Born: 08 December 1885, Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin
Entered: 06 September 1902, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1917, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1922, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway
Died: 30 October 1956, Pembroke Nursing Home, Dublin

Part of Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin community

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

Chaplain in the First World War.

by 1912 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1918 Military Chaplain : 6th RI Regiment, BEF France

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 32nd Year No 1 1957

Obituary :

Fr John MacSheahan (1887-1956)

When the death of Fr. MacSheahan was announced, a Jesuit said to me: “The Society has another martyr in heaven”. Anyone who knew him intimately, especially for the past ten or twelve years, will have no difficulty in endorsing that statement. Instinctively one thinks of him as a man enduring suffering, constant and severe, and sustaining throughout an infectious spirit of cheerfulness and trust in God. “How are you, Fr. John?” I asked him on meeting him one day in Gardiner Street. At that moment he was the wan, emaciated figure, slightly stooped, that gave you a shock if you had not seen him for a period. “How am I? Why, I'm grand! Of course you know I have lost the sight of this eye, and the hearing of this ear”, - and he indicated both, covering them for a moment with his open palm. Then the “tummy gives me no end of trouble. If only I could live without eating! And the noises go on all the time in my old head”. “You have them at this moment?” “At this moment there is a throbbing up there like an engine; it never stops, day and night. But otherwise I'm fine!!”
“Otherwise I'm fine”. That is the characteristic note. I saw him at recreation that same evening, and he laughed and joked and told stories in his own inimitable way. But who knows the heroic effort demanded daily, hourly, by this struggle extending over his whole life - for he was always a delicate man and calling for even greater courage as the end approached? This man of indomitable will I saw one day in his room and he broke down completely. His head sank into his hands and he wept freely. “It's not easy going. Life is so useless and so lonely. I wish God would take me or give me some health and relief”. But at once he gripped himself, apologised for letting me see him weeping, and by the time I was going, the familiar patient smile was back again. But the incident gave me an inkling into the depths of depression that must have often crushed and nearly overpowered him. But nobody knew,
His optimism was irrepressible. He would tell you of his confidence in Our Lady during a novena he was making in her honour as one of her feasts came on. And when there was no cure and no relief Fr. John grinned and braced himself to carry on. He was in high glee when the Eucharistic Fast was mitigated. He could now have a cup of coffee in the early morning and “I don't know myself, it's such a help saying Mass”. He was keenly appreciative of even a tiny act of thoughtfulness...a letter or a visit or a promise of prayer. He told me at considerable length and with obviously deep gratitude in his voice of a reply he had received from a Superior. He had been lamenting the fact that he was such an expense and unable to do any work. He was assured on both points. He was reminded that his sufferings, borne with such Christlike patience, were beyond doubt calling down immense blessings and graces on the Province. I know how he treasured that word.
The moment he got any respite he was all out to give himself to work. At Gardiner Street he exercised a fruitful apostolate, doing full-time as “operarius”, director of the Irish-speaking Sodality, and settling down to “figures” - the House accounts. He was ever on the watch to multiply deeds of charity, visits to the sick, letters of advice or congratulation or of sympathy. All was done unobtrusively; much remained, and remains, entirely hidden. Often on returning from some errand of mercy he would get a “black-out” and collapse in the street. Such incidents never deterred him. He would joke about them afterwards. He would tell you of the four or five different occasions upon which people thought he was dead or dying.
He enjoyed in particular describing the night when, recovering from a “black out," he began to realise he was lying in a bed, and surrounded by lighted candles, They must surely believe that this time he really is dead, and he wondered hazily if perhaps they mightn't be right! But again he came back from the tomb. The electricity had failed that night, that was all.
Fr. MacSheahan entered the Society at Tullabeg, in 1902, when he was seventeen. His tales of the sayings and doings of a renowned Fr. Socius provided many a good laugh, nor did they lose in the telling. He went to Stonyhurst for philosophy, to Clongowes, and Mungret for “colleges”, and he was ordained at Milltown Park in 1917. He was chaplain in France during World War I, was twice Rector of Galway, worked in the Church and School at the Crescent, and, in 1940, began his long association with Gardiner Street, He went to Rathfarnham in 1955, having himself suggested the change, which he found hard to make - because he recognised he was no longer equal to the work at Gardiner Street.
As chaplain he won the M.C. and a “bar” to it. When this distinction was commented on at his Jubilee, he replied that it meant little to him. The two letters he prized, the only two, after his name were |S.J.” His daily life was the most compelling proof that he spoke the truth,
He was a fluent Irish speaker and all his life an enthusiastic supporter of the language and culture. While his work in this field was characterised by that energy and zeal which he brought to every task, he would have been the last man in the world to obtrude his interest on others. He was unfailingly companionable. His charity at recreation, and at all times, if it did not win others to the Cause he had so much at heart, ensured at least that it did not alienate them from him, nor him from his brethren. Indeed this is understatement.
A truly Christlike priest, this great Jesuit, laden with the Cross, walked unflinchingly the hard road to his Calvary. Far from hardening him, his sufferings developed, rather, that exquisite charity which bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things. Like the Master he loved so ardently, Fr. MacSheahan was obedient even to the death of the Cross. He put the Cross down only when it was impossible for him to carry it any farther. He died in Dublin on 30th October, 1956. “From his childhood”, writes his sister, “John always impressed me with his innocence, simplicity, and humility”. May he rest in peace!

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John MacSheahan 1885-1956
Fr John MacSheahan was a fluent Irish speaker, and all his life he was an enthusiastic supporter of our native language and culture.

He was twice Rector of Galway. The latter part of his life was spent in Gardiner Street, where he directed the Irish Sodality. He was Chaplain in WWII, and he was awarded an MC with a bar to it. But when thus distinction was mentioned at his jubilee celebration, he remarked, that the letters he prized after his name, the only two were SJ.

The last ten years of his life he suffered heroically from all kinds of complaints, and he carried on his work in spite of handicaps. At his own request he was transferred to Rathfarnham, when he felt his usefulness in Gardiner Street was at an end.

He suffered so much at this time that he often asked God to take him home, but he bore his cross obediently and resignedly until God called him on October 30th 1956.

◆ The Clongownian, 1957

Obituary

Father John MacSheahan SJ

Father MacSheahan entered the Society of Jesus at Tullabeg in 1902, when he was seventeen. After Philosophy at Stonyhurst, he returned to Clongowes as a master. He was ordained at Milltown Park in 1917. He was chaplain in France during the Great War, was twice Rector of Galway, worked in the church and school in the Crescent and, in 1940, began his long associatibn with Gardiner Street Church. He went to Rathfarnham Castle in1955, having himself suggested the change, because the recognised he was no longer equal to the Work at Gardiner Street.

As chaplain he won an M.C. with Bar: When this distinction was commented on at his Jubilee, he replied that it meant little to him. The two letters he prized most were SJ. His daily life was the most compelling proof that he spoke the truth.

He was a fluent Irish speaker and all his life an enthusiastic supporter of the language and culture. While his work in this field was characterised by the energy and zeal which he brought to every task, he would have been the last man in the world to obtrude his interest on others.

A truly Christlike priest, he walked unflinchingly the hard road to his Calvary. Far from hardening him, his sufferings developed, rather, that exquisite charity which bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things. He impressed all by his simplicity and humility. 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 John MacSheahan (1885-1956)

A native of Dublin, entered the Society in 1902. On the completion of his classical studies, he began his regency at St Ignatius, Galway where he first acquired his enthusiasm for the Irish language. His higher studies were made at St Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1917. In that year he volunteered as a chaplain. After demobilisation, he completed his studies, and was appointed to Galway in 1921. He occupied the post of Vice-Rector there from 1922-1928. He was master at Sacred Heart College from 1929 to 1931 when he was appointed as Rector once more in Galway. In 1938 on relinquishing office he took up church work in Gardiner St. and with the exception of a few years at Rathfarnham, spent his remaining years there. Throughout his life in the Society, Father MacSheahan was an ardent supporter, chiefly by example, of the Gaelic language. His later years, owing to weak health, were spent in retirement.

Born: 09 October 1888, Belfast, County Antrim
Entered: 07 September 1908, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1921, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1925, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 30 November 1966, St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1912 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

Irish Province News 42nd Year No 2 1967

Obituary :

Fr Henry Croasdaile SJ (1888-1966)

Lancelot Henry Croasdaile was born on the 9th of October 1888, at The Drift, Belfast, the native place of his mother, formerly a Miss O'Rourke. His childhood was spent at Rynn, Rosenallis, in the then Queen's County, the estate of his father, Major Croasdaile, D.L., J.P. He had a brother, who died in infancy, and two sisters, younger than himself. His father was a member of the Church of Ireland, but all the children were brought up Catholics. His mother died in 1905. Harry was educated at home until early in 1906 when he was sent to Clongowes. Though over sixteen, he was in the junior grade for his first two school years and ended in the middle grade. This comparatively undistinguished career was doubtless due to the informal nature of his previous education. He was later to show that he had more than average intellectual powers. In his last year at Clongowes he was Secretary of the House, an office then usually bestowed not for athletic prowess, but for the ability to entertain visitors, a task for which he was admirably suited.
In September 1908 he entered the noviceship at Tullabeg. His father, not unnaturally, strongly opposed this step, and Harry must have had considerable strength of character to persevere and to renounce an inheritance which must have been peculiarly attractive to one who had such a love of country life. After a year's juniorate at Tullabeg, he went to St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, for philosophy.
From 1914 to 1919 he taught at Clongowes. He was quite an effective teacher, and his musical gifts added to his usefulness on the staff. He figures in many photographs in the Clongownian as a member of the choir and conductor of the orchestra. He was very popular with the boys, and no doubt this popularity was enhanced by his remarkable prowess as a sportsman. Though it belongs to his later time at Clongowes, there may be recorded here an excerpt from a letter still treasured in the family of one of the boys. “We went for a walk today with Fr. Croasdaile and he shot a peasant (sic)”
During this period occurred an incident which he was fond of recounting. In the early days of the Easter Rising of 1916 he be came anxious about his sisters, who were then living in Dublin, and set off on his bicycle to try to locate them. On reaching Dublin, he found the usual roads blocked by the military. He then attempted a circuitous approach, but somewhere in the vicinity of Dundrum was arrested by a patrol of soldiers and brought to Dunlaoire police station. Here he was lucky in finding a sympathetic sergeant of the D.M.P. who was indignant at the arrest of a priest and secured his release.
It may be mentioned in passing that Fr. Croasdaile used to boast that he was the only member of the Province to be imprisoned for his country. This was not correct. During Easter Week a present member of the Milltown Park community was lodged for an hour in Beggars Bush barracks. Some idea of the confusion that reigned in the minds of the military may be formed from the fact that the chief grounds for making the arrest were that the Jesuit had in his pocket a handkerchief with the initials of another member of the community and a list of names (which turned out to be his selection of “Possibles” for the next rugby international).
In 1919 Harry went to Milltown Park for theology and was ordained in 1922. After tertianship at Tullabeg he taught for a year at Belvedere and then returned for his second spell on the staff at Clongowes, 1926-31. It was about this time that he began to write a series of short stories for boys, largely based on his own experiences. At intervals, published by the Irish Messenger Office, appeared Stories of School Life, Parts 1-6, and later When the Storm Blew and a Dog Led. It seems to have been during these years also that his interest in organ-building was developed. He had a remarkable combination of the two gifts required for this craft, being a good musician (he played, besides the organ, the double bass and the euphonium - an unusual combination) and a first-class carpenter. This activity continued all his life until ill health forced him to relinquish it. He was an adept at buying up old organs and combining their parts to make new ones. He thus provided organs for Emo, Rathfarnham, Clongowes and for several country churches.
In 1931 Fr. Croasdaile was transferred to Mungret where he again taught and organised musical activities until 1939. He then acted as Assistant Director of Retreats at Rathfarnham, and in 1944 was appointed teacher of religion in the Commercial College, Rathmines, which post he held until 1955. In some ways this was the most successful period in his life. His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin had in 1941 appointed the first teachers in the Dublin vocational schools and the system was still in an experimental stage. Fr. Croasdaile entered into the work with enthusiasm, and carried out the purpose intended, not merely to teach religion formally, but to act as spiritual guide to the pupils. He interested himself in all their activities, especially, as might be expected, in music, and with a production of The Geisha in Rathmines Town Hall began a tradition of musical entertainments which still continues. He also established most friendly relations with the members of the teaching staff. One of them recalled a statement made to him by the late Mr. George Clampett, then Principal of the College : “I am not a co-religionist of Fr. Croasdaile, but I have no hesitation in saying that he has meant more to this school than any other person”. The following tribute to Fr. Croasdaile was recently paid by Mr. Seán O Ceallaigh, the present Principal :
“The teenage boys and girls attending the Technical School in Rathmines accepted him immediately as one of themselves. His fatherliness, his simple loyalty to the simple Christian principles which at their age they could understand, his facility in using the language which they could grasp, his obvious interest in the material progress and spiritual welfare of each one of them and of their families, all these virtues endeared him to them in a perfectly natural way. The obvious happiness which he took in their extra curricular activities brought them nearer him; his active participation in their games, in their drama, in their operas, in their Gaelic cultural activities (to make up, as he used to tell them, for his being a direct descendant of Oliver Cromwell!), and particularly his desire to give them a love for church music, exemplified in his accompanying the school choir in their rehearsals for the annual Votive Mass.
He took the greatest pleasure in meeting ex-students and in his daily conversation with the men and women teachers of different denominations in the school. He was really the first of the permanent priest-teachers in the city's technical schools; he exercised a new and wonderful influence on all of them. To this extent, Fr. Croasdaile was the pioneer, the man who proved to the educational and religious authorities that priest-teachers could play a vital role in vocational education. The remarkable development of this work in recent years is a monument to his character”.
When Fr. Croasdaile retired from his work in the College of Commerce in 1955, his health had been for some time giving cause for anxiety. After a year as Assistant in University Hall, he was transferred to Emo, and from that on was more or less an invalid. One who knew him well wrote: “There was a staunch courage and hardy faith about the way he met the ever-present prospect of death during the later precarious years of his life”.
It was, however, a consolation to him to be back in the county of his boyhood. He had always been devoted to his native Rosenallis, and delighted in reminiscences of his family. He found relief also from the inevitable monotony of a semi-invalid's life in a new interest which he developed, the local history of Laois. In this he was helped by the kindly interest of a good neighbour, Fr. Barry O'Connell, C.C., Mountmellick, with whom he made frequent historical and archaeological trips. His death, so often expected, came at last on 30th November 1966.
In the foregoing sketch many of Fr. Croasdaile's gifts have been touched on, his success in dealing with boys and young people, his musical talents, his skill in field sports, which was often a help to him in establishing good relations with men who would ordinarily have fought shy of a priest. To fill in the picture, a word must be said about him as a good companion. During the long years in which he worked in the colleges, he was heart and soul in his task. Knowing the boys so well, their work and play were a constant source of interest to him, and he had a droll sense of humour which enabled him to see the amusing side even of their misdemeanours. He was, therefore, a great community man, a great enlivener of recreation. He was an outstanding raconteur, and seemed to have an uncanny gift of getting involved in strange experiences, which he related with gusto. It is regrettable that the best of his stories have escaped the writer's memory.
Such are our memories of Fr. Harry Groasdaile, “Cro”, to use the name by which he was affectionately known throughout the Province, a memorable character, and, in his own humorous and original way, a most loyal and devoted son of the Society.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1967

Obituary
Father L H Croasdaile SJ

Rev Lancelot Henry Croasdaile SJ, who has died, aged 78, at St Mary's, Emo Park, Portlaoise, was a well-known teacher.

He taught for a time at Belvedere College, Dublin, and at Clongowes Wood College for a period. He was chaplain to the College of Commerce, Rathmines, Dublin, for a number of years.

Irish Independent, 2-12-1966

Born: 31 March 1886, Strokestown, County Roscommon
Entered: 01 February 1905, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1919, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1923, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 27 November 1949, Loyola College, Watsonia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1908 at Stonyhurst, England (ANG) studying
by 1909 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
by 1910 at Stonyhurst, England (ANG) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1910

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Michael Murray entered the Society at Tullabeg, 1 February 1905, studied philosophy at Stonyhurst and Gemert, 1908-10, did regency at Xavier College, Kew, 1910-16, and theology at Milltown Park, 1916-20. Tertianship was at Tullabeg, 1921-22. After ordination he taught at Clongowes, Mungret, and Belvedere for short periods, before returning to Australia in 1927.
While in Australia he worked in the parishes of Norwood, 1927-30, Sevenhill, 1930-32, Norwood, 1932-33, Richmond, 1933-40, Star of the Sea, Milsons Point, 1940-42, and Richmond, 1942-48. His final years, 1948-49, were at Loyola College, Watsonia.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 25th Year No 1 1950
Obituary
Fr. Michael Murray (1886-1905-1949) – Vice Province of Australia

Fr. Michael Murray, S.J., whose death in Australia occurred on 28th November, was born at Strokestown, Co. Roscommon in 1886. Educated at Clongowes Wood College, he spent a year studying engineering in the Technical College, Bristol, before entering the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus' College. Tullamore in 1905. He pursued his philosophical studies at Stonyhurst and at Gemert, Belgium, after which he went to Australia, where he taught for six years at Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne. He returned to Dublin for his theological course and was ordained priest at Milltown Park in 1919. He made his Tertianship at Tullabeg.
After a period in the Apostolic School, Mungret where he was engaged in training students to the priesthood, Fr. Murray joined the mission staff and conducted missions and retreats for three years in various parts of Ireland. In 1927 he returned to Australia and worked zealously for the remainder of his life as pastor in the Jesuit parish churches at Norwood, South Australia, at St. Aloysius', Sydney and St. Ignatius, Richmond, Melbourne. It was in the latter church that Fr. Murray spent most of his years, from 1934 to 1940 and again from 1943 to 1949. Owing to declining health, he had to abandon active work during the past year. He was attached at the time of his death to St. Ignatius House of Higher Studies, Watsonia.
Those who knew Fr. Michael in the noviceship or later as a master in Clongowes or on the mission staff will retain the memory of his unassuming and affectionate disposition and quiet humour. R.I.P.

◆ The Clongownian, 1950

Obituary

Father Michael Murray SJ

Shortly after leaving Clongowes in 1903, Fr Murray entered the novitiate in Tullabeg, and passed on to the usual course of studies. As a scholastic he as a Master at Xavier College, Melbourne for six years, before returning to theology at Milltown Park, Dublin where he was ordained in 1919. After a few years in Ireland, he returned to Australia where he laboured all his life in parishes entrusted to the care of the Jesuits there.

His death occurred on November 27th, 1949. The Most Reverend Dr Mannix, Archbishop of Melbourne, preaching at the Requiem Mass, spoke of two things which especially distinguished Fr Murray : his utter devotion to the sick, and his marvellous influence with men.

“His life”, His Grace concluded, “was almost wholly spent in the unobstrusive, hidden following of His Master, and it was a life of much labour and great service. His awakening surely was with Christ, and his repose was in peace”.

Born: 14 February 1862, Newtown, Kinnity, County Offaly
Entered: 11 September 1880, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1893
Final Vows: 02 February 1899, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 01 March 1930, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1898 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : 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.

In St Ignatius College, Galway, Fr Henry Foley SJ wrote on 25 February 1919: “We have been hit hard again by the Flu”. Three Jesuits were laid up and “43 of our pupils [out of 100 pupils] are in bed... There have been many deaths lately, and the infection shows no sign of abating. Otherwise things are fairly well.”

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 5th Year No 3 1930

Obituary :

Fr Henry Foley

Fr Foley was born on the 14th Feb. 1662, educated at Tullabeg, and on the 11th Sept. 1880 entered at Milltown, where he spent six years, two as novice, one as Junior, three as philosopher. In 1886 he was sent to Clongowes, but left after a short time for the Crescent. The regency was passed at the Crescent, Mungret, Belvedere, then back to Milltown in 1890 for theology. When it was over he returned to the Crescent, and put in three years there before going to the tertianship at Tronchiennes. Tertianship finished, he had the short course at Milltown for one year, Moral and Canon Law for another, and then went to Galway, There he remained for 22 years, For four of them he was Rector, for twelve, Minister, and or the entire period had charge of the Men's Sodality, as well as doing a large amount of teaching. 1922 saw him in Gardiner St. as “Praef Spir and Oper”. Early in 1929, his health broke down very badly, heart failure, and the August of that year found him in Tullabeg. It was not to rest, for the Sodality attached to the Church, was entrusted to him, and he worked it with energy and success as long as he was able to stand. His holy death took place on Saturday, the 1st March, 1930.
Had Fr, Foley lived a few months longer he would have celebrated his Golden Jubilee in the Society. That well nigh half century was a period of constant, hard, unselfish work, and of work done very often in the shade. As soon as he got into the sunlight he seemed to get dazed, and sometimes failed to do himself justice. This was very much in evidence for the two
years he professed theology at Milltown. During the twenty-two years that the Galway Sodality was under his care he made himself a host of life-long friends, and, better still, he did an amount of good that will surprise a great many when the curtain is lifted at the end of time.
Fr. Foley was by no means a pulpit orator, but his sermons were full of practical common-sense , and the grave, experienced Fathers of Gardiner St. speak highly of the domestic exhortations he gave them, replete with sound spirituality, kindliness, and grounded on solid principles of theology.
It has been said of an American Father who died recently that “90 per cent of the care of souls is accomplished by being kind. For that Fr. Rielag needed no prodding. He couldn't be anything else...He was an expert at self-effacing”. That hits off Fr, Foley's character to the letter.
No outstanding achievement marked his career, but his personal holiness, his gentle, kindly cheerful ways, his unremitting hard work, endeared him to ail that knew him, and have prepared for him a splendid reward that he is now enjoying in the happy land above.
We owe the following appreciation of Fr. Foley’s work in Galway to the kindness of Fr E Downing : “The news of Fr. Foley s death was heard in Galway with deep, sincere and universal regret as the passing of one who had endeared himself to all, rich and poor alike.
For nearly quarter of a century, Galway was the field of his missionary and educational activities, as priest and teacher, as confessor and preacher, as Director of the Men's Sodality BVM, as Minister, and finally as Rector. In all these various works, he displayed his characteristic virtues of zeal and devotion, urbanity, cheerfulness, charity.
As a school-man. he is gratefully remembered by crowds of his old boys, many of whom have spoken to me since his death with “tears in the voices”.
As a preacher he is remembered for the soundness and clearness of his reasoning and doctrine. He was more of the eloquent lawyer than the passioned orator.
But it was as a confessor he was best known and most widely appreciated. He had been professor of Moral Theology at Milltown Park, and the knowledge, there acquired was placed at the disposal of the city and county of Galway and of the many summer visitors to this well known sea-side resort. He was ever ready to be called to the “box”. It was more than once remarked that he lived in the Confessional.
As Rector he was in authority during the dark days of the of the “Black and Tans”. His sympathy with his countrymen was not concealed, and in consequence he was subjected to much verbal bullying the night our house in Galway was raided.
His pure soul and kindly spirit were wafted heavenwards. with many a heartfelt “God bless him”, “God speed him” from the lips and hearts of those who felt that they had lost awhile a holy priest, a wise adviser and a good friend in Fr, Henry Foley”.

◆ The Clongownian, 1930

Obituary

Father Henry Foley SJ

Gardiner St, Mungret, Limerick, knew Fr Foley : but, Galway may be said to be the scene of his life's labour. He worked there for about 25 years, Quiet, unassuming, undemonstrative he attracted little attention at first, engaged in rather full school and church work. But very soon his kind and fatherly heart, his wide and sound knowledge of Theology, (he had been Professor of Moral Theology in Milltown Park), his unremitting devotion to his Confessional attracted an ever-widening circle of penitents. Little children, business men and women, University students and professors, professional men, the diocesan clergy, all found in him a Spiritual Father after their own hearts, and he became really a great Confessor. He was a model representative of the Person and Power of Him, who said “Come to me, all you that labour and are heavy burdened, and I will refresh you”.

Though wanting in the qualities which go to make a great preacher, his sermons were carefully prepared, practical, sincere, and effective, productions of real spiritual good. In particular his Instructions - the short five-minute Catechetical lectures prescribed in the Diocese - were master-pieces of clear, accurate, succinct Theology, delivered fluently, with great rapidity, and withal distinctly, so that not a word was lost.

Fr Foley endeared himself to the hearts of the Galway people by his Priestly intercourse with all classes. A medical practitioner, who had exceptional opportunities of knowing the facts once said to me “Wherever there is in Galway any sickness or trouble of any kind, there Fr Foley is sure to be found”. A true follower of His Divine Master, “he went about doing good”. He practically never visited in the merely social sense of the word, yet, by his gentle, kindly, cheerful disposition he brought comfort to the sick, hope, consolation and resignation to the dying, strength and courage to the sorrow-stricken.

Thus by unremitting and self-sacrificing work, chiefly amongst the poor - hidden and humdrum work in the sight of the world, but surely truly great in the sight of Heaven - Fr Foley quickly became, what be continued to the end of his stay in Galway, a well-known popular figure, loved, revered, trusted by all classes of the community. “With glory and honour, Thou hast crowned him”.

When we reflect that these unceasing priestly activities were combined with the constant grind of professional duties, and, (for most of the period already described) with the responsible, and often, no doubt, worrying duties of Minister or Rector, we realise the fulness of Fr Foley's average day. What a stupendous driving force lay concealed in that timid, unostentatious, apparently unenthusiastic exterior! The hidden flame of Divine Love, must have glowed with strong and powerful intensity, in the heart revealed to us by a life of such unsparing zeal.

“By their fruits, you shall know them”. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Henry Foley (1862-1930)

Born at Kinnity, Offaly and educated at Tullabeg College, entered the Society in 1880. He spent one year of his regency at the Crescent, 1886-87. He was ordained in 1893. On the conclusion of his studies he returned to the Crescent for three years, 1894-1897. He spent twenty-two years at St Ignatius' College, Galway, where he held the positions of rector and of minister. He was on the church staff of Gardiner St, 1922-1929.

Born: 08 February 1931, Woodford, County Galway
Entered: 07 September 1949, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1963, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1978, Mount Street, London, England
Died: 01 October 2008, Newham University Hospital, Glen Road, London, England

St Margaret & All Saints' Church, Barking Road, Canning Town, London, England - Part of the Loyola, Eglinton Road, Dublin community at the time of death.

by 1970 at St Ignatius, Tottenham London (ANG) working
by 1981 at Custom House, London (ANG) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jack-donovan/

Fr Jack Donovan has died in London, a largely forgotten hero. He had worked in London for forty years, and on one occasion
volunteered for a parish that no other priest could handle. A parish priest had been convicted of child abuse, provoking understandable fury in the parishioners. In the spirit of the Ignatian Third Degree of humility Jack lived with the hatred, anger and resistance of the parish. In the end the people learned to accept this quiet, inarticulate, intensely private Corkman. He seldom appeared in Ireland, and eventually retired to be first a chaplain, then a resident in sheltered accommodation in London. Brian Grogan and other Jesuits will join his funeral next weekend.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/burying-jack-donovan-sj/

AMDG does not normally report funerals, but Jack’s was special. All through his life he had opted for obscurity. He was described at the funeral Mass as a “low maintenance
priest, a humble servant”. He was a voracious reader. He slept in a chair because his bed was buried under books; so was the gas metre in his sheltered accommodation – that nearly got him evicted. But his death brought out the crowds. London traffic was held up as the funeral procession walked for half an hour from St Anne’s church where he had been PP, to St Margaret’s where he died. His beloved Filipinos held an all- night vigil for him before the funeral, and escorted him to St Patrick’s Cemetery, the resting-place of the nuns immortalised by Hopkins in the “Wreck of the Deutschland”. May he rest there in peace.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 138 : Christmas 2008

Obituary

Fr John (Jack) Donovan (1931-2007)

8th February 1931: Born in Woodford, Galway
Early education in Kanturk Secondary School, Cork, and Mungret College, Limerick.
7th September 1949: Entered the Society at Emo
8th September 1951: First Vows at Emo
1951 - 1954: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1954 - 1957: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1957 - 1960: Belvedere - Teacher
1960 - 1964: Milltown Park - Theology
31st July1963: Ordained at Milltown Park
1964 - 1965: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1965 - 1966: Gardiner Street - Mission Staff
1966 - 1968: Rathfarnham - Assistant Director, Retreat House
2nd February 1978: Final Vows at Mount Street, London
1968 - 2008: London, England - Pastoral Ministry
1968 - 1998: Parish Priest, St. Anne's parish, London
1998 - 2008: Retired, but continued with pastoral work with the poor of London, particularly immigrants
14 October 2008: Died in London aged 77 years.

Paul Andrews writes:
The reason why Jack was born in Galway but grew up in Kanturk was that his father was a Garda, who was moved around. They were a large family, seven boys and two girls. Of these, Jack was closest to Tom, and used stay with him when on holidays. One brother became an Oblate priest, another a Columban, and a sister joined the Mercy nuns, taking the name of Loyola out of affection for Jack, who at that stage had opted for the Jesuits.

He had his early schooling with the Mercy nuns, then in a secondary school run by Mr and Mrs Kelleher. He read about the Jesuits - he was always a voracious reader - and declared his interest to Fr Tommy Byrne, then Provincial. At the Provincial's request, the Rector of Mungret accepted Jack for a year, to complete his Leaving Certificate, and so that Jack could get to know the Society better, and the Society get to know Jack better. The Provincial agreed to pay Jack's fees:”'I think that Seán deserves the chance to fulfil his vocation”. Big and strong, Jack made the senior rugby team as a second row forward, and reached the final of the cup.

When he entered Emo in 1949, he changed from Seán to Jack, and dropped the O' of his surname - a hint there of a residual tension with his father. Donal O'Sullivan welcomed this fellow-Corkman into his care. Fellow novice Tony Geoghegan remembers him as a gentle soul, a kind but shy person. They soldiered together through Rathfarnham, Tullabeg and Milltown. During his regency in Belvedere Jack volunteered for Japan “because of the state of Ireland”. This application was neither accepted nor supported by the Provincial, Luigi O'Grady. Five months later, in a letter to the incoming Provincial, Charlie O'Conor, Jack repeated his desire, and prayed “that my life in Japan be less useless than it has hitherto been”.

There is a hint here of huge frustrated longings. A bright mind, open to experience, disappointed in his scholastic success up to then (he had a breakdown during his UCD studies), was looking for broader horizons than were visible in the Ireland and Irish Province of 1959. He wanted to be on the frontiers. In 1960 he wrote to Father General volunteering again for the Japanese Mission, “having given the matter prayerful consideration for seven years”. Still no joy.

After ordination he went for two unhappy years to Rathfarnham Retreat House, where the Director failed to see his potential and reduced him to leading the Rosary. So he was 36 when, to his delight, Provincial Brendan Barry sent him on the English Mission. He worked for ten years in the Jesuit parish of Stamford Hill with a large West Indian population. He had a great way with them. He loved them and they loved him. His ministry in England gave Jack a new lease of life. Visitors to the parish house looked above all for Father Jack. He had discovered his strength, as a servant of the parishioners, with a huge heart for the most needy. His focus was always on his parishioners. He touched lives all over London.

When the parish of St Anne's, near London City Airport, ran into crisis (the PP had been convicted of child abuse, and the parishioners were understandably furious, at times stoning the presbytery in their anger), and a British Jesuit retreated from it after a few months, Jack volunteered to hold the fort. See Pat Davis's graphic account below of how Jack managed this difficult move. It was his finest hour. He looked after the beleaguered church for twenty years, and his tough kindliness slowly impressed the reluctant parishioners. One unsought ally turned up in the notorious Kray Brothers, who liked Jack, and made it clear that anyone who messed with Jack, messed with them.

Dermot Brangan visited him at St Anne's and remembers: “Jack was a great man for visiting the sick or the hospitalised, especially in the evenings. He told me in a simple but serious way that he was thinking of investing in a bicycle to help him get around more easily - but a bike costs money. He cooked for himself using the frying pan to rustle up meals that were mostly junk food – instant this and that. He probably never had a cook. About 20 years ago when I visited him I noticed that several of his teeth were missing and he did not seem to be in a hurry to do anything about the gaps. This must have played havoc with his already unclear diction. I suspect sermons were a cross for him, but he soldiered on, and the people loved and trusted him. He took phone calls at all hours. The house was in total, glorious chaos, with stuff piled up to the ceilings. And yet you could catch glimpses of the real man, Jack was a good priest. Praise and thanks be to the Lord”.

He built a new church for the parish, and faced the labour of begging funds for it in a circular letter in 1981:
“Berwick Road's new octagonal, unpretentious building was completed for the estimated £134,000 - all Bank Manager's money, Sunday congregations have now risen four-fold, but the weekend plate in these parts does not exactly brim over - £88 p.w.!”

Jack was easy with people, and loved gardening, but he was not good with money: he had no meas on it, except for giving it away. At his death, coins and notes littered the floor of his room. Nor was he good with machines. Computers remained a closed book to him. When his brother Tom tried to teach him to drive his car, Jack burned out the clutch. In London he bought himself a bicycle, but it was stolen and the parishioners bought him a car, but he could not manage it and gave it away. At the end of his life his closest friend said: “He gave everything away - except books. He lived in the spirit of the old Dean in Babette's Feast: ‘The only things we take with us from our life on earth are those which we have given away’.”

Jack remained intellectually ravenous, and bought books and magazines all his life. They so filled the presbytery at St. Anne's that in the end he took to sleeping in the church. He peppered the parish newsletter with quotations from Lonergan and Rahner, to the mystification of his flock. In the flat where he lived at the end of his life, he slept in a chair because his bed was buried under books; so was the gas metre, to the indignation of the gasman, who threatened to have him evicted.

There was a period at the end of his tenure of St. Anne's when Jack became a recluse. He was always open to his parishioners, but kept a distance from other clergy, including Jesuits. Jack feared to return to the Irish Province - he had a misconception that things would not have moved on from the time he had left, over thirty years before. He, who had been terrified of dogs from his childhood, got an Alsatian to guard the house. He neglected himself. His last visit to the dentist was at the age of six, and he began to pay the penalty for that in middle age. So in 1999 the bishop moved him into retirement - he was 68. In some desolation Jack tried a sabbatical, staying with his brother Tom; it only lasted one week.

A friend helped Jack to acquire a Council flat in sheltered accommodation, modest in size, but secure. For the last nine years of his life he continued his pastoral work from there, supported by the Warden, Irene Jackson, who became a close friend and admired him: “He was a great man, very gentle, made no demands on anyone, never said anything negative about anyone, and great love was shown him in return. It was a privilege to be with him”.

Two years ago he was hit by cancer, which resisted treatment. He lost an ear and joked that a dog had bitten it off. He recovered, and resumed work, but then developed colon cancer and began to pack up. He was happy to die and would not have wanted to be a patient. He was moved to Newham General Hospital where he had been the first Catholic Chaplain, and where he was anointed several times. He died there unexpectedly while sedated.

His death brought out the crowds. The British Provincial, Michael Holman, attended the Mass on the eve of the funeral. 24 priests concelebrated the funeral Mass on the following day. Fr Brian Grogan, representing the Irish Provincial, John Dardis, was principal concelebrant, and read a tribute from John at the start of Mass. The current PP of St. Anne's, Mgr John Armitage, preached the homily and spoke of this humble servant, this low maintenance priest. London traffic was held up as the massive funeral procession walked for half an hour from St Anne's church where he had been PP, to St. Margaret's where he died. His beloved Filipinos held an all-night vigil for him before the funeral, and escorted him to St. Patrick's Cemetery, the resting-place of the nuns immortalised by Hopkins in the “Wreck of the Deutschland”.

In his last years Jack saw much of the Filipino community and gained their trust and affection, travelling with them to many places. They looked after him as best he would allow. Leave the last word to them: “We have been privileged to know him, or at least to know about him. He lives in people's hearts. He will hardly be formally named a saint but surely is. He was a shy, quiet man with no great achievements, but there is more love and hope and goodness in the world because of him. We are glad for him, proud of him, miss him and look forward to meeting him again”.

Memories of Jack received from Pat Davis, Peter Faber House, Belfast:
I first met Jack in the autumn of 1974 when I came to join the community at Stamford Hill in North London. Jack was working in the St Ignatius parish and I was in my final year for the BD at Heythrop. There was a large Irish community at that time in Tottenham and Jack ministered to them as one of the staff on the parish. After finishing the Licentiate at the Greg I returned to London to teach at Heythrop and Campion House, Osterley in the autumn of 1979. I had heard from a priest friend of the Brentwood diocese, Fr Joe White, who I knew at Mungret, that Jack had gone to look after the parish at Custom House.

Fr Joe had been asked by his bishop to stand in at St Anne's Custom House for a weekend. In the early hours of the Sunday morning the shattering of glass woke Joe up. There was a mob outside hurling bricks through the windows and baying for the blood of the priest. Joe rang for the police immediately and they appeared promptly on the scene. It was only then that Joe was informed of the situation at Custom House. The mob was looking for the paedophile priest who had molested their children. The priest had already been arrested and was in custody. The crowd had not realised that Joe was not that priest.

The situation in the parish caused by the paedophile priest was grim to say the least. To make things even worse the Church building at Custom House had just been demolished due to shaky foundations as a result of war damage. So Custom House had no Church, the local Primary school Hall being used for the weekend masses. The bishop had difficulty in finding a priest to take over the parish and he approached the Jesuits for help. Jack very generously stepped into the breach and took over the parish.

I rang Jack and asked if I could be of help at the weekends and he was delighted for the help. So from autumn 1979 until I went to terianship in summer 1981 I helped out at Custom House with Jack. One of the things that helped in my relationship with Jack was the fact we had both been at Mungret. My fond memory of Jack was of a very shy man who was dedicated to his mission to those local people. He was a man wedded to a life of poverty both actual and spiritual and went about his work in a quiet determined but unassuming way.

The previous parish priest had abused not only the local catholic children but also the protestant children. Hence there was a great deal of hostility towards the Church there and the locals regularly stoned Jack's presbytery. At one stage Jack ran out of the presbytery and collared one of the children breaking his windows. He was reported to the police for assault but it came to nothing due to the understanding of the local police. Jack told me in that first year that the other local Church got more money for the flowers on their altar than the total amount in his collection each weekend. Jack was quite at home living a life of not only of spiritual poverty but real poverty.

During my two years there Jack visited the local parishioners regularly and built up the congregation slowly from a handful on Sunday to a sizeable number. His quiet unassuming simple manner won over the local community, He also had the job of overseeing the building of the new Church, which we moved into in early 1981. He was a huge support to the local primary school. He also worked hard at landscaping a garden outside the presbytery beside the Church, which became the envy of the neighbourhood.

A measure of his success in winning over the local resident both Catholic and Protestant was the year the East End club West Ham won the FA cup in the summer of 1980. Early on a the Sunday morning after the win the leaders of the local community approached Jack and asked him to adjudicate the children's fancy dress at the street party to celebrate the great victory. I attended with Jack and noticed how they went out of their way to make sure Jack had all he need in the way of food and attention. So within the two years I attended Custom House the people came to love and appreciate this humble Jesuit from Ireland.

He decided he would have a Corpus Christ procession around the local area. I had to admit I was sceptical of the outcome but to my pleasant surprise it was a huge success. Jack had the wisdom to realise that he could appeal to the faith of the parents in the area through their children who were keen to dress up their children for the procession and come to see them.

The first wedding in the new church was an Irish “travellers” wedding. The wedding ceremony was delayed due to the arrival of the police on the scene because of the traffic congestion caused by the travellers' lorries around the Church. I remember Jack pointing out to me as we awaited the bride coming down the aisle, that she was chewing gum. We had difficulty also accommodating her seventeen bridesmaids! The East Enders had experienced nothing like this before!!

Jack went on to be parish priest there for twenty years, building the parish from little or nothing to a very vibrant parish. Record keeping and timekeeping were not his strongest attributes but I can't help feeling that given Jack's personality, he was just the right man for St Anne's parish in Custom House in their hour of need.

Born: 12 August 1921, Ballybunion, County Kerry
Entered: 07 November 1939, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1953, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1957, Catholic Workers College, Dublin
Died: 02 March 2013, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1970 at Southwell House, London (ANG) studying and the London School of Economics

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/fr-liam-mckenna-dies-at-91/

Fr Liam McKenna dies at 91
Fr Liam McKenna died on 2 March in Cherryfield, having moved there from his community in Gardiner Street five days earlier. He was 91, but was alert and engaged to the very end of a full and fruitful life. Liam (as he was known in his family – Jesuits tended to call him Bill, with which he was happy) was born in Ballybunion and grew up in Listowel, though with long periods away from home as a boarder first in Kilashee, then in Clongowes, where in his last year he was captain of the school.
He had an early interest in economics, but was put on for a classics degree in UCD. It was only after several false starts that he was launched into the work which was to occupy most of his life, as a mentor of trade unionists in public speaking and in negotiation – but a mentor who was himself learning every step of the way. In a rambunctious partnership with Fr Eddy Kent he helped to found and develop the Catholic Workers College. It was not an academic setting, though the team (McKenna, Kent, Hamilton, Kearns, Des Reid, Michael Moloney) included some of the brightest in the Province, who would spend their summers upgrading their expertise in European countries.
Back in Sandford Lodge, where money was scarce, they would spend their afternoons putting out the chairs and preparing the classrooms and canteen for the evening sessions. They gradually built up a trusting relationship with the unions, and a clientele of up to 2000 adult students. Bill spent 35 years training shop stewards and foremen in the sort of speaking and listening skills that would empower them for their work in the unions, shaping their own destiny.
In the mid-1970s Bill moved to work for the Province, then for the Centre of Concern, the conference of Religious, and the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. He paid the penalty for heavy smoking in a serious heart attack, but lived life to the full, aware that he could drop dead at any moment. In Gardiner Street he would join in concelebrated Masses twice a day. On 24 February he acknowledged his need for full-time care, and moved to Cherryfield, after arranging daily delivery of the Financial Times.
He was alert until shortly before his peaceful death, as his curious, questing mind moved to explore the ultimate mystery of God.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 152 : Summer 2013

Obituary

Fr Bill (Liam) McKenna (1921-2013)

12 August 1921: Born in Ballybunion, Co. Kerry:
Early education in Kilashee Prep, and Clongowes Wood College
7 September 1939: Entered Society at Emo
8 September 1941: First Vows
1941 - 1944: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1944 - 1947: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1947 - 1950: Mungret College - Teacher
1950 - 1954: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31 July 1953: Ordained at Milltown Park, Dublin
1954 - 1955: Rathfarnham: Tertianship
1955 - 1969: College of Industrial Relations - Studied Economics / Sociology at UCD; Lectured in Sociology, Economics and Industrial Relations at CIR
2 February 1957: Final Vows
1969 - 1970: Tavistock Institute, London - Research
1970 - 1976: CIR – Lectured in Sociology, Economics and Industrial Relations
1976 - 1979: Loyola - Member of Special Secretariat
1979 - 1980: Milltown Park – “Centre of Concern' Office”, University Hall & Heythrop
1980 - 1982: Director “Centre of Concern” Office (moved to Liverpool Jan 1982)
1982 - 1984: Espinal - Secretary to Commission for Justice CMRS (Justice Desk)
1984 - 1989: Campion House - Secretary to Commission for Justice CMRS
1989 - 2005: Belvedere College
1989 - 2002: Assisting in Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice
2002 - 2003: Assistant Guestmaster
2003 - 2005: Assisted in SFX Church, Guestmaster
2005 - 2013: Gardiner Street: Assisted in SFX Church, Assistant Librarian (since 2011)

By mid-February, Bill was becoming weaker and eating very little. He was still concelebrating Mass twice daily in the church and in the house chapel. On Sunday 24" February, he agreed that he needed full time care, so he moved to Cherryfield Lodge the following day. Bill appreciated the care and was alert until very shortly before his peaceful death at 7.35pm on Saturday 2nd March.

Liam McKenna died only eleven days before the election of Pope Francis, having taken a great interest in the resignation of Pope Benedict. A Jesuit Pope would have provoked many a question from Liam and many a conversation. His mind remained lively until the very end of his long life, so his deep love of the Church and his commitment to prayer and to the Eucharist would have informed anything he might have said about having a Pope from his own Order. His breviary and missal were well used, and he had spare copies of each.

There is a photograph, taken in the mid-1920s, of Liam, as a very small boy, with his mother and his elder brother: Mrs McKenna is a slim, elegant and very well-dressed woman; Liam and Jack wear expensive clothes. The image is one of comfort and security, as might be expected from a very successful merchant family in a Kerry town, but Jack's health was so precarious that his mother sent him to Switzerland for a year; he is still in good health at 95. Liam became a Jesuit and his two sisters (who predeceased him) became Ursulines, so Jack was the only one of the four siblings to marry.

Listowel was not a town where Catholics were universally welcomed: one of Liam's sisters wanted to join the local tennis club, which was reserved for Protestants, so Mr McKenna was forced to enlist the unwilling help of the bank manager by the simple threat to move his account elsewhere. Liam's attitude to everything was influenced, and positively so, by being a younger brother all his life.
Liam (as he was known in his family - Jesuits tended to call him “Bill”, with which he was happy) was born in Ballybunion and grew up in Listowel; his Kerry roots remained very important throughout his life, despite long periods away from home as a boarder in County Kildare, first at Kilashee, and then at Clongowes, where he was captain of the school. Bill went to the noviceship at Emo just a few months after leaving school.

He had an early interest in economics, but was told that the topic was “of no use”, so he was sent for a classics degree in UCD. Bill followed the normal Jesuit formation of the period and, in a time of European war, it had to be entirely in Ireland, up to his completion of Tertianship at Rathfarnham in 1955. His formidable brain helped him to see that many aspects of Jesuit formation were outmoded, and over stylised. Bill emerged from Tertianship with a great love of the Society, a deep commitment to his priesthood and a great ability to recognise nonsense when he saw it.

Until that point, Bill's Jesuit career had been like many of his Jesuit contemporaries, until he was assigned to the Catholic Workers College in 1955. He was based there for twenty-one years. Bill had finally managed to study economics and sociology at UCD, so he lectured in sociology, economics and industrial relations. Significantly, Bill was launched into the work which was to occupy most of his life, as a mentor of trade unionists in public speaking and in negotiation - but a mentor who was interested in everything and who himself was learning every step of the way. In a rumbustious partnership with Fr Eddy Kent, he helped to found and develop the College. It was not an academic setting, though the team (Kent, Tim Hamilton, Lol Kearns, Des Reid and Michael Moloney) included some of the brightest in the Province, who would spend their summers upgrading their expertise in European countries. Back in Sandford Lodge, where money was scarce, they would spend their afternoons putting out the chairs and preparing the classrooms and canteen for the evening sessions.

They gradually built up a trusting relationship with the unions, and a clientele of up to 2000 adult students. Bill spent 35 years training shop stewards and foremen in the sort of speaking and listening skills that would empower them for their work in the unions, shaping their own destiny. The Catholic Workers College evolved into the National College of Industrial Relations and now, on a different site) is the National College of Ireland.

The three-man Special Secretariat was set up in 1972 following the McCarthy Report on Province Ministries. Liam joined it in 1976, when it was no longer quite so centered on Jesuit Province administration, leaving its members free to work elsewhere. Liam gave great help to the Holy Faith Sisters as they produced new Constitutions.

Liam's passion for social justice was based on calm analysis and passionate commitment. It was the focus of his work from 1979 until 2002, no matter where he was living, be that London, Liverpool, Gardiner Place, Hatch Street, Belvedere College or Gardiner Street. He helped set up, with Ray Helmick (New England) and Brian McClorry (Prov. Brit.), the Centre for Faith and Justice at Heythrop, then in Cavendish Square in London. The 1970s and early 1980s could fairly be described as 'strike-ridden'; in or about 1982, Liam and Dennis Chiles, Principal of Plater College, Oxford, were joint authors of a 91-page pamphlet Strikes and Social Justice: a Christian Perspective, but it may have been for private circulation.

In all those years of activity, Liam made many friends. He was especially kind to anybody who was ill, but very impatient if he detected excessive “self-absorption”. Liam's style of talk was unique, with every word well enunciated and with a regular, almost rhetorical, pause as he gathered himself to declare a supplementary opinion. Was he disappointed at never becoming superior of a Jesuit community? Being highly intelligent, he may have realised that his gifts would be wasted in such a role. Liam always admired those who did any job well; he was very proud of his niece who became a forensic scientist.

Liam gave the impression of being very serious, and he did some very serious reading, but there was a lighter side. He kept all the novels of Dick Francis; he had boxed DVD sets of every television series that starred John Thaw. Videos, DVDs and his own television entertained him when it was no longer easy for him to leave the house. Liam was the only member of the Gardiner Street community to have a small coffee bar in his room. He became a familiar figure on Dorset Street, as he walked briskly along, pushing his walking frame.

Liam paid the penalty for heavy smoking in a serious heart attack, but lived life to the full, aware that he could drop dead at any moment. In Gardiner Street be would join in concelebrated Masses twice a day (one in the church and the other in the house chapel). On 24 February 2012 he acknowledged his need for full-time care, and moved to Cherryfield Lodge, not permanently, after arranging daily delivery of the Financial Times. He was alert until shortly before his peaceful death five days later, as his curious, questing mind moved to explore the ultimate mystery of God.

Born: 29 May 1881, Ennis, County Clare
Entered: 06 September 1902, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1915, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1921, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 14 January 1924, Dublin

Chaplain in the First World War.

Part of the Mungret College, Limerick community at the time of death.

by 1906 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1908 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1917 Military Chaplain : No 17 Casualty Clearing Station, France
by 1918 Military Chaplain : c/o Archbishop’s House, Wodehouse Road, Bombay, India
by 1919 Military Chaplain : 16th CCS, Mesopotamia, EF

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Castleknock.

After his Novitiate he was sent to Jersey for Philosophy and then to Clongowes for a Regency of some years Teaching and Prefecting.
1912 He began Theology at Milltown.
1917 He was appointed Military Chaplain to No 17 Casualty Clearing Station, BEF, France. He was for some time later In India and Mesopotamia.
After the War ended he was sent to Mungret. he was attacked by some virulent growth and died after much suffering in hospital in Dublin 14 January 1924. He is buried in Mungret.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Electrical Engineer before entry

◆ The Clongownian, 1924

Obituary

Father Frank Shaw SJ

Father Frank Shaw SJ, was not himself an “old Clongownian”, but there must be many old Clongowes boys who would find it difficult to remember their time at Clongowes without recalling “Mr Shaw”. Third Liners of the years 1909-'11 especially will remember him, for he was our Prefect during that time. Many of these Third Liners must have gone to Heaven before him, for they were just the right age to be called upon to take their share in the Great War. Indeed, Father Shaw, who was a chaplain in the Navy for a time, met more than one of his former charges in India or some other of the many places where his duty brought him. But we thought little of wars during 1909-'11, and we remember Father Shaw best as being a bit of a puzzle. From one point of view he was quite intelligible to us; we understood him and sympathised fully with him when he would go in to bat some scorching summer day and scatter the visiting team's best bowlers to the boundaries. We used to thrill with pride - for, of course, we looked upon our Prefect as the product of our training - at his exquisite late cuts and glides, or his powerful straight drives, and shout ourselves hoarse in friendly triumph over the discomfiture of the “enemy” bowlers. But Father Shaw puzzled us by what now we should call his idealistic side: he was a very silent man, yet very humorous when he liked, and sometimes when he did not like, he would be stirred to a slow smile by the whimsical seriousness with which some Third Liner viewed the minor problems of life. He nearly always seemed shy with us boys, but we knew him for a gentle, patient, just man, and I think we half sympathised with his somewhat tired demeanour. We sensed vaguely the fact that he possessed an artistic temperament, and some of us knew how to lure him to the library door by, putting on some of his favourite records. He was a poet, too, and he used to confess how jealous. he was of the phrase, “Our tainted nation's solitary boast” having been written by a Protestant.

He died a most holy death on 13th January, 1924, after weeks of intense pain, He used to murmur, towards the end, to those who visited him, “J'ai fini”, but most of us knew that he was not thinking so much of the close of his old life as of the opening of his new; and his real thought would be rather Nunc coepi”.
E J C RIP

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1924

Obituary
Father Frank Shaw SJ

Born in Ennis, Co. Clare, on May 29th, 1881, Fr Francis Shaw lost his father and mother while still young. Fr D Fogarty was named as guardian of the five children - two girls and three boys - and on his death the present Bishop of Killaloe, Most Rev Dr Fogarty acted as guardian - always an ideally kind one - especially to Fr Frank, his favourite.

In 1892 Fr Shaw was sent to Castleknock College where he remained till 1901, winning a name for himself already in cricket and football. From there he went to Newcastle-on-Tyne for a course of engineering. Here, wishing to be in a position to answer the religious difficulties of his Protestant fellow-students, he got into touch with the Jesuit Father's, with the result that he gave up Engineering and entered the Jesuit noviceship at Tullabeg on September 6th, 1902.

He received his vows on September 8th, 1904, and after studying Philosophy in Jersey and at Stonyhurst, England, he was stationed in Clongowes Wood College from 1909-1913. Coming to Milltown Park in 1913, he was ordained in 1916.

As the call for chaplains was urgent he volunteered immediately, and was appointed chaplain to the British Forces soon after. He served in that capacity till the War was over - in fact till 1920.

His work as chaplain was for some time in France, but mainly on the Eastern Front in Mesopotamia. Here he had a severe attack of malaria and dysentery, and it was here that at odd moments and in odder places he wrote most of his papers on Our Lady.

Demobilized in 1919, he made his tertianship in Tullabeg and in August, 1920, came to Mungret College. He took his final vows on February 2nd, 1921, in the College chapel and remained here till his health gave way in September last. It was then judged expedient to send him to a specialist in Dublin. From the first the doctors had not much hope; and an exploring operation confirmed their worst fears. Cancer was diagnosed, and it was clear he could only last some months.

Sister Ignatius broke the news to him a week or two after the operation; and soon after found him crying - but as he hastened to reassure her - for joy that he was to “go home so soon”. Everyone who came in contact with him - Sisters, nurses, doctors, visitors - all were amazed at his cheerful patience and his simple manly holiness.

A prominent Dublin doctor who had attended many saintly people in their last illness stated Fr Shaw was the holiest of them all. The terrible disease wore him slowly down. He hoped to get “home with the Kings” he said; and the day after the Octave of the Epiphany news came of his happy release. And so his body was brought to Mungret, “the old spot” he loved, coming in the train that brought the boys back from Holidays. He had gone on the unending Holiday. And the boys with their keen intuition of things, said openly and half-enviously that he was in Heaven - for he was a saint,

Judged by ordinary standards his death seems naturally premature - yet he said himself before leaving for Dublin that he had seen and had as much of life as he wanted. And the circles in which be moved - his old school, the communities in which he lived, the regiments of which he was in spiritual charge, and most of all, Mungret, both the school and the Community - know and feel his life has not been in vain and will not forget how he brightened life for them, always full of playful whimsical humour, always doing what he had to do conscientiously and well. His disposition was essentially kindly and amiable. He was a splendid athlete, and in all games maintained his reputation till the very end. They speak of his batting and football yet in Clongowes. In France he shot the winning goal for his regiment after he had received a nasty “ankle-tap” which kept him prone for six weeks. In India they would hold up cricket matches till the Padre's boat came in from Basra. And in Mungret he proved himself as skilled in hurling and rounders as in the other games.

He liked simple things and candid people, and never was afraid to hear or speak the truth. He was a great lover of Nature and his hobbies included Astronomy and Botany. His chief characteristic, however, was a love for Our Lady that glowed all his life at white heat. He sang Her praises in prose and in verse, hunting up every text of scripture that referred to Her, ransacking every Doctor of the Church who spoke of Her. He seemed to see all life through Her, and so to the poor, to women and children he was wonderfully gentle and courteous as beloved our Lady's knight.

He was as well a passionate lover of Ireland, of Clare, and of Mungret. When in a base hospital over in Mesopotamia some English officer's made disparaging remarks of the 1916 men, the quiet Padre faced a ward-full of them, and an icy frightened silence followed! He sensed the truth out there; he never swerved for one half-second from the head line set by Pearse, and McSwiney through all the later tangled times.

Mungret seemed somehow to be waiting for him, and he for her. As spiritual Father to the boys, her “holiness and homeliness” appealed to his manly piety and sincerity; and as teacher he revelled in the Gaelic national tradition here. Going through his papers, one finds the list of the Mungret wild flowers and the date on which he first sees them every year, and then the Gaelic name side by side with the high-sounding Graeco Latin botanical term. He loved everything and everyone that was in Mungret or loved Mungret. The evening that in a tense silence the hearse came crunching and creaking up the avenue - one of the little birds he used to feed from his window kept flying from it to the writer's and back again. At last after tapping impatiently with its beak on the panes of the closed window next door, it flew away. The hearse had stopped. The coffin was being borne to the chapel.

Yet the “Father, Who is in Heaven” will care for the little feathered friends of Fr Shaw in Mungret, and Father Shaw will remind Him even of them because they are of the Mungret he loved, and for which he worked and prayed and works and prays that she still may be “kindly Irish of the Irish”, full of the old homely holiness, the natural super naturalness of the Gael - and with some at least of his splendid love for Muire Máthair.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam!

To his brothers and sisters and to, Most Rev Dr Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, who was nearer and dearer to him than anyone on earth, we offer our sincere sympathy.

Born: 01 January 1929, Galway, Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1960, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1964, Chiesa de Gesù, Rome, Italy
Died: 24 October 2009, Arrupe, Mwangaza, Jesuit Spirituality Centre, Lang’ata, Nairobi, Kenya - Africa Orientalis Province (AOR)

Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus : 25 July 1968-8 March 1975
Father General's General Assistant: 1977-1984

Transcribed HIB to AOR: 25 April 1989

by 1963 at Rome Italy (ROM) studying
by 1985 at Nairobi, Kenya (AOR) teaching - Hekima

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/the-irish-jesuits-under-cecil-mcgarry-sj/
The Irish Jesuits under Cecil McGarry SJ
Cecil McGarry was Irish Provincial at a very difficult juncture in the history of the Society. In other words, it was upon his shoulders that the implementation of the renewal of religious life in accordance with the Second Vatican Council was placed. This took more specific form in the
32nd Jesuit General Congregation. Under Fr Arrupe’s leadership it called Jesuits to a faith that does justice: it was with this message that Cecil inspired his Province. The photo is of Cecil and Fr Arrupe conversing during one of the latter’s visits to Ireland.
From Chapter 7 of To the Greater Glory: A History of the Irish Jesuits by Louis McRedmond (Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1991) :
The Provincial on whom the burden primarily fell of bringing the Irish Jesuits safely through the aftermath of Vatican II was Father Cecil McGarry, who came to office in 1968. To guide him he had the emphasis of the documents approved in 1965 and 1966 by the 31st General Congregation of the Society, which had elected Father Arrupe, as well as the exhortations which very quickly came from the new General himself. The Congregation chose two themes to stress, both of them conciliar. The first was an insistence on returning to the Society’s origins, which meant developing a heightened awareness of its Founder’s intentions. The second theme was the need to adapt the Society’s organisation and activities to enable it better to cope with the intellectual, social and spiritual problems of the age. From the outset of his generalate Father Arrupe urged the Society to press on with this process of modernising itself in the spirit of Saint Ignatius (which involved inter alia Ignatian ideas of mobility and flexibility), in order that Jesuits might be able more easily to move into new areas of apostolic opportunity and need. And so ’Jesuits throughout the world began the task of integrating the decisions of the Congregation with their personal endeavours for renewal. As General, Father Arrupe indicated that he expected action. He said, “I do not want to defend any mistakes Jesuits might have made, but the greatest mistake would be to stand in such fear of making error that we would simply stop acting.” (1) Father McGarry acted promptly, to the great benefit of the Society in Ireland and to the admiration of Jesuits from other Provinces (2) which were slower to move.
It cannot have been easy. The Provincial discharged his unenviable task with courage, conviction and, it may reasonably be supposed, a degree of pain known to himself alone. While there were Jesuits in every age group who rejoiced to see the Congregation decisions implemented, what the Provincial had to do caused unhappiness to a number of older Fathers settled in their ways and harbouring no doubts concerning the work undertaken by the Irish Province in their lifetime. Also distressed were some younger men who had thrown themselves with enthusiasm into tasks given them in the recent past. If the Province was to adapt to new priorities some of the established activities would have to be curtailed, not least because of the fall in numbers which all orders began to suffer in the 1960s: eight Irish scholastics left the Jesuits in the year that Father McGarry took office, (3) which meant the intake of novices – averaging seven a year (4) – did nothing to balance the natural losses through death and retirement. This imbalance was unlikely to improve. The Provincial did not act arbitrarily: he initiated internal discussions in each house to establish what the community was doing, and what it felt it should be doing. It would be no more than a small exaggeration to say that there were as many opinions as there were Jesuits. (5) But only the Provincial could make the ultimate decisions, and these involved abandoning some cherished commitments.
Perhaps his most distasteful duty was deciding where manpower could be saved. Suppression of a boarding-school was likely to bring maximum results, if only because it took so many men to provide supervision and administration as well as teaching. If a school had to go, Mungret was more vulnerable than Clongowes. (6) In the first place, there would still be a substantial Jesuit presence in Limerick between the community serving the public church and those attached to the Crescent (now the Crescent Comprehensive). Secondly, Mungret had already lost its apostolic school, which was half the reason for its existence. The Vatican Council had been the remote cause of this happening. The Council seemed to require philosophy and theology to be integrated in seminaries. Father Redmond Roche, Superior of the Apostolic School, could not see how this was to be guaranteed for the future, given the vocations crisis and an already evident shortage of competent lecturers. The vocations crisis also meant that institutions doing similar work, such as All Hallows in Dublin, were adequate to the need. The Apostolic School was accordingly suspended in 1967. The lay school, by contrast, was reaping the benefits of Father Kerr’s rectorship. Demand for places constantly exceeded those available and the disappearance of the Apostolic School actually helped by removing an ambiguity from the overall purpose of Mungret. How far Clongowes was protected by its venerability as the first house of the restored Society in Ireland, or by its fame and continuing prestige, or (as was hinted sotto voce) by the fierce loyalty of its past pupils who would have made a far greater clamour if suppression were mooted than came from those of Mungret, must remain matter for speculation. One thing is certain. Father McGarry was not a man to flinch from any decision, however unpopular, if he believed it to be right. When he chose Mungret rather than Clongowes for suppression, it can be taken for granted that he did what he had prayerfully concluded to be his duty. Of course, there were many to say he was wrong: their arguments ranged from nostalgia to the new-found status of the lay school at Mungret and its long-established fecundity in vocations. But the critics who spoke thus were spared the responsibility of making the decision.
There were positive decisions also. In 1966 the State had proposed a scheme of ’free’ – i.e. fully State- supported secondary education. Although it involved a reduction of 20 per cent in their income, (7) Coláiste Iognáid in Galway and the Crescent in Limerick entered the scheme. Now came the further proposal that the Crescent should become the keystone of a large comprehensive school of the kind outlined above in the account of developments at Gonzaga. At Dooradoyle in Limerick, under the inspired guidance of the Jesuit historian and Limerickman, Father Thomas J. Morrissey, this experiment in Irish education took off with dynamic vigour as a non-feepaying co-educational school to meet ’the diverse needs of the bright and the dull, the affluent and the deprived’. (8) Personal initiatives received much encouragement, such as Father Michael Sweetman’s protests against inadequate housing for the poor of Dublin: (9) a stand which inspired more than one young Jesuit to become involved in activity for social reform and in time would result in the services provided by Jesuits today to the socially deprived in the suburban housing estates and the high- rise flats of the modern capital. The teachings of the Vatican Council were promoted by public lectures at Milltown Park which attracted overflow audiences in the late 1960s and early 1970s. (10)
In the context of service to the Church, it may be that no single development of recent years will turn out to have been as significant as the generous support given by Father McGarry to the Irish School of Ecumenics founded by Father Michael Hurley of the Milltown community in 1970. (11) This small but vitally important postgraduate institute offers university degrees, nowadays from the University of Dublin and formerly from the University of Hull, to students from various Christian Churches and from Third World as well as European countries who study theology together, gain firsthand experience of one another’s pastoral routine and return to their duties in their own communions as informed witnesses to the hope and possibility of Christian Unity. The School functions under the patronage of senior representatives of the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. The facilities of Milltown Park have been made available to the School from the outset and its international character was confirmed by the attendance of then General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Dr Eugene Carson Blake, at its formal inauguration in Milltown, where he delivered the opening address. International Consultations on such topics as Mixed Marriages and Human Rights have confirmed its repute. It has developed a Centre for Peace Studies which underlines its significance not only for the ecumenical movement in contemporary Christendom but also for an Ireland still disrupted by violence and tensions in the North which have deep roots in the religious division of the past.
The emergence under Jesuit auspices of this independent educational body, together with the attainment by the Milltown Institute of pontifical university status, can stand for the quality of Cecil McGarry’s leadership of the Irish Province. But it may well be that his ultimate memorial will be the option for the poor exercised today by Father Peter McVerry and other Jesuit champions of the homeless and deprived. Much of this began only after Father McGarry’s term as Provincial ended in 1974 but it was his determination to give the Province a new direction, in obedience to the General Congregation and to Father Arrupe, that made possible an Irish Jesuit emphasis reminiscent of the old Mission dedicated to the poor of the Liberties and the dispossessed of the penal towns and countryside.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/tributes-to-cecil-mcgarry-sj/
Tributes to Cecil McGarry SJ
A number of tributes to Cecil McGarry SJ have come in in recent days. They are all fired by deep warmth towards the man who did so much, as Provincial from 1969-1975, to
steer the Irish Province in the heady years after the Second Vatican Council, and who rose to equally large challenges in Rome and in Kenya until his death on 24 November last. An excerpt from Louis McRedmond’s history of the Irish Jesuits, To the Greater Glory, provides valuable context for understanding Cecil’s contribution to the Irish Province. And below you can read Michael Hurley’s personal recollections of Cecil, acknowledging the immense debt he owed him for his commitment to ecumenism. Also a short note by Paul Andrews, recognising Cecil’s iconic status in the 1970s.

CECIL McGARRY SJ (1929–2009): SOME PERSONAL MEMORIES Michael Hurley SJ
When in 1964 Cecil McGarry returned from Rome to Milltown Park to teach theology, the faculty and the community were still recovering from a major crisis. Kevin Smyth who taught apologetics had on 9 April that year left the Society because of faith difficulties. Paddy Barry who taught canon law had done the same and for similar reasons on 26 January 1961. And in 1962 on 11 October Des Coyle who taught dogmatics had died; his colleague, Ned Hannigan who taught moral had predeceased him, dying on 15 February 1960. So in the space of four years four members of staff had gone, two still in their 40’s, the other two in their early 50’s and, most disturbingly, two of them for faith reasons. In 1964 as faculty and community we needed new courage, new confidence. Cecil’s arrival was providential, a godsend.
That very academic year Cecil’s name appears as one of the speakers in the Spring 1965 session of the Milltown Park Public Lectures. These had begun in January 1960 on ‘theological subjects of topical interest’ and, with literally hundreds coming to attend on the Wednesday evenings in Winter and Spring, they were helping to boost our spirits. Cecil’s subject, ‘collegiality’, could hardly have been more topical and indeed controversial. Vatican II’s document on the Church had just been approved, on 21 November 1964 but the Council’s discussions on primacy and collegiality had been tense.
In June of that same year, 1965, Cecil gave a paper on ‘The Eucharistic Celebration as the True Manifestation of the Church’ at the Glenstal Ecumenical Conference which was residential and interdenominational. . This was just the second such Conference and Cecil was giving some of the fruits of his doctoral research. The topic he had chosen for his thesis had been ‘The Catholic Character of Anglican Ecclesiology, 1945-1963’.
During the rest of his time in Ireland and indeed for the rest of his life Cecil maintained his interest in ecumenism and encouraged others to do likewise. Two notable examples took place during his time as Provincial (1968-1975). The first was the interdenominational service in Gonzaga chapel on 15 April 1970 on the occasion of the presentation to the Church of Ireland, in the person of its Primate, Archbishop George Simms, of a volume of essays to mark the centenary of its disestablishment. Cecil identified himself fully with the event by agreeing to preside and preach and he succeeded in securing the acquiescence (sic) of Archbishop McQuaid who was known to have serious misgivings about ecumenism..
The second example was the formal inauguration of the Irish School of Ecumenics at Milltown Park in that same year, on 9 November 1970, as an interdenominational third –level institute of research and teaching. Cecil had agreed to be the Catholic Patron. In advance he had advised Archbishop Conway of Armagh and had obtained the acquiescence of Archbishop McQuaid. Louis McRedmond, in his A History of the Irish Jesuits,(p.310), suggests that, in the context of service to the Church, no other single development of recent years may turn out to be as significant as this.
And the very last engagement of Cecil’s Dublin years was also ecumenical: in April 1975 he preached in St Patrick’s Cathedral with ‘Vatican II: Ten Years After’ as his theme; he was whisked from the pulpit to the airport to fly to Rome to begin his term of office at the Jesuit GHQ as one of Fr Pedro Arrupe’s Assistants.
I have sometimes found myself thinking that ‘without Cecil McGarry there would be no Michael Hurley’. His support for ecumenism in the teeth of episcopal discouragement if not opposition was really crucial: for some bishops an individual priest or religious was an ecclesiastical nobody. And in that internationally traumatic year of revolts, 1968, Archbishop McQuaid had requested that a forthcoming Milltown Park Public Lecture of mine on Original Sin be cancelled and that I be removed from the diocese. The Provincial was ready to acquiesce but Cecil as my Rector intervened and reached a compromise: my lecture would not take place but I would stay on in the Dublin diocese.
May Cecil rest in peace.

CECIL McGARRY
Paul Andrews SJ
For Irish Jesuits who lived through the tumultuous years round 1970, Cecil McGarry was an iconic figure, determined, courageous, a harbinger of change and not expecting everybody to love him for it. Becoming a Jesuit was not easy for him: suspected TB interrupted his noviciate, and after nearly a year in Cappagh he had to restart the process. He was not enthused at being sent to study theology in Rome, but he landed there with the fathers of the Vatican Council, which swept him off his feet with the vision of a renewed church.
The students whom he lectured on return to Milltown loved the fresh air he breathed into its fusty atmosphere, and were dismayed when Rome interrupted Brendan Barry’s reign after three years and made Cecil Provincial. It was not easy to instil the Province with the vision of Vatican II, especially when the incumbent archbishop, landing in Dublin after the Council, had announced “No change”.
Cecil used Encounter Groups to loosen up relationships between Jesuits. He set up a Secretariate to facilitate change in a Province unused to it and appointed some young rectors.
Cecil made mistakes, and was heavily criticised, but he so learned from his failures that he was able to lead the Province through six stormy years, and hand over a shaken-up and partly rejuvenated group to enjoy the calmer waters of Fr Paddy Doyle’s Provincialate.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/funeral-of-cecil-mcgarry-sj/

Funeral of Cecil McGarry SJ
Over 500 people gathered in St. John the Evangelist Church in Nairobi to bid farewell to Cecil McGarry SJ on Saturday, November 28th 2010. The Chapel in Mwangaza Spirituality
centre where Cecil worked, lived and died was too small for the numbers expected. The funeral service was moved to the neighbouring parish Church. Religious sisters formed the majority of the congregation and over 30 concelebrants participated. Fr. Provincial of Eastern Africa, Fr. Orobator Agbonkhianmeghe presided and Hekima College Choir led the singing. Cecil’s sister Doreen, his nephew Andrew and wife Trish were present and John K. Guney SJ represented the Irish Provincial at the ceremony and gave the homily. Cecil was buried in the Jesuit cemetery in Mwangaza retreat centre where another Irish Jesuit, Fr. Sean O’Connnor is at rest. Cecil got a great send-off, and the crowds present at the Mass and at the burial service were an indication of the impact he made in Eastern Africa over the past 25 years.

Homily given by Fr. John K. Guiney SJ at Cecil McGarry’s funeral Mass St. John Evangelist Church, Nairobi, Kenya
28 Nov. 2009
Readings: Jeremiah 1:4-9 Psalm 5: 6-8
1 Cor. 9: 16-19
Mt. 5:1-12a
We come together today to mourn, to thank God and to celebrate the life of a very special man.
Cecil McGarry was born in Ireland in 1929. He was a man who loved God, loved the Church and loved the Society of Jesus with all his heart. He was a companion of Jesus for 63 years. He served Christ’s mission in the spirit of the readings we have just heard; he served with all his heart, no half measures and with a passion, perseverance, determination and love that gave outstanding witness to all around him even to those who disagreed with him or opposed him. Words like visionary, courageous, prophetic with a wonderful gift of discernment, wise, manager of change, stubborn and controversial, are descriptions of Cecil by his friends and many others.
An African companion who knew Cecil well wrote me after his death a wonderful testimony to Cecil and his way of living:
“John, a giant has gone to the Father. He was of such stature, spiritual and intellectual that it was difficult to take him for granted. He evoked strong feelings of admiration or even of opposition. He did not care much what people thought of him. Once he was sure a decision was for the Kingdom, he never flinched or wavered. It had to be accomplished effectively and completely. He was of such inner strength. I found out that I could only admire him but could hardly imitate him. He was highly gifted intellectually; he was energetic and dynamic, so much so that he could hardly accept himself, when, in the last couple of years, he was reduced to an almost passive life. And yet, he held on serving to the last: what he could do he did. Whenever I found time, it was to him that I used to go to ‘talk’. We thank God for the great gift of Cecil, to the Society and to the Church, especially to the Church in Kenya and to so many persons who sought his ‘hekima’ (wisdom).”
What were the benchmarks of Cecil’s journey that made him the man he was?. He made a huge impact not only in his Province but also in the universal Society, as Assistant for formation to Fr. General from 1975-84 and in his adopted Province of Eastern Africa.
Cecil joined the Society in 1946 in the midlands of Ireland. One year later, he was asked to leave because of ill health. His dream was shattered; the event was a real dark night of the soul. It was to be the first of many major formative experiences of being tested and called to trust always in Divine Providence. After months of treatment for spinal T.B. he re-applied to the Society and was readmitted.
His peers recall that right through his formation Cecil was Beadle, that is to say, the leader of the scholastics/students. He was perceived somewhat like the prophet Jeremiah who, as we heard today, was gifted with leadership and an ability to discern and articulate God’s ways with people and events in a courageous manner.
In the early 1960s – an era of tremendous change, questioning and upheaval in the world – he was sent to Rome for his postgraduate studies in Theology. The experience of being in Rome during the time of Pope John XX111, Vatican 11, winds of change and renewal blowing through the corridors of the Catholic Church, and the election of the prophetic Pedro Arrupe as General of the Society in 1965, were all crucial formation events for Cecil.
These events and persons were to mark Cecil’s life journey and mission for the rest of his days. He returned to Ireland to teach theology and was soon appointed a very young Rector of the Milltown school of Philosophy and Theology. Immediately he began to work on renewing the formation of the theologian student community. He established small communities of scholastics with emphasis on sharing of life, personal responsibility, accountability and the development of internal structures of guidance and religious values, rather than mere conformity to external institutional rules.
He moved the Institute from a stand-alone Jesuit institute of studies to become a consortium of religious orders where all religious, including women religious and lay men and women, were allowed to pursue their academic and spiritual formation.
He promoted the school of Ecumenics, Peace and Reconciliation, which played a critical role during the growing conflict in Northern Ireland and continues to do so through healing processes for the whole of the island.
At the age of 39, he was appointed as Provincial, one of the youngest men ever to hold the role in the Irish Province. Inspired by the spirit of Vatican 11 and of the 31st Jesuit General Congregation, he moved immediately to update the communities and structures of Jesuit life in Ireland, which had developed shades of monasticism and introspection. He encouraged Jesuit life in Ireland to return to the spirit of its Ignatian sources. He explored with others the explicitly defined mission of the Society of Jesus after the 31st General Congregation as the service of faith of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement. This twinning of faith and justice was the source of tremendous zeal, energy and controversy in the Province and indeed in the whole Society. He set up commissions to reflect on different sectors of Jesuit works and invited lay partners, who were experts in planning, change and management, to work with Jesuits to bring about renewal through reading the signs of the times in accordance with the founding charism. Each year, Provincial renewal programs brought in men and women like the American Jesuit psychologist, Jim Gill, to help people to talk to one another but above all to give Jesuits skills to listen to one another, grow in self awareness and build unity of minds and hearts.
The decisions from this process were many – for example, moving the novitiate from the country to the city, an emphasis on the human and social sciences in studies for scholastics and young priests, the closure of some schools, the immersion of some communities among the poor and a more participative and consultative management style of the Province. He encouraged and facilitated British and Irish Province collaboration and cooperation around formation programs. This was groundbreaking given the historical political and cultural conflicts over the years and the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland at that time. Cecil believed that in conflict situations the people who must first reach out to join hands across the divide are companions of Jesus.
The responses and reactions to Cecil leadership were manifold. Many of you here today in leadership know that making decisions is not easy but dealing with the reactions can be even more difficult to manage. Some of the reactions were earthshaking and memories (both positive and negative) of his term of office live on in the Irish Province to this very day. The majority, especially, the younger generation, had great appreciation, believing that Cecil enabled the Society of Jesus to enter the 20th.Century and prepare for the 21st. They felt affirmed, trusted and were given responsibility at a young age. Some others were highly critical.
Amidst all this Cecil persevered, convinced that renewal according to the spirit of Vatican 11 and to the spirit of Jesuit Congregations was absolutely essential to apostolic efficaciousness of the Company in Ireland. He lived in a real way the beatitude we read today ‘’blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’’. Thank God the Province had a man of courage to live this beatitude, because it is still being blessed by his vision, discernment, planning and courageous decisions.
Following his six-year term as Provincial, he was sent to Rome to become Assistant for formation in the universal Society. He worked with the same dynamism, zeal and decisiveness in a diversity of contexts, cultures and even creeds of formation. His goal was always the renewal of the Society according to Vatican.11, the Jesuit congregations and in accordance with the spirit and charism of the founder. The formation of ‘men for others’ was the mantra and the end product was always to have men with an inner freedom ready for apostolic service anywhere in the world. His work as always evoked great support and also controversy.
Two of his most painful moments were:

1. The assassination of the Companions in El Salvador which we commemorated in November on the 20th. anniversary. He had been with that Jesuit community immediately before the killings as a special delegate of Fr. Arrupe and they were deciding whether it was safe to send scholastics for regency to El Salvador. 2. Perhaps his most painful moment was the Papal intervention in the Governance of the Society after Fr. Arrupe suffered a stroke. In the true spirit of St. Ignatius he took this with a gracious obedience and holy silence.
   Then God beckoned him for service in Africa.
   I do not dare to say much of this period of his life because each one of you here today has your own homily on Cecil in your heart. I have a number of memories after reuniting with him in Eastern Africa after he and I left Ireland. I remember him on his bicycle as he negotiated the matatus (buses) on Ngong Rd. and I was fearing for his life. I remember him going to the Pallotines in Galapo, Tanzania, to get completely immersed in learning the rich Kiswahili of that country. I remember his excitement about working with Sr. Maura and the Emmanuel Sisters. I remember sharing survival notes with him during his recovery from his brain haemorrhage at Marjorie’s place.
   But what I can say is this; in Africa Cecil found his real spiritual home. Yes, he was a resource person to Congregations and Bishops Conferences; he was teacher, dean, rector, but above all he wanted to be and was a Pastor- a shepherd of souls. IN Eastern Africa, he lived the quintessence of Ignatian and Celtic Spirituality -he became an ANAM CHARA as we say in Gaelic, a Soul Friend to numerous people and communities. He enabled so many people to discover and follow the will of God and to find peace. The presence of so many women here today is evidence of the way he enabled and empowered women to seek and find God’s will.
   In finding his real spiritual home in Eastern Africa he wanted to be buried among the people he loved so much. We pay tribute to his family, Doreen, Andrew and Trish, who are with us today to represent all his family, for supporting and loving him in mission and setting him free to serve the God he loved so much and allowing him to be buried in his adopted country and Province.
   I invite you all to join in the old Irish blessing for those who have passed on before us – “Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis” (may Cecil’s faithful soul be at God’s right hand). AMEN.

◆ Irish Jesuit Missions :
As in “Jesuits in Ireland “ : https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/87-irish-jesuit-dies-in-kenya

IRISH JESUIT DIES IN KENYA
Irish born Jesuit, Fr.Cecil McGarry, died in Nairobi on November 24th.2009. John K. Guiney attended his funeral and gave the homily at the Requiem Mass.
Cecil served Christ’s mission with all his heart, no half measures, and with a passion, perseverance, determination and love that gave outstanding witness to all around him, even to those who disagreed with him or opposed him.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 142 : Spring 2010

Obituary

Fr Cecil McGarry (1929-2009) : East African Province

Paul Andrews writes:
Why was it that, from the Juniorate on, we saw Cecil as a future Provincial? It is a clear memory, this agreement among the brethren that here was a man made for leadership. It was not just that whisper of a miracle which enabled him to resume his novitiate, interrupted when the doctors initially told him: “With a tubercular abscess on the spine you will not be able for the Jesuit life”. In his revealing memoir Seduced (in Call and Response, Frances Makower's collection of vocation stories), Cecil recalls his conversion experience:

“The heart of my novitiate vision had been a companionship that required a radical availability to God and his will. Reluctantly I came to see that God could be calling me to live that availability to him as a layman and possibly with impaired health for the rest of my life. It was one thing to understand that this was the real meaning of what I had committed myself to during the Spiritual Exercises, quite another to accept it now in quite changed circumstances. I could never forget the moment I did so, during a sleepless night in Cappagh Hospital. It was a moment of great pain but profound consolation, in which I accepted that my life was God's gift to me and that it was for him to determine its course; my part was to be available to his will”.

Whatever the reason - the blessing of John Sullivan's crucifix or a faulty diagnosis – repeated X-rays showed no sign of the tubercular abscess, and Cecil returned to Emo to start his novitiate all over again. The experience left him visibly stronger. He was his own man among us overgrown schoolboys. His background was not untypical: middle child of a civil servant father and a mother of deep but unobtrusive faith; impressed by his glimpse of Jesuit teachers in his three years in Belvedere; intelligent but not academically ambitious; a good companion - even to old age when, on leave from Kenya, he would join a Jesuit group in Kerry. God had touched him in some special way. The fact that in all the houses of study he was appointed beadle of the scholastics - a sort of tribune between the authorities and the plebs – reflected the confidence in him felt by both parties; responsible, perceptive, strong, not a yes-man. Even his formal relationships were softened by his genuine charm, thoughtfulness and sense of humour: in any discussion of the Jews' disdain for tax-collectors, he liked to remind us that his father was the head of all Ireland's taxmen.

Yet his path was not a smooth one, even after the health crisis in Emo. At the end of his studies he was happy to be fingered as a future master of novices, and destined for a course in Rome in ascetical and mystical theology. But the shakers and movers in Milltown wanted a canonist, and Cecil's destiny was changed to a doctorate in Canon Law, a devastating blow: “Canon or Church law held no interest for me, and the last thing in the world I wanted was to spend my life teaching in a seminary”. When Visitor John McMahon changed this to a Roman course in systematic theology, the relief at escaping from legal studies was tempered by the prospect of becoming a seminary professor at a time when the divine science in Milltown was at its nadir. Cecil could not have realised that windows were being opened in Rome, and the fathers of the Vatican Council were coming together, bringing a vision of a renewed church, a vision which swept Cecil off his feet.

The students whom he lectured on return to Milltown loved the fresh air he breathed into its fusty atmosphere, and were dismayed when Rome interrupted Brendan Barry's reign after three years and made Cecil Provincial. It was not easy to instil the Province with the vision of Vatican II, especially when the incumbent archbishop, landing in Dublin after the Council, had announced "No change". Cecil listed the hard questions that he faced: “Were we not doing good things in the Irish Province? Undeniably. But were they the better things? Were they the most needed in Ireland at the time? Were they serving the more universal good? Were they the works that others were not doing? Fidelity to our own Constitutions, and to Pope John's signs of the times, required that we ask such questions. Pedro Arrupe's convictions and vision had become mine”.

But they were, initially at least, in conflict with many existing attitudes in the Province. This resistance surfaced most painfully at the 1970 Provincial Congregation, which overwhelmed Cecil with deep desolation, discouragement and doubts as to whether he could continue trying to lead people where they did not want to go.

Instead he sought another way forward: to facilitate new spiritual experiences in the Province, that would free men from fear and help them to communicate at a deeper and more personal level. So he used Encounter Groups to loosen up relationships between Jesuits. He sought help from other provinces to introduce individually directed Spiritual Exercises, and to encourage greater familiarity with our Constitutions. He received huge help from Eoin McCarthy, the consultant who visited every house in the Province, listened to almost every Jesuit in residence, and wrote a perceptive report which is still worth reading. Cecil set up a Secretariat to facilitate change in a Province unused to it. He gave enthusiastic support to the Irish School of Ecumenics during its difficult early years. As chairman of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors of men, he reached a new level of communion with other Religious, which bore visible fruit in the Milltown Institute, financed and managed by a partnership of about ten congregations. He appointed some young rectors, three of whom left the Society shortly afterwards. Cecil made mistakes, and was heavily criticised, but he so learned from his failures that he was able to lead the Province through six stormy years, and hand over a shaken-up and partly rejuvenated group to enjoy the calmer waters of Fr Paddy Doyle's Provincialate.

The 32nd General Congregation in 1974 gave Cecil a new direction, when it elected him one of the General's four Assistants ad providentiam, Fr Arrupe's counsellor and companion in government.

That companionship was sorely needed at a time when Pope Paul VI reprimanded the Congregation for discussing the question of Grades in the Society, and openly wondered whether he could continue to trust us as before. It became clear that the Society did not enjoy the confidence of the central authorities of the Church during the remaining years of Fr Arrupe's generalate. Our commitment to a service of faith that does justice was alien to some Jesuits, who had the ear of high Vatican officials. This came to a head when Pope John Paul II, after refusing Arrupe's resignation and seeing him, in consequence, disabled by a stroke, dismissed his Vicar General, suspended the Constitutions, and appointed Fathers Dezza and Pittau to do their best as an interregnum. All that Arrupe and Cecil had worked for seemed to be ashes.

Three years later, after the election of Fr Kolvenbach as General, Cecil was asked to help in the establishment of Hekima, the East African theologate in Nairobi. He was Hekima's first dean of studies and professor of Systematic Theology from 1984-1994. Then he became its rector from 1995 to 1998. He was frequently called upon to assist the Kenyan bishops and to advise them as a resource person in many important seminars and conferences. In 1994 he played an important role in the first African Synod in Rome (he shared in the pain that the synod would not be held in the continent), where he was a member of the synod's secretariat. Cecil was also involved in the development of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, as consultant as well as a professor of theology.

After a sabbatical, Cecil moved to Mwangaza retreat house near Nairobi, where he directed the Exercises from 1999 until a few weeks before his death. A brain haemorrhage in 2001 had brought him to death's door, but he fought his way back to full ministry. He gave spiritual direction to numerous lay people, Religious, priests and bishops, and assisted many religious congregations in their efforts towards renewal and growth.

The flame we saw as Juniors still burned strongly, uncomfortably. “How”, he asked, “does one continue to feel with the Church, and to love it - such integral aspects of the Jesuit way of life - when the Spirit of Jesus seems to have been arrested and confined, as Jesus himself was in his time? My response can only be: I love Christ in this Church because I cannot love him apart from his Church. He lives in this body, in which I too am a sinful part”.

Cecil has left us an agenda (Seduced, page 77): “Many of the most burning issues in the Church community are resolutely excluded from the agendas even of synods of bishops by papai authority. Are the bishops not to be trusted? What is the true meaning of collegiality? Should we not search for truth, wherever it leads, confident that it will set us free? Truth about such issues as the place and role of women in the Church, sexual morality, obligatory celibacy of the clergy in the Church of the West, the demands and limits of collegiality and inculturation. Is there no danger that we are forgetting the stricture of Jesus: You load on people burdens that are unendurable, burdens that you yourselves do not move a finger to lift (Luke 11,46)? Is open dialogue, so treasured in the early Church and by Vatican II, to be entirely abandoned? Why do we not believe any more in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but only in that of central authority? Is this the way to foster loyalty, participation and love within the Church? Is this the way the Church of Rome should preside over the whole community?”

The legacy of this remarkable man, this great lover of the Society, is not merely in his massive accomplishments, but in his passion for a renewed Church and a renewed Society, in his unrealised dreams, and the work in progress, waiting for us to carry on.

From a letter of the Provincial of Eastern Africa (Nov. 24, 2009) to the Province of Eastern Africa (to which Cecil belonged):

Brothers: Greetings of Peace!
I have just received the sad news of the death of Fr Cecil McGarry at Pedro Arrupe Community, where he lived and worked for over 10 years. As you know, Cecil's condition had deteriorated rapidly due to a relapse of his prostate cancer, which compromised his kidneys.......

Cecil came to the Eastern Africa Province in 1984, as part of the team chosen by Fr Arrupe himself to found Hekima College, the first theologate of the African Assistancy. He was Hekima's first dean of studies and professor of Systematic Theology from 1984-1994. Then, he became its rector from 1995 to 1998.

Cecil's availability to serve the Church and the Society of Jesus in Africa took him beyond his full-time job at Hekima College. For many years he was frequently called upon by both AMECEA (Association of Members of the Episcopal Conferences of Eastern Africa) and the Kenyan Episcopal Conference to assist the bishops and to advise them as a resource person in many important seminars and conferences. He played a very important role in the first African Synod in Rome in 1994, where he was a member of the synod's secretariat. Cecil was also involved in the development of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA), as consultant as well as a professor of theology. Moreover, at our province level, Cecil assisted our provincials with the governance of the newly established Eastern Africa Province, as well as with his availability to listen and give good advice to many companions,

After a well-deserved sabbatical, Cecil was assigned to continue his apostolic mission in retreat ministry at Mwangaza. He devoted his entire life to this ministry from 1999 until a few weeks before his death. All this time, Cecil guided the retreats of many people, gave spiritual direction to numerous bishops, priests, religious and lay people. and assisted many religious congregations in their efforts towards renewal and growth.

Cecil lived an exemplary life, fully devoted to the Society's mission, the formation of Ours and the apostolates, Not infrequently, he was likened to Pedro Arrupe, for the depth of his courage and the breadth of his vision as a Jesuit. The fruits of his presence among us will last a long time. The occasion of his death is a time to give thanks to God for a life well lived. As we say goodbye to Cecil, our companion, the example of his life inspires us to recommit ourselves more deeply to our Jesuit religious life as servants of Christ's mission.

I would like to take this opportunity to express our deep appreciation to the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, for the presence of Cecil among us for so many fruitful years. In the person of Cecil they shared with us one of the best Jesuit companions they had. We are deeply grateful to the Irish Province for sending us fine Jesuit companions who have witnessed to the universal mission of the Society and for giving their constant support to our province's apostolic initiatives all these years. We pray in a special way for the Irish Province, so that the Lord may reward their generosity and steadfast commitment to the universal mission of the Society.

I would also like to thank the superior, members, nursing staff and support staff of Pedro Arrupe Community, and the collaborators and staff of Mwangaza, who cared for Cecil with so much love and affection during the time of his illness. Their care and love for Cecil with so much love and affection during the time of his illness will remain a blessing to the Society of Jesus in Eastern Africa....

A. E. Orobator, S.J., Provincial of Eastern Africa

Born: 11 July 1928, Castletownbere, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1948, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1962, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 05 November 1977, St Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 06 April 2011, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin - Zambia-Malawi Province (ZAM)

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

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03 December 1969

by 1957 at Chivuna, N Rhodesia - Regency
by 1958 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia - Regency

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/fr-frank-oneill-r-i-p/

Fr Frank O’Neill, R.I.P.
Fr Frank O’Neill, who died on 6 April, grew up on a farm in Allihies, West Cork, in peaceful days when living was simple and you knew your neighbours. After school in Mungret he entered the Jesuits and volunteered for the Zambia mission. He loved the Tonga people – the gentlest he had ever met, he said; and he attained real fluency in their language. He was attuned to country people and worked mostly in parishes in the bush, living austerely, with no creature comforts. What made him a great missionary was that he was able to enter into the rhythm of the Africans. He revelled in their music and dance, and they loved him, a happy man, always positive and hopeful, with a deep trust in God’s Providence.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 145 : Summer 2011

Obituary

Fr Frank O’Neill (1928-2011) : Zambia-Malawi Province

11 July 1928: Born in Castletownbere, Co Cork.
Early education in Castletownbere National School and Apostolic School, Mungret,
7 September 1948: Entered the Society at Emo
8 September 1950: First Vows at Emo
1950 -1953: Rathfarnham - BA Degree, UCD
1953 - 1956: Studied Philosophy, Tullabeg
1956 - 1959: Regency, Chikuni Mission -learning language, teaching
1959 - 1963: Milltown Park, studying theology
31 July, 1962: Ordained at Miltown Park, Dublin
1963 - 1964: Tertianship at Rathfarnham

Zambia
1964 - 1966: Namwala pastoral work
1966 - 1968: Kasiya parish priest
1968 - 1982: Chivuna parish priest
1969: Transcribed to Zambia Province
5 November, 1977: Final vows in Chikuni
1982 - 1983: Sabbatical in Toronto
1983 - 1993: Namwala parish priest
1993 - 1998: Mazabuka, Nakumbala: superior, parish priest

1998 - 2007: Limerick, Sacred Heart Church, pastoral work.
2000: Superior
2007 - 2008: Della Strada, Asst. Chaplain, Dooradoyle Shopping Centre
2008 - 2009: Gardiner Street -- Chaplain, St. Monica's.
2009 - 2011: Residing in Cherryfield Lodge Nursing Home
6th April 2011: Died at Cherryfield

Frank settled in very well to Cherryfield and made a significant contribution to the liturgical music, which was much appreciated and enjoyed by all. His condition deteriorated over the last year and he died peacefully on 6th April 2011. May he rest in the Peace of Christ.

Obituary by Jim McGloin
Frank O'Neill was born on 11 July, 1928 to Michael and Margaret (O'Donovan) O'Neill in Eyeries village on the Beara Peninsula in County Cork. He did his early education in the area and then went to the Jesuit-run Mungret College near Limerick for his secondary schooling. In his youth he was called “Ollie”, short for Oliver. (My grandfather was from the same Eyeries village. Whenever I visited my cousins who still live there and who were his age-mates, they always asked me, “How is Father Ollie?” He told me that it was only when he entered the novitiate, the Jesuits started calling him by his other name, Francis, “Frank”.)

Frank entered the Jesuit novitiate at Emo Park in 1948. After completing his philosophy studies in Dublin in 1956, Frank was sent to Northern Rhodesia for regency. During his three years here, he studied Chitonga and taught at Canisius College in Chikuni. He returned to Ireland for theology and was ordained in 1962. Following tertianship in 1964, he returned to Zambia and began his many years of pastoral service for the people of the Monze diocese.

As a side note, while Frank was doing theology, Arthur Cox, a famous Dublin solicitor, on retirement requested the Archbishop of Dublin to accept him for the priesthood. The Archbishop asked James Corboy, the rector of Milltown Park to take Cox, who was 71 years old and a widower, for his theological studies. Corboy reluctantly agreed and asked Frank to take charge of Cox. In his book, Arthur Cox 1891 1965, Eugene McCague writes, “That Arthur fitted so well into Milltown is a tribute to his own determination and resourcefulness, but is also thanks, in no small measure, to the friendship of one particular fellow scholastic, Frank O'Neill”. Frank, as Cox's “guardian angel” fulfilled (the role) “with great devotion and understanding”. (p 126). After his ordination in 1963, Cox followed Frank (and Bishop Corboy) to Zambia. He died tragically following a car accident on the Namwala road in 1965 and is buried in Chikuni.

Frank's first assignment was Namwala where he worked for two years; then Kasiya for another two years. In 1968 he was missioned to Chivuna where he served as parish priest for the next fourteen years. He took a year away from Zambia in 1982-1983, studying pastoral theology at Regis College in Toronto. He thoroughly enjoyed the year away, especially the stimulus of studying theology and the companionship of a larger Jesuit community.

When he returned, he was assigned to Namwala parish as the parish priest and superior of the community. He served the people of Namwala for the next ten years. His final posting in Zambia was in 1993 to Nakambala parish in Mazabuka. After all the years working in very rural parishes, with numerous outstations over rough roads, he found the work in Nakambala pleasant and less taxing. However, late in 1997 while driving outside Mazabuka, he ran off the road and hit into a tree. Although he was not injured in the accident, there was concern that dizziness or a blackout might have been the cause of the accident. He returned to Ireland for a rest and to have his health examined. He was given medication for high blood pressure which seemed to have been the cause of his other problems.

However, surprisingly he asked for permission to stay in Ireland and not return to Zambia. He complained of tiredness and a heaviness concerning the way some things were going in Zambia. Colm Brophy in a note expressed his own surprise; he wondered why Frank did not want to return since “he was deeply immersed in the pastoral scene, so much identified with ordinary people and is still so much talked about by Zambian priests, religious and lay people. They keep on asking when is he coming and would love to have him back”.

Frank was sent to work in the Crescent Church in Limerick. He quickly settled into the work of the Church saying Mass, hearing confessions, taking care of callers, directing a Legion of Mary group, offering days of recollection. He was happy that he had returned to Ireland while he was still in good health and able to do some work. In 2000 he was appointed the superior of the community in Limerick.

In 2006 the Church and community in Limerick were closed. Frank continued for a short time with a chaplaincy in Limerick and in 2007 he was sent to Gardiner Street in Dublin. With his health deteriorating, he was sent to the Irish Province Infirmary in 2008 where he died on 6 April 2011.

Frank will be remembered in Zambia for his zealous apostolic work among the rural Tonga of the Monze Diocese. His vibrancy, his optimism, his welcome smile were wonderful characteristics giving hope and support to many people over many years. May the Lord whom he served so faithfully welcome him into the eternal joy of his Kingdom.

From the funeral homily preached by Fr Paul Brassil:
Frank's life was marked by hard work, in difficult circumstances, little rest or comfort in the rural areas of Zambia. There were bad roads, poor housing, makeshift churches, basic food and the task of communicating the Gospel in another language. It was characteristic of Frank to take all this in a spirit of optimism and buoyancy. He was blessed with a cheerful and outgoing nature which helped him make friends wherever he went. It also helped him make little of the difficulties and frustrations which were inevitable. To my mind his lifetime of work in Zambia was nothing short of heroic.
After his first few years in Zambia be returned to Ireland to take up theological studies in Milltown. There he was asked by the rector, Fr. (later Bishop) James Corboy, to chaperon the distinguished solicitor and, as he was then, candidate for the priesthood, Arthur Cox. Frank revelled in his task and followed a very unorthodox regime of studies. Frank and Arthur struck up a close friendship, so that later when Frank returned to Zambia, Arthur, by then ordained, came out there, too, and joined Frank in the same out-station of Namwala. Unfortunately a short time after coming to Zambia both men were involved in a car accident which led to the untimely death of Arthur.

Despite this deep sorrow, Frank proceeded to engage with great enthusiasm in the basic work of evangelisation. He was among the first to put into practice the theology of the laity which was promoted by Vatican II. He spent a major portion of his time and energy in the zealous promotion of the laity. He saw this as the only way to insert the faith in a living and vibrant community. Much of his time was dedicated to the training of leaders and he built up a strong partnership with the leaders and catechists in various outstations. He shared in the tragedies of the people and in their difficulties, but never lost his positive outlook, and always had a word of encouragement in the darkest moments. His later years were affected by the scourge of HIV/Aids which ravaged the people he served .

Frank was a man of deep faith which survived difficulties and disappointments. This faith came from his own family background in West Cork, as well as from his grounding in the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. He was blessed by a warm and sunny disposition and entertained his fellow-workers with Danny Boy on many a social occasion.

On his return to Ireland for medical reasons he worked in Limerick where he found the people just lovely. Later, as his health declined, he helped out in Gardiner Street. Then his last years were spent in the kind care of the staff in Cherryfield. When he arrives at the gates of heaven, he will surely be cheered up at all the simple folk he has guided to the knowledge and love of the Heavenly Father, who has revealed these things not to the wise and clever but to little children. We pray that he will hear the words of the Heavenly Father: “Come to me all you who labour and are overburdened and I will give you rest”. Frank has earned his rest.

Mungret College, situated 3 miles west of Limerick City, was a Jesuit apostolic school (1882-1967), and a lay secondary school (1882-1974). It had previously been an agricultural college (1858-1878), and a Limerick diocesan seminary (1882-1888).

Taken from a Mungret College prospectus (c.1970): ‘Situated on the south bank of the Shannon some three miles south-west of Limerick, the College stands on the hallowed ground where, from the sixth to the twelfth century, flourished one of Ireland's most famous schools of learning-the Monastery of Mungret. There is a strong tradition that St. Nessan was its founder and first Abbot. The property was acquired by the Society of Jesus in 1882, and opened as a College in that year. From 1887 to the passing of the Irish Universities Act in 1908, candidates for the B.A. and M.A. Degrees of the Royal University took their lectures in the College.’

Rectors of Mungret College, Limerick
1882-85: William Ronan
1885-88: Jean-Baptist René
1888-91: Thomas Head
1891-1900: Vincent Byrne
1900-03: William Henry
1903-05: William Sutton
1905-08: Thomas Nolan
1908-12: Nicholas J Tomkin
1912-13: Patrick Tighe
1913-16: Edward Cahill
1916-20: James Corboy
1920-Feb.1922: John Fahy
Feb.-July 1922: John Joy
1922-27: George Roche
1927-31:Laurence Kieran
1931-36: Edward Dillon
1936-41: Joseph O'Connor
1941-47: Jeremiah Kelly
1947-50: Brian McMahon
1950-56: Francis Joy
1956-62: Gerard Perrott
1962-68: John Kerr
1968-71: Senan Timoney
1971-74: Patrick Cusack

Superiors of the Apostolic School
1882-88: Jean-Baptist René
1888-91: Thomas Head
1891-94: Vincent Byrne
1894-95: Joseph McDonnell
1895-1900: James Forristal
1900-04: Joseph McDonnell
1904-1913: Edward Cahill
1913-1919: James Tomkin
1919-20: John Fahy
1920-21: Augustine O'Kelly
1921-23: Edward Cahill
1923-May 1926: Patrick McCurtin
May-Jul 1926: Laurence Potter
1926-41: Jeremiah Kelly
1941-55: John Kelly
1955-May 1957: Daniel McDonald
May-Jun 1957: Francis Joy
1957-59: Brendan Barry
1959-67: Redmond Roche
1967-68: John Kerr
1968-71: Senan Timoney
1971-74: Patrick Cusack

Born: 25 March 1913, Abbeyfeale, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1931, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1945, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1949, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 05 June 1984, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin - Zambiae Province (ZAM)

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

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03 December 1969

by 1965 at Loyola Watsonia, Australia (ASL) working

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Michael Moloney on coming to Zambia wrote a short 250 word account of his life, at the end of which he put: “He arrived in Zambia in May 1967 and was attached to Mukasa Secondary School at Choma. He spent x years there. He died at xx in 19xx...May he rest in peace”. PLEASE PUBLISH NO MORE THAN IS IN THIS ACCOUNT Signed: Michael Moloney S.J. 14 April 1967.

He had had four heart attacks before this date and this might have prompted him to write his own obituary! So brief! So succinct! That was Michael! Yet he lived another seventeen years, in Zambia, fully occupied.

Michael was born on 25 March 1913 in Abbeyfeale on the border of Co. Limerick and Co Kerry. His secondary education was taken in St Michael's College, Listowel, and at the Jesuit College of Mungret. He entered the Society in Emo in 1931, pursued the normal Society studies with regency at Clongowes Wood College. He was ordained in July of 1945 at Milltown Park, Dublin and after tertianship went to Belvedere College to teach for four years. He moved to Leeson Street as minister and editor of the IRISH MONTHLY which ceased publication in 1953. From 1953 to 1959, he was attached to the College of Industrial Relations (CIR) as director of the Cana Conference which organised pre-marriage courses. These were a liberating experience for many couples whom were deeply in love and full of hope and good intentions. The spirit prevailing during courses were happy - even hilarious at times, deeply spiritual in the best sense, full of the wisest insights he could muster from wide reading and from his sympathetic and naturally optimistic temperament.

In 1959 he went to Loyola University, Chicago, USA, where he gained a degree in social and industrial relations and returned to CIR. He began to have heart attacks during these years (1961-64). For four years he went to Australia as a director of a retreat house near Melbourne.

He arrived in Zambia in 1967 to teach in Mukasa Minor Seminary for a year before being moved to St Ignatius in Lusaka. He became director in the Zambia Institute of Management and spent eleven years at Evelyn Hone College of Further Education, becoming Head of the Department of Business Studies. He retired in 1981. He was kept busy at St lgnatius helping with pastoral work, preaching, marriage counselling, writing leaflets and pamphlets on Christian values in the modern world. He was very conscientious in his work and totally dedicated to whatever work he was asked to do. He highly valued his religious life as a Jesuit and was very loyal to the Church. He loved a challenge and was always ready to take up his pen to defend the Church. He started the Kalemba Leaflets to bring out the deeper aspects of our common faith.

He was a good companion and, as well as enjoying his own talk, he could listen to others. He had certain conventions to which he held tenaciously, but he was not hidebound nor narrow. On the contrary, he loved freedom and the liberty to express every truth and facet of life as it was, or as he saw it. He was essentially logical and exact and could be impatient when undue consideration was being given to illogical and incalculable elements in human behaviour. He rejected all nonsense.

On and off during his seventeen years in Lusaka, some health symptoms occurred that slowed him up and endangered his life.

He returned to Ireland threatened with gangrene on the toe. The time he spent before and after the amputation was no more satisfactory than could be expected. There were times when he wanted to die. His lifelong sense of friendship with Christ seemed to become more vivid in that last year or so. He worked over many thoughts for the defense of the faith and these he hoped to continue publishing in Zambia in the Kalemba Leaflets. That was not to be. He was sensitively cared for in Cherryfield Lodge, the Jesuit Nursing Home in Dublin where, in the end, his death came unexpectedly on 5 June 1984.

Note from John Coyne Entry
Fr Michael Moloney writes:
‘Fr Coyne took a very keen interest in what Jesuits had done in Zambia since the coming of Frs Moreau and Torrend for whom he had a deep admiration. Admiration for people who did "great things for Christ" was a permanent attitude of his. His standard for a Jesuit was that he should be "a saint, a scholar and a gentleman" and he clearly tried to exemplify that in his own life. He was a kindly man yet at the same time a puzzle to many. Many wondered what "the real John Coyne was like" because externally he seemed to be set in a conventional spiritual mould and to be rather formal in much of his behaviour, so much so that one cannot escape the conclusion that he was a man with a conflict between his personality traits and what he considered Jesuit spirituality demanded of him. In Zambia he was faithful to his afternoon stroll during which he would meet people and through which he made some friends whose hospitality he was pleased to accept".

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Michael Moloney came to Australia as director of the retreat house at Loyola College, Watsonia, and worked with Conn Finn, 1964-66.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 59th Year No 4 1984
Obituary

Fr Michael Moloney (1913-1931-1984) (Zambia)

1931-33 Emo, noviciate. 1933-36 Rathfarnham, juniorate. 1936-29. Tullabeg, philosophy. 1939-42 Clongowes, 1942-46 Milltown, theology. 1946-47 Rathfarnham, tertianship.
1947-51 Belvedere, teaching. 1951-55 Leeson St., Minister, Ed, Irish monthly. 1955-59 Catholic Workers College, dir. Cana Conference. 1959-60 Loyola University, Chicago, stud sociology and industrial relations. 1960-63 Catholic Workers' College, lect and psychology. 1963-67 Loyola College, Watsonia, Victoria, Australia, dir. retreat-house.
From 1967 on: in Zambia. 1968-83 St Ignatius Residence, Lusaka, Zambia, dir Zambia Institute of Management (till 1970. then:) lect. Evelyn Hone College of Further Education/Applied Arts and Commerce. 1984 convalescing in Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin, after hospital treatment. Died there on 5th June 1984.

To write about someone I knew as well as Michael is surprisingly difficult, I have little interest in cataloguing the events of his life, and no inclination, or right, to reveal the inner person I came to know so well. What then can be said? As a young man in the Society (1931-47) he was very well liked; comfortable and relaxed in a rather tense era; lively and zestful for life; stalwart in his convictions and strong in their expression. He worked hard, and was always good at mastering a subject accurately and expressing it clearly. After the years of 'formation we never lived in the same community again. Our relationship was full of absences, crowned by the final departure so well described by Jean Guitton: “From the angle of the living and of those who have not yet made the great journey, the absence of the dead is more than a sorrow. It is so incomprehensible, so ironical, to see them no more, not to be able to communicate with someone who was a substantial part of one's life, and who seems to have gone away one evening in a fit of madness leaving no address....
In the close community of the early years he would be remembered for his pleasant singing of ballads like “Ivan Skivinski Skivar” or “The garden where the praties grow” on days of celebration; and indeed how he would become voluble and expansive after one glass of the unnamed wine we used to get on rustication days! He was good company; and, as well as enjoying his own talk, he could listen. He had conventions which he held to tenaciously, but he was not hidebound or narrow: on the contrary he loved freedom and the liberty to express every truth and facet of life as it was, or as he saw it. His competence on formal occasions combined well with an unfettered and untrammelled spirit at other times.
He had an orderly mind, symbolised by his very clear and firm handwriting and the way he typed his letters, with seldom a misprint and never a faded or blurred ribbon. He was essentially logical and exact, and could be impatient of undue consideration being given to the illogical and incalculable elements in human behaviour. He threw out nonsense, We often disagreed as to what constituted nonsense.
Nevertheless, during one of the most fertile periods of his life he was dealing with what might be thought of as the most illogical and irrational area of human life - sexuality. Here his sound judgement rescued him from the then conventional attitude of clerics to marriage as essentially a legal contract with rights and duties. He knew instinctively that this was an inadequate and he could not accept the sexual apparatus as some kind of mechanical device, kept in a bedside locker, to be used or not according to a complicated set of philosophical and legalistic nostrums, devised largely by the inexperienced. Hence his pre-marriage courses in the CIR were a liberating experience for many pairs in love, and full of hope and good intentions. The courses, I understand, were happy, even hilarious at times; deeply spiritual in the best sense; full of the wisest insights he could muster from wide reading and from a sympathetic and naturally optimistic temperament.
I cannot speak with any assurance of the other long period he spent in adult education, in the Evelyn Hone Institute in Lusaka, He went through some difficult times with courage and faith, and kept working hard even when he felt some degree of disapproval and a sense of being undervalued. On the whole, though, my impression was that he got satisfaction from and gave satisfaction in his work there. He did not take too kindly to the onset of old age or the intimations of mortality: he was in fact rather disbelieving of its drastic effects. Those who die young have this advantage over us, I now realise, that they come to fulfilment when still fastened to their “own best being and its loveliness of youth” (Hopkins: The golden echo), and do not have to reverse of anticlimax and slow decay to get there. About twenty years before he died he had some trouble with heart and circulation. Then he went to Australia, where he was very active in retreat-giving, and made at least one rich and lasting friendship. Off and on during the sixteen years he spent in Zambia some symptoms occurred that slowed him up and endangered his life. When he came on holiday to Ireland he took things physical quietly, On villa in Achill he showed no tendency to climb the lovely mountains, but would kindly drive me to the foot and would stay below until I returned many hours later, on one occasion to find that he had had a very serious fall from the pier at Dugort. On the last villa we spent together at Banna Strand, Co Kerry, we took little exercise, he much less than I. He was contented to mooch about the dunes when it was fine, and look long meditatively over the Atlantic to the and setting sun.
When he came back some months ago threatened with gangrene in the toe, he was a very changed man. The time he spent before and after the amputation was no more satisfactory than could be expected. There were times when he wanted to die. His lifelong sense of friendship with Christ seemed to become very vivid in this last year or so. He worked over many thoughts for the defence of the faith: these he hoped to continue publishing in Zambia, as the Kalemba Leaflets. He was sensitively cared for in Cherryfield Lodge, where in the end his death came unexpectedly. I viewed his remains in Kirwan's funeral parlour. They did not look like remains, but like him: determined, and ready to spring into animated conversation at the right stimulus. I came by chance into possession of a record of Verdi's Requiem a few days after his burial, and will I hope always enjoy thoughts of him as I listen to its gentle and its thunderous passages. May he enjoy eternal life. the years
Michael J. Sweetman

Born: 15 June 1887, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 07 September 1906, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1920, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1924, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 10 March 1969, Regional Hospital, Limerick

Part of the Mungret College, Co Limerick community at the time of death.

by 1911 at Cividale del Friuli, Udine Italy (VEN) studying

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 44th Year No 2 1969

Obituary :

Fr John Aloysius Deevy SJ (1887-1969)

For some months before his death Fr. John Deevy had been growing weaker, and experiencing greater difficulty in walking. He had got permission to say Mass sitting down, and as long as he could make his way to the little Altar near his room, even by pushing before him a chair on which he leaned, he clung to his daily Mass. But that period soon passed and he came to need the constant professional care which he could get only in a hospital. His last weeks were spent in the Regional, near Mungret, where he died on Saturday March 10th. He was buried from the College Chapel after a concelebrated Requiem Mass, in which the Rector of Mungret, Fr. Senan Timoney, and ten other priests, chiefly from other houses, took part in the presence of Fr. Provincial. After the Gospel the Rector made a short address in which he dwelt on the two chief devotions of Fr. Deevy's life : devotion to his daily Mass, and his devotion to Mungret. He mentioned that Fr. Deevy, before his last illness had declared that he missed his daily Mass only twice in his life of forty nine years as a priest.
The ceremonies of the Requiem were carried out impressively with the boys choir singing hymns to the accompaniment of two guitars. Afterwards the boys lined the avenue from the chapel to the graveyard where Fr. Deevy was laid to rest among the fellow Jesuits with whom he had lived.
John Aloysius Deevy was born in Waterford on June 15th, 1887. He belonged to a very well known Waterford family, which consisted of four boys and nine girls. None of his sisters married, only one survived him and was at his funeral. He was a layboy at Mungret from 1903 to 1906, when he entered Tullabeg with seven other companions. It was a small vintage, but all of the eight persevered in their vocation and four of them predeceased him. From the beginning he showed himself the John Deevy that so many were afterwards to respect and to like, bright, cheerful, utterly sincere and honourable. The Master of Novices, Fr. James Murphy, at once perceived the sterling qualities of Brother Deevy, and held him up as a model of the spirit he sought to inspire in his novices, which he expressed in his often repeated words : “What is right is right, what is wrong is wrong and that settles the matter”. You could not know John Deevy for any length of time without coming to admire his sincerity and straightness, and his unswerving sense of honour and truthfulness.
His constant flood of energy, and his zeal for what was good, were not always appreciated by less vigorous companions. He was a formidable companion at the pump. For a later and softer generation it should be explained that pumping water up to tanks in the garret was a part of the manual work of the novices. It was also a test of solid virtue. Br. Deevy would throw himself into this back-breaking activity while his companion, wilting over the other handle of the pump, would feel inclined to greet the ardour as an excess of zeal. At the oars in the boats on the canal, on the long summer afternoons, he rowed like a Roman galley slave.
He did his Juniorate in Tullabeg, under Fr. John Keane and then went to Cividale in Italy for his Philosophy. His colleges were done in Belvedere, Mungret and Clongowes. He was an excellent teacher of Latin and, especially, of Mathematics; he had a gift of expounding clearly that severe discipline, if not of enlivening it. From 1918 to 1922 he did his theology at Milltown Park where he was ordained on August 15th, 1920, earlier than the canonical date, because he had been delayed by the war. He did his tertianship under Fr. Bridge, of the English province from 1922 to 1923 at Tullabeg,
For the first years of his priesthood he circulated around the colleges and everywhere he was true to the image he had shown in his years at Tullabeg, friendly, bright, energetic, a thoroughly devout priest but without a trace of smugness or solemnity. After some years he began to be more engaged in administration for which his energetic and practical temperament fitted him. He was changed from the classroom and allotted to the duties of minister, procurator and Superior. Mungret, Tullabeg, Milltown Park, the Crescent, and Emo Park saw him successively. His years at Emo, twelve of them, deserve a special mention. He was Procurator, then Superior and finally Rector. In these positions he came to know intimately the secular clergy of the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin and particularly those who lived about Emo. He was at once accepted as one of themselves, and was soon a welcome and frequent guest at their dinners. He was at home in their presbyteries. The gossip, the politics of the diocese were openly discussed in his presence. And he contributed to the gaiety of the dinner table by his large stock of clerical stories which he narrated with the skill of a born raconteur. As a Superior he had a car at his disposal and he took a boyish delight in dashing into Portarlington and Portlaoise and further afield on errands or business or visits. The Society had opened Emo as a noviceship house in 1930 and were timidly making their way into the good will of the priests of the diocese. Fr. Arthur Murphy, the P.P. of Emo had been our sponsor there, and to him we owe, more than to anyone else, our settlement in the diocese. But Fr. Deeyy's contact with the priests did great service in changing toleration into genuine friendliness. Fr. Deevy was the least “Jesuitical” of men, as defined in the Concise Oxford dictionary, a “dissembling person, a prevaricator”. On everyone who met him he left the impression that he was a man whose word was as good as his bond, whose speech was “yea and nay”.
By temperament he was active and practical and took naturally to administration. He liked working with his hands and was glad to do odd jobs; he spent a good deal of time tinkering with things. He was not a reading man and would not often be seen in his room reading. That was a pity as he was intelligent and had a clear and vigorous mind. It was a pity also that he so early in his priestly life allowed his administrative activities to take him from pastoral work and, especially, from retreat-giving, a ministry which his deep spirituality, his good judgment, his kindness and his bright manner fitted him for to a high degree.
In 1944 Fr. Deevy returned to Tullabeg as Procurator and in 1953 he was assigned, in the same office, to Mungret; it was his last change and it was fitting that the end of his life should be spent in the place where he had made his first contact with the Society. The wheel of his changes had come full circle. For the years left him he was the same useful worker;, the same bright popular community man. He had little contact with the boys, they only remember the white-haired old priest who was so regular with his Mass. A good part of these years. was spent in compiling the Mungret Record, a list of all the past Mungret boys with their places of origin and their years in the College, It was a work which demanded a great deal of minute research in the Mungret Annual, old lists of the Prefects of Studies, of the Procurator, in the account books. It was done with the thoroughness and accuracy that were characteristic of all his work. The typed volume will remain as a very useful book of reference as well as a monument to Fr. Deevy's love of Mungret.
His death was felt throughout the province with a very genuine regret, by those who had ever lived with him. One of these, one who made his acquaintance on the 7th of September 1906, who drove him on the same sidecar to the noviceship, renders in these pages his sincere, if inadequate, tribute, his Ave atque Salve to a Very near friend of a lifetime. Ar dheis-Dé go raibh a anam.
Two of Fr. Deevy's sisters deserve a brief mention, Tessa was a well known playwright. Many of her plays were presented with success at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin and outside Ireland. Another, Agnes, entered the Carmelite monastery, Delgany, where she was known as Mother Mary of the Incarnation and was Mother Prioress for many years. She was revered and loved by her community and those who knew her still cherish the memory of her outstanding charity and holiness.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1974

Obituary

Father John Deevy SJ

John Aloysius Deevy was born in Waterford on 15 June 1887. He belonged to a much-respected Waterford family of four boys and nine girls. His family is perhaps best known because of its accountancy firm which has offices in several Irish cities but it also has to its credit a well-known playwright, his sister Teresa, many of whose plays were presented successfully at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and abroad.

John was a layboy at Mungret from 1903 to 1906 when he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tullabeg. He studied philosophy at Cividale in Italy for three years and then taught in Belvedere, Mungret and Clongowes. He was ordained at Milltown Park on 15 August 1920 at the end of his second year of theology. This was a special privilege granted to those who, because of the European war, were kept longer than usual as scholastics in the colleges. It did not, however, dispense them from completing the full four years of theology. After his tertianship, which he did at Tullabeg, he resumed teaching and made the acquaintance of the Crescent.

After a few years he was selected for ad ministrative work and he continued in it until the last few years of his life. The Jesuit novitiate had been changed to Emo Park in 1930 and two years later Fr Deevy was sent there as bursar. He then became superior and finally, when the new house reached its full status, he was appointed rector. In all he spent twelve years at Emo where his chief interest was in developing the farm and in doing pastoral supply work in the neighbouring parishes. He had a car at his disposal and it soon became known that he could be relied upon to come to the assistance of priests and convents who needed help, and that he made demands on no one. In time he won a host of clerical friends and he warmly responded to friendship shown him.

In 1944 his period as Rector at Emo was completed and he was transferred to Tullabeg to become bursar and to take charge of the farm. Nine years later, in 1953, he was sent to take over the farm at Mungret. In 1956 he celebrated his golden jubilee as a Jesuit but he continued to look after the farm until he was in his seventies. When he was relieved of this responsibility he devoted his time and energy to the compilation of the “Mungret Record”. This is a list of all past students with their places of origin and their years in the college. It involved working through all sorts of documents and when lists were completed he had to type them out page by page. It was a very big undertaking but it was a labour of love and he was happy to be able to complete it for distribution in 1963. It is, of course, an invaluable contribution to the history of the college,

Fr Deevy died on 10 March 1969. Up to the time of his final illness he missed his daily Mass only twice in his life of forty-nine years as a priest. He was a man of quite outstanding uprightness and integrity, of great kindness of heart and he contributed much to every community in which he lived.

Born: 05 September 1874, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin
Entered: 20 May 1897, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 26 July 1910, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1912
Died 29 July 1969, Talbot Lodge, Kinsealy, Dublin

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

by 1900 in Vals France (LUGD) studying
by 1902 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
by 1911 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 32nd Year No 3 1957

St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, Dublin
The most important event of the past quarter in Gardiner Street was Fr. Dillion's Diamond Jubilee, which was celebrated on 20th May. A large gathering of his near-contemporaries and those who had been stationed with him during his long and distinguished career in the Society agreed heartily with the felicitous tributes paid to the Jubilarian by Father Provincial and Father Superior and others. This is not the place for an advance obituary notice as Fr. Dillon himself would be the first to reckon our praise: but we cannot omit our tribute on behalf of Gardiner Street to all that he contributes both to our edification and our entertainment. His photographic memory ranges as easily from London in the nineties to Old Trafford in the fifties as from Beaumont to Mungret, and brings alive again all the Society stalwarts and “characters” of the past : our recreations would be vastly the poorer without his reminiscences and our link with the traditions of our predecessors very much the weaker. Withal he is still sturdily at the service of the faithful “ from the distinguished gentleman who will tell you - not that he goes to confession to Fr. Dillion - but that he “consults him professionally”, to the old ladies of seventy-five who are “worried about the fast”. Long may he continue with us!

Irish Province News 44th Year No 4 1969

Obituary :

Fr Edward Dillon SJ (1874-1969)

Fr. Edward Dillon died at Talbot Lodge, Blackrock on July 29th. He was within five weeks of his ninety fifth birthday, and was seventy two years in the Society. He was born in Dunlaoire on September 5th, 1874, and was educated at Belvedere, St. Gall's (Stephen's Green), Beaumont and Trinity College.
He entered the noviceship at Tullabeg on May 20th, 1897. Fr. James Murphy was his novice master.
For Philosophy he went to Vals, in the Toulouse province.
As a scholastic he taught for one year at Belvedere, one year at Clongowes, and three years at Mungret.
He did Theology, and in 1910 was ordained, at Milltown. His tertianship was at Tronchiennes, Belgium
In 1911 he went to Mungret as Prefect of Discipline. Two years afterwards he began a five year term as Minister at the Crescent. sometimes referred to as “the Dillon-Doyle regime”.
After a period of twelve years teaching at Belvedere, Fr. Dillon became Rector of Mungret.
Two years at Rathfarnham Retreat House followed. From 1938 till his death he was on the staff of St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, but for some years he was in the care of the Irish Sisters of Charity at Talbot Lodge,
Fr. Dillon's life stretched far into the past, and during his noviceship there were two priests, Frs. C. Lynch and P. Corcoran who were born about 150 years ago; but he was never out of touch with the present. He was never out of date or old-fashioned in his outlook or ways.
Fr. Dillon had a rare gift for dealing with boys. As Prefect in Mungret he made things go with a swing. He was generous in providing splendid equipment for the games. He improved the libraries and organised the “shop” so that the boys got good value. He was quick and energetic, and could join skilfully and cheerfully in any game. He was not severe, but had no difficulty in controlling boys, who had confidence in him and respected him.
It is recalled by a Father who was in the Community with Fr. Dillon during part of his long period of teaching at Belvedere, 1919-31, that he was an excellent teacher. He taught Honours Latin classes, but also during his teaching career he taught Greek and French.
He did not mix much with the boys outside class. He used to attend, in a class-room in the Junior House at Belvedere to enrol boys for membership of the Pioneer Association. There were no big meetings, big Notices, but “what went on behind those closed doors only Fr. Cullen (in heaven) knows”.
During this time at Belvedere he was very attentive to an invalid brother who lived at Clonsilla. He cycled out regularly to visit him.
In 1931 Fr. Dillon returned to Mungret as Rector. In 1932 he had a busy time organising celebrations for the Golden Jubilee of the College. He succeeded in gathering a great number of past pupils, among them some Bishops from America and Australia who had been Apostolic students, and were in Ireland for the Eucharistic Congress. He had a contemporary of his own, Fr. Garahy, to preach.
While in Mungret he got the College connected with the Shannon Scheme, dismantling the old power house, which had done its work. He also had the telephone installed! There was, no motor car in Mungret in those days, and one remembers Fr. Dillon frequently “parking” his bicycle at the Crescent when he visited the city.
From 1936-38 Fr. Dillon gave retreats at Rathfarnham.
From there he moved to Gardiner Street. He entered zealously into the various activities of the Church. He prepared carefully for preaching. His sermons were direct and practical. He had an easy fluency in speaking and a pleasant and clear voice; and he gained the people's attention as he leaned confidentially over the edge of the pulpit.
His preparation was also notable in another work which took much of his time, the instruction and reception of converts. A sister of his in the Convent next door, Sister Bride, also instructed many of the converts who were received at St. Francis Xavier's. Sister Bride was also well known as a “missioner”, visiting the district. Mountjoy prison was in her area of zeal, and she met and counselled many who were under the death sentence.
Fr. Dillon for some years gave the Domestic Exhortations, which he prepared carefully. Preparation, planning, foresight were in deed very characteristic in his life.
As a confessor he was a very busy man. He had a worldly wisdom that stood him in good stead, and many sought him out because of this. But he was a patient, kind and sympathetic priest, and a great favourite.
Community recreation was always the better and livelier for his presence. His easy manner, conversation and sense of fun enlivened the daily meetings.
For many years at Gardiner Street, he was still as active, alert and full of energy as ever. Games still interested him, though I do not think he went to watch them much. He was still keen on golf, and played it fairly often. His slight figure sped quickly around the course, and he came back with a healthy glow on his face from the outing.
His brother and other members of his family were interested and much engaged with horses and racing, and Fr. Eddie always kept a very remarkable interest in the important races. Even when, at last, sight and hearing were almost gone, he would try to pick up the story of the big races from the TV at Talbot Lodge.
In his last years Fr. Dillon won the admiration of all by the gentle, patient way in which he bore a life of great handicaps and discomfort, and quite an amount of pain. His many ailments did not seem to lessen the robustness of his heart and constitution; though he grew progressively more helpless, needing first one stick, then two, and at last almost unable to move from his bed.
His mind was certainly not affected by his ailments. He was quick to catch the subject of a conversation. He kept up his interest in the community and the Province. He had a great memory which enabled him to relate interesting episodes of the past, or to recount any news he had heard from visitors. He had, during life, made many constant friends, and some of them were able to keep contact with him to the end. His two nieces from Bray were most devoted to him. They visited him regularly, and he was deeply grateful to them, and also to the staff at Talbot Lodge who gave him such care and kindness.
Fr. Dillon was never an effusive man, in any sentimental way; but in the last months when, though still having use of his. faculties and clarity of mind, he felt he had not long to live, he let his appreciation of friendship shown him, appear very visibly. The prospect of the end he felt to be very near, seemed to make him glow with happiness.
Eternal life be his.

Born: 01 April 1894, Ballybay, County Monaghan
Entered: 09 October 1914, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1926, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1930, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died :27 July 1971, Mungret College SJ, Limerick

Studied for BA at UCD

Editor of An Timire, 1930-31.

by 1918 at Stonyhurst, England (ANG) studying
by 1929 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :

Note from Paddy Finneran Entry
With the encouragement of Michael Murphy he then entered the Novitiate at St Mary’s, Emo under the newly appointed Novice Master John Neary. Michael Murphy followed him to Emo as Spiritual Father, and then onward to Rathfarnham as his Prefect of Studies in the Juniorate.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 46th Year No 4 1971

Obituary :

Fr Michael Murphy SJ (1914-1971)

Fr Michael Murphy was born in Monaghan on April 1st, 1894 and received his secondary education at the diocesan seminary. He then went to Dublin to study engineering in the recently opened UCD. Money was not easily come by and Fr Michael would cycle from Monaghan to Dublin at the beginning of each term and back to Monaghan at the end. For good measure, he had to take his brother in tow as he had not got Fr Michael's reserves of strength. While he was the University, Fr Egan used to admire his steadying influence on the wilder members of the engineering faculty,
Before completing his course in UCD he entered the noviceship at Tullabeg in 1914 shortly after the beginning of World War I, In 1916 after taking his vows he remained on in Tullabeg in the home Junioriate before sitting for his final University examiniation in 1917. Then he went to Stonyhurst for philosophy only to return within a year to Ireland when the Conscription scare blew up and go to Milltown to finish philosophy. He taught in Clongowes from 1920 to 1923 and after theology returned to Clongowes for a year before going to tertianship in St Beuno's. After his tertianship he went to Belvedere as assistant to the editor of the Irish Messenger and the following year became a teacher in Belvedere. He was transferred in 1927 to Mungret as Prefect of studies, a position he held till he was sent in 1935 to Emo as Socius to the Master of novices, Two years later he went to Rathfarnham Castle as Minister of Juniors, remaining thus till 1941. He was next appointed as Prefect of Studies in the Crescent, and from 1941 to 1954 he occupied this position either in the Crescent or in Mungret with a one year break when he went to Belvedere to teach from 1945-46. When Fr. M. Erraught replaced him as Prefect of Studies in 1954 he remained on in Mungret teaching Mathematics till 1956 when he went to Emo Park as Procurator. When Emo was sold in 1969, Fr. Murphy, now an old man, returned to Mungret, his working days over. Two years later, he passed peacefully away in a nursing home close to Mungret College. He died July 27th.
Most of Fr. Murphy's life as a Jesuit was spent in the Colleges either as teacher or as Prefect of Studies. He taught in Belvedere, Clongowes and Mungret, and was Prefect of Studies in the Crescent and for two periods in Mungret. Moreover, he was Prefect of Studies of the Province from the institution of the post for many years.
There is no gain-saying his success as Prefect of Studies. He possessed the capacity for carrying out endlessly tedious chores on the progress of the boys in the school. He was not severe and administered very little corporal punishment, producing results by steady pressure on boys and masters. Mungret in particular had remarkably consistent success in the public examinations under his guidance.
On the occasion of his annual visit to the College as Province Prefect of Studies, the local Prefect of Studies found him understanding and helpful with little taste for dull uniformity. Scholastics were encouraged by him to improve their teaching techniques and prompt assistance given to help them become efficient masters.
In his dealings with the Juniors as their Minister in Rathfarnham he was not a success, but indeed it is hard to see how anyone could be a success if he carried out the instructions he was given. The attitude of those in charge of the Juniors had been one of trust, now it was obviously one of suspicion. Studies do not flourish in such an atmosphere. It was a great relief for Fr Murphy to leave Rathfarnham and go as Prefect of Studies to the Crescent in 1941. The problems he had to deal with in a school were familiar to him and he knew how to deal with them successfully.
Fr Murphy was a Northerner with the faults and virtues of the North. As they say up there he was very “true” and most reliable and conscientious. One could not imagine him shirking a job no matter how demanding or unattractive it was. He possessed a good sense of humour combined with the patience of Job which he practised in dealing with the bores of the Province who were sure of a sympathetic hearing from him. In his habits he was austere and allowed himself little indulgence. Smoking, drinking, novel-reading had no attraction for him and his one form of exercise was cycling.
For Mathematics he had an abiding passion. I do not think he taught any other subject during his many years in the Colleges, but even after his teaching days were over, he spent many a day happily with figures. He was a constant correspondent of Fr R Ingram after the computer was set up in UCD and many an hour of the computer was occupied in testing for him whether this or that formula would always give you a prime number..
The rising generation of Jesuits would describe him as pre Vatican II, the Society will flourish if its younger members give the ungrudging service Fr Murphy did. RIP

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1974

Obituary

Father Michael Murphy SJ

Michael Murphy was born in Monaghan on 1 April 1894 and received his secondary education at the diocesan seminary. He then went to Dublin to study engineering in the recently-opened UCD, cycling from Monaghan at the beginning of each week and back home again for the weekends. Before completing his course at UCD he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Tullabeg. That was in 1914. He remained in Tullabeg after his first vows in 1916, and in 1917 sat his final university examination. He studied philosophy at Stoneyhurst in England and Milltown Park in Dublin. He was a scholastic in Clongowes from 1920 to 1923, returning that year to Milltown for theology.

His first connection with Mungret was in 1927 when he came as prefect of studies, which post he held until 1935, It is in this capacity (which he held also from the late 1940s until 1954) that he will be best remembered by Mungret past pupils. His little “black book” was the terror of all. It was the one thing he used to get the work done! Boys, under him would do anything rather than have their names entered in that dreaded book. As one Jesuit teacher remarked : “Fr Murphy would come into a ‘rowdy’ class and stand in front of it. While not looking at any particular individual, he was looking straight into each one-one could see all the past ‘sins’ of each boy coming up before the eyes of the offender. Then he would just walk out again”.

Fr Michael's greatest interest in the things of this world was undoubtedly in the area of mathematics. He taught maths in the colleges - whenever he got the chance! - and even after his teaching days, he continued his interest. He was a really enthusiastic teacher, and almost necessarily was thus a very good one.

In 1956 he moved to St Mary's, Emo, then the Jesuit novitiate. Here he had the onerous task of procurator, where his mathematical interests were somewhat concretised. He remained in St Mary's until it was closed down in 1968, when he returned to Mungret. He was now an elderly man, and was suffering quite some discomfort from a skin disease. For two further years he soldiered on, and towards the end of his life he experienced great difficulty in climbing stairways. Indeed, it was on the stairs in Mungret that early in 1970 he suffered a rather bad fall, and this accident was the beginning of the illness which ended his life in July 1971.

Only as recently as 1965 did the writer first meet Fr Michael Murphy. That was in St Mary's, Emo. For one further year, 1970-71, we both lived in Mungret. The man I knew was a very kind and considerate man; a man of obvious deep spirituality; a man who suffered in silence, without wearing that martyred expression. He was a man who was interested in others - the one question always on his lips being a simple, concerned, “Doing well?” Fr. Michael's quiet presence, despite his own personal suffering, was both an influence on the writer and an inspiration to him to endeavour to live out his Jesuit life in the same quiet, concerned, spiritual manner.

Mungret, where Fr Murphy laboured for the Lord, is soon to be very quiet : in that peace and serenity may Fr Michael enjoy the vision and peace of his Lord and Master.

Born: 15 July 1921, Ballyorgan, Kilfinane, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1940, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1956, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1959, St Stanislaus College Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died 26 December 1971, Tullamore County Hospital, Tullamore, County Offaly

Part of the St Stanislaus College Tullabeg, County Offaly community at the time of death

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 47th Year No 2 1972

Obituary :

Fr John F O’Connor SJ (1921-1971)

It is hard to imagine that Fr. John O'Connor was a good athlete as a schoolboy. Those who remember him at Mungret where he spent four years, 1936 to 1940, will recall his display at football and hurling. He was born outside Kilfinnane, Co. Limerick, and though he seldom spoke about his family and home he had a deep attachment to both. Indeed in recent months his only worry about a possible cure for his arthritis at Phoenix, Arizona, was the separation from his 85-year-old mother. As he spent five years in a Sanatorium with TB after his second year philosophy it is difficult to judge his ability at his studies as a young Jesuit. There is no doubt about that ability however. Though not unduly argumentative he could follow and contribute to a good discussion on moral problems with avid interest. His reading was wide and embraced even novels which were selected with care and a critical eye. Fr John was blessed with a retentive memory,
Most of his studies as a scholastic were absolved as an invalid, but once he got the work at the Rathfarnham Castle retreat house as a priest, he really enjoyed himself. He had a strong love of the Society and could be considered a good Community man. He was certainly a fine priest and a good Jesuit. Good company was a joy to him and he was lucky with his friends in the Province to whom he was forever loyal.
As Bursar in Tullabeg again he found the work that suited him. He proved an excellent economist, methodical in his book-keeping and shrewd in his turn for business. Now he had the opportunity of doing priestly work in his own quiet way, without fanfare or trumpets. He was an excellent confessor, balanced, with sound judgment; liked by the Sisters of the seven convents he visited regularly; liked in the public church. That rare gift of objectivity he had in abundance. Some said he was occasionally negative in his approach to things. This might be true but who has not his reserves?
His unobtrusive dry sense of humour was a great blessing, because he actually kept going to the end when 98% would have thrown in the towel. He was rarely at a loss for a witty repartee, savoured on occasions with a little salt which his equable temperament saved from being resented. His sense of duty was heroic, accepting as he did the hard slogging up and down three flights of stairs so often entailed by calls to the parlour in consultations or to the church for confessions; again trying to open week-end offering envelopes was a penance with fingers stiff and unflexible.
Never one to complain about ill-health and the Lord knows there was plenty to grumble about--one lung, one kidney and a sure but certain deterioration in the arthritis, Fr O'Connor did suffer but even when asked about his health the subject was quietly changed. The last years at Tullabeg were placid and suited him. His memories of his days at Rathfarnham Castle retreat house were pleasant and the doings of the lay helpers and their families were a perpetual interest to him. Yes, he was curious but once the curiosity was satisfied he was content. It was a small weakness. Whoever sent him to Rome, after his kidney operation, with the Retreat House pilgrimage did a good day's work. That trip was an endless thrill and tiny events were often spoken of with a chuckle. Likewise his villas at Enniscrone were a great enjoyment as were the eight summers on supply at Littlehampton in Southern England.
The two and a half days at Tullamore County Hospital prior to his death were very typical of the man. Methodical as ever, everything was in order. All at Tullabeg could see that he was suffering for the five weeks before the end but little did they suspect it was active TB in the one lung that was at the root of the trouble.
He will be missed by the Tullabeg Community. We were glad of the ten years or so he was with us, of his indomitable courage, his unobtrusive co-operation. To die at fifty years of age is young in Jesuit eyes, but to live as he did and to die as he died around midnight on Christmas night was a lesson to us and we are grateful.

Born: 29 October 1910, Drumcondra, Dublin
Entered: 02 September 1929, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 29 July 1943, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 03 February 1947, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 19 June 2003, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Early education at O’Connell’s School

by 1935 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 117 : Special Issue November 2003

Obituary
Fr Seán Hughes (1910-2003)

29th Oct. 1910: Born in Dublin
Early education in National School, Fairview and O'Connell School (CBS), Dublin
2nd Sept. 1929: Entered the Society at Tullabeg
3rd Sept. 1931: First Vows at Emo
1931 - 1934: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1934 - 1937: Jersey - Maison St. Louis - Studied Philosophy
1937 - 1939: Mungret College - Regency (Choir Master)
1939 - 1940: Clongowes - Regency (Choir Master); Clongowes Certificate in Education
1940 - 1944: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
29th July 1943: Ordained at Milltown Park
1944 - 1945: Mungret College - Sub-Minister
1945 - 1946: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1946 - 1953: Mungret College
1946 - 1949: Minister; Lecturer in Philosophy
1949 - 1953: Teacher; Lecturer in Philosophy, Choir Master
3rd Feb. 1947: Final Vows at Mungret College
1953 - 1959: St. Ignatius, Galway - Rector; Men's Sodality
1956 - 1964: Province Consultor
1959 - 1965: Gonzaga College - Rector
1965 - 1973: Crescent College - Rector; President: Sod. BVM
1973 - 1974: Belvedere - Director, Secretariat Catholic Secondary Schools (1973-1977)
1974 - 1977: John Austin House - Bursar, Belvedere
1977 - 1984: Manresa - Minister, Asst. Director, Retreat House; Socius to Novice Director
1984 - 1995: John Austin House - Superior, Directed Spir.Ex.
1995 - 2003: Loyola House
1995 - 1997: Librarian; Treasurer; Directed Spir. Ex.
1997 - 2001: Assistant Treasurer; Directed Spir. Ex., Sacristan; House Historian
2001 - 2003: Resided in Cherryfield Lodge

Following his return to Cherryfield from four weeks in the Royal Hospital in May, where Seán regained some mobility, and his sharpness of wit returned, he took a sudden turn on June 16th during the night. His heart and kidney function deteriorated rapidly over the next few days but he entertained friends even on the previous Thursday afternoon! Seán on 19 June 2003, at Cherryfield Lodge, aged 92 years.

Dermot Murray writes:
Seán Hughes was born on 29th October 1910 in Dublin. He attended the National School in Fairview and O'Connell Schools before entering the Society in Tullabeg at the age of eighteen. Following the noviceship (Tullabeg and Emo) and his degree studies in UCD, he was sent to Jersey for Philosophy in 1934. Two years in Mungret, one year in Clongowes and three years in Milltown Park were followed by ordination on 29th July 1943. His fourth year in Milltown was followed by a year in Mungret before Tertianship in Rathfarnham, a return to Mungret in 1946 and the beginning of his life of service as a priest in the world of education.

After his seven years in Mungret, Seán went to Galway as Rector. Six year later he went to Gonzaga again as Rector and this was followed by eight years as Rector in Crescent, where he was deeply involved in the move to Dooradoyle and the setting up of Crescent College Comprehensive. On his appointment as Director of the Secretariate for Catholic Secondary Schools, Seán left Limerick in 1973 and, following a short stay in Belvedere, moved to John Austin House in 1974. He then spent seven years in Manresa before returning to John Austin House as Superior from 1984 to 1995. Then, at the age of 85, he moved to Loyola House where he spent six happy years before moving to Cherryfield House for the last two years of his life. He died on 19th June 2003.

In a letter to Fr. Provincial on the occasion of Seán's death, Mr. Seán McCann, General Secretary of ACS paid him this tribute:

“The history of School Management in Irish Post primary education cannot be adequately written without honouring the memory of Fr. Sean Hughes'

There is no need in this obituary to go into the details of his work in the development of the structures of second level in education in Ireland. But it is worth quoting the words of Eileen Doyle in her book, Leading the Way in which she notes that”'the credit for proposing a managerial body that would represent the interests of all the churches is rightly attributed to John Hughes SJ”.

Seán worked very hard to obtain this. The fruits of his efforts – his among others - lie in the Secretariate for Catholic Secondary schools and in the Joint Managerial Body (MB), representing all secondary schools. And when he became Chairman of the Board of Crescent College Comprehensive, he was one of the founding fathers and the first Chairman of the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools (ACS).

I first came to know Seán when I was a scholastic in Crescent in 1965 when Sean was appointed as Rector. He had already been Rector in Galway and in Gonzaga and some members of the Crescent community at the time thought that his appointment was another example of musical chairs. But they were wrong. I was a young scholastic at the time, beginning my second year of regency in Crescent. What struck me then - as it did in the years since – was that, despite his many and well known foibles, Seán was a Vatican 2 person and remained so until the end of his life.

I came to know him more deeply when he was Chairman of the Board of Crescent College Comprehensive and I was Headmaster. We became great friends and I became aware of the depth of his own spirituality – confirmed by the letters received since his death - and his wonderful humanity. He performed an enormous service to the world of Irish second level education. He had a wide range of friends and a wonderful sense of family; and he did love 'fine wines and foods rich and juicy' as Isaiah described the banquet that Lord would prepare for his people. May he enjoy it eternally in heaven.

Born: 10 April 1943, Howth, Ballyfermot, Donnycarney, Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1965, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 21 June 1974, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Final vows: 04 March 1985, Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Galway
Died: 30 March 2017, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin

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

Grew up in Howth, Ballyfermot, Donnycarney, Dublin.
by 1977 at Regis Toronto ONT, Canada (CAN S) studying

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : & ◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 2013 https://www.jesuit.ie/news/derek-cassidy-sj-man-soulful-presence/

Derek Cassidy SJ – a soulful presence
Fr Derek Cassidy SJ died peacefully on Thursday morning, 30 March, in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin. He had been a dialysis patient for many years. In recent months, his health began to deteriorate very rapidly. The staff of Beaumont Hospital knew him well and gave him great care. He lay in rest at Belvedere College SJ on 2 April and his funeral mass took place on 3 April in Gardiner Street Church, followed by burial at Glasnevin Cemetery. Leonard Moloney SJ, the Irish Provincial who worked with Fr Derek in Belvedere College, was the principal celebrant and homilist at the mass.
Fr Derek served as Rector of Belvedere College since 2002 and was a much-loved member of the College community. He was also a member of the Jesuit community in Gardiner St, Dublin and will be sadly missed by them. He is deeply regretted by his brother Damien and wife Anne, sisters Thelma, Sandra and Denise, nephew Joe, nieces Frances, Susan and Jennifer, grandnieces Chloe, Lucy, Katie and Baby Anne, Jesuit brothers, extended family and his many friends.
Tributes were paid to Fr Derek through the Irish Jesuits page on Facebook. Bláth McDonnell commented, “Rest in Peace Fr. Derek. He had always been such a calm, kind and gentle presence around the College and will be sadly missed”. Thomas Giblin said, “What I remember of Derek was his complete presence in a conversation. It is in his eyes in the photo above. When you needed him, he was with you. There was no doubt. That made him a great chaplain and a wonderful friend”. And Clar Mag Uidhrin said, “So sorry to hear this. I’m blessed I had the opportunity to work alongside him. Rest in peace Fr Derek”. And Niall Markey noted, “Rest in peace, Derek. Thank you for the kindness you showed to me throughout my Jesuit journey. God bless”.
Fr Derek worked in school chaplaincy for a large part of his Jesuit life. He also taught as a Religious Education/Religious Studies teacher at Belvedere for several years. His ratings were above the average at 4.35/5 stars as recorded on ratemyteachers.com. Students comments included: “Biggest baller going, inspiration and a half, aspire to be like this man”; “legend of the school”; “great guy”; and “a class act, very quiet but when he preaches it all makes sense, especially with the Simpsons references”. The school’s pastoral blog noted his Golden Jubilee in 2015 and remarked, “Fr Derek is a wonderful example of what Jesuit life represents”.
Fr Derek made deep impressions on the Belvedere community during the last 16 years of his life. Headmaster Gerry Foley was particularly close to him, as evident from this personal tribute:

Remembering Derek
When we gathered in St. Francis Xavier Church, in Gardiner Street, we gathered in sadness, but we wanted to celebrate and give thanks for Fr. Derek’s life with his family and with the Jesuit province. Each of us knew Derek in a different way and we all have memories of a man who could laugh at himself, the world and laugh and talk with people of very different ages and backgrounds. In mourning him we remember fondly stories that highlight his wit, his willingness to confront what he perceived was wrong, even if that led to a difficult experience for both himself and whoever thought he was going to hold back, simply because of his vocation. You did not have to guess Derek’s opinions and views. He could be subtle or when required, bold and forthright when subtlety failed.
Derek’s response to illness made you realise that we should never take being alive and having health, for granted. The theology of salvation was not theoretical for him, it was a lived example.
Images of him laughing, chatting driving in the car or the cheerleaders in the minibus, mix with images of him being silent and attentive. I was lucky enough to bring him the Leinster Senior Cup on the Sunday morning after St. Patrick’s Day. He was delighted and it was uplifting to see the chief cheerleader who loved rugby so much. He received that cup three times previously on the Front door of Belvedere House, so it represented commitment and dedication for him.
There are many things in his office, which point to who Derek is and what he brought to the college. There is a small-framed reproduction of the painting, Light of the world, Holman Hunt, Jesus carrying a lantern knocking on the door. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice, open the door, I will come to him, and I will sup with him and he with me”. On the left side is the human soul, locked away behind an overgrown doorway. Derek invited people to listen more carefully for that knock and when it came, wrench open the door, which could be difficult, and invite Jesus in.
On the table in Derek’s office is “The Simpsons and Philosophy, The D’oh of Homer.” It’s noteworthy that Richard Dawkins, Brief Candle in the Dark” is on the shelf, so Derek was catholic in his sources of inspiration. The connection may not seem obvious, but one of Derek’s favourite episodes of the Simpsons, which he used in his homilies, is the one where Bart, declaring he does not believe in having a soul, sells it, only to regret it when he discovers that life with soul is a life deprived.
If you re- watch the episode of the Simpsons he oft quoted, where Bart sells his soul, you will get a better understanding of Derek’s ability to pick something simple and use it to point to what is profound. He used it in his homily to remind all of us that soul is important, the essence of who we are and not to sell out for something else. For what doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what should a man give in exchange for his soul?
By using the Simpsons, Derek highlighted the challenge of Jesuit Education, to place the person of Jesus at the heart of what we do.
So, amid all Derek’s jocularity, there lay a sincerity, a belief that life was so much better lived if the gentleness of humility and care of Jesus was our inspiration.
Looking around his office, the photograph of one of the first Kairos, a card depicting Fr. John Sullivan, the photo of Fr. Reidy, photos of his family, the mass booklet from one of the Past Pupil Reunions, the framed newspaper article on the Jes winning the cup, The Belvo black and white, the Poster of the Holy Land, the model of the BMW 3 series reveal that Derek treasured many people and held them close to his heart, and indicated why he was held in their heart.
One of Derek’s many achievements in Belvedere was to develop the role of Rector, which was a challenge given we are not residents in the school but we are a community almost without boundaries. His presence as a man who was reflective and invited reflection has had an impact on so many people and on so many different levels.
His dry wit often brightened the moment and his genuine question asking “How are you?...” was never followed by a hurried moment, he gave generously of his time and gave people space so they could take time out of their hurried day, to stop, think and enter that space where prayer leads us. That appreciation of the moment lay at the heart of so many memories of him either sharing a glass, or at a meal or on a journey in somewhere like Greece, Rome, with students, or for me, very fond memories of when we were setting up the Chinese Exchange or the Boston exchanges. In Hong Kong, climbing a steep hill, the hand drawn rickshaw pullers approached Derek and avoided both the late Barry O’ Leary and I. We joked that it was the result of old age being respected in China, he quipped that their reluctance to approach us was a justified concern for their back, given our weight!
These exchanges expanded the Jesuit network and helped develop the sense of being a community sharing our faith journey. As with his untiring work in Fundraising and on the Buildings Committee, and Jesuit Identity Committee, he was passionate in providing the right environment to nurture community, friendship and learning.
Derek’s publican background gave him the skills to be fully present to people, to hear their story and enter into it with them. That is why so many students hold his memory dearly and fondly. He was there, fully present, not just physically, but in his un-divided attention to them.
If you asked Derek how he was, he never complained, instead he would reply with something like, “looking down on the daisies, which is better than looking up at them!” Even when he lost his toe he made a joke of it, saying the coffin was getting lighter by the day, and that was another aspect of Derek that made him attractive, particularly to students, he was a bit of a rebel, could be anti-establishment, feared not death because he believed and yet remained true to all that was good.
When we went to Hong Kong, Derek met Fr Joseph Mallin SJ (102), the last surviving child of Michael Mallin, executed leader of the Easter Rising in 1916. Derek and he shared a Republican background and he was immensely proud to be Irish. The Coleman’s mustard, sitting on the shelf in his office, is probably the only British thing he would admit tasted good.
On the little table is the statue of the Holy Family, Joseph and Mary looking at Jesus as he learns the trade of carpentry. Joseph’s hand is raised, obviously in instruction, while Mary looks on with great pride in her son. Derek had that care and pride for the students as they grew in their apprenticeship of what would be their adult personality. He loved young people and loved the privilege of being involved in their life. Lastly there was the prayer on the wall, and I think it captures a lot of his humour and honesty.
“Dear God, so far today I’ve done alright, I haven’t gossiped, I haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or over indulgent. I’m very thankful for that. But in a few minutes God, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on I’m probably going to need a lot more help...”
Derek was that help for a lot of us and while extending our sympathy and condolences to his community and his family, I want to extend, on behalf of the Belvedere family, a sincere Thank You. For 16 years, we enjoyed Derek as chaplain, teacher, Form Tutor, Rector and Board member. You shared him with us and we are forever grateful for that. His soul will continue his work with the students and families and we gain strength from his example as a Jesuit, a priest, a friend and a companion.
May he rest in the peace of Christ. Gerry Foley

Early Education at St Mary’s Convent Arklow; SS Michael & John, Smock Alley, Dublin; De La Salle, Ballyfermot, Dublin; Mungret College SJ; Apprentice Solicitor & Barman

1967-1970 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1970-1971 Mungret College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying for H Dip in Education at UCD
1971-1976 Milltown Park - Studying Philosophy & Theology (integrated)
1974 Milltown Park - Administration at Irish School of Ecumenics
1976-1977 Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Studying Theology at Regis College
1977-1978 Tabor House - Vice-Superior; Minister; Assistant Director of Retreat House
1978-1980 Leave of Absence
1980-1982 Coláiste Iognáid SJ - Chaplain; Teacher
1982-1983 Tullabeg - Tertianship
1983-1989 Coláiste Iognáid SJ - Director of Pastoral Care; Teacher
1989-1990 Tabor - Vice-Superior; Young Adults Delegate; Assistant in Retreat House
1990-1999 Campion House - Vice-Superior; Young Adults Delegate; Assists Tabor House & JVC; Young Adult Ministry
1993 Superior at Campion
1995 Principal & Treasurer at University Hall
1996 Formation Delegate
1999-2001 Leeson St - Principal & Treasurer at University Hall; Young Adults & Formation Delegate
2000 Sabbatical
2001-2004 Belvedere College SJ - College Chaplain; Teacher
2002 Rector of Belvedere College SJ
2003 Superior of Gardiner St Community; Rector of Belvedere College SJ
2004-2017 Gardiner St - Superior of Gardiner St Community; Rector of Belvedere College SJ
2011 College Chaplain & Teacher at Belvedere College SJ
2012 Rector of Belvedere College SJ

Born: 25 March 1927, Mullagh, County Cavan
Entered: 07 September 1945, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1959, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 05 November 1977, Ricci Hall, Hong Kong
Died: 11 December 2018, St Paul’s Hospital, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Part of the Ricci Hall, Hong Kong community at the time of death

Transcribed : HIB to HK 15/08/1970; HK to CHN 1992

Mission Superior, Hong Kong - 1996-2002

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Long time educator to receive honorary doctorate

The Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIED) announced, on September 25, that it will award an honorary doctorate in education to Jesuit Father Alfred J. Deignan, at a ceremony scheduled for November 13.

In a press release, the institute saluted Father Deignan’s more than 50 years of dedication to education in Hong Kong and the region, nurturing young people from all walks of life.

Father Deignan worked at the Wah Yan College campuses in Waterloo Road, Kowloon, and in Queen’s Road East, Hong Kong. The HKIED noted that he “put into practice the pedagogical principles of the Society of Jesus, introduced various education programmes and made both schools two of the most respected” in the territory.

The institute noted his “active participation in social and community service” that has “won the respect of society” and pointed out Father Deignan’s belief that education extends beyond the academic confines of the classroom.

The Jesuit priest worked together with leaders of religious bodies and school principals to push the government to revitalise moral education. This effort bore fruit with the release of the official Guidelines on Moral Education in 1981. In 1997 he teamed with educators, school principals and teachers to start the Hong Kong International Institute of Educational Leadership to promote the holistic development of the person and the learning of positive values.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 19 October 2008

Beloved Jesuit mourned

Father Alfred Deignan of the Society of Jesus died in the early hours of 11 December 2018 at St Paul’s Hospital, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. He was 91-years-old.

Father Deignan was born in Mullagh, County Cavan, Ireland, on 25 March 1927. He entered the society at Emo Park, Portlaoise, Laoise, on 7 September 1945 and was ordained to the priesthood on 31 July 1959 in Dublin. He professed his final vows on 5 November 1977 at Ricci Hall, where he was warden from 1970 to 1978.

He was conferred an honorary doctorate in Social Sciences by Hong Kong University (HKU). His citation on its Honorary Graduates webpage notes that he arrived in the city in August of 1953 and lived for two years on Cheung Chau island where he learned Cantonese.

The citation notes that Father Deignan “experienced at first-hand the struggles of the villagers and boat-people against poverty and hostile natural conditions. But besides their need for help, he also saw and appreciated their inventiveness and resilience, an appreciation which developed, over the years, into strong bonds of affiliation with the young and old who came under his apostolic care. As Father Deignan, he is loved, respected, and revered by many in the Hong Kong community, past and present?

He began a long association with Wah Yan College Hong Kong after he left Cheung Chau and, between 1962 and 1970，served first as vice-principal and then as principal of the school. He was also principal of Wah Yan College Kowloon from 1978 to 1992.

In a 2017 interview with the SCMP, he lamented the state of education and society in Hong Kong, saying, “There is too much about exams and academic achievement and a complete lack of spirituality,” adding that far more work had to be done in schools on the personal development of children.

A final tribute is scheduled to be held at St. Ignatius Chapel, Wah Yan College, Kowloon, from 8.30 to 10.45am. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11.00am followed by burial at St. Michael’s Catholic Cemetery, Happy Valley.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 16 December 2018
◆ Adam Schall Residence Catholic Community The Chinese University of Hong Kong 1972-2012

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/alfred-deignan-sj-death-of-a-great-educator/

Alfred Deignan SJ: death of a great educator
Irish Jesuit missionary Fr Alfred Deignan, who spent 65 years in Hong Kong mostly as an educator, passed away on Tuesday 11 December, aged 91. He was superior of the Hong Kong mission from 1996 to 2002.
Originally from Mullagh, Co. Cavan, Alfred was one of thirteen children. Neither he nor anyone in his family had any contact with the Jesuits, but a chance meeting with a Jesuit in the parish church set the course of his life. “Towards the end of my time in the local school a priest came to give a mission,” he recalled some years ago. “I was serving at Mass when he turned round and asked me if I’d ever thought of becoming a Jesuit. I said no. But the strange thing was that at that moment I seemed to be filled with happiness that this was what I wanted to be. So I went home and told my mother and she said: ‘What’s a Jesuit?’ And I said: ‘I don’t know’.”
Thanks to a scholarship to Mungret College in Limerick, Alfred came to know the Jesuits. He entered the novitiate in 1945, and in 1947 he began an Arts degree in University College Dublin. In 1953 he was sent to join the Hong Kong mission. “It was such a complete change,” he said of arriving in Hong Kong after 28 days on board the RMS Carthage. “Everything was strange. It was my first time out of the country.”
It was as an educator that Fr Alfred excelled in Hong Kong. He was at different times principal of both Wah Yan College in Kowloon and Wah Yan College on Hong Kong Island. He also co-founded the Hong Kong International Institute of Educational Leadership (HKIIEL) in 1997. In recognition of his contribution to education in Hong Kong he received honorary doctorates from The University of Hong Kong (2003), The Hong Kong Institute of Education (2008) and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2012).
Fr Deignan also worked tirelessly to combat the rise of HIV/Aids. He was a member of the Hong Kong Advisory Council on Aids, member and Vice-Chairman of the Hong Kong Aids Foundation, Member of the Council of the Aids Trust Fund, and Chairman, Expert Panel for HIV Infected Health Care Workers. In 1993, he received the Governor’s Commendation for Community Service Award in recognition of his contribution.
In response to news of the death of Fr Deignan, the Irish Minister of State for the Diaspora, Ciarán Cannon, said:
I have learned with sadness of the death of Fr Alfred Deignan. Since his arrival in Hong Kong 65 years ago, Fr Deignan dedicated his life to education and was loved and respected by generations of his pupils. He also played a leading role in tackling the impact of AIDS in Hong Kong. His life is a testament to the untiring and selfless work of Irish missionaries in Hong Kong – and more widely around the world – in the fields of education, health and welfare. I would like to convey my deepest condolences to his family, friends and to all his past pupils who mourn his loss. Ní fheicfimid a leithéid ann arís.

◆ Irish Jesuit Missions : https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/209-alfred-deignan-missionary-in-hong-kong

What it means to be a missionary in Hong Kong today
Alfred Deignan SJ
One day when talking to a layman friend, he spoke with real appreciation saying, “Father, we admire you missionaries , who have left your country, families, relatives and friends to come to Hong Kong and work among us, learning our difficult language.” This kind of appreciation and gratitude is part of our consolation and encouragement, which we receive from people we meet and work with.
Jesus said “I came not to be served but to serve”. Yes, to serve –this is what it means to me as a missionary in Hong Kong - whether that service is in teaching, preaching, counseling, directing retreats, giving instruction, chaplaincy or parish work, helping the poor or sick.
I am happy that in God’s providence I was assigned to Hong Kong. There is so much service can be given. Even though I am involved in the very important apostolate of education, I always had opportunities of being involved in marriage counselling, in working for Aids patients and the formation of youth and teachers.
The majority of Hong Kong people are Buddhist or Taoists, but the Church is growing in numbers. Imagine 3,000 adult baptisms last year! The Church is a young Church and a Church of the young. The growth is partly due to the number of good Catholic schools in which there is a mixture of Catholic and non-Catholic students, and the vibrant life of the parishes.
Christ’s call “Go and teach all nations “is a call to missionaries and of course to all Catholics. Our answer is “Here I am Lord, send me.” The Irish Jesuits have played an important role in the evangelisation of the Chinese people and they are very grateful. Let us continue to pray for the millions of Chinese people who have yet to know Christ.

https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/550-fr-freddy-deignan-sj-in-hong-kong

FR FREDDY DEIGNAN SJ IN HONG KONG
“How did God take me out of that small village and plant me in Hong Kong!” Fr Freddy Deignan SJ laughs when he recalls his little home town of Mullen in County Cavan, Ireland. In an interview with John Guiney SJ, he looks back over his long life as a Jesuit educator.
Go South or go East?
He has been on mission in the metropolis of Hong Kong with a population of almost seven and a half million people for 65 years and admits to have learned a great deal since being sent there in 1953. He has compiled a history of the Irish Jesuits 90th anniversary in Hong Kong, (https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/543-90th-anniversary-of-the-arrival-of-the-jesuits-in-hong- kong) celebrated in 2016.
One of his desires was to go to Zambia and when as a young priest his future was being discussed with the Provincial, the reason he gave was that Fr Joe Conway there was in contact: Zambia was tempting. “ You’re not going” said the Provincial, ‘ There’s only one person going to Zambia” and that was Fr Tom McGivern.
What awaited was difference with a capital ‘D’! Language, customs, food, weather— typhoons even—it was a complete change for the young priest. Learning the language wasn’t easy but he persevered over two years and credits his eventual proficiency through his teaching of primary school pupils. He particularly enjoyed the education work.

There and back again
Bringing his Chinese books to continue his learning on the long voyage back to Ireland to study Theology in 1961, was more aspirational than practical. He admits with a smile that he never did actually read them. Having requested another year learning Chinese, he returned to Hong Kong and the language school there with good intentions. The busy life of a Jesuit and work duties intervened however, leaving less time for study.
A sabbatical in 1992 followed the end of his principalship at Wah Yan College, Kowloon allowing him to go to Manresa Retreat House in Dublin. The walks in the beautiful St Anne’s Park nearby are a particularly fond memory. Back to the bustle of crowded Hong Kong then to work as assistant secretary to Jenny Cho for the East Asia Oceania Jesuit Conference of Education, as it was called then.
The position required travelling to Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore (https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/534-endings-and-beginnings-in-the-far-east) Thailand, the Philippines and even back to Ireland! He enjoyed giving the workshops on Ignatian pedagogy and staff development, especially in Catholic schools. Eight teams were formed and in one year alone, nearly 200 workshops were given.
Unbelievable generosity of past pupils
“I think it’s unbelievable” says Freddy, “to experience the loyalty, dedication and gratitude of past pupils to us. They are so grateful for the education they have received.” One of the things they have done—because the Jesuits in Hong Kong (https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/546-irish-men-behind- the-far-east-jesuit-missions) are ageing and thus more prone to illness—was to establish the Jesuit Nursing Fund to help pay for medical expenses. The goodness and care of his doctors—freely given as old age takes its toll—is also a source of great appreciation.
Another sign of their great generosity was to establish the Wah Yan Family Foundation that has supported the schools for the last 10 years. “It has made such a big difference” he says and means more teachers with smaller classes. It also helped fund activities like athletics, music, swimming and other games. The fund has raised the amazing amount of 120 million in total: Fr Freddy explains its distribution in the interview video.
Fr Deignan retains his deep interest in an ever changing education landscape. “ The dialogue on teaching as a service is still continuing” he says “even to this day”.

https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/615-death-of-influential-educator-in-hong-kong

DEATH OF AN INFLUENTIAL EDUCATOR
Fr Alfred (Freddie) Deignan SJ, of the Irish Jesuit community in Hong Kong died, aged 91, on December 11, 2018. As Principal of both Wah Yan Colleges and Chairman of the Jesuit Board of Education he was an influential figure in education whose presence will be greatly missed. RIP.
Fr Deignan was born in 1927 in the village of Mullagh, Co. Cavan. He was from a farming family, and was sixth of 12 children (https://jesuitmissions.ie/news/550-fr-freddy-deignan-sj-in-hong-kong). He won a scholarship to become a boarder at the Jesuit-run Mungret College in Co. Limerick which influenced his decision to become a Jesuit priest. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1945 as a Novice and took his First Vows two years later. A BA degree in UCD in 1950, was followed by three years of philosophy study in Tullabeg College, Co. Offaly. He then set off for Cheung Chau, Hong Kong to study Cantonese for two years before taking up a teaching position in Wah Yan College.
He recalled, in interview, his first impressions of Hong Kong being the heat, the food that was strange to an Irish palate and the poverty that people were living in, after WWII. He said :
"The people were very poor. Of those who could work, some were doing two jobs in order to support the family, and some were doing ‘piecework’; the factory would give them the material to do the work at home. I remember out in Cheung Chau, one family I knew, when I visited, they were just sitting around a basket in the centre, they were making match boxes, each of them was rolling a matchbox. They would send them back to the factory and they would get about 5c for 100 boxes. I met a young fellow in the hospital and asked him if he was working, he said yes and I said how did they pay you? And he said no he wasn’t paid anything, but it gives me a bed space and feeds me, and he seemed happy with that. People lived at the top of buildings and in little shacks on the hillsides, made out of wood or galvanised iron. They were very poor at that time, very poor."
Fr Deignan returned to Ireland in 1956, and was ordained as a priest in 1959. He studied theology in Milltown Park for three years and received a Bachelor of Divinity in 1960. On completion of his Tertianship in Rathfarnham, he returned to Hong Kong in 1961, taking his Final Vows a year later. He also returned to Wah Yan College, as Prefect of Studies in 1962, becoming Principal in 1968 to 1970.
He spent 1970 to '78 involved in the running of Ricci Hall which accommodated Catholic students attending university in Hong Kong. Deignan was Principal of Wah Yan College in Kowloon from 1978 to 1992, and after this used his vast experience who held several key positions within the educational framework of the Society including Assistant Secretary for Jesuit Education in East Asia Oceania Region and Chairman of the Jesuit Board of Education. He was awarded honorary degrees for his life-long contribution to education in Hong Kong, including the Degree of Doctor of Education in 2008 and the Degree of Doctor of Social Science in 2012.
As part of the Society of Jesus community in Hong Kong, Fr Deignan shared his life there with fellow Irish missionaries Joseph Mallin SJ and Harold Naylor SJ, both of whom also died this year. The Irish Jesuit presence there is diminishing but their influence is still felt among the Jesuits from China and other international Provinces, laypeople they have worked alongside and students they have educated. "Hong Kong was blessed with and has been enriched by Father Deignan’s love and visionary contributions, and will miss him dearly" said Alan Leong, Civic Party Chairman.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He came from a large family of 12 children. His early education was at Mungret College SJ, Limerick. When asked there as a boy what he would like to become he said “I want to be a Jesuit priest”.
He Entered at Emo in 1945, and the read History, Irish and English at UCD, followed by Philosophy at Milltown Park.
In 1953 he was sent for Regency to Hong Kong, beginning with studying the language at Cheung Chau. During this time he also played football for Hong Kong FC, and was a good Irish dancer.
He gave courses on self development, love and life. He offered them not only at Wah Yan but other catholic schools. To each of his students who needed help, he was a patient and sympathetic listener, and someone in whom people placed their trust and on whom they could rely on in terms of crisis or everyday disappointments. He brought this experience with him then when he was made Warden at Ricci Hall (1970-1978). Here he was Chaplain and contributed as an active member of the Warden’s Committee and President of the University’s Social Service Group (1972-1978)

His educational philosophy was founded on the firm belief that young people should have faith in themselves and others. The need for a positive self-image was particularly urgent for some of his students from underprivileged backgrounds, others suffering abuse from family members or reacting against parental pressure to compete and succeed.His counsel to both teachers and students was to begin with self-reflection, and through this, to recognise their own good qualities, not to become complete in self-confidence, but to initiate the path to self-reform and better human relations.

He served at Way Yan Hong Kong, first as Vice Principal and then as Principal (162-1970), Under his leadership it became the nurturing ground of young men who not only excelled academically, but also received the holistic education that so well prepared them for personal fulfillment and social distinction. Many more now stand at the apex of Hong Kong society, and some have achieved international renown. His achievements as a teacher and educator were equally evident at Wah Yan Kowloon, where he was Principal (1978-1992). he was much sought after for advice and leadership by those in Catholic education and many in the educational field. He taught classes in English and Ethics, and was dearly loved by teachers, students and parents, always encouraging and leading to trust and serve.

His vision of educational reform exemplifies the twin vocations of the Jesuits -teaching and the welfare of the spirit. “Dialogue on teaching as a Service”, a programme which he initiated in Hong Kong in 1980, and this was followed by others such as “Characteristics of Jesuit Education” and “Reflective or Ignatian Pedagogy”. he mapped out for teachers the detailed process of reflection on experience, preparation, sharing and cooperative learning.. This is vocational training with a significant difference, using new pedagogical or presentation skills, teachers lean how to integrate ethical values into their periodical re-examination of themselves, their classroom experiences and their care for students well-being as individuals and social members.
He was Assistant Secretary in the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania (1992-1996), Regional Superior for Jesuits in Macau and Hong Kong (1996-2002), and the Provincial Delegate for Hong Kong from 2003.He was a member of the HK Advisory Council on AIDS, a member and Vice-Chair of the HK AIDS Foundation, a member of the Council for AIDS Trust Fund, and Chair of the Expert Panel for HIV infected healthcare workers. He received the Governors Commendation for Community Service Award in 1993.
In 1997 with a group of educationalists in tertiary and secondary institutions he established the HK International Institute of Educational Leadership, of which he was Chair.The Institute’s vision is “to foster a community which is fair, honest, just, caring, compassionate, responsible, trustworthy, generous and with courage, a community which lives in harmony and sets a high standard of moral behaviour” This statement encapsulates his educational vision and mission

In 2003 he was awarded a Doctor of Social Science by the University of Hong Kong for his social contributions. He was also awarded a Doctorate in Education by the Hong Kong Institute of Education in 2008 for his educational contributions, and a further Doctor of Social Science from the Chinese University of Hong Kong for his social contributions.

Born: 17 August 1932, Ballina, County Mayo
Entered: 07 September 1951, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1964, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1967, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 18 November 2016, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

by 1966 at Salamanca, Spain (LEG) making Tertianship
by 1978 at Wilmette IL, USA (CHG) studying
by 1984 at Palo Alto CA, USA (CAL) studying
by 1985 at Barrington IL, USA (CHG) studying
by 1987 at Menlo Park CA, USA (CAL) working
by 1992 at Chicago IL, USA (CHG) working

Early Education at NS Ballina, Co Mayo; Mungret College SJ

1954-1955 Rathfarnham - Studying at UCD
1955-1958 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1958-1961 Crescent - Regency : Teacher
1961-1965 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1965-1966 Salamanca, Spain - Tertianship at Collegio de San Estanislao
1966-1968 Belvedere - Teacher; Assistant Gamesmaster; Spiritual Father (3rd & 4th Years); “Newsboys Club”
1968-1969 Clongowes - Teacher; Lower Line Prefect; Studying CWC Cert in Education
1969-1974 Belvedere - Teacher; Assistant Gamesmaster; Spiritual Father; Career Guidance (5th & 6th Years)
1974-1976 Leeson St - Principal at University Hall, Hatch St, Dublin
1976-1977 University Hall - Community Minister
1977-1983 Chicago, IL, USA - Studies at Loyola University; St Joseph’s Parish, Wilmette, IL, USA
1982 Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Glenview, IL, USA
1983-1984 Palo Alto, CA, USA - Doctoral Studies at Palo Alto University; St Thomas Aquinas Church
1984-1986 Chicago, IL, USA - Studies at Loyola University; Parish work; Counsellor at St Anne’s Rectory, Barrington
1986-1991 Palo Alto, CA, USA - Post Graduate Training at Palo Alto University; St Raymond Catholic Church; Menlo Park
1988 Research in Family Therapy MRI at Palo Alto University
1987 Our Lady of the Rosary Rectory, Palo Alto
1991-1994 Chicago, IL, USA - Visiting Professor in Psychology at Loyola University; St William’s Church
1992 St Philip the Apostle Rectory, Northfield
1994-2016 Leeson St - Sabbatical (94-95); Lecturer in Education at Trinity College Dublin; Family Apostolate; Writer
1998 Vice-Superior
2002 Principal University Hall, Hatch St, Dublin
2003 Family Therapist
2015 Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/a-man-for-others/

A man for others
friends, and fellow Jesuits bade him a final farewell at his funeral Mass in Milltown Chapel on Monday 21 November.
Jim had a wide circle of friends associated with the various ventures he undertook as a Jesuit. They were active on Facebook when news of his death broke. Despite some bad health and a twice broken leg, Jim was quite an athlete. He had a passion for rugby, which he taught with gusto to many students down the years in various Jesuit schools. Ivan Morris, one of his former pupils, posted a photo of the rugby team Jim coached, a long time ago. He wrote: “55 years ago these old geezers were quite a decent rugby team! Sadly, our trainer Fr. Jim Moran passed away yesterday. We all owe him a lot. He instilled in us the ability to focus on our goals, gave us just about the right amount of confidence and enough back bone to last a lifetime.”
Similar sentiments have been echoed by many since his death. Preaching at his funeral Mass, his life-long friend Fr John Looby SJ recalled two stories that summed up Jim’s determination and desire to win, even though he would have roundly protested that ‘it wasn’t about the winning’. One concerned the handball games they used to play as novices. John said that although he himself was the better handball player, Jim worked out a strategy and a war of attrition that always resulted in Jim being the victor.
He recalled another occasion when Jim went off to Chicago to study and offered his rugby training services to a Jesuit school there, telling them of his winning accomplishments back in Ireland. His offer however was politely declined and he was told the school was already proficient at winning rugby games. So Jim took himself off to a neighbouring Jewish school where the same offer was gratefully accepted. Some time later his rugby team took on the Jesuit school that had spurned him and won.
Jim had a number of careers in his lifetime – teacher, coach, psychologist, family therapist, and finally lecturer in Trinity College Dublin. Wherever he went he made friends. “He never forgot his friends and I was to learn that his friends never forgot him,” said John, noting that this was especially true of his Jesuit brothers. John learnt in later years that Jim’s father had died before Jim was born, and his stepfather was instrumental in cultivating the talent he had for making lasting friendships. “Providentially his stepfather was a strong influence, setting an example that Jim copied for the remainder of his life. He was given great freedom and he confidently went out to meet new people and allow them into his life.”
The Gospel read at the Mass was that of the Good Samaritan, a fitting one for Jim who was, according to John and indeed all those who knew him well, “a man for others”. He was always quick to offer any help he could to those who crossed his path. Be it the mother in difficulty with her teenage son or the former student who needed some good advice. The music at the funeral was the work of the well known composer and musician Willie Hughes who played and sang in gratitude for the influence Jim had been on his life.
When he returned to Dublin from America in the ’90s, Jim was part of the Leeson St community. They had a large garden at the back-end of the large Georgian house, and Jim spent years lovingly and patiently transforming it. He planted trees and stunning rose bushes, and made arbours and boundaries out of bushes and flowers. It was a labour of love that to this day gives endless pleasure to those who visit the community house in the centre of Dublin.
John concluded by noting that Jim was a person who never saw events in life as mere chance but rather as due to “the providence of a loving God whom he loved and trusted in all his life”.
He served Him well. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 2017

Obituary

Father Jim Moran SJ

An Appreciation by Peter Thompson

dozen of us from the Rhetoric year of 1972, welcomed in by the open door of Belvedere House, manned by the great Mick Hickey, from the year of 1973and, like Ollie Campbell, one of our great Rugby players of that era, a man who had owed the nurturing of his sporting talents to the recently-deceased Jim Moran, in honour and memory of whom we had come to celebrate Mass in the Boys' Chapel. Mick had come a long way, literally, for the occasion, a testimony to Jim, certainly, for he now lives in Delaware, the beautiful peninsular State on the eastern shores of the United States.

I hadn't been in Belvedere at all since leaving the college over 40 years previously. In the Chapel, noticed immediately the absence of confession boxes, a sign (I hope) that the Sacrament of Reconciliation has moved on from its days as “Penance” to a more enlightened interpretation of what it means to feel oneself whole again after a period of mental and emotional stress.

Also different, and a most welcome difference it was too, was Leonard Moloney's model of celebration of the Mass, we old boys gathered around in a semi-circle before a simple altar table, with the Holy Communion administered in both Kinds, after a gentle invitation from Leonard that, if any of us felt awkward about receiving, We come forward anyway for a blessing.
This was an inclusiveness I was delighted to experience, after many years of alienation from the Church, and I for one was grateful indeed for it, for its sensitivity. It expressed for me also that ritual, much criticised today, has at its best a capacity to act as a means, a fuselage, a hull by which eternal truths of love are conveyed from one generation, one time as it were, to the next.
Another sensitivity was shown by the great Ollie, my childhood friend from north county Dublin, who, gentleman that he is and always has been, had gently touched my left elbow earlier in the quadrangle and asked me discreetly if I would do one of the Readings from Scripture - St Paul to the Ephesians, 1 think it was. I deeply appreciated that invitation, which I was happy to accept.

The name Jim Moran may not mean all that much to today's young Belvederians, if anything, but in a darker, much more formal time he was a beacon of warmth to his pupils and schoolboy rugby players, whom he coached to victory in the Leinster Schools' Senior Cup in 1972. It is fitting, in a serendipitous way, that in this year's edition of The Belvederian the present generation of pupils are celebrating yet another victory in that intensely competitive of sporting challenges for Leinster schools.

Jim had had earlier success in the Crescent College (now Comprehensive) in Limerick in 1961 where, as a scholastic, he coached its Junior team to success in the Munster Schools Junior Cup. After Belvedere, both Clongowes and UCD were also to benefit from his striking ability to relate to, and inspire, young people to sporting and perhaps also personal excellence. Jim was the sort of james who became jim, if my readers follow me. From the rural west of Ireland of the now so-remote 1950s, he was bereft of that bourgeois stiffness and aloofness with which, rightly or wrongly, our college was associated in the minds of many Dubliners in the past. He would have strongly approved of the wonderful example which Belvedere has shown to other private schools in recent years by the reservation of 10% of its pupil numbers to boys whose parents, for financial reasons, would never have dreamt of having one of their sons enter the portals of James Joyce's alma mater.

When last I met him, at the most recent 1972 re-union held in Portmarnock in 2012, I, trying my best with the best of intentions, invited him to have tea with me someday in the Shelbourne Hotel, around the corner from where he was then living at the Jesuit house in Lower Leeson St. to my dismay, but not, on reflection, to my surprise, he refused, saying he could not accept the offer, however sincerely made, of such a “luxury” as tea in Dublin's premier hotel. He was instructing me still, teaching again the values which I would like to think we all have in common, however we may express them now.

After Mass, the company - minus Leonard - moved on to the congeniality of the Dergvale Hotel in Gardiner Place, a very different hostelry from the Shelbourne, but a favourite watering hole of us early Seventies OBs, where I found myself in animated conversation with the said Mick Hickey about, of all things, Dublin Gaelic football, of which his distinguished medical brother David, with three Senior All Ireland Medals to his credit, was a great exemplar.

Now maybe Mick was pulling one of my legs, or indeed both of them, but he told me that David had developed a totally new strategy in Gaelic football, which is now used also, I believe, in Rugby. As a corner right forward, he would kick the ball, not towards the net, but into the right corner of the opposition, then race ahead, before the opposing defence had cottoned on. to the move, collect the ball, Garryowen-style, and lope it back into the goal mouth for a fellow teammate to collect and pummel into the net. David, apparently, developed this following on from an idea by his coach, the late Kevin Heffernan.

Mick and I were joined by another distinguished sportsman of our generation, Neil Murphy, formerly President of the Irish Sailing Association and helmsman of a Puppeteer at Howth Yacht Club. In discussing the emollient effects of the Mass we had all just experienced, Neil made a telling remark which has stayed, and will continue to stay with me. “Age gives you perspective”, he said, which I think is a piece of wisdom, deeper, much deeper than it might seem at first glance, which I wish to share particularly with the young Belvederians of today.

The mention of another great football coach brings me back of course to Jim. He lived long enough, as a man for others, always, to live in an age when, in some quarters today, that ideal, that nobility of spirit and of behaviour seems almost reviled. Yet he achieved so much, in obscurity, by practising it. I hope up there on the Fields of Elysium he will forgive me this notoriety I pen in his memory. In the best sense, he was Old School, all right

Born: 18 February 1909, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland
Entered: 01 September 1927, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1941, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1945, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 07 March 2011, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Early education at St Macartan's College, Monaghan
Tertianship at Rathfarnham

by 1927 at Berchmanskolleg, Pullach, Germany (GER S) studying ?
by 1956 at St Albert’s Seminary, Ranchi, India (RAN) teaching
by 1976 at Nantua, Ain, France (GAL) working
by 1979 at Belley, France (GAL) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/fin-again/

The country, the Society of Jesus, the Irish Province and the Gardiner Street community combined beautifully and joyously to celebrate the first Irish Jesuit to reach the venerable age of one hundred years. Forty Jesuits gathered on 18 February to toast Proinsias O Fionnagain, our “great gift of grace”, as Derek Cassidy, Superior of the Gardiner Street community, said in his warm, welcoming words. What were the messages and gifts? Read more: President Mary McAleese sent a moving letter and a cheque which topped €2500. From Derek Cassidy a card for one hundred Masses. Fr Provincial read a letter from Fr General who mentioned, among many compliments and accomplishments, the fact that Frank’s piano playing has not led to arthritic fingers. John Dardis also read from a poem composed by Fr Tom McMahon before he died, for this special milestone in Frank’s life and the life of the Province. Then the man himself spoke: in Engliish, Irish, French and Latin we heard lovely lines from St Paul and Cardinal Newman. The emotions must have been bubbling away inside, but the voice, apart from a faltering pause, was clear and strong. Then a lovely surprise: Mrs Bridie Ashe and her staff (who pulled out all the stops with the balloons, banners and photos all over the house of Frank wearing the Lord Mayor’s chain of office) presented a beautiful sculpture of St Ignatius, brought from Spain.
The beginning was memorable. All forty diners were upstanding when Frank made his entrance, led by Tom Phelan playing the bagpipes. Tears were wiped from eyes as the musical melody harmonised the room, and Frank took his place between Derek Cassidy and John Dardis, and opposite his nephew who had flown in from Berlin for the party. Next month there will be another celebration for family. Finegan, fin, the end, is again and again and fin-again!

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/our-first-centenarian-an-t-athair-o-fionnagain/

Our first centenarian, An t-Athair Ó Fionnagáin
Wednesday 18 February sees a unique birthday. For the first time an Irish Jesuit has turned a hundred. In the face of Fr Proinsias Ó Fionnagáin you see a man prone to gratitude, with a wardrobe full of memories: of a Spartan early life in Monaghan during World War I; of noviciate in Tullabeg – Frank is the last survivor of that house. He was a teacher of classics in Crescent, Galway and Clongowes; and of philosophy in Ranchi, India. He is a writer, pianist, historian, archivist and librarian, and by his researches contributed heavily to the beatification of Dominic Collins. In 1975, as he qualified for the old age pension, he volunteered for the French mission, and dressed in beret and clergyman served two under- priested areas, Nantua and Belley, for seven years before returning to research and the Irish Mass in Gardiner Street. We thank God, as Frank himself does, for the blessings of his first hundred years.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jesuit-who-taught-saint-101/

Jesuit who taught saint turns 101
The Jesuit priest who taught Saint Alberto Hurtado English, Fr Frank Finnigan SJ, celebrated his 101st birthday on Thursday 18 February. He is the first Irish Jesuit to live to such an age. As well as receiving the birthday wishes of his fellow Jesuits in the Gardiner St Community, he also got a congratulatory telegram and cheque from President McAleese. Fr Finnegan’s student Alberto Hurtado was a Chilean Jesuit who died in 1952 and was canonised on 23 October 2005. After joining the Jesuits he came to Ireland and stayed with the Jesuits in Rathfarnham where Fr Finnigan taught him (July-. Fr Finnegan is a fluent Irish speaker. Also, he was a teacher of classics in Crescent, Galway and Clongowes, and a teacher of philosophy in Ranchi, India. He is a writer, pianist, historian, archivist and librarian. His researches contributed heavily to the beatification of Dominic Collins.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/oldest-ever-irish-jesuit-goes-to-god/

Oldest-ever Irish Jesuit goes to God
Yesterday, 7 March, Fr Proinsias Ó Fionnagáin died peacefully in his room in Gardiner Street. Last month he had been touched and delighted to receive a message from President McAleese, congratulating him on his 102nd birthday. He was the first and only Irish Jesuit to reach 100, and up to recently he thought nothing of walking across the city from Drumcondra to Milltown. In the last few days he had been rising later in the morning. On Sunday he celebrated a public Mass in Irish in Gardiner Street church. Then his strength faded rapidly, and yesterday he went to the Lord peacefully in his own bedroom. While he is remembered by many Irishmen as a teacher of Greek and Latin, he had also given years of his life as a missionary in India and a Curé in France. May he rest in peace.

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 145 : Summer 2011

Obituary

Fr Prionsias Ó Fionnagáin (1909-2011)

18th February1909: Born in Glasgow (Nationality: Irish)
Early education at Castleblaney Boys' School and St. Macartan's Seminary
1st September 1927: Entered the Society at Tullabeg
2nd September 1929: First Vows at Tullabeg
1929 - 1932: Rathfarnham - Studied Classics at UCD
1932 - 1935: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1935 - 1937: Mungret College - Teacher
1937 - 1938: Clongowes Wood College - Teacher
1938 - 1942: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31st July 1941: Ordained at Milltown Park
1942 - 1943: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1943 - 1952: Crescent College, Limerick – Teacher (Latin and Greek)
2nd February 1945: Final Vows
1952 - 1954: Clongowes – Teacher (Latin and Greek)
1954 - 1957: St. Albert's College, Ranchi, India - Teaching Philosophy
1957 - 1961: Crescent College – Teacher (Latin and Greek)
1961 - 1973: Leeson Street
1961 - 1973: Writer; Librarian
1962 - 1966: Assistant Eitor of Studies
1973 - 1974: Province Archivist
1974 - 1981: France - Curate in Parishes Nantua and Belley
1981 - 2011: SFX Gardiner Street - Work included assisting in the church; Writer; Librarian; House Historian and, in recent years, Aifreann an Phobail
7th March 2011: Died at Gardiner St

Fr Ó Fionnagáin was delighted to receive a message of congratulation from Her Excellency, President Mary McAleese, on the occasion of his 102nd birthday on February 18th last. In subsequent days he became noticeably weaker and tended to celebrate his Mass later in the day than usual. However this did not prevent him from preparing his sermon and celebrating the Sunday Mass as Gaeilge on the day before he died peacefully in his room.

Obituary by Barney McGuckian
Father Proinsias Ó Fionnagáin died peacefully, aged 102, in his room at St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, on the morning of March 7th, 2011. No other Irish Jesuit had ever reached such a venerable age. In command of all his faculties right up to the end, he had celebrated Aifreann an Phobail the previous morning and preached as Gaeilge as he had been doing for several years. In the last month of his life he was still capable of a full genuflection before the Blessed Sacrament each time he entered and left the omestic Chapel.

Of Monaghan Finegan (the one “n” was significant) farming stock, of which he was intensely proud, he was born in Glasgow on 18th February, 1909 but was taken to Ireland in early infancy. As an alert five-and-a-half year old, he remembered the start of the First World War. He was aware that the "big men were going out to fight”. His First Communion, a couple of years later, took the form of Holy Viaticum, as he was not expected to survive the night! He recalled distinctly his father telling him that the War was over, After early education in Castleblayney he became a boarder at St Macartan's Diocesan College. A thorough grounding in Greek, Latin and Irish would later stand him in good stead when he joined the Society at Tullabeg in 1927. A recurrent theme in his later conversation was the reasoning behind his appointment to teach in the Crescent, Limerick. The late Jimmy McPolin, a Crescent student and nephew of the Socius, John Coyne, could benefit from a good course in Classics! He used his knowledge of Irish to good effect through the years, celebrating Mass frequently through Irish after Vatican II authorised the use of the vernacular in Liturgy. He also published in Irish a number of monographs and biographies based on his assiduous research into Jesuit and Irish Church History. Although there is no evidence of his ever having concelebrated Mass himself, he assisted at community Concelebrated Masses. Even after his 100th birthday, with the help of Brother Gerry Marks, he often made his way on Sundays to the Latin Mass in St Kevin's, Harrington Street, where he was held in high regard by members of the Latin Mass Society. He never expressed any preference about the form his funeral should take but, as a mark of respect, Latin, Irish and English were all used in his Concelebrated Requiem Mass at St Francis Xavier's.

At UCD, he studied Classics, although his preference would have been for History. He subsequently taught Latin and Greek in Mungret, Crescent and Clongowes where his pupils still recall the invitation to join in the struggle to turn back the tide of barbarism'. Besides three years teaching philosophy in India and seven as a curate in France, at Nantua and Belley, most of his life was spent in historical research. He was in his element among documents, foraging around archives. Perhaps his most notable contribution in this area was his work on the Causes of the Irish Martyrs. Without his efforts, the Cause of Blessed Dominic Collins could well have been rejected by the relevant Roman Congregation. He argued strenuously and convincingly that although the Blessed had been a professional soldier at one stage in his life and was not an ordained priest, consequently not qualified to be a full Chaplain, his contribution during the Battle of Kinsale was purely religious. His only objective in coming to Ireland was to help consolidate the Catholic faith. Frank deduced from the documents, in particular those of his English captors, that Blessed Dominic could have been set free on condition of denying his faith and abandoning his Jesuit vocation. This Dominic resolutely refused to do.

A highpoint in his life was to have taught English to the future patron saint of Chile, Saint Alberto Hurtado, in 1931. He enjoyed recalling a day in the Dublin Mountains when the Saint volunteered to have a go when the proprietor of the land where they were having a picnic asked “Is there a shot among you?” Confidently, Alberto grabbed the proffered shot-gun and blew the billy-can tossed into the air to smithereens. He had done his military service in Chile and had his eye in.

Anything Frank did he seems to have done to the best of his ability. He was an accomplished pianist but in later years only played for personal pleasure. His attention to the garden was much appreciated in the houses where he lived. In later years he concentrated on flowers and plants, enhancing a number of window-sills around the house. He was tending his beloved gloxinias right up to the end of his life. He attributed his lack of interest in sport to the fact of ill-health in childhood that precluded much involvement in games.

Frank was devoted to his family and friends and carried on a correspondence with them, frequently inviting them to meals in the house. As his hearing was adequate right to the end (although occasionally selective), he could add to the table-talk with his inexhaustible store of anecdotes and corroborative details about events in Irish, British and Jesuit Province history. He never made the transition to the computer but remained faithful to his typewriter. One touching Mass card was from the family who serviced his typewriter over the years. Unfortunately he destroyed his diaries of many years, written in Irish and in his beautiful “copper-plate” hand-writing.

Frank was a man of strong and definite opinions to which he clung tenaciously. At times he could be feisty, a word he would never have used himself. He would have considered it in the same category as “ok” which he eschewed as an instance of encroaching “American vulgarity”. As the decades rolled on he seemed to mellow somewhat and learned to live with things as they were. However, even when well into his second century, there could be the occasional flare-up about personalities, attitudes, situations and decisions from an age long gone. Towards the end, although he would never accept help in preparing his breakfast porridge or doing his own laundry, symptomatic of a deep-seated independent streak, he admitted to some limitations and willingly conceded that it “can be lonely to be so old”.

He was delighted to receive what he described as a “splendid silver medallion” from Mary McAleese, Uachtaran na hEireann, on the occasion of his 102nd birthday. Members of the community who wished were formally invited to a private viewing in his room before 12 30 p.m. each day. The President's warm message of congratulations contained words, most à propos, from a speech she had given before Christmas 2010 at a Reception for Senior Citizens: bua na gaoise toradh na haoise (the gift of wisdom is the fruit of age). In the three weeks left to him after this event he began to become visibly feebler but this did not prevent him walking around the house and carrying on as usual. On Friday, February 25th he actually walked to the Polling Booth to cast his vote in the General Election. Ten days later, he died peacefully on his own in his room.

The “Nunc dimittis” of Simeon, that upright and good man, from Luke, the Gospel read on the occasion of his Final Vows over sixty-five years earlier in the Sacred Heart Chapel, the Crescent, Limerick, on February 2nd, 1945, featured again at his Final Requiem. On that day so long ago, the much desired peace of the nations following World War II was almost in sight. We can rest assured that an tAthair Proinsias is now enjoying a much more comprehensive and lasting peace. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.

Born: 05 March 1925, Edenderry, County Offaly
Entered: 07 September 1943, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1961, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died 04 July 2017, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1977 at St Ignatius College Prep San Francisco CA, USA (CAL) Sabbatical

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/paddy-crowe-sj-a-quality-educator/

Paddy Crowe SJ – a quality educator
Paddy Crowe SJ died peacefully on Tuesday morning, 4 July, in the wonderful care, love and compassion of the staff at Cherryfield Lodge Nursing Home, Milltown Park, Dublin 6. At his funeral mass in Milltown Park Chapel on 6 July, former community member and friend Bruce Bradley SJ gave the homily. He was buried in the Community Cemetery in Clongowes, Clane, Co. Kildare.

Born on 5 March 1925 in Edenderry, Co Offaly, Paddy was the oldest boy in a large family. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College SJ in Co Kildare before entering the Society of Jesus in 1943. Early on, it was thought he would make a good professor of philosophy, but he had a more active interest in schools. He soon found himself working in education under various roles. At Clongowes Wood College SJ, for example, he became teacher, prefect, rector, and eventually headmaster.

He served as Director of Education Policy and Education Delegate for the Irish Province and worked at several other schools, including Crescent College SJ and Mungret College SJ in Co Limerick, and Belvedere College SJ, Gonzaga College SJ, and Greendale School in Dublin. Referring to his personality, Fr Bradley said: “He was an extrovert and had such a sense of humour. He was bravely adventurous, who loved to travel, have new experiences and make new friends”.

“Educational value,” Paddy said once, “is based largely on personal contact of good people with the young.” Fr Bradley, who worked with him for many years, noted: “In all the schools where he served, he was demanding and firm, but fair. He lived in the continual tension between the old and the new, always reading, questioning, and seeking to move on”.
One of his former students commented: “You always knew where you stood with Fr Crowe”.

Paddy was consultant to Fényi Gyula Jesuit High School, the only Jesuit school in Hungary, founded in 1994. He was heavily involved in the University of Scranton (USA) Scholarship Scheme, which led in time to his honorary doctorate in education, of which he was justly proud.

Later from 1998 to 2009, he returned to Clongowes where he lived among his Jesuit community; acted as spiritual father for students; assisted in a local parish and ministered to the Holy Family Sisters. His mind remained very alert as his physical health deteriorated. As one friend said of him: “He was a great man to have a conversation with but a terrible man to play scrabble with”. He also retained a great interest in computers and loved using up-to-date devices.

His passing is deeply regretted by his family, Jesuit companions, friends, former colleagues and his many students, some of whom posted warm tributes on Facebook. Fr Bradley concluded: “As Paddy arrives at last at the father’s house, we can rejoice with him and for him. Paddy, go without fear. Amen”.

Early Education at Edenderry NS; Knockbeg College, Carlow; Clongowes Wood College SJ

1945-1948 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1948-1951 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1951-1953 Crescent College SJ, Limerick - Regency : Teacher
1953-1954 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Third Line Prefect; Studying for CWC Cert in Education
1954-1958 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1958-1959 Rathfarnham - Tertianship
1959-1960 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Lower Line Prefect; Teacher
1960-1965 Mungret College SJ - Prefect of Studies; Teacher
1965-1976 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Prefect of Studies; Teacher
1968 Rector
1971 Headmaster
1976-1977 St Ignatius Prep. San Francisco, CA, USA - Sabbatical
1977-1978 Loyola House - Province Special Secretariat
1978-1979 University Hall - Vice Superior; Province Special Secretariat; Director Province Education Policy
1979-1984 Belvedere College SJ - Working in Education; Director Province Education Policy
1980 Headmaster; Teacher; Education Delegate; Colloquium
1984-1987 Campion House - Education Delegate; Director Colloquium
1985 Manager Gonzaga College SJ; Chair Board Gonzaga College SJ; Vice-Superior
1987-1992 Loyola House - Superior; Education Delegate; Director Colloquium
1990 Central Province Admin; Asst Education Delegate; Chair Board Gonzaga College SJ
1992-1995 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Rector; Provincial Team
1995-1998 Belvedere College SJ - Principal of Junior School
1997 Chair Board Cherryfield Lodge
1998 - 2017 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Assists in Clane Parish of St Patrick & St Brigid
1999 Chair Board of Greendale School, Kilbarrack, Dublin
2001 Spiritual Father to Third Line
2006 Ministry to Holy Family Sisters, Clane, Co Kildare
2009 Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

◆ The Clongownian, 1977

Appreciation

Father Patrick Crowe SJ

It is doubtful if anyone has had such a varied experience of responsibility in Clongowes as Fr Crowe, our first Headmaster, who left us last summer. He was Third Line Prefect 1953-54, Lower Line Prefect '59-60, Prefect of Studies '65-68, Rector '68-71 and finally Headmaster from '71 to '76. For eleven years, then, his office, if not regal, was at least consular in the Roman sense: he was one of two holding “imperium” in our little state. Anyone in a position to make a “before-and-after” assessment of that period in Clongowes must agree that the many changes which took place have amounted to a transformation. These range from unlocked notice-boards and study. halls to new buildings, from boys distributing their own letters to voluntary Mass on week-days, from entrance exams to self-service in the refectory, from a catering committee to a School Council, from monthly breaks to women teachers, from an integrated staff lunch to a stand-by generator, from cups for tennis, choir and orchestra to work for the poor and aged of the district and the handicapped children in Stewart's hospital, from masters' classrooms to parents' meetings, from social evenings to an O Level year, from boys telephones to a crowded programme of holiday engagements in the college. The degree of Fr Paddy's involvement in these changes varied, of course, from agonising personal decision to mere encouragement of other people's energy and initiative. But the work of any man in government or administration is judged, for credit or condemnation, by what actually took place during his term of office. By that test our first Headmaster when he comes back to visit Clongowes - which we hope he will do very often - will be able, with all the confidence and gratification of Christopher Wren in St Paul's, to look around and see everywhere monuments to his vision and efficiency. His devotedness to visiting the sick and attending funerals will endure in the grateful memory of very many parents and past pupils, the community and teaching staff, and all whom, in a favourite phrase, he liked to call the “Clongowes family”.

◆ The Clongownian, 2017

Obituary

Father Paddy Crowe SJ : A Quality Educator

Fr Paddy Crowe SJ died peacefully on Tuesday morning, 4th July, 2017 in the wonderful care, love and compassion of the staff at Cherryfield Lodge Nursing Home, Milltown Park, Dublin 6 and was buried in the Community Cemetery in Clongowes, Clane, Co. Kildare. Paddy spent much of his life in Clongowes, first as a pupil and then as teacher, prefect, rector as well as being the first headmaster. At his funeral mass in Milltown Park Chapel on 6th July, former community member and friend Bruce Bradley SJ gave the homily

Herbert McCabe, the English Dominican theologian of Irish descent and a near contemporary of Paddy's, wrote in his book, “Faith Within Reason”, published posthumously in 2007: “The whole of our faith is the belief that God loves us; [...] there just isn't anything else. Anything else we say we believe is just a way of saying that God loves us”. And the corollary of that is that everything we hear in Scripture is the message of God's love. The whole of salvation history, the account of God's interaction with us from the beginning of time, through different epochs, across diverse cultures, expressed in a variety of human literary forms and devices, all of that history recorded in the complex collection we call 'the Bible', carries the same message, finally summarised in St John's heartbreakingly simple phrase of just three words at the end of the New Testament: “God is love”.

Herbert McCabe's fellow-Dominican, the great Flemish theologian Edward Schillebeeckx, prefaced his book on the Church with a memorable anonymous quotation: “People are the words with which God tells his story”. In the Word of God we read at a funeral, we seek to cast light on the human life we are celebrating and to discern the working out of God's love in that life. It's not difficult to see that the leit-motif of Paddy Crowe's story, the leading theme, was education. On one occasion, speaking in this instance about Clongowes - but the remark has much wider application when referred to himself - Paddy said: “We think Clongowes is a good school and to it we are willing to give our time, our energy. our humanity, our lives”. Education, the eliciting of potential and the nurturing of gifts and talents in young lives, is, properly understood, above all a work of creative love. And that is the work to which Paddy gave himself, directly or indirectly, for much of his long, dedicated life.

Clongowes, of course, where he went after the local national school and a period in Knockbeg, looms large in his story. The oldest boy in a large family from Edenderry, to which he remained always attached, he was there as a student in the war years from 1938 to 1943. The records - as is often the case - hardly presage the distinguished career in education that lay ahead of him, although he was clearly an able first division student and produced excellent Leaving Certificate results. He was a prominent and able debater from the beginning and in his second year - perhaps a little harder to imagine but accurately reflecting the interest he always had in music - he was praised for his portrayal of the shy and petite Germaine in the comic opera “Les Cloches de Corneille!”

His keen, enquiring intellect
Having joined the Jesuits straight from school, in the course of his formation he was at one stage envisaged as a future professor of philosophy. That points to his keen, enquiring intellect but it was almost certainly a misreading of his temperamental inclinations and he was destined to more active work in schools for almost all of his life. He served as Third Line Prefect in Clongowes from 1953 to 1954, as Lower Line Prefect from 1959-60, as Prefect of Studies from 1965 to 1968, as Rector in the old days of the Rector Magnificus from 1968 to 1971, as Headmaster from 1971 to 1976, as Rector again from 1992 to 1995 (though by then, as he discovered somewhat to his disappointment, with headmasters now in place to lead the school the role had gone down a bit), and, finally, for the years from 1998 to 2009, as a member of the community and carrying out some duties inside and outside the school, but without the burdens of office which he had carried for so long and at a time when his health was beginning to decline.

“But Clongowes was far from the whole story. Apart from the valuable work he did in other Jesuit schools in Ireland - the Crescent in Limerick; Mungret, where he was Prefect of Studies for five years before moving to the same role in Clongowes; Belvedere, where he served as Headmaster for four years at the beginning of the eighties, after his long stint in Clongowes, and later as Principal of the Junior School in the mid nineties; and Gonzaga, where he was manager for a time - he was also Education Delegate to the Provincial in the 1980s, giving him oversight of all the schools and those who worked in them. In addition, he was heavily involved in these years in promoting what was known as the Colloquium, which brought Jesuit and lay teachers together to talk about their shared aspirations - the kind of dialogue he had come to believe in more and more. It partly explains, too, his great interest in psychology. And I have not mentioned the many organisations and projects and committees beyond the Jesuit sphere to which he made substantial contributions, often in leadership roles, to promote an educational vision and foster its practical application to the actual life of classrooms; or his chairing of the board in Greendale Community School in north Dublin for several years from 1999; or his heavy involvement in the Scranton University scholarship scheme, which led in time to an honorary doctorate in education, of which he was justly proud; and so on. And that list, long as it is, is not exhaustive.

Paddy thought a lot about education and, over his time of leadership in Clongowes, he delivered reflective, well-crafted addresses at the annual past pupils' dinner, expounding his own developing understanding and the need for change. One such speech even made the front page of The Sunday Press! His first administrative appointment was to Mungret in 1960 and he would remain in school leadership continuously until 1976, almost two decades, which finally left him exhausted. This was a period of huge change in Ireland and further afield. Paddy was keenly aware of such change and worked hard, reading and consulting widely, to keep abreast of it. in his speech to the Clongowes Union, in the autumn of 1969. he made what must have been one of the earliest references to computers in such a context - computers, as we know, would prove a lifelong passion and his room in Cherryfield became something of a computer graveyard, as latest model succeeded latest model in the relatively confined space, all identified and ordered on-line by Paddy himself! In that speech he also spoke, in the same sentence, of the government's pivotal Investment in Education report and the all-important decree of the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, 'The Church in the Modern World'. The introduction of free education in Ireland, followed by the points system, gradually transformed the system here, asking new questions of Clongowes and all the Jesuit schools. The Church's role in education, as has become so familiar to us now, was beginning to be called into question. Les évènements in Paris in 1968 took place as he was making the transition from Prefect of Studies, in which he had been, in the words of “The Clongownian”, “the architect of aggiornamento”, to the heavier responsibilities of Headmaster.

Personal contact of good people
“Educational value”, he said once, “is based largely on personal contact of good people with the young”. Paddy himself was one such good person and he sought this kind of contact to the extent that he could. Over time, his direct manner, which could be intimidating, softened considerably. In all the schools where he served, he was demanding and firm but fair. One former student was quoted as saying that you always knew where you stood with him. He was never afraid to confront but colleagues and parents found him accessible and often became his good friends. A notable part of his legacy in Clongowes was the effective abolition of corporal punishment, which took full effect after he left. In Belvedere he put an end to streaming just before he completed his term, a no less important change for the atmosphere and culture of a school. Schools, boarding schools especially perhaps, have a tendency to be somewhat conservative places and Paddy was well aware that his modernising policies were the subject of criticism inside and outside the school. He confronted the challenge directly at the Clongowes Union Dinner in 1974. “Meeting many of the older men here”, he said, “sets me thinking of all the things that have changed”. Having listed some of the changes, he asked: “How did it happen? If you like simple answers to complex questions, take your choice: ‘they’ have gone permissive, soft, have no backbone, will not stand out against the rot... As we see it, things began to happen, matters were forced on our attention - we began to listen to others, began to accept an enormously changed world, began to reflect more on what we were trying to do and what in fact we were doing. The Catholic school could easily become a place of comfortable conformity, he had said a year earlier.... Priests and religious do not wish to stay in their schools for this ... We are at the end of Phase | Catholic Education in Ireland. The response of 1814 does not answer the needs of 1973”.

He ended one of his addresses by quoting the inspirational Jesuit General of the time, Father Pedro Arrupe, whose “Men for Others” address in Valencia would soon make its impact on all Jesuit schools: “If our schools are to perform as they should, they will live in continual tension between the old and the new, the comfortable past and the uneasy present”. Paddy, destined to lead schools in a period of extraordinary change, always wanted them to live in that way. That was where he tried to live himself, always reading and questioning and seeking to move on.

Bravely adventurous There is so much more to be said but time does not allow and, despite what you might think, this is not, in the end, intended to be a lecture on the educational career of Paddy Crowe or a mere personal eulogy. Through these - often lonely and taxing - endeavours (and he could get down and discouraged), Paddy was working out his vocation, responding to God's call, telling God's story through his own life. In this very inadequate sketch, I have stressed the educational component and the richness of what he achieved, for particular reasons. From our present vantage-point, Paddy's life easily seems to fall into what we might almost think of as two “halves”. There have been more recently what seem - and certainly seemed to him - like the long years of decline, which weighed so heavily on him, despite the devotion - and even, we have to say, the forebearance! - of Mary Rickard and Rachel McNeill and the staff who cared for him in Cherryfield, since he went there actually less than a decade ago. Even before that, in his last years in Clongowes, as the extrovert that he was, with such an appetite for life and involvement and activity, as a man who was so bravely adventurous and loved to travel and have new experiences and make new friends, as a man used to being in authority and exercising influence and in control, he felt himself”'beached” and on the sidelines and found this very painful. Who knows what heroism he practised, behind the mask of failing powers and old age, as he went, increasingly and inscrutably silent, through all this? And so it is appropriate to correct the balance and beware of forgetting his achievements in the many earlier decades of his life. That's my first reason for laying such emphasis on them now, as the trajectory of that life comes more clearly into focus.

The second reason for thinking about those achievements, which perhaps brings us closer to what Paddy's inner experience was like, is that I think he did not always believe in all the good he had accomplished himself. And, for all his extroversion and his capacity to encourage others and promote development around him, there was a depressive side which showed at times and he was prone to self-doubt or at least to doubt the extent to which his efforts were appreciated by others. For him, on a superficial level at least, the measure of success - and perhaps of approval - was always further worthwhile employment. And when, in the judgment of others though not his own, he was past that, he found it harder to cope.

I began by quoting Herbert McCabe and I want to end with him. Paddy, full of humanity, longed for acceptance and emotional connection with others. In him I sensed that the emotion was often masked behind the brusque, direct, sometimes even abrasive manner. He was hardly aware of this or the degree to which it conditioned some of the responses he evoked in others. I think, to the extent that I knew this or have any right now to make such a surmise (and we lived and worked together in a variety of capacities over many years), in some measure it affected his spirituality and his search for a closer felt relationship with God. The uncertainty of the prodigal son in the parable in Luke's gospel at the reception he might expect from his father when he returned home, the journey on which we are all embarked, sometimes, judging by what he would say himself, seemed to infect Paddy's efforts to pray and to find rest in prayer. Herbert McCabe, interpreting that wonderful, utterly seminal parable in his posthumous book earlier referred to understands the essence of the story of the prodigal not to be the father's forgiveness of the son, but the father's welcoming and celebrating the son's homecoming with a feast. The love shown in this by the father is, for McCabe, analogous to God's love for us, sinners that we are. “His love”, he writes, “does not depend on what we do or what we are like. He doesn't care whether we are sinners or not. It makes no difference to him. He is just waiting to welcome us with joy and love”. As Paddy arrives at last at the Father's house and the banquet of which Isaiah writes so eloquently (Paddy would appreciate that!), the good fight finished (and he was always a fighter) and his race run, we can rejoice with him and for him that he knows the truth of the parable of the returned prodigal and the heavenly Father's welcome now. Now he can say with the psalmist that, through all his endeavours and all his struggles, “I was always in your presence; you were holding me by your right hand” (Psalm 73 1721,23). In the words Pope Francis, a man after Paddy Crowe's heart, likes to use for such a moment, we say to him: “Paddy, avanti senza paura! Go without fear! Amen”.

Born: 06 September 1932, Fairview, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 July 1954, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final vows: 15 August 1964, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 21 February 2017, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin community at the time of death.

Early Education at St Joseph’s, Marino

1956-1957 Tullabeg - Cook; Refectorian
1957-1960 Milltown Park - In charge of Staff; Refectorian
1960-1963 CIR - Ministers in Community
1963-1974 Mungret - Ministers in Community; Tertianship in Tullabeg (1963)
1974-1981 Coláiste Iognáid, Galway - Maintenance; Carpentry
1981-1982 Chelston, Lusaka, Zambia - Maintenance at Jesuit Education Centre, Xavier House
1982-1983 Chisekesi, Zambia - Maintenance at Canisius College
1983-1985 Manresa House, Dublin - Maintenance; Painter; Ministering in Community
1985-1992 Chisekesi, Zambia - Maintenance at Jesuit Residence, Canisius College
1992-2002 Mazabuka, Zambia - Maintenance and General Services at Nakambala Catholic Church
2002-2017 Manresa House, Dublin - Cares for the fabric of the House and Grounds

Born: 09 May 1920, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1950, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1955, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 30 January 1972, St Ignatius, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin

Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, 5 August 1965-24 July 1968.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 34th Year No 4 1959

GENERAL
On 17th June Very Reverend Fr. General appointed Fr. Brendan Barry as Socius to Fr. Provincial in succession to Father John Coyne. Thus came to an end a term of office which had lasted for nearly a quarter of a century. This surely must be an easy record. Many members of the Province had known no other Socius and some of the younger generation might not have been able to name any of Fr. Coyne's predecessors. Provincials might come and go but Fr. Coyne remained, an abiding element in a changing world. In all, he worked under four Provincials; Fr. Kieran, during whose period of office he became Socius (22nd February, 1935), Fr. J. R. MacMahon, Fr. T. Byrne and Fr. M. O’Grady. On more than one occasion he deputised as Vice-Provincial. He had come to be regarded as an almost indispensable appendage of government, and then in June the appointment of a new Fr. Socius came as a reminder that even Socii are, after all, subject to the law of mutability.
At the celebration of his golden jubilee in 1956, Fr. Coyne said that his career in the Society had been a series of false starts and changes of direction. But these seemingly false starts, his interrupted classical studies, his years as Substitute to the English Assistant, as Rector of Belvedere and as Master of Novices were preparing him for what was to be the great work of his life. These experiences gave him an understanding of the day-to-day business of the government of the Society and of individual houses, and, of course, his impeccable Latin prose and mastery of curial style. At the same jubilee celebrations the Provincial for the time being and two former Provincials paid tribute to his skill in the dispatch of business, his loyalty, generosity and other personal qualities. To these the Province may add: his courtesy, tact, sympathy and good sense. The timid or diffident who considered a personal interview with Fr. Provincial too formidable found in Fr. Coyne the perfect intermediary. To all who had permissions to ask or MSS. for censorship or other small business to transact he was always approachable and gracious. The province takes this opportunity of thanking him and of expressing its admiration, not to say amazement, at the cheerfulness with which year after year he went about the infinity of his important but monotonous tasks. It also extends a warm welcome to Fr. Barry in his new work.

Irish Province News 47th Year No 2 1972
Obituary :
Fr Brendan Barry SJ (1920-1972)
Father Brendan Barry was born in St John's Parish, Limerick, on May 9th, 1920. He was an only child. His early schooling was at the Christian Brothers in Roxboro Road. At the age of twelve, he was sent to the Augustinian College, Dungarvan, as a boarder. However, after two years absence, he continued his secondary education with the Christian Brothers, Limerick. While there, he made a Retreat under the direction of Fr Ernest Mackey and one result of this was that he entered the novitiate at St. Mary's, Emo, on 7th September. There were in all nineteen novices in his year, of whom fourteen were subsequently ordained priests. He took his first vows on September 8th, 1939, a few days after World War II had erupted. For the next six years he lived in communities of scholastics who varied in number between forty-four and fifty-one. The years 1939-42 were spent at Rathfarnham where after three years study he took his BA degree with honours in English and and Latin. The next three years were spent at Tullabeg where he studied Philosophy.
Those who knew him in these early years remember him as a quiet, reserved, cheerful and occasionally gay young man who, like everyone else, accepted philosophically the small privations and restrictions which World War II made inevitable. During these years, his intellectual gifts were slowly revealed and his zeal was manifested in his work for the Men's Sodality, then attached to the People's Church. Two years of Regency, 1945-47, followed. These two years at Belvedere were years that lived in his memory. In later times, he often spoke of them with real affection. The value of Regency in bringing a scholastic to full maturity was manifest in his case. From now on it became increasingly difficult for him to hide his gifts. What was hitherto known to a few, now became common knowledge; he was a religious of regular observance, of unostentatious piety, of dedicated attention to the work he was given to do: teaching, prefecting or refereeing rugby football. He did all these things well, and, while he particularly enjoyed the company of his fellow scholastics, he became and always remained a good “community man”.
Such was the reputation he brought with him to Milltown Park in the Autumn of 1947; and meeting him there for the first time, I came to appreciate his quiet strength of character, his invariably cheerful disposition and his dedication to the work in hand. One of his Professors at that time described him as “a gifted student” and he passed his Ad Gradum examination in 1961 after 4 years of consistent application to his studies. As he had little interest in organised games, he found his relaxation in walking and swimming; and from this period dates his long association with the “Forty Foot” Swimming Club. His administrative gifts became apparent at this time and his appointment as Beadle of the Theologians caused no surprise. On July 31st, 1950, he was ordained priest by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. John Charles McQuaid, of whose policies and plans Fr Brendan was, in future years, to be such a stout defender and champion. His relationship with the Archbishop, which was at first necessarily indefinite, became in time confidential and and intimate. It was founded on the same virtue of Faith which in later years made him, what he sometimes jokingly called, “a Pope's man”.
Now this aspect of Fr Brendan's outlook was derived from his understanding of the mind of St Ignatius in founding the Society and in placing it at the service of the Church and of the Pope. In a letter to the Province in 1967, he wrote: “It is obvious our ministries will not be renewed without internal renewal, without a deep knowledge of the Ignatian idea of our vocation ... To develop (this) in ourselves we need to study the person and writings of St. Ignatius - in his autobiography and his letters, in the Constitutions and in the Spiritual Exercises ... This will ensure great co-operation among ourselves, with the diocesan clergy and the hierarchy, with other religious and with the laity ...” This letter, so full of high ideals and sane ideas, mirrors, as do few other things he wrote, the spirit of faith in the Church and in the Society which was so characteristic of him. He never saw the Society, which he loved dearly, as an end in itself, only as a means; never as master, but always as a servant at the disposal of the Pope and the Bishops and of the People of God. His faith in the Pope and the Bishops as successors of Peter and his fellow Apostles and as divinely ordained teachers and rulers of the Church, never wavered. And he saw the role of the Society in the Church to-day as being loyally and fully supportive of papal teaching and policy, in every field and in every detail, in every place and at all times. Much prayer and study, much discernment and self-discipline led him to lay aside all private judgment and “to obey in all things the true spouse of Christ our Lord, the Hierarchical Church”.
During 1952-53, he made his Tertianship under his former Master of Novices, Fr John Neary. He welcomed this opportunity to deepen his understanding of the Institute of the Society and of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. This understanding was to serve him well when he was elected as a delegate to the General Congregation in 1965. He attended both sessions of this Congregation, during the first of which, he was appointed Provincial of the Irish Province, an appointment which was announced on August 5th, 1965. To this office he brought the fruits of thirteen years of varied administrative experience, a year as Minister in Galway, followed by four years as Minister in Milltown Park. In 1952, he was appointed Superior and Bursar of the Apostolic School at Mungret College. In the early summer of 1959, his appointment as Socius to : Fr Michael O'Grady was announced. He continued on as Socius to Fr Charles O'Conor on his becoming Provincial in July, 1959. Fr O'Conor recalls those days: “Although Fr Barry had already been a member of the Province for over twenty years, it was not until 1959 that our paths first crossed, One afternoon towards the end of May of that year, we found ourselves leaving Eglinton Road together armed with the knowledge that we were to be Provincial and Socius in the near future. We were both wondering, no doubt, how this hitherto unforeseen alliance would work out. In the sequel it fared very well. Once the initial stages had been passed, we found ourselves firm friends and remained so ever since”.
In ordinary circumstances, it could have been expected that he would remain as Socius for a longer term. Apart from this being a tradition in the Province, Fr Brendan brought to this Office a knowledge and love of the Institute and an administrative capacity and experience of a high order. But it was not to be. Indeed, as subsequent events will show, the fragmentary nature of his apostolate was to continue throughout his entire career. In the summer of 1962, he was appointed Rector of Milltown Park in succession to Fr James Corboy. Thus, after an absence of four years, he returned to a house where almost a third of his religious life in fact was spent, In August 1965, his “apprenticeship” being completed, he crossed over the Milltown Road to take up residence in 85 Eglinton Road as Provincial. During his three years in this office he was responsible for many initiatives. In his anxiety to get the best advice on many, difficult problems, he set up the following : the Commission for Studies and Training of Ours; the Commission on Ministries, the Social Survey; the Man-Power Planning Commission; the Commission on our Brothers; the Advisory Committee on Comprehensive Schools. He saw clearly that, in regard to our apostolic works and the manner in which we conducted them, it was vital that we recognise that we were living in a world of rapid and profound changes and that we be ready to adapt our ministries and methods to meet these changes. In this connection, too, he stressed the value of community discussions on all our problems, local and provincial, for he saw that it was necessary not only to arrive at the correct solutions, but also to enlighten one another about the reasons for consequent changes. He knew that such discussions involved “self-denial in working together at a common task” but he also knew that they were, today, recommended to us all both by the Church and by the Society. His, too, was the final decision to build a new Retreat House with a Circular Chapel at Manresa, Dollymount. During his years as Provincial, he visited our Mission in Zambia and concluded a friendly pact with the newly independent Vice-Province of Hong Kong. Among the many assessments of his work in the Province up to this point, the following by his former Provincial and life-long friend, Fr John R MacMahon, summarizes what many members of the Province should like to say: “In a way I knew him well. As my Minister in Milltown, as my Rector there and as Provincial, he impressed me as being a loyal and efficient assistant, a prudent and kindly Superior and as a courageous and faithful ruler. I refrain from using superlatives, though they are richly deserved. If I wanted an ‘Imago optimi Superioris’, I would find it in him”.
Now, looking back over his life, I am of the opinion that if he was drawn to one Jesuit ministry more than another, it was to the giving of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius to priests, religious and to the People of God. As Minister and Rector of Milltown, he gave many a week-end Retreat. As Provincial he encouraged the holding of Seminars and other meetings for those engaged in this ministry. In his letter of September 1967, he urged Retreat-Directors not to spare themselves in trying to think themselves into the minds of retreatants, giving what is most suitable to young and old alike. It was fitting, then, when he was relieved of the responsibility for the whole Province, that he should, after a brief period as Minister and Bursar in the College of Industrial Relations, spend what were in fact to be his last years as a director of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. In this miniştry, he excelled, and he ran by faith to this work of bringing Christian life and hope to dead and despairing men and women, Between July 1969, and January 1972, a period of two and a half years, he directed three Retreats of 30 days-two to students at Clonliffe and one to the Religious of Jesus and Mary, Gortnor Abbey..seventeen eight-day retreats, seven six-day retreats, twenty tridua, several days of recollection, and one Novena of Grace. Right up to the end his one anxiety was that he would not have enough to do. His programme for 1972 already included six retreats in succession, between June and July, followed by a 30 day retreat in August and another in September October. He was booked, also, to give a third 30 day retreat to Loreto Nuns in Johannesburg, South Africa in December next. In all this, he felt confidently prepared; and how well prepared he was, is attested by tributes from religious in all parts of the country and of England.
The following will suffice as being typical of all: “I know that many of our sisters valued his personal direction and advice. I have been very much struck by the fact that he is so much regretted by
people of such different age-groups and of widely different views. He, undoubtedly, understood the young and was greatly trusted by them. They valued his honesty and appreciated especially his wide knowledge of Council documents. But, I think that he will be best remembered in our Irish Province for his retreats. In particular, I have heard many sisters mention a Superior's retreat which he directed, based on the Gospel of St. John, and, as he changed his retreat so often, this may not be the one you know. Every Sister I met who made that retreat has spoken of it as an exceptional spiritual experience”.
Before concluding this notice, it will be of interest to have a record of some of the judgments passed on his life and work by ours and by others for whom he worked. The following are typical examples : “Brendan was by disposition undemonstrative and retiring but he was incisive in his assessments of people and situations. He was most conscientious in regard to his work and very loyal to his friends. He could be sensitive in some matters and wonderfully resilient in others”. “He was somewhat reserved and he did not wear his heart upon his sleeve. But, there was no doubt about the depth of his sincerity and I looked on him as a true friend on whose sympathy and solid help I could rely. This may seem too formal, even frigid. It may give a false impression. Perhaps, I, too, don't wear my heart on my sleeve”. “I was always impressed by his great sincerity, by his balanced judgment, by his generous and completely detached spirit of service, by his simplicity, his kindly tolerance and his sense of humour”. “His was a sane and balanced approach, in his own homely style, he flavoured his talks with his own dry humour, e.g. ‘the modem superior can't be remote. If he is remote, they write him off! If he is not remote, his personal faults stand out - the boys know!’” “We have lost in Fr Barry a dedicated friend, an enlightened spiritual guide, whose humility and limpid sincerity were notable characteristics of his personality”.
For myself, in the quarter of a century that I have known him, I had come to see his fine physical stature as a living symbol of the greatness of his mind and heart. He had a mind that could go to the heart of any question and his judgments of men and affairs were rarely wrong. While he did not suffer fools gladly, he did feel and sympathised with the failures and follies of his fellow men. He was less interested in condemning a man than in seeking a practical solution to his problems. He was loyal to commitments and to persons. He was not a respecter of persons and friendship for him never degenerated into favouritism. He was, in truth, detached even from his friends. Though like most men, he had need of friends, in whose company he could relax and come out of himself and relieve the inner loneliness that dwells in the heart of every man. This loneliness is said to be more keenly felt by those whose ministry separates them from community life. In the last few years, Fr Brendan was always happy to return from his frequent ‘missionary expeditions to the Community at “35”, where he found a homely welcome and congenial company. The knowledge of this was not the least of this Community's consolations at the time of his sudden death at the comparatively early age of 52. The Irish Province has lost one of its really great men; his spiritual children have lost a sympathetic guide and his friends everywhere a man whose judgment and companionship were a source of encouragement and strength. May he rest in peace.

An appreciation by Most Reverend Dr. Joseph A. Carroll, President of Holy Cross College, Clonliffe
It is no easy tasks nowadays to give the Thirty Days Retreat. The classic material has to be adapted to the new mentality and up dated in accordance with the new insights in Sacred Scripture and Theology. It is as true as ever that the success of the Retreat de pends to a large extent, under God, on the qualities of the Director. Young people to-day are not particularly impressed with a man's erudition nor even with his eloquence. What they look for and are quick to recognise is his sincerity. Father Brendan was both erudite and eloquent but his outstanding quality, as we saw him, was hs sincerity. It was patent to all. When one adds to this an immense patience and capacity for listening, a complete dedication to the task, a large fund of common sense and a keen sense of humour, one begins to understand how the Thirty Days Retreat that could so easily be a burden was not simply tolerable but decidedly acceptable to our Second Year students. I have a distinct recollection of meeting one of them during the Retreat last year and asking him how things were going. “Father Barry”, he said “is terrific”. The fact that they asked him to return on more than one occasion to give a Day of Recollection is a measure of their appreciation. He will be greatly missed in the College. With his unassuming manner and the twinkling bashful smile he had won the affection of the Staff. We always welcomed him as an amiable companion during the Thirty Days he spent with us each year. May he rest in peace.

NB - Members of the Province may not have known that Father Brendan was on the staff of the Mater Dei Institute of Education, He gave occasional lectures to the students there on the spiritual life. Right up to his death, he frequently offered Mass in the Oratory of the Institute and preached a homily. The Director of the Institute, Father Patrick Wallace in the course of a recent letter writes: “To the students of the Mater Dei Institute Father Brendan Barry, SJ, was a man of God. He spoke so convincingly of the need for prayer, he treated every problem so calmly, he showed such respect for everyone who met him that one had to conclude that here was a man who had a deep experience of God in his own prayer life, who had received God's guidance in tackling the problems life had posed for him, who had reached the heights of appreciating the dignity of every man as a brother in Christ. In the homily delivered at the Requiem Mass in the Institute the celebrant spoke for us all when he said 'while we mourn the loss of Father Barry we rejoice that through him the Spirit of Christ was visibly active among us for so long'. The above sentiments are genuinely the sentiments of the students and the staff”.

Born: 17 March 1922, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 02 July 1943, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final Vows: 15 August 1953, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 23 August 1994, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Sacred Heart, Limerick community at the time of death.

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 79 : Christmas 1994 & Interfuse No 82 : September 1995

Obituary
Patrick (Paddy) Brady (1922-1994)

17th Mar, 1922: Born in Dublin
Education: Model School, Marlborough St.
2nd July 1943: Entered Society at Emo, Co. Laois
8th Sept. 1945: First Vows at Emo
1945 - 1950: Rathfarnham, Refectorian
1950 - 1958: Mungret College, Limerick, Supervisor of Domestic Staff
15th Aug. 1953: Final Vows at Mungret College
1958 - 1959: Tullabeg, Supervisor of Domestic Staff
1959 - 1968: Mungret College, Supervisor of Domestic Staff
1968 - 1971: Milltown Park, Supervisor of Domestic Staff
1971 - 1994: Sacred Heart Church, Sacristan, St. John Berchman's Sodality, Assistant Promoter of Missions
1994: Treated for heart failure in St. Vincents and the Royal Hospital, Donnybrook. Discharged to Cherryfield
23rd Aug. 1994: Died at Cherryfield Lodge

Coming away from a funeral, a woman was heard to say to a friend: “Sure, he had a great way with him”. It would be difficult to come up with a better description of Paddy Brady in so few words.

Born in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day, 1922, Paddy Brady attended the Model Schools in Marlborough Street. He worked in Woolworth's for two years and went to Emo at the age of twenty one. For five years, 1945-50, he was stationed in Rathfarnham as refectorian, and from there he went to Mungret for eight years. The year 1968-71, when he joined the community of the Crescent Church. Thus of his fifty one years in the Society he spent forty in Limerick. Despite his long years there and his great love for the city, he remained very much a “Dub” all his life.

One of Paddy's characteristics was his remarkable capacity for making friends and keeping them. He had so many - who included Mungret boys who kept in touch with him for many years, Mungret staff members - several of whom he helped by finding positions for them, people who came to this church, and altar servers here, past and present. Indeed we all felt that none of us had the good rapport with so many people around that Paddy had. An unusually large number attended his funeral Mass, and for days afterwards tributes of appreciation poured in. One man, an old Mungret boy, told us that he had planned to fly to England on the day after Paddy's death, but put off his flight in order to be present at the funeral. Some time afterwards a man who had worked in Rathfarnham Castle in the 1940's called us to offer sympathies and gave us a copy (only a copy, for he still treasured the original) of a letter Paddy had written to him in 1946!

His cheery greeting and friendly manner were often commented on. He brought much encouragement to people and many came to him with their worries, sensing he was their friend and certain he would give them a listening ear. He liked a laugh and was not above playing practical jokes. During his Mungret years he took much pleasure in trying to best Paddy Coffey, a man who did not always appreciate having his leg (even his good one!) pulled,

In community he was very pleasant and congenial, and most obliging, gladly lending a hand here, there and everywhere. He was most reliable, and if he told you he would do something for you, you just knew that it would be done and you did not have to think about it twice. As sacristan he used to open the church door every morning at 7.00am and in his twenty three years here he was known to have missed out on that chore only once. He was an efficient sacristan and never failed to have everything ready for whatever the occasion.

He was a good entertainer, and on the night of his Golden Jubilee he and his brother Chris gave an amusing performance which had us all rocking with laughter. He was very close to the members of his family and liked to remind us that it was his father who had printed the 1916 Proclamation. This fact had given Paddy an entrée into political circles.

He was very much into sports, being an avid soccer fan with a strong allegiance to Liverpool. He was fond too of the horses, and indeed liked to follow on the TV screen football matches of every code.

For years he suffered from heart trouble and diabetes, but he soldiered on actively. Last April, feeling very depressed - which was so unlike his usual form - he went up to Dublin to see his family. Hardly had he arrived than he collapsed. His family brought him to Cherryfield, from where Ned Keelaghan had him transferred to St. Vincent's. His life was in the balance for some days and then he rallied somewhat. But if he did, he had another relapse a few days later, and this remained the pattern of his condition for the next four and a half months. He grew restless in hospital and was transferred to the Therapy Unit in the Royal Hospital. After a short stay, he went to Cherryfield but despite the wonderful care he received, he never really made headway. The awful depression continued and he did not have the will to win through. He died peacefully on the 23rd August.

Daniel Dargan

Born: 22 April 1853, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1877, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 27 July 1890, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1897, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 20 November 1933, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1888 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1896 at Chieri Italy (TAUR) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Note from Br Thomas Johnson Entry :
He was assisted in his last moments by his Spiritual Father, Michael Browne, and died 27 May 1900.
Note from James Dempsey Entry :
He finally retired to Tullabeg and he died there 03 October 1904. he was assisted there in his last moments by the saintly Michael Browne, Rector and Master of Novices.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 3rd Year No 1 1927

Jubilee : Fr Michael Browne
The official celebration in Fr Michael Browne's honour took place in Rathfarnham on the 29th September. After a good deal of College work, Rector of the Crescent, Clongowes and Tullabeg he was Master of Novices at three different periods and is now Spiritual Father to the fifty-seven Juniors at Rathfarnham and, whenever he gets a chance, spends, at least, seven days a week giving retreats,

Irish Province News 9th Year No 1 1934
Obituary :
Father Michael Browne
Father S. Brown has kindly sent us the following appreciation :
On the morning of November the 28th died Father Michael Browne in his eighty first year.

He was born in Limerick in 1853 and was educated partly at Crescent College in that city and partly at Clongowes. On leaving the latter college he applied to enter the Society. Superiors thought him too delicate and rejected the application. He accordingly went to Carlow College to study for the priesthood. But the call was insistent. After a visit to Rome and to Lourdes he tried again and this time was successful. He entered the Novitiate at Milltown
Park on the 7th of September 1877. The fifty-six years of his life in the Society were outwardly uneventful. He had relatively little contact with the outer world and shunned all
appearances in public. But within the Province he held nearly every office of trust and responsibility with the exception of that of Provincial. He was Master in the colleges (Tullabeg
1883-85, Clongowes '86 and Mungret 1891-94). During this last period he was Prefect of Studies. He was Spiritual Father in Clongowes ('96- '99) and later in Rathfarnham (1924-31). He was Rector of Tullabeg from 1900 to 1904, again 1908 to 1910. During these two periods of office he was Master of Novices. He was Rector of the Crescent (1905-7). Finally he was for eleven years Socius to the Provincial (1911-22). That is surely a remarkable record.
But he will perhaps be remembered not so much for his eminent services to the Society as for his personality. For throughout his life he was known to be a man of deep and genuine holiness and there were many who did not hesitate to speak of him as a saint. Despite all his efforts to conceal it his austerity was well known. Especially in his Tullabeg days he was merciless to himself, Without being a very close observer one could know that he was all tied up with hair-shirts and chains. Indeed this was the origin of some of his characteristic gestures. Superiors had to exercise constant vigilance to see that he took sufficient food. He was more lenient in his later years, but even in his last year he sometimes made his meal of dry bread. He never smoked nor drank wine or spirits. He had schooled himself in the most rigid observance of “custody of the eyes.” He seldom, in fact looked at the person to whom he was speaking and he not infrequently made upon outsiders an impression of aloofness and indifference. There was indeed no little aloofness in his way of life. He made few friends and acquaintances. But his manner was by no means cold and repelling. He had a temper but it was under such stern control that few suspected its existence.
He was the most unworldly of men. He never read newspapers and took little or no interest in the little events of the day. He preached a lofty spirituality that soared high above the earth. One felt oneself among naked mountain peaks and breathed a somewhat rarefied atmosphere. Still humor, of a simple and homely kind, was by no means banished from
his Retreats and exhortations. He even courted a hearty laugh from his audience. He himself could laugh heartily in his deep bass voice and often when telling some amusing anecdote
the tears would run down his cheeks and his mirth would so choke his utterance that listeners sometimes failed to catch the climax or the point of the story. His memory held a great
store of such anecdotes centering very largely in Limerick, which always held a warm place in his heart.
He was always an intense student and a lover of books. He wrote, so far as I know, nothing for publication, but he accumulated copious notes, largely written in shorthand. Many
years ago he discarded large quantities of MS. material relating to his work as a master. He loved to pick up for a few pence in second hand bookshops books that appealed to him. His friends knew that books were the only gifts that would be acceptable. He belonged, one might say, to the Victorian epoch. In literature as in other things, modernity had no appeal for him. His taste was for history and biography and he seems never to have read fiction.
He went to God as straight as he knew how, without hesitations or compromises and regardless of the cost. He thought, as he lived, in straight lines, looking neither to right nor left. His character was strong and simple without subtlety and without crookedness of any kind. On subjects about which he cared at all his principles were fixed, his mind was made up. And as with principles of thought so with principles of conduct. Early in life he had laid down such principles for himself and to these he adhered undeviatingly to the end.
His spiritual life was hidden with Christ in God. One could only guess at its characteristics. It included certainly a great love for Our Lady and he never began an exhortation in the
chapel without reciting in full an Act of Consecration to her. Much of his time, especially towards the end, was spent in the chapel. All who really knew him were convinced of his great holiness.
As long as strength remained to him he worked unsparingly. I have known him to give as many as seven Retreats on end. During these Retreats he was the despair of the Sister who
waited on him at meals. In the last year of his life he was still giving domestic exhortations and lectures in various convents. He held the honorable post of confessor to the Archbishop of Dublin.
In his last illness, as long as his mind held good, he was his old self, concerned only about the trouble he was giving, and praying almost without interruption.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Michael Brown 1853-1933
Fr Michael was preeminently the Ascetic of the Province. His austerity was well known, in spite of all his efforts to conceal it. Especially in his Tullabeg days as Master of Novices, he was merciless on himself. He was a great believer in hairshirts and chains, and Superiors had to exercise vigilance to make sure he took sufficient food. Yet he was not a solitary, given over to lone contemplation. In his time, he held every administrative post in the Province, save that of Provincial, though he acted as Vice-Provincial on one occasion. He was untiring in giving retreats, even up to his last years, and was known to have given 7 retreats on end, without interval.

At the same time he was not a repelling character, rather he engendered great respect and affection. He had his sense of humour, and his deep laugh was familiar to all his listeners.

He went straight to God as he knew how, without compromised. His use of creatures was mainly by abstention. When he died on November 22nd 1933, after 56 years in the Society, one eminent fellow Jesuit remarked that Fr Michael Brown’s holiness was reminiscent of the old Irish monks, to which an equally eminent Jesuit replied “Nay more, his eminence was pre-Christian”.

◆ The Clongownian, 1934

Obituary

Father Michael Browne SJ

Father Michael Browne, whose death took place at Rathfarnham Castle, on Monday, November 20th, 1933, in his eighty-first year, was one of the links that bound together Tullabeg and Clongowes. He was an Old Clongownian, had been a master and Prefect of Studies in both Colleges, was Spiritual Father and Rector of Clongowes and had been twice Rector of Tullabeg when it was no longer a secondary school. For over thirty years before his death, he had no direct connection with Clongowes. His name was hardly known to the later generations of boys here, but those who were at Clongowes in the late nineties realise that a great Clongownian has died.

Michael Browne was born in Limerick on April 22nd,. 1853. His early school years were spent in that city at the Sacred Heart College, then known as St Munchin's College. Having already a wish to become a Jesuit, he came to Clongowes in 1872, and, after two years here, he applied to enter the noviceship. Owing to his delicate state of health the application was refused It was a sore trial; but Michael Browne did not lightly abandon anything on which he had set his heart. He wanted to become a priest and succeeded in gaining admission to St Patrick's College, Carlow. His lungs were weak and his health did not improve, while the call to the Jesuit noviceship became more insistent. Heaven was stormed with prayers by himself and by his friends. It used to be told how his sister, who was a nun and who died at an early age, offered her life that Michael might be able to become a Jesuit. After a visit to Rome and to Lourdes, undertaken to obtain his desire, he asked again to be received into the Society of Jesus. This time he was accepted, and he entered the novitiate at Milltown Park, Dublin, on September 7th, 1877, three years after he had left Clongowes.

Before we write of the man, let us recall dates and occupations, for they are instructive. At the end of his noviceship. at Milltown Park, Michael Browne took his yows on September 8th, 1879. Then followed four further years at Milltown, one as a Junior, the remaining three studying philosophy. From 1883 to 1886 he was Prefect of Studies and Master of English and Mathematics at Tullabeg. He came to Clongowes in the Amalgamation Year, as Assistant Prefect of Studies and Mathematical Master of the Royal University students. From 1887 to 1891, he studied theology, for the first two years at Louvain and later at Milltown Park, where he was ordained in 1890. During his last year at Milltown as a priest he was a constant visitor to the Incurables Hospital, Donny brook, where the memory of his kindness and of his holiness was still fresh among the patients twenty years afterwards. In 1891, he was appointed Prefect of Studies at Mungret, a position which he held for four years, when he also taught the Royal University students at a time when they were bringing fame to Mungret. On leaving Mungret in 1895, he went to Chieri, Italy, for his tertianship. The next year found him Spiritual Father and a master at Clongowes. When Father Devitt left Clongowes in the summer of 1900, Father Michael Browne succeeded him as Rector, but it was only for a few months, as he was nominated Rector and Master of Novices at Tullabeg towards the end of November of the same year. During this period the late Father John Sullivan was a novice under Father Brownie's direction. They were kindred souls, and ever after novice and Novice Master had a lifelong veneration for one another. In the August of 1905, Father Browne was made Rector of the Sacred Heart College and Church at Limerick, This was, perhaps, the most active period of his very busy life, as, while Rector, he taught in the College, worked in the Church, and had charge of the three branches of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin the Children of Mary whom he addressed once a week, the Ignatian Sodality for young men and the boys' Sodality of Our Lady. In August, 1908, we find him again Master of Novices and Rector of Tullabeg. Three years later he was named Socius to the Provincial, a position which he held for eleven years, during which time also, he was an indefatigable worker in the Church at Gardiner Street, In 1922 he went to Tullabeg as Master of Novices for the third time, and in 1924 he was transferred to Rathfarnham where he was Spiritual Father and occupied in giving Retreats to within a few months of his death. It is a summary of over half-a-century which Father Browne spent slaving in the service of God.

Though holding most important positions within the Society of Jesus, where he earned universal respect and reverence, Father Michael Browne's life was to a great extent hidden from the outside world. But within and without the Society, the striking holiness of his life impressed everybody with whom he came in contact. One could not help noticing his complete other-worldliness. “God everywhere and in everything; a constant endeavour to be pleasing in His eyes, and to require nothing of Him except the means so to be” : such was the motive force behind the life of Father Michael Browne. Despite his efforts to escape notice he could not conceal his austerities. Hair shirts, chains and disciplines were part of his everyday life. His only rest during many years was a few hours on a plank bed. When Father Browne was a priest at Clongowes there was a tradition among the boys that their spiritual father slept on “boards and pebbles”, and the schoolboy phrase was not far removed from the truth. Indeed, Superiors, knowing that he worked very hard, had to be constantly vigilant to see that he took enough food. During Retreats, when urging his hearers to practise what they preached, he frequently mentioned the phrase said to have been used by a member of his congregation to a preacher who had taught stern self-denial : “When I heard you in the pulpit I despaired of salvation, but when I saw you at your meals I took courage again”. When one saw him take his food, the courage was all on Father Browne's side, for dry bread was the chief item of his unchanging menu, While this was his daily routine he astonished all by his capability for constant and trying work. He was known to have given as many as seven Retreats on end. More than once, when others engaged in the same work fell ill, he conducted two Retreats simultaneously.

Yet though he taught self-denial, he would not allow others to do anything rash in this respect : “Take your food”, he would say, “we must keep the engine going, if it is to do its work”. His war on self was relentless. It extended to everything in his life. Passing through Switzerland on his way to Italy, it was known that he did not raise his eyes to look upon the beautiful scenery, upon which he did not expect to have the opportunity of gazing again. It was not, indeed, that he did not like pleasing sights, for while at Mungret as a young priest he used to go to the upper storey of the College to admire the charming sunsets, and then would kneel down and recite the Te Deum. When at Lourdes he prayed that he might not witness a miracle, for he did not want to lessen the full merit of his faith. .

But this war on self was only one means which Father Browne employed to bring him nearer to God. In his eyes, prayer was much more important than exterior mortification. His constant union with God was remarkable. He spent a large portion of the day and many hours of the night in formal prayer. To the ordinary spiritual duties of a Jesuit he added many more to which he was ever faithful. He passed hours each day before the Blessed Sacrament, There, in meditation, he prepared the subject matter of his sermons and Retreat lectures, It was in the Chapel he recited the Divine Office, where in a quiet corner he usually knelt without resting on any support. He had a strong and tender devotion to our Blessed Lady, and from his early years he said the full fifteen decades of her Rosary daily. He once told a friend that the biggest thing in his early life had been his being made a Child of Mary. How really he took this was shown by his unbroken habit of reciting the short act of consecration used in the reception into the Sodality before every spiritual address which he gave. Never was anything allowed to interfere with his spirit of prayer and of recollection. Rarely, if ever, did he read newspapers or novels, unless when such reading was part of his work. This practice he recommended to others. To their questioning, about reading a book or a novel, nearly always came the same disconcertingly logical answer, by way of another question: “Does it help you to say your prayers?” Devotion to the Sacred Heart and to the Passion he held very dear. Among the saints he seemed to be especially devoted to St Teresa and St Francis de Sales, to St Aloysius and St John Berchmans. This last saint had a big place in his life. “What would St. John Berchmans do?” was a frequent question to guide those under his direction.

It was as a Spiritual Director that Father Michael Browne was chiefly known. For those who met him for the first time, and who had never come to him with a serious trouble, there was much in the strict custody of his eyes and a certain aloofness in his manner, which made them think that Father Browne was too cold and too much removed from them to be really helpful. Yet it certainly was not so. When he came in contact with a weak or troubled soul, Father Browne was kindness itself. He was fond of repeating the saying of St Francis de Sales : “You will catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a barrel of vinegar”. And again he would say: “I have not found any instance in the New Testament where Our Lord dealt harshly with the penitent sinner”. He dealt with those in trouble as did the Master. The poor around Gardiner Street knew that he was not cold, and felt that “Saint Browne”, as they used to call him among themselves, was their friend.

He would encourage those who had to struggle against temptation by telling them that he had a lifelong fight against a violent temper, and then he would urge the recital of Blessed Claude de la Colombière's Act of Confidence in God. Some of his sayings already mentioned show how Father Browne constantly employed the best method of the Spiritual Director, which consists in making the soul help itself. For him, Spiritual Exercises were always to be under stood in the Ignatian and literal meaning, a real striving after higher things. During Retreats and at other times, he expected a strong effort in response to his advice, yet he was ready to pardon failure which comes from weakness and not from lack of good will.

His marvellous memory held a seemingly inexhaustible store of anecdotes from history and biography, sacred and profane, of which he was a deep student. He was Victorian in his reading and conversation, and most of his stories were of people and of events of the last century. Archbishop Healy and Bishop O'Dwyer of Limerick, whose cousin he was, were the subjects of many a reminiscence. He had a great fund of anecdotes about Limerick, which ever had a warm place in his heart. His sense of humour, another help to holiness, often so overcame him when telling a story that the end was lost in the loud and hearty laugh so characteristic of him, while tears of mirth rolled down his cheeks. His wide reading served him well when preaching and giving Retreats. He prepared his matter most diligently, wrote out his sermons carefully, in which one saw the influence of Newman, with whose writings he was very familiar, but he never used a note nor a book in the pulpit or when giving a Retreat lecture. Yet he would recite a dozen verses of the Scriptures, or a large part of a chapter of the Imitation of Christ, or the full text of one of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius with faithful accuracy.

Father Michael Browne is dead. But he has left behind him among his fellow-Jesuits a lasting memory of great kindness, of severe asceticism, of very hard work, of a prayerful life and of remarkable holiness. To have known him is regarded as a privilege by those who were brought into familiar contact with him during life. To have been asked to pen these lines by the Editor of “The Clongownian” has been looked upon as a very great privilege by the present writer, who gladly pays this tribute to his old Master of Novices and to a loved and revered friend through many years.

May God give His richest rewards to Father Michael Browne who spent his life so generously in working for Him.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1934

Obituary

Father Michael Browne SJ

It is our sad duty to have to record the 1 death of one, whose connection with Mungret goes back to the nineties of last century - Father Michael Browne. But, though it is many years since he was working amongst us, still the memory of him and of his saintliness has remained ever fresh and lasting among those who had the good fortune to live with him.

Father Michael was a Limerick man, born in that city in 1853, the son of the late County Court Judge, Daniel Browne. His early years were spent at the Crescent, Limerick, and then at Clongowes Wood College. On leaving the latter college, he applied to be admitted into the Society of Jesus, but, to his great disappointment, was rejected on the score of ill-health. Being determined to be a priest, he entered Carlow College. Here his vocation for the Society persisted. In response to its dictates, he applied again to be admitted into the Society, and, to his great joy, was accepted. He always attributed the success of this second application to the intercession of the Virgin Mother, and here we have the first evidence of that sweet devotion which was the predominating and all-pervading one of his life.

In 1877 he entered the Jesuit noviceship at Milltown Park. His ideals, like those of all novices, were very high, St Stanislaus was to be outdone, but, there was this difference with Father Michael, as his brethren can attest - he arrived where they. aspired and his striving after sublime perfection never lost the fervour of the noviceship days.

His noviceship finished, Father Browne continued on at Milltown Park, studying Philosophy for three years, and then departed for St Stanislaus' College, Tullamore, at that time one of the leading lay colleges in the country. Here he acted as Prefect of Studies in 1883. In the year of “the amalgamation with Clongowes”, 1886, he proceeded there, to act as Assistant Prefect of Studies. Theology absorbed his energies for the next four years, partly at Louvain, partly at Milltown Park, culminating in the long-awaited glory of the priesthood in 1891.

Mungret claimed him for the next three to four years, as Prefect of Studies. During these years, he had charge of the Sodality of Our Lady, an office that was especially dear to him on account of his tender devotion to the Virgin Mother. The following extract from the history of the Sodality is not without interest :

“Father D Gallery (the first Director) was succeeded by Father M Browne. By him the Sodality was directed for four years, and it owes to his assiduous care, the deep root it has taken in the College”. -(”Mungret Annual”, 1897).

From Mungret, he next set off for Chieri, Turin, there to go through his tertianship, the final moulding process of the Jesuit. He returned from Chieri to take up the Office of Spiritual Father to the boys and of Assistant in the People's Church. The kindness and saintliness displayed by him in these functions, won for him the “one post of distinction in the Society-Master of Novices”. This he held for ten years, at different intervals.

For three years he acted as Rector of the Crescent, Limerick, then was Novice-Master again, then Assistant to the Provincial. After eleven years in these duties, for the latter few of which he also exercised the ministry at Gardiner Street with great fruit and renown, he set out for Tullabeg once more, to fill the office of Novice-Master. After two years interval, he became Spiritual Father to the Scholastics in Rathfarnham Castle, which post he filled till his death. Though he had never been a man of robust health, owing to his natural delicacy and to his austerities, nevertheless he had successfully come through many a severe bout of sickness and had often been anointed. So his last illness was not looked upon with any great alarm at the beginning. But after a few days' illness, very little hope of his recovery was entertained, and he passed away, after a comparatively short illness, in his 81st year, on November 20th, 1933.

It would be an impertinence on our part to attempt to give an adequate estimation of Father Browne's lofty character within the narrow limits at our disposal. Suffice it to say, that, within the Order, he was held to be a man of great sanctity and of model observance, without, he was eagerly sought after, as a spiritual guide and Retreat giver by religious and clergy, and as a father confessor by the laity. 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 Michael Browne (1853-1933)

A native of Limerick city and a pupil of this college, entered the Society in 1877. Until the close of the last century, he was master, or prefect of studies or spiritual father to the boys in Tullabeg, Clongowes and Mungret. From 1900 onwards he was given one post of responsibility after another and gave distinguished service to the Society: Rector and Master of Novices at Tullabeg (1900-1905); Rector of Sacred Heart College, Limerick (1905-1908); Rector again at Tullabeg (1908-1911); secretary to the Provincial (1911-1922); Master of Novices (1922-1924). The remaining ten years of his life were spent as spiritual father to the community at Rathfarnham Castle.

For many years, Father Browne's duties brought him into little contact with the outside world. Apart from his rectorship at the Crescent, his work was within the Society. Yet, without realising it, Father Browne, in his lifetime, was known to many outside the Society as a man of singular holiness. It was he who formed the servant of God, Father John Sullivan in his noviceship days. Until death called both these priests away in the same year, 1933, the former novice-master and the former novice regarded one another with humble veneration. A biography of Father Michael Browne from the able pen of Father Thomas Hurley (master at the Crescent (1928-33 and 1940-52]) was published in 1949.

Born: 05 May 1848, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1866, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 16 March 1880, Munich, Germany
Died: 21 October 1943, Dublin, Milltown Park, Dublin

Brother of Henry Byrne LEFT as Novice 1875 due to ill health resulting in death

by 1869 at Amiens France (CAMP) studying
by 1870 at Rome Italy (ROM) studying
by 1871 at Maria Laach College Germany (GER) Studying
by 1878 at Innsbruck Austria (ASR-HUN) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
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.
Note from Thomas P Brown Entry :
1877 He was sent to Innsbruck for Theology with W (sic) Patrick Keating and Vincent Byrne
Note from Br Philip McCormack Entry :
Father Vincent Byrne said his funeral Mass which was attended by many of the Brothers from the city houses.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 19th Year No 1 1944

Obituary :

Father Vincent Byrne SJ

Fr. Byrne died on 20th October at Milltown Park at the age of 95. He was a brother of the late Mr. George Byrne, of the firm of Messrs. Byrne, Mahony and Co., flour and grain merchants, wbo was for a number of years chairman of the Dublin Port and Docks Board. His nephew, Mr. George Byrne, is a member of the present Port and Docks Board.
Father Byrne was born in Dublin in 1848 and educated at Belvedere College. He entered the Society at Milltown Park in 1866, studied rhetoric at St. Acheul, Amiens, philosophy at Rome and Maria Laach in Germany, and theology at Innsbruck University. He was ordained priest in the private chapel of the Archbishop of Munich on the eve of St. Patrick's Day in 1880, having had to interrupt his theological studies for some time owing to ill-health.
Possessed of literary and artistic talents of no mean order, Father Byrne as a young master in the Colleges of the Irish Province did much to disseminate among his pupils an appreciation of all that was finest in literature and drama, and through the encouragement he received from the late Father William Delany, his Rector at St. Stanislaus College, Tullamore, did notable work, as an interpreter of Shakespeare. Father Byrne will perhaps be best remembered for the success he achieved at Mungret College, Limerick, with which he was long associated, first as Vice-Rector, from 1889 to 1891, and then as Rector, from 1891 to 1900, and whose religious, literary and artistic life received fresh impetus from his forcefui personality.
The present scheme of decoration of the college chapel, with its oak panelling, its marble entablature and its organ, the founding of the College Annual, the embellishment of the college walls with many oil paintings, were all due to his initiative. With his pupils of those days, many of whom distinguished themselves in Church and State - like the present Archbishop of Baltimore, Most Rev. Dr. Curley - the late Archbishop of Adelaide, Most Rev. Dr. Killian, Mr. Frank Fahy, T.D - he remained all his life in the closest and most affectionate relationship. Father Byrne was also Rector of Clongowes Wood College, whose destinies he guided in the old Intermediate days under the late Father James Daly as Prefect of Studies.
An eloquent and graceful speaker, Father Byrne spent three years on the mission staff, and during his long career in the sacred ministry was constantly invited to preach from various pulpits on occasions of special importance. A selection of these discourses he published some ten years ago.
Father Byrne was the oldest surviving alumnus of the Gregorian University. In the stormy days of 1870, as a stretcher-bearer, he was present at the breaching of the Porta Pia, which led to the seizure of Rome and the complete spoilation of the Papal Possessions by Victor Emmanuel.
He was attached to the Church of St. Francis Xavier, Dublin, for over 30 years, where, even to an advanced age, he discharged his priestly duties with persevering fidelity, and preserved his keen interest in all that touched human life. R.I.P.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 38 : September 1985

Portrait from the Past

FR VINCENT BYRNE : 1848-1943

Seán Hughes

1. Memories:
   As a young lad: of a quiet gentle confessor in Gardiner Street - though he had a disconcerting habit of dozing in the Box, with the additional alarm caused by the peak of his biretta, on the nodding head, descending like a blackbird. At a later time: or the elderly silk-hatted, frock-coated priest with his umbrella, setting out from Gardiner Street. I never, though, saw him in a tram - like some others of his distinguished-looking, silk-hatted community. As a scholastic: particularly at funerals, when he hatted, gazing down into the open grove of soneome junior to hio. Lastly, in Milltown, pathetically helping or being helped up the two steps to the chapel corridor - Fr. Vincent Byrne, in his nineties, and Fr. Nicholas Tomkins, in his eighties, linking one another from the refectory....

2. The Official Record:
   Fr. Vincent Byrne was born in Dublin, 5th May 1848. He went to school to Belvedere, and entered the Society in Milltown Park on 7th September 1866. He went to St. Acheul, Belgium, for his juniorate, and was sent to Rome, to the Roman College, for phisolophy. After the fall of Rome, 1870, he moved to Germany to Maria Laach for his second year of philosophy. Then came a five-year regency - a year each in Tullabeg (still a college) and Crescent, and three years in Clongowes where he was Third Line Prefect. To Innsbruck then for theology - and he was ordained on St. Patrick's Day, 1880, in the private Chapel of the Archbishop of Munich: his health having broken down during his second year of theology. A leisurely return home, recuperating his health, became a Grand Tour.

As a young priest, before his tertianship, he spent seven years teaching in different colleges - three years in Tullabeg, two in Galway, one each in Clongowes and Crescent. Apparently a good teacher of languages (he has four to offer) and drama. Fr, Byrne was “in demand”...

In 1889, he was posted to Mungret - first as Minister, for two years; then as rector for nine years. For four of these, 90 - 94, he was in addition Moderator of the Apostolic School. Those years were the apex of his career - the man who Made Mungret - the tangible evidence being the embellishment of the College Chapel. But there was more: those years of Mungret's history were marked by its remarkable successes in the University Examinations of the old Royal University of Ireland. Fr. Byrne claimed that of his pupils in the Apostolic School, nine became Bishops, Archbishop Curley of Baltimore, USA, being the most notable. Ichabod!

After Mungret, Fr.Byrne went to Gardiner Street, where he was to spend all but four years of the rest of his long life. The first four years in Gardiner Street were spent as a member of the retreat and mission staff. There followed, 1904 - 07, three years as rector of Clongowes, then a return to Gardiner Street - as an operarius until 1934; as Conf. Dom., until 1942 - when he retired to Milltown, where it all began seventy-six years previously. He died on 20th October 1943. I don't remember his funeral - but being choir-master, I must have been there.

3. The Legend:
   Arriving in Mungret, thirty-seven years after Fr. Byrne had left it, I found a green memory of great days and deeds of derring-do. To sift out the facts from the folklore would take a gift of discernment of very high order: so let us be content with the legend w some of the tales may well be apocryphal - but what matter? As Chesterton said about the legends of St. Nicholaus - “He was the kind of man about whom that kind of story was told”. So too “the Pie” - as he was nicknamed, because, it is said, he had a somewhat un-Ignatian “affection” for the dish.

I suppose the legend begins in Rome in 1870 - when he saw “service” with the Papal Army making its token stand at the Port Pia against the invading arny of Victor Emmanuel. The service was, no doubt, as a medical orderly - but, no matter; it was a signal beginning. When we were in Milltown, 1942-43, we understood that Fr Byrne was writing his Memoirs - I wonder where that piece of archives is? The stay in Maria Laach coincided with the beginning of Bismark's Kultur Kampf - and the saving of the library from confiscation by the process of pasting in the book-plate of a friendly Baron in each of the books was another tale.

Although Vincent's health did break down in Innsbruck, he must have been a man of extraordinary stamina and strength. He related, himself, how, when Third Line Prefect in C.W.C., he walked to Dublin (and back) to beg £5.00 from the Provincial to buy a small billiard table for his Line. He rode a bicycle - on what we would seem cart-tracks of roads (and not even a three-speed gear on the machine): he swam - whenever he could, until he was literally rescued from the stormy waters of the Forty-foot in his eighties/nineties and forbidden to swim again. And he died, the oldest member (then) of the Province - but was often heard to say: “That man” (the late E. de Valera) “has taken ten years off my life”. Did he die disappointed?

But the Mungret Legends: Fr Byrne's term as rector of Mungret saw stormy days - on two fronts. The then Bishop of Limerick, Dr. Edward Thomas Dwyer, a man of strong, positive views and irascible temperanent, apparently decided that the Jesuit occupation of Mungret was irregular. His predecessor had invited Ours to run the Diocesan Seminary which he had opened at Mungret. Bishop Dwyer withdrew the seminarians - and left us in occupation. He pursued his case in Rome - and lost it. But Fr Byrne had to face up to the tensions of such a situation. One story may indicate how he coped. He met the Bishop at a funeral. Said the Bishop: “Did you get the letter I sent you?”. Replied the Rector: “Your letter arrived but I did not receive it”. It was related that on another occasion, the Rector was cycling down the Mungret avenue. The Bishop in his coach was driving up to the College. Noticing his visitor, Fr. Byrne continued on his way. The Rector was not at home when the Bishop arrived. The failure of the Bishop's case in Rome did nothing to improve relations.

There was a further assault on his beloved College from quite another quarter. This arose from the complex history of the Mungret establishment. In the 50's the British government decided to do something for the agricultural community. It set up two (I think) agricultural colleges - one of them on land taken from (”ceded by”) the Church of Ireland diocese of Limerick, namely, the Mungret property. The college had a short and unsuccessful life. In or about 1870, the Catholic Bishop of Limerick secured a lease of and premises of the agricultural college, for the purposes of having his diocesan Seminary established there. There was, I believe, some kind of commitment to maintain instruction in agriculture in the new enterprise.

As already related, we remained in occupation of the former agricultural college - now Mungret College and the Mungret Apostolic School. The Protestant Dean of Limerick now challenged our right to be there: the land had been ceded for a specific purpose - which was not being carried out: the agricultural instruction had become a mere token. So, nothing less than a Royal Commission was set up to determine the matter. With the good help of Lord Emly a friend and neighbour, the Commission found a solution - and the Technical School in O'Connell Avenue, Limerick was the British Government's restitution to the people of Limerick.

But more intimate and family adventures: Community relations between Crescent and Mungret were normally very amicable. Whenever one Community was rejoicing, the other was invited to join in the celebration. Indeed it is related that the citizens of Limerick (who always knew, somehow or other, what was going on in either community!) used assemble at Ballinacurra Pike to enjoy the spectacle of the Mungret Long Car bringing one or other community home - rejoicing. Well, on one occasion the Minister of Crescent forgot to invite the Mungret Community to the party. Result: a breach in diplomatic relations - which went unhealed until the said Minister came out to Mungret and read an apology to the Mungret Community - Rector and all present in the Library. (A Community Meeting of a different kind). I mentioned the Long Car which transported the Community of Mungret: all, Rector down, had apparently bicycles: but there was some kind of coach too - for the Rector would be driven to Limerick (or Tervoe, Emly's place). Any respectable coachman would wear a tall-hat: but the Mungret coachman had no such thing. So a tin, black japaned headgear was provided for occasions when the Rector went driving. All was well - until in a bad hail storn descended. The hailstones on the tin hat made such a racket that the horse bolted... History doesn't recount the sequel.

There were tales of cycling expeditions. “Be booted and spurred at such a time” was the Rector's goodnight summons to his men. And off they would go - on their gearless, fixed-wheel bicycles, on the Limerick roads - trying to keep up with the Rector - and trying not to outstrip him when going downhill - a lesson that had to be learnt the hard way! The quality of the lunch depended on the Rector (a) not being overtaken coming down hill and (b) arriving first at their destination. Not all the picnics were cycle runs: there is a tale of an expedition to Killarney (cycling to Limerick Station, of course) with a return in the company of one of the Circuit Court Judges (Adams was his name, I think) who spoke highly of the gaiety of the journey - the bottle had the colour of lemonade (and maybe the label!). One of the party assured me that he found himself in bed the following morning with no recollection of getting there - nor any idea of how he cycled out from Limerick on a bicycle with a buckled front wheel.

There were tales, too, of adventures on villas - the Rector's requirement of his swim before lunch often the nub of the tale - as, for instance, once the party went to the Scelligs (by row boat, of course). Lunch was to be on the rock: but the Rector had to have his swim. The brethren sought to persuade him otherwise - no doubt, it was a hungry and thirsty journey. So they alleged that the waters were shark-infested. Nothing daunted, Fr Byrne had his oarsmen beat the waters - to scare off any intruding shark, while he had his daily plunge...

At home, of course, life was apparently of the “semper aliquid novi” ex Mungret type. Once, the orchard was raided - and the very angry Rector threatened the assembled boys with cancellation of the next free day - unless the culprit owned up. There was silence - and then, Pat Connolly one of the Rector's favourite pupils stood up and confessed. By no means nonplussed, the Rector's anger melted away and in volte face, he cried out: “May God forgive the boy who led this poor child into error. The poor child entered the Society and in the course became the devoted editor of “Studies” for many a long year. It is said that an application from Bruree for a boy with the unusual name of Valera did not meet with the Rector's sympathy - and went to WPB unacknowledged: so the boy went to Rockwell - and, maybe, history was made... With all, the Rector was a forceful personality where the religious, literary and artistic life of the College was concerned. He took his share of teaching and was Proc. Dom. in addition.

His triennium at Clongowes left no such harvest of Folklore. There, he had an outstanding Minister (Fr. Wrafter) and a dymanic Prefect of Studies (Fr. James Daly, in his prime): so Fr Byrne let then run the School while he went to Dublin regularly - coming back every few days to collect his post. It is related that the return was often by the “Opera Train” - the last train from Kingsbridge bringing county theatre goers home - and then by coach from Sallins - the coachman, no doubt, properly attired...

To the end of his active days, he attended both the Spring Show and the Horse Show on each of the four days. Every International Rugby Match and/or Cup Final saw him ensconced on the East Stand at Lansdowne Road, The umbrella element of his tenue on these social occasions, was wielded with vigour on those enthusiasts who stood up at thrilling moves on the pitch and blocked his reverence's view. He was a keen bridge player and commanded his friends to provide “a good four”. However, he developed a habit of pausing during play to recite his favourite poetry - with feeling. The provision of “a good four” became increasingly difficult.

But despite all these eccentricities, Fr, Byrne was one of the devoted and faithful members of the Church staff at Gardiner Street. In a time when the Province rejoiced in having a number of eloquent and sought after preachers - Fr. Robert Kane, Fr. Tom Murphy, Fr. Michael Phelan - Fr Vincent Byrne was 'an eloquent and graceful speaker. A panegyric of St. Aloysius is noted in the Clongownian obituary as outstanding. Some ten years before his death he published a volume of his sermons - and the edition was sold out, which, in 1933 must say something about them.

We shall not see his like again.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1944

Obituary

Father Vincent Byrne SJ

Father Byrne was born in Dublin in 1848 and educated at Belvedere. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1866, studied. rhetoric at St Acheul, Amiens, philosophy at Rome and Maria Laach in Germany, and theology at Innsbruck University. He was ordained priest in the private chapel of the Archbishop of Munich on the eve of St. Patrick's Day in 1880, having had to interrupt his theological studies for some time owing to ill-health.

Possessed of literary and artistic talents of no mean order, Father Byrne as a young master in the Colleges of the Irish Province did much to disseminate among his pupils an appreciation of all that was finest in literature and drama; and through the encouragement he received from the late Father William Delany, his Rector at St Stanislaus College Tullamore, did notable work as an interpreter of Shakespeare. Father Byrne will perhaps be best remembered for the success he achieved at Mungret College, Limerick, with which he was long associated, first as Vice-Rector, from 1889 to 1891, and then as Rector from 1891 to 1900, and whose religious, literary and artistic life received fresh impetus from his forceful personality.

The present scheme of decoration of the chapel at Mungret with its oak panelling, its marble entablature and its organ, the founding of the College Annual, the embellishment of the college walls with many oil paintings, all were due to his initiative. With his pupils of those days, many of whom distinguished themselves in Church and State, like the present Archbishop of Baltimore, Most Rev Dr Curley; the late Archbishop of Adelaide, Most Rev Dr Killian ; Mr. Frank Fahy, TD, he remained all his life in the closest and most affectionate relationship. Father Byrne was also Rector of Clongowes Wood College, whose destinies he guided in the old Intermediate days under the late Father James Daly as Prefect of Studies.

An eloquent and graceful speaker, Father Byrne spent three years on the mission staff, and during his long career in the sacred ministry was constantly invited to preach from various pulpits on occasions of special importance. A selection of these discourses he published some ten years ago.

Father Byrne was the oldest surviving' alumnus of the Gregorian University. In the stormy days of 1870, as a stretcher-bearer, he was present at the breaching of the Porta Pia, which led to the seizure of Rome and the spoliation of the Papal Possessions by Victor Emmanuel.

He was attached to the Church of St. Francis Xavier, Dublin, for over 30 years, where, even to an advanced age, he discharged his priestly duties with persevering fidelity, and preserved his keen interest in all that touched human life. RIP

◆ The Clongownian, 1944

Obituary

Father Vincent Byrne SJ

Rector (1904-1907)

Although Fr Vincent Byrne was for over seventy years a member of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, his connection with Clongowes was very short, being practically confined to the three years of his Rectorate. He had indeed been Third Line Prefect and had taught here for a short time, but it was so long ago that it is almost beyond the memory of even the oldest Clongownian. He was, however, known to many of more recent years who remember his eloquent occasional sermons, particularly his panegyric of St Aloysius, which is included in the volume of his published sermons which was published a few years ago and was so well received by the public. His venerable figure was well known to those who live in Dublin where he will be greatly missed by his numerous friends.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1944

Obituary

Father Vincent Byrne SJ

Father Vincent Byrne, veteran of the Irish Province and “clarum et venerabile nomen” to Mungret men of his day here, passed away last October, To the last, in spite of his venerable age, he was interested in life and up to a short time before his death, he was one of the best known men in the city of Dublin. Police, newsboys, tram-men, everyone whose business it is to be abroad knew him and recognised him familiarly. His old pupils never forget him and he is a very vivid memory to them indeed. He came to Mungret full of vigour and he was not niggardly of his energy in her service. He built here, decorated, furnished and encouraged every side of college life whether it was sport of music or debates. His own humorous comment in old age when he revisited us “I made Mungret” has its quantum of truth.

Father Byrne was born in Dublin in 1848 and educated at Belvedere College. He entered the Society of Jesus at Milltown Park in 1866, studied Rhetoric at St Acheul, Amiens; philosophy at Rome and Maria Laach in Germany and theology at Innsbruck University. He was ordained priest in the private chapel of the Archbishop of Munich on the eve of St Patrick's Day in 1880, having had to interrupt his theological studies for some time owing to ill-health.

Authority on Shakespeare
Possessed of literary and artistic talents of no mean order, Father Byrne as a young master in the Colleges of the Irish Province did much to disseminate among his pupils an appreciation of all that was finest in literature and drama, and, through the encouragement he received from the late Father William Delany, his Rector at St Stanislaus College, Tullamore, did notable work as an interpreter of Shakespeare.

Father Byrne will perhaps be best remembered for the success he achieved at Mungret, with which he was long associated, first as Vice-Rector from 1889 to 1891, and then as Rector from 1891 to 1900, and whose religious, literary and artistic life received fresh impetus from his forceful personality.

The present scheme of decoration of the college chapel, with its oak panelling, its marble entablature and organ, the founding of the College Annual, the embellishment of the college walls with many oil-paintings, were all due to his initiative.

With his pupils of those days, many of whom distinguished themselves in Church and State, like the present Archbishop of Baltimore, Dr Curley the late Archbishop of Adelaide, Dr Killian; Mr Frank Fahy TD, he remained all his life in the closest and most affectionate relationship.

Father Byrne was also Rector of Clongowes Wood College, whose destinies he guided in the old Intermediate days under the late Father James Daly as Dean of Studies.

An eloquent and graceful speaker, Father Byrne spent three years on the mission staff, and during his long career in the sacred ministry was constantly invited to preach from various pulpits on occasions of special importance. A selection of these discourses he published some ten years ago.

Father Byrne was the oldest surviving alumnus of the Gregorian University. In the stormy days of 1870, as a stretcher bearer, he was present at the breaching of the Porta Pia, which led to the seizure of Rome and the complete spoliation of the Papal Possessions by Victor Emmanuel.

He was attached to the Church of St Francis Xavier, Dublin, for over thirty years, where, even to an advanced age, he discharged his priestly duties with per severing fidelity, and preserved his keer interest in all that touched human life.

Mungret boys of every vintage will not forget to pray for the soul of this great old campaigner. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Vincent Byrne (1848-1943)

A native of Dublin, at the time of his death was one of the oldest priests in Ireland. He was in the Crescent as a scholastic, 1873-1874 and again as priest, 1883-1884. Father Byrne was later Rector of Mungret College (1890-1900) and for a brief period Rector of Clongowes. He was for nearly four decades a member of the Gardiner St. community and was in his day a distinguished preacher. A volume of his occasional sermons was published some twenty years ago.

Born: 04 October 1868,Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 12 November 1886, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 02 August 1903, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1906, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 01 December 1943, Dublin

Part of St Stanislaus College community, Tullabeg, County Offaly at time of his death.

Older brother of George Byrne - RIP 1962

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1898 at Valkenburg, Netherlands (GER) studying
by 1903 at Innsbruck, Austria (ASR-HUN) studying
by 1905 at Linz, Austria (ASR) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 19th Year No 1 1944

Obituary :

Father William Byrne SJ

Fr. William Byrne. Fr. Byrne was born in Cork in 1868, was educated at Clongowes, and entered the Society in 1886. He pursued his studies at Valkenberg, Holland, Milltown Park, Dublin, Innsbruck, and Linz, Austria. He was ordained at Milltown Park in 1903, and subsequently taught in various colleges from 1906 to 1931. Since 1931 he had been Professor of Science and Astronomy at St. Stanislaus College, Tullamore. He was a brother of Fr. George Byrne, formerly Superior of the Mission in Hong Kong and now at Mission Catholique, Dalat, Indo-China, and of the late Mr. Matthew Byrne, Listowel.
When Fr. Byrne returned to Clongowes in 1894 he began a life long career devoted to teaching. He had a genuine love for Mathematics and Physical Science, and this love he sought to communicate to his pupils. His method of presenting the matter to his pupils was vigorous, patient, attractive, and above all clear. The word “clear” seemed to have a special association with him, it was the keynote of all his demonstrations. Judged by the standard of examination results, Fr. Byrne was not an outstanding success as a teacher, though some of his more talented pupils did brilliantly. His own great knowledge and familiarity with the matter he taught made it not too easy for him to understand the difficulties of beginners. But he was a reilly great educator in the more liberal and higher sense of the word, aid his methods provided a fine mental training with broadness of outlook and accuracy of thought as chief characteristics. He never lost sight of the ultimate aim of all true Catholic Education, the religious formation of youth. His own personal example and tact won high respect.
His public speaking, in preaching and retreat giving, was marked by very evident sincerity and conviction, together with a simple tranquility and sympathy that appealed to his audience. He was a very good preacher and retreat giver.
As a conversationalist he was fascinating and at times very brilliant. He had a fund of interesting knowledge on a great variety of subjects. He had great appreciation of humour and told an amusing story with inimitable grace. He was uniformly genial and good humoured. Though a good speaker himself he was also an excellent listener. His manner and speech were full of great charm.
As Minister in Mungret for five or six years, and again in Galway for two or three years, he was most faithful, though the duties of that office did not have any great natural appeal to him. He was ever most kind to the sick whether boys or members of the Community or poor in the neighbourhood of our Colleges.
For the last fifteen years of his life he was professor of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy in the Philosophate, first at Milltown Park for three years and then at Tullabeg for twelve years. This work was worthy of his attainments and most congenial to him and he accomplished it with great success. By constant study he kept well abreast of modern advances in Science. His experiments were prepared and carried out with utmost care and he had a true scientist's gentleness with his scientific apparatus. He was also a good linguist, speaking German and Irish fluently, and a great lover of Ireland's culture.
Fr. Byrne was truly a man of principle, and his ideals were lofty and truly Jesuit. He was steeped in knowledge of St. Ignatius, and the Early Society and the Institute. His fidelity to the Institute was inflexible. He was hardworking, conscientious, earnest, zealous, generous and most amiably kind. He was certainly a very true Jesuit whose example was a shining light. He was a man of great regularity and punctuality at all Community duties, no superfluity found place in his room. The virtue of Charity was particularly dear to him, his great physical strength, his intellectual gifts and his counsel were at the disposal of any who sought them.
His last illness was short, as he had desired. On Saturday he gave his lecture as usual, on Monday evening he was brought to hospital in Dublin and received the last Sacraments, and died peacefully on Wednesday morning. He was very patient and kindly in his illness. A valiant soldier of Christ be is much missed by all who knew him. R.I.P.

◆ The Clongownian, 1944

Obituary

Father William Byrne SJ

In Fr William Byrne Clongowes lost a, son remarkable for holiness, intelligence, and quaint charm, of character, though one who disliked nothing so much as to be remarked. He care of a distinguished family, being a brother of Mr Matt Byrne, the brilliant Cork solicitor, and of Fr George Byrne SJ. Holiness was the first characteristic remarked in him in Clongowes, where he won the admiration of his companions, who readily distinguish between the boy who is merely unaccustomed to wrongdoing and the one who resolutely avoids it on principle. On leaving school he entered the Society and pursued his studies for the most part in German houses. During the nineties he returned to Clongowes for some years as a scholastic, the last period of his connection with his old school. He is remembered at this time for his prowess on the ice. Full of useful work, the rest of his life was yet uneventful. He was Prefect of Studies and afterwards Minister at Galway. He was Minister and teacher at Mungret, and taught also at the Crescent. For some years he prepared the Juniors of the Society for entering the University, teaching them Irish, mathematics, physics, and imperturbability. His last years were spent as Professor of various scientific subjects in the Philosophate at Tullabeg.

It was probably his central independence and love of the hidden life that attracted him to the unspoiled poor of the Gaedhealtacht, and gave him his ardent nationalism. It was rather a cultural than a political nationalism, pacific though uncompromising, and naturally inclined him to a hero-worship of Dr Douglas Hyde and early Gaelic League ideals. He was never more at home than when chatting in his slow, beautiful Irish in some fisherman's cabin. His mind was full of schemes for helping the country folk. One remembers his invention of an instrument for cutting turf and a deeply suggestive but almost un noticed article in Fáinne an Lae on the irrigation of the West. But he was content with knowing that these schemes would work without attempting to push their adoption. One of his greatest cronies around Tullabeg was an elderly lady, an Irish speaker, who lived by hawking debris around in an almost extinct perambulator.

His last illness was over in three days. We should have known that the end was at hand for on his last journey he expressed no curiosity whatever about the machinery and equipment of the motor ambulance that carried him to Dublin. Even then, however, he chafed gently at his illness, for it interrupted his study of a work he had recently acquired on Crystallography. Now his study of crystals is resumed in his contemplation of the jasper and sardonyx of the Apocalyptic City. But one sees him still as he was on his daily walks with his old friend, Fr John Casey, his rosy face lit with its habitual welcoming smile, talking, delightedly and delightfully, stickless, yet looking oddly incomplete without a stick, wearing a hat so small that it seemed to have drifted down autumnally from a restless bough and, all unobserved by him, to have settled furtively on his head. His life at bottom was a quest for beauty or, to be more precise, a quest for the Grail. For there was more knightliness in his character than was superficially apparent.

AL

-oOo-

The following appreciation is from one who lived and worked with Fr William Byrne for many years, Fr John Casey SJ :

We are grateful to Fr. John Casey, S.J., for the following appreciation of Fr. Byrne as a teacher :

“Fr Byrne returned to Clongowes in 1894, and a life-time devoted to teaching then began. He came to his work fresh, eager, young, enthusiastic. He had a genuine love of Mathematics and Physical Science. I once heard him, alluding to the Integral Calculus, call those, strange integ ration signs his “dear, dear friends”. This he said half-jokingly, of course, but very much half in earnest too. This love he longed to communicate to his pupils. His method of presenting the matter to his classes was vigorous, patient, attractive and strikingly clear. His past pupils will remember the oft repeated question : “Is it clear?” and the prolonged emphatic intonation of that word “clear”. It was the keynote of his demonstrations.

In the broad, high, and liberal sense of the word, he was a really great educator. Many of his pupils now look back with pleasure and gratitude to the fine mental training, the accuracy of thought, the broad outlook, given them by his pedagogic methods.

In his years of teaching, he never lost sight of the ulterior aim of all Catholic and Jesuit education, the religious training and formation of youth. His splendid example won respect; and the tactful word in season from one so revered had lasting good results.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1944

Obituary

Father William Byrne SJ

Mungret boys of the years 1910 to 1916 will surely be sorry to hear of the death of their Minister, He seemed to be the fixed star in the comnunity of that period and, though men might come and go, he went on for ever. They will not, we know, forget to pray for the soul of Father Byrne. His death took everyone by surprise, for, though he was not a young man, he did seem to go on for ever. He was teaching the Jesuit students of philosophy for the last twenty years of his life, ever since he left Mungret for the last time in 1922. Mungret he loved and loved in his own way, so much so that he regretted any change in it. He had liked it as it was and he was conservative. Father Byrne was a man of brilliant gifts, an able scientist, whose practical gift was wedded to intellectual grasp. It was a joy to hear him expose scientific theory, but who will forget his naive pride in a nice instrument. He cherished it and woe betide the crude hand that was laid on it. He loved his violin too and charmed dull care away with it every single day. His pupils here will recognise that trait. Simple in all things he was simple with God. No one less like the fictional Jesuit ever perhaps wore the Jesuit gown. Mungret owes him a debt for the years of labour, kindly companionship and good example. She will repay it where remembrance is best. To his brother Father George and to his relatives we offer our sympathy. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father William Byrne (1868-1943)

A native of Cork, entered the Society in 1886. He studied at Valkenburg, Milltown Park and Innsbruck and was ordained in 1903. Father Byrne taught at the Crescent from 1906 to 1908 and again from 1926 to 1929. He was a brilliant mathematician and scientist and gave splendid service for many years in the Jesuit colleges. For the last fifteen years of his life he was professor of science at the Jesuit House of Philosophy, Tullabeg. Father Byrne had considerable gifts as a linguist and was a pioneer Gaelic enthusiast.

Born: 24 September 1924, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 28 September 1942, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1956, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1959, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 02 April 2011, Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/eric-cantillon-r-i-p/

Eric Cantillon R.I.P.
Eric Cantillon SJ was 86 when he died on 2 April. He was a quiet Corkonian with the air of a countryman, loved by his parishioners in Staplestown where he has been a
curate for 32 years, happiest when he had a dog to walk with him, remembered warmly by Mungret alumni, especially the swimmers and athletes – he had trained them in Mungret and Belvedere with startling and untrumpeted success. The memory that unfailingly brought the light to his eyes was of a morning on Lough Currane when he fished the Comeragh river, swollen with fresh rain, where it enters the lake. He was held skillfully in position by boatman Jack O’Sullivan. They packed it in at lunch time with sixteen salmon in the boat – all taken on the one fly, tied by Eric. He landed every fish that rose to the fly, then gave them all away.

◆ Interfuse No 145 : Summer 2011 & ◆ The Clongownian, 2011

Obituary

Fr Eric Cantillon (1924-2011)

24th September 1924: Born in Cork
Early education in Lauragh Christian Brothers College, Cork
28th September 1942: Entered the Society at Emo
29th September 1944: First Vows at Emo
1944 - 1947: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1947 - 1951: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1951 - 1953: Clongowes – Teacher
1953 - 1957: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31st July 1956: Ordained at Milltown Park, Dublin
1957 - 1958: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1958 - 1964: Mungret College - Teacher and Prefect
2nd February 1959: Final Vows
1964 - 1965: Gardiner Street - Bursar
1965 - 1973: Mungret College - Teacher
1973 - 1979: Belvedere College - Teacher; Swimming Coach; Pool Supervisor
1979 - 2011: Clongowes: Parish Curate, Staplestown
1979 - 1993: Rector's Admonitor
1998 - 2011: House Consultor
2000 - 2011: Rector's Admonitor
2nd April 2011: Died at Clongowes

Eric had been showing signs of failing health for some months before being admitted to St Vincent's Private Hospital for tests on 8th March. These revealed that he was suffering from cancer of the pancreas, with secondaries. His own wish, as he put it, was for 'comfort, not intervention, and he was very anxious to come home to Clongowes, where the people among whom he had ministered for more than 30 years have some opportunity of coming to see him. Relatives, local clergy, Bishop Jim Moriarty (who had also visited him in Dublin), and his friends from the parish of Staplestown and Cooleragh came to visit him here, after his return on 19" March. Over the following fortnight his condition gradually deteriorated and he died at 9.25 on Saturday morning, 2nd April. May he rest in the Peace of Christ.

Obituary by Bruce Bradley
Eric went to hospital in Dublin for tests exactly four weeks before his funeral. I met him on the stairs in Clongowes as he was preparing to travel. “I'm off on my vacation”, he said, with the hint of a twinkle in his eye, though he knew he was unwell and must have been anxious about what lay ahead. After he had returned to Clongowes on 19th March, feast of St Joseph, patron of a happy death, knowing that he had, at the very most, only months to live, he spoke of going on another journey'. On the 2nd of April, much sooner than any of us foresaw, that journey was accomplished.

His reference to another journey puts us in mind of his first journey, the journey that began 86% years ago and took him from his childhood and schooldays in Cork to the Jesuit novitiate in Emo, Co. Laois, then to studies in UCD and Tullabeg and Milltown Park, with an interval of some years spent as a teacher and prefect in Clongowes, culminating in his ordination to the priesthood on 31st July 1956, a few months short of his 32nd birthday. For some twenty years after that he worked in schools – in Mungret until shortly before its closure, then for six years in Belvedere in the middle of Dublin. It was only in 1979 that, in a certain sense, he found his true vocation by coming to the parish of Staplestown and Cooleragh. There he was able to give himself to the pastoral ministry for which he was so supremely fitted and which, as his parishioners and his fellow-priests know so well, was to prove such a wonderful success.

Eric was raised and formed in the pre-Vatican II Church. His faith was planted and nurtured in those more tranquil but also more narrow times. As a young Jesuit, he experienced a formation process in ways out of touch with real life and divorced from people's needs, something for which he had little tolerance and wasn't slow to remark on in later years. Its authoritarianism, in particular, irked him, and authority in any form never got an easy ride from Eric.

Priests formed at that time, including not a few of his fellow Jesuits, were apt to find themselves a little like beached whales when the changes of the 2nd Vatican Council burst upon a largely unsuspecting Irish Church in the 1960s, their theology and spirituality largely irrelevant, leaving them struggling to adapt or function effectively in the new and evolving environment. But not Eric. One of his most obvious characteristics was his independence and his strength of mind. He thought for himself, he was full of common sense, and he kept himself in tune and up-to-date by whatever means it took. He knew who he was and what he wanted and he was unwilling to make himself the slave of any system.

This had some inconveniences at times, if you happened to be his religious superior, but it had huge benefits – for him and for the people to whose care he gave himself so completely. The professionalism with which he equipped himself to be a pastoral priest in a country parish was a quality he had already shown in previous assignments, some of them much less congenial from his point of view. He had a natural interest in and aptitude for sport of all kinds. In Mungret, Fr Jack Kerr had built a swimming pool during Eric's time there, which Eric had helped to run. When Jack Kerr was transferred as rector to Belvedere, a swimming pool, and then Eric, soon followed.

Eric was a countryman to the core, who never lost touch with his roots. He read the Irish Field every week, keen follower of horses that he was, and the Irish Examiner, as we now call it, every day. I cannot imagine that he found living in the cramped conditions of the inner city was remotely to his taste. But he set himself to become a hugely professional and meticulous supervisor of the pool in Belvedere, which not only served a large school but also public clients to whom it was hired out. He gave the long hours and immense care this charge involved, while also engaging with and befriending the boys and their families and coaching many a successful swimming team. Subsequently, through his work with St Kevin's Athletic Club in Cooleragh, he emerged as a hugely committed and highly skilled athletics coach.

Whatever he did, he made himself master of, always quietly and without any fanfare. And he met and mastered the requirements of his pastoral care in the parish in the same way. He absorbed and applied the person-centred theology of Vatican Two in his ministry and preaching and, at an age in life when many of his contemporaries preferred to have nothing to do with such modern gadgets as a mobile phone, Eric - never off duty, even at meal-times - was inseparable from his. The only difficulty that posed was that, in his last years, his deafness meant that we all heard his phone ringing in his pocket long before he did. Then he'd be up with his big diary, entering a new appointment, always available, even in the final months of his life.

Another hallmark of Eric's approach and personality was his love of, even insistence on, privacy. He was a very private man. We in the community heard little enough about his family or his pastoral duties, although we could see his relentless devotion. We almost never heard him preach, unless he happened to be celebrating the funeral of someone connected with the college. Of his success as an athletics coach we heard nothing, and only the chance of Fr Leonard Moloney, headmaster of Belvedere in the 1990s, bumping into him at the All-Ireland Schools Athletics Championships in Tullamore alerted us to the fact that Eric was bringing his young trainees from the parish to the highest levels of competitive achievement.

One of his favourite recreations was fishing - usually indulged just once a year in the west of Ireland, in the company of his Layden cousins and other friends. As a fisherman, he was as professional as he was at everything else to which he tumed his finely tuned practical intelligence. Once again, this was something about which we rarely heard much, not even about his record-breaking catch in the mouth of the Comeragh more than 30 years ago - the astonishing grand total of 16 salmon and a sea trout on a size 7 fly, with the assistance of Jack O'Sullivan. I know even this much because Anita Layden kindly drew my attention to an entry on the internet she happened to stumble on. Exceptionally, in this instance, Eric had actually shared the story with us about a year ago. Someone had written a ballad about the exploit of the Jesuit priest', as he was called, and it was broadcast on the radio. All those years later, quite untypically, Eric actually let us hear the tape. Otherwise - and I think this applied even within his own family – he kept the different compartments of his life almost completely separate.

Eric was a wonderful priest and his great friend, who was his second parish priest in Staplestown, Fr Pat Ramsbotham, spoke eloquently about that on the occasion of his funeral. He was a priest through and through, but he never, mercifully, acquired a clerical personality. In the same way, although he was nearly 87 when he died, he never really became old. It wasn't just the colour of his hair, which doggedly refused to turn properly grey, putting some of the rest of us to shame. It was his whole attitude and demeanour. He remained interested in what was going on and interested, above all, in the lives of people. His great humanity, his shrewd wisdom, and his unselfishness drew people to him. As Frank Sammon accurately remarked, he had a tremendous feel for the life and faith of local people and local priests. His days were shaped by the day-to-day lives of the people. He shared their lives and served them in so many ways. His conversation was not about himself and he was intolerant of pomposity or self-importance in others. He was extremely disciplined.

Following his car accident a number of years ago, he was utterly faithful to the daily walk which was part of his rehabilitation. One of my favourite memories of him now is of seeing him from my window in Clongowes heading off round the track behind the castle one morning, puffing his pipe as he still did at the time, with his little black cat trotting along at a respectful distance behind him.

I should say a word about the cat. He loved wild-life and was immensely knowledgeable about it, although, needless to say, he never flaunted his knowledge. Here, and earlier in Mungret, I think, he had kept a dog. The cat in question was dumped at our door, half domesticated, about six or seven years ago. As soon as he became aware of the cat, he began to feed her. From that time forward, he almost never missed a day and, if he did, Brother Charlie Connor filled in. With his usual professionalism, he provided a judicious mixture of milk, community left-overs and carefully selected cat-food. Inevitably, the cat became Eric's cat. For a long time, she had no name but eventually Eric decided she should be called Reilly because, as he said, she had the life of Reilly. One of our colleagues on the staff, Geraldine Dillon, told me of how she had been rushing from the staff-room one day and was stopped in her tracks by seeing, through the window, Eric sitting on the bench by the castle door, quite still and looking down the avenue. “His cat”, as she said, “was on the bench too, sitting up straight and facing the same direction”. “Apart and close”, as she said.

“Apart and close”. Perhaps that gets something profoundly true about Eric. He was a man apart in ways, partly reflecting the instinct for privacy I mentioned, partly reflecting how unusual and un-stereotyped he was, partly reflecting his priesthood itself. But he was also close to people, as the grief and bewilderment his death, even in his ninth decade, has caused among so many clearly shows. His humanity flowed out in his relationship with people. He had a particular gift for relating to the young, because of his interest in them, the range of his own interests, and the absence of all pomp and ceremony. He didn't waste words. As the old dictum says, he didn't speak if he couldn't improve the silence.

In his room after his death was a small pile of Mother's Day cards, bought for him at his request by Charlie Connor, which he was still hoping to send in the final days of his life. Perhaps the mothers for whom they were intended know who they are and will take them as sent.

They have better than Mother's Day wishes from Eric now.

I think everyone knew he wanted to die in his community in Clongowes and not in “that Cherryfield”, as he was once heard to say, fearing that he would have been too far away from his own people. Just a month before he died, showing clear signs of illness and finally acknowledging them himself, he went to St Vincent's Hospital for tests, which quickly showed that he had advanced cancer. He returned home ten days later and it became increasingly obvious that he had weeks rather than months to live. He said quite clearly on more than one occasion that he had had a good life and believed in the life to come. And so he prepared to embark on that 'other journey' to which I referred at the start.

In his last days, he was unfailingly gentle and grateful to the nurses and members of the Clongowes house-staff who cared for him with so much love and tenderness. He was especially grateful to his great friend in the community, Charlie Connor, who lived in the room beside him and took increasing care of him as the end grew near. The end came quickly. Only hours earlier, he had been looking forward to the Munster Leinster match, for which we had installed a television set in his room. He didn't get to watch television but, as Fr Dermot Murray suggested, he had by then acquired a better seat, May he rest in peace.

Born: 11 December 1915, Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1933, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 30 July 1947, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1950, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 13 July 1988, St Francis, Cape Girardeau MO, USA - St John’s Parish, Leopold MO, USA

Educated at Mungret College SJ

by 1962 at St Francis Xavier Phoenix AZ, USA (CAL) working
by 1965 at Brophy Prep, Phoenix AZ, USA (CAL) working
by 1968 at Our Lady of Guadaloupe, San Antonio TX, USA (NOR) working
by 1971 at Catholic Charities, Fort Worth TX, USA (NOR) working
by 1974 at New Orleans LA, USA (NEB) working
by 1975 at Tulsa OK (MIS) hospital chaplain
by 1977 at Aguilar CO, USA (MIS) working
by 1982 at Mountain Grove MO (MIS) working
by 1985 at Verona MS, USA (MIS) working
by 1987 at Leopold MO, USA (MIS) working

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 63rd Year No 4 1988 (Final Edition)
Obituary
Fr Joseph Mario Carlin (1915-1933-1988)
11th December 1915: born in Dún Laoghaire (then called Kingstown). 7th September 1933: entered SJ. 1933-35 Emo, noviciate. 1935-38 Rathfarnham, juniorate (1938: BA). 1938-41 Tullabeg, philosophy. 1941-44 regency (teaching, direction of choir): 1941-42 Belvedere, 1942-43 Mungret. 1943-44 Clongowes. 1944-48 Milltown, theology (30th June 1947: ordained a priest). 1948-49 Rathfarnham, tertianship.
1949-59 Belvedere: 1949-52 teaching, direction of the choir (1957-59; also teach ing). 1952-59 editing and writing: 1952-53 assistant editor of Madonna and Messenger (then published from Belvedere). 1953-59 editor of Jesuit Year Book, which name he substituted for the older one used till 1954, Irish Jesuit Directory. 1956-59 he also edited The Sheaf, the organ of St. Joseph's Young Priests Society. (In a later summary of his career during the period 1953-59 he characterised himself as “editor, writer, newspaper columnist”.)
On 24th November 1959 Fr Carlin left Ireland to take up parish work in the Californian Province (IPN, January 1960), So began a career which was to span three American Jesuit provinces.
1959-67 California: St Francis Xavier parish, Phoenix, Arizona, assistant pastor. 1959-62 also athletic director and counsellor at the parochial grammar school. 1962-66 director of Youth office of Catholic Charities of Arizona and chaplain to the Maricopa county juvenile detention home, Phoenix.
1967-74 New Orleans: 1966-67 Our Lady of Guadalupe church, San Antonio, Texas, assistant pastor. 1967-69 Graduate studies, School of Social Work, University of Texas, Austin, Texas (1970: MSc in social work) and chaplain to Brown school for emotionally-disturbed children. 1969-73 Fort Worth: 1969 (half-year) social worker in Family Services; 1969-71 director of youth department at Catholic Charities; 1971-73 director of Catholic Social Service. 1973-74 (on a semi-sabbatical) assistant to Catholic Charities, Austin.
1974-88 Missouri: 1974-6 St Francis hospital, Tulsa, Oklahoma, chaplain. 1976-81 St Anthony Church, Aguilar, Colorado, pastor. 1981-82 Sacred Heart church, Mountain Grove, Missouri, pastor. (His few remaining assignments were also in Missouri state.) 1982-83 Mercy Villa, East Montclair, Springfield, chaplain, 1983-84 St John Vianney parish, Mountain View, associate pastor. 1984-86 Sacred Heart, Verona, administrator. 1986-88 St John's, Leopold, pastor.
13th July 1988; died in St Francis Medical Centre, Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

Fr Luke J. Byrne SJ, pastoral assistant to the Missouri Provincial, in summer 1980 received from Joe a résumé of his curriculum vitae. To this Joe had appended a short self-assessment, the only one available to the present writer:
Present (1980) skills, capacity, and preferences :
1) Hospital chaplaincy in busy live-in hospital. Social Work degree and experience might be acceptable in lieu of chaplaincy certification.
2) Pastoral work, preferably in a one priest parish. Location is not important but distance from Aguilar, Colorado, might be, to avoid any kind of continuing “entanglement”.
In the next year Fr Byrne forwarded the résumé to the bishop of Springfield - Cape Girardeau, M R Bernard Law (who since became archbishop of Boston and a cardinal), with the qualification that Joe “presently” (1981) wanted the one-priest parish and not the hospital. “His doctor thinks the lower altitude of the Middle West will be favourable toward his high blood pressure problem which he treats with medication”.

At the hospital where Fr Carlin died, the chaplain and Director of Pastoral Care was Mr Arthur Kelley, a Catholic layman. In a long letter addressed to one of Joe's three sisters last August, he wrote:
It was as chaplain here at the hospital that I first met my dear friend Fr Joseph Carlin, SJ, Needless to say, with a name like Kelley we got along famously. He was always a refreshing interlude in my day. I treasured the sweetness of his wit and his genuine sense of spirituality.
Whenever he was hospitalised I saw to it that he received the Sacrament of the sick and daily Eucharist. Though his hospitalisations were usually minor problems they seemed to be spaced at steady, predictable intervals, and may have been indicators that his general health was declining. However, he was not one to complain. Since we are the only Catholic hospital in the area, we were assured of a steady customer in Joseph, who except for his last admission always felt satisfied.
Forgive me if I seem frivolous, but I can almost sense him peering over my shoulder, chiding me about being too somber and urging me to treat his obituary with levity. Joseph loved to laugh - and we had many together,
Fr Carlin's death may have seemed sudden, but I can't say it was totally unexpected either by him or by me. As I said, I felt his health had been declining for some time. Still he clung tenaciously to his parish ministry. Truly, he was a priest forever ......'
After describing the progressive deterioration of Fr Carlin's condition, Chaplain Kelley wrote that in all probability his death resulted from a clot, with other conditions as complicating factors. His death was pain-free: for his last two or three days he was not conscious or responsive, therefore could communicate nothing. From the time that his condition began to deteriorate, the bishop kept in touch by phone, as did Joe's Jesuit confrères in St Louis. Since I (Chaplain Kelley) was the only one who was here consistently, I kept them informed of everything.
Fr Carlin's funeral Mass was absolutely beautiful. The bishop's homily was superb and the church was packed. The choir was truly heavenly. He would have loved it. They laid him to rest under the trees in a quiet country cemetery near the church with some thirty priests in attendance. It was a fine send-off.

Dorothy Holzum Arnzen, PhD, composed a poem in Fr Carlin's memory and offered it to the Missouri Provincial. In her accompanying letter she wrote: ‘I was privileged to know him as our pastor at Leopold, Missouri. A few days before he left for the hospital, Fr Carlin spoke to me of the deep affection that he had for the Jesuit community. If you wish to publish the poem in your Jesuit bulletin, I would consider it an honor: but whether you wish to publish it or not, I wanted to share with you in a small way the respect and regard that we had for Fr Carlin :

In memory of Father Carlin, SJ
by Dorothy Holzum Arnzen
Some said we needed a younger man
Not such an aging one:
A priest that wouldn't move so slow
And be able to get things done.

But in the midst of all of us
He moved with tranquil grace,
With kindly ways and manners
And a smiling Irish face.

He touched the sick and dying
In a very special way,
And to the soul that longed for peace
He knew just what to say.

He could speak an innate gentleness
That was for him a part
He reached out with loving kindness
And touched our parish heart.

He came to be our Pastor
When his race was almost won,
But before he reached eternity
The important things were done.

For the above poem and most of the above information, thanks are due to Mrs Nancy Merz, Associate Archivist at the Jesuit Missouri Province Archives, St Louis, USA

Born: 24 November 1837, Ballinasloe, County Galway
Entered: 09 September 1860, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1876
Died: 07 November 1909, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He had been in business in Dublin before Entry where he had Dan Jones as Novice Master.

He was a very smart businesslike man, masterful and very capable in managing servants and refectories in Colleges. he spent most of his life in this role at Clongowes and Mungret.
1900 He was transferred to Clongowes and was House Steward, and later Cur Val (1904). They boys there used call him “Napoleon Carter” as he was supposed to be so like the famous General.
One of the medallions over the Altar at the Old Chapel in Milltown (later O’Brien Library) is a picture of him. Tradition says Dan Jones got him to sit for it.

Born: 10 September 1865, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 05 April 1905, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 02 February 1917, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 16 September 1934, Mungret College, County Limerick

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1935

Obituary

Brother Tom Casey SJ

Beloved by the boys, and a great favourite in the Community, Brother Tom Casey passed quietly away from us on September 16th, in his 70th. year, and the 30th of his religious life. He looked much younger : his abundant hair, his fresh, even ruddy, complexion, and his humourous eyes seemed to be those of a man in the early forties.

For the last 12 or 15 years of his life, however, Brother Casey was, more or less an invalid with heart trouble and other complications. He bore his sufferings, weakness, and the occasional attacks of acute pain with the most edifying patience and resignation, indeed with joy ; it seems to the present writer, that like the great St. Paul, he “gloried in the Cross of Our Lord, Jesus Christ”.

His ideal seemed to be to hide his sufferings as much as possible, and to give as little trouble as he could to others. Let two instances of this suffice, I visited him when he was in St John's Hospital, Limerick; during my stay in his room I once touched the electric bell which hung near his bed. When the Sister in charge appeared she said at once that she knew Brother Casey had a visitor, for not once during his illness had he availed himself of that bell. Those who have spent a long time on a bed of sickness will appreciate the spirit of self-denial and the delicate consideration for others to which this bears testimony. On another occasion when detained in St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin for a serious and painful operation, he won golden opinions from those who were attending him, so that he was described by the sisters in charge as “the life and soul of the whole hospital”.

Brother Casey suffered acutely in inind as a result of his physical weekness. Superiors had to relieve him gradually of his work, and he was most sensitive on the point. Always anxious to “do his bit”, the relinquishing of each of the offices he held was a fresh pang to his sincere desire to be liseful. At last he was allowed to do nothing but serve Mass, and this with the proviso that he should sit on a bench near the altar and merely answer the responses. He heard or served in this way, four or five Masses each morning - a great consolation to him, for he had a special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and speat many hours each day before the Tabernacle.

His genuine kindness, constant good humour, and ready wit, (like St Robert Bellarmine, he was an inveterate punster), endeared him to the boys by whom he is deeply regretted, and will be long remembered with affection. For the deep voice, the droll humour, the merry twinkle of the eyes when he told his little jokes canot be easily forgotten by the generations of Mungret boys who knew Brother Casey. Right up to the very end he retained his facility to quip and jest. His last illness was short. He met death with a smile.

And so well he might, for he was a trully holy soul, and I am sure that many of the blessings showered on1 the College were due to his pious prayers. Now that he has gone to his eternal reward, we may feel sure that he will not forget those amongst whom and for whom he spent such a considerable portion of his life as a Jesuit.
JC

Born: 10 June 1909, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 01 September 1926, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1941, Milltown Park
Final Vows: 02 February 1944, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 19 August 1983, Kilcroney, County Wickow

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

Early Education at Presentation Brothers College, Cork City

1933-1934 Caring for Health
by 1967 at West Heath Birmingham (ANG) working
by 1970 at Southwark Diocese (ANG) working
by 1971 at St Ignatius, Tottenham London (ANG) working
by 1972 at Deptford London (ANG) working

Tertianship at Rathfarnham

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 58th Year No 4 1983

Gardiner Street
The summer months saw the passing of two members of our community. Fr Johnny McAvoy († 26th July), who had given us an outstanding example of cheerful endurance during his long struggle with ill health, was the first to go. As noted in our last report, he had had to return to Cherryfield Lodge some months ago, to receive special care. At the very end, however, he moved to Our Lady's Hospice, where he died after a brain haemorrhage which mercifully saved him from prolonged suffering.
Fr Paddy Coffey, who died almost a month later († 19th August), was also attached to our community, though he had been living at St Joseph's, Kilcroney, or many years. It is no exaggeration to say that he was a legend in the Province for his amazing will-power and persistence. It would have been fascinating to listen in to his last battle of with the Lord! His ever-widening circle of friends will miss his gentle but determined winning ways.
May he and Johnny rest in the the serenity of eternal peace.

Obituary

Fr Patrick Coffey (1909-1926-1983)

Paddy Coffey arrived in Tullabeg on 1st September 1926: a sporty little Corkonian ready for anything, a bony little flier at football who would go through you with delight, kicking the shins off you in his passage. He seemed to lose a lot of this zest in the he had a period of pious “broken head” - a term which older Jesuits may have to explain to younger, less pious ones.
As far as I recall he was well while in Rathfarnham, where he got an Honours BA, but after that he was seldom free from illness and disability. In philosophy at Tullabeg he had a long and serious illness, during which he was reduced almost to the state of a vegetable. It is said that the authorities thought he should leave the Society, but Paddy dug his heels in. That dogged and even obstinate determination became a well-known characteristic of his. He began philosophy in 1931, but his was so interrupted that it did not end until 1936.
After Tullabeg he spent two years in Mungret, where he was prefect of Third Club and teacher. After theology in Milltown, where he was ordained in 1941, in 1943 he returned
to Mungret, where by far the greater part of his life was to be spent: indeed, he became identified with Mungret. For two years he was prefect of First Club. The boys used to mimic a saying from a pep-talk of his: Rugby is a game of blood and mud! When there was a difference of opinion about policy or a fixture, he would fight quite fiercely to the last and when he yielded, it was from his religious spirit.
Besides teaching, he also edited the Mungret Annual. This was his greatest work in and for Mungret. He had a great feeling for the boys - I never heard him running them down - and an exceptional involvement with the Past: probably the reason he was made editor of the Annual. Indeed, he founded and produced the Mungret Eagle for the Past. This was a brochure of about 8 to 12 pages,containing photographs and all the bits of news that could be gathered about their whereabouts and activities, with a section about the Present. It was sent out free several times a year, and was eagerly read.
I don't think any function of the Mungret Union took place without him. Later on, in Gardiner street, he asked Fr Kieran Hanley if he might go to the Mungret Union dinner. When that benign and not easily outwitted superior, said, “Certainly,Paddy, in fact you ought to go”'. Paddy added, with his little grin, “It's in London, you know”.
Paddy's life-story is less than half told without mention of his serious accident. He was on a supply in the Dartford area of Kent in August 1953: the date was the 16th. His motor-bike stalled as he was crossing the highway, and a speeding car crashed into him. He was unconscious for at least a week and a leg had to be amputated. The hospital staff said that in his situation any ordinary person would have died, and they were astonished at his exceptional determination, which gradually carried him through. He never learned to use the artificial leg as it could be used, but when he returned to Mungret, he had obviously resolved to carry on as if nothing had happened. He got a bicycle made with one loose pedal crank, and on it he propelled himself shakily with one leg into town almost every day. He also insisted on keeping his room at the very top of the house, until the community could no longer bear the nerve-racking sound of him stumping up the stairs at midnight or later. It was during these years that his notable work with the Union and the Annual was done. He also taught (at least until 1964), but was quite likely to fall asleep in class.
He was well-known to be quite shameless and even peremptory in 'exploiting' his friends of the Past with regard to motor transport by day or by night. When he had left Mungret (which he did in 1966), I happened to be with a group who were jokingly recalling the occasions when they were commandeered, and it made me wonder when they ended up saying unanimously “All the same, he was a saint”. I have always suspected that he gave a good deal of his presence to less well-off people in Limerick, but Paddy played his cards so close to his chest that one never
knew the half of his activities,
Mention of cards reminds me that he loved card games, “hooleys”, sing songs, hotels, and visiting his friends. Yet I always felt that though he was ready for any escapade that didn't involve excommunication, with himself he was a very strict religious, unswervingly faithful to the way he was brought up.
I don't think anyone expected that he would ever leave Mungret as well again, but in 1966 he launched out, “wooden leg” and all, to Birmingham, where he did parish work for three years, then for six more years did the same in Deptford (Southwark diocese). In 1975 he joined the Gardiner street community, but lived in some kind of accommodation in North Summer street and worked in Seán McDermott street parish.
He was about a year in Dublin when he suffered a stroke which left: one arm useless and affected his leg. With his unconquerable determination he soldiered on in St Joseph's, Kilcroney, for seven long and trying years, keeping in touch with his friends by continual letters, getting taken out at every opportunity, even when he was reduced to using a wheelchair. He was always glad to see members of the Society. The last, almost inaudible, words I heard from him, a few hours before he died (19th August 1983), were “Coffee, piles of it, but don't tell the nurse!”
May he rest in peace at last, and may his long sufferings and indomitable spirit merit for him 'above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.

Born: 24 August 1922, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 05 October 1943, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1955, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1961, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 21 February 2012, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin - Zambia-Malawi Province (ZA

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

Transcribed : HIB to ZAM 03/12/1969

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Note from Arthur J Clarke Entry
During his six years as rector, he was blessed with such outstanding heads of Canisius as Dick Cremins and Michael J Kelly. Arthur's vision for Canisius as a leading secondary school was influenced by his experience of Clongowes Wood College in Ireland. First, he wanted a proper house for the community. Though the actual building was the responsibility of Fr McCarron and Br Pat McElduff, the siting and design of the spacious community house are largely Arthur’s.

◆ Irish Jesuit Missions : https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/203-missionary-experience-of-the-late-fr-richard-cremins

Missionary Experience of the late Fr. Richard Cremins
Father Richard Cremins, SJ died on 21st February 2012 in Cherryfield Nursing Home in Milltown Park after a long illness. The funeral mass took place on Friday 24th February in Milltown Park Chapel, after which Fr. Cremins was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Fr. Cremins spent over 50 years working as a missionary in Zambia until a stroke brought him back to Ireland in 2006 where he remained until his recent death.
Fr. Richard Cremins was born in 1922 and attended Blackrock College in Dublin. He went on to study at university for 3 years before making the decision to become a Jesuit priest after being impressed by the spirit among the students of Milltown Park. Fr. Cremins taught in Belvedere College for 2 years before he was ordained in 1955. In 1957 Fr. Cremins was sent out to Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia, to work in the Chikuni Mission. He spent several months learning the local language, Tonga and was mainly involved with the primary schools in the area. He spent a year travelling around the country finding schools a job which required him to learn a second language, Bemba. In 1964, Fr. Cremins was sent to Monze to step in as principal of the secondary school for 6 months. He remained in the post for four and a half years until the appointment of Michael Kelly as principal. Fr. Cremins spoke fondly of his time as parish priest in Monze. “They were lovely people. Very nice” he said. He felt it was important to value the customs and traditions of the people in the area. He recounted an early experience he had of a woman who was having trouble with her husband and he had been asked to step in. He sat with them in their family home but realized that his presence there was enough. “They had their own way of settling these things. So I never tried to interfere and just let things take their course”. Fr. Cremins kept this stance throughout his time in Zambia. He did a lot of work in development in the area which included the setting up of Church councils in each area and also the translation of the Bible into Tonga. This occurred in 1970 after the events of Vatican II.
Fr. Cremins was most noted for his work in AIDS prevention and development in Zambia. He went to Lusaka, the capital, in 1970 and spent 12 years there working on development with particular attention given to the introduction of natural family planning. This followed the work of Doctor Sister Miriam Duggan who wanted to introduce the idea to the area. After the implementation of a programme in Lusaka, Fr. Cremins then moved to Malwai in 1990 where he spent 12 years working on a similar project resulting in the establishment of FAMLI. In 2004, he helped to set up an AIDS programme called Youth Alive which aimed at educating young people in Malawi about the risks of AIDS.
Fr. Richard Cremins enjoyed his work as a missionary and spoke positively of his experiences abroad. “I always had a principle that if you have to do something you might as well enjoy it and I always enjoyed my work whatever it was".

https://www.jesuitmissions.ie/news/225-fr-richard-cremins-sj-1922-2012

Fr. Richard Cremins, SJ 1922-2012
Dick was raised in Dublin during the post independence and post civil war years. He attended the Holy Ghost Fathers' Blackrock College and then proceeded to do undergraduate studies at University College Dublin (UCD). Afterwards he began legal studies spending one year at King's Inn, passing his first bar exam with first class honours. He was a formidable debater and was elected president of the LH Society (Literary and Historical Society), well known for the who's who of Irish politicians and professionals who had been members in their younger days. Dick resigned as president of the Society and discontinued his legal studies to join the Society in 1943. He followed the usual course of studies in Ireland doing regency at Belvedere and Mungret Colleges. After theology at Milltown Park he was ordained a priest in 1955.
In response to a request from Father General, the Irish Province formally assumed responsibility in 1949/1950 for missionary work in much of the Southern Province of Northern Rhodesia (later to become the independent country of Zambia). This led to the establishment of the Chikuni Mission in the Southern Province with a procure in the capital, Lusaka. Building on the great accomplishments of the Zambezi Mission and of Jesuits from the Polish-Krakow Province who had laid the foundations of Church presence in this area, the new arrivals for the Chikuni Mission quickly found themselves engaged in the work of mission development. This they did through the establishment of parishes, the consolidation and expansion of secondary and teacher training institutions, the management and growth of an extensive network of primary schools, and the advancement of women and lay leadership in the Church.
Throughout the 35 years of his period in Northern Rhodesia/Zambia, where he arrived in September 1957, Dick Cremins found himself involved in each one of these works, apart from teacher training. On completion of a period learning chiTonga, the major local language used in the Chikuni Mission territory, his first assign- ment was as Manager of Schools, in charge of supervising, improving and expanding the large network of Catholic primary schools for which the Mission was responsible. In an era when Church presence in an area tended to be closely linked to educational presence through a Church-managed primary school, this involved much hard bargaining with similarly placed representatives from other Christian Churches and colonial officials. Though he threw himself into this work with enormous verve, this was something that did not fit well with Dick's broader ecumenical vision. Neither did it give much scope for his manifest abilities, including his sharp understanding of the needs of a colonial territory that sooner rather than later would become independent.
The situation changed for him in 1959 when he was appointed as Principal of Canisius College, a Jesuit boys' secondary school which had commenced in 1949, much to the displeasure of the colonial authorities who protested at the time that the territory already had a secondary school for boys and so did not need a second one. But by 1959 the winds of change were already blowing in Northern Rhodesia and Dick saw it as his duty, not to challenge the colonial authorities, but with their (sometimes grudging) financial support to develop a school that would respond to the territory's future needs for well qualified human resources. His task in doing so was facilitated by the transfer of the teacher training component from Canisius to the newly established Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College nearby, leaving Dick free to promote a programme of expanding boarding and teaching facilities (especially science laboratories and a library) at Canisius and to increase the number of staff.
A very significant development during the four-and-a-half years of Dick's tenure as Principal of Canisius was the commencement of 6th Form (A-level). Those who completed this programme would have spent almost fifteen years in school - this in a territory where by 1963 less than 1,000 (up to 200 of them from Canisius itself) had completed even twelve years in school. Equally significant, and an early sign of what would be a major con-cern throughout the rest of Dick's life, was his determination that girls should benefit from this development and be able to attain the highest possible level of education. This resulted in Canisius becoming the only school in Northern Rhodesia that offered 6 h Form education to both girls and boys - a noteworthy advance not only towards gender equity but also in Jesuit understanding of the need to ensure that the equality between women and men became a lived reality.
A further development was the active recruitment of a large number of lay teachers for the staffing of the expanding Canisius College. But more was at work in Dick's case, for here he found it possible to give expression to his pre-Vatican II vision of increasing the role of the laity in Church affairs. The strength of Dick's convictions in this area led to his appointment in 1964 as parish priest of the town of Monze and subsequently as chaplain to the Lay Apostolate Movement in the newly established Diocese of Monze. That same year, Northern Rhodesia's colonial status ended when it became the independent country of Zambia. Dick identified wholeheartedly with the new State and as soon as it was possible for him to do so adopted Zambian citizenship, even though this necessitated renouncing his status as a citizen of Ireland, the country of his birth. For the rest of his life, Dick remained a Zambian, a man committed to improving the status of women, and a man passionately concerned to give practical expression to Vatican II's vision of the importance of the laity and the involvement of the Church in the development of peoples.
Dick worked indefatigably for six years as parish priest of Monze town and for five years as promoter of the lay apostolate throughout the diocese. An outstanding legacy to his term as parish priest was the establishment by the Holy Rosary Sisters of Monze Mission Hospital. Dick always proved himself a staunch ally of these Sisters, some of them still fresh from the Biafran war in Nigeria. Always conscious of the dignity of women and the active role that lay and religious women could play in the Church, he supported the Sisters with deep practical love and respect (which they in turn generously reciprocated). Dick pursued these apostolic commitments in Monze Diocese at such expense to himself that he had to spend the greater part of 1976 rebuilding his health. When he was strong enough to return to Zambia late that year, his enduring commitment to the development of the laity resulted in his transfer to Lusaka and appointment, on behalf of the Catholic Hierarchy, as national chaplain for the lay apostolate and secretary for development. For the next seven years he spent the greater part of his time educating and training the laity, mobilising and energising lay groups, and advocating on their behalf. His constant concern was to ensure that Vatican II's vision of the role of the laity became a reality energetically adopted and practised, not only by the ordained ministry of the Church and by members of the Society, but also by lay-persons themselves. These years also saw his trail-blazing support for the National Council of Catholic Women in Zambia, with his unflagging insistence to the women who asked him to implement some of their ideas, "No; this is for you to do, yours are the voices that should be heard." His belief in the power of women was remarkably vindicated in 1982 when, because of the outspoken opposition of the Catholic Women's League to the Zambian Government's inclusion of communist ideology in the curriculum for schools at all levels, the Government capitulated and backed off from this development.
Dick's experience and reflections during this time brought into sharper focus for him the importance of the family. A prime concern here was to enable women to control the number of children they bore while observing the teaching of the encyclical Humanae Vitae about contraception. He was motivated here not just by loyalty to Church teaching, but also by his commitment to improving the lot of women and his anguish at the suffering women endured in bearing more children than their health, their means, the well-being of their already-born children or their prospects as persons who were fully equal to men, could sustain. He was further energised by his deep-seated conviction on the supremacy of human life and hence was driven by the imperative of preventing abortion and opposing its legalisation.
Both of these concerns led Dick to become a protagonist for natural family planning as a way that respected human dignity, while enabling women take more control of their lives and avoid abortions by not having unwanted pregnancies. He became skilled on the medical and social aspects of natural family planning and was soon recognised as a national and international authority in this area. His views did not always find acceptance with others, but this did not diminish their respect for his integrity, the consistency of his approach, and his manifest commitment to bettering the condition of women. His involvement in the area of natural family planning be- came more all-consuming when in 1983 he was appointed as Director of Zambia's Family Life Movement. He was to remain in this position until his appointment to Malawi, the second country that constitutes the Zambia- Malawi Province, ten years later. During this Lusaka period Dick also served for six years as Superior of the Jesuit community of St. Ignatius. Throughout the latter years of that time, St. Ignatius' was the base for the newly established Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, a faith and social justice think-tank which received wholehearted support from Dick's wisdom, experience, and vision.
In 1993 Dick was sent to Lilongwe in Malawi to set up a Jesuit residence there. Since a number of Jesuits were already working in the Malawian seminaries, Malawi was now recognised as part of the Zambian province, but there was no specifically Jesuit residence there. Dick first stayed with the Kiltegan Fathers for a few months as he surveyed the houses which came on the market in Lilongwe. He was responsible for the purchase and rehabilitation of the present residence of Our Lady of the Way, more usually known as 9/99, the official address. This house became the rallying point for a scattered Jesuit community whose members were working hundreds of kilometres away to the four points of the compass (Zomba, Kasungu, Kachebere and Mangochi).
However 9/99 was not merely a convenient staging point - one of the attractions was meeting Dick. At breakfast and especially after evening meal, one could be sure of a stimulating discussion arising on some point relevant to our mission that had been noticed by Dick and obviously pondered over by him. One might not always agree with Dick's point of view, but that made the discussions all the more stimulating. Dick continued the family apostolate he had animated so well in Lusaka and set up an official NGO called FAMLI, supported by overseas aid.
In Lilongwe in 2007, Dick experienced a massive stroke that ultimately led to his return to Ireland and admission to Cherryfield, the Irish Province's nursing home for infirm, disabled and recuperating Jesuits. Here Dick was to remain until his death in February 2012. But his approach to his transformed conditions was not one of self-pity. Instead, with characteristic determination and enormous courage, he succeeded in teaching himself to speak with some sort of clarity and in making himself mobile with the aid of a "walker" that had been designed according to his specifications for a person whose right hand was crippled. The strength of his resolve and his unfailing commitment to his priesthood were shown by the way he struggled every week to serve as principal celebrant at the community Mass. Despite his limited mobility, he succeeded in attending outside lectures and functions. He taught himself to use a laptop by tapping out messages with one finger of his left hand. And in an effort to build up a sense of camaraderie among his fellow-residents in Cherryfield and the wider community of Jesuits living in the Dublin area, he organised Scrabble and draughts competitions.
Dick put his hard-won computer skills to good use in these final years. From the darkness that must have enshrouded his own life, he regularly sent warm and supportive messages to colleagues who, like himself, were experiencing the cloud of unknowing. But even more, despite his limitations, he continued to press for the better- ment of women, loyal adherence to the teachings of Humanae Vitae, ever greater involvement in the official Church on the part of "outstanding lay Catholics who are to be found as leaders in every walk of life," and advocacy for a Church "where St. Peter might feel at home. "At a meeting just six weeks before his death, he expressed concern that Cherryfield might be obtaining its medical supplies from a pharmacy where the "morning-after" pill could also be purchased. His spirited contributions continued after his death - nine days after he died, The Furrow, the respected religious journal from Maynooth, published his article in support of the Irish government's decision to close its Embassy to the Vatican as he saw this as a step in the direction of making it possible for the Church to remain true to the simplicity of the Gospel.
Throughout his long and very full life, Dick Cremins emerged as a gentle person, kind and peaceful, who lived his life joyfully in the service of others and in pursuit of the highest ideals. At times, people could be upset by his sabre-sharp remarks or forthright statement of his views. But behind these there always lay his fearlessness in challenging accepted points of wisdom, his passion to see the Kingdom of God as envisaged by Jesus realised among us, his zeal for the genuine development of all peoples, his razor sharp mind and his powerful sense of humour with its love of irony, laughter and the joy of people.
Years ago, Dick was characterised as being shaped like a paschal candle - tall, thin and luminous. But his moral stature far surpassed his physical tallness. The Bible tells us that there were giants in the early days. But Dick Cremins shows us that giants are still to be found in modern days.

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 147 : Spring 2012

Obituary

Fr Richard (Dick) Cremins (1922-2012) : Zambia Malawi Province

24 August 1922: Born in Dublin.
Early education: Blackrock College, UCD and 1 year at King's Inns (legal studies)
1943: Obtained a BA Degree in Legal and Political Science in 1943 from UCD
5 October 1943: Entered Emo
October 1945: First Vows: Emo
1946 - 1949: Tullabeg, studying Philosophy
1949 - 1951: Belvedere - Regency
1951 - 1952: Mungret College, Teaching, Prefecting
1952 - 1955: Milltown Park, studying Theology
28th July 1955: Ordained
1955 - 1956: Milltown Park, 4th Year Theology
1956 - 1957: Rathfarnham, Tertianship
1957 - 1958: Zambia, learning the language
1958: Chikuni, Manager of schools
1959 - 1963: Chikuni, Canisius College, Principal
2 February 1961: Final Vows at Chikuni
3 December 1969: Transcribed to Zambia Province
1964 - 1970: Monze, Parish Priest
1971 - 1975: Monze, Chaplain, lay apostolate
1976: Monze, Nairobi, Dublin, recovering health
1976 - 1983: Lusaka, Catholic Secretariat, Chaplain, Lay Apostolate, Secretary for Development
1983 - 1992; St. Ignatius, Director Family Life Movement St. Ignatius,
1983 - 1990: Superior
1990 - 1993: Luwisha House, Director Family Life Movement
1993 - 2007: Lilongwe (opened the house in 1993) FASU consultancy (later FAMLI)
1999 - 2004: Chaplain Lilongwe International Catholic community
2000 - 2001: Assistant Diocesan Pastoral Coordinator
2007 - 2012: Dublin, Cherryfield Lodge, recovering health. Praying for the Church and the Society
21 February 2012: Died Cherryfield

Obituary : Conall Ó Cuinn
Dick grew up in Dublin and was the last surviving sibling, having been predeceased by his brothers, Pat, Gary and Paul, and by his sister, Nora. Though his education at Blackrock College left a strong mark, unlike his brother he was clear that the Holy Ghost Fathers were not for him. General Richard Mulcahy, his mother's cousin, connected him with the turbulent socio-political situation of post-independence and post civil-war Ireland. So it was not surprising that he studied Law and Politics in UCD, including a year at King's Inns. He was a bright student, a formidable debater with a razor sharp sense of humour tinged with a certain killer instinct, not always appreciated by his adversaries, and which sometimes got him into trouble. Having graduated from UCD and passed his first Bar exam, both with 1st class honours, he joined the Society at the then late age of 21, a late vocation, a man of the world. And all of this during World War II.

Zambia--Monze (1957-1975)
Dick spent 50 years living and working in Zambia (Northern Rhodesia for his first 7 years there). He embraced the new State on independence and became a Zambian citizen, a symbolic statement representing a desire to insert himself into Zambian life and culture. This involved revoking his Irish citizenship so that he required a visa each time he needed to visit Ireland. He put down roots in the Chikuni Mission which was later to become Monze Diocese. He arrived there in 1957, just nine years after the first involvement of the Irish Jesuits. From there he later launched himself nationally, and even internationally.

Learning Tonga for a year was always the first task before being thrown into the apostolate. His first job was that of Manager of Schools at a time when the primary education project of the mission was in full swing. He then became Principal of Chikuni Secondary College in the lead up to Independence (1964). Effectively he was educating what would become the leaders of the new Zambian state. And clearly Dick was seen by his superiors as a man of ability and initiative.

In 1962, as the Second Vatican Council was getting underway, James Corboy, then Rector of Milltown Park and Theology Professor, was appointed Bishop of Monze. The Council changed James, as a person and an ecclesiastic. He embraced it as a process, and ever afterwards claimed that the Council was his introduction to theology, especially the seminars given on the fringe of the Council's formal sessions. On his appointment to Zambia he had a clear vision of the importance of the laity and the involvement of the Church in the development of peoples. With that vision he gathered people of the calibre of Dick Cremins around him to promote the project of Vatican II in the new Diocese of Monze. Dick would be a right-hand man when appointed Parish Priest of Monze in 1964 and also Chaplain to the Lay Apostolate movement.

At the same time and at the invitation of Bishop Corboy, the Holy Rosary Sisters were establishing their hospital next door. Dick became great friends with the sisters, a camaraderie and friendship similar to that of siblings in a family, brothers and sisters who supported each other in deep and practical love. This is an occasion to acknowledge and give public thanks for such support and love, and to thank God for it, not just to the Holy Rosary Şişters, but also to the Sisters of Charity, the RSHM sisters (Ferrybank), and the Holy Spirit Sisters (founded also by Bishop Corboy).

Amid the hardship, labour and struggle of those first years there was much fun and laughter. Dick's humour became legendary in the land. For example, rushing out the door at 9.50 a.m. one morning he declared: “I've got to rush. There is a meeting that was due to start at 8.00 am and I don't want to be late!”

And another, told by Sr. Theresa, a Holy Rosary sister. She arrives in the country, fresh with a sociology degree and some notion of community development. Her first task is to interview the PP to avail of his vast experience and local knowledge. Dick lets her ask her questions and avidly write her notes with that neophyte enthusiasm of the recently arrived. “Sister”, interrupts Dick as she begins to ask another question, “I'd like you to know that I've only arrived here myself 3 days ago. So I'm finding my feet too:. They became friends that moment, a friendship which included Theresa sitting by Dick's bed as he lay dying, 38 years later. Such was the quality of friendship on the Mission that we celebrate and acknowledge today.

Shortly after independence when three of the Sisters were PI'd (declared persona ingrata] by the new, youthful and over-confident government, for refusing the orders of local officials regarding medical matters, Dick went to bat for them with the government officials in Lusaka. The PI order was revoked after hours of palaver. Dick came within a hair's breadth of being PI'd himself, so that Zambia nearly lost this “troublesome priest”, a term used to describe him in a government memo on the events.

Zambia -- Lusaka (1976-1993):
Vatican II had taken place; the Decree on the Laity played a central role in Bishop Corboy's strategy. As a result a huge investment was made in the education and training of lay people. Dick, given his experience in Monze, moved to Lusaka in 1976 to take up an appointment at the Catholic Secretariat (set up by Fr. Colm O'Riordan SJ) as National Chaplain to the Lay Apostolate, and Secretary for Development

He was a trailblazing supporter of the National Council of Catholic Women of Zambia, at a time when women were invisible supernumeraries both in the church and in Zambian society. Dick encouraged them to take a lead and use their power. He campaigned hard for them to have an appropriate place both in the church and in African society, and he saw his job as an enabler, giving them the courage to make the moves themselves; so when they came up with an idea and asked him to act on it, he would say No, yours is the voice that should be heard.

Later in 1983, he became Director of the Family Life Movement which tried to implement the teachings of Vatican II on family life. Dick was very much taken with Humanae Vitae when it was published in 1968, and believed its practical teaching could be put into practice if the vision behind it were understood and assimilated. Of course, this was controversial, and in a sense grist to Dick's mill. With determination and humour he developed and led the organization, Famously, he introduced himself to a somewhat sceptical if not hostile international conference with a statement, that he had practiced natural family planning all his life!

So Dick had many friends, and some enemies. An example of such friendships is the message of Clare Mukolwe, now a graduate student at Fordham University in New York:
“A gentle spirit gone before us marked with a sign of faith. I was introduced to Fr Richard Cremins by my mother Grace Mukolwe. They worked together for the National Council of the Laity. Fr Cremins was also my mother's first spiritual director and he introduced Mum to the Ignatian Spirituality retreats. He gave me my first real job straight after high school. It was fun”.

Malawi --Lilongwe (1993-2007)
As a number of Malawian men had joined the Society, Malawi opened up as a mission possibility in the early 90's. Dick was sent to open a new house in Lilongwe and to develop his Family Life apostolate in that country. He worked there for 14 years, until his stroke in 2007. Like a tree being felled, he was suddenly reduced from full health to a state of great disability, both in his walking and in his speaking. He returned to Ireland via Zambia and moved into Cherryfield Lodge, his last home.

Ireland--Cherryfield (2007-2012)
Dick's approach was not one of self-pity. In his usual manner he confronted the problem head on. Getting himself as mobile as possible, and getting himself to speak with some sort of clarity was now his main goal. And with great determination, never accepting to lie down in the face of difficulty or refusal, he achieved much of what he set out to do. The sharp mind and quick wit never deserted him, even after the stroke in March 2007 which crippled and distressed him --- as with characteristic determination he set himself to recover clarity of speech.

An example of his logic and determination had to do with his wheeled walker: All wheeled walkers have two brakes, literally one on the left hand and one on the right hand. But what if your right hand doesn't work, as was the case for Dick and thousands of other stroke victims? Two-handed breaks do not work. They are positively dangerous. If you asked a car driver to break with two break pedals, he argued, there would be carnage on the roads. Why are stroke victims expected to do with two-handed breaks? Such a break doesn't exist, he was told. Should exist, he insisted, and if you won't locate one, I will do so myself. So using the Internet he located one in Sweden. Expensive, but existent. It was bought and functioned well. But he needed to redesign the right handle to suit his withered hand which design he then sent to Sweden where they made it for him and sent back to Ireland for fitting, Where Dick had a will, there was a way: Dick's way, “No” was not an option for Dick when he saw that something was possible.

And again the humour: Matron Rachel McNeil was the subject to which one of Dick's Ditties was addressed:

    Poem to Rachel
    Dick has more problems with his vowels
        than with his bowels
    And therefore needs more alcohol
        than Movicol®

Dick died six months short of his 90th birthday. Even to the end of his days in Cherryfield he was a formidable crusader for a number of causes, often a champion against the authorities, and always on the side of life – whether it was through natural family planning, or organising a draughts championship in Cherryfield for men who'd have thought their gaming days were over. He lived life to the full and to the last. In his last week in hospital he had an article accepted for publication in the Furrow, and one in the Irish Catholic. All he needed was a WiFi modem to send it to the editors. Both articles were controversial, questioning the standard version. Both rocked the boat.

Now the questioning and the rocking and the struggling are over. For those who did not know Dick, remember how a chieftain in Tanzania described him: :I know only one human being who is shaped like the paschal candle: Fr Dick Cremins, tall, thin and luminous”. His light faded for us on 21 February, but shines now in a broader heaven.

Born: 10 June 1887, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 February 1907, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1920, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1924, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 06 April 1951, Dublin City, County Dublin

Part of St Mary's community, Emo, County Laois at time of his death

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ.

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 26th Year No 3 1951

Obituary :

Fr. Cuffe was born in Dublin on June 10th, 1887. He was educated in the College of the Josephite Fathers, Ghent, Belgium, and at Clongowes. He entered the Society in 1907, and after his Juniorate, studied philosophy at Louvain and St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst. As a scholastic he taught in Clongowes, Belvedere and Mungret, besides being Third Line Prefect in Clongowes and Third Club Prefect in Mungret. He studied theology at Milltown Park, where he was ordained in 1920. After his Tertianship at Tullabeg (1922-23), he was appointed Vice-Superior in the Apostolic School, Mungret, a post which he held until 1933. He was then transferred to Clongowes where, in addition to his duties as master, he had charge of the People's Church. In 1943 he was appointed Spiritual Father at St. Mary's, Emo.
During the last few years of his life he suffered from heart trouble, which steadily became more acute. Shortly before Easter of the present year he went to stay with his family at Rathnew, Co. Wicklow, where, it was hoped, a period of complete rest and quiet would revive his fast-ebbing strength, But he was soon attacked with congestion of the lungs. His case became so serious that he was transferred to a nursing home in Leeson St., Dublin, where, fortified with the rites of the Church, he peacefully died at about 7 p.m. on Friday, April 6th.
Fr. Cuffe's personality and character, simple, straightforward, honest, devout, answered in a striking manner to the description of “the just man” in Holy Scripture. For him life had no brain-bewildering, heart-aching problems, but was a plain matter-of-fact business of ordinary duties to be faithfully performed day in day out. Be was of a courteous, cheerful disposition, a pleasant companion to live with, free from every trace of moodiness or low spirits, scrupulously exact in doing the work assigned to him, and ever ready to help in times of stress and strain. He was easily disturbed, it is true, when things went wrong, but impatience was but a passing “shadow of annoyance”, swiftly fleeting across the sunny landscape of his spirit. He was, indeed, incapable of deep and enduring resentment, and I doubt if he ever said a hard word about any of his brethren.
His religious life was cast in the same mould. Upon the deep spiritual foundation laid down by him in the noviceship, he raised the solid structure of his holy life as a Jesuit. The performance of his spiritual exercises, observance of rule, progress in virtue, he never failed to regard as duties of strict obligation, which he fulfilled with edifying exactitude. During the last few months of his life on earth, when physical debility rendered him incapable of even the lightest work, he was most assiduous in prayer, with the rosary or Dolour beads constantly in his hands. Death came to him peacefully; and I can well believe that he answered the Master's call with unruffled tranquility, as though it were part of the day's routine.
To simple-hearted, faithful servants such as Fr. “Freddy” Cuffe Our Lord Himself gives testimony : “Of such is the Kingdom of God”.

◆ The Clongownian, 1951

Obituary

Father Frederick Cuffe SJ

The news of the death of Father Fred Cuffe early in April will come as a sur prise and a shock to all Old Clongownians who knew him either as a boy in the college or as an enthusiastic and energetic professor of the French language. One who knew him intimately for a quarter of a century finds it difficult to imagine any part of his life not characterised by this enthusiasm and energy. Over that considerable period one could not, on the closest observation, discover the slighest change in the principles that guided his every action, little or great. These principles were founded on a deep appreciation of the supernatural; for Fr Cuffe was above all a man of God possessed of a self-belittling humility that was never scandalised, and consequently souls were drawn to him as iron to the magnet. People who had met him only casually frequently and affectionately asked for him. Past pupils home on holidays from their labour's as priests in the far-flung mission fields of South Africa and Australia went out of their way to visit Fr Cuffe at Clongowes. His fervent sermons from the altar of the People's Church are still recalled; likewise his tender and untiring care and solicitude for the sick of the locality.

But the strongest of constitutions could not indefinitely withstand the demands of his unbounded energy and enthusiasm for God's work. Some eight years ago saw him struck down by an illness that forced him to retire from his work in Clongowes. That was doubtless a great blow to a man of such supernatural ambitions as Fr Cuffe; but here, too, the character of the man of God was apparent. Never once was he heard to murmur a word of complaint though he inust certainly have regretted that he no longer possessed his former energy to spend in the service of the well beloved Master. A cold developed while attending the Easter ceremonies in the parish church brought on a severe attack of pneumonia, which he was not strong enough to resist, and Fr Cuffe passed to a well-deserved reward. RIP

The Irish Province of the Society of Jesus is the poorer for his loss. To his brothers and sister we tender our deepest sympathy in their bereavement.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1951

Obituary

Father Frederick Cuffe SJ

It is with deep sadness that we chronicle the death of Father Frederick Cuffe, Vice-Superior of the Apostolic School (1923-'33). Though Father Cuffe has been in poor health for a number of years, bis last illness was short. On April 5th he was taken suddenly ill and died the following day in a Dublin hospital.

Father Cuffe's connection with Mungret goes back to 1917 when he came here as a Scholastic. Having himself been educated in Belgium, he was well grounded in the French language, and consequently his two years' teaching was very fruitful in its results. After his ordination in 1923; Father Cuffe returned to Mungret as Vice-Superior of the Apostolic School, Again he showed himself as a skilled and highly efficient teacher of French, but his main work lay in a different sphere. As an upholder of the highest ideals, Father Cuffe is principally remembered by the students of this time who passed under his care. Thoughtfulness, gentle ness with firmness, piety, strength of character, a great devotion to the Sacred Heart and Our Lady were the virtues that he inspired in those whom he helped to form both by word and his own example; for Father Cuffe was above all other things a saintly priest. A grotto to the Sacred Heart in the Apostolic playground bears witness to his efforts to adorn the college. The boys who passed through his hands in Mungret can each testify to his special interest in them, for he never failed to write to each of his old alumni on the occasion of their ordination, and later, when he was at Clongowes and Emo Park, was constantly inquiring about the Past whom he had known.

Two years ago we were glad to have a visit from him. It was apparent then that he was not in good health. Yet he bore his suffering with his accustomed cheerful spirit. We offer our sincere sympathy to his brother George, who was a student here, to Colonel Cuffe, DSO, and to his sisters. RIP

Born: 29 December 1924, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 02 October 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1959, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 06 January 1978, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 14 August 1999, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

by 1949 at Laval, France (FRA) studying
by 1985 at Regis Toronto, Canada (CAN S) Sabbatical

Born: 29 August 1918, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1936, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1949, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1981, Della Strada, Dooradoyle, Limerick
Died: 06 March 2003, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 123 : Special Issue February 2005

Obituary

Fr Patrick (Paddy) Cusack (1918-2003)

29th Aug. 1918: Born in Dublin
Early education in Dominican Convent, Eccles Street, and CBS, Richmond Street
7th Sept. 1936: Entered the Society at Emo
8th Sept. 1938: First Vows at Emo
1938 - 1941: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1941 - 1944: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1944 - 1946: Crescent College, Limerick - Regency
1946 - 1950: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31st July 1949: Ordained at Milltown Park
1950 - 1951: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1951 - 1953: Mungret College - Teaching
1953 - 1954: Clongowes -Teaching
1954 - 1959: Mungret - Teaching, Spiritual Director (Boys)
1959 - 1968: Emo:
1959 - 1961: Master of Novices
1961 - 1968: Rector; Master of Novices
1968 - 1974: Mungret:
1968 - 1971: Spiritual Director (Boys); Teacher
1971 - 1974: Rector; Teacher
(Mungret closed Summer '74)
1974 - 1978: Sullivan House - Director Spiritual Exercises; Member of Spirituality Centre
1978 - 1983: Dooradoyle - Chaplain; Teacher; Spiritual Director (pupils)
1983 - 1984: Tullabeg - Co-ordinator of Apostolate.
1984 - 1989: Leeson Street - Spiritual Exercises & Retreats
1989 - 2003: Belvedere:
1989 - 1990: Spiritual Exercises
1990 - 1992: College Confessor
1992 - 1993: Asst.Pastoral Care Co-ordinator
1993 - 1994: Adult Education on Prayer
1994 - 2003: Director Spiritual Exercises; Adult Prayer Education; College Confessor
6th March 2003 Died at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

After a long illness, borne peacefully and patiently, Paddy died at Cherryfield Lodge in the presence of family members and Father Eddie FitzGerald from the Milltown community.

Kevin Laheen writes:
Paddy Cusack had just left for Rathfarnham when I arrived in Emo in 1938. The novices who were still in Emo remembered him very well and gave us, newcomers, a fair picture of him. Some said he was fervent, others described him as edifying, while Sean O'Connor, (my 'Angelus' and now a missioner in Nairobi) said he was meticulous. When I got to know him in Rathfarnham he certainly lived up to the reputation he had earned for himself in Emo. But I learned a lot more about him as the months in the Castle passed. He was a placid man whom nothing could ruffle, but in our eyes there was a downside to him. He had no athletic ability and no taste for games. He never played tennis, nor handball, but because he felt it was the will of God he turned out to play that is the wrong word) football, for he was essentially a passenger on the field. He once brought a book to the pitch to have a little read just in case nobody passed the ball to him. They never did.

When I joined him in Tullabeg he had become a great reader. He never again ventured on to the football pitch but in his many long walks, aided by his musical ear, he had become an expert in identifying the birds by listening to their songs - in Tullabeg their name was legion. Apart from our days in Milltown Park prior to ordination, I never lived with him again until we both were stationed in Mungret. There he was a good teacher but his appointment to the post of Spiritual Father to the boys gave a pointer to what would occupy him for the rest of his life. Apart from his days as the last Rector of the college, all his work for the rest of his life was associated with spiritual formation. As Master of Novices I am sure that many of his novices would enrich this picture of him by adding their own memories.

He was a great friend of the nuns all over the country. There was many a convent that had an open door and a bed for the night whenever he found himself stranded between retreats. The number of Long Retreats he directed exceeded thirty, and he had a particular weakness for the convent that had a piano. Paddy was a lover of the piano but he hesitated to play before an audience. As he pursued his nomadic life he always tucked away in his case a few sheets of piano music, with a preference for Mendelssohn. Towards the end of his life when the burden of travel became too heavy he spent longs periods at Knock Shrine assisting many people with guided prayer. He became known as the “be still and know that I am God” priest for that was how he always began his prayer sessions. His name is still remembered there with affection and appreciation.

During my own sojourn in Cherryfield, Paddy paid a few short visits. He had become more quiet, took little part in recreation, spent more time in the chapel or pacing up and down the corridor. When able, his great achievement was to take a trip into the city and have a cup of coffee in Bewleys, and later he would talk of it as a real triumph. The end came rather suddenly and I am sure he had the support of the prayers of the thousands whom he had helped during his life as a priest. May he rest in peace.

Born: 06 July 1876, William Street, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 30 July 1918, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 1901, St Patrick's College, Maynooth, County Kildare, pre Entry
Final Vows: 02 February 1929, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin
Died: 23 May 1951, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin

Ord pre entry; Early Education at Crescent College SJ, Mungret College and St Patrick’s College Maynooth

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Devane, Richard
by Maurice Cronin

Devane, Richard (1876–1951), Jesuit priest, was born 6 July 1876 at 29 William Street, Limerick, the eldest of three sons and two daughters of Cornelius Devane, merchant, and his wife, Joanna McCormack. His two brothers, John Devane (qv) and James Devane (qv) were medical doctors. Richard was educated at the Christian Brothers’ Sacred Heart College, Limerick, until 1889, and attended Crescent College until he was 17. After this he went to study in Mungret, and then attended St Munchin's seminary until he was 19, finishing his studies in Maynooth, where he was ordained in 1901. He was attached to St Patrick's church, Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, until 1904 when he returned to Limerick to a curacy at St Michael's and was also garrison chaplain for ten years. His parochial work included the direction of a conference of the Society of St Vincent de Paul and temperance sodalities for men and women, as well as running a large club for girls. He kept in close touch with labour circles in Limerick on whose behalf he inaugurated a series of lectures on industrial subjects. He was active in rescue and vigilance work, launching a crusade against evil literature, in which connection he published articles in the Dublin Leader. He was responsible for the introduction of a licence to regulate cinema shows, adopted by Limerick Borough Council, and a member of the Limerick technical committee.

He entered the Society of Jesus at St Stanislaus College, Tullamore, on 30 July 1918, being professed two years later. His first appointment with the Society was to the newly founded retreat house for working men at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, where he became the first director in 1922. There he remained organising retreats until 1932 and again from 1945 until his death. From 1933 to 1944 he was director of the retreat house at Milltown Park, Dublin. He was known for his great interest in social legislation and for twenty-five years specialised in an apostolate in favour of the young and their moral protection by legislative means. He did much to further acts dealing with film censorship (1923), censorship of publications (1929), legal redress for mother and offspring in irregular unions (1930), and public dance halls (1935) as well as the criminal law amendment act of the same year. The children's act (1942) set the seal on his practical interest in the fate of children. He published in 1942 Challenge from youth, a fully documented study of modern youth movements in other countries in which he pleaded for a catholic youth movement in Ireland based on a sound Christian philosophy. In another important work, The failure of individualism (1948), he traced the progress of individualism in the religious, political, and economic life of Europe and pleaded for the restoration of the organic structure of society. For many years he was a contributor to the daily press and to various periodicals. His correspondence covered a wide range of subjects touching the welfare of his countrymen: cinema control, dance hall problems, censorship, the imported press, parish councils, adult education, civics, summertime, the retreat movement, national athletics, and national film institutes.

Devane died 23 May 1951 at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin.
Irish Jesuit Archives; Ir. Times, 24 May 1951

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/richard-devane-sj-keeping-the-faith/

Richard Devane SJ: Keeping the faith
If a screen writer were looking for one historic figure to stand in for all the Catholic clergymen who strove to ensure the social purity of the nascent Irish state in the early 20th century, Richard Devane SJ, subject of a new book from Messenger Publications, might be their man. Both as a diocesan priest and after he joined the Jesuits in 1938 at the age of 42, Devane worked tirelessly against what he saw as a rising tide of immorality assaulting the new Ireland. In the words of the book blurb for Richard Devane SJ: social commentator and advocate, 1876-1951 » by Martin Walsh, he was “a sometimes over-zealous gatekeeper of Irish culture and morals”.

Devane’s crusading began early in his priestly life. It appears to have been inspired by his first assignment after ordination in 1903, to Middlesborough, England, which had a burgeoning Irish immigrant population. Many of the Irish migrants worked in the growing number of iron foundries in the area, and they lived in considerable poverty. Devane’s experience there seems both to have instilled a strong nationalist sense in him and to have alerted him to the dangers of, in the words of Martin Walsh, “an altogether different set of English values, values that he would later see as running contrary to everything that he saw as pure about the Irish nation”. Cinemas, music halls, football games on Sunday, salacious newspapers, even more salacious books and ‘penny-dreadfuls’ – all of these and many other features of popular British culture horrified Devane. He made it his life’s task to keep this rot from his native land.

Back in Ireland Devane led many efforts to address what he saw as the single greatest threat to the state of morals in Ireland, namely the intemperance of both men and women. He had witnessed it in his native Limerick, where hard drinking in public was perhaps the natural effect of having 315 public houses in the city.

As well as his work with temperance societies, Devane fought to curb the proliferation of ‘evil literature’, to establish women’s sodalities, to get young women trained for lives of domestic service, to seek the regulation of cinemas so as to prevent the display of immoral films, and the like.

Devane also took a keen interest in the social conditions of the working classes, especially prompted by Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. It appears to have been, for him, part of the bigger programme of preparing for a new Ireland after Home Rule.

In 1918, Fr Devane joined the Jesuits. For the remaining decades of his life he continued to spend his energies on addressing Catholic values and social problems in Ireland. He worked energetically to shut down prostitution in Dublin, and he tried to get the girls who worked in it to go to Magdalene Laundries. He was greatly exercised by the problem of unmarried motherhood in Ireland. To give him his due, he held that it was wrong that men were not held accountable for their actions in the same way as women were.

One surprising feature of Devane’s life is his role in the establishment of the Irish Film Institute. As he conceived it at the time, the IFI (or National Film Institute as it was known then) was designed to combat the ‘school of corruption’ in the motion picture industry, particularly through Hollywood’s depiction of extra- marital affairs, divorce and other American cultural phenomena from which the Irish people needed to be protected. The patron of the institute was Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid.

Devane was a man of his time. He provides us with a thick-lined portrait of a highly significant strain of Catholicism that was overt and powerful in Ireland in the decades after independence. It is a phenomenon that still needs to be studied closely, particularly given its traumatic impact on the Ireland of later generations. It is important, of course, to acknowledge the role of this Catholicism in creating shameful institutions and attitudes in Ireland, but one must see too that it was itself formed not just by attitudes within the Church but also by social, psychological, and cultural factors specific to Irish society at large. Martin Walsh’s book on Fr Devane SJ is helpful in this respect.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 26th Year No 3 1951

Obituary :

The Press notices on the death of Fr. Devane were generous in their tributes to his zealous endeavours throughout a long and varied priestly career. Indeed they synopsised the whole story of it so well that it will be sufficient to reproduce here the version found in the Irish Independent, May 24th, 1951 :

“DEATH OF A NOTED JESUIT”
Rev. Richard S. Devane, S.J., whose death has occurred at Rathfarnham Castle, was one of the best-known members of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, and played a notable part for many years in the sphere of social legislation,
Born in Limerick 75 years ago, he was son of the late Cornelius Devane, a well known merchant of that city. Educated at the Sacred Heart College, Limerick, and at Mungret, he passed to St. Munchin's Seminary and to St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, where he was ordained in 1901.
For the next three years Father Devane worked on the English mission, being attached to St. Patrick's Church, Middlesborough. Returning to Limerick in 1904, he spent 14 years as curate at St. Michael's, in charge of a large working-class district. During the first ten years of this period, he was also garrison chaplain.

RESCUE WORK
Father Devane kept in close touch with labour circles in the city, on whose behalf he inaugurated a series of lectures on industrial subjects. He was actively identified also with rescue and vigilance work : he launched a crusade against evil literature, and was responsible for the licence regulating cinema shows which was adopted by Limerick Borough Council. Along with these activities, he was a member of the Limerick Technical Committee.
In the summer of 1918 Father Devane entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus' College, Tullamore, and made his religious profession two years later. He was now to find more leisure and larger scope for his special talents. His first appointment was to the newly founded Retreat House for working men at Rathfarnham Castle, of which he became the first Director in 1922. Here he remained for ten years, and again from 1945 until his death, organising and conducting retreats and imparting to his hearers some of his own enthusiasm for the active apostolate and for social Catholicism. From 1933 to 1944 he was attached to the Retreat House at Milltown Park, Dublin in the same capacity.

SOCIAL LEGISLATION
Father Devane will, however, be chiefly remembered for his work in the sphere of social legislation. For over a quarter of a century he devoted his talents to a specialised apostolate in favour of the young, the promotion of legislation for their moral protection. He did much to place on the Statute Book of the Irish Free State Acts dealing with Censorship of Films (1923), Censorship of Publications (1929), Legal Redress for mother and offspring in irregular unions (1930), Public Dance Halls (1935), and the Criminal Law Amendment of the same year, an Act which dealt with many grave moral problems affecting the young.
The passing of the Children Bill of 1942, by which some provision was made for the education of the children of nomads set the seal on the practical interest which Father Devane had shown in the lot of gypsies and vagrants from the beginning of his priestly life.
The same year saw the publication of his book, “Challenge From Youth”, a fully documented study of modern youth movements in other countries, in which he pleaded for a Catholic Youth Movement in Ireland, based on a sound Christian philosophy. In another important work, “The Failure of Individualism”, published in 1948, he traced the progress of Individualism in the religious, political and economic life of Europe and pleaded for the restoration of the organic structure of society. ... For many years Father Devane was a constant contributor to the daily Press and to various periodicals. His active and facile pen covered a wide range of subjects touching the welfare of his countrymen - cinema control, dance hall problems, censorship, the imported Press, parish councils, adult education, civics, summer time, the retreat movement, national athletics, and national film institutes.

Fr. Richard's death was sudden indeed - he died in his sleep - but not unexpected either by himself or those about him. It was long knon that he suffered from high blood pressure and was liable to a fatal seizure at any moment. The least perturbed by this prospect was himself. His doctor brothers were both much more anxious. But they confessed inability to help in the matter, because the patient was immune from all those vices, major and minor, to which modern medicine men attribute hardening of the arteries and premature old age, There was no good in telling one who never drank anything to curtail his measure of wine, or in warning him to cut down his intake of nicotine when it was already a zero quantity. And so of the rest. The austerity cure was not applicable.
When they complained of this, a fellow Jesuit, who knew “Dick” well, hinted there was one “vice” they were overlooking, namely, his passion for the reforming of a world out of joint. If they could abate this a little, perhaps the fever in the blood might subside to what President Harding styled “normalcy” They answered that this was too much to hope for.
In truth if ever there was a born “Weltverbesserer” it was Fr. Richard. Not that he was a gloomy friar or a red-hot, hell and brimstone revivalist. He was really the happy warrior, for whom a crusade of some sort was a necessity of life. Some cynics hinted that he got quite a.”kick” from restricting the pleasures of others. But this was very unjust. He really only waged war on those basenesses in men and women which increased the misery of the community by multiplying social plagues of one kind or another. Perhaps his only error was that he thought legislation could do more for social amelioration than it can.
But he was right in resisting the false idea that because laws could not cleanse the heart within they were not be invoked at all to protect youth and innocence, oid age and poverty, the neglected and under privileged from the ravages of that satansim which we feel subtly at work under the decorous facade of modern civilised existence. And his knowledge of the problems he dealt with was acquired in the hard way of a personal apostolate. He came in contact with life under nearly all its aspects. And it is to his credit that this knowledge neither soured nor hardened him. Neither did it reduce him to listless despondency. His own morale was never shaken by consciousness of the odds against him in the fight for morality. He seemed to thrive on opposition. It merely stiffened his resolution.
His interests also were Catholic in the sense of universal. He was an integralist in the best meaning of the word. His faith was clear and simple. The Catholic way of life was the path of salvation, temporal and eternal, for individuals and nations alike. If that be bigotry, well he was a bigot - and being called one did not hurt at all. In fact his most salient characteristic was the meeting of criticism with natural and supernatural good humour. He made no bitter reply and bore no enmity. Hence that half serious and half humorous denigration which is such a feature of Irish life did not inhibit him in the least. Yet he was modest with all and began with an attempt to get others better qualified than himself to enter the breach. Only when they did not respond would he start out on his own. His “Failure of Individualism” Owed its origin to the failure of much more learned individuals to do a task he thought a need of the hour. Seeing the dons too disdainful of the red and pink intellectualism of which the most salient feature was its almost moronistic absence of intelligence (accompanied only too often by plain bad faith) he went about the job himself of tracing the process of the revolt against the faith in the sixteenth century through various stages of mental deliquescence, till it ended in the abandonment of reason by the very heirs of eighteenth century Rationalism and finally in the sheer Pyrrhonism of H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and the rest of the “forward-looking”, “progressive”, “creative”, “scientific” thinkers, whose logic lies in the use of question-begging epithets for themselves and their adversaries.
And he succeeded. Of course the dons were critical, and found fault. It was simply inevitable that in a book attempting to cover so much ground there would be scope for this. But by and large Fr. Richard's thesis was sound. The questions of detail which afforded matter for debate were neither numerous enough nor important enough to affect the solid value of the complete work,
Similarly his “Challenge from Youth”, though it did not come from a specialist in Pedagogy, as might seem suggested by the title, presented the reader with a whole mass of facts about Youth Movements, gleaned from official documents and out of the way sources, which showed the author as a very industrious maker up of briefs. He would have made a good chamber-lawyer.
But it was in working up a case for legal reform that he showed at his best (or worst, according to your point of view). It was here that his gadfly qualities came into play. Most men love the “quieta non movere” attitude to things that do not impinge upon their own consciousness. The Catholic spirit is supposed by non-Catholics to be eternally obsessed with a bitter zeal to impose itself upon the rest of mankind by guile, force, fraud and physical or moral intimidation. Whereas, in reality. three hundred million of the world's population let themselves be beaten, bullied, bruised and coerced into acceptation of a diminutio capitis, as it was called in Old Rome. The over-all picture of “Christian Civilisation” (the things we are invited to save from the Marxist Inferno) is of an agglomeration of nations, great and small, which no longer take the faith they profess seriously, and which resolutely resent the efforts of the Church of Christ to insist upon the creed as true or upon the Decalogue as binding. To do the former is “intolerance” (final word of anathema), to do the latter is impertinence by suggesting that the “Christian ethic” is the only “ethic”, or any longer binding on those who choose to abrogate it for themselves and their fellow traveller's. Fr. Devane had the audacity to think it is time we rose a little in wrath and called the bluuff of this organised lie.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Richard Devane 1876-1951
Fr Richard Devane played a notable part for many years in the sphere of social legislation in Ireland.

Born in Limerick in 1876, he was ordained for the Diocese of Limerick in 1901. Having laboured zealously for 17 years as a secular priest, 14 of them in Limerick city, where he was regarded by his fellow clergy as eminently “episcopabilis”, he entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1918.

As a Jesuit he was identified for years with the Retreat Movement in Rathfarnham Castle, where he displayed special gifts for the direction of youth, and was responsible for many vocations. His social legislation efforts resulted in the Censorship Act, Public Dance Halls and Criminal Amendment Acts. His published works, apart from numerous articles include “Challenge from Youth” and “The Failure of Individualism”.

The following extract from his obit sums up very well and pithily Fr Devane’s character :
“In truth if ever there was born a Weltvertbesserer it was father Richard. Not that he was a gloomy friar or a red-hot hell and brimstone revivalist. He was really a happy warrior, for whom a crusade of some sort was a necessity of life. Perhaps his only error was that he thought legislation could do more for social amelioration than it can”.

He died in his sleep on May 23rd 1951 at Rathfarnham Castle.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1952

Obituary

Father Richard Devane SJ

We regret to record he death of Father Richard Devane which took place suddenly in Rath farnham Castle on May 23rd 1951.

Father Devane was born in Limerick in 1876. After spending some time at the Crescent College, he came to Mungret, and then deciding to become a priest of the Diocese continued his studies at St Munchins Seminary. After completing his Theology in Maynooth he was ordained in 1901. For the next three years, he worked on the English Mission at St Patrick's Church Middlesborough. In 1904, he was recalled to Limerick, and spent 14 years as Curate in St Michael's Church. For the first ten years, he was also Chaplain to the Garrison. During this time Fr Devane carried out an active apostolate among the poor and working classes, and was zealous for their interests. In 1918 to the surprise of many, he announced his intention of entering the Society of Jesus. In that autumn be began his novitiate, and took his vows two years later.

Father Devane's first appointment as a Jesuit was as Director of the Retreat House in Rathfarnham Castle. Those who came in contact with him in that period have a vivid memory of his energetic interest in all forms of Catholic Social work. In 1933, he became attached to the Retreat House at Milltown Park, and besides his work of Retreat giving was engaged on many other social works in the City. In 1944, he returned to Rathfarnham Castle, where he remained till his death.

To Father Devane's active interest and determined energy is due, to a great degree the Acts concerning Censorship of Films, Censorship of Publications, Legal Redress for Mothers, Public Dance Halls Act, Criminal Law Amendment of 1935, and the Children Bill of 1942.

Father Devane's pen was seldom idle, and he was a frequent contributor on matters of Catholic interest to periodicals and newspapers. In addition to his journalistic activity, however, he was the author of two important books, “The Failure of Individualism” and “Challenge from Youth”. Both of these subjects were of keen interest to him through life.

It might be said of Father Devane that he belonged to the “Shock Troops” of Christ, for he was always fighting the battle for souls. His campaign brought him into many aspects of life and he often met bitter opposition from those who made money at the cost of human souls. Yet he never flinched before this, for courage and determination were two of his outstanding characteristics. There were some “within the Fold” who thought he was too grim, but a deeper knowledge of him revealed' a very keen sense of humour. “Off duty” Father Devane could be a most entertaining companion. In his work as a Priest, he saw life in its most depressing and saddening circumstances. He did not understimate the power of paganism backed by wealth, yet these things did not cloud his spirits for his heart was on the hills with Christ. RIP

Born: 02 August 1896, Dublin City, County Dublin / Drogheda, County Louth
Entered: 31 August 1914, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly - HIB for Siculiae Province (SIC)
Ordained: 31 July 1925, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1932
Died: 12 September 1964, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

Educated at Mungret College SJ

Transcribed SIC to HIB 1955 by Provincial Father M O'Grady

by 1927 came to Tullabeg (HIB) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 21st Year No 3 1946
FROM OTHER PROVINCES :
Malta. (through Fr. Clarke) :
Fr. Devine had an operation for hernia. He hopes to leave Malta in August.

Irish Province News 21st Year No 4 1946
Fr. Charles Devine, a member of the Sicilian Province, who has spent over twenty years in Malta, arrived in Dublin in August.

Irish Province News 40th Year No 1 1965

Obituary :

Fr Charles Devine SJ (1896-1964)

Fr. Devine had just completed fifty years in the Society when he died in the Mater Hospital on 12th September. He had been there since the previous November, almost all the time confined to bed. Fr. Charles was born in Drogheda on 2nd August, 1896. He went to the Apostolic School, Mungret, in 1909, and from there to the noviceship in 1914. His noviceship was in Tullabeg, but he had entered for the Sicilian Province. As a boy he had been quiet, studious, serious, taking little part in games at Mungret. A few times he appeared on the stage, in non-speaking parts. In Tullabeg he was gentle, unobtrusive, contented, and used his free time industriously. He set himself the task of getting through the four or five large volumes of a work called The Catechism of Perseverence by Gaume, and completed it in the two years. Afterwards he enjoyed references to Gaume. Part of his time was claimed also by Fr. C. Mulcahy for choir practices as organist. He also played the piano well and accompanied at concerts. In a verse of a topical song, Fr. W. Long, a Maltese Tertian of the English Province, referring to some musical feat in which Charles had a part, finished by saying: “In fact it was devine”. Then and later, Charles would humorously quote A Kempis : “It is not hard to despise human comfort when we have devine”. During philosophy in Milltown also, Charles played the organ for the choir.
He, with eight or nine other Irish scholastics, began philosophy in Stonyhurst, but in the middle of the years 1917-18 they were called back to Ireland, and with a group from Jersey, continued their philosophy at Milltown.
For many years after philosophy the Irish Province saw little of Charles. His work was chiefly in Malta, teaching at St. Aloysius. College. For a short time he was at Palermo. He worked for some time in parishes in Preston and Worcester. Though his health by this time had become rather poor, he led a very busy life in the parishes, and had happy memories of these two places where he made many friends. From 1956 for five years, he was in the Crescent on the church staff, and directed the Bona Mors Arch confraternity and the Apostleship of Prayer, giving the monthly Holy Hour. He prepared very diligently for all his sermons. He left a great number of fully written sermons and much other writing. He wrote well and gracefully and with serious intent.
After a short stay in Manresa, Fr. Devine joined Gardiner Street community. He was not given long for work at the church. A minor stroke incapacitated his limbs, but left him full use of speech, hearing, and mental faculties, so that he could converse and read and keep in touch with life and with friends, and could also give an example of courage in bearing a very tedious illness.
He was able to be present at Fr. Maurice Dowling's jubilee celebration on 31st August, at Gardiner Street. He was brought into the refectory in a wheelchair and made a short and happy speech. A few days later an operation became necessary, which he did not survive. On 14th September he was buried in Glasnevin. Three of his fellow-novices, Frs. Tyndall, Paye and Quigley, officiated at the Solemn Requiem Mass in Gardiner Street. R.I.P.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1965

Obituary

Father Charles Devine SJ

Father Charles Devine SJ died in the Mater Hospital on September 12th. He had only just completed his fifty years in the Society.

Born in Drogheda in 1896, he came to the Apostolic School in 1908. While in Mungret he was quiet, serious and studious. He took little part in games. He played the piano well, however, and often played the organ.

In 1914 he went to the novitiate. He had elected for the Sicilian Province, so after philosophy he left for Malta. He taught at St Aloysius College. He spent some time also in Palermo. In later life as a priest he worked in parishes in Worcester and Preston.

In 1956 he returned to Ireland and was appointed to the community at the Crescent. He directed the Bona Mors Archconfraternity and the Apostleship of Prayer, and gave the monthly Holy Hour.

After a short stay in Manresa, he was sent to Gardiner Street. However, his time for further labours was short. A minor stroke incapacitated his limbs, A little later an operation was found necessary which he did not survive. Three of his fellow novices officiated at the Requiem Mass, Fathers Tyndall, Paye and Quigley. RIP

Born: 29 September 1883, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 29 June 1905, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 08 September 1918, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 31 July 1952, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 27th Year No 4 1952
St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, Dublin :
Br. Dineen :
After a very short illness Br. Dineen died in the Mater hospital on St. Ignatius Day. On July 29th he was, as usual with his unfailing punctuality, at his post in the refectory at 10 p.m. On the 30th he was moved to the Mater hospital, where he received the Last Sacraments and died peacefully at 6 p.m. on the 31st. R.I.P.

Obituary :
Brother Michael Dineen

Br. Dineen's death on St. Ignatius' Day came rather unexpectedly. He had been ailing a few days previously at Gardiner Street. Early in July he had made the community retreat at Rathfarnham, and then spent a few days in his native city of Limerick. On his return he appeared to be in his usual good spirits, but on Tuesday, the 29th he had a sudden heart attack and was removed to the Mater Hospital where he received the Last Sacraments. It had not been previously known that he was suffering as well from diabetes in an advanced state, so that the insulin treatment he was given failed in its effect. He fell into a coma and, as the Angelus bell was ringing on the evening of the 31st he breathed his last.
Br. Dineen was born in Nicholas Street, Limerick on September 29th, 1883. Son of Patrick Dineen and Kate McDonnell, he was educated by the Christian Brothers. He served his full time as an apprentice to the bakery trade at Kiely's, Patrick Street and then worked as a baker at Tubridy's baking establishment, Limerick.
He entered the novitiate on June 29th, 1905 and had Fr. James Murphy as novice-master. After his first vows he remained on at Tullabeg as cook and dispenser till 1912 when he was transferred to Milltown Park. This office of cook he was to hold for an unbroken period of thirty three years in the various houses of the Province, from which fact we can judge of his high competence in the culinary art. He was cook and dispenser at Milltown from 1912 to 1913, in Rathfarnham from 1914 to 1918, in Belvedere College from 1919 to 1926, in Clongowes from 1927 to 1929, in Belvedere again from 1930 to 1933, in Tullabeg from 1934 to 1937, and finally at Mungret from 1938 to 1940.
After this record of service, not often surpassed in our Province, Br. Dineen's energy lessened, due to a decline in health of which, however, he never complained. At Milltown, to which he went when he ceased to be cook, he was occupied in the work of book-binding, under Br. Rogers, and helped also as infirmarian to the late Fr. Vincent Byrne. A familiar picture in those days was that of the good Brother wheeling Fr. Vincent in the grounds of the theologate and listening good humouredly to the nonagenarian as he declaimed with animation extracts from Shakespeare or perhaps Dante, in the original, or as he drew from the ready stores of a well-stocked memory.
From 1924 to 1944, when he was transferred to Gardiner Street, Br. Michael acted as assistant infirmarian in Clongowes. At Gardiner Street he appeared to take on a new lease of life and proved himself efficient and devoted to his tasks as dispenser and infirmarian. He also acted as collector at the church door on Sundays and Holidays and became a familiar figure to the crowds that thronged the Masses.
Br. Dineen never seems to have given a thought to his health and fought shy of doctors, with the result that he did not realise, nor did Superiors, how much his health had deteriorated with the lapse of years. When finally he was moved to hospital on his collapse, he gave great edification to all by the calm resignation with which he faced death. Ever interested in the Province and its activities at home and abroad, Br. Dineen served it himself faithfully and well.
May he rest in peace.

Born: 26 November 1905, Manchester, Lancashire, England / Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1924, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1938, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1941, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 25 September 1957, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin

Early education at O’Connell’s school Dublin and Mungret College SJ
Tertianship at Rathfarnham

by 1930 in Vals France (TOLO) studying
by 1952 in Australia

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Patrick Doherty came to Australia in 1951 to give the priests of Melbourne archdiocese their annual retreat, and to use the retreat to introduce them to the Pioneers Total Abstinence Association. Archbishop Mannix seems at that time to have been keen to get the PTAA established. When he first approached Mannix it is reputed that the Archbishop said that the PTAA was a very good idea, and perhaps Doherty should start with his own brethren.
Doherty came to Australia with a considerable reputation as a successful leader of the PTAA, who had renewed and modernised it, and also as a sought-after retreat director. He was an excellent speaker, engaging and witty He seemed to connect well with the diocesan clergy. He was a man of vivacity and charm and was much liked. He lived at Richmond when he wasn't on the retreat circuit. When he was not giving priests' retreats, he spent quite some time travelling around Australia. visiting Jesuit ministries especially - setting up branches of the PTAA.
He spent part of that year giving retreats to other religious orders. By the time Doherty left Australia, the PTAA was established and reasonably well known in quite a few parts of Australia. He handed over the management of the Australian PTAA to Lou Dando, who drew other Jesuits into the task of spreading the word and the organisation.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 33rd Year No 1 1958

Obituary :

Fr Patrick Doherty

Not long after his ordination, Fr. Doherty confided to a friend: “When I stand at the altar during my Mass I am so overwhelmed by the thought of what is happening that I feel inclined almost to look down and see if my feet are touching the ground!”
This same spirit of faith developed with the years and reached its climax in his last illness. To visit him and pray with him was a spiritual tonic “as good as a retreat”. He was radiantly happy at the thought of the near approach of eternity. “I am interested in nothing only the growth of divine life in my soul. Never think it is hard to die. Often when giving retreats I used to wish I could only do myself what I was telling others to do. At the stage I have now reached God treats you as if you had done it”. Told of a doctor who had some remarkable successes with cancer patients, his comment was : “Thank God he didn't try his treatment on me!”
He described for the writer the plans for his funeral with the same ease as if he was speaking of someone else. Seeing this, I ventured, to hint that I had been asked to do his Obituary. He seized my hand : “Tell them I am the greatest proof of the mercy of God you ever came across”.
He was the edification of doctors and nurses who declared he was dying like a saint. “He is giving the most effective retreat [ ] gave” was the verdict of his Rector. Nor did his sense of humour ever forsake him. After a severe vomiting or a violent spasm of pain he would at once brighten up and show himself eager to continue a conversation. His poor body was wasted away till be weighed only four stone, but his mind was alert right up to the end. When his aged mother came to see him he twitted her : “Mother, what are you fretting for? Sure you'll probably be on the next old bus anyhow, and I'm only going on ahead to open the gate for you!” Later he wrote her a letter of more than three pages, to console her, “in my best handwriting”.
The effort called for something not far from heroism.
Indeed, he “opened the gate” for many a soul. Tributes flowed from all sides to the selfless devotion with which he gave himself to “talks” and the confessional during the many retreats he conducted. He continued this arduous apostolate when those of us who were near him realised that the work was draining every ounce of energy from him. But “he was too concerned for others to be interested in himself” - to quote from his review of The First Jesuit. The words are descriptive, not of our Father Ignatius only, but of this son of his who wrote them. The secret of his success was, in large measure, his gift of sympathy. He really entered into the trials and difficulties of others and suffered them as if they were his own.
That review evoked high encomiums from the censors and a strong recommendation that he should write more. His “Centre Survey” in the Pioneer magazine, where he had a field for poking fun, which never lost sight of the seriousness of his message, ranks with the very popular “Colum's Corner" in another magazine. Had God spared him he could have wielded a doughty pen in the service of souls.
Mention of The Pioneer reminds us that no account would be complete without at least an attempt to tell what he accomplished for the Association. For many years he was Spiritual Director of the Garda Branch. Before me lies a letter from a member, written in 1955, expressing the deep affection he won from the men, and their grief on learning that he had been transferred to other work. He led a group in pilgrimage to Fatima and “we will never forget the thousand and one things he did for us, and, above all, the cheerful manner in which they were done. It was with pardonable pride that we heard his name announced to give the Holy Hour for all the English-speaking pilgrims”.
In 1948 Fr. Doherty represented the Association at Lucerne and it was as a direct result of his presence and influence there that the Pioneer Movement began on the continent. Later he went to Melbourne where he organised the work, and the best comment on his efforts is that today there are eighty centres in Australia. During that year, too, he gave several retreats, including one to the Melbourne priests with many of whom he formed lasting friendships.
Another instance of his mischievous spirit recurs here. A Father had been asked to address his Garda Centre. A week or so before the address, he received a letter from Fr. Doherty, explaining that the men were keenly disappointed to learn that it was not he himself who was coming, and suggesting that perhaps a last-minute switch could be made! For quite a while that Father was completely taken in.
In many ways he always retained in his make-up some elements of the enfant terrible. A picture of him comes to mind in the early days of theology, in which, with many groans of mock grief, he bemoaned the fact that he was like a dog on & chain! He was a great favourite with the older Fathers and would often speak of his affection for them, His youthful ways endeared him to young people inside and outside the Society. No one escaped his sallies at recreation. He was quick at repartee and told a funny story well, obviously enjoying the telling. He had a keen sense of justice and would quickly flare up where he considered wrong was done, nor did he lack eloquence and vigour in defending a difference of opinion.
He would be the last man in the world to wish that these human. traits should be glossed over here.
Fr. Doherty has gone from us, having given “in his whole life and much more in death” an inspiring example of that “living faith and hope and love of those eternal good things which Christ Our Lord has merited and acquired for us”. No one who knew him but will be glad to meet him again. Our consolation is the hope that he is only gone on ahead to open the gate for us.
He was born in Manchester in 1905, went as a boy to O'Connell Schools and to Mungret; entered the Society in 1924 and followed the. usual curriculum University, Philosophy in France, Colleges in Belvedere, and Theology in Milltown. He was ordained by Bishop Wall in 1938; did Tertianship under Fr. Henry Keane at Rathfarnham, after which he taught in Belvedere till 1943 when he was appointed to the Pioneer Association. He died in Dublin on September 25th, 1957. May he rest in peace!

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Patrick Doherty 1905-1957
“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it” could be aptly applied to Fr Patrick Doherty. It is no exaggeration to say that for many years past, no Jesuit of this Province died so happy and so edifying a death. One might almost envy him the joy, happiness and peace he radiated, while at the same time he was racked with pain, which even drugs had failed to stem. People came from far and near to see him and have a few last words with him. “Now I realise what I have so often spoken of in Retreats, the great happiness which God has reserved for us”. Of each member of his family, he asked what they most urgently needed from God, and he promised to get their request. Each one got his petition, and one of these certainly was a near miracle.

He was a great talker in the pulpit, at the conference table, on the stage and in the community. This gift he used to great advantage as Assistant Director of the Pioneer Association. At the request of Archbishop Mannix, he went to Australia to found the Pioneer Movement there. He was also a writer of no mean merit, as the columns of the Pioneer Magazine prove.

At the early age of 52, he died of rapid cancer on September 25th 1957.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1953

A College of the Church Universal : Australian Experiences

Father Patrick Doherty SJ

“It won’t be so cold as this in Melbourne!” exclaimed the priest who was escorting me to the London plane at Collinstown. The gentleman immediately in front of us wheeled round. “Who's going to Melbourne?” he asked in surprised tone. “I am”, I said eagerly; “are you coming too?” “I have just returned from there”, replied this young doctor, a past pupil of Crescent College; “I hope to go back again soon”. On the way to London he gave me his impressions of Australia. “Once you settle down”, he said, “you will grow to love the Australians”. As the following year unfolded itself, I found myself in full agreement with all his favourable opinions of the “Land of sunshine”. Little did I expect, however, on that evening of December 5th, 1950, that my adieu to Melbourne, some fifteen months later, would be one of the hardest farewells of my life.

Since my return many people have expressed surprise at my admiration for Australia. “They don't all like it”, I am told. Oddly enough, some of these criticisms can be traced to articles in cross-Channel newspapers. England is not always the most affectionate of mothers! Of Irishmen in Australia I met only two who judged harshly the land of their adoption. I met hundreds of Irishmen, and many of other European nationality, whose longing for the home land was strictly limited to a desire “to see the old country before I die”.

No one in Australia was more hospitable, helpful and encouraging to me than Fr. Jim English. I was sitting in his presbytery in Mordialloc, outside Melbourne, drinking his health - in Pepsi Cola of course - on his birthday, when the phone. rang. It was a call from his, home in Tipperary town, to wish him many happy returns. I called in to his people in Tipperary since my return, but I did not like to suggest that we put a call through to Melbourne. Two great pioneer priests who stood by me all the way were Father Eddie Durcan and his brother. Father Eddie still has the same Pioneer badge that he received as a boy in Mungret.

I had many delightful meetings with Mungret priests in the course of my travels. Although everyone of them, without exception, spoke affectionately of the College, I think they all preferred Australia!! When I went from Melbourne to Parkes, to give the retreat to the priests of Wilcania-Forbes, I got out at Tocumwal, New South Wales, first stop in the 800-mile flight, to stretch my limbs. Three priests, on their way to make the retreat, were awaiting the plane. Irishmen all, two of them were educated in Mungret. That night, shortly before the first lecture of the retreat, the last group arrived - another party of three - and they were Mungret men all! They had covered 400 miles by car since morning. First to emerge from the car was Dean Sexton, whose Vincentian nephew, Father Kevin Cronin of Strawberry Hill fame, and whose Jesuit nephew, Father Fergus Cronin of Hong Kong, I knew well. The Dean was very thrilled to learn that I had visited his late sister, in a Dublin hospital, shortly before her saintly death. After the Dean came Father Treacy, a fine man, built on generous lines, and hailing from County Galway. The third man was my old friend of Mungret days, Father John Boylan from “the wee County”. He is the same gentle, soft-spoken John, beloved of the people of his vast Bush parish. I began to realise that Mungret belongs very literally to the Church universal!

Among the audience at a retreat to the Melbourne priests, it took me some time to pick out Father Albert Gilhooly. After all, I had not laid eyes on this mature-looking parish priest, whose hair is beginning to recede from the temples, since he was a youngster in Junior Grade in 1924! Some time later I spent a wonderful week with Father Albert in his country parish of Trentham, Victoria, before his promotion to the Melbourne suburbs. We kept very late hours that week, re-living schooldays separated from the present by a gap of thirty years.

“They gave us a great character training”, Father Albert said of the Apostolic School directors. “Don't ever allow yourself to do things in order to be admired by others”, was one of Father Jerry Kelly's famous sayings that burned themselves into our minds. And Father Gilhooly is one of many who paid remark able tribute to the gentle and refining influence of the late Father Freddy Cuffe SJ.

Many of Mungret's past pupils are Jesuits in the Australian Province. First to greet me, when I reached the land of the sun, was Father Tom Barden, Rector of the Jesuit College in Perth. I reminded Father Tom of the day in Septem ber, 1922, when we both left Dublin, via Athenry, on a roundabout first journey to Mungret during the disturbed days of the Civil War. When, at long last, we had arrived at the gates of Mungret, we felt like travelled men who had seen a bit of life! For both of us it was but the first of many long and roundabout journeys. At the gates of St Louis College, Perth, stood the portly. figure of Father John Williams, Gone indeed are the ascetic lines and emaciated appearance that I had always associated with John! But the welcoming smile is more genial than ever and, when I had my farewell chat with him, just twelve months ago, I found myself talking to the same grand person whom I sat beside for the Junior Apostolics' photo in 1924 and whom, thank God, no passage of time could change.

In Richmond, Victoria, I spent a year under the same roof with Father Michael Morrison. Between army and Australian experiences, Mick has seen quite a lot of life in the past decade, and has been in close contact with death too. He was the first chaplain to enter Belsen concentration camp towards the end of the war. From Father Morrison's room in the Richmond presbytery, one can see the dome of the chapel of Xavier College. At Xavier, Father Michael O'Mahony is now a familiar - I had al most dared to say a “venerable”! figure, for he laboured there as a scholastic in the pre-war years and has been there ever since his return to Australia in 1946. With him is Father Dan Fitzpatrick who is quite an expert at teaching chemistry and does a good deal of preaching in his spare time. With these two men I had a glorious fortnight's holiday along the Victorian seaside shortly after my arrival in Australia. I shall always remember the unremitting feud that went on, day and night, be tween Father O'Mahony and the mosquitoes ! Another great Mungret. man, whom I saw, alas! only too rarely, was Father Con Finn who has made a great name in university circles in Adelaide.

I could chatter on endlessly about these and other Irishmen who came and saw and were conquered by Australia. I might as well end this ramble near its starting point - at Tilbury Docks, in fact. I was not long on board the SS Himalaya, on the way down the English Channel, when I was greeted by a very charming young priest - another Mungret man, Father Dan Boylan of Portlaoighse and Ballarat Cathedral. Father Dan was returning to base after a holiday at home. An ideal companion for a long sea journey, he painted a colourful and very impressive picture of Australia as he had known it for some twelve years. Yet not even the masterpiece of an artist could portray the full splendour of the masterpiece of Divine artistry which I was to see with my own eyes for fifteen wonderful months.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1958

Obituary

Father Patrick Doherty SJ

Fr Doherty whose death took place in Dublin on September 25th was born in Manchester. Educated at O'Connell Schools and Mungret College. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1924. After completing his studies in various houses of the Society, he was ordained in 1938.

After Ordination he taught in Belvedere College from 1940 till 1943. In that year he was appointed Assistant Director of the Pioneer Association, in which he was to do so much work. During the succeeding years he visited nearly every town in Ireland lecturing on, and enrolling members in, the Pioneer Association. He was for seven years Spiritual Director to the Pioneer Centre at the Garda Depot, where he made many close friends.

In 1948 he represented the Pioneer Association at the Temperance Congress in Lucerne. It was a direct result of his presence there that the First Pioneer Centres were established on the Continent. In 1951, at the Invitation of Archbishop Mannix he went to Australia. Here he spent a year organising Pioneer Centres in inany Dioceses. While there he also gave many Priests Retreats.

In 1955 he joined the Retreat staff at Rathfarnham Castle, and until shortly before his death was engaged in giving retreats around the country.

He had a strong spirit of Faith, and knew well he was going to die. However it was an event he looked forward to, and calmly discussed plans for his funeral with a friend beforehand. All through his life he possessed a strong sense of humour. Of him it might be truly said as was said of another Jesuit, that he was merry in God. RIP

Born: 24 April 1922, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 October 1954, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1963, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 16 November 1974, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 14 September 2008, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus: 09 September1975-1981

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

by 1965 North American Martyrs, Auriesvile NY USA (BUF) making Tertianship

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/the-death-of-fr-paddy-doyle-sj/

The death of Fr Paddy Doyle SJ
Former Irish Jesuit Provincial Fr Paddy Doyle SJ died in Cherryfield in the early hours of Sunday morning. His body was in repose at Cherryfield on Tuesday Sept 16 at 2.30pm
followed by prayers at 4pm. His funeral mass will take place in Milltown Park chapel on Wed Sept 17th at 11am. As he had worked for peace on the frontiers, he crossed the final frontier peacefully. God be good to him. In sickness and in health Paddy was a man who meant a lot to the Irish Province. He was 31, a seasoned engineer, when he entered the noviceship, almost a grandfather figure for his peers. For the Jesuit students he cared for in Rathfarnham, he was a source of encouragement and affirmation, giving them a sense of warmth and freedom in their vocation. Succeeding Cecil McGarry as Provincial he showed a strongly contrasting style, but like Cecil contributed to the Province’s growth in a providential way. Paddy had negotiated first with Derry, then with Armagh, for access to the North, and he spent the rest of his active life as a brilliantly unobtrusive yet effective presence in Portadown. When he was gradually debilitated by strokes, his personality remained serene, humorous, accepting, deeply rooted in his faith. As he had worked for peace on the frontiers, he crossed the final frontier peacefully. God be good to him.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/paddy-doyle-and-the-ise/

Paddy Doyle and the ISE
Many others besides Jesuits have felt the loss of Paddy Doyle SJ, former Irish Provincial, who passed away recently. Below is a piece from Robin Boyd, the second director of the
Irish School of Ecumenics, who offers an intriguing perspective on Paddy’s contribution to the school at a crucial stage of its development. “Slight in stature but strong in presence,” Boyd comments, “Paddy was a man of warmth and quiet friendliness, sometimes few in words, but the words were worth waiting for.”

Remembering Paddy Doyle SJ - By Robin Boyd
With the death on 14 September of Fr Patrick Doyle the Irish School of Ecumenics has lost a true friend and effective supporter. Born in Dublin in 1922, Paddy Doyle studied Physics at UCD, and became a research worker at ICI and the Research Institute; and it was not until he was thirty-two that he entered the Society of Jesus. He was ordained in 1963 and took his final vows at Milltown Park in 1974. He became Provincial of the Irish Jesuits in 1975, and was succeeded by Fr Joseph Dargan in 1980, the changeover happening at precisely the time when I entered on my term as Director of the ISE. So although he was no longer the Roman Catholic Patron of the School and President of the Academic Council by the time I assumed office, I knew that in those capacities he had played a vital part in the process whereby the School’s founder, Fr Michael Hurley, was succeeded by a Protestant, and not – as had been widely expected, not least by the Hierarchy – by a Catholic. The story is told by Michael in chapter 2 of The Irish School of Ecumenics (1970- 2007).
It was – for Paddy and Michael as well as for the School – a very tense and difficult period; but Paddy was tactful as well as fearless, and was able to pilot the School through stormy waters not only safely but successfully. For myself I am glad to relate that my relations with Archbishop Dermot Ryan were always cordial; Paddy had smoothed the way. And I think I can truly say that had it not been for Paddy Doyle I might never have come to the ISE; and that was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Paddy was largely responsible for the establishment of Jesuit communities in the North of Ireland, first in Portadown (1980) and later in Belfast (1988). The Portadown experiment coincided with the development of the School’s Northern Ireland programme, when it first became affiliated with what was then the New University of Ulster. Paddy’s presence in Portadown was a great help and encouragement to Brian Lennon SJ and later Declan Deane SJ – who operated the Certificate programme from this base – as well as to me and other members of staff who were frequent visitors to “Iona”, the small but welcoming council house where Paddy lived.
Slight in stature but strong in presence, Paddy was a man of warmth and quiet friendliness, sometimes few in words, but the words were worth waiting for. He suffered a number of small strokes in 2002, and latterly lived at Cherryfield Lodge, where he continued to exercise a ministry of prayer. The last time I saw him, his powers of communication were sadly diminished, but his smile and the twinkle in his eye were still there. We give thanks to God for this good man.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 138 : Christmas 2008

Obituary

Fr Patrick (Paddy) Doyle (1922-2008)

24th April 1922: Born in Dublin
Early education in CBS, Synge St, BSc (Phy) and MSc (Phy) at UCD.
He was employed in research work at ICI and the Research Institute before joining Society.
1st October 1954: Entered the Society at Emo
2nd October 1956: First Vows at Emo
1956 - 1959: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1959 - 1960: Clongowes - Teacher (Regency)
1960 - 1964: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31st July 1963: Ordained at Milltown Park
1964 - 1965: Tertianship at Auriesville, USA
1965 - 1967: Mungret College - Prefect of Studies
1967 - 1971: Rathfarnham- Rector, Minister of Juniors; Co-ordinator of Studies in the Province
16th November 1974: Final Vows at Milltown Park
1971 - 1974: Milltown Park - Rector, Co-ordinator of Studies in the Province; Provincial Consultor
1974 - 1980: Loyola House -
1974 - 1975: Vice-Provincial
1975 - 1980: Provincial
1980 - 1988: Portadown - Superior, Pastoral Ministry
1988 - 1994: Belfast - Superior; Directed Spiritual Exercises; Church Assistant, CLC
1992 - 1994: Tertian Director
1994 - 2002: Milltown Park - Directed Spiritual Exercises
2002 - 2008: Cherryfield Lodge - Prayed for Church and Society
14th September 2008: Died at Cherryfield

Brian Lennon Remembers taken from his Funeral Homily):
.....Paddy went to school in the Christian Brothers in Synge St, then to UCD, and then he worked in England for over 10 years as a physicist before finally joining the Society at the then ripe old age of 32. Eddie O'Donnell tells us in one of his books that Frank Browne, a famous Jesuit, was saying Mass in Beechwood Avenue Church - it is less than a mile from our chapel here in Milltown and during his sermon he said that he was now an old man and was looking for someone to take over from him as a Jesuit. So he asked any young - or not so young man who felt like responding to come and see him in the sacristy after Mass. Paddy Doyle turned up.

Paddy made an enormous contribution to the Irish Province. He spent 25 years in administration. He became Provincial in 1974-75 at the age of 52. Much of his work as Provincial was about planning, as we worked out how to respond to Vatican II. One of the ideas going the rounds was MBO (Management by Objectives). Someone came up with the idea of CFP (Concept of Forward Planning), but Paddy capped that with CRP (Concept of Retrospective Planning). That was the one that worked! It allowed Paddy to proclaim modestly “I always said that was the way things would turn out!”

Some people wondered where all the planning was going. In fact I suspect Paddy didn't know, any more than the rest of us. To me this was one of his most attractive qualities - he was an explorer, not somebody with all the answers, and he never pretended otherwise. So, I have memories of him at large meetings of Jesuits, drawing overlapping circles on the board to make some big point about organisations and I don't think he knew where it was all headed. But it didn't worry him. He trusted his instinct. And he was right. He made a real contribution to helping us to take on changes that were absolutely necessary,

He was great with younger Jesuits. I doubt very much if I myself would still be a Jesuit had it not been for the support, encouragement and challenge of Paddy. I know that is true of others who were with him when we were in Rathfarnham going to University. Before his time as superior, young Jesuits were meant never really to mix with other students in College. God knows what that could lead to. Paddy changed all that – he allowed us to do our own exploring, because he believed deeply that exploring was a large part of what human beings are about. He allowed us to grow as human beings, to test our vocations, to see where it was that God was really calling us. He opened up possibilities for us to explore. That mattered a lot.

In 1981 Paddy moved to Northern Ireland. He was the one who set up JINI (Jesuits in Northern Ireland) and during his time as Provincial he had made a major effort to open a house there. He succeeded when Cardinal O'Fiach gave us permission to open the community in Iona in Portadown. Ask any of the older people in the local estates in Portadown and they will remember “Wee Fr. Doyle”. Paddy had to deal with local Church people, with ecumenical encounters, with political difficulties and with local people, and he did all that - as far as I could see - without making enemies. I can think of the night that the police fired 135 plastic bullets into a local crowd, the night they put an Orange parade up the road having banned it a few hours beforehand, and decisions had to be made about how to respond to these and other events. On all these occasions Paddy was passionate about justice, but he was also wise. He was able to think things through, to look at the wider consequences, to recognise that no one side had all the right or all the wrong, that it was important to think about future relationships.

My biggest memory of him, though, was of him with local people. I remember going out one evening and seeing him with one man who was a great talker. Four hours later Paddy was still there, still listening, still involved, still caring.

One of the locals said to me: "You could learn from Paddy what it means to be a Christian”. They really felt his loss when he moved to start the new community in Belfast in 1988.

This was also was a difficult task for him because he had to work at getting the community accepted in the diocese and by the local clergy. There also he got involved with groups of local people, especially with CLC, which was something very dear to his heart. At the heart of community was coming together to work out what they were being called to do by the Lord.

The joint British-Irish Tertianship, which he started with Ron Darwen, was another important new venture. It helped the two Provinces to work together. It trained young Jesuits. And because there were three communities of young Jesuits, from many parts of the world, in different parts of Northern Ireland, it made an impact on local people, and helped young Jesuits to learn from them how to become Jesuits.

Paddy was always committed to ecumenical work and he was a strong supporter of the Irish School of Ecumenics.

In 1994 illness struck – a hard, harsh illness that impaired his memory, at times his ability to read, and at times his speech. It gradually got worse. Yet during that time, more than ever, he showed an extraordinary serenity. He was always able to smile at people, tell them that he hadn't a clue of their names – no change there - he had always been bad at names, and then start communicating deeply with them.

My more recent memory of Paddy was seeing him in Cherryfield where he would – with great difficulty – often end up saying something similar to what he had said many times before: “You are there, and I am here. And I am connected to you, and you are connected to me, and we are all connected with everyone in the whole world”. It didn't come out like that. The words came with groping effort, with hesitancy, but always with the serene smile. Then at the end he would say something like: “The whole thing is a mystery, a complete mystery. But it is going to be great, absolutely great - I am sure of that”.

Noel Barber Remembers (the Novice 1954-1956):
On October 194 1954 I was the first novice into the refectory after evening meditation. There was one person there at the end of the Novices' long table: a small elderly man - he turned out to be all of 32 years. It was the new novice we had been told about who had an MA in Physics and had worked in industry in England. Br. Doyle, as we got to know him, was quite unlike most of us, who had entered straight from school. However, we did have other older novices, among them Neil O'Driscoll, an army officer, but they were younger than Paddy by several years. I remember Paddy Gallagher engaging him in detailed discussions about Physics and his experience in England; another novice, long left us, questioning him endlessly on the possibility of England's conversion back to the true Faith. Paddy was affable, unassuming, gentle, with an unforced superiority that was not sought but readily conceded and taken for granted by all. Never did he show the slightest irritation at the pettiness of the novitiate regime though he must have felt it. Fortunately we had Donal O'Sullivan as Master of Novices, whose magnanimity mitigated that pettiness and would have been particularly helpful for the 'older' novices, Paddy acted from time to time as Donal's driver and this entailed days in Dublin and afternoons on the loose in the big city while the great man went about his business.

I wonder how adolescent we appeared to him and what he made of our almost unnatural seriousness. Whatever he thought, he never gave the slightest indication that he was out of sympathy with anything in the Novitiate, not even the unpredictable interventions of the Socius, Arthur Clarke. His adjustment to the boarding school regime of Emo seemed perfect. Given his subsequent history, I suspect, however, that he smiled inwardly and took some of what was on offer with a pinch of salt.

Senan Timoney Remembers (the Mungret Prefect 1965-1967):
To follow directly in another's footsteps is to get a first hand impression of so much of one's predecessor's activities. Three times in life I followed Paddy - first in 1967, after he had been Prefect of Studies in Mungret for two years, and later in Portadown in 1988 after he had pioneered the return of the Jesuits to the North, and, finally, in 1994 when he set up our house in Belfast in 1988.
Looking back I can see how much he was an agent of change. In Mungret he set about the provision of Science Laboratories and a different regime of study for senior students in their final year. In Portadown he managed to insert the Jesuit ethos in a non-threatening way among the people of all sides who didn't know what to expect; and in Belfast his task was to direct a Jesuit way of proceeding in response to a situation which combined welcome with restriction.

Paddy's gentle nature might suggest contemplation rather than activity but that was not the case. As I read the documents of GC 35 I realise how much Paddy in his relatively short Jesuit life anticipated much of their spirit – especially Decree 3 - Sent to the Frontiers.

Gerry O'Hanlon Remembers (Rathfarnham Rector 1967-1971)
I first met Paddy in 1967 when I arrived as a Junior in Rathfarnham Castle just as he took over as Rector. He was a breath of fresh air: opening all kinds of then closed doors to us in our Jesuit lives as College students (I was given permission to play rugby at UCD), but always with the kind of wisdom and prudence which avoided a populist, overly-permissive approach (I was told I could play matches on Saturdays but not go to mid week practice sessions, in case my studies suffered; a glorious period of a year playing for UCD 3rd B's followed!).

That same wisdom was available to me when I went through a long period, during my time at Rathfarnham, of wondering should I really be a Jesuit at all. About once a month, for well over a year, Paddy listened patiently, completely unfazed, suggesting various strategies for arriving at a decision. I always remember that, in the end, he suggested Easter Sunday as a deadline for decision. I duly trooped up to his office on that Easter Sunday, my heart in my boots, to tell him that I still could not make up my mind. I was afraid he would be annoyed, fed-up at my indecision and what seemed to me like the waste of all his time. Not a bit of it: he was calm, said that while deadlines can be helpful they didn't always work, better not to force, it will come...and it did, about 3 months later, when I wasn't thinking consciously about the matter at all, like an apple falling from a tree. He was such a good father-figure.

He had great intellectual curiosity and ability, without at all being an academic. His musings about Jesus Christ as Everyman, the way we are all, everywhere and from every age, linked to him, so that ultimately to know Christ is to know every man and every woman – these were not the common currency of Christology in those pre-anthropological, pre-interfaith dialogue days. Some of these musings were, if I remember correctly, written up with the help of Des O'Grady as an article for an Irish theological journal.

There was something a little unconventional, even anti establishment characteristic of Paddy's deep humanity which I found very attractive. He was a loyal Catholic and a happy Jesuit: but his obedience was always thoughtful and his belonging was never exclusive of wider interests and loyalties. A great man, a great Jesuit.

I found it touching and inspiring to meet the Paddy Doyle of Cherryfield years. Forgetful and struggling for words, he still radiated that lively curiosity and trustful serenity characteristic of the whole of his life and expressive of his deep faith.

Kennedy O'Brien Remembers (the Provincial 1975-1980):
Paddy Doyle was Provincial when I joined the Society in 1975. I met him first during the interview process. This focussed entirely on my interests, my sporting career at Coláiste Iognáid, my enjoyment of English at school, and my love of nature (including some discussion of fishing Lough Bofin, a small lake just outside Oughterard; I was delighted that Paddy could be as enthusiastic as myself about this little lake).

After the interview Paddy walked to Milltown Park with me, and having shown me to my room, handed me his key to the front door. He asked me to take particular care of this key; he had already lost one, and thought it unlikely he would be given another.

After supper at Eglinton Road later that evening, recognizing that I was no expert on the geography of south Dublin, Paddy got into his little Toyota and led the way to Kenilworth Square where I was due to have a psychological assessment. I was, needless to say, astonished by the level of personal care taken of me by the Provincial; I felt deeply respected despite my schoolboy status.

Another memory that comes to mind was Paddy's arrival at Manresa the evening that Conall O Cuinn and I took vows. It was my father who commented afterwards how impressive it was to see how Paddy, as Provincial, moved about among the other Jesuits without fuss, almost unnoticed, and very obviously a “first among equals” rather than someone who expected to be afforded special treatment in recognition of the dignity of his office.

Declan Deane Remembers (Portadown Superior 1980-1988):
I soldiered with Paddy Doyle for 7 years in Iona, Portadown. Whenever I come across Kipling's line - “(If) you can walk with kings, nor lose the common touch”, I think of Paddy Doyle. Not that we had kings crossing our threshold at Iona, but there was a constant stream of learned people from many disciplines who came to pitch their tent on the notorious Garvaghy Road. Paddy could hold his own, with a considerable degree of dogmatism, on virtually every topic from history to nuclear physics to politics to philosophy to theology. But we knew that his real delight was to sit down before the fire in our neighbours' houses, debating whether the new fireplaces were superior to the older ones or whether the “Wheaten rounds” on sale up the town were the equal of those dispensed by Jerry in the Spar. Basically, everyone in Paddy's life was treated like royalty.

Paddy had an instinctual knowledge of human nature. He knew what made people tick. Example: shortly after I arrived in Iona, a delegation of the local women showed up, presumably to vet me. I offered them tea, but they declined. I tried again and got the same response. Soon Paddy arrived and rounded on me saying, “Why did you not offer them tea?” I replied, “I did, twice”. With a twinkle in his eye he scolded me, “Did you not know you must offer three times?” Whereupon tea was served all round, and a lesson learned.

It was Paddy's extraordinary hopefulness that I now remember most. When things seemed at their bleakest in Northern Ireland, he refused to be downcast. “They'll soon have to sit down and talk, it could happen any day now”, he'd say. To me it seemed the Troubles could go on for five hundred more years. Thank God he was right, and I was wrong.

More on his hopefulness: it extended to the weather. This was a touchy point with me, who am an acute sufferer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder). But for the Irish climate, I would still be living happily in the bosom of Prov. Hib. So there was many a morning when I would greet Paddy gloomily with some comment on the frightfulness of the day. He would “Tsk, tsk” reproachfully, pull aside the curtains, draw on his cigarette and point to the sky: “I'm certain I can see a little patch of blue”. In later years when he was prostrated by his stroke, I often thought of that remark as I joined the many pilgrims to his little room in Milltown and later in Cherryfield. His good humour was indestructible, his hopefulness intact. Alone among us all, he could discern that little patch of blue and knew it would win the day. Lux eterna luceat ei.

Brian Mac Cuarta remembers (Belfast Superior 1988-1992):
It was an evening in February 1988. The scholastics were on a mid-term visit to Belfast. The house had recently opened. We were all gathered in the large lounge of the Jesuit house, overlooking the street and the waterworks, enjoying a buffet meal. Suddenly the cry went up “Some is trying to break into one of the cars!” Without a moment's hesitation, Paddy, then aged 66, rose from his chair, and moved like lightning down the stairs, and onto the street. His presence scared the culprits, and he gave chase, before returning to the gathering.

Ron Darwen Remembers (Tertian Director 1992-194):
My memories of Paddy Doyle are of a very warm and deeply spiritual human being When I think of him my mind always goes back to the community room in Brookvale where, late at night, he would be sitting chatting with Herbert Dargan, cigarette in hand pontificating on the state of play in a snooker match.

He was a man who made friends easily. I was always impressed by the many different kinds of people who came to see him and treasured his friendship. It is true that you always had to give him the leeway to take off on one of his latest scientific theories but he always came down to earth, and was willing to get stuck into the nitty-gritty of life.

I count my days in Northern Ireland among the happiest I have spent in the Society. It was Paddy who set the tone of the house, and made it feel like a home. He did not fuss. The atmosphere he helped to create was warm and friendly yet deeply spiritual. He was insistent that we met regularly for prayer and sharing every Thursday morning. We listened to one another. He always made sure that we were heard. I count it a great privilege to have worked with him as a co-tertian instructor

It was always an inspiration in his later days to visit him in Cherryfield. He would never remember my name but the smile on his face when the penny dropped made the visit worth while. Paddy Doyle, like his great friend Herbert Dargan, was a great man and an inspiring Jesuit.

Colm Lavelle remembers:
I find it fascinating looking at Paddy's curriculum vitae. Most of the tasks he was given in the Society were things for which, in spite of his years of study, he had little preparation, and into which he entered exceedingly well. His vision was not burdened by preconceptions, but carried by the spirit and respect for those around him. He was always accessible. To enter into discussion with him was always a pleasure, whether or not you agreed with him before or after. He was always an alert listener.

In spite of being by nature a philosopher, he was a great lover of people. Was he driven primarily by his love and interest in people or by his love of ideas, or by vision? Was it a capacity to see in the dark, to recognise and work for the possible, or into the future to recognise the Lord's call into the unknown? He was not afraid of uncertainty.

My memory of him in his later years in Milltown during his ill health was that there was always a quiet serenity and humour - even after his move to Cherryfield, that he was glad to be back with old familiar faces and places in Milltown. He was always a grateful patient. Just occasionally in the last weeks, he was frustrated by the feeling that he did not know where he was or what was going on - however this would not last with the help of those caring so well for him.

It was my experience that in his last months or year the old love for discussion and exploring things was as alive as ever, but that you had to fish around for a while to find what roads were still open to traffic and those that were blocked by landslides caused by his stroke or other troubles. In many ways it was a question of trying to show him the patience and respect for his current thought processes which he had always shown to others.

For those friends from Ulster and elsewhere who could not often visit him, it must have been very painful to find him so helpless. But they readily recognised that he was happy to be with them, as they were with him, and that he knew them, whether or not he could name them. He was certainly showing us all how to be ready, and how to walk forward with confidence to the Kingdom prepared for us.

Tom Layden Remembers:
I first met Paddy Doyle just before Easter 1975 in Clongowes during his visitation as provincial. I was a sixth-year student seriously thinking about entering the Society. His low key, self-effacing approach immediately put me at my ease. Though aware that I was in the company of a man who was wise and had broad life experience, I felt treated as if I was an equal.

My next meeting with him came three years later when I was trying to come to a decision about when I should actually enter the novitiate. Some friends were saying to me that I should decide to either join straight away or else give up on the idea of vocation. I did not feel comfortable in either of these options. I have a clear memory of meeting with Paddy in his office in Eglinton Road. In the course of a conversation that helped me to adopt a more relaxed approach to my situation, he made a comment about the mystery of vocation. He said to me “you never know with a vocation. It could all become clear in a year's time. Or it might take ten years”. In my case it would become clear in a year's time. But his words had the effect of giving me a sense of freedom to be led in the Lord's time. There was no pressure to decide straight away. This was enormously liberating for me at the time. And Paddy was the Provincial who admitted me to the Society when I joined in 1979.

My last sustained contact with Paddy was in the summer of 2006. The Belfast house was undergoing refurbishment and I spent most of the summer in my sister's house in Carrickmines. I got into the pattern of attending the Cherryfield Mass on a regular basis. Paddy's benign presence at the Mass and at the subsequent cup of coffee is one of the cherished memories I have from that time. There was that characteristic gentleness, lack of fuss and absence of self-preoccupation which I found refreshing. That freedom of spirit in Paddy I had first encountered in Clongowes over thirty years earlier was still there and I was greatly edified by the way in which he was able to surrender and let go of the past and simply be present to the people in Cherryfield.

Oliver Rafferty Remembers:
Over the years I spent a couple of summers at Portadown and became a member of JINI. Paddy was a considerate chairman of JINI and despite my status as a lowly scholastic he always encouraged me to have my say at meetings. I did not, however, really get to know him until I went to live in Belfast in 1988 when the house there was first opened. Paddy subsequently told me that the Irish Province had asked for me to be loaned to the Belfast house for its first years. The Irish province had produced three 'heavy weights for those early years, Paddy himself, Herbert Dargan and Finbarr Lynch and then there was me.

It was an exciting time and Paddy steered the community through those early days with a mixture of patience, latitudinarianism and steely determination. Herbert Dargan once told me that when he was tertian instructor not one of the tertians had a bad word to say about Paddy as provincial. I think he was at his best when dealing at that macro level. In day-to day decision- making, in a small house with different and competing personalities, his grasp on details was not always comprehensive. There could be flashes of temper but these quickly subsided and so far as I could tell he never held grudges and was the most tolerant and forgiving of individuals. Paddy was a kindly and compassionate man with an immense capacity to listen and was unbendingly supportive to those who had difficulties or problems of any kind.

Paddy was very much a man of faith. The search for God came naturally to him and he had an unaffected piety. He was also something of an iconoclast, in a gentle way, and attributed this to a sceptical disposition he inherited from his father. He sat lightly to what he considered the more overweening demands of ecclesiastical authority. He was, however, no rebel, either religiously or politically.

Although in no way an academic or indeed not even especially widely read, he had a genuine philosophical turn of mind. He thought deeply about people and situations and was as interested in ideas as he was in individuals. It was a sorry sight to see him in his declining years when a once vigorous mind was reduced merely to periodic recollections of personalities, situations and events.

Kennedy O'Brien Remembers:
I was privileged to experience the British-Irish Tertianship, in Belfast, under Paddy and Ron Darwen. The image comes to mind of Paddy, relaxing with his post dinner whiskey one evening, discussing the simple beauty of “chaos theory”. For him “finding God in all things” was not a lofty ideal; it was the everyday experience he shared enthusiastically with anyone who would take the time to listen.

Born: 04 July 1923, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 06 September 1941, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1955, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1959, Leuven, Belgium
Died: 11 August 1973, New York NY, USA (in a drowning accident)

Part of Milltown Park community, Dublin at time of his death.
Died in boating accident in New York;

Educated at Belvedere College SJ

by 1959 at Louvain (BEL M) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 48th Year No 4 1973
Loyola
The Province was well represented by Irish Jesuits at the memorial Mass held for Fr Eamon Egan at the parish where he had been on supply prior to his tragic death. Brian Grogan reports that the clergy and parishioners turned out in large numbers, and that the homily preached by the pastor emeritus was most eloquently delivered. Numerous tributes were paid to Fr Eamon, indicating the place he had gained in the hearts of many, though he had been with them only a brief while.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1974

Obituary :

Fr Eamon Egan (1923-1973)

Shortly before he left for the United States in July of this year Fr Egan said to a friend that now that he was fifty he must think about reorganising his life. A fortnight later he was dead. What he might have done in the years which he could reasonably have expected to lie before him is now, of course, a matter of futile speculation. The fact is that a freakish accident carried off some one who had already served his Province and, indeed, his fellow countrymen well; who was at the height of his powers and, to all appearances, seemed to have much more to give.
The circumstances of his death were almost grotesque, if for no other reason than that it is, at this moment, almost impossible to determine them precisely. What we know is that he was drowned by a freak storm off Rockaway Point, Jamaica Bay, New York Harbour. All the other occupants of the boat were rescued. What happened to Fr Egan is unsolved, but the most likely (and merciful) explanation is that he was knocked unconscious; for, though not a good swimmer, he could swim.

Eamon was the son of Robert Egan, the first news editor of The Irish Press. He was born in Dublin in 1923. He was sent to school at Scoil Mhuire, Marino where he attained a grasp of Irish which was eventually to bear fruit in a first class degree in UCD. He finished his secondary education at Belvedere. In 1941 he entered the noviciate at Emo Park. There then followed the usual sequence of studies : Rathfarnham, where he distinguished himself as a debater; Tullabeg, where he again distinguished himself in the, now defunct, disputations (circles and menstrua); teaching in Belvedere and Galway; theology in Milltown. He was ordained in 1955.

After his tertianship in Rathfarnham, Eamon was assigned to Tullabeg to teach rational psychology. However, it was decided that he should first acquire a doctorate, so he was sent to Louvain for two years, which ultimately extended to three. He returned to Tullabeg in 1961, his doctorate still unfinished, and began to teach philosophy.

In 1963 the Visitor closed Tullabeg as a house of philosophy and Eamon, joining the ranks of displaced persons, found himself in Milltown. In 1964 he was appointed to teach philosophy in Mungret. This was something which he took to with all his heart, the work and atmosphere being congenial. When the Institute of Philosophy and Theology was set up in Milltown he became a member of the staff and taught, with great success and flexibility, courses in the history of ancient and medieval philosophy and the philosophy of man (formerly rational pyschology).

While in Milltown he began to come more and more into contact with the outside world. He was invited to teach foundation courses in philosophy at Maynooth and did so with great success. He became the guiding figure in the Irish Philosophical Circle which included philosophers from Trinity College and Queen's, Belfast, when, in its early days, it was threatened with extinction. Thanks to Fr Eamon’s astute advice the Circle not only survived but emerged into tranquil waters as the Irish Philosophical Society of which, at his death, he was the chairman. In the enormously successful Milltown lectures he was one of the most popular lecturers and chairmen.

Among the subjects of these lectures he was assigned some facets of Père Teilhard de Chardin's much discussed thought. Eminently a perfectionist his own exacting standards impelled him to seek an intimate acquaintance with Père Teilhard's work. He shared the reserve of the Society generally towards his author's ideas but he was more sympathetic possibly more understanding, to them than most. With his exceptional sense of impartiality he was able to present them in such a way as to be recognised as a key exponent in the Teilhard debate.
More important, he came increasingly to be a spokesman on Marx to Marxist groups as an informed but not, again, un sympathetic critic. He was also a member of an ecumenic group that met once a month.

There were occasions when he appeared positively perverse but his endearing ingenuousness and honesty, pursuing truth quocum que duxit, and the humorous, to the observer, hesitancy that betrayed his sensitiveness won instant condonation for his ebullitions. It may be admitted he had not yet attained that equipoise that the years which alas were not to be would give. Dolor atque decus!

In spite of his intellectual ability and success as a lecturer Eamon Egan published very little. That is not unusual in the Irish Province, but in Fr Egan’s case it was due to a paralysing self depreciation. He was incredibly diffident. After delivering a brilliant lecture or course of lectures, which would have more than satisfied most other people, he would be genuinely dissatisfied, That is not to say that his lectures could not be unsatisfactory; at times they went over the heads of his listeners and at other times he tended to debate with himself in public, but in most cases his dissatisfaction was totally unfounded.

He was most scrupulous about giving his students the effort and time he believed they deserved. Indeed, his attitude to life in general verged on the scrupulous. He would reproach himself for laxity in circumstances where others might not be aware that there was any problem of conscience.

To those who have lived and worked closely with Fr Egan over the years his sudden death has been a shattering blow and his loss is likely to be more rather than less keenly felt a stime goes on. In varying degrees this loss will be felt within the Province, particularly among the younger members, and in the wider circle of those who had come in contact with him. Though in years he was middle-aged, in mind he was not only young but he had that elasticity which can compass the problems and aspirations of the present time. He was a man for this season. They are not numerous. His loss is therefore all the greater.

We add an appreciation from The Irish Times of August 22nd; we sincerely thank the editorial staff for their courtesy in allowing a reproduction :

“Many of us even outside his immediate family circle felt in expressibly bereaved as we met to render our last respects to Father Eamon Egan, who had died in a boating accident outside New York at the age of 50. At the Mass for him in St. Francis Xavier's Church, Gardiner Street, Dublin, which preceded the interment, a lovely service instinct with Christian hope and faith and love. Father Doyle, Rector of Milltown Park, where Father Egan taught philosophy, spoke for us all in recalling his gentleness and sensitivity, his kindness and integrity.
Eamon can, I think, have had no adequate idea of the affection and regard with which he was held by those who knew him. By some miracle, he had come through untouched by a pretension, all too common among clerics, however cloaked. Never gauche, he was diffident.

His thoughtfulness for others could sometimes become anxious, and occasionally fretful, concern, yet he was too firmly grounded in the Christian faith to allow that to govern his thought or conduct for long. For a man capable of identifying with so very many different sorts of people, his own life was in ways curiously patterned and predictable. He could at times seem conservative to a fault; basically, however, he was courageous and well balanced, refusing (just to take a few instances) to be over impressed by Lonergan, on the one hand, yet still very typically, on the other hand, showing himself warmly if critically appreciative of his controversial fellow-Jesuit, Teilhard de Chardin.

His characteristic attitude was open-hearted and generous, and he did good almost by stealth. Those of us privileged to know him loved his shy smile, his patience, his friendly humanity, his intellectual honesty, his refusal to impose a particular interpretation or conclusion on anyone, And may I say, as one not of his communion, how deeply I appreciated the naturalness with which he brought us, his friends, to God in occasional simple acts of wor ship. Prayer to him was like breathing.
In iothlainn Dé go gcastar sinn. Ba de bhunadh Bhaile Átha Cliath Éamon, ach bhí Gaeilge aige, agus i nGaeilge a labhraíodh sé le mo leithéidse i gcónaí nuair a bhímís i dteannta a chéile.

Ba bhall de Chumann na Sagart é. Canadh 'Ag Críost ag Síol' ag an Aifreann an lá a cuireadh é. Sin rud ba dheas leis."

Risteárd Ó Glaisne

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1974

Obituary

Father Éamonn Egan SJ

Fr Éamonn Egan, who died so tragically in New York harbour last Summer, was a man, to put it simply, that it is good to remember. Most writers of obituaries face the dilemma of trying to tell the truth and yet be kind to the one who has passed away. But with Éamonn Egan no such problem arises. For he was a very unusual man, pos sessing two qualities that rarely go together, an ice-clear mind and a tender heart. People admired his mind, so quick to see a problem, utterly fair in argument, always seeking the truth, but they loved the heart, so sensitive to the feelings of others, and identifying totally with them, especially in times of trial.

It was his power of clear thinking, articu lated so fluently, that made him a great teacher of philosophy both at Mungret and Milltown Park. He was the centre of the philosophy school in Mungret during the early 1960s and he won the unlimited admiration of the philosophers, not all of whom would have been satisfied with anything less than the best. I remember him often saying that the standard there was higher than at the Jesuit philosophy school in Tullabeg, where he had been a professor until its closure. It was never clear to me whether this remark was intended as a compliment to Mungret or a slight to Tullabeg! It is only fair to add that Eamonn never felt quite at home, teaching in the secondary school division of Mungret. He was a man destined for success, amongst minds more mature than is normal, or perhaps desirable, in the schoolboy world.

I once went on holiday with him, when we were both in Mungret. It was in one of those modest seaside boarding houses that flourished and indeed still flourish, in the west of Ireland. The hostess never adver tised, but the same families, very pleasant, but by no means unsophisticated, came there every year. In a matter of days; Eamonn was the most popular man in the house. This was, in part, due to his much admired talent for painting, but above all to his charm of manner, which was the outward expression of his natural feeling for people. He was so lacking in conceit, that when I pointed out his social success, he seemed both astonished and annoyed.

Those Mungret men now working as priests all over the world who had the privilege to be his students, will, I know, never forget him. I am certain that they are united in sympathy with his relatives and countless friends in Ireland, who still mourn such a tragic loss. May he rest in peace,

KF

Born: 18 August 1875, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 11 November 1893, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 01 August 1909, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1911, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 17 September 1937, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

Educated at Belvedere College SJ

by 1898 at Enghien, Belgium (CAMP) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1899
by 1910 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1927 at Leeds, Yorkshire (ANG) working
by 1928 at Holywell, Wales (ANG) working

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
John Fallon entered the Society in November 1893. In the later part of 1899 he was sent to Australia where he taught at St Aloysius' College, 1900-02. In 1903 he was involved in a reorganisation of the Jesuit scholastics in Australia and was moved to Riverview. From there he went to Xavier, 1904-06, where he taught and assisted with the boarders.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 13th Year No 1 1938
Father John Fallon
1875 Born, 18th August, in Dublin, Educated at Belvedere
1893 Tullabeg, Novice, Entd. 11th Nov
1895 Tullabeg, Rhetoric
1897 Enghien, Philosophy
1899 Sydney (Australia), St. Aloysius, Bourke St., Doc., etc
1902 Sydney, House of Exercises. Ad. disp. P, Superioris, with 10 others
1903 Sydney, Riverview, Doc., care of boats
1904 Melbourne, Kew, Doc., etc
I906 Milltown, Theol. , Ordained, 1909
1909 Tronchiennes, Tertian
1910 Mungret, Doe., etc
1914 Crescent, Doc. Open., etc
1919 Rathfarnharn, Miss. Excurr, Conf. N.N
1921 Galway, Doc. Oper. Exam. and. N.N
1922 Mungret, Doc. an, 20 Mag. , Conf. NN. et alum
1925 England-Leeds, Liverpool, Prescot, Oper
I927 N. Wales, Holywell, Oper
1930 Milltown, Trod. exerc. spir
1931 Milltown, Trad. exerc. spir., Adj. dir. dom. exerc
1932 Gardiner St., Oper., Dir. School, S. F. Xavier
1935 Gardiner St., Oper., Dir. School, S. F. Xavier, Penny dinners
1937 Died at St. Vincent's, Dublin, Friday, I7th Sept.-R.I.P

As may be gathered from the above, Father Fallon's 44 years in the Society is an excellent example of the life of a Jesuit “Operarius”. There was nothing outstanding in it, nothing remarkable, Unless indeed the performance of all his duties faithfully and well, over such a long period is remarkable enough and Father Fallon did that.
He was naturally very reserved, and that fact had to be taken into account when dealing with him. He was straightforward and honest. In religious life he was very exact, very careful in dealing with others, never saying anything against charity, was always in the right place and time for every duty. To the Confessional he was most attentive, indeed it is quite certain that his attention was such that it hastened his death.
During his College career he had to deal chiefly with the lower classes. When he went to Gardiner Street he got charge of the choir, but the object of the appointment was to preserve order for Father Fallon was not a musician, the technical part was done by the Organist, He took a more active part in dealing with the Catechism class held in Gardiner Street every Sunday after last Mass. Besides appointing a number of excellent young men and girls to teach the classes, he gave an instruction every Sunday when their work was done.
He was also quite at home in dealing with St. Francis Xavier's National School, and gave the children frequent instructions. Finally, he effected many first-rate and far-reaching changes when managing the Penny Dinners.
In a word, Father Fallon's life was spent in dealing with the less attractive works of the Society. But he did these works well and is now, please God, reaping his reward.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1937

Obituary

Father John Fallon SJ

Less well known to Belvederians was a relative of the doctor’s, who was also Belvedere boy. Father John Fallon SJ, was born in 1875, and was eucated entirely at Belvedere till the year 1893, when he entered the Jesuit novicehip, but though he taught for many years in our southern colleges and laboured for still more on the mission staff, and since 1932 in Gardiner Street, strangely enough, he was never one of the Belvedere community, yet he retained a real affection for the school and a gratitude to its training, as the present writer can testify. His own exact and devoted life was a credit to his school. For some years before his death, as manager of the Gardiner Street Schools, he had an oppotunity to put at God's service his own talent for bringing young souls to God, and I leading children to piety and discipline by interest and affection.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1938

Obituary

Father John Fallon SJ

Father Fallon was born in Dublinin 1875, and was educated at Belvedere College. He entered the Society of Jesus in November, 1893. When he had completed his philosophical studies, he went to Australia and was appointed to the teaching staff of St Aloysius and St Ignatius, Sydney, and later on at Xavier, Melbourne. He returned to Ireland for his theological studies, and was ordained at Milltown Park in 1909. His priestly life was spent in teaching and in giving missions and retreats. During his period of residence in England he was attached to the church of the Society of Jesus in Leeds; and for three years was parish priest of Holywell, North Wales.

Father Failon was a member of the teaching staff in Mungret from 1910 to 1914; and in 1922 he returned to the College to take charge of the Study, a post which he filled for three years. Although Father Fallon was of a retiring disposition, the boys quickly came to know and appreciate his kindliness of heart. He would never tolerate any nonsense, but at the same time knew how to temper justice with mercy.

In 1932 Father Failon was attached to the Church of St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin. Early last year he contracted a serious malady, and after a short illness he died on September 17th, 1937. May he rest in peace.

LD

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John Fallon (1875-1937)

A native of Dublin and educated at Belvedere College, entered the Society in 1893. His regency was spent in the Jesuit College in Australia. He made his higher studies in Belgium and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1909. Of his eleven years as master in the colleges, five were spent in the Crescent, 1914-1919. The remaining years of his life were spent as missioner, retreat-giver, or church-worker at Gardiner St, Dublin.

Born: 01 August 1859, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1877, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 23 September 1888
Final Vows: 02 February 1897, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner St, Dublin
Died: 20 August 1938, St. Vincent's Hospital, Dublin

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

Early education at St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg

by 1888 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying

Irish Province News 13th Year No 4 1938

Gardiner St :
Father Charles Farley, who had been failing visibly for over a year, was called to his reward on August 20th at 6.5 a.m., passing away peacefully after some days of semi-consciousness. He leaves a splendid record of fruitful labor behind him, For years he was the popular men's confessor in the church. He was indefatigable in his faithful and prompt attention to the “BOX”. Succeeding the gigantic and stentorian Father Bannon, to whom he was a marked contrast in many ways, Father Farley did not seem likely to prove suitable as Director of the Commercial Sodality. His heart was in the work, he lived for those men, his genial personality and unceasing solicitude for every individual in the Sodality - he knew every member by name - overcame his heavy handicap of delicate health and diffidence in public speaking. A very large body of Sodalists attended on August 21st at the 8 o'clock Mass
to offer the Holy Communion for the repose of his soul. In the afternoon when the remains were received in the church a larger body assembled to recite the Rosary. At the Office and Requiem and even at the graveside, hundreds of Sodalists, leaving their business, were present to pay their last tribute of respect to the venerable Spiritual Director who had served them loyally for nearly thirty years. R.l.P.

Irish Province News 13th Year No 4 1938

Father Charles Farley died at St. Vincent's, Dublin, on Saturday 20th August, 1938

Irish Province News 14th Year No 1 1939

Obituary

Father Charles Farley

1859 Born 1st August, Dublin
1877 Entered Milltown, 7th September
1878 Milltown, Novice
1879 Milltown, Junior
1880 Milltown, Philosophy
1882-85 Tullabeg, Prefect
1886-88 St. Beuno's, Theology
1889-91 Tullabeg, Min. Proc., etc
1892 Mungret, Min
1893-94 Belvedere, Min., Adj. Dir., Messenger, e tc
1895 Tullabeg, Agit. 3. Prob
1896-1900 Belvedere, Min, Doc., Praef. Sod. for Boys, etc
1901-03 Gardiner St., Min., Proc., Edit. “Memorials”
1904 Crescent, Min., Proc., Doc., Praes. Sod. for. Boys
1905 Belvedere, Min. Proc., Edit “Messenger”, and “Madonna”
1906-08 Clongowes, Proc. Cons. dom, etc,, etc
1909-10 Clongowes, Proc. Cons. do., Praef. Spir
1911-38 Gardiner St., Praes. Sod., Pro vir. mercan, Edit “Memoriales”.
He was Proc. Prov. from 1913 to 1924. Besides doing the ordinary work of the Church he was, at times, Proc. dom. Conf. N. N., Cons. dom.. etc.. etc

Father Farley died at St. Vincent's, Dublin, Saturday, 20th August, 1938

Father Campbell has kindly sent us the following :
It is not easy to give an account of Father Farley's life before his final appointment to Gardiner Street, owing to the fact that he held so many offices in all the Houses of the Province with the exception of Galway.
Father Farley was born in Dublin, August 1st, 1859, and was educated at Tullabeg, where he had as companions Father Thomas Murphy, who predeceased him by about two years, and Father James Brennan, still happily with us.
He entered the Society at Milltown Park, September 7th, 1877 where he remained for the Noviceship, Juniorate, and Philosophy, at the end of which he was Prefect at Tullabeg for four years. In 1886 we find him at St; Beuno's for Theology and was ordained there two years later. If he had lived two months longer he would have celebrated his priestly Golden jubilee.
Returning to Ireland, he was Minister at various times in Tullabeg, Mungret, The Crescent, Belvedere (three times), Gardiner St. , at Clongowes, Spiritual Father for a couple of years, and in Gardiner St. for seven years Proc. Prov., and for some time he assisted in the “Messenger” Office.
But the real work of his life was the direction of the Commercial Sodality. This Sodality was established by Father Bannon, and on his death, in 1914, its direction fell to Father Farley. This was the great work of his life, into which he put all his energy for 27 years. He was never known to be absent from the various meetings of the Sodality, He so arranged his Retreats, vacation, etc as to enable him to meet the Sodality on every occasion when they assembled. He knew every member by name and was indefatigable in looking them up if they happened to be absent any length of time. When any one was unwell he made it his business to call and inquire for him, and all this in spite of his very delicate health.
The Civic Guards seem to have been his special friends. With them as also with the Tram Conductors he always had a cheery word when he met them. The writer of these lines was frequently asked, especially in shops “How is Father Farley? What a kind gentleman he is. Pity his health is so poor”
As long as health allowed him, he was to be found in the church during the hours appointed for confessions, and every morning he was in his confessional for half an hour before breakfast. In spite of many difficulties “he did wonderful things in his life”. A faithful servant of God and man. RIP

◆ The Clongownian, 1939

Obituary

Father Charles Farley SJ

Last year we congratulated Father Farley on the celebration of his Diamond Jubilee as a member of the Society of Jesus, this year we had hoped to still further felicitate him on his Golden Jubilee as a priest, but the Great High Priest called him to Himself. Father Farley died at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, on the 20th August, 1938.

Father Farley was born in Dublin, August 1st, 1859, and entered Tullabeg as a small boy of ten years in 1869. He had as companions there the late Father Michael Browne and Father Tom Murphy and two other members of the Society, who are still happily with us, Father N J Tomkin and Father James Brennan.

On September 7th, 1877, Father Farley entered the Society at Milltown Park where he remained for the Noviceship, Juniorate and Philosophy, at the end of which he was Prefect in Tullabeg for four years. In 1886 we find him at St. Beuno's for Theology and there he was ordained two years later,

In the following years we find him holding various posts in Tullabeg, Mungret, Sacred Heart College, Limerick, Belvedere, and Clongowes and another seven years in Gardiner Street, Dublin. He also assisted for some time in the Messenger Office.

But the real work of his life was the direction of the Commercial Sodality. This Sodality was established by Father Bannon, and on his death, in 1914, its direction fell to Father Farley. This was the great work of his life into which he put all his energy for twenty seven years. He was never known to be absent from the various meetings of the Sodality. He so arranged bis Retreats, vacation, etc., as to enable him to meet the Sodality on every occasion when they assembled. He knew every member by name and was indefatigable in looking them up if they happened to be absent any length of time. When any one was unwell he made it his business to call and inquire for him, and all this in spite of his very delicate health.

The Civic Guards seem to have been his special friends. With them, as also with the Tram conductors he, always had a cheery word when he met them.

In fact, we might say that Father Farley had a cheery word for everyone and the very first time you met him you felt that here was a real friend, one who would always think well of you no matter what happened.

As long as health allowed him, he was to be found in the church at Gardiner Street during the houars appointed for confessions, and every morning he was in his confessional for half an hour before breakfast. In spite of many difficulties “he did wonderful things in his life”; a faithful servant of God and man. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Charles Farley (1859-1877)

Born in Dublin and educated at Tullabeg College, entered the Society in 1878. He was ordained in 1888. In the years following his studies, he was assigned to the post of minister in various houses and spent one year at the Crescent, 1904-05. His long connection with Gardiner St began in 1911 when he took charge of the commercial sodality. He was one of the most beloved priests ever associated with Gardiner St church.

Born: 05 April 1918, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1936, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1950, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1954, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 01 November 2003, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Miltown Park, Dublin community at the time of death

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1954 at Rome, Italy (ROM) - studying

◆ Interfuse No 123 : Special Issue February 2005 & ◆ The Clongownian, 2005

Obituary

Fr Edward (Eddie) Fitzgerald (1918-2003)

5th April 1918: Born in Dublin
Early education at St. Gerard's, Bray and Clongowes
7th Sept. 1936: Entered the Society at Emo
8th Sept. 1938: First Vows at Emo
1938 - 1942: Rathfarnham -Studied Classics at UCD
1942 - 1945: Tullabeg- Studied Philosophy
1945 - 1946: Mungret College, Limerick - Regency(Teacher)
1946 - 1947: Belvedere College - Regency (H Dip Ed UCD)
1947 - 1951: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31st July 1950: Ordained at Milltown Park
1951 - 1952: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1952 - 1954: Sacred Heart Church, Limerick - Ministered in the Church
1954 - 1956: Gregorian University, Rome - STD
2nd Feb. 1954: Final Vows, Sacred Heart College, Limerick
1956 - 1967: Milltown Park - Professor of Dogma, Liturgy
1967 - 1973: Mungret College, Limerick - Teacher
1973 - 1980: Milltown Park - Lecturer in Theology at M; Spiritual Director (SJ)
1980 - 1984: Sullivan House - Lecturer in Theology at MI; Spiritual Director (S.J.)
1984 - 1985: Tullabeg - Director Spiritual Exercises
1985 - 2003: Milltown Park - Chaplain at Eye & Ear Hospital
1994: Assists in Cherryfield Lodge
1997: Spiritual Director (S.J.)
1st Nov. 2003: Died at Cherryfield Lodge.

Fr. FitzGerald was admitted to Cherryfield Lodge in September, 2003, when cancer of the bone was diagnosed. There he received palliative care, remained in good form and was free from pain. In the last week he began to weaken, but his death on Saturday afternoon was quite unexpected.

Noel Barber writes:
When I think of Father Eddie Fitzgerald and look for a biblical character to reflect his personality, I think of Nathaniel, who makes two fleeting appearances in John's gospel but appears nowhere else in the NT. Nathaniel's quality without guile' conveys so much about the character of Eddie Fitzgerald who was indeed without guile, highly intelligent, modest, one of the least self-centred people I have ever met, ever willing to do whatsoever required doing, a man of prayer and solid piety, above all a man of prayer. He loved prayer: to love prayer is to love the one to whom one prays and with whom one journeys. One found him regularly in the early hours of the morning in our community oratory.

At his death, those to whom he was near and dear were unashamedly caught up in their loss, sorrow and pain. He was a much loved, and significant figure in his community, family, in the Eye and Ear Hospital where he ministered and in many other places. In losing him we lost something of ourselves. In his case, the manner of his death softened the pain of loss. Death cut prematurely the relentless advance of his cancer. The palliative care he received in Cherryfield Lodge kept him in good form, free of pain and with his many interests undimmed. He had just completed Declan Kiberd's Inventing Ireland and had cheered on the Irish rugby team - albeit in vain – against Australia. The sudden death spared him much and for that we were all grateful. This truly good man without guile was born in Dublin into a distinguished legal family 85 years ago. He was educated at St. Gerard's, Bray and Clongowes and entered the Jesuits in 1936 followed by his brother, John, the next year Having completed his novitiate he studied Classics at UCD where he took a first class primary degree followed by an MA. He then studied Philosophy in Tullabeg. Before going on to study Theology, he taught for two years, the first in Mungret and the second in Belvedere. I was a small boy in Belvedere at the time. He did not teach me but I recall that he was noted for his kindness, which the Belvederians exploited with characteristic wickedness. He was ordained at Milltown Park in 1950 with his brother, John. After his theological studies in Milltown he was sent to Rome where he obtained a doctorate in Theology. It seemed then that he was destined for an academic life for which his ability and interests well equipped him. Not only was he a competent scholar, he was an excellent lecturer. Allied to his mastery of his subject was a keen interest in his students, a kindness and of course a totally unpretentious disposition, a characteristic not found universally amongst the professorial class. To his colleagues as a student and young priest he was companionable, supportive, always kindly and obliging. The orderly aspect of religious life appealed to him; he was a natural rule follower to whom obedience came easily as did simplicity of life. Intellectually he became progressively more liberal but by temperament and style of life he remained to the end conservatively monastic. At times he seemed a little ashamed of his opinions and would apologise profusely for holding outrageous views, views, it must be said, that often seemed far from outrageous to his companions.

After twelve years lecturing on Theology he fell ill: he had a breakdown and this experience developed his already considerable capacity to help others, and to feel for them in their sickness. He then taught in Mungret College before returning to lecture in Milltown, to be the Spiritual Director there and then to the Jesuit university students. All the time he gave retreats, and was spiritual director to several groups of religious sisters. In these tasks he gave great satisfaction to all but himself. He was never able to savour his own ability, gifts and attainments while ever keen to observe and appreciate those of others. Within the community he was a gem: interested in and supportive of all: ever willing to help in every way he could. Any notice asking for a priest to supply here or there would have his signature at once. He was, of course, tense and somewhat strained, could build up a steam of exasperation and let fly against something “ghastly”, a favourite word of his in an exasperated state. That exasperation could, at times, be exasperating. But to all of us who lived with him he leaves a most benign and lovable memory.

At the age of 64 he was appointed Chaplain to the Eye and Ear Hospital, Adelaide Road where he remained until the end of this summer when cancer of the bone was diagnosed. There he flourished; it gave him an outlet for his pastoral zeal and he was at his happiest in serving the sick with absolute devotion and total commitment. The work revealed all his fine qualities and he won the hearts of staff and patients alike. Of course, when he spoke of the hospital, he spoke never of the good he did but of the good the Hospital did to him, giving him those happy years. Typically, he was ever aware of the goodness of others to himself but discounted his goodness to them.

At this time he developed an apostolate to dying Jesuits in Cherryfield Lodge. He spent hours praying with and for his colleagues in the final stage of their lives, supporting them as they left this world. This he did unstintingly. His presence there is sorely missed

He accepted his cancer easily and in the final weeks his talk was all about the excellence of the care he received, the goodness of the staff and the great kindness of all who visited him. He faced death as he faced life in steadfast faith and firm hope. So while his sudden death left his family, community and friends stunned it must have been a delight for him. One moment he was sitting waiting for his supper, then in a blink of an eyelid he was facing the Lord he served so well. Now he has been received into that place of peace and joy that was prepared for him from before the foundation of the world.

Born: 17 September 1884, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1904, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1919, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1923, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 04 August 1956, Calvary Hospital, Galway

Part of the Coláiste Iognáid, Galway community at the time of death

Older brother of Michael Fitzgibbon - RIP 1973

Educated at Crescent College SJ

by 1909 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1912

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Daniel Fitzgibbon was a novice under Michael Browne in 1904. In 1911-12 he spent a year at Belvedere before being transferred to Riverview, 1912-16. Apart from teaching and prefecting, he was in charge of the chapel, and the theatre. He was known an avid Irish patriot and a student of Irish.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 31st Year No 4 1956
St. Ignatius Church and College, Galway
A short and apt account of Fr. Dan (Fitzgibbon) appeared in the Irish Times. It was from the pen of an old boy of St. Ignatius; was entitled “Sagart Mín”, and ended thus : “Ní dream iad Scoláirí Meánscoile a bhíos de shior ag moladh a gcuid múinteoirí, ach is minic agus is rí-mhinic a chualas Scoláirí i gColáiste lognáid ag rá : 'Naomh críochnaithe sea an t-Athair Mac Giobúin. Fear beanaithe gan aimhreas é.' Agus ní ag magadh a bhíodar ach oiread”.

Obituary :

Fr Dan Fitzgibbon (1884-1956)
Fr. Fitzgibbon was born at 1 Bedford Row, Limerick, on September 17th, 1884, and was educated at Mount St. Alphonsus' Redemptorist College and at the Crescent College, Limerick. He entered the Society at Tullabeg in September, 1904. After his Juniorate at Tullabeg he secured his B.A. Degree at the old Royal University of Ireland. Having studied Philosophy at Stonyhurst he was sent to Australia, where he taught at Riverview College, Sydney, until 1916, when he returned to Ireland. He studied Theology at Milltown Park and was ordained in 1919. Having completed his Theology in 1920 he spent a year at Mungret before going to Tullabeg for Tertianship, 1921-22. He then returned to Mungret for two further years. We find him at Belvedere for the year 1924-25 and at the Crescent for the next year, 1925-26. Then began his long term of fourteen years at Clongowes, where he taught successfully and produced the annual opera. In 1940 he was transferred to Galway, where he remained for the rest of his life and where he died happily in Calvary Hospital on August 4th, 1956.
If ever a man was “young of heart” it was Fr. Dan. Youthful in his enthusiasms, seeing persons and things with the fresh eye of a child, childlike in his simplicity and frankness, even to the very end ; that sums up in a few words one of whom we can say: “We shall not see his likes again”.
“Young of heart”, and well the children knew it. One of the last things he did was to bring the children of “Club na n-Og” for their annual picnic, and, as usual, he had a fine day for it. It has been known for the sun to shine, apparently “by special arrangement”, wherever Fr. Dan held his picnic, while all the rest of Galway was washed with rain. The good Lord no doubt repaid the childlike trust and the selfless devotion of an aged and delicate man to His little ones, by such privileges. For Fr. Fitzgibbon did devote himself to the little ones of Christ. Evening after evening he played away at an old piano for their dancing; year after year he prepared them for their recitations and little plays for Feis an Iarthair and An Tóstal; why, he even wrote their plays for them.
But all this was not merely amusing children. Convinced as he was that one of the greatest safeguards of their Faith was our own Irish culture. Fr. Fitzgibbon sought by these simple means to instil into these children a knowledge and love of Gaelic and the Gaelic way of life. He was as wholehearted and enthusiastic as a youth for all that was Gaelic. He had no time for pessimists and hesitaters—all that was needed was the will to win. So he went ahead, sparing nothing, sparing no one, least of all himself, in his endeavours to enlist all in the Cause. “Ar son na Cuise” - that was explanation and reason for everything, but most of all for his untiring self-sacrifice.
Fr. Fitzgibbon did not wait until he found himself in Galway to devote himself to and stir up in others, a devotion to things Gaelic. During his fourteen years in Clongowes he ceaselessly promoted the same Cause. Among his many interests was always one for drama. He was the “venerabilis inceptor” of those annual dramatic performances for which Belvedere and Clongowes have become well-known. In the days of his work as producer of plays and opera in Clongowes, no entertainment would take place unless an Irish play preceded the main item of the programme, and none finished without the enthusiastic singing of his own composed Anthem, sung in the tongue of the Gael.
All this must not let us lose sight of his priestly work. Fr. Fitzgibbon was a devoted and most kindly confessor and a greatly appreciated preacher and retreat-giver. And who would wonder at that, for few knew the human heart as he did ; and his great love for the oppressed and the troubled assured everyone of his boundless sympathy and help. "Poor so-and-so is in trouble," one often heard him say, and one knew that “so-and-so” had found his comforter and true friend. It was this same sympathy which made him such a wonderful teacher of those pupils whom no one else seemed to be very anxious to have in his class-tho' he could and did teach the brilliant brilliantly.
“Unless ye become as little children” - Fr. Dan has fulfilled the divine condition, and we know that he has gained the Kingdom promised to such.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Dan Fitzgibbon 1884-1956
If ever a man kept young at heart even with advancing years it was Fr Daniel Fiztgibbon. Youthful in his enthusiasms, seeing persons and things with the fresh eye of a child, childlike in his simplicity and frankness, that sums up in a few words one of whom we can say “we shall not look upon his life again”.

Born in Limerick in 1884, he was educated at the Crescent, entering the Society in 1904.

As a priest, he spent his whole life teaching in the classroom, another of our hidden saints of the blackboard and chalk, in Mungret, Crescent, Clongowes and finally Galway. But his chief love was the children and the language of old Ireland. Year after year he prepared them for their competitions in singing and recitation. He even wrote plays for them, for he was a poet of no mean order, both in English and Irish. He was also much appreciated as a preacher and retreat giver, a most patient confessor, but his childlikeness and love of the little ones were his outstanding characteristics.

“Unless you become as a little child ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven”. This seems to have been his motto in life, and surely gave him immediate entry when he died on August 4th 1856.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1956

Obituary

Father Daniel Fitzgibbon SJ

We regret to report the death of Fr Dan Fitzgibbon SJ, who had spent a long enthusiastic life in the service of God and the education of youth. Of his fifty-two years in the Society he had spent only two years here, but his charm of personality makes him one remembered by all who knew him. May he rest in peace.

A native of Limerick, the late Fr Fitzgibbon was a noted Irish scholar, and many of his translations of Irish religious poems of the twelfth and thirteenth: centuries have been published. He was an active member of the Gaelic League, and was one of the founders of Club na n-Óg, which sponsors Irish music and dancing amongst the youth of Galway,

The late Fr Fitzgibbon was educated at Mount St Alphonsus Redemptorist College, and Crescent College, Limerick. He entered the Jesuit Novitiate in 1904, and studied at Stonyhurst College and the Royal University, Dublin, from where he graduated with a BA degree. From 1912 to 1916 he worked on the Australian Missions and, three years after his return, he was ordained at Milltown. Park. During the next year he was Editor of “The Messenger”, while attached to Belvedere College.

After some years at Mungret College, and Crescent College, he returned to Belvedere for a further year, and then spent fourteen years in Clongowes Wood College, where he produced the annual opera. He came to St Ignatius in 1940, and had remained in Galway until the time of his death.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Daniel Fitzgibbon (1884-1956)

A native of Limerick and a former pupil of the Crescent, entered the Society in 1904. After studies in Ireland and England he spent his regency in Australia. He was ordained in Dublin in 1919. Before his arrival in the Crescent in 1925, Father Fitzgibbon had been master in Mungret and Belvedere. He spent only one year in his old school. Of the remaining thirty years of his life, fourteen were spent in Clongowes and sixteen in Galway, Father Fitzgibbon was a popular master wherever he went and will long be remembered for his untiring work for the Irish language.

Born: 08 December 1907, Dublin City, County Dublin/Tralee, County Kerry
Entered: 21 September 1925, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1939, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1942, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 14 December 1991, Wah Yan College, Kowloon, Hong Kong - Macau-Hong Kong Province (MAC-HK)

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966

Early education at Belvedere College SJ, Dublin; Tertianship at Rathfarnham

by 1934 at Hong Kong - Regency

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father John Foley S.J.
1907-1991
R.I.P.

Father John Foley SJ, died at Wah Yan College, Kowloon, on 14 December 1991. He was 84 years of age.
Cardinal John B. Wu presided over the funeral Mass, held in St. Ignatius Chapel, Kowloon, on 20 December and the burial was at Happy Valley Cemetery.
Father Foley was born in Tralee, Ireland, on 8 December 1907. He entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1925. He took a B.A. degree at the National University of Ireland and then went through the usual course of studies in philosophy and theology in Dublin.

In 1933, while still a scholastic, he came to Hong Kong. He began the study of Cantonese and taught English and Latin at the then Regional Seminary in Aberdeen.

He was ordained to the priesthood in 1939 and for the rest of the Second World War did teaching and administrative work in Ireland.

In 1946 he returned to Hong Kong and returned to the Regional Seminary where took charge of day-to-day administration.

Two years later he moved to Wah Yan College, Kowloon for 11 years as minister to the community and spiritual father to the students.

In 1959 he was back in the seminary as administrator and teacher of English and History of the Missions. When the Regional Seminary was handed over to the diocese, Father Foley was the Acting Rector.

He then returned to Wah Yan College, Kowloon, in 1964 and spent the rest of his life in that community. Until his retirement he was a teacher and spiritual father to the students.

He was the spiritual adviser to the Christian Life Community in the school and later was director of the CLC for the whole of Hong Kong.

On his retirement Father from the school, he gave much of his time as hospital chaplain. At one time he was regularly visiting three hospitals: Maryknoll Hospital, Kowloon Kwong Wah Hospital and the British Military Hospital. His work at the Maryknoll Hospital where he went regularly for many years is remembered with great appreciation.

But he was also remembered for his work with refugees at the North point Camp after the Second World War. Forty years later they still came faithfully to visit him. They celebrated his birthday for the last time with him on 8 December, just six days before he died.

Father Foley’s favorite recreational activity was gardening and the grounds of Wah Yan Kowloon are a lasting remembrance to his great love for trees and flowers.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 16 August 1991

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He entered the Society in 1925.
After First Vows he was sent to University College Dublin, graduating BA. On 1933 he was sent for Regency to Hong Kong, where he studied Cantonese and taught at the Regional Seminary in Aberdeen. He then went through the usual course of Philosophy and Theology studies at Milltown Park Dublin, being Ordained in 1939.
After Ordination, because of the war he did teaching and administrative work in Ireland.

1946-1948 He returned to Hong Kong and the Regional Seminary as the Administrator.
1948-1959 He went to Wah Yan College Kowloon as Minister and Spiritual Father in the College.
1959 He returned to Aberdeen doing teaching English and the History of the Mission and administration.

When the Regional Seminary was handed over to the Diocese he was the Acting Rector. So, in 1964 he returned to Wah Yan Kowloon and spent the rest of his life in that community. He was the spiritual advisor for the CLC in the school and later became the Director of CLC for the whole of Hong Kong.

When he retired from school he enjoyed working as a hospital Chaplain. At one time he was regularly visiting Maryknoll Hospital, Kwong Wah Hospital and the British Military Hospital. His work at Martyknoll was remembered with great appreciation. He was also remembered for his work with refugees at North Point Camp after WWII. Forty years later they still came faithfully to visit him. They celebrated his birthday with him for the last time in 1991 6 days before he died.

His favourite recreation was gardening and the grounds of Wah Yan College Kowloon are a lasting remembrance to his great love for trees and flowers.

Note from Herbert Dargan Entry
He freed Fr John Collins for fulltime social work, set up “Concilium” with Frs Ted Collins, John Foley and Walter Hogan. he also set up CMAC in 1963. He sent Fr John F Jones for special training in Marriage Life. He also sent Fr John Russell to Rome for training in Canon Law. he was involved with rehabilitation of discharged prisoners and he visited prisons.

Note from Tommy Martin Entry
He first arrived as a Scholastic for regency in Hong Kong in 1933. He was accompanied by Frs Jack O’Meara and Thomas Ryan, and by two other Scholastics, John Foley and Dick Kennedy.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 22nd Year No 1 1947
Departures for Mission Fields in 1946 :
4th January : Frs. P. J. O'Brien and Walsh, to North Rhodesia
25th January: Frs. C. Egan, Foley, Garland, Howatson, Morahan, Sheridan, Turner, to Hong Kong
25th July: Fr. Dermot Donnelly, to Calcutta Mission
5th August: Frs, J. Collins, T. FitzGerald, Gallagher, D. Lawler, Moran, J. O'Mara, Pelly, Toner, to Hong Kong Mid-August (from Cairo, where he was demobilised from the Army): Fr. Cronin, to Hong Kong
6th November: Frs. Harris, Jer. McCarthy, H. O'Brien, to Hong Kong

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1992
Obituary

Father John Foley SJ
Fr John Foley SJ died at Wah Yan College, Kowloon, on December 14. He was 84 years of age.

Cardinal John B. Wu presided over the funeral Mass, held in St Ignatius Chapel, Kowloon, on December 20 and the burial was at Happy Valley Cemetery.

Fr Foley was born in Tralee, Ireland, on December 8, 1907. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1925. He took a BA degree at the National University of Ireland and then went through the usual course of . studies in philosophy and theology in Dublin.

In 1933, while still a scholastic, he came to Hong Kong. He began the study of Cantonese and taught English and Latin at the then Regional Semi nary in Aberdeen.

He was ordained to the priesthood in 1939 and for the rest of the Second World War did teaching and administrative work in Ireland.

In 1946 he returned to Hong Kong and returned to the Regional Seminary where he took charge of day to-day administration.

Two years later he moved to Wah Yan College, Kowloon for 11 years of minister as minister to the community and spiritual father to the students.

In 1959 he was back in the seminary as administrator and teacher of English and History of the Missions. When the Regional Seminary was handed over to the diocese, Fr Foley was the Acting Rector.

He then returned to Wah Yan College, Kowloon, in 1964 and spent the rest of his life in that community. Until his retirement he was a teacher and spiritual father to the students.

He was the spiritual adviser to the Christian Life Community in the school and later was director of the CLC for the whole of Hong Kong.

On his retirement from the school, he gave much of his time as hospital chaplain. At one time he was regularly visiting three hospitals: Maryknoll Hospital, Kwong Wah Hospital and the British Military Hospital. His work at the Maryknoll Hospital where he went regularly for many years is remembered with great appreciation. But he was also remembered for his work with refugees at the North Point Camp after the Second World War. Forty years later they still came faithfully to visit him. They celebrated his birthday for the last time with him on December 8, just six days before he died.

Fr Foley's favourite recreational activity was gardening and the grounds of Wah Yan Kowloon are a lasting remembrance to his great love for trees and flowers,

May he rest in peace.

Born: 19 January 1887, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1905, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1920, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1923, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway
Died: 07 September 1960, Saint Teresa's Hospital, Mong Kok, Hong Kong

Part of the Wah Yan, Kowloon, Hong Kong community at the time of death.

Older Brother of Leonard Gallagher - RIP 1942

by 1910 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER) studying
by 1928 second batch Hong Kong Missioners

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Richard W. Gallagher, the senior member of the Society of Jesus in Hong Kong, died in St. Teresa’s Hospital, in the early morning of Wednesday, 7 September 1960, aged 73.

His health had been deteriorating for some years, but his zeal remained unabated and within the limits imposed by infirmity he continued his varied priestly work till within three weeks of his death.

Father Gallagher was born in Cork, Ireland, on 19 January 1887, the eldest son of a very large family. He joined the Society of Jesus on 7 September 1905.

He did his studies in Ireland and Germany and was ordained priest in 1920. After ordination he worked for some years in Ireland, preaching parish missions, teaching, and carrying out the duties of Prefect of Studies. All through his priestly life his preaching was characterised by simplicity, profundity, and lucidity, the outcome of assiduous application of great talents in a spirit of utter simplicity. He had proved himself also a first-class teacher and a brilliant organiser both of studies and of the manifold extra-curricular activities of his school.

The Irish Jesuits came to Hong Kong for the first time in December 1926. Father Gallagher’s varied gifts and complete readiness to do everything that was proposed to him made him exactly what was needed here. He was sent to Hong Kong in 1927 and, apart from one short rest in Ireland after the War, spent the rest of his life here.

He landed on 27 October. On the three following days he preached the tritium in preparation for the Feast of Christ the King in the Cathedral. This plunge into work was symbolic of what he was to do throughout his 33 years here.

In his first years, he taught Philosophy in the Seminary, edited The Rock, gave lectures and retreats, preached, studied Cantonese, and put himself at the disposal to all who needed his help.

In 1932 he was appointed first Rector and first Jesuit headmaster of Wah Yan College, which had been taken over almost at a moment’s notice by the Jesuit Fathers. The school was already well established and the change of administration might have been expected to cause friction. That it did not do so was due chiefly to Father Gallagher’s unvarying tact, courtesy, and understanding of other people’s point of view. Long before he ceased to be Rector in 1940 all had forgotten that friction had once been thought possible.

In December 1941, he was Prefect of Studies in a new college in Austin Road, Kowloon. The siege of Hong Kong and the Japanese occupation put an end to this work. Father Gallagher himself was arrested on 12 December and was not released till 23 January 1942. Soon after his release he went to St. Paul’s Hospital, Causeway Bay, where he remained till the end of the war, acting as chaplain to the hospital and as intermediary between the sisters and the occupying powers.

In helping the sick and the wretched during those years of distress and recurrent disaster Father Gallagher found full scope for something that was more characteristic than even his talents or his energy - his unfailing charity. (Throughout his life, unkindness of any sort aroused in him an almost physical repugnance.)

After the war he showed similar devotion and charity as chaplain to Queen Mary Hospital, combining with this work ready acceptance of the innumerable calls made upon him as a preacher, conference-giver, adviser, and supporter of Catholic organizations. His association with the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres remained unbroken and the Little Flower Club in particular owed much to his encouragement.

In 1947 he took up the task of conducting the weekly Catholic Prayers from Radio Hong Kong. For the remaining twelve and a half years of his life, almost without a break, he gave these prayers always fresh, always simple, always prayerful, always newly composed for each week. Few broadcasters of any kind can rival his 659 broadcasts. Few, perhaps none, can rival the amount of good he did by broadcasting.

He worked almost to the end. His last broadcast was made less than three weeks before his death. He admitted at last that he was suffering. Medical examination revealed that he had not long to live. An operation became urgently necessary on Tuesday, 6 September, though there was little hope that it could do more than relieve pain.

He died without recovering consciousness at 12:20pm. On 7 September, 55 years to the day after his entry into the Society of Jesus.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 9 September 1960

Funeral of Fr. Gallagher, S.J.

The late Father R.W. Gallagher, S.J., was buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery, Happy Valley, on Thursday, 8 September.

Solemn Requiem Mass for the repose of his soul was sung in the chapel of Wah Yan college, Kowloon, at 9am: Celebrant, Father H. Dargan, S.J., Regional Superior; Deacon, Father C. Egan, S.J.; Subdeacon, Father R. Kennedy, S.J. The school choir, directed by Father T. O’Neil, S.J., sang the whole Mass, partly in Gregorian, partly in harmony. The large chapel was filled by the large congregation of priests, Brothers, Sisters, past and present students of both Wah Yan Colleges, and other friends of Father Gallagher. Miss Aileen Woods represented Radio Hong Kong from which Father Gallagher had so often broadcasted.

His Lordship the Bishop officiated at the funeral in the evening. Among those present were the Hon. D. J. S. Crozier, C.M.G., Director of Education, the parish priests of the diocese, almost without exception, numerous representatives of the Religious of Hong Kong, priests, Brothers, and Sisters, representatives of the various Catholic organisations with which Father Gallagher was associated, most of the teachers who had received Father Gallagher when he went to Wah Yan College as the first Jesuit Rector, and many of the past students of those days.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong 16 September 1960

Requiem for Fr. R.W. Gallagher, SJ

A Solemn Requiem Mass for the repose of the soul of the late Father R.W. Gallagher, S.J., first Jesuit Rector of Wah Yan College, will be celebrated in the school chapel, Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, at 9a.m. on Wednesday, October 5.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 30 September 1960

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He studied History in University College Dublin with special distinction. He had a remarkable memory and a passion for accurate statistics. In the course of his Jesuit studies, he spent some years in Germany and there he attained exceptional fluency in German, which he liked to exercise to the end of his life.

He came to Hong Kong in 1927, after spending some years in priestly work in Ireland.. He spent his early years here learning the language and editing the Catholic magazine “The Rock”. He became well known as a lecturer and preacher at Wah Yan College.

1932-1940 He was the first Rector/Principal of Wah Yan College Hong Kong. He was always closely associated with the Past Students Association. he overcame opposition by his open sincerity, genuine friendliness and tact. He served for a long period on the Board of Education and he was President of the Hong Kong Teachers Association, as well as being a member of numerous education committees.

He was a tireless visitor to the sick at all times. He served their needs by prayers, which he said from Radio Hong Kong once a week for over 12 years.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 21st Year No 1 1946

Arrivals :

Our three repatriated missioners from Hong Kong: Frs. T. Fitzgerald, Gallagher and G. Kennedy, arrived in Dublin in November and are rapidly regaining weight and old form. Fr. Gallagher has been assigned to the mission staff and will be residing at St. Mary's, Emo.

Irish Province News 22nd Year No 1 1947

Departures for Mission Fields in 1946 :
4th January : Frs. P. J. O'Brien and Walsh, to North Rhodesia
25th January: Frs. C. Egan, Foley, Garland, Howatson, Morahan, Sheridan, Turner, to Hong Kong
25th July: Fr. Dermot Donnelly, to Calcutta Mission
5th August: Frs, J. Collins, T. FitzGerald, Gallagher, D. Lawler, Moran, J. O'Mara, Pelly, Toner, to Hong Kong Mid-August (from Cairo, where he was demobilised from the Army): Fr. Cronin, to Hong Kong
6th November: Frs. Harris, Jer. McCarthy, H. O'Brien, to Hong Kong

Irish Province News 36th Year No 1 1961

Obituary :

Fr Richard Gallagher (1887-1960)

Fr. Gallagher died in Hong Kong on 7th September. He was ill for less than two weeks, but he was discovered to be suffering from a serious internal complaint, from which he had no hope of recovery. On the day the news of it was given to him an emergency operation was found necessary, and after it he never recovered consciousness. He was seventy three when he died and had completed to the day his fifty-fifth year in the Society.
By his death the Hong Kong Mission loses its best-known priest, its greatest personality and its best-loved member. He was born in Cork, where his father was a leading business-man, and was educated at the Presentation College there. As a scholastic he was conspicuous for his untiring energy. In Valkenburg, where he studied philosophy, he left a reputation for vigour and enterprise that was remembered for many years, and as a scholastic in Mungret he gained a reputation that soon made him celebrated throughout the province. He had many gifts, chief of which was a prodigious memory, so as a history teacher he rattled off dates in a way that bewildered his pupils. He had also the faculty of making up a subject with great rapidity, and he gave lectures on all conceivable topics and was a ready and entertaining speaker. He had a splendid voice, so he sang in public concerts in Limerick and he was an efficient director of the Mungret choir. He sketched and painted with skill, and the stages at Mungret, the Crescent and Milltown had curtains and back-drops painted by him that were up to professional standard. He was at everyone's beck and call, and it would be hard to recall a task that he was asked to do which he was not able to perform efficiently.
Four years theology brought a restraint that he found irksome at first, but he soon found outlets for his surplus energy. He wrote out in a copper plate hand and multiplied the code which Fr. Gannon compiled in his first year as professor of Fundamental Theology, and re-wrote it unhesitatingly when the professor preferred his second thoughts to his first, He gave lectures, illustrated by his own diagrams, on the medical side of moral studies, and if any found first steps in theology difficult, they could go to his room, where lying on his bed with his hands clasped under his head he expounded any thesis that was presented to him.
After Tertianship he went to Galway, where he was Prefect of Studies, taught several classes and preached constantly. It was also related apocryphally of him that in recounting his activities he declared that he also “said all the Masses”. When the College was closed for a period of years he was on the Mission Staff in Ireland and found full scope for his energies in preaching missions and giving retreats - but not for long, for when the Hong Kong Mission was opened, he was assigned to it in the first batch that followed the founders, Frs. G. Byrne and Neary. He arrived in Hong Kong at the end of October 1927, and two hours after landing he preached in the Cathedral for the Triduum of Christ the King, What the circumstances were that made that necessary we are not told, but he loved doing unusual things and making records, and that was one that he liked to recall.
From Hong Kong he went to Shiu Hing, in the Kwangtung Province of China, to study Chinese. While there he also taught English and singing and formed an orchestra in a College run by the Portuguese Mission, and had his studies partially interrupted by a civil war that was then raging in the province, and he went to Shanghai to give missions and retreats and spent a period doing parochial work in Canton. The whole period only lasted nine months but he learned to speak Chinese fluently, if not perfectly, and to the end of his life gave instructions and retreats regularly in that language.
On returning to Hong Kong in July 1928, he took over the work of editor and manager of the monthly magazine The Rock, which had begun publication in January. A few months later he took part with some of the other Fathers in a series of public lectures to refute rationalists who had been offensive and abusive in their attacks on religion in the local press. The lectures caused a sensation, they silenced the attackers and they attracted public attention to The Rock, which then, in the four years that it was under Fr. Gallagher's direction, built up a high reputation in Hong Kong that lasted until the Japanese invasion brought it to an end.
For some of these years Fr. Gallagher was also on the professorial staff of the Regional Seminary, but in 1932 there began what was the greatest work of his life when he was made Rector of Wah Yan College, Hong Kong.
This was a Middle School which had been begun by two Chinese Catholic teachers, and had grown so successful that they found it too big to handle. They offered it to the Society as a going concern, but stipulated that it should remain wholly Chinese. It was accepted, but with hesitation at first, because it was realised that neither teachers nor parents nor pupils would be pleased to see the leading Chinese school in the Colony handed over to foreigners. There was opposition and it was unpleasant for a time, but it was overcome, and the one thing that can be said is that Fr. Gallagher made Wah Yan.
If there was ever a triumph of personality in winning over a body of young and old who were complete strangers and not initially well-disposed, it was this. It was not a triumph of organisation, for Fr. Gallagher was not a great organiser. It was recalled that some years later when a new scholastic joined the staff, he asked the Rector, who was also Prefect of Studies, into what class he should go.
“Oh, just range around”, were his illuminating instructions.
It was complete friendliness, joined to firmness when necessary, and absolute support for his staff that won the day. The foreigners that those connected with the school had known hitherto were for the most part stand-offish, coldly official, and breathing an air of presumed authority. The teachers had never known of a headmaster who would go into the common room and sit down to drink tea with the rest, or the boys one who went down among them during the recreation period and talked and joked with them, and if there were black looks ignored them.
There was a hostel attached to the school, a nightmare institution, with rooms all mixed up with the community apartments, and housing in a room five or six who studied in the midst of noise in a way that Chinese can do. Almost anyone else would have wanted to reform it altogether from the start. Not so Fr. Gallagher. He realised that it was the ideal means through which the boys would get to know the priests and scholastics and would spread the news about their friendliness to the rest of the school.
Within a few months everything ran smoothly and it had become what it has since remained, a school in which the happiest relations imaginable exist between staff and pupils, and in which an ideal spirit of unity prevails in the community.
Fr. Gallagher remained Rector of Wah Yan till 1940. During those years, in addition to his work in the school, he was a member of the official Board of Education, he was for several years President of the Hong Kong Teachers' Association, and he was appointed by the Government to every important educational committee that was established, but in this age of conferences and round tables he was not a committee man, though his influence was considerable on several of the bodies on which he served. He dealt with individuals; he let talking go on without participating in it, but when all had their say it was often found that he had been writing, and he had a resolution ready to which the wearied members would be glad to agree.
His methods with his community too were unusual. Some thought that he was inclined to let things slide, but he set himself to make everyone happy; he gave each one the fullest scope and showed the most complete confidence in him. The result was a full response in the most excellent spirit. To visitors his hospitality was unbounded.
War clouds were gathering when he ended his term of office, but soon new duties awaited him. A branch of Wah Yan College existed across the harbour in Kowloon, with the same origin as that in Hong Kong, It was offered in turn to the Society, and in preparation for taking it over some classes were opened in a new house in Kowloon. Fr. Gallagher became headmaster.
This lasted for only a few months, for then the Japanese came and he and Fr. McAsey were made prisoners on the ground that they were English enemies. To Fr. Gallagher's protests, captors answered : “English, Irish, all the same”. That certainly did not silence him, and his protests were so continuous that they agreed to put the matter to Tokyo, but promised dire retribution if his claims were false. Geography won, and the prisoners were released.
He spent the years of occupation in the hospital of the French Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres, where he tended the sick and wounded and dying kept up the morale of nervous Sisters and an anxious staff, and constantly acted as intermediary between the hospital and the Japanese authorities. During these years he endeared himself to all who were in the hospital and the convent, and was their weekly confessor for the rest of his life.
He was seriously weakened by the privations of the war and was sent back to Ireland for a year to regain strength. He came back greatly improved, but he was never quite the same again. For the years that remained he lived in Ricci Hall, the Hostel of the Hong Kong University, and Wah Yan College, Kowloon. The first task assigned him was chaplain to the Catholics in the government hospitals. He did it with his usual thoroughness and devotion. A telephone call in the middle of the night, or as he sat down to a meal, was answered at once, and the more frequent the calls the better he was pleased. Rheumatism in the hip however began to affect him severely. He found it hard to get in and out of cars, and eventually he had to relinquish the main part of his duty as hospital chaplain. But he never relinquished it altogether. He never failed to visit any sick person who wanted to see him - and there were many.
Then he was given as one of his regular tasks the recital of mid-day prayers for a quarter of an hour on the radio on one day a week. He continued this for over ten years, giving regular prayers and a short instruction. A great many people, in particular the sick and the old and the lonely, listened to them regularly. They were always fresh and always most carefully prepared. He prided himself on never missing them, and when he went to hospital for the last time, he was able to say that two were prepared in advance and that he had said them 659 times - he could never afford to be wrong about figures.
It was in reality a mercy that death came to him so swiftly, for he would have suffered greatly. He probably suffered more than he admitted, but to all enquiries about himself at any time, even when rheumatism seemed to make movement very painful, his answer was “Not too bad at all”, and nothing more would he say, To be inactive would have been to him the greatest trial, and we all feel that he died as he would have wished.
We shall long miss his genial presence, his charity - for none ever heard him say an uncharitable word; it was not merely after his death that this was noted of him - his stories, which we had heard so many times, his statistics of rainfall and of winds in typhoons, and his detailed remembrance of everything that had taken place during his thirty-three years in Hong Kong. He was a “character” at all times, but the youthful tornado had given place to kindly old age. He was loved and respected outside the Society as well as within it. At his funeral there were hundreds of people of every kind, priests in great number, Sisters and lay people of every class, Catholics and Protestants and pagans, old pupils, teachers, servants in our houses, convent amahs - and one felt that not a single one of them was there just as a formality, but that all felt that in him they had lost a friend. Messeges of regret and sympathy came from all sides, from the Protestant Bishop of Hong Kong and the Director of Education to simple souls who had never met him but had listened to his radio prayers or remembered a kind act of his. In the Mission of Hong Kong he will be always remembered, for he was one of the stalwarts who built it up and left it forever indebted to him. R.I.P.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Richard Gallagher 1887-1960
Fr Richard Gallagher, like his brother Fr Leonard, was remarkable for his gifts of versatility, energy and bonhomie. Born in Cork in 1887, he was educated the the Presentation College there.

Having completed his philosophical studies in Valkenburg, he was a scholastic in Mungret, where he laid the foundations of his reputation as a gifted and versatile man. His memory was prodigious, he could make up any subject with great rapidity, he gave lectures on all conceivable topics, he had a splendid voice of public concert standard, he painted and sketched at will. With all these gifts went unbounded energy, and a willingness to employ them at anyone’s request.

Transferred to Hong Kong in October 1927, one can easily imagine what a field he found for all these talents. It was typical of him that two hours after landing in Hong Kong, he preached in the Cathedral for the Feast of Christ the King. He was editor of The Rock, was on the professorial staff of the regional Seminary, he was the first Recotr of Wah Yan College. As Fr Vincent Byrne said of himself “I made Mungret so that Fr Dick could say I made Wah Yan!”

In 1940 he became headmaster of the new Wah Yan at Kowloon. Then came the Japanese occupation. His health suffered so much during this period, that the war over, he returned to Europe to recuperate. On his return he resumed his activities at a slower tempo. For ten whole years he gave a quarter of an hour’s prayer at midday on the Hong Kong Radio.

He died after a brief illness on September 7th 1960.

His name will live forever in Hong Kong, for he was one of the stalwarts who built it up, and left it forever indebted to him.

Born: 06 November 1898, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 16 September 1916, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 14 June 1932, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1935, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 14 July 1942, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Younger Brother of Richard Gallagher - RIP 1960

by 1927 in Australia - Regency at St Aloysius College, Sydney
by 1934 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Leonard Gallagher entered the Society in 1916 at Tullabeg, and after initial Jesuit studies was sent as a regent in 1925 to St Aloysius' College, and he taught there until mid~1929. He was also editor of the school magazine and assistant editor of the Jesuit Directory.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 17th Year No 4 1942

Obituary :

Rev Leonard Gallagher SJ

Fr. Gallagher, who was 44 at the time of his death, was a native of Cork City. He was a brother of Mr. Frank Gallagher, director of the Government Information Bureau, and of Fr. Richard Gallagher S.J. (Hong Kong). He entered the Society on 16th September, 1916. After completing his philosophical studies at Milltown Park he was sent in 1925 to Australia, then the Mission of the Irish Province, and spent four years as master in St. Aloysius College, Sydney. He returned in 1929 to do his theological studies in Milltown Park and was ordained there in 1932. After a period of teaching at Mungret College where he was for some years Prefect of Studies and Professor of Philosophy, he went to Gardiner Street in 1937.
As Assistant Director (to Fr. J Flynn) of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, he addressed hundreds of Pioneer Centres throughout Ireland, furthering the Cause of temperance, especially in the Secondary Schools. In conjunction with the Deans of Residence at University College, Dublin, he recently organised a very important centre of Total Abstinence among the students there. He was a gifted and popular preacher and author of several well-known writings on the spiritual formation of youth. He was Spiritual Director to branches of the St. Joseph’s Young Priests' Society. A tireless guide of souls in the Confessional, he spent himself in working for others. His amazing energy, good humour and selfless zeal endeared him to all classes. A writer in at certain Catholic paper said of him : “His booklets for boys and girls conveyed the sweetness of his spirit to tens of thousands of homes, but they were only a minor part of his indefatigable works.” By none will his death be more regretfully mourned than by the young patients of Cappagh Open Air Hospital, Finglas whose lives he helped to brighten in countless ways, and on whose behalf he made frequent appeals over the radio.
On Sunday, 12th July, with a splitting, burning headache he gave a one-day retreat to working girls at the Sacred Heart Convent Leeson Street - 5 lectures - and heard all the Confessions. That night he had violent pains all over the body and could not rest. Next morning he struggled down to say Mass and had to be helped back to his room. The doctor. who was called to see him, found his tonsils fearfully septic, and that evening he went into a nursing home . On Tuesday morning the doctor found him much worse and affected with partial paralysis. In the afternoon, at 3 o'clock, he received Extreme Unction most fervently, and died at 4 o'clock. His brother Mr. Frank Gallagher, and Fr. Superior were with him at the last. The funeral was an extraordinary tribute and demonstration, over a hundred priests were present (though half the Dublin diocesan priests were on retreat at the time). An Taoiseach, An Tanaiste, and many members of Cabinet were present, and there was an enormous congregation, and especially of the poor, at the Office and Mass, to do him honour and pray for his kindly soul. R.I.P.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Leonard Gallagher 1898-1942
The Province lost a lovable gifted and zealous young priest on the death of Fr Leonard Gallagher on July 14th 1942.

He came of a gifted Cork family, being a brother of Fr Dick Gallagher of the Hong Kong Mission and Mr Frank Gallagher, the well known writer and journalist.

Fr Leonard was himself the author of some pamphlets on the spiritual formation of youth. At the time of his early death he was Assistant Director of the Pioneer Association.

He was indefatigable in his work for souls in the confessional, in the hospitals and in giving retreats. But he was renowned above all for his personal gifts of gaiety and lovableness of character.

His funeral was one of the largest ever seen in Gardiner Street. The great crowd that filled the Church was a tribute of gratitude and affection for a priest who was the most unselfish of apostles and the most cheerful of givers.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1943

Obituary

Father Leonard Gallagher SJ

Mungret boys of the years 1934-37 must have been shocked to hear on July 14th, 1942, that Father Gallagher was dead. He was so much the live wire when he was here that death and he seemed likely to be strangers for many a long day. Yet now he was dead. Gone was the cheery, vivacious, humourous man full of energy, eager to do God's work and finding time to do many men's work. You remember him here - early at the altar every inorning his keenness there concentrated on the central act of his day; down for morning study, with a cheery word for the late-comer; round the classes breathing friendly fire, interested in every boy; out on the games field showing how it should be done or doing it with all zest. From preaching a sermon to mending a cricket net or decorating the stage - he had time to do them all well and to do them for you or for me but of course always to do them for God for whom he was literally on fire. The same eager enthusiasm he showed in the work of the ministry, in the great Pioneer work which was his main employment, in singing for poor slum children, in making up games to amuse them. Father Gallagher was prepared to do anything to help the cause of Christ. He died as he lived. He dragged his poor dying body down town and put in a last burst of energy to give a week-end retreat to poor city girls. Then he died. We give a short sketch of his life as it appeared in the press but we are sure that his memory is alive in the hearts of our boys - a bright, vivid, holy memory that will remind them to pray for him but perhaps more impor tant to live as he lived the life of a real follower of Christ on fire with love kindled by prayer.

“Father Gallagher, who was forty-four was a native of Cork City. He was brother of Mr Frank Gallagher, director of the Government Information Bureau; Rev Richard Gallagher SJ, Hong Kong; Mr Ronald Gallagher, BDSI, Waterford, and Sister Finbar, of St Mary's, Cappagh.

He entered the Society of Jesus in 1916 and after pursuing his philosophical studies at Milltown Park, Dublin, spent four years as master at St Aloysius' College, Sydney, Australia.

Returning to Ireland in 1929, he studied theology at Milltown Park, where he was ordained priest in 1932. After a further period of teaching at Mungret College, Limerick, where he was for some years Prefect of Studies and Professor of Philosophy, he came to Gardiner Street, Dublin, in 1937.

As Assistant Director of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Movement, he addressed hundreds of Pioneer Centres, furthering the cause of temperance, especially in the secondary schools. A vitally important centre of Total Abstinence he recently organised at University College, Dublin, in conjunction with the Deans of Residence.

A gifted and popular preacher, author of well-known writings on the spiritual formation of youth, Spiritual Director to branches of the St Joseph's Young Priests Society, a tireless guide of souls in the confessional, he spent himself in working for others.

His amazing energy, good-humour and zeal endeared him to all classes.

By none will his passing be more regretfully mourned than by the young patients of Cappagh Open Air Hospital, Finglas, whose lives he helped to brighten in countless ways, and on whose behalf he made frequent appeals from Radio Éireann.

Born: 30 December 1891, Richmond Terrace, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 24 March 1914, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1924, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1928, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 11 August 1966, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

Part of the Catholic Workers College, Ranelagh, Dublin community at the time of death

Educated at Mungret College SJ & Crescent College SJ

by 1917 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying

1926-1927 Tertianship at Tullabeg

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 41st Year No 4 1966
Obituary :

Fr Mortimer Glynn SJ (1883-1966)

Fr. Mortimer Glynn was educated at the Jesuit College, The Crescent, Limerick, Before entering the Jesuit Novitiate at Tullabeg in 1914, he had been a clerk in a Dublin insurance company. He was older at twenty-three than the average novice, yet he was a good “mixer”, congenial and blessed with a rich sense of humour. To his fellow-novices he seemed of frail health but on the football field or in the handball alley or leading a “company” on villa-day walks, he displayed amazing energy. His noviceship completed, he spent a short time at Rathfarnham Castle. He was in his twenty fifth year when he was sent directly to philosophy on Jersey Island, where the Paris Province had a house of studies. The First World War interrupted his third year and all the members of the Irish Province were recalled from the continent to the newly-established philosophate at Milltown Park. His three years “colleges” were spent at Mungret (1920-1923). Along with his duties as teacher in the classroom, he had charge of the boys' choir. As choir master, he was in his element, he possessed a good tenor voice and the gift of conveying to the boys the beauty of good singing. His theology was studied at Milltown Park and at the end of two years (profiting by a war privilege) he was ordained priest on the feast of St. Ignatius, 31st July 1925. His tertianship was spent at Tullabeg (1927). His next assignment was to Belvedere College. He was to spend twelve years at Belvedere and these years were probably the most remarkable in his life. He held a variety of offices and all with distinction. He was master in the junior house, choir master to the senior and junior houses, Minister for four years, Editor of The Belvederian and Spiritual Father to the community (1939). But it is as pioneer and producer of a very successful series of Gilbert and Sullivan operas that his name will be for ever linked with the history of music and theatricals in Belvedere College. Members of the community of this time will recall his uphill struggle to carry out his conviction that he could teach the boys a love of acting and an appreciation of the music of Gilbert and Sullivan. It certainly seemed unlikely that one so shy and retiring as Fr. Glynn, could succeed in ultimately making the college “opera-week” the talk of the town. Yet, that is what he achieved. Opera week became a social attraction; dignitaries of Church and State gladly accepted invitations; other schools in the city, envious of these triumphs sought to introduce the operas into their own schools. During opera week at Belvedere a peculiar atmosphere of joyful expectancy hung about the college and the Rector (Fr. P. Morris) often said, “if I wanted to reward a benefactor of the house, I would send him an invitation to opera week!” This was reported to Fr. Mortie, and he was intensely amused by the compliment. More than one professional producer came to learn from Fr. Glynn's arrangements of the stage with its enormous cast (for every mother wished her boy to be included in the conquests of this week). Another producer doubted that the cast was composed only of boys on the college roll, he asserted that past Belvederians supplemented the cast. Only when he was introduced to the cast enjoying a high tea in one of the parlours did he admit his error of judgment. Were we to try to analyse the source of Fr. Glynn's unquestionable success, we might mention a number of factors. He was an artist himself; could portray before the startled boys the various quips and gestures that suited a stage character; he could dance the required steps; he could sing any aria in the score; he could invent graceful movements which gave life and colour to the chorus; and he was so gentle and persuasive that the boys took courage and imitated what they had seen so wonderfully portrayed. Past Belvederians soon founded a Musical and Dramatic Society of their own and attributed their popularity and achievements to what they had learned from Fr. Glynn.
In 1940 Fr. Glynn's health showed signs of deterioration. A change of work, specially church work, appealed to him. He came to St. Francis Xavier's Church, Gardiner Street, and soon established himself as a kind confessor. He had charge of the youths' sodality and endeared himself to the boys and the leaders. He was settling down to this congenial work when he was appointed to a still more important work, Spiritual Father to the community of Rathfarnham Castle. Here he was to spend seven years (1941-48). He proved to be a wise counsellor and those young in heart found in him a sympathetic listener. He had experienced life in the world prior to entering the Society, and he often said that we all need imperatively is encouragement in serving our Good Master. He would be the last man to reveal his personal devotions or acts of piety. Yet, he couldn't hide from others his particular love of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. His furtive and frequent visits to the chapel were known to all who lived with him. In 1949 he returned to his alma mater, the Crescent, Limerick, where he was given the church work he loved. He had the direction of the Arch-Confraternity of the Bona Mors; and often preached on the blessings of dying in God's friendship. His former interests: in the stage and musical comedy were revived by contact with the Cecilian Musical Society, formed by past boys of the Crescent College. He became again the producer and met with the same phenomenal success. On one occasion over sixty of the past Belvederians travelled from Dublin to attend one of his productions. Little did they realise how sick a man he really was. First it was rheumatic fever; later he spent several months in hospital and was considered in danger of death. Tuberculosis was diagnosed and he was ordered to a sanatorium. He came to St. Mary's Chest Hospital, Phoenix Park, Dublin, in the summer of 1951 and for the next fifteen years he was an invalid. He refused to surrender. In St. Mary's Hospital he was fortunate to find as Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Kevin McArdle, who for many years was to do so much to lessen the hardship of his life by devoted personal friendship and consummate professional skill. Fr. Glynn showed incredible courage and determination. Doctors, nurses and visiting patients of the hospital were amazed at his hidden vitality. Sometimes Fr. Glynn improved so much that he was able to walk about the hospital and grounds. One might have thought he was permanently cured. In 1953 he was sent to Manresa Retreat House, where a former sports' pavilion was turned into a bungalow, admirably suited to his needs. Friends he had made in hospital and whose confidence he had won used come to see him. Occasionally, he was able to hear confessions in the retreat house. One official, attached to a golf club, said of him: “he was the gentlest priest I ever came across”. After eight years at Manresa, during which there were frequent visits to St. Mary's Hospital, a change of house was recommended by his doctor. He was appointed to the Catholic Workers' College. This house was to be his happy home for the last four years of his life. He endeared himself to everybody. For some months he was “up and doing”, then came spells of real sickness and exhaustion. He was so weak at times in these last years that people visiting him would not have been surprised to see him die. There were moments of complete helplessness when his breathing was extremely difficult and he was a pathetic sight to see. But no complaint was heard on his lips. The end came on Thursday, 11th August, in St. Vincent's Private Hospital. He had been suffering acute abdominal pains. An operation was thought advisable and Fr. Glynn was anxious that it should be tried. He rallied for some time after the operation but soon began to lose whatever strength he had gathered the previous days. He was well prepared to meet his Good Master (only Fr. Glynn could tell how often in his 75 years he had been fortified with the sacraments for the sick). It was his apostolate for nearly sixteen years to preach from a sick bed or from inside his room those strong Christian qualities : patience, courage in bearing pain, resignation to the will of his Creator, gentleness above all things. The last quality will always be associated with him by those who knew him well whether in the Society or outside it, the doctors, nurses, fellow-patients, penitents and the domestics of the hospitals and houses of Ours. “Well done! thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord!” could well have been Our Lord's greeting to the soul of Fr. Mortimer Glynn.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1967

Obituary

Father Mortimer Glynn SJ (OB 1908)

Fr Morty Glynn died after a severe illness on 11th August last. For the last fifteen years of so of his life he had been practically an invalid though, apart from relatively short periods in hospital, he continued to reside in various Jesuit houses. When he had entered the Society in 1914, older than the average at his age of twenty-three (he had been working as an insurance clerk), Fr Morty seemed to be of frail health but nevertheless capable of great energy. With his sense of humour he was an amusing companion. After the novitiate he studied in France for a time, then taught at Mungret College. He was ordained in 1925 and two years later was assigned to Belvedere.

Fr Glynn's twelve years in Belvedere College were quite remarkable. He held a variety of offices : master in the junior house, choir master to the senior and junior houses, minister for four years, editor of The Belvederian (1937), and Spiritual Father to the community. But it was as pioneer and producer of a very successful series of Gilbert and Sullivan operas that he will be best remembered. It seemed unlikely that so gentle and retiring a person as Fr Glynn could succeed in making the college “opera week” the talk of the town - yet that is what he did. The week became a great social attraction and seems to have led to the introduction of operas in other city schools. During the opera week there was a great atmosphere in Belvedere; invitation cards were much sought after. But the crowds came not merely for a social occasion; they were attracted principally by the high quality of the offering.

Fr Glynn was correct in his conviction that he could teach the boys in his casts a real love of acting and an appreciation of music. One measure of his success was the formation of the Old Belvedere Music and Dramatic Society formed by past pupils who attributed much of their success to what they had learned from him. Even professional producers came to learn from Fr Glynn's handling of the large opera casts. An artist himself, he could portray for the boys the actions of any character, dance the required steps, sing any song; his persuasive manner led the boys to imitation and thence to those wonderful productions which reached such a high standard for school performances.

In 1940 Fr Glynn's health showed signs of decline and over the next ten years he was in a succession of Jesuit houses in an effort to find some clime where he could continue to do good work. One place to which he was very happy to return was Crescent College, where he had been at school before coming to Belvedere. His former interest in the stage was revived by contact with the Cecilian Musical Society, formed from past pupils. Again he became a most successful producer. On one occasion over sixty Old Belvederians travelled from Dublin to attend one of his productions.

But by this time Fr Glynn was a really sick man. He spent some time, seriously ill, in hospital and in 1953 had recovered just sufficiently to take up residence in Manresa Retreat House. There many friends he had made in hospital came to see him. After eight years in Manresa he was stationed in the then Catholic Workers College, now known as the College of Industrial Relations. This house was to be a happy home for him during the last four years of his life. In those years he suffered greatly, and impressed greatly everybody who came in contact with him. They witnessed his great patience, courage and resignation; above all perhaps the gentleness that had characterised him all his life. It was in fact his apostolate during his later years to preach those virtues by example from his sick bed. The end came peacefully in hospital; Fr Morty was surely well prepared to meet his Master. God rest his soul.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Early Education at Belvedere College SJ

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

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

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

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

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

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

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

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

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

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1916

Obituary

Father Thomas Head SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Thomas Head (1842-1916)

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

Born: 29 January 1915, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1933, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 30 July 1947, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1950, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 17 May 1959, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 34th Year No 3 1959

Belvedere College
On Sunday, 17th May, Fr. Heron died very unexpectedly. He taught his classes as usual on the day before and said Mass early on that Sunday morning. About midday he complained of a slight chill and retired to bed. Later he refused tea and about 6 p.m. Brother Loftus visited him and found him dead. The Community and the boys were stunned by the tragic news and all who knew him here will fully endorse the tribute paid to him in the obituary notice which appears in this issue. On the following Tuesday the boys attended Requiem Mass said by Fr. Rector in the Boys Chapel. The senior classes attended the Solemn Requiem at Gardiner Street sung by Fr. Minister, with Fr. O'Callaghan deacon, Fr. Murray sub-deacon, and Fr. O'Sullivan M.O. The remainder of the boys joined the seniors at Glasnevin where they lined the walk from the Mortuary Chapel to the grave. Many messages of sympathy and tributes to Fr. Heron were received.

Obituary :
Fr Charles Heron (1915-1959)
Born in Dublin, 29th January, 1915. Educated Belvedere College. Noviceship: Emo 1933-35. Rathfarnham Castle: Degree of B.A. in English and French, 1938. Philosophy in Tullabeg. Theology: Milltown Park. Ordained 30th July, 1947 by His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. John Charles McQuaid. Tertianship: Rathfarnham Castle, 1948-49. Minister of Mungret College, Limerick, 1950-52. Belvedere 1952-59; Senior French Master, President of Senior Debating Society. Assistant Prefect of Studies in Belvedere, 1957-59.
Fr. Charlie Heron's very sudden death, on Whit Sunday, 17th May, 1959, was a profound shock not merely to his family and the Belvedere Community but to the whole Province. On Whit Sunday morning he admitted to having a slight chill and was persuaded to go to bed. Fr. Heron then telephoned his brother, Mr. Chris. Heron, to cancel an appointment. He said he felt a little off colour; that it was nothing; that he had felt a little dizzy. At two o'clock in the afternoon he refused to eat and apologised for the trouble he had caused. At six o'clock the Infirmarian, Br. Loftus, found that he had died quietly in his sleep.
Fr. Heron was above all a reliable man. If he were asked to do something one could be sure that it would be done and, if he were taking part in a joint enterprise, one could always presume with complete confidence that his part would be accomplished with faithful and even meticulous care. He was a most regular religious whose life was centred on his work. One's clearest memory of him, perhaps, is as seated in his chair with a mound of corrected exercises on one side, a heap on his knees and another pile of theme books waiting to be done. He was silent and very reserved. Those who knew him well, however, were well aware of his verbal wit and his great capacity for enjoying wit in others. He was an easy and a pleasant man to live with: perhaps because he had those rather old-fashioned and valuable things - exquisite manners.
Professionally Fr. Heron was beyond reproach. His knowledge of the French language was remarkable for its erudition and scientific accuracy. He had singular success with his classes and one of his pupils won first place in Ireland in French in the Leaving Certificate: an unusual prize to be won by a boy. He went to great pains to see that his pupils had a practical reading knowledge of French by keeping them supplied with a carefully-chosen and copious amount of reading matter. Belvedere will long be in his debt for the quite remarkable library of modern French literature which he managed to build up. When one realises that all these books were bought very cheaply when Fr. Heron was doing parish supplies in France almost every summer and that they were acquired at the cost of many weary and hot afternoons searching the book-barrows on the banks of the Seine one is more than grateful to him. His work in the Senior Debating Society was symbolically crowned with success when, a few weeks ago, he listened to the B.B.C. programme celebrating the victory of the University College Dublin team and the personal victory of one of his own ex-pupils (Mr. Owen Dudley-Edwards) in the inter-university debating competition against all comers from Britain and Ireland.
The many choir-masters under whom he sang will remember the remarkable range of Fr. Heron's fine bass voice. His contemporaries will recall with pleasure his performance as “Shadbolt” in Milltown Park, But his favourite music, typically enough, was Bach: be could easily be persuaded to listen to a gramophone record of the Branden burger Concertos or the partita for unaccompanied violin.
Very close bonds of mutual trust and confidence bound him to his family. Since his mother's death he was, by their own testimony, an immense moral strength to his brother and his two sisters. Their loss has been great. We too have lost an example of the best kind of Jesuit as well as the company of a delightful companion. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1959

Obituary

Father Charles Heron SJ

On Whit-Sunday afternoon, May 17, Father Charles Heron SJ, our friend, colleague and master lay down in bed to nurse a suspected chill and that afternoon, while the city and his friends were enjoying the glories of summer outside, he died. The shock of the staternent does not reflect the shock of the occurrence to all of us who lived with him for years, to those who were his pupils and to the numbers of his friends and contemporaries. He had been on our staff for eight years and had been a pillar among us. It seemed likely that a man of his powerful physique, his regular habits and his magnificent health would live to be legend among us. For he had the makings of a legend in him. He was admired for his tall athletic figure, his prowess as a golfer, his keen judgement of football, at which he had been so redoubtable a forward. He was respected for his steady sane approach to life, its problems and troubles, He was capable of inspiring awe by his utter devotion to the planned life whether in the class-room or among his brothers in religion. He seemed to be in full control of events and of himself, so that there were no real emergencies which had to be faced without preparation. His person, his room, his class-work, his thernes, his very organisation of debates or selling French magazines all bore the same characteristic unhurried care, advance rational thought, calm execution. Never was man better prepared by his temper and by the practice of his life for the death which came to him. It came suddenly, but for it, a lifetime had made Charles Heron very ready indeed. Even in his earliest pictures in the Belvederian, as in his latest, the steady eye looks out at the world, an eye with an jaward-slow sense of humour but the eye of a poised man who is confident of the goal whither he goes. This college feels and will continue to feel, his loss deeply. His confrères will miss his devoted regularity founded on the deepest religious principles and the most rooted natural traits. His pupils will miss his thorough and really magisterial work for them. None more apt could have taken and worn the cloak of the great Mr Fogarty. His friends of Old Belvedere for whom his character held few surprises, will feel they have lost a solid bulwark in all their difficulties. His family, will feel that the most profoundly affectionate, if undemonstrative, of family men is lost to them. We are united in our loss and in our appreciation of this fine man, religious and friend who bas been taken from us to his early crown and bappiness.

Charles Heron entered Belvedere in First of Grammar in 1924 and went through the full course here until 1932. His record was one of solid application rather than brilliance, though it must be noted, as the small cloud no bigger than a man's hand, that from the first he was a prizewinner in French. He was a member of Paddy Quinn's Cup winning Junior team in 1928-29 and in the next three years was on the cup-teams, once on the Junior team and again on the Senior team for two years. Someone, who knew not his Charles, wrote in the Belvederian of those years that he lacked determination. This is something that he simply never did lack. In his last year he was prefect and member of the Sodality of Our Lady. In September 1932 he entered Emo Park as a novíce of the Society. He followed the Jesuit course of formation in his usual unperturbed, devout methodical way. After his novitiate, Rathfarnham and University College, where he specialised in languages for three years; Tullamore, where he read philosophy for three years; teaching and prefecting in Mungret and Clongowes for three further years, Milltown Park for four years during which he was ordained priest in July 1946; tertianship in Rathfarnham, 1947 1948. The long course ended, he left to become Minister and Vice-Rector of Mungret, here he remained until he came to Belvedere in 1951. Though he was a man ever ready to do his duty where it lay yet it is quite certain that his return to Belvedere was a great joy to him. Here he felt he had his roots, here his interest was keen and he knew that the problems were familiar to him. Here he worked with closest application, here he lived his regular life of prayer, work and the recreation of his beloved golf or watching with appreciative eye' the boys at their games. Here he died quietly and regularly. Here he has left his monument in our hearts and in our memories. We will all be edified in our own lives by the memory of this tolerant, sane, devoted man who spent his life of quiet devotion to God in his chosen vocation of saving his own soul and the souls of others. These others we are. May he rest in peace.

Born: 30 September 1892, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1910, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1924, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1928, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 23 January 1965, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

by 1916 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
1918-1921 Rathfarnham - Studied for BA at UCD
by 1927 at Valkenburg, Limburg, Netherlands (GER I) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 40th Year No 2 1965
Fr Jerry Higgins SJ (1892-1965)
Fr. John Casey was for many years Spiritual Father to the philosophers in Tullabeg. He was level-headed and solidly sound, and in clear-cut statements gave carefully measured advice. To a philosopher about to begin his colleges he remarked : “I see you are assigned to the Crescent. I see you are the only scholastic there. I see too that Fr. Higgins is going there from Galway. Make a friend of Fr. Higgins. He is a man who will say little at recreation. But visit him in his room. You will find him kind and helpful. He is a friend worth having”.
Fr, Bat Coughlan was a rock of wisdom and learning, a confessor sought after by laymen and priests. “If ever I meet a case”, he once said, “that requires patience and kindness and understanding I know no one better to whom to send it than to Fr. Higgins, I am reluctant, however, to impose on him because I know how much such cases cost him in physical energy”.
These are unsolicited testimonies from two very different men, These were men who had lived with Fr. Higgins and had come to know his worth. Those who had not lived with him or who never broke through his quiet reserve found it difficult to keep in conversation with him. When one knew Fr. Higgins, conversation either flowed naturally or the silences were restful. One did not feel the need to talk, a friend was near. Fr. Higgins will be remembered with affection by all those who lived with him especially in Gardiner Street and more especially during the seven years when he was Minister. It was as Minister that he was forced to show to all, gifts that were well known to his intimate friends. His room as Minister was a “half-way house” for every member of the community, and he was everyone's friend. He was never fussed, one got the impression that the complicated and ever changing weekly lists of preachers, supplies and Masses worked automatically, Fr. Higgins had a charm that attracted every one to him, he was cultured and refined. He knew and loved a good book, he delighted in good pictures and appreciated good music. He read German, French, Italian and Irish classics in their original language, and he wrote perfect Latin with ease and his sermons in English were considered to be gems of literature - many have expressed the hope that they have been preserved and may perhaps be published. Fr. Higgins spent most of his life in the classroom. With his rich background of wide reading and his naturally well ordered mind and a manner, though quiet, demanded respect, he was a teacher well above average. Teaching, however, must have been a trial to him, because he was not the type that would force an unwilling horse to drink ! He was at his best when his listeners were sympathetic. Intellectual converts appreciated him. On every page of the Baptismal Register in Gardiner Street his name appears and often more than once, during his years there. He has an uncanny gift of finding the exact book that answered all the needs of the varied converts whom he instructed during his years in Gardiner Street. One would think that it was just by chance that he picked the right book-but far from it. His knowledge of the good books was wide and his judgment on a piece of writing was accurate and fair. He loved a good joke, and could tell one. He could sum up a person or a situation in a few words that said everything.
Fr. Higgins detested the sham and the artificial in every department, education, spiritual life, national life. His keen and balanced judgment saw through every facade. It was no light cross for him to bear with those who were satisfied with the second-best. Fr. Jerry was a delightful companion on a journey and he 'made' a villa. To the last years of his life he had the gift of joining in the general fun of men twenty or thirty years his junior. A game of cards where Jerry took a hand was sure to be an enjoyable game, if for no other reason than that he gave himself wholeheartedly to it. Order and neatness and regularity and painstaking care to detail marked everything he did. One would venture to say that nowhere in the Province are there Ministers' books written up-to date with a minimum of words and a maximum of information as one will find in Gardiner Street covering the years that Fr. Jerry was Minister there. As a confessor he had a big following of hard cases. “Go to Fr. Jeremiah” was a cant-phrase in the underworld of human weakness. The cardinals in the church missed him much when unable to be their Spiritual Director. The nurses in the Mater wept when he died. He is missed in Gardiner Street community, too. Ar dheis Dé go raibh sé.

Born: 03 February 1843, Ballinabranagh (Walshtown), County Carlow / Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 04 October 1860, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 1875, St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales
Final Vows: 02 February 1879
Died: 16 June 1912, Milltown Park, Dublin

Older brother of William Hughes- RIP 1902 and Joseph Hughes - RIP 1878

by 1864 at Namur Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1868 at St Bueno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1874 at St Bueno’s Wales (ANG) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Older brother of William Hughes- RIP 1902 and Joseph Hughes - RIP 1878

He was a Teacher and prefect at Clongowes and Tullabeg.
He made Tertianship at Milltown.
He was for some years Procurator at Tullabeg, Milltown and finally at the Novitiate in Dromore, where he died 11 April 1888.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Hughes 1834-1888
Fr John Hughes – and there were other men of the same name, all great men – was born in Carlow in 1834, the eldest of an orphaned family. Having settled all his brothers and sisters in life, he himself entered the Society in 1862.

He had already two of his brothers in the Society – Frs William and Joseph. Fr John was a splendid farmer, and he was in charge of the farm at Tullabeg, Mungret, Milltown Park, and finally in our Northern house, Loyola, at Dromore. He is responsible for the plantations at Tullabeg and Mungret.

While Procurator at Dromore, he made a great name for himself at the Belfast market for his excellent breed of sheep, and he was prizewinner at many of the local shows.

He died on April 11th 1888, and was buried at Dromore under the shadow of the Cathedral, dedicated to St Colman.

Born: 03 November 1837, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 December 1860, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 19 September 1874, Laval, France
Final Vows: 01 November 1878
Died: 08 March 1904, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

Older brother of John J Hughes RIP - 1912

by 1863 at Roehampton, London (ANG) studying
by 1864 at Rome, Italy (ROM) studying Theology 1
by 1872 at Laval, France (FRA) studying
by 1876 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Belvedere and St Finian’s, Navan before Ent. (Older brother of John J Hughes RIP 1912??)

After First Vows he was sent to Roehampton for Rhetoric, and then returned for Regency at Clongowes and Tullabeg.
He was then sent to Laval for Theology, and in the company of Edmund Donovan, was Ordained there.
He was then sent to Drongen for Tertianship. along with Joseph Tuite and Daniel Clancy.
He was then sent to Clongowes as Minister for two years.
1877-1882 He was sent to Crescent as teacher and Operarius.
Then he was sent to Mungret as Procurator, which had just been handed over to the Jesuits. He put everything on a good footing there.
1883-1887 He was appointed Procuator of the Province, and during the latter years of this was also involved in the Mission Staff.
1888 He was appointed Rector of Galway, and continued his involvement in the Mission Staff. On Father Ronan’s retirement, he was appointed Superior of the Mission Staff. This was a post he filled to great satisfaction. He was a man of sound common sense, and was well remembered by many religious communities who listened keenly to his exhortations.
During the last few years of his life he suffered a lot, and felt keenly the requirement to retire, which had come too soon. He died peacefully at St Vincent’s Hospital, where he had undergone surgery, 08 March 1904.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Patrick Hughes (1837-1904)

Brother of the preceding (John), was educated at Belvedere College and St Finnian's, Navan. He made his higher studies in Rome and Laval. In 1876, he arrived at the Crescent and spent six years here as master and member of the church staff. He was subsequently, bursar of the Province, Rector of St. Ignatius', Galway (1888-91) and superior of the mission staff. He died at Milltown Park.

Born: 25 October 1866, Lemington, Northumberland, England
Entered: 29 August 1883, Milltown Park, Dublin / Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 30 July 1899, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1902
Died: 26 June 1908, St John’s Hospital, Limerick

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

by 1894 at Enghien Belgium (CAMP) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was brought up a Protestant and was a chorister at his local Church, but always showed a keen interest in Catholic ceremonies. The Organist at his local Church became a Catholic, and James aged 14 along with two other choristers followed suit. The Priest who received them wrote to the then HIB Provincial, Thomas Browne, recommending James for the Society, suggesting that it would be better for him to get away from England and home influences. James himself also wrote to the Provincial, and he in turn was very impressed by the letter. He eventually accepted him into the Society 29 August 1883.

After First Vows he studied at Milltown and Enghien, and then Theology at Milltown. In the meantime he also did a Regency at Clongowes, including being Minister for a year, and then was sent to Belvedere.
His health was always somewhat poor, and he suffered a good deal before his death at St John’s Hospital in Limerick 26 June 1908.
He was thought to be a very gentle, lovable and refined man, and always pious and edifying.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father James Jeffcoat 1866-1908
In Lemington England in 1866 was born James Jeffcoat of Protestant parents. As a boy he had a very religious turn of mind, very interested in Catholic ceremonies and practices. He was a chorister in the Protestant Church at Lemington. The organist of this church became a Catholic, and young Jeffcoat, then 14 years of age, followed him into the Church. The Catholic priest there wrote to Fr Thomas Brown, then Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society, highly recommending young Jeffcoat as a candidate for the Society. The boy himself wrote and made a very good and pleasing impression on Fr Brown. The young convert was received into the Irish Province in 1883. He was one of those who made their noviceship in Dromore.

As a scholastic he taught at Clongowes and Belvedere and later on was Minister at Clongowes. However, his health was always rather bad. He spent his last years in Mungret. He suffered very much before bhis death which took place at St John’s Hospital, Limerick on June 20th 1908, at the comparatively early age of 42.

He was a very gentle, lovable, refined man, pious and edifying always.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father James Jeffcoat (1866-1908)

An Englishman and a convert, entered the Society in 1883 and after higher studies at Enghien and Milltown Park, was ordained in Dublin in 1899. For a short period, he was assistant director of the Messenger office, at Belvedere College and had been minister in the same house and Clongowes, before he came to the Crescent in 1905. He died here on 26 June, 1908.

Born: 15 October 1849, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 March 1868, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1885
Final Vows: 02 February 1889, Mungret College SJ Limerick
Died: 11 December 1918, Llandindrod Wells, Wales

Middle brother of Robert I - RIP 1929 and William V - RIP 1945
Cousin of Joseph McDonnell - RIP 1928

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1871 at Roehampton, London (ANG) studying
by 1873 At Vals, France (TOLO) studying
by 1883 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying
by 1888 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1901 in Collège Sainte Famille, Cairo, Egypt (LUGD) Military Chaplain and Teacher
by 1904 at St Mary’s, Rhyl (ANG) working
by 1912 at Llandrindod, Wales (ANG) working

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :

Middle brother of Robert I - RIP 1929 and William V - RIP 1945
Like his brothers, he was of no ordinary talent. He studied Theology at St Beuno’s and was professor of Theology at Milltown.

He had taught at Clongowes and Mungret and was Spiritual Father at Galway. Later he was a Missioner at Tullabeg and an Operarius at Llandindrod Wells, Wales. He led a hardworking life in the latter until his death there 11 December 1918.

Under the heading “Spa’s Loss” the following appeared in a local paper after his death
“We regret sincerely to record the death of Father Patrick Kane, pastor of the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Ransom Llandindrod Wells, which occurred on Wednesday at Llandindrod Wells.
Father Kane was for some years working in the interests of the Catholic Mission in Wales at Rhyl, and came to Llandindrod Wells in November 1911. He took great pains to make himself proficient in the Welsh language, which he spoke very well. He was a diligent student of the literature history and antiquities of Wales, and for many years took and direct and personal interest in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the Principality. he was admitted by examination to the Bardic Circle, his title being ‘Maol Daffyd’.
The Welsh language was not the only one with which he was acquainted, for he was an accomplished linguist, and gave great joy to the Belgian refugees who were at one time entertained in Llandindrod Wells, by conducting services in their own tongue. In this an in many other ways he rendered signal service to those unfortunate people, who will always remember his great kindness to them.
Father Kane was a member of the Library Committee, but his tastes did not lie in the direction of public work. He laboured, as it were, in the dark, his gentle unassuming nature leading him to do his good work by stealth. Only those who have received the benefit of his services have any conception of the good he really did. In the poorest quarters of the town and district, where his activities were chiefly centred, he will be long and sincerely mourned, for he was in the best sense of the term both a spiritual and material Father to them.
Self-denial was the keynote of his existence. No genuine appeal was ever made to him in vain, and whatever his means, his heart was infinitely larger. There can be little doubt that the way in which he denied himself for the sake of others had a deleterious effect upon his health, and that i this respect he gave his life for others”.

Note from Robert I Kane Entry :
“Father Robert Kane SJ, well known as ‘the Blind Orator’ died at Milltown Park.... The son of William J Kane of Dublin and his wife Mary MacDonnell of Saggart ... he was a nephew of Sir Robert Kane, distinguished Irish scientist, author of “The Industrial Resources of Ireland”, and first cousin to the famous Admiral Henry Kane.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Patrick Kane 1849-1918
Fr Patrick Kane was one of three brothers, all of whom became Jesuits, each of whom were outstanding men, and each remarkable in his own way. Their father was Sir Robert Kane, eminent author of “The Industrial Resources of Ireland”, published in 1844. Patrick was born in Dublin on October 15th 1849, was educated at Clongowes and entered the Society in 1868.

During his theological studies at St Beuno’s Wales, he became interested in all things Welsh, the language, the customs, and especially the religious plight of the people. There was born in him the desire to devote his life to the conversion of Wales, an ambition he never lost sight of him his various offices in the Society, as a Master in Clongowes and Mungret, Spiritual Father in Galway, Professor of Theology at Milltown Park and Missioner at Tullabeg. He became proficient the Welsh languages.

Te reward of his steady application was seen in 1908, when in Tullabeg he underwent the searching examination lasting four hours, for the title of Bard. He was solemnly installed as Bard at the Eisteddfod at Llangollen the same year, taking the title Maol Dafydd, the Servant of David. He was the first priest ever to become a Bard. In 1911 he finally achieved his ambition and was appointed to Llandrindod Wells. Here he began a life truly apostolic in its nature, struggling against difficulties and apathy. He lived in poverty, refusing to accept help from home, giving of his own slender resources “in the poorer quarters of the town where his activities chiefly centred”.

“There cane be little doubt that the way in which he denied himself for the sake of others had a deleterious effect on his health, and that in this respect, he gave his life for others”. On his arrival there were 34 Catholics in the parish, and on his death he left behind his 100 Catholics, not a very imposing achievement in terms of numbers, but from the point of view of his own devotedness and self-dedication, precious in the sight of God, and enough to merit him the additional title “Apostle of Wales”.

He died on December 11th 1918, in the words of Fr MacErlean “A dreamer, if you like, but a dreamer whose dreams were of the extension of Christ’s Kingdom on earth”.

◆ The Clongownian, 1919

Obituary

Father Patrick Kane SJ

At Llandrindod Wells, in his adopted country, Father Patrick Kane passed away on the 11th of last December. He was one of three brother Jesuits, two of whom, Fathers Robert and William Kane, are still with us. Let us briefly tell the story of his life. Born in 1849 he went with his brother Robert to Clongowes in 1859. He was one of the comparatively few who have passed from Elements to Rhetoric, spending eight years in the College. He was then, as an affectionate pen has described him, “A good. humoured merry boy, without thought of care or worry, full of fun, witty, clever, healthy and hardy. He was fonder of walks and chats than of games, but in one game - stilts - he was the champion of the house and won many a famous victory.

In 1867 he was sent to TCD, but its uncongenial atmosphere was for him a veritable purgatory, and after a period of severe mental trial, he entered the Noviceship of the Society of Jesus at Milltown Park. On the completion of his studies he returned to Clongowes as prefect in 1875 and as master in the following year. This was destined to be his last stay at his old College.

In 1885, after studies at St Beuno's, North Wales, he was ordained. From that date until about 1901 he was, except for a period as chaplain at Cairo, engaged in teaching in various colleges of the Order in Ireland. We hardly care to attempt in so slight a sketch any picture of his personality, still less of his inward spiritual life. He was a man of highly ideal and intellectual disposition, so much so as to be habitually neglectful of outward material things. His manner, as all knew him will testify, was singularly gentle and refined. His nature was diffident and retiring. These few traits were obvious to all.

In 1903 came the first sign of hope that a certain aspiration which he had cherished for years might at last be ful filled. This aspiration was to devote his life to the conversion of Wales. He had convinced himself that the Welsh people had never deliberately given up the Faith it had perished from their midst for lack of preachers and teachers, for Wales had been left with out a priesthood. In 1903 he was sent ito Rhyl, North Wales, and profited by the chance to acquire a speaking knowledge of the language which for nearly twenty years he had been secretly studying. But the final fulfilment of his hopes was to be deferred for many a year yet. It was not till 1911 that his holy dream came true. He was given the small Welsh mission of Llandrindod Wells, and there the remainder of his life was to be spent.

Some years before going to Wales he had passed the difficult examination - it included Welsh literature, history, antiquities, and music - for the highest Welsh literary degree, that of Bard, and our readers will remember a portrait of him, dressed in his flowing Bardic robes, which appeared in our pages. Henceforth he was Welsh in heart and soul and to the end never waveredd in his allegiance.

Father Patrick's manner of life in Llandrindod may be gathered from a letter written shortly after his death to his brother, Father Robert, by Father Matthew Power SJ.

All the time I was with him he was living or dying on semi-starvation fare and would brook no expostulation from me or anybody else. With the coming of the Belgian refugees to Mid Wales, his labours increased tenfold. Rising at five be very often went without breakfast to mid-day. No housekeeper could stand his irregularity at his so-called meals. He was dying on bis feet and in the train of lack of sleep and food. His only recreation was to meet his fellow-bards at tbeir annual Eistedfodd. His enthusiasm for Wales and her people and her literature was boundless, and his hopes for her conversion irrepressible, I have seen him in a procession of the Blessed Sacrament on the open road, surrounded by not more than twenty Catholics. I have beard him preach in “too literary Welsh”, as natives said, to these people in his little church and to four adults and twenty children in tbe public street in English. On Sunday he addressed two sermons to his flock, one in English and the other in good French - and excellent touches they were. Always tired, he never admitted it or ever gave in. Heart and soul he was with the Welsh, not the Irish or English. The land of his adoption and its reclamation from its heresy were the be-all and the end-all of his devoted life. Some of his converts, as always happens, proved unsatisfactory, but he never lost faith in them. Truly his was a consecrated life, passed in every kind of hardship, and hidden with the hiddenness of the Saints of God. Like me, Father William Kane remonstrated with him but to no effect. He would spend himself and be spent on his apostolic mission, fruitful or unfruitful. Little did the Welsh know who was among them toiling and praying for their salvation. Nothing about Wales ever dispirited him and nothing out of Wales ever interested him. His own Irish boy-pupil was a laggard in the study of Welsh. He never gave him up, but pegged away at his dreary tuition. It was plain to all that he could not long stand a life like this.... I dread to ask about his flock and the Church of Our Lady of Ransom. I fear they are, indeed, Shepherdless. I know Wales pretty well and feel that his gain of life has left them very poor indeed. I should like to know if you can find time to tell me the circumstances of the death of this man of God and the place of his burial. I trust be sleeps where he worked and prayed on that barren soil...,. You may remember me as an old boy of yours.
Yours respectfully in Xt,

M Power SJ

It was in October of last year that disquieting news of Father Kane's health began to come from Llandrindod. Father William went over to Wales and had his brother be moved to a private hospital. Towards the end of November the third brother, Father Robert, went across to see the invalid and the two Jesuit brothers who, from early youth, had been twin spirits united by the deepest affection and sympathy, were together for the last time. The end came unexpectedly while both his brothers were far away. It was not only the members of his tiny flock that followed his remains to the grave: a very large number of non-Catholic fellow-townsmen mourned him sincerely.

Writers in non-Catholic newspapers vied with one another in generous tributes to his memory. They spoke of his gentle unassuming nature, his widespread unobtrusive charity doing good by stealth, of the love he inspired in the poor, his utter self-denial, his entire devotion to his life-work for Wales.

Reluctantly we close here this scant record of a noble life.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Patrick Kane (1849-1919)

Younger brother of Father Robert Kane (v. infra), was born in Dublin and entered the Society in 1868. He was ordained at the theologate of the English Province in 1885. Father Kane spent two periods as master at the Crescent, 1879-82 during his regency and again in 1909-11. He was sometime lecturer in philosophy and theology at Milltown Park. Father Kane, though a man of very high intellectual gifts, had little aptitude for teaching. His bent lay in the direction of missions and retreats. As a result of a mission given in Wales, he resolved to work permanently amongst the Welsh people and at the age of fifty-two set about the task of learning the Welsh language. His success was such that he received the Welsh bardic distinction. From 1911 until his death he laboured in apostolic poverty at Llandrindod Wells

Born: 11 January 1856, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 06 October 1891, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1898, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 25 March 1909, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 19 July 1945, Mungret College, County Limerick

Youngest brother of Robert I - RIP 1929 and T Patrick - RIP 1918
Cousin of Joseph McDonnell - RIP 1928

by 1894 at Enghien Belgium (CAMP) studying
by 1895 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1908 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1919 at LLandrindod, Wales (ANG) working

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Youngest brother of Robert I - RIP 1929 and T Patrick - RIP 1918
Note from Robert I Kane Entry :
“Father Robert Kane SJ, well known as ‘the Blind Orator’ died at Milltown Park.... The son of William J Kane of Dublin and his wife Mary MacDonnell of Saggart ... he was a nephew of Sir Robert Kane, distinguished Irish scientist, author of “The Industrial Resources of Ireland”, and first cousin to the famous Admiral Henry Kane.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 20th Year No 4 1945

Obituary :

Fr. William Kane (1856-1891-1945)

On July 19th, 1945, at Mungret College, Limerick, Fr. William Kane peacefully died in the 90th year of his age and the 54th year of his religious life.
Fr. William Kane was born in Dublin on January 11th, 1850. He was a nephew of the celebrated scientist Sir Robert Kane, F.R.S., and first cousin of Rear-Admiral Sir Henry Kane, world-famous as commander of H.M.S. "Calliope," which by his skill he saved from destruction in a tornado that swept over Apia Harbour, Samoa, on March 17th, 1889. Having completed his secondary education at Stonyhurst College and at the Oratory School, Birmingham, then under the direction of Newman, he studied law at Trinity College, Dublin, taking out his degrees of B.A, and LL.D. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1879. In 1888 he accompanied Sir James Marshall to the Niger Territories as a Junior Judge, and subsequently succeeded Sir James as Chief Justice. He resigned this post in 1889; and on his return to Europe, was called to the English Bar. Two years later he joined the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, of which two of his brothers, Frs. Robert and Patrick Kane were already members. He studied Philosophy at Jersey and Theology at Milltown Park, Dublin. He was ordained priest in 1898, and made his solemn profession in 1909.
Having spent two years at Milltown Park as Professor of the Short Course of Theology, Fr. Kane joined the staff of Mungret College in 1901. With the exception of his year of tertianship at Tronchiennes, another year as Professor of Philosophy at Milltown Park, and a short period of parochial duty at Llandrindod Wells after the death of his brother Fr. Patrick, Fr. Kane was a member of the Mungret community until his death last July. He taught in the secondary school and in the classes preparing for the Arts and B.A. degree examinations of the Royal University. He was Editor of the Mungret Annual for several years. But the greater part of his life in Mungret was devoted to the intellectual and professional training of the Apostolic students as Professor of Philosophy. Advancing age obliged him at length to retire from active life, but to the end he was an assiduous reader, and retained his faculties unimpaired to within a day or two of his death.
Fr. Kane's acute and vigorous mind embraced a variety of recondite branches of learning-Philosophy, Theology, Physics, Astronomy, Botany, higher Mathematics. Anything ke knew, he had thoroughly mastered ; and his memory, even in extreme old age, was amazingly fresh and accurate. Ever eager to impart the rich stores of his knowledge, he was prepared at a moment's notice either to range at large over wide fields of knowledge or to discuss some abstruse problem in minute detail. A year or two before his death I was taking a stroll with him on the Philosophers' Walk in Mungret. It was the month of May, and the Philosophers were seated here and there under the trees preparing for the oncoming examinations. Two of them approached us and said to Fr. Kane: "Father, we have a difficulty which we would like you to solve for us"; and they stated it. Fr. Kane replied at once “Schiffini deals with that point”, and then and there cleared up the whole matter in a few words. It struck me at the time that if he had received a day's notice in which to consult his authorities, he could not have given a more complete and satisfactory answer.
Yet while his learned ‘sock’ was ever on, Fr. Kane's social gifts made him an excellent community man. He had a large fund of good stories and amusing anecdotes, and was always ready to cap a witticism with one better. He took part in concerts and entertainments, singing with great go, and biretta pertly cocked on the side of his head, a Latin version of "Father OʻFlynn." He was a keen cricketer, fielding brilliantly at "point" with quick eye and sure hand. He took a prominent part in the activities of a villa, especially in mountaineering. I have often heard him say that he had climbed to the summit of Carrantuohill on four different occasions. Few, I think, have made the ascent so often.
Not the least pleasing features of Fr. Kane's character were his harmless drolleries. Lacking to some degree in a sense of humour, he would take almost any statement literally, a fact wbich laid him open to much "leg-pulling.” He had made a careful study of the topography and antiquities of Limerick, and misstatements, usually deliberate, I fear, regarding the streets and bridges of the city, invariably elicited from him a vigorous and uncompromising correction. On such occasions you took your life in your hands, for when the interests of truth were at stake, Fr. Kane gave no quarter. His previous legal training manifested itself in the cross-questioning to which he subjected you on apparently unimportant details connected with some incident you were relating. Or again, if you proposed some problem calling for lengthy explanation, you might expect to be served with sheets-usually the backs of envelopes-filled with facts, references, charts, etc., more or less undecipherable.
But these foibles of the “old Judge”, as we loved to call him, were but the surface of things. Beneath was the man of high intelligence, wide and deep culture, a gentleman in the full meaning of Newman's analysis of that term, a religious in accordance with the Institute of the Society. Of the virtues with which he was adorned I shall mention but one, the greatest of all, namely his charity. Fr. Kane was a man of strong character and convictions ; yet though I have lived with him for over twenty years, I cannot recall having ever heard him say an unkind word of anyone, or speak with disparagement either of his religious brethren, or of the general body of the clergy or laity, or of men in public life. Eternal rest and light to his soul; and may God continue to bless our Province with men endowed with the eminent talents and solid piety of Fr. William Kane.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father William Kane 1856-1945
Fr William Kane, the third of the famous Jesuit trio of the Kanes, was commonly known as “The Judge” for the fact that he had been a judge in Nigeria before entering the Society.

Born in Dublin on January 11th 1856, he received his early education at Stonyhurst and The Oratory Birmingham. At rthe suggestion of Newman, he studied Law at Trinity College Dublin, taking his BA and LLD degrees. He was called to the Irish Bar in1879, and ten years later to the English Bar. Meanwhile he held the post of Chief Justice iun Lagos Nigeria. In 1891 he became a Jesuit.

He professed the short course at Milltown for two years, and then in 1901 he went to Mungret, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was so long there that he became a symbol of the place, being especially dear to generations of Apostolics to whom he professed philosophy for so long.

He was a man of deep, one might almost say rigid religious conviction, a scholar and a gentleman, in the full meaning of Newman’s definition of that term. He was never known to criticise anybody publicly though he could inveigh with vehemence what he thought was improper or incorrect.

As Spiritual Father his Triduum to the scholastics at Christmas was always on the Three Wise Men, and especially on the mysterious star. Indeed, more often than not, like the Wise Men, he used lose the guiding star of his discourse.

Active up to the last two years of his life, he passed on to his reward on July 19th 1945, after a strenuous life of faithful service.

Fr Kane’s Memento for the Living was always made at length and aloud, and included even those in high places with whom he disagreed in politics. It is hoped that his many pupils all over the world will remember him in their Memento for the Dead.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1926

Mungret Jubilee

Father William V Kane SJ

It is twenty-five years since Father William Kane was placed on the staff of Mungret College, and since then his connection with the School has been practically continuous. It would be very ungracious - to say the least.. to let such an anniversary pass without some acknowledgment.

Fr Kane has given to Mungret the service of a quarter of a century. He has expended generously, without counting the cost, his talent and energy; he has laboured long and unselfishly in a field where the sower does not. always-nor often-see his harvest. For some years past he has not been teaching the Intermediate classes, and thus has not been in direct contact with the Lay School. He no longer plays the games - “old boys” wlio are not yet too venerable will remember how steadily he batted in Community matches and whát a dangerous man he was at point - but he has still the deepest interest in all that concerns the Lay School.

But his principal work has been done in the Apostolic School. For over fifteen years as the chief teacher of Philosophy, he has been the constant and principal influence in the intellectual and professional training of the Apostolics; and scarcely less considerable has been the influence he has exerted by his activity and interest in the debates and academies.

The Philosophers have been not merely his pupils; they have also been his friends. They write to him from all parts of the world, from All Hallows, Dalgan, Genoa, Rome - if they are at their studies : from America, South Africa, Australia, India, China, where they are at work on the mission. It is scarcely an injustice to anyone to say that for the great majority of the Apostolics who have passed through Mungret since 1900, Fr Kane is the figure that first springs to their mind at the mention of their “Alma Mater”. He is the one figure, too, that they have been certain to find before them when they came back on a visit. Rectors and Moderators have come and gone, but Fr Kane was permanent.

His work for the “Mungret Annual” can not be left unmentioned. He has been connected with it as Editor or Manager for nearly twenty years. What it has cost him in time and worry and labour, only those can guess who have some experience of such work.

The service which Fr Kane has given for 25 years to Mungret is not the service which men usually notice and reward; but there is One Who seeth in secret and will repay. And in the meantime, the “Mungret Annual”, which owes so much to him, speaking for the authorities of the College and expressing the sentiments of his many Mungret pupils and friends, in Ireland and in other countries, wishes to make here a simple acknowledgineot of esteem for his character and of gratitude for his services. May he be long spared to give himself to God's work

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1946

Obituary

Father William V Kane SJ

The death of Father William Kane, I which took place on July 19th, 1945, has broken a golden link with Mungret's glorious past, and taken from amongst us a saintly priest whose personality and influence are closely entwined with generations of Mungret's alumni, priests and laymen, both at home and in distant lands.

Father William Kane was born in Dublin on January 11th, 1856. He was a nephew of the celebrated scientist, Sir Robert Kane, FRS, and first cousin of Rear Admiral Sir Henry Kane, world-famous as commander of HMS “Calliope”, which, by his skill he saved from destruction in a tornado that swept over Apia Harbour, Samoa, on March 17th, 1889. Having completed his secondary education at Stonyhurst College and at the Oratory School, Birmingham, then under the direction of Newman, he studied law at Trinity College, Dublin, taking out his degrees of BA, and LLD. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1879. In 1888 he accompanied Sir James Marshall to the Niger Territories as a Junior Judge, and subsequently succeeded Sir James as Chief Justice. He resigned this post in 1889; and on his return to Europe, was called to the English Bar. Two years later he joined the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, of which two of his brothers, Fathers Robert and Patrick Kane were already members. He studied Philosophy at Jersey and Theology at Milltown Park, Dublin. He was ordained priest in 1898, and made his solemn profession in 1909.

Having spent two years at Milltown Park as Professor of Theology, Father Kane joined the staff of Mungret College in 1901. With the exception of his year of tertianship at Tronchiennes, another year as Professor of Philosophy at Milltown Park, and a short period of parochial duty at Llandrindod Wells after the death of his brother, Father Patrick, Father Kane was a member of the Mungret community until his death last July. He taught in the secondary school and in the classes preparing for the Arts and BA degree examinations of the Royal University, and was Editor of the “Mungret Annual” for several years.

But the greater part of Father Kane's life in Mungret was devoted as Professor of Philosophy to the intellectual and professional training of the students of the Apostolic School. A man of keen and subtle intelligence, and profoundly versed in many recondite branches of knowledge - Theology, Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics - he was fully competent to deal with the great problems of Metaphysics, and to appreciate their bearing and influence on other sciences. As a result, Father Kane imparted to his pupils a thorough grasp of first principles, as well as habits of clear and orderly thinking. To his training was due, in no small measure, the success achieved in Rome, Louvain and other. centres of theological study, by Mungret men, so many of whom gained the highest academical distinctions, gratefully acknowledging the debt which they owed to Father Kane.

While devoted to Philosophy and Science, Father Kane at the same time took a prominent part in the activities of College life. He attended and spoke at the boys Debating Societies; and at House Concerts he delighted all by the verve and “go” with which he sang a Latin version of “Father O'Flynn”. He was a keen cricketer, fielding brilliantly at “Point” " with quick eye and sure hand. These manifold contacts with the everyday lives of his pupils, his sterling qualities, and his charming if uncompromis ing personal character, endeared him to all, When past Mungret students from distant parts of the globe revisited their Alma Mater, one of their principal objects was to meet Father Kane and talk over old times, with him.

Advancing age at length obliged Father Kane to retire from active life. During the placid evening of his days, spent at Mungret under the devoted care of Nurse Corrigan, the College Matron, Father Kane maintained his interest in the many depart ments of learning of which he had obtained so thorough a mastery. To the end he retained all his faculties unimpaired. Death came peacefully. On a quiet night during the summer holidays he passed to his eternal reward. RIP

JM SJ

Born: 05 February 1913, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 11 September 1931, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1946, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1949, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 27 May 1982, County Wicklow (in a car accident)

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

Educated at Belvedere College SJ

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 57th Year No 3 1982
Gonzaga
A phone-call about midnight of 27th/28th May brought us the tragic news of the death of our colleague, Fr Joe Kavanagh, What exactly happened is not entirely clear, but it appears that Fr Joe was involved in a hit-and-run accident while travelling on his Honda motor-cycle at about 11 pm near the Glen of the Downs, co. Wicklow. He was buried from St Kevin’s church, Harrington street, where he had been a curate for the past two years, and he got a send-off that he must have appreciated from his lofty position. A very large number of concelebrants, both Jesuit and diocesan, joined Fr Rector in the requiem Mass; the music was provided by Our Lady's Choral Society, of which Joe had long been a zealous and active member; two Bishops presided, the Most Rev Joseph A Carroll and the Most Rev Donal Murray; and among the congregation were the Lord Mayor (an old pupil) and Mr John Wilson (government minister and an old teaching colleague). We miss Joe very much. Though working in a parish he was always very much a member of the Gonzaga community, in reality as well as in spirit. He joined us as often as his duties would allow and was always a welcome, refreshing, peaceable presence. May he rest in peace.

Obituary
Fr Joseph Kavanagh (1913-1931-1982)

In the last issue of the Province News the editor had a few interesting words to say about the commissioning of obituary notices. In asking me to present a pen- picture of Joe Kavanagh he didn't have to do any serious arm-twisting: I, am more than glad to be able to pay my tribute to a man who was my companion for many years and whom I, among many others, will sadly miss now that he is gone.
Let us start with the timetable, as it were, of Joe's life. He was at school in Belvedere, entered the noviceship in Emo in 1931. This was followed by Juniorate in Rathfarnham where he pursued a French course with considerable success: philosophy in Tullabeg from 1937-1940, and from these years arises a clear memory of Joe working out, with marvellous patience and good humour, a quartet from Gilbert and Sullivan that was somewhat beyond the vocal range of those whom he was directing. The regency years were spent at Mungret (1940-42) where he was obviously very happy and very successful, but the exigencies of the time demanded that he move to Clongowes for his third year, to get his Certificate in Education. From 1943 to 1947 he was in Milltown for theology, and from those days too I can picture him at the piano preparing a motley caste for a brief season of operetta, or playing at centre-forward on the soccer pitch where he was no mean performer, and many of his contemporaries will remember that deft flick of his that was productive both of goals and serrated shinbones.
After tertianship in Rathfarnham Joe spent a year in Clongowes, followed by three years in the Crescent and then, in 1952, he came to Gonzaga where he was to remain until 1971. After this long period of teaching the rest of his days were to be passed working for the "Diocese' - seven years in the Blackrock area, where he was chaplain to Obelisk Park and also taught in the Blackrock Technical school, three years in East Wall and his last two years as a curate in Harrington street.
When Joe's remains were brought to St Kevin's Church on the evening of 29th May, his parish priest, Fr Dermot O'Neill spoke a few words and described Joe as “a nice, quiet, unassuming, hard working priest”, and most would agree that that is a very fair description. He always had this air of quiet about him; perhaps “serenity” would be a better word, or even “unflappability”. In my mind’s eye I can see him, good humoured and unperturbed, surrounded by a mob of unruly schoolboys or refereeing an under-10 rugby match with tremendous aplomb. There was an occasion when, in the act of refereeing, Joe fell backwards over a stray mongrel that had wandered onto the pitch: except physically he wasn't the slightest bit upset. Teaching, I suspect, was always a little against the grain for Joe. but he applied himself to this task over many years with admirable patience and dedication, and must have passed on much of his own great enthusiasm for the French language: certainly many of his pupils remember him with great affection and while they may beat their breasts a little for the merry dance they sometimes led him in the classroom they recall with gratitude his quiet tolerance and inspiration.
There was a period when Gonzaga took its cricket seriously, and this was one game that Joe particularly enjoyed. I remember him playing in the Staff versus Boys matches, tying up the opposition with a mixture of slow googlies and chinamen; and at other times he could be seen umpiring at square leg or behind the wicket, always perched upon a shooting stick.
When at last his teaching days came to an end and he moved out into the “Diocese” he brought the same calmness and application to his new duties. I know that as a curate he undertook very seriously the job of visiting his parishioners. But all the time - from 1971 - that Joe was working as a curate he remained a member of the Gonzaga community and this he was both in fact and in spirit; for hardly a week passed that he didn't join his brethren there, and they will now miss his quiet presence, his informed conversation and his generally optimistic view of world affairs.
Joe seems to have suffered from some sort of a chronic ulcer. Certainly, over the years he was taking something for this ailment or observing a mild diet. And yet I always regarded him as a man of rude health, a man who not all that long ago put-putted his way on his motor bike all the way from Dublin to some place north of Rome where the machine “packed up”, unable any longer to match the vigour of its rider. It was on his motor-cycle, in his 69th year, that he met his sudden tragic death, (27th May 1982), the victim, apparently, of a hit and-run accident around 11 pm in the Glen of the Downs, though the exact circumstances may never be known. .
For his funeral Joe got a great send off. St Kevin's Church, Harrington' street, was packed for the requiem Mass concelebrated by a very large number of both Jesuit and diocesan priests and presided over by two bishops. But what must have given him, watching from above, especial satisfaction, was the fact that the Gardaí spontaneously provided a cycle escort to expedite the funeral cortège to Glasnevin (he had worked with them in the parish), and that the music was provided by Our Lady's Choral Society of which he had long been an active and zealous member. His love for music had always been conspicuous. He was always the choir master, the organist, the musical director of shows and entertainments from novice to tertian, and even after. Nothing he liked better than to be seated a a piano when he displayed the extraordinarily wide range of his musical interests, at one time fingering a Beethoven sonata, at another belting out something straight from Tin Pan Alley.
There can be no doubt but that now he is a member, perhaps even the director, of a celestial choir and that he will continue to make sweet music to the Lord for all eternity.

Irish Province News 58th Year No 2 1983

Gonzaga
Fr Joe Kavanagh
Further light has been thrown on the circumstances surrounding the accident that ended in the tragic death of Fr Joe Kavanagh at Glen o’ the Downs on the night of 27th May 1982. The following reconstruction is based on the evidence presented in Bray district court on 7th January, at the hearing of the prosecutions brought under the Road Traffic Act against the two motorists involved in Fr Kavanagh's death.

The first impact
A woman was driving south in this area around 11 pm. There was a heavy drizzle. Some distance behind her was another car driven by a Mr Fiach McDonagh of Wexford, who thus described the whole occurrence. As he came around a bend on to a straight stretch of road he saw sparks come from under the car in front of him. The car appeared to be on the correct side of the road at the time, then swerved over to the right-hand side of the road and carried on some distance ending up in a ditch. It wasn't until he came level with a helmet which he spotted lying on the road that he realised that an accident had taken place. He turned his car round towards Dublin and stopped on the Dublin-bound carriageway, with his light shining full on the motor-cyclist, who was positioned with his entire body lying on the hard shoulder except for his head, which was on the roadway. A car came from the direction of Dublin: he stopped it and asked the driver to get help. Then he spoke to the priest on the ground and told him he was sending for help.
The car that he had seen sparks come from had travelled weil over a hundred yards down the road. He noticed some body get out, walk around the car, look and get in again; then it slowly began to drive away.

The second and fatal impact
Ms McDonagh went back to his own car and saw at the same time a car travelling from the Wicklow direction, This car kept coming even when it was in full view of the car stopped in the middle of the road. At the last minute it swerved suddenly to the inside of the stopped car on to the hard shoulder. Here it struck the bike and the man on the ground, swerved to the right-hand side of the road and ended up in the ditch on the opposite side. The impact had flipped the priest right up in the air and over, reversing his position. Two men got out of the car, both as it transpired ambulance men. When they saw the priest on the ground they went back to their car, took out a first-aid kit to do whatever they could, but found no pulse.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1982

Obituary

Father Joseph Kavanagh SJ

When I joined the Gonzaga Community in 1961, the oriental-like inscrutability and rather dis tant manner of Father Kavanagh gave me a little indication of his real qualities. In fact he proved to be a delightful companion, whose gentle sense of humour, generosity and undemonstrative kindness greatly enhanced community life. In the school, while he did not attain sufficient command of a class to be an excellent teacher, he won the affec tion of the pupils capable of distinguishing quality of personality from pedagogical skill. Later, in parish work, his quiet and undemonstrative devo tion to his parishioners was most impressive and much appreciated. To this the attendence at his funeral bore eloquent testimony. As a friend - I had the good fortune to enjoy his friendship for 21 years - he was warmharted and generous and a kindly and wise counsellor.

There was about him a self confidence and magnanimity reflected in his judgements of others which were almost always positive and generous: never destructives, never petty. He was as patient with the shortcomings of others as he was of his own and always keenly aware of the qualities and strengths of others.
He was a good man, a sound religious and a loyal friend. May he rest in peace.

Born: 21 February 1920, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1950, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1953
Died: 04 May 2012, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

by 1953 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working - fifth wave of Zambian Missioners
by 1986 at Chicago (CHG) studying
by 1987 at Roosevelt NY, USA (NEB) working
by 1989 at Sunland-Tujunga CA, USA (CAL) working

Born: 06 April 1919, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1936, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1948, Milltown Park Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1954, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 28 February 1978, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway

by 1975 at Canisius College, Buffalo NY, USA (NEB) Marriage Encounter◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 53rd Year No 2 1978

Galway
The sudden death of our parish priest, Fr Jack Kerr, came as a great shock. Although he had been parish priest here for only a little over two years, he had achieved a great deal, and had endeared himself by his kindness, generosity, and openness to all. His work in the parish, his involvement in Marriage Encounter, the Charismatic Movement, and the Samaritans, brought him very many friends not only here in Galway, but elsewhere as well. This was evident in the huge number of Mass cards for him, and in the very large attendance at his funeral.
His remains were removed from the Residence to the Church on the evening of March 2. The Assistant Provincial, Fr Joseph Dargan, was present. Immediately afterwards Fr Jack's cousin, Fr Frank Kerr, a diocesan priest from Clones, Co. Monaghan, said the public evening Mass for him.
On Friday, March 3, over forty priests concelebrated at his funeral Mass, and many more were in the congregation. The chief concelebrants were the Provincial, Fr Patrick Doyle, the Rector, Fr Robert McGoran, and Fr Frank Kerr. The former Bishop of Galway, Dr Michael Browne presided. The present Bishop, Dr Eamonn Casey was unavoidably absent, as he was confined to the house after a severe dose of the flu. In his sermon, Fr McGoran paid fitting tribute to Fr Kerr and his work.
To Fr Jack's sister and brother and his many relations our sincere thanks.

Crescent College Comprehensive
At the moment of writing, the very sad news has reached us of the death of Fr Jack Kerr SJ, former Chairman of the Board of Management. Few did more for the new Crescent than Jack did. From the preliminary planning stages in the 1960's right through his period of active chairmanship up to 1974 the school could not have had a better friend and champion. In very difficult moments his support of the school administration and his genuine concern for the well-being of pupils and staff was of incalculable importance: with humour and great humanity he helped to unify diverse elements in the new Board of Management structure and to ensure that the over-all good of the school was served with dedication and competence. Jack Kerr brought joy and laughter to so many that his death is felt in a very personal way: to have known him, worked and laughed with him was a bonus to life. May he experience everlasting joy. On Monday, March 6th, the members of the Board of Management, staff and pupils will join in offering Mass for his eternal happiness and peace.

Obituary :

Fr John Kerr (1919-1978)

The Province received an unpleasant shock when it heard of the death, on February 28th, 1978, of Father John Kerr. Father Kerr had not yet completed his sixtieth year, so that his sudden death was a serious loss to the Province in which Jesuits of the most active years of life are becoming alarmingly small in number.
Father Kerr was born in Dublin on April 6th 1919. He was educated at O’Connell’s School and entered the Noviceship in Emo on September 7th, 1936. He completed all his studies in Ireland and was ordained in Milltown Park, Dublin, on July 28th 1948. He pronounced his Final Vows at Belvedere College on February 2nd 1954.
Father john Kerr spent the years 1950-1960 in the Irish Messenger Office, Belvedere; and after a year at Manresa he spent a year in Tullabeg as Professor of Metaphysics, and Minister (1961 1962), He was Rector and doctor of Philosophy in Mungret College 1962-1968, and Rector in Belvedere from 1968-1974,
Father John Kerr spent the year 1974-1975 studying “Marriage Encounter”, at Canisius High School, Buffalo.
From 1975 to his death in February 1978 he lived in St Ignatius college, Galway, where he was Promoter of “Marriage Encounter” and where he was Parish Priest of the Church.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1978

Obituary

Father Jack Kerr SJ

Those who knew Fr Jack Kerr during the years he lived in Belvedere first as National Director of the Sodalities of our Lady and later as Rector must have been deeply shocked by the news of his sudden death on the last day of February this year. Those close to him knew that he had not been well for some time - he had been in hospital twice undergoing treatment for angina - but there did not appear to be reason for undue alarm. He had just returned to Galway after a period of recuperation in Dublin when he took ill and died within an hour.

Fr Kerr had many gifts which were given ample scope to develop in the various posts he held in the Society of Jesus. Shortly after ordination, he was: made national Director of the Sodality, a post he held for eleven years. Then followed six years as Rector of Mungret College, Limerick, after when he came to Belvedere as Rector in 1968. In 1974, he went to the United States to gain experience of Marriage Encounter, which was growing in importance both in the States and in Ireland. The following year, he returned to Ireland and was sent to Galway as Parish Priest of St Ignatius parish and to initiate Marriage Encounter in the West of Ireland.

His six years as Rector in Belvedere were years of achievement: they were also years which saw the growth of many close friendships with a host of people connected with Belvedere. Fr Kerr brought to fruition the preparatory work done by a number of previous Rectors with the building of the new school block, the gymnasium and the swimming pool. It was due to his energy and devoted hard work that the Covenant Scheme was launched, which over the years has done so much to meet the very large costs of building and maintaining the complex. It was he also who was responsible for buying the land at Nevinstown, which may well prove of great value to the College in the years to come.

Those who were associated with him during those years might well have considered that his outstanding gifts were organisational: he had a shrewd business sense, an ability to grasp complex details and great energy and drive. But this was only one aspect of his character: more important for his work as a priest and as a Jesuit was the quite unique gift he had for relating to people. He had always possessed great humanity, warmth, sympathy and understanding. There are many connected with Belvedere, I know, who can vouch for this ability of his to comfort and strengthen in times of bereavement and distress. But it was in the last years of his life during his time in Galway that these gifts really came to flower: his life appeared to take on an added quality. In a short period of two and half years, he affected many people in quite an astonishing way and his death has left a void in their lives. He made people believe in thernselves; he made them feel special; he healed them emotionally and spiritually; he helped them to forgive themselves; he gave them a spirit of joy. He accepted them for what they were with all their faults and failings, just as he accepted himself with his own weaknesses. And this attitude to people was a mirror to of his attitude to God: for him, God was a Father who knew his failings and yet loved him and loved all of us. As a result of contact with him, people developed an attitude of more joyful trust in the Lord.

We offer our sincere sympathy to his sister and brother and his other relations and friends who feel his loss deeply; and we pray that God our Father may take Fr Jack back to Himself to the peace and joy which will be his forever.

R McG

Born: 03 June 1912, Galway City, County Galway
Entered: 31 October 1929, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 29 July 1943, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1946, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 13 April 1998, St. John's Hospital, New Road, Limerick

Part of the Sacred Heart, Limerick community at the time of death

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1971 at Lusaka, Zambia (ZAM) working

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Edward (Ted), though born in Galway on 3 June 1912, came from a family whose origins were on the Laois-Kildare borderlands near Athy. In the post-famine days, they had suffered eviction from a very good property and the fact that his father had been a pupil of the famous Tullabeg school showed that they were part of the post-emancipation Catholic middle classes.

Ted went to school with the Christian Brothers in Cork and then on to Clongowes Wood College. After philosophy, he went to his old school as teacher and Lower Line and 3rd Line prefect, work which he liked and he would have loved to remain in education for life. That was not to be. His care for others, his ability to organise and his welcoming approach as guest master made him almost tailor-made for the job of minister. He was minister for almost 30 years in five of the Jesuit houses, not just in Ireland but also in Zambia where he worked for nine years as Minister in St lgnatius, Lusaka. Retreat work was another aspect of his ability, at Manresa and Rathfarnham Retreat Houses and at Tullabeg. A part of this so varied and versatile life was his work on the mission staff when he preached all over Ireland and England and was most helpful to Irish emigrants. His unfailing humanity to pupils and people in trouble was a part of his large, strong personality.
Ted was given to duty and generous work in the church and in the house where he lived. His affable and interesting presence made people feel welcome and at home.

He was a great man to converse on all subjects of the day and of the past, for he had a ready and cultured mind. This was enriched by the variety of his interests. He was a member of the Bird Watchers Society, collected stamps very successfully and had a keen interest in rugby and hurling. All things artistic – poetry, painting and music –were important in his life. The staff working in the houses loved and respected him as a true Christian gentleman. He had a noblesse of great natural and spiritual conviction – never one to be a time server. Loyalty, almost to a fault, was most marked in him. In his later years he showed an openness to new, valid developments which was quite remarkable.

People always felt comfortable in his presence and he was always ready to serve. He died in St. John's Hospital, Limerick on 13 April 1998 at the age of 86.

◆ Interfuse No 97 : Special Edition Summer 1998 & ◆ The Clongownian, 1998

Obituary

Fr Edward (Ted) KilBride (1912-1998)

3rd June 1912: Born in Galway
Early education: Christian Brothers, Cork, and Clongowes Wood College
31st Oct. 1929: Entered the Society at Tullabeg
1st Nov. 1931: First Vows at Emo
1931 - 1934: Rathfarnham, Arts at University College Dublin
1934 - 1937: Tullabeg: Philosophy
1937 - 1940: Clongowes: Lower line and 3rd line Prefect/Teacher
1940 - 1944: Milltown Park: Theology
29th July 1943: Ordained Priest at Milltown Park
1944 - 1945: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1945 - 1951: Mungret College, Prefect and Teacher
1951 - 1953: Manresa, Minister, Asstd. Director Retreat House
1953 - 1956: Rathfarnham, Director Retreat House
1956 - 1958: Emo, Mission Staff, Retreats
1958 - 1959: Galway, Minister, Church work
1959 - 1965: Clongowes, Minister, Prefect, Spiritual Director
1965 - 1966 Manresa, Retreat work
1966 - 1969: Tullabeg, Minister, Retreat work
1969 - 1978: Zambia, Minister, St. Ignatius, Lusaka
1978 - 1987: Galway, Minister
1987 - 1998: Crescent Church, Limerick, Church work
13th Apr. 1998: Died at Limerick aged 86.

On 10th March Ted returned to his Community after some weeks in Cherryfield with pneumonia. He took ill suddenly in early April and was admitted to St. John's Hospital, Limerick, where he died a few days later on 13th April 1998. May he rest in the Peace of Christ!

Ted KilBride, though bom in Galway, came from a family whose origins were in the Laois-Kildare borderlands near Athy. In the post famine days they had suffered eviction from very good property, and the fact that his father had been a pupil of the famous Tullabeg school showed they were part of the post emancipation Catholic middle classes. His father was to be judge in the then regime, while an uncle became a very well established doctor in Athy.

When Ted entered the society in 1929, the new state was well under-way. After the usual training he was ordained priest in 1943. Though he had an early desire to be engaged in education for life, he in fact worked in a variety of works and places. He worked in Mungret and Clongowes, in the retreat houses in Rathfarnham and Tullabeg and Manresa, in our churches in Galway and the Crescent. As well as being pastorally engaged, he was a minister in several places, an outstanding prefect of students in Clongowes and Mungret, and eventually bursar in the Crescent. Nine years of his life (1969-78) were spent as minister and pastor in St. Ignatius, Lusaka. A part of this so varied and versatile life was his work on the mission staff, when he preached all over Ireland and England and was most helpful to our emigrants. His unfailing humanity to pupils and people in trouble was a part of his large, strong personality.

When Ted died a great gap was left in the Crescent, not only because of the loss of his ever dutiful and generous work in the church and house, but because of the loss of his affable and interesting presence. A great man to converse on all subjects of the day and of the past, he had a ready and cultured mind. This was enriched by the variety of his interests. He was a
amber of the Bird Watchers Society, collected stamps very successfully and had a keen interest in rugby and hurling. All things artistic, poetry, painting and music were important in his life. As guest master in Galway and Lusaka, the staff who took care of him there loved and respected him as a true Christian gentleman. He had a noblesse of great natural and spiritual conviction - never one to be a time server. Loyalty, almost to a fault was was most marked in him. In his later years he showed an openness to new valid developments which was quite memorable. His presence is greatly missed in the Crescent community. His shrewd humor and voracious maturity remains a very happy memory with us. The sense that he went straight into the presence of his Maker was unique and inescapable. He will nobly and surely look after us from this position of advantage. The spirit of this great hearted man lives on faithfully; his love is eternal for his friends, the young and old he helped, for his family and the Society, and for all who were dear to him.

Dermot Cassidy, SJ

Born: 28 October 1911, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 12 November 1934, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1946, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1949, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 06 December 1989, St John’s Hospital, Limerick

Part of the Sacred Heart, Limerick community at the time of death

Educated at Mungret College SJ

Grew up, 3 County View Terrace, Ballinacurra, Limerick.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Teacher at Mungret College before Entry

Born: 22 July 1920, County View Terrace, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1952, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1978, Mazabuka, Seminary, Choma, Zambia
Died: 26 October 2004, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin Dublin - Zambia-Malawi province (ZAM)

Part of the Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia community at the time of death.

Brother of Henry (Harry) Leahy - LEFT 10 January 1944 for medical reasons; Uncle of Niall Leahy SJ

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 01 December 1977

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Brother of Henry (Harry) Leahy - LEFT 10 January 1944 for medical reasons

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
To look at Fr Maurice, a rather frail figure, one would not imagine that he was a fine rugby player on the school team during his schooldays at the Crescent College, Limerick. In a way, Maurice was a Limerick man through and through. He was born there on 22 July 1920, grew up there and went to school there. He was a bright student coming top of his class year by year and winning many prizes. He was a good sportsman and athlete, playing on the school junior and senior rugby teams. With those long thin legs of his he was, not surprisingly, the Boys’ High Jump Champion of Limerick.

He joined the Society in 1937 at Emo Park, took Latin and History at University, studied philosophy at Tullabeg and went back to Limerick for regency to his old school. After ordination at Milltown Park, Dublin, in 1952, he spent six years at Gonzaga College in Dublin teaching and holding the job of minister. From 1960 to 1972 he was back in Limerick, first in Crescent College teaching and then for five years at Mungret College, again teaching and vice-superior at the Apostolic School. His qualities of simplicity and outstanding patience and kindness must have made teaching rather a trial.

1966 seems to have been a turning point in his life as regards work. He moved to the Sacred Heart Church in Limerick as a pastoral worker for six years, functioning quietly and successfully. In 1972 another big change took place in his life, this time he was missioned to Zambia at the age of 52 where he spent the rest of his life at pastoral work. After his ordination he had asked to be sent to the missions (Hong Kong) and twenty years later his wish was answered (Zambia).

To begin with, he studied ciTonga at Chikuni and then moved to Namwala (1973) as parish priest and superior there. Here he had plenty of practice at the language as he worked in the parish with all that that entailed. After nine years there he was transferred to Assumption Parish in Mazabuka for a year before moving to the Sugar Estate at Nakambala, where he worked for eleven years in the parish, ten years of these as superior and eight years as parish priest.

His younger brother Harry singles out his gentleness and simplicity. He was always kindly and thoughtful, never bad-tempered or argumentative. He really was ‘the good peaceable man’ of Thomas a Kempis. Everyone was good in Maurice’s eyes. His brother tells of his happiness during these years in Zambia. He was at home among the villagers in Namwala, the urban dwellers in Mazabuka and Nakambala, as well as the sick and feeble in Chikuni hospital. As one person put it: ‘A man of simple and quaint goodness, who had his heart in the right place’.

In 1994, Maurice now 74, moved to Chikuni again as pastoral worker. He was a very dedicated priest, a man of God and deeply spiritual. This the people recognized in their own perceptive way. He was an easy person to live with as he was so undemanding even as a superior. He became a charismatic, again in his own quiet way and became a much-sought-after giver of directed retreats.

He developed a peculiar up-down characteristic in his speech, one minute bass and the next falsetto. This affected his preaching in public but it did not interfere with his retreat giving. He was a very methodical man. The data on the outstations where he supplied were kept up to-date so that the priest who took over the outstations, when Maurice was transferred to Chikuni, had a clear picture of each of these outstations and of the people there, who were being prepared for baptism, for marriage and so on.

At the end of 2003, he was operated on in Lusaka for a colostomy and moved to John Chula House. While there the doctor remarked that Maurice had the recuperative powers of a man of 25! – Maurice was 83 years of age at the time. The doctor suggested that he return to Ireland for the next operation for a number of reasons. This Maurice did on 14 February 2004. The operation was a success. Later, while at Cherryfield Lodge, he suffered a stroke, unrelated to the operation and he died on 26 October 2004 in Dublin but he was buried in his own beloved Limerick.

Born: 21 July 1818, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 29 September 1837, Drongen, Belgium (BELG)
Ordained: by 1851
Final Vows: 25 March 1859
Died: 09 May 1906, Tullabeg, Co Offaly

Younger brother of Henry Lynch - RIP 1874 and Uncle of Edmund Lynch - RIP 1890

by 1847 in Rome studying
by 1855 in Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying Theology
by 1856 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying Theology 4
by 1879 at Montauban France (TOLO) teaching
by 1881 at St Marys' Canterbury (FRA) teaching
by 1882 at Antwerp Institute Belgium (BELG) Regency
by 1891 at Pau, France (TOLO)

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Younger brother of Henry Lynch - RIP 1874 and Uncle of Edmund Lynch - RIP 1890
Early education was at Tullabeg, where he was brought by John Grene.
He studied Philosophy and Theology in France and was Ordained there.
He taught in various Colleges and was very proficient in French.
He taught English in Belgium for a while.
His older brother Henry was buried in the Old Cemetery at Rahan, and Charles was buried at the new College Cemetery there.

◆ The Clongownian, 1906

Father Charles Lynch SJ

We came across some notes written by Father Joseph Dalton SJ, under date of September 30, 1897. We take the following extract from them :

“Of the old Rhetoric (13) of 1836 the only survivors (as far as I know) are well within the sanctuary, viz: Dr Woodlock, Father Charles Lynch SJ, and the writer, Joseph Dalton SJ, and all are octogenarians. May we meet in heaven”. Since these words were written the three have passed away. Dr Woodlock died in 1903, Father Joseph Dalton was called away on January, 5, 1905, and Father Charles Lynch SJ, on May 9, 1906, when he touched the ripe age of 88. He was probably the oldest living Clongownian. Mr Martin J Madden,JP (Clongowes, 1835-37), and Dr Denis McVeagh (Clongowes, 1838-40) are still amongst us, hale and strong. These, to our knowledge, are now the eldest born of Clongowes.

We have mentioned three of the '36 Rhetoric. Three others were: Edward Synan, Thomas Ford, and Thomas Dwyer. Synan was Member of Parliament during many years for Limerick ; Ford finished Rhetoric at the phenomenally eariy age of thirteen; Dwyer was the poet and orator of the class. The latter 'studied for the law; but on his father's death, went out to Texas, and became a wealthy rancher.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Charles Lynch (1818-1906)

Born at Navan and educated at Clongowes, entered the Society in 1837. He was minister, master and in charge of public Masses at the Crescent in the days before the erection of the church, 1862-65. He had done a useful life's work as master, missioner or church worker, when in 1890 we find him in retirement at Tullabeg. Even after his three score and ten years, his superiors evidently thought he could be restored to his former usefulness. So, in 1891 he was sent out to Pau, in the Toulouse Province, where after two years of light church work and good air, he returned to Ireland ready for more service. He was at the Crescent once more, 1894-96 where he was able to take religious knowledge classes and do light work in the church. After another rest at Tullabeg, he was back again in 1900-03. He spent a last year at Limerick, at Mungret College, but under the weight of his years, retired once more to Tullabeg to await the final summons. Father Lynch's elder brother, also a Jesuit, predeceased him by some twenty years.

Born: 20 February 1863, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1881, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 30 July 1899, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 05 August 1901
Died: 26 September 1931, Dublin

Part of Mungret College community, Limerick at time of his death.

Early education at St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg

by 1900 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
Came to Australia 1895

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 7th Year No 1 1932

Obituary :

Fr William McCormack

Fr. McCormack died in Dublin, Saturday 26 September 1931. For some years previously he had been in very feeble health. It could scarcely be said that he suffered from any disease to which a descriptive name could easily be given, but there was a gradual sinking, a steady wasting away until the end came last September.

He first saw the light in Cork 20 Feb. 1863, was educated in Tullabeg, and began his novitiate at Milltown Park 7 Sept. 1881. In the same place he did Rhetoric for one year and Philosophy for three. Six years at Clongowes and two at Mungret as Master and Prefect brought him to 1895. Even at this early date the nerves were giving considerable trouble, and he was sent on a trip to Australia in the hope that a long sea voyage would bring about a recovery.
On his return the following year he began Theology at Milltown, worked at it for three years, and then went to Tronchiennes. From 1900 to his death in 1931 he was stationed either at Galway, Clongowes, or Mungret. In all, dating from his Philosophy, he spent 17 years in Mungret, 14 in Clongowes, 8 in Galway.
He was Minister in Galway for 3 years, and, in spite of his bad health had change of the “big study” in Clongowes for five. In the Catalogue he has the honourable record - an 35. Mag.
Nearly the whole of Fr. McCormack's life in the Society was one long struggle against feeble health, and,as can be gathered from the above record, a victorious struggle. With the exception of the last few years, when he was utterly prostrate, he ever and always put in an honest day's work. He was efficient, very punctual, and quite ready to meet any emergency that might arise in the discharge of his duty.
Despite the nerve trouble he was generally in good humour, hearty, enjoyed a joke, and was not a little amused by the small foibles and peculiarities inseparable from every day life, even in the Society.
The source of all his strength was a fund of genuine holiness from which he constantly drew to support his suffering life, and which enabled him to persevere along the path of duty even to the very end.
The following appreciation has been kindly sent us by Fr. J. Casey and J. Mahoney :
“The last eight years of Fr. McCormack's life were spent at Mungret. Owing to his chronic ill-health he was unable to undertake much school-work. But as a confessor his services were much in demand , and the large numbers who thronged to his confessional testified to the great influence which he exercised in the spiritual life of the boys. As a preacher too he was very successful - the boys often expressed their appreciation of his sermons and instructions. He frequently gave retreats in convents and convent-schools, and he acted as extraordinary confessor to the nuns of the Mercy Convent, Nenagh. He was devoted to the sick and poor in the neighbourhood of Mungret, all of whom will feel that in the death of Fr. McCormack they have lost a very true and devoted friend.
Fr. McCormack’s influence for good must to a very great extent be ascribed to the innate kindness and gentleness of disposition. He suffered frequently from nervous prostration and the mental depression which companies such forms of disease, but neither physical nor mental suffering could deprive him of that inbred courtesy which was one of his characteristic traits, and which gained for him the respect and love of all with whom he came in contact”.
When stationed in Galway Fr. McCormack did full Church work. In addition he was Prefect of Discipline in the College, and taught some classes.
It will interest some people to know that he often spoke with appreciation of the fact that he studied Homer when a boy in Tullabeg under Fr Henry Browne S. J.

◆ The Clongownian, 1932

Obituary

Father William MacCormack SJ

Father William MacCormack SJ, was born in Cork, February, 1863, and was educated at Tullabeg. He entered the Society in 1881, and after the usual years of noviceship and study, he went to Clongowes as Prefect. Here he remained for six years, when he was transferred to Mungret. After two years there he was, owing to ill health, sent to Australia, where he remained a year, returning in 1896 to Milltown Park for Theology. He was ordained in 1899, and after a further year on the Continent, he was sent back to Clongowes to take charge of the Big Study. From 1908 to 1914 he was on the teaching staff in Mungret. From 1914-17 he was Minister in Galway, returning to Clongowes, this time to take charge of the Small Study until 1920. From 1926-23 he was stationed in Galway, whence he was transferred to Mungret, where he remained till his death.

Father McCormack was nearly all his life in, very indifferent health; yet, notwithstanding, he ever did a day's work. In the Study Hall he was most efficient, in the Class Room most effective; as a Minister he was most successful. He was endowed with a charming personality. He captivated the boys who had the privilege of being in his class and many of them afterwards spoke of him with sincere affection. As a companion he was most lovable, ever ready to enjoy a joke, but never saying an unkind word about others. He was an excellent cricketer and tennis player, and could play a good game of golf. Games often test a man, but Father McCormack would never lose his good humour and patience on the links, even when his companion was simply outrageous. As a Confessor his advice and direction were keenly sought and appreciated; as a preacher he was quiet but apostolic; as a retreat giver he was a great favourite. He had a keen sense of justice and would never stand for any harshness to the poor. It was hard for him to do, and to be, all that, for he was never for any length of time in good health. He suffered greatly, but, nothwithstanding it all, he was ever the gentleman, smiling, kind and unselfish. Some of us have lost a dear personal friend. May. God have mercy on his soul. RIP

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1932 : Golden Jubilee

Obituary

Father William MacCormack SJ

On Saturday 26th, the news of Father McCormack's death reached us. It was the inevitable end of a life-long struggle against ill-health carried on with a stern determination on his part never to yield any ground to an enemy that, even in his early manhood attempted to lessen the usefulness of his life in God's service. Except during the last few years of his life, when the weight of years had crushed his vitality and completely prostrated him, he worked constantly and strenuously. He was a kindly master, but efficient and never wanting in correct judgment of the boys with whom his class work brought him into contact; ready, too, to meet any emergency that might arise in the discharge of his duty.

He first came to Mungret in 1907, and continued there until 1914, when he left to take up duties as minister in St Ignatius College, Galway His name will awaken in the minds of boys of that period memories of his prowess on the cricket pitch, where on some memorable occasions he carried his bat.

Returning to Mungret in 1923, he spent the last eight years of his life there. Owing to his chronic ill-health, he was unable to under take much school work. But as a confessor his services were much in demand, and the large numbers that thronged to his confessional testified to the great influence he exercised in the spiritual life of the boys.

As a preacher, too, he was very successful - the boys often expressed their appreciation of his sermons and instructions. He frequently gave Retreats in convents and convent-schools. He was devoted to the sick and poor in the neighbourhood of Mungret, all of whom will feel that in the death of Father McCormack they have lost a true and. devoted friend.

His influence for good must, to a very great extent, be ascribed to his innate kindness and gentleness of disposition. Neither physical nor mental suffering could deprive him of that inbred courtesy which was one of his most characteristic traits, and which gained for him the respect and love of all with whom he came into contact. Lux perpetua luceat ei.

Born: 28 March 1858, Rathmines, Dublin
Entered: 15 February 1877, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 26 July 1891, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1897, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner St, Dublin
Died: 28 December 1928, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

Cousin of Robert I - RIP 1929 T Patrick - RIP 1918 and William Kane - RIP 1945

by 1896 at Chieri Italy (TAUR) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :

Early education was at Clongowes.

After his Noviceship Joseph remained at Milltown for a further five years doing Juniorate and Philosophy, and then spent five years Regency at Clongowes Prefecting and Teaching.
He began his Theology at Mold, Wales (FRA), but the new Theologate opened at Milltown in 1889, so he moved there.
After Ordination he was sent to Mungret as Assistant Moderator of the Apostolic School, and the following year Moderator and Minister.
He was then sent to Chieri, Italy for Tertianship.
1898 On return to Ireland, he was sent to Belvedere for two years as Assistant Director to James Cullen at the Messenger.
1900 He was sent to Tullabeg as Minister of Juniors for two years, and then back to Mungret as Moderator of the Apostolics for four years. All during these years he continued to act as Assistant Director of the Messenger, and by 1900 he had begun to edit “Madonna”.
1906 He was sent to Gardiner St as Operarius for a year, then another year in Clongowes as Spiritual Father.
1908 He was sent to Belvedere, and he remained there until his death 28 December 1928. During his time at Belvedere he continued to edit the Messenger and Madonna publications, and continued as Assistant Director until 1914 when he was appointed Director. He was also Spiritual Father at Belvedere 1913-1921. The end came quickly and found him perfectly resigned.

As well as his formal work, he also wrote a number of spiritual books which were well received in Ireland and other parts of the world. However, it was his work as Editor of the Messenger that he had his biggest impact. He possessed all the qualities which suited him for this work, especially his own devotion to the Sacred Heart. Under his care the Messenger became the most popular publication in Ireland, and amongst the Irish abroad. He had a reals sense of the taste and needs of his readers, and so made the Messenger very attractive to a wide circle of readers. He also believed that the real soil for evangelisation was among the ordinary people, and so he catered chiefly for them. He tried to ensure that in the contents there was something that might appeal to the interests of each reader, and often someone who read only the article on natural history as their interest, ended up reading the whole issue. So there were readers across a wide spectrum of society. It was told that an English protestant bought several dozens of copies for hiw workers due to articles on farming! His own writings showed a keen literary taste. he was also an excellent community man, and he thoroughly enjoyed friendly banter on maters arising out of his work. He was considerate in his dealings with others, and despite his increasing blindness he was also very patient.

Father General, in his letter (p825) “de Cotedianis Pietatis Exercitis” of July 2nd 1934 refers thus to Father MacDonnell : “Anno 1925 in parvo nostro conventu Redactorum Nuntiorum SS Cordis Jesu et Apostolicus Orationis, P Josephus MacDonnell, Redactor Nuntii Hibernici ......”

Note from Edward Kelly Entry :
He was ill for a very short time, and died peacefully and happily at Gardiner St 07 February 1905. The Minister Father Bannon and Father Joe McDonnell were present at his death.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 2nd Year No 3 1927

Jubilee :

On February 15th Fr Joseph McDonnell completed his 50 years' work in the Society. He received numerous letters and telegrams from all parts of the world, the most valued being one from the General, commending him for the good example he had given, and for his 50 years' work. A week later a large gathering assembled at Belvedere to wish the Jubilarian many more years of devoted service.
Fr. McDonnell was Master and Prefect at Clongowes, he was Moderator of the Apostolics in Mungret, Superior of the Juniors in Tullabeg, Operarius in Gardiner Street ; but it is as Editor of the Messenger that his best work has been done. Under this personal care for the last 21 years the progress made and the good done by the Messenger is simply marvellous And the work was accomplished in spite of grave difficulties. For some years his sight has been Much impaired. But he is holding on and to-day takes as much interest in the work as he did 20 years ago. Fr McDonnell has written quite a number of devotional works that compare very favorably with the best of our day. He still edits the Madonna.
For many years he was Confessor at the Christian Brothers Novitiate, Marius. Lately the novitiate was changed to a place a considerable distance from Belvedere. But the Brother-General asked him to continue, and, at considerable inconvenience to himself, he consented.

Irish Province News 4th Year No 2 1929

Obituary :

Fr Joseph McDonnell

Fr. Joseph McDonnell died in Dublin on Friday, December 28th in his 70th year. For some years back he had been in very bad health, but, with characteristic energy and determination, he remained at his post in the Messenger office until a few days before his death.

He was born at Dublin on the 28th March 1858, educated at Clongowes, and on February 15th 1877 began his novitiate at Milltown. There he remained for seven years - novitiate, juniorate, philosophy, and was then sent to Clongowes, where, as prefect or master, he spent the next five years. He began his theology at Mold, but in 1889 the new theologate was opened at Milltown, and Fr McDonnell joined it. Theology over he went to Mungret as Assistant Moderator of the Apostolic School. Next year he become full Moderator as well as Minister of Mungret, and at its close went to Chieri for tertianship. In 1896 he began at Belvedere his long and most fruitful connection with the Messenger as Assistant Director, Fr J. Cullen being Director. Two years at Belvedere were succeeded by two others in Tullabeg, where he had charge of the Juniors, and then Mungret once more as Moderator of the Apostolics. He held this important office for four years. From 1898 to 1906 he continued at different periods to act, at a distance, as Assistant Director of the Messenger, and in 1900 began to edit the Madonna. On leaving Mungret he spent a year in Gardiner St. as Operarius, another in Clongowes as Spiritual Father, and in 1906 returned to Belvedere, not to leave it until his holy death. During the years that followed he continued to edit the Messenger and Madonna, but did not become full Director and Editor of the Messenger until 1914. From 1913 to 1921 he was Spiritual Father at Belvedere. In addition to his other occupations Fr McDonnell wrote a number of excellent spiritual books that are doing a great amount of good in Ireland, and many other countries, but it was as Editor of the “Irish Messenger” that his great work was done. He possessed to a marked degree those qualities which fitted him for this important post, and especially a great devotion to the Sacred Heart, and zeal for souls. Under his care the Messenger became the most popular publication in Ireland, and amongst the Irish abroad. He had a wonderful flair for the tastes and needs of his readers, and he made the pages of the Messenger attractive to a very varied circle. He realised that the most fertile soil for religion is the mass of the people. He therefore catered chiefly for them. Amongst the varied contents there was sure to be some item to appeal to every reader, and those who began to read because they took interest in natural history or astronomy ended up by reading the whole through. In every rank of life one found readers of the Messenger. For the simple people the little red book was a monthly library, and supplied matter for piety and for observation and discussion of the wholesome things of life. He was proud, for example, that an English protestant bought several dozen copies for his work-people on account of a series of articles on farming. He knew that it is possible to be “too good”!
In his own writings Fr. McDonald had a fine, forcible style, and showed excellent literary taste in “Meditations on the Sacred Heart” and other books. He was an excellent community man, and thoroughly enjoyed friendly banter on matters arising out of his work. He was considerate and gentlemanly in his dealings with others, and in spite of his blindness and
feeble health was most patient. The end came quietly and found him perfectly resigned. His hope was that on account of his affliction he would go straight to Heaven, and those who know how saintly was his life feel confident that his prayer has been heard.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Joe McDonnell 1858-1928
Fr Joe McDonnell will always be remembered in the Irish Province as the man who made the “Irish Messenger” what it is. He possessed to an eminent degree, those qualities which fitted him for this important post, reinforced by and rooted in an all pervading devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and zeal for souls. He catered for the mass of the people, and under his direction, the Messenger increased in circulation under the Irish abroad.

He was also the author of a number of excellent spiritual books, the chief of which is his “Meditations n the Sacred Heart”.

He became the full editor of the Messenger in 1914 and remained at his post until a few days before his death, December 28th 1928

Towards the end of his life he was blind, and he expressed the hope that on account of this affliction, gladly borne, he would go straight to heaven on his death. Those who lived close to him and knew the saintlines of the man, had no doubt but that his hope would be translated into reality.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1929

Obituary

Father Joseph McDonnell SJ

The “Irish Messenger” is the only national periodical of Ireland at home and overseas, reminding the wanderer of the Faith of the homeland, reminding those at home of sons and daughters on Canadian farms and in American cities, to whom they send the little red book month by month: it achieves thus a kind of Irish Communion of Saints and so has become a national institution worthy of a jest in a Sean O'Casey play.

Belvedere has the honour of being the home of this institution, and thus, although its late guide and genius was not himself a Belvederian, it is but fitting that Belvederians should mourn his loss as a personal one. Old Belvederians will remember him as a kindly confessor, at one time director of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin; past and present Belvederians will remember his generosity to the College Conference of St Vincent de Paul; even diminutive Belvederians will remember the free-day they celebrated two years ago in honour of Fr. McDonnell's golden jubilee as a Jesuit.

Father McDonnell was born in Dublin on the 28th March, 1858, educated at Clongowes, and on February 15th, 1877, entered the Jesuit Novitiate, which was at that time at Milltown Park. He studied philosophy at Milltown and pursued his theological studies at Mold and at Milltown. At two different periods he was Moderator of the Apostolic School of Mungret. From 1896 dates his connection with the “Irish Messenger”. He was at Belvedere from 1896-1898 as assistant director. Father Cullen being the director; from 1898-1906 be continued to act in this capacity, although occupying posts at Tullabeg, Mungret, Clongowes, Gardiner Street. In 1906 he began to edit. the “Madonna”. In 1906 be returned to Belvedere and there he spent his days until December 28th, 1928, in the achieving of his life's work, first as assistant-editor, then as editor of the “Irish Messenger” and director of the Messenger Office Publications. If one glances at a list of his published devotional works and pamphlets one will see that his was not an idle pen; if one studies the development of the “Irish Messenger” itself, of the “Madonna”, the coming into being of the “Gaelic Messenger”, the long list of books and pamphlets by distinguished authors published by the Messenger Office, one will get some idea of the gift of organisation, of the shrewd sense of needs and values that he possessed.

Fr. McDonnell was blessed with length of days, but these were not unclouded by sorrow. To a man of his keen interests his partial blindness must have meant many hopes unfulfilled, the narrowing in of experience and the limiting of friendships; to a man of his position one would have thought it an insurmountable obstacle. His character, however was unsoured by this severe decree of Providence, and, buoyed up with an edifying courage, he worked on till the end. He was not petulant, he liked social intercourse, charmed many by his courtesy and a sympathy born of experience, liked to be “chaffed”, liked better still to pretend that he did not know that he was being “chaffed”. He was never a shirker. Although in the last few years of his life he suffered much from bronchial troubles during the winter months, he nevertheless kept to his task, was punctilious in attendance at religious duties, said Mass often in pain, and was cheerful always. Even when in hospital he used transact business with his secretary; and on the evening before his death sent for the assistant-director, Father T Ryan, to discuss the great business of his life. If by their fruits shall men be recompensed, Father McDonnell merits a reward exceeding great.

Mr. G. K. Chesterton, in an introduction to the recent translation of Henri Ghéon's study of the Curé d'Ars, points out that each nation contributes a characteristic outlook on Christianity and on Christian action, and adds that the Irish contribution is a purity in love and in hate which seems to be capable of reducing things to their simplest expression Now I think that this is a quality that might be remembered in estimating Father McDonnell's character and in explaining, too. how he made the “Irish Messenger” a national institution. He was deeply and simply everything. He was sincerely and unsophistically devout. He was wholeheartedly and undividedly absorbed in the “Irish Messenger” and in its interests, He was stoutly and, at times, singularly convinced of his ideas and policies. His devotion to his Alma Mater was unassailable and child-like. He had thus the two qualities necessary to the make-up of a good editor - thoroughness and simplicity: simplicity, in order to feel with the people; thoroughness, in order to be able to supply their needs.

But I prefer to remember him as one who had to bear a cross which, of all others, seemed too heavy to bear and yet bore it cheerfully and with courage. RIP

T I M

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1929

Obituary

Father Joseph McDonnell SJ

(Mungret, 1892-1895 & 1900-1904)

On the last day of the year 1928, the mortal remains of a devoted friend of Mungret and its students were laid to rest in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. Past Mungret students, especially those of the early nineties and of the first years of the present century will remember with affection and veneration Father Joseph McDonnell SJ.

Father McDonnell was born in Dublin seventy-one years ago, and spent over fifty years in the Society of Jesus. He was a first cousin of Father William Kane SJ, who is so well known as a teacher, a friend and a lovable personality to the Mungret students of the past thirty years.

Father McDonnell first came to Mungret in 1892 as a young priest, and for three years had charge of the Apostolic School, fulfilling besides in 1894-5 the additional office of Minister of the College. In 1895 he went to Chieri (in Piedmont), a beautifully situated town in the South-Eastern slopes of the Alps, for his Tertianship, or third year's noviceship. Returning to Ireland in 1896, he was appointed to the duty of assisting the late Father James Cullen SJ, in editing the Messenger of the Sacred Heart, and two years later was placed in charge of the Junior Scholastics of the Society of Jesus in Tullabeg College. In 1900 he was again transferred to Mungret College as Director of the Apostolic School, where he remained till 1904. After a few years he was again sent to Belvedere College, Dublin, to resume his former role of Assistant Editor of the “Messenger”. In this position he soon made himself indispensable, and when, in 1914, Father Cullen, then very old, had to relinquish finally the post of Editor, Father McDonnell took over the complete charge, which he retained till his holy death, in December, 1928.

Father McDonnell's work as Editor of the “Messenger” is well known. In the short sketch of his life which appears in the March number of the Messenger, we read :

Owing to his secluded life and dislike of appearing in public, Father McDonnell was personally known to only a small fraction of those who were familiar with his name, but by hundreds of thousands not merely in Ireland but also in foreign lands, he was regarded with love and respect for the comfort and courage which he had brought to them through his writings.

During his second term in Mungret, in the moments which he managed to spare from his regular work (besides being Director of the Apostolic School, he was also Spiritual Father of the Lay Boys, and taught several hours a day), he edited the “Madonna”, which he had founded in 1900, about the time of his coming to Mungret. This has gradually attained a circulation which is now probably as large as that which the “Messenger” had when Father McDonnell first took over the editorship.

In the work connected with the “Messenger” and the “Madonna”, Father McDonnell laboured unceasingly during the last twenty five years of his busy and fruitful life. His health was never robust, and he always worked up to the full measure of his strength. During the years he spent in Mungret it was a well-known and regular occurrence for Father McDonnell, after any short period of extra work or unusual strain, to become completely exhausted, and to be confined to bed, taking little or no food. He had, however, great recuperative power, on which he seemed rather to pride himself, and was usually at work again in full vigour after a day or two. During the last two years of his life his health gradually declined, and his sight, never good, failed so much that he was quite unable to read. Hence, for many years before his death he transacted all his editorial work with the aid of a secretary, who read letters, manuscripts, and proofs to him and put in writing his replies and criticisms. Yet, notwithstanding weakened health and failing sight, he worked unceasingly up to a week before his saintly death.

Father McDonnell never lost his courageous and hopeful spirit, his rare gentleness and courtesy of manner, his genial cheerfulness or his keen sense of humour. The spread of the devotion to the Sacred Heart was the passion of his life. “Few”, says the writer already quoted, “have spent themselves so unsparingly to make this devotion more known and appreciated, and few have done as much as he did to diffuse it through Ireland”. His apostleship was exercised mainly through the pages of the “Messenger” and the numerous pious publications of all kinds that gradually grew up around it as well as by his own numerous and excellent devotional books through which his name is principally known. Father McDonnell left his impress deeply in the customs and traditions of the Apostolic School. It was owing in no small part to his example and teaching that the spirit of piety and especially the devotion to the Sacred Heart, which has, since his time, been traditional among the Apostolic students, took such firm root in the College. Those who were privileged to be under his charge in Mungret will remember his fatherly kindness and patience, his gentleness of disposition, and the never-failing courtesy and respect with which he treated even the youngest and most thoughtless of the lads of whom he had charge. His zeal for souls communicated itself to the boys ; and there can be no doubt that his spirit and example have had a very important influence upon the lives of many who are now priests in different parts of the world. Although without skill in athletic exercises, and having little knowledge of boys' games, he entered into all the interests of the boys of whom he had charge, and it was amusing sometimes to see his excitement over a football match or an athletic contest in which his boys were competing against some other section of the College. He showed the same zeal in organising excursions, concerts and debates, and in the strenuous work of the College theatricals, all of which he regarded as important factors in the training and formation of the boys.

It was under Father McDonnell's direction that the “Rules and Customs of the Apostolic School” were first drawn up. It was for the students of the Apostolic School, too, that he wrote the excellent little handbook for young ecclesiastical students, called “Daily Duties”, which breathes such a spirit of solid piety, and inculcates so well the practice of prayer, self-denial and zeal, which must be at the foundation of the character of the truly apostolic priest. When leaving Mungret, Father McDonnell confessed to an intimate friend that he “felt broken-hearted” at parting from his lads and the work he loved so well. He would not trust himself to take leave of the boys, or even to drive off by the avenue in the usual way. He went round by the “Black Walk” a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, and waited for the car at the College gate.

To the end, even amid the absorbing work of his editorship and writings, he never relaxed in his love for all his own past pupils nor in his interest in the Apostolic School. He was always ready to utilise his position as editor in favour of Mungret and the work it is doing. By very many of his old pupils as by many of the readers of his works, his death will be felt as a personal loss; and though his life was blameless and spent in the service of the Master whom he loved, his many friends will not omit to pray for his speedy admittance to his eternal reward. RIP)

E Cahill SJ

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

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

Younger brother of James (ANG) - RIP 1904

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

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

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

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

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

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

Obituary :

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

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1956

Obituary

Father Jerome Mahony SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

H K SJ

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Jerome Mahony (1889-1956)

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

Born: 01 October 1907, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1925, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1938, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1942, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 16 July 1975, Mungret College, County Limerick

Part of the Sacred Heart, Crescent, Limerick community at the time of death

Early education at O’Connell’s School Dublin

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
John McCarron was known as Sean. Even as a novice, his qualities of leadership and practical common sense were recognised. He was self-confident, sure of his judgment and, on occasion, forthright in urging his point of view. His self-confidence stood to him in counselling and directing the large number of people, both clerical and lay, who sought his advice.
He was born in Dublin on 1 October 1907 and entered the Society in 1925. After the normal course of studies, juniorate, philosophy, regency and theology, he was ordained at Milltown Park in 1938.

For 15 years (1942 to 1957) Fr Sean was the Central Director of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association (PTAA) with the exception of the first year when he was the assistant. He possessed tremendous drive and was demanding of others both as to the quality and quantity of their work. Some within the Society said he was too demanding. However he had the knack or ability to draw around him people of talent and dedication who would give of their best.

He had a genius for organisation and administration which showed itself in the restructuring of the Pioneer office, in the conducting of Pioneer affairs and also in the overall direction of the memorable Golden Jubilee of the Association in 1949 which entailed a huge parade through the centre of Dublin and a massive meeting in Croke Park. He founded and launched the Pioneer Magazine in 1948 which quickly built up a good circulation in spite of the pundits who said that such a magazine would not be a practical proposition. He even procured a car for his work of promoting the Association - a very progressive action at the time. Until the late 40s, the only cars permitted in the Province were the four official cars for the country houses - Emo, Clongowes, Tullabeg and Mungret. The annual Pioneer Rally at Dublin's Theatre Royal was certainly the biggest annual rally of any group in Ireland. Because of the Association, he became one of the best known priests in Ireland.

An amusing incident took place when he was Director of the Pioneers. One afternoon seeing a poor woman pushing a pram up the hill in Gardiner Street, he went to assist her and found himself pushing a pram, not with a baby, but one full of bottles of beer!

He left the Association to be posted to Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) for the express purpose of building and setting up Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College. His right hand man was Br Pat McElduff. It was quite a showpiece with even a fountain on the campus. He was a tremendous worker but at the same time he had great kindness towards the workers and foremen. The firms he dealt with had great respect for him as he was always so straight and clear about what he wanted. He lived where he worked, in a small house, the inside of which was littered with plans everywhere – on the floor, on the table, on his bed. Zambia was a very happy episode in his life which revealed his charm and affability.

Back in Ireland he founded Manresa Retreat House and was the first Superior of Loyola House, the provincial’s new residence. His health had not been good for a number of years though he always made light of this. The end came suddenly early in the morning of 16 July 1975 in Limerick where he had been living.

Note from Arthur J Clarke Entry
During his six years as rector, he was blessed with such outstanding heads of Canisius as Dick Cremins and Michael J Kelly. Arthur's vision for Canisius as a leading secondary school was influenced by his experience of Clongowes Wood College in Ireland. First, he wanted a proper house for the community. Though the actual building was the responsibility of Fr McCarron and Br Pat McElduff, the siting and design of the spacious community house are largely Arthur’s.

Note from Pat McElduff Entry
For the construction of the Teachers Training College Charles Lwanga across the river from Chikuni, Br Pat was the obvious man for the building together with Fr McCarron just out from Ireland.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 4 1948

Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin.
We moved in on Saturday morning, 14th August. Fr, Superior (Fr. McCarron), Fr. Minister (Fr. Kearns), and Bro. E. Foley constituted the occupying force, and Fr. T. Martin not only placed his van at our disposal, but gave generously of his time and labour for the heavy work of the first day.
A long procession of vans unloaded until noon, when the men broke off for their half-day, leaving a mountain of assorted hardware and soft goods to be unpacked and stowed. By nightfall we had a chapel installed, the kitchen working, dining-room in passable order, and beds set up, so we said litanies, Fr. Superior blessed the house and consecrated it to the Sacred Heart.
Next morning Fr. Superior said the first Mass ever offered in the building. It was the Feast of the Assumption and a Sunday, so we. placed the house and the work under the Patronage of Our Lady and paused to review the scene. Fr. Provincial came to lunch.
The building is soundly constructed from basement to roof, but needs considerable modification before it can be used as a temporary Retreat House. The permanent Retreat House has yet to be built on the existing stables about 130 yards from the principal structure, but. we hope to take about twenty exercitants as soon as builders, plumbers, electricians, carpenters and decorators have done their work.
Fr. C. Doyle is equipping and furnishing the domestic chapel as a memorial to Fr. Willie, who worked so tirelessly for the establishment of workingmen's retreats in Ireland. A mantelpiece of this room has been removed, and thermostatically controlled electric heating is being installed. Lighting is to be by means of fluorescent tubes of the latest type.
With all due respects to the expert gardeners of the Province, we modestly assert that our garden is superb. Fr. Provincial was so impressed by the work done there that he presented us with a Fordson 8 H.P. van to bring the surplus produce to market. Under the personal supervision of Fr. Superior, our two professional gardeners took nine first prizes and four seconds with fourteen exhibits at the Drimnagh show. Twelve of their potatoes filled a bucket, and were sold for one shilling each. The garden extends over 2 of our 17 acres and will, please God, provide abundant fruit and vegetables.
From the beginning we have been overwhelmed with kindness: by our houses and by individual Fathers. Fr. Provincial has been a fairy-godmother to us all the time. As well as the van, he has given us a radio to keep us in touch with the outside world. We have bene fitted by the wise advice of Frs. Doyle and Kenny in buying equipment and supplies, while both of them, together with Fr. Rector of Belvedere and Fr. Superior of Gardiner Street, have given and lent furniture for our temporary chapel Fr. Scantlebury sacrificed two fine mahogany bookcases, while Frs. Doherty and D. Dargan travelled by rail and bus so that we might have the use of the Pioneer car for three weeks. Milltown sent a roll-top desk for Fr, Superior's use. To all who helped both houses and individuals we offer our warmest thanks, and we include in this acknowledgement the many others whom we have not mentioned by name.
Our man-power problem was acute until the Theologians came to the rescue. Two servants were engaged consecutively, but called off without beginning work. An appeal to Fr. Smyth at Milltown brought us Messrs. Doris and Kelly for a week of gruelling labour in the house. They scrubbed and waxed and carpentered without respite until Saturday when Mr. Kelly had to leave us. Mr. Hornedo of the Toledo Province came to replace him, and Mr. Barry arrived for work in the grounds. Thanks to their zeal and skill, the refectory, library and several bedrooms were made ready and we welcomed our first guest on Monday, 30th August. Under the influence of the sea air, Fr. Quinlan is regaining his strength after his long and severe illness.
If anyone has old furniture, books, bedclothes, pictures, or, in fact anything which he considers superfluous, we should be very glad to hear of it, as we are faced with the task of organizing accommodation for 60 men and are trying to keep the financial load as light as possible in these times of high cost. The maintenance of the house depends on alms and whatever the garden may bring. What may look like junk to an established house may be very useful to us, starting from bare essentials. Most of all, we want the prayers of the brethren for the success of the whole venture, which is judged to be a great act of trust in the Providence of God.
Our postal address is : Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin.

Irish Province News 50th Year No 3 and 4 1975

Obituary :

Fr Seán McCarron (1907-1975)

Fr Kevin O'Donnell writes:
“I went to Tullabeg in September 1925, a few days after Seán McCarron. We were together from that date until the end of our Tertianship in 1940, moving on from the Noviceship to the Juniorate, then to Philosophy, to Clongowes, to Milltown Park and finally to Rathfarnham.
Father Paddy Kenny was in constant attendance during our years of formation, being Socius and Minister during our noviceship and coming with us to Rathfarnham. He was appointed Minister in Clongowes at the same time as we were sent there as scholastics. We had, therefore, the benefit of the guidance and example of an outstanding Jesuit - a practical and deeply spiritual man.
Seán would be astonished if he heard anyone attempting to draw a comparison between himself and ‘PK’, and I don't intend to try it. His long and constant association with ‘PK’ undoubtedly influenced Seán.
Even in the Noviceship, Seán's qualities of leadership and practical common sense were recognised. At ‘outdoor works’, when Seán was in charge of a group, we all knew whom to obey, Seán was aware of his gifts - he was self-confident, sure of his judgement and, on occasion, forthright in urging his point. This self confidence stood to him in later life in counselling and directing the very large number of people - clerical and lay - who sought his advice.
In addition to a very practical mind and his gift of leadership, Seán had a deep and genuine spirituality, zealous and generous in giving the Spiritual Exercises, and a great worker on a Mission.
He gave devoted and distinguished service to the Society which he joined fifty years ago. God grant him his reward”.

Fr Dan Dargan writes about Seán as Director of the Pioneers :
“In 1942 Fr Seán McCarron was appointed assistant to the Director of the Pioneer Association, Fr Joe Flinn. The following year Fr Flinn died and Seán succeeded him as Central Director. He remained in that office until 1957 when he left Ireland to work on the Zambian mission.
For nine years I was his assistant, and during that time I grew to look on him as one of the most able men I have met in the Society. He was highly intelligent, practical and forceful, he commanded widespread respect throughout the country and became one of the best-known priests in Ireland. Himself possessing tremendous drive, he was demanding of others, both as to the quality and quantity of their work. In the Society some said that he was too demanding. Outside the Society I have known several people who were ready to work themselves to the bone for Fr McCarron and glad to be able to do it. Indeed a secret of his success in whatever he undertook was his ability to draw around him people of talent and dedication who would give of their best.
I was often struck by his handling of a thorny issue. He would study it, would get right to the kernel and would evaluate reasons for and against. Then, where others might hesitate, he would make a decision and would fearlessly execute it. He had a genius for organisation and administration, as he showed in his efficient re structuring of the Pioneer Association office, in his overall direction of the memorable Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Association in 1949, and in his conducting of Pioneer affairs. He was much sought after as a spiritual adviser, especially during his years at Manresa Retreat House. I have heard people speak of the valuable direction he gave them with his commonsense approach and generous kindness to them.
Until recently it fell to the lot of few Jesuits to be assigned to more than one totally new work in the course of their lives. Within ten years Seán McCarron was given three such assignments: he was appointed founder of Manresa Retreat House, first superior of Loyola, and was sent to Zambia for the express purpose of building and setting up the Charles Lwanga College. One reason for these appointments was his great initiative, to which any house where he was in charge bears witness. In the Pioneer Association, before his coming on the scene, it was the official viewpoint that a special magazine for the Association would not be a practical proposition. In 1948 Seán blew this theory to bits when he founded and launched the Pioneer magazine, which quickly built up a good circulation. After the Second World War, as soon as motor cars began to appear freely on the roads, Seán procured a car for his work of promoting the Association - an action which at the time was considered very progressive! (It may come as a surprise to younger Jesuits to learn that until the late 1940s the only cars permitted in the Province were the four official house cars allowed to our country houses, one each to Emo, Tullabeg, Clongowes and Mungret).
For him a favourite occasion was the annual Pioneer meeting in Dublin's Theatre Royal. This was quite a remarkable meeting, certainly the biggest annual rally of any group in Ireland. The theatre, which held three and a half thousand people, was always packed. No sooner had Seán risen and said a few words than you could see that he held his audience in the palm of his hand. He would begin in a relaxed, humorous vein, often referring jocosely to his personal proportions - at that time he weighed 18 stone - and he would have his listeners chuckling away merrily. Then he would grow serious, would speak with impassioned eloquence, often lifting his listeners to heights of enthusiasm. On many occasions he hit out hard at drink abuses, including breaches of the licensing laws. He was sometimes criticised by members of the Province for this, but he was convinced that he was justified in making strong protests against abuses which produced such damaging effects on the moral and social life of our people.
Those of us who worked with him often marvelled at his powers of persuasion in bringing people around to accept his viewpoint. On the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of the Association, he pro posed to archbishop McQuaid his intended programme involving a huge parade through the centre of Dublin and an open-air meet ing in Croke Park. The archbishop was anything but encouraging. Undaunted Seán explained to the archbishop the spiritual motivation of the Pioneer Association, and said that the rally would afford a unique opportunity to put this motivation before the general public. The archbishop withdrew his disapproval and gave his sanction to Seán's plans.
Almost on the eve of a national Pioneer pilgrimage to Knock in the Marian Year (1954), the men in the GNR company in the Drogheda area became involved in a dispute with the management, and decided that until they got satisfaction they would not operate any trains on Sundays. Realising the disappointment this would bring to people in Meath and Louth, Seán went up to Drogheda, met the men and appealed to them to run the trains for the Pioneer pilgrimage. To do so, he told them, would not adversely prejudice their case, but rather would win admiration from the public. The men were impressed, responded to his appeal, and - the Pioneers got to Knock!
It came as a surprise to many outside the Society to learn after his death that he experienced bad health in many forms for many years. He himself always made light of this, would even joke about it, but throughout his ill-health and suffering he showed remark able courage, never giving way to self-pity and showing a deep spirit of faith. He knew that the end might come suddenly at any time, and so it did, early in the morning of the 16th July, 1975, May his great soul enjoy happiness with God whom he served so cheerfully and courageously”.

Mary Purcell has a 3-page illustrated article on Seán in the Pioneer (September 1975).

Fr Charlie O'Connor writes about Seán in Zambia :
“I have a very clear picture of Seán in Zambia. I think he was in his element there. He had a job to do and he was complete boss in that job - and I think Seán needed to be completely in charge. He made a great job of the building of Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College: it was quite a showpiece - who in Africa had ever thought before of including a fountain in a campus?
The word I find coming to mind for the McCarron of those days (1956-'63) is genial. There was great affability towards workers and foremen - but the affable face could set in serious lines when problems arose. The firms he dealt with had great respect for him - I suppose because he was so straight and so clear about what he wanted.
Another picture comes to mind: he lived on his own in one of the teachers' houses he had erected. You'd go in and find him in a room littered with plans on the floor, table, bed, plans everywhere.
Another picture: You'd meet him making his way very purposefully towards one of the sites, his huge wide-brimmed hat on his head - that was quite a characteristic feature of Seán in those days - in shirt and trousers - and with a rolled plan under his arm.
I'm certain Zambia was a very happy episode in his life - and perhaps revealed more than other periods his great charm and affability. Before that I had thought of him as autocratic and not very warm.

Born: 21 October 1905, North Circular Road, Dublin
Entered: 31 August 1922, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1936, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1939, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 14 May 1956, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

Older brother of Joseph McCarthy - RIP 1986

by 1938 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 31st Year No 3 1956
Obituary :

Fr Michael McCarthy

Fr. Michael McCarthy died on Monday, May 14th in the Mater Hospital Nursing Home, after an illness of nearly five months.
He was born in Dublin in 1905, the eldest son of John McCarthy, a distinguished member of the Survey and Valuation Office. He was at school at O'Connell School, Dublin. In the large world of that school he was known and appreciated as a good student and a very good athlete. It was too large a place for the flowering of his gifts and he left memories of a very quiet boy of piety and talent rather than of striking intellectual power. He entered the Society in 1922 with Fr. Thomas Byrne, who was later to be his Provincial, and together they passed into and through the influence of Fr. Michael Browne. In 1924 Michael McCarthy came to Rathfarnham Castle and spent a year as a home junior, preparing for his Matriculation examination and for an entrance scholarship in Mathematics. It was here that his talents, now maturing, became very plain. He showed all the signs of the first class mathematician and took his scholarship with first place. In his first year examinations he again came first in his subject, but added to it leadership in English, which surprised none who knew him and least of all the many readers of the juniorate magazine. His writings had a quality of clear simplicity and dry humour, humour often barbed delicately, which made it obvious that we had in our midst a mathematician with elegant prose style. It was unfortunate for the Province that Michael McCarthy who was never a robust man, should have contracted “broken head”, as it was called. This interfered so much with attention to severe study, that his brilliant course was ended and he was sent, out of time, to teach in Clongowes. So ended his academic career in the National University to the deep regret of his professors and his contemporaries.
Self pity was no part of Michael McCarthy's make up and he set to work in Clongowes as if the heights had never beckoned. He taught Mathematics and played games and relaxed his strained nerves in field sports which admirably suited his temperament. In a quiet way he became a near authority on fishing and shooting and indeed developed a certain out of this century air of the educated man who is at home with nature and knows it very well. After three happy years in Clongowes, where he recovered his health and learnt to enjoy and love men like Fr. Wrafter and Fr. Elliot, he went on to Tullabeg to take up again the student's yoke. The atmosphere of these years in Tullabeg is one most cherished by those who lived there. No day was a dull day here. There was adventure in the classroom, on the football field, with the boats and after wild fowl on the bog. Here Michael McCarthy flourished and was very much at home. Here he found himself as a good community man and here he made his friends.
After Tullabeg the more sober air of Miltown in 1933. He went into the Shorts as the only possibility for one of his disposition of health and in that less tense atmosphere studied his Theology. He was a very good moralist. By nature he was not of speculative bent, in fact he rather disliked the metaphysical approach, while the legal dissective method suited his instinct and training. He was ordained in 1936 by His Grace the Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J, and after his fourth year went on to St. Beuno's for his tertianship under Fr. Leonard Geddes.
In 1938 he went to Mungret to teach and act as Spiritual Father to the boys. To his great satisfaction it was English he was asked to teach and here too for the first time he began a favourite work, that of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
In the following year he became Minister in Belvedere in the days of the Rectorship of Fr. J. M. O'Connor, and for the first year he was also Assistant Prefect of Studies. He enjoyed telling stories of his days as Minister to Fr. O'Connor; picturing himself as the quiet man of routine and placid method in double harness with the drive, energy and unexpected inspirations of his Rector. But the combination worked and between the two to the last there was a strong bond of affection and mutual respect. From 1942 to his death Michael taught Mathematics and for all but his last short year he was Spiritual adviser to the College Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, Last autumn he gave up his formal connection with the Conference and returned to his earlier and less pleasant job as Assistant Prefect of Studies. He spent nearly twenty years in Belvedere and there was no phase of college life in which he had not a keen, appreciative and intelligent interest. His great gifts were, with patience and generosity, put at the disposal of the boys and staff of the College. He was a very successful teacher and he owed it not to his knowledge or forceful personality, but to his intelligently humorous understanding of schoolboys. He was never dis appointed, never impatient. He never looked for either the mature or the angelio in his classes so there were none of the spurious scenes, no unfocussed situations, no dramas. The principal actor did not favour melodrama. Belvedere boys will miss him for this understanding quality.
It goes without saying that Michael McCarthy is a loss to the Province. He was a young man as years go and we might have expected to have him for many years to come. He is a very great loss to Belvedere College and to all his friends. Neither health nor natural temper made him the man of marked personality who cannot be overlooked. Health and temper produced a retiring, unobstrusive man, but his colleagues and the boys whom he taught knew him for more than the delicate, reserved teacher. In him natural piety had matured into one for whom the spiritual life was not artificial, not worn as a cloak, however hardly won, but as his natural life, simple and spontaneous. He was a model of formal regularity, but never intolerant of others; he was devout without ostentation, he was charitable to his brethren without any condescension and with humour; he worked hard and unfailingly under the handicap of ill health. He was perhaps a little intolerant of artists and their temperamental vagaries, but in all else he was such a religious as St. Ignatius would have wished to see us all.
His favourite work with the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul was a little known outlet for something deep in his character, which lay concealed beneath a certain exterior reserve and restraint. Even his friends can have little idea of his influence with the poor, of the affection they had for him and of his love for them. He visited them at home, heard the whole tale of their woe and coped with their problems. Manner, elegant figure, delicate air, all meant gentleman for them and he was their “kind gentleman”. He looked after them body and soul and while he was in no doubt about values he yet knew he was dealing with human beings. Their concern for his health was amusing to him, but to others, touching. He had their prayers and Masses. They asked about him regularly. They mourned him deeply. They had lost not a benefactor, but a friend, one of themselves, another Christ.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Michael McCarthy 1905-1956
Fr Michael McCarthy died on May 14th 1956 at the age of 51. With his death the Province lost a truly spiritual, congenial and lovable character, a man of exceptional mathematical and literary talents, which ill health prevented from blossoming into full maturity.

Born in Dublin in 1905, he was educated at O’Connell Schools, entering the Society in 1922. His early studies were crowned with brilliant success, but that bane of many a Jesuit “the broken head” marred his chances of further achievement.

He bore his cross lightly and good-humouredly, by no means making a martyr out of himself. His zeal and apostolic fervour found an outlet in the St Vincent de Paul Society attached to Belvedere College, where he laboured for the best part of his life as a Jesuit priest.

An unobtrusive hero, shy and reserved as to his real self, he served God faithfully in the classroom and on his quiet visits to the poor. A life hidden in God. A character truly lovable and to be admired.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1956

Obituary

Father Michael McCarthy SJ

The death has occurred of Rev Michael McCarthy SJ, of Belvedere College, Dublin, to which he had been attached for almost 20 years. A native of Dublin, he was aged 51.

Fr McCarthy was the eldest son of Mr John McCarthy, a distinguished member of the staff of the Survey and Valuation Office, Dublin. He was educated at the O'Connell School where he was a brilliant scudent as well as a fine athlete. He entered the Society of Jesus at St Stanislaus' College, Tullamore, in 1922. After his novitiate, he entered UCD as a Scholar in Mathematics and read a most successful course there, being Prizeman in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics. He then taught his subject in Clongowes Wood College for the next three years before going back to Tullamore in 1931 to study Philosophy. After two years there followed four years at Milltown Park where in July, 1936, at the end of his third year, he was ordained priest by His Grace Most Rev Alban Goodier SJ. He completed his training as a Jesuit at the House of Third Probation, St Beuno's, North Wales, in 1938.

During the next year he taught English Literature at Mungret College, Limerick, and at the same time he was Spiritual Director to the boys of the college. Then in 1939 began his long association with Belvedere College. He was Vice-Rector of Belvedere from 1939 until 1942, and for some time Assistant Prefect of Studies. During the whole period he taught Mathematics in the upper classes and until the last few months acted as Spiritual Director to the College Conferences of St Vincent de Paul.

Fr McCarthy's brother, Rev Joseph McCarthy SJ, is Superior of the Jesuit house at Chikuni, Northern Rhodesia. Another brother, Mr Owen McCarthy, BE, is at the Survey and Valuation Office, Dublin; while his third brother, Mr. James McCarthy, is Professor of English at Cairo University. His three sisters living in Dublin are Mrs N McCauley, Santry; Mrs Hastings, and Miss McCarthy.

The death of Fr. McCarthy is a severe loss to Belvedere College, and is a personal bereavement for the boys and men who have had the privilege of his company and training during almost twenty years. There was no phase of college life in which he had not a keen, intelligent and appreciative interest. He was a man of exceptional intellectual gifts, distinguished by rernarkable clarity of thought allied to clarity of expression, and given normal. health would have been a leader in the field of mathematical analysis. His great gifts were generously put with patience and success at the disposal of the boys and staff of Belvedere, and his monu ment as a teacher is their achievement.

He was widely read, possessed a critical mind, and wrote English with such elegance and distinction that his opinions were widely sought and his rare writings and sermons highly valued. He has a special niche in the hearts of the poor over a large area of the City centre. He was their trusted confidant, and their regular and honoured visitor in tenement homes.

Ill-health never interrupted his apostolate of the poor and it was an apostolate all the more valued because it was so spontaneous in its interest. His friends of the poor, hawkers, newspaper sellers, flower sellers, revered and loved him, whom they called with affection “the poor, kind gentlemnian” - well-chosen words which declared his character.

All those who suffer by his loss, his colleagues, his thousands of pupils, his poor, will pray for eternal rest for his soul.

Born: 01 February 1865, Tipperary Town, County Tipperary
Entered: 01 February 1883, Milltown Park, Dublin and Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 01 August 1897, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1900
Died: 16 July 1938, Mount Saint Evin’s Hospital, Fitzroy, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Xavier College, (Kostka Hall) Kew, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death.

Transcribed : HIB to ASL 05/04/1931

Transcribed : HIB to ASL 05/04/1931

by 1899 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
Came to Australia 1889 for Regency

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Patrick McCurtin was one of the best prefects of studies the Australian province has ever seen, and perhaps the best all round educationist. He was a most dynamic and active presence in both New South Wales and Victoria, and made a deep impression on all colleagues, but especially non-Jesuits. The Teachers' Guild of NSW benefitted by his services as member, councillor and president during the years, 1912-21. He was appreciated for his influence, wit and keen insight into all matters under discussion. He endeared himself to people by his unfailing courtesy and solicitude for the welfare of everyone. From 1914-16 he was the Catholic representative on the Bursary Endowment Board of NSW, a strong voice, with “breadth of view and clear outlook”, seeking equality for Catholic schools. McCurtin was also active during the school holidays giving retreats. McCurtin's early education was at Rockwell College before entering the Jesuits at Milltown Park, Dublin, 1 February 1883, After philosophy in 1888, he was sent to Xavier College, Melbourne, until 1894, teaching senior classes and assisting the prefect of studies. He returned to Ireland for theology, and was then sent to Belvedere College, 1897-98, before his tertianship at Tronchiennes. He returned to Belvedere in 1899 and was prefect of studies for 1901 before he left for Australia again, arriving at St Patrick's College as prefect of studies in 1901. When sending McCurtin to Australia, the Irish provincial, James Murphy, wrote to the mission superior, John Ryan, that he should be grateful to receive “an invaluable man, most holy and edifying, earnest, active and unsparing, methodical and practical”.
From 1903-10 he was prefect of studies at Xavier College before his appointment as rector of St Aloysius' College, 1910-16. It was during these years that college rectors expressed considerable concern about the insufficient quality of Jesuit teachers, especially for the senior classes. Many fathers were considered too old or unwell. McCurtin was particularly concerned that St Aloysius College was given poor quality teaching staff by a succession of mission superiors, hence its reputation for inefficiency. He believed that superiors did not believe in the future of the college. He was concerned about the lack of professionalism of Jesuits in education, and the lagging response of Jesuits to progressive changes in educational theory and practice. Furthermore, there was not money for secular teachers, and Catholic teachers were hard to find. Despite his concerns, St Aloysius' College was registered as a first class school in New South Wales and ranked among the best schools. The public examination results were good and the spirit among the boys most pleasing.
The question of poor teaching staff at St Aloysius' College led to the dramatic resignation of McCurtin as rector in 1916, when the mission superior transferred Dominic Connell, “one of our best masters”, to become parish priest at Norwood, SA. At the time there were very few competent teachers on the staff, and finances were not good, which made the employment of lay teachers difficult. McCurtin believed that the image of the school would suffer. Jesuit superiors, including the General, did not appreciate this resignation. After a further period as prefect of studies at Xavier College, and Riverview, 1917-21, he returned to Ireland, where he later became superior of the Apostolic School at Mungret and rector of the Crescent College, Limerick, 1923-31. Wishing to end his days in Australia he returned to do good work as headmaster at both Burke Hall and Kostka Hall. He died in St Evin’s Hospital after sustaining a heart attack. McCurtin was a striking figure-a small, slight, alert, active, dapper person. He was fond of flowers and beautiful things, was orderly and methodical, artistic with exquisite handwriting, and humorous, with great social charm. His Jesuit brethren found him to be a colleague with very definite opinions strongly held and, on occasion, vigorously expressed, but he was also a tolerant and kind character with a keen sense of humour. Because he was what he was, he found it difficult working with immediate superiors who did not possess his own qualities. As prefect of studies at Riverview, 1918-21, he experienced much frustration, anxiety and illness because of the disorderliness and apparent lack of enthusiasm for academic excellence. He showed special interest in the Old Boys of all the colleges in which he served. While in Ireland he kept up continual correspondence, especially with Xavier College and St Aloysius College. Former students praised him for his fatherly care, his spirit of broadmindedness and tolerance, and other good qualities that made him a universal favorite. They spoke of him as a dynamic personality, builder and developer, and a polished gentleman. During his educational work, Patrick McCurtin was continually involved with educational issues, both for the development of Jesuit pedagogy and Catholic schooling in Australia. Australia was fortunate to have had the services of McCurtin's considerable administrative ability and clear vision. He was totally professional in his approach to education, an attitude not always appreciated by his superiors. Together with James O'Dwyer, to whom he dedicated a marble altar in the Burke Hall chapel, he improved the attitude of Australian Jesuits towards academic achievement, while his contact with educational organisations and State committees of education gave the Jesuits wider influence in the community.

Note from Dominic Connell Entry
He was sent mid year to Manresa Norwood to replace Henry Cock. This resulted in a major drama when the Rector of St Aloysius, Patrick McCurtin, resigned in protest, claiming that Dominic was his only good Jesuit teacher

Note from John Forster Entry
He returned to Australia and St Aloysius Sydney, and he was appointed Rector there in 1916 following the resignation of Patrick McCurtin

Note from John Williams Entry
John Williams (RIP 1981) had a sad childhood. His Irish mother and Welsh father died leaving five small children, three boys and two girls. He was looked after by a relative of his, Father Patrick McCurtin, and was a boarder at Mungret.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 1st Year No 4 1926
College of the Sacred Heart Limerick : On May 16th, Fr McCurtin's appointment as Rector was announced. On the same day, his predecessor, Fr L. Potter, took up his new duties as Superior of the Apostolic School. During his seven years' rectorship the Church was considerably extended, a new organ gallery erected, and a new organ installed. A beautiful new Shrine in honor of the Sacred Heart was added, and a marble flooring to the Sanctuary laid down.

Irish Province News 13th Year No 4 1938
Obituary :
Father Patrick McCurtin
1865 Born 1st February in Tipperary town
1883 Milltown. Novice
1884 Dromore, Novice (Noviceship changed to Dromore)
1885-87 Milltown, Philosophy
1888-93 Kew (Australia) Doc., etc
1894-96 Milltown. Theol
1897 Belvedere. Doc. Cons. dom
1898 Tronchiennes. Tertian
1899 Belvedere. Doc.. Cons. dom
1900 Belvedere. Praef. Stud. Cons. dom
1901-02 Melbourne. St. Patrick's. Praef. Stud.. Cons. dom
1903-09 Kew. Doc. Cons. dom
1910-16 Sydney, Milson's Point, Rector, Doc. Oper
1917-19 Kew, Praef. Stud. Doc. an. 25, Cons. dom
1918-20 Riverview, Sydney, Preef. Stud. Cons. dom
1921 Clongowes, Doc. Praes. acad. sen., etc
1922 Rathfarnham. Miss. Excurr
1923-25 Mungret, Superior Apostol., Lect. Phil., Cons. dom
1926-31 Crescent, Rector. Doc. an. 37 mag., etc
1932 Australia, Loyola, Soc. Mag. Nov
1933-36 Kew, Min. Burke Hall, Doc. an. 42 mag. Cons. dom
1937-38 Kew, Min. Kostka Hall, Doc. an. 42 mag. Cons. dom

He went to Australia for the third time in the autumn 1931. Died Saturday, 16th July, 1938

Outside studies, etc., Father McCurtin spent only twelve years of his Jesuit life in Ireland. The rest, thirty-three years, was passed in Australia where he held with distinction many important posts including the Rectorship of Milson's Point for six years. He died when in charge of the newly established preparatory school Kostka Hall. He holds the distinguished record of forty-four years teaching in one or other of our Colleges.

◆ The Aloysian, Sydney, 1923

An Appreciation

Father Patrick J McCurtin SJ

In 1911 we schoolboys of St. Aloysius' saw a pile of luggage heaped at the back of the Masters' house. · On the following day someone had a letter from a boy at Xavier, where Father McCurtin had previously taught, saying that the school name of our new Rector was Fr McCurtin. That was our first introduction. We met him lter, and it is not too much to say that we found him quite unlike the priest we had pictured in imagination.

He was short in build, and dressed then, as he always was, immaculately. I think he was the only one of the staff who wore a silk hat; he fitted a “bell-topper” so well that we would almost have doubted his identity were he crowned only with felt, and minus cuffs and stick. I believe he abandoned some of these distinguishing marks in later years. He was thin and spare. A man of intense enthusiasm and energy such as he possessed could not well be otherwise. We did not know that even then his health was not good; his consistent vitality gave indication of a robust constitution. We always thought him a much younger man than he was; his appearance belied his age. Brisk walker, brisk thinker, brisk and sure in judgment-everything: about him told of the high-tensioned mechanism that controlled him, or, rather, that he had learned to hold in subjection. Strachey's description of Arnold fitted the Rector admirably: “His outward appearance was the index of his inward character; everything about him denoted energy, earnestness and the best intentions”. His eyes read a person at a glance. I cannot remember any boy trying to deceive him or treat him in any other way than siti cerely and earnestly. We felt that it wouldn't pay: or, perhaps, a keen boyish instinct convinced us that he deserved the best treatment we could give.

When Father McCurtin came to Aloysius we felt that progress was assured ; we were impelled by the influence of a great personality to co-operate in that progress. Few lagged behind; success and an increase in attendance came at an incredible pace.

He taught English and Religious Know ledge during my time. His methods were very direct. He was accustomed to give his views - favourable or otherwise on the suitability of a text-book, and, sometimes, on the mythical Board of Examiners who set the book. This method of critical analysis soon showed its influence on the boys, who began to look for faults and virtues in a book, and gradually ceased to read as a task or merely from the motive of idle curiosity. His speech as President, of the Teachers' Guild of NSW recalls much of what he said to his boys in 1912 and 1913. In 1915 he was able to say that the Representatives of the Registered and State Schools had met the Board of Examiners and secured a certain amount of success. In typically sarcastic language the long-experienced teacher had a gibe at the methods of these theorists in education : Usually, the teacher has to gaze at the examiner and the law-giver from a respect fui distance, and strive to gauge his be nevolence through the thunderous cloud of his majesty. But last year the very gods came down from a remote Olympus and mixed with mortals. Thus a better under standing has arisen between the University authorities and the members of the teach ing profession”.

Another feature of the Rector's teaching was to encourage individual effort.. He could gauge a boy's likes and dislikes; he directed each one wisely along the road adapted for him by Nature. Take the modern school curriculum as an example of crushing out individuality. The day is full of half-hours devoted to a dozen subjects; and the boy must try to get a superficial knowledge of all these or be plucked in the examinations These public exami nations have been so magnified in impor ance that they are regarded by a natic of shopkeepers as the criterion of a boy or a college's efficiency. Yet, how many! the successful candidates have ever bee introduced into the portals of the hall { learning; how many have ever been taugl to study for the love of study or knowledg or without constraint from a master's las or a possible examination failure hangin over their heads like a threatening swor of Damocles. The best proof of the inad: quacy of our examination system is ti current belief that a boy'is educated whe he leaves school. The truth is that by the he should have learned how to begin 1 study seriously. Father McCurtin ha something to say about the crammin system in his 1915 address to the Teacher Guild:

“There is, indeed, one problem which is a spectre of the future, but is right here with us. It is really one part of a problein, though. very important part. We have a syllabus for a schools, for all candidates. One may introduce slight variations here and there for some pupil but the freedom possible is not great when it comes to practice. Whether it would be wise not to cast varying minds and varying taste, and aptitudes into one mould, I shall not discuss. ... Ordinarily, it is safer to propher after an event, but I do hazard the forecast that the matter will some day clamour for attention at the hands of our educators in New South Wales”

Father McCurtin was not lacking in el couragement for every honest effort. Ei couragement is becoming out of date i modern times, in proportion to the growt I of self-interest and the cult of selfishness. A pat on the back for an honest attempt may change the whole trend of life for a honest boy. But surprisingly few teachers and employers notice the good points in an effort; they concentrate on condemning the deficiencies which are evident to them after years of training and experience. Father McCurtin could wield a weapon of the most cutting sarcasm when he wished; but after the lash had fallen beavily he would always bring out some balm of encouragement for a good point that had lain hidden under the defects. He had a hand always ready to assist the less capable boy; a lash (nearly always verbal) to urge on the lazy; and a rapier. of sarcasm to deflate the swollen pride of the unwarrantably venturesome. But he never completely deflated the boyish balloon; he discharged the hot-air and tied it firmly to mother-earth lest it rise too quickly and immaturely. I was once told of an incident concerning a school essay; it illustrates this trait of his teaching, A certain student whose literary attempts had never shows any more than the evi dences of unpleasant tasks, and from whom the Rector expected better results, deter mined to take a rise out of the master. He compiled a plan, vrote an essay in rough, amended it, and finally handed in a ten page manuscript that was considerably above the average for a schoolboy. He took the precautiou to leave it unsigned. On the Tuesday following the Rector placed the pile of essays on the desk; and promptly, as was his wont, rejected half of them as worthless. He commented on the remainder, reserving the ten-page effusion for special comment. The laudatory com .ments were directed at a boy who found · no opportunity to disclaim ownership until the end of a long review. When the real author was discovered the Rector changed his tactics, and re-examined the essay. Be ginning with the plan, following paragraph after paragraph, analysing construction of sentences, criticising phraseology, concep tions and presentation, the unfortunate author was quickly convinced that little more than the title was unassailable. I have heard that boy say many a time tirat that essay and that day's criticism started him to think seriously of writing. Some years later that same boy handed over the manuscript of a lengthy book to the same master, and begged of him to dis sect and reject, feeling confident that what Father McCurtin left intact would be av cepted by the world at large. He did dissect with an incredible precision, insiglit and minuteness, and sent a covering letter, which I was allowed to read, and from which I am granted permission to reproduce the opening sentences. He wrote: “My dear --; I have just finished the last line of your book, and wish to send you my warmest congratulations at once. The thing I do wish especially to write is: God bless you... I feel as proud as Punch of you."

His educational efforts were not confined within the walls of Aloysius'. For nine years - 1912 to 1921- he was an influential member of the Teachers Guild of New South Wales. The Hon Secretary of the Guild gives the following information con cerning his activities in educational matters :

“Father McCurtin joined the Guild somewhere about 1912. In 1913, when Rector of St Aloy sius' College, he opened a discussion on the revised syllabus for Secondary Schools in consequence of which important resolutions were passed and forwarded to the Board of Examiners. He was elected Vice-President in 1913, and was President for the year 1914-15; and thereafter was on the Council till he went abroad. Always a keen debater and vigorous uphoider of the I rights of the non-State seliools, he was deputed to speak on behalf of the Headmasters' Association at the meeting held at the University in 1921, when the matter of the compulsory registration of teachers was advocated. It was his telling speech that defeated the measure as being one for which the time was not yet ripe in this State, and as being likely to bring the schools more and more under Government control.

He represented the Catholic schools on the Bursary Board from March, 1910, until February, 1917, when, on being removed to Melboume, he resigned his position. He severed his connection with the Guild on his departure for Europe in 1921”.

An appreciation of his services in the cause of education in Australia appeared in “The Australian Teacher” (April, 23). Since the notice represented the views of his associates in educational matters who were members of every religion, it may be taken for granted that the eulogism is un biassed and deserved.

“The Guild has suffered a distinct loss in the departure of Father McCurtin. His shrewd and logical criticism was always helpful, and facili tated the solution of many problems. He is at present engaged in missionary work in Ireland”.

Far be it from my intention to criticise the wisdom of Father McCurtin's transfer to Ireland. It can be said with impunity, however, that Australia suffered an almost irreparable loss when he left our shores. Our educational efforts, which are for the most part in the tentative and experimen tal stage as they must be in a young country-needed. the advice and ripe di rection of such a man. We can hardly spare men of the Father McCurtin capabilities and experience, who can speak with authority and suggest directions when the politically driven ship of national education is grating on the rocks of disaster.

He has now a responsible position in Ireland as Spiritual Director to the ecclesiastical students at Mungret. He is eminently suited for any position where the training of young men is concerned. From him they may learn wisdom that has heen gained by long and varied experience; from contact with him they may grow like him. For his personality is such that it irradiates manliness and culture, just as the flowering wistaria vine perfumes and be decks with a rich splendour the battered shed wherein such mundane creatures as cows and chickens sleep.
Father MeCurtin has left his impress upon hundreds of Australian boys, now grown into respectable citizens of a young Commonwealth. They are in every walk of life; in the Church, medicine, law and business; distinguished in war and in peace. They are his best biography. He left an indelible mark on all people and organisations associated with him.

We can say truthfully of him: Australia is a better country because he once lived in it; it is poorer than it would have been had he remained in it.

EOB

◆ The Aloysian, Sydney, 1933

Golden Jubilarian

Father Patrick J McCurtin SJ

The courteous patience of the Rev Editor of the School Magazine should have been incentive sufficient to make me begin and finish this article. But as usual I am running late, and probably, delaying the issue of the magazine. My greatest difficulty, I find, is to make a literary sketch of Father McCurtin. In a sketch the lines must be few and definite, but complete. The task for a draughtsman would be easier than for the writer, because Father McCurtin's spare frame is more angular and more linear than that of any other Jesuit. (And that is a bold statement about an Order where the litheness of the athlete has been a consistent character istic, as befitted “runners of God” on a world-wide course.) Nevertheless, the spare frame of this good Jesuit is charged with such energy that only a sculptor, using all the dimensions, might portray it fittingly. And this sculptor would need to be proficient in the art of making marble eyes that would mirror a great soul; for Father McCurtin is gifted with eyes that see and understand all things, eyes that can coax or threaten, sympathise or smile, despite the firm-set mouth. In stature he is small, so small that the unexpected demeanour of strength, which he manifests, overwhelms boys completely. His self-sufficiency, general proficiency, and equanimity cannot fail in arousing spontaneous hero-worship. One naturally expects six-foot giants to manifest strength, because they seem to be built for it; but when the capacity for government is manifested in a small man, one sits up and takes notice. The small man is more picturesque; thus was Bonaparte.

I write of the Father McCurtin whom I knew twenty years ago; since then I have often met him, but I have always avoided seeing him as the years have changed him. A few months ago I dined with Father McCurtin at Burke Hall, Melbourne, after he had put to bed several baby boys who seemned not at all in awe of him. Though time had brought me closer to his own level of knowledge I could, or would, not discard the mantle of pupil in the presence of the master. It was not mere imagination, nor might it be explained modernly in the terms of an inferiority complex. For here is the proof: he and I played billiards doggedly, unremittingly, interminably for almost two hours, neither one of us manifesting any skill in the game, and we might have continued until doomsday had not an urgent call put an end to the game. I detest billiards at any time and in any place; but I detest the game with an added zest when it is played with so interesting a man as Father McCurtin.

I suppose I should not allow the preceding paragraph to go to the Editor; it is quite uninteresting, I know. Moreover, such writing is bad-form in these days of Oxford drawls, languid-self interest and regulated behaviour. It is bad form to register the human interest of a pupil's affection for an old master. Nowadays such is quite rare; masters are compelled to become machine-like purveyors of information that is weighed out and apportioned according to the requirements of a nationalised syllabus. (A foretaste of the Soviet, of which the nation is unconscious!) Overworked pupils must study only their text-books, not their masters. It is only an exceptional master who can rise above the system, and only a philosopher or incipient Bolshevik pupil who can follow suit. But twenty-five years ago we took our time, and when I come to think of it I believe that those pupils did not turn out so badly after all for many of them went to Anzac, whence some never returned. I am at a disadvantage when meeting the masters of to-day, for I meet them on terms of equality, and a pupil is the best judge of the master as a patient is the best judge of the physician. So, if pupils a quarter of a century hence remember their masters as we of prior generations remember ours, the present system, or more correctly, its exponents, will be honorably and affectionately esteemed. How long ago, how anciently, does that sentence indicate! Yet, to-day Father McCurtin seems as young, or as old, as he did that quarter of a century ago.

Three days ago I was at Bourke in the far-west of New South Wales, and I was thinking of Father McCurtin, or rather thinking about the necessity of writing this article. No superior would ever have sent Father McCurtin to Bourke; he simply would not have fitted into the west; but there he was surely enough, enthroned in the affectionate remembrances and conversation, and evident in the wide-outlook and zeal of two Irish priests, whom he had taught and fashioned at Mungret. The McCurtin impression is, I believe, as widely circulated and as indelibly impressed on worthy men as is the King's head on the coinage of the realm. In such fruits of his labours he may, and should, take much satisfaction; good, wholesome pride that his work has been worth while and permanent, helping to maintain the Kingdom of God in more than one country of the world.

Though I fully believe that this article has too much of the first personal pronoun in it, and is much too flattering in tone to afford any satisfaction to its subject, I am determined to publish it for more than one good reason. First of all, this tone is the fashion. Every man who can seems now to be writing his autobiography, and not one of these is justified. Second, the lack of opportunity for Father McCurtin to enter a defence against my remarks gives me a doubtful victory over him, for which I have waited for many years. I have had many masters, but he was the only one whom I determined to master. A vain ambition, no doubt, but really not so foolish as it would first appear. An unimaginative master may work his pupils as wax and succeed in leaving his excellent impression upon them, after which they will assuredly grow into respectable citizens. Give a sheep dog to a childless, wealthy woman and she will nurse it and domesticate it until it has not more of dog left in it than an imbecile pomeranian. Give the same dog to a sheepman; he will put it to work, beat it into energetic life, impose tasks that would convulse pomeranians and embarrass men, and threaten to discard it should it prove a failure. Similarly with the imaginative school master. (Those who were pupils of Father McCurtin will recognise that the dog metaphor is not at all strained; more than one of us were so often referred to as “Puppies” that we readily answered to the name.) So, let the master train the puppy pupil in the basic principles of education; then give him the field and ask a dog's work of him.

Throw to the pupil slabs of Milton or chunks of Dryden. If he cannot comprehend, tell him he is lacking in ordinary intelligence, for all small boys of his time knew these things at the age of two. Then if the pupil has left a spark of self-respect he will beg, borrow or buy the works of Milton or Dryden and read therein so as to rise to the heights of intelligence and knowledge required of a boy of ten or twelve. I should be sorry if this badinage obscured the useful lesson which is contained in the foregoing sentences. That lesson is that by so provocative a form of teaching the boy of initiative will be allowed to discover himself, after having searched for and found and read some of the better works of literature. He will begin to read for the love of reading, not because he is forced to cram in set text-books. Father Mc Curtin may not have adopted such methods in teaching; he might be violently opposed to them and regard my philosophising as erroneous; but, at all events, that is the impression I have of his teaching. And as a pupil I found it encouraging, and as a grown man I look back on it gratefully. Someone may ask what good has it done me; or what have I done because of it. Again, I am forced to introduce the first personal pronoun into the argument; but I do so, I believe, so that it may encourage both pupils and teachers. I distinctly remember determining as a boy to write an essay that would be difficult for even Father McCurtin to criticise adversely. I spent much labour on it, three full days, and presented it unsigned. It was adversely criticised: but it taught me that I had some facility for writing and aroused an ambition to continue. I still have that essay, preserved as affectionately as a mother keeps some relic of her first child's infancy. Now, I have several volumes to my name, and al though they may be regarded in various ways by the discerning and the less discerning public, I am honest in asserting that had it not been for the provocative teachings of Father McCurtin I should never have written a line. Australian writers are few; the Australian is timorous of self-expression with the pen; perhaps, the pupil is dried up by forced study when young; and set text books have made literature as unattractive as Arnold's Latin grammar.

The article on Father McCurtin, which the Editor asked me to write, has not been written, although my ruminations will occupy much space in the magazine. However, it is unneces sary to write an article so as to arouse affectionate memories among his past pupils. Let me tell them that in this year he celebrates fifty years of mem bership in the Society of Jesus, and all will pray that God may let him live to celebrate another jubilee. We need such men as he is; when he left Aus tralia in 1920 there were many who resented his going, who felt that he was more needed in Australia than in Ire land. He returned to us again in 1931, as fresh as ever. He is now in charge of Burke Hall in Melbourne.

Here are some outstanding dates and events in his career. They were sent by the Editor to guide me in writing a biographical article. As they will probably be of more interest to readers than what I have written, I append them. They represent the multifarious activi ties of a long and useful life; con sequently, they speak for themselves.

In 1883, on February 1, he entered the Society. From 1886-8 he studied philosophy at Milltown Park, Dublin, From 1889-95 he was teaching at Xavier, in Melbourne, and in 1891 was Prefect of Studies there. From 1895-8 he studied Theology at Milltown Park, where he was ordained to the Priesthood in 1897. In 1998 he taught at Belvedere, Dublin, and in the following year he was in Belgium for his Third Year. The beginning of the century saw him at teaching work again at Belvedere, 1902-3 were spent at St Patrick's, Mel bourne, and 1903-5 witnessed valuable work at Xavier. Then came his splendid career at St Aloysius' College as Rector (1910-16), during which he resurrected the Old Boys Union and almost trebled the enrolment of pupils. 1914-16 were marked by his efficient services as Catholic representative on the Bursary Board of NSW, when he not only. succeeded in winning due rights for all Catholic Secondary Schools, but also gained such general esteem from his fellow members that they marked his departure from their midst with evident regret. 1917 was spent at Xavier, and 1918-19 at Riverview. In 1920 he re turned to Ireland, where he was occupied in preaching retreats and for a period was Superior of the celebrated Apostolic School at Mungret. From 1926-31 he was Rector of the Sacred Heart College, Limerick, where he rebuilt the Community House and School and decorated the public church. In 1931 he returned to Australia, and in 1932 was appointed to the charge of Burke Hall, Melbourne, where he still flourishes in excellent health.

Ad multos annos, .

ERIS M O'BRIEN

◆ The Aloysian, Sydney, 1938

Obituary

Father Patrick J McCurtin SJ

The following account is taken from the “Advocate”, Melbourne.

An educationalist of high standing in the Jesuit Order, Rev Patrick McCurtin, who did outstanding work in the colleges of his Order in Ireland and Australia, died on Saturday morning in Mt St Evin's Hospital, after an illness of three weeks. His death is a heavy loss to the Society of Jesus, and to educational circles, in which, for more than fifty years, he was a distinguished figure. Of a genial and kindly disposition, his pupils idolised him, and there was deep and poignant sorrow at Kostka Hall, Brighton Beach, when the news of his death was made known.

Born in Tipperary, Ireland, Fr Mc Curtin, who was 73 years, studied for the priesthood in the Jesuit College at Milltown Park, Dublin. As a scholastic, he began teaching at Xavier College, Kew, and in 1886 he was prefect of studies there. His fine work met with well merited recognition, and he was appointed Rector of St Aloysius' Coll ege, Sydney. Later, he was attached to Riverview College, Sydney, as prefect of studies. In 1921, Fr McCurtin returned to Ireland, and in 1922 he was made Rector of the Crescent College, Limerick - a position he filled with eminent success. Returning to Australia in 1930, he was appointed headmaster of Burke Hall, a preparatory school affiliated with Xavier. He did much to place this school on a sound basis. When a second preparatory school in connection with Xavier College was established at Brighton Beach in 1937, the headmastership was conferred upon Fr McCurtin, who held this position up till his death.

Archbishop's Tribute

His Grace Rev Dr Mannix, paid the following graceful tribute to Fr McCurtin:

The prayers of the priests and people are most earnestly requested for the eternal repose of the soul of Fr Mc Curtin. On the day before his death, when I saw him for the last time, he had just received the sad news of the death of his brother in Ireland. He told me that he had been closely attached to his brother, but he took the sad news with resignation and with confidence that everything was right with his brother, who, as he said, had always been a faithful Catholic. Naturally, the news coming to him when he himself was almost exhausted, must have made a deep impression upon him, and perhaps hastened his own death. The two brothers had been closely attached during life, and in death they are not divided. Fr McCurtin is lost to us all: Priests and people have come here in large numbers to testify the esteem in which he was held, and to offer their sympathy to the Jesuit Fathers, who have lost one of the brightest ornaments of their Order in Australia.

The passing of Fr McCurtin naturally brings to our minds that long line - uninterrupted line, I might say - of Irish Jesuits who have come here to work and to labour in Australia. They were great men, many of them, and good men, all of them. They have done in Australia a marvellous work for Christian learning and culture, for re ligion and for God. Now another of them has gone to his reward. Some indeed, of the old ones amongst them are still with us, thanks be to God, and long may they be spared to do and continue the work in which they are engaged. But Fr McCurtin's work is over. He was not the least of the Jesuit Fathers. He came, I believe, from that part of Ireland which gave us an other great Jesuit Father, whose name is remembered in benediction - Fr James O'Dwyer. There was much resemblance between the two, and they have left the stamp and zeal of their own lives and their example and teaching upon the minds and hearts of many of those who are prominent in Catholic life in Melbourne and Australia. Fr McCurtin's work, like that of Fr O'Dwyer's, will remain, His mortal days are ended, but the stamp and seal put on many lives will remain to bear fruit and fructify in Australia, I hope, in the years that are to come.

One of the greatest consolations that the Jesuit Fathers have, looking back upon the great work done by their Order in Australia, is that now young Australian Jesuits are coming to step into the places that are being left vacant, one by one, by the great old pioneers, the Irish Jesuit Fathers, who came to this land. Fr McCurtin had great gifts, and he used them all. Perhaps the one great gift that God gave him was that of being a teacher, not merely a teacher in the ordinary sense, but one who built up the character of the boys committed to his care. I was myself closely associated with him while he was at Burke Hall, and I could not fail to be deeply impressed by the manifest impression that he made upon the boys who were sent to the college. He had the gentlest ways and was always bright and cheerful, and he seemed to radiate happiness wherever he went. While he was gentle and kind, still he was always the master. Side by side with his great gentleness of character was a real robust manliness, and the staunchest of principles that never deserted him. He was a great favourite with the boys, and seemed almost to be one of them, and it was quite evident that he was always seeking to mould their characters and preparing them to be, what I hope they will be, a credit to their Jesuit teachers and to the Church to which they belong. All his life was spent in that work, and his only thought was to serve the Master by moulding the character of the young.

He has been an outstanding success in Australia, as he was in Ireland, and the Jesuit Fathers will find it hard to replace him. We all miss him. We have lost a great friend and a great priest. We can only hand him over to the tender mercies of the God Whom he served so long and so well. In spite of his saintly character, human nature is weak, and maybe there are still some stains upon his soul. We pray to-day, and will pray for many days, that if there be any stain remaining it may be wiped out in the mercy of His Redeemer, Whom he served so faithfully and so affectionately, and Whose living Image he tried to impress upon so many of the young people of Australia. May God have mercy upon his soul and upon the souls of all the faithful departed, and may eternal Light shine upon him.

An Old Aloysian’s Tribute

23 Salisbury Road,
Rose Bay. ii.
23rd July, 1938.

Dear Father Hehir,
Although personally unknown to you, I am writing as the oldest member of the St Aloysius' Old Boys' Union to express the. deep regret I feel with regard to the death of Father McCurtin; and to express my sympathy with the Jesuit Order in his loss.

He endeared himself to everyone that he came in contact with while at the college, and there will be many who will feel his loss deeply.

Yours faithfully,

Arthur Barlow

◆ Mungret Annual, 1937

Obituary

Father Patrick McCurtin SJ

On the 16th July, 1938, Father McCurtin died at Mount St Evin's Hospital, Melboume. Though he had reached the three score years and ten, yet the news of his death came as a shock. His life was so regular, his days so methodically arranged and the triumph of his strong will over ill-health so consistent, that even at 73 years of age one did not regard Father McCurtin as old.

Born in 1865, in the shadow of the Galtee mountains, in the town of Tipperary, he received his early education in Rockwell College. In 1883 he began his novitiate in Milltown Park and completed it next year in Dromore, Philosophy followed at Milltown Park, and in 1888 we find him at Xavier College, beginning a connection with Australia that was to last for thirty-three years. He returned once more to Milltown for. theology, and was ordained in 1896. Tertianship and two years at Belvedere followed, and once more he took up the threads of the work he had begun so fruit fully in Australia. From 1901 till his death, in 1938, with the exception of twelve years in Ireland, Father McCurtin devoted him self to the service of education in Australia,

Father McCurtin's connection with Mungret was brief, 1923-26, but his work there was enduring. His long experience in Australia, his knowledge of the needs of the priesthood gleaned from his own experience in giving retreats and his knowledge of the educational system of that country, were all brought to bear upon the office entrusted to him. No detail that helped towards the advancement of culture, no practice that helped to the building up of character and the acquiring of solid virtue in the young aspirants to the priesthood, was neglected. To build the supernatural on a good natural foundation was his ideal, and, to achieve this, he spared no pains.

No sketch of Father McCurtin's life that did not take into account his work for the church in Australia, would do him justice. As master, as prefect of studies, or as recior, he worked in St Patrick's, Xavier, Riverview, and St Aloysius. All these colleges owe much to the meticulous care. and the sure grasp of essentials that Father McCurtin brought to bear upon their studies.

Nor were his educational activities restricted to these colleges. His expert knowledge and wide grasp of the secondary school system was put at the service of the State when a scheme was being drafted for school registration. In like manner, he helped the various convents and drew up for them a course of studies that facilitated registration when this became obligatory.

The last years of Father McCurtin's life must have been his happiest. He was successively Head Master of Burke Hall and Kotska. Hall. Here he renewed his youth with the generous youth of Australia and formed the young lads as he had formed their fathers and perhaps their grand fathers - years before at Xavier. Just when Father McCurtin seemed set for a century, the call came. The work of “the good and faithful servant” was completed and he entered on his reward.

His Grace, Archbishop Mannix, paid a warm and grateful tribute to Father McCurtin at his Solemn Requiem at Hawthorn:

“Father McCurtin had great gifts and he used them all. Perhaps the one great gift that God gave him was that of being a teacher, not merely a teacher in the ordinary sense, but one who built up the character of the boys committed to his care. I was myself closely associated with him while he was in Burke Hall, and I could not fail to be deeply impressed by the manifest impression that he made upon the boys that were sent to the college. He had the gentlest ways and was always bright and cheerful, and he seemed to radiate happiness wherever he went. All his life was spent in that work and his only thought was to serve the Master by moulding the character of the young”.

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 Commnnity

Father Patrick McCurtin (1865-1938)

Was born in the town of Tipperary. He was admitted to the Society in 1883 and ordained at Milltown Park in 1895. Apart from his studies in Ireland, Father McCurtin spent only twelve years of his religious life in this country. He spent his scholastic years in Australia and returned there in 1901 where he was to spend twenty years. He returned to Ireland in 1921 and came as rector to the Crescent in 1926. During his term of office he did much for the progress of the school and greatly improved the church. On the separation of the Australian mission from the Irish Province of the Society in 1931, he elected to finish his days where so much of his best years had been spent. He died in Melbourne 16 July, 1938.

Born: 01 February 1848, George (O'Connell) Street, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 14 September 1867, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1877, Leuven, Belgium
Final Vows: 02 February 1887
Died: 07 November 1928, Milltown Park, Dublin

Educated at Crescent College SJ

by 1870 at Amiens, France (CAMP) studying
by 1871 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) Studying
by 1877 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) Studying
by 1886 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
After his Noviceship he was sent to St Acheul (Amiens) for Juniorate, and then to Louvain for Philosophy.
He was then sent to Tullabeg for Regency and returned to Louvain for Theology in 1875.
1885 He was sent to Belgium for Tertianship.
He spent seven years at Tullabeg as a Prefect or Teacher. He also spent six years in Belvedere, six years at Mungret and four at Crescent. He was also an Operarius for four years at Milltown and seven years in Galway.
He died at Milltown 07 November 1928.
His life was somewhat uneventful and hidden, though nonetheless meritorious. Teaching or Prefecting the youngest boys in the various Colleges won admiration from many. Given that he was a very highly strung man, this kind of work was quietly heroic.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 4th Year No 2 1929

Obituary :
Fr John McDonnell
John McDonnell was born in Limerick February 1st 1848, and began his noviceship at Milltown September 14th 1867. There were 24 novices in those days at Milltown, amongst them Frs. T. and P. Finlay. R. Kane, Weafer, Waters etc, He made his juniorate at S. Acheul, his philosophy at Louvain, and then went to Tullabeg as prefect. There he remained until 1875, in which year he returned to Louvain for theology. His tertianship was made in Belgium in 1885. As prefect or master Fr, McDonnell spent 7 years in Tullabeg, 6 in Belvedere, 6 in Mungret, 5 in Clongowes and 4 at the Crescent, in all 28 years. He was operarius for 4 years at Milltown and 7 in Galway. His happy death took place in Dublin on the 27 November 1928.If Fr. McDonnell's life was uneventful and hidden it was certainly meritorious. Teaching or prefecting, for 28 years, the smallest boys in the various Colleges where he was stationed is a feat that wins our admiration, and was an abundant source of merit to himself. When it is added that nature had given Fr McDonnell a set of highly strung nerves, his life for these years must have bordered on the heroic. RIP.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John McDonnell (1848-1928)

A native of Limerick and one of the first pupils of Crescent College, entered the Society in 1867. He made his higher studies at St Acheul and Louvain where he was ordained in 1878. He spent two periods as master in the Crescent, 1887-88 and 1895-98. His teaching career throughout the Irish Jesuit colleges amounted to twenty-eight years. He spent some twelve years in church work at Milltown Park and Galway. He died at Milltown Park on 27 June, 1928.

Born: 25 January 1841, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 23 September 1867, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1874, Laval, France
Final vows: 02 February 1887
Died: 23 May 1927, Loyola College, Greenwich, Sydney, Australia

by 1870 at Amiens France (CAMP) studying
by 1871 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) Studying
by 1875 at Laval France (FRA) studying
by 1878 at Holy Name Manchester - Holy Cross Bedminster (ANG) working
by 1878 at Holy Name Manchester - St Helen’s (ANG) working
by 1885 at Mariendaal, Osterbeek Netherlands (NER) making Tertianship
Went to Australia with John McInerney 1885

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
After his Novitiate he was sent for Philosophy and some Theology at Louvain, finishing his Theology at Laval, after which he was sent to Mariendaal, Holland for Tertianship.
1884 He was sent to Australia and he spent most of his years there at St Aloysius Sydney, and was Minister there for many years.
1919 His health gave way and he was moved to the Novitiate at Loyola, Greenwich, and remained there until he died 23 May 1927

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Thomas McGrath entered the Society as a priest, 23 September 1867. He completed his juniorate studies at St Acheul, France, 1869-70, and studied one year of theology at Laval, France, 1874. He taught at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg, Galway, Limerick and Mungret, during the years 1875-84, before tertianship at Mariendaal, Holland, 1884-85. Then he left for Australia, arriving in December 1885 .
For the rest of his apostolic life, McGrath spent his time at St Aloysius College, 1885-1919, teaching French and bookkeeping, as well as being a thoughtful minister for a number of years. As a teacher he was recognised by all as kind and considerate, though a strict disciplinarian.
At Milsons Point he was mainly involved with pastoral work at the Star of the Sea Church. Because of failing health, he retired to Loyola College, Greenwich, from 1919 until his death.
For many years he was confessor to the Jesuit novices and the Josephite novices at Mount Street, North Sydney, He was considered a likeable man by those who knew him. He was bearded, and in later life nearly blind and almost deaf. He continued saying a special Mass for priests with poor sight until the end, even though he practically had to be held at the altar by the novice servers.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Had spent several years at business in Dublin before entry. Had been St Stanislaus student

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 2nd Year No 4 1927
Obituary :
Fr Tom McGrath :

On 8th May Fr Tom McGrath the senior in age of, our Province, died at Loyola, Sydney.

He was born on the 25th January, 1841, in Dublin, and entered the Novitiate, Milltown, in 1867. He had a year's rhetoric in France, and made philosophy and theology at Louvain, with the exception of the last year, which was passed at Laval. 1875 found him Prefect in Tullabeg, and from that date to 1884. he did excellent work at Galway, Crescent, Mungret, and on the Mission in England. In 1884-85 he made his tertianship in Mariendaal, Holland, and immediately afterwards sailed for Australia. Until his health broke down he worked at St. Aloysius' College, First at Bourke Street, Sydney, and then at Milson's Point. He was for sixteen years Minister. In 1919 his health gave way, and he was moved to the Novitiate, where he remained until he died. On the evening of his death the Master of Novices selected as the subject of his points the life of the good old man. He dwelt on his patience under pain and humiliation, which were intense as the end drew near, on his great faith, on his charity--he was never heard to say an unkind word of anyone-on his respect for superiors, and on his exact observance of spiritual duties. The impression made on the youthful community was deep, for they knew that the Master's words were not a. mere formula, that the virtues he put before them found a living realisation in the holy life and death of Fr. Tom McGrath.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Thomas McGrath (1841-1927)

Was born in Dublin and admitted to the Society in 1867. He made his higher studies in France and Louvain and was ordained at Laval in 1875. For the next nine years he was prefect or master in Tullabeg, Galway, the Crescent and Mungret. He spent one year as master and worker in the Sacred Heart Church. Transferred to Australia in 1885, he continued his work in the colleges and in spite of delicate health carried out for many years the onerous duties of minister of the house.

Born: 11 May 1887, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1905, Tullabeg
Ordained: 15 August 1920, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1923, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 05 September 1925, Dublin

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

by 1910 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Belvedere - a conspicuous member of the gymnastics team which had won the Shield so often there.

After his Novitiate he did his Philosophy at Stonyhurst, then Regency at Clongowes, and then he went to Milltown for Theology.
After Ordination he went to Clongowes as Study Prefect. He was very devoted to his work, even in times when he was suffering much from his health.
He had been ill for a number of years and doctors had though an operation could be successful. Within a month he underwent three operations, all very severe, and he died 05/09/1925 at the early age of 38. his sufferings during his last illness were so acute that one of his nurses had to be withdrawn, being unable to witness such suffering. All through this he was very patient and resigned to the will of God.
He was a pious man and very devoted to Our Lady. He was simple, unostentatious, kindly and generous in making sacrifices for the convenience of others. He prepared very carefully for everything - which his careful copious notes show - and this brought him remarkable success as a Preacher and Director of Retreats.
On the 1925 status he had been appointed Minister at Mungret, a job which he would have done admirably. But before he could take up that post he became very ill and died.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 1st Year No 2 1926
Obituary :
Fr Thomas McGuinness

Fr T McGuinness had been ailing for about three years, and finally the doctors decided to attempt an operation. Within a month he underwent three operations, all extremely severe, and he died on September 5th, 1925, at the early age of 38 years. His sufferings during his last illness were so acute that one of his nurses had to be withdrawn, not being able to bear seeing him in such great pain. All through he was patient, and entirely resigned to the will of God.

He was Belvederian - as a boy he was a conspicuous member of the gymnastic team which won the Shield so often for the College. He did his philosophy at Stonyhurst, his teaching at Clongowes, his theology at Milltown. After the Tertianship he returned to Clongowes as Study Prefect. He was efficient and devoted to his duty, being often at his post when he was
suffering much.
He was very pious, especially toward Our Lady, very simple and unostentatious, kindly and generous in making sacrifices for the convenience of others. These qualities, coupled with careful preparation - how careful his copious notes show - brought him remarkable success as a preacher and director of retreats. On the last status he was appointed Minister at Mungret a post which he would have filled admirably. But before he entered on his duties there, God called him to his reward.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Thomas McGuinness 1887-1925
Fr Thomas McGuinness had been ailing for three years, so, finally the doctors decided on an operation. Within a month he underwent three operations, all extremely severe, to no avail, and he died on September 5th 1925 at the early age of 38 years. His sufferings during his last illness were so acute that one of the nurses had to be withdrawn, not being able to endure seeing him in such pain. All through he was patient and resigned to the will of God.

He was a Belvederian, and as a boy was conspicuous as a member of the gymnastics team which won the Shield do often for the College. He entered the Society in 1905.

After his tertianship he was sent to Clongowes as Study prefect. He was very efficient and devoted to his monotonous duty, being often at his post when he was suffering a great deal.

He was deeply devoted to Our Lady, simple and unostentatious in manner, generous in making sacrifices for others.These qualities, coupled with careful preparation, his copious notes augured remarkable success for him as a preacher and director of retreats.

On the 1925 Status he was appointed Minister at Mungret, but before he entered on his duties there, God called him to his reward.

◆ The Clongownian, 1926

Obituary

Father Thomas McGuinness SJ

Tom McGuinness died in hospital after a series of severe operations. He had been in Clongowes for five years as a scholastic, and for five more of his short life as a priest he had presided in one of our study halls. As a Belvedere boy he was a wonderful athlete and gymnast, and to the last he was capable of marvellous feats, but those who knew him in the days when as a young man he coached the Gym, team and made runs freely for the Community, would scarcely have recognised the gay and light-hearted leader of boys in the worn and emaciated man years of terrible suffering made of him. Yet few knew what he suffered, for with characteristic pluck he concealed it all, and often he dragged himself to the Study when he could scarcely walk, And his natural gaiety and a kind of delight Tul simplicity of heart, school boyishness it seemed, complimenting schoolboys for such is the Kingdom of Heaven-never lessened. At the same time, there grew up in him in an evident way a stronger spirituality which made him, young but very carefully prepared as he was, a most valued giver of retreats from the very first. Small wonder, then, that the loss of such a personality, guessed at and felt rather than known though he was, left us all with a sense of deep and even irreparable loss.

Born: 31 March 1909, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 12 November 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1943, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 24 June 1948, Collège Sainte Famille, Cairo, Egypt
Died: 14 February 1982, Milltown Park, Dublin

Transcribed : HIB to ZAM 03/12/1969; ZAM to HIB 1980

Chaplain in the Second World War with the Royal Air Force.

Early Education at Christian Brothers School, North Brunswick Street, Dublin

by 1951 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working - third wave of Zambian Missioners

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Born in Dublin on 31 March 1909 Fr Joseph Augustine McSweeney grew up in Dublin, Ireland, and completed his secondary education with the Christian Brothers in Dublin. He worked for a short time before entering the Society in 1930. He followed the normal university studies, philosophy, regency and theology, being ordained in 1943. In 1945 he was assigned to be chaplain in the Royal Air Force where he served until 1949. He enjoyed his years in the armed forces, especially the opportunity they gave him of seeing the Holy Land and the Middle East. In later years, his recollection of those years seemed to bring him real joy. After a year in Belvedere he was missioned to Chikuni in Zambia. There he taught as a Jesuit priest for 17 years, from 1950 to 1967. Because of poor health, he then returned to Ireland. He celebrated his jubilee, 50 years as a Jesuit, in 1980. Two years afterwards, he died in Dublin in 1982.

A single quotation from one of his letters will best describe the type of dedicated man Joe McSweeney was: ‘I have the normal 28 periods a week, and as these are all in Forms 5 and 6, they involve much preparation and correction of homework. During this term, I have felt bound to give 4 more periods a week to teaching hymns to Forms 1,2,3 and 4, because the singing of hymns at Mass and Benediction has become very poor. This makes 32 periods. I give 7 hours a week attending at the Spiritual Father's room; this is the equivalent of another 10 periods a week; altogether 42 periods’.

Besides being a highly competent teacher, Fr McSweeney was a most devoted spiritual Father in Canisius. Throughout his 17 years he was always concerned about providing his students with both religious and moral training, never taking the easy way out. ‘Training in responsibility needs continual supervision’ was one of his beliefs with the result that he was present at all student Masses throughout the week, being available to them in the confessional, at all times promoting among them a habit of regular attendance at Mass and reception of the sacraments.

It was he who introduced and promoted religious groups like the Crusaders of the Blessed Sacrament, Apostleship of Prayer and the Sodality of Our Lady. His serious conscientiousness was evident in all that he did. The young students appreciated his gentleness and thoroughness. In the homily in Gardiner Street at his funeral, Fr Paul Brassil, the Zambian provincial, told of the past pupils' appreciation and gratitude for all that they had received from him. “An outstanding, successful teacher” was the description of Joe that those who worked with him in Chikuni gave him.

By no stretch of imagination could Fr Joe be termed a modern, well-integrated priest. He was just an old-fashioned, slightly nervous and tense priest, but he did dedicate himself fully to the improvement of his students. And they were his students, particularly the senior ones for whom he had a great sensitivity.

Towards the end of his teaching at Canisius, Fr Joe began to suffer from his nerves, finding it more and more difficult to cope with the normal tensions of a dedicated teacher's life. Of course he had always been a perfectionist. Even in his more relaxed days he had required at least a month's notice to prepare his choir for a sung Mass. It is quite easy to imagine the agony that the more casual attitudes of today can be to a perfectionist! But even when he felt the lack of special attention in the way of food more suitable to his needs, he retained his sense of humor: ‘I hope at 57 I am not going to be asked to approach the minister, plate in hand like Oliver Twist, toties quoties, for some more’.

In Joe's case, it is now clear that in this nervous person, God provided us with a great example of care and dedication and He no doubt even now rewards Fr McSweeney’s dedicated response to this vocation.

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

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 57th Year No 2 1982
Obituary

Fr Joseph McSweeney (1909-1930-1982)

I have an early memory of Joe McSweeney in Emo noviceship coming out to recreation wearing a peaked tweed cap. The memory remains because the incident was unusual, yet it puts Joe in context. He was a late arrival to the noviceship (November, 1930) and a late - though not very late - vocation. Chronologically he was only a few years older than the rest of us schoolboys of the previous June, yet his experience of having had a job seemed to invest him with a maturity we didn't have.
Then as always, seriousness was his outstanding characteristic. He tackled the outdoor works, which were a real trial to him, with the determination of a man whose job depended on doing so much in a fixed time. One of the jobs the novices had to do with pick and shovel was to clear the overgrown paths of the vegetation which had spread unchecked for fourteen years. Joe applied the principle Age quod agis to every task and ministry he ever undertook, as few men have applied it.
When we moved to Rathfarnham for juniorate, Joe enjoyed the studies, and to my mind was a far happier person than he had been when using pick and shovel in Emo. Though serious, he had a good sense of humour, and responded positively to our jovial ragging with a laugh. As a junior he was put in charge of our Pioneer total abstinence branch, and when one night he grew weary of the jocose cases of conscience we were giving him, he just stood up, bowed, and with a laugh announced “The meeting is over, gentlemen” and ran.
In Tullabeg, as in Rathfarnham, he got real satisfaction in study - this time of philosophy. He never gave the impression that he ambitioned being an academic, yet in conversation he showed how thoroughly he had mastered the matter in hand, and what relish the mastering of it had given him. He played games, though he was not an athlete, and took part in everything that was going on in the scholastic community. We knew him as a very self-contained person whose prime relationship was with God. He was never late for “morning oblation”, nor did he “hit the floor” for any other faults that brought many of us to our knees in the refectory.
He was apprehensive of life in the colleges, but when the time came and he was posted to the Crescent, he dedicated himself entirely to his teaching. He showed his courage and generosity in undertaking to teach a beginners class Greek, though he had never studied it previously.
He was delighted to be sent to Milltown after a two-year regency. In those years the Second World War kept all the native scholastics within the shores of Ireland. Theology interested Joe as much as, if not more than, philosophy, and it afforded him scope for his interest in argument and discussion. Here as always he was the unobtrusive obliging one you could always rely on to do the job you could coax no one else to do.
His post-tertianship status - chaplain to the RAF - came as a great shock to most of us, his contemporaries. We thought Joe’s academic outlook and innate reserve and shyness would make a chaplain’s life a very trying one for him. He didn't seem to view it that way at all. In his simple direct approach, he took it as God's will for him, and God would see him through. So quite undaunted he donned the officer's uniform. He enjoyed his years in the armed forces, especially the opportunity they gave him of seeing the Holy Land and the Middle East. In recent years his recollection of those years seemed to bring him real joy.
My knowledge of Joe’s success as a teacher in Zambia (1950-'70) comes from those who shared the burden of the day with him there. That serious conscientiousness was as evident there as it had been elsewhere. The young Zambians appreciated and valued his gentleness and thoroughness more than their less studious Irish contemporaries seem to have done. Paul Brassil, the Zambian Provincial, in his homily at Joe's funeral Mass in Gardiner street, told us of his past pupils’ appreciation of and gratitude for all that they had received from him. An outstanding successful teacher, was the description of Joe that those who worked with him in Chikuni gave us. Yet Joe himself seemed unaware of his success and equally unconcerned about it. He rarely initiated conversation about either his teaching or his week-end parish ministry. It was part of what God's providence had brought about through him. That seemed to be the view of the truly humble, obedient, unassuming Joe.
He returned to Ireland (1970) a semi invalid, taught in Mungret for two years, but discovered that his energy was unequal to the task; moved to Rathfarnham to do secretarial work, thence to Monkstown (1974) and finally to Milltown Park (1975). Those of us who had known him as a younger man, and accompanied him in his last years in Milltown, were saddened to see how ill health had affected him so seriously. In recent years, when he felt well, he could still enjoy an argument or discussion as much as ever. However, his nervous debility dictated for him a routine pattern of living that seemed almost compulsive.
For example, he went out every afternoon and had a cup of tea: in Bewley's restaurant, if he got as far as the city centre; or in a Ranelagh tea-room if he could go no farther.
He was up at six every morning, said his prayers and offered Mass. This daily act of worship had come to be the occasion of considerable anxiety to him. He concelebrated with us frequently, but we were aware of the strain that so doing caused him. Meals were a big part of the compulsive routine that he seemed forced to follow. He found it difficult to follow the letter of the law that the doctor laid down for him, but frequently spoke of the kindness and consideration of the kitchen and refectory staff in helping him to do so. The staff in turn, despite Joe's ill-timed visits to the kitchen, his ever recurring questions and requests, saw and appreciated the gentleness and courtesy that his illness had obscured but not destroyed. They had a real affection for him.

Here is an excerpt from Fr Tom O'Brien's tribute in the newsletter of the Zambian Vice-Province (Jesuits in Zambia: News): A single quotation from one of his letters will best describe the type of dedicated man Joe McSweeney was:
I have the normal 28 periods per week, and as these are all in Forms 5 and 6, they involve much preparation and correction of homework. During this term I have felt bound to give 4 more periods a week to teaching hymns to Forms 1, 2, 3 and 4, because the singing of hymns at Mass and Benediction has become very poor. This makes 32 periods. I give 7 hours a week attending at the Spiritual Father's room: this is the equivalent of another 10 periods per week; altogether, 42 periods.
Besides being a highly competent teacher, Fr McSweeney was a most devoted Spiritual Father in Canisius (Secondary School, Chikuni). Through out his twenty years [in Zambia) he was
always concerned about providing his students with both religious and moral training, never taking the easy way out. ‘Training in responsibility needs continual supervision' was one of his beliefs; with the result that he was present at all student Masses throughout the week; was available to the students in the confessional at all times; and promoted among them a habit of regular attendance at Mass and reception of the Sacraments of confession and communion, It was Fr McSweeney who introduced and promoted religious groups like Crusaders of the Blessed Sacrament, Apostleship of Prayer and the Sodality of Our Lady, giving to this apostolic work his meager spare time.
By no stretch of imagination could Fr McSweeney be termed a modern, well integrated priest. He was just an old fashioned, slightly nervous and tense priest, who dedicated himself to the improvement of his students, for whom he had a great sensitivity, particularly for the senior ones. In reaction to some derogatory remarks made by his fellow Jesuit teachers in regard to the boy-girl mores of Chikuni, Fr McSweeney once had this to say: “If such fathers had more pastoral experience, they would have more respect; and respect is very important in affecting our words and actions towards others”. In fact it was his conviction that his students at Canisius were superior in this regard to their peers in other countries.
Towards the end of his teaching at Canisius, Fr Joe began to suffer from his nerves, finding it more and more difficult to cope with the normal tensions of a dedicated teacher's life. Of course he had always been a perfectionist; even in his more relaxed days he had required at least a month's notice to prepare his choir for a sung Mass. It is quite easy to imagine the agony that the more casual attitudes of today can present to a perfectionist?
However, even when he felt the lack of special attention in the way of food more suitable to his needs, he retained his sense of humour: “I hope that at 57 I am not going to be asked to approach the Minister plate in hand like Oliver Twist toties quoties for some more”.
In Joe’s case it is clear that in this nervous person God provided us with a great example of care and dedication, and no doubt rewards even now such a response to this vocation. We praise and thank Him, and ask Him to look mercifully on the soul of our fellow-worker. [He died on 14th February 1982.]

Born: 04 September 1914, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 09 September 1932, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1946, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1949, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 25 April 1973, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway

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

Educated at Mungret College SJ

by 1939 in Vals France (LUGD) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948

Frs. Casey G., Grogan and Sullivan leave England for Hong Kong on 2nd July on the ‘Canton’. On the following day Fr. Kevin O'Dwyer hopes to sail with Fr. Albert Cooney from San Francisco on the ‘General Gordon’ for the same destination.
The following will be going to Hong Kong in August : Frs. Joseph Mallin and Merritt, Messrs. James Kelly, McGaley, Michael McLoughlin and Geoffrey Murphy.

Irish Province News 48th Year No 2 1973

Obituary :
Fr William Benedict Merritt (1914-1973)
Fr Willie Merritt was born in Limerick Sept. 4th 1914. After schooling with the Christian Brothers at Sexton St, he concluded his secondary course at Mungret and entered the noviceship in 1932, was ordained at Milltown Park 1946 and died in Galway while on a short visit to his younger brother during the Easter break on April 25th, 1973. For his years in the Society he had a very full life. As a junior at Rathfarnham his success at UCD led to his being allotted another year during which he secured an MA in History and the Higher Diploma in Education. He likewise had a bent for Mathematics and had musical talent, vocal and instrumental, which committed him to directing the choirs, coaching troupes of carol singers at later as a priest officiating at Missa Cantata and High Mass.
He made his Philosophy at Vals and after two years of Colleges at Belvedere he began his Theology at Milltown Park 1943; Ordination 1946; Tertianship 1947. In 1949 he was assigned to the Hong Kong Mission where he was engaged in the strenuous work of the Colleges. During this period he prepared and produced a text-book in History which is still esteemed and used in the schools of the colony.
Ill health now intervened and he was compelled to return to Ireland seriously indisposed. After some months of anxious convalescence he was again able to resume work and with congenial occupation soon became fully active.
He was appointed to assist Fr Martin in the Mission offices which was being set up in Gardiner St. in 1953. He worked very hard and for long hours at the new chores. Much of the method in the office, the setting up of the card index system, the schemes for collecting funds, were devised by Fr “Gully”. He was never happier than when he was organising a Sale of Work or a Garden Fete. In 1957 Fr Gully was asked to help Fr Dargan the Province Procurator, and went to live at Loyola. Later he became Bursar and Minister at CIR and taught Trade Union History there. His last status was back to Mungret in 1968 where he again acted as Bursar, answering to a variety of other calls likewise.
During the latter years Fr Merritt’s health again began to cause anxiety; he suffered several heart attacks from which he rallied and recovered but which compelled him to acquiesce to a quieter tempo than what had been his wont, in following a team, verbi gratia.
During the few days in Galway in April be suffered an attack which was followed in a few hours by a repetition from which he didn't survive.
The Requiem Mass in Mungret in April 27th was concelebrated by 36 priests among whom Fr Provincial was the principal con celebrant. There was a large attendance of personal friends from Limerick. His two younger brothers, Denis and Michael were the chief mourners together with his Aunt, Mrs Clohessey, who had been his second mother since his own mother had died during Willie's Juniorate and his father had died before he entered.
Those who new him will remember him with affection; his loss will be severely felt. If we could summarise his life briefly we would say that he loved the Society, that he was kind and good humoured towards all who came his way, and that he was a devoted priest. He was always good company and even though he had his leg pulled on innumerable occasions he never bore resentment. He was known affectionately as “Gully” and it is a measure of the affection with which he was regarded that even when he was “in foreign parts” it was sufficient (and habitual), to refer to him as Gully.
As he realised the condition of his health he was fearful that he would be compelled to abandon his work. He was a man of prayer and his daily Mass was a source of strength and consolation to him; he was a community man essentially, in whose company gaiety and a bantering good-humour spontaneously generated. He had his foibles, one of which particularly, his meticulous accuracy in his professional work of accountancy, was a source, on occasion, of annoyance but overall of fun at least in later narration.
This meticulousness was not captious or officious; it came from scrupulosity which affected his whole life and which at times caused him much mental distress.
He had a great love for his native city; he was catholic in his interest in games and the fortunes of the city soccer team he followed with zest.
He was buried as he would desire at Mungret which he loved. As I stood at the grave-side listening to the final prayers being recited by Fr Provincial I couldn't help feeling he had gone to the Lord with full hands. RIP

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1974

Obituary

Father William B Merritt SJ

Fr Willie was a Limerickman. He was born in Limerick and he is buried in Mungret. He was the eldest of three children, all boys and all three completed their school days at Mungret College.

In his younger years three influences played a part in his vocation to the Society of Jesus, family life, his participation as an altarboy in St John's Cathedral and his training in self-discipline and habits of study begun under the direction of the Christian Brothers. Mungret and later the Society of Jesus reaped where others had sown.

He entered the Society of Jesus in September 1932 and after two years novitiate, where he is still affectionately remembered as an enthusiastic “outdoor works” man he spent four years in Rathfarnham where he attended lectures in UCD. After finishing his course in UCD he left for France in September 1938 with a BA and an honours MA under his already ample belt. His philosophical studies in Vals were cut short by world war two and he finished his philosophy at St Stanislaus College, Tullamore. He then went on to teach with success at Belvedere and at that time trained some of the best junior cup teams of those years. His interest in and enthusiasm for rugby and soccer remained with him all his life; the fortunes or misfortunes of Limerick AFC were clearly read on his Monday morning face for he was the most honest and transparent of men, totally unlike the caricature of the wily Jesuit of fiction!

His ordination to the priesthood in July 1946 brought out in him that more serious side of his character which impelled him to seek “perfection” in all things. He could never be satisfied with “second-rate work” of any kind in himself or in others. He gave the next ten years of his life to the missions, working as a teacher in our college in Hong Kong. His history notes - which were clear, succinct and easily learned were published there in book form. Teachers also profited from them and a reputation for good history teaching often rested on the envied possession of Bill's notes!

Without his realising it, he made very great demands on himself. Eventually the strain of his work and the pressures of the political situation in Hong Kong under mined his health. He returned to Ireland in the early 1950s far from well, He never fully recovered his health frorn that time. Despite that, he held various posts in the Order, in St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, the Provincial's Residence, and the College of Industrial Relations, before he finally returned to Mungret College in 1967. Like the Master, whom he sought to follow, he did all things well and as a bonus was a good “community man” to boot! Serious by nature with a deep sense of responsibility which sometimes weighed upon him, he achieved a balance by his sense of humour, his deep faith and unostentatious acts of piety (he was a regular visitor to Our Lady's Shrine at Knock) and his interest in people and in sport. He loved Mungret and there is no denying that the decision to close his old school saddened his last years. May his generous soul rest in peace.

EK

Born: 16 July 1910, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1931, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1943, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1946, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 10 October 1985, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin

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

◆ Irish Province News 61st Year No 1 1986

Obituary
Fr James Moloney (1910-1931-1985)

Jim was born in Dublin in 1910. His vocation to the Society came indirectly from his decision to become a quantity surveyor. This brought him to Clongowes Wood in 1929 as clerk of works in the building operations that resulted in the large castellated addition to the College. While there he thought joining the Jesuits, sought advice from some of them and entered the noviceship at Emo in 1931.Then followed his degree course in Rathfarnham castle (1933-36); philosophy in Tullabeg (1936-39); a year's teaching in Belvedere; theology and ordination in Milltown Park (1940-44); finally, tertianship in Rathfarnham (1944-45). (Of the remaining 40 years of his life, 33 were spent in Belvedere; or, put in another way, 34 (including the regency year) out of his 54 years of religious life were devoted to Belvedere).
In summer 1945 he came to Belvedere as minister. The writer remembers hearing him murmur anxiously to himself: “Oh, these supplies”, as he surveyed the Mass tabella. Jim's anxiety was understandable; “supplies” called to mind the long and complicated Milltown list. However, as minister he worked smoothly and efficiently. In addition, he taught religion, which he liked, at the technical school in Parnell square. It was during these first years in Belvedere he made himself indispensable when social occasions involving ladies' committees had to be planned times when communities tend to skulk, Jim revelled in meeting people, and became widely popular This activity however always had its apostolic side, and kept on growing. In 1951, after classroom, still in Belvedere, until 1959,when he took up again for over a decade the more congenial duties of minister.
In 1970, the blow fell: Jim was a city man and felt keenly his transfer to Mungret as minister. He referred to his year there as his penitential season. His great kindness, however, is still remembered.
Much more to his taste were his six years in Manresa (1971-77). He was back in his beloved city, and so fond did he become of his new house that he had regrets about his last posting: to Belvedere as bursar (1977-'85). An obedient man, he applied himself diligently to learning the ropes. He liked his mid morning visit to the bank just opposite the Gate theatre. There was a certain brief-case-and-rolled-umbrella formality about this excursion. Another part of his daily routine was his snooze in a chair during the early afternoon, That hour was sacrosanct and medically advised for a recurrent cardiac flutter resulting from a heart attack some years before. This palpitation was premonitory: Jim knew that he was under a sentence. Those who had known him in earlier days noted that his fussiness had all but subsided, and that his occasional testiness had become rarer. His manner showed a new mellowness and contentment. At the beginning of September 1985 he went to Wexford for a holiday. Shortly after his arrival, he had a stroke, then another, a very serious one. Transferred to hospital in Dublin, he died on 10th October 1985, still unable to communicate.
Jim's life in the Society had its centre in the community, never elsewhere. A very private person, he seldom talked about himself, and then only in a passing way. At the opening of his Jubilee Mass he made known his wish to have no interventions: in these matters he was conservative. He rarely indulged in even mild disparagement of others, and remained loyal to the rectors under whom he served. He was orderly and kept to a routine: he always appeared d well-groomed. During his years of formation, his contemporaries referred to him as the Student Prince - the nickname was both descriptive and affectionate. After his death, one came to realise that, in his own unobtrusive way, he had indeed exercised an apostolate. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1986

Obituary

Father James Moloney SJ

Jim was born in Dublin in 1910. His vocation to the Society came indirectly from his decision to become a quantity Surveyor. This brought him to Clongowes Wood in 1929 as clerk of works in the building operations that resulted in the large castel lated addition to the College. While there he thought about joining the Jesuits, sought advice from some of them and entered the noviceship at Emo in 1931. Then followed his degree course in Rathfarnham Castle (1933-6); philosophy in Tullabeg (1936-'9); a year's teaching in Belvedere; theology and ordination in Milltown Park (1940 4); finally, tertianship in Rathfarnham (1944-25). [Of the remaining 40 years of his life, 33 were spent in Belvedere, or, to put it another way, 34 (includ ing the regency year) out of his 54 years of religious life were devoted to Belvedere).

In summer 1945 he came to Belvedere as minister. In addition, he taught religion, which he liked, at the technical school in Parnell Square. It was during these first years in Belvedere that he made himself indispensable when social occasions in volving ladies' committees had to be planned and hosted - times when communities tend to skulk. Jim revelled in meeting people, and became widely popular. This activity however always had its apostolic side, and kept on growing. In 1951, after six years as minister, he returned to the classroom, still in Belvedere, until 1959, when he took up again for over a decade the more congenial duties of minister.

In 1970, the blow fell: Jim was a city man and felt keenly his transfer to Murgret as minister. He referred to his year there as his penitential season. His great kindness, however, is still remembered.

Much more to his taste were his six years in Manresa (1971-77). He was back in his beloved city, and so fond did he become of his new house that he had regrets about his last posting: to Belvedere as bursar (1977-'85). An obedient man, he applied himself diligently to learning the ropes. Another part of his daily routine was his snooze in a chair during the early afternoon. That hour was sacrosanct and medically advised for a recurrent cardiac flutter resulting from a heart attack some years before. This palpitation was premonitory: Jim knew that he was under a sentence. Those who had known him in earlier days noted that his fussiness had all but subsided, and that his occasional testiness had become rarer. His manner showed a new mellowness and contentment,

At the beginning of September 1985 he went to Wexford for a holiday. Shortly after his arrival, he had a stroke, then another, a very serious one. Transferred to hospital in Dublin, he died on 10th October 1985, still unable to communicate.

Jim's life in the Society had its centre in the community, never elsewhere. A very private person, he seldom talked about himself, and then only in a passing way. At the opening of his Jubilee Mass he made known his wish to have no interventions: in these matters he was conservative. He rarely indulged in even mild disparagement of others, and remained loyal to the rectors under whom he served. He was orderly and kept to a routine: he always appeared well-groomed. During his years of formation, his contemporaries referred to him as the Student Prince - the nickname was both descriptive and affectionate. After his death, one came to realize that, in his own unobtrusive way, he had indeed exercised an apostolate.

May he rest in peace.

Born: 18 April 1898, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 09 October 1916, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1931, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1934, Belvedere College SJ
Died: 21 May 1962, Mungret College, Mungret, County Limerick

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

Educated at Mungret College S

BA 1st Class at UCD

by 1923 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1933 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 37th Year No 3 1962
St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner St.
The community was profoundly shocked by the news received on the afternoon of Monday, May 21st, of Fr. Tim Mulcahy's sudden death at Mungret. He had given the annual Triduum for the Sick, broadcast by Radio Éireann from the Ignatian chapel, towards the end of April. It was known that recurrent pains in the head had made him consult his doctor, but x-rays and cardiograph examination did not reveal anything more than usually untoward before he went to Mungret on May 14th for the rest which he regarded as his Major Villa. But the last of his typically charming letters, posted on the 21st, had not reached its destination before the fatal thrombosis struck him. One of those letters read "I shall be back on Wednesday". But he was not to return to Gardiner Street. May he rest in peace, in the shade of the ancient Mungret Abbey, near to the remains of those monks of an earlier Ireland whose faith he held so firmly and which he did so much to spread in another age.
Earlier issues of the Province News have recorded the many material benefits which Fr. Mulcahy brought to Gardiner Street while he was Superior here. His charming charity had perhaps too often been taken for granted: but he is lovingly, sorely, missed.
The Bishop of Limerick, Most Rev. Dr. Henry Murphy, presided at the Solemn Office and Requiem Mass for Fr. Mulcahy at the Crescent, on May 23rd. The Mass was sung by Fr. Andrews, Rector, and Frs. Quigley and Guinane were deacon and sub-deacon. Fr. Visitor and Fr. Provincial were present, as well as many of the Gardiner St. community and representatives of most of the Province Houses. The boys of the Crescent walked behind the funeral procession as far as the city boundary, and those of Mungret lined the avenue and cemetery there. The prayers at the graveside at Mungret were recited by Fr. Provincial. The Gardiner St. Sodalities were represented by Mr. John Monahan, President of the Ignatian Sodality, and Mr. L. S. Ó Riordáin, Secretary, and by Mr. A. Ralph, President and five members of the Evening Office Confraternity.

The Sacred Heart College and Church, Limerick

Fr. T. I. Mulcahy, R.I.P.
The community was deeply shocked when the sad news was announced of Fr. Mulcahy's sudden death at Mungret. Everyone, not only in the Crescent community, where he had been Rector, but in the city of Limerick, seemed to look on Fr. Mulcahy as a personal friend, and only the week previously, having finished his retreat, he came in from Mungret to dine with us. Fr. Rector and the community deemed it a signal honour to have the Requiem Mass in the Crescent Church, and the many priests who attended, both from the Society itself and from outside, bore testimony to the great personality of the deceased. Very many Mass Cards, letters and messages of sympathy were sent to the Crescent, and His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin wired: “Rector, Crescent. ... Deepest sympathy on death of Fr. Mulcahy - a worthy priest”. His Lordship the Bishop of Limerick presided at the obsequies and Mgr. Moloney chanted a Lesson in the Office. Together with Very Rev. Fr. Visitor and Fr. Provincial, representatives from almost all our houses were present at the funeral, The Mass was celebrated by Fr. Rector and Frs. Quigley and Guinane were deacon and sub-deacon. Fr. Provincial officiated at the burial in the Mungret cemetery.

Obituary :

Fr Timothy I Mulcahy (1898-1962)

Born: Cork, 1898; education: C.B.S., Our Lady's Mount, Cork, and Mungret College; entered Society, Tullabeg, 1916; studied, Rathfarnham and U.C.D., 1918-1922, Louvain, 1922-1925; teaching staff, Belvedere, 1925-1928; theology, Milltown Park, 1928-1932; ordination, 1931, and tertianship, St. Beuno's, N. Wales, 1932-1933.
Stationed Irish Messenger Office, Belvedere College, 1933-1947, as National Director, Sodality of Our Lady, Editor Madonna, Irish Monthly and Irish Jesuit Directory. Rector, Sacred Heart College, Crescent, 1947 1950. Superior, St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, 1950-1957. Director, Ignatian Sodality there, 1950-1959. Rector, St. Mary's, Emo, 1959-1961. At Gardiner Street to death (at Mungret College), May 21st, 1962.
On a May afternoon in 1962, while talking to a friend in the parlour of Mungret College, Fr. Tim Mulcahy was struck by the heart-attack which he survived only long enough to receive the Last Sacraments. He had been a boy in the College fifty years before. Fifty years bring big changes and to Mungret not less than elsewhere. Fr. Tim seldom spoke of his schooldays, but through those fifty years he was a constant visitor to his old school, making his annual retreat there and when ill-health came choosing that rather out of the way spot for a brief holiday or an unavoidable rest. He kept his interest in the Past as anyone who saw him welcome successive Mungret Annuals will agree, and though away from home he died among friends who had the best of reason to be proud of a distinguished pupil.
Good noviceships have as little history as happy nations. That to which Fr. Tim came had scarcely been stirred by a ripple of the Easter Rising, known only through letters from home and the very rare newspaper cuttings read aloud by the Socius. It cannot have been difficult in the lull that followed it to forget the outside world. His “angelus” was his life long friend, Fr. Tom Perrott. It was a friendship thirty years' separation by half a world never weakened and one may be forgiven if one imagines they sometimes forgot the custom-book to rendezvous as they had often done as boys under the clock” in their well-loved Cork City, to which each in his own way was to do honour,
The abolition in 1918 of a home juniorate enabled Fr. Tim to catch up, as it were, and more than one generation were his contemporaries. In Rathfarnham Castle he quickly showed what he was always to remain - he was the perfect community man. There was a triumvirate who talked a “little language” (Fr. Tim's stage-name was “factorial five”) and brightened life by their original pranks, for he had and retained a charming playfulness. Alas, Fr. Gallagher, Fr. Little and Fr. Tim are all gone, but they lived to delight in their maturity an extraordinarily wide circle and to win and hold a unique place in the affection of the Province as well as in the hearts of the innumerable souls they helped.
Rathfarnham was already proving old; the honeymoon of Fr. Jimmie Brennan's reign almost over; and Fr. Tim's university career is perhaps chiefly memorable in that he was the last young Jesuit for over ten years to conduct the affairs of the English Society in College, which - founded a decade before by Thomas McDonagh, one of the immortal sixteen of Easter Week, and the brilliant Australian student, Fr. Peterson, happily still with us - had been almost a Jesuit pocket-borough in the days when Violet Connolly, Kate O'Brien, Fr. Paddy O'Connor and Professor Gerard Murphy starred its eager assemblies.
English was Fr. Tim's subject, and though he wrote little he put his training and critical judgment to good use later. But now it was time for Philosophy, in the great university of Louvain, still staggering from the unexpected shock of its demolition in the First World War. It was not in fact a congenial posting and some were to see its influence in deepening the natural intellectual tolerance of his mind into something like indecision in speculative studies. Happily, his “colleges” were spent in Belvedere, the house in which he passed the greatest part of his working life and which he loved and which loved him. Fr. Tim was before all things urbane in the best sense of that word. A city man, the great city school found him reserved, dignified, friendly and wise. His influence would always be the result of personality and not propaganda. Indeed he seldom urged a case, never raised his voice, rarely argued, and held clear, firm, tenacious opinions without dogmatism or contradiction. A born teacher.
Perhaps in Theology at Milltown or Tertianship at Beuno's it is pardonable for a contemporary to remember chiefly the way he sweetened the last years of formation: his conversation round a fire at Glencree, the way he and Fr. Perrott would burst into their own version of the Volga boat-song to carry a weary group up the steep, stony avenue of St. Beuno's.
His work in the Society fell into two parts. For twenty years he was editor of The Irish Monthly and The Madonna. A big school is very much a closed shop, but Belvedere was well aware of what it gained by the presence of Fr. Mulcahy and his friends and co-workers in the Messenger Office, Fr. Scantlebury and Fr. McCarthy. Though his only official contact with the school was as confessor, he became in a very real sense a Belvederian whom even Fr. John Mary O'Connor would have ranked as one hundred per cent.
His editorship of The Irish Monthly was not an altogether happy story. He had not perhaps the genius of its founder, Fr. Matt Russell, to make it a nest of singing birds, but it was in that great tradition he would have liked to work and was fitted to work. Policy in an emergent nation wanted economics, civics and social theory. He did his best but the medium was a poor one. With the sodality it was different. There, too, winds of change were blowing. A long and somewhat inactive tradition had to be remodelled in a society which greeted the “Age of Mary” with fresh enthusiasm and, incidentally, a sheaf of Marian magazines. He was the perfect uncontroversial leader, never disillusioned, never unwilling to be content with less than absolute perfection, if only he could foster genuine holiness under Mary's banner.
It seemed surprising to many who knew him well that his obvious talent and graces for government were not used earlier. But the chance came and in three full, rich years as Superior of the Crescent, in as many in the delicate task of Superior of a noviceship, and above all in a never-to be-forgotten period in Gardiner Street, he did work for God, the country and the Province only he could do.
His Gardiner Street activity will be remembered for three notable elements. He was, as may be imagined, a devoted confessor with devoted penitents. It is a role upon which he would not have tolerated any comments, His predecessor as Superior, Fr. Tyndall, had incorporated in the remarkable celebrations of the Novena of Grace a special feature by which the vast and growing congregations who assembled long before the devotions were led from the pulpit in prayers, hymn-singing and a real effort to bring to the exercises that confidence and fervour which the Novena calls for. Fr. Tyndall carried through his admirable plan so well that many feared an anti-climax when his term of office came to an end. They need not have. Fr. Tim made his own unique personal contact with those great crowds and he will be remembered by them till all the generation is gone, and his is only a legend.
For a long time there the need for a renovation of the church had been admitted, but only piecemeal work was done. Fr. Mulcahy made the Gardiner Street of today, transforming an old and, it must be admitted, rather grimy church, thickly hung with inartistic pictures and meaningless decoration, into a lightsome, joyous church which seemed to blossom into a new and fundamental beauty. To execute the task he called in Michael Scott, whom he had known in Belvedere, and his namesake and co-worker, Patrick Scott. It needed courage to approve a scheme which - apart from the few last-ditch traditionalists who loved every fold of the robes of the Indian and Chinese watchers in the painting of Francis's death-bed-might not be acceptable to the great body of loyal friends who are Gardiner Street's pride and glory. Fr. Tim did not compromise. The great panels of undecorated scarlet damask stood out from white and grey walls which some would have thought more suitable to a garden city than to the faded glories of the north side of Dublin. But they filled the house of God with light and on the side-altars were statues that could not be passed with a casual glance, and if the splendid scagliola pillars of the high altar had to be painted white it was to give its lapis-lazuli tabernacle the true focal value which its Inhabitant deserves, One could stand at the lower rail of Gardiner Street and, asked for an obituary of Fr, Tim, say “Circumspice”. He has another monument to his memory in the new St. Francis Xavier Hall in Sherrard Street, for hardly had he completed the decoration of the church when he was called on to replace Fr. Cullen's famous “Pioneer Hall”, more than worn out by its forty eight years of varied activity. Despite the ill-health which was already making itself felt, he carried the new and more solid hall through its planning and building stages, leaving only the formal opening to his successor.
But a friend cannot leave monuments to speak for Fr. Tim - and how many and how good friends he had! It is sometimes said that a man who has no enemies is a poor creature. Fr. Tim was the living proof of the falsehood of this saying. He had none. His friendship was essentially that of a giver : he asked for nothing but he concealed this, and it was easy to think and indeed perhaps true that the friends meant as much to him as he to them. He fostered friendship with a long memory and a recurrent refreshment of its precious times. Separation was a minimal interference with this intercourse, as we have seen in the case of Fr. Perrott. From Mungret on the last Easter the sick man sent a charming little letter of greeting to a Dublin lady whom he had not met in many years, and by the same post to one of the community he had just left a gay anecdote of his own special brand. It is commonplace to say no one will fill his place, but perhaps it should be added that he filled it so perfectly that he can never lose it,
A handsome tribute to Fr. Mulcahy from His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin:

Archbishop's House,
Dublin 9.
23-5-1962.

My Dear Fr. Provincial,
I am very sorry--but not surprised to learn of Fr. Mulcahy's death, May be rest in peace! He was a great priest. From the year 1941 I. knew his zeal and patience and very courteous charity. I believe that I shall have in him a strong friend before God.
With kind wishes.
I remain,
Yours very sincerely,
+John C. McQuaid

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1963

Obituary

Father Timothy Mulcahy SJ

On a May afternoon in 1962, while talking to a friend in the parlour of Mungret College, Father Tim Mulcahy was struck by the heart-attack which he survived only long enough to receive the Last Sacraments. He had been a boy in the College fifty years before. Fifty years bring big changes and to Mungret not less than elsewhere. Father Tim seldom spoke of his schooldays, but through those fifty years he was a constant visitor to his old school, making his annual retreat there and when ill-health came choosing it for a brief holiday or an unavoidable rest. He kept his interest in the Past as anyone who saw him welcome successive Mungret Annuals will agree, and though away from home he died among friends who had the best of reason to be proud of a
distinguished pupil.

His work in the Society fell into two parts. For twenty years he was editor of “The Irish Monthly” and “The Madonna”. A big school is very much a closed shop, but Belvedere was well aware of what it gained by the presence of Father Mulcahy and his friends and co-workers in the Messenger Office, Father Scantlebury and Father McCarthy. Though his only official contact with the school was as confessor, he became in a very real sense a Belvederian whom even Father John Mary O'Connor would have ranked as one hundred per cent.

His Gardiner Street activity will be remembered for three notable elements. He was, as may be imagined, a devoted confessor with devoted penitents. It is a role upon which he would not have tolerated any comments. His predecessor as Superior, Father Tyndall, had incorporated in the remarkable celebrations of the Novena of Grace a special feature by which the vast and growing congregations who assembled long before the devotions were led from the pulpit in prayers, hymn-singing and a real effort to bring to the exercises that confidence and fervour which the Novena calls for. Father Tyndall carried through his admirable plan so well that many feared an anti-climax when his term of office came to an end. They need not have. Father Tim made his own unique personal contact with those great crowds and he will be remembered by them till all the generation is gone, and his is only a legend.

For a long time there the need for a renovation of the church had been admitted, but only piece meal work was done. Father Mulcahy made the Gardiner Street of today, transforming an old and, it must be admitted, rather grimy church, thickly hung with inartistic pictures and meaning less decoration, into a lightsome, joyous church which seemed to blossom into a new and fundamental beauty. To execute the task he called in Michael Scott, whom he had known in Belvedere, and his namesake and co-worker, Patrick Scott. It needed courage to approve a scheme which apart from the few last-ditch traditionalists who loved every fold of the robes of the Indian and Chinese watchers in the painting of Francis's death-bed-might not be acceptable to the great body of loyal friends who are Gardiner Street's pride and glory. Father Tim did not comprornise. The great panels of undecorated scarlet damask stood out from white and grey walls which some would have thought more suitable to a garden city than to the faded glories of the north side of Dublin. But they filled the house of God with light and on the side-altars were statues that could not be passed with a casual glance, and if the splendid scagliola pillars of the high altas had to be painted white it was to give its lapis-lazuli tabernacle the true focal value which its Inhabitant deserves. One could stand at the lower rail of Gardiner Street and, asked for an obituary of Father Tim, say “Circumspice”. He has another monument to his memory in the new St Francis Xavier Hall in Sherrard Street, for hardly had he completed the decoration of the church when he was called on to replace Father Cullen's famous “Pioneer Hall”, more than worn out by its forty eight years of varied activity. Despite the ill-health which was already making itself felt, be carried the new and more solid ball through its planning and building stages, leaving only the formal opening to his successor.

But a friend cannot leave monuments to speak for Father Tim - and how many and how good friends he bad! It is sometimes said that a man who has no enemies is a poor creature. Father Tim was the living proof of the falsehood of this saying. He had none. His friendship was essentially that of a giver: he asked for nothing but he concealed this, and it was easy to think and indeed perhaps true that the friends meant as much to him as he to them. He fostered friendship with a long memory and a recurrent refreshment of its precious times. Separation was a minimal interference with this intercourse. From Mungret the last Easter the sick man sent a charming little letter of greeting to a Dublin lady whom be had not met in many years, and by the same post to one of the community he had just left a gay anecdote of his own special brand. It is common place to say no one will fill his place, but perhaps it should be added that he filled it so perfectly that he can never lose it.

Born: 21 September 1894, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 30 June 1916, ST Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 02 February 1927, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 02 October 1968, St Camillus' Hospital, Shelbourne Road, Limerick

Part of the Mungret College, Co Limerick community at the time of death

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 44th Year No 1 1969
Obituary :
Br Thomas Murphy SJ (1894-1968)
On Wednesday, October 2nd at about 1.15 p.m. Brother Murphy passed peacefully to his reward. It was a happy and blessed ending to a happy and holy life, but his loss leaves us all poorer. We miss his cheerful, holy and ever helpful presence around the House.
He was a patient of the Regional Hospital, Limerick for some weeks till August when he was transferred to St. Camillus Hospital. In both hospitals the nursing staff were very fond of him. He never gave any trouble and was always good humoured. Thanks be to God he did not seem to have pain at any time. On Wednesday morning the 2nd October he failed rapidly. Fr. Rector returned to him immediately and received his last breath. He was fortified with all the rites of the Church.
The remains were removed to the Boys' Chapel on Thursday evening, The President and Secretary of the Union, other past pupils and teachers from the College were present. It was 2 memorable sight as the hearse and cars moved through the boys drawn up on either side of the avenue. On Friday morning the Chapel was packed to over-flowing with priests, brothers, boys, friends and neighbours. We had past pupils from Limerick, Tipperary and even Australia. It was a most impressive ceremony; sung lauds followed by Concelebrated Requiem Mass and a sermon by Fr. Kerr who was Rector here until July last. It is thought it was the biggest funeral ever seen here; ič is easy to believe it. In many ways it was a very joyous occasion because we all felt that Brother Murphy had gone home to God. His beloved flag was at half mast. In all, over fifty priests and brothers were present including Fr. Vice-Provincial (Fr. Provincial was in Rome his Secretary, Fr. Rectors of Belvedere, Crescent and Clongowes, and priests and brothers from Galway, Tullabeg, Clongowes, Crescent, Rathfarn ham, Milltown Park, Gonzaga, Gardiner St. and Belvedere.
The Brothers of his own Community saw him as “a humble and simple man” who had a great devotion to Our Lady and the Rosary, who was to be found either praying in the Domestic Chapel or going about his work.
May God rest his lovable soul. We all thought as much of him as he did of Mungret. Nobody who heard it will ever forget the beautiful tribute paid by Fr. Kerr when he addressed the congregation after the Gospel. We are very grateful to him for allowing us to reproduce it here :
“It is not customary to have a homily or panegyric preached at the funeral of an Irish Jesuit, but Fr. Rector suggested to me, that when a man has served one house for 48 years as Brother Murphy served Mungret it was only fitting that some tribute should be paid.
In 1962 the then General of the Society of Jesus sent a Visitator to the Irish Province. The Visitor, not knowing any of the men, asked each of us to write a brief account of what we had done in the Society. This is what Brother Murphy wrote: ‘From 1918-1919 I was in Belvedere on the house’ - one sentence ‘From 1919-1920 I was in the Crescent on the house’ - one sentence. ‘Since that time I have been in Mungret’. (And then reading on, one feels that the love and affection of the old man for this College took possession of his pen, for he continued) ‘There I was in charge of the water-supply. I looked after the wells and the pumping system. I attended and operated the electricity generator till the coming of the E.S.B. I attended to the maintenance of the house, the roofs, the chimneys and the heating system.
'All these, your reverence, thank God I was able to do’.
This was Brother Murphy's simple statement of his life's work, but it told little of the man who was one of the best known and best loved Jesuits of the Mungret Community. Each of the past, and I’m glad to see them represented here today - has his own favourite image of Brother Murphy. Some remember him as a young man flitting about the roof-tops, hanging in the most precarious positions, calling cheery greetings to the boys below. Others think of him covered with grime tending the electrical generators or servicing the bunkers. Still others see him as he strode across the Apostolics' field on his way to the pump-house at Cahir, with his little black dog at his heels; and none can forget his smile in the Boys' refectory as he slipped an extra serve to a hungry 3rd Clubber! But all of us remember him as he walked on the stone corridor at eventide telling his Beads or kneeling at the back of the Boys' Chapel during Benediction or the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Which of us will ever forget the ritual with which he surrounded the hoisting of the college flag. He used it to honour a visitor, to celebrate a feast or to congratulate the Boys on a victory. That flag flies at half-mast today in his honour, but we can be certain that all the flags of Heaven are unfurled today as they welcome their faithful servant.
Every clerical student who passed through Mungret remembers one thing about Brother Murphy : his extraordinary reverence for the priesthood. Many a young man, wavering in his vocation, depressed and feeling lonely made his way to Brother Murphy to find comfort, solace, guidance and strength. Is it any wonder then that his Christmas mail from America, Australia, England, Africa and China was the wonder of the rest of the community.
How often do I remember being called to the parlour to entertain one of the Past either a priest, or layman with his family! When a brief period had elapsed and the visitor felt that he had fulfilled all the requirements of courtesy or etiquette by talking to Fr. Rector then came the moment of truth : ‘well, Father, what I really called for, was to see Brother Murphy!’
Each year as examination time and ordinations approached in Carlow, All Hallows, Thurles, St. Peters and the other major seminaries, the letters poured into Mungret asking for Brother Murphy's prayers, for all the boys revered him as a saint. The roof-tops were not the only heights he reached. He had attained the closest union with God and he had the ability to communicate his love of Him to others.
I find it difficult today to ask you to pray for Brother Murphy, for all of us know that he already enjoys the Vision of God. He always prayed for and he will continue to pray for all in Mungret, for its priests, its brothers, its scholastics, its students, its day-staff, its farm-staff and domestic staff. So I would ask you now to stand and join with me in the Prayers of the Faithful for the eternal and happy repose of his soul with the God he loved and served so well”.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1969

Obituary

Brother Tom Murphy SJ

Br Tom Murphy spent only one year in Belvedere, from 1918 to 1919. It was a year, however, he was never likely to forget for he was in charge of the household staff and found that many young men in trouble with the police demanded sanctuary as national heroes in the houses of religious. The rest of his life in the Society was spent in more peaceful surroundings, forty-eight of them in Mungret College. He was part of the Mungret scene and it will take many years to fill the void his going has created.

Born: 28 October 1934, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 06 September 1952, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1966, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1971, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 14 March 2002, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

by 1986 at Regis Toronto, Canada (CAN S) on sabbatical

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 112 : Special Edition 2002

Obituary
Fr Brendan Murray (1934-2002)
28th Oct. 1934: Born in Dublin
Early education at St. Joseph's, Terenure and CBS, Synge Street.
6th Sept. 1952: Entered the Society at Emo
7th Sept. 1954: First Vows at Emo
1954 - 1957: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1957 - 1960: Tullabeg- Studied Philosophy
1960 - 1962: Mungret College - Regency
1962 - 1963: Clongowes - Regency; Clongowes Cert. in Education
1963 - 1967: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
28th July, 1966: Ordained at Milltown Park
1967 - 1968 Tertianship at Rathfamham
1968 - 1974: University Hall - Principal, Bursar
15" Aug. 1971: Final Vows at Clongowes
1974 - 1978 John Austin House - Chaplain, D.I.T. Kevin St; Bursar
1978 - 1985: Campion House - Chaplain, D.I.T. Kevin Street; Bursar, Co-ordinator, Communications
1985: Vice-Superior.
1985 - 1986: Toronto - Sabbatical year
1986 - 1991: Tullabeg - Superior; Minister; Pastoral Delegate
1991 - 1993: Gardiner Street - Vice-Superior, Minister; Pastoral Delegate
1993 - 1997: Superior; Editor, Messenger; National Secretary Apostleship of Prayer; Pastoral Delegate
1997 - 2002: Leeson Street - Superior; Editor, Messenger; National Secretary of Apostleship of Prayer 14th Mar.
2002: Died at Mater Hospital, Dublin.

Brendan was taken ill at the end of February, 2002. In St. Vincent's Hospital it was diagnosed that he had had a heart attack. He suffered a second heart attack in the hospital. His condition worsened a week later. He was taken to Mater Hospital, where they performed a double by-pass operation. The doctors gave his chances of recovery as 50/50. He was kept on a life support system, but did not respond. From the early hours of March 14th his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he died peacefully in the morning of the same day, surrounded by members of his family.

Michael Drennan writes....
One could wonder what Brendan might have done, had he not joined the Jesuits. With his keen intelligence, great sense of humour and his ability to mimic, many avenues could have opened up for him. He might have outdone Gay Byrne, who also did the Leaving in 1952 at Synge Street CBS. Brendan could have attained fame in many fields, but his desire was not for earthly treasure. God's fidelity and commitment met a faithful response in a life that was a nice blend of the serious and the light-hearted. Brendan had a gentle hold on life. Yet, in his life he achieved much, left us a lot to cherish and be grateful for, as he had a depth and wisdom that was too good to be forgotten.

We gathered for his funeral on the Feast of St. Joseph, who is described as a “man of honour”. The same words might be used of Brendan. There was a deep sadness evident as we bade him farewell; he was taken so quickly that we had little opportunity to say goodbye.

The Gospel of the Emmaus journey seemed relevant as a way of giving a brief summary of Brendan's life. It is a good story. Brendan was a man of story having a great abundance of them; and he could tell them well. He had the capacity to embellish and make them richer, even giving the more elaborate version back to the person who had shared it with him, originally - unknowingly? In talks and retreats, he used stories to illustrate aspects of God's story from Scripture; many appeared in his well-written editorials in the Sacred Heart Messenger. A good story can have many levels of meaning.

It is a story of good companionship, which shortens a journey and leaves lasting memories. Brendan was a good companion to many people, especially, to his own family, whose loss was great; he kept in contact with them, wherever they were, sharing their joys and sorrows. In community he could brighten up a dull day with his witty interventions. He was a companion to many people whose lives he touched in ministry, whether that was in Kevin Street DIT, or to people who came to see him, or in talks or retreats he gave, or to those he worked with. Through the Sacred Heart Messenger, he reached many who felt they knew him through his writing.

He was a good companion because he had depth as well as humour. Discussions on theology, scripture, religious life, or art, engaged him. He loved fun, also, though some of his pranks did not work out as envisaged and recovery tactics were required on occasion. His sense of humour was endearing and had the lovely ability to laugh at himself. He told me the story not so long ago, about someone overhearing two people at another table in a restaurant talking about religious magazines. Finally they came to the Messenger; one said she loved the Messenger and she particularly liked Fr Murray whose photo was inside the front cover; he had a lovely smile, but then she added, “Of course, I don't believe a word of what he says”. A phone call to him was enough to raise one's heart and bring to the fore the lighter side of life.

The journey to Emmaus was made in the company of Jesus. Being a Jesuit, being in the Company of Jesus, walking the journey of life with Him was of central importance to Brendan. He was a good companion to all of us who walked with him. He contributed much, with most of his Jesuit life spent in leadership roles, often taking on difficult tasks and carrying them through. He was a dedicated worker, who had a bright, analytic, and perceptive mind, being a good judge of people and situations. While he could make the hard decision, he had a compassionate nature. He was loyal and faithful, with a generous heart, making his many talents available to others, whether it was taking on a new project, refurbishing a house, or closing one down. He had the flexibility to adapt to new situations and was at this best when under pressure. While he could get impatient at times, and sometimes he was not especially tolerant of lesser mortals, it tended to blow over quickly and it was soon forgotten.

In the Emmaus story, the opening of the word of God is significant. Brendan had a great love and appreciation for the word of God and opened it out to many. Most of his talks were based on Scripture, with a helpful story or two to lead into them. It was a living word for him; what he shared came from his own reflection and prayer and it spoke to many who heard him.

God's story of love, lived out in Jesus, met Brendan's story; he was generous in response. The gifts that God offered were those that Brendan, behind the mischievous smile and often subtle humour, wanted. Those latter years in the Messenger gave more scope to his creative side, to write, to edit, to design, and to help continue the updating of the magazine and its organisation. He relished the task and loved it, but he was good at it. The redoing and relocating so beautifully of the Evie Hone windows in Manresa also owed much to him. His attention to detail, ensuring that were placed where they would get maximum light, was carefully thought out. It could be said that in other areas, such as ordering a meal, he tended to be less creative and adventurous, there was a consistency there as he stayed with the tested and reliable. I suppose he could not be flexible on everything! Yet, there was something more than ordinary about him. He was forty-five when he learned to drive; he is the only person I know, who, on the successful completion of his driving test, came away with a Mass intention from his examiner!

He had the openness and freedom to walk with and accept the call of the Lord, letting the Lord enter his story in a new way. In that story there is a deepening of the call, as it moved towards the final part of it. He invited the Lord in, so that the Lord could reveal himself more intimately and break bread with him. Now the Lord has issued a new invitation; the journey is completed; the story has been told, the messenger's work is done, the banquet is ready. But we are to remember that story, interwoven with God's story; we are to live in its spirit, as we continue to walk on in faith.

We weep for his untimely passing, we will miss his gentle presence, but we are the richer for knowing him. His life is a good story, narrated by a very competent messenger. We pray that God will be merciful to him for any failings and give him the rewards of life that is eternal love, which is God's desire for him and for all of us. May he rest in peace.

-oOo-

Noel Barber wrote the following “Appreciation” for THE IRISH TIMES...
Fr. Brendan Murray, who died on March 14", aged 67, ploughed what many would consider infertile soil. For the past 10 years he edited a devotional religious magazine, The Sacred Heart Messenger. Many will be surprised, however, to learn that the circulation of The Messenger is well into six figures; surprised, too, to learn the range of its readership - from the very simple to the highly sophisticated. This magazine, an extraordinary survival, bears testimony to the fact that a religious monthly can still command a place in the market.

Its standard was high when he took over; the previous editors had adapted it to the needs and tastes of changing times without sacrificing its religious thrust. Building on the work of his predecessors, he brought to his task an exceptional attention to detail, an immense care with its artistic production, and a keen financial eye. His editorials, beautifully written with wit, verve and wisdom, touched a large and devoted readership; some have already expressed their sense of loss at the prospect of The Messenger without him.

He was born in Dublin on October 28th, 1934, to Frank Murray, a Civil Servant, and Lucy Dunne, one of nine children, of whom his brothers Frank and Declan and his sisters Colette Nolan, Maureen Flanagan and Carmel Murray survive him. He was educated by the Christian Brothers, Synge Street, and entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Emo Park, Portarlington, in 1952, He was an able and serious student, obtaining a good degree in Latin and Irish, and Licentiates in Philosophy and Theology. He had the capacity to become a specialist in any one of these disciplines. His character was a quixotic mix of high seriousness and earthy frivolity. There were few who could discuss better serious matters of literature, theology, philosophy - or art, in which he had a particular interest and a discriminating taste. On the other hand, he was a joker and prankster, a raconteur and mimic, who brightened many a dark afternoon for his fellow students. His stories grew in the telling in which his mentors, academic and religious, assumed a second existence.

After his Ordination in 1966, he held a variety of positions in all of which he used his considerable ability, charm and, when necessary, his formidable determination to achieve his purpose, be it in closing down a Retreat House, as Principal of a University Residence, as Chaplain to the Dublin Institute of Technology, or as a Superior of Jesuit Communities. He had outstanding pastoral skills as so many will testify: the priests who followed his retreats, the religious whom he counselled and people of all walks of life who came to receive his shrewd, kindly and practical advice. As a preacher and retreat giver he used his talents as a storyteller to great effect but his story telling was always at the service of a deep spirituality and sound common sense. These in turn reflected his warm, rich personality. In his case, the person was very much the message.

His friends were surprised that his fatal heart attack had not happened earlier. Despite his intelligence, wisdom, understanding of others and the advice of his brethren, his style of life was almost self-destructive. He worked impossibly long hours, took no exercise, rarely, if ever, had a holiday, and sustained himself on great quantities of nicotine and caffeine. He was a man of great goodness with an inexplicable disregard of himself. He will be greatly missed and it will take an exceptional person to fill his shoes.

Born: 8 March 1879, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1901, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 26 July 1914, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1917, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 27 August 1962, Manresa, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Older Brother of Denis - RIP 1958

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1905 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER) studying

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
John Nerney entered the Society at Tullabeg, 7 September 1901, and after his juniorate there, studied philosophy at Valkenburg, 1904-07. He taught at the Crescent, Limerick, 1907-09, and at Clongowes, 1909-11, before studying theology at Milltown Park, 1911-15. Tertianship followed at Tullabeg, 1915-16. He taught at Mungret for a few years before going to Australia in 1919.
He taught for a few years at Xavier College, before going to St Patrick's College, 1921-23, where he was editor of the Messenger and Madonna. He did parish work at Norwood, 1923-33, and went back to St Patrick's College, 1934-38, continuing his work with the Messenger, and doing spiritual work with the students. At the same time he directed sodalities, including the very popular men's Sodality in Melbourne. Later, he was stationed at Richmond, doing similar work, and at Loyola College, Watsonia, 1940-43 and 1946-59. He also gave retreats at this time. His last years were at the parish of Hawthorn.
For most of his life in the Society Nerney suffered from a form of anaemia which made work difficult, but he contrived to get through a great deal of work all the same, and lived to a good age. His chief interest was in spreading devotion to Our Lady, and one of his chief instruments in doing so was the professional men's Sodality which was centred on St Patrick's College. Nerney directed this Sodality for 25 years as a benevolent despot. He had a great capacity for making friends. He took a great interest in people and their problems. Those who lived with him saw another side of him, a man with very definite views. He had a keen mind and could discuss theological questions in a subtle way.
He was also a regular visitor to the prisons, visiting 'Old Boys', as he used to say He was spiritual father at Loyola College, Watsonia, for many years, and his domestic exhortations were awaited with some expectation. They were learned, well prepared, devotional, and yet idiosyncratic. Scholastics were able to mimic his style, much to the mirth of their colleagues. Novices were regularly so amused that they had to be removed from the chapel! He rarely attended meals in the early days, preferring to eat alone at second table. He always had a simple, special diet. He was also a collector of sheets! When he left his room for any reason, the minister was able to collect many sheets that had been stored. Yet, for all that, he was much loved and respected in the community.
At Hawthorn he took an interest in the midday Mass, regarding it as his own, and keen to build up numbers. He died unexpectedly of a coronary occlusion.

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

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

Early education at St Mary's Knockbeg College County Carlow

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

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

Obituary :

Fr Seán Ó Mealláin (1906-1977)

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

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

Born: 16 October 1916, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1934, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1949, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1953, Sacred Heart College SJ (Crescent), Limerick
Died: 04 March 2008, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Dermot Peakin - by 1985 Diarmuid Ó Peicín;

by 1967 at Handsworth, Birmingham (ANG) working
by 1968 at Erdington, Birmingham (ANG) working
by 1970 at Walthamstow, London (ANG) working
by 1971 at London, England (ANG) working
by 1975 at Dockhead, London (ANG) working
by 1976 at Redcross, London (ANG) working
by 1977 at London W2 (ANG) working
by 1978 at Rotherhithe London (ANG) working

Born: 16 January 1872, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1890, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg / 07 September 1898, Roehampton, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 15 August 1905
Final Vows: 02 February 1910
Died: 11 February 1949, Preston, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Transcribed HIB to ANG : 1898

Educated at Mungret College SJ

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Mungret student; Ent HIB 07 September 1890; DISMISSED; Joined ANG 07 September 1898

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1949

Obituary

Father James O’Connell SJ

It was with great regret that we heaid of the death of Father James O'Connell. Father James had been in poor health for some time before his death. He was born in Dublin in 1873 and came to Mungret in 1895. In Mungret he distinguished himself both on the playing fields and on the stage. He was the 100 yards champion and he had a beautiful tenor voice. A contemporary of Fr William Stephenson SJ, with him he joined the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus in 1898. Transferring to the English Province next year he went to St Mary's Hall for Philosophy. Later he taught at Stamford Hill and was raised to the priesthood in 1908. Returning to the colleges he taught at Stonyhurst. His next assignments were to Prescott, Wigan and Manchester, where in all three places he was engaged in parish work. In 1920 he went to South Africa and was stationed at Chisawaka for three years. Returning to England in 1923 he ministered at Richmond and his final years were spent at St Ignatius, Preston.

He often visited Ireland and did not fail to visit his Alma Mater. The last time we had the privilege of his presence was in 1946 when he stayed with us while making his retreat. By his death at the age of 76 we lose one of our oldest and most devoted past students.

Born: 22 October 1898, Saint Alphonsus Terrace, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 31 August 1916, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1931, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1934, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 20 May 1972, Coláiste Iognáid, Sea Road, Galway

Educated at Crescent College SJ

by 1923 at Stonyhurst, England (ANG) studying
by 1933 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 47th Year No 3 1972

St Ignatius College, Galway

Father Joseph O'Connor died in the Regional Hospital on the morning of Saturday, 20th May from a coronary attack. He had been in hospital for about six weeks. He had been a member of this Community since 1941, when he came here as Minister. Fourteen priests took part in the Concelebrated Mass on the day of his burial, Fr O'Keefe (Rector) being First Concelebrant, assisted by Fr Provincial and Fr McGrath, PP, and a very large number followed the remains to the graveside. May he rest in peace.

Obituary :

Fr Joseph O’Connor SJ

Father Joe O'Connor who died in Galway on 20th May was born in Limerick, in October 1898, and was educated at St. Philomena's Preparatory School and the Crescent College, Limerick. On August 31st, 1916 he entered the Society at Tullabeg, and at the end of his Noviceship went to Rathfarnham Castle for his University studies. Having taken his degree, he studied Philosophy for three years at Stonyhurst, and then went to Mungret College, where he taught for three years. Going to Milltown Park for Theology, he was ordained there in 1931. The following year he did his Tertianship in St. Beuno's, N Wales. Returning to Ireland in 1933 he spent three years as Higher Line Prefect in Clongowes, and was then appointed Rector of Mungret College. From Mungret he came to Coláiste lognáid, Galway in 1941 where he remained until his death in 1972. There he began a busy career, occupying the positions of Minister, Procurator, Prefect of the Church, and Director of the Bona Mors Confraternity. He continued as Pro curator, Operarius in the Church, and Director of the Bona Mors till 2 or 3 years before his death, when ill health forced him to retire. In 1942, due to his contacts with the people and the need he saw for it, he began the Nazareth Benevolent Fund and continued as its organiser till the time of his death, The aim of this fund was to assist those whose financial status had been reduced and who needed help. Through Flag Days and Xmas Raffles he raised sufficient money to keep the Fund going. By personal contact he had the gift of singling out those who stood in most need, and helped them over long periods. Besides that, he was Spiritual Director of the Ignatian Branch of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, for years, and came to know the very poor of the City, and was always ready and generous in helping them. Those in distress found in him a “friend in need”, one always ready to lend them a helping hand.
As Operarius in the Church, he was dedicated to his work over a period of 28 years. He wrote all his sermons in a neat hand, and preached them in a gracious way all his own, occasionally stepping back quietly but in an authoritative manner to emphasise some point. He had a fair knowledge of Irish, and read the Long Acts and the long prayer before Mass quite fluently. In his active years he quite frequently cycled to Calvary and Merlin Park Hospitals to visit patients whom he knew. Once, after a long absence, (through illness) he found the front wheel of his bicycle missing, and this put an end to his cycling career. This was 4 years ago.
At no time was his health very robust, but the first sign of serious illness came in the Spring of 1968 when he had a black-out after supper and was rushed by ambulance to the Regional Hospital. After a fairly long stay there he went to Milford House, Limerick, to recuperate. He seems to have never fully recovered from that attack, as he had to go away for treatment, on many occasions, during the last few years, and in the last year or more, one could see that he was a sick man. Even in his last years he sometimes took over, for a brief period, the office of Procurator, and helped in the Church,
His chief characteristics were, quietness, kindness, and gentleness combined with remarkable efficiency in all that he undertook. He was very interested in people and his knowledge of the Galway people extensive and, sometimes, very surprising. In his walks through the city he often stopped for a chat with one after another on his way. As a result he had numerous friends, and was very popular. When he was ill members of the community were frequently stopped in the street to be asked “How is Father Joe”. To many who had known him since the days of their childhood his death was in the nature of a personal loss. This was shown by the large number of Mass Cards and letters of sympathy that came to the house when the news of his death spread through the town. (One of these letters of sympathy was from the Mayor and Corporation of Galway City). It was also shown by the large number of mourners who followed his remains to the graveside to pay their last tribute to one they had esteemed and loved over so many years. His funeral was attended by priests from all houses of the Province and from the parishes of Galway. May he rest in peace!

Born: 28 January 1908, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 21 September 1925, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1938, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1941, St Ignatius, Leeson Street, Dublin
Died: 11 June 1991, St Ignatius, Lower Leeson St, Dublin

Early education at Belvedere College SJ

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1991

Obituary

Father Kevin O’Donnell SJ

Kevin O'Donnell was born in Dublin 83 years ago. He was one of a family of fourteen, of whom Molly, Una, Maeve, Loyola and Desmond survive. He was educated in the Holy Faith, Glasnevin and then at Belvedere College. He entered the Jesuits in 1925 a year after his brother Tom, with whom he was ordained in 1938 and beside whom he was to be buried in Clongowes.

Kevin never lapsed into sterile anecdotage but, from what he said about his student days in the Society, they were happy. His stories about those days were amusing and frequently mischievous. Two come to my mind. He recounted that he found his father was more vulnerable in his office than elsewhere so, when he was short a shilling or a cigarette as a young scholastic, he would call into his father's office and found, as he said, that the visit was usually productive. Shortly after he moved from Milltown, which he liked, to Tullabeg, which he did not, he was accosted by the Rector, Stephen Bartley, who remarked that he was looking glum. “I am”, replied Kevin. “Why so?” asked the Rector. “I have not had a cigarette for a month”, Kevin complained. The Rector then gave him five and thereby won a friend for life. Kevin was incapable of forgetting a favour. It was one of his most endearing qualities.

He was not an academic but had a reputation for being a person of sound and shrewd judgement and an excellent companion. He had a beautiful singing voice and he often recalled the great privilege he had of singing at the Eucharistic Congress.

After he was ordained and had completed his studies he spent the thirteen years from 1940 to 1953 in Clongowes with one year in Mungret. In Clongowes he acquired a fearsome reputation as a disciplinarian. Many a middle-aged bottom tingles to this day at the mention of his name. Such was his reputation that when we were scholastics in the mid-1950s in Tullabeg, we received with muted enthusiasm the news that he was to be our Superior during the holidays. However, while clearly not a man to be trifled with, he was companionable, good-humoured, kind, but above all generous.

He was determined that we were to have a great holiday which was to be a loss-making venture: not a penny was to go back to Tullabeg. I treasure one image from those days. It was the custom that half way through the holiday a van would trundle from Tullabeg with provisions for the holiday-makers. Kevin was profoundly suspicious of the quality of provisions from such a source. He stood by majestically, as the van was unloaded, keeping a beady eye on its contents. When he spied rhubarb, he at once called out, “Take it back to Tullabeg, Fr Hanley, I do not eat weeds”.

Fearsome disciplinarian he may have been, but it was during his years in Clongowes that many of his very many friendships were formed. Not a few of those friendships had a common characteristic. Kevin extended his hand in friendship, when friendship was badly needed. In his friendships there was never a jot of self seeking. He was loyal and generous and evoked loyalty and generosity in others. But having given his friendship altruistically, he was always deeply appreciative of any favour his friends did him, never calling to mind what he did for them. He constantly expressed his admiration of the kindness and generosity of others while being almost dismissive of his own.

No reference to his time in Clongowes could omit the fact that he won quite a reputation as a rugby coach. His teams won the Junior Cup four times in eight years. The fact that Clongowes has not won the Schools' Junior Cup since he left puts this feat into perspective.

From 1953 to 1970 he gave missions and retreats in Ireland and England, with one spell as Minister in Loyola House. During these years he made the acquaintance of many diocesan priests of whom he retained the happiest of memories and for whom he had the highest regard. In 1970 he went to Galway as a Bursar and if he ever referred to his work there, characteristically he never failed to praise the Provincial Bursar, John Guiney, for his kindness and help during those years.

Had Kevin walked under a bus in 1975, we would have had much to say about the good religious, the zealouspriest, the excellent companion, the loyal friend and generous man. He did not walk under a bus but he did walk under the eye of the then Provincial, Fr Paddy Doyle, who sent him as Bursar and Minister to the house of scholastics in Monkstown. He was an unlikely choice for the position, a somewhat Edwardian figure of 67 among bejeaned and bearded young religious, whose formation and style of life differed so much from the formation that he himself had experienced. It was in fact a wise decision with great significance for Kevin and the scholastics who passed through Sullivan House during those fourteen years.

These were his golden years. It was not that Kevin changed. He did not become a trendy 67 year-old dressed in technicolour with a shaggy beard. He remained loyal to his Anthony Eden hat, his rolled umbrella and a sombre shade of black. Nor did the new style of religious formation captivate him. As he said himself, : some of the new ways he understood and approved of, some he understood and disapproved of, while others left him perplexed. In his early days in Monkstown, if the behaviour of the young religious puzzled him at times, he would say to himself that if John Moore and Des O'Grady, men whom he held in the highest esteem, approved, then he could go along with it.

That he developed an extraordinary relationship with the young scholastics is beyond doubt. One, no longer a young scholastic, put it to me, Kevin remained himself, he let us remain ourselves. We appreciated his friendship, his support, his kindness and the interest he took in us. We loved and revered him”. Kevin certainly : had the ability to see a person's strong points,
concentrate on these and then judge them on their strengths. In this way he was enormously supportive of those about him.

His influence on the young was immense, riot just because he was a kind and understanding elderly man but because he embodied, albeit in hiş oldfashioned way, the ideals to which the young students aspired. Etched in his life were the faith, priestly zeal and contentment in the religious life and these ideals were etched in a humane, joyful and totally unpretentious way.

Another of the students, now a priest, said simply, “Kevin was a holy, saintly man”. True, but it was a holiness in a somewhat worldly guise. Kevin liked a good time and good fun, he had a discerning palate, he was not innocent of an affluent style of life, he did not lack wealthy generous friends. The last photo taken of him a matter of weeks before his death shows him sitting in a magnificent chair, smiling beatifically, surrounded by beautiful furniture and, beside him on a rosewood table, a glass of wine. But where the service of God; the needs of the apostolate, the demands of charity or the requirements of religious life were concerned, he could cast aside easily the good things of time because he was attached absolutely to the things that are eternal. Possessions and the good things he so greatly enjoyed did not possess him. He had great freedom, but as we know, such freedom does not come cheaply. It is the fruit of prayer and self denial over many years in response to grace. No wonder he was such an influence on the young scholastics, no wonder he won their affection, devotion and reverence.

And so to the end. He came to Leeson Street two years ago. His presence was a blessing on us individually and collectively. To the end he lived in the present and looked to the future, was positive and enthusiastic about developments in the house, was a wise and supportive advisor and good fun. He declined rapidly over the past ten months. His hearing deteriorated to the point where he could not attend recreation, his sight" failed and he could no longer keep the books or even read, the painful disease of the hip greatly restricted his mobility, He bore all with remarkable serenity and peace without a touch of self-pity. His conversation was full of gratitude to God for the blessings of his life, for the good times he had and for the generosity and kindness of friends. He retained his humour, his gracious concern for others and his appreciation of the good things on offer. I had a day out with him a few weeks before he died when he was in a lot of pain and could move only with difficulty. We went out to Bray where he showed me the family house of which he had such happy memories, to Greystones where he spent much of the school holidays, and to the Vico where he loved to go from Sullivan House. His entertaining conversation exuded a sense of peace with himself and the world and a deep appreciation of his blessings and the goodness of others. At the end of the day, I suggested a place for dinner and backed my suggestion with lengthy references to the suitability of the carpark, the convenience of the diningroom and so on. Kevin listened and then looked at me and asked, “But what is the food like?" and his face cracked into a wide grin.

During the last months of his life Kevin was a walking illustration of a prayer from the Spiritual Exercises that he must have prayed so often during his life in the Society: “Take , Lord, into your possession my complete freedom of action, my memory, my understanding and my entire will, all that I have, all that I own; it is your gift to me, I now return it to You. It is all Your's, to be used simply as You wish. Give me Your love and Your grace; it is all I need”. . May the Lord richly bless him and console his family and friends in their loss.

Noel Barber SJ

◆ The Clongownian, 1992

Obituary
Father Kevin O’Donnell SJ
(Born in Dublin in 1908, educated at the Holy Faith, Glasnevin and then at Belvedere College. He entered the Jesuits in 1925 and was ordained in 1938. He spent from 1940 to
1953 at Clongowes and from 1953 to 1970 he gave missions and retreats in Ireland and England. In 1970 he was made Bursar in Galway and in 1975 he was moved to the House of scholastics in Monkstown as Bursar. He moved to Leeson Street in 1989 and he died in 1991.)

An Appreciation

Clongowes Wood College, September 1950, I became “one of my boys” - little did I suspect then it would be the beginning of a forty year association with Fr Kevin, as he became to the family.

During his time in Clongowes he was a frequent visitor, always welcome, to our dining table in Fitzwilliam Square being a family of boys an unexpected visitor never overextended the resources of the household

He became a truly great friend with a rare gift for giving one to whom he was talking the feeling that they were important to him and the subject matter invariably of great concern to him. This attribute was warmly regarded by those who knew him well. His move to Rathfarnham Castle facilitated his ability to visit his friends. We shared many merry evenings with a good dinner - a glass of “Paddy” and lively conversation. On festive occasions his recitations came to the fore – the one I recall best was “The Persian Kitten”.

His stays in Manresa, Monkstown and latterly Leeson Street, proved no barrier to his continuing friendships, being involved in nearly all of our Christenings, Marriages and Deaths. His advices to parents over the years were much respected. He played many games of Scrabble with considerable banter in which he gave at least as much as he received.

New Year, during his time in Leeson Street, was the time for the family Mass. Three generations participated - usually followed by an excellent evening usually now of reminiscences rather than current affairs - interspersed with periods of relaxation to classical music on the stereo.

In the fifties in Clongowes he was always fair and impartial in his dealings with boys. These talents brought at least two Junior Cup wins to the College. Latterly he disclosed in a family environment a warmth of caring concern for each and every one together with a great sense of humour.

Our quality of life is the poorer for his passing – May God smile with him.

PM

Born: 31 October 1921, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1939, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1954, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 05 November 1977, Della Strada, Dooradoyle, Limerick
Died: 14 September 1999, Toulouse, France

Working at St Thérèse en Corbières, Lagrasse, France at the time of death.

by 1971 at Paris, France (GAL) studying
by 1988 at Garancières, Île-de-France, France (GAL) working
by 1994 at Lagrasse, France (GAL) working

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 105 : Special Edition 2000

Obituary

Fr Barry O’Dowling (1921-1999)

1921, Oct 31: Born in Cork
Early education: Christian Brothers' College Cork and Mungret College
1939, Sept 7: Entered the Society at Emo
1941, Sept 6: First vows at Emo
1941 - 1944 Studied Arts at U.C.D.
1944 - 1947 Tullabeg, studying philosophy
1947 - 1951 Belvedere - Regency, H.Dip in Education
1951 - 1955 Milltown Park, studying philosophy
1954, July 29 Ordained priest at Milltown Park
1955 - 1956 Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1956 - 1958 St. Ignatius, Galway, Minister
1958 - 1970 Crescent College, Teacher
1970 - 1971 Paris, Studying Catechetics & French
1971 - 1987 Crescent College Comprehensive, Teacher
1987 - 1989 Versailles, Parish work
1989 - 1993 Clongowes, Teacher
1993 - 1999 France, Parish work

In his last year, Barry experienced health problems. During the spring and summer he received post-operative radiation treatment for cancer. In his last week he felt very weak and was taken to hospital in Toulouse where he died peacefully on Tuesday morning, September 14th.

Liam O'Connell preached at a special mass in Limerick after Barry's burial in France ...

When Fr. Barry O'Dowling died, the Bishop of Carcassone described him as a great priest and peacemaker, and as a most discrete person. Because of this discretion, because of Barry's efforts to be totally private, it is difficult to give an outline of his life. And yet it can help our prayer and thanksgiving, and I will attempt to do so.

Barry O'Dowling was born in Cork on October 31st 1921, one of four children, Ciaran, Deirdre, Barry and Aidan. He received his early education at C.B.C. and in Mungret College, which he attended with his brother Aidan. In 1939, at the start of the war, he joined the Jesuit noviceship at Emo, near Portlaoise. Fr. Sean O Duibhir and Fr, Bill McKenna who are on the altar with us today joined on the same day, and celebrated 60 years as Jesuits on 7th of this month. Barry followed the usual Jesuit course of studies, studying Arts at UCD, Philosophy at Tullabeg near Tullamore and Theology at Milltown Park. He had the usual break in his studies when he taught from 1947 until 1951 at Belvedere, and Fr. Hugh Duffy who is also with us today remembers how Barry was his water polo trainer at that time.

After ordination in 1954, Barry worked in St. Ignatius Galway as Minister, or Assistant Superior for two years, and then in 1958 began his long association with the Crescent, which lasted for 20 years until 1987. At a time when authority was strong, and arguments from authority were accepted in our homes, in our schools, and in our churches, Barry used a different approach in the teaching of Religion. He would introduce a question, and often not tell his students what his position was so that the questioning could go on. One student got his own back, after he was fed up with arguments with Marx and Feurbach and Camus. This student wrote in a student magazine that Fr. O'Dowling was considering joining the Catholic Church. But to this day his past pupils appreciate that they had the right to express their own views and to speak their minds, and they received approval and support for doing this. His colleagues on the teaching staff still remember the great theology lectures he organised for the staff in the late 1970's.

I will only refer to the other qualities Barry brought to the school:
As a teacher of English, Barry had a skill in teaching students to write well. This was achieved through the quality of his regular marking of students' English essays. Despite the right to free speech, there was an orderly atmosphere in the classroom, and speaking out of order could be met with an exclusion order - expressed in one word - “out”. While he did not like large groups, Barry had a great gift for conversation, wide ranging, long conversations, and some of these were fondly recalled over the last few days. Barry was an unlikely impressario, but in the 1960's he organised a theatre group from past pupils, and he once had to rearrange a production at the last minute, because the theatre owners did not approve of Tennessee Williams. He also organised youth discos, until they became too successful, and too large.

In 1987 when the time came to retire from Crescent, Barry feared that there might be speeches and presents, so he obtained permission to slip quietly away, the day before the end of term. This was not because he did not care. With his family or with his friends or with his God, while he cared deeply, he did not always want what was most important to him to be dealt with in public.

Starting in the 1960's, during school holidays Barry used to recharge his batteries in France, as often as he could. There he enjoyed the beauty of the French language, the energy and style of the church, and the friendship of French Jesuits, priests and other acquaintances. He needed this French dimension in his life, and it helped him to live fully and to breathe.

After retirement Barry worked for two years in a parish outside Paris, near Garancière. Then he returned to some teaching of English classes at Clongowes. He enjoyed his new life of teaching and gardening and reading, and could have been very happy at Clongowes till the Lord called him. But he never sold his French car, a sign that he still felt the pull of missionary work.

Then in 1993 at the age of 72 Barry accepted a new challenge, and went to work in Lagrasse in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The Bishop of Carcasonne found it difficult to get priests to work in this mountainy place. The region of the Corbieres has 22 villages in a large area, but only 2000 people living in them. Many of these isolated villages have long since lost their shops and post offices, and when the tourists go home, there are often as few as 10 or 20 people, mostly old people, left behind. Some people from northern Europe have settled in the area, and are finding it difficult to be accepted. Barry recently conducted a small survey among the people of this region, and he learned that their greatest problem was loneliness. Barry ministered to them, travelling 25,000 kilometres a year on tiny mountain roads, to help keep the small churches and their small communities alive.

At the Mass in Lagrasse last Sunday, the church was full of the people of the surrounding 21 villages, from Albieres, and Auriac and Davejan and Dernicueillette and Felines Termenes, and Laviers, and Lanet and Lanroqe de Fa and Maisons and Messac and Mouthournet and Montgaillard and Montjoi and Paliarac and Ribaute and Salza and St. Martin des Puits and St. Pierre des Champs and Termenes and Vignevielle and Villerouge Termenes and La Grasse. Tears were shed by the old inhabitants and by newcomers to the area, for the man who was willing to live in simplicity and in loneliness himself, as a man of the Gospel.

At the end of the Mass Madame Pla spoke about Barry, and I would love to have the text of what she said. She spoke of the Barry we see in the photograph that is displayed in the church, as he prepared to bless the vines from the top of a mountain. She spoke of the rocky hilly area, with tiny congregations, and how Barry was welcomed into that area by everybody, believers and non-believers. In an area where people were suspicious of each other and of outsiders, he was accepted and loved as everybody's priest.

Barry's death was sudden in the end, but he had been preparing for a long time. When his own mother died, he told the Jesuit Community at Dooradoyle, in an unusual moment of self-revelation, since my mother's death heaven and earth have been drawn closer together, this is an extraordinary time. When Charlie Davy's mother died, Barry told Charlie that he loved the part of the Mass where we remember the dead. In his recent homilies in Lagrasse Barry returned again and again to the faithfulness of God. During the summer in Toulouse, while he received radiation treatment, Barry read the books of the Jesuit theologian, Varillon, and discussed them with the Superior of the community. He was especially moved by the book entitled The Humility of God. On the Sunday before he died Barry asked his Jesuit colleague Père Daniel, to read the readings for the day, the 24th Sunday of the year, and then he asked for communion.

Today we pray that Barry enjoys eternal communion with God, and that after all the open ended discussions without answers, that Barry enjoys what eye has not seen and ear has not heard.

Liam O'Connell SJ

◆ The Clongownian, 2000

Obituary

Father Barry O’Dowling SJ
Fr Barry O'Dowling, who had spent much of his working life as a Jesuit teaching in Crescent College Comprehensive, came to Clongowes in 1989. By then he had retired from teaching and had just done a two-year stint in a parish near Versailles in France. As he had suffered a heart-attack, the solitary life of a curé in rural France was no longer appropriate. He taught English with us for four years on a part-time basis until he felt well enough to resume pastoral work in 1993. This time he went much further south to Lagrasse, a depopulated region of scattered mountain villages with a low level of religious practice, in which there were twenty-one churches in the parish. He served his people with fidelity and characteristic good humour, while living in poverty in a rambling, ramshackle presbytery beside the church in Lagrasse. His health had been declining for some time before he died on 14 September 1999, at the age of 77, in Toulouse, where he now lies buried. At a memorial Mass in Lagrasse the Sunday after, when the church was filled with parishioners from the different villages in his care, one of them, speaking for others, said: “Il nous a fait tant de bien”.

The local paper, Midi Libre, published the following touching appreciation a week after his death :

Nous apprenons avec tristesse le décès du Père Barry O'Dowling, hospitalisé mercredi dernier dans un établissement de soins à Toulouse. Curé de Lagrasse depuis plus de six ans, il avait en plus la charge du secteur paroissial du Termenès Orbieu.

Nous nous étions habitués à sa haute silhouette coiffée de son éternelle casquette, arpentant les rues du village. Très affable, un mot gentil à tous, il aimait se mettre à l'écoute des Lagrassiens ainsi que des personnes qu'il était appelé à rencontrer dans le secteur. Au village il connaissait tout le monde et chacun, pratiquant ou non, appréciait son ouverture d'esprit et sa tolérance. Les fidèles ont eu l'occasion d'apprécier ses homélies particulièrement profondes et tournées vers la vie quotidienne de ses paroissiens.

L'abbé Barry était Jésuite, et comme un grand nombre de ses collègues, il a pratiqué l'enseignement dans son pays d'Irlande qu'il aimait bien. Il ne manquait jamais les matchs France-Irlande. On lui posait quelquefois la question: “Vous soutenez évidemment l'Irlandé?' et il n'hésitait de répondre: Ah non! Que le meilleur gagne!” Après s'être dévoué à l'enseignement, il a voulu se mettre au service de la pastorale. C'est ainsi qu'il a servi à son arrivée en France, dans la région parisienne. Le tumulte de la ville ne lui convenait pas. Il a demandé à exercer dans la France profonde: “Donnez-moi le secteur le plus reculé de France”. Il faut croire qu'à Lagrasse il avait enfin trouvé le calme qu'il cherchait, puisqu'il avait souhaité rester dans ces Corbières sauvages tant qu'il pourrait exercer. Il a servi Dieu et l'Église jusqu'à l'extrême limite de ses forces.

Souhaitons à cet homme juste qu'il ait retrouvé la plénitude qu'il recherchait. Pour ses paroissiens, c'est le Père spirituel qui les a quittés et pour nous tous c'est un ami qui n'a fait que passer.

Born: 27 August 1912, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 03 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 06 January 1945, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 15 August 1948, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 23 January 1987, Mount Alvernia Hospital, Singapore - Macau-Hong Kong Province (MAC-HK)

Part of the Kingsmead Hall, Singapore community at the time of death

Transcribed : HIB to HK 03/12/1966

Early education at O’Connell’s School, Dublin

by 1939 at Loyola Hong Kong - studying

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Kevin O’Dwyer
R.I.P.

Father Kevin O'Dwyer, SJ., formerly of Hong Kong, died in Singapore on Friday, 23 January 1987, aged 74.
Father O'Dwyer was born in Ireland in 1912 and joined the Jesuits in 1930. He came to Hong Kong as a scholastic in 1938, studied theology in Australia 1941-1944 and was ordained priest there. After further studies in North America on social work, he returned to Hong Kong where he worked chiefly in organising cooperative marketing. In 1959 he went to Singapore where he served in St. Ignatius Church till his death. His health was failing in his later years, but he worked to the very end.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 6 February 1987

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
Note from Tommy Byrne Entry
During his term as Provincial (1947-1963) he sent many Jesuits to Hong Kong, and then in 1951 he started the Irish Jesuit Mission to Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). He also saw the needs in Singapore and Malaysia and sent Jesuits to work there - like Kevin O’Dwyer, who built St Ignatius Church in Singapore; Patrick McGovern who built St Francis Xavier Church in Petaling Jaya, and also Liam Egan, Gerard (Geoffrey?) Murphy and Tom Fitzgerald.

Note from Thomas Ryan Entry
He sent young Jesuits to work on social activities there - Patrick McGovern and Kevin O'Dwyer

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 21st Year No 1 1946

Frs. John Carroll, Kevin O'Dwyer and Cyril Peyton, of the Hong Kong Mission, who completed their theology at Pymble recently, left, Sydney on December 9th on the Aquitania for England via the Cape. They hope to be home by the end of January. They are accompanied by Fr.. Vincent Conway, an old Mungret boy, member of the Vice Province. All four will make their tertianship in Rathfarnham next autumn.

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

Irish Province News 62nd Year No 2 1987

Obituary

Fr Kevin O'Dwyer (1912-1930-1987) (Macau-Hong Kong)

27th August 1912: born in Dublin. Schooled at Dominican Convent, Eccles Street; Holy Faith Convent, Glasnevin; O'Connell (CB) Schools, North Richmond Street.
3rd September 1930: entered SJ. 1930-32 Emo, noviciate. 1932-35 Rathfarnham, juniorate. BSc in mathematics and mathematical physics. 1935-38 Tullabeg, philosophy.
1938-41 Hong Kong: 1938-40 Taai Lam Chung language school, learning Cantonese; 1940-41 Wah Yan HK (2 Robinson road), form-master of 2B, and teaching mathematics to matriculation class.
1941-5 Australia: '41 (for four months, while awaiting the start of the Australian academic year) Xavier College Kew, Melbourne, teaching; 42-5 (four years) Pymble, Sydney, theology. 6th January 1945: ordained a priest.
1946-47 Ireland: 1946 (January-June) Mungret, teaching; 1946-47 Rathfarnham, tertianship.
1947-48 Tour of inspection of co-operative organisations, in order to learn their method and success: in Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia, Low Countries, France; Antigonish (Nova Scotia), where he spent two months as guest of SFX university extension department; then to about twenty cities, four in Canada and the rest in USA.
1948-54 (Feb.), 1955-'9 Hong Kong: 1948-49 Regional seminary, Aberdeen (HK), improving his Cantonese and writing a report on co-operatives; 1949-52 (Feb.) Ricci Hall, minister. While there he acted as organising adviser in the setting-up of the rural service division of the HK government's vegetable marketing organisation. This was the foundation for the co-operative development in Hong Kong (his own words). In November 1949 he went on a lecture-tour of the Philippines, representing Mons. L. G. Ligutti, Vatican observer to the United Nations agency.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), He spent three weeks visiting most of the main centres of the islands and lecturing on the advantages of co operative organisation, 'the presence of a priest being considered essential for the proper selling of the idea to the people'. 1952 (Feb.)-54 (Feb.) Faber House (of writers), Braga Circuit, Kowloon, minister. During this period he became a member of the vegetable marketing advisory board, chaplain to the HK defence force and committee member of the HK housing society. (1954 (Feb.)-55 Singapore. 1955 (for a short time) Ricci Hall, then, 1955-59, Wah Yan HK, port chaplain (Apostleship of the Sea), bursar, 1954 (Feb.)-55, 1959 (Nov.)-1987 Singapore: 1954 (Feb.)-55, helping Fr Paddy Joy to equip the newly-built hostel for student teachers (Kingsmead Hall). Bursar (of the house (1960-87), of the parish (1961-87), and of the new “Dependent Region' of Malaysia-Singapore” (1985-87). “Builder” of the church of St Ignatius, its first administrator (1961-66) and its first parish priest (1966-74). Minister (1960-63, 1978-87). Warden of Kingsmead Hall (1967-72), then Warden's assistant (1972-86). 23rd January 1987: died.

The Australian province's Fortnightly report (15th April) quotes a letter from a Sr Elizabeth Curran: "I was in Singapore (a stop-over on my return trip to Adelaide) and I saw the beauty of death on the face of Fr Kevin O'Dwyer, SJ, I was with the FMM Community to sing Vespers near Fr Kevin. The Asians made carpets of flowers round the coffin for their beloved parish priest. Resurrection ‘was in the atmosphere’ ... there was deep peace everywhere ... By request of Fr Kevin, the Chinese New Year decorations and banners were still in the church: it was a triumphant celebration”.

Irish Province News 62nd Year No 3 1987

Obituary

Fr Kevin O’Dwyer (1912-1930-1987) (Macau-Hong Kong)

Memories of earlier days
Kevin entered the novitiate one year after me and I was, in fact, his angelus. Nevertheless, even though he was with me in Rathfarnham and later in Tullabeg, Hong Kong and the Australian theologate at Pymble, it is not easy to recall, after all these years, any particular incident, whether humorous or exciting in which he might have been involved, except very pleasant memories of a good Jesuit and an entertaining companion with a ready laugh and a fine sense of humour.
In Tullabeg, he was a keen tennis player and reached the high level of skill which earned him a place in Arthur Little's exclusive tennis team, a great honour not easily achieved.
Kevin was also very keen on music, so much so that when Hilary Lawton formed the Tullabeg orchestra, Kevin painstakingly taught himself the violin so that he would at least be able to make some small contribution to the second or third strings.
He arrived in Hong Kong in 1938 and was subsequently among the second group of Hong Kong scholastics to go to Canisius College in Sydney for theology.
During his period in the theologate, he found an outlet for his love of music. He organised an orchestra (no easy feat in wartime) with literally no instruments to begin with except a piano, an old trombone and a couple of violins. This did not daunt him, however. Somehow or other, he managed, with the help of an army chaplain, to obtain a contract to make (or rather assemble) sets of plastic rosaries which were sold, mostly, to the army.
With the small income from this and probably some other donations he gradually acquired two drums, a clarinet, a flute, a cello (which someone had learnt to play), more violins, one viola and probably some instruments I can now no longer remember. Soon there was an orchestra of about eight or more players and the community was successfully entertained to pieces like Tancredi, Hebrides March, Rosamund Ballet and the Second Movement of Haydn's Surprise Symphony.
On his return to Hong Kong as a priest in 1947, Kevin was able to make a lasting contribution to the life of the farmers in the New Territories, Tommy Ryan, then Mission Superior, sent him to the Cody Institute attached to St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where he made a close study of co-operative societies.
On his return to Hong Kong, he was instrumental, together with Mr (now Sir) Jack Cater, in forming the first vegetable co-operatives to be established in Hong Kong. These co-operatives and the vegetable co-operative markets have been operating successfully in Hong Kong for more than 30 years and have saved many a farmer from the greed of the middle-man.
Some people gave Kevin the nickname 'Barbdwyer.' This could give a wrong impression to those who did not know him. Kevin loved the cut and thrust of good repartee. It did not matter what the subject was, he watched with glee to see how his opponent would extricate himself, or, with a chortle, concede defeat.
John Collins

Vivacious to the end
My earliest recollections of Kevin go back to noviceship days in Emo. He was delivering one of those short practice sermons on the theme of the Epiphany. Being mere schoolboys, the theological significance of the feast was somewhat beyond us, and in those days our familiarity with Scripture was that of the aver age Catholic closer to Vatican I than Vatican II. What impressed Kevin about the Magi was that at the end of a long, tiresome journey, they were still on talking terms with each other!
In this reflection on the Wise Men, Kevin was being quite realistic. He was a great talker and, at the end of a long trek in Tullabeg days while still smartly stepping out a military pace with three other stalwarts, he would keep the conversation moving until they reached home.
For almost two years before his death, Kevin was receiving blood transfusions to make up for the haemoglobin deficiency in his system. Despite this marrow failure, he remained vivacious to the end. At first, the transfusions fasted several months but later had to be repeated at shorter intervals until finally his energy dissipated after a few weeks.
Though with his community he spoke in a light-hearted manner about his illness, he did recommend in glowing terms the article in the December 1986 issue of The Furrow by Fr Peter Lemass, 'The call to live.'
Like Fr Lemass, Kevin had many people supporting and encouraging him in his struggle to survive. When an appeal for blood donations was made from the pulpit over a year ago the response was overwhelming. On that occasion no blood type was indicated. Last December, when another appeal was made this time for “B” type blood, several parishioners apologised for being unable to donate according to the specific type. It turned out that type “B” is quite rare in Singapore. One of the last to donate blood was a girl Legionary from the University of Singapore. Kevin was spiritual director to one of the six praesidia on the campus.
Despite the rare type of blood he needed, Kevin was never denied blood when it was required. About a week before his death, he was given a transfusion of six pints and when they did not raise his haemoglobin count sufficiently, he was given two more pints before being allowed home.
On Wednesday, January 21, at 3 am, suffering from high fever and body pains, he phoned doctor and ambulance and was taken to the intensive care unit of Mount Alvernia Hospital, in the care of the FMDM Sisters. Only Tom O'Neill was disturbed by the commotion and finding a taxi cruising at that unearthly hour followed the ambulance to discover what was amiss. What had been feared from the beginning of the illness had happened. He was stricken with a virus infection and was unable to combat it. I had the privilege of anointing him and giving him Communion that afternoon. On Friday, about 11.30 am, his brea thing became difficult and he died with out further suffering.
Despite my recommendation that all watching and praying close down at 11.00 pm, while Kevin's body was lying in the parish hall, his friends would have none of it. For three nights, they organised relays of watchers, while some remained through the night. There were several phone calls from people who said he had officiated at their marriage twenty or so years previously and had baptised their children.
John Wood

Respect, yes - but affection?
To those who knew Kevin O'Dwyer only as an efficient Minister, a meticulous Econome, a competent teacher and, at times, a quite sharp-tongued critic, the depth of mourning displayed at his passing would have come as a surprise.
He died rather suddenly at the end, just before noon on Friday, 23 January, The body was embalmed and brought that same evening to the Parish Hall. At 9.00 pm there was a concelebrated Mass in the Hall at which about three hundred people were present. How the word had got around so fast is still a mystery.
Over the weekend the parishioners took it in turns to watch by the body, day and night. Each evening at 9.00 Mass was said. On Monday morning Archbishop Gregory Yong concelebrated the funeral Mass together with over 70 priests before a full congregation. Although it was an ordinary working day, three busloads of parishioners, as well as several private cars, went to the cemetery.
All this was a tribute to a man who many would have thought incapable of inspiring such affection. Respect, yes - but affection? The answer seems to be that Kevin did not wear his heart on his sleeve, but, over the years, a great number of people came to realise that, while he might sometimes seem severe on the outside, he was, on the inside, not only a big-hearted man but a tender hearted one.
To say that Kevin O'Dwyer could not accept fools gladly would be misleading: it depended on the sort of fools. With those who were simply impractical or woolly-headed, he could be quite gentle. His sharp tongue was reserved for those who engaged in bombast, boasting or loud-mouthed proclamations of their opinions. Towards these he could be scathing.
But with the poor, even the 'under serving poor', Kevin was not only sympathetic but helpful in a practical way.
Twenty-five years ago, as soon as the Church of St Ignatius was built, he started the St Vincent de Paul Society and remained their Spiritual Director until his death.
Towards the sick his devotion knew no bounds. For years he brought Holy Communion to the sick in their homes every week and even when he himself was ailing, he continued to visit sick parishioners in various hospitals until the doctor insisted that he must confine himself to one hospital each day.
For almost two years Kevin was living on borrowed blood and therefore as he well knew, on borrowed time. Yet, although he could speak fluently on many subjects, he rarely spoke of this, He just went on working, in a restricted fashion as he grew weaker, until the end. Three days before he died, he was still busy at the accounts.
On one occasion he had confided that he did not want to end up a burden to the community. He didn't. He died quickly and quietly, without a fuss. Kevin always disliked making a fuss.
Liam Egan

Where only the best was good enough
I used to think that procurators generally were mean with money. Living with Kevin cured me of that. I do not consider myself stingy but he was far ahead of me in generosity.
Many a time I asked him for alms for a deserving case. “How much?” he would say and then suggest an amount far more than I had in mind. The same was true on occasions when, as a community, we discussed making a donation to some current charity or other. There was no single time when Kevin's proposed figure was not far above my own.
But a “bum” (a specifically “Kevinensian” term) got short shrift. For the uninitiated, a “bum” was/is someone “on the make”, a fraud, a faker of hard-luck tales, a taker who never gives. The direct opposite, in other words, of Kevin's own blunt honesty and self-giving. On one famous occasion, the (locally-born) priest secretary of one of our inter-parish meetings faithfully recorded the term in his minutes but confessed he had to consult a dictionary as he had thought the word had only one meaning,
Two things were always calculated to rile Kevin: if you asked a silly question, you got more, far more, than a silly answer! And if you happened to turn up even a little late for a public Mass or stupidly forgot some parish matter you were supposed to attend to, it was best to keep out of his path for a while until he had simmered down a bit.
The parishioners deserved only our best and always. They knew that, too. His service of them was complete dedication. That was why they loved him; and unceasingly asked for and after him during his illness; and why they poured in to pay their respects and shed their tears when the news spread, like a prairie fire, that God had taken him home.
A parishioner whose opinion I greatly value asked if we priests could do more to influence the parishioners. “Let them see the priests praying”, she said, “We know you pray but let them see you at it”. It so happened that only Kevin and I were in residence at the time and I saw at once that this was a gentle admonition to myself.
My preparation for Mass and thanksgiving were done in private, in my room or the sacristy, but Kevin was long on his knees daily in church before and after his Mass. He was a prayerful priest. Go to his room any day about 5 pm and you would find him saying his rosary.
In the final months, when his activities were necessarily curbed, he spent long periods, not with his beloved music or engaged in reading, but in the domestic chapel, next to my room. I saw him there, to quote a Milltown professor, whom my contemporaries will instantly identity, with my own two eyes'. For that example, as for so much else, I am
very grateful.
Des Reid

Born: 31 August 1880, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1900, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly and Manresa, Roehampton, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 27 July 1913, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1916
Died: 06 September 1961, St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales - Angliae Province (ANG)

Transcribed HIB to ANG : 1901

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Transcribed to ANG Province for Zambesi Mission 1901

2nd year Novitiate at Ent Roehampton London (ANG)
by 1910 came to Milltown (HIB) studying 1910-1913
by 1915 came to Tullabeg (HIB) making Tertianship

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1962

Obituary

Father Patrick O’Dwyer SJ

We regret to chronicle the death of Fr Patrick O'Dwyer SJ who died at St. Buenos, Wales, on Sept 6th.

He was born in Dublin in 1880 and was educated at Mungret College. He began his noviceship in Tullabeg in 1900, but the following year was transferred to the English Province and continued his novitiate at Roehampton. He returned to Milltown Park for Theology and was ordained there in 1913. In 1915 he sailed for South Africa, where he worked in Dreifontein, St Aidan's College, Grahamstown, and Salisbury Cathedral. In 1928 he returned to England. The rest of his active life was spent on the Lancashire Missions. In 1956, however, failing health compelled him to retire to St Bueno's, where he died. RIP

Born: 26 May 1876, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1892, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 01 August 1909, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1911, Mungrtet College SJ, Limerick
Died: 22 July 1950, Pembroke Nursing Home, Dublin

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

Educated at Belvedere College SJ

by 1897 at St Aloysius, Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1910 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1927 at Liverpool, Lancashire (ANG) working

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 25th Year No 4 1950

Obituary

Fr. Augustine O’Kelly (1876-1892-1950)

Father Augustine O'Kelly, or as he was known to his many friends, Fr. "Gus” O'Kelly, died peacefully at the Pembroke Nursing Home on Sunday, July 23rd, 1950. He was born in Dublin on 16th May, 1876 and belonged to a well-known city family. After completing his education at Belvedere College he entered the novitiate at Tullabeg on the 7th of September, 1892. He spent many successful years in the Colleges in Clongowes and in Mungret. He was given charge of the Apostolic students in Mungret and many of those who were under him still remember him and speak of him with great reverence and affection.
After finishing in the Irish colleges he spent some years in parochial work in Liverpool and in Preston. This part of his life was characterised by great zeal and devotion, especially among the poorer classes. His success in instructing converts was remarkable, and this was largely due to his painstaking efforts. He was also interested in the many problems affecting married life and several invalid marriages were set right as the result of his efforts.
He returned to Ireland about a dozen years ago and the remaining years of his life were spent in zealous work in St. Francis Xavier's Church, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin, For a few years before his death, he was the victim of blood pressure and heart trouble. He went to Rathfarnham Castle for a short holiday in the middle of July of the present year. While there he had a heart seizure and had to be removed to the Pembroke Nursing Home. A stroke followed a few days later and this was the immediate cause of his death. During his illness he showed great edification to his nurses and to the Doctor who attended him,
The outstanding features of his life were that he was a very saintly man and an excellent religious. All through his life everyone regarded him as a very holy man of God, and as a man who loved his rule and practised it as perfectly as possible. The boys in the Colleges had this opinion of him. The people with whom he came in contact during his missionary career thought the same of him, and above all his religious brethren of the Society looked up to him as a great example of holiness and religious observance. He practised self-denial very intensely. For instance, during the later years of his life he had no fire in his room, even in the depths of winter. He ate no meat and he scarcely ever indulged in food which was specially pleasing to the palate. But his self-denial was not repellant, because he was the soul of kindness and good nature. Even when he was suffering he was always friendly and in good humour. This was especially manifest during the last years of his life when he suffered considerably. He was eagerly sought as a confessor both by externs and by his own brethren in religion. He was always faithful and punctual in his confessional and his penitents could rely on his being present at his post. He had a great sense of humour and enjoyed telling and listening to amusing stories, especially those of the sensational kind. He was a great lover of holy poverty and certainly felt at times some of its effects. His obedience was sometimes amusing to his brethren - for instance, he had his bag always packed so that he could leave any house where he was stationed at a moment's notice. He was a model of all the religious virtues and without any ostentation. Like His Divine Master he effaced himself in all things,
The news of his death was received with genuine sorrow by the many friends he had made in Gardiner Street, and elsewhere. He leaves a gap and will be sadly missed. 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 Austin O’Kelly (1876-1950)

Was born in Dublin and received his education at Belvedere College. He entered the Society in 1892 and pursued his higher studies at the French scholasticate in Jersey and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1909. He was a member of the teaching staff at the Crescent from 1923-25. Shortly afterwards he went over to England to work in the Jesuit churches at Preston and Liverpool. His chosen apostolate was amongst the poorer classes. Before the outbreak of the last war he was recalled to Dublin and continued his apostolate amongst the poor near Gardiner St Church.

Born: 19 March 1869, Ranelagh,Dublin
Entered: 30 October 1886, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 27 July 1902, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1906, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 16 April 1939, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia

Transcribed : HIB to ASL 05/04/1931

Early education at St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg & Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1891 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1905 at St David’s, Mold, Wales (FRA) making Tertianship

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
O'Leary, William J.
by David Murphy

O'Leary, William J. (1869–1939), Jesuit priest and scientist, was born 19 March 1869 in Dublin, son of Dr William H. O'Leary (qv), MP for Drogheda 1874–80, surgeon, and professor of anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and Rosina O'Leary (née Rogers). Educated at St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, King's Co. (Offaly), and Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1886, completing his noviciate at Dromore, Co. Down. He studied philosophy and astronomy at Louvain and theology in Dublin, and then taught science at Clongowes. In 1908 he travelled to Strasbourg and studied seismology under Prof. Meinka, and on his return to Ireland he set up a meteorological and seismological observatory at Mungret College, Co. Limerick, remaining as its director until 1915. At the request of a joint committee of the British Association and the Royal Meteorological Society, he carried out a series of upper-air investigations using sounding balloons (1911–14). This was the most westerly series of observations taken in Europe, and the results of O'Leary's research were published in the journals of both societies. By 1911 he had also completed a new seismograph, and this instrument was later praised by the astrophysicist and cosmologist, (Edward) Arthur Milne (1896–1950).

In 1915 he moved to the Jesuit community at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, and founded a seismological observatory there. He constructed his own seismograph, which had a moving mass of one-and-a-half tons. This instrument was still giving excellent service in the 1940s. He had also become aware of the need for extremely accurate timing in seismology and, turning his attention to chronometry, developed a free-pendulum clock which he patented in 1918.

In 1929 he went to Australia, where he became director of the observatory at Riverview College, New South Wales. In conjunction with the Lembang observatory in Java, he began a programme of photographic research on variable stars. He discovered several new variable stars, and the results of his research were published in the journals of the Riverview and Lembang observatories and also in the Astronomische Nachrichten. An accomplished and humorous speaker, he was extremely popular as a lecturer at scientific and public meetings. He supervised (1933–4) the construction of one of his free-pendulum clocks for Georgetown University. The clock was built by E. Esdaile & Sons in Sydney and shipped to Washington DC in August 1934, and O'Leary visited Georgetown in 1938. He was a leading member of several scientific societies, including the RIA (elected 1919), the Royal Society of New South Wales, the Société Astronomique de France, and the Seismological Society of America. He was also a member of the Australian National Committee on Astronomy and was elected (January 1938) a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

He collapsed and died of a heart attack while playing golf (16 April 1939), and was buried at the Gore Hill cemetery, Sydney. There is a collection of his papers in the Irish Jesuit archives in Dublin, including seismological journals that he kept while at Rathfarnham. In February 1959 Georgetown University donated to the Smithsonian Institution its O'Leary free-pendulum clock and the collection of letters relating to its construction.

Fr William J. O'Leary, SJ, files in Irish Jesuit Archives, Dublin; The Catholic Press, 20 April 1939; Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 100, no. 4, February 1940; Bulletin of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, vol. 28, no. 240, February 1986, 44–51

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jesuitica-earth-shakers-2/

JESUITICA: Earth-shakers
In the days when Rathfarnham Castle was still a residence for Jesuit university students, there was a seismograph (pictured here) housed in a small building off the drive. It was the creation of Fr William O’Leary, a Jesuit scientist with an avid interest in pendulums, who had already constructed a seismograph in Mungret in 1909. He had to keep air currents and spiders at bay, since their delicate vibrations could simulate the effect of major earthquakes on the sensitive instrument. He had dreadful luck in September 1923 when his seismograph was temporarily out of order during a catastrophic (over 100,000 dead) earthquake in Japan. But his pioneering work introduced generations of Jesuit students to the rigorous measurement and technical skill required in scientific research.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
William O'Leary was educated at Tullabeg and Clongowes; his father was a surgeon and a Member of Parliament. While at Tullabeg he developed an interest in science. He entered the Society at Dromore, 30 October 1886, did his juniorate at Tullabeg, 1888-90, studied philosophy at Louvain, 1890-93, where he did much experimental work with the inverted pendulum. He later taught mathematics and physics at Clongowes, 1893-99, studied theology at Milltown Park, 1899-03, and finished his studies with tertianship at Mold, Wales, 1904-05. In 1900 he published a textbook on mechanics.
In an obituary notice in the “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 100, No. 4,” 1940, it said that O'Leary's “mind ran on original lines. He was never content with stereotyped textbook solutions, he had to work out each problem for himself from first principles. In this way he was able to study many questions from a fresh angle and to develop original lines of research various branches of science. Combined with this was a highly developed inventive talent and the ability to design new instruments and the skill to construct them”.
After studies, O'Leary taught physics, chemistry and mathematics, and was assistant prefect of studies at Mungret, 1905-15, as well as director of the seismological and meteorological observatory At the request of a Joint Committee of the British Association and the Royal Meteorological Society he carried out a series of upper-air investigations by means of sounding balloons. These were the farthest west observations had been made in Europe at the time.
One problem in seismometry was to obtain an instrument with a fairly long period and consequent high sensitivity O'Leary provided a satisfactory solution by constructing a two
component horizontal seismometer with trifilar suspension. One of these instruments was completed in Mungret in 1911. Later, he lectured in mathematics to the juniors at Rathfarnham, 1915-18, and started seismological observatory His “O’Leary Seismograph” was at that time the first and only one in the world. He also worked with Professor John Milne at the Shide Observatory in the Isle of Wight, and from whom he acquired the Milne-Shaw seismograph for his own seismography station at Rathfarnham. With these two seismographs, O'Leary was able to supply earthquake information to the whole country. The need for accurate timing in seismology turned O'Leary's attention to chronometry He saw that the secret of precision timing was to be sought in a free pendulum. He was one of true pioneers in the development of the free-pendulum clock in 1918.
O’Leary was minister, procurator and teacher at Belvedere, 1918-19, and then lectured mathematics and physics to the philosophers at Milltown Park, 1919-29.
He was was appointed to the Riverview observatory in July 1929. Besides introducing various improvements in the seismological department, he initiated a programme of photographic research on variable stars in collaboration with the Boscha Observatory, Lembang. He also invented and built a blink comparator, which proved successful in searching for new variable stars. He discovered many new variable stars and published several papers on variables in “Publications” of the Riverview and Ban Len Observatories and in the “Astronomisrlne Nachrichten”. Other inventions included a recording anemometer and a petrol gas plant.
Scientists and the general public appreciated O’Leary's lectures on astronomy and seismology His light and humorous touch combined with his clarity of exposition to render topics intelligible and interesting. Together with his scientific work, he found time to do good work as a priest. Many found him a wise counselor, and a humble and lovable priest and colleague. He was a little man, happy, charming, and quite unassuming in spite of his deep knowledge and high reputation.
He remained at Riverview until his death in 1939, directing the observatory until 1937 when Daniel O'Connell became director. The end of his life occurred when he collapsed and died on the golf course just after driving off. The suddenness of his death was a shock to the community, but he had had a heart condition for some time. This did not prevent him from planning fresh research and for new instruments. The day before he died he discovered a number of new variable stars with his newly completed comparator, and that night worked at the telescope taking star photographs. O'Leary was a member of the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of NSW, the Société Astronomique de France, the Seismological Society of America, Past President of the NSW Branch of the British Astronomical Association, and a fellow of the Australian National Committee on Astronomy.

Note from Daniel O’Connell Entry
At this time he came under the influence of William O'Leary, the Irish Jesuit astronomer and seismologist, who at that time was director of Rathfarnham Castle Observatory in Dublin. While at the Riverview Observatory, working under William O'Leary.........

Note from Edward Pigot Entry
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 1st Year No 2 1926

SCIENTIFIC WORK AND INVENTIONS - Fr William O'Leary :
1909 Seismological observatory established at Mungret
1910 New type of seismograph invented and constructed at Mungret; A meteorological station in connection with the Meteorological Office established at Mungret; A complete set of recording instruments was installed; New type of anemometer, recording average and wind direction, invented and erected.
1912 The systematic investigation, by sounding balloons of the upper atmosphere over Ireland was begun. This important work was entrusted to Mungret by a joint committee of the Royal Meteorological Society and the British Association, as representing the International Upper Air Investigation Society, with headquarters at Strasburg. Mungret was the only Irish station entrusted with this work; The Erin Petrol Gas Generator invented by Messrs Maguire & Gatchell took over the construction of those machines, and erected a large number of them throughout Ireland.
1916 The Rathfarnham Seismological Station was established. The instrument, of the Mungret type, but of an improved design, was constructed at Rathfarnham.
1918 Precision clock invented, embodying the principle of a free pendulum. A model of a “Vertical Component” Seismograph invented some 3 years previously, was exhibited at the British Association Meeting at Edinburgh.

Irish Province News 9th Year No 1 1934
An Australian contemporary gives the following welcome news :
The Rev William O'Leary, SJ., Director of Riverview Observatory has been elected President of the New South Wales branch of the British Astronomical Association. in succession to Mr. W. F. Gale. Father O'Leary is a famous scientist, with a special knowledge of earthquakes. He studied astronomy in Louvain, Belgium, and succeeded the late Father Pigot to the charge of Riverview Observatory in July, 1929. Formerly he was Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the Jesuit College, Milltown Park, Dublin.

Irish Province News 12th Year No 2 1937

Rathfarnham :
Seismological Station : A change was made in the method of recording un the O'Leary seismograph. The records are now made on smoked paper by a stylus which gives a very clear, delicate trace. This method replaces the former ink inscriptions and is calculated to give much greater sensitivity, The improvement was carried out at the suggestion of Father O'Leary, Director of Riverview College Observatory, who sent all the necessary detail of construction. On January 7th the first big earthquake of the year was recorded and the success of the new method was assured.

Irish Province News 14th Year No 3 1939
Obituary :
Father William O’Leary
Born, Dublin, 19th March , Educated Tullabeg, Clongowes
1886 Entered, Dromore, 30th October
1887 Dromore, Novice
1888-89 Tullabeg, Junior
1890-1892 Louvain, Philosophy
1893-1898 Clongowes, Doc
1899-1902 1899-1902 Milltown, Theology
1903 Clongowes, Doc
1904 Mold, Tertian
1905-07 Mungret, Doc. Adj. Praef. stud, Cons. dom.
1908-09 Mungret, Doc. Doc. Praes. Sod. B.V.M., Cons. dom.
1910-12 Mungret, Doc. Doc. Praes. Sod. B.V.M., Cons. dom.; Dir obser, seismol, et meteorology
1913-14 Munget, Doc an 17, Praes. Sod. SS Angel; Dir obser, seismol, et meteorology
1915 Rathfarnham, Lect. Math., Conf. N.N. ; Cons. dom. an 1
1916 Rathfarnham, Praef Spir, Lect. Math.; Cons. dom an 2.; seismol
1917 Rathfarnham, Praef Spir, Lect. Math.; Cons. dom an 3.; Dir obser
1918 Belvedere, Minister. Doc..' Cons. dom.
1919-23 Milltown, Lect. Math. et Phys. , Conf. dom.
1924 Milltown, Lect. Math. et Phys.; Conf. N.N.
1925-26 Milltown, Lect. Math. et Phys.; Praef ton; Theol et Phil
19277-28 Milltown, Lect. Math. et Phys.; Praef ton; Theol et Phil; Conf. dom.
1929 Australia, Riverview, Dir obser, seismol; Astron meteor
1930-37 Australia, Riverview, Dir obser, seismol; Astron meteor; Conf dom
1938-1939 Australia, Riverview, Adj Dir Spec; Dir sect seismol; Conf dom

Father O'Leary died in Australia, Sunday, April 16th, 1939
Father O'Leary was born in Dublin, 1869. His father William O'Leary, well known for his medical ability, and for time a Home Rule M.P. in the party of Isaac Butt. Father O'Leary was educated at Tullabeg and Clongowes. He was best known as a teacher of physics and astronomy in the Colleges and Scholasticates, and for his work on seismology. His scientific work tends to make us forget his other gifts as a preacher and Retreat-giver, in which he was remarkably successful. As student at Louvain he developed an interest in pendulums, which was the basis of his seismological activities. A full account of his work in that department has been given in the “Irish Jesuit Directory” for 1938. A visit to Prof. J, Milne's observatory at Shide, Isle of Wight, was the occasion of his applying his knowledge of pendulums to the construction of his first instrument at Mungret. During the following years he constructed and equipped a really good seismological and meteorological station there, which he left behind him as a monument to his energy and activity when he was transferred
to Rathfarnham. Here, with characteristic perseverance, he continued his work, and set about designing and constructing the instrument now in use at Rathfarnharn, in conjunction with a standard Milne-Shaw seismograph added to the Observatory in 1932. This instrument was not meant to replace the “O'Leary Seismograph”, but to give greater accuracy in the recording of earthquakes. The horizontal pendulum of the latter has a mass of 1 lb. , the O'Leary pendulum has a mass of 1.5 tons. This is the only instrument of its kind in existence, and gives an exceedingly large and clear record.
An essential element in the recording of earthquakes is a very accurate clock, which enables the exact time to be recorded on the chart. Father O'Leary designed such a clock, which includes features of great novelty. In connection with this instrument Father O'Leary paid a visit to the United States. The clock has been described by the director of a well-known observatory as “a piece of first-class and most original work”. It is of interest to put on record that Father O'Leary not only designed both clock and seismograph, but made almost every part of each, and erected them himself. In addition to these instruments he designed a system of supplying petrol-gas for laboratories far from a supply of coal gas. This apparatus had a considerable success, and for some years was on the market, until trade difficulties stopped the sale. In addition to the records of his observations, Father O'Leary wrote a text-book on mechanics.
When Father Pigot died in Australia, in 1929, then a portion of the Irish Province, Father O'Leary was chosen to succeed him as director of the Riverview College Observatory, which included astronomy, seismology and meteorology, where his knowledge and experience enabled him to do much valuable work.
His death came suddenly and unexpectedly, as he had been working in the observatory only the night before. The Australian and home newspapers contained most appreciative notices of his work. An indication of the esteem in which he was held may be gathered from the Press account of his funeral. Archbishop Gilroy presided at the Mass, at which were present Archbishop Duhig and Bishops Coleman, Dwyer and Henscke, together with some 200 priests and many representatives of Catholic schools. The laity included many distinguished scientists and representative men, such as the Attorney-General, etc. Father O'Leary was an F.R.A.S., and past-President of the British Astronomical Association.
Those who knew Father O'Leary will miss him not only as a worker, but still more for his great charm and his many gifts, which made him an excellent community man and endeared him to all by his cheerful companionship and great sense of humour. He was noted for his punctilious observance of all his spiritual duties, and died as he had lived, working for God. RIP
The following came from an Irish priest :
"During the last few weeks I have felt that I would like to write and offer to you and your distinguished Order my sympathy on the death of Father O'Leary. Many, I am sure, have written many others, too, better equipped than I, shall write about him but as a humble priest, I would like to add my humble tribute to the memory of a saintly priest and a learned Jesuit.
When I took up the paper a few weeks ago and read the cabled account of his death, I could read no further. I was truly grieved, for I felt I had lost a great friend, a friend who was, I thought, in perfect health, when I met him only a few months ago. Our friendship began ten years ago on the emigrant ship that was relentlessly taking both of us to Australia. He, fairly advanced in years, I, a young priest just ordained. He, the eminent scientist and inventor, on his way to take up one of the highest and most important positions in Australia, I an obscure priest, to take up duty as a curate in some parish in the Diocese of Sydney. None of us young priests realised that we were travelling with such a distinguished man. There was nothing that led us even to suspect it. He moved among us, spoke freely to us offered us his sympathy for he knew our hearts were full. His heart, too, was full, for he felt then that he would never see again his beloved Ireland. I often thought it was a pity that he should have to leave Ireland at his time of life, for he loved Ireland with a love that was passionate, yet tender. Whenever I visited him at Riverview, that College so beautifully situated on an eminence overlooking Sydney's wondrous harbour, his thoughts ever wandered back to Ireland. Like every exile. as he wrote himself, he hankered for the green hills of holy Ireland. Others shall appraise his work as a scientist and astronomer - to me he was always the humble, sympathetic, priestly friend. With his passing I have lost a great friend, and Australia has most certainly lost an able and scholarly Jesuit, and saintly priest.
I am sure that his soul passed through Ireland on its way to Eternity. May he rest in peace".

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father William O’Leary SJ 1869-1939
The name of Fr William O’Leary will go down in the Province as the founder of the seismograph at Rathfarnham Castle. He was also the inventor an ingenious clock and numerous other scientific devices, as well as author of a textbook on mechanics. But these achievements as a scientific inventor were hardly half the man.

He had a remarkable oratorical ability, and many a priest of the Province will recall his elocution classes … “O Mary, call the cattle home, call the cattle home across the sands of Dee”. He was a preacher and retreat giver of no mean order,

In 1939 he was appointed to the Directorship of the Observatory at Riverview, Australia. His end came suddenly on April 16th 1939, but found him not unprepared, for he was a religious of punctilious observance and scrupulous even to a fault in the matter of poverty.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 109 : Summer/Autumn 2001

LEST HE BE FORGOTTEN : FR WILLIAM O’LEARY

Kevin A Laheen

There is a rumour doing the rounds in Rathfarnham at present that the building that once housed the seismograph will shortly be used as a snack-bar and tea room. Just in case there may be some truth in this rumour it would seem opportune to recall the name of Fr William O'Leary, SJ whose pioneer work in recording earthquakes won international acclaim for the seismograph station at Rathfarnham Castle.

Willie O'Leary was born in Dublin on 19 March 1869. The O'Leary family lived in Ranelagh. His father was a distinguished doctor, a Member of Parliament, and a personal friend of Isaac Butt. Willie spent the early years of his schooling in Tullabeg and then moved off to Clongowes when the two colleges were amalgamated in 1886. After his novitiate in Dromore he moved, back to Tullabeg to begin his Juniorate studies. In Tullabeg he manifested a great interest in and aptitude for science. It was during his philosophy years at Louvain that he did some experimental work on the inverted pendulum. This was the beginning of a lifelong work in the study of seismology which won for him an eminence in that science and in meteorology, and also, to a lesser degree, in astronomy.

During his years in Mungret College, 1905-15, his theories about earthquakes began to take practical shape. He built a house of solid stone some distance from the main building and in it he continued his study and experiments. His work during those years is well documented in the MUNGRET ANNUAL. However, it was in Rathfarnham Castle during the years 1915 17 that he built his own seismograph and the clock that recorded the time at which an earthquake took place. The famous “O'Leary Seismograph” was the only one of its kind in the world at that time and widespread interest in it was evident in international science circles.

He was on personal friendly terms with Professor John Milne, whose observatory in Shide, the Isle of Wight, he had visited on more than one occasion. Through this contact he acquired the Milne-Shaw seismograph for the station in Rathfarnham Castle. This instrument was not a substitute for Fr O'Leary's one, but both worked in tandem, recording the same earthquake though by different methods. The O'Leary seismograph recorded the quakes on a sheet of smoked paper on a large revolving drum, while the Milne-Shaw instrument recorded them by photography. It was interesting to watch the white lines being traced on the smoked paper as the drum revolved slowly while every minute the two glass pen nibs gave a tiny kick to the right in order to record the time.

Fr O'Leary's work received widespread notice in scientific publications. He was a Feilow of the Royal College of Science, and also a President of the British Astronomical Association. His reputation was so outstanding that when Fr Edward Pigot, SJ died in Australia in 1929, Fr O'Leary was requested to take his place as Director of the Observatory at Riverview College - “one of the highest and most important positions in Australia”. It was there during his early sixties that his work was highly appreciated and where at the same time he had an opportunity to further his own knowledge of astronomy.

Research and experimental work such as was done by Father O'Leary, is a very lonely occupation, and few people outside the researcher's field will manifest much interest. Fr O'Leary was fortunate in the fact that Fr Thomas V Nolan, SJ who was his Rector in Mungret College, appreciated his work and gave him every encouragement and support. Later Fr Nolan was appointed Provincial and in that office continued his sponsorship of Fr O'Leary's work. Providence was again on Fr Willie's side when they were both assigned to Rathfarnham Castle, Fr Nolan being the Rector and again continued to support him, especially in the erection of the seismograph station. He also encouraged Fr Willie to maintain his friendship with Professor Milne and to visit him at his observatory at Shide. Without this support one might be justified in asking if Fr O'Leary's experiments would ever have bome the fruit they eventually did.

In addition to his eminent place in the international community of scientists he was also a gifted preacher. He was much in demand as a retreat director, and was especially skilled in directing retreats to the clergy. His contemporaries found him a most affable companion who gladly shared his knowledge with anyone who manifested even the slightest interest in it. He died in Australia in 1939 in his seventieth year. Present at his funeral two archbishops, three bishops, over two hundred priests, and representatives from various branches of science. A priest who first met him on the ship en route for Australia, on hearing of his death, wrote, “In his passing I have lost a great friend, and Australia has certainly lost an able and scholarly Jesuit and a saintly priest”.

Should the building, which housed his seismograph station in Rathfarnham, ever become a snack-bar, it would certainly be appropriate to have a plaque or other memorial put up there. This would record the significant contribution to science that was made in that building, and would prevent the name and work of this great Jesuit from being forgotten.

I feel it is appropriate to conclude with a personal memory. One morning, midway through the Second World War, Dick MacCarthy and I were working in the seismograph station. Suddenly I noticed that the glass pens on the great revolving drum began to register a quivering motion. I called Dick and, in a matter of seconds, the pens went off in a swaying motion from left to right. We both realised that we were witnessing the great O'Leary seismograph recording an earthquake. Before the pens settled down, Dick had calculated that the epicentre of the earthquake was in the Pacific Ocean. In those days the house telephone was definitely off limits for all of us except Dick, who was allowed to use it for business connected with the station. He telephoned the Dublin newspapers with the news. An hour or so later we both cycled to the university for the morning lectures. Standing at the gates of the building was a newsboy crying out the greatest piece of misinformation ever heard, “Stop press! Stop press! Earthquake at Rathfarnham Castle!” We both had a laugh, and Dick said, “I bet the Rector will blame the pair of us for that”.

During the days of the war when news of any sort was censored and generous blackouts were imposed on any type of information, we were a real sensation among our fellow students for bearing the first bit of uncensored news to reach Dublin that day. Dick, who remained a close friend of mine all his life, died in Hong Kong a couple of years ago.

◆ The Clongownian, 1939

Obituary

Father William J O’Leary SJ

Father O’Leary was born in Dublin on March 19th, 1869. His father was Dr W O'Leary, a well-known doctor and a Home Rule MP in Isaac Butt's party. Father O'Leary was educated at Tullabeg (1880), but came to Clongowes at the amalgamation for a few months in the summer of 1886 to prepare for the “Autumn Matric”. He was a master at Clongowes 1893-'98, and again in 1903; after his ordination. Practically his whole life was occupied in the teaching of science and mathematics at Clongowes and Mungret, and in the Scholasticates of Rathfarnham and Milltown Park. During his philosophical studies at Louvain he became interested in pendulums, and did some very interesting experiments with compound pendulums, obtaining some beautiful curve records. This interest seems to have been the occasion of his interest in seismology later on. A visit to the observatory of Prof J Milne FRS., at Shide IOW., was the beginning of his work in that departinent. At Mungret he created a seismological and meteorological station which he fitted up with instruments of his own design. During this time he also made observations on high-altitude conditions by means of balloons. He was transferred to Rathfarnham in 1915, where he still further improved his apparatus, Here he designed and constructed one of the instruments still in use in the present station. This instrument is the only one of its kind in existence and gives a very open record. It is of the inverted pendulum type, and the “bob” weighs 1.5 tons! It was designed, constructed all except the “bob” and erected by Father O'Leary himself, who, in addition to his other gifts, was a skilled mechanic. Later on he was professor of Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy to the Jesuit philosophers at Milltown Park.

On the death of Father Pigot SJ, Director of the seismological and astronomical observatory of Riverview College, Sydney, he was appointed as his successor, and went to Australia in 1929. His previous studies and practical experience had fitted him for this position, and enabled him to do splendid work in his new post. Here, in addition to seismology, his work included such branches of astronomy as observations on solar radiation, and on variable stars. It is to be hoped that a full account of his work in Australia will be given us. As an inventor he also designed a method of supplying laboratories not in possession of coal gas, with petrol gas, both for illumination and heating. He published a text-book on mechanics, but, with the exception of the records of his observation, does not seem to have written anything else. Reference must be especially made to an accurate clock which he designed and constructed on principles first applied by him, which was for use in connection with his seismograph. Such a clock is an essential element in the recording of earthquakes, for it is necessary that a mark be made on the chart very accurately every minute. His clock combined the properties of extreme accuracy with the means of recording the minutes on the chart. Referring to this clock, Father D O'Connell SJ, the present director of the Riverview observatory, says that it is a most excellent and original piece of work. Except in the patent specification, the details have never been published. It is to be hoped that this will be included in an account of his scientific work.

But it would be a mistake to allow the record of his work as a scientist to render us oblivious of his other and far inore important qualities. All who knew Father O'Leary as a friend and companion need no reminder of his wonderful charm and gifts of character which made him popular with all. A great love of his country, and a strong sense of humour were characteristic of him. He has a fine voice, and as a preacher he was no less in demand than as a lecturer and giver of retreats. His friends have lost one who will not easily be replaced.

Himself the most unassuming of men, he was honoured by his scientific brethren, no less than he was loved by his brethren in religion. He was a member of the British Association, and more than once was special preacher at their meetings; he was also a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and Past President of the NSW branch of the British Astronomical Association.

His death came suddenly. He had been suffering from his heart, but this did not interfere with his work, and he had been working in the observatory only the night before. An indication of the esteem in which he was held in Australia may be gathered from the press account of his funeral. Archbishop Gilroy presided at the Requiem Mass, at which assisted Archbishop Duhig, and Bishops Coleman, Dwyer and Henscke. In addition, there were 200 of the clergy, as well as representatives of the Catholic educational establishments. A large number of distinguished laymen were also present, including the Attorney-General, members of the University and the president of Astronomical Society and Government Astronomer. RIP

H V Gill SJ

-oOo-

The following appreciation is from the pen of one who for many years taught in the same college as Father Willy :

For many years after his ordination, Father O'Leary taught in Mungret, and for a considerable portion of that period acted as Prefect of Studies. A splendid master, be had the gift of imparting knowledge clearly and of getting the boys thoroughly interested in their work. His subjects were Science, Mathematics and Latin. His lessons in Geometry were particularly fascinating - his own consummate skill in the use of instruments and the beautifully accurate figures which graced his blackboard made his pupils quite enthusiastic in their efforts to imitate and emulate him. He made the dry bones of that subject live -no easy task where boys are concerned.

He was highly popular with all the boys, though he never showed any undue leniency. He was strict, but not severe, just and impartial. All these features were prominent in another sphere of school life; Father O'Leary possessed histrionic talent in a high degree. His production, in conjunction with the late Father Willie Doyle, of the “Mikado” inaugurated the revival of theatricals in Clongowes. In Mungret he staged the “Private Secretary”, a very successful performance, one of many similar triumphs.

In the spiritual sphere he did untold good. He was director of the sodalities, a superb preacher, being a first class orator. Only those who lived with him could appreciate to the full the power of his example. He was popular, as we have said, but he used this as a powerful influence for good.

Boys are proverbially prone to hero worship, and this small, though tremendously strong, straightforward, cheerful and great hearted priest won their affection and admiration. They appreciated his great qualities in life, and we trust they will not forget him in death. Requiescat.

John Casey SJ

-oOo-

Father H V Gill has mentioned above that Father O'Leary had a great love for his country; here is an extract from a letter of Father Willy's to a friend in Ireland, written for the New Year :--

“Dear Ireland, how I wish I could see you again. I am too old to fall in love with strange lands and I love you alone. May God bless every tree and every blade of grass in you, may God bless every mother's son in you, and may God keep the Old Faith in you”.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1937

Obituary

Father William O’Leary SJ

The death of Father O'Leary in Australia will be deeply regretted by many of his past pupils. An old Mungret boy of Father O'Leary's time there writes to the Editor :

“I was at Mungret for five years, and during all that time Father O'Leary was a master there. He taught us Latin, Religious Knowledge, Mathematics and Science. But he taught us many others things besides these. I don't think there was any master of my time there the boys thought more of, or who had more influence with them. For all his lack of inches - he only looked about 5ft. 4ins, in spite of the black hair brushed straight up from his forehead - he was a most virile personality. I will always carry with me as one of the clearest memories of Mungret the picture of Father O'Leary pacing up and down the stone corridor as we went on our way to Mass, wearing his biretta and with his head sunk on his chest for all the world like Napoleon”.

For a man of his intellectual attainments allied as they were in him with a natural agility of mind and speed of accomplishment - it must have been a heart-breaking task to expound the elements of euclid to a junior grade class not specially gifted above their fellows. Only once in my time did I ever see it overcome him, and that was an occasion that none who saw will ever forget. One day in dealing with a boy whom the Lord never meant to learn euclid, he allowed himself to be betrayed into one or two natural expressions of impatience - just so much and no more. It made no impression on us nor on the boy concerned - we were I fear a thick-skinned lot - but next day when the class began, Father O'Leary called out the boy and apologised to him coram publico in terms which penetrated to our subconscious preceptions far deeper than any sermon. Talking of sermons reminds me that he was the boys' favourite preacher and confessor. He had a deep musical voice and a gift of oratory and also an ability to teach elocution which were all his own. I don't know if elocution is still taught in the schools or if it has been crowded out by the modern programme : to judge by the sort of thing one hears in “talks” from Radio Éireann even from possessors of University Degrees - the art of speaking and reading aloud is a lost one. Anyone who ever was in Father O'Leary's class or in one of his plays learned how to open his mouth and sound his consonants. He used to teach us Byron's poem about the Assyrian coming down like a wolf on the fold - I have every word of it yet - and when you came to the line ‘With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail’ - woe betide you if you put a ‘Jew sitting on the poor man's brow’.

Science was, of course, his first love, but even that gave way before his love for Ireland. To hear him speak of Irish history or to listen to him sing ‘The West's Awake’, as we so often did was to know that the fire that burned in the breast of his distinguished father burned just as fiercely in his own. He must have known when he left Ireland in 1929 that the chances of his ever seeing home again were very small how hard that thought must have been those of us who knew him can well realise. He went like so many other Irishmen - and Mungret men have gone - where duty called him, and if he rests at last far from his own land that he loved so well, there lie around him the bones of many of his kith and kin to foregather at the resurrection. All the boys of his time in Mungret will join with me in a prayer for one than whom no one stood higher in our affections as a priest, a master, or a friend”.

D Gleeson

Born: 28 November 1869, Kilmallock, Co Limerick/Charleville, County Cork
Entered: 14 September 1888, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 02 August 1903, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1905
Died: 24 April 1930, University Hall, Hatch St, Dublin

Older brother of Francis O'Mahony - RIP 1893 a Novice

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

Chaplain in the First World War.

by 1892 at Exaeten College, Limburg, Netherlands (GER) studying
by 1904 at Linz, Austria (AUS) making Tertianship
by 1917 Military Chaplain : 43rd General Hospital, Salonica, Greece
by 1918 Military Chaplain : SS Egypt, c/o GPO London
by 1919 Military Chaplain : PL of C, Haifa, Palestine, EEF

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Older brother of Francis O'Mahony - RIP 1893 a Novice

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 5th Year No 4 1930
Obituary :
Fr Jerome O'Mahony
Fr. O’Mahony was born in Charleville, Co. Cork, 28 Nov. 1869, educated at Tullabeg, and entered the noviceship at Tullabeg (which had just become the novitiate of the province) 14 Sept. 1888. Here he remained for three years, the last of them as Junior, and then went to Exaeten for philosophy. In 1892 he was sent to Clongowes, where he was prefect for two
years, then a year at Belvedere, followed by five years at Mungret, four as master and one as prefect. In all, regency for eight years. After three years theology at Milltown he travelled to Linz for the tertianship.
In 1904, he was back in Mungret as prefect, a year in Galway came next, and then Mungret once more, prefect for five years. The Crescent had him as Minister and master from 1911 to 1913. In the latter years he was transferred to Milltown, where he had charge of the Retreat House for three years.
The great war was raging in 1916 and Fr O'Mahony became a Military Chaplain. His first post was in Salonika, where he was stationed in the General Hospital. Next year he was Chaplain on board the SS Egypt, and in 1918 we find him at Haifa, Palestine.
The war over, he returned to the Crescent, where, for two years, he was again Minister and master. Then a year in Milltown in charge of the Retreat House, and another in Galway, “Doc. Oper”. In all, Fr O’Mahony put in 20 years teaching. The last change came in1923 when he joined the Leeson St staff as prefect of University Hall. There he remained for seven years, until his death on Thursday 24 April 1930.
Fr O'Mahony's was the second very sudden death that took place in the province during the year. In the morning he complained of being unwell, told the servant that he was not to be disturbed during the day and went to his room. As he did not appear at dinner people began to he anxious. One of the Fathers went to look for him, entered his room and found him lying on the bed, dead. He was at once anointed by Fr. Superior.
Fr O’Mahony's life was very like the lives of the vast majority of Jesuits all the world over. It was a life of steady, constant, hard work. Hidden work. Nothing striking about it to attract attention. It is one more example of the cog in the wheel, hidden in the body of the machine, working away unnoticed, but, at the same time, helping to keep the machine in motion and produce, it may be, very brilliant results. Such a life did Fr O’Mahony lead to the very end. In recent years we often heard about high class lectures, on practical moral questions of the present day, read in University Hall by distinguished men, clerical and lay ; and about the brilliant discussions that followed each of them, in which some of the leading men in Dublin took part. But we never heard a single word of Fr O’Mahony's connection with these brilliant gatherings. Yet this is what the “National Student” has to say on the subject : “Those who were present at these gatherings will remember how much of their success was due to the patient, persevering manner in which Fr. O’Mahony succeeded in inducing several of the speakers, not only to be present, but even - still more reluctantly - to contribute personally to a discussion that owed its value to its representative character. And the same quiet perseverance was often successful in bringing more than one distinguished lecturer to speak to the students in a smaller gathering at University Hall”. His life effort was, to a great extent, unnoticed by human eye, and what now matters to Fr O'Mahony - nothing at all. But that effort was constantly observed by another eye, from which nothing can be concealed, and that now matters, and for a very long time to come will matter a very great deal indeed. RIP.

◆ The Clongownian, 1930

Obituary
Father Jerome O’Mahony SJ

The tragically sudden death of Fr O'Mahony in University Hall, Dublin, on April the 24th, removed from active life one who was intimately connected with Clongownians of many generations. Jerome O'Mahony came to Clongowes from Tullabeg in the Amalgamation year, 1886, joining the class of Poetry. Passing Matriculation he spent his last year in the 1st Arts class. As a boy he took little part in games, but was very prominent on the social side, being an excellent musician. In his, earlier career as a Jesuit he spent a few years on the staff of Clongowes. After ordination he filled various parts in different homes in Ireland until the European War broke out when he joined up as a Chaplain and was attached to the 10th Irish Division - seeing service in many lands, mostly in the East. He was in India, Egypt, Palestine and the Balkans, and after the war he used to give very interesting lectures on his experiences. The seven last years of his life were spent in University Hall, Dublin, devoting his time and his energies to the welfare of the students. He was always' particularly interested in Clongownians, ever ready to help them in every possible way and various Editors of “The Clongownian” have been greatly indebted to him for items concerning “The Past”. The esteem in which he was held was shown by the large and representative gathering that attended his funeral, The students of University Hall walked in procession after the hearse across the city and carried the coffin into arid out of the church. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1930

Obituary

Father Jerome C O’Mahony SJ

Few men have had such a long connection with Mungret as had Fr O'Mahony.

He was a young man when he first joined the staff, about thirty-five years ago; and except for absences for studies for the priesthood he was Prefect of the boys till 1911. He spent some time then as Minister at the Crescent College, Limerick, and during the war went as a Chaplain. The greater part of his time as Chaplain was spent in the East.

He had an opportunity of seeing the Holy Land, and made good use of it. He came back with an interesting collection of pictures, and lectured to the boys in Mungret on the scenes he had visited.

Having spent some time as Director of Retreats at Milltown Park, Fr O'Mahony was given charge of the University Hall, Dublin, Here he spent the last seven years, and died on April 24th last.

There was no retirement from his duties, or prolonged illness before his death; and so, though his health was not the best. for some time, his death was quite sudden.

Fr O'Mahony was very active, during his time at University Hall, in arranging lectures and social functions for the students. He was a splendid organiser and his interest in students was very great.

He numbered among his friends many Mungret students. He was on the look-out for Mungret men, and was always anxious to be of service to them. Indeed, his kindly genial manner made him very easily approach able by everyone. He seemed to take pleasure in being asked to do a favour.

Fr O'Mahony was not himself educated this College, but he will be glad that the boys who knew him here have been asked to pray for him. The message of his death will recall many scenes and incidents in the Cricket fields or corridor or black walk, and prayer will be offered for a friend who has passed out of sight - that he may 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 Jerome O’Mahony (1869-1930)

Was born at Charleville, Co. Cork and educated at Tullabeg College. He left Tullabeg in 1886, the year it was closed as a college, and entered there when it had become the novitiate the autumn of the same year. He made his higher studies at Exaeten, Milltown Park, where he was ordained in 1903, and Linz. He joined the Crescent community in 1911 when he was appointed minister and remained here for two years. From 1913 to 1916 he was in charge of the retreat house at Milltown Park. He became a military chaplain in 1916 and saw service at Salonika and the near east. In 1919 he returned as minister to the Crescent and stayed until 1921. The last seven years of his life were spent as Warden of University Hall, Dublin, where he died suddenly on 24 April, 1930.

Born: 13 March 1875, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 14 August 1892, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 26 July 1908, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 08 December 1967, St Francis Xavier, Gardioner Street, Dublin
Died: 23 March 1969, Our Lady’s Hospice, Dublin

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

Cousin of Joey O’Mara - RIP 1977

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

Chaplain in the First World War.

by 1896 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER) studying
Came to Australia for Regency, 1898
by 1910 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1918 Military Chaplain : 58th CCS, BEF France
by 1919 Military Chaplain : 33rd CCS, BEF France

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Patrick O'Mara began his long life in the Society in 1892 at the age of sixteen, entering the novitiate at Tullabeg. At the end of 1898 he arrived at Xavier College to teach mathematics to senior boys and was first division prefect, 1901-02. He wrote a book on arithmetic, but apparently no copies survive.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 1st Year No 1 1925
Of the various pamphlets issued, half a million copies were distributed during the past twelve months. Devotional booklets are in especial demand, particularly the “Holy Hour” books, by Fr. P. O’Mara, of which 63,ooo copies were sent out during the past year, and an equal number during the preceding year

Irish Province News 2nd Year No 4 1927
Messenger Office :
Of reprinted pamphlets by Ours, 370,000 copies have already been bought up. Fr P O’Mara’s “Holy Hour” book, “An Hour with Jesus” easily holds the record. It is in its 45th edition, and the companion book “Another Hour with Jesus” is in its 21st.

◆ Irish Province News 44th Year No 3 1969 & ◆ The Clongownian, 1969

Obituary :

Fr Patrick O’Mara SJ (1875-1969)

Father Patrick O'Mara was, by a large margin, the senior member of the Irish Province. Though six months younger than Father Eddie Dillon (still happily with us). he entered almost five years earlier. He had completed the long span of 77 years in the Society and was in full activity up to within a year of his death.
He was born in Limerick on March 18th, 1875. His father, Stephen O'Mara, M.P., was the founder of the well-known family business and was several times Mayor of Limerick and later a member of Seanad Eireann. Patrick was the eldest of a family of nine. One of his brothers, Stephen, was, like his father, several times Mayor of Limerick. Another, James, played a prominent part in the national movement, which has been chronicled in his biography by his daughter, Mrs. Lavelle. The third brother, Fonsie, was prominent in business life in Limerick and Dublin. He too played an active part in the national movement and in 1918 was elected as the first Sinn Fein mayor of Limerick, The distinguished singer, Joseph O'Mara, director of the O'Mara Opera Company and father of Father Joseph O'Mara, was an uncle of Fr. Patrick's, being the youngest brother of Stephen O'Mara, M.P.
Patrick O'Mara was educated for four years at the Christian Brothers College. Limerick, and for another four at Clongowes. He entered the noviceship at Tullabeg in 1892. Amongst his fellow-novices we find some names once familiar in the Province, Patrick O'Brien, Esmond White, Michael Egan and Thomas O'Dwyer. After a year's juniorate at Milltown Park, he went to Valkenburg for philosophy, and at the end of his three years course was appointed to Xavier College, Melbourne, in what was then the Australian mission.
He spent seven years at Xavier. from 1898 to 1905, both prefecting and teaching. Father O'Mara so long outlived his contemporaries that no detailed information is available about these early years. He was, however, evidently a keen and able teacher of mathematics, and published in 1903 a textbook entitled Reasoned Methods in Arithmetic and Algebra for Matriculation Candidates, which went into at least four editions.
In 1905 he returned to Ireland for theology at Milltown Park, and was ordained on 26th July 1908. After tertianship at Tronchiennes, he taught mathematics and physics at Mungret for three years, and was then appointed to the mission staff. Rathfarnham Castle had just been opened as a Juniorate (1913). and he was a member of the founding community, together with three fellow-missioners, Fathers William Doyle, Joseph Flinn and William Gleeson. The catalogues assign him to Tullabeg from 1914 to 1916, but those who were at Rathfarnham during those years think that he remained there during all his time as a missioner, This was the period of the First World War, and in 1917 Father O'Mara was appointed a military chaplain (there were twenty two Irish Jesuit chaplains that year) and saw service at the 58th and 33rd casualty clearing stations in France. He rendered particular service to Portuguese troops and was awarded a decoration, : Officer of the Military Order of Christ, by the Portuguese Government.
In 1919 Father O'Mara returned to Rathfarnham and there followed a long period of work as a missioner. Here again we are faced by the difficulty that he so long outlived his contemporaries that information about this period of his life is scanty. It is certain, however, that he was a most devoted and successful Missioner. He was an orator of the old style, somewhat theatrical in his delivery, but most appealing to the congregations of those days. He took immense pains in preparing his sermons, and it is recalled that on his first appointment to the mission band, he went to England for a course in voice production. He was indefatigable in the laborious work of visitation and hearing confessions, and he was blessed with a strong constitution which made him a most reliable confrère, always ready for the most difficult assignment.
When Father O'Mara returned from the war to Rathfarnham, Father John Sullivan had just been appointed Rector. Father O'Mara contributed to the biography of Father Sullivan an incident which occurred in the November of that year. On his way back from a mission, Father O'Mara's bag was stolen from the platform of the tram on which he was travelling. The loss was a grievous one, as the bag contained the manuscripts of his mission sermons and retreat notes. On arrival at Rathfarnham, he confided his trouble to Father Sullivan, who assured him that he would immediately go to the chapel and pray for the restoration of the notes. Father O'Mara, though it was late at night, started jotting down all that he could remember of his notes, which were the result of years of work. At 11.30 p.m. Father Sullivan came to his room to tell him that a telephone message had been received from the Augustinian Church in Thomas St. to say that the bag, unopened, had been left at the door of the monastery. Father O'Mara's account concluded : “I was convinced at the time that it was a direct answer to Father Sullivan's prayers. I have not changed this opinion”.
In 1928 Father O'Mara was appointed to the staff of Gardiner Street, and entered on the activity which is most closely associated with his name, being appointed Director of the Sodality of the Sacred Heart, which involved the giving of the Holy Hour. This activity was interrupted in 1931, when he was appointed Rector of the Crescent College, Limerick. Here he undertook several extensions and improvements in the church, and was responsible for the installing of a new organ. On his return to Gardiner Street in 1934, he was at first assistant director of the Pioneer Association, but in 1937 reassumed the directorship of the Sacred Heart Sodality and the Apostleship of Prayer, which he retained for the next thirty years, as well as that of the Ladies' Sodality of the Blessed Virgin. During all this time his most notable activity was the giving of the Holy Hour, which became almost legendary in Dublin and its outskirts. He took the utmost pains in its preparation, and carefully wrote out fresh matter for each occasion. Many of the prayers and devotions which he used were embodied in four booklets entitled Hours With Jesus, the first of which had a circulation of over a million copies, whilst the others ran into the hundred thousands. His style of preaching was inighly dramatic, perhaps excessively so for some tastes, but it certainly appealed to his crowded congregations. It was remarkable that even in quite recent times, when preaching has to some extent lost its former attraction, "Father O'Mara's Holy Hour" was always certain to fill the church to overflowing.
If the old age of everyone were like that of Father O'Mara, the science of geriatrics would be superfluous. Until he was into his nineties, his appearance never changed. His abundant black hair was only slightly touched with grey, and he could have been taken for a well-preserved man in the late sixties. He continued in active work almost to the end of his life, hearing confessions, directing his two sodalities at Gardiner Street. He also directed the past pupils' sodality attached to the Dominican convent, Sion Hill, Blackrock from 1938 to 1966, when his health forced him to relinquish it. This sodality is one of the oldest in Ireland having been founded in 1852.
When one attempts to give some idea of what kind of man Father O'Mara was, two characteristics stand out. Firstly, he was utterly devoted to his priestly work. His sermons and his famous Holy Hour were prepared with laborious care. He was a devoted and sympathetic confessor He was always ready to share in work which lay outside his own particular sphere. Thus, he took a keen interest in the annual Foreign Mission week in Gardiner Street, to which the members of his Ladies' Sodality gave valuable assistance. Secondly, he was deeply devoted to the Society and the Province. He took the keenest interest in all that was going on, and was generous in his encouragement of others, especially of younger men. Those who were asked to help him were the recipients of praise so lavish that it might have seemed mere flattery but that his genuine gratitude and goodwill were so apparent. He employed on some occasions an amusing little technique, praising some work done for him, a sermon or talk, but adding : “Still, I think it was only your second best”. This was not meant to discourage, but rather to emphasise the fact that his praise was not undiscriminating.
It was only in the last year of his life that his health began to fail, and only in his last months that increasing weakness made it necessary for him to leave Gardiner Street for Our Lady's Hospice, Harold's Cross. He retained to the last the whimsical good humour that had characterised him all his life. Very shortly before his death, his confessor mentioned that a taxi was provided for him to visit Father O'Mara each week, and protested that he could very well come by bus. “But”, said Father O'Mara, “think of the prestige I get among the other patients by the fact that my confessor comes in a taxi”. His death occurred on March 23rd, and, as was to be expected, immense crowds gathered in Gardiner Street to express the reverence and gratitude they felt towards one who, for so many years, had spoken to them so movingly of the love of the Sacred Heart of their divine Lord. Requiescat in pace.

Born: 24 November 1903, Galway City, County Galway
Entered: 01 September 1919, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1934, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1968, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway
Died: 26 February 1979, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway

Educated at Mungret College SJ

Studied for BA at UCD

by 1936 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 54th Year No 2 1979

Galway
Fr Andrew O’Reilly RIP
It is with sincere regret that we have to record the death of one of the most respected and revered members of our community. Fr Andrew O’Reilly died on February 26 of an incurable illness, leukemia. His funeral Mass on Ash Wednesday, February 28, was concelebrated and attended by a very representative gathering of members of the Province. The chief concelebrant was his Rector, Fr Robert McGoran, assisted by the Vice-Principal, Fr Joseph Dargan, and Fr Bernard Murray.
Of Fr Andy we in the community could say “He was all things to all of us”. Always a friend to whom you could go when you wanted anything done. Elsewhere in this issue is an obituary notice. It was written by Fr Michael McGrath. Sincere thanks to him for such a fitting tribute. We include also two appreciations from dear friends, Maurice Semple, author of two books, “Some Galway Memories” and “Reflections on Lough Corrib”, and owner of the boat on which Fr O’Reilly spent his summer vacation, and Seán Beatty of the Columban Badminton Club, of which Fr O'Reilly was president.

Obituary :

Fr Andrew O’Reilly (1904-1979)

Fr Andy, as he was known by all, was a man without a spark of pride in him, yet in the last few years of his life, urged on and prompted by an American cousin, he did quite an amount of research on the family tree. Though three generations of O’Reillys have lived in Co Galway and Galway city, the O’Reillys were of Cavan origin. His greatgrandfather was Edward O’Reilly of Killanne between Shercock and Bailieborough. This Edward, who was a farmer, had a family of two sons and two daughters. One of his sons, Edward, became a teacher, moved south, and taught in Knockroon school between Headford and Shrule and lived in Headford. He married a Miss Kyne and had three children, a daughter Margaret and two sons, Alfred, who followed his father's footsteps and became a teacher, and Augustus, who moved to Galway and worked in the “Connacht Tribune”. Later, Augustus met and married a Catherine Nestor, whose family came originally from Gort. Augustus and Catherine had six children, Eddie, Andrew (our Fr Andy), George, Jack, Patrick and May. Both parents died whilst the family was still very young. The mother died in 1909 and the father in 1912, so their uncle, Father, later Canon, Andrew Nestor took charge of them. It meant however that the young OReillys hardly knew family life and had to be educated in boarding schools. So Fr Andy was in Banagher Convent, Blackrock College and Mungret. Andy felt the call to the priesthood and the Society. This was not surprising as the Nestor family had a tradition of giving sons to the priesthood. Fr Andy's granduncle, Fr John, was a priest of the diocese and died in Gort in 1853. Then as well as Fr Andrew Nestor, Fr Andy had another uncle, Fr John, who became a Jesuit in America where he died in 1942. Following therefore in their footsteps Fr. Andy entered the novitiate on September 1st 1919 before he had completed his sixteenth year.
He followed what was then the strict routine of formation and studies:
Noviceship 1919-1921 at Tullabeg
Home Juniorate 1921-1922 also at Tullabeg
University 1922-25 from Rathfarnham
Philosophy 1925-28 at Milltown
Regency 1928-31 at Clongowes
Theology 1931-35 with ordination 1934
Tertianship 1935-36 at St. Beuno's College, Wales
His first assignement after Tertianship was to St Ignatius College, Galway where he was to spend the rest of his life. For two years, he was Adj Praef Stud, Doc and Praef Spir Alumn, among other things. On August 3rd, 1938 he was appointed Rector but was also Doc and Operarius in the Church. Because the war intervened he held the office of Rector until 1947, a period of nine years. They were difficult years as finance was very tight because school fees were low and prices were rising. Yet he managed to save the wood panelling of the Church ceiling which was found to be infested with woodworm, as well as keeping the complex solvent. Whilst he fulfilled his duties as Rector most faithfully and conscientiously, with sound judgement and with kindness and consideration for everyone, I think it can be truthfully stated that he was never quite happy in the position and looked forward to the day his term of office would be finished. Being an essentially humble and self-effacing man, he disliked the limelight.
It was during his term of office that the Old Boys’ Union was founded and he also managed the affairs of the Columban Hall. This was because a Provincial had said that unless it paid its way it would have to be sold. By careful management and by doing most of the work himself, he managed to keep it afloat. In this way, he fostered music and dramatics in the city, for the Columban Hall was the only hall for such functions at the time. In his own strange way, he was very interested in these functions and made his contribution behind the scenes by acting as stage manager. His connection with the same hall continued to the end. Since the new School Hall was built, most of the former activities of the Columban Hall have been transferred to it, but Fr Andy continued to maintain the old Columban Hall. There had grown up a love-hate relationship between himself and that old building. From time to time, he would declare that he would gladly be rid of it, but at the same time all felt that he would be lonely without it.
When he ceased to be Rector, he returned to fulltime teaching, being the principal Latin teacher, through the medium of Irish, for many a long year. He was a man of tremendous practical abilities and skills and as well as his teaching, he was prepared to exercise his talents as electrician, carpenter, welder and general handyman in the house in his spare time. He even installed our first interphone system and did the same in Belvedere and the Crescent. Although he found preaching and public speaking difficult, he was always willing to step into the breach in the Church when help was needed. His whole life, though a rather hidden one, was nevertheless a very fulll one and one of service to others. He did not find it easy to mix with people, but when occasion demanded he was a most pleasant companion in any group. When he made friends his friendship was very sincere and loyal and again one of service. In return, his circle of friends was very loyal to him and truly loved him,
He was a man of prayer and most exact in the performance of all his religious duties but there was no outward show. He was a man who strictly interpreted his vow of poverty, sough permission for the gifts he received, never had superflua, never wasted, and used what he needed for his life and work with great care.
He was a man of great patience, self control and toleration and whilst he could get irritated and slightly annoyed, I don’t think anyone ever saw him lose his temper or get angry.
If he had one passion, it was his love of the Corrib River and Lake. He was never a great talker, but when he spoke of his trips and holidays on the lake he waxed eloquent. The Lake was obviously his earthly paradise. I think it was the peace, quiet and solitude of the lake that appealed to him, that and the companionship of those very dear friends, who shared these holidays and trips with him. May the Lord bless the Provincial who first granted him permission for such a holiday. He gave much happiness to Fr Andy. For whilst Andy gave unremitting service to the Society in Galway, apart from this pleasure we did not give him back much in return. Whilst he was teaching the Latin Classics down through the long years, from time to time he said he would like to visit Rome and Italy. Being the man he was, he would not ask for such a trip, but now it seems a pity that no one in authority ever said, “Andy, here is the money, Go”. Andy however did not look for earthly rewards.
His end was like the rest of his life, quiet, unobtrusive and without causing any trouble. He had been failing slightly for some months but no one paid much attention. He had always been so active, so sprightly, we thought that now in his 75th year, the years were catching up on him. However at the end of January it became apparent that it was something more than age. He was sent to the doctor who diagnosed leukaemia and he was put into hospital. There it was discovered after tests that he had one of the worst forms of that disease. Because his poor blood condition left him wide open to every and any infection he had to be pretty well isolated and his illness had to be kept quiet. Only the Rector and Fr Murray were allowed to visit him and then only for brief visits. He found the blood transfusions and drugs distressing and the haemorrhages and other side effects of his disease humiliating and then there was the loneliness of his isolation. As the month of February passed and he did not respond to the treatment it became obvious that there was little hope of his recovery. The Community arranged to say a Novena of Masses for him. The end came quicker than was expected on the morning of February 26th, the day the first Mass of the Novena was said. The Lord had answered but in a way we did not expect. Thus he entered his reward for his life of truly faithful service, and we can be certain he was welcomed by his Lord and Master with the words “Well done good and faithful servant: enter into the joy of the Lord”.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam gléigeal.

An Appreciation
It is only when one loses a friend to Death that the impact of his personality can be appreciated objectively. And so, with the passing to his Eternal Reward of Father Andrew O'Reilly, it is possible to consider him both as a priest and as a friend.
"Father Andy", as he was affectionately known to his friends, was firstly - and finally - a man of God, a faithful observer of the Rule of Saint Ignatius. This was reflected in his profound trust in Divine Providence and in his extraordinary sense of obedience and humility, Those of us who were fortunate to be close to him can truthfully and sincerely confirm that he was an inspiration - an example – on how to co-operate with Our Lord, and so, come closer to Him. And we are deeply, deeply grateful to Father Andy for this.
Who would expect that an expert in the Classics (having taught so many boys at Saint Ignatius College down the years the idiosyncrasies of Vergil and Homer) could also write to his friends in verse, while, in his unassuming manner, revealing himself as a skilled carpenter, electrician, and general handyman, whose talents were so freely made available to his Community and his friends ?
Father Andy had one particular interest, apart from his priestly vocation - his love for the Corrib country. Being a Galwayman, he had opportunity to visit it. For 21 years he sailed Lough Corrib from end to end, fishing, exploring and enjoying that peace and beauty so peculiar to that lake. In addition to his weekly visits during each season, he spent his annual fortnight's vacation in a boat, offering the Divine Sacrifice daily, on the lake. When he celebrated Mass on the 3rd August 1958 on a boat on the Corrib, it was the first time ever that such an event took place not alone on the Corrib but on any other lake in these islands. It was an historic occasion which pleased him greatly.
His ability to adapt himself in every company, his gentleness and his deep Christian convictions were an inspiration to many people around the lake. His passing has not only been a tremendous loss to his friends and Community but also a void on the Corrib scene.
May his gentle Soul find peace in his Divine Master and joy in the Happy Fishing Grounds.
(William F.) Maurice Semple

An Appreciation
Fr Andrew O’Reilly SJ, a Galway man, a community man, a priest, a friend and companion, slipped out of this world last month leaving with his friends and all who knew him wonderful and cherished memories.
Born in Galway 76 years ago. Went to school in Galway. Entered the Society of Jesus in 1919. Appointed to the teaching staff of Clongowes Wood College and ordained in 1934,
Returned to St. Ignatius College, Sea Road, Galway 43 years ago. Two years later he was appointed Rector. This position he held for 9 years and was also attached to the teaching staff of the College. He being a native Irish speaker, specialised in Irish, also Mathematics and Latin.
He was a quiet and unassuming man. A man of extraordinary and wonderful talent and ability.
Having attended to his priestly duties, he looked forward to overcoming any task great or small. He loved work and took delight and enjoyment in whatever he turned his hands to. His workshop was his paradise.
He was a builder, carpenter, decorator, electrician, painter, plumber, welder, in fact no task was too great and every job was a challenge.
He was associated with the management of the Columban Hall, Sea Road, and its activities including the Columban Players; Penny Dinners and Sewing Guild; Pantomimes (C.H.E.C.); Our Lady’s Boys' Club; Our Lady's Girls' Club; Irish Plays; Irish Dancing and the Columban Badminton club; the latter of which he was Honorary President of at the time of his death. : He was instrumental in reviving badminton in Galway in 1953 and his help and generosity were outstanding.
As a member of Corrib Rowing and Yachting Club, he was a navigator, an angler and above all he was a man of the Corrib. He loved the River Corrib and the Lake. He looked forward to cast off time on board the “Lady Corrib” each summer. For the first fortnight in August each morning he celebrated Mass on board the “Lady Corrib” in Golden Bay, Cong, where friends and neighbours and anglers prayed with him on board, on water and on land.
He has now cast off for his final voyage. His destination in his Final Reward.
He has left on the shore a multitude of friends. His hands will guide the rudder of each of us.
His guidance will be from the Higher Bridge. Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis.
Always remembered,
Seán Beatty

Born: 31 December 1899, Mayfield, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 31 August 1916, Tullabeg
Ordained: 31 July 1930, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1934
Died: 25 October 1964, St Louis School, Claremont, Perth, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Eldest brother of Cyril - RIP 1952 and Gerard - RIP 1985

by 1933 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Thomas Perrott was one of three brothers to join the Society in Ireland. He was educated by the Christian Brothers at Cork and at Mungret College, and entered at Tullabeg, 31 August 1916. After his juniorate there, he studied philosophy and theology at Milltown Park, 1920-23, and 1927-31. His regency was at Clongowes as third prefect, 1923-27, and he taught there again, 1931-32, before tertianship at St Beuno's, 1932-33. While not a student in the academic sense, he was most thorough in his studies. He liked to complete tasks well, and was utilitarian in his approach, card indexing all he studied for future reference.
Being sent to Australia was a considerable sacrifice for him, but the presence of his eldest brother Charles and his family who lived in Perth tempered the exile. He was first sent as division prefect to Xavier College, 1933-34, where he assisted in the furnishing of the chapel. Perrott was always appreciated for his business acumen.
He worked at Sr Aloysius' College, Milsons Point, 1935-37, where he helped improve the financial difficulties of the college. Apart from a short time founding the new school of St
Ignatius' College, Norwood, SA, 1950-53, where he inspired the new parents to be involved in the education of their sons, he spent the rest of his working life at St Louis School, Perth. He helped Austin Kelly set up the school in 1938.
During those many years he was, at various times, minister, bursar for 22 years, a meticulous teacher of mathematics, chaplain to the St Luke's Medical Guild, founder of the Guild of St Apollonia for dentists, and answered questions on the radio 6PR Catholic Hour. In addition, he worked with Alcoholics Anonymous.
He was considered particularly skilled in assisting his gifted students of mathematics to obtain excellent results in their Final examination. He worked long hours outside class checking
homework and analysing the weaknesses of his students. As minister and bursar, his expertise in Financial matters greatly assisted development programmes for the school.
During the school holidays he gave retreats to religious across Western Australia, as well as occasional spiritual lectures, especially to the sisters of St John of God at Subiaco each month. He had twelve volumes of neatly typed lectures on a wide range of spiritual topics. When speaking he was forthright, fluent and most sincere, not seeking after effect. He would rather say something plainly than risk being misunderstood. He also loved singing and produced “The Mikado” at St Aloysius' College, and other more modest productions at St Louis and Norwood,
Perrott was a capable organiser, always busy about something, very focused and most meticulous in the execution of any task; no detail was spared, and never any half-measures. He
never lost the stamp of religion and the priesthood and yet he was loved for his approachability and understanding, and admired for his keen appreciation of the realities of life. The ordinary family found in him ready understanding and sympathetic treatment.
His last illness was not long, and he succumbed Finally to cancer He was buried from the parish church at Nedlands with a full congregation in attendance. He was the first Jesuit to be sent to Western Australia, spent most of his priestly life there. and was the First to be buried there. He was indeed a worthy pioneer in that state.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 40th Year No 1 1965
Obituary :
Fr Thomas Perrott SJ (1899-1964)
Fr. Thomas Perrott was one of three brothers who entered the Society. Fr. Thomas was born in 1899 and educated at Mungret College, Limerick. He entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1916, after which he followed the university course, and three years of philosophy. He was sent to Clongowes College for his regency, which was done under the guidance of Dr. T. Corcoran, S.J., Professor of Education, at the National University of Ireland. He went to theology in 1927 and was ordained priest on the feast of St. Ignatius, 1930. After his arrival in Australia in 1933, he was appointed to Xavier, and in 1934 was posted to St. Aloysius'. In 1938 he was given the task of building the first Jesuit school in Western Australia. The new college, under the patronage of St. Louis, opened in 1939 with Fr. Perrott as one of the first teachers and also holding the office of Minister. Teaching by no means curtailed his zeal and energies, since during the next twelve years he travelled the State from Geraldton to Albany directing retreats for the clergy, religious orders and students as well as giving lectures to religious communities and conducting the Catholic Answer." From these activities Fr. Perrott was withdrawn in 1950 to South Australia to start work on the new Jesuit college of St. Ignatius, Norwood. After completing his task, he was appointed Prefect of Studies, a position he held for four years. In 1955 St. Louis was fortunate in again having him on the teaching staff. As senior mathematics teacher, parents and boys well realised his superb organising ability and exceptional acumen. The success of his boys in the public examinations was outstanding, not only because he was able to develop the ability of the gifted students who crowned his efforts with unique success. But this was not secured without painstaking work outside class time when all homework was checked and the individual weakness analysed and recorded. Little would be known outside his own community of his work as college bursar, a task which, with all the drudgery it involved, he performed with unremitting care and thoroughness. With his experience and advice, St. Louis was able to extend its facilities and playing fields and to prepare and plan for the future. The twelve volumes of neatly typed lectures and retreats, each containing sufficient matter for a sizeable book, are testimony of his spiritual life and his care for the souls for his Divine Master, Fr. Perrott was tireless in giving retreats and lectures to audiences in different walks of life. Not a few will regret his passing who came to him for guidance, instruction, and whom he received into the Church. The service of his Divine Master also called him to labour in other spheres, as organiser and chaplain of the Guild for Chemists, and founding the Guild of St. Appolonia for Dentists. His final phase in the service of God found him active in organising retreats and days of recollection for the A.A. Society. May he rest in peace.
To his brother Fr. Gerard we express our very sincere sympathy.
from Australian Province News.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1938

Our Past

Father Thomas Perrott SJ

The following notice of Rev Thomas Perrott SJ (1914-'15), appeared in “The Advocate” of January 6th, 1938 :

Rev Thomas Perrott SJ, formerly of St Aloysius' College, North Sydney, has left for Perth to supervise the building of the new college at Claremont - the first foundation of the Jesuit Fathers in Western Australia. Father Perrott entered the Society of Jesus in 1916, and made the novitiate at Tullabeg, Ireland. He studied philosophy at Milltown Park, Dublin, and for the next five years was Prefect of Discipline at Clongowes Wood College. Then followed another period at Milltown Park, where he studied theology, and was ordained in 1934. The last year of Jesuit training (tertianship) was spent at St Beuno's College, North Wales, Father Perrott came to Australia in 1933. His first appointment was to Xavier College, Melbourne, where for one year he was sports master. During the last three years Father Perrott has been on the staff of St Aloysius' College, Sydney. Since coming to Australia he has conducted retreats, during vacation time, in Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and New Zealand, as well as in the Geraldton Diocese two years ago.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1965

Obituary

Father Thomas Perrott SJ

On October 25th in Subiaco, Western Australia, Father Tom Perrott died. He was the first Jesuit to come to Western Australia, and the first Jesuit to die there.

He was born in Cork in 1899. He spent a year in Mungret and then entered the Jesuit Novitiate. He taught in Clongowes and after his theological studies was ordained in 1930. After tertianship in Wales, he was on the Status for Australia. There he was assigned to Xavier College, Melbourne, and later to St Aloysius College, Sydney. In 1938 he was sent to build the first Jesuit school in Western Australia. This was put under the patronage of St Louis. Father Tom was appointed Minister and teacher in the new establishment. The twelve years he spent there were by no means confined to work in the college. He travelled far and wide giving retreats to priests and religious.

In 1950 he was sent to construct a new college in the parish of St Ignatius, Norwood, South Australia. When the task was completed, he was appointed Prefect of Studies. He remained in this post for four years, when he was again recalled to St Louis. Here he laboured until his death. Apart from schoolwork he was organiser and chaplain of the Guilds of Chemists and Dentists. He had another hobby also which he did not get much time to indulge in, namely music. He produced a number of operas in some of the colleges.

In a crowded church the archbishop presided at the Mass which was offered by the Provincial, Very Reverend Father J Rolland Boylen SJ

To his sister and brothers we offer our deep sympathy. RIP

Born: 20 January 1867, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 10 April 1885, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 30 July 1901, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1904
Died: 11 December 1931, Milford House, Limerick

Part of the Crescent College, Limerick and St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street community at the time of death

by 1901 at Chieri Italy (TAUR) studying
by 1903 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
Patrick Power entered the Society in 1885, and came to Australia and taught at Xavier College from 1892, where he was highly respected, teaching senior classes and serving as assistant prefect of studies. For one year, 1896, he was prefect of studies, as the rector who was holding the position became overworked. He returned to Ireland at the end of 1898, and after tertianship worked in schools and performed mission work.

◆ Irish Province NewsIrish Province News 7th Year No 2 1932

Obituary :

Fr Patrick Power

Fr. Power was born in Dublin on the 20 Jan, 1867. educated at Castleknock, and entered the Society at Dromore on the 10 April 1885. Two years Rhetoric, the first at Milltown, the second at Tullabeg, were followed by three years Philosophy at Milltown, and then Australia for five years, He spent all of them at Kew, where he was Prefect of Studies. or
Vice-Prefect, for four of these years.
Two years Theology at Milltown and two more at Chieri brought him up to the Tertianship, which he made at Tronchiennes 1902-03. Then followed various positions at Mungret, Tullabeg, Gardiner St., and the Crescent.
In 1908 he was appointed Rector of the Crescent, held that office for four years, and then went to Gardiner St., to which house he was attached until his death. He died at Limerick on Friday 11 Dec, 1931.
For 4 years he was Rector, for 5 Miss, Excurr., for 8 Praef Stud. (an 11 Mag), for 13 Dir. EX. Spir,, and for 17 Praes. Sod. Obviously, he often discharged at least two of these duties in the same year.
From the above short sketch it will be seen that Fr. Power had his share in nearly all the duties discharged by Jesuit priests and scholastics and in all of them he played his part capably and well. But it was as a director of souls that he will be remembered for a long time, and by a great many. His zeal knew no limits, he gave himself no rest, night, noon and morning, whenever the rule allowed, he was on the move. It will not be known until the great accounting day all he did for souls from the end of his Tertianship to the day of his death 28 years later, especially from 1912 to 1931 when he was stationed at Gardiner St. The great weapons he used, alter the Grace of God that he brought down on the work by prayer and a holy life, were kindness, sympathy, encouragement. Scrupulous people especially found in him a kind and helpful friend, and people who were not scrupulous pointed him out as the priest who showed them the easy road to heaven.
“You will catch more flies”, writes St. Francis de Sales, “or with a spoonful of honey than with a hogshead of vinegar.” Assuredly there was no trace of vinegar in Fr Power's character, but there was abundance of honey. Or, to vary the expression, “his nature was full of the milk of human kindness.” He was the very reverse of that class of directors so severely condemned by St. Francis Jeronimo “Never until the Last Judgment will it be known how many souls have been lost for want of sympathy on the part of the ministers of God.”
Possibly some of our very wise critics will say that kindness and sympathy are very good in themselves, but they can be so readily abused and played upon by tricksters that they are dangerous gifts. That is quite true. But if Fr Power was very kind and sympathetic, he was also very shrewd. His eyes were wide open, He had a keen insight into the foibles
and failings of human nature, and when .any of the trickster class tried to make capital out of his kindness they quickly found out that they had made the mistake of their lives.
In addition to all this Fr. Power was one of the best and most practical Moral Theologians that we had in the Province. His advice on knotty problems was often sought from many and widely separated parts of the country. His numerous penitents and others could depend that his counsel was dictated not only by kindness, and by a keen insight into human nature, but that it was based as well on the solid principles of Theology.
With priests as well as with the laity he was an outstanding success and his retreats to the clergy were highly appreciated.
No wonder then that in most parts of Ireland, for his name and influence were widely extended, was Fr. Powers death sincerely regretted. People felt that they had lost a kind friend and a wise counsellor whose loss it would be difficult to supply. And this feeling of regret and admiration is shared by every member of the Irish province who know him and loved
him, and who were helped along the narrow path by the bright and cheery example that he ever gave thorn. May he rest in peace.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Patrick Power 1867-1931
As a director of souls, Fr Patrick Power will long be remembered. His zeal knew no bounds. It will not be known until the Day of Reckoning all that he did for souls, from the end of his tertianship until the day of his death, December 11th 1931.

A great deal of this work was done while he was stationed at Gardiner Street, from 1912-1931. With priests too, he was an outstanding counsellor, and his retreats to them were highly appreciated. He was one of the best moral Theologians we have had in the Province.

A deep rooted sanctity, combined with great natural kindness, aided by a clear intellect, all combined to make him the director of souls that he was.

He was born in Dublin on January 20th 1867, and he was educated at Castleknock College.

◆ The Xaverian, Xavier College, Melbourne, Australia, 1932

Obituary

Father Patrick Power SJ

Father Patrick Power, who died at Limerick, Ireland, on December 11th, 1931, will be clearly remembered by Xaverians of 1892-1898. He was then a young scholastic. During the greater part of the time he was here he directed the College studies, and taught with brilliant success. He took a deep interest in all his boys - an interest which, in spite of distance and time, ended only with his life - or didn't end even then? The present writer can recall many a chat with Fr Power in recent years about the old days at Kew College. He was all eagerness to know as much as possible about his former pupils and it seemed that every name was clear in his memory,

Before coming to Australia he studied Philosophy for three years in Louvain, Belgium. On his return to Ireland for Theology after his period with us, he spent one year in Dublin, and then went to Italy-where, after a brilliant course in the higher studies, he was ordained priest. Subsequently, we find him a very successful missionary, well known all over England and Ireland. Later, he was Rector of the Sacred Heart College, Limerick. When his term of office as Rector expired, he was appointed to the staff of St Francis Xavier's Churclı, Dublin. In this busy centre of Catholic activities he laboured assiduously till stricken down by the illness which ended his so useful life. Father Power was a very impressive preacher. He never, indeed, affected the usual devices of pulpit oratory; but his sermons were packed with solid instruction, and enlivened by many a sally of native wit. So, it was always not only a pleasure to hear him, buthiis discourses left a lasting impression.

Perhaps it was as Confessor that lie did the greatest amount of good. When ever he revisited a town where he had once given a Mission, his confessional was besieged by grateful penitents. His mind was so clear and so well informed - his heart so kindly - that hundreds, both young and old, flocked to him for advice and direction. It may be said: truthfully that his arduous labours in priestly work shortened his life.

Those who had known better days, appealed specially to his sympathetic nature, and, in ways most unobtrusive and most tactful, he brightened many a life that would have otherwise been dreary. A wide circle of friends whose personal affection he had won, and many who were in distress, mourn the loss of him upon whose sympathy, judgment, and help they could always rely.

God give him the rest he deserved!

P J McC SJ

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Patrick Power (1867-1931)

Was born in Dublin and received his education at Castleknock College. He entered the Society in 1885 and began his higher studies in Dublin, His regency was spent in Australia where he was four years prefect of studies at the Jesuit College, Kew, Melbourne. On his return to Ireland he resumed his higher studies at Milltown Park but completed them at Chieri and Tronchiennes. He came to the Crescent in 1907 and in the following year was appointed rector, an office he held until 1912 when he became a member of the Gardiner St community to which he was assigned until his death. Father Power was an outstanding spiritual director in his day and was widely known to the clergy of Ireland through his many contacts made on the occasion of the diocesan retreats which he conducted. He died at Millford nursing home.

◆ SHC - Sacred Heart College Limerick 1932

Obituary

Father Patrick Power

His friends in Limerick, and they were many, were grieved to hear of the death of Fr P Power SJ, which took place at the Sacred Heart Convalescent Home, Milford House, Limerick, on Friday, Dec 11, 1931.

Fr Power was Rector here from 1908 to 1912. Since he left Limerick he was attached to St Francis Xavier's Church, Gardiner Street, Dublin. Yet though it is nearly twenty years since he had had direct connection with the College and with the Church in Limerick, few who have worked here are so well remembered by all. While he was ill at Milford House, one heard from those who had known him, young and old alike, stories of his kindness, sympathy and encouragement. Both in Limerick and in Dublin Fr Power was remarkable as a director of souls, for to his kind and genial manner was added a very deep understanding of human nature.

He was widely known through the country by priests and religious for the Retreats he conducted for them, and also by the laity for his practical sermons as a missioner. From all sides came genuine expressions of regret at the loss of a holy priest, who had helped so many, without thinking of himself. During the past few years his active life was interrupted by short periods of illness, but as soon as his strength revived he was busy again at work for others. Last summer he came to Limerick worn out after some months of sickness in a Dublin hospital. At times he seemed to be regaining his health and he often spoke of returning to his post at Gardiner Street. But God willed otherwise, and for some weeks before his death on Dec 11, it was clear that the end was near. During the long period of illness, his gratitude to all who did anything for him and his resignation to God's will produced a deep impression on those about him.

Several of his former penitents came from Dublin for his funeral. After the Office and Requiem Mass at the Sacred Heart Church, presided over by the Most Rev Dr Keane, Bishop of Limerick, the long procession of those who remembered him so well, wended its way to the cemetery at Mungret College. The coffin was borne by members of the Ignatian Sodality, some of whom had been boys at the school when Fr Power was Rector.

May God reward him for his kind and useful life so generously given in His service. RIP.

Born: 14 May 1921, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 December 1940, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1953, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 22 April 1977, Kingsmead Hall, Singapore
Died: 20 February 2007, Mount Alvernia Hospital, Singapore - Indonesian Province - Malaysia (MAS)

Part of the Kingsmead Hall, Singapore community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to HK : 04 February 1977 ; HK to IND (MAS) : 1991

by 1973 at Singapore (HK) working

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - O’Connells Schools; Apprenticed to an outfitter before entry

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 133 : Special Issue September 2007

Obituary

Fr Desmond (Des) Reid (1921-2007) : Malaysia Singapore Region

14th May 1921: Born in Dublin
Early education - Eccles St. Dominican, and O'Connell's CBS
7th December, 1940: Entered the Society at Emo.
1942 - 1945: Rathfarnham - BA in UCD History, Latin
1945 - 1948: Tullabeg - Philosophy
1948 - 1950: Mungret - Teacher
1950 - 1954: Milltown Park - Theology
31 July, 1953: Ordained at Milltown Park
1954 - 1955: Rathfarnham – Tertianship
1955 - 1963: Leeson Street - Minister, Asst. Editor, Studies.
2nd February, 1956: Final Vows, St. Ignatius, Leeson St.
1963 - 1969: College of Industrial Relations - Minister, Lecturer in Social Philosophy, Director Pre-Marriage Courses
1969 - 2006: Singapore, Parish of St. Ignatius, Kingsmead Hall
20th February, 2007: Died at Mt. Alvernia, Singapore

Excerpts from “A Tribute to Fr. Desmond Reid”, published by the Parish of St. Ignatius, Singapore, May 2007:
Once upon a time, a young Irishman left home and family for a distant land not knowing what lay ahead, but only that he had to go because the people there needed him. More than the apprehension of what to expect of a different culture, he was initially overwhelmed by the incredibly hot weather, only to thrive in it later as he was a “hot-house plant”.

The natives were extremely friendly and welcoming. Before long, everyone in the village got to know this humble, kind, caring, amiable, learned ang-moh, whom they invited to their homes and social functions. He would make it a point to mix with all who would invite him. He was at home with the young and old, the well-heeled and those whose heels had seen better days, the erudite and the retired. He was, if you wish, like the proverbial fairy godmother in every fairy tale, except that this one was for real.

He made it a point to be available to all who called on him because he was faithful to the One Who sent him. He tried his best to speak and think and act like the One Who, because of which he touched the lives of many individuals. Never judgmental or harsh, he attended to each and everyone with such care and attention that it made them feel special. This issue of SHARING features the stories of some of these folks.

Plagued by a bad back and a pair of equally disagreeable legs, he never complained or let them get in the way of what he was doing. Always mindful of the One Who sent him, he remarked several times that he was ready to “go home” if the One should call. That didn't happen for many, many years, until that fateful 20" February morning in 2007. And he lived happily ever after in the house of the One Who sent him,
Stephen Lee

He came for his first meeting with us on his scooter -- thin, wiry and white-haired. He told us he had a few health problems. Foremost of which, at that time, was the tendency to get a clot in a leg artery which caused the leg to swell like Popeye's. This was accompanied by fever and a lot of pain. They told him in Ireland that the heat in a tropical climate would do him good. This was one reason why he was sent here.

I was first surprised by his homilies – which we call allocutions. Coming from a Jesuit, they were unfanciful, down to earth, factual, and yet powerful in content. Later, we discovered what a lasting impact had on us. He was much quoted and appreciated.

One of the Junior Legionaries remembers best the parable that Fr. Reid told of the boy who was walking along the road and saw a snail crossing the road in the path of a car. The boy kicked the snail quickly to get it out of the way, and thus saved it. Nursing his pain in the ditch, the snail cursed the boy who kicked him. Fr. Reid said we are often like that with God. He sends us pain and sorrow, and we curse our fate. Only God, who can see the bigger picture, knows why it happened. Often it is to save us from greater dangers we cannot see or fathom. We have to remind ourselves of this story and encourage others, too, in their woes to trust in God.

The grapevine told us that Fr. Reid was a worrier because if things could go wrong they usually did. His mother died when he was young. His father's business failed, but he forbade his two priest sons from leaving the priesthood to help out. His priest brother, a Jesuit in Hong Kong, was shot and killed when investigating a night-time intruder. For someone who knew the value of suffering, sometimes Fr. Reid wondered if God sent him many sufferings for the good of souls. But as he lamented to someone, it is easier said than done to accept God's will constantly.

A familiar sight was that of Fr. Reid walking down the driveway with the Indian drunk who had come again for a handout. The man was clutching a two-dollar bill and Fr. Reid had his arm around the man's shoulders, like one supporting a good friend, and escorting him down the road for a good send-off.

Fr. Reid was specially known, of course, for his homilies. We are all familiar with the way he spoke, commanding attention from his first word to the last. He spoke barely above a whisper, but always simply and in a measured tone. As a teacher I always longed for this gift of Fr. Reid.
Joan Fong

I would see Fr. Reid sitting outside the residence, quietly praying, his gaze always on the statue of Our Lady. He would always greet me warmly and ask how I was, and I would share with him my thoughts and worries, and he would always say, “You're alright”, and tell me to keep praying and to trust in God. I came to experience real pastoral comfort and solace through this simple man, who accepted me with all my faults and welcomed me with open arms. He might never have thought that he was doing anything special, but he would be surprised how many others feel differently. I began to walk to church not just to pray, but to be just simply with Fr. Reid. I thank God for the special moments with Fr. Reid, priest and friend extraordinaire.
Terence Teo