Born: 02 May 1914 - Poland
Entered: 01 August 1929, Kalisz, Wielkopolskie województwo, Poland - Poloniae Maioris et Mazoviae Province (POL Ma)

Left Society of Jesus: 28 March 1941

by 1941 came to Milltown (HIB) studying

Born: 27 August 1911, Camden Street, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1932, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly & St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained:

Left Society of Jesus: 06 August 1940

Previously Entered Society of Jesus 02 September 1929 and Left 22 January 1931

Born: 01 June 1848. Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 11 October 1870, Milltown Park, Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 1872 for Dublin Diocese

Younger Brother of Philip - RIP 1917

by 1873 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying

Born: 04 November, 1911, Drumcondra, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 03 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois

Left Society of Jesus: 23 November 1933 (from Rathfarnham Castle)

Early education at O’Connell’s Schools

Born: 01 March 1911, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1928, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 19 June 1931 (from Rathfarnham Castle)

Early education at CBS Synge Street

Born: 11 December 1903, Mullinahone, County Tipperary
Entered: 26 September 1923, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 19 June 1928 (from Rathfarnham Castle)

Born: 02 March 1918, Rathmines, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1936, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois

Left Society of Jesus: 20 August 1947

Born: 04 June 1911, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 16 September 1929, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 05 August 1932 (due to ill health)

Born: 14 November 1901, Magazine Road, Cork, County Cork
Entered: 29 September 1925, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 15 February 1932 (from Belvedere College SJ, during Regency)

Early Education at Christian Brothers College Cork City

by 1929 at Heythrop, Oxfordshire (ANG) studying

Born: 07 January 1840, Clonboy, Claremorris, County Mayo
Entered: 07 September 1861, Milltown Park, Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 04 October 1872

by 1864 at Roehampton, England (ANG) studying
by 1870 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1872 at Roehampton, England (ANG) Studying

Born: 30 January 1913, Sunvale, Rathkeale, County Limerick / Drumcondra, Dub;in, County Dublin
Entered: 03 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 14 March 2002, Dublin, County Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 03 July 1934 (from Rathfarnham Castle)

Early education at Athea NS and Mungret College SJ

https://www.dib.ie/biography/o-danachair-caoimhin-danaher-kevin-a2392

DICTIONARY OF IRISH BIOGRAPHY

Ó Danachair, Caoimhín (Danaher, Kevin)

Contributed by
Lysaght, Patricia

Ó Danachair, Caoimhín (Danaher, Kevin) (1913–2002), university lecturer and folklorist, was born 30 January 1913 in Athea (Áth an tSléibhe), Co. Limerick, the second eldest of four sons of William Danaher, a primary school principal, and his wife Margaret (née Ryan) of Martinstown, Co. Limerick, also a primary school teacher. Educated at Athea national school, Mungret College, Limerick, and at UCD, he graduated BA in 1936, and received a Higher Diploma in Education the following year. As an Alexander von Humboldt Scholar (1937–9), he studied comparative folklore and ethnology at the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig. He was awarded a first class honours MA (NUI) in archaeology in 1945, and a D.Litt. (NUI) in 1974.

He joined the Irish Folklore Commission in January 1940, and then in May the Irish Defence Forces, with whom he remained for the duration of World War II, becoming an instructor in the artillery school in Kildare and rising to the rank of captain. Rejoining the Irish Folklore Commission in 1946, he was sent to Scandinavia to receive training in major folklore and folklife institutions, including the Nordiska Museet (Nordic Museum) and Institutet för Folklivsforskning (The Institute for Folklife Research), Stockholm, Landsmålarkivet (The Dialect Archive), Uppsala, the University of Lund, Norsk Folkeminnesamling (Norwegian Folklore Archive), Oslo, and Dansk Folkemindesamling (Danish Folklore Archive) in København. He met some of the leading folklore and folklife Scandinavian scholars of the day, including C. W. von Sydow (Lund), Sigurd Erixon, Andreas Lindblom and Albert Eskeröd (Stockholm), Dag Strömbäck and Åke Campbell (Uppsala), Albert Sandklef (Varberg), Knut Liestøl and Reidar Th. Christiansen (Oslo) and Hans Ellekilde (København).

His principal responsibility in the Irish Folklore Commission was the development of the ethnological dimension of the commission's work, but until the late 1940s, when outdoor disc-cutting equipment became available, he also made disc recordings of traditional storytellers, singers and musician, in the commission's office at 82 St Stephen's Green, Dublin, including the only recording ever made of the music of the outstanding piper Johnny Doran (qv) (available in The bunch of keys, 1988).

In 1948 Ó Danachair recorded the last native Manx speakers on the Isle of Man, on behalf of the Irish Folklore Commission, redeeming a promise made by Éamon de Valera (qv) when, as taoiseach, he visited the island in 1947. When the transcriptions, translations, and the digitally re-mastered recordings of this unique collection were published as Skeealyn Vannin/Stories of Man, by Eiraght Ashoonagh Vhannin/Manx National Heritage in 2004, a plaque presented by Yn Cheshaght Ghailckagh/The Manx Gaelic Society, was unveiled in the then department of Irish folklore at UCD, in the presence of the speaker of the house of keys, members of Tynwald, the Manx Gaelic Society, and the family of Caoimhín Ó Danachair, to commemorate Ó Danachair's 1948 achievement.

Ó Danachair was visiting professor in Irish Studies at Uppsala University in 1952–3. He served on the National Monuments Advisory Council, and was folklife consultant to the Shannon Free Airport Development Company when Bunratty Folk Park, Co. Clare, was set up in 1964. He was a member of the RSAI, an assistant editor (1971–85) of Béaloideas, the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society, and co-patron of the society (1988–2002).

Internationally, he was a member of the European Ethnological Atlas Working Group, the International Commission for Ethnological Food Research, the International Society for Folk Narrative Research, the Société Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore, and the Society for Folklife Studies of Britain and Ireland, of which he was vice-president (1979–80) and president (1981–3). He was keenly interested in military history, editing for eleven years the Irish Sword (1960–1971), and serving as president of the Military History Society (1978–87). With the historian J. G. Simms (qv), he edited The Danish force in Ireland, 1690–1691 (1962) for the Irish Manuscripts Commission.

Ó Danachair was a gifted teacher. In 1971, when the Irish Folklore Commission became the Department of Irish Folklore at UCD, Ó Danachair was appointed a statutory lecturer in Irish Folklore. The extent and range of his scholarly publications are evident from Patricia Lysaght's bibliography of his published work in the Festschrift published in his honour in 1982 (see Gailey and Ó hÓgáin), and in Ó Danachair's own publication: A bibliography of Irish ethnology and folk tradition (1978).

In 1951 he married Anna Mary Ryan, a secondary school teacher, of Galbally, Co. Limerick; they had two sons, Dónall (b. 1953), and John Louis (b. 1956). His wife was the eldest of three sons and four daughters of Timothy Ryan, creamery manager, Garryspellane, and of Deborah Ryan (née Scanlan), Galbally, principal teacher of Lowtown Girls’ national school, Co. Limerick.

Caoimhín Ó Danachair died 14 March 2002 in Dublin and is buried in St Fintan's cemetery, Sutton, Dublin.

Sources
Patricia Lysaght, ‘Kevin Danaher (Caoimhín Ó Danachair), 1913–2002’, Folklore, cxiii, no. 2 (2002), 261–4; Patricia Lysaght, ‘Caoimhín Ó Danachair (Kevin Danaher) 1913–2002’, Béaloideas, lxx (2002), 219–26; Patricia Lysaght, ‘Caoimhín Ó Danachair and his published work’, Alan Gailey, Dáithí Ó hÓgáin (ed.), Gold under the furze. Studies in folk tradition. Presented to Caoimhín Ó Danachair (1982), 12–26; Sinsear. The Folklore Journal, iv (1982–83); The bunch of keys. The complete recordings of Johnny Doran (Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann/The Folklore of Ireland Council, Dublin, 1988)

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: 03 May 1888, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1904, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 1917

by 1909 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1911 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1916 at Hastings, Sussex, England (LUGD) studying

Born: 11 August 1862, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 23 September 1890, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 1897

by 1896 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying

Born: 21 October 1909, Phibsboro, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1927, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 12 July 1934 (from St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg)

Early education at Belvedere College SJ

Born: 11 October 1916, Robinstown, County Meath / Aughrim Sreet, Dublin / Upper Gardiner Street / Finglas, County Dublin
Entered: 07 December 1934, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 03 November 2016, St Vincent’s Hospital Dublin (Monkstown, County Dublin)

Left Society of Jesus: 12 January 1942

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Gaffney

Maurice Gaffney

Maurice Gaffney, S.C. (11 October 1916 – 3 November 2016)[1] was an Irish barrister, who at his death at 100, was the oldest practicing barrister in Ireland.[2][3]

Gaffney was born in County Meath to a Royal Irish Constabulary member. He moved to Dublin with his family following events after the 1916 Easter Rising.[2] He initially found employment as a teacher, before becoming a practising member of the Law Library.[1] He was called to the bar in 1954, and promoted to Senior Counsel in 1970. During the 1980s, he was involved in DPP v O'Shea, a landmark case in Irish jurisprudence in which Gaffney successfully argued that a jury's decision can be overturned. In 1996, he was involved in Fianna Fáil's Des Hanafin's attempt to overturn the historic divorce laws that came into force the previous year.[2] He considered himself an expert on railway law.[3]

He continued to practise law into the 21st century. In 2014, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the Irish Law Awards.[4] He continued appearing before the High Court and Supreme Court in 2015. The following year, he said he had no plans to retire and would continue working for as long as possible, saying "it keeps me alive".[3]

Gaffney, who lived in Monkstown, Dublin, was admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital and died aged 100 on 3 November 2016. The chairman of the Bar Council of Ireland, Paul McGarry, praised Gaffney's work and his track record of constitutional and criminal law.[1] He was married to Leonie Gaffney and had two children.[5]

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/maurice-gaffney-sc-a-life-in-law-1.2521359

Maurice Gaffney SC: A life in law

At almost 100 years old, Maurice Gaffney SC still works at the Bar and says he would be ‘lost without it’

Colm Keena
Fri Feb 5 2016 - 03:30

When he was called to the Irish Bar, back in 1954, there were about 250 barristers in the Republic, of whom about one-fifth were senior counsel, and the same number again did not practise at all.

"It was a small community and it was easy to know everybody," says Maurice Gaffney SC, who was born in October 1916 and is, not surprisingly, Ireland's oldest practising barrister. (There is, he was told recently, a wheelchair-bound practitioner in London who is 105 years old.)

He appeared before both the High Court and the Supreme Court last year, and was involved in a contract law case when he agreed to meet in the Four Courts recently to discuss his career. "I enjoy it and would be lost without it," he says of his work. "I know I will have to give it up some day but as long as I can do it . . . It keeps me alive."

Among the huge changes in the profession over the years, he says, is the growth in the numbers involved. Barrister numbers began to increase in the 1960s, and did so steadily over the following decades.

These days there are more than 2,000 barristers on the rolls; he says it is obvious that some of them will not make a living from the profession. “The number leaving is growing. It is hard to know how many barristers there should be.” He knows of some people who, after more than a decade in the profession, are still finding it a struggle.

His work companions range in age from their 20s to their 80s and this is partly why he finds the courts a “marvellous environment” in which to work. “Age doesn’t come into it and so I don’t age.”

As far as he is concerned, he will continue to work as long as he is in a capacity to give a service. If he thought for a moment that his clients were not happy with his work, or if his solicitors thought they could do better elsewhere, then he would have a duty to stop. But he does not think that point has been arrived at yet.

The pleasure he gets from his work comes from the pleasure he gets from solving problems, he says. At its core, the work involves “disentangling the often unnecessary problems of my clients”.

Sometimes the people who need help have difficulty paying for the service but he feels barristers have a public duty to help where they can. That is a view he believes is shared by most of his colleagues.

He believes that while most professions have a culture of collegiality, few if any can match that of the Bar. However, he also believes that this culture of solidarity was somewhat damaged by what he calls the Celtic Tiger years when, because some people were making so much money, it became a measure of capability and of success and caused both those who were making the money, and those who were watching others make so much money, to change.

They were becoming more interested in money and less interested in their fellow barristers, than had hitherto been the case. This, in turn, he says, affected standards.

However, having delivered this observation, he appears anxious to balance it with more words of praise for his fellow barristers. “I owe a lot to my colleagues. They have made me happy and have always been reliable.”

He was born in Co Meath, but his father, who was a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary, moved the family to Dublin the year after the Easter Rising, to a house on Aughrim Street, in Stoneybatter. Later they moved to Upper Gardiner Street, where they had "a fine house".

Later still, in the 1940s, they moved to Finglas, then at the edge of the city. He studied for an arts degree, joined the Jesuits, left after he got ill, and became a teacher.

After a five-year stint in Glenstal, he returned to Dublin to be with his father, who was ill, and a job with a school on James Street. He also began studying law and was eventually called to the Bar. In his early years he did work on the eastern circuit, taking prosecution cases in Co Kildare and elsewhere. He became a senior counsel in 1970. “I loved it then and I love it still.”

As well as prosecution work, he also worked in property cases. It was an area that a lot of colleagues tried to avoid because it could be tedious, but he was happy to get the work.

"I think it is marvellously attractive. It concerns everyone and it is, fundamentally, as simple as A,B,C." He also did some tax work, and some negligence cases, and in more recent times has done contract and employment work. (For seven years he was chairman of the Employment Appeals Tribunal. )

He also knows a lot about railway law, having worked over the years for CIÉ in relation to property and other issues relating to the railway network.

In the early 1980s he was involved in an important Supreme Court case, the DPP vs O’Shea, which considered whether a jury’s verdict could be appealed. The court came down in favour of Gaffney’s argument that it could in the case concerned. The law, he adds, was later changed in response to the ruling. He was also involved in the 1996 case where Des Hanafin unsuccessfully challenged the result of the divorce referendum.

One of the great changes that has occurred over the years is the increased involvement of women in the law, now just as solicitors and barristers, but as judges too. When he was called to the Bar there were five women on the rolls, one of whom had been there since the 1920s.

One of these female colleagues later left and went to the US, to study to be a librarian, but when she returned to Ireland on holiday, Gaffney met her and they began to go out. They married and now have two grown children.

During term, he comes into the Four Courts most days. Out of term he used to play golf but these days he reads a bit and walks as much as he can. “Otherwise I waste time looking at TV, like so many others.” It is not hard to imagine him doing so while waiting restlessly for the chance to return to work.

Born: 08 May 1919, Drumcondra, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 125 September 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois

Left Society of Jesus: 10 February 1945

Born: 06 May 1951, Goatstown, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1970, Manresa, Dollymount, Dublin
Died: 08 September 2015, Goatstown, Dublin, County Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 06 October 1976

https://jesuit.ie/news/danny-mcnelis-rip-a-man-committed-to-service-and-living-life-fully/

Danny McNelis RIP: committed to service and living life fully

Daniel last Christmas learned that he had pancreatic cancer. It was a great shock and a severe blow to all the plans he had made for his retirement. He had even got a new artificial leg to enjoy his retirement more fully. The shortness of time that he probably faced forced him to live life ever more fully. Every day, every hour mattered. He tried everything to restore his health but his cancer proved to be very aggressive and made rapid inroads into his health. He still went sailing and cycled to the doctor for every appointment up to the last few months. As it dawned on him it was more likely he was going to die than to live, he surrendered to God, “Whatever is for your greater glory, not my will but Thy will be done!”

Even though he wanted to have more time with Bríd and see Áine and Niall blossom into full adults, he couldn’t deny that he had no fear of death, and that part of him was dying to see God and to meet people like Ignatius. He decided that his last mission would be to die well. He asked Mr McCaul, the headmaster in Gonzaga College, could he talk to the sixth years on what it is like to be dying. They were spellbound by his cheerfulness and his courage. He embraced each one as they left the room, many with a misty eye. He also chose to make a farewell speech at the staff dinner in May. Again he made a deep impression.

His final task, the last thing he had any control over, was his funeral Mass. He planned it meticiously as if it was his next class. He chose the readers, readings, psalm, hymns, the celebrants, a letter he wrote to Jesus on his last sixth year retreat and who was to read it. The final hymn he chose was ‘Sailing’ by Rod Stewart and it was particularly poignant. I don’t think anyone in the packed church was ever at a more beautiful and uplifting funeral. As a mark of respect the boys of Gonzaga College, past and present, lined the avenue on both sides, three deep, and clapped the cortège as it left the grounds.

Danny had loved every day of his life in Gonzaga, from being headmaster in the Junior school to pastoral director in the Senior school, thirty years in all. He was always cheerful, full of gratitude, deeply appreciative of each boy, knowing each by name, as he watched them with interest grow and develop from first year to sixth year. He never regretted the ten years he lived as a Jesuit, in fact he seemed to love Ignatius and his early companions more than many Jesuits! He loved the outdoor life, especially sailing, a hobby he passed onto the Transition Year students. He loved preparing the leaders for the Kairos retreat each year and that and the retreats with relish and thoroughness.

Danny was an avid Leinster rugby fan (no one is perfect!). He spent many years running the Children’s Mass in his Kilmacud parish. Above all, he lived for Jesus, the Scriptures, and especially the psalms. The following letter which he wrote to Jesus on his last retreat in October 2014 gives a flavour of his devotion to Jesus:-

Dear Jesus,
Thank you for reaching out to me, embracing me, caring for me, intervening for me, inspiring me.
Help me to be the man whom you wish me to be.
Inspire me with the passion of the great saints to be your presence in the world.Give to me the urgency and passionate conviction to serve you.
Make me realise and relax in my own goodness.
Help to to change from judging others to seeing them loved by you.
Help me progressively to reduce fretting and worrying and to live more completely in the present moment.
Find me a rewarded and rewarding role in which to serve you for your greater glory.
Your loving brother Daniel.

Finally the following prayer on his Mass card sums up Danny’s spirit.

Without exception, live every day of your life with gratitude. As you look in the mirror say, thank you God, for life, for my body, my family, my loved ones, for this day and for the opportunity to be of service. Thank you, thank you, thank you…

A few days before he died, I drew one of the last smiles from Danny’s face with the comment “Do you know Danny, there is one surprise you may get when you go to heaven, there might be more Munster supporters than you ever imagined!” Of course I almost forgot, he had a great sense of humour. May he rest in peace.

Myles O’Reilly SJ

Born: 10 June 1906, South Circular Road, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 20 September 1924, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 10 May 1938

1928 He was sent to Granada, Spain for Philosophy but was unable to continue on account of Latin

Born: 05 September 1917, Clontarf, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 14 September 1936, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois

Left Society of Jesus: 19 March 1950

Younger Brother of Pearse O’Higgins - RIP 1976

Born: 25 December 1899, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 20 November 1916, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 10 August 1929

by 1927 at Heythrop, Oxfordshire (ANG) studying : LEFT from Heythrop (Theology) - Ordination was postponed

Born: 09 May 1872, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 13 August 1887, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down / St Stanislaus, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 09 December 1913, Waterloo Road, Dublin, County Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 1902

Was NOWLAN then from 1898 : O’NOWLAN

by 1898 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

Born: 19 September 1884, Listowel, County Kerry
Entered: 12 November 1901, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 01 August 1969, Dublin, County Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 02 May 1914

Known when Jesuit as Alfred J Rahilly.

by 1909 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

https://www.dib.ie/biography/orahilly-alfred-a6973#:~:text=After%20retirement%20he%20went%20to,two%20children%2C%20Ronan%20and%20Sybil.

O'Rahilly, Alfred

Contributed by
Murphy, John A.

O'Rahilly, Alfred (1884–1969), scholar, university president, controversialist, and priest, was born 19 September 1884 in Listowel, Co. Kerry, eighth child of Thomas Francis Rahilly and Julia Mary Rahilly (née Curry); he changed his name to ‘O'Rahilly’ by deed poll in 1920. His fourteen siblings included Celtic scholars Thomas Francis (qv) and Cecile (qv), and a first cousin was The O'Rahilly (qv), killed during the 1916 rising. Educated at St Michael's College, Listowel, Blackrock College, and UCD, he underwent a long period (1901–14) of training as a member of the Society of Jesus, but eventually left during the final stages of preparation for the priesthood, because of temperamental unsuitability. Appointed an assistant lecturer in mathematics and mathematical physics at UCC in October 1914, he became the dominant figure in the institution within six years. He became professor of mathematical physics on 1 June 1917 and registrar on 11 February 1920, and vacated these offices when he became president (1943–54).

His early career in UCC was set against the background of the revolutionary period, and he became predominantly identified, within and without the college, with the rise of post-1916 Sinn Féin. In UCC he led the nationalist interest that ousted the perceived pro-British old regime, personified by Sir Bertram Windle (qv), who resigned from the presidency in 1919. O'Rahilly was flamboyant, extrovert, disputatious and dynamic. During the low-key, unassertive presidency (1919–43) of P. J. Merriman, O'Rahilly as registrar was heir-presumptive and acted as de facto president. All in all, the whirlwind age of O'Rahilly lasted for almost four decades.

He was a volatile and bristling polymath of inexhaustible energy: the vast range of his scholarly interests – politics, sociology, finance, Christology, mathematical physics, history – aroused astonishment and envy. One critique of his work on Money ended with the reflection that the book would enable people to relieve rural tedium by laughing the winter nights away. His contemplated multi-volume life of Christ prompted a National University colleague to observe (not very originally) that a life of O'Rahilly by Christ would be much more interesting. O'Rahilly, who was vain but not stuffy, was not offended by such descriptions of him as ‘a cross between Thomas Aquinas and Jimmy O'Dea’ (qv), but was not pleased by the jibe that he had the best mind of the twelfth century, since he considered himself a very modern man indeed. But he would not have taken exception to the waggish description of the Holy Shroud of Turin (the subject of his province-wide lectures) as ‘Alfie's flying carpet’.

There were some negative and even frivolous aspects of his UCC presidency. He had a strong appetite for the hurly-burly of academic politics and, it was said, entered no controversy that he did not aggravate. He had the reputation of being a bully and exploiter in his dealings with junior academic staff; but he could be kind, helpful, and extraordinarily generous to staff and students with problems. His zeal for vigorously promoting a Roman catholic ethos in a nominally pluralist institution was frequently paternalistic and extended to acts of petty supervision, particularly perhaps over women students. This was the kind of atmosphere that prompted a visiting examiner to describe the UCC of the 1940s as ‘a convent run by a mad reverend mother’.

All this being said, O'Rahilly was one of the most vibrant and effective presidents in the history of the National University. His initiatives included extensive improvements in the library, of which he was director, and the institution of student health and restaurant services. He founded the electrical engineering department and the Cork University Press, which he believed would provide a publication outlet for the researches of his colleagues, particularly those concerned with native learning. He strengthened UCC's links with the city and the province, and these were significantly expressed through the provision of adult education courses, an area where O'Rahilly was particularly innovative and pioneering.

As a young academic, he had become caught up in the struggle for independence. He served on Cork corporation in the heroic age of Tomás Mac Curtáin (qv) and Terence MacSwiney (qv), and spent a patriotic period in jail and on the run. He represented Cork borough (1923–4) in Dáil Éireann for Cumann na nGaedheal but resigned his seat in 1924. He was a constitutional adviser to the Irish delegation at the treaty negotiations in 1921, argued publicly for the acceptance of the treaty, and helped to draft the constitution of the Irish Free State. His links with the local labour and trade-union movement were long and close, and at national level he served as Irish government chief representative in successive sessions of the International Labour Conference in Geneva. He was also a member of government commissions on banking and vocational organisation. After retirement he went to reside at Blackrock College, where he was ordained a priest (18 December 1955), and became a domestic prelate (monsignor) in 1960. O'Rahilly died 2 August 1969. He married (4 September 1916) his first cousin, Agnes O'Donoghue (d. 14 September 1953); they had two children, Ronan and Sybil.

No other layman of his day so self-confidently assumed a central role in so many areas of catholic life – philosophy, sociology, theology, scriptural studies. The controversies in which be became involved were a source of interest and pride to UCC students. Their president was a pugnacious polemicist (who jousted with such eminences as H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw (qv)), a man of stature, and a formidable catholic intellectual. And who could not be impressed, as well as entertained, by his exuberant claim: ‘I have not now the smallest doubt that I have Einstein refuted’?

Sources
J. Anthony Gaughan, Alfred O'Rahilly (4 vols, 1986–93); John A. Murphy, The College: a history of Queen's/ University College Cork 1845–1995 (1995)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_O%27Rahilly

Alfred O'Rahilly

Alfred O'Rahilly, KSG (1 October 1884 – 1 August 1969) was an academic with controversial views on both electromagnetism and religion. He briefly served in politics, as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Cork City, and was later the president of University College Cork. He also became a priest following the death of his wife.

Education and academia
Born (with the last name Rahilly) in Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland to Thomas Francis Rahilly of Ballylongford, County Kerry and Julia Mary Rahilly (née Curry) of Glin, County Limerick. He was first educated at St Michael's College, Listowel[1] and at Blackrock College in Dublin. O'Rahilly first earned University College Cork degrees in mathematical physics (BA 1907, MA 1908).

The O'Rahilly Building (left) houses UCC’s Humanities Faculty.
He studied scholastic philosophy at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire following his master's degree, then returned to UCC for a BSc (1912). In 1914, he was appointed assistant lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Mathematical Physics at UCC, and then in 1917 he was made Professor of Mathematical Physics.

In 1919 he received a doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He became Registrar of UCC in 1920, and held the post until 1943 when he became President of the University. O'Rahilly founded Cork University Press in 1925. He spent a year, in 1927, at Harvard studying social and political theory.

In 1938, he published a controversial book surveying electromagnetic theory called Electromagnetics (Longman, Green and Company), republished in 1956 by Dover as Electromagnetic theory, a critical examination of fundamentals.

In 1939, UCC conferred on him the degree D.Litt., and in 1940 the National University of Ireland awarded him a DSc.

The O'Rahilly Building was one of the major developments on the UCC campus in the 1990s and was named in honour of O'Rahilly.[2]

Politics and public life
After the 1916 Easter Rising, O'Rahilly publicly supported Sinn Féin and was elected to Cork City Council as a Sinn Féin and Transport Workers candidate. Arrested early in 1921 for political writings, O'Rahilly was interned in Spike Island prison.

Released in October 1921 he was constitutional adviser to the Irish Treaty Delegation. O'Rahilly supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and in 1922 he composed a draft constitution for the Irish Free State with Darrell Figgis.

O'Rahilly led Irish delegations to the International Labour Organization conferences in 1924, 1925 and 1932, and took on a conciliatory role in trade union and employers disputes in Munster. As President of University College Cork, he initiated workers' education courses in the university in the late 1940s which proved popular with Cork trade unionists.[citation needed]

Standing as a candidate in Cork Borough for Cumann na nGaedheal, he was elected to the 4th Dáil at the 1923 general election.[3] He resigned in 1924,[4] causing a by-election later that year which was won by the Cumann na nGaedheal candidate Michael Egan.

Religion
A deeply religious Catholic from early life, O'Rahilly was a member of the Society of Jesus but left before ordination and was dispensed from his vows. He maintained his (sometimes controversial) religious views throughout his life, and became a priest, and then Monsignor, in later years following the death of his wife. He wrote a biography of Willie Doyle. He also contributed to The Irish Catholic weekly newspaper.

In 1954, Pope Pius XII conferred on him the Pontifical Order of Saint Gregory the Great.

He was also an advisor on university education to the Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid and sat on an informal committee from 1950. The committee included O'Rahilly, and the other presidents of the National University of Ireland; Michael Tierney of UCD, Monsignor Pádraig de Brún, Cardinal D'Alton, and Bishops Cornelius Lucey of Cork and Michael Browne of Galway.

Science
In O'Rahilly's major survey of electromagnetic theory, Electromagnetics (1938),[5] he opposed Maxwell's dominant (British) theory of the electromagnetic field and followed the French Catholic physicist, historian of science, and philosopher of science Pierre Duhem in rejecting Maxwell's field account.[6] As a logical consequence of his rejection of Maxwell, O'Rahilly also rejected Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. O'Rahilly embraced Ritz's ballistic theory of light and Ritz's electrodynamics.[7] While Ritz's theory reduces to Coulomb's Law and Ampere's Law, since its derivation is phenomenological, it differs from the Liénard–Wiechert potential. O'Rahilly also wrote against applying the theory of evolution to human society.

Because O'Rahilly thought Cork lacked a social science curriculum he volunteered to teach courses in economics and sociology. When told that they could not spare him from the physics courses, he volunteered to teach an economics course and sociology course along with his physics courses.

Family
His brother T. F. O'Rahilly was a Celtic languages scholar and academic, noted for his contribution to the fields of historical linguistics and Irish dialects.[8] His sister Cecile O'Rahilly was also a Celtic scholar, and published editions of both recensions of the Táin Bó Cúailnge and worked with her brother in the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.[9]

His first cousin The O'Rahilly was one of the founding members of the Irish Volunteers and died in the Easter Rising.[10]

Writings
O'Rahilly's writings include: Father William Doyle, S.J. (1920, 4th ed. 1930), Flour, Wheat and Tariffs (1928), Money (1941), Jewish Burial: The Burial of Christ (1941), Religion and Science (1948), Aquinas versus Marx (1948), Moral Principles (1948), Social Principles (1948), The Family at Bethany (1949), Moral and Social Principles (1955), Gospel Meditations (1958) and Electromagnetic Theory (2 vols, 1965).

Father William Doyle S.J. (1922)
Electromagnetics: A Discussion of Fundamentals (1938)
References
J. Anthony Gaughan, Alfred O'Rahilly Biography (Kingdom Books, 1986) (ISBN 0-9506015-6-X)
"O' Rahilly Building Extension and Quadrangle". University College Cork. Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
"Alfred O'Rahilly". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 20 May 2012.
"Alfred O'Rahilly". Oireachtas Members Database. Retrieved 20 May 2012.
Worldcat entry for "Electromagnetic theory, a critical examination of fundamentals" - First edition published in 1938 under title: "Electromagnetics"
See Pierre Duhem: Against "Cartesian Method": Metaphysics and Models from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for why Duhem rejected Maxwell's theory.
For a short description of O'Rahilly's criticism of the special theory of relativity, see this section of Challenging Modern Physics by Al Kelly
Murphy, John A. "O'Rahilly, Alfred". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
Ní Mhunghaile, Lesa. "O'Rahilly (Ní Rathaille, Ó Rathaille), Cecile (Sisile)". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Breathnach, Diarmuid; Ní Mhurchú, Máire. "Ó RATHGHAILLE, Micheál Seosamh (1875–1916)". Ainm. Retrieved 27 December 2020.

Born: 20 March 1855, County Kilkenny
Entered: 29 January 1878, Milltown Park, Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 26 October 1884

by 1884 at Oña Spain (ARA) studying

Born: 07 September 1909, Dundrum, County Dublin / Blackrock, County Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1926, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 18 October 1933 (from Mungret College SJ, Regency)

Early education at CBS Synge Street, Dublin

Born: 01 June 1912, Poland
Entered: 30 July 1932, Brzozów, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland - Poloniae Minoris Province (POL Mi)

Left Society of Jesus: 20 January 1942

by 1941 came to Milltown (HIB) studying 1940-1942