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Golden, Jeremiah, 1910-1980, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1370
  • Person
  • 03 May 1910-11 May 1980

Born: 03 May 1910, County Galway
Entered: 04 February 1929, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 31 July 1940, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1943
Died: 11 May 1980, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, 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
Jerry Golden began his early schooling in Galway and then in Cork until the age of twelve when his father came to other came to Sydney. His further education was with the Marist Brothers Darlinghurst and the Jesuits at Riverview. He entered the Society at Loyola College, Greenwich 4 February 1929. After taking vows he was sent to University College, Dublin, where he took a degree in history and economics with honours. He next studied philosophy in Jersey. Here, his French colleagues appreciated his ready humour.
During 1936-37 at the Institute Catholique, Paris, Golden spent nine months in a Paris hospital recovering from a leg injury that became gangrene This affected him deeply, and was
watershed of his life.
He returned to Ireland for his theological studies at Milltown Park, 1937-40. Tertianship was at Rathfarnham, Dublin, after which he returned to Australia.
Golden's first ministry was at St Mary's, North Sydney, 1943-48. Then he began a ministry as university chaplain, for which he became an icon. He was sent to Newman College in 1950 and remained there until 1966.
When he arrived at The University of Melbourne, most Catholic undergraduates went their own way, but the Newman Society of Victoria used to meet in the basement of the Central Catholic Library. This was a time of Catholic apologetics, of the defence of the Catholic faith.
At Newman College, Golden set about building up a sense of solidarity between the students at Newman College and the members of the Newman Society. A new era of student involvement in the life of the Church began. It was a movement both spiritual and intellectual and assumed the title of “the intellectual apostolate”. He acted as a catalyst among the students, stimulating discussion and encouraging greater Church involvement. Students began reflecting on the question of religious meaning, the ultimate orientation of their studies, and even questions about the nature of the university itself. The Newman Society was opposed to Bob Santamarias Movement, but the issues were never discussed. Student formation involved Summer Camps held at Point Lonsdale, when the university freshers were initiated into the spirit of the Newman Society, and of Winter Camps where the process was taken further. Topics discussed were major issues of Church, politics of the day and Life of the university. Golden's gift in this process was his presence and encouragement, and ability to enthuse students into organising themselves. He never gave a sustained talk. but was active in discussions.
During the academic year faculty groups developed, some 150 students being organised into discussion circles which would meet in the seminar rooms of the Kenny building. Lunch-hour lectures were held at the university, and a weekly Mass in the mathematics hall of the Old Arts Building was well attended in the early years. Much of Golden's own time was taken up individual counselling of students.
In this work his students experienced him as positive, affirming, optimistic and very intuitive. He was patient and a good listener, wise humorous, self-effacing, and apostolic. He was a welcoming man with an engaging smile, and always seemed relaxed. He was no revolutionary, but in practice was radical and risky as he sought to build leadership in others. He spoke openly about the distinction between lay and clerical spirituality, and gave students a glimpse of “the New Jerusalem”. He did not go out to the university as such, but encouraged students to join university activities as well as to engage social works. Students sold Catholic pamphlets outside the student union. By the 1960s society changed, and students began to lose their interest in searching together for eternal truth. It was an age of greater individualism, and Golden had more time to himself. Students were not coming to him in good numbers. Reflecting upon these days, Golden decided it was time to take a sabbatical in Cambridge 1966, where he experienced life in the chaplaincy. He later returned to Adelaide where he took up residence at Aquinas College and was chaplain to the Teachers’ College. From 1970 he returned to St Mary's, North Sydney, where he set up youth groups, and became well knows for his opposition to renovations to the church. He was traditional in his views church architecture. Then followed time in the parish of Avalon Beach, 1977-78, where he enjoyed the friendship of the local surfing community. During these years he spent short time in the parishes of Waterloo and Redfern. In 1979 he received appointment as chaplain to the Catholic College of Education at Castle Hill, NSW. There he became ill, was taken to hospital, and died quite suddenly. Golden was slightly gruff, good-humoured and sagacious. He was resilient. versatile and adaptable. Above all he was truly charismatic. This gave him a special influence with young people male and female. His enjoyment in playing tennis, golf and table tennis sustained his relationships with friends. He was a strong support to needy members of his family.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 55th Year No 3 1980

Obituary

Fr Jeremiah Golden (1910-1929-1980) (Australia)

(1931-34: junior, Rathfarnham; 1937-41: theologian, Milltown, 194 1-22, tertian, Rathfarnham).
Father Jeremiah Golden died unexpectedly on Sunday, 11th May. St Mary’s, North Sydney, was filled for the Requiem of Fr Jerry on Tuesday, 13th May. A large number of priests, Jesuit and diocesan, concelebrated with Fr Provincial, who gave the homily. Jerry exercised a considerable apostolate of spiritual direction among Sydney’s diocesan clergy. Many nuns and brothers were among the large congregation, and some of his friends from university chaplaincy days flew to Sydney from Melbourne and Adelaide for the Mass. Bishop William Murray of Wollongong, a close friend and tennis companion of Jerry, led the prayers at the graveside ...
A tribute from Archbishop Gleeson of Adelaide: “Together with (my Auxiliary) Bishop Kennedy, I offer to you and to all the members of the Society of Jesus our sincere sympathy on the death of Fr Jerry Golden SJ. We all remember him with deep affection and appreciation, not only for the work that he did at Aquinas University College and in the University itself, but also for his great pastoral concern and particularly for the way he made himself available for hearing confessions in St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral, I shall be offering holy Mass for the repose of his soul and for the welfare of the Society in the loss of one of its outstanding members”.
(Excerpts from the Australian Province's Fortnightly Reports).

Golding, Richard, 1867-1923, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1371
  • Person
  • 13 May 1867-13 August 1923

Born: 13 May 1867, Shrule, County Galway
Entered: 07 December 1886, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 1904
Final Vows: 15 August 1906, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 13 August 1923, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1891 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1893
by 1900 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1905 at St David’s, Mold, Wales (FRA) making Tertianship

Editor of An Timire: 1919-1922.

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Clongowes.

Obituary by Father James Rabbitte
“Richard Golding finished his Novitiate at Tullabeg - Father (John) Colgan being Mag Nov - and he remained there for some years of Rhetoric. In 1891 he was in Louvain doing Philosophy, and then 1892 returned for his second year to Milltown. On 20 October 1893 he arrived in Australia for Regency, and all of his time was spent there at Riverview as a Teacher and Prefect. (It would seem that he had previously contracted pulmonary consumption and was sent home for care by Dr Cruise, and this had produced a change for the better).
In July 1899 he returned to Europe and went to Jersey for Philosophy. Then in 1902 he was at Milltown again doing Theology. After Ordination he went to Mold, Wales for a FRA Tertianship. In 1906 he was sent teaching at Clongowes. In 1919 he was sent to Belvedere as Assistant Director of the Messenger.
He was at leas six feet tall, thin, well-proportioned, features regular and pleasing, placid in manner. His method of speaking was slow. He had a sense of humour. It was amusing to hear his quiet, slow relating of an anecdote and listen to his dry little chuckle of amusement. His family at Shrule were amongst the most respectable and religious. Father Richard was straightforward, inoffensive and holy.

John B Kelly “Reminiscences” 1926 Clongownian :
“Another Rhetorician in my year was Dick Golding. I remember him, even as a student, as a wonderful essay writer, with an almost uncanny perfection of style about everything he wrote.”

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Richard Golding entered the Society in December 1886, and undertook novitiate and juniorate studies at Tullabeg. Because of poor health he was sent to Riverview where he taught, 1894-99. He was third prefect in 1894 and 1897, and second prefect, 1895-96, worked with cadets and edited the “Alma Mater” in his final year.

◆ The Clongownian, 1924

Obituary

Father Richard Golding SJ

The whole outer world, and with it our own ways of thinking, have changed more in the last thirty years than it did in the preceding seventy years. In those older days, I think, we thought less of money and of publicity, of advertising ourselves and our work. There were still many who found their chief reward in consciousness of work unnoticed and unobtrusive but lovingly and lastingly wrought. Such a world produced a patient, quiet spirit, a mind tolerant and quiet, not easily ruffled by the ebb and flow of fortune which seems to it to concern itself, as indeed it does, so largely with trifles.

Such, in my memory, was the Dick Golding that came to Clongowes about Easter of 1879, and such he always remained during the many years we were boys together there, and I am sure that the boys of after years who were taught by him, and listened to his sermons, must have felt the gentleness and nobility of his character-for he was still unchanged when I met him again in very different surroundings. I saw him in the hospital during his last illness. Entering the room, I walked over to the bed. holding out my hand, and he looked up at me with the well-known bright, clear eyes and quiet smile, and said: “I don't shake hands with my friends now”. He was completely paralysed and could not lift his hands. That was all I ever heard from him of his illness. It was only from the nurse and the doctor I lerned “what he must be suffering”. I always thought - though I never discussed the subject with him - that he looked on at the changing of the times with a certain sadness, seeing the older and more cultured civilization retiring before the advance of vulgarity - but still without any irritation or vexation - regarding it as part of the inscrutable ways of the Providence of God, who out of evil can always make good come. Sometimes he used to go to Galway for a week or a fortnight's vacation in the summer, and while there he was a frequent visitor at the workhouse, where he would spend a long time chatting with old men who, though not learned in books, were of the older order, pure and untainted in mind, faithful and true to all that is noblest and best. And it seemed to me that whatever the Galway fresh air and sea breezes might do for the healthful refreshment of one coming from the close atmosphere of the Messenger Office, Dublin, the hours he spent in that strange, old-fashioned world did far more to refresh his spirit. I sincerely believe that in all his life he never had an enemy - left none to speak evil of him after death. The danger is that his friends do not pray for him, saying: “Why should we pray for him; he surely does not need it!”.

Cara da Chairdibh

Goodge, Michael, 1815-1886, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1373
  • Person
  • 18 June 1815-25 November 1886

Born: 18 June 1815, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 31 July 1842, Hodder, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Final Vows: 15 August 1853
Died: 25 November 1886, Roehampton, London, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Goodwin, Michael, 1839-1867, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1374
  • Person
  • 29 September 1839-13 October 1867

Born: 29 September 1839, County Armagh
Entered 11 October 1864, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died 13 October 1867, St Patrick’s College Melbourne, Australia

Early Australian Missioner 1866

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
1866 He was sent to Melbourne with Joseph Dalton, Edward Nolan, David MacKiniry - note in pen Brother Scully also went with Brother Goodwin, and he LEFT the Society and died in Melbourne. He died suddenly in Melbourne from a haemorrhage, shortly after his arrival 13 October 1867.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Michael Goodwin entered the Society in Ireland, 11 October 1864, and arrived in Melbourne as a novice 17 September 1866, with Father Joseph Dalton. Shortly after his arrival he burst a blood vessel and died of consumption at St Patrick's College, just after taking his vows. He was a carpenter by trade, and has the distinction of being the first member of the Irish Mission to die in Australia.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 1st Year No 1 1925

St Patrick’s College, Melbourne has just celebrated its Diamond Jubilee as a Jesuit College. It is the mother house of the Australian Mission.
On September 21st 1865, Fathers Joseph Lentaigne and William Kelly, the pioneer Missioners of the Society in Victoria, landed in Melbourne and took over the College.
On September 17th, 1866 , the second contingent of Irish priests arrived - Fr. Joseph Dalton, Fr. Edmund Nolan, Fr. David McKiniry and two lay brothers - Br. Michael Scully and Br. Michael Goodwin.

Gough, Ignatius, 1624-1693, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1378
  • Person
  • 1624-18 February 1693

Born: 1624, Sutton, Dublin
Entered: 05 October 1643, Mechelen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 25 March 1651, Louvain, Belgium
Final Vows: 04 October 1654
Died: 18 February 1693, Dublin Residence, Dublin City, County Dublin

Alias Goagh

His father Patrick was Mayor of Dublin and his mother was Anne Piers. Father was landowner at Sutton, mother was from Iristernagh. His brother forfeited the estate. A stone at Sutton has family arms of Gough with inscription G & P. Anne Piers’ brother was a priest and uncle Thomas a Franciscan. William Piers - great grandfather of Fr Gough - sent Shane O’Neill’s head to Dublin!
Studied Humanities in Ireland and then 4 years at Antwerp under Jesuits
1646 At Mechelen College
1649 Not in Catalogue
1666 Catalogue On the Mission in Dublin having returned from Holland where he was a missioner for 9 years

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of Patrick (Mayor of Dublin) and Anna née Piere or Piece. A Cousin of John Ussher, whose brother tried to deny Ignatius of his inheritance (cf Foley’s Collectanea)
Early education in Humanities was in Ireland, and then at Antwerp under the Jesuits. He was admitted to the Society by FLA Provincial Andrew Judocus and sent to Mechelen for his Noviceship. (Mechelen Album)
1666 He had recently arrived in Ireland from Holland, and he lived in Dublin engaged in many of the Mission’s affairs.
He spent fifteen years in Holland and twenty years in Ireland (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Secomd son of Patrick (Mayor of Dublin) and Anne née Piers
Educated at Antwerp before Ent 05 October 1643 Mechelen
After First Vows, studied at Louvain where he was Ordained 25 March 1651
1654 He was a Military Chaplain at Brussels, then he taught Humanities for a year at Oudenaarde, Belgium, and then made his Tertianship
1657-1665 Missionary work in Holland
1665 Sent to Ireland and to the Dublin Residence, where he spent the rest of his life as a Catechist, Teacher and Operarius until his death there 18 February 1693
He was heir to a considerable inheritance which provided a foundation for the Dublin Residence and enabled the Fathers of the Mission in Ireland to support themselves. But the Gough estate was confiscated on the fall of Dublin to the Williamites

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GOAGH, IGNATIUS. This Father, as I find by the letter of his Superior, F. Patrick Lynch, dated Dublin, the 19th of March, 1693, had died on the 18th of February, aet. 68, Soc. 48. He had spent about 15 years in the Mission of Holland, and 25 years in the same capacity in his native country.

Graves, George, 1846-1906, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1385
  • Person
  • 13 April 1846-29 December 1906

Born: 13 April 1846, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 16 October 1876, Milltown Park
Final Vows: 15 August 1888, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 29 December 1906, Tullabeg, Co Offaly

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was a shoemaker by trade and did excellent work first at Milltown and then at Mungret.
He was considered very hardworking and had become huge in size.
He died at Tullabeg 29 December 1906

Greaney, Roderick, 1902-1994, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/497
  • Person
  • 03 February 1902-16 March 1944

Born: 03 February 1902, Headford, County Galway
Entered: 03 December 1921, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 02 February 1933, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 16 March 1944, St Joseph’s, Kilcroney, Bray, County Wicklow

Part of the St Francis Xavier, Gardiner St, Dublin community at the time of death.

Grech-Cumbo, John, 1892-1960, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1386
  • Person
  • 27 January 1892-29 March 1960

Born: 27 January 1892, Valletta, Malta
Entered: 23 June 1913, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly (HIB for Siculae Province - (SIC)
Ordained: 24 August 1924, Malta
Final vows: 02 February 1927
Died: 29 March 1960, St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, Bengal, India - Kolkata Province (CCU)

by 1916 at Rathfarnham (HIB) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 35th Year No 3 1960
Obituary :
Fr John Grech-Cumbo (1891-1960)
Prayers are asked for the repose of the soul of Fr. John Grech Cumbo, who died at St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, on 29th March, 1960, in his 69th year and his 47th in religion. In our Catalogues of 1914 and 1915, John Grech Cumbo (Prov. Sicula) appears as a novice in Tullabeg, having entered in June 1913. He was ordained in Malta in August 1925. In 1929 he went to India, where he laboured strenuously among the Santals for thirty-one years. May he rest in peace.

Greene, Liam F, 1942-2008, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/777
  • Person
  • 24 September 1942-15 February 2008

Born: 24 September 1942, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 04 October 1964, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 21 June 1974, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Final Vows: 17 January 1984, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway
Died: 15 February 2008, St James's Hospital, James Street, Dublin

Part of the Campion, Hatch Street, Dublin Community at the time of death

by 1973 at Brussels Belgium (BEL M) studying
by 1974 at Cambridge MA, USA (NEB) studying - Harvard
by 1991 at Oakland CA, USA (CAL) Sabbatical

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/liam-greene-rip/

Liam Greene RIP

Please pray for the soul of Fr Liam Greene SJ, who died unexpectedly Friday morning, 15 February 2008 after taking ill suddenly. He was 65 years old and was working with the
JUST programme in Ballymun. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Rev. Liam Greene, S.J.
who died at St. James Hospital, Dublin on 15 February 2008, aged 65 years.
24 September 1942 Born in Dublin
Early education at CBS, James’ Street. Studied English in UCD.
4 October 1964 Entered the Society at Emo
5 October 1966 First Vows at Emo
1966-1968 Milltown Park – Studied Philosophy
1968-1970 St. Ignatius, Galway – Teacher 1970-1973 Milltown Park – Studied Theology
1973-1974 Harvard (USA) – Studied Philosophy and Theology
21 June 1974 Ordained at Milltown Park, Dublin
1974-1984 St. Ignatius, Galway – Teacher; Director of “Irish Studies”; Retreats; Regency 1978-1979 Tertianship at Tullabeg
17 January 1984 Final Vows
1984-1987 Tabor House – Retreats to young people; Chaplain to DIT, Rathmines; part-time lecturer in Communications
1987-1989 Attached to Tabor but resident at 73 Croftwood Park, Ballyfermot 1987-1990 Chaplain and part-time teaching at DIT, Rathmines
1990-1991 Oakland, California – Sabbatical; MA in Spirituality
1991-2008 Campion House –
1991-1993 Development Creation Spirituality Project; Assistant in Tabor; retreats for young people
1993-1996 Communications Centre; Librarian
1996-2000 Also Lecturer in Communications, Ethics and Psychology at DIT
2000-2001 Lecturer at DIT / RTE
2001-2004 Writer; Media analysis (RTE / DIT); Spiritual Director (SJ)
2004-2006 Writer; Media analysis (RTE / DIT); Chaplain: Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital; Spiritual Director (SJ)
2006-2008 JUST Project, Ballymun.
15 February 2008 Died in St. James’ Hospital, Dublin.
Liam collapsed at home in Campion House and efforts to revive him failed. Further attempt to revive him at St. James’ also failed and he was pronounced dead at around noon on Friday 15 2008.
May he rest in the Peace of Christ
Liam was a graduate of UCD, where he majored in English, before he joining the Jesuits. In addition to the above, he also graduated from Louvain University. Harvard University accepted Liam as its only European student the year that he went there. From then, and from his time in Berkeley in 1990, he had many American Jesuit friends.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 136 : Summer 2008

Obituary

Fr Liam Greene (1942-2008)

Paddy Greene writes:
Liam Greene died unexpectedly on 15 February, 2008, in his community home, Campion House, Hatch St. He had not shown any signs of being unwell in the previous days, and, in fact, had worked with his students in the JUST Project in Ballymun earlier that week. His favourite text was: "I have come that they may have life, life to the full"(In.1 0, 10), and it can be said that his life here ended with him living it to the full.

Liam was born in Dublin on 24 September, 1942. His mother, Jane Landers, was a nurse from Cork, and his father, Michael Greene, from Tullow in Co. Carlow, worked in the administrative staff in UCD. Three significant events happened during Liam's teenage years that had a profound bearing on the rest of his life.

First, it was identified that Liam had epilepsy. Learning to live with an unpredictable illness which necessitated a variable dosage of tablets introduced a degree of uncertainty to his moods and energy. Indeed, the many attacks of a greater or lesser extent that he endured throughout his life made him all too aware how consciousness can be snuffed out so quickly. On the positive side, he became passionate in his determination to make as much use of the present moment as possible, in fact, to live life to the full. Situations, therefore, that stopped him doing so provoked in him a harsh response, something that was not always understood by others.

Secondly, his mother, in an attempt to offset the setback of the epilepsy, sent him to evening classes in the National College of Art. So, for five years, as the youngest student there during all his time, he studied all aspects of art from life drawing to painting to art history. From it he got a lifelong fascination with creatitivity, particularly how it manifested itself throughout the centuries in the fine arts, but also in outstanding individuals. Napoleon was his teenage hero.

Thirdly, the death of his brother, Gerard, in an accident left him numbed for a long time - why had he been left and not his brother? It also raised for him questions of meaning, ultimate meaning. It led him to seek to enter the Jesuits after his Leaving Certificate, but the Provincial, Fr. Tommy Byrne, felt it would be too hard on his mother to lose another son so quickly, and so he persuaded him to go to University and consider his vocation after his degree. This he agreed to do.

Liam studied Pure English in UCD with Old Irish as a minor subject. There in 1961, 1 had the good fortune to meet Liam - I had just come from Emo after Vows - and we remained friends ever since. Dermot O'Connor was with Liam in Pure English, and perhaps it was through our friendship with Liam a path to the Society was more fully opened. Anyway, at the end of his degree, in 1964, he joined the Society.

After Vows, Liam went to Milltown Park for Philosophy. They were the heydays of Phil McShane, Conn O'Donovan and Eamon Egan. Liam revelled in all the intense work on Lonergan from McShane and O'Donovan while he also loved the gentle, yet precise, probing and alternatives offered by Egan.

Full of energy and enthusiasm, Liam joined me in Galway for Colleges. First, he had a month's immersion in Connemara to brush up on his Irish. The family he stayed with - Peig, Colie and Bairbre - took him to their hearts and they remained his Connemara family from then on. In the school Liam revelled in teaching, where his expansive style and flair got a great reception from the boys. In the community, Sean Mallin, in his late incarnation as a radical theologian, became great friends with Liam. In 1970, Seán O'Connor, as Headmaster, began his innovative approach to education and Liam became a staunch supporter. Although he was in theology when the experiment ended in grief, Liam always believed that Seán had been on the right track.

Back in Milltown for Theology, Liam was part of the BRA (Basement Residents Association), one of the small communities into which the scholastics were divided as an experiment in more personal living. Situated in the basement of the Retreat House, it included among others Michael Hurley and Brian Lennon, and the rumbustious debates among them all were legendary. Liam spent a semester in Brussels; it was dark and wet and dreary, but it was enlivened by the presence of an Irish-American Jesuit from Newry.

The issue of Liam's epilepsy became a problem with Rome in his third year. Cecil McGarry, as Provincial, took his part, but the negotiation with Rome took time so Liam in his fourth year went to Harvard University in Boston. There he did an MA in Religion and Culture. He was in his element again with the ferment of ideas and people making a heady cocktail. It was there that the story goes that Liam being asked to do a module on statistics (he hated maths) declined, offering the excuse that Ireland was so small that it did not need statistics, as everyone knew everyone else. He got away with it!

His diaconate took place in Boston, where he was supported by Jack and Mary Ryan, parents of Jack Ryan of the New York Province whom Liam and I met on our first visit to the US in 1971. Then home for ordination - a time of sublime celebration for Liam, his parents and family.

After being appointed to the College in Galway, Liam became a teacher of Religion, English, Art and History. These subjects gave him ample scope to express his gifts and training in these areas. He was an inspirational teacher who could convey a love and passion for his subject in a way that has stayed with many of his students to the present day. Like many an artist, he was not the most organized of people in starting out, but, once launched, there was a sureness and flow to his discourse that was compelling. His love of learning is best exemplified in History, which he began to teach with the encouragement of Pádraig O Cúaláin, the senior history teacher. His early enthusiasm for Napoleon was now broadened to encompass the colours and shades of the European canvas and he delighted in telling the stories of the individuals, great and small, that peopled that crowded space.

Special Sunday night Masses for sixth years and their female friends became a feature of the religion programme. Liam, with his powerful homilies and the time and interest he gave to individuals, was a major contributor at that time. Also, he was an essential part of the team that organized and ran the Roundstone retreats where 6th years and a group of teachers spent an intensive few days in an encounter-group retreat. These had a profound effect on the 6th years, and, consequently, the atmosphere in the whole school benefited from them. Liam's love of conversations was an essential part of his ministry and enabled him reach a range of personalities often missed by the rest of us.

Learning through experience was central to Liam's approach to education, and so, school tours to the Continent where religious, artistic, literary and historical events had occurred were undertaken by him. Memorable trips to Spain and Italy, where John Humphreys and myself were the bus drivers, were followed by an annual journey to Paris starting on St. Stephen's Day. This week was filled with the Louvre, the Jeu de Paume, the Tuileries, Versailles and Chartres. To listen to Liam speak of the great works of art, or the wars of history, was to be taken into areas of life that were before only glimpsed from a distance. It was education at its best.

Musicals had been a tradition in Galway under Eamon Andrews and Kieran Ward. During the early 70's Bob McGoran and Murt Curry revived the tradition and Liam joined in with great gusto. He helped with the production, the lighting, the painting and stage design, the costumes. It was a great experience of what makes a Jesuit school such a demanding and rewarding place, and where a lasting influence is had on the students.

After ten hectic years in Galway, Liam was moved to Chaplaincy in the DIT in Rathmines in 1984. The change came as a shock to him and it took him a good while to get used to it. Living in Tabor House was a help to him as it brought him in contact with young adults. The work of a chaplain is so less organized than a teacher, and meeting students is very much a hit and miss business. Liam's ability to drink endless cups of coffee and hold long chats stood him in good stead. However, he was primarily a teacher, and when openings occurred in the school of Film and TV, he took them, as it gave him a chance to lecture, debate and then move into the direction of students in making films. Because of the long and broken schedule of third level, Liam's health during these years was uneven. The correct prescription of medicines for epilepsy is an art not a science, and Liam suffered as a result. Over-prescribing left him depressed and heavy, while the opposite risked the onset of an attack. But despite the setbacks, Liam always bounced back. It gave him the impetus towards what had not yet happened and an impatience with any structure that stood still. And yet, the number of close friendships among lecturers and students he made in those years tells of his real commitment at all times to the individual.

After Tabor House closed, Liam went to live in Cherry Orchard with Gerry O'Hanlon and Bill McGoldrick. Liam in his own way got to know the local people and befriended them. His sense of humour helped to lighten even the most difficult situations, and there were some tricky ones in Cherry Orchard! So the move later to Campion House, Hatch Street, was to a quieter place, although Liam missed the involvement with the local people. As a part-time chaplain in the Eye and Ear Hospital he was able to show his care for those in need. His interest in the students in University Hall led to friendships that lasted many years, and led to links with families in Florence, Rome, France and Lithuania. He even gave a retreat to Jesuits in Lithuania using an interpreter! At this time as well Liam took a renewed interest in his mother's relations in the Galtee Mountains in Co. Cork. He became a source of the family lore of the older generations that stretched back to Famine times, but especially the burning of the local “great house” during the Troubles. Being with them and the very personal way he had of saying Mass became a great consolation to them in times of pain and loss.

When Kevin O'Higgins started the JUST Project in Ballymun in 2006, Liam became a member of the team. He spent a few days a week there and once more his teaching abilities came to the fore. He was greatly involved with helping the students master the skills of writing and presentation in the programmes geared to help them gain entry to third level education. He was also in charge of the cultural dimension to the programme, introducing students to the galleries, museums and theatres of the city. His work with the post-graduate group led to wide-ranging debates on art, history and matters of faith. Liam was in his element again. And that is how death found him: in good health, in good form, in full flight, in work he loved. He went at the height of his powers to a place of greater and deeper connections and explorations. Among his papers was found the following piece:

The Green Wood and the Dry
I'm not saying the journey is over
I'm not saying the end is in sight.
I cannot even call up those metaphors for the end:
The chapter closing;
The folding away of the blanket;
The putting of affairs in order.

My affairs are not in order and they never will be.
I am always beginning to spring-clean
And it never comes to an end.

I'm just saying that I am beginning to forget.
Whether this is age, weariness
Or just simply the overloading of the system,
I don't know.

But this has been a week where the refrain
“Lest we forget” has been repeated over and over again,
(By some - only by some.)
And while it would suit me to forget
To get lost in the whole business of trying to keep up with now,
I would not like to be forgotten,
Especially by those who have heard very little from me
And for whom my whole life must have been a mystery,
As much a mystery to them as to me.

I see this piece as an introduction Liam intended for some reflections and recollections on his life that he never got to write. Perhaps more enduring will be the sculptures he carved in France in the last few years. Although an artist, Liam had never tried sculpture until he got the opportunity to participate in a class while on holiday in France. The teacher, Christine, was gifted and she prodded and poked Liam into committing himself to the work. In the first year came what I call the Pretty Face - an initial study in the craft. The next year came The Hand, tentative, reaching out, just failing to grasp, or something else. It is striking in the complexity of its symbolism of the human condition. Then followed the Job-like head filled with pain and anguish and a scream for help that he said was what he often felt in his life. But he also felt a lot more than that, because his final sculpture is that of a serene, wise, peace-filled face gazing from a place of immense peace and certainty. That was his last statement that stays with us.

I finish by remembering Liam's love of meals, of the gathering of family, of friends, like Joan and Cathal in Barna, with Connla Ó Dúlaine in Aran, of the community with Charlie O' Connor in Hatch St., of the gatherings for the sacred meal of the Eucharist that he put his heart and soul into. Now he is, I am sure, taking part in the Eternal Banquet and awaiting our arrival.

Grehan, John, 1820-1865, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/567
  • Person
  • 20 February 1820-30 May 1865

Born: 20 February 1820, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 25 November 1844, Avignon, France - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)
Ordained: 1853
Final Vows: 15 August 1861
Died: 30 May 1865, Milltown Park, Dublin

by 1847 at Vals (LUGD) studying
by 1851 at Laval (FRA) studying Theology
by 1853 Theology at St Beuno’s

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Came from a very religious family in Dublin, his father Stephen and his mother née Ryan. They were very wealthy, and used it for many charitable purposes.

As a young man John felt a strong calling to Priesthood, and studied hard for two years before Entry in order to be better prepared. In spite of his talent and study, he felt unworthy of such a calling, and thought of becoming a Christian Brother. His confessor encouraged him to apply to the Society.

After First Vows he studied Philosophy, and was then called to Clongowes, where he spent three or four years as a Prefect. He then spent further years in France studying Theology, ending these studies in England, and was Ordained 1853.
After Ordination he worked as a priest, but with failing health, was sent to Milltown Park as Procurator, an office he held until his death. He also was Minister for two of those years.
With poor health and conscious of impending death, he spent a good deal of his last year examining his conscience, slowly finding his fears allayed, and often spoke of God’s mercy and goodness towards him. Though in the last stages of illness his mind wandered, he was able to ask for the Last Rites and Absolution before he died.
A great number of Priests, secular and religious attended his funeral. Dr Whelan, Vicar Apostolic of Bombay presided, assisted by the Vicar General of the Dublin Diocese.

Grene, John, 1807-1887, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/459
  • Person
  • 26 October 1807-04 February 1887

Born: 26 October 1807, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 24 November 1826, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England (ANG)
Ordained: 21 September 1839, Stonyhurst College
Final Vows: 25 March 1848
Died: 04 February 1887, Milltown Park, Dublin

by 1834 in Clongowes
by 1839 at Stonyhurst Theol 2
not in 1840 Catalogue

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Came from a very wealthy family and let go a significant inheritance to joint the Jesuits.

Early education had been with a secular Priest Father Joseph Joy Dean who kept a small school at Blanchardstown, where he was a PP. he subsequently studied at Trinity.

After First Vows, Regency and Studies - partly in Clongowes - he was sent to Stonyhurst for Theology, and was Ordained there by Dr Briggs 21 September 1839.
1841-1843 He was sent to Clongowes as a Prefect.
1843-1845 He was Prefect of Studies at Tullabeg
1845-1855 He was sent to Belvedere as a Teacher, and the final years also as Minister
1856-1864 He was Minister at Tullabeg, and from 1857 Spiritual Father.
1864-1867 he was back teaching in Belvedere.
1867 He was appointed Provincial Socius to Edmund O’Reilly on 18 December 1867 until August 1873
1873-1877 He was appointed Spiritual Father at Milltown
1877-1883 Provincial Aloysius Sturzo appointed him Province Procurator.
1883 He was relieved of all responsibility, though he never remained idle. He heard Confessions and gave Tridua. He died at Milltown as he had lived, holy 04 February 1887.
He was a man of exceptional gifts, not only was he a Scientist and Mathematician, but also showed great care and accuracy as an annalist, keeping the records of the Province.
He was a man of singular simplicity of character, of a very strong faith and loyalty to the Church and Society. He was also remarkable for his devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Grene SJ 1807-1877
Fr John Grene was born in Dublin on October 26th 1807, of an old and widely connected family which possessed considerable estates near Limerick. John, like Fr William Bathe in the 16th century, renounced his rights and entered the Society when nineteen years of age.

His early education he received from Fr Joseph Joy Dean, Parish Priest of Blanchardstown, who conducted a school there for some years.Having finished with the school at Blanchardstown, Fr John had entered Trinity College Dublin.

After his ordination at Stonyhurst in 1839, he worked in various capacities in Clongowes and Belvedere. In 1867 he was appointed Socius to the Provincial Fr Edmund O’Reilly. He was next appointed Procurator of the Province. He was a man of exceptional gifts. He was not only a mathematician and scientist, but showed remarkable care and accuracy in keeping the records of the Province. We are indebted to his for two or three MS volumes of these records.

A man of outstanding piety, he was especially noted for his devotion to Our Lady.

He died in 4th of February 1887, in his 80th year.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John Grene (1807-1887)

Was born in Dublin of a family who possessed a large estate near Limerick. He was educated at the school conducted by the Rev. Joseph Joy Dean, PP of Blanchardstown and at Trinity College. He was admitted to the Society at Hodder. He was variously employed as master, prefect and minister in Clongowes, Tullabeg and Belvedere before his arrival in the Crescent, where he stayed only one year, 1866-67, as minister of the house. He became secretary to Father Edmund O'Reilly when the latter was appointed Provincial and was later employed as bursar of the Province. He died 4 February, 1887 at Milltown Park. Father Grene was a grandson of Francis Arthur, of Limerick, who suffered much during the British military terror in this city in 1798.

Griffin, Patrick, 1879-1949, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1390
  • Person
  • 15 March 1879-22 October 1949

Born: 15 March 1879, Young, NSW, Australia
Entered: 08 May 1900, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 26 July 1914, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows 02 February 1917, St Ignatius College Riverview, Sydney, Australia
Died: 22 October 1949, St Patrick’s College, Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1910 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Patrick Griffin was educated at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, 1894-99, finishing his schooling by becoming dux of the college, a good player in the first XV, and a noted debater. He entered the Society 8 May 1900, and afterwards went to Xavier College, Kew, 1902-06, being second prefect and in charge of junior debating. He was appreciated particularly for his patient coaching of cricket. Then he taught at St Patrick's College, 1906-09. Philosophy followed in Stonyhurst England, and theology at Milltown Park, Dublin, 1911-15. His tertianship was at Tullabeg under Ignatius Gartlan, 1915-16. After returning to Australia in 1916, he taught at Riverview and edited “Our Alma Mater” until his transfer to St Patrick's College, East Melbourne in 1920. During those years his minor tasks were at various times assistant prefect of studies and sub-editor of the “Jesuit Directory”. A quiet and unassuming man, he was one of the great institutions of St Patrick’s College, having served the college for 29 years. He was sportsmaster for most of these years, and was a keen observer of all games. He was a very small, simple, dry sort of man, but also a spiritual man. He used to take about 45 minutes to say his daily Mass, and was rather scrupulous. He was a bad disciplinarian but beloved for his patience and goodness. He was humble, detached and unobtrusive, rarely revealing himself to others, yet was a good friend to many. Students admired him for his gentleness, strength of character, devotion to duty, and for being an example of a Christian gentleman. He was an apostle by personal contact and correspondence. Despite poor health for many years, he always presented himself as cheerful and happy He seemed to think only of others. He had a great devotion to duty, performing his work with much attention to detail. He was much loved by his students.

Gubbins, James, 1889-1946, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/168
  • Person
  • 11 February 1889-29 September 1946

Born: 11 February 1889, Cush, Kilfinane, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1906, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1921, Milltown Park. Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1924, Sacxred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 29 September 1946, St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin

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

by 1911 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1912 at Stonyhurst, England (ANG) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 21st Year No 4 1946
Obituary :
Fr. James Gubbins (1889-1906-1946)

Fr. James Gubbins died peacefully in St. Vincent's hospital, Dublin, at 9.15 p.m. Sunday, September 28th, conscious to within a short time of his death. He had been in hospital since July 5th.
He was born on February 11th, 1889, at Cush House, Kilfinane, Co. Limerick, and educated at Mungret College. On September 7th, 1906, he entered the Society at Tullabeg, where he spent his two years noviceship and two years juniorate, under Fr. James Murphy and Fr. Michael Browne. He was sent to Louvain for his philosophy, but as he got there an attack of rheumatic fever which nearly proved fatal, he was changed to Stonyhurst where he did the remainder of his course. His five years colleges were done in Clongowes and Mungret, and his theology at Milltown Park, where he was ordained at the end of his third year, on August 15th, 1921, by Dr. Edward Byrne, who had been made Archbishop only a short time before. He made his tertianship at Tullabeg, 1922-3, under Fr. Welsby.
His first status as Priest was to the Crescent, where he spent the following nineteen years, as master, games-prefect, and as Rector from 1934 to 1942. He was an energetic, practical man, and in ordinary intercourse or in business, friendly, obliging, interested in people and their concerns. He made acquaintances quickly, and very many of these became friends. He had a wide circle of relations and kinsfolk in Limerick, and in a short time he came to occupy a very distinctive position there. He was one of the most popular and esteemed priests in the city and county, both with clergy, secular and regular, and with the laity. As rector he showed remarkable gifts of administration. The church is perhaps his chief monument at the Crescent. He found no difficulty in getting patrons and benefactors to enable him to carry out his plan of interior decoration which has made it the rich and elegant church that it is. The great advance of the school in numbers and prestige is due in great measure to him also. So popular did he become in Limerick, and so associated with the life of the city, religious, social and educational, that some of Ours used to say jokingly that his removal from Limerick would be likely to cause a “schism”.
In 1942 he came to Belvedere as Rector and in a short time had won his way to the confidence and trust of boys and parents. It was impossible not to be attracted by his friendliness and his practical, real, interest in all that concerned the school, the studies and games of the boys, the activities of the Past, and not least the newsboys' club. In 1938 he had been appointed consultor of the Province. In 1943 he was elected Chairman of the Catholic Headmasters' Association. He was thus soon in the full tide of successful activity and popularity and seemed likely to become in Dublin the figure he was in Limerick.
But serious heart trouble - perhaps the effect of his rheumatic fever - began to manifest itself, and he was ordered to rest. He did not improve, and it was decided to relieve him of the responsibilities of Rector. He was transferred to Gardiner Street as Procurator of the house. But his condition grew steadily worse. He was brought to St. Vincent's hospital in July. He knew he was gravely ill yet did not give up hope of recovery. He was always bright and courageous and full of trust in God and resignation to His will. Those who visited him in these last weeks found him the same Fr. James Gubbins, cheerful, bright and in high spirits. He had changed much in appearance, but he remained to the last the same courageous, friendly spirit he always was. He showed also the deep but unobtrusive piety which was characteristic of him.
Fr. Tyndall, Superior of the Residence of St. Francis Xavier, was celebrant of the Solemn Requiem Mass which took place on October 1st, and Fr. Vice-Provincial said the prayers at the graveside at Glasnevin. The church was crowded for the Office and Mass, many of the congregation being friends from Limerick. Not the least of the tributes paid to him came from the newsboys, who asked that some benches be reserved for them in the church.
On normal calculation Fr. Gubbins might be considered to have twenty years of fruitful activity before him. With his gifts and experience he could have given valuable service to the Province. His financial talents would have been very useful in the years to come. But God judged otherwise and found him ripe and called him to his eternal rest. With those who knew him well and especially with his contemporaries in the Society, the memory of his friendly, radiant personality will long remain vivid. May he rest in peace!

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1947

Obituary

Father James Gubbins SJ

In 1942 when Fr. Gubbins came to Belvedere as Our Rector, everybody considered him to have many years of fruitful activity before him. But serious heart-trouble - perhaps the effect of an earlier illness which had nearly proved fatal during his early studies at Louvain - began to manifest itself, and he was ordered to rest. He did not improve and it was decided to relieve him of the responsibilities of Rector.

During that short time at Belvedere he had won the confidence of boys and parents. It was impossible not to be attracted by his friendliness and his practical real interest in all that concerned the school, the studies and games of the boys, the activities of the past, and not least the Newsboys' Club.

In 1943 he was elected chairman of the Catholic Headmasters Association. He was thus soon in the full tide of successful activity and popularity and seemed likely to become in Dublin the figure he was in Limerick.

He was an energetic, practical man, and in ordinary intercourse or in busiriess; friendly, obliging, interested in people and their concerns. He made acquaintances quickly and many of these became friends. As rector he showed remarkable gifts of administration, with his gifts and experience he could have given valuable service to Belvedere. But God judged otherwise, and found him ready for Himself and called hiin to eternal rest. He died peacefully in St. Vincent's Hospital at 9.15 pm, Sunday, September 28th. He had been in hospital since July 5th.

Not least of the tributes paid to him came from the newsboys, who asked that, during the Solemn Requiemn Mass at Gardiner Street, on October 1st, some benches be reserved for them in the Church

May he rest in peace.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1947

Obituary

Father James Gubblins SJ

On September 28th, 1946, Father James Gubbins died after a prolonged illness. He was fifty-seven years of age, and had spent forty years in the Society. He entered the Society from Mungret in 1906. Later he studied philosophy at Louvain and Stonyhurst, He then taught for five years, spending from 1916-18 in Mungret. During his theological studies at Milltown Park he was ordained in 1921. In 1922 he went to Crescent College where he was to spend the next twenty years of his life. At the Crescent he was teacher, games master, and later Rector from 1934-42. He was appointed Rector of Belvedere College in 1942. Through ill-health he had to relinquish this office. Later he was appointed Procurator of St Francis Xaviers', Gardiner St, Dublin,

Father Gubbins was an able adıninistrator yet this did not hide his warm understanding of the troubles of others, and thus gave him a large circle of devoted friends. During his period of Rectorship in the Crescent he was responsible for the re-decoration of the church. His death was mourned not only by merrbers of his own family and the Society, but also by a large number of friends. His Lordship, Most Rev Dr O'Neill, presided at the Solemn Requiem Mass at the Sacred Heart Church, Crescent. To his two brothers and his sister, Sister Mary de Pazzi, we offer our condolence.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father James Gubbins (1889-1946)

Born at Cush, Kilfinane and educated at Mungret College, entered the Society in 1906. He pursued his higher studies at Louvain, Stonyhurst and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1921. Most of his priestly life was passed at Sacred Heart College where he arrived as master in 1923. The Crescent of today owes much to this great man. The prestige of the school in studies and sport increased during his long association with the Crescent (1923-42) and when he retired from the rectorship in 1942 to take up the rectorship of Belvedere College, Sacred Heart College, Limerick, was once again securely in the forefront of Irish Catholic schools. During the rectorship of Father Gubbins, the ambitious scheme of marbling the entire walls of the church sanctuary was brought to realisation. In his youth, Father Gubbins fell a victim to rheumatic fever which had its fatal after effects when he had just attained the prime of life.

Guidera, Patrick, 1900-1992, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/503
  • Person
  • 06 June 1900-26 December 1992

Born: 06 June 1900, Mountrath, County Laois
Entered: 28 November 1933, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final Vows: 02 February 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 26 December 1992, Our Lady’s Hospice, Dublin

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

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Painter before Entry

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 75 : Christmas 1993 & Interfuse No 82 : September 1995

Obituary
Br Patrick Guidera (1900-1992)

6th June 1900: Born, Mountrath, Laois
Worked as painter/decorator for 20 years in the family business
28th Nov. 1933: Entered the Society at Emo
1935 - 1941: Belvedere - Painter
1941 - 1942: Crescent College - Maintenance
1942 - 1948: Emo - Plant Maintenance
1948 - 1990: Tullabeg - Plant and Church maintenance/Fundraiser
1990 - 1992: Cherryfield Lodge
26th Dec. 1992: Died at Cherryfield Lodge

Pat Guidera was a few days short of his thirty-third year, when in the belief that God was calling him to the religious life, he arrived at the door of the Jesuit Novitiate, St Mary's, Emo Park. It was the evening of May 28th, 1933. The decision which brought him that evening from his home in Mountrath to the steps of St Mary's was not an easy one for a man of his age and experience.

Pat was the eldest son in a large family; he was a skilled painter and decorator whose work was widely appreciated. His father and younger brothers had come to rely on his skills and on his ability in dealing with the business side of his and their work. He was, too, a devout Catholic, a popular neighbour, a mature man with, as he tells us himself, serious plans to marry and father a family of his own.

Such in a nutshell was his position when the call to the religious life, of which he had been vaguely conscious, became more insistent. The Hound of Heaven was not to be denied! It was on the occasion of the Eucharistic Congress in 1932 that Patrick made his first outward response. Through the Brigidine Sisters at their convent in Mountrath, he made contact, with his first Jesuit, the late Fr James Whitaker who was conducting the Sisters' annual Retreat. Under this priest's kindly and understanding direction, Pat finally made up his mind to apply for admission as a religious Brother in the Irish Province of the Company of Jesus.

Thus it was that Pat Guidera, after much soul-searching and prayer, came to leave all' to follow the Christ who went down to Nazareth and lived a life of dependence on his parents to whom He was subject. The surrender of his independence as a mature man was, perhaps, at the core of his sacrifice. Indeed, few, if any, of his fellow novices, had anything like the sacrifices to make as those required of him on answering that same call. Surely that tells us something of the mutual love between God and himself as he knocked at St Mary's door. Even then he was a man after St Ignatius' own heart - a man of generous spirit and desiring to be detached from “all that the world loves and embraces”.

After his first chat with the master of novices, Pat realized that Canon Law required him to wait six months in residence at St Mary's before admission to the Noviceship. This proved a wise provision in his case as it gave him time and space to reconsider in a prayerful atmosphere his decision to leave a comfortable home, to forego the happiness of married life and to bind himself to a life of obedience and dependence. It was during these first months he came to appreciate the wise and firm direction of the late Fr John Coyne of whom Pat was untiring in his praise all his long life. He began his two-year noviceship on Nov 22nd 1933, and immediately entered on the Thirty Day Retreat; after this experience, he never “looked back”.

Now in later years Brother Pat would say that he found his noviceship years a real trial. It is to his credit and to the continuing power of the grace of vocation that he persevered and happily made his first Vows as a Brother in the Society of Jesus.

During the next eleven years, 1935-46, he had ample opportunity to exercise his talent as a painter and decorator, first at St Mary's Emo, then at Belvedere and for a short period at Rathfamham. And as was the common practice at the time for every member of the Province, he was expected to be ready and able to help out in spheres of activity for which he had no special training or aptitude. Brother Pat, no doubt, found the words, Ad dom! after his name in the annual Catalogus. In practice it direct ed him to be at the service of all whenever he might be needed. In this, too, he was like his Master who was 'among us as one who serves'. So, as the years went by Brother Pat could be found at work as a carpenter, or electrician, a motor mechanic and chauffeur, a builder in stone, a plasterer, a glazier and general handy-man. This was the patter of his daily work from February 2nd, 1946, when he made his final vows in the Company of Jesus, up to a few years before his death on December 26th 1992.

Sometime in 1948, he was asked to leave St Mary's Emo and go to Tullabeg on loan for the purpose of painting and decorating the People's Church there. However, he remained in Tullabeg for the next forty-two years, 1948-1990. During the years up to 1962, Brother Pat's life was hidden from most of us, even from some of his fellow Brothers! Being a jack-of-all-trades and master of most, he was difficult to find in the labyrinth that was old Tullabeg House and farm out-offices. Moreover, he rose earlier than most and was always a step ahead in his morning prayers. He often breakfasted on the foot and after a long day's toil was the last to retire. In part, this was the kind of life he chose to live. If one permitted a mild criticism, it would be that perhaps our brother was too wedded to his work. But he'd surely have a reply to that.

It would be true to say of him that he was a worrier, a man not easily satisfied with himself or his work, whatever it might be. And if his efforts did not always please others, they did not always please himself. His standards as a religious were high, and high, too, were the standards of work he set for himself. Often finding himself pulled from “Billy to Jack”, often expected to make “a silk purse out of a sow's ear”, our Brother occasionally found his fellow Jesuits disapproving either of his way of acting or of his actual work. He would listen in silence, make little or no defence, offer no excuse, but with head bowed and with a characteristic back ward shovelling of his feet, he would depart with his new instructions, which he feared would not remedy the situation. In such situations, the example of Jesus, the Son of the Carpenter of Nazareth, was a source of strength to him. His way of silence in the face of criticism, of obedience to lawful authority, of charity to all was the way Brother Pat continued to strive to follow Him who is the way for every religious. Like many of his contemporaries Pat lived his life in the Second Degree of Humility with many an excursion into the Third. And in his last years, he came to be like his Master in others ways, too, not least in his love of prayer, in his love of the Mass and in his devotion to the Mother of Jesus. In 1991 he visited our Lady's Shrine at Medjugorje and in 1992 he visited Knock with a group from Rahan and Tullamore.

In 1990, the Lord asked one more sacrifice from his faithful friend - to leave Tullabeg and retire to Cherryfield Lodge. In time he came to accept that too. In the story of his life as told to, and beautifully edited by Fr Eddie O'Donnell, SJ, there is much to admire, much to smile at, and not a little to make one wonder at the loving providence of God.

Edmond Kent SJ

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1995

Obituary
The above is Fr Kent's account of Br Pat's life, but Pat, in the months before he died wrote his own autobiography, “The Story of my Life”. What follows are his own words on his years in Belvedere (1935- 41):

I spent most of my life as a Jesuit Brother at Rahan, near Tullamore, County Offaly. I was stationed there for over forty years, from 1948 to 1990. Since that period deserves a chapter all to itself, what I'm going to do here is bring you from the year I took my First Vows (1935) up to 1948. Okay?

Immediately after taking my vows in Emo, I was transferred to Belvedere College, the Jesuit day school in Dublin. My first job there was to repair the roof of the community building with the help of a couple of handymen. I bought lead sheeting from Lenehan's shop in Capel Street - which is still going strong - and had the work finished in no time.

Then I was asked to paint all the windows on the front of the house. This entailed the erection of a scaffolding, which was quite an awkward operation on account of the “area” beneath the building. We managed it all right. At that time there was a lot more painting to be done on the windows than there would be today. The windows were “Georgian”, with a lot of small panes like those in the houses nearby. In later years, these were replaced by single-pane, plate-glass windows, a mortal sin from the architectural point-of-view.

At that time in Belvedere, there was a fountain in the middle of the school yard. It had a pond or basin around it. I was asked to clear it away altogether. I started this work with the help of a few construction workers but a twenty-six week builders' strike had just started and these lads were told not to work with me. A group of workmen came into the yard and kicked up a shindy, so I was left on my own. One of the priests in the community - Fr Charlie Scantlebury SJ, who was editor of “The Sacred Heart Messenger” for many years - came out to give me a hand.

The militant workmen returned and tried to beat him up! Punches were exchanged and I had to go to his rescue. We waited for the strike to finish before completing that job, although I did a lot of work on it early each morning myself.

Another task I was given was to install electric chandeliers in the Front Parlour. I knew nothing about electricity but decided to have a go all the same. When I was nearly finished, I remember standing up on a ladder to cut off some loose ends with a sharp knife. Suddenly, there was a sheet of flame, a flash like lightning, that knocked me off the ladder. I will never forget that narrow escape.

My next assignment was to paint the school hall, or the “Gymnasium” as it was called. It's where the boys did their drill as part of the curriculum. It's also where the school operas were staged and where the Old Boys held their annual dinners. Everyone was very pleased with the work I did there, especially with the college crest and its motto, “Per Vias Rectas”, painted on the centre of the side wall. Fr Charlie Byrne SJ, was particularly delighted. He was in charge of putting on the operas - usually Gilbert & Sullivan - and he realised he had found someone who could do a proper job on the scenery in future.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, there were a lot of shortages in Dublin. Coal boats couldn't cross over from England so we had to make do with turf. During the winter of 1939 itself, we still had a fair bit of coal left but Fr Rupert Coyle, SJ, in an effort to spare the fuel, told me to leave off the boiler in the Senior School during the Christmas holidays. There was a bad frost, unfortunately, and the pipes burst, flooding the whole building from top to bottom. There was an awful lot of damage done. I can leave you to guess whose job it was to clean up the mess.....

In 1940 the Rector of Belvedere, Fr John Mary O'Connor, SJ (affectionately known as “Bloody Bill”) received a letter from his opposite number in Rathfarnham Castle, Fr P G Kennedy SJ (the famous ornithologist) asking if he could send me over to paint the chapel. Like Emo and Belvedere, Rathfarnham Castle had ornate Georgian ceilings. The ceiling in the chapel took me over a month to paint. Like Michelangelo in Rome, I had to lie on my back on top of a scaffolding for days on end painting the intricate ornamentation.

When the ceiling was finished I did the walls and the sanctuary and then painted the front and sides of the altar. To restore the altar to its original glory, I had to purchase special gold-leaf paint which was manufactured in Dublin by a firm called Phillips (it can only be obtained from a firm in England nowadays). The Rector and his second-in-command, Fr “Dolly” Byrne SJ, were both very satisfied with what I did.

Then it was back to Belvedere, where the Minister, Fr Leo Donnelly SJ, had a major enterprise awaiting me. Away back in 1881 the Jesuits had bought a house on Temple street (opposite the Childrens' Hospital) and for two years it had been run as a third-level college called after St Ignatius. During the Second World War, this building was being used to house the domestic staff of Belvedere, but it was very dilapidated. I was asked to construct a bridge from the back of Belvedere College, across Temple Lane, into the back yard of “Temple Chambers” as the place was known then. This took quite a while, On account of the shortage of building materials during the war.

Anyhow, we got the bridge built and had to cover it in because it was the object of numerous missile attacks by kids from ... (nearby).

Then I had to renovate Temple Chambers. Another Brother and myself used to sleep there at night, Our rooms were right at the top, with the domestic staff occupying the lower storeys, now nicely re-papered: My room must have been at the front, because I remember being kept awake at night by the crying babies in the hospital across the street. Early in 1941, one of these babies was suffering from a rare-insect bite and screamed all night for weeks on end. He grew up to become Fr Eddie O'Donnell, SJ!

Later in 1941, the Rector of Milltown Park (Fr John McMahon SJ) who had admired my work in Rathfarnham, asked if I could come over and paint the domestic chapel at Milltown. This was a fairly straightforward job in comparison with the one at Rathfarnham. It took me less than a month to repaint the entire chapel.

When I returned to Belvedere during the summer of that year, most of the community were away on holidays. The Bursar, Fr John Calter SJ, was in charge and he asked me to paper and paint the room of Fr Frank O'Riordan. This was a tall order because Fr O'Riordan used to practise playing golf in his room! He'd hang a blanket, so I had to spend ages repairing the plug marks in the walls before the re-papering could start. All went well, however, and Fr Calter was delighted with the finished product, so delighted, indeed, that he decided to move into that room himself! When Fr O'Riordan returned, there was an awful rumpus. But I wasn't there to hear it because I had been transferred to Clongowes Wood.

Guinane, Gerard, 1900-1971, Jesuit priest and chaplain

  • IE IJA J/169
  • Person
  • 21 September 1900-26 June 1971

Born: 21 September 1900, Clonmel, County Tipperary
Entered: 31 August 1917, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1933, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1936, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 26 June 1971, Crescent College, Limerick City

Second World War chaplain

by 1928 in Australia - Regency at St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney
by 1935 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Gerard Guinane was only sixteen when he entered the Society at Tullabeg, and following early studies he was sent to Riverview in 1926. He taught in the school, was prefect of the study hall and, for a while, was assistant rowing master. He was very successful as a teacher and highly regarded by William Lockington. After ordination and tertianship, Guinane spent most of his life teaching, principally at Mungret and Limerick.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 16th Year No 4 1941
General :
Seven more chaplains to the forces in England were appointed in July : Frs Burden, Donnelly, J Hayes, Lennon and C Murphy, who left on 1st September to report in Northern Ireland, and Fr Guinane who left on 9th September.
Fr. M. Dowling owing to the serious accident he unfortunately met when travelling by bus from Limerick to Dublin in August will not be able to report for active duty for some weeks to come. He is, as reported by Fr. Lennon of the Scottish Command in Midlothian expected in that area.
Of the chaplains who left us on 26th May last, at least three have been back already on leave. Fr. Hayes reports from Redcar Yorks that he is completely at home and experiences no sense of strangeness. Fr. Murphy is working' with the Second Lancashire Fusiliers and reports having met Fr. Shields when passing through Salisbury - the latter is very satisfied and is doing well. Fr. Burden reports from Catterick Camp, Yorks, that he is living with Fr. Burrows, S.J., and has a Church of his own, “so I am a sort of PP”.
Fr. Lennon was impressed very much by the kindness already shown him on all hands at Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh and in his Parish. He has found the officers in the different camps very kind and pleased that he had come. This brigade has been without a R.C. Chaplain for many months and has never yet had any R.C. Chaplain for any decent length of time. I am a brigade-chaplain like Fr Kennedy and Fr. Naughton down south. He says Mass on weekdays in a local Church served by our Fathers from Dalkeith but only open on Sundays. This is the first time the Catholics have had Mass in week-days

Irish Province News 17th Year No 1 1942

Chaplains :
Our twelve chaplains are widely scattered, as appears from the following (incomplete) addresses : Frs. Burden, Catterick Camp, Yorks; Donnelly, Gt. Yarmouth, Norfolk; Dowling, Peebles Scotland; Guinane, Aylesbury, Bucks; Hayes, Newark, Notts; Lennon, Clackmannanshire, Scotland; Morrison, Weymouth, Dorset; Murphy, Aldershot, Hants; Naughton, Chichester, Sussex; Perrott, Palmer's Green, London; Shields, Larkhill, Hants.
Fr. Maurice Dowling left Dublin for-Lisburn and active service on 29 December fully recovered from the effects of his accident 18 August.

Irish Province News 21st Year No 1 1946

Frs. Guinane, Pelly and Perrott C. have been released from the Army. Fr. Guinane is now Minister at Mungret, Fr. Perrott is posted to Galway, and Fr. Pelly is awaiting travelling facilities to go to our Hong Kong Mission. Fr. Martin, a member also of the Mission, was to have been released from the Army on December 12th, but on the 11th be met with a serious accident in Belfast (see letter below). Fr. Provincial went to Belfast on Wednesday, January 9th, to visit him at the Royal Victoria Hospital. Fr. C. Murphy hopes to start on his homeward journey from Austria on January 14th and to be released from the Army by the end of January.

Irish Province News 46th Year No 3 1971

Obituary :

Fr Gerard Guinane SJ (1900-1971)

Fr Gerard Guinane was born in Clonmel on 21st September 1900, He was an only child. The family moved to Limerick in 1906 and at first resided at St. John's Villas. His father was manager of Cleeve's Confectionery Ltd.
He received his very early education with the Loreto nuns, Clonmel, and shortly after coming to Limerick, he entered Crescent College where he continued for the remainder of his schooldays. Gerard Guinane entered the Jesuit noviceship at St. Stanislaus College, Tullamore, on 31st August 1917 and on the completion of his noviceship spent a further year there as a junior, when he moved on to Rathfarnham Castle from which he attended University College, taking his degree in Celtic Studies with distinction in 1924. He next spent two years studying philosophy at Milltown Park, Dublin, on the completion of which he went to Australia for four years as teacher and prefect in the colleges of Holy Name, Brisbane, and Riverview, Sydney. On his return to Ireland he again went to Milltown Park to study theology for four years. He was ordained priest there in 1933. After tertianship in St. Beuno's College, North Wales, Fr Guinane came to Crescent College in 1935 for one year, and then moved to Mungret College where he was engaged as teacher and minister until 1941.
From 1941 to 1946 he served as military chaplain in the Second World War, mainly with the Royal Ulster Rifles. During this period of chaplaincy he frequently sacrificed the opportunity of leave home to undertake retreat work to religious communities and their schoolgirls and was much loved for this service, the more so that he was supplying for an urgent need where retreat givers were less available.
He then returned to Mungret College for a short period and finally came to Crescent College in the Autumn of 1946 where he spent the remaining years of his life - a period of twenty-five years. He died on Friday, 25th June 1971. To a large section of people, Fr. Guinane was chiefly known for his connection with rugby football. For his uncanny knowledge of the game, his skill as a trainer, his truly marvellous capacity in estimating the ability and temperament of the individual player, he was outstanding. In addition, he took a very keen personal interest in hundreds of players of the game at home and abroad, and was loved and respected by them all. In his early years as games master in. Crescent College, Fr Guinane trained teams that won the Munster Schools' Senior Cup three times within a half-dozen years. On those teams were included many players who subsequently became well-known personalities, such as rugby internationals Gordon Wood, Paddy Berkery, Paddy Lane (now vice-president of the N.F.A.), and film star Richard Harris, who utilised his rugby training most effectively in This Sporting Life.

In the administrative side of rugby, Fr. Guinane once again figured very prominently. He was president of the Munster Branch of the I.R.F.U., and served for some time as a member of the executive of the Irish Rugby Union. For many years he was a member and chairman) of the Munster Referees' Association. He was founder and later president of the Old Crescent Rugby Football Club, in which he took a very deep, dedicated and affectionate interest. But Fr. Guinane's interest and competence in sport were not confined to rugby football. As a scholastic in Riverview College he was given charge of the rowing, a heavy and responsible business involving the training of crews, the running of the annual college regatta and the presenting of an eight and two fours for the great Public Schools' Regatta, one of the sporting highlights of Sydney life. All this he carried through with energy and drive at a period when he was full-time teacher and prefect of the senior study hall. He also had more than a passing interest in almost every variety of sport and in his youth was regarded as an outstanding handball player. A highly important period in Fr Gerry's career was when he was selected as military chaplain in the Second World War and appointed to the Royal Ulster Rifles. A personal accident during training for D-Day invasion of Europe prevented him from taking part in the regiment's activities overseas. Nevertheless, the friends he made in the R.U.R. were very many and very close. This was particularly true of Lt. General Sir lan Harris, who retired as G.O.C. Northern Ireland in 1969 shortly before the recent troubles broke out there. Fr. Guinane was a regular guest at regimental dinners and was invited by the regiment to officiate as Catholic chaplain at the ceremonies when it merged with two other regiments to form the Royal Ulster Rangers. From time to time members of the Royal Ulster Rifles, when on business or on holiday in Southern Ireland, if they happened to pass through Limerick, made a point of calling on Fr Guinane, whom they regarded with singular esteem and affection, While serving as chaplain in England, he received the highest commendation for the immense amount of personal contact service he operated for the men in the forces, righting marriages, solving family troubles, befriending individuals who were down in their luck, in addition to performing his official duties, like saying Masses at three widely separated centres on a Sunday morning.
Another interesting sidelight on this period of his career was the way in which he succeeded (or manoeuvred) in accommodating Irish communities of nuns in England, by securing the necessary travel permits from the British Government for certain Irish Jesuits to give these nuns their annual retreats. There are other aspects of Fr Guinane's life which passed almost unnoticed by the outside world. One of these was his interest and skill in the retreat movement, especially for nuns, and his remarkable competence in the direction of those in religious life. Restricted opportunity limited his activity in this line considerably, but it is quite astonishing how much his direction and advice were sought by individual religious and by religious superiors. His sound commonsense, balanced judgment, broad outlook, wide experience, clear and unhesitating decisions, were instrumental in bringing mental peace and happiness to many who suffered from distress and uncertainty. And, occasionally, when a rugby fixture brought him far away from base, his companions afterwards would good-humouredly suffer delay, while Fr Guinane had gone to some hospital or convent to console or direct someone in trouble or distress. Closely allied to this aspect of Fr Guinane was his generosity to people in need or want, a trait which was sometimes indeed taken advantage of by clients who realised that he was “good” for a bit of assistance. He was often approached by those who had “just come out of jail” or “were going to England for work” or who had been “staunch supporters at rugby matches”, and in most cases, however tenuous the claims to his benefactions were, the petitioners “had their claims allowed” by the man who had indeed made a diagnosis of their real ailments, and a very clear assessment of the various subterfuges. He gave of his time and of the limited resources at his disposal without stint. Unselfishness was something that was really basic to his nature. He would stop at nothing to help a friend. Many of his friends were quite unaware that he sometimes went to an important international rugby match without an admission ticket - he had given he last one, his own, to someone whom he felt that he could not refuse. In community life also he was most obliging with his services and his time. He could always be depended on at short notice to take a sermon, or supply for a Mass or confessions even with considerable inconvenience to himself. Fr Guinane was widely known as a skilled diplomatist and a man of remarkable shrewdness. Yet, he always played his cards within the law, and could only win admiration and respect from those whom he had legitimately outwitted. One of his great friends - himself a man of no mean intelligence and perspicacity, who was locally renowned for his flair in making an apt and witty remark, described Fr. Gerry as “The Twentieth Century Fox”.

Fr Guinane fundamentally was an extrovert in quite an admirable way. His interest was in people people of all sorts and ages. He was happy with schoolboys, treated them with kindness and consideration, and knew how to bring out the best that was in them. He was perfectly at home with adult men of every creed and class, and by his sincerity, unselfishness and understanding and urbane manner won their respect, admiration and loyalty. With the Sisters in various religious communities, the ladies with whom he came in contact, in retreats, sodalities, hospitals and a multiplicity of other organisations, his same sterling characteristics had a wide and lasting influence and won for him a very deep regard, The exceptionally large number of people from all parts of the country who expressed their sympathy, and who travelled long distances to attend his final obsequies are a lasting tribute to the esteem and affection in which he was universally held. May he rest in peace.

Guinee, Timothy, 1851-1919, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/170
  • Person
  • 03 August 1851-05 November 1919

Born: 03 August 1851, Banteer, County Cork
Entered: 12 November 1874, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1889, Leuven, Belgium
Final Vows: 15 August 1893, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 05 November 1919, Sydney, Australia

Part of St Aloysius community, Sevenhill, Adelaide, Australia at time of his death.

by 1877 at Roehampton London (ANG) studying
by 1879 at Laval France (FRA) studying
by 1886 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) Studying
by 1891 at Drongen (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1892 returned to Australia

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He made his Noviceship at Milltown under Charles McKenna.
After his Novitiate he was sent to Roehampton for Rhetoric, and after some months was recalled with some other Juniors and sent to Tullabeg where he studied for the London University.
He was then sent to Laval for Philosophy, but due to the expulsion of the French Jesuits he returned to Ireland during his second year, and he was sent teaching to Crescent for Regency. He then did more Philosophy at Milltown and further Regency at Tullabeg.
He was then sent to Leuven for Theology and was Ordained there.
After Ordination he went back to teaching at the Colleges, and then back to Leuven to complete his Theology. On return he went to Mungret teaching for a number of years,
1902 He was sent as Prefect of Studies to Galway.
1903 He was sent to Australia where he worked in various houses until his death. A painful throat cancer brought about his death 05 November 1919

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Timothy Guinee entered the Society at Milltown Park, 12 November 1874, studied philosophy at Laval, France, and Milltown Park. He taught French, mathematics and physics at the Crescent Limerick, 1880-81, and also at St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg 1882-85 . The long course in theology followed at Louvain, 1885-89, then he taught for the university examination at Clongowes for a year before tertianship at Tronchiennes, 1890-91. He taught at Mungret, 1891-1901, being prefect of studies, 1895-1901, and also at Galway, 1901-02, where he was prefect of studies.
Guinee arrived in Australia, 8 October 1902, and taught at Xavier College and St Patrick's College, 1902-13. Then he engaged in parish ministry at Hawthorn, 1913-15, North Sydney, 1915-16, and Sevenhill, 1916-19. He was superior for the last few years of his life, Finally dying of cancer of the throat.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Timothy Guinee (1851-1919)

Born at Banteer, Co. Cork, entered the Society in 1893. He spent one year of his regency at the Crescent, 1880-81. In 1888 he was ordained at Louvain and on his return to Ireland was master and prefect of studies at Mungret College. He left for Australia in 1902 and spent many years as master or at work in the church at Melbourne.

Guiney, John, 1928-2019, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/856
  • Person
  • 25 January 1928-17 November 2019

Born: 25 January 1928, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1959, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 17 June 1976, Loyola House, Eglinton Road, Dublin
Died: 17 November 2019, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

by 1994 at Rome Italy (ROM) Assistant to General Treasurer

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/john-guiney-sj-a-man-of-unfailing-courtesy/

John Guiney SJ – a man of ‘unfailing courtesy’
Fr John Guiney SJ died peacefully at Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park, Dublin 6, on Sunday 17 November 2019. His funeral Mass took place at Gonzaga College Chapel on Wednesday 20 November followed by burial in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Fr Guiney was born in Dublin on 25 January 1928. He attended Belvedere College SJ and entered the Society of Jesus at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois, in 1946. His Jesuit training included studying Arts in UCD, philosophy in Tullabeg, regency in Mungret College SJ and theology in Milltown Park before being ordained in 1959.
He discovered his metier early in life. His brilliant head for figures and his shrewd judgement made him a ‘natural’ for financial matters. This led to a thirty-one years posting as Revisor, and later Irish Province Treasurer, followed by a six years stint on the Roman Curia’s Financial team.
In his later years, he served as Minister in Milltown Park and was Financial Director in Cherryfield Lodge. He prayed for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge before passing away aged 91 years.
Fr Guiney is predeceased by his brothers Tom and Eddie and his sister-in-law Sheila. He is fondly remembered by his nephews Edward and Michael, niece Carina and their partners, Aoife, Carrie and Darren, grandnephew Senan and grandnieces Beth and Ruby, and his Jesuit Community in Milltown Park.
Bill Toner SJ, current Irish Province Treasurer, gave the homily at the funeral Mass (Click here to read full homily).
Fr Toner began by thanking God for the life and work of Fr Guiney, to pray for his happy repose, and to offer condolences to his relatives, especially Edward, Michael and Carina, and their families.
Fr Toner referred to John as a “very shrewd investor” but noted that his business acumen did not interfere with his ability to relate to others. “John himself was a man who took great care to preserve good relationships with everyone he came into contact with in the course of a day’s work. This included in the first place his fellow Jesuits, and lay colleagues, but also bank officials, investment managers, estate agents, insurance brokers, solicitors and so on.”
Remarking that when he himself left the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice to become Province Treasurer he turned from a socialist to a capitalist overnight he went on to joke, “I never saw it written down anywhere, but I am sometimes told that Jesuits at large are supposed to pray for their Province Treasurers, that is, for their eternal salvation, not for their investing skills”.
He continued in humorous vein recalling that John often said to him that “I never fell out with anybody about money. On hearing this one Jesuit said to me, well, he didn’t fall out with anyone over money because everyone was afraid to ask him for money.”
According to Bill, John is remembered with great fondness by older Jesuits who encountered him when he worked in the finance office in the Head House, or Curia, in Rome. He brought a “joie de vivre” to the community life there through “introducing novel practices such as Friday night films and golf outings, and evening excursions to enjoy gelato”.
In his concluding remarks, Fr Toner said: “John could have done many different things in his Jesuit life. He was extremely well-read and was very good at languages... But I think that John recognised that his work enabled many other Jesuits to work, to keep close to God, to stay healthy, and to grow old gracefully... May he rest in the Lord’s peace.”
Ar Dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilís.

Early Education at Belvedere College SJ

1948-1950 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1950-1953 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1953-1956 Mungret College SJ - Regency : Teacher
1956-1960 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1960-1961 Rathfarnham - Tertianship
1961-1962 Milltown Park - Treasurer; Sub-Minister; in charge of New Building Construction
1962-1993 Loyola House - Revisor of Temporal Administration of Houses; Revisor of Province Funds
1966 Minister; Assistant Provincial Treasurer
1974 Superior; Province Treasurer; Revisor of Temporal Administration of Houses
1988 Sabbatical - (Sep 88 to Jan 89 & Sep 89 to Dec 89)
1993-1999 Borgo Santo Spirito, Rome, Italy - Assistant to General Treasurer; Revisor of Temporal Administration of Roman Curia
1999-2019 Milltown Park - Minister
2000 Cherryfield Lodge Consultant
2002 Vice-Rector; Treasurer; Financial Director in Cherryfield Lodge
2004 Treasurer; Financial Director in Cherryfield Lodge
2018 Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

Gwynn, Aubrey, 1892-1983, Jesuit priest and academic

  • IE IJA J/10
  • Person
  • 17 February 1892-18 May 1983

Born: 17 February 1892, Clifton, Bristol, Gloucestershire, England
Entered: 30 September 1912, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1924, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1929, St Ignatius, Leeson Street, Dublin
Died: 18 May 1983, Our Lady's Hospice, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park, Dublin Community at the time of death

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Gwynn, Aubrey Osborn
by Noreen Giffney

Gwynn, Aubrey Osborn (1892–1983), Jesuit priest and academic, was born 17 February 1892 at Clifton, Bristol, England, the second son among six children (four boys and two girls) of Stephen Lucius Gwynn (qv), writer and MP, and his wife and first cousin, Mary Louise Gwynn, daughter of Rev. James Gwynn of Dublin and Bath. Born into an esteemed Church of Ireland family, he was the great-grandson of William Smith O'Brien (qv), the grandson of Rev. Dr John Gwynn (qv), regius professor of divinity at TCD (1888–1907), and the nephew of Edward John Gwynn (qv), provost of TCD (1927–37). On his mother's conversion to Roman catholicism (1902), Aubrey, his brother Denis Gwynn (qv), and their siblings were received into the catholic church at Farm Street, London, and brought up as catholics. Due to the nature of his father's work, much of Aubrey's early life was divided between London and Dublin.

Educated at the Jesuit Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare (1903–8), Gwynn spent a year of private study in Munich before becoming the first student to sign the register at the newly chartered UCD, where he later gained first-class honours (BA, 1912; MA 1915) in classics. When Fr William Delany (qv) admitted him to the Jesuit noviceship in Tullabeg, Rahan (1912), Gwynn intended to join the Chinese mission and work in Hong Kong, but under the guidance of Delany's successor, Dr T. V. Nolan, he entered academic life. After studying for a year at Rathfarnham, he went in 1916 on a travelling studentship to Oxford (Campion Hall), where he was awarded the Cromer essay prize (1917) and graduated B. Litt. (1919). He taught classics and German for two years at Clongowes (1917–19) before spending two years studying philosophy at the Jesuit College, Louvain (1919–21), and a further four years studying theology at Milltown Park, Dublin. He was ordained at Milltown Park on 24 July 1924 and trained for a final year in Exaten, the Netherlands (1926), then took his final vows in Dublin on 2 February 1929.

Initially employed (1927) as an assistant lecturer in ancient history at UCD, Gwynn replaced Daniel A. Binchy (qv) as lecturer in medieval history on the latter's appointment as Irish Free State minister in Berlin. When John Marcus O'Sullivan (qv) resumed his duties as professor of history in 1932, he was so impressed with the young lecturer's abilities that he had his position made permanent. Sixteen years later, in 1948, Gwynn was appointed first professor of medieval history. Actively involved in the administration of UCD, he was a member of the governing body, dean of the faculty of arts (1952–6), and a member of the NUI senate. He also served as president of the RIA (1958–61).

A pioneering scholar, Gwynn wrote or edited numerous contributions to ancient, medieval, and modern history, on such subjects as Roman education, Archbishop Richard Fitzralph (qv) of Armagh, and Irish emigrants in the West Indies. His many articles, numbering over one hundred, as well as his reviews, which he often initialled P. D. (‘Poor Devil’), were published in various journals, including the Journal of Hellenic Studies, Analecta Hibernica, and the Irish Ecclesiastical Record. As a member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission (1943–74) he revived the study and publication of the Calendar of Papal Letters. He was exonerated after being accused, by Regina Zukasiewicz, of stealing her deceased husband's manuscripts (1956). Despite being plagued by bouts of depression, he gained international recognition and an array of awards, among them offers of honorary doctorates from QUB (1964), and TCD (1965) – the second of which he declined. However, Gwynn was not impressed with his honorifics asserting that the only qualifications he required were SJ – alluding to his membership of the Society of Jesus.

Gwynn lived mostly with the Jesuit community at 35 Lower Leeson Street (1927–62), where he was superior of residence (1932–45). A keen supporter of the Missionary Sisters of St Columba and St Joseph's Young Priests’ Society, he helped to establish the latter's civil service branch (1930), advised on the preparing of their constitution (1945), and was editor of their quarterly magazine, St Joseph's Sheaf (1927–49). After he retired from UCD in 1961 he moved to Milltown (1962), where he lectured for two years on church history and tended to the library (1962–6). He remained active, despite failing eyesight, until a fractured femur left him in St Vincent's Hospital; he then moved to Our Lady's Hospice, Harold's Cross, where he died 18 May 1983. He was buried two days later, following funeral mass at the Jesuit church, Gardiner Street.

Aubrey Gwynn's private papers, Jesuit archives; file of correspondence between Robert Dudley Edwards and Aubrey Gwynn (1950–68), UCD Archives, LA 22/782–3; F. X. Martin, ‘The historical writings of Reverend Professor Aubrey Gwynn, S. J.’, Medieval studies presented to Aubrey Gwynn, S. J., ed. J. A. Watt, J. B. Morrall, and F. X. Martin (1961), 502–9; Geoffrey Hand, ‘Professor Aubrey Gwynn’, Hibernia (1962), 10; University College Dublin. Report of the president for the session 1961–62 (1962), 72–4; Burke, IFR (1976), 532–3; Geoffrey Hand, ‘Father Aubrey Gwynn, S. J.’, Ir. Times, 21 May 1983, 8; Irish Province News, xx, no. 11 (1983), 348–50, 367–9; Report of the president, University College Dublin 1982–83 (1983), 154; R. D. Edwards, ‘Professor Aubrey Gwynn, S. J.’, Anal. Hib., xxxi (1984), xi; F. X. Martin, ‘Aubrey Osborn Gwynn, 1892–1983’, Royal Irish Academy Annual Report, 1983–4 (1984), 2–6; Clara Cullen, ‘Historical writings of Aubrey Gwynn: addendum’, Aubrey Gwynn, S. J., The Irish church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, ed. Gerard O'Brien (1992), xiii–xiv; Geoffrey Hand, ‘Aubrey Gwynn: the person’, Studies, lxxxi (1992), 375–84; Fergus O'Donoghue, ‘Aubrey Gwynn: the Jesuit’, Studies, lxxxi (1992); 393–8; Katherine Walsh, ‘Aubrey Gwynn: the scholar’, Studies, lxxxi (1992), 385–92

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 17th Year No 1 1942

Recent articles by Fr. Aubrey Gwynn in the “Irish Ecclesiastical Record” were the subject of a very flattering notice in the 4 October issue of the 'Times Literary Supplement'. They referred to valuable contributions made by him to the history of the Dublin diocese in the 11th century, and in particular to interesting discoveries about Bishop Patrick of Dublin, whom he proves to have been a monk at Worcester under St. Wulfstain and author of the medieval scholastic poems in one of the Cotton MSS.

Irish Province News 58th Year No 3 1983

Milltown Park
Fr Aubrey Gwynn (†)
Aubrey Gwynn went to his Maker at 6.45 on the morning of 18th May: requiescat in pace! The Province will hardly see his like again. From his childhood days in London at the turn of the century, he could remember great events like the funeral of Queen Victoria, and the celebrations on the relief of Mafeking. Yet right to the end he took an interest in everybody and everything; he was in no way out of touch or out of sympathy with the times; he and the scholastics greatly enjoyed each other's company. Again, he was both a consummate scholar and a zealous, devout priest. In his late eighties he was still contributing learned articles to Seanchas Ardmhacha, and was rarely, if ever, missing from his accustomed spot at community Mass. In his earlier years he had been closely associated with St Joseph's Young Priests Society and the Columban Sisters, and both these bodies have contributed appreciations which are printed below. It is also perhaps worth recalling how well Aubrey succeeded in being on excellent terms with staff at Maynooth College and with members of the Hierarchy. At the funeral, Maynooth was represented by Mons. Patrick J. Corish and Dublin archdiocese by Bishop James Kavanagh: Cardinal 0 Fiaich regretted being unable to attend, owing to the death of his own brother (Dr Patrick Fee).
Aubrey is remembered with great affection by the Milltown Park community (here we are gathering into one many golden opinions) as a Simeon like figure, who redeemed the dignity of old age, never grumbled, complained or criticised, was so full of gratitude for his Jesuit vocation; who forty years ago treated scholastics as adults; the last of the generation of giants. He will continue to be remembered for his patient faith, his independence of spirit, tolerance of change, good humour, conviviality at table, debonair gentlemanliness, desire for life and determination to live, helpfulness and encouragement, graciousness, faithfulness and dedication, simplicity and humility.
One member of the community writes as follows: “Every day for ten years Aubrey concelebrated the Community Mass: at 10 am on Sundays, at 5.30 pm on weekdays in term, at 12.15 pm on weekdays in vacation and on Sundays. This showed an impressive willingness to adapt to different hours - a strength of faith which enabled him really to enjoy such varied styles of worship.
His loyalty to ‘The College’ (UCD, represented at the funeral by Mons. Feichin O'Doherty) showed me that an institution can be served with discrimination, with neither cynical detachment nor bland adoration.
His warm interest in each of us in the community was enormously encouraging - so different from the intrusive questioning by those who want to pigeon hole me for some future use, and different from the inattention of those who seem afraid to make human contact with me even for the length of a meal.
Another member expresses his appreciation in the following words: “I will remember Aubrey as a big man, a man who spanned the centuries and felt at home in many of them including much of our own. I will remember him as a grateful man, grateful to God and to us at Milltown. I will remember him as a lovable man who aged with grace and dignity. Finally I will remember Aubrey the priest, who celebrated the daily Eucharist with us faithfully and with determined step.
A fellow-historian and friend of Aubrey's, Katherine Walsh, who dedicated to him her recent work on Archbishop Richard FitzRalph, wrote from Vienna to the Rector as follows: “Kind friends contacted me by telephone and telegram to break the sad news of the death of Fr Aubrey Gwynn, May I offer through you my deepest sympathy to the community of Milltown Park, also to the Irish Jesuit Province, of which he was for so long a distinguished and respected ornament at home and abroad. My personal sense of loss is great - it was not merely FitzRalph that bound me to him. His personal and scholarly qualities were such that I valued his friendship, advice and encouragement very much. Also my husband Alfred learned to share my very deep affection for him and wishes to be associated in this word of appreciation. Our subsequent visits to Ireland will be the poorer without the pleasure of his great company. Requiescat in pace”.
Mr Brendan Daly of Waterford, who was National President of St Joseph's Young Priests Society from 1975 to 1982, sent the following appreciation: “For over forty years, Fr Aubrey Gwynn played a very important part in the formation and development of St Joseph's Young Priests Society. Space will allow for only a brief mention of the highlights of these activities. From 1927 1949 he was the Honorary Editor of ‘Saint Joseph's sheaf’, the Society's quarterly magazine. During most of this same period, he was also a member of a the Society's governing Council. In 1930 helped to establish the Civil Service Branch, and was its chaplain until 1936. He was also actively involved in the formation of other vocational branches. He advised on the preparation of the Society's 1945 Constitution.
Fr Gwynn gave of himself quietly but building up a Lay Society that its identity, purpose and motivation in the Eucharist and membership of the Mystical Body of Christ. He encouraged greater lay participation in the Apostolate of the Church, and imbued members with those ideals that were subsequently to be voiced in the decrees of the Second Vatican Council. He was a true priest of Jesus Christ who helped many lay people to live their own royal . priesthood. He has helped St Joseph's Young Priests Society to build up a rich heritage - a heritage which it values and shares with many, many others'.
The Vicar-General of the Missionary Sisters of St Columban, Sr Ita McElwain, sent the following tribute: Fr Aubrey Gwynn had a long and happy association with the Missionary Sisters of St Columban. This came about through his relationship with Mother Mary Patrick, formerly Lady Frances Moloney, who was a friend and contemporary of his mother. Mother M. Patrick knew Aubrey from his childhood and followed his career with interest. He, in turn, had a lifelong regard for her, and greatly admired her spirit and courage when, at the age of fifty, she joined the little band of women who were destined to become the first members of the Columban Sisters.
“Fr Gwynn was a regular visitor to the Motherhouse at Cahiracon, Co Clare. On at least two occasions he gave retreats to the sisters there, as well as an occasional triduum of prayer to the to student sisters at the house of studies located at Merrion square at that time. The house at Merrion square was cquired in 1942 when Mother M Patrick was superior-general of the he Columban Sisters and Fr Gwynn superior of the Jesuit house at Leeson Street. Father offered to provide a weekly Mass for the sisters, and this continued He advised on the preparation of the for many years. He came whenever he could and took a keen interest in the sisters studies and in the sisters fully in themselves when they were missioned finds overseas. Especially worthy of note was his invaluable help and support to the sisters doing medical studies: this was at a time when it was quite a departure for sisters to undertake the study of medicine and surgery. Fr Gwynn is remembered by us as a devoted priest and renowned scholar; a loyal friend whose invaluable advice and experience were greatly appreciated by a comparatively young and struggling congregation; a very open-hearted and good-humoured man who kept in close touch with us through all the years of our existence. May his great soul rest in peace”.
The following is the text of Aubrey's last letter to the Columban Sisters: 2nd Dec. 1982.
Dear Sister Maura.
Very many thanks to you all at Magheramore for the splendid bird that was duly delivered here yesterday evening as on so many other happy occasions. And my special greetings to those of your community who may remember me from the old days in Merrion square and Fitzwilliam square. I shall be 91 years old next February, and am beginning to feel that I am an old man.
For the past 21 years I have been very happy here, where everyone young and old about here is very kind. And I am ever more grateful for the many blessings I have received during my 91 years. Blessings on you all at Magheramore, and may Mother Patrick, who was my mother's friend, rest in реаcе.
Yours in Xt, / Aubrey Gwynn, S.J.'
The appreciation by Professor Geoffrey Hand appeared in the columns of the Irish Times on Saturday, 21st May.

Obituary & ◆ The Clongownian, 1983

Fr Aubrey Gwynn (1892-1912-1983)

By the death of Fr Aubrey Gwynn the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus has lost one of its most distinguished and well-loved members.
He was born on the 7th February, 1892, at Clifton, Bristol, where his father, Stephen Gwynn, man of letters, historian, poet and member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, was at that time tutoring in a private crammer's. The Gwynn family were descended from Welsh settlers in Ulster during the 17th century, and were noted for the number of them who entered the ministry of the Church of Ireland. They also had a long and distinguished connection with Trinity College. Stephen's father, Rev John Gwynn, was Regius Professor of Divinity 1888-1917, and author of the great edition of the Book of Armagh, whilst his brother, Edward John Gwynn, was Provost of Trinity 1927-37. But the later generation of Gwynns had a strong infusion of Celtic blood, for Stephen Gwynn's mother was the elder daughter of William Smith O'Brien.
In 1896 the Gwynn family settled in London, where Aubrey attended a private preparatory school. He used to relate how amongst the small pupils was one Harold Macmillan – later British Prime Minister - who in some way made himself obnoxious and was sent to Coventry by his schoolfellows. The head master complained to their parents, with dire results for Aubrey, since at that time his father relied largely for income on his work as reader for the firm of Macmillan. In 1902 Mrs Mary Louise Gwynn was received into the Catholic Church and was followed by her children. Two years later Stephen Gwynn decided to return to Ireland and Aubrey was sent to Clongowes. He was accompanied by his elder brother, Lucius, a promising scholar who died at the age of twenty-nine after a long struggle against tuberculosis, and his younger brother, Denis, later a distinguished biographer and Professor of Modern Irish History in University College, Cork. Whilst at Clongowes, Aubrey already displayed his brilliance. He spent two years in Rhetoric class, winning in the first year the medal for first place in Senior Grade Latin, and in the second year the corresponding medal for Greek.
On leaving Clongowes, Aubrey had a year's private study in Munich and then entered University College, Dublin, becoming a member of Winton House, the predecessor of University Hall, He took his BA degree in 1912 and entered the noviceship at Tullabeg. After the noviceship he studied at Rathfarnham for a year, preparing for the MA and travelling studentship. The two years of the studentship were spent at Oxford, ending with the B. Litt. degree and Cromer Greek prize. Then followed two years teaching classics at Clongowes, philosophy at Louvain, theology at Mill town Park, ordination in 1924 and tertianship at Exaten, Holland, 1925-26.
Father Gwynn's first entrance into the life of University College was in 1927, when he was appointed lecturer in Ancient History. From then on, he was the recipient of one distinction after another. He became lecturer in Medieval History in 1930, professor of Medieval History in 1948, Dean of the Faculty of Arts 1951-56, member at various periods of the Governing Body of University College and of the Senate of the National University, President of the Royal Irish Academy 1958-61. In 1964 he was awarded the honorary degree of D. Litt. by Queen's University, Belfast.
As lecturer and professor Father Gwynn won universal praise. On his retirement in 1962, he was made the recipient of a Festschrift, a volume of essays on medieval subjects, edited by three of his colleagues, J. A. Wal . B. Morrall and F. X. Martin, OSA. The contributions by some twenty scholars from Irish, British, continental and American universities, were evidence of Father Gwynn's reputation outside Ireland. In the Foreword Professor Michael Tierney, president of University College, Dublin, emphasised the esteem in which Father Gwynn was held in his own country.
The essays gathered in this book are a well-deserved tribute to a man who has been a leader in historical work and in general scholarship for more than thirty years ... His unanimous election as President of the Royal Irish Academy was already evident of the position he held in the Irish world of learning... for a quarter of a century he has been the leader and teacher of a band of young scholars, and his pupils have achieved fame outside Ireland in countries where his own reputation had preceded them.'
Reviewing this volume in the Irish Times, another tribute was paid to Fr Gwynn by Professor F. S. Lyons, (later Provost of Trinity College) :
“Perhaps we are still too close to assess the full impact of Fr Gwynn on medieval studies in Ireland. But even now we can recognise that it has been very great. Great not only by virtue of his talents which, rather casually maybe, we have tended to take for granted, great not only because of the extent and quality of his published work, but great precisely through the influence he must have exer ted as a teacher”.
In addition to his constant work as lecturer or professor, Fr Gwynn displayed throughout his life an extra ordinary activity as a writer. Three of his major books are considered to be standard works of their kind, Roman Education from Cicero to Quintilian, Oxford, 1920, The English Austin Friars in the time of Wyclif Oxford, 1940. The Medieval Province of Armagh 1470-1545, Dundalk, 1946. He also collaborated with District Justice Dermot F Gleeson in producing the monumental History of the Diocese of Killaloe, Dublin, 1962. But, in addition, a flood of articles poured out from his pen, or rather typewriter. In the volume above referred to, Rey Professor Martin has listed over fifty of these articles, which are not articles in the ordinary sense, but learned monographs on ancient, medieval and modern topics. And this does not include the book reviews which he contributed steadily over the years to Studies and other learned journals. In this connection, a piece of Province folklore is worth preserving. Formerly book reviews in Studies were signed only with the writer's initials. Fr Gwynn felt that the initials AG were appearing with monotonous frequency, and alternated them with P.D. Asked what these letters signified, he smilingly replied ‘Poor devil'.
Although Fr Gwynn played such an active part in the life of University College, this did not mean that he he was in any way remote from the life of the Province. On the contrary, he was a most loyal and devoted member of it. He was a good community man, always in good humour, interested in the doings of others and ready to put his talents at their disposal. During his long stay in Leeson Street (he was Superior, 1932-'45), he did much to advise, encourage and help our Juniors who were passing through University College. For a considerable period he acted as editor of St Joseph's Sheaf, the organ of St Joseph's Young Priests Society, and enticed to write articles for it, thus giving them a useful introduction to the apostolate of writing. His loyalty to the Society in general was manifested by his constant study of its history, and many his articles dealt with the apostolate of Jesuits in various ages, especially on the foreign missions. Fr Gwynn had a special interest in the missions, and had close links both with our own missionaries and with others throughout the country, notably the Columban Fathers and Sisters.
On his retirement from University College, Fr Gwynn moved to Milltown Park. He lectured for two years on Church History and acted as librarian, 1962-6, but it became clear that he was no longer able for such tasks, and the rest of his retirement was devoted mainly to the revision of his articles on the medieval Irish Church, with the purpose of publishing them in book form. This again proved too much for his failing powers, and his final years were spent as a semi-invalid, consoled by the kindly care of the Milltown community, who came to regard him as a venerable father figure. His ninetieth birthday was signalised with a concelebrated Mass and a supper at which he received an enthusiastic ovation. He was reasonably active to the last until a fall resulted in a broken femur, the effects of which he was unable to recover. After some was weeks in St Vincent's Hospital, he was moved to Our Lady's Hospice, where he died peacefully on 18th May. His funeral at Gardiner Street was the occasion of a remarkable ecumenical event. It was presided over by BishopJames Kavanagh, representing His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, and some of the burial prayers were recited by Right Rev.George Simms, former Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin and of Armagh, whose wife is a cousin of Fr Gwynn.
Fr Aubrey used to relate an incident which occurred when he was studying at Oxford. When the time came to submit part of his thesis to his supervisor, he followed the old Jesuit custom of inscribing the letters AMDG at the top of each sheet. The manuscript was returned to of him addressed to Rev A M D Gwynn, The writer unconsciously hinted at a truth. The familiar letters may not have been Fr Aubrey's initials, but they were most certainly the inspiration of his life.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 30 : December 1983

PORTRAIT FROM THE PAST : FATHER AUBREY GWYNN

Sister Sheila Lucey

A Columban Sister working in the Philippines pays tribute to the life and work of Father Aubrey

I first met Father Aubrey Gwynn in August in 1945, when I was assigned, straight after my profession, to our house of studies at 56 Merrion Square. Even then he had become a kind of Guardian Spirit to our young student sisters - some were studying medicine, others nursing, and I and a companion were taking up arts.

It was through Mother Mary Patrick that our sisters had come to know Father Gwynn. It seems that she had been a friend of his mother's. So, when the Columban Sisters came to Merrion Square in the early 40's a friendship started .which was to last throughout Fr Gwynn's long life.

His special concern was for the young student sisters. It was he who started the tradition of an eight o'clock Mass on Sunday morning, for the Merrion Square community, so that the students could have a longer sleep. He made it clear that there was to be no getting up earlier to study! When he couldn't come himself, he arranged for one or other of his brethren in Leeson St, to say the Mass, In later years, in the late 40's and early 50’s, he came for daily Mass.

Invariably he came for Midnight Mass at Christmas, in his very best attire, a beautifully-cut long clerical dress-coat. That was always a big occasion, and he seemed to enjoy every moment of it. Indeed, he was part of so many community celebrations in those years.

I remember how well he cooperated with all our clandestine preparations for Sister Mary Veronica's Silver Jubilee.

Right from the beginning, I found him a fascinating and stimulating personality, and a warm friend. He took a keen interest in each of us and in our studies. At the end of my first year I was asked to switch from German, as a degree subject, to history, which it was considered would be more useful on the missions. Certainly he made a difficult change easier for me. For two years I was his student. He initiated me into realms of history which were new to me, so I found his lectures valuabie, though I learned more from him outside the lecture-room than inside. Each vacation he arrived over to our house with an armful of books for me to read during the break, and he didn't limit himself to history - he also brought along some critical works on the English writers I was studying.

But it was after I finished my basic degree, and was sent on for graduate studies, that I really got to know Fr. Gwynn. At that time, he was coming for daily Mass, and at least a few times each week I was asked to see him in the parlour while he was having his breakfast, Those breakfast sessions stretched out longer and longer! He was so much of a medievalist that he could enter into all aspects of my MA thesis, on The Ancren Riwle (a medieval rule for anchoresses, which was also a treatise on the spirituality of that kind of life).

Later, when I got into my doctoral thesis, he got even more involved. This was right into his field, because the topic (English Prose Written by Irishmen in the Seventeenth Century) turned out to be as much historical as literary. It couldn't be otherwise in such a century, so full of religious and political controversy. From Professor Hogan I had imbibed a life-long appreciation of seventeenth century Eniglish literature. Now under Fr Gwynn's unobtrusive prodding I discovered for the first time that I had a glimmering of and historical sense after all!

Working on those seventeenth century writings, many of them anonymous, or written under pseudonyms, one had to be something of a literary sleuth. To satisfy" Fri Gwynn the evidence had to be exact and complete. He was a scrupulously honest scholar, and he expected those he worked with to be the same.

I certainly owe it to Fr Gwynn that I was able to persevere with my research and complete my PhD thesis. Theoretically Professor J.J. Hogan was my adviser, but he was an extremely busy person in those years. Besides he wasn't, familiar with the writings I had got into. In practice, Fr. Gwynn was my adviser and strong support throughout the years when I worked on my PhD thesis.

Indeed, many growing points of my life I seem to owe to Fr Gwynn. He it was who first launched me into print. While I was still a student he got me to review a book for Studies, a distinct honour in those days. (in fact, Fr Burke-Savage, the editor, asked that I used a nom de plume because “he didn't want all the nuns in Ireland to be wanting to get into the pages of Studies”. Shades of women's lib!). This was how I earned my first cheque for writing, and no later cheque ever made me feel so proud, (Strictly speaking my payment should have been the book, but Fr Gwynn purchased this for the Leeson St. house).

Another growing-edge of the mind happened when I'r Gwynn persuaded my superiors to allow me to go to Oxford and to the. British Museum in London, so that I could research by topic more thoroughly. Many of the writings. by Irishmen of the seventeenth century survive as very rare books, some indeed as single copies. The British Museum has some of them, others are in Oxford and Cambridge.

Father got quite a thrill out of sending me off on my Grand Tour, and he went to great pains to ensure that my visit would be a success. I went armed with letters of introduction to David Rogers of the British Museum, Fr. Basil Fitzgibbon of farm St.,and the library authorities in Oxford, He wrote beforehand to the Holy Child Sisters in Cherwell Edge, Oxford, where he knew some of the Sisters - his own sister had been a member of the congregation - and enjoyed their hospitality while I was in Oxford.

Of course, I fell in love with Oxford, as he intended me to, and he listened with happy amusement, as I shared my excitement with him on my return. This happened more than thirty years ago, in November December, 1950, yet it is still vivid in my memory. There was I, a young inexperienced person, given a welcome into the fellowship of scholars, and accepted as one of themselves. Ah, the daring and courage of youth!

Thinking back over all this, I believe I have hit on something very basic to. Fr. Gwynn's character, and very important: he helped people to grow. His own standards were high, and he helped others to live up to their highest potential, to a potential they weren't aware of until he pointed it out.

He was, too, a man of great patience and kindness. I'm sure a scholar of his calibre must have had to make many adjustments in trying to understand us young students. But his kindness bridged all distances. He had a genuine respect for others, and he paid: tribute to any gifts a person had, even if still in the bud!

It wasn't all an academic interchange. He had a puckish sense of humour, and those eyes could twinkle even over such daily dilemmas as “the problem of toast and butter: If I take more toast, I'll need another butter-roll, and if I take another butter-roll I'll need more toast to finish it!” At breakfast, one morning in our basement dining-room, I heard my gong ring upstairs. When I emerged at the top of the stairs, there was Fr. Gwynn, with a quizzical look on his face, saying: “How do you expect a fellow to eat his porridge without a spoon?” I had brought him in his breakfas. “You'd better stick to the History!”

Another time - I think it was when I was about to leave on my Oxbridge adventure - Fr Gwynn told me to kneel down for his blessing. Then, as I got up off my knees, he chuckled and told an anecdote about some Irish bishop, who was reputed to have said to his priests: “How did I get this cross on me belly? ... HARD WORRUK, YOUNG MEN, HARD WORRUK!” And he acted it out, standing tall and sticking out his chest.

He had a delightful sense of humour. I wish I could recall other incidents. I remember a letter he wrote shortly after he retired from UCD. He had been offered a chair of Philosophy (or History) in Milltown Park, he said, only to discover it was a sofa he had to share it with Fr. John Ryan!

It was while I was a student in Merrion Square that his father died. In fact, I answered his phone-call telling us the news. His father had been failing for some time - he lived to be a great age - and all the time Fr. Gwynn kept hoping that his father might be given the gift of faith before death. That did not happen I can recall the grief in his voice that morning over the phone. Later he described the funeral for us, saying how strange it felt to be an outsider at one's own father's funeral. As far as I remember, a dispensation had to be got from the Archbishop of Dublin, so that he could attend and, at the graveside, it was the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin who officiated and blessed the remains, while Stephen Gwynn's priest-son stood apart, on the fringe.

The faith; not given to his father, was very precious to him. In those years immediately after his retirement from UCD he got joy and great fulfilment from instructing some young. TCD students, converts to Catholicism. He referred to this in a number of letters written in those years.

It was in such things, and at such times, that the quality of his own spirituality shone through. It was never obtrusive. Yet, when he sensed that a person was anxious, or that obedience was hard, he knew how to say the right thing, or do just what was needed, tactfully, with gentleness and good hunour. He seemed to have a great, yet sensibly balanced, respect for obedience. But it was
his kindness and compassion, a compassion learned through his own suffering, that made him the person he was for others. There was always that the feeling that he too had been through it all.

He was a marvellous person to give anything to. He received as graciously as he gave, and never took a gift for granted. About two years ago I had a letter from him, thanking.me for the gift of a book on Philippine culture. Actually I hadn't been the person who sent it, but I had talked about him to someone who sent him the book as a result of our conversation - Fr. Miguel Bernad, SJ.

During all my years in the Philippines we corresponded a few times each year. Then, while I was in Ireland, from 1970 to 1979 I met him many times, mostly in Milltown Park, but once in the University club. On that last occasion we walked across St. Stephen's Green together - just imagine that!

There were times, too, when I went over to Milltown Park, only to learn that Fr, Gwynn wasn't well and couldn't see visitors. Then I knew that my old friend was deep into one of his bouts of severe depression, and I suffered with him. That finely-honed, brilliant mind, and yet the dark shadow of depression that hung over him so often ...

The last time I saw him, before I left for the Philippines in 1980, he was in great form, and he took some mischievous delight in my reaction to his beard. When I remarked that he looked the spit image of George Bernard Shaw, he said, “Sister Helen (he liked to call me by my old name), I would expect more originality from you!” Then he told me about all the other people who had made the same comparison, including a lorry-driver who had stopped beside him on the road and called out, “I thought Bernard Shaw was dead!” He was really enjoying his masquerade.

In his last letters to me, he told me about his latest and dearest research, the paper he was requested to write for the Royal Irish Academy, on the Mass in Ireland in the early Middle Ages. Much of it was based on a missal that had come to light in recent times. (Am I right?) He spoke of this paper with warmth and enthusiasm, as being the culmination of his life-work. I do hope that his failing eye-sight allowed him to finish this work, so dear to his heart.

I marvel at the courage of this man who, even at the age of ninety, was still using to the full those rare gifts God had given him, and sharing with us the fruits of his long years of reflection and study. I do not know now he died. I hope that his mental faculties were as sharp as ever. It would be poignantly sad if such a brilliant mind were dulled.

I thank God for the gift of this most dear friend, and for all that he has been to all the Columban Sisters.: His death is a personal loss for me. I miss him very deeply.

Gwynn, John, 1866-1915, Jesuit priest and chaplain

  • IE IJA J/1396
  • Person
  • 12 June 1866-12 October 1915

Born: 12 June 1866, Youghal, County Cork
Entered: 18 October 1884, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 1899, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1903
Died: 12 October 1915, Béthune, France - Military Chaplain

Member of the Mungret College, Limerick community at the time of death
Younger brother of William - RIP 1950
Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1892 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1902 at Linz Austria (ASR) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education at Coláiste Iognáid.

He studied Philosophy at Louvain and Theology at Milltown. He also did Regency in the Colleges, and at one stage was a Teacher for the Juniors. He was a man of brilliant achievements academically. He was for some years at Crescent as a Teacher and Operarius. He gave Lenten Lectures at Crescent and Gardiner St, reputedly brilliantly. For some years before he became a Chaplain to the troops he acted as Dean of Residence at University Hall.
1914 He became Chaplain to the Irish Guards and continued with them until his death in France 12 October 1915

The following Tribute was paid to him in a letter from Desmond Fitzgerald, Captain Commanding 1st Battalion Irish Guards 16/10/1915 :
“Dear Father Delaney, You will of course by now hard of Father Gwynn’s death, and I know full well that the universal sorrow felt by all ranks of this Battalion will be shared by you and all the members of your University, who knew him so well. No words of mind could express, or even give a faint idea of the amount of good he has done us all out here, or how bravely he has faced all dangers, and how cheerful and comforting he has always been. It is no exaggeration to say that he was loved by every officer, NCO and man in the battalion.
The Irish Guards owe him a deep and lasting debt of gratitude, and as long as any of us are left who saw him out here we shall never forget his wonderful life, and shall strive to lead a better life by following his example. The unfortunate shell landed in the door of the Headquarter dugout just as we had finished luncheon, on October 11th. Father Gwynn received one or two wounds in the leg, as well as a piece of shell through his back in his lung. He was immediately bound up and sent to hospital, but died from shock and injuries at 8am the next morning, October 12th. he was buried in the cemetery at Bethune at 10am October 13th. May his should rest in peace. But, although he has been taken from us, he will still be helping us, and rather than grieve at our loss, we must rejoice at his happiness. Yours sincerely, Desmond Fitzgerald..”

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/201511/john-gwynn-sj-no-greater-love/

John Gwynn SJ – “No greater love”
A memorial mass took place on Sunday 11 October 2015 at the Sacred Heart parish in Caterham, Surrey, to commemorate the centenary of the death of Irish Jesuit Fr. John Gwynn, who was Chaplain to the Irish Guards and who served in France during the First World War. Many knew him as a powerful and eloquent preacher at the Sacred Heart Church and at St. Francis Xavier’s Church in Dublin, where questions of sociology had a strong attraction for him. Fergus O’Donoghue SJ who represented the Irish province at the event said, “I was very glad that myself and Brother Michael O’Connor (former Royal Marine and British Jesuit) had gone because the local parish people had made such an effort, and there was a display on John Gwynn’s life, and generally it was just great.” A memorial plaque was erected in the Church by the Irish Guards who were based at Caterham barracks nearby. Bishop Richard Moth, the bishop of the diocese and former bishop to the Armed Forces, noted the enthusiasm of the Sacred Heart parish and presided over the special mass on Sunday evening. “It was by chance that an article of Fr. Gwynn was seen online by his grandniece from Massachusetts,” says Fr. Fergus. “She got in touch and sent a message. It was lovely because the whole parish got involved.” The mass itself featured the song We Remember You by children from St. Francis’ School as well as the recessional hymn Be Thou My Vision, based on St. Patrick’s Breastplate. Lord Desmond Fitzgerald, the Captain of the 1st Irish Guards has written: “It is certainly no exaggeration to say that Fr Gwynn was loved by every officer, N.C.O. and man in the battalion.” Furthermore, an Irish Guard who was also an Old Belvederian spoke of the Jesuit’s presence at the Medical Officer’s dugout so that he could be near his injured men, and that he organised sports and concerts to keep up morale. He even returned to the battlefield despite being crippled after a shell wounded him.
John Gwynn SJ experienced internal suffering during his lifetime. “It’s quite clear that he had a condition like bipolar disorder (a mental illness characterised by extreme high and low moods), then known as suffering from nerves,” says Fr. O’Donoghue. Through all of this, he was extremely brave and he was an enormously successful chaplain. Fr. Gwynn was fatally wounded in action near Vermelles, Northern France on 11 October 1915 and he died the next day at 50 years old. It was said that he would have been happy to die as a ‘soldier of God’.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280

Note from William Gwynn Entry :
William Gwynn’s father was a military man and had been transferred to Galway by the time that William and his younger brother John (who also entered the Society) were ready for their schooling. Both boys were educated at St Ignatius' College Galway.
.........After tertianship at Linz, Austria, 1901-02 with his brother John

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Gwynn 1866-1915
Fr John Gwynn was born in Youghal on June 18th 1866, and received his early education at St Ignatius Galway. He was one of those who made his novitiate at Loyola Dromore.

He was a man of brilliant attainments. His Lenten Lectures delivered at Limerick and Gardiner Street, were outstanding, and were published afterwards under the title of “Why am I a Catholic?” He acted as Principal of University Hall for some years.

In 1914 he became Chaplain to the Irish Guards, and was killed in France on October 12th 1915. The following are one or two excerpts from the Officer Commanding the Battalion at the time of his death :

“The Irish Guards owe him a deep and lasting debt of gratitude, and as long as any of us are left out here, we shall never forget his wonderful life, and shall strive to lead a better life by following his example. No words of mind could express or even give a faint idea of the amount of good e has done us all out here, or how bravely he faced all dangers, and how cheerful and comforting he has always been. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that he was loved by every Officer, NCO, and man in this battalion.

He was buried in the cemetery at Bethune at 10am on October 13th 1915. May he rest in peace”.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1916

Obituary

Father John Gwynn SJ

Though not. a pupil of Belvedere, Father Gwynn was connected with the College by teaching here for some time, and many who knew him here or came into contact with him in other ways will be glad to read the following brief sketch of his time as Chaplain to the Forces. It was sent to us by one of the Irish Guards, who writes of Father Gwynn thus :

“This account does not in any way exaggerate his doings. On the contrary more could be said by those who were more intimate friends of his.

When he joined us in Meteren last November twelve months. I had a conversation with him, in which I learned he was. an old Belvederian, but before my time. He was actually loved by the men of our battalion, and too much cannot be said of the way in which he looked after each and every man of the battalion.

His first experiences were very rough. It was January 15th when I saw him wading in water up to his chest to reach the front line of trenches to comfort the men with his jolly conversation.

He was as well known and appreciated by the other battalions which comprised our Brigade as he was with us, and made friends with all. He was taken to hospital suffering with lumbago a few days prior to the 18th May, 1915, when I was wounded. His loss was a great blow to all ranks: Not being present at the time, I can only imagine the regret his death caused to all those who had made his acquaintance”

The following is the account referred to :

A short appreciation of his work while he was attached to the 1st Bn Irish Guards, on active service, from November, 1914, until his death from wounds received in action on October 11th, 1915.

This account, written by request, is an attempt to give, quite shortly and . simply, a rough idea of Father Gwynn's work at the front with the 1st. Battalion Irish Gụards. No words could express the amount of good he did, and it is impossible to draw a true picture of his life and work. Only those who knew him personally and watched him, out there, can realise how wonderful his work was.

For many years before the outbreak of war, Father Gwynn was one of the governing body at University College, Dublin, but as soon as the war began he volunteered to act as Chaplain on active service. In the first week of November, 1914, he was attached to the 1st Battalion Irish Guards, and joined it forth with, having, as he often said afterwards, but little idea of what his work would be. He was our first war-time Chaplain, so there were no precedents to follow, and he had to strike out his own line. When he joined us he found the Battalion resting and re-equipping in a little French village; for it had just come through very bad days at Ypres, and was greatly reduced in officers and men. We remained in this village until the week before Christmas, and during this rest we were reinforced by large drafts from home. Father Gwynn at once set to work to get to know the men, and very quickly they understood each other, for he and they were Irishmen. His tact and judgment gained for him the confidence of officers and men, and after a very few days he settled into his new surroundings as if he had been in them from the beginning.

From Christmas week onwards the Battalion was employed in trench warfare, and underwent many vicissitudes. Father Gwynn shared with us every hardship and trial throughout the wet winter; he lived with us, and became part of the Battalion. When we were in the trenches or in action he stayed with the Medical Officer at the Battalion Regimental Aid Post, near the Headquarters - the place to which wounded men are taken for first dressings. At other times he would share the Medical Officer's dug-out, so that he might lose no time if a man were wounded but go to him if need be at any moment of the day or night. During the day he would constantly go round the trenches, even when they were being shelled, and visit and talk to the men, heedless of his own danger.

When the Battalion was in billets or resting he would hold services, hear confessions, or give help to any man in his own billet, or in the local churches. Those churches in which he held his services had often had their roofs blown off by German shells. He was ready, too, to take an active part in any concerts or sports for the men, and employed his spare time in training some of them to form a choir to sing at his services. As far as was humanly possible he attended all the wounded and dying, and administered Extreme Unction whenever this was necessary; and he invariably read the burial service over men who were killed, even when it meant, as often it did especially after the British advance in September - that he must stand up at night in the open on a battlefield swept by bullets.

On February 6th, 1915; when an attack was being made, Father Gwynn was slightly wounded by a shell which burst near him. He was shaken, but remained at duty. In April and early May he suffered much from lumbago, but pluckily stayed at work till the middle of May, when, completely crippled, he was carried into hospital on a stretcher. He was absent two months, staying at different French hospitals. During that time another. Chaplain was posted to the Battalion to carry on his work, but Father Gwynn returned in mid-July, before lie was really fit to do so. By sheer force of will, and with the necessary amount of care, he gradually regained a great part .of. his normal health, but he was never quite so strong as he had been before his illness. Nevertheless, from the moment he returned to the Battalion he took up the work he had begun, and continued it right up to his death. In October, 1915, we were employed in holding and consolidating the trenches captured from the Germans, and those days were some of the most unpleasant in our experience. At this time more, if possible, than at any other, did Father Gwynn show the most splendid courage and unselfish care for the men. Certain portions of the line came in for vigorous shelling, and the trench was often blown in by aerial torpedoes, which in some cases buried a number of men. At the worst place would be found Father Gwynn, always ready to help the wounded, or to administer the Blessed Sacrament to the dying. He made it his unaltering practice to write to the relations of any man that had fallen, and in this way his words will have brought comfort to many desolated Irish homes. Thus each day he did his work.

On October 11th, 1915, he was at luncheon in the headquarters dug-out with four companions when a German shell landed and burst in the doorway. Father Gwynn received many wounds in different parts of the body, and one piece of shell struck his back and pierced a lung. That same shell also wounded our Commanding Officer, so that he too afterwards died, and slightly wounded another. Luckily, the Medical Officer was present, and Father Gwynn's wounds were at once. dressed; and, although he was in great pain, he was only unconscious for a few minutes. The stretcher on which he lay was carried with difficulty down a long communication trench-in many places blown in by German shells - and eventually reached the motor ambulance that took him to the Officers' Hospital at Béthune, where he received every possible attention. But it was the end. He died at eight o'clock next morning, October 12th, 1915, from wounds and shock. He was buried at 10 am on October 13th in the Béthune cemetery, where lie so many other officers and men who have likewise given their lives for their country. The burial service was read by Mgr Keating, the head of the Roman Catholic Chaplains in France. All the men would have wished to be present, but the Battalion was still in the trenches, and few could be spared. Yet many other officers and men of other units managed to be there, It can truly be said that the news of his. death was felt as a blow by every officer, NCO and man, and each one realised the loss, pot merely of their chaplain, but of a dearly loved friend.

A monument of marble has been raised by the Battalion over his grave, which bears these two inscriptions :

RIP REV FATHER JOHN GWYNN SJ,
attached to the
1st Irish Guards
He died at Béthune on October 12th,
1915, from wounds received in action
near Vermelles on October 11th,

  1. Aged 44 years.

This Monument has been erected by all ranks of the 1st Bat. Irish Guards in grateful Remembrance of their Beloved Chaplain, Father Gwynn, who was with them on Active Service for nearly, 12 months from Nov 1914, until his death, and shared with unfailing devotion all their trials and hardships.

Father Gwynn was fortunate in his death, and in the cause for which he died, and also fortunate, as he often said, in finding in the 1st Battalion of Irish Guards a splendid and worthy field for his work - a body of men capable of vision and of inspiration as well as. of courage and faith. And now can only be said over again what I said in the beginning : by his deeds, which cannot be expressed in words, he has left to those who saw him at his work an in indelible memory, and -an inspiration.

May his soul rest in peace!”

◆ The Clongownian, 1916

Obituary

Father John Gwynn SJ

Chaplain to the 1st Irish Guards

Born 1866. OT 1884. Died of wounds, Béthune, Oct. 12th, 1915

The following notice of Father Gwynn's death appeared in the Freeman's Journal :

We regret to announce the receipt of intelligence from the War Office by his relatives of the death at the Front of the Rev John Gwynn SJ. The sad event took place on the 12th inst. Father Gwynn had been at the Front almost since the beginning of the war, having been appointed Chaplain to the Irish Guards. He was wounded early this year, and though ill and suffering since that time, and occasionally in hospital, remained at his post as long as he was able. His loss will be greatly felt, not only by the men of his gallant regiment, but by all who had the pleasure and honour of knowing him and his work in Dublin. He was a Galway man, born half a century ago, entered the Society of Jesus in 1884, and was a student at historic Louvain, subsequently becoming a professor in Clongowes and in the University College, Dublin. He was a powerful and eloquent preacher, and questions of sociology had a strong attraction for him.

One of the papers he read some years ago before the Catholic Truth Society on social problems in Dublin was of special interest. His Lenten Lectures at St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, received much attention.

The high esteem in which Father Gwynn was held by both officers and men is shown in the following letter from the late Lord Desmond Fitzgerald to Father William Delany SJ

1st Batt, Irish Guards, BEF,
October 16th, 1936

Dear Rev Father Delany,
You will, of course, have heard by now of Father Gwynn's death, and I know full well that the universal sorrow felt by all ranks of this battalion will be shared by you and all the members of your University, who knew him so well. No words of mine could express or even give a faint idea of the amount of good he has done us all out here, or how bravely he has faced all dangers, and how cheerful and comforting he has always been. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that he was loved by every officer, NCO and man in the battalion. The Irish Guards owe him a deep and lasting debt of gratitude, and as long as any of us are left who saw him out here we shall never forget his wonderful life, and shall strive to lead a better life by following his example. The unfortunate shell landed in the door of the Headquarter dug-out just as we had finished luncheon, on October 11th. Father Gwynn received one or two wounds in the leg, as well as a piece of shell in his back through his lung. He was immediately bound up and sent to hospital, but died from shock and his injuries at 8 am the next morning, October 12th. He was buried in the cemetery at Bethune, at 10 am, on October 13th. May his soul rest in peace. Although he has been taken from us, he will still be helping us; and rather than grieve at our loss, we must rejoice at his happiness.

Yours truly,
DESMOND FITZGERALD,
Captain Commanding 1st Batt, Irish Guards.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1916

Obituary

Father John Gwynn SJ

Most of our readers will have heard of the death of Father Gwynn, which occurred on October 12th, 1915, in France, where he was acting as Chaplain to the First Battalion of the Irish Guards. Our College has much reason to mourn his loss. He was on our Teaching Staff in 1902-03 and again in 1913-14. Soon after the outbreak of the war he volunteered as an Army Chaplain, and those in this house can well remember the eagerness with which he awaited the all too tardy, acceptance of his offer by the War Office, for he was in spirit and temper a born soldier In November, 1914, he was attached to the 1st Battalion of the Irish Guards as, their Chaplain. He was no stranger to that regiment; for he gave retreats to them more than once at Knightsbridge and Caterham.

The life of a Chaplain at the front must be a busy one; and certainly Father John did not spare himself: “When the men were in the trenches” a Guardsman says of him, “he constantly shared the Medical Officer's quarters, either in his dug-out or at the Regimental Aid Post, where the wounded were taken for first dressings”. It was his practice also to write to the relations of any man that had fallen, and thus was the means of bringing consolation to many an Irish home. He still managed to spare time to take part in any concerts or sports got up by the men, and he contrived to train some of them to form a choir for his services. He had indeed a great fund of gaiety and bonhomie, and he had much of the boy about him. It was a treat to hear him render “Clare's Dragoons”, “De Wet” or “Corcabaskin”. He had great gifts as a lecturer too, and as a preacher. At the front he had much to suffer. Shortly after his arrival he was knocked down by the concussion of a shell and slightly wounded by a splinter. He soon, however, recovered consciousness and did not even go off duty. On another occasion, while ministering to the wounded under fire, it would seem that he was almost buried under a fall of sand and clay, caused by the bombardment. He had to spend a month or two in a hospital in France because of severe lumbago, and indeed returned to his men before he was completely cured. Finally, on the 11th of October he was in a dug-out with some of the officers when an enemy shell landed in the doorway and, exploding, injured several of them. Portion of it pierced Father Gwynn's left lung, and he was wounded in several other places. Taken at once to hospital he lingered through the night, preserving perfect consciousness. Having received the Last Sacraments he expired calmly on the morning of the 12th. He was buried at Bethune next day with solemn rites, the last blessing being read by Mgr Keatinge, Senior Chaplain to the Forces, who in a letter subsequently described him as “a splendid priest, absolutely devoted to his men”. Another soldier who shared his dangers has written of him - “By his deeds he has left to those who saw him at his work an indelible memory and an inspiration”.

The marble monument which the Irish Guards have raised to his memory in the churchyard at Bethune has this inscription :

R.I.P.
REV. FATHER JOHN GWYNN, S.J.,
Attached to the
1st Irish Guards,
He died at Bethune on October 12th, 1915,
from wounds received in action near
Vermelles on October 11th, 1915,
Aged 49 years.
This monument has been erected by all Ranks of the 1st,
Bat. Irish Guards in
grateful Remembrance of their Beloved
Chaplain, Father Gwynn, who was with
them on Active Service for nearly twelve
months, from Nov 1914, until his death,
and shared with unfailing devotion all
their trials and hardships.

To his sister, Mrs. Daly, Mount Auburn, Mullingar, and to his brother, Father William Gwynn SJ, of Manresa, Norwood, S Australia, we offer our deepest sympathy. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John Gwynn (1866-1915)

Was born in Youghal and received his early education at St Ignatius' College, Galway. He entered the Society in 1884 and made his higher studies at Louvain and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1899. Father Gwynn spent three years as master at the Crescent, 1903-06. With the exception of one year, 1910-11, when he was temporarily employed as lecturer in theology at Milltown Park, he was henceforth a member of the community at UCD, first at St Stephen's Green and later at Leeson St. He was the first warden of Winton House, the parent of Modern University Hall, Hatch St, Dublin. Father Gwynn volunteered as chaplain in the first world war and earned fame for his courage and devotion to his men. He died in the discharge of his duties as a priest.

Gwynn, William, 1865-1950, Jesuit priest and chaplain

  • IE IJA J/1397
  • Person
  • 17 March 1865-22 October 1950

Born: 17 March 1865, Youghal, County Cork
Entered: 20 October 1883, Milltown Park Dublin; Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 29 July 1900, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1903
Died: 22 October 1950, Milltown Park, Dublin

First World War Chaplain

Older brother of John - RIP 1915

by 1888 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1890 at Exaeten College Limburg, Netherlands (GER) studying
Came to Australia 1902
by 1902 at Linz Austria (ASR) making Tertianship
by 1919 Military Chaplain : 8th Australian Infantry Brigade, AIF France

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
William Gwynn’s father was a military man and had been transferred to Galway by the time that William and his younger brother John (who also entered the Society) were ready for their schooling. Both boys were educated at St Ignatius' College Galway. Gwynn entered the Society at Milltown Park, 20 October 1883, and studied rhetoric as a junior up to II Arts at the Royal University while living at Milltown Park, 1885-87. Philosophy was at Louvain and Exaeten. 1887-90, and regency at Belvedere Clongowes, and Mungret, 1890-97. Theology followed at Milltown Park. 1897-1901 After tertianship at Linz, Austria, 1901-02 with his brother John, Gwynn, he was sent to Australia where he taught at Riverview, St Aloysius' College and St Patrick's College, 1902-11, before engaging in parish ministry at Sevenhill, 1911-13, and Norwood 1913-17. He taught for a further few years at St Patrick’s College 1917-18, before becoming a military chaplain of the 8th Infantry Brigade AIF, 1918-20, travelling to Egypt, France and Germany. Gwynn returned to Ireland after the war and taught philosophy and mathematics at Mungret. He was later in charge of the People's Church at Clongowes until 1930, and then performed rural missionary work retreats with great vigor and success throughout the country, a ministry he enjoyed while in Australia. In 1930 he was transferred to parish work at Gardiner Street until 1944. In earlier he was in charge of the Night Workers' Sodality. For the last six years of his life he was attached to Milltown Park, living in great cheer and contentment, praying for the Society.
The Irish Province News, January 1951, described Gwynn as an original character. In whatever company he found himself he became the centre of interest by his wit and personality. He was extraordinarily outspoken and frank in his remarks about others and himself. He never made any secret about his own plans and projects. At first sight, he might have been seen as egotistical or cynical or a man who had shed many of the kindly illusions about human nature. But much of that frankness was part of his sense of humor and a pose, it helped to make him interesting and to amuse. He was not a man to give his best in ordinary, every day work. He wanted change and variety. He liked to plough a lonely furrow a man of original mind, who had his very personal way of looking at people and things. He had all the gifts of a preacher - appearance, voice, personality, an original approach to any subject, and a gift for a striking, arresting phrase. His retreats were memorable for their freshness and originality. As a confessor some respected him for being broad, sympathetic and understanding.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 26th Year No 1 1951

Milltown Park :
We regret to record the death, on. Oct. 22nd, of Milltown's Grand Old Man, Father William Gwynn. Only a few days before we had celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his priesthood and heard a message from him, wire-recorded in his sickroom.

Obituary :
Father William Gwynn
Fr. Gwynn, who died after a brief illness at Milltown Park on 22nd October, was born at Youghal, Co. Cork, on the 17th March, 1865. His father was a military man and had been transferred to Galway by the time that William and his younger brother John (who also entered the Society) were ready for their schooling. So, it was at St. Ignatius' College in that city that they both received their education. William entered the noviceship at Milltown Park on 20th October, 1883, and had Fr. William O’Farrell for Master of Novices and also for Superior when the new novitiate at Dromore was opened in May of the following year. He took his Vows at Milltown Park on 1st November, 1885, and studied rhetoric up to II Arts at the Royal University. He went to Louvain and Exaten (in Holland) for his philosophy, 1887-90, and in the latter year began his Colleges. He taught for six years at Belvedere, Clongowes and Mungret, in that order, and then studied theology at Milltown Park, where he was ordained on 29th July by Dr. William Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin. After his fourth year's theology he went, with his brother Fr. John, to Linz in Austria for his tertianship. In the autumn of 1902 Fr, William was sent to Australia, where he taught at Riverview, Sydney, for a year and then at St. Aloysius for six and at St. Patrick's, Melbourne, for two years. He was operarius at Sevenhill 1910-12 and at Norwood Residence for the following four years when he had charge of the men's sodality and the confraternity of “Bona Mors”. When at St. Patrick's, Melbourne, as master and operarius in 1918, he was appointed chaplain to the 8th Australian Infantry Brigade and travelled with his men to Egypt, France and Germany. He was not “demobbed” till 1920, and thereafter remained in the Province. For the next two years Fr. Gwynn was philosophy and mathematics master at Mungret College and then went to Clongowes, where he had charge of the People's Church till 1930. During this period he conducted retreats with great vigour and success up and down the country, a ministry to which he had devoted himself zealously when in Australia.
In 1930 Fr. William was transferred to Gardiner Street and was operarius till 1944. For the first dozen years of this period he was also in charge of the Night Workers' Sodality, in which he took a great interest. For the last six years of his life he was attached to Milltown Park, where he lived in great cheer and contentment, discharging his task of “orans pro Societate” agreeably and, we may well hope, fruitfully. Two days before his death a graceful tribute to him appeared in the papers on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his Ordination to the priesthood.
Fr. Gwynn was emphatically a character, an original. In whatever company he found himself, he became at once the centre of interest by his wit and personality. He was extraordinarily outspoken and frank in his remarks about others and himself. He never made any secret about his own plans and projects, about those little manifestations of self-interest which most people keep discreetly veiled. He was equally frank and outspoken about others. At first sight, one would think him egotistical, or cynical, or a man who had shed many of the kindly illusions about human nature. But much of that frankness was part of his sense of humour and a pose. It helped to make him interesting and to amuse.
He was not a man to give his best in ordinary, hum-drum, every clay work. He wanted change and variety; lie liked to plough a lonely furrow. He was a man of original mind, who had his own very personal way of looking at people and things. He had all the gifts of a preacher, appearance, voice, personality, a very original approach to any subject, and a gift of a striking, arresting phrase. His retreats, too, very memorable for their freshness and originality.
He was the least pharisaical of men. He aimed sedulously at concealing his solid piety and simple lively Faith. His rather disconcerting frankness, his trenchant wit, his talk about himself, were really a pose by which he tried to mask his spiritual inner self. It could not be said that he had a large spiritual following of people who looked to him for help. But what he missed in numbers was made up in quality and variety. It was well known that men of the world who got no help from other priests made Fr. Gwynn their confessor and friend. He was broad, sympathetic and understanding and no one knows the amount of good he did to those who came to depend on him. R.I.P

Hackett, William, 1878-1954, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/171
  • Person
  • 02 May 1878-09 July 1954

Born: 02 May 1878, Kilkenny
Entered: 07 September 1895, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 28 July 1912, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1915, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 09 July 1954, Belloc House, Kew, Melbourne, Australia

Transcribed : HIB to ASL 05/04/1931

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1900 in Vals France (LUGD) studying
by 1902 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying

◆ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University onlne
Hackett, William Philip (1878–1954)
by James Griffin
James Griffin, 'Hackett, William Philip (1878–1954)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hackett-william-philip-6515/text11183, published first in hardcopy 1983

Catholic priest; radio religious broadcaster; schoolteacher

Died : 9 July 1954, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

William Philip Hackett (1878-1954), priest, teacher and propagandist, was born on 2 May 1878 at Kilkenny, Ireland, son of John Byrene Hackett, medical practitioner, and his wife Bridget, née Doheny. The Hacketts, a family of writers and bibliophiles, could trace their Irish patriotism to the battle of the Boyne (1690). Educated at St Stanislaus, Tullamore and Clongowes Wood colleges, William entered the Society of Jesus in 1896 and studied in France and Holland where he found his 'nerves' intolerable and theology intractable. He taught at Clongowes for six years and, after ordination in 1912, at Crescent College, Limerick, for nine. His friendship with participants such as Eamon de Valera in the 1916 rebellion, his republicanism and ardent loquacity influenced his removal in 1922 to Australia.

After teaching in Sydney at St Aloysius College and then in Melbourne at Xavier College, he was appointed parish priest of St Ignatius, Richmond, in 1925. Meanwhile his reputation for Irish patriotism, scholarship and energy had endeared him to Archbishop Daniel Mannix, who encouraged him to found the Central Catholic Library. It opened in May 1924 and by 1937 more than 2000 borrowers had access to about 60,000 books. Hackett's axiom was: 'a country that does not read does not develop; a community without spiritual ideas cannot survive'. Though he lacked business or administrative sense, he triumphed over financial problems owing to his humorous and courtly personality, and a showmanship backed by a wide-ranging acquaintance with literature. The library became a centre for discussion groups of graduates of Catholic secondary schools and at Newman College, University of Melbourne. Hackett fostered the emergence of an intelligentsia in the Campion Society, founded in 1931. As chaplain he took a heuristic line; laymen, he felt obliged to say, were not the clergy's inferiors.

Appalled by the Depression and the growth of communism, he helped to launch the influential Sunday Catholic Hour broadcast (3AW) in 1932 and was a frequent commentator; he watched over the foundation of the monthly Catholic Worker in 1936 and the national secretariat of Catholic Action in 1937 of which he became ecclesiastical assistant from 1943. While condemning both Nazis and Spanish socialists and extolling constitutional freedoms, he praised the pro-family and anti-communist policies of Fascist regimes. He helped to foster the Catholic Women's Social Guild, addressed the inaugural meeting of the Australian section of St Joan's International Alliance and supported the innovation of the Grail lay female institute.

Hackett's zeal did not make him generally popular during his rectorship of Xavier College in 1935-40. He ridiculed the emphasis on competitive sport (though he enjoyed vigorous bush-walking), joked about social committees, caused resignations from the Old Xaverians' Association by putting liturgical study groups before conviviality and, forming an elite student Catholic Action group, invited Campions to inspire students to reform capitalism as well as fight communism. In spite of a huge school debt he responded to Mannix's urging to found a second preparatory school, Kostka Hall, in Brighton and was held responsible for a later cheap sale of choice Xavier land to clear liabilities. His concern was less with curriculum and instruction than with activities such as the revival of the cadet corps. He farewelled the class in 1939: 'Keep fit. Don't grumble. Shoot straight. Pray hard'.

This militancy, and a vein of conspiracy, flowed through his later years. His health had been precarious: in the early 1940s he was confined to light parish work and from 1943 counselling at Xavier, then from 1948 at Kostka Hall. In 1952, however, he was appointed first superior of the pro-'Movement' Institute of Social Order. He wrote a pamphlet Why Catholic Action? in 1949, itemising its official bodies but failing to mention 'the Movement'. He voted for the Communist Party dissolution bill of 1951, admired John Wren's simple faith and marvelled at his ill-repute. He was a founder of the Aisling Society which propagated Irish culture, and he had a special knowledge of illuminated manuscripts. In 1942 he became a trustee of the Public Library, Museums, and National Gallery of Victoria.

Obliged as a confidant to consult with and entertain Mannix on Monday evenings and to accompany him on his annual vacations at Portsea, Hackett appeared to relish both these privileges and the role of court jester but his letters show he disliked being 'a quasi-episcopal hanger-on'. A man of 'gasps, grunts and angular gestures', he was a facile butt for Mannix's friendly if sharp jibes, but he was revered by Catholic intellectuals for his kindliness, enthusiastic piety, scrupulous poverty and scattered erudition. He boasted of his schooldays acquaintance with James Joyce and then castigated himself in private for such vanity. On retreat he complained of spiritual emptiness, occasionally scourged himself lightly but wondered if this were not self-indulgence. A feckless jay-walker, he died on 9 July 1954, a week after being hit by a car on a rainy Melbourne night. He was wearing a penitential hair shirt. In his panegyric Mannix called Hackett the founder of Catholic Action in Australia, praised his vibrant humour and said he was the humblest man he had ever known. He was buried in Boroondara cemetery.

Select Bibliography
G. Dening, Xavier (Melb, 1978)
U. M. L. Bygott, With Pen and Tongue (Melb, 1980)
Catholic Worker, Aug 1954
Irish Province News (Dublin), Oct 1954
Xavier College, Xaverian, 1954
Herald (Melbourne), 28 Jan, 4 Feb 1935
Argus (Melbourne), 10 July 1954
Advocate (Melbourne), 15 July 1954
C. H. Jory, The Campion Era: The Development of Catholic Social Idealism in Australia (M.A. thesis, Australian National University, 1974)
Hackett papers (Society of Jesus Provincial Archives, Hawthorn, Melbourne)
private information.

Note from Jeremiah M Murphy Entry
With another Kilkenny Jesuit, W. P. Hackett, he became confidant and adviser to Archbishop Mannix; this influence may explain what was, for his Order, an unusually long rectorship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
William Hackett came from a large family in Kilkenny. His father, a doctor, was a friend of Charles Stewart Parnell who had been in trouble with the Irish clergy for his radical politics. Together with his five brothers, William was given a free education at Clongowes Wood College. He entered the Jesuits at Tullabeg, 7 September 1895, studied philosophy at Vals, France, and taught at Clongowes, 1902-09. After theology studies at Milltown Park, Dublin, 1909-13, he taught at Belvedere College, Dublin, until 1922, when he was sent to Australia.
He performed parish duties at Richmond, Melbourne, 1924-34. From 1934-40 he was rector of Xavier College, Kew, founding Kostka Hall, Brighton, in 1936. Work in the Hawthorn parish followed, 1940-42.
From 1943-52 he lived at Xavier College and Kostka Hall, but his main work was as founding Director of the Central Catholic Library, which began it 1925. This locale became the meeting place for those associated with the “Catholic Worker”, a newspaper founded in 1936 influenced by the social teaching of the Church, especially “Rerum Novarum” of Leo XIII, and campaigned for the rights of workers. Hackett became the ecclesiastical assistant to the Secretariat for “Catholic Action” and the “Movement” in those years, roles that meant attendance at meetings, and advice given to those who sought it, but an appointment that never implied clerical control. Later, Hackett was elected a trustee of the Melbourne Public Library and National Gallery in 1942, and also became a foundation member of the “Aisling Society”, an Irish Australian cultural society whose main interests were the study of the history, life and culture of Ireland, and of the effect of Irish heritage on Australian life.
A lecturer and writer on a wide variety of subjects, Hackett contributed to “Studies”, “The Irish Ecclesiastical Record”, “Twentieth Century”, the “Advocate”, and other periodicals. He became Director of the Institute of Social Order at Belloc House, 1952-54, which was established by Archbishop Mannix as a centre for the education of trade unionists. Not only was it a place for training Bob Santamaria's Movement personnel, but also for anyone interested in exploring Catholic teaching on social justice. Hackett living at Belloc House meant that he became an important observer of Movement activities for the archbishop. Unfortunately, he had a sad end, dying ten days after being hit by a taxi crossing Cotham Road on a dark rainy night. At his funeral Mannix spoke fondly of his friend of 30 years. It was a sad loss to Mannix.
Oral history has perpetuated the myth that Hackett was deeply involved with the Republican faction in Ireland that led to the civil war in 1922. He was a friend of Erskine Childers who was later executed, and Michael Collins who was later murdered. Irish Jesuits claimed he would have been imprisoned for activities that included being a courier for an illegal news sheet edited by the rebels, as well as hearing confessions of “irregulars”. It was said that these were some reasons for his move to Australia. All through his life he kept correspondence with former Irish colleagues, usually writing in Gaelic. It was these activities in Ireland that drew him towards the archbishop of Melbourne, who also kept a close watch on political activities in Ireland.
A close personal friendship wide Dr Mannix developed, with Hackett becoming his companion every Monday evening at Rahel, the archbishop's residence, during which he reported to the Archbishop any news, local or from Ireland, from the previous week. Hackett's companionship at Raheen with the archbishop became particularly important when Mannix entertained some important dignitary. Mannix did not like to be alone with such people, and relied upon Hackett’s charm and wit to help entertain his guest. This companionship also extended to accompanying the Archbishop during his four week annual summer vacation at Portsea that in later years stretched to seven weeks, a task that did not bring cheer to Hackett. Brenda Niall in her biography wrote of Hackett that he “was the diplomat, mediator, envoy, entertainer and candid friend to the archbishop”, as “an essential link between Mannix and a new generation of intellectuals” that met at the Central Catholic Library This resulted in Hackett becoming the principal adviser to Frank Maher in founding the Campion Society the real beginning of lay Catholic Action in Australia.
Hackett was delighted when appointed rector of Xavier College, but others were not so pleased either at the beginning or at the end of the appointment. He was assigned probably because of his high degree of personal charisma and apostolic zeal.
During the course of his five years as rector, Hackett presided over the the disenchantment of teachers, parents and Old Boys, as well as the entrenchment of the school in the position of financial insolvency which he had inherited in the wake of the Great Depression. In fact, the school probably needed a man of less vision: a man focused on problem solving. His vision for Xavier was the personal formation of a Catholic intelligentsia for the purpose of rescuing the nation from the encroaching forces of evil, of which he was acutely conscious. He wanted the boys to assimilate Catholic social principles.
The intellectual and physical formation of his Volunteer Cadet Corps formed the essence of his initiative as rector of Xavier College. He was disappointed that Xavier College was not
producing more political and cultural leaders. He was aware that most Xavier boys preferred a career in medicine. law or business. Xavier's ends, Hackett insisted, were not his own but those of society in general, and the Church in particular. He singled out the Old Xaverian Association for criticism, suggesting that they should involve themselves in Catholic Action, and not just in sport and social activities.
His general lack of reverence for the traditions they valued manifested itself in particular actions such as his interference with the membership qualifications of their sporting teams, and his uncritical application of a directive of Mannix banning the serving of liquor at Catholic social functions. This last action was instrumental in dividing the organisation, rendering it virtually inoperative for several.
Hackett had a vision of intellectual Christianity for the school, and his spirituality demanded strength not of performance, but of mind. He established the Bellarmine Society, a junior Campion Society in which the students were given an intellectual introduction to modern sociological trends and to Catholic culture. The subordination of free logical thought to ideology or rules was unacceptable to him He scorned unthinking observance of positive laws, and did his best to ensure that responsibility was the keynote when it came to the observance of rules and regulations at Xavier. He even allowed senior boys to smoke on certain occasions.
His interest in debating was strong, and he introduced the Oxford Union or Parliamentary form. His primary concern was in fostering the art of public speaking rather than the
dialectic itself.
Preferring a spirit of truth to a spirit of competition, Hackett ridiculed emphasis on competitive sport and disputed the identification of good education with good examination results. He believed education had little to do with passing exams, and occurred, more often than not, outside the classroom. It was a luxury that involved financial cost and sacrifice, and was available only to the privileged, even if it was intended to benefit the whole of society. He frequently annoyed prefects of studies when he displayed a lack of deference for formal studies. He thought little of abandoning his own classes or taking students out of other classes, for purposes which he - but clearly not many of his colleagues - thought were more important.
His emphasis on responsibility was a manifestation of Hackett's adventurous bent of character, an attribute that did not lend itself to skill in administration. He had an enquiring mind, exotic taste, and often curious judgment. He managed to endear himself to many people in the school, even some of those with whom he clashed. And he was also a favorite of the
other heads of the Public Schools, who could appreciate his personal qualities, including his sense of humour and breadth of interest, without having to work under his less than efficient administration.
His adventures with his senior boys were not exclusively intellectual. Fond of bushwalking himself, he would take them on expeditions into the country, and occasionally camping, on the South Coast of New South Wales. He enjoyed the company of the boys, and they appreciated his humour, his lively mind, and unexpected comments. They respected him, but did not hold him in awe. He sent boys to Somers Camp to know those from other schools and to learn from different walks of life.
His financial administration was not successful and it was apparent that by the end of his term as rector he was out of place at Xavier College. He was certainly visionary, hut this was not needed at the time.
As a man and priest, he was always most courteous and showed genuine charity to all people. He was a man of deep and wide learning, but also had intelligence and sensibility, an artist as well as a scholar. He was a man of action. Besides founding the Catholic Library, he established in connection with it the “Catholic Evidence Lectures”, which later grew into the radio “Catholic Hour”. He also helped with the National Catholic Girls' Movement. With all these activities, he was most unassuming and kind, and he was noted for his exemplary example of personal poverty. He was certainly one of the more influential Jesuits who worked in Australia.

Note from John Phillips Entry
In 1954 Phillips was asked to take over the Catholic Central Library after the death of William Hackett.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 2nd Year No 4 1927

Australia :
The Central Catholic Library, started by Fr. Hackett, is going strong. The new catalogue shows that it already contains 5,000 volumes with a yearly circulation of about 10,000. The Third series of lectures “The Renaissance” organised in connection with the Library, are proving a great success. Count O'Loghlen gave Fr. Hackett more than £500 for the Library. Both Count and Father are connected with Kilkenny.

Irish Province News 6th Year No 2 1931

Australia :

The following is an extract from a letter from the brother of the Australian Attorney-General, the Hon, Frank Brenman M. P. The writer is a leading solicitor in Melbourne :
“As I have just returned from a visit to Fr. Hackett at St. Evin's hospital I may say something about his recovery which will rank with anything you may have heard or seen at Lourdes.
Fr. Hackett had been consuming for several weeks certain tablets prescribed for rheumatism, when suddenly he broke down.These tablets were meant to be taken only for a time and then discontinued. It was now discovered that the tablets had been absorbed into his system, and were actually destroying the organs, especially the liver. Towards the end of August, I think it was, he was hovering at death's door, and the doctors pronounced the case to be absoluted beyond hope. On the last Friday of the month, at Benediction, Fr. Boylan S. J., who was taking Fr. Hackett's place, turned round and asked us to offer prayers for Fr. Hackett, as word had just come from the hospital that he was sinking rapidly and could not live through the night.
Next morning, Fr. Hackett, who was to have died during the night, called for that days' newspapers, presumably to read his own obituary notice. What had happened?
During the previous week Heaven's Gates had been stormed, and Prayers were offered up in every Church and in every convent for Fr, Hackett’a recovery. For that intention the Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament offered up a special novena, and on the last day their church was packed to the doors. Their founder is on the way to canonization, and the Fathers were anxious to have as many genuine miracles as possible. They took up a relic to the hospital, started their novena, and from the first were full of confidence. This confidence was not shared by everyone. A very shrewd, level headed Jesuit put his view of the matter in this form : “Miracle or no miracle Fr. Hackett cannot live.” 1 the other hand, it was said that a certain nun received sufficient assurance to declare that he would live. During it all (as Fr. Boylan put. it) in Fr Hackett preserved an even keel. He desired neither to live nor to die, but to accept with resignation whatever was his lot,
For a week he continued to make excellent progress, but then one night the said to his medical attendant : “Doctor when this thing was attacking every organ did it attack my throat at all?” The doctor said “no, but why do you ask the question?” “Because I have a nasty feeling in my throat” was the answer. The doctor examined and drew back in horror. The throat
was gangrenous, highly infectious, and must have a fatal result.
Hopes were dashed, a miracle was denied them, and the faith of the people was to be tried more than ever.
The nun-sister in charge was told that the end was in sight, that death would now come quickly and naturally. She listened and at once made up her mind to take a course not usual in hospitals. She took a small paper medal of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, dissolved it in a glass of water and gave it to the patient to drink. Next morning all signs of infection had disappeared, nor have they been felt or heard of since”
Shortly afterwards Fr. Hackett took a trip to Queensland to give the liver which, it was said, had been dissolved out of the system, a chance to grow again.

Irish Province News 29th Year No 4 1954

Obituary :

The news of the tragic death of Fr. Hackett, as a result of injuries suffered in a car accident in Kew, Melbourne, on the First Friday of July, caused a profound shock to his many friends in both the Irish and the Australian Provinces.
Fr. Hackett was a native of Kilkenny, where he was born in 1878, son of the late Mr. John Byrne Hackett, M.D. Educated at Clongowes Wood College, he entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus' College, Tullamore, in 1895. He went to Vals, France, for his philosophical studies and was a master in Clongowes from 1902 to 1909. He studied his theology at Milltown Park, Dublin, where he was ordained in 1912.
Fr. Hackett completed his religious training at St. Stanislaus' College in 1914, and was then appointed to the Sacred Heart College, Limerick, until 1922, when he went to Melbourne. He was master first at Xavier College, then Assistant Superior of the Richmond Parish of St. Ignatius. He was appointed Rector of Xavier College in 1934, a post he held till 1940. It was during that period that he founded the college preparatory school at Brighton in 1937. He founded and directed for many years the Central Catholic Library, which was modelled on the Dublin library of the same name. Fr. Hackett was a brother of Mr. Francis Hackett, author and historian, and of Miss Florence Hackett, playwright; he was also an intimate friend of the Archbishop of Melbourne, Most Rev. Dr. Mannix, and usually spent holidays with him at Queenscliff.
From the above brief record of the life and work of Fr. Hackett it is difficult, after the lapse of more than thirty years since he left his native land never to return, to give an adequate account of the great work he accomplished for God, the Society and Ireland during the early active years of his apostolate at home.
But we, his near contemporaries, have no difficulty in giving at least an estimate of his personality as it stands out in all its freshness in our minds today after the lapse of a generation. To us he was the living embodiment of the young man in the Gospel as he asked Christ : “What is yet wanting to me? What else shall I do?” The dominant note in his character was an unceasing, an almost restless desire and striving to do “something extra” for God, to be engaged in some work of super-erogation, especially if it was a matter of “overtime charity” for one of his own community. If there was a sick member of the community who needed special attention, it was invariably Fr. Hackett who supplied the need. If there was an extra class to be taken at a moment's notice, it was always Fr. Hackett who filled the gap.
With externs also it was the same story : if there was an accident down the street in Limerick, the odds were that the priest rendering first aid was Father Hackett. If an unruly group of schoolboys were threatening to disturb the peace of Clongowes, you could take it for granted that order would be restored as soon as Fr. Hackett appeared on the scene.
His room (like that of other restless workers for God) was more like a general stores than a human habitation : lantern-slides, photo plates, weather-charts, directories and catalogues, &c., &c., but always near the door the prie-dieu “cleared for action”, proclaimed a man who, in spite of all his activities, lived a deep interior life, hidden with Christ in God.
In 1922, Father Hackett was sent to Australia. It was the transition period in Ireland, the epoch that followed the “Four Glorious Years” and culminated in the establishment of the “Free State”. Son of a Parnellite father, Fr. Hackett, like his great friend Archbishop Mannix, was a patriot in the best sense of the word. To leave his native land forever entailed for him a pang, the keenness of which was known only to his most intimate friends; yet at the command of Obedience he was as ready to go to Alaska or the Fiji Islands, had he been ordered to do so, as he was to go to Australia.
His career in the land of his adoption, of which we have given a brief summary above, followed the same pattern as in Ireland. Always with him it was a case of : “What else is wanting to me ? What more shall I do?” In addition to his already well-filled round of duties, his laborious days and often laborious nights as well in the work of the Ministry and the schoolroom, he undertook further tasks in the form of super-erogation. We have only space to enumerate the principal ones among them :
Thirty years ago, a few years after his arrival in Australia, he founded the Central Catholic Library in Collins St. It now contains 81,000 books, a notable monument to the untiring zeal of its zealous founder. His intellectual interests covered an even wider field and in 1942 he was made trustee of the Public Library and National Gallery.
Fr. Hackett spent about twelve years as Spiritual Director of Catholic Action in Australia. For the past few years he taught Social Science at Belloc House, Sackville St., Kew. His diamond jubilee in the Society was due to take place next year. We can well imagine how he would have replied to any eulogies pronounced on him : “Si adhuc sum pecessarius, non recusabo laborem”.
Perhaps we cannot conclude this brief obituary notice of Fr. Hackett more suitably than by citing a few of the tributes that have been paid to him and that have reached us from Australia since his recent lamented death :
Miss C. Misell, head librarian of the Central Catholic Library, said : “I worked with Father Hackett for twelve years. He was a wonderful man with a great sense of humour. He was a real mine of information on literature”.
Mr. C. A. McCallum, Chief Librarian, said: “We shall miss his charming personality, his great friendliness and his delightful. puckish sense of humour. He was an authority on the most famous of the Irish manuscripts, the Book of Kells, dating back to the year 800”.
Father J. R. Boylen, Rector of Xavier College, Kew, said : “Father Hackett had a great variety of friends, both rich and poor. He was beloved by students at Xavier and the University and helped many in their careers. His death is a very great loss. He stimulated many Catholic activities with his infectious zeal”.
Father Austin Kelly, Provincial of Australia, said: “We shall miss Father Hackett in a hundred ways; he was as full of life and fun and zest as ever. We buried him yesterday (12 July) with great ceremony, two Archbishops and two Bishops being present at the Requiem, and a very large and representative concourse of people. Archbishop Mannix preached a beautiful panegyric over his dearest friend”.
An extract from the panegyric will show how highly the Archbishop estimated his friend :
“But the greatest achievement of Father Hackett - and his achievements were many - was, in my opinion, that he laid the foundations of the Lay Apostolate of Catholic Action in Australia. That may seem a startling statement, but it is well founded. A quarter of a century ago, Father Hackett, with wisdom and foresight, establisbed the Central Catholic Library, and the young people who availed themselves of that Library were those who made it possible to start the Lay Apostolate in Melbourne and afterwards throughout the whole of Australia. That Library, I hope, will remain as a monument to Father Hackett. At the moment, the Central Catholic Library is, I think, without an equal of its kind in Australia or probably elsewhere. It was Father Hackett's foresight and his courage that established the Library and kept it going. He was always in debt, but he never faltered and the Library now has probably 40,000 or 50,000 volumes that stand to the credit of Father Hackett.
With all his work he was before all things a man of God, a man of deep faith and deep spirituality, who attracted many to seek his advice and direction. They were never disappointed. In spite of all his achievements, Father Hackett was the humblest man that I have known. I can speak from knowledge, because I knew him well. He was so humble that he never seemed to realise his own power or his achievements. He had a most attractive side of his character wish we all had it - he was able to laugh at himself. That is a great thing for any man to be able to do. He was probably too honest to be always supremely tactful, but his humour and his humility covered over any lapses from convention that he may have had. Father Hackett has gone. His place will be supplied, but I doubt if it can be filled. He was a man of God, truly unselfish, all things to all men. We shall miss him sorely, but he has gone to his Master with a splendid record of work in Ireland and in Australia. He traded with the ten talents that his Master gave him, and I am confident that he has entered into his rest. In the name of this great congregation and of all those who grieve with us for Father Hackett, I bid a fond and sad but proud farewell to this great Irish Jesuit priest”.
Ar dheis Dé, i measg fíor-laoch na h-Éireann, go raibh a anam, agus go dtugaidh Dia suaimhneas agus síothcháin do ar feadh na síorruidheachta.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father William Hackett 1878-1954
When people enquire after you twenty years after you have left a place, that’s a sure sign of a remarkable personality. So it was with Fr William Hackett. Many, many years after he left Limerick, people used still ask for him.

He came originally from Kilkenny, being born there in 1878, of a family distinguished in letters. His brother, Francis Hackett, was an author and historian, and his sister Florence a playwright.

In 1922 Fr Hackett was sent to Australia. It was a bitter wrench for him because he loved Ireland and everything Irish with an intensity, only excelled by his love of God and the Catholic faith. However he took the land of his adoption to his heart.

He was six years Rector of Xavier College during which time he founded the preparatory school at Brighton in 1937. He founded the Central Catholic Library in Melbourne, and also laid the foundation of the Lay Apostolate of Catholic Action in Australia. No mean achievements, and yet the give quite an inadequate view of the man.

He was a human dynamo of spiritual energy, ever on the go working for God and souls. Perhaps the greatest tribute to his character is the fact that he was the long and intimate friend of one of the greatest men of his time in Australia, Archbishop Mannix of Melbourne.

He died as a result of an accident on July 5th 1954.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 36 : February 1985

‘TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE

Francis J Dennett

The archivist of the Australian Province gives a fascinating account of the involvement of an Irish Jesuit in the Anglo-Irish War and in the Irish Civil War. Michael Collins is reputed to have said that “Father William Hackett was worth five hundred men to the Irish cause”.

For the title of this article I have stolen the sub-title which Walter Scott gave to Waverley, his novel about the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. It is now rather more than sixty years since the start of that complicated struggle, which the Irish very aptly term “The Troubles”, and in which Fr William Hackett became so deeply entangled that he had to be forcibly cut loose by being sent to the antipodes.

Scott felt compelled to write Waverley before all living memory of the Forty-Five had vanished, and I feel something of the same compulsion, for Fr. Hackett's part in the events of 1914-22 is becoming vague and distorted. Mr. B.A. Santamaria, for instance, writes in Against the Tide that Fr. Hackett “had left Ireland ‘for his country's good’, his close association with supporters of Michael Collins during the Civil War making continued residence in Ireland impossible”.

When I read this (which is very nearly the opposite of the truth), I thought that I must do something to set the record straight. Ill-qualified as I am to write on the matter, there are materials in our Australian archives which make possible an (at any rate) not-misleading reconstruction of Fr. Hackett's career as an Irish revolutionary, and this is what I have attempted. It has its importance; for no one can understand Fr. Hackett without understanding what was, after the Society of Jesus, the deepest influence in his life.

Annamoe, in County Wicklow, was the seat of the Barton family. The Bartons, Anglo-Irish and Protestant, had been landlords thereabouts for generations; by 1914 most of their land had been acquired under the Lands Acts by the former tenants; only the home farm, of a few hundred acres, remained Barton property. During the Troubles it was being farmed by Robert Barton.

Bob Barton, unmarried, lived there with his sister and his younger cousin, David Robinson; from time to time he was visited by another cousin, Erskine Childers, whose wife and two small sons, Erskine and Bobby, were also living at Annamoe. A quiet Anglo-Irish Protestant household, you would think. But Bob Barton was a Gaelic Leaguer and a Sinn Féiner, and an elected member of Dáil Eireann, the illegal parliament which in 1919 proclaimed itself the parliament of the Republic of Ireland and organized a clandestine provisional government and a national army (the first IRA); Erskine Childers was the co-ordinator of the IRA for southern Ireland; and Annamoe was the centre of a web of communications that ran from Dublin to Waterford and Cork and Kerry and Tipperary and Kilkenny and Limerick. The British eventually got round to arresting Barton when he was in Dublin as a member of the Dáil; I don't think they ever suspected Annamoe.

In 1920-22 Bob Barton's and Erskine Childers' visitors generally chose to come this way. In particular, a black-coated cyclist might have been seen fairly frequently, had there been anyone to see, pushing his way over the Featherbed and through Sally Gap. Dublin Castle would have paid good money for the papers in his saddlebag. But who would have suspected a bespectacled cleric toiling through the hills? At any rate, Fr. William Hackett was never stopped, either going to or coming from Annamoe.

Unfortunately I do not know just when or how Fr. Hackett made friends with the Barton or Childers families - but it must have been well before the Troubles. I imagine it was through the Gaelic League, of which they were all enthusiastic supporters, and possibly when he was a theologian at Milltown in 1909-13 and used to spend the Villa at Greystones on the Wicklow coast. What is quite clear is that a very close friendship sprang up between them, and especially between Hackett and Childers and young Erskine (”Erskine Óg”, as they called him). Perhaps I can best make this clear by quoting from a letter written by Barton to Hackett in 1923, when the tragedy was all over and Hackett was in Australia :

“I was released at Xmas and am nearly well again... Gaol begins to tell on one after you reach the age of 40... David (Robinson) was released 3 weeks ago... He did 42 days hungerstrike and was beaten and kicked about a good deal... The mountains are just as glorious. Sally Gap is still the same great melancholy friend. I drove over it not long ago and sent a few words of affection to you as I passed its crossroads. Do you remember the day you came to see us and lost your hat? Some day we shall do the journey again together... The next generation, seeing everything in perspective, will be able to love all Ireland and all Irishmen as we did. I send you all the beauty and love of the mountains as well as my own great affection. R.B.”

And again in 1931:

“You were always so fresh and enthusiastic after your ride across Sally Gap. When will you return again to talk over many things with Erskine, David and myself? There is no other priest living with whom we can talk absolutely freely and without offence, or Protestant clergyman either if it comes to that. And, re Erskine Óg, I think you would love this boy even more than you did when you used to take him out walking”.

Fr. Hackett's part in the Irish struggle cannot be understood apart from his special relationship with this little group - it was typical of his large-heartedness that it should be an Anglo-Irish and non-Catholic enclave in the Sinn Féin movement. He admired de Valera, but was never specially close to him, still less to Arthur Griffith or Michael Collins or the other IRB men; though of course till the Treaty they all worked and fought together,

Fr. Hackett's revolutionary activity began after he had emerged from tertianship in June, 1914 - six or seven weeks before the outbreak of the First World War.

Ireland 1913 - 14
In 1913, when it began to look as though the Home Rule Bill would be passed, the Unionists, helped by some elements in the British Army, formed the Ulster Volunteers to resist it by force of arms. (It is important to note that the Unionists were the first to appeal to force). In response, Sinn Féin combined with the Home Rulers to form the National Volunteers; early in 1914 Erskine Childers used his yacht to land 1,000 rifles for them; other arms were smuggled in by the efforts of the IRB. This was the Ireland, poised on the brink of civil war, into which Fr. Hackett emerged in June, 1914.

Then, as so often happens in human affairs, the unforeseen upset all plans. On June 28th Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo, and by August 4th Europe was at war. The Ulster Volunteers were taken into the British Army as the Ulster Division. Redmond pledged the support of the Home Rulers and a large number of the National Volunteers also joined up for service against Germany. In the euphoria of the moment the Home Rule Bill was passed, but its operation was suspended till the end of the war. No one expected the war to last long. In the Jesuit status Fr. Hackett found himself posted to Crescent College, Limerick, and took up his duties there in September.

It seems probable that during that fateful summer he visited Annamoe; it is certain that during his years at Limerick he was in constant communication with it. He later wrote a brief account of those years. As it was written from memory, it is not entirely accurate; but it does give some vivid pictures which I shall quote.

Limerick 1914 - 20
When Fr. Hackett went to Limerick it was still thought that the war would not last long, and it seemed likely that, at its close, the struggle for Home Rule would have to be renewed. His first objective, then, as soon as he had settled in at the Crescent, was to get in touch with the local leaders of the volunteers and with their help to establish a Volunteer cadet-corps among the senior boys of the College. (He evidently had the approval of his Rector, Fr. Charlie Doyle). His motive in doing this was quite unambiguous: “I wanted to train my boys to fight for Ireland when their turn came”. It came sure enough: several of his cadets fought later in the ranks of the IRA. A local Volunteer and Sinn Féiner, Ned McLysaght, had an estate near Lough Derg called “Raheen”; he provided a quiet place for the annual summer camps of the cadets from 1915 to 1920.

These camps were run on strictly military lines, with daily drill and weapons-training (euphemistically described in Commandant Hackett's “Order: of the Day as “musketry exercise”). Where the weapons came from is not stated, but Hackett remarks that in 1920, when the possession of fire-arms was prohibited under pain of death, the boys had to train as well as they could without rifles. In any case, by that time I fancy that all available rifles were being used by the IRA.

Not all Fr. Hackett's patriotic activities were warlike. He writes: “The real need in Limerick was, and is, EDUCATION. To try and remedy this we started a League for the study of Social Questions. We got magnificent premises and had the nucleus of a Library, and had some lectures from Fr. Kelleher, Erskine Childers, etc. The Hackett of the Central Catholic Library was already in existence, though in a green uniform. But the whole Irish situation was radically changed in 1916.

The Easter Rising and its Aftermath
When it became clear that the European war was going to drag on for a long time, the IRB began planning on armed insurrection. They had enough influence in the volunteer movement to make this possible, and they hoped to obtain more arms from Germany through the efforts of Sir Roger Casement. The details of this affair are still far from clear (largely owing to the secrecy in which the IRB men shrouded their activities); what seems clear is that they failed to carry the mass of the volunteers with them, and in the event the insurrection of Easter 1916 was carried out by only 2000 men, and only in Dublin, instead of throughout the country. It was suppressed within a week. But, although so badly bungled, it achieved its object.

For the British High Command committed the appalling blunder of executing its leaders as traitors - only de Valera was spared, because he was technically an American citizen. But no Irishman, not even an Orangeman, could really regard as a “traitor” another Irishman because he had rebelled against the British Government in Ireland. The executions produced a revulsion of feeling throughout the country, of which Arthur Griffith's Sinn Féin party was the chief beneficiary. Fr. Hackett's view was that, lamentable as was the loss of so many Irish leaders, the British had dealt themselves by far the heavier blow. Most historians, I think, would accept this verdict.

In the 1916 affair Hackett played a small and yet rather an important part. When the insurrection broke out, communications between Limerick and Dublin were cut, and the Limerick Volunteers were left wondering what to do. Many of them were ready to rise, but they had received no orders. Their leaders consulted Fr. Hackett. His advice was that if they attempted to act without orders they would only make a mess of things and be destroyed - better keep their organization and arms intact and wait for another opportunity. As it turned out, this was excellent advice: when the Troubles really began in 1919 the Limerick Volunteers could be incorporated without difficulty into the IRA. But what is striking about this is the remarkable influence which Father Hackett had already gained by 1916; it helps one to understand the remark which was later attributed to Michael Collins: that Father Hackett was worth 500 men to the Irish cause.

Well, the European war ended at last in November, 1918, and the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, at once held a general election. It turned out well for him except in Ireland. In Ireland, except in the north-east, Sinn Féin swept the country; the Irish Parliamentary Party was practically annihilated, and down with it went the whole idea of Home Rule.

Arthur Griffith could now put his own plans into action. The 70 or so Sinn Féin M.P.'s (including Robert Barton and Erskine Childers) did not go to Westminster; they met at the Mansion House, Dublin, in January 1919, proclaimed themselves the Parliament of Ireland (Dáil Eireann), and declared Ireland an independent republic, with Éamon de Valera as President. They proceeded to set up all the regular organs of government, and Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy (both of the IRB) organised what had been the volunteers into the Irish Republican Army (the first IRA - not to be confused with its bastard offspring of today). The British government then attempted the forcible suppression of the whole movement; Sinn Féin responded by going underground. Shooting began in 1919, and soon became a full-scale guerilla war; the first modern-style guerilla war, with the bombings, shootings, ambushes and reprisals with which the whole world has since become familiar.

Fr. Hackett, still in Limerick, was in the thick of it. He has left an account of a couple of illuminating incidents. In 1919 a general strike was staged at Limerick as part of a campaign of non-cooperation with the British authorities. The military threw a cordon round the city, and no one was allowed in or out without a permit. “I made up my mind”, says Fr. Hackett, “not to get a permit and also to enter the city when I wanted to... on one occasion I had left the city, and in a friend's house I discovered great alarm because they had a lot of cartridges and they were liable to search (sic) and did not know what to do”.

“In a moment I solved the thing by taking the things in my pockets". (He means the deep and capacious pockets of an old-fashioned Irish Clerical greatcoat). I came to the bridge (over the Shannon), was challenged by a sentry who put a bayonet to my chest and said, ‘Your pernit please’. I tried the usual bluff, ‘I have not got one with me’. Again came the demand, more peremptory than before, ‘Your permit, please’. The wind came to my aid by blowing off my hat. I immediately started off in pursuit, The sentry followed in pursuit of me, shouting all the time, ‘Your permit, please’. Then one of those things happened that could only happen in Ireland. A bobby stationed at the far side of the long bridge, seeing me pursuing my hat, ran after it, captured it, politely dusted the edge of it on his sleeve, and handed it back to me and waved his hand to the sentry and said in a very superior tone, ‘Oh, he is all right’.”

A more serious affair was the raid on the Crescent College. Fr. Hackett, anticipating some such move, had blockaded the door of his room so that no one could come in without waking him. “About 1.20 a.m. I was awakened by people scrambling into my room. The leading figure carried an exposed candle in one hand and a revolver in the other. Three coated figures entered my room. To my challenge came the answer of a brandished revolver... They proceeded to go through my papers and presses... I felt fatalistic. My room was seething with sedition and there was a rifle up the chimney and the Shannon File full of Dáil correspondence against the wall. However, nothing happened... I heard afterwards that this raid was unauthorized and was undertaken by officers, one of them being Chief Intelligence Officer... Before leaving our house they wrote in the Visitors' Book \Three Strangers, Nov. 12th’.”

From this it is clear that Father Hackett was in it up to the neck. It is exasperating that he give no details of his work (perhaps the habit of secrecy still held him); but the “Dáil” was, of course, Dáil Eireann, the illegal parliament of the Illegal Irish Republic, and the correspondence dealt with the clandestince operations of the republican government.

What the rifle was doing up the chimney I cannot make out, for Father Hackett was not a fighting man: he regarded himself as the chaplain to the IRA and a non-combatant. Had it been discovered he would have been liable to be shot. Note the curious ineptness which characterise British intelligence work in Ireland, displayed also a couple of months later in the raid on Milltown Park in February 1921. They knew enough to be suspicious, but did not really know what they were looking for. IRA intelligence, on the other hand, was able to tell Fr. Hackett the background of the raid.

Dublin, 1920 - 22
Soon after this incident (because of it?) he was transferred to Belvedere College, Dublin, where his Rector was again Fr. Charlie Doyle. He is listed in the Catalogue as “Assistant to the Editor of the Messenger”. For a man of Fr. Hackett's talents and energies this assignment is laughable; one can only suppose that he was otherwise occupied. It was no doubt at this time that he became a regular visitor to Annamoe.

He has left us no details of his activities. One presumes that he acted as a courier, perhaps especially between IRA headquarters and Erskine Childers; it is clear also from surviving letters of Miss Barton and Mrs. Childers and young Erskine that he was a powerful support to the little family at Glendalough House, especially in early 1921 when the struggle was reaching its climax and when Bob Barton had been seized and imprisoned in Dublin.

But the British government, under pressure from many quarters, was weakening; by mid-1921 Lloyd George had had enough and was willing to negotiate; in July a Truce was proclaimed in Ireland and a peace conference was arranged to take place in London. It seemed that the fighting was over.

In the election of June 16th, 1922, the Irish people returned a considerable majority in favour of the Treaty. Nevertheless, fighting broke out almost immediately. De Valera did not want this, nor did Barton nor Childers, but their hands were forced by more extreme Republicans like Rory O'Connor, Cathal Brugha and Ernie O'Malley. The old pattern of bombings, raids, ambushes, shootings and reprisals was resumed, but now by Irishmen against Irishmen - Republicans against Free Staters.

All this was pure anguish for William Hackett. He was himself a convinced Republican; but he was in any case inextricably involved with the Barton-Childers group and could not have disentangled himself even if he had wanted to. But the Free Staters, unlike the British, knew all about Annamoe and its influence, and were determined to put a stop to it. It was at this point, in September 1922, that Father Hackett was suddenly ordered to Australia.

What lay behind this I do not know. Years ago I was told by Irish Jesuits like the historians Aubrey Gwynn and John Ryan that Hackett must have been arrested if he had stayed in Ireland; the most likely conjecture is that the Free State government, not wanting trouble with the Church, privately asked the Irish Provincial (T.V. Nolan) to remove him. We shall never know the truth about this.

What is certain is that, when Hackett was safely in Australia, the Free State forces staged a raid on Annamoe and seized Childers, Barton and David Robinson. Childers had a revolver in his possession. On this pretext (but really as a reprisal for the repeated killings by Republican gunmen of members of the Dail) he was court-martialed and shot on November 24th, 1922. Rory O'Connor and others were executed likewise. Bob Barton lived for weeks in daily expectation of the same fate, but for some reason was spared to return to Annamoe.

The Society and the Troubles
To understand the Provincial's action in “deporting” Fr. Hackett, one must try to realize how very difficult these years were for the Irish Province. Its members were as deeply divided in their sympathies as were Irishmen generally.

Perhaps I can best make this clear by giving two examples. Fr. Seán Mallin's father was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916; he was shot by the British after the surrender. On the same occasion. Fr John Fahy, the Rector of Belvedere College, received this letter from Dublin Castle :
Reverend Sir
It is a pleasant duty to record my thanks for your good service during the late rebellion in Dublin. I am informed that your personal influence persuaded many rioters to remain at home, and was a powerful factor exercised towards the restoration of order.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
J.M. Maxwell

The signatory of this letter was “Bloody Maxwell”, the British C-in-C in Ireland who had Mallin shot, along with Pearse, Connolly and the rest. Fr, Fahy kept this letter all his life - one of the very few documents he did keep - one can only suppose that he remained satisfied with the part that he had played.

What brought the Irish Province through this crisis was the f'undamental loyalty of all its members to the Society. When William Hackett was ordered to Australia he went without a murmur; nor is there, in the later correspondence which survives with his friends in Ireland, a single hint of criticism of the Provincial's decision. Almost the first news that came to him in Australia was of the killing of Erskine Childers. It broke his heart. But it did not break his spirit, as we in Australia have good reason to know.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 2019

Belvedere’s Revolutionary Priest

Father William Hackett SJ

Dr Barry Kennerk

This inaugural history paper was delivered by Dr Barry Kennerk at Xavier College, Melbourne in June 2018; it emphasises the time-honoured link between Belvedere College and its sister schools in Australia

On 25 September 1922, The Orient steariship, SS Ormonde, left Colombo, Sri Lanka, bound for Australia. The passage had already been a challenging one. The boat departed from London at the beginning of the month, sailed around Spain into the Straits of Gibraltar, and on to Naples where it picked up two hundred Italians, bound for the Northern cane districts. From there, it entered the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea. An Irish priest, Fr William Hackett, was one of the 1300 or so passengers on board but he did not have to share his passage with the farm Workers in steerage. He had a private berth in first class with his travelling companions, Fathers Edmond Frost and Daniel O'Connell. Given Hackett's friendly and outgoing personality, he might well have made the acquaintance of many of his fellow first-class passengers during e six-week voyage. They included Coadjutor Archbishop, Dr Sheehan, a friend of Archbishop Daniel Mannix, who felt that Ireland's political future depended on the revival of the Irish language, Liberal parliamentary MP, Mr A Wams and Mr Arnott, works manager of a Sydney biscuit factory, who would later profess to be glad to be back among the smell of the gum trees.

When the Ormonde reached the Red Sea, the heat was unbearable. There were two deaths on board - that of a Mrs Rickards and a Mr Groome, who was due to meet his son in Tasmania. Groome was presumably buried at sea but the body of Mrs Rickards remained on board all the way to Australia. “There would have been more deaths”, a ship's officer later told the Queensland Times, “but for the fresh breeze that commenced”. Every vessel that the Ormonde passed in the Red Sea reported similar distress among the crew and passengers. One cargo boat even signalled that there had been nine deaths? Today, the trip to Australia from Ireland takes little more than a day; the traveller gets little more than jetlag but very little to impart a proper sense of distance; the feeling that one has travelled thousands of miles. For the 44-year old Fr, Hackett, future rector of Xavier College, the experience must have been very different. During his six-week trip, he must have had time to reflect on the country that he was leaving behind and on the events in his life up to that point.

Fr Hackett was born in Kilkenny in 1878 and he entered the Jesuit order at the age of seventeen. He was ordained a priest in 1912. Prior to that, he taught at Clongowes Wood College where he and his brothers had been students. Hackett's involvement with the republican movement in Ireland almost coincided with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. At that time, Hackett was a teacher at Crescent College, Limerick, known colloquially as “The Crescent” and in 1915, he set up a Volunteer cadet corps with the aim of preparing senior boys “to fight for Ireland when their turn came”.

Historian, Brian Heffernan, puts Hackett's revolutionary activities into context; he was just one among many priests who took part in revolutionary activities, some were more disposed to radicalism than others and one or two even owned rifles. Heffernan reveals that some seventy or so priests helped the IRA; whether by “sheltering men on the run, storing arms for the IRA, informing on the police or the army and helping with IRA communications”. Although Hackett's efforts at the Crescent were apparently stopped by the rector there in 1917, his name appears frequently in various Bureau of Military History witness statements; a set of oral history documents that outline the entire period of the Irish revolutionary period.

However, Hackett was not partisan in his views and he was a peacemaker at heart. One of the more interesting accounts concerning him an be found in the witness statement of George Berkeley of the Peace with Ireland Council, who came to Ireland during the spring of 1921. The council was active during the Irish War of Independence, prior to the signing of a treaty that divided the island and when Berkeley visited the country, the atmosphere was politically charg. d; stories were rife of republican suspects who were taken from their beds and interrogated or even killed by forces of the Crown; of soldiers and Dublin Castle men being targeted by Michael Collins' squad of assassins.

Having reached Limerick, Berkeley was introduced to Fr Hackett by Lord Monteagle. On the day they arrived, Hackett took them to Cross-question a boy who had been allegedly tortured by a local policeman to obtain evidence but there was a sudden change of plan and they ended up interviewing some local girls instead. Berkeley recalls what happened next:

“It was one of the most curious interviews in my life. I sat at a table with Father Hackett beside me and took down everything they said. They were three farm girls and a young boy. it was the story of a police attack : on them when they had been enjoying themselves at a dance. They told me how their elder brother had been in the IRA and had had a rifle. He was in constant danger, being known to the police, in fact being ‘on the run’... she spoke very rapidly, as though afraid of omitting any point within the given time, and her whole manner often changed in one single whirling sentence, from half impatient explanation to me to affection and reverence for the priest, and then back to the general flow of bitter resentment for the wrongs done them and for the death of her brother”

When the police raided the dance, they searched the house from top to bottom and they hit the men and girls with the butts of their rifles. The police alleged that the dance had been arranged as a fundraising event so that policemen could be shot. The girls were herded into one room and their brother, Martin, tried to make a break for freedom, but was shot and killed. Before Berkeley left Limerick, he was taken by Hackett to visit a woman whose son had been killed. On the way, Hackett told him about several cases; in particular an incident
Lahinch, County Clare, where, according to Hackett, Crown forces had set fire to a house and threatened to shoot anyone who came out. Afterwards, the priest saw the body of a man who had been burnt to death inside. Evidently, Fr. Hackett was extremely well connected in Limerick. He was able to introduce Berkeley to the mayor and clearly, Lord Monteagle considered him to be the 'go to person. A couple of months after Berkeley left, arrangements were made to establish a commission of inquiry and it had been arranged that Hackett would play a role in the Peace with Ireland council under the direction of Sir John O'Connell in Dublin. The aim was to bring atrocities in Ireland to a stop by collecting evidence, under the direction of a lawyer.

Fr Hackett's biographer, Brenda Niall has described how the priest was under observation in Limerick during the Terror of 1920. Eventually, his room in the Crescent was raided in November 1921. He was later transferred to Belvedere College, Dublin, where, according to Niall, he had no teaching duties; being relegated instead to publication of the Messenger of the Sacred Heart whose offices were, at that time, off to one side of the school yard. I think Niall is correct in her assertion that this was something of a sideline activity for Hackett and that it did not make the best use of his talents. Examination of the school archive confirms that he did not participate in any teaching at Belvedere but Hackett's wide sphere of influence and connections outside of the school could never have permitted him to remain in the shadows. For instance, one wonders what the Jesuit authorities might have made of the letter he received from Roger Casement's cousin, Gertrude Parry in November 1921:

“(George Gavan Duffy) tells me now a good deal about your Irish Messenger, & I write to say I will be very glad indeed to help you in any way I can about publishing a life of Roger Casement. I hope to be in Dublin some time in the not too distant future & if I may I will call on you”.

One of the things I have struggled with, however, is the sequencing of events. According to our school archive, Hackett arrived at Belvedere on 5 April 1927 and the school catalogue confirms that he was indeed assistant director of the Messenger. Aside from that, another of his duties was to give “points for meditation to the brothers” and to act as “house confessor”. The journal account for April reads: “Fr. Hackett arrived at 7pm; sleeping for the present at Lr Leeson Street”. The following day, we are told: “Fr Tomkins left for Galway today and Fr Hackett occupies his room”. If Hackett was back in Limerick in November 1921, he must have still had considerable latitude to travel around the country. This is borne out by close examination of papers held at the Jesuit archives in Dublin which confirms that during his time at Belvedere, Hackett continued to interest himself in the plight of political prisoners. On 24 November 1921 for instance, Mr Waller of the Peace for Ireland Council wrote to him there about the treatment of noted academic, Alfred O Rahilly, who had been arrested and imprisoned in Spike Island off the Cork coast for his political writings. Just two months earlier, Berkeley had informed Hackett that no less than eight professors at Dublin's Trinity College were prepared to support O Rahilly's release.

As an independent thinker, Hackett would certainly have found the atmosphere at Belvedere quite stultifying at times. A directive, issued to the Rector of Belvedere on 4 September 1922, urged the Jesuit community to avoid “free conversation” at breakfast as that was “especially objectionable”. Cycling was also discouraged without leave in writing and in particular, long runs or “Record Runs” of the type that Fr Hackett so clearly enjoyed were proscribed. At that time, the rector at Belvedere was Charles Doyle. He had only recently taken up the post after the departure of the previous incumbent, John Fahy, whose views would have been quite different to those of Hackett. Fahy had taken up a new position as Provincial of the Jesuits in Ireland but he returned to Belvedere on at least a couple of occasions while Hackett was working at the school. He was also vice president of the Belvedere College Social Service Club.

Unlike Hackett, Fahy had taken a decidedly apolitical stance towards the revolution in Ireland. Doyle, it would seem, held similar views and close study of the school's annual journal, The Belvederian confirms this. Articles on topics concerning current events did of course appear during the period 1916-1922 but the editorial line was explicitly non-partisan. Alongside stories about the fighting during Easter Week, one finds news of past students who were fighting in the First World War. The following wry comment appeared in the 1916 edition of the magazine:

“Stories of hair-breadth escapes are the order of the day, their name is legion, but their reliability-doubtful. If a prize were offered it should be won by the boy who was near Liberty Hall when a shell passed between his legs. Relic collecting is another natural outcome of the week's fighting. Bullets were the chief trophies. If a bullet could blush many of them must have blushed themselves out of existence at the stories that were told about them”.

When the Rising broke out in Dublin in Easter 1916, the sisters at nearby Temple Street Hospital considered Fahy to be “a true friend” who was “untiring in his efforts” and he took great pains to keep priests and pupils off the streets during the fighting - something for which he was later praised by Ireland's interim military governor, General John Maxwell. He and his fellow priests were granted permission to hear confessions and administe

Hahn, William, 1841-1903, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1399
  • Person
  • 22 April 1841-10 December 1903

Born: 22 April 1841, Verviers, Belgium
Entered: 29 September 1857, Drongen Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 1872
Final Vows: 21 September 1875
Died: 10 December 1903, Namur, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)

by 1890 came to UCD to lecture in Biology 1889-1890

Halpin, Thomas, 1819-1878, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1404
  • Person
  • 11 December 1819-18 July 1878

Born: 11 December 1819, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 29 September 1837, Drongen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 02 June 1849, Maynooth College, County Kildare
Final Vows: 02 February 1860
Died: 18 July 1878, Bray, County Wickow

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

by 1851 at St Beuno’s studying Theol 4
by 1865 at Lowe House St Helen’s Lancashire (ANG)

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
His early education was at Tullabeg and Clongowes.

After First Vows he was sent to Tullabeg first and then Clongowes for Regency. he also studied part of his Theology at Clongowes, and was Ordained in Maynooth by Dr Murray 02 June 1849. He was a man of superior talent and he was appointed head of the Galway College and built the Church and residence there. He also spent some time on the English Mission. Returning to Ireland, he was sent as Operarius at Gardiner St, and remained there until his death 18 July 1878. He actually died in Bray, where he had gone for a change of air. His sermons were admired by all as perfect compositions. A very large number of priests, Secular and religious attended his office at Gardiner St.

Halpin, Timothy, 1879-1951, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/174
  • Person
  • 24 January 1879-11 December 1951

Born: 24 January 1879, Crough, Kilmacthomas, County Waterford
Entered: 07 September 1901, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 30 June 1915, Innsbruck, Austria
Final Vows: 15 August 1919, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 11 December 1951, Milltown Park, Dublin

by 1905 at St Aloysius, Jersey, Channel Islands (FRA) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1908
by 1913 at Innsbruck, Austria (ASR-HUN) studying
by 1917 at Innsbruck, Austria (ASR) making Tertianship
by 1918 at Innsbruck, Austria (ASR-HUN) studying

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
After novitiate, juniorate and philosophy, and a year teaching at Clongowes, 1907-08, Halpin arrived at Xavier College, Melbourne, in September of that year. He had an effective but not spectacular career as a teacher, and hall prefect, 1911-12.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 27th Year No 2 1952
Obituary :
Father Timothy Halpin
Died December 11th, 1951
A sturdy figure, shod with galoshes and protected with a reliable umbrella against possible vagaries of even a fine June day, is a picture that would readily present itself to those who have lived with the late Father Halpin. To a word of friendly banter he would reply : “the Irish climate is uncertain, we must be prepared for eventualities”.
Small, as this detail may seem, it is characteristic of the man, and it reveals a trait in his character which goes far to explain the success which crowned Fr. Halpin's priestly work - consistent attention to detail.
Born in Kilmacthomas in 1879, he felt an early attraction to ecclesiastical life. In 1893 he entered the junior scholasticate, Blackrock, but, on his return for the summer holidays, his parents were opposed to his continuing there. Instead, he went to Mount Melleray with the fixed idea, in his own words, “of preparing himself for the Jesuit priesthood”. The urgent need of Australian dioceses was brought to his notice, so he offered himself to Dr. Maher for Port Augusta. The Bishop arranged that, on completion of his Philosophy at Melleray, he should go to the Collegio Brigoli, Genoa.
In 1898, having finished philosophical studies with 2nd place, he was admitted to theology. At the end of three years - theology, scripture, canon law - his examination mark was “optime”, but the old determination of the “Jesuit priesthood” came back, and, with Dr. Maher's full approval, he returned to Ireland, and entered the noviceship at Tullabeg, September 7th, 1901.
From his novice-master, Fr. Michael Browne, he learnt above all the value of obedience. One who worked much with him said : “once he knew what his superiors wanted, he just set aside his own will and did as directed”.
In spite of previous studies, Superiors allowed him the full course of philosophy, at Jersey 1904-1907; after which he taught for one year at Clongowes, and four at Kew College, Melbourne.
In 1912 he went to Innsbruck for theology, where he was ordained in 1915. His first Mass was served by the late Fr. Dan Finn and Fr. John Coyne, scholastics at the time. The war upset the normal course of studies. His fourth year theology was done in private at Kalksburg College, near Vienna and for his Ad Grad, he appeared before a board from Vienna, which included the veteran Fr. Straub, author of a tract De Ecclesia. He made his Third Probation at Starawies in Galicia, a house of the Polish Province. The long period abroad made him a master of many languages, and gave him an insight into Church problems, and Society methods of organisation, which remained a permanent inspiration for his later work.
Vienna was noted for the Sodality movement. Of this he made a careful study, applying the principles in the post of Sodality Director, which he held for some years, when he had returned to his Province. Indeed our Lady's Sodality always seemed to him the best guarantee of fruitful missionary work, if well established in a parish.
A former Superior of the Mission Staff paid this tribute : “I always felt sure that he would give his best, and was never disappointed. He would write to P.P.s for details of the coming work, which he would, then send on to his fellow missioners. Nothing would be left to chance”. The trait with which we opened “consistent attention to detail” was carried out in the big things of his life, because it ruled the little programme of each day. The same fellow-labourer said : “I could never think of him as missing a spiritual duty, His views on everything were supernatural”.
“The Jesuit Priesthood” was the tessera of Fr. Halpin's life, reading into the words, of course, all that the Kingdom of Christ involved : the special service of the Ignatian volunteers. So it was that an intense application to work followed him to the end of his life. He has left behind in neatly labelled envelopes a whole series of notes for mission sermons, proof positive of his thorough preparation.
“Inquisitive” is an adjective that might easily be attached to him. He seemed happy extracting information. But, the information thus gleaned entered into the wide array of facts to be used, some way or another, for the interests of the Church and the Order. Generals' letters. foreign mission Publications, Province News and Letters, from all these he had accumulated a vast stock of information. This he was ready to put at your disposal. Originality was not one of his characteristics, but he knew how to turn to best account what he had assimilated from other sources. This he did to the full in the mission field and the retreats. His life was spent at these works. He is still remembered as a forceful preacher and a stimulating retreat giver. Only God's Angel could tell the souls won to God by the kindly spirit incorporated in the pamphlet “Heaven Open to Souls”. To the end this was the consistent inspiration of Fr. Halpin, and we are sure that the welcome of many souls awaited him, when the Master's summons “Well done, good and faithful servant”, came.

Haly, Robert, 1796-1882, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/473
  • Person
  • 11 April 1796-01 September 1882

Born: 11 April 1796, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1814, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 28 September 1828, Fribourg, Switzerland
Final Vows: 02 February 1833
Died: 01 September 1882, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

in Clongowes 1817
in Friburg Switzerland 1826
by 1840 Vice Provincial

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of James Haly and Elizabeth née Flyn
Educated at Stonyhurst, where according to Hon R More O’Ferrall, a contemporary, he was the most talented and most popular in a class of thirty-six boys.
1829 Sent to Ireland, and brought with him a letter from the Bishop of Geneva, in which he is said to be “pietate, doctrina, aliisque virtuum meritis maxime commendabilis”.
1839-1857 Consultor of the Vice-Province
1839 Appointed Rector of Clongowes 19 May 1839
1840 Appointed Rector of the College and Residence of Dublin, 15 October 1840.
1844 Sent to Rome as Procurator of the Irish Province
1851-1857 Appointed Rector of the College and Residence of Dublin
1857-1879 Superior of the Missionary Staff
1859-1864 Superior of the Galway Residence.
“Almost every Bishop and Priest in Ireland, and many outside Ireland, with thousands of Irish Catholics at home ad in exile, will receive, like tidings of the loss of a personal friend, the announcement of the death of Father Haly..........The most of his life was devoted to Apostolic toils in almost every Parish in Ireland, either by himself or as Head of a band of Missionaries. Though the hoary head and bent frame of age distinguished Father Haly a great many years ago, his vigorous constitution enabled him to continue the works of the pulpit and the confessional till his years had fully numbered four score. His brethren in the sacred ministry will remember at the Altar this most venerable Priest and most amiable saint” (The Freeman’s Journal, 02 September 1882)
He certainly was most amiable and friendly at all times and to every one - “mitis et humilis corde”.

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
The following story is told of Robert Haly by Joseph Dalton :
“During a Mission in Waterford in 1849, some of the ‘salters’ in the bacon store had no chance of getting to the ‘Holy Fathers’. They were kept busy all day and the crowds were too great at night. A group of them hit on the following plan to get to Confession : Father Haly was going home to the Parish Priest’s house, Annhill, after a hard day’s work. It was, I suppose, about 11pm. His road lay through a street in which a number of “salters’ lived. His attention was attracted by a strong light from one of the houses in front of him. On reaching the house, he found two men at the door. They accosted him very respectfully, apologised for delaying him, but asked him to walk in, as they had something to say to him. As soon as he entered, one locked the door, and the other told him plainly that they were poor ‘salters’ (about a dozen men in the room) who had no chance of getting the benefit of the Mission, unless ‘His reverence would forgive them for kidnapping him, and then sit down and hear their Confessions’. “And, your Reverence, we won’t let you out until you hear everyone of us’. Father Haly commenced at once and finished them all off. They went to their duty the next morning.”
Note from Edmund Cogan Entry :
There is an interesting letter of his in the Irish Archives, written from Palermo to Master Robert Haly (afterwards Father), then a boy at Hodder, Stonyhurst

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Haly, James
by David Murphy and Patrick Long

Robert Haly (1796–1882), Jesuit priest, rector of Clongowes Wood College, and missioner, was born 11 April 1796 in Cork city and baptised at SS Peter and Paul's, Cork, on 16 April. Educated at Stonyhurst, he entered the Society of Jesus on 7 September 1814 at Hodder, where he spent his noviciate, being professed of his first vows in 1816. He studied and also taught at Clongowes Wood College (established in 1814 as an Irish counterpart to Stonyhurst), before travelling (1825) to Fribourg, Switzerland, to study theology. Ordained on 29 September 1828, he undertook mission work in Geneva before returning in September 1829 to Ireland, where he joined the Jesuit community in Hardwicke St., Dublin.

Professed of his final vows in February 1833, he undertook his first parish mission in Ireland at Celbridge, and soon established a reputation as a preacher of some eloquence. In 1830 he was appointed as minister of his community while still working as a missioner, and in 1836 was appointed rector of Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare. Returning to Dublin in 1841, he worked as rector of the college and community in Dublin, before being appointed as procurator of the Irish province in Rome. A second term as rector at Clongowes began in 1842, a position he held until 1850. He served as the superior of St Francis Xavier's church, Dublin (1851–6), before moving to Galway as superior of the Jesuit community there in 1859. Alongside this appointment as superior in Galway (1859–65), he also served as superior of the newly established province mission staff (1859–76), restarting his career as a parish missioner.

During the next seventeen years he toured the parishes of Ireland and also travelled to England, where he supervised parish missions. By the end of his missionary career he had preached in almost every parish in Ireland and enjoyed a great public following. On one occasion in 1849, while he was engaged in mission work in Waterford city, a group of bacon factory workers kidnapped him. They could not attend his meetings due to their long work hours, and after he had preached a sermon and confessed the workers, he was released unhurt. In July 1857 he was appointed vicar general of the diocese of Killaloe. He was also involved in the erection of commemorative mission crosses in the parishes he visited, over fifty of these being erected during his term as mission superior.

In 1877 he suffered a severe stroke and, moving to the Gardiner St. community in Dublin, confined himself to light duties for the rest of his life. He died in Gardiner St. on 1 September 1882 and was buried in the Jesuit plot in Glasnevin cemetery. He has left a substantial collection of papers in the Jesuit archives in Dublin, giving details of his missionary work and parish life in Ireland in the nineteenth century. Kevin A. Laheen, SJ, published a study of this collection in Collectanea Hibernica (1997–2000).

Times, Cork Examiner, 7 Jan. 1850; Freeman's Journal, 2 Sept. 1882; ‘Memorials of the Irish Province, SJ’, Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., i, no. 3 (June 1900), 163–4; Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., viii (1902), 95–6; Henry Browne, ‘Father Haly’, John Healy (ed.), A roll of honour (1905), 247–94; Peadar McCann, ‘Charity-schooling in Cork city in the late 18th & early 19th centuries’, Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., lxxxvi (1981), 33, 109–15; lxxvii (1982), 51–7; Hugh Fenning, ‘Cork imprints of catholic historical interest 1723–1804’, Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., c (1995), 129–48; ci (1996), 115–42; Kevin A. Laheen, SJ, ‘Jesuit parish mission memoirs, 1863–76’, Collect. Hib., xxxix–xl (1997–8), 272–311; xli (1999), 153–223; xlii (2000), 120–80; Tim Cadogan and Jeremiah Falvey, A biographical dictionary of Cork (2006); WorldCat online database (www.worldcat.org) (accessed Nov. 2007); information from Fr Fergus O'Donoghue, SJ, Jesuit Archives, Dublin; John Paul II Library, NUI, Maynooth, information from Andrew Sliney; Russell Library, Maynooth, information from Penelope Woods; information from Christopher Woods

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Robert Haly SJ 1796-1882
Fr Robert Haly was our most renowned and universally loved missioner of the early days.

He was born in Cork on April 11th 1796, and entered the Society on its Restoration in 1814. He held many administrative posts, Rector of Clongowes in 1839, Procurator in Rome in 1844, Superior of the Mission Staff 1857-1879, Superior of Galway 1859-1864. But it is on his work as a Missioner that his fame rests.

During one of his Missions in Waterford in 1849, some of the “salters” from the bacon stores had no chance of getting to the “Holy Fathers”. They were kept busy all day and the crowds were too big at night. A party of them hit on the following plan to get confession. Father Haly was going home to the Parish Priest’s house, Anhill, after a hard day’s work at about 11 o’clock. His road lay through a street in which a number of the salters lived. His attention was drawn by a strong light coming from one of the houses in front of him. On reaching the house he found two men at the door. They greeted him respectfully, apologised for delaying him, but asked him to step in as they had something to say to him. As soon as he entered one man locked the door, and the other man explained that they were poor salters (about a dozen) who had no chance of doing the Mission, unless
“His Reverence would forgive them kidnapping him and then hear their confessions. And Your Reverence, we won’t let you out until you hear every one of us”.
Father Haly, though tired, was touched by their simplicity and faith, and he gladly heard them all.

He died in the residence at Gardiner Street on September 1st 1882, at the age of 86.

Hamilton, Timothy, 1916-2006, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/602
  • Person
  • 02 September 1916-08 March 2006

Born: 02 September 1916, Leap, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1934, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1948, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 03 April 1983, Loyola House, Eglinton Road, Dublin
Died: 08 March 2006, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Gonzaga College, Dublin community at the time of death.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 128 : Special Issue June 2006

Obituary

Fr Timothy (Tim) Hamilton (1916-2005)

2nd September 1916: Born in Leap, Co. Cork
Early education at Rochestown College
7th September 1934: Entered the Society at Emo
8th September 1936: First Vows at Emo
1936 - 1939: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1939 - 1942: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1942 - 1945: Belvedere College - Teacher
1945 - 1949: Milltown Park -Studied Theology
28th July 1948: Ordained at Milltown Park
1949 - 1950: Tertianship at Rathfarnhamn
1950 - 1951: Gonzaga College - Teacher
1951 - 1954: Crescent College, Limerick - Teacher
1954 - 1956: Gonzaga College - Minister; Teacher
1956 - 1987: College of Industrial Relations - Lecturer in Economics and Sociology
3rd April 1983: Final Vows at Loyola House
1987 - 1989: Assistant at Centre for Faith and Justice
1989 - 1990: Sabbatical
1990 - 1998: College of Industrial Relations - Writer; Directed Spiritual Exercises; Province Spiritual Director
1998 - 2005: Gonzaga - Writer, Directed Spiritual Exercises; Province Spiritual Director; Rector's Admonitor; Spiritual Director SJ
2005 - 2006: Cherryfield Lodge - Praying for the Church and the Society
8th March 2006: Died at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin.

Fr. Hamilton was admitted to Cherryfield Lodge on 19th April 2005. He was very weak and had a history of falls. His condition deteriorated rather rapidly and he was not expected to recover. However, hie slowly improved and resumed daily activities: walking with an aid, reading and receiving visitors. He remained very fragile and required nursing care. There was a marked deterioration in his condition on Tuesday evening, 7th March. He died peacefully on Wednesday 8th March at 12 midday.

Noel Barber writes:
Fr. Tim Hamilton was for many years an influential 'backroom' member of the Province and a prized Spiritual Director. He exercised his influence on Province policy as a Consultor and as a highly regarded advisor of Provincials. His influence was at its height at the time the Province was grappling with the implementation of the Faith and Justice thrust of the Society. It was a thrust that had his whole hearted and steadfast allegiance. As a lecturer for over 30 years in the College of Industrial Relations, he was, despite his shyness and reserve, an effective teacher and a strong influence on his students. A quintessential scholar himself, he could communicate effectively with students of little educational background and develop in them an intellectual curiosity. When he was in community - here lies a paradox in his life - he was shy, reserved, and unfailingly courteous, and some, at least, held him not only in admiration but also in affection.

He was born in Leap, West Cork on September 2nd 1916, the second of two sons. His mother was the daughter of a small farmer and his father, a fisherman, had been an Able Seaman in the British Navy, a fact not always alluded to in a family that became strongly nationalistic. He always had a strong bond with his family and he was a beacon of sanity in his brother's family, a fact beautifully depicted in his nephew's book Speckled People. He was educated on a scholarship in the Franciscan College, Rochestown, Cork where he was an able and diligent student. Reading O'Rahilly's life of Fr. Willie Doyle pointed him away from the Franciscans and towards the Jesuits. Was it Doyle's asceticism as a religious or his heroism as a Chaplain that appealed so strongly to him? We do not know, but join the Jesuits he did in September 1934. He left Cork and was not to spend much time there again. But, as the saying goes, one can take a person out of Cork but you cannot take Cork out of a person. He remained a Corkman all his life: to the day he died he retained his Cork accent - not without an effort, one suspects - identified with the county and exhibited the shrewdness that rightly or wrongly the rest of us attribute to Corkonians.

He found the Novitiate difficult. He was wont to portray himself there as a simple country boy amongst sophisticated urbanites with a Novice Master who found his Cork accent painful and made it abundantly clear that he did so. Perhaps the Master's displeasure may have been the reason that he retained the accent so tenaciously. In a delightful interview he gave to Interfuse (Easter, 2006) shortly before he died, he recounted with great pleasure how the Ground's Man in Gonzaga said to him, “Well there is one thing for sure, you never lost your West Cork accent”.

After the novitiate he studied Classics at UCD and did very well, as he did at Philosophy. Then he went to Belvedere where the simple country lad from West Cork had no difficulty in keeping the Dublin sophisticates under his thumb. He was an efficient, strict and somewhat distant teacher. He did his Theology at Milltown Park. Given his keen interest in Theology and his intellectual ability, one would have expected that he would have been a star there. In fact, due largely to indifferent health, he left Milltown without the Ad Grad and so was not considered for further studies in Theology. One suspects that the Province lost a first class Theologian. He was ordained at Milltown Park on July 28th 1948. He did his tertianship in Rathfarnham Castle in 1949/50 under that strange figure, Fr. George Byrne, a great weeper, who wept his way through the Second Week of The Exercises. At the end of the Repose Day before the 3rd week, an irreverent Tertian – not Fr. Hamilton – said to a colleague, “Listen, you bring a raincoat and I'll bring a brolly”.

After tertianship he was sent as a “founder member” to Gonzaga College along with Frs. Charles O'Conor, Bill White and John Murphy. It was often said that Gonzaga was founded on blood (The O'Conor Don), beauty (Murphy), brains (Hamilton) and ballast (White). Given Fr. White's contribution to Gonzaga the description of him as mere ballast was very wide of the mark. So the young Fr. Hamilton spent the year teaching boys of Junior School age. Hardly, one would have thought, his natural métier. At the end of the year lie moved to the Crescent where he taught Classics, Irish and Religion. One of his brightest pupils remembers him as a strict but kind teacher, methodical with a good feeling for the average pupil but not inspiring.

After three years in Limerick he was back in Gonzaga for two more years as teacher and Minister; he carried out both tasks with his characteristic diligence. At this time Fr. Eddie Kent was keen to get him for the staff of the then Catholic Workers' College, and, as a first step, suggested that he should give some classes there while still teaching in Gonzaga, The Rector of Gonzaga strongly resisted the suggestion and it was not until he had left office as Rector did Fr. Hamilton move to the Workers' College to the delight of Fr. Kent. However, that relationship was to end in tears.

While the Kent/Hamilton partnership began promisingly, it has been suggested that Kent interpreted Hamilton's attentive listening as a sign of agreement and was not pleased when he found out that this was not the case. Be that as it may, what is certain is that there was a falling-out and that, as a result, Fr. Hamilton actually ceased living with the community and spent most of his time with his family, coming to the College to work. Needless to say this arrangement caused eyebrows to be raised and questions to be asked. However, the pattern remained, albeit in an attenuated form, until he went to Cherryfield.

He said that his experience in the College of Industrial Relations enabled him to enter the world of the working class. He saw himself as having been working class, but becoming middle class by joining the Jesuits. Indeed, one occasionally got the impression that he believed that if he had not entered the Society he would have remained a simple country lad and avoided the stigma of being middle class. Of course, given his education and ability, he would have become middle class in any case. One can easily imagine him becoming a senior Civil Servant as so many able people of his background did. It was precisely by becoming a Jesuit that he was given a way back to the working class. That would not have happened had he become a senior Civil Servant or an academic. He tended to attribute to himself rather exceptional insight into workers' lives. In the interview in Interfuse he suggests that in the Province only Bill McKenna has his knowledge of their lives!

From the late 1950s he spent his summers in Germany studying Theology in which he was passionately interested and read voraciously. The Second Vatican Council gave his theological interest a great boost and it is said that at this time Bishop Corboy used him as a theological consultant. To the end he remained open and fresh in his theological thinking, always balanced in his judgement with a deep respect for the Church and its teachings.

He was an avid Gaelic enthusiast, having a love for the language, history and culture of the country. He always hoped that he would attract people to an appreciation of the 'hidden Ireland of the heart, culture, civilization and language that people knew nothing about for about 1,000 years'. In this, as in all other matters, he was convinced that one should work with persuasion and attraction, never polemically.

He was completely committed to the 32nd Congregation's teaching on Faith and Justice and, as a Consultor, used his influence to advance that teaching. At a Province assembly some 10 years ago, he gave a review of the previous 30 years in the Province. It was remarkable in that he was totally positive; he did not seem to entertain a single doubt about decisions that had been taken. He either did not observe any negatives or chose to play them down in the light of what he believed to be the overwhelming benefits of the changes to the Society after the Council. Some were surprised that he did not address some of the misgivings.

He became a spiritual director of Jesuits and others who found his attentive listening, his ability to get people to see the good in themselves and his generous way of speaking enormously attractive. I am told that some have attributed the saving of their vocation to his guidance.

In April 2005 he was admitted to Cherryfield after a series of falls, and was not expected to recover, but did so sufficiently to resume his reading, receive his many visitors and walk with some assistance. However he was fragile and at times gave the impression that he was fading away. He deteriorated sharply on March 7h 2006 and died peacefully the next day.

◆ The Gonzaga Record 2006

Obituary

Tim Hamilton SJ

Fr Tim Hamilton was for many years an influential 'backroom' member of the Irish Jesuit Province and a prized Spiritual Director. He exercised his influence on Province policy as a Consultor and as a highly regarded advisor of Provincials. His influence was at its height at the time when the Province was grappling with the implementation of the Faith and Justice thrust of the Society. It was a thrust that had his wholehearted and steadfast allegiance. As a lecturer for over 30 years in the College of Industrial Relations, he was, despite his shyness and reserve, an effective teacher and a strong influence on his students. A quintessential scholar himself, he could communicate effectively with students of little educational background and develop in them an intellectual curiosity.

He was born in Leap, West Cork, on September 2nd 1916, the second of two sons. His mother was the daughter of a small farmer and his father, a fisherman, had been an Able Seaman in the British Navy, a fact not always alluded to in a family that became strongly nationalistic. He was educated on a scholarship in the Franciscan College, Rochestown, Cork, where he was an able and diligent student. Reading O'Rahilly's life of Fr Willie Doyle pointed him away from the Franciscans and towards the Jesuits. Was it Doyle's asceticism as a religious or his heroism as a Chaplain that appealed so strongly to him? We do not know. But join the Jesuits he did in September 1934. He left Cork and was not to spend much time there again, but as the saying goes, you can take a person out of Cork but you can not take Cork out of a person. He remained a Cork man all his life: to the day he died he retained his Cork accent - not without an effort, one suspects - identified with the county and exhibited the shrewdness that rightly or wrongly the rest of us attribute to Corkonians.

After the novitiate he studied Classics at UCD and did very well, as he did at Philosophy. Then he went to Belvedere where the simple country lad from West Cork had no difficulty in keeping the Dublin sophisticates under his thumb. He was an efficient, strict and somewhat distant teacher. He did his Theology at

Given his keen interest in Theology and his intellectual ability one would have expected him to have been a star there. In fact, due largely to indifferent health, he left Milltown without the Ad Grad and so was not considered for further studies in Theology. One suspects that the Province lost a first class Theologian. He was ordained at Milltown Park on July 28th 1948.

After tertianship he was sent as a 'founder member to Gonzaga College along with Frs Charles O'Conor, Bill White and John Murphy. It was often said that Gonzaga was founded on blood (The O'Conor Don), beauty (Murphy), brains (Hamilton) and ballast (White). Given Fr. White's contribution to Gonzaga, the description of him as mere ballast was very wide of the mark. So the young Fr. Hamilton spent the year teaching boys of Junior School age. Hardly, one would have thought, his natural métier. At the end of the year he moved to the Crescent where he taught Classics, Irish and Religion. One of his brightest pupils remembers him as a strict but kind teacher, methodical with a good feeling for the aver age pupil but not inspiring. After three years in Limerick he was back in Gonzaga for two more years as teacher and Minister; he carried out both tasks with his characteristic diligence. At this time Fr Eddie Kent was keen to get him for the staff of the then Catholic Workers College and, as a first step, suggested that he give some classes there while still teaching in Gonzaga. The Rector of Gonzaga strongly resisted the suggestion and it was not until he had left office as Rector that Fr. Hamilton moved to the Workers' College, to the delight of Fr Kent. Fr Hamilton said that his experience in the College of Industrial Relations enabled him to enter the world of the working class. He saw himself as having been working class, but having become middle class by joining the Jesuits. Indeed, one occasionally got the impression that he believed that if he had not entered the Society he would have remained a simple country lad and avoided the stigma of being middle class. Of course given his education and ability, he would have become middle class in any case. One can easily imagine him becoming a senior Civil Servant as so many able people of his background did. It was precisely by becoming a Jesuit that he was given a way back to the working class. That would not have happened had he become a senior Civil Servant or an academic. He tended to attribute to himself rather exceptional insight into workers' lives.

From the late 1950s he spent his summers in Germany studying Theology, in which he was passionately interested and read voraciously. The Second Vatican Council gave his theological interest a great boost and it is said that at this time Bishop Corboy SJ used him as a theological consultant. To the end, he remained open and fresh in his theological thinking, always balanced in his judgement with a deep respect for the Church and its teachings. 1. He was an avid Gaelic enthusiast, having a love for the language, history and culture of the country. He always hoped that he would attract people to an appreciation of the 'hidden Ireland of the heart, culture, civilization and language that people knew nothing about for about 1,000 years'. In this, as in all other matters, he was convinced that one should work with persuasion and attraction, never polemically.

He became a spiritual director of Jesuits and others who found his attentive listening, his ability to get people to see the good in themselves, and his generous way of speaking enormously attractive. I am told that some have attributed the saving of their vocation to his guidance.

In April 2005 he was admitted to Cherryfield after a series of falls and was not expected to recover, but did so sufficiently to resume his reading, receive his many visitors and walk with some assistance. However he was fragile and at times gave the impression that he was fading away. He deteriorated sharply on March 7th 2006 and died peacefully the next day.

Fr Noel Barber SJ

Hamlin, Bartholomew, 1590-1649, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1405
  • Person
  • 24 August 1590-15 August 1649

Born: 24 August 1590, County Meath
Entered: 14 November 1609, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: c 1614, Rome, Italy
Final Vows: 1625
Died: 15 August 1649, Wexford Town, County Wexfordd

Has studied Philosophy and Theology at Rome
1611 In Roman College
1616 Catalogue At College of Ascoli Piceno (ROM) Talent good - ability for Missions above average. Taught Humanities
1619 Not in Catalogue
1621 Catalogue On the Mission 4 years. Strong, good talent and judgement, not so prudent. Is beginning to preach and this gives satisfaction.
1622 Catalogue Is in Leinster
1636 Catalogue Good in all, choleric, a preacher
1639 at Tournai (Tertianship?)
1642 At Mons College

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
He was Professor of Rhetoric and a man of ability; A great Preacher in Wexford;
Born in Drogheda according to one account
1617 Came to Ireland and attached to Dublin or Meath Residence (cf Foley’s "Collectanea")

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had already studied at Douai before Ent 14 November 1609 Rome
After First Vows he resumed studies at the Roman College and was Ordained c 1614
Sent to teach at Ascoli he was then sent to Ireland 1616/7. Henry Fitzsimon had proposed that he should be appointed Procurator of Irish affairs in Rome, but the General was unwilling due to his short number of years in the Society.
1616/7 Sent to Ireland and to Dublin Residence. He taught Humanities at Back Lane.
1630 Fr General ordered the Mission Superior to admit Fr Hamlin to Final Vows, but in 1639 he was still a “scholastic”. It is likely that he met with the disapproval of the Anglo-Irish Consultors of the Provincial.
1639 Sent to Belgium with no reference to the General, who demanded an explanation. There was correspondence between the General and the Mission Superior for a time.
1644 Fr General ordered that Fr Hamlin be sent back to Ireland. He was sent to teach at the Wexford school.
1649 Verdure’s Visitation reported that he was a good teacher but that “he spoke out rather too freely in favour of the Nuncio, so that the Supreme Council was for putting him in prison”. He died in Wexford 15 August 1649

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
HAMLIN, BARTHOLOMEW, was a Sexagenarian at Wexford, in 1649, but in full vigour, teaching Rhetoric with great spirit, and meriting the reputation of an excellent and fearless preacher.

Hampson, Daniel, 1834-1908, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1406
  • Person
  • 15 June 1834-06 May 1908

Born: 15 June 1834, Clane, County Kildare
Entered: 28 February 1868, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 01 November 1878
Died: 06 May 1908, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
1874-1876 He was at UCD
1876-1881 He was sent to Galway
1888 He was sent to Clongowes and he died in hospital but was buried there 06 May 1908
He was a painter by trade. he was considered a very handy, painstaking, hardworking and most obliging man. He was quiet and retiring in manner, but was often chosen as Manductor for the Brother Novices.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Glazier before entry

◆ The Clongownian, 1908

Obituary

Brother Daniel Hampson SJ

The hand of death has been heavy on Clongownians this year. Few were so intimately connected with Clongowes as Brother Daniel Hampson. He was here for a great number of years, but now be is gone. Many prayers have gone with him for he was much beloved. We all liked him and admired his goodness. He astonished everyone by his marvellous memory. The department of the Magazine over which he presided was one to tax the best of memories his was seldom found wanting. Brother Hampson was respected by all classes in the neighbour hood. He was very zealous, particularly for the Propagation of the Faith, and he distributed the periodical of the Society and made the annual collection with great earnestness. Punctuality was one of his most noted characteristics. He was for many years Sacristan, an office which he filled with great zeal. He wound up a long, earnest life, devoted with great singlemindedness to God's service, by a pious death. He has now gone to his reward, and the regrets and prayers of many past Clongowoians will follow him.

Hanley, Kieran C, 1915-1998, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/603
  • Person
  • 06 October 1915-22 July 1998

Born: 06 October 1915, Castletownbere, County Cork
Entered: 08 September 1934, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1948, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 03 April 1983, Loyola, Eglinton Road, Dublin
Died: 22 July 1998, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare community at the time of death.

◆ Interfuse No 101 : Special Edition 1999 & ◆ The Clongownian, 1998

Obituary
Fr Kieran Hanley (1915-1988)

6th Oct. 1915: Born in Castletownbeare, Co. Cork.
1929 - 1934: Educated in Mungret College, Limerick.
8th Sept. 1934: Entered the Society of Jesus at Emo
9th Sept. 1936: First vows at Emo
1936 - 1939: Rathfarnham - BA (English History)
1939 - 1942: Tullabeg - Philosophy
1942 -1944: Belvedere College - H.Dip
1944 - 1949: Milltown Park - Theology.
28th July 1948: Ordained at Milltown Park
1949 - 1950: Rathfarnham - Tertianship
1950 - 1962: Tullabeg - Minister & Bursar, Farm from 1953
1962 - 1965: Clongowes - Farms in CWC and Tullabeg
1965 - 1972: Tullabeg - Superior; Assistant in Parish; Minister
1980 - 1981: Loyola - Socius
1981 - 1983: Socius and Superior
1983 - 1989: Clongowes - Rector
1989 - 1993: Manresa - Rector, Socius to Novice Master; Director Spiritual Exercises
1993 - 1997: Clongowes - Assistant in People's Church.
1997: Cherryfield

Kieran went to Cherryfield at the beginning of December 1997. After Christmas he spent some weeks in the Bons Secours Hospital and then returned to Cherryfield where he made some improvements but was still weak. On Sunday, July 12th Kieran had a turn which left him very weak. Since then he had slowly deteriorated and passed away very peacefully on Wednesday morning July 22nd, 1998.

Kieran Hanley SJ was born in Castletownbeare on the southern tip of Co. Cork and maybe his interest in the origins of others grew from his own inordinate pride in the place of his birth. Certainly, he knew where everyone known to him came from. And he seems to have known everyone, whether it was in the years that he ministered in the midlands, or when he supervised in the Jesuit farms, or when he lived in the Jesuit schools.

Although he lived into his eighties and was a prodigious worker, he was no stranger to illness, and indeed he nearly died before completing his theological studies. It was therefore a particular joy for him and his family when he was ordained in 1948 and took his final vows in the Society of Jesus on the 3rd of April 1983.

In 1950 he began a career as an administrator in the Jesuit order that encompassed nearly 50 years. For 23 years, at the college and farm outside Tullamore, he learnt about farming from his neighbours and first displayed his particular gift of absolute integration into the midland's community. He was a bright and willing student, as some who attended his funeral remember, and soon he undertook the direction of the Clongowes farm as well. He was to spend 10 years in Dublin, in Gonzaga College, as superior in the church in Gardiner Street and as assistant to the provincial of the order. Finally he became rector in Clongowes Wood College in the plains of Kildare in 1983 and it was here he was to end his days, except for a four year interlude as rector of Manresa, the retreat house in Clontarf. It was to Manresa that the beautiful Evie Hone stained glass windows were moved and suitably housed under his supervision and he rejoiced in displaying them to visitors.

It was in Clongowes that he seemed most at home and during his 11 years there he got to know every pupil in the school, all their parents and most of their relations. He was a great raconteur and had an infectious sense of humour. His ability to orchestrate and transmit the best of West Cork common sense was an absolute delight and was perhaps the secret of his rapport with people. His advice was worth having and you would not go far wrong if you listened to it.

He died peacefully on July 22nd at Cherryfield Lodge, the Jesuit nursing home in Dublin, and is buried in the community graveyard at the top of the long avenue in Clongowes, past the large beech trees, where small black crosses with Latin inscriptions mark the graves. A student visited the new grave some days after the funeral and then proceeded up to the castle, only then to realise what Fr. Hanley's death meant when he did not find Kieran walking around and cheerfully welcoming him by name. There are thousands all over Ireland and in the diaspora who will miss this generous man and yet still feel his presence, most of all his family. Only six months before he died he had overcome what seemed certain death, but once more he recovered. Finally he was too weak to fight death anymore.

He was a very modest man who loved to joke about his contributions. He recalled that his novice master, in an effort to foresee the future, foretold distinguished futures for all other novices, but paused when he came to Kieran, and then he said that a holy man would be welcome in any house. The poor man did not know the half of it, but he was right; Kieran Hanley was always welcome in any house. With his other unique attributes there was a true humility. Finally, Fr. Hanley invariably added to his farewells the phrase, “and thank you”. Now, we all reluctantly say farewell, and thank you.

Hanley, Martin, 1885-1921, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/808
  • Person
  • 11 November 1885-18 October 1921

Born: 11 November 1885, Lower Hartsonge Street, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1904, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1919, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 18 October 1921, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Educated at Crescent College SJ

by 1909 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1911

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
After his Novitiate he continued at Tullabeg for studies.
He was then sent to Gemert in Germany for three years Philosophy.
1908-1916 He sailed to Australia for Regency teaching at Riverview
1916 He returned from Australia and began Theology at Milltown, being Ordained 1919.
1920 He was sent to Crescent.
1921 He was sent to Tullabeg for Tertianship. His death there was as a result of an accident. he went out to swim and struck his head against a rock. he was brought back to Tullabeg and seemed to be recovering. A sudden change in his condition occurred before an operation could be performed.

Out of deference to his parents wishes he was buried at Mungret.

He was a man of great promise.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Martin Hanley entered the Society 7 September 1904, at Tullabeg. After novitiate and juniorate he was posted to Riverview from 1912, looking after the boats and being second division prefect. After the best part of four years he returned to undertake theology at Milltown Park from 1917 and was ordained during 1919.
However, the poor health he had while at Riverview continued, and instead of going on tertianship in 1921 he was sent to Sacred Heart College in Limerick, where amongst other things he was sports master. He went to Tullabeg as a tertian in 1921 and died suddenly. Apparently he went out to swim and hit his head against a rock. He had come back to the house and seemed to be recovering, but took a turn for the worse and died before he could be operated on.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Died as a result of an accident while diving in the River Brosna the day before the Long Retreat.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Martin Hanley (1885-1921)

Born in Limerick and educated at Crescent College, entered the Society in 1904. After his arts studies, he was sent to Holland for his philosophy course (1908-11) and did his regency at Riverview College, Sydney. He was recalled to Ireland for theology in 1916 and was ordained three years later at Milltown Park. He came for one year as master to his old school, 1920-21 and left for his tertianship at Tullabeg. He died on 18 October as the result of a head injury received when swimming.

Hanly, John, 1832-1897, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/190
  • Person
  • 24 June 1832-25 January 1897

Born: 24 June 1832, Scariff, County Clare
Entered: 23 May 1858, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare
Final vows: 15 August 1868
Died: 25 January 1897, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Novices had traditionally made their Novitiate at Clongowes under Father Bracken until 1860, when with a few exceptions, the Brother Novices were moved to Milltown. John was one of the exceptions, and did all his Novitiate at Clongowes. He remained there until 1867 as Infirmarian and Sacristan.
1867-1872 he was sent to Gardiner St as Sacristan, and then in 1871 he was made Buyer and Dispenser.
1872-1877 He was sent back to his old job at Clongowes for a short time, and then sent to Galway as Sacristan.
1877-1881 he was sent to UCD as Buyer and Dispenser.
1881-1882 He was sent to Limerick for a year.
1882 He was sent back to his former job at Clongowes, and remained there until his death 25/01/1897.

Old Clongowonians recall fondly the kindly smile and gentle word they always received from him as Infirmarian. Others also testify to his patient and loving care for them when they were sick. Although aged 65 and suffering from heart disease, he continued to work to within a few months of his death. Though he had cared for others most of his life, especially sick people, now confined to his room it troubled him that he was something of a burden to others as they cared for him.
The last thing he did was to sit up, take hold of a crucifix and kiss, He then lay down and died.

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.

Hannan, Peter, 1934-2023, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J720
  • Person
  • 21 August 1934-07 December 2023

Born: 21 August 1934, The Ward, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1957, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1967, Milltown Park Chapel, Dublin
Final vows: 15 August 1974, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 07 December 2023, Blackrock Clinic, Dublin

Part of the Manresa Community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ZAM 1974; ZAM to HIB 1982

    Born :  21st August 1934        Dublin
Raised : The Ward, Co Dublin
Early Education at St Mary’s College, Dundalk, UCD & Clonliffe College

7th September 1957 Entered Society at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
8th September 1959 First Vows at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
1959-1961 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1961-1962 Monze, Zambia - Regency : Studying language at Chivuna Station
1962-1964 Chisekesi, Zambia - Regency : Teacher at Canisius College, Chikuni
1964-1968 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
28th July 1967 Ordained at Milltown Park Chapel, Dublin
1968-1969 Manchester, UK - Studying Pedagogy of language at St Bede’s College
1969-1972 Chisekesi, Zambia - Teacher; Spiritual Father at Canisius College, Chikuni
1972-1973 Clarkston, MI, USA - Tertianship at Colombiere College
1973-1976 Chisekesi, Zambia - Teacher at Canisius College, Chikuni
15th August 1974 Final Vows at Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
1974 Transcribed to Zambian Province [ZAM] (15/08/1974)
1978-1985 Tullabeg - Assistant Director of Spiritual Exercises
1979 Director “Religion in Ireland Project”
1982 Transcribed to Irish Province [HIB] (26/03/1982)
1985-2023 Manresa House - Assistant Director of Spiritual Exercises; Ecclesiastical Assistant for CLC
1989 Librarian; Spiritual Exercises Team; Writer
2018 Writer; Directs Spiritual Exercises

https://jesuit.ie/news/helping-people-find-god/

Fr. Peter Hannan SJ died peacefully on 7 December 2023 at the Blackrock Clinic in the company of family members and Fr Willie Reynolds, superior of Manresa. His funeral mass took place at St Francis Xavier’s, Gardiner Street on Monday 11 December at 11.00 am.

Peter was born on 21 August 1934 in Dublin. On 7 September 1957, he entered the Society of Jesus at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois, and took his first vows on 8 September 1959.
From 1961 to 1964 he spent time in Zambia studying and working in the area of education ministry and Catechesis .

On 28 July 1967 Peter was ordained at Milltown Park chapel, Dublin, and on 15 August 1974 he took his final Vows at Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia. In 1978 he returned to Ireland, and was Assistant Director of Spiritual Exercises and the Director of “Religion in Ireland Project” in Tullabeg. In 1985 he was made Assistant Director of Spiritual Exercises and Ecclesiastical Assistant for CLC in Manresa House, Clontarf, Dublin where he remained until 2023.

Always gentle, courteous, gracious

Willie Reynolds SJ was the chief celebrant at the funeral Mass. Peter’s cousin Father John Hannan SM gave the homily. Father John said his cousin was “always gentle, courteous, gracious, and deeply interested in one’s ‘story.”

He noted that when Peter came back to Ireland in 1977 he began his life’s major work in the study of the nature and purpose of the spiritual life. Father John said that this was “all facilitated by his beloved Jesuit Order, one of whose admirable characteristics is to allow its members to develop their potential in the pursuit of excellence.”

Peter published nine books between 1993 and 2007. One of his best known was Follow Your Dream : Restoring Lost Intimacy and The Search for Something More : A Journey to Human Fulfilment.

According to John, Peter loved being a ‘companion’ in a person’s search for a more profound relationship with God. “He relished the search for the divine, seeking to understand his own and others’ life stories through prayer, the use of the Scriptures, and Ignatian know-how. Being a spiritual guide was very important to him. Peter was there to encourage the other and enable them to open new pathways that might set them alight in their own search of a deeper relationship with God.”

In concluding his homily Fr John asked that people never forget “Peter’s example of fervor, fidelity to his Jesuit vocation, and the spiritual heritage which he leaves behind. These are the the virtues that I understand Peter to have most exemplified”

After the Mass, Peter was laid to rest in the Jesuit plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.

https://jesuit.ie/blog/gardening-with-peter/

Tears flowed freely when I heard the news that my 89-year-old friend Peter Hannan SJ was taken to intensive care, and I felt deeply sad when one of his friends told me he had died. I was lucky to have known this wonderful gardener and spiritual teacher during the later stage of his life. I became friends with him after responding to an invitation to help out in the grounds of Manresa Jesuit Centre of Spirituality. As we gardened, we easily slipped into deep conversation and I appreciated Peter’s gentle smile, contemplative wisdom and robust strength. Here I suggest three ways in which Peter showed me how to love:

Listen to inner knowledge: Peter had an academic background especially during the first half of his life, but he later realised that it was inner or experiential knowledge that truly satisfied the soul. He invited me to grow in this personal wisdom through paying attention to the glimpses of love in my day, intuitively naming what they say to me, savouring their truth and goodness, and learning to believe and own this love for myself.

Share unfinished works: As a writer, Peter generously shared his notes with me which included growth in personal wisdom, insights into faith and spirituality, and bringing scripture to life through imagination and feelings. I felt moved to share some of my own writings with him such as an unpublished poem that expressed my vulnerabilities. He received it with great sensitivity, as if holding something sacred, and tentatively shared his thoughts with me.

Create beauty everywhere: Peter believed in a garden full of colourful flowers and leaves. He showed me how to take care of the little things, e.g., nurturing potted plants in their early days as well as the bigger things, e.g., moving compost and digging up the roots of unwanted shrubs. He taught me the value of time when it was enough to leave an unfinished task for another day. He joyfully laboured in his garden every day, and like his writing, was a beautiful sight indeed.

Help us to be happy like you
(Peter Hannan SJ, 1934-2023)

Your sensitive smile, a sign of your master,
Your physical strength, a reminder of a great oak,
Your listening ear, nourishing like a river.

Rest sweetly, brother, rest sweetly, friend,
Keep us forever in your heavenly heart.

Warm us with your wholesome stories,
Guide us with your gardening hand.

We smile for you, for you are smiling at us,
Help us to be happy like you.

Amen

Hannigan, Edward, 1907-1960, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/175
  • Person
  • 07 July 1907-15 February 1960

Born: 07 July 1907, Edinburgh, Scotland
Entered: 31 August 1923, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 24 June 1937, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1941, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 15 February 1960, Milltown Park, Dublin

by 1929 at Berchmanskolleg, Pullach, Germany (GER S) studying
by 1939 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship
by 1940 in Rome, Italy (ROM) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 35th Year No 2 1960
Obituary :
Fr Edward Hannigan (1907-1960)

Fr. Hannigan died very suddenly on 19th February, shortly before 10 o'clock. He had said Mass and had his breakfast and gone through his post. He went down the corridor to use the telephone and on the way back to his room felt weak, sat down and died a few ininutes later. He had however time to make his confession before he lost consciousness and was anointed before he expired.
He had been educated in Mungret and did his noviceship in Tullabeg and juniorate in Rathfarnham. He went to Pullach for philosophy and then taught in St. Ignatius' College, Galway. After theology in Milltown Park and tertianship in St. Beuno's he was sent to Rome to do a biennium in Moral Theology in 1939. His work in Rome was interrupted when the war became active and he sailed for Ireland in May 1940 on a Japanese liner from Naples, possibly the last boat to reach England from the Mediterranean that year,
He was not given an opportunity to complete his studies after his return to Ireland but was asked to teach both Moral Theology and Canon Law in succession to Fr. John MacMahon who had just been appointed Provincial, and it was not until 1949 that he was able to return to Rome to present and defend his thesis. The thesis was a model of method and precision. The subject was: “Is it ever lawful to advise the lesser of two evils?” Fr. Hannigan carefully summarised all the recent and many ancient opinions of this difficult topic and then his own conclusions. The thesis was accepted and praised by his examiners; but what really impressed them was the brilliance of his Lectio Coram and his oral defence of the thesis. His ten years of teaching in Milltown had made him confident and self-possessed in his exposition; his command of Latin came as a surprise to them and he showed exceptional skill in dealing with the objections and difficulties which were urged against him, never allowing himself to be cornered or led into a false position. As a result not only did he receive the doctorate summa cum laude but negotiations were begun to have him assigned to the staff of the Gregorian. It was not due to any lack of earnestness on the part of the authorities of the Gregorian that these negotiations did not succeed.
It is not easy to form a just estimate of his work as Professor of Moral Theology at Milltown Park. It was widely felt that he did not do complete justice to his very great abilities. However he did bring to his work some very useful qualities. In the first place he spoke Latin fluently and accurately and so reduced to an absolute minimum the difficulties which inevitably arise from the use of Latin in teaching Theology. He was able to do this because of his remarkable gifts as a linguist. These gifts appeared at other stages in his life in the Society. He had an extremely good knowledge of Irish. As a scholastic he had proved that he was fully competent to teach through Irish, which he had done for three years in Galway; and although he did not frequently speak Irish he never lost his command of grammar and idiom. So too he brought back from Pullach a very good knowledge of German, which was still accurate and idiomatic when he came to Rome to defend his thesis twenty years later.
Again he planned his course carefully and finished it at the appointed time omitting nothing. Indeed one of the points of which he was often criticised was that he treated in class matter that anyone with intelligence could have made up for himself; but perhaps some of the weaker members of the class were grateful to him for this. However, he was unwilling to expand the matter contained in the textbook. This was a pity because his comments would have been interesting and reliable. He preferred to illustrate Genicot with quotations from other books. But when consulted in private on a case his opinions were very good indeed, clear and accurate and well supported. Priests who made retreats or days of recollection in Milltown Park were very loud in their praises and grateful to him for the help he gave them.
An account of Fr. Hannigan cannot omit to mention his very narrow escape from a tragic death during the fire at Milltown Park. He was living on the top storey of the Finlay wing and must have been slow in getting up after the alarm had been given. He was trapped in his room with the roof on fire and the corridor impassable with dense smoke. Fr. J. Johnston who was in the next room was similarly trapped, but opened the door of his room in a vain attempt to reach the fire escape, was overcome by the fumes and perished in the fire. Fr. Hannigan wisely stayed in his room and kept the door shut and waited for the fire brigade to run a ladder up to his window. The ladder was found to be too short so the fire-man handed him up a supplementary ladder which he hooked on to the window sill and so climbed down the twelve feet which separated him from the safety of the fire-brigade ladder. He must have been the last man to have left the top storey alive, saved by his own courage and self-possession.
Fr. Hannigan could give a good retreat although he could not often be persuaded to undertake this work. As procurator he will be remembered for his unfailing courtesy and for the quick and efficient way in which he did business with those of the community who had to visit him. He made the same impression on all with whom he came in contact especially on the tradesmen with whom he had to deal and with his assistants in organising whist drives for the building fund. The very numerous letters of sympathy received by Fr. Rector gave ample proof of this.
Fr. Hannigan had a very intense interest in life. He was a keen follower of almost all sports, rugby, soccer, golf and racing; also of politics national and international and of the obscure workings of the stock exchange. But above all he was remarkable for his charm and friendliness as a member of the community. Those who lived with him will be conscious of a deep sense of personal loss for a long time to come. We extend very sincere sympathy to his brother and sister.

Hannon, John J, 1884-1947, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/176
  • Person
  • 24 May 1884-18 July 1947

Born: 24 May 1884, William Street, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1900, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1915, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1918, St Mary’s, Ore Place, Hastings, Sussex, England
Died: 18 July 1947, Curia Generalizia Compagnia di Gesù, Borgo Santo Spirito, Rome, Italy

Educated at Crescent College SJ

Father General's English Assistant - 1946

by 1904 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1906
by 1913 at Innsbruck, Austria (ASR-HUN) studying
by 1918 at Hastings, Sussex, England (LUGD) studying
by 1947 at Rome, Italy (ROM) English Assistant

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
]ohn Hannon entered the Society as a highly talented sixteen year old, and after novitiate and one year juniorate, studied philosophy at Gemert in 1903. At the end of 1906 he was sent to Australia, and spent part of 1906 and 1907 teaching at St Aloysius' College. For the remainder of 1907 until 1912 he taught at Riverview, and in a reflection of his ability he was senior rowing master, 1911-12.
He returned to Milltown Park for theology and after ordination and tertianship he took final vows at the start of 1918 and began teaching theology, which was his basic life's work. He was rector of the theologate at Milltown Park, and in the late 1930s was apostolic visitor for the Irish Christian Brothers throughout the world. He became the English assistant in Rome and he died in office in 1947.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - English Assistant 23 September 1946

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 21st Year No 4 1946
Milltown Park :
On hearing of Fr. Hannon's appointment as Assistant, Fr. Rector sent a telegram of congratulation on behalf of Milltown Park. Fr, Hannon has been stationed here for a great many years. He was Professor of Philosophy and Theology and was Rector from 1924 to 1930.

Sacred Heart, Crescent, Limerick :
Fr. Rector sent a telegram of congratulation to Fr. Hannon, a past pupil of the Crescent College, on his appointment as Assistant.
Irish Province News 22nd Year No 3 1947

GENERAL :
The sudden death of V. Rev. Fr. John J. Hannon, Assistant, on the morning of July 18th as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage came as a great shock to the Province, R.I.P. An account of his career appears below. Fr. Provincial sent immediately a message of sympathy to his Paternity in the name of the Irish Province. .
In his telegram announcing Fr. Hannon's death, Fr. General re called to Rome Fr. Van den Brempt, the Substitute Secretary for the English Assistancy, who came to Dublin on July 14th to perfect his English, and went on the Juniors' Villa at Balbriggan the following day. Fr. Van den Brempt left Dunlaoghaire for Holyhead on the night of Sunday, July 20th.

Obituary :
Fr. John Hannon (1884-1900-1947)
Fr. John J. Hannon, English Assistant, died suddenly in Rome, in the early hours of 18th July, as a result of an attack of cerebral hemorrhage. He failed to appear for his Mass at 6.30 a.m. that morning, and was also missed at breakfast. On entering his room shortly after 7 o'clock, Fr. Henry Nolan found him dead in bed, death having supervened some hours previously. The Superior of the Curia, Fr. Martin, the Italian Assistant administered conditional Extreme Unction. Fr. Hannon had been his usual self the evening previously, and had attended to various items of business, including the purchase of a ticket to Malta where he was due to give retreats in early September. He had been, it is true, under medical care for his heart, and was on a diet for some months previously, but few realised the end was so near, though he himself had given various hints that he did not expect to live long. The funeral obsequies took place on Saturday, 19th July after Mass in the chapel of the Curia, which was offered by His Paternity, who also said the last prayers in the Cemetery at Agro Verano, where Fr. Hannon's mortal remains await the resurrection.
Fr. Hannon was born in Limerick on 24th May, 1884 and went to school to the Christian Brothers and later to our College, the Crescent. He entered Tullabeg as a novice on 7th September, 1900, where he also studied rhetoric for a year as a Junior before being sent to Gemert in Holland for his philosophy. It was here that he began to show that special aptitude for scholastic studies to which many years of his later life were to be dedicated. He shone in a class of brilliant students, in the French house, which included men of the stamp of D'Herbigny.
The six years of his magisterium in the Colleges he spent in Australia, at St. Aloysius' and St. Ignatius', Riverview, and was for the final year Prefect of studies at Riverview. He returned to Ireland in 1912 and was sent to Innsbruck in the Austrian Tyrol for his theological studies, which he completed at Milltown Park, Dublin, where he was ordained on 31st July, 1915 by Dr. Browne, Bishop of Cloyne. He made his tertianship during the year 1916-7 under Fr. Ignatius Gartlan at Tullabeg, and was then chosen for a biennium in preparation for a chair in dogmatic Theology in Milltown, going to Ore Place, Hastings in the autumn of 1917. He was professed of the four Vows there on 2nd February, 1918. His biennium had to be interrupted when the new Philosophate was opened at Milltown, to accommodate our scholastics who had, owing to the threat of conscription, to be withdrawn from Jersey and Stonyhurst. Fr. Hannon was one of the professors, and continued teaching philosophy for the next six years. During Fr. Peter Finlay's absence in Rome as one of the Province delegates at the 27th General Congregation in 1923, Fr. Hannon had his first opportunity as a professor of theology, and those who attended these first classes will retain a pleasurable memory of his gift of clear exposition, his youthful enthusiasm for the subject treated, his delightful fluency in Latin. In 1924 he joined the permanent staff of theological professors and was also appointed Rector of Milltown, whose destinies he guided till 1930. During this period he did much to improve the status of the studies and the material development of the House. The Chapel was the object of his special predilection, thanks to the generosity of benefactors he was able to carry out a scheme of decoration which transformed its appearance and to install a new tabernacle set in priceless jewels. Fr. Hannon succeeded Fr. Peter Finlay in the public chair of dogmatic Theology in the National University in 1924, a post he held for ten years. Once a Week during each term of the academic year he lectured to an over flowing and enthusiastic audience, chiefly from the student body of University College, Dublin, for whom he worked exceedingly hard in making available to them in the columns of “The Irish Catholic”, the weekly lecture in full. A new feature of this professorship consisted in written examinations in the matter treated each year, with the offering of substantial money prizes for successful candidates. To an enquiry as to the attendance which these lectures attracted, the College porter once replied: “Why, it's like a Mission”!
Fr. Hannon was. Consultor of the Province from 1931 to 1938, when he was appointed to a post which made it impossible for him to continue in that capacity, we refer to the task confided to him by the Holy See as Apostolic Visitor to the Congregation of Irish Christian Brothers, shortly after the termination of the 28th General Congregation, at which he again represented the Province. In the discharge of his new responsibilities he bad to visit practically every land of the English speaking world. From these extensive travels he gleaned, incidentally, an immense experience of men and things, and first-hand information on questions of Catholic interest, especially the extent and influence of Irish Catholic penetration abroad which impressed him profoundly and was the frequent theme of his conversation and of the eloquent public lectures he delivered later to so many different audiences.
During the war Fr. Hannon bad occasion to visit Rome in connection with visitation matters. During his stay he was entrusted by the Holy Father with the task of visiting prisoners-of-war camps in Italy and giving retreats to Catholic officers and men from various English-speaking countries detained there. We can imagine the comfort which the genial presence of this special representative of the Holy Father brought the prisoners, not a few of whom he had already met when in Australia as a scholastic or whose people were personally known to him. Fr. Hannon went again to Rome as Province elector at the 29th General Congregation which chose Fr. Janssens as General. He himself was elected Assistant to the English Assistancy on 22nd September, 1946, the second in the history of our Province to be chosen to that post of responsibility, the first being Fr. John Ffrench, a Co. Galway man, who died in the Professed House, Rome, in 1873.
Fr. Hannon was scarcely 10 months Assistant, and of these ten months he spent about two outside Rome, on the occasion of his short visit to the Irish and English Provinces in January and February of the present year. A stranger hitherto to the latter Province he made a deep impression on its members by his affability, his wide experience and dexterity in the management of affairs. They and we were looking forward to the possession for many years to come, of such a kindly and influential ‘friend at court’, a wise and prudent counsellor, but God decided otherwise, and called him away suddenly in the midst of his unselfish labours.
The late Assistant was a man of deep unobtrusive piety, of a simplicity and naturalness which were the key to the ascendancy which he so readily won over hearts. He had, to help him, that precious talent of remembering names and faces and could, it may be said without exaggeration, resume again, after the lapse of years, threads of conversation where they had broken off, so retentive a memory he had for people's individual interests, those little joys and sorrows of others which never failed to find a sympathetic echo in his own affectionate heart. Homo sum - humani nihil a me alienum puto could truly, and in the best sense of the phrase of Terence be said of him.
His exceptionally clear analytic mind was paired with ripeness of judgment and practical common sense, gifts these which rendered him such an invaluable counsellor in Curia circles. But, for those who knew Fr. Hannon best, the outstanding gift to him from Heaven was that conspicuous splendor caritatis with which his least word or action was instinct, in whose genial glow hearts were fired, or the mists of prejudice and misunderstanding melted away. R.I.P.

Letter from Fr. J. A. MacSeumais, Air Force Chaplain, 25-7-47 :
“I learned only to-day from the English Province Chaplains' Weekly of the death of Fr. Hannon. R.I.P. I was deeply shocked to hear of it. I saw him for the last time on Tuesday, July 8th, when I said good bye to him as I was leaving Rome that night. . I met Fr. Hannon within a short time of my arrival in Rome on July 3rd. He had written to me previously and informed me of the very full arrangements he had made for me if I came down for the canonisation ceremonies of SS. John de Britto and Bernardino Realino. When I met him on arrival he was most kind and put me in the hands of Fr. Henry Nolan. I saw him every day during my stay at the Curia. He was always enquiring about how I was getting on, suggesting I should see such a place, and he went to great trouble to get me a seat in the tribune for the canonisation for Saints Elizabeth des Anges and Michael Garicoits on July 6th. He was finding the intense heat very trying. He took recreation with Fr. O'Donnell, the American Substitute, and myself on the roof several nights, but be used to retire early, because, he said, he could not sleep in the mornings and had to try to make up some sleep at night. I think he was very glad to see somebody from the Province. His Italian was not perfect, and he probably welcomed a chance of speaking to one of his fellow countrymen. May he rest in peace”.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
John Hannon 1884-1947
Fr John Hannon was one of the best known members of the Province in Ireland and abroad among both laymen and clerics, and was the second Irishman to hold the responsible post of Assistant to the General.

He was a Limerick man born in that city on May 24th 1884. Educated at the Crescent, he entered the Society in 1900. After his ordination in 1915, he became Professor of Theology at Milltown Park and lectured also in Theology at University College Dublin. After being Rector of Milltown Park for six years he was appointed by the Holy See as Apostolic Visitor to the Irish Christian Brothers throughout the world in 1938.

In 1946 he attended the 29th General Congregation as a delegate of the Irish province. There he was chosen as English Assistant. His term of office was, alas, only too short, for he died suddenly in Rome the following year on July 18th 1947.

He was a man of very handsome appearance, of great charm of manner, accompanied by great gifts of mind, an unusual combination which he used for the glory of God and the advancement of religion. He was much in demand for priests retreats and had a very fruitful apostolate among the sick in hospitals. To him we owe the present beautiful chapel at Milltown Park.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John Hannon (1884-1947)

In the foregoing pages, only Jesuits who have been members of the Limerick community have been noticed in the biographical index. Yet, this centenary publication would not be complete if it did not assign a notice to two Irish Jesuits who were never members of the community. Father Edmund O'Reilly undoubtedly had much to do with the restoration of the Society in Limerick, while Father John Hannon, an Old Crescent boy, became the second Irish Father Assistant at Rome in the four centuries history of the Society.

Father John Hannon (1884-1947), a native of Limerick, received his early education with the Christian Brothers and at Sacred Heart College. He was admitted to the Society in 1900. After his classical studies he was sent to Belgium for philosophy and later spent his regency in Australia. His theological studies were made at Innsbruck and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1915. At the end of his tertianship he continued his studies in theology in preparation for a chair at Milltown Park. For some years after his return to Ireland he taught philosophy. From 1924 to 1934 he occupied the public chair of dogmatic theology at University College, Dublin, while a member of the theological faculty at Milltown Park. In 1938, he was appointed Apostolic Visitor to the Irish Christian Brothers. His studies in this important post brought him to all parts of the world where the Christian Brothers have established themselves. At the end of the war, on the occasion of a General Congregation of the Society in Rome, Father Hannon was elected to the important post of Assistant for Ireland, England, Canada and Belgium (with dependent missions). He died suddenly in Rome some ten months later on 18 July, 1947.

Harnett, Philip, 1943-1996, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/506
  • Person
  • 06 January 1943-20 December 1996

Born: 06 January 1943, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 10 October 1961, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 23 June 1972, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1982, Loyola, Eglinton Road, Dublin
Died: 20 December 1996, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Loyola community, Eglinton Road, Dublin at the time of death.

Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus: 31 July 1986-30 July 1992
1st President of the European Conference of Provincials 1992-1996

Cousin of Donal Doyle SJ (JPN)

by 1966 at Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain (TOLE) studying
by 1973 at Washington DC, USA (MAR) studying
PROVINCIAL 01 September 1986
by 1994 at Brussels Belgium (BEL S) President European Conference
by 1995 at Strasbourg France (GAL) President European Conference

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Harnett, Philip
by Peter McVerry
Harnett, Philip (1943–96), Jesuit priest, was born 6 January 1943 in Dublin, the third child of Patrick Harnett and Ursula Treacy. He had two brothers, John and Patrick, and three sisters, Anne, Catherine, and Mary. Following an education at Pembroke School, Ballsbridge, and Belvedere College, he joined the Jesuits on 10 October 1961 and studied arts at UCD, philosophy in the Jesuit College, Madrid, and theology in Milltown Park, Dublin. He was ordained a priest on 23 June 1972.

Harnett studied as a drugs counsellor in Washington, DC, in 1972 and worked for the Dublin diocese as a drugs advisor until 1974. He was then appointed parish priest in the inner-city Jesuit parish of Gardiner Street where, for six years, he coordinated a major community development programme. From 1980 to 1983 he worked in the central administration of the Irish Jesuits before being appointed to the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. During this time he lived in the socially deprived neighbourhood of Ballymun and sought to raise awareness of the structural injustices in Irish society; he also lectured and gave many workshops on this theme. He worked closely with residents in Ballymun to support their struggle to improve the quality of life in their neighbourhood.

In 1986 Harnett was appointed provincial of the Irish Jesuits. In this post he led the Jesuits through a period of rapid change in Irish society and the Irish church, and his leadership skills became very evident. Although he had to make difficult, and sometimes unpopular, decisions to respond to the changing circumstances, he retained the respect of those whom he led. He encouraged and supported the Irish Jesuits in their commitment to social justice, which he saw as a central thrust of their mission. In 1993 he was appointed to the newly created post of president of the Conference of European Jesuit Provincials, which reflected the high esteem in which he was held, and moved to Strasbourg. Three years later he was diagnosed with cancer, and despite a course of immuno-therapy in Strasbourg he became progressively weaker. He returned to Dublin, where he died 20 December 1996.

Irish Province Jesuit Archives; personal knowledge

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 92 : August 1996
Obituary

Fr Philip Harnett (1943-1996)

6th Jan. 1943: Born in Dublin
Early education: Pembroke School, Ballsbridge and Belvedere College
10th Oct. 1961: Entered the Society at Emo
11th Oct. 1963: First Vows at Emo
1963 - 1965: Rathfarnham, Arts at UCD
1965 - 1967: Madrid, studying Philosophy
1967 - 1969: Crescent College Comprehensive, Teaching
1969 - 1972: Milltown Park, studying Theology
23rd June 1972: Ordained Priest at Milltown Park
1972 - 1973: Washington, Diploma in Drugs Abuse Training
1973 - 1974: Gardiner St - work for Archbishop on Drugs SFX
1974 - 77: Gardiner Street, Parish Priest
1977 - 1978: Tullabeg, Tertianship
1978 - 1980: SFX Gardiner St - Parish Priest
1980 - 1983: Loyola House - Special Secretariat
1983 - 1986: Arrupe, Ballymun Superior - work at CFJ
1986 - 1992: Loyola House, Provincial
1992 - 1993: Sabbatical
1993 - 1996 Brussels/Strasbourg: President of Conference of European Provincials

Philip was feeling a lack of energy after Christmas 1995. His doctors diagnosed cancer and this necessitated the removal of a kidney. Under medical supervision, he initially returned to work in Strasbourg but his doctors eventually prescribed a course in immuno-therapy that lasted several months during which time Philip was unable to work. On completion of the therapy he returned to Dublin to stay with his sister Anne for some weeks. After a fall, he was admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital and then to Cherryfield Lodge. He made very determined efforts to regain his health and members of the province prayed for him through the intercession of Fr. John Sullivan. Gradually, however, he became weaker and was more and more confined to bed. He died at 3am on Friday 20th December 1996.

Homily for Philip Harnett's funeral Mass, December 23rd, 1996
Can't you imagine Philip Harnett as Jesus asks him does he love him more than these others, and then asks him for a second and third time does he really love him? What I imagine is that Philip would be wondering what kind of manipulation and emotional blackmail all this was! I think he'd probably call for some kind of small group session in Ignatius' court of heaven, perhaps with himself, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, to facilitate the Lord's apparent insecurity!

In this, the end of John's gospel, we have played out before us the last act of the drama, which began with the invitation to the disciples in the first chapter of John to "come and see". This last act for Philip wasn't as he had either anticipated or wanted: somebody else was putting a belt around him and taking him where he would rather not go. This last journey and meeting with Jesus began last January with news of his serious illness, and intensified in September when he returned to Ireland and it became clear that his illness according to conventional medicine was terminal. It was mostly a journey through his memory, his mind and his heart. Philip the mountain climber, the hill walker, the marathon runner, that vibrant and handsome physical presence, went on this most important of all his journeys with disintegrating body, struggling for breath, but with spirit undiminished and even expanding, as he yearned for life and yearned to understand better the meaning of his and our lives.

What did he find out? Well: that, as always, he was held by the hand of Jesus. That was core and central: beneath all his banter and mockery, it was always clear that for Philip his relationship with Jesus Christ was the bedrock of his life, I heard him once as Provincial articulate this in an impassioned and unguarded way, confirming what I had always suspected was true. This came out so strongly in these last few months: if Jesus was leading him, even where he would himself not want to go, then it was alright. He might argue, protest, even rant and rave, but in the end, warts and all, it was alright. And this is what happened: Philip was able to say “I'm happy”, even as he continued to desire life and felt it ebbing out of him: all will be well, all manner of things will be well, because Jesus Christ, his life-time companion, was with him.

What he found out also was that as he got closer to Jesus and the next life, he got closer to his family, his friends, to his life. He pondered long the influence of his deceased mother and father, his relationship with his brothers and sisters, John, Anne, Catherine, Patrick and Mary, his extended family of in-laws, nephews, nieces and aunts. It was such a great joy to him to be able, after a characteristically honest, searching, and healing look-back, to embrace this network of relationships with heightened appreciation. I know, because he told me and others more than once, how deeply touched he was in particular by the palpable love he felt from his immediate family: he relished the directness of their affection, he was so pleased that it could be expressed so openly, and he wanted so much for them to understand how much they meant to him. Of course he was still capable of saying "God bless" if there was even a hint of mawkishness or false sentimentality in any of this: but he did, more than ever before, want to own and relax into the love he felt for an received from others. And he did so that last journey was simplifying and purifying in a way that surprised and made him very happy - through his prayer, his pondering and sifting, his talking it over with others in a characteristically open way, he found that in coming closer to Jesus Christ he became closer to the rest of us. As his body contracted, his heart expanded.

This applied also of course to his relationship with his friends - with Bernadette in Australia (whose brother Joseph is, I'm glad to say, with us this morning), Catherine in France, with his many friends, Jesuit and lay, from Ireland and different parts of the world, many of whom are here today. He was inclined in fact to dwell less on his achievements, and more on the people who had enriched his life: this was a bit different for a Jesuit, as he well realised! He appreciated so much the care he received in Strasbourg, in Elm Park, above al in Cherryfield. This included those who so generously offered him the help of various alternative medicines, as with typical whole heartedness he embraced every way to continue with life which he had such a huge desire for. And he was so pleased too that the Jesuit Province was praying through John Sullivan's intercession for a miracle cure: I think there may have to be another small group meeting in heaven, involving Philip. John Sullivan and a facilitator to sort out what exactly John Sullivan thought he was at, before the two of them can be the good pals Paul Cullen was talking about last Saturday!

But this was something that Philip also found out: that God, the Father, was not aloof, distant, judgmental, and to be feared. Rather, he marvelled to discover the infinite, inexhaustible patience of God, so open to taking all the anger, the fear, the rage that someone in Philip's terrible predicament felt, and yet there for Philip, as Jesus was. That again was wonderful: this after all is the God of life, and Philip again was reassured that against all the odds God, who is Father and Mother, was there for him, no matter what.

I have spoken of Philip through what I know of his own eyes. The reading from the Romans, with talk of the groaning of creation, gives us an opportunity to assess Philip through our own eyes, because this is also part of the truth of who it is. Creation groans because God's kingdom is being established against great opposition, and Philip had dedicated his life to this Kingdom. What are the kind of qualities which made his contribution so important, particularly in his life as priest in Gardiner Street, Special Secretariat in Loyola, work in Ballymun and the Centre for Faith and Justice, as Provincial and then as President of the Conference of European Provincials?

Well: I think his leadership qualities were remarkable. I remember joking with him that as a leader of the pack on our rugby team he was remarkable for the fact that he could roar at the rest of us to get up first to the break-down point, while arriving himself half a yard behind everyone else to the next line-out! There was something here that was truly great: the ability to motivate others, to inspire, to empower, to make others believe in themselves, not to feel that he could or had to do everything himself. Some of this of course came from his great sense of vision: in many ways for us Irish Jesuits he personified what it was to be a Jesuit after our 32nd General Congregation in the 1970's, with our mission defined in terms of faith and justice, Some of it too came from his skill in management and group work - think of all those meetings, and he was still conducting them from his sick-bed! There was too his creativity: he displayed this perhaps to greatest effect in the last job he had in Europe, where he really was trying to get something very embryonic going in difficult circumstances and in a way which won the respect of all. He had a sharp mind, a shrewd intelligence, an original and critical reading of the world and the signs of the times. Allied to all this was his ability to challenge, in a way which brought the best out of others. As you heard at the start of the Mass, Fr. General himself obviously appreciated this quality in Philip, which leads me to believe that in their relationship of great mutual respect and not a little affection, there may also have been that Harnett push for the magis, the 110%, felt by Fr. General! And of course there was his terrific humanity, his openness in dialogue, his ability to respect the institution but never let this suppress the Spirit-led unorthodoxies in himself or others, his utterly irreverent wit. Very interesting, he would say, when bored stiff; the pious put-down, God bless; the hilarious, Inspector Clousseau grappling with French vowels, particularly of the eu variety, with corresponding facial grimaces.

The stories are legion, and most of them unrepeatable. An edited, maybe apochryphal one will have to act as catalyst for your own favourites: it tells of Philip, as Provincial, being driven in the back of a car up the Milltown drive to preside at an important Province meeting. On the way he passes a group of the younger men, and in self-mocking style waves to them airily, in truly regal and almost pontifical style. Then, as the car passes, they see the same Philip gesticulating at them wildly like a school-boy from the back window of the car. He could not be pompous: sacred cows were there to be slaughtered, the unsayable was suddenly sayable, and none of it was cruel because it was rooted in the ability to be contrite and laugh at himself ( I feel so guilty!) and to be deeply serious when it mattered. He made doing what was good seem adventurous, attractive - and just plain fun! Through all of this he achieved so much, and we may rightly assess this as of more significance than he himself was inclined to do in his illness. You will all have your own list of these achievements: I mention the Signs of the Times Seminar, the development of the Milltown Institute and the Irish School of Ecumenics, as examples of how to my certain first-hand knowledge his leadership has touched the lives of so many.

He was, then, a giant of a man and will be sorely missed. He meant so much to so many. We who are left behind, his family, his friends and colleagues, his brother Jesuits, have a right to ask why? Why now? A right to grieve, to be sorry, to be angry. In doing so we will be helped by the Spirit referred to in the reading from Romans, who helps us in our weakness. We will be helped too by the spirit of Philip, who trusted in God and Jesus, who would understand that we needed to grieve and be angry, but who might say to us in the future, when we might be tempted to use our grief in a maudlin way to block our own lives - well, he might say a gentle, God bless, and help us realise that his God is the God of life, and it is even deeper life that he now enjoys.

This is what the reading from Isaiah suggests I think - more mountains, food and drink, the heavenly banquet - all in continuity with this life. This is another of Philip's great gifts to us: dying, with all its terrible rupture and loss, is for the person of faith a passing to new life. Philip lived this rupture and this hope in an extraordinarily holistic way. He told me early on that he did not want to die well", in the sense of whatever conventional expectations might be there: he laughed often, even through those last few months, and when he got angry, he would say, in aside, Kubla-Ross/stages of dying! He wondered too what would happen if there was a miracle: would he become a bit of an exhibit, like Lazarus, and would he be asked to go to Rome as part of the evidence for the cause of John Sullivan?! This apparent gallows humour was in fact more of what I have already alluded to: he loved life, he loved Jesus who was utterly incarnate, of flesh, for Philip: and if he trusted Jesus and God to bring him through death to new life, then this new life was in continuity with all the fun, the love, the mountains, the food and drink of this life. This was not a denial of death: rather it was a hymn to life, the ultimate compliment to and praise of the God of life. A 10th Century Celtic poem captures some of this sentiment:

The heavenly banquet
I would like to have the men of Heaven
In my own house:
With vats of good cheer
Laid out for them.

I would like to have the three Marys,
Their fame is so great.
I would like people
From every corner of Heaven
.
I would like them to be cheerful
In their drinking,
I would like to have Jesus too
Here amongst them.

I would like a great lake of beer
For the King of Kings,
I would like to be watching Heaven's family
Drinking it through all eternity,

This symbolic picture of the heavenly banquet, so true for example to the great satisfaction experienced by Philip in his two trips to pubs for a drink with his brother John in the weeks before he died, is part of Philip's gift to us as he parts. It tells us to treasure life to the full; to seek its meaning in responsible love and in Jesus Christ; to hope with great realism and joy for a reunion of all creation at God's heavenly banquet. In his last few days when Philip, master of meetings, wanted a bit of time on his own he used to say, courteously, humorously: the meeting is over, you may go now! The meeting is indeed over now, Philip: and although it breaks our hearts, you may go: and we thank you and God for all you have meant to us, and for the hope that we may continue to make this world a better place and may enjoy life to the full with you in the future.

Peter Sexton, SJ

-oOo-

When Philip Harnett became Provincial of the Society of Jesus in Ireland, he automatically assumed a number of responsibilities relating to the Irish School of Ecumenics. Firstly he became the Roman Catholic Patron, secondly he became Trustee, and lastly he assumed the Presidency of the Academic Council. In this last role he quickly became aware much more fully of the work of ISE - its degree/diploma programmes in Dublin, its adult education courses on reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the research and outreach efforts of the academic staff. Already in ISE there was a growing realisation that the Irish Churches should take a more positive interest in ISE and Philip saw and endorsed this aim. He also learned of the precarious financial position of ISE and he realised the need for change and development in the school's administration. As time passed the Provincial felt a growing need to take a more constructively active role to help ISE - discerning that those who were running ISE - Executive Board and Director - were too close to the action and too fully involved to stand back and be objective. With the agreement therefore of those in ISE, of the other Patrons and the Trustees, Philip invited (to use a politically correct term which probably understates the nature of the 'invitation') two business men whom he could rely on to act as consultants to the Patrons and to draw up a report on ISE.

That report, when in due time it was presented to the Patrons, was comprehensive and in some areas radical. Its recommendations were accepted by the Patrons who left it to Philip to set up a 'task force' to work with ISE in implementing the recommendations.

This process has resulted in long term advantages and reforms, the outworking of some of these is still in progress. It developed a new relationship for ISE with the Irish churches. The Archbishop of Dublin (Roman Catholic) together with a nominee for the Episcopal Conference have become Patrons (in the place of the Jesuit provincial who remains President of the Academic Council and one of the Trustees together with the Patrons from the other larger churches in Ireland, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian. Equally significantly the churches committed themselves to a programme of financial grants to ISE. This opened up the way for ISE to establish an Endowment Fund and to approach the corporate business sector for significant donations,

The Executive Board of ISE was given much greater responsibility and authority, making it possible for the Academic Council to concentrate on broad policy and the maintenance of Academic standards and research. These changes have been fundamental to the most recent development - albeit one not foreseen in the Consultants' report - that of grant-aid for ISE from the Minister for Education.

Throughout this whole process Philip Harnett retained his interest in and enthusiasm for ISE and for the aims and principles of the school, He gave constant personal support to those of us involved within ISE, and his quiet encouragement and guidance were always available and freely given. His commitment to ecumencial co-operation was a practical and constructive involvement and his actions stemmed from genuine concern and spiritual motivation. He saw ecumenical action and co-operation as a natural part of his Christian life and witness, and he put this vision to good effect in relation to ISE.

Over the time span of history many people have contributed to the formation of ISE's structures, visions and programmes. The recent development of the School is no exception and while successive provincials and directors have made their contributions, it fell to Philip to be the School's Jesuit patron at a critical phase. Philip Harnett had the vision - a vision that combined ideas and imagination with gentleness and compassion, allied to an administrative experience and skill. These attributes enabled Philip to help the school, grown too large for its original “family structure, to develop into a well administered institution. His was a contribution that came at the right time and was made in the right way.

David Poole

David Poole who is a member of the religious Society of Friends, was Chair of ISE's Executive Board from 1987 to 1996.

◆ The Clongownian, 1997

Obituary

Father Philip Harnett SJ

Fr Philip Harnett SJ, whose older brother John was at Clongowes (1954-57) but who himself attended Belvedere, served as a member of the Board of Governors on two separate occasions. The first time was for a year in 1979-80, when he was Parish Priest of Gardiner St. Later, he was ex officio President of the Board during his creative and memorable six-year term as Jesuit Provincial, 1986-92. He was appointed President of the Conference of European Provincials in 1993, with his base in Strasbourg, a task with which he grappled with characteristic energy and commitment. He fell ill at Christmas 1995. Despite a heroic battle to overcome his illness, to the very great grief of his family and his fellow-Jesuits, Philip died on 20 December 1996, aged 53.

Harper, Leslie, 1906-1969, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1410
  • Person
  • 26 September 1906-20 March 1969

Born: 26 September 1906, Paddington, Sydney, Australia
Entered: 18 February 1929, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 13 May 1942, Milltown Park, Dublin
Professed: 02 February 1945
Died: 20 March 1969, St Francis Xavier, Lavender Bay, North Sydney, 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
Leslie Harper had only an elementary education, his family conducting a lucrative butchery. However, he went back to school, at St Aloysius' College and Riverview, to gain sufficient
education to enter the Society. He worked for some time as a photographers assistant. He passed the NSW Intermediate examination in 1928 at the age of 22.
Harper entered the noviciate at Loyola College, Greenwich, 18 February 1929, and went overseas for his studies, to Rathfarnham as a junior, Tullabeg, Jersey and Heythrop for philosophy, 1933-35. He returned to Australia for regency at Xavier College, 1935-36 and 1939, and at Burke Hall, 1937-38. Theology studies followed at Milltown Park and tertianship at Rathfarnham, 1939-44. He worked in the English parish of Preston for a year before he returned to Australia and the parish of Richmond in 1945. He was made superior and parish priest of Toowong, Qld, 1949-57, and then held a similar position in the parish of Richmond in the Melbourne archdiocese, 1957-64. He was a good parish priest - very paternal, kind and generous, well organised and enjoyed the authority and dignity of the position. While at Richmond he organised the building of the spire on the church.
He became unwell from heart disease, and joined the university scholastics at Campion College, Kew, as minister and assistant to the province bursar. He was much appreciated for his kindness and understanding and very positive in giving permissions, wide the phrase, “Oh, why not”. This attitude was in direct contrast to the rector who was more likely to deny requests. As his health deteriorated, he went to the parish of Lavender Bay, North Sydney, in 1968, when he died finally of a heart attack. Harper was not an intellectual, and always struggled with his Jesuit studies, but he was gifted in human relations. He loved being with Jesuits and was enjoyable company in recreation. He was most hospitable, and keenly felt any separation from his fellow Jesuits, especially when at Toowong. His cheerfulness and encouragement of others was much appreciated. He showed the zeal of a true pastor, knowing his people well, especially at Richmond.

Harper, Patrick J, 1907-1972, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/710
  • Person
  • 01 March 1907-30 August 1972

Born: 01 March 1907, Heytesbury Street, Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1927, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1940, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 08 December 1943
Died: 30 August 1972, Manresa, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed : HIB to ASL 05/04/1931

Uncle of Conor Harper

Early education at Synge Street

◆ Immaculate Conception Church, Hawthorn, Australia 150th Anniversary site : https://www.immaculateconceptionaust.com/150anniversary https://f695c25f-f64b-42f7-be8b-f86c240a0861.filesusr.com/ugd/347de3_02c13bd9e734450881fa4ce539b50d78.pdf

Fr Pat Harper: Kind, Generous and Devoted Priest
Fr Harper was born in Dublin in 1907 and entered the Society in 1927. Most of his studies were pursued in Ireland but, in between, he was posted to Xavier College from 1933-1937. Arriving in Australia following ordination in 1942 he had only two postings during his priestly life, the parish of Richmond 1942-45 and for the remainder of his life in Hawthorn.
Apart from being a very practical parish worker, Fr Harper was known for two things in the parish. First was his devotion to his work as director of the Women’s Sodality and Children of Mary which he directed carefully at their evening devotions. During the month of May the parish held a crowning of the Blessed Virgin Mary and then for the entire month a “May Book” was left before the statue in the church, in which members of the Sodality would write their names when they made a visit during the week. It was said that some of the women attended these devotions less for the love of God and much more for their respect for Fr Harper.
The second thing Fr Harper was famous for was his parish visitation. Scarcely a family of the fifties in Hawthorn does not have stories about Fr Harper’s regular visitation, and even if he turned up at the most inconvenient times, he would be seated down at the kitchen table while the mother of the family rushed about preparing dinner or the young children were doing homework. However unlike some people who are enthusiastic, Fr Harper was very methodical and efficient in his methods. Visitations were to sustain the faith and sense of belonging of families in the parish and then to call back to the Faith those who had drifted away. No one ever turned him away. One family returned after summer vacation to find the house burgled and just underneath the door of the ransacked kitchen a note; ‘Fr Harper called.’
A keen sportsman in his youth, Fr Harper also enthusiastically took on the roles as chaplain to the Scouts and to the Manresa Tennis Club.
With the coming of the changes after the Vatican Council Fr Harper felt depressed by the new liturgy, the different styles of personal devotion and the modifications in Jesuit house customs. Following fits of depression and overwork, he collapsed and died in August 1972. Although dying at an early age, he left behind a legacy of faith which still lives on today.

Fr Pat Harper: Recollections of a beloved Uncle
We are fortunate to have Fr Harper’s niece, Toni O’Brien, in the parish today. She has kindly provided recollections of her uncle.
“Uncle Paddy” as he was always referred to by his nieces and nephews left Ireland before any of us were born – he had 30 nieces and nephews.
He was the eldest of 8 children and came to Australia in the early 40s.
I came out to Australia in 1969 – and even though I was 21 years of age, he took his ‘duty of care’ very seriously as I was the first of his relatives to come to Australia.
He was delighted to hear news of everybody at home, but had a very different idea of what life in ‘modern’ Ireland was like at this time. He still remembered Ireland in the 40s and earlier.
He went home in 1970 for a holiday and while he loved catching up with brothers and sisters – and meeting their spouses - it would be fair to say he was disappointed with the way Ireland had progressed.
When my brother Conor SJ suggested he come home and retire in Ireland – his reply was “Why would I want to come here when everything and everybody I know and love is in Hawthorn – no Hawthorn is my home”. - and home he came.
I returned to Melbourne in 1972 with my (Australian) husband and my young son Michael. Uncle Paddy and Michael were great friends. Only a few months later he died, RIP.
Both my children Michael and Conor O’Brien got married in ICC – Michael in 2003 and Conor in 2019. Uncle Paddy would have loved that!
My brother Conor was ordained SJ in 1975 – he would have loved that too – the only one of his nephews who followed in his footsteps.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Patrick Harper was studying for a BA with a view to teaching, but never completed it. He entered the Society in Tullabeg, Ireland, 1 September 1927, and after his juniorate at Rathfarnham 1929-30, he studied philosophy at Tullamore, 1930-33. He came to Australia and was hall prefect and prefect of discipline at Xavier College, Kew, 1933-37. He returned to Ireland and Milltown Park, Dublin, for theology studies, 1937-41. Tertianship was at Rathfarnham, after which he returned to Australia.
Harper was a good athlete before entering the Society, especially at soccer, and later played golf. During his studies he was always serious, enthusiastic and zealous. These characteristics never deserted him. Along with these qualities he was also methodical and efficient. He was always a busy man, and even overworked at times, especially towards the end of his life. This resulted in depression.
A visit to Europe and Ireland for a short rest only resulted in more depression when he experienced the modern Jesuit. The Old World was not what it used to be. Harper, as a result,
ended up in hospital in Dublin. Only Clongowes gave him some consolation, as the old way of life was still recognisable, and there was a good golf course.
He had only two postings during his priestly life, the parish of Richmond, 1942-45, and for the remainder of his life, the parish of Hawthorn. He was a very holy and simple man,
always at least outwardly cheerful and very charitable. His manner was extremely breezy and hearty. His long life in the parishes, mainly Hawthorn, was interrupted by a couple of bad breakdowns before the short illness preceding his death. Yet he preserved his usual composure and hearty manner.
He was the very model of a kind, simple and devoted man, respected for his sincerity, his deep spirituality, constant cheerfulness, and infectious sense of humor. He reveled in repartee and it was a brave colleague who challenged him. He always appeared to be in good spirits, yet he communicated a poor self-opinion. He was without any obvious self-esteem.
As a priest he had great devotion to the Sacred Heart and Our Lady. He spent his days with people, always at their call, treating them with the same gentle, bright, patient, sympathetic spirit that characterised him. He seemed to have no private life. He spent himself totally for others, without concern for his own needs. He visited many homes in the parish of Hawthorn where he was always welcome. Children particularly loved him. His sermons reflected his simplicity and sincerity, and were much appreciated, He was a man of great faith, and he had the power to win the hearts of the people he served.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 47th Year No 4 1972

Obituary :

Fr Patrick Harper SJ (1907-1972)

Fr Patrick Harper died in Melbourne early in August. He was originally a member of the Irish province but when after Philosophy in Tullabeg the status assigned him for colleges to the newly “emancipated” vice-province he remained definitely ascribed. Back to Milltown for Theology, 1938, ordination 41, Tertianship at Rathfarnham '42, despite the difficulties of war travel he was back in Australia, 1943. From his return, practically, he retained the same status - Hawthorn parish - where he was given the care of Our Lady's Sodality for Women. As director of the sodality he became known and loved by all; earnest, zealous, unassuming he acquired, without ambitioning it, the status of a “sagart aroon” among the parishioners, knowing and being known and consulted by all. He died relatively early being born in 1907. On the announcement of his death a memorial Mass in which Fr Provincial and Frs P Doyle, J Kerr and E Guiry participated was concelebrated at the Parish Church, Harold's Cross, Dublin - Fr Paddy's native parish. May he rest in peace.

Harrison, John, 1682-1738, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1412
  • Person
  • 29 September 1682-20 February 1738

Born: 26 September 1682, Kilmuckridge, County Wexford
Entered: 29 November 1702, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: c 1711
Final Vows: 15 August 1720
Died: 20 February 1738, Huesca, Spain - Aragoniae Province (ARA)

Alias Henriquez

Son of Peter Harrison (Henriquez) and Joan née Grace. Older brother of James Harrison (Henriquez) RIP 1768

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1724-1728 Rector Santiago (succeeded “James Harrison perhaps should read James O’Connor alias Henriquez)
1728-1730 Rector Santiago from 17 October 1728 (should read Salamanca)
1729 Irish Mission Superior expressed his regret that he is being kept at Salamanca, as he was wanted or himself desired for the Irish Mission
From letters written to him he appears to have been well liked and rendered good service. (cf letters written to him from Joseph Delamer and Thomas Gorman - IER March 1874)
Documents of his are preserved at Salamanca
He wrote a petition to the King of Spain giving an account of the College of Salamanca (Dr McDonald’s “Irish Colleges Abroad”) (though this sounds more like Joseph Delamer?)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Peter and Joan née Grace. Brother of James Harrison (Henriquez)
Had studied Philosophy at Compostella before Ent 29/11/1702 Villagarcía
After First Vows he was sent to Compostella to complete his studies
There is no knowledge bewteen 1705-1714, but he was a priest by 1711
1714-1724 At Valladolid teaching Philosophy after two years post graduate studies and was Chair of Dogmatic Theology
1724-1728 Rector of Irish College Santiago and remained there until he succeeded Joseph Delamar (on his death) as Rector at Irish College Salamanca
1728-1731 Rector of Salamanca, but was deposed after three years later due to ill-considered judgements communicated to others. He had come in for extreme criticism by his Spanish Superiors for his administration at Compostela, and it was suggested that the College became burdened with huge debt and the discipline had become very relaxed. This caused significant embarrassment for the Irish Mission Superior, Ignatius Kelly. He wrote to Ignatius Kelly suggesting that there were eight places available at Compostela for 1730. Ignatius Kelly duly informed the local Archbishops, so that they might choose candidates. Meanwhile Harrison’s Spanish successor as Rector at Compostela wrote to Ignatius Kelly suggesting that there were in fact only four places.. At this point also, Harrison began to question the suitability of candidates for Salamanca sent to him by the Spanish Rector at Compostella. Meanwhile the Archbishops in Ireland wrote to the new General (Retz) both congratulating him and informing him of their concerns regarding the management of the Irish Colleges, and in particular the work of John Harrison.
1731 He fled, unauthorised and unannounced to Ireland and Dublin but was persuaded by Ignatius Kelly to accompany him as far as Poitiers, from where Harrison said he would travel to Rome to meet the General. He didn’t in fact go to Rome. he eventually arrived at Madrid where he stayed two years (1733-1735). After this he was withdrawn by the General from CAST and sent to ARA where he worked at the Church in Huesca until his death 20 February 1738
He was clearly a very talented man, but understood little of the ways of administration or diplomacy. His removal from CAST was damaging both to himself and the way this affected the Irish Jesuit Mission, especially in the Colleges of Spain. As a result of the anger and suspicion, no Irishmen were received in CAST for ten years.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Harrison SJ 1702-1738
Not every Jesuit who becomes a Rector becomes an Earl at the same time. This was the fate of Fr John Harrison, born in Kilmuckeridge, Diocese of Ferns, who entered the Society at Compostella in 1702. It happened in this way :
Fr Harrison became Rector of Salamanca in 1728 after the death of Don Dermitio O’Sullivan, who had made our College at Salamanca his universal heir. So Fr Harrison became ipso facto Earl of Beare and Bantry.

He had previously been Rector of Santoago from 17245-1728.

Hart, James, 1836-1910, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1413
  • Person
  • 26 December 1836-08 April 1910

Born: 26 December 1836, Clifden, County Galway
Entered: 15 October 1883, Milltown Park /Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 1889
Died: 08 April 1910, Tullabeg, County Offaly

by 1888 at St David’s, Mold, Wales (LUGD) studying
by 1890 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
His early education was at Clongowes and then Trinity College, graduating BA during Queen Victoria’s visit to Dublin. He then went to work in London having a position of trust at Somerset House. He applied to Provincial Thomas Browne who then sent him to Dromore for his Noviceship.

After First Vows he studied Philosophy and was then sent to Spain for some Theology, and from there to Mold in North Wales, where one of the French provinces had a house of Theology. He was Ordained in Ireland and then sent to Drongen for Tertianship. He worked in the Messenger Office for a while, as well as Clongowes and Crescent, where he was able to say Mass. However, his health was always a trouble for him, and he eventually went to Tullabeg, where he died after some suffering 08 April 1910

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father James Hart (1836-1910)

Was born in Clifden, Co. Galway and received his early education at Clongowes. On leaving Clongowes, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in Arts. He seemed to have entered the British Civil Service after graduation as he occupied a post of trust in Somerset House, London, when he entered the Society in 1883, aged forty-seven years. He made his higher studies in Spain and at Mold, North Wales, but was ordained priest in Dublin. He completed his studies in Belgium. He was on the teaching staff of the Crescent in 1893-94 and again from 1899 to 1906. His last years were spent at Tullabeg.

Hartigan, Jeremiah Austin, 1882-1916, Jesuit priest and chaplain

  • IE IJA J/177
  • Person
  • 18 August 1882-16 July 1916

Born: 18 August 1882, Foynes, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1898, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 26 July 1914, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 16 July 1916, Kut-al-Amara, Mesopotamia, Iraq (Military Chaplain)

Chaplain in the First World War

by 1901 in Saint Joseph’s, Beirut, Syria (LUGD) studying oriental language
by 1910 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1912 at Hastings, Sussex, England (LUGD) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Clongowes.
After Noviceship he made studies at Tullabeg, and then Eastern languages at Beirut with Edmund Power.
He made Regency at Clongowes teaching Greek and Latin.
He was then sent for Philosophy to Stonyhurst, and later Theology at Hastings.
During his Tertianship in 1915 he was sent to the War as Chaplain, and he died at war 16 July 1916, at Amara, Mesopotamia.
He was a young Priest of great promise.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Jeremiah Augustine Hartigan, Mungret student

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1905

Scenes and Manners in Syria - from the Letters of

Michael Bergin SJ and Austin Hartigan SJ

St Joseph’s University Beyrouth

I will tell you all about our vacation, perhaps it will interest you. We went to Tanail, where our fathers have a farm and an orphanage. Tanail is situated in the Bekka or plain that lies between the Lebanon and Anti Lebanon Mountains. This plain is eighty or ninety miles long and about fifteen broad. Tanail is just in the middle of this plain and half way between Beyrouth and Damascus. We went from Beyrouth by train. The journey is very interesting. On leaving Beyrouth you pass through a very fertile plain planted with olive trees. After about half an hour begins the ascent of the mountain. It is very steep in some places, so, to make it possible for the train to mount, there is a third rail with notches and the engine has a wheel with cogs which fit into these notches and thus prevent the train from slipping back. There are some very pretty little villages in the mountaiti. Most of the Beyrouth people pass the summer in one or other of these villages. Near the top of the mountain there are some villages inhabited by Druses. These are a people whose religion is a secret. They have some very curious customs one of them is that a Druse can never dispose of his property. He can spend his income as he wishes, but the real property always belongs to the family. The train goes very slow on ascending, so one has plenty of time to enjoy the scenery. The whole journey, which includes the descent as well as the ascent, is about forty miles, and we were over four hours in the train. When you are on the top of the mountain the plain opens out before you like a great lake shut in between the two mountains. Here and there are scattered little villages and spots of verdure these latter always marking the existence of water. The descent is quickly over, but the rocking of the train is so great that two or three were on the point of getting sea-sick, Our house is about half an hour's walk from the station. There are a good many trees, nearly all poplars, on the property, and so we enjoyed the luxury, so rare in this country, of walking in the shade. The sun is very warm here. You have no idea how hot it is from nine or ten in the morning to four or five in the evening; in the night and morning it is a little cooler, At Tanail the air is much drier than at Ghazir. At Ghazir one cannot walk for a quarter of an hour without being covered with perspiration; but in the plain, though one is scorched with the sun, one scarcely perspires at all. There are some interesting walks about. Amongst others is what is called:

The Tomb of Noah
Tradition says that he died and was buried near Zahleh, a village not far from Tanail. We went to-pay a visit then to this tomb of our common ancestor. We found the place a long, low, flat roofed, rectangular building, about forty yards long and three wide, which the Musulmans use as their mosque. The whole length of this house, and just in the middle, runs a piece of masonry about two feet high, and underneath this are said to rest the mortal remains of poor Noah. He must have been inconveniently tall.

The Excusrsion which lasted Four Days
One fine day, at half-past nine in the morning, seventeen of us started. The sun seemed to be specially hot that day, still we marched on bravely, after an hour and a half we came to a river - the biggest in Syria - which had to be crossed, and as there was no bridge we had to take off our boots and stockings, tighten up our soutanes and walk through. For the next two hours and a half we did not meet a single spring, and a two hours' tramp without water, where it is so warm, is no joke. However, four hours after our departure, we came to a long-wished-for well. We drank and washed, and started again for the village where we were to pass the night. After three hours we arrived there, and went to the priest's house. The only Catholics there are of the Syrian rite, and they are not very numerous. The rest of the inhabitants are either Druses or Greek Schismatics. The priest's house was a poor little cabin, consisting of two or three rooms. He received us very well - of course we had all our provisions with us, we had two mules to carry them on their backs, not in cars, because there are no roads only paths. We cooked our dinner and ate it in the Arabic fashion, ie, without plates, knives, spoons or forks. Soon after dinner, as everyone was a bit tired; we went to rest, We had brought a sack of blankets, one for each one. Five or six slept in the parlour which was at the same time bedroom, the rest slept on mats made of rushes, some in a little room beside the house, the rest outside the door. We used our shoes as pillows. The “beds” were rather hard and the night was very hot, so we did not sleep much. Next morning we had Mass in the little chapel close by, and after breakfast we started for Mount Hermon, which is the highest peak in the Anti-Lebanon Range. I forgot to describe the parlour of the priest. The chief “ornament” was his bed. The room was carpeted, but there were no chairs. You take off your boots on entering and leave them at the door, and you sit cross-legged on the floor or on a cushion. This room was about four yards square.

There is not a single spring between the village and the top of the mountain-and in the village itself the only water they have is what they collect in cisterns during the winter. So we had to bring some with us. The climb took about five or six hours, and had it not been that we had three or four horses, which each one mount ed from time to time, I doubt if many would have arrived to the top. After about five hours it became so very steep that the horses could go no farther so we halted and dined. Thus fortified we did the last hour's climb. In the shaded hollows there was still snow. We put snow into the water we brought, and it was not too bad. The Arabs call this mountain the Mountain of the Old Man, because the snow is supposed to represent the grey hair, From the top the view is magnificent. We saw the Holy Land, the Sea of Tiberias, the Jordan, Mount Thabor, Mount Carmel; also we could see Damascus, a white speck, hidden in its gardens of verdure, and the Hauran. On the very highest point of the summit are the ruins of an old temple. After enjoying the scenery and reposing ourselves we began the descent on the other side of the mountain towards Damascus. The path was very narrow and in places very steep, however, in the evening, after about four hours march, we arrived at another little village, Kalath-el gendel, one of the dirtiest and most miserable villages I have ever seen, even in the East. Here the majority of the inhabitants are Druses.

An Arab Meal
On our way we passed through another village and we went to a house to buy a drink of milk. The only thing they had was thick milk, the people are very fond of it like that, and we, for want of butter, took it The lady of the house would not be content if we did not sit down, so she spread a mat on the floor, and on this we had to squat like tailors. In the middle was a little table about a foot high, and on this she put a bowl of milk. Then came the Arabic bread, the “hubs”. This is made of flour and water, and is almost as thin as an altar bread and quite flexible. Each cake is round and has a diameter of about two feet. But the real difficulty was to take the milk with the bread. The people never use knives or spoons, the bread does all this. They tear off a little bit of bread and make a scoop of it, with this they take their milk or whatever it may be, and each time they eat their spoon as well as what is in it. It is convenient, for after dinner they have not much to wash up. Tumblers are as rare as knives. They have water in little earthenware jars like a teapot, with a little spout. This they do not put into their mouth, they keep it a distance of about a font away, and simply pour it down their throat. In the beginning this is not so easy. The first time I tried I got more down my neck and up my nose than I got into in my mouth.

The Earthly Paradise
Leaving this early next morning we continued our journey to Damascus. The day was very hot and the country an arid waste. Still we toiled on and we were at last rewarded with a view of what Mahomed rightly called the earthly Paradise! To the way-worn traveller, dust stained and thirsty, whose eyes have been for hours blinded by the glare from the rocky soil, the city of Damascus, surrounded by its fresh green gardens, filed with every variety of fruit-trees, watered by the brimming stream, at whose source we stopped and washed, offers a vision of refreshing beauty that none can appreciate but those who, like us, have toiled through the heat of the day. Passing through the shady gardens, our ears filled with the murmuring of the clear, cool streams, refreshed by the delicious fruit that abounded on every side, we can easily understand why St Ignatius laid the scene of our First Parents' happiness in this, the East's most lovely city.

As it is the most beautiful so is it also the most characteristically Eastern. For here are gathered together all that is most un-European Here are centered all those streams of caravans that bring from far in the interior of Asia the rich products of those world-famed looms. Here is no sign of modern civilization to remind one of the distant West. To give an adequate idea of this other world, I can do no better than describe the Bazaar and some street scenes in this city of Fair Delight.

The Bazaar
It is in the bazaar that locomotion is most difficult. This gives one time to look about and admire the variety of nationalities that the traffic of the quarter has collected. Bedouins with huge high boots, a long stiff cloak of brown and white, often richly embroidered at shoulders (these cloaks “mashlah” are absolutely devoid of cut, except for short sleeves beginning at elbows and reaching to wrists), loose white drawers reaching to top of boots, embroidered vest. On the head, the “kofieyeh” or veil of brilliant colours. often of silk, ornamented with tassels. It is most graceful. This veil is secured on head by two circles of camel's hair, while the ends hang down on the back and breast or are brought up under chin, and attached to the coils above. They are finely built, these Bedouins, tall and spare, square-shouldered, active and strong, with dark piercing eyes, that seem to be everywhere at once. Druses, with snow-white turban and heavy scimitar; Turkish “effendis”, in badly made, and worse put on, European dress; Persians, in light brown hats, once and a-half as high as our tall hats, slightly conical in shape, tight-fitting dresses and flowing beards; Kurdish shepherds, dressed in skin and stiff black felt cape, reaching to knees; villainous looking Albanians, with voluminous kilts and belts bristling with weapons; add thievish-looking Circassians, effeminate Damascenes, gliding figures enveloped from head to foot in a light sheet like garment of white, or green and red shot silk, with veiled face, and called women, and you have a faint idea of the 'souls' of Damascus. Yet I have said nothing about the seller of pasties, who balances on his head a small shopful of dainties; the sherbet-seller, with a huge bottle strung round his neck, and brass cups jingling in his hand. On more than one occasion I have seen a seller of drinks and a seller of creams stand as near each other as
their implements permit, the one slaking his thirst, the other gratifying his palate, by a mutual exchange.

The Houses of Damasucs
But the glory of Damascus consists above all in its private houses. The Arabic proverb has it: “The houses of Damascus from without, sooty; from within, marble”. Nothing could be more true. Outside one would take them for the stables of the mansion, with their plain, windowless walls, and massive, ungainly doors., Enterting a narrow passage of varying length, a remnant of darker days, we find ourselves in a court with marble pavement, shaded by olive, orange, or lemon trees, and refreshed by a fountain or several of them, whose waters are contained in a deep basin of variegated marble. At one side is the “bewan”, or deep recess, strewn with rich carpets and soft cushions, and arched over in true Arabic style. Opposite is the salon, the masterpiece of the house, and where even struggling families manage to make a show at the cost of the rest of the house. Here, again, we meet the marble fountain on either side of what are the halves of the chamber, one half being raised about two feet. The walls are covered with the richest marbles, in endless variety of colour and form. Here and there are recesses backed by mirrors, while above are texts of the Koran in golden letters, entwined in the most puzzling combinations. Above these are scenes and landscapes painted in bright colours. The ceilings (which are always formed of round rafters laid so as to touch the flat cemented ceiling, leaving a space of some inches between each rafter) are painted in the most fantastic designs and often really beautiful. The effect of the whole is most striking. Now, I think, you have my impressions of what Damascus is like.

In the evening we left Damascus by rail and came back here, our minds stored with the many wonders we had seen. And now I think you know something of our life out here. I hope I have not been too tedious. If you wish I shall tell you more another time.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1916

Obituary

Father J Austin Hartigan SJ

We have just heard, as the “Mungret Annual” is going through the press, of the deach of Father Austin Hartigan SJ, which took place from jaundice at Amara, Mesopotamia, on the 16th July. The time and space at our disposal permit us merely, to mention the sad event. His death was. announced to his mother, Mrs Hartigan, of Tarbrook, Croom, in a telegram. from the War Office on Friday, 28th July. In January, Father Hartigan had volunteered for a chaplaincy, and in May had left England with his battalion of the Connaught Rangers.

On leaving Mungret in '98, where three of us brothers had already been educated, Austin Hartigan joined the Society of Jesus. His University career was urncommonly brilliant, and he was set aside for special studies with a view to becoming a professor of Sacred Scriptures. He spent several years at the University of Beirut, where he took out his Doctorate in Oriental Letters.

Ordained in 1914, he-had just finished his long period of training, and seemed to be on the threshold of a distinguished career. But the fruit of those years of study and preparation, sanctified by a generous zeal for God's glory, he was not to reap in this world. He was the fourth son of the late Dr Hartigan, of Tarbrook, Croom, and was thirty-four years of age. To his mother and brothers we offer our deepest sympathy.

Hartnett, Cornelius, 1873-1948, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1415
  • Person
  • 20 March 1873-25 June 1948

Born: 20 March 1873, Westbury, Tasmania, Australia
Entered: 17 January 1892, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 29 July 1906, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows 15 August 1909, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia
Died: 25 June 1948, St Francis Xavier, Lavender Bay, North Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Younger brother of Michael - RIP 1899

by 1901 in Vals France (LUGD) studying
by 1902 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
by 1908 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1910 in Australia

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Cornelius Hartnett was a native of Tasmania, and was educated at St Ignatius' College, Riverview. He entered the Society, 18 March 1891, at Loyola College, Greenwich. This was followed by two years studying rhetoric at Greenwich, after which, from 1894-1900, he taught and was successively first and second prefect, and hall prefect at Xavier College, Kew.
In June 1900 Hartnett left Australia for philosophy at Vals, France, but when religious congregations were expelled from France, he went to Holland. Theology was at Milltown Park,
Dublin, 1903-07, and tertianship at Tronchiennes, Belgium, 1907-08. He returned to Australia in 1908 and taught at Riverview, 1908-13, and at St Patrick's College, 1913-15, before working in the parishes of Richmond, Norwood, Hawthorn, Lavender Bay, and North Sydney. From 1930-40 he was spiritual father at St Aloysius' College and worked in the church of Star of the Sea. Hartnett was a good cricketer when young, and intellectually gifted, but too nervy to make the most of his talents. He was very gentle and unassuming, warm hearted, genial and greatly liked at Milsons Point and Lavender Bay He held strong views against bodyline bowling, but on other subjects was mild and tolerant.

Hartnett, Michael, 1865-1899, Jesuit scholastic

  • IE IJA J/178
  • Person
  • 23 September 1865-14 June 1899

Born: 23 September 1865, Westbury, Tasmania, Australia
Entered: 30 January 1886, Xavier, Melbourne, Australia (HIB)
Died: 14 June 1899, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

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

Older brother of Cornelius - RIP 1948

by 1897 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was sent to Europe for studies and had started Philosophy at Jersey. His health failing, he was sent to Tullabeg and he died there 14 June 1899.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Michael Hartnett, brother of Cornelius, was educated at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, 1884-85, and entered the Society at Xavier College, Kew, 13 January 1886. After his juniorate there and at Loyola College, Greenwich, 1888-91, he taught at Riverview, 1891-92, St Aloysius' College, Bourke Street, 1892-93; Xavier College, 1893-95; and Riverview again, 1895-96, where he cared for some rowing crews and helped with prefecting. He sailed for Ireland, 1 August 1896, to study philosophy at Jersey, 1896-98, and theology at Milltown Park, 1898-99. He was always delicate and inclined to consumption, but was highly valued by superiors and died showing much patience during his long illness.

Hassett, James, 1869-1918, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/179
  • Person
  • 06 August 1869-10 June 1918

Born: 06 August 1869, Camberwell, Melbourne, Australia
Entered: 24 March 1889, Xavier College, Kew Melbourne, Australia
Ordained: 02 August 1903, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1905
Died: 10 June 1918, Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Sydney Australia

Part of the St Aloysius College, Milson’s Point, Sydney, Australia community at the time of death

2nd year Novitate at Loyola Greenwich, Australia
by 1899 at St Aloysius, Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1902 at St Mary’s Canterbury, England (LUGD) studying
by 1904 at St David’s, Mold, Wales (FRA) making Tertianship
by 1910 in Australia

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Australian born, James joined the Irish Mission in South Australia.
After his Noviceship he was sent to Riverview and Kew for Regency, and then to Philosophy at Jersey. he then travelled to Ireland for Theology at Milltown, and did his Tertianship at Mold, Wales (a FRA Tertianship)
When he returned to Australia he taught at Sydney for a while and was also an Operarius at Brisbane in 1917.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
James Hassett was educated at Xavier College, Kew, and considered a bright, cheerful and thoughtful young man who was a good athlete. He entered the Society at Xavier College, 24 March 1889. After juniorate studies, he taught at Riverview, 1892-95, and at Xavier College, 1895-98, before studying philosophy in Jersey It was here that he contracted a throat and lung condition that never left him. He worked among the poorer English speaking people while studying there. Theology studies followed at Milltown and Canterbury, Lyons province, 1900-03, and tertianship was in Mold, the following year.
He returned to St Ignatius' College, Riverview, 1904-16, teaching and being prefect of studies, 1905-08. He spent a few years in the parish of Toowong, Brisbane, 1916-17, and then moved to St Aloysius' College in ill health from consumption.
His students at Riverview admired and loved him, his teaching being clear and interesting. They gathered around him for conversation as he cultivated the garden in the quadrangle. Out of class he was particularly helpful to underachievers.
As prefect, he trusted the boys, and they respected him even more for that. His innate tenderness and consideration for every boy never waned. Sometimes he would have charge of the study hall and occasionally he would have to send a boy for punishment for some infringement of the rules. However, he usually relented, and sent another boy to bring back the delinquent before his punishment began.
He was forever recruiting boys for the Sodality of Our Lady, and encouraged any boy who might show signs of a vocation to the priesthood. His community considered him a most selfless person, always interested in other people and their lives and always willing to serve.

◆ The Xaverian, Xavier College, Melbourne, Australia, 1918

Obituary
Father James Hassett SJ

If the Judgment turn upon kindness to others - and we have the word of Christ Himself that it does - then the judgment passed on Father James Hassett must, indeed, have been an enviable one.

Born at Camberwell on August 6th, 1869, he came to Xavier at the age of fourteen. Then, as ever afterwards, he was of a bright, cheery nature, ever ready to do a good turn for another fellow - one of those that you come to without fear of repulse for “help with an ekker”,' since Jim had a good storehouse of knowledge, and he always left the door wide open. In athletics, where he could have shone conspicuously especially on the track - his forgetfulness of himself - was the same. One example of this dwells still in the minds of Old Boys who were at Xavier with him. Interest in the annual Sports had been raised to a high pitch by the institution of a combined (St Patrick's and Xavier) sports meeting in the year 1886 - a fact due, not only to the keen competition between the two Schools, but mainly to the great struggle in that year between Lou Nolan and Pat Conley. After a grand race, the honour went to St Patrick's, Nolan winning on the tape. Xavier went home to train, and next year Jim Hassett was her hope. The sports were held on the East Melbourne Ground, Jim was helping some fellow to find a pair of lost shoes, and so missed the train he ought to have caught. Undişmayed, he caught the next, talking all the way, and that at the rate of a mile a minute about the hard luck behind them and the good ahead. It was agreed to wait. Jim ran from Prince's Bridge, cooled the heated committees with sorrow that rang with sincerity, togged, and won the maiden. . Then he sat down and talked and talked till the championship event. It was a great race, but there was no denying Jim. His natural, easy stride quickened like lightning at the finish, and, amid the cheers of both Schools, he bore the laurels “home to Xavier”. Had he wished to take up training seriously, he could have been a champion on the track, but here, as all through his life, he was singularly devoid of personal ambition. He had won for the School, and that was enough for Jim Hassett.

He entered the Noviceship of the Society of Jesus in 1890, in his twentieth year. There he spent two years, which were followed by some years teaching in Sydney. At the conclusion of these, he returned, as a Master to Xavier in 1895. During his four years stay at the School, he taught and prefected. As a Master in class he was clear and always interesting, and out of class he was the help and hope of the dullards. Patiently, day by day, would he work with them (crede experto), until he had at last got something through their thick heads. Even where that was impossible, still would he work on to attain the higher goal he always aimed at, and never failed to reach - their hearts. As a prefect, he was ever and always what the boys call “a decent man”. He loved boys and trusted them, and if perhaps some occasionally abused the trust, it was followed by a genuine sorrow that righted things some how. The “Hassett trust” has, we feel certain, paid a big dividend even now, and will pay a bigger one hereafter. For many an Old Boy of Xavier, Father Jim Hassett, “though dead, still liveth”, and many a sincere prayer will be said for him by men whom he trusted as boys. Mr. Hassett left Xavier to continue his studies for the priesthood in 1898, and the “Chronicle” of that year, speaking of his leaving, says - “His departure for the old world caused quite a furore in our quiet community, where he had won the affection and respect of all he came in contact with”. No wonder, being the man he was.

His philosophical studies were made at Jersey, where he had but indifferent health, contracting throat and lung trouble that never quite left him. Not withstanding this, he did good work on the island, looking after the poorer English-speaking people, and when the time came for him to remove to Ireland, the gratitude of the poor followed him . From Jersey he passed to Dublin to do his theological course. However, his stay there was not to be for long. The French Jesuits, expelled from their own country, came to reside at Canterbury, in England, and, in their language difficulties, they asked for an English speaking student to help them. The appeal found a quick response in the unselfish heart of him who had “learned the luxury of doing good’. Straightway, Father Hassett offered himself. The offer was accepted, and the labour of love was carried on cheerfully and well till the time of his ordination. Ordained, he returned to Australia in 1904, and, with the exception of a few months spent in the Hawthorn parish, the remainder of his life was passed at Riverview College, Sydney. Here, like the Master whom he loved and served, he went about doing good to all, not in a solemn way, but as one who believed that the healthiest thing for Heaven, as well as for earth, was lots of sunshine. In his letters, in his retreats, in his dealings with the boys, in his meetings with the Old Boys who came to visit him (and they were legion), he was ever the same constant, unselfish and day-in-day-out heroic friend. So he worked on for the Master and His cause “all the day long, till the shadows lengthened and the evening came, and the busy world was hushed and the fever of life was over and his work was done. Then, in His mercy, may that loving Master give him safe lodging and a holy rest and peace at the last”. He has gone to his reward, and may it be - as we feel certain it is exceeding great.

◆ Our Alma Mater, St Ignatius Riverview, Sydney, Australia, 1918

Obituary

Father James Hassett

After a long drawn out illness, during which he suffered much, Father Hassett went to receive the reward of his labours and sufferings. He passed away on Monday evening, May 27th, at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, North Sydney: He looked death fully in the face, and went to meet it full of hope.

The following account of Father Hassett is taken from "The Catholic Press" of May 30th:

“He was some ten months in the hospital, and received devoted attention from the good Sisters of Mercy and their nursing staff. He was born in Camberwell, Victoria, on August 6, 1869, and was thus in his 49th year when taken from his work. With his brothers, who direct Hassett's business college in the southern state, he was educated at Xavier College, and in his 20th year James Hassett entered the Society of Jesus. He was one of the first novices with whom the late Father Sturzo opened Loyola House, Greenwich, in 1890.

After the usual years of study preparatory to teaching, Father Hassett, then Mr. Hassett, taught at Riverview and Xavier Colleges for some years, and went to Europe in 1898. He studied for the priesthood in houses of the French Fathers of the Order in Jersey (one of the Channel islands), Canterbury (England), and after ordination was with then again in Mold, Wales. From his long years among them he acquired a fluency and skill in French that enabled him to teach it later with success. He was ordained at Dublin in 1903, and returned to Australia in 1904.

With the exception of a few months towards the end of his life spent in Hawthorn parish, Melbourne, and in St. Aloysius' College, Milson's Point, Father Hassett was at Riverview College. Every old boy visiting the College knew Father Haşsett, and he knew then and all about them, and such was the good priest's charm of manner and conversation that everyone he met felt he was a very special friend of his. This gave Father Hassett an influence for good over young fellows especially, which has borne fruit in many lives.

The well-kept gardens and lawns of Riverview, that are the wonder of visitors, owe most of their beauty to Father Hassett's unwearying attention. He had charge of the gardens, and with his own hands he dug trenches for tender plants or rooted out the weeds and pruned the roses. He was never so happy as when he met a floral enthusiast. In his priestly ministrations he was tremendously zealous. Indeed, he undermined his constitution through zeal for souls. He never knew when to say “no” to requests for sermons or retreats, for which he was in much demand. Even in latter years he has crowded three retreats into three weeks of vacation, and has come back tired but happy to continue the hard work of teaching. He was spiritual father to the boys, and director of sodalities, and he was a live director-directing in season and out of season; but he had a special gift for the work. Right to the end he was an ardent St. Vincent de Paul worker, He made a point of never mişsing a quarterly meeting, if he could get to the meeting centre at all.

Few could win boys' confidence and retain it like Father Hassett. To the many old Riverviewers at the front he would drop an occasional line or two to show he did not forget; and to the sorrowing parents, when a boy died on the battlefield, a letter was sure to come from Father Hassett. He was a man of untiring energy and self-sacrifice; an enthusiastic worker in everything he put his hand to, and his warm heart made him hosts of friends, who will sorrow over his early call from his labours. His death leaves a gap not easily filled in the ranks of the Order and in the life of Riverview College.

-oOo-

Father James Hassett SJ

I knew him very well indeed. To live with him even for a few months was to know him as others would be known only after many years. But I lived with him for ten years at least, and hence, as I have said, I knew him very well indeed. This thought makes me realise what I consider to be the wonderful sincerity that shone out from his soul, lighting up for his friends the infinite variety of his ever-active and eager sympathetic thoughts about them and all their interests. Never was there one who had less thought for self, except where duty called him to fit himself in arduous ways for devoted and zealous work.

The next thing, though equal, if possible, to this wonderful sincerity was his zeal for others and desire to help them. In a nature so frank, disinterested and energetic, this good will for all sorts and conditions of me was always forceful and always in evidence, especially of course for the young, to whom most of his life was devoted; it was a most charming and attractive feature in a charming and attractive personality..

Among his French friends in the great Jesuit Theological Colleges of Jersey and Canterbury, he was known as “le bon père Hassett”, and this was praise indeed, for you cannot find in all the world better judges with a keener appreciation of goodness of heart.

But I know I need not go so far afield to find witnesses and admirers of this “bon père”, so good to others, without stint or any thought of sparing self, or any sign of personal whim or partiality.

Of his many gifts of mind and character, Fitting him to be a master of any class, from the highest to the lowest, in our Colleges and he loved to have the smallest boys about him as much as the biggest, Elementarians as much as Matriculation Seniors - I need hardly speak in these lines intended for your readers. Many of them have heard his praises from at least half-a-dozen generations of Riverview old boys, and many have no need to learn from others of the pains he took with all alike to prepare them for examinations, in which his teaching was so singularly successful. They will, perchance, forget many incidents of school life, but never, I think, his zeal for their good, both in the hours of school and in the hours of play; and especially, perhaps, how in the midst of his work, in what I might call the hibiscus quadrangle, he would be surrounded by boys listening to the flow of wise banter and serious gaiety which came from that tall stooping figure, working away with his spade as furiously as Adam himself trying to evoke the beauty of Paradise once more, but from a more stubborn earth. I love to think of him thus, digging, planting, rooting out weeds, checking unruly growths, pruning, training the creepers, watering the fair young grass - all so typical of his work for the boys (for he was their spiritual adviser as well as master in class) - energetic, hopeful, optimistic, enlightened, intelligent, loving, devoted, with never a thought of self, the honest hard-worked gardener, intent only on the right cultivation of the plants entrusted to his care, in order to make sure of that at least, and, like a wise gardener, leaving all the rest to God.

R J LITTLE SJ

Hayden, Daniel, 1835-1866, Jesuit scholastic

  • IE IJA J/1420
  • Person
  • 31 October 1835-01 January 1866

Born: 31 October 1835, Carrickbeg, County Waterford
Entered: 04 February 1859, Beaumont, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Died: 01 January 1866, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Older brother of William Hayden RIP 1919

2nd year Novitiate at Tullabeg
by 1865 at Rome Italy (ROM) studying Theology 1

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Older brother of William Hayden RIP 1919

1862 Sent to teach at the newly opened school in Limerick.
1864 Sent to Rome for Philosophy, but he was sent back to Dublin due to failing health, and he died in a mental home 01 January 1866.

Hayden, John, 1850-1909, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1421
  • Person
  • 31July 1850-28 December 1909

Born: 31July 1850, Multyfarnham, County Westmeath
Entered: 08 October 1891, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Professed: 15 August 1902
Died: 28 December 1909, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was a bricklayer by trade and very skilful in anything to do with building. While in Dublin he was involved heavily with the Nationalist movement, and knew a lot about Fenians. He also served with the Ambulance Service during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 where he suffered much. When he returned to Dublin his health was poor and he suffered on and off from the effects of tat severe war.

Had made two attempts to join the Society, and eventually did 08 October 1891..

1900 He was sent to Clongowes where he built the Infirmary. During his last years there he developed heart trouble. He died, as he said himself, at peace with everybody on the Feast of the Holy Innocents 28 December 1909.
He was very pious and edifying. He was always obliging, skilful, handy and a singularly gentle and quiet person.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Entered 04 November 1888. LEFT. RE ENTERED 08 October 1891

Hayden, William, 1839-1919, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/581
  • Person
  • 22 February 1839-09 January 1919

Born: 22 February 1839, Carrick-on-Suir, County Waterford
Entered: 17 February 1862, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1874, Stonyhurst, Lancashire, England
Final Vows: 15 August 1879
Died: 09 January 1919, Milltown Park, Dublin

Younger brother of Daniel Hayden RIP 1866

by 1865 at Roehampton, London (ANG) studying
by 1868 at Laval, France (FRA) studying
by 1869 at Stonyhurst, England (ANG) studying
by 1872 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying
by 1877 at Roehampton, London (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Younger brother of Daniel Hayden RIP 1866

He did his Noviceship at Milltown under Dan Jones and Joseph Lentaigne. Afterwards he studied Rhetoric at Roehampton.
1866-1869 He taught at Tullabeg for Regency
1869-1872 He was sent to Stonyhurst for Philosophy.
1872 he was sent to St Beuno’s for Theology, was Ordained there and became Professor of the Short Course.
1877 he made Tertianship at Milltown.
1880-1885 He was sent to Gardiner St as Operarius and for some time was director of the Commercial Sodality.
1885-1887 He was sent to Milltown to teach Philosophy.
1887-1888 He was at Limerick for a year.
1889 he joined the Missionary Staff.
Later we find him again at Gardiner St, and during the 90s he was at Galway.
He finally returned to Milltown and lived there until his death 09 January 1919.

He was a man of wonderful abilities and a great conversationalist. He was very cordial and kindly to all. He was also full of peculiar views on many subjects, and this prevented his further appearance in the pulpit.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father William Hayden SJ 1839-1919
Fr William Hayden was born in Waterford on February 22nd 1839 and entered the Society in 1862.

He was a man of great and versatile intellectual ability. He professed the short course in St Beuno’s and Milltown Park. One of his controversial pamphlets “An Answer to professor Maguire on Perception” is still extant, while his book on Irish Phonetics was one of the first publications in the restoration of the language.

He was very cordial and kindly in manner, a brilliant conversationalist, no mean controversialist, and eloquent preacher, though he held advanced, if not peculiar opinions on many subjects, which ultimately prevented his appearance in the pulpit.

He finally retired to Milltown Park where he lived for a number of years before his death on January 9th 1919.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father William Hayden (1839-1919

A native of Co Waterford, entered the Society in 1862. He was sometime professor of philosophy at Milltown Park where he spent many years on the retreat staff. He was attached to the Sacred Heart Church in 1887-88.

Hayes, Denis, 1893-1964, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/741
  • Person
  • 04 February 1893-30 June 1964

Born: 04 February 1893, Wilton, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1911, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1925, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1928, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 30 June 1964, Mater Hospital, Dublin

Part of the Belvedere College SJ, Dublin community at the time of death

Tertianship at Tullabeg

by 1917 at St Aloysius, Jersey, Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1918 at Stonyhurst, England (ANG) studying
by 1923 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) studying

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 39th Year No 4 1964

Obituary :

Fr Denis Hayes SJ (1893-1964)

Fr. Denis Hayes died unexpectedly in the Mater Hospital in the early. hours of the morning on the 30th June. He was in his 71st year and his 53rd in the Society.
About a fortnight before his death he had been ill with a form of gastro-enteritis and had responded well to hospital treatment. The evening before his death he was visited by one of the Belvedere community who found him in excellent spirits, chatty and cheerful, he even expressed his belief that “I'll be back home at the end of the week!” But, the next morning the nurse on night duty heard groans coming from his room, and on entering found him in pain and seemingly unconscious. She summoned the chaplain, who in due time anointed him. His death was thought to have been caused by a heart attack or a cerebral haemorrhage.
During the last two years Fr. Hayes often referred to his general weakness, especially in walking; his eyes gave him trouble in reading, and his handwriting had become shaky and difficult to cypher, and often it was obvious that he was suffering great pain. Yet, he was very much alive and keenly interested in the college and "the doings of Ours". His death came as a great shock to the community, as most of them were away on villa or giving retreats, etc.
Fr. Hayes was born in the city of Cork and educated by the Presentation Brothers. He entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1911 and came to Rathfarnham Castle, the newly established Juniorate in 1913. After two years spent in the university he left for philosophy with the French Province in the Isle of Jersey. Here his health gave him trouble and it was thought advisable to send him to St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, for his second year. In the year 1918, with First World War raging, all the members of the Province doing philosophy abroad were recalled to Milltown Park, where a portion of the building had been set up as a philosophate. After philosophy in Milltown Park Fr. Hayes taught at Mungret College and was “Third Prefect” (1919-1923). He began his theology in Louvain but his health again caused anxiety and he was recalled to Milltown Park where on the 31st of July 1925 he was ordained. He did his tertianship in Tullabeg and was next appointed to Clongowes Wood College. During his six years there, he had been Prefect of the “Big Study” and two years Prefect of Studies (1931-1933). Then, he became Minister of Milltown Park and Assistant Procurator for three years (the word Economist had not come into vogue at this time). The years 1937 to 1939 he was Minister at Belvedere College and took charge of the finances of the Hong Kong Mission, this last office he held for nine years. In 1939 he became Procurator at Milltown Park and Assistant-Procurator of the Province and after six years at Milltown he returned to Belvedere College, where he was to spend the remaining nineteen years of his life. Eighteen years of these he was Procurator and for two years of these he taught Religious Knowledge in the School of Technology at Bolton Street.
As a teacher Fr. Hayes was esteemed for his clearness and conciseness. As a disciplinarian he carried universal respect. Off duty, the boys found him playful and to them he manifested a deep humanity. To his con temporaries in the Society he was generally very much at his ease. With those he did not know well he could be disconcertingly silent and gave the false impression of indifference. By nature he was extremely shy and sensitive. His keen powers of observation were proverbial. From the various important offices he filled one can judge that his interests were of a practical nature. He was popular with children and with people in banks and business houses. This was even more noticeable with the medical and nursing staffs in hospitals where he had been a patient, many of whom were represented at his Obsequies. As a community man, he was most punctual at all duties, in fact no one ever saw him late for any duty. His room in Belvedere College was in the old part of the house and to every offer made by Superiors to ease his efforts he declined to come to a lower room in the new wing of the school. He wished for no exemption nor did he wish to cause any unnecessary trouble by changing rooms. He once admitted to a friend: “I've been in the same room for nineteen years, I'll stay there until the end!” Requiescat in pace.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1965

Obituary

Rev Denis Hayes SJ

In the 1963 “Belvederian” we numbered Father Hayes among the Jubilarians celebrating their fifty years as a Jesuit. The fol lowing was written :

Father Denis Hayes SJ. Though not a past boy of the College, Father Hayes has good reason to be remembered by the College on the occasion of his Golden Jubilee, celebrated a few months after last year's “Belvederian” had been published. He came to the College as our “Father Minister” in the years 1937 and 1938. He returned in the year 1945 and for eighteen years he has shouldered the tedious and complicated task of keeping the account books of the College. We are in his debt in many ways for he has guided our steps and with his watchful eye has seen to our financial health or reported our attending sickness, We extend to him our thanks, best wishes and congratulations on being fifty years a Jesuit.

Father Denis did not survive very long after his Jubilee. During the last two years his health had deteriorated very much. For many years he had very much to suffer, but now a marked weakness appeared. On the 30th June he died suddenly in the Mater Hospital from a heart attack or cerebral haemorrhage, but with sufficient time to get a final anointing. He was in his 71st year and his 53rd in the Society. He was remark able for the simplicity and regularity of his life. He was most punctual in all his duties; punctuality is a very practical aspect of charity. He was most conscientious in keeping his books as Bursar; no doubt he has his spiritual accounts similarly in good order and ready for the Divine Auditor. Death for him must have been no unexpected visitor; likely enough his visit was welcome to one who suffered so much. May God reward him in that superabundant measure promised to those who leave all things and follow Him.

Hayes, James FG, 1933-2016, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/838
  • Person
  • 06 July 1933-31 January 2016

Born: 06 July 1933, Pery Square, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 14 September 1951, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1965, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1968, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 31 January 2016, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Educated at Crescent College SJ

by 1976 in London, England (ANG) working
by 1991 at Torry, Aberdeen, Scotland (BRI) working
by 1994 at Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland (BRI) working
by 2001 at Liverpool, England (BRI) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jim-hayes-sj/

Jim Hayes SJ
AMDG Express has saluted two of the Irish Jesuits working in Britain: Kieran Barry-Ryan and (posthumously) Jack Donovan. Jack’s near-contemporary, Jim Hayes, is living in
Liverpool, but for many years he has hardly featured on the horizons of Province activities despite a remarkably active priestly life. Paul Andrews’ report on a recent conversation with Jim.
When I rang Jim Hayes to hear his story, one picture stayed vividly with me. Jim asked had I seen “Tunes of Glory”, and in particular the scene in an officers’ mess, where you see officers at each end of the dining room table, eating in a shared solitude, with nobody saying hello. Jim’s first breakfast in Belvedere, in the early 70s, was like that. He had moved across the city from Milltown, appointed as Minister to a large community which he had never known before. He sat at one end of the table, some of the brethren gathered at the other end, and nobody greeted the newcomer or said hello. Things eased with time. Rupert Coyle, Michael Reidy, Jim Dunne and others became and remained good friends. But the Belvedere of 1970 tolerated unfriendliness, even inhumanity, in a way that reduced everyone’s energy.
Jim is remembered in both Milltown and Belvedere not just for efficiency as a Minister, but for an almost maternal eye for the needs of the brethren, and readiness to take pains and spend money to meet those needs. He is remembered with affection, and it is important for him to realise that.
Despite his frosty start in Belvedere, he worked hard at his job and grew to like it there; so he was sad, and felt it as something of a reproach, when the Provincial moved him after three years. He is happy to recall that years later the same Provincial wrote to him with an apology for making that move, and an acknowledgement that he had followed the wrong advice and done Jim an injustice.
After a short spell in his native Limerick, (at that time there were more priests in its main street than in the whole of Zambia), he was invited by Fr Oliver McTiernan to ease the shortage of priests in London. With the support of both Irish and British Provincials he moved to Islington for fifteen happy years. Both Oliver and Bruce Kent, his companions in Islington, later left priestly ministry, but Jim stayed with his parish, schools and hospital.
In the mid-1980s he felt moved to offer himself for the diocese of Aberdeen, where the shortage of priests was so chronic that it survived only through an infusion of Jesuit volunteers. Jim was parish priest in a Highlands parish west of Inverness, then in a city parish, and then for seven years in the Shetland Islands. When he went there, he found only four native Catholics, but with the development of the oil fields their number was swollen by a surge of workers, from Scotland, England, Ireland, Poland and elsewhere.
Despite the loneliness and the long winter nights, Jim enjoyed Shetland very much, moving round his parish by car and boat. But ten years ago he found that his half-moon glasses no longer served him adequately. A specialist told him that he was suffering from loss of central vision due to diabetes (of which he was unaware). His sight gave way suddenly. He could not distinguish parishioners, and he knew he had to leave the parish and the island.
He was happy to accept an invitation from the British Provincial to serve as full-time chaplain in the Catholic Institute for the Blind in Liverpool. He had to give up the chaplain’s post when he found he could no longer see faces clearly enough to recognise them. Now he is a resident, in a state of high dependency, blind and afflicted by Parkinson’s, but still able to celebrate Mass. When I asked him about the good and bad years in his memory, he said that most of his years had been good, but the last year has been an annus horribilis. Is there anything we can do to bring this good Jesuit closer?

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/20674/

Fr Jim Hayes RIP: committed to kindness and service of the Gospel
There were two sides to Jim Hayes, the Limerick-born Jesuit who has died at the age of 82. At first blush a stranger might find him serious, almost stern, in face and manner; but where he was looking after others – as he was for most of his ministry – he was kindness itself. He is remembered in both Milltown and Belvedere not just for efficiency as a Minister, but for an almost motherly eye for the needs of the brethren, and readiness to take pains and spend money to meet those needs. Any Jesuit in the job of Minister lives in a tension between the needs of the brethren and the moneywise watchfulness of superior and bursar. In that tension Jim put the brethren’s needs first. So he is remembered with great regard and affection. He sometimes felt the pressure of the bursar’s books, for instance when he was unexpectedly moved from Belvedere. Years later the Provincial who moved him wrote to him with an apology for making that move, acknowledging that it was a poorly-founded decision.
After a short spell in Limerick, (at that time there were more priests in its main street than in the whole of Zambia), he was invited by Fr Oliver McTiernan to ease the shortage of priests in London. With the support of both Irish and British Provincials he spent fifteen happy years in Islington. Both Oliver and Bruce Kent, his companions in Islington, later left priestly ministry, but Jim persevered faithfully.
In the mid-1980s he felt moved to volunteer for the diocese of Aberdeen, where the shortage of priests was so chronic that it survived only through an infusion of Jesuit volunteers. Jim was parish priest in a Highlands parish west of Inverness, then in a city parish, and then for seven years in the Shetland Islands. When he went there, he found only four native Catholics, but with the development of the oil fields their number was swollen by a surge of workers, from Scotland, England, Ireland, Poland and elsewhere.
Despite the loneliness and the long winter nights, Jim enjoyed Shetland, moving round his parish by car and boat. But ten years ago he found that his half-moon glasses no longer served him adequately. A specialist found that he was suffering from loss of central vision due to diabetes (of which Jim was unaware). His sight gave way suddenly. When he could not identify parishioners, he knew he had to leave the parish. The British Provincial asked him to serve as full-time chaplain in the Catholic Institute for the Blind in Liverpool. He worked there for fourteen years until, blind and afflicted by Parkinson’s, he returned to Ireland and settled well into Cherryfield Lodge. His condition deteriorated quickly in the past two weeks, and he died peacefully on 21 January, surrounded by his family and Jesuit companions.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 162 : Winter 2015

Obituary

Fr James (Jim) Hayes (1933-2016)

6 July 1933: Born in Dublin. Raised in Limerick City.
Early education at Crescent College SJ, Limerick.
14 September 1951: Entered Society at St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
15 September 1953: First Vows at St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
1953 - 1956: Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1956 - 1959: Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1959 - 1962: Clongowes - Regency : Teacher; Prefect; Studying CWC Cert in Education
1962 - 1966: Milltown Park - Studying Theology
29 July 1965: Ordained at Gonzaga Chapel, Milltown Park, Dublin
1966 - 1967: Rathfarnham - Tertianship
1967 - 1970: Milltown Park - Minister
2 Feb 1968: Final Vows at Gonzaga Chapel, Milltown Park, Dublin
1970 - 1974: Belvedere - Minister
1974 - 1975: Crescent - Minister in Church
1975 - 1990: London, UK - Curate at Church of St John the Evangelist, Islington
1990 - 1993: Aberdeen, Scotland, UK - Parish priest at Sacred Heart Church, Tory
1993 - 1999: Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland, UK - Parish Priest at St Margaret's
1999 - 2013: Liverpool, UK - Chaplain at Christopher Grange Centre for the Adult Blind
2013 - 2016: Loyola - Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

Having worked mostly in parishes in Britain, Jim returned home to Cherryfield Lodge from Liverpool on February 2nd 2013. He settled very well into Cherryfield, and while his overall wellbeing was fragile, he enjoyed life again in an Irish community. His condition deteriorated quickly in the past two weeks, and he died peacefully surrounded by his family, his sister Thérèse, brother in law John, nieces and nephew, and members of the Jesuit community, May he rest in the Peace of Christ.

James Francis Gerard Hayes, was born on 6th July 1933, in Limerick City. He was the eldest in the family, and he had a brother and two sisters.

In 1951 Jim joined the Jesuits in Emo, and three others who joined the same day, Sean Coghlan, Dermot Cassidy and Harry Naylor are still living. After doing an Arts degree in UCD and studying philosophy in Tullabeg. He then worked for three years in Clongowes. Here he taught French, History and Geography, and he was he also was the choir master. For the study of Theology Jim went to Milltown Park, where he was ordained on 29th July 1965.

After Tertianship Jim's first appointment was as Minister in Milltown Park in 1967. This was a community of 45 priests, 9 brothers and 54 scholastics, and the Minister also had responsibility for the catering and maintenance of Tabor Retreat House. At this time the furnishings and décor were institutional. Jim had a different vision of caring after people, and of surprising them and giving them more than they expected. The celebrations and fellowship that Jim enabled brought the Jesuit community together, and when Jim died, there were many stories of his kindnesses and care of the Milltown Park Community.

After two years, in 1970 Jim was sent to the Belvedere College community, to bring about the same changes in the community there. Apparently he was not welcomed with open arms, and he remembered his first morning there at breakfast, where the atmosphere was decidedly chilly. However his care for people warmed the atmosphere at Belvedere too, and Jim formed great friendships there. Four years later when he left Belvedere, Jim was especially missed by the catering and maintenance staff at Belvedere House, because he was a wonderful person to work for.

After Belvedere, Jim was then sent to be Minister in the Sacred Heart Church in his native Limerick. However Jim longed for direct pastoral work, and was attracted by the need in London, which were described to him by his friends, Fr Ken Mc Cabe and Fr. Oliver McTiernan,

So for fifteen years Jim went to minister at the church of St. John the Evangelist, in Islington, from 1975 till 1990. When Jim died the present parish priest of St John's, Mgr. Seamus O'Boyle, wrote to assure Jim's family and Jesuit colleagues of his prayers and those of the parish. Seamus reflected that parish register in St Johns tells its own story, of hundreds of baptisms and weddings and Anointings of the sick, conducted by the youthful Fr. Hayes. When Jim arrive at Islington Harold Wilson was Prime Minister, and when he was leaving, John Major was taking over from Margaret Thatcher. These were turbulent years in Britain, with the IRA bombings in Hyde Park and Regents' Park and Brighton. These were also years of deep divisions in society, of the miners' strike, and of massive protests for nuclear dişarmament, led by the secretary of CND, Mgr. Bruce Kent who lived in the same rectory as Jim. These were also turbulent years in the church too, and both Bruce Kent and Oliver McTiernan eventually left the priesthood. During all these upheavals and during all of this unrest, Jim Hayes faithfully preached the Gospel of love and forgiveness and the mercy of God, at the parish of St. John in Islington.

In 1990 Jim moved again, to where the need was great, to Scotland. He worked in Aberdeen for three years, at the Sacred Heart Church in Torry and then in 1993 at St Margaret's Church at Lerwick on the Shetland islands. Lerwick is further north than Oslo and Stockholm, with long summer evenings, and dark cold winters. Despite these extremes Jim loved it there. Here his congregation was made up of a small number of native Shetland people and a large number of immigrants who worked in fisheries and on oil rigs. On hearing of Jim's death, Anil Gonzalves of St Margaret's church wrote to say: “I am sorry to hear about Fr Jim Hayes. I will inform the parish and a Mass will be offered for his intentions”.

Jim's sister Theresa and her family, the Hurleys, were regular visitors to Jim in Lerwick. Jim's sister Mary visited him there too, and Jim had happy memories of Mary clearing the snow with a brush from the roof of the presbytery. When Mary sadly died about 15 years ago, Jim recalled these carefree times. Mary's death was a heavy cross for Jim to bear.

After nine years in Scotland, in 1999 Jim was surprised to learn the reason for the rapid deterioration of his eyesight. It was caused by diabetes, and the damage to his eyes was permanent. Even in in his blindness, Jim was willing to go where there was an apostolic need, and so he went at Chaplain to Christopher Grange Centre for the Adult Blind, in Liverpool. For three years he celebrated the sacraments for this special community, and learned to master technology so that he could 'read' the texts to celebrate Mass, and to administer the sacraments. During his period Fr. Matthew Power SJ from the nearby Jesuit community kept in touch with him, and his long-term medical needs were monitored by his sister Theresa, and by Mary Rickard, the Irish Provincial's health delegate. Theresa and Mary formed a mighty alliance, and they liaised with Bernadette Lavin, who looks after the health of the British Jesuits.

After complex negotiations, diplomatically handled, Jim came to live in Cherryfield in 2013. The transfer was planned with military precision, with a vanguard, a main guard, and a rear-guard action. The time in Cherryfield was a time of great blessings in Jim's life, because he could be close to the Hurley family, and when Jim was able to perform the baptism of baby Sam Fogarty, his grandnephew, last June, in the Cherryfield chapel, it was a special time of blessings for everybody.

The time in Cherryfield gave the Terry and her Hurley family a chance to be close to Jim, and he loved their visits and support. They shared their pride in Munster Rugby and their careers, and Jim was proud of them.

About six years ago, while in Liverpool, Jim prepared the liturgy for his funeral Mass. The readings and the hymns, and special recorded music reflected the interests of a person coping with serious illness and with his blindness. The pealing of church bells, which was a feature of a Sunday morning BBC programme he loved, and the signature tune for the BBC Shipping forecast called “Sailing By”, were played at his request. The Gospel included Jesus reassurance “It is I, do not be afraid”. In Jim's final years he suffered from Parkinson's disease, and despite the kindness of the Cherryfield staff and the support of his family and Jesuit colleagues, these were difficult years. When Jim died on January 31st, 2016, the prayers for eternal rest had a special poignancy.

Liam O’Connell

Hayes, Jeremiah, 1896-1976, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/180
  • Person
  • 08 February 1896-21 January 1976

Born: 08 February 1896, Davis Street, Tipperary Town, County Tipperary
Entered: 01 September 1913, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 29 July 1928, Oña, Burgos, Spain
Final Vows: 02 February 1931, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin
Died: 21 January 1976, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin

Editor of An Timire, 1931-36.

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1927 at Oña, Burgos, Castile y León, Spain (CAST) studying
by 1929 at Comillas, Santander, Spain (LEG) studying

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 51st Year No 2 1976

Rathfarnham Castle
The happy death of Fr Jerry Hayes took place on Wednesday, 21st January. Though he showed signs of failing for some six weeks and knew that the end was fast approaching, he was in full possession of his mental faculties up to about ten days before he quietly passed away at about 3 pm in the afternoon with Br Keogh’s finger on the ebbing pulse until its last beat. For Br Keogh it was the end of thirty-three years of devoted care and skilful nursing and a patience which never wavered. For Fr Hayes it was happy release from a whole life-time of suffering heroically borne. Br Joe Cleary, who took over with Br Keogh for about the last six years, rendered a service which Fr Hayes himself described as heroic. Despite his sufferings and his physical incapacity, Fr Hayes lived a full life of work and prayer and keen interest in the affairs of the Society and the Church and of the world, and of a very wide circle of intimate friends with whom he maintained regular contact either by correspondence or by timely visits to them in their homes or convents, We have no doubt that the great reward and eternal rest which he has merited will not be long deferred. Likewise, we considered it wise and fitting, that the necessary rest and well deserved reward of their labours should not be long deferred in the case of those who rendered Fr Hayes such long and faithful service. This we are glad to record Brs Keogh and Cleary have. since enjoyed in what Br Keogh has described as a little bit of heaven.
As one may easily imagine, Rathfarnham without Fr Jerry Hayes is even more empty than it was. Yet, we feel that he is still with us and will intercede for us in the many problems which our situation presents both in the present and in the future. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis!

Obituary :

Fr Jeremiah Hayes (1896-1976)

Jeremiah Hayes was born at Davis Street, Tipperary on 8th Feb, 1896, the eldest of a family of two brothers and two sisters. His early education, from 1902 to 1911, was with the Christian Brothers in his native town, and he came to Clongowes for the Middle and Senior Grades of the Intermediate system. As a boy, he showed that ability and industry which marked him in later life, winning prizes in all the four grades. In 1913 he entered the noviciate at Tullabeg.
Fr Jerry Hayes’s life falls naturally into two periods, his active years up to his ordination, and the long martyrdom of the ensuing forty-seven years, which he was to bear with such heroic courage. His life as a scholastic was not marked by any very outstanding event, but the few of his contemporaries who have outlived him recall that it was full of quiet and constant activity which seemed to foreshadow a most fruitful priestly life. He was a remarkably steady, conscientious worker, took a good honours degree at the end of his juniorate in 1919, and was one of the keenest students in the ensuing three years of philosophy at Milltown Park. The writer repeated philosophy with him during two of these years, and has a clear recollection of his diligence, thoroughness and sound grasp of the subject.
His three years of teaching in Belvedere were marked by the same characteristics of quiet diligence and devotion to the work in hand. He used to recall that it was during those years that he developed a taste which was afterwards to be a great source of consolation to him. He had always been fond of music - he had a pleasant tenor voice and read music well - but it was in Belvedere that one of his fellow-scholastics introduced him to classical music, for which he had previously had no understanding
At his own request - he had always had a love of foreign languages - he was sent for theology to Oña in Spain. Life there cannot have been too easy for him. The only member of his own Province with him was Fr John Hollis, of what was then the Australian mission, and they must have felt rather lost in the immense Spanish community. Having successfully completed three years of the higher course and been ordained in 1929, he completed his fourth year at the Pontifical University, Comillas, Santander. It was about this time that the symptoms appeared of the arthritis which was so soon to cripple him. He returned to Rathfarnham Castle, and there he passed the rest of his life as a semi-invalid.
Another, and better qualified fellow-Jesuit will speak of the ensuing years. The present writer will merely briefly record that he spent ten years under the same roof as Fr Jerry. The first four were 1929-33, at the very outset of his long trial, the last six were 1961-67, when the end was not so far off, During those very considerable periods, he displayed courage and resignation to God's will which, even at the time, were remarkable, but which, viewed in retrospect, are truly heroic. He had obviously, from the beginning, determined to accept generously the Cross laid upon him, to show no quarter to the demon of self-pity, and to live as perfect a religious life as was possible in his very helpless state,
He was helped in this task by his natural characteristic of methodical diligence. The day was conscientiously marked out, with time for his Mass, his office, his rosary and other prayers, his visits to the Blessed Sacrament, his correspondence, and the various small, but useful tasks which he managed to deal with, in particular the necessary, but thankless work of censorship for publication. It was notable that, unlike many other invalids, he seemed to be much more interested in the joys and sorrows of other people than in his own, and he was always delighted to get news about the doings of members of the Province or other friends of his.
He had, undoubtedly, some very great helps, the devotion of his infirmarians, the outings so willingly provided by the Juniors and friends, and, most of all, his ability to say Mass almost to the end. Yet, over the immense span of forty-seven years, there must have been many periods of depression, times when the problem of his almost helpless existence must have presented itself with cruel insistence, Fr Jerry Hayes was not naturally an extrovert. One did not hear him frequently expressing in words his resignation to God's will or the vivid faith which enabled him to fulfil his religious duties so faithfully under such dis heartening difficulties. But his life, as a whole, was more eloquent than any words, and will long be a source of inspiration and courage to those who were privileged to know him.

Br Edward Keogh writes:
A month after Fr Hayes's death, I am at a loss to set down something you would listen to and read. My trouble is, in talking about such a wonderful life as he led amongst us during all these years, to know where to begin. You would fancy that after thirty-three years I would have no difficulty in giving an account of what was my almost daily contact with him; but the problem is that there is so much I could say about that long period that my difficulty is to make a suitable selection of what I should say, and tell what struck us most about this wonderful man. What am I to say about the man, the priest, with whom I was privileged to be so closely associated during the long years of his trying illness?
Fr Hayes in my estimation was one of whom we can be proud, one of the real “greats”, to use a modern term. We can speak of him in the same way as we do of Fr John Sullivan, or Fr Michael Browne, or indeed many others whom we have all known. The Irish Province today can feel proud of the formation it has given men of the calibre of Fr Jeremiah Hayes. How one man during all those years could bear such a heavy cross will remain a mystery, and an inspiration to the whole Province, If I were asked to give an opinion of what kept Fr Hayes going, I would pick out one fact primarily: the fact that he was able to say Mass almost daily. Birrell I think it was who said “It is the Mass that matters”, and it was the Mass that enabled Fr Hayes to carry on his deeply spiritual life. Through the Mass he was able to exercise his apostolic work par excellence. After his Mass, he had his day ordered in such a way as to express that independence which every man so dearly cherishes and likes to have a little of in his life. He took a great interest in his tropical fish, his canary, and above all his daily routine of work and prayer. His little trips with Mr Shannon were so much enjoyed and even looked forward to: they helped him to see the outside world.
I could in fact, had I the skill, write a book on all the various little incidents of his life which keep crowding into one's mind during these days after his death. One quality he had was imperturbability. On one occasion we put him into the old St Vincent's hospital. Against our advice, he decided to leave hospital, in his wheelchair, by way of the front steps. Horror! The chair proved too much for the person who was charged with the task of getting it down the steps, and bump, bump, went the chair down the pavement. All poor Fr Hayes was able to do was to break into a broad grin. Everything was a story.
I should mention the devotion of what he liked to call his “charioteers”, the scholastics who so unselfishly brought him on outings or individual trips around the district.
I began caring for Fr Hayes about January 1943, and strangely enough, by God's providence, Br Cleary and I were with him until his last moments in January when he passed to his eternal reward. A realist to the end, he recognised the fact of the imminence of his death, and was entirely resigned to the Will of God in this regard. In a weak voice he asked me how much further he had to go. I answered him quietly that only God knows that. His actual passing was very peaceful, at five minutes to three in the afternoon of 21st January, 1976. Throughout his last hours he looked utterly tranquil, and it could be said of him, truly and literally, that he fell asleep in the Lord.

◆ The Clongownian, 1976

Obituary

Father Jeremiah Hayes SJ

Fr Jerry Hayes ended his long and extraordinary life peacefully in the afternoon of January 21st, a few weeks before his eightieth birthday, in the room in Rathfarnham Castle where he had lived for the past forty-seven years.

He was born in Tipperary in 1896, the eldest of a family of four. He went to school with the Brothers in the town till he was fifteen, when he came to Clongowes, His time here was marked by quiet success in his studies, for which he won a series of prizes. He was a. member of the Sodality when it was directed by Fr Sullivan and, as he liked to recall with some pride, a classmate of the late Archbishop John McQuaid and the Vatican astronomer, Fr Dan O'Connell SJ.

On leaving school he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tullabeg. The later years of formation took him to Rathfarnham Castle (where he did Celtic Studies in UCD), Milltown Park (philosophy), Belvedere (where he taught for three years), and, finally, Spain - first at Oña, where he was ordained in 1928, and then a finishing year at Comillas, He returned from Spain with the first symptoms of a rare form of arthritis which progressively and quickly crippled him almost completely. He was then thirty-three, and destined to spend the rest of his life as an invalid.

His active life, all of it spent in preparation, was already over.

There is scarcely one further incident of conventional interest or importance to record in Jerry Hayes' life. To compare his picture in The Clongownian of 1913, a schoolboy with the promise of his life before him, and the wizened, cruelly crippled old man whom I knew half a century later, is to be confronted with the deep mystery of God's designs. No one can have faced this more squarely than Fr Jerry himself. It needs little imagination to appreciate how enormously he must have suffered at the frustration of all he hoped to do. But of such inner struggles there was no outward sign. We knew him as a friendly, cheerful, well-balanced and, above all, self-contained man. This was extraordinary in view of what seemed his humiliating dependence on others for the smallest details of his existence. Yet his style was so unassuming that we almost took his faith and endurance and complete lack of self-pity for granted.

He took a keen interest in what his fellow-Jesuits and his many other friends were doing, and kept up a large correspondence. He and his “charioteers”, as he liked to call the young Jesuit university students who took him out in his wheelchair, were a familiar sight in Rathfarnham over the years, and he made many friends around the district. The students found him easier to approach - once they had overcome their initial awe - than most men of his relative seniority. Indeed, his contact with them on such a regular basis throughout his life was a factor contributing to his freshness of mind, which aged according to a law quite peculiar to itself. He was not only a remarkable example to us of what Christianity means (as was the unselfish devotion of Bro Keogh and Bro Cleary, his infirmarians), at the beginning of our careers, but also a valued friend.

The worth of Jerry Hayes’ life is beyond calculation.

Bruce Bradley SJ

Hayes, John, 1909-1945, Jesuit priest and chaplain

  • IE IJA J/1423
  • Person
  • 15 February 1909-21 January 1945

Born: 15 February 1909, Ascot Terrace, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 01 September 1925, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1939, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 07 February 1942, Mount St Mary’s College, Spinkhill, Derbyshire, England
Died: 21 January 1945, Katha (Yangon), Burma (Military Chaplain)

Second World War chaplain

Brother of Francis Hayes - LEFT 1932; Nephew of Francis Lyons - RIP 1933; Early education at Crescent College

Died as WWII Chaplain

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/education/fr-john-hayes-a-jesuit-at-war/

Fr John Hayes: a Jesuit at war
Limerickman Patrick McNamara has just published Their Name Liveth for Evermore, a book about the involvement of Limerick in the Second World War. Included is the story of Fr John Hayes SJ, a chaplain in the armed forces who died of typhus in Burma. John Hayes, the son of Michael and Agnes Hayes (nee Lyons), 21 Ascot Terrace, O’Connell Avenue, Limerick was born on 15th February 1909. His early education by the Jesuits at The Crescent College in the city was to be an introduction to the priestly life. He joined the Jesuits at St. Stanislaus College, Tullabeg where he started his novitiate in 1925. From 1934 until 1936 he taught as a scholastic at Belvedere College, Dublin. In 1936 he went on to study theology at Milltown Park, Dublin where he was ordained priest in July 1939. He was engaged in further studies until June 1941.
In July 1941, he was appointed as a chaplain to the British Army and writing back from Redcar, Yorkshire he expressed his feelings about his new appointment ‘completely at home and experiences no sense of strangeness’. In 1943 he was selected for overseas service and in May of that year, set sail for India. On arrival there, he was assigned to the 36th Division at Poona. In early 1944, the Division moved to the Arakan front, where it was committed to help stop the Japanese advance; the fighting was hard; this was John Hayes’ introduction to active service. He was to prove an outstanding chaplain who was both loved and respected by all with whom he came in contact with; he was a man of tireless energy and indomitable courage.
On the 31st August 1944, John, in a letter home, wrote:
The 36th Division is now fighting the Japs about 30 miles south of the ‘city’ of Mogaung, about 22 odd miles from Mandalay, to the north. Having left cool Assam (where I was able to help administer to many American troops who greatly edified by large numbers frequenting the Sacraments) we flew over the hills to Myitkyina and went by jeep-pulled train to the ruins of Mogaung, captured just before by our allies, chiefly Chinese. The fight started about 12 miles south of Mogaung (Hill 60) which was cleared by one of our brigades and continued (though not toughly) over 20 miles to the south, our men clearing the road and rail which run mostly together in the direction of Mandalay. We were ‘on the road to Mandalay’ for our sins!
I missed the first phase but fortunately was in for the second phase of the battle. I attached myself to a Scotch Regiment and gave them Mass, Confession and Communion standing by a stream. We were in a long narrow plain between hills. Our Chinese allies hold the hills: we advance along the road and rail southwards in the valley. Occasionally the heat is oppressive, but heavy rains and scanty overhead shelter are the great difficulties. Sickness: malaria, dysentery, bad feet, jungle sores are common. (I’m completely fit D.G.). Last Monday, the 28th of August, I buried a Catholic, Corporal Kelly; he lay dead 30 paces from the railway; 10 yards away a Jap sat, his back to Kelly, dead, with his hand resting on his knees. While the grave was being prepared the moaning of a dying Jap was heard 40 paces away. I baptised him conditionally; he died 15 minutes later. I was so thoroughly affected by his sufferings that I could hardly carry out the burial of Corporal Kelly for tears.
A Chinese interpreter is showing interest in the Catholic Faith. Our casualties were reasonably light. The Jap has displayed great heroism in spite of our dive-bombers, strafing and heavy guns (to which he has no reply in kind). He has stood his ground with sublime courage. I feel somehow that God will reward his enormous spirit of self-dedication. I find it an inspiration myself. The effect of actual work during action is terrific. One feels ready to sacrifice everything to save a single soul. So far God has given me the grace never to have felt fear on any occasion. No thanks to myself, for I know much better men who have felt fear. Largely, I think, a matter of natural complexion and texture of nerves. This monsoon-swept valley between low hills is beautifully and softly green with running streams, but it is a valley of death; many bodies lie decomposing; the villages are all smashed, the people homeless, and God is looking down, I think, with pity on it all …….
It was during the hard fighting to capture Myitkyina, that Fr. Hayes was to earn the soubriquet of ‘Battling Hayes’. After Myitkyina, the Division pushed on to the Irrawaddy. It was on the banks of the great river that Fr. Hayes was to die, not from battle wounds but from disease.
On 28th December 1944 he was evacuated to the casualty clearing station at Katha where he was diagnosed as suffering from typhus. His condition got progressively worse, pneumonia set in. Fr. Hayes must have sensed that the end was near; he requested the last rites on 6th January 1945. John died on 21st January 1945 on the banks of the Irrawaddy just two months before the 14th Army decisively defeated the Japanese at Meiktila, on the road to Mandalay and Rangoon.
John’s work as a chaplain is best described by an old Belvederian, Captain William Ward of the 36th Division, in a letter to the Rector of Belvedere after the death of John.
Dear Fr. Rector,
As an old Belvederian, I feel it my duty to give you the sad news of the death of an old member of the staff of Belvedere. I refer to the late Fr. John Hayes S.J. who died of typhus at Katha on the Irrawaddy in Central Burma on January 21st 1945. He was our chaplain here in the 16th Division and a more likeable man one would find it hard to meet. He was loved by one and all from our G.O.C., General Festing, who was a Catholic, to the most humble Indian.
He joined us at Poona in 1943 and came with the Division to the Arakan early last year and later flew in with us on our present operation. To one and all he was known as ‘Battling Hayes’, utterly devoid of any fear. It was only on the express order of General Festing that he took his batman to act as escort when on his rounds. No matter where one went, more especially in the height of battle, there one would find Fr. Hayes in his peculiar dress: Ghurkha hat, battledress blouse and blue rugger shorts. It was common to see him walking along a road known to be infested with the enemy, without any protection of any kind, happy in the thought that he was doing his job.
The highest praise I can pay Fr. Hayes, and this our present chaplain, Fr. Clancy from Clare, agrees with me, is that he reminded me very much of the late Fr. Willie Doyle. Nothing mattered; monsoon, rain, heat, disease, the enemy, his one thought was to be among his flock, doing all he could to help them. Nothing was too much trouble and the further forward a Unit was, the greater his delight in going forward to celebrate Mass. By his death all the Catholics of his Division and many of the Protestants, have lost a great friend and the finest chaplain one could wish to have ….
In a letter to John’s mother, General (later Field Marshal) Festing, wrote:
I would like on behalf of this Division and myself to express our very deepest sympathy to you in the loss of your son. We all were fond of Fr. Hayes who was an exemplification of all that a Catholic Priest and an Army Chaplain should be. He was a tireless worker, and if any man worked himself to death, it was he. Your son was an undoubted saint and he died fortified by the rites of Holy Church. May he rest in peace.
Fr. John Hayes was 36 years old when he died. He is buried in grave 7A. F. 24, Taukkyan War Cemetery, outside Yangon (formerly Rangoon) in Myanmar (Burma). He was the only Irish Jesuit chaplain to have died during the Second World War.
Their Name Liveth For Evermore by Patrick McNamara, is available from most book shops in Limerick city. The main centre is: Hamsoft Communication, Tait Buiness Centre, Limerick. Phone (061) 416688. Price €30.00 (hardback only) + P/P. ISBN 0-9554386-0-8.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Went to Juniorate without First Vows. Died in January 1945 from typhus while a Chaplain in the British Army in India

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 16th Year No 4 1941
General :
Seven more chaplains to the forces in England were appointed in July : Frs Burden, Donnelly, J Hayes, Lennon and C Murphy, who left on 1st September to report in Northern Ireland, and Fr Guinane who left on 9th September.
Fr. M. Dowling owing to the serious accident he unfortunately met when travelling by bus from Limerick to Dublin in August will not be able to report for active duty for some weeks to come. He is, as reported by Fr. Lennon of the Scottish Command in Midlothian expected in that area.
Of the chaplains who left us on 26th May last, at least three have been back already on leave. Fr. Hayes reports from Redcar Yorkshire that he is completely at home and experiences no sense of strangeness. Fr. Murphy is working' with the Second Lancashire Fusiliers and reports having met Fr. Shields when passing through Salisbury - the latter is very satisfied and is doing well. Fr. Burden reports from Catterick Camp, Yorks, that he is living with Fr. Burrows, S.J., and has a Church of his own, “so I am a sort of PP”.
Fr. Lennon was impressed very much by the kindness already shown him on all hands at Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh and in his Parish. He has found the officers in the different camps very kind and pleased that he had come. This brigade has been without a R.C. Chaplain for many months and has never yet had any R.C. Chaplain for any decent length of time. I am a brigade-chaplain like Fr Kennedy and Fr. Naughton down south. He says Mass on weekdays in a local Church served by our Fathers from Dalkeith but only open on Sundays. This is the first time the Catholics have had Mass in week-days

Irish Province News 17th Year No 1 1942
Chaplains :
Our twelve chaplains are widely scattered, as appears from the following (incomplete) addresses : Frs. Burden, Catterick Camp, Yorks; Donnelly, Gt. Yarmouth, Norfolk; Dowling, Peebles Scotland; Guinane, Aylesbury, Bucks; Hayes, Newark, Notts; Lennon, Clackmannanshire, Scotland; Morrison, Weymouth, Dorset; Murphy, Aldershot, Hants; Naughton, Chichester, Sussex; Perrott, Palmer's Green, London; Shields, Larkhill, Hants.
Fr. Maurice Dowling left Dublin for-Lisburn and active service on 29 December fully recovered from the effects of his accident 18 August.

Irish Province News 20th Year No 2 1945

Fr. John Hayes, Chaplain to the British Forces in Burma, died of typhus on January 21st, 1945.

Irish Province News 20th Year No 2 1945

Obituary

Fr. John Hayes (1909-1925-1945)

Fr. John Hayes died on the Feast of St. Agnes, Sunday morning, January 21st, 1945, as Senior Catholic Chaplain to the British Forces on the Burma Front.
Born at Limerick on February 15th, 1909, he was educated at the Crescent, and entered the Novitiate at Tullabeg on September 1st, 1925. Two years later he commenced his four years' Juniorate at Rathfarnham whence, in 1930, he returned to Tullabeg as one of the first group to do philosophy there. During these years of study he gave good promise as a writer, and had published a number of articles dealing with life and activity in the Mission Fields of the Church.
From Tullabeg he went to Belvedere for his three years teaching, 1933-36. In his final year there his love of the Missions found outlet through the Mission Society of which he was a zealous and capable Director.
At the end of three years' Theology at Milltown he was ordained by the Most Rev. Dr. Wall on July 31st, 1939. In September, 1940, Fr. Hayes was again at Rathfarnham for his Tertianship, which ended with his appointment in July, 1941, as a Chaplain to the British Army. He reported duty on September 1st, and by the following month wrote of himself as being “completely at home” in his new life . During the next year and a half he was stationed in various parts of England. On February 7th, 1942, he took his final vows at St. Mary's, Spinkhill. Early in the year 1943 he was selected for overseas service. At the end of a long sea voyage he found himself in India, where, as Chaplain to the 36th Division he did valiant work for many months prior to departure for the Burma front.
During practically the whole of 1944 Fr, Hayes was with his men in the jungle-fighting in Burma. It was a tough assignment, but the asceticism which for so long had moulded his character stood every test and strain. In their Chaplain the men saw a strong, fearless man of God fired by an intense passion to win all he could for Christ. Affectionately, they dubbed him “Battling Hayes”. Hardship and privation found him always cheerful. Weariness and fatigue seemed strangers to him. If he felt any fear of wounds or death he never gave sign of it. His courageous conduct through the long months of fierce jungle fighting was an inspiration to every officer and man who witnessed it. General Festing, under whom Fr. Hayes served, resisted every effort to have him transferred from his divisional command. The General being a Catholic, appreciated the sources of his Padre's tireless energy and indomitable courage. Writing of him after his death General Festing stated that “Fr. Hayes was an exemplification of all that a Catholic Priest and an army chaplain should be. He was a tireless worker, and if any man worked himself to death, it was he. He was an undoubted saint”.
On December 28th, 1944. Fr. Hayes was evacuated to the Casualty Clearing Station at Katha in Central Burma. His complaint was diagnosed as typhus. About the 6th of January, though the disease was taking its normal course, Fr. Hayes requested and received the last Sacraments. From that time until he was unable to swallow, he received Viaticum, every day. Pneumonia set in, and Fr. Hayes' condition became progressively worse. For about a week he was unable to speak to anyone, but he retained the use of his mental faculties up to the end. During his last night Fr. Hickson, a fellow chaplain who ministered to him during his prolonged battle with death, sat at his bedside until Mass time the following, Sunday, morning. Fr. Hickson's Mass was offered for his dying friend who passed away peacefully just as the Mass was finished.
A coffin was hard to come by, but thanks to the Providence of God one was secured, and vested in chaplain's Mass vestments the remains of “Battling Hayes” were laid to rest the same day, after an evening Requiem Mass, in the Catholic section of the public cemetery at Katha on the Irrawaddy river about 120 miles north from Mandalay. May he rest in peace.

LETTERS ABOUT FR. JOHN HAYES :

In the last letter Fr. Hayes wrote to his people, received before the news of his death, he mentions that he had baptised a dying Japanese and made his first Hindoo convert.
The last message Fr. Provincial received from him, greetings for Christmas, was dated November 28th,

A letter from THE SISTER IN CHARGE OF THE HOSPITAL, written on January 12th, says he is still seriously ill, but expresses the hope that there will be more cheerful news soon. She adds : “I shall write every week until he is able to do so himself”.

Mrs. Hayes, Fr. John's mother, received the following letter from the COMMANDING OFFICER of the 30th Division : January 24th.
“Dear Mrs. Hayes, I would like on behalf of this Division and myself to express our very deepest sympathy to you in the loss of your son. We all were very fond of Fr. Hayes who was an exemplification of all that a Catholic Priest and an Army Chaplain should be. He was a tireless worker, and if any man worked himself to death, it was he. Your son was an undoubted saint and he died fortified by the rites of Holy Church. May he rest in peace. Yours sincerely, FRANCIS FESTING, MAJ. GEN.”

MGR. J. COGHLAN, Principal Catholic Chaplain, writing from London on January 29th to Fr. Provincial, says :
“I very much regret to have to inform you that your father J. Hayes died of typhus in India, on January 21st. R.I.P. Father Hayes was a grand priest and a splendid chaplain. He did magnificent work in every post he was given, and was held in the highest esteem by all ranks with whom he came in contact. I can ill afford to lose the services of such a good priest, and we can only say: 'God's Will be done.' I send you and the Society my deepest sympathy. You have lost a great priest, and I have lost a great chaplain. I should be glad to think that you would convey to his relatives my deep sympathy in their loss”.

In a later communication Mgr. Coghlan sent the following details furnished by the REV. JOSEPH GARDNER, Senior Chaplain, South East Asia, on January 28th. :
“Fr. Hayes was anointed at his own request in the early days of the illness, and received Viaticum daily as long as he was able to swallow. After pneumonia set in, he was again anointed and finally died quietly and peacefully on Sunday morning, January 21st, just at the moment of the conclusion of the Mass that Fr. Hickson was offering for him. He was buried, coffined and in his vestments, in the Catholic section of the cemetery at Katha, R.I.P.”

FR. A. CLANCY, O.F., H.Q. 36 Division, to Fr. Provincial, 29-1-45 :
“Fr. John Hayes became ill with typhus a few days before the beginning of the New Year, and was removed to the Casualty Clearing Station to which I was at the time attached. He went steadily down hill, but we hoped that his strong constitution would carry him through. As time went by it became evident there was no hope for him, and he died on Sunday morning, January 21st. Fr. Hickson, my successor at the hospital, was with him constantly till the end, and gave him the last Sacraments. He received Holy Communion until a few mornings before he died as long as he was able to swallow.
His death was a great shock to the Division where he was universally popular and especially to the three priests who were associated with him here. I myself feel a deep sense of personal loss, as we joined the Army from Ireland almost at the same time. We were both in Northern Command, travelled out to India together, and had been near one another since I joined the 36th Division six months ago.
He was an ideal chaplain and a worthy son of St. Ignatius. He was completely forgetful of personal risks when the spiritual welfare of the men was concerned. In this respect he always reminded me of Fr. Willie Doyle. When he heard of Fr. Hayes death General Festing said to me that he had killed himself for his men, and this remark is literally true.
May I offer you on my own behalf and for the other chaplains of, this Division our deepest sympathy on the loss the Irish Jesuit Province has sustained?”

FR. C. NAUGHTON, 29-1 -45 :
“I got quite a shock this morning on reading of the death of the Rev. John Hayes from typhus. R.I.P. I heard earlier in the week that we had a chaplain casualty, as a padre was suddenly posted off to the forward area to replace him. I never dreamed that it was the Rev. John. By all accounts Fr. Hayes was a second Willie Doyle. He seemed not to know what fear was, and was always in the thick of things. He will be greatly missed by his Division, as he was tremendously popular. About three months ago a young soldier after returning from Burma wished to be received into the Church. On being asked why he desired to change his religion, he replied : ‘Sir, we have a R.C. padre who has greatly impressed me. A man who exposes himself to so much danger to save souls must have the true religion?’ Fr. Hayes was his divisional chaplain, I am writing to our S.C.F. to find out as much accurate news as possible about him. May be rest in peace.

FR. C. PERROTT, 5-2-45 :
“You have heard no doubt by this time of the death of Fr. John Hayes, R.I.P. I am very sorry that up to the present I have no news to give you beyond the bare fact. His death came as a great shock to me, I can assure you, and upset me very much. I had heard from Fr. Nevin that Fr. Hayes had gone down sick with typhus at the beginning of January or the end of December, and then got no news till I received a note from the same source last Friday announcing his death. I wrote at once to Fr. Nevin asking him to give me all the details and particulars he could about it. I have heard many people out here speak very highly of Fr. Hayes and of the tremendous work he was doing. His death will be a great loss to us, - but he will get a great reward for his zeal and enthusiasm”.

FR. C. PERROTT, 5-3-45: The cemetery in which he is buried is only a temporary one, and later on the remains will be moved into a central one, and due notice of its location will be sent you. All his personal effects will come through, after some very considerable delay, through the usual official channels”.

FR, GEORGE HICKSON, C.F., to Fr. Provincial, 15-2-45 :
“Fr. Hayes took ill with typhus on December 28th, 1944, and was evacuated to the 22 C.C.S. Typhus is a pretty terrible disease. It is heartbreaking to watch a patient suffering with it grow progressively worse. This is what happened to John. I gave him at his own request all the Sacraments and the Papal Blessing. That was about January 8th. He received Holy Viaticum daily as long as he could swallow. We had hopes of his recovery till the 18th, then pneumonia set in, and I gave him Extreme Unction again. He was conscious, in our opinion, right up to the end, although for the last week or so he was unable to speak. He was quite reconciled to death, which he did not dread in the least. I think he offered himself in reparation for the sins of the world, and almost gave the impression that he desired death for this end. was greatly influenced by the life of Fr. W. Doyle. He passed away very peacefully at 8.55 on the morning of Sunday, January 21st, 1945, just as I was concluding a Mass which I offered for him. He was with me in the 36th Division for the whole year in which we have been in action. He was loyal and devoted to his work, and, I think, worried himself over perfecting every detail. Everyone who knew him said that he was not of this world, and non-Catholic officers were unanimous in their good opinion of him. I buried him in his vestments, and I am glad to say that I was able to secure a coffin. He lies in the public cemetery at Katha, which is on the River Irrawaddy about 120 miles north of Mandalay. We erected a nice cross and railings around his grave. In his life and in his death he was an example and an ornament to the priesthood”.

FR. E. J. WARNER, S.J., of the Chaplains' Department of the War Office sent to Fr. Provincial, 22-3-45, a short letter addressed to Mgr. Coghlan by the REY. M. J. O'CARROLL, S.C.F., now in England. The latter was Senior Chaplain in India when Fr. Hayes went out there :
“Fr. Hayes was an exceptionally fine Chaplain. Would you, please, convey to his next-of-kin and to his Religious Superior an expression of my deep sympathy ? At the next Chaplains' Conference Mass will be offered up for the repose of his soul. R.I.P.”

From an OLD BELVEDERIAN, attached to the 36th Division, to the Rector of Belvedere :
Dear Fr. Rector, As an old Belvederian I feel it my duty to give you the sad news of the death of an old member of the staff of Belvedere. I refer to the late Fr. John Hayes, S.J. Fr. Hayes died of typhus at Katha on the Irrawaddy in Central Burma on January 21st, 1945. He was our chaplain here in the 36th Division, and a more likeable man one would find it hard to meet. He was loved by all, from our G.O.C. General Festing, who is a Catholic, to the most humble Indian. He joined us in Poona in 1943, and came with the Division to the Arakan early last year, and later flew in with us on our present operation. To one and all he was known as Battling Hayes, utterly devoid of any fear. It was only on the express order of General Festing that he took his batman to act as escort when on his rounds. No matter where one went, more especially in the height of battle, there one would find Fr. Hayes, in his peculiar dress : Ghurka bat, battle-dress blouse and blue rugger shorts. It was common to see him walking along a road known to be infested with the enemy, without any protection of any kind, happy in the thought that he was doing his job. The highest praise I can pay Fr. Hayes, and in this our present chaplain, Fr. Clancy from Clare, agrees with me, is that he reminded me very much of the late Fr. Willie Doyle. Nothing mattered : monsoon, rain, heat, disease, the enemy. His one thought was to be among his flock, doing all he could to help them. Nothing was too much trouble, and the further forward a Unit was, the greater his delight in going forward to celebrate Mass. By his death all the Catholics of this Division, and many of the Protestants, have lost a great friend and the finest chaplain one could wish to have. I hope you will be good enough to pass this sad news to Fr. Provincial. I believe his address is Gardiner Street, but, as I am not sure, I thought it better to inform you. No doubt either Fr. Hayes' mother, who was next-of-kin, or Fr. Provincial will be informed in due course by the War Office. Another Belvederian whom I may meet again one day is Fr. Tom Ryan, whose voice I often hear on the Chunking radio, giving talks on English literature. My very best respects to any who knew me in Belvedere, and your good self. I am, dear Fr. Rector, your's very sincerely, W. A. WARD, CAPT. (1923-1931).

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Hayes SJ 1909-1945
Father John Hayes was born in Limerick in 1909 and was regarded by his contemporaries as a saint and mystic.

As a philosopher he kept the minimum of furniture in his room, a bed which he seldom slept in, and an orange box which served as a wash stand and general work-table. The rest was put out in the corridor. Superiors had to check his austerity. While these signs of singularity disappeared in later life, he maintained and extraordinary communion with God, and a single-mindedness of dedication, which as a priest was turned into a burning thirst for souls.

He got his chance in the Second World War. He became a Chaplain and was stationed in Burma in the thick of the jungle-warfare. To the troops he was known as “Battling Hayes”. He was tireless in whi work and seemed consumed with a burning passion to save souls for Christ. General Festing was his close friend and admirer.

On December 28th he retured to hospital, not too ill, but his complaint turned out to be typhus, and he died on January 21st, 1945, young in years but ripe in merit. A coffin was hard to come by, but the difficulty was overcome, and vested in his chaplain’s robes, he was laid to rest at Katha, in the Irawaddy rover, 120 miles from Mandalay.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1945

Obituary

Father John Hayes SJ

Those who knew Fr. John Hayes, who worked as a scholastic in Belvedere from 1934 to 1936, . Were not surprised to hear of the holy and heroic manner of his death last January, as Senior Catholic Chaplain to the British Forces on the Burma Front.

“Fr, Hayes”, wrote Major General Festing, in whose Division he served, “was an exemplification of all that a Catholic Priest and an Army Chaplain should be. He was a tireless worker, and if any man worked himself to death, it was he”. He “was an undoubted saint”.

And here is a letter to Fr. Rector from Captain William A Ward, of the 36th Division:

“Dear Fr. Rector, As an old Belvederian I feel it my duty to give you the sad news of the death of an old member of the staff of Belvedere. I refer to the late Fr John Hayes SJ Fr. Hayes died of typhus at Katha on the Irrawaddy in Central Burma on January 21st, 1945. He was our chaplain here in the 36th Division, and a more likeable man one would find it hard to meet. He was loved by all, from our GOC - General Festing, who is a Catholic, to the most humble Indian. He joined us in Poona in 1943, and came with the Division to the Arakan early last year, and later flew in with us on our present operation. To one and all he was known as ‘Battling Hayes”, utterly devoid of any fear. It was only on the express order of General Festing that he took his batman to act as escort when on his rounds. No matter where one went, more especially in the height of battle, there one would find Fr Hayes, in his peculiar dress; Ghurka hat, battle dress blouse and blue rugger shorts. It was common to see him walking along a road known to be infested with the enemy, without any protection of any kind, happy in the thought that he was doing his job. The highest praise I can pay Fr. Hayes, and in this our present chaplain, Fr Clancy from Clare, agrees with me, is that he reminded me very much of the late Fr Willie Doyle. Nothing mattered : monsoon, rain, heat, disease, the enemy: his one thought was to be among his flock, doing all he could to help them. Nothing was too much trouble, and the further forward a Unit was, the greater his delight in going forward to celebrate Mass. By his death all the Catholics of this Division, and many of the Protestants, have lost a great friend and the finest chaplain one could wish to have. My very best respects to any who knew me in Belvedere, and your good self.
I am, dear Fr Rector, yours very sincerely,

W A Ward, Capt (1923-1931).

Head, Thomas, 1842-1916, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1426
  • Person
  • 14 January 1842-22 June 1916

Born: 14 January 1842, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 09 October 1879, Milltown Park
Ordained: 30 November 1865, Rome, Italy - pre Entry
Final Vows: 02 February 1891, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 22 June 1916, Mungret College, Co Limerick

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Crescent. He then went to the Irish College in Rome, and was a remarkable student. He was Ordained there for the Limerick Diocese.

After his Noviceship he was sent for further Theology to Louvain, and made his final Ad Grad exam at Clongowes.
He later was sent to Mungret, becoming Rector there in 1888.
1891 He was appointed Rector at Crescent.
He retired to Mungret and died in hospital 22 June 1916, and is buried at Mungret.
He was very diminutive in stature!

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Thomas Head 1842-1916
Fr Head was born in Limerick on June 14th 1842, studied at the Crescent College and then proceeded to the Irish College in Rome to study for the Diocese. For some years he was a curate at St Michael’s parish, Limerick city.

He entered the Jesuit novitiate in October 1879 at Milltown Park. He did further theological studies at Louvain before going to Mungret as Professor. He spent practically all his religious life between Mungret and the Crescent. In 1838 he succeeded Fr René as Rector of Mungret, and in 1891 he took over the Rectorship of the Crescent. He spent his last years as Spiritual Father and Professor in Mungret.

He was a remarkable man, a great lover of history and endowed with quite an extraordinary memory. The community at Mungret in those years was rich in men of forthright and strong characters. Fr William henry as rector, Fr Head and Fr Ronan on the staff. The pursuit of truth at recreation was so keen, that it used call for the intervention of the Rector to reduce the contestants, chiefly Frs Head and Ronan, to silence.

On entering the Society, Fr head bestowed his library, which was by no means inconsiderable, to Mungret. He died in Limerick city on June 27 and was buried in Mungret.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1916

Obituary

Father Thomas Head SJ

Our Past of almost every year since the foundation of the College must have heard with deep regret of the death of Father Head. On 30th November, 1915, Father Head celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination and seemed to have several years of life before him. But in early spring an old complaint from which he had suffered a great deal began to cause him considerable pain and inconvenience, and it was decided that he should undergo an operation. The operation was as successful as could be expected in a man of his age and constitution. But it left him with little vitality. For weeks he grew weaker and his mind, which had been failing for months before this, went nearly completely. He died quietly on 22nd June, after receiving the Last Sacraments. At the Mass for the repose of his soul, which was celebrated at the Crescent Church, Limerick, a large number of priests, some of them old friends, attended. He lies buried in the Cemetery of Mungret College, beside the grave of Father Ronan.

No one could boast of a longer connection with the College than Father Head. No one has so completely; so ungrudgingly devoted his life and talents to that one house as he. He was on the Staff of the College when it opened in September 1882. Next year he was. Minister, and from 1838-91 he was Rector and at the same time Moderator of the Apostolic School. In 1891 he went as Rector to the Crescent College, Limerick, whence he returned after a few years to Mungret, where lie lived till his death. Thus nearly all the years spent in the Society of Jesus were given to Mungret. Those who, as boys, had left Mungret thirty years ago and came back as middle-aged men found Father Head there still, a little feebler, a little greyer, but otherwise not much changed. The memory. of Father Head is probably that which will remain longest with all past Mungret men.

Father Head was born in Limerick City in 1842. Along with the present Bishop, Most Rev Dr O'Dwyer, he was among the first pupils at the Crescent College SJ when it was opened. The personality of Father Thomas Kelly SJ, who was then Rector of the Crescent, always remained a force in his life. His ecclesiastical studies were done at Rome and at Carlow College. He loved to speak of his time at Rome; and as a priest he visited the city several times. To a man of his temperament the two most prominent aspects of Rome appealed very powerfully - Catholic Rome and historic Rome. He knew the city well, and to the end of his life he could be easily got to pour out some of his wealth of information on its buildings, its history, and its great men.

He was ordained on 30th November, 1865, and for fourteen years lived as a secular priest of the diocese of Limerick. He was curate at Cratloe (over against Mungret College across tbe Shannon), at Croom and at St John's Cathedral, Limerick. His exceptional qualities of mind and character made a deep impresi sion on the priests of the diocese, who always spoke of him in the highest terms. He used to declare, half jestingly and half in pride, that his fellow-curates had given him the highest honour in their power when they had appointed him Hon Treasurer of the Curate's Fund.

As a curate at St John's he had come across Father Ronan, and his entrance into the Society of Jesus may be regarded as due, in some measure, to this intimacy. Two years' noviceship at Milltown Park, Dublin, and a year given to repeat his Theology brought him to the year 1882 and to Mungret.

Iu Mungret he lived the life of a teacher and a student. His work of teaching and, while he was Rector, of administration, kept him busy enough, but he found time to get in an extraordinary amount of reading, or rather study. The standard literary works in the English language he had read and re-read; and with French and Italian literature he was also widely familiar. But his chief delight was history, and there were few men who had read history as widely and retained it as well as Father Head. His knowledge of European History, of early medieval and modern times was singularly exact and full. As Father Sutton says of him, he seemed to have taken all history for his province. Even towards the close of liis life, when he was beginning to forget the names of his own Community, his grasp of history was as firm and as exact as before. But he had the defects of his qualities, and his mind was retentive and accumulative rather than original.

But his learning had not puffed him up; and he remained always as simple and docile as a child. He was an excellent religious, and his submission to his superiors and his exact observance of rule were as renarkable as his learning. He had a genuine love of teaching, and if knowledge of his subject were the only qualification few teachers would have been equipped like Father Head. His shy and retiring disposition1 kept him from anything like intimate personal relations with those he taught. But the boys knew him and respected him. Nobody could have come in contact with such a man without carrying off permanent memories of his learning, his humility, his industry, and his conscientiousness.

Father W Sutton SJ, himself a member of the original Staff of Mungret, who knew Father Head intimately, has written a kind letter of appreciation. Indisposition prevented him from paying a fuller and inore formal třibute to an old friend:

He was a rare character. I never met anyone who so favourably impressed me all round. He was the fairest-minded man one could meet. He was always kind and broad-minded. No doubt he had his limitations, like every one, but he was just and level-headed, considerate, unselfish, and most hard working.. He was most conscientious in everything he undertook, and a first-rate teacher. His knowledge was extraordinary, and he seemed interested in all intellectual pursuits. His memory was very remarkable. He was in fact a living cyclopedia. He seemed to have taken history for his province. I cannot recall any instance when he was not able to give information full and accurate of historical facts - chapters, periods, dates, etc. He would have been an ornament to any society, and certainly he was a most useful and highly appreciated member of the Order to which he belonged. When one remembers how frail he was physically it is a marvel to consider all he did and was. “We shall not see his like again”. 'That one like him should have lived years beyond “the allotted period” and working almost to the last is truly wonderful. His company was delightful; he was so full of information and so modest in communicating it. That he is gone to his great reward is the great consolation of us who are so much tlie poorer for his loss”.

RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Thomas Head (1842-1916)

Was born in this city and was one of the first pupils of the re-established Jesuit college of St Munchin. He entered Maynooth with another class fellow, Edward O'Dwyer, one day to be Bishop of Limerick. After his ordination, Father Head served as a curate in the diocese of Limerick until 1879 when he entered the Society. He was master in the Crescent in 1887-88 and returned in 1891 as rector, when he was to spend five years in office. Father Head returned to Mungret where he filled the office of procurator and was lecturer in English to the Arts classes preparing for the examinations of the Royal University.

Headon, Maurice F, 1912-1960, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/181
  • Person
  • 22 November 1912-06 August 1960

Born: 22 November 1912, Ballyporeen, County Tipperary
Entered: 03 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1944, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1948, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 06 August 1960, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Early education at Schoil Mhuire, Marino and O’Connell’s School;

Studied for BSc at UCD; Tertianship at Rathfarnham

by 1936 at Vals, France (TOLO) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 35th Year No 4 1960
Obituary :
Fr Maurice Headon (1912-1960)
When the news came to Hong Kong that Fr. Maurice Headon would not be returning to the mission people were surprised. When the reason given was that he was in ill-health, there was a temptation to incredulity. It was harder still to believe when it was told that he was suffering from hardening of the arteries, that there was danger of gangrene setting in, that his leg might have to be amputated. He was in the Mater Hospital during last summer, cheerful, unconcerned, yet the doctors said he would never again be able to walk more than a hundred yards. It was all very puzzling. Last autumn he gave a retreat in Galway to the Women's Sodality and he seemed in very good health. One day last August a friend called to see him in Gardiner Street whither he had returned from the Mater. Fr. Headon seemed to be in very good health and spirits; the next day he was found dead in his room. He was never a man to fuss about himself. Unselfishness was outstanding in his life as it was outstanding in the days leading up to his death.
Maurice Headon was born in Ballyporeen in Co. Tipperary in 1912. He finished his secondary studies in O'Connell Schools, Dublin, and in September 1930 he entered the Novitiate, in Emo. It was the first year of the Novitiate in its new surroundings; the Philosophers had taken over Tullabeg. Mr. Headon studied Science in the University and took his degree in 1935. Philosophy in Vals followed and then came three years of teaching in Clongowes. In his first year there he was in charge of the meteorological station and took his Higher Diploma in Education. He was prefect of the Gym for his three years and left a memory among those he taught for his kindness and for the trouble he took to help on those who were weak in their studies; he even gave special classes to those who could not manage their mathematics.
He studied Theology in Milltown Park and was ordained there by the Archbishop of Dublin in the summer of 1944. Tertianship was in Rathfarnham under Fr. Neary, 1945-1946, and then he was sent to the Crescent where he taught Science for three years. Even in his first year he was a favourite with the boys; and it was remarkable how many continued to write to him all during his years in Hong Kong. Prefects of Studies always placed a high value on Fr. Headon's teaching, though his preference was for more directly apostolic work.
The Hong Kong mission was in great need of additional competent Science masters and in the summer of 1949 Fr. Headon left Ireland and his many friends for a few field of labour. He was then thirty-seven years old and the assignment was not an easy one. Fr. Headon on his arrival in the mission did not go to the Language School. He was needed in the Colleges and to Wah Yan, Hong Kong, and to a heavy round of teaching in the “Afternoon School” he now gave himself. For at least three of his teaching years in China he taught Science, but he also found time to begin a study of Chinese which he later used to great effect in preaching and hearing Confessions. Great praise is due to Fr. Headon for the extraordinary diligence with which he studied Chinese. At the end of his ten years in Hong Kong there were few Fathers on the mission who knew as many Chinese characters as he did and all those years he studied with the sole aim of being able to preach better and with a wider vocabulary.
In 1952 Fr. Headon began to work in Wah Yan, Kowloon, first in its temporary quarters in Nelson Street, later in the present fine building. In 1955 he was editor of the college magazine, The Shield, and for his last two years in Hong Kong he was Prefect of Studies in the same college, He kept up an interest in his pupils, even after they had left his care and he undertook the heroic labour of keeping in touch by letter with all the past students of Wah Yan who had gone abroad for further studies. The summer of 1959 saw him on his way back to Ireland after ten busy years to a well-deserved rest. He spent most of his time in St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, and it was there that death found him on Saturday, 6th August. He was forty-eight years old. Unobtrusiveness, perhaps, was the main characteristic of Fr. Headon's work inside the house and out. He rarely referred to either; he rarely made use of the personal pronoun “I”, so if we learned of his apostolate outside, it was from those who benefited from it. In Hong Kong, he was confessor to the Good Shepherd Sisters and their charges after their expulsion by the Communists from Shanghai. His sympathy, his patience and understanding, his personal charm and friendliness, and his readiness to help made him greatly loved by them all, and it was with intense regret they saw him leaving when his canonical period as confessor had ended.
His heart was in this direct apostolic work, so he jumped at the chance of a weekly supply in the parish church of St. Francis of Assisi. Here, again, his friendly spirit, his zeal and his understanding of human nature made him extremely popular. He preached every Sunday in Chinese at the public Masses, drew big crowds to his confessional and was ever at the beck and call of the parish priest who had the greatest esteem for him and the highest appreciation of what he was doing for his Catholic flock. The parish priest was shocked enough when he heard that he was losing Fr. Headon for a year at home; he was overwhelmed when he heard of his death. He is having a special Requiem Mass said for Fr. Headon; and he knows that he will have a packed church. The number of people who have come to the school to ask if it is really true that he is dead has revealed to us the breadth of his hidden apostolate and the number of Masses for his soul asked for shows their affection for him. . Here in the school the boys were boys were utterly shocked when news of his death arrived. He was a good teacher, and as Prefect of Studies had shown himself most approachable, and the boys knew that they would always get a fair and sympathetic hearing in his office. Those boys “in trouble” would present their appeal without any fear, and if they left his office, the “trouble” remaining withal, they recognised at least that they had got a fair hearing. His death will be a great loss to the community. Many, indeed, is the recreation he enlivened with his keen sense of humour and his love of argument. Philosophy, theology, the different methods of the apostolate, the school curriculum and the means of dealing with boys--these were all rich grain to his mental mill, and he enjoyed nothing better than a hammer and tongs discussion about them. After winning an argument, he might be reminded that he had defended the opposite opinion some months before just as vigorously, and he would break out into laughter and state that he “had read another book on the subject since” or that he “had changed his mind as we must march with the times”. Then he would be ready for another discussion on “changing your mind”!

Healy, James, 1929-1989, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/508
  • Person
  • 01 July 1929-11 December 1989

Born: 01 July 1929, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1960, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1964, Chiesa del Gesù, Rome, Italy
Died: 11 December 1989, Milltown Park, Dublin

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1963 at Rome, Italy (ROM) studying

◆ Interfuse No 82 : September 1995 & ◆ The Clongownian, 1989

Obituary
Fr Jim Healy (1929-1993)

1st July 1929: Born in Dublin. Schooled in Clongowes
7th Sept. 1946; Entered Society of Jesus Emo,
1946 - 1948; novitiate
1948 - 1951: Rathfarnham, juniorate: BA (UCD) in French and English
1951 - 1954: Tullabeg, philosophy
1954 - 1957: Regency: 1954-'56 Clongowes, 1956-57 Belvedere
1957 - 1961: Milltown Park, theology
1960: Ordained a priest,
1961 - 1962: tertianship Rathfarnham
1962 - 1964: Rome, biennium in moral theology.
2nd Feb. 1964: at the Gesù, final vows before Fr. Vicar General John L. Swain.
1964 - 1989; Milltown Park, professor of moral theology (after 1978 his area was referred to as practical theology). Meanwhile, 1968-'77, he served as the first President of Milltown Institute. He took two sabbaticals, 1977-78 and 1988.
11th Dec. 1989 Jim died suddenly in class at Milltown Park.

Last Monday at 12.15pm I had my last conversation with Jim Healy, before he and I turned in to the last class of the day - and I am glad to say that it was a piece of light-hearted banter. I don't have to tell you how I felt on coming out of that class and receiving the news of his death,.

Since then, inevitably, my mind has been turning back to the time when I first came across him. It was some time in the school year 1943-144, when we were both boys in the same school. I was a very insignificant newcomer, and he was one of the stars of the school. In that year the school had entered the rugby Junior cup for the first time ever, and was indeed to win the cup, beating Belvedere 13-3 in the final. Jim was one of the main scorers on that team. Looking back over the school magazine yesterday, I came across this account of their first match:

"O'Hara broke away from the line-out with James Healy and Dick Muldoon in attendance; his pass in to James Healy was beautifully timed. James shook off several pursuers and scored between the posts, adding the extra points himself. Practically the same performance was repeated a few minutes later, when James Healy, backing up splendidly, scored once more."

Last Monday Jim scored between the posts and converted once again.

I have used the phrase “the last class”. It is a phrase with a ring to it. People who have never been to boarding-school can have no idea of the joy at the end of term and at the last class, especially in the Spartan days of a previous generation. For a small boy it was the very threshold of heaven. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to regard the parable in today's gospel, Mt 25:31 ff., as a kind of last class which the Lord will give to all of us at the end of the term in this world. This gospel passage is one of the most telling in the New Testament about the content of that last class and that last examination. It will focus, as we see, on how we serve one another, and the people of Milltown Institute and Milltown Community have no doubt but that, on that criterion, Jim passes with flying colours. Jim himself is the last one who would like this homily to become a panegyric of his virtues and achievements. As Jim's successor in the presidency of Milltown Institute, I am more conscious than most of how much the Institute owes to him, its first president. As the present president said the other day, it was Jim who gave the Institute its shape. It is indeed his monument. Fr. Rector has already spoken of his life. It is of his death, and of the Christian approach to death, that I would like to speak.

For most of us the notion of our death is only a shadowy concept. Only in the death of friends, and in the death of those we love, does it become something of an experience. This is why such deaths can be very special moments of revelation to us, occasions when God says something personal to each one. I am asking myself what might God be saying to us today, and I suggest that it has something to do with the Christian attitude to death,

There is only one freedom, namely, to come close to an understanding with death. So wrote Camus. He went on: “To believe in God is to accept death. When you have accepted death, then the problem of God has been resolved; not the other way round”. Most of us run away from the thought of death. We insulate ourselves against it by stigmatising it as morbid talk. Certainly Jim Healy did not do that.

He had known for a number of years that death was on the cards for him, Those of us who lived close to him can testify to the magnificent Christian faith by which he came to terms with his lot and could face life with cheerful good humour. The great moral theologian, St. Alphonsus Ligouri, has written that to accept death willingly is more efficacious than any other mortification. The best testimony to a life of faith and unselfishness is the grace of peace in the face of death. The poet might speak of 'the dreadful outer brink of obvious death.' It takes faith to look death in the eye and to disarm him of his menaces. Such an attitude is the fruit of a life well lived. The best signs of grace here below come ordinarily, not in dramatic displays of piety or mortification, but in the bits and pieces of a life lived in unassuming loyalty and dedication, in cheerfulness and concern for others, and when such a life is lived on the brink of obvious death, then these signs are indeed signals of resurrection.

By the fact of Jim Healy's death, I, and my brethren in the community, my colleagues in the Institute and its students, are moved by a deep sense of loss. We will miss him sorely. In this way we know that we share in something of what his family must feel, and to them we extend our profoundest sympathy. But I have to say that looking at the lessons of Jim's last years, and in particular at the way he faced death, I realise that we must not allow that sense of loss to linger in grieving but to be turned into thanksgiving for a life well lived and into a desire to follow him in his Christian hope.

Jim Healy taught many people many things during his life. I am sure that the students in the classroom with him last Monday will never forget the experience. But really the last lesson of Jim's life was not what he taught them in that final half-hour, but the lesson he has for all of us on how the Christian faces death. This really was Jim Healy's last class.

Ray Moloney

Healy, Joseph, 1876-1954, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1428
  • Person
  • 21 September 1876-21 June 1954

Born: 21 September 1876, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 05 April 1893, Loyola Greenwuch, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 26 July 1910, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1916, St Ignatius College Riverview, Sydney, Australia
Died: 21 June 1954, Canisius College, Pymble, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1903 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER) studying
by 1904 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1910 in Australia

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Though born in Dublin, Joe Healy came to Australia with his parents as a child and was educated at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, 1892-93. He entered the Society at Greenwich, 5 April 1893 and after the noviciate was assistant prefect of studies and discipline, organised the junior debating and was choirmaster at Riverview until 1896.
He then returned to Loyola College, Greenwich, for his juniorate studies, 1896-97, before returning to teach at Riverview, 1897-1902. He was also in charge of the chapel, drama and junior debating. He continued his interest in the choir, and assisted Thomas Gartlan with the rowing.
In July 1902 Healy set sail for Europe and philosophy at Valkenburg and Stonyhurst, 1902-05. He taught at the Crescent, Limerick, 1905-07, studied theology at Milltown Park, 1907-11, and returned to Australia and Riverview, 1911-14. Tertianship followed in Ranchi, India, 1915, with another term at Riverview, 1915-22. He spent two years at St Patrick's College, 1922-24, and 1924-30 at Xavier College, as well as 1930-34 at the parish of Hawthorn.
He returned to Riverview, 1934-52, as spiritual father to the boys. In 1950 he retired from teaching after 41 years, and from 1952, when his memory began to fade, he prayed for the Society living at Canisius College, Pymble.
During his early time at Riverview, he was both teacher and sportsmaster. He developed cricket, football and rowing to a very high level, organised a fine orchestra and produced more than one Gilbert and Sullivan opera. His swimming carnival in the college baths was one of the highlights of each year He inspired the students with his own great enthusiasm. His own greatest pleasure was to be with the students. He would say that they kept him young despite advancing years. He gave himself totally to the task of serving them, with all the energy he could muster.
Healy was a very accomplished classical scholar and pianist, and a keen sportsman. He was a real gentleman who had to fight a slightly melancholic temperament. Riverview was his great love and it was a great cross to finally leave it.

Healy, Paul, 1894-1934, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/182
  • Person
  • 24 February 1894-09 March 1934

Born: 24 February 1894. Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 February 1912, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg County Offaly
Ordained: 26 March 1924, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1931, Glenaulin Nursing Home, Glenaulin, Chapelizod, Dublin
Died: 09 March 1934, Milltown Park, Dublin

Early education at Belvedere College SJ & Clongowes Wood College SJ

Ordained by special permission of the Holy See at Milltown Park 26 March 1924
by 1914, at Wentworth Falls, New South Wales, Australia.
by 1930 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Paul Healy entered the Society at the age of sixteen at Tullabeg, and appears to have suffered from consumption, as he was sent to Loyola Greenwich to study for his juniorate. After three years of study, 1915-17, he began to teach in the juniorate for three years as his regency. He returned to Ireland in 1920. His time in Australia certainly helped but did not cure his tuberculosis.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 9th Year No 3 1934
Milltown Park :
Death took two of our number within a week -
Father Tunney died on the 5rd of March. His death was not unexpected. Some heart attacks in recent weeks had prepared us for it.
Father Healy's death came as a great shock, for though he had long been a sick man, he was optimistic of becoming stronger, and worked away quietly as director of Retreats in the province for most of this year, censoring, and reviewing books. Few suspected how near death was. He was at Father Tunney's office in Gardiner Street the 6th of March. He said Mass as usual on Friday the 9th. While sitting down to lunch about 12,30 he felt ill and was helped to a chair in the Fathers' library. There a slight hemorrhage occurred and he lost consciousness, not before receiving Absolution, He was anointed, then borne to his room where he died at about 1.15. The doctor arrived before he died, but nothing could be done. Father S. MacMahon writes an obituary notice on Father Healy in this number.

Irish Province News 9th Year No 3 1934

Obituary :

Father Paul Healy

From Father S. MacMahon
On the base of the rugged block of granite which marks one of the graves in Glasnevin Cemetery, the following words are to be read : “If there is one thing which I and mine have got a grip of, it is the belief in the Infinite Christ to come”. The words are an extract from a memorable profession of faith made by the man whose remains rest beneath, awaiting the coming of that “Infinite Christ.” And not far away, in the same cemetery, lies the body of one of those whom the speaker described as “mine” - his son, Father Paul Healy.
When Paul Healy was ordained priest at Milltown Park on March the 26th, 1924, not even the most sanguine of his friends could have ventured to hope that there were nearly ten years of life still before him. On account of his delicate health, he had been sent to Australia after his noviceship and when, after six years there, he returned to Ireland for his Philosophy, he was improved, but not cured. The improvement did not last long. Soon after he had begun his Theology, in the autumn of 1923, a petition was made to the Holy See to permit his being ordained before completing the necessary period of study, in order that, before he should die, he might have the privilege of saying Mass, and his parents the consolation of having a son a priest. This exceptional favour was granted and he was ordained before completing one year's Theology. After ordination he made a pilgrimage to Lourdes and returned to Milltown Park to continue his Theology, greatly improved in health. The remaining ten years of his life were spent largely in study. For a time he was well enough to profess Psychology and History of Philosophy at Tullabeg. From 1931 on he was at Milltown Park, and seemed to be growing stronger. Very shortly before his death he expressed the hope that he would soon be able to give a Triduum. But a sudden hemorrhage took place on March the 9th, 1934, and within an hour Father Healy was dead.
Only those who knew him well could appreciate the extent of the loss which his death inflicted on the Irish Province. For his was very truly a hidden life. As a novice in Tullabeg he preached a May sermon of such compelling eloquence as to make his audience - Tertians included - forget the meal they had come to take. As a Philosopher and a Theologian, he showed a grasp of profound problems so masterly and a power of exposition so lucid as to justify professors and examiners in prophesying for him a high place in the roll of deservedly distinguished men of thought. To these qualities he added a sanity of judgment and an appreciation of realities, while his keen sense of humour saved him from being ponderous or pedantic. But the occasions on which his brilliant gifts were publicly manifested were comparatively few and, particularly during the last years of his life, though his work was important and responsible, the worker was not conspicuous.
Yet for those who knew him, he is memorable, not so much for his gifts of intellect as for the intensity of feeling - rarely revealed, for he was not a demonstrative man - the unobtrusive piety, the depth of conviction, the “grip of the belief in the Infinite Christ”, which carried him brave and uncomplaining through the long years when delicate health held in fetters unusual ability and imposed the bond of silence on a voice that might have enlightened many minds and moved many hearts. The burden of ill health can make a man hard, selfish or inert. Father Healy was none of these. He could be firm, but his gentleness was a notable feature. If he could do anything to help another, it was done, without fuss. The burden of a great mind can make a man proud. Father Healy was humble and simple. As a boy in Clongowes (he went there from Belvedere) he was in the habit of spending a long time in the College Chapel during free recreation, but accepted readily from a kindly (and vigilant) scholastic the suggestion that recreation in the open air would keep him fit for study, and so be pleasing to God. He showed the same spirit years afterwards when a Minister suggested that he should light his fire on a raw winter day. “Do you think so?” he said, and complied at once. He was an accomplished musician, but did not grudge the time and trouble needed to play over repeatedly a piece on the piano for a fellow-scholastic whose bungling attempts at a song must have been a sore trial to him. His classmates in Philosophy still remember the occasional shaking of the bench at which he sat due to the silent laughter, which would assail him at some unconsciously humorous remark by a professor. These are, perhaps minor details, but they contribute to a picture, which, meagre as it is, affords the writer a welcome opportunity of paying a sincere tribute to the memory of a friend.

The concluding paragraph of Mr. T. M, Healy's speech at Westminster during the debate on the second reading of the Education Bill (May, 1906) :
I would rather that my children understood their religion in preparation for the eternity that is to come, than that they should be rich, prosperous and educated people of this world.
I care very little for your so-called education. I cannot spell myself. I cannot parse an , English sentence. I cannot do the rule of three. I am supposed to know a little law, but I think that is a mistake. But there is one thing that I and mine have got a grasp of, and that is a belief in the Infinite Christ to come, and a belief that our children, whatever be their distress, whatever be their misfortunes whatever be their poverty in this world, will receive a rich reward, if, listening to the teaching of their faith, they put into practice the lessons they receive in the Catholic schools”.
1894 Father P. Healy was born in Dublin, 24th February
1912 Began Noviceship in Tullabeg 1st February
1915 Tullabeg, Novice
1914 Loyola (Sydney)
1920 Milltown Park, Philosophy
1923 Milltown Park, Theology
1927 Milltown Park, Studet privatim
1927 Milltown Park, Sub-min. Doc. etc
In 1929 he did as much Tertianship as he could at St Beuno’s, and then went to Tullabeg, where he professed Philosophy. 1931 saw him once more at Milltown. He died Friday, 9th
March, 1934.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Paul Healy SJ 1894-1934
Fr Paul Healy was the son of the famous Tim Healy, 1st Governor General of the Irish Free State. He was born in Dublin in 1894. He was so delicate in health, that by a special decree of the Holy See, he was ordained shortly after beginning his Theology in 1923, so that he might have the joy of saying one Mass before he died and bringing consolation to his parents.

He lived for 10 years after and he improved in health sufficiently to profess Philosophy in Tullabeg. He was remarkably gentle in speech and manner, deeply religious, retaining throughout his life that piety, which as a boy in Clongowes sent him into the chapel during free recreation.

He certainly fulfilled the wish that his father expressed in the British House of Commons in the debate on the Education Bill : “I would rather that my children understood their religion in preparation for the eternity to come than that they should be prosperous and educated people of the world. There is one thing that I an mine have a grasp of, and that is a belief in the infinite Christ to come”.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1934

Obituary

Father Paul Healy SJ

Paul Healy’s death, at an early age, brought to a close a life which from the beginning was a struggle against overwhelming odds. Dogged by ill-bealth from schooldays, he excited the wonder of all who came in contact with him by the persistence with which he continued to work and to achieve so much. That a man of his always uncertain health should have kept unendingly at work and achieved a reputation as a scholar among scholars, is surely a high tribute to his outstanding ability and high sense of duty for it was, I think, the consciousness of an obligation to use his talents to the utmost in the service of God that kept him going, when even the best of us might quite reasonably have felt exoused from effort.

Perhaps his most outstanding characteristic was his complete self-effacement. He was always quiet, always retiring, concealing unusual ability by a reserved manner. I sat in the same classroom with him for years, and I do not think I ever realised during that period that he possessed talent of a high order. Just once we had a glimpse of it, in a famous debate-speech, which, no doubt, many readers will remem ber, when he electrified us with penetrating logic and keen wit, and showed us that the quiet youth whose brilliant gifts we had failed to discover, but whom we deeply respected, could be a “chip of the old block”. This characteristic unobtrusiveness, the readiness with which he gave attention in conversation to others, much less gifted than he, and his keen sense of humour that never failed to detect and to appreciate the incongruous, greatly en hanced his natural charm of character.

The end came suddenly - perhaps with merciful suddenness - and while we all regret his loss deeply, those of us who knew his character and his sufferiags, cannot but rejoice that a life of patient.: endurance and heroic devotion to the highest of all Ideals has received its pro mised reward.

Fr Paul Healy was born in February 1894. He was in Belvedere before he went to Clongowes in 1908; and in 1912, he entered the Noviceship. After the completion of his earlier studies he was sent to Australia in the hope that the milder climate might improve his health, and in consequence, the boys of our Irish Colleges will not have known him.

He was ordained in March, 1924, and died almost exactly ten years later, in March, 1934, sincerely mourned by all who were privileged to know him..

R O'D

◆ The Clongownian, 1934

Obituary

Father Paul Healy SJ

Paul Healy came to Clongowes in 1908. Physically, he was, even then, rather delicate, and was not allowed to play the ordinary games. Intellectually he was solid. The class he belonged to was considered an exceptionally brilliant one, including amongst others, the late Tom Finlay, and Paul held a place amongst the half dozen or so leaders of the class. He was one of the best speakers in the Higher Line Debating Society; and in his last year the contest for the Society's debating medal lay between himself and Tom Finlay. I think there is little doubt that he had inherited no small portion of his distinguished father's oratorical gift. Later, when as a Jesuit novice, he preached one of the customary sermons in the refectory, an English Jesuit father who was present, declared it the best sermon he had ever heard, and Father Lockington SJ, no bad judge of a preacher, gave a very similar verdict.

As a schoolboy he already displayed that solid piety which was his characteristic all through life. Not a little of his free time was spent in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. On one occasion he was wanted to play the final match in a Higher Line Billiard Tournament, and he was not in the playroom. Where was he? Several voices answered at once : “Oh, he's in the chapel; call him”; and in the chapel he was found.

In the year 1912 he entered the Jesuit noviceship at Tullabeg. The novice was such as might have been expected from the schoolboy; marked by a quiet, steady, unostentatious fidelity to all the rules and duties of the noviceship. His health required that he should be exempted from some of the more physically exacting exercises, but, so far from seeking these exemptions, he bore them with some impatience. At the end of two years he went on to the Juniorate at Rathfarnham; but was only a few months there, when the disease that was to accompany him to the end showed itself. Tuberculosis was diagnosed; and it was thought best to send him to Australia, in the hope that the climate might lead to a cure. There he passed the next six years until 1920, and, in spite of his weak health, he got through a surprising amount of quiet steady work.

By 1920 he was so far improved that it seemed safe for him to return to Ireland; and in that year he came to Milltown Park, to begin his course of philosophy, which Occupied the next three years. Here his really remarkable intellectual gifts found, for the first time, their full scope. A clear penetration of mind, a great capacity for study, and a gift of clear, forcible, and orderly exposition, marked him out clearly as a future professor of philosophy or theology. Fion philosophy he passed directly to the study of theology. But now the old health trouble suddenly appeared in an alarming form ; his condition seemed so serious that his life was considered in danger, and he was ordained by special dispensation on March 24th, 1924.

After a stay in the south of France including a visit to Lourdes - he so far recovered as to be able to resume his studies, which he concluded in spite of every handicap by a brilliant final examination. His health, however, was permanently broken ; and he never recovered any degree of vigour. At Milltown Park he spent the last few years, doing faithfully any light work which his weak condition allowed him to undertake. There in March a sudden and unexpected hemorrhage brought his long martyrdom to a close, and sent him to his reward. He had just reached his fortieth year.

Such was the outline of Paul's life. It makes one reflect on the strange ways of God. With robust health added to his other gifts, he had it in him to be a great, I think a very great preacher or to be a great professor of the higher studies. But God required of him a different kind of service; and that service he rendered faithfully, the patient endurance of a heavy cross. But he never grumbled and never showed impatience. It was a life faithful, consistent, patient, courageous, built on a. solid foundation of faith, prayer, and resignation to God's will.

Hearn, Joseph, 1854-1941, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1429
  • Person
  • 05 August 1854-22 November 1941

Born: 05 August 1854, Ballinrobe, County Mayo
Entered: 31 October 1878, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1890
Final Vows: 02 February 1896, St Ignatius, Riverview, Sydney, Australia
Died: 22 November 1941, Loyola College, Watsonia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed : HIB to ASL 05/04/1931

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

First World War chaplain

by 1888 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
Came to Australia 1892
by 1917 Military Chaplain : 7th Infantry Battalion

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :

Note from John Gately Entry :
Father Gately worked up to the end. He heard Confessions up to 10pm and was dead by 2am. Four hours, and perhaps most of that sleeping! Father Charles Morrough heard groaning and went down, and Father Joseph Hearn, Superior, gave him the Last Sacraments.

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/blog/damien-burke/anzac-archives-and-the-bullshit-detector/

On Saturday 25 April, the annual dawn Anzac commemoration will take place. It is the centenary of the failed Anzac engagement at Gallipoli. Six Jesuits, five of them Irish-born, served with the Australian Imperial Forces in the First World War. Frs Joseph Hearn and Michael Bergin both served at Gallipoli.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/commemorating-the-sesquicentenary-of-the-arrival-of-irish-jesuits-in-australia/

Commemorating the sesquicentenary of the arrival of Irish Jesuits in Australia
This year the Australian Province of the Jesuits are commemorating the sesquicentenary of the arrival of Irish Jesuits in Australia. Australia became the first overseas mission of the Irish Jesuit Province. To mark the occasion the Archdiocese of Melbourne are organising a special thanksgiving Mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne 27 September. On 20 June Damien Burke, Assistant Archivist, Irish Jesuit Archives gave a talk at the 21st Australasian Irish Studies conference, Maynooth University, titled “The archives of the Irish Jesuit Mission to Australia, 1865-1931”. In his address Damien described the work of this mission with reference to a number of documents and photographs concerning it that are held at the Irish Jesuit Archives.
Irish Jesuits worked mainly as missionaries, and educators in the urban communities of eastern Australia. The mission began when two Irish Jesuits Frs. William Lentaigne and William Kelly, arrived in Melbourne in 1865 at the invitation of Bishop James Alipius Goold, the first Catholic bishop of Melbourne. They were invited by the Bishop to re-open St. Patrick’s College, Melbourne, a secondary school, and to undertake the Richmond mission. From 1865 onwards, the Irish Jesuits formed parishes and established schools while working as missionaries, writers, chaplains, theologians, scientists and directors of retreats, mainly in the urban communities of eastern Australia. By 1890, 30% of the Irish Province resided in Australia.
By 1931, this resulted in five schools, eight residences, a regional seminary in Melbourne and a novitiate in Sydney. Dr Daniel Mannix, archbishop of Melbourne, showed a special predication for the Jesuits and requested that they be involved with Newman College, University of Melbourne in 1918. Six Jesuits (five were Irish-born) served as chaplains with the Australian Forces in the First World War and two died, Frs Michael Bergin and Edwards Sydes. Both Michael Bergin and 62 year-old Joe Hearn, earned the Military Cross. Bergin was the only Catholic chaplain serving with the Australian Imperial Force to have died as a result of enemy action in the First World War.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Joseph Hearn was an Old Boy of St Stanislaus College, Tullamore, before its amalgamation with Clongowes. He entered the Society at Milltown Park, 31 October 1878, at the age of 24. He taught at Tullabeg College after juniorate studies, 1881-84, studied philosophy at Milltown Park, 1884-89, and theology at Louvain and Milltown Park, 1887-91. He
was then appointed socius to the master of novices while he completed his tertianship at Tullabeg College.
Hearn came to Australia and taught at St Patrick's College, 1892-96, and Riverview for a short time in 1896. He was appointed superior and parish priest of Richmond, 1896-1914, and was a mission consulter at the same time. Then he became a military chaplain and served with the Australian Expeditionary Force in its campaign in the Dardanelles. He served with the 7th in Belgium and then with the 2nd infantry Battalion. He was with the Australian Imperial Force (AIP), headquarters in the UK, returning to Australia early in 1917. He
was awarded the Military Cross for his service.
Upon his return, he resumed parish work at Lavender Bay, 1917-18; North Sydney, 1918-22, where he was parish priest, superior and Sydney Mission consulter, and Hawthorn, 1922-31, at one time minister then superior and parish priest. Despite old age, he was appointed rector of Loyola College, Greenwich, 1931-33, and when the house of formation moved to Watsonia, Vic., became its first rector, 1934-40. His final appointment was parish work at Richmond, Vic.
Hearn was called 'blood and iron Joe', and lived up to this by the severity of his manner, both with himself and others. He did not relate well to women, but men liked him. He had a vein of sardonic humor that suited well with the temper of the First AIF He joined the army at the age of 60. Though his service in the army tended to overshadow his other work, the real high point of his career was his long period as parish priest of Richmond; the parish schools especially are a monument to him.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Entered as Brother Novice. After 6 months postulancy was admitted as a Scholastic Novice

Heelan, Patrick A, 1926-2015, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/766
  • Person
  • 17 March 1926-01 February 2015

Born: 17 March 1926, Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1942, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1958, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1961, Fordham University, The Bronx, New York, USA
Died: 01 February 2015, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

by 1950 at St Louis University MO, USA (MIS) studying geophysics
by 1960 at Münster, Germany (GER I) making Tertianship
by 1962 at Franklin Park NJ, USA (MAR) studying at Princeton
by 1963 at Leuven, Belgium (BEL S) studying
by 1966 at Fordham NY, USA (MAR) teaching

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/rip-fr-patrick-heelan-sj/

RIP: Fr Patrick Heelan SJ
Fr Patrick Heelan died in Cherryfield Lodge on 1 February. In one of the many entries online, he gives a succinct account of his life and work: I am a Jesuit priest, a theoretical physicist and a philosopher of science. I was born in Dublin in 1926, and studied theoretical physics, philosophy and theology in Ireland, Germany and the USA. I moved permanently to the USA in 1965. In my studies in theoretical physics I was fortunate in having been supervised by three Nobel Prize winners: Schroedinger in Dublin during the war, Wigener in Princeton and Heisenberg in Munich, all of whom were among the founders of quantum physics. I am grateful for having had such a wonderful life as a priest and a theoretical physicist.
Patrick learned his love of mathematics in Belvedere, and looked forward to becoming a Jesuit scientist. During his first spell in USA he won a doctorate in geophysics by devising mathematical formulae to enable seismographs to distinguish between natural earthquakes and seismic activity from nuclear explosions. What he called his first conversion was the experience of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, which remained a crucial resource for him through his life. In the course of a stellar academic career he worked in seven universities, as professor, researcher and administrator – he was Vice President in Stony Brook State University and then Provost in Georgetown University, before retiring, in an increasingly frail body, to Cherryfield in 2014. So this gentle priest of extraordinary intellectual gifts saw out his days close to his much loved family of in-laws, nieces and nephews.
In 2005 Patrick wrote a memoir which fills in the factual features of his life, structured round five conversion points. It is meaty but not easy reading, concerned as it is with quantum theory and the perception of space. Here are the five conversion points, each followed by its date and location:
The role of Ignatian discernment: 1951: Wisconsin Lonergan: transcendental method: 1957: Tullabeg Consciousness’ role in quantum physics: 1962: Princeton Van Gogh’s pictorial geometry: 1966 Fordham
Space perception and the philosophy of science: 1982: Stony Brook
These five stepping stones still omit much of Patrick’s range of interests. His seminal work on Van Gogh’s paintings reflected a broad and sharp-eyed knowledge of European art. He explored “Music as a basic metaphor and deep structure in Plato” in a paper that showed familiarity with studies of music’s origins and structures. At the end of his life he was deep into a serious study of Islam. A friend compared Patrick to a high Renaissance Florentine prince, a polymath at home in the full range of arts and sciences, illuminating wherever he cast his attention.
In the course of a stellar academic career he worked in seven universities, as professor, researcher and administrator – he was Vice President in Stony Brook State University and then Provost in Georgetown University, before retiring, in an increasingly frail body, to Cherryfield in 2014. So this gentle priest of extraordinary intellectual gifts saw out his days close to his much loved family of in-laws, nieces and nephews and his friends.

https://www.jesuit.ie/blog/pat-coyle/georgetown-salutes-fr-heelan/

Georgetown salutes Fr Heelan
in Pat Coyle

Fr Patrick Heelan SJ’s death has been well noted by Georgetown University, Washington, where he spent so many years and did so much good work as academic and as administrator. The current President, Dr. John J. DeGioia, has written to the university community as follows:
February 11, 2015
Dear Members of the Georgetown University Community:
It is with great sadness that I share with you that Rev. Patrick A. Heelan, S.J., a beloved Georgetown administrator, professor and member of our Jesuit community, passed away earlier this month.
Fr. Heelan came to our Georgetown community in 1992 as Executive Vice President for the Main Campus before becoming the William A. Gaston Professor of Philosophy in 1995. As an administrator, Fr. Heelan helped to guide our community through a difficult financial period with an unwavering dedication to our distinct values and a vision of long-term excellence. In his role, he oversaw changes to the structure of the administration and strategic investments in our community to better advance our mission and meet the needs of our growing student population. He was also deeply dedicated to our policies of need-blind admissions and our commitment to meeting full need in financial aid, seeing them as cornerstones of our University’s future success. Fr. Heelan’s leadership strengthened our community in so many ways and was integral to bringing us to where we are now.
In addition to his contributions as a leader, Fr. Heelan was a renowned physicist and a philosopher, whose extensive scholarship sat at a unique intersection of what he called “the hermeneutic philosophy of science”—or the study of how we make meaning from scientific observation. His scholarly research spanned disciplines, including theology, philosophy, psychology and physics. His many scholarly contributions included publications on spatial perception, quantum mechanics and human consciousness and drew upon the intellectual tradition of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Bernard Lonergan.
After retiring from Georgetown in 2013, Fr. Heelan returned to his native Ireland for the duration of his life, where he passed away surrounded by loved ones earlier this month.
I was deeply saddened to learn of his passing, and I wish to offer my heartfelt condolences to the many faculty, staff, students, alumni and members of our Jesuit community who had the chance to work with him.
Should you wish to express your condolences, please direct notes to: Irish Jesuit Provincialate, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin 6, Ireland.
Please join me in expressing our deepest sympathy to the friends, family and many lives that were touched by Fr. Heelan’s kindness, leadership and good will.
Sincerely,
John J. DeGioia

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 159 : Spring 2015

Obituary

Fr Patrick (Paddy) Heelan (1926-2015)

17 March 1926: Born Dublin
Early education at Belvedere College SJ
7th September 1942: Entered Society at St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
8th September 1944: First Vows at St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
1944 - 1948: Rathfarnham - Studying Maths & Maths/Physics at UCD
1948 - 1949: Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1949 - 1952: St Louis, MO, USA - Studying for PhD in Geophysics at St Louis University
1952 - 1954: Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy; Research Associate at Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
1954 - 1955: Clongowes - Regency: Teacher; Studying CWC Cert in Education
1955 - 1959: Milltown Park - Studying Theology
31st July 1958: Ordained at Gonzaga Chapel, Milltown Park, Dublin
1959 - 1960: Westphalia, Germany - Tertianship at Münster in Westphalia
1960 - 1961: Bronx, NY, USA - Fullbright Fellowship post Doctorate Studies in Physics at Fordham University
2nd February 1961 Final Vows at Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA
1961 - 1962: St Augustine's Parish, Franklin Park, NJ, USA - Fullbright Fellowship post Doctorate Studies in Physics at Palmer Laboratory, Princeton University
1962 - 1964: Louvain, Belgium - Studying for PhD in Philosophy of Science at Catholic University of Louvain
1964 - 1965: Leeson St - Lecturer in Maths & Maths/Physics at UCD; Assistant Prefect University Hall; Research Associate at Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
1965 - 1970: Bronx, NY, USA - Assistant Professor (later Associate Professor) of Philosophy at Fordham University
1968: Visiting Professor of Physics at Boston University
1970 - 1992: Stony Brook, NY, USA - Professor of Philosophy, Chair of Department of Philosophy, Dean of Arts and Sciences at State University of New York
1972: Acting Vice-President, Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences Dean of Arts & Sciences; Professor of Philosophy
1975: Vice President for Liberal Studies
1990: Dean of Humanites & Fine Arts
1992: Present Emeritus Professor
1992 - 2013: Washington, DC, USA - Executive Vice-President for Main Campus; Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University
1995: William A Gaston Professor of Philosophy
2013 - 2015: Milltown Park - Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

Fr Patrick Heelan was admitted to Cherryfield Lodge in June 2013. He settled in well and was very content as a member of the Community. In recent months his condition deteriorated, and he died peacefully at Cherryfield Lodge on Sunday 1st February 2015. May he rest in the Peace of Christ

In 1958 Archbishop McQuaid laid hands on Patrick as he knelt in the Milltown Park chapel to receive the sacrament of ordination. It would be fair to say that we, his peers, revered Patrick (the long form will be used here, though he was Paddy to his peers; in USA, where he settled in 1965, he was unhappy with the overtones of Paddy). By the time of his ordination he was already a seasoned scholar, with a Master's in maths from UCD, a rigorous apprenticeship with Schroedinger in the Dublin Institute of Higher Studies, and a doctorate in geophysics from St Louis. Even at that stage he had already worked in two of the seven universities he was to join (UCD, St Louis, Louvain, Fordham, Princeton, Stony Brook, Georgetown).

What mattered more to him was what he called his first conversion, when he gained an insight into the role of discernment in Ignatian prayer. This was the practice of assessing, during a time of peace and recollection, the spiritual authenticity of one's thoughts, feelings and desires; a new level of self-awareness and interiority. It remained with Patrick as a resource through the ups and downs of his life.

You might think it was mostly ups. He routinely got first honours in exams (with one explosive exception when J.R. McMahon, then Rector and Professor of Canon Law in Milltown, awarded Patrick a Fail mark in Canon Law, with the aim, it was said, of giving him a useful experience of failure). God, on the other hand, was generous to young Patrick. He was born into a stable home in Dalkey, with an aloof father and a remarkable warm and gifted mother to whom he was always close. He had an older brother, a successful lawyer and financier, and Esther, who he said was all you could look for in a young sister.

Patrick himself was generously endowed, with a brilliant mind, and a healthy body. He was not athletic, but was never sick, never in hospital till old age. He was hugely responsive to beauty, whether in mathematics (”I liked maths because it was clear, logical, beautiful and unassailable”), in music, especially Bach and Mozart, in flowers and in visual art. He loved his friends, though in his early years he described himself as a selfish introvert. On top of that he had excellent schooling, first in Belvedere, and then with formidable third-level mentors. He sought God in the created world; his search focussed particularly on how we perceive that world, and give it meaning,

Patrick was quickly in demand for third-level posts, but as a Jesuit under obedience he experienced the limits to his freedom. He was at first dismayed when he was commissioned to spend his travelling studentship in geophysics rather than his beloved maths. He was being used; superiors fingered him for the management of the worldwide network of Jesuit seismographs. The US army used and surreptitiously funded him to find a way of distinguishing natural earthquakes from nuclear explosions. The Russians translated his doctoral thesis for the same reason, and claimed the pirated version as a triumph for the Leningrad Acoustical Institution. The Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, sought his services to teach neo-scholastic philosophy to seminarians.

So Patrick was used by the Jesuits, the Pentagon, Russian scientists, the Archbishop of Dublin, and no doubt several others. In face of this he became not angry but wise. Without losing his joie de vivre he recognised and welcomed the down-sizing of his ego. A written comment from his later years suggests his use of discernment in his development: "I came to experience my life in the Jesuit order, not as a career to be established, but as a story always under editorial revision and reconstruction, continuously discontinuous, yet with persistent Catholic and catholic threads and an interiority that tended to be affirmative and to bring, as was promised in the gospels, rest to my soul.”

In three issues of Interfuse in 2005-6, Patrick wrote Le petit philosophe, a 3-part memoir which fills in the factual features of his life, structured round five conversion points. It is meaty but not easy reading, concerned as it is with quantum theory and the perception of space. Here are his five conversion points, each followed by its date and location:

  1. The role of Ignatian discernment: 1951: Wisconsin
  2. Lonergan: transcendental method: 1957: Tullabeg
  3. Consciousness' role in quantum physics: 1962: Princeton
  4. Van Gogh's pictorial geometry: 1966: Fordham
  5. Space perception and the philosophy of science: 1982: Stony Brook

These five stepping stones still omit much of Patrick's range of interests. His seminal work on Van Gogh's paintings reflected a wide and sharp-eyed knowledge of European art. He explored “Music as a basic metaphor and deep structure in Plato” in a paper that showed familiarity with studies of music's origins and structures. At the end of his life he was deep into a serious study of Islam. A friend compared Patrick to a high Renaissance Florentine prince, a polymath at home in the full range of arts and sciences, illuminating whatever he gave attention to.

In the course of a stellar academic career he worked in seven universities, as professor, researcher and administrator – he was Vice President in Stony Brook State University and then Provost in Georgetown University. He lived through the inevitable power struggles of academic life, especially in Georgetown, where he worked hard at the reform of structures.

In 2014 he retired, in an increasingly frail body, to Cherryfield. So this gentle priest of extraordinary intellectual gifts saw out his days close to his much-loved family of in-laws, nieces and nephews. He was 88 years of age, and in his 73rd year as a Jesuit. He wrote of himself: “In my studies in theoretical physics I was fortunate in having been supervised by three Nobel Prize winners: Schroedinger in Dublin during the war, Wigener in Princeton and Heisenberg in Munich, all of whom were among the founders of quantum physics. I am grateful for having had such a wonderful life as a priest and a theoretical physicist”.

Paul Andrews

Interfuse No 114 : Summer 2002

60 YEARS IN THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

Patrick Heelan

A homily delivered by Patrick Heelan, on September 7, 2002, in St. Ignatius Chapel of Holy Trinity Church, Georgetown.

At the age of 11, I was enrolled as a student in Belvedere College in Dublin, Ireland. It was my first encounter with the Jesuits. Not many years before, another fellow Dubliner, James Joyce, had a similar encounter with the Jesuits at roughly the same age at Clongowes Wood College, the Jesuit boarding school. He later moved to Belvedere College, my school. Even at that early age Joyce was a sophisticated observer of the Jesuits. In his Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Joyce tells of his early encounter. Under the name of Stephen Daedelus, he recounts his reverie during a Latin class taught by Fr. Arnall, SJ. Fr. Arnall had been angry, “in a wax”, as he says, because the whole class had missed the declension of the word “mare”, the Latin word for “sea”. I will quote this piece because the narrator could easily have been me when I first encountered the Jesuits; it began with a reflection on Fr. Arnall's being “in a wax”.

“Was that a sin for Fr. Arnall to be in a wax? Or was he allowed to get into a wax when the boys were idle because that made them study better? Or was he only letting on to be in a wax? It was because he was allowed, because a priest would know what a sin was and would not do it ... hmm! BUT if he did it one time by mistake, what would he do to go to confession? Perhaps, he would go to confession to the Fr. Minister of the Jesuit community. And if the minister did it, he would go to the rector: the rector to the provincial: and the provincial to the general of the Jesuits. That was called the order ... hmm! He had heard his father say that they were all clever men. They could all become high up people in the world if they had not become Jesuits. And he wondered what Fr. Arnall and Paddy Barrett would have become, and what Mr. McGlade and Mr. Gleeson would have become, if they had not become Jesuits (Mr. McGlade and Mr. Gleeson were scholastics at the time; I knew Fr. McGlade as a priest and a great teacher.) It was hard to think WHAT, because you would have to think of them in a different way with different coloured coats and trousers and with beards and moustaches and different kinds of hats”. (p. 48)

There was already a sophisticated awareness, even in the eleven-year old, of the reality of sin and confession, and of what the Oxford English Dictionary calls “jesuitry'; also he knows of the high regard people had for the worldly abilities of Jesuits - but notes that the clerical uniform was an obstacle to the imagination. If only they dressed “in different coloured coats and trousers, wearing beards and moustaches”. There was a certain prophetic character to this last phrase - Jesuits today often dress “in coloured coats and trousers and wearing beards and moustaches”, but no one these days wears hats, not even priests!

At the end of his schooling in Belvedere, Joyce was invited to join the Jesuits, but he turned it down because he felt, mistakenly, I think, that the Jesuits frowned on the Eros of beauty -- but Stephen admitted that in his case the Eros of beauty had led him astray from the path of – well! - let us say good Jesuit behaviour. However, as for me, I did not have these challenges or reservations, but knowing something of the history of Jesuit accomplishments in natural science, I accepted the invitation, for I wanted to be a Jesuit scientist. Sixty years ago to a day, on September 7, 1942, I entered the Jesuit Novitiate at a Paladian Villa once owned by the Earls of Portarlington, then called St. Mary's, Emo, Co. Leix, to become, as I then thought and hoped, a Jesuit scientist.

Let me now draw down the spiritual lesson from the gospel reading (In. ch. 9). In the gospel story the blind man was changed by bathing in the waters of Siloam, but at first this only gave worldly sight to his eyes; he came to see only the world around, a splendid sight to see as he saw it for the first time in his life, a world of different people in their various coloured costumes. What did he think of Jesus, his benefactor? The great scholar Raymond Brown says he probably thought of him as just an ordinary miracle worker - not that being an ordinary miracle worker was a small thing. But it took events – like challenges from the Pharisees, parents, and bystanders – to make him see the spiritual realities underlying the opening of his eyes. Only when his spiritual eyes were opened did he come to recognize Jesus as God's presence in the world as a fully human person.

The theme of my homily then is that I am the blind man; I was washed in the waters of baptism; at first, like the blind man, I too only saw the business aspects of the world. Like the blind man, I came to see the spiritual context of human life and labour only by being challenged by events in the world and by its institutions. Reflecting on the other anniversary that we memorialize at this time, I recall that this is one of the frightening lessons of 9-11!

Returning, however, to my own story: the Jesuit part of my training was not easy; it consisted in adopting a certain kind of askesis, or spiritual practice, founded upon the Exercises of the founder, St. Ignatius. This was fundamental to the Jesuit life. I'll come back to this later. And then came science.

My scientific career began well at University College, Dublin, and at the School of Theoretical Physics of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. During World War II, this latter was a haven for refugee European scientists from Germany and Central Europe. I studied there under Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founders of the quantum theory, and John Synge, a famous cosmologist. Later I was to study quantum field theory and elementary particles under Eugene Wigner at Princeton, and came to know and correspond with Werner Heisenberg of the Uncertainty Principle fame. In 1964 I wrote a book about Heisenberg, which was accepted as a doctoral dissertation in philosophy at the University of Leuven.

But my first Jesuit assignment in 1949 was to study earth science, particularly seismology. As it turned out, my pursuit of a scientific career was terminated when I was told to move from earth science and physics to philosophy. You must understand that the context of decision making within every Jesuit life includes both worldly and religious dimensions. The story of a Jesuit's life is always a dialogue with the world around, a kind of spiritual “reading' of the worldly environment, called the “spirit of discernment,' within the context of that practiced way of life characteristic of the founder, St. Ignatius. Like the great spiritual practices of old such as Stoicism and Epicureanism, Christian spiritual practices, like the Jesuit practices, were the practices of a certain philosophical way of life - the human side – that linked up with the primacy of Christian faith -- the religious side.

The Jesuits are an institution that from the time of its founder, took on the world, teaching both worldly and sacred knowledge or more accurately, they adopted ways of living that are both in the world, worldly, while being spiritually attuned according to the practices of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Some may find this paradoxical. Monks live in closed monasteries and behind high garden walls all the time; they have little or no contact with the world. Religious orders older than the Jesuits, such as the Dominicans and the Franciscans, live in tight supervised communities and sally forth only to meet the world for pre-planned sessions of preaching, prayer, or charitable work The Jesuits' special mission, however, has been to promote worldly and spiritual life together, not separately. That is a complex, difficult, and paradoxical project. Like all spiritual projects, however, this is a deeply human social project but also marked by personal and social decision making requiring a special spiritual training, or askesis. This is the charism of the Jesuit way of life, of living in the Company, or Society, of Jesus.

To return to my own story: I was assigned to become a Jesuit scientist, like so many other Jesuit scientists of the past. But it did not work out the way it was originally conceived. My first assignment was to work with the great Jesuit seismologist, Fr. Macelwane at St. Louis University, with the intention possibly of taking charge of the great worldwide Jesuit network of earth science observatories established at Jesuit schools everywhere and linked globally. This was a unique network of its kind and had been in existence for over a hundred years. But in 1954, two years after my doctorate in geophysics, the U.S. Government put billions of dollars into the International Geophysical Year. This moved the earth sciences far beyond where they were. It was done mostly for military purposes to monitor underground nuclear test activity and to track underwater nuclear powered naval craft in the great oceans of the world, and much of the new research was top secret. In a short time, the Jesuit global seismological network became redundant and as a consequence there was no longer any need within the Jesuit Order for experts in this field. I then entered the field of high energy physics at Princeton University under the mentorship of Eugene Wigner, one of the original founders of the quantum theory. But this, too, was soon interrupted, when the Faculty of Philosophy at University College, Dublin, requested that I be assigned to teach the philosophy of science. This required further training, which took me to the University of Leuven, Belgium, where I finished a book on Werner Heisenberg's physical philosophy.

And so, at the age of 38, I began my first serious teaching job. This was in the physics department at University College, Dublin, as professor of relativistic cosmology, waiting for an appointment to philosophy. There followed my one and only - and most satisfying - job teaching science! But in the middle of my first year, I received an invitation from Fordham University in New York, to go there to teach my new specialty, the philosophy of science. I then began in 1965 a new career in the philosophy of science.

But further challenges were to follow. Five years later, the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, was given the mission to become a great research university, to become, as it was then said, an 'instant Berkeley. Out of the blue, it invited me to become chair of the philosophy department, and to begin a doctoral degree program in philosophy. In a few years, Stony Brook became the leader in continental philosophy in the US with vast public funding and with the full backing of the administration. A few years after the successful establishment of that program, I was invited to become Vice President and Dean of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook. After the establishment of the Staller Fine Arts Centre, I was recalled to administration as Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts. I spent 22 years in all at Stony Brook. Then in 1992, on the invitation of Fr Leo O'Donovan, then President of Georgetown University, I left secular public higher education and re-entered the domain of private Catholic and Jesuit higher education, as the person responsible for the Main Campus of Georgetown University.

You might want to know how I experienced secular higher education in a top research public university. In retrospect, I have to say that I found extraordinary respect for one who was, oddly, both a priest and a Jesuit. Of course, being also a card carrying scientist did help a lot. Catholic friends in higher education have since said to me: 'You must have horror stories to tell about the secular values of public education. Not really! Academic life in both the public universities and the Catholic universities is much the same - commitments to social justice, public responsibility, and “What's new!” are not much different in the practical order. The big difference is in the limitations of public discourse and the public practices of life. Religious language and ritual are absent; motivations are expressed in terms of human rights, professional ethics, and other secular humanistic doctrines - or without further definition, the pursuit of excellence! My frustration was mitigated by the discovery that many of the values we know as Christian values have by now migrated beyond the Church, they are no longer challenged but taken for granted as due to humanity and human society. I asked: How did this come about? I think the reason is that universities grew up under the Christian umbrella before they came to shelter themselves under the shadow of the state, and they carried much of the Christian tradition with them.

I often found beneath the surface a hidden quasi-religious commitment clothed in secular and human rhetoric. I came to feel sure that Jesus would not condemn these people. Many, both Jewish and agnostic, were like Nicodemus, or like the blind man emerging from the pool of Siloam, they shared the vision of Jesus, but they had not been challenged in such a way as to recognize the divine presence that he represents in the world.

My years at Georgetown University have also been a challenge and a gift. I am so happy that we celebrate religious rituals, and that religious motivations and spirituality can be spoken of, and are needed and heeded by many students and faculty without interfering with the usual and expected academic standards of the disciplines. It is so comforting to be in a community where the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are known and used to promote a way of life that gives spiritual sight to the business of the world. Since the time of Stephen Daedelus and of my youth, changes have taken place: Jesuit priests now go round in different coloured coats and trousers, [even some with beards and moustaches.' And in doing so they are affirming a world vibrant - Yes! - with divine life....

Interfuse No 125 : Autumn 2005

PATRICK HEELAN : “LE PETIT PHILOSOPHE” (1)

Patrick A Heelan

‘Le petit philosophe’
My family tells me – usually with good humored teasing -- that, when I was baptized, my godfather, a lawyer and a philosopher of sorts, looked at me in the cradle bemused, and said, “Le petit philosophe!” Recalling who the “philosophes” were, it could have been an ironic comment on the promises just made on my behalf but, if it was intended as a prophetic statement, this is where my “evangelium” should begin!

When I was young, I lived with my family in a pretty seaside town, Dalkey, on the South side of Dublin – once the home of George Bernard Shaw and today of U2's Bono. It was then about one and a half hours commute by bus or train to and from my Jesuit high school, Belvedere College, on the North side of the River Liffey. Consequently, neither before nor after school did I have the companionship of other Belvederians, nor indeed much other young companionship. As the second son, I was eclipsed by my brother, Louis, who seemed to have a large circle of friends and colleagues, boys and girls, which I did not have. I enjoyed reading, mathematics, music, home carpentry, and the company of my mother. She had come from Antwerp, Belgium as a young girl during the first World War, to study English and accountancy, and she stayed in Dublin after the war, met my father in Dalkey and married him. I had a younger sister – still living - and an older brother - now gone. My sister was a good junior partner. She tried hard to keep up with her brothers but sadly she was derided for being a girl! She was the first among us, however, to become a doctor, a real M.D. She married a dentist, and devoted her life to raising a large family and serving on Catholic medical boards. My brother became a cautious lawyer; also raised a large family; worked in venture capital investment, including the film industry; and was a lifelong active member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society for helping the indigent. My father was a senior civil servant, an economist, fluent in French and German, aloof, given to three hobbies - rose gardening, musical composition and, after retiring, the translation of theological works from the German - even some from Karl Rahner, S.J. I was an introverted and selfish kid.

At Belvedere, I had good math teachers. I liked math because it was clear, logical, beautiful, and unassailable, and, as I thought, did not require company. Mathematical physics seemed to me to be the true model of all authentic knowledge of the world. My attitude towards the world was abstract and aloofly contemplative. This attitude was only to be confirmed by my scientific, philosophical, and theological education in the Jesuit Order - until wisdom made its entrance.

Reflection:
What follows is the story of several conversions, each connected with unplanned zigs or zags, contingent events from which, by divine grace - for how else explain it? -- an intelligible narrative emerged that was accompanied by - or eventually brought - wonder and joy, as well as “rest to my soul.' The frustrations along the way were met with unexpected gifts of help, from people, some living and some now dead, too numerous to name. Some will be mentioned in the following narrative. Among them is St. Ignatius Loyola whose Spiritual Exercises were indispensable; Bernard Lonergan, S.J., whom I had the privilege of knowing personally though only in a small way, whose books, Insight and Method in Theology found their way to me at crucial moments of transition. With the help of them and many others on the way, I came to experience my life in the Jesuit order, not as a career to be established, but as a story always under editorial revision and reconstruction, continuously discontinuous, yet with persistent Catholic and catholic threads and an interiority that tended to be affirmative and to bring, as was promised in the gospels, rest to my soul.

UCD and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (1944-48)
Now for some particulars! In 1942, at the age of 16, I joined the Jesuits, directly from high school. I knew that I was joining a society that respected science and mathematics, and looked forward to a possible Jesuit career in the sciences. Spiritually, I was no more than a cultural Irish Catholic who felt comfortable with the way of life of the Jesuits he knew. An eventual career in the sciences seemed to be confirmed by my early university studies as a Jesuit in mathematics and mathematical physics (BA, 1947; MA, 1948, all with first-class honors) at University College, Dublin (UCD). In 1948 I was awarded a fellowship in Mathematical Physics to study for a doctorate wherever in the world I could find a perch.

The years of my mathematical studies in Ireland coincided with the chaotic post-war years in Europe during which the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies offered hospitality to many émigré European scientists. I was privileged then to be able to attend seminars given by very eminent theoretical physicists at its School of Theoretical Physics in Dublin. Among those resident there at the time were Erwin Schrödinger and John Synge, both mathematicians famous for their work in General Relativity and Cosmology. Relativistic Cosmology explained gravitation as due to curvatures of four-dimensional space-time related to the presence of physical masses in space time; these warp the geometry in ways not compatible with Euclidean geometry. But as a classical theory, it is clear, logical, elegant, deductive, and mathematically unassailable. These descriptors also fitted Schrödinger's own teaching, the elegance of his style, and what he expected of others. It set the tone for his students among whom I was happy to be counted.

The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies with its School of Theoretical Physics was founded by Eamon de Valera, the Prime Minister of Ireland during those years, who was a mathematician. I remember being told, when I was small, that only seven people in the world understood Einstein's Theory of Relativity and that de Valera was one of them. Wanting to belong to this small group, I took courses with Schrödinger and Synge. From Schrödinger I came to understand that the General Theory of Relativity did not support the 'relativism' of truth; to the contrary, it was founded on constancy, invariance, and symmetry, as befitted the rational design of Him whom Einstein called the “Old One”. Einstein's motto was, “Der Herrgott würfelt nicht' - God does not throw dice!” It was carved above the fireplace of his office in the old Palmer Laboratory of Princeton. It was Einstein's challenge to Heisenberg and to quantum mechanics. At this time, I felt I was with Einstein.
One class episode with Schrödinger opened my mind to a new way of thinking about human consciousness. He spoke about the foundations of mathematics and cosmology in the intuition of non-Euclidean geometrical spaces. Since the dominant scientific and philosophical view before Einstein was that real Space as intuited by our imagination was necessarily Euclidean, a fundamental principle of both mind and body had been breached and needed to be re-studied at all levels of relevance.

Reflection:
The notion that cosmology forced us to imagine curved three- and four-dimensional spaces that can be both finite in size and yet have no boundaries grabbed me in a profound way and gave me a new concern, with consciousness and its role in psychology, physics, philosophy, and spirituality.

In 1948, my final year at UCD, I won a prestigious Fellowship (called a Travelling Studentship) that paid for doctoral studies abroad anywhere in the world. I was sent to pursue doctoral studies at St. Louis University as a junior Jesuit scholastic. My provincial wanted me to study geophysics and seismology. Why seismology? And why at St. Louis? In the late 1940's, the Vatican Observatory managed several scientific research programs besides astronomy. Among them was an international network of seismological stations not just at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, but at Jesuit colleges around the world. The Director of the Vatican Observatory in 1948 was Father Daniel O'Connell, SJ an Irish Jeşuit. He spoke to my Provincial and, much to my chagrin, requested that I be sent to study geophysical seismology at St. Louis University, a Jesuit university that had a special Institute of Geophysics.

The Director at that time of the Institute of Geophysics at St Louis University was Father James Macelwane, SJ, a scientist of considerable fame. He worked closely with the oil exploration industry and the Pentagon. Under his direction, my assigned research project: was to find a means of telling from seismic records whether a seismic disturbance was of artificial or natural origin. This involved finding a correlation between the seismological signatures of underground disturbances and their source. Being, like Schrödinger, a mathematical physicist, and not at all an experimental physicist, I transformed the practical problem into a mathematical one. I studied no records, but instead, using simplified assumptions, I looked for solutions of the elastic wave equations that seemed to define the problem. My research was supported by the US military though I did not know this until much later, for its real purpose was to find the seismic key to monitoring underground nuclear tests (for a retrospect, see, Broad, W. New York Times, 2005). In response to the great success of Soviet science with the launching of Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite, in 1957, Russian scientific papers began to be translated into English. To my great surprise a copy of my doctoral papers appeared in 1961 – as translated from the Russian complete with the identical mathematical typos that appeared in my papers - seemingly attributed to the Leningrad Acoustical Institute. Following the major U.S. Federal government investment in geophysics during the International Geophysical Year (1957-58), the Jesuit Seismological Network folded, and there was no longer a potential job in seismology for me with the Jesuits.

Conversion #1: Insight into “discernment” in Ignatian prayer
My first breach with the orientation towards mathematics as the preferred instrument of reason occurred while making the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises with other scholastics, I think in the sutnmner of 1951, in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. The retreat master was Father Charles Hertzog, SJ. For the first time, I had insight into the role of 'discernment in Ignatian prayer. I had made many retreats before this, but the meaning of discernment had escaped me. This is the practice of assessing, during a time of peace and recollection, the spiritual authenticity of one's interior thoughts, feelings, and desires, as they emerged into consciousness against the background of faith in and love for the crucified and risen Jesus. I don't any longer recall how spiritual discernment was presented by Fr. Hertzog, but the impact on me at that time was certainly due to his expositions and my deep need for something of that kind. It breached a barrier in my consciousness that brought about a 'conversion' event. After that time, I began to notice and take seriously how people and events came to me. They came differently from before now they seemed to carry messages for concem, invitations to new tasks, either as providers of peace and consolation, or as warnings against involvement, and so on. This brought about a new level of self-awareness and interiority that challenged the anonymous, often self-serving habits, practices, and conventions of the unconscious self. I was not yet curious about the cultural origins of that unconscious self, but a route was opened that had not been there before.

I returned to Ireland in 1952. My science studies had to be put aside for eight years. I spent two years in philosophy, one in regency teaching, four in theology- my ordination was at the end of my third year in 1958 - then after theology there was Tertianship, a final spiritual and pastoral year (1959-60) that I spent in Münster, Germany. My studies in philosophy were done at the Jesuit School of Philosophy, in the farming community of Tullamore, Ireland. My theological studies were done at the Jesuit School of Theology, Milltown Park, in a suburb of Dublin. Jesuit seminary philosophy made little mark on me; it did not have the clarity, elegance, and explanatory function - nor even the empirical outlook – that I was used to in science, and it seemed to me also at the time that its insights were anonymous and lacked the joyful and sublime moments that might have saved it from irrelevance. There was one notable exception, the course on sacred scripture at Milltown Park, which introduced us to the historical, archaeological, and literary studies of biblical texts.

In the middle of my theological studies, I was summoned to the Provincial's office nearby, and was told that the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, wanted me to be assigned to teach philosophy at UCD. The Faculty of Philosophy at that time served almost exclusively the seminarians of the Archdiocese. But there was agitation from a group of lay students to open the philosophy curriculum to modern topics such as the philosophy of science. The Dean and Professors of the Faculty, all priests of the Dublin Archdiocese, persuaded the Archbishop of the need to make this possible. I, however, had no knowledge of this situation and was at a loss to know how I came to be chosen for this job. I was shocked at the Archbishop's proposal and my consideration of it gave me no joy. Aware that the Archbishop was not a patient listener to contrary advice, I, nevertheless, dared, like Job in the Old Testament, to argue with the Almighty! I represented that I was not competent to teach the philosophy of science because I found little joy in the subject and because my scientific training was badly in need of an upgrade for such a task after so many years away from science. The Archbishop's reply came to me from my Provincial: “Tell Patrick Heelan to read a good book!” He made no suggestion, however, as to what book I should read.

Conversion #2: Lonergan's transcendental method of Insight
As it happened, Bernard Lonergan's Insight, was published in the summer of 1957. It hooked my interest from the start, perhaps because it began with mathematical examples. I found it exciting, and it gave me great joy. I found it intensely illuminating with respect to philosophical method. It seemed to me to describe correctly the role of intuition in mathematics as well as the role of experience in concept and theory formation. It gave me notions, such as transcendental method, intentionality, assessment, interiority, empirical residue, that expanded my mind with pleasurable excitement. After finishing the book, I lent my copy to Fr Eamonn Egan, a brilliant young Jesuit who professed philosophy. He read it through, from cover to cover - and, it is said, that he neither ate nor slept during that time and was found lying on the floor of his room exhausted, three days later. Others at Milltown Park also read Insight and their excitement led to the formation of a Lonergan caucus or “fan club” at Milltown Park that has continued to the present day, The Archbishop was right, I needed a good book ... and the good book had found me!

Course notes on De Methodo Theologiae (in Latin) were also being passed around from courses Lonergan gave at the Gregorian University in Rome. They were early versions of what later became his Method in Theology, which appeared in 1972. I also noted the coherence between Ignatian discernment and Lonergan's notions of interiority and authenticity. That summer I had my second “conversion” - to a better understanding of the kind of human cooperation that divine grace needed when working for the Kingdom of God in today's scientific culture.

Lonergan's approach to philosophy was his discovery in Aquinas of an account of human knowing that was based on the recognition of (what is called today) transcendental method. A transcendental process is one that affects all human processes, 'transcendental' being the Kantian term for “a priori, universal, and necessary”. Lonergan's transcendental method went beyond Kant and described a sequence of four functions (processes) that operate sequentially and recursively in the process of all human inquiry. They are: 1. experiencing, 2. understanding, 3, judging, and 4. decision-making. The four functions operate on experiencing and from this draw their objective content. Their actions are recursively used again and again to review, revise, update, confirm or drop. This recursive use is called hermeneutical since each use shapes some aspect of meaning: the first produces perceptual meanings (related to descriptive concepts); the second produces theoretical meanings (related to networks of mutually related phenomena); the third, produces judgments of truth/falsity (after evidence is assessed), and the fourth and final phase produces practical action (related to human values and sensibility). A cycle of the four functions is called a transcendental hermeneutical circle (or spiral).

This new way of thinking changed the emphasis of my thinking from the mathematical to the practical, from the world as object to the interiority of the inquiring subject's engagement with the world, and from formal language to descriptive language. I began to see these recursive interior processes as the source of all human and cultural development in historical time and the natural sciences as the domain in which the embodied character of transcendental hermeneutical method is most clearly to be seen.

This new start in philosophy convinced me all the more that I needed to update my physics and learn more philosophy. So I applied for a Fulbright Fellowship to Princeton University to do post-doc work in quantum field theory. My application was accepted. Much to the chagrin of the Archbishop, however, I requested that my two years in the United States be followed by two years at the University of Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, to study the philosophy of science. I believed I could with luck finish a doctorate there in two years.

Conversion #3: Role of Consciousness in Quantum Physics
After a few months of preparatory work at Fordham University, I went on to Princeton arriving there around Christmas, 1960. My experience at Princeton was, indeed, mind blowing. The Princeton physics department at that time was probably the best physics department in the world! I worked with Professor Eugene Wigner, a Nobel Laureate and one of the founders of the quantum theory, and Fr Matsuo Yanase, SJ, a Japanese Jesuit physicist who was soon to become the President of Sophia University, Tokyo. Wigner was Hungarian, Jewish by birth and Lutheran by faith. He had been trained in chemical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin. He had a very keen sense of both the empirical and the technological side of science. Ironically, Wigner occupied Einstein's old office in the Palmer Lab with the famous inscription I already mentioned. I soon switched my allegiance from Einstein to Heisenberg, and from General Relativity to Quantum Theory.

Einstein loved the objective order of geometry where everything had its determinate time and place. This is characteristic of classical physics - roughly all physics with the exception of quantum physics - where it is assumed that theoretical terms in physics exist and have determinate properties independently of any engagement with human culture, with observers or their instruments. Classical objects are thought to be, using Lonergan's phrase, 'already out there now real,' that is, present beyond human culture and history and in principle independent of human filters. Such a view tends to see the world entirely in material terms. Wigner's view was that the only evidence we can rely on is given in experience. Experience, however, involves contingency and risk, for what is observed is observed through many human bodily, instrumental, and linguistic filters. None of these filters can sift incoming signals with infinite precision and, as the quantum theory predicted, some of these filters are mutually incompatible. The question that most quantum physicists and philosophers of science found troubling is the epistemological one: What CAN a physicist know absolutely about the real world? - which is probably unanswerable. Wigner, however, changed the basic question to an ontological one (Wigner 1967, 171-184): What IS knowing in quantum physics? This was the same move that Kant, Lonergan, Husserl, and Heidegger had made. Wigner in an interview towards the end of his life said: “My chief scientific interest in the last 20 years has been to somehow extend theoretical physics into the realm of consciousness consciousness is beautifully complex. It has never been properly described, certainly not by physics or mathematics”. (Szanton 1992, p. 309).

At the end of my Fulbright Fellowship in the Fall of 1962, I went directly to Leuven, to begin my doctoral work in the philosophy of science. It was natural then for me to focus my research on the problem of objectivity in Heisenberg's quantum mechanics and the role of consciousness in measurement.

Leuven (1962-4) and Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity (65)
I arrived at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) in September, 1962, to begin work towards a PhD in the philosophy of science. There was no philosophical program there in the field of the natural sciences, but only in logic and the social psychological sciences. The Institut Supérieur de Philosophie was, however, the home of the Edmund Husserl Archives, brought there by Fr HL Van Breda, OFM, a Franciscan priest, who in 1939 with great personal risk had saved Husserl's papers from confiscation and destruction by the Nazi regime in Germany. My mentor was Professor Jean Ladrière, a brilliant and most beloved logician and mathematician, whose interests included Husserl and the social sciences. During this time, I studied the principal published writings of Husserl. Husserl was a trained mathematician. From 1901 to 1916, he taught philosophy at the University of Göttingen in what was then called the Faculty of Philosophy, which included Natural Philosophy. Among its faculty were also the mathematicians and physicists who were responsible for the early 20th century revolution that committed mathematics to the service of physics. Aquinas, Kant, Lonergan, Husserl, and Martin Heidegger, provided the resources I used to study the philosophical questions I brought from Wigner's Princeton. I read all of Heisenberg's published papers up to the time of my writing, visited with him several times at the Max-Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Munich, and discussed with him what I found unclear in his presentations. I found him most cordial and open, and our relationship continued after I left Leuven until his death in 1976. I defended my dissertation in 1964 and received the grade of félications du jury, 'which is the highest honors. I was told by my good friend and Heidegger counsellor, Fr. Bill Richardson, S.J., of Boston College, that it was an invitation to prepare for a faculty appointment at Leuven.

My dissertation was published under the title: Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity: A Study of the Physical Philosophy of Werner Heisenberg (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1965). I will refer to it below as QMO. Of QMO, Heisenberg wrote in the personal letter to me (dated November 10, 1970): “I very much enjoyed reading your book. Precisely the connection between a description of the historical development and a very careful philosophical analysis seems to me to be a felicitous foundation for the reader being able to really penetrate into quantum theory and its philosophy”.

QMO has been widely read and, until recently, was part of the history of science curriculum at Oxford. Some years ago, I was happy to learn that parts of it were being read at the elite Dalton School in New York City in a seminar for the best and brightest among New York high school seniors.

The thesis of the book sustains Wigner's point that there is in quantum physics the emergence of a distinctively new and explicit role for subjectivity at the moment when a datum observation is made. By 'new', I mean 'absent from classical physics. By 'explicit,' I refer to a conscious discrimination between two types of discourse, 1) theoretical (model) discourse and 2) empirical (fact) discourse. Facts occur only in appropriate practical horizonal situations. By horizon/horizona! I mean the practical situatedness of an event - here, a measurement event in a laboratory environment. The principal (but not exclusive) function of a horizon is to specify the space/time and momentum/energy variables. In classical physics, all such horizons are assumed to be mutually compatible. This compatibility breaks down in quantum physics, where cross-correlations exist between data taken in different complementary horizons, for example, the space/time horizon and the momentum/energy horizon are 'complementary. The choice of horizon is controlled by a free decision of the measuring subject. Wigner took this dependence of 'what is factual' on 'what humans have chosen to measure to be evidence of the presence of a human interpretative (and cognitive) role inside the new physics that is absent from classical physics. He saw this as evidence for the existence of an immaterial factor within human consciousness that plays a role in the practice of the new physics.

Reflection:
Much of my later work was inspired by Wigner's problem and the desire to understand it better. In doing so, I read deeply about the biological, historical, and cultural origins of the four functions that in Lonergan's account, constitute the transcendental core of human conscious living. I asked: How did they come to be structured the way we find them today? and How do they operate within the contexts of history, culture, and religion? In the light of Wigner's view that quantum physics implies a role for human consciousness, I began to think that it might be possible to describe the individual embodied human being as a Quantum MacroSystem (CMS).

Return to the USA (1965)
I returned to Ireland from Leuven in the mid-summer of 1964, ready to teach the philosophy of science at UCD in the Fall of that year. Earlier that year I had received some telephone calls from Ireland telling me that there was a crisis brewing about what I would teach in the Fall, but the cause of the crisis was not mentioned. Arriving back in Dublin, I found that I was not listed among the Faculty of Philosophy, but among the faculty of the Department of Mathematical Physics, assigned to teach the graduate course in General Relativistic Cosmology. It was some time before I learned what had been going on in the last few feverish months while I was completing and defending my philosophy dissertation. I was told that the Jesuit professors at UCD had voted – no doubt with others - to give the Chair of Medieval History to someone other than the Archbishop's candidate for that position. The Archbishop then pressured the university to appoint the Archbishop's candidate to a Chair of Medieval Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, and to assign to him the budget line that up to that time was being kept for me. As part of the deal, I was given a position in the Department of Mathematical Physics. I was encouraged, nevertheless, to offer a course in the philosophy of science but only for science students, but I was told that the course would not be listed among courses in philosophy. When I asked why, the reason given me was to ensure that my name would not be put forward as a candidate for Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy when the present Dean retired. The Archbishop had his own candidate for that position. My Provincial had no option but to acquiesce in this matter. The students thought otherwise, however, and showed their disapproval by briefly occupying the office of the Dean of Philosophy.

And so le petit philosophe plus the 'good book that was sent his way “to clear his path” returned for the time being at least to be un petit scientifique hastily boning up on material learned sixteen years earlier at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. But destiny was to win out!

References:
Broad, W, 2005. “Listening for Atom Blasts, but Hearing Earthquakes”. New York Times, January 18, 2005.
Heelan, P. 1965. Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity: A Study of the Physical Philosophy of Werner Heisenberg. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Szanton, A. 1992. Recollections of Eugene P Wigner as told to Andrew Szanton. Plenum Press.
Wigner, E. 1967. Symmetries and Reflections. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Heffernan, Thady, 1601-1639, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1436
  • Person
  • 1601-02 December 1639

Born: 1601, Cashel, County Tipperary
Entered: 1628, Back Lane, Dublin
Ordained: - pre Entry
Died: 02 December 1639, Dublin, Dublin City, County Dublin Residence

Alias O’Hiffernan

1636 ROM Catalogue Talented, judgement and experience good

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Already a priest before Ent 1628 Back Lane, Dublin
After First Vows he seems to have been working in Dublin all his life, and because of lameness, to undertake missionary journeys. He died at the Dublin Residence 02 December 1639

Hegarty, Michael, 1904-1930, Jesuit scholastic

  • IE IJA J/333
  • Person
  • 22 April 1904-21 August 1930

Born: 22 April 1904, Schull, County Cork
Entered: 09 January 1926, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 21 August 1930, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin

Part of Heythrop College community, Chipping Norton, Oxon, England at time of his death.

by 1929 at Heythrop, Oxfordshire (ANG) studying

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 6th Year No 1 1931
Obituary :

Mr Michael Hegarty

The tragic death of Michael Hegarty on 21 Aug. caused great sorrow to the whole Province, He had just returned from philosophy at Heythrop and was staying at Rathfarnham when he fell ill, We realise now that we look back on his sickness, that it was caused by the extreme thoroughness of his character and the intense fervour of his life, Four and a half years amongst us found him ripe for heaven.

The earnestness which he showed in God's service was natural to him, It showed itself all through his life. When he entered Knockbeg College Carlow, in 1919, he set to work resolutely. At the end of two years he left, gaining the distinction of second place in Senior Grade in Irish. As yet he had no idea of entering religion. In 1924 he took his degree in Civil Engineering, but made no use of it, as in September of the same year he went to Dublin and obtained a position in the Civil Service. A little than a year later, as a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, he made a retreat at Milltown Park. The following January he entered Tullabeg.
In the noviceship his fervour made him revered. Novices used to watch him after Holy Communion, as indeed people in the world had watched him when he was in the world. When he left the noviceship he never mitigated his fervour. His loyalty and courage won admiration everywhere, and, as a tribute of respect for him, the Philosophers of Heythrop, after his death, sent a generous Spiritual Bouquet to his parents.
The Province has lost a gifted and fervent member, His enthusiasm in God's service made him give himself no rest.He once remarked, when urged to take things more quietly “Better one fervent year in God's service than ten negligent ones.” He has now received from God the reward of his zeal.
Mr Hegarty was born in Schull, Co. Cork, 22 April, 1904, entered the noviceship 9 Jan. 1926, died in Dublin 21 August 1930. RIP
The following is from a letter from Mr Vavasour (Bid. Phil., Heythrop) :
to Fr. Provincial : “At the suggestion of my superior I enclose a copy of the suffrages which have been offered by the philosophers here for the repose of the soul of Mr O'Hegarty, and for the consolation of his parents. (Masses 289, Communions 263, Rosaries 256, Other Devotions 1046).
I need hardly mention the high esteem in which he was universally held by all in this community, and we extend to you our deepest sympathy in the great loss your province has sustained in his death.”
The Office and High Mass for the repose of Mr Hegarty’s soul took place in our Church, Upper Gardiner St.

Hehir, Noel, 1898-1947, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1438
  • Person
  • 20 December 1898-10 June 1947

Born: 20 December 1898, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Entered: 11 March 1917, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 31 July 1929, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 15 August 1939
Died: 10 June 1947, Holy Name Seminary, Christchurch, New Zealand - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Younger brother of Thomas (Tom) - RIP 1955

by 1923 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Noel Hehir was a meticulous scholar with a profound respect for humane learning. He was educated by the Christian Brothers and at Xavier College. He entered the Society 11 March 1917, studied in Dublin, gaining first class honors in Greek and Latin. He studied philosophy in Louvain, spent a year teaching at Clongowes, and read theology at Milltown Park, Dublin, where he showed a special taste for Greek petrology. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1929. He also gained an MA in classics during this time, specialising in the history of Roman colonisation.
After tertianship at St Beuno's, Wales, Hehir's first appointment was minister of juniors at Loyola, Greenwich and Watsonia, 1931-36. He directed the first group of Australian scholastics who did their humanities studies at home, either internally or at the university. He had very high ideals about the meaning of education, and was very strict in applying the Ratio Studiorum. He strongly fostered intellectual life, giving the scholastics an appreciation of current Catholic culture. To this end he built up the college library with Catholic literature, and kept the scholastics in contact with the literary side of Catholic Action.
Hehir spent 1937 as prefect of studies at Xavier College before serving two years as rector of St Aloysius' College. He was appointed rector of Riverview, 1940-45. He spent one year,
1946, as a lecturer of fundamental theology at Canisius College, Pymble, as well as lecturer in scholastic philosophy at St John's and Sancta Sophia Colleges, University of Sydney, before his last appointment as rector of the Holy Name Seminar Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1947. He died of cancer that year after a brief illness .
Other Jesuits described Hehir as a good religious, a classical scholar, hard on himself and others, and setting an example of Jesuit life as he had experienced it in Ireland and Belgium. His early death was a disappointment to many He was a highly respected lecturer, teacher, preacher and retreat-giver, as well as administrator and educator. The headmaster of Shore, L.C. Robson, in a tribute in the “Sydney Morning Herald” wrote of the respect and affection of the Headmasters Conference for him. He admired Hehir's scholarship and wise counsel, and the influence of his personal character and outlook on education, shown through his spiritual quality and resoluteness in standing for his conviction, but not less by his tolerance and breadth of sympathy. They enjoyed Hehir's company and conversation.
It was while he was rector of the two Sydney colleges that Hehir made his mark in education. He was a very active and influential member of educational organisations. He was instrumental in reviving the Classical Society of NSW, and was its president for two years, being a powerful advocate of the importance of the classics in secondary education. He was prominent on the Catholic Secondary Teachers Association, the NSW Teachers' Guild, and the Headmasters Conference. His colleagues appreciated his geniality and simplicity, his power of sympathy and his utter unselfishness.
During his short stay at St Aloysius' College, Hehir was totally involved in the life of the college, especially by teaching and coaching sport. He purchased property at East Willoughby
for the college sporting ground. As headmaster he was involved with every aspect of the boys education. He taught senior classes and coached junior boys' sport. Some found him over severe in his discipline procedures and even unjust. He had no secretary, and the administration of the college was generally done late at night. Yet this did not interfere with his strict religious regime. Prayer was very important for him.
Six years at Riverview made it possible for Hehir to have an influence on the college. He was probably the most scholarly-minded rector since Patrick Keating, and combined intellectual gifts with practical wisdom. He coached cricket and football, taught English and arithmetic to the lower grades, and tutored boys privately outside class. The number of day boys at the college increased during these years and he wiped out the college debt in 1943-a remarkable achievement.
In educational discourses he stressed the importance of character training and good discipline He warned students to beware of self-indulgence, and the need to practice self-sacrifice. Hehir wanted education to extend to the wider population, not just to the upper social classes. For this reason he introduced technical and rural subjects into the curriculum at Riverview. He believed that “happiness is an essential means for all truly effective education”.
Hehir was a scholar who thought deeply about how to make important Christian values and Jesuit ideals relevant. Non-Jesuits praised him for being a good companion, for his charm, goodness and learning. Some Jesuits found him less friendly and even austere, but nevertheless respected his spirit, intellect and hard work. They praised him for his personal charm, his amazing industry, and great readiness to be of service to anyone at any time. Many priests and religious appreciated him for the zeal and asceticism that he showed in his retreats. Hehir was a sound educationalist who expressed his ideas clearly and forcefully His style of leadership was fundamentally one of example-he expected people to do as he did. Ultimately, his gifts of nature and grace were considerable, and his influence during his short life was substantial.

Note from Tom Hehir Entry
He was devoted to his younger brother, Noel, and after his death, Tom seemed to lose his own grip on life.

Note from Johnny Meagher Entry
As Vice-Provincial he clashed with the Rector of Riverview, Noel Hehir, over his expulsion of members of the Meagher clan. Meagher overruled Hehir, an action Hehir never forgot. When the latter was dying he did not want to see Meagher.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 7th Year No 2 1932

Australia :

Fr. N. Hehir and Br. V. Moran (scholastic novice) sailed for Australia towards the end of last year. An interesting experience was waiting for them at Naples, which we tell in Fr. Hehir's own words “We found ourselves booked to take part in a remarkable ceremony at Naples. A printed programme announced that I was to say Mass in the Gesù coram Cardinali. Fortunately the boat was late. The Provincial said the Mass. On arriving, the two of us were led down the Church (in white soutanes) in the middle of a stirring sermon delivered by the Cardinal Archbishop. Then came a sermon by one of the two scholastics who were being farewelled. Then an embarrassing ceremony - a Neapolitan tradition - apparently followed. All the clergy, led by the Cardinal, kissed the feet of the four missionaries. Lunch followed in the novitiate. Finally we were raced back to catch our boat just before sailing hour.

Irish Province News 22nd Year No 3 1947

Obituary :
Fr. Noel Hehir (1898-1917-1947)
Fr. Hehir was born in Melbourne and received his secondary education at Xavier College, Kew. He entered the Society in 1917 and made his noviceship in Loyola, Greenwich. He then proceeded to Ireland, where he took his M.A. degree in Classics at the National University. He pursued his philosophical studies at Louvain, and then returned to Ireland, where he taught at Clongowes Wood College, Theological studies followed at Milltown Park, where he was ordained in 1929, and then tertianship in St. Beuno's. Returning to Australia after tertianship, his first appointment was that of Master of Juniors attending Melbourne University from “Loyola”, Watsonia. From there he went to Sydney to be Rector of St. Aloysius' College 1938 and 1939, after a year at St. Ignatius'. From 1940 to 1945 he was Rector of Riverview. For many years Fr. Hehir was Director of Retreats in New South Wales and Queensland. Last year he lectured in philosophy to students of Sancta Sophia College and St. John's College, within the University of Sydney.
Fr. Hehir possessed outstanding scholastic attainments, and, besides the sphere of education, was prominent in contributing papers to conferences, schools, etc. He was at one stage president of the Teachers' Guild of New South Wales and the Classical Association. For a period he was a member of the standing committee of the Headmasters' Conference of Australia, and was a leading member of various educational bodies.
Last year Fr. Hehir was professor of dogma in Pymble. Early this year he was appointed Rector of the newly-established National Minor Seminary (Holy Name Seminary) at Riccarton, Christchurch, New Zealand, which the Hierarchy decided to confide to the Society, and which was opened by His Excellency the Apostolic Delegate, Dr. Panico, on February 2nd.
Fr. Hehir died in New Zealand on June 11th. . The following tribute was paid to Fr. Hehir in a letter to the secular press by Mr. L. C. Robson, Headmaster of Sydney Church of England Grammar School :
“It would be a pity if the death of the Very Rev. Noel Hehir, S.J., were to pass without a public record of his great services. . . He was a man of the most rare quality, and few have won as deep respect and affection. He is best known here as a former Rector of St. Aloysius' and as Rector from 1940 to 1945 of St. Ignatius' College, Riverview. Two years ago he was appointed to Canisius College, Pymble, and last year was translated to take charge of the new College, known as the Holy Name Seminary, then being founded at Riccarton,
Christchurch.
As a headmaster, he left his mark on each of his schools in New South Wales. However, by his high scholarship and wise counsel and above all, by his personal character and outlook, he influenced educational life far beyond the limits of the Order to which he belonged.
Those who were associated with him in the Teachers' Guild, in the Classical Association, in public committees, in the headmasters conference and in the general life of the Great Public Schools were profoundly impressed and influenced by his spiritual quality and by his resoluteness in standing for his convictions, but not less by his tolerance and breadth of sympathy. Withal, he was a most delightful and stimulating companion, whether at a meeting of a learned society or at a football match or boat race.
It is difficult to do justice to the influence of such a man upon his contemporaries. It is certain that his old boys and his educational colleagues will feel the most profound sense of loss.

Fr. T. Mulcahy Kindly contributed the following appreciation :
“Fr. Noel Hehir had the unusual privilege of being escorted to Ireland by his master of novices, Fr. George Byrne, who was returning home to assume the same responsible post here, The route travelled was also perhaps unusual because it included the U.S.A. On his arrival in Rathfarnham, Noel Hehir was welcomed with the customary invitation to have a swim in the lake. He always said afterwards that he thought he would never come up alive from that plunge, so great and so unexpected was the difference in temperature between the water of the lake and the warm waters of his native Australia.
But he did come to the top. It was a habit he had and which he developed assiduously. Whether it was a question of a new language to be learned, a new subject to be fathomed or a new position to be filled, he had a way of winning through - not just surviving, but coming out on top. In the acquisition of human wisdom, as in the science of the saints, Noel Hehir worked hard, and no one merited success more.
He had the gift of ‘fitting in’ easily. No Junior was more popular in Rathfarnham, no philosopher was more popular in Louvain, no chaplain to the Royal Hospital for Incurables, Donnybrook, showed more understanding of the temperaments of the patients. His Belgian contemporaries at Louvain will sorely miss him. With them his cheer fulness, his diligence and his love of metaphysics were proverbial. Indeed, speaking from a natural point of view, I suspect that, for one with such a flair for philosophy, it must have been a trial that the calls of obedience summoned Noel in after years to tasks other than the keeping of essence and existence in order.
Like most Australians he was good at games. One recalls in particular his prowess at tennis. He was also very fond of walking. In his company the present writer has explored the Dublin bills and tramped across the plains around Louvain discussing the years that were yet to be. And should the walks on occasions be not too far but only to join parties at Sruthan or Glendhu, Noel Hehir with accustomed self-sacrifice would always be the first to stack up the fire or ‘lay the table’.
It was a privilege to have known one who was so admirable in religious observance and so loyal a friend. He died when not so old, but he has accomplished much for God and Australia.
May he rest in peace”.

Hehir, Thomas, 1892-1955, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1439
  • Person
  • 04 December 1892-13 February 1955

Born: 04 December 1892, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Entered: 07 September 1912, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1925, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1928, Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia
Died: 13 February 1955, St Aloysius College, Milson’s Point, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Older brother of Noel - RIP 1947

by 1919 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1923 at Hastings, Sussex, England (LUGD) studying
by 1927 at Paray-le-Monial France (LUGD) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Torn Hehir, elder brother to Noel, was a cheerful youth, always full of life and well to the fore when anything was being done. He was good at football and cricket, and educated at Xavier College. He studied law after he left school, and surprised his friends when he decided to enter the Society at St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, 7 December 1912. He later gained a BA at the National University of Ireland in classics, studied philosophy at Jersey, 1918-21, and did regency at Belvedere College, 1921-22, before theology at Ore Place, Hastings. Tertianship was at Paray-le-Monial, France.
Hehir returned to Australia in 1927 and was on the staff of Xavier College for one year before going to St Aloysius' College, Milsons Point, to take up duty as prefect of studies, a post that he held for eight years. He is remembered for being efficient and capable. The wayward quailed at the thought of an interview with him, but students found him most stimulating and inspiring. He had wide interests, was a voracious but selective reader with a most retentive memory.
In 1936 he was transferred to Riverview; but in 1937 he was back at St Aloysius' College for one year. The years 1938-39 were again spent teaching and as debating master at Riverview, but he returned again to St Aloysius' College in 1940 to take his brother Noel's place as rector. Sickness and the anxiety and worry of the war years caused him to age rapidly and he was a tired man when he was relieved of his burden in 1944. He gradually recovered to the extent that he was once again able to take the field as a football coach.
The best years of his life were spent at St Aloysius' College - he loved every stone of the place and he spent most of his holidays doing jobs in and around the school. He was interested in the senior students and enjoyed meeting Old Boys. Many of his former students, however, found him a very hard man, most severe in his manner and mode of disciplining. Most were scared of him, especially in his latter years.
For three years previous to his death he was deputy chairman of the NSW Catholic Secondary Teachers Association. He had most to do with the revision of the constitution of that body He was also the Catholic representative on the English syllabus committee for ten years.
He was a small man who worked hard and was steady and reliable. He was devoted to his younger brother, Noel, and after his death, Tom seemed to lose his own grip on life.

Helmick, Raymond G, 1931-2016, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1440
  • Person
  • 07 September 1931-21 April 2016

Born: 07 September 1931, Arlington VA, USA
Entered: 01 February 1951, Neo-Eboracensis Province (NEB)
Ordained: 27 August 1963
Final vows: 15 August 1973
Died: 21 April 2016, Weston MA, USA - United States East Province (UNE)

by 1980 came to Milltown (HIB) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/talking-to-terrorists/

Talking to ‘terrorists’
Ray Helmick SJ from Boston gave the welcoming address at the Spirituality and Trauma international conference in the Europa Hotel, Belfast, 9-14 March. Elias Osmondo SJ from Kenya, Michael Bingham SJ, Alan McGuickian SJ, Terry Howard SJ, and Frank Brady SJ, along with Padraig Swan, Director of Magis Ireland, also took part in the event which drew over two hundred people from here and abroad. Ray Helmick, spoke about his ecumenical work in Belfast in the seventies. He explained how the insights of St Ignatius about not only understanding those who differ from us but actually helping them to ‘save’ what they hold dear – their ‘proposition’ – led him “to take seriously, to converse with, to strive to save the proposition of those identified as ‘terrorist’.” Read his speech below.
Spirituality and Trauma Conference
Parliament Buildings, Stormont
March 9, 2011
Readiness to Hear One Another
Raymond G. Helmick, S.J.
Boston College
When I first came to Northern Ireland, early in June of 1972, this building had just been closed down and its Parliament suspended. On the Sunday when, with my colleagues, a group of Protestant and Catholic theology students from the United States planning to do work projects here for the summer, I arrived at the often-bombed railway station next door to the Europe Hotel, heading for our quarters in housing belonging to Queens University on Upper Crescent, all the streets we passed were guarded by armed masked men and the city felt full of menace. I was to work, with three others of our group, on the rebuilding of whole streets of houses burnt out the previous summer in North Belfast. My closest partner, a young Presbyterian from Pittsburg, had the skill to be laying brick, while I functioned as hod carrier. But it gave me opportunity to meet people of both traditions in Northern Ireland, including those armed men who had been guarding the streets. How to meet them? They wore the designation “men of violence” in the public eye. I made the assumption that they were not some sort of psychopaths, but instead people who had put their own lives at risk for purposes that made sense to them, as protectors of their own community. If I was ever to understand what was going on here, they were among those I must hear. I must not impose my own understanding on Northern Ireland’s situation but instead hear how its people, of all persuasions, understood it themselves, and if I were not talking to the people seen as most troubling, I would not be talking to the right people.
As of now, I think we can all be happy to see this conference opening in a building where a devolved Assembly meets and deals with the needs of this society, by invitation of the Office of a First Minister and Deputy First Minister from different sides of the community. A long and often painful journey has brought us here and we all have the task of caring for those who were bruised in the course of it.
I was sharply aware that, for Protestant Northern Ireland, the name “Jesuit” was one of the most frightening words in the English language. I remain always grateful for the generous way people from both sides of the community have received me. But as I find myself invited now to address the opening of this conference, I think I should bring something Jesuit to it. This is a page of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola, an introductory page called the “Praesupponendum,” the “Presupposition” for the exercises. When I identify myself as a Jesuit I have always hoped this might be the most Jesuit thing about me, the spirit in which I have tried to meet all the different expectations people in many different conflict situations would have of me. Ignatius, 16th century soldier that he was, determined to live a life of faith after seeing the hollowness of the life he had led to that point, went through a lengthy period of reflection as a hermit in a cave at Manresa in Spain. When he emerged he structured his experience into this manual, the Spiritual Exercises, and began, even as a student in the universities of Salamanca and Paris, to guide others through these exercises, so that they could make their own decisions about their lives. Because he was not a trained theologian at this stage, his work attracted the dangerous and suspicious attention of the Inquisition.
The essential question in all this is: Whom shall I exclude from my moral community? At the very beginning of Ignatius’ book, he has this remarkable page, the Presupposition to the Exercises. It reads: To assure better cooperation between the one who is giving the Exercises and the one who receives them, and more beneficial results to both, it is necessary to suppose that every good Christian is more ready to save the proposition of another than to condemn it as false. If he is unable to save the proposition, the one who made it should be asked how he understands it, and if he understands it badly, it should be discussed with him with love. If this does not suffice, all appropriate means should be used so that, understanding his proposition rightly, he may save it. This short paragraph has been put through many processes of translation. The original was in Ignatius’ rough local vernacular Spanish. It was rendered into Latin and into a more literary Spanish and eventually into numerous other languages, those more often translated from the Latin or from the more elegant Spanish than from the original. The paragraph scandalised many editors of the Spiritual Exercises to such an extent that it was left out of several editions, and when it was retained the final sentence was often translated to mean that the one giving the Exercises should argue the case with the exercitant so as to win the argument and make him abandon his proposition. Not so the original, in which Ignatius is still, even at that stage, arguing that he should be helped to save his proposition, not to abandon it.
You see the radicalism of this procedure. At one time I used to carry it about, copied out by hand in the original rough Spanish, as Ignatius wrote it, in a diary/date-book which I carried about in my pocket, until I ripped out the page to give it to a close associate of the great Lebanese Shi’ite Imam Musa al-Sadr, the Ghandi-like figure who had founded a Movement for the Dispossessed of all creeds in Lebanon and was most universal in his dialogue with all creeds, Christian and Muslim, an ever radical voice of peace. Musa, by the time I met his associates, holy man that he was, had already been “disappeared” in Colonel Gadaffi’s Libya, surely killed, but his Shi’ite followers in Lebanon, used to the idea of vanishing Imams who would return, sought in every way to plead with Libya for his release. I found that his spirit closely matched what I had learned from the Ignatian Praesupponendum.
You note that this is not simply a proposal of Christian charity in our discourse. It is a theory of knowledge, applicable to all, Christian or not; specific to the Christian only insofar as it is a practical living-out, in its openness to the other, of Christian faith. If I am to win all the arguments, know it all beforehand, my mind has already shut down. The proposition of the other, of course, refers to what is truly important in the other’s perception, experience, conviction. It is not as if there were no truth criterion. If I am to learn, I must approach the other’s proposition with openness. Winning an argument will get me nowhere and I will lose the light that the other’s perception could give me. But the other will learn also, coming to an understanding of his own proposition that will enrich it and lead deeper into truth. I said that I find, in this Presupposition to the Ignatian Exercises, the most Jesuit thing by which I would like to define myself. We Jesuits are often seen as people who win arguments, who have an answer to everything, whose objective is to turn people away from their own “propositions” to ours. But that is the very opposite to what Ignatius proposes here. There is a bit of the “Don’t, please, turn me over to the Inquisition, at least until you’ve thought about this some more.” But at its root there is a way of life. Now we may meet persons or groups whose proposition truly repels us. Here the “terrorist” may be our primary example. But it is this determination to save the other’s proposition that has led me to take seriously, to converse with, to strive to save the proposition of those identified as “terrorist.” That has certainly included all the militant groups here in Northern Ireland. I never agreed with their belief that violence was the necessary or an acceptable answer to their problems, but found I had to respect their dignity as persons and, normally, the integrity of their commitment.
The same determination brought me to seek out Yasser Arafat when he was most despised as “terrorist,” Yitzhak Shamir when he seemed the least likely of Israel prime ministers to work for peace, Ariel Sharon as well as to likelier men like Yitzhak Rabin or Ehud Barak, the Druze leader Walid Joumblatt and all the other leaders of warring factions, without exception, in Lebanon, the Hezbollah leadership included, all to be respected so as to find what truth lay hidden behind their often violent impulses. It meant treating respectfully and listening with sympathy to Serbs, Croats and the suffering Muslims of Bosnia. And in the more recent situation of the Middle East, it means open conversation both with the current Israeli government and with Hamas. This must, of course, be going somewhere. What I seek, in my conversation with such people, is to interpret, to understand what is going on. It will seldom much resemble what I am reading in the paper. I may not presume to offer the interpretation myself, but can only construct it in respectful conversation with all the players. People in mortal conflict tend to live in their bubbles, unable to confer with anyone outside the choir. They are filled with negative stereotypes of their opponents, but still curious about what makes them tick. To take part in a conversation that involves those opposite numbers, even at third hand, is usually welcome to them, and may well lead to direct communication between them. But the interpretation that results, endorsed by all sides, will normally open up options that were not otherwise seen. It may be difficult to make alternative options genuinely convincing, but if they are, violence as an option can no longer be seen as legitimate.
My first intuition with the militants of Northern Ireland eventually proved itself, as these movements and organisations, the very ones most involved in the conflict, were themselves the ones that took the major initiatives toward the peace. I had had the experience for some six weeks during the hunger strike in the prison in 1981, of mediating between the IRA’s Army Council and Britain’s Northern Ireland Office. Part of my recommendation at that time had been that it be made possible for the prisoners to use the prison as a place to plan the peace. In later years, until the Maze Prison, Long Kesh, was emptied and torn down, I spent much time in its H-Blocks, conversing with prisoners from both sides in sessions that we dignified with the name of “seminars,” about a future of peace.
Decisions had to be made, of course, by the leadership of each organisation outside the prison, but the thinking was done there in the cell-blocks. People on either side came to the recognition that neither would ever have a satisfactory life in Ireland unless they learned to accommodate the other side.
Accommodation sounds a very meagre form of reconciliation, but it had vital importance. The mantra of my own conversations in the prison was that both sides needed to become the guarantors of one another’s difference. It is from such thoughts as these that there came the cease-fires of 1994 and the process of negotiation that has led to the actual establishment of a functioning power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. The long delay, to a great extent, resulted from the fact that those who regarded themselves as the most righteous, who had never taken to the gun, were so slow to learn that the name of the game was now accommodation, but instead continued looking for victory over the other side. One expects church to have been a factor in all this. In Ireland, the various churches were rather disappointing, and the protagonists, those who were engaged in creating the peace in their organisations and in the prison, had in many cases become thoroughly disillusioned with church. But it was their ingrained disposition of readiness to respect the dignity of the other, a most profound residue of their faith, that ultimately guided them past their apprehensions and enmity to that goal of accommodation.
If churches and their leadership had often seemed to have little more to say about the conflict than “Don’t blame us,” there were outstanding clerical figures, unfailingly critical but always respectful, who offered genuinely helpful advice and guidance to the militant groups. None was more important than Father Alex Reid of the Clonard Monastery off Belfast’s Falls Road, who gained the respect of the IRA and its leadership and became critically important to its planning of the peace. It is fascinating to learn that, through the mediation of his Redemptorist superiors in Rome and of then Archbishop Justin Rigali, Pope John Paul II kept constantly abreast of Alex Reid’s work.
On the Protestant side, Presbyterian Minister Roy Magee was of equal importance in his influence with the Loyalist paramilitaries, helping them to create openings for peace. It was he who discovered and encouraged the extraordinary work of prisoner Gusty Spence, convicted of multiple murders, who devoted himself to educating his fellows in the prison in their history, in the character of their own community, and in the opportunities to transform their society into one of peace. Gusty became an important catalyst both for Protestant and for Catholic prisoners.
This fascinating history of the prison in Northern Ireland has its counterpart in what happened on South Africa’s Robben Island, the prison located far out in the harbour of Capetown where Nelson Mandela worked with his fellow prisoners at developing the transformative ways of peace, of forgiveness and reconciliation for his country. We may very well be seeing, if we care to look, comparable things happen in the Israeli prisons where political Palestinians – one thinks of Marwan Barghouti – are building consensus now on how to achieve a just peace. If I may return to my Ignatian “Presupposition,” it is such as these who, “understanding [their] proposition rightly,” can become the initiators of the serious work for peace. In what can I or anyone else root ourselves, then, in such work? The most basic recognition for me was that, in order to be friend of one side in a conflict, one need not become enemy to the other, but can be the partisan of the peace, a peace that will not cover over the wrongs either side has suffered. For the outsider to become the partisan of either side in such a conflict is to become excess baggage. There are plenty of partisans there already, and it is not the outsider’s conflict. The task is working for reconciliation. Once the third-party outsider has taken one side against the other his usefulness as mediator is gone. That for the outsider. Where is the task for persons experiencing the conflict themselves with all its pain and trauma. Most useful is to sense in the other, especially in those from whom we have suffered most offence, the dignity of the human person. I can put that in religious language for those able to respond in terms of faith. Recognizing in the other the image of God acknowledges the common heritage of the three Abrahamic religions which unite in basing the dignity of all human persons on their creation in the image of God. It has always impressed me that the most prominent human rights organisation in Israel takes the name B’Tselem, “in the image,” from the biblical phrase b’tselem elohim, “in the image of God.” This yields a basis for human rights broader than the purely individualist one that we have inherited from the 18th century Enlightenment. In the heat of conflict people will commonly see the other in terms other than those of common humanity and dignity. It is then that we need most to concentrate not on the trauma, what has happened to ourselves, but on what has happened to the other, what experience of theirs has led them to act as they have toward us, seeing them in the rawness and hurt of their humanity, which is like our own. In seeing them so, we are able to break down the stereotypes, the negative images of the other that we have understood practically as loyalty tests for ourselves, revise the received version of history that sees the other only in terms of enmity and events only in terms of offence. We are then solidly on the road to reconciliation, to the restoration of our relations by which we can live in appreciation of one another, even in those differences that enrich our society.

◆ The Jesuits of Canada and the US https://jesuits.org/profile-detail/Raymond-Helmick

Helmick, Raymond G
Jesuit Father Raymond G. Helmick died on April 21, 2016. He was born on Sept. 7, 1931, in Arlington, Massachusetts, a western suburb of Boston, and grew up there. Fr. Helmick was the second of three children. His sister Marie was the oldest; his brother Bill, six years younger, became a diocesan priest. Fr. Helmick attended St. Agnes Parish schools through the ninth grade and then transferred to Boston College High School. He graduated in 1949 and entered the Shadowbrook novitiate on his 18th birthday.
It turned out he would enter the Society twice. The first time he developed a stomach ulcer during his primi year and, because there had been a spate of ulcer diagnoses in the novitiate, superiors decided that first-year novices so afflicted would be sent home. Fr. Helmick was determined to re-apply, however, and he entered Shadowbrook again in February 1951. After philosophy studies at Weston (1954-1957), he spent regency teaching history and religion at St. George’s College in Kingston, Jamaica (1957-1960).
He did theology studies at Sankt Georgen, in Frankfurt, Germany, and was ordained a priest in the Frankfurt cathedral in August 1963. He returned to the
U.S. the following year for tertianship at Pomfret, Conn. As was the custom with men assigned to the missions, he returned to Jamaica and St. George’s.
Expecting to teach at the Kingston seminary, Fr. Helmick left Jamaica in 1967 to pursue graduate studies in ecumenical theology at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. In the summer of 1972, he led a group of theology students to Belfast, a city notable then for its sectarian conflicts.
When he left Union in 1973, he moved to London, where he set up an ecumenical center focused on conflict resolution. From 1982 to 1985, he was based at NGOs in Washington. Then he moved to Boston College, where for the next 17 years he continued his conflict-resolution work while teaching related courses in the theology department and at St. John’s Seminary. From 2002-2004, he served as senior associate at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington.
Fr. Helmick had a lifelong interest in music, architecture, and other art forms. In his years of graduate study at Union he relaxed by building a harpsichord.
Illness brought him to Campion Center in 2012. He continued as many of his activities as health allowed (even teaching on a part-time basis at B.C. until 2015. He died peacefully in the early morning of April 21, 2016.

Hennelly, Francis G, 1913-1989, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/507
  • Person
  • 05 April 1913-13 February 1989

Born: 05 April 1913, Ballindine, County Mayo
Entered: 03 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1944, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1947, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 13 February 1989, Our Lady’s Hospice, Dublin

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

Early education at St Jarlath’s College, Tuam, County Galway; Tertianship at Rarthfarnham

Henry, William Joseph, 1859-1928, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/704
  • Person
  • 02 April 1859-25 March 1928

Born: 02 April 1859, Cahore, Draperstown, County Derry
Entered: 14 September 1874, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1892, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1895, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner St, Dublin
Died: 25 March 1928, Milltown Park, Dublin

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

by 1877 at Roehampton, London (ANG) studying
by 1879 at Laval, France (FRA) studying
by 1881 at St Aloysius, Jersey, Channel Islands (FRA) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
His brother was Sir Denis Henry KC (First Lord Chief Justice Northern Ireland having been Attorney General for Ireland, Solicitor General and MP for South Londonderry)

After his Novitiate he studied Philosophy at Jersey and Theology at Milltown, and was Ordained there 1892.
He held the positions of Rector at Belvedere, Mungret and Milltown. He was later Professor of Theology at Milltown.
He was then sent to Gardiner St, and left there to become Rector at Tullabeg. His health began to fail and he died in Dublin 25 March 1928.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 3rd Year No 3 1928

Obituary :
Fr. William Henry
Fr. William Henry died at Milltown Park on the 25th of last March.

In 1922, when in class with the Juniors at Tullabeg, he got a paralytic stroke and had to he carried to his room. He never completely recovered, and the third attack, early in March, proved fatal. Fr. Henry entered the noviceship at Milltown 14th Sept. 1874. At the end of two years, he went to Roehampton for his juniorate, but after one year he was recalled and sent to complete the juniorate at Tullabeg, then a flourishing College, with Fr. William Delany as its Rector. At this distance of time the move seems a strange one, and to understand it rightly the state of education in Ireland at the time must be taken into account. In our own Colleges the “Ratio” was still followed, but in many places it had fallen into a gentle slumber, and needed a good deal of waking up. Things were not much, if at all, better in the rest of the country. The educational authorities were satisfied with - a little Knowledge, - indeed a very little was quite enough for them. One day in the Summer of 1873, a learned professor of the Catholic University of Ireland paid a visit to Tullabeg. The three higher classes were brought down in turn to meet him, and he examined them in the Latin and Greek lessons they had for that particular day, The boys did not know what it meant, but in a short time many of them received formidable parchments declaring them to be undergraduates of the C. U. I.
To improve matters, preparation for London University Matriculation Exam was commenced in Tullabeg in 1875.
It was to prepare for this exam. that Mr Henry went to Tullabeg. He was accompanied by Mr Guinee, and at the College they met Mr James Murphy. AIl three passed the exam at the end of the year.
1878 found Mr Henry amongst the philosophers at Laval where he remained for two years, and was then, with the rest of the Community, turned out of the house by the French Government on the 30. June 1880.He finished philosophy at Jersey. It would be putting things very mildly to say that Mr Henry was a hard working student. He was positively, cruel to himself. “To-morrow will be a Villa-day” , he once said to a companion, “I shall tire myself well in the morning, we shall start for the country house as late as possible, and have a walk in the evening”. That was the dominant note of his student life. Furthermore, if hard work ever exempted a man from the law of fasting Fr. Henry was that man, Yet he never availed of his privilege. He fasted rigidly, though the food was so different from that in his own country.
Seven years of teaching followed - two at Clongowes, four at Belvedere, during two of which he was Prefect of Studies, and one at Milltown as Superior and Master of Juniors. That he was severe on the boys he had to deal with admits of no doubt. He expected from them, to some extent, the devotion to duty that he mercilessly exacted from himself. That severity
did not proceed from any strain of unkindness in the man's character, but from a stern sense of what be owed to the boys whose training was entrusted to him. Many an event showed that beneath a hard exterior a kindly heart was beating.
In 1888 he began Theology at Louvain, but in the following year the new Theologate was opened at Milltown and he joined it. After Theology he spent another year teaching at Clongowes, then came the Tertianship at Tullabeg. In 1894 he was appointed vice-Rector of Belvedere, and Rector the year following. He held that office until 1900 when he went to Mungret as Rector. After three years he returned to Milltown as vice-Rector, and was succeeded at the end of the second years by Fr. Peter Finlay. At Milltown he was Professor of the short course for four years, of Moral for one, and spent another as Spiritual Father. In 1909 he went to Gardiner St, where he did splendid work, until in 1919 he became Rector once more, this time of Tullabeg. After eight years he returned to Milltown where the final call came on the 25th March, and he went to his reward.
No one would venture to say that simplicity, in the ordinary sense of the word, was the characteristic virtue of his life, but if we accept the definition given by St. Francis de Sales : “so a heart that looks straight to truth, to duty and to God”, we have found the key to the strenuous, holy, self sacrificing life of Fr. William Henry.

Sincere thanks are due to the author of the following appreciation :
He came from that strong northern stock, and from that corner of the north, that gave, I believe, more than one President to America and many a captain of Industry and many a distinguished soldier to other lands.
Willie Henry was only a few months over 15, when he joined at Milltown Park. But even then the native lines of character were well defined. And yet I have heard those that knew him in the noviciate say that not a novice amongst them was readier to see a yoke, poke a bit of fun, or mischievously pull a friend's leg. But still it was a hard headed, solid little man they got amongst them. In meditation books he chose one after some trial, and stuck to it all the way through - Avcneinus. A tough nut. Even in ordinary noviciate duties fellow novices told of a certain maturity in his attitude towards them that one would hardly expect from the youngest novice of them all. This union of stern purpose in time of silence, and of fun at recreation stamped him all through life.
I am afraid I cannot tell much about his career in the Society. The little I have to tell is of a side of him that is not so well known, indeed by some not even suspected - for energy and laborious, unremitting work were the outstanding features of his life. Duty, God's will, that out-topped all with him. What the work was did not so much matter. Was it his duty? He was every bit of him in it. I was perhaps more struck by some other things.
I remember once, when somewhat ailing, I was sent to his house for a rest. How genuinely good and kind he was. He met me on my arrival, brought me to my room, and saw himself that I had everything I needed. And then, afterwards, would come again and again to see how things were getting on, and if he could do anything for me. Before I left the house he
ceased to be Superior, and I could not help writing him a little note, and leaving it on his table, to thank him for his great kindness (It is no harm, is it, to salute gratefully the setting Sun?) He came to my room to acknowledge it - but Adam's apple gave him a lot of trouble, and he turned away to the window, as he said with big gentleness : “It was only yourself would have thought of it.” This was no new revelation of the man to me.
I had heard him over and over again talking about his boys, and I knew how they were in his heart. Indeed I doubt if I ever knew any master fonder of his boys. It was, I think, in '83 he went with the new Rector, Fr. Tom Finlay, to Belvedere. They made records in the Intermediate that year - records that have never since been broken. How keen Mr Henry was about it all. Once a number of scholastics were discussing the prospects, and one seemed to be a bit pessimistic about some of them. “I’ll Bet” said he “that each of you named will get an exhibition if he gets honour marks in your matter”.
It has been said many a time, that the best the Intermediate did for the schools was to start and foster a spirit of hard work. Mr Henry certainly did his part in that matter - and many a boy owed his after success to that same spirit of work he acquired under him in Belvedere or Clongowes. He was strong, somewhat dour, as I have said, with a voice of thunder that frightened youngsters sometimes, still his youngsters ran to him and gathered round him as he relaxed after school, and twitted them on their prospects of success.
In the closing years he was Superior at Tullabeg and there God's finger touched him - partial paralysis. During these trying years what sweetness and gentleness he showed to all. He kept pulling away at the work as if nothing much were wrong. The Tertian Fathers spoke keenly appreciative things of his head and heart, He was an even and understanding
Superior, eminently sane and manly. As for the two ailing saints who pray and suffer for us all, (two faithful old laundry maids). They never tire telling of his goodness to them. It wasn't merely that he visited them regularly, but he took infinite pains to read up things that would interest them and so distract them from their sufferings.
I have heard there was a strange little scene the night before he left Tullabeg for Milltown Park. The novices had given an excellent concert, and it was well through before the word went round amongst them that their old Rector was going away in the morning. The last item of the concert over, there was something like a rush for him, and forty pairs of hands wanted to take and press his. And many a young face just looked as they felt. They were very fond of him. He was utterly unprepared for it. lt was too much for him. But he was too manly and too pleased to attempt to hide how he felt. Well might he feel affectionate praise like that - praise beyond suspicion from the very little ones of the Province. Genuine it was, spontaneous, simple. You see they have still all that is best and most delightful in boys, and a great deal more that boys never have.
It was the same in the last months at Milltown Park. Every letter from it that mentioned his name - and all did that I saw, told of how he had won home to the hearts of all of them.
God rest you - good, brave, toil worn soldier of Christ.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father William Henry SJ 1859-1928
Many priests of the Irish Provice who did their noviceship at Tullabeg will remember the formidible yet kindly face of the Rector Fr William Henry. They can still picture him on his Rector’s walk with a group of novices around him, “Stick to your meditation and you’ll never leave the Society”, was his constant advice to us. It is related of him that in his early years he went through various meditation manuals, and finally selected one to which he was faithful for the rest of his life – Avecannius.

Born in Draperstown County Derry, on April 2nd 1859, he entered the Society in 1874. As a Jesuit he held many offices, b Rector in turn of Belvedere, Mungret and Tullabeg. It was as prefect of Studies at Belvedere in 1883 that he made his name. With Fr Tom Finlay as his Rector, he achieved results in the examinations at the end of the year, which have never been excelled before or after. He had a name for severity, perpetuated in some books written about Belvedere, but nobody could ever accuse him of being unjust. In fact, in the words of a biographer of his “I doubt if I knew any master fonder of boys, and certainly the boys showed their affection for him, as they used to run to him and gather round him in the yard after school”.

His name will always come up for discussion whenever ghost stories are on the round, for he is supposed to have laid a ghost in Mungret. A priest was seen at midnight at the graveyard on the Black Walk. Fr Henry is supposed to have gone to meet him. It is said that on the following morning, Fr Henry said a Requiem Mass, though this was forbidden by the rubrics of the day. Anyhow, the ghost never walked again. The only comment Fr Henry was every heard to make was “Fathers, be careful about your stipends for Masses”.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1928

Obituary

Father William Henry SJ

We regret to have to announce the death of Fr William Henry. To many “generations” of our Past his name will have no significence: but those of them who have passed forty will recall that he was Rector at Mungret from 1900 to 1903. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1874 and after the usual training in the Colleges and having finished his studies, at home and abroad he was in France studying Philosophy in 1880 when the Jesuits were expelled from that country - he was ordained priest in 1891. Three years later he was appointed Rector of Belvedere College, a position he held until 1900, when he became Rector of Mungret. In 1903 he was made Vice-Rector of Milltown Park and at the end of a few years was named a professor of Theology. In 1909 he was attached to St Francis Xavier's Church , Upper Gardiner St, where he worked until 1919 when he was appointed Rector of Tullabeg. He had retired from that office only a few months and was living at Milltown Park, when the last change came. He died this year on the feast of the Annunciation.

The fact that so much of his life was spent in command shows what was thought of his character and abilities, his judgment and firmness. No one who ever knew him had any doubt about his firmness : some would give that quality another name - especially the boys he taught at Tullabeg and Clongowes and Belvedere and Mungret. He could be called a stern man, - he has been so called - but he was certainly a just man. His sternness came partly from his temperament, but also in a great measure from his strong sense of duty and justice. And it was true that no one ever worked harder for his boys or took a deeper interest in them. But behind that granite exterior and that great voice, lay a tenderness of heart which few suspected, but which on rare occasions betrayed itself at some expression of gratitude or little gesture of appreciation and affection. It was certainly that side of his character, along with his cheerful patience in suffering, which manifested itself more and more in his last years at Tuilabeg, in his dealings with Tertians, and Juniors and novices. Requiescat in Pace.

Heron, Charles, 1915-1959, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/184
  • Person
  • 29 January 1915-17 May 1959

Born: 29 January 1915, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1933, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 30 July 1947, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1950, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 17 May 1959, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 34th Year No 3 1959

Belvedere College
On Sunday, 17th May, Fr. Heron died very unexpectedly. He taught his classes as usual on the day before and said Mass early on that Sunday morning. About midday he complained of a slight chill and retired to bed. Later he refused tea and about 6 p.m. Brother Loftus visited him and found him dead. The Community and the boys were stunned by the tragic news and all who knew him here will fully endorse the tribute paid to him in the obituary notice which appears in this issue. On the following Tuesday the boys attended Requiem Mass said by Fr. Rector in the Boys Chapel. The senior classes attended the Solemn Requiem at Gardiner Street sung by Fr. Minister, with Fr. O'Callaghan deacon, Fr. Murray sub-deacon, and Fr. O'Sullivan M.O. The remainder of the boys joined the seniors at Glasnevin where they lined the walk from the Mortuary Chapel to the grave. Many messages of sympathy and tributes to Fr. Heron were received.

Obituary :
Fr Charles Heron (1915-1959)
Born in Dublin, 29th January, 1915. Educated Belvedere College. Noviceship: Emo 1933-35. Rathfarnham Castle: Degree of B.A. in English and French, 1938. Philosophy in Tullabeg. Theology: Milltown Park. Ordained 30th July, 1947 by His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. John Charles McQuaid. Tertianship: Rathfarnham Castle, 1948-49. Minister of Mungret College, Limerick, 1950-52. Belvedere 1952-59; Senior French Master, President of Senior Debating Society. Assistant Prefect of Studies in Belvedere, 1957-59.
Fr. Charlie Heron's very sudden death, on Whit Sunday, 17th May, 1959, was a profound shock not merely to his family and the Belvedere Community but to the whole Province. On Whit Sunday morning he admitted to having a slight chill and was persuaded to go to bed. Fr. Heron then telephoned his brother, Mr. Chris. Heron, to cancel an appointment. He said he felt a little off colour; that it was nothing; that he had felt a little dizzy. At two o'clock in the afternoon he refused to eat and apologised for the trouble he had caused. At six o'clock the Infirmarian, Br. Loftus, found that he had died quietly in his sleep.
Fr. Heron was above all a reliable man. If he were asked to do something one could be sure that it would be done and, if he were taking part in a joint enterprise, one could always presume with complete confidence that his part would be accomplished with faithful and even meticulous care. He was a most regular religious whose life was centred on his work. One's clearest memory of him, perhaps, is as seated in his chair with a mound of corrected exercises on one side, a heap on his knees and another pile of theme books waiting to be done. He was silent and very reserved. Those who knew him well, however, were well aware of his verbal wit and his great capacity for enjoying wit in others. He was an easy and a pleasant man to live with: perhaps because he had those rather old-fashioned and valuable things - exquisite manners.
Professionally Fr. Heron was beyond reproach. His knowledge of the French language was remarkable for its erudition and scientific accuracy. He had singular success with his classes and one of his pupils won first place in Ireland in French in the Leaving Certificate: an unusual prize to be won by a boy. He went to great pains to see that his pupils had a practical reading knowledge of French by keeping them supplied with a carefully-chosen and copious amount of reading matter. Belvedere will long be in his debt for the quite remarkable library of modern French literature which he managed to build up. When one realises that all these books were bought very cheaply when Fr. Heron was doing parish supplies in France almost every summer and that they were acquired at the cost of many weary and hot afternoons searching the book-barrows on the banks of the Seine one is more than grateful to him. His work in the Senior Debating Society was symbolically crowned with success when, a few weeks ago, he listened to the B.B.C. programme celebrating the victory of the University College Dublin team and the personal victory of one of his own ex-pupils (Mr. Owen Dudley-Edwards) in the inter-university debating competition against all comers from Britain and Ireland.
The many choir-masters under whom he sang will remember the remarkable range of Fr. Heron's fine bass voice. His contemporaries will recall with pleasure his performance as “Shadbolt” in Milltown Park, But his favourite music, typically enough, was Bach: be could easily be persuaded to listen to a gramophone record of the Branden burger Concertos or the partita for unaccompanied violin.
Very close bonds of mutual trust and confidence bound him to his family. Since his mother's death he was, by their own testimony, an immense moral strength to his brother and his two sisters. Their loss has been great. We too have lost an example of the best kind of Jesuit as well as the company of a delightful companion. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1959

Obituary

Father Charles Heron SJ

On Whit-Sunday afternoon, May 17, Father Charles Heron SJ, our friend, colleague and master lay down in bed to nurse a suspected chill and that afternoon, while the city and his friends were enjoying the glories of summer outside, he died. The shock of the staternent does not reflect the shock of the occurrence to all of us who lived with him for years, to those who were his pupils and to the numbers of his friends and contemporaries. He had been on our staff for eight years and had been a pillar among us. It seemed likely that a man of his powerful physique, his regular habits and his magnificent health would live to be legend among us. For he had the makings of a legend in him. He was admired for his tall athletic figure, his prowess as a golfer, his keen judgement of football, at which he had been so redoubtable a forward. He was respected for his steady sane approach to life, its problems and troubles, He was capable of inspiring awe by his utter devotion to the planned life whether in the class-room or among his brothers in religion. He seemed to be in full control of events and of himself, so that there were no real emergencies which had to be faced without preparation. His person, his room, his class-work, his thernes, his very organisation of debates or selling French magazines all bore the same characteristic unhurried care, advance rational thought, calm execution. Never was man better prepared by his temper and by the practice of his life for the death which came to him. It came suddenly, but for it, a lifetime had made Charles Heron very ready indeed. Even in his earliest pictures in the Belvederian, as in his latest, the steady eye looks out at the world, an eye with an jaward-slow sense of humour but the eye of a poised man who is confident of the goal whither he goes. This college feels and will continue to feel, his loss deeply. His confrères will miss his devoted regularity founded on the deepest religious principles and the most rooted natural traits. His pupils will miss his thorough and really magisterial work for them. None more apt could have taken and worn the cloak of the great Mr Fogarty. His friends of Old Belvedere for whom his character held few surprises, will feel they have lost a solid bulwark in all their difficulties. His family, will feel that the most profoundly affectionate, if undemonstrative, of family men is lost to them. We are united in our loss and in our appreciation of this fine man, religious and friend who bas been taken from us to his early crown and bappiness.

Charles Heron entered Belvedere in First of Grammar in 1924 and went through the full course here until 1932. His record was one of solid application rather than brilliance, though it must be noted, as the small cloud no bigger than a man's hand, that from the first he was a prizewinner in French. He was a member of Paddy Quinn's Cup winning Junior team in 1928-29 and in the next three years was on the cup-teams, once on the Junior team and again on the Senior team for two years. Someone, who knew not his Charles, wrote in the Belvederian of those years that he lacked determination. This is something that he simply never did lack. In his last year he was prefect and member of the Sodality of Our Lady. In September 1932 he entered Emo Park as a novíce of the Society. He followed the Jesuit course of formation in his usual unperturbed, devout methodical way. After his novitiate, Rathfarnham and University College, where he specialised in languages for three years; Tullamore, where he read philosophy for three years; teaching and prefecting in Mungret and Clongowes for three further years, Milltown Park for four years during which he was ordained priest in July 1946; tertianship in Rathfarnham, 1947 1948. The long course ended, he left to become Minister and Vice-Rector of Mungret, here he remained until he came to Belvedere in 1951. Though he was a man ever ready to do his duty where it lay yet it is quite certain that his return to Belvedere was a great joy to him. Here he felt he had his roots, here his interest was keen and he knew that the problems were familiar to him. Here he worked with closest application, here he lived his regular life of prayer, work and the recreation of his beloved golf or watching with appreciative eye' the boys at their games. Here he died quietly and regularly. Here he has left his monument in our hearts and in our memories. We will all be edified in our own lives by the memory of this tolerant, sane, devoted man who spent his life of quiet devotion to God in his chosen vocation of saving his own soul and the souls of others. These others we are. May he rest in peace.

Hession, Laurence, 1901-1978, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1444
  • Person
  • 24 July 1901-07 February 1978

Born: 24 July 1901, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England
Entered: 31 August 1923, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1935, Milltown Park, Dublin
Professed: 15 August 1938
Died: 07 February 1978, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1930 in Australia - Regency

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Laurence Hession received his secondary education at St Mary's, Chesterfield, and at Campion House, Osterley, England, for two years. He worked in the field of engineering before entering the Society at Tullabeg, Ireland, 31 August 1923. His juniorate was at Rathfarnham, philosophy and theology at Milltown Park, and regency at St Aloysius' College, Milsons Point, 1929-32.
After tertianship at St Beuno's, Wales, he returned to St Aloysius' College, Milsons Point, 1937-44, and again, 1951-55, teaching junior English, religion and mathematics. At one time he was minister, 1941-44. He taught at Sr Louis School, Claremont, WA, 1945-50, and was minister at Canisius College, Pymble, 1956-57. His longest stay in one place was as assistant director of the Riverview observatory, 1958-77.
Hession had a wry sense of humor, and a somewhat impatient nature. He was a misogynist until his latter years when he met caring women, and said the Latin Mass until the end in his own chapel. He was fascinated with some aspects of science and, at St Aloysius' College in the 1950s, made a simple but effective grand clock for the entrance hall to the junior school. In his earlier time at the College, one student, John Walker, recalled his appreciation of Hession for being kind, cheerful and a good sport, as well as introducing him to several literary authors he grew to love.
At Riverview he enjoyed kippers for breakfast and had two hates, the boys playing basketball on third yard, and Br Morsel dropping a “fly wheel” as he mended watches! As assistant director of the observatory, it was his job to take the daily readings from the machines. He would comment that Riverview was a delightful place apart from the students, and he did not seem to relish the advent of Fr Laurie Drake as observatory director.
He was a heavy smoker all his life and he enjoyed the evening libations. He finally died of lung cancer.

Note from John Carpenter Entry
When the Superior of the Mission - William Lockington - visited Lester House, Osterley, London, he impressed three seminarians, John Carpenter, Laurence Hessian and Hugo Quigley. All three joined the Austraian Province.

Note from Hugo Quigley Entry
He was enrolled at Osterly, the house for “late vocations” conducted by the English Jesuits to prepare students for entry into various seminaries. There, with John Carpenter and Laurence Hession, he answered the appeal of the then superior of the Australian Mission, William Lockington, for men willing to volunteer for the Society in Australia.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Was an electrician at Osterley England before Entry

Hickey, Joseph M, 1854-1927, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1445
  • Person
  • 14 August 1854-06 January 1927

Born: 14 August 1854, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 12 November 1874, Milltown Park
Ordained: 1888
Final Vows: 02 February 1894
Died: 06 January 1927, Los Angeles, CA, USA - Californiae Province (CAL)

Transcribed HIB to TAUR : 1876; TAUR to CAL : 1909

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Joined Turin Province (for American Mission)

Higgins, Jeremiah, 1892-1965, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1448
  • Person
  • 30 September 1892-23 January 1965

Born: 30 September 1892, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1910, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1924, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1928, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 23 January 1965, Mater Hospital, Dublin

Part of the St Francis Xavier, Gardiner St, Dublin community at the time of death

by 1916 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
1918-1921 Rathfarnham - Studied for BA at UCD
by 1927 at Valkenburg, Limburg, Netherlands (GER I) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 40th Year No 2 1965
Fr Jerry Higgins SJ (1892-1965)
Fr. John Casey was for many years Spiritual Father to the philosophers in Tullabeg. He was level-headed and solidly sound, and in clear-cut statements gave carefully measured advice. To a philosopher about to begin his colleges he remarked : “I see you are assigned to the Crescent. I see you are the only scholastic there. I see too that Fr. Higgins is going there from Galway. Make a friend of Fr. Higgins. He is a man who will say little at recreation. But visit him in his room. You will find him kind and helpful. He is a friend worth having”.
Fr, Bat Coughlan was a rock of wisdom and learning, a confessor sought after by laymen and priests. “If ever I meet a case”, he once said, “that requires patience and kindness and understanding I know no one better to whom to send it than to Fr. Higgins, I am reluctant, however, to impose on him because I know how much such cases cost him in physical energy”.
These are unsolicited testimonies from two very different men, These were men who had lived with Fr. Higgins and had come to know his worth. Those who had not lived with him or who never broke through his quiet reserve found it difficult to keep in conversation with him. When one knew Fr. Higgins, conversation either flowed naturally or the silences were restful. One did not feel the need to talk, a friend was near. Fr. Higgins will be remembered with affection by all those who lived with him especially in Gardiner Street and more especially during the seven years when he was Minister. It was as Minister that he was forced to show to all, gifts that were well known to his intimate friends. His room as Minister was a “half-way house” for every member of the community, and he was everyone's friend. He was never fussed, one got the impression that the complicated and ever changing weekly lists of preachers, supplies and Masses worked automatically, Fr. Higgins had a charm that attracted every one to him, he was cultured and refined. He knew and loved a good book, he delighted in good pictures and appreciated good music. He read German, French, Italian and Irish classics in their original language, and he wrote perfect Latin with ease and his sermons in English were considered to be gems of literature - many have expressed the hope that they have been preserved and may perhaps be published. Fr. Higgins spent most of his life in the classroom. With his rich background of wide reading and his naturally well ordered mind and a manner, though quiet, demanded respect, he was a teacher well above average. Teaching, however, must have been a trial to him, because he was not the type that would force an unwilling horse to drink ! He was at his best when his listeners were sympathetic. Intellectual converts appreciated him. On every page of the Baptismal Register in Gardiner Street his name appears and often more than once, during his years there. He has an uncanny gift of finding the exact book that answered all the needs of the varied converts whom he instructed during his years in Gardiner Street. One would think that it was just by chance that he picked the right book-but far from it. His knowledge of the good books was wide and his judgment on a piece of writing was accurate and fair. He loved a good joke, and could tell one. He could sum up a person or a situation in a few words that said everything.
Fr. Higgins detested the sham and the artificial in every department, education, spiritual life, national life. His keen and balanced judgment saw through every facade. It was no light cross for him to bear with those who were satisfied with the second-best. Fr. Jerry was a delightful companion on a journey and he 'made' a villa. To the last years of his life he had the gift of joining in the general fun of men twenty or thirty years his junior. A game of cards where Jerry took a hand was sure to be an enjoyable game, if for no other reason than that he gave himself wholeheartedly to it. Order and neatness and regularity and painstaking care to detail marked everything he did. One would venture to say that nowhere in the Province are there Ministers' books written up-to date with a minimum of words and a maximum of information as one will find in Gardiner Street covering the years that Fr. Jerry was Minister there. As a confessor he had a big following of hard cases. “Go to Fr. Jeremiah” was a cant-phrase in the underworld of human weakness. The cardinals in the church missed him much when unable to be their Spiritual Director. The nurses in the Mater wept when he died. He is missed in Gardiner Street community, too. Ar dheis Dé go raibh sé.

Higgins, Michael A, 1854-1914, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1450
  • Person
  • 21 June 1854-30 December 1914

Born: 21 June 1854, Clonmellon, County Meath
Entered: 04 November 1882, Forissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Ordained: 31 July 1892, St Francis Xavier Gardiner Street, Dublin
Professed: 02 February 1900
Died: 30 December 1914, St Charles College, Grand Côteau LA, USA - Neo-Aurelianensis Province (NOR)

Ent HIB 22 September 1873 at Milltown LEFT 1874 - but joined NOR in 1882

by 1890 came to Milltown (HIB) studying as (NOR) and is in 1890 NOR CAT as Michael A Higgins same DOB

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - LEFT Society from illness; RE ENTERED in New Orleans Province

Hoey, Michael, 1797-1872, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1453
  • Person
  • 30 October 1797-13 December 1872

Born: 30 October 1797, Garristown, County Dublin
Entered: 10 October 1831, St Louis MO, USA - Missourian Province (MIS)
Professed: 15 August 1844
Died: 13 December 1872, Florissant, MO, USA - Missourian Province (MIS)

Hogan, Edmund, 1831-1917, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/472
  • Person
  • 23 January 1831-26 November 1917

Born: 23 January 1831, Clonmel, Cobh, County Cork
Entered: 29 November 1847, St Acheul, Amiens, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1855
Final vows: 15 August 1866
Died: 26 November 1917, St Ignatius, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin

by 1854 at Laval, France (FRA) studying Theology 2
by 1856 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying Theology 4
by 1865 at Rome, Italy (ROM) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
“Educated at UCD; D Litt 1897; Fellow and Examiner RUI; Professor of Irish and History at UCD; RIA Council, Todd Professor of Celtic Languages, Sec for Foreign Correspondence; Governor of the High School of Irish Learning; Brehon Law Commissioner for the publication of the ancient laws and institutes of Ireland; Has written more twenty or thirty works .......” - Catholic Who’s Who and Year Book”, 1915.

On his death, the following notice was published :
Father Hogan, who passed away peacefully after an illness which, up to the last, had not impaired his mental powers, was the last link with the pioneer days of O'Donovan, O’Curry and Zeuss. He was born in Clonmel, close to Queenstown 23 January 1831. Entering the Jesuit Noviceship at St Acheul at the age of sixteen, he was Ordained nine years later, and spent long and active years in labouring, now in the pulpit and confessional, now in the classroom. He was one of the founders of the Sacred Heart College, Limerick, in 1859, remaining there until 1865.
A subsequent year in Rome contributed largely to the definite trend of Father Hogan’s mind and interests towards the study of Irish antiquities. The Irish and other archives in the Eternal City started him upon a field of enquiry where he was to prove himself a singularly diligent and competent toiler. In spite of many difficulties, including the failure of his eyesight, he pursued studies along various lines of Irish linguistics, history and archaeology, and commenced in 1880 the publication of a series of works, many of which, at least will survive as imperishable monuments of energetic and well-directed scholarship.
The list of over twenty numbers would be too long to print here - we may mention as types, the “Documenta de Sto Patricio’, the “Battle of Ros-na-Righ” and other volumes in the Todd Lecture Series. “Ibernia Ignatiana”, “Distinguished Irishmen of the 16th Century” and the great “Onomasticom Goedelicum (completed in his 77th year) - a work bearing witness to his powers of laborious and minute research.
From 1888-1908 Father Hogan filled the Chair of Irish Language and History at UCD. He was a useful and active member of the RIA, and a Commissioner for the publication of the Brehon Laws.
His many fine personal qualities, no less than his eminent merits as a scholar, gained him the esteem of a circle extending even beyond the shores of the country, for which he laboured so untiringly and unselfishly, and will cause his departure, even at the ripe old age of eighty-seven, to be sincerely mourned.”

Note from Joseph O’Malley Entry :
He made his Noviceship in France with William Kelly, and then remained there for studies with Eugene Browne and Edmund Hogan

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Hogan, Edmund Ignatius
by Eoghan Ó Raghallaigh

Hogan, Edmund Ignatius (1831–1917), priest, Irish-language scholar, and historian, was born 23 January 1831 at Belvelly, near Cobh, Co. Cork, youngest son of William Hogan, craftsman, and Mary Hogan (née Morris). Though the older members of the family were native speakers of Irish, he was brought up through English. He entered the Jesuit Order at 16, beginning his noviciate in the Jesuits' French province on 29 November 1847. He stayed there until 1854, when, having completed his first two years of theology, he transferred to St Beuno's College, Flintshire, Wales, where he was ordained on 23 September 1855, completing his fourth year of theology the following year. He took his final vows in 1866.

On his return to Ireland he began teaching at Tullabeg House, King's Co. (Offaly) (1857–8), and was transferred the following year to Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare. He was one of the founders in 1859 of Sacred Heart College, The Crescent, Limerick, where he stayed until 1865. That year he travelled to Rome, where he researched Irish Jesuit history. This resulted in Ibernia Ignatiana (1880). From 1873 to 1877 he was attached to the Catholic University, teaching moral theology. He served as priest and teacher in various Irish Jesuit colleges, although his teaching duties gradually decreased as he devoted himself more to scholarship. He began teaching in UCD in the 1880s and served as professor of Irish language and history there until the dissolution of the Royal University of Ireland in 1909. He was appointed examiner in Celtic by the RUI in 1888 and subsequently served as fellow in Celtic/Irish until 1909. He received a D.Litt. honoris causa from the RUI in 1897. In the RIA, to which he was elected in 1890, he was Todd professor of Celtic languages (1891–8), a member of the council (1899–1904, 1905–9), and secretary for foreign correspondence (1907–9). In addition, he was appointed a commissioner in 1894 for the publication of the ancient laws of Ireland and was a governor of the School of Irish Learning from its foundation in Dublin in 1903.

His impressive literary output in Latin, Irish, and English began in 1866 with Limerick, its history and antiquities. Other publications include Cath Ruis na Ríg for Bóinn (1892), Distinguished Irishmen of the sixteenth century (1894), History of the Irish wolf dog (1897), and A handbook of Irish idioms (1898). He spent ten years preparing his greatest, and as yet unsurpassed, work, Onomasticon Goedelicum (1910), a reference book on names of places and tribes found in Gaelic manuscripts. After its publication his sight and general health began to deteriorate and he lived a life of semi-retirement.

He died 26 November 1917 at the Jesuit House, Lower Leeson St., Dublin, and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery. Papers relating to him are housed at the Jesuit Archives, 35 Lower Leeson St., Dublin.

Royal University of Ireland Calendar, 1888–1909; Douglas Hyde, ‘A great Irish scholar’, Studies, vi (1917), 663–8; John MacErlean, ‘A bibliography of Dr Hogan, S.J.’, Studies, vi (1917), 668–71; IBL, ix (1918), 64; The Society of Jesus, A page of history: story of University College Dublin 1883–1909 (1930); Michael Tierney (ed.), Struggle with fortune (1954), 33; William Hogan, ‘Rev. Edmund Hogan S.J.: an eminent Great Island scholar’, Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., lxx (1965), 63–5; Beathaisnéis, i, iv, v

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Edmund Hogan 1831-1916
“At a ripe old age, loved and admired by a large circle of friends and honoured by scholars in many countries, there passed away from us the Rev Edmund Hogan SJ D Litt”. These are the opening words of an article on Edmund Hogan by the late Dr Douglas Hyde, in Studies 1917.

Edmund Hogan was born on 23rd January 1831 near the Cobh of Cork. He became a Jesuit at the age of sixteen and was ordained nine years later. He was one of the founders of the Sacred Heart College Limerick, and remained there from 1859-1865. From there he proceeded to Rome where he ransacked the Archives, and he gathered a vast amount of information relating to the history of the Society and of the Irish Church.

The fruit of his labours may be seen from a brief list of his works :
“Ibernia Ignatiana”, “Onomastican”, “Goedelicum”, a life of “Father Henry Fitzsimon SJ”, “Distinguished irishmen of the 16th Century”, “Outlines of Grammar of Old Irish”, “The Bollandists Life of St Patrick”, “Chronolofical List of the Irish Jesuits 1550-1814.
His net was wise. His studies include :
“History of the Irish Wolf-dog”, “Irish and Scottishe names of Herbs, Plants, Trees, etc”, “Physical Characteristics of the Irish People”.

He was Professor of Irish Language and Hostory at University College Dublin, a member of the Royal Irish Academy, Governor of the High School of Irish Learning, and one of the Brehon Law Commissioners for the publication of the ancient laws and institutes of Ireland.

“He had a fine presence, his head was handsome, his forehead broad, his eyes kindly, and his manner always courteous and affable. With all his great learning, he was charmingly simple, and he delighted in anecdotes about people he had met and known”.

He died at Leeson Street on November 26th 1916. It was of him that Fr Henry Brown made a famous remark at recreation after his funeral “Well, I’m sure Fr Hogan will take what is coming to him like a man”.

◆ The Clongownian, 1918

Obituary
Father Edmund Hogan SJ
By Richard Ingham (Giving incidentally a glimpse of Clongowes in the Sixties)
My recollection of Father Edmund Hogan goes back to the year 1865-6, when he came to Clongowes to teach a class of philosophy. consisting of four students, James Galavan of Waterford, James Doyle of Wexford, Myles McSwiney of Dublin, and Stephen Boisson a Frenchman. These were high and mighty gentlemen, from the schoolboy's point of view, not mixing with the ordinary students and seldom seen by them except at a distance in Chapel, where they occupied one of the Community tribunes.

The professor of philosophy, then a fairly tall man, dark haired, and with an alert soldierly carriage, and a most genial and prepossessing appearance, we admired from a distance, but we had no acquaintance with him. In the next year, 1867-8, Father Hogan taught the class of 1st of Grammar, of which I was a member. Feeling deeply the loss of Father Stanley Mathews, of the family of Mount Hanover, Drogheda, one of the most fascinating men I ever met, always in college and in after life the best and truest of friends, the welcome extended to Father Hogan was, I fear, not warm.

After a little, his kindly, genial temperament won our regard and respect, and we pulled along evenly and well.

In those days the relation of master and pupils was intimate and very personal. In nearly all the subjects of their course the master was their sole teacher, and he was their guide, philosopher, and friend, and from the affection born in the classroom of times grew a strong, loving friendship, a help and stay to the pupil in all the joys and sorrows of his after life. Thank God, I have precious memories, alas, only memories, of many.

The present system in our colleges, I fear, is not calculated to foster such old world sentiments.

Long ago it was the custom for the master to bring his boys out to walk on playdays and half holidays, if they so wished, but the boys had to go to the castle and ask him.

Father Hogan was ever a great student, and in my days under him, all his spare time, and indeed all his waking thoughts, were devoted, we boys understood, to the preparation of a grammar, I daresay a Gaelic one, that was to throw into the shade all grammars hitherto in use. We sometimes found it difficult to catch our hare when he was wanted for a run, but when once caught, he gave us good sport, and was the most amiable and best of leaders. On one occasion we went to Maynooth, and after seeing the College, had a grand lunch of beefsteaks and pies in the hotel, over which Father Hogan presided, and we toasted the President in ginger beer.

It must have been trying to a man of his habits and tastes to have to run about the country roads with a pack of raw lads who took not the slightest interest in the studies or pursuits he most cared for. Never once, during the whole time he was our master, did I see Father Hogan show the least touch of annoyance, or shall I call it low spirits, on those occasions.

In 1868-9 Father Hogan was again our master in the class of poetry, of which Stephen Brown, now the Crown Solicitor of Kildare, was easily and worthily the Imperator primus. In this year our class acquired musical celebrity. Every day at the end of the after noon class our master, closing his desk, stood up and said, “Now, boys, a little French pronunciation”, and all standing, some in tune and some far from it, sang two verses of a hymn to our Blessed Lady, called “Reine des Cieux”. Never before, nor I suppose since, has choral music waked the corridors of Clongowes during class hours.

Father Hogan was singularly painstaking and patient in his efforts for our improvement, and always anxious that his class should make a decent appearance on all public occasions. As instances of the trouble he gave himself in these matters, I may mention the following. Twice he distinguished me, to my great annoyance, by selecting me to read the essay written by him at the academical exercises in July, 1868, and again as the reciter of the English poem in July, 1869. Curiously, the latter, called “A War Mirage on the Rhine”, was a vivid picture of the war that broke out the following year, 1870. Day after day alterations were made in that poem, until my small stock of patience being exhausted, I bluntly said I would learn no more new lines. My ill-temper was met with a genial smile, but the verses still grew. To practise' me in the required strength of pronunciation, I was brought to the big field beyond the pleasure ground, where, standing at one end and Father Hogan at the other, my success or failure depended, without regard to wind or distance, on Father Hogan's hearing me distinctly. I used to have a rough throat after these performances. To all of us, notwithstanding our shortcomings, Father Hogan was ever cheerful, kind, and singularly amiable, and at the end of the two years his class parted from him with the most kindly feelings, which lasted with the survivors to his death.

These thoughts were in my mind as I prayed beside the coffin, and looked upon the face of my dear old master for the last time. I seemed to hear again the voice coming to me across the big field, “Speak louder, I can't hear you”, or again calling on his class of Poetry to sing their evening hymn.

Richard Ingham

-oOo-

For Father Hogan's subsequent career as Irish historian, archæologist, and linguist, we must refer our readers to a sketch of him which appeared in “Studies” of last December under the heading “A Great Irish Scholar”. It is from the pen of Dr Douglas Hyde, joint founder and first president of the Gaelic League, and is a worthy tribute to his work, It is followed by a list of no fewer than thirty-eight publications by Father Hogan, Included in this list, which fittingly ends with his masterpiece, the “Onomasticon Gadelicum”, completed at the age of seventy-nine, appear four items which are the fruit of his connection with Clongowes. It was from a MS. preserved in Clongowes that he published for the first time in a large quarto volume of nearly four hundred pages, the “Description of Ireland and the State thereof as it is at this present in Anno 1598”. From another MS preserved in Clongowes he published in the “Irish Ecclesiastical Records” : “Hayne's Observation on the State of Ireland in 1600”. Then there is “The History of the Warr of Ireland (from 1641 to 1653)”, by a British Officer of the regiment of Sir John Clotworthy. This from a third Clongowes MS was published by Father Hogan in 1873, in a little volume of one hundred and sixty pages. Lastly, he published comparatively recently from yet another MS preserved in our Museum, “The Jacobite War 1688-1691”, by Colonel Charles O'Kelly.

Father Hogan died at 35 Lower Leeson St., Dublin, on 26th November, 1917. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959
Bonum Certamen ... A Biographical Index of Former Members of the Limerick Jesuit Community

Father Edmund Hogan (1831-1917)

A native of Cobh, the eminent Gaelic scholar and historian, was one of the pioneers in the foundation of Sacred Heart College. He entered the Society in 1847; and it is clear that his superiors expected great things of him from the fact that his period of formation was so shortened that he was only twenty-eight years of age when he arrived as a priest in Limerick in 1859. He was appointed minister of the house in 1861 and was in charge of the boys' choir. He remained in the Crescent until 1864. The following years were devoted to research work amongst medieval Irish MSS. For a time he worked with the Bollandists in Belgium on the Lives of the Irish Saints. He returned to the Crescent in 1884 on the teaching staff but remained only one year. The following year at Clongowes saw the end of his career as master. After a short period in Tullabeg, where his sole work was study, he became lecturer in Celtic studies at University College, Dublin and retained that post until the National University replaced the Royal University of Ireland. He remained in the Leeson St community for the rest of his days. Limerick is proud of its associations with Father Hogan's great predecessor in the chair of Celtic Studies, Eugene O'Curry, whose business here was that of time keeper for the building of Sarsfield Bridge. The city may also be proud of its association with Edmund Hogan whose business here was the humble task of educating Limerick schoolboys.

Hogan, Jeremiah J, 1903-1986, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/748
  • Person
  • 26 April 1903-15 September 1986

Born: 26 April 1903, Greenpark Villas, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 31 August 1920, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 24 June 1937, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1940
Died: 15 September 1986, Caritas Christi Hospice, Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Campion College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ASL 05 April 1931

Father Provincial of the Australian Province 1956 - 1961

Studied for BA 1st Class Hons at UCD

by 1927 at Rome Italy (ROM) studying at Gregorian
by 1930 third wave Hong Kong Missioners - Regency
by 1933 at St Aloysius Sydney (ASL) health
by 1939 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

by 1927 at Rome Italy (ROM) studying
by 1930 third wave Hong Kong Missioners - Regency
by 1933 at St Aloysius Sydney (ASL) health
by 1939 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Though he was christened Jeremiah, his name for the province was always the more cheerful form - Dermot. His life in Australia was remarkable for its unspectacular achievement, and the disability under which he had laboured in his early years in the Society through ill health, and again in his last years.
“Chugger” was the nickname given to him by his seminary students and it summed up his progress through life. He chugged along the golf course and he chugged along through his daily grind of work. He had no speed, resembling more the tortoise than the hare, but he always arrived with little excitement or incident along the way. If he were to be assigned a motto it might well have been: “I'd be slow”, a rather unnecessary announcement that was so often on his lips.
He was educated by the Christian Brothers and by the Jesuits at The Crescent, and entered the Society, 31 August 1920. He studied philosophy in Rome, and so qualified for a PhD under the old system, and studied Latin and Irish at the National University, Dublin.
He was the first scholastic of the Irish province to be assigned to its newly founded Hong Kong Mission. He was sent to Shiuhing, West River, China, in the years 1928-30, mainly for
language studies. It was there that tuberculosis erupted and he was sent to Australia, the favourite tuberculosis repository of the Irish province. This was a condition, which, like the English convict system in its sphere, gave the Australian province some of its greater men who otherwise might never have reached Australia. Hogan was hospitalised for a year in the Blue Mountains and cared for his health at Sevenhill, 1930-34.
When he was deemed well enough, he returned to Ireland for theology and ordination, and after tertianship at St Beuno's in Wales, returned to Australia in 1940. His main work was teaching moral theology and canon law at Canisius College, Pymble, becoming rector in 1942. His presence there was strength during a blustery time under the rectorship of the brilliant William Keane.
While rector, he continued courses in moral theology and canon law unaided, and lectured also pastoral theology, liturgy and oriental questions, and at the same time was prefect of studies.
Weekly he went to the diocesan seminary St Patrick's College, Manly, as confessor and counsellor. As this was his villa day, he played a round of golf and spent the rest of the time discussing moral questions and canon law with the rector of the seminary, Monsignor John Nevin, a man not unlike himself in many ways who sipped at problems in these areas as if they were liqueur.
In 1954 Cardinal Gilroy asked Hogan to evaluate the seminary system and report to him. Hogan suggested that the products of the Manly seminary were generally considered zealous and well equipped for their work. However, he advised that the cardinal should consult the consumers, as he detected that criticism of the seminary was widespread. There is no evidence that Hogan’s recommendations were followed, but, soon after receiving Hogan's report, the cardinal appointed Archbishop James Carroll to inquire into the seminaries at Manly and Springwood.
During these years Hogan was director of retreats in eastern Australia. This involved him in a great deal of correspondence, trying to answer the very many requests for retreat directors in a province where every priest was permanently engaged in some regular work. He used to say that every retreat required a minimum of five letters. He was constantly consulted on matters of moral theology and canon law or government, yet, with all this, he was never flustered. All these things were accomplished with a minimum of fuss, expeditiously but unhurried, evenly and competently. He gave many retreats himself.
In 1953 he was appointed tertian instructor and resumed his acquaintance with Sevenhill. He returned to Cassius College as vice-rector and to his old work. In 1956 he attended the tertian instructors' conference in Rome. While he was there he was informed of his appointment as provincial.
Although his appointment marked a calm after an exciting period, it was not one of provincial inactivity. Much needed building programmes were undertaken in the schools and recently undertaken works, especially in the university colleges of Hobart, Brisbane and Perth, were consolidated. In the administration of the province, there was no secretary, only the socius, James Dynon, who ran the provincial office, and this was at the time when the numbers of the province had reached a maximum of 363 members in 1962. He also was expected to accommodate himself to the arrival of a visitor, John McMahon, in 1962. Retrenchment was a word mentioned about the needs of the province. Hogan believed that biding time was the better path. The visitor had other ideas.
In preparation for the Second Vatican Council, Hogan, as provincial, was consulted by the current apostolic delegate, Archbishop Romolo Carboni, on matters raised by the preparatory commission. He made three major suggestions : the completion of the constitution on the magisterium of the Church commenced at Vatican l, the development of dogma, and the Blessed Virgin as Co-redemptrix. He also advocated reform of canon law, suggesting that many canons were out of date, such as the restrictions of hearing women's confessions, many censures, and the law on prohibited books and the Index. On practical questions, Hogan advocated a higher place for Scripture in ecclesiastical courses, and noted that the laws on the age of receiving confirmation and on servile works were largely neglected and therefore defunct. He was also interested in liturgical reform such as the use of the vernacular, the ordination of permanent deacons, and the abolition of the Eucharistic fast. Carboni incorporated most of these suggestions into his own submission to the commission. In making these suggestions, Hogan showed that he was wisely aware of outdated legalism in the Church.
In 1962 he succeeded the new provincial as rector of St Thomas More College, Perth, until the end of the year when he returned to moral theology at Pymble. When the theologate was transferred to Parkville, Vic., he professed also at the diocesan seminary at Glen Waverley and later at Clayton until 1972. He attended the 30th General Congregation as provincial in 1957 and was elected as delegate to the 31st General Congregation in 1965.
It was in 1972 that he suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage from which it could hardly be expected that anyone would recover but he did recover sufficiently to hold his place on the status as professing moral theology as a member of the sub-community of Jesuit Theological College stationed at Clayton. He resided, however, with the Sisters of Mercy at Rosanna and acted as their chaplain until 1982.
During this time he continued his work advising the Sisters of Mercy in the long, drawn out work of their unions, federations and amalgamations and their renewal. This had been a traditional Jesuit commitment reaching back to the time of John Ryan, superior of the mission in the early part of the century.
Hogan was a man of the law; a wise man and a good man. He did not use his knowledge to bind but to loose. He was always practical and pastoral in the application of principles. He used his knowledge of law to liberate people, especially in times that were highly structured and legal. He was a teacher of priests and a guide to religious.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 62nd Year No 1 1987

Obituary

Fr Dermot Hogan (1903-1920-1986) (Australia)

The following curriculum vitae, as far as Fr Dermot's Australian years are concerned, is tentative and based on the obituary notice below, which is taken from the Australian province's Jesuit life, no. 22 (Xaviermas, 1986);
26th April 1903: born in Limerick, 1912-20 schooled at Crescent College. 31st August 1920: entered SJ. 1920-22 Tullabeg, noviciate. 1922-25 Rathfarnham, juniorate: BA course at UCD. 1925-28 Rome, philosophy.
1928-31 China (Hong kong Mission); learning Cantonese and teaching English at the Catholic Mission, Shiuhing, West river, where he contracted tuberculosis.
1932-34 Australia: convalescence at Wentworth falls (Blue mountains) and Sevenhill, SA.
1934-38 Ireland: Milltown Park, theology (24th June 1937: ordained priest). 1938-39 St Beuno's (Wales), tertianship.
1940-86 Australia:
1940 St Patrick's College, East Melbourne. 1941-53 Canisius College, Pymble, Sydney, lecturing in moral theology and canon law; rector for six years; also director of retreats for eastern Australia.
1953-56 Tertian instructor (Sevenhill and Canisius College).
1956-61 Provincial. 1962 St Thomas More College, Perth: rector
1962-81 lecturing in moral theology and canon law at Pymble ('62-?7) and Glen Waverley seminary (Melbourne area), Parkville and Clayton.
1972-82 After his cerebral haemorrhage, resident chaplain at Rosanna home (Sisters of Mercy). 1983-86 Caritas Christi hospice (Sisters of Charity). 15th September 1986: died.

Though he was christened Jeremiah, except for official documents, his name or us was always the more cheerful Dermot. His life in Australia was remarkable for its unspectacular achievements and the disability under which he had laboured in his early years through ill health, and again in his last years.
“Chugger” was the nickname given to him by his seminary students and it summed up his progress through life. He chugged along the golf course and he chugged along through his daily grind of work. He had no speed, resembling more the tortoise than the hare, but he always arrived and with little excitement or incident along the way. If he were to a motto it might well have been: "I'd be slow, a rather unnecessary announcement that was so often on his lips.
He was born in Limerick, the son of a pharmacist whose other son continued in the business. He went to the Jesuit school there, then known as “The Crescent'. From there he entered the Society and followed the normal course of studies which included graduating in Arts from the National University. It would interesting to have a copy of his English thesis which was on the “Catholic religion evidenced in the plays of William Shakespeare”. It would have been well-researched and free from any unnecessary decoration. He was then sent to the Gregorian University in Rome to study philosophy. He just managed to graduate under the old scheme which entitled him to his PhD which was conferred on application much later. He was the first scholastic of the Irish Province to be assigned to its newly founded Hong Kong Mission. He appears to have done some teaching, as he appears as “Doc. an, 4” in his first Australian status at St Patrick's College (but, as has been stated in another place, (nothing can lie like a catalogus!). He was assigned to Shiu Hing, West River, China, in the years 1928-30, mainly for language studies.
It was there that tuberculosis erupted and he was sent to Australia, the favourite TB repository of the Irish Province; a condition which, like the in the English convict system, gave us some of our greatest men who otherwise might never have reached Australia. These were the days before antibiotics when there were TB sanatoria through out the land, in places deemed to be dry and healthy. Dermot spent a year in one, at Wentworth falls in the Blue mountains, gravely ill and suffering frequent haemorrhages. The specialist physician attending him said that the only thing that saved him was his placid temperament.
This reflects something of his character and his spirituality. The Irish scholastics who came from Hong Kong to study theology at Pymble were in admiration of his even-tempered control. They had known him in his earlier years as very impatient and hot tempered; but there could be no place in a mission for Chinese for anyone who “lose face” when confronted with would be annoying people or circumstances! Dermot had mastered this tendency to a remarkable degree, though the determination remained and only very seldom did a seemingly dead ember give a little glow of fire. From Wentworth falls, like Arthur Booler, he was given the Sevenhill's treatment for a year. From all his accounts of this experience it called for all his calm and wry acceptance of other people's idiosyncrasies. In 1934 he was well enough to return to Ireland for theology and ordination and after tertianship at St Beuno's in Wales, he volunteered to come to Australia in 1940. After a year at St Patrick's he was assigned to profess moral theology and never our improvised Theologate which, owing to war conditions cutting us off from Europe, had been set up at Canisius College. He was to spend twelve years there, six of them as rector.
His presence there was a strength in itself during a time of what could not be described as anything less than blustery weather under the rectorship of William Keane.
It was his good fortune to come to positions of authority like a calm after periods of more interesting weather. When he became Provincial it was after the long term of Austin Kelly, a great man impelled by optimism and consequently given to overextending our manpower capacity and with a habit of intrusive government. It was not only TB that became quiescent as a result of his placidity. We all relished the influence of his calm.
His workload as rector was incredible. Continuing his courses in moral theology and canon law, unaided, he lectured also in pastoral theology, liturgy and oriental questions, and acted also at the as prefect of studies. Weekly he went to diocesan seminary St Patrick's as confessor and counsellor and as this was his weekly villa-day, he spent the rest of the time discussing moral questions and canon law with the rector of the seminary, Monsignor John Nevin, a man not unlike himself in many ways, who sipped at problems in these areas as if they were liqueur.
During these years Dermot was director of retreats responsible for Eastern Australia. This involved him in a great deal of correspondence, trying to answer the very many requests for retreat directors in a province where every priest was permanently engaged in some regular work. He used to say that every retreat required a minimum of five letters. He was constantly consulted on matters of moral theology and canon law or government, yet, with all this, he was never flustered or hurried. All these things were accomplished with a minimum of fuss, expeditiously but unhurried, evenly and competently. He gave many retreats himself.
In 1953 he was appointed tertian instructor and resumed his acquaintanceship with Sevenhill. He returned to Canisius College as vice-rector and to the his old work. In 1956 he attended the brilliant Tertian Instructors' Conference in Rome. While he was there he was informed of his appointment as Provincial. Although his appointment marked a calm after an exciting period, it was not one of Provincial inactivity. Much needed building programmes were undertaken in the schools and recently undertaken works, especially in the University Colleges of Hobart, Brisbane and Perth, were consolidated. In 1962 he succeeded the new Provincial as rector of St Thomas More College, Perth, until the end of the year, when he returned to his chair of moral theology at Pymble. When the theologate was transferred to Parkville, he professed at Glen Waverley and the diocesan seminary, later at Clayton until 1972. He attended the 30th General Congregation as Provincial in 1957 and was elected as delegate to the 31st General Congregation in 1965. It was in 1972 that he suffered a massive cerebral haemorrhage from which it could hardly be expected of anyone to recover, but under the expert surgery of Mr Frank Morgan (brother of Frs Pat and Dick and Bishop Alo) he not only recovered, but sufficiently to hold his place on the status as professing moral theology as a member of the sub community of Jesuit Theological College stationed at Clayton, though he resided with the Sisters of Mercy at Rosanna and acted as their chaplain until 1982.
During this time he continued his work advising the Sisters of Mercy in the long-drawn-out work of their unions, federations and amalgamations and renewal. This had been a long Jesuit commitment reaching back to the time of Fr John Ryan, who was Superior of the Australian Mission in the early part of this century, and who was humorously referred to as “Father John of the Amalgamation”!
At the Funeral Mass in the Church of Immaculate Conception, Hawthorn, Fr Bill Daniel preached a fitting tribute to him:
“This is the second time in a little over a week that the Jesuits of Melbourne and their friends have gathered to bid farewell and to commend to the goodness of God one of their most notable brethren. Last week it was Fr Henry Johnston; today it is Fr Hogan, Jeremiah if you were being formal, Dermot to his family and friends. Both surpassed the biblical three score years and ten - Dermot not so magnificently as Henry, but still by a very respectable thirteen years.
The life's work of both men lay in the same area - the formation of priests - but both exercised an apostolate of considerable influence outside their seminaries. Both are revered as magnificent gifts of the Irish Province of Society of Jesus to the Australian Church. In addition to this, Australian Jesuits owe a very special debt to Dermot as a former Provincial of the Order in Australia”.
Dermot was a man of the law. During World War II it became necessary for the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus to set up its own theological training for its students. Previously they had been sent to Ireland or other parts in of Europe. (There is loss and gain in all these things, of course. I don't suppose anyone would dream of disbanding our theological college now, when we think of the contribution it makes to the Church in these parts beyond its own walls. But the older members of our Province, who studied overseas, certainly brought an extra dimension of their thought and culture back with them.) In the first year of theology at Pymble, in 1941, Dermot found himself appointed to teach moral theology and canon law. He had, in later years, a great faith in what he called the ordinary training of the Society. I remember asking him, in my last year of university studies (he was Provincial at the time), whether he had any plans for my later work so that I might direct my studies towards that end. If he did have any such plans he did not say so, but told me that I should be content to get the ordinary training of the Society. None of this specialization from cradle to grave for him! , The ordinary training had stood him in good stead. With no postgraduate studies at all he entered on not one speciality but two - moral theology and canon law. How he did it I do not know. No doubt both disciplines were more manageable in those days. You worked your way through the two Latin volumes of moral theology, and through selected parts of the Code of Canon Law. but it was no mean feat. I doubt if the religious congregations whom he helped in later years with their chapters have the realized that in canon law he was a self made man; nor perhaps those hundreds of students for the priesthood whom he trained over the years in moral theology and the hearing of confessions. He was, as I said, a man of the law; but he was a wise man and a good man. He did not use his knowledge to bind but to loose. It was typical that his teaching of moral theology culminated instructing future priests in the ministry of the sacrament of penance, with its pastoral bent and its message of mercy, and he continued this work for some years after he had had to retire from the teaching of regular courses.
In canon law, too, I had the impression that he was happiest when he could use it to liberate people from the knots they were tying around themselves. He would come home bemused at times from a chapter of women religious, with all those debates in the '60s about the length of habits, or whether the material used could be sheer or not. But I had the impression, too, that he was intent on helping them to formulate structures which were humane and which would work. This is not the place to document his work with religious women, but it was a very important part of his life's work.
"The life and death of each of us has its influence on others', says St Paul. The life of a teacher has its influence on his students, and through them on a wider world. But it is a hidden influence for the most part. The teacher prepares others for life; the students must live it. How much more true is that of a Provincial. His is a life that no one who had the slightest acquaintance with it, and was of sound mind, could ever aspire to. He is, as the Pope calls himself, a servant of the servants of God. And we are not always very kind to our servants. That is human nature.
I would have to admit that Dermot was spared some of the tribulations of a Provincial in the post-Vatican II era The period from 1956 to 1962 was one of relative calm, that calm that comes before the storm. There were theological stirrings in Europe, but in Australia we had the faith, and we had Pius XII, plus a glimpse of John XXIII, and Europe was a long way away.
His provincialate was a period of consolidation. His predecessor, Fr Austin Kelly, had been a man of vision and enterprise, but he had left the Australian Province over-extended. During his provincialate we had embarked on the Indian mission, we had opened a new school, had undertaken the care of three new university colleges, and had founded the Institute of Social Order; and in those nine years the number of priests in the Province had risen by only ten. In those same years the number of those in training for the priesthood had risen from about 80 to 140.
It was a situation of great promise; but promises are not always kept. One did not need to be a professor of moral theology to realise this, but it helped. So Dermot set a course of consolidation during his provincialate. We cannot list his achievements in terms of new foundations. His task was to look after his men. By the end of his term there were twenty more priests on the books than there were at the beginning, but even these were scarcely adequate to the tasks in hand.
He saw the problem. Perhaps he could have been more energetic in dealing with it, by retrenchment rather than by biding his time. But that is more easily said than done. A Visitor sent from Rome towards the end of Dermot's term of office tried it but failed. I think Dermot knew his men better than the Visitor did. He was a wise man and you could trust him - that is the epitaph I would write on his provincialate, and indeed on the whole of his life.
In 1962, after his term as Provincial, he returned easily and contentedly to his teaching of moral theology, dividing his time between our house of studies at Pymble in Sydney and the seminary at Glen Waverley. In 1967 he left his beloved Pymble, handing over with typical graciousness to a younger man whom he himself had sent to study moral theology. From then on his main work was with the seminary.
I shall not go into detail over his later years. He was at the point of death from a massive cerebral haemorrhage in October 1972. A wonderful piece of surgery by his good friend and golfing companion, Mr Frank Morgan, set him on the road to recovery. He never played golf again, but he made a home and a new life for himself with the Sisters of Mercy at Rosanna as a resident chaplain. I could never adequately praise their goodness to him in the ten years he spent with them. They would probably insist that the advantage was mutual; but I know to which side the balance is tilted.
When his condition became too frail for him to continue in his quarters at Rosanna, the Sisters of Charity came to his aid, and for the last three years they gave him that beautiful care for which Caritas Christi is renowned. To both these congregations of Sisters I can only say our humble thanks. How can you sum up the life and work of a man like Dermot Hogan - priest and shaper of priests, religious and guide of religious, wise and teacher of wisdom, good friend to so many? Twice at death's door - once as a young man from tuberculosis, once in his seventieth year from his stroke - he was a lover of life, which he lived in his calm way to the full, for he had the gift of peace. He is an inspiration to us all. His life was one of service, whether he was in authority or happily in the ranks. Those hundreds of people he served will praise God for the life of this good man, and commend him in their prayers to the love of his merciful Lord.'
We had some doubt, about Dermot Hogan's Arts Course. As we have no curricula vitae as to that part of their vita which members of the Province spent elsewhere before joining our Province, our researches are largely guesswork as to that part of their life. Fr Austin Ryan, whose memory is good, tells us that Dermot majored in Latin and Irish. Since Dermot told me of the thesis he presented, and which is refer- red to in his obituary, I made perhaps an illatio illicita assuming that his course was English. Austin, with his usual eirenism said, ‘Perhaps he wrote it in Irish’!”

Hogan, William, 1895-1964, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1457
  • Person
  • 08 April 1895-27 May 1964

Born: 08 April 1895, Castleisland, County Kerry
Entered: 07 September 1912, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1926, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1929, St Aloysius College, Milsons Point, Sydney, Australia
Died: 27 May 1964, Mater Hospital, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the St Aloysius College, Milson’s Point, Sydney, Australia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1917 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1928 at St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
William Hogan received his secondary education from the Cistercian College Roscrea monks at Roscrea, and amongst other things was reputed to have played on the wing for the first XV. He entered the Society at Tullabeg, 7 September 1912, and then went to Rathfarnharn Castle, Dublin, for his juniorate. Philosophy was studied at Jersey in the Channel Islands, 1916-17, and on his return to Ireland he went to teach at Belvedere College, Dublin, 1919-21. These were troubled times in Ireland, when feelings were strong and the atmosphere was tense. He had many friends amongst the organisers of the 1916 rebellion and afterwards. Superiors may have thought he was becoming too deeply involved in matters politic, for he was transferred to Mungret, to complete his magisterium, 1921-23. Theology was studied at Milltown Park, Dublin, 1923-27, where he acquired a reputation as a moral theologian amongst his contemporaries. He was ordained on 31 July 1926, and tertianship followed at St Beuno's, Wales.
Hogan sailed for Australia in 1928, arriving in Sydney in September. Then began his long association with St Aloysius' College, Milsons Point. Except for three years spent as minister at Xavier College, Kew, 1937-39, which he humorously referred to as “the years of captivity”, the rest of his life in Australia was spent in the service of St Aloysius' College.
Hogan belonged to the college, and spent over 32 years on the staff, a respected teacher and sometime minister and bursar. He organised the transport passes for the students. He loved mathematical calculations, and was a good mathematics teacher. He had a passion for rulers and measuring tapes, while his judgment on moral cases was second to none. He could hold a religion class of young boys with the clarity and cogency of his arguments. He was always kind and encouraging to his students.
He was a shy, retiring man with a sparkling sense of humour. His usually stern countenance could relax with an inimitable and infectious grin-the preface of some priceless remark. He was appointed sports master in 1929, and had many stories to tell of that eventful year - how the boys were almost decapitated by an unusually strong finishing tape; how he solved the problem of whether to play back or forward on a wet wicket. As a young man he taught Leaving Certificate modern history, and his students recalled the sidelights and biographical notes not to be found in textbooks. He was an avid reader with sound retentive powers. He was a meticulous minister, his books always carefully up to date, and the keys hung in well-labelled order. Everything was done with great precision.
He had a devotion to the Holy Souls, and kept a record of the date of the death of each Jesuit that he knew and each Old Boy that he had taught, so that he could pray for each on his
anniversary. He was remarkable for his personal and idiosyncratic practice of poverty. Towards the end he suffered a mild cerebral spasm and later a stroke from which he died. He was buried from the college he had served so well.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 39th Year No 4 1964

Obituary :
About the middle of March 1964, Fr. Hogan suffered what the doctor described as a mild cerebral spasm. Anxious not to cause any trouble and hoping that the disability would pass he kept silent about it. He tried to carry on the work of bursar, which he had so efficiently and faithfully done for many years but found that it was no longer possible. The doctor who was called to him (Dr. L'Estrange), ordered his immediate removal to hospital and he entered the Mater Miserecordiae Hospital on Saturday, 20th March. In a short time his speech improved greatly, he got back the power of his right arm and was able, with the aid of the nurses, to walk a little around the room each day. He still had difficulty marshalling his thoughts. He would begin a sentence and find that he could not finish it. When this occurred he gave a shrug of his shoulders, grinned and said “no good”.
About the middle of May, he suffered a renewed attack and the right arm had to be placed back in splints. When asked if he would like to be anointed he said yes, and this was done at once. He was able to receive Holy Communion up to a few days before his death. Then came a series. of attacks and it was obvious that the end was approaching. He suffered a severe one about 2.30 a.m. on Thursday, 25th May and lapsed into a coma. Fr. Rector went at once to the hospital, gave him absolution, anointed (he said “yes”, when asked if he wished it) He was able to receive until shortly before 5 a.m. on Saturday morning when the hospital rang again to say he was dying. Fr. Rector was with him to the end and gave him a final absolution as he left this world about seven o'clock as many of the community were about to offer Mass for him. He belonged to St. Aloysius, having spent over thirty-two years on the staff, so we felt that he would prefer to be buried from here. His remains were brought to the college chapel on Sunday night and next morning all the boys had an opportunity to offer the holy sacrifice for the repose of his soul. His funeral Mass was on the following day and His Eminence Cardinal Gilroy kindly came to preside at the Requiem offered by Fr. Rector. The boys formed an impressive guard of honour as the body was borne from the chapel. How embarrassed he would have been had he witnessed this last tribute to him! His weary bones rest at last with Fr. Tom Hehir in the Jesuit plot at Gore Hill.
It would take someone more competent than the writer to give a pen picture of Bill Hogan in a few sentences. Born in Co. Kerry in 1895, he received his secondary education from the Cistercian Monks at Roscrea and amongst other things was reputed to have played on the wing for the 1st XV. He entered the Society at Tullabeg and after satisfying the authorities there, as to his suitability, he went to Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, for his Juniorate. Philosophy was studied at Jersey in the Channel Islands and on his return to Ireland he went to teach at Belvedere College in Dublin. These were troubled times when feelings were strong and the atmosphere was electric. He had many personal friends amongst the organisers of 1916 and afterwards. Superiors may have thought he was becoming too deeply involved in matters politic for he was transferred to Limerick to complete his magisterium. Theology was studied at Milltown Park, Dublin, where he acquired a reputation as a moral theologian amongst his contemporaries. His stories of life in “Plug Street” then, were always worth hearing.
He was ordained on 31st July 1926. Tertianship completed at St. Bueno's, he sailed for Australia in 1928, arriving in Sydney in September. Thus began his long association with St. Aloysius. Except for the three years spent as Minister in Xavier College, Melbourne, which he humorously referred to as “the years of captivity” the rest of his life in Australia was spent in the service of S.A.C.
He was a shy, retiring man with a sparkling sense of humour. His usually stern countenance could relax with that inimitable and infectious grin - the preface of some priceless remark. He was appointed Sports master in 1929 and had many stories to tell of that eventful year - how the boy was almost decapitated by an unusually strong finishing tape how he solved the problem of whether to play back or forward on a wet wicket, etc.
As a younger man he taught Leaving Certificate modern history and many of his students can still recall the sidelights and biographical notes not to be found in textbooks. He was an avid reader with great retentive powers. When he left for the hospital his books were all up to date, everything in its place and carefully dated. He had a great devotion to the holy souls and kept a record of the date of the death of each Jesuit that he knew and each Old Boy that he had taught, so that he could pray for each on his anniversary.
If were there was a faithful servant of St. Aloysius College, he was one. and we pray that he is enjoying the reward of all faithful servants.

Hogan, William, 1912-1978, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/186
  • Person
  • 12 January 1912-16 August 1978

Born: 12 January 1912, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny
Entered: 13 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1944, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 03 February 1947, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 16 August 1978, Camberwell, Surrey, England

Part of Sacred Heart community, The Crescent, Limerick at the time of death. Buried Mungret cemetery, Mungret, Limerick.

Early Education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 53rd Year No 4 1978
Obituary :

Fr William Hogan (1912-1978)

The sudden death of Father Willie Hogan came as a great shock to all who knew him, and especially to his contemporaries and near contemporaries. To them he was more than a long experienced and successful missionary and retreat giver. There was always, for most of us, the remembrance of the joined and moving hands, the pleasant smile, the readiness for a laugh - and the awareness that Willie knew what his work was.
Father Willie Hogan was born in Ossory on January 12th 1912. He entered the noviceship in Emo on September 13th 1930. After taking his First Vows he went to Rathfarnham Castle to begin the normal course of studies. His Degree was in Classics. After finishing his Philosophy in Tullabeg he spent two years teaching: one in Clongowes and one in the Crescent, Limerick. During his Theology in Milltown Park he was ordained priest on July 31st 1944. His Tertianship was at Rathfarnham, 1945-1946.
On leaving the Tertianship in 1946 he began at once what was to be his life-work: he spent a year based at Emo on Mission and Retreat work. Tullabeg, however, was to be his permanent base. He was on the staff there for Mission and Retreat work from 1947 to 1971. This great work came to a quiet, apostolic conclusion when, in 1971 he went to the Crescent, where his work had many of the characteristics of the many past years: the pulpit, the confessional, the sermon at Mass, the visiting of parishioners. He remained at this work until his unexpected death while on supply work in England. He died on August 16th 1978.

Father Matthew Meade, his strict contemporary, had also the more intimate knowledge of Father Willie which came from working with him and directing his mission assignments for about twenty-four years. Father Meade has sent us an appraisal of Father Willie's work: the appraisal is all the more significant because it is free from all customary phrases, and is clearly the remembrance of the personal qualities of a long and faithful missionary.
Father Meade's tribute is followed by some words of appreciation of Father Willie’s work in the Crescent, 1971-1978 :
“Quite a representative body of the Province attended the burial obsequies of Father Hogan in the Sacred Heart Church, Limerick on Wednesday, August 23rd. In my opinion (and I knew him from the time he entered the Society until the time of his unexpected death) the few words spoken by Father Stephen Bates, principal celebrant of the Mass on that occasion, summed up very accurately the Bill Hogan whom I had known and studied with and worked with and whose mission assignments I had directed until he joined the Crescent Community: meticulous attention to detail, thoroughness in the carrying out of everything entrusted to him, absolute giving of himself completely to everything he did were the ‘Hall Mark’ of his whole life in the Society. These are excellent qualities and Father Hogan was blessed in being assigned to the apostolate of the Retreats and Missions staff straight after his Tertianship where he could use all these qualities to the best advantage and which he did for some twenty five years. There was no area of this apostolate which he did not take in his stride in Ireland, England and in USA. Bill was ‘Paratus ad omnia’ as our Novice Master, the late Father John Coyne, used say every Jesuit should be.
I do not think one would remember Father Hogan for his sense of humour. He took everything too seriously. But on this account he could at times be a source of hilarious humour. Few of his contemporaries can ever forget the laughs he gave us in Tullabeg when he acted in our Christmas plays. He was utterly uninhibited and our Rector Father Hugh Kelly, complimenting him on his performance on one of these occasions used a phrase which was a very accurate summing up of an act which brought down the house by saying to him: ‘Well, Mr. Hogan, you really outstripped yourself’. On the stage, as in all other things he put himself into his part with complete earnestness. This was sometimes dangerous for his opposite number as in ‘The Private Secretary’ when his part called for a show of anger with his Secretary. Bill worked himself up to such a state of anger that his secretary, Lol Kearns, had to jump out through a window to save himself from serious injury having been hunted and hammered all over the stage.
Many will also remember how his whole personality changed when he was assigned the position of ‘Father Instructor’ of the Tertian Brothers. So seriously did he take this appointment that at times in his exhortations, he was moved to tears.
All these incidents were typical of one who was scrupulously meticulous in everything to the last detail all through his life. Even during the last years of his life which he gave to so many activities in the Sacred Heart Church, Limerick, when his health was failing and his energies were ebbing, he could never adapt himself to his condition and to his years. He died as he had lived in harness and pulling his weight to the full, right up to the end. Very fitting was the tribute paid to him by the words so nicely spoken by Father Bates and by the large numbers of the faithful of Limerick and representatives from the Province as well as Limerick priests and the priest for whom Bill had been supplying when his sudden illness and unexpected death occurred. May he enjoy eternal rest and the rich reward of his total giving of himself to God's service in the Society of Jesus”.
Matthew Meade.

Fr Cassidy writes from the Crescent :
Fr W Hogan came to the Crescent in 1971 where he had served many years before as a scholastic. As a priest he took a most active and conscientious part in all the activities of the house and church. His work in the confessional and on the altar was of the highest order. His generously practical courtesy towards the members of the public will be remembered for a long time. Constantly he visited them in hospitals, and was forever thoughtful of those occasions that were important to them personally. Few could have managed The Sodality of Our Lady with greater thoroughness or understanding of the needs of the members. He even had time to look after the social side of things, organising from time to time little parties, and bringing people on trips, even abroad. As one Sodalist said “We usually wait till people are dead to appreciate them. This one we appreciated while he was alive”. Every Autumn found Fr Hogan engaged in the quite heavy task of organising and running Mission Week. Since this is an enterprise involving a remarkably varied schedule, great numbers of people and a very large money flow, it is quite a daunting job. Fr Bill, in spite of not too robust health waded through the work at great cost to himself, but always with the ultimate in courtesy to those with whom he worked. More even than his great efficiency, his friendly and gracious attitude to the people, marked his contribution to the annual event. After all, Mission Week is something of An Autumn Festival for a number of generous people in Limerick. Indeed in these days of monotonous canned entertainment it provides lots of variety, of the peoples own making. In addition it establishes links between the Church here and great numbers of people. Fr Bill, in being so totally acceptable to the people in what was so genuinely a community work, in the modern sense, showed an adaptability that was admirable.
From the point of view of the Jesuit community we can add that we have lost a truly great member. In addition to his work which was universally held in the highest esteem, there was his personal contribution to the community. He was for ever concerned with the welfare of the house, and was a most sociable, genial and sincere companion. Quietly forthright, he had an understanding of people which was a peace making faculty. We will remember him for his firm and gentle goodness.

◆ The Clongownian, 1979

Obituary

Father William Hogan SJ

William Hogan was born in Kilkenny on the 12th January 1912. He came to school in Clongowes in September 1925, and remained here for four years. When he left he entered the Jesuit Noviceship in Tullabeg, where he took his first vows as a Jesuit in September 1932. He then took a degree in Classics in UCD, and then studied Philosophy for three years in Tullabeg College. This was followed by two years teaching in the Colleges, one in Clongowes and the other in the Crescent College, Limerick. His Theological studies followed in Milltown Park, where he was ordained a priest in 1944. He then entered on his life work as a missioner and retreat giver.

Fr G O'Beirne SJ who worked with him on many missions has kindly written the following appreciation for the “Clongownian” :

Fr William Hogan died last August at a time when many on holidays could easily escape noticing his obituary in the papers. But it would be a pity should his contemporaries in Clongowes, both those who knew of his death and those who didn't, not learn of his subsequent career on leaving the college and entering the Society. For Fr William or Bill, as we called him, had a most fruitful truly apostolic career. The present writer met him first when he was a scholastic in the college here and I was immediately struck by his deep piety and great kindness, or charity, if you like. I was also slightly amused by his great, too great I would say, earnestness in carrying out all he was assigned to do.

But it was during our time on the mission staff that I really got to know William. We gave many missions together in England and Ireland. Many of them were hard, and exacting, and took place during dreadful weather. We had on the English missions to visit every family or individual on the list of Catholics, practising or lapsed in the parish. This took several hours every day, and was much of it very trying, and apparently unrewarding. I felt at times very depressed and disheartened; but I was always sustained by my companion's good humour and encouragement, the latter mainly by example. He was utterly meticulous in carrying out all the various tasks falling to our lot, and seldom complained of any of the really difficult circumstances connected with many missions anywhere.

What really impressed me in all the many missions we gave together was his great Faith, and truly apostolic zeal. The work was not something to be done, to be got through, even with exactitude. It was for him, as it was in reality, truly God's work, the literal continuation of the apostles task “go teach all Nations”, and I might sum up his holy and devoted life by saying that these words of our Lord were the motto of his life, but a motto not written over his mantelpiece, as I'm sure it is written over so many priests' mantelpieces, but very much inscribed by constant prayer and meditation on mind and heart.

Holden, Noel, 1920-1990, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/499
  • Person
  • 19 December 1920-09 January 1990

Born: 19 December 1920, Moate, County Westmeath
Entered: 20 September 1938, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1952, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 22 April 1989, John Austin House, Dublin
Died: 09 January 1990, Fuengirola, Spain

Part of the John Austin community, North Circular Road, Dublin at the time of death.

by 1979 at Toronto ONT, Canada (CAN S) sabbatical

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 77 : Summer 1994 & Interfuse No 82 : September 1995

Obituary
Noel Holden (1920-1990)

19th Dec. 1920: Born, Moate, Co. Westmeath
Educated by the Marist Brothers in Athlone
20th Sept.1938: Entered Jesuit Novitiate at Emo
1940 - 1943: Rathfarnham (studies U.C.D.)
1943 - 1946: Tullabeg - Philosophy
1946 - 1949: Belvedere - teaching
1949 - 1954: Milltown Park - Theology
1954 - 1969: Crescent College - teaching
1969 - 1978: Milltown Park, engaged in Missions/Retreats
1979 - 1980: Sabbatical in Canada (M.A. Theology in Toronto)
1980 - 1989: North Circular Road, while continuing work in Missions/Retreats, Apostleship of Prayer work.
1989: Fuengirola, Spain, as Chaplain
9th Jan. 1990: Died in Fuengirola

Noel was born in Moate, Co. Westmeath, on 19 December, 1920, with Irish midlands roots on his mother's side and north English roots on his father's. He received his secondary education from the Marist Brothers, Athlone. He told me that his school-days were lonely: the lessons-conscious Moate boy among the Athlone aliens; the double cycle-ride (thirty miles); no time for school games. Evidence here of that dogged sense of duty which was to characterise his life. He was encouraged to enter the Society by the famous Moate parish priest Monsignor Langan, and he came to Emo in 1938.

He suffered (if not entirely in silence) the prickly probation of the then juniorate. There was philosophy in Tullabeg, regency in Belvedere, theology and ordination (1952) in Militown and tertianship in Rathfarnham. From 1954 to 1969 he taught in the Crescent. He became deeply interested in preaching and retreat work and it was hardly a surprise when he was appointed to the mission and retreat staff.

Except for a sabbatical year this was to be his assignment for the rest of his life and along with parish supply work it was to bring him to various parts of Ireland, to Britain, the United States, France, Spain, Israel, Jordan. His favourite mission-ground was in the diocese of Down and Connor. He felt at home in the North, he said: he found the northern temperament akin to his own. The people of Carnlough, Co. Antrim, virtually adopted him and he them. His sabbatical in Toronto gave him a Master's degree in theology and an aggiornamento that flowed into his ministry. He zealously promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart and strongly preached the unconditional love of God for us.

In December 1989 he went to Fuengirola, Spain, as Christmas time chaplain to Irish residents there. He reported that the weather was bad: “I'll have to say goodbye to the swimming”. Unfortunately he didn't. About 11 a.m. on 9 January 1990 he went swimming off the beach and was drowned.

Noel was a hard worker and was happiest when on the ministry trail. The work was often done despite some ill-health: he was subject to headaches. He did not like to be “grounded” for long. I remember a tense few days when he was house-bound following the theft of his car. Fortunately the car was found and he zoomed away to his own and everyone else's relief.

He was not averse to recounting his apostolic achievements. It would be facile to see this as just boasting: there was a certain simplicity, perhaps a sort of humility about it: surely a way of unwinding and sharing. He could irritate you and then charm you with a simple act of kindness.

He was notable in pietas towards his family: very much the parent-remembering son, the concerned brother, the interested uncle. The teaching of Tony de Mello and Billy Johnston appealed to him. There was an inherited psychic side to him. With this went a well-informed love of nature: he tended the garden, and David Attenborough programmes absorbed him.

And this nature-Noel concordance seemed to show itself remarkably on the last day of his life. Years before he had planted two trees in the John Austin garden. Just before he went to Spain it was decided with his consent to remove them. The trees were felled on the morning of 9 January. Requiescat.

Stephen Redmond

Hollis, John, 1896-1974, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1458
  • Person
  • 06 December 1896-28 June 1974

Born: 06 December 1896, Geelong, Victoria, Australia
Entered: 01 February 1915, Loyola, Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained 24 July 1928, Oña, Burgos, Spain
Professed: 02 February 1931
Died: 28 June 1974, Loyola College, Watsonia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1920 in Australia - Regency
by 1924 in Le Puy, Haute-Loire, France (TOLO) studying
by 1927 at Oña, Burgos, Castile y León, Spain (CAST) studying
by 1930 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
John Michael Hollis, commonly known as “Jock”, lived in Richmond, Vic., for a long time, and was a senior altar boy there. He went to school at St Ignatius', Richmond, and Xavier College, and worked for a year with the public service before entering the Society at Loyola College, Greenwich, 1 February 1915.
After his juniorate at Greenwich, he taught at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, 1919-23, and was also involved with cadets and the junior rowing. He then went overseas to Vals, Toulouse province, 1923-25, for philosophy and to Oña, Castile province, and Milltown Park, for theology, 1925-29. Living in Spain had been too much for him.
Tertianship at St Beuno's followed, 1929-30, and then he returned to Australia and Riverview, 1930-34, teaching Latin and French, and was senior rowing master. He was also the senior debating master and in charge of the Sodality of St Vincent de Paul.
From 1934-36 and 1938-41 he was socius to the master of novices and involved in retreats at Loyola College, Watsonia. Here he had a quieter life, a few classes in Latin, catechism on Fridays points for meditation to the brothers, reading classes, and correcting the reading in the refectory During this time he had a number of books read in the refectory relating to Church and State in Spain. Only he was aware of the classical Spanish pronunciation of many words. To fill in his time he frequently did extended parish supplies, especially to the parish of Diamond Creek. He was not the best of drivers. and the brothers were once called out to repair Mrs Considine's fence. She was the college seamstress. He also went on visitation to the local people of Watsonia, and became a respected friend to many, including the children.
After this time, he taught again at St Louis, Claremont, WA, 1941-44, and then at St Aloysius College, Milsons Point, 1945-47. After a year as minister and teacher of Latin at the diocesan seminary, Corpus Christi College, Werribee, 1948, he did parish work at Richmond, 1948-52. Later years were spent at Canisius College, Pymble, as minister, 1953; parish work at Richmond, 1954; Loyola College, Watsonia, 1955-57, St Patrick's College, 1958-61, as minister, teaching Latin and religion; and parish work at Hawthorn, Norwood and Richmond.
In 1971 he was appointed vice-rector at Loyola College, Watsonia, and in his later years he became chaplain to the Spaniards in Melbourne. It was while returning from a wedding that he was involved in a car accident, and later died from its effects. There would not have been many Jesuits who moved as frequently as Hollis during his long life.

Holywood, Christopher, 1562-1626, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1459
  • Person
  • 1562-04 September 1626

Born: 1562, Artane, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 1584, Verdun, France - Campaniae province (CAMP)
Ordained: 1593, Pont-á-Mousson, France
Final Vows: 04/10/1598, Padua, Italy
Died: 04 September 1626, Dublin City, County Dublin

Alias Bushlock
Superior Irish Mission 16 March 1604-04 September 1626

Studied Humanities at Paris and Ent June or January 1584
1584-1590 At Pont-á-Mousson (CAMP) Studying Metaphysics, Philosophy
1590 Studying Theology at Pont-á-Mousson
1593 Not in Campaniae Catalogue but at Dôle College
1596 Teaching Moral Theology at Venice College (Paul Valle and Anthony Maria Venù were teaching Scholastic Theology)
1597 At Padua College teaching Theology
1617 CAT Superior of Irish Mission, with 37 members in Ireland, 28 in Spain, 9 in Portugal, 7 in Belgium, 2 in Bavaria, 2 in Austria, 2 in Italy, 1 each in France, Mexico and Paraguay. 25 October 1617 proclamation against anyone harbouring Jesuits (1622 Catalogue)
He knew Bellarmine at Ferrara and Padua

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica” :
Professor of Philosophy at Theology at Padua; Prisoner in Tower of London, Wisbech Castle and Framlingham Castle; Superior of Irish Mission for 23 years; Writer on Controversy and Physical Science; Especially denounced by James I;
Alias : Sacrobosco; Jo. Bus; Thomas Laundry (not the only one who took the alias “Bosco” - John Halifax of Yorkshire author of De Sphoera Mundi” in 13th century was also called “de Sacro Bosco)
He was heir to Artane Castle
He was appointed Superior of the Irish Mission, he travelled from Dieppe, January 1599, disguised as a merchant, was seized at Dover, carried to London and strictly examined by Lord Cobham and Secretary Cecil. First at Gatehouse Prison, Westminster then on the accession of James I moved to Framlingham Castle, and then deported 1603. He eventually reached Ireland from St Malo 1604.
(For his literary productions cf Southwell’s “Biblio Script SJ”, and De Backer’s “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ”)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ:
Son of Nicholas, Lord of Artane
After First Vows he was sent for studies to Pont-à-Mousson where he was Ordained 1692/3
1593-1958 Taught Theology successively at Dôle and Padua
1598 Appointed Superior of Irish Mission 26/09/1598 which had been undertaken by the Society at the request of Pope Clement VIII
1599 Set out for Ireland but was arrested on his journey at Dover, England, and imprisoned for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy
1603 He was released from prison May 1603, but only to be deported
1604-1626 Arrived in Ireland 16/03/1604. For the next twenty-two years he organised the mission with such success that the number of Jesuits in Ireland increased from seven to forty-four while Residences were established in ten cities and towns. His influence with Catholics was so great that the Protestants called “Teacher of the Papists of Ireland”. He died in Office 04 September 1626, leaving behind a great reputation for holiness, prudence and love of the poor
He published two controversial works and a treatise on meteorology.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Holywood, Christopher
by Judy Barry

Holywood, Christopher (1559–1626), Jesuit priest, was son of Nicholas Holywood of Artane castle, Dublin, lord of manors in Co. Dublin, Co. Meath, and Co. Wexford. His mother was a niece of Christopher Nugent, Baron Delvin. He was educated at the University of Padua and entered the Society of Jesus at Verdun (1584). He was subsequently professor of divinity and philosophy at Dole and Pont-à-Mousson, and of scripture at Padua. He was ordained a priest in 1593 and took his final vows in 1597.

In 1598, when a third Jesuit mission was sent to Ireland at the request of Pope Clement VIII, Holywood was appointed superior. He sailed for England disguised as a merchant, but was arrested at Dover. On refusing to swear the oath of supremacy, he was taken to London and examined by the secretary of state, Sir Robert Cecil, who told him that he would not suffer for his religion so long as he did not meddle in political matters. However, when Holywood persisted in defending his order, Cecil had him imprisoned at Wisbech castle and later at Framlingham castle, Suffolk, where he devoted his time to scholarly work. He was released in May 1603 and banished to the Continent, where he completed two books for publication in the following year: Defensio decreti Tridentini et sententiae Roberti Bellarmini, S.R.E. cardinalis, de authoritate Vulgatae editionis Latinae (‘Defence of the decree of the council of Trent and of the opinion of Cardinal Bellarmine concerning the authority of the Latin Vulgate’) and De investiganda vera ac visibili Christi ecclesia libellus (‘A treatise on the true and visible church of Christ’).

He arrived in Dublin (16 March 1604) to take up his original appointment and was sheltered by Sir Christopher Plunkett (qv). The mission under his direction numbered six Jesuits and was at first centred on Dublin and the Pale. This was partly because he and his companions came mainly from gentry families in the city and county of Dublin and did not speak Irish, and partly because of a new government policy insisting on the declared loyalty of the patrician leaders of the city. Up to this point the evidence of open catholic practice had not been regarded as sufficient reason to doubt the political loyalty of the municipality, and indeed the Dublin merchants had been active in raising money in support of the war against O'Neill. In 1600 Patrick Plunkett, Baron Dunsany, had written to Robert Cecil advising that Holywood be released, since the priests in the English Pale were ‘firm in dutiful allegiance’ and quite different from ‘Tyrone's priests’.

Under Sir Arthur Chichester (qv), however, anxiety about security led the government to demand that leaders of the civic community take the oath of supremacy and attend protestant service on Sundays and holydays. Those aldermen who refused were imprisoned and proceedings were taken against them in the court of castle chamber. Holywood and his fellow Jesuits were active in encouraging a defiant attitude among the catholic patriciate, and assisted in preparing the defence of those who were brought to court. Their affirmation that they could give political allegiance to James I, but could not acknowledge that he had jurisdiction over spiritual matters, formed the basis of the campaign for legal redress led by Patrick Barnewall (qv).

Although the Jesuits were few at first, their familiarity with Dublin city and county, and the tightly knit network of blood and matrimonial ties to which they had access, ensured them protection and hospitality, and their letters indicate the range of pastoral services to which they attended. As the mission expanded, it extended its operations. In 1610 Holywood organised a system of separate ‘residences’, each responsible for a particular area and each with a spiritual father. By 1619 he had established these in Dublin, east Munster, west Munster, and Connacht. Expansion prompted greater discretion and Holywood successfully opposed the return of James Archer (qv) and Henry Fitzsimon (qv) to the Irish mission. In 1617 and 1619 he received papal permission to set up sodalities, including those with female members, in Carrick, Cashel, Clonmel, Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick, and Waterford. A sodality introduced to Drogheda without papal authorisation (1619) led to a protracted conflict with the Franciscans and Dominicans, in the course of which Holywood disregarded instructions from the Jesuit general in Rome that were designed to bring the dispute to an end.

Although he often expressed a desire to retire, he died in office on 4 September 1626. By that time there were 43 Jesuits in Ireland and many more Irish Jesuits abroad. In 1619 Holywood had published a new edition of De investiganda and written an unpublished treatise ‘Opusculum de virtutibus’ (‘Little work on the virtues’). Shortly before his death he wrote another book, which the Jesuit censors rejected. Until 1618 he used the pseudonym ‘John Bus’ (or ‘Bushlocks’): later, he called himself ‘Thomas Lawndrie’. Occasionally, he used the Latin equivalent of his name, ‘a sacro bosco’.

CSPI, 1599–25; DNB; Edmund Hogan, SJ, Distinguished Irishmen of the sixteenth century (1894), 393–499; James Corboy, SJ, ‘Father Christopher Holywood, S.J., 1559–1626’, Studies, xxxiii (1944), 541–9; Proinsias Ó Fionnagáin, SJ, The Jesuit missions to Ireland in the sixteenth century (c.1970; privately published), 76; John Kingston, ‘The Holywoods of Artane’, Reportorium Novum, i (1956), 342–3; Fergus O'Donoghue, SJ, ‘The Jesuit mission in Ireland’ (Ph.D. thesis, The Catholic University of America, 1982); Colm Lennon, The lords of Dublin in the age of reformation (1989), 174–85, 209–12

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 1st Year No 3 1926
On the 4th September the Irish Province will celebrate the tercentenary of the death of one of its most distinguished members.
Fr Christopher Holywood entered the Society in 1582, and in course of time became Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Padua,
On his arrival in England he was arrested and kept in prison until I 603, when he was exiled, and ordered not to return, However, the following year he succeeded in reaching Ireland.
Two other Missions of Jesuits had been sent to Ireland by the Popes: the first comprised Frs. Salmeron and Brouet, 1541 ; the second under Fr David Wolfe, 1560.
The first lasted a very brief time; the second held on until 1986. Some of the members were exiled ; others were martyred or died in prison. When Fr. Holywood arrived he found just five Jesuits in the country. His first care was to provide for the future by having candidates for the Irish Mission accepted in Spain, Italy, and other Provinces. The effects of his work ih this respect are traceable for more than half a century, The Irish Catalogue, 1910, gives the state of our Province in I609: (Holywood became Superior in 1604), 18 priests in Ireland, 20 priests, 82 scholastics, and I brother scattered through Europe, I priest *in Paraguay. He remained Superior to the end of his life. When he died the Irish Mission had been thoroughly organized. There were 42 Jesuits in the country, with reserves in various places in Europe. There were residences in Dublin, Kilkenny, Waterford, Clonmel, Cashel, Cork, Limerick, Galway, and in Ulster. Fr. Holywood had permanently established the Society in Ireland. To him, too, must be given the credit of keeping the faith alive amongst the Anglo-Irish Catholics.
All this great work was carried on in the midst of constant danger. He tells the story himself in a letter written in 1617. “Our brethren” he writes, “are so hotly pursued that, in order to keep at large and perform the functions or their ministry, they have to travel by out of-the-way paths, and pass over walls and hedges, and through woods, and even to sleep on straw, in cornfields and old ruins at which times they always sleep in their clothes in order to be ready to escape”
However, God abundantly blessed their strenuous work. Fr. Holywood again writes in 1622 : “Your Paternity has every reason to thank God for the great success of the Irish Mission SJ, the fragrance of which is the fragrance of a full field which the Lord hath blessed. People never cease admiring and extolling the charity and humility of our Fathers, who shrink from no labour or trouble in working for the salvation of Souls.”
Fr. Holywood is the author of two theological works, and a Latin treatise, De Metearis. The man, whom we may fairly call the founder of the Irish Province, died in Dublin, his native city, the 4th September 1626.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ The Irish Jesuits Vol 1 1962
Christopher Holywood (1598-1626)

Christopher Holywood, son of Nicholas Holywood, lord of Artane, was born in 1562, and entered the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Verdun, in France, in the month of June, 1584. Having completed his studies at the University of Pont-à-Mousson, he lectured on theology at Dôle in France, and at Padua and Milan in Italy, On 26th September, 1598, he was appointed Superior of the Mission to Ireland undertaken by the Society at the request of Pope Clement VIII. Having made his solemn profession of four vows at Padua on 4th October, 1598, he set out on his journey, but was arrested on landing at Dover in January, 1599, and imprisoned for refusing to take the oath of supremacy. Released and banished in May, 1603, he made his way back to Ireland, arriving there on 16th March, 1604. During the next twenty-two years he organised the Mission with such success that the number of Irish Jesuits increased from seven to forty-four, and Residences were established in ten towns : Dublin, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Waterford, Carrick-on-Suir, Clonmel, Cashel, Cork, Limerick, and Galway. His influence with Catholics was so great that the heretics called him the Teacher of the Papists of Ireland. He published two controversial works and a treatise on meteorology, He died on 4th September, 1626, leaving behind him a great reputation for holiness, prudence, and love of the poor

◆ James B Stephenson SJ The Irish Jesuits Vol 1I 1962

FATHER CHRISTOPHER HOLYWOOD SJ 1559-1626
Fr Christopher Holywood was the first Superior of the first permanent mission of the Society of Jesus in Ireland. In previous articles I have sketched the lives of Fr Henry Fitzsimon and Fr James Archer. These two pioneer Jesuit missionaries were eminent men of their day in Ireland, It was they who established the mission which was ruled and organised for twenty-three years by Fr Holywood, the subject of the present biography. The task of preparing the way for an organised mission had been a long one. It was not set up, finally, until the last years of the sixteenth century. Before giving an account of Fr Holywood's life, it is opportune to review briefly the activities of the Irish Jesuits from their arrival in Ireland until that time.

The first mission to arrive in Ireland and actually the first Jesuit mission outside the continent of Europe was that of Frs Alphonsus Salmeron and Paschase Brouet. They were the Pope's nuncios apostolic. Three Irish princes - Conn O'Neill, of Tryone, Manus O'Donnell of Tyrconnell, Morogh O'Brien of Thomond - had begged Paul III to send envoys to Ireland. They arrived in this country on the 23 February 1542. Their work was carried out under the greatest difficulties. The Irish Chieftains who had already surrendered, in word at least, to Henry VIII were afraid that the presence of Papal Legates might compronise their position in the eyes of the king, During their short stay of thirty-four days the two Jesuits succeeded in visiting many of these chieftains. Thus on their return to Rome they were able to give a first-hand account of the state of affairs in Ireland. Possibly, too, they helped to bind the people in greater union with Rome, a union which later became so outstanding a characteristic of the Irish Catholics.

The next Jesuit mission was not inaugurated until 1561, some sixteen years later. Laynez, General of the Society of Jesus, was requested by the Pope to send a holy and prudent man to Ireland to confirm the people, both cleric and lay, in obedience to the Holy See, Fr David Wolfe, a Limerick man, was chosen; for not only did he possess the stipulated qualifications of prudence and sanctity of life, but he was also an experienced missionary. On the 20 January 1561 Wolfe landed at Cork, Having declined the episcopal honour offered by the Pope, he was appointed Apostolic Commissary and was given the fullest faculties, including power to open schools, reform monasteries and report on the dispositions of the Irish Bishops.

Fr Wolfe seems to have made a very favourable impression on the Irish. Barefoot, the people travelled miles to meet him and made their confessions, and it is recorded that they returned to their homes filled with a great esteem for the Church of Christ and the Holy See. In a few months he rectified over a thousand marriages which had not been validly contracted. With the help of two other Jesuits, Fr William Good, an Englishman, and Edmond O'Donnell, an Irishman, he opened a small school at Limerick, which owing to the persecution then rife had shortly to be transferred to Kilmallock, later to Clonmel and finally to Youghal, where it continued to exist for about fifteen years. After its suppression, the Jesuits could not dare to make any other foundation until the reign of James I. David Wolfe was one of the most remarkable Irishmen of the century and possibly had more influence in ecclesiastical affairs in Ireland than anyone else of his time. He was arrested at least twice, but managed to escape. He died in Lisbon in 1579. His companion, Edmond O'Donnell, was captured by the English, given a mock-trial and, having been tortured several times, was condemned to death for the faith. On the 25 October 1572 he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Cork - the first of a long line of Jesuits to die for the Faith in Europe.

Dr Tanner, Bishop of Cork, writes of two other Jesuits, Frs Charles Lea and Robert Rochford, who arrived in Ireland about this time: “They are spreading the best of their institute in Youghal, where they teach school and, with great industry, train their scholars in the knowledge of the Christian doctrine, in the frequentation of the sacraments, and in the practice of solid virtue, In spite of the hardships they endure, their efforts are attended with the greatest success”. Lea was arrested soon after his arrival in Ireland, but was later released and laboured in the country until his death in 1586. Rochford, more famous than his companion, is frequently mentioned in contemporary official documents. For many years he was well known as a zealous missioner, rousing the suspicions of the English who offered a reward for his capture, dead or alive, In 1501 he had to leave Ireland and, after his escape, at least four persons were hanged for affording him shelter, Seven years later in 1588, another Irishman, a novice of the Society of Jesus named Maurice Eustace, was hanged, drawn and quartered in Dublin.

Thus almost all the Jesuit missionaries who came to Ireland in the sixteenth century was either executed or banished from the country, From 1586 to 1596 there was no Jesuit in Ireland; but several attempts were made by Irish bishops and Princes to induce the Pope or the General of the Society of Jesus to send Irish Jesuit Fathers to Ireland. This would not have happened had not the names of their predecessors been held in high veneration among the Irish. Perhaps one might wonder why the Irish Jesuit mission was not opened again until so late at 1596? Why did Fr Aquaviva, General of the Jesuits, hesitate so long before sending his men to Ireland?

Possibly he was influenced by the sad state of affairs in England. There he would have heard in 1595 of the martyrdom of Frs Walpole and Southwell, the imprisonment of Frs Jones and Baldwin, and the banishment of Fr Jasper Haywood. Already Frs Campion, Cottam and McMahon, an Irishman, had died on the gallows at Tyburn, and Fr Persons was in exile on the continent. The fate of the Jesuits who had come to Ireland was little better, as we have seen. No wonder then that Aquaviva hesitated. But finally, yielded to numerous appeals, he agreed to reopen the mission to Ireland.

The history of the first five Jesuits to be sent to Ireland at that time can be told briefly. Fr Henry Fitzsimon was imprisoned in Dublin Castle two years after his arrival. · A few years later, his companion Fr James Archer was forced to go into exile, barely escaping with his life, while Fr Christopher Holywood did not even reach Ireland, being captured in England and lodged in the Tower of London. In 1602 Dominic Collins, a lay-brother, was captured in Cork and hanged. Only one of these men, Fr Richard de la Field, temporary Superior in the place of Fr Holywood, was able to work in comparative peace and elude the hands of the English. It was in these circumstances that Fr Holywood undertook to establish a permanent Jesuit mission in Ireland. With what success we shall see later.

Christopher Holywood was born at Artane, near Dublin, in the year 1559, one year after Elizabeth's coronation in England, Belonging to a very old Anglo-Irish family, his father, Nicholas Holywood, was Lord of the manors of Artane, Great Holywood in Santry, and of several other estates in the counties of Dublin, Meath, and Wexford. His mother was the niece of Baron Devlin and heiress-general of the fifth Earon Dunsany.. Holywood could count as relations such prominent families as those of Dunsany, Fingal, Westmeath, Inchiquin and Netterville. This factor was of the utmost importance later, when these houses came under the influence of the reform movement.

Holywood was sent to the University of Padua when he was twenty years of age. Here he came into contact with the Jesuit Fathers of the city, and in 1584 he entered the Society of Jesus. Having made his noviceship at Dôle in France, he afterwards distinguished himself in his philosophical and theological studies. In 1593 we find him at the University of Pont-à-Mousson. The Chancellor of the University at the time was another Irishman, the renowned Fr Richard Fleming, who had succeeded the even more famous Fr Maldonatus in the chair of theology. For a short period Holywood was engaged in teaching philosophy in the University, after which he professed theology at Dôle and later at Pont-à-Mousson again. Finally he was sent to Pauda to teach Sacred Scripture. Here he took his final vows in 1597, at the same time making the acquaintance of Robert Bellarmine. In 1598 he was in Milan. On the 10 June of the same year he wrote to the General of the Jesuits asking for special faculties for the fathers who had gone to the Irish mission. Unfortunately we do not know the circumstances of Holywood's own mission to Ireland, and when we next hear of him he is a prisoner in the Tower of London.

On the 1 May 1599, writing in the third person under the pseudonym of John Bushlock, he gave an account of his journey to England and his capture. From Rome he travelled to Switzerland, then into Spires, finally to Brussels, where the Superior of the house warned him that it was dangerous for a Jesuit to travel through Holland. Leaving Brussels, he went to Arras and then to Abbeyville, where, although disguised as a merchant, he was recognised as a Jesuit. Whereupon he left hastily for Dieppe and, “finding an obscure inn, told its owner that he was an Irishman and a subject of the Queen of England. He was returning home, but feared that English on account of the war which some of the Irish were waging against the Queen”. The inn-keeper stood the test valiantly and at once gave Holywood a secret room. Unable to procure a ship for Ireland, he was compelled to board an English vessel. Very soon he was suspected of being a traitor, but the inn-keeper informed the hesitant captain that “he was a merchant and no traitor”. Taking no risks, Holywood abandoned the ship and travelled on another, whose captain was a French Huguenot. Having arrived at Dover, he was tendered the oath of supremacy and, of course, refused to take it. Instantly he was cast into prison and later placed in the Tower of London. As yet the English did not know that their captive was a priest, much less a Jesuit. After several futile attempts to secure his liberation, he was brought before Lord Cobham, to whom he made known his identity. He declared that he was returning to Ireland solely for the salvation of souls, To Cecil he gave the same information, but only succeeded in rousing his anger - for, according to Holywood, Cecil feared and hated the Jesuits. He issued an order that the priest be placed in close custody.

After some time Holywood was offered his release, if he would take an oath to persuade the Irish that it was unlawful to resist the royal power in Ireland, He refused the offer and was transferred from the Gatehouse prison to Wisbeck Castle. The Superior of the English mission, Fr Henry Garnet, who in a few years was to die a martyr for the faith, reported in May 1600 that Holywood helped to comfort the other Jesuits at Wisbeck and edified all while he was in the Gatehouse. Like his comrade, Fr Fitzsimon, who at this time was closely confined in Dublin, he must occasionally have endured the greatest privations, for we know that the prisoners were not even provided with beds to sleep on. Like Fitzsimon, too, while a prisoner, he held many disputations with the Protestant ministers.

On the death of Elizabeth in April, 1603, Holywood was removed from Wisbeck to Framlington prison in Suffolk. Very soon after this time - the date is uncertain - he was sent into perpetual banishment. He proceeded to Belgium, whence he wrote to his General begging either to be permitted to return to Ireland or to be sent back to his own province at Dôle. The General granted the former request, and on the 16 March 1604. Holywood landed in Ireland. He was again appointed Superior of the mission, and for the next twenty-three years filled that office with remarkable success. The uncertainty of the times did not favour the fostering of a new mission; but, thanks to the prudence and courage of Fr Holywood, rapid strides were made and successful reports poured in from every side. Holywood himself was in constant danger of capture and had to change his abode frequently. Writing to the General of the Jesuits, he says: “I have not been able to write since Easter, as I was obliged to go to remote parts, in order to keep clear of the more than usually troublesome presence of our adversaries. In this retreat I devoted myself to help a very extensive diocese, and I did so at the invitation of its ruler. With our assistance he has set his province in very good order and has given regulations adapted to the tines”. In a letter written about the same time, Fr Wise, a Jesuit living in Waterford, says: “Our pilor, Sacrobosco (Holywood), was fiercely pursued, but escaped; he is accustomed to these storms ...”

All through the first half of the reign of James I. the Irish priests and especially the Jesuits were continually harassed by the government. Thus it was almost impossible for Holywood to set up an organised mission of even the most flexible nature. He had not yet founded a single fixed abode for his men. For almost twenty years after the arrival of Fr Archer in 1596, the Jesuits lived in private houses, or stayed with a bishop or priest in the remote part of the country, and were of course, always disguised as laymen. In spite of these hardships I think it is not untrue to say that their success in Ireland was hardly excelled by that of even the most famous Jesuit missions of the day. For all that they are scarcely mentioned in the ordinary school text-books, and in the histories of the counter-reformation they find no place.

The story of the Irish Jesuit mission between 1604 and 1626, that is during Holywood's period of leadership, is one of intermittent persecution and of constant insecurity. Externally the mission had no organisation. It is true that the letters of the times frequently make reference to residences; but the name if residence was loosely applied to a large district in which a number of Jesuits worked under one superior, but did not necessarily live in the same or in any fixed abode. Thus the residence of Galway comprised all the Jesuits who were working in Connaught, living from hand to mouth in private houses, but under the supervision of the same superior who usually resided in Galway. The Irish Jesuits did not establish their first college in the modern sense until 1619 at Kilkenny - and they had no noviceship for almost another thirty years.

Internally, however, the mission was remarkably well organised, and to this factor more than anything else its success can be attributed. All the year round, the Jesuits travelled through the country ministering and preaching to the people, hurrying from place to place as their identity and place of residence became known to the authorities - at one time preaching in the open air to a group. of. poverty-stricken people, at another uniting chieftains and their ladies: who were at daggers drawn, encouraging all alike to remain steadfast in the practice of their Faith. Everywhere they went the people received them with a never failing welcome. Often they made their confessions on the roadside as the Jesuits passed through the district. Not once do we hear of a betrayal or an act or disloyalty, at a time when treachery meant money and fidelity meant hardship and penury.

In 1619, Fr Holywood wrote a long letter to his General describing the missionary activities of his men. By this time he had established residences in Dublin, Kilkenny, Waterford, Cashel, Clonmel, Cork, Limerick, and one house in Connaught. The first school of the mission was founded in Kilkenny in 1619, After speaking of the work of the Jesuits in the country, he goes on to say: “There are so few priests in the Kingdom that one priest has often charge of four or five parishes. To help them, our fathers go from village to village by day and by night, according to the necessities of the faithful, hearing confessions, giving communion, baptizing, attending the dying, preaching, teaching the catechism, and promoting the interests of peace”. Down in Cork and Kerry we hear of a “successful mission, which they reached by difficult ways, through robbers and Protestant foes, over bogs and mountains, often being without food or drink or a bed. They approached in disguise, converted, and prepared for death nearly all the forty seven pirates captured on the southern coast ...” Fr Galway, a Cork Jesuit, visited the islands. north of Scotland and ministered to the faithful there, many of whom had not seen a preist for years. In the north of Ireland, Fr Robert Nugent gave a running mission over a sixty-mile area. These few examples are typical of the work that was being done all over the country. At this time there were about forty Jesuits in Ireland and all were engaged in active missionary work.

Before I conclude this short sketch of the life of Fr Holywood, I shall refer briefly to his literary work; for besides being an outstanding organiser, he was also an author of no small merit. After his release fron prison in 1603 he went to the continent and in the following year published at Brussels two works entitled “Defenso Concilii Tridentini et sententiae Bellarmini de actoritate Vulgatae Editionis” (a book of four hundred and sixteen pages), and “Libellus de investiganda vera et visibili Christi Ecclesia”, a much smaller treatise. It is interesting to note that James Ussher, in theological lectures which he delivered in Dublin in 1609, quoted Holywood's “Defensio Concilii Tridentini” thirty times. His second work he wrote while in prison in England to help the Protestant ministers and learned men who came to him for advice. In 1604 also he wrote another work entitled “Magna supplicia a persecutionibus aliquot Catholicorum in Hibernia sumpta”, which remained unpublished until Fr Edmund Hogan edited it in the “Irish Ecclesiastical Record” of 1873. In it he gives an account of the fate that befell many of the religious persecutors in Ireland between the years 1577 and 1604, and ends with a eulogy of the Irish Catholics who, despite every persecution, could not be induced to give up the Faith. After his return to Ireland in 1601, Holywood had no further opportunity for literary work.

In February 1622, Holywood was reported to be in bad health and unable to write. Two years later he founded the first Jesuit residence in the north of Ireland. When next we hear of him in 1626, he is still Superior of the mission; but, worn out by the labours and hardships of twenty-three years of missionary activity, he died at the end of the year. It was to his prudence and zeal, in a time fraught with the greatest difficulties, that the General Fr Vitelleschi attributed the success of the mission. On his arrival in Ireland there were only five Jesuits in the country; at his death they numbered forty-two and had nine residences. Until late in the second decade of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits were usually attached to the houses of the gentry, whence they made frequent incursions into the country to give missions and administer the sacraments, After that, through the enterprise of Fr Holywood, they obtained residences of their own, some of which had a community
to eight members, while none had less than three. Thus during his period of office as Superior, the Irish Jesuit mission was stabilised and, became a province of the Order in every respect save in name.

James Corboy SJ

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Christopher Holywood 1562-1626
Christopher Holywood was born in 1562 at Artane Castle, which may still be seen in the grounds of Artane Industrial School. He entered the Society at Verdun in France in 1584.

He is the founder of the Irish Province of the Society as we know it today. He was a brilliant Professor, occupying chairs at Pont-á-Mousson, Dôle and Padua. He was personally acquainted with St Robert Bellarmine, whom he defended against his enemies in a book he published entitled “Defensio Decreti Tridentini”.

In 1596 he was chosen to head the Mission to Ireland, but was captured en route and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Ultimately he was released on the accession of James I of England. He took up duty in Ireland in 1604.

For 22 years he organised the Mission with such success, that on his death on 4th September 1626, he left 42 Jesuits where he found seven, and established Residences in ten towns, one of these in the North.

In his voluminous correspondence, he was force to use many soubriquets, Thomas Lawndrie, Jophn Bushlock, John Bus Jobus, but his favourite one was John de Sacro Bosco, the name of an ancestor, who was a famous mathematician and lectured in Oxford and Paris in the 13th century.

He published two controversial works and a treatise on Meteorology.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
HOLIWOOD, CHRISTOPHER, (often called a Sacro Bosco) was born in Dublin, in the year 1562. At the age of 22, as it appears by one of his letters, he embraced the Institute of St. Ignatius, at Dol, in France, and in the sequel distinguished himself as a Professor of Philosophy and Divinity at Padua. Ordered to Ireland to preside over his brethren, he took shipping as a merchant in January, 1599, at Dieppe, but was apprehended on reaching Dover, and committed to prison for refusing the Oath of Supremacy. Escorted to London he underwent an examination by Lord Cobham, Governor of the Cinque Ports, and was then forwarded to Secretary Sir Robert Cecyll. The Father told Sir Robert at once, that he was a Priest and a Member of the Society of Jesus. (He was induced to do so, as he was aware many persons then in the kingdom were well acquainted with him at Padua.) The Secretary inquired the motives of his coming hither. He answered for the Salvation of souls. But what need have we of your assistance? said the Secretary. Are not we Christians? That is not at all sufficient, said the Father, unless you be Catholics. Well, replied the Secretary, as no one can help your believing what you think right, until God enlightens your mind, you shall not suffer anything for your Faith; but if you are found guilty of meddling with changes and state affairs, 1 promise you, you shall not escape with impunity. The Father rejoined. Long since I have renounced the world : I no longer mix myself up with secular concerns, and I am unable to do so : for they are foreign to my Institute. The Secretary then began to inveigh against the Society of Jesus, on which the Father boldly undertook its defence, and plainly told him, that the Society proposed nothing to its members which was not praiseworthy; on which the Secretary ordered him to be removed, and kept in close custody in which state he continued for three months, until his relation, Lord Dunsany obtained for him the liberty of the prison, which consists in this, that he is not denied the liberty of receiving his friends. The above particulars I collect from a letter, dated Dublin, 11th of May, 1599.
F. Henry Garnett, in a letter of the 19th of April, 1599, announces the apprehension of F. Holiwood as a recent event : and in his letter of the 22nd of May, 1600, says of him, “he doth much comfort our friends at Wisbich, and was of exceeding edification in the Gatehouse. There is hope of getting him at liberty, and sending him into his Country”. Change of prison, however, was the only relief that this Irish Father could procure, while the tyrannical Elizabeth swayed the sceptre : his friends at length obtained his removal to Framlingham Castle, which he quitted for perpetual banishment, in virtue of the Proclamation of James I. at his accession to the throne of England. I find the Father writing from Lisle, 30th of June, 1603, and from Douay, 16th, of July, 1603. In the last dated letter, he states, that a short time before the queen’s death, the Catholics in Dublin had experienced the storm of persecution. The instigators were Terrell, the Mayor of the City, and Rider, the dean of St. Patrick s, and polemical antagonist of F. Henry Fitzsimon. Many Catholics quitted the town, and the leading citizens were committed to gaol. Baron Mountjoy was then absent in Connaught; at his return the citizens presented a memorial of their grievances. Turning to the Mayor, his Excellency said, “I am putting an end to warfare abroad, and you, Sir, are sowing the seeds of wars at Home”. It was thought that his Excellency had received information of the Queen’s dangerous illness, with instruction to pacify and conciliate the public mind. The letter adds, that on the news of Queen Elizabeth’s death reaching Ireland, in the cities of Waterford, Kilkenny, and Cork, and in various ether places the churches were seized on and restored to Catholic worship. Lord Mountjoy began to apprehend lest the greater part of the island would join in the insurrection. He had come to a composition fortunately with O’Neil, and having collected all his forces from the North he hurried down to the South to arrest the progress of discontent : and having succeeded in his object, sailed from Dublin to England. F. Holiwood embarked from St. Malo, and reached Ireland the 16th March, 1604, the Eve of St. Patrick, “Omen uti spero felix”, as he expresses it. Towards the end of Lent he met FF. Nicholas Lynch, Richard Field, Walter Wale, and Barnaby Kearney, brother to the Archbishop of Cashell, and Andrew Morony. At this time the Catholics of Ireland enjoyed a certain negative freedom of their religion. But this was of short duration. As soon as James thought himself sufficiently secure on his throne, he basely recalled all his promises of toleration.
His subsequent conduct shewed how dangerous it is for the civil and religious rights of subjects to depend on the will of any man, and especially on the caprice of a drunken and voluptuous sovereign, as James unquestionably was. His Proclamamation, dated Westminster, 4th July, 1605, was published with great solemnity in Dublin, on the 28th September, in which his Majesty desires that no one should hope for his tolerating the exericse of any other worship, but that of the church established by law; he commanded all his subjects to attend the Protestant Churches on Sundays and festivals - requires all Priests to withdraw from the realm before the 10th of December; forbids any of his subjects to harbour any Priest; and renews the penal statutes of the late Queen against Popish Recusants and Popish Priests and Jesuits.
From an interesting letter of F. Holiwood, dated 10th of December, 1605, I discover, that to strike terror amongst the Catholic population of Dublin, who nobly refused to sacrifice their religion to Mammon the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council, had sent to prison on the 22nd and 27th of November, several members of the Corporation, and some of the principal citizens. A deputation of gentlemen from the Counties of Kildare, Meath, and Louth, upon this, waited on his Excellency, and petitioned for a suspension of the system of coercion, until they could be allowed to visit his Majesty s Court, and represent their case. After a delay of fifteen days, his Excellency, in the exercise of despotic power, threw some of the deputation into gaol, and ordered others to confine themselves to their houses, and neither to write to any one, nor speak to any person who was not part of the family, under the penalty of a thousand pounds English money. A large body of troops was assembled at Dublin, and detachments were drafted off for the apprehension of Priests all over the kingdom. F. Holiwood incloses the lists of some of the Prisoners :
The following are citizens of Dublin : “Mr. Walter Seagrove, John Shelton, James Beelowe, Thomas Penket, Kennedy, Stephens, Tornor, Kearroll, &c.
These and others were first commanded to go to church by proclamation; again by special commandment; last by commandment upon the duty of allegiance, under the broad seal, and therefore indicted after, in the Star Chamber, fined, and committed for contempt. Noblemen and gentlemen committed for putting in of a petition.
‘My Lord Viscount of Gormanston, My Lord of Lowth (as I heare), Sir Patrick Barnwall, close Prisoner, Sir James Dillon. John Finglass, Richard Netirvil and Henry Burnell, committed to their howses only by reason of their adge’.
But the heart is sickened with these abominable reprisals on conscience with these impious attempts of a government to force its novel opinions on a nation, and rob a people of its religious freedom. The history of the Irish Reformation is indeed a compound of absurdity and barbarity, unprecedented in the Annals of mankind.
To return to F. Holiwood. He continued in very difficult times to render essential services to his county and to religion, by his zeal, wisdom, charity and fortitude, until his pious death on the 4th of September, 1616. His pedantic and blgotted sovereign had expressly denounced him in his speech to the Parliament, 1st of May, 1614, and the Royal Commissioners reported in 1615, that “Hollywood, a Jesuit, was kept and harboured by Sir Christopher Plunkett”.

From the pen of this Father we have :

  1. “Defensio Concilii Tridentini et Sententice Bellarmini de auctoritate VuLgatae Editionis”, with an appendix.
  2. “Libellus de investiganda vera et visibili Christi Ecclesiae”. This is a 4to. volume printed at Antwerp, 1604. It was re-printed with additions at Antwerp, in an 8vo form, 1619, under the name of John Geraldini.
  3. A Latin Treatise “De Meteoris”.
  • He sometimes signs himself Johannes Bushlock
  • This hollow and rotten hearted prince had been a pensioner of the Pope, and the king of Spain. F. William Creitton, in a letter to F. Thomas Owen, dated Billom, 4th of June, 1605, says also. “Our Kyng had so great fear of ye nombre of Catholikes, ye pui-saunce of Pope and Spaine, yet he offered Libertie of Conscience and send me to Rome to deal for the Pope’s favor and making of an Scottish Cardinal, as I did shaw the Kyng s letter to F. Parsons”. In the sequel this contemptible tyrant considered a petition presented for Liberty of Conscience as an indignity, and committed the petitioners to gaol for their presumption!

LAWNDY, THOMAS, was the acting Superior of the Irish Mission in 1623,4,5, as his letters demonstrate, and appears to have had habits of business.

Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 1844-1889, Jesuit priest and poet

  • IE IJA J/11
  • Person
  • 28 July 1844-08 June 1889

Born: 28 July 1844, Stratford, Essex, England
Entered: 07 September 1868, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1877, St Beuno's, Wales
Final Vows: 15 August 1882, Manresa, Roehampton, London, England
Died: 08 June 1889, University College Dublin - Angliae Province (ANG)

by 1884 came to UCD (HIB)

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Cholmeley Grammar in Highgate. He later studied Classics under the famous Dr Jowett at Balliol, Oxford. He had a keen interest in drawing, ever since his aunt introduced him to Layard, and he never ceased drawing and painting, as well as studying Art and Architecture - such as Butterfield, the architect of Keble. He also had a great interest in music, and possessed a lovely voice. He won a school Exhibition, and an Exhibition at Balliol in 1863.
1866 He became a convert under the influence of Jowett and especially John Henry Newman, and two years later Entered the Society.
1884 After an arduous career on the mission in various parts of England, Scotland and Wales, he came to UCD as Professor of Greek. he taught there for five years, and then contracted typhus, and he died there in 1889, buried in Glasnevin.

Though constantly engaged by both the criticism of Poetry, and composing his own, he never published anything during his lifetime. He sent all his poems to his great friend Robert Bridges, who after his death set about having them published. He exercised great judgement, in terms of timing in the culture, for these publications, allowing only a few at a time, lets they be considered oddities. It was not until 1918 that he decided that they be published in an edition. Only at the publication of the 2nd edition in 1930, and after Bridges’ death, was he considered a master of the art. The publication of Hopkin’s correspondence with both bridges, and later Richard Watson Dixon were very well received. The only disappointment was that the letters from Bridges have not survived, especially when he had written questioning Hopkins about the value of his continuing to write poetry, since we have Hopkins’ tender reply. He in fact valued Bridges’ poetry hugely. In addition his correspondence with Coventry Patmore has also been published. The published correspondences show how ill at ease Hopkins was in the world, but also that faith was the strongest and happiest part of him. (”MT” Irish Independent. March 1935)

“Letters and Notices”
He Ent at Hodder 07 September 1868, and his fellow Novices well recalled his panegyric on St Stanislaus as brilliant and beautiful.
1873 After Philosophy he went back to the Juniorate for Regency. he then went for Theology at St Beuno’s and was Ordained there 1877.
1878 He began life as a Missioner in London, Liverpool and Oxford, showing a great love of the poor and young, and devotion to the Vincent de Paul Society.
1881-1882 He made Tertianship at Manresa Roehampton and took Final Vows there 15 August 1882.
1882-1884 He taught the “secular Philosophers” at Stonyhurst.
1884 Came to Dublin and UCD, having been made a fellow of the Royal University, and he taught Latin and Greek there, and examining the Classics for the Royal. He liked teaching but hated examining. Although he hated it, he was assiduous in his attention to this duty.
Most of his spare time was devoted to literature. He had prepared for publication a work on idioms and dialects in Ireland, and wrote some articles for the “Classical Review”. At the time of his death he was engaged in work dealing with difficult passages in Aristophenes. He read literature extensively, though it was said he would be happy only to have his Breviary. He also composed some fugues, which were well thought of by Sir Robert Stewart, an Irish composer : “On everything he wrote and said, there was the stamp of originality, and he had the keenest appreciation of humour. I think the characteristics which most struck all who knew him were firstly his priestly spirit....and secondly his devotion and loyalty to the Society of Jesus.
A day or two after Low Sunday 1889 he fell ill of typhoid. he was fully aware of the seriousness, but hoped he would pull through. His condition deteriorated seriously on June 5th, and he was attended to with great care by Thomas Wheeler. hearing that his parents were coming from England, he dreaded their arrival, because of the pain it would cause them to see him like this. Once arrived he was happy they had come. He knew that he was dying and asked each day for the Viaticum. On receiving the Last Rites on the day of his death, he was heard to say “I am so happy”. He was then too weak to speak, but seemed able to follow the prayers that Thomas Wheeler spoke, and he was joined by his parents for these.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Hopkins, Gerard Manley
by Patrick Maume

Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844–89), poet and Jesuit, was born 28 July 1844 at 87 The Grove, Stratford, Essex, eldest of nine children (eight of whom survived to adulthood) of Manley Hopkins (1818–1897), marine insurance adjuster, and his wife, Catherine, or Kate (née Smith; 1821–1920). His parents encouraged their children's artistic interests, inspired by the Ruskinian view that close observation of the natural world was intimately linked to moral perception; Gerard developed a talent for drawing, and two of his brothers became professional artists. His interest in poetry dated from his mid-teens. Hopkins was educated at Highgate School (1854–63), where he was regularly and brutally flogged, and Balliol College, Oxford (1863–7), where he thrived. Here he moved in Anglo-Catholic ritualist circles, whose views went beyond those of his high-church family. He began to practise auricular confession, and his religious faith centred on sacramental belief in the real presence of Jesus in the eucharist. Anglo-Catholic ritualism sometimes had a certain homoerotic element; there is little doubt that Hopkins's orientation was homosexual and that he was troubled by his fascination with the male body. He was a small and slightly built man who suffered from persistent health problems; some acquaintances regarded him as mildly effeminate, but others disputed this.

In the summer of 1866 Hopkins came to believe that the anglican claim to be a part of the one church founded by Christ was untenable; on 21 October 1866 he was received into the Roman catholic church by John Henry Newman (qv). After graduation he taught for two terms at Newman's Oratory school at Birmingham, but then decided to enter the religious life. After making this decision, on 11 May 1867, he burned his manuscript poems, believing them to be a possible obstacle to his religious vocation, but they survive in copies that he had sent to friends. In the ensuing years he continued to keep journals of his observations from nature.

In September 1868 Hopkins entered the novitiate of the English province of the Society of Jesus at Roehampton. In undertaking for the first time the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius Loyola he experienced a spiritual crisis (which he later recalled in his poem ‘The wreck of the Deutschland’). It appears that the Ignatian method both exercised his powers of observation (the Ignatian meditant is encouraged to visualise precisely the scenes on which he meditates) and heightened his tendency to morbid introspection and depression. After taking his vows on 8 September 1870 he spent 1870–73 in further training at St Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, Lancashire, and 1873–4 teaching classics and English to junior novices at Roehampton. In August 1874 he was sent to St Beuno's College in Wales to study theology; he developed a special devotion to St Winifred, whose shrine is nearby, studied Welsh – a pursuit that combined an interest in prosody with a desire for the conversion of Wales – and continued his observations of nature. He also discovered the writings of the medieval scholastic Duns Scotus, who taught that each individual thing has its own distinct essence, by contrast with the Thomist view that matter is in essence undifferentiated; this accorded with his own view of the physical world as a sacramental medium through which God makes his presence known. Hopkins's aesthetic rejected ‘Parnassian’ regularity and tried to deploy words to bring out afresh the inherent design and energies of the sensual world. His adherence to Scotism, rather than Thomism, which was the officially favoured school, is believed to have hindered his advancement in the Jesuit order. Hopkins made the most of the fact that Scotus – unlike Aquinas – had been a zealous advocate of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which Pius IX had declared binding on all catholics in 1854. On 28 August 1874 he received the four minor orders of doorkeeper, lector, acolyte, and exorcist.

In December 1875 Hopkins was fascinated by newspaper accounts of the deaths of five German nuns, while escaping to America from Bismarck's Kulturkampf, in a shipwreck off the English coast; in response to a casual remark from his superior about the possibility of writing a poem on the subject, he composed an ode ‘The wreck of the Deutschland’, which combines an account of Hopkins's own submission to God with the story of the nuns’ deaths, and hails them as martyrs whose end will hasten the return of England to catholicism. Hopkins was acutely aware of the conflict between the catholic church and temporal powers across Europe; he believed that English civilisation faced imminent disintegration as a long-term effect of the Reformation, and hoped that his poetry might be an instrument of God in the subsequent reconstruction. The ode was completed by June 1875 and submitted to the editors of the Jesuit journal, The Month, who found its metrical and stylistic experiments incomprehensible and turned it down. Hopkins regarded their response not merely as an ordinary rejection but as an expression of official disapproval; after The Month refused a more conventional ode on a shipwreck, ‘The wreck of the Eurydice’ in 1878, he came to realise that his work would probably not be published in his lifetime. He continued to write – though in less complex forms – and to send copies of his poems to a small circle of friends, the most important of whom were Robert Bridges, an Oxford contemporary who became poet laureate and served as Hopkins's literary executor, and the anglican canon R. W. Dixon, a poet who had briefly taught Hopkins at Highgate.

After his ordination to the major orders of subdeacon, deacon, and priest (21–3 September 1877) Hopkins began a period of movement from place to place. He found this profoundly disturbing, though he accepted it in accordance with the Jesuit self-image of soldiers removed from inordinate attachment to their surroundings and willing to go where they were sent without hesitation. He taught at Mount St Mary's College, near Sheffield (October 1877 to April 1878), and was curate at the fashionable Jesuit church in Farm Street, London (July to November 1878) and at St Aloysius’ church, Oxford (December 1878 to October 1879); this experience of appearing as a revenant in the setting of so many fond memories produced a number of poems on transience and mortality.

In October 1879 Hopkins was assigned as curate to St Joseph's church at Bedford Leigh in Lancashire. This appointment saw the start of a period of service in the slums of the industrial north, which the nature-loving southerner found oppressive, particularly after he moved to St Francis Xavier, Liverpool (January 1880 to August 1881). His ornate style of preaching was ill suited to audiences more responsive to the direct style of Father Tom Burke (qv), in whose honour he composed some Latin verses. Hopkins once reduced a dining-room full of Jesuits to laughter by an extended comparison between the shape of the Sea of Galilee and that of the human ear, and he unintentionally scandalised a Farm Street congregation by comparing the church to a cow with seven teats – the sacraments. On a temporary posting to St Joseph's church, Glasgow (August to October 1881), he found ‘the poor Irish’ at Glasgow ‘very attractive . . . though always very drunken and at present very Fenian, they are warm-hearted and give a far heartier welcome than those at Liverpool’. In October 1881 Hopkins began his tertianship at Roehampton, and on 15 August 1882 he took his final vows, after which he was sent to teach at Stonyhurst.

In December 1883 Hopkins was invited to Ireland by Father William Delany (qv), who wished to raise the standard of teaching at University College, Dublin, the remnant of Newman's Catholic University, newly taken over by the Jesuits, and to recruit Jesuit staff whose salaries could be ploughed back into the college. Delany sought several English Jesuits but was able to get only Hopkins (who was regarded as eccentric and expendable). In February 1884 Hopkins was elected to a Royal University of Ireland classics fellowship, which enabled him to take up the position of professor of Greek at University College. His election produced a dispute between Delany and the future archbishop of Dublin William Walsh (qv), who believed that RUI fellowships should be spread among the catholic secondary schools around Dublin and not reserved for University College; there was also some resentment at the importation of an Englishman.

Hopkins, his expectations shaped by Oxford, was dismayed at the low standard of learning and the utilitarian attitude to education found among his pupils, who treated him with considerable irreverence. His English voice and mannerisms grated on colleagues as well as pupils; his closest friend was a Jesuit lay brother debarred from ordination by epilepsy, and he found occasional solace on visits to upper-class catholic families, notably the Cassidys of Monasterevan, Co. Kildare. Scrupulous attention to vast piles of examination scripts intensified his depression; an unfinished ‘Epithalamium’ for a brother's marriage, incongruously centred on an image of nude male bathers, was jotted on an answer book while Hopkins invigilated an examination in 1888. The six ‘terrible sonnets’ of 1885, never sent to friends and found among his papers after his death, are classic expressions of mental desolation and despair. He planned various scholarly projects which were never finished (sometimes hardly begun).

Hopkins was further divided from colleagues and pupils by his political views. The only other English Jesuit in the college, Joseph Darlington (qv), was pro-nationalist. Hopkins was despised as hysterical and effeminate – ‘a merely beautifully painted seashell. I never found any mollusc inside it of human substance’. Although Hopkins believed Britain had done injustice to Ireland in the past, he regarded the methods used by Irish agitators as immoral; he thought home rule was inevitable and should be accepted on the basis of getting the worst over as soon as possible, but he felt a visceral hatred for Gladstone for destroying the empire. Even after the exposure of the Pigott forgeries he continued to believe that Charles Stewart Parnell (qv) had been complicit in the Phoenix Park murders, adding that even if the accusations against Parnell were false they were less libellous than the claim made by William O'Brien (qv) that Arthur James Balfour (qv) deliberately caused the deaths of prisoners. Hopkins contrasted the sincere faith of Irish congregations with what he regarded as their immoral political activities, referring to ‘the unfailing devotion of the Irish, whose religion hangs suspended over their politics as the blue sky over the earth, both in one landscape but immeasurably remote’. Some of Hopkins's most assertively English poems date from his residence in Ireland. A number were encouraged by watching military displays in Phoenix Park – Hopkins was always fascinated by soldiers.

In the middle of 1889 Hopkins contracted typhoid, probably transmitted by the defective drainage system of University College (which was renovated shortly afterwards). This developed into peritonitis, from which he died 8 June 1889 at 86 St Stephen's Green; he was buried on 11 June in the communal Jesuit plot at Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin. In subsequent decades Bridges, his literary executor, tried to prepare the ground for the acceptance of Hopkins's work by submitting examples of his poetry to anthologies. In December 1918 Bridges published Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, on which Hopkins's fame is based. His attention to language as a medium led him to be hailed as a forerunner of literary modernism. More recent critics emphasise his Victorianism.

Some accounts of Hopkins see his religious vocation as having provided structure and meaning to his life and enabled his poetic achievement; in this interpretation the dark years in Ireland are seen as a sacrifice offered to God. Other readings see him as fleeing from self-knowledge into an externally imposed discipline, which crippled and ultimately destroyed him; in this view the darkness of his later years reflects a painfully resisted awareness of frustration and futility. To a great extent this dispute reflects disagreement about the truth or falsehood of the faith to which Hopkins devoted his life, and the question of whether suffering is utterly futile or capable of redemption; neither side can deny the centrality of faith to Hopkins’ self-image, nor the intensity of his pain, and both can wonder what greater achievement might have been his had his superiors been receptive to his literary gifts.

Paddy Kitchen, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1978); Robert Bernard, Martin Gerard Manley Hopkins: a very private life (1991); Norman White, Hopkins: a literary biography (1992); Norman White, Hopkins in Ireland (2002)

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 9th Year No 1 1934

Leeson St :

Monday, November 20th, was a red-letter day in the history of Leeson street, for it witnessed the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the House's foundation. In November, 1833. the Community came into being at 86 St Stephen's Green, where it remained until 1909, when the building was handed over to the newly constituted National University. The Community, however, survived intact and migrated to a nearby house in Lesson Street, where it renewed its youth in intimate relationship with the Dublin College of the University.
Its history falls this into two almost equal periods, different, indeed, in many ways, yet essentially one, since the energies of the Community during each period have been devoted to the same purpose, the furtherance of Catholic University Education in Ireland.
A precious link between the two eras is Father Tom Finlay, who was a member of the Community in 1883, and ever since has maintained his connection with it. His presence on Monday evening, restored to his old health after a severe illness was a source of particular pleasure to the whole gathering. It was also gratifying to see among the visitors Father Henry Browne, who had crossed from England at much personal inconvenience to take part in the celebration. Not only was Father Browne a valued member of the Community for over thirty years, but he acquired additional merit by putting on record, in collaboration with Father McKenna, in that bulky volume with the modest title " A Page of Irish History," the work achieved by the House during the first heroic age of its existence. It was a pleasure, too, to see hale and well among those present Father Joseph Darlington, guide, philosopher and friend to so many students during the two periods. Father George O'Neill, who for many years was a distinguished member of the Community, could not, alas. be epected to make the long journey from his newer field of fruitful labor in Werribee, Australia.
Father Superior, in an exceptionally happy speech, described the part played by the Community, especially in its earlier days of struggle, in the intellectual life of the country. The venerable Fathers who toiled so unselfishly in the old house in St. Stephens Green had exalted the prestige of the Society throughout Ireland. Father Finlay, in reply, recalled the names of the giants of those early days, Father Delany, Father Gerald Hopkins, Mr. Curtis and others. Father Darlington stressed the abiding influence of Newman, felt not merely in the schools of art and science, but in the famous Cecilia Street Medial School. Father Henry Browne spoke movingly of the faith, courage and vision displayed by the leaders of the Province in 1883, when they took on their shoulders such a heavy burden. It was a far cry from that day in 1883, when the Province had next to no resources, to our own day, when some sixty of our juniors are to be found, as a matter of course preparing for degrees in a National University. The progress of the Province during these fifty years excited feelings of
admiration and of profound gratitude , and much of that progress was perhaps due to the decision, valiantly taken in 1883 1883, which had raised the work of the Province to a higher plane.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Gerard Manly-Hopkins 1844-1889
There can be few more remarkable stories in the history of literature than that of Fr Gerard Manly-Hopkins.

Born in 1844 at Stratford in Essex, he received his early education at Cholmeley Grammar School at Highgate. From earliest childhood he showed great talent for drawing and painting. He had an exquisite voice, and music absorbed him. He won an exhibition at Balliol College Oxford in 1863. Here, in addition to his ordinary course, he continued his studies of art, especially architecture. His course as a classical scholar was brilliant, under the famous Dr Jowett.

In 1866, under the influence of Newman, he became a Jesuit, and two years later entered the Society. After an arduous career on the mission in various parts of England, Scotland and Wales, he came to Dublin as Professor of Greek in the newly constituted Uiversity College at St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. There he laboured with success but increasing strain. The drudgery of correcting examination papers gradually wore him down. He was a man who was not vigorously healthy and so suffered more less continually from nervous depression. “It is killing work” he wrote once “to examine a nation”.

As a Theologian, he greatly admired Scotus, owing to the traces of Plato he found there. This leaning involved him in difficulties with his Thomist and Suaresian professors. It has been suggested by some of his many biographers, that he was uneasy if not unhappy as a Jesuit. That charge is easily answered out of his own mouth. To a friend, he remarked one day that he could get on quite happily with no other book than his breviary. Another friend wrote of him “I think the characteristics in him which most struck all of us who knew him were first, what I should call his priestly spirit, and secondly, his devotion and loyalty to the Society of Jesus”.

He contracted typhoid fever and received the Viaticam, and he was hear to murmur two or three times before he actually expired “I am so happy, I am so happy”. He died with his parents at his bedside on June 8th 1889.

He was first and foremost a poet, though he never published any of his poems while he was alive. He bequeathed them all to a friend, Robert bridges, Poet Laureate of England. The latter published them at forst one by one, gradually preparing the public for their originality. The first full edition came in 1918. By the time of the second edition in 1930, Hopkins was accepted as a master of his art, and is ranked as the most revered and influential poet of the second half of the nineteenth century.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 37 : Easter 1985

Portrait from the Past

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (Province Archives)

Our archives contain menologies of Jesuits who died before the foundation of the Province News (when obituary notices took their place). Here's the piece on our most famous poet.

Born in 1844 at Stratford, in Essex, Gerard Manley Hopkins received his early education at the Cholmeley Grammar School at Highgate. From earliest childhood he showed a great talent for drawing, and his work was distinguished for its marvellous delicacy. His aunt used to read to him of the then recent discoveries of Layard, and they seized on his imagination and he never ceased drawing and painting subjects suggested by them. He had a very exquisite voice, and took great interest in music. This, with art and literature, became his special studies. His originality showed is itself from when he was a child in his objection to practical views on things.

He won a school Exhibition and gold medal in 1862, and an Exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1863. There he had scope for his brilliant talents, and pursued, with great enthusiasm, in the scant intervals of hard work, his studies of art. Architecture was a branch in which he took deep delight, and he was a fervent worshipper at the shrine of Butterfield, the architect of Keble College. “His conversation was clever and incisive”, writes an old friend, “and perhaps critical in excess. As to the quality of this criticism I thought much at the time - and have thought much since - that it was the best of the kind to be had in England, in places where production and criticism do not, as is the case at Oxford, keep pace. If he had not been the victim of a lengthened and overwrought critical education, which makes men sut jects of an operation, rather that trained instruments for work, Hopkins had all the elements of an eminent artist or literary man. His acquaintance with poetry was extensive, and his judgments differed upon various poets considerably from what most people entertain. When I first knew him he called himself a ‘Tractarian’, on the ground that he believed ‘Tractarian’ doctrine true, and if the Church of England rejected it, so much the worse for the Church of England. His leaving it was not to change, but to give expression to his religious faith. He had no patience with a Catholic plea for beliefs which are not on the surface, at least, of the Articles and Common Prayer Book”.

Gerard passed 1st Class in Mods., and in the June of 1867, 1st. Class in Honours in the final Schools. The late Dr. Wilson, his examiner for ‘Greats’, thought highly of his talents. It was very extraordinary to achieve such success when his mind was pre-occupied by the struggles of conversation.

The views of the Master of Balliol, Dr. Jowett, seem to have contributed towards his abandonment of Anglicanism, and Liddon is said to have expressed regret at his conversion as a serious loss to Anglicanism. He had made his ‘first confession’ to the learned Canon, and he used to say that he never had exceeded the contrition with which it was accomplished.

He entered the Novitiate on September 8, 1868, and his fellow-novices remembered long his panegyric of St. Stanislaus, which was as brilliant and beautiful as it was out of the usual routine of pulpit deliveries. As soon as he had taken his vows, he went to his Philosophy at the Seminary, and returned in 1873 to be Professor of the Juniors. The following year he began his life as a missioner at London, he spent some time also at Oxford and Liverpool, where, as in all places, he showed his beautiful love of the poor and the young, and devotion to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. 1881 - 1882 he made his Tertianship, and took his vows on August 15, 1882 at Manresa. His next two years were spent as Professor to the “Secular Philosophers” at Stonyhurst.

He came to Dublin fron Stonyhurst in 1884, on his appointment to a Fellowship in the Royal University. I have heard from Lord Emly, the Vice Chancellor of the University, that the recommendatory letters presented when he sought election spoke so highly of his character and attainments (especially one from Dr. Jowett, the Master of Balliol, in praise of his scholarship), as to make the Senate most anxious to obtain his services; and Lord Emly at the same time expressed, what is the universal feeling among that body, the loss the University has sustained by his death.

His duties consisted in teaching latin and Greek in the Catholic University College - where he resided - and in examining in classics for the various degrees of the Royal University. The first of these duties he liked, taking much interest in his pupils; but he had a great repugnance to the labour and responsibility involved the preparation of the examination papers, and in subsequently correcting and awarding them marks. Nevertheless, in his scrupulous anxiety to be just and fair, he was accustomed to give to these tasks a far greater amount of care and time than most conscientious examiners would have considered necessary.

He occupied his spare hours, which were not many, in literary work. He had collected and put together, with a view to publication in some work on British dialects, the idioms of the different Irish provinces. He wrote several articles for the “Classical Review”. I do not know how many of them appeared. He was engaged at the time of his death upon a critical work dealing with difficult passages in the plays of Aristophanes, the true meaning of which he believed that he had discovered. He read a great deal of general literature, considering the little leisure time he had, but I have heard him say he could get on quite happily with no other book than his Breviary. He was very fond of music, and composed some “fugues”, which were very much admired by Sir Robert Stewart, Mus. Doc.

On everything that he wrote and said there was the stamp of originality, and he had the keenest appreciation of humour. I think the characteristics in him that most struck and edified all of us who knew him were, first, what I should call his priestly spirit; this showed itself not only in the reverential way he performed his sacred duties and spoke on sacred subjects, but in his whole conduct and conversation; and, secondly, his devotion and loyalty to the Society of Jesus.

A day or two after Low Sunday, 1889, he fell ill of typhoid fever. From the outset he was fully alive to the gravity of his state, and, I believe, never shared the hope that others from time to time entertained - that he would pull through.

During the night of Wednesday, the 5th of June, a serious change for the worse took place in his condition, and when the doctors arrived early next morning, they pronounced his case well-nigh desperate. Father Wheeler, S.J., who attended him all through his illness with affectionate care, told him of his danger, and gave him the Holy Viaticum, which he
received with the greatest devotion.

On hearing that his parents were coming from England, he appeared to dread their arrival, because of the pain it would give them to see him so prostrate; but when the first interview was over, he expressed the happiness he felt at having them with him.

He quite realised that he was dying, and asked each day for the Holy Viaticum. He received it for the last time on the morning of the day of his death, Saturday, June 8, 1889.

The final blessing and absolution were also then given him at his own request, and he was heard two or three times to say, “I am so happy, I am so happy”. Soon afterwards he became too weak to speak, but he appeared to follow mentally the prayers for the dying, which were said a little before noon by Father Wheeler, and joined in by his parents. As the end approached he seemed to grow more collected, and retained consciousness almost up to the moment, half-past one o'clock, when he passed peacefully away. He was buried in the burial-ground of the Society at Glasnevin.

Howatson, Joseph, 1910-1972, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/721
  • Person
  • 18 March 1910-23 August 1972

Born: 18 March 1910, Waterville, County Kerry
Entered: 17 September 1927, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1941, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1944, St Mary’s Emo, County Laois
Died: 23 August 1972, Ricci Hall, Hong Kong - Hong Kong Vice Province (HK)

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1936 at Aberdeen, Hong Kong - Regency

WWII Chaplain

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Death of Father Patrick Joseph Howatson, S.J.
R.I.P.

Father Patrick Joseph Howatson, SJ, chairman of the Hong Kong boys and Girls Clubs Association, died at Grantham Hospital on 23 August 1972, aged 62.

He was born at Waterville, Co. Kerry, Ireland, in 1910, educated at Clongowes Wood College, Ireland, and joined the Jesuit Order in 1927. Before long he had proved himself the most effective and clear-sighted organizer among the Irish Jesuits of his generation.

He spent the years 1935-38 in Hong Kong, teaching in the Regional Seminary, Aberdeen, and in Wah Yan College.

He was ordained priest in Ireland in 1941. His main work until his return to Hong Kong in 1946 was the preaching of popular missions - courses of very direct and forceful sermons - but he gave all the time he could spare to the Bevedere Newsboys Club, working for it with an enthusiasm that was to bear fruit here.

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS
On his return to Hong Kong in 1946 he became a teacher at Wah Yan College and procurator for the Hong Kong Jesuits. He was horrified by the sight of post-war destitution. The shoeshine boys in particular captured his attention. Many of them were homeless orphans; none of them had much to look forward to when their day’s work was done. For them he founded his first club, at Wah Yan College, then on Robinson Road.

This club, with its carefully considered mixture of education and recreation, flourished under Father Howatson’s combination of firm discipline with unforced and understanding affection. It soon served as a model for some of the many boys clubs that were springing up to meet a need that was especially urgent in the early post-war years. When the Boys and Girls Clubs (BGCA) was reorganised to cope with this growth, Father Howatson was elected chairman, Bishop Hall being President.

Father Howatson gave up teaching and devoted his abundant energy to his new task, He took a deep interest in all the clubs in the association. His personal preference would have been to work directly for the boys, but as chairman he regarded it as his first duty to train club leaders and to advise and encourage them once they had taken up work. He also devoted endless care to the planning, building and use of the Holiday Home at Silvermine Bay.

In 1959, the BGCA moved to its own headquarters in Lockhart Road. At the opening, Sir Robert Black, then Governor of Hong Kong, paid the following tribute:

Any collective effort requires a high degree of planning and organisation; a good committee needs a first-class chairman; the Boys and Girls Clubs Association are most fortunate in their chairman, Father Howatson.

This building stands above us today completed because of his drive and his resource, because of the sheer hard work which he has put into it all behind the scenes, and, of course, anyone who is a potential benefactor must be keenly aware of Father Howatson's notable work.

In addition to his work for the BGCA Father Howatson took an active part in the work of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service. As chairman of the Standing Committee of Youth Organisations he led an important East Asian Seminar on Social Group Work among youth. It would be difficult to think of any form of social work in which he did not take a vigorous part - playgrounds, housing, personal problems, crisis relief and so on.

Towards the end of this period he was reaching out to the development of clubs for young men and women. Unhappily, the failure of his health prevented him from carrying out this plan - a notable loss to the community.

CARITAS HONG KONG
Father Howatson was the first chairman of the Hong Kong Catholic Social Welfare Conference, and was closely associated with Mgr. C.H. Vath in the earlier stages of the development of Caritas Hong Kong. He agreed to take over the direction of the proposed Caritas Social Centre in Kennedy Town. In consequence, he resigned the chairmanship of the BGCA.

When he was still supervising the building of the new Centre, he suffered a moderately severe stroke. Though paralysed on one side, he recovered sufficiently to continue work, though at a slower pace, and was able to open the Kennedy Town Caritas Social Centre and to direct its operation for over a year.

A more severe stroke in 1965 put an end to his active work. He spent his last years in the Kennedy Town Caritas Social Centre, bedridden but not quite forgotten. Many of those for whom or with whom he had worked retained a warm interest in all that concerned him; nor did those who had seen his work from above forget him. A former Governor, a former Chief Justice and a former Director of Social Welfare were numbered those solaced his inactivity through their sympathy.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 1 September 1972

◆ 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 Scottish engineer employed to maintain the trans-Atlantic cable. He converted to Catholicism in order to marry and his son became a strong Catholic and Irishman. He received his early education at Clongowes Wood College before he entered the Society in 1927. He had been known as a very good rugby player who had won an inter-provincial schools cap.

He came to Hong Kong as Regent with Seán Turner who was a different personality and whose whole world was words and ideas. Travelling with them was Fr Cooney who was bringing the Markee telescope and setting it up. he was able to deal with every situation he met in Hong Kong in dealing with schoolboys. He was a Mathematics teacher and Sports Master. From his earliest days in the Society he had positions of responsibility. According to Harry Naylor he was outstanding in practical matters, not least as a carpenter running the Ricci Mission Unit.

He returned to Ireland to study Theology. Once he had finished Tertianship he became an Army Chaplain.
1945 He returned to Hong Kong as Mission Procurator. According to Harry Naylor, Thomas Ryan had great influence over him. His humanity and concern for others was soon channelled into the Shoeshine Boys Club in Wah Yan College Hong Kong, and this became a model for many other boys clubs which sprung up to meet the needs of the day. When the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs Association was set up, Joseph was elected Chairman, with Anglican Bishop Hall the President. He threw himself into youth and social work in Hong Kong and was soon on the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, which Thomas Ryan had set up. He was also on the Government Social Welfare Advisory Committee. He helped many volunteer bodies as well as women’s religious with their balance sheets. When the Diocese set up its Catholic Social Welfare Conference he was made Executive Secretary. This later became “Caritas”. At this time Jesuits in Asia were involved in many social activities. At a Jesuit meeting on Tokyo in 1960 with Frs Hogan, Dijkstra and Ballon, he came up with the SELA acronym (Socio Economic Life in Asia) and it became one of the most successful inter-provincial works in the Society.

Returning from a SELA meeting in Indonesia in 1962 he had his first stroke. He gave up being Procurator in 1964 - Fr J Kelly succeeding him. He then went to live at Caritas Mok Cheung Sui Kun Community Centre, Pokfield Road, Kennedy Town, Hong Kong and was attached to Ricci Hall.

Note from Thomas Ryan Entry
He encouraged the “Shoe Shiners Club”, which later blossomed into the “Boys and Girls Clubs association” under Joseph Howatson.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 22nd Year No 1 1947

Departures for Mission Fields in 1946 :
4th January : Frs. P. J. O'Brien and Walsh, to North Rhodesia
25th January: Frs. C. Egan, Foley, Garland, Howatson, Morahan, Sheridan, Turner, to Hong Kong
25th July: Fr. Dermot Donnelly, to Calcutta Mission
5th August: Frs, J. Collins, T. FitzGerald, Gallagher, D. Lawler, Moran, J. O'Mara, Pelly, Toner, to Hong Kong Mid-August (from Cairo, where he was demobilised from the Army): Fr. Cronin, to Hong Kong
6th November: Frs. Harris, Jer. McCarthy, H. O'Brien, to Hong Kong

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 4 1948

Fr. Leo Donnelly who has been offered to the Viceprovince of Australia, completed his course at Kurseong recently (he was professor of Church History) and sailed on the SANGOLA for Hong Kong on 10th September. “As it proves impossible”, he writes, “to secure a passage direct to Australia within reasonable time, Fr. Austin Kelly has given me permission to travel via Hong Kong. It was quite easy to book a passage to that port, and Fr. Howatson has booked a berth for me from there to Melbourne. Needless to say, I am delighted at the chance of seeing the Mission, even if I am not to stay there. The ship for Australia will not sail till near the end of October, so that I shall not be at Fr. Kelly's disposal till sometime in November. This, however, is quicker than waiting for a direct passage”.

Irish Province News 47th Year No 4 1972

Obituary :

Fr Joseph Howatson SJ (1910-1972)

Fr Howatson died in hospital in Hong Kong on August 23rd after practically ten years of increasing incapacitation as a result of a series of paralytic strokes. He succumbed after a short period in hospital, finally. He was buried in the Catholic Cemetery, Happy Valley after Requiem Mass at St Margaret's Church on August 25th; the obsequies were attended by a large gathering of priests, religious and laity.
Fr Joe was born at Waterville, Co. Kerry on 18th March 1910, son of a Scottish engineer, one of a group employed to maintain the transatlantic cable stations at Waterville and Valentia. He, Mr Howatson senior, married a local girl as did some of his fellow engineers, thereby occasioning their adoption into the Church; a daughter became a Loreto nun and Joe entered the Society after schooling in Clongowes in September 1927.
As a schoolboy Joe was a stalwart member of the Clongowes Rugby team and through life his fine physique and energetic character led to his being habitually committed to work requiring a fund of practical efficiency, together with his fulfilling the more hum-drum yet demanding work of Mission Procurator - which fell to him in Hong Kong when he returned to the Mission after ordination. He maintained he had no aptitude for learning, a modest avowal which bore no confirmation in his record of studies in that he satisfied without embarrassment the exacting demands of Genicot and Dogma in the Milltown of the '30s. Again his versatility and resource as a stage carpenter at Tullabeg, as a philosopher in Milltown and later on the Mission, in continued partnership with Fr Terry Sheridan, as stage manager and producer, could hardly result from mere series of happy coincidences,
After his noviceship Joe followed the normal routine of Rathfarnham and a degree, Tullabeg for philosophy and 1935 Hong Kong to which previously he had eagerly aspired and showing his bent in the effective manner with which he engaged in the work of the Ricci Mission Unit.
Largely through his labour a large telescope - purchased from the Markree Observatory and presented as a gift to the Mission - was dismantled before his departure from Ireland to be reinstalled in collaboration with Fr T Cooney at Aberdeen Seminary on his arrival at Hong Kong.
Back to Milltown 1938, ordination 1941, tertianship 1942-'43. Because of war time difficulties in travel he was unable to return to Hong Kong immediately and was assigned to the Mission staff where again he proved his capacity as an effective preacher,
Finally the chance of a passage on a military plane enabled him to attain his heart's desire; almost directly he was appointed to the work of Procurator already alluded to and he retained that exacting chore until his capacity to write was impaired by his illness.
This was merely a part-occupation for him; in harness with Fr Tom Ryan who was throughout his prompter and confidant, he established a Shoeshine Boys' Club in which education was discreetly mingled with recreation and this was later the model upon which many other clubs catering for girls as well as for boys were organised,
Ultimately when a liaison was established coordinating these various associations Fr Joe was chosen chairman whose duties approximated rather to those of an administrator; in this capacity his work was recognised and paid tribute to by the Colony authorities; we lend only to the rich - his activities still fanned out; he became a member of a government-appointed body, the Welfare Advisory Committee and continued so for years with the task of offering advice on social needs and schemes to the Governor and of dealing with subventions for various voluntary bodies. Fr Joe's practical experience resulted in his becoming an accountant in effect to charitable works run by religious communities on the island; indeed in the course of the 'fifties he was recognised as one of the most conversant with social work with a meticulous sense of the value of an accurate balance sheet of the work engaged in. In the Hong Kong diocese he was the first secretary of the body which later formed the nucleus of Caritas H.K. and within the Society he contributed actively to the formation of SELA, the Committee for “Socio-Economic Life in Asia”.
It is pathetic, in retrospect, to see that all this activity was abruptly intruded upon by the first stroke in September 1962. Though not altogether incapacitated and only perforce making concessions under increasing debility the latter years required a fortitude in a situation to which the “rude” health he habitually previously enjoyed hardly adapted him. He continued to work in the John XXIII Centre in Kennedy Town but gradually he be came more immobilised; he was not much given to reading which might have been a diversion and a defective speech which developed deprived him of the distraction of conversation except with a small number of intimates who regularly visited him; may he not have been subjected to affliction, emulous to some degree of St Peter Claver in his concluding years? All was heroically borne. His second sister, Mrs Clarke of Tralee, who attended the month's mind Mass for his repose in late September at Gardiner St confessed that the news of his demise though sad in the thought of his parting was yet to her a comfort in that God who thus sealed him had taken him to Himself. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Clongownian, 1951

A Poor Boys’ Club in Hong Kong

by Father Donal Taylor SJ

Fr Joe Howatson (OC 22-27) is well known to many Clongownians. The following article, kindly written by Mr Donald Taylor SJ, Hongkong, will be read with interest by many, especially by those who are helping the work of the Clongowes Boys' Club. It gives an account of a small part of Fr Joe's activities in Hongkong

Icehouse Street, Hongkong, running at right angles to the waterfront, forms a connecting link between the city's main thoroughfares in the Central District. Along the narrow street of verandahed sidewalks, business people, office clerks and government officials pass four times each day, to and from work. Icehouse Street is a cold place in the winter time when blasts of cold Easterly winds sweep around its corners. The Summer heat is much more distressing there. On this street one meets a type of person, insignificant though he be, who forms part of the landscape of big cities in the East. He is the shoeshine boy. With stand, brushes and polish, he takes up his position on the edge of the sidewalk. He gazes hopefully at passers-by, and calls his “Shoeshine, Shoeshine”. His earnings are small-twenty to forty cents for each shoeshine. He is at the mercy of his customer. There is one other phrase these boys know, “Shan Foo” or “Father” and they shout it lustily at every Catholic priest they see, but especially at the Jesuit Fathers. These boys are pagans. What connection have they with the Irish Jesuits in Hongkong? The answer to that question is found in the story of the Poor Boys' Club started at Wah Yan College in the autumn of 1946, by Fr P J Howatson SJ. And yet it is only the foundation of the Club that dates from that time. The idea of the club goes back to the time when Fr Howatson was interested in the Belvedere Newsboys' Club and acted as their Chaplain during their summer camps. For it was from his experience with that Club that he got the idea of starting a Club for poor boys in Hongkong.

The teeming millions of the East is no idle phrase, as every newcomer from the West quickly realises. Great poverty and great wealth have always been associated with big populations. Hongkong, now more than ever, because of the recent war, is no exception when Fr Howatson returned after the war, the city was being rehabilitated. And the poor were not the first to be thought of. There were waifs and strays, whose bed was some doorway or alcove, and whose meal was the pickings of garbage tins. They were the down-trodden members of the community, suspected by those in authority and treated wretchedly by the rich. They lived by their wits, which often meant pilfering and robbing. The future held little hope for them. Largely through the fault of the society of which they were members, it might eventually bring term after term of imprisonment.

Fr Howatson, accompanied by the present manager of the Club, Mr Joseph Cheung, a past student of the Jesuit College of Wah Yan, set about contacting some of these poor boys. They were invited to come to Wan Yan College. Shy, yet inquisitive in the beginning, a small number responded, until finally a group of thirty was formed. Almost all were shoeshiners, some were orphans, some street sleepers. The good news spread, boys brought friends and it was hard to turn them away. Moreover, as the full number could not attend on any one night it was possible to have additional members on the roll. Then when applications continued to pour in, two sections were formed, junior and senior. Now there are 110 boys in the club. Their ages vary from ten to twenty. This number includes twenty-five Old Boys - more about them later.

The organisation of the club has always remained the same. The ordinary meetings of the club are held four times each week in the College Hall, from 7 to 9 pm. During that time the boys have a physical training period of half an hour, followed by showers. Half an hour of lessons comes next, which may include elementary arithmetic, letter writing, or written Chinese. This is the first schooling in the lives of most of these lads. Then there is another half hour devoted to games in the school-basket ball, ping-pong, or football for the small boys. The meeting closes with a substantial meal, and a short moral instruction or a talk on character formation. Chinese boys are fond of singing, so a Chinese lady teaches the boys in the club Catholic hymns. When he was a teacher in Wan Yan, Mr Francis Chan SJ gave the shoeshine boys a class in Christine Doctrine. Now this work is being done by a catechist.

The club has depended from the beginning on generous benefactors for its financial support. The boys of Wah Yan College make an organised effort each Christinas, which in the first year, brought in more than 1,000 dollars. Last year and in 1949 they played a major part in the organising and running of a bazaar to raise funds for the club. The proceeds from a week's performance of one of their Chinese operas in English by the Wah Yan Dramatic Society, under the direction of Mr Sheridan SJ, were donated to the club.

The aim of the club is not merely to provide fun, food and games for poor boys. It is really to give them a chance to grow up, self-respecting citizens in their own class, and to earn a living honestly. True enough, shoeshining is very low in the scale of suitable careers. Yet it gives the boys a start in life, and with the club as a backing, there is always the hope of better things to come. At the moment thirty or forty boys are licensed shoeshiners, twenty help their parents at hawking or at street stalls, another twenty have jobs as office boys, coolies, etc., and the remainder are either unemployed or too young to work. Two large agencies adopted the shoeshine boys and provided then with neat uniforms and new polishing outfits. To fit them for a trade, an instructor is employed, who gives lessons in basket-making. It is intended to introduce leather work later on. The club's handicap is lack of premises. It relies entirely on the use of the class-rooms. It is quite clear that until proper facilities are obtained the possibilities of teaching the boys trades will be considered retarded. Only when opportunities are put in their way will it be discovered what latent talents there are among these boys. That they have these hidden gifts is proved by the example of one boy who was able to exchange shoeshining for engraving. He is now a skilled engraver.

To encourage the boys to practice thrift, the club bank pays an interest of ten per cent every three months on savings deposited in the bank. At each club meeting lodgements and withdrawals may be made. The generous rate of interest is successful in making the boys realise the advantages of saving. Some boys have as much as thirty dollars in the bank.

About twenty-five boys have graduated from shoeshining into better jobs. They work in clothing factories, rubber factories, barbour taxis, barbers' shops; three or more are shoemakers apprentices, one is a qualified draftsman. These twenty-five boys, they are young men now, form the Old Boys' section of the club. They are still in the club, yet separate from it. They have their own executive committee, they hold a monthly meeting at which they discuss how they can help each other and how they can improve the running of the club. They have their own basket-ball team, the outfits for which were supplied partly by the club and partly by themselves Occasionally they go out on picnics together. An interesting development among the old boys is their co-operation. Each boy contributes a certain amount to the treasury, so that if any one member wishes to start an enterprise the required sum is loaned to him at a low rate of interest. The loan must first be sanctioned at a meeting of the Old Boys themselves. Recently they decided to take a census of the whole club in order to find out details about the family of each boy, to visit his home - if he had any - and to see what help could be given to the parents or brothers or sisters. A certain number of these older boys attend night school, run by Wah Yan where they can learn English, knowledge of which greatly increases their earning power in Hongkong.

One year and a half after the club was opened, in June, 1948, a procedure was introduced which has since become a regular feature, namely a “Mothers' Meeting”. Each boy was told to invite his mother or nearest relative to a special meeting of the club. Thirty-five non members were present on that occasion. The function and working of the club was made known to them as well as the hopes which those in charge placed in it. The mothers or guardians present were also told how they could help to make the club more successful. Many of these people have since become regular visitors, seeking advice and assistance not only in their children's difficulties but also in their own. They earn their living by doing the severest type of manual labour. As one sees then in the streets, coolies all of them, one gets the wrong impression that they are long living healthy strong people. The truth is that the majority never live to see middle age. They just wear out their bodies. They drifted into Hongkong after the Japanese occupation, ready to undertake any kind of work which would keep them alive.

Although the senior club members play large part in the running of the club, the main responsibility is borne by outsiders. They are worthy of mention. All of them were former pupils of Wah Yan College. With the exception of two, one of whom is under instruction in the Faith, all of them are Catholics. Mr Joseph Cheung, who in the beginning helped Fr Howatson to start the club, is club manager. He devotes all his free time to the club activities. The boys have great respect and love for him; indeed the friendly relations that exist between all the helpers and the boys are a noteworthy characteristic of the club.

These men give their time willingly and do not ask for recompense. The “present” in Wah Yan are becoming increasingly interested in the club. Several of them come to give the boys classes in Chinese and arithmetic. It is the first experience these schoolboys have of social welfare work. When they leave school, it is hoped that the memory of the good work in their club will stimulate them to play their part in social welfare work in their city.

Concerning entertainment it has already been stated that at each meeting of the club there is a half an hour of games. Film Shows are sometimes substituted for games and lessons. At Christmas there is a party, at which a large supper is provided. There are games and prizes, and each boy gets a present from the Christmas tree. The present usually takes the form of warm clothing and a polishing outfit. Every important Chinese festival and the anniversary of the opening of the club are fittingly celebrated. There are excursions to the sea in the fine weather. The most important event in the year is the holiday camp in the summer, when eighty boys or more, camp by the sea for a week. It is a great treat for these city lads and they thoroughly enjoy it. They return home healthier and happier, having drunk full of the excitement that always accompanies a boys camp.

Like the mustard seed in the Gospel, the boys club has developed enormously and within a short time, too. Its successful management attracted wide attention and became well-known throughout Hongkong. Its founder, Fr Howatson, was called on to take charge of numerous executive bodies which deal with youth organisation. He is chairman of the Boys and Girls' Clubs Association, which controls the activities of sixty-four clubs throughout the Colony; chairman of the Standing Conference of Youth Organisations, a body which co ordinates the work of Societies aiming at helping young people; and he is also chairman of the Management Committee of The War Memorial Welfare Centre. This Welfare Centre, the first of its kind in Hongkong has been in operation for less than a year and has already proved itself a boon to the poor people of a district, the population of which is about 2,000 to the acre.

When a priest is living in a pagan country no matter what secular work he does there, the question of conversions among those for whom he works must necessarily arise. The Poor Boys Club had its first Catholics last Christmas, when three boys among the older group received baptism. They are five more under instruction in Catholic Doctrine. Even though younger boys may desire to be baptised, it has been decided and very wisely, that it would be better to wait until a boys livelihoood is secure before baptising him. In this way there is less chance of his becoming a “rice Christian”.

In conclusion, the reader is referred, by way of contrast, to an article which appeared in the “Clongownian” of last year, on the Clongowes Boys' Club. Those who have managed boys' clubs in Ireland and in Hongkong have noted some differences. The boys in Ireland have some kind of home, and have received at least elementary training. Many of the boys here are home less waifs, whose parents, if they have any, cannot support them. They cannot go to school, because in this city, populated out of all proportion to its capacity, there are insufficient schools. The only schooling they get is whatever the club gives them. Another factor worthy of attention is the religious one. The poor Irish poor living in a Catholic atmosphere and with a Catholic background, has a religious spirit to fortify him in his sufferings. This religious spirit is altogether absent in the young pagan. His patience in his sufferings is the outcome of a pessimistic stoicism. The Chinese boy is docile, shows a respect for authority, and is appreciative of what is being done to make him happier. The foreigners big difficulty in working with these boys is one of language. But whether the lay helper feels the same embarrassment in his early contacts with the poor boys, as his opposite number in Ireland, is some thing which he alone can tell.

Donald Taylor SJ

◆ The Clongownian, 1973

Obituary

Father Joseph Howatson SJ

Joseph Howatson was born in Waterville, Co Kerry, where his father was an engineer in the Transatlantic Cable Station. When he finished schooling in Clongowes he entered the Jesuit Noviceship in September 1927. After taking his degree in UCD, and studying Philosophy in Tullabeg, he went to Hong Kong as a scholastic, Returning to Ireland he did his theological studies in Milltown Park and was ordained a priest in 1941. In 1943 he returned to Hong Kong and spent the rest of his priestly life there.

His main life work lay in the sphere of social science. He organized boys clubs and became a member of a government appointed body in which he had the task of offering advice to the Governor on the social needs of the colony. In the Hong Kong diocese he was secretary of the Caritas organisation and contributed to the formation of a body known as the committee for the Social Economic Life of Asia. He suffered a stroke in 1962 from which he : never really recovered and had to gradually retire from “active” work. In his later life he was almost totally incapacitated and death came to him as a merciful relief on August 23rd, 1972.

Hughes, George, 1898-1930, Jesuit scholastic

  • IE IJA J/1463
  • Person
  • 22 August 1898-23 January 1930

Born: 22 August 1898, Rathgar, Dublin
Entered: 31 August 1916, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 23 January 1930, St Aloysius, Sevenhill, Adelaide, Australia

by 1920 at Petworth, Sussex (ANG) health
by 1921 in Australia - Regency

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
George Hughes entered the Society, 31 August 1916, and after his juniorate, studied rhetoric privately at Petworth, England, and Sevenhill, Australia, 1919-21. He taught at Xavier College Burke Hall, 1921-22, and at Riverview, 1922-24. He returned to Ireland for philosophy at Milltown Park, 1924-26, repeating first year. After this, in ill health, he returned to Australia and Riverview, 1926-28, and then went to Sevenhill, 1928-29, for the rest of his life.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 5th Year No 3 1930
Obituary :
Mr George Hughes

Mr Hughes was born on the 22nd August 1898, and joined the Society at Tullabeg on the 31st Aug. 1916. He spent three years in Tullabeg, the third as junior, and was then sent to Petworth. In the following year he sailed for Australia, and put in a year's study at Sevenhill. A year at Xavier as prefect, and two at Riverview, prefect and master followed, he then returned to Ireland for philosophy. But the health gave way again, and in I927, he went back to Australia where he lingered for a few years, and died on Jan 23rd 1930, at the early age of 31.
St. Ignatius' Calendar writes of him : An invalid for many years, he had been unable to complete his studies for the Priesthood, but he was always a great model of patience and resignation to the will of God. After the Requiem service at St.Ignatius', the remains were interred in the Jesuit burial-ground at West Terrace”.

Hughes, John J, 1843-1912, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/192
  • Person
  • 03 February 1843-16 June 1912

Born: 03 February 1843, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 04 October 1860, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1875
Final Vows: 02 February, 1869
Died: 16 June 1912, Milltown Park, Dublin

Older brother of Patrick Hughes - RIP 1904

by 1863 at Namur, Belgium (BELG) studying Philosophy 1
by 1873 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was a member of an old Dublin family who gave many members to the Church, including Father Patrick Hughes (Younger brother of John J Hughes RIP 1912?) - and a sister who became a Mercy Nun.

He did Regency at Clongowes and Tullabeg for a while.
After Tertianship he was for some time at Milltown and UCD, and then joined the Missionary Staff.
1903 He was appointed Rector of Galway 08 December 1903. After this he moved to Milltown, where he died 16 June 1912

His name will be long remembered for his connection with the Sodality of the members of the Metropolitan Police, and he worked there with great zeal. He was the fond counsellor to many individual members of the force, and by none his death was more regretted than by those whose personal interests seemed to be his unique care.
During the many years he was attached to Gardiner St he was highly esteemed as a Preacher, but his great qualities were his friendly humour, quiet zeal and charity, and these were no better appreciated than in community.
For the three years he was Rector in Galway, he was very popular with both the students and the public.

Note from John Bannon Entry :
On the evening of his death the Telegraph published an article on him headed “A Famous Irish Jesuit - Chaplain in American War” : “The Community of the Jesuit Fathers in Gardiner St have lost within a comparatively short time some of their best known and most distinguished members. They had to deplore the deaths of Nicholas Walsh, John Naughton, John Hughes and Matthew Russell, four men of great eminence and distinction, each in his own sphere, who added luster to their Order, and whose services to the Church and their country in their varied lines of apostolic activity cannot son be forgotten. And now another name as illustrious is added to the list. The Rev John Bannon....

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Clongowes student

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1913

Obituary

Father John Hughes SJ

The last “Belvederian” was scarcely published, when we I heard of the death of Father John Hughes, which took place at Milltown Park on June 16th. - Never very robust, during the last few years of his life his health had been visibly failing, and he was unable to withstand a severe attack of bronchitis which he contracted a few weeks before his death. The end came rather unexpectedly for his many friends, but not for himself, who had been preparing for final rest and reward by a long life spent in the service of his Master.

Born in Dublin, the greater part of his life was spent in his native city. He was educated at Belvedere and Clongowes, and entered the Society at the early age of seventeen, Having completed his philo sophical and theological studies abroad, he was recalled to Ireland, where he laboured for many years in the various houses and colleges of the Order. When he was Rector of St Ignatius' College, Galway, his name was linked with that of his brother, the late Father Pat Hughes, S.J., and his energy and zeal were directed to the improvement and decoration of the Church. His native Dublin was the scene of his most successful apostolic labours. For many years he was attached to St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, where he was highly esteemed as a preacher. His unfailing charity and quiet energy were conspicuously shown in the success which attended his direction of the Sodality of the Metropolitan Police, which he founded and conducted for many years. He was their tried and trusted friend, and many of the individual members will long re member him as a genuine benefactor, whose wise counsel and ready help were ever, even to the last, at their service. Shortly before his death, on the celebration of his golden jubilee in the ministry, his brethren had the opportunity of showing the esteem and affection in which he was held.

He was a man of much culture, with a genial humour peculiarly his own, and his many estimable qualities endeared him to many friends, by whom he was genuinely regretted. RIP

◆ The Clongownian, 1913

Obituary

Father John Hughes SJ

We much regret to announce the the Rev John Hughes SJ, which took place at Milltown Park in the early hours of June 16th, Feast of St John F Regis S.J. Never very robust, during the past few years his health had been visibly failing and he was unable to withstand a severe attack of bronchitis, which he contracted about three weeks before. The end came unexpectedly for his many friends, but not for himself, who had been preparing for his final rest and reward by a long life spent in the service of his Master.

Bom in Dublin 60 years ago, the greater part of his life was spent in his native city. He was educated at Belvedere and Clongowes, and entered the Society of Jesus at the early age of 17. Having completed his philosophical and theological studies abroad, he was recalled to Ireland, where he laboured for many years in the various colleges and houses of the Order in the usual work of the sacred ministry. During the period in which he was Rector of St Ignatius, Galway, his name was linked with that of his brother, Father Patrick Hughes, who had predeceased him by some years, and his energy and zeal were directed to the improvement and decoration of the church.

As a missioner and conductor of ecclesiastical retreats his name was known and revered in most of the dioceses of Ireland. But his native Dublin was the scene of his most successful apostolic labourers. For many years. he was attached to St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, where he was highly esteerned as a preacher. His unfailing charity and quiet energy were conspicuously shown in the success which attended his direction of the Sodality of members of the Metropolitan Police, which he founded and conducted for many years. He was their tried and trusted friend, and many of the individual members will long remember him as a genuine benefactor whose wise counsel and ready help were ever, even to the last, at their service.

He was a man of much culture, with a genial humour peculiarly his own, and his many estimable qualities endeared him to many friends, by whom he will be genuinely regretted.

“Freeman”, June 17, 1912.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John Hughes (1843-1912)

A native of Dublin, entered the Society in 1860 and came here shortly after the completion of his studies in 1876. He returned again in 1885 on the teaching staff and was minister of the house. His main work in after years was the conducting of missions and retreats. He had a long association with the Gardiner St Community and spent the last six years of his life at Milltown Park

Hughes, John, 1834-1888, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1465
  • Person
  • 22 April 1834-11 April 1888

Born: 03 February 1843, Ballinabranagh (Walshtown), County Carlow / Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 04 October 1860, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 1875, St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales
Final Vows: 02 February 1879
Died: 16 June 1912, Milltown Park, Dublin

Older brother of William Hughes- RIP 1902 and Joseph Hughes - RIP 1878

by 1864 at Namur Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1868 at St Bueno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1874 at St Bueno’s Wales (ANG) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Older brother of William Hughes- RIP 1902 and Joseph Hughes - RIP 1878

He was a Teacher and prefect at Clongowes and Tullabeg.
He made Tertianship at Milltown.
He was for some years Procurator at Tullabeg, Milltown and finally at the Novitiate in Dromore, where he died 11 April 1888.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Hughes 1834-1888
Fr John Hughes – and there were other men of the same name, all great men – was born in Carlow in 1834, the eldest of an orphaned family. Having settled all his brothers and sisters in life, he himself entered the Society in 1862.

He had already two of his brothers in the Society – Frs William and Joseph. Fr John was a splendid farmer, and he was in charge of the farm at Tullabeg, Mungret, Milltown Park, and finally in our Northern house, Loyola, at Dromore. He is responsible for the plantations at Tullabeg and Mungret.

While Procurator at Dromore, he made a great name for himself at the Belfast market for his excellent breed of sheep, and he was prizewinner at many of the local shows.

He died on April 11th 1888, and was buried at Dromore under the shadow of the Cathedral, dedicated to St Colman.

Hughes, Joseph, 1843-1878, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1466
  • Person
  • 13 January 1843-02 September 1878

Born: 13 January 1843, County Carlow
Entered: 02 March 1865, Milltown Park
Ordained: 1874, Leuven, Belgium
Final Vows: 02 February 1878
Died: 02 September 1878, Milltown Park

member of the Sacred Heart College, Limerick community at the time of death

Younger brother of John Hughes- RIP 1888 and William Hughes - RIP 1902

2nd year Novitiate at Amiens France (FRA)
by 1867 at Amiens France (CAMP) studying
by 1872 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1877 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Younger brother of John Hughes- RIP 1888 and William Hughes - RIP 1902
He had made some of his Priestly studies before Entry.

His second year Novitiate was at Amiens, where he also studied Rhetoric..
He studied Theology for three years at Louvain, and was Ordained there 1874.
1876 He was sent to Drongen for Tertianship
1877 He was sent to Limerick Teaching
He was Prefect and Teacher at Tullabeg over different periods.
1878 He arrived in Milltownfor his Annual Retreat, and then for Villa at Killiney. He contracted a fever there, was nursed and died at Milltown 02 September 1878.

Hughes, Patrick, 1837-1904, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/579
  • Person
  • 03 November 1837-08 March 1904

Born: 03 November 1837, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 December 1860, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 19 September 1874, Laval, France
Final Vows: 01 November 1878
Died: 08 March 1904, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

Older brother of John J Hughes RIP - 1912

by 1863 at Roehampton, London (ANG) studying
by 1864 at Rome, Italy (ROM) studying Theology 1
by 1872 at Laval, France (FRA) studying
by 1876 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Belvedere and St Finian’s, Navan before Ent. (Older brother of John J Hughes RIP 1912??)

After First Vows he was sent to Roehampton for Rhetoric, and then returned for Regency at Clongowes and Tullabeg.
He was then sent to Laval for Theology, and in the company of Edmund Donovan, was Ordained there.
He was then sent to Drongen for Tertianship. along with Joseph Tuite and Daniel Clancy.
He was then sent to Clongowes as Minister for two years.
1877-1882 He was sent to Crescent as teacher and Operarius.
Then he was sent to Mungret as Procurator, which had just been handed over to the Jesuits. He put everything on a good footing there.
1883-1887 He was appointed Procuator of the Province, and during the latter years of this was also involved in the Mission Staff.
1888 He was appointed Rector of Galway, and continued his involvement in the Mission Staff. On Father Ronan’s retirement, he was appointed Superior of the Mission Staff. This was a post he filled to great satisfaction. He was a man of sound common sense, and was well remembered by many religious communities who listened keenly to his exhortations.
During the last few years of his life he suffered a lot, and felt keenly the requirement to retire, which had come too soon. He died peacefully at St Vincent’s Hospital, where he had undergone surgery, 08 March 1904.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Patrick Hughes (1837-1904)

Brother of the preceding (John), was educated at Belvedere College and St Finnian's, Navan. He made his higher studies in Rome and Laval. In 1876, he arrived at the Crescent and spent six years here as master and member of the church staff. He was subsequently, bursar of the Province, Rector of St. Ignatius', Galway (1888-91) and superior of the mission staff. He died at Milltown Park.

Hughes, Seán J, 1910-2003, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/604
  • Person
  • 29 October 1910-19 June 2003

Born: 29 October 1910, Drumcondra, Dublin
Entered: 02 September 1929, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 29 July 1943, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 03 February 1947, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 19 June 2003, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Loyola, Eglinton Road, Dublin community at the time of death.

Early education at O’Connell’s School

by 1935 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 117 : Special Issue November 2003

Obituary
Fr Seán Hughes (1910-2003)

29th Oct. 1910: Born in Dublin
Early education in National School, Fairview and O'Connell School (CBS), Dublin
2nd Sept. 1929: Entered the Society at Tullabeg
3rd Sept. 1931: First Vows at Emo
1931 - 1934: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1934 - 1937: Jersey - Maison St. Louis - Studied Philosophy
1937 - 1939: Mungret College - Regency (Choir Master)
1939 - 1940: Clongowes - Regency (Choir Master); Clongowes Certificate in Education
1940 - 1944: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
29th July 1943: Ordained at Milltown Park
1944 - 1945: Mungret College - Sub-Minister
1945 - 1946: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1946 - 1953: Mungret College
1946 - 1949: Minister; Lecturer in Philosophy
1949 - 1953: Teacher; Lecturer in Philosophy, Choir Master
3rd Feb. 1947: Final Vows at Mungret College
1953 - 1959: St. Ignatius, Galway - Rector; Men's Sodality
1956 - 1964: Province Consultor
1959 - 1965: Gonzaga College - Rector
1965 - 1973: Crescent College - Rector; President: Sod. BVM
1973 - 1974: Belvedere - Director, Secretariat Catholic Secondary Schools (1973-1977)
1974 - 1977: John Austin House - Bursar, Belvedere
1977 - 1984: Manresa - Minister, Asst. Director, Retreat House; Socius to Novice Director
1984 - 1995: John Austin House - Superior, Directed Spir.Ex.
1995 - 2003: Loyola House
1995 - 1997: Librarian; Treasurer; Directed Spir. Ex.
1997 - 2001: Assistant Treasurer; Directed Spir. Ex., Sacristan; House Historian
2001 - 2003: Resided in Cherryfield Lodge

Following his return to Cherryfield from four weeks in the Royal Hospital in May, where Seán regained some mobility, and his sharpness of wit returned, he took a sudden turn on June 16th during the night. His heart and kidney function deteriorated rapidly over the next few days but he entertained friends even on the previous Thursday afternoon! Seán on 19 June 2003, at Cherryfield Lodge, aged 92 years.

Dermot Murray writes:
Seán Hughes was born on 29th October 1910 in Dublin. He attended the National School in Fairview and O'Connell Schools before entering the Society in Tullabeg at the age of eighteen. Following the noviceship (Tullabeg and Emo) and his degree studies in UCD, he was sent to Jersey for Philosophy in 1934. Two years in Mungret, one year in Clongowes and three years in Milltown Park were followed by ordination on 29th July 1943. His fourth year in Milltown was followed by a year in Mungret before Tertianship in Rathfarnham, a return to Mungret in 1946 and the beginning of his life of service as a priest in the world of education.

After his seven years in Mungret, Seán went to Galway as Rector. Six year later he went to Gonzaga again as Rector and this was followed by eight years as Rector in Crescent, where he was deeply involved in the move to Dooradoyle and the setting up of Crescent College Comprehensive. On his appointment as Director of the Secretariate for Catholic Secondary Schools, Seán left Limerick in 1973 and, following a short stay in Belvedere, moved to John Austin House in 1974. He then spent seven years in Manresa before returning to John Austin House as Superior from 1984 to 1995. Then, at the age of 85, he moved to Loyola House where he spent six happy years before moving to Cherryfield House for the last two years of his life. He died on 19th June 2003.

In a letter to Fr. Provincial on the occasion of Seán's death, Mr. Seán McCann, General Secretary of ACS paid him this tribute:

“The history of School Management in Irish Post primary education cannot be adequately written without honouring the memory of Fr. Sean Hughes'

There is no need in this obituary to go into the details of his work in the development of the structures of second level in education in Ireland. But it is worth quoting the words of Eileen Doyle in her book, Leading the Way in which she notes that”'the credit for proposing a managerial body that would represent the interests of all the churches is rightly attributed to John Hughes SJ”.

Seán worked very hard to obtain this. The fruits of his efforts – his among others - lie in the Secretariate for Catholic Secondary schools and in the Joint Managerial Body (MB), representing all secondary schools. And when he became Chairman of the Board of Crescent College Comprehensive, he was one of the founding fathers and the first Chairman of the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools (ACS).

I first came to know Seán when I was a scholastic in Crescent in 1965 when Sean was appointed as Rector. He had already been Rector in Galway and in Gonzaga and some members of the Crescent community at the time thought that his appointment was another example of musical chairs. But they were wrong. I was a young scholastic at the time, beginning my second year of regency in Crescent. What struck me then - as it did in the years since – was that, despite his many and well known foibles, Seán was a Vatican 2 person and remained so until the end of his life.

I came to know him more deeply when he was Chairman of the Board of Crescent College Comprehensive and I was Headmaster. We became great friends and I became aware of the depth of his own spirituality – confirmed by the letters received since his death - and his wonderful humanity. He performed an enormous service to the world of Irish second level education. He had a wide range of friends and a wonderful sense of family; and he did love 'fine wines and foods rich and juicy' as Isaiah described the banquet that Lord would prepare for his people. May he enjoy it eternally in heaven.

Hughes, William, 1841-1902, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1467
  • Person
  • 01 February 1841-02 April 1902

Born: 01 February 1841, Leighlinbridge, County Carlow
Entered: 11 May 1861, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1871
Professed: 02 February 1883
Died: 02 April 1902, St Aloysius, Sevenhill, Adelaide, Australia

He was the in the middle of brothers John Hughes- RIP 1888 and Joseph Hughes - RIP 1878

by 1864 at Roehampton London (ANG) studying
by 1869 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1872 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
Early Australian Missioner 1872

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He came from a family of seven brothers and five sisters, and two of his brothers were Jesuits - He was the in the middle of brothers John Hughes- RIP 1888 and Joseph Hughes - RIP 1878
Early education was at Leighlinbridge. He then went to Maynooth to study Humanities and Philosophy, and then decided to join the Society.

1863-1865 After First Vows he was sent for Regency to Clongowes and then to Limerick.
1865 He was sent to Louvain for Theology
1872 He set out for Melbourne in the company of Christopher Nulty and Michael Watson. There he taught in the Colleges for 31 years. When his health began to fail he was sent to Sevenhill to prepare for death under the care of an old friend Charles Dietel, who was Superior there at that time. His death there was timely, as it saved him from having one of his legs amputated. He died 02 April 1902 Sevenhill
He became a Consultor of the Mission. He also gave very successful Priests and Nuns Retreats. He was thought very learned - “a regular encyclopedia of knowledge” - and a great lover of Community life.
He was very proficient in Latin, Greek, French, German and Italian.
He was a gifted writer and contributed to many Catholic publications. Whilst at Xavier in Kew he wrote several articles for the “Advocate” which was widely read. He also contributed many articles for the “Australian Messenger” under the initials “W.H.”

Note from John McInerney Entry :
He went afterwards to St Patrick’s College, Melbourne, and there he had amongst his teachers Fathers William Kelly, Frank Murphy and William Hughes.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father William Hughes SJ 1841-1902
Fr William Hughes was a native of Carlow. He was born in 1841, and received his early education at Leighlinbridge. Having studied Humanities and Philosophy, he entered the Society in 1861. He taught at Clongowes and Crescent, and finally in the early 1870’s he went to Australia with Frs Watson and Nulty.

He taught in our Colleges for 31 years, was in great demand as a giver of retreats to priests and Nuns. He was very learned “a regular encyclopaedia of knowledge”. Being a facile and gifted writer, he was a regular contributor to the various Catholic publications of Australia.

His health failing, he went to Sevenhill to prepare for death, under the kind care of his old friend Fr Charles Dietel, the Superior of the Residence. A few months later he died peacefully on April 2nd 1902.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father William Hughes (1841-1902)

Received his early education at Leighlinbridge and entered Maynooth College where he had finished his course of humanities and philosophy when he applied for admission to the Society in 1861. He made his higher studies in Louvain. Before his ordination, Father Hughes spent three years of his regency at the Crescent, 1865-68. In the early 1870's, he was transferred to the Australian mission where he laboured until his death. He gave good service for many years in the Australian Jesuit colleges where he was widely known as a wise spiritual director. He was also a copious contributor of essay and articles upon religious and historical questions to the Australian Catholic press.

Humphreys, John, 1943-2014, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/846
  • Person
  • 30 April 1943-10 October 2014

Born: 30 April 1943, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1961, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 21 June 1974, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 May 1981, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway
Died: 10 October 2014, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Coláiste Iognáid, Galway community at the time of death.

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1970 at University of Warwick, Coventry (ANG) studying
by 1975 at Rome, Italy (DIR) studying
by 1997 at Cambridge MA, USA (NEN) Sabbatical

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/loss-leader-john-humphreys/

Loss of a leader: John Humphreys
Last Friday, 10 October, the Irish Jesuits lost one of their great servants. John Humphreys, aged 71, had been unconscious for two days, and increasingly sick with a brain tumour for five months. John was a Limerick man, a passionate fan of Munster rugby. His father, 25 years older than his mother, had died in 1953, leaving 10-year-old John as man of the house. He learned to manage the burdens of responsibility in a calm and kindly style, and as a result was landed with them all his life, as captain of Clongowes, beadle of scholastics during his years of study, Socius (companion and close advisor) to three Provincials, and Rector of several houses. When he was taken sick he was in his ninth year as rector of St Ignatius, Galway, charged with the thankless task of raising two million for school buildings.
John’s administrative gifts would not explain the grieving crowds who packed Gardiner Street church for his funeral. John was loved, and will be terribly missed. His style was upbeat, encouraging and giving. He was a humble man, a quiet listener, ready to learn from his mistakes. A Jesuit friend remembers him as good company at table, not saying much, but smiling at the craic and adding to it.
The source of this warmth became particularly clear in his last months of life. When he learned that his cancer was probably terminal, he lived with it, and his increasing sickness, with good humour nourished by his prayer. He asked a friend to seek out the text of a prayer which touched him, and described his spiritual state:
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve. I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy. I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 158 : Winter 2014

Obituary

Fr John Humphreys (1943-2014)

30 April 1943: Born in Limerick,
Early education at Sacred Heart College, Limerick and Clongowes Wood College
7 September 1961: Entered the Society at Emo
8 September 1963: First Vows at Emo
1963 - 1967: Rathfarnham - Studied Science at UCD
1967 - 1969: Milltown Park - Studied Philosophy
1969 - 1970: Warwick University - Studied Philosophy
1970 - 1971: Clongowes - Lower Line Prefect: Regency
1971 - 1974: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
21st June 1974: Ordained at Gonzaga Chapel, Dublin
1974 - 1976: Gregorian, Rome --Studied Theology (Residence: S. Roberto Bellarmino)
1976 - 1981: Galway – Teacher
1978 - 1979: Tertianship in Tullabeg; Vice-Rector; Teacher
1979 - 1981: Rector; Teacher; Province Consultor (1978)
15 May 1981: Final Vows at Galway
1981 - 1987: Milltown Park - Rector; Delegate for Formation; Province Consultor
1987 - 1996: Loyola - Socius; Vice-Superior; Province Consultor
1991 - 1996: Socius; Province Consultor. Chair of Board Crescent College Comprehensive
1996 - 1997: Sabbatical – Weston Jesuits, New England
1997 - 1999: Clongowes - Chaplain; Pastoral Care Corordinator; Chair, Vocations Vocations Promotion Team
1998: Acting Socius
1999 - 2002: Loyola - Superior; Socius; Prov. Consultor; Provincial Team; Chair Vocations Vocations Promotion Team
2002 - 2005: Dominic Collins - Province Consultor; Prov. Assistant for Strategic Planning; Delegate for Child Protection; Revisor of Province Funds
2005 - 2014: Galway - Rector; Revisor of Province Funds; Province Consultor; Child Protection Delegate; Spirituality Delegate; Chair Coláiste lognáid Board
2008 - 2014: Galway - Rector; Director of Spirituality Centre; Revisor of Province Funds

Fr. John Humphreys was admitted to Cherryfield Lodge on 19th May 2014. He settled in well though his condition deteriorated over time. He died peacefully in Cherryfield on 10th October 2014.

“Past all grasp God-throned behind death with a sovereignty that heeds, but hides, that bodes but abides”. Hopkins stretching words about the mystery of death and God.

I remember my mother told me one time whenever John's father, Louis, would tell a funny story – long before be got to the punch line he would get into helpless fits of laughter and tears were running down his face, so that everyone around started laughing with him and you mightn't get the punch line at all, but it didn't matter. And the same was true of John. The abiding truth of John was that you just felt better in his company - his humanity and palpable goodness made those with him feel good about themselves. An extraordinary gift!

When Sir Thomas More heard about the sudden death of Bishop John Fisher at the hands of Henry VIII because he had refused to bow to his bullying: More said: Ah, Fisher, a lovely man. An amazing number of people would say just the same of John Humphreys: a lovely man.

Karl Rahner, the German 20th century Jesuit theologian, was asked in an interview how could a modern man become or remain a Jesuit. And part of his answer was: my reason is not because the Society of Jesus still has a significant influence within the Church or in the broader world. Rather, it is because I still see around me living in many of my companions a readiness for disinterested service carried out in silence, a readiness for prayer, for abandonment to the incomprehensibility of God, for the calm acceptance of death in whatever form it may come, for the total dedication to the following of Christ crucified.

It could be a pen-picture of John's life-of many others too as Rahner says – but John is the focus today : disinterested service – John was the Provincial's (three of them in fact – Philip Harnett, Laurence Murphy & Gerry O'Hanlon) Socius, or right hand man or consigliere for many years - I used to refer to him as 1A - the servant of us all in the Irish province of the Jesuits – enormously competent; painstaking, generous, good-humoured, compassionate, including his hidden & committed labour in the not-easy area of child-protection. Readiness for prayer: John's faith in Christ Risen was the constant and the anchor in his life, and his abandonment and calm acceptance were astonishing when he suddenly became ill in April and was soon diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour, which claimed his life within 6 months - John's dealing with this was for us Jesuits an embodiment of the P & F in the Spiritual Exercises where Ignatius writes that we were all made to praise, reverence and serve God our Lord, and everything else in creation was made to help us do this - and so we should neither prefer a long life to a short life, sickness to health - John lived this freedom or detachment as it's sometimes called. Mary Rickard, our Province Health Supremo who with John's doctor-niece Sally masterminded John's care, said of his time in Cherryfield, where he was so lovingly cared for, that he was no trouble - So easy to look after – and he just slipped away last Friday afternoon - no trouble - he died as he lived.

However, unlike yourself or myself, John wasn't perfect in every way. My mother again was a source of information on his earlier years - reminding me that she asked John once when he was about eight, how do you say what time is it in French - John replied grumpily claratelle - my mother (a French teacher) tried to correct him, but John wouldn't budge - his father had told him it was claratelle. And claratelle it was. As stubborn as a mule. Loyal to the end. Then shortly afterwards he got his appendix out and he completely changed, she said, and became the delightful John we all knew! John and I use to play Mass too when we were about 10 - though he claimed that I was always the priest and he was the server. Well, that all certainly changed in later life! But he could be fussy and get a bit ratty too - on holiday he once rebuked me for not getting to the washing up. I replied any time I go to it you have it half-done already - it was so strange seeing him completely passive in our most recent holiday last July in Alison & his late-cousin Seamus’ Glandore house.

As you well know, John had a great sense of humour - his great friend Tom told me that John's own father had named a horse Bundle of Fun after John when John was only an infant! he was always ready for a party and dance - Louis told me he burned up many a dance-floor at weddings, had a spontaneous awareness of beauty and beauty responded; he was a charmer ! Always happy for a sing-song -- now he was no Pavarotti and would never have got into OLCS, but he was totally involved, with his head and feet going steadily to rhythm right to the end in the Cherryfield masses. We'd often speak in authentic Limerick accents when together - and he'd get great mileage if I told him I was listening to two men talking at the traffic lights in Limerick one time : and one said the doctor told me to take it easy; Geez, replied the other fella, you'll find that very hard you've done feck all for the last 40 years !

He loved Galway - spending two sustained spells there in the Jes both in the 70s and for the last eight years in many roles-where he has been loved and hugely appreciated, and where he will be, like in so many other places, greatly missed.

John was matured and purified by his life's experience: his father died when he was about 10, his mother (my godmother) was very unwell in her latter years, his lovely sister Reena, and only sibling, died 18 years ago after a long illness and her husband Paddy, 10 years ago – their legacy is the delightful family of his nieces and nephew, Sally, Louis and Judith, whom he dearly loved. And now John, just over the Biblical three score and ten. He had his difficult moments too: having an academic stumble in Warwick University in his earlier years, where he went full of Lonergan philosophy to the uncomprehending English - there he found that so many conversations ended with: Oh, how very interesting – but after all, who's to say?! And all his time of shepherding Jesuit scholastics in Milltown Park was no bed of roses.

I think that this purification made him such an attractive person to so many people - there was nothing threatening or intimidating about John - he was a great listener -- and when he had positions of responsibility he was just so human, so humble, so understanding, so compassionate.

The readings: Wisdom 4: 7-15; 2 Tim 4; 6-8; Mt 5: 1-12 - speak for themselves, perhaps most eloquently Paul's own farewell.

Fr Pedro Arrupe, the then General of the Jesuits, meeting with the provincials of the Philippines some years ago, was trying to clarify the main characteristic to be sought in Jesuits who are making final vows (sjs take final vows a few years after ordination) and thrashing it around for a while someone eventually said 'disponibilité' ie availability, freedom from possessiveness, or a sustained freedom from selfishness and self-concem. Arrupe nodded vigorously and said, that's it. John was available. The late Fr Michael Sweetman was a boy in Clongowes when Fr John Sullivan was there and Sweetman wrote about him: ‘he had wiped out selfishness so completely that you could not fail to see what, or rather Who, was in him.

There was nothing else there: he was all goodness, all Christ.' I think that's not a bad description of John. There wasn't a bone of selfishness left in him. I think Ignatius would have been pretty pleased.
And when you come to think of it isn't that what the Christian life is all about too !

So, while John's death is profoundly sad for us all, it's not tragic, though leaving us all bereft -- he did live over the three score and ten: the psalmist says our span is 70 and 80 for those who are strong - though we thought John was strong! We have all been enormously enriched by him. He was sublimely ready to go. He was just serenely waiting for the call in the last few months. So while we grieve as we must, we grieve not as vague agnostics, but like John himself as followers of Christ Risen, recognising as Paul Claudel wrote that Christ has come not to explain suffering, but to share it and to fill it with his presence.

There is, of course, no way in which anyone's life, not to mention that of a person of John's calibre and influence, can be remotely captured adequately in a homily or a panegyric - it can just be hinted at. But we are surely called to give profound thanks for John, for his life, his companionship and his service. And his swift departure is a call to all of us to get our own lives more into perspective, to shed some of our illusions and foolish obsessions and preoccupations – we are so easily seduced by the ephemeral and unimportant. John's death can teach us how to walk more lightly through life – to live in a less cluttered way - to attend to what is essential & important – to live more nobly and more generously – in the words of St Paul, to live a life more worthy of our vocation. And more in the spirit of inner freedom & serenity that John embodied. Helmut Thielicke, the German Lutheran theologian wrote: “Because of the Resurrection everything is now different: we do not know what is to come, but we do know who is to come. And if the last hour belongs to us, we do not need to fear the next minute”. And in conclusion St John of the Cross pithily: 'In the evening of our lives we will be judged on love'. It's an exam in which I think John will do rather well.

Peter Sexton

Hurley, James, 1926-2020, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/861
  • Person
  • 01 October 1926-13 April 2020

Born: 01 October 1926, Ardmore, County Waterford
Entered: 11 November 1944, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1958, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1962, St. Ignatius Chapel, Wah Yan College Kowloon
Died: 13 April 2020, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin - Sinensis Province (CHN)

Part of the Milltown Park community at the time of death

Younger brother of Michael - RIP 2011

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966

by 1952 at Hong Kong - Regency studying language
by 1954 at Way Yan, Kowloon, Hong Kong - Regency
by 1960 at Cheung Chau Hong Kong - studying and teaching
by 1972 at Manila, Philippines (PHI) Studying
by 1973 at Wah Yan, Kowloon (HK) Novice Master
by 2014 at Milltown, Dublin (HIB) Pastoral work

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Today, Sri Lankan-born Basil Fernando plies his legal trade in exile from the offices of the Hong Kong-based human rights watchdog, the Asian Human Rights Commission, in bustling Mong Kok. Chatting with the Sunday Examiner he reminisced about what he terms his “conversion,’’ which is manifest in his long dedication to the difficult and frustrating grind of fighting for human rights among some of the most abused people in the world.

In a time when few giants walk upon the earth, Fernando points to Jesuit Father James Hurley as one who towered head and shoulders above others who influenced his determination to spend his life working for the dignity of people. “I first met Father Hurley in 1969,’’ he said matter-of-factly, “when I was a university student and came as a delegate from my homeland (Sri Lanka) to a conference organised by Pax Romana in Hong Kong.”

Fernando explains it was a time when the excitement of Vatican II still electrified the air and Church reform was an integral part of the discussion. “I suppose we had some radical views,” he noted, “and we were often heavily criticised at home.”

But Fernando says that something solidified inside him when he came into contact with Father Hurley at that conference. “I found that whenever I opened my mouth in front of Father Hurley and the representatives from Hong Kong, I received an immediate, sympathetic and encouraging response,” he recounted.

“This left a lasting impression on me,” he reminisced, “for me this was the first time in my life I had experienced a climate that encouraged freedom of expression and respect for the opinions of individuals, and especially young people.”

Fernando recounted that the meeting selected me as one of the two young people to represent Asia at the first ever Asia-wide bishops’ conference, which was attended by Pope Paul VI and held in Manila the following year. Father Hurley accompanied me and Peter Wong to the meeting, which came at a volatile time in the life of The Philippines.

He noted, “There were fears martial law was going to be declared and we met students in the streets who were highly critical of the Church.”

Fernando related how he saw a demonstration of students holding placards and chanting, “Viva il papa (Long live the pope) and down with Santos” (the archbishop of Manila). He said there were discussions on “how we were going to respond and a short resolution entitled, The Bishops of Asia, was drafted as we thought the bishops had spoken well on the meeting floor, but feared their words may be drowned if not translated into action to identify with the poor.”

Fernando told of how the statement was read out in the inaugural broadcast of Radio Veritas, on the day it was opened and blessed by the pope. “We distributed pamphlets while it was being broadcast,” he explained, “and had the privilege of giving one to the pope. We were picked up by Reuters and made the worldwide news as well.” He remembers with a chuckle that “we were the centre of attention and full of the enthusiasm of youth.”

Fernando said what he really learned to appreciate in Father Hurley was that “he did not obstruct, push orthodoxy or try to warn us. He knew we were speaking our convictions and, as chaplain, encouraged us. I think he himself was touched by the reform of the times.”

Fernando said he kept contact with the Irish priest and he came to Sri Lanka during the middle of what was a difficult and repressive time. “There were insurrections in which 10,000 young people were killed,” he said. “As a young lawyer I had to leave my country in 1989 and I came to Hong Kong. I did not write to Father Hurley, I just came, and we have been close friends since, even during the time I was away in Cambodia.”

The barrister said, “Father Hurley kept encouraging me in my human rights work, encouraging and participating.”

Fernando said that when a Jesuit priest was in trouble in India they all went to bat for him, as we did during the time when the Sri Lankan Father Tissa Balasuriya was excommunicated, until his reinstatement. “Father Hurley never condemned,” he said, “he simply encouraged us to follow our convictions.”

Fernando said that the Church still has a long way to go in the implementation of Vatican II, but his youth was a time that inspired real conversion and brought people to a faith that is described by the theologian, Father Hans Küng, as something that many people did not come to understand, but did create a new generation, which will not easily give up in the face of pressure.

Fernando said that “we learned to go beyond the formal into the substance. We learned from the Anglican Bishop (John A.T.) Robinson, who said ‘to live our relationships as if there is no God,’ in other words, ‘play responsibility in a serious way’.”

He said that the Second Vatican Council brought about a tremendous internal conversion. “I was converted, even at my age and in spite of my limitations. I respect Father Hurley,” he went on, “as someone who understands. One of my mentors was a Dutch priest, Father Henk Schram, he came to Sri Lanka as a worker-priest. He was known to Father Hurley (who was a worker-priest in Hong Kong). He introduced us to the theology long before Vatican II happened.”

Fernando said that many people have stood with him as he has learned to live a life of defiance, defiance of what is corrupt, and he has always been supported by Father Hurley, in his eyes, a giant walking on the earth.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 14 October 2007

Priest of the young and the worker calls it a day

Father James Hurley sj has decided to call it a day in Hong Kong. Just 62 years after he took his first steps on the island soil he took a plane back to his native Ireland at the end of October on a one-way ticket.

However, he did not leave with his presence unacknowledged, as his memory lives on in the hearts of those who were young when he was part of the Pax Romana Chapter in the late 1960s, as well as in his fellow workers at a clothing factory where he stood at the table cutting cloth each day, and the members of the Apostleship of Prayer, of which he was chaplain for many years.

Father Hurley has decided to call it a day in Hong Kong and return to his native Ireland, where he believes that he can still contribute to people’s lives, but at a slower pace and in a more sedate manner, befitting his age.

He left Hong Kong for Mill Town, the Jesuit house of study and prayer, where he hopes he can serve out his days as a spiritual director to working people.

As a man who cut the cloth in Hong Kong factories he is well equipped to guide those who work for their living, as Basil Fernando, the former director of the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, says, “He introduced that theology long before even Vatican II happened.”

Fernando recalls that he first met Father Hurley when he came to Hong Kong as a young representative of the Sri Lankan Church in 1969 as part of Pax Romana.

He describes him as a breath of fresh air. Coming from a strictly authoritarian Church in Colombo, Fernando says that Father Hurley surprised him.

“He did not obstruct, push orthodoxy or try to warn us. He knew we were speaking our convictions and, as chaplain, encouraged us,” he recalls.

Speaking to the Sunday Examiner in 2007, Fernando said, “I suppose we had some radical views and we were often heavily criticised at home, but I found that whenever I opened my mouth in front of Father Hurley, I received an immediate, sympathetic and encouraging response.”

Fernando reminisced, “This left a lasting impression on me. For me, this was the first time in my life I had experienced a climate that encouraged freedom of expression and respect for the opinions of individuals, and especially young people.”

Fernando regards Father Hurley as a giant among men, but today the once strident figure moves more slowly and is seeking a life style more in keeping with his ageing body.

As a man dedicated to justice, Father Hurley was also a long time member and past president of the Asian Centre for the Progress of Peoples. He spent his life fighting for what he regarded as the basic rights that should be attributed to each and every individual.

Father Hurley says that he leaves Hong Kong with no regrets and hopes he will find a fulfilling role to play in his native Ireland.

As the prayers of many hearts go with him and the best wishes of many people to whom he brought hope and courage in their lives are with him as well, the Sunday Examiner wishes Father Hurley ad multos annos.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 23 November 2014

Final farewell to Father James Hurley SJ

Jesuit Missionary Father James Hurley, who served the Church in Hong Kong for over five decades, died on 13 April 2020, at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin, Ireland. He was 93-years- old.

Father Hurley was born in Ireland on 1 October 1926. He was ordained to the priesthood on 31 July 1958 in Dublin and professed final vows on 2 February 1962 at St. Ignatius Chapel, Wah Yan College Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Father Hurley first came to Hong Kong as a scholastic in 1950 and lived in Cheung Chau doing his language studies.

After his ordination in Ireland, he returned to Hong Kong and worked in Chu Hai post-secondary college in Kowloon till 1969. He also became chaplain to the Hong Kong Federation of Post Secondary Students and became closely associated with the student movement in Hong Kong.

He was appointed the Master of the Novices for three years and later lived as a “Worker Priest” during which time he worked as an ordinary labourer in a garment factory for four to five months.

In 1978 he began his parish ministry in Christ the Worker Parish, Ngau Tau Kok, and served the parish till 1989. For the next four years he initiated an experimental parish for Basic Christian Communities in St. Vincent’s Parish in Wong Tai Sin. Later he also served in Star of the Sea Parish, Chai Wan from 1995 to 1998 before moving to the Jesuit Parish of St. Ignatius Church at Wah Yan College.

As his health deteriorated, he left Hong Kong for Ireland in 2014 (Sunday Examiner, 23 November 2014).
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 19 April 2020

Father James Hurley - A gem of a man

Jesuit Father James Hurley, a great man and a humanist, passed away on April 13. I had the privilege of associating with Father Hurley since 1970. He impressed me as a man who was very deeply concerned with individuals as well as on the great social issues of his time.

As a human being, he had the enormous capacity to listen to others, including people who were much younger than him.

I first met him when he was the students’ chaplain for university students at an organisation known as Pax Romana. I attended this meeting as a representative of the Catholic Students’ Federation of Sri Lanka. This meeting left an indelible mark in my memory.

What attracted me most was the tolerance with which students were received and the space that was made available to them to discuss and debate all kinds of very controversial issues.

At the time, the more burning issues amongst the Catholic students were related to the developments of the Second Vatican Council.

Father Hurley had a very ardent interest in the developments within the Church during this time. He had been associated with progressive theologians from Asia over a long period. He was aware of the controversies that were taking place all around Asia on the issues relating to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

At this pan-Asian conference in 1970, one of the main debates was related to a theme that was very familiar at the time: institutionless Christianity. Several theologians had written about this issue and the critique of institutional limitations to the spread of the message of the gospel was quite a common theme everywhere.

The conference encouraged the students to share their views and Father Hurley, in particular, followed these discussions after the meetings at the dinners.

Once Father Hurley knew somebody, he knew how to sustain a friendship over the years. A short time after this meeting, he was going for a vacation in Ireland and he stopped in Sri Lanka to meet me. He spent a few days there and talked to many people. Going out of his way to keep that sort of close connection was, I think, the way he thought of his duties as a priest.

At the time, he had the idea of being a worker-priest, which meant working at a factory just like any other worker. He wanted to know the life of the workers and the circumstances under which they lived, their difficulties as well as the richer side of them as human beings.

Sometime later he carried out this wish and spent a year or more working in a factory. Later, he would narrate some of his experiences in a very moving manner.

In 1989, 1 had to leave Sri Lanka and I chose to come to Hong Kong, mainly because I knew I had two friends there, Father Hurley and John Clancey, who I also got to know at the students’ meeting mentioned above.

By the time I arrived in Hong Kong, Father Hurley had already left for Ireland for his sabbatical year. However, as soon as he arrived back, he contacted me and, ever since, we had a long friendship.

I used to address him as Father Hurley and then he told me, “Just call me James.” That was his way. There was no trace of clericalism in him. You could discuss anything with him, including things that were happening in countries he had never been to.

For example, he had a keen interest in what happened to Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime, which followed the massive bombing of the country by the United States. He listened to the story of millions of deaths, inquiring a great deal about the details of the results of these times and how far things had improved (or not).

Naturally, one of the conversations we returned to many times was the situation in Sri Lanka itself. He already knew a lot about Sri Lanka because he had friends like, for example, Father Tissa Balasuriya OMI, who was the Asian chaplain for Catholic students. He also knew some bishops, particularly a priest, Father Michael Rodrigo, who was assassinated by the military while he was trying to protect young people in a remote rural area.

I have heard a lot from him about the Irish struggles for freedom. When he came to speak about the killings of some of the fighters whom he knew personally, there were occasions on which he became very emotional, and at least on one occasion, he cried. That was when I one day recorded an interview with him on the issue of the Irish people’s struggles against colonialism.

As he was narrating this story, he began to mention many names of people who he had known, admired and loved very deeply. At this point, he became emotionally very involved, and started to cry. That was the deep love with which he remembered his country, and also the real depth of his feelings about freedom. He was a person who was very committed to struggles for freedom wherever it happened.

One time, after he returned from Ireland after a holiday, he mentioned the use of rubber bullets by the Irish police. He was given one of those bullets by someone. He kept it to remember the kind of problems people are faced with. During his trips to Ireland, he visited people who were involved in these struggles, some of whom had gone to jail for a long time over these matters.

He had a deep love for Hong Kong and the struggle of the students happening at that time. He knew most of these students and told stories about them with affection and admiration.

He was a deeply spiritual man. He associated with the people and often said the rosary; with them when they came to discuss some of their problems with him. I particularly remember one instance when the mother of a convicted prisoner used to visit him on Sundays after the Mass. Father Hurley used to visit this man in the prison often and went out of his way to help the children to have their education despite of the fact that their father was in prison. He always spoke with a deep sense of affection for the prisoner, with that spirit of forgiveness that also made it possible for people to appreciate the good side of people even if they were convicted of crimes.

We used to meet often for lunch or dinner. During these times, he had the capacity to tell many stories, sometimes very humorous ones. He once talked about a Protestant in Ireland who used to be very virulent in his attacks against the Catholics. When this man was dying, he called a Catholic priest to come and admit “him to the Catholic faith. The priest arrived and, just out of curiosity, asked the man why, after being io strongly against them, why he wanted to become a Catholic at the moment of his death. The man replied, “Well, when I die, it will be one of them that died and not one of us.”

When recalling Father Hurley, one remembers that one was meeting at the same time a deeply human person with an enormously deep spirituality and a commitment to his religious beliefs, who was able to bring these into a relationship in the context of the modem world.

Most of the time, he was dressed in trousers and a shirt, and behaved like other people. This way, he befriended people without making them feel that the relationship was one that involved any kind of hierarchy.

He was a democrat to the core and a person who was committed to human rights absolutely.

He reminded me of a definition that a Dutch priest gave of priesthood: a priest is a person who gives gratuitously. Father Hurley certainly was such a priest.

Legacies such as that of Father Hurley will not be erased.
Basil Fernando
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 26 April 2020

Memorial Mass for celebrated for Father James Hurley

The Justice and Peace Commission organised a memorial Mass on April 20 for Jesuit Father James Hurley, its former ecclesiastical advisor, who passed away on April 13 in Ireland, at the age of 93 (Sunday Examiner, April 19). He was confirmed to have contracted the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

The Mass, which was streamed live online, was concelebrated by Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun and Father Carlos Cheung Sam-yui.

The service began with a sharing from Martin Lee Chu-ming, former legal advisor of the commission. The lawyer and former democratic legislator spoke about incidents mentioned in Father Hurley’s book, Option for the Deprived, written in 2008.

Lee recounted the Irish missionary’s 50 years in Hong Kong since he first arrived in 1952 by boat-a journey which took 30 days. He said he was impressed by Father Hurley’s commitment to social justice, evidenced by the time he spent working in a factory to experience the life of the poor, as well as setting up Amnesty International in Hong Kong.

Lee said that he could find many similarities between Father Hurley’s life and his own. They were both inspired by Father Fergus Cronin in the fight for people’s rights.

In 1969, Father Hurley come to prominence for defending five students who were expelled by Chu Hai College for openly criticising the post-secondary school, where he had been a lecturer for eight years.

Lee recalled how Father Hurley sought clearance before attending a press conference to speak for the students and Father Cronin, the then-Jesuit superior in Hong Kong, told him: “Go James, attend! This is where you must be.” Father Hurley said he could not forget such a clear instruction and was grateful for the support.

Lee recalled that when he started in politics, he also visited Father Cronin, who was then seriously ill, and asked what he could do for the Church. Father Cronin told him to follow his conscience and do what he thought he should do.

A recorded message from humans right lawyer, John Clancey, a close friend of Father Hurley, was then played. Clancey recalled meeting the Jesuit priest in 1969 and since then they met every month for yum cha at different restaurants to talk about their work. He recalled that for several months in 1975, they met in hawker stalls near factories and had a good time with the labourers with whom Father Hurley worked.

He compared Father Hurley to; a saint and a prophet, as he had reflected the love of God to people and helped them to understand the principles of justice and peace. Clancey said Father Hurley often asked about people in Hong Kong after he had returned to Ireland.

He said that if Father Hurley were alive, he would tell him about the arrest of Lee, Albert Ho Chun- yan as well as a number of former pan-democrat legislators for their roles in alleged unlawful protests last year.

In his homily, Cardinal Zen said the memorial Mass should not be a sad occasion as Father Hurley had returned to heaven at Easter and this reminds us of our hope in eternal life.

The cardinal said that as the homily of a memorial Mass should focus on God instead of the life of the departed, he wanted to remind people of Father Hurley’s motto. “I imagine that Father Hurley would smilingly say a simple line... follow Jesus Christ, be a person with kindness and humility so that you can have a peaceful heart,” he said.

Cardinal Zen also expressed his sadness that the Covid-19 corona-virus had not stopped political suppression in Hong Kong.

He thanked God for sending the people of the city an example in the person of Father Hurley who showed how to seek justice and stand with the poor.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 3 May 2020

Jesuit Community offers Mass in memory of Father Hurley

A requiem Mass for Father James Hurley was organised by the Jesuit Community at St. Ignatius Chapel on June 8 and attended by around two hundred people.

Father Hurley passed away on April 13 in Ireland at the age of 93. He was confirmed to have contracted the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

Father Stephen Chow Sau-yan, Jesuit provincial of the China province, celebrated the memorial Mass. Father Chow said that while Father Hurley pursued social justice, he showed love for everyone and did not bear any hatred, which is one of the reasons why he touched the hearts of many people.

A woman, named Liu, said that she had known the priest since the 1980s when he served at Christ the Worker parish, Ngau Tau Kok. She remembered him as kind, leading a simple life to save money for the church and dedicated to fighting for the rights of parishioners.

Another former parishioner of Christ the Worker parish, Cheng, said Father Hurley treated parishioners with love as he would remember their names and pray for them.

Earlier, on April 20, the Justice and Peace Commission webcast a memorial Mass for Father Hurley, celebrated by Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun to mourn its former spiritual advisor (Sunday Examiner, May 3). The Jesuit community waited for the resumption of public Masses to ensure the participation of the friends and associates, whom Father Hurley loved.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 21 June 2020

◆ Option for the Deprived, by James Hurley SJ, Centre for Catholic Studies CUHK 2008.
https://archives.catholic.org.hk/In%20Memoriam/Clergy-Brother/J-Hurley.pdf

Note from Derek Reid Entry
During the Requiem Mass on 5 December, Father James Hurley SJ, assistant pastor at St Vincent’s Parish, Wongtaisin, and a contemporary of Father Reid, gave the homily in Chinese. Father Hurley pointed out that Father Reid was a man of all-round and exceptional ability. This was recognised soon after he joined the Jesuits and, even before his ordination as a priest, he had been given many responsibilities. After his return to Hong Kong his great qualities were even more clearly seen. Father Hurley gave examples of the help that had been given to himself and others.He was not only a great headmaster, he was also a great priest, said Father Hurley.“We shall never forget him,” said Father Hurley in conclusion.

Early Education at Mount Mellary Abbey, Cappoquin, Co Waterford

1946-1949 Rathfarnham - Studying at UCD
1949-1952 Tullabeg - Studying Theology Philosophy
1952-1954 Faber Community, Hong Kong - Studying Cantonese
1954-1955 Wah Yan Kowloon - Regency : Teaching Religion, English and History; Assistant Prefect; Editor of “The Shield”
1959-1960 Rathfarnham - Tertianship
1960-1961 Xavier House, Hong Kong - Studying Cantonese; Teacher; Novitiate Spiritual Father
1961-1962 Wah Yan Kowloon - Spiritual Father; Teaching English and Spiritual Father in “Chu Hai College”, Hong Kong
1964 Chaplain at Chinese University Hong Kong; Chaplain to Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students; Chaplain to Catholic students at Hong Kong Technical College
1965 Chaplain at Black and Grantham Training Colleges
1966 Chaplain at Baptist College, Kowloon; Director of College Club at McPherson Playground
1966 Transcribed to Chinese Province [CHN] (03/12/1966)
1972 Working in Adam Schall Residence, Chinese University Hong Kong
1972-1973 Manila, Philippines - Studying Pastoral Theology at East Asian Pastoral Institute
1973-2014 Wah Yan, Kowloon - Novice Master
1977 Working in Social Apostolate
1978 Consultor; Parish work & Chaplain to YCW at Christ the Worker Chapel, Kowloon
1983 Parish Priest
1992 Parish Team St Vincent’s; Council of Priests; Ecclesiastical Councelor of Justice and Peace Commission; Consultor at Ricci Hall
1996 Assistant Pastor of St Ignatius Church
2000 Chaplain of St Camillus Society
2002 Consultant to the Delegate for Hong Kong
2005 Apostleship of Prayer Director for Hong Kong; School Chaplain
2009 Assistant Rector St Ignatius Church
2013 Retreat Apostolate
2015-2020 Milltown Park - Pastoral Ministry

◆ Jesuits in Ireland https://www.jesuit.ie/news/fr-james-hurley-an-exceptional-jesuit/

Fr James Hurley – ‘an exceptional Jesuit’
Fr James (Jimmy) Hurley SJ died peacefully in Cherryfield Lodge nursing home, Ranelagh, Dublin, on Easter Monday, April 13, 2020. He was 93 years old.
Due to government guidelines regarding public gatherings, a private funeral service took place on 15 April followed by burial in Ardmore Round Tower Cemetery, County Waterford. You can watch a video of the ceremony here.
It was attended by a small number of his family and Tom Casey SJ of the Milltown Park community who represented all Jesuits. Messages of condolence were sent from Hong Kong where Fr James spent over 50 years as a missionary involved with education and pastoral work. Watch a photo-story tribute to him here made by his friends in Hong Kong. Also read a tribute by the Asian Human Rights Commission ».
Born in Ardmore, County Waterford in 1926, James was educated by the Cistercians at Mount Mellary Abbey and entered the Jesuits at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois, in 1944. He was influenced by his brother Michael (sometimes called the ‘father of Irish ecumenism’) who entered the Jesuits before him. After studying at UCD and Tullabeg, James went to Hong Kong in 1952 to study Cantonese and to do his regency as a secondary school teacher. He studied theology and philosophy at Milltown Park in Dublin, and after ordination and tertianship he returned to Hong Kong in 1960.
James took on many different roles during his years as a Jesuit missionary. He was a secondary school teacher, a spiritual father, a university chaplain, a novice master, a parish priest and spiritual director. He came back to Ireland in 2015 where he engaged in pastoral ministry at Milltown Park, Dublin.
Fr James was much loved wherever he went, and after his return to Dublin he had a steady flow of visitors both from Ardmore and from Hong Kong.
Messages of condolence were sent by the Chinese Jesuit Provincial and Cardinal of Hong Kong, expressing their deep appreciation for the missionary work of Fr James and acknowledging the impact of his legacy on the people of Hong Kong. The messages were read out at the graveside by Irish Jesuit Fr Tom Casey on Wednesday 15 April.
In his letter, Fr Stephen Chow SJ, Chinese Provincial, said: “Jimmy was an exceptional Jesuit who had given so many years of his life to Hong Kong. He was always energetic, curious, daring, caring, and active. Many of us have been awakened by his passion for social justice. And he is dearly remembered for that”.
He continued: “Many have left words and prayers on my Facebook page after I posted the announcement this afternoon. Cardinal Tong of Hong Kong also sent me a condolence message this evening. This has never happened before with Jesuits who had gone before him, and some of them were famous and well- loved priests.”
Cardinal Tong wrote the following: “On behalf of the Diocese, I would like to offer my condolences and sympathy on the death of our dear Fr Jimmy Hurley. Jimmy had served the Diocese in different ministries for many years with much love and dedication to every ministry he was assigned to.
He served as Spiritual Director of the Justice and Peace Commission, Chaplain to students of some universities in Hong Kong, Pastor of St Vincent Church in Wong Tai Sin, Christ the Worker Mass Centre in Ngau Tau Kok, Star of the Sea in Chaiwan, and St Ignatius Chapel in Waterloo Road.
He was a very capable man. He spoke very good Cantonese and was able to reach out to the different sectors of people in Hong Kong. He was well-loved and appreciated by everyone. He was a good example for the priests in our Diocese”.
Both Fr Chow and Cardinal Tong prayed: “May Fr Jimmy now rest in the eternal embrace of our Risen Lord whom he has vowed to follow”.
The Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission of Hong Kong has also created a cartoon image depicting Fr James going to his eternal reward.

Fr Todd Morrissey SJ, historian and author of the book Jesuits in Hong Kong, paid the following tribute to Fr James, his fellow community member in Milltown Park.
“When I visited Hong Kong in 2006 to research the history of the Irish Jesuits there, Jimmy was still full of zeal as a parish priest working directly with the Chinese people. He was very popular, always willing to help people out and was noted for his good sermons and his fluency in Cantonese.
When he came to live in Milltown Park, there were constant visitors from the Chinese. These included young Chinese people who have great respect for the elderly and their wisdom. There were many dinners with our Chinese visitors, several days a week over three years.”
According to Fr Morrissey, even during his last two years at Cherryfield Lodge, Jimmy was always a man who listened to people, interested individually in what they were doing, and very friendly and encouraging. “He was always in good humour and cheerful no matter what complaint. He was a very pleasant man to live with and to know.”
Fr James is deeply missed by his family, his wide circle of friends and his Jesuit communities in Hong Kong and Dublin. He is buried alongside his parents. A memorial Mass in celebration of Fr James’ life will take place at a later date.
Ar dheis De go raibh a hanam dilis.

◆ Irish Jesuit Missions https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/358-irish-men-behind-the-missions-fr-james-hurley-s

IRISH MEN BEHIND THE MISSIONS: FR. JAMES HURLEY SJ
Fifty years in Hong Kong: an Irish Jesuit’s tale.
Fr. James Hurley SJ reached the grand old age of 90 this month! Jimmy, as he is affectionately called, has a lifetime of 72 years of service as a missionary with the Society of Jesus. Across the decades, he has met and befriended remarkable men, been inspired by their dynamism and sense of mission and entered wholeheartedly and courageously into the lives of people living in poverty in Hong Kong. He went into the Jesuit organisation on the Feast of St Stanisclaus, November 13th 1944, his ordination taking place on the Feast of St Ignatius July 31st 1958.
Here he shares some of the stories of his mission with humour, grace and insight with the Irish Jesuit Missions.
James was the youngest child born into a family of two boys and two girls at Ardmore, County Waterford in 1926. As a child he spent a lot of time in Church activities and enjoyed assisting at Mass. He was influenced by his brother Fr. Michael Hurley SJ who was a theologian, widely known as the 'father of Irish ecumenism' for his promotion of Christian unity. James studied in Mount Melleray from 1939 – 1944 and at the time, Mellary had a thriving farm producing an abundance of food. But when Foot and Mouth disease struck in 1941, the students were not allowed home for the Easter vacation. They organised a protest demanding “We want a vac!”
And so James, from his youth, prepared for a life of student protest, mobilisation and critical engagement that was to continue for most of his lifetime.

It was 1952. Four years had been spent in Milltown for study and pastoral work in preparation for the Far Eastern missionary life to come. At last, it was time to set sail by boat for Hong Kong! The long voyage took about 30 days and James was grateful for the companionship of a priest and three fellow seminarians on board.
Ten years passed in Hong Kong before James began working with students as the acting Head of Foreign Languages Department at a post-secondary College. He also became Chaplain to the Hong Kong Federation of Post Secondary Students from 1965 to 1972. Students at that time were against colonialism and many forms of injustice and were concerned with, for example, the colonial status of Hong Kong and the fact that Chinese wasn’t a recognised official language. Two of them wrote an article 'From Hope to Despair', an all-round and penetrating analysis of the College that was not well received by the authorities. Twelve students were subsequently expelled — one of whom was a Buddhist monk — and thus began the student movement in Hong Kong with which James was closely associated.
It was an era of student mobilisation and protest: similar movements were gathering momentum on the US campuses regarding the attainment of civil rights and the ending of the Vietnam War.
James, Jack and the Bishop
Jack Clancy, a close friend and Maryknoll missionary, was very involved with the anti-Vietnam War movement and was not in favour with Bishop Francis Hsu who had been born in Shanghai and was then Bishop of Hong Kong. When James’ name was mentioned in the public press in relation to the student movement, the Bishop was quite angry and requested a meeting with him. James recalls his trepidation at that very formal meeting with Bishop Hsu and others while he explained himself and his actions. He was exonerated and the two men became very good friends despite the dramatic beginning to their relationship.
But there remained misunderstanding between Jack and the Bishop. James helped to build a relationship between them by asking the students if they would like Jack Clancy as their Chaplin. The vote was a resounding YES! Armed with that mandate, James went to the Bishop and brought both men together. Jack was appointed Chaplin.
It was the early 1970s and James felt that the time was ripe for a European priest to pass the reins on to a Chinese priest. Three seminarians were encouraged to become involved with the student movement and one, Stephen Tam, was selected. Then the Bishop put Jack Clancy and another in place to assist Stephen – who meanwhile had become a priest – in covering James’ former workload.
James’ and Jack’s relationship continues and to this day, they are very close friends. Jack is now married and a very prominent lawyer practising in Hong Kong. Unfortunately and much to his great sorrow, James sheds a quiet tear as he recalls Bishop Hsu’s untimely death as a result of a heart attack suffered in his 50’s.
On Sabbatical in the Philippines
“Speak out, speak strongly, criticise while remaining loyal!”, was a message that resounded for James while on Sabbatical at the East Asia Pastoral Institute in Manila in 1972. Bishop Cisco Claver gave a course there in September of that year: it was the beginning of Martial Law in the Philippines.
James remembers Cisco as being very casual, he played basketball with the students to win. He was an utterly fearless, exceptionally dynamic man with a sharp, penetrating intellect with whom James became well acquainted. While spending Christmas at Cisco’s residence and office, he would often drive with the Bishop in his jeep through the mountains. He laughs when he recalls the occasion they visited a convent while the Bishop stayed at the wheel: “Bring your driver in for a cuppa tea”, said the Reverend Mother!
Ed Delatorre (Edicio de Latore) an SVD priest, was politically active in Manila and on the run at the time while James was there. He took the opportunity to hear Ed speak at a meeting held in secrecy (Ed still lives in Manila although contact with him has been lost).
When Martial Law was declared by Marcos, it was discussed by the Filipino Bishops who used to meet bi-annually. Should they issue a statement? The laity was waiting for guidance...the clergy were for and against. Some Jesuits were close to Marcos while others like John Doherty — a sociologist and a Jesuit at the time — were highly critical of Martial Law and it was he who wrote its first analysis. It was 1975 before it was issued as a statement.
But in 1972, the Bishops decided to say nothing. “We bishops have no conscience“, Cisco subsequently declared.
The inspiration of remarkable men
Bishop Perez left a deep impression on James when he announced: ‘You students are the prophets of the 20th Century!”. He compared them to Amos in the Old Testament. Amos was called by God to preach social justice and was rusticated i.e. sent to live in the remote countryside. It was an enlightening moment for James! He was inspired to write a paper on the concept of 'prophecy' and intends to expand on his ideas in his retirement. 'Prophecy' in today’s Church carries great meaning for him.
James recalls Fr Dan Berrigan SJ, a social activist and now in his 90s, who suffered the same fate i.e. rustication, in the US. But eventually Dan was fully accepted and loved by all.
Pope Francis is tending towards the same social activism, James adds, although in the past was not obviously political when based in Bueno Aires, Argentina. Michael Campbell Johnson, an elderly Jesuit in the UK, was in charge of the Social Apostolate based in Rome at the time. Seemingly, he was sent to Francis (then Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio SJ) to hold discussions with him. Long conversations ensued but Michael deemed them 'inconclusive'. Bergoglio then travelled to Europe to research his doctorate and spent a short time in Milltown Park, Dublin. On his return to Argentina, he was 'rusticated' to Cordoba. He led a simple life there, supporting the priests working in the slums and when he came back to Bueno Aires in 1998 as Archbishop, he was a different man.
An unanswered question often comes into James’ thoughts. One day he was in conversation with a priest based in Japan who had been a staff member in the Vatican financial department. A just, living wage was being strongly recommended at the time by the Church and when James enquired as to how the Vatican was implementing it amongst lay staff, there was silence. The priest replied that concessions, such as petrol allowances, were given to staff. James hesitatingly concludes that the Vatican was not practising what it preached on the issue. However, he is of the opinion that the Vatican would benefit from opening up and prays for Pope Francis' efforts in trying to bring change about.
Blessed Franz Jägerstätter the Austrian has also been a lifelong inspirational figure. He was a conscientious objector who refused to take up arms during World War 2 and was subsequently executed as a result. He was later declared a martyr and beatified by the Church.
James recalls another inspirational man, the Very Rev. Pedro Arrupe SJ, and the story Pedro would tell about assisting at Mass when he was Father General of the Society of Jesus. Pedro liked to pray in the small simple rooms of St Ignatius and one day, a visiting American Jesuit prepared to say Mass there for his group of American visitors. The sacristan was absent so Pedro performed the duties required. One of the group remarked afterwards to Pedro: “That Mass was a bit strange, but valid.” When he realised to whom he was speaking, he shot off!
On the factory floor
After the Sabbatical and not wishing to take up a full time position, the Hong Kong students wanted James to become Asian Chaplin to the Secretariat of Pax Romano, which he did. In addition, he was invited to become Master of Novices in Hong Kong. Although it was quite a change, he accepted but eventually when the student number dropped, it was time once again to take another direction.
James quotes Canon John Hayes (founder of Muntir na Tíre in 1937), who was told by his ordaining Bishop on the occasion of his ordination, that he would: “Prefer to see you drunk with your people rather than sober without them”. James has tried to be with his people experiencing their realities throughout his ministry. And so it was that he became a factory worker in Hong Kong.
It was a clothes factory where James cut cloth endlessly for four mind-numbing months. It wasn’t easy getting a job there, as a foreigner. Although offered a supervisory role, he refused wanting to experience life as an ordinary worker. He prayed daily for social justice and read Karl Marx’ Communist Manifesto, sitting on the factory floor. Although read previously, the difference of his understanding from the factory floor was immense. He carries a great respect for Marx and treasures pictures taken at his graveside.
James laughs when he recalls the first time he meet the owner of the factory where he was employed. They recognised each other immediately. He was a graduate of a Hong Kong Jesuit college! They were both fixed to the floor. Here was the priest talking to the student who was the boss talking to the worker! Who was to make the first move... suddenly, a voice called out to the boss: “You’re wanted on the phone”. Thank God! James breathed a sigh of relief.
He spent four months in two different factories and although he got used to it, standing continuously was hard. Having said that, conditions were better then; hours were nine to five and there was no overtime. James got to know his co-workers well and often had discussions with them. Two young workers would remind him; “You’re a priest; you are free to come and go”.
Life with the Sisters and Brothers of Charity
While working at the factory, James lived with the Missionary Sisters and Brothers of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa. They were a cheerful group of young men, one of whom was an Australian, Brother Andrew, and a former Jesuit. Andrew, who later became General of the Brothers, also worked there and shared a room with him, sleeping on the floor, living in poverty and depending on charity. James recalls the evening when there was nothing to eat for dinner but tea and bread. Then there was a knock on the door. Two big chickens were handed in! The community dined in style the following evening.
James went on a 'Discernment' retreat in a Silesian retreat house. It afforded him a period of reflective time based on St. Ignatius’ observations of one’s feelings: to understand God’s will for us in our lives. He recalled the advice of the famous Fr. Tommy Ryan SJ given to him as a seminarian, “Stay in touch with poor people”. Three parishes in almost 30 years
James went on to serve in his new parish of Christ the Worker for 11 years, being Parish Priest for eight of them. It was a very happy, active period in James’ life. He began a Faith and Justice group and a Labour group amongst the communities in the parish. He was a founding member of the Hong Kong Amnesty International group there, informal at first and then having sought government approval, on a formal basis. The founder of Amnesty, Peter Benenson, became a friend and colleague. Amnesty is thriving in Hong Kong, as it is all around the world, to this day.
It is usual for a Jesuit to spend five to 10 years in one place before relocating. A Sabbatical taken in Dublin was followed by over a decade at St. Vincent’s Parish in a poor area of Hong Kong. It was the happiest period in James life. There a basic Christian community and Legion of Mary movement was flourishing. He worked towards collaboration with the Lutheran and Anglican communities, with the pastors sometimes giving homilies at each other’s churches. Nearby was the famous temple of Wong Tai Sin where thousands would gather regularly, especially for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
Interfaith relationships were built up and a new one with the neighbouring Buddhist monks was in the making, when James was requested to move to the Star of the Sea Parish. He was very regretful to leave at this point as so much progress was being made.
There were two other Jesuits along with James at the new parish. It was before the Hong Kong changeover of 1997 and no one knew what to expect. The transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China — referred to as "the Handover" internationally or "the Return" in China — took place on 1st July 1997 and marked the end of British rule in Hong Kong. Having spent over five years there, he returned to the Jesuit Parish of St. Ignatius Church at Wah Yan College.
Leaps of faith: Johnny’s and A Wong’s stories
It was common knowledge that James was in touch with families that were in financial need. Friends and colleagues often donated money to be used where required.
One day a woman called to ask for help for her son Johnny. He was the eldest of a family of five and on remand in prison for shooting another man; his brother awaited trial in another courtroom for rape and robbery. Johnny was found guilty of Triad membership and manslaughter. He received a sentence of 15 years and was freed after 12, during which time James visited him regularly and was very impressed by his intelligence. Thus began a long friendship that is still enjoyed by both.
Later on Fr. James married Johnny to Jovita and the couple went on to parent a son and daughter, now both young adults. Johnny's children’s educational expenses being very large, James contacted a wealthy friend who then supported the son’s second and third level education. He has done very well in his exams and has a choice between Oxford and Cambridge Universities for the 2015 academic year. Johnny’s daughter got top marks in her University Finals and her intention is to work with prisoners. Another of James’ friends, who is a graduate of the Jesuit school in Hong Kong and a well- known lawyer practising there, is also highly supportive of the family.
Johnny himself works as a lorry driver and takes care of his widowed father. His prison record goes against him unfortunately when he applies for a job, and he has been unable to progress in a career.
And then there was A Wong. He worked as a cook in the school where James lived. He was a gambler and although he borrowed from the teaching staff, no one reported him. He owed a great deal of money to the Triad and was constantly under pressure from them. His wife had divorced him, for legal reasons. He lost his job and was at rock bottom when he attempted suicide.
But James had faith in A Wong and knew him well. He helped the man to pay his debts and stop gambling. A Wong rebuilt his life and although they remain legally divorced, is still with his wife.
Homeward bound
In 2012, James travelled to Ireland thinking it would be his last time to visit his homeland. However, upon returning to Hong Kong, his health began to fail and when he was offered the chance to live permanently in Ireland, he decided to return. That was in October 2014 and he is now, he says, adjusting himself to a new life situation. Living a quiet life in Dublin is very different from the bustling, thronged streets of Hong Kong with its seven and a half million people!
James is looking for an appropriate apostolate to continue his life of Jesuit service in the country of his birth. He would like to direct “retreats in daily life” as he has done over the last two years. This is a month long program of daily prayer, reflection and spiritual direction that is conducted in the course of a person’s ordinary responsibilities. It has become the most common way of making a retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius.
He would like to become involved with Amnesty International Ireland and continue the human rights activities that have characterised James’s lived experience and lifelong ministry in the service of people living in poverty.
Compiled by Irish Jesuit Missions Communications from a series of interviews with Fr James, 3rd March 2015. Updated 17th October 2016

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He first came to Hong Kong in 1952 and learned Cantonese and then taught for a year at Wah Yan College Kowloon.

After Ordination he returned to Hong Kong in 1960 and from 1961-1967 taught at Chu Hoi College.

He had great sympathy for the Cantonese people and their nationalistic feelings. He was a chaplain with the Catholic Tertiary students from 1965-1975, including Chung Chi College of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and he was also the Spiritual Director of the Hong Kong Federation of Catholic students.
From about 1977 he served in the parishes of Ngau Tau Tok, Wong Tai Sin and Chai Wan until 1997 when he retired to Wah Yan College Kowloon.

He was involved in SELA - the Jesuit inter-provincial grou focused on socio-economic life in Asia. In 1977 he went to a SELA meeting in Bangkok and was especially happy with the living arrangements there which involved living with the poor and marginalised. There he met with some Thai students and SELA made a commitment to setting up some Basic Christian Communities in Thailand, where members would live together and carry on with their normal lives. He became the Hong Kong SELA representative in 1979, succeeding Patrick McGovern. he was then involved in compiling a report on Faith and Ideology, and this 9.000 word report also covered the issue of nationalism in Hong Kong, Marxism and the Church’s response.

In Hong Kong he was also involved in some intensive group Retreats at Cheung Chau. The emphasis of these retreats was on spiritual development and social awareness.
1980 He was officially appointed by the Bishop as Chaplain to the Young Christian Workers movement.

He was loved by his students as he was so approachable.

Hurley, Joseph, 1905-1984, Jesuit priest and Irish language editor

  • IE IJA J/3
  • Person
  • 29 July 1905-20 December 1984

Born: 29 July 1905, Ahakista, Bantry, County Cork
Entered: 31 August 1923, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 24 June 1937, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1942, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 20 December 1984, Dublin, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Editor of An Timire, 1949-71.

by 1939 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) making Tertianship.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 60th Year No 1 2 1985

Obituary

An tAthair Seosamh Ó Murthuile (1905-1923-1980)
Fr Joseph Hurley

Born 29th July 1905. Entered SJ on 31st August 1923. 1923-25 Tullabeg, noviciate. 1925-28 Rathfarnham, juniorate. 1928-31 philosophy (1928-30 in Milltown, 1930-31 in Tullabeg). 1931-34 Clongowes, regency. 1934-38 Milltown Park, theology (ordained a priest, 24th June 1937). 1938-39 St Beuno's, tertianship.
1939-'46 Clongowes, teaching. 1946-'61 Tullabeg, writing. Editing An Timire (Gaelic ‘Messenger of the Sacred Heart') from c. 1950. Same occupations in Gardiner Street (1961-62), Belvedere (1962-68) and Milltown Park (1968-82) where he gave up on the editorship of “An Timire” c 1971. He was listed as an assistant editor, nevertheless, until 1982. The Gaelic form of his name was used by the Province catalogues only from 1976 on; previously the form used was Joseph Hurley. The last 2.5 years of his life he spent in Cherryfield Lodge nursing unit.

Fr Joe Hurley passed to the Lord on 20th December 1984. Having lived with him for twenty early years of our Jesuit lives, I retain very clearly the memory of Joe at our most revealing period of life. As I recall his virtues and few faults, the first thing I must mention is his charity.He never offended in word or deed. I should add here, though, that he did fail in the virtue by omission. He was a heavy sleeper, especially in the morning, and left us the other scholastics to serve his as well as our own Mass. We used to be rather annoyed at this, and we let him see our annoyance too. Joe however took it all both humbly and penitently. Of course penitence should include a purpose of amendment, but he continued to snore and oversleep on occasions. The truth, though we hardly recognised it at the time, was that Joe was quite a genius, a poet and “dreamer of dreams”, and the strict regularity of scholasticate life was not for poets or dreamers of any kind. It hindered, I think, the flowering of Joe's great abilities.
Joe however made his way through the various stages of the well-meant training though without displaying any great love of philosophy or theology. His first and last love was Irish: and to Dark Rosaleen, in that mythical goddess who for him seemed to summarise all Irish history (or rather, her story) with the dark blemishes blotted out, he clung passionately all his life. I should say here that Joe was an intellectual in the French sense. He lived in and on matters of the mind. Being a poet, he spent much time versifying silently as he strolled around. He dreamed in Irish, he spoke it to all who knew it, he pushed his abnormal interest in things connected with it down your throat. It was all this that made Joe both lovable and exasperating. One admired the untiring devotion to a worthy object, but felt angry at having willy-nilly to share the enthusiasm. Of course he used the pen and wrote many articles both in Irish and English, for he was a real scholar in English too. Much of his writing however came later, when he had exchanged the classroom for the editorial office. He taught Irish and some English(which he hated to teach) for about ten years (regency and after tertianship), and he infused a great enthusiasm for Irish . into some - but not all - of his pupils. He really gave them indigestion by his over-emphasis on the subject. The truth was that he was never meant to be a teacher. It was like asking a racehorse to do the work of a carthorse. Superiors saw this after a time, and mercifully (from Joe's point of view) changed him to Tullabeg. This change finally severed my association with him.
As I try to summarise his character as I knew him, besides the charity I mentioned, I recall the good humour he displayed, and the brilliant limericks he composed to our intense amusement. He was always a pleasant companion, and never took offence. He would and did annoy one by his obsession with Irish, which revealed itself sooner or later in all his conversations. He showed no anger or feeling of hurt when he took a 'nasty dig' from a bored listener. It was this refusal to reply in kind, and his continued pleasant attitude to his teaser, which was Joe's most marked characteristic and one of the causes of his amiability.
I must leave it to someone else to draw up an account of Joe's life from 1946 on, as I never lived with him again. I am glad I had for so long an intimate relationship with him, and benefited greatly from it.

Hurley, Michael, 1923-2011, Jesuit priest and ecumenist

  • IE IJA J/775
  • Person
  • 10 May 1923-15 April 2011

Born: 10 May 1923, Ardmore, County Waterford
Entered: 10 September 1940, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 15 August 1954, Leuven, Belgium
Final Vows: 03 February 1958, Chiessa del Gesù, Rome, Italy
Died: 15 April 2011, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

Older brother of Jimmy - RIP 2020

Founder of the Irish School of Ecumenics 1971
Founder of the Columbanus Community of Reconciliation, Derry, 1983

by 1952 at Leuven (BEL M) studying
by 1957 at Rome Italy (ROM) studying
by 1981 at Nairobi Kenya (AOR) Sabbatical

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Hurley, Michael Anthony
by Turlough O'Riordan

Hurley, Michael Anthony (1923–2011), ecumenist and theologian, was born on 10 May 1923 in Ardmore, Co. Waterford, the eldest of four children (two boys and two girls) of Michael Hurley, a small businessman, and his wife Johanna (née Foley), who kept a guest house. He won a scholarship to board at the Cistercian Trappist Mount Melleray Abbey (1935–40), and on 10 September 1940 entered the Jesuit novitiate at Emo Park, Co. Laois, drawn to the order's intellectual reputation. He studied classics at UCD (1942–5), graduating BA, and philosophy at Tullabeg, Co. Offaly (1945–8), before teaching Latin and Irish at Mungret College, Limerick (1948–51). At Mungret, he established a reputation for radical, independent thinking. He set up a study circle that examined Marxist texts, and published an assessment of The Communist manifesto in the Irish Monthly (1948). A brief student hunger strike at the college (in protest at poor food) was blamed on Hurley by his provincial, and when he was observed by Garda special branch entering the communist book shop in Pearse Street, Dublin, in clerical garb, gardaí visited Mungret to notify his superiors.

He studied theology at Louvain (1951–5), and was much influenced by the ecumenist Professor Georges Dejaifve. Interested in workers' councils, Hurley spent summers volunteering with the Young Christian Workers in the Charleroi coal mines in Belgium (1951) and in a steel factory in the south of France (1952). He was ordained at Louvain on 15 August 1954. His postgraduate work at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (1956–8) (where his rector was the ecumenical Charles Boyer, SJ) resulted in a doctorate in theology (1961), published as Scriptura sola: Wyclif and his critics (1960), in which Hurley posited a traditionalist view of the teachings and biblical exegesis of the dissident English priest John Wyclif (d. 1384).

Returning to Ireland, Hurley was appointed professor of dogmatic theology to the Jesuit faculty of theology at Milltown Park, Dublin (1958–70). He was instrumental in establishing an annual series of public lectures (1960–81) which anticipated many of the themes addressed by the second Vatican council (1962–5), and propagated its teaching. His lecture on 'The ecumenical movement' (9 March 1960), benefiting from the guidance he received from Raymond Jenkins (1898–1998), later Church of Ireland archdeacon of Dublin (1961–74) (who introduced Hurley to George Tyrrell (qv) and anglican theologians), was published as Towards Christian unity (1961) and praised by Fr Denis Faul (qv). Although Archbishop John Charles McQuaid (qv) of Dublin and Hurley's Jesuit superiors opposed his accepting an invitation to lecture the TCD Student Christian Movement (May 1962), Hurley gave the lecture off campus; it was later published in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record (1962). He also lectured methodist theological students at Edgehill Theological College, Belfast (1963), and addressed lay groups such as Muintir na Tíre and Tuairim at ecumenical forums from the early 1960s. Delivering the annual Aquinas lecture at QUB in March 1964, Hurley suggested the Vatican council pursue church reform to 'restore once again that diversity of rite and usage and human tradition which is the authentic and due manifestation of true Christian unity' (Ir. Times, 9 March 1964). In May 1966 the Irish Times intended to reprint his article on mixed marriages from the Irish Furrow, but this was halted at the last minute by McQuaid. Hurley's April 1968 Milltown lecture addressing original sin suffered a similar fate, and McQuaid sought to expel him from the Dublin archdiocese. Only the intercession of Fr Cecil McGarry (rector of Milltown (1965–8) and Irish provincial (1968–75)) allowed Hurley to remain.

A committed ecumenist, Hurley sought to confront the latent sectarianism found among both Irish catholics and protestants. His engagement with the wider international Christian communion, whose variety within and across denominations fascinated him, was marked by his coverage of the 1963 Paris meeting of the World Council of Churches for the Irish Press, attendance at the general council of the world alliance of presbyterian reformed churches in Frankfurt (1964) and at the World Methodist Council in London (1966), and lecture on the catholic doctrine of baptism to presbyterian students at Assembly's College, Belfast (February 1968). He was a member of the organising committees that established the Glenstal (June 1964) and Greenhills (January 1966) unofficial ecumenical conferences, ensuring that presbyterian and methodist representatives were invited to the former, and edited collected papers from these conferences in Church and eucharist (1966) and Ecumenical studies: baptism and marriage (1968).

Hurley's contacts with methodists led to his appointment (1968–76) to the joint commission between the Roman catholic church and World Methodist Council. He was attracted to the ecumenical nature of the spirituality of John Wesley (qv), and edited Wesley's Letter to a Roman catholic (1968) (originally published in 1749 in Dublin), which required adroit navigation on either side of the denominational divide. Hurley's Theology of ecumenism (1969) concisely summarised the relevant theology, urging participative ecumenism and the ecumenising of clerical theological education, which provoked further opposition from McQuaid. To mark the centenary of the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, Hurley edited Irish anglicanism 1869–1969 (1970), comprising essays by Augustine Martin (qv) and John Whyte (qv) among others. In its conclusion, Hurley argued that 'Christian disunity is a contradiction of the church's very nature' (p. 211). At its launch, the book was presented to anglican primate George Otto Simms (qv) during an ecumenical service that was broadcast live on RTÉ (15 April 1970). Reviewing in the Furrow (October 1970), Monsignor Tomás Ó Fiaich (qv) commended the volume's 'spirit of mutual respect and genuine reflection'.

In October 1970 Hurley founded the interdenominational Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE). An independent institution, unattached to a theological college or university department, it had patrons from the anglican, catholic, methodist and presbyterian churches in Ireland. Based in Pembroke Park, Dublin, it was named Bea House after the Jesuit cardinal who had piloted Vatican II's decree on ecumenism (1964), and adopted the motto floreat ut pereat (may it flourish in order to perish). The results of the school's consultation and research on mixed marriages (September 1974), addressing Pope Paul VI's motu propiro, Matrimonia mixta (1970), were edited by Hurley as Beyond tolerance: the challenge of mixed marriage (1974). This angered Archbishop Dermot Ryan (qv) of Dublin (1972–84), who complained to Hurley that the ISE 'was a protestant rather than an ecumenical institute' (Hurley (2003), 86). A well-regarded consultation marking the thirtieth anniversary in 1978 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights indicated the ISE's increasingly expansive and pluralist approach. It promoted ecumenism in pursuit of social justice, human rights and reconciliation, focused on training and education to spur inter-church dialogue, and communicated international ecumenical developments to an often insular Irish ecclesiastical world. In 1980 Hurley resigned as ISE director, primarily to improve the school's relations with the catholic hierarchy.

A sabbatical (1980–81), spent travelling in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe, led to a profound period of spiritual reflection. Hurley was perturbed at the continued resistance to both practical and theological ecumenism by evangelical protestants and the Roman catholic hierarchy, and at how Orthodox Christianity, which he experienced first hand at Mount Athos, viewed western Christians as heretics; he saw this schism reflected in the concomitant stance of conservative catholic theologians towards reformed Christianity. After visiting a variety of Christian communities, Hurley decided to found an interdenominational religious residential community. Developing the idea with the support of Joseph Dargan, SJ, his Irish provincial, he consulted widely among friends and religious communities of varying denominations, and conceived of a liturgical community of prayer combining facets of a Benedictine monastery and Jesuit house, engaging in apostolic outreach. The Columbanus Community of Reconciliation was inaugurated on 23 November 1983, the feast of its patron saint, as a residential Christian community on the Antrim Road, Belfast, to challenge sectarianism, injustice and violence; Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich agreed to be a patron. Hurley led the community until 1991, before withdrawing in 1993 aged 70; he remained a trustee until 2002. Despite deteriorating community relations in Northern Ireland, it made some discernible progress in ecumenical initiatives and dialogue.

Hurley was coordinator for ecumenism with the Irish Jesuit province (1995–2004), and led retreats as director of spiritual exercises (2004–11). His relentless promotion of educational integration and meaningful interfaith dialogue marked the limits of functional ecumenicalism. Anointed the 'father of Irish ecumenism' (Furrow, April 1996) by Seán Mac Réamoinn (qv), Hurley was awarded honorary LLDs by QUB (1993) and TCD (1995), and honoured by a Festschrift, Reconciliation (1993; ed. Oliver Rafferty), emanating from a conference held that year in Belfast. In his memoir Healing and hope (1993), he noted that he would probably have embraced presbyterianism but for his upbringing, and that 'while the change of terminology, and of theology, from unity to reconciliation, is a sign of maturity, resistance to it is also a sign that we are still wandering in the desert' (Hurley (2003), 122). The same memoir lists his extensive bibliography. A selection of his writings and reminiscences, Christian unity (1998), was followed by his editing of a history of the The Irish School of Ecumenics 1970–2007 (2008). At its launch, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin apologised to Hurley for his treatment in the 1970s by the Dublin archdiocese.

Having endured cancer for a number of years, Hurley died on 15 April 2011 at St Vincent's University Hospital, Dublin, after a heart attack. His brother James Hurley, SJ, was principal celebrant at his funeral (19 April) at St Francis Xavier church, Gardiner Street, Dublin; mass was sung by the choir of the anglican St Patrick's cathedral, Dublin. Hurley's sister Mary was, as Mother Imelda, an abbess of the Cistercian St Mary's Abbey, Glencairn, Co. Waterford. The annual Michael Hurley memorial lecture commenced at Milltown in 2012.

National University of Ireland: calendar for the year 1946; Ir. Times, 12 Oct., 7 Nov. 1963; 9 Mar 1964; 11 Mar. 1965; 1 Jan., 16 May, 2 Aug. 1966; 8 July 1972; 2, 9 Sept. 1974; Michael Hurley, 'Northern Ireland: a scandal to theology', occasional paper no. 12, Centre for Theology and Public Issues, University of Edinburgh (1987), 26; id., Christian Unity: an ecumenical second spring? (1998); id., Healing and hope: memories of an Irish ecumenist (2003); Francis Xavier Carty, Hold firm: John Charles McQuaid and the second Vatican council (2007); Ronald A. Wells, Hope and reconciliation in Northern Ireland: the role of faith-based organisations (2010); Patrick Fintan Lyons, 'Healing and hope: remembering Michael Hurley', One in Christ, xlv, no. 2 (2011); Clara Cullen and Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh, His grace is displeased: selected correspondence of John Charles McQuaid (2013); Owen F. Cummings, 'Ecumenical pioneer, Michael Hurley, SJ (1923–2011)' in One body in Christ: ecumenical snapshots (2015), 40–52

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/michael-hurley-sj-rip/

Michael Hurley SJ, RIP
Well-known ecumenist and co-founder of the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE), Michael Hurley SJ, died this morning, Friday 15 April, at 7am in St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. He was 87
years old.
He was Director of the ISE from 1970 until 1980. In 1981, whilst on retreat in India, he had the vision of an ecumenical community of Catholics and Protestants living together somewhere in Northern Ireland. He made that vision a reality in 1983 when he co-founded the Columbanus Community of Reconciliation on the Antrim Rd, North Belfast, in 1983. He lived and worked there for ten years.
He has written extensively on the subject of ecumenism and his publications include Towards Christian Unity (CTS1961), Church and Eucharist (Ed., Gill 1966), Reconciliation in Religion and Society (Ed., Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast 1994), Healing and Hope: Memories of an Irish Ecumenist ( Columba, 2003) and Christian Unity: An Ecumenical Second Spring? (Veritas) – the fruit of some forty years of ecumenical experience in both theory and practice. The book carries prefaces from the leaders of the four main Churches in Ireland who pay generous tribute to the author’s work- work which was once seen as quite controversial.
Michael Hurley was born in Ardmore, Co.Waterford and joined the Jesuits on 10 September, 1940. He was educated in University College Dublin and Eegenhoven-Louvain, before completing his doctorate in theology in the Gregorian University in Rome. He received an honorary doctorate (LLD) from Queen’s University Belfast in 1993, and from Trinity College Dublin in 1995.
He lived with the Jesuit community in Milltown Park from 1993 until the present. He was Province Co- ordinator for Ecumenism from 1995-2004 and writer and Director of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius from 2004 to 2011.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

https://www.jesuit.ie/who-are-the-jesuits/inspirational-jesuits/michael-hurley/

Michael Hurley
Referred to as the ‘father of Irish ecumenism’, Michael Hurley devoted his life to promoting unity in the midst of conflict and division.
Michael Hurley was born in Ardmore, Waterford, in 1923. After having attended school at Mount Melleray he entered the Jesuit noviciate, at the age of seventeen. As part of his studies to become a Jesuit, Fr Hurley was educated in University College Dublin and the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, before completing his doctorate in theology in the Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained a priest in 1954 and, having finished his studies, began teaching at Mungret College near Limerick in 1958.
Throughout his time as a Jesuit, Fr Hurley was a strong advocate for ecumenism, that striving for unity between the various Christian churches which was given real impetus at the Second Vatican Council between 1962-1965. Fr Hurley was a true pioneer in giving practical expression to the revised ecclesiology of the Council. He left his teaching role at Mungret in 1970 and then co-founded the Irish School of Ecumenics at Milltown Park.
The school dealt with relations in Northern Ireland at a time when the Troubles were very much a reality of people’s everyday lives. However, the then Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, did not approve of Fr Hurley’s work with the school, and a ban was issued on him speaking within the archdiocese on ecumenical matters. This was only lifted through the intervention of the Jesuit provincial in Ireland. Archbishop McQuaid died in 1973, but his successor continued his opposition against the school, and in 1980 Fr Hurley felt it necessary to step down as director.
This was by no means the end of Fr Hurley’s active role in ecumenism in Ireland, however. In 1983 he co-founded the inter-church Columbanus Community of Reconciliation in Belfast, as a place where Catholics and Protestants could live together. He himself lived and worked there for ten years before moving to the Jesuit community in Milltown Park in 1993. That same year he received an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast, and Trinity College awarded him one two years later.
From 1995 to 2004 Hurley was the Province Co-ordinator for Ecumenism, and the Director of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius from 2004 until his death in 2011, at the age of eighty-seven. In 2008, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin apologised to Hurley for how he had been treated in the past, and acknowledged the greatly important work he had done.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/ecumenist-and-friend-to-many/

Many tributes have been paid to Fr Michael Hurley SJ, who died on Friday 15 April at the age of 87. Hundreds attended his requiem mass in Gardiner St. on Tuesday 19 April. Considered by many to be ‘the father of Irish ecumenism’, he was co-founder of the Irish School of Ecumenics in 1970 and remained Director there for ten years. In 1981, whilst on retreat in India, he had the vision of an ecumenical community of Catholics and Protestants living together somewhere in Northern Ireland. On his return in 1983 he co-founded the Columbanus Community of Reconciliation on the Antrim Rd, Belfast. He lived and worked there also for ten years, always giving a sincere and warm welcome to visitors north and south. Read below for an appreciation by Donal Neary SJ, Parish Priest of Gardiner St.
MICHAEL HURLEY SJ
Michael had a huge capacity for friendship. He often remembered all sorts of details, great and small, about novices he had befriended. The renewed community life of the post-Vatican II years gave many Jesuits a new and more personal form of community life. This spoke to Michael, who was an active initiator of the first small community in Milltown Park, and this was the beginning of many sustained links with younger Jesuits, who, he said, kept him young.
He struggled with the loneliness of academic life, working hard not to let it limit his care and interest in his fellow Jesuits and many friends. Today we might call him an iconic figure – he was this in worldwide ecumenical circles, and a larger-than-life member of the Irish Jesuits. His sense of humour, as well as skilled diplomacy, got him through many potential crises. He invited us to many hilarious and kindly gatherings in Milltown Park, and even engaged us in humorous yet deeply spiritual plans for his funeral. A new book, a milestone birthday, a jubilee of priesthood or Jesuit life, to which people of many churches and ways of life would find their way — all of these could be occasions for Michael to gather his friends around him.
He allowed us share some of the frustrations of illness over the last years, whether in conversation over a good lunch or on the telephone. Jesuit students remember the famous occasion when a lecture he was due to give was cancelled as it was considered potentially offensive by certain Church leaders. We younger students looked on him favourably as one of the ‘rebels’ after Vatican II, always pushing the boat out a bit into deeper ecumenical and theological seas.
We might recall that Michael never gave up – on life which he faced always courageously, on his friends whom he thought so highly of even when we did not deserve it, on the church’s movement into ecumenism which he pushed on with patience and zest, and on God whom he heartily believed never gave up on him.
Donal Neary SJ

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 145 : Summer 2011

Obituary

Fr Michael Hurley (1923-2011)

10th May 1923: Born in Ardmore, Co. Waterford
Early education: National School; Mount Melleray Seminary, Cappoquinn
10th September 1940: Entered the Society at Emo
11th September 1942: First vows at Emo
1942 - 1945: Rathfarnham: studied Arts at UCD
1945 - 1948: Tullabeg - studied philosophy
1948 - 1951: Mungret College - regency.
1951 - 1955: Theology at St Albert College, Eegenhoven, Louvain
15 August 1954: Ordained at Eegenhoven, Louvain
1955 - 1956: Tertianship in Rathfarnham
1956 - 1958: Gregorian, Rome: biennium in dogmatic theology
1958 - 1970: Milltown Park: Professor of Dogma
3rd February 1958: Final Vows at the Gesu, Rome
1970 - 1980: Director of Irish School of Ecumenics
1980 - 1981: Sabbatical
1981 - 1983: Special project: ecumenical community in N Ireland
1983 - 1993: Milltown Park: fouding Columbanus House, Belfast Province Coordinator of ecumenism
1993 - 2011: Milltown Park: writer, director of Spiritual Exercises
1995 - 2004: Coordinator of ecumenism
2004 - 2011: Writer, director of Spiritual Exercises
15th April 2011: Died at Cherryfield

Fr Hurley had a successful hip replacement in March 2011. After some time he moved to Cherryfield Lodge for 2 weeks recuperation, and he was expected back to Milltown Park shortly. He was unwell for a few days and died suddenly on the morning of 15th April 2011. May he rest in the peace of Christ.

Obituary from several hands
In the Milltown Park Community, where Michael Hurley had recently celebrated fifty years of residence (though ten of them were spent in Belfast), his death leaves a more than usually obvious hole. He was a strong presence, a genius at finding reasons to celebrate, and also with a sharp sense of how things could be improved, not merely in the Church and the Society, but also in the community. He had a huge capacity for friendship, and remembered all sorts of important and relevant things about his friends. The renewed community life of the post-Vatican II years gave many Jesuits a new and more personal form of community life. Michael was an active initiator of the first small community in Milltown Park, and this was the beginning of many sustained links with younger Jesuits who, he said, kept him young.

He struggled with the loneliness of academic life, never allowing it to limit his care and interest in his fellow Jesuits and many friends, Today we might call him an iconic figure – he was this in worldwide ecumenical circles, and a larger-than-life member of the Irish Jesuits.

Frances Makower's collection of Jesuits telling their faith stories, Call and Response, contains a chapter by Michael, which he called “Triple Vocation" - as an ecumenist, a Jesuit and a Catholic: a Catholic since he was born, a Jesuit since his late teens and an ecumenist since his late thirties. His account relates his rootedness in the faith of his family community in Ardmore, his Jesuit formation and his theological studies in Louvain. He reflects. “For me the Spirit of God lives in all three and is never grieved in all three at the same time. Despite the sin and unbelief in any one or two of them, the Spirit subsists in the others(s) giving me the energy and consolation to persevere”.

Michael was a prophet: not a prophet in the way that popular culture uses the term, but in the biblical sense of someone who is called and sent by God to speak out to the community about its restricted thinking and behaviour, and to call the community to hear anew the voice of the Lord.

In his account of his life and spiritual journey, Michael relates how somewhat to his surprise, in 1959 and then into the 1960s, he found himself moving into and developing both ecumenical theology and personal relationships with the churches, leading of course to the commemoration of the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1969 for which he edited a volume of essays, Irish Anglicanism. He founded the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) in 1970, and published his classic little book The Theology of Ecumenism. In 1981, while on a thirty-day retreat in India as part of a sabbatical, he felt called to found an ecumenical community in Belfast and so the Columbanus Community of Reconciliation was born. He wrote extensively on the subject of ecumenism, and his publications include Towards Christian Unity (1961), Church and Eucharist (1966), Reconciliation in Religion and Society (1994), Healing and Hope: Memories of an Irish Ecumenist (2003) and Christian Unity: an ecumenical Second Spring? (2004) - the fruit of some forty years of ecumenical experience in both theory and practice. The book carries prefaces from the leaders of the four main Churches in Ireland who pay generous tribute to the author's work, work which was once seen as quite controversial.

Michael's early ecumenical initiatives were “a source of anguish” to John Charles McQuaid, then Archbishop of Dublin, who decided to impose an absolute prohibition on Michael “speaking within my sphere of jurisdiction”. It was only the able and passionate defence of Michael's cause by Provincial Cecil McGarry that persuaded John Charles to relent. Difficulties continued with his successor, Dermot Ryan. Michael later recalled: “Archbishop Ryan became somewhat unhappy with the Irish School of Ecumenics, and with myself in particular, because, although I'm called after the archangel, I'm no angel in my behaviour. So, towards the end of the ISE's first decade, it seemed best to remove myself from the scene. After that the school's relationship with the Catholic archdiocese did improve”. Cardinal Connell later became the first Catholic archbishop of Dublin to be a formal patron of the school.

In 2008 Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who uncovered the archival material relating to Fr Hurley, apologised to him “for some misunderstandings on the part of my predecessors”. In a good-natured exchange at Milltown, Michael spoke of his "great sense of relief and joy and gratitude" as he listened to Dr Martin's magnanimous apology. It was a mark of Michael's own style in the community that he was quick to apologise if he sensed a cloud over some relationship.

What was central to Michael, as to other prophets, was his deep faith, his unwavering hope and his powerful love. His faith, his hope and his love shine through the risks he took in his many ventures, especially the big ones, the Irish School of Ecumenics, the Columbanus Community and the consultations. Even when he was under pressure from ecclesiastical authorities - and like the prophets, he endured much - he continued to stay grounded in his faith, his hope and his love.

He wasn't a personal empire-builder - witness the ISE's brilliant motto Floreat ut pereat. The honours he received, honorary doctorates from Queen's and Dublin universities, the Coventry Cross of Nails, and the Festschrift, were honours for his work, for what he had been sent to preach and to bear witness. He changed us, not merely through the institutional legacy of the ISE, but through our emotional and intellectual response to other Christian churches, and through our keener grasp of the ministry of reconciliation, a strong theme in the Society ever since the time of Ignatius and Peter Faber.

Michael was energetic for God's work. When that energy began to fade in his latter years, he was deeply frustrated. The perseverance and resilience that he talks about in his memoir became a frustration, both for him and his community. Prophets find old age and the limitations of health difficult. But he was never bitter. He never gave up - on life, which he always faced courageously, on his friends who he thought so highly of even when they felt undeserving of it; on the church's movement into ecumenism, which he pushed on with patience and zest; and on God who he believed never gave up on him.

Homily at Michael Hurley's Funeral : 19th April 2011 - David Coghlan
This homily has been in incubation for a long time. Frances Makower's collection of Jesuits telling their faith stories, Call and Response, contains a chapter by Michael, from which I'll draw. Michael gave me a copy of that book for Christmas, and on the flyleaf he wrote, “If you are going to preach at my funeral, you'd better have a copy of the authorised version of my story”. The date of that inscription reads Christmas 1994! There was hardly an occasion when we were together since that he didn't ask me if I had written his funeral sermon yet! Michael asked that his funeral be joyful. He looked forward to being in attendance and to enjoying a celebration of his life with his Jesuit brothers, his family, and his friends in all the Churches. My task this morning is not to talk about Michael, though I will do that a lot, but to talk aut God primarily, and about God as he worked in Michael's life.

Michael called his chapter in the Call and Response book, “Triple Vocation” where he narrated his vocation as an ecumenist, a Jesuit and a Catholic: a Catholic since he was born, a Jesuit since his late teens and an ecumenist since his late thirties. His account relates his rootedness in the faith of his family community in Ardmore, his Jesuit formation and his theological studies in Louvain. He reflects. “For me the Spirit of God lives in all three and is never grieved in all three at the same time. Despe the sin and unbelief in any one or two of them, the Spirit subsists in the others(s) giving me the energy and consolation to persevere” (p. 135).

I lived in community with Michael in the early 1970s, in a small community which he referred to as “Finkewalde”, and another Christmas present from Michael that I have since 1973 is a copy of Bonhoeffer's, Life Together, a little book that we often talked about and which was influential in forming Michael's spirituality. The insight I received at that time, and which has not been superseded in the 40 years since, is that Michael was a prophet, not a prophet in the way that popular culture uses the term but in the biblical sense of someone who is called and sent by God to speak out to the community about its restricted thinking and behaviour and to call the community to hear anew the voice of the Lord. Hence the reading from Jeremiah to which we have just listened. In his account of his life and spiritual journey in Call and Response, Michael relates, how somewhat to his surprise, in 1959 and then into the 1960s, he found himself moving into and developing both ecumenical theology and personal relationships with the churches, leading of course to the commemoration of the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1969 for which he edited a volume of essays, Irish Anglicanism, the founding of the School of Ecumenics in 1970 and his classic little book The Theology of Ecumenism. In 1981, while on a thirty day retreat in India as part of a sabbatical, he felt called to found an ecumenical community in Belfast and so the Columbanus Community of Reconciliation was born. The gospel story to which we have listened was a treasured text for Michael as it signified for him that he understood how the risen Jesus walked with him, supported him and constantly taught him and led him.

Like prophets, what was central to Michael was his deep faith, his unwavering hope and his powerful love. Whatever we want to say about Michael and there are many things we can say, his faith, his hope and his love shine through the risks he took in his many ventures, especially the big ones, The Irish School of Ecumenics and the Columbanus Community and the consultations. Even when he was under pressure from ecclesiastical authorities, and like the prophets, he endured much, he continued to stay grounded in his faith, his hope and his love. He wasn't a personal empire builder; “Floreat ut pereat” bears witness to that. The honours he received, honorary doctorates from Queen's and Dublin universities and the Coventry Cross of Nails, and the feschrift were honours for his work, for what he had been sent to preach and to bear witness. In this regard he notes in his chapter, referring to the Spiritual Exercises, “Must I not desire and choose, must I not prefer failure with Christ on the cross rather than success, provided equal or greater praise and service be given to the Divine Majesty?” (p.146)

Michael was energetic for God's work and when that energy began to fade in his latter years, he was deeply frustrated. The perseverance and resilience that he talks about in his chapter became a frustration, both for him and his community, Prophets find old age and the limitations of health difficult. But he was never bitter. When I visited him in Mt. Carmel a couple of weeks ago we spent time talking about the card he had propped up on the windowsill where he could see it from his bed. It was a triptych of religious scenes from old masters, including Fra Angelico's Annunciation.

So then, what about us? There is a sense in which we are all called to be prophets. There is an invitation to hear God's voice, to respond to how God invites us, each in our own personal story and concrete circumstances to confront the challenges in our world that are destructive of faith, of hope, of love, of human dignity, of justice, of peace, of reconciliation and so on,

I suggest that we consider that Michael's life is a life about God - about how God graced a man to be his prophet, to speak to our age about the scandal of Christian disunity not in condemnation, but as a call to a deeper shared faith, hope and love. Jesuits define themselves as sinners, yet called to be companions of Christ sent to the inculturated proclamation of the gospel and dialogue with other religious traditions as integral dimensions of evangelization. Michael devoted his Jesuit life to living this. I am confident, rather than closing this few words with a prayer for him, Michael would approve of me closing with Christ's and his prayer: “That all may be one”.

Call and Response: Jesuit Journeys in Faith. Frances Makower (ed.) Hodder & Stoughton; London, 1994

Hurley, Thomas, 1890-1976, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/188
  • Person
  • 20 January 1890-13 October 1976

Born: 20 January 1890, Drimoleague, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1907, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1922, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1926, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 13 October 1976, St Camillus Hospital, Limerick

Part of the Sacred Heart, The Crescent, Limerick community at the time of death

“Vita Functi” in HIB Catalogue 1978 says RIP date is 15/10, but this is a typo and should be 13/10.

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
After some Jesuit studies in Ireland, Thomas Hurley sailed for Australia in 1916 and joined the Xavier College staff, teaching public exam students and taking senior debating. He was rowing master, 1918-20. After final vows in 1927 he spent most of his life teaching in various schools.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 52nd Year No 2 1977

Obituary :
Fr Thomas Hurley (1890-1976)
On October 13th 1976, at St. Camillus Hospital, Limerick, died Fr Thomas Hurley, SJ
Born on January 20th 1890 at Drimoleague, Co. Cork, he completed his primary education in the local National School, and then went to Clongowes. From there, on September 7th, 1907 he entered the Noviceship at Tullabeg. On completing his Noviceship, he began his Juniorate Studies in the same place - passing to the other side of the Refectory from that of the novices to take his place among his fellow Juniors. From Tullabeg he went to Milltown Park, from where he went for two years to UCD., studying Science. He was then sent to North Brabant for his Philosophy, (1912-1214), after which he began teaching in Belvedere College, Dublin. From 1915 to 1920 he was teaching in St. Xavier's, Melbourne from which he returned to Milltown Park for Theology, and was ordained on August 15th 1922. After Theology, he went to Ghent, Belgium, for his Tertianship: 1924-1925,
He began to lecture in Philosophy and to teach Mathematics in Mungret College in 1925, from where he went to the Crescent in 1928 to teach Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. His teaching career continued when he went to Clongowes in 1933, and when he returned to the Crescent in 1939. This teaching career came to a halt in 1950 when he began a three year period as “Operarius” in the Crescent Church, Limerick.
Concerning Father Hurley’s teaching life, the following words from the Limerick Papers on the occasion of his death reveal something of his dedication as a teacher:
“Father Hurley was a man of great energy and was totally engaged in a variety of activities during his long life. Apart from his very lengthy and successful career as a teacher and missioner, he took a very keen interest in the Irish Language, and for many years brought groups of boys on Summer Courses to Irish Colleges. He wrote some CTS Pamphlets, and also the life of Father Michael Browne, SJ - a Limerick man. For a number of years he took a very keen and practical interest in the activities of the Irish Red Cross Society. He was always available for occasional sermons and Church supply work at short notice”.
During some of his teaching years in the Crescent, Fr. Hurley had, as his Prefect of Studies, Father Edward Andrews, now in Galway. Fr Andrews says: “He was a very painstaking teacher, and I could always rely on good results from his exam classes ... He joined our Community again when I was Rector. He was then only on Church work, and preached very good sermons. Of course, like all of us, he had his critics."
In 1953 Fr Tom Hurley was appointed to the Jesuit Mission and Retreat Staff in Tullabeg, where he remained until 1962. In that year he returned to pastoral work in the Crescent Church, Limerick, and remained at this work until 1976, although failing health interrupted this work very much during about five years before his death.
One who knew Fr Tom Hurley well as a missioner - Fr Willie Hogan, now in the Crescent - writes:
“Father Hurley came on the Mission Staff in 1953 when in his 64th year. While this was a very late beginning in a missioner's work and hence more onerous than for a younger person, Fr Hurley put his heart and soul into it. While not spectacular he was a solidly good missioner, hard-working and devoted to the Confessional. He got on well with the Parochial Clergy, which is a very important thing in the running of a Parish Mission. He was considerate for those working with him, and was ready to entertain and consider suggestions made for the general good of the mission in hand. I lived with him from 1971 onwards in the Crescent. By that time he had failed greatly and lived very much to himself. If I could do so, it is not the period of his life about which I should care to write much: senility is seldom flattering”.
Father Coyne, although somewhat senior in the Society to Father Tom Hurley, remembers that, at least among his contemporaries he was known as “Timothy Tom” - a name given him in the noviceship “as if in an inspired moment by a second-year novice who died recently in Australia. Fr Coyne says also that Fr. Hurley “showed little inclination for games throughout life; a pointer, perhaps, in this direction was the post he held as a Clongowes student in the boys' reading room, where he functioned as assistant librarian, and spent leisure hours in reading”.
In Obituary Notices critics rarely raise a voice, because, I suppose, of an excessive fidelity to the old rule: “de mortuis nil nisi bonum”. Yet if charitable care is made in making them, criticisms may well reveal nothing more than unfortunate consequences of virtues exercised without stint. It is not, for example, really so terrible a fault if an ever helpful and over-working teacher or Church-man surrenders wearily to a chair on returning to his room rather than to the energetic arranging neatly and in order of textbooks, “home-work”, sermon notes, reference books, letters, etc. God understands us, and will take heed and reward the good work that was done, and pay little attention - we can feel sure - to harmless human failings that were revealed in the doing of it.

◆ The Clongownian, 1977

Appreciation

Father Thomas Hurley SJ

Tom came to Clongowes from Drimoleague in 1903 and spent four years here. On leaving, he entered the Jesuit Noviceship in Tullabeg, and took his first vows there in September 1909. He then studied mathematics and science in UCD, and Philosophy in Belgium. As a Scholastic, he taught in Belvedere College, and in Xavier College, Melbourne. He returned in 1920 to begin his Theological studies in Milltown Park, Dublin, and was ordained there in July 1922. He then returned to his teaching career, being stationed in Mungret (1925-28), Crescent (1928-33), Clongowes (1933-39), and Crescent again (1939-50), His teaching career ended in 1950 when he began church work in the Crescent Church, Limerick. In 1953 he took up Missionary work, conducting missions and retreats all over the country. He continued in this work until 1962 when he returned to parochial work in the Crescent Church. A few years ago he had to retire owing to ill health.

Fr Hurley was a man of great energy, and was totally devoted to the work he had in hand. He was a painstaking teacher, and his students were very successful in the public examinations. As a churchman, he was a forceful and very practical preacher, and was devoted to his work in the confessional. As a result of his work as a missioner, he was very well known among the clergy and religious throughout the country, and was well liked by them. Apart from his work as a teacher and preacher, he took a very keen interest in the Irish College at Ballingeary. He wrote a number of CTS pamphlets, and also wrote a life of the late. Fr Michael Browne SJ. For a number of years he took a very keen and pracitcal interest in the activities of the Irish Red Cross Society. He died in Limerick on the 13th of October 1976 at the age of 86.

Hutchinson, John W, 1917-1970, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/189
  • Person
  • 22 May 1917-24 January 1970

Born: 22 May 1917, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1935, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1949, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1953, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Died: 24 January 1970, Regional Hospital, Galway

Part of the Coláiste Iognáid, Sea Road, Galway community at the time of death

Irish Province News 45th Year No 2 1970

St. Ignatius College, Galway
On December 31st came the sad news of Father Cashman's death in Rathfarnham. He passed away quietly in the last hours of the old year. May he rest in peace. He came here from the Tertianship in August 1934 and after 33 years spent in Galway he left for Rathfarnham in September 1967. He was the most popular priest in the city, keeping in constant contact with the people and helping them in every need. He was well known for the helpful advice he gave and was loved by all for his friendliness and good will. He was the originator of the plan for the houses at Loyola Park, and saw the plan carried through. He took a keen interest in the Wheelchair Association and when men could not find employment he was the man to whom they came and the one who found jobs for them. In his early sixties he had a prolonged period of ill health, was in and out of hospital, but on his return from the U.S.A., after a few months spent with his brother, a Parish Priest, he seemed to have been given a new lease of life. At breakfast, on the morning after his return, he was so overwhelmed with the warm céad míle fáilte he got that in his own inimitable way he quoted two apt lines from the “Exile's return” : “I'd almost venture another flight, there's so much joy in returning”. The move to Rathfarnham was a hard blow to him. As he said in a letter to a Galway friend. "I loved the people back in the West". He accepted it quietly and settled down to his life of retirement. Fine tributes appeared in the Connaught Tribune and Cork Examiner, but the greatest tribute of all was the profound feeling of sorrow and of personal loss shown by such a multitude of friends in Gal way. The people of the West loved him, too. A life-long lover of his native language he spoke it fluently, taking his place at table with the school fathers, so as to have a chance of speaking it.

The last week of January brought us new cause for grief. After a month in the Regional Hospital, Father Jack Hutchinson died of a heart-attack on Saturday evening, 24th January. On Monday there was a Concelebrated Requiem Mass, 15 priests taking part, including Fr. Provincial and Father Rector who was the chief Celebrant. His Lordship, the Bishop presided. During the Mass the choir rendered hymns in Irish. Fr. P. Meagher, Socius, read the Gospel and Father P. O'Higgins read the bidding prayers in Irish. The impressive funeral and the large number of “Ours” from all over the Province who followed his remains to the graveside were ample testimony of the esteem in which he was held by all who knew him.
Father Jack was here as a Scholastic, 1943-46, and as a priest from 1963 till his death. He suffered a severe heart attack at Easter 1968, and since then his health was never very good. During the last two years of his teaching career he was also Spiritual Father to the boys, and when he became Operarius in the Church, he continued on as Sp. Father to the boys in a number of classes. He paid frequent visits to the Regional Hospital, and it was while getting ready to visit a patient there on the evening of December 23rd that the heart trouble came, which led to his death, a month later. During that last month, his lovable personality and fund of humour contributed much to the happiness of his fellow patients. He was the life and soul of the ward, and the men grew very fond of him and missed him sorely when he died. He was the last of five from our former community to die within the short period of 18 months, and yet, accustomed as we had grown, in that time to death, we seemed to feel all the more keenly this fifth last good-bye. Ar láimh dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha :
Fr. Hutchinson's Sodality and the boys of the 6th year presented Rev. Fr. Rector with a chalice as their tribute to the memory of a priest whom they loved.

Obituary :

Fr Jack Hutchinson SJ (1917-1970)

The announcement of the death of Fr. Jack Hutchinson was received with great regret not only by the members of his own community who knew him well, but also by the Province at large in which he had many friends and was universally liked.
After completing his secondary education at O'Connell Schools Jack Hutchinson entered the Noviceship at Emo in September 1935. As those were years of large numbers in the novitiate, Jack had the advantage of a large circle of contemporaries as he made his studies through the various houses of formation. All his training was done in Ireland. He was a naturally good student and applied himself seriously and successfully to Arts, Philosophy and Theology. He enjoyed games and played them well, especially soccer, his first love. He was often out in the boats in Tullabeg and took part in dramatics.
After Tertianship in Rathfarnham, Jack was assigned to teaching, which was to be his main work to the end. For eleven years, Gonzaga knew him as a devoted and efficient teacher, one who ever had the best interests of the boys at heart. His aim was to cultivate an easy relationship with his pupils. Nothing was too much trouble and his pupils appreciated the work he did for them. Because of his anxious temperament, teaching took more out of Jack than it did out of others of more relaxed nature.
During the Summer of these years, he gave retreats. He agreed that he found this type of work difficult. He was fond of quoting a friend who maintained that his own retreats must do enormous good, because of the effort they caused him in the giving. This was a view with which Jack concurred. For years he went to Lourdes each summer, to work as a chaplain and there took up the study of French at which he soon became proficient.
In 1962, he was transferred to the teaching staff of Galway, an assignment for which he was very suitable. As a scholastic he had spent two years teaching in Coláiste Iognáid and his ability to teach through Irish made him a most valuable member of the staff. He was equally at home and effective teaching Irish, Latin and French. For a number of years, he produced school plays in Irish at home and at Drama Festivals. In this field he was very successful and was awarded many prizes. He was always a great lover of the Irish language and of all that goes with it. He held very strongly that schools in Ireland should be trying to give an education suit able to Irish boys. Later, Summer months found him providing an outlet for his zeal in doing supply work on Bofin Island and in English parishes.
Jack Hutchinson was a very easy man to live with, the community to which he was appointed meant everything to him. His broad charity and friendliness were at the centre of his dealings with each one. If ever his feelings were ruffled or if he felt that he had spoken a word out of place, it seemed to him the most natural thing in the world to apologise. He had a lively sense of humour and on villa or festive occasions, he was at his best with stories and jokes of a most kindly nature, Twenty years of teaching can make inroads on the health of any man and with a man of Fr. Hutchinson's devotion and concentration, the effect was bound to be serious. Many and many an evening, he just about dragged himself to his room after a heavy day. A serious heart attack came after he had acted as Chairman to a meeting of Jesuits at Milltown Park, His recovery slow and tedious he bore with great patience and it was a wonderful uplift to his morale when he was told that he would be returning to Galway and was to work in the church. His zeal was his undoing. When human need demanded he knew no bounds and so eventually, he had another heart attack. He slept well the day he died and woke 'to find the doctor and nurses about his bed. He thanked them all for their care of him and kindness to him. Those words of thanks, the last he spoke, were characteristic of the man. Fr. Jack Hutchinson was a man of integrity, a fine teacher, and a good priest. He died at the age of 52. His memory will live on with affection in the hearts of many.
Proof of the regard in which the boys held him was not slow in coming. During his time as Spiritual Father to the boys, he had instituted class masses regular days for mass for each class in the Boys' Chapel. These were intimate gatherings and proved very popular with the boys. He re-organised Cuallacht Mhuire on lines of his own and again he was proved right. And so it came about that within a fortnight of his death, quite spontaneously in an intimate ceremony Cuallacht Mhuire presented to the Rector an engraved chalice and Paten, dedicated to his memory.
Go ndéana' Dia Trócaire air.

Hyde, John, 1909-1985, Jesuit priest, theologian and Irish language scholar

  • IE IJA J/37
  • Person
  • 19 November 1909-31 May 1985

Born: 19 November 1909, Ballycotton, County Cork
Entered: 01 September 1927, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1941, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1945, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 31 May 1985, Our Lady's Hospice Harold's Cross, Dublin

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

Early education at St Colman’s College, Fermoy, County Cork

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 60th Year No 4 1985

Obituary

Fr John Hyde (1909-1927-1985)
(† 11th May 1985)

Five minutes alone with John Hyde was more than sufficient to convince anyone that here was a very remarkable man.
No matter what the occasion or topic of conversation, vibrations of peace and depth accompanied his economy in words, his concentration on what was said qualified a head-down self- effacement that had become second nature to him, and a curious sense of his having a firm hold on spiritual priorities was unconsciously communicated in a simple way. It is not easy to write with confidence about a man like that, difficult to avoid the tendency to confuse first impressions with fact and difficult to steer clear of conclusions based on oft-repeated anecdotes that lent them- selves to good-humoured inflation. John seldom spoke about himself and left no trace in his room of anything directly autobiographical although inferences can indeed be drawn from many folders of notes on spirituality, local history and theology. Yet, granted the right atmosphere and the appropriate question that he could see did not stem from mere curiosity, John would be self revealing where he felt his own experiences would be the source of encouragement to another. What follows is coloured by a few self-revelations of that kind. It is based on the memories of many who gained much from living with him in community over the years; it is also dependent on the recollections of very many non-Jesuit friends particularly in the Midlands who knew him in a way that was not possible for his confrères.
John Hyde was born in the bilingual community of Ballycotton, attended the local National School (in bare feet some of the time) and in his teens was privately tutored in French by two retired ladies in the district who recognised his promise and his eagerness to learn. This promise was confirmed during his years “on scholarship” in St Colman's College, Fermoy, where his early interest in the priesthood led him, by way of a College retreat by Fr Timothy Halpin, towards the Society, The move to the noviciate in Tullabeg in 1927 was in fact a reasoned preference for a disciplined community way of life over the fairly predictable career that would have begun had he accepted the free place in the Irish College in Rome offered him by the Bishop of Ross. While Tullabeg represented a cultural shift for John, Rathfarnham and UCD was a greater one which he found socially difficult but spiritually and academically agreeable. At this time he read widely in the history of the Society and continued a noviciate habit of close contact with the lives of Jesuit saints. Philosophy, Tullabeg 1933-1936: he was glad to be back in the country but felt sad at being separated by Province custom from the local people whose difficult lot at that time he appreciated through his own Ballycotton roots. The scholastic codices he used at this period bear witness to his meticulous efforts to understand and also to his predilection for Irish since many of his own notes in whatever language are written in gaelic script.
Regency in Belvedere and in Galway was traumatic. I remember him just shaking his head and waving his hands without comment in typical fashion when I asked him about the experience of standing before a class of irrepressibles who, as we can readily imagine, would often take advantage of his natural shyness and imitability. He admitted to being particularly lonely in the Society at that time and this loneliness remained during the Milltown theology years when, in moments of depression, and disturbed by the effects of his lack of interest in current affairs, he wondered whether his Jesuit option had been wise. He met the challenge by strengthening his belief in two principles that later would occur frequently in his lectures and conferences – that God is always faithful and that no one is asked to undertake unbearable burdens. Ordination in 1941 was followed by a fourth year during which he recalled efforts to translate abstract doctrine into homely metaphors in order to assist one or other of his contemporaries in the pre-Ad Grad repetitions; thus were laid the foundations of that metaphor-laden pedagogy of later years which benefitted his so many as he would, for example, expressively compare original sin with a puncture in a tyre and describe the Lutheran position on human nature after Eden in terms of the irremediable effect of a fall into a bottomless pit instead of the reparable injury resulting from a fall from a tree to the ground that characterised orthodox doctrine. Soon after the Tertianship Long Retreat in Rathfarnham, the Milltown years of of preferred study and inactivity exacted their toll as John contracted pleurisy and tuberculosis and spent some months in two Dublin nursing homes. The earlier depression increased during long hours gazing at walls and ceilings, as he felt his life to have been a failure and his studies useless. Providentially, and at least initially at his sister's request, he was moved to Tullabeg to recuperate. The depression gradually lifted over two years during which the philosophers recognise how helpful he could be and to confirm for themselves the reputation for asceticism and insight that had in fact preceded his arrival among them. As his strength returned, he entered at depth into the study of Aquinas which he would develop through his life. Also through the confessional and parlour apostolates, he took his first steps in the contacts with the sick and elderly which were to become such a prominent feature of his life. Both activities restored his self-confidence and confirmed his trust in the 'the divine plan that governs all by governing each'; he never looked back.
Appointed to the academic staff in 1946, John's talents for pedagogy at this particular level and his reputation for consistency developed enormously over sixteen years of quiet, unassuming application. To the uninitiated, his codex pages could be enigmatic, their elliptical, staccato format and expressly Aristotelian-Thomist inspiration difficult to follow without long reflection on the sources, but to those attending lectures with patience, these pages were prized, stimulating understanding for all and inspiring the more speculative minds to further originality of expression. In the countryside, his reputation grew as he became a familiar sight in Tullamore, Clara, Pullough and Ballycumber, cycling in all weathers to respond to some call for his presence and blessing. His familiar figure represented for the Midland people an ideal charismatic holiness which his interest in their individual difficulties abundantly confirmed. Others might say what he did, other priests might come to anoint or absolve, but none could measure up in their rural eyes to what they found in John at a time when lasting consolations were rare enough and Bord na Móna not yet fully established as a secure source of income. He was very much at ease with them in their humble circumstances, frequently brought cakes or sweets for the children began to that we, the philosophers, gathered up for him as he cycled away after our villa day alfresco meal, and relished the tea and home-made bread they laid before him, following, in some cases, his guided tour of the farmyard and his . solemn blessing of the household.
The move to Milltown in 1962 saddened him even though he could clearly see the hand of God in the decision. He found it extremely difficult at that time to sympathise with the scholastics' preference for urban life and the cultural possibilities it would afford; for him, philosophical reflection and a fully committed religious life demanded, at least in formation years, something like the quasi-monastic enclosure of a place like Tullabeg. While respecting the judgement of “those who know about these things”, he felt that both studies and prayer would suffer. Later in Milltown, the establishment of the present Institute and the increasing extra-mural concerns of all the students were also great puzzles to him and on many guarded occasions he lamented what he considered to be an inevitable drop in academic standards. Environment and concentration were of paramount importance to him; prevailing ephemeral interests were distractions best avoided until such time as religious and academic foundations were well and truly laid. Certainly, too, he was saddened by his own enforced separation from the rural scene and from the people who meant so much to him. On one occasion he admitted that God also wished then to remove him also from the Jesuit community dimension that he found supportive in the Bog-years: from now on he would find common interests at community recreation so much rarer and so his lapses into silence became habitual.
Yet he applied himself to theology with enthusiasm even though he sincerely felt himself unequipped to teach it. This last admission would surprise anyone present in his classes but the 'I'd like to run away' comment, made several times to me at least, was sufficient indication that his awareness of his own inability to communicate effectively with modern trends and sophisticated minds ran deep. He worked at a steady pace, relying on critically chosen authors and reviews, checking the accuracy of references with a keen suspicion of generalisations, and was always unmoved by trends that for lesser minds would prompt radical revision. While he was always uneasy about his own ability for accurate communication of what he himself knew to be true, and very much aware of many fields for related investigation, the gates to which he never had time or energy to open, his contribution to our understanding of scripture-based meaning and development cannot be overestimated. It is hoped that a fairly comprehensive assessment of that contribution may be made elsewhere, but at least here it is worth noting that the major concern in his teaching was to bridge the gap between an over-speculative systematic theology and our own religious experience, in line with the early Lonergan stress on self-appropriation which had delighted him in his later years in Tullabeg. That particular concern is clear on almost every codex-page he produced.
While in Milltown, concern for the sick and elderly continued undiminished through an enormous correspondence, visits to hospitals and to Mountjoy jail, parlour contacts and his return visits to the Bog in summer, at Christmas and at Easter. Up to a year before his death he was out on the bicycle if weather permitted, or, whatever the weather, if an urgent request came to him to visit some direct or indirect acquaintance who had been transferred from the Midlands to a Dublin hospital. He was particularly sensitive to the loneliness felt by country people suddenly removed from their own environment to Dublin; visiting them became a primary concern and I have heard first-hand accounts of after noon trips to the hospitals at Cappagh, Peamount, Blanchardstowni, Loughlinstown and Rathcoole. On a few occasions “the machine let me down” and once, in a winter storm, he walked back from Tallaght satisfying himself when he got home with tea and bread in an empty refectory after supper. This last incident could be paralleled by many other occasions both in the Bog and in Milltown when his own well-being took second place to the demands of his preferred apostolate; it was quite common for him to put the thought of supper out of his mind because of a parlour call or an urgent visit by sudden request. Superiors had to be watchful but so often John, even during his last months, indeliberately escaped their vigilance.
Invalid contacts in Tullabeg brought him to Knock in the mid-sixties and he established a relationship with invalids at the shrine that lasted until he died, Instrumental in the development of a Pious Union of Handmaids (which includes a special status for invalids) as the first stage towards the establishment of a Secular Institute, John worked steadily on their Constitutions, regularly wrote to the member-invalids in various parts of the country, visited some of them in their homes (taking advantage the free travel pass) and directed their annual retreat in Knock each August.
This year I was privileged to follow in his footsteps and could sense the depth of the invalids' grief at the fact that he was no longer with them as before. Yet his spirit remains as they prize memories of his quiet concern, his reading-visits to those who were blind and the customary blessing with a relic of John Sullivan which he constantly carried in his hatband. As with Midland recollections, the accounts of cures effected through his prayers, of extraordinary foresight with regard to eventual recovery, of flourishing families and farms due to his spiritual advice, and of problems solved merely by his presence and concern, are manifold.
Not until his death could we realise his life-long hobby-interest in the local histories of Ballycotton and Offaly. He has left copybooks, odd pages and letters, sheets of statistics and meticulously traced maps which bear witness to hours spent in the National Library, the Public Records Office, the Royal Irish Academy and similar places.
Lists of local populations with names, dates, land valuations and property mingled in his room with genealogies, land-charts and press-cuttings sent him by like-minded enthusiasts. His correspondence on the subject, frequently in reply to requests from people descended, as I understand it, from Ballycotton emigrants, extended to America and Australia; he was in regular contact with local archaeological societies, in 1982 he gave a lecture to the Cloyne Literary and Historical Society that was much appreciated, and pursued right up to the end. This work will not be lost to sight; photo copies will be sent to the appropriate societies.
From his notes and copybooks, it is also clear that his love for the Old Testament Canticles was not a transient one: the publication of his own translation in Irish of The Song of
Songs (Laoi na of Laoithe; it has been incorporated in An Bíobla Naofa) and a typical staccato style commentary, is but the outward evidence of an interest in a readily understandable
conception of divine love that informed his unique approach to the theological tracts on grace and charity - a prime example of his efforts to bridge that aforementioned gap between
systematics and experience.
His scattered preparatory notes on various retreats for religious, his simple but forceful articles in An Timire, his conferences on prayer (it disturbed him to find these typed and distributed), some domestic exhortations and his circular letters to invalids are a mine of practical spirituality, simply expressed, that many feel would repay editing and composite publication. The very idea the extent of would have appalled him for he was genuinely convinced that he had little to offer to a modern, outwardly sophisticated readership, and was self persuaded that his own lack of style and polish in English composition would be the an obstacle. In spiritual matters, could not but keep things simple and frequently professed incompetence in the field of the discernment of spirits; he would never have envisaged himself engaged in directed retreats - 'I wouldn't know what to say' - the admission was sincere. With individuals who came to him for spiritual advice, he consistently turned to scriptural principles leaving inferences to be drawn by his confidant; for those with little practice in spiritual thought, he provided one or two provocative parables from everyday life, but even then would never presume to make the directly personal application himself. His relationship with sisters is not easy to interpret. Undoubtedly he was a favourite retreat-giver in the old style, certainly he helped many individually in their convents and in parlours, but it was clear to us that he felt very uneasy with the post-Vatican aggiornamento that closer relationships with male communities understandably brought sisters into. His attitude was by no means anti-feminist - quite the opposite, as I could see from the Knock situation. I can only ascribe it to a combination of natural shyness and lack of common ground for conversation on the one hand and on the other, a personal desire to be at ease in the refectory (this applied particularly to his later Tullabeg visits) with those whom he knew well, an attitude that will be readily appreciated by those who have themselves spent the morning or afternoon hours in concentrated study.
Self-effacement was characteristic of the man, so clear in each of his apostolates and accentuated over the years in the Society where he eventually became content with his position outside the cultural mainstream. He could never have more than a passing interest in current events, in radio or newspapers, never watched television, and was in touch with developments only through side-references in review articles and very occasional press headlines noticed during his usual dinner-hour peek at the obituaries in the recreation room. Consequently he was happy to be unobtrusive and remain silent in small-talk recreations and sophisticated company. He suspected his unconcern and social awkwardness, as he saw it, would be disconcerting and, unless directly addressed by one of the company, he preferred to withdraw without fuss to the peace and that meant so much to him. His oft-noted absence at Province funerals and functions was quite typical - “these things are not for me” became a principle of ever-increasing application. Some found him a difficult person to live with because of his self-depreciating manner which, however, was certainly not feigned. It was not just shyness. He seemed to think that his own simplicity of outlook and sincere lack of interest in ephemera automatically placed him on a very low rung of the social ladder and he never had any incentive to climb. He willingly stepped back to give way to anyone - this was what God had decreed for him, and he accepted it. In the refectory he was seldom able to join three others already seated even though he would genuinely welcome them if they joined him, and the familiar sight of John standing back until all others were served just underlined his consistency. Yet in conversation, particularly with one or two, he could sparkle if the topic were congenial - local history or some curiosity of the Irish language or news from the Midlands, but anything polemical was avoided: if pressed to take sides on any issue, he would invariably appeal to some general principle and leave it at that. On administrative issues, he would express no opinion. Many post-Vatican moves, inspired by authority whose judgement he always respected, were a puzzle to him, and many were distinctly at variance with his own religious ideals, but he was con tent to accept in silence so much of which he knew he could never be a part. At the same time he was never on the side of the prophets of gloom: here his theological perspectives came to his aid as he insisted daily on an eventual realisation of the divine plan and on the reality of Providence at work in the world.
In theology or spirituality, John seemed to have a built-in radar for that 'phoniness' that sometimes made people uneasy. Many times in his room I have sensed its beeps either in relation to something I said or in his expressed views on some books or articles that had quiet caught the popular theological eye. He very much lamented the general trend towards concentration on man rather than on God as a theological starting point and felt much in tune with Hans Urs von Balthasar who, from a position of greater learning, confirmed his attitude and underlined the soundness of the general approach of Thomas Aquinas, whose work and personality were so dear to John. Simplicity of faith, whatever the later reasoning, was a factor that John could sense so well and his lectures or conferences implicitly emphasised its importance in pastoral or academic activity. Another point of absorbing interest was his quiet insistence that in general we do not have sufficient faith in what God wants to do for each of us - John 15:5 was one of his favourite texts; and his nose for the pelagianism subtly interwoven in the pages of popularising theologians was quite remarkable. His own faith in the prayer of petition (“like a shop with well-filled shelves: it's all there but we must ask”) surely accounts for some of the unusual events that so many Midlanders have attributed to his concern and prayers.
With so few of his personal notes available, it is not possible to do more than draw inferences regarding his own spiritual life. Certainly reverence was a key feature. Memories of John kneeling rigidly in the chapel, head down and oblivious to all around him, come easily to mind as does the recollection of him offering Mass in a subdued emotionless voice (he never concelebrated, through rather than from principle) and the studied concentration that would accompany the simple blessing of a rosary. His pre-lecture retreat prayer that all our actions be directed solely (with a deliberate emphasis on the word) to the praise and service of God seems to have been a reflection of his life. In his last month he did mention that his priestly intention had always been that he might be able to imitate “the Master” as closely as possible within the limitations imposed by his retiring dispositions and by the academic calling which he fully accepted but would all too willingly have passed to others better able to do it than himself. He gave himself credit for nothing: the Isaian potter moulding his clay to suit his plans was an image of God that was dear to him - probably John mentioned it in every retreat he gave. At every stage of his life, “I did the best that I could do” - the divine plan daily worked out in this unusually faithful and selfless way of service for others. His own interests were secondary. Many recall how he would gladly interrupt any work to answer a call to the parlour, giving as much time to that as his visitor needed. If we went to him in his room,we knew indeed that we and not he would have to terminate the interview, and this was particularly difficult to do in his last year, since, with his powers of solitary study for long periods on the wane, he seemed more and more to welcome individual company..
A final pointer to another characteristic known only to those who knew him fairly well whether in community or on his pastoral rounds - his sense of humour. Many stories have been told of cryptically witty remarks he made, sum ming up a situation or a character in a way that would have occurred to no one else and displaying his own satisfying cleverness in a broad tight-lipped smile. He thoroughly enjoyed the bantering conversation of a refectory foursome even though his own contributions would be infrequent - and these would invariably raise a laugh. Some years ago, Fred Crowe, visiting Milltown, looked forward to chatting with John because of all he had heard about him. Asked after two days during which they had not met if he would recognise John, Fred replied that he thought he would, “He's the man in the refectory who sits with his head down seemingly uninvolved with all that was being said by the other three ... until after a while he looks up, says something very briefly, and the three burst into loud laughter ... the memory is typical. It confirms what we all knew - that his reclusiveness was not the whole story but had to be qualified by a subtle mischievousness which, perhaps, is a key to an understanding of the loneliness that he sometimes keenly felt. It is well worth noting that in Midland homes and with the Knock invalids he is remembered so well for his general cheerfulness and contagious happiness.
So much more could be and will be said about Fr John. He mystified some people, was much admired by others. He cannot be stereotyped in anything he ever did. All of us were affected by him in some way or other and we know that we will never meet anyone quite like hiin again. After a very fruitful life he slipped away as quickly and unobtrusively as he would have wished. The memories and his influence remain.
B. McNamara

As the end approached, the attractiveness of goodness warmed me to Fr John Hyde. Although he suffered a great deal, he never complained. He often ended a description of his day with the phrase, “I've no complaints”, and one was left with the impression that he spoke from a deep sense of acceptance.
While he would have preferred to die at home, he accepted the decision that he would die in Our Lady's Hospice. When the time came to go, twenty-four hours before he died, he took only what he could carry in his small leather case and neither hat nor coat. The journey in the house car was clearly, in his mind, his last. He didn't speak of the future but rather of the present and the present was grand.
Those who attended him at the Hospice, doctors, nurses and sisters, felt cheated that he died so quickly after his arrival. "We would have liked to have nursed him for a little longer", one of them said to me. They too had been touched. In life John taught that the christian life is but a preparation for death. In death John demonstrated that he practised what he preached. May he rest in peace.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 40 : September 1985
A Personal Appreciation : John Hyde
Paddy Gallagher
Fr. John Hyde died on 31st May, 1985. Writing from Canada, a former student of his and a former confrère of ours sent INTERFUSE these pages appreciation of a devoted friend.

Shortly before his death, John wrote to me in Canada saying that he was not in pain and that he was really looking forward to seeing God. God has since fulfilled that desire and, like Zacchaeus up in the tree, John must have a great view. One is left with a deep feeling of peace and fulfillment; the words, consummatum est, seem to express the meaning of it all.

For ten steady years and then, in much more sporadio fashion, for another fifteen, I had the privilege of close conversation with a friend who shared all he had so generously. My fondest memory of John is being with him in his room thinking out some difficulty. There was no need to pretend to be learned when you were with him because closeness to God coupled with a naturally gifted intelligence enabled him to discard these attitudes. John accepted you as you were with all your stupid questions and awkward formulations. I could not count the hours I spent asking questions while he patiently listened. During my years as a scholastic in Clongowes, I spent three Summers in the Bog and many an evening after supper he would come into the library and talk. His eyes would light up and he would haul out book after book selflessly putting the of his insight and learning at my disposal in an utterly selfless way. I felt deeply honoured and very humbled in the presence of a highly intelligent and very kind saint in a remote place in the Irish midlands.

John was deeply aware of his limitations and often spoke to me about them. By temperament he was a solitary and it was a measure of the power of God in the Society of Jesus coupled with John's own unwearying efforts that he was enabled to communicate intellectual light and much goodness and kindness.

Conversation with him could be very difficult because those long silences could easily unsettle someone not used to them. He was no good on Church politics or the news and his small talk was nearly always about some person he knew or some locality he was familiar with. He hated writing and found it very painful. Often he said to me that, when writing and stuck for a word, the Irish equivalent or some line from our Irish literature would come more easily to him. He was incredibly shy and felt quite lost in company other than that of close friends and simple people. With sophisticated people he was not at ease and to the best of my knowledge John did not seek out the modern unbeliever or the alienated Catholic in any great number.

The combination of certain aspects of John's temperament and the course of events from his early fifties onward could easily have led to bitterness and negativity. His sharp mind, which could be devastating, and his solitary bent, which was most at home in the older world of Irish life, could have resulted in a minefield detonating whatever came in its path. The closing of Tullabeg, certain changes in the Society's and the Church's way of life, the breakdown of Irish culture, the demise of philosophy as a serious formative factor in modern life, all these things could have conspired to corrode and embitter this small, quiet man because for John these were serious matters and he felt them deeply. John's finer qualities, however, kept these influences at bay and he chose to live out of his more positive talents, I found in him a profound docility to the truth of things; the deepest respect and care for the mind which God gave him to respond to this truth; and a limpidly pure heart. He drew deeply from his love of Christ, his love of the Society, the riches of Irish culture, his thorough knowledge of the wisdom of western Christianity and from his untiring work among the disadvantaged, to respond to the challenges in his life.

It was this man, then, with all his limitations and talents, that was thrust into the maelstrom of modern theology and, out of obedience, went to live in the city. How would he react? The temptation was to stick to the older textbooks but John's concern for the truth ruled that out. He found serious inconsistencies within then so he patiently set out to rework the whole system and made what I think was his finest achievement: a coherent wh philosophy and revelation are thoroughly and consistently integrated into a theology. It is a body of work which to some extent satisfied his own integrity and which he honestly felt addressed the fundamental problems of the world after the manner of Gaudium et Spes. It is here that we find John's attitude towards modernity and while he had many “No’s” to say to it, nevertheless much more significant are the clear signposts which he thinks will keep us on our way to the truth. The following is an effort to identify these signposts and I trust they do justice to his thought. If they are unsatisfactory, then I urge the reader to go to “The Sheets” themselves: Tolle, lege!

John insisted on the importance of asking a penetrating question on a fundamental problem and following it through to the end with intellectual integrity. While this seens obvious in theory, in practice it is extraordinarily difficult. It accounts for the painstaking care which he took over each minute step as he moved on in the truth. Secondly, he insisted on the importance of being keenly aware of the unity of the truth and that we must come to grips with the foundations of that unity. This point accounts for the architectonio quality of his thought. Lastly, he insisted that we must make "God in Christ reconciling the world to himself" the focal point of all our questions. John was ever orientated towards God in Christ and, both in his living and thinking, this ruled him entirely. This last point means that his thought is at once a nourishing spirituality and a sati intellectual project.

Towards the end of his life, John was getting tired and he found it harder to concentrate and remember what he was reading. He had always made God in Christ the centre of his life and now he began to speak much of the greatness of God and His great love. He often spoke to ne saying that he would love to be able to make the beauty and the goodness of God the central explanatory factor in his understanding of Being but that he was too old now and, besides, he didn't think he had the originality and talent to work it out as he would like it to be done. I suppose that is one of the things I will always remember about him, the ability to pick out, in the complexity of modern reflections, an original, energing contribution; the ability to indicate lines of possible development; and the humility to say that it was beyond his capability to do it justice. What more can you ask of anyone?

This insight into God's beauty and goodness was matched by a corresponding warmth and breadth in his kindness. A few instances involving myself made it for me to overlook it. When I came home from Canada and met him for the first time in Milltown as an ex-Jesuit, I simply did not know how he would react. I need not have feared. We talked for hours and then it was time for dinner. John always enjoyed his meals - I think food was the only material thing he used up in large quantities unless we take paper and ink into the reckoning! He stood up and invited me to dinner with the community. I was very embarrassed and did not wish to intrude. He would hear none of it and asked very firmly and clearly did I want to have dinner. No doubt it seems a small gesture; but to me it revealed his very real kindness and sensitivity. The last memory I have of him as I left him in August 84 is seeing him bending down, rooting behind a wee curtain and rummaging in a large, brown paper parcel, “I have something you might like to see”, he said, thrusting a small book at me. “Would you like a copy?” he asked. I was deeply moved. John had never in his life considered anything he wrote worth giving to anyone. Gladly, I took it. It was Lóchrann do no Chosa do Bhriathar, a published collection in Irish of his spiritual articles over the years. As I quietly closed the door of his room behind me for the last time, I said to myself that it was now much easier for me to believe that truly God is wonderful, very kind and absolutely brilliant.

Is aoibhinn dó sin a bhfuil grásta Dé ar a anam. Is é atá sa bhás dó sin oscailt an dorais go dté se isteach san áit is fearr dá bhfuil.

Happy is he whose heart is full of God's grace. For him, death means the opening of a door so that he may go into the very best place there is.

Interfuse No 54 : September 1988

Poem : Neil O’Driscoll

THOUGHTS ON THE DEATH OF JOHN HYDE

(Dedicated to Dick and Colin)

A countryman he was in speech and style,
His manner mild, hands clasped waist-high,
He looked out on the world with pensive glance.

Mostly 'twas listening that he did, forever probing
Mysteries as others talked -
And talk they did for many an hour,
He all the while pondering with modest smile.

The odd word from his lips were weighted
And awaited by the one for comfort come,
A crumb of wisdom shared with others
Yet oft by them repeated to their friends.

He had a human side and liked the cup of tea
With folk who lived nearby, on bike he'd come,
In wind and rain to visit and console, and bless the cow.

Well-read he was, sure wisdom was his line,
Could argue with the best and smile the while!
Questioning and searching lest his students slip away
With half learning, feeling 'twas quite simple after all.

A man of God with habits rare,
Pursuits more normal did not figure there.
No idle talk, no papers or T.v. could drag him
From the mystery there for all to see -
if only they would look
Beyond the veil of God-made "tings" to One Who fashions all.

But now he's gone, his spirit's free,
He's surely with Aquinas. Con Lonergan, Joey,
Tying all the ends unravelled here below,
And beckoning to us lest we should lose our way.

Interfuse No 99 : Winter 1998

HYDING THE TRUTH

Harold Naylor
It is now forty years since that beloved wailing voice said: “Walk seeking the Truth, with one hand in that of Thomas Aquinas”. I also recall the echoes of his prayer before Theodicy class (1958) in Tullabeg: “Send forth your wisdom from Your Holy Throne, that she may labour with me and lead me, so that we may be pleasing to you....”

John Hyde came into my life during the First Vows Retreat in Emo in 1953 and we remained close friends. Unfortunately I did not study Theology in Milltown, but I called on him whenever I could. In 1957 he'd been engrossed in reading Bernard Lonergan's Insight, which he told me was the work of a biennium, but by 1972 in Milltown he had passed on to Urs von Balthasaz, whom he told me was a real theologian!

All people can know the Truth and so know God, and come to their final destiny. This is the basis for human dignity and human rights. Without this people are just production units or tools for those in power. But people are not always intellectuals or intelligent, and most are devoid of resources. But as God loves the poor, so did John Hyde make ordinary people the focus of his life.

We used to call him the Cardinal of Pullagh-where the River Barrow flows. Here he was revered as a saint by farmer and old aged, sick and poor. And this came from his devotion to the Truth, revealed in Jesus Christ, as the ultimate goal of creation and of our personal lives.

The love of wisdom is not only for the brilliant and sophisticated but is mostly for the humble. And I saw it in John Hyde, who spent hours preparing for a lecture to the dozen or so of us philosophers. The afternoons and free days were spent with people on their pilgrimages to eternal joy.

I consider him to have come from south Tipperary, as his strong accent betrayed. In 1976 I called in on his secondary school in Clonmel. He joined the Society from Clongowes but was looked upon by his contemporaries as a joke. Small and insignificant he had bad health as a scholastic. After Tertianship he was in a tuberculosis sanatorium and then sent to Tullabeg to recuperate. By chance, he was asked to take a few classes to fill in for Professors. He prepared so assiduously and explained so simply in his monosyllabic words, summarised succinctly on the blackboard in colour chalk, that he was a great success. He spoke to us, not repeating what he had read or relating past experiences. This helped to deal with ordinary people, training us in pastoral approaches, not in self centred showmanship. His wit was scintallating, but his humour often barbed. I think he had deep wounds from people who looked down on him. Charlie Chaplin had the same hang-up from his early days in the East End of London. But John Hyde was leading us to be close to the sick and suffering, the poor and marginals to bring them the light of the Gospel Truth.

He had a horror of superficiality and verbiage. When people speak of what they did not know, I often saw his verbal stiletto flash with "What do you mean?". His remarks on people we knew found their mark in loud laughter in the class room, but they also encouraged the pursuit of truth. He was like the wise man waiting on the path were wisdom walks, stalking like a hunter, and yet always aware that wisdom lead to truth which is a gift.

His class were unique. What he had to teach was summarised in colour chalk in a few words on the blackboard. His wit was colourful and sharp. Some remarks were full of irony, others of innuendoes referring to people we all knew. He was painstakingly trying to form pastoral priests and to form honest people who sought truth and witnessed it in their lives.

I read The Tablet of London. I am sure John Hyde would have spent his time like this. I always saw him meditating on the Scriptures, and referring to Thomas Aquinas. I knew he spent much time in the library consulting monographs and serious papers on what he was teaching. He never did special studies so he did not have the ways of university folk. I imagine him the type of revered village school master, who knew what he taught and loved those he taught, leading them to truth,

He did no light reading - but he read people's eyes - those of the poor and suffering, the sick and humble. He hardly looked at the daily press or listened to the radio, and of course there was no TV in his days. He was a priest. And people want such people to bring the Truth of revelation to them. They want people who have experienced the things of God and the life of grace and they found it in John Hyde.

In the October 24 issue of The Tablet I read a summary of Pope John Paul II's encyclical on Fides et Ratio. As I carefully read the lines I recalled John Hyde, who entered the truth and made his home under the shade of Wisdom and dwelt there. He sought wisdom like the hunter watching his prey and waited in its path to receive truth.

In the pages of The Tablet are recorded the struggles of many Catholics and other Christians. There are voices of dissent and criticism, John Hyde was one who received the ultimate truth about human life and shared it with others. He had the wonder awakened by the contemplation of creation. But central to his life was the light of revelation, the mystery of the saving plan of God, and the ultimate truth about human life given in the Paschal Mystery

Philosophy today is sometimes relegated to tidying up thinking, or analysis language. It avoids ultimate questions like: "Why is there something instead of nothing?" Philosophy tends to talk of opinions but sheers away from absolutes and certainties. But we say that every truth is but a step towards the fullness of truth which will appear with the final revelation of God. And there
can be no real dialogue unless we have a firm basis of belief and understanding of what we affirm as truth.

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth. Today humanity is faced with the pressing issues of ecology, peace and the coexistence of different races and cultures. Christians, with the light of Faith, need to collaborate with followers of other religions and other philosophies to work for the renewal of humanity.

We need a firm vision in life and this comes from certainties which truth gives us. And we can know the truths of who I am, where I come from and where I am going, and why there is evil. We proclaim certitudes to help in steps to attain greater truth which leads to the fullness of truth which will appear with the final revelation.

Knowledge is to lead to rigorous modes of thought and produce a logical coherence of affirmations made in the organic unity of content. We are called to direct our steps toward a truth which transcends us. Too many are adrift no longer seeking the as radical questions about the meaning and foundation of human existence.

Jesus is the revealer of God, who gives the ultimate truth of life and the goal of history. Apart from Jesus the mystery of existence remains an insoluble riddle. Only in the light of Christ's passion death and resurrection are we to find answers to our dramatic questions.

Freedom is not realised in decisions against God, as it is He that enables our self-realisation. Christian revelation is the loadstar for all, and it is only when we return deep into ourselves that we will find where truth is. And this truth is gratuitous and not the product of our efforts.

Thomas Aquinas is proposed as a model of a man of faith and reason in the fullness of revelation. There are the pitfalls of eclecticism, scienticism, pragmatism, and even biblicism to mention but a few.

In Hong Kong, there is a background of Chinese thought and culture, but a much stronger current of technological and financial factors. The logic of the market economic often prevails and there is every confidence in technology. But technology is only an instrument and if not guided by ultimate truths can harm humanity.

Philosophical ethics must look to the truth of the good.

In Christ is revealed the mystery of love, truth and meaning. The truth of Christ is the one definitive answer to humanity's problems. Such a philosophy provides a potent underpinning for the true and planetary ethics which the world needs. All people are to find their grandeur in choosing to enter the truth, to make a home under the shade of wisdom. Just as Mary lost nothing of her true humanity and freedom in giving her assent to Gabriel's summons, so philosophy loses nothing of its freedom when it heeds the summons of the Gospel truth.

John Hyde would delight in such words - I remember him as one hidden in the truth.

And I look to this new encyclical guiding my thoughts and leading me deeper into the Truth of God.

Hyland, Brendan, 1927-2016, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/836
  • Person
  • 18 September 1927-01 October 2016

Born: 18 September 1927, Inchicore, Dublin
Entered: 22 October 1955, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final vows: 15 August 1966, Sacred Heart Church (Crescent), Limerick
Died: 01 October 2016, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Early Education at CBS Inchicore, Dublin; CBS James’ Street, Dublin; Post Office, Islandbridge, Dublin

1957-1959 Emo - Gardener
1959-1961 Milltown Park - Gardener
1961-1971 Crescent - Sacristan
1966 Tullabeg - Tertianship
1971-1985 Loyola - Minister; Bursar; in charge of Maintenance
1985-1990 Tullabeg - Treasurer
1986 Assistant Minister
1990-2010 John Austin - Subminister; Sacristan; Library Bursar in Milltown Park
1991 Cherryfield Lodge - Convalescing
1998 Minister; Treasurer
2000 Minister; Sacristan; Garden
2010-2016 Milltown Park - Helps in the Garden
2012 Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/ordinary-things-love/

Doing ordinary things with love
The life and death of Brother Brendan Hyland SJ was marked with moving tributes from his family and fellow Jesuits at his funeral mass in Milltown Park Chapel on Monday 3 October. Brendan died peacefully at the age of 89, in Cherryfield Lodge. He’d been living with the Jesuit community there for the last four years of his life when severe arthritis curtailed his physical health and affected his mobility, particularly in the last six months of his life.
Brian Grogan SJ, who preached the homily at the funeral mass was a novice with Brendan in 1955. “He was 28 and I was 16 but we had shared backgrounds notably our Christian Brother education and hurling.” Brendan was a keen gardener and fine hurler, and Brian developed a life-long friendship with the man he said was, ‘Like Cassius Clay… He could fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee!”
He had many roles in his Jesuit life, said Brian. He was a minister, treasurer, gardener, sacristan, maintenance man, who eventually ended up invalided. And in all these roles he was always welcoming and gentle. Brian said it was appropriate that he died on the feast day of Thérèse of Lisieux who practiced her ‘little way’, serving God with great love by doing the small things in life really well. “That was Brendan. He was one of God’s little ones, with a great charge given, an Ignatian command – in all things to love and serve. And Brendan did just that.”
Bill Callanan SJ confirmed this in the tribute poem he read at the Mass. It was from the pen of Gerard Manly Hopkins and about another Jesuit brother St Alphonsus Rodriguez, who was a doorkeeper for forty-five years. The theme centred around doing ordinary things with love: “Those years and years by of world without event/ That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.”(Read full poem below)
Brendan’s family chose hymns concerning gardening and growth and, referring to the famous gospel of the beatitudes that they also chose for the Mass, Brian said: “They chose this gospel outlining the eight forms of happiness because they knew this is what made Brendan tick. When you live as this gospel requests, then you enter a different world, the world of God. If you live like this, then happiness is yours and you radiate blessings to a needy world. Brendan radiated that happiness in his smile.”
And his was a special smile, according to Brian, who quoted the French mystic who once said to God, ‘You gazed on me and You smiled’. And that smile, that gaze of God, conveys infinite love. “Brendan knew that smile for he knew the truth of Pope Francis’ words, ‘When all is said and done we are infinitely loved.’ And Brendan smiled back. Even in his suffering. And he suffered greatly with depression, feeling of uselessness, arthritis but he bore it all patiently… and even with a smile.”
Speculating on Brendan’s new journey, Brian said he has now becoming radiant, like a morning star, “becoming like God because he sees God as God is. Freed from the constraints of space and time, Brendan’s full life, for which this one was only a rehearsal, begins. Now he’s playing in the galaxies in the company of the ever-creative God. And one day we shall join him there.”
In the meantime we have our own lives to live here. With that thought in mind, Brian speculated on what advice Brother Brendan Hyland might have for those present. “He’d say Fr Arrupe was right when he wrote, ‘Nothing is more practical than finding God’. May Brendan help us find God more and more. Amen.”
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilís.

Hyland, James, 1899-1930, Jesuit scholastic

  • IE IJA J/1469
  • Person
  • 16 January 1899-18 June 1930

Born 16 January 1899, Keelogues Old, Ballyvary, County Mayo
Entered: 21 January 1919, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 18 June 1930, Crescent College, Limerick

1921-1924 Rathfarnham - studying for BSc at UCD
1924-1926 Milltown Park - studying Philosophy
1926-1927 Clongowes - Regency
1927-1928 Crescent - Regency

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 5th Year No 4 1930
Sacred Heart College Limerick :
Sad events :
June 18. This morning, the first of the holidays, our scholastic, Mr J Hyland, was found dead in his bed. Not receiving an answer to repeated knocks at the door, the houseman entered the room, and found the corpse lying on the bed.
June 19. In the evening the remains of Mr Hyland were brought down to the Church. The Community formed the procession, The Church was filled with sympathisers, Solemnity was added by the playing of the Dead March by our Church organist.
June 20. Solemn obsequies for the repose of Mr Hyland’s soul, followed by funeral to Mungret College cemetery. Fr. Provincial presided at Mass, and officiated at the graveside. The old boys of the College insisted on carrying the coffin.
Two deaths - one of the youngest member of the Community, the other of its oldest, well within a month, were a severe trial for the Crescent Fathers. It was a consolation to them during the rather sad time they passed through, to note the very wide and very sincere respect with which the Society is regarded in Limerick. At a full meeting of the Sodality BVM,
on the evening of Fr. Kelly's burial, the Rector thanked the public for the remarkable sympathy shown to the Community of the deaths of Mr Hyland and Fr. John Kelly.

Irish Province News 5th Year No 4 1930
Obituary :
Mr James Hyland
We owe the following to the kindness of Fr McCurtin, Mr Hyland’s Rector :
Mr Hyland died suddenly at Sacred Heart College, Limerick, about 6.30 on the morning of June 18th, 1930. The house-man had knocked at the door of his room a couple of times. Fearing that Mr Hyland would be late, at 8.15 he entered the room to find the corpse lying back on the bed, with the legs protruding over the side. The poor young man evidently started to rise at once his alarm went. He was to have served an early Mass, and then to have taken the acolytes on a picnic to Galway. The doctor, who was with us immediately, pronounced that Mr Hyland had died about two hours previously, of heart failure. The Coroner was summoned at once. He and the doctor decided that there was no need for an inquest.
Mr Hyland had been swimming and cycling the afternoon before his death. He had attended the College distribution of prizes in the evening, and, later still, had been to the procurator's room to get money for the excursion to Galway next day. As far as is known there was no warning that his heart was weak. In fact, he had said a few days before that he felt in very good form. The only illness he had during his time at the Crescent was an obstinate carbuncle on the back of his neck. For this he had been carefully treated, and was sent on holiday to Galway at Christmas, 1929, and again at Easter 1930.
A remarkable tribute was paid to Mr Hyland, and, indeed, to the Society, on the occasion of the obsequies. The clergy, both secular and regular, were present in great numbers at the High Mass in our Church. The Church was quite filled with sympathisers. Public bodies, such as the Limerick Corporation and the Labour Organization, sent in notes of condolence. The latter body also postponed an important public meeting out of sympathy with the Community. The boys of the College, whose vacation began the evening before Mr Hyland's death, were all present at,the Mass and the funeral, wearing the school colours draped in black. Fr. Provincial very kindly came from Dublin for the obsequies, and officiated at the graveside in the Mungret College cemetery. Mr Hyland’s aged mother, his brother and brother-in-law, were present during the last rites. One could not but sympathise with them in their great grief, and in the tragic frustration of their hopes to see him a priest.
Mr Hyland was horn at Ballyvary, Go. Mayo, 6 Jan. 1899. He spent a few years in the Apostolic School, Mungret, and entered the Society in 1919. After noviceship at Tullabeg, he did his juniorate at Rathfarnham, and secured the B. Sc. degree of the National University. Philosophy followed at Milltown, after which he spent one year at Clongowes, and then joined the Crescent College staff as Science Master and teacher of Irish. He was a devoted student of the national language, and spoke it fluently. He was also Prefect of the boys, who liked him greatly, and was very successful in his training of the acolytes for church ceremonies. More than once the Bishop of the Diocese praised his work in that respect, as well as his efficiency as Master of Ceremonies - a duty he was always ready to fulfil.
Mr Hyland was a very exact young Religious - punctual at all his duties, end very careful not to omit any religious exercise, He was specially devoted to the Mass, and had the habit of hearing as many Masses as his work would permit. Notwithstanding a shy and retiring disposition, his uprightness and unfailing kindness won for him the respect and even the affection of the boys. They loved to go on cycle rides or picnics with him, and it was touching to see the friendly way in which the little lads gathered round him during recreations. May God give this good young man an eternal rest.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1931

Obituary

James Hyland SJ

The sudden death of Rev J Hyland at the Sacred Heart College, Limerick, on June 18th, 1930, came as a shock to the members of his Order, and was a cause of general sorrow in the city of Limerick. During the early part of the recent year, Mr Hyland had not been in good health; but a period of rest in Galway College at Xmas and Easter seemed to have given him renewed vigour. On the day before his death he appeared in excellent health; but on the morning of June 18th he was found dead on his bed. Death was due to heart-failure.

Mr Hyland entered Mungret College, as an Apostolic student in August, 1916. When he had completed his classical course, he entered the Society of Jesus in January, 1919. He made his noviceship at St Stanislaus, Tullamore, Offaly, and then went to Rathfarnham Castle, Co. Dublin for his University studies. His intellectual bent was towards Mathematics and Science, and, at the close of his University career he secured the BSc degree. He studied Scholastic Philosophy at Milltown Park, Dublin, after which he was attached for one year to the staff at Clongowes Wood College. From there he was transferred to the Sacred Heart College, Limerick, three years ago, as Prefect of Discipline, teacher of Science and Irish. He was a diligent student of the national language - spoke and wrote it fluently. He was, also, an enthusiast for national games.

Remarkable tributes were paid to the deceased young Jesuit, not only by the number of clergy in attendance at the obsequies in the Church of the Sacred Heart, by the boys of the College and the laity in general, but several public bodies - such as the Limerick Corporation, the Workers Transport Union, the Limerick Golf Club, and the Committee of Technical Instruction
sent in votes of condolence to the community.

To Mr Hyland's family we offer our very sincere sympathies in their sorrow. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

James Hyland (1899-1919)

A scholastic, was born in Ballyvarry, Co Mayo and was eleven years in the Society. At the time of his unexpected death Mr Hyland had completed the usual Jesuit course (noviceship, university studies, philosophy and regency) preceding theology. He was a native speaker of the Irish language and was instrumental in refounding the Irish Society in the College.

◆ SHC - Sacred Heart College Limerick 1931

Obituary

James Hyland SJ

At the Sacred Heart College, on June 18 – the first morning of the summer holidays - Mr Hyland was found dead on his bed. He was to have served an early Mass, as he was to have taken the acolytes on their annual excursion. Evidently he had made an effort to rise quickly when his alarm sounded, but fell back and died, according to medical opinion, of heart failure. He had very well on the previous day, and had enjoyed a bathe and a cycle-ride.

Mr Hyland was born at Keelogues Old, near Castlebar, on Jan. 6, 1899. He entered the Apostolic School at Mungret in 1916, and three years later went to the noviceship of the Society of Jesus. Having finished his noviceship he was sent to Rathfarnham for his University studies, and at the close of his period there, he secured the degree of BSc at University College, Dublin. Then followed his philosophical studies at Milltown Park, Dublin, after which he was attached for one year to the teaching staff at Clongowes. He was transferred to the Sacred Heart College, in 1927, where he was Prefect of Discipline, and taught Science and Irish. He was an enthusiastic Gael, keenly interested in the language, which he spoke and wrote fluently, and was a lover of the national games. His Gaelic Club, which he worked most energetically, during the year before his death, gave splendid results in the debate meetings and concerts, which were conducted completely in Irish. He was a fervent religious, preparing carefully for his priesthood years, which he had hoped to spend in China, and had repeately asked his superiors to be allowed to go on the Chinese mission.

Remarkable tributes were paid to his memory, not only by the number of clergy in attendance at the obsequies in the Church of the Sacred Heart, by the boys of the college and the laity in general, but also by several public bodies, such as the Limerick Corporation, the Limerick Trades Council, the Limerick Golf Club, and the Committee of Technical Instruction, who sent votes of condolence to the community of the Sacred Heart College. A thoughtful action by the members of the Limerick Trades Council, in postponing an impor tant public meeting which was to have been held at the O'Connell Monument on the evening of June 18, was very much appreciated.

He was laid to rest in the cemetery of his old school at Mungret. M Kelly, the Captain of the School, placed a beautiful wreath “from the pupils of Rev J Hyland SJ" on the grave. His heart-broken mother - for she longed to see him a priest -was present at his funeral, but she soon followed him to Heaven, as she died a few months ago.

To his brother, sister and other relatives we offer our deepest sympathy in their double bereavement. RIP

Ingram, Richard E, 1916-1967, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/33
  • Person
  • 27 July 1916-06 October 1967

Born: 27 July 1916, Belfast, County Antrim
Entered: 07 September 1933, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1944, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1951, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin
Died: 06 October 1967, St Ignatius House of Writers, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin

by 1947 at Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland, USA (MAR) studying
by 1949 at Seismology Institute California (Holy Family, Pasadena), USA - studying
by 1962 at Holy Family Pasadena CA, USA (CAL) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 21st Year No 4 1946
America :
Fr. Ingram will avail of his travelling studentship in mathematics in the John Hopkins University, Baltimore (Maryland Province). He will study under Professor Murnaghan (an Omagh C.B. boy), a student of Dr. Conway at U.C.D., and head of the mathematics department there. He hopes to leave Rineanna on October 18th, for New York.

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948

Fr. Ingram secured his Doctorate, D.Ph, in Mathematics, at the John Hopkins University, U.S.A. on 8th June, thus crowning success fully the two years of the Mathematical Studentship awarded him some years back by the National University. He will be lecturing at the Summer Course organised by Loyola University, Los Angeles, for the months of June to August.

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 4 1948

Fr. Ingram remains in the United States for another year; he has accepted a Fellowship in the Californian Tec. at Pasadena, where he will have opportunities of research work in seismology under two eminent theoretical seismologists, Guttenberg and Richter and the distinguished instrument designer, Benioff.

Fr. Jeremiah McCarthy of the Hong Kong Mission writes from the U.S.A, where he is examining possibilities of setting up an Institute of Industrial Chemistry in Hong Kong :
New York, 23rd September :
“I have spent some time at Buffalo and Boston and at the Massachussets Institute of Technology. The Professors there were most kind, and I learnt a good deal. I expect to be here for a month or six weeks, visiting factories and Colleges in New York. I met Fr. Ingram at Boston. He was doing some work at Harvard. I have heard from several sources that he had a great reputation at Johns Hopkins. I went yesterday to the Reception for Mr. Costello at Fordham and the conferring of an Honorary Degree. Cardinal Spellman was there. In his speech Mr. Costello avoided politics, except to say that the Government would stop emigration altogether, save that they would still send priests and nuns wherever they might be required. Most of the speech was taken up with a very graceful tribute to the Society and its work. He referred to the debt of Ireland to the Society in times of persecution, and again in modern times, and hoped to see an extention of our work in schools and Colleges in Ireland. The address was broadcast”.

Irish Province News 24th Year No 1 1949

LETTERS :

Fr. Ingram, writes from Holy Family Church, 1501 Fremont Avenue, South Pasadena, California, 25th October :
“I am living in a parish rectory (not S.J.) to attend Cal-Tech. It takes me about 20 minutes to get to the Institute by street car. The nearest S.J. house is about 13 miles from Cal. Tech, more than 1 hour by bus and not practical... All my work to date is geophysics. I shall not leave U.S.A. until probably July.
You wonder what life is like in a Seismological Observatory. I report at the Institute in the morning at 8 a.m. and take in a lecture or two. If time permits before lunch I am taken out to the Pasadena Observatory and help in the morning work of inspecting the charts for earth tremors. As there are two or three small shocks nearly every day, this is quite a job. Then we shuttle back to the Faculty Club for lunch and back again to the Observatory in the afternoon - the professors supplying transport. At 5 p.m, we depart from the several different works that the Observatory is handling. I return to my parish to join the pastor and senior curate at supper. By the way, all pastors out here are Irish - very much so - mine played in an All-Ireland in 1911, and his friend, Fr. Masterson, was one of the greatest footballers Cavan ever had, playing for 6 years in All Irelands, etc., 1916-22”.

Irish Province News 24th Year No 3 1949

LETTERS :

From Fr. R. Ingram, Holy Family Rectory, 1501 Fremont Ave., South Pasedena, Cal., U.S.A. :
“I have just missed a trip to the Marshall Islands and Hawaii. Shell Ox Co. is sponsoring a world-wide experiment op gravity observations to be taken simultaneously at many different stations. We had arranged a party to take the observations in the Pacific, they were to be made every 1 hour, and the Navy had agreed to co-operate by flying the personnel and instruments to the locations. But an automatic recorder was perfected by La Coste (the designer of the ‘gravy-meter’) and off he went alone. God bless American efficiency! Instead of fiying across the Pacific a party of us have charge of the observations for the Los Angeles region. We hope to get a lot of information.
I plan to leave the West for St. Louis at the end of July. I sail for Ireland with Frs. Kent and Keane on 7th September”.
(Fr. E. Kent has been acting as Assistant Chaplain in City Hospital, New York.)

Irish Province News 43rd Year No 1 1968

35 Lower Leeson Street
In the closing days of September we heard with sadness and shock the news that our Superior, Fr. Ingram, was seriously ill. He had gone to hospital with what appeared to be a slight but painful injury to the shoulder. Medical tests were soon to reveal that the cause of trouble was leukaemia in a form so acute that the end could not long be delayed. He died peacefully on the morning of Friday, 6th October. President de Valera was present at the solemn Mass of requiem, In the huge congregation representatives of the two Universities, of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, of the Royal Irish Academy and of other learned bodies were conspicuous. Father Tyndall was celebrant of the Mass, with Fathers O Catháin and Troddyn as deacon and subdeacon. For the Month's Mind there was a Mass in our community chapel, celebrated by Father Troddyn and attended by the Ingram family... father and mother, twin brother and three sisters. These met later the Fathers of the house and expressed their deep appreciation of this small act of courtesy and gratitude. Perhaps the finest tribute to Father Ingram's memory was paid by a colleague in U.C.D. who said “He was the kindest man I ever knew”.

Obituary :

Fr Richard Ingram SJ (1916-1967)

“Dick” Ingram was born in Belfast on 27th July, 1916, one of twin boys. His father, John Ingram, was an Inspector in the then Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, who later was largely responsible for drafting the legislation which brought the present Vocational and Technical Education system into effect in 1930. Dick's mother, Edith Kelly, came of a Galway family which settled in Dublin.
His family moved to Dublin, after a spell in Cork, about 1922 and the children were sent to a private school in Rathgar where the intelligent lady principal was so much ahead of her time that the boys began Algebra and Geometry at the age of 8 or 9. So Dick had an early introduction to mathematics. He and his twin brother, Jack, went on to school in Belvedere. There he played Rugby pluckily on the fringe of the teams in his age-class, but cricket was the game which really attracted him, and he was on the Senior XI in his final year, 1933. In class, the fact that he shone less at languages than at mathematics kept him away from the top until he distinguished himself by taking first place in Ireland in Physics in the Leaving Certificate. He entered the Society at Emo that year, on 7th September, 1933.
One might say that he remained a novice, in the best sense, all his life. He never lost the regularity of observance of spiritual duties, the habit of punctuality, the non-equivocating acceptance of obligation and a considerable measure of simplicity, which mar ked him from then on. A fellow-novice recalls something which may illustrate this. Perhaps because he was over-studious, or perhaps from his cricket-playing, Dick had badly hunched shoulders. The Master of Novices proposed a remedy, and for months Brother Ingram was to be seen at voice-production every morning walking around resolutely with a walking-stick tucked through his elbows and behind his back, to straighten him up. Many years afterwards he would say his Office in the garden at 35 Lower Leeson Street, walking as if the stick was still there.
For some years after 1935 experimental-science degrees were out of favour for Juniors, so - despite his Leaving Certificate distinction - Dick did Mathematics and Mathematical Physics at Rathfarnham. He had a remarkable power of application to his studies, which became increasingly apparent and he seemed to feel almost a special vocation, rather than a personal ambition, to do well it mathematics. In this he succeeded, taking First Honours in all his examinations and being one of four Juniors who were chosen to do fourth years in 1938-39. Meanwhile, in his first year he worked at the Seismograph Station with Mr. (now Fr.) Joe McAsey, and was in charge of it himself for the next three years. Earthquakes were never quite obedient to the Juniors' order of time, and plotting their epicentre at odd and even late hours often provided a welcome break in routine. .
In the B.Sc. examination of 1935 Dick was disappointed to be ousted from first place by a few marks by Sheila Power, afterwards a colleague of his at U.C.D. as Mrs. Tinney, but he made no mistake the following year when he took his M.Sc, and beat her and all-comers for the N.U.I. Travelling Studentship in Mathematics. As the Second World War had just begun he was allowed to postpone taking up the studentship, and went to Tullabeg for Philosophy. Along with one other philosopher Dick took up an option given him by the Provincial, Fr, Kieran, of doing the three-year course in two years, and the whole time-table was re-arranged to suit them. Thus they were faced with the formidable task of beginning right away with the third-year as well as the first-year subjects. Having successfully negotiated this crash-course, and securing a further postponement of his studentship, Dick went straight on to Milltown Park in 1941.
In a sense he was returning home, His parents lived at Dartry, half-way between Milltown and Rathfarnham, and from then until his death, save during his four years in America, he seldom missed a Sunday visit to them. Dick was no socialite, and these visits were quiet family affairs which he valued for the pleasure he knew they gave to his mother and father.
Dick took his theology studies and examinations with the serious thoroughness he had given to mathematics, and passed the Ad Gradum successfully in 1945. He had been ordained on 31st July 1944 by the Archbishop of Dublin. He did his tertianship at Rathfarnham, 1945-6, under Father Hugh Kelly.
The time had come to take up the long-postponed studentship. This was no easy matter, for a great deal of mathematics can be forgotten in seven years devoted to other demanding work. Not only that but, during those years, Mathematical studies had moved away from the Cambridge Maths. Tripos pattern little changed from the end of the nineteenth century to the time Dick did his M.Sc. Now, after the war, newer approaches were in vogue. Dick. was not deterred, and he was fortunate enough to find a friendly sponsor for his postgraduate studies at Johns Hopkins, America's foremost mathematical university, in Professor F. D. Murnaghan, a distinguished U.C.D. graduate. He worked for two years under other mathematicians of world-wide reputation, and obtained his Ph.D. degree with distinction in 1948.
During the following year he did further work at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. He appears to have enjoyed this year more than any other in his life, save perhaps that spent later as a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University, Washington. He lived at the rectory of a friendly pastor whom he helped with Church work on Sundays and with whom he played a regular game of golf. “We both ‘shot in the middle eighties’”, he said on his return home. It was towards the end of that year that he was to have been flown by the U.S. Air Force to be an observer of a test atomic explosion in the Pacific. The trip, to his disappointment, was cancelled at the last minute because an instrument was found to do the observations automatically.
With his very high-ranking degree Fr. Ingram was sought after by many Jesuit universities in the United States, and he could have had various appointments had he wished to “push” for them, but instead he returned to take up in 1949 what was at first a relatively unimportant lecturership at U.C.D. Indeed, although he passed through several grades of appointment there, it was not really until 1966, when he became Associate Professor of Mathematics in Modern Algebra, that he was given a status in keeping with his qualifications. In his formal application for that post he was able to mention, in an incomplete list, ten contributions of research papers to scientific journals, as well as membership of the Council of the Royal Irish Academy and the Fellowship of the Royal Astronomical Society.
From 1949 to 1963, save for a further year in America (1961 62), Fr. Ingram was stationed at Rathfarnham Castle. He made his Solemn Profession there on 2nd February, 1951. He took charge again of the Seismogaph Station, re-organising its work on a thoroughly scientific basis. As a result of contacts he made in the U.S. in 1961-62 he was offered additional equipment in that year, but he judged it better that this should go to a new station at Valentia which then took over the Rathfarnham work, as is more fully reported in the Province News for January 1963.
That number of the Province News also gives an account of a visit through the Iron Curtain to Jena in Eastern Germany which Fr. Ingram made for a European Seismological Congress in Summer 1962. He attended many such conferences as representative of University College, Dublin. It was typical of him that he regarded them not as sight-seeing holiday trips, nor yet as instructive through the papers heard, but as occasions for making “fruitful personal contacts in one's own field”, as he said on his return from the last one he was at, in Oxford, this Summer. As a result, indeed, he had correspondence with mathematicians in many parts of the world. His friendly manner as well as the fact that he could talk and write on their own high level of knowledge helped him to get on well with these men, often scientists of inter national repute. He was not unaware either that this is a form of Christian witness regarded as essential for the Church by Vatican Council documents. One such scientist, Dr. Cornelius Lanczos, now at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, writes of him in the Winter 1967 issue of Studies : “The premature death of this great scientist and much beloved human being left an irreparable void in the Irish intellectual scene”.
Dr. Lanczos's tribute appears at the end of a review of the book which occupied much of Fr. Ingram's time during the last five years, the monumental (672 page) Volume III of the Mathematical Papers of William Rowan Hamilton, which he edited with Professor Halberstam (of T.C.D. and Nottingham) for the Royal Irish Academy. Into this exacting work he put an immense amount of careful scholarship at a level which even the mathematically illiterate can infer from the review quoted. It was a consolation to Fr. Ingram's community that he had had the sati faction just before he fell fatally ill of distributing the first half dozen copies of the book to some of his professor friends.
How highly these friends and other colleagues regarded him is shown by a tribute published in the Sunday Press of 8th October, 1967 from the pen of Dr. J. R. Timoney, Professor in the Mathematical Faculty at U.C.D., reprinted in part at the end of this notice.
Fr. Ingram was mainly responsible for the foundation of the Irish Mathematical Teachers' Association in 1963 and he devoted himself with characteristic enthusiasm to making it the success it has become. A good deal of the work of preparing its regular News Letters was done, synonymously, by him.
Father Ingram was appointed Superior of 35 Lower Leeson Street in August 1963. It was not an ideal appointment. The office was a burden to him which his shyness especially made difficult. He felt responsibility too heavily : he was a poor conversationalist, and awkward in meeting strangers : he felt hurt if his authority seemed not to be respected or if his opinion was not asked for, even in small matters. These were defects of his qualities. His contacts with University Hall students illustrate both. On the one hand he was most thoughtful in arranging each year to, drive some of them out to Belfield for early morning maths lectures : on the other he was fussy about their tenure when they played in the handball alley at the back of 35. Again, although he was most anxious to be hospitable to visitors he found it difficult in practice to reconcile this with his own rather rigid attachment to an almost monastic way of life. But here, once more, his personal friendliness made up for the shyness which merely meant that nature had not made him the perfect “mine host”. He could and did win many hearts, even in occasional contacts. Thus, when the news of his death got abroad on Friday, October 6th, it was no matter for surprise to see the number of telegrams and letters of sympathy that began to arrive. Many of these were from priests, brothers and nuns for whom he had conducted seminars in the teaching of mathematics, and who now recalled above all his courtesy, patience and humility. But what was really astonishing was the number of neighbours in Leeson Street single-room dwellers for the most part, clerks, typists, shop-hands who stopped Fathers in the street to express their grief at the sudden passing of the gentle priest who had always a cheery good-morning or good evening for them as he hurried along. And nearly all of them said that they had only learned he was Superior of the house from the obituary notice in the newspapers.
Father Ingram's pupils praised him highly for the obvious care with which his lectures were prepared, but even more so for his accessibility and helpfulness out of class. He sometimes mystified them - as must happen with a difficult subject and a professor whose standards are high and exacting - and here perhaps there peeped out a little touch of natural playfulness which for the most part was kept controlled almost to the point of suppression. This was a pity, but for it the fault lay less with Dick than with a traditional system of formation less favoured today than formerly. It did not make him less a good man, a fine Jesuit or a holy priest.
Inevitably newspaper obituaries listed “Professor Ingram's” academic achievements. They remain on record. But those who lived close to him realised that between the status of priest and that of professor he esteemed the former faraway first. Those who served his morning Mass in Leeson Street could not fail to notice the care with which he vested for the altar, his scrupulous observance of the rubrics, the atmosphere of recollection that he radiated. And when in turn he served his priest-server's Mass there was a punctiliousness and decorum about him that would do credit to a novice. He said the Sunday Mass for the domestic staff and the greater part of his Saturday evening was spent in preparing the Sunday homily. Opportunities for Saturday confessions seldom came his way, but when they did he took them eagerly. The Director of Retreats could testify to the humble thankfulness of Dick on being assigned to give a retreat or triduum. His solicitude for the sick in nearby '96' or the Pembroke was just another characteristic of his priestliness. Late on Friday nights anyone who called into the chapel would become aware in the dim light of Dick doing the Stations of the Cross. His piety was never obtrusive but no one could fail to notice it. He could be seen at his rosary more than once a day, and his beads were seldom out of his hand during his last illness.
He liked simple fun at recreation, and the little light reading he indulged in was always of an uncomplicated kind. He enjoyed a good game of golf and almost to the day when he went to hospital to die he was a regular swimmer at the Forty-foot.
The fatal illness was mercifully brief, A shoulder sore all through the Summer did not improve under massage : in early September there was loss of weight and a general feeling of sickness and, finally, double-vision. On 20 September, having said Mass with difficulty, he went into hospital. Blood and other tests were made and meanwhile his condition deteriorated from day to day. A diagnosis of leukaemia was confirmed, and Fr. Shaw, (Spiritual Father) gave him the Last Sacraments on Saturday, 30 September. For the next few days Fr. Tyndall (Minister), visiting him regularly, found the Superior clear in mind only at intervals. Perhaps he did not fully realise how near he was to death. His one anxiety was about the effect his illness would have on his parents, both in their eighties. They saw him for the last time on Tuesday, October 3rd. Next evening he said, only half consciously, to one of his community : “I told them I was all right”. Under sedation all day on Thursday, he was deeply unconscious when two of the Fathers saw him and gave him a last blessing at about 8 o'clock. The special nurse who was attending him wrote afterwards :
“When I arrived on duty at 10 p.m, on Thursday night Father was in a coma and did not speak at all : he went deeper into unconsciousness towards Friday morning at 4.15 a.m. I had lighted the Blessed Candle and had said the prayers for the Dying, then the other nurses on duty joined me in saying the Rosary. Father seemed very peaceful in his last moments : at 4.30 a.m., without any struggle, he just gave a long sigh and his suffering had come to an end”.
It was the First Friday, 6th October. Father Ingram was just over 51 years of age.

REVEREND R. E. INGRAM - A TRIBUTE

By PROFESSOR JAMES RICHARD TIMONEY

It is an understatement to say that everyone connected with mathematics in Ireland, and many not directly involved in that discipline, has been deeply shocked by the almost sudden death of Fr. R. E. Ingram, S.J. The simple title “Fr. Ingram”, is used here for he was always referred to in this way during his life.
It is not necessary to recall the brilliant mathematical career and achievements of Fr. Ingram, for these have been dealt with in many places since his death. What is not so well known is the great human personality which was behind the kind and unassuming exterior which he presented to the outside world. He was kind, humble and always cheerful.
He was a simple man, without a trace of vanity, and although he had a very heavy work-load at all times, he seemed to have plenty of time to listen to all who approached him for help with their problems.
Not only his students will recall the kindly unhurried manner in which he dealt with their difficulties, but also many people who in recent years consulted him about unusual problems in computer programming.
The poser of a seemingly impossible problem who had given up hope, would receive, after a few days, a neatly written note containing an elegant solution.
Fr. Ingram was a natural priest, for such was his great humanity that although his deep simple piety was evident, one forgot that he was a priest. In religious discussion he was tolerant and open-minded but quietly firm. When he thought the occasion demanded it, he could be outspoken and bluntly critical.
The mathematics departments in University College, Dublin, and all interested in mathematics have lost a great and enthusiastic colleague by his untimely death. The best tribute his many friends can pay to his memory is to carry on his work in the many fields where he laboured.
The Sunday Press, 8th October, 1967.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1968

Obituary

Father Richard E Ingram SJ (OB 1933)

Father Richard Ingram SJ, died on October 6th, 1967 after a brief illness. At the time of his death he was Associate Professor of Mathematics at UCD and Superior (since 1964) of the Jesuit House of Studies in Leeson Street. Born in Belfast in 1916, he entered the Society in 1933 and soon gave evidence of outstanding ability. He obtained his BSc in Mathematical Science with first class honours in 1938 and won the MSc and travelling studentship in the following year. As the latter had to be postponed because of the war he resumed his ecclesiastical studies and was ordained in 1944,

Returning to Mathematics in 1946 he went to Johns Hopkins University, obtaining there the PhD degree with the highest distinction in 1948. For the following year he held a Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. In 1949 he was appointed Lecturer in the UCD Mathematics Dept and at the same time became Director of the Seismological Observatory at Rathfarnham Castle. In 1961-2 he acted as Visiting Professor of Mathematics at Georgetown University, Washington DC, and also did research work for the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. In 1966 he was appointed Associate Professor of Matematics (Modern Algebra) at UCD.

Among his other distinctions Fr Ingram was a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. As well as representing UCD at various conferences he contributed research papers to many mathematical journals and conducted Courses in Modern Mathematics for Secondary Teachers. On of his most important undertakings-in conjunction with Professor H Halbestam of Nottingham University was the editing of the third volume of the works of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, a very substantial scientific work which was published this summer.

Irvine, Charles, 1801-1843, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1470
  • Person
  • 13 October 1801-03 June 1843

Born: 13 October 1801, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 02 November 1821, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 19 September 1835, Stonyhurst, England
Final Vows: 15 August 1839
Died: 03 June 1843, at sea between Calcutta and Singapore - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education at Stonyhurst

After First Vows spent two years studying at Ferrara and Rome.
1826-1836 Taught at Stonyhurst, was made Prefect of Studies. He was Ordained there 19 September 1835 by Bishop Penswick.
1836-1842 Sent to Lowe House, St Helen’s
1842 Sent to Calcutta, and taught Natural Philosophy, Astronomy and Chemistry, in which he excelled at St Xavier’s College there.
He died while on a ship from Calcutta to Singapore 03/06/1843. he had recently been elected a member of the Royal Asiatic Society

Jackson, James, 1887-1956, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1472
  • Person
  • 24 January 1887-25 January 1956

Born: 24 January 1887, Sydney, Australia
Entered: 9 August 1907, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 15 August 1919, Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia
Died: 25 January 1956, Loyola College, Watsonia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Entered as Scholastic novice;
Came to Australia as Brother in 1913

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
James Jackson was educated at Richmond, St Patrick's College, and Xavier College. After some years in business, he entered the Society as a scholastic novice at Tullabeg, Ireland, 6 August 1907, but during his juniorate followed his original desire and became a brother.
He worked first as a secretary to the Irish provincial, 1911-13, and after domestic duties at Riverview and Loyola College, Greenwich, 1913-16, began a long period of his life at Xavier College, Kew, 1917-54. Here he keep the accounts, helped in the tuck shop, worked in the sacristy, and was pocket money dispenser. He retired to Loyola College, Watsonia, for the last few years of his life.
Jackson was a modest, gentle, retiring and observant religious. He showed an unconsciousness of self that was in harmony with great dignity. He was not abnormally meek, nor withdrawn, nor submissive. In fact his opinions on many subjects were decisively held, and others did not easily influence him. He was remarkably charitable, but this did not blind him to the weaknesses of human nature. He was never aggressive but could be firm when necessary, kind but not overindulgent. He lived a simple, humble life.
He was much appreciated at Xavier College, by staff and students alike. His account books were most neatly kept. He would attend Old Xaverian functions, but usually stayed in the background. He was not shy, but had a natural reserve. He had a genuine interest in people and was a friend to all. He enjoyed football and closely followed the Richmond club. While he never preached a sermon, his life was a testimony to the life of perfection that he had chosen.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - St Patrick’s College Melbourne student and then a clerk in commercial houses before entry

Jautard, Jean Clair, 1741-1821, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1474
  • Person
  • 29 May 1741-25 October 1821

Born: 29 May 1741, Bordeaux, France
Entered: 20 September 1756, Bordeaux, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)
Final Vows: 15 August 1821
Died: 25 October 1821, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, Co Kildare

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
He was a former pupil and penitent of Father O’Halloran
1763 A Regent in 4th year at La Rochelle (Arrêt de la Cour)
1791 Came to seek shelter in Ireland with his old Professor of Philosophy and Confessor, and was received with open arms by the ex-Jesuits and good Catholics of Dublin. When speaking of the Ancienne Compagnie, tears would fill his eyes. Every day he would recite the Litany of the Saints and Blessed of the Society, and shed abundant tears when pronouncing the hallowed names. He entered the Restored Society.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Claude Jautard 1756-1821
At Clongowes College in October 25th 1821 died Fr Claude Jautard, a Frenchman, born at Bordeaux in 1756. He was one of the few surviving Fathers of the Old Society, of which he could seldom speak without shedding tears.

Retiring from political storms, then raging in his native land, he had taken refuge in Ireland, 25 years before his death. At the time of the Restoration, he sought and obtained readmission. He was wont to recite daily a litany compiled from the names of Jesuit Saints and Beati, at the end of which he would ask himself whether his own lot would one day be among these saints in heaven, and on these occasions, he could not restrain himself from shedding copious floods of tears.

He was most faithful in observing common life in its minutest details, and even when far advanced in years and well nigh bent to the ground with age, he would creep out every day to the altar to offer the Holy Sacrifice.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
JAUTARD, CLODIUS, a native of France; but after living sometime at Clongowes, died there on the 25th ot October,1821.

◆ Fr Joseph McDonnell SJ Past and Present Notes :
16th February 1811 At the advance ages of 73, Father Betagh, PP of the St Michael Rosemary Lane Parish Dublin, Vicar General of the Dublin Archdiocese died. His death was looked upon as almost a national calamity. Shops and businesses were closed on the day of his funeral. His name and qualities were on the lips of everyone. He was an ex-Jesuit, the link between the Old and New Society in Ireland.

Among his many works was the foundation of two schools for boys : one a Classical school in Sall’s Court, the other a Night School in Skinner’s Row. One pupil received particular care - Peter Kenney - as he believed there might be great things to come from him in the future. “I have not long to be with you, but never fear, I’m rearing up a cock that will crow louder and sweeter for yopu than I ever did” he told his parishioners. Peter Kenney was to be “founder” of the restored Society in Ireland.

There were seventeen Jesuits in Ireland at the Suppression : John Ward, Clement Kelly, Edward Keating, John St Leger, Nicholas Barron, John Austin, Peter Berrill, James Moroney, Michael Cawood, Michael Fitzgerald, John Fullam, Paul Power, John Barron, Joseph O’Halloran, James Mulcaile, Richard O’Callaghan and Thomas Betagh. These men believed in the future restoration, and they husbanded their resources and succeeded in handing down to their successors a considerable sum of money, which had been saved by them.

A letter from the Acting General Father Thaddeus Brezozowski, dated St Petersburg 14/06/1806 was addressed to the only two survivors, Betagh and O’Callaghan. He thanked them for their work and their union with those in Russia, and suggested that the restoration was close at hand.

A letter from Nicholas Sewell, dated Stonyhurst 07/07/1809 to Betagh gives details of Irishmen being sent to Sicily for studies : Bartholomew Esmonde, Paul Ferley, Charles Aylmer, Robert St Leger, Edmund Cogan and James Butler. Peter Kenney and Matthew Gahan had preceded them. These were the foundation stones of the Restored Society.

Returning to Ireland, Kenney, Gahan and John Ryan took residence at No3 George’s Hill. Two years later, with the monies saved for them, Kenney bought Clongowes as a College for boys and a House of Studies for Jesuits. From a diary fragment of Aylmer, we learn that Kenney was Superior of the Irish Mission and Prefect of Studies, Aylmer was Minister, Claude Jautard, a survivor of the old Society in France was Spiritual Father, Butler was Professor of Moral and Dogmatic Theology, Ferley was professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Esmonde was Superior of Scholastics and they were joined by St Leger and William Dinan. Gahan was described as a Missioner at Francis St Dublin and Confessor to the Poor Clares and irish Sisters of Charity at Harold’s Cross and Summerhill. Ryan was a Missioner in St Paul’s, Arran Quay, Dublin. Among the Scholastics, Brothers and Masters were : Brothers Fraser, Levins, Connor, Bracken, Sherlock, Moran, Mullen and McGlade.

Trouble was not long coming. Protestants were upset that the Jesuits were in Ireland and sent a petition was sent to Parliament, suggesting that the Vow of Obedience to the Pope meant they could not have an Oath of Allegiance to the King. In addition, the expulsion of Jesuits from all of Europe had been a good thing. Kenney’s influence and diplomatic skills resulted in gaining support from Protestants in the locality of Clongowes, and a counter petition was presented by the Duke of Leinster on behalf of the Jesuits. This moment passed, but anto Jesuit feelings were mounting, such as in the Orange faction, and they managed to get an enquiry into the Jesuits and Peter Kenney and they appeared before the Irish Chief Secretary and Provy Council. Peter Kenney’s persuasive and oratorical skills won the day and the enquiry group said they were satisfied and impressed.

Over the years the Mission grew into a Province with Joseph Lentaigne as first Provincial in 1860. In 1885 the first outward undertaking was the setting up of an Irish Mission to Australia by Lentaigne and William Kelly, and this Mission grew exponentially from very humble beginnings.

Later the performance of the Jesuits in managing UCD with little or no money, and then outperforming what were known as the “Queen’s Colleges” forced the issue of injustice against Catholics in Ireland in the matter of University education. It is William Delaney who headed up the effort and create the National University of Ireland under endowment from the Government.from the Government.

Jeffcoat, James, 1866-1908, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1475
  • Person
  • 25 October 1866-26 June 1908

Born: 25 October 1866, Lemington, Northumberland, England
Entered: 29 August 1883, Milltown Park, Dublin / Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 30 July 1899, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1902
Died: 26 June 1908, St John’s Hospital, Limerick

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

by 1894 at Enghien Belgium (CAMP) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was brought up a Protestant and was a chorister at his local Church, but always showed a keen interest in Catholic ceremonies. The Organist at his local Church became a Catholic, and James aged 14 along with two other choristers followed suit. The Priest who received them wrote to the then HIB Provincial, Thomas Browne, recommending James for the Society, suggesting that it would be better for him to get away from England and home influences. James himself also wrote to the Provincial, and he in turn was very impressed by the letter. He eventually accepted him into the Society 29 August 1883.

After First Vows he studied at Milltown and Enghien, and then Theology at Milltown. In the meantime he also did a Regency at Clongowes, including being Minister for a year, and then was sent to Belvedere.
His health was always somewhat poor, and he suffered a good deal before his death at St John’s Hospital in Limerick 26 June 1908.
He was thought to be a very gentle, lovable and refined man, and always pious and edifying.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father James Jeffcoat 1866-1908
In Lemington England in 1866 was born James Jeffcoat of Protestant parents. As a boy he had a very religious turn of mind, very interested in Catholic ceremonies and practices. He was a chorister in the Protestant Church at Lemington. The organist of this church became a Catholic, and young Jeffcoat, then 14 years of age, followed him into the Church. The Catholic priest there wrote to Fr Thomas Brown, then Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society, highly recommending young Jeffcoat as a candidate for the Society. The boy himself wrote and made a very good and pleasing impression on Fr Brown. The young convert was received into the Irish Province in 1883. He was one of those who made their noviceship in Dromore.

As a scholastic he taught at Clongowes and Belvedere and later on was Minister at Clongowes. However, his health was always rather bad. He spent his last years in Mungret. He suffered very much before bhis death which took place at St John’s Hospital, Limerick on June 20th 1908, at the comparatively early age of 42.

He was a very gentle, lovable, refined man, pious and edifying always.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father James Jeffcoat (1866-1908)

An Englishman and a convert, entered the Society in 1883 and after higher studies at Enghien and Milltown Park, was ordained in Dublin in 1899. For a short period, he was assistant director of the Messenger office, at Belvedere College and had been minister in the same house and Clongowes, before he came to the Crescent in 1905. He died here on 26 June, 1908.

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