered an old man, as years go, he had always enjoyed good health, and had always been active and deeply interested in his work. There seemed every prospect that he would be spared to continue his useful career for many years to come. But God's summons came suddenly, though it did not find him unprepared,

He was at Clongowes from 1900 to 1906, where his father and brothers also were educated and where he came into contact with two saintly men, Fr Michael Browne and Fr John Sullivan. On leaving Clongowes he was sent by his father to Lille with a view to preparing him for a business career, but he found that God had other plans for him and in 1907 he joined the Jesuit noviceship at Tullabeg. The present writer was his “angelus”, ie, the older novice told off to initiate him into the ways of the place for a few weeks, and he remembers vividly after nearly fifty years the very thin, boyish figure who had such a flow of wit and good spirits, who soon became the life of the noviceship or at least one of its lives. He went through the usual stages of the Jesuit formation with fervour and edification. After a few years in the Juniorate in Tullabeg, where he studied Classics and English, he was sent to teach at. Mungret College, because a tired head prevented him from entering his philosophical training. From the beginning he showed a good will and adaptability which made him a very useful member of the college staff. A few years afterwards he was sent to do his philosophy, first at Valkenburg, a house of German Jesuits in Holland and than at Stonyhurst. For a few years after philosophy he did college work again at Clongowes and Mungret and in 1920 he was sent to Milltown Park for his theology, where he was ordained priest in 1924. He did his final stage of formation, his tertianship, at Tullabeg from 1924 to 1925.

The greater part of his life as priest was spent at Mungret, where he taught English and History. He was a careful and conscientious teacher rather than an inspiring one. It was something of an anomaly that one whom his fellow Jesuits knew to be so witty and joyous in temperament should have appeared to the boys and outsiders as a man of rather unrelieved gravity. He had a very elevated view of his profession as a teacher and he gave himself to his work generously and conscientiously.

Outside his teaching the abiding interest of his life was history and especially Church history. The scanty margins of his day during term time and a great part of his holidays were devoted to this subject. Novels, newspapers, games and the other numerous diversions which even very busy men allow themselves were quietly set aside. He used to say when asked if he had read the paper, that he read only the papers which were at least a hundred years old, because then they were history. Thanks to this discipline and rigid adherence to his plan of studies, he succeeded in making himself an authority on Church history.

As a recognition of his competence in this subject he was asked to write a history of the Church for the programme of Religious Instruction prescribed by the bishops for the schools. He accepted the commission and for several years it was an absorbing task. He did the job with characteristic thoroughness and deliberation. He read and noted and planned and replanned; he wrote and rewrote with indefatigable energy. He consulted specialists on various portions of his wide subject, and accepted their guidance without question. Publishers and prefects of studies who were waiting impatiently for the completion of the work complained that he was too slow; but at least he did the work well, and his book in two small volumes has been very widely adopted in the schools and has met a real need.

He had always an interest in serious subjects, in such as belonged to his profession as priest. He had made a careful study of the gospels, especially that of St John. During his theology at Milltown Park he set himself to read through the “Civitas Dei” of St Augustine, and visitors to his room would see a great unkempt quarto propped up against the wall, and would inquire about his present position in the great tome. He compiled a history of the Passion in the words of the Evangelists which was published by the Messenger Office and had a very wide sale.

As has been said most of his teaching life was spent in Mungret, where he came to share something of the institutional character of his friend of many years, Fr William Kane SJ. On leaving Mungret he was appointed Rector of St Mary's, Emo, the Noviceship, and during his time as Rector he installed central heating in that house. For several years before his death he was engaged in teaching Latin to the Novices at Emo. He was active and industrious to the last.

The conscientious discharge of his duty as teacher nust have had a big influence on the great number of boys with whom he came in contact. In his community, he was an exemplary religious, observant of rule, faithful to all his religious duties, charitable and obliging to every one. His abiding interest in serious study, his industry and thoroughness in all the jobs he was appointed to do, such as the editing of the Mungret Annual or the giving of domestic exhortations to his community, were an incentive to all. But perhaps what those who knew him will best remember was the wit and gaiety of spirits with which he brightened every community in which he lived.

To his brothers and sisters, and especially to Mother Mary Angela of the Ursuline Convent, Waterford, we offer our deepest sympathy in their great loss. RIP

H K SJ

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

Bonum Certamen ... A Biographical Index of Former Members of the Limerick Jesuit Commnnity

Father Jerome Mahony (1889-1956)

Born in Dublin of a family originally from the city of Limerick, was educated at the Marist School, Leeson St and Clongowes. On leaving school, he entered on a business career and spent a year in Paris. Feeling a call to the religious life, he entered the Society in 1907 and made his higher studies at Valkenburg, Stonyhurst and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1922. Father Mahony was master here from 1925 to 1928 when he left for Mungret College with which he was henceforth associated for many years. He was appointed rector of Emo Park in 1945 and on relinquishing office remained as a member of the same community. It was during these later years that Father Mahony compiled his History of the Catholic Church for Schools, which is now in use throughout Ireland. At the time of his death he was engaged upon a dictionary of biography of Irish Jesuits from the time of the restoration of the Society. In his lifetime, Father Mahony was widely respected as a deeply spiritual man and a wise director of souls.

Born: 29 September 1859, Ballylooby, County Tipperary
Entered: 09 September 1886, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)
Ordained 28 June 1898, Woodstock College, Maryland USA
Final vows: 15 August 1903
Died: 13 March1936, New York NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

by 1899 came to Milltown (HIB) studying

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1936

Obituary

Father Michael Mahony SJ

Early in March the news. of Father Mahony's death reached Mungret. Though the venerable scholar had passed the three score and ten limit yet his passing came as a surprise. He had been with us for our Jubilee in 1932 and his intellectual vigour and upright carriage gave one the impression that he would labour for many another day in the lecture halls he loved so well.

Ml Mahony was born at Ballylooby, Cahir, Co Tipp., on September 29th, 1860. The career of teaching, to which he devoted his whole life and in which he : was such an outstanding success began at an early age for at the age of eighteen he was Monitor in the National Schools and in 1880, when in obedience to a higher call he entered the Crescent, he was already a qualified teacher, drawing the princely salary of £35 per annum.

He was the first student to enter Fr Ronan's school in Limerick and he was wont to tell how he got in some hours before the others who formed the pioneer band. He has therefore been regarded. always as the eldest-born of the Apostolic School and Mungret has always followed . his career with particular interest. He was prefect at the Crescent house and later on when the school was changed to Mungret. Ml Mahony was prefect of the Seminarians and, after taking his BA degree in 1885, taught for a year. In 1886, he entered the novitiate of the Maryland Province at Frederick, with his lifelong friend, Terence Shealy. With that date begins the long preparation and silent formation that was to bear such a rich harvest in later years. Having completed his philosophy and his regency in the college's of Maryland Province, we find him next at Woodstock where he was ordained in 1898. His last year of theology was spent at Milltown Park and brought, to his sensitive heart, the great consolation of being able to say Mass for his parents in the home of his boyhood.

Back once more in the States he was engaged in various colleges till in 1911 he was appointed to the chair of Philosophy in Fordham University. The connection lasted till his death with the exception of one brief interval when in 1932 he visited Ireland for the Eucharistic Congress and came to Mungret for the Jubilee, During his short stay with us he lived again those distant days and visited once more the scenes of his youthful escapades. The Chapel, the study hall, the dormitories, all spoke to him of experiences that were engraven on his memory. One incident, small in itself, showed the simple soul and childlike piety of the great scholar. Entering the dormitory, where fifty years before he had been prefect of the Seminarians, he found where his old cubicle stood; he went down on his knees in prayer and kissed the time-worn boards; it was a sacred spot for it was there he got the vocation that he cherished so. dearly. His reminiscences were full of love for the past and for those that helped to direct his young footsteps to the Altar. Yet he was no “laudator temporis acti” for he never tired of telling of the kindness of his friends across the sea. Superiors who so gladly procured him the privilege of seeing his native land once more; kind friends, who saw to it that he lacked nothing that generosity could procure and the students of Fordham University, “ninnies” and all, who made the evening of his life so pleasant.

Fr Mahony had spent more than a quarter of a century at Fordham and the April number of the Fordham Monthly is dedicated to him and his labours. From it we take the following:

The ever increasing numbers of Fordham students who have gone forth from her halls during the past quarter of a century or more, and who were privileged to have had Father Mahony as a teacher, will, with one voice, proclaim his greatness and his enduring influence. (Rev Fr Hogan SJ (President).)

In the same number, Fr Betowski, AB, one of his pupils, and now Professor at Dunwoodie, says : “Unrelentingly he drove towards the seriousness of understanding principles: Meditating upon the directive value of eternal verities, there was an apostolic echo in his voice as he said : ‘My dear young men, if I could get this truth into your minds so that you would understand it and be guided by it, I would be willing to lay down my life’. All his devotions led up to the Blessed Mother and culminated in Christ, while his untiring search for causes invariably ended in the contem plation of the First Cause, God”.

“He had a heart of gold, a kind word, a ready clasp of the hand and a smile for everyone”, is the testimony of Justice Glennon of the Supreme Court of New York.

Marquette University had honoured Fr Mahony by conferring on him the degree of LLD in 1930 ; Fordham had made him her own; his Alma Mater had made him her guest of honour in 1932, there was but one degree waiting, the one Father Mahony prized most - I’ll get my next degree in heaven”.

Hong Kong

Born: 17 March 1813, Scarva, County Armagh
Entered: 07 September 1859, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained: 1863
Final vows: 15 August 1871
Died: 01 January 1898, St Joseph, Hope Street, Providence, RI, USA - Marylandiae Province (MARNEB)

Born: 28 September 1829, Port-Louis, Mauritius
Entered: 28 April 1862, Angers France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1870
Final vows: 15 August 1855
Died: 23 November 1891, Paris, France - Franciae Province (FRA)

by 1885 came to UCD (HIB) to lecture 1884-1887

Born: 01 July 1830, Bunlahy, County Longford
Entered: 10 June 1853, St John’s, Fordham, NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final vows: 02 February 1864
Died: 13 April 1912, Fordham College, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 24 June 1906, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1925, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1939, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1942, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway
Died: 03 January 1977, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway

Son of Michael Mallin - executed following he 1916 Irish Rising
Brother of Joe Mallin - RIP 2018

Early education at St Mary's Knockbeg College County Carlow

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Entered 01 September 1924; LEFT through ill health; Re Entered 01 September 1925

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 52nd Year No 2 1977

Obituary :

Fr Seán Ó Mealláin (1906-1977)

Father Seán Ó Mealláin, who died in Galway early in January, 1977, was born in Dublin on June 24th 1906. He was educated at St Enda's, Rathfarnham and at Knockbeg College, Carlow. He entered the Society of Jesus, to begin his noviceship, on September 1st 1925 at Tullabeg. He was in Rathfarnham for his University Studies at UCD. from 1927 to 1930, and spent the following three years studying Philosophy at Tullabeg. His first experience of Teaching was in the College where he was to spend so much of his life: St Ignatius College, Galway: this first period was from 1933-1935. The following year was spent teaching in Mungret College, Limerick, from where he went in 1936 to study Theology. He was ordained on July 31st, 1939, and after completing his Theology in Milltown he went for his Tertianship to Rathfarnham, 1940-1941.
He then returned to the Teaching Staff in St Ignatius College, Galway, where he spent over thirty years: 1941-1973. He was in Spain: 1973-1974.

Father Aidan Ennis, of Gardiner Street, sends the following remembrance of Father Mallin:
“Everybody who knew Father Seán Mallin will feel a sense of loss at his passing. It would be true to say that from the time he entered he suffered from ill-health: in fact he had to leave the noviceship for a time. He suffered from continual and severe headaches which left him often unable to speak. This made him at times withdrawn, so that he seemed almost morose. But this could not conceal from anyone what a remarkable person he was. Religiously he was very devoted and intense. Everyone knew the strength and conviction of his views, particularly in political matters. His talents were many: language, music, painting, teaching; but in everything he engaged in he required depth and accuracy from himself and others.
When he was in good form there was no more interesting and informative companion. The range of subjects on which he had deep, first-hand knowledge was astonishing: from oysters and flowers to sonatas and politics. If one would try to analyse what made him in his good spells so interesting and attractive it was a mixture of sincerity, animation, flashes of humour and - in serious matters - a fierce conviction that one did not dare to question.
He felt deeply and strongly about Irish Ireland. He knew Irish perfectly and preferred to speak it. He was familiar with Connemara and the Aran Islands and their people and customs. One of his recreations was to stroll around the docks in Galway, chatting with the Irish-speaking trawlermen - and with sailors from other countries in their own languages. He was Irish and European, skipping without remorse the island in between. For many years he spent the whole Summer in Germany where he did parish work for much of the time, and became very proficient in German. There, as at home, he mixed easily with high and low. He also spent some time in Spain. His views and judgements were very much influenced by his European experience and background. For this reason his contribution to a discussion was often new and “different”.
In the Summer of 1974 he became ill on the Continent and barely had strength to get home to Galway. He spent many months in hospital, weak almost to the point of non-survival, but always with great patience and fortitude. With great determination he fought back to some degree of health, and was able to rejoin his Community. He lived peacefully there until his final illness, and during this final period with his Community his conversation was often exceptionally interesting. He filled every possible space in the house with pot flowers. It was characteristic that many were uncommon and that he knew all about them, and spent many happy hours caring for them.
Is mo chara a bheidh uaigneach in a eaghmais. Ar dheis De go raibh a anam uasal”.
His last years in Galway - “cur, val” - of which Father Ennis has given us such interesting knowledge, were 1974-1977.

Born: 13 September 1913, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1932, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1946, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 08 December 1976, Hong Kong
Died: 01 April 2018, Wah Yan College, Hong Kong - Sinensis Province (CHN)

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966

Son of Michael Mallin - executed following he 1916 Irish Rising
Brother of Seán Ó Mealláin - RIP 1977

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Easter farewell to long-serving Jesuit

Father Joseph Mallin (連民安神父), of the Society of Jesus, returned to the Lord he served on 1 April 2018, Easter Sunday. He was 104-years-old.

Born in Ireland on 13 September 1913, he joined the Jesuits on 7 September 1932 and was ordained on 31 July 1946. He made his final vows on 8 December 1976.

He arrived in Hong Kong and proceeded to Canton (Guangzhou) in 1948, returning to the then-British colony in 1949.

Between 1950 and 1968, Father Mallin taught at Wah Yan College Hong Kong and Wah Yan College Kowloon, then served as the principal of Pun U Association Wah Yan Primary School, Stubbs Road, from 1971-1977 and subsequently as the school’s supervisor from 1977 to 2002.

He was chaplain of Pun U from 2009 to 2103, formally retiring when he reached 100-years-old.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated for Father Mallin at 10am on 14 April at St. Ignatius Chapel, Wah Yan College Kowloon.
Sunday Examiner Hong Konh - 8 April 2018

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/child-of-two-revolutions/

Child of two revolutions
When Father Joseph Mallin celebrated his 100th birthday in Hong Kong on 13 September, he was hailed in Ireland’s newspapers as the oldest Irish priest in the world. Sitting in Wah Yan College, he gave a lively interview to Fionnuala McHugh of the Irish Times, who pointed to the two revolutions that Joe has survived: the Easter Rising of 1916, which claimed his father’s life; and the coup which made Sun Yat Sen the first president of the Republic of China, the year before Joe’s birth.
Joe’s father was Michael Mallin, who left home on Easter Monday 1916 to take command of the fighting in St Stephen’s Green, and never came home; he was shot in Kilmainham along with Connolly, Pearse and the other leaders. The night before the execution, 3-year-old Joseph was taken by his mother (then pregnant with her fifth child) to visit Michael in his cell. Though Joseph has no memory of that goodbye, he heeded the plea in Michael’s last letter: “Joseph, my little man, be a priest if you can.” His brother Sean had preceded him into the Jesuits, and both brothers were assigned to the Hong Kong mission.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/featured-news/fior-eireannach-gan-dabht/

‘Fīor Eireannach gan dabht’
President Michael D Higgins and the Lord Mayor of Dublin Mícheál MacDonnacha are among the dignitaries who will attend Fr Joe Mallins SJ’s Memorial Mass on Sat 21 April, 2018 at 11:00am in St Francis Xavier Church, Gardiner St. Fr Joe Mallin was the son of Commandant Michael Mallin, who was executed for his role in the Easter Rising. He died peacefully and fittingly, on Easter Sunday morning, 1 April 2018, in Hong Kong. He was 104 years old. The funeral Mass for Fr Joe, presided over by the Bishop of Hong Kong, took place at 10am on Saturday, 14 April, at St Ignatius Chapel, Wah Yan College Kowloon. The burial was in St. Michael’s Cemetery, Happy Valley.
In his homily at the funeral Mass, Fr Joe Russell SJ, commenting on Fr Joe’s longevity said, “It is easy to understand why the people of the Old Testament were sure that a long life was the sign of God’s blessing, and explains why extraordinary life-spans were credited to their great men.” He added, “Joe was a private person. He seldom if ever spoke about himself. Which of us knew what his likes and dislikes were? More remarkably he never spoke unkindly about others. I never remember him ever speaking disparagingly about another. He never complained. With a family background like his and proficiency in the Irish language, another might have baulked at being assigned to Hong Kong. But not Joe. This is what God was asking of him; there was nothing more to be said.”
Concluding his short homily which you can read in full below, Fr Russell commented, ”As Joe comes before his judge his good life will speak eloquently for him, not only his service to the community at large but also, as the poet puts it, that best portion of a good man’s life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. These have not been forgotten, they have been indelibly recorded in the book of life. Now, there is a special difficulty in speaking on the occasion of the death of someone esteemed and admired, that in recalling their virtues we may deprive them of the prayers they need for their soul’s repose.”
He was born in 1914, just two years before his father was executed by firing squad, leaving a wife and five small children. One of Fr Joseph’s brothers, Seán, also became a Jesuit priest, and his sister Úna entered the Loreto order in 1925. She was sent to a convent in Spain, where she spent the rest of her life. Commandant Mallin would have been proud of his children. In his last letter he wrote: : “Úna, my little one, be a nun; Joseph, my little man, be a priest if you can ...” Fr Joe joined the Jesuits, and in 1948 he went to Hong Kong and China as part of the Irish Jesuit mission to China. He spent over 70 years of his life there.
Fr Joe entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1932, the same year as the Eucharistic Congress and after his ordination, he was sent on the Jesuit mission to China, where he would spend 70 years of his life. His first posting was in Canton (Guangzhou) in China in 1948. This was the era of Mao Tse Tsung’s and as his Communist Red Army advanced on the city, he and other missionaries had to move to Hong Kong.
According to Fr Alfred Deignan, another Irish Jesuit missionary there, this mission was a new challenge to the Irish Province, “and a new experience for the Jesuits who went there to work among poor people speaking a different language, the Cantonese dialect, with different food, customs and weather, often very hot and humid.” Fr Joe was mission bursar for a time there, and was Director of a social centre before working as a secondary school teacher in a Jesuit-run school. He was appointed Headmaster of their primary school and Principal of Ricci College, a kindergarten in Macau, which was a Portuguese colony until 1999. He was still holding teaching duties there when he returned to Ireland in 2006 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising in 2006.
Fr. Joseph, a freeman of Dublin, received an invitation from the Taoiseach’s Office to attend the 90th commemoration, as the child of Commandant Michael Mallin, who was chief-of-staff of the Irish Citizen’s Army and commander of the St. Stephen’s Green garrison during the Easter Rising. Commdt. Mallin was executed in the Stonebreakers’ Yard, Kilmainham Gaol, along with the other leaders of the revolt, and buried in Arbour Hill.
His visit at that time attracted a great deal of media attention. The late Gerald Barry interviewed him for the Easter Sunday edition of ‘This Week’ (RTE 1, 1.00pm), and he also spoke to Joe Little for RTE News and to a Sky News correspondent. “I will attend the parade on Easter Sunday, as the Government was good enough to invite me, but what I am most looking forward to is being able to go to the grave of my father in Arbour Hill, with the other families of those executed, for a ceremony in early May,” he said.
Fr Joe was also musical and played the very flute which his father’s had played in Liberty Hall as a member of the Workers’ Orchestra on the eve of the 1916 Rising. The flute and his father’s watch are on exhibition in the National Museum of Ireland.
Coming up to Fr Joe’s 100th birthday, he was asked if he regretted anything about leaving Ireland 65 years earlier. He replied that he would have liked to have spent some more time working as a priest in his home country and that he “missed the rain”.
In a moving statement on his death, Fr Joe’s family in Ireland said, “Fr. Joseph Mallin SJ was the last direct living link with that period of our history... He served for more than 70 years as a missionary and educator in mainland China and Hong Kong... and like most teachers, he often talked with pride of the pupils educated at that college, many of whom went on to become leaders in their various walks of life.”
They also spoke of the kind of man Fr Joseph was to them, singling out his humility and spirituality. “He had a deeply held Christian faith and love for his fellow man and woman. His was a practical faith with a strong base in social justice and equality; not unlike his father who as a trade union activist fought for social justice and workers’ rights and who gave his young life for such a cause.”
Referencing his communication skills they said, “Fr. Joseph was... a prolific letter writer, just like his father, and he wrote letters to his family members on a regular basis and also to many other correspondents, never failing to respond to a letter when anyone wrote to him, be it a young school child from Donegal or an academic historian from the University, they would receive a thoughtful reply.” And they spoke of his love of the Irish language – “His command of the Irish language, written and oral, was unbelievable considering he was out of the country since 1948. He wrote to family members and others as Gaeilge – always, san sean-cló, in the old Irish script, and he was delighted to speak Irish to anybody from Ireland who visited him, Fīor Eireannach gan dabht. He had numerous friends in Ireland and around the world. He kept in contact with them all and whenever he was home in Ireland he would make sure to visit them.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Homily at Funeral of Father Joseph Mallin SJ Wah Yan College, Kowloon, Hong Kong 14 April 2018
When Father Mallin was two and a half years old, his mother took him to the prison cell where his father was awaiting execution by firing squad the following day at dawn for the part he played in his country’s struggle for independence. As his father embraced his then youngest child for the last time he said to his wife: he’ll make a fine priest.
Wish and prophecy splendidly fulfilled in the life we are remembering this morning.
Father Mallin – he was always Joe to us – was born in Dublin 104 years ago. In him it is easy to understand why the people of the Old Testament were sure that a long life was the sign of God’s blessing, and explains why extraordinary life-spans were credited to their great men.
Joe became a Jesuit in 1932, was ordained priest in 1946. In 1948 he arrived in Hong Kong, where – with the exception of a stint in Macau as principal of Colegio Ricci, he spent the rest of his life.
As we gather together in this chapel to commend him to the Lord’s tender mercy, we have wanted prayers offered, God’s praises sung, the scriptures read, the Eucharist celebrated. It is our way of saying thank you to almighty God for the gift of Joe, and to thank him for sharing his life with us, to thank him too for all the good he accomplished with God’s grace in a long life of service of others. His pilgrim journey came to an end on Easter Sunday – on what better day could one choose to die? – and those who were privileged to have walked some part of that journey with him are left to mourn his loss.
Our Mass this morning then is an act of thanksgiving, it is a last public act of love, an opportunity to surrender Joe into the loving embrace of the God he so faithfully served. Our Mass is also the joyful assertion of our Christian belief that we – that all of us – are called to share Christ’s resurrection. We are asserting that we have been created, not for death but for life, that death has not the last word. Because of Christ’s resurrection death, from being final and immediately destructive has become fruitful and triumphant, has become the beginning of something magnificent rather than the end of everything. Though Joe has died he still lives on, in the thoughts of those who knew and loved him, and he lives on, we confidently believe, in our Father’s house, experiencing now the truth of those lovely words of St Augustine: You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
Joe was a private person. He seldom if ever spoke about himself. Which of us knew what his likes and dislikes were? More remarkably he never spoke unkindly about others. I never remember him ever speaking disparagingly about another. He never complained. With a family background like his and proficiency in the Irish language, another might have baulked at being assigned to Hong Kong. But not Joe. This is what God was asking of him; there was nothing more to be said. Joe was a man of many parts. Though most of his time was given to education, he was called on to fill many and varied roles. Because of his good judgement and attention to detail he was asked to supervise the construction of both Wah Yan Colleges as well as the Adam Shall student hostel on the campus of the Chinese University. For a time he was in charge of a Caritas social service centre. He was bursar for the communities where he was stationed. And when the Jesuits took on the running of the Pun U Association primary school, it was he who was called on to be its principal and then its supervisor. The Provincial who assigned him to this new venture gave as the reason for his choice: Joe seems to succeed in whatever he undertakes.
His was a life without frills. His hobbies were few: he was a lover of nature and delighted in treks up and down the hills and dales of the New Territories. He also played the recorder. Living in the room next to his I can vouch for this. He had a phenomenal, computer-like memory which remained with him until the end. He took the trouble to remember the name of every boy in Pun U school. The boys’ names were written in a little book which he carried around with. For him to make this effort to know the names of his students was a mark of his respect for them.
This morning we are a guard of honour escorting Joe home to meet his Lord, to that presence where each of us will one day just as surely go. We are outriders accompanying him on his final journey. As Joe comes before his judge his good life will speak eloquently for him, not only his service to the community at large but also, as the poet puts it, that best portion of a good man’s life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. These have not been forgotten, they have been indelibly recorded in the book of life. Now, there is a special difficulty in speaking on the occasion of the death of someone esteemed and admired, that in recalling their virtues we may deprive them of the prayers they need for their soul’s repose.
As we hand Joe over to the mercy and compassion of his Saviour and ours, we bid him a fond good-bye, conscious that we are saying au revoir and not farewell. As we salute him with pride and affection, we turn to God in prayer for ourselves who are left behind: that the Lord may support us, all the day long, till the shadows lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then in his mercy may he give us too a safe lodging, a holy rest and peace at the last.
Fr John Russell SJ

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/memorial-mass-for-joe-mallin-sj/

Memorial Mass for Joe Mallin SJ
President Michael D. Higgins was among the dignitaries at the Memorial Mass for Irish Jesuit missionary Fr Joseph Mallin SJ at Gardiner Street Church on 21 April, 2018. Fr Mallin’s funeral was previously held in Hong Kong where he had lived and worked for the last 70 years.
The service was a celebration of his remarkable life, which had both historical and spiritual significance and offered his family, friends and fellow Jesuits the opportunity to mark his passing in his home town.
The packed congregation in St Francis Xavier Church also included the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mícheál Mac Donncha, the Taoiseach’s aide-de-camp Commandant Caroline Burke, Councillor Cormac Devlin, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD and Senator Mark Daly, who were in attendance due to Fr Mallin’s stature as the last surviving child of an executed 1916 leader and as a Freeman of Dublin.
A book of condolence was signed by mourners as they entered the church. The book sat on a table against a backdrop of photographs of Fr Joseph’s parents. The portrait of his father Michael Mallin sits beside a photo of his mother Agnes who is captured sitting with her five small children Séamas, Seosamh, Séan, Maura, and Úna at Maura’s baptism in 1916 – the year her husband was executed.
Fr Joseph’s cousin, Fr Ray Warren OMI, was the main celebrant at the Mass and delivered a heartfelt homily in which he said that his cousin was a man who was ‘blessed indeed with understanding, wisdom, and knowledge’ and noted his ‘encyclopaedic memory’.
The Mass was a bilingual celebration in honour of Fr Joseph’s lifelong love of the Irish language and of course his heritage. It was also an event in which both his biological and Jesuit family came together. Fr Gerry Clarke SJ, the Gardiner Street parish priest welcomed the congregation and was joined on the altar by many other Jesuits including Ashley Evans SJ, James Hurley SJ and the Provincial, Leonard Moloney SJ. John Guiney SJ, Director of the Jesuit Missions Office, accompanied the President, Michael D. Higgins throughout the ceremony.
Fr Joseph’s niece, Una Ni Challanáin, did the first reading and his cousin, Fr Ray Warren OMI, read the Gospel on ‘The Beatitudes’. Other members of the Mallin-Hickey family read prayers of the faithful and sang at the event.
An offertory procession that presented symbols of Fr Joseph’s life were presented at the altar during Mass. The items chosen were a flag, a flute, and his rosary beads and also his pen and glasses. Fr Joseph didn’t return home very often from the time his mission in Hong Kong began but he was a prolific letter-writer who corresponded with many people in Ireland and around the world. A letter to his nephew arrived in Ireland five days after his death and added a poignant touch to the collection.
Seán Tapley is a nephew of Fr Mallin’s who corresponded with him right up until his death and worked closely with him on the document that revealed new evidence about his father Michael Mallin’s court martial and execution. He gave a moving eulogy which gave tribute to Fr Mallin’s legacy of education and pastoral work in Hong Kong, and his love of his adopted home. He also noted that in spite of the many letters that Fr Mallin wrote, he was essentially ‘a thoughtful man with a droll sense of humour’ who was economical with words.
The Jesuit tribute to the deceased missionary was delivered by Fr Leonard Moloney SJ, the current Provincial of the Society of Jesus. In it he emphasised Fr Mallin’s dedication to his mission in Hong Kong, and his reputation for never speaking ill of anybody over his long life (see the full speech below).
After the ceremony, the congregation stayed for refreshments and conversation in Gardiner Street Jesuit community, to celebrate the life and achievements of this remarkable man.
Photo: Accompanying the President are John K. Guiney SJ and Yanira Romero of Irish Jesuit Missions.

Reflection by Irish Jesuit Provincial Leonard Moloney SJ
In the second last letter to his wife Agnes, written literally on the back of an envelope, Commandant Mallin, Joe’s father, wrote, “All is lost, my love to all my children. No matter what my fate I have done my duty to my beloved Ireland, to you, and to my darling children.”
Joe’s father was one of those Irish men with a deep Catholic faith and a sense of sacrifice, who were prepared to give their lives for what ‘was right and just’, as Joe himself has said.
Ireland has that tradition of self-sacrifice for the good of others, and it’s also expressed in another vein – that of our missionary tradition. We have the monks of old like St Columcille, St Columbanus and St Gall who left their native land to spread the good news of Christ and his vision of justice and peace.
When Fr Joe became a Jesuit, he joined an order whose early founders, like Francis Xavier, began the European missionary journey to the East. Indeed, Francis wanted to go to China but died on the island of Shangchuan, in sight of the mainland.
So like the early Jesuit Fathers, Fr Joe become a part of the Jesuit tradition of mission, going where the need is greatest, obeying orders! And following in the sacrificial tradition of his own Father, (and Irish missionaries) he gave his life – over 70 years of it – working for and with the people of China and Hong Kong.
As he said in an interview a short while ago, the men and women of the Rising, like his father “had a vision of what was right and just, and they wanted to do what they could to build a better Ireland free from poverty and oppression.”
That too was Fr Joe’s motivation as a missionary and as a Jesuit. In the words of Pedro Arrupe, a former Fr General of the Jesuits and himself a European missionary to Asia, Jesuits are men called to live ‘a faith that does justice.’
And that was the faith that Joe lived out, teaching those he was sent to, and in the best missionary tradition, allowing them to teach him. In that same interview, he quoted a Chinese saying that summed up what life was about: “It’s not about ‘ourselves alone’, (now there’s a resonant phrase!) “it’s about what the Chinese call ‘sharing with others’.”
Joe certainly shared his long life with others, be it as teacher, construction supervisor, bursar, headmaster, or director of a social services centre. He found himself in those various roles because, “of his sound judgement and attention to detail” to quote his fellow Jesuits in China.
That word attention is key. For as 20th century mystic Simone Weil points out, “Taken to its highest degree, attention is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love”. And what else would you call it when someone takes the trouble to remember the name of every boy in his school, as Father Joe did.
The Jesuits in his community also attest to his goodness – ‘He never complained’, fellow Jesuit community member Fr Joe Russell tells us. And in fact, as Fr Ray has pointed out, Fr Joe was a great communicator, and he was very careful with words.
This is something that Pope Francis singles out for attention in his recent apostolic letter Gaudete et Exultate. He tells us that resisting the temptation to gossip or engage in back biting is a holy thing.
And Fr Russell also adds, “Remarkably, he never spoke unkindly about others. I never remember him ever speaking disparagingly about another”. 104 years and never an unkind word about another person – remarkable indeed!
In that letter on the envelope that Commandant Mallin wrote to Joe’s mother he started by saying, “All is lost”. He ended by qualifying that statement saying, “All is lost, Agnes, except honor and courage”.
Those qualities were certainly not lost in his son whom we remember today. Fr Joe Mallin, a man of courage and honour, a good and holy Jesuit.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jesuitica-rebel-stock/

JESUITICA: Rebel stock
A curious bond links the first scholastic of the restored Irish Mission with the oldest Jesuit in our Chinese mission: both lost their fathers to execution by the British. Bartholomew Esmonde returned from his studies in Sicily in 1814 to join the staff of the new college of Clongowes. Some ten years earlier his father, Dr John Esmonde of Sallins, Kildare, had been publicly hanged on O’Connell Bridge in Dublin for his part in the 1798 rebellion. William Aylmer of Kilcock, whose Jesuit brother founded Belvedere, was convicted of treason for the same reason, but escaped execution. Michael Mallin, a leader in the 1916 rising, called his family to Kilmainham Gaol on the eve of his execution, and prayed that his little son Joseph would be a priest. 94-year-old Joseph SJ, pictured here on the steps of Kilmainham Gaol, is still ministering in Hong Kong. Despite stereotypes, many Jesuits are of rebel stock.

◆ Irish Jesuit Missions : https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/242-fr-joe-mallin-sj-a-life-of-service and https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/587-fr-joe-mallin-sj-a-life-of-service-2

FR. JOE MALLIN SJ - A LIFE OF SERVICE
The last eighty years have seen momentous changes and Fr. Joe Mallin SJ has been a witness to many, during his years of service in China. Clearly a life of service to others was not unknown in his own family - his brother Sean entered the Society a few years before him and his father was Commandant Michael Mallin, executed by the British for his part in the Easter Rising of 1916.
Fr. Mallin was only two and a half years old and therefore has no memories of his father but was very moved by an article about him written in 1917 by an American Jesuit. Fr. Mallin remembers his mother as a wise woman, who tried to let them experience as normal a family life as possible. At the time of his execution she had four children and was expecting their fifth. In a final letter to her, her husband wrote "to pray for all the souls who fell in this fight, Irish and English".

Eucharistic Congress 1932
Shortly before he entered the Irish Jesuit Novitiate, in September 1932, Joe was an active participant in the Eucharistic Congress, remembering the huge crowds in Phoenix Park, the relief that the weather held, and the excellent marshalling by General O'Duffy, Garda Commissioner. Joe had been in contact with the Jesuits whilst at St Enda's Rathfarnham and met Fr. Ernest Mackey at Knockbeg College.

China
On the ship out to Hong Kong the Catholic cargo supervisor died and Fr. Joe was asked to conduct the burial service at sea. It was a very moving experience he remembers and the captain was most helpful. Fr. Mallin arrived in Guangzhou (Canton) in early September 1948. But in May 1949, the Jesuits had to leave the city for Hong Kong due to the advance of the Chinese Communist army. Hong Kong in the late 1940s was not in good shape due to the Japanese occupation and the Allied bombing but it recovered very quickly.
Fr. Mallin didn't have much time to explore his new home but got to work straight away. He had to take over the top floor of the Paris Foreign Mission Society house which had kindly been handed over to the Jesuits. Joe had no difficulty adapting to the new life and culture. He pitched in head first into dealing with all kinds of people – architects, builders and suppliers, cooks and cleaners. He supervised several construction or building conversion jobs and had to arrange for the temporary accommodation of many Jesuits expelled from Mainland China after the Communist takeover.
An incident he recalls clearly was when a phone call came one night, very late, from the Queen Mary Hospital asking for a priest to come to attend a dying patient. He went down to the street and stopped a taxi. The taxi driver got him to the hospital very quickly. When he thanked him, the driver replied "I am a Muslim, and my father told me that if a Catholic mission priest ever stopped me in the middle of the night to go to a hospital I should drive like the wind because it was very important."

Few words, but many loving actions
He had a very varied apostolic life, successfully doing the job of minister in the community, Mission Bursar, Director of a Social Centre, secondary teacher, Headmaster of Pun Yu Primary School in Hong Kong, Principal of Ricci College in Macao, among other things. He was known as a man of few words, but of many loving actions.

National Museum Dublin
Fr. Mallin played the flute, which had belonged to his father. Indeed his father had played it in Liberty Hall in the Workers' Orchestra on the eve of the 1916 Rising. The flute and his father's watch are now in the National Museum in Dublin.
When asked if he regretted anything about leaving Ireland, he said that he would like to have had some more time working as a priest in Ireland. He said that he also missed the rain! Fr. Joe Mallin has been a Jesuit for over 80 years and will celebrate his 100th birthday next September! He is viewed with almost incredulous amazement for all he does at his age. He is deeply respected by all those who know him.

https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/460-fr-joseph-mallin-sj-looking-back-2016-1916

FR JOSEPH MALLIN SJ: LOOKING BACK 2016-1916
Fr Joseph Mallin SJ received the freedom of the city (https://www.thejournal.ie/joseph- mallin-freedom-of-dublin-hong-kong-2671842-Mar2016/) award from the Lord Mayor of Dublin Críona Ní Dhálaigh who flew to Hong Kong to meet him on the 21st March. An Irish concert was enjoyed by all, including Fr Mallin's visiting niece Una, and the two conversed "as Gaeilge" all evening. The award was a tribute to his life’s service through his ministry to the people of Hong Kong and Macau and in recognition of his status as the child of Commandant Michael Mallin, one of the executed leaders of the Irish 1916 Easter Rising.

Oldest Irish Jesuit missionary priest
Joe Mallin was born in 1913. At age 102 (https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/416-happy- 102nd-birthday-to-fr-joe-mallin-sj), he is the oldest Irish Jesuit missionary priest, living in Hong Kong.
His father Michael Mallin commanded the fighting at St Stephen’s Green on Easter (https://jesuitmissions.ie/news/459-celebrating-easter-2016) Monday 1916 with Countess Markievicz as his deputy. The Commandant paid the ultimate price for his part in the Irish Easter Rising and was shot in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin on May 8th, 1916.
The night before his father’s execution, Joseph was taken to Kilmainham Gaol by his mother, then pregnant with their fifth child, to say goodbye. He was only two and a half years old and does not remember the occasion. Michael Mallin wrote to his little boy in the last letter to his family: “Joseph, my little man, be a priest if you can.”
Portrait of Michael Mallin by David Rooney from 1916 Portraits and Lives(Royal Irish Academy)
Fr Mallin often played the flute that his father used in the Workers’ Orchestra, in Liberty Hall, Dublin on the eve of the 1916 Rising. The flute and his father’s watch are now in the National Museum in Dublin.

The ultimate price
In a greeting on Fr Mallin’s 100th birthday, Senator Mark Daly wrote:
“As a nation we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the sacrifice made by many men and women through the generations.
“The price paid by your father in laying down his life, the price paid by your mother who lost her husband, the price paid by you and your siblings who grew up without their father is a debt un- repayable by any nation.
“The proclamation whose ideals they tried to fulfill contains concepts that are both timeless and universal. Those aims are as relevant to people struggling for rights all over the world today as much as they were for the people of Ireland in 1916.”

https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/588-‘fīor-eireannach-gan-dabht’

‘FĪOR EIREANNACH GAN DABHT’
Joe Mallin SJ, son of Commdt. Michael Mallin, who was executed for his role in the Easter Rising, died
peacefully and fittingly, on Easter Sunday morning, 1 April 2018, in Hong Kong. He was 104 years old.
He was born in 1914, just two years before his father was executed by firing squad, leaving a wife and five small children. One of Fr Joseph’s brothers, Seán, also became a Jesuit priest, and his sister Úna entered the Loreto order in 1925. She was sent to a convent in Spain, where she spent the rest of her life. Commdt. Mallin would have been proud of his children. In his last letter he wrote: : “Úna, my little one, be a nun; Joseph, my little man, be a priest if you can ...” Fr Joe joined the Jesuits, and in 1948 he went to Hong Kong and China (https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/587-fr-joe-mallin-sj-a-life-of- service-2) as part of the Irish Jesuit mission to China. He spent over 70 years of his life there.
According to Fr Alfred Deignan, another Irish Jesuit missionary there, this mission was a new challenge to the Irish Province (https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/543-90th-anniversary-of-the-arrival-of-the- jesuits-in-hong-kong), “and a new experience for the Jesuits who went there to work among poor people speaking a different language, the Cantonese dialect, with different food, customs and weather, often very hot and humid.” Fr Joe taught in a a Jesuit-run secondary school and was still holding teaching duties there when he returned to Ireland in 2006 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising in 2006.
Fr. Joseph, a freeman of Dublin, received an invitation from the Taoiseach’s Office to attend the 90th commemoration, as the child of Commandant Michael Mallin, who was chief-of-staff of the Irish Citizen’s Army and commander of the St. Stephen’s Green garrison during the Easter Rising. Commdt. Mallin was executed in the Stonebreakers’ Yard, Kilmainham Gaol, along with the other leaders of the revolt, and buried in Arbour Hill.
His visit at that time attracted a great deal of media attention. The late Gerald Barry interviewed him for the Easter Sunday edition of ‘This Week’ (RTE 1, 1.00pm), and he also spoke to Joe Little for RTE News and to a Sky News correspondent. “I will attend the parade on Easter Sunday, as the Government was good enough to invite me, but what I am most looking forward to is being able to go to the grave of my father in Arbour Hill, with the other families of those executed, for a ceremony in early May,” he said.
In a moving statement on his death, Fr Joe’s family in Ireland said, “Fr. Joseph Mallin SJ was the last direct living link with that period of our history... He served for more than 70 years as a missionary and educator in mainland China and Hong Kong... and like most teachers, he often talked with pride of the pupils educated at that college, many of whom went on to become leaders in their various walks of life.”
They also spoke of the kind of man Fr Joseph was to them, singling out his humility and spirituality. “He had a deeply held Christian faith and love for his fellow man and woman. His was a practical faith with a strong base in social justice and equality; not unlike his father who as a trade union activist fought for social justice and workers’ rights and who gave his young life for such a cause.”
They spoke also of his communication skills – “Fr. Joseph was... a prolific letter writer, just like his father, and he wrote letters to his family members on a regular basis and also to many other correspondents, never failing to respond to a letter when anyone wrote to him, be it a young school child from Donegal or an academic historian from the University, they would receive a thoughtful reply.” And of his love of the Irish language – “His command of the Irish language, written and oral, was unbelievable considering he was out of the country since 1948. He wrote to family members and others as Gaeilge – always, san sean-cló, in the old Irish script, and he was delighted to speak Irish to anybody from Ireland who visited him, Fīor Eireannach gan dabht. He had numerous friends in Ireland and around the world. He kept in contact with them all and whenever he was home in Ireland he would make sure to visit them. (Read their full statement below).
The funeral Mass for Fr Joe will take place at 10am on Saturday, 14 April, at St Ignatius Chapel, Wah Yan College Kowloon.The burial will take place after the Mass at St. Michael’s Cemetery, Happy Valley, Hong Kong. The Mass will be presided by the Bishop of Hong Kong.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Statement from the Mallin/Hickey Family on the death of Fr Joe
It is with great personal sadness that we learned from Hong Kong this Easter morning of the death of Fr. Joseph Mallin SJ, and just as we were about to commemorate the 102nd anniversary of the Easter Rising. We always knew this day was near but it came as a shock all the same to know that Fr. Joseph is gone to his heavenly reward. What a poignant day to complete his earthly life. And what a good and long life in the service of God it was and he lived it well. May he rest in peace. We will miss him. Solas na bhflaitheas dó agus ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.
Joseph Michael Mallin was born in September 1913. He was the youngest son of Agnes Hickey and Michael Mallin. His mother was the daughter of Joseph Hickey, a Fenian man who was deported from Ireland for 11 years for his part in the Fenian Rising of 1867, and the granddaughter of John Francis Nugent a United Irishman, a printer & publisher from Cookstown Co. Tyrone. Agnes was born in Liverpool in 1870 during the deportation. Joseph was just a young boy when his father, Michael Mallin, Commandant and Chief-of-Staff of the Irish Citizen Army was executed at Kilmainham Gaol in 1916.
Fr. Joseph Mallin SJ was the last direct living link with that period of our history. His siblings, brothers Séamus and Fr. Seán, sisters Sr. Agnes, a Nun with the Loreto Community in Seville, Spain, and Maura Phillips have all predeceased him.
He served for more than 70 years as a missionary and educator in mainland China and Hong Kong with the Jesuit community there. He was ordained in 1946 and two years later was sent to the Jesuit Mission in China. He worked tirelessly for the people there. He loved that community and they loved him and it is there where he will be laid to rest. With others he played a significant part in the ongoing development of education and progress of Wah Yan School and college in Hong Kong and Kowloon. He managed Wah Yan College for a number of years and, like most teachers, he often talked with pride of the pupils educated at that college, many of whom went on to become leaders in their various walks of life.
Fr. Joseph was a very spiritual and humble man. He had a deeply held Christian faith and love for his fellow man and woman. His was a practical faith with a strong base in social justice and equality; not unlike his father who as a trade union activist fought for social justice and workers’ rights and who gave his young life for such a cause.
Fr. Joseph lived to be 104. He was given more time than most on this earth and he used that time wisely. His parents, Michael and Agnes Mallin would be very proud of their son’s achievements and the way he lived his life.
Fr. Joseph was a great communicator all his life, a prolific letter writer, just like his father. He was an inveterate letter-writer and he wrote letters to his family members on a regular basis and also to many other correspondents, never failing to respond to a letter when anyone wrote to him, be it a young school child from Donegal or an academic historian from the University, they would receive a thoughtful reply. His command of the Irish language, written and oral, was unbelievable considering he was out of the country since 1948. He wrote to family members and others as Gaeilge – always, san sean-cló, in the old Irish script, and he was delighted to speak Irish to anybody from Ireland who visited him, Fīor Eireannach gan dabht. He had numerous friends in Ireland and around the world. He kept in contact with them all and whenever he was home in Ireland he would make sure to visit them.
Fr. Joseph Mallin SJ was proud to be honoured with the Freedom of the City of Dublin during the 1916 Centenary Commemorations. An honour presented for his service to education and his family’s connection to the Easter 1916 Rising and the struggle for Irish Independence.
One of his last official acts was his major historical contribution to the memory of his father, Commandant Michael Mallin. This historical document was published last year and it presents new insights and facts about the record of his father’s court martial. This document is now available in the archives of Kilmainham Gaol Museum and the National Library of Ireland. It was Fr. Joseph’s wish that historians would be cognisant of this work.

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
His father was a martyr for Irish Independance. He was born in 1913. His father was shot in 1916 for his part in the insurrection against the British, and so his father was considered a martyr.After his father’s death his family were cared for, he was sent to a special Irish Primary School and then to a Jesuit one.

He joined the Society in 1932, was Ordained in 1946 and came to Hong Kong in 1948, going to Guangzhou for language studies until he was forced to leave in 1949.

He was highly respected among Jesuits as a holy man of charity and practical work. The Jesuits in Hong Kong owe much to him in maming the buildings on Cheung Chau typhoon proof (Typhoon Mary had killd 30 people there in 1930)
He was in charge of building Wah Yan College Hong Kong 1954-1955.
He was also in charge of the School Chapel at Wah Yan Kowloon and the extension over the avenue in 1969. He was also responsible for the construction of the Adam Schall Residence at the The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
He spent four years in Macau, one as teacher and three as Proncipal, until he was recalled to Hong Kong to be Principal of the Pun U Wah Yan Primary School when the Society took over the management of that school. He later became Supervisor there.
He was sent back to Macau to work at the Jesuit school there, and was recalled to Hong Kong as Supervisor of the Primary School again, He knew the teachers there so swell and they all loved him. He was interested in people and kind.
According to Mr Wallace Yu, and alumnus of Wah Yan Hong Kong, he is keen to point out that Joe Mallin was “Headmaster” rather than “Principal” at Pun U, and that the Wah Yan was only added later in 1971 between his two periods at Pun U he was in Macau at Collegio Ricci.

Note from Séamus Doris Entry
He was good friends with Harry Naylor, Joe Mallin and Dan Fitzpatrick.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - St Enda’s Rathfarnham student

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948
Frs. Casey G., Grogan and Sullivan leave England for Hong Kong on 2nd July on the ‘Canton’. On the following day Fr. Kevin O'Dwyer hopes to sail with Fr. Albert Cooney from San Francisco on the ‘General Gordon’ for the same destination.
The following will be going to Hong Kong in August : Frs. Joseph Mallin and Merritt, Messrs. James Kelly, McGaley, Michael McLoughlin and Geoffrey Murphy.

Born: 04 September 1891, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh
Entered: 07 September 1910, Roehampton London - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 31 July 1924, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1929
Died: 06 March 1963, Eastbourne, Sussex, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

by 1925 came to Tullabeg (HIB) making Tertianship

Born: 06 February 1586, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 24 September 1606, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1615, Coimbra, Portugal
Final Vows: 21 April 1624
Died: 18 August 1656, Irish College, Seville, Spain

Superior Irish Mission 20 April 1647-1650 and 27 June 1654

Educated at Portugal, Rome and Irish College Douai
1614 At Évora LUS in 3rd years Theology
1617 In Ireland Age 31 Soc 11
1621 Catalogue Talent prudence and judgment good. Gentle, a good preacher.
1622-1626 In Ireland
1638-1647 Rector Irish College Rome (Arch I C Rome Lib V 199) - 10 May 1647 (in 1642 Fr Richard Shelton is Prefect)
1650 Catalogue 65 years old on Mission 35 - Superior Irish College Rome and Sup Irish Mission 3 years
1655 Catalogue In Professed House Seville “Hospes HIB and operarius”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
The family had the title “Baron Sunderlin”
Very placid and gentle; A Good Preacher; Provincial; Writer; A good religious; Rector in Rome and Seville;
Irish Catalogues of 1609, 1621 and 1636 call him “Dublinensis”. In Foley’s Collectanea evidence is produced in favour of his being a native of Manchester. The author is of the view that Simon Malone was married in Manchester and returned home, or, that he took William to be educated in Manchester as “Harry Fitzsimon, and had him baptised there and that William was then sent to Rome.
William Malone Esq of Lismullen is on the Roll of Attainders of 1642
After First Vows did two years Philosophy and four Theology; He was proficient in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Latin.
Sent to Ireland 1615; Preacher and Confessor many years; Rector of Irish College Rome; Superior Irish Mission for three years (HIB Catalogue 1650)
Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS says DOB 1586. After studies in Rome and Portugal was sent to Ireland 1617, his name is on a list in 1617 (Irish Ecclesiastical Record August 1874);
Sent to Rome in 1635 as Rector of Irish College; Made Superior of Irish Mission 23 December 1647, succeeding Robert Nugent.
Taken prisoner at the siege of Waterford and deported. He went to Seville, and there he was appointed Rector of St Gregory’s 1651-1655 and he died there 15/08/1655 age 70.
His famous work dedicated to King Charles I : “A Reply to Mr James Ussher, his answere”, 1627, was published at Douai (cf de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ”; Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS.
Hollingsworth - of “Christ College” - states he was born in Manchester 1592. This is supported by the paper by Rev Laurence Canon Toole SS, of St Wilfred’s Manchester, regarding his birthplace (Chronicle of Manchester at Chetham Library, also published as “Mancunis” in 1839). “Anno 1592, was borne in Manchester, William son of Simon Malone, a young man with pregnant wife, he was tempted by some Irish merchants till the rebellion broke out 1649... Seduced from the Reformed to the Romish religion, of which he became one of the most earnest and able assertors; he made a reply to Archbishop Usher’s answer to the “Jesuite’s Challenge”, but he was overmatched, his adversary being more eminently learned, and having truth on his syde
“Thomas de Warre, subsequently by inheritance, Lord de Warre, a priest and rector, or parson of the Parish Church of Manchester in the reign of Henry V, founded a college to be attached to that Church for the daily celebration of the Divine Office. This College was dissolved in the first of Edward VI; it was refounded by Queen Mary; suppressed again in the first of Elizabeth, and refounded again under the name :”Christ College” in 1578.
Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS gives date of RIP as 15 August 1655 age 70, making his birth 1586, six years earlier than Hollingsworth, who may have assumed date of Baptism to be DOB. There continues to be dispute about his place of birth in that his father’s name is in the marriage register in Manchester, and there is an entry in the burial register which suggests continual living in Manchester “1597, April 29, an infant douter of Symon Mallon”.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Early education was at Douai
After First Vows he studied Philosophy at the Roman College and Theology at Évora and Coimbra (LUS) where he was Ordained 1615
1615 Sent to Ireland and Dublin. He immediately became involved in a controversy with James Ussher (afterwards Protestant Archbishop of Dublin). Ussher’s book “An answer to a challenge made by a Jesuit in Ireland” (1625) was triumphantly refuted by Malone in a work entitled “A Reply to Mr . James Ussher, his Answer”, published in Douai which reduced Ussher to silence and encouraged the Catholics.
1626-1637 Sent as Procurator to Rome
1637-1642 Rector of Irish College at Rome 10 December 1637. While in office he secured for the College the house in the Via Baccina, where it remained until the suppression
1642-1647 Prefect of Studies at Irish College Rome until 20 April 1647
1647-1650 Superior Irish Mission 20 April 1647. In more normal times he would have been eminently equipped for the duties of Superior in view of his past successes as a missionary priest in Ireland and an administrator at Rome. But taking into account the complicated politico-religious state of Ireland in 1647 and his long absence abroad he proved quite somewhat challenged by the tasks awaiting him. He identified himself with the Ormondist faction, quarreled with Rinuccini and caused a rift between his subjects of Old Irish and Anglo-Irish origin. In the first months following the “Censures” he was away temporarily and had entrusted the Office to John Young, and he had neglected to inform the General of the evolving crisis. It has been suggested that his actions later demonstrated that he sides with the small Ormondist faction on the Mission who had publicly sided with the “Confederation” against the Nuncio. In his 1649 Report to the General on the Irish Mission, Mercure Verdier recommended that he be replaced in office as soon as he had finished three years, but not before tat so as to avoid trouble with the Confederation. In the event, the General died 08/06/1949 and the election of his successor 21 January 1650, it became possible to replace Malone without incurring the displeasure of the Confederation.,
1650 He was replaced in office in January 1650, and was a very zealous missioner, but he was asked to act as Vice-Superior, 1653, on the arrest of William St. Leger. Despite the advice of the Visitor Mercure Verdier, he was again appointed Mission Superior 27 June 1654, but as he was then in prison he could not assume office. He was then deported to Spain and appointed Rector of the Irish College, Seville, 27 October 1655. By this stage he was in somewhat broken health, and much of the administration involved on the rectorship was devolved to his companion John Ussher. He died at Seville 18 August 1656
(Addendum. William Malone published in 1611 the first English translation of the works of - the then Blessed - Teresa of Avilá)

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Malone, William
by Terry Clavin

Malone, William (1586–1656), Jesuit, was born 6 December 1586 in Dublin, the son of Simon Malone, a local merchant, and his wife, Margaret Bexwick from Manchester. He studied humanities at Douai before entering the Society of Jesus on 24 September 1606 at Sant’ Andrea, Rome. After completing his theology course at the Roman college, he went to Portugal, where he studied theology at Evora and Coimbra and was ordained in 1615. He was sent to Ireland in 1615 on the Jesuit mission and was based in Dublin for the next eleven years.

Shortly after arriving in Ireland and at the request of his protestant friend Sir Piers Crosby (qv), he drew up a brief outline of the fundamentals of the catholic faith. Crosby brought this statement to James Ussher (qv), at that time professor of divinity at TCD and rector of Finglas. Malone then wrote a challenge for Ussher, asking of the protestant clergy when it was that the catholic church had fallen into error and how was it that the protestant faith could be true if it rejected a number of tenets held by the early church. Crosby brought this statement to Ussher and a relatively amicable private correspondence ensued between the two clerics as they debated the tenets of the early fathers of the church. Eventually, in 1624 Ussher published an expanded response to Malone's initial challenge. As the publication of catholic literature was prohibited in Ireland, Malone left for the Spanish Netherlands in 1626 and then arranged for the publication at Douai of his A Reply to Mr. James Ussher his answer (1627). In the Reply Malone details disagreements among protestant theologians and argues that the contrasting unity of the catholic church was the surest sign of the rightness of its claim to be the one true church. He notes that whereas previously protestant divines had based their arguments solely on scripture, they have more recently come to agree with the catholic position that the church fathers constitute an important religious authority. Controversially he dedicated the Reply to Charles I and declared that not even the pope could draw the catholics of Ireland from their obedience to their rightful king. Such fulsome expressions of loyalty met with the disapproval of many of Malone's fellow clergy and compatriots. The Reply eventually found its way into circulation in Dublin c.1629–30, after which, at Ussher's behest, three protestant writers published between 1632 and 1641 rejoinders to Malone's work, each dealing with a different topic in the debate.

After the publication of the Reply, Malone was sent to Rome to act as procurator of the Irish Jesuits there. From 1637 to 1647 he was rector of the Irish college in Rome and seems to have performed this task with great distinction. On hearing that Malone intended resigning as rector, the Jesuit superior in Ireland, Thomas Nugent, wrote to Rome in March 1641 begging that Malone remain at his post. Nonetheless he did resign in 1642, but remained in the college as prefect of studies until 1647.

He returned to Ireland that year to become superior of the Jesuit mission in Nugent's stead and soon found himself caught up in the political turmoil of those times. In May 1648 the papal nuncio to Ireland, GianBattista Rinuccini (qv), excommunicated all those who adhered to the truce between the supreme council of the Catholic Confederation and the protestant forces in Munster. He also prohibited church services and the normal administration of the sacraments throughout Ireland. This act divided the catholic laity and clergy and put Malone in a very difficult position. On one hand, the Irish Jesuits were predominantly the sons of wealthy Old English landowners, a group who broadly sympathised with the supreme council. Malone himself was Old English and supported the truce with Inchiquin. Indeed, he appears to have opposed the admission of Gaelic Irish clergy into the Jesuits and, unusually for a catholic clergyman, spoke no Irish. Given these views, it is not surprising that his relations with Rinuccini, whose most reliable supporters tended to be Gaelic Irish, had been tense. However, on the other hand, the Jesuit order stood for obedience to the pope above all else, and could hardly defy his representative in Ireland.

Malone finessed the situation with some skill, but little success, by ordering the Irish Jesuits to follow the example of their diocesan bishop regarding the nuncio's interdict. As most of the Jesuit houses were located in the dioceses of bishops who supported the supreme council this meant that, in effect, the Jesuit order did not observe the interdict. Only in Limerick did the Jesuit house defy the local bishop, and by implication Malone, by observing the interdict. Moreover, many Jesuits actively encouraged the supreme council's defiance of the nuncio and in August 1648 six leading Jesuits signed a declaration supporting the supreme council. At some point in late 1648, Malone visited Rinuccini in Galway city in an effort to convince him of his good intentions. However, the nuncio regarded Malone's behaviour as treachery and believed that the Jesuits played a major role in the failure of his excommunication to defeat the supreme council.

Meanwhile, the Jesuit general in Rome, Vincenzo Carafa, ordered Malone to travel to Bordeaux to explain his behaviour (which he declined to do) and sent Mercure Verdier to Ireland as Jesuit visitor, to ascertain the situation in Ireland. After meeting Rinuccini in Galway, Verdier travelled to Kilkenny to hear Malone and his supporters state their case. Recognising the depth of opposition to Rinuccini within the order, Verdier did not remove Malone from his position, and absolved the Irish Jesuits from Rinuccini's censures. The latter act angered the Jesuits who held that Rinuccini's interdict was invalid.

By the spring of 1650 Malone was in Waterford city, which was being besieged by Cromwellian forces. A plague broke out and Malone and other Jesuits were active tending to the sick and dying. The same year, he was replaced by Thomas Nugent as head of the Jesuit mission in Ireland. Following the fall of Waterford in 1651, Malone went into hiding and was eventually captured in Dublin in 1654. Initially sentenced to death, this was commuted to transportation to Barbados, before he was simply put on a ship for Cadiz in 1655. On 27 October 1655 he was appointed rector of the Irish college at Seville. However, his health was failing and most of the work was carried out by his colleague John Ussher, who succeeded Malone as rector following his death in Seville on 13 August 1656.

C. R. Elrington and J. H. Todd, The whole works of James Ussher, 17 vols (1847–64), iii, 3–5; W. J. Battersby, The Jesuits in Ireland (1854), 70–72; Annie Hutton, The embassy in Ireland (1873), 399, 413, 468–9, 473–5; Michael J. Hynes, The mission of Rinuccini (1932), 264–5, 297; Comment. Rinucc., vi, 139–40; D.Cath.B., ix, 573; Francis Finegan, ‘Irish rectors at Seville, 1619–1687’, IER, ser. 5., no. 106 (July–Dec. 1966), 45–63; D. Gaffney, ‘The practice of religious controversy in Dublin, 1600–41’, W. J. Sheils and D. Wood (ed.), The churches, Ireland and the Irish (1989), 145–58; Louis McRedmond, To the greater glory (1991), 49, 70–73, 78–9, 82–4; Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, Catholic reformation in Ireland (2002), 241–3; Alan Ford, James Ussher (2005), 62, 67–8

◆ James B Stephenson SJ The Irish Jesuits Vol 1 1962
William Malone (1647-1650)
William Malone was born at Dublin on 6th February, 1586. After studying humanities and rhetoric at Douay, he entered the Novitiate of Sant' Andrea in Rome on 24th September, 1606. He studied philosophy at the Roman College, and theology at Evora and Coimbra in Portugal. Returning to Ireland in 1615, he was stationed in the district of Dublin. Soon after he became engaged in a controversy with James Usher, afterwards Protestant Primate. Usher's book, “An Answer to a Challenge made by a Jesuite in Ireland”, 1625, was triumphantly refuted by Fr Malone in a work entitled “A Reply to Fr James Usher, his Answer”, published at Douay in 1627, which reduced Usher to silence and encouraged Catholics greatly. In 1620 Fr Malone was made a Consultor of the Mission. On 11th April, 1624, he made his solemn profession of four vows. In 1626 he was sent as Procurator to Rome. When the administration of the Irish College, Rome, was given to the Society of Jesus by the will of the founder, Cardinal Ludovisi (1635), Fr Malone was selected to become Rector, but various obstacles arose which prevented him taking up that duty until 10th December, 1637. During his term of office he secured for the College the house in the Via Baccina, where it remained till the suppression of the Society. He ceased to be Rector on 1st February, 1642, but remained on as Prefect of Studies and Confessor till 20th April, 1647, when he was appointed Superior of the Irish Mission. During the dissensions that arose among Catholics on the occasion of the Nuncio Rinuccini's censures, he was a strong partisan of the Ormondist faction, and was in consequence denounced to Rome by the Nuncio. The General on 5th September, 16148, appointed a Visitor of the Irish Mission, and ordered Fr Malone to withdraw quietly to France. The Visitor, Fr Maurice Verdier, who arrived at Galway on 28th December, 1648, reported that it would be inadvisable to remove him just at that time. By the death of the General, on 8th June, 1649, all changes of Superiors were, with the approbation of the Holy See, suspended till a new General should be elected. Fr. Francis Piccolomini was elected on 21st December, 1649, and a few weeks later Fr Malone's Socius, Fr George Dillon, was appointed Superior of the Mission.

William Malone (1654)
Fr William Malone, who acted as Vice-Superior of the Irish Mission when Fr. William St Leger was exiled, was appointed Superior of the Mission for the second time on 27th June, 1654, but the General's letter to that effect can hardly have reached him before he, too, was tracked down by spies. To save his host he delivered himself up, and was sentenced to death. This sentence was afterwards changed to one of transportation to the Barbadoes; but just before he was put on board a ship sailing thither, another order arrived that he should be handed over to the captain of a ship bound for Cadiz. After many adventures he arrived there, and was appointed Rector of the Irish College at Seville on 27th October, 1655. But worn out by hardships he died there on 18th August, 1656, regretting the crown of martyrdom had escaped him.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father William Malone 1586-1656
William Malone was born in Dublin on February 6th 1586. After pursuing his studies at Douai, he entered the Socirty in Rome in 1606.
Returning to Ireland as a priest, he was stationed in Dublin where, like Fr Fitzsimon before him, he engaged in controversy with the Protestants, and became the great champion of the Catholics. He made his name in a clash with James Usher, afterwards Protestant Primate. The latter published a book entitled “An Answer to a Challenge made by a Jesuit in Ireland”. Fr Malone replied with his famous work “A Reply to Mr James Usher, his Answer”, published at Douai in 1627, which reduced Usher to silence and greatly encouraged the Catholics.

Fr Malone was the first Rector if the Irish College in Rome, when that institution was willed to the Jesuits by its founder, Cardinal Ludovisi in 1637. Ten years later Fr Malone was appointed Superior of the Irish Mission.

During the dissensions which arose among Catholics during Rinuccini’s mission, Fr Malone sided quite definitely with the Ormondist faction. As a result, he was denounced to Rome by the Nuncio, and the General appointed a Visiitor, Fr Verdier, to inquire into the state of affairs in Ireland. The General had in fact ordered Fr Malone to withdraw to the continent. It is interesting to note that the Visitor, after his investigations, advised against this course.

On the death of the General, his successor Fr Piccolini appointed Fr George Dillon as Superior in 1649. When Fr William St Leger, the next Superior after Fr Dillon was banished from Ireland, Fr Malone acted as Vice Superior, and was himself again appointed Superior in 1654. However, he was tracked down by spies, and to save his host he gave himself up.

He was banished to the Barbadoes, but the order was changed, and instead he was sent to Cadiz. On his arrival at Cadiz he was appointed Rector of the Irish College in Seville, but worn out by the hardships, he died there on August 18th 1656, regretting the crown of martyrdom which had escaped him.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
MALONE, WILLIAM, a native of Dublin : enrolled himself at Rome, in 1606, amongst the Children of St. Ignatius. After pursuing his studies in that city, and finishing them in Portugal, he was ordered to the Irish Mission, to which during nearly a quarter of a century he rendered good service by his splendid talents, apostolic zeal, and extraordinary prudence. Recalled from Dublin, where he was Superior of his brethren, in the early part of the year 1635, to preside over the Irish College of St. Patrick at Rome, founded by Cardinal Ludovisi, he continued its Rector during the space of several years. Of his talents for government his brethren had formed the highest opinions. In a letter now before me addressed by F. Robert Nugent, the Superior of the Irish Mission, to the General Vitelleschi, of the 14th of March, 1641, he earnestly conjures him “not to yield to his petition of being released from the Rectorship of the College, however painful such pre-eminence may be that he knows no one at present qualified to succeed him in that office that there is not one of his brethren so conversant with the state of this Kingdom and Mission none so thoroughly acquainted with the character of the Irish youth as F. Malone”. On the 23rd of December, 1647, F. Malone was appointed Superior of the Irish Mission in the place of the said F. Nugent. His superiority fell in most difficult times.
In a letter dated Waterford, the l5th of March, 1649, he says, how thankful he should be to be relieved from it that the burthen was heavier on his shoulders than Mount Etna, insomuch that he could say with the Apostle (2 Cor. i. 8 ), he “was even weary of life”. Naturally of a most placid disposition, he found it impossible, during the period of the Interdict, to give satisfaction to the Party supporting the Nuncio, John Baptist Rinuccini * (a prelate ignorant of the country, and of very high pretensions ), and the conflicting interests of the supreme Council at Kilkenny. During the siege of Waterford, he was in the town : on its capture by the enemies of the Catholic Faith, he was apprehended and sent into banishment. On reaching Seville his talents for government were put in requisition, as Rector of F. Gregory’s College in that city. There he consummated his course of usefulness by the death of the righteous, in August, 1656, act. 70.
F. Malone will always rank among the ablest Champions of Orthodoxy in that immortal work entitled “A Reply to Mr James Ushers His Answere”, 4to. 1627, pp. 717. It was printed at Douay; but F. Southwell incorrectly fixes the date of publication to the year 1608. The admirable dedication of the work to King Charles I is abundant evidence of the Author’s loyalty and undivided Allegiance, as well as of his Patriotism. Harris’s notice of this truly learned work satisfies me, that he had never ventured to read it. See p. 130, Book I. Writers of Ireland. Doctor Synge, Archbishop of Tuam, and Dr. Joshua Hoyle, would have consulted their literary fame, had they not attempted to grapple with F. Malone.

• The Latin Report of his Nunciature in Ireland is in the Holkam Library, and as translated by Archdeacon Glover, may be read in the Catholic Miscellany of October, November, and December, 1829. See also “Hiberaia Dominicana”, also Third Section of the “Political Catechism”, by T. Wyse, Esq. London, 1829. Lord Castleniaine, p. 277, of the “Catholic Apology”, 3rd edition, says that “The Pope on being informed of the Nuncio’s conduct, recalled him, and sent him to his Bishoprick, where he lived to his dying day in disgrace, and never had the least preferment afterwards”. He died on the 13th of December, 1653, aet. 61.

Born: 01 August 1675, Derry City, County Derry
Entered: 06 December 1690, Bordeaux, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)
Ordained: 1703, Poitiers, France
Final Vows 1711
Died: 04 October 1749, Irish College, Poitiers, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)

Was older brother of Peter Manby - RIP 1752

“Was brother of Peter Manby SJ and a far superior man”
First Vows at Pau 07 December 1692
1694 At Pau College AQUIT studying Logic
1695 At Périgord teaching Grammar
1698 At Tulles College teaching Humanities
1699 James (recte John) At Fontenoy teaching Rhetoric
1700-1723 At Poitiers teaching Humanities, Rhetoric. Subtle intellect, fit to teach Sciences. Acute cultivated mind. Taught at “Magno” College” too
1723 At Bordeaux College teaching Humanities
1730 At Poitiers Infirmus
“John Maachy” (recte John Manby?) 04 October 1749

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Peter (Dean of Derry an afterwards received into the Church). Older brother of Peter
1692-1694 After First Vows he studied Philosophy at Pau
1694-1699 He was sent for Regency at Périgueux, Tulle and Fontenoy, before continuing Philosophy and then studying Theology, both at Grand Collège Poitiers, where he was Ordained
1703 He was sent to teach Humanities at Poitiers, except for two years at La Rochelle.
He died at Poitiers between 1746 and 1749

Born: 01 January 1681, Derry City, County Derry
Entered: 18 August 1703, Lisbon, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)
Ordained: 1712/3, Coimbra, Portugal
Died: 15 January 1752, Clonmel, County Tipperary

Was younger brother of John Manby - RIP 1748

Studied in Soc Philosophy and Theology
1717 Catalogue Approved Scholastic came to Mission 3 months ago and in the country with a private family. I have not been able to get to him and there are no socii near him who could give information. Came here from Portugal and their Catalogue will give necessary info
1732 At Poitiers operarius
“The Considerations” by Peter Manby said to be at Clongowes

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of Dean, and grandson of Colonel Manby (Harris “Irish Writers”) Younger brother of John.
Imprisoned for the faith before Entry.
Writer; Studied at Coimbra (Franco “Annales Lusitaniae”)
1717 On Irish Mission (HIB Catalogue 1717)
Third Entry : No Ch Name Manby
DOB Leinster; Ent 1703.
Brother of Peter (Harris)
(This seems to be the same Entry, and perhaps should read brother of John??)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Peter (Dean of Derry an afterwards received into the Church). Younger brother of John Manby
After First Vows he studied at Coimbra where he was Ordained 1712/13
1716 Sent to Ireland. He lived near Dublin at the house of a nobleman, exercising the ministries of Chaplain, Schoolmaster and assistant Priest for the local clergy. He worked later at the Dublin Jesuit school before he returned to Poitiers in 1730
1730-1733 Minister of Irish College Poitiers
1733 Sent back to Ireland. For a time he was tutor to the family of Lord Dunboyne, but then moved to Clonmel where he died 15 January 1752

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Peter Manby SJ 1681-1752
Peter Manby was born in Ireland in 1680, the son of a Protestant Clergyman, Robert Manby. His father however was converted himself and became a friar, his two sons, John and Peter, becoming Jesuits.
Peter was educated in Portugal and entered the Society in 1703. In 1714 he applied for the Irish Mission.
He published a book in Dublin in 1724 entitled “Remarks on Dr Lloyd’s Translation of the Montpelier Catechism”. His contention was that it was marred by Jansenism.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
MANBY, PETER, was in Portugal in the spring of 1714, and had applied, as I find by F. Anthony Knoles’s letter, dated from Ross, the 6th of April, that year, to come over to serve the Irish Mission.

Born: 12 March 1927, Enfield, London, England
Entered: 07 September 1943, Roehampton London - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 31 July 1957
Final vows: 02 February 1977
Died: 08 August 1988, Chinhoyi (Sinoia), Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe Province (ZIM)

by 1964 came to St Ignatius Lusaka N Rhodesia (HIB) working

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Denis Mangan was born in Enfield, Middlesex, England 12 March 1927. He was educated at St. Ignatius College, Stamford Hill and St. Peter’s, Southbourne. He entered the novitiate at St. Beuno’s in 1943 but his course was interrupted due to military service and so he took his first vows only in October 1948 at Roehampton. He had a year’s teaching at St. John, Beaumont and then he went for philosophy to Heythrop from 1950-53. He taught at Stonyhurst for a year before going on to theology in Heythrop again in 1954. He was ordained in 1957. He did his tertianship at Gandia from 1958 to 1959.

His first assignment was to work for the Apostleship of Prayer in the central curia in Rome from 1963-64. He was responsible for the AoP for English speaking Africa. When he arrived in Rhodesia in 1965 he was in charge of the AoP as well as the Sodality of our Blessed Lady. He did a short spell in Zambia doing this work in 1963-64. He operated from Prestage House from 1965-68 and from Campion House from 1968-69.

He then moved into vocation promotion (1969-84) and was responsible for the pre-novitiate. He was parish priest at Umvuk. He was in the Cathedral parish at Campion House and was superior and parish priest from 1977-84. He always kept his attention on the needs of the youth. He was available for the Study Group at St. Peter’s, Mbare and in his time at Chinhoyi started up a study group there. He was the prime mover of “Ministers Fraternal”. Originally this was to have been a group of Catholics who were senior people in Government and in business, to discuss subjects concerning the ministers present, including the then Prime Minister, Cde Mugabe and later Dr Bernard Chidzero, the Minister of Finance.

He worked with Fr Paul Crane, S.J. at Claver House in London for a short while from 1984-85. When he came back to Zimbabwe he was parish priest at Corpus Christi, Chinhoyi and local superior. He died from a weak heart at the relatively early age of 61 in 1988.

The funeral Mass was in the Cathedral which was packed by a congregation that was made up of a good cross-section of the Catholic community: clergy, brothers, sisters, lay people of all ways of life, very many chita women, a busload of parishioners from Chinhoyi, with 75 priests concelebrating (Jesuit, Franciscan, Carmelite and diocesan). The cathedral rarely sees a funeral Mass like this. The way people made the effort to be present was a great tribute to Fr Mangan’s touch with people.

Born: 07 March 1823, Tonavoher, County Clare
Entered: 18 September 1857, Sault-au-Rècollet Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final vows: 15 August 1868
Died: 26 December 1898, Sacred Heart, Edgegrove, Conewago, PA, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 25 September 1801, County Tipperary
Entered: 07 July 1837, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1841
Final vows: 02 July 1850
Died: 07 February 1877, Stonyhurst, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Early education at Trinity College Dublin, graduating BA 03 March 1835

Ordained at Stonyhurst September 1841 by Bishop Walsh.

After Ordination he was sent to Stonyhurst to teach Latin and Greek at the College and Seminary for five years.
1847-1851 Sent to the Wigan Mission
1851-1854 Sent to Tunbridge Wells
1854-1858 Appointed Rector of Mount St Mary’s
1858-1870 He was sent to the Holywell Mission, where by his great exertions he founded the hospice for poor pilgrims
1870-1872 He was sent to the new Mission at Bournemouth
1872-1873 He was sent again to Mount St Mary’s as Minister.
1873 he was sent to Stonyhurst for health reasons where he died.

Born: 03 August 1848, Dingle, County Kerry
Entered: 10 September 1867, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1885, St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales
Final Vows: 15 August 1888, St Francis Xavier’s, Gardiner Street
Died: 14 July 1924, Mount Saint Evin’s Hospital, Melbourne

Part of the St Patrick’s College, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death

Brother of Thomas Manning = RIP 1893 South Africa

by 1870 out of community caring for health
by 1878 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1879 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1883 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
Came to Australia 1889

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Brother of Thomas Manning - RIP 1893
He made his Philosophy and Theology studies in England and Regency at Tullabeg teaching.
1887 He was Minister of Juniors at Milltown.
1888 He was appointed Socius to the Master of Novices at Dromore whilst making his Tertianship at the same time.
He then sailed for Australia where he was stationed at St Aloysius teaching.
1896 He taught at both Xavier College Kew and St Patrick’s Melbourne.
He worked at St Patrick’s Melbourne up to the time of his death 14 July 1924
He was a very earnest Jesuit.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Denis Manning's early education was at Clongowes Wood College, Ireland, where he was a boarder until he was nineteen years of age. He entered the Society, 10 September 1867, and his ecclesiastical studies were done in Ireland and England, 1879-86. His regency was at Tullabeg College, 1880-82, and he was minister of the scholastics, teaching rhetoric at Milltown Park, 1886-87, before his tertianship, while being socius to the master of novices, at Dromore, 1887-88.
He arrived in Australia in December 1888, and was assigned to St Aloysius' College, 1889-92, teaching for the public examinations. He taught Latin, Greek and French to senior students at Riverview, 1892-95, and at Xavier College, 1895-03. He was prefect of studies from 1897.
His final appointment was to St Patrick’s College, East Melbourne, 1904-24, where he was prefect of studies, 1904-10 and 1923-24. He was also a mission consulter, 1904-16. He was
heavily involved in pastoral work all his working life, but he rarely appeared in the pulpit. If he did, it was not enjoyed. He shunned publicity. His focus was the private chapel and the classroom.
Manning's life was busy, regular and hidden to all except his colleagues and students, and those to whom he gave retreats. He devoted his life to teaching. He taught for 44 years, 36 of them in Australia. He was extremely conservative in his tastes and could hardly be said to bristle with new ideas. He was a bright and lively person in recreation and a good listener. Although inclined to serious reading - even during vacations - he enjoyed a good joke. He was a man of iron will. If he made a plan or undertook a task, he executed it to the last detail. No flights of imagination or temptations to do other work ever deflected him from his purpose.
Although deferent to the voice of authority, he never lightly undertook a new obligation. He was a man to rely on, highly efficient, performing his duties with scrupulous exactitude. He never wavered. He rose every morning at 5.30 am, even when unwell, and was most faithful to his spiritual duties. He had great devotion to the saints. In sickness in later years, he was never heard to complain, working hard until he could physically cope no more. He was content with his approaching death that came suddenly at Mount St Evan’s Hospital.
Apart from teaching, Manning was appreciated for his retreats to nuns. He was always the student, and loved study. Intellectual life was what drew him to the Society - special interests were the ancient classics and professional studies. He thought of himself as a “labourer in the vineyard”, and that is what he was.

◆ The Xaverian, Xavier College, Melbourne, Australia, 1924

Obituary

Father Denis Manning SJ

In Melbourne, on the evening of 9th July, Father Manning died in Mount St Evin's Hospital. His death removes from the ranks of the schoolmasters a highly efficient, very interesting, and somewhat unusual personality. He may be said to have died in harness. He died within a month of his seventy-seventh year, and with the exception of the few weeks spent in hospital, he was doing his usual full work to the end.

His busy and regular, life was a hidden one. He was practically unknown - except to his colleagues and his pupils, to the fairly numerous priests who came to him for confession, and to the religious communities to which he gave retreats. Beyond these he was almost unknown.

I imagine he must have preached in his day an occasional sermon - a few words from the altar at Mass - and no doubt he gave regular instruction for over forty years to sodalists and to religious communities, but I cannot recall an instance of his appearance in a pulpit. I daresay he appeared there occasionally, long ago, but if he did I am quite sure he did not enjoy it. : He shunned publicity. His work was in the private chapel and in the classroom.

His full and useful, but uneventful life is, therefore, easily summed up. His early education was at Clongowes Wood College, Ireland, where has was a boarder till his nineteenth year. Then he entered the Society of Jesus. His training in the religious life, as well as his philosophical, theological, and other studies, mainly in England and Ireland, occupied twelve or thirteen years; in teaching he spent forty-four years, thirty-six of which were in Australia; principally in Melbourne.

Like most of his colleagues he disliked office and preferred to serve in the ranks. He was never burdened with the dignity or responsibilities of rectorship, but at Xavier for six years (ending 1903), and at St Patrick's for a much longer period, he was entrusted with the exacting duties of Prefect of Studies, Father Pidcock, so well-known to many generations of Xaverians as an original “character”, used to maintain, and some times remarked it to the present writer, who was Prefect of Studies at the time, that of all the Prefects of Studies known to him, Father Manning was the best of the lot. I suspect that Father Pidcock's admiration was not unconnected with the fact that Fr Manning; more than others, gave him a fair amount of rope for his choir practices and for his appalling concerts. Certainly Fr Manning discharged his duties as Prefect of Studies with success and with scrupulous exactitude, but he was a happy man when he was allowed to return to the ranks.

From his boyhood he was a steady student and loved study. He told me once that it was his love for study which, among other things, impelled him to seek admission into the Society of Jesus. Yet outside of the ancient classics and his professional studies his course of reading was not very varied. He read many books dealing with religious and ascetical questions but not many dealing with the lighter forms of literature, He was extremely conservative in his tastes and could hardly be said to bristle with new ideas. In time of recreation he was bright and lively, talked a good deal and was an interested listener to ordinary small talk, and moreover, though a very serious man, he had his jokes - yes, a fair number of them; but I doubt if in thirty years he added a new joke to his repertoire. Constant to an exceptional degree, he clung, even in the department of wit and humour, to old and tried friends.

Though he had a vigorous constitution, I doubt if, even as a boy, he ever played more football or cricket than he could possibly avoid. I have heard it said on good authority that as a young man he excelled at handball, That may be, but I find it hard to imagine him excelling at that or any other game, for, though firm on his feet and a strong walker in his younger days, his movements were never lively and he was awkward with his hands. At all events, his interest in sport seemed entirely limited to the school contests. Once, indeed, in a moment of inadvertent levity, he quoted from a boxing correspondent in a newspaper about some terrific wallop with which one exponent of the fistic art had put another to sleep. The exact words were, “a pile-driver to the bread basket”, and it was plain that Fr Manning, being totally inexperienced in the vivid literature of the ring, required a certain effort even to pronounce such unaccustomed language. One of his younger colleagues thereupon seized upon this incautious utterance as a pretext for assuming that Fr Manning took an intense interest in the “noble art”, and on the strength of this entirely false assumption used to retell to him the most excruciating details of the latest encounters. Fr Manning used to listen in polite but agonising silence, till one day he nearly jumped a foot off his chair when his colleague, reading something from the sporting columns of the newspaper, in formed the gathering that “Creamy” Pinkerton (or some such name) had polished off “Pinky” Tomkinson with Father Manning's favourite “punch to the bread-basket!”

Though Fr. Manning had intellectual gifts beyond the average, and as we have seen, was also exceptionally fond of books, he took little interest in novel speculations. He kept to the beaten track. Last year I dropped into his room one day in the holidays and found him reading Fabiola. I shrink from guessing how many times he must have read it since his boyhood. On another free day some years ago I called on him and found him quietly enjoying the second book of Virgil's “Aeneid”. His recreative reading was not unduly light nor ultra-modern.

In Father Manning will-power predominated over intellect. He had an iron will. If he made a plan or undertook a task, he executed it to the last detail. No flights of imagination or temptations to do other work ever deflected him from his purpose. He kept the goal before his mind, and he saw to it that he got there. Apart from deference to the voice of authority, he never lightly undertook a new obligation; but if he did, you might be perfectly sure that he would see it through. He was a man to rely on. He never wavered. He was a man who could look over a period of fifteen or twenty years and not recall a single morning when he remained a second in bed after the call at 5.30, He might have a headache or other ailment, but he simply “got up”. I venture to say that in forty years he never missed a quarter of an hour of the spiritual duties appointed by his rule. He had the heroic fidelity of the saints.

It was clear to others that in recent years his health was not good, but he never spoke a word of his health, never in his life complained, and he consistently refused proffered alleviations. Though extremely grateful for offered help, he always declined it. When I was his superior for a few years, I was in a position to know more than others about his ailments, and I had good reason to wonder at his constancy and patience. He had no fear whatever of death and no wish whatever to live unless he could keep in harness, Constitutionally Father Manning could never be among the unemployed. The limbs might be unwilling, but the strong will was always able to drive them to the task. And till close on his seventy-seventh year that task was always done with wonderful thoroughness.

During the vacation last summer he badly needed a rest, but among other works which he undertook during the recess he gave an eight-day retreat to the Sisters of Charity at Essendon. During the retreat he was far from well and seemed constantly on the point of a break-down, Indeed, he suffered much pain. The Sisters begged him to desist, but he insisted on making the effort and went through the whole retreat with its thirty-two lectures. The Sisters, who were greatly impressed by the retreat, expressed the opinion that Fr Manning would never give another. It was a prophecy justified by events. He returned to St Patrick's very unwell. Even at the end of the holidays he was clearly unfit for a serious effort, but he insisted on making it. When schools were resumed he went on with his usual work till the middle of the year. Then, in great pain he had to retire to Mount St Evin's. On the evening of 9th July he was dead. And his death was that of a true man, a hero, and a saint. May he rest in peace!

At the end of the Requiem Mass at St. Ignatius Church, Richmond, His Grace, Dr Mannix, paid the following tribute, which sums up with perfect accuracy the life of Father Manning:

“For close upon forty years Father Manning has been working continuously in the Jesuit schools of Australia. Outside his own Society his name has been rarely heard. But the fathers who were associated with him and the boys who passed through his classes know the holiness of his life and the value and thoroughness of his work. He was indeed a man of God in our midst, a man whose whole life was filled with work and prayer. . His work itself was a prayer, and he seemed to be always united to God in a remarkable manner. For years he suffered a good deal, and yet he was always at his post and no one ever heard him utter a word of complaint. A few weeks ago he found he could hold out no longer and he went to the hospital knowing, I think, that his end had come. In his last days his suffering was great, but he bore it with the patience and calmness and resignation which had marked his whole life. His work and his sufferings are over, and he has, we may be sure, entered to his reward”.

E BOYLAN SJ

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

Bonum Certamen ... A Biographical Index of Former Members of the Limerick Jesuit Commnnity

Father Denis Manning (1848-1924)

A native of Dingle, was admitted to the Society in 1867 and ordained in 1885 at St Beuno's in Wales. He spent three years of his regency at the Crescent, 1874-77. In 1889, Father Manning was transferred to the Australian mission. He laboured at Sydney as master and minister until 1897 when he took up duty as prefect of studies at St Francis Xavier's, Kew, Melbourne where he remained for the next seven years. In 1904 began his long association with St Patrick's, Melbourne where he was many years prefect of studies. At the time of his death, Father Manning was entering on his forty-fourth year as master in the colleges, a record almost unique in the Society.

Born: 07 April 1855, Dingle, County Kerry
Entered: 07 September 1875, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1888 South Africa
Died: 22 March 1893, St Aidan’s College, Grahamstown, South Africa - Zambezi Mission

Younger Brother of Denis Manning - RIP 1924

Early education at St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg

by 1880 at Laval France (FRA) studying
by 1881 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1882 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1883 at at Zambezi Mission

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Brother of Denis Manning - RIP 1924

He studied Rhetoric at Milltown and Philosophy at Jersey.
On the occasion of Father Wild’s visit to HIB looking for volunteers for the Zambesi Mission, Thomas volunteered and was accepted. He was sent to Dunbrody on the Eastern Cape, and he was Ordained there.
He then rapidly failed in health and died either at Dunbrody or at Grahamstown 23 March 1893.

Note from Br Thomas Curry Entry
He died there five months after his companion Thomas Manning 06/08/1893

Born: 03 June 1898, Sydenham, Sydney, Australia
Entered: 24 December 1921, Loyola, Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Final vows: 02 February 1933
Died: 22 April 1968, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Loyola College, Watsonia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Victor Manning was educated by the Marist Brothers at Kogarah, and worked as a salesman for six years before entering the Society, 20 February 1921 as a scholastic novice. During the year he decided to become a brother and began his postulancy on 24 December 1921, at Loyola College Greenwich. Xavier College was his first appointment after vows, and there he variously filled the positions of dispenser, storekeeper, refectorian, infirmarian, sacristan and gardener.
From 1939-46 he was refectorian at Canisius College, Pymble, before working in the parish of Hawthorn, 1946-50, as sacristan. He was at the provincial residence, 1950-53, and again at Canisius College, 1953-61. As his health deteriorated, he went to Loyola College, Watsonia 1961-68, where he was janitor, and performed various house duties. Among his effects a card found, donating his eyes to the Eye Bank of the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.
He was recognised as a good religious, who performed many humble duties well. He loved his vocation and never complained of anything asked of him. He loved reading and would converse with the fathers over cases appearing in the Review for Religious. His happiest years seemed to be at Hawthorn. He enjoyed his work with the altar boys and organised and coached cricket and football teams for them. In return, they liked him for the care shown to them. His ill health over marry years was caused by heart disease.

4 March 1864 Born, Charleville, Cork, Ireland
1890 Ordained as a priest
1903-1912 President of Maynooth College, Kildare, Ireland
1912 Coadjutor to Archbishop Carr of Melbourne, Australia
1917 Archbishop of Melbourne
6 November 1963 Died, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The community house at Manresa was originally known as Granby Hall and then as Baymount Castle, being at one time the residence of Dr. Traill, a northern Church of Ireland Bishop. Renovated in 1838 by Robert Warren, it was later owned by the Irish Loreto Sisters who had a school there. Gutted by fire in 1851, the Sisters had it renovated again, sold it, and moved to Balbriggan.

In 1898 it became the property of Lord Ardilaun, a member of the Guinness family and owner of the adjoining St. Anne’s estate. About the beginning of the First World War, William Lucas Scott opened a preparatory school for boys which continued until 1936, when it was acquired by John T. Gwynn, of the well-known literary family (relative of Jesuit Aubrey Gwynn).

In 1948 the Archbishop of Dublin asked the Jesuits to establish a northside retreat house, and Baymount Castle, with its 17 acres, was bought by them.

Retreats began in 1949. Construction of a new retreat house began in 1966 to the design of architect Andrew Devane of the firm Robinson, Keefe and Devane; it was opened in 1967. In 1969, the Irish Jesuit novitiate moved from St Mary's, Emo Court, Laois to Manresa, where it was situated until 1991.

Born: 23 January 1910, Sandymount, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 02 September 1929, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 13 May 1942, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 23 March 1945,
Died: 24 April 1982, New Jersey, NJ, USA

Left Society of Jesus: 1957/8

Transcribed: HIB to ASL 05 April 1931

by 1950 at Ricci Hall Hong Kong (HIB) working

Born: 1598
Entered: 1607
Died: 10 November 1621, Loreto, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)

◆ CATSJ I-Y has
DOB 1598; Ent 1607;
Studied Philosophy and Theology
1611 Not in ROM CAT
1616 At Loreto College - judgement and prudence good, much experience. Fit to hear confessions or be Superior
1619 Not in ROM CAT

◆ In Old/15 (1) and Chronological Catalogue Sheet

Born: 02 December 1932, Cabra, Dublin
Entered: 22 December 1954, St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
Final Vows: 02 February 1965, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin
Died: 25 November 2023, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the St St Ignatius Leeson Street Community at the time of death

FSS
Born : 2nd December 1932 Dublin City
Raised : Cabra, Dublin
Early Education at St Agatha's William Street North, Dublin; St. Peters, Phibsborough, Dublin; Ringsend Tech, Dublin; Hosiery Mechanic; Cathal Brugha St College, Dublin
22nd December 1954 Entered Society at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
25th December 1956 First Vows at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
1957-1959 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Cook (from Jan 1957)
1959-1981 Rathfarnham - Cook
1964 Tertianship
2nd February 1965 Final Vows at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin
1981-1983 Manresa House - Cook
1983-1985 Lahore, Pakistan - Administration at University Hall
1985-1987 Gardiner St - Cook; Social Services Centre
1987-1989 John Austin House - Social Services Centre Gardiner St; Minister
1989-2005 Belvedere College SJ - Minister; Social Services Centre
1993 Subminister; Assistant Sacristan; Pastoral Work in Inner City; Assists in School
2005-2012 Gardiner St - Pastoral Work in Innter City; Assists in Belvedere College SJ; Community Sacristan
2012-2023 Leeson St - Assistant Sacristan & Gardener; Visitor to Cherryfield Lodge Residents
2020 Prays for the Church and Society at Cherryfield Lodge

Interfuse No 44 : September 1986

Interfuse Interviews : Gerry Marks

On his career as a Jesuit Brother, ranging from the shining saucepans of Rathfarnham to the black pots of Pakistan. Gerry is now working in the Social Service Centre in Sherrard Street and he tells us what that's like.

Interfuse
How many years have you been in the Society now, Gerry?

Gerry Marks
Well, I entered in 1954 so I'm thirty-two years a Jesuit. I started off as a postulant in the old days in Milltown Park with Fr. Con Murphy. I don't know whether you'd count that as being in the Society: the Catalogus doesn't! Anyway, I was two and a half years there before going to the noviceship in Emo in 1954. I took my vows in 1956,

Interfuse
And when did you volunteer for Pakistan?

Gerry Marks
I went out there in 1983.

Interfuse
So you had been a heck of a long time in the Order before making that decision. Mainly cooking for the troops, right?

Gerry Marks
Yes, I spent most of my Jesuit life in the kitchen.

Interfuse
Did you get fed up with cooking, if that's the right way to put it, or what made you opt for the Foreign Missions?

Gerry Marks
Well, I was a long time cooking and I didn't know whether I liked it at times. It was nice in Rathfarnham Castle; I liked it there. But when I was changed from Rathfarnham to Manresa it felt like going back to the noviceship and starting all over again. So that's why I jumped at the offer of a job in Pakistan.

Interfuse
Had you thought for some years of going on the Missions or was that a spur-of-the-moment decision?

Gerry Marks
Years ago I had thought about going to a place like Zambia but it wasn't a very strong urge. I thought I was doing okay at the cooking. I felt that I was helping out and that I was making a fairly good job of it. I also felt it was the only thing I was capable of doing. I wondered what I could do to help in Zambia and felt that I would need some other talent to be able to help the people out there.

Interfuse
So what made you think you could help out in Pakistan?

Gerry Marks
It was Bill McGoldrick's example, really. When I saw how a man of his advanced age (!) could volunteer and be capable of doing the job out there, well, I said to myself, “If Bill can do it, then the bould Marks can do it!”

Interfuse
So you replaced him out there?

Gerry Marks
Actually, it just happened at the right time, I saw a notice on the board, looking for a replacement for Bill who was coming back for tertianship. I thought I might as well volunteer this time, I thought that there would be several volunteers and I wanted to get in first. In fact I was the only applicant - so the job was mine.

Interfuse
Did you know when you were going out that it was for a limited number of years?

Gerry Marks
Yes, the contract was for two years.

Interfuse
So you hadn't burnt all your boats?

Gerry Marks
No, it would certainly be different if you were going out for an indefinite period.

Interfuse
I don't have to ask you to tell us what you were doing in Pakistan because Interfuse readers have already heard all about the job from Bill McGoldrick. When it came to the end of your time out there, were you dying to come home or would you gladly have stayed on?

Gerry Marks
For me, that's a difficult question to answer. I was sorry to be leaving in one way and I was glad in another. The thing was, I had two types of work out there, I had an apostolate with people in “the villages”, as they're called, and I was working in a hostel with the students. I was sorry to be leaving the village work. But as regards the hostel work, I didn't think much of that. There wasn't a lot to do there, to tell you the truth, I wasn't cooking. I was just looking after the staff and taking in the students' fees. In the villages, on the other hand, I found that I was meeting people and getting to know a lot of them very well. I liked that part of the work and wouldn't have minded staying on doing it.

Interfuse
Would you recommend this kind of a two-year stint to the other Brothers in the province?

Gerry Marks
I would recommend it to them if they were going to be let do the pastoral work and not confined to the hostel. You don't feel it worthwhile if you're working indoors most of the time. You meet the students and talk to them (mostly in English). I am sure that many of our middle-aged Brothers would find the pastoral work in the villages very fulfilling. I'd recommend that to any Brother because he'd be really in the middle of things where there is such great work to be done.

Interfuse
Did you find the living conditions hard yourself or did you get used to them fairly quickly?

Gerry Marks
The living conditions are okay. When I got used to the heat - 110 degrees in the dining room: great if you want to lose a bit of weight - and when I got rid of the mosquitos from my room, then living conditions were grand. The food was okay, too.

Interfuse
How was it cooked?!

Gerry Marks
Oh, it was cooked alright. But I must say that the kitchen that they had was a bit primitive and the standard of hygiene was bad. I don't think it would pass the Eastern Health Board here. I went into the kitchen when I went there first and saw that the pots were jet black. You see, the type of gas they use is a very dirty natural gas and it blackens everything in sight. All the pots were covered with this thick, black stuff, inside and out. Anyway, I got going on these pots and when I finished they were practically shining. Everything was grand for a month or so. Then they began to go black again. I just said to myself, “Sure if they've survived up to now, they can survive a few years longer”. So, I left it at that. The “black stuff” must have been edible.

Interfuse
What was the general standard-of-living like?

Gerry Marks
Some Irish Jesuits talk about Ballynun being poverty stricken. They should see the conditions in the villages in Pakistan and see the so-called housing, the little bits of shacks people live in. It is a very poor nation, materially. The one thing they have out there is the sun. I think that's what keeps them happy in their poverty. They are very happy people, believe it or not.

Interfuse
What did it feel like to live in a non-Catholic country?

Gerry Marks
Strange. I thought that when I went out first. The Moslems are friendly, though, and will shake hands with you when they meet you in the street. When they see a white face coming along, some of them will come over and say, “You are welcome”. Others might ask, “What did you come out here for?” If you say, “to work”, they wonder why you came to Pakistan where there are so many unemployed. In a way I felt sad for them because they were really good people and, if they got the chance, they'd probably make better Catholics than I am. If I ever got the opportunity, of course, I used to speak to them about the Catholic faith.

Interfuse
And how did that go down?

Gerry Marks
Well, there are a lot of things about Christianity that they find peculiar. For instance, they can't understand how God could have a son. They do have a certain devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, as you know. They don't call her that; they call her the Mother of Christ the Prophet. They try to make out, through our Gospels even, that Christ promised Mohammed. They quote the text, “I am going to the Father and I will send to you a paraclete who will make all things clear”. This word, “paraclete”, in their script and in their writings, is very similar to the word for prophet. So they take this as pointing towards Mohammed. They don't realise that it was the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised the apostles and when you explain this to them, they do begin to doubt a little.
I was surprised to find that they have “Christian” mountains in the Himalayas. I was out on a trip one day and they pointed out a peak near K2 called Murray. I discovered it meant Mary. It is a big mountain and Mary is supposed to be buried beneath it. Then they point in another direction and tell you that Jesus Christ is buried over there. They say that He didn't die on the cross. His friends took him down off the cross before He died and brought Him off to the East. They can show you the mountain where He is buried.

Interfuse
Did you ever talk about religion with the students in the hostel?

Gerry Marks
Oh yes, in the hostel the students were very open. They each had different ideas on religion. Each one had his own way of thinking. We had one Shiite Moslem with a most unfortunate name. Br. McGoldrick will remember him well. If I had ever to call his name out over the yard for a phone call, I would hear a roar of laughter from the Australian Jesuits in the dining room. They used to think I was using a bad word! Anyway, he was a very nice fellow, going on to be a doctor. There was so much bribery and corruption going on in that profession that he was becoming quite disillusioned. After the doctors had performed an operation, they would go straight back to their own private clinics and leave the aftercare of a patient to the nurses. In this way they made stacks of money, thousands of rupees. That's why this student was so very disillusioned. But he was a very sincere Moslem and he would tell me all about the high moral standards he had set for himself.

Interfuse
So, eventually, the time came when you had to return to Ireland. Did you know what you'd be doing when you came home?

Gerry Marks
No. I didn't know at the time. I went and spoke to the Provincial and he told me he was looking for someone to work in the Social Service Centre, So I agreed to give it a go. Joe went on to tell me they needed someone to do the cooking on Saturdays and Sundays in Gardiner Street and wondered if I'd mind “keeping my hand in”. I didn't mind.

Interfuse
Tell us a wee bit about the Social Service Centre.

Gerry Marks
Well, I did feel a bit at sea here at first. I was always looking for a white collar job. I always had the white collar but never had the job! Anyway, I found myself coming into this job, doing office work for four days a week. As you know, there are three Sisters here and two Brothers, Eamonn Davis and myself. One of the Sisters, Sr. Mary de Porres, works in the Home Help office. The other two, Sr. Joseph and Sr. Susan, work with Eamonn Davis and myself.

Interfuse
I presume you get all sorts of problems with no two days the same? It just depends on who rambles in off the street looking for help in some shape or form?

Gerry Marks
Yes. You have to be ready for all sorts. You can get people who are very nice and polite. You can get ladies who are practically weeping looking for help because they have problems in their homes and that type of thing. Then you have tough lads coming down here straight from Mountjoy Jail. They come in here looking for money. I can tell you that Sr. Joseph is glad to have a few able-bodied men around the place at times.

Interfuse
Have you grown to like the job by now?

Gerry Marks
Well, of course, work being what it is, I sometimes get those Monday morning feelings. It's not terribly heavy work, physically speaking, even though sometimes you may have to move second-hand furniture or washing machines around. But I've got used to it. I was always used to meeting people and talking to people because I am a member of the Legion of Mary.

Interfuse
Did you find your Legion background a big help?

Gerry Marks
Yes, definitely. We visit a lot of old people. Some of them are psychiatric cases. Some of them are people who have been left alone and have no relations. They love you to stay a long time with them and talk to them. I give them as much time as possible. We each have a list of people to visit. There are about twenty-four people on my list. There are poor people and there are lonely people and they love to have you in their home for a chat, I find this very fulfilling work, visiting people who are on their own. I have to take my turn in the office as well, it's the visiting that I find most rewarding. I've discovered that the majority of these people know very little about the different grants and things that can be done for them by the Eastern Health Board or by us. There are a good few lonely old people around that we have done a lot for, Using the Eastern Health Board grants to have their houses done, helping them with their gardens and things like that: that's the type of work I like.

Interfuse
And your overall assessment of the work done by the Centre?

Gerry Marks
It's terrificly well organized and I think Fr. John Murphy is mainly responsible for that. The organizational structure of the Centre is very simple but very effective. We have a Staff Meeting every Thursday where we can discuss problem cases and help one another with advice. All in all, I can assure your readers that the Centre is a work of which the Province can be justly proud.

Interfuse No 70 : Autumn 1992

TO YOUGHAL AND BACK

Christopher Murray

“Little did I realize what was ahead for me when Eamonn Davis and Gerry Marks invited me to join them on this special occasion. I am grateful to them because it was a great day, a very pleas ant and enjoyable one. This was a surprise and delight for me, an American Jesuit on sabbatical who happened to be visiting Ireland and Belvedere College at the right time...”. So writes another participant, Brother Pat Flanagan from New York; and doubtless there will be yet more testimonies to the great day, and to the forth coming pilgrimage to Rome...

Thursday morning had us all on our feet at a rather early hour, a somewhat overcast sky and a hope of a very pleasant day. It was also the end to all discussion as to who was going and who was not and what exactly was the programme for the day.

At Gardiner St. all were ready in good time and waiting for the arrival of the bus after scoffing a plate of Bro. Loftus’ porridge and a cup of hot coffee - which he had been preparing for our comfort at 5 am. amid the sound of some musical noises and some not so musical.

The bus arrived in good time and Tom Phelan was buzzing around (rather early for him too!) making sure the “old men” were able to climb up the steps and find a comfortable seat for the long journey. All in place and then “where are the Belvedere Brothers?” In the distance Bros. Marks and Davis were seen cornering at speed and making their way up Gardiner St. to a general sigh of relief. Then came a gasp and a groan as Gerry headed in the direction of the church door as if to do his meditation, but he quickly had second thoughts and headed for the bus, to a collective sigh of relief. So on we went to collect our other passengers for the journey and found the Provincial waiting at Milltown Park to give us a send-off.

Our first stop was planned for Kilkenny with a pick-up at Naas where Bros. O'Connor and Fitzgerald were patiently awaiting our arrival. A somewhat uneventful run on to Kilkenny to the murmur of voices, which gradually grew louder as the morning blues wore off. A very pleasant breakfast awaited us and arrangement made for a meal on our evening return at 7 pm. It was a very light-heart ed and noisy crowd that boarded the bus for our Onward journey, even the bus driver became one of the excursionists!

The sun was shining brightly and the holiday spirit took over and all bother and curiosity about “what's next” was put aside, and there were some mild attempts at song and joke intermingled with comments on the places we were passing thro' and old memories evoked by some on a former journey through the same place.

Arriving finally and in good “timetable” time we found a welcoming PP, with some others, at the beautiful and ideally situat ed parish church, and were all greeted individually with great warmth. A new church in a new housing area, in very beautiful surroundings, and most pleasing to the eye.

A very restful and inspiring Mass and a reflection on Dominic Collins followed and we all felt it alone was worth the journey. A very pleasant meal, back in the town, in the welcome and warm company of the PP and then a kind of aimless ramble from here to there with Dominic Collins connections, a visit also to the SH Convent where we were graciously greeted by Mother Provincial and a quiet visit to “Exposition of the BS” which was mainly the care of the local laity. A visit to the Protestant pre-Reformation church, with visible relics and reminders of its former owners. We ourselves were the object of no little curiosity and possibly the locals had never seen such a large body of “Clericals” ambling idly around and “gawking” in at shop windows and various other places, - and wondering was this an outing for decrepit clergy! accompanied, of course, by some younger “keepers”.

I would leave it to others to describe the hilarity of the return journey, the very adequate and pleasant dinner in Kilkenny, and the hilarity and variety of real talent we enjoyed on what seemed a short journey home. The satisfaction expressed by all at the well planned day by those who had the care on their shoulders. The MC of what we might describe as the Return Concert was as good as the hidden talent that came to light in such abundance. It wasn't a very prayerful day but I think Dominic Collins would have enjoyed it very much.

Born: 24 November 1925, Liverpool, Lancashire, England
Entered: 07 September 1943, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäus (Frankfurter Dom), Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Final Vows: 02 February 1960, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 15 November 2000, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

Part of the St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin community at the time of death.

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1955 at Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt (GER I) studying
by 1979 at Rue de Grenelle Paris, France (GAL) sabbatical

Born: 23 January 1844, Naples, Italy
Entered: 26 September 1859, Naples Italy - Neapolitanae Province (NAP)
Ordained: 1873, Woodstock College, Washington DC, USA
Professed: 02 February 1877, Las Vegas NM, USA
Died: 29 March1915, Naples, Italy - Neapolitanae Province (NAP)

Part of the St Ignatius, Las Vegas NM, USA community at the time of death

Superior of the Sicilian Jesuit Mission to Colorado, USA Mission : 01 January 1887

2nd year Novitiate at Milltown (HIB) under Luigi Sturzo following the expulsion of Jesuits from Naples and Sicily

St Brendan's Seminary, Killarney, County Kerry

OPW

Great-grandnephew of Fr Frank Browne SJ

Born: 19 October 1876, Wigan, Lancashire, England
Entered: 07 September 1893, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 26 July 1910, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1912, Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia
Died: 05 March 1951, Burke Hall, Kew, Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1898 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1903
by 1911 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1912 returned to Australia

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
John Martin a man with a ruddy complexion and twinkling eyes, was educated at Mungret, and entered the Society at Tullabeg, 7 September 1893. After his juniorate, he studied philosophy at Jersey, 1897-1900. He taught at Clongowes and Xavier College, Melbourne, 1901-07, and also a prefect.
At Xavier he taught mathematics, English, Latin and French, and his classes were always attractive for the way he aroused interest in the subject. He was a firm teacher-no foolery in
his classes. but he was able to combine humour with severity. He delighted his class at times by reading them a story from Sherlock Holmes or the like. He enjoyed games and loved music.
Theology studies followed at Milltown Park, Dublin, 1907-10, and tertianship at Tronchiennes the following year. He returned to Australia to teach at Xavier College, 1911-15, and St Patrick's College, 1915-21. He did parish work at Richmond, 1921-28, where he was recognised as an indefatigable worker, before returning to teach at Xavier College until 1940.
He was also procurator of the mission and later of the vice-province. He taught at St Aloysius College, Milsons Point, 1940-41, and at Burke Hall, 1941-50. He was always a very retiring man, rarely seen at public functions, but good company for Old Boys, who sought him out in his room, smoking a cigar or a pipe, and together they shared memories of former days.
He was a kind and thoughtful person helpful to scholastics in the colleges. He was a good counsellor, always cheerful and good with more difficult members of the community. He was an expert teacher of French and popular with his students. He had great devotion to his work, and was admired as a preacher, although he did not particularly like the pulpit. He also had a fine singing voice. In his latter years he suffered from heart disease, but did not draw attention to it.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 26th Year No 2 1951

Obituary :

Fr. Martin died in Melbourne on 4th March. A native of Wigan, Lancs, he was born in 1879 and was educated at St. John's, Wigan and at Mungret Apostolic School. He entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1893 and studied philosophy at Jersey. After a year's teaching at Clongowes, he went to Australia, where he was on the staff of Xavier College, Kew for some five years. He did theology at Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1909. His tertianship he made at Tronchiennes. He returned to Kew to resume work in the classroom till 1921. He was then made Province Procurator, a post he held till. 1935. He was transferred to St. Aloysius' College, Sydney in 1940. From 1942 till his death he was attached to Burke Hall, Preparatory School to Kew.
Fr. Martin was a man of charming manner and a great social success. A gifted singer and interpreter of Irish melodies, the “petit Martin” was a general favourite with the French. He was in constant demand as a philosopher in Jersey on the sac-au-dos or rustication days. He kept in touch with the Irish Province all his life. He and the late Fr. Flinn corresponded monthly with each other giving and receiving items of news affecting both Provinces. R.I.P.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1951

Obituary

Father John Martin SJ

In March occurred the death in Australia of Rev John Martin SJ, a member of the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus. He was born at Wigan in 1876, and after spending some years at St John's College, Wigan, he came to Mungret, where he remained until he entered the Noviciate of the Society of Jesus at Tullamore in 1893.

He studied Philosophy at the French house of the Society at Jersey, after which he was sent to teach at Clongowes, which he left for Australia in 1902. He was master for five years at Xavier College, Melbourne, and he then returned to commence his studies in Theology at Milltown Park. He was ordained priest at Milltown in 1910, and after he left Milltown he spent one year at Tronchiennes in Belgium to complete his training. In 1911 he went to Australia, where he taught, again at Xavier College Kew, until 1921. In 1921 he was appointed Province Bursar, and remained in that post until 1935.

He was transferred to St Aloysius' College Sydney in 1940, where he re mained until 1942. From 1942 until his death in March of this year, Father Martin was attached to Burke Hall, Preparatory School to Xavier College, Kew. He was a man of very charming manner, a great singer, and interpreter of Irish melodies. All through his life he kept in touch with Irish affairs, and wrote regularly to old friends in Ireland. His many friends will regret the passing of a devoted priest and genial personality RIP

Fr Luis Martín SJ was a Spanish Jesuit priest who served as the twenty-fourth Superior General (Father General) of the Society of Jesus (1892-1906).

Born: 23 July 1921, Ballylongford, County Kerry
Entered: 07 September 1939, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1954, Leuven, Belgium
Final Vows: 02 February 1957, Leuven, Belgium
Died: 27 July 1999, New York, NY, USA

Left Society of Jesus: 15 May 1965

Pseudonym: Michael Serafian

https://www.dib.ie/biography/martin-malachi-brendan-a5484

Martin, Malachi Brendan

Contributed by
Maume, Patrick

Martin, Malachi Brendan (1921–99), priest and writer, was born 23 July 1921 at Ballylongford, Co. Kerry, the fourth of ten children of Conor John Martin, gynaecologist, and his wife Katherine (née Fitzmaurice). Three of his four brothers became priests, including F. X. Martin (qv) OSA, historian, and Conor Martin (1920–80), professor of politics and ethics at UCD. Martin was educated at Ballylongford national school and Belvedere College. In 1939 he joined the Jesuit order as a scholastic (novice). He studied at UCD, took doctorates in Semitic and Oriental languages and archaeology at the University of Louvain, and was ordained on 15 August 1954. He travelled in the Middle East and published a book on the scribal character of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Between 1958 and 1964 Martin worked at the Jesuit-run Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. During the first two sessions of the second Vatican council (1962–4) he associated with theologically liberal bishops and commentators, acting as a source for the New York Times and for Robert Kaiser, Rome correspondent of Time. In 1964 Martin published The pilgrim under the pen-name ‘Michael Serafian’; in it he described intrigues surrounding the council's decree Nostra aetate, which formally denied that the Jews were collectively guilty of deicide, and later claimed credit for the decree's ratification. Kaiser claimed that The pilgrim was largely fantasy.

In 1964 Martin left Rome and was subsequently released from his vows as a Jesuit; he claimed that he retained priestly faculties, reporting only to the pope. According to his own account he had resigned from his order after realising that new developments were undermining the catholic faith, whereas Kaiser states that he fled after the exposure of his affair with Kaiser's wife Mary. (Martin had responded to Kaiser's initial suspicions by persuading friends that the journalist needed psychiatric treatment.) In 1965 Martin moved to New York. Kaiser claimed that Martin's family in Dublin were subsequently approached by four women (one of them Mary Kaiser) and a man, each of whom believed that Martin had left the priesthood for them. On his arrival in New York Martin allegedly worked as a taxi driver and restaurant dishwasher while building a new career as a writer on church-related subjects. He wrote for the conservative weekly National Review and occasionally published articles in the New York Times. He eventually took up residence in a Manhattan apartment with Kakia Livanios, the former wife of a Greek shipping tycoon; Martin claimed their relationship was innocent.

In his writings Martin aligned himself with discontented traditionalist catholics, making conflicting statements on the validity of the revised liturgy. Hostage to the devil (1976) offered a typology of exorcism through five anonymous case studies: the subjects of these studies were said to have been possessed through sexual perversion (described in prurient detail) but were freed by exorcisms in which the priests involved suffered severe injuries. Appearing soon after the book and film The Exorcist, Martin's Hostage popularised exorcism among American protestants as well as catholics. Martin appeared frequently on television talk shows as an expert on exorcism, displaying considerable charm. In 1996 he claimed to have participated in eleven exorcisms, and a traditionalist friend claimed that Martin performed monthly exorcisms until his death. He also claimed a supernatural gift of discerning demonic possession, and saw Satan in his apartment. Martin's admirers thought him an instrument of the archangel Michael, risking life and health in a personal battle with Satan, but his claims were questioned even by theologically conservative catholic demonologists.

Martin wrote numerous best-selling novels and works of non-fiction describing alleged politico-religious intrigues within the Vatican; he claimed that his information (including detailed descriptions of secret meetings and references to the pope's private thoughts) came from old friends in Rome. His books reflected the fears and anguish of people who believed that they were witnessing the desecration of what they held sacred in the face of silence or even connivance on the part of church authorities. Martin portrayed a world shaped by direct conflict between Jesus and Satan, in which well-meaning liberals, who diluted catholicism in the interests of universalist humanitarianism, allowed agents of Satan to pervade church and state. His books insinuate that the author knows more and worse than he can say. Martin told admirers that his novels were ‘80% true’, but did not specify the provenance of the remaining 20 per cent.

Martin's treatment of individual popes combines lavish praise with vicious innuendo. At times he attributed the corruption of the Vatican to the failure of John XXIII in 1960 to reveal the ‘third secret of Fatima’ (the third part of the revelation allegedly made by the Virgin Mary to three children in 1917); Martin claimed to have seen the prophecy under a vow of secrecy – he frequently hinted at the imminence of the apocalypse. Elsewhere he accused Pius XII of passive collaboration with the Nazis. His novel The final conclave (1978), inspired by Vatican banking scandals, accuses popes since Pius IX of making compromises with masonic bankers. At times he suggested that the church had been corrupt since the age of Constantine. From 1990 he claimed that the Vatican had been clandestinely consecrated to Satan by paedophilic episcopal Satanists, and that Antichrist was alive (possibly in the person of Mikhail Gorbachev.) In his last novel, Windswept house (1997), John Paul II is simultaneously an inspiring figure of radiant holiness and a cowardly temporiser whose pusillanimous abandonment of the faithful constitutes mortal sin. Martin hints that traditionalist splinter groups are secretly favoured by a pontiff too feeble to outmanoeuvre the Roman bureaucracy, and that they will soon constitute the true church facing a Satanist on the throne of St Peter.

Martin's portrayal of papal corruption and demonic conspiracies found many non-catholic readers. Protestant exorcists pursuing ‘Roman Catholic demons’ acknowledged his inspiration; Ian Paisley (qv) quoted him; conspiracy theorists and paranormalists adapted his claims. On the late-night radio show hosted by Art Bell, Martin suggested that African witch doctors might do God's work and counselled listeners claiming to be werewolves.

In later life Malachi Martin suffered several heart attacks. He died 27 July 1999 at New York of intracranial bleeding after a fall. Admirers saw later church scandals as his vindication; one alleged seer purveyed messages from ‘St Malachi Martin’. Even after the appearance of Kaiser's memoir, Martin retained many devotees. The secret of his influence was that he exploited his readers’ experiences and fears, reinforcing his influence by his alleged insider status; the demons he described came from within.

Two characters in Windswept house are based on Martin's version of his life story – a young American priest gradually discovering the corruptions of the Vatican bureaucracy, and an older Irish religious superior and exorcist, who is marginalised by his modernist confreres and ends as an ‘independent’ priest clandestinely authorised by the pope. Versions of the Martin–Kaiser affair are reportedly to be found in the novels Naked I leave by Michael Novak and Connolly's life by Ralph McInerney.

Sources
St Michael's Sword (Oct. 1997–Aug. 1998); obituary, Ir. Times, 7 Aug. 1999; Robert Blair Kaiser, UI (New York, 2002); review of Robert Blair Kaiser, Clerical error (2002), The Observer, 17 Mar. 2002; Michael W. Cuneo, American exorcism: expelling demons in the land of plenty (2001); http://www.starharbor.com/malachi/ (accessed 12 Feb. 2003); http://www.unitypublishing.com.newswire/fiore4.html; http://www.ianpaisley; www.cin.org/archives/cet.; www.theharrowing.com/martin.html; www.steamshovelpress.com/spiritualwickedness.html; www.themiracleofstjoseph.org/revs (foregoing websites accessed 10 Mar. 2003)

Interfuse No 104 : Spring/Summer 2000

THE ENIGMATIC MALACHI MARTIN

Michael Hurley

Many members of the Province will remember Malachi Martin who died on 27 July '99 as a fellow Jesuit, whose imagination could frequently run riot, who was always a rather enigmatic character. Others who did not know him may well have heard of him as an Irish ex-Jesuit or former Jesuit (to use today's more “ecumenical” language) who wrote of the Society in quite outrageous terms. This note has a two-fold aim: to recall some details of Malachi's life and to tell the Province something about the Mass celebrated for him at Belvedere on Saturday 2 October last.

Malachi was at school in Belvedere, as were his three brothers, FX, the Augustinian who died recently, and Conor and Bill who both pre-deceased him, the former a lecturer in politics in UCD, the latter Archbishop's secretary for many years. Malachi joined the Society in 1939 and after noviceship in Emo under Fr Neary spent four years in Rathfarnham (1941-1945), graduating from UCD with a degree in Oriental Languages. After philosophy in Tullabeg (1945-1948), he spent three years teaching in the Crescent and then went to Eegenhoven-Louvain where he was ordained a priest by Bishop, later Cardinal, Suenens on 15 August 1954. After tertianship in Rathfarnham he did doctorate studies at the University of Louvain and in 1958 the results of his work were published by the University in two volumes under the title of The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This was the first of some fifteen books published by him.

After his doctorate studies Malachi went to teach at the Biblical Institute in Rome and during the first two sessions of the council [1962-1963] was universally regarded in Rome as a strong supporter of the so-called liberal wing of the council - so said the well-known American priest and intellectual, Mgr George Higgins, who knew him at the time ,writing in America 21 March 1987 (0.231). In particular Malachi supported Cardinal Bea in his various ecumenical initiatives, especially in his efforts to get a positive statement about the Jews from Vatican II. A strange, mysterious change however then took place and in June of 1964 Malachi disappeared from Rome, arrived in Dublin in July and on the 23rd of that month was granted an indult of exclaustration which forbade any exercise of the priestly ministry qualified exclaustration'). For the rest of that year he lived with one of his sisters in Dublin but said mass at the Benedictine hostel which then existed in Palmerston Park. As he still belonged to the Society, the 1965 Catalogus had him assigned to Manresa but degens extra domum, living outside the house. Early that year however, he left for New York where eventually he had his own apartment and was frequently visited by one of his sisters. Later that same year, on 15 May 1965, a Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, in response to a request from himself, reduced him to the lay state' but the enigmatic Malachi had a private chapel in his New York apartment, said mass and built up an apostolate as a priest.

From 1965 on Malachi became notorious as a staunch traditionalist opposed to all that Vatican II said and did, and in particular to the post-Vatican II Society of Jesus. In 1987 he published The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church. America, the Jesuit periodical, invited Mgr George Higgins, the former acquaintance, if not friend, quoted above, to review the book, and in the course of a review article printed in the 21 March number he did not hesitate to write:

I regret to say that The Jesuits does precisely that (distorting the work of the church and its representatives) and does so with a degree of vengeance that has very few parallels, if any, I should think, in even the most irresponsible of the scores of anti-Jesuit books written during the past four centuries by avowed enemies of the Society... Martin's book is anything but fair and objective criticism. His 525-page attack on the Jesuits is downright savage in both style and substance and almost compulsively judgmental. It reeks of unfairness, bordering at times on hatred directed at distinguished members and leaders of the Society. (p.229)

In Mgr Higgins's view the real target is not the Society of Jesus, but the postconciliar church across the board with the Jesuits serving conveniently as a surrogate part for the whole'.(p.230) Malachi's ferocious antipathy to Vatican II and its aftermath only increased his fervour for pre-Vatican II ways. A close friend, an ex-Dominican, a Fr Charles Fiore, writing an obituary of Malachi in The Wanderer for 12 August 1999, praised him as a man of strong piety', singled out “his fervent love and devotion to the Blessed Eucharist and Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and to Our Lady of Fatima and her rosary, adding that :

Over his New York years he [Malachi] heard many Confessions, witnessed marriages, buried the dead, gave converts instructions, and by phone, letters, and occasional meetings, counseled [sic] hundreds.

A few weeks before his death the enigmatic Malachi told one of his sisters that I have always been a Jesuit in my heart'. His obsequies were conducted by a priest associated with the Society of St Pius X (followers of Archbishop Levebre) with full pre-Vatican II ceremonial.

On Saturday 2 October a requiem mass for Malachi was celebrated in the community chapel at Belvedere in the presence of his four surviving sisters and two of their husbands. In welcoming the visitors at the beginning, the Headmaster, Fr Leonard Moloney, one of the concelebrants, paid tribute to the Martin family, all the boys of which (Liam, Conor, Frank and Malachi) had been distinguished pupils of the school. A contemporary of Malachi and a fellow Kerryman , Fr Bill McKenna, who was also concelebrating, then spoke recalling among other things Malachi's mastery of languages, his irrepressibility, his fluency in speech, his vivid imagination, the affection in which his fellow scholastics held him. Being another contemporary and Malachi's companion during the four years of theology at Eegenhoven-Louvain, it fell to me to preside at the Mass and in my introduction I said:

Today is the ancient, traditional feast of the Guardian Angels, a feast which reminds us in a particular way of the mystery of God's providence in our world and in our daily lives and in Malachi's life in particular; so it seemed appropriate to take the prayers and readings of the day, adding a special prayer for Malachi. This I went on) is a gathering of the Martin family and of the Jesuit family, Malachi belonged to both our families: he was a Jesuit for a quarter of a century, from 1939 to 1964. We gather to say Mass: to give thanks for the gifts which both families have received from God, in particular to give thanks for Malachi who was an intellectual giant, in particular a linguistic genius but perhaps above all a charmer. We gather however not only for thanksgiving but for mutual forgiveness: to ask for and to offer forgiveness. Tensions and rifts can arise within families and between families. That happened in Malachi's case. As a result he felt he had to part company with the Jesuits. When there's a row it's rarely if ever that the faults are all on one side, anyway today is not a time for assigning blame. Malachi and the Jesuits hurt and offended each other and we are here to say sorry and to ask forgiveness from God and from each other and from Malachi for the ways in which we failed and hurt each other.

The readings for the feast-day were Exodus 23:20-23, Psalm 91 and Matthew 18:1-5 and in the course of my homily I said:

The first reading and the psalm remind us of the mystery of God's providence: God is a father and mother to us all,

watching over us, protecting us out of love for us. However in these days of ethnic cleansing and earthquakes and typhoons when the problem of evil is only too starkly obvious and it's not at all clear that God has the whole world in his hands, this saying about God's provident love ‘is hard and who can hear it, who can stomach it?' - that you may remember was the remark made by the disciples when according to the 6th chapter of the Fourth Gospel, Jesus spoke about the mystery of the eucharist... In particular the providential character of Malachi's own life, his departure from the Jesuits and his subsequent career is hard to accept: It is nothing less than a mystery and all we can say is: 'we believe, Lord, help our unbelief". The last verses of John's gospel may be relevant. Peter had made his apologies and been reconciled to Jesus for his triple denial and been invited to "Follow Me'. Peter saw John and said: 'Lord what about this man?' Jesus told him more or less to mind his own business and 'follow me'. Our vocation is to follow Jesus and not to be too preoccupied by the mystery of Malachi's life or anybody else's.

The gospel reading for today reminds us that to enter the Kingdom of heaven, or as Matthew puts it, the Kingdom of God, we must be childlike and the passage we heard sets us wondering again about what this childlikeness consists in. Childlikeness is certainly not childishness. Perhaps it is the way children are totally dependent on their parents. The gospel command to be childlike is perhaps a caution against being self-centred and self reliant, a reminder that, even though we can do all things in him who strengthens us, without him we can do nothing, that we must put all our trust in God not in ourselves. There is a definite Jesuit temptation to put your trust in yourself but the temptation affects everyone else too. Let us pray for each other that we overcome this temptation and come to rely not on ourselves alone but on God and each other and so be childlike and ready for the Kingdom.

In the Prayers of the Faithful, remembering that it was the Jewish Sabbath and how much Malachi had worked to overcome Arab-Christian resistance to a positive statement about the Jewish People from Vatican II, we included a reference to the progress in Jewish-Christian relations since then. After Mass Malachi's family joined the community for lunch and subsequently wrote moving letters of appreciation and thanks, for one of the most memorable and happy days that I personally experienced, one that will mark a special milestone in the annals of the family'. It was a moving event for the concelebrants also, a Jubilee occasion of forgiveness and reconciliation between the Martin family and the Jesuit family, a precursor of the Province Mass on the Feast of the Epiphany also at Belvedere.