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Born: 26 December 1915, Montrose, Ailesbury Park, Ballsbridge, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 03 June 1944, St John’s Seminary, Wonersh (Southwark Diocese)
Died: 25 June 2003, London, England

Left Society of Jesus: 31 December 1937

Early Education at St Gerard’s Bray and Belvedere College SJ

https://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/389521.a-kind-and-holy-priest/

A kind and holy priest

4th July 2003

A CLERGYMAN with strong connections to Richmond, Ham and Mortlake has died.

Canon Francis Davys, one of four children, including an elder sister and two younger brothers, was born on December 26th, 1915, in Dublin.

Known as Frank, he was educated at St Gerard’s Bray and Belvedere College, Dublin. On leaving school, he joined the Royal Bank of Ireland and felt himself called to become a Jesuit novice at Emo Park, Offaly.

He then transferred to Southwark Diocese and completed his studies at St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, where he was ordained priest on June 3rd, 1944.

His first appointment was to a church in Blackheath. After three years, he was appointed a notary to the Marriage Tribunal. In 1948 he took up the position of assistant secretary to the Southwark Rescue Society, where he worked for five years. In June 1953, he became assistant priest at a Reigate church for two years, after which he went to one in Worthing.

His next appointment, again as an assistant priest, was to a church in Cobham in 1958.

He arrived in Richmond in April 1961 when appointed to St Elizabeth’s Church, where he remained for 24 years.

The parish was divided in 1985 and Canon Davys was made the first parish priest of St Thomas Aquinas, Ham, and made arrangements for its consecration.

He continued to serve as Catholic chaplain at the Royal Star and Garter Home, completing 31 years of service there.

After seven years at Ham, he retired to Wimbledon Common before moving to St Mary’s Convent, Worthing, and finally to St George’s Retreat, Burgess Hill.

He was made an honorary canon in 1967 and served the diocese on the Schools Commission as well as being chairman of governors at Christ’s School, Richmond, and St Elizabeth’s Primary School, Richmond. During this time the school moved to new premises in Queen’s Road. He was Dean of Mortlake from 1978 to 1991.

Canon Davys had been ill for some time and suffered a heart attack on the afternoon of June 25th. He died peacefully at home at 11pm aged 88.

Friends say he was a “private man by temperament, a kind, courteous and holy priest with a sense of humour and ever sensitive to the needs of others”.

His Requiem Mass will be held at St Elizabeth’s Church in the Vineyard on Wednesday, July 9th, at noon.

Hawkins House, Dublin

Born: 14 September 1843, Meillac, Brittany, France
Entered: 03 March 1876, Angers, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1883
Final vows: 15 August 1891
Died: 08 September 1908, Meillac, Brittany, France - Franciae Province (FRA)

Part of the Angers, France community at the time of death

by 1886 came to Mungret (HIB) as Minister, Teacher and Church 1885-1887

Kildare Street, Dublin

Born: 22 November 1722, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 30 July 1746, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1747, Rome Italy
Final Vows: 15 August1757
Died: 25 April 1768, Roman College, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1758 Preached the Passion Sermon in the presence of the Pope

◆ Fr Francis Finegan Sj :
Had already studied at the Irish College Rome and was Ordained there before Ent 30 July 1747 Rome

After First Vows he taught Humanities for two years.
1750-1756 Lectured Philosophy successively at Sorano, Recanati and Macerata
1756-1761 Chair of Philosophy at the Roman College
1761-1765 Prefect of Studies at Roman College, and died in Office 25 April 1768

Born: 17 September 1717, Ireland / France
Entered: 02 September 1734, Rheims, Champagne, France - Campaniae Province (CAMP)
Final Vows: 02 February 1752
Died: 19 October 1768, Spetchley Park, Worcs, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

1746 was in 3rd year Theology
1752 at Dijon where he took 4 Vows on 02 February 1752
1754 Before this had taught Humanities and Philosophy for 5 years
In 1761 and 1763 Catalogue

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1746 In Third year Theology
1748-1754 Taught Philosophy in CAMP at Dijon
1754 Sent to ANG

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
COLGRAVE, ANDREW, a native of Ireland : joined the Society in 1734 : was numbered amongst the Professed Fathers, 18 years later : taught Philosophy in the province of Campania : ended his days at Spetchley, in Worcestershire, on the 19th of October, 1768, aet. 51.

Born: 23 November 1885, Messercola, Caserta, Italy
Entered: 01 October 1900, St Joseph’s, Naples, Italy - Neapolitanae Province (NAP)
Ordained: 29 September 1915
Final vows: 13 April 1921
Died: 20 October 1974, Gesù, Naples, Italy - Neapolitanae Province (NAP)

by 1922 came to St Ignatius, Melbourne, Australia (HIB) working

Provincial of Neapolitan Province (NAP) 1935-1938

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He Entered the Society at Villa Melancrinis, Naples, Italy 01 October 1900.
After he had completed his studies in literature he went to Acireale for Philosophy.
He was then sent for Regency to Collegio Sozi-Carafa di Vico Equense, on the island of Ponza
He then went to Posillipo, Naples for Theology
1919-1920 He was engaged in military service and then made his tertianship at Posillipo
1920-1931 He was sent to Australia and arrived on 23 October 1920 and went to the Richmond Parish. During his time here he had special responsibility for the Italian community in Victoria and he also did some parish work..

He had been lent to the Australian Mission and was a man of great strength and vitality, untiringly energetic, unfailingly cheerful, greatly loved and trusted by the Italians. He was a tall thin man, had big gestures, a soft voice, and was sincere, talkative and happy. Young people especially enjoyed his company, engaged by his simple statements and affectionate manner. He was like an old friend who converses with ease.
The Italian community in Melbourne spoke little or no English, was not well educated, had no welfare agency and was isolated from the larger Melbourne community. At first, Vincente was not welcomed by the community who treated him both with suspicion and indifference. The did not want to be reminded of their religious obligations by a priest. However, this did not last and they began to understand that he was an asset to them. He wrote a booklet “A Little Guide for Italians in Australia”, which contained prayers and useful information for newly arrived immigrants.
In 1922 he estimated that there were 300-400 families in his care. In 1925 he helped organise a Mission, and about 400 people attended, many then returning to religious practice. Many of these people also became followers of Mussolini, and were involved in some fascist activities, and Vincente joined in with them. Among them grew a more extreme group of anarchists and communists, and the “Clob Matteotti” began to cause Vincente some concern. While trying to remain neutral to non-extreme political groups, he was primarily concerned with the pastoral needs of the Italian community. For this work he was awarded the “Knighthood of the Italian Crown” (Ordine della Corona d'Italia) in 1933.

He was so successful that later he was appointed Provincial of Naples (1935-1938). When asked for “informationes” by Father General, the Vice-Provincial of Australia, John Fahy wrote that he was “a man of great edification, given to prayer, obedient, humble, willingly listens to the advice of others, loving to all, mortified, loving poverty; above all he labours strenuously for the salvation of souls.....He exercises sound judgement, does not hesitate; and is endowed with practical wisdom......., gifted and both prudent and discreet; circumspect in speaking.....He understands the Institute well and loves it dearly. His love of the Society is outstanding........He is a man of rectitude with the greatest sincerity and candour”. This must have been someone close to human perfection as John Fahy rarely gave such praise!

His profile in Naples was that of a man with little understanding of men and things, and Vincente considered that perhaps he was not the best man to take up the office of Provincial. With his frank and open character and happy disposition, it appeared that he might not have the carefulness, discretion and diplomacy that might be required of him. He was anything but a failure. His administration was in order and he fulfilled the role with the qualities ascribed to him by John Fahy. The Italians admired his common sense, good heart and strong spirituality. He seemed to be a man united with God. He did not enjoy his term of office and asked to be relieved after three years. he was then appointed to the Neapolitan church of Santa Chiara - Basilica Santa Chiara, Via Santa Chiara, Naples.

1938 He was happy to return to pastoral work, and then the war years began. Naples was one of the cities that suffered most. They lived with the constant sound of the air-raid siren. The windows in Santa Chiara were all shattered, whole nights were spent in shelters and provisions became more difficult to come by.. Vincente did not know where to turn, though he remained calm and retained hope.

1943 On 04 August 1943 part of Santa Chiara was bombed. Ultimately he welcomed the arrival of the allies and he did much pastoral work among them because of his command of English. Reconstruction of the Church became an important priority for him

1948 His parish work was interrupted in 1948 when he tended to the needs of workmen at “Ritiri di Perseveranza” (Workers Retreats). Returning to the Parish he then focused especially on hearing confessions. All classes and types of people visited him and he visited the sick. he was hardworking and full of understanding. During this time he was also given the responsibility as Vice-Postulator of the cause of Venerable Giuseppe Moscati for canonisation.

1955 After seventeen years in Naples he was sent to Puglia. He visited Bari and Taranto first, and later went to Grottaglie.
1960-1965 He was Superior at Puglia and left this office in 1965 when he was aged 80.
1965 He returned to Naples and to Parish work, helping the sick and suffering. He even visited his home town of Messercola to help villagers in Santa Maria a Vico.

In his later years he suffered from sclerosis of the brain which affected his mental condition and caused him great pain. As such, death was a release for the man who had given so much for so long to those he served.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 3rd Year No 1 1927
Richmond, Australia :
Fr de Francesco continues to do splendid work amongst the Italians. He meets the boats as they arrive from Italy, and presents each newcomer with a little guide book that helps him to learn English, and also contains a good deal of religious instruction, He gets work for them, advises them as to the best localities for farming, etc. Every first Sunday of the month he holds a special service for the Italians in our Church. He goes round the various Churches in Melbourne to hear their Confessions. He made a tour of Australia, preaching in many places, priests speak highly of his splendid work.

Born: 01 December 1912, Portlaw, County Waterford
Entered: 03 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1946, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1949, Sacred Heart Coillege SJ, Limerick
Died: 07 October 1982, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin

Early education at Waterpark College, Waterford; Tertianship at Rathfarnham

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Waterpark student
by 1938 at St Aloysius, Jersey, Channel Islands (FRA) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 58th Year No 1 1983
Obituary
Fr Piaras de Hindeberg (1912-1931-1982)

Piaras de Hindeberg's death occurred at about midday on Thursday, 7th October 1982, at Rathfarnham Castle, where he had lived for the last thirty years of his life. He was within two months of completing his seventieth year, and two years past the golden jubilee of his entry into the Society.
Piaras regularly joined a small group of the community for early tea at about 5.30 pm. This group missed him that Thursday. Br Andy Williams, the Minister, went up to his room at the top of the castle and on breaking in the door, found Piaras lying on his bed, fully dressed, his spectacles on, but obviously some hours dead – five, according to medical opinion.
This brief account of the circumstances of his death is revealing in itself.
They missed Piaras, whose company they always enjoyed so much. It was here he was most at home: here he showed his depth and wide range of knowledge, his sharpness of mind, his sense of humour and above all his charity. He was never cynical about the affairs of the Province, or critical about modern trends in the Society or the Church. He could see things in the context of the changed times in which we are living. They missed him. There are more people than we shall ever know of whom the same can be said.
Piaras passed away quietly, in the midst of his work, without being a cause of trouble to anyone - just as he would have wished it to happen. When I say that he died in the midst of his work, I have no doubt that it was this that brought on the attack from which he died. For the last two years or so he had been working against time as though he realised that he was living on borrowed time. There were some students in advanced studies in modern Irish who came to him by appointment in the late evening for sessions which went on into the late hours of night. In preparation for these sessions, he put in long hours of intensive work. One of these students was expected that evening and arrived at the time the announcements of his death were being prepared. It was he who prepared the announcement which was published in the press for the following day. Happily some of these students will be able to assess the value of Piaras's work of a lifetime. It would not be within my competence to evaluate what must contain a monumental collection of material of inestimable value. We must leave this task to the scholars in times ahead.
Unostentatiously but very solidly, Piaras was a man of prayer and religious fervour; his daily Mass, Rosary, pro longed visits to the Blessed Sacrament and the tattered breviary were the substance of his daily life. He believed in physical activity, and for one who sustained a deadly heart attack about nine years ago and suffered three heart arrests while in intensive care, it was unbelievable to see the strenuous exercises he would constantly undertake: brisk walking, work in the grounds with scythe or saw or even a sledge hammer. Always obliging, he would supply Mass at an early hour travelling by motor-bike or even on foot through snow and ice if no other transport were possible. He never failed to keep an appointment and never cared for himself no matter what difficulties he had to surmount.
The late Fr William Stephenson and Piaras de Hindeberg lived for about thirty years together. During all this time, Piaras never spoke a word to the Old man, an omission which the Old man felt very much. He just wasn't Piaras' cup of tea. But a time came when the Old man was no longer able to gather his own firewood and saw it up for the fire which he always had in his room. Piaras quickly saw the Old man's difficulty and, despite his own condition of health, for the last years of Father Stephenson's life, he gathered the fire wood, sawed it up into handy blocks, filled a large basket and day after day carried the load up the back stairs into the Old man's room and left the pile conveniently in the corner: in and out, day after day, and never a word spoken. For his part, Fr Stephenson sent out for a small bag of mints from time to time. He climbed up to Piaras's room, hung the bag of sweets on the door handle and left it there. 'He likes the sweets' the Old man used say to me. Love is shown in deeds.

Piaras was a man of high ideals. He had a clear vision of his calling both in the religious life and towards his kith and kin; his native land; its language, its culture and its people, and from these ideals he never swerved. It took courage and he had that courage, the courage that saints and martyrs are made of. He never curried favour. In him there was no personal pride or selfish ambition. He never gloried in his academic achievements and he had attained the highest. He did not expect others to emulate his standards. Towards others of different background and upbringing, he was tolerant and looked for nothing more in return. “I go my way and you go your way”. When I think of his dedication to the cause of the Irish language and how one might explain it, I am reminded of what was said by somebody when speaking about the miracles at Lourdes: to those who have the Faith, no explanation is necessary; to those who have not the Faith, no explanation is possible.
It was my privilege to have known Piaras from boyhood. We were classmates at Waterpark College, Waterford. There he was recognised as one of outstanding ability not only in Irish, which was bred in him and nurtured from infancy, but in the Classics and in all other subjects. Fr Ernest Mackey was quick to pick him out as a subject for the priesthood and for the Society, which he entered in 1930 and in which he lived out his life in complete fidelity to his religious vocation and to his hereditary culture and ideals.
Nothing could have been more fitting than the tribute paid to him on the occasion of his obsequies at Gardiner Street church. His religious brothers did Piaras royally. May I on behalf of his family thank you all most sincerely for this as they have requested me to do. A special word of thanks is due, I feel, to Fr Seán Ó Duibhir, chief celebrant, and to the choir under the baton of Brendan Comerford. Ar dheis Dé go raibh anam sár-uasal Phiarais.
Matthew Meade SJ

Born: 11 August 1692, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 16 July 1717, Asunción, Paraguay - Paraguayensis Province (PAR)
Final Vows: 02 February 1828
Died: 13 May 1760, Córdoba de Tucuman, Argentina - Paraguayensis Province (PAR)

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ:
1720-1730 At College of Buenos Aires, Argentina
1730-1736 At College of Córdoba de Tucuman, Argentina
1736-1746 At College of Corrientes, Argentina (on the Paraná)
1748 At College of Córdoba de Tucuman, Argentina until his death in 1760

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Brother William de Leny 1692-1760
Br William de Leny lived from 1692-1760. Very little is known of him and he is mentioned here to record something of that very large number of Irishmen who joined the Society abroad during the Penal Days.

We do know he was born in Dublin in 1692. He entered the Province of Paraguay in 1717. He worked first at the College of Buenos Aires 1720-1730, and then at Córdoba del Tucumán, whence he passed to that of Corrientes, 1736-1746.

He returned to Cordoba in 1746 where he died about the year 1760.

Born: 1618
Entered: 1634, Évora, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)
Died: 21 July 1646, Braga, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)

◆CATSJ I-Y has
“de Loyola or Carlos Duarte”;
1619 Duarte de Loyola of Ireland is at Coimbra 1st year Theology Age 24 Soc 3 = DOB c1595 Ent c1616
1625 At Portalegre teaching Latin and engaged in the books of Suarez for 2 years
1628 At St Miguel College as Preacher, Confessor
1639 Carlos de Loyola ex HIB at Évora studying
1642 At Lisbon College teaching languages, has studied Philosophy
1645 At Évora College teaching Latin or Charles de Loyola at Coimbra College teaching Latin Age 28 Soc 11??1649 Not in CAT

Born: 21 May 1769, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 February 1818, Paris France - Galliae Province (GALL)
Ordained: 1814 - pre Entry
Final Vows: 15 August 1828, Annecy, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
Died: 03 May 1833, Annecy, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France - Galliae Province (GALL)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
From an illustrious Irish family. Aged four they moved to Toulouse, seeking liberty of conscience he couldn’t find in his own country.

After Ordination in 1814, he began that brilliant career which placed him in the foremost ranks of the most distinguished modern Preachers.
1817 or 1826 He was offered a Bishopric of Montaubon, but declined it to enter the Society , which he did the same year.

As a Religious, and until his death, he appeared in the principal pulpits in France, ad after 1830 preached in Rome, Turin and Annecy (cf de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ”, where he has a list of his numerous published sermons and other works)
He was regarded in France as the ablest of her Preachers,
(cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
MAC-CARTHY, NICHOLAS, was born in Dublin; and in early infancy was taken to France. At the age of 46, he was ordained Priest, and made his debut as a Preacher in 1820, in the Church of the Visitation Nuns at Paris. Amongst his auditors was the late Cardinal Weld. In 1822, he was offered a Mitre, but declined it, to enter amongst the Jesuits. France regarded him as the ablest of her preachers. Few Christian orators have ever announced the word of God, with more dignity, or defended Religion with more effect, or advocated the cause of charity with greater force and eloquence. He preached the Lent of 1833, in the Cathedral of Annecy. Exhausted with fatigue in the laborious work of his ministry, he became unwell on Easter Tuesday, on his return from Chamberri. Fever rapidly increased upon him. After receiving all the rites of the Church, and joining in the prayers for a departing soul with surprising firmness, he raised his eyes towards heaven; then fixing them on his crucifix, with a countenance beaming with hope and joy, he meekly died at Annecy, on the 3rd of May, 1833, aet. 64, if “L’Ami dc la Religion” states it correctly.

Born: 21 June 1861, Beaumesnil, Normandy, France
Entered: 14 August 1878, Angers France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1891
Final vows: 02 February 1894
Died: 03 May 1931, Paris, France - Franciae Province (FRA)

by 1883 came to Limerick (HIB) for Regency 1882-1887

Born: 07 April 1827, Rathkeale, County Limerick
Entered: 31 October 1846, St John’s, Fordham, NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1861
Final Vows: 15 August 1865
Died: 23 December 1891, Fordham College, New York, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 29 September 1696, St Germain-en-Laye, Paris, France
Entered: 07 September 1714, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1724
Final Vows: 15 August 1727
Died: 08 July 1760, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)

1723 Catalogue and 1737 Catalogue “M Dane Hibernus”
1743 Catalogue Michael Dean
Hogan note : I trace him in the years 1737-49, an Irishman born at Paris, son of John Deane and Francis Plowden. Father was Comptroller of the Household of James II who followed James II to Paris

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
For many years a Missioner of the Holy Apostles, Suffolk, and the Residence of St Thomas of Canterbury, Hampshire.
Among the adherents of James II were Stephen Deane, Mayor of Galway in 1690, and Lieutenant Dean of Lord Bophin’s infantry (”King James Army List” by D’Alton). Dominic Dean of Cong, County Mayo was attained in 1691 (cf Foley’s Collectanea)
(I think the above refers to Thomas Deane RIP 1719, though perhaps they were brothers with Thomas the elder?)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
DEAN, MICHAEL, born on Michaelmas day, 1696 , joined the Society at the age of 18, was long employed in the Hampshire mission : died at Watten, 8th July, 1760.

Born: 14 May 1942, Bunnacurry, Achill, County Mayo
Entered: 07 September 1959, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 23 June 1972, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 25 April 1985, Iona, Portadown, County Down
Died: 12 December, 2010, Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill, CA, USA (Oakland Diocese)

Left Society of Jesus: 1999

Educated at Mungret College SJ

by 1965 at Chantilly France (GAL S) studying
by 1974 at Cambridge MA, USA (NEB) working
by 1975 at Berkeley CA, USA (CAL) studying
by 1981 at Oakland CA, USA (CAL) making Tertianship
by 1993 at San Ramon CA, USA (CAL) working
by 1996 at Fremont CA, USA (CAL) working
by 1996 at Moraga CA, USA (CAL) working

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/teacher-of-ecumenics-and-pastoral-worker-in-north-1.588845

Teacher of ecumenics and pastoral worker in North

FR DECLAN Deane, who has died aged 68, was best known in Ireland for his work as a teacher at the Irish Schol of Ecumenics

FR DECLAN DEANE:FR DECLAN Deane, who has died aged 68, was best known in Ireland for his work as a teacher at the Irish School of Ecumenics and his pastoral work with the Jesuit community in Portadown, near the Garvaghy Road.

Director of the school’s Northern Ireland programme, he believed that as far as a church followed the example of Jesus, it was a distinctly Christian church. It was Christian when it refused to acquiesce in the boundaries imposed by a politically segregated society but took a lead in breaking through them.

In 1983, he urged Catholic clergy and people to take the lead in crossing the boundaries as they had greater freedom to do so.

A strong critic of paramilitary violence and its apologists, he nevertheless signed a letter of protest against strip-searching in Northern Ireland’s prisons. Likewise, he was, in 1988, a signatory to a letter deploring the British government’s decision to conceal the findings of a report into the killings of six unarmed men in 1982.

His talents were multiple and often unexpected – a national champion at Scrabble, a passionate observer of horse racing and a prodigious memory for cards – so much so that he was banned from some tables in Las Vagas.

Declan Deane was born in Dublin in 1942 but grew up on Achill Island and was educated at Mungret College, Limerick. He began his two-year novitiate in 1959. He then went to UCD after which he studied philosophy at Chantilly near Paris and theology at Milltown Park, Dubin, where he was ordained in 1972.

After ordination he became one of the first students at the recently-established School of Ecumenics, and graduated in 1973 with the Hull University postgraduate degree of B.Phil. He pursued doctoral studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Berkeley, California.

During this time he developed a special interest in the ecumenical theology of the French Jesuit theologian, Henri de Lubac (later to be made a cardinal), with particular reference to his understanding of Buddhism.

In 1980 he was appointed lecturer in continuing education at the School of Ecumenics and for most of the 1980s taught in the school’s certificate course of the then New University of Ulster.

He lived as a member of the Jesuit community in the Garvaghy estate in Portadown. Very popular as a teacher and as a priest, he enjoyed the friendship of Catholics and Protestants, nationalists and unionists.

In 1989 he moved to Dublin where he did youth retreat work.However, in search of more theological freedom than he felt in Ireland (he was always a strong advocate of women priests), he moved to California in 1992. Later he formally left the Jesuits to become a diocesan priest in the diocese of Oakland, California.

He enjoyed pastoral work and was popular with all his parishioners. He is remembered for his dry sense of humour, thought-provoking homilies and easy-going manner. He was most recently attached to Christ the King Church, Pleasant Hill, California.

https://gladysganiel.com/irish-catholic-church/in-memory-of-fr-declan-deane/

In Memory of Fr Declan Deane

Fr Declan Deane, a former lecturer and student at the Irish School of Ecumenics, passed away this week of cancer. Fr Deane was serving at Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill, California.

A native of Dublin, he grew up on Achill Island and was ordained a Jesuit in 1972. He was one of the first students to enrol on the Irish School of Ecumenics’ programme in Dublin. During the 1980s he lived as a Jesuit in Portadown and taught on the Irish School of Ecumenics’ Adult Education course in Northern Ireland.

Fr Deane immigrated to the US in 1992 and worked in five parishes before his death. A memorial on the Christ the King webpage describes him this way:

Despite his struggle with esophageal cancer, despite his being first on chemo and then a seven month hospice patient, Declan steadily did more and more rather than less and less. He continued to take his turn at weekly confessions; he returned to weekday masses especially with our school children, including the classroom preparation that went with that. Just a few short days before his death, he preached at all six weekend masses, concelebrated three and was outside greeting and visiting with parishioners for all the masses. To that he added the Monday morning mass and two days with visits to school and classrooms. To those who advised him to slow down and do less, his response was , “that is the way I want to be remembered” and “when I promise I’m going to do something and be somewhere, I always do it”.

I never met Fr Deane. But I can appreciate the energy and dedication that he must have exhibited in helping to get the ISE’s Northern Irish work off the ground. He is remembered fondly by many colleagues and former students.

https://jesuit.ie/news/parting-from-declan-2/ December 21, 2010

Parting from Declan

Declan Deane, who died in California on 12 December, had been an Irish Jesuit for over thirty years, before joining the diocese of Oakland. He is remembered with deep affection and regard by many friends, especially in N.Ireland, where he worked with the Irish School of Ecumenics. His talents were multiple, often unexpected: a national champion at Scrabble, a passionate observer of horses, a prodigious memory for cards at the gaming tables of Las Vegas, such that the bankers had him banned. But above all he was a priest, who during his struggle with esophageal cancer took on more and more ministry. A few days before his death he preached at all six weekend Masses, concelebrated three, heard confessions and greeted the parishioners at the door. His funeral was a huge and emotional occasion, as Donal Godfrey SJ reports:

Last Thursday I represented the Society at the Mass of Christian burial for Declan Deane. The Church of Christ the King in Pleasant Hill, where Declan had most recently served, was packed with two bishops, priests, and so many friends from the parishes where Declan had served. The homilist, Fr. Gerrry Moran in the Oakland Diocese and like Declan from Achill island, spoke of the life of Declan in very moving terms. We heard how at first Declan had objected to working with Gerry as pastor but eventually they became close friends. The homily was interrupted with applause on a number of occasions. The Bishop Emeritus, John Cummins, spoke of the wonderful Jesuit formation Declan had received, quoted Pedro Arrupe in connecting Declan’s strong social conscience and his gift of bringing contemporary theology alive to a wider audience. Declan’s brother John came from Ireland and told us how he had sent a card to Declan with a Christmas poem written especially for him that he discovered unopened in his room. John ended his words with the poem. Afterwards the parish held a wonderful reception and then we went to the Holy Angels Cemetery where Declan had told the pastor that he was very happy to be buried next to Frank Houdek, SJ, the man who had “saved him” when he went into recovery as an alchololic. On another note -we have been having wave after wave of rain storms, however for Declan’s funeral it was a sunny mild day. Declan must have arranged that for us as he always loved the sun! Ar dheis De go rabh a ainm dhilis.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/eastbaytimes/name/declan-deane-obituary?id=32867038 Published by Inside Bay Area on Dec. 15, 2010.

Declan Deane Obituary

Father Declan A. Deane May 14, 1942 ~ Dec. 12, 2010 Pleasant Hill, CA Declan was born in Dublin, Ireland and grew up on Achill Island on the west coast of Ireland. He was ordained as a priest into the Jesuit Order in Dublin in 1972. In his early years of priesthood he devoted his time to issues of faith and justice, including working for peace with Protestants and Catholics during the troubles in Northern Ireland. He also ministered to those in prisons and to those with AIDS. Called to parish ministry, he immigrated to the US and settled in the Diocese of Oakland. His first assignment began in 1992. He served as Associate Pastor in five parishes; St. Joan of Arc, Holy Spirit, St. Monica, All Saints, and most recently Christ the King. He quickly endeared himself to his parishioners and became a much loved, admired and respected priest in every community. People enjoyed his dry sense of humor, the thought-pro-voking depth of his homilies and his easygoing approachable manner. Being a good friend and inclusive to all was important to Declan. When not engaged in ministry Declan made sure to enjoy life. He was a scrabble champ in Ireland, Northern Ireland and England, an avid sports fan and very fond of the horses. He took one day at a time. He is survived by his sister Patricia; brothers John (Ursula) and Raymond (Renate); and nieces and cousins. There will be a parish Mass on Wednesday, December 15 at 11:00am followed by viewing and visitation from 12:00 noon to 7:30pm; Vigil Service at 7:30pm. The Funeral Mass will be at 10:30am on Thursday, December 16, with interment at Queen of Heaven Cemetery at 1:30pm. All services will be at Christ the King Catholic Church, 199 Brandon Road, Pleasant Hill. CA.

Interfuse No 144 : Spring 2011

Obituary

Declan Deane (1942-2010) : former Jesuit

Declan Deane, who has died in California, had been an Irish Jesuit for over thirty years before joining the diocese of Oakland. He is remembered with deep affection and regard by many friends. One measure of this affection; during his final sickness he received 28,000 emails and other messages of support from those who had known and loved him. His talents were multiple, often unexpected: a national champion at Scrabble, a passionate observer of horses, a prodigious memory for cards at the gaming tables of Las Vegas, such that the bankers had him banned. But above all he was a priest, who during his struggle with oesophageal cancer took on more and more ministry. A few days before his death he preached at all six weekend Masses, concelebrated three, heard confessions and greeted the parishioners at the door.

Born in Achill and schooled in Mungret College, where he was elected Head of School in his final year, Declan Deane entered the Jesuits in 1959. He earned a BA in UCD studied philosophy at Chantilly near Paris, and theology at Milltown Park, Dublin where he was ordained priest in 1972. After ordination he did a B.Phil. at the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) and doctoral studies in Cambridge, USA, and in Berkeley, California. In these years he developed a special interest in the ecumenical theology of the French Jesuit theologian, Henri de Lubac with particular reference to his understanding of Buddhism. Sadly he never finished his doctoral dissertation, largely because of the disease of alcoholism with which he eventually came to terms.

In Ireland at least Declan was probably best known for his teaching work in the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) and his pastoral work in the Jesuit community in Portadown, near the controversial Garvaghy Road. He lived there for most of the 80's, longer than anywhere else, and greatly endeared himself to his students and to the local people, Protestant and Catholic, Nationalist and Unionist. The troubles were then far from over. Despite the troubles, perhaps because of them, he became popular as a teacher and as a priest.

Hoping however for more theological freedom than he felt he enjoyed in Ireland (he was always a strong advocate of women priests) he moved in 1992 to California for parish work. Later in the decade he formally left the Jesuits to join the diocese of Oakland, California. Happily however he always remained in the best of relations with his former Jesuit colleagues and with his lay friends, some of whom flew over to say goodbye to him before he died. We now deeply mourn his early, but sadly not unexpected, death from cancer on 12 December 2010.

His funeral was a huge and emotional occasion, as Donal Godfrey reports: “Last Thursday I represented the Society at the Mass of Christian burial for Declan Deane. The Church of Christ the King in Pleasant Hill, where Declan had most recently served, was packed with two bishops, priests, and so many friends from the parishes where Declan had served. The homilist, Fr. Gerry Moran in the Oakland Diocese and like Declan from Achill island, spoke of the life of Declan in very moving terms. We heard how at first Declan had objected to working with Gerry as pastor but eventually they became close friends. The homily was interrupted with applause on a number of occasions. The Bishop Emeritus, John Cummins, spoke of the wonderful Jesuit formation Declan had received, and quoted Pedro Arrupe in connecting Declan's strong social conscience and his gift of bringing contemporary theology alive to a wider audience. Declan's brother John came from Ireland and told us how he had sent a card to Declan with a Christmas poem written especially for him that he discovered unopened in his room. John ended his words with the poem. Afterwards the parish held a wonderful reception and then we went to the Holy Angels Cemetery where Declan had told the pastor that he was very happy to be buried next to Frank Houdek, SJ, the man who had ‘saved him’ when he went into recovery as an alchololic. On another note - we have been having wave after wave of rain storms, however for Declan's funeral it was a sunny mild day. Declan must have arranged that for us as he always loved the sun! Ár dheis De go rabh a ainm dhilis”.

Robin Boyd of the ISE wrote about Declan:
Declan Deane was a remarkable man, and a dear colleague and friend. He and I shared a birthday – he was exactly twenty years younger than me - and on one memorable occasion we were able to celebrate it together, at an ecumenical clergy conference at Corrymeeala when we shared - and even cut together - a specially made birthday cake.

He took up his duties in charge of the ISE's Northern Ireland programme in 1981, and it was mainly in the North that we saw each other. It was always a delight to visit that small Jesuit community at Iona, a council house in Portadown, with its memories of Paddy Doyle, Brian Lennon, and a host of unexpected visiting trail-blazers from all the Irish Church traditions. For Declan had friends everywhere. I remember one occasion when he came with me to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. And as we milled around in the clergy-crowded corridor there were delighted and unexpected meetings with Declan's friends among the thronging ministers and elders: I remember especially his happy reunion with Ruth Patterson (the first woman to be ordained as a minister of Word and sacrament in the Irish Presbyterian Church), and Bert Tosh (now senior producer of religious programmes in the BBC, Northern Ireland). Warm, modest to the point of shyness, amusing, and devastatingly honest, he firmly established the ISE's Northern programme in its three main bases of Belfast, Derry and Benburb, making friends wherever he went.

We had many adventures together. One dark night, driving North through Omagh and Strabane, Declan said, “There's a convent I know near here. Let's call on the sisters”. Despite my protest that it was too late, we arrived at the convent and rang the bell. We rang again, and there was no reply. I said, “You see what I mean!” and we drove on. Next day, at our conference, we met one of the sisters, and apologized for ringing their door bell so late. “Och, we were all watching the football” was the answer; Declan knew them better than I did.

On one occasion we did a fund-raising tour in Germany together, staying with German friends of mine in Remscheid, where he quickly made himself at home. The “Tour de France” happened to be going on, and we discovered that Declan was a devotee of the “maillot jaune”. He was also, as befitted a member of a distinguished literary family, a devotee of letters - and numbers. This devotion took a peculiar form: he was fascinated by German car numbers, and quickly worked out their literary and numerical basis, so that before long he could identify the place of origin of every car in the land. “Why?" I asked. “Well, I look forward to the day when I'm at home in Achill, and I see a German car with the family sitting having a picnic, and I'll go up to them and say, “How is everybody in Remscheid today?” We enjoyed that game, and I still do. But I knew better than ever to challenge Declan to a game of Scrabble. His skill there was legendary. In the interests of the ISE we travelled from bishop to bishop, from praese to praeses, from Seminary to Theologische Hochschule, and had a happy reunion in Frankfurt with Fr Gerry O'Hanlon SJ, who was then working on his thesis on Karl Barth. I don't recollect how successful that journey was financially: but it certainly was a trip to remember with great pleasure.

Memorable too were the one or two occasions when my wife Frances and I stayed with Declan in the Jesuit flat normally occupied by Fr Henry Grant in the Newtownbreda area of Belfast. It was full of Henry's tapes of classical music, which delighted Frances. And it was also full of good talk. Declan shared with us his problems: the alcoholism which he had so steadfastly battled and overcome; theology - for he was no stranger to the doubt which is the only real basis of faith; celibacy, women's ministry, relations between the churches. Those were evenings to recall with joy. For Declan was a man who brought warmth and joy to those he met. It was a privilege to have him as a friend, and now to know that he has entered into the joy of his Lord.

Born: 02 February 1693, Cadiz, Spain
Entered: 20 December 1709, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1719
Died: 17 September 1719, Ghent, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)

Alias Plowden

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of John an Irish gentleman and Frances née Plowden ( a daughter of Francis Plowden, who in turn was a son of Edmund Plowden of Plowden Hall, Shropshire, Comptroller of the Household of James II, and who followed his Royal master into exile at St Germain-en-Laye, near Paris)
Sent to the English College Rome for Humanities, and admitted then in Rome.
Dominic Deane of Cong and Dean of Galway were adherents of James II (cf D’Alton’s “Army List of James II; Foley’s Collectanea)
Tobias Dean :
Note attached to Thomas Dean’s Entry about Tobias Dean, said to be a younger brother, DOB 26 October 1700, Ent English College Rome 21 October 1717 in the alias Benedict Plowden, and then left there for Spain 18 September 1718 (Records SJ, Vol vi, p 468)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
PLOWDEN, THOMAS, (alias Dean) born actually in Spain : and admitted an Alumnus of the English College at Rome, in 1706. In vain I search for other details than his death at Ghent, the 17th of September, 1719.

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: 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: 22 May 1891, Bailieborough, County Cavan / Birr County Offaly
Entered: 15 October 1910, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 30 June 1924, Montreal, Canada
Final vows: 02 February 1928
Died: 19 June 1966, Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL, USA - Neo-Aurelianensis Province (NOR)

Transcribed HIB to NOR : 1911

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1967

Obituary

Father John Deignan SJ

Very Rev John V Deignan died in June, 1966, at Springhill College, Mobile, Alabama. He was aged 75.

Fr Deignan was a native of Birr, Co. Offaly. Educated at the Presentation Brothers' School, Birr, and at Mungret College Limerick, he entered the Society of Jesus at Tullabeg, Offaly, in 1911; and the following year he joined the American Province of the Order. He was ordained in 1924.

Fr Deignan was for some years on mission work in St Joseph's Church, Bronx, New York, and on retreat ministry at Newark, New Jersey, but he spent most of his life at Springhill College, Mobile, Alabama.

He established the faculty of Science at Springhill College, and was Dean of the Faculty for many years. He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Chemical Society and of the Association of Chemical Education.

Fr. Deignan celebrated his Golden Jubilee as a Jesuit în 1961. His last visit to Ireland was in that year.

He was brother of the late Rev Francis Deignan, Pastor of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, USA, of Sister Mary Imelda, Convent of Mercy, Swinford, Co Mayo, and of Mrs Lillian Mary Buckley. To all his surviving relatives we extend our sympathy. May he rest in peace.

Born: 04 October 1626, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 12 May 1650, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1656,
Final Vows: 19 April 1661
Died: 03 March 1702, Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

1665 at Pontevedra College
1690 Taught Gramnar for 34 years at Pontevedra

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had studied Philosophy and begun Theology before Ent 12 May 1650 Villagarcía
After First Vows he did a brief Regency at Ávila and then completed his Theology being Ordained c 1656
1656-1702 Taught Humanities at Pontevedra College for twenty six years, and the last six years of his life was an Operarius in the Church and he died there 03 March 1702
The Superior of the Irish Mission, Francis White, asked the General to have him sent back to Ireland from Spain but his plea proved unsuccessful, or at least sent to the office of the Irish Mission Procurator at Madrid. This came to nothing, and his Spanish Superiors fought hard to keep him, as they recognised his real quality as a teacher and were also chaired by his agreeable character.

Born: 28 January 1668, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1685, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1692, Salamanca, Spain
Final Vows: 02 February 1702
Died: 19 October 1728, Irish College, Salamanca, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

Was Rector of Irish Seminary Salamanca
His portrait is at Salamanca - represented holding a pen

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
The De La Mers or De La Mares were a well known family of Westmeath.
Writer;
Stationed at Coruña before 1708
1708-1728 Second Founder and Rector of Salamanca (cf Foley’s Collectanea, where he is incorrectly called Delawer)
1709 He presented a petition to the King of Spain and narrates the following fruits of the College :
“ Almost all the students in this College have complied with their obligations - the exceptions indeed are very few - of going to the Missions in Ireland, and have supplied their own Island, and even England and Scotland with eminent prelates , missioners and martyrs, as is well known to the natives of those kingdoms, to the number 510. Among those were men illustrious for their virtue, learning and apostolic preaching, learned writers, controversialists etc, who often shed their blood for their faith. More than 130 others became conspicuous members of different religious orders in your Majesty’s dominions, as for instance 3 OSB, one of whom became General; 12 of the Cistercian Order; 17 OP; 1 Trinitarian; 26 OsF; 20 OSA; and more than 50 of the Society of Jesus. Each are more famous than another for their piety and their valuable writings. I pass over in silence 12 more Provincials it has given to these Orders, and to the Secular branch of Ireland, 4 Archbishops, 1 Primate, 5 Bishops, 2 Protonotaries Apostolic, 5 Vicars General, 18 graduates of Theology in the most celebrated Universities of Europe, and finally more than 30 Masters of Theology and Sacred Scripture, famed as Professors in those great theatres of learning.”
He may be called the “founder” of the College, having completely rebuilt it and largely increased its revenues. He died there 09/10/1728

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows he studied at the Royal College Salamanca and was Ordained there 1693
1694-1708 After Tertianship he was sent to teach at the College of León for a year and then to the College La Caruña, where as well as teaching he was also at times Minister and Procurator.
1708-1728 Appointed Rector of Irish College Salamanca 20th May and he was to die in office twenty years later 19 October 1728. His Rectorship was was the longest in the history of that College. He laboured zealously at Salamanca for the temporal and spiritual well-being of the students, and it owed him an immense debt of gratitude for pushing to make the College worthy of its purpose : a training ground for learned and zealous priests to work in the dark days of the Penal times in Ireland.
The eulogy composed after his death rightly stated “justamente se le llame restaurador del seminario”

Born: 14 April 1678, Monkstown, County Westmeath
Entered: 22 September 1697, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1706, Salamanca, Spain
Final Vows: 02 February 1715
Died: 06 December 1724, Orduña, Basque, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Thomas and Isabel née Nugent
Had already started his studies at Santiago before Ent 22 September 1697 Villagarcía.
After First Vows he studied Philosophy at Palencia and Theology at Royal College Salamanca where he was Ordained by 1706
After Tertianship he taught Philosophy at Pamplona, Theology at Oñate and later Bilbao.
1720 Until his death there he was an Operarius at Orduña 06 December 1724
His obituary described him as a man of no common talents

Born: 15 February 1938, Limerick and Dublin
Entered: 23 September 1972, Manresa, Dollymount, Dublin
Died: 18 July 1973, Wicklow Town, County Wicklow

Part of Manresa community, Dollymount, Dublin at time of his death.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 48th Year No 4 1973

Obituary :

Mr Brian Delaney (1938-1973)

Brian was what would be called nowadays “a delayed vocation”, entering the novitiate at Manresa at the age of thirty-four. He was born 15th February, 1938, and entered 23rd September 1973. His first contact with the Society was as a small boy at the Crescent. His memories of those days in Limerick were hazy as he left with the family for Dublin when he was nine. He received his secondary education at Marino, O’Connell Schools and CUS.
Equipped with Leaving Cert. and Matric he went into Esso Petroleum Company and spent thirteen years with the firm, the last seven as a representative, In 1961 he obtained the Diploma in Public Administration. From 1969 he ran his own very successful service station,
While in Esso Brian became associated with Manresa Retreat House as a promoter and continued the good work even after he had left the company. During the retreat in January 1972 he came to the present writer for a chat. The burden of his remarks, of which he often spoke afterwards was that he was great for about a month after each retreat and up for early Mass, etc. but that then the effects wore off. In his complete sincerity this worried him so it was arranged that if he did not get in touch after a month he was to be “looked up”.
He was back in a month and all was well; some weeks later, back again to say that his business while prosperous was appearing to lose interest for him and that he would like to be a priest. The next time, with no prompting, he expressed a wish, diffidently but earnestly, to enter the Society. From that time until he was accepted formally his one anxiety was that he may be deemed unsuitable.
As a novice he was happy as never before. He said after several months that he was always wondering when the “let down” would come. Perhaps the only real problem for him was the effort to give up smoking - not surprising since he had contracted a habit of very heavy consumption of cigarettes; he mastered the weakness to the extent that he could accept a cigarette on the community occasions they were available without trepidation of a relapse.
The Irish and English novices had their villa arranged for Wicklow - a reciprocation of last year's villa in the Isle of Wight. On the afternoon of this fifth day of the holiday, July 18th, Fr M P Gallagher who was in charge went golfing in company with Brian and one of the English novices, Stuart Agnew. Brian was an expert and the others merely beginners. He however did not appear to be on his game. Coming up the hill at the fifth hole he got a pain in the chest and had to rest. He thought it a recurrence of an ulcer complaint from which he had suffered formerly. The pain seemed to pass and they decided to continue the game. Not for long, alas, for with the second hole he seemed to stagger and admitted it had come again; they decided to return to the club house, playing a hole going that direction any way. When Fr Gallagher looked towards him he saw him lying on the ground : it was serious. Stuart went for a doctor while the priest gave absolution; the matron of the local hospital was on the links at the next green, and came endeavouring to render artificial respiration but in vain - a coronary attack of a massive type had intervened.
The doctor arrived within ten minutes but too late.
Fr Gallagher continues : “the novices assembled in the improvised chapel where Brian had received Holy Communion that morning seemed possessed with a common recognition that Brian had found the Lord, ‘in the middle of life's span’, in a manner that provided for him great happiness and preparedness to enter into His presence”. RIP

Born: 15 December 1867, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 14 December 1885, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 27 July 1902, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1906, St Aloysius College, Milsons Point, Sydney, Australia
Died: 04 July 1949, St Ignatius College, Manresa, Norwood, Adelaide, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL: 05 April 1931

Came to Australia for Regency 1892
by 1904 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1905 returned to Australia

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He Entered the Society at Loyola, Dromore and Milltown Park.

1888-1889 He was sent to St Stanislaus College Tullabeg for his Juniorate.
1889-1892 He returned to Milltown Park for Philosophy
1892-1893 He was sent to Australia and St Patrick’s College Melbourne for Regency
1893-1896 He continued his Regency at St Ignatius College Riverview
1896-1900 He continued his long Regency with four years at St Aloysius College, Bourke Street, Sydney.
1900-1904 He was back in Ireland and Milltown Park studying Theology.
1904-1905 He made tertianship at Drongen
1905-1915 Apart from some short periods during these years at Riverview and St Patrick’s College Melbourne, he spent this time at St Aloysius, variously as Prefect of Studies, Prefect of the Church and responsible for the Choir
1915-1949 During these years he did Parish work at Richmond, Hawthorn and Norwood.

He was a small but very robust man, full of energy and vitality. He had a love of melodrama and a deep love for the beautiful. He was interested in music and drama and was very successful directing school plays. A bright and vivacious character he also loved performing all Church ceremonies.

Born: 24 October 1929, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1948, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1962, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1966, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 01 April 2001, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Hubert Delaney was born in Dublin on 24 October 1929. After secondary school at the Christian Brothers in Dublin, Hubert entered the Civil Service for 15 months. However a higher calling brought him to the novitiate at Emo Park in 1948. He did the normal course of studies, B.A., philosophy, regency and then theology at Milltown Park in Dublin and crowned them with his ordination to the priesthood on 1962.

After tertianship, his life was lived in educational work. Up to 1974, secondary education occupied him, first at Belvedere College as prefect of studies of the Junior School followed by a year at Clongowes Wood College as teacher and higher line prefect. This was again followed by a three year stint as Headmaster at Gonzaga College in Dublin.
He moved from this into tertiary education and it was philosophy which absorbed his interests for the rest of his life. He lectured at the Milltown Institute in philosophy for eight years up to 1982. He continued lecturing but also studied for his M.A. in philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. He later obtained a Doctorate at Cork University and then went on a sabbatical 1989/1990. He went back to the Milltown Institute as lecturer and was also Director of the Lonergan Centre. He took a year off lecturing and went to Leeson Street as writer and researcher. For two years, 1993 to 1995, he was a tutor in philosophy at the Milltown Institute.

A complete change of venue brought him to Zambia, Africa, to the University of Zambia in Lusaka, invited by Fr Dillon-Malone, head of philosophy there. He stayed for a year lecturing and returned to Ireland to write but he first moved to Korea to lecture for a semester at Sogang University in Seoul. He was back in Leeson Street in 1997 as writer and doing research work again.

His health had not been good. He developed a serious heart condition and other ailments which hospitalised him several times. A stroke in March 2001 sent him to the Mater Hospital. Cerebral apathy and liver disease were diagnosed. All these led to his death on 1 April 2001.

Spontaneous testimony came from two of his former students who later became members of the staff of the Milltown Institute. Both spoke of him as a wonderful teacher, interesting, stimulating, challenging, but, most significant of all, he invited one to enter into a personal engagement and psychological growth. In his teaching he was not only the educator but also the pastor and the priest.

Friendship and service were two of Hubert's qualities. There were many on-going friendships with his former pupils and their families, as well as in the Jesuit communities in which he lived and in the family of his brother Peter. The Morning Star Hostel for ‘down and outs’, the Patricians, the Cenacle Retreat House were some of the areas where Hubert was of service. He had a love of literature, of classical music and of football. He missed all these when he came to Zambia for a year. After all, he was 66 years of age when he came and it is so difficult to make new friends and to fit into a new culture at that age .However he was of service at UNZA when he did come. Hubert's life was one of developing the talents that God had given him, a life centred on his priesthood and on the Mass.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 108 : Special Edition 2001
Obituary
Fr Hubert Delaney (1929-2001)

24th Oct. 1929: Born in Dublin
Early education in St.Patrick's, Drumcondra and CBS, Richmond Street, Dublin.
1947 - 1948: 15 Months in Civil Service
8th Sept 1948: Entered the Society at Emo
8th Sept 1950: First vows at Emo
1950 - 1953: Rathfarnham, studying Arts at UCD
1953 - 1956: Tullabeg - studying Philosophy
1956 - 1959: Belvedere - Teacher, H.Dip in Ed. at UCD
1959 - 1963: Milltown Park - studying Theology
31 July 1962: Ordained at Milltown Park
1964 - 1964: Tertianship at Rathfarnham Castle
1964 - 1965: Crescent College, Limerick - Teacher
1965 -1970: Belvedere College: Prefect of Studies of Junior school
2nd Feb 1966: Final Vows
1970 - 1971: Clongowes: Higher Line Prefect and teacher
1971 - 1974: Gonzaga College: Headmaster
1974 - 1982: Milltown Park - Lecturer in Philosophy at Milltown Institute
1982 - 1985: Lecturing in Philosophy at Milltown Inst. studying for MA in Phil. Ed. at TCD
1985 - 1989: Doctorate studies in Philosophy at UCC
1989 - 1990: Sabbatical
1990 - 1992: Lecturer in Philosophy at Milltown Institute; Director, Lonergan Centre
1992 - 1993: Leeson St; Writer and Research
1993 - 1995: Tutor in Philosophy at Milltown Institute
1995 - 1996: Lecturer in Philosophy at UNZA, Lusaka Writer;
1996 - 1997: Lecturer in Philosophy at Sogang University, Seoul, Korea (Spring semester)
1997 - 2001: Leeson St; Writer & Research; Chair Virgin Mary School Board, Ballymun
1st April 2001: Died in the Mater Hospital, Dublin

In 1997 Hubert developed a serious heart condition, cardio myopathy, for which he was receiving regular medical treatment. Within the past three years he was hospitalised several times - to have an artificial knee joint fitted, a hip joint replaced and multiple skin grafts on his legs.

The state of his health had been declining noticeably since last September and even more so since February of this year. On March 21st he suffered a stroke and was admitted to the Mater Hospital, where cerebral apathy and liver disease were diagnosed. The combination of his many ailments led rapidly to renal failure, which was the immediate cause of his death.

Des. O Grady preached at Hubert's Funeral Mass...

Hubert has us all where he wants us now - gathered together with him as his sisters and brothers in our Father's house. We are brought together here by our love of Hubert and by the faith we share with him, our faith in the power and love of God who is the Father of us all: “the Father from whom every family, whether spiritual or natural, takes its name”.

We are brought together today by our sorrow and our need, by our desire for the support we find in the company of one another and by our need to pray for Hubert, to give thanks for the gift he has been to us, and to surrender him back to the Father. In doing so we echo the faith of Job, which is also the faith of Hubert: “I know that my redeemer lives... These eyes of mine will gaze on him and find him not aloof”.

Jesus lives now for Hubert as the one who has gone before him to prepare a place for him. We pray that Hubert will now hear the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord”.

We need not be in any doubt about Hubert's being welcomed into our Father's house. If we who are so poor in love always had a welcome for Hubert in our homes, how much more will our heavenly Father welcome him into his true home now. Unprofitable servants we may be, but beloved children first and last.

Our confidence for Hubert today is our confidence in the Father's love for him. That love has showered gifts on Hubert in this life, gifts that Hubert has turned to good account for us as our presence here today testifies more eloquently than anything I can say

If one looks through the official record of Hubert's assignments as a Jesuit priest Hubert's commitment to education is what stands out most of all. Hubert has worked at all levels of education - primary, secondary and tertiary, as well as in adult education. He taught in Belvedere, Clongowes, the Crescent, and in Gonzaga. He served as prefect of studies in the junior school in Belvedere and as headmaster in the senior school in Gonzaga.

In 1974 Hubert came to Milltown and began his career in third level education and I had spontaneous testimony to the value of his work there from two of his former students who are now members of the staff of the Milltown Institute. Both spoke of him as a wonderful teacher: interesting, stimulating, challenging, but most significant of all, as inviting one to personal engagement and growth. In his teaching he was not only the educator, but the pastor and the priest.

Hubert was able to teach so well because he himself was a lifelong student. And if we look at the topics of his MA thesis, “Imagination in Aristotle”, and his Ph.D. dissertation, “The Self-correcting Process of Learning”, we will realize that Hubert's study, though enjoyed for itself, was always focussed on the service of others. Hubert, like his Lord and Master, was among us as one who serves, and we have all benefited from the graces that God has given to Hubert.

That, as I said, is the official record. But off the record there is a whole parallel world of friendship and service; the Teams of Our Lady, the Morning Star, the Patricians, the Cenacle Retreat House, to name but some of the ones I know of Added to that there is his on-going friendship with many of his former pupils and their families, and, last but not least, his presence in his Jesuit communities and in the family of his brother Peter.

As we pray for Hubert today we can draw confidence from our faith in God and from the evidence of God's love in the gifts and graces he has showered upon Hubert, gifts Hubert turned to good account in his priestly life. Hubert's priesthood was at the centre of his life. He shared the word of God with us all and he gave of himself unsparingly. And at the heart of his every day and every work was the Mass.

There is so much more that could be said - his love of nature, and the joy and inspiration he drew from it - his doctoral dissertation about human development was entitled “The Tree of Life”. Then there was his love of literature. During the last few months he was reading again the novels of Jane Austen. Then there was music - mainly classical, and, of course, football.

Right up to the end Hubert enjoyed all of these. The day before he went to hospital for the last time, just two weeks ago today, he was, much against my wishes, let it be said, in Ballymun to chair a Board meeting of the Virgin Mary School, and then after than he spent the evening with his friends, Michael and Aileen Hardigan. The following day Hubert was too weak to get himself out of bed in the morning, and had to be taken to the Mater Hospital where, in spite of the best efforts of the doctors and nurses he died on Sunday morning of renal failure.

He died, yet he lives. He lives on in our hearts and our thoughts but also, we confidently trust, in our Father's home where he continues to work for us and bless us.

◆ The Gonzaga Record 2001
Obituary

Hubert Delaney SJ

Fr Hubert Delaney was Headmaster of Gonzaga 1971 - 1974, and under his leadership the college expanded considerably. A further stream was added to the school. He was very interested in developing the curriculum of the school and he gave a great impetus to drama and music through his wise appointments. His relation ships with members of the staff were particularly friendly and he is remembered with affection. He is also remembered as an administrator who was capable of taking innovative risks. His period of office was one of growth for the College.

May God bless him for his great work.

Fr J Brennan SJ

Born: 04 July 1883, North Strand, Dublin City
Entered: 23 September 1904, Drongen Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 31 July 1916, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1921
Died: 08 August 1956, St Francis Xavier, Upper Gardiner St, Dublin - Belgicae South Province (BELG)

WWI Chaplain

by 1920 came to Tullabeg (HIB) making Tertianship
by 1933 came to St Francis Xavier (HIB) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/from-easter-week-to-flanders-field/

‘From Easter Week to Flanders Field’
From Easter Week to Flanders Field: The diaries of and letters of Fr John Delaney SJ, 1916-1919′ is the latest book by historian Thomas Morrissey SJ. John Delaney SJ walked the streets of Dublin during Easter Week 1916, recording in a diary everything he encountered along the way. This treasure came to light in the Jesuit archives five years ago, and is reproduced in the book and so public for the first time.
The next year, in 1917, John Delaney was sent to the battlefields of Europe, where he served on the front line as an army chaplain. It is his letters, in this instance, that provide a first-hand account of the realities of war. Putting both experiences together, this volume provides an eye-witness account of two major events of the early twentieth century.
Thomas Morrissey SJ brings us through Delaney’s life and times from Dublin to Flanders, later on to service in Ceylon, then his final years back in Dublin. “Ypres, Louvain, Rheims, were before our mind’s eye in a moment and we thought – war had come to us at last. Dublin was in flames. The roar of guns was in our ears, at our very door, and men were falling. Men were dying not on the fields of France or in the trenches of Flanders, but on the streets of Dublin. It was really dreadful; too dreadful to look at, too dreadful to hear, too dreadful to think of… We went down to prayers. I could not help thinking of the poor fellows dying not so far from us amid the shot and shell whilst we repeated in our little chapel, ‘Ora pro nobis’ ”, wrote John Delaney SJ, Thursday 27 April, 1916.
The book was launched on Monday 23 March at St Francis Xavier’s Church, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin. Fergus O’Donoghue SJ, Superior of Gardiner St community, warmly welcomed those at the launch. He said that when that when Todd (Thomas Morrissey) first approached him about the book he advised him that he wouldn’t have enough material and Todd agreed. Then totally unexpectedly he was given a link to published correspondence of John Delaney in the ‘Old Boy’s Journal’ of the Jesuit College in what is now Sri Lanka.
Launching the book, Professor of history Fergus D’Arcy began by reciting a chilling list of the numbers of young men from all the countries involved in WWI who died in battle. The room went very quiet. He called the war “the beast of the apocalypse”, a war “so awful that it raises questions about the beautiful gardens around the world that commemorate it”.
Commenting on John Delaney’s diary entries regarding the Easter Rising, Prof. D’Arcy said his first-hand account, warts and all, was fascinating. Delaney was a chaplain to the Gardaí at the time. For this reason a specially invited guest at the launch was Assistant Garda Commissioner John Twomey (pictured here with Fr Morrissey). He said he was delighted to represent the Gardaí at the launch of such a book and he wanted to honour the memory of John Delaney SJ who served the Gardaí so well.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 31st Year No 4 1956

St. Francs Xavier's, Gardiner Street
By the death of Father Delaney, on 8th August: we suffered the loss of one of the best-loved priests in the Church. Even though illness had for almost the last two years removed him from his many posts of duty, there were constant affectionate enquiries for him, and requests for his spiritual assistance: up to the time of his leaving Gardiner Street last Autumn he was always ready to come down from his room in response to the latter. Messages of sympathy on his death reached Father Provincial and Father Superior from many sources: large numbers of Mass-cards were left on the coffin: and, at his funeral, the Civic Guards whose Sodality he directed So splendidly turned out such a Guard of Honour as he himself, always so pleased with a uniformed and well-drilled parade, would have thoroughly appreciated. May he rest in peace!

Obituary :

Fr John Delaney (1883-1956)

Fr. Delaney was born in Dublin in 1883 and educated in O'Connell Schools and at Mungret Apostolic School, from which he graduated as B.A. in the old Royal University. In 1904 he entered the Society of Jesus at Tronchiennes, Belgium, and he studied philosophy in Louvain before going to teach for four years in St. Aloysius College, Galle, Ceylon.
Returning to Ireland for his course of Theology, he was ordained in Milltown Park in 1916. The following year he was appointed Army Chaplain and he saw service in Flanders and France during the years 1917-1919, succeeding the late Fr. Willie Doyle as chaplain to the “Munsters”. At the end of the war he returned to the Mission in Ceylon, where he remained until 1932, being Director of Studies at $t. Aloysius College, Galle, for six years and later Principal of St. Mary's College, Kegalle.
During the twenty years he spent in Ceylon Fr. Delaney rendered valuable services to the cause of education in that country, where, in St. Aloysius College, Galle, he succeeded another Irishman, the late Fr. Denis Murphy, as Principal. He was responsible for the building and equipment also of St. Mary's College of the Society of Jesus at Kegalle, with a roll of 600 students.
In 1932 he returned again to Ireland to become an outstanding figure as a giver of missions and retreats throughout the country. In 1944 he joined the staff of Gardiner Street Church, where he remained until his death. At Gardiner Street he was Director of the Sodality for members of the Dublin Metropolitan Gardaí, and Director also of the Arch-Association for Work for Poor Churches, the annual Exhibition of Vestments of which he organised so efficiently. For a number of years he was also responsible for the organisation of Irish Jesụit Mission Week in St. Francis Xavier's Hall; and was the imperturbable Traffic Superintendent-in-Chief of the huge Crowds during the Novena of Grace.
For the last year or two of his life he had been in poor health. He died suddenly and peacefully on Wednesday, August 8th. The Civic Guards, whom he had admired so much, did him honour in death. They formed a Guard of Honour in the Church, acted as pall-bearers and lined the path way to the graveside in Glasnevin. The Commissioner, Chief Superintendents and Superintendents were in attendance in the Church and at Glasnevin.
One shall not easily forget the glamour of his rhetoric in the pulpit or the record of his patience and prudence in the confessional. He was particularly successful in the direction of nuns and of scrupulous people. But, indeed, his guidance as a confessor was sought by all classes of people, and he had the very precious gift of being able to inspire people with confidence in their last moments. I think it was just three years ago that Fr. Delaney was flown to the death-bed of a gentleman in London. This gentleman had been away from the sacraments for many years; he had met Fr. Delaney only once, before, and accidentally; but, when he came to die, he asked for Fr. Delaney to help him make his peace with God.
For the past year Fr. Delaney had been almost completely helpless. He required assistance to even change his position in his chair; he could not feed himself. For a man of such abounding energy formerly this was a particularly heavy cross. Yet he bore it with a superb patience. He never murmured. To Fr. Superior and Fr. Minister he would say : “Is there any thing I could do for you?” He was surely touched to receive Fr. General's blessing a few months ago. To Fr. Superior Fr. General had written : “Nuntium de conditione adeo gravi Patris Joannis Delaney maxime dolebam; cui caro Patri qui in ista provincia et in missionibus indicis per tot annos cum zelo laboravit velim Reverentia Vestra paternam benedictionem significet”. Fr. Delaney was especially pleased that he should have been considered a carus pater. He was indeed beloved by all, by none more than by his community. He was a great community man. But, then, he did all things well.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Delaney 1883-1956
Fr John Delaney was born in Dublin in 1883, educated in O’Connell’s Schools and Mungret College, whence he joined the Belgian Province of the Society.

As a scholastic he worked in St Aloysius College, Galle, Ceylon, which he helped attain that position of scholastic achievement, initiated by another Irish Jesuit, Fr Denis Murphy.

Having served as a Chaplain in the First World War, he returned to work in Ceylon until 1932, when he came back to Ireland. Here he became an outstanding figure on the Mission Staff until 1944, when he was appointed as Operarius in Gardiner Street. The glamour of his rhetoric in the pulpit and his patience and prudence in the confessional will not be forgotten. He had a charisma for scrupulous souls. On one occasion he was flown to London to hear the confession of a dying man years away from the Sacraments. This man had only met Fr Delaney once in his life. Such incidents could be multiplied and they speak volumes of the character and spiritual quality of Fr Delaney.

He died on August 8th 1956, a jubilarian of the Society.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1932 : Golden Jubilee

Our Past

Father John J Delaney SJ

Fr J J Delaney SJ was a companion of Father Willie Doyle during the Great War. After years of teaching at St. Aloysius College, Galle, he is now in charge of St. Mary's School, Kegalle, where he has renewed the face of the earth. He is easily the most popular and effective preacher in the island, a wonderful raconteur, and doing no end of good,

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1933

Our Past

Father John J Delaney SJ

Father J J Delaney SJ, (1899-1924) is home from Kegalle, Ceylon. It was said that he came home for a rest. Father John's definition of rest must be change of climate, for he has never ceased work since he returned. He has made a name in Ireland already as a preacher and director of Retreats. On Whit Sunday he received our Sodalists and delighted all the boys with his sermon for the occasion. We have seldom heard so many tributes from them after a sermon.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1957

Obituary

Father John J Delaney SJ

We regret to announce the death of Fr John Delaney which took place on August 8th. Fr Delaney was born in Dublin in 1883. He was educated in O'Connell schools and Mungret Apostolic School where he graduated as a BA in the old Royal University. In 1904 he entered the Society of Jesus at Tronchiennes Belgium. After Philosophy he taught for four years in St Aloysius College, Galle, Ceylon. Returning to Ireland for Theology he was ordained in Milltown Park in 1916. The following year he was appointed military chaplain and saw service in Flanders and France during the years 1917-19. At the end of the war he re turned to Ceylon where he remained until 1932. Here he was responsible for the building of St Mary's College at Kegalle.

In 1932 he returned to Ireland where he became an outstanding giver of Retreats and Missions. In 1944 he joined the staff at Gardiner St, where he remained till his death. In Gardiner St. he was Director of the Sodality of the Dublin Metropolitan Gardai and Director also of the Arch-Association for work for poor Churches. In his life his guidance was sought by all classes of people in the confessional. He was particularly successful in the direction of nuns. At his funeral the Guards formed a guard of honour in the Church, and acted as pall bearers. They whom he admired so much in life honoured him in death. RIP

Born: 04 June 1835, Leighlinbridge, County Carlow
Entered: 20 January 1856, Amiens France (FRA)
Ordained: 1866
Final vows: 02 February 1869
Died: 17 February 1924, St Ignatius, Lower Leeson St, Dublin

by 1866 at Rome, Italy (ROM) studying Theology
by 1866 at Rome, Italy (ROM) Making Tertianship
Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus : 05 August 1909-22 October 1912

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He had studied Philosophy and one year of Theology at Maynooth before Entry.

1858-1866 He did Regency at Clongowes as a Teacher and later at Tullabeg, and then went to for Theology at Rome.
1870-1880 Rector of Tullabeg. Here he completely changed the method of studies. Introduced exams at London University and was mainly responsible for the Intermediate Bill.
He then went on a trip to America with Fr John Moore SJ of ANG.
1873 The Jesuits were asked to take charge of St Patrick’s House which began under Thomas Keating, James Tuite and Robert Carbery. When this house closed, a new one was opened on Temple St with William as Vice-Superior.
1881-1888 He was appointed Vice-Rector of UCD.
1892 He accompanied the Provincial Timothy Kenny to the General Congregation at Loyola which elected Luis Martin as General.
1897-1909 He was appointed Rector of UCD
1909-1912 He was appointed Provincial. When he finished he went to Leeson St as Spiritual Father and died there 17 February 1924.

“He was one of the most remarkable and distinguished Jesuits of the 19th and 20th centuries. Balfour said he was the most cultivated Priest of his time. He was called ‘Doctor’ having been awarded his LLD.

Paraphrase of Excerpts from an Appreciation published on his death :
“The death of ..... deserves more than the usual notice.... No man ever served the people better. Nation-builder........Pioneer in educational reform.........along with Archbishop of Dublin can be regarded as founders of Irish National University Education. Even before the Universities Act, the Intermediate Bill, he developed as a young Priest, standards at Tullabeg which have become an idea for Catholic public schools.
He worked with the O’Conor Don to encourage the Government to endow Secondary Education in Ireland, and this before it was done in England. Then came the Royal Universities Act. Concentrating on Newman’s old buildings in St Stephen’s Green.......they gathered honours and prizes......His success was the final argument needed to win equality of educational endowment and opportunity.
Aside from the political success, those who came to know him as a Priest as well, were touched by his spirituality. His key gift was that of choosing the best men to teach and giving them encouragement and freedom. His short sermons (20 ins) were models. His religious zeal was the source of his public service. It was not a narrow zeal, and he worked with all sorts and conditions for the Glory of God and Ireland”

Paraphrase of excerpts from the Irish Independent article 19 February 1924 “A Pioneer In Irish Education” :
“As the ruler of a great College, whether Tullabeg or UCD, he was chiefly remarkable, I think, for his quickly sympathetic spirit and readiness to accept new ideas. He was neither conservative nor cautious - the refuge of the weak - nor the tenacity of ideas once formed - the defect of the strong. This was equally true of the young man who made Tullabeg the leading College in Ireland and the old man who led his team to victory at UCD over three state supported rivals. He transformed Tullabeg through introducing London University Exams. His encouragement of the Societies at UCD was not only financial but borne of liberal tolerance, best exemplified in his attitude towards Irish Studies. He gathered round him very talented Jesuits and laymen. He also gave money liberally to ‘Irish” things such as “Irish Texts Society”, the Oireachtas and the Dublin Feis.
He managed to publish in his limited free time, his best being a series of Lenten Conferences “Christian Reunion” and “A Plea for Fair Play”. He could be impetuous, but had a quick mind to save himself from many blunders! He was both decisive and inspirational, and could also be very reflective, and he possessed a very generous heart.
Enough to say that the energy which inspired his untiring labours, the patience with which he gently endured trials and misrepresentations, the charity which sought to give help to all the needy, were alike drawn no more from excellence of nature, though that indeed was his, but from an intense spirit of prayer, an abiding realisation of the invisible world, a devout piety which he seemed to retain through life, the simple fervour of a ‘First Communicant’.”

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

Delany, William (1835–1924), Jesuit and president of UCD, was born 4 June 1835 at Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow, second of ten children (of whom five survived) born to John Delany and Mary Delany (née Brennan). As with many Irish catholic families of farming stock, there was an eviction in the background: John Delany had been evicted from the family farm just ten years before William's birth. He moved to Leighlinbridge and set up a small bakery business, which, with the assistance of his strong-willed, resourceful wife, began to prosper. William attended school (1845–51) at Bagenalstown; at home, during the bleak famine years, he assisted in handing out bread and soup to a starving people. At the age of sixteen he requested that he be sent to Carlow College to study for the priesthood. After two years he moved to St Patrick's College, Maynooth. His parents were pleased to learn of his academic success and good general conduct, but considered him extravagant and over-particular in his requests for new clothes. God's ministers should dress carefully and well, he claimed. The lavish use of materials in pursuance of lofty ends was to prove a characteristic feature, which added both to his influence and his troubles.

In January 1856 he joined the Society of Jesus. His noviceship commenced at Saint-Acheul in France and concluded at Beaumont Lodge, near Windsor, in England. Two years followed at Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare, teaching junior classes, and then (August 1860) he was transferred to St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, near Tullamore, King's Co. (Offaly), where (apart from three years at Rome) he was to be stationed for the next twenty years. In this unlikely location he achieved the reputation as an educationist that paved the way to his appointment to the presidency of UCD. After his ordination at Rome (1866) he served for a while as a chaplain of the Irish brigade formed to defend the papal states against the forces of Garibaldi. Soon after his return home (1868) he was reappointed to Tullabeg, this time as prefect of studies and rector. He embarked on an elaborate programme of building, updating facilities, raising academic and cultural standards, tightening discipline, and expanding games activities. His criteria were the more celebrated English public schools, but he placed more emphasis on academic excellence. Some of his fellow Jesuits, highly critical of the expenditure, complained to the general of the order. For a while Delany's hopes and prospects were dimmed, but all was changed when he entered the senior class for the London University examinations and 100 per cent success was achieved. The results received wide acclaim. A feeling of inferiority about academic standards in catholic schools was widespread; Tullabeg's success was seen as justifying claims for equal educational opportunity with the endowed protestant schools. Delany became noted as an educationist, and he was closely consulted by Randolph Churchill, then secretary to the lord lieutenant, his father the duke of Marlborough (qv). Delany's influence was said to be considerable in shaping the two government bills that, as the intermediate act of 1878 and the Royal University act of 1879, changed the face of Irish education; and he was instrumental, together with William Walsh (qv) (1841–1921) of Maynooth, in establishing the Catholic Headmasters’ Association in October 1878.

The success of his college in the London University examinations (and subsequently in the intermediate and RUI examinations) made him an obvious person to be president of the catholic hierarchy's University College, St Stephen's Green, Dublin, the unsuccessful heir to John Henry Newman's (qv) Catholic University. The Jesuits took over the college as it stood in 1883, which meant that the fellows of the RUI were to be among its lecturers and also examiners of the university. This form of monopoly later led to hostility from some other competing colleges and from Walsh, subsequently archbishop of Dublin; but Delany and the senate of the Royal University of Ireland held to the original agreement, arguing that the only hope of obtaining a university for the majority population was by strengthening one college so that it might do outstandingly well and the catholic case for a university prove unanswerable. Delany, moreover, sought to have as many Jesuits as possible as fellows, provided they were fully qualified and the best suited for the advertised posts. By this means the fellows’ salaries would be ploughed back into the college, which was seriously under-funded. The college, under his presidency, proved so successful that it eventually achieved more honours in examinations than the three queen's colleges (Cork, Galway, Belfast) combined, although these were subsidised by the government. The talented staff of the college included Gerard Manley Hopkins (qv), Edmund Hogan (qv), Eoin MacNeill (qv), Tom Finlay (qv), and Thomas Arnold (qv); while among the brilliant student body were James Joyce (qv), Tom Kettle (qv), W. P. Coyne (qv), Arthur Clery (qv), Éamon de Valera (qv), Patrick McGilligan (qv), and John A. Costello (qv). Not surprisingly, Coyne was to remark in 1900: ‘The real work for Ireland is being done over there [University College]’ (Jesuit Fathers, A page of Irish history (1930), 244).

The achievements of UCD and Delany's close links with members of the Irish catholic hierarchy, with key politicians, and with successive chief secretaries and lord lieutenants, all played a part in the eventual solution to the Irish university question in the national university act of 1908. Delany's role was widely praised, yet within a short time he was to be lampooned as anti-Irish and his great services almost forgotten, because he let it be known that he did not approve of making the Irish language an obligatory subject for matriculation in the new university. He had done a great deal to promote Irish historical studies and Irish language and culture, but he did not wish to close off the university to many by having Irish as an entry requirement.

At the age of 74 Delany was appointed Jesuit provincial. He held the office for just three years, yet his was not a mere holding operation. He opened a new residence in Leeson St. for Jesuits lecturing in the university, and a hostel for students in nearby Hatch St.; and he served on the senate of the new university and on the governing body of UCD. Ahead of his time, he advocated the scientific study of agriculture at university level, pressed for education in the areas of industry and commerce, and proposed that UCD move from Earlsfort Terrace to more spacious grounds outside the city, a proposal publicly acknowledged by a later president, Michael Tierney (qv), on the occasion of the college eventually moving to an extensive campus at Belfield. Delany lived for another twelve years. In those years of dramatic change in Ireland, he became an almost forgotten figure: in the words of Cyril Power, SJ, who knew him, ‘a great man who had outlived his reputation’. He died 17 February 1924 at the age of 89.

Thomas Finlay, ‘William Delany, S.J.’, Clongownian (1924); Fathers of the Society of Jesus, A page of Irish history: story of University College, Dublin, 1883–1909 (1930); Thomas J. Morrissey, Towards a national university: William Delany, S.J. (1835–1924) (1983)

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 9th Year No 1 1934

Leeson St :
Monday, November 20th, was a red-letter day in the history of Leeson street, for it witnessed the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the House's foundation. In November, 1833. the Community came into being at 86 St Stephen's Green, where it remained until 1909, when the building was handed over to the newly constituted National University. The Community, however, survived intact and migrated to a nearby house in Lesson Street, where it renewed its youth in intimate relationship with the Dublin College of the University.
Its history falls this into two almost equal periods, different, indeed, in many ways, yet essentially one, since the energies of the Community during each period have been devoted to the same purpose, the furtherance of Catholic University Education in Ireland.
A precious link between the two eras is Father Tom Finlay, who was a member of the Community in 1883, and ever since has maintained his connection with it. His presence on Monday evening, restored to his old health after a severe illness was a source of particular pleasure to the whole gathering. It was also gratifying to see among the visitors Father Henry Browne, who had crossed from England at much personal inconvenience to take part in the celebration. Not only was Father Browne a valued member of the Community for over thirty years, but he acquired additional merit by putting on record, in collaboration with Father McKenna, in that bulky volume with the modest title " A Page of Irish History," the work achieved by the House during the first heroic age of its existence. It was a pleasure, too, to see hale and well among those present Father Joseph Darlington, guide, philosopher and friend to so many students during the two periods. Father George O'Neill, who for many years was a distinguished member of the Community, could not, alas be expected to make the long journey from his newer field of fruitful labor in Werribee, Australia.
Father Superior, in an exceptionally happy speech, described the part played by the Community, especially in its earlier days of struggle, in the intellectual life of the country. The venerable Fathers who toiled so unselflessly in the old house in St. Stephens Green had exalted the prestige of the Society throughout Ireland. Father Finlay, in reply, recalled the names of the giants of those early days, Father Delany, Father Gerald Hopkins, Mr. Curtis and others. Father Darlington stressed the abiding influence of Newman, felt not merely in the schools of art and science, but in the famous Cecilia Street Medial School. Father Henry Browne spoke movingly of the faith, courage and vision displayed by the leaders of the Province in 1883, when they took on their shoulders such a heavy burden. It was a far cry from that day in 1883, when the Province had next to no resources, to our own day, when some sixty of our juniors are to be found, as a matter of course preparing for degrees in a National University. The progress of the Province during these fifty years excited feelings of
admiration and of profound gratitude , and much of that progress was perhaps due to the decision, valiantly taken in 1883 1883, which had raised the work of the Province to a higher plane.

◆ Fr Joseph McDonnell SJ Past and Present Notes :

Later the performance of the Jesuits in managing UCD with little or no money, and then outperforming what were known as the “Queen’s Colleges” forced the issue of injustice against Catholics in Ireland in the matter of University education. It is William Delaney who headed up the effort and create the National University of Ireland under endowment from the Government.

◆ The Clongownian, 1924

Father William Delany SJ : Rector of Tullabeg 1870-1880

Father Delany’s career was much too big a thing to be even sketched out in outline in such a magazine as this. Scores of his friends have written emphasising this or that side of his great work, and their testimony is undeniable. His life-work was for Catholic Education. It began when, after his studies in Carlow, Maynooth and St Acheul, he went to teach in Tullabeg and Clongowes during the years 1859-1865. It was in Rome that he received his ordination, and he was chaplain to the Papal Zouaves in the critical year of 1869-70. But, returning to Ireland at the early age of thirty-five, he took command at Tullabeg, where he was destined to rule for ten years. In 1889 he came to Dublin, and from that time on, till the passing of the University Act in 1909, he was, in one capacity or another, the soul of the hard fight for that fair play in University studies which was the ambition of all far-seeing Catholics. That that fight was won so triumphantly is due in part to him. The policy which he followed for forty years was ever the same. He took whatever material he could obtain, first the small school of Tullabeg, then the limited numbers of University College, and he showed that, handicapped for funds, equipment, and even staff, these students of his could meet and overcome the far more numerous and more favoured sons of Protestant institutions. It was an ambitious and difficult task. It depended on never failing success, on inspir ing generation after generation of students, on persuading generation after generation of statesmen, on commanding the absolute devotion of generation after generation of helpers. This Father Delaney did, step by step, now using the London Matriculation, now the Intermediate System, now the Royal University, he made good his proposition, that Irish Catholics were capable of profiting by and desirous of the best education possible. It had been considered an absurdity in forty years Father Delany made it an axiom. Clongowes is proud to have shared with Tullabeg and University College in that work.

When the National University was achieved Father Delany became from 1909-1912 Provincial of the Irish Jesuits, and in that capacity did much to help the youthful University. In 1912 his health broke down, and from that time he lived in ever growing retirement. But to the last his keen intellect and tender heart never changed, and to many, many people the death of this old man was the loss of an intimate friend. We have said little of Father Delany's greatest quality, his charity, the tributes which follow, tributes of friends who knew him intimately must bring home to our readers how altogether lovable was this greatest of our Rectors.

-oOo-

Father Delany as I Knew Him : M McD Bodkin KC

Father Delany’s death was a great blow to me. It was the severance of a friend ship that lasted from the days of my boyhood. I had the good luck to have him for my master in 1st of Grammar class at Tullabeg, and the recollection of his tuition is one of the pleasantest of a long and happy life. Few school-boys will credit the statement that the hours spent in Father Delany's classroom were the happiest of our school life, but I confidentiy appeal to my old class-mate, Father Tom Gartlan, one time Rector of Riverview College, Australia, for confirmation. Father Delaney was an ideal master; he made study adelight. From every boy he evoked what was best in him. His influence inspired us. To the driest subject he could impart interest, and he could always find time for pleasant talk during class hours. Father Delany anticipated Pelman in the cultivation of memory. He taught us to remember by constant mechanical repetition, without thought of the meaning that might come before or after; his object was to get the words indelibly impressed on the memory. One of the feats he accomplished in this way was a bit out of the common. When he first suggested the test his amazed class unanimously declared it impossible. But the thing was done all the same. At the annual “conversatio” at the College, attended by a crowd of visitors, three of the class presented themselves without books, and in reply to the Rector repeated from, translated, parsed, and scanned passages selected at random from the second book of Virgil's Æneid.

My friendship with Father Delany, begun in my school days, stretched out into my after-life. I frequently visited my old college during the years of his preeminently successful rectorship, when it headed the schools of Ireland, Catholic and Protestant, under the Intermediate Education, Act (an Act, by the way, which I helped him to draft into legal form, clause by clause, nearly fifty years ago, in one of the parlours of Tullabeg). He ruled not by fear, but by affection. Physical punishment was almost unknown; he trusted to the honour of his boys. One little incident may be cited to illustrate the working of his system. It hap pened when I was present as a guest at the annual athletic sports: of the College. The most popular - if not the most important- event of the day was a blindfold race, to be won by the boys who passed first: through a pair of goal-posts about a quarter of a mile distant from the starting post. It was open to the entire school, for in such a race, it was plain that speed or endurance counted for nothing: the tortoişe had just as good a chance as the hare. I was beside Father Delany when he walked down the long line of boys, their eyes bound up in variegated handkerchiefs. Like a general reviewing his troops, Father Delany passed down the line. About the middle of the line he stopped and cried out in that clear voice of his that carried like a bell, “Now, boys, mind you are on your honour that none of you can see”. At the call there was a wavering and breaking up of the line. A score or so of the boys quitted the ranks and with self-convicting certitude went straight back yo the Prefect to be re-bandaged. So long a it was a trial of skill between the Prefect who did the bandarino and the boy it was lawful to best the enemy, but honor, once invoked there was a self-imposed master whose orders could not be evaded. In that short story there is perhaps more of the spirit that made Father Delany's Tullabeg such a success than many commissions and printed reports could give.

From the time I first met him to the date of his death. Father Delany always looked at least twenty-years younger than his age. He told me of an amusing incident which occurred when he was elaborating a system of Irish secondary education in conjunction with the Duke of Marlborough, then Lord Lieutenant, and Lord Randolph Churchill. After a good deal of correspondence, it was arranged that they should meet the Rector at his College. When they were shown into the Library, where Father Delany awaited them, there was an awkward silence for a moment. Then the Duke asked Father Delany if they might soon hope to see the Rector. In the explanation which followed, the visitors confessed that they thought the young man was a divinity student.

I frequently met Father Delany in later years, when at a further stage in his great campaign for higher education to Catholics he found himself President of the old University College Stephen's Green To him more than any man alive or dead, Ireland, owes the National University, and I am glad to think that I helped little in the good work by articles in “The Fortnightly Review”, setting out the overwhelming successes of: the students of University College in the examinations of the Royal University. It was only a little part in a vast work, but Father Delany showed as much interest and enthusiasm about my “inspired” controversial articles as if they were the main machinery of his scheme, and not a mere detail. It was thus he could command every man's best work.

In still later years I had many delightful conversations with Father Delany, even after he was confined to his own room in Leeson Street To the very last, his brilliancy of conversation, his indescribable fascination of manner, ranging from grave to gay, from serious to serene was maintained. Here is a story he told me only a few weeks befor his death. A member of the Order was constrained to make a journey alone through (I think) some un explored part of Northern Canada. He lost his way. On one occasion he returned after a day's journey to the camp he had set out from the night before. On another he was captured by a band of Indians. While he was pondering on his probable fate the leader approached him. “Don't be the laste taste afeared, yer Reverence”, he said, “sure we wouldn't hurt a hair of your head”. It was a Tipperary man who, for his skill in shooting, trapping and trailing had been promoted to the chieftainship of the band. Part of Father Delany's charm was that he could appreciate the very simple humour of such a story. He told it, if I remember rightly, as an interlude in a long discussion on the nature of duration in Eternity.

Having written of those frivolous recollections of a man so distinguished as my old master, I am ashamed of them, But they may serve to illustrate one of the many sides of his character. His learning, his piety and his incalculable services to Irish education must be recorded by a far abler pen than mine.

-oOo-

Father Delany as I Knew Him : T A Finlay SJ

A great many years have passed since Father Delany was a member of the Clongowes staff. But his name and his work deserve to be remembered enduringly in the College. What he accomplished in a wider field has profoundly affected the School in common with all the Secondary Schools of Ireland. The course of studies and the examination tests as they now stand are part of a system which he did much to bring into being. He was a notable figure in that movement for reform in education which has resulted in so many changes, and the force of which is not yet spent. His share in that move ment may be left to others to record in detail; it belongs to the chronicle of public events. In these pages a brief account of his life, as his intimate friends saw it lived, will be more appropriate.

Father Delany was born eighty-nine years ago in Leighlinbridge, a small village oil the Barrow, some miles below the town of Carlow. This village has been the birth place of more than one man of eminence. Not to mention contemporaries still living. Cardinal Moran was born here, and here, too, Professor Tyndall, of scientific fame, first saw the light. Father Delany received his early education in Carlow College, whence he passed to Maynooth. In the latter institution he had advanced to the second year of his theological course, when his vocation to the Society of Jesus came to him. He entered the Society in the year 1856. After a two years' noviceship at St Acheul, near Amiens, he was appointed to the Clongowes staff, and subsequently to that of St Stanislaus' College, Tullamore. In 1865 he was sent to Rome to complete his theological studies. On his way to the Eternal City he made acquaintance with the scenery of the Rhine, of Switzerland and of the Italian Lakes, as well as with the architectural wonders of Cologne, Strasbourg and Milan. In letters to his relatives, still preserved, he gives account of his impressions. The great mediæval, cathodrals fill him with reverent awe. Crossing the Alps in a diligence was one of the excitements of travel in the days before the mountains were tunnelled. He writes appreciativuly of his experience: “Fancy going for miles along a road cut in the face, of a cliff 1,600 feet high, about half way up, the rocks overhanging the road in many places-looking down over a little wall into a mountain torrent 600 to 800 feet below, and facing you on the other side a wall of rock so close that the daylight can hardly steal down to you”.

In the lecture halls of the Roman College Father Delany had as his professors men whose names and works were known throughout the Catholic world - Perrone, Franzelin, Cardella, Ballerini, and others. He is enthusiastic in his praise of them. His enthusiasm takes in the hall in which the lectures are delivered. The students of the College number some 1,600. Of these about 320 are in the school of theology “in the very room where Bellarmine, Suarez, Lessius and a host of others no less able, if less known, held out to similarly crowded audiences”. The very “air of the place ought to be saturated with learning of every kind. And still more ought it, as I really think it does, breathe of sanctity”.

Father Delany was ordained priest in 1866. This was an anxious year for Papal Rome. The defeat of Austria cleared the way for the unification of Italy, and the hesitating policy of Napoleon III withheld the armies of Victor Emmanuel from an invasion of the States of the Church. The anxieties of the time are reflected in Father Delany's letters to his friends. In the following year Garibaldi invaded the Papal States, but was defeated at Mentana, and fled, leaving an embarrassing number of prisoners in the hands of the Pope's soldiers. Of this event Father Delany sends home a vivid account. In the year 1867 he passed his final examination. He also served for a time as Chaplain to the Irish Zouaves in the Pope's service, and in the course of his duties came into unpleasant collision with the Zouave commander, de Charette. He returned to Ireland in 1868, and in 1870 was appointed Rector of Tullabeg. There began his activities in the cause of educational reform. To make clear the desire of Irish Catholics for opportunities of higher education, and to demonstrate their capacity to utilise that provided he prepared some of his more advanced pupils for the examinations of the London University and of the higher grades of the Civil Service. The experiment opened a career of distinction to more than one among them. Of the fortunate number were the late Sir Joseph McGrath, the late Mr Michael Crowley, Commissioner of Inland Revenue at Somerset House, and Sir Michael O'Dwyer, late Liutenant-Governor of the Punjab.

During the ten years of his Rectorship at Tullabeg the educational claims of Catholics were pressed vigorously and unceasingly, by none more vigorously than by Father Delany. Toward the end of the period the first concession was made to these demands: the intermediate system was established and modestly endowed. The foundation of the Royal University followed soon after. Father Delany was now transferred to Dublin and appointed Rector of St Ignatius College, which was to work in connection with the new University. The University, modelled upon the Intermediate scheme, was a mere examining body; it made no provision for the education of its students. To prepare for its examinations Catholics who declined to avail themselves of the endowed Queen's Colleges were obliged to maintain teaching institutions of their own. This injustice Father Delany denounced by voice and pen. He adopted a still more effective means of fixing public attention on the: Catholic grievance. In University College, St Stephen's Green, of which he became President in 1883, he devoted himself to the task of preparing his students for competition in the University examinations with the students of Queen's Colleges. Year by year the list of distinctions awarded to University College grew longer and longer, till at last it exceeded in length the combined list of the three endowed institutions. The situation thus created was more than inequitable, it bordered on the grotesque. Mr, Birrell put an end to it by establishing the National University, and endowing the Dublin College.

With the close of the long struggle in which he had taken so strenuous a part, Father Delany's participation in affairs of public import may be said to have ended. Old age was creeping on, pressing on his attention issues more vital than those which parlia ments discuss. After three years given to the duties of Provincial of the Irish Province of his Order, he devoted himself almost exclusively to his priestly functions and to the religious exercises which sanctify personal life. He undertook a treatise designed to confute some of the current forms of unbelief; but this task, too great for his failing powers, was eventually abandoned. In continuous communion with God, he waited through the evening of life for the Master's summons. When it came he received it obediently, humbly trusting that he had put to profit the talent entrusted to him.

Born: 07 March 1899, Australia
Entered: 10 September 1924, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)

Left Society of Jesus: 1927

no date of leaving as no official notice from Australia, therefore not included in Roman letter

Leaving has something to do with monies

Born: 13 November 1918, Cleveland OH, USA
Entered: 01 September 1938, Milford OH, USA - Chicagensis Province (CHG)
Ordained: 13 June 1951
Final vows: 02 February 1956
Died: 14 May 2000, Clarkston MI, USA - Detroitensis Province (DET)

by 1971 came to Leeson St (HIB) working

Born: 18 May 1832, Clane, County Kildare
Entered: 09 September 1860, Clongowes Wood College SJ, County Kildare
Final vows: 15 August 1873
Died: 03 October 1904, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He spent many years of his life as a shoemaker at Clongowes, Milltown and Mungret.
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.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - PATRICK. Began in Clongowes. Came to Noviceship 09 September 1860.

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

Left Society of Jesus: 14 August 1919

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 27 August 1899, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 31 August 1917, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 14 June 1932, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1935, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 30 April 1982, St Joseph's Nursing Home, Kilcroney, County Wicklow

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

by 1924 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER I) studying
by 1934 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 57th Year No 3 1982

Obituary

Fr Vincent Dennehy (1899-1917-1982)

My first glimpse of Vincent Dennehy was on 1st September 1919; he was a Junior preparing himself for the University; the place was Tullabeg. His singular carriage of his head and his red face singled him out from the others.
Ten years later in the theologate at Milltown Park we really got to know each other. He was a most helpful and thoughtful person. He was keen that all in the house should share in all that went on. When we revived the Gilbert and Sullivan operas at Christmas time he arranged to have a short play or sketch put before the G & S musical. This was done in order that those who were not singers might have a medium in which to entertain their fellow-students and guests.
He was ordained in Congress year, on 14th June 1932. The ordinations were early that year so that we might exercise the ministry to celebrate the bringing of the Gospel to Ireland by St Patrick.
Once the Congress got under way there followed a gruelling beginning to the priestly life in the Dublin churches; midnight often saw us returning from a day spent hearing confessions. It was an immediate and satisfying beginning to our priestly life.
A year later we were together in St Beuno's, North Wales, for our tertianship. This time of renewal was well spent in many acts of sharing and good-fellow- ship. Fr Vincent stood out in this respect and was always in good humour, so that despondent persons found in him a very rational and down-to-earth remedy for their worries.
He was always a man of principle and indeed his favourite argument in favour was always “the principle of the thing”.

A good human Jesuit of those days, untiring in doing good for others, and loyal to the Ignatian way.
At the Crescent, Limerick (1939-949), with Fr Bill Saul (d. 1976), he was involved in the revival of the Cecilian Musical Society in the 1940s. The daughter of the regiment was one of the shows staged by the CMS in those days.

From the time he was assigned to the duty of promoting the cause of Fr John Sullivan, Fr Vincent found a renewal of energy and a stimulating purpose. He really rejoiced in his close association with Fr John and during the many years of his apostolate of promotion he gained the co-operation and affection of a large number of persons. Vincent’s zeal for the work was infectious – so much so that he could and did enlist the help of a number of car owners; from them he formed a panel of drivers, each one pledged to call for him at 6.15 pm on the day of the week agreed upon. From that hour until 10 pm or later he was brought to hospitals and private houses to bless with Fr John's crucifix all who had been listed for that particular day. At a late snack between 10.30 and 11 one could be sure of meeting a very tired but happy Fr Vincent.
North of the Border there is widespread devotion to Fr John, and Vincent travelled there whenever he was wanted. He was in Belfast very shortly after the attempted murder of Bernadette McAliskey (née Devlin) and was delighted to have been called to bless the still unconscious young woman. That she recovered was, no doubt, due to Fr John's intercession, Vincent was so unsparing of himself and so utterly dedicated to his apostolate that he could be quite testy with anyone who seemed to impede or belittle the work. Nor would he allow Fr John to be second fiddle to anyone else however renowned for sanctity. If a patient had on display a picture of someone such as Padre Pio, Fr Vincent passed by! When Vincent's long suffering ended in death I am sure Fr John was at the gate to welcome his confrère and friend.

Born: 04 July 1915, Shipley, Yorkshire, England
Entered: 12 February 1931, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 06 January 1945, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 15 August 1948
Died: 19 October 1993, St Ignatius College, Manresa, Athelstone, Adelaide, Australia- Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
Brother of Frank - RIP 1992

At age four his family of two brothers and two sisters emigrated from England to Australia. His early education was at Footscray and Ascot Vale, and then at St Patrick’s College Melbourne, where his father was a music teacher. He was considered a very good scholar and was aged 15 and a half when he Entered the Society at Loyola Greenwich in 1931.

After First Vows he went to the University of Melbourne where he graduated BA in Applied Mathematics, with Latin, Greek and British History as part of his BA.
1939-1941 He was sent for a Regency to St Patrick’s College Melbourne, Prefecting, Editing the “Patrician” and caring for the tuck shop.
1945-1949 After Theology and Ordination he was sent to St Louis School in Perth as Prefect of Studies.
1949-1951 He was appointed Rector at St Patrick’s College. His term was cut short after he suffered a car accident which permanently affected him.
1951-1953 He was back teaching at St Louis School
1954 He was sent to the new school St Ignatius College Norwood, and went to Athelstone when that school was opened. During his early years at Norwood he worked hard. He taught Mathematics and Religion, and often had eight classes a day. He was also involve in co-curriculars as well as saying public Masses in the Parish, especially on Sundays. Only very occasionally could he enjoy trips to the beach or walks in the hills.

Those who knew him were amazed by his fascination with preserving tradition. He was meticulous in keeping records for the College. Each year the College magazine recorded marriages, birth of children and deaths of former students, as well as the deaths of their parents. he kept a record of every student who entered the school, and at the time of his death there were 4861 entries. Each student had a card on which essential details about his life were recorded. He had performed the same task at St Louis School. Each year he undertook the task of studying the telephone directory to not any change of address or telephone number of students and ex students. In addition, each day he collected the newspaper and systematically checked all notices for any information about students. He retired from teaching at the end of 1988 after a heart attack, and in 1900 he began his memoirs.

He was a most precise teacher and scrupulous in his presentation of material. Only the best was acceptable. He was also quite conservative theologically, and somewhat fearful of modern ideas in theology and education. So he found change difficult. However, e generally kept these ideas to himself unless provoked. At the same time, this contrasted with his ready acceptance of other changes, and he was one of the first to adopt less formal garb and his wearing of shorts often provided amusement.

He loved the Society and loved to hear anecdotes and stories about fellow Jesuits.

He was a shy man and somewhat reclusive. He loved music. He had once been an excellent pianist and in the early days had been the accompanist for the school choir and the operettas. In the evenings he like to list to his favourite classical pieces and play patience.

He was essentially an intellectual and yet he found work in the grounds very beneficial to his health. He attacked cape weed, Salvation Jane and Scotch thistle with his normal precise approach to anything he did.

His life was one of order and self-discipline, dedication, commitment and fidelity. He took great care of his health, especially when travelling and would not wear a seat belt in a car or plane because of his fears from his car accident. He always said a private Mass at the same time each morning. In his latter years he had withdrawn from pastoral involvement. He was happy in his devotion to duty, precision in everything and a desire for excellence in service/

Born: 17 February 1912, Shipley, Yorkshire, England
Entered: 25 February 1928, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 26 July 1942, Heythrop, Oxford, England
Final vows: 02 February 1945
Died: 15 September 1992, St Joseph. Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
Brother of Charles - RIP 1993

At age seven his family of two brothers and two sisters emigrated from England to Australia. His early education was at Footscray and Ascot Vale, and then at St Patrick’s College, Melbounre, where his father was a music teacher

He joined the Society in 1928 and after First Vows his studies took him to Ireland where he gained a BA at University College Dublin, then Philosophy at Chieri Italy and then England where he was Ordianed. General Ledochowski described Chieri as the most austere house in the Society, and Frank agreed but said it did not upset him as much as some other Australians.

1946-1953 He was sent to teach English, History, Economics and religion at St Ignatius College Riverview, and he was also in charge of debating and the Choir. His keen interest in History resulted in his publishing a textbook “Europe a History” which revealed his conviction that the Church had nothing to fear from a dispassionate examination of the facts of its history.
1954-1965 He taught English at St Patrick’s College Melbourne, and was also Prefect of Studies (1962-1965). He edited the “Patrician”, and his editorials were always full of wisdom, wit and grace.
1966-1967 He was sent teaching at St Ignatius Riverview
1968-1970 He was sent teaching St Ignatius College Athelstone, but his primary mission here was to look after his health.
1971-1973 He was sent to Canisius College Pymble, again paying attention to his health and caring for the grounds.
1974 He was appointed province Archivist and moved to the Provincial Residence in Melbourne

All during his long life he was a very faithful man and at peace with himself and the world round him doing the most humble of tasks. At the same time he was a scholar and well versed in Jesuit Spirituality, and this was demonstrated when he gave the Spiritual Exercises and in his writings, which were always clear, precise and informative. His memory for detail added richness to the narrative. For example, when writing on devotion to the Sacred Heart at a tie when it was becoming neglected he was able to capture it with a modern freshness of style and expression enkindling a greater devotion among younger Jesuits and understanding of this traditional Jesuit devotion. He also wrote “The Spiritual Exercises in Australia”, poems and historical articles. His eye for historical detail was meticulous and his knowledge and memory were prodigious.

He enjoyed the work as a Province Archivist, as it gave scope to his historical scholarship and precision. He was helpful to research scholars. His knowledge of the contents of the archives was also prodigious, as was his memory of the people and events of his own lifetime. With the assistance of Austin Ryan he compiled a short biography of every Jesuit who had lived and worked in Australia. His comments on each man were precise and accurate, frequently dispelling oral myths. His last major task was to catalogue the Archives so that others would be easily able to find material in the future.

It would be difficult to find anyone more regular in his life than Frank Dennett. He worked in the basement of the Provincial Residence seven days a week during three sessions, morning, afternoon and evening, broken only by an irregular outside visit to a bookshop,. He died at his desk.

He was a man with a strong sense of the frailty of the human condition and compassion for people. He bore his long illness with enormous courage and patience. He was a quiet retiring man, whose interests varied from the most serious intellectual subjects to sport. He was close to his family and corresponded fairly regularly with his siblings, especially his Jesuit brother Charles. His tasks as a Jesuit Teacher, Historian and Archivist, Cook and Administrator were accomplished with a great sense of obligation and responsibility, and each was performed as perfectly as possible. In his younger years the scholastics admired the way in which he sung the Easter ceremonies at Newman College Chapel, a task he performed most exactly and with obvious enjoyment. He had a fine singing voice.

He was a man who thought very little of himself and served the Society with great thoroughness.

Irish Province of the Society of Jesus task force on education.

Born: 02 February 1660, County Cork
Entered: 01 November 1679, Toulouse, France - Tolosanae Province (TOLO)
Died: 21 March 1684, Annecy, France - Tolosanae Province (TOLO)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows studied Philosophy at Toulouse and then sent for Regency to Le Puy teaching Grammar. After a few months he was struck by illness and died at Annecy 21 March 1684.

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: 1657, Fannystown, Duncormick, County Wexford
Entered: 11 June 1681, Coimbra, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)
Ordained: c.1693, Coimbra, Portugal
Died: 12 July 1694, Porto, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)

Alias Wareus

1693 Minister of Irish College Lisbon and working in Theology - Vereus was said to be Minister there in 1700

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Lived in Portugal and had been a merchant. Converted to religious life by seeing the ravage done by lightening. He was a pious, angelic, and affable Priest. (Franco)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had done studies at Coimbra before Ent 11 June 1681 in the same city
After First Vows he continued his studies at Coimbra and was Ordained there by 1693, though his health was poor.
1693 At the Irish College Lisbon as Minister, though still engaged in studies.
He was in delicate health and died 12 July 1694.

Born: 1632, Ireland
Entered: 22 January 1658, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)
Ordained: pre entry
Died: 08 September 1660, Angola - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)

Catalogus Defuncti 1641-1740 has Antonius Ferreira RIP 01 August 1663 Angola (HS48 12v Lusit)

Catalogus Defuncti 1640-1670 says Antonius Voras (al de Veras) RIP 08 September 1650 Angola (HS48 63v et Foley, Hibern)

and

Catalogus Defuncti 1640-1670 says Antonius Veras (de) (al de Veras) (hibern n 1632, ingr 1658) RIP 08/09/1660 in Angola (HS48 10v - cfr. Lus.45:222v (catal, I, 1658): Pater Ant. d'Veras - Transtag)