Showing 579 results

Born: 26 March 1644, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 15 October 1663, Paris, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: c 1676, La Flèche, France
Died: 26 June 1678, Irish College, Poitiers, France - Franciae Province (FRA)

1668-1669 Teaching Humanities at Hesdin in France
1672 At Compiègne College FRA MA Good talent. Teaching Grammar and Humanities
1675 At La Flèche studying Theology teaching Humanities and Rhetoric
1678 Tallier went from FRA to new Irish College at Poitiers AQUIT
1678 a Fr Ignatius Tailor dies at Poitiers 26 June 1678

Born: 02 August 1866, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1891, St Stanisalus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 1903, Naples, Italy
Final Vows: 02 February 1908, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 05 April 1920, St Mary’s, Miller St, Sydney, Australia

First World War chaplain

by 1895 at Enghien Belgium (CAMP) studying
by 1901 in San Luigi, Napoli-Posilipo, Italy (NAP) studying
by 1905 at St David’s, Mold, Wales (FRA) making Tertianship
Came to Australia 1913
by 1917 Military Chaplain : 15th Battalion, France

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
After Ordination he was appointed Master of Novices for a short period, then he was transferred to Gardiner St.
Later he was appointed Rector of Mungret, but only stayed in this job for a short while due to health reasons.
He was then sent to Australia where he worked in one of the North Sydney Parishes.
He volunteered to be a Chaplain and came to Europe with Australian troops.
When he returned to Australia his health broke down and he had an operation for a malignant tumour. He died shortly after the operation 05 April 1920. He was much loved.
(there is also a long homily preached by Father Tighe at St Mary’s, Sydney, on the topic of Revolution and War)

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Patrick Tighe was educated at Belvedere College, and graduated with a BA from the Royal University, Dublin. He entered the Society at Tullabeg, 7 September 1891, was a junior
preparing for public examinations at Milltown Park, 1893-94, and studied philosophy at Enghien, Champagne. He taught for a few years, 1896-1900, at Mungret, studied theology at Posillipo, Naples, 1900-04, and did tertianship at Mold, Wales, the following year.
He was a rural missioner, and involved in parish work in Limerick, 1905-10, except for a time as socius to the master of novices at Tullabeg, 1906-07. He gave retreats, stationed at Gardiner Street, Dublin, 1910-12, and for a short time was rector of Mungret, 1912-13. Because of ill health was sent to Australia.
He worked first at Lavender Bay, 1913-15, and then, 1915-17, was military chaplain at the No. 1 General Hospital, Heliopolis, and latter served with the 15th Battalion AIP in France and Belgium. He returned to Australia and to the parish of North Sydney after the war.
Tighe was a remarkable speaker, preacher and retreat-giver, but had a weak chest. The latter raised speculation as to how he was accepted into the military He had been suggested as master of novices in Australia, and probably performed the duties for the first few months in 1914, but because of ill health another Jesuit was chosen.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Patrick Tighe 1866-1920
Fr Patrick Tighe was born in Dublin of an old Catholic family. He received his early education at Belvedere and entered the Society in 1891.
His course complete, he was made Rector of Mungret, but he held this office only for a short period, owing to ill health. For the same reason he went to Australia where he worked in one of the Sydney parishes. On the outbreak of the First World War he came to Europe as a Chaplain to the Australian Forces. After his return to Australia, his health broke down completely, and he was operated on for a malignant tumour. `He died shortly after the operation on April 5th 1920. He had been Master of Novices in Australia for some time. He was a man who showed in all his exterior actions a spirit of deep recollection.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Patrick Tighe (1866-1920)

A native of Dublin, entered the Society in 1891. He made his higher studies at Enghien and Naples where he was ordained in 1903. He was appointed a member of the mission staff at the Crescent in 1905 and remained here until 1910. Father Tighe was later rector of Mungret for a brief period and served as chaplain with the Australian army in the first world war. His later years were spent on the Australian mission.

Born: 23 May 1916, Rathgar, Dublin
Entered: 30 September 1933, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 19 October 1947, Clonliffe College, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1951, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 27 November 1982, University Hall, Hatch Street Lower, Dublin

Older Brother of Billy Trodden - RIP 1984

by 1939 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying

◆ Irish Province News 58th Year No 2 1983 & ◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1984

Obituary

Fr Peter M Troddyn (1916-1933-1982)

Peter was born in Dublin on 23rd May. 1916. He was the eldest of six children, five boys and one girl. His father, a civil servant, was a native of Maghera in Derry; his mother, née Walsh, was from near Ballina in Mayo. All Peter's uncles, his mother's brothers, were boys at Clongowes in the early years of this century. His initial schooling was under the direction of a Miss Haynes, a devout Church of Ireland teacher, and her two Catholic assistants. This little school was about one hundred yards from Peter's home in Rathgar. There he met, for the first time, one who was to be a fellow-Jesuit and life long friend, the late Fr Dick Ingram.
For a few years after leaving Miss Haynes's Academy Peter continued his education under the Irish Christian Brothers in their schools in Synge street, then a penny tram-ride from his home. In the autumn of 1929 his parents made a decision which was to affect his whole life. Peter and his two brothers, Billy and Gerald, entered Belvedere College.
Athair Diarmuid Ó Laoghaire writes of Peter as a boy at Belvedere:
“While he did not play games, he was a faithful member of the Cycling Club and an enthusiastic, talented photographer. He was active, too, in the Debating Society and in An Cumann Gaelach, of which he was a founding member. One memory of him is abiding: from his arrival in the school, he was an inveterate “asker of questions”. In this the child was father of the man; to the end Peter's keen intellectual curiosity was a noted characteristic: Over the years I myself have frequently witnessed his struggles with abstruse mathematical, Theological and even historical problems. He was all his life a seeker and searcher for truth.
In February 1933, Peter's father died. This proved to be a turning point in Peter's life. It was decided that he should sit for the Civil Service Examinations for Junior Executive Grade and at the same time complete his Leaving Certificate Course at Belvedere. Shortly after his , 17th birthday he passed both examinations with honours. However, during the Summer months which followed, he made up his mind to become a Jesuit and he entered our Novitiate at St Mary's, Emo, on 30th September 1933. He was one of seven Belvederians to do so in that year.
His noviceship came to an end on 1st October, 1935, when he made his first vows. He spent the three following years in the Juniorate at Rathfarnham Castle. He graduated from the National University, receiving his BA (Hons) in Maths/Maths Physics. He was one of three to do so in 1938; the late Fr Dick Ingram and Fr Ted Collins of Hong Kong made up that distinguished trio.
While in the judgement of his contemporaries he would have benefited from further studies at the University, it was decided that he should start his philosophy course at the French House in Jersey. Here he spent one golden year, a year he often spoke of with affectionate appreciation. Everything appealed to him, the stimulating lectures of the Professors, the congenial company of the French scholastics, the climate, the diet and the all-round liberating régime. Here too, was kindled his love for France and things French. In later years he would return to France to carry on, for over twenty years, a hidden apostolate in a Paris suburb.
The outbreak of the Second World War on 3rd September, 1939, brought about the recall of Peter and his four fellow Irish Scholastics to Tullabeg. Philosophy as an academic discipline appealed to him and he excelled in it. And, as in the he played a full and useful part in all the activities of his fellow philosophers', games apart.
For two years, from 1941, he taught mathematics in Belvedere, edited the Belvederian and presided over the Senior Debating Society. He also obtained his Higher Diploma in Education. Then he spent one year at the Crescent teaching and prefecting and refereeing rugby matches for the very young boys! In addition, he was in charge of the new school hall, where his practical knowledge of electricity was a decided asset! In both Colleges he won the hearts of many a youth by his patience and his kindly interest in their boyish affairs.
He arrived in Milltown Park in Autumn of 1944 to commence his studies. Here his health began to deteriorate. He was rushed to hospital and underwent major surgery on 29th July, the eve of the Ordination Day 1947. He recovered slowly and was ordained privately at Clonliffe College by the late Archbishop John C. McQuaid on 19th October, 1947. He offered his first Mass in the Convent Chapel attached to Our Lady's Hospice, Harold's Cross.
But illness dogged him. He was unable to complete his Theology and retired to do light work in 35, Lower Leeson Street, and to Clongowes in the summer term of 1949. In the autumn of . that year he began his Tertianship. This final year of formation proved a trial for him, but he persevered until ill health forced him to retire once more, this time to Milltown Park where he took his final examinations successfully just before Christmas 1950.
Fr Peter arrived as a member of the Community attached to St Francis Xavier's church, Gardiner Street, in January 1951. On 15th August of that year Peter, he made his final profession. During the next eleven years Peter held posts of varying importance. He was for a time Assistant to the Province Treasurer, he preached frequently in the Church and during the Novena of Grace and always to appreciative audiences. Fr Daniel Shields takes up the story: “I was in the St Francis Xavier Community during the years when Fr Peter was in charge of the building of the present St Francis Xavier Hall. He was faced with many problems, not least, the financial problem, How was he to raise the large sums required to meet not only the building costs, but also the cost of installing modern theatre and stage equipment, seating, etc. Fr Peter with the expertise of a Rothschild banker came to the rescue. He devised a system of weekly “draws” which were so attractive and so widely supported, that the money so raised financed the entire undertaking. When the Hall was completed, Fr Peter recruited a group of voluntary helpers. These included skilled carpenters, painters, engineers, light and or sound experts and even a tailor! Fr Peter became the friend and Father of each. They came to him with all their problems, not least their religious problems. It is unbelievable the trouble he took in finding real solutions to a wide variety of such problems.
Fr Peter then turned is attention to providing accommodation for the members of the Pioneer Club, who had formerly been housed in the original Fr Cullen's Pioneer Hall in Sherrard street. He purchased a fine Georgian house on the East side of Mountjoy Square and had the entire building renovated, decorated and equipped to a high standard, The proceeds of his Weekly Draws' helped to finance this project also. The St Francis Xavier Hall and the Pioneer Club - Fr Cullen House - stand today }s monuments to Peter's financial genius, to his foresight and above all to his loyalty to his fellow co-operators and friends.
An tAthair Proinsias 0 Fionnagáin re- calls another activity of Peter's which, as has been mentioned, started in 1951: 'He undertook annually pastoral work at Gonesse, a parish north of Paris. There he won the trust and the approval of the Curé who invited him back year after year down to 1969. For two years he continued his summer pilgrimage, first at Milly-la-Forêt and then in Brittany, whither the Curé, for reasons of health, had retired. For the next three years, Fr Peter was too occupied with editorial problems to undertake any trips abroad. During his own time in France, Fr Frank met some of Peter's former fellow philosophers from his Jersey days. They all spoke of his gifts of mind and heart.
On the Status, 1962, Fr Peter found himself transferred to Clongowes as a teacher of Maths. He was then in his forty-seventh year, had been out of the classroom for seventeen years and was in very indifferent health. It proved to be a mistake. After two years it was my pleasure to welcome him as a member of the Jesuit team then manning the young College of Industrial Relations. He stayed with us until the Spring of 1966 when at the request of his old friend, Fr R Burke-Savage, he joined the Leeson Street Community as “Collaborator in Studies”. Incidentally, his religious Superior was none other than his erst- while companion at Miss Haynes's Academy forty years before - the late Fr Dick Ingram.
An tAthair Proinsias resumes: On his appointment in 1967 to the editorship of Studies - it might have been thought that he had neither sufficient experience nor. qualifications for that important position. His Provincial, Fr Brendan Barry, how ever, judged him to be eminently qualified and how splendidly justified was Fr Barry's judgement!
Peter proved to be an editor to the manor born. His was a fastidious sense of good English. The Autumn issue of Studies, 1968, left no doubt as to the accuracy of his judgement concerning the changes taking place in Ireland in the euphoria of the prosperous 'sixties. “Post-Primary education, now and in the future - A Symposium” - proved a brilliant success. Over 5,000 copies of this issue were sold. On this occasion Fr Peter showed himself to be a peritus among the periti.
For six more years, Studies under Peter's editorship maintained the highest standards of readable scholarship. In deed, the very excellence of succeeding issues concealed the nagging financial problems and worries and the wretched health that continued to affect the conscientious Editor. He continued the unequal struggle until the Spring of 1974, when he felt obliged to lay down his pen and vacate the Editor's chair.
His association with University Hall and with its students, which had begun in the Spring of 1966, now continued, Fr Jack Brennan writes: ‘Peter was happy in the Hall ... Surprisingly, perhaps, in such a private person, he enjoyed time spent with the students. He was extremely patient in listening to them. His advice was sure and often took pragmatic turns that sprang from his wide knowledge of fields in which they were concerned. His tolerance was of a high degree, and, occasionally he would inter cede in a caring way on behalf of a student who was in 'hot water'. For him the faults or failings of another were never the whole story. His sense of loyalty - often involving a considerable amount of work on his part - towards the students as well as towards his family being able to share some of his good and friends was striking. Confidentiality was also a key quality of his.
One very close to him all his life writes: “A thing that always struck me about Peter was his kindness to the domestic staff in the Houses in which he lived. I used to notice this whenever I came to visit him. They would speak of him very appreciatively and tell me about the many good turns he did them”. Fr Shields concurs with this: “The staff of St Francis Xavier's Hall looked on Peter as their friend. And when he left the Hall, they were lonely and upset, Meeting me, they would say, ‘Father, when is Fr Troddyn coming back?’" Such touching appreciation needs no comment. Nor did this characteristic escape Fr Jack Brennan's observation; “The domestic staff at the Hall held Fr Peter in high regard; they were glad to be able to attend to his simple wants with real affection”
There is one virtue which this very private person could not conceal from those few who knew him intimately. Peter was a genuinely humble man - a man who, with St Paul “in labours, in knowledge, in long suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Spirit, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth", showed himself a true Minister of God'. He had to carry the cross of poor health for most of his working life with the humiliations, misunderstandings and frustrations attached to it. His judgements and opinions did not always receive the consideration they deserved. Apart from St Francis Xavier's Hall and Fr Cullen House, his plans and dreams were seldom actualised. These apparent “failures' provided him with opportunities for the practice of humility and consequent self effacement. He was always more ready to blame himself than to question the wisdom of others.
Some final thoughts occur to me. Personal friendships meant a great deal to him, not for what he himself could get abut for the joy he felt at being able to share some of his good his advice or practical knowledge with someone, however lowly, in need. This must have helped him to a more correct appreciation of God's gifts to him self and of his duty as a Christian to help other members of the Body of Christ.
From his many serious illnesses, Peter grew in self knowledge and also in awareness of the care which the sick and convalescent needed. He demanded high standards of care for anyone ill and showed his concern and displeasure if he thought that those who were sick were neglected in even the smallest way. His genuine concern was shown clearly in daily visits, in all weathers, for three and a-half years until her death, to an aged aunt in Our Lady's Hospice. The staff and other patients admired his faithful kindness and concern for her welfare.
If I or other contributors to this obituary have said very little about Peter the Jesuit, it is because we have no reason to stress what was obvious to us all. As has been well said: “Peter was a Jesuit in the authentic lgnatian mould”. Ever an avid reader, he kept in touch with “Jesuitica” and like so many of his generation found it difficult to accept some manifestations of the new “pluralism”.
May the good Lord, who is gentle and lowly in heart, welcome Peter into the new home prepared with exquisite care for all who love and serve his heavenly Father.
Edmond Kent SJ

Born: 03 October 1610, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 30 September 1631, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: c 1639, Avignon, France
Final Vows: 06 February 1653
Died: 03 May 1666, Cork City, County Cork

Parents Robert and Ellen Sarsfield
Studied Humanities in Ireland and Philosophy at Douai
1639 At Avignon College Age 28 Soc 8 teaching Grammar and studying Theology
1649 Given at Cork
1650 CAT DOB 1607 Cork. Came to Mission 1640, Prof of 4 Vows. Taught Humanities. Superior of Residence for 2 years. Preacher and now a Missioner.
1666 CAT Is in Connaught, then living near Cork. Consultor of the Mission. Giving Missions, administering the Sacraments, Catechising and Preaching. 28 years on the Mission

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Brother of Dominic, Viscount of Limerick, whose descendant is the Spanish Marquis de Canada (cf Louis Power Esq below)

He studied Humanities and two years Philosophy and four Theology at Avignon before Ent 30 September 1631. He knew Irish, English, French and Latin.
1636 Prefect of the Conference and Confessor at Irish College Seville 07 February 1636
1640 Sent to Ireland. Taught Humanities for five years, was a Preacher and Confessor for eight, Superior of Waterford Residence for two, and a Missioner in Cork for 10 (HIB Catalogue 1650 - ARSI)
Mercure Verdier - Visitor to Irish Mission - describes him as an eminent Preacher, very prudent, learned and zealous in maintaining religious discipline. He was alive in Ireland 1659 (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
1666 He was Superior in Waterford, though living in Cork and engaged on the Mission there (HIB Catalogue 1666 - ARSI) Eloquent, learned and zealous.

Louis Power Esq writes from Gibraltar :
There is a family here of Irish descent, of the name Terry. Different members of it emigrated to Spain from about the date of the non-fulfilment of the Treaty of Limerick, by iniquitous Government of William II, to about the middle of the last century. One of the family, Irish born, came as Minister to London from the Spanish Court, about the later end of the reign of Philip V (the first Bourbon monarch). He was known as the Marquis de la Canada. Of this family two were Fathers of the Society of Jesus, and one died during the siege of Limerick. From the same father as this priest descend my friends whose pedigree I have been allowed to examine - it is a translation of the original English, obtained from the Herald’s Office Dublin, which the member of the family who emigrated to Spain towards between 1755 to 1765 brought with him to Malaga. Its genuineness is beyond dispute...
This family was connected with the Villiers family (of the famous Dukes of Buckingham), though Sarah Villiers, sister of the Duke, who married into the Sarsfield (the French-Irish Brigade Earl of Lucan), and had large estates near Cork, some of which now belong to the Stackpoole family.
1505-1511, 1511-1519 and 1525, William, Edward, Patrick, David and William Terry respectively Governors of Cork; 1514 and 1529 Edmund and Patrick Terry were chief magistrates in Cork, and 1538-1588 and 1591, William, Richard, Dominic, Richard, William, Stephen, Edmund and David were all respectively Sherriffs of Cork. 1604-1625 Edmund, David, Dominic, David, Patrick, William and David were Mayor of Cork.
William, the Sherriff in 1554 was descended from Richard de Terry, who temp. Henry II, married Elizabeth, sister of the Earl of Desmond. This William was one of the twenty-four notables who on 18/07/1574 signed a declaration against Elizabeth I, to sustain the Catholic religion, pledging themselves, in spite of risk and forfeiture to carry out their engagement.
Dominic Terry died in defence of Limerick against the rebel Parliament. He has a brother (not named in the genealogical table) a Priest SJ, who suffered for the faith along with Galfrido Galway (Godfrey Galway) a Catholic gentleman. This Father appears also to have been at the time on King Charles I side in Limerick. All its members have suffered much for the faith and the Stuarts.
There are now in Spain, two branches of this family left, one represented by the Marquis de Canada, who signs his name Tirry, instead of Terry, and another, a wealthy banker in Cadiz.

◆ Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Robert and Elinor née Sarsfield
Had studied Philosophy at Douai before Ent 30 September 1631 Tournai
1633-1635 After First Vows he remained in Tournai to complete his Philosophy.
1635-1639 He was thens sent to Avignon (LUGD) for Theology and was ordained there c 1639
1639-1647 Sent to Ireland he taught school at Cork and taught School, Preached and administered the Sacraments for about six or seven years.
1647-1649 Superior at Waterford Residence and then deposed by William Malone the Mission Superior eighteen months later, citing poor health and scrupulosity as reasons. The Visitor Mercure Verdier strongly disapproved of Malone's action, saying in his 1649 Report, that Tyrry had been deposed because he had taken the Nuncio’s part in observing the interdict, and having preached freely in defence of the Nuncio. By the time Verdier made his Visitation, Tyrry was already back in Cork..
1649 Sent back to Cork and worked in and around the city during all the “Commonwealth” regime. At the Restoration the General ordered the Superior of the Mission to assign a companion to Father Tyrry to share his labours. He died in Cork 03 May 1666

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
TYRER, FRANCIS At the age of 15 he joined the Society, After filling the office of Superior at Waterford, he was stationed at Cork, where Pere Verdier met him early in 1649. He reports him to be an eminent Preacher, very prudent and learned, and zealous for religious discipline. He was living in Ireland, on the 10th of June, 1659; but after that date I can trace him no longer.

Born: 22 June 1701, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 09 November 1718, Bordeaux, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)
Ordained: 1731, Poitiers, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1736, Dublin
Died: 10 January 1762, Irish College, Poitiers, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)

Alias Nevill

Grandnephew of John Ussher - RIP 1698

Family had provided two Bishops in Ireland : Anglican Bishop Henry Ussher and Anglican Primate James Ussher

1720 First Vows 11 November 1720 at Pau AQUIT
1720-1723 Philosophy and Theology in AQUIT
1727 At Luçon Seminary under the name of “Neville” teaching Grammar, Humanities and Rhetoric
1727-1732 At Irish College Poitiers studying Theology and in charge of Boarders
1732-1733 Tertianship at Marennes AQUIT
1734-1745 Stephe Neville (vere Usher) is on Irish Mission. Usher is mentioned in Richard Kirwan’s letters (1750-1754) as at Poitiers. He also metions F Reilly and F Cahill as connected with that house.
1745-1751 Rector at Irish College Poitiers
1752 Rector At Irish College Rome
1755-1762 Rector Irish College Poitiers with Thomas Brennan Minister, Thomas Gorman Operarius and William Nowlan Temp Coadjutor

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Three Entries (1&2) Stephen Ussher; (3) Stephen Nevill

(1&2) Stephen Ussher
DOB Ireland; Ent c 1739 Rome or AQUIT (in pen); RIP 1762

1752 In Rome having come 16 October 1751 (in pen)

“Arret de la Cour” says : “Etienne Ussher of the Irish College, Poitiers, died February 10, 1762”

(1) Stephen Nevill
DOB probably Cork; Ent c 1720 AQUIT;

1728 AT Irish College Poitiers in 2nd year Divinity. (CAT of Irish College Poitiers)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
DOB 22 June 1701 Dublin; Ent 09/11/1718 Bordeaux; Ord 1731 Poitiers; RIP 10/01/1762 Poitiers

Son of Patrick and Elizabeth née Creagh (or Nulty?), and grandnephew of John

He had a classical education at Irish College Poitiers before Ent 09 November 1718 Bordeaux

1720-1733 After First Vows he was sent for studies to Pau. He then was sent for four years Regency to AQUIT Colleges, after which he was sent to Grand Collège Poitiers for Theology, and he was Ordained there 1731.
1733-1746 He was sent to Ireland and the Dublin Residence, becoming the Superior there in 1736. During this time he also served as a Curate at Mary's Lane Chapel.
1746-1751 Sent as Rector to Irish College Poitiers
1751-1754 Rector of Irish College Rome being replaced 14 June 1754
1754 Sent back to Poitiers to act as Rector again. He died in Office a few weeks before the dispersal of the community due to the dissolving of the Society in France 10 January 1762

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
USHER, STEPHEN. With regret I have to admit that I have barely recovered his name.

Born: 1583, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 24 October 1601, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 18 October 1609, Louvain, Belgium
Final Vows: 22 January 1617
Died: 13 September 1644, University of Graz, Graz, Austria - Austriacae Province (ASR)

Son of Thomas and his 1st wife Mary née Walsh. Youngest Brother of Walter and Michael. Half Brother of Luke and Thomas. 1st Cousin of Ambrose and Luke OFM

Parents Thomas and Mary Walsh
Had studied Humanities in Ireland and at Douai, and Philosophy at Douai - MA
1609 At Maastricht FLAN-BEL teaching Poetry and Rhetoric
1611 At Louvain in 3rd year Theology
1617 Not in 1615 CAT but by 1617 in Belgium Age 33 Soc 15
1625 At Louvain with John Bollandus - a talent for teaching Latin, Scholastic and Moral Theology, Philosophy and also “conversandi”.
1630-1639 At St Clement College Prague. Professor of Theology and “Decanus”. President of “Casum Domesticorum et Congregationis Majoris” By 1632 is Chancellor of University, Consultor of the Provincial and rector. Has been teacher of Philosophy and Theology and has been Prefect of the Lowew and Higher Schools. Also a Confessor in the Church and Catechist. “Remarkable for his talent and judgement and experience in business and is proficient in letters. He has the talent to be Chancellor, Spiritual Father and Preside over Cases of Conscience”.
“A pity while Chancellor he didn’t gather gather round him some of the talented Waterford Jesuits”
In Waterford College there is a copy of “Lessius ad usum Petri Wadingi SJ Waterford”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Studied Humanities for seven years in Ireland and then at Douai graduating MA
Ent 24 October 1601 by FLAN Provincial Oliveraeus but began his Noviceship 28/11/1601 at Tournai (Tournay Diaries MSS, “Archives de l’État, Brussels n 1016, fol 418)
Professor of Theology at Louvain, Antwerp, Prague and Graz; Chancellor of two Universities at Prague; Writer; A very holy man;
Published a work “De Filii Dei Incarnatione opus” (cf de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ” for his works)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Thomas and his 1st wife Mary née Walsh. Youngest Brother of Walter and Michael. Half Brother of Luke and Thomas. 1st Cousin of Ambrose and Luke OFM
Had studied Classics in Ireland and Belgium graduating MA at Douai before Ent 24 October 1601 Tournai.
1603-1608 After First Vows in Liège, he revised some studies there and was sent on Regency to Maastricht (1604) teaching Poetry and Rhetoric.
1608-1612 He was sent to Louvain for Theology and was Ordained there 18 October 1609
1612-1621 Once he had finished his formation he was sent to Antwerp to teach Controversial Theology. For a time at Antwerp he was also Prefect of Studies.
1621-1629 Sent to teach Dogmatic Theology at Louvain - and graduated DD in 1626
1629-1631 He was transcribed from Flanders to Bohemia. His scholarly reputation had preceded him, and in addition to the Chair of Dogmatic Theology at the University of Prague he was honoured by being elected Chancellor.
1631-1641 On the occupation of Prague by the Lutherans, 1631, he fled with the clergy and nobles to Olmütz (Olomouc). His stay was short here, and thanks to the recovery of Prague by Wallenstein and he was back at his post in May 1632. Because of controversy between the Emperor and the Archbishop of Prague over the rights of the Jesuit controlled University, Father Wadding was withdrawn by the General from Prague in the Summer of 1641.
1641 Sent to University of Graz to teach Canon Law, and died there 13 September 1644
Many appeals were made to the General for his transfer to Ireland, even as late as 1641, but each appeal resulted in the General deciding that his gifts were more valuable in Europe.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Wadding, Peter
by David Murphy

Wadding, Peter (1583–1644), Jesuit priest, theologian, and chancellor of the University of Prague (1629–41), was born in July 1583 in Waterford, son of Thomas Wadding and Mary Wadding (née Walsh). On entering the Society of Jesus in 1601 he recorded that both of his parents were of the catholic nobility. Five of his brothers also became Jesuits, and his cousins included Fr Luke Wadding (qv), Archbishop Thomas Walsh (qv) of Cashel, and Bishop Nicholas French (qv) of Ferns. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that he chose a priestly career, and after initial schooling in Ireland he travelled to Douai (1587), where he studied classics and philosophy, graduating MA. On 24 October 1601 he entered the Jesuit noviciate at Tournai, aged 18. Further studies in philosophy, rhetoric, and theology followed, and in October 1609 he was ordained priest.

Completing his theological studies at Louvain, he seemed destined to return to Ireland. Hugh O'Neill (qv), the exiled earl of Tyrone, had tried to secure his services for the Irish mission but Wadding's superiors wished to keep him in the Low Countries. He therefore remained there, taught theology at Louvain, and was also a professor of philosophy at the Jesuit college in Utrecht from 1615. One of his students at Utrecht was John van Bolland, founder of the scholarly Bollandist movement in the Society of Jesus. Around 1616 Wadding took up the chair of moral theology at the Jesuit college in Antwerp. In 1620 he engaged in a series of private discussions with Simon Bischop or Episcopius, a leader of the Arminians, in the hope of converting him to catholicism. He later sent Bischop two letters (published after his death), one on the rule of the faith, the other on the worship of images. In June 1621 he chaired a public theological debate where the Irish Jesuit, Peter Darcy, defended his theses on grace and predestination.

In 1629 he succeeded Fr Adam Tanner, SJ, one of the most renowned Jesuit theologians of the period, as professor of theology and chancellor of the University of Prague. He was immediately drawn into the controversy surrounding the concord signed between the pope and Ferdinand II, the Contractus Salis. In 1629 he replied to the attacks on the papacy and the Society of Jesus in an anonymous pamphlet, Disceptatio placida. In 1630 he was appointed to the archiepiscopal consistorium and was declared consistorial theologian, the first Jesuit to be appointed to that position in Bohemia. He lived in Prague during the height of the thirty years war and, after the defeat of the catholic army at Breitenfeld (1631), was forced to flee to Olmutz (Olomouc) in Moravia, where he served briefly as chancellor of the university, returning to Prague in 1632. In 1633 he was appointed as a member of the third provincial congregation of the Jesuit province of Bohemia.

His period at Prague was somewhat overshadowed by a long-running controversy with the archbishop of the city, Count Ernest Adalbert von Harrach. Prague initially had two universities, the Jesuit University and the Carolina, the old university founded by Charles IV in 1345. These had been amalgamated in 1623 by Ferdinand II and were now known as the Carolo-Ferdinandea. Under Ferdinand's decree, it was stipulated that the rector of the Jesuit college should also be the chancellor of the combined universities. Archbishop von Harrach disputed this, maintaining that he should be chancellor, and the controversy dragged on for years. The noted pamphleteer Gaspar Schopp published an anonymous piece attacking the Jesuit fathers. In 1634 Wadding replied with his Brevis refutatio calumniarum quas Collegio Societatis Jesu Pragensi etc. In this publication he outlined the history of the controversy and condemned Schopp for his attack on the Jesuits. Schopp's work was condemned in Rome and burned by the public hangman in Madrid, and he was later expelled from Austrian and Roman soil. (The controversy over the combined colleges was not finally resolved until Ferdinand III took an active part in deciding the issue.)

Wadding later published a major theological work on the subject of the Incarnation, Tractatus de Incarnatione (Antwerp, 1634). In 1637 he preached the sermon at the funeral obsequies for Ferdinand II in the Metropolitan Church in Prague. He later presented Ferdinand III with an address of welcome, published as Oratio Pragae dicta in Ferdinandi III (1637).

In July 1641, with the controversy over the chancellorship of Prague still raging, he was ordered by his superiors to go to Gratz, where he taught canon law. He published his second theological work entitled De contractibus in 1644. He died in Gratz 13 September 1644. The letters that he had sent to Bischop were still extant, and were later published in Dutch as Twee brieven van den gelerden Peter Wading in sijn leven Jesuit tot Antwerpen (Amsterdam, 1649). Other works, which were published using a pseudonym, were Carmina varia et alia spectantia ad disciplinas humaniores and Tractatus aliquot contra haereticos. The universities at Prague and Gratz (in Styria, Austria) later commissioned portraits of him. There is a collection of his papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which includes over thirty manuscript treatises.

Webb; Allibone; Edmund Hogan, SJ, Distinguished Irishmen of the sixteenth century (1894); id., ‘Worthies of Waterford and Tipperary: 2 – Father Peter Wadding', Waterford Arch. Soc. Jn., iii, 2 (1897), 183–201; Paul O'Dea, SJ, ‘Father Peter Wadding, SJ: chancellor of the University of Prague 1629–1641’, Studies, xxx (Sept. 1941), 337–48; Louis McRedmond, To the greater glory: a history of the Irish Jesuits (1991); information from Fergus O'Donoghue, SJ, Jesuit archives, Dublin

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
WADDING, PETER, S.T.D. born in Waterford, A.D. 1580; at the age of 21 entered the Novitiate at Tournay. Several Universities were proud of numbering him amongst their Professors; but his prodigious learning was eclipsed by the splendour of his virtues. He died at Gratz on the 13th of September, 1644.
Under a borrowed name he published “Carmina Varia”, “Tractatus aliquot contra Hereticos”,
Under his own name he wrote a Latin Treatise to refute the Pamphlet entitled “Flagellum Jesuiticum” 4to. Nigrae, 1634, “Tractatus de Incarnatione”. 4to. Antwerp, 1636, pp. 656.
Also a Latin Oration at the inauguration of Ferdinand III at Prague, in 1636.
His Treatise, “De Contractibus”, 4to, was printed at Gratz, the year after his death

Born: 1582, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 20 April 1599, Santiago de Compostella, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1607, Valladolid, Spain
Final Vows: 06 April 1614
Died: 13 March 1644, Waterford Residence, Waterford City, County Waterford

Educated at Irish College Douai, studying Philosophy and Theology
1606-1607 At Valladolid College Age 23 Soc 7 (Rector was Luis de la Puente, and William Morgan was also there)
1611 At Salamanca Professor of Arts Age 30 Soc 12
1614 At Logroño College Age 38 Soc 16
1617 “Valesius” in CAST age 35 Soc 19
1619 At Burgos CAST Age 38 Soc 20
1625 At Ávila College Age 42 Soc 24. professor of Philosophy and Preacher in Spain
1637 Good in all - fit to preach or be Superior
A letter from Richard Walsh SJ to Fr Luke Wadding November 1642 may be seen in Franciscan MS p78 (says he was Soc 24)
Was he a fellow novice of Dominic Collins?

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica” :
Brother of Dr Thomas Walshe, Archbishop of Cashel, and was born at the time when his parents were imprisoned for the faith
1617 In CAST and a distinguished Preacher (Irish Ecclesiastical Record August 1874)
He is honourably mentioned in a letter from James Comerford, dated Madrid 21 September 1607 (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
Father St Leger says he was celebrated as a Preacher in Spain and Ireland

Note from Bl Dominic Collins Entry
About a year after he arrived in Spain, he met Fr Thomas White, Rector of Salamanca, and by his advice entered the Society. Two of his fellow novices were Richard Walsh and John Lee

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Robert and Anastatia née Strong. Elder Brother of Archbishop Thomas Walshe of Cashel
1601-1607 After First Vows he was sent for Philosophy to Compostella and then for Theology to St Ambrose, Valladolid where he was Ordained 1607
1607-1613 After his studies he was sent to teach Philosophy at the Royal College Salamanca.
1613-1623 It was noticed that he possessed a special aptitude for preaching and he was now assigned to that ministry which he exercised successively at Logroño, Burgos, Pamplona and Ávila. He became known to court circles but was warned by the General that his proper vocation was teaching or preaching and not political intervention for his country.
In 1624/25, Walshe corresponded with the celebrated Franciscan, Luke Wadding whom he asked to use his influence to have him received into the Franciscan Order where he could help his country, something he could not do in the Society. Wadding's replies letters Walshe have not survived, nor is there any evidence that Wadding betrayed to the General the confidences of Walsh but he could quite honourably have suggested to the General that Spain was no place for the Waterford Jesuit.
1626 Sent to Ireland and Waterford and became Superior of the Residence in 1641, and died in Office 13 March 1644

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
WALSH, RICHARD. In a letter of F. James Quemerford, dated Madrid, the 28th of September, 1607, I read “F. Richard Walsh hath ended his studies, and is gone to his third Probation : it is likely he shall begin a course of Philosophie in the Seminarie of Salamanca, if the Spaniards prevaile not, that procured to have him for themselves. The Englishe of Valladolid hath sought him, and many others cast an eye upon him. I hope such as need him most, and unto whom he may doe the greater good, shall have him. He was liken to go with F. Padilla to Rome, and he was appointed for it; but the Spaniards fearing our F. Generall, if he did once see him, could not suffer him to com back to Spaine, stayed him”. I meet with this Father at Waterford in April, 1642, in a declining and hopeless state of health.

Born: 31 August 1617, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 16 May 1639, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 05 April 1645, Douai, France
Died: 04 June 1650, County Waterford - described as a Martyr of Charity

Parents John and Isabelle (Esmay) Browne.
Studied Grammar and Humanities 6 years, Philosophy 2 years under Jesuits (Have Cavell was his Prof)
Admitted to Soc by Fr Nugent (Provincial of Ireland) 1636
1639 At Theology in Belgium 15 May 1639
1642 At Lille Repeats
1645 Ordained and in 3rd year Theology at Douai
1649 Not in Catalogue

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1649 In Waterford ; “Valde ingeniosus et animi valde candidi”. Mercure Verdier, Visitor to the Irish Mission, in his Report to the General on the Irish Mission 1641-1650, describes him as being aged 33, of good abilities, perfect candour, and a lover of religious discipline.
1650 He died a "Martyr of Charity’, attending the plague-stricken in Waterford, where the pestilence was raging. (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS). His fellow labourer, George Dillon survived him but two months.
“Of great holiness, learning and ability; converted many heretics to the faith; was very dear to the citizens of Waterford” (Father Yong and Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of John and Ismaele née Browne
Had studied Humanities with the Jesuits in Dublin, and then Philosophy with Henry MacCavell before Ent 16 May 1639 Tournai
1641-1646 After First Vows he completed his Philosophy at Lille and then was sent to Douai for Theology where he was Ordained 05 April 1645
1646 Sent to Ireland and Waterford where he was teaching. Mercure Verdier, in his 1649 Report to the General described him as a man of exemplary religious observance. He died at Waterford 04 June 1650, a martyr of charity in the service of the plague-stricken

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
WALSH, JAMES, was living at Waterford in 1649. Pere Verdier describes him as being 33 years of age, of good abilities, of perfect candour, and a lover of Religious Discipline. On the 3rd of June, 1659, this Apostolic Father fell a victim of charity in attending persons infected with the plague, when pestilence ravaged that City.

Born: 27 March 1574, County Meath
Entered: 14 August 1611, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: Douai, France - pre Entry
Died: 24 October 1646, County Meath

Alias MacConuisce

Mother Jane Alpine
Studied Philosophy 2 years at Douai
1611 BELG Catalogue Mr D Malachy (Mac an Uisce) a priest who in August will have finished Philosophy is not very talented, but comes from Ulster a part of Ireland where the help of our Fathers is much needed. Would be useful in Ireland or Scotland
1615 at St Omer College studying Moral Theology
1621 Catalogue On the Mission 6 years; middling health; talent, judgement and prudence mediocre; has made profession; choleric; Confessor
1622 Catalogue Fitz Valter or Fitzwalter or Walter in Dublin district
1626 Catalogue in Ireland
1637 Catalogue Mediocre in all things

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Two Entries : Malachy Young (1); Malcahy Fitzwalter (2)
Malachy Young - DOB 1578 Meath; Ent 1609; RIP 1646-1649
Malcahy Fitzwalter - DOB 1578 Uster; Ent 1611; RIP 1626-1636 Ireland

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Patrick and Joan née Alpine
His early education was in Ireland, and he studied Rhetoric under the Jesuits at Tournai, Antwerp and Lille. He then studied Philosophy under the Jesuits at Douai, and then Theology at the Irish College there and was Ordained before Ent 14 August 1611 Tournai
1613-1617 After First Vows he was sent for studies to St Omer
1615 Early in 1715 Fr Holywood asked the General to have him sent to the Irish Mission, but it would appear that he did not arrive until 1617
1617 Sent to Ireland and mainly to Meath and to the Dublin Residence, and he taught Humanities in the city.
With other Jesuits of Old Irish stock he seems never to have enjoyed the confidence of the Superior and Consultors who easily found fault with Jesuits of old-Irish stock. In the 1630s a determined effort was made to send him back to Belgium, because he had allegedly struck an Anglo-Irish nobleman, but this effort did not succeed. He seems to have still been at the Dublin Residence in 1641 in indifferent health, and after that it is assumed, that following the occupation of Dublin by the Parliamentarians, that he ministered in his native Meath where he died 24 October 1646, not yet having taken Final Vows
1622 Irish College Douai “Aquatici”
1621,1622, 1637 & 1646 HIB Catalogues “Fitzwalter” (1621) and “Walter” (1622) and “Yong” (1637 and “Yonghe” (1646)
His own declaration on Ent at Tournai “Ego Malachias Macanuake Medensis vel aliter Walter Ibernus”

Born: 16 August 1851, Galway City, County Galway
Entered: 06 September 1866, Milltown Park
Ordained: 1883
Final Vows: 22 February 1887
Died: 26 March 1922, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner St, Dublin

by 1869 at Amiens France (CAMP) studying
by 1870 at Rome Italy (ROM) studying
by 1871 at Maria Laach College Germany (GER) Studying
by 1881 at Oña Spain (ARA) studying
by 1886 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He made his Noviceship at Milltown under Luigi Sturso.
After his Novitiate he was sent to France for Rhetoric and Rome for Philosophy.
He had to leave Rome due to political troubles and finished his Philosophy at Maria Laach.
He was sent first to Clongowes and then as Prefect to Tullabeg for Regency.
He was sent to Oña for Theology.
After Ordination he was sent teaching for several years at Crescent and Galway. He was rector for three years in Galway and then joined the Missionary Staff.
1904 He was sent to Gardiner St and lived there until his happy death 26 March 1922. He was six years Superior there 1912-1919.
He was a very fluent and ready speaker with good knowledge of French, Italian, German and Spanish. He was very kind to the sick and dying

Note from James Redmond Entry :
He studied Rhetoric at St Acheul, Amiens with Michael Weafer, Thomas Finlay and Peter Finlay, Robert Kane and Vincent Byrne, among others.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Michael Weafer 1861-1922
Fr Michael Weafer was born in Galway on August 29th 1861, and he was educated at St Ignatius Galway. He was one of those who made their noviceship under Fr Sturzo at Milltown Park in 1866.

He was present in Rome studying Philosophy during the Revolution of 1870, and with Fr Patrick Keating had to finish his studied at Maria-Laach.
Fr Weafer was Rector of Galway from 1901-1904. The rest of his life was spent mainly in Gardiner Street, of which he was Superior from 1912-1919.
He was a very fluent and ready speaker, with a good knowledge of French, Italian, German and Spanish. He was renowned for his kindness to the sick and dying.
He died on March 25th 1922.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Michael Weafer (1851-1922)

Was born in Galway and entered the Society in 1866. His first association with the Crescent was during his regency, 1878-80. He spent two more year on the teaching staff after his ordination and later completed his higher studies in Belgium. In 1889, the annua mirabilis of the Crescent in the last century, Father Weafer returned as prefect of studies and remained on the Crescent staff until 1900, when he was appointed rector of St Ignatius, Galway. At the end of his rectorship at St Ignatius, Father Weafer was transferred to Gardiner St., Dublin, where he laboured at the church until his death. He was superior of the Gardiner St community from 1912 to 1919.a

Born: 18 March 1714, Drogheda, County Louth
Entered: 05 March 1732, Toulouse, France - Tolosanae Province (TOLO)
Ordained: 1744, Clermont-Ferrand, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1749
Died: 15 February 1776, Bryn, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

1742-1746 Studied Theology;
1746-1747 At Aurillac TOLO
1748-1749 Not in Catalogue
1749 At Carcassone teaching Philosophy TOLO
In Ireland 1740 onward (Corcoran)
On his tombstone at Windleshaw Abbey near St Helen’s he is called “Rev Thomas Weldon of Scholes, RIP 26/04/1786 Age 75

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Three Entries : (1) Thomas Weldon; (2) Thomas Welton; (3) John Weldon
(1)Thomas Weldon
DOB 18 March or 20 December 1714 Drogheda; Ent 12 July 1732 or 08 March 1731 Toulouse; FV 15 August 1749; RIP 15 February 1776 Bryn, Lancashire (now part of Wigan)
(His death is incorrectly stated to have been at Scholes, Lancashire on 26 April 1786 in “Records SJ” Vol v, p 399 - this is actually a reference to another Thomas Weldon, of Northumberland)
Taught Humanities in France for seven years and Philosophy for four.
1750 Sent to Ireland and soon after assigned to ANG, where he served the Lancashire Mission at Scholes (in Wigan) for many years, and died at Bryn (in Wigan) 15 February 1776.
(2)Thomas Welton
DOB 03 August 1714 Ireland; Ent 08 March 1731; FV 02 February 1748; RIP post 1771 (CF ANG Catalogues 1761, 1763, 1771)
(2)John Welton
Ent c 1732
The Weldon’s are on the Irish Rolls since Richard II; Christopher was in the King’s Irish Regiment in 1690

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
1734-1735 After First Vows he was sent for Philosophy at Toulouse
1735-1742 Regency at various TOLO Colleges
1742-1746 Sent to study Theology at Clermont-Ferrand and then Tournon where he was Ordained 1744
1746-1750 After a year of Tertianship he taught Philosophy at Aurillac
1750 Sent to Ireland, but spent only one year at Dublin before he joined the ANG Province, where he worked until his death on the Lancashire Mission 15 February 1776

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
WELDON, THOMAS, born at Drogheda, according to one account, the 18th March, but, according to another, the 20th of December, 1714. He was admitted into the Society at Toulouse, on the 8th of March, 1731, or rather the 12th of July, 1732; made the Profession of the four Vows, on the 15th of August, 1749; taught Humanities in France for seven years, and Philosophy for four years. He came to the Irish Mission in 1750, but soon after passed over to England, and for many years resided in Lancashire. He died at Brin, in that County, on the 15th of February, 1776.

Born: 24 June 1597, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 24 September 1619, Tournai, Belgium (BELG) - Belgicae province (BELG)
Died: 17 November 1621, Dublin City, County Dublin

His mother was Elizabeth Badlow or Bellew.
Studied Humanities in Ireland and Tournai, Philosophy at Douai
1621 As he suffered from Phtis laborans - Consumption, he returns home and died at the house of his parents in same year

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ
Son of Thomas and Elizabeth née Bedlowe
He had previously studied Classics under the Jesuits at Tournai and Philosophy at Douai before Ent 24 September 1619 Tournai
By First Vows he was suffering from consumption and so was sent to Dublin, in the hope that he might recuperate in the care of his parents. He died in Dublin 17 November 1621

Born: 09 August 1865, Rosenallis, Co Laois
Entered: 03 November 1883, Milltown Park, Dublin/Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 30 July 1899, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1902
Died: 05 September 1934, St Vincent’s Hospital

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

Early education at St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg

Chaplain in the First World War.

by 1894 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1901 at Sartirana, Merate, Como, Italy (VEN) making Tertianship
by 1917 Military Chaplain : 8th Royal Munster Fusiliers, France
by 1918 Military Chaplain : 7th Leinster Regiment, BEF France
by 1919 Military Chaplain : Chaplain to the Forces, Schveningen, Netherlands

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Note from Nicholas Walsh Entry :
He died in the end room of Bannon’s corridor, and the Provincial William Delaney and Minister Joseph Wrafter were with him at the end.”

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/blog/damien-burke/a-sparrow-to-fall/

A sparrow to fall
Damien Burke
A BBC Northern Ireland documentary, Voices 16 – Somme (BBC 1 NI on Wednesday 29th June,
9pm) explores the events of 1916 through the testimony of the people who witnessed it and their families. Documentary makers and relatives of Jesuit chaplain Willie Doyle were shown his letters, postcards and personal possessions kept here at the Irish Jesuit Archives. In the 1920s, Alfred O’Rahilly used some of these letters in his biography of Fr Willie Doyle SJ. Afterwards they were given to Willie’s brother, Charles, and were stored for safekeeping in the basement of St Francis Xavier’s church, Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin in 1949. In 2011, they were accessioned into the archives.
Fr Willie Doyle SJ was one of ten Irish Jesuits who served as chaplains at the battle of the Somme (1 July- 18 November 1916): seven with the British forces; three with the Australian. Their letters, diaries and photographs witness their presence to the horror of war.

Fr Joseph Wrafter SJ, 8th Royal Munster Fusiliers (06 July 1916):
It is a very terrible thing where a show is on & no one I know wants any more of it than he has seen if he has been in it at all. But of course all have to see it through & the men are really splendid...Between killed & wounded we lost in that period quite a fourth of our Battalions & the Leinsters nearly as many. But they did good work & the enemy got a good deal more than they gave. It is dreadful to see the way the poor fellows are broken & mangled sometimes out of all recognition.

https://www.jesuit.ie/blog/damien-burke/jesuits-and-the-influenza-1918-19/

Jesuits and the influenza, 1918-19
Damien Burke
The influenza pandemic that raged worldwide in 1918-19 (misnamed the Spanish flu, as during the First World War, neutral Spain reported on the influenza) killed approximately 100 million people.

The influenza was widely referenced by Irish Jesuit chaplains in the First World War. And Fr Joseph Wrafter SJ writing in December 1918: “the influenza is raging here and all over Holland as everywhere”.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 9th Year No 4 1934
Obituary :
Father Joseph Wrafter

Father Wrafter died at St. Vincent's Hospital on Wednesday 5th September, 1934. For a considerable time he had been in very poor health, even before he left Clongowes in 1932, he had suffered a good deal. He was an invalid for nearly the two years he spent in Gardiner St., yet, with his usual courage, he did very fully all the work he was allowed to do. At last he was compelled to go to St. Vincent’s, where for some three weeks before his death he was very often quite unconscious.
In next number, we shall give a short sketch of his life in the Society.

Irish Province News 10th Year No 1 1935
Father Joseph Wrafter Continued
Father Wrafter was born near Rosenallis in Leix on the 9th August, 1865. He went with his two elder brothers, William and Thomas, to Tullabeg in 1877, where he remained until

1885. On November 3rd of that year he entered the Novitiate which was then at Milltown Park, but was transferred the following year to Dromore, Co. Down. He next spent a year
      as a Junior in Milltown, and had just begun his Philosophy there, when in November, 1886, the year of the amalgamation (Tullabeg and Clongowes) he was sent to Clongowes. He was Third Line and Gallery Prefect there for three years, and from 1889 to 1891 had charge of the Large Study. In the former of these years he utilised his great histrionic powers in getting up “The Tempest” which was an unqualified success. In 1891 he was appointed Higher Line Prefect although he had not yet done his Philosophy, and was the youngest man on the prefectorial staff. But his strength of character and sense of justice made up for these drawbacks. In 1893, after seven years' work as a scholastic in Clongowes, he went to Louvain for Philosophy, and in 1896 to Milltown Park for Theology, joining the Long Course.
      In the early summer of 1899 he went down to Clongowes to stay for about a month, in order to take the place of Father Fegan who had left to undergo a serious operation. However Father Wrafter remained in Clongowes the following year as Prefect of the Small Study, and next year saw him a Tertian in the Province of Venice.
      From 1900 to 1903 he was stationed in University College St, Stephen's Green, as Minister. After a year on the Mission Staff, with headquarters at the Crescent, Limerick, he renewed
      his connection With Clongowes, this time as Minister, remaining there until 1908, when he went to Gardiner St. and, in addition to the ordinary work, got charge of the Police Sodality. The next year he was appointed Minister and held that position until 1942, with the exception of a break of three years (1916-1919), when he was Military Chaplain in France and Holland. While at the front he distinguished himself by his great coolness and bravery. He was awarded the MC, but an officer who himself won the V.C., said that “every day, Father Wrafter did things that deserved the VC”.
      In 1924 he became Minister in Leeson St., and had charge of University Hall. Next year he again took up work in Clongowes as Minister and held the position for ten years. It was during these years that the new building was erected in Clongowes, in which Father Wrafter took a very great interest. 1934 saw him once more in Gardiner St, but incapable of much active work. However, as long as he possibly could, he said Mass and attended to his Confessional to which he had always been most devoted.
      He celebrated his Golden jubilee in the Society in November 1933, but did not long survive the event. The malady to which he had long been subject - phlebitis - had poisoned his system and after some weeks in hospital he died on 5th September 1934.
      The most remarkable thing about Father Wrafter's life in the Society was his long term of office as Minister in all twenty six years, thirteen in Clongowes, ten in Gardiner Stand ten in the University. He possessed in a high degree the qualities required for that office. He was a fine organiser quickly saw what was wanted, and then had the power to descend to details. He was extremely just and patient and was moreover the very soul of generosity, loving to see and to make others happy. To the poor also he was very kind. Many of the beggars and tramps who came to Clongowes made it a point to ask for Father Wrafter, they almost seemed to be personal friends of his so familiarly did he chat with them.
      What struck one most in Father Wrafter was his strong will and his great sense of duty Whatever he took in hand he saw through, and whatever was his duty would be done thoroughly. During his last few years as Minister in Clongowes he suffered from phlebitis which caused his legs to become very much swollen and painful, but unless absolutely forbidden by the doctor, he was sure to go down to the refectory to preside at the boys' meals. He was indefatigable in his care of and kindness to the sick, frequently visiting them in the infirmary during the night. This did not prevent him from being the first to rise in the morning. He always said the 6 o'clock Mass. Indeed it was wonderful how he contrived to do with so little sleep. In his last illness this strength of character was most noticeable, for though he suffered very much he never complained, but always made as little as possible of his sufferings. The nurses who attended him marvelled, and were much edified at his patience and resignation.
      How much his kindness and help to so many were appreciated was shown by the number of people, many of them in humble circumstances who called at the hospital to enquire for him during his last illness. R.I.P

◆ The Clongownian, 1935

Obituary
Father Joseph Wrafter SJ

There is something of the lacrimae rerum in the ending of the notice in last year's “Clongownian” of Father Wrafter's Golden Jubilee as a Jesuit, The words were, ad multos annos. That was in June, and the 5th of September brought the sad news that he was dead, So the words must now change to ad annos aeternos.

Fifty years, of which twenty were in and for Clongowes. How true it is to say for : Clongowes. Though he never forgot his old school Tullabeg, yet it had for his practical mind been merged in the sister College.

Loyalty seems, to one who knew him well, to have been the note of his character. Of the three loyalties, Loyalty to the Jesuit Order, Loyalty to Clongowes, Loyalty to his friends, the first two naturally became one, fused into one, the second becoming the practical expression of the former.

There is hardly a corner in the House where one who knows will fail to find traces of his watchful care. Under him the Infirmary became the highly efficient department it is. The great Well was a matter of real need, not merely of convenience. The College Grounds and the Garden were a concern of his, run with an eye to efficiency as well as to beauty, as if they had been his only care. As to the New Building : it had been a thought of his for thirty years in plan, and one need not say that the interest never flagged. Perhaps a practically minded Old Clongownian would say that the 'Boys' Refectory is the spot most associated with his genial presence and ceaseless care. One such, not of the immediate Past, said to me the other day: “The two men who resumed Clongowes life for us fellows were Father Wrafter and Father John Sullivan”. It sounds strange at first hearing, but on reflection one is more and more convinced of its truth. They were very unlike in what was obvious, but very like in what most caught the House : they both loved the boys.

His friends were legion and they were very true, for they knew by experience how unfalteringly they could rely on his interest and honest advice, One felt, said one of them, that you could tell him anything and be sure of his sympathy. This was strikingly true during the last year of his life, when he was a constant sufferer. He would drag himself to the parlour to see a friend, they never suspecting at what cost.

The elements were so mixed in him that he remained human and strong. It is easy to find a man in which one or the other predominates. The result is poor. In Father Wrafter they worked to a unity that won love in the best sense of the word.

To his sister, Mrs. Murray, we offer our sincerest sympathy. We use the words in the strictest sense, knowing how united the brother and sister were. On her yearly visit to him one saw renewed the finale of George Eliot's great novel Now many of us will join with her in murmuring :

But for the touch of a vanish'd hand
And the sound of a voice that is stilled.

-oOo-

Father “Joey” Wrafter : A Memory

It must be well over half a century ago that I, a small boy, first met “Joey” Wrafter, when I found myself a Third Liner at Clongowes. After such a long time it is not perhaps, surprising that the order in which events occurred has become rather mixed, and I must confess that I don't remember what exact position he held when first found myself an inmate of the school. I rather think that Father (then Mr) Gleeson was Third Line Prefect. My memories of Mr Wrafter are very clear, indeed, as they should be, for no small boy had ever a better kinder friend than I found in him. He indeed kind to all boys. It was part and parcel of his make-up, and as a result was liked and trusted by them.

Looking back over the fifty odd years, I recognise that this was the salient point of his character; kindness, understanding and sympathy with all boys, and in particular, with small boys. I never knew him to be hard or ungenerous to one of them, not was he prone to punish where punishment could be avoided,

Naturally, some of us knew him better than others, and were looked on by him as special friends. I am very proud to think that I could count myself as one of this group. Amongst others of this group I remember Geoff Esmond, Jim Clarke and Dominic Kelly, to mention only a few. Those who remember Father Wrafter in after years will, I am sure, wish to get some idea what he was like as a young man. Well, he was very slim and upright, handsome of face in an aquiline way, with the cheeriest of smiles. He was always very trim and neat, had small and well-made hands and feet, and was very graceful in all his movements. He was a delightfully light and fast runner, and kept himself extremely fit. He, at that time, could not have weighed more than about 10 stone.

Can you think of a fencer standing slim, butt muscular, head up, with a keen, clear cut face ready for a bout with the foils? Well, that is exactly the picture I get when I look back and remember Joey Wrafter in the late 80's and early 90's of last century.

Though not posing as a great book man, he was keen-witted, a good talker, and in some things exceptionally clever.

Though he played football and cricket, he did not seem to be very interested in games, but during my time at Clongowes he proved himself a master of the art of producing plays. This was his hobby, and he took the keenest delight in staging all sort of shows from farces and pantomime to Shakespeare.

I took part in most of the plays produced by him during my time, and remember amongst many others a farce called “Bombastes Furioso”, also a pantomime, “Alladin”, in which I starred as the Widow Twanky, and Shakespeare's “Tempest”, in which I took the part of Trinculo.

Well the years move on and we with there. Father Wrafter has left us, but I for one can say with truth that the memory of him and his great goodness and kindness to one small boy lives on and will not be forgotten till I also go the way we all must go, and not even then I hope.

When I was a boy at Clongowes “Joey” Wrafter was one of the very best. RIP

JGG

-oOo-

Father Wrafter as Army Chaplain

In November of 1915, the 8th Battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers, with the other units of the 6th (Irish) Division, after a year's training at Kilworth, were awaiting orders at Blackburn for the move to France. A few days before the unit entrained, an orderly informed me that the Colonel, known amongst his friends as “Mike”, wanted to see me urgently in the mess.

“Read this wire”, said he, as I entered. Mike was one of the hard-living, hard swearing type of old soldiers. “They are sending us a priest. What the blazes shall I do with him? Should I offer him a drink when he comes?”

When I came again to the mess, a few hours later, I found the Colonel and priest swopping yarns over the fire and a whiskey and soda. And so began a strange friendship which lasted without end between “Mike”, a Protestant, if he had any religion at all, with no control over his language even before a priest-and Father Wrafter, a devout Jesuit with much knowledge of the world and great understanding. Years after, when Mike knew his end was coming and the Protestant clergyman was announced, - his only words were : “Tell him to go to the devil, the only person I want near me is Father Wrafter”.

Practically all the men in the regiment were Catholics, and when the unit arrived at the front, Father Wrafter's worth was soon recognised. His influence amongst them was on a par with the Colonel's, and more than once Mike asked the Padre to give the men a good talk at Mass about something that they should have done or something they should not have done and did. The effect was excellent.

For the four battalions in the Brigade there were two Catholic chaplains, and Father Wrafter looked after the welfare of the 7th Leinsters as well as the 8th Munsters. Of the two battalions, one was usually in the front line and one in reserve trenches, or in billets behind. In this way it often fell to the Padre to do three or four tours : in succession with the regiments in the front line, where his splendid help was most needed. On one occasion he spent a month on end in the front trenches. Yet, during these days of static warfare, I never knew him to miss saying daily Mass, sometimes in an open trench with a box as his altar, sometimes in a little dugout, where there was room only for himself and his servant, one Thunder, known in the regiment as “Lightning”, on account of his extreme slowness of movement.

For two years Father Wrafter served with the 8th Munsters in France. He was a well-known figure in the Irish Division ; there were few officers from the General downwards who did not know him personally. In the line he worked day and night attending the sick and wounded and burying the dead. Woe betide the Colonel if the Padre was not informed immediately any casualties occurred; and it was wonderful what confidence he gave the men, who knew he could be there as soon as anything happened. When it came to going over the top, Father Wrafter was always somewhere near the front line, even when the Colonel cursed him for leaving battalion headquarters. He was then a man fifty and portly, leading what was for him a strange life, yet he took the knocks and the kicks with a smile which was good see and did no end of good in the regiment.

On one occasion, in 1916, when the Brigade was in reserve at Les Mines, the Germans sent over gas at night and the masks of the men in the front. trenches proved ineffective against it. The casualties were heavy the Germans had followed up the gas by a night attack-and next night the Munsters were sent up to the front line on relief, The trenches were a veritable shambles. Corpses, with their bodies and faces distorted in their death agony, were piled in the trenches and littered the ground near them. For four nights, from dusk to dawn (the MS has from dawn to dusk) the Padre worked with his men, burying the dead as best he could. More often than not, shell holes formed the ready-made graves. A mournful sight it was this burial gang working under fire by the pale light of the moon.

Yet, nothing daunted the chaplain's spirits, and he was ready to crack a joke with all and sundry. Just before this gas attack, the General came to inspect the 8th Munsters, He stepped out of his car opposite the quarter-guard and questioned the sentry about his duties. The sentry, well coached, repeated them all, ending with the usual, “in the event of any unusual occurrence report to the guard commander”. “And what would you call an unusual occurrence, my man?” asked the General. “Well, sur, if I saw the sintry box markin' time”. A cloud collected on the General's brow; then he looked at the Padre and moved on quickly.

In 1917, Father Wrafter won the Military Cross, a reward he richly deserved, though he himself was the last to acknowledge this, His rectitude was such that the things he did seemed to him to be nothing but his ordinary duty. His real reward was the way that the men of his regiment maintained and practised their religion--the number of men who approached the altar rails, when the battalion had an opportunity of attending Mass behind the lines, surprised the local inhabitants.

In late 1917, the 6th Irish Division was reorganised and the 8th Munsters, or what was left of them after two years' fighting, were drafted to another battalion of the regiment. Father Wrafter was then offered an appointment as Senior Chaplain at one of the bases in France - a “soft job”, - with two assistants. This offer he stoutly refused to accept and continued to serve as regimental Chaplain to the Munsters until the end of the War. Later he went to Holland, as Chaplain to a prisoners of war camp. In November of 1917 I sailed for India and temporarily lost touch with him.

Next time I met him was in 1924 as his guest at Clongowes, where he was then Minister. The Jesuit robe had taken the place of the military uniform, which was the only garb the men of the 8th Munsters had seen him in, but the man was unchanged. He was the same strong, genial Padre, whose courage and cheerfulness had been an inspiration to all who had met him during the terrible years of the War.

JO'B.

-oOo-
1929-32 - “The Minister”

It was not till Father Wrafter had left us for Gardiner Street that we fully realised what a place he had won for himself in the life of the boys here. It is not an easy thing to win that place and it is harder still to keep it, but of him both were true. When you were well, you felt how much you depended on him for the creature comforts of the Refectory. When you were ill, his genial visits in the Infirmary were things to look forward to.

He was in truth a hard man to replace, so that his visit of a few days on the occasion of his Golden Jubilee had a quality unlike that of the coming of anyone else, The boys loved to gather round him and one could notice how newcomers to whom he was a stranger looked with envy at such gay gatherings.

One could notice too, how the older trades men about the College seemed as glad to meet him as we did.

The writer of these notes well remembers his first official contact with Father Wrafter. It was my first night at Clongowes and having got from my Line Prefect to “follow the crowd”, I found myself in the Refectory for tea, an extremely subdued unit in an extremely boisterous throng. Suddenly a bell went and in the midst of a profound silence a massive figure rose with infinite dignity to say Grace. This said, he sank down again slowly and gazed with the broadest of smiles all round the Refectory. After a few moments he came down from the box and began a triumphal procession through the Refectory, pausing at each table to shake hands with the “old boys” and to discover among the “new” the son or nephew or young brother of old friends,

Afterwards when the days had grown to weeks and weeks to months, an extremely insignificant member of Rudiments decided to go for his first sleep (having, I am afraid, very little the matter with him). I well recall the mingled hope and fear with which I awaited my turn. At last it came and the climb up the three steps seemed endless, to be confronted with the huge figure of the Minister. One quick glance to assure himself that it was nothing very serious and then he learnt back good-humouredly to listen to my plea of a headache. A few seconds of doubt and uncertainty and then my name went down in the notebook and I go off with the world a much brighter place. One of the most characteristic things about him was the tolerance with which he would listen to the malingerers at the foot of the steps as they arranged their complaints and yet would hear them afterwards in the best humoured manner possible. Suddenly he would come down from the box and make his way to the Infirmary with the Third Liners whom he had refused clinging to the wings of his gown and clustering round him - looking for all the world like some great liner surrounded by her tugs. But there was one thing about him that lays bare his character better than twenty pages of “The Clongownian” : if ever he had occasion to send anyone “up” for any misdeed in the Refectory or outside it, the offender had only to ask for a sleep that night and he was sure to get it.

Kindliness was, to my mind, the outstanding trait that made him universally beloved here among us.

P Meenan

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Joseph Wrafter (1865-1934)

Born at Rosenalis, Leix, and educated at Tullabeg College, entered the Society in 1883. He pursued his higher studies at Louvain and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1899. His association with the Crescent was short, 1903-04 when he was a member of the mission staff. With the exception of the period of the first world war. Father Wrafter's life was spent between Dublin and Clongowes. He was a member of the church staff, Gardiner St at the time of his death.

Born: 25 July 1818, Mountbellew, County Galway
Entered: 11 February 1850, Issenheim, Alsace, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1856, Montauban, France
Final Vows: 03 December 1866
Died: 18 March 1867, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner St, Dublin

Older brother of Michael RIP 1868

by 1853 at Vals, France (TOLO)
by 1854 in Cologne, Germany (GER) studying Theology 1
by 1855 at Malta College (ANG) for Regency
by 1857 at Montauban, France (TOLO) studying Theology
by 1860 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying Theology

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Son of an Irish Baronet (probably the Galway Parliamentarians of the 18th and 19th Centuries). Older brother of Michael RIP 1868. Their home was frequently visited by Jesuits, and this helped develop a great love in Christopher for the Society.
After his early education in Grammar and Humanities, he went to Trinity. As he was an eldest so, his family wanted to prepare him as the future representative of the family in an understanding of Society and Politics. So he also travelled much in Europe for that purpose.
In about 1840 a “fashionable marriage” was announced in the Press between the eldest son of and old Catholic Baronet, and the eldest daughter of an old Protestant Baronet, Sir John Burke of Marble Hall. All preparations were in place and the bridegroom went to Clongowes to make a Retreat before his marriage. His younger brother Michael, already being in the Society, meant that the interest of the Community is Christopher was higher than usual. he impressed all with his piety. Waiting for news of the marriage, it seemed to have been delayed, and after a while, there was a rumour that he was in a Novitiate on the Continent. Apparently an issue had arisen which had proven a stumbling block, namely Christopher’s insistence that any children should be raised Catholic. He communicated this to his bride whilst on retreat. A suggestion came back from her family that perhaps any girls would stay with the mother’s religion. Christopher responded by saying that he could not accept this arrangement. He wrote again indicating that the only solution was to relieve her of her promise, and to declare arrangements at an end. Her family wrote back acceding to his request that the children would all be Catholics, but this letter arrived too late - he had left Clongowes, and nobody knew where he was. For some years he did not return to Ireland, and when he did, he was Rev Christopher Bellew SJ. In the meantime, Miss Burke had herself become a Catholic, and lead a very holy life, remaining single, and devoting her life to charitable works.
Christopher joined the Society at Issenheim in France, and after First Vows, began studies in Philosophy at Vals, France. He was later sent to teach Grammar at a TOLO College. While there he became ill, and so was sent to Malta, where he remained as a Teacher for two years. He then returned to France and was Ordained there 1856 at Montaubon.
He then returned to Ireland and spent three years teaching at Colleges.
1859 He was sent to the Dublin Residence as Operarius, and remained there until his death 18 March 1867. He had been very zealous in the hard work of the Confessional.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Christopher Bellew 1818-1867
The life of Christopher Bellew reads like some edifying romantic tale. He was born in Mount Bellew County Galway, the eldest son of Sir Michael Bellew, Baronet. From his earliest years he had a great knowledge and love of the Society, for during his father’s lifetime “Ours” used frequently visit the family mansion, and stay a few days there.
Having completed his early studies, he was sent by his family to Trinity College Dublin, where he went through a distinguished course. He then travelled extensively on the continent to complete his education.
About the year 1840, his forthcoming marriage to the eldest daughter of Sir John Burke of Marble Hall, was announced in the Press. The bridegroom came to Clongowes to make a retreat prior to his marriage. Needless to say the Community at Clongowes were intensely interested in the matter, especially as Christopher’s younger brother Michael was already a Jesuit. Weeks passed, and still no account in the papers of this fashionable marriage. At length a rumour started which grew into a certainty, that the bridegroom was in a Jesuit noviceship somewhere on the continent.

What had happened was this : All the preliminaries to the marriage had been settled except one, the religion of the children, as the intended bride was a Protestant. According to a custom, which rightly or wrongly existed at the time, the bride’s family insisted that the girls of the marriage should follow the religion of their mother. To this condition the bridegroom would not agree, and he wrote to say that he released the young lade from her promise and that the negotiations were at an end.

The upshot of this was that the young lade became a Catholic and led a holy life in single blessedness, devoting her time to works of charity.

Christopher entered the noviceship at Issenheim in Alsace. He was ordained priest at Montaubon in 1856. Recalled to Ireland, he taught for three years in the Colleges, and then was stationed for the rest of his life at Gardiner Street. There he was an outstanding operarius, zealous and untiring in the confessional.

He died on March 18th 1867. He succeeded his father Sir Michael Bellew in 1855, and is listed in Burke’s Peerage as the Reverend Sir Christopher Bellew.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Christopher Bellew (1818-1867)

Was master at the Crescent from 1860 to 1861 and again from 1862- to 1864. He was the eldest son of Sir Michael Bellew, Bart, of Mountbellew Bridge, Co Galway. After his studies at Clongowes, he entered Trinity College, Dublin and later got a commission in the army. He was heir to the title and family property but resigned his claims in 1850 to enter the Society. The story of his call to the religious life is curious, if not even romantic. From his family's viewpoint, he had made an excellent match in becoming engaged to the daughter of Sir John Burke of Marble Hall, Co Galway. Unfortunately, his bride-to-be was a Protestant, and her family insisted, according to the custom of the time, that any daughters born of the marriage should follow their mother's religious beliefs. Young Bellew, as the time for the marriage-ceremony approached, decided to return to Clongowes to make a retreat under one of his old masters. During his stay at Clongowes, he wrote to Sir John Burke, insisting that all children of the marriage must be Catholics. The Burkes replied that they could not accede to his demands. Bellew now intimated that he felt bound in conscience to terminate the engagement. This time, the Burkes, anxious that the marriage should be gone on with, waived their demands on the religion of their future grand-daughters. But the letter arrived too late to find him. Christopher Bellew had gone abroad. Later it was learned that he had entered the Society in Alsace. On the completion of his noviceship, he entered on his philosophy studies at Vals in the Lyons Province of the Society, and is next heard of as master in a Jesuit College of the Toulouse Province and later in Malta. He returned to France for the study of theology and was ordained at Montauban. Here, it can be recalled, that his former bride-to-be, Miss Burke of Marble Hall, on learning of Christopher's vocation, became a Catholic herself. She never married but spent her life in works of zeal and charity.

Father Bellew's priestly life was short. After his time in the Crescent, he was transferred to Gardiner St Church where he died three years later. Old newspapers of the time refer to him as “The Rev Sir Christopher Bellew, Bart, SJ”. He never used the title himself, although he could not legally renounce it. He was long remembered at Gardiner St Church as a zealous priest, especially in the laborious work of the confessional.

Born: 08 July 1846, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1868, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1880, St Beuno's, Wales
Final Vows: 02 February 1889, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 05 January 1917, St Vincent's Hospital, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin

Part of the Tullabeg, Co Offaly community at the time of death

Older Brother of Thomas - LEFT 1872

Ent Milltown; Ord 1880;
by 1871 at Roehampton London (ANG) studying
by 1873 At Vals France (TOLO) studying
by 1874 at Brussels College Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1875 at Mount St Mary’s (ANG) Regency
by 1877 at St Francis Xavier Liverpool (ANG) Regency
by 1879 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1886 at Roehampton London (ANG) Making tertianship
by 1904 at St Mary’s Rhyl (ANG) working
by 1905 at St Wilfred’s Preston (ANG) working
by 1907 at Lowe House, St Helen’s (ANG) working

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He had a younger brother Thomas who also Entered, but left for the Dublin Diocese and was Ordained, but unfortunately at his parish in Dundrum he was thrown from his horse and killed instantly. He also had a half-brother John Brady CM, a Vincentian based at Phibsborough.

Early Education was at Castleknock College.

After his Noviceship he studied Rhetoric at Roehampton, and Philosophy at Vals, France.
He did his Regency at Mount St Mary’s (ANG)
1879 He was sent to St Beuno’s for Theology and was Ordained there.
After Ordination he was sent to Belvedere and Clongowes teaching for some years. He also taught for many years at Mungret and Galway.
He then joined the Mission Staff, and then went to work in the ANG Parish at Preston.
His last year was spent at Tullabeg. he had a serious deafness problem and an operation was advised. he died at the Leeson Street Hospital 05 January 1917, and buried from Gardiner St. A large number of Vincentians attended his funeral out of respect for his half-brother John Brady CM of Phibsborough.

Born: 01 November 1630, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 27 June 1651, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1657/8, Valladolid, Spain
Final Vows: 15 August 1668
Died: 30 December 1679, Valladolid, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

Ignatius Brown 1st
Uncle of Ignatius Browne - RIP 1707

1655 1st or 2nd year Theology at Valladolid- College of St Ambrose.
1660 Reading Philosophy at Valladolid
1663-1673 In Ireland - Preacher and Catechist
1675 On business of Irish Mission in France
1678 Back to Ireland
Founded the College at Poitiers

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1663-1673 Sent from Compostella to Ireland. Reputed to be a learned, eloquent, zealous and edifying Preacher in Cork, Drogheda and other towns (Primate Plunket)
1666 At Waterford Preaching, Catechising and administering the Sacraments, and had been a Missioner for three years. (HIB Catalogue BREV - ARSI)
1673 Forced to leave Ireland in the Summer for health reasons and went to England. In November he went to Paris, and by his industry and the influence and generosity of great friends - including Queen Catherine of England - he procured letters patent for the erection of the Irish house of studies at Poitiers, and was declared its first Rector.
1679 He was appointed Confessor to the Queen of Spain, but died later that year at Valladolid on his way to Madrid. (cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
Founded the Irish College Poitiers; Writer
In his condemnation of Serjeant’s book he signs himself “Professor of Theology" (cf Foley’s Collectanea)
For his writings cf de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ”. A controversial manuscript of his exists at Stonyhurst
Note from No Ch Name (actually George) Murphy :
Named in an Italian letter, dated Dubin 22 November 1672, and written by the Martyr, the Archbishop Oliver Plunket, Primate of Ireland, to Father General Oliva, in which, after expressing his affectionate regard for the Society, and informing him of the meritorious labours of Fathers Rice and Ignatius Brown at Drogheda, he speaks of Father Murphy as a good Theologian, and excellent religious man, a man of great talent, and a distinguished preacher in the Irish language. (cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had studied Philosophy before Ent 27 June 1651 Villagarcía
1653 After First Vows he was sent to Valladolid for Theology where he was Ordained 1657/1658
1658 Appointed to Chair of Philosophy at Valladolid
1663-1671 Sent to Ireland and was appointed to Waterford for the next eight years, frequently preaching in various parts of Munster.
1668-1671 Arrested in Autumn 1668 and sentenced to imprisonment, but through the influence of a nobleman was released.
1671-1673 Sent to Drogheda
1673 Appointed Superior of Dublin Residence but did not assume office. He was now in poor health and received permission from the General to retire to one of the European Provinces. He was then able to take an active part in the negotiations for the foundation of the Irish College of Poitiers of which he became the first Rector.
During his Rectorship he published a refutation of the attacks of Andrew Fitzjohn Sall against the Catholic Church.
He resigned or was relieved of the Rectorship at Poitiers in 1679, apparently for the publication against the apostate Sall. So, he retired to his province of origin (CAST) and died at Valladolid on 30 December of the same year.

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

Brown, Ignatius (1630–79), Jesuit, was born on either 1 or 9 November 1630 in Co. Waterford, and by the late 1640s he was studying philosophy at Compostella in Spain. On 27 June 1651 he entered the Society of Jesus as a novice at Villagarcia before resuming his studies, this time in theology, at Valladolid. Following his ordination c.1658, he remained in Valladolid, where he taught philosophy for a period.

In spring 1663 he travelled to Ireland in the company of another Jesuit, Andrew Sall (qv), to join the Jesuit mission in his native land. From his base in Waterford, he toured south Munster, ministering to the faithful. Although he was arrested in 1668, an Irish noble quickly arranged his release. On 15 August of the same year he pronounced his final vows. In 1671 he was transferred to Drogheda, and was appointed superior of the Jesuit house in Dublin two years later. However, he never took up this position, due to poor health, and withdrew to the Continent via England.

By autumn 1673 he was in Paris, where he played a role in efforts to establish a foundation for the Irish Jesuits in France. Royal permission to establish such a house in the Jesuit province of Aquitaine was duly granted in April 1674, after which Brown purchased a building in Poitiers. He and his Irish colleagues hoped that the foundation would function as a seminary, but the Jesuit general refused to permit this. Instead it was to provide an education for young lay Irish Catholics and to act as a refuge or place of retirement for Jesuits on the Irish mission. He did not obtain actual possession of the house till winter 1675–6, and was formally appointed rector of the Irish college at Poitiers in April 1676. In 1677 the college was described as having many boarders. The college was expected to be funded by donations from Irish Catholics, but the actual sources of its endowments are uncertain and aroused the suspicion of Brown's superiors. It appears that the college was mainly funded by largesse from the Portuguese queen of England, Catherine of Braganza.

Meanwhile, his former colleague and travelling companion Sall had created a sensation in Ireland by converting to protestantism in 1674, a decision that he sought to justify in a sermon preached at Christ Church cathedral, in which he outlined a number of what he saw as false doctrines upheld by the catholic church, placing particular emphasis on its claim of infallibility. In 1675 Brown published his The unerring and unerrable church, in which he vigorously upheld this claim, arguing that scripture required an infallible authority to interpret it. Sall's apostasy had attracted a plethora of catholic denunciations, but it is a testament to Brown's skill as a controversialist that Sall devoted the bulk of his True catholic and apostolic faith (1676) to refuting his criticisms. Brown wrote under a pseudonym, leaving Sall unaware of the identity of his bitterest critic. Brown unleashed a final salvo against Sall with his An unerrable church or none (1678).

In early 1679 he resigned as rector of the Irish college and went to Castile to serve as confessor to the niece of King Louis XIV of France, Marie Louise, who had just married King Charles II of Spain. He died 30 December 1679 at Valladolid. He appears to have been the author of a pamphlet entitled Pax vobis. Purporting to be a dialogue between two English protestants, this was a theological satire directed against the protestant religion. Published in 1679, it went through six editions in the ensuing decade and was popular among English catholics.

F. Finegan, ‘The Irish college of Poitiers: 1674–1767’, IER, 5th ser., civ (July–Dec. 1965), 18–35; L. McRedmond, To the greater glory (1991); T. H. Clancy, ‘Pax vobis, 1679: its history and author’, Recusant History, xxiii (1996–7), 27–33; ODNB

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
BROWN, IGNATIUS. There were two Fathers of this name.
The senior was born at Waterford in 1630, and after studying a course of Philosophy at Compostella, there enrolled himself at the age of 21, amongst the children of St. Ignatius. In a letter of F. St. Leger, dated Compostella, the 16th of January, 1663, 1 read, “Towards the beginning of Spring, F. Andrew Sall* and F. Ignatius Brown are to leave this Province for the Irish Mission. Both are learned, zealous, and duly qualified”. The Annual Letters shew that he, with FF. Maurice Connell and Robert Mead formed a glorious Triumvirate - that he excelled as a powerful and indefatigable preacher a son of Thunder at Cork, at Drogheda, and other towns in Ireland. His zeal made him several enemies : he was threatened with imprisonment and exile; but he was superior to fear, and he steadily persevered in the exercise of his Apostolic functions, until the summer of 1673, when the state of his health obliged him to go to England for the benefit of the Hot Baths. In the early part of November, the same year, he proceeded to Paris, where by his active industry, and the influence of Pere Ferrier, Confessor to Louis XIV, and by the generosity of friends, especially Catharine, Queen of Charles II, he procured in the year following Letters patent for the erection of an Irish House of Studies at Poitiers : and he was appointed its first Rector. His death happened late in the year 1679, at Valladolid, on his way to Madrid, where he had been appointed Confessor to her Majesty the Queen of Spain. We have from the sprightly pen of this Father :
1 “The Unerring and Unerrablc Church”, ( in reply to a sermon of Andrew Sall, preached at Christ’s Church, Dublin, on the 5th of July, 1674), Svo. 1675, pp. 310.
2 “An Unerrable Church or None”, 9 Svo. 1678, pp. 3-i2.
3 “Pax Vobis”. It seems that the MS. had been left with the English Fathers. The General of the Society, Charles de Noyelle, had heard of it, and on the 13th of March, 1683, gave directions to the English Provincial. F John Keynes, to report to him an opinion of its merits. His answer is dated Ghent, the 23rd of September following. In sending the judgment of those who had examined “the posthumous work of F. Ignatius Brown, written in English, entitled Pax Vobis”, he says “All united in admiring the vein of humour that pervades the work; but thought the publication inexpedient, taking all circumstances into consideration”. F. Keynes, after reading the work, coincided in their opinion. It has since been frequently printed.
Another work called Pax Vobis by E. G. was edited in 1679. Query. Who was the author?
Pax Vobis, an epistle to the Three Churches, a small octavo of 14-1 pp. printed in London in 1721, is said by the Rev. John Kirk, p. 80, Vol. V. Catholicon, to have had Dodd, the Historian, for its Author.

Born: 04 July 1802, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1823, Montrouge, Paris, France - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 24 September 1836, Stonyhurst College, England
Final Vows: 02 February 1844
Died: 11 January 1862, St Ignatius College, London, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Older brother of Malachy Ent 18/09/1825; Cousin of Thomas RIP 1870 (ANG)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Studied Humanities at Stonyhurst and Maynooth College before Ent

1825-1829 Master at Hodder School until 08 December 1829
1837-1839 Missioner at Norwich, Preston and Pontefract
1840 Tertianship
1845-1860 Master of Novices at Hodder 28 August 1845-September 1860 Succeeded by Alfred Weld
1860 A Preacher at Immaculate Conception London and died at St Ignatius College, London in the presence of the Provincial Father Seed, and the community. His death was edifying, and his last act at the moment of death was to beg a Father standing by to assist him in raising his arm to make the sign of the Cross, being unable to move it himself (Province Register)

Note on Novitiate at Hodder :
By his exertions, the Novitiate was moved from Hodder Place, Stonyhurst to Beaumont Lodge, a noble mansion in the Parish of Old Windsor, purchased in August 1854, and given to the Province by Father Joseph Maxwell. The house was taken possession of by Fathers Clarke and Maxwell, and the compiler of the Collectanea on 04 September 1854.
The Novitiate at Hodder had begun in 1803 at the time of the Restoration of the Society, was closed for a time in 1821 and reopened again in September 1827, moving in 1854 to Beaumont. It moved again in 1861 from Old Windsor to Roehampton, with Fr Weld as Novice Master, and Beaumont becoming St Stanislaus College.

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Note from Edmund Donovan Entry :
Father Donovan entered the Society of Jesus on 07 September 1858 and made his Noviceship at Roehampton, under that distinguished Spiritual Director Father Tracey Clarke SJ.

Born: 08 November 1846, Kilcock, County Kildare
Entered: 12 November 1867, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1883
Final Vows: 02 February 1886
Died: 26 June 1919, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Brother of James - RIP 1913

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1870 at Amiens, France (CAMP) studying
by 1871 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) Studying
by 1882 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
After Noviceship he studied Philosophy in Europe, was Prefect for a long time at Clongowes for Regency, and then did Theology at St Beuno’s.
After Ordination he was appointed Socius to the Novice Master at Dromore, eventually becoming Master himself.
1888 Dromore Novitiate was closed and he took the Novices to Tullabeg.
1890 His health had begun to suffer so he was sent to Clongowes as Spiritual Father, and did this for a number of years.
He was next sent as Minister to Milltown for a couple of years, but again returned to Clongowes in the same capacity as before.
1901 He was sent to Gardiner St. He was always in compromised health and had a very weak voice, but worked away there for a number of years.
In the end he had a very long illness which he bore with great patience and he died at Gardiner St 26 June 1919. His funeral was held there, very simply, as it was difficult to get a choir together at that time.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Made his first Vows at St Acheul, France 13 November 1869

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Colgan 1846-1919
Fr John Colgan was born at Kilcock County Kildare on November 8th 1846.

At the end of his theological studies he was appointed Socius to the Master of Novices at Dromore, eventually becoming Master of Novices himself. In 1888 Dromore was closed and he took the novices to Tullabeg.. His health broke down and in 1890 he went to Clongowes as Spiritual Father. In 1901 he was posted to Gardiner Street.

He was never of robust health and he laboured according to his strength for a number of years. His last illness, which was long, he bore with great patience until his death on June 28th 1919. His funeral took place after Low Mass, as it was impossible to get together a choir of priests. His funeral was very simple, as every Jesuit’s should be.

◆ The Clongownian, 1920

Obituary

Father John Colgan SJ

John Colgan passed quietly away at St Francis Xavier's Presbytery, Gardiner Street, on June 19th last year. He was in Clongowes from 1860-67, where his brothers James and Edward, who both predeceased him, were also students. Fr Colgan spent most of his earlier life as a Prefect in Clongowes, Externally cold and formal, he was in private a most kind-hearted and even indulgent man. His Theological studies over, he was sent as Socius to the Master of Novices at Dromore, county Down. He subsequently became Master of Novices himself, and it was he who took the Novices to Tullabeg after that college had been amalgamated with Clongowes. Not long after, his health breaking down, he came to Clongowes as Spiritual Father, at which post - excepting a short interval as Minister at Milltown Park - he remained until 1901. The remainder of his life was spent in works of the ministry at St Francis Xavier's, Dublin, where he rarely left the precincts of the Presbytery except for an occasional short walk. His interest in and kindly disposition towards visitors helped not a little the success of his sacredotal functions. To his sister we tender the sympathy of many generations who knew Fr Colgan.

Born: 16 November 1842, Ahascragh, County Galway
Entered: 13 June 1862, Milltown Park, Dublin / Rome, Italy
Ordained: 1873
Final vows: 02 February 1880
Died: 02 February 1918, St Aloysius, Sevenhill, Adelaide, Australia

Eldest brother of Oliver - RIP 1916; James - RIP 1930; Francis H - RIP 1907. Oliver was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter.

by 1865 at Roehampton London (ANG) studying
by 1867 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1868 at St Joseph’s Glasgow Scotland (ANG) Regency
by 1871 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1872 at Roehampton London (ANG) Studying
by 1873 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1875 at St Wilfred’s Preston and Clitheroe (ANG) working
by 1876 at Glasgow Scotland (ANG) working
by 1877 at Holy Name Manchester - Bedford, Leigh (ANG) studying
by 1878 at Paray-le-Monial France (LUGD) making Tertianship
Early Australian Missioner 1879

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Eldest brother of Oliver - RIP 1916; James - RIP 1930; Francis H - RIP 1907. Oliver was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter. They were a very old Catholic family who resided in the Elphin Diocese. Oliver joined earlier than the others in Rome and was allotted to the Irish Province.

After his Noviceship he studied Rhetoric at Roehampton, and then sent for Regency to Clongowes teaching.
1866 He was sent to Louvain for Philosophy.
1868 He was back at Clongowes teaching, and then in 1869 a Prefect at Tullabeg.
1871 He was sent for Theology to St Beuno’s and Roehampton.
After ordination he worked in the Parishes of Clitheroe, Glasgow and Bedford, Leigh.
He was then sent to Paray le Monial for Tertianship.
1878 He sailed for Australia with John O’Flynn and Charles O’Connell Sr.
While in Australia he was on the teaching staff at St Patrick’s Melbourne for a number of years.
1902 he was sent to Sevenhill where he worked quietly until his death there 07 February 1918

Note from Charles O’Connell Sr Entry :
1879 He was sent to Louvain for further Theological studies - Ad Grad. He was then sent to Australia in the company of Hubert Daly and John O’Flynn.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He was one of four brothers to become Jesuits, the others being James, Oliver and Francis.

1865-1866 After First Vows he was sent to Clongowes Wood College to teach Rudiments and Arithmetic.
1866-1867 He was sent to Leuven for a year of Philosophy.
1869-1870 He was sent to St Stanislaus College Tullabeg teaching Writing and Arithmetic
1878-1881 He arrived in Australia 09 November 1878 and went to Xavier College Kew
1881-1888 He was sent teaching to St Patrick’s College Melbourne
1888-1893 He was sent back teaching at Xavier College Kew
1893-1901 He was back teaching at St Patrick’s College where he also directed the Choir and boys Sodality. He also taught to boys how to shoot.
1902 He was sent to the St Aloysius Parish at Sevenhill

His own main form of recreation was music.

Born: 02 July 1845, Ahascragh, County Galway
Entered: 27 April 1861, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 1873
Final vows: 22 April 1878
Died: 11 January 1916, St Ignatius College (Coláiste Iognáid), Galway City

Second brother of Hubert - RIP 1918; Francis - RIP 1907; James - RIP 1930 Oliver was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter.

by 1869 at Maria Laach College Germany (GER) Studying
by 1871 at Pressburg Austria (ASR) studying
by 1872 at Innsbruck Austria (ASR-HUN) studying
by 1877 at Lyon France (CAMP) making Tertianship
Early Australian Missioner 1877
by 1906 at St Joseph’s Glasgow Scotland (ANG) working

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Second brother of Hubert - RIP 1918; James - RIP 1930; Francis H - RIP 1907. He was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter. They were a very old Catholic family who resided in the Elphin Diocese. Three of his brothers Entered the Society. Oliver joined earlier than the others in Rome and was allotted to the Irish Province.

1858-1859 He first appears in HIB as a Teacher at the newly opened Crescent day school.
he then studied the long course in Theology at Innsbruck, and at the end of his fourth year acted as Minister at Tullabeg.
1876 He was sent on Tertianship (Laudunensis, CAMP)
1877 He sailed to Australia with Daniel Clancy, James Kennedy and Thomas McEnroe.
He was in Australia for about twenty years, including being Superior at Hawthorn, and he returned in charge of Father John O’Neill who had become deranged.
He then spent some time in Glasgow and Milltown.
1907 He was sent to Galway, and remained there until his death 11 January 1916

Note from Thomas McEnroe Entry
1877 He set sail for Melbourne with Daniel Clancy, Oliver Daly and James Kennedy

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He was the first of four brothers to become Jesuits, the others being Hubert, Oliver and Francis.

His early education was at Crescent College Limerick

1864-1868 After First Vows and his Juniorate he was sent for Regency to Crescent College teaching Rudiments, Writing, French and Arithmetic.
1868-1871 He went to Maria Laach College in Germany for Philosophy
1871-1876 He was sent to Innsbruck for Theology
1876-1877 He made Tertianship at Lyon in France
1877-1880 He arrived in Australia on 12 December 1877 and went to Xavier College Kew, where he was one of the first staff at the College
1880-1881 He was sent to St Patrick’s College Melbourne as Minister and Prefect of Studies, where he also directed the Sodality and did some pastoral work
1881-1882 He went to St Kilda’s House in Sydney as Minister and Teacher
1882-1886 He was sent to Hawthorn and was appointed first Superior and Parish Priest (1883-1886)
1886-1889 He became involved in rural missionary work
1890-1893 He was sent as Superior and Parish Priest of St Mary’s North Sydney
1893-1897 He was sent as Superior and Parish Priest of St Ignatius Richmond
He was subsequently at St Mary’s Parish, North Sydney and Loyola Greenwich for a few years each
1902 He returned to Ireland on 18 December 1902, and he worked in Glasgow Scotland, Milltown Park Dublin and finally at Coláiste Iognáid Galway as a rural missioner.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Oliver Daly (1845-1916)

Brother of the two preceding, (Francis and James) was a scholastic here in the first decade of the existence of the Crescent, 1864-1868. He was many years on the Australian mission but returned to Ireland some ten years before his death.

Born: 14 April 1716, Dunsoghly, County Dublin
Entered: 15 March 1735, Nancy, France - Campaniae Province (CAMP)
Ordained: 22 September 1747, Rheims, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1752
Died: 15 January 1785, Cowley Hill, St Helens, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Transcribed to ANG 1771

Cousin of John Austin - RIP 1784
Ordained with John Austin (his cousin) at Rheims 22/09/1747 by Bishop Joppensi

1740 Teaching Humanities at Lyon College
1743-1746 Teaching Humanities at Rheims College and Studying Theology
1749 Is a Priest at Poitiers
1754 Is in Ireland
1758 At Autun College (AQUIT) as Missioner and Minister
1761 At Rheims, a Master of Arts, Missioner and Preacher; Also at College of Colmar
1762 At College of Strasbourg
1763 At Pont-à-Mousson
1764 At Residence of Saint-Michiel (CAMP)
1766 At Probation House Nancy

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
The CAMP Catalogue of 1766 gives the dates DOB 14 April 1717, and Ent 15 March 1735, and places him in Tertianship in Nancy in 1766 (perhaps there were two? - cf Foley’s Collectanea)
Taught Humanities; Prefect at Poitiers for one year
1750-1755 On the Dublin Mission as assistant PP
Subsequently transcribed to ANG
1771 At St Aloysius College in the Lancashire District

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows he was sent for Philosophy and graduated MA at Pont-á-Mousson
He then spent time on regency in CAMP Colleges until 1744
1744 Studied Theology at Rheims and was Ordained there 22/09/1747
1747-1749 Two years as Prefect at Irish College Poitiers, and completing his studies at Grand Collège
1749-1750 Sent to Marennes for Tertianship
1750-1755 Sent to Ireland and was worked as an Assistant Priest in Dublin
1755-1757 Sent as Prefect at the Irish College Poitiers
1757-1768 Recalled to CAMP and worked as a Missioner for eleven years at Autun, Rheims, Strasbourg and Saint-Michel
1768 Most likely Transcribed to ANG working in the Lancashire Mission certainly by 1771 and remained there working around the Cowley Hill district, near St Helen’s until he died 15/01/1785

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
DOYLE, WILLIAM, of Dublin was born on the 30th of May, 1717, and entered the Society in Champagne 12th of July, 1734. After teaching Humanities for five years, and filling the office of Prefect in the Seminary at Poitiers for one year, he came to the Mission at the age of 33, and for several years was assistant to a Parish Priest in Dublin. I find him labouring in the Lancashire Mission in 1771. This Rev. Father died at Cowley hill, near St. Helen s, on the 15th of January, 1785, and was buried at Windleshaw,

Born: 06 July 1848, Lanesborough, County Roscommon
Entered: 01 November 1866, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1880
Final Vows: 25 March 1885
Died: 08 January 1940, Linden Nuring Home, Dublin

Part of the St Ignatius, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin community at the time of death

Older brother of Peter Finlay - RIP 1929

by 1869 at Amiens France (CAMP) studying
by 1870 at Rome Italy (ROM) studying
by 1871 at Lacens College Germany (GER) Studying
by 1878 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Note from Peter Finlay Entry
Early education was at St Patrick’s Cavan. Admitted aged 15 by Edmund J O’Reilly, Provincial and his brother Thomas A Finlay was a fellow novice.
Note from James Redmond Entry
He studied Rhetoric at St Acheul, Amiens with Michael Weafer, Thomas Finlay and Peter Finlay, Robert Kane and Vincent Byrne, among others.

See: Morrissey, T. J. (2004). Thomas A. Finlay: Educationalist, editor, social reformer, 1848-1940.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online
Finlay, Thomas Aloysius
by Thomas J. Morrissey

Finlay, Thomas Aloysius (1848–1940) and Peter (1851–1929), Jesuit priests, scholars, and teachers, were born at Lanesborough, Co. Roscommon, sons of William Finlay, engineer, and Maria Finlay (née Magan), who had four other children: three daughters, all of whom became religious sisters, and a son William, who became secretary of Cavan county council. Tom and Peter were educated at St Augustine's diocesan college, Cavan (predecessor to St Patrick's College), and in 1866 both entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Milltown Park, Dublin. Subsequently, they were sent for studies to St Acheul, near Amiens, after which they moved in somewhat different directions.

Thomas Finlay went (1869) to the Gregorian University, Rome, and thence, after Garibaldi's invasion, to Maria Laach where he was trained (1871–3) in modern scientific methods and was impressed by the new agricultural policy of the Prussian government, an experience he drew on in his later work. On his return to Ireland (1873) Tom joined his brother at the Crescent, Limerick, where he stayed till 1876, acting as headmaster as well as teaching German and French. He also found time to publish, under the pseudonym ‘Thomas Whitelock’, a best-selling novel, The chances of war, based on the life of Owen Roe O'Neill, which went through several editions. In addition he wrote pamphlets and was co-founder of the periodical Catholic Ireland, which became the influential Irish Monthly. In 1877 he went to St Beuno's for theology, and was ordained in 1880. His self-reliance, great energy, equable temper, and gifts for making and keeping friends were already in evidence, as also his prowess as a conversationalist and a fisherman. In 1881 he was placed in charge for a short time of St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, near Tullamore, before being entrusted with the joint task of rector of Belvedere College, Dublin (1882–7), and fellow of the RUI in classics. In 1883 he and Peter were appointed joint professors of philosophy at UCD. He occupied the chairs of philosophy (1883–1900) and political economy (1900–30). Hence his unusual distinction of professing in three different disciplines – classics, philosophy, and political economy. Like Peter, he was a highly successful lecturer, noted for his clarity of exposition, and popular also with the students for his human qualities and his policy of promoting responsibility and independence. At Belvedere he built a new wing and purchased additional playing fields, while at the same time reconstructing the philosophy programme of the Royal University and responding to demands for retreats and spiritual lectures from the clergy of different dioceses. In 1887 he took up residence at UCD and turned again to writing as well as teaching. He translated articles from German on philosophy, and Stockle's History of philosophy. The extent and range of his articles during a busy life may be judged from the incomplete list of titles in R. J. Hayes's Sources . . . articles in Irish periodicals. He founded and edited the Lyceum magazine (1889–94) and the New Ireland Review (1894–1911), which was succeeded by Studies in 1912. In addition, as part of his deep involvement in the Irish cooperative movement, he founded and was an incisive editor of the Irish Homestead. In support of the movement, he traversed the country preaching the merits of being industrious and self-supporting, and won support among northern unionists as well as southern farmers. Sir Horace Plunkett (qv), founder of the movement, termed him ‘a remarkable living Irishman’ who had ‘largely moulded my own life work’, and who, ‘for a full half-century, laboured disinterestedly for the moral, social, and economic uplifting of the Irish poor’ (A page of Irish history, 246–7). Finlay's strong advocacy of high moral standards in public life made him enemies in the Irish parliamentary party; and his critical review of Cardinal James Gibbons, Our Christian heritage (1889), led to complaints to Rome from American Jesuits and his suspension from writing (1890–92).

Despite these varied activities, he was primarily an educationalist. Apart from his teaching in Jesuit schools and at UCD, he was a commissioner for intermediate education for many years, was active in establishing and administering a system of technical education at the start of the century, was editor-in-chief of the ‘School and College’ series of books for pupils and students, and inspired and guided those who created the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. Moreover, he was for many years a prominent member of the senate of the NUI and of the governing body of UCD, and was chairman (1909–38) of the trustees of the NLI. Little wonder that his successor to the chair of economics, George O'Brien (qv), remarked in Studies (1940) that ‘to write about him is like writing about a number of persons rather than a single man’. He alleged that in forty-seven years Finlay ‘never broke an engagement, never missed a lecture, never was late for a meeting’. Finlay's retirement (1930) was marked by a collection to provide a presentation portrait (now in UCD) by Leo Whelan (qv). It was so generously subscribed that funds were available to endow an annual Finlay lecture on an economic theme; the first was given by John Maynard Keynes. Tom Finlay died 8 January 1940 in his ninety-first year. He had been an invalid from 1936.

The brothers were among the most influential academics in Ireland in the last quarter of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries. Thomas was described by W. E. H. Lecky (qv) as probably the most universally respected man in Ireland. Peter, who professed theology in Britain, America, and Ireland for 44 years, was widely consulted on most aspects of theology and highly regarded for his gifts of exposition.

Provincial consultors' minute book, 20 Feb. 1890 (Irish Jesuit archives, Dublin); Irish Jesuit Province News, Dec. 1929 (private circulation); ‘Sir Horace Plunkett on Professor Finlay's career as social reformer’, Fathers of the Society of Jesus, A page of Irish history: story of University College, Dublin, 1883–1909 (1930), 246–57; W. Magennis, ‘A disciple's sketch of Fr T. Finlay’, Belvederian, ix (summer 1931), 19; obit., Anglo-Celt, 13 Jan. 1940; George O'Brien, ‘Father Thomas A. Finlay, S.J., 1848–1940’, Studies, xxix (1940), 27–40; Aubrey Gwynn, obit., Irish Province News, Oct. 1940 (private circulation); R. J. Hayes (ed.), Sources for the history of Irish civilization: articles in Irish periodicals (1970), ii, 310–12; Thomas Morrissey, Towards a national university: William Delany, S.J. (1835–1924) (1983); Trevor West, Horace Plunkett: co-operation and politics (1986)

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 2nd Year No 2 1927

University Hall :
On November 16th the Community at Lesson St. celebrated the Diamond Jubilee of Fr T Finlay. As a scholastic, Fr Finlay helped Fr. Matt Russell to found the Irish Monthly and the Messenger. The latter periodical ceased to appear after a short time; it was to be revived later, again under Fr Finlay's inspiration. He took a leading part in conducting the brilliant but short-lived “Lyceum”, and its successor the New Ireland Review. For Belvedere College his rectorship represented, until quite lately, the high-water mark of its success. Since 1883 he has been a Professor at University College, first under the Royal and then under the National University. During that time he has been prominent in many movements for the betterment of his Country. He was a member of the Boards of National and of Intermediate Education, is still Chairman of the National Library, Committee, has organised food depots for the poor, while his work for industrial and agricultural co-operation has won him fame in many lands. As a preacher and a lecturer his success has been extraordinary. And though he no longer appears in the pulpit, his power and his popularity as a lecturer are as great as ever. From 1912 to 1922 he was Superior in Leeson St, and President of University Hall.

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 expected 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.

Irish Province News 15th Year No 2 1940
Obituary :
Father Thomas Finlay
When the Editor of “Province News” did me the honour of inviting me to write a notice of Father Finlay's life, he added a comment on the usual summary of dates which he
enclosed from the annual Catalogues : “Never did Catalogues conceal so completely the life of a Jesuit as Father Finlay's Catalogues conceal his splendid and most active life.” There is a great deal of truth in this comment, though the fault does not lie with the compiler of the annual Catalogues. From his early years as a Scholastic in Rome, Maria Laach, Limerick and St. Beuno's, Father Tom was never lacking in that remarkable power of initiative which enabled him to attempt and accomplish so much during his long life of ninety-one years. His initiative was largely personal, and many of the works for which he was known throughout the country are not even mentioned in the official records of the Catalogues. Apart from his activities, Father Tom's fame was largely due to his great gifts of personal charm, sympathetic kindness and quiet humour. No man was better. fitted to make friends everywhere, and Father Tom made and kept a host of friends during his long and most useful life. Even his birthplace is matter for dispute among the learned. He was always claimed as a Cavan man; but a record is extant from his novitiate, in which he himself has entered his birth-place as Lanesborough, Co. Roscommon. The mystery is solved by a reminiscence, of which he was proud. His father was an engineer on the Shannon River works, and young Tom Finlay was born on an island just north of Lough Ree, which his father was later to submerge beneath the waters of the Shannon. One of his favourite reminiscences was of a Hedge-schooI which he attended somewhere near the Shannon in the early fifties. The master used to test the ability of his pupils by making them spell “Antitrinitarian.” But discipline was too severe for the engineer's young son, and he ran away home from class on the second or. third day. He was then sent to school at St Patrick's, Cavan, where he remained until he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Milltown Park, on November 12, 1866. He took his first vows at Milltown on the Feast of St. Stanislaus, 1868. Just seventy years later it was any privilege to say Mass for Father Tom at Linden Convalescent Home on the Feast of St Stanislaus, 1938. He had then been an invalid for two years and was almost ninety years old. He had been wheeled into the Convent Chapel in a chair, and heard his Jubilee Mass in the midst of the patients and children of Linden. “Consummatus in brevi explevit tempera multa.” The young novice of 1868 can have little dreamed how many long years lay before him. But there was a great deal of simple novice's piety about Father Tom in his last years. Day by day he was wheeled into the Chapel for his morning Mass; and it was seldom indeed that he would allow his nurse to keep him away from the Chapel for the daily Rosary, which he loved to recite with the other patients every evening. From Milltown he was sent to the French Juniorate at Saint-Acheul. where he spent part of the year 1869. Then, with Father Vincent Byrne as his companion, he was sent to the Gregorian at Rome, where they witnessed the stirring scenes of the Vatican Council and Garibaldi entry into Rome. In 1936, Father Vincent McCormick, then Rector of the Gregorian visited Dublin, and stayed in Lesson Street, where Father Finlay was still resident. He was introduced as a past student of the Gregorian. “And when were you in Rome?” asked the Rector, not realizing how old his new acquaintance was “At the Vatican Council” was the smiling answer, and Father Tom’s eyes were twinkling, for he felt that he had scored a point. Garibaldi's entrance into Reine threw the Gregorian into confusion, and Father Tom was sent to Maria Laach, where he spent the next two years (1871-73). It was here that he was impressed by the new agricultural policy of the Prussian government - a lesson in practical economics that he was later to turn to most practical uses. And it was from the German Fathers at Maria Laach that Father Tom received his training in modern scientific methods, which (for a time, at least) made him anxious to specialise in Biology. His intellectual activity during these years must have been remarkable. When he became Professor of Metaphysics in Father Delany's University College ten years later, one of his chief enterprises was to bring Irish Catholic students into contact with modern German thought by the translation of German works on Scholastic Philosophy.
From 1873-76 Mr. Thomas Finlay was teaching his class at the Crescent College, Limerick, with extra work as French and German master and (for the last two years) as Prefect of Studies. A full programme for most men. and the work was not lessened by the fact that the Irish schools were adapting themselves to the new Intermediate System in these years. Mr Finlay's results were brilliant in the new system of competitive examinations, but that did not prevent him from writing his historical novel, “Chances of War,” during these same years. As an old priest, with a long record of useful work behind him, he was fond of telling a story that happened in these Limerick years. Some of the older Fathers found this young scholastic too enterprising, and complaints reached the Irish Provincial, who was a firm believer in the established order of things. Father Tuite summoned the budding author to his presence, and gently suggested to him that “he should remain in his legitimate obscurity.” But the Society has its own ways of checking too great enterprise for a time, and Mr. Finlay was sent to St. Beuno's for his four years of Theology in 1877.
Father Tom was ordained in 1880, he lived to say the Jubilee Mass of his ordination in 1930. There is no trace of his Tertianship in the official Catalogues, and the reason is not far to seek. When Father Tom emerged from Theology in 1881 the Irish Province was faced with an unusual responsibility. The Catholic University which had been founded, with Newman as Rector, in 1851, had failed, so far as practical results were concerned. But the long struggle for equality of rights in University education had at long last met with a partial response from the English Government of the day. The Royal University of Ireland was founded as an examining body, with a limited number of endowed fellowships, in 1881, and the Irish Hierarchy invited Father William Delany, whose energy and ability had made Tullabeg a centre of intellectual life, to take over control of University College under the new conditions. Father Finlay was sent to Tullabeg without further delay, to assist Father Delany as Assistant Prefect of Studies. From Tullabeg a small group of Jesuit Fathers came to Temple Street in Dublin, whilst the Bishops were negotiating the final transfer of University College. As soon as the teaching staff of the new College was formed, with Father Delany as first Rector, Father Finlay was nominated to one of the fellowships in the Royal University, and was appointed Professor of Metaphysics. He held this chair until 1900, when he resigned it in favour of his most brilliant student in these early years, the present Professor William Magennis. Meanwhile, another of his brilliant students, William Coyne, had been appointed Professor of Political Economy. University College suffered a sore loss by William Coyne's death in 1904 and Father Tom Finlay, who had meanwhile taken a leading part in the Co-operative Movement throughout the country, took over the vacant Chair of Political Economy in the same year, He held this chair until the end of the Royal University in 1909; and was immediately appointed to the same chair in the new National University of Ireland. It was this chair that he resigned in 1930, having taught his classes without interruption for forty-seven years (1883-1930). It was his boast that, during all those years he had never omitted a lecture for ill-health or any other reason. God had certainly blessed him with a wonderfully strong and harmonious constitution.
During the first five years of his new career, Father Finlay was not resident in St. Stephen's Green, but was Rector of Belvedere College (1883-87) with his duties as fellow and professor of the Royal University as an extra charge. It is indeed hard to understand how any man can have thrown himself with such energy into his various activities as Father Finlay did during these early years. In Belvedere the new school-buildings were rising as proof of his keen organising ability; and they were only the symbol of an active intellectual life that was attracting general attention to the College. Father Finlay planned a whole series of school text-books and copy books that were to help him pay off the debts incurred in the erection of the new buildings. But this policy was checked for a time, and Father Finlay left Belvedere for University College in 1887. Memories still survive among some old inhabitants of North Dublin : Father Tom Finlay, as a young, vigorous and good-looking priest, riding a fine, black horse down the streets of Dublin to the Phoenix Park. For the Rector of Belvedere College was a conspicuous figure in the social life of Dublin City at that time. The friendships which Father Tom made in the 'eighties and nineties opened up a new sphere of activity, which led to his becoming one Of the best-known and influential priests in the country. His influence in Government circles was very great. He was appointed a Commissioner of National Education, a Trustee of the National Library, and a member of various Royal Commissions. His word was often decisive in the appointment of some Catholic to a post that had hitherto been jealously reserved by the Protestant ascendency, and Father Tom had the knack of making himself liked as well as respected for his solid judgment and courageous support of what he held to be good and true. During these same years he founded and edited two notable monthly magazines : “The Lyceum” (1889-94), and the “New Ireland Review” (1894-1911). There is no space here to tell in any detail the story of Father Tom Finlay's work for the Irish Co-operative Movement, by which he will probably be chiefly remembered in Irish history. It was work that could only be done by a man who had attained the special position which he held in Irish public life. But it is worth recording that gratitude to Father Tom was felt by the poor as well as the rich, for he would spare no time and trouble if he thought the Irish people could be helped by his labourers. His memory is perhaps most cherished .in Foxford Co. Mayo, where he took a leading part in the establishment of the Providence Mills, that have been founded and managed from the first by the Irish Sisters of Charity. During his last illness two of the workers in the Mills were married in Foxford. They were old friends of Father Tom, and they were not satisfied until they had travelled to Dublin in one of the lorries owned by the Mills, to get the old priest's blessing on their married life. When news of his death reached Foxford this year, telegrams of condolence were sent by the staff as a whole, and by some of his personal friends in the Foxford Mills. A notice of Father Finlay's life would be incomplete without some reference to the out-door sports which he had always clung to, in the midst of his busiest years. He was a firm believer in the policy of one good holiday a week, for which good Jesuit tradition can be quoted. His own tastes favoured fishing and shooting, and his friendships. through the country gave him opportunities that were sometimes perhaps the subject of envious comment. Father Tom and his brother Father Peter were keen sportsmen, but it is not certain that their skill was equal to their interest in the sport. Both men were individualists; and their individualism was sometimes erratic in quality, One leading Irish statesmen still has memories of a day's shooting on the lands of O'Conor Don. The party went to to the bog after breakfast; and a council of war was held during the lunch interval. The more cautious members gave it as their opinion that there was only one completely safe position in the field. You could get it by drawing a straight line between the two brothers Finlay! Even his brethren in Leeson Street were sometimes inclined to be sceptical. To the very end, when Father Tom was already long past eighty he made it a practice of. going off for a few days fishing in the Easter holidays, and Good Friday was not complete unless Father Tom brought home a salmon for the community. It was always welcome; but some at least of the Fathers used to murmur that perhaps a faithful Gilly in Co. Wexford was as much responsible for the salmon as Father Tom. But that was a joke that no one would venture to make in Father Tom’s presence. The end came, after four long years of illness, on January 8th. 1940. Father Tom had been stricken down in Leeson Street in the early autumn of 1936, and ever since he had been confined to his bed-room and an invalid chair. It was a long trial, which he bore with wonderful patience, and it was good to think that so many of his friends showed their loyalty and gratitude to him by their frequent visits and messages of sympathy. He died peacefully, having spent the last two days in almost continuous prayer. The funeral Mass at Gardiner Street gave a last opportunity for a tribute of respect and affection, which, once more, revealed the wide connections that Father Tom Finlay had made in his long and laborious
life. May he rest in peace. “A. Gwynn”

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1931

A Disciples Sketch of Father Tom Finlay SJ - William Magennis

When I first saw Father Finlay he was the youthful Rector of Belvedere College. Of middle height, squarely built - so the ordinary man of his physique would be described. But in Father Finlay's case, the face at once captured and held one's notice. It was a strong, somewhat Milesian face, marked with firm decision; not stern, however, for the shrewd bright eyes were always ready to light up with a genial smile. Even then they had that surround of wrinkles which are supposed to indicate advancing age but are more likely to be born of frequent laughter. His hair was coal-black and it lay on his shapely head just as Mr Leo Whelan's masterpiece of portraiture shows it in the painting with which he has immortalized himself.

Like, “Father O'Flynn”, Father Finlay had and still has - the wonderful way with him. Tho' he was Rector and I was an Intermediate boy, he treated me - or so it seemed to me as an equal. Never in his career, not even when in later years he was an intimate of Mr Gerald Balfour, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Lady Gerald Balfour (a very exceptional and gifted woman of influence) and was high in the councils of the great, did he ever “put on side”. He was invariably simple, and unpretentious, apparently unconscious of his own per-eminence.

At the time I first came under his spell, he had built Belvedere College, for he was full of enterprise and courage. In spite of his humility he had faith in his own designs and projects. To me he is the living embodiment of Russell Lowell's dictum. The confidence of the world is guided to a man by a well grounded confidence in himself.

The building was erected on the grounds of Belvedere House, one of those glorious mansions which serve to make us realize to what a level of superb culture the eighteenth century Anglo-Irish - or were they Irish English? - had attained. The Rector's reception-room was at the back of the grand salon, a former music-room probably, and its windows looked out on the facade of the new building. It was there I saw him first, and the memory of him, in his fine environment, remains to me a living vivid memory unduled by all the years between.

Not the least, by the way, of his minor contributions to Dublin's improvement, was the pious care with which he had the exquisitely beautiful stucco enrichment by Italian artists that decorate the hall and staircase of the mansion, restored and delicately picked out in refined colouring.

In those years Belvedere had no playing fields; but later on, he bought grounds between Palmerston Road and Cowper Road, and constructed a bridge across the railway line to give access to them.

He was then a Nationalist in politics, and had considerable weight with not a few of the Irish Parliamentary Party. He secured entrance into the Party for Sir Thomas Grattan Esmonde, but Parnell rather suspected the neophyte as a possible instrument of a Jesuit intrigue. That superstition about Jesuitry dies hard, or rather, it lives hard; Even John Dillon, a devoted Catholic, shared it: he said to me one day - in a moment of expansion during our campaign for a new University - “That friend of yours, Father Finlay, is one of the d---est intriguers in Ireland!” When I expostulated that others might engage in intrigue, but Father Finlay never, Mr, Dillon retorted, “That only shows how he has hoodwinked you!!!”

In course of time I became a teacher of English Literature in Belvedere, and as I was simultaneously a student of Father Finlay in Philosophy, I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of walking with him from his house to the old University College in St Stephen's Green, where he lectured as a Fellow of the Royal University in Mental and Moral Science - as Philosophy was then nicknamed for prudential reasons.

T D Sullivan, poet and patriot, had fallen on evil days financially and was losing heavily on the weekly which he had acquired from his more eminent brother, “A M” Sullivan. This, “The Nation” (founded by Thomas Davis, the elder Dillon and Gavan Duffy) lived largely on recollections of its past, and had a slender circulation. Father Finlay came to T D's rescue by suggesting that three of us, of University College, should be permitted to contribute articles. The present Professor Robert Donovan, who was a tutor in English and several years our senior, Joe Farrell (long years dead) and I were thus introduced to Journalism under Father Finlay's auspices.

The mention of this serves to introduce another of his projects - provision of a Club which would serve as a social centre for Catholic professional men and others in Dublin who had passed through “Tullabeg” (then a College for laymen), Clongowes, Mungret or St. Ignatius. The late Sir Joseph McGrath (who died Registrar of the National University) and his partner “Dan” Croly, MA, who was lecturer in many Catholic institutions, were the only people connected with it whom I ever knew. It was called the “Lyceum Club” and it had the ambition, I heard, at one time to rival the Trinity College Club in St Stephen's Green. It was, however, a vaulting ambition, and it “fell on the other” financially. It was still alive, tho' moribund, when Father Finlay had us made members of it, that we might have the facilities it provided for reading magazines and reviews.

Writing and publishing had always a powerful attraction for Father Finlay. While a “scholastic” he wrote an Irish historical novel treating of the times of Owen Roe, “The Chances of War”, by Rev Thomas Whitelock - I had the pleasure in later years of making it a school reader with my photograph of the author as a frontispiece. He helped the Land Movement, I remember, by pamphleteering - one pamphlet, I remember “Ricardo on Rent”. The Lyceum was a more ambitious - undertaking, a monthly magazine cultivating philosophic politics, sociology, and the Arts, especially Literature. In the first years, Father Finlay was The Lyceum. But I need not recite its history in detail here, for my old friend and college companion-Professor John W Howley of University College, Galway has performed that service with consummate ability and considerable accuracy, in view of the fact that he was not a Lyceum-ite, his history of it forms a chapter in “A Page of Irish History” (Talbot Press). His tireless anxiety to develop his students led him to initiate all sorts of College Societies, not to speak of the Sodality. One of these was a Shakespeare reading society, and Father Finlay was fond of explaining to us different interpretations of favourite passages. I fear, however, few of our number had any histrionic capacity. He promoted, notwithstanding, college theatricals and one of his younger “stars” Tom Molloy, grew stage-struck and joined the company of Beerbohm Tree. I saw him on the boards of the “Gaiety” as Roseneranz or was it Guildenstern? - in Hamlet. He worked up also a Debating Society; and under its favouring conditions “Alex” Sullivan, now Sergeant Sullivan, KC, of the London Bar, first displayed his hereditary powers of oratory.

As regards public speaking, Father Finlay taught by example. He was never what I would call an orator. He was always a finished speaker. He himself, I fancy, rather scorned those elements, rhetorical turns of expression, semi-poetical diction, ornament and emotional appeal, which mark out oratory from the less ornate utterance of ideas. There are sincere souls to whom these “flights” savour of insincerity, or affectation. Where Father Finlay excelled was in the orderly marshalling of his facts, in lucid exposition, and ice-cold, clear-cut, hard, close reasoning that never turned aside until it had remorse lessly demolished the opponent's case. I have always thought what a magnificent equity lawyer and Lord Chancellor were lost to fame when T A Finlay entered the Jesuit Order.

There is, indeed, in the present generation a young T A Finlay who has already made his forensic mark, is an KC and TD, and will assuredly one day ornament the bench of the Supreme Court.

At the expiration of his rectorship, Father Finlay took up residence in University College, where Father Delany reigned as President, The building, famous from long before, as the city dwelling-house of Buck Whalley (a Hell Fire Club-inan with Curran) had been the scene of Newman's ill-starred attempt to found a Catholic University. Father Delany and Father Finlay, aided by colleagues like the historian of Cromwellian Ireland, Rev Denis Murphy; the Irish Mezzo-fanti, Rev J O'Carroll; Rev Gerard Hopkins, the poet; Rev Joseph Darlington (friend of Everyman), were able in some miraculous fashion, to galvanize the corpse that Newman's failure had left unburied, into healthy, vigorous life. And its activities made the National University of Ireland possible.

In St. Stephen's Green, Father Finlay found more leisure - if “leisure”can be used, without a “Bull”, to name a host of varied occupations. He gave scholarly courses of Lenten Lectures, making dry-as-dust Theology a popular “draw”; he organised Needlework Depots, creating industries, and enlarging employment for women and girls; helped to establish woollen mills; founded a publishing firm; was controlling editor of “The New Ireland Review”, and editor-in-chief of “The School and College Series” of books for pupils and students; assisted the Creamery movement; lectured all over Ireland in praise of co-operative industry; inspired and guided the men who created the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction.

During the Parnell leadership controversy, Father Finlay, who, in virtue, perhaps, of his semi-Scottish ancestry, had always been rigidly austere in moral matters even to Puritanism, assailed Parnell vigorously, and joined with the late Mr Tirnothy Healy in calling for his deposition. To me, an ardent Parnellite, it seemed an unhappy alliance. The friendship of the two men, thus begun, remained firm and unbroken till death, some months ago, severed it rudely.

Father Finlay magnanimously forgave my political break-away from his leadership; and it speaks eloquently for his tolerance, that the strong divergence of opinion which grew up between us as the years went by never threw its shadow on our relations as co-workers in the production of school-books, and as colleagues in the University Department of Philosophy.

The hero-worship with which from the first years I could not but reverence him, survived in spite of his union with the Horace Plunkett group in a movement into which Nationalist prejudice did not permit of his being followed. Father Finlay, thanks to his reaction against Parnellism, and his deepened sense of the vital importance of economic matters in the life of the Nation, had come to consider direct, constructive effort among the farmers a more potent instrument of building up a prosperous, Catholic Ireland than political action in way of agitation could ever provide. His satirical humour, of which he has a fund, loved to play its blistering tongue on the moving and passing of resolutions, and “voicing the aspirations of a down-trodden and oppressed nationality”. Clap-trap, raimeis, make-believe, falsities and lies, he abominates by instinct. And, I fear, he relegates our political propaganda to that infamous dust-bin of things despicable.

They who have only an external acquaintance with Father Finlay cannot even guess what depths of genial humanity lie hidden from them in the man. It would, I know, displease him were I to make public here even a fraction of what I know of his innumerable benefactions. St Francis of Assisi was happily styled the “friend of every friendless beast” : Father Finlay I would style the
friend of all the friendless poor. He has a strong sense of duty; but his large heart gives as strong an urge.

Father Finlay has a keen zest for shooting and fishing, he has fished trout from every lake in the Comeragh hills, in Galway and Mayo, Sligo and the North-West. He has no less zest for humorous narrative; and can rival, at times, even Dickens in giving a comic colouring to the most unpromising materials.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1940

Obituary

Father Thomas Finlay SJ

Though he was not educated at Belvedere it would be the blackest of ingratitude if Belvedere did not recognise in Fr Tom Finlay one who had paramount claims upon the School. Others have spoken and written of the wider activities with which this great man's later life was crowded, but we cannot o help rejoicing that the educationalist, who was for many years a pillar of the
National University and an outstanding force in the intellectual life of his country, served his apprenticeship to education and public affairs in Belvedere.

He was a young man, a very young man as Jesuits go, when in 1883 he s became Rector of Belvedere. Yet, he had already about him the elements which were to build up his great prestige. He was already associated with those views and projects which made him not only an ideal Commissioner of Education, and Dean of the Philosophic Faculty in his University, but Founder of the Irish Co-operative Movement and of University Hall. In a true sense, he was the second founder of Belvedere. Materially; certainly. For with the widest vision, backed by the financial resources of his own active brain and pen, he set to work to provide adequate accommodation for a great School for over fifty years.

Incredible as it seems, Belvedere had then carried on with no larger accommodation than the stately drawing-rooms and parlours of Lord Belvedere, where ugly partitions hid the beauty of the decoration and familiarity exposed it to damage. It is hard to-day to realise what those improvised class-rooms and mutilated halls must have been like; what handicaps it had of air and light and heat and cold, and noise and crowding. Fr Finlay swept all that away. First, built the new school buildings in solid red brick which now, as then, though almost doubled by recent additions, housed the Senior school. There was a fine, if small, chapel, excellent laboratories, a “manual work” room, and plenty of class-room space, well lit and warmed. It was work done, not for a day or a year, but for a century or two at the least. Not content with this achievement, he built our theatre and gymnasium, built it so well that it serves admirably the needs of what has become one of Belvedere's most remarkable activities, our popular opera week. In its construction vision, vision once again united with common sense, the spacious and solid with the practicable and the useful. Lastly, he acquired that fine mansion, fit neighbour to Belvedere House, which had been the residence of the Earls of Fingal. Part of this was designed as club house, it has since served to house the Irish Messenger Office, whose connection with Belvedere has been so happy a thing for the School. But for many years before Fr Finlay's policy could be carried further by the acquisitions Nos 7 and 8 Great Denmark Street, it served as a Preparatory school, too, and generations of Belvederians began their school life in the “Little” House. Such a record needs no emphasising. Fr Finlay's was a unique opportunity. He rose nobly to it, and all future generations have only to follow his lead..

Spiritually, perhaps, he meant even more to the School. For Fr Finlay was anything but a mere efficient machine, a juggler with bricks and mortar pounds and pence. To those who knew him that idea is so absurd as to be laughable. For those who did not, one glance at the fine countenance in Leo Whelan's portrait should reveal that wonderful combination of head and heart which made him the great man he was. One misses indeed the little smile the eyes began and the fine, sensitive lips finished, but there is in that broad clear brow and firm glance, and in the enviable repose of the features, a summary of Fr Finlay's qualities. He was one who loved knowledge greatly for herself but more for her kindness to mankind. He was one who loved boys, but again loved manhood more. This made him a teacher, a director of studies and a inspirer of studies at once zealous and not fanatical, wide and not wasteful, noble and not visionary. Of his government of boys. it can be said with certainty that it was much ahead, both in theory and practice, of the normal expectation of his time. Father Finlay was as incapable of harshness, even of what could fairly be called severity, as he was unyielding in his demand for the essentials and just in his sense of proportion. Character in him was fused with kindness. Only a few months before his death a distinguished Belvederian priest, whose picture adorns our pages, found himself in Ireland for a brief spell and learn of his old rector's accessibility even in retirement. He was on the eve of his departure to what is perhaps the world's most arduous and dangerous mission On the day he sailed he went out to Linden. There the two had long talk. Who shall say what they remembered or what they anticipated. But as his visitor rose to go Fr Finlay, with real feeling, asked for a last blessing and with tears in his eyes, his admiring son did for the last time what he was bidden The episode is characteristic. To hear Fr Finlay talk of his old boys was to hear him tell stories of the happy intercourse that can exist between master and boy almost in proportion to the humility, nay, the reverence of both.

He was too short a time (1883-1888) in Belvedere, for it was impossible to expect he should be allowed to give to one limited sphere and group the talents which have enriched the nation. But he never altered his allegiance to his old School. At the Centenary Celebrations in 1931, when he was well over eighty he preached the sermon at the commemorative High Mass, and linked with glowing words, a worthy past to the hopes of a proud future. God spared him to his ninety-second year, with all his wonderful powers of mind and affection intact, and in the final years he would enquire from his visitors after the health and happiness of the School which he had led out of the stages of childhood to the full growth of manhood and maturity. Always it was with a mind eager to hear of new effort and fresh achievement, so that his hearers surely cannot doubt that it will be part of his reward to assist from the Kingdom of Glory those who still struggle with the problems, the works and the opportunities in which he merited so splendidly of boyhood, of his country and of God.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Thomas Finlay (1848-1940)

Entered the Society some eight months after his younger brother. He also did all his higher studies abroad, as, in those days, the Irish Province of the Society had not enough men to maintain their own houses of studies. Thomas Finlay was a student of philosophy in Rome when Garibaldi took the city. He finished his philosophy in Germany and it was during this time he first acquired his interests in scientific methods of agriculture. He spent his regency at Crescent College, 1872-1877. In 1875, although he was still only a scholastic, he was appointed prefect of studies. His versatility was remarkable during his years in Limerick: he was master, prefect of studies, master of the choir and novelist! it was at this time he published his novel, “The Chances of War”. Shortly after his ordination in 1880 a new and brilliant career lay ahead for him. He became a Fellow of the newly established Royal University of Ireland and until 1900 was professor of metaphysics. It is a significant tribute to his physical, no less than his mental energy, that for the first five years of his professor ship at University College, Dublin, he was also Rector of Belvedere College.

In 1900, Father Finlay, who for years had taken a leading part in the co-operative movement, was appointed to the chair of Political Economy, and held this post with distinction for the next thirty years.

Born: 27 November 1858, Laragh, Kilcock, County Kildare
Entered: 19 January 1878, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 03 January 1882, Nice, France

Twin brother of Ignatius (Aenaeus) who entered together though Ignatius LEFT 1879 and died; Cousin of Daniel Jones - RIP 1968 and James Jones (ANG) - RIP 1893

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He Entered with his twin brother Aeneas, who LEFT and died shortly afterwards. Aeneas’ name was changed to Ignatius by Fr J McKenna when he Entered, much to the disgust of the family, as it was an old family name.

Nicholas became ill after he finished his Noviceship and was sent to Nice in the South France for health reasons, but he died there 03 January 1882

Born: 1617, County Kilkenny
Entered: 1638, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: c 1646, Pont á Mousson, France
Final Vows: 23 November 1654, London
Died: 02 October 1667, Watten, Belgiumm - Angliae Province (ANG)

Novice Master Angliae Province (ANG)

1645-1646 In 4th year Theology at Pont á Mousson, not yet a priest
1646-1647 A Priest. Prefect of Philosophers at Rheims
1648-1649 Not in CAMP Catalogue
Is Called “Hibernus” in ANG Catalogue 1639

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of George and Jane née Tempest - who had retired to Kilkenny from their native land (England?) due to persecution. Older brother of Christopher.
1655 Serving on the English Mission at St Mary’s, Oxford district
Appointed Novice Master and Rector at Watten and he died there 02 October 1667
He rendered good service in collecting materials to assist Fr Bartoli in history of the English Province
(cf his biography and literary works in “Records SJ” Vol iii pp 493 seq, where two letters from him to his brother are printed.; de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ” for his literary works)
(cf note by Fr Morris inserted in Foley’s Collectanea and Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS regarding a relic of the “Crown of Thorns” and it’s connection with Martin Grene)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GRENE, MARTIN (for so he spells his surname). How he should have been passed over by Dodd is surprising. According to F. N. Southwell, p. 586. Bibliotheca, &c., and Harris, p. 158. writers of Ireland, this learned Father was born of English parents in the Kingdom of Ireland : but we prefer the authority of the Provincial’s returns of 1642 and 1655 expressly vouching for his being a native of Kent. He was, however, born in 1616 : after studying Humanities in St. Omer’s College, he was aggregated to the Society in 1638, and whilst serving the English Mission, was promoted very deservedly to the rank of a Professed Father, 3rd of December, 1654. During the twelve years that he cultivated this vineyard, he endeared himself to his spiritual children and acquaintance by his discreet zeal, unaffected piety, and varied talent and erudition. Recalled to Watten to take charge of the Novices, he shone like a pillar of light before them by his experience in a spiritual life, intimate practical knowledge of the Institute of their Holy Founder, extraordinary sweetness and affability of temper, and his superior literary attainments. His lamented death took place at Watten, on 2nd of October, (not 30th of September, as Harris translates the Postridie Cal Octobris of p. 586. of F. Nath. Southwell’s Biblioth.) 1667. aet. 51, leaving behind him the reputation of an eminent Classic, Historian, Philosopher, and Divine. We have from his pen,

1. “An account of the Jesuites Life and Doctrine”," a small 8vo. of 149 pp. Printed in London, 1661. This admirable book was a great favorite with James II. In a letter of F. James Forbes, Superior of his brethren in Scotland, addressed on the 10th of April, 1680, to the General, John Paul Oliva, I read as follows, “Cum obtulisscm Serenissimo Duci Eboracensi libellum ad obiter tantum legendum, qui jam a multis annis a quodam Patre Green, Anglico idiomatc fuerat scriptus, in quo egregie Instituti nostri, Vitae et Doctrinae rationem reddit, ejus lectione adeo Princeps ejusque Conjux tenebantur, ut voluerint mihi, unicum quod habcbam, exemplar reddere, asserentes, se velle curare, ut tam praeclarum opusculum, et hisce praesertim temporibus adeo necessarium, typis iterant mandctur”. We hope to see a new edition of this valuable work.
2. “An Answer to the Provincial Letters” A translation from the French, but with considerable improvements of his own, and with a brief history of Jansenism prefixed.
3. “Vox veritatis, seu Via Regia ducens ad veram Pacem”. His brother I think, Francis Green, translated this Latin Treatise into English, and printed it at Ghent in 24mo., A.D. 1676. He had also a volume of his Church History of England ready for the Press, when death arrested the progress of his labours.
   To his well stored mind F. Dan. Bartolis in his “Inghilterra”. (Folio, Rome, 1667) was indebted for information on English Catholic affairs.

Two or three Letters of the Rev. Father to his brother Christopher are now before me.
The 1st is dated 18th of September, 1664. He expresses great anxiety for F. Bartoli’s prosecuting his intended English Ecclesiastical History, and his own readiness to assist “in so pious a design”. In answer to certain Queries, he says “I have the book De non adeundis Haereticorum Ecclcsiis”. It is certainly F. Persons work, and so it is esteemed by all here. It was printed in 1607, and though it have not F Persons name in the front, yet in p. 35, after having delivered his opinion that it is not lawful, he subscribes thus; Ita Sentio, R.P. : and then, in the following page, gives the opinion of Baronius, Bellarmine, and eight other principal Divines, then at Rome, signed by every one.
In the next place, he urges the expediency of consulting and reading the Protestant historians of this country, in order to elicit from the conflicting parties, the precise truth, and to expose error, adding “but that which I conceive most necessary for one who will write our Ecclesiastical History, is the Acts of Parliament, which make the Protestant Creed. They must be exactly looked into by one who will know the state of our Church affairs. For the later Parliaments do change the former. The main point of the Act of 1st of Elizabeth, by which the Queen had power given her to punish all that she should think fit, by any free born subject, to whom she should delegate her power; upon which clause the High Commission Court, and the oath ex- officio were founded : this main clause was repealed by Charles I. and the repeal confirmed lately by Charles II. As also the form of creating Bishops was lately changed by this king : and some other things in the Liturgy have been changed. So that without seeing the last Acts of Parliament, no man can tell what the religion of England is. -And since your departing hence, the Supremacy hath been strangely handled in the Lords House, and power denied the king to dispense in the Ecclesiastical Penal Laws, which, notwithstanding, all his predecessors since Henry the Eighth, practised”.
In the second letter dated Sherborne, 9th of October, 1661, he repeats his willingness to afford his utmost assistance to F. Bartoli : and he says, “There be many very fine things that might be said in that History; but I fear it will be hard to get them together. For it hath formerly been so dangerous in England to keep any writings of that kind, that the greater part is lost, and no memory remains of many gallant actions, save only in the verbal relations of some of our old men”.
In the 3d letter dated 1st of January, 1665, he tells his brother, that he had now returned home about eight days since, from London that to save him trouble, had written in Latin what had occurred to him on the question of going to the Protestant Church, “that if you think it worth seeing, you may shew it to F. Bartoli. For the relation concerning F. Garnet s trial, I have it; but it being very long, I cannot send it in a letter, and yet know not how otherwise to send it. So that I am thinking to compare it with what is in F. More’s book (which now I have) and to write only that which the manuscript doth add, if it add anything considerable. I had once occasion to inform myself of that history, and I found none better than the two books of Eudaemon Johannes, the one “Ad actionem Edonardi Coqui Apologia pro P. Henrico Garnctto”, the other, “Parallelus Torti ac Tortoris”. Though the things be there spread and scattered, yet they are (if collected) very pertinent to clear F. Garnet and ours. For example, among other things this is one; that the Traitors had, amongst themselves, made an oath, that they would never speak of their design to any Priests, because they knew they would not allow of it ; also, that they were specially offended with the Jesuits, for their preaching patience and submission. There are divers other circumstances which manifestly excuse ours. I had a relation made me by one of ours, who had it in Seville, which clearly shows that the whole Plot was of Cecil’s making; but it being only told by an old man, who forgot both times and persons, I believe I shall never make use of it. Yet I have heard strange things, which if ever I can make out, will be very pertinent. For certain, the late Bishop of Armagh (Usher) was divers times heard to say, that if Papists knew what he knew, the blame of the Gunpowder Treason would not lie on them”, and other things I have heard, which if I can find grounded, I hope to make good use of. It may be, if you write to Seville to my brother Frank, he will, or somebody else there, give you some light in this business.

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

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.

Born: 01 February 1816, Banada Abbey, County Sligo
Entered: 15 May 1844, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1852, St Beuno's, Wales
Final vows: 02 February 1860
Died: 02 June 1869, Milltown Park, Dublin

Older brother of James - RIP 1893; Cousin of Nicholas Gannon - RIP 1882

First Irish Province Novice Master 1860-1864

by 1847 in Clongowes
by 1851 at Laval (FRA) studying Theology
by 1854 Teaching at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG)
by1859 at St Eusebio, Rome Italy (ROM) making Tertianship
by 1860 Mag Nov at Milltown

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of Daniel and Maria née MacDonnell (daughter of Miles of Carnacon, Co Mayo). Brother of James RIP 1893 Loyola, Guipúzkoa, Spain

Early education and Prior Park, Bath, then Louvain and Trinity College Dublin. On his father’s death he succeeded to the family estate, became a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for Sligo, and was once put in nomination to represent the County in Parliament. Growing weary of the world, he determined to consecrate himself to God in the Society of Jesus, joining the Irish Vice-Province, and his Noviceship was at Hodder, 15 May 1844, aged 28.

1846-1847 After First Vows he taught Grammar at Clongowes.
1847-1851 He then studied Philosophy and some Theology at Laval, and the finished his Theology at St Beuno’s, being Ordained there.
1852 Appointed Socius to the Novice Master at Hodder, while completing his Tertianship at the same time.
1854-1857 Professor of Moral Theology at St Beuno’s, and then taught the short course in Hebrew, whilst acting as Spiritual Father.
1857-1858 Sent to Gardiner St as a Missioner, but soon left for Rome, having got permission to make a second Tertianship, since the first was too much interrupted at Hodder.
1859 Sent to Milltown as Minister
1860-1864 Having taken Final Vows, he was appointed Rector of Milltown and the first HIB Master of Novices, the Vice-Province having been raised to a full Province in 1860.
1864 He was succeeded by Joseph Lentaigne, so he became Spiritual Father at Milltown, and Director of the Spiritual Exerecises to externs, whilst at the same time being Socius to the Provincial.
1869 He died a holy death at Milltown 02 June 1869 Milltown aged 53. A full account of his sickness and death appeared in “Letters & Notices” Vol vi, pp 172 seq :
“Father Jones was a profound Theologian, and deeply versed in Canon Law, and was consulted with very great confidence by many persons far and near. is varied talents were enhanced by a singular humility, a most amiable disposition and a childlike simplicity, and he could never be brought to look upon himself as fit for any post of honour or responsibility. Death alone had anticipated his knowledge of the fact that he had been appointed Provincial”.

He was thrice elected Procurator to represent the Irish Province in Rome : 1860, 1863 and 1868.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Daniel Jones 1816-1869
Fr Daniel Jones was born at Benada Abeey County Sligo on February 1st 1916. He made his classical and higher studies at Prior Park, the University of Louvain and Trinity College Dublin. On the death of his father he succeeded to the family estate, and became a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for Sligo. Growing weary of the world, he entered the Society at Hodder in 1844 for the Irish Province.

In 1850 he was made Socius to the Master of Novices at Hodder, while doing his tertianship at the same time. In 1857-1858 he was a Missioner at Gardiner Street, but soon left for Rome, having obtained leave to make a second tertianship, due to the interruptions of the first one. He was then appointed first Rector of Milltown Park and Master of Novices.

In 1864 he was succeeded as Rector by Fr Lentaigne, he himself becoming Spiritual Father and Director of retreats. Three times successively he was elected Procurator to represent the Irish Province in Rome. He was a holy man, and also the author that handy little booklet on the Morning Oblation. He was so humble in himself that he never considered himself fit for any post of responsibility. Death alone anticipated his knowledge of the fact that he had been appointed Provincial.

He died a holy death at Milltown Park, June 2nd 1869.

Born: 19 May 1929, Tullamore, County Offaly
Entered: 07 September 1946, St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1961, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1964, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 15 January 2021, Coptic Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia - Zambiae-Malawi Province (ZAM)

Part of the St Ignatius, Lusaka community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ZAM 03 December 1969

Son of Michael Joseph Kelly and Agnes Sheehy. Studied at UCD.

Middle Brother of Bob Kelly (ZAM) - RIP 2005 and Joseph A Kelly - RIP 2008

Ordained at Milltown Park

1946-1948 St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
1948-1952 Rathfarnham Castle - Studying
1952-1955 St Stanislaus College Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1955-1958 Chikuni, Zambia - Regency, studying language then teaching at Canisius College
1958-1962 Milltown Park - studying Theology
1962-1963 Rathfarnham Castle - Tertianship
1963-1971 Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia - teaching; (1964-1970) Proncipal (1966-1969) Rector
1971-1973 Birmingham, England, - studying Child Psychology
1973-1974 Ireland
1974-1975 Jesuit House, Handsworth Park, Lusaka, Zambia -
1975-1976 Moreau House, Mazabuka, Zambia
1976-1978 UNZA Hostel, Lusaka, Zambia - Professor of Education at UNZA; Education Consultant;
1978-1986 Luwisha House, Lusaka, Zambia - Professor of Education at UNZA; Education Consultant; Writer re HIV AIDS; (1975-1979) Dean, School of Education; (1979-1983) Deputy Vice Chancellor
1986-1987 Rue de Grenelle, Paris, France - International Institute of Education, planning visitng fellow
1987-2011 Luwisha House, Lusaka, Zambia - Education Consultant; Writer re HIV AIDS;
2011-2012 Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin - recovering health
2012-2020 Luwisha House, Lusaka, Zambia - Professor of Education at UNZA; Education Consultant; Writer re HIV AIDS
2020-2021 St Ignatius, Lusaka, Zambia

◆ Irish Jesuit Missions
Fr. Michael Kelly Honorary Degree Conferring
Honorary Degree Conferring, RCSI, 6th June 2012
In accepting the honorary doctorate that RCSI has just now conferred on me I feel greatly honoured, greatly humbled and greatly privileged: honoured that RCSI should recognise in this way the limited contributions I have been able to make in advocating for more and better education for girls, a better deal for orphaned children and a more coherent response to HIV and AIDS; humbled that I should have been singled out from the great number of people world-wide who are dedicating themselves so wholeheartedly to efforts to stem the AIDS epidemic and who see girls’ education as central to this; and privileged that I can represent in some way so many thousands of wonderful people across the world whose lives have been darkened by the shadows of HIV or AIDS but who never lost heart.
Ladies and Gentlemen, forty-nine years ago the great Martin Luther King shared with the world his dream that, among other things, one day his four children would live in a nation where they would be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.
Dr. King’s dream speech inspired his people and transformed the face of the United States to such an extent that less than four years ago the country elected its first ever black President, who could affirm: “Where we are met with cynicism and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people, Yes We Can!”
Ladies and Gentlemen, Graduating Students, our vision for global health is also a dream, a dream which strongly reaffirms that the enjoyment of good health is a fundamental human right and that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment the actualisation of this right remains a possibility. In the words of Barack Obama, we here at this RCSI conferring ceremony can affirm with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of this great institution - yes, we can.
Yes, we can eliminate infant and child mortality, and ensure universal vaccination coverage against measles, polio and other diseases.
Yes, we can roll back the malaria which affects over 200 million people each year.
Yes, we can reduce and eventually eliminate the almost nine million new cases of tuberculosis that occur each year.
Yes, we can reach the global targets of zero new HIV infections, zero AIDS deaths and zero HIV-related discrimination.
Yes, we can even address the enormous challenges of neglected tropical diseases which currently affect more than 1,000 million people and thrive in the poorest, most marginalised communities.
Yes, we can ensure the access of all peoples - here and in all other parts of the world - to a level of health care that will help them lead a satisfying, full and productive human life.
Yes, we can do it and we are doing it.
Let me speak for a few moments about my own country, Zambia, where just three months ago a team of nine doctors successfully removed a fourteen-and-a-half kilo tumour from the back of a young man. Of course, the tumour should never have been allowed to grow to such size, but that it could be successfully removed speaks well for the medical services that a developing country can provide .
In recent years, Zambia has also seen considerable improvements in many of the markers for health care:
A significant reduction in child mortality;
• HIV infection rates falling steadily and substantially among young women and young men;
• About 90% of adults who are in need of anti-retroviral therapy receiving it, the result being fewer AIDS-related deaths;
• Among infants a dramatic reduction in deaths arising from the transmission of HIV from parent to child;
• More widespread use of anti-malarial drugs, an increase in the numbers sleeping under anti-mosquito impregnated bed-nets, and more widespread spraying of mosquitos.
Yes, we can do it and we are doing it. But we need to do it more quickly. We need to do it more
quickly for the sake of the millions whose lives are being blighted by preventable ill-health. We need to do it more quickly for the sake of our own human integrity since we have made promises that too often we honour more in the breach than in the fulfilment.
And for this we need more financial and material resources. We need more civic and political commitment. We need more human resources.
Believing, as RCSI does, that the person is at the centre of everything we do, we need a more enlightened priority system that ranks health, education, social services and job creation higher than bailing out questionable financial institutions, and certainly higher than squandering public resources on doomed investments and extravagant and even corrupt undertakings.
And that requires that every one of us here today pulls together to make this a better and more decent world. It requires that we become radically committed to eliminating scandalous inequalities in the access of people to health care. It means that we firmly believe that each one of us can make a difference for the better.
George Bernard Shaw once said: “Some look at things that are, and ask, why? I dream of things that never were and ask, why not?”
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Graduating Students, let this conferring day be memorable for the way it motivates each one of us to dream of something that never was - a peaceful, healthy and more just world - and ask “why not? Why can’t I do something to make it so? What am I doing to make this a better world? What more can I do to ensure peace and health and basic justice for all people?”
I thank you.
Michael J. Kelly, S.J. Lusaka, Zambia

24 October 2012
Irish Jesuit, Fr Michael Kelly SJ, was conferred with The Order of Distinguished Service by Zambian President Edgar Lungu, in State House, Lusaka on 24th October.

The honour was given to Fr Kelly in acknowledgment for his tireless commitment to ending HIV and AIDS in Zambia. He has worked for decades to educate people about the virus and to promote safe behaviour among youth and those most at risk in Zambia, sub-Saharan Africa, and abroad. He has been active in developing strategies for HIV prevention, and human rights, and has been a consultant to international organisations including UNESCO, UNICEF, the FAO, UNAIDS, Oxfam and Irish Aid.

Fr Kelly went to Zambia as a Jesuit missionary in 1955 and spent most of his working life there in education, as a teacher and administrator at secondary and university level. He felt from the outset that it was home and that he was welcomed there. He became a Zambian citizen in the 1960s, a decision he says he never regretted. In later years, he was deeply saddened by the numbers of people who were dying because of the country’s AIDS epidemic and vowed to address the problem, through the schools.

This is not the first honour that Fr Kelly has received due to his outstanding work. He was awarded an Honorary Degree by University College Dublin in 2006, and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in 2012. Since 2006, Irish Aid has honoured Father Michael’s achievements through the Annual Father Michael Kelly HIV/AIDS Event, timed to coincide with World AIDS Day (1st December)

A JESUIT’S WORK WITH HIV AND AIDS
Michael J. Kelly, S.J., was one of the first ten recipients of the new Presidential Distinguished Service Awards at Áras an Uachtaráin on 15th November 2012.
President Michael D. Higgins said the new Award allowed the State to formally honour exceptional individuals and to recognise the “sacrifice, support and commitment to Ireland of the wider Irish diaspora in all its diversity”.

Fr Michael J. Kelly writes below about his campaigning struggle against the global epidemic of HIV/Aids :
When AIDS exploded on the world in the 1980s, I was lecturing in education at the University of Zambia. It soon became obvious to me that I would have to take account of this new disease in my teaching, research and priestly work.
Deaths and funerals were becoming the order of the day. Across the country people were dying in large numbers, most of them parents with young families, leaving behind them children to be reared and educated by communities which were being overwhelmed by the great number of orphans. Teachers and education administrators were also falling sick and dying in large numbers.
I quickly saw that the courses I was teaching had to say something about this totally new situation. They had to speak about adjusting to the potential loss of teachers, about the great numbers of orphans that would be coming into the schools, about teaching children traumatised by the loss to a dehumanising sickness of greatly loved family members, about communities shattered and bewildered and impoverished by the sickness and deaths of their most productive members.
But the courses also had to suggest how the very process of education could help check the disease and what could be done to protect the education system itself against the disease’s destructive impacts. From then on, my work was guided by what I termed education’s “minimax” response to the pandemic: minimise the potential of HIV and AIDS to harm the education sector, maximise the potential of the education sector to control the disease and reduce its harmful effects.
This was a new approach at the time, so new that the University of Zambia has the distinction of being one of the first universities in the world to take account of HIV and AIDS in its teaching programmes. Increasingly, I began to study, write and give presentations about AIDS and education. It was not long until we began to speak about the potential of education to provide a “social vaccine” against the disease, an approach that UNAIDS, the highest world authority on the disease, still strongly advocates.
Gradually I found myself being drawn more and more into national and international discussions on the two-way interaction between AIDS and education, into advocacy and awareness-raising in regard to orphans, and eventually into a wide spectrum of AIDS-related areas, almost all of them with strong social justice implications – stigma, poverty, the subordinate status of women, human rights, the marginalisation of whole categories of people, unfair north-south trade and other practices, food security, environmental protection, global failure to deal honestly with several AIDS-related issues.
The outcome was a greatly extended engagement on my part with the pandemic and extensive commitments to activities across the world on its educational and other implications. As the demands became greater, it eventually became necessary for me to retire from the University of Zambia so that I could dedicate myself more wholeheartedly to the work of confronting HIV and AIDS nationally and globally. And it is to this work that I remain committed. AIDS is not yet over. People are still dying. AIDS continues to consume them. It also consumes me, not in body but in spirit, and challenges me with the great Jesuit questions: “What have I done for Christ who is suffering with HIV and AIDS? What more should I be doing so that there is less AIDS and more chance that people can live with greater human dignity in a world that comes closer to being the happy world God had planned it to be?”
In many ways the answers are simple. There is need for more honesty in dealing with central AIDS issues. There is need to avoid complacency and recognise how far the world is from seeing an end to the pandemic. There is need for an uncompromising stand on making social justice a reality for every child, woman and man. There is need for more resources for those affected by the pandemic and for research that will lead to its control.
To the extent that I can respond to any of these needs I must do so. The miracle of those living with HIV or AIDS demands this of me. For as long as one person remains with HIV or the disease deprives one child of a parent, I cannot stop. Until God calls me, or AIDS ends, I simply must keep going.

22 August 2015
August 22nd will be the 60th anniversary of my first arrival in Zambia in 1955. I was young and inexperienced then, but greatly excited at the prospect of sharing with others my life and whatever expertise I had and thereby communicating the Good News of Jesus Christ.
A spirit of céad míle fáilte
I am now old and somewhat decrepit, but blissfully happy that I can still share myself and the word of God with my Zambian sisters and brothers. I am deeply indebted to them for the sincerity with which they welcomed me into their lives and society. The spirit was always that of céad míle fáilte. I felt this right from the outset, though the feeling was deepened when I became a Zambian citizen in the mid- 1960s, a step that I never for a second regretted, though I recall the tears it caused to my mother!
I spent most of my working life in Zambia in education — teaching and administering — at secondary school and university levels. It is a great pleasure today to meet so many who had been “through my hands” at school or university and to see them successful in life, most of them happily married and parents of lovely families, some of them grandparents, and some of them priests or religious.
But there is also the sadness of knowing that many have died, especially that many died from AIDS. Very soon after the world became aware of this terrible scourge, I saw that it was a challenge that we would have to do something about through our schools, not only in Zambia but all over the world. This realisation drew me into thinking, teaching, writing and speaking about the give-and-take between AIDS and education, into speaking out on behalf of orphans, and eventually into a wide range of AIDS-related areas.
In my AIDS work I have met and been influenced by many remarkable people infected with the disease. I don’t think I could have continued were it not for them, above all the women and the children. I felt driven by their suffering and the way it had undercut their very humanity. But equally I felt driven by their resilience, their spirit, their determination, their courage, and their cheerfulness.
Brigitte Syamalevwe: fearless and powerful
Most uplifting of all was Brigitte Syamalevwe, a highly educated Zambian woman who was diagnosed with HIV in 1992. Instead of staying at home feeling sorry for herself, Brigitte travelled around, speaking fearlessly, feelingly, and powerfully about the epidemic and her situation. She refused to take life-saving anti-retroviral drugs when these were offered to her, saying she would do so only when the poor of Zambia, and particularly the women, could also have access to such treatment. Even at the very end, when I had paid for the drugs that could save her, she told her family not to collect them but to leave her in God’s hands. And so, overwhelmed by grief, weariness and illness, she died quietly and peacefully, letting her great spirit soar to the God whom she had loved and served so well.
Brigitte was an Easter witness in the darkness of HIV and AIDS. You just had to be inspired by her. She and people like her show the strength of the human spirit and give real promise that we can make this a better world.
Sixty glorious, happy, fulfilling, satisfying years
Coming back to myself and thinking about my 60 years in Zambia, I wouldn’t ask for a minute of them to have been any different for me. They have been 60 glorious, happy, fulfilling, satisfying years and I thank God for every second of them. Of course there were setbacks and difficulties, very especially the grief and anguish of seeing the way AIDS was ravaging the people. But the overwhelming picture is one of joy and gladness and an awareness that God is working all things together for good.
I ask you to join with me in praising and thanking God that it has been so.

June 2016
A MUSEUM PIECE OR A HERO?
Early in May a new state-of-the-art interactive-type museum, EPIC Ireland, was opened in the vaults of the docklands CHQ building in Dublin. The new museum focuses on the Irish abroad and the Irish diaspora, what they have done and what they are doing in various parts of the world.
The Museum Director has informed me, as a matter of courtesy, that they are featuring my story in the visitor experience and will continue to do so for the coming ten years. I have no idea what aspects of my ‘story’ are touched on, but it is reassuring to know that at last I have found my proper niche - as a museum piece!
Distinguished Visitor visits ‘her hero’
On May 25th, which was Africa Freedom Day, I was greatly honoured when the former Irish President Mary Robinson, called at Luwisha House to see me. She was in Lusaka for a few days to speak to a top- level meeting of the African Development Bank on ecological, clean power and climate-change issues. Noting that I was not present when she met some members of the Irish community shortly after her arrival in Lusaka, Mrs. Robinson asked the Irish Ambassador if she could come to see me as I was ‘her hero’ (https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/410-irish-men-behind-the-missions-fr-michael-j-kelly-sj). God save the mark!
To talk of many things
During her stay of about an hour she and I talked about many things – progress against HIV and AIDS, the empowerment of women, the problems faced by children, clean energy and solar power, population growth, and even family.
Unfortunately I had to acknowledge that so far we here at Luwisha House had done nothing about installing a solar power system, even though we are very suitably placed to do so, with the sun beaming down on us all day almost every day of the year.
But I was able to redress the balance a little by drawing attention to the work being done by the Jesuit Centre for Ecology and Development in Malawi (http://jcedmw.org/jced-as-a-new-project-of-the-jesuit- fathers/) and the development there of a cooking stove that is very economical in its use of charcoal, something that Mrs. Robinson said she had heard about.
It was indeed a great honour to receive this surprise visit from such an eminent and busy person. I greatly appreciated it.
Michael J. Kelly SJ, Luwisha House, Lusaka, Zambia. June 2016

20 July 2020
MICHAEL J. KELLY FEATURED ON STAMP
The pioneering work of Irish Jesuit, Michael J. Kelly SJ, as an educator and a campaigner for HIV/AIDS in his adopted home of Zambia, has been honoured on a postage stamp from An Post (https://www.anpost.com/AnPost/media/PDFs/The-Collecto_1st-Ed_2020_AW_FOR-WEB.pdf) which is part of a set to mark St. Patrick's Day.
The Irish Abroad series of five stamps, marks the contribution that emigrants from Ireland made to their respective communities overseas. Fr Kelly (1929-), who was born in Tullamore, shares the stamp with award-winning author Edna O’Brien (1930-) from Co. Clare, and also with Cork-born humanitarian worker Mary Elmes (1908-2002) who saved the lives of 200 Jewish children in France during the Holocaust.
In 1955 Fr Kelly left Ireland for Northern Rhodesia, which would become the Republic of Zambia in 1964. Over the next 60 years, he held a series of appointments across the country, which resulted in his nomination as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Zambia in 1980 and a promotion to Professor of Education in 1989.
He worked tirelessly to get rid of the stigma of HIV/AIDS through education and advocacy work across Zambia and further afield.
Very soon after the world became aware of this terrible scourge [HIV/AIDS], I saw that it was a challenge that we would have to do something about through our schools, not only in Zambia but all over the world. This realisation drew me into thinking, teaching, writing and speaking about the give-and-take between AIDS and education, into speaking out on behalf of orphans, and eventually into a wide range of AIDS-related areas.
In my AIDS work I have met and been influenced by many remarkable people infected with the disease. I don’t think I could have continued were it not for them, above all the women and the children. I felt driven by their suffering and the way it had undercut their very humanity. But equally I felt driven by their resilience, their spirit, their determination, their courage, and their cheerfulness.
In 2006, the Irish Government established the annual Father Michael Kelly Lecture on HIV and AIDS, which is now an annual event. In 2019 the theme was 'HIV & AIDS: Women, Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights'. (https://globalhealth.ie/womens-sexual-and-reproductive-health- rights-leaving-no-one-behind/)Fr Kelly delivered a compelling video message to the audience about the need to educate women and girls in Zambia to protect themselves from HIV infection. (https://globalhealth.ie/womens-sexual-and-reproductive-health-rights-leaving-no-one-behind/)
Fr Kelly has been the recipient of many awards, in Ireland and abroad for his aid work. In recognition of his contribution to education in Zambia and worldwide HIV advocacy, the Association of Commonwealth Universities presented him with the Symons Award in September 2003. He has received several honorary degrees including Doctor of Science (2004), from the University of the West Indies, Doctor of Laws from NUI (2006) and an honorory doctorate from the Royal College of Surgeons (2012).
The Forum for Women Educationists in Africa (Zambia Chapter) awarded him the first ever Kabunda Kayongo Award for “immense contribution through research on girls’ education” (2006) and the First Lady of South Africa, Madame Thobeka Zuma, presented him with a Humanitarian Award for commitment to health and HIV and AIDS in the southern African region (2010).
He received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award from President Michael D. Higgins (https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/241-fr-michael-j-kelly-sj-receives-new-presidential-award) at Áras an Úachtaráin in November 2012, which honours the Irish diaspora in recognition of its sustained and distinguished service abroad. (https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/241-fr-michael-j-kelly-sj-receives-new-presidential-award)
Fr Kelly's is also one of over 320 emigrant stories that is featured at EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum (https://epicchq.com/)in the CHQ Building in Dublin.

Born: 06 September 1826, Glaslough, Co Monaghan
Entered 06 June 1854, Sault-au-Récollet, Montréal, Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1859, All Hallows College, Dublin
Professed” 15 August 1871
Died 09 October 1885, St Vincent’s Hospital, New York, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Part of the Boston College, Boston MA, USA, community at the time of death

Older Brother of Patrick McQuaid (MARNEB) - RIP 1885

Born: 18 September 1852, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Entered: 27 November 1871, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 15 August 1891
Final Vows 02 February 1891, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 27 November 1908, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Twin brother of John Murphy - RIP 1898

Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus: 13 November 1900-1905
Novice Master: 1905 - 1908

by 1871 at home for health
by 1873 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying
by 1874 at Roehampton, London (ANG) studying
by 1875 at Laval, France (FRA) studying
by 1885 at Oña Spain (ARA) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was a twin brother of John Murphy SJ - RIP 1898. He was also a brother of Canon Henry Murphy of Arran Quay and Lieutenant Colonel William Reed Murphy DSO, who had a distinguished career in the Indian Civil Service.

After First Vows he studied Rhetoric at Roehampton and then three years Philosophy at Laval, where Fathers Bucceroni and Fredet were teaching at the time.
He was then sent as a teacher to Tullabeg and later as a Teacher and Prefect of Studies at Clongowes for Regency of seven years.
1884 he was sent to Oña to study Theology. This was at that time the largest Theologate in the Society, whose chief Theologian, Father Mendine, was of great repute. Here he read a most distinguished course in Theology and shortly after his return to Ireland he was appointed a Chair of Theology at Milltown. He was a profound and able Theologian. Whilst this work was significant, he also found the time to exercise his love of children and the poor, by gathering the local poor boys together on Saturday evenings to teach them.
1895 He was appointed Master of Novices.
1900 he was appointed Provincial, and when he finished this in 1905 he went back to Milltown which he loved, including all his former work. he was not known as a Preacher as it was not necessarily in his gift, though when speaking or talking to groups who could follow his high train of thought, he was very effective. In this regard, his Priests Retreats were highly valued, and he also earned a great reputation as a Spiritual Director, adding prudence and sanctity to his learning.
Early in 1908 his health became a concern. From the outset there was not great hope that he would recover, and he died at Tullabeg an edifying death 22 March 1908.

At his end he was said to have described his experience as being like a man travelling from Dublin to Bray Head, shut up in a dark stuffy tunnel, but expecting at every moment to dash out into the sunshine with a glorious view before and around him, the glittering sun stretched out on his left, and inland on the right, green fields, woods and fair mansions, and in the distance the beautiful mountains. “Some happy change like that of a spiritual sort is before me please God”. In his dying he didn’t seem to suffer much, never tired of thanking those around him, and they considered themselves privileged to have witnessed his dying.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father James Murphy SJ 1852-1908
Fr James Murphy was one of those men who left an indelible mark on the Province. He was one of those men to whom those who met him could not be indifferent. One might put it this way : Fr Peter Kenney was to the infant Mission what Fr Murphy was to the growing Province.

Born in Clonmel in 1852, he entered the Society in 1869, where he had the famous Fr Sturzo as Novice Master. After a brilliant course of studies, especially displaying exceptional intellectual ability in Theology an Oña Spain, he was appointed to the chair of Theology in Milltown Park. In 1895, he became Master of Novices, his favourite Office in the Society. He used to say that God had given him the “tit-bit” of the work of the Province. He had a special flair for training novices. He had immense and infectious enthusiasm for the Society. His influence on the novices was profound and lasting, the central strand of which was his spirituality, a strong and effective love of the Lord. Regnum Christi was the inspiration of his life.

He was a fluent and forceful speaker and had a special gift of expounding attractively deep spiritual truths like the varietes of grace. His way of giving the Exercises, such as the Foundation and the Kingdom, so impressed his hearers, that novices could approach it only from his direction, and when afterwards as priests, they themselves had to give the Exercises, they revealed at once the Master from whom they learned.

He aimed at making the novices men of principle. “What is right is right” he would say, “and what is wrong is wrong, and that settles the question”. He did not forget the traditional methods of training in the Society, and by public and often unconventional commands, he raised them in poverty, obedience and humility. The great majority of his novices always admitted that he was the greatest influence on their lives.

In 1900 he was appointed Provincial, and he set about moulding the Province to his own high standard of spiritual values and ascetic living. As Provincial he was a man of vision. Foreseeing the growing importance of Biblical Studies, he sent three brilliant Juniors to the University of Beirut to learn Oriental languages. One of these, Fr Edmund Power, by his distinguished career at the Biblicum and Milltown Park, more than justified Fr Murphy’s foresight. He retired from this post in 1905 to become once more Master of Novices.

Health failed him in 1908, and he died on March 22nd at St Stanislaus College, Tullamore. To the end he displayed these high principles of the spiritual life, which he had inculcated into generations of novices.

His actual death was most edifying, painless and effortless. From his deathbed he delivered his last exhortation to the novices gathered round him, gathering up the gist of his teaching, which left an indelible mark on all of them. Describing the scene that bursts on one emerging from a stuffy tunnel at Bray Head, he said “Some happy change like that if a spiritual sort is before me, please God”. The bystanders considered themselves privileged to have witnessed so holy a death.

◆ The Clongownian, 1908

Obituary

Father James Murphy SJ

On Sunday morning, March 22nd, Father James Murphy died at Tullabeg. Though not educated either at Clongowes or Tullabeg, he was so intimately connected with both Colleges that his memory deserves more than a passing notice in our columns. Born at Clonmel in 1852, he was only 17 years of age when he entered the Noviceship of the Society of Jesus at Milltown Park, Dublin. After the usual term of preparation he went to Tullabeg as Master, and in 1878 passed on to Clongowes, where he soon became Prefect of Studies, a post which he held for several years, It was during his tenure of this office that the Intermediate Act was passed, and that that system of examination came into operation. It was well that there was such a man as Father Murphy at the head of affairs at so trying a time, for it required no little skill and manipulation to graft the Intermediate system on to the old ratio studiorum. During these years at Tullabeg and Clongowes he won the esteem of all the boys, and the affection of not a few. ·All recognised his great qualities, his vast erudition, his untiring zeal, his impartiality, his self-sacrifice, and many came to realise that in him they possessed a true friend, one to whom they could safely confide their troubles and difficulties, sure of a sympathetic hearing and kindly assistance, Indeed it would be no exaggeration to say that when the notice of his death appeared in the papers, many who read it felt tbat they had lost their truest and best friend. From Cloogowes in 1884 he went to Oña, in Spain, to study Theology, acquiring the reputation of a brilliant Theologian, so much so that his opinion was always asked by his fellow-students when some especially kootty point had to be settled. After his return to Ireland he was appointed Professor of Theology in Milltown Park, where he fully upheld the reputation he had gained for himself in Spain. In 1895 he was appointed Rector and Master of Novices in Tullabeg, a post which he held until November, 1900, when he became Provincial of the Irish Province. In this position he was necessarily brought again into close touch with Clongowes, and he always evinced the keenest interest in its doings, and to no one was its success more grateful. When his term of office as Provincial had expired he returned to his old post, which he loved so much, of Master of Novices at Tullabeg, and there, after a lingering illness, borne with the most edifying patience and resignation, he passed to the reward of his services for his Master. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1908

Obituary

Father James Murphy SJ

Two special friends of Mungret have been, during the past year, called to their reward. These were Rev Francis Daly SJ, who died at Rhyl, N Wales, 17th October, 1907; and Rev Jas Murphy SJ, who died at Tuliabeg, Ireland, March, 1908.

Although Rev James Murphy SJ, never belonged to the Mungret staff, he was very well known to very many of the Mungret pupils of both schoois, in whom he always showed a lively interest.

During his career as · Provincial of the Irish Province SJ (1900-1905), he proved himself a steadfast and powersul friend of the College, to which he rendered great and far-reaching services; and after that time, when he again resumed his old post of Master of Novices in Tullabeg, he still retained a deep interest in Mungret. The Past pupils of Mungret who knew him, and upon whom his imposing personality and extraordinary abilities did not fail to make a deep impression, will learn with regret of his untimely death. His illness was protracted, and his death, which he himself had long desired, was the death of a saint. RIP

Born: 12 November 1844, Rathangan, County Kildare
Entered: 07 September 1867, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 02 April 1872, Rathangan, County Kildare

Brother of Luke Murphy - RIP 1937

Part of the Leuven, Belgium community at the time of death.

by 1871 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) Studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Brother of Luke Murphy - RIP 1937

He was sent to Amiens for Rhetoric, then Louvain for Philosophy, and eventually was set home to Rathangan for health reasons. he died there 02 April 1872. He is buried at Clongowes Wood College SJ, County Kildare.

Born: 12 April 1564, Drumcondra Castle, Dublin
Entered: 14 October 1595, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: c 1602, Padua, Italy
Final Vows: 02 December 1612
Died: 17 June 1614, Madrid, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

Uncle of Thomas Bathe - RIP 1611

Mother was Eleanor Preston
Studied Humanities in Ireland, Philosophy at Oxford and Theology at Louvain
Was heir to Drumcondra Castle. Writer, Musician and Spiritual Director
Died as he was about to give a retreat to the court of Philip II of Spain
“Janua Linguarum” edited 20 times and in 8 languages

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica” :
Son of John, a Judge and Eleanora née Preston
Heir to Drumcondra Castle
Writer; Musician; Spiritual Director; Very holy man
Studied Humanities in Ireland and Philosophy partly at Oxford and partly with his Theology at Louvain.
Admitted to the Society at Courtray (Kortrijk) by BELG Provincial Robert Duras, and Entered at Tournai
(Interesting mention is made of him in Irish Ecclesiastical Record March 1873 and August 1874.)
After completing his studies he was made Rector at Irish College Salamanca
He died at Madrid aged 50 just as he was about to give a retreat at Court of Philip II
His “Janua Linguarum” was edited about twenty times and once in eight languages.
(cf de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ” who enumerates his writings)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Elder son of John, of Drumcondra and Eleanor, née Preston, daughter of the third Viscount Gormanston.
He entered on his higher studies at Oxford but was prevented from graduating by the Oath of Supremacy. During his time at Oxford when he was still only twenty, he published ‘A Brief Introduction to the true Art of Musicke’. A Brief Introduction to the skill of Song' appeared a few years later. To these publications as well as his family's intimacy with Perrott, Lord Deputy of Ireland, William owed his reception at the court of Elizabeth 1. Eventually he renounced his inheritance in favour of his brother and determined to become a priest.
Studied for three years at Louvain before Ent 1595 Tournai
After First Vows he was sent to complete his studies at St. Omer and Padua and was Ordained priest c. Summer 1602.
1602 He was now named secretary to Mansoni, Papal Envoy to Ireland but the Irish defeats at Kinsale and Dunboy rendered Mansoni's Embassy superfluous. By early Spring 1603 he was in Spain. There were many requests for him to return to Irish Mission, but he remained in Spain until his death in at Madrid 17 June 1614.
He was the valued spiritual director of the Irish College, Salamanca and it was there he wrote in collaboration with Stephen White and others his “Janua Linguarum” which appeared in 1611. This book went into many editions in various European languages including English. The English version, which in turn went into many editions, was shamelessly pirated without reference to Bathe's authorship.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Bathe, William
by Seán P. Ó Mathúna

Bathe, William (1564–1614), diplomat, author, and Jesuit, was born in Drumcondra castle on Easter Sunday 1564, son of John Bathe (d. 1586), Irish solicitor general, chancellor of the exchequer, and grandson of James Bathe (qv), chief baron, and Eleanor Bathe (daughter of Jenico Preston, 3rd Viscount Gormanston, and Catherine Fitzgerald, sister of Thomas Fitzgerald (qv), ‘Silken Thomas’). He was educated privately in Dublin and at St John's College, Oxford; he left before graduation, probably on grounds of conscience. In 1589 he registered in Gray's Inn, one of the four inns of court in which candidates for the Irish bar were required to study. He attended the courts of Elizabeth and Philip II before commencing the study of theology in Louvain (1592), and entered the Jesuit order in Courtrai (1595). He acted as intermediary for O'Neill (qv) during the early stages of the nine years war. After ordination he was appointed adviser to Ludovico Mansoni, legate, later to Ireland. They reached Valladolid in December 1601 but did not proceed further after the fall of Kinsale.

Bathe never returned to Ireland. Two long letters written in June 1602, in Irish Jesuit archives, indicated keen support for fresh forces massing in northern Spain to free Ireland a jugo haereticorum (‘from the yoke of the heretics’). He maintained periodic contact with the court of Philip III. A brother, Sir John Bathe (qv), deeply respected in Old English circles, assumed the role of religious spokesman for his class for more than a quarter of a century; he too visited the Spanish court. A younger brother, Fr Luke Bathe, headed the Capuchin mission in Ireland in the 1620s and was a renowned preacher. William Bathe was spiritual director to expatriate students in the Irish College, Salamanca. He founded a sodality, ‘Congregación de pobres’, for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the poor of that city, and gained a wide reputation for conducting retreats and days of recollection in monasteries and seminaries. He died suddenly in June 1614 while holding a mission for government personnel in Madrid.

His Brief introduction to the true art of music, published in 1584 while he was a student in Oxford (reproduced by Colorado College of Music Press, 1979), and A brief introduction to the skill of song (1596; new ed. by Boethius Press, 1982), were among the earliest printed texts in English on the theory of music and song, and highlighted the ambiguities in mutation from one hexachord to another in a melody with a range of more than six notes. Aparejos para administrar el sacramento de penitencia (1614) reflected his pastoral work. His main claim to fame, however, was Ianua linguarum (1611) with its long preface on linguistic theory. At least thirty editions of this work were published. The most elaborate, A messe of tongues (London, 1617), Ianua linguarum silinguis (Strasbourg, 1629), and Mercurius quadrilinguis (Basel and Padua, 1637), included English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, Italian, and German versions. He used short pithy sentences in parallel columns to enable mature students to learn several languages simultaneously. He allowed no repetition of the 5,300 different items of lexis. His multilingual presentation was adopted by Ian Amos Komensky for his Janua linguarum reserata series. Bathe's first cousin, Christopher Nugent (qv), 14th Baron Delvin, used a small number of colloquial phrases in parallel Latin, Irish, and English columns in his Primer of the Irish language for presentation to Queen Elizabeth (1562). The primer followed a system used by English-born wives in the Kildare household to learn Irish from the early fifteenth century. As such the method predated the Aldine Press and the Adagia of Erasmus.

E. Hogan, Distinguished Irishmen of the sixteenth century (1894); S. P. Ó Mathúna, An tAthair William Bathe, C.I, 1564–1614: Ceannródaí sa Teangeolaíocht (1980); id., ‘The preface to William Bathe's Ianua Linguarum (1611)’, Historiographia Linguistica, viii, no. 1 (1981); id., William Bathe, S.J., 1564–1614: a pioneer in linguistics (1986); id., ‘William Bathe, S.J., recusant scholar: “weary of the heresy” ’, Recusant History, xix, no. 1 (1988), 47–61

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jesuitica-5/

JESUITICA: First musical textbook
The first musical textbook in the English language, A brief introduction to the true art of musicke (1584), was the work of William Bathe, born in County Dublin, who became a Jesuit
in 1596. A genuine polymath, he had by that stage already taught mnemonics to Queen Elizabeth I, presented her with a harp designed by himself, and studied at Oxford, Gray’s Inn and Louvain. He invented a simple form of musical notation (presently being researched in Trinity by Sean Doherty), and as a Jesuit wrote a seminal book on linguistics, and was an important pioneer in popularising the Spiritual Exercises.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father William Bathe 1564-1614
William Bathe was born on April 2nd 1564 in Drumcondra Castle, the grounds of which is the present day asylum for the male blind, now in the charge of the Brothers of Charity.

He was a fairly close relation of Elizabeth I of England. As a young man he was sent as a personal messenger to the Queen by the Viceroy of Ireland. He became a great favourite of hers and used amuse her greatly by his skill in playing all kinds of musical instruments. He also entertained her by teaching her mnemonics.

His skill in music was both practical and theoretic. He invented a “harp of new device”, which he presented to the Queen. He also wroteb a treatise called “A Brief Introduction to the True Art of Music”. His name was also renowned for his famous book “Janus Linguarum”, a method of learning Latin or any foreign language, which ran into hundreds of editions iun most European languages, and held its place as a teaching method for centuries.

But his greatest claim to fame, and his merit in the sight of God was, that having spent some years at Oxford with no little distinction, being such a favoutite of Elizabeth, with a glorious career in front of him in the world, he returned to Ireland, surrendered his rights to his father’s extensive estates and entered religion. He became a Jesuit at Tournai in 1596.

He spent 19 years of most usefiul work in the Society, working in the Irish Colleges on the continent. Inspite of repeated requests, and his own desire, he was not released to work on the Mission in Ireland.

He died with a great reputation for sanctity in Madrid on June 17th 1614, at the early age of 50 years.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
BATH, WILLIAM, a native of Dublin. After studying at Oxford he grew weary of heresy, and retiring to the Continent entered the Novitiate at Tournay, in 1596. When he had finished his studies at Padua, he was ordered to Spain, and appointed Rector of the College of his Countrymen at Salamanca. To the regret of all who knew his merits, he was prematurely taken off by illness at Madrid, on the 17th of June, 1614, aet. 48. He has left :

1. “An introduction to the Arte of Music”. 4to. London, 1584.
2. “Janua Linguarum”, 4to. Salaman ca, 1611.
3. “A Spanish Treatise on the Sacrament of Penance”. N.B. This was edited at Milan by F. Jos. Cresswell, in 1614. 4. “Instructions on the Mysteries of Faith, in English and Spanish”. F. More in p. 112 of his Hist. Prov. Angl. has inserted a letter of F. W. Bath, in praise of F. Person’s “Christian Directory”.

Born: 23 October 1583. County Meath
Entered: 23 October 1604, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM) & Naples, Italy - Neapolitan Province (NAP)
Ordained: 1610, Naples, Italy
Final vows: 1624
Died: 17 July 1644, Drogheda, County Louth - Described as "Martyr"

Uncle of Nicholas Nettweville, RIP 1697 and Christopher Netterville, RIP 1651

Originally received into Society by Fr Bernard Olivier on 30 August 1604. Then received 23 October 1604 at Novitiate in Rome , and after 1st Probation 22 November 1604 went to Naples to continue Aged 22
1606-1611 In Naples College studying Logic, 3 years Philosophy and 3 Theology
1617 In Meath Age 35 Soc 13
1621 CAT In Meath Age 38 Soc 17 Mission 7. Strength middling. Good talent and judgement. Not very circumspect. Sanguineus and rather lazy. A Preacher
1625 At Irish College Lisbon
1622-1637 In Dublin district
Master of Arts, Minister 3 years, Irish Mission 12

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
He was Minister in Naples
1615 Came to Ireland from Sicily
1621 In Kildare
Dragged from his bed by the rebel Parliamentary soldiers at Drogheda 15 June 1649, cruelly beaten with clubs, causing his death four days layer aged 67. (cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS, IER. Tanner’s “Martyr SJ” and Drew’s “Fasti SJ”)
A most meritorious Missioner (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
1606-1612 After First Vows he studied at Naples where he was Ordained 1610, ad then he did for two further years of study at Naples.
1613-1614 Made Tertianship at the College of Massa.
1614-1615 He was sent to Ireland with John Shee, but illness kept him at Bordeaux until 1615
1615-1623 Arrived in Ireland and the Dublin Residence, exercising Ministry in the surrounding Counties of Kildare and Meath.
1623-1625 He set out for Spain bringing a group of Irish Seminarians for the Irish Colleges. On arrival he secured interviews with the Ambassador of England and the secretary of the Prince of Wales for whom negotiations were in progress to conclude a marriage agreement with one of the Spanish Infantas. In these interviews he received reassurances that religious persecution would cease in Ireland as soon as the royal match was made. In August of that same year he went to the Irish College, Lisbon, and during his stay there was accused by the Archbishop of Cashel/Dublin of failing in impartiality with regard to the admission of students from the four provinces of Ireland to the Irish Colleges of the Peninsula. One outcome was that he was called back to Ireland in the Spring of 1625
1625-1641 Returned to Ireland and Dublin until the City was controlled by the Puritans
1641 He was based in North Leinster. He was captured and put to death by Scots Covenanters under Munroe who made an incursion as far as North Westmeath in June and July 1644.
The correct Date of Death is 17 July 1644. Some Jesuit writers gave his year of death at 1649 to coincide with the massacre at Drogheda. It is probable that the Roman necrologist mistook Netterville for Robert Bathe, who died in Kilkenny 1649

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Robert Netterville SJ 1583-1649
Robert Netterville was born in Meath in 1583, brother of Viscount Netterville and uncle of Frs Nicholas and Christopher Netterville. He became a Jesuit in 1604 in Italy.

For the rest of his life he was stationed at our Residence in Drogheda. When that city was besieged by Cromwell, Fr Robert was now an old man and confined to bed with his infirmities. But old age and infirmity did not save him from the fury of the Cromwellians. He was dragged from his bed and trailed along the ground, being violently knocked against each obstacle that presented itself on the way. Then he was beaten with clubs, and when many of his bones were broken he was cast on the highway. Catholics came during the night, bore him away and hid him somewhere. Four days after, having fought the good fight, he departed as we would expect to receive the martyr’s crown.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
NETTERVILLE, ROBERT. This venerable old man, rich in labors and merits, was dragged from his bed by the Parliamentary soldiers at Drogheda, on the 15th of June, 1619, and so unmercifully beaten with clubs, that he died four days later “Per domum raptatus, tum fustibus contusus, effractisque ad collum et humcros ossibus (15 Junii, 1649) relictus est semivivus, et quarto post die abiit è vita”.
Ex libro Collectancorum signato F. olim in Archiv, Coll. Angl. Romae. - See Tanner , Drews.

Born: 14 August 1614, Dowth, County Meath
Entered: 30 September 1632, Mechelen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: c 1640, Douai, France
Died: 25 August 1651, Galway Residence, Galway City, County Galway

Son of Nicholas (Viscount of Dowth and Baron of Belgart) and Elizabeth Bathe

Nephew of Robert Netterville, RIP 1644 and younger brother Nicholas Nettweville, RIP 1697
Uncle of Jerome Netterville - Left 1669Netterville
Studied 5 years Humanities under Jesuits, 3 years in France and then Antwerp. Received into Soc at Tournai at 16 years of age
1633 At Novitiate in Mechelen
1639 At Douai in 3rd year Theology
1642 Came to Mission
1649 In Cork - or in some gentleman’s house
1650 Age 35 teaching Humanities
(Why is his mother Elizabeth and Nicholas’ Helena/)
Interesting reference to his having to hide in his father’s tomb in Sister Cadell’s story of the “Blind Girl”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
6th son of Son of Nicholas Viscount Netterville de Dowth Baron De Ballegart and Eleanor (Hellena) née Bathe, a niece or grandniece of the Earl of Kildare, who had died in the Tower in 1586. Older brother of Nicholas. Nephew of William Bathe on his mother’s side.
Early education in Humanities was under the Jesuits at Galway and similarly at Antwerp. he was admitted to the Society by the FLA Provincial, Fr De Wale, and after First Vows then studied Philosophy for two years and Theology for four, and knew Irish, English, French and Latin.
1642 Sent to Irish Mission and taught Humanities for three years (HIB CAT 1650 - ARSI)
In the persecution he had to hide for months in the tomb of his father (like St Athanasius). (Fr Thomas Quin’s Report quoted by Oliver)
He was dear to all for his innocence of life and piety, and had served ten years usefully on the Irish Mission (cf Foley’s Collectanea)
“He had been usefully employed on the Mission for ten years, beloved by all on account of his innocence of life and sweetness of disposition and manners, and remarkable piety. He afforded an excellent example of patience and resignation in bearing a long and painful disease, and met death with a singular joy and delight, fortified by all the Sacraments of the Church, and giving special thanks to God that he died in the holy company of his religious brethern, at a distance from his nearest friends and relatives. (Letter of Robert Nugent, Mission Superior, to the General 27 August 1651 - ARSI; A copy is given in “Excerpta ex. Arch. Rom. Elogia, p 281 - Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Viscount Netterville of Dowth and Helena née Bathe, (sister of Father William Bathe) and brother of Nicholas
He had already studied Humanities with the Jesuits in Galway, and later at Antwerp.
After First Vows he was sent for studies at Louvain and Douai, and was probably Ordained c 1640 at Douai
1641 Sent to Ireland and seems to have operated from his family or relatives home for the next decade, as he is not noted as being a member of any Jesuit House during the Visitation by Mercure Verdier in 1649, who reported that he was in poor health and staying at the house of a nobleman.
It is probable that he spent the last year of his life at the Galway Residence as he was due to make his Final Vows and would be expected to be living in a Jesuit house on such an occasion. He died at the Galway Residence after a long illness 25 August 1651
Some years after his death one of the annual letters recorded that he spent a year living in his ancestors' tomb. This fact is not recorded in his obituary notice forwarded to Rome by Robert Nugent. It is possible that the “annalist” confused his name with that of Christopher Sedgrave, or another of his contemporaries.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Christopher Netterville 1615-1651
In Galway on August 25th 1651 died Fr Christopher Netterville, sixth son of Viscount Netterville of Dowth and his wife Lady Eleanor Bathe, who was a sister of the celebrated Fr William Bathe and a grandniece of the Earl of Kildare, who perished in the Tower in 1586.

Christopher was born in Meath in 1615. He studied Humanities in Galway and Antwerp, entering the Society at Mechelen in 1631. He came on the Irish Mission in 1642.

During the persecution of the Catholics in Cromwell’s time, he was forced, like St Stanislaus, to hide himself for about 18 months in his father’s tomb. Prematurely work out by his sufferings, he died after a long and painful illness in Galway at the early age of 36.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
NETTERVILLE,CHRISTOPHER, was the sixth son of Nicholas, the First Viscount Netterville, by his Lady Eleonora, as 1 find p. 199, “Hibernia Dominicana”. During the civil wars and the Cromwellian system of terror, as I learn from F. Thomas Quin’s Report, he was compelled to conceal himself like St. Athanasius for more than a year in his father’s sepulchre, “instar primi Athanasii anno integro et amplius in Sepulchro paterno delituit”. He was still living in the summer of 1619, as a private Chaplain, but with a broken down constitution.

Born: 10 May 1827, Kilkenny City, County Kilkenny
Entered: 25 October 1848, Avignon, France - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)
Ordained: 23 September 1859, Roman College, Rome, Italy
Final Vows: 15 August 1862
Died: 27 March 1883, Milltown Park, Dublin

Younger Brother of William O’Callaghan LEFT 3 October 1866 as Priest

by 1851 at Vals France (LUGD) studying
by 1859 in Roman College, Italy (ROM) studying Theology
by 1861 at Sankt Andrä Austria (ASR) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Brother of William O'Callaghan LEFT 1866 as Priest

1850-1857 Must have studied Rhetoric and Philosophy before Ent, as he was sent on Regency to Clongowes at the end of his Novitiate, and he remained there until 1857.
1857-1859 He began the “Long Theology” course at Nth Frederick St, and finished it at the Roman College, where he was Ordained there 23 September 1859 by Cardinal Patrizzi.
1860 He was sent to Austria for Tertianship.
1861-1866 He was sent to Clongowes and Tullabeg teaching.
1866-1874 He was sent to Milltown as Minister
1874-1880 He was appointed Socius to the Master of Novices
1880 He was appointed Spiritual Father at Milltown, and he died peacefully there 27 March 1883.
A most charitable man, never known to say an unkind word. He was very exact about little things and a perfect model for Novices. He suffered a lot from rheumatism, but he never complained.

Born: 17 May 1909, Mallow, County Cork
Entered: 01 September 1926, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1940, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1943, Manresa House, Roehampton, London, England
Died: 19 November 1998, Sacred Heart, Limerick

Middle brother of Jack - RIP 1991; Tommy - RIP 1993

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

Chaplain in the Second World War.

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

Obituary
Fr Michael (Mickey) O’Meara (1909-1988)

17th May 1909: Born in Mallow, Co. Cork
Early education: CB School, Cork, Patrician Bros School, Mallow, & Clongowes Wood College.
1st Sept. 1926: Entered the Society at Tullabeg.
2nd Sept. 1928: First vows at Tullabeg.
1928 - 1931: Rathfarnham, studying Arts at UCD
1931 - 1934: Tullabeg, studying philosophy.
1934 - 1937: Clongowes, Teacher and 3rd Line Prefect.
1937 - 1941: Milltown Park, studying theology.
31st July 1940: Ordained at Milltown Park,
1941 - 1942: Rathfarnham, Tertianship
1942 - 1946: British Army Chaplain in England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Egypt, Palestine.
1946 - 1955: Clongowes, Minister
1955 - 1961: Rathfarnham, Chaplain to School of Commerce, Rathmines.
1961 - 1962: Mungret College, teacher.
1962 - 1964: Clongowes, H-Line Prefect.
1964 - 1973: Mungret: Minister till '69; Teacher.
1973 - 1998: Sacred Heart Church, Limerick, Minister, Prefect of Church, Dir. “Pioneers”. (off Minister in 1991)

Father O'Meara had been attending to his church duties when he collapsed and was found on the floor of the church. He was rushed by ambulance to hospital, but did not regain consciousness.

Fr. Michael O'Meara (known affectionately to us as Mickey) was born in Mallow in 1909, one of a large family of boys and girls. One of the boys joined the secular clergy, and three became Jesuits. Michael went to school first to the Christian Brothers in Cork, and he had interesting reminiscences about the dangers of travel to Cork during those difficult years of the Great War and the “Troubles” here at home. After a period with the Patrician Brothers in Mallow he finished his secondary education in Clongowes, where he distinguished himself especially in rugby. He was a member of that famous team which first won the cup for Clongowes (a victory not to be repeated until many decades later). He was justifiably proud of it, and I found a copy of the photo of the winning team in his room after his death. He had cherished it all those years.

He entered Tullabeg in 1926 and followed the normal Jesuit course, doing his regency in Clongowes, and thus strengthening what was already a strong bond. In 1942, after his Tertianship in Rathfarnham, he became a British Army Chaplain. He went with his men to England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Egypt and Palestine, sharing with them in everything,

After this exciting period he returned to his beloved Clongowes as Minister in 1946, and as always, threw himself into the work. It was quite a shock to him when he was sent to Rathfarnham in 1955 to act as chaplain to Rathmines Technical School of Commerce. Distasteful though the change was, he once again took up the new work with enthusiasm, and endeared himself to many of the students. Interestingly, he had a great regard for a fellow chaplain, Fr. Brian Scallen; and they worked happily together until Michael was sent to Mungret in 1961. Here he taught for a year before being sent off once again to Clongowes, this time as Higher Line Prefect. Two years later he was back in Mungret, as Minister for five years until 73, when he received his final posting to the Crescent.

This last quarter of a century was the crowning of a long life of service. He was Minister for a number of years, his third spell at this job for which he had a natural aptitude and liking. His main efforts, however, were centered on our church and its associated apostolates: Devotion to the Sacred Heart, to Our Lady, direction of the Pioneer work ( he was for years in charge of the Munster area) manager of the church shop, and general contact with the people of Limerick and further afield. He had a happy and friendly disposition, which he had inherited from his parents and family background. He was always willing to listen to people, to have a friendly chat, to enthuse with them in their joys and successes, to sympathise with them in their difficulties. He prayed with them too, and they knew him as a man of prayer and child-like faith. He was responsible for the Saturday Fatima Devotions; for a prayer group that meets once a week in the back parlour; for the Rosary after our final morning Mass; and of course for the pioneers, as already mentioned. He was indefatigable in accompanying the various pilgrimages, - to Knock, Holy Cross Abbey, Lourdes, Fatima, Medjugorjie; any time, any where, he was off to help them to make their pilgrimage a prayerful success.

Although he was a deeply spiritual man, he never gave the impression that he was a “holy Joe”. Instead he was happily interested in many very human activities. He was physically vigorous and nimble himself, and never lost his interest in sport and games. When he was an Army Chaplain his skill was in demand on army rugby teams, and later on he rarely missed any of the big national or international matches shown on TV. He came from a family that was keenly interested in horses, and he watched all the big classic races, both in Ireland and abroad. It was not merely a spectator sport for him. He was an excellent rider, and by the kindness of his brother there was always a horse ready for him and transport to collect him, so that he could participate in the local hunt. Many a story was told of his skill and daring, none more glamorous than that of his famous rescue of a "damsel in distress". Apparently she was thrown from her horse into a river in spate, and was being swept helplessly along. Our gallant Michael rode down the bank below her, jumped in, and managed to pull her to safety. This incident - and a famous remark made at the time - have become part of the O'Meara family folklore! Hunting and horse-riding around the Mallow home-country were a tonic relaxation for him in his intensely active life, and he kept it up until he was into his seventies.

One may mention finally his work in our church shop. This was a real apostolate for him, as he saw in it a way of spreading Catholic devotions and good literature. Apart from the work of organising the shop and ordering the supplies, he spent long hours every week in setting out the cards, the magazines and papers, the rosaries and various religious goods. To give some notion of the extent and scope of his efforts: he worked up the scale of the Irish Messenger to well over 1000 copies each month. For a man of his years his work programme was quite strenuous, as we in the Crescent are keenly aware, now that we have to pick up the pieces, so to speak, after his death. He was probably at this work when he collapsed suddenly and died in the church. He is mourned by many people in various places, but particularly by devoted friends who are loyal supporters of our Church of the Sacred Heart and of our community. May he rest in peace.

Tom MacMahon

Born: 19 November 1719, Ardcath, County Meath
Entered: 26 September 1741, Mechelen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 01 May 1750, Louvain, Belgium
Final Vows: 02 February 1766
Died: 24 January 1775, Dublin

Older brother of Myles O’Reilly - RIP 1799

Son of Patrick and Mary (O’Reilly); brother of Myles
Studied Humanities at Ghent
1743-1745 In Pholosophy at Antwerp
1745-1746 Teaching at Dunkirk
1746-1750 In Theology at Louvain
1750 At Amazon River Mission, or the Courou Mission S America, or on the Indian Mission since 1751, or 1757 in Paris Province FRA; or in the FLAN-BEL Province since 1751. “Joseph Philip O’Reilly missioned among the savages of Guiana for 14 years. This last survivor and sole representative of the Company of Jesus among the poor savages was expelled by the French in 1765” (Marshall’s Xtian Missions) Many letters he sent to in Flemish his brother Miles are at Burgundian Library. (loose Hogan note)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of Patrick and Mary née O’Reilly. Older brother of Miles.
Studied Humanities under the Dominicans at Lierre for two years, and then for four under the Jesuits at Ghent.
1741 Received by the FLAN Provincial at Ghent and sent to Mechelen for his Noviceship.
1743-1745 At Antwerp studying Philosophy
1745-1747 Regency at Dunkirk
1747-1751 Studied Theology at Louvain for four years.
1751 Sent to West Indies, began at the Amazon, and then in the Indies went through the severest hardships, which he narrates with much joy in Flemish letters to his brother Miles - these have been edited by Father Morris with a brief sketch of his life.
1765 Sent to the Maryland Mission
1769 Sent to first to Belgium and then Ireland, dying in Dublin 24/01/1775.
1771 Catalogue Sent to Maryland again?
According to Marshall’s “Missions” Vol iii, p 74, “The French in 1763 expelled from Guiana, the venerable Father O’Reilly, the last survivor and sole representative of the Company of Jesus among the savages - with the result that - in 1766 religion was dying out among the whites as well as among the coloured races”
Carayon in his “Guyane Francaise” says Father O’Reilly was expelled in 1765.
His letters are in the Burgundian Library, Brussels MSS 6689, written in Flemish and dated Cayenne, 27 March and 25 September 1751, 19 June 1753 and 10 September 1754.

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ :
Made Latin studies in Belgium and then Ent at Mechelen in 1741
1750 Having completed Theology at Louvain he left for the Mission of Cayenne in French Guyana, arriving in 1751
1751 At Courou (Kourou), French Guyana labouring among indigenous tribes for almost a dozen years
1763 At the expulsion of Jesuits from French territories, he was the last Jesuit to leave, and is said to have gone to Spanish Missions along the Orinoco
1765 Arrived at the English Maryland Mission
1769 Returned to Ireland worked in Dublin, where he died in 1775

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Patrick and Maria née O’Reilly. Brother of Myles RIP Antwerp 1799
Early education was in Belgium before Ent 26 September 1741 Mechelen; RIP 24 January 1775 Dublin
1743-1751 After First Vows he was sent to Antwerp and Louvain for studies and was Ordained there 1750.
1751-1763 When his formation was complete he was sent to the French Mission in Cayenne, French Guyana. There he worked with the Indian tribes for twelve years. When Jesuits were expelled from all of France and her territories, he was the last Jesuit to leave. When he left Cayenne, he is said to have gone to the Spanish Missions along the Orinoco, and from there to the ANG Mission in Maryland. The rest of his missionary life up to the Suppression is unclear. It would appear that he returned to Ireland after the Suppression and died in Dublin a year later 24 January 1775.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Philip O’Reilly 1719-1755
Fr Philip O’Reilly was born at Ardcath County Meath in 1719. He went to Belgium for his education where he joined the Society at Mechelen in 1741.

He left for the Mission of Cayenne in French Guyana in 1750, where he laboured for over a dozen years among the Indians at Kourou. On the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1763, he was the last Jesuit to leave his post.

He went for a short time to the Spanish Missions along the Orinoco and thence in 1765 to the English Mission of Maryland,

In 1769 he returned to Ireland and died in Dublin in 1775.

Born: 19 April 1866, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny
Entered: 01 June 1885, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 1901
Final vows: 15 August 1903
Died: 18 November 1932, Dublin

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

Older brother of Laurence Potter - RIP 1934

First World War Chaplain.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Medical student before entry

by 1893 at Enghien Belgium (CAMP) studying
by 1898 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1902 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1917 Military Chaplain : 7th Yorkshire Regiment, France
by 1918 Military Chaplain : 37 London Road Chelmsford
by 1919 Military Chaplain : 21 Wellington Esplanade, Lowestoft

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 8th Year No 1 1933
Obituary :
Fr Henry Potter
Father H. Potter died in Dublin, Friday, I8th November, 1932.
He was born in Kilkenny 19th April, 1866, educated at Christian schools, Diocesan College, and Castleknock, and began his noviceship at Dromore, Is June, 1885. Two years juniorate followed, the first in Milltown Park, the second in Tullabeg (the noviceship was changed from Dromore to Tullabeg in 1888).
At the end of the two years Father Potter was sent to Clongowes, where he remained for three years as master or prefect, and then to Enghien for philosophy. His course was
interrupted when he had done two years, and in 1894 we find him in Mungret when he put in three more years as prefect before resuming philosophy at Stonyhurst. Theology at Milltown immediately followed, and then tertianship at Tronchiennes.
When the tertianship was over in 1902 he began his long career as Minister - Clongowes, Belvedere, Gardiner St., Crescent - until in 1911 he was back in Belvedere as master. He spent three years in the classroom, when once more the ministership claimed him, by way of variety, at Leeson St. This brought him to the memorable year 1914, when Father Potter donned the uniform as Military Chaplain. He saw service both in France and England, and in 1919 was back in Gardiner St. as Oper. A year in Milltown, Director of Retreats, stood between him and his special vocation, in 1923 he was minister in Galway. He held the position until 1928, and was thus minister for fifteen years, and in six different homes. For the next three years he had charge of the small study in Clongowes, a year's quiet teaching followed, and then came the end.
On the evening of Monday 14th November he was brought to Dublin in great pain. All the ordinary remedies for lumbago were tried without result, and a growth of some kind, pressing on a nerve centre, was suspected Next day he was very much distressed, and a minor operation was performed to try and give him relief, His heart was in a very bad state, and the doctors advised the Last Sacraments, which were immediately administered. That night he had two very severe haemorrhages, which left him very weak. On Thursday blood transfusion was tried, but did no good, and on Friday morning he collapsed. When asked if there was much pain his only answer was that he was “offering it all up.” He was quite conscious to the very end, and got absolution several times. He joined in the prayers for the dying, and his last act immediately before expiring was to kiss the crucifix, and whisper the Holy Name.
This very happy death was the crown of a holy life. Father Potter did not belong to the class of men whose goodness attracts attention and is freely spoken about, but the goodness was there. And, now that he is gone, stories are being told of his visits to the Blessed Sacrament, especially when few people were about, of his devout prayers, and, especially, of his devotion to the Stations of the Cross, He was charitable, the character of the neighbour was safe in his hands. And he was charitable when charity was difficult, when something was said that invited a sharp retort, that retort was never forthcoming, He was an excellent community man, and will be sadly missed. It can be said of him with truth that he was the life and soul of recreation, was full of fun, and had as keen an eye as most people for what was comical or ludicrous in his surroundings. He was very approachable, and with boys a prime favourite. As soon as he appeared a knot of them quickly gathered round him, and soon fun of some kind or other was in progress. And this was true of all classes of boys, our own College boys or the little lads that come to serve Mass in our Church. May he rest in peace.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Henry Potter 1866-1932
Henry Potter died in Dublin on November 18th 1932, He was a native of Kilkenny, being born there on April 19th 1866. Having been educated at Castleknock College he entered the Society at Dromore in 1885.

He spent most of his life as Minister in our houses. In 1914 he became a Chaplain in the Great War, and he served all through it until 1919.

He was a man of deep piety practised in secret. After his death, people spoke of his quiet nocturnal visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and his great devotion to0 the Stations of the Cross.

In his last agony, he remained conscious to the end, joining in the prayers for the dying. His last act was to kiss the crucifix and murmur the Holy Name.

◆ The Clongownian, 1933

Obituary

Father Henry Potter SJ

Though Clongowes cannot lay claim to Father Potter as one of her own Past, some of us can well remember him when he came as far back as to take over the Third Line. He had just finished his Rhetoric as a young Jesuit. So that it was in Clongowes that he began and ended his working life. In the middle of this long span he was Minister here.

He always felt very much at home here, for he was at his best with the boys: one is almost tempted to say: with the little lads. So that there was a strange fittingness in the fact that the Third Line Prefect of 1891 was the Small Study Prefect of 1931. The comic touch of incongruity, apparent only, would often make one smile when one caught sight of him in the centre of a group of Elementarians as they gathered for class at 9.30. He, seemingly grave but thoroughly enjoying the way in which they would solemnly discuss the amazing theories he would propound just to draw them out. In him a cloak of gravity covered a puckish fancy, a fact which explains his general popularity.

Though he was suffering a good deal, it was only on Monday morning, 14th November, that he failed to go down to his small boys. He left that day for a Dublin Nursing Home and died on the following Friday.

We inay be sure that he was sustained in the pains and sufferings of the last year of his life by his devotion to the Stationis of the Cross, a characteristic of his personal life. He is much missed in Clongowes. In the Community recreations his passing away has left a great blank. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Henry Potter (1866-1932)

Was born in Kilkenny and received his early education at St Kieran's and Castleknock College. He entered the Society in 1885 and pursued his higher studies at Enghien and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1901. Father Potter spent two years at the Crescent 1909-11 when he held the position of minister of the house and prefect of the church. At the beginning of the first world war, he volunteered as chaplain and served in England and France. In the years following the war he was sometime director of retreats at Milltown Park and served some seven years as minister at Clongowes. His remaining years were spent in Clongowes.

Born: 20 January 1654, Desborough, Northamptonshire, England
Entered: 31 October 1674, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 03 May 1685
Died: 05 August 1710, St Germain-en-Laye, Paris, France - Angliae Province (ANG)

Son of Ferdinand and Mary (Giffard), Brother of Thomas Poulton SJ alias Palmer RIP 1725 (ANG)

Came with three others (Charles Petre, Joseph Plowden and Matthew Wright) under former ANG Provincial, John Warner, in 1689-1690 and was a Missioner in Ireland, Fr Warner as Confessor, the others in schools, and preaching in the country

◆ The English Jesuits 1650-1829 Geoffrey Holt SJ : Catholic Record Society 1984
1688 In prison at Canterbury
1689 College of St Omer
1690 Ireland

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
POULTON, ANDREW, admitted 31st October, 1674, aet. 20. He was selected for one of the Masters of the Savoy College, London, which was opened at Whitsuntide, 1687. That he was a man of distinguished abilities is manifest from the Tracts entitled “Remarks upon Dr. Tenison’s narrative (of their conference) with a confutation of the Doctor s Rule of Faith, and a reply to A. Cresner s Vindication, 4to London, 1687. Also “Some Reflections upon the Author and Licenser of a scandalous pamphlet, called The Missionaries art Discovered with the reply of A. Pulton to a challenge made him in a Letter prefixed to the said Pamphlet”, 4to. London, 1688, pp. 14. At the Revolution, he followed the Court to St. Germaine. In the Annual Letters of 1705, I read of his exploits there “76 ab Heeresi ad Eccltsiam reduxit, inter quos non pauci natalibus conspicui: plusquam 116 Confessiones Generates in ea aula audivit. In Dissidia, quae etiam luctuosum finem. habitura timebantur, prolapsus 12 plene inter se conciliavit. Et pauperum vere Patur dicitur et habetur, ita perpetua dies noctesque industria illis procurat necessaria Egestatis levamina”.
This truly zealous and benevolent Father died at St. Germain, universally regretted, on the 5th of August, 1710, aet. 58.

Born: 27 March 1725, County Cork
Entered: 13 January 1742, Paris, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1754 Paris, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1756
Died: 11 March 1788, Liège, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)

Son of Thomas
Brother of Edmund RIP 1779

1746 At Alençon College FRA
1752 At Louis le Grand Collège, Paris in 2nd year Theology
1756 Teaching Rhetoric at Bourges College
1757 At Bourges College FRA. Master of Arts from Poitiers. Teaching Grammar and Rhetoric
1761 At Paris College Prof Philosophy

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Probably elder brother of Edmund???
Professor of Philosophy at Jesuit College Paris
ANG Catalogues 1763 & 1771 named as Writer. Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS says he was a highly gifted scholar.
1760 Transcribed to ANG
1763 Missioner at St Ignatius College London for a number of years
1773 Initially at St Stephen’s Green, Bow, London and then went to Liège after the Suppression of the Society in France (Arrêt de la Cour de Parlement de Paris)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had previously graduated MA at Poitiers before Ent 13 June 1742 Paris
After First Vows he was sent for Regency to Alençon and La Flèche, and then back to Paris fo studies and he was Ordained there
After Ordination he was sent to Bourges to teach, but recalled to Paris
For a time after the dissolution of the Society he was in ANG teaching, but his latter years were spent at Liège where he died 11 March 1788

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
POWER, JAMES, was born in Ireland on the 27th of March, 1725; joined the Order in 1742, and was admitted to the Profession of the Four Vows in 1760. This highly-gifted scholar and very profound Mathematician, had taught Philosophy, &c. in France; but retiring to the English College, at Liege, died there on the 11th of March, 1783.

Born: 16 March 1896, Dunkitt, County Kilkenny
Entered: 31 August 1914, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 26 August 1928, Fourvière, Lyon, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1931
Died: 05 May 1990, Caritas Christi Hospice, Kew - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death

Patrick was a relative of William Stephenson - RIP 1980

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1923 in Australia - Regency
by 1927 at Paray-le-Monial, France (LUGD) studying
by 1929 at Lyon, France (LUGD) studying
by 1930 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
Patrick Stephenson was educated at Clongowes College, Dublin, and entered the Society 31 August 1914. After philosophy studies at Milltown Park, 1918-21, he was sent to Xavier College for regency in 1921, returned to England and France for theology in 1925, and was ordained at Lyons in 1928. Tertianship followed immediately at Paray-Ie-Monial.
He returned to Xavier College in 1930, and remained there for the rest of his life, except for a year as headmaster of Kostka Hall. For a few years, 1933-34, he was minister at the senior school.
Stephenson is best known for his teaching of geography or 'topography', as his subject was irreverently called. Students started the rumor that he dropped the exam papers from just outside his room on the top floor above second division, and the first paper to hit the floor was awarded First place. He also taught religion and French at various times.
His sermonettes on the missions on first Fridays were memorable as was his love for St Vincent de Paul. He ran a monthly meeting of this Society for 60 years, encouraging members to visit the sick and the poor. In addition, he edited the college annual, “The Xavierian”, for 47 years, and recorded news of generations of Old Boys. This was particularly important during the Second World War, when he became the “postbox and scribe to the world”. He would write to Old Boys on active service and their families each evening (his daily letter writing average was twelve), bringing much comfort to the men. Many letters that he received from the war were included in “The Xavierian” for all to read.
Stephenson was a great affirmer of people. His memory was prodigious of whole families for many generations, and he kept a card index system with the names of every boy and his family He was particularly caring for families in trouble, and good at obtaining jobs for ex-students through his long list of contacts.
During school vacations he visited major towns, country or interstate, catching up with Old Xaverians. He never stayed long, suggesting that he should go home about 9 pm. He was always very proud of Old Xaverians who did well, especially those who became judges, lawyers and doctors.
He grew old buoyantly. At the age of 80 he moved from his room in the attic to a room on the ground floor near the infirmary. At the age of 92, when he could no longer look after himself or handle the stairs, he moved to Caritas Christi, the hospice for the elderly. The move gave him a new life, exercising his legs as best he could and ringing up Old Boys from Sister Wallbridge's office when she was otherwise engaged.
He was a small man, but had a large heart and was open to change. He accepted Vatican II and began to wear a tie instead of the clerical collar soon after the Council.
Stephenson was never a good teacher, but was a memorable educator. For his services to education he was awarded an Order of the British Empire by the Queen. He had extraordinary influence on generations of Old Xaverians. His gentle humanity and love of people more than compensated for his lack of academic achievements. He was good company and his stories always enlivened community recreation. His funeral, which packed St Patrick's Cathedral, was a moving tribute to his influence.
In 2016 Xavier College removed Stephenson's name from its sports centre. The rector wrote to the Xavier community that there were some complaints against Stephenson, and that “the Province does not believe that the complaints made against Stephenson have been substantiated, but nor has it dismissed the allegations as being wrong. It believed that, on the available evidence there is room for genuine misunderstanding as to his intentions, as is explicitly acknowledged by one complainant ..., and that in the light of the complexity and seriousness of the issue, we accept that it is appropriate to change the name' of the sports centre”.

Note from William Stephenson Entry
William was a relative of Patrick Stephenson of the Australian province, and entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1898.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948

Extracts from a letter from Fr. P. J. Stephenson, Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne :
“... We had brilliant results last year. Xavier boys won 28 1st Class Honours and 68 2nd Class Honours in the December Examinations, 1947. Besides that, they won Exhibitions in Greek, French and Physics ; and four General Exhibitions and 2 Free Places in the University. That was a fine record for a class of about 40 boys. Five Xavierians joined the Noviceship this year : four were boys just left school. An Old Xavierian took his LL.B. Degree and became a Dominican.
Fr. Mansfield has been kept going since his arrival. He will be a great addition to our staff as he can take over the Business Class and the Economic Class. Fr. Lawler came over from W.A. about three weeks ago and has taken up the duties of Socius to Fr. Provincial. Fr. Boylan and his assistant Editor of the Messenger leave for Ireland and Rome soon”.

Born: 28 September 1660, An Daingean, County Offaly
Entered: 08 March 1680, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: c 1685, Salamanca, Spain
Final Vows: 28 August 1693
Died: 05 October 1722, St Ignatius College, Valladolid, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

Uncle of James Evers (White) - Ent 06/03/1703; LEFT 01/11/1716

1690 At Logroño CAST teaching Philosophy
1715-1716 Prefect at Irish College Poitiers (With, Witus)
1720 A St Ignatius College Valladolid, Operarius
Was a Doctor of Divinity, taught Grammar, Philosophy and Theology 19 years

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1703-1709 At Salamanca
1721 At Valladolid
He was in CAST when Hugh Thaly, in a letter of 20 February 1686 earnestly requests that he be sent to the Irish Mission
A letter of his in 1720 is preserved at Salamanca.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Patrick and Isabel née Wafer
Born Sragh, near Philipstown
Had studied at Santiago and begun Theology at Salamanca before Ent 08 March 1680 Villagarcía
1682-1686 After First Vows he was sent on a brief Regency and then to Royal College Salamanca for Theology where he was was Ordained c 1685
1686-1696 After his Tertianship representations were made to have him sent back to the Irish mission but his Spanish superiors, who appreciated White's exceptional ability, detained him. So he was sent to teach at Logroño and then to take a Chair in Theology at Valladolid
1696-1711 He was sent to Compostella, where he held a Chair in Theology and graduated DD
1711-1720 Because there was some dispute between the Cathedral Chapter and the University (where he was teaching) he returned to Valladolid again to a Chair of Theology.
1720 He resigned from teaching and was sent as Operarius to the Jesuit Church at Valladolid where he died 05 October 1722

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
WHITE, JAMES, was in the Province of Castile, in the early part of 1686, as I find in F. Hugh Thaly’s letter of the 20th of February that year. His services were then urgently demanded for the Irish Mission.

Born: 1575, Clonmel, County Tipperary
Entered: 13 October 1596, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: c 1601, Salamanca, Spain
Final Vows: 06 January 1613, Dilingen, Germany
Died: 23 April 1647, Galway Residence, Galway City, County Galway

Younger Brother of Thomas - RIP 1622; Uncle of Peter White - RIP 1678; Thomas White - Ent 30/09/1612, LEFT 12/11/1618; Cousin of William White - RIP 1625

His name appears on a list of 8 who got a BA from Salamanca University in 1595 and then entered
1597 At Villagarcía College Age 22 Soc 6. Already a BA and studying Theology
1600 At Salamanca studying Theology Age 25 Soc 3
1603 Age 29 Soc 7. Professor of Arts at Salamanca University
1605 Came from CAST to GER SUP
1606-1609 At Ingolstadt lecturing in Theology. Age 32 Soc 10 and a Doctor of Divinity. Confessor and “Oreses Religiosorum in Convictu”
1610-1323 At Dilingen teaching Sacred Scripture “vires mediocres”
1612 Professor of Scholastic Theology at Dillingen and Pres of Casus. Confessor
1623-1627 Went to Pont-á-Mousson (CAMP) - Confessor and Spiritual Father to Germans
1628-1630 At Metz Confessor, Spiritual Father and Prefect of Cases
1630 Came to Irish Mission
Usher praised White in his Collectanea 1621 Tom V & VI)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica”:
c1617 he was in Bavaria
1634 Distinguished Professor of Theology (IER)
The Protestant Archbishop Ussher in “Primordia” p 400 calls him a man of exquisite knowledge in the antiquities, not only of Ireland, but also of other nations.
Robert Nugent, Superior of Irish Mission in a letter from Kilkenny 10 January 1646 to Charles Sangri, speaks of his works which he had sent to censors for examination.
Professor of Theology at Dillingen, Ingolstadt and Pont-à-Mousson etc.; Writer; Antiquarian;
Called a “Polyhistor” by Raderus, Colgan and others on account of his extraordinary learning.
(cf Oliver Stonyhurts MSS; Dean Reeves “Memoir of Stephen White”; de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ”; De Buck “Archéologie Irlandaise”)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had already graduated with a BA in Arts and in Theology abroad before Ent 13 October 1596 Villagarcía
1598-1601 After First Vows he was sent to Royal College Salamanca for studies and was Ordained there c 1601
1601-1605 Taught Philosophy at Irish College Salamanca
1605-1609 To the disappointment of his Spanish Superiors he was withdrawn by the General from CAST and appointed to a Chair of Theology at the College of Ingolstadt in the Upper German Province (GER SUP). At the end of two years here he was reported to the General as having departed from the ratio studiorum in his teaching. His lectures were represented to the General as “partly temerarious, partly dangerous and in great part to be retracted”,
1609 In September 1609 General ordered that Stephen be dismissed from his post and sent back to Ireland. But his health was never robust and his physician decided against the return journey to the Irish Mission. Later the General was to learn that White had not been so unorthodox, he had merely been expounding the opinions of Vasquez and was not the only Jesuit who approved of that scholar's teaching.
1610-1622 He was sent to the College of Dilingen, and he was not reinstated as a professor of Theology for the next two years. But this temporary disgrace incurred at Ingolstadt proved to be providential. The two years of freedom from the lecture-hall were not spent idly by Stephen. From this time dates his interest in the rich manuscript materials for Irish history and hagiography buried away in German monastic libraries. By Autumn, 1612, he had composed a work on the lives of Irish Saints but the General ordered that the book be submitted to rigid censorship in case it might cause offence to people of other countries. That same Autumn, he resumed his theology lectures in Dilingen, and was congratulated by the General who warned him, however, not to deflect from the 'sententia ordinaria". During these years he was professor, for a time, of Sacred Scripture. He remained in Dilingen as professor of dogmatic theology until 1622
1622-1627 Ever since 1620 White was anxious to leave the Upper German province and in 1622 was allowed to pass to CAMP where he was assigned to the University of Pont-à-Mousson. Although he had been advised in advance that he could not expect a Chair in that University, he taught Theology in fact there over the next three years, although his status might be better described, perhaps, as coach and not professor. But the five years, 1622/27, spent by him at Pont-à-Mousson were mostly taken up with historical research. For within a year of his arrival, 1623, he had ready for the press his celebrated “Apologia pro Hibernia”. But the General stopped the printing of this work at Antwerp.
1627-1630 He was transferred to Metz but held no teaching post there.
1630-1644 The General in response to requests from the Irish Mission allowed White to return to Ireland. Very little is known with certainty about his career on the Irish Mission. There is no mention of his name again in the sources until 1637 when the CATS simply recapitulated his past career but gave no hint of his address or occupation that year. It also said that his was in poor health. That Winter he wrote to the General asking that the Will which he had made at Dilingen before his final profession should be implemented to the benefit of the Irish Mission. His well-known letter to John Colgan O.F.M., 31 January 1640, implies that he had been engaged in research work ever since his return to Ireland and that he had spent the previous decade for the most part at Dublin where he had access to the library or Archbishop James Ussher.
1640 His later years, after the Puritan occupation of Dublin were spent in Galway. Correspondence of 1644 and 1646 indicates that he had a work approved for publication. He died sometime in or after 1646. Stephen White was one of the most remarkable Irish scholars of his time. His ability as philosopher and theologian was widely acknowledged in Spain, Germany and France. But his enduring fame rests upon his pioneering work in unearthing the manuscript treasures that preserved so much of the story of Ireland's past. He transcribed manuscripts for the Bollandists, for John Colgan, for James Ussher. Both the latter acknowledged their indebtedness to him. His magnum opus, the “Apologia pro Hibernia”, did not see the light until two centuries after his death but Lynch had a precis of the work before him when he was writing his “Cambrensis Eversus”.
White was the first Irish writer to voice the national tradition which rejected as spurious the grant of Ireland by Pope Adrian IV to Henry II of England. Though his troubles at Ingolstadt gave him the heaven-sent opportunity of turning to historical research, it is to be noted that his contemporary Irish fellow- Jesuits seem to have had no appreciation whatever of his contributions to Irish historical scholarship. Indeed there is plenty of evidence to hand that he was plagued by members of the Irish Mission with invitations to return during his years at Ingolstadt, Dilingen and Pont-à-Mousson. When he returned to Ireland in 1630 he had very probably little facility in speaking either Irish or English after his forty years abroad. The mission itself was unable to furnish him with the library facilities needed for his research work. Yet taking into account all the successes, misunderstandings and disappointments that mark his career, he will always be regarded as the most eminent Irish Jesuit produced in the Old Society. He died at Galway 23 April 1647.

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

White, Stephen (1574?–1646/7), Jesuit priest, academic, and antiquary, was born in Clonmel, the son of Pierce White. His was a remarkable family, two of his brothers also being priests: James was vicar apostolic of Waterford and Lismore and Thomas White (qv), a Jesuit, was the founder of the first Irish college on the continent. Another brother was deposed as mayor of Clonmel in 1606 for refusing to take the oath of supremacy. He was probably educated in the catholic school at Clonmel before travelling to study at the Irish college at Salamanca founded by his brother about 1590. After graduating BA, he entered the Society of Jesus on 13 October 1596 at Villagarcia. He remained at Salamanca, continuing his studies in theology, and obtained a doctorate of divinity about 1605.

In 1602 he taught a one-year course in humanities at Salamanca, marking the start of a distinguished academic career, and followed this up with a three-year course in mental philosophy. Such was his reputation that he was appointed to the chair of scholastic theology in the University of Ingoldstadt, one of the most distinguished universities in Germany, inaugurating his lectureship on 7 January 1606. In 1609 he went to lecture in the University of Dilingen on the Danube, being first professor of scholastic theology, and librarian of the university, and by 1612 confessor of the religious orders. He remained there for fourteen years, becoming one of the most accomplished theologians in Germany. After departing Dilingen he retired from academic life, being confessor to the Germans at Pont-à-Mousson, Champagne (1623–7), and spiritual father at the college of Metz (1627–9).

After 1611 two factors led him towards the study of Irish history. First, there had been little contact between Ireland and continental Europe since the early middle ages; the little that was known about Ireland tended to be from invariably hostile English sources. Second, Scottish antiquarians, capitalising on the fact that prior to the late middle ages the inhabitants of Ireland had been called Scots, claimed the Irish scholars and missionaries, who were a ubiquitous presence across the continent in the early medieval period, as their own. This opportunistic attempt to deprive Ireland of its saints and scholars, and of its best case for being a civilised Christian nation, did not go unchallenged, not least from White. He was aided in his scholarly labours by his academic contacts. Dilingen received students from abbeys and monasteries all over Germany and beyond, facilitating his access to vast reservoirs of ancient manuscripts relating to Ireland.

White wrote his Apologia pro Hibernia adversus Cambri calumnias between 1611 and 1613, declaring ‘The sole purpose of my writing is to defend the injured reputation of the old Irish whom I, and my fathers, for four hundred years have shared a common fatherland.’ He refuted the allegations of the twelfth-century Welsh author Gerald (qv) of Wales whose Expugnatio Hibernica justified the Norman conquest of Ireland through portraying the natives as barbaric and semi-pagan. The Apologia demolished such allegations but was marred slightly by his highly personalised attacks on Gerald. Although White was of Norman ancestry, he identified with the Gaelic Irish. During his career he wrote many works glorifying Ireland's past and refuting the Scots’ claims. He also transcribed a number of manuscripts on the lives of early Irish saints. However, none of his works was published during his lifetime, partly because of a lack of funds but also because of the politically sensitive nature of the material. A generous scholar, he freely shared his writings and discoveries with his contemporaries; others prospered from his unselfish spadework while he remained in comparative obscurity. His knowledge was such that he was accorded the title of ‘polyhistor’, or walking library.

The Irish Jesuits had frequently requested his transfer to Ireland, and in late 1628 he returned to his homeland, after an absence of thirty-eight years, to teach in a Jesuit college just established in Dublin. However, in January 1629 it was suppressed by the government. He returned to his native diocese of Waterford and Lismore, where the teacher who had lectured in some of Europe's most renowned academic institutions spent his autumn years teaching street children. During the late 1630s he was based in Dublin, and at this time embarked on his most celebrated and remarkable antiquarian collaboration. He several times met James Ussher (qv), Church of Ireland primate of Ireland and one of the most brilliant scholars of his age, who shared White's passion for Irish history. Ussher showed him his library and praised his learning. In return White gave Ussher his manuscripts on the lives of the early Irish saints.

After the start of the 1641 rebellion he fled Dublin to settle in Galway city. By then he was too infirm to carry out any more work or to become involved in the turbulent events of the 1640s. While in Galway he met John Lynch (qv), whose Cambrensis eversus was based on White's Apologia. His most likely date of death is shortly after January 1646 but some accounts have him alive in April 1647.

Burgundian Library, Brussels, xxi, nos. 7658–61; The whole works of Sir James Ware concerning Ireland, ed. and trans. W. Harris (1745–6), ii, 103; John Lynch, Cambrensis eversus, ed. Matthew Kelly (Dublin Celtic Society, 1848–52), ii, 394; Stephen White, Apologia pro Hibernia adversus Cambri calumnias, ed. Matthew Kelly (1849); William Reeves, ‘Memoir of Stephen White’, RIA Proc., xiii (1861); DNB; Edmund Hogan, ‘Worthies of Waterford and Tipperary’, Waterford ASJ, iii (1897), 119–34; William Burke, History of Clonmel (1983), 457–64

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Stephen White 1576-1646
In the estimation of historians and antiquarians, both Catholic and Protestant, Irish and continental, Fr Stephen White was a scholar of the first order. He was a nan of encyclopaedic knowledge, with a bent for antiquities. His contribution to the Annals of the Four Masters and their invaluable help in their compilation is attested warmly and generously by Michael Colgan, the greatest of them.

Born in Clonmel of a family which gave many illustrious sons to the Jesuits, he joined the Society at Villagarcia in 1596, and having pursued a brilliant course in the various continental colleges, professed Philosophy and Theology for many years in Germany and France.

A long wished for project in education, an Irish University, was started in Back Lane Dublin in 1629. Fr Stephen was sent home to profess in it. Its life span was short. For the next ten years Fr White spent most of his time teaching young boys in Waterford.

On the outbreak of the Confederate War he went to Galway, where he died an old man of 72 in 1646.

His works include : “Apologia pro Hibernia’, “Geste Dei”, “De Sanctis et Antiquitate Hiberniae” together with numerous philosophical and theological tracts. A great deal of these works are lost, indeed were never published through fear of exacerbating the English authorities.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
WHITE, STEPHEN. This Irish Father deserves a fuller eulogium than I am able to supply. He was the author of some historical pieces relating to Ireland, in confutation of the assertions of Giraldus Cambrensis. The Rev. John Lynch, who had the custody of this valuable MS mentions it in Chapter I and XIV of his “Cambrensis Evcrsus”, printed in 1662, and expresses his deep regret that a considerable part of it was lost during the Civil Wars. Archbishop Usher, an excellent judge of these matters, in p. 400 of his Primordia, gives F. White the character of being “a man of exquisite knowledge in the Antiquities, not only of Ireland, but also of other nations”. In a letter of F. Robert Nugent, Superior of his brethren in Ireland, and addressed from Kilkenny, the 10th of January, 1646, to F. Charles Sangri, I read what follows.
“I have given the commission to four of our Fathers diligently to examine the works of F. Stephen White, and to forward their judgment to your paternity, conformably to the directions you have recently sent us. His works are various, and as our Fathers live in places very distant from each other, and notwithstanding the most Reverend Bishops, (who are ready to defray the expenses of the printing), as also the supreme Council very earnestly insist, that a certain work of his, “De sanctis et Antiqititate Ibcrniae” be instantly sent to the Press, I find it difficult and next to impossible to resist their reasonable demand, since the Manuscript itself has been perused by several them, and has been pronounced not only worthy of being printed, but highly necessary for the credit and advantage of this Kingdom. Therefore I have written again to the Examiners, that each would privately report their opinion on this work as soon as possible to your Paternity; though all in their letters to me greatly extol it, and declare it most worthy to issue from the Press. But 1 am unwilling to allow any work to be printed that can give just cause of offence to any person : and yet there is less cause of apprehension in this case, as this book merely treats on the Saints and Antiquity of the Kingdom of Ireland”.

Born: 18 September 1858, Dundrum, Dublin
Entered: 10 June 1885, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 1899
Professed: 01 March 1901
Died: 22 May 1929, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia

by 1893 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1894 at Enghien Belgium (CAMP) studying
by 1895 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1900 at St Joseph, Yang Jin Bang, Shanghai, China (FRA) teaching
by 1904 in St Ignatius, Riverview, Sydney (HIB)
by 1905 at ZI-KA-WEI Seminary, Shanghai, China (FRA) teaching
by 1910 in Australia

◆ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University online
Pigot, Edward Francis (1858–1929)
by L. A. Drake
L. A. Drake, 'Pigot, Edward Francis (1858–1929)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/pigot-edward-francis-8048/text14037, published first in hardcopy 1988

astronomer; Catholic priest; meteorologist; schoolteacher; seismologist

Died : 22 May 1929, North Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Edward Francis Pigot (1858-1929), Jesuit priest, astronomer and seismologist, was born on 18 September 1858 at Dundrum, near Dublin, son of David Richard Pigot, master of the Court of Exchequer, and his wife Christina, daughter of Sir James Murray, a well-known Dublin physician. Descended from eminent lawyers, Edward was educated at home by tutors and by a governess. The family was very musical and Edward became a fine pianist; he was later complimented by Liszt. He studied arts and medicine at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1879; M.B., B.Ch., 1882) and also attended lectures by the astronomer (Sir) Robert Ball. After experience at the London Hospital, Whitechapel, he set up practice in Dublin.

In June 1885 Pigot entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Dromore, County Down. He began to teach at University College, Dublin, but in 1888, on account of ill health, came to Australia. He taught at St Francis Xavier's College, Melbourne, and from August 1889 at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, Sydney. Returning to Europe in 1892 he studied philosophy with French Jesuits exiled in Jersey, and theology at Milltown Park, Dublin. He was ordained priest on 31 July 1898. In 1899 he volunteered for the China Mission and was stationed at the world-famous Zi-Ka-Wei Observatory, Shanghai. In 1903, again in poor health, he spent some months working in Melbourne and at Sydney Observatory, and taught for a year at Riverview before returning to Zi-Ka-Wei for three years. Tall and lanky, he came finally to Sydney in 1907, a frail, sick man. He had yet to begin the main work of his life.

On his way back to Australia Pigot visited the Jesuit observatory in Manila: he was beginning to plan an observatory of international standard at Riverview. He began meteorological observations there on 1 January 1908. As terrestrial magnetism could not be studied because of nearby electric trams, he decided to set up a seismological station as the start of the observatory. The Göttingen Academy of Sciences operated the only fully equipped seismological station in the southern hemisphere at Apia, Samoa: a station in eastern Australia would also be favourably situated to observe the frequent earthquakes that occur in the south-west Pacific Ocean. Assisted by the generosity of L. F. Heydon, Pigot ordered a complete set of Wiechert seismographs from Göttingen, and visited the Apia observatory. Riverview College Observatory opened as a seismological station in March 1909. Seismological observations continue to be made there.

A great traveller despite his teaching duties, Pigot visited Bruny Island, Tasmania (1910), the Tonga Islands (1911) and Goondiwindi, Queensland (1922), to observe total solar eclipses; and observatories in Europe in 1911, 1912, 1914 and 1922 and North America in 1919 and 1922. He made observations of earth tides in a mine at Cobar (1913-19), collaborated with Professor L. A. Cotton in measurements of the deflection of the earth's crust as Burrinjuck Dam filled (1914-15) and performed Foucault pendulum experiments in the Queen Victoria Market building, Sydney (1916-17). On 1 September 1923 F. Omori, a leading Japanese seismologist, observed with Pigot a violent earthquake being recorded in the Riverview vault; it turned out to have destroyed Tokyo, with the loss of 140,000 lives.

Fr Pigot was a member of the Australian National Research Council from 1921, president of the State branch of the British Astronomical Association in 1923-24 and a council-member of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1921-29. On his way back from the Pan-Pacific Science Congress in Tokyo (1926), he visited the observatory at Lembang, Java, where he planned a programme of study at Riverview Observatory of variable stars. Between 1925 and 1929 Pigot measured solar radiation at Riverview and Orange, particularly in relation to long-range weather forecasting. He was seeking a site of high elevation above sea-level for this work, when he contracted pneumonia at Mount Canobolas. He died at North Sydney on 22 May 1929 and was buried in Gore Hill cemetery.

Sir Edgeworth David paid tribute to Pigot:
It was not only for his profound learning that scientists revered him. They could not fail to be attracted by his magnetic personality, for though frail and often in weak health, he ever preserved the same charming and cheerful manner, and was full of eagerness and enthusiasm in discussing plans for the better pursuit of scientific truth. Surely there never was any scientific man so well-beloved as he.

Select Bibliography
Royal Society of New South Wales, Journal, 49 (1915), p 448
Riverview College Observatory Publications, 2 (1940), p 17
S.J. Studies, June 1952, p 189, Sept-Dec 1952, p 323.

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Paraphrase/Excerpts from an article published in the “Catholic Press” 30/05/1929
“The late Father Pigott, whose death was announced last week in the ‘Press’, was born at Dundrum Co Dublin 18/09/1858, of a family which gave three generations of judges to the Irish Bench. He himself adopted the medical profession, and having taken his degree at Trinity, he practiced for a few years in Dublin and at Croom, Co Limerick. While studying at Trinity he made his first acquaintance with astronomy, when he heard a course of lectures by the famous Sir Robert Ball, then head of the Observatory at Dunsink, and Astronomer Royal of Ireland.
In 1885 the young Doctor, already noted for his charming gentleness and self-sacrificing charity entered the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Dromore. he made his first visit to Australia as a Scholastic in 1888, and he taught for four years at Xavier College Kew, and Riverview Sydney. Naturally his department was Science.
In 1892 he was sent to St Helier in Jersey to study Philosophy with the French Jesuits who had been expelled from France. It was here that he began his long battle with frailty and illness, during which he achieved so much for scientific research over his 70 years. He did his Theology at Milltown and was Ordained 1899. Two years later he volunteered to join the French Jesuits in China, and this required of him not only his scientific zeal, but also his spiritual and missionary ones. he did manage to master the Chinese language for his work, and he used to tell amusing stories of his first sermons against himself and his intonations. His health was always threatening to intervene, and so he went to work at the Zi-Kai-Wei Observatory near Shanghai. The work he did here on the Chinese Mission was to reach his fulness in the work he later did over many years in Australia, and where he went to find the climate which suited his health better. He received much training at Zi-Kai-Wei and in photography and study of sunspots at Ze-se, which had a twin 16 inch telescope.
1907 saw him back in Australia and he set about founding the Observatory at Riverview, while teaching Science. By his death, this Observatory had a range and capacity, in terms of sophisticated instruments, which rivalled the best Government-endowed observatories throughout the world. Whilst he had the best of equipment, he lacked the administrative personnel necessary to record all the data he was amassing. His great pride towards the end was in his spectroscope for the work on Solar Radiation where he believed that ‘Long-distance weather forecasts will soon be possible, though not in my time’ (Country Life, 29/04/1929). Current farmers and graziers will owe him a lot in the future.
The scientific work at Riverview has received recognition in Australia. Edward’s interests in the Sydney Harbour Bridge, his experiments in earth tremors at the construction of the Burrenjuck Dam, geophysics at the Cobar mines, pendulum experiments in the Queen Victoria Markets of Sydney. In 1910 he took part in a solar eclipse expedition to Tasmania, and in 1911 on the ship Encounter a similar trip to the Tongan Islands, and the Goondiwindi Expedition of 1922.
In 1914 he was appointed by the Government to represent Australia at the International Seismological Congress at St Petersburg, though war cancelled that. In 1921 he was a member of the Australian National Research Council and sent to represent them to Rome at the 1922 first general assembly of the International Astronomical Union and the International Union of Geoditics and Geophysics. He was president of the NSW branch of the British Astronomical Association, and a member of the Royal Society of NSW. In 1923 the Pan-Pacific Science Congress was held in Australia, and during this Professor Omori of Japan was at Riverview watching the seismometers as they were recording the earthquake of Tokyo, Dr Omori’s home city. In 1926 he went to the same event at Tokyo, and later that year was elected a member of the newly formed International Commission of Research of the Central International Bureau of Seismology.
From an early age he was a passionate lover of music, and this came from his family. he gave long hours to practising the piano when young, and in later life he could play some of the great pieces from memory. He was said to be one of the finest amateur pianists in Australia. It often served as a perfect antidote to a stressful day at the Observatory."

Many warm-hearted and generous tributes to the kindness and charm for Father Pigott’s personal character have been expressed by public and scientific men since his death. Clearly his association with men in all walks of life begot high esteem and sincere friendship. Those who knew him in his private life will always preserve the memory of a kindly, gentle associate, and of a saintly religious.”

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Edward Pigot's family was of Norman origin and settled in Co Cork. Ireland. The family was a famous legal family in Dublin. He was the grandson of Chief Baron Pigot, son of judge David Pigot, brother of Judge John Pigot. He was the fourth of eight children, and was educated at home by a governess and tutors. The family was very musical, Edward playing the piano.
Pigot went to Trinity College, Dublin, and graduated BA in science in 1879. His mentor at the university in astronomy was Sir Robert Ball, then Royal Astronomer for Ireland and Professor of Astronomy. Pigot then studied medicine and graduated with high distinction in 1882, and after postgraduate studies practiced in Baggot Street, Dublin.
However, Pigot gave up this practice to join the Society of Jesus, 10 June 1885, at the age of 27.
After a short teaching period at University College, Dublin, Pigot was sent to Australia in 1888 because of constant headaches, and he taught physics and physiology principally at St Ignatius College, Riverview, 1890-92. He returned to Europe for further studies, philosophy in Jersey with the French Jesuits, 1892-95, and theology at Milltown Park, Dublin, where he was ordained priest in 1898. Tertianship followed immediately at Tullabeg.
At the age of 41 and in ill health, Pigot volunteered for the Chinese Mission in 1899, and was stationed at Zi-ka-Wei, near Shanghai, working on a world famous observatory, where
meteorology, astronomy and terrestrial magnetism were fostered. Pigot specialised in astronomy and also studied Chinese. Like other missionaries of those days, he grew a beard and a pigtail. However, his health deteriorated and he was sent to Australia in 1903 for a few years. He then returned to Shanghai, 1905-07, before returning to Riverview in 1908.
After visiting the Manila Observatory, he formulated plans for starting an observatory at Riverview, an activity that he believed would bring recognition for the excellence in research that he expected at the Riverview observatory He believed that seismology was best suited to the location. Pigot obtained the best equipment available for his work, with the gracious benefaction of the Hon Louis F Heydon, MLC. He personally visited other observatories around the world to gain ideas and experience, as well as attending many international conferences over the years. One result of his visit to Samoa was the building and fittings for the instruments in the half-underground, vaulted, brick building at Riverview. Brs Forster and Girschik performed the work. Some instruments, called the Wiechert Seismographs, came from Germany.
He became a member of the Australian National Research Council at its inception in 1921, and foundation member of the Australian Committee on Astronomy, as well as that on Geodosy and Geophysics. He served on the Council of the Royal Society of NSW, and was President of the British Astronomical Association (NSW Branch), 1923-24.
The upkeep of the Riverview observatory was borne by the Australian Jesuits and Riverview. Family and friends also gave funds for this work. When he died from pneumonia, he left at the Riverview observatory five double-component seismometers, two telescopes fully equipped for visual and photographic work, a wireless installation, clocks specially designed for extreme accuracy, an extensive scientific library, a complete set of meteorological instruments, and a solar radiation station, possessing rare and costly instruments.
Pigot's work at Riverview included working on scientific problems of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, experiments at the construction of the Burrenjuck Dam, geophysics at the Cobar mines, and pendulum experiments in the Queen Victoria Market Buildings in Sydney In 1910 he took part in a solar eclipse expedition to Tasmania. In April 1911 he went with the warship Encounter on a similar expedition to the Tongan Islands in the Pacific, and was prominent in the Goondiwindi Solar Eclipse Expedition in 1922.
Pigot was appointed by the Commonwealth Government to represent Australia at the International Seismological Congress at St Petersburg in 1914. He was secretary of the seismo-
logical section of the Pan-Pacific Science Congress in Sydney, 1923, and in 1926, once more represented the Commonwealth Government as a member of the Australian Delegation at the Pan-Pacific Congress, Tokyo. In 1928 he was elected a member of an International Commission of Research, which was part of the International Bureau of Seismology, centered at Strasbourg.
He was highly esteemed by his colleagues for his friendship, high scholarship, modest and unassuming demeanour, and nobility of character. Upon his death the rector of Riverview received a letter from the acting-premier of New South Wales, describing Pigot as one of the state's “most distinguished citizens”, and Sir Edgeworth David praised his magnetic personality and eagerness and enthusiasm in discussing plans for the better pursuit of scientific truth.
Edward Pigot, tall and lanky, frail and often in weak health, was also a fine priest, always helper of the poor, and exemplary in the practice of poverty. He did pastoral work in a quiet way. On his scientific expeditions, he was always willing to help the local clergy and their scattered flocks. He was genuinely modest, humble, and courteous to all. Yet he was naturally a very sensitive and even passionate man, with a temperament that he did not find easy to control. He disagreed strongly with Dr Mannix on the issue of conscription - the Pigots were decidedly Anglo-Irish - and positively refused to entertain the idea of setting up an observatory at Newman under the archbishop's aegis.
His extremely high standards of scientific accuracy and integrity made it difficult for him to find an assistant he could work with, or who could work with him. George Downey, Robert McCarthy, and Wilfred Ryan, all failed to satisfy. However, when he met the young scholastic Daniel O'Connell he found a man after his own heart. When he found death approaching he was afraid, not of death, but because O’Connell was still only a theologian and not ready to take over the observatory. Happily, the Irish province was willing to release his other great friend, William O'Leary to fill the gap.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 2nd Year No 2 1927
Fr Pigot attended the Pan-Pacific Science Congress in Tokyo as a delegate representing the Australian Commonwealth Government. He was Secretary to the Seismological Section, and read two important papers. On the journey home he spent some time in hospital in Shanghai, and later touched at Hong Kong where he met Frs. Byrne and Neary.

Irish Province News 3rd Year No 1 1927

Lavender Bay, Sydney :
Fr. Pigot's great reputation as a seismologist was much increased during the present year by his locating of the Kansu earthquake within a few hours of the first earth tremors. “Where he deserted medicine,” the Herald writes, “that profession lost a brilliant member, but science in general was the gainer. Dr Pigot is one of the world's leading authorities on seismology, and can juggle azimuths and seismometers with uncanny confidence”.

Irish Province News 4th Year No 4 1929

Obituary :
Fr Edward Pigot
Fr Pigot died at Sydney on May 21st. He caught a slight cold which in a few days developed into T. B. pneumonia. He was very frail, and had no reserve of strength left to meet the attack. The Archbishop presided at the Requiem. The Government sent a representative. The papers were all very appreciative.

Fr Pigot was born at Dundrum, Co. Dublin on the 18th September 1858, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied medicine, and took out his degrees - MB, BCh, in 1882. For the three following years he was on the staff of Baggot St Hospital, Dublin, and was Chemist with his uncle, Sir James Murray, at Murray's Magnesia works. He entered the Society at Loyola House, Dromore, Co. Down on the 10th June 1885. He spent one year at Milltown Park as junior, and then sailed for Australia. One year at Kew as prefect, and three years at Riverview teaching chemistry and physics brought his regency to an end. Fr. Pigot spent three years at Jersey doing philosophy, as many at Milltown at theology, and then went to Tullabeg for his tertianship in 1898. At the and of the year a very big event in his life took place. He applied for and obtained leave to join the Chinese Mission of the Paris province. For a year he worked in the Church of St. Joseph at Yang-King-Pang, and for two more at the Seminary at Zi-Kai-Wei, but the state of his health compelled a rest, and in 1913 we find him once more at Riverview teaching and trying to repair his shattered strength. He seems to have, in some measure, succeeded, for, at the end of the year he returned to his work at Zi-kai-wei. The success however was short lived. He struggled on bravely for three years when broken health and climatic conditions forced him to yield, and he asked to be received back into the Irish Province. We have it on the highest authority that his reasons for seeking the Chinese Mission were so a virtuous and self-denying, that he was heartily welcomed back to his own province. In 1907 he was stationed once more at Riverview, and to that house he belonged up to the time of his happy death in 1929.
It was during these 22 years that Fr. Pigot's greatest work was done - the founding and perfecting of the Riverview Observatory. The story is told by Fr. Dan. O'Connell in the Australian Jesuit Directory of 1927.
Fr. Pigot's first astronomical training was at Dunsink Observatory under the well known astronomer “Sir Robert Ball”. Then, as mentioned above, many years were passed at the Jesuit Observatory at Zi-kai-wei.
For some years previous to his return to Riverview, earthquakes had been receiving more and more attention from scientists, Excellent stations had been established in Europe and Japan, but the lack of news from the Southern Hemisphere greatly hampered the work of experts. It was the very excellent way in which Fr. Pigot supplied this want that has won him a high place amongst the worlds scientists.
Thanks to the kindness of relatives and friends, and to government help, Fr. Pigot was able to set up at Riverview quite a number of the very best and most up-to-date seismometers, some of which were constructed at government workshops under his own personal supervision. At once, as soon as things were ready, Fr Pigot entered into communication with seismological stations all the world over. When his very first bulletins were received in Europe, Riverview was gazetted as a “first-order station”, and the work done there was declared by seismologists everywhere as of first-rate importance. At the time of his death Fr Pigot had established telegraphic communication with the International Seismological Bureau at Strasbourg.
The study of earthquakes was only one of Fr. Pilot's activities, He was able, again through the generosity of his friends, to put up at Riverview, a first class astronomical observatory. It has four distinct lines of research :

1. The photography of the heavens.
2. Photographs of sunspots
3. Study of variable stars.
4. Micrometre measurements of double stars.
   Fr Pigot also took part ill a number of solar eclipse expeditions to Tasmania in May 1910, in April 1911 to Tonga, and to Goondiwindi in 1922.
   Finally, and perhaps most difficult of all, he established at Riverview a solar radiation station. The object of such a station is to determine the quantity of heat radiated out by the sun. This quantity of heat is not constant, as was thought but variable. The work is expensive, and of a highly specialised nature. It was hoped that in course of time it would have very
   practical results, amongst them being the power of being able to forecast changes in climate and weather over much longer periods than is at present possible. The necessary funds were collected by a Solar Radiation Committee formed at Sydney, Supplemented by a legacy from a relative of Fr Pigot's.
   Fr Pigot's ability as a scientist is shown by the number of important positions he held, and by the number of missions entrusted to him. He was elected President of the N. S. W. branch of the British Astronomical Association in 1923 and 1924.
   He was a member of the Council of the Royal Society of NSW for several years. On the occasion of the International Seismological Congress to be held at. St. Petersburg in l914 he was appointed by the Commonwealth Government as delegate to represent Australia. Owing to the war the Congress was not held. It was on this occasion that Fr Pigot was sternly refused permission as a Jesuit to enter Russia. Even the request of the British ambassador at St Petersbourg for a passport was of no avail. It was only through the intercession of Prince Galitzin the leading Seismologist in Russia and a personal friend of the Russian Foreign Minister that the permit was granted.
   He went to Rome in 1922 as delegate from the Australian National Research Council to the first General Assembly of the Astronomical Union.
   He was Secretary of the Seismological Section at the Pan-Pacific Science Congress in Australia 1923.
   He was appointed by the Commonwealth Government as one of an official delegation of four which represented Australia at the Pan-Pacific Congress in Tokyo 1926.
   Fr Pigot was a great scientist he was also a fine musician an exquisite pianist and a powerful one. He was said Lo be amongst the finest amateur pianists in Australia. Once during a villa he was playing a piece by one of the old masters. In the same room was a card party intent on their game. Fr Pigot whispered to a friend sitting near the piano “mind the discord
   that's coming”. It came, and with it came howl and a yell from the card players. In the frenzy of the moment no one could tell what was going to come next. But, as Fr Pigot continued to play a soothing bit that followed, a normal state of nerves was restored, and the players settles down to their game.
   He was a great scientist, and a fine musician, but, above all and before all, he was an excellent religious. In the noviceship too much concentration injured his head, and he felt the effects ever afterwards. It affected him during his missionary work and during his own studies. His piety was not of the demonstrative order, but he had got a firm grip of the supernatural, and held it to the cud. He knew the meaning of life, the meaning of eternity and squared his life accordingly.
   His request for a change of province was in no way due to fickleness or inconstancy. He had asked a great grace from Almighty God, a favour on which the dearest wish of his heart was set, and he made a supreme, a heroic sacrifice to obtain it. That gives us the key note to his life, and it shows us the religious man far better than the most eloquent panegyric or the longest list of virtues that adorn religious life could do. Judged by that sacrifice he holds a higher and a nobler place in the world of our Society that that which his genius and unremitting hard work won for him in the world of science.
   A few extracts to show the esteem if which Fr. Pigot was held by externs :
   Father Pigot's death “removes a great figure not only from the Catholic world but also from the world of science. His fame was world-wide. He was one of the worlds' most famous seismologists”.
   “By his death Australian science and the science of seismology have sustained a loss that is almost irreparable. He initiated what now ranks among the very best seismological observatories in the world”.
   “He was able to secure the best instruments for recording the variations in heat transmitted from the sun to the earth for his Solar observatory at Riverview, and to make observations, which science in time will rely upon to put mankind in the possession of long range forecasts as to future rainfall and weather in general”.
   “Dr. Pigot told me that after some years it would be possible to forecast the weather' two seasons ahead”.
   “ Dr. Pigot was one of the brightest examples of simple faith in a Divine purpose pervading all the universe”.
   “It was not only for his profound learning that scientists reverenced him. They could not fail to be attracted by his magnetic personality, for though frail and often in weak health he ever preserved the same charming and cheerful manner, and was full of eagerness and enthusiasm in discussing plans for the pursuit of scientific truth. Surely there never was any scientific man so well beloved as he”
   “Those who knew him in his private 1ife will always reserve the memory of a kindly, gentle associate, and of a saintly religious”.

Irish Province News 5th Year No 1 1929

Obituary : Fr Edward Pigot
The following items about Fr. Pigot's youth have been kindly supplied by his brother.
“He was born the 18th Sept. 1858 at Meadowbrook, Dundrum, Co. Dublin His first tuition was at the hands of governesses and private tutors, after which he attended for some years a day school kept by H. Tilney-Bassett at 67 Lower Mount St.
Concurrently, under the influence of his music Master, George Sproule, his taste for music began to develop rapidly. Sproule had a great personal liking for him, and took him on a visit to Switzerland. Many years afterwards Fr. Pigot heard that Sproule (who had taken orders in the Church of England) was in Sydney. He rang him up on the telephone, without disclosing identity, and whistled some musical passages well known to both of them. Almost at once Sproule knew and spoke his name.
Even as a schoolboy, I can recall how he impressed me by his superiority, by his even temper, command of himself under provocation, his generosity, his studiousness and his steadiness generally.
He entered Trinity about 1879. In the Medical School, he had the repute of a really serious student. He was especially interested in chemistry and experimental physics. Astronomy was outside his regular course, but I remember visits to Dunsink observatory, His studies seemed to he regulated by clockwork.
Before setting up as a doctor in Upper Baggot Street, he was resident medical attendant at Cork Street Fever Hospital, and the Rotunda Hospital, and at the City of Dublin Hospital. When in private practice at Baggot Street, he was not financially successful. I have the impression that his serious demeanour and grave appearance were against him, But I have better grounds for believing that his work amongst the poor, his unwillingness to charge fees to the needy, operated still more in the same direction. We often heard, but not from him, of his goodness to the poor. This was the time that he announced to us his desire to join the Jesuit Order. May I add that if there was one event in Ned’s life for which I have long felt joy and thankfulness, it was his desire to enter your Order.
Years after he had left Dublin, one of his prescriptions had become locally famous, and was ordered from the chemist as “a bottle of Kate Gallagher, please”, Kate having been one of his poor friends”.

Irish Province News 22nd Year No 1 1947

Australia :

Riverview :

In 1923 Fr. Pigot built a Solar Radiation Station at Riverview, and started a programme of research on the heat we receive from the sun. This work has now been finally wound up. The valuable instruments, which are the property of the Solar Radiation Committee, were offered on loan to Commonwealth Solar Observatory, Mt. Strombo, Canberra. The offer was accepted and the instruments were sent by lorry to Mt. Strombo on February 7th. The results of the work have been prepared for publication and are now being printed. This will be the first astronomical publication to be issued by the Observatory since December 1939. Shortage of staff and pressure of other work during the war were responsible for interrupting that branch of our activities. Another number of our astronomical publications is now ready and about to be sent to the printer. We have started a new series of publications: Riverview College Observatory Geophysical Papers." The first three numbers are now being printed and will be sent to all seismological Observatories and to those scientists who may be interested.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Edward Pigott 1859-1929
Fr Edward Pigott was born in Dundrum Dublin on September 18th 1858, of a family which gave three generations to the Irish Bench. Edward himself became a Doctor of Medicine, taking a degree at Trinity College, and practising first in Dublin, then in Croom County Limerick. In 1885, the young doctor entered the Society at Dromore, and made his first visit to Australia in 1888, where he spent four years teaching at Xavier College.

Ordained in 1899, two years later he volunteered for the Chinese Mission. He learned the Chinese language in preparation for his work, and for a while tested the hardships of active service with the French Fathers of the Society. He used recall afterwards with a wry smile his efforts to preach in Chinese, and how he hardly avoided the pitfalls on Chinese intimation. I;; health, which dogged him all his life, sent him to the less arduous work of Assistant at Zi-Kai-Wei Observatory, near Shanghai. This was the beginning of his brilliant career as an astronomer.

After six years in Shanghai, during which he mastered his science, he returned to Australia in 1907 and started the Observatory at Riverview. He started with a small telescope and a few elementary instruments for recording weather changes, and finally made of Riverview, one of the leading Observatories of the world. Honours and distinctions were showered on him. He was appointed by the Government to represent Australia at St Petersburg in 1914, in Rome in 1922, at the International Astronomical Union, and the Pan Pacific Science Congress in 1923, held in Australia.

In spite of his prominence in the scientific world, Fr Pigott remained always to his brethren a kindly and gentle associate and a saintly religious.

He died on May 22nd 1929, aged 70 years, battling with ill health all his life. A strong spirit housed in a frail body.

◆ Our Alma Mater, St Ignatius Riverview, Sydney, Australia, 1912

Father Pigot’s Return

On April 11th, the Community and boys went down to the College Wharf to welconie Father Pigot SJ, back to Riverview, after his extended tour through Europe. He had been absent about seven months, and during that time visited most of the leading seismological observatories on the Continent and in the British Isles. He had purposed visiting also some other observatories in the United States, Canada and Japan, on his return journey to Sydney; but a severe attack of pleurisy in Italy, during the trying mid-winter season, obliged him to hasten back to the warm Australian climate, without even being able to accept the kind invitation of Prince Galitzin to spend a few days as his guest at St Petersburg. All have heard of Father Pigot's application to the Foreign Office, London (on hearing accidentally, a day or two before, of the existence of a Russian law prohibiting members of the Jesuit Order. from entering Russia) to obtain from the Russian Government the necessary permission, in view of a short visit to Prince Galitzin's Seismological Observatory at Pulkovo. The request of the Foreign Office was refused, as everyone knows, but apparently the sequel of the story is not so generally known.

It was during liis stay at Potsdam (Berlin) that Father Pigot received the unfavourable reply from Westminster. He at once acquainted Prince Galitzin with the refusal, whereupon the distinguished seismologist made a strong representation, resulting in his Government inimediately withdrawing the prohibition. His kind letter to Father Pigot acquainting him with the Russian Government's concession, and a formal communication to the same effect from the British Foreign Office, arrived during Father Pigot's convalescence, but a delay in Europe of three months would have been necessary to allow the severe winter in St. Petersburg to pass before he could, without risk of relapse, have availed himself of the concession and kind invitation.

Father Pigot has asked us to record his deep feeling of appreciation of the cordial greetings of the Community and boys, when they most kindly came down to welcome him at the wharf,

We give a photograph of Father Pigot, and another of a group of distinguished seismologists assembled together from various parts of the world, at Manchester, for the International Seismological Congress (1911).

◆ Our Alma Mater, St Ignatius Riverview, Sydney, Australia, 1922

Fr Pigot’s Visit to Europe : The InternationalAstronomical Union - First General Assembly, Rome, May 1922

The First General Assembly of the Inter national Astronomical Union commenced its deliberations in May this year, in the Academy of Science (the old Corsini Palace), at Rome. That Australia in union with the other nations, might be represented at the two main conferences (Astronomy, and Geodesy and Geophysics), the Commonwealth Government having paid the necessary subscriptions, three delegates - Dr T M Baldwin (Government Astronomer for Victoria), Mr G F Dodwell (Government Astronomer for South Australia), and Father Pigot represented the Australian National Research Council at the General Assembly.

The purpose of the Union, as set forth in this report, is - (I) “To facilitate the relations between astronomers of different countries where international co-operation is neces sary or useful; and, (2) To promote the study of astronomy in all its departments”. Each country adhering to the Union has its own National Research Council, which forms the National Committee for the promotion and co-ordination of astronomical work iul the respective countries, especially regard ing their international requirements. The countries at present adhering to the Union are Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czecho-Slovakia, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, · Itály, Japan, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Spain, and the United States.
When Father Pigot left us suddenly in March, we felt that indeed there must be “something on” in the scientific world to draw him away at short notice from his beloved observatory. But the meetings of the Astronoinical Union, despite their international importance, were not his only objective. His itinerary, as we shall see, was a long one, and one of his chief aims while in Europe and America, was to inspect the principal Astronomical, Seismological and Solar Radiation observatories, and to get in personal touch with the foremost scientists. of the northern hemisphere.

Upon arrival in Europe he spent some time, successively, in the observatories of Marseilles, Nice, Geneva, and Zurich, In April he attended the Seismological Congress at Strasbourg, and then went on to Rome, taking in on his way, the Arcetri Observatory at Florence (situated, by the way, a stone's-throw from Galileo's house). While in Rome at the Conferences of the Astronomical and Geophysical Unions, he was, of course, in constant touch with Father Hagen S J, the Director of the Vatican Observatory, and though he does not say so, we may well imagine that his feelings were not untinged with sadness as he ascended the great staircase of the Government Observatory-the great Roman College of the Jesuit Order, before a Ministry more sectarian than honest usurped it.

Before the Conferences of the General Assembly were over, the delegates were in vited by His Holiness the Pope to a special audience in the Throne Room of the Vatican. It was accepted by all. Before congratu lating themselves on the splendid success of their meetings, His Holiness spent some time in chatting freely with most of those present, shook hands with them all, and be fore their departure, had a photo taken by the Papal photographer in the Court of St. Damasus.

The Roman Conferences over, Father Pigot lost no time in getting on his way. His first call was at the Geophysical Institute of Göttingen. Then on to Munich, and to Davos Platz for a private meeting on Sky and Solar Radiation with Dr Dorno (Head of Davos Observatory), Professor Maurer (Head of the Swiss Weather Bureau), and Professor Kimball (of the Solar Radiation Station of the Washington Weather Bureau).

The Paris Observatory - one of the largest in Europe - came next, and after spending some time here, he went on to the Royal Observatory at Brussels. Before leaving Beigium, he had time to run down to the Jesuit Observatory at Valkenberg, near the Dutch frontier, after which he returned to Greenwich. At a dinner of the Royal Astronomical Society, at which nine of the delegates were entertained, Father Pigot's health was proposed by Father Cortie SJ, of the Stonyhurst Observatory.

After a brief visit to Ireland, Father Pigot started out on his return journey, via America. One of his first visits on the other side was to the Jesuit Seismological Observatory at Georgetown University, Washington. While in the Capital, he spent some time at the Carnegie Observatory (Terrestrial Magnetisın), the Weather Bureau Solar Radiation Station, the Astro-physical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institute (where he renewed acquaintance with a valued friend, Dr Abbot, the President), the Bureau of Standards, and the Office of the Geodetic Survey. He was much impressed, as in 1919, with the up-to-date appliances of the Americans, and with the thoroughness of their scientific work.

Leaving Washington, he called at The Observatory of Harvard University (Boston, Mass.), and at the University of Detroit, where he found Professor Hussey, who knows Riverview well and has been in Australia more than once on scientific work. Yerkes Observatory, near Chicago, where is installed the largest Refractor in the world, claimed him next, after which he proceeded to the famous Mt Wilson Observatory at Pasadena (near Los Angeles, Col.). Here Father Pigot was in his element, for it is with Dr. Abbott, more especially than any one else, that he has discussed the details of the projected Solar Radiation Observatory at Riverview, and from him received the most valuable assistance.

Passing on to the Lick Observatory (Mt Hamilton, N Cal), he just missed Professor Campbell, who had left for Australia four days before as a member of the Wallal (WA) Eclipse Expedition. Professor Tucker, however, the locuin tenens, showed hiin every kindness.

Father Pigot's final visit before embarking for Australia was to the Canadian Government Observatory (Victoria, BC), which possesses the most powerful telescope in the British Empire (73in. Reflector). In the realm of instrumental astronomy Canada has outstripped all the other Dominions, and even the Mother Country herself.

It is superfluous to emphasise the im tiense value Father Pigot derived from his visits to the leading scientific men of the world, picking up hints, seeing new methods, and the most modern appliances for the subject nearest and dearest to his heart.

That the Riverview Observatory will gain by his experiences, and that the new Solat Radiation Observatory will receive a new fillip, goes without saying:

◆ Our Alma Mater Riverview 1929

Obituary

Edward F Pigot

Father Pigot was born at Dundrum, County Dublin, on September 18, 1858. He adopted the medical profession, and practised for a few years in Dublin. In 1885 he entered the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Dromore, County Down. He made his first visit to Australia as a Jesuit scholastic in 1888, and taught for four years at Xavier College, Melbourne, and St Ignatius' College, Sydney. Naturally, his department was science. He completed his theological studies in Milltown Park, Dublin, and was ordained in the summer of 1899. Two years later he volunteered for the arduous China Mission, where the French Fathers of the Society of Jesus were endeavouring to Christianise the vast pagan kingdom - an act revealing fires of missionary zeal and personal devotion probably unsuspected by those who knew only the retiring scientist and scholar of later years. His sacrifice was accepted, and recompensed in a striking manner. He did, indeed, master the Chinese language in preparation for missionary labours, and for a while tasted the hardships of active service.

He returned to Australia in 1907, and immediately set about founding an observatory at Riverview, while teaching science on the college staff. When death called him he had gathered at Riverview five double-component seismometers, two telescopes fully equipped for visual and photographic work, a wireless installation, clocks specially designed for extreme accuracy, an extensive scientific library, a complete set of meteorological instruments, and what he most valued in his later years, a solar radiation, station, possessing rare and costly instruments, such as are possessed by only a few other, and these Government-endowed, stations throughout the world.

Fr. Pigot's in terest in the scientific problems of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, his experiments at the construction of the Burrenjuck Dam, in geophysics at the Cobar mines and elsewhere, his pendulum experiments in the Queen Victoria Market Buildings in Sydney, are well known. In 1910 he took part in a solar eclipse expedition to Tasmania; in April, 1911, he went with the warship Encounter on a similar expedition to the Tongan Islands in the Pacific, and was prominent in the Goondi windi Solar Eclipse Expedition in 1922.

Father Pigot was appointed by the Commonwealth Government to represent Australia at the International Seismological Congress at St. Petersburg in 1914. The outbreak of war prevented the Congress being held. In 1921 he was chosen as a member of the Australian National Research Council, and in 1922 went to Rome as its representative at the first general assembly of the International Astronomical Union, and of the International Union of Geodetics and Geophysics. He was elected President of the NSW branch of the British Astronomical Association in 1923 and 1924. For many years he was a member of the Council of the Royal Society of NSW.

At the Pan-Pacific Science Congress, held in Australia in 1923, Father Pigot was secretary of the seismological section. In 1926 Father Pigot was once more chosen by the Commonwealth Government as a member of the Australian Delegation at the Pan-Pacific Congress, held in Tokyo, in October, 1926. In December of last year he received word from the secretary of the Central International Bureau of Seismology, Strasburg, that he had been elected member of an International Commission of Research, formed a short time previously at a congress held in Prague, Czecho-Slovakia.

Many warm-hearted and generous tri butes to the kindliness and charm of Father Pigot's personal character have been expressed by public and scientific men since his death. Clearly his associa tion with men in all walks of life begot high esteem and sincere friendship. Those who knew him in his private life will always preserve the memory of a kindly, geritle associate, and of a saintly religious. RIP

-oOo-

The Solemn Office and Requiem Mass were celebrated at St Mary's North Sydney in the presence of a large congregation. His Grace the Archbishop presided, and preached the panegyric, and a very large number of the priests of the Diocese were present. Representatives of all classes were amongst the congregation, as may be seen from the list, which we cull from the “Catholic Press”.

The Government was represented by Mr J Ryan, MLC, and the Premier's Department by Messrs. F C G Tremlett and C H Hay. Other mourners included Professor Sir Edgeworth David, Professor C E Fawcitt (Dean of the Fa ulty of Science in Sydney University), Professor H G Chapman, Professor L A Cotton (president of the Royal Society of NSW), Professor T G . Osborn (chairman of the executive committee of the Australian National Research Council), Dr and Mrs Conrick, Dr P Murray, Dr Noble, Dr Murray Curtis, Dr H Daly, Dr Armit, Dr G H McElhone, Dr Wardlaw (president of the Linnean Society), Dr Robert Noble, Dr James Hughes, Messrs Cecil O'Dea, M J Mc Grath, H W and J N Lenehan, Austin Callachor (St Aloysius' Old Boys' Union), J Boylan (St Ignatius' Old Boys' Union), K Ryan, J Hayes, I Bryant, G E Bryant, K Young, R W Challinor (Sydney Technical College), James Nangle (Government Astronomer), O J Lawler, V J Evans, K E Finn, F W Brennan, J and I McDonnell, J Burfitt, and W S Gale, E Wunderlich, Dr Bradfield, Messrs L Campbell, L Bridge jun, Harold Healy, J Edmunds, E P Hollingdale, T Thyne, H Tricker (German Consul, representing the German Scientific Societies), W H Paradice, J. J. Richardson, W Poole (representing the Council of the Royal Society), K M Burgraaff (German Geographical Survey), E W Esdaile, A P Mackerras, E Gardiner, F S Manse (Under-Setretary for Mines), E C Andrews (Mines Department), W S Dun (Geological Survey), E H Matthews, F K Du Boise, Herbert Brown, R H Bulkeley, FRAS, M B Young, O S Cleary.

Letters of condolence were received from the following :The Old Boys' Union, NSW Chamber of Agriculture, The Shires Association of NSW, Dr C J Prescott (Headmaster, Newington Coll ege), Lane Cove Municipal Council, British Astronomical Association (NSW Branch), Commonwealth Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Chemical Society of the Sydney Technical College, the Royal Society of New South Wales, The Hon Sir Norman Kater, Kt, MLC, and many others.

The following letter was received from: the New South Wales Cabinet:

Premier's Office, Sydney, N.S.W.
22nd May, 1929.
Dear Sir,
At a meeting of the Cabinet this morning mention was made of the sad loss this State has sustained in the death of Reverend Father Pigot, one of its most distinguished citizens. I was invited by my colleagues to convey to you, as Principal of the eminent educational establishment, with which Father Pigot had the honour to be associated, an. expression of the deepest sympathy from the Members of the New South Wales Ministry.

The memory of Father Pigot, who was a per sonal friend of many of us, will be kept ever green by reason of his high scholastic and scien tific attainments, modest and unassuming demean our, and ni sy of character.
Yours faithfully,

E. A. BUTTENSHAW,
Acting Premier,

The Rev Father Lockington SJ, StIgnatius' College, Professor

H, H. Turner, of the British Association and the International Seismological Summary, speaks of “the splendid work done by Father Pigot in seismology; Riverview has been for many years our standby in the discussion of earthquakes near Australia”.

Professor Sir Edgeworth David, quoted in the “Catholic Press”, writes:

“By his death Australian science and the science of seismology have sustained a loss that is almost irreparable. He initiated what now ranks among the very best seismological observatories in the world. He was able to secure the best in struments for recording the variations in heat transmitted from the sun to the earth for his solar observatory at Riverview, and to make observa- . tions. This science in time we will rely upon to put mankind in possession of long range forecasts as to future rainfall and weather in general.

He was well known to all leading physicists and astronomers, and entirely because of his great reputation the University of Sydney was able to borrow for a period of six years some extremely valuable pendulums from Germany for measuring small displacements of the earth's crust at the great reservoir at Burrenjuck.

It was not only for his profound learning that scientists reverenced him. They could not fail to be attracted by his magnetic personality, for though frail and often in weak health, he ever preserved the same charming and cheerful man ner, and was full of eagerness and enthusiasm in discussing plans for the better pursuit of seien tific truth. Surely there. never was any scientific man so well beloved as he”.

◆ Our Alma Mater, St Ignatius Riverview, Sydney, Australia, Golden Jubilee 1880-1930

The New Seismographs at Riverview

That Seismology, and especially Seismographs, are in the air at pres ent, there can be no doubt. We have recently experienced in Sydney such a series of earthquake tremors, some of which have been usually large, and all coming on top of one another, as it were, that the subject was a common topic of conversation for several weeks. But the greatest interest centred not so much on the earthquakes as on the Riverview Seismograph that recorded them. When, a few weeks ago, the papers announced that a big and destructive earthquake had occurred so many thousands of miles away, "A big earthquake somewhere," one Melbourne Daily headed the re port-the safe announcement following that it was possibly in the sea somewhere, did much, we are sure, to nullify any exciting effect the tid ings might have had on even unsceptical readers. The news two days later, however, that a severe earthquake had taken place in Sumatra, and that 250 people had been killed, made the Riverview Seismograph not only known, but famous. With Father Pigot's permission (or, shall I say, with out Father Pigot's permission?) I purpose giving a short account of the Seismographs to accompany our illustrations,

The idea, as a mere remote possibility, of starting a Seismographical Observatory at Riverview, occurred to Father Pigot a few years ago at Zi ka-wei (Shanghai), just when leaving for Australia, where he was oblijed by ill-health to return, and received a fresh impetus when he was passing through Manilla on the voyage south. The splendid seismographical work done by the Fathers for many years at these two great Jesuit Observator ies of the Far East (not to speak of all that they have achieved in their other departments, viz., Meteorology, Terrestrial Magnetism, and Astro nomy, above all, of the tens of thousands of lives saved by their typhoon warnings during the last thirty years), was a sufficient incentive to Fr Pigot, who had been on the staff of the former Observatory for some time, to attempt a small beginning of at least one branch of similar high class work in Australia. No doubt excellent records had been obtained for several years in Australia and New Zealand by the well-known instrument of the veteran Seismologist, Professor Milne; but it was interesting to see what results would be obtained by a more modern type of Seismograph of one or other of the recent German models. Those of Professor Wiechert, of Gottingen University, were decided upon, if funds would per mit. The decision was most unexpectedly confirmed by the arrival in Syd ney shortly after, on his way home to Germany, at the expiration of his term of office as Director of the Samoa Observatory, of Dr Linke, who showed his Wiechert earthquake records to Father Pigot, at Riverview. Dr Linke, who now, by the way, is Director of the Geophysical Institute in Frankfort (Germany), has since taken the kindliest interest in our embryo Observatory.

But where was all the necessary money to come from? Needless to say, a lot of expense was involved. As two of the principal instruments are now installed, we may say that nearly the whole of the expense of the larger (horizontal) Seismograph was defrayed by our kind and generous friend and neighbour, the Hon Louis F Heydon, MLC - a man whose charity is equalled only by his love of learning and scientific progress ad majorem Dei gloriam. To the Hon Mr Heydon, therefore, for the great pioneer part he played in giving Seismology a foothold in Riverview, not Father Pigot's alone, but Riverview's warmest thanks are due. But though Seismology has certainly got a foothold in Riverview, it must be remembered that at present our Observatory is only in an embryonic con dition. Space has been provided in the building for other Geophysical re search work, to be carried out later on, when, like the Hon. Mr. Heydon, other lovers of scientific research shall have recognised in the Riverview Observatory, a work deserving of their patronage and generosity.

In July, 1908, Father Pigot paid a visit of three weeks to Samoa, where, through the kindness and courtesy of the Director of the Observa tory, Dr. Angenheister, and his assistants, he was able to study the con struction and working of the various instruments, the methods for the reduction of the records, etc. On his return, he set about erecting the building and fittings for the instruments the half-underground, vaulted, brick building (not as yet covered with its protecting mantle for tem perature), and woodwork fittings. These were admirably constructed respectively by Brother Forster SJ, and Brother Girschik SJ, with their usual indefatigable care. In the early autumn the instruments arrived from Germany, and soon afterwards they were recording tremors and earthquakes. The instruments are amongst the most modern in use at the present day, and are known as the Wiechert Seismographs or Seis mometers, named from their designer, Professor Wiechert. Until quite recently they were not numerous, being confined, with the exception of the Samoa instrument, to European Observatories. Now, however, they are being installed in various regions of the globe. The extreme delicacy of the instruments is almost incredible; an unusual weight on the floor of the Observatory (a party of visitors, for example), even at some dis tance from the instruments, would be sufficient to cause serious derange ment of the recording pens; the ocean waves dashing on the coast six miles away on a rough day are frequently recorded. It is in this extreme delicacy that the value (and, incidentally, the trouble) of the instruments consists. As a consequence they demand the most careful handling, and almost constant attention.

There are two instruments: a Horizontal Seismograph and a Vertical Seismograph, to receive, as the names suggest, the horizontal part (or component, as the scientists call it), and the vertical part respectively of the earth-waves set up by any seismic disturbance. The Horizontal Seismo graph, however, consists practically of two Seismographs in as much as it separates the waves it receives into two directions; NS and EW, giving a separate record for each, as may be seen from the two recording rolls hang ing down in front.

The horizontal is an inverted pendulum whose bob is a large iron cylindrical (or drum-shaped) mass of 1000 kilograms, or a little over a ton weight. This mass is supported on a pedestal which is poised on four springs set on a large concrete pillar built on the solid rock, and separated from the surrounding floor by an air-gap one inch wide. When an earth quake occurs in any place, that place becomes the centre from which earth waves travel in all directions, through the earth and round the earth (surface waves). These waves on reaching Riverview disturb our concrete pillar, and set the pendulum in motion. The iron mass is reduced to a "stable equilibrium” by a system of springs, so that when the base is disturbed, the large mass will not fall over, but will oscillate or swing backwards and for wards till it comes to rest again. Now, a very ingenious air-damping arrangement (the two drum-like structures over the mass) destroys the oscillation or swing set up in the mass by the first wave, so that the second and third and succeeding earth-waves will not be affected by the oscillation of the mass itself, but each wave, no matter how quickly it comes after the others, will have its own effect on the mass. Consider, for illustration sake, one of those now-antiquated punching-ball apparatus that consist of a heavy leaden circular base, into the middle of which is inserted a stout four or five-foot cane, on the top of which is fixed the punching ball. When you punch this ball it and the cane oscillate, or swing backwards and forwards (the heavy base remaining stationary). If you determine to hit out at this ball at a fixed rate, say thirty punches a minute, you cannot be certain that every blow will have its full effect on the ball-in many cases you may not hit the ball at all. But if you contrive to make the ball stationary, so that it keeps still, or moves very little, when you punch it, every punch, no mat ter at what rate you punch it, will catch the ball and have its full effect upon it. In somewhat the same way our large iron mass is kept as station ary as possible, by the damping cylinders, while each earth-wave has its full effect upon it. This effect is received by the arrangement of levers above the mass, and magnified enormously, which magnified effect is traced by the recording stylus or pen--a tiny platinum pin-on the smoked re cording roll of paper, Waves coming in a N or S direction are recorded on one of the rolls; those in an E or W direction are recorded on the other, while waves coming in any other direction are recorded on both.

The Vertical Wiechert Seismograph is a Lever-Pendulum, consisting of an iron mass of 160lbs. weight at the end of an arm (under the wooden temperature-insulation box), and a spiral spring (enclosed in the box) be tween the weight and the fulcrum, the weight and the spring keeping the arm of the lever in equilibrium. Hence this pendulum can move only up and down, only by the vertical part of the earth-waves. The effect, as before, is highly magnified and recorded by the stylus. The damping (drum-like) arrangement in this instrument is seen at the left-hand back corner of the table. The temperature-insulation box is simply a double-walled wooden jacket packed with carbon, to protect the spiral, as well as a zinc-steel grid iron compensation, from change of temperature. One of the greatest diffi culties with these instruments is keeping the instrument room at the same temperature always. For this reason the brick building is not yet nearly completed, as it will have to be covered by a thick layer of protecting material, which will finally have to be covered by a proper roofing. Again, scientifically inclined and generously disposed friends, please note!

To lessen any disturbance from the room itself (visitors, etc.) the floor of the building is covered with sand to the depth of a few inches, and in the case of the Horizontal, an air gap to the depth of a few feet sepa rates the instrument from the surrounding floor.

The records, which are changed every twenty-four hours, are traced on specially-prepared smoked paper, and can be fixed at once with a suitable varnish. On the instruments, the records are stretched by drums which, by a very nice clock-work device (c.f, weight and escapement) are rotated once every hour, and moved to the right at the same time. Fur thermore, by an ingenious electro-magnetic contrivance connected with a Wiechert contact-clock (seen with the Vertical Seismograph), the hours and minutes are accurately recorded on the earthquake tracing itself, and not at the side. Consequently, the exact second almost at which a distur bance begins is known. The rate of tracing is about fourteen millimetres per minute for the Horizontal, and ten millimetres per minute for the Vertical Seismograph.

To the uninitiated, at least, the results in the matter of records are really marvellous. They are worth the trouble they entail, and they do en tail lots of trouble. So far, there have been records of at least four con siderable earthquakes (one of which has been already identified), as well as eight or nine smaller ones. Some of these have probably been subma rine, and can be localised when reports come in from other distant Obser vatories. There is one more point to be treated in this rather crude explanation, and it will explain the last sentence. How is the distance of the earthquake ascertained? Well, in a large seismic disturbance, if situ ated at a considerable distance, preliminary earth tremors or short waves precede the long earthquake-waves. The distance of the centre of the dis turbance (which usually lasts for an hour or two) can be calculated from the time elapsing between the first preliminary tremors, and the beginn ing of the long waves. Consequently when three Observatories sufficiently distant and suitably situated calculate the distance of a particular shock, say, in mid-ocean, the actual centre can be found by simple geometry.

I have tried to give a simple, straightforward, unscientific explanation of the instruments, without going into more detail than was absolutely necessary. In fact, it would be unwise to go into much detail, for, if I did, I should probably become helpless very soon, and should require a kind and helping hand from Father Pigot to extricate me. But the calculations in volved are terrific—a fact that will appear plausible when we say (I have it on Father Pigot's word) that the pressure of the stylus on the record, equivalent to a weight of one milligram, must be allowed for in the reductions of the observations.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1902

Letters from Our Past

Father Edward Pigot SJ

China

Father Pigot SJ, whom our past students of late years will remember, writes from the Shanghai district: to somewhat the same purport :

“Oh, if we only had a few thorough-going Irish priests here, how many more poor Chinese could be received into the Church! In some parts, as in the North, and in Father Perrin's section, one priest more would nean the certain conversion of hundreds and hundreds of Pagans. But Father Superior is at the end of his tether and can not send any more men just now; for the Christian villages around here cannot be left without their missionaries”.

In another letter, dated October of present year, Father Pigott writes :

“Here in our mission, as indeed throughout nearly the whale of China, things are quiet enough : how long it will last I do not know, The Boxers have lately broken out again in the south-west. We had many deaths this past year among our missionaries, and are badly in want of men, especially in the newly opened up districts in the north and in parts of the west of our mission. I send you the lately published yearly “Resumé” of the Kiang Nan. It is, above all, in the Sin-tchcou-fou (Western) Section that the greatest movement of conversion has taken place recently among the people whole villages sometimes asking to be received for instruction for baptism. But how receive them? The means are wanting - above all men. If Fathe

Born: 23 May 1726, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 31 July 1747, Lisbon, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)
Ordained: pre 1754
Died: 29 June 1795, Killaloe, County Clare

Son of Elinor Nihill née Hackett

Nihill or Nihell is a variant of O’Neill

1757-1759 Prefect of Boarders at Irish College Poitiers

There were three other Nihell’s SJ. One was the brother of the Bishop, and John and Edward who was born at Antigua, and entered the Society at Ghent in 1768 and 1769. Edward died a victim of charity attending negroes at Trinidad in 1826 (cf Foley’s Collectanea). His Nephew was Father McShee SJ.
Ferrar’s “Limerick” :
Of a very ancient and respectable family names O’Neill. He was a near relative of Baron Harrold, Colonel of the Regiment of Königsfelt, of Colonel Nihell, of Dillon’s Regiment at Fontenoy, and of Brigadier-General in Naples, and Colonel of the Regiment of Limerick. He was also a brother to Dr James Nihell, a medical writer, and a nephew of Sir John Higgins, first physician to the King of Spain.”
1770 He published a work on “Rational Self Love”.
1778 The Archbishop of Dublin tried to get him made Bishop of Limerick, while the Bishop of Cashel and his friends supported Thomas Butler (later Lord Cahir), another ex-Jesuit.
1784 He was made Bishop of Kilfenora
1787 He was completing and preparing for press his brother James’ “Life and Doctrines of Christ” and was engaged in writing a “History of the Redemption of Man”. (These MSS are in the Milltown Park Library).
J Roche, author of “Memoirs of an Octogenarian” says “Dr Nihell was a cousin of my father’s, at whose table I well recollect him as a most welcome guest, for he was distinguished as a Priest, a scholar and a gentleman. I was present at his consecration in Limerick in 1784, when Mr Kirwan OsF was Preacher, and Lord Dunboyne, Bishop of Cork, one of the assisting prelates. Kirwan preached on apostasy, and he and Dunboyne later apostasised!” (cf O’Renehan’s “Collections” p 370)
His tomb is in the old Cathedral of Kilfenora.
Brother of Bishop Nihell. The Nihill’s were related to the Harolds, Arthurs, Macghees, McNamaras, Butlers, Woulfes and Calcutts of Limerick and Clare (in pen)
After the Suppression he was PP of Rathkeale. As he was of decided literary tastes, he resigned his parish and lived in Limerick. He died there some time post 1780. (Father Denis Murphy’s Collections)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Laurence Nihell and Alice née Arthur
His early life in the Society is hard to determine. he is mentioned only once in the LUS Catalogue 1749, which tells nothing of his studies before Entry. It seems certain that after First Vows he was sent to Coimbra for studies.
1752 In the Spring of 1752 he wrote to Fr General for permission to study Mathematics and Theology before he should return to Ireland. The General in his reply, dated 30 May, informed him that the permission asked for would be granted only if Superiors decided that such studies were necessary
1754 It is also uncertain if he was Ordained when he arrived at the Irish College Poitiers 15 December 1754 - there is no record of him in the AQUIT Catalogues of 1754 and 1758. His name at Poitiers has survived only in the Procurator's books down to 1758 when he left the Society.
1758 LEFT the Society and returned to Ireland where he was incardinated in Limerick, and succeeded Fr David Burke as PP of Rathkeale in 1762.
1767 Moved to St Mary’s Limerick as senior Curate
1783 Ordained Bishop of Kilfenora, and he died 29 June 1795 and was buried in the chancel of the old Cathedral Church of his Diocese

Born: 02 November 1854, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 19 October 1875, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 15 June 1889
Final Vows: 02 February 1894, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 16 June 1941, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin

Early education at St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg

by 1880 at Laval France (FRA) studying
by 1881 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1888 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 16th Year No 4 1941

Obituary :
Father James Brennan
Few men of the Irish Province have given it a more loyal and devoted service than did Fr. James Brennan during the 86 years of his membership of it. He filled many important positions in most of its houses, in four of which, Clongowes, Galway, Belvedere and Rathfarnham he was Superior. During the last years of his life when he had ceased to hold office, he continued his interest in the Province, its welfare and its activities, showing this by the earnestness and enthusiasm with which he devoted himself to his work as Editor of the Province News. All who had dealings with him in this capacity will recall how glad he was to receive any news of Ours and of their doings, and how glad he was to publish anything that would edify and encourage us in our work.
Fr Brennan was at school in Tullabeg for 6 years (1869-75), and if these be added to his 68 years in the Society, the grand total of 71 years of connection with the Irish Province is reached. It is thus no wonder that he was so loyal and devoted a member of the Society and the Province. His noviceship was passed in Milltown Park under Fr. Charles McKenna, and at its conclusion he was sent to Clongowes with three others, Messrs. Fegan, Manning and Elliott, for his juniorate under the guidance of Fr. Zimmerman. The four juniors lived in the old Infirmary, since burnt down, and only mixed with the rest of the Community on special occasions. His second year of Juniorate was spent in Milltown Park. He then went to Laval for Philosophy, but he had to leave there the following year when the members of the Society were driven out of France. The French Jesuits had acquired the Imperial Hotel in St Helier, Jersey, and opened it as a Scholasticate, and there Mr Brennan spent the year 1880-81. Life, However, in foreign houses had not agreed with him, so he finished his Philosophy in Milltown Park.
His regency was spent in Clongowes () where he was at first Third Line Prefect, then four years Master, acting as assistant to the Prefect of Studies during portion of the time. During this time, the amalgamation of Clongowes with his old school, Tullabeg, took place, and Mr Brennan had much to do with the success of the venture. He proved himself an excellent and very successful master, and was very popular both inside and outside the classroom.
In 1887 he went to Milltown for Theology, but again his health failed, and he had to continue his studies privately in Tullabeg, which had just been opened as a Noviceship and Juniorate. He was then ordained in 1889, and went to Belvedere, where he spent three years, 1889-92, as Master and the third as Minister. In 1892 he went to Tullabeg for his Tertianship, being at the same time Socius to the Master of Novices.
The year 1893 saw the beginning of his long connection with Clongowes where he was Higher Line Prefect for a year, then Minister for six years, becoming Vice Rector in 1900. The period of his Rectorship saw many important improvements effected in the College. The chief of these was the acquiring of the temporary church at Letterkenny and erecting it in Clongowes where it still does duty as gymnasium, theatre, examination hall, and luncheon room on the Union Day.
We next find him on the Mission staff (1904-06) with his headquarters at the Crescent, Limerick, but it was not long before he was in office again. being appointed Rector in Galway in 1906, and two years later Rector in Belvedere (1908-13). It was during this time that Belvedere purchased the grounds at Jones Road which have proved such a, valuable acquisition to the College.
In 1913 Rathfarnham Castle was purchased and opened as a House of Studies for our scholastics attending lectures in University College, Dublin. The important position of Superior of the new house was entrusted to Fr Brennan, and everyone agreed that no better choice could have been made. The characteristics which had made him so successful in his previous positions were to be still more conspicuously displayed in this new sphere of duty. His paternal rule mingling kindliness and generosity with insistence upon observance of discipline, made him an ideal Superior of young men fresh from the noviceship.
After six years in office he ceased to be Superior, but remained in Rathfarnham, with the exception of one year (1920-21), when he was Spiritual Father in Clongowes, until the end. During the earlier portion of this period he suffered much from vertigo and had to give up saying Mass. His cure which he believed to have been obtained by the prayers of a Nun to Fr. Willie Doyle, is one of the most remarkable of the many favours attributed to Father Willie.
In 1925 the Province News was started and Fr.Brennan was appointed. Editor, holding that position until his death which took place on June 17th. He had been for almost 30 years in Rathfarnham, and it will be hard to imagine The Castle without his cheery presence. He was so interested in everybody and everything connected with the place, so edifying, so helpful as an advisor and as a confessor that he will be sorely missed. May he rest in peace.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father James Brennan 1854-1941
The kindly face of Fr James Brennan will long be remembered by those young scholastics to whom he ministered for 30 years of his Jesuit life in Rathfarnham. Sixty years in all he spent in the Society, years of fruitful and lasting work.
He was closely associated with Clongowes in his early days in various capacities, finally as rector. It was he who acquired the temporary church at Letterkenny, and had it erected in Clongowes to serve for many years as a gymnasium, theatre and examination hall. He was the first Editor of the “Province News”.
He passed peacefully to his reward on June 17th 1941.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1942

Obituary

Father James Brennan SJ

Fr James Brennan, Rector of Belvedere from 1908 to 1913, died at Rathfarnham Castle on June I7th, 1941. He had given 66 years of loyal and , devoted service to the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, and of these years not a few were spent in Belvedere. His early education was received at Tullabeg, and after he had entered the Society in 1875 he studied at Clongowes, Laval in France, Jersey and Milltown Park. He said his first Mass in Belvedere in 1889 and then came here for three years, being at first a Master and afterwards Minister for one year. In 1908 he came back as Rector, after two years as Superior of Galway. His Rectorship was a very important one for the College in many ways. One of his first actions was to start the Debating Society which since then has been such a useful training ground for budding orators. Then, too, he was responsible for the separation of the Senior House from the Preparatory School, and for giving to each a separate staff. When Fr Brennan came to Belvedere the playing fields were situated at Croydon Park, in Fairview, but in 1910 he purchased the grounds at Jones's Road which we still use. The benefits of having grounds so near the College were soon evident, for the JCT won its first Rugby Cup two years later.

All those who came in contact with Fr Brennan during this period of his life retain for him a most affectionate memory, and it is of interest to record here that his kindliness was shown even to those differing in religion, as was witnessed by Dr William Anderson, formerly Headmaster of Mountjoy, who, as he said in a kind letter of sympathy, “came to know and appreciate Fr Brennan” during the years of his Rectorship.

Fr Brennan spent six years as Rector of Rathfarnham Castle after he left Belvedere and he remained there, with the exception of one year, until his death. He will long be remembered by those who met him there as a most kindly and sympathetic confessor, as a holy and edifying priest, and as one whose cheery presence was the greatest blessing to the House. May he rest in peace!

◆ The Clongownian, 1942

Obituary

Father James Brennan SJ

Among Clongownians of the last twenty years of the nineteenth century and the first few years of the present century, the name of Fr James Brennan is a household one, while his connection with Tullabeg goes back much further, as he was a very prominent boy in the school in the early seventies. Having entered the Society of Jesus, he came to Clongowes in 1882, where he spent five years as a Scholastic. He was a very successful Junior Grade teacher and was able to inspire his boys with interest, and even enthusiasm, over their Latin and Greek lessons. He was in Clongowes during the Amalgamation year, and, as an old Tullabeg boy and a present Clongowes master, he helped very considerably to bring about the successful union of the two schools.

In one incident during this period Mr Brennan played a prominent part. The fire which destroyed the study hall and refectory wing took place on April 9th, 1886. No one worked harder than he to save as much as possible, but, in spite of all efforts, nearly all the desks in the study hall were burnt, together with the contents - mostly school books. It was concluded by many, to whom the wish was father to the thought, that, as there were no school books, there could be no work done for a long time. On the next day, however, which was a play day, Mr Brennan went to Dublin, returning with. sufficient books to enable classes to be resumed the next day. Some boys were not as grateful to him as they might have been.

After his ordination to the priesthood he returned to Clongowes as Higher Line Prefect in 1891-2. Those who were here during that year will remember his interest in, and enthusiasm for, gymnastics and musical drill, in which during the night play hour for a considerable portion of the year the greater number of the boys were engaged. The following year he became Minister, and held that post for five years, until he was appointed Rector during the Christmas term of 1900. Few of those who were in Clongowes at the time will have forgotten the scenes of enthusiasm which showed how popular was his appointment. During his term of office (1900-04) he effected many improvements. He laid down a completely new system of sewerage, he tiled the Higher and Third Line galleries, he put in the large window over the hall door of the Castle, and, most useful of all, he purchased the building that had been used as a church in Letterkenny while the Cathedral was being built, and erected it here, where, during the last forty years, it has served as gymnasium, theatre, examination hall, skating rink, and, at times, as infirmary.

Having completed his term of office as Rector here, he was appointed Rector of St Ignatius College, Galway (1906-8), of Belvedere College, Dublin (1908-13), and of Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin (1913-19). He spent one more year in Clongowes (1920-21) as Spiritual Father. The last twenty years of his life were passed in Rathfarnham Castle doing such work as his poor health would allow. He passed away very peacefully on June 17th last year. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father James Brennan (1854-1941)

A native of Dublin, spent two years (1904-1906) at the Crescent as a member of the small mission band resident here before World War I. During his long life, Father Brennan occupied many positions of trust in the Province: Vice-Rector of Clongowes (1900-1904); Rector of St Ignatius', Galway (1906-1908); Rector of Belvedere College (1908-1913). He was the first superior appointed over the Jesuit scholasticate at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin (1913-1920).

Born: 23 March 1939, Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1956, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 25 June 1970, Milltown Park Chapel, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1978, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Died: 04 October 2022, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Clongowes Wood College SJ community at the time of death

FSS
Born : 23rd March 1939 Dublin City
Raised : Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin
Early Education at CBC Monkstown, Dublin
7th September 1956 Entered Society at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
8th September 1958 First Vows at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
1958-1961 Rathfarnham - Studying Science at UCD
1961-1962 Vals-près-le-Puy, France - Studying Philosophy at Séminaire des Missions
1962-1964 Chantilly. France - Studying Philosophy at Séminaire Missionaire
1964-1966 Crescent College SJ, Limerick : Regency : Teacher
1966-1967 Belvedere College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying H Dip in Education at UCD
1967-1971 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
25th June 1970 Ordained at Milltown Park Chapel, Dublin
1971-1973 St Ignatius College, Enfield - Studying Education at Institute of Education, University of London
1973-1974 Belvedere College SJ - Assistant Headmaster; Teacher; Province Task Force on Education
1974-1982 Gonzaga College SJ - Headmaster (from Oct 1974); Teacher
1977 Tullabeg - Tertianship
2nd February 1978 Final Vows at Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
1982-1992 Crescent College Comprehensive SJ, Dooradoyle - Headmaster; Teacher; Director of Pastoral Care
1992-1993 Paris, France - Sabbatical at Communauté St Louis de Gonzague
1993-1995 Loyola House - Delegate for Young Adults; Youth Director; National Ecclesiastical Assistant for CLC
1995-2005 Clongowes Wood College SJ- Rector; National Ecclesiastical Assistant for CLC; Chaplain Lower Line
2000 Headmaster; Pastoral Care Director; Teacher; Moderator of Academy; ARLB Centenary Record
2004 Cleveland, OH, USA - Sabbatical at Sabbatical at St Ignatius High School
2005-2006 Crescent Church, Limerick - Superior; Project Team at Sacred Heart Church; Pastoral Delegate; Young Adult Delegate
2006-2010 Crescent College Comprehensive SJ, Dooradoyle - Director of Spirituality Centre, Limerick; Ministry to Parents at Crescent College; Bursar
2010-2022 Clongowes Wood College SJ- Spiritual Director (Lower Line); Assists in Peoples’ Church; Directs Liturgical Music
2013 Assists in People’s Church
2016 Prays for the Church and Society at Cherryfield Lodge

◆ The Clongownian, 2004

Father Dermot Murray SJ : Headmaster 2000-2004

Fr Dermot Murray SJ has a rare distinction amongst his Jesuit colleagues - that of being Headmaster in three different schools. He was Headmaster in Gonzaga 1974-1982, in the Crescent College Comprehensive, Limerick 1982-1992, and in Clongowes 2000-2004. He was appointed initially in Clongowes as Rector in 1995, probably thinking that his days of serving as Headmaster were over. When Fr Bruce Bradley SJ went on a well-earned sabbatical year in 2000, the Provincial asked Dermot to step in as acting Headmaster for the academic year 2000-2001. Following Bruce's appointment to the office of Cardinal Desmond Connell, Dermot was appointed as Headmaster in Clongowes until his retirement in 2004.

The first time I ever came across Dermot was in 1978 when the late Vinny Murray and I were coaching a Junior Cup Team together. Dermot was coaching the Gonzaga team. As was his wont at the time, he expressed some opinions from the touchline about the referee (Vinny) and the fairness of some of his decisions. Those of us who remember Vinny know that he rarely lost his temper about anything but he was really quite incensed on this particular day. Suffice it to say that I was surprised by the ensuing verbal engagement. Some years later, when I had the honour of refereeing a junior match between Clongowes and the Crescent College, I discovered that Dermot had lost none of his directness when it came to advising young referees about how to do their job. (He did decline the offer to take the whistle and finish the job himself...).

I had just been appointed as Assistant Headmaster in May 2000 shortly before the announcement of his appointment as acting Headmaster was made. I had enjoyed working with Bruce during the previous months in my capacity as acting Assistant Headmaster and had found him very supportive, encouraging, and easy to deal with. What would it be like working with Dermot? I could not say that I knew him well at that time and I was apprehensive about the news initially. However, I soon learned that he was an excellent leader who made sound decisions. Being naturally inquisitive and a good listener, he learned about every detail of school-life quickly.

As I got to know him over the four years, I realised what a very complex person Dermot is. He always acts out of his faith and deep spiritual beliefs. He lives his Christianity by trying to be fair and just, caring to those who work with him and for him. He is a very human human being with a great understanding of human frailties and suffering. He accepts people as they are, warts and all; when one made a mistake, there were no recriminations, “Acknowledge the mistake, let's see if we can correct it and move on” seemed to be his motto.

He brought to Clongowes a great wealth of experience to deal with the many issues and a number of crises, large and small. Throughout it all there was a steady, firm hand, a dispenser of wise council, a man capable of being objective and detached when needed.

Dermot leaves Clongowes with a fine record of achievement. He built and maintained good relations with all staffs. I think especially of the two years of industrial relations difficulties with the ASTI when he managed to keep the College open and functioning, and ensured that good humour and good relations remained. He won genuine affection from those lucky enough to have got to know him well. He steered the College through some difficult times such as those following the illness of the Bursar, Tom Farrelly, and the shock following Eamonn Donoghue's death.

Early on, Dermot set out his aims to build a community of growth, service and faith. In the school he will probably be best remembered by the boys for establishing both Morning Prayer and school assemblies as a central feature of College life. He also introduced school assemblies, which are used to recognise achievements of all kinds by all members of the community. He brought a new perspective to bear on much of the life of the school through the assemblies by acknowledging achievements other than rugby and by raising the profile of such achievements in the College. He oversaw the change from a Board of Governors to a Board of Management, the setting up of a Parents' Council, the establishment of a new position of Director of Finance, the recruitment of a Director of Development and the revamping of the Development Office (now the Foundation Office), the drawing up of the Master Plan, the preparation for the launch of “Clongowes Towards 2020”. Many of these decisions made in the years under Dermot's direction will have far-reaching and beneficial effects on the life of the College.

However, I think that Dermot will be mainly very fondly remembered for his many kindnesses to us all; for his friendship, for his good humour for his decisiveness and sound decision making. Dermot was a good leader and a fair employer and we thank him sincerely for it. Personally, I have much to thank him for: for his friendship and his many kindnesses to me, for what I have learnt from him about my role and about life. I was lucky to have such a mentor in my early years in this position.

For his retirement, Dermot has chosen to spend the year mostly in another Jesuit school in Cleveland, Ohio to study pastoral care systems and perhaps to offer some advice on rugby refereeing...! We all hope that he enjoys his well-earned retirement, when he eventually when gets it! He leaves with our sincere gratitude and good wishes. We hope he has a wonderful retirement and the good health to enjoy it. We hope to see him back in Clongowes frequently.

Dermot: to paraphrase Shakespeare, you have done Clongowes some service and they know it.

Interfuse No 139 : Easter 2009

ANONYMOUS CLERICS

Dermot Murray

Some time ago, one of my Jesuit friends told me that he had to go to a pharmacist to get some medicine. As he had been at a liturgical function, he was still wearing his priestly collar. After serving him, the pharmacist said, You know, Father, you are the first priest I have seen for years.

This set me thinking. One of my lines of thought went like this: any product needs publicity before it will sell. In general, the better the publicity, the better the sales. Thus, for example, many people at least in this area will wear the Munster jersey or the Munster scarf or the Munster hat not just for the matches, but for ordinary wear around the town. In this way, a sense of communal solidarity is built up and the support of the Munster team builds up to an extraordinary degree. This support leads to a desire on the part of the players to play to the limits of their ability, not just for victory but also to repay their supporters for such wonderful support. In addition, every young man and many young women want to have the opportunity to be members of the team.

For a few weeks now, I have looked to see a priest in the streets of Limerick. I looked in vain. In a recent visit to Dublin, I wandered around the city for a couple of hours. Again I looked to see a priest wandering around in the streets of our capital city; again, I looked in vain. Even in Veritas, a bookshop in which one used to see priests and religious wandering around looking at the books on offer, there wasn't a priest or a nun to be seen.

I know one reason for this is the diminishing numbers of priests and religious. Perhaps a second reason might be a fear that, because of the child abuse issue and the negative publicity that appeared to attach itself to every priest, cleric and religious, they might receive a very unpleasant and unacceptable greeting if they wore their clerical clothes or religious habit. A third reason might be a reluctance to being approached by people for money and not knowing how to deal appropriately with the people involved. I pondered on all these issues as I went up by the Luas to Heuston, my Munster rugby tie carefully displayed.

For myself, a fourth reason for not wearing my clerical collar is that it can limit my freedom in what I say, where I go, what I do. For example, I find it hard to go into a pub in the evening time wearing my clerics. Indeed, sometimes I find it difficult to go down town in the evening time in my clerical garb. Even on a train I sometimes feel that I might be under siege. Yet it has to be said that, when I do go down town in my clerics, mostly in the morning or afternoon, I find that more people greet me than do when I am not wearing clerics. Of course, this might not be true in Dublin particularly if the issue of clerical abuse raises its ugly head again as it did some weeks ago. All in all, I say to myself, it might be more prudent not to wear one's clerics. So I keep displaying my Munster tie. But then, of course, one has to ask the question is prudence the determining value in this situation?

Another reason is that wearing clerical garb does separate one from the laity. The clothes one wears often put the person into a particular category. This applies not just to clerical garb but also to uniforms and to other external signs that one often sees around city and county - Gardai, ambulance crews, fire fighters and others. In Limerick on the day of a Heineken Cup match - or indeed in Cardiff or other cities - a Munster jersey distinguishes Munster supporters from supporters of other teams. The same applies to school sporting competitions in the various codes. And, of course, wearing ashes on Ash Wednesday does tell people something about ourselves, even if it is only for one day.

In the light of some of the reflections above, I decided that I would wear my clerics during Lent and I did - most of the time. Did I find it constraining? Yes, at times I did. Did I feel nervous now and again? Yes, I did. Did I have the impression sometimes that I was viewed as different, as somebody to be avoided? Yes, at times, I did. Did I sometimes get the feeling that these impressions were coming from my unease rather than the reality of the situation? Yes I did. Was I unhappy with my decision to wear my clerics during Lent? No, I wasn't. Nevertheless, it was with some relief that I left them aside at least for the time being. I have worn them since for a week at a time. It remains awkward - perhaps only in my own consciousness.

I wrote this essay while living in the Jesuit Community attached to a large High School in the United States and took the opportunity to discuss the matter in the community. The overall view was expressed as follows: “We wear our clerics when working in the school to show that we are different perhaps not in the quality of our teaching, or the expertise of our counselling, or the enthusiasm for our various athletic programmes. But we are different because we are Jesuits living in community together”.

It is worth noting that there has been a strong interest in vocations in this school for the past number of years – not just from present pupils nor even immediate past-pupils, but past pupils who have completed their College courses or other courses and who, during the last year in school had been invited to discuss, both individually and as a group, the possibility of such a vocation. Where interest was shown, this was followed up on a regular and supportive basis by the Province coordinator of vocations, a brother who, incidentally, attended the recent General Congregation at Fr. General's invitation.

I am well aware that many of us might say that it is by the work we do that we preach the Word of God. We have some very inspirational examples of such people in our Province. It may well be that those who do such work - and indeed the many who are not well known but who work very hard in their own apostolates - might be well known and in many cases loved through their work as individuals. But perhaps they are not well known, each as a Jesuit who lives in a Jesuit community. And, looking at those congregations who are attracting vocations, it seems that one motivation about their aspirants is the desire for a visible community element in their lives.

So, thinking about all this, talking to some of my friends about it and praying a bit as well, I wondered whether, as a Province, we should not look again at the way we present ourselves in public and in our ministries. It might not be comfortable; it certainly would not be popular. But it might help us to discern our way forward if our Province is to continue to exist. Of course, it would be simplistic indeed to suppose that wearing clerical dress would resolve the many problems that lead to a lack of vocations. But it may also be simplistic to suppose that not wearing clerical dress enables us to share the Word of God in a more effective way.

We the Jesuits in Ireland have been rightly criticised for the paucity of vocations to Jesuit life in our Province. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that people never see us. Even in a Jesuit school, Jesuits who form part of the teaching body or the administration of the institution, might not be known as Jesuits. And even if they are known as Jesuits, it may well be that this has no real meaning for the pupils for, after all, individual Jesuits, including myself, appear to live the exact same life-style as the lay-teachers. They teach, they wear the same clothes, they drive the same cars. They might even drink in the same pubs.

My question then is this: Is it time to affirm more publicly that we are different in some ways? Not better, no, but different and able to explain that difference with simplicity as Jesuits living in community. Could it be time for debate, time for discernment ?

Born: 1561, Drogheda, County Meath
Entered: 10 November 1596, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: pre Entry
Final Vows: 1617
Died: 06 September 1621, Dublin Residence, Dublin City, County Dublin

Studied Theology before Ent. BA An Oxford graduate, MA of Douai and BD of Louvain. For 6 years a student of Stapleton and Lessius
1600 Not in Catalogue
1616 Catalogue On Irish Mission 14 years Age 60 Soc 17. Consultor on Mission. Strong in health, preacher, talented and zealous, pleasing address. Fit to be Superior. Of a choleric nature. Gifted as a Missioner “in perpetual motion”, a reconciler of enemies.
1617 Age 63 Soc 20. In Ireland
1621 At Poitiers, confined to bed by sickness
1622 In Leinster, Consultor of Mission. Suffering from Apoplexy.

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica” :
He was a missioner in Leinster and is mentioned in a letter of Thomas Lawndry (vere Christopher Holywood) to the General, November 1611, and printed in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record April 1874.
The Royal Commissioners in 1615 state :Lennon, a famous Priest, is kept by Nicholas Netterville” (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
He was an accomplished Theologian and Missioner “in perpetual motion”, the great reconciler of enemies.
He was a graduate of Oxford; MA Douai; BD Louvain; for six years a pupil of Stapleton and Lessius - a gifted solid man. (cf Holiwood and Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Studied Humanities at Oxford. Graduated MA at Douai and BD at Louvain, and was already Ordained on Ent 10 November 1596 Rome
1598-1600 After First Vows he studied at the German College
1600 Sent to Ireland and to the Dublin Residence and his work was limited to the city due to his lack of Irish language.
1606 Superior of Dublin Residence, succeeding Richard Field, until his death in office there 06 September 1621

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Patrick Lenan SJ 1561-1621
In Drogheda in 1554/5 was born Father Patrick Lenan. He was an accomplished scholar and theologian, a graduate of Oxford, an MA of Douai, BD od Louvain. He was for 6 years a pupil of Dr Stapleton, the great English controversialist, and also had Leonard Lessius as his Professor. He became a Jesuit in 1597, returning to Ireland in 1601.

His work lay mostly in the Pale and in Dublin, where together with Henry Fitzsimon and Barnaby O’Kearney, he was engaged in educating the youth of Dublin.

The Superior Fr Holywood referred to him as a very mature and reliable man and appointed him his Socius. The Royal Commission or Visitation of Dublin, charges Sir Nicholas Netterville as privately harbouring Lenan, a famous popish priest, and others in 1615.

A Proclamation of October 18th 1617 banished all priests from the country and Father Lenan was forced to leave. His subsequent history is unknown, but he died about 1621.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
LENAN, PATRICK. With regret I am obliged to confess that I can barely state of this worthy Jesuit, that I find him actively employed in Leinster, in February, 1603, and in February, 1605. I believe he is the person thus reported by the Royal Commissioners in 1615, “Lennon, a famous Priest is kept by Nicholas Neterville”.

Born: 01 October 1621, Meelick, County Clare
Entered: 21 June 1640, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Final Vows: 25 April 1659, Salamanca, Spain
Died: 27 January 1694, Irish College, Poitiers, France - Castellanae Province (CAST)

Alias de Burgo Arévalo
Superior of Irish Mission 13 July, 1669-08 October 1672 and 07 December 1687 to 30 April 1689

Nephew of Most Rev John Burke, Archbishop of Tuam

1651 was in 1st year Theology in Salamanca. Name is mentioned as one who might be Superior of Irish Seminary in Spain.
1655 Operarius at College of Salamanca
1666 ROM Catalogue : Is near Galway, Consultor of the Mission, helping his uncle Archbishop of Tuam; successful in reconciling enemies, on Mission for 4 years
1672 Was Superior of Irish Mission March 1672
1679-87 Spiritual Father at Irish College Poitiers
1690-1694 at Poitiers where he died
Fr Richard Burk RIP in 1693 (Arch Coll Rom XXVI)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Nephew of John de Burgo, Archbishop of Tuam
1644-1648 After First Vows he was sent for studies which were interrupted due to ill health, so back in Ireland 1644-1648 teaching Humanities
Having completed his studies at the Royal College, Salamanca, he was Ordained priest and for a time engaged in preaching Parish missions. His later years in Spain were devoted to teaching at the College of Arévalo.
1659 He joined his uncle, the exiled Archbishop, in Brittany and returned with him to Ireland in 1662
1662 He took up residence at Portumna and worked as a missioner in Connaught until his appointment as Superior of the Mission, 13 July, 1669. His term of Office only lasted until 08 October 1672 as his health did not allow him to carry out his duties
During the Titus Oates Plot he was exiled to France and served as Procurator at the Irish College in Poitiers, until he returned to Ireland in 1685.
1687-1689 Superior of Irish Mission for a second time, 07 December 1687 to 30 April 1689, when he was relieved of office at his own request.
1690 He returned to the Irish College, Poitiers where he died in 27 January 1694

◆ James B Stephenson SJ The Irish Jesuits Vol 1 1962

Richard Burke (1669-1672)

Richard Burke, nephew of John Burke, Archbishop of Tuam, was born at Meelick in September, 1621. He entered the Society of Jesus in Spain on 21st June, 1640. His course of study was interrupted owing to ill-health, and he had to return to Ireland, where he taught humanities for four years (1644-48). He returned then to Spain, and completed his philosophy and theology at the Royal College of Salamanca. He gave many missions throughout Castile in the years that followed, but a haemorrhage of the throat forced him to withdraw to the less strenuous occupation of teaching grammar in the College of Arevalo, where he made his solemn profession of four vows on 25th April, 1659. At the end of that year he joined his uncle, the exiled Archbishop of Tuam, in Brittany, and returned. with him to Ireland in October, 1662. He was stationed at Portumna, and worked as missioner in Connacht until his appointment as Superior of the Irish Mission on 13th July, 1669. He organised several Residences and opened schools in many towns. His health continued poor, and his request to be allowed to resign was acceded to on 8th October, 1672.

Richard Burke (1687-1689)

When banished in 1679, Fr. Richard Burke acted as Procurator of the Irish College at Poitiers, until he was recalled to Ireland in 1685, He was appointed Superior of the Mission for the second time on 7th December, 1687. He continued Fr, Relly's work of opening schools and reorganising the Mission, in spite of his advanced age and many infirmities. His repeated petition to be relieved of the burden was at last heard on 30th April, 1689. A year later, in the midst of the turmoil of war, he retired to the Irish College of Poitiers, where he died on 27th January, 1694.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Richard Bourke 1621-1694
Richard Bourke, nephew of John Burke, Archbishop of Tuam, was born at Meelick County Galway in 1621. Most of his studies were carried out in Spain, where for some years he was engaged as a Missioner in Castille. In 1659 he joined his uncle in Brittany and returned with him to Ireland in 1662. He was stationed at Portumna, and he worked as a Missioner in Connaught until his appointment as Mission Superior in 1669.

He organised several residences and opened schools in many towns. Arrested in 1679 in connection with the Titus Oates’ Plot, he was banished to Poitiers. Returning to Ireland in 1685, he was again Mission Superior in 1687. In spite of his age an infrmities, he continues opening schools.

On relinquishing office, he retired to Poitiers, where he died on January 27th 1694, aged 73 years.

He did valiant work for the Mission in trying and perilous times and richly deserves to be commemorated in our menology.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
BURKE, RICHARD, nephew to Dr. John Burke, Archbishop of Tuam, joined the Order in Spain, where I meet him in January, 1659. On 20th January, 1670, he reached Dublin as Superior of his BB. in Ireland, then 33 in number. After the 20th of May, 1679, when he was out on bail and daily expecting banishment, I lose sight of him. He is described as a religious, prudent, affable Superior, and a general favourite.

Born: 10 November 1638, Kilmore, County Cavan
Entered: 20 September 1659, Nancy, France - Campaniae Province (CAMP)
Ordained: 12 March 1671, Pont-à-Mousson, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1677
Died: 18 September 1711, Irish College, Poitiers, France - Campaniae Province (CAMP)

Alias Johnson

1662-1664 At Pont-á-Mousson studying Logic and Physics
1664-1666 At Charlevile College teaching
1666-1667 At Langres College
1667-1668 At Dijon College teaching
1668-1672 At Pont-à-Mousson Studying Theology and then teaching and Prefect of Physicists, later Seminarians
1672 At Rheims College CAMP teaching Humanities and Rhetoric. Good teacher and fit for teaching and Mission
1699 Came to Poitiers and remained. Minister, Rector (1700-1705)
1708 Catalogue Strength good considering his age, but is wholly blind
In Convent OSF at Waterford there is a book with “Resid New Ross ex domo, Rev Hugionis Thalii”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
“Insignis juventutis instructor” up to his old age; Professor of Belles-lettres, Rhetoric and Philosophy for twenty-five years
Rector of Poitiers and Drogheda; Served two years in hospitals
1683 In Dublin
1686 In Drogheda
1708 In Poitiers
He was totally blind for the last eight years of his life; Twenty-four years in Ireland, and some years in Scotland; A holy man (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan :
1661-1664 After First Vows was sent to Pont-à-Mousson for Philosophy.
1664-1648 He spent four years Regency at Charleville, Langres and Divonne.
1648-1671 He then returned to Pont-à-Mousson for Theology and was Ordained there 12 March 1671
1672-1673 Made Tertianship at Nancy
1673-1676 Sent to Ireland and Drogheda
1676-1677 He was then sent to France, to the newly founded Irish College of Poitiers, but seems to have quarrelled there with the Rector, Ignatius Browne over the administration of the College, and was recalled to Ireland by the Mission Superior William O’Rian the following year.
1677 Sent to work at Dublin Residence.
1678 During the Oates's Plot he was living outside Dublin. The General was not happy about Thaly remaining on the Mission and, on the suggestion of O’Rian, himself exiled in Poitiers, the General recalled him to France but Thaly managed to evade the order until the General's death, in spite of many expressed wished by the Mission Consultors. The cause of the difficulties are not clear, though it can be assumed that he was seen as something of a trouble maker, and that some of the difficulties in the early days at Poitiers had been attributed to him. It is thought that he was being sent to CAMP to have some time to reflect.
The new General left him undisturbed, after a suitable caution, and Thaly proved himself a resourceful organiser at the School and Residence of Drogheda, including managing to get a suitable building for an oratory.
During the short lived reign of James II, he began to dabble a little in politics. He got himself into trouble over the as one of the chief witnesses of the Chief Revenue Commissioner, Thomas Sheridan, who had been accused of corruption. Sheridan’s allies suggested that Thaly was merely a “job-hunter” for his own family and friends.
At the same time, he managed to get the General to appoint a French Jesuit as Chaplain to the Viceroy, and when he did not turn up, Thaly installed himself as Viceregal Chaplain in Dublin Castle. The General became very concerned by Thaly’s behaviour, especially his part in the Sheridan case,, and the Mission Superior was instructed that Thaly should never again be allowed to live in Dublin.
So he went to work in Drogheda, but served as a Chaplain at the Siege of Limerick. After the Williamite victory, he was forced to seek shelter in Dublin, where he exercised his ministry under the name “Johnson” until 1699, when he was captured and deported to France.
1700-1705 Rector at Irish College Poitiers. During his administration were sown the seeds of future disputes between the Irish Mission and the College over the funds which supported the College but in part belonged to the Mission. He died at Poitiers 18 September 1711

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Hugh Thaly 1638-1711
Fr Hugh Thaly was a great scholar and instructor of youth in Dublin and elsewhere, was born about 1638 and died at Poitiers on September 18th 1711.

He laboured on the Irish Mission for 24 years and for some time also in Scotland. During the last eight years of his life, like the good Tobias, he was totally blind, and exhibited, as he died, the most perfect patience and resignation.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
THALY,HUGH. This polite scholar and excellent instructor of youth, died in the Irish College of Poitiers, on the 18th of September, 1711, aet. 73. He had laboured in the Irish Mission for 24 years, and for some time had been employed in the vineyard of Scotland. For the last eight years of his life, God was pleased to visit him with total blindness; but, like another Tobias, he exhibited perfect patience and resignation.

Born: 06 May 1726, Kilkenny City, County Kilkenny
Entered: 23 January 1748, Paris, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 07 March 1761, Paris, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1765
Died: 08 December 1801, Smithfield, Dublin

Son of Michael and Ellinor Shee
First Vows 21 January 1750 (Arrêt de la Cour)
Taught Humanities and Rhetoric
1757 In College of Paris
1761 At Paris in 4th year Theology
1766 Book “Peregrinatio Laputensis” begun or finished 28 November 1766. Now in George’s Hill Convent in Dublin [No reference to it in George’s Hill Convent, 2023]. Founder of this house or helped establish it.
1788 Bishop Carroll writes to him
1791 SJD Rector St Michan’s, Dublin, he condemned the Oath of Allegiance
1795 Living at Mary’s Lane, called Dr Mulcail

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Mulcaile is pronounced Mulhall
Went to France aged 9. Son of Michael and Ellinor née Shee. Was related to the O’Shee’s and Clarke (Duke of Feltre) and the famous Father Clarke SJ, of Kilkenny, of whom Foley’s Collectanea and “Records SJ tell such marvellous things.
1750 First Vows 24 January 1750
1763 At Collège de Paris (Arrêt de la Cour de Paarlement de Paris) and then sent to Ireland, and assisted the PPs in Dublin for many years, and helped establish Miss Mullaly’s Presentation Convent, George’s Hill, where he died and is buried in the vault of that Convent. (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
1773 Vicar General after the Suppression. (cf Dublin Evening Post 10 December 1801)
He helped found the Convent on George’s Hill. There is a portrait of him at the Convent and a cast of his fine features at Milltown Park.
Writer and profoundly versed in Greek literature. Translated Fellers “Catéchisme Philosophique”

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Michael and Elinor née Shee
Early education was in France from the age of eight. He studied Philosophy at Paris and received Minor Orders before Ent 23 January 1748 Paris
After First Vows he spent seven years Regency at Caen and then resumed studies at Paris where he was Ordained 07 March 1761
1761 Society dissolved in France as he finished his studies, so he stayed with relatives in Paris
1763 Returned to Ireland. Appointed to the Dublin Residence, and served as a Curate at St Mary’s Lane until the Suppression in 1774. he was incardinated into the Dublin Diocese working ay St Michan’s until his death, and he became later Vicar General and Archdeacon of Dublin. He actively promoted the introduction of the Presentation Order into his parish and in 1787 purchased the site of the future convent of George's Hill. His last place of residence was a house adjoining the convent and when he died 08 December 1801 he was buried in the vault of the Convent Chapel.
During the sequestration the Jesuit houses in Paris, he succeeded in rescuing one of its recently acquired treasure - a Crucifix used by St Francis Xavier during his early years as a missioner in India. He presented this famous crucifix to George's Hill convent where it is still preserved.
He is also known for a translation of Abbé Feller’s “Philosophical Catechism”.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father James Philip Mulcaile SJ 1726-1801
In Dublin, during the month of December 1801 died Fr James Philip Mulcaile at the age of 75.

He was born in Kilkenny on May 1st 1726. At the early age on nine he was sent to France where in 1748 he joined the Society.

Returning to Ireland in 1763 he worked zealously until the Suppression of the Society. Afterwards he assisted the Dublin priests, mainly in St Michan’s parish. He had a great deal to do with the foundation of the Presentation Convent, George’s Hill, where a fine portrait of him in oils may be seen to this day, and where his mortal remains are buried in the vaults.

He was an excellent scholar and published an English Translation of Feller’s “Catechisms Philosophicus” in three volumes. He is also said to have translated “Gulliver’s Travels” into Greek, which was used as a textbook in Fr Betagh’s school.

◆ MacErlean Cat Miss HIB SJ 1670-1770
Loose Note : John Philip Mulcaile
Those marked with were working in Dublin when on 07 February 1774 they subscribed their submission to the Brief of Suppression
John Ward was unavoidably absent and subscribed later
Michael Fitzgerald, John St Leger and Paul Power were stationed at Waterford
Nicholas Barron and Joseph Morony were stationed at Cork
Edward Keating was then PP in Wexford

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
MULCAILLE, JAMES, PHILIP, was born in Kilkenny, 1st of May, 1726, or 1727; in the 19th year of his age went to France : where he joined the Society ; returned to Ireland in 1763, with his pupil and kinsman Mr. Bray : for very many years assisted the Parish Priests in Dublin. In the establishment of the convent of the Presentation of George’s hill, he lent his best support to Miss Mullaly he died in their convent on the 8th of December, 1801. That he was an excellent scholar and profoundly versed in Greek Literature, appears to be generally admitted. We have from his pen an English Translation of Abbe Feller’s “Catechisme Philosophique”, in 3 Vols. Dublin, 1800. It is pleasing to observe in the beginning of the 1st Volume, the subscription list for nearly 600 copies.

◆ 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 you 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.

Born: 14 October 1613, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 23 October 1632, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: c 1638, Bourges, France
Final Vows: 14 October 1652
Died: 14 December 1698, Dublin Residence, Dublin City, County Dublin - Romanae Province

Alias Walterson
Granduncle of Stephen - RIP 1762
Grandnephew of Anglican Bishop Henry Ussher and second cousin of Anglican Primate James Ussher
(Coll HIB ROM XII 36); RIP 14 December 1698 Dublin
Parents William and Mary Kennedy (cf Memoirs of the Usher families” Rev William Wright, Dublin 1689)
Studied Grammar and Humanities in Dublin under Jesuits, and Philosophy at Douai
1636 At Bourges FRA studying Theology
1650 Catalogue Ent 1629 Taught Humanities and Philosophy. Age 37. Came to Mission in 1639 and now teaching Grammar
1655 At Irish College Seville (The Rector is Spanish). Master of Conferences
1666 Consult of Dublin Residence. Preaches often and administers the Sacraments. Imprisoned for 2 months. Exiled to Spain for 4 years. On Mission 27 years.
John Usher writes from Ossuna 09 May 1657 to Fr Young, Rector Irish College Rome and mentions Fr Quin’s imprisonment and desires to be remembered to Br Howyard, Richard Quin etc

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Cousin of Ignatius Gough and of James Ussher’s family
Early education was in Humanities and two years Philosophy before Ent, and then four years Theology in the Society.
Imprisoned and deported for the Catholic faith.
Taught Humanities for four years and Philosophy; Prefect of a Sodality and Prefect of Studies (HIB CATS - ARSI);
1649 At Kilkenny, aged 35 and 18 years in the Society,and was teaching Rhetoric (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
1666 Living at Dublin Residence and a Consultor there, engaged in Preaching and administering the Sacraments.
After two months imprisonment he was deported to Spain for four years (HIB CAT 1666 - ARSI)
Ignorant of Irish language, as were three others of the eleven native Dublin Jesuits of his day

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Walter and Mary née Kenedy. Granduncle of Stephen.
Had received classical education at the Jesuit School Dublin and then Philosophy at Douai before Ent 23 October 1632 Tournai
1634-1638 After First Vows he was sent to Bourges for Theology and was Ordained there c 1638
1638-1654 He was then sent to Ireland and Kilkenny where he taught Humanities. He became a member of a group who defended the “Supreme Council” against the “censures” issued by the Nuncio Rinuccini.
1654-1658 After the fall of Kilkenny he found his way back to Dublin but was arrested and deported, 1654, to Spain. With William Malone he found refuge at the Irish College, Seville where Malone was appointed Rector and Ussher himself, Prefect of Studies. On the death of Malone he was appointed Rector but the local Provincial refused to carry out the orders of the General and intruded a Spaniard in Ussher's place.
1658 Ussher sent back to Ireland and worked in Galway until Restoration, after which he came back to Dublin, and where he held various posts over a long period of time : Socius to the Mission Superior; Consultor of the Mission; Procurator of the Mission. He died in Dublin 07 December 1698 and was buried in St. Catherine's churchyard.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
USHER, JOHN. This Father was living in the early part of 1649, at Kilkenny : he was then 35 years old, of which he had spent 18 years in the Society. He was actually teaching Rhetoric. He was still living in the winter of 1663.

Born: 26 March 1653, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 26 November 1673, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1685, Rome, Italy
Died: 24 March 1690, Drogheda Residence, Drogheda, Co Louth

1675 In the Novitiate at St Andrea
1678 In Roman College studying Philosophy for 2 or 3 years
1681 At Sezze College
1685 In 3rd Year Theology at Roman College

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Was educated at the Jesuit School in Tournai before Ent 26 November 1673 in Rome
After First Vows and a course of Philosophy at the Roman College he spent three years Regency at the Colleges of Sezze and Fermo.
1682-1686 Sent to the Roman College for Theology and was Ordained there in 1685
1686-1688 After a short Tertianship he was sent to Irish College Poitiers as Prefect
1688 Returned to Ireland and sent to Drogheda, but died there 24 March 1690

Born: 12 April 1717, New Street, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 27 November 1735, Nancy, France - Campaniae Province (CAMP)
Ordained: 22 September 1747, Rheims, France
Final Vows; 02 February 1753
Died: 29 September 1784, Dublin City, County Dublin

Cousin of William Doyle - RIP 1785 - Ordained with William X Doyle (his cousin) at Rheims 22 September 1747 by Bishop Joppensi
Grand-uncle of Myles Gaffney - RIP 1861 and John Gaffney - RIP 1898

1740-43 taught Humanities at Rheims
1746 Read Theology at Rheims
1749 taught Humanities at Poitiers and Prefect at Irish College
1750 came to Ireland by July
1770 mentioned in Nano Nagle’s letters
1784 RIP and buried at graveyard of St Kevin’s Protestant Church - monument erected
In French Dictionary of Musicians he is referred to as “le Père Augustin”

A famous Preacher and Teacher and was Prefect at Poitiers.

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1746 At Rheims studying Theology
1750 Sent to Dublin
1754 In Ireland and teaching Humanities for five years.
His monument in St Kevin’s calls him :
“Pious. doctus, indeffessus, apostolicus confectus laboribus. Divites admonuit, pauperes sublevavit, juventutum erudivit, orphanis loco parentis fuit, de omni hominum genere praeclare meruit, omnibus omnes factus”.
Topham Bowden, and English Protestant, in his “Tour through Ireland” in 1791 says : Austin was a very remarkable character, of extraordinary learning and piety. he was a great preacher and injured his health by his exertions in the pulpit etc”. (cf Battersby’s “Jesuits” and Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS for the full Latin inscription)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Place of birth in New Street Dublin was then called Austin's Grounds near Kevin Street.
1737 After his Noviceship studied philosophy for two years at Pont-à-Mousson
1739-1744 Spent the next five years in regency at the College of Rheims.
1744-1747 He resumed his studies at Rheims where he was Ordained 22 September 1747.
1747 Sent to complete his theological studies at the Grand Collège, Poitiers . During these studies he lived at the Irish College and held the post of prefect of Discipline. It is likely that he made his tertianship at Marchiennes before he returned to Ireland in 1750.
1750-1784 Spent all of his Missionary life in Ireland at Dublin. He did many ministries, but is best remembered as a devoted teacher. He died on 29 September, 1784, and is buried at St. Kevin's churchyard, Camden Row, Dublin.

The inscription on his monument aptly sums up his ministry of thirty-four years in the city: “Pius, devotus, indefessus, apostolicis confectus laboribus. Divites admonuit, pauperes sublevavit, iuventutem erudivit, orphanis loco parentis fuit, de omni hominum genere meruit, omnibus omnia factus.”

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Note from the Myles and John Gaffney Entries :
Their Grand-uncle was the celebrated John Austin, a remarkable Jesuit in Dublin towards the middle of the eighteenth Century.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Austin, John
by C. J. Woods

Austin, John (1717–84), Jesuit priest, was born off Kevin Street, Dublin, on 12 April 1717. He showed promise as a youth, and was said to have come to the attention of Jonathan Swift (qv). He went to France and joined the Society of Jesus in the Champagne (27 November 1735). After a period of teaching the humanities and as prefect of the Irish college in Poitiers, he returned to Dublin (1750) and took his final vows (2 February 1754). Austin soon acquired a reputation there as a powerful preacher and as a friend of the poor. After the society was dissolved by the pope (1773), he was one of twelve Jesuits who wrote from Ireland accepting their new status as secular priests. Three years later he and the other fourteen former Jesuits then in Ireland formed a voluntary association to hold their resources in common, thus anticipating the revival of the society after 1800 and enabling it in 1814 to open its famous school at Clongowes Wood, Co. Kildare.

Austin is best remembered as founder (1760) of a classical school, in Saul's Court, off Fishamble Street, Dublin, which was so well thought of that it was used as the diocesan school for Meath as well as Dublin for preparing priests prior to their going to a seminary on the Continent. His pupils there included Daniel Murray (qv) the future archbishop of Dublin and Michael Blake (qv) who was to reopen the Irish college in Rome in 1824. John Austin died in Dublin on 29 September 1784 having acquired an exceptional reputation for ministering to the poor. He was buried in St Kevin's churchyard and a pyramidal stone erected over his grave. His portrait, by James Petrie (qv), was engraved by Henry Brocas (qv) and published by Bartholomew Corcoran (1792).

George Oliver, Collections towards illustrating . . . Scotch, English and Irish members, Society of Jesus (1835), 214; W. J. Battersby, The Jesuits in Dublin (1854), 94–100; Timothy Corcoran, The Clongowes Record, 1814 to 1932 (1932), 35–6, 39–41; M. J. Curran (ed.), ‘Archbishop Carpenter's epistolae, 1770–1780’, Reportorium Novum, i (1955), 164; Louis McRedmond, To the greater glory: a history of the Irish Jesuits (1991), 108–9

◆ James B Stephenson SJ The Irish Jesuits Vol 1I 1962

FATHER JOHN AUSTIN SJ 1717-1784
We have a great deal of information about eighteenth-century Dublin, much of it trivial or stupid, practically all of it unconnected with the lives of the great mass of the people. In particular, we know almost nothing of the lives of the Irish Jesuits who worked in the Dublin slums. One of the most distinguished was John Austin, who was born in Dublin in 1717. There is a story told about him by Battersby, on what authority I do not know. About 1732 the boy was attending a school near the Deanery where Swift lived. The Dean, after seeing some verses the boy had written in defence of an old but faithful dog, sent for the parents, who said “they wished him to become a priest”. Swift recommended the parents to “send him to the Jesuits, who would make a man of him”.

John Austin entered the Jesuit novitiate at Nancy on 27 November, 1735. He made his vows on 28 November, 1737. He studied logic and physics at Pont-à-Mousson 1737-39. He then went to Rheims, where he was teaching 1739-44, repeated philosophy 1744-45, and studied theology 1745-17. He was ordained 22 September 1747. He studied theology for two more years in the Irish College, Poitiers. After which he presumably made his tertianship. He returned to Dublin in 1750, where he remained until his death: 29 September, 1784.

Of this thirty-four years' ministry in Dublin we know practically nothing. I have been able to find only two contemporary references. The dramatist, John O'Keeffe, who was born in 1747, says: “From the Greek, Latin and French acquired under Father Austin, to whose school in Cook Street I went, my fancy soon strayed to Shakespeare”. An English traveller, after seeing the monument over Father Austin's grave in St. Kevin's graveyard, wrote as follows:

I was surprised such a monument should be erected in this country to a Romish Priest, and was led to enquiries relative to Austin, I was informed he was a very remarkable character in this metropolis about twelve or fourteen years ago, of extraordinary learning and extraordinary piety; that he constantly dedicated all his acquisitions, which were very considerable, to the poor, visiting them in cellars and in garrets; never a day happy that he did not give food to numbers. The principal Catholics, knowing well his disposition, were liberal to him, and he kept his door open to all who were in want; and while the means lasted, was constantly on foot, administering relief to innumerable poor wretches, never resting while he had a single guinea. Besides this, he was a great preacher, and injured his health by his exertions in the pulpit. He was a most affectionate son to an aged mother, she died, and he was overpowered with affliction, he never afterwards raised his head, but dropped into a second state of childhood. He remained in this situation near three years, and would have perished were it not for his brother Jesuits, Messrs, Betagh, Fullam and Mucaile. When he died, his friends who neglected him on the bed of death, erected this monument to his memory.

Gilbert, in his History or the City of Dublin, says:
A portrait of Father Austin, engraved by Brocas, was published by B Corcoran, dedicated to the Roman Catholics of Dublin, and inscribed: “To you the poor were left and you became the guardian of the orphan”. A large house at the end of Archbold's Court in Cook Street was traditionally pointed out as having been occupied by Father Austin, after whose death the court became the residence of Father Magaulay, an excommunicated Catholic priest, by whom nearly all the clandestine marriages in the city were performed and who was commemorated in various popular ballads.

And that is all we know, he worked for thirty-four years in a back street of Dublin, ministering to the poor downtrodden - Catholics of his native city. The fruits of his educational work, in encouraging future priests: and! in forming lay leaders, must have been immense. One of his pupils, afterwards his fellow-worker, was the famous Thomas Betagh, who entered the Society in 1754, and died as Parish Priest of SS Michael and John in 1811.

In the Presentation Convent, George's. Hill, Dublín there have been preserved four letters of Father. Austin, which I have transcribed. As historical documents they are of no particular value. But they have their own interest as a precious memento of this zealous Dublin priest to whom we in these latter days of ease owe so much. In some ways - perhaps in their touch of prim “preachinessi” - they are not very different from the letters which a fervent Jesuit Scholastic might write today. But we see the writer's interest in Catholic education which was later to be his life-work, we can glimpse the life of Catholic Dublin which went on unobtrusively under the shadow of the Castle in spite of persecution. There are passing references to Rev Fr Austin - a well-known Dublin priest - Cousin Will, John Fullam, Peter Bullrill, Peter Cashel and various relatives, whose names, unrecorded in human annals, are written in the Book of Life. These simple letters, redolent of the piety and difficulties of our forejathers, deserve to find a place in an Irish Jesuit periodical :

LETTER I
Pont-à-Mousson, 29 December 1737

Dear and Honoured Parents,
I don't know whether my twelvemonth's silence has been disagreeable to you or not. However it be, I should not have failed to have writ once more this year past, were it not that I expected to hear from you beforehand. But as I waited in vain all the summer and no letter appearing I thought it as good to put off my writing till after my vows; which I have had the happiness to make the 28th of November here in the University of Pont-à-Mousson, where I am to reside in the study of Philosophy for two years, during one of which I shall have the pleasure of enjoying my dear cousin Will's - company for he has been here already one year, but I have not come hither from the Noviceship till the beginning of October last. We have (enjoyed) and do as yet by the grace of God enjoy both a perfect state of health and whether we are together or separated, we find nothing everywhere, both one and the other, but content and happiness. He desires earnestly to tender you his kind love and service.

A little after my arrival here he writ home, for we thought it best to write separately, to the end that if one letter should miscarry, the other might perhaps speed better. I send you this by the post; for though I sent last year's letter - according as I conceived Rev Mr Austin's directions - under cover to Mr. King at Paris, yet as I have received none since from you and consequently am not sure whether you have received mine or not. I have reason to doubt whether that I have not rightly understood the manner of directing which has been marked (for) me, or that it is not very sure, I beg you would be pleased to give my most humble respects to the Rev Mr. Austin, to whose bounty and kindness. I am so gratefully bound. If that manner of directing be sure, I would be glad to know in your first whether I might continue, it at least once a year. I have writ also to cousin Peter Cashel. He will be so kind as to direct yours to me, for I have given him the superscription which might serve whilst I am here, in case you can send by hand anywhere into France.

I should rejoice and give God Thanks to hear that you are in good health and peace of mind; ‘tis, I assure you, the continual object of my poor prayers. But your soul's welfare affects me yet more. Praise be to God I have no great subject of apprehension of that side on your part. I lay He be graciously pleased to augment more and more the care you have for your eternal salvation. It can't be sufficiently deplored how much people forget that only great necessary affair, which ought to be sovereignly preferred to a parcel of frivolous wordly beings that pass and perish every day before our eyes and the which they are sure to enjoy at most, for a short term of years. Pardon a son's boldness who would fain inspire a true sentiment of the necessity of seeking by all means possible. to assure a doubtful eternity - terrible doubt which makes tremble so many persons who live a retired and perhaps innocent life, and which of greater reason ought to imprint a salutary fear in those who are exposed to so many dangers in the world.

'Tis for young persons especially that all is to be feared, and for whom by consequence the most care is to be taken to inspire them . betimes with a great fear of God, a great hatred of vice, and an early love of piety. Redouble, I pray you, your pious industry in that point towards them young children, my dear little brothers and sister. I pray you to embrace them on my part, especially little Dicky - I suppose he begins to read at present. You are to be praised never to let your children want learning according to your means; for no one knows to what God might call him, and though you have too much piety to hinder a child's vocation, yet if he takes even to the world, learning is no burthen. Above all things care is to be taken to preserve his innocence and hinder his. manners from being corrupted; and it is not to be conceived how much one and the other is in danger even already in the very infancy of children, who have too much liberty and who take every ill impression like to wax, The best means you can take is to pray dails for their preservation from sin. Perhaps I make too much the preacher, but I assure you I am so touched with dangers to which I see exposed so many persons whom I love sincerely, that I can't forbear to speak iny mind thereupon. And I would to God that my weak words could prevail upon them who are very near to me and whom I have reason to apprehend stand in need of making such solid reflections for the welfare of their souls. A very pious practice in a family would be the frequent lecture of books of piety; the Introduction to a Devout Life (of S.Francis de Sales) is onė very proper and useful for that end.

I would be glad to hear how it is with my Uncle Simon's family. My love and service to them and all my uncles and aunts, friends and relations, particularly to dear Mrs Doyle and her good family; not forgetting cousin M Dod, to whose prayers I desire to be recommended. My thanks and kind service to all friends who shall be so kind as to inquire after me.

I would seem that I doubted of your prudence if I should caution you not to let inquisitive people know to what design I am away or what I am. You know already what dangerous consequences might hereafter ensue, even where you might apprehend the least. I would not be amiss even if those who know it already were advised to let it drop in silence.

My love to cousin C Maginnis and her family, and recommend to her great care of my little god-daughter. You might please to mark me how that child is. You would do well also to cast a charitable eye sometimes to see how it is with my other little one of Mr Balf's. Be pleased not to fail to let me know the good health of R Mr Austin. I shall expect yours as soon as possible. Don't forget me in your good prayers and those of other good friends. I shan't fail on my poor part, always remaining with God's will and pleasure, dear Father and Mother, your most affectionate .. and dutiful son,
John Austin

Be pleased not to forget my respects to Mr Milon and the other gentlemen

LETTER II
Pont-à-Mousson, September 9th 1738

Dear and Honoured Parents,

I suppose Cousin Will's letter is already received, for he has writ home about a week ago. If that be, I have no need to repeat to you that the Divine will which has joined us so happily is pleased at present to separate us for a while: he being destined to the in Picardy where he goes to teach, and myself remaining here as yet a year in order to finish my course of Philosophy. He parted this morning. Myself and some others accompanied him a small league out of town, where we quitted each other very cheerfully, considering that in our state we should rejoice rather than repine in accomplishing God's will and pleasure in what He ordains us for His greater glory.

Just as he was going off, your last letter arrived, so that we were already out of the town when it was sent after us. We have also received all the letters which you have made mention of this year. For since my last of April, two or three came into our hands; some of which had delayed somewhat on the road, as appeared by the date - one from Cousin Doyle was dated even of March, 1737. Don't think, dear Parents, that these letters are of any charge to us. Foe in that point as well as the rest that concerns the temporal, such is the bounty of the heavenly providence for us (that) all is paid and prepared to our hands without any care or other application on our part, besides that of our studies or exercises which may serve to our own proper sanctification and thereby put us in (the) state of procuring that or others.

But my so good fortune, far from being a matter of boasting, should rather give me a subject of humbling myself to think that in quitting the world I find myself in better circumstances than I could naturally promise me in embracing it.

I am really charmed and do heartily thank God for the pious sentiments which He has inspired you touching the education of your dear children, as well as by your personal example as by your wholesome instructions. A very important article, and which many parents neglect very often to their future sorrow, is to render the children supple and obedient to the smallest sign of their parents' good pleasure in whatsoever they bid them: so that as soon as ever they begin to have the usage of their self-will, they should be taught to renounce to it; since it is the only root of all sin and were there no self-will there would be no hell. However, it is rather by mildness than rashness that a child's stubborn humour should be thwarted, in ordering calmly but at the same time seriously and inflexibly even the smallest things - were it but to kiss the ground, to quit or take somewhat against his inclinations, or the like.

As I might seem too bold in suchlike discourse as well now as at other times, you may be pleased to consider that, a principal point of our vocation being the pious education of the youth as well as their instruction in sciences, we are wont to make there upon nore frequent and deep reflections than ordinary. And besides I can learn somewhat by the manner wherewith the children of the best families are elevated (=educated) here, where their parents send them in pension very young that they may be reared up more safely in the piety. To all which if you add that my first and chiefest zeal should be for those whom I am obliged before God to hold most dear, you will rather approve than blame this liberty which a sincere and ardent desire. of eternal welfare inspires me.

Then dear little Dicky can read - which perhaps he can already - without doubt you will make him every evening read a little in some devout book before you. If he be accustomed betimes, he'll do it hereafter of himself. There is nothing more capable to imprint the fear and love of God in the minds of old and young than pious lectures well reflected upon and meditated in the presence of God - such as you night see in the Introduction of St Francis Sales.

I am very sensible to the kindness of all my good friends and particularly of them gentlemen who did me the honour to remember me in your last (letter). I beg you will be pleased to give to them, every one in particular, my most humble respects and service as well as to all my relations: Uncle Christy, Uncle Richard, Uncle Robin, theirs and Uncle Simon's spouses and families; Cousins Mortimer, Magguinis, Savour, and their families, etc. My kind love and service to Mr and Mrs Fullam. I have lately heard from dear friend Johnny, and answered. I have writ to Mrs Doyle by Cousin Will's last, as we have both by the same to Cousin Molly Dodd.

We enjoy always, blessed be God, perfect health and contentment. Pray take great care of yours. I am, dear Father and Mother, your most respectful and affectionate son,
Jn. Austin.

P.S. - You'll please to direct henceforth: a Monsieur Austin demeurant au College, Pont-à-Mousson en Lorraine. I expect to write soon to Cousin Peter. Be pleased to give the following lines with my respects to Mr Austin.

LETTER III
Rheims, 7th October 1742

Most Dear and Honoured Mother,

I received with pleasure your last letter dated the 4th June, and have been obliged to wait ever since for an hour's leisure to write to you. But now that our yearly vacations begin, you may be sure that my first thoughts are to satisfy you. I sent immediately on the reception of your letter that inscribed to Cousin Will, with whom I have correspondence as frequent as we both please, His answer came shortly after; and as far as I can judge, Cousin Doyle need be no way alarmed as she seems to be at the light ailment of Cousin Will.

“Tis a kind of headache which at most hinders sometimes his application to certain studies, but the which neither interrupts his other occupations nor hinders his being as day and jovial as any other. Pray give my kind love and service to his dear mother and family, to whom I wish you may always acknowledge to your utmost power the obligations which bind me eternally to them. You will please to inform them likewise that Cousin Will goes this next year to dwell at Sens, a town of the Champagne, where he is to continue the same career which he has begun at Laôn and which I am to continue here next year also. They must not be Surprised at these changements of dwelling, for nothing is more common in our state which engages us to go to and fro wherever God's will and His glory calls us.

For my part, blessed be the Lord, I have enjoyed hitherto and enjoy still in these parts good health and contentment. When it shall please Him to treat me otherwise, I hope He will give me patience; but hitherto He has favoured my weakness. After a month's rest and recreation in town and at our country house, our usual application begins. Aid me with your prayers, wherein I have very much confidence; a good mother's prayers and blessing are ordinarily efficacious, and I am persuaded that I owe a great deal thereto.

Don't fail especially to pray every day for my little brothers and to offer them to God Almighty, that He may take them under His protection for what concerns their body and soul. Without His aid all the pains you'll take for their education will be employed in vain. But if God blesses then and gives then His love and fear in their hearts, all will surely prosper with them in the time and in the eternity. Tis what I ask Him each day for them and you. Pray never fail in your letters to inform me of their progress in learning and especially of their piety towards God and docility towards you. For what you have already told thereof has given me a great deal of pleasure and consolation.

I shall dwell here this next year with an Englishman of our family, who comes hither from Liège in Flanders for to study in Divinity. We shall prattle together in our tongue, and that will - serve to recall my English, For I have scarce as yet found time to read over two or three English books I brought hither. And though I have found here enough of English acquaintance, yet do I meet them but very rarely, and even then do they speak French, being partly habiting in this town for to learn that language.

For Johnny Fullam, I don't know whether he remains at Lyons next year or no.. He told me about April last that he expected to go to Poitiers, and that Mr Heneys had gave him so to understand. But as I writ since for to demand the confirmation thereof, and his next answer not having said a word upon that head, I am yet in doubt: thereupon. Pray give my kind service to his parents, and assure them that he was in good health about two months ago when he writ last to me.

We have in these parts this year plenty of corn, wine, etc. But we have this time past so wet and cold windy weather that the vintage, which is commonly finished before this time, is not as yet begun hereabouts, where we are just hard by the fine wines of Champagne and Montagne, For the wars, though we be nigher to them than you, yet I believe, you know as much in them parts by the newspapers as we do here.

My humble respects to Messrs Milan, Sweetman and to the other gentlemen as the occasion presents itself. My kind love and service to all my uncles, aunts, cousins and their families in general and in particular when you see them. My love to my dear little brothers, and charge then in my name to apply themselves heartily to their learning, and especially take great care that they know perfectly their Catechism and what concerns their religion and the fear and love of their Maker, and that it were better to die a thousand times than to offend Him.

I would willingly know what are become my uncle Simon's children, etc., as also if you could inform me - when you shall please to write - where is young Johnny Murphy and whether Laurence Walsh is as yet at Paris or no, or what youths you know of my acquaintance are, come overseas; whether you have had news from Cousin Mortimer or not.

Cousin Peter Bullfill has been partly cause that you have my letter so late. Tis above a fortnight ago since I write to him, and I began this letter immediately after. But as I had promised him in my letter to keep this till I could have news from him (which I have not had since a very long time), I have been obliged to tarry till now, whereas I might have had his answer in four or five days. But indeed he is to be excused, for, as he tells me, he has been sick these several months past and is as yet actually very weak and feeble the which has really appeared in his very short though very friendly letter. Be assured, dear Mother, that I am always, with the utmost respect, your most affectionate son,
John Austin

LETTER IV
Rheims, 22nd October 1743

(On Back.) To Mr Francis Fullam, dwelling in Bridge Street, to be furthered to Mrs Austin, Dublin, Ireland,

(At the top of the first page;) The enclosed is for Mr Milan . You'll please to send me his letter enclosed in yours, if he pleases to send me one. Or tell him my address if he desires to know it: à la Mr Jaquinet, Marchand Fabricant dans la rue Barbatre, pour faire tenir a Mr Austin a Reims en Champagne.

Most Dear and Honoured Mother,

I wrote to you a little before Easter, I suppose you have not writ since, for I have received no letter from you since that wherein you gave me account of my Uncle John's strange discovery. I remain here as yet for next year, and never enjoyed better health than I do at present, Pray let me know if yourself and all your family go well. Also especially I pray you to give me an exact account of my brothers' behaviour towards you, and for their other duties above all in what concerns the piety. Do they pray God heartily and exactly? Dicky should now be capable of reading my letters, and of writing to me even upon necessity. He must send me in your next, if you please, a little sketch of (=by) his hand. If he be not fit for learning Latin, he must read, write and cypher as well as possible he can learn. Let him never fail to read each day some time in a good pious book. When he can do it before you in the evening, twere the best, Make him learn the Catechism to his little brothers, which they must all know perfectly well before all things and as soon as they are capable of learning anything whatsoever. This point is very important, and parents in them parts seem not to know enough their great and strict obligations to have their children instructed principally in what concerns their religion. All the rest without that is not worth while, and yet commonly 'tis what's the most neglected.

If your children fear God, they will be also your consolation, Would to God there were means of giving to children in them poor countries the same Christian education which they receive in these parts. My heart bleeds to see and think upon the difference, without being able to amend it. We see here of how much piety and virtue youth are capable, and how much it depends on those who rear them (so as) to render them such, in keeping them from evil example, bad company and occasions, and in giving them early principles of piety, of good and Christian manners. Parents work and slave day and night for to get bread for their children and to establish them well in the world. Tis very well done. But if they are good Christians well instructed in the faith of an everlasting life (and) an eternal establishment, they should take a thousand times more pains for to procure to their children this latter establishment, and that their souls may be better provided for than their bodies. Many notwithstanding, who pass for very honest Christians in all the rest, are often very bad parents on this head, and have thereupon the most terrible accompts to render at God's tribunal. I could wish with all my heart that many persons who are dear to me were well convinced and frightened with this consideration; they would have reason to tremble thereupon but yet more to act in consequence thereon. Sometimes a letter as this or any other, read to a neighbour or relation seemingly without design, might make them take reflections on such a matter which is so important for the salvation of parents and which damns so many.

Cousin Doyle and. John Fullam are both in good health: the first at Sens and the second at Lyons, there they remain next year, They both salute your kindly. Give my kind love and service to both their families, and testify newly my acknowledgments to Mr Fullam's parents on their receiving always my letters, My love and service particularly to my Uncles Richard and Christy and families; Uncle Robin Walsh and family; Cousins Savour and Maginnis and families, And if anything worth while is arrived in those families, I pray let me know it. My love and service to Aunt Bridget and her family. And let me know if you have tidings of my Uncle Simon or not. My Aunt, does she still dwell with you? Are you in good intelligence together? Nothing more easy nor more natural for two sisters and widows.

All things have been abundant this year in these parts, Has it been so in Ireland and with your little spot thereof in particular? You see I am grown very curious. But nothing which concerns you or yours can be indifferent to me. I know not how I lost again my brothers ages; the pain won't be so great to send me then once more, and I’ll be more careful if I can. Embrace them all three for me and assure then that I pray for them and you every day of my life. If they and you remember me often in praying God, I shall prefer that remembrance to all the other tokens of tenderness ye can give me, All that is not good for the soul passes with the body and avails nought.

For you especially, dear mother, be assured that I have very much confidence in your good prayers. We must one and t'other also be constantly mindful to pray for my dear Father's soul. That piety will be better placed and more useful than a silly grief which serves for nothing, neither to the living nor the dead. Your young ones have especially more need of your prayers than you think. Ofter then each day to God that he may keep them in His love and service in the world or take them betimes out of the world. If you love them truly, that must be your constant wish. Wish me the same, I pray you, and believe me to be always with the greatest affection and respect, dear mother, your most loving and submissive son,
John Austin. Reims, the 22nd October, 1743.

Don't forget, I pray you, when occasion offers to tender my best respects to Mr Milan, and send me tidings of his health. What is become of Cousin Molly Dodd? And Mr Keary, lives he as yet? If Mr Atkins asks after me, give him my humble service.

Professor Alfred O’Rahilly

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Austin 1717-1784
Fr John Austin was born in New Street – then called Austin’s grounds – near Kevin Street Dublin on April 12th 1717. We are told that young Austin, who attended the school near St Patrick’s, one day rattled off impromptu verses to prevent some youngsters butchering a dog. Dean Swift heard about this, sent for the boy’s parents, and asked them what they intended for the boy. “The priesthood” answered his parents. Swift then told them to send him to the Jesuits, who would make a man of him. It is thought that the Dean paid for his education.

John became a Jesuit in 1735, returning to Dublin in 1750. He acted as curate to Fr John Murphy, PP of St Michael and John’s. Together with his PP Fr Austin opened a school, in spite of the law, in Saul’s Court in 1760. For several years this was the only and for 50 years the principal school for Catholics in Dublin, as well as being the nearest approach to a Diocesan Seminary.

On the Suppression of the Society, Fr Austin became one of the Trustees of the Province Funds.

He died on September 29th 1784, and was buried at St Kevin’s Churchyard. Two years later an obelisk was erected over his grave by the grateful citizens of Dublin. The following is his epitaph :
“To the Memory of Rev Father John Austin of the City of Dublin, priest and until the Suppression of the Society of Jesus a professed Jesuit. During six and thirty years a pious, learned and indefatigable labourer in the vineyard of the Lord, who after deserving well of the rich whom he admonished, of the poor whom he relieved, of the youth whom he instructed, of the orphan to who he was a father, of all ranks of men, whome he by making himself all in all, was active in gaining to Jesus Christ, on the 29th September 1784, closed, in the 66 year of his age, a life worn out in the sight of the Lord. Religion, weeping for her faithful Minister, on the 8th December 1786 with grateful hand erected this Monument”.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
AUSTIN, JOHN, was born in Dublin on the 12th of April, 1717, and joined the Order in Champaigne, on the 27th of November, 1735. After completing the high er Studies, he was employed in teaching Humanities for several years. In 1750, he reached his native city, and obtained a reputation for talents in the pulpit. On the 2nd of February, 1754, he was admitted to his religious Profession.
This good Father, dying on Michaelmas day, 1784, was buried in St. Kevins Church-yard, Dublin. A plain stone monument, of pyramidal form, stands over his grave ; and the following inscription is read on the West and South Panels of the Pedestal. On the opposite sides there is the English translation:
Viro Reverendo
Johanni Austin
Dubliniensi
Societatis Jesu, dum fuit, Sacerdoti
In Vinea Domini per annos 36,
Pio, Docto, Indefesso Operario,
Qui
III Calendas Octobris, A. D. 1784
Aetatis anno sexto et sexagesimo
Vitam
Apostolicis, confectam laboribus
Cum morte In conspectu Domini pretiosa
Commutavit

Cippum Hunc
Ministri fidelis Rcligio non immemor
VI Idus Decembris, A. D. 1786
Flens Possuit.
Divites admonuit
Pauperes sublevavit
Juventutem erudivit
Orphanis loco Parentis fuit
De omni Hominum genere
Praeclare meruit
Omnibus oninia factus
Ut
Omnes Christo lucrifaceret.

◆ 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.

Born: 16 April 1848, Bree, County Wexford
Entered: 12 August 1877, Milltown Park, Dublin /Clermont-Ferrand, France / Lons-le-Saunier - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)
Died: 04 October 1881, Woodstock College, Washington DC, USA - Neo Aurliensis Province (NOR)

Originally entered as a brother novice at Milltown park in 1874 - advised to leave for studies - provincial Fr Walsh then recommended to Fr Lonergan of nor province.

Entered and dies in the new Orleans province at Woodstock college (cf Obituary in Woodstock Letters 1882 V 11 No 1)

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 11, Number 1

Obituary

“Mr James Power SJ”

Mr James Power died of cerebral meningitis at the scholasticate of Woodstock, on the 4th of October, 1881. Although he had been only four years in religion, he was already ripe for heaven. He was born in the parish of Bree, Co Wexford, Ireland, on the 16th of April, 1848. In the world he had led a pious life, and had made a vow of perpetual chastity, which he solemnly renewed each year; but desirous of rendering himself more pleasing to God, he determined on joining the Society of Jesus. Not having received a classical education, and having already attained his 24th year, he was admitted into the Novitiate of Milltown Park, in 1874, as a novice-coadjutor, for the Irish Province. But his master of novices, discovering his rare talent and sound judgment, advised him to leave the Novitiate and apply himself to study. It was only at the urgent request of his master of novices and with the advice of the Provincial, who told him that he could thus better procure the glory of God, that he decided on commencing to study; he had found peace and happiness in religion, and was content to pass his life as the servant of his brethren.

At the age of twenty-seven, he found himself once more on the benches as a schoolboy, beginning the Latin grammar; but his strength of will and the fertility of his mind soon enabled him to overcome all difficulties, and in two years he justified the hopes of his master of Novices, and again applied for admission into the Society. Just at that time, Rev Fr Lonergan was on a visit to Ireland for the purpose of procuring postulants for the New Orleans Mission, and having requested Rev Fr Walsh, then Provincial, to recommend him some suitable subjects, Fr Walsh told him to accept Mr Power, that he knew no one more suitable or with higher qualifications. Mr Power was accordingly accepted and sent to France for his noviceship, and reached Clermont on the 12th of August, 1877.

The usual trials presented no difficulties to the new novice; he had already learned and realised what the religious life meant. He was extremely devout to St Joseph, and all his writings were dedicated to that Saint, through whose intercession, doubtless, he obtained such a happy death. When the Novitiate was closed at Clermont, he was sent to Lons-le-Saulnier (Jura), where he took his vows on the feast of the Assumption, 1879. The September following he came to Woodstock for his philosophy. He soon showed that he was gifted with extraordinary talent for philosophical studies, and the brightest hopes were entertained for his future success; all thought that he would prove a most useful member of the Society, but, as he remarked a few days previous to his death :

“God knows best; I hoped to be able to serve the Society, but perhaps I will do more in heaven for our poor Mission than I could do if I should live”.

During vacations he went to Georgetown College for a special course of Chemistry, as he was anxious to become as perfect as possible in all branches of science. Soon after his return, he complained of pain in the ear, but being usually of a healthy constitution, he did not heed it for several days. Finding that the pain continued, he returned to Washington, on the 5th of Sept, to consult a physician, under whose treatment he remained until the 24th, when he came back to Woodstock, apparently cured. The following day, Sunday, he complained of fever and of being very tired, but his malady was not considered serious until Friday afternoon, when he suddenly became delirious; he soon, however, recovered the use of his senses, but it was easy to see that he was fast sinking. Saturday evening he asked for and received the last Sacraments; as he had been up during the day, he wished to be allowed to kneel on the floor to receive the Blessed Sacrament, but the infirmarian having told him that it would be too fatiguing, he smiled and said: “Very well, Brother, I will do whatever you tell me”. After receiving the Holy Viaticum, he remained for a long time in prayer, then turning to one of the scholastics who was with him, he said:

“Good-by, good-by, I have only a few hours more to wait. I had prayed not to die until I had received again my Saviour. I am now happy. I have obtained from the Blessed Virgin all I asked. I ask for nothing more. I die in the Society of Jesus”.

He passed the night quietly, and next morning, when told that it was the feast of the Holy Rosary, he asked for his beads, which he recited with the greatest fervor. He still lingered for two·days, edifying all who visited him by his patience and resignation to the Divine Will. On Tuesday, October 4th, he became worse; he was constantly occupied in prayer, and from time to time would repeat.:

“O my Jesus, accept the sacrifice of my life; I willingly offer it to Thee; and grant to all my brothers the grace of perseverance in their holy vocation”.

At 2pm the community assembled in his room, when he asked pardon for all the faults he had committed, and took part in the responses of the prayers for the dying. He then entered into his agony, if, indeed, it could be called an agony; it was more like a sweet sleep. At three o'clock, still breathing the words, “My Jesus, have mercy on me”, he expired. Those who had witnessed his holy death went away edified, strengthened in their vocation, and confirmed in their belief that death in the Society of Jesus is a pledge of predestination.

Born: 05 April 1851, Mégrit, Brittany, France
Entered: 18 April 1875, Angers, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1884
Final vows: 02 February 1893
Died: 02 October 1921, St Aloysius, St Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands - Franciae Province (FRA)

by 1887 came to Mungret (HIB) as Minister, Teacher and Church 1886-1888

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1922

Obituary

Father Jacques Daniel SJ

Fr. Daniel was one of the French Fathers who were at Mungret in the early days of the College, during the years 1886 to 1888, He taught Metaphysics and Ethics, giving the lectures in Latin. His teaching was very efficient and very much appreciated by his pupils.

In the Jubilee number of the Mungret Annual (June, 1907) it is recorded under date 1888, July 26th : “Fr Aubier and Fr Daniel left Mungret to-day. Fr Daniel's departure is much regretted, especially by next year's philosophers. During his two years' stay in Mungret his labours as Professor of Philosophy were crowned with most brilliant success”.

In the year 1887-88 he was Prefect of Discipline for both Apostolics and Seminarists (ie, of the diocese of Limerick who were then at Mungret College). Fr J B R René was Rector of the House and Director of the Apostolic School; but we understand from one who was here at the'time that Fr Daniel had a great deal to do with the practical direction of the Apostolic students. In the same number of the Annual, among the distinctions gained in those years, mention is made in 1887 of honours in Mental and Moral Science with Exhibition awarded to Ed Cahill; and in 1888 the same successes secured by three, W Turner, D Danaher and P Horan. The Ed Cahill named is, we need hardly say, Fr Cahill SJ, who has been so long connected with the College in several capacities, and is now again amongst us as Superior of the Apostolic School. The W Turner developed into the author of the well-known History of Philosophy, and is now Bishop of Buffalo (USA). The P Horan referred to is now the distinguished V Rev P Horan, of Little Rock (Ark, USA). Others among Fr. Daniel's pupils were H Moynihan, the Rector of St Thomas College, St Paul (Ma), M J Gallagher, now Bishop of Detroit, P Enright, the late René Jeanniere SJ, and many others who have distinguished themselves in work for the Church.

We add a few facts as to the rest of the life of Fr Daniel, which may have a special interest for his old pupils. He was born in 1851 at Mégrit, in Brittany, passed some years at the Seminary of St Brieuc, entered the Society in 1875, and was ordained in 1884. After his time in Ireland he was successively Professor of Philosophy, of Dogma and of Moral Theology, and Spiritual Father at the scholasticate of Jersey from 1889 to 1901. He was Rector there from 1901 to 1906, when he was appointed Provincial of the Paris Province. In this capacity he went as visitor to the missions of the Society in China. Later he became Instructor of Tertians. Finally, in 1919, he returned to Jersey as Spiritual Father, an office which he discharged up to his death in the autumn of 1921. One morning last autumn, on being called at 4 o'clock, he had answered as usual. An hour and a half later he did not appear to say his Mass, and on his server going to look for him he was found dead in his room.

The previous evening he had received all who came to consult him up to the usual hour of retiring.

He was. remarkable for his clear intellect, for large mindedness and sureness of direction, as well as for a kindness and affability which endeared him to all. In fine, he was a model religious and observant of community life in all its details. RIP

Born: 23 September 1920, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäus (Frankfurter Dom), Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Final Vows: 15 August 1964, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 03 July 2002, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

by 1949 at Laval, France (FRA) studying
by 1955 at Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt (GER I) studying
by 1978 at Toroto ONT, Canada (CAN S) sabbatical

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 2002

Obituary

Father Jack Brennan SJ (OB 1937)

My brother, Jack, was born on 23rd September, 1920, at 7 North Frederick Street, Dublin, our mother's home town. He was christened John Francis Joseph Brennan - sometimes, particularly with and to me, he was Seán Ó Braonáin. At that time, the family, of which he was the fourth child, was living in Caherciveen, Co. Kerry, our father's home town. He was about six months old in May 1921 when our father's house and others in Caherciveen were blown up by the English Army towards the end of the War of Independence in what were called “official reprisals”. The family then moved to Dublin, which is how Jack came to be educated at Belvedere College. He also spent a brief period at St Vincent's College, Castleknock.

Following school, Jack worked for a time with the Hibernian Insurance Company. After the outbreak of the Second World War, during the Emergency as it was called here, Jack joined the Irish Army, rising to the rank of Captain. The family lore tells, somewhat humorously, that initially when he was a Private, the Hibernian paid him the difference between his army pay and what he had been paid by the company. This did not happen in the case of our eldest brother, Charlie, our first Belvederian, who also joined the army, having been working in our father's insurance brokerage! Jack joined the latter in 1945 after leaving the army.

On 7th September 1946, about a fortnight before his 26th birthday, Jack entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Emo where he took his first vows two years later. He then spent a year in the Jesuit Juniorate, College St Michel, in Laval, France, after which he went to St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, Co Offaly, to study philosophy. He was a scholastic in Belvedere College from 1952-'54, following which he went to the Jesuit college, Sankt Georgen, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to study theology and was ordained there on 31st July 1957. He returned in 1958 to Dublin, for his year's Tertianship in Rathfarnham Castle, then went to Mungret College, Limerick (1959-'64) where he took his final vows on 2nd February 1964. I believe, and heard from some of his fellow Jesuits, that, in his period as Minister there and subsequently as Principal in University Hall, Hatch Street, Dublin (1964-68 and 1978-'95); as Rector in Milltown Park (1968-'71); and as Rector in Clongowes Wood College (1972-'77), his talents for organisation, administration, and dealing with others were helped by his experience in the Irish Army. With regard to the latter, he celebrated the annual Mass for many years in commemoration of the tragic accident in the Glen of Imaal which happened at the time he was in the army.

Jack had a very fruitful and varied life. It was a life of true spirituality, generous helpfulness and unfailing good humour, a life which touched the lives of so many others. He was involved in the Samaritans, of which he was Director in Ireland (1970-'72). He had a particular interest in the second Vatican Council and was noted for his sympathy and understanding on the one hand and his encouragement on the other, in relation to those considering or dealing with its varied aspects. He was also noted for his commitment to ecumenism. He spent a sabbatical studying at Regis College, Toronto (1977-'78) where he obtained an MA in Theology. He enjoyed his spells of summer parish work in the state of New York, where he brought the word of God to many in his quiet, humorous and spiritually effective way. Messages of sympathy and great affection came to us from the friends he made there.

Jack is remembered with affection by our family and by his Jesuit family, to whom we are so closely tied; by those who looked after him so well and so lovingly during his year of reasonably good health at first and eventual last illness in the Jesuits' nursing home, Cherryfield Lodge; and by all who knew him at home and abroad. I was privileged to be among those of the family and of the Jesuit community who were with him when he died peacefully on 3rd July 2002. My other Jesuit brother, Joe, now of Gonzaga College, asked me to compose the prayers of the faithful to be recited by three of Jack's nieces and by one of his nephews (my son Cormac) at the funeral Mass. Cormac, who had frequently visited Jack with me, added his own composition which I include here as it reminded us of that good humour which Jack showed so often:

“Some of you may know that in his room, Jack had a plaque which said, ‘Working for the Lord doesn't pay much, but the retirement benefits are out of this world’! Let us pray that he is now enjoying those benefits”.

l and many fellow-Belvederians and others join in that prayer with certain hope and in gratitude to God for bringing Jack among us. Guim Solas na bhFlaitheas ar a anam uasal, dilis.

Anraí Ó Braonáin (O.B. 1949)

Born: 11 February 1837, County Cork
Entered: 13 September 1856, Beaumont, Berkshire, England - Angliae Province for HIB (ANG)
Ordained: 1868
Final Vows: 02 Fenruary 1872

Left Society of Jesus: 1883

by 1858 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) Studying Philosophy
by 1866 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying Theology
by 1871 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
Early Irish Mission to to Australia 1880

1857 FRA CAT has St Acheul, Amiens entry

Born: 28 June 1924, Omagh, County Tyrone
Entered: 24 September 1947, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois

Left Society of Jesus: 11 September 1956

by 1950 at Laval France (FRA) studying

Born: 15 January 1841, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 04 August 1863, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1873
Final Vows: 22 April 1878
Died: 1918

Left Society of Jesus: 1898; remained a priest

by 1870 at Roehampton, England (ANG)) studying
by 1871 at home for health
by 1872 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1874 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1875 at St Wilfred’s Preston (ANG) working
by 1877 at Castres France (TOLO) making Tertianship
Early Australian Missioner 1877 (St Ignatius College, Roverciew, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Born: 03 April 1849, Alsace, Germany
Entered: 30 May 1878, Manresa, Roehampton, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1883
Died: 1934

Left Society of Jesus: 1887

Came to UCD (HIB) to lecture in Science and Biology 1885-1887

Born: 04 June 1843, County Limerick
Entered: 05 October 1860, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 1876, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1880

Left Society of Jesus: 1891

Educated at Crescent College SJ

by 1863 at Roehampton, England (ANG) studying
by 1864 at Rome, Italy (ROM) studying Theology 1
by 1873 at Laval France (FRA) studying

Born: 23 June 1619, Park Grove, Ballyragget, County Kilkenny
Entered: 21 June 1647 Wilna (Vilnius), Lithuania - (GER SUP)
Ordained: 31 March 1657
Final Vows: 09 February 1959
Died: 03 June 1685, St Thomas of Canterbury, Hampshire, England

◆ The English Jesuits 1650-1829 Geoffrey Holt SJ : Catholic Record Society 1984
Born 23/06/1619 Kilkenny
Son of Thomas and Mary (Fines)
Educated St Omers College 1645-1646; English College Rome 16/10/1646-21/06/1647
Novitiate and Philosophy in another Province
1656 Liège Theology
Ordained 1657
1657 Ghent Tertianship
1658 St Omer
1659 Residence of St Michael
LEFT 20/08/1661 - READMITTED 19/06/1669
1672-1682 College of the Holy Apostles
1682 College of St Thomas of Canterbury

Catalogus Defuncti 1641-1670 has Robson (al Fines) RIP 03/06/1685 (ingr 1647, et reingr 1669) (HS49 43v et Foley, Angl)

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
FINE, CHRISTOPHER, Father. See Robson, or Robinson, Christopher, Father.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
Robson, (CHRISTOPHER), Father, alias Robinson, and Fines, CHRISTOPHER, was the only son of Thomas Robson, Esq., a Yorkshire gentleman, and his wife Mary Fines, who was of a Sussex family of position. (1) Born about 1619, at Park Grove, county Kilkenny. Ireland, where his father had probably retired on account of the persecution at home; made his humanity studies in Ireland and at St. Omer's College; and entered the English College, Rome, for his higher course October 16, 1646. He was admitted to the Society in Rome, by the Father General in person, June 21, 1647, was sent to Wilna for his noviceship, and was made a Spiritual Coadjutor, February 9, 1659, being then it missioner in the Residence of St. Michael (Yorkshire District). He was dismissed the Society in Belgium, August 20, 1661. He appears to have then assumed his mother's name, and passed as Christopher Fines, succeeding Father John Penketh, alias Rivers, then a Secular Priest, as Confessor to the English Benedictine Nuns at Brussels, in April, 1672, Father Rivers having retired from that duty for the purpose of entering the Society. Father Christopher continued as Confessor for three years, retiring in 1665, for the purpose of seeking a re-admission to the Society. He was succeeded at the convent by Father Alexander Keynes, then a Secular Priest, who also retired in 1668, to enter the Society, (From the notes of the late Dame Mary English, O.S.B., St. Scholastica's Abbey, Teignmouth.) Father Christopher's re-admittance was delayed until June 19, 1669, when it took place at Watten. After his noviceship he was again sent to the Residence of St. Michael, and renewed his vows of a Spiritual Coadjutor in 1679. About 168, he was sent to the College of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the Hants District, and died in the same mission, June 3, 1685, et. about 66. (Catalogue of Deceased S.J., Louvain University Library; Records S.J. vol. vi. p. 366.)

(1) The family of Rostisan seem to have suffered severely for their faith. The names of William ind Colfrey Rolson appear in a list of upwards of sixty-five gentlemen of Northumberland in prison for refusing to take the condemned all of allegiance and supremacy (Canon Raine's “York Castle Depositions”, &c.. p. 2381)

Born: 20 November 1944, Rathmines, Dublin
Entered: 12 September 1963, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 20 June 1975, Gonzaga College SJ, Ranelagh, Dublin
Final Vows: 31 May 1985, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare
Died: 25 January 2024 - Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

part of the Milltown Park community at the time of death

FSS
Born : 30th November 1944, Dublin
Raised : Rathmines, Dublin
Early Education at De La Salle, Churchtown, Dublin

12th September 1963 Entered Society at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
27th September 1965 First Vows at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
1965-1968 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1968-1970 Chantilly, France - Studying Philosophy at Séminaire Missionaire
1970-1972 Belvedere College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying H Dip in Education at UCD
1972-1975 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
20th June 1975 Ordained at Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
1975-1976 Paris, France - Studying Theology at Centre Sèvres
1976-1980 Belvedere College SJ - Teacher; Assistant Headmaster;
1977 Gamesmaster; Chaplain to French Community in Ireland
1980-1981 Tullabeg - Tertianship
1981-2009 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Teacher; Chaplain to French Community in Ireland
1982 Spiritual Father to Higher Line; Vice-Postulator for Cause of Fr John Sullivan SJ
31st May 1985 Final Vows at Clongowes Wood College SJ, Co Kildare
1987 Vice-President of Alliance Française
1998 Sabbatical in USA
1999 Teacher; Spiritual Father to Poetry; Co-ordinator of Student Exchanges; Co-ordinator of twinning Clongowes and Portora Royal School, Enniskillen; Chaplain to the French Community in Ireland; Vice-Postulator of the Cause of Fr John Sullivan SJ
2000 Moderator Higher Line Debating Society
2001 Patron Higher Line Debating Society; Consultor; Chaplain to Higher Line
2007 Vice-Postulator of the Cause of Fr John Sullivan SJ; Teacher; Spiritual Father to Higher Line; Assists in College; Chaplain to the French Community in Ireland
2009-2024 Milltown Park - Curate in Sacred Heart Parish, Donnybrook; Vice-Postulator of the Cause of Fr John Sullivan SJ; Chaplain to French Community in Ireland
2018 Assists in Sacred Heart Parish, Donnybrook, Dublin 4; Vice-Postulator of the Cause of Fr John Sullivan SJ
2021 Cherryfield Lodge - Vice-Postulator of the Cause of Fr John Sullivan SJ; Prays for the Church and Society

https://jesuit.ie/news/conor-harper-sj-rest-in-peace/

Conor Harper SJ: Rest in peace

Jesuits, family and friends, and Michael Jackson, the Church of Ireland Archbishop, attended the funeral Mass of Conor Harper SJ, in the Sacred Heart Church in Donnybrook, Tuesday 30 January 2024, 11 am. Conor died peacefully in Cherryfield nursing home on Friday 26 January, where he was being cared for after a long illness. Many who could not make his funeral Mass in person watched it online.

Fr Conor was part of the parish team in Donnybrook parish from 2009 until 2021. At the start of Mass the parish priest of the Sacred Heart Church, Fr Ciaran O’Carroll, welcomed the large number of parishioners who were in attendance and said that their presence was a testament to the service that Fr Conor gave to the parish.

Bruce Bradley SJ presided at the Eucharist. In his homily, he spoke about Fr Conor’s deep affiliation with France and his contribution as chaplain to the French community in Dublin. He welcomed the French Ambassador Vincent Guerend’s attendance at the Mass noting that Conor loved all things French and was awarded the medal of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2014 ».

Fr Bruce recalled his time with Fr Conor at Emo in 1963 as a Jesuit novice. “He was a larger-than-life figure. He was loyal and generous,” commented Bruce; “And he would truly go out of his way for another person again and again… Conor honoured the work of Pope Francis in mirroring the understanding of the Church as a field hospital for the wounded.”

Fr Bruce concluded by telling those gathered the story of what Conor replied when asked what God might say to him when he returned home. “God will forgive me,” said Conor, “That’s His job, that’s who He is”. Conor died holding the crucifix with which he made his first vows, said Bruce. “He trusted in God’s mercy to bring him home safely to His blessed room.”

Fr Conor joined the Jesuit Order in 1975. He taught at Belvedere College SJ and Clongowes Wood College SJ. He was appointed Vice-postulator of Fr John Sullivan SJ’s canonisation cause and was deeply devoted to Fr John and his cause.

Fr John Sullivan SJ was baptized in the Church of Ireland. His father was a Protestant and his mother was a Catholic. At 36, he converted to Catholicism and later joined the Jesuit Order. It was in this context that Fr Conor became a close friend of the Church of Ireland. On hearing of his death, Dr. Michael Jackson, Church of Ireland Archbishop, issued a statement expressing his condolences to Conor’s family, to his fellow Jesuits, and in particular “to the community of Clongowes where Conor taught for many years”.

The Archbishop noted that “Conor was a lifelong friend of the Church of Ireland and fearless in his expounding and living a gracious ecumenism. He died fittingly on the culminating day of the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity. In this spirit, Conor is known throughout Ireland and worldwide for his advocacy of the cause of The Reverend John Sullivan SJ who in so many ways lived the best of both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic traditions. Conor rejoiced in working for this cause and in the family members of John Sullivan whom he met through this”.

Fr Conor’s brother Neil shared some final words at the end of Mass, telling the congregation that Conor was “full of life, and joy and he loved the company of others.”

Before his final commendation, a family relative led the congregation in saying the novena prayer to Fr John Sullivan SJ. Fr Conor’s cortège then made its way to Clongowes Wood College SJ, where he was buried alongside the Blessed Jesuit for whose cause he worked so tirelessly right until the end.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Born: 22 May 1814, Booterstown, Dublin
Entered: 15 August 1834, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 26 March 1848, Rome, Italy
Final Vows: 15 August 1867
Died: 27 July 1901, St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

part of the Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death

by 1847 in Rome studying
by 1853 at Vals France (TOLO) studying to 1854
by 1856 in Crimea to 1857
Came to Australia 1888

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
After First Vows he was sent to Rome and France for studied, being Ordained in Rome 26 March 1848.
1851 He was Minister at Clongowes under Michael A Kavanagh.
1854 He was sent as Chaplain to the Forces in Crimea, a mission he really liked, and where he had full scope for his zeal and charity.
After he returned from Crimea he was sent teaching at Clongowes for some years, and then sent to Gardiner St, where he worked for 29 years.
At Gardiner St, sinners were converted. Many who were caught up in the world saw a different path, and the sick and destitute were visited with great care. Those who hear him Preach, especially at a “Reception” or “Profession” of a nun were hugely impressed by his sincerity. It was said that when he recited the “Hail Holy Queen” after Mass, it was as though he were speaking directly to the Blessed Virgin.
1879 He got a serious illness, and was ordered by doctors to complete change and rest. So, he was sent abroad for six months. he was a great letter writer, and his letters home during this six months contained glowing accounts of his experiences and vivid descriptions of the places he visited. On visiting Lourdes he spoke of his own delight at saying Mass there and was completely captivated by the Basilica : “Nor could you look at it, and walk through it leisurely, as I did on yesterday, without feeling that it was a work of lover - a work, I mean, of persons who had both the will to do it, the money and the skill, and who, prompted by an irresistible feeling of faith and love, and gratitude, were determined to stop at nothing!” During this six months, he visited Paray-le-Monial, Annecy and Switzerland as well, and eventually returned to Gardiner St, with an immense sense of gratitude for having been given the opportunity. He always communicate gratitude easily, and made good friends. Though some timed thought of as somewhat “rough and ready” he was an immensely sympathetic man, and he was clearly a diamond, who cared for anyone in trouble especially.
Following his experience of illness and the sense of gratitude, he was invited to consider going to Australia. He would have declined at an earlier time, so wrapped in his work and relationships. His response at this relatively late stage in life was “Come soldier! here’s a crowning grace for you - up and at it! Away from your country and friends, away off to the far off battlefield of Australia - a land you won’t like naturally, but in which I wish you to finish the fight! Fear not, I’ll give you the necessary strength, and only be a plucky soldier you, and show me what stuff is in you!”
1888 he arrived in Australia and straight away to St Ignatius, Richmond, and gave a series of Missions from there. He was then sent to St Mary’s North Shore. And so it was until his death, Retreats and Missions were his works.
He was a great enemy to self, and when advising on how to be happy he would say “Forget yourself, this is the secret. Think of Christ and His Cause only and leave the rest to Him!” He had great common sense too. He was entirely military in his ideas, and plenty of military references in his ordinary writing and publications, as seen in “The Eleven-Gun Battery, for the Defence of the Castle of the Soul”.
He had just concluded his own retreat and was conducting one for the Sisters of Mercy at Fitzroy, when he turned on his ankle coming downstairs and fractured his hip. He had an operation, but got up too quickly and had a recurrence, and pneumonia having also set in he declined rapidly. He suffered a lot of pain, but bore it with patience, and his end was calm and peaceful on 27 July 1901 aged 88. His funeral took place at St Ignatius, Richmond with a huge crowd in attendance. His desired epitaph was “Here lies one that did a soldier’s part”.

Note from William Ronan Entry :
A Few years after his Novitiate he went with Fr Patrick J Duffy as a Chaplain in the Crimean War, where he worked for more than a year in the hospitals of Scutari Hospital (of Florence Nightingale Fame in the Istanbul Region) and other Military stations.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Patrick Duffy 1814-1901
In Australia on July 27th 1901 died Fr Patrick Duffy in the 88th year of his life and the 67th of his life in the Society. He was born in Dublin on May 22nd 1814 and entered the Society in 1834 at Stonyhurst.

After his ordination he was sent as a chaplain to the British Forces in the Crimean War in 1854, an event which was destined to colour his spiritual life and writings for the rest of his life.

After his return from the War, he spent upwards of 29 years of fruitful and zealous work as Operarius at Gardiner Street. As a preacher he was renowned for his earnestness and sincerity, and it is related of him that he recited the “Hail Holy Queen” after Mass, as if he spoke to the Blessed Virgin there present, so earnest was the tone of his voice.

In 1879 after a severe illness, he was sent by Superiors on a tour of the continent for six months. He had a facile pen and left us lengthy and vivid impressions of the various places he visited.

At the advance age of 74, when most men would be thinking of retiring and preparing fore the end, Fr Duffy volunteered for the Australian Mission. What was it that induced him to take this up. He himself reveals the reason in a letter written to a friend some years later :
“Oh, dear me! Had I hesitated when I got the invitation years ago, to break the remaining ties and quit all, what an unhappy man, comparatively speaking, I should be today! I saw then what I see now, the mercy which said ‘Come Soldier, here’s a crowning grace for you, up and at it. Away from your country and your friends. Away to the battlefield of Australia - a land you won’t like naturally, but in which I wish you to finish the fight”.

For about fourteen years he worked unceaselessly on missions and retreats throughout Australia. He always regarded these as “campaigns” and conducted them as “pitched battles”, due to his experiences as a chaplain.

In 1887 he embodied his ideas of the spiritual life in a booklet entitled “The Eleven Gun Battery for the Defence of the Castle of the Soul”, to which is added “A Day-book for Religious of the Art of leading in Religion a holy and happy life, and dying as a certain consequence a holy and happy death”.

◆ The Clongownian, 1902

Obituary

Father Patrick Duffy SJ and Father Charles Walshe SJ

We regret to announce the deaths of two Jesuits long connected with Clongowes both as boys and masters-Father Patrick Duffy and Father Charles Walshe.

Father Duffy died at the ripe old age of 88 in Melbourne, Australia. He entered Clongowes as a boy in 1829 and having passed with distinction through the various classes, he joined the Novitate of the Society of Jesus in 1834. Early in his priestly career he was sent out as chaplain to the forces during the Crimean war, a mission which was peculiarly agreeable to him, and to which in after years he often referred with pleasure. He was beloved by the soldiers an Irish regiment - and on one occasion it is said that they refused to march unless their chaplain were allowed to accompany them. He had a fine, manly, soldierly spirit, a most guileless nature, and he was full of ardour. He was for many years on the staff at Clongowes, and later at St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, Dublin. As late in life as his 70th year he volunteered to give his Services to the Australian Mission, where he worked till the end with the zeal and zest of a
youthful beginner.

Born: 15 September 1870, Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia
Entered: 18 January 1891, Tullabeg/Loyola Greenwich, Australia
Ordained: 29 July 1906, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1908, St Mary’s, Miller Street, Sydney, Australia
Died: 01 January 1964, St Aloysius College, Milson’s Point, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

FOSTER initially;

Younger brother of Thomas - RIP 1929; Uncle of Leonard (ASL) RIP 2002

by 1901 in Vals France (LUGD) studying
by 1902 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
by 1907 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
His early education was at St Patrick’s College Melbourne and he was the first Novice to enter at Loyola Greenwich in 1891, having been an apprentice draughtsman with Victorian Railways.

1893-1894 After First Vows he remained at Loyola for a Juniorate
1894-1900 He was sent for Regency first to St Aloysius Sydney and then Riverview.
1900-1901 He was sent to Vals in France for Philosophy
1901-1903 He went to Ireland and did two more years regency at Crescent College Limerick
1903-1906 He was sent to Milltown Park Dublin for Theology.
1906-1907 He made Tertianship at Drongen Belgium
1907-1921 He returned to Australia and St Aloysius Sydney, and he was appointed Rector there in 1916 following the resignation of Patrick McCurtin. During this time he had also become a keen photographer, and he left several albums of photographs of classes, picnics at Middle Harbour and Lane Cove, and of dramatic groups and choirs. He had a great interest in choral works and “Glee Clubs”. His skill as a hand writer, even as an old man, was a source of wonder to all who were taught by him. It was said he cold write the Hail Mary inside a small shell! Fountain pens and biros were “an abomination of desolation”! The steel nib was the only permissible weapon.

He was also a skilled carpenter and painter, and the bricks he laid in the junior yard towards the end of WWI were still good in 1964 before the bulldozers disturbed them for a new building. The Old Boys also tell of his prowess as a bowler and batsman, and even in his late 80s was a keen spectator of rugby and cricket.

He spent a short time at both Riverview and Xavier Colleges. he was Headmaster at Burke Hall 1924-1925 and from there he went to St Patrick’s Melbourne until 1932, when he was appointed Superior at Sevenhill, and he remained there until 1940. He spent a brief period at the Norwood Parish before returning to St Aloysius Sydney for the rest of his life, and he died teaching junior Religion.

By 1961 he had been a teacher for 50 years and at his death, a Jesuit for 73. Even in his old age, he caught the 6.25am tram to Lane Cove every morning to say Mass at St Joseph’s Orphanage. He still taught his writing classes, typed his exhortations which he gave regularly, and was also quite faithful to his Apostles of the Mass Sodality.

In his early years he wrote a book on the Mass “In Memory of Me”, and he was often quoted as an authority on the Mass. Towards the end of his life he produced a commentary on the “Anima Christi”, which found its way round the world, even to Pope John XXIII.

He was a man of the old school who scorned relaxation and concessions. Community duties were sacred even when he was a tottering old man. Until his death, he was still giving the scholastics their renovation of Vows, usually on the topics of poverty, obedience and devotion to Our Lady. He ultimately suffered a mild thrombosis after dinner on the Feast of St Aloysius. He went to hospital and then to St John of God Hospital Richmond where he lingered on for some months. There he found confinement to a wheelchair very restrictive. He had two further strokes than and died soon after.

Note from Thomas Forster Entry
He was a brother of John (RIP 1964) and was a master builder before he decided to follow his younger brother into the Society, He was invited to study for Priesthood but preferred to become a Brother. Both brothers were very intelligent and good musicians - their simplicity was deceptive and some underrated them. He Entered at Loyola Greenwich.

Born: 29 August, 1926, St Paul, Minnesota, MN, USA
Entered: 08 August 1950, St. Stanislaus, Florissant, Missouri, MO, USA - Missourianae Province (MIS)
Ordained: 01 September 1962, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Cathedral, Pl. Saint-Jean, 69005 Lyon, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1967
Died: 4 March 2022, St Camillus, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, USA, United States Midwest Province (UMI)

by 2009 came to Milltown (HIB) teaching

https://www.jesuitsmidwest.org/memoriam/faricy-robert-l-father/

Let us pray in thanksgiving for the life of Fr. Robert L. Faricy, SJ, who died on March 4, 2022, at St. Camillus Jesuit Community in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. He was 95 years old. May he rest in peace.

Bob was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on August 29, 1926. He was very proud of growing up in St. Paul and spending his summers at Steamboat Lake where his family operated a resort. He attended St. Mark’s Catholic grade school and St. Thomas Military Academy in St. Paul before graduating from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. He was a proud graduate of the United States Naval Academy, and he was honored to serve his country in the navy (1949–1950). He entered the former Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Missouri, on August 8, 1950, and became part of the former Wisconsin Province when it was created in 1955. He had the usual course of Jesuit studies at St. Stanislaus Seminary and Saint Louis University. During regency, Bob taught math at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee (1956–1959). He studied theology in Fourvière, Lyon, France. He was ordained at St. John’s Cathedral in Lyon on September 1, 1962. After tertianship in Flanders, Bob completed a doctoral program in theology at The Catholic University in Washington, D.C. His dissertation topic was “Teilhard de Chardin and Christian Effort.” He professed his final vows on August 15, 1967.

Bob began his long career as a professional theologian by teaching for five years at The Catholic University of America (1966–1971). In 1971, he moved to the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he taught until he was named Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology in 2000. Bob combined teaching and writing in Rome with an extensive, in practice, worldwide ministry of lectures and workshops in spirituality and charismatic renewal. He continued his spirituality ministry when he returned from Rome to reside in the Marquette University Jesuit Community as a writer and researcher in 2000. Bob was able to return to Rome often when he taught courses at Regina Mundi Institute (2002–2005). In 2012, declining health led to his being missioned to St. Camillus to pray for the Church and the Society.

He was a smart, talented, and complex man who did not avoid important, controversial matters. He was fluent in Italian and French. During his almost 30 years in Rome, Bob was known as a demanding and effective professor. Although Bob’s doctoral dissertation was on the theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, he later turned his focus to spirituality and Catholic charismatic renewal. He coauthored more than 40 books about prayer with authors such as Sr. Lucy Rooney, SND; Luciana Pecoraio; and Fr. Francis Sullivan, SJ. Throughout his Jesuit life, Bob was a strong promoter of spirituality—including during his time spent as director of tv programming at EWTN (1987–1988).

Bob helped establish the Heart of Jesus Community in Rome. Hearing of his death, some members wrote the following tributes:

Thank you for being an exemplary instrument of the Lord, exercising the charisms of the Holy Spirit in your priesthood and teaching us to use them for the common good.

You have been a father different from all the others. You knew how to give love, laughing and joking.

Bob lived his life with passion and a certain exuberance. He was a man of strong convictions, and he was action-oriented and always on the move. He found the diminishments of old age very challenging. But he turned peacefully towards the good and gracious Lord whom he loved.

Born: 02 February 1622, Dowth, County Meath
Entered: 10 Octpber 1641, Mechelen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Final Vows: 12 January 1659
Died: 30 December 1697, Dublin Residence, Dublin City, County Dublin

Son of Nicholas (Viscount of Dowth and Baron of Belgart) and Helena Bathe

Nephew of Robert Netterville, RIP 1644 and William Bathe - RIP 1614; younger brother Christopher Netterville, RIP 1651; Uncle of Jerome Netterville - Left 1669

Studied Humanities at Antwerp and Rhetoric at Lille
1645 Not in Catalogue
1649 In 2nd Theology at Bourges - teaching Grammar and Humanities, talent in speculative sciences
1655 At La Flèche College teaching Grammar and Philosophy
1658 Not in Catalogue; At End of Catalogue but not in body along with 5 others (Peter Creagh, William O’Rian, Nicholas Nugent, Stephen Brown and Nicholas Punche) “docent hi”
1661 at La Flèche - a priest, taught Grammar. Good teacher of Philosophy and Theology. Suitable for Missions
1641 At Bruges College teaching Philosophy
1665 before this year went to Ireland with Nicholas Nugent and returned from France to Ireland in 1666
1666 - see Wilsons “Friar Disciplined” p146-7

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
8th son of Son of Nicholas Viscount Netterville de Dowth Baron De Ballegart and Eleanor (Hellena) née Bathe, a niece or grandniece of the Earl of Kildare, who had died in the Tower in 1586. Younger brother of Christopher. Nephew of William Bathe on his mother’s side.
Studied Humanities at Antwerp under the Jesuits, and among his teachers were : Giles Tibant, Ernest Cason and Albert Van Wilstren. He then spent five months Rhetoric under Fr Comblett SJ at Lille. He was admitted to the Society by the FLA Provincial Andrew Judoci 29 September 1641 and then went to Mechelen 10 October 1641 (Mechelen Album Vol iii p 254)
Taught Philosophy and Theology in France for many years
On being sent to Ireland he became Chaplain to the Duke of Tyrconnel, Viceroy of Ireland (Richard Talbot)
1665 Sent to Ireland and was a most agreeable Preacher (HIB CAT 1666 - ARSI). He was a Theologian and “concionator gratissimus”.
1670 Irish Bishops name him fit to govern the Kildare Diocese, and as “doctrina ac verbi Dei praedicatione celebris”,
Archbishop Peter Talbot says of him in his “Haeresis Blackloana” p 19 “The opinion of such a man as Fr Netterville is as of much weight as the other Theologians whom I consulted; for that man has been a great glory of his nation on account of the extraordinary penetration of his genius and the learning with which he lectured very many years in the most celebrated Colleges of all France” Peter Walsh, his enemy, says of him :He had the reputation of a great divine, by title a Doctor, ad by office a Professor of Divinity for some years in France” (Foley’s Collectanea)
1679 He was proscribed by name and deported 02 March 1697 - “He was lodging at the Quay in Dr Cruice’s house” as we learn from the report of a spy, which is preserved in St Patrick’s Library MSS Vol 3.1.18
He was Superior of the Dublin Residence when he died (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Viscount Netterville of Dowth and Helena née Bathe, (sister of Father William Bathe) and brother of Christopher
1643-1646 After First Vows he was sent for studies to Louvain, and Antwerp
1648-1652 He was then sent to Bourges for Theology and graduated DD (Ordained?)
1652-1664 He taught Theology at Rennes, Bourges and Rheims until 1664
1664 Sent to Ireland and Dublin district and later in the City where he became Superior of the Dublin Residence. He was a staunch opponent of Peter Walsh's “Loyal Remonstrance” and Taaffe’s bogus legation from the Holy See. He was arrested and deported during the Titus Oates Plot
1684 He returned to Ireland and at the Dublin Residence until his death 30 December 1697

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Nicholas Netterville SJ 1622-1697
Nicholas Netterville was the 8th son of Viscount Netterville. He had two brothers, Robert and Christopher, also Jesuits.

Nicholas was born at Dowth, County Meath in 1621, and he entered the Society at Mechelen in 1641, and afterwards taught Philosophy and Theology with great distinction.

In October 1678, when he was Rector of the Dublin Residence, he was arrested in connection with the Titus Oates Plot, and banished as a result. He returned in 1686 and became Chaplain to the Duek of Tyrconnell, then Viceroy of Ireland. During the Williamite period, he was prescribed by name and banished again, but the sentence was never carried out and he continued his work in Ireland until 1697.

He gained a great reputation as a preacher, and was looked upon as a profound Theologian. Archbishop Talbot said of him : “The opinion of such a man as Father Netterville is of as much weight as that of all the other Theologians whom I consulted”.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
NETTERVILLE, NICHOLAS, younger brother of F. Christopher, (being the eighth son) for many years taught Philosophy in France with distinguished credit. Recalled to the Irish Mission, he was appointed Chaplain to the Duke of Tyrconnell, Viceroy of Ireland. He died in Dublin late in the year 1607, where he had been Superior of his Brethren.

Born: 27 March 1895, Athy, County Kildare / Orange, NSW, Australia
Entered: 17 September 1913, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 30 October 1961, Greenfield Road, Mount Merrion, Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 14 August 1919

by 1919 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying

https://humphrysfamilytree.com/ORahilly/dempsey.html

Vaughan Dempsey,
Vaughan B. Dempsey, Irish-Australian, Catholic,
born 1895, Orange, NSW, Australia, or 1894 [burial record].
He was youngest child. His parents had died by 1907, him age 12 (though he had grown-up siblings and other family).
He was educ in Ireland. B.A. and M.A. degrees at N.U.I. Jan 1922.

Irish consul to France, 1923 to at least 1928:
In Feb 1922 he was secretary to the Irish Delegation to France.
In 1923 he was appointed Head of Mission to France, listed as "the representative of Saorstat Eireann in France".
Lived Paris.
He gave an address to Irish WWI veterans and their WWI allies at grave of France's Unknown Soldier, Paris, Thur 10 July 1924. The British military were also present at this friendly event - despite the recent Anglo-Irish war. Dempsey referred to them in his speech to the Irish veterans: "Having fought, what greater ambition could you now put before yourself than to work for the ideal of peace - peace within your own shores, peace with your great neighbour, whose flag is represented today beside your own, and peace with the whole world." He paid tribute to the WWI allied fight against Germany: "Ireland .. has come .. to prove by this act of homage that she took her stand with loyalty and sacrifice by the side of the great nations in the fight for liberty and civilisation."
The speech caused controversy. In the Dail, Tue 15 July, 1924, deputy Sean Milroy, TD complains about the speech: "He was speaking for Saorstat Eireann, and so far as I know Germany has never been included in the enemies of Saorstat Eireann, and I think it is highly improper for a representative of the Saorstat to describe it in this way."

He mar 20 Mar 1926, Paris, to Doreen O'Rahilly [born 18 Sept 1904]. No issue.
Alfred O'Rahilly wrote to him, asked him to keep eye on Doreen, at school in France. He ended up marrying her.
He is listed as "Agent-General in Paris" in Irish Senate, 11 July, 1928.
"Mrs. Vaughan Dempsey" listed at funeral of Gerald Griffin 1932.
They settled back in Ireland.
He gave a speech at The Mansion House, Dublin, Friday 13th October, 1933.
They lived 38 Greenfield Rd, Mount Merrion, Co.Dublin, from 1935 until his death.
Listed at 38 Greenfield Rd in [Thom's, 1936] to [Thom's, 1958].
They both were at Nell's funeral, 1939.
He is described as "retired civil servant" in burial record.

Death, 1961:
He died at his home, 38 Greenfield Rd, Mount Merrion, 30 Oct 1961, age 66 yrs, or 67 yrs [burial record].
See death notice in Irish Times, October 31, 1961 and November 1, 1961.
Funeral 1 Nov at Mount Merrion Catholic church. He was buried in Deansgrange Cemetery, Co.Dublin.
Doreen was living 38 Greenfield Rd as at 1961.
She is gone from there by [Thom's, 1965].
She died pre-1969.

Born: 09 November 1939, Derry, County Derry
Entered: 06 September 1957, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 20 June 1971, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 19 October 1977, Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin
Died: 14 February 2020, Swords, County Dublin (a Romanian Orthodox priest)

Left Society of Jesus: 1986

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1963 at Chantilly France (GAL S) studying
by 1973 at St Louis MO, USA (MIS) studying

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/funeral-held-of-pioneering-irish-romanian-orthodox-priest-fr-godfrey-o-donnell-1.4176696

The funeral Mass of Fr Godfrey O'Donnell (80) the only Irishman to be ordained a priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ireland, took place on Monday at St Columba's Church, Blakestown Way, in West Dublin. A total of 28 Romanian Orthodox priests from Europe and Ireland took part in the Mass.

From Derry, Fr O’Donnell died peacefully at his home in Swords last Friday. A Jesuit priest for 28 years, Fr Godfrey left the Catholic priesthood to marry Ruth in 1985, but had grown increasingly drawn to the Orthodox Church.

He was ordained a Romanian Orthodox priest in February 2004 by His Eminence the Metropolitan Iosif in a six-hour service at the chapel in Dublin's Belvedere College.

The ceremony was attended by representatives of the other Orthodox churches, in Ireland, the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, and from the Romanian Embassy in Ireland.

As he explained at the 2004 ordination, “I had to make a choice to let go of my Catholic heritage and to embrace Orthodoxy. It has been a great gift this last four years. I have met so many extraordinary people, very gifted people, great Christians who have also had to give up a lot to come to a strange country like Ireland.”

In 2000, he was instrumental in establishing the first Romanian Orthodox parish in Dublin, based at Leeson Park. It followed contact in 1999 with Paris-based Metropolitan Iosif of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitanate of Western and Southern Europe.

Fr O’Donnell had been Orthodox representative to the Irish Council of Churches and the Irish Inter Church Meeting, and was chairman of the Dublin Council of Churches for a period. In 2008 he was elected President of the Irish Council of Churches.

In November 2013 he was awarded the accolade of ‘Stavrophore’ by the Romanian Orthodox Church. ‘Stavrophore’ is derived from the Greek stavrophoros, meaning ‘cross–bearer’. It is the highest award bestowed upon married priests in the Romanian Orthodox tradition.

It conferred on Fr O’Donnell the the right to wear a cross in recognition of his work to firmly establish the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ireland and of his long service to the Romanian Orthodox community.

Survived by Ruth, burial took place on Monday afternoon at Dardistown cemetery in north Co Dublin.

https://dublin.anglican.org/news/2020/02/17/archbishop-pays-tribute-to-fr

It is with great sadness that we share the news of the death of Fr Godfrey O’Donnell, Romanian Orthodox priest and ecumenist, who died at his home in Swords on Friday February 14.

In 2004 Fr Godfrey became the first Irish–born person to be ordained as a priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The Derry man had been a Jesuit priest but left the priesthood in 1985. He felt increasingly drawn to the Orthodox Church and was instrumental in establishing the Romanian Orthodox parish in Dublin in 2000. His work for the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ireland was honoured in 2013 when he was awarded the accolade of Stavrophore, the highest award given to married priests in that tradition.

Known for his active ecumenism, he represented the Romanian Orthodox Church on both the of Dublin Council of Churches and the Irish Council of Churches. He was chair of Dublin Council of Churches and became the first representative of the Orthodox traditions to hold the role of president of the Irish Council of Churches from 2012 to 2014.

Paying tribute to Fr Godfrey, Archbishop Michael Jackson recalled a priest of tremendous vitality. “All of us who knew Godfrey recognised his faithfulness to God and rejoiced in his tireless and joyful presentation of the Romanian Orthodox tradition within Irish Christianity. He was always ready and willing to participate in the promotion of a better understanding of faiths and advocate for ecumenism through the Dublin Council of Churches. The sympathies and prayers of all of us in the United Dioceses lie with his wife, Ruth, and the Romanian Orthodox community,” he said

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_O%27Donnell

Fr. Godfrey O'Donnell (1939[1] – 14 February 2020) was a priest from County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in the Romanian Orthodox Church.

From County Londonderry, O'Donnell, was a Jesuit priest for 28 years,[2] who left the order in 1985 to marry Ruth.[3]

Godfrey and his wife Ruth became involved in the Greek Rite church in Arbour Hill in Dublin, and joined the Romanian Orthodox church in 1999.

O'Donnell was asked by the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Joseph, based in Paris, to help secure a Romanian Orthodox priest for their community in Ireland.[3] In 2000 Godfrey was instrumental in the establishment of Romanian Orthodox services in Dublin, which began in the Chapel in Belvedere College in 2001.[4] In 2004 O'Donnell became the first Irish-born person to be ordained a Romanian Orthodox priest.[5] He was ordained in the Jesuit Chapel of Belvedere College, where Romanian Orthodox services were held each weekend.

Fr. O'Donnell ministered from The Romanian Orthodox Church based at Christ Church Leeson Park.

O'Donnell was elected President of the Irish Council of Churches in 2008. In 2013 O'Donnell was awarded the accolade of 'Stavrophore' by the Romanian Orthodox Church.[6]

O'Donnell served as head of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ireland, and attended ecumenical and inter-faith, state services such as the National Day of Commemoration in this capacity.

He died at his home in Swords, Dublin, Ireland, on 14 February 2020, aged 80.[7][8]

Born: 25 June 1919, Moville, County Donegal / Rathgar, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 24 September 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 03 June 1944, pre entry
Final Vows: 02 February 1959, Clongowes Wood College SJ

Left Society of Jesus: 13 November 1974 (Returned to Dublin Diocese)

by 1949 at Villefranche France (FRA) - studying

◆ The Clongownian, 1997

Obituary

Father Kevin McDowell (formerly SJ)

Kevin McDowell was ordained for the Archdiocese of Dublin and joined the Society of Jesus in 1948. He came to Clongowes in the autumn of 1950 fresh from the Noviciate to succeed a relatively elderly Jesuit as Spiritual Father. In those days the Spiritual Father was responsible for the whole school and Kevin struck us immediately by his youthful energy and enthusiasm. We grew to love his Omagh accent and his sense of fun.

Daily Mass at 7.30 am was compulsory for everyone and it was Kevin's duty to say Mass day in day out. In those days of frequent Confession, he was also available in his room every morning before Mass, as well as on every Saturday evening. From time to time he used also to give talks on “topical” matters - occasionally (especially following “Line matches” in rugby which he might have been called on to referee) making pleas for a decrease in unparliamentary language!

Kevin was a great soccer player and - along with Fr Frewen - was a regular companion on “soccer evenings”. Although always very fair and sporting, he was the sort of player who took no prisoners and was a much feared member of the “Community” XI = in those days there was a sufficient number of able-bodied Jesuits to face the Boys XI, with a little help from one or two “Laymasters”!

More than once Kevin played a very important role in pouring oil on troubled waters, acting as negotiator-cum-peacemaker in differences of opinion between the student body and school administration. On one famous occasion he managed to cram all of the 52 members of Sixth Year into the Spiritual Father's room to parley about a possible resolution of a row which had developed on account of “unacceptable behaviour” in the Refectory!

My own personal memory of Kevin is of a pleasant, if shy, person, gifted with immense patience and a great judge of character. His long years of service to Clongowes were interrupted only by the year of his Tertianship (a final year of spiritual formation in a Jesuit's training). When transferred from Clongowes, Kevin spent time in Mungret College, until its closure was announced. At the end of its penultimate year, Kevin left the Jesuits (with a broken heart? - or so it was said) to return to the Dublin Archdiocese. He served as Parish Priest in a number of parishes in and around Dublin and eventually retired from Ringsend, having reached the age of 75.

He had spent some time convalescing in Cherryfield after a serious cancer operation, and it was that terrible illness which carried him off. I used visit him in the Bullock Harbour Retirement Home and he was so grateful to be remembered, appreciating even the most fleeting call. He often surprised me by his detailed recollection of events in Clongowes over 40 years previously. He never lost his youthfulness and zest for life and he regretted his enforced inactivity. But I will always remember Kevin as ever-young and am grateful to have known him and to have been guided by him during my time as a boy in Clongowes in the 1950s. May he rest in peace.

MLS

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

Left Society of Jesus: 1830

Journalist in “Fraser’s” pseudonym Fr Prout

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

DICTIONARY OF IRISH BIOGRAPHY

Mahony, Francis Sylvester (‘Father Prout’)

Contributed by
Geoghegan, Patrick M.

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 24 September 1909, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1926, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1938, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1944, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 1993, Paris, France

Left Society of Jesus: 23 March 1964

Early education at CBS Synge Street, Dublin

by 1933 at Vals, France (TOLO) studying
by 1936 at Valkenburg, Limburg, Netherlands (GER I) studying

Interfuse No 76 : Christmas 1993

Obituary

Kevin Smyth – former Jesuit priest (1909-1993)

Kevin studied Classics in UCD, finishing with a brilliant MA thesis on Wemer Jaeger's distinction between practical (phrone sis) and theoretical (sophia) wisdom in Aristotle's Nicomachaean Ethics. He studied philosophy in Valkenburg in Holland with the German students of the day. Even though the Jesuits had moved their philosophate to Holland because of Nazi activity in Germany, there was more than a trace of German chauvinism among Kevin's fellow-students. In his final year the coveted honour for the brighter students was to defend the Disputatio during the final year - this was in the heyday of neo-scholasticism. To the chagrin of many, Kevin was picked for this honour. Traditionally, in order to ensure a good show, those making the formal “objections” discussed the gist of what they had prepared with the defendant a few days before the great day. No such courtesy was extended to Kevin. But the objectors paid dearly for this: Kevin with brilliant distinctions and sub-distinctions stopped them in their tracks, so that the occasion became a public humiliation for them, much to the delight of the other non-Germans present. To prolong the occasion some of the professors intervened with the own 'objec tions', but although Kevin spoke with perfect courtesy, they fared... no better. This was a side of Kevin which he seldom revealed. He had a brilliant and incisive mind, but if pushed too far could reveal a lack of patience, almost an attitude of contempt - which he regretted immediately and tried hard to make amends for,

When I moved to Milltown Park in 1955 I was asked to teach the Short' course in dogmatic theology in a three-year cycle. Part of the old presentation of each 'thesis' was the Scriptural proof. Knowing that the whole world of Scripture was moving from for merly entrenched positions, I tried to make sure that I was as up to date as possible. After trying various people I finally settled on Kevin as my scriptural guide. He was a gifted guide, always avail able for consultation, invariably helpful and friendly. To this word which refers to friendship | shall return shortly.

Once he had been appointed to Milltown Park, where he had studied theology, Kevin was assigned to teach the old course of Apologetics; this included at that time an introduction to the Gospels. Here Kevin developed his own encyclopaedic knowledge of Scripture. Where he studied Hebrew I do not know, but he became an expert in it - so much so that he was Mgr Boylan's 'external examiner' for the degree in Oriental Languages in UCD The “Dead Sea Scrolls”, the writings surviving from Qumran, were discovered about this time, and Milltown Park Library was soon enriched with the official facsimile publications of the Scrolls. As well as becoming an expert on the Scrolls, Kevin translated, from the original Dutch, Fr Van Der Ploeg's book on the writings of Qumran. He worked in close cooperation with Professor Driver of Manchester University during this period, and together they combated Allegro's attempts to use the Scrolls in order to undermine the documentation for the origins of Christianity. Kevin wrote for Studies on diverse topics, but never received the publicity and recognition which his work deserved. In another Jesuit Province of that time he would have been given the opportunities he deserved for study and writing; a doctorate would have meant little to Kevin, but some recognition should have been given to him.

On the ordinary level of Jesuit community life Kevin was exemplary, deeply pastoral by inclination, which was revealed in his own pastoral work and especially when he was in charge for many years as sub-minister of “Supplies” from Milltown Park - allotting to many Dublin parishes priests to help out on Sunday. It is true to say that he was deeply respected by the Dublin dioce san clergy for his self-sacrificing willingness to help. On another level he was very proud of being a Synge Street past pupil, and he was a gifted football player, playing in Milltown Park well into his forties - even though he did this at some risk with some of his former pupils concentrating on knocking him out!

When in 1961 I was sent to Rome the excitement of the pre Vatican Il times was just beginning. During the few years that followed Kevin corresponded with me regularly, because I was collecting for him from the Italian and French newspapers any items which might throw light on intra- and extra-conciliar manoeuvers: these I sent on to him every week as he was writing a regular column for some Irish newspaper on Vatican II. But there was little personal in this correspondence. Kevin, in many ways, was a prisoner of his very academic world, in spite of his pastoral ad generous qualities. For him I think that some unforeseen suffering was needed to break open the academic armour. In some ways he was the product of the poorer elements in Jesuit formation in his time.

My last letter from him arrived to accompany investment-transfer documents which I had sent to him for his signature. In this let ter he revealed more humanity than in all the other years I had known him. He wrote: “You do not realize what a paradise you live in, with all its faults”.

Paddy Simpson who visited Kevin in Paris always stressed that “he was a much nicer fellow now”.

Born: 08 August 1899, Lisnagry, County Limerick
Entered: 31 August 1916, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 06 August 1925

by 1921 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1923 Régis College, Montpelier, France (TOLO) Regency

Born: 07 May 1886, Coleraine, County Derry
Entered: 08 September 1903, Manresa, Roehampton, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1919
Died: 31 October 1918, Awoingt, Hauts-de-France, France (in war)- Angliae Province (ANG)

22nd Brigade, Royal Garrison Artillery

https://www.flintshirewarmemorials.com/memorials/tremeichion-memorial/tremeichion-soldiers/montague-walter-philip/

Montagu, Walter Philip

Walter was born on the 7th May 1886 at Portstewart near Londonderry.

David Littler Jones tells us that he was the 5th son of seven boys. Their parents were Lt Com Robert Acheson Crombie Montagu and Annie Margaret Montagu (nee McMicking), of Crowmore, Portstewart, Co Londonderry.

Walter entered the Society of Jesus in 1903 and went to St Bueno’s College, Tremeirchion in 1915 to study theology. He was ordained early so he could join the forces as an army chaplain and was attached to the 22nd Brigade, Royal Garrison Artillery. He enlisted on the 17th March 1918 and served in France. He was wounded in his thighs and taken to the 45th casualty clearing station near Avoingt on 28th October. He died of his severe wounds on the 31st October 1918, just before the end of the war.

Walter Philip Montagu left a will. The England and Wales National Probate Calendar,( index of wills and administration) includes the following entry –

” Montagu. The Rev Walter of St Bueno’s College St Asaph, temporary chaplain HM Forces died 31st October 1918 in France or Belgium. Probate London 9 July to Rev Joseph Edward Blackett clerk. effects £1,166 ..11sh ..10d

He is buried in the British Cemetery at Avoingt. His younger brother, Alexander Cyril Montagu, a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, was killed in an accidental explosion on the battleship HMS Bulwark off Skegness harbour on 26th November 1914 when over 750 crew members were killed.

Born:1528, Limerick, County Limerick
Entered: c 1550, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Died: 28 June 1578, County Clare

Left Society of Jesus: 1578??

◆ Rev. Edmund Hogan SJ : “Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century” - London : Burns and Oates, Limited, New York, Cincinnati : Chicago, Benzinger Brothers, 1894 : Quarterly Series : Volume Ninety

Father David Woulfe

It is universally acknowledged that “in the sixth and seventh centuries Ireland reached a high degree of learning and culture which were diffused by her innumerable missionaries throughout all Europe”. (1) But only those who are acquainted with the byways of Irish history are aware that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Ireland produced very many remarkable men of world-wide reputation. Perhaps, few Irishmen of our times know even the name of Father Richard Fleming, S.J., who was Chancellor of the University of Pont à-Mousson, and for his extraordinary ability was selected by the Society to replace the celebrated Maldonatus, as professor of theology in the College of Clermont at Paris. Fewer still have heard of the four Waddings of Waterford, all men of distinction of the same period, of the same family and of the same Order, one of whom, Peter, was Chancellor of two German Universities at one and the same time. How many, save the erudite Bishop Reeves and Cardinal Moran, know anything of Stephen White, S.J., so much praised by Ussher and many other competent judges, and styled “Polyhistor”, on account of the vastness of his erudition? It is time to put before our readers, on both sides of the Atlantic, sketches of these and other long forgotten worthies, who by their talent, labours, and virtues shed lustre on the land of their birth. I propose first of all to write of the members of the Society of Jesus; afterwards I shall give biographies of laymen, learned bishops, priests, and members of religious orders, of one of which the Bollandist De Buck significantly says: “The Order of St. Francis has produced a great number of savants and historians ; but has it produced historians more erudite than Wadding, Ward, Fleming, Colgan, and O'Sherrin, all of them Irish Franciscans?” (2)

One of the kindly influences under which Irish intellect and talent were allowed to develope them selves in the sixteenth century was the Apostolic charity of St. Ignatius of Loyola. In the year 1555 he wrote to Cardinal Pole: “There is in the German College one Englishman of good natural ability, and in our Roman College one Irishman of great promise. If your Eminence should think proper to send from those islands some talented youths to either of these Colleges, I entertain a hope that they could soon return home well equipped with learning and virtue, and with a supreme veneration for the Holy See. We have thought it our duty to make this proposal under the impulse of a great desire to be of service to the souls of those kingdoms-a desire which the Divine and Sovereign Charity has communicated to our heart”. On the feast of St. Patrick, 1604, St. Ignatius' successor, Father General Aquaviva, expressed his wish, that “by all means Irishmen should be admitted into the Society, as they seem formed for our Institute by their humility, obedience, charity, and learning, in all which, according to the testimonies that come from all quarters, the Irish very much excel”. Finally, in the year 1652, all the Fathers of the tenth General Congregation assembled at Rome unanimously decreed on the feast of St. Patrick, that every Province of the Society should undertake to have always one Irish Jesuit in training at its own expense for the distinguished Mission of Ireland. (3)

It is remarkable that the year, in which this kindlier influence radiated from the heart of St. Ignatius, was that in which war was first waged against the education of Irishmen. Father FitzSimon, S.J., in his Preface to his Treatise on the Mass, writes in the year 1611: “From about the year 1555, as is well known, these late heresies by force, never by voluntary allowance, oppressed religion in our country, banished teachers, extinguished learning, exiled to foreign countries all instruction, and forced our youth either at home to be ignorant, or abroad in poverty rather to glean ears of learning than with leisure to reap any abundance thereof. Yet such as travelled to foreign countries, notwithstanding all difficulties often attained to singular perfection and reputation of learning in sundry sciences, to principal titles of universities, to high prelacies, of whom some are yet living, some departed in peace. Seventeen years ago, Christopher Cusacke, a man of honourable descent and alliance with the noblest ranks, of great virtue, zeal, and singular sincerity, yet inexperienced in foreign countries, meanly languaged, and meanly furnished for a building to reach this height, began to assemble and maintain our young students in this place of Douay, wherein at this instant I am resident. It cannot be imagined how much since that time the obscurity of our nation's renown hath been diminished, and the glory thereof increased; how much the name of Ireland has become venerable, nay, admirable for peculiar towardness to learning, forwardness to virtue, modesty of conversation, facility to be governed, consent among themselves, and prompt ness to all that might be exacted, yea, or in reason expected, of any of most complete and conform able education or condition. Let none think that any partial affection has had place in this attestation, considering such to be the public and private letters patent and testimonies of princes, prelates, universities, cities and colleges, extant to all men's view ; so that little may rather seem affirmed than their desert duly declared. I omit to speak of other Irish seminaries in Spain of no less commendation, increase and account”. In another book Father FitzSimon thus addresses his Father General, Aquaviva : “I proclaim that I am greatly indebted to you for the immense services rendered to myself and to my country. To us you have been not only a Father General, as you are to all the members of our Society, but you have wished to be our Father Assistant by the special care you have taken of us. With what solicitude have you not rescued us from the greatest difficulties! What shelter and comfort did you not afford us when we were abandoned on every side! With what an open heart you have admitted our candidates; at what expense have you not nursed our sick and infirm, with what wholesome advice you have cheered us while we were fighting the good fight! Under your auspices, in spite of a thousand obstacles, we possess in Spain alone three seminaries, from which the waters of the faith in cessantly flow over to our kingdom and the neigh bouring islands”. (4)

I shall now proceed to lay before the reader some sketches of Irish Jesuits, who distinguished themselves in the first century of the Society of Jesus.

David Woulfe was received into the Society by its holy founder some time between the years 1541 änd 1551. He was born in Limerick, about the year 1520, in which city men of his name held the office of mayor in the sixteenth century, and from which, in 1594, “a hundred tall men went to ye North under the leadinge of David Woulfe, captaine”, to fight for Elizabeth against the formidable O'Neills. Under the leading of David Woulfe, S.J., Ireland successfully resisted the inroads of the heresy of which Elizabeth was the head. He was, says Cardinal Moran, “one of the most remarkable men who, during the first years of Elizabeth's, reign, laboured in our Irish Church to gather together the scattered stones of the sanctuary”. (5) He spent seven years in Rome, where he became a professed Father. What work he was engaged in there I have not been able to ascertain; but before the year 1560 he had been long and much employed in “evangelical expeditions”. In 1557 he was Rector of the College of Modena; in 1559 he was sent to the Valtelline to found a college there, and to perform other duties of the ministry. In 1560, Cardinal Morone, founder of the College of Modena, and Protector of Ireland, seeing that Elizabeth had declared herself in favour of the new heresy, thought it necessary that a pious and prudent man should be sent to Ireland to examine into the state of religion, to confirm laymen and ecclesiastics in the practice of piety and in obedience to the Holy See, and to preserve the Irish people in the profession of the true faith of their fathers. Father Woulfe was considered most fit for such a difficult task; he had all the necessary qualities, he knew his country and countrymen well, and had long practice and much experience in evangelical expeditions.(6) He had already settled the affairs confided to him in the Valtelline, and with Father Possevino was engaged in useful labours at Fossano, when he was called to Rome. The Pope wished to consecrate him a bishop, and send him home with the full powers of an Apostolic Nuncio. But the General, Father Laynez, requested that as a member of the Society he should not be made a bishop, and he suggested that he could thus work more freely, and would give less umbrage to the enemies of the Catholic faith. The Pope consented, but gave him plenary powers, commissioned him to examine what sees were vacant, and to recommend to His Holiness proper persons to fill them. His Superiors charged him to visit the chief Catholics of the kingdom, and specially the four principal Princes, or Lords; to visit all the bishops and the parish priests; and even to risk his life, if necessary, in the discharge of his duties for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. He left Rome on the 11th of August, 1560, with another Irish Jesuit named Edmund.. At Nantes he was taken for a Lutheran, and imprisoned and otherwise harassed for four days; at St. Malo, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his companion, he put his luggage on board a vessel, and journeyed on foot to Bordeaux, and thus his life was spared for the good of his country, as the ship with its crew and cargo was lost. Though dreadful storms were raging at that time and had wrecked many goodly vessels, in spite of the warnings of his friends he sailed from Bordeaux, and reached Cork on January 21, 1561, having been four months on his journey from Rome. When he had secretly made known the object of his mission, crowds of men and women came from all parts, even from a distance of sixty miles, to get his blessing and settle the affairs of their consciences. In accordance with the earnest wish of St. Ignatius, he selected and sent many Irish youths to Rome. In compliance with the mandate of the Pope, he sought out and recommended learned and pious priests to fill the vacant sees; and the names of Richard Creagh of Armagh, Donall MacCongail of Raphoe, Owen O’Hairt of Achonry, Morogh MacBriain of Emly, Conor O’Cervallain, and Nicholas Landes, not to mention others, are a guarantee of the fidelity with which he carried out the orders of the Holy See. He resided for the most part in his native diocese, yet visited Tirone, and Shân the Proud, Prince of Ulster, and traversed the various regions of Ulster and Connacht; but on account of the “wars” and the many dangers of falling into the hands of English agents and spies, he could not enter the precincts of the Pale, and accordingly, in 1561, he delegated his jurisdiction to Father Newman, of the archdiocese of Dublin.

In that very year, Father Woulfe's mission was mentioned by Elizabeth to the Pope's Ambassador as one of her reasons for not sending representatives to the Council of Trent. Her Majesty's priest hunters were on his track, yet he managed to visit the great Irish lords, to ascertain whether the bishops resided in their dioceses and instructed their flocks, to see how the clergy administered the sacraments, to guard the faithful against the contagion of heresy, and to bring heretical ministers back to the fold. He had been charged by the Pope to establish grammar schools, provide Catholic masters for them, and urge parents to send their children to be instructed in literature, and in the knowledge of the saving truths of faith; he was also, if possible, to establish monasteries, hospitals, and places of refuge for the poor, and he was ordered to acquaint the Holy See with the real state of the Irish Church. As Cardinal Moran writes, “the course traced out in these instructions was exactly pursued by Father Woulfe, and his letters clearly demonstrate how indefatigable he was in his labours, and how unceasingly he struggled to restore the Irish Church to its primitive comeliness and fervour”.

The monastic schools had been swept away, and no mere Irishman or Catholic could, without risking liberty or life, teach the rudiments of literature or religion. To meet this want of intellectual culture, the Holy Father, in 1564, empowered Primate Creagh and David Woulfe to erect colleges throughout the kingdom, and to found a University like those of Paris. and Louvain. For this purpose Dr. Creagh had petitioned the Holy See to send Jesuit Fathers into Ireland. (7) However, the Primate and Nuncio were not able to carry out the commands of the Pope, as the agents of England were in sharp pursuit of them. A priest hunter, named Bird, wrote to Lord Burghley: “If the surprising of Creagh and some other Romish Legates of the Irishíry, with some English Jesuits (8) lately arrived, may be an inducement to Her Majesty's gracious favours, I shall, shorten the number of these importunate members, by whom others of their sort may be disordered in England, passing and repassing to and fro”. The Primate and Father Woulfe were captured and imprisoned in Dublin Castle in the year 1567. On the 13th of March of the following year, St. Pius the Fifth wrote to his Nuncio at Madrid : “We have been informed that Our venerable brother, the Archbishop of Armagh, who, as you are aware, is Primate of Ireland, has been cast into prison in the Tower of London, and that Our beloved son David, of the Society of Jesus, is also closely confined in the City of Dublin, and that both of them are treated with the utmost severity. Their sufferings overwhelm Us with affliction, on account of their singular merit and their zeal for the Catholic faith. . . . You will therefore use every endeavour with His Catholic Majesty, and urge and request and solicit in Our name letters from him to his Ambassador and to the Queen, to obtain the liberation of these prisoners”.

The mediation of the King of Spain was without effect, as Dr. Creagh remained a prisoner for life, and Father Woulfe was confined in Dublin Castle for five years. A good deal has been said of the horrors of prison life in modern times; but what are they to life in the cells in which Dr. Creagh and Father Woulfe were buried? Father Houling S.J., in his history of the Irish martyrs of his own time, says that Dr. Creagh was kept in a very dark underground cell of Dublin Castle, into which the light of the sun never penetrated, and in which he was not allowed the light of a candle. In a letter written by Dr. Creagh from the Tower “to the Right Honourable the Lords and others of the Queen's Majesty's Privy Council”,' he thus explains why he made his escape from the Dublin prison : “Which my going away I think no man would wonder that should know well how I was dealt therein withal; first in a hole, where without candle there was no light in the world, and with candle (when I had it) it was so filled with the smoke thereof (chiefly in summer), that, had there not been a little hole in ye next door to draw in breath with my mouth set upon it, I had been soon undone. My dwelling in this Tower the first time for more than a month's space might may-chance make a strong man to wish liberty, if for his life he could ... but foregoing further rehearsal of bearing almost these eight years irons, with one of my legs (as the beholders can judge) lost by the same, of my manifold sickness, colics, ... loss of all my big teeth, save two, and daily sore rheumes and many other like miseries”....

We are not aware that Father Woulfe suffered so much in health as his friend the Primate; but that his cell was not very comfortable we may gather from the fact, that when Bishop Thomas (Leverous of Kildare) had gained access to him, he could not stand the horrible stench of the place, and went away without being able to transact any business. We learn this from a letter written from prison by David Woulfe, a copy of which was discovered by the learned Brother Foley, S.J., among the Roman transcripts of the Public Record Office. (9) Here are a few extracts from this interesting document : “James Fitzmaurice, of the House of Desmond, remains in this country and governs Munster in the fear of God. He is young, a good Catholic, and a valiant captain. He was desirous to enter a religious order, but was prevailed on to remain at home for the good of his native land. Donail Aenoc Senez (O'Connor Sligo?), a great friend of Father Woulfe, was received with much honour by the English Queen, and has returned to Dublin with great power, and has promised to use his influence with the Viceroy to procure Father Woulfe's liberation from prison. This Father has been visited in his cell by Bishop Thomas (Leverous of Kildare); but his lordship, not being able to bear the horrid stench of the place, was obliged to go away without transacting any business. The Primate is kept in irons in an underground, dark, and horrible prison, where no one is allowed to speak to him or to see him except his keeper. He has many sores on his body, and, although not over forty-four years of age, has lost all his teeth. He has been many times brought before the magistrates, but in spite of threats, torrents, and promises of great honours and dignities, he ‘looks on all things as filth, that he may gain Jesus Christ’. All men, and, most of all, his enemies, are much amazed at his extraordinary fortitude and constancy in the Catholic faith. From his boyhood he has despised the pleasures of this world, and has treated his body with great penitential severity. Many things could be said of the integrity and holy life of this great man, but it is not convenient to write them at present : they will be told in their own place and time, as they cannot be concealed, since the Lord has manifested to the world a servant of His who possesses such eminent qualities. This holy prelate, in the presence of Father Woulfe and other persons, foretold to Shân O’Neill the circumstances of his death, specifying the year, month, place, and persons. O'Neill turned the nobles of Tirone against himself by his tyrannous conduct; he was defeated at Cumloch, where he lost six hundred men; on May 9, 1561, he was again vanquished by Hugh O”Donnell, while passing a river near Fearsidmor, where he lost eight thousand men and seventy-four of the noblest and bravest men of Tirone. He then took refuge among the heretics of Scotland, and was barbarously murdered by them. O'Donnell has ravaged the country of O'Connor Sligo, to punish him, whom he claims to be his vassal, for having gone over to the Court of the English Queen”.
Father Woulfe escaped from his loathsome prison in the month of October, 1572, and, accompanied by Sir Rice Corbally and the son of James Fitzmaurice, took refuge in Spain; but before his departure he received the Protestant Bishop of Limerick into the true Church, as appears from a State Paper published some years ago by Lord Emly; it was discovered by Mr. Froude, and transcribed by Dr. Maziere Brady. It runs thus : “I, William Cahessy, priest, some time named Bishop of the diocese of Limerick, yet nothing canonically consecrated, but by the schismatical authority of Edward, King of England, schismatically preferred to the bishopric of Limerick aforesaid, wherein I confess to have offended my Creator. I renounce also, if I might have the same, the bishopric of Limerick, and the charge and administration of the said cure; also other benefits and privileges received from the said Edward, or other heretics and schismatics. And I draw unto the said Holy and Universal Church, and do bow myself unto her laws, and I embrace the Reverend Lord David Woulfe, appointed the Apostolic Messenger for all Ireland from the Most Holy Lord the Pope. And I pray and beseech that, as a lost child, he receive me again into the bosom of the holy mother the Church, and that he will absolve mne from all ecclesiastical sentences, censures, punishments, heresies, rules, and every blot, dispense with me and reconcile me again to the unity of the same Church”.

According to a letter of the filibuster, Sir Peter Carew, to the Privy Council, and another letter in the State Paper Office, “Sir Davy Wolf, an arrant traitor, fled from Dublin, is gone to Spain, and carried with him the son of James Fitzmaurice, accompanied by Sir Rice Corbally”. However, he soon returned to the former field of his labours, landed at Tarbert, and in 1575 was once more engaged in visiting and consoling the Catholics of Ireland. In that year his fellow-citizen and brother Jesuit, Edmund O'Donnell, was hanged, drawn, and quartered for the Faith. Father Woulfe was denied that great happiness, and from that year he begins to fade away from our view. He was in Ireland in 1575, 1576, 1577, and 1578, in which year also he was at Lisbon and at Paris, and seems to have returned to his native land again, as Dr. Lynch, the author of Camorensis Eversus, (10) says, “I have heard that Father Woulfe was a man of extraordinary piety, who fearlessly denounced crime whenever and wherever committed. When the whole country was embroiled in war, he took refuge in the Castle of Clonoan, on the borders of Clare and Galway; but when he heard that its occupants lived by plunder, he scrupled to take any nourishment from them, and soon after grew sick and died”. He died, probably, at the end of 1578 or the beginning of 1579, as he is not mentioned in the detailed correspondence of 1579 or afterwards, during the eventful period of the second Desmond war. The last years of the life of this extraordinary man are involved in an obscurity which I tried to penetrate a quarter of a century ago, by consulting the original documents in Rome. I failed to get at them, on account of circumstances over which neither I nor any one else had control. What a chequered life was that of this most distinguished, perhaps, of all the citizens of Limerick! He first comes into view as Rector of the Jesuit College of Modena, he establishes a College in the Valtelline, declines the dignity of Bishop, and the pomp and circumstance of a nunziatura (11) and through perils on sea and land, journeying through woods and bogs, in a loathsome prison, “through good and ill he was Ireland's still”, and amidst the distracting political issues that tore Ireland piecemeal, he sought nothing but the good of his country, provided her with prelates of the most distinguished merit, and instructed and comforted her faithful people. His is a name of which the citizens of Limerick should be proud, and which the sea-divided Gael would not willingly let die. By Stanihurst, his contemporary, he is called a distinguished divine, and is by him classed among “the learned men and authors of Ireland”. Of the Limerick Woulfes', who now “all, all are gone”, one was bailiff of that city the year Father David went to reside there as Nuncio (as he is always styled by his friend, Primate Creagh); another was mayor in the year of Father David's death; a third, “David Wolfe, gentleman, black hair, middle stature”, was transplanted by the Cromwellians in 1563; and another member of that stock was the famous General Wolfe, who died in the moment of victory at Quebec.

https://www.dib.ie/biography/wolfe-david-a9107

DICTIONARY OF IRISH BIOGRAPHY

Contributed by
Barry, Judy

Wolfe, David (1528–c.1578), leader of the second Jesuit mission to Ireland, was born in Limerick. His command of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese strongly suggests that he was educated on the Continent, but he is first recorded as dean of the diocesan chapter in Limerick. He was received into the Society of Jesus in Rome in 1554 and resigned the deanery in June 1555. On 30 April 1558 Ignatius Loyola appointed him rector of the College of Modena. On 2 August 1560 an effort to revive the morale and discipline of the catholic church in Ireland was initiated with the appointment of Wolfe as papal commissary (the title of nuncio being withheld at the request of his superior, Diego Lainez) with instructions to establish schools, hospitals and places of refuge for the poor where possible, to reform monasteries, and to recommend suitable candidates for bishoprics and deaneries; as a corollary, Irishmen seeking preferment were prohibited from travelling to Rome without his approval. Wolfe arrived in Cork on 20 January 1561 on his way to Limerick, where he intended to establish his base, but was forced into hiding when he learned that the government had ordered his arrest. His initial report of his reception by the laity was optimistic, noting that he had dealt with over a thousand marriage dispensations in the first six months.

The clergy, however, were less responsive. A number of the bishops countered his order to abandon their concubines by challenging his authority as papal commissary and refusing him the right of visitation to their churches. His sole right to sanction visits to Rome in search of promotion was particularly resented, and as early as 12 October 1561 he found it necessary to warn Cardinal Morone (the protector of Ireland in the curia) against Irish clerics who claimed to have no knowledge of Wolfe or his authority in Ireland. Wolfe's powers of recommendation were central to the success of his mission, and the appointments of O'Crean (qv) (Elphin), O'Harte (qv) (Achonry) and MacGongail (Raphoe), all on 28 January 1562, began the process of bringing the church hierarchy in Ireland into the mainstream of Tridentine reform. In the same year, Wolfe sent his reluctant fellow townsman, Richard Creagh (qv) to Rome from which he was to return two years later as archbishop of Armagh with faculties which extended the scope of what now became their joint mission. In the meantime, Wolfe had both recruited seven new candidates for the Jesuits and sent them to various houses on the Continent and, in 1563, drawn up a religious rule of life for a group of Limerick women, who became known as ‘Menabochta' (mna bochta, poor women) and gave rise to scandalous rumours assiduously spread by his episcopal opponents.

Wolfe asked to be recalled in 1563, but the new faculties issued by Pope Paul IV in 1564 prevented Lainez from dealing with his request. Later in the year, however, Wolfe's authority lapsed as a result of the pope's death and it was decided to recall him. It is not known when news of this decision reached Wolfe, but it is clear that he was not in a position to act upon it. In October 1565, the assize judges issued a warrant for his arrest and a reward of £100 was offered for information leading to his capture. He fled across the Shannon and led the life of a penniless fugitive in the neighbourhood of Limerick, his difficulties aggravated by his reluctance to leave Ireland without repaying the substantial debts that he had incurred.

Hearing that Richard Creagh had returned to Ireland after his escape from the Tower of London, Wolfe made his way to Armagh where they met on 6 January 1567. Since Wolfe was no longer a papal commissary, Creagh made him his vicar general and commissioned him to conduct a visitation of the metropolitan sees. At a meeting of the northern bishops, Creagh also secured a condemnation of the rumours concerning Wolfe and the house for women in Limerick. Wolfe's financial circumstances and the restraints on his freedom of movement made it difficult for him to carry out his duties and he decided to ease his position by suing for a pardon from the viceroy.

Using Hugh O'Donnell (qv) as an intermediary he arranged to see the lord deputy, Sir Henry Sidney (qv), at Carrickfergus. The meeting was friendly and Sidney promised that if Wolfe came to Dublin he would arrange for a pardon to be issued. When Sidney put the matter to the Irish council in Dublin, however, the protestant bishops demanded that before a pardon was granted Wolfe should declare the pope an Antichrist and submit to the queen as supreme head of the church. Wolfe refused these terms and was committed to Dublin castle in October 1567. For a while he attended to the spiritual needs of the other prisoners, but when it became obvious to the authorities that he would not change his views he was put in solitary confinement in an underground cell.

Wolfe escaped in 1572, but it was not till September 1573 that he set sail for Portugal, accompanied, significantly, by the 7-year old son of the rebel James fitz Maurice Fitzgerald (qv), who had submitted earlier in the year. His departure was facilitated by an Irish merchant who agreed to pay his debts on condition of immediate repayment on reaching Lisbon. Lisbon proved to be a troubled refuge. The Jesuit house was unable to provide the large sum required and the Dublin merchant complained publicly of the order's bad faith. More serious were accusations by an Irish student at the University of Coimbra that Wolfe had fathered a child in Ireland, taken bribes, and secured his release from prison by swearing to obey the queen's laws. Most serious was the intervention of the Jesuit general who blocked the payment of the debt, partly to allow the student's charges to be investigated, but largely because he was made aware of the possibility that the money was to be used to buy munitions. It is likely that this was suggested by Wolfe's frame of mind, but it was grounded on the facts that he was known to be writing a book in which he intended to show the king of Spain how to conquer Ireland and that he had met the Spanish ambassador, Juan Borgia, on several occasions with a view to persuading Philip II to support fitz Maurice's son at the Jesuit college in Lisbon.

Wolfe was formally warned by the procurator for the mission in Lisbon that he must not bring disrepute to the society by involving himself in matters of war. Nonetheless, in October 1574 he left Lisbon for Madrid, hoping to persuade Philip II and the papal nuncio to advance money for fitz Maurice's projected invasion of Ireland. He returned in March 1575 to the Jesuit house at Evora, Portugal, where his openly declared intention of collecting arms for fitz Maurice was seen as wholly inappropriate for a priest. The Portuguese provincial ordered that he should be confined to the house, but with the influence of both King Philip and the pope behind him Wolfe was able to free himself and he joined fitz Maurice in Saint-Malo in the summer of 1575. He subsequently visited Spain and went on to Rome, which he left in the company of fitz Maurice in February 1577.

He is said to have left the Jesuits during this period, but as late as June 1578 the general of the order wrote that he would be ‘glad of any employment for old David Wolfe' (CSPI, 1574–85, 136). It is likely that Wolfe died shortly afterwards. He was not among those who accompanied fitz Maurice to Ireland in June 1579 and nothing further is recorded of him.

Sources
Irish Jesuit archives (Leeson St., Dublin), MacErlean transcripts; CSPI, 1509–82; CSP Rome, 1572–8; DNB; Memorials of the Irish province, S.J., i, no. 6 (1903); Proinsias Ó Fionnagáin, SJ, The Jesuit missions to Ireland in the sixteenth century (c.1970; privately published); C. Lennon, An Irish prisoner of conscience (2000); Brendan Bradshaw (ed.), ‘Father Wolfe's description of Limerick city, 1574', North Munster Antiquarian Journal (1975), 47–53

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
WOULFE, DAVID, had been Chaplain to James Maurice Desmond de Giraldinis, as I find from that nobleman’s letter, dated from St. Malo, the 31st of January, 1576. The Father had returned to Ireland.

◆ Edmund Hogan SJ, CatChrn
Rector of Modena College;
Nuncio to Ireland;
Prisoner;
Writer;

Classed by Stanihurst among “the learned men and authors of Ireland and as a distinguished divine”.

A man of great reputation for austered sincerity

Had been Chaplain to James Fitzmaurice, of Desmond de Geraldinis, as appears by a letter from that nobleman, dated St Malo 31/01/1576, expressing his gratitude to the Society for having given him the letters of aggregation to the prayers and good works of the Order, through the petition and recomendation of Fr William Good. The Father had returned to Ireland. (Oliver from Stonyhurst MSS)

Examination of Richard Creagh, Archbishop of Armagh, prisoner in the Tower of London, printed in Shirley’s original leters and papers respecting the Church in Ireland - London, Rivington, 1851 p171 :
“Touching him whome he calleth the Pope’s Nuncio, doth answer that the said Nuncio came from Rome about four years since August last past (the date is March 16th 1564/5) and hath made his continual abode all the said time in Ireland, called by name David Wolfe, born in Limerick where the examinate also was born. And further he saith that the said David Wolfe hath been about seven years abiding in Rome, and was a Jesuite there professed, and sent from the Pope by obedience into ireland, by commission to see what Bishops did their duties there, and wgat sees were void and ... having asked where the Nuncio doth commonly keep in Ireland, he saith that he doth secretly come to Limerick, and hath been this last summer in Tyrone with Shane O’Neill as he heard, and the letters that he received were delivered unto him in Limerick, in the presence of a Priest called Sir Thomas Molam”.

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
WOLFE, or WOULFE, DAVID, Father, of Limerick (Irish); entered the Society about 1550, and died after 1578. (Hogan's list and eulogia Ibernia Ignatiana. He had been Chaplain to James Fitzmaurice, of Desmond de Geraldinis, as appears by a letter from that nobleman, dated St. Malo, January 31, 1576, expressing his gratitude to the Society for having given him letters of aggrega tion to the prayers and good works of the Order, through the petition and recommendation of Father William Good. The Father had returned to Ireland, (Oliver, from Stonyhurst M53:) Examination of Richard Creagh, Archbishop of Armagh, prisoner in the Tower, printed in Shirley's original letters and papers respecting the Church in Ireland, London, Rivington, 1851, p. 171. "Touching him whom he calleth the Pope's Nuncio, doth answer that the said Nuncio came from Rome about four years since August last past (the datc is March 16, 1564-5), and hath made his continual abode all the said time in Ireland, called by name David Wolle, born in Limerick, where the examinate also was born. And further he saith that the said David Wolfe hath been about seven years abiding in Rome, and was a Jcsuite there professed, and sent from the Pope by obedience into Ireland, by commission to see what Bishops did their duties there, and what sees were void; and ... having asked where the Nuncio doth commonly keep in Ireland, he saith that he doth secretly come to Limerick, and hath been this last summer in Tyrone with Shanç O'Ncil as he heard, and the letters that he received were delivered unto him in Limerick, in the presence of a Priest called Sir Thomas Molam.' At p. 128 of the same book are faculties granted to Father Newman, Priest, of Dublin, dated Limerick, December 7, 1563, beginning, "David Wolfe, Priest $.j., and Commissarius of Our Most Holy Lord Pius Papa IV., to the most illustrious Princes and the whole Kingdom of Ireland." He had been Rector of the College at Modena, and was once in prison. (Father Hogan's list).

◆ Memorials of the Irish Province SJ June 1902 1.6

A Brief Memoir of Father Alfred Murphy SJ - by Matthew Russell SJ

Father David Wolfe SJ

Seemingly on the Continent, about the end of the year 1578 or beginning of 1579, died Father David Wolfe, a native of Limerick. He may be looked upon as the pioneer Jesuit of the Irish Mission, having been the first member of the Society, after Fathers Brouet and Salmeron, to labour in Ireland. After having spent seven years in Rome, and been Rector of the College of Modena, he was at the instance of Pope Paul IV., who made him Apostolic Nuncio, sent by Father Lainez to Ireland, where he landed at Cork on the 20th January, 1561. On hearing of his arrival vast numbers flocked from places as much as sixty miles distant to receive his ministrations, Cardinal Moran speaks of him as “one of the most remarkable men who, during the first years of Elizabeth's reign, laboured in the Irish Church to gather together the scattered stones of the Sanctuary”. He came to Ireland with plenary powers from the Pope to examine what sees were vacant, and to recommend fitting persons to fill them. Moreover, he was charged to visit the chief Catholics of the kingdom, especially the four principal princes or lords, to visit the bishops and parish priests, to establish grammar schools, provide teachers, found, if possible, monasteries, hospitals, and places of refuge for the poor, and to inform the Holy See of the real condition of the Irish Church. He was also empowered to establish an Irish University in conjunction with the Primate. In 1567 the Primate and Father Wolfe were captured and imprisoned in the Castle of Dublin. In the following year Pope St. Pius V. wrote to his Nuncio in Madrid: “We have been informed that our venerable, brother the Archbishop of Armagh has been cast into prison .... and that our beloved son, David, of the Society of Jesus, is also closely confined in the city of Dublin, and that both of them are treated with the utmost severity. Their sufferings overwhelm us : with affliction, on account of their singular merit, and their zeal for the Catholic faith”. Father Wolfe endured the sufferings of a loathsome prison for five years, after which he made his escape to Spain, accompanied by Sir Rice Corbally. In 1575 he again returned to Ireland, where, for the three following years he laboured among his afflicted countrymen. His portrait is preserved in the Irish College at Salamanca. Father Hogan asserts that he died in the county of Clare in Ireland.

Born: 14 May 1942, Bunnacurry, Achill, County Mayo
Entered: 07 September 1959, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 23 June 1972, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 25 April 1985, Iona, Portadown, County Down
Died: 12 December, 2010, Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill, CA, USA (Oakland Diocese)

Left Society of Jesus: 1999

Educated at Mungret College SJ

by 1965 at Chantilly France (GAL S) studying
by 1974 at Cambridge MA, USA (NEB) working
by 1975 at Berkeley CA, USA (CAL) studying
by 1981 at Oakland CA, USA (CAL) making Tertianship
by 1993 at San Ramon CA, USA (CAL) working
by 1996 at Fremont CA, USA (CAL) working
by 1996 at Moraga CA, USA (CAL) working

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/teacher-of-ecumenics-and-pastoral-worker-in-north-1.588845

Teacher of ecumenics and pastoral worker in North

FR DECLAN Deane, who has died aged 68, was best known in Ireland for his work as a teacher at the Irish Schol of Ecumenics

FR DECLAN DEANE:FR DECLAN Deane, who has died aged 68, was best known in Ireland for his work as a teacher at the Irish School of Ecumenics and his pastoral work with the Jesuit community in Portadown, near the Garvaghy Road.

Director of the school’s Northern Ireland programme, he believed that as far as a church followed the example of Jesus, it was a distinctly Christian church. It was Christian when it refused to acquiesce in the boundaries imposed by a politically segregated society but took a lead in breaking through them.

In 1983, he urged Catholic clergy and people to take the lead in crossing the boundaries as they had greater freedom to do so.

A strong critic of paramilitary violence and its apologists, he nevertheless signed a letter of protest against strip-searching in Northern Ireland’s prisons. Likewise, he was, in 1988, a signatory to a letter deploring the British government’s decision to conceal the findings of a report into the killings of six unarmed men in 1982.

His talents were multiple and often unexpected – a national champion at Scrabble, a passionate observer of horse racing and a prodigious memory for cards – so much so that he was banned from some tables in Las Vagas.

Declan Deane was born in Dublin in 1942 but grew up on Achill Island and was educated at Mungret College, Limerick. He began his two-year novitiate in 1959. He then went to UCD after which he studied philosophy at Chantilly near Paris and theology at Milltown Park, Dubin, where he was ordained in 1972.

After ordination he became one of the first students at the recently-established School of Ecumenics, and graduated in 1973 with the Hull University postgraduate degree of B.Phil. He pursued doctoral studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Berkeley, California.

During this time he developed a special interest in the ecumenical theology of the French Jesuit theologian, Henri de Lubac (later to be made a cardinal), with particular reference to his understanding of Buddhism.

In 1980 he was appointed lecturer in continuing education at the School of Ecumenics and for most of the 1980s taught in the school’s certificate course of the then New University of Ulster.

He lived as a member of the Jesuit community in the Garvaghy estate in Portadown. Very popular as a teacher and as a priest, he enjoyed the friendship of Catholics and Protestants, nationalists and unionists.

In 1989 he moved to Dublin where he did youth retreat work.However, in search of more theological freedom than he felt in Ireland (he was always a strong advocate of women priests), he moved to California in 1992. Later he formally left the Jesuits to become a diocesan priest in the diocese of Oakland, California.

He enjoyed pastoral work and was popular with all his parishioners. He is remembered for his dry sense of humour, thought-provoking homilies and easy-going manner. He was most recently attached to Christ the King Church, Pleasant Hill, California.

https://gladysganiel.com/irish-catholic-church/in-memory-of-fr-declan-deane/

In Memory of Fr Declan Deane

Fr Declan Deane, a former lecturer and student at the Irish School of Ecumenics, passed away this week of cancer. Fr Deane was serving at Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill, California.

A native of Dublin, he grew up on Achill Island and was ordained a Jesuit in 1972. He was one of the first students to enrol on the Irish School of Ecumenics’ programme in Dublin. During the 1980s he lived as a Jesuit in Portadown and taught on the Irish School of Ecumenics’ Adult Education course in Northern Ireland.

Fr Deane immigrated to the US in 1992 and worked in five parishes before his death. A memorial on the Christ the King webpage describes him this way:

Despite his struggle with esophageal cancer, despite his being first on chemo and then a seven month hospice patient, Declan steadily did more and more rather than less and less. He continued to take his turn at weekly confessions; he returned to weekday masses especially with our school children, including the classroom preparation that went with that. Just a few short days before his death, he preached at all six weekend masses, concelebrated three and was outside greeting and visiting with parishioners for all the masses. To that he added the Monday morning mass and two days with visits to school and classrooms. To those who advised him to slow down and do less, his response was , “that is the way I want to be remembered” and “when I promise I’m going to do something and be somewhere, I always do it”.

I never met Fr Deane. But I can appreciate the energy and dedication that he must have exhibited in helping to get the ISE’s Northern Irish work off the ground. He is remembered fondly by many colleagues and former students.

https://jesuit.ie/news/parting-from-declan-2/ December 21, 2010

Parting from Declan

Declan Deane, who died in California on 12 December, had been an Irish Jesuit for over thirty years, before joining the diocese of Oakland. He is remembered with deep affection and regard by many friends, especially in N.Ireland, where he worked with the Irish School of Ecumenics. His talents were multiple, often unexpected: a national champion at Scrabble, a passionate observer of horses, a prodigious memory for cards at the gaming tables of Las Vegas, such that the bankers had him banned. But above all he was a priest, who during his struggle with esophageal cancer took on more and more ministry. A few days before his death he preached at all six weekend Masses, concelebrated three, heard confessions and greeted the parishioners at the door. His funeral was a huge and emotional occasion, as Donal Godfrey SJ reports:

Last Thursday I represented the Society at the Mass of Christian burial for Declan Deane. The Church of Christ the King in Pleasant Hill, where Declan had most recently served, was packed with two bishops, priests, and so many friends from the parishes where Declan had served. The homilist, Fr. Gerrry Moran in the Oakland Diocese and like Declan from Achill island, spoke of the life of Declan in very moving terms. We heard how at first Declan had objected to working with Gerry as pastor but eventually they became close friends. The homily was interrupted with applause on a number of occasions. The Bishop Emeritus, John Cummins, spoke of the wonderful Jesuit formation Declan had received, quoted Pedro Arrupe in connecting Declan’s strong social conscience and his gift of bringing contemporary theology alive to a wider audience. Declan’s brother John came from Ireland and told us how he had sent a card to Declan with a Christmas poem written especially for him that he discovered unopened in his room. John ended his words with the poem. Afterwards the parish held a wonderful reception and then we went to the Holy Angels Cemetery where Declan had told the pastor that he was very happy to be buried next to Frank Houdek, SJ, the man who had “saved him” when he went into recovery as an alchololic. On another note -we have been having wave after wave of rain storms, however for Declan’s funeral it was a sunny mild day. Declan must have arranged that for us as he always loved the sun! Ar dheis De go rabh a ainm dhilis.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/eastbaytimes/name/declan-deane-obituary?id=32867038 Published by Inside Bay Area on Dec. 15, 2010.

Declan Deane Obituary

Father Declan A. Deane May 14, 1942 ~ Dec. 12, 2010 Pleasant Hill, CA Declan was born in Dublin, Ireland and grew up on Achill Island on the west coast of Ireland. He was ordained as a priest into the Jesuit Order in Dublin in 1972. In his early years of priesthood he devoted his time to issues of faith and justice, including working for peace with Protestants and Catholics during the troubles in Northern Ireland. He also ministered to those in prisons and to those with AIDS. Called to parish ministry, he immigrated to the US and settled in the Diocese of Oakland. His first assignment began in 1992. He served as Associate Pastor in five parishes; St. Joan of Arc, Holy Spirit, St. Monica, All Saints, and most recently Christ the King. He quickly endeared himself to his parishioners and became a much loved, admired and respected priest in every community. People enjoyed his dry sense of humor, the thought-pro-voking depth of his homilies and his easygoing approachable manner. Being a good friend and inclusive to all was important to Declan. When not engaged in ministry Declan made sure to enjoy life. He was a scrabble champ in Ireland, Northern Ireland and England, an avid sports fan and very fond of the horses. He took one day at a time. He is survived by his sister Patricia; brothers John (Ursula) and Raymond (Renate); and nieces and cousins. There will be a parish Mass on Wednesday, December 15 at 11:00am followed by viewing and visitation from 12:00 noon to 7:30pm; Vigil Service at 7:30pm. The Funeral Mass will be at 10:30am on Thursday, December 16, with interment at Queen of Heaven Cemetery at 1:30pm. All services will be at Christ the King Catholic Church, 199 Brandon Road, Pleasant Hill. CA.

Interfuse No 144 : Spring 2011

Obituary

Declan Deane (1942-2010) : former Jesuit

Declan Deane, who has died in California, had been an Irish Jesuit for over thirty years before joining the diocese of Oakland. He is remembered with deep affection and regard by many friends. One measure of this affection; during his final sickness he received 28,000 emails and other messages of support from those who had known and loved him. His talents were multiple, often unexpected: a national champion at Scrabble, a passionate observer of horses, a prodigious memory for cards at the gaming tables of Las Vegas, such that the bankers had him banned. But above all he was a priest, who during his struggle with oesophageal cancer took on more and more ministry. A few days before his death he preached at all six weekend Masses, concelebrated three, heard confessions and greeted the parishioners at the door.

Born in Achill and schooled in Mungret College, where he was elected Head of School in his final year, Declan Deane entered the Jesuits in 1959. He earned a BA in UCD studied philosophy at Chantilly near Paris, and theology at Milltown Park, Dublin where he was ordained priest in 1972. After ordination he did a B.Phil. at the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) and doctoral studies in Cambridge, USA, and in Berkeley, California. In these years he developed a special interest in the ecumenical theology of the French Jesuit theologian, Henri de Lubac with particular reference to his understanding of Buddhism. Sadly he never finished his doctoral dissertation, largely because of the disease of alcoholism with which he eventually came to terms.

In Ireland at least Declan was probably best known for his teaching work in the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) and his pastoral work in the Jesuit community in Portadown, near the controversial Garvaghy Road. He lived there for most of the 80's, longer than anywhere else, and greatly endeared himself to his students and to the local people, Protestant and Catholic, Nationalist and Unionist. The troubles were then far from over. Despite the troubles, perhaps because of them, he became popular as a teacher and as a priest.

Hoping however for more theological freedom than he felt he enjoyed in Ireland (he was always a strong advocate of women priests) he moved in 1992 to California for parish work. Later in the decade he formally left the Jesuits to join the diocese of Oakland, California. Happily however he always remained in the best of relations with his former Jesuit colleagues and with his lay friends, some of whom flew over to say goodbye to him before he died. We now deeply mourn his early, but sadly not unexpected, death from cancer on 12 December 2010.

His funeral was a huge and emotional occasion, as Donal Godfrey reports: “Last Thursday I represented the Society at the Mass of Christian burial for Declan Deane. The Church of Christ the King in Pleasant Hill, where Declan had most recently served, was packed with two bishops, priests, and so many friends from the parishes where Declan had served. The homilist, Fr. Gerry Moran in the Oakland Diocese and like Declan from Achill island, spoke of the life of Declan in very moving terms. We heard how at first Declan had objected to working with Gerry as pastor but eventually they became close friends. The homily was interrupted with applause on a number of occasions. The Bishop Emeritus, John Cummins, spoke of the wonderful Jesuit formation Declan had received, and quoted Pedro Arrupe in connecting Declan's strong social conscience and his gift of bringing contemporary theology alive to a wider audience. Declan's brother John came from Ireland and told us how he had sent a card to Declan with a Christmas poem written especially for him that he discovered unopened in his room. John ended his words with the poem. Afterwards the parish held a wonderful reception and then we went to the Holy Angels Cemetery where Declan had told the pastor that he was very happy to be buried next to Frank Houdek, SJ, the man who had ‘saved him’ when he went into recovery as an alchololic. On another note - we have been having wave after wave of rain storms, however for Declan's funeral it was a sunny mild day. Declan must have arranged that for us as he always loved the sun! Ár dheis De go rabh a ainm dhilis”.

Robin Boyd of the ISE wrote about Declan:
Declan Deane was a remarkable man, and a dear colleague and friend. He and I shared a birthday – he was exactly twenty years younger than me - and on one memorable occasion we were able to celebrate it together, at an ecumenical clergy conference at Corrymeeala when we shared - and even cut together - a specially made birthday cake.

He took up his duties in charge of the ISE's Northern Ireland programme in 1981, and it was mainly in the North that we saw each other. It was always a delight to visit that small Jesuit community at Iona, a council house in Portadown, with its memories of Paddy Doyle, Brian Lennon, and a host of unexpected visiting trail-blazers from all the Irish Church traditions. For Declan had friends everywhere. I remember one occasion when he came with me to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. And as we milled around in the clergy-crowded corridor there were delighted and unexpected meetings with Declan's friends among the thronging ministers and elders: I remember especially his happy reunion with Ruth Patterson (the first woman to be ordained as a minister of Word and sacrament in the Irish Presbyterian Church), and Bert Tosh (now senior producer of religious programmes in the BBC, Northern Ireland). Warm, modest to the point of shyness, amusing, and devastatingly honest, he firmly established the ISE's Northern programme in its three main bases of Belfast, Derry and Benburb, making friends wherever he went.

We had many adventures together. One dark night, driving North through Omagh and Strabane, Declan said, “There's a convent I know near here. Let's call on the sisters”. Despite my protest that it was too late, we arrived at the convent and rang the bell. We rang again, and there was no reply. I said, “You see what I mean!” and we drove on. Next day, at our conference, we met one of the sisters, and apologized for ringing their door bell so late. “Och, we were all watching the football” was the answer; Declan knew them better than I did.

On one occasion we did a fund-raising tour in Germany together, staying with German friends of mine in Remscheid, where he quickly made himself at home. The “Tour de France” happened to be going on, and we discovered that Declan was a devotee of the “maillot jaune”. He was also, as befitted a member of a distinguished literary family, a devotee of letters - and numbers. This devotion took a peculiar form: he was fascinated by German car numbers, and quickly worked out their literary and numerical basis, so that before long he could identify the place of origin of every car in the land. “Why?" I asked. “Well, I look forward to the day when I'm at home in Achill, and I see a German car with the family sitting having a picnic, and I'll go up to them and say, “How is everybody in Remscheid today?” We enjoyed that game, and I still do. But I knew better than ever to challenge Declan to a game of Scrabble. His skill there was legendary. In the interests of the ISE we travelled from bishop to bishop, from praese to praeses, from Seminary to Theologische Hochschule, and had a happy reunion in Frankfurt with Fr Gerry O'Hanlon SJ, who was then working on his thesis on Karl Barth. I don't recollect how successful that journey was financially: but it certainly was a trip to remember with great pleasure.

Memorable too were the one or two occasions when my wife Frances and I stayed with Declan in the Jesuit flat normally occupied by Fr Henry Grant in the Newtownbreda area of Belfast. It was full of Henry's tapes of classical music, which delighted Frances. And it was also full of good talk. Declan shared with us his problems: the alcoholism which he had so steadfastly battled and overcome; theology - for he was no stranger to the doubt which is the only real basis of faith; celibacy, women's ministry, relations between the churches. Those were evenings to recall with joy. For Declan was a man who brought warmth and joy to those he met. It was a privilege to have him as a friend, and now to know that he has entered into the joy of his Lord.

Born: 17 March 1920, Rathgar, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1949, Fourvière, Lyon, France
Died 04 January 1979

Left Society of Jesus: 1976 - Zambiae Province (ZAM) (to Lusaka Diocese)

Transcribed: HIB to ZAM 03 December 1969

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1948 Lyon France (LUGD) studying
by 1952 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working
by 1969 at Camoldolese Hermits, Bloomingdale, OH USA

◆ The Clongownian, 1979

Obituary

Father Patrick Cummins (former SJ)

The recent death of Father Patrick Cummins has saddened his many friends. Though dogged by ill-health his gaiety and sense of humour never left him. On the other hand, he seemed to personify the familiar words of Saint Augustihe "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee", for Paddy always seemed to be striving for something beyond. It was this yearning for closer union with God in prayer and solitude that impelled him to join the Camaldolese in Ohio; but he remained with them for only a year, and returned to the Jesuit Order once more.

Paddy left Clongowes in 1936, and took his first vows after two years in the Jesuit Noviceship in Emo, It was in Rathfarnham, after a year at UCD that he first began to suffer ill-health, which necessitated his transfer to Tullabeg for Philosophical Studies. Perhaps the happiest period of his life was the three years he spent in the Crescent College, Limerick, as a Scholastic. He was very popular with the boys, and they still recall with pleasure outings and picnics with him on the banks of the Shannon. He was ordained in Fouvière, France, in 1950, and completed his final year of Theology there. He also spent his year of Tertianship in France.

Born on March 17th 1920, Fr Paddy shared the same missionary zeal as his great patron. He left for Zambia in 1951, and threw himself with generous zeal into missionary work. Such was his flair for languages that he was sent for a year to the language school to specialise in the Zambian dialects. He then worked for a number of years in Choma, a remote missionary station in Southern Rhodesia. His search for solitude and silence finally impelled him to seek satisfaction with the Camaldolese Monks in Ohio. However, what he sought he did not find there, and so returned to Ireland. His ill-health having grown progressively worse, he spent a year as a chaplain on Lambay Island, His health having recovered somewhat, he returned to Zambia and his missionary work.

After some time there he left the Jesuit Order, but continued to live the Jesuit mode of life in Jesuit houses. His health gradually deteriorated, and he died after a short illness on January 4th 1979. We pray that his generous restless heart has at last found that rest in peace that he sought after all his life.

T McC

Born: 23 January 1633, Staffordshire, England
Entered: 07 September 1653. Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: c 1666, Liège, Belgium
Final Vows: 02 February 1671
Died: 09 September 1701, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII

Persall, John, Father, alias Harcourt, was a native of Staffordshire, of the ancient Catholic family of that name. Born 1633 ; he made his humanity studies at St. Omer's College ; entered the Society at Watten,September 7, 1653, under the name of John Harcourt, and was professed of the four vows February 2, 1671. He was probably connected with the
Harcourt family on his mother's side, which would account for his taking that name as an alias. He was sent to Rome in1663, under the name of Harcourt, and probably made his theology there. He returned to Liège College about 1668, was appointed Professor of Philosophy, and from 1672–1679 of Theology, appearing from that time under his real name of Persall. In 1680 he was confessor at the same College,and in 1683-1685 a Missioner in the College of St.Thomas of Canterbury, the Hants District. Upon the accession of James II, his Majesty appointed him one of his Preachers in Ordinary, and he resided at the new College of the Society which was opened in the Savoy, London, May 24, 1687. Upon the breaking out of the Orange Revolution in December,1688, he effected his escape to the Continent. In 1694 he was declared Rector of Liège College,retaining the office for many years. In 1696 he was appointed Vice-Provincial,and attended the fourteenth General Congregation of the Society in Rome, in the same year. During 1701 he was a missioner in the College of St. Ignatius, London, and died, probably in the same College,September 9, 1702, æt. 69. A few of his letters are preserved in the Archives of the Province ; and two of his sermons are extant, one preached on October 25,1685,and the other before the King and Queen at Windsor on Trinity Sunday,May 30,1686. (Biography,Records S.J. vol.v.p.300.)

◆ Catholic Record Society, Volume 70, 1981

The English Jesuits, 1650-1829: A Biographical Dictionary

by Geoffrey Holt

Persall, John alias Harcourt. Priest.
b. January 23rd, 1633, Staffordshire.
e. St Omers College 1648-53.
S.J. September 7th, 1653.
Watten (nov) 1653-5.
Liège (phil) 1656-8.
St Omers College 1659-61.
Rome (?theol) 1663.
Ordained priest c. 1666.
Liège 1669, 1672-6, 1678-82.
College of St Thomas of Canterbury 1683, 1684.
College of St Ignatius 1685-8 (London Savoy College and Royal preacher 1687).
Watten 1689.
Ghent 1689.
Ireland 1691 (military chaplain).
College of St Thomas of Canterbury 1692, 1693 (with Sir John Shelley 1692).
Liège 1694-8 (Rector).
College of St Ignatius 1699-1701.
d. September 9th, 1701, in England.

(Fo.7; CRS.69; 114; 113; DNB.; 150 III(1) 17/12/1701; 9 ff. 1, 2, 4; 12. f. 145; Gil.5/272; 123 II ff.154, 156; Che. 64/453. For writing see Som.).