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Fleming, Richard, 1542-1590, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1314
  • Person
  • 1542-26 August 1590

Born: 1542, County Westmeath
Entered: 1561, Louvain, Belgium - Franciae Province (FRA)
First Vows: 24 June 1563, Louvain, Belgium
Ordained: 16 December 1569
Final Vows: 4 June 1576, received by Peter Canisius
Died: 26 August 1590, Pont-à-Mousson, France - Franciae Province (FRA)

1565-1566 Theology in Roman College and German College. Master of Arts
1567 CAT Teaching Logic at Dillingen - sent from Rome by Fr de Borgia. Peter Canisius at Dillingen then - Fleming brought a letter to him from Borgia in Rome
1570 Licenced, Teaching Theology at school. Confessor
1572 At Ingolstadt
1576 Was Professor in France (Vatical Arch Inghilterra). Rector of Bordeaux College
1577 Sought by Fr Genat from Fr General for Pont-à-Mousson
1583 In Pont-à-Mousson teaching Theology Doctor of Philosophy and Theology. Chancellor 1584-1585
Wrote first Catalogue of Irish Saints - published by Fitzsimon
Fr General wrote to him at Bordeaux referring to him as Socius to Maldonatus

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica”
He was a man of great virtue; A Writer; First Chancellor and Professor of Theology at Pont à Mousson, also Professor at Clermont and Paris (succeeding the celebrated Maldonatus)
The Blessed Virgin revealed to him in Paris that Fr Aquaviva would be elected General of the Society (cf Fr Hogan’s Irish list). Sacchini Part V Hist. Soc. mentions this prediction at Paris in 1581, of the election of Fr Claudius Aquaviva as general of the Society. He is mentioned in the “L’Université de Pont-à-Mousson” by Fr Nicolas Abram SJ (publised by Fr Carayon SJ, Paris 1870) - “He was of a noble Irish family and of noble and religious bearing”; Probably the “Richard” mentioned in Shirley’s letters; Stanihurst in “Description of Ireland” 1586 says “..of him I hear a great report, to be an absolute Divine and Professor thereof”. His name stands first in the list taken from the original in Vol II Anglia Hist. in ARSI. He appeared to Fr Derbyshire after his death.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Richard Fleming 1540-1592
Our most eminent and honoured Theologian of the early years of the Penal times was Fr Richard Fleming. Born in 1540, in what was afterwards known as Westmeath, he came from the family of the Lords of Slane, a family which later have an Archbishop to the See of Dublin. Richard entered the Society in 1561, the year the first Irish Jesuit, Fr David Wolfe, landed at Cork.

He became the first Chancellor of the University founded at Pont-à-Mousson by the Cardinal of Lorraine in 1573. Two years later he was called upon to fill the chair of Theology at the College of Clermont, Paris, vacated by the celebrated Maldonatus. This eminent post he held for nine or ten years, professing with ever increasing success amid the full blaze of Parisian party spirit.

He retired to Pont-à-Mousson where he died on August 25th 1590. Before his death he had a vision of Our Lady, in which he was left into the General Congregation then in session in Rome, and heard Our Lady say to the Electors “Choose Claudio Acquaviva as General”.

Fleury, Augustin, 1855-1931, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1315
  • Person
  • 11 January 1855-29 January 1931

Born: 11 January 1855, Delémont, Jura, Switzerland
Entered: 31 October 1873, Sankt Andrä, Austria - Austriaco-Hungaricae Province (ASR-HUN)
Ordained: 1888
Final Vows: 02 February 1891
Died: 29 January 1931, St Aloysius, Sevenhill, Adelaide, Australia

Transcribed ASR-HUN to HIB : 01 January 1901

◆ 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 Sankt Andrä, Austria in 1891.

1878-1880 After First Vows he studied Rhetoric at Posen (Poznań, Poland), Autria
1881-1884 He was sent for Regency to Kollegium Kalksburg teaching French and Prefect of boarders.
1884-1887 He was sent to Innsbruck for Theology
1888-1897 He was sent back to Kollegium Kalksburg
1898 He was sent on the Australian Mission, immediately being posted to the Northern Territory to work with Aborigines. A few years after this Mission Station closed, he spent a year at Riverview and a couple of years at Sevenhill.
1905-1916 He was sent to the Richmond Parish
1916-1921 He was back working at Sevenhill
1921-1928 He was sent back to the Richmond Parish
1928-1931 He returned to Sevenhill

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 6th Year No 2 1931
Obituary :
Fr Augustin Fleury

Fr. A. Fleury died at Sevenhills 29 Jan. 1931.

He was born 11 Jan. 1855, and entered the Austrian Province at St. Andra, Lavanttal, Kärten (Carinthia), where he also made his Juniorate. After phil., Theol., Tertianship he spent a great many years as Prefect at Kalksburg, and in 1889 started for Australia. The final transfer of the South Australian Mission from the Austrian to the Irish Province took place in 1901 , and in that year Fr. Fleury was working among the Blacks at Port Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. He joined the Irish Province, and in the following year was changed to Riverview. In 1903 he became Minister at the Sevenhills Residence, From that date to his death he worked in Residences, spending 13 years in Richmond, 6 at St. James', Somerset St., 9 at Sevenhills. He was Minister for 5 years at Sevenhills, and for 5 more at Richmond. The Mission to the Blacks in Northern Territory, mentioned above, entrusted to the Society in 1882. When Dr. Reynolds, Bishop of Adelaide, was in Europe Pope Leo XIII exhorted him to give to some religious order the work of converting the Australian aborigines. The Bishop approached our Father General on the subject. He consented and entrusted the new Mission to the Austrian Fathers. Fr. Strele was appointed Superior, and on 3. Sept. 1882 he started for Post Darwin, accompanied by Fr. Neubauer and John Francis O'Brien, and Br. Eberhard, all of the Austrian Province.
Notwithstanding a good round sum that had been collected before leaving the South, the Fathers soon found their efforts hampered for want of funds up in that destitute northern region, and in 1886 Fr. Strele went on a begging tour, for the sake of his Blacks through the United States. The effort was not a success, and he then tried Austria with better results. While he was away the Bishop of the Northern Territory, resigned his see, and Leo XIII insisted on Fr. Strele becoming provisional Administrator. To lessen his work Fr. D. McKillop was appointed in 1890 to take charge of the Mission.
Failing health compelled Fr. Strele to return to the South in 1892. He lived on for three years and died a holy death in 1897.
In 1899 an extraordinary flood nearly ruined the Mission Establishment. At that time there was a Plenipotentiary, Fr. Milz, S. J., in Australia who had come to arrange the transfer of the South Australian Mission from the Austrian to the Irish Province. He hastened to the scene of the disaster and after mature deliberation decided to abandon the Mission altogether.
He sent most of the Fathers and Brothers hack to Austria, leaving two Fathers and one Brother to work the place until the Bishop of Geraldton to whom the district had been confided, should make due provision. This took place in July 1899.
In the Irish Catalogue of 1902 we find the following :
Residentia spud Port Darwin
(Port Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia)
R. P. Franciscus Ser. O’Brien. Admin. Dioec. Port Victoriae
P. Augustinus Fleury, Oper (pro Nigritis)
Coadjutor
Augustinus Melzer, Coq. Ad dorn
Next year (1903) P. Franciscus Ser. O'Brien (without the “R” before his name) was stationed at Sevenhill, Fr. Fleury, at Riverview, Br. Melzer at Miller St. our connection with the Northern Territory had come to an end.

Flinn, William, 1815-1875, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1316
  • Person
  • 17 March 1815-21 May 1875

Born: 17 March 1815, Monsea, County Tipperary
Entered: 07 December 1857, Santa Clara CA, USA - Taurensis Province (TAUR)
Final vows: 19 March 1868
Died: 21 May 1875, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara CA, USA - Taurensis Province (TAUR)

Flynn, John, 1860-1884, Jesuit scholastic

  • IE IJA J/1317
  • Person
  • 04 September 1860-18 August 1884

Born: 04 September 1860, St Louis, MO, USA
Entered: 18 September 1880, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died; 18 August 1884, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia

Early Irish Australian Mission 1882

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was raised at both Wexford and St Louis, MO, USA. When he came back to Ireland he received an education at Tullabeg.

Due to health issues he was sent to Australia while still a Novice, and he made his First Vows at Riverview, Sydney. By that stage he knew his recovery was hopeless, but he performed his duties as Second Prefect with all his remaining energy, until a few days before his death. He received the Last Sacraments on August 13th 1884, and his next few days were spent in meditation and prayer. His weakness increased rapidly and he died calmly in his chair on the night of 18/08/1884. A zealous promoter of the Holy Childhood, he had collected five pounds just before he died for the redemption of Chinese children.

Note from Edmund Bohan Entry :
1882 He was sent for Regency to Australia with John Flynn, both being delicate in health.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
John Flynn spent much of his childhood in the USA. After education at St Stanislaus' College, Tullabeg, he entered the Society at Milltown Park in September 1880. After a year it was discovered he had consumption and was sent to Australia with another novice sufferer, Edmund Bohan, and arrived in December 1882. He went to Riverview where he took vows, but the disease was worse than expected and little could be done. He worked in the school as second division prefect up to a few days before he died.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Born in America of Irish parents (County Wexford)

Fogarty, Thomas, 1809-1841, Jesuit scholastic

  • IE IJA J/1318
  • Person
  • 29 November 1809-14 December 1841

Born: 29 November 1809, County Waterford
Entered: 01 July 1833, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England (ANG) / St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 14 December 1841, Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Clongowes, where he studied Humanities and Rhetoric. On leaving Clongowes he went into business and stayed at that for a number of years. he had a reputation as a highly talented artist, and when he decided to join the Society, lest his paintings and repute would interfere with his desires, he burned all his paintings.

He visited Tullabeg in late June, and went from there to Hodder for his Noviceship. He made part of his Novitiate at Hodder and part at Tullabeg. After First Vows he was sent to Clongowes for Regency. He was then sent to Belgium for Theology, but after one year there, he had to return to Ireland for health reasons. However, consumption took hold, as it had in two of his brothers who had died from it. Although weak, he showed great patience, and his Superiors looked after him very well. Calmly and peacefully he waited for the end, and his last request to one of the community at Clongowes was “Father, I am dying, give me the Plenary Indulgence”.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Scholastic Thomas Fogarty 1809-1841
At Clongowes on 14th December 1841 died Thomas Fogarty, a scholastic. Before entering the Society he had been earnestly fond of painting, and unlike so many so-called lovers of Art, he also had considerable artistic skill. Having resolved however to give himself to God in religion, he made a holocaust of his paintings, all of which he threw into the fire, lest they should stand in any way between him and the completeness of his obedience to the call of Gos.

He made his noviceship partly at Hodder and partly at Tullabeg. From the later he then went to Clongowes for four years as a Master.

After making a years theology in Belgium, his health broke down and the symptoms of consumption began to show themselves. From this moment to the hour of his death, he gave a remarkable example of patience and suffering. A few moments before his long death struggle he said “Father I am dying, give me the last Plenary Indulgence, With these words on his lips he expired.

Fogherty, Patrick, 1836-1885, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1319
  • Person
  • 02 April 1836-07 July 1885

Born: 02 April 1836, Birr, County Offaly
Entered: 03 September 1857, Hodder, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Final Vows: 02 February 1868
Died: 07 July 1885, Roehampton, London, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Durnin, Dermot, 1913-1980, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/132
  • Person
  • 11 January 1913-06 December 1980

Born: 11 January 1913, Clontarf, Dublin
Entered: 18 September 1931, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1945, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1948, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 06 December 1980, Tenerife, Spain

Part of St Francis Xavier's community, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin.

Younger brother of Des - RIP 1982

Irish Province News 56th Year No 1 1981
Gardiner Street
A week after Dermot Durnin’s death, we are still stunned by the fact. He and his quick wit will be missed very much, not only by his brethren here but also, grievously, by his “ladies” in St Monica’s. He had built up such a cheery relationship with every one of them and used to give them so much of his time that the news was really shattering and has left them still bewildered. At least they must have been comforted by the send-off we gave him: 65 priests concelebrated the Mass in a crowded church. One of the congregation remarked that the ceremony was “heavenly”. (One of the community was overheard wondering aloud if Dermot was digging his friend Pearse O’Higgins in the ribs and begging him to “tell that one again”.) His totally Christian attitude towards death, an attitude of joyful anticipation, prevents us from grudging him his reward, though this doesn't diminish our sense of loss.

On 22nd December, Fr Mark Quigley slipped away from us to make his way to Heaven: requiescat in pace! It was typical of him that his departure was so quiet and peaceful as to be almost unnoticed. When he did not get up that morning, it was found that he was only half-conscious and had the appearance of approaching death. The doctor confirmed that he had only a few hours to live. Many of the community visited him during the morning and prayed with him and for him. Though he could not speak clearly, when asked if he would like the prayers for the dying to be said, by nodding his head he acknowledged his awareness of imminent death. Just about half an hour before he died, he succeeded in pulling his crucifix up to his lips and kissing it. Three of us were with him when he breathed his last gentle breath, without the slightest sound or struggle.
Go ndéanaí Dia trócaire ar a anam mín mánla.

Obituary
Fr Dermot Durnin (1913-1931-1980)
It would of course be presumptuous to attempt to evaluate another Jesuit's quality or achievements. I only wish here to express my appreciation of Dermot Durnin. I knew him well early in his Jesuit life and at the end of it. I did not live with him at all during the central period when he was teaching.
In his young period, Dermot might well have been described as bouncy, buoyant, breezy - or something like that. In his later years these stimulating and attractive characteristics had mellowed into a very deep and helpful optimism, a reassuring hopefulness and good humour that made him many friends and gave him great influence with people. The transition seemed as easy as the transforming of blossom into fruit - but I'm sure much prayer and deliberate effort went into the process.
He was really quite a taut personality. I remember how in the novitiate he used to talk and laugh and sing in his sleep, and how hard it was to wake him gently out of sleep. He was inclined to lash out with shock when he was awakened. In the noviceship he had a few black-outs which gave rise to anxiety about his health and caused his first vows to be postponed for six months. He was always affected by strident noise in his vicinity - and seemed to wilt under excessive heartiness and loudness. But, characteristically, he would calm down the offending trumpeter with a joke rather than a dirty look.
He was always one of the good humoured people in the grim days of too early rising, excessively tense and prolonged periods of silence, along with restricted human contacts and relationships. He rode the adverse currents, and was never submerged by them.
Many sagas, myths and legends of the 30s and 40s will be lost to posterity now that he and Pearse O’Higgins have taken the long car to Glasnevin. He loved to trigger off at will any of Pearse’s stories, and would then enjoy both the story and Pearse’s absorption in the playing of the familiar record. They were both enthusiastic and reasonably skilled performers on the mouth-organ. Dermot had a very good ear for music and languages. He really loved to fire off a sentence in some more unusual language with perfect intonation, so that a speaker of that language would presume that he was fully fluent in it: he did it in Basque, Hungarian and some African language as well as Spanish, French, etc. It made immediate and friendly contact.
He played music constantly in his room. These last few years I never passed his door on the narrow corridor in Gardiner street without hearing the pleasant sounds of Mozart or Bach or someone in Dermot’s room, as he worked on his voluminous correspondence with the supporters of the JSA. Much of the harmony seems to have seeped into his letters. People loved to get them and felt he was a friend of theirs: perhaps he made giving easy. He was devoted to things Irish, but found much of Irish music, strangely, somewhat boring. One of the ways he served the elderly in St Monica's these last years was by getting them to sing at the liturgy. He brought great vitality to them, and nowhere is he more missed than there. I never saw him in action in Lourdes, but have no doubt about the tremendous love he had for the place and all whom he met. He spent some months there every year,
He was always something of a sun worshipper: I remember one villa in Termonfeckin during theology when the weather was very poor and most people spent their time indoors, playing cards or talking the hind-legs off the chairs: Dermot and I used to go down to the beach and absorb whatever rays were percolating through the mists. At the end of the fortnight, when others looked more pallid and dyspeptic than when they started their holiday, we looked as if we had been on the Riviera. So – if he had to go as soon as this – I like to think that he went with the much-loved caress of the sun on his skin; an indication of the warmth and all-embracing nature of the welcome he must have received from the Good Spirit which was his guiding light. I hope he is happy, even laughing, as I write this well-meant rubbish.
Michael Sweetman

Dermot began teaching in the Crescent, Limerick, in 1947. He was an extremely able and dedicated teacher. He could being poor-ability classes to the examination standards required. If boys were anyway weak in subjects they petitioned to be assigned to his classes. While insisting on work being done he was always bright and humorous in class.
He also helped in the production of the school operas - a feature of the school in those days – training the boys in learning and acting their parts. He was also spiritual father to the boys and in charge of some of the school sodalities as well as sub-minister, till his illness necessitated a lessening of activity.

Sr Thérèse Marie of the Poor Clares in Lourdes sent the following tribute:
We think especially of a dear and very good friend, Father Dermot Durnin (SJ, Dublin), who died unexpectedly on 6th December. This year (1980) had been his tenth year coming to Lourdes as Spiritual guide to the Michael Walsh Groups – a job that he took very much to heart, and every one of ‘his pilgrims' left Lourdes full of joy and satisfaction after the 4-5-day pilgrimage that he had helped them to make. He gave hope, joyful hope, to everyone, because he himself had complete trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus!
Fr Durnin had a deep love for our Lady and for the Rosary, His pilgrims will never forget their nightly Rosary across the river from the Grotto, nor the little story which he loved to repeat to every group, in order to bring them all closer to Her: the story of the small child who got lost in Dublin. She was crying and frightened as onlookers and Guards questioned her: “Where do you live? Where is your home?”, and all the little one could sob out was, “It's where my mammy is!” Then Father would point out to his listeners that our home, our true home, is where Mary, our Mother, is. Surely She welcomed him in there on 8th December! We can picture him now, with that winning, almost laughing smile, saying “Why should you worry? I'm home!”
He will always be remembered here: he was part of our chapel, and we could always count on him, in the absence of our Chaplain, for the Rosary and Benediction. He came many times into the enclosure to bring holy Communion to our sick nuns. None of us looked on him as “a foreigner”. His gentle manner and discretion radiated the peace of Christ whom he carried. His visits to the parlour were a joy. We know that he will not forget us now in the heavenly country where, as he liked to say, all is glorious music and song!

Another former chaplain at Lourdes, who had met Fr Dermot there, namely Fr Hugh Gallagher, PP, Clonmany, Co Donegal, thought highly enough of him to make the long journey from farthest Inishowen to be present at the Gardiner street requiem.

Foley, Edward, 1900-1967, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1320
  • Person
  • 07 September 1900-20 October 1967

Born: 07 September 1900, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 30 April 1925, Tullabeg
Final Vows: 02 February 1936, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 20 October 1967, Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 4 1948

Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin.
We moved in on Saturday morning, 14th August. Fr, Superior (Fr. McCarron), Fr. Minister (Fr. Kearns), and Bro. E. Foley constituted the occupying force, and Fr. T. Martin not only placed his van at our disposal, but gave generously of his time and labour for the heavy work of the first day.
A long procession of vans unloaded until noon, when the men broke off for their half-day, leaving a mountain of assorted hardware and soft goods to be unpacked and stowed. By nightfall we had a chapel installed, the kitchen working, dining-room in passable order, and beds set up, so we said litanies, Fr. Superior blessed the house and consecrated it to the Sacred Heart. Next morning Fr. Superior said the first Mass ever offered in the building. It was the Feast of the Assumption and a Sunday, so we. placed the house and the work under the Patronage of Our Lady and paused to review the scene. Fr. Provincial came to lunch.
The building is soundly constructed from basement to roof, but needs considerable modification before it can be used as a temporary Retreat House. The permanent Retreat House has yet to be built on the existing stables about 130 yards from the principal structure, but. we hope to take about twenty exercitants as soon as builders, plumbers, electricians, carpenters and decorators have done their work.
Fr. C. Doyle is equipping and furnishing the domestic chapel as a memorial to Fr. Willie, who worked so tirelessly for the establishment of workingmen's retreats in Ireland. A mantelpiece of this room has been removed, and thermostatically controlled electric heating is being installed. Lighting is to be by means of fluorescent tubes of the latest type.
With all due respects to the expert gardeners of the Province, we modestly assert that our garden is superb. Fr. Provincial was so impressed by the work done there that he presented us with a Fordson 8 H.P. van to bring the surplus produce to market. Under the personal supervision of Fr. Superior, our two professional gardeners took nine first prizes and four seconds with fourteen exhibits at the Drimnagh show. Twelve of their potatoes filled a bucket, and were sold for one shilling each. The garden extends over 2 of our 17 acres and will, please God, provide abundant fruit and vegetables.
From the beginning we have been overwhelmed with kindness: by our houses and by individual Fathers. Fr. Provincial has been a fairy-godmother to us all the time. As well as the van, he has given us a radio to keep us in touch with the outside world. We have bene fitted by the wise advice of Frs. Doyle and Kenny in buying equipment and supplies, while both of them, together with Fr. Rector of Belvedere and Fr. Superior of Gardiner Street, have given and lent furniture for our temporary chapel Fr. Scantlebury sacrificed two fine mahogany bookcases, while Frs. Doherty and D. Dargan travelled by rail and bus so that we might have the use of the Pioneer car for three weeks. Milltown sent a roll-top desk for Fr, Superior's use. To all who helped both houses and individuals we offer our warmest thanks, and we include in this acknowledgement the many others whom we have not mentioned by name.
Our man-power problem was acute until the Theologians came to the rescue. Two servants were engaged consecutively, but called off without beginning work. An appeal to Fr. Smyth at Milltown brought us Messrs. Doris and Kelly for a week of grueling labour in the house. They scrubbed and waxed and carpentered without respite until Saturday when Mr. Kelly had to leave us. Mr. Hornedo of the Toledo Province came to replace him, and Mr. Barry arrived for work in the grounds. Thanks to their zeal and skill, the refectory, library and several bedrooms were made ready and we welcomed our first guest on Monday, 30th August. Under the influence of the sea air, Fr. Quinlan is regaining his strength after his long and severe illness.
If anyone has old furniture, books, bedclothes, pictures, or, in fact anything which he considers superfluous, we should be very glad to hear of it, as we are faced with the task of organizing accommodation for 60 men and are trying to keep the financial load as light as possible in these times of high cost. The maintenance of the house depends on alms and whatever the garden may bring. What may look like junk to an established house may be very useful to us, starting from bare essentials. Most of all, we want the prayers of the brethren for the success of the whole venture, which is judged to be a great act of trust in the Providence of God.
Our postal address is : Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin.

Irish Province News 43rd Year No 1 1968

Obituary :

Brother Edward Foley's death came as a shock to most of us. He looked so fresh and youthful that few realised that he was just three years short of the seventy mark. When we heard the details of his last illness the comment was “just as he would have it, no full”. For the record we give the details. On October 19th he said that he was very tired, too tired to remain on his feet. The doctor wisely suggested anointing. He received the last sacraments and slept his last sleep.
Brother Ned, as he was known, was a favourite everywhere, and he shared his light-hearted laughter wherever he went. The community to which he belonged was always the better of him being of it, whether it was the three-man community of Manresa in its earlier days or the almost one hundred strong of Tullabeg.
He had the ability to settle in wherever he was; he could adapt himself to circumstances or rather he was independent of them. In his exile in Tullabeg his laughter filled the recreation room in an enthusiastic game of cards or his voice filled the back kitchen as he sang while he peeled the potatoes. In Manresa where he was lonely he made friends with the local cat and it was amusing to see pussy at his heels the whole length of the avenue.
His light-heartedness was not an unfeeling indifference to people and things, on the contrary it was a deep thoughtfulness that had measured accurately the value of life, “Why worry?” he used to say “make the most of what you have”.
This thoughtfulness made Br. Foley's opinion on things most valuable. His criticism of a film, a play, a football game, or on more sedate things like music, a building or a sermon was always well worth hearing. The late Father Meaney, who preached well, when in the Crescent frequently read his sermons to Brother Ned and added or expanded where Brother Ned suggested that idea was not clearly explained.
His judgement of men was still more valuable. He could measure a boy on the staff, a scholastic, a Superior or a minister quicker than most, and his measure would be an accurate one, and a generous one.
His witty retorts were good, always made in a roguish way that could not offend. When the new drinking glasses he put on the table in the Crescent were criticised by Father Dillon-Kelly of happy memory : “I suppose they are Woolworth's best, Brother”. “I beg your pardon, Father, these are from Barbara Hutton's” - and he got by.
Brother Foley always got by, whether it was a Long Table dinner with the preparations left to the last minute or getting into Croke Park on an All-Ireland Final as when he put out his chest and swung his arms and joined the Artane Boys' Band as Brother in Charge.
Brother Foley had been working as a watch-maker before he joined the Society in 1925 at the age of twenty-five. A short while after his noviceship in Tullabeg he went as a founder member to Emo where with Fr. Corbett and Brother Tom Kelly (no longer in the Society) he did real hard work preparing Emo, which had been unoccupied for many years for the coming of the novices in
1930.
The Crescent was his home for fourteen years from 1932-46. Here he was cook, infirmarian, in charge of the staff and general factotum in the house and, for good measure, in the summer he took on the sacristy and Church collections. It was no trouble to him. He had that rare gift of being able to delegate, moreover, he could select a reliable delegate, and still more, he instilled a loyalty that made one feel privileged to have been chosen. This was so because he himself was most obliging and generous; a meal at an unusual time - “I'll have something for you”; a boy on the staff anxious to get to some special engagement - “You run off, I'll stand in”. He did these good turns so spontaneously and so cheerfully that one was more than happy to be able to do something for him by way of return.
From the Crescent he went to Clongowes for one year and in 1948 he went to the newly opened Retreat House at Manresa where he worked again as a general factorum for six years. In 1954 he spent one year in Tullabeg and then moved to Gardiner Street. This assignment was not an easy one. Though it brought him to his own locality in Dublin and to the Church where as a boy and a young man he had served on the altar, yet he was second in command to Brother Furlong. Brother Furlong, ageing at this time, had been over fifty years in office when Brother Foley arrived to take over, Here more than anywhere else the true Brother Foley showed itself. With a wisdom that was natural to him, and with a patience that was truly supernatural he smilingly played second fiddle and played in tune. While in Gardiner Street the first signs of illness showed themselves. He lost considerable weight and be came emaciated diabetes was diagnosed, but this he took in his calm philosophical way.
The last years of his life - 1962-67 - he spent at Manresa and there he died on October 20th, and died as he would have wished, giving trouble to no one.

Foley, William, 1836-1918, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1321
  • Person
  • 10 October 1836-10 March 1918

Born: 10 October 1836, County Waterford
Entered: 27 February 1855, Florissant MO, USA - Missourians Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 02 February 1867
Died: 10 March 1918, Florissant MO, USA - Missourians Province (MIS)

Font, Stephen, 1631-1673, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1322
  • Person
  • 1631-28 September 1673

Born: 1631, County Galway
Entered: 1657, Mexico - Mexican Province (MEX)
Died: 28 September 1673, St Francis Borgia Mission, Sonora, Mexico - Mexican Province (MEX)

Alias de la Fuente

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ :
Entered in Mexico along with Cornelius Guillereag (Mac Giolla Riabhaigh)
1667 After finishing studies worked among the Indians at St Francis Xavier Mission in Sonora, Mexico
1668-1670 Worked among the Indians at St Ignatius Mission in Sinaloa, Mexico
1670-1673 Worked among the Indians at St Francis Borgia Mission in Sonora, Mexico, where he died in 1673
Stephen Font (de la Fuente) and Cornelius Guillereag (Mac Giolla Riabhaigh) were inseparable companions on the Indian Mission in Mexico

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Stephen Font (de la Fuente) SJ 1631-1673
Fr Stephen Fonr (de la Fuente) was born in Galway in 1631 and entered the Society in Mexico in 1657.

After finishing his studies he worked among the Indians at the Missions of St Francis Xavier in Sonora (1667), of St Ignatius in Sinaloa (1668) and of St Francis Borgia in Sonora (1670), where he died in 1673.

Forde, James, 1603-1676, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1323
  • Person
  • 15 May 1603-25 January 1676

Born: 15 May 1603, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 December 1626, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1634, Naples, Italy
Final Vows: 1644
Died: 25 January 1676, Dublin City, County Dublin

Superior of Irish Mission 25 December 1675-25 January 1676

Had studied Rhetoric and 2 years Philosophy, Bachelor of Philosophy
1633 At College of Naples Studying Theology and teaching Humanities.
1635 Comes to Rome as Rector of Irish College 31 May 1635
1636 Rector of Irish College, Rome
1639 Came to Mission in 1639 (1650 Catalogue)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Studied two years Philosophy and four Theology in the Society. Knew English, Italian and Latin, and taught Humanities for many years (HIB Catalogue 1650 - ARSI)
1636 or 1639 Came to Ireland
Had been a Professor of Humanities and Rhetoric for many years.
At the time of the Visitation of the Irish Mission by Mercure Verdier he was living in Limerick (1649). He was in delicate health then and was teaching.
1652-1656 Kept a School in a vast bog, and in imitation of their master, the boys practised great austerities.
1666 Chaplain to a nobleman living sixteen miles from Dublin. He had been thirty years on the Mission (HIB CAT 1666 - ARSI)
He is named in a short account of the Irish Mission and Catholics in Ireland 1652-1656 by Thomas Quin, Superior of the Irish Mission : “Father Ford has erected a small dwelling in the midst of an extensive marsh, where the ground was rather firmer. Here the youths and children of the neighbourhood assemble to receive their education, and to be trained in the principles of faith and virtue” (cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had graduated in Philosophy at Douai before Ent 02 December 1626 Rome
After First Vows he taught Humanities at Soria and then studied Theology at Naples where he was Ordained 1634.
1635-1637 Rector of Irish College Rome 02 December 1635
1637-1642 Sent to Ireland and to Dublin he taught Latin until he was expelled by the Puritans in 1642. He managed to arrive in Limerick where he was known to be teaching 1649. After the fall of Limerick he headed back to the Dublin region where he ran a hedge school.
1655 He changed from teaching to Missionary work and was based in the house of a nobleman some thirty miles from Dublin
1675 Appointed Superior of the Irish Mission 10/08/1675. He began this Office on 25 December 1675 but died a month later 25 January 1676

◆ James B Stephenson SJ The Irish Jesuits Vol 1 1962
James Ford (1675-1676)

James Ford was born at Dublin on 15th May, 1603. After taking out his degree of Bachelor of Philosophy at Douay, he went to Rome, and entered the Novitiate of Sant' Andrea on 2nd December, 1626. After teaching humanities at Sora for two years, and studying theology for four at Naples, he was appointed Rector of the Irish College in Rome on 2nd December, 1635, and held that office till the end of February, 1637, when he set out for Ireland, and took up the work of teaching Latin at Dublin. In 1642 he was expelled from the city, but continued his teaching in other places. He made his solemn profession of four vows in September, 1644. In 1649 he was teaching in Limerick. On the fall of that city he returned to the vicinity of Dublin, where he carried on the instruction of youth in a remote spot surrounded by bogs (1652-62). He was appointed Superior of the Mission on 10th August, 1675, and entered upon office on the Christmas day following, but he only survived his appointment a month, and died at Dublin on 25th January, 1676.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father James Ford SJ 1603-1676
Fr James Ford was famous as a teacher of the classics. He was a Dublin man, born in 1603.

Having been Rector of the Irish College in Rome from 1635-1637 he returned to Ireland, where he taught Rhetoric in Dublin, Limerick and other places.

During the Cromwellian persecution, he conducted a school on a patch of firm ground in the middle of a bog. Here the youth and children of the neighbourhood assembled to receive their education and to be trained in the principles of Faith and virtues. It is disputed exactly where this bog was, some saying it was the Bog of Allen, which does not seem likely as it was far removed from Dublin. Others held that it was situated outside Limerick city, at a place known nowadays, as Crecora.

Fr Ford was appointed Superior of the Mission in 1675, but he died on January 25th of the following year, 1676.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
FORD, JAMES. This Professed Father, a native of Dublin, was living at Limerick, when Pere Verdier made his Visitation. He is then reported to be about 40 years old, but in delicate health, and employed in teaching Rhetoric, and also “bonus et doctus”. The next time that I meet him, is in a short statement of the condition ot the Catholics in Ireland, between the years 1652 and 1656, written by F. Thomas Quin, then Superior of the Irish Mission, “F. James Ford, has erected a small dwelling in the midst of an extensive marsh, where the ground was rather firmer. Here the youths and children of the neighbourhood assemble to receive their education, and to be trained in the principles of faith and virtue”.

Forest, Henri, 1916-2002, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1324
  • Person
  • 12 September 1916-23 February 2002

Born: 12 September 1916, Joliette, Québec, Canada
Entered: 07 September 1933, Sault-au-Récollet, Canada - Canada Inferiors Province (CAN I)
Ordained: 08 June 1946
Final vows: 17 September 1978
Died: 23 February 2002, St Jérôme, Québec, Canada - Sinensis Province (CHN)

Transcribed CAN I to ExOr; app HK 1952-1960

by 1953 came to Aberdeen Hong Kong (HIB) teaching 1952-1960

Forhan, Patrick, 1819-1869, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1325
  • Person
  • 28 February 1819-15 November 1869

Born: 28 February 1819, Dingle, County Kerry
Entered: 20 August 1850, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained: 1860
Final vows: 02 February 1863
Died: 15 November 1869, Petersville, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Part of the Loyola College, Baltimore MD, USA community at the time of death

Uncle of Thomas McDonough (MAR) RIP 1879
?? Patrick Forhan (MARNEB) - RIP 1910

Originally entered 17 September 1839 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) which had a mission in Missouri, and Left in 1840

Forristal, James, 1857-1930, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1326
  • Person
  • 02 June 1857-19 February 1930

Born: 02 June 1857, Kilkenny City. County Kilkenny
Entered: 14 August 1887, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: - pre Entry
Final Vows: 15 August 1898, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 19 February 1930, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

2nd year Novitiate at Drongen Belgium (BELG);

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 5th Year No 3 1930
Obituary :
Fr James Forristal

On the 2nd June, 1857 Fr. Forristal was born, and 30 years later entered the Society at Dromore, as a priest. The 2nd year's novitiate was made at Tronchiennes, after which he went to Milltown and repeated his theology with success. A year at Belvedere and two at the Crescent brings him to 1893 when he became Professor of the short course at Milltown. At the end of two years, Mungret had him as Director of the Apostolic School. Five years were spent at this important work. A year at the Crescent followed, and then back to profess the short course at Milltown. In 1903, he became Professor of Scripture. From 1907 to 1924 his time was divided between Crescent, Galway, Milltown and Mungret, discharging varied duties. In 1924, there was a very bad heart failure, and he passed the rest of his life in Tullabeg, “Cur, Val”. He died on Monday, Jan. 27th 1930. Death was very sudden. He had been at recreation, which ended at 5,30, in the best of spirits. An hour later, the Br. Infirmarian knocked at his door, and receiving no answer, thought it well to enter. He found Fr. Forristal dead. His head and shoulders were resting on the pillow of the bed, his feet stretched out on the floor. One boot was off, lying beside his foot. Presumably he sat down on the side of the bed to take off his boots. The effort of stooping was too much for his weak heart, and without struggle or pain, he passed to his reward. The Rector and Minister were at once on the scene. He was absolved, and received Extreme Unction. The body was still warm. It is a great consolation to know that he was able to say Mass every day up to the very end.
Fr. Forristal occupied nearly every position that a Jesuit could occupy, from Master of elements up to Professor of theology, and to all he brought the same steady, quiet energy that ensures solid success. He was a very observant, excellent religious. If one would single out any one of the qualities that adorned his life it would certainly he the unfailing good humour that accompanied him wherever he went, and endeared him to all who had the good fortune to know him and live in the same house with him.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father James Forristal 1857-1930
Fr James Forristal was in Kilkenny on June 2nd 1857 when he was already a priest. Thirty years later he entered the Society as a novice at Dromore.

For two separate periods he was a professor at Milltown Park, first as Professor of the Shorts 1893-1895, and then from 1900-1907 as Professor of Scripture. He also spent five years as Director of the Apostolic School Mungret. Having spent some years in various capacities at the Crescent, Galway and Milltown, in 1924, he had a stroke which invalided him, and he spent the remaining 6 years of his life in Tullabeg.

Death came very suddenly on Monday January 27th as he left recreation at 5.30 in the best of spirits and apparently in good health. An hour later, the Brother Infirmarian found him dead, head and shoulders resting on the bed, with one leg off, as is the effort of bending down was too much for his weak heart.The Rector and Minister were soon on the scene. He was absolved and anointed, the body being still warm. He had been able to say Mass every day up to the end.

He had led a busy and industrious life in the Society, carrying out his various duties with a quiet energy, which ensures solid success. An observant religious, he was endowed with unfailing good humour which assisted him greatly in his work, and endeared him to the different communities in which he had lived.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1930

Obituary

Father James Forristal SJ

It is many years since Fr Forristal came to Mungret. He was here about thirty years ago. He is well remembered by the boys who were here then. He was for a time Moderator of the Apostolic School and Director of the BVM Sodality. Having left Mungret, he taught Theology for some time at Milltown Park, and was for a long time attached to the Sacred Heart Church, Limerick. He was for a time in charge of the week-end Retreats at Milltown. For many years he was in weak health, but he always kept his cheerfulness. He was known widely throughout Ireland, and loved for his genial kindly character and unfailing courtesy.

His death occurred rather suddenly at Tullabeg, in March. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father James Forristal (1857-1930)

Was born in Kilkenny and was a secular priest when he entered the Society in 1877. He was a member of the Crescent community, 1891-1893, 1900-1901 and 1907-1915. Father Forristal was sometime professor of theology at Milltown Park and for five years superior of the Apostolic School of Mungret College.

Forster, John, 1870-1964, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1327
  • Person
  • 15 September 1870-01 January 1964

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

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

FOSTER initially;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forster, Thomas, 1869-1929, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1328
  • Person
  • 21 July 1869-03 August 1929

Born: 21 July 1869, Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia
Entered: 09 October 1894, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Final Vows: 02 February 1916, St Mary’s, Miller Street, Sydney, Australia
Died: 03 August 1929, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia

Older brother of John - RIP 1964; Uncle of Leonard (ASL) RIP 2002

HIB Menologies SJ :
He made his Novitiate under Luigi Sturzo.
He was multi talented, as at times and in various houses he was Cook, Gardener, Infirmarian, Assistant Steward and Carpenter.
He spent five years at Loyola, six at Xavier, one at Sevenhill and twenty-three at Riverview, and his loss was much regretted in the latter.
At the time of his death he had charge of the building new wing which was making rapid progress.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He was a brother of John (RIP 1964) and was a master builder before he decided to follow his younger brother into the Society, He was invited to study for Priesthood but preferred to become a Brother. Both brothers were very intelligent and good musicians - their simplicity was deceptive and some underrated them. He Entered at Loyola Greenwich.

1897-1903 After First Vows he was sent to Xavier College Kew for domestic duties, cook, buyer, storekeeper and anything else necessary.
1903-1906 He was sent back to Loyola Greenwich for the same purpose as at Xavier
1906-1910 He was sent for similar duties to Riverview in Sydney
1910-1912 Saw him back at Loyola Greenwich
1912-1929 He settled back at Riverview for the rest of his life.

He was described as “ad omnia”! He was the best builder and carpenter, but he could turn his hand to most things. He built the seismological cellar at Riverview, and with one assistant constructed the second and third storey balconies on the West Wing facing the quadrangle, as well as the open air dormitories of the Senior House. He also built the Bandhouse on the foreshore and the brick building on the rocks at the foot of the garden. When William Lockington embarked on his building programme in n1928, he use Thomas as clerk of works with excellent results. His sudden death from a stroke was a severe blow to Lockington.

His brothers considered him an excellent religious man of virtue. He was popular with the students who enjoyed his ready wit, especially his fund of amusing anecdotes and puns. To them he was kind and gentle.

For many years he served the 5am Mass. He had a retiring disposition but always ready to perform a service for anyone

Note from Edward Pigot Entry
One result of his visit to Samoa was the building and fittings for the instruments in the half-underground, vaulted, brick building at Riverview. Brs Forster and Girschik performed the work.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 5th Year No 1 1929
Obituary :
Br Thomas Forster

Br. Forster was born the 21st July 1869, and entered the Society the 9th October 1894 at Loyola, Sydney, where he had Fr. Sturzo for his Master of Novices.
He was a man of varied talent, as, at different times and in various houses, he discharged the duties of cook, gardener, infirmarian, assistant steward, and carpenter. He spent 5 years at Loyola, 6 at Xavier, 1 at Sevenhill and 23 at Riverview, where his loss was much regretted. He had charge of the building of the new wing, which under his care, was making rapid and satisfactory progress

◆ Our Alma Mater, St Ignatius Riverview, Sydney, Australia, 1929

Obituary

Thomas Forster

On August 2nd we suffered a severe loss through the death of Bro Thomas Forster, after an illness of about three months' duration. He was the clerk of works for the addition to the College buildings and the church, and in the midst of his activities the news that he was suddenly prostrated early in May by a paralytic stroke came as a painful surprise.

Though not a member of the teaching or disciplinary staff, Brother Forster was well known to many successive generations of Collegians, having spent more than thirty years at Riverview.

He was brother to Father John Forster, former rector of St Aloysius' College, North Sydney, and was born on July 21st, 1869. He had thus completed his 60th year when his end came. With two of his brothers, he had formed a firm of master builders before entering religion, and, having received a sound education, was well fitted to aspire to the Priesthood, which indeed his Superiors wished him to do, but he preferred to serve God in the humbler grade, having a great desire to imitate St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, to whom he had a tender devotion. Only a few of his intimate friends knew that he was a good musician, with considerable skill on the piano and the organ Also some excellent verses from his pen appeared in print from time to time.

But there are more lasting monuments to his precious memory. He it was who, with one assistant as labourer, constructed the second and third storey balconies of the west wing facing the quadrangle, as well as the open-air dormitories of the Senior House, and his work is spoken of with the highest appreciation by the contractors and operatives engaged in completing the College buildings. He also built with his own hands the pretty band house on the foreshore, and the brick pavilion on the rocks at the foot of the garden. There are many other specimens of his expert workmanship, such as additions to the infirmary, and the caretaker's cottage at the boatshed. He was thus a great treasure to the College, and our loss is correspondingly great. But his greatest achievement was the massive, thick-walled semi-underground chambers and the solid setting of instruments in Father Pigot's seismological observatory.

He was exceedingly popular with the boys, who always looked for a pleasant word from him in passing, and took great delight in his ready wit, especially in his inexhaustible fund of amusing anecdotes and really excellent puns. Also he won their profound respect by his kindly manner and his admirable humility. For many years he served Holy Mass at 5 am, and going about his devotions as a matter of regular routine, he was an example to all. of what a true servant of God ought to be. Of a retiring dispostion, he disliked putting himself forward, but when sought for one reason or other, he was always most affable and obliging, taking pleasure in doing anyone a service. He lingered for three long months from the date of his initial prostration, and when a second stroke came he passed peacefully away, leaving behind him precious memories of a holy and edifying career. May he rest in peace!

Fottrell, James, 1852-1918, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1329
  • Person
  • 23 July 1852-03 January 1918

Born: 23 July 1852, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 31 October 1869, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1886
Final Vows: 03 February 1890, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 03 January 1918, Ms Quinn’s Hospital, Mounty Square, Dublin

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

by 1872 at Roehampton London (ANG) Studying
by 1873 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1876 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1884 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1891 at Borgo Santo Spirito Rome, Italy - Firenze (ROM) Subst Secretary

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Belvedere.

After his Noviceship he made studies at Stonyhurst, and then spent a period of Regency teaching in Galway and Tullabeg.
He was then sent to St Beuno’s for Theology.
After Ordination he came back to Ireland and was sent to Limerick and Milltown.
He was then sent to Rome as an Assistant Secretary to the General Anton Anderley until his death in 1892. He was at the General Curia in Fiesole, as the Jesuits had been expelled from Rome. Returning to Ireland, he joined the Mission Staff, eventually taking charge of this group.
1905 He was sent to Gardiner St where he worked until a few days before his last illness. He was the Director of the Immaculate Conception Sodality along with other Church duties. He managed to find time to devote himself to the “Vigilance Committee” (set up by the Dominicans to prevent the spread of bad and unsavoury literature) and his work was felt across the city. He also took a keen interest in the CYMS in Nth Frederick St, and was an active President there for over seven years. He also succeeded James Walshe as Manager of the Penny Dinners. he organised a “Coal Fund” and was an ardent Temperance advocate. He was generally a ready speaker with a great sense of humour.
He died at Ms Quinn’s Hospital after a very short illness, 03 January 1918. he had been doing “Extraordinary Confessor” work and he caught a cold which developed into pneumonia.

Letter from Cardinal Michael Logue to Mother Josephine, James Fottrell’s sister :
“My dear Mother Josephine, I was deeply grieved to see by the papers the death of your saintly brother, Father Fottrell. I most sincerely sympathise with you and your sister, Mother Bernardine, in your sad bereavement.
Tough you and Mother Bernardine will feel the loss of poor Father Fottrell most of all, everyone who knew him will feel his death as a personal loss. He will be sadly missed by the whole country, for there is no good work which could contribute to God’s glory and the welfare of the people, spiritual and temporal, into which he was not prepared to throw himself with earnestness and success. Indeed his whole life was consecrated to every good work which came his way. I am sure he has now received the reward of that life, entirely devoted to God’s work. By his zeal and unswerving labours, he has laid up for himself a great store of merit and now possesses, through God’s goodness, a crown corresponding to his merit. This must be the chief consolation to you, your sister and all who grieve his death.
Wishing you and Mother Bernardine every blessing............. Michael Cardinal Logue”.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father James Fottrell 1852-1918
Fr James Fottrell was born in Dublin on 23rd July 1852, was education at Belvedere College.

Entering the Society at Milltown Park in 1869, he did his philosophy at Stonyhurst, and Theology at St Beuno’s, North Wales. On his return to Ireland he was attached forst to Limerick, then to Milltown. For some years he occupied the post of Assistant Secretary to Fr General Anderledy, and Fiesole, Italy.

Then he joined the Mission Staff, on which he did very useful work, eventually becoming its head. In 1905 he took up residence at Gardiner Street, and he worked there up to a few days before his death in 1918. He was kept busy as Director of the Immaculate Conception Sodality, however he found time for some other apostolic activities. He took an active part in the Vigilance Committee, and the effect of his work was felt in the city. He also took a keen interest in the CYMS North Frederick Street, of which he was an active President for over seven years. He succeeded Fr James Walshe as Director of the Penny Dinners, ad he was a pioneer in organising a Coal Fund. A keen advocate of temperance, he was a man of varied attainments, and a ready speaker with a great sense of humour.

While acting as extraordinary confessor, he caught a cold which developed into pneumonia, and he died resigned and happy at Ms Quinn’s Hospital, Mountjoy Square on January 3rd 1918.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1918

Obituary

Father James Fottrell SJ

The news of Fr Fottrell's death was keceived with widespread regret in the city. It occurred on the 4th January, after a very brief illness. He was bom in 1852 in Dublin and was ordained priest in 1886. After some years spent as Assistant Secretary of V Rev Father General at Fiesole, Italy, and on the Mission staff in Ireland he was attached to St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner St, where he was Superior and where he worked hard until his last illness. He was Spiritual Director of the Sodality of the Immaculate Conception, and Moderator of the Apostleship of Prayer. He was also an active member of the Vigilance Committee, and President of the CYMS, Nth Frederick St.

He organised a coal fund for the deserving poor. He succeeded the late Father James Walshe as manager of the Penny Dinners. He was also an ardent Temperance advocate. A man of varied attainments, a ready speaker, with a great sense of hum our, he made many friends. RIP (Freeman’s Journal)

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father James Fottrell (1852-1918)

A native of Dublin, entered the Society in 1869, and was ordained in 1886. He spent three years of his regency at the Crescent, 1880-1883 and returned as prefect of Studies in 1887-1888. He was again a member of the community in 1893-95 and 1903-05 when he was now on the mission staff. He was appointed superior in Gardiner St in 1905 and continued as a member of that community until his death.

Dwyer, Peter, 1879-1945, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/133
  • Person
  • 22 July 1879-21 July 1945

Born: 22 July 1879, Carrickmacross, County Monaghan
Entered: 07 September 1898, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 27 July 1913, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1916, St Mary’s, Miller Street, Sydney, Australia
Died: 21 July 1945, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin

by 1902 at Chieri Italy (TAUR) studying
by 1903 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1904
by 1927 at Prescot, Lancashire (ANG) working

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
His early education was at St Macartan’s College, Monaghan, Ireland, before he Entered the Society at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg 1898

1900-1903 After First Vows he was sent to Chieri Italy and Kasteel Gemert Netherlands for Philosophy
1903-1904 He was sent to Clongowes Wood College for Regency, teaching Latin and English
1904-1908 He was sent to Australia and St Ignatius College Riverview to continue his Regency.
1908-1910 He finished a long Regency at St Patrick’s College Melbourne
1910-1914 He returned to Ireland and Milltown Park for Theology
1914-1915 He made Tertianship at Tullabeg.
1916-1917 He returned to Australia and St Aloysius College Sydney teaching
1917-1919 He was sent to work at the Hawthorn Parish
1919-1922 He was sent to work at the Richmond Parish
1923-1928 He returned to Ireland and was appointed assistant Director of the Retreat House for working men which had just opened.
1928--1932 he was sent teaching to Mungret College Limerick
1932 he was sent to St Stanislaus College Tullabeg to minister in the People’s Church. He was virtually an invalid for the rest of his life.

He was well known as an amateur radio expert. He was a kindly, amiable man, but inclined to be hypersensitive which created some problems for himself and others. He found it therefore hard to settle in one place for very long. He was also a man of deep and simple piety.

He had been sick for about 10 years and his last six months were very painful. he demonstrated a great deal of patience during this illness.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 20th Year No 4 1945
Obituary :
Fr. Peter Dwyer (1879-1898-1945)
Fr. Dwyer died on the evening of Saturday, July 21st, on the eve of his 66th birthday. To any one who had kept in touch with him his death could not have been unexpected. In the early part of this year the doctor who attended him said that he had not much more than six months to live. About ten years ago he had undergone a very critical operation and had been suffering more or less constantly since. Within the last few years he had had to go into hospital several times.
In May his sufferings became more intense and more constant. He bore them with patience and resignation and gave much edification to all who had to do with him. He dreaded a long drawn out agony and had prayers said that God would take him soon. The prayers were answered. In the early part of July he began to grow visibly weaker, and those who saw him at intervals of a few days noticed the change.
On Saturday, July 21st, he was evidently near death, and the doctor said he would not live through the night. At eight o'clock the Rector of Rathfarnham Castle anointed him and gave him Viaticum and said the prayers for the dying, and a few minutes later he died without any struggle, having been conscious almost to the last. His body was brought to St. Francis Xavier's Church, Gardiner Street, on Monday evening, and on the next morning Office and solemn Requiem Mass were celebrated for him. The Rector of Rathfarnham Castle was Celebrant of the Mass, and Fr. Provincial said the prayers at the graveside. As the Theologians were on retreat, we could not call on them to do the chanting, but a composite choir, under the direction of Fr. Kevin Smyth, sang very impressively.
Fr. Dwyer was born at Carrickmacross on July 22nd, 1879, and after receiving his secondary education at St. Macartan's College, Monaghan, he entered the Society on September 7th, 1898. He studied philosophy at Chieri and at Gemert, and was then sent to Australia where he taught in our colleges at Sydney and Melbourne. He was ordained at Milltown Park in 1913, and in 1917 returned to Australia, where he did parish work at Richmond and Hawthorn. In 1922, he returned to Ireland and was appointed assistant director of the Retreat House for workingmen which had just been opened. In 1928 he went to Mungret and in 1932 was sent to Tullabeg as operarius in the People's Church. About four years later he under went the operation already referred to, and remained more or less an invalid henceforth,
Fr. Dwyer was a very amiable character who made friends wherever he went. He was a man of deep and simple piety. The last years of his life were filled with suffering, which he bore with resignation and hope and fortitude. May he rest in peace.

Frayne, Nicholas, 1668-1722, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1330
  • Person
  • 24 November 1668-01 May 1722

Born: 24 November 1668, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 25 November 1688, Toulouse, France - Tolosanae Province (TOLO)
Ordained: 1702, Tournon sur Rhône, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1706
Died: 01 May 1722, Irish College, Poitiers, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)

Studied 3 years Philosophy and 4 years Theology in Society and taught Humanities
1717-1722 Rector of Irish College at Poitiers
1717 Catalogue Middling ability, lives with a private family in Dublin. Humble and modest with good judgement and loves the institute.

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Most zealous for the education of youth; Was alive to the heretical ways of Jansenists, and waged war upon them

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows studied Philosophy at Toulouse
1693-1700 Regency at Castres, Carcassone and Albi
1700-1703 Theology at Tournon where he was Ordained 1702
1703-1704 Tertianship at Toulouse
1704-1707 Sent to teach Humanities at Aurillac
1707-1717 Sent to Ireland, teaching a school at the house of a nobleman near Dublin and assisting local priests. He had a very good reputation as a teacher.
1717 Rector Irish College Poitiers. Hoping to increase the income of the College he imprudently invested the greater part of the College's and Mission's moneys in the worthless Mississippi scheme of John Law, bringing the College to near bankruptcy. The shock he experienced proved too much for him and he died there shortly after the disaster 01 May 1722

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
FRAYN, NICHOLAS. This Father was certainly living in Ireland in the Autumn of 1712.

Frayne, Richard, 1672-1695, Jesuit novice

  • IE IJA J/1331
  • Person
  • 1672-13 March 1695

Born: 1672, Rathwire, County Westmeath
Entered: 02 May 1694, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Died: 13 March 1695, Entered 02 May 1694, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Raymone and Eleanor née Morvilla
Had already studied Philosophy at the Irish College Salamanca before Entry 02 May 1694 Villagarcía (name appears in list of students examined there 01 October 1692)
Died at the Novitiate Villagarcía 13 May 1695 - 10 months after admission

Freeman, Peter, 1833-1884, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1332
  • Person
  • 29 June 1833-24 December 1884

Born: 29 June 1833, County Kildare
Entered: 23 May 1858, Clongowes Wood College SJ, County Kildare
Final vows: 15 August 1868
Died: 24 December 1884, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was a baker by trade, and a Manductor to the Brother Novices at Clongowes.
1866 He was sent to Gardiner St, and he worked hard in various posts until his death there Christmas Eve 1884. By a strange coincidence, Fr Joseph Lentaigne, who had received him as Provincial, died in the same community the day before. Both coffins were laid on the High Altar on 26 December 1884.

Note from Francis Hegarty Entry :
He did return after some months, and there he found in Father Bracken, a Postulant Master and Novice Master, and this was a man he cherished all his life with reverence and affection. His second Postulancy was very long and hard - four years. he took the strain and was admitted as a Novice with seven others which had not had so trying a time as himself. He liked to say that all seven along with him remained true to their vocation until death, and he was the last survivor. They were Christopher Coffey, Peter Freeman, David McEvoy, James Maguire, John Hanly, James Rorke and Patrick Temple.

Frost, Edmund V, 1884-1931, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1333
  • Person
  • 17 July 1884-17 June 1931

Born: 17 July 1884, Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare
Entered: 12 November 1901, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1916, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1921, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 17 June 1931, St Benedict’s Hospital, Malvern, Melbourne - Australiae Province (ASL)

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

Educated at Crescent College SJ

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1906 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - PBS Cork student

◆ 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 St Stanislaus College Tullabeg under Michael Browne.

1905-1908 After First Vows and Juniorate at Tullabeg he was sent to Stonyhurst for Philosophy
1908-1913 He was sent to Clongowes for Regency, teaching Latin, Greek and Mathematics.
1913-1917 He was sent to Milltown Park for Theology
1917-1919 He was sent to Tullabeg teaching
1919-1922 He made his Tertianship at Tullabeg, and stayed working there for another two years as Minister.
1922-1931 He was sent to Australia and in 1923 was made Rector of Xavier College Kew, and he died in office in 1931.

When he died, Xavier College received glowing tributes acknowledging his outstanding qualities as priest, scholar and gentleman. That said, when he was appointed some in the community did not appreciate his leadership style. Compared to previous regimes, his discipline appeared somewhat lax, and some thought the College would suffer under his new ideas. But the doubts did not last. A few years later, Jesuits writing to Rome observed that despite the freedom granted to parents and boys, Edmund governed well. They praised the religious spirit among the Jesuits, boys and ex-students alike. Religious vocations increased. He was also praised for his great kindness and holiness, as well as his ability to relate well with all kinds of people.

As a person he appeared to have great personal character and qualities. He won the hearts of all by his natural, simple and unassuming manner. He was eminently approachable, genuinely sincere in his relationship s with all, possessed sound judgement, and instinctively avoided all appearances of haste. He was quite dispassionate in decision making and processed a strong sense of justice. His wisdom was also appreciated. Beyond all these human qualities his deep spirituality was most appreciated.

During his years as Rector he transformed the environment of the school. He was responsible for developing the spiritual life of the College to the extent that it effectively permeated the whole environment. The impersonal context of previous years was changed, he deliberately raised the standard of comfort, reduced student monotony by introducing new activities for boarders, improved the playing fields and in general gave more freedom to approximate College life to Home conditions. He was determined that school ought to be a second home, and hoped Old Boys would have happy memories of their days at Xavier.

As an educator he was conservative but wise, with quiet enthusiasm and genuine interest in every aspect of College life. Each year he indicated his appreciation of the year’s achievements. His comments were always encouraging even when suggesting the need for greater effort. He urged students to continue studies at University, supporting the newly established Newman College. He encouraged the Dramatic Society, The Wireless Club, the St Vincent de Paul Society and all aspects of the College sporting life. No one was more excited when the school won the cricket championship for the first time in 1923 and again in 1924, and the football championship for the second time in 1924.

The spiritualisation of the College was above all reflected in his efforts to build the Chapel, which he believed would help counteract the growing materialism in society, reflected in secular education. He wanted the Chapel to be “A Message of Faith to the people of Melbourne”. And so it was built in the grand style of the day, high on a hill.

He also gave great support to the Old Boys, and each year he commended the Old Xavierian Association to all. He believed its members “breate the atmosphere of loyalty to religion, to Australia and to Xavier College:. He articulated the ideal that ex-students continued the good work done at school, by keeping contact through the Association. The Jesuits desired to continue their priestly ministry to past pupils. He initiated the annual retreat for Old Boys, which attracted about 40 men each year. The Association flourished in these years.

He believed that Xavier was for boys of average ability. He stressed the importance of a general education rather than vocational, and encouraged the study of the classics - in which he held a BA from University College Dublin.

The environment of the school often reflects the quality of the education. At the Jesuit boarding schools, the religious spirit was always in tension with the Pubic School Spirit. In 1928 he told his audience that Xavierians were already filling leading positions in the Church, the professional, commercial and industrial life of Australia, he said he also considered it important that Xavier was a member of the Public Schools of Victoria.

Over the years Xavier had commanded respect in sport, but Edmund was not satisfied until Xavier was one of the front rank of the Pubic Schools in every aspect of school life, until the pre-eminence of the school was habitual and not exceptional. To achieve this he improved the sporting facilities and initiated promotion for more students. He raised the College fees to be equivalent to other Public Schools but also offered four full time scholarships each year.

Archbishop Mannix praised th work of the Jesuits, claiming that Xavier College could be well called the right arm of the Catholic Church in Melbourne and in Victoria. He also hoped that ex-students would be good Catholic leaders in the community. He valued the College so highly that at Edmund’s funeral he stated that the Rector of Xavier was “one of the most important positions, if not the most important that any priest in Melbourne could occupy”. That said, the Edmund and the Archbishop did not always agree on every matter. In 1927, the Archbishop was concerned at the non appearance of the College at the St Patrick’s Day celebrations. Edmund replied explaining that “not a few of the parents of the boys would strongly object to their children being forced to march”. The Archbishop did not pursue the question. The school cadets were the second matter on which they disagreed. Edmund had opposed all forms of military training for boys at school, because he disliked the idea of educating boys to destroy a fellow man. When they left school they could choose voluntary military training. The Archbishop was not sure that these pacific ideas were realistic.

How successful was the education that Jesuits were offering at Xavier? In 1925 Edmund emphasised the “deeper things in school life” such as the “spirit of piety and docility, of hard work, charity and self respect”. Further important signs of the success of Xavier were the success of the Old Boys either when they attended Newman College, or when they returned to school to renew contacts with former masters. Yet he reflected that even if they didn’t return, the work of the College would continue. This was one of the few expressions of great faith in the work of education made by Jesuits. Edmund indicated the Jesuit hope that their system would produce solid Catholic citizens, and provided some achieved this aim, then they were satisfied.

The wider community of Melbourne mourned Edmund’s early death. The Catholic people lost a spiritual leader of great wisdom, while many non-Catholics mourned the loss of a friendly and approachable colleague. he had been a quietly influential member of the Schools Board, the Council of Public Education ad the Headmasters’ Association. Colleges in these Associations respected him for his clear-headed thinking and the zeal with which he fostered the spirit of Public School Sport.

He was no innovator, nor did he give great educational leadership among the Public Schools of Victoria, but within Xavier College he built a new atmosphere, a strongly religious tone totally in keeping with Ignatian spirituality and Jesuit education. More than most Jesuit rectors, he was truly Catholic and thoroughly Ignatian in theory and practice. His greatness was his ability to communicate his spirit to others in an acceptable manner. The style of Xavier College during his time was a model for Jesuit schools of the time.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 6th Year No 4 1931
Obituary :
Fr Edmund Frost

Fr. Frost died at St. Benedict's private hospital, Malvern, (Melbourne) 17 June 1931. He had been ill for little more than a month. At first his disease was diagnosed as sarcoma, but later developments showed it to be Hodgkinson's disease a kind of infection of the blood.

On the eve of the Feast of the Sacred Heart they told him he was beyond human aid. and he heard the news with that calmness and serenity so characteristic no him. On the Feast itself he received the Last Sacraments. During the following days his strength failed rapidly, and on 17 June he died a wonderfully holy and happy death.
The very striking and unusual tribute paid to his memory on the day of the funeral shows in what high esteem he was held by all classes and creeds in Melbourne. The newspapers agree in saying that the crowd gathered round the catafalque was the largest seen in Melbourne on a like occasion, since 1917. when the obsequies of Dr Carr, the last Archbishop, were Celebrated. More than 4.000 people crowded into St. Patrick's Cathedral. At least 150 priests occupied the Sanctuary. It is scarcely necessary to say that our sterling friend Archbishop Mannix, presided. He was assisted by Dr McCarthy, Bishop of Sandhurst.
Still more striking was the large number of leading non-Catholics who came to pay their respects to the dead Jesuit. All the great Protestant Public Schools were represented. The Head Masters of Scotch College, Wesley College, Geelon Grammar school, were present. Melbourne Grammar School, Geelong College and others sent groups of masters and head boys to the obsequies. Fr Frost had been the Catholic representative on the Council of Education. and on the School Registration Board. The heads of both had their place in the Cathedral.
Of course, Xaverians. past and present, held the place of honours. The old Xaverians had, in relays, spent the previous night in prayer in the College Chapel before the remains were removed to the Cathedral. The senior prefects were the pall-bearers The entire school formed a guard of honour at the cemetery. They were joined by 170 boy s from St. Kevin's College, and 80 from bi. Patrick’s. St Vincent de Paul's Society, that Fr. Frost had made a great reality at the College, assisted in large numbers.
During the obsequies His Grace spoke in very touching terms of his dead friend. He said that Father Frost was in almost irreparable loss to the diocese. Not only was his death a loss to the Catholic body, but it was felt also by all with whom he had come in contact. He was every inch a man and a priest of God, true to his friends, with a wonderful gift of understanding. He was not merely a great Head Master and a great citizen, but he was a really spiritual man. The memorial chapel at Xavier had not yet been finished, but it would ever stand as a monument to the zeal, taste. and courage of Fr. Frost. He has left, continued His Grace, at monument in the hearts of all the boys with whom he came in contact. The old Xaverians will remember a brother. The clergy have lost an ornament, and I a dear and valued friend.
Dr. Littlejohn, the Presbyterian Head-Master of Scotch College, paid his tribute to Fr. Frost. The picture he draws of the man is so true that we shall give it in its entirety :
“The late Fr. Frost was above all a religious man. His religion meant more than anything else in the world. it was real to him.
But he was tolerant too. My last message from him - expressing regret that he could not see me, as he was unable to receive visitors, ended with a request for my prayers.
I considered him a great and a dear friend. In disposition he was a quiet kindly, genial gentleman. His cast of mind was serious, though there were gleams, too, of Irish wit. He would laugh heartily at my newest story from Aberdeen.
At meetings of the headmasters of the School Board, and the Council of Public Education, where we were colleagues. Fr, Frost made a place for himself as a sane, clear-headed thinker.
His inclination was slightly towards conservation “Hold fast to that which is good rather than some novel experiment”, seemed his maxim, Innovation for the sake of innovation without sound principle behind, he would leave well alone.
He did not speak much at our meetings, but what he did say was the outcome of sober thought, well considered, far seeing, and it was received with respect.
Fr. Frost fostered the spirit of school sport at its finest. He shared with his boys their enthusiasm for games. and he constantly impressed on them these two ideas : Not to be cast down in defeat; not to be overweening proud in success.
He never failed to acknowledge a message of congratulation on Xavier success in sport - nor to send one. His letters, worded with a kindly, old world courtesy, made one almost ashamed for winning. Glad you won, and glad it was you that beat us , was the note that ran through them.
l have been over the Xavier Memorial Chapel with Fr. Frost twice during its construction. The building of it was a matter very near to his heart. He contemplated with the greatest happiness the completion of this magnificent structure, now to be a memorial not only to the Fallen, but to himself”.
Mr Adamson, headmaster of Wesley College, said : I deeply regret the loss of so able a man. Associated with him for many years at meetings of headmasters, my first impression, which lasted when a friendship had sprung up between us. was of the entire reasonableness of the man. He was a splendid man to work with.
Mr Hansen, Director of Education, declared that a front rank educationist had been lost to Victoria.
An old Xaverian writes : Among the many notable men who had charge of Xavier College Fr. Frost was as regarded as the school's foremost headmaster. During his term the school made its greatest strides in studies, sport and in the number of scholars. This success is attributed to his qualities of leadership, which were shown in his dealings with both past and present scholars. He set himself out to keep in touch with boys after they left school, and continually sought to arrange gatherings of them at the school. The May vacation retreat, which large numbers of old boys now attend, was started by Fr. Frost. Another indication of his interest in old scholars was the number of marriages of old boys which he celebrated in the school chapel.
Another Old Xaverian : A great man has passed to his new and, a cultured Irish gentleman, a friend to all, a faithful priest of God. In all my long connection with Xavier there has been no one for whom 1 had a greater respect and affection than for Fr. Frost. He was a wise counselor and a faithful friend. He brought Xavier to the forefront of public schools, consolidated the old boys into a united body, fostered the public school spirit to the highest degree. His death is a national calamity.
Such was the estimate of Fr Frost formed by externs . What manner of ma was he in the community over which he presided? Possibly the first thing that strikes one is this - if ever there lived a man who was the very antithesis of “side”, of artificial and ill-fitting dignity, that man was Fr Frost. He was kindliness and simplicity itself.
One of those who lived under him was asked to give an appreciation of his Rector, and he answered “I consent gladly and at the same time sorrowfully. Gladly, because it is an opportunity to testify in public to the worth of one who was my Superior at Xavier’s, where I learned to know and love him. Sorrowfully, because the memory of him brings tears, and the reading of the testimonies to his life and character remind me of my loss. As a rector he ever dealt with me in the most kind manner possible. To see Christ in him was easy, because he lived Christ. Having said this there is nothing higher to say of him.
Nevertheless, lest my judgment be blinded by affection, it will be useful to hear what others who came in contact with him thought. The writer gives a number of the extracts already quoted in this notice, and continues Above all things he ever sought to see both sides of any question that was brought before him. In consequence his administration of justice was
evenhanded. The boys knew this well, and loved him for it. I hear there is great Justice for the boy at. Xavier’s, remarked a protestant lady. And she was right.
In conclusion I can but say with Melbournes great Archbishop : I too have lost a dear and valued friend.

Another member of his Community writes : Fr. Frost has left behind him the kindest and most beautiful memories every where... As Fr. Mannix put it so well : Some are gifted for dealing with men, others for dealing with religious Communities of women, others again for dealing with children but Fr. Frost was at home with them all.
His lost to the Community is of course great. He was a kind and holy Rector. and most considerate in every way. He taught me when I was a little boy at Clongowes. I knew him here (Xavier's) as Rector, and all the time I was on the continent (theologian) he sent me letters at regular intervals full of interesting news of Xavier, and almost invariably, a cheque for
Masses at Lisieux or Paray-Le-Monial, The Brothers miss him very much. He took recreation with them every Sunday , and stocked their recreation room with excellent pious books. He called it St. Alplsonsus' library. He joined in all our sports, played cricket during the season and tennis every Saturday. He was with us at our card parties, and ar all the little entertainments we have from time to time. Every morning before meditation he paid his visit to the Blessed Sacrament and then aa short visit to the shrine of our Lady in the hall. After breakfast there was another visit to Our Lady to get her blessing on the day's work. I feel very lonely alter him, but, please God, he is enjoying the reward of his holy and simple life. His funeral was certainly a fitting tribute to a holy an kind hearted man. Every morning at Mass he gave a talk to the boys on the saint of the day. The summary of his life is but too brief. He died in his 46th year. Fr. Frost was horn in Co. Clare (Ireland) 17 July 1884, educated at Presentation Brothers' College, Cork, and began his novitiate at Tullabeg 12 Nov. 1901, Two years rhetoric in the same place was followed by three 3 years philosophy at Stonyhurst, and five years at Clongowes as prefect and master. During philosophy he got his B. A. degree at the Royal University. Two more years teaching, this time at Mungret, brought him to the third year, which he made at Tullabeg. For a year and a half he was Minister at Tullabeg and was then transferred to Clongowes whose Minister had broken down health. In 1922 he set sail for Australia. He spent one year teaching at Xavier, and then became its Rector. His holy death was at Malvern (Melbourne) 17 June 1931. May he rest in peace.

Fullam, John, 1719-1793, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1334
  • Person
  • 03 April 1710-07 August 1793

Born: 14 October 1813, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 13 September 1843, Drongen, Belgium (BELG)
Ordained: - pre Entry
Final Vows: 02 February 1860
Died: 31 March 1898, Milltown Park, Dublin

1761-1766 In Ireland
“In his will he left to Fr Callaghan the Government securities, to Fr Nowlan the City Bonds. He also makes a bequest to the Society should it be restored in 20 years”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1749 Sent to Dublin
Lived in Dublin for many years up to his death, and taught Humanities for six years.
He is highly eulogised by Father Plunket in a letter to a friend 14/07/1794 (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS and Foley’s Collectanea)
Father Wichert, appointed Vicar General on the death of General Kareu, in a letter dated Polock, 04 August 18002, addressed to William Strickland in London, mentions a legacy left by Father Fulham and his sister for use of the Society in White Russia, and “enjoins the usual suffrages for them as for benefactors” (General’s letters in Province Archives)
A great benefactor to the ex-Jesuits of LUGD and those in Russia, giving each £50 yearly for ten years

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Received a classical education at the school of Milo Byrne before Ent 02 December 1735 Avignon
After First Vows he studied Philosophy at Holy Trinity College, Lyon and then for Regency taught Humanities for six years before returning to Lyons for Theology and being Ordained there 10 September 1747
1749 Sent to Ireland and based at Dublin, and was appointed a Consultor of the Mission in 1755. On the suppression of the Society he was one of those who signed the instrument accepting the Suppression. Hen then became incardinated into the Dublin Diocese, and on the death of the former Mission Superior of the now defunct Irish Mission, he succeeded as trustee of former Jesuit funds.
1775 His ability was recognised by the Archbishop and the Chapter when he was appointed “Fidei Commissarius”. He died at Usher’s Quay 07 August 1793
He inherited a considerable family fortune which constituted the greater part of the capital sum which enabled the first of the restored Mission to buy Clongowes Wood in 1814

◆ Fr Joseph McDonnell SJ Past and Present Notes :
16th February 1811 At the advance ages of 73, Father Betagh, PP of the St Michael Rosemary Lane Parish Dublin, Vicar General of the Dublin Archdiocese died. His death was looked upon as almost a national calamity. Shops and businesses were closed on the day of his funeral. His name and qualities were on the lips of everyone. He was an ex-Jesuit, the link between the Old and New Society in Ireland.

Among his many works was the foundation of two schools for boys : one a Classical school in Sall’s Court, the other a Night School in Skinner’s Row. One pupil received particular care - Peter Kenney - as he believed there might be great things to come from him in the future. “I have not long to be with you, but never fear, I’m rearing up a cock that will crow louder and sweeter for yopu than I ever did” he told his parishioners. Peter Kenney was to be “founder” of the restored Society in Ireland.

There were seventeen Jesuits in Ireland at the Suppression : John Ward, Clement Kelly, Edward Keating, John St Leger, Nicholas Barron, John Austin, Peter Berrill, James Moroney, Michael Cawood, Michael Fitzgerald, John Fullam, Paul Power, John Barron, Joseph O’Halloran, James Mulcaile, Richard O’Callaghan and Thomas Betagh. These men believed in the future restoration, and they husbanded their resources and succeeded in handing down to their successors a considerable sum of money, which had been saved by them.

A letter from the Acting General Father Thaddeus Brezozowski, dated St Petersburg 14/06/1806 was addressed to the only two survivors, Betagh and O’Callaghan. He thanked them for their work and their union with those in Russia, and suggested that the restoration was close at hand.

A letter from Nicholas Sewell, dated Stonyhurst 07/07/1809 to Betagh gives details of Irishmen being sent to Sicily for studies : Bartholomew Esmonde, Paul Ferley, Charles Aylmer, Robert St Leger, Edmund Cogan and James Butler. Peter Kenney and Matthew Gahan had preceded them. These were the foundation stones of the Restored Society.

Returning to Ireland, Kenney, Gahan and John Ryan took residence at No3 George’s Hill. Two years later, with the monies saved for them, Kenney bought Clongowes as a College for boys and a House of Studies for Jesuits. From a diary fragment of Aylmer, we learn that Kenney was Superior of the Irish Mission and Prefect of Studies, Aylmer was Minister, Claude Jautard, a survivor of the old Society in France was Spiritual Father, Butler was Professor of Moral and Dogmatic Theology, Ferley was professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Esmonde was Superior of Scholastics and they were joined by St Leger and William Dinan. Gahan was described as a Missioner at Francis St Dublin and Confessor to the Poor Clares and irish Sisters of Charity at Harold’s Cross and Summerhill. Ryan was a Missioner in St Paul’s, Arran Quay, Dublin. Among the Scholastics, Brothers and Masters were : Brothers Fraser, Levins, Connor, Bracken, Sherlock, Moran, Mullen and McGlade.

Trouble was not long coming. Protestants were upset that the Jesuits were in Ireland and sent a petition was sent to Parliament, suggesting that the Vow of Obedience to the Pope meant they could not have an Oath of Allegiance to the King. In addition, the expulsion of Jesuits from all of Europe had been a good thing. Kenney’s influence and diplomatic skills resulted in gaining support from Protestants in the locality of Clongowes, and a counter petition was presented by the Duke of Leinster on behalf of the Jesuits. This moment passed, but anto Jesuit feelings were mounting, such as in the Orange faction, and they managed to get an enquiry into the Jesuits and Peter Kenney and they appeared before the Irish Chief Secretary and Provy Council. Peter Kenney’s persuasive and oratorical skills won the day and the enquiry group said they were satisfied and impressed.

Over the years the Mission grew into a Province with Joseph Lentaigne as first Provincial in 1860. In 1885 the first outward undertaking was the setting up of an Irish Mission to Australia by Lentaigne and William Kelly, and this Mission grew exponentially from very humble beginnings.

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

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father John Fullam 1719-1793
Fr John Fullam was born in Dublin on March 23rd 1719. He entered the Society in the Lyons Province on December 2nd 1735.

He returned to Ireland in 1749, and three years later was professed on the 2nd of February. For the last 40 years of his life he resided in Dublin, a close friend of Frs Austin, Betagh and Mulcaile, assisting in the school and partaking in the parochial work of St Michael and John’s and St Michan’s.

He was not as distinguished or generally known as Fr Austin or some of the other Jesuits of this period, yet we have reason to regard him as one of the greatest benefactors of the Society in Ireland.

By the influence of his piety and unobtrusive conduct, he had acquired many friends in the higher and wealthier classes of society, and he seems himself to have been surpised by the liberality and generosity which he often experienced on their part.

On the total Suppression of the Society in 1773, the last Superior, Fr Ward, retained the administration of the funds of the Irish Mission for two years. Then feeling death approaching, he named Fr Fullam his executor and residuary legate. So, on the death opf Fr Ward on 12th October 1775, Fr Fullam came into the full administratio of the Mission property. Before the death of Fr Fullam, the fund amounted to £8650 with an annual interest of £324. He himself increased this amount from private benefactions to twice the original. He very wisely and prudently arranged in his will that all this property should ultimately revert to the Society on Restoration. He was indeed a true and trusty steward.

His death took place in Dublin in 1793.

◆ MacErlean Cat Miss HIB SJ 1670-1770 John Fullam
Those marked with
were working in Dublin when on 07/02/1774 they subscribed their submission to the Brief of Suppression
John Ward was unavoidably absent and subscribed later
Michael Fitzgerald, John St Leger and Paul Power were stationed at Waterford
Nicholas Barron and Joseph Morony were stationed at Cork
Edward Keating was then PP in Wexford

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
FULLAM, JOHN, was born in Dublin on the 23rd of March, 1719, and entered the Novitiate, in the Lyons province, on the 2nd of December, 1735. He came to the Mission in 1749, and was admitted to the Profession of the Four Vows on the 2nd of February, 1754. For the last 40 years of his life, I believe that he resided in his native city. He died either on the 7th of August, 1793, or early in 1794. F. Peter Plunkett, in a letter to a friend dated 14th July that year, from Leghorn says, “Though I had been prepared for the fatal stroke by a letter from Dublin, announcing that my most dear and worthy friend, Rev. John Fulham, was past all hopes of recovery, notwithstanding on hearing the event, I felt no small share of uneasiness, such as was naturally to be expected for the loss of a person, whom I had intimately known in Dublin, much esteemed, and sincerely loved, and whom moreover I had corresponded with these twenty years past. I hope in God, he is now enjoying the reward due to his exemplary piety, to his strong attachment to our Holy Catholic religion, and to his unabated love and concern for our common parent, the Society of Jesus.

Fynn, Anthony, 1899-1965, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1335
  • Person
  • 22 September 1899-02 February 1965

Born: 22 September 1899, Yea, Victoria, Australia
Entered: 01 February 1918, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 31 July 1933, Milltown Park, Dublin
Professed: 15 August 1936
Died 02 February 1965, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL: 05 April 1931

WWII Chaplain

by 1924 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER I) studying
by 1928 in Australia - Regency

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
His early education was at McCristal’s, Mentone, and two separate periods at Xavier College Kew, where he won prizes in Physics, Trigonometry and Devating. He Entered the Society at Loyola Greenwich.

1920-1923 After First Vows he was sent to Ireland and Rathfarnham Castle to study at UCD, graduating BSc.
1923-1926 He was sent to Valkenburg Netherlands for Philosophy
1927-1930 He returned to Australia for Regency at Xavier College, where he was teaching, was a Prefect of Discipline and editor of the Xavierian.
1930-1934 He came back to Ireland for Theology at Milltown Park
1934-1935 He was sent to make Tertianship at Innsbruck Austria
1935-1938 He returned to Australia and was sent to Loyola Watsonia to teach Philosophy. There he taught Natural Theology, Cosmology, Psychology, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. He was also Prefect of tones, Choir master and Minister for short periods. He also directed “Question Box” on the radio’s Catholic Hour.

He was fluent in French and German and widely read. He was always refreshing to discuss issues with. He had no hesitation, making up his mind, and in no time he would sweep away doubts or illusions one might have about the subject being discussed. He had a very accurate mind and was somewhat intolerant of mis-statements.

It was said among Jesuits that because he was so gifted at Mathematics and Physics, he was really meant to work at the Riverview Observatory, however others filled in that space. his work as a teacher of Philosophy was not very appealing to him. Then in 1958 he was very pleased to succeed Noel Burke-Gaffney at the Riverview Observatory, and he remained there very happy until his death. In 1962, he supervised the installation of the American seismological network - at that time the most modern equipment available. His presence and scholarship were very much appreciated among the scientific community.

During WWII, when he was an Air Force Chaplain that he discovered the diabetes which was to cause his death. However, he worked so continuously and cheerfully that most were unaware of his sickness. He had a lively wit and some of his comments were memorable. During a meeting of a Provincial Congregation he observed the Professed Fathers approaching the refectory : “If that is the cream of the Society, I am glad to be in the skim milk!”

Gaffney, Edward, 1850-1925, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1336
  • Person
  • 18 July 1850-10 February 1925

Born: 18 July 1850, County Meath
Entered: 24 October 1870, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained:
Final Vows: 02 February 1890
Died: 10 February 1925, St John’s College, Texas Avenue, Shreveport LA, USA - Neo-Aurelianensis Province (NOR)

Transcribed HIB to NOR: 1872

Gaffney, William, 1778-1842, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1337
  • Person
  • 08 May 1778-01 February 1842

Born: 08 May 1778, County Dublin / County Meath
Entered: 09 October 1828, Clongowes Wood College SJ, County Kildare
Final Vows: 24 September 1841
Died: 01 February 1842, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was a very good carpenter, and made himself very useful at Tullabeg in its early days. Very little is known about him, except that he had the name of being a very good religious and very devoted to prayer. He was 50 year of age when he entered the Society.

He died at Tullabeg 01/02/1842, and is buried under a yew tree in the centre of the old Rahan Cemetery. No cross marks his grave. Father John Curtis was Superior at the time, and there were eleven other Jesuits in the community.

Note from Patrick Byrne Entry :
He is buried in the old cemetery at Rahan, in the same grave with Brother Gaffney.

Gahan, Matthew, 1782-1837, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1338
  • Person
  • 07 February 1782-22 February 1837

Born: 07 February 1782, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1805, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 16 July 1810, Palermo, Italy
Final Vows: 01 November 1832
Died: 22 February 1837, Kirk Braddan, Isle of Man, England

in Clongowes 1817
by 1831 on Isle of Man

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Studied at Stonyhurst and Palermo after Entry.
1811 Sent to Ireland in November, he was a curate in Dublin for five years
1816-1822 Minister at Clongowes
1822-1824 With Charles Aylmer at Dublin Residence for two years.
1824-1837 Then for the remainder of his life, he was a Missioner on the Isle of Man, labouring under very great discouragements, privations and difficulties, which he endured with admirable patience. Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS calls him the “Apostle of the Isle of Man”.

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Having spent some time working in Dublin and six years as Minister at Clongowes, he asked permission to devote himself to the spiritual care of the poor abandoned Catholics of the Isle of Man, whose spiritual destitution, being without a Priest, and deprived as they were of all consolation of religion, touched him to the heart. To their service and instruction he devoted the remainder of his life, amidst inconceivable discouragements, privations, difficulties, and labours, all of which he bore with exemplary patience and fortitude. He build two Chapels in the two chief centres of the island - Douglas and Castletown. Until his death he remained at his solitary post sustaining unaided the heavy labours of his mission and keeping alive the faith among the people. So he was styles “The Apostle of the Isle of Man”.
He died age 55, consoled by the reception of the last Sacraments, owing to the intervention of Divine Providence, which had sent him a priest, who had no knowledge of his illness, to be with him in his last moments.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 4th Year No 1 1928

We are indebted to Fr. Provincial for the following copy of an inscription on a mural tablet in a Church near Douglas, Isle of Man, He received it from Mr .L. W. R. Murphy :

“Memoriae at quieti Rev Matthaei Josephi Gahan SI, qui suos in Hibernia reliquit ut sese Monam incolentium saluti impenderet. Religionc in Deum, zelo in proximum, benignitate in pauperes, comitate in olmies eximius, inter aspera valetudinis semper indcfessus, bins sacris aedibus erectis, febri tandem, dum agonizanti subveniret correptus, pie obit 22 Feb. 1837, ann. aet. 56.”

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Matthew Gahan SJ 1782-1837
In the Isle of Man on February 22nd 1837, died Fr Matthew Gahan, who had been styled the “Apostle of the Isle of Man”.

He was born in Dublin in 1782 and entered for the Irish Mission at Hodder in 1805.

After having filled various positions in Dublin, and having been Minister for six years at Clongowes, he obtained the permission of his Superiors to devote himself to spiritual care of the poor and abandoned Catholics of the Isle of Man, whose spiritual destitution, through being without a priest and deprived of all consolation of religion, touched him to the heart. He had previously visited them occasionally and cheered them with his presence. To their service, he devoted the remainder of his life amid inconceivable privations and difficulties, all of which he bore with great patience and fortitude.

He built two chapels at the two chief centres on the island, Douglas and Castletown. Til his death he remained at his solitary post, bearing unaided the heavy labours of the Mission and keeping alive the faith among the people. To him, under God, is due the preservation of the Catholic faith on the Island.

It is no wonder he died at the early age of 55, worn out with the hardship and labour. But God, who seeth in secret, did not abandon him in the end. In the time of his great need, Fr Aylmer happened to come across to the island to visit him, not knowing he was sick, and arrived at the spot in time to prepare his soul for its last journey.

If you visit St Mary’s Church in Douglas today, you will see in the wall a stone slab, commemorating Fr Gahan as “The Second Apostle of the Isle of Man” – the first being St Patrick himself.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GAHAN, MATTHEW, of Dublin; born on the 7th of February, 1782 : entered the Society for the Irish Mission at Hodder house, on the 7th of September, 1805 : after completing his Noviceship there, commenced his Theology at Stonyhurst, and finished it at Palermo, where he was ordained Priest, on the 16th of July, 1810. In the November of the following year, he returned to his native Country, and for five years assisted as Curate in the Parishes of St. Michan and St. Nicholas without, in Dublin. In 1816, was stationed at Clongowes-Wood College, in the capacity of Minister, an office which he filled for six years, when he was ordered back to Dublin as Coadjutor to F. Aylmer, in the residence of the Society in that city. At the end of two years his Superiors permitted him to establish himself in the Isle of Man, the poor Catholics of which were lying like sheep without a Shepherd, and whom he had occasionally before visited and comforted, and cheered with his presence. To their instruction, and relief, and service, he devoted the remainder of his life, amidst inconceivable discouragements, privations, difficulties and labours, all of which he bore with exemplary patience and fortitude. This good Father was called to the reward of his zeal and charity, on the 22nd of February, 1837, aet. 55. Prof. 4, after five days illness. He had built a Chapel at Douglass and Castletown. Future generations will hail him as the Apostle of the Isle of Man “supra modum Apostolus Insulae Monae”.

◆ Fr Joseph McDonnell SJ Past and Present Notes :
16th February 1811 At the advance ages of 73, Father Betagh, PP of the St Michael Rosemary Lane Parish Dublin, Vicar General of the Dublin Archdiocese died. His death was looked upon as almost a national calamity. Shops and businesses were closed on the day of his funeral. His name and qualities were on the lips of everyone. He was an ex-Jesuit, the link between the Old and New Society in Ireland.

Among his many works was the foundation of two schools for boys : one a Classical school in Sall’s Court, the other a Night School in Skinner’s Row. One pupil received particular care - Peter Kenney - as he believed there might be great things to come from him in the future. “I have not long to be with you, but never fear, I’m rearing up a cock that will crow louder and sweeter for yopu than I ever did” he told his parishioners. Peter Kenney was to be “founder” of the restored Society in Ireland.

There were seventeen Jesuits in Ireland at the Suppression : John Ward, Clement Kelly, Edward Keating, John St Leger, Nicholas Barron, John Austin, Peter Berrill, James Moroney, Michael Cawood, Michael Fitzgerald, John Fullam, Paul Power, John Barron, Joseph O’Halloran, James Mulcaile, Richard O’Callaghan and Thomas Betagh. These men believed in the future restoration, and they husbanded their resources and succeeded in handing down to their successors a considerable sum of money, which had been saved by them.

A letter from the Acting General Father Thaddeus Brezozowski, dated St Petersburg 14/06/1806 was addressed to the only two survivors, Betagh and O’Callaghan. He thanked them for their work and their union with those in Russia, and suggested that the restoration was close at hand.

A letter from Nicholas Sewell, dated Stonyhurst 07/07/1809 to Betagh gives details of Irishmen being sent to Sicily for studies : Bartholomew Esmonde, Paul Ferley, Charles Aylmer, Robert St Leger, Edmund Cogan and James Butler. Peter Kenney and Matthew Gahan had preceded them. These were the foundation stones of the Restored Society.

Returning to Ireland, Kenney, Gahan and John Ryan took residence at No3 George’s Hill. Two years later, with the monies saved for them, Kenney bought Clongowes as a College for boys and a House of Studies for Jesuits. From a diary fragment of Aylmer, we learn that Kenney was Superior of the Irish Mission and Prefect of Studies, Aylmer was Minister, Claude Jautard, a survivor of the old Society in France was Spiritual Father, Butler was Professor of Moral and Dogmatic Theology, Ferley was professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Esmonde was Superior of Scholastics and they were joined by St Leger and William Dinan. Gahan was described as a Missioner at Francis St Dublin and Confessor to the Poor Clares and irish Sisters of Charity at Harold’s Cross and Summerhill. Ryan was a Missioner in St Paul’s, Arran Quay, Dublin. Among the Scholastics, Brothers and Masters were : Brothers Fraser, Levins, Connor, Bracken, Sherlock, Moran, Mullen and McGlade.

Trouble was not long coming. Protestants were upset that the Jesuits were in Ireland and sent a petition was sent to Parliament, suggesting that the Vow of Obedience to the Pope meant they could not have an Oath of Allegiance to the King. In addition, the expulsion of Jesuits from all of Europe had been a good thing. Kenney’s influence and diplomatic skills resulted in gaining support from Protestants in the locality of Clongowes, and a counter petition was presented by the Duke of Leinster on behalf of the Jesuits. This moment passed, but anto Jesuit feelings were mounting, such as in the Orange faction, and they managed to get an enquiry into the Jesuits and Peter Kenney and they appeared before the Irish Chief Secretary and Provy Council. Peter Kenney’s persuasive and oratorical skills won the day and the enquiry group said they were satisfied and impressed.

Over the years the Mission grew into a Province with Joseph Lentaigne as first Provincial in 1860. In 1885 the first outward undertaking was the setting up of an Irish Mission to Australia by Lentaigne and William Kelly, and this Mission grew exponentially from very humble beginnings.

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

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 32 : April 1984

PORTRAIT FROM THE PAST : APOSTLE OF THE ISLE OF MAN – MATTHEW GAHAN

Rev WS Dempsey

Mathew Gahan was born in Dublin in 1782 and joined the (partially restored) Jesuits at Hodder in England in 1805. He studied Philosophy at Stonyhunst (1807-09) and Theology at Palermo (1809-11). Ordained in Sicily in 1810, he returned to Ireland and worked as an operarius in Dublin (Saint Mary's Lane) from 1811 to 1815. He became Minister of Clongowes Wood College in 1816, a post which he held till an extraordinary assignment came his way in 1823. Father William Dempsey, Parish Priest og Peel in the Isle of Man, takes up the story.

The Catholics of the Isle of Man, now numbering two or maybe three hundred, were bereft of a pastor and appealed for immediate help to the Vicar Apostolic of the Northern Province of England.

After some delay, a Father Brown volunteered for the Mission. In the meantime, the Vicar Apostolic arranged with the Irish Jesuit college at Clongowes Wood, then recently established, to provide a resident priest for the Many Mission. And so, about the year 1823, one of the professors at the College, Reverend Mathew Gahan, S.J., nephew of the learned Augustinian with whose name many are familiar as the author of Catholic Piety, took up his new and unpromising post in Douglas.

He was accompanied by an Irish school-master, named John Kelly, whose services were to be of inestimable value to the faith and whose stern discipline was to impress more than the minds of the rising generation. A school was built beside the chapel of Saint Brigid in 1824, and here “Kelly the Roman” (as the Douglas people nicknamed him) presided over his mixed gathering of pupils. The school was mixed in every sense: Catholics and Protestants, girls and boys, rich and poor all crowded together in one small room. The children paid their weekly fees in kind as well as coin, potatoes, apples, cabbages and groceries formed the staple “school pence”.

Father Gahan, however, by no means confined his labours to Douglas. The whole Island was his parish, and regularly he would set off to visit his flock in Castletown, Peel and Ramsey. At that time there were no modern roads, only rough narrow bridlepaths, as Dean Gillow puts it: “rambling at their own sweet will up hill and down dale in the roughest and unreadiest manner conceivable”. There was nothing for the priest but to mount “St Francis' pony”. He tramped afoot over the rocky, shingly or sandy, unformed roads, ofttimes weary and footsore. Once in a way a cart as rough as the roads might give him a lift for a mile or two, but there were to snug railways, or even engineer-planned highways in those days....

Father Ganan was in the habit of visiting Ramsey about four times a year in order to afford the few faithful an opportunity of hearing Mass and receiving the sacraments. He used to send word in advance from Douglas that he was coming on the following Sunday. This message would come to an old Mr Collins, who despatched his son Edward to two Catholics living five miles off at Kirk Andreas, to tell them of the advent of the priest. From Andreas the lad had to strike off across country to Ballaugh village, where four more Catholics lived. Then he made his way home to Ramsey, after a round of more than twenty miles. On the appointed Sunday the little Flock came together in the back parlour of Mr Freel's shop at the bottom of King Street, hard by the Market Place. On these occasions the entire congregation assembled for Mass did not number more than twelve: Only 'the grown-ups were allowed to enter the room. The children were shut out for fear of spoiling the good man's carpet. This arrangement was kept up for a considerable time.

The chief monument to Father Gahan's apostolate is the church of St Mary at Castletown, which he opened in 1826. It had long been his dearest wish to raise a worthy house of God in the ancient capital of the Island, and his appeals to his countrymen in Ireland for this object were many and earnest. Sometimes crossing over in a fishing craft to Killough in Co. Down, he would spend two or three weeks together collecting funds; and the old people used to recall that no Catholic ever died without the sacraments while their devoted pastor was absent on these errands of charity.

Douglas, however, was far outstripping Castletown in population and civic importance; and Father Gahan realized. the need of providing a larger church there, more conveniently situated in the centre of the town. His indefatigable zeal, aided by generous Irish friends, enabled him to purchase an old theatre known as St George's Hall at the corner of Atholl Street, and Prospect Hill. This building was easily and quickly adapted to the purposes of a Catholic place of worship and dedicated to St Francis Xavier. Underneath was a spacious basement, admirably suited to the pedagogic exercises of Kelly the Roman. In the year 1836, just a few months before his death, Father Gahan had the satisfaction of saying Mass at his new chapel. “For the purchase and erecting of this chapel, writes his friend, “Father P Kenney, SJ, he had the leave of the late Vicar Apostolic, Dr Penswick, who even signed a deed empowering Mr Gahan to sell the premises in which the old chapel stood”, though the sale was never effected. Yet when this chapel was on the eve of being opened the present Vicar Apostolic refused to allow it to be opened unless conditions were signed by Mr Gahan and the Provincial Superior which they could not admit. The delay and all, its concomitant disappointments, and the anxieties which it produced, materially affected his health, which had been long, declining. In the course of the winter the oid chapel could not be used as the rain got through the roof, and as the missioner lived in the house at Douglas, he, was not able even in dry weather to go so far. These circumstances occasioned the chapel to be opened in a private way, and the good man knew the comfort of saying Mass in it some months before his death. Father Aylmer went over to see him on the 17th February, to induce him to come to Dublin, to relieve his mental and bodily sufferings, but he only arrived in time to attend him in his last illness. That very evening he had returned from one of his missionary calls, sick in fever, which terminated his edifying and useful life in five days”.

The “second apostle of the Isle of Man”, as Father Gahan had been affectionately styled, was laid to rest in the cemetery of Old Kirk Braddan. A few days later there appeared in the Mona's Herald the following tribute from the pen of a distinguished Protestant contributor: “Among the recent deaths you have had to record in your journal, none has been more generally and severely felt than that of the Rev. MJ Gahan, the clergyman of the Roman Catholic chapel in this town. The Rev. Mr Gahan's kind and amiable character in private life, his unostentatious and extended charity among the poor, without any invidious distinction, is scarcely equalled and seldom excelled. It is now upwards of twelve years since this excellent man commenced his christian labours in this Island, exposed to privations and vexations which few men but himself would have submitted to, and we have reason to believe his constitution suffered great ly from their bane ful effects. His ardent desire was to finish his earthly career in the Island he had adopted, and his memory will long be revered by a numerous circle of friends and admirers of his private and public virtues. I am sure of this - the poor have lost a real benefactor and an indefatigable spiritual guide...”

A marble tablet in the grounds of St Mary's, Douglas, perpetuates his memory in these words: “Friends have erected this monument to the peaceful remembrance of the Rev. Mathew Joseph Gahan, SJ, He left his own people in Ireland to devote himself to the salvation of the inhabitants of the Isle of Man. He was conspicuous for his piety towards God, for zeal towards his neighbour, for kindness to the poor, and for charity towards all. Amidst the hardships of weak health, he was ever unwearied. At length after building two churches he was struck down by fever whilst attending a dying bed, and sweetly expired February 22nd, in the year of sal vation 1837 at the age of 56”.

For a little while Father Aylmer, who attended him in his closing hours of life, remained in charge of his work until the Vicar Apostolic of Northern Ireland, Dr Brown, took over the spiritual administration of the Island. There was some talk at this time of entrusting the Manx mission to the Jesuit Fathers, and even of building a Jesuit college in the island; but it all came to nothing, and the college was subsequently erected in North Wales, under the title of St Beuno's.

EPILOGUE
In a recent letter to Father socius, Ms Ella Caine of Douglas assures us that Mathew Gahan's grave is still tidy and that she “will continue to look after it” as she has done for several years.

Gallagher, George, 1879-1945, Jesuit priest and chaplain

  • IE IJA J/1339
  • Person
  • 24 September1879-24 June 1945

Born: 24 September1879, County Donegal
Entered: 07 September 1898, Roehampton, London - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1916
Final Vows: 02 February 1917
Died: 24 June 1945, Preston, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

by 1904 came to Tullabeg (HIB) teaching
by 1916 came to Tullabeg (HIB) making Tertianship

Dempsey, James, 1832-1904, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/134
  • Person
  • 18 May 1832-03 October 1904

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.

Gallagher, James, 1887-1960, Jesuit priest and chaplain

  • IE IJA J/1340
  • Person
  • 21 October 1887-21 December 1960

Born: 21 October 1887, Kilcar, County Donegal
Entered: 01 February 1907, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 25 April 1918
Final Vows: 02 February 1926
Died: 21 December 1960, Roehampton, London, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Transcribed HIB to ANG : 1908
First World War chaplain

by 1920 came to Milltown (HIB) studying
by 1925 came to Tullabeg (HIB) making Tertianship

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - St Eunan’s, Letterkenny, County Donegal student

Gallagher, Michael, 1786-1866, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1341
  • Person
  • 01 September 1786-04 December 1866

Born: 01 September 1786, Leixlip, County Kildare
Entered: 07 September 1819, St Stanislaus, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 08 September 1837
Died: 04 December 1866, Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was a carpenter by trade. It is not certain when he first went to Clongowes, but after several petitions, he was finally accepted in the Noviceship at Tullabeg 07/09/1819.

He spent the greater part of his life in the Society at Clongowes. He was very hardworking and made himself very useful. He was industrious and skillful and “paratus ad omnia”. Nothing was beneath him, although he often had the lion’s share of the work to be done. He wore the oldest clothes, washed and cleaned the dormitories, and this and other similar kinds of work were his delight. He was both innocent and remarkable for his singular good humour, d though naturally quick tempered, he never showed it in his work, governing it with humility and modesty.
During the last years of his life he suffered much. The fact that he had been so active and now unable to be so pained him greatly. In time he became both blind and deaf, and he bore all these sufferings with great patience. He died peacefully 04/12/1866, after 47 years of service in the Society.

Note from John Nelson Entry :
He took his Final Vows 02/02/1838 along with eleven others, being the first to whom Final Vows were given since the Restoration in Ireland. The others were : Philip Reilly of “Palermo fame”; Nowlan, Cleary, Mulligan, Michael Gallagher, Pexton Sr, Toole, Egan, Ginivan, Patrick Doyle and Plunkett.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Brother Michael Gallagher 1796-1866
Br Michael Gallagher was born in Leixlip County Dublin in 1796. A carpenter by trade, he became a Jesuit Brother in 1819.

The greater part of his life was spent at Clongowes. He was a “paratus ad omnia”, nothing was beneath him, although he always had the lion’s share of disagreeable work.

Though naturally of a quick temper, he scarcely ever sign of it, but governed it by humility and modesty. During the later years of his l;ife he suffered much, especially from being incapable of work, when he had been so active. He became blind and deaf.

At a ripe age of seventy years, forty seven of which he spent in the Society, he died peacefully and full of merit on December 4th 1866.

Gallagher, Thomas, 1833-1865, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1342
  • Person
  • 30 December 1833-27 December 1865

Born: 30 December 1833, County Kildare
Entered: 23 September 1860, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 27 December 1865, Milltown Park, Dublin

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

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was Villicar and Emptor al his religious life at Tullabeg, until shortly before he died, when he went for a change to Milltown.

Gallwey, Peter, 1820-1906, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1343
  • Person
  • 13 November 1820-23 September 1906

Born: 13 November 1820, Killarney, County Kerry
Entered: 07 September 1836, Hodder, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1852
Final Vows: 15 August 1854
Died: 23 September 1906, Mount St, London, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Gallwey served as Provincial of the Angliae Province (ANG) from 1873 to 1876

Galtrim, George, 1590-1617, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1344
  • Person
  • 1590-12 March 1617

Born: 1590, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 17 May 1609, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: c 1617
Died: 12 March 1617, Dublin City, County Dublin

1613 Studying at Douai
1617 Catalogue In Ireland

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1617 In Ireland

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had previously studied at Douai before Ent 17 May 1609 Rome
There is no record of his scholastic life after Novitiate, but he is noted as being a priest by 1617 in Ireland.

Galway, David, 1575/7-1643, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1345
  • Person
  • 1575/7-22 December 1643

Born: 1575/7, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 10 November 1604, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1609, Rome Italy
Died: 22 December 1643, Cork Residence, Cork City, County Cork

RIP 1634 or 1643 (if he appears in Verdier’s Report it is more likely 1643?)

Educated at Irish College Douai
1617 Catalogue Living in Ireland
1621 Catalogue On the Mission. Strong and fitted for more practical than speculative subjects. Not circumspect in conversations. An assiduous operarius
1622 in West Munster
1626 In Ireland

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
He was a merchant in early life; A devoted and daring Missioner for thirty years.
He had extraordinary adventures in Ulster, the Scottish Isles and Highlands, and the Isle of Man;
He converted hundreds to the orthodox faith; He was idolised in Cork; He was a man of singular mortification and piety; Miraculous things are told of him
(cf Foley’s Collectanea)
He left Ireland for Rome with a letter of introduction from Christopher Holywood. 30 June 1604, and a request that he might be sent to the Noviciate at St Andrea, Rome, and might make his Theology at the Roman College.
1617 In Ireland (Irish Ecclesiastical Record August 1874). After his studies and Ordination he came to Ireland, and visited Scotland and the Hebrides and Orkney Islands three times, in the disguise of a merchant, gaining many souls for Christ. he was a daring ad devoted Missioner for thirty years.
He is named in a letter of Father Lawndry (Holiwood) 04/11/1611 (IER April 1874) being then a companion of Robert Nugent, both of whom were assiduous in labour.
We also find him named in the Verdier Report to General Nickel on the Irish Mission 1641-1650, with an account of his virtues and labours.
His death was occasioned by need and want (cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Initially had a career of a merchant, but let that go for Priesthood
Studied at Douai from 1601, but returned to Ireland with Christopher Holywood after his release from prison in 1603. Holywood then sent him to the Novitiate in Rome Ent 10 November 1604 St Andrea, Rome
After First Vows he continued his studies at the Roman College, and was Ordained there in 1609
1609 Sent to Ireland and worked mainly in West Munster, but occasionally went to Ulster, as well as visiting Scotland three times and the Isle of Man In later years he was sought by authorities for having reconciled a Protestant woman with the Church, and so he had to leave Cork. For a while he worked on Clear Island, but when he became ill he returned to the Cork Residence where he died 22 December 1634

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father David Galwey 1579-1643
Fr David Galwey was a merchant in his early life, and well used to the sea. This was of great advantage to him in his later life as a priest. Born in Cork in 1579, he became a Jesuit in 1604. He laboured in Cork City for 30 years, where he was idolised by the people, and after his death on December 22nd 1643, miraculous events were connected with his name.

His most noteworthy exploit was his mission to the Hebrides in 1619. A fluent speaker of Irish, he was at home with the Scots. He visited none of the islands, Islay, Oronsay, Colonsay, Gigha, Kintire, Jura, Arran, Sanday and Torsa. He visited these islands on three separate occasions. While there he went about disguised as a merchant. The Protestants hated him so much that they sent his likeness about in oder to secure his arrest. On wonder what is meant by the word “likeness”. Was it some kind of picture or drawing or a mere verbal description? Be that as it may, his life was hazardous in the extreme. For five months he never changed his garments, though often exposed to wind and rain. He had the consolation of converting many people on the islands, and of saying Mass for Catholics who had never seen the Holy Sacrifice offered up. This mission to the Hebrides was financed by Daniel Arthur, a merchant of Limerick, and fostered by the Irish Jesuits for a hundred years afterwards. A Fr Kelly was there some years after Fr Galwey, and a Fr O’Meara from Drogheda reconciled 200 Scots to the Church in 1712. It is a remarkable fact and a proud memory for the Irish Province, that in the midst of the struggles and dangers of the Penal Times, we still had men and interest for the foreign missions.

Fr David Galwey died himself of a cancer in Cork on December 22nd 1643.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GALWEY, DAVID. In a letter of F. Holiwood, written from Ireland, 30th of June, 1604, he begins by saying, “I send as the bearer of this, Mr David Galwey, an Alumnus of our Society. I wish you to send him to St. Andrew’s house of probation, and to go through his Theological studies in the Roman College. He has been with me for the last year, and in our opinion is fit for the Society, and specially adapted for this Mission, because he is well acquainted with the Irish as well as the English language. The life of a merchant which he followed before, makes him in the transaction of business more cautious and expeditious”. In due time F. Galwey returned to his native country, and multiplied himself in the cause of the Missions. Ireland did not present a field sufficiently extensive for his zeal and charity. For thrice, in the disguise of a merchant, he visited Scotland, the Hebrides, and the Orkney Islands, and gained many souls to God. Severe to himself and dead to the world, he labored and lived but to promote the greater honour and glory of his God. This Apostolical Father died ar Cork, of a cancer, on the 22nd of December, 1643.

Galway, Michael, 1650-1678, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1346
  • Person
  • 1650-01 August 1678

Born: 1650
Entered: 01 October 1673
Died 01 August 1678, Cadiz, Spain - Baeticae Province (BAE).

Administrative Socius Fr Emmanulis de Eredia

Galwey, James, 1655-1732, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1347
  • Person
  • 07 March 1655-17 February 1732

Born: 07 March 1655, Co Cork
Entered: 18 February 1677, Naples, Italy - Neapolitanae Province (NAP)
Ordained: c 1688, Naples, Italy
Final Vows: 15 August 1695, Bavaria, Germany
Died: 17 February 1732, Amberg, Bavaria, Germany - Germaniae Superioris Province (GER SUP)

1683-1685 Theology at Naples
1685-1686 Not in Catalogue
1689-1691 Procurator at Irish College Poitiers
1695 At Louvain 16/08/1695 and then left that Province
1699-1700 In Poitiers

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ :
1683-1688 Studies in Germany
1689 Intended for the Scottish Mission this was prevented by the Revolution and consequent persecution, so he spent the next 10 years at Colleges in Europe
1699-1702 Accompanied Fr John O’Daly to the West Indies and was stationed at St Kitts until English occupation in 1702
1702-1732 Returned to Europe

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GALWEY, JAMES. I read in a letter of the Superior Anthony Knoles, dated Waterford, the 21st of November, 1695 “I have written to F. James Galwey to continue in Belgium until I can be a better judge of the state of the times, as to his disposal”. In consequence of the dangerous illness of his brother, a merchant of St. Sebastian, he was allowed to quit the College at Poitiers to visit him in the beginning of the year 1697. Two years later, Pere Garganel, Superior of the Mission at Martinique, made application for some Irish Father to assist in that Mission and the neighbouring islands : he represented that there was a great number of Irish in his district that an abundant harvest of souls was opened to the view, and that he and his brethren would cheerfully provide a maintenance for one or two Irish Jesuits, who would assist these souls, together with the French population. It is an historical fact, that with Cromwell’s usurpation began the system of transporting the Irish, as slaves, to the West Indies : for a long time, says the letter, dated the 16th of April, 1699, almost every year, and sometimes often in the year, the English convey from Ireland shiploads of men, boys, and girls, partly crimped, partly carried off by open force, for the purpose of their slave-trade, and thus in process of time, an immense multitude of Irish has been scattered in these islands, but destitute of spiritual succor. This Mission was proposed to F. Galwey, and how it was received the following letter of F. James Kelly, the Rector of the College of Poitiers, the 6th of August, 1699, will best demonstrate. “With the most intense delight F. James Galwey embraces the Mission of Martinique, offered by your Reverence, and he does so with the more confidence in God, as the lot has fallen upon him not in consequence of any expressed wish on his part (for though he wished it, he durst not apply for it); but now he is solely guided by the spirit of obedience. With alacrity he is getting ready for the voyage. F. Garganel, who from his arrival from Martinique, has been on intimate terms with him, is desirous of having him for his companion. In the meanwhile, we cannot but humbly request, that you will not give up, but merely lend F. Galwey to the Martinique Mission; for should our affairs lift up their head again in Ireland, he will be very necessary for us”. Whether F. Galwey ever returned, I have yet to learn.

Gannon, Nicholas J, 1858-1882, Jesuit scholastic

  • IE IJA J/1348
  • Person
  • 27 November 1858-03 January 1882

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

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

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

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

Gartlan, Ignatius, 1848-1926, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1349
  • Person
  • 08 December 1848-12 December 1926

Born: 08 December 1848, Moynalty, County Monaghan
Entered: 07 September 1867, Roehampton London - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1883
Final Vows: 02 February 1887
Died: 12 December 1926, Campion House, Osterley, Isleworth, Middlesex, London, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

by 1912 came to Tullabeg (HIB) as Tertianship Instructor 1911-1917; 1919-1921

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 2nd Year No 2 1927

Obituary
Fr Ignatius Gartlan - There was genuine sorrow in the Irish Province when news reached us that Fr, Gartlan was dead. During his long stay in Tullabeg he had endeared himself to many of us by his kindly nature, lovable disposition, and utter devotion to duty. Not only by the Community was he known and esteemed, but the pool' people living round the College feel in his death the loss of a kind friend. Fr. Gartlan was born in 1848. He entered the Society in 1867, and took his last vows in 1887. He was Rector of Glasgow, 1899-1904, Prefect Apostolic and Superior of the Zambesi Mission, 1904-1911, and spent the next six years as Tertian Master in Tullabeg. He was again Tertian Master, 1919-1921, and a third time, but only for a few months, 1922-1923. He spent the last five years of his life at Osterley as Spiritual Father to sixty young priests, giving Retreats, and keeping the accounts. The present Superior of Osterley writes that he was “a tower of strength to the house, always calm, cheerful, level headed, a young man in mind, though feeble in body. I once asked him if there was anything he could suggest to improve the working of the house, He answered : “No, we have an excellent balance - there is just enough liberty to train character, and just enough restraint. In his private life he set an example of what a Jesuit should be, and by doing so several were drawn to the Society. Under his direction, Osterley has sent thirty into the English Province, and twenty into other Provinces. Many of these remarked : Fr. Gartlan has been my model. I can think of nothing better. In the house he was a ray of sunshine, patience, and self-sacrifice.” He died on Sunday, December 12th

Irish Province News 2nd Year No 4 1927

Obituary :
Fr Ignatius Gartlan continued
Fr, Gartlan was Spiritual Director of the Young Priests at Osterley, and their beadle writes : “I always found his advice of such practical value and encouragement that it can scarcely be expressed in terms of mere human appreciation, how great the difficulty Fr Gartlan always had an exquisitely sound answer. His prolonged experience in the Mission field was one of the reasons to which we attributed his foresight, but, when I had known him for a few years, I reached what must be 'the real conclusion - He was a Saint. ... The soul that was troubled found an understanding friend in a. priest who was Christ-like in his every detail. If he had a bête noir it was insincerity, the only vice, he used to say, towards which Our Lord Himself was quite ruthless. He loved the Society, and was keenly interested in its work, saw good everywhere, but was not blind to faults, had an immense faith in its training, if only, as he used to say, it were given a fair chance. He left nothing undone which might help to enter more generously into its spirit, the interior law of charity, without which all its exterior works were vain. As a confessor he was practical to the verge of incurring the wrath of the pedant whose outlook on life is bounded by books. He used to remind us that the priest was not discussing a case of moral theology with the penitent, that the perfectly correct solution might not be the one to be unhesitatingly given : that the confessor was more than a legal adviser. He should be the Father and teacher of his penitent, whose difficulties he should see in the concrete and not merely in the dry light of moral science.
Outside the confessional his advice was equally sound. To those who honestly objected to make the colloquies at the end of the meditations on the Kingdom and Two Standards, saying : ‘I do at want contempt and had treatment, and I won't pretend I do,’ he used to say. ‘Let us not exaggerate. What does this colloquy mean in actual practice? Cheerful content, sterling charity, obedience under difficult conditions. If we refuse to make it, we refuse the perfection proper to religious life. If we had not something of this spirit in us, we should never have entered religious life at all. Without prayer and the supernatural outlook, religious life is mere club life with most of the conveniences left out’. And, with enviable simplicity : ‘I am not a man of prayer, but I try to be. So I spend half an hour in the chapel every evening after supper, and I find it very hard’”.

Doyle, John, 1868-1898, Jesuit brother novice

  • IE IJA J/135
  • Person
  • 14 January 1868-02 October 1898

Born: 14 January 1868, County Kildare
Entered: 24 March 1897, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 02 October 1898, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was a Carpenter by trade.
He died at Tullabeg 02 October 1898 just over a year and a half after Entry.

Garvey, Jeremiah, 1794-1875, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1350
  • Person
  • 01 January 1794-28 July 1875

Born: 01 January 1794, Shandrum, Charleville, County Cork
Entered: 01 July 1845, St Mary’s, Lebanon, KY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final Vows: 25 March 1857
Died: 28 July 1875, Xavier College, New York, NY, USA - Neo-Eboracensis-Canadensis Province (NEBCAN)

Gately, John, 1846-1910, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1351
  • Person
  • 21 March 1846-08 August 1910

Born: 21 March 1846, Co Roscommon
Entered: 14 August 1878, Milltown Park
Ordained: Pre Entry
Final Vows: 15 August 1889, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 08 August 1910, St Ignatius, Richmond, Melbourne, Australia

Came to Australia 1896

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He had been a Priest of the Elphin Diocese before Ent, and had taught in the Colleges of Sligo and Athlone (Summerhill).

He made his Noviceship at Milltown under Charles McKenna.
1880 he was sent to Tullabeg as a teacher, and remained there until it amalgamated with Clongowes. He continued there then as Operarius and Minister.
1896 He was sent to Australia with James Colgan and Henry Lynch.
1897 He was Minister at St Patrick’s Melbourne
1898 He taught at St Aloysius Sydney.
1899 He was Operarius at Hawthorne
1901 He was Operarius at St Mary’s, Sydney
1908 He was Minister at Miller St Nth Sydney
1909 he was Minister at St Mary’s Sydney

A short time before his death he moved to St Ignatius, Richmond in failing health, where he died 08 August 1910. A letter from Sydney recounts details of his death :
“Father Gately worked up to the end. He heard Confessions up to 10pm and was dead by 2am. Four hours, and perhaps most of that sleeping! Father Charles Morrough heard groaning and went down, and Father Joseph Hearn, Superior, gave him the Last Sacraments. There was a very great deal of feeling shown by his old parishioners at Lavender Bay, Sydney. Several insisted on having a special Mass, and each of the Sodalities had a Mass offered for him. The people on whose corns he had trodden missed him most, and all speak well of him.”

He was a most zealous man and greatly devoted to the Confessional.

◆ 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 as a Priest of the Diocese of Elphin at Milltown Park aged 32. He had been a teacher at the Colleges of Sligo and Athlone.

1880-1886 After one year of Noviciate and a year making Tertianship, he was sent to St Stanislaus College Tullabeg as a teacher of Arithmetic and English
1886-1887 He was sent to Oña in Spain for a year of Theology
1887-1896 He was sent teaching at Clongowes Wood College and Crescent College Limerick
1896-1899 He was sent to Australia and taught at St Patrick’s College Melbourne and St Aloysius College Sydney
1899-1902 He was sent to work in the Hawthorn Parish
1902-1908 He was sent to St Mary’s, North Sydney Parish
1908-1909 He was at St Francis Xavier Lavender Bay Parish
1909-1910 He was back working at St Mary’s Parish

He died suddenly after hearing confessions at the Richmond Parish. He was described as a fiery person, but appreciated by the people.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John Gately (1946-1910)

A native of Roscommon, entered the Society as a priest in 1878, and was at the Crescent from 1888 to 1896. In 1896 he left for the mission in Australia where he laboured until his death.

Gates, Joseph, 1889-1947, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1352
  • Person
  • 20 March 1889-19 July 1947

Born: 20 March 1889, Killyman, County Tyrone
Entered: 10 September 1909, Tullabeg
Ordained: 15 August 1921, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1929, Corpus Christi College, Werribee, Australia
Died: 19 July 1947, St Mary’s, Miller St, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1913 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He was a tall and well built colourful Northern Irishman who Entered the Society at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg.

1911-1915 He was sent for Juniorate to Milltown Park Dublin and then to Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands for Philosophy
1915-1918 He was sent to Mungret College Limerick and Clongowes Wood College for Regency
1918-1922 He was back at Milltown Park for Theology
1922-1923 he made Tertianship at Tullabeg
1923-1925 He was sent to Australia teaching at St Aloysius College Sydney
1925-1926 He was sent to work at the Norwood Parish
1926-1931 He was sent to Sevenhill where he was appointed Superior and Parish Priest
1931-1933 He was sent back teaching at St Ignatius College Riverview
1933-1936 He was sent to the Lavender Bay Parish
1937-1938 He was at the Richmond Parish
1939-1942 He was sent to the Toowong Parish
1942 He was sent to St Mary’s Parish in Sydney where he died.

He held very extreme views and was very anti-British, and yet he was kind a friendly in any personal dealings. He was a gifted, hardworking and orderly man, and not necessarily the easiest of people to live with due to the passionate views he held. As such he didn’t stay in any one house for very long.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 22nd Year No 3 1947
Obituary :
Obituary :
Fr. Joseph Gates (1887-1909-1947)
Joseph Gates was born at Drumkee, Killyman, Moy, Co. Tyrone on March 20th, 1887, of farmer stock. He was the youngest of four sons and he had seven sisters. He was educated at. the National School in Drunkee, and went at the age of fourteen to Dungannon Academy, where he spent five years, 1901-6, and then to Armagh Seminary for three years, passing the First Arts Examination in 1909.
He entered the Society at Tullabeg on September 10th, 1909, and after the noviceship spent a year at Milltown attending University lectures, Philosophy followed at Gemert in Holland. In 1916 he was teaching in Mungret, in 1918 at Clongowes, doc. ling: gall, et math. He was ordained in Milltown on August 15th, 1921 and during his fourth year of theology took his place in the long line of chaplains to the Royal Hospital for Incurables. After tertianship (Tullabeg, 1922-3) he was sent to Australia.
From his arrival in Australia until his death Fr. Gates was most of the time operarius in various houses, St, Aloysius' in Sydney, Norwood and Sevenhill in South Australia, Richmond in Victoria, Lavender Bay, Brisbane, and finally Miller Street in North Sydney. He was also at different times Minister, Procurator, Spiritual Father, Superior (in Sevenhill), Editor of the Jesuit Directory and Editor of a parish magazine. He taught at Riverview and St. Aloysius.
Fr. Gates was the author of several booklets, published by the Messenger Office, Dublin, dealing with Catholic Apologetics. Among them were “Rampar Dan”, “The Wee Mare”, “Sleepy Hallow”. He did much in his earlier years as a Jesuit to promote sympathetic contacts between Irish Catholics and their separated Protestant brethren of the northern counties. A man of charming gaiety and rare zeal, he laboured incessantly to promote the cause of religion in the country of his adoption. Fr. Gates died in Sydney on July 19th. May he rest in peace.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Joseph Gates 1887-1947
Fr Joseph Gates was from the North, being born at Drumkee County Tyrone on March 20th 1887. He was educated at Armagh Seminary, obtaining a First Arts there in 1909.

Entering the Society in 1909, he went through the ordinary course, , doing his Colleges in Mungret and Clongowes. After his ordination he was sent to Australia, where he served faithfully in many capacities, including editorship of the Jesuit Year Book.

He had a flair for writing, and the Messenger Office published a number of pamphlets of his dealing with Apologetics : “Ramper Dan”; “The Wee Mare”; “Sleepy Hollow”. He was deeply interetsted in the question of the reunion of Catholics and Protestants, especially from his mown North, and he often lamented the loss of our Northern house at Dromore, and urges the acquiring of some other one in its place. He did much in his earlier years as a Jesuit to promote sympathetic contacts between Catholic and Protestant in the northern counties.

Perhaps we may say that his prayers and efforts are bearing fruit today?

He died in Sydney on July 19th 1947.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1948

Obituary

Father Joesph Gates SJ

Those who were in Mungret, 1916-18, will. I remember the big burly scholastic of untiring energy who was on the teaching staff at that time. Father Gates was born in Co Tyrone and entered the Society, in 1909. He pursued the usual studies of the Society and was ordained in 1921 in Milltown Park. He was the author of several booklets which helped to promote sympathy with Protestants of the Northern Counties. He was transferred to Australia, and as a writer, preacher, teacher and administrator earned the gratitude of all. He was well known among the Mungret Past, for his kindly sympathy and understanding in his ministerial labours. He died at Sydney, July 19th, 1947

Gavan, Thomas, 1822-1895, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1353
  • Person
  • 20 December 1822-30 December 1895

Born: 20 December 1822, Ballyheane, County Mayo
Entered: 25 July 1854, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 15 August 1864
Died: 30 December 1895, Georgetown College, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Gavin, John, 1777-1862, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1354
  • Person
  • 24 June 1777-13 March 1862

Born: 24 June 1777, County Galway
Entered: 26 September 1820, White Marsh MD - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 15 August1833
Died: 13 March 1862, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Gaydon, Francis, 1645-1669, Jesuit novice

  • IE IJA J/1355
  • Person
  • 10 October 1645-04 December 1669

Born: 10 October 1645, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 23 September 1668, Avignon, France - Ludgdunensis Province (LUGD)
Died: 04 December 1669, Avignon, France - Ludgdunensis Province (LUGD)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ:
May have been a brother of Nicholas Gaydon
During his Noviceship he died 04 December 1669

Gaydon, Nicholas, 1652-1670, Jesuit novice

  • IE IJA J/1356
  • Person
  • 1652-01 January 1670

Born: 1652, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 1669, Seville, Spain - Baeticae Province (BAE)
Died: 01 January 1670, Seville, Spain - Baeticae Province (BAE)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
May have been a brother of Francis Gaydon
Studied Humanities at Ambert, France before Came to Irish College Seville, and shortly afterwards Ent in Seville July 1669.
He died as a Novice in Seville six months after Ent on 01 January 1670.

Geary, Michael, 1830-1856, Jesuit novice

  • IE IJA J/1357
  • Person
  • 25 November 1830-24 June 1856

Born: 25 November 1830, Ireland
Entered: 16 March 1855, Lyons, France - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)
Died: 24 June 1856, Lyons, France - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)

Gellous, Stephen, 1613-1678, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1358
  • Person
  • 01 February 1613-22 July 1678

Born: 01 February 1613, Gellowstown, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 17 May 1639, Mechelen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 04 April 1643, Antwerp, Belgium
Died: 22 July 1678, New Ross, County Wexford

Son of John and Maud O’Dunn.
Studied Humanities in Dublin under a priest Mr Edmund Doyle, Philosophy in a house of the Society under Fr Henry Cavell. They taught Grammar in Dublin.
Received into Soc in Belgium by Fr Robert Nugent
1644 At Antwerp (Arch Irish College Rome IV)
1647 Came to Mission (1650 CAT)
1649 Catalogue is at Kilkenny
1666 Is near New Ross where he conducts a boarding school with Fr Rice, administers the sacraments and other parochial duties. Was captured three times but set free each time. Now on the mission 23 years
A book in Waterford Library has “Steph Gellous Soc Jesu Resid Waterf”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of John Gellows, a carpenter, and Maud née Dunn (Mechelen Album) Family originally from Gellowstown, Co Meath (now Bellewstown)
Early education was in Dublin under Edmund Doyle, a Priest, and then two years Philosophy under Henry Cavell at the Dublin Residence. He then taught Grammar at Douai until he was admitted to the Society by Robert Nugent, Mission Superior, 07 March 1637, and then sent to Mechelen for his Noviceship in 1639.
Studied three years Moral Theology. Knew Irish, English, Flemish and Latin.
1647 Sent to Irish Mission and had been a Professor of Poetry. Taught in the lower schools for three years and was a Confessor (HIB CAT 1650 - ARSI)
1649 Teaching Humanities at Kilkenny (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
1650-1660 He was a Missioner in New Ross, and in spite of all the efforts of the rebel Cromwellian forces, he continued by a constant miracle to escape arrest and say his daily Mass, which he did for twenty years. He went sometimes disguised as a faggot-dealer, a servant, a thatcher, porter, beggar, gardener, miller, carpenter, tailor, milkman, peddlar, dealer in rabbit-skins etc. he was nevertheless arrested four times, but always contrived to escape.
1666 Living near New Ross, where he kept a boarding school with Father Rice, taught Humanities and was a Missioner, Preacher, and occasionally with Father Rice, performing the duties of PP to the satisfaction of the Vicar General. The school took the lead of all the others in the country, but it was broken up in the persecution of 1670.
1673 He then taught about forty scholars near Dublin, and then tried to return to New Ross to unsuccessfully re-open his school there.
He was captured four times, and as often released, including riding a race with Cromwellian soldiers. He worked in the Irish Mission for twenty-three years.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of John, a carpenter, and Mouda née O’Dunn
Had studied Humanities for seven years under Edmund Doyle, a secular priest in Dublin, and then studied Philosophy for two years at the Dublin Residence with Henry McCavell (McCaughwell) as his teacher. With these studies, he then started teaching Grammar in Dublin, until he was received for the Society by Robert Nugent.
1641 After his First Vows he studied Theology at Antwerp, and with special dispensation from Fr General before he had begun his fifth year in the Society, he was Ordained there 04 April 1643. This dispensation was granted thanks to the Flemish Provincial’s report on Stephen's mature virtue.
1643-1644 Theology was not his forte and so he was sent immediately to Lierre for Tertianship
1644 Sent to Ireland and was to teaching at Kilkenny. Mercure Verdier in his Report of 24 June 1649 for the General on on the Irish Mission described Gellous as “an excellent religious man, who takes no part in worldly business”.
After the Cromwellian conquest he left Kilkenny to exercise his mission in Co Wexford. He became something of a legend for resourcefulness during the “commonwealth” regime. he was captured four times but managed to get free. On one occasion, a protestant judge, disgusted by the perjury of Gellous’ betrayer let him go free. On another occasion he was deported to France, but due to a storm the Captain had to return to port, and once there let Gellous go free. On yet another occasion, he was out on a mission when he rode straight into a troop of Cromwell’s, and he challenged them to a horse race. They accepted, and at the end of the race let him go.
His HQ during these years was New Ross, and it was there, probably at the Restoration, that he opened a famous school, and with Stephen Rice conducted it with great success. Protestants, no less than Catholics were anxious to have their sons educated at this school whom was seen as a genius teacher. One feature of this school was the production of plays he had seen acted in Belgium.
1670 He was visited by the Protestant bishop and told to close the school and leave New Ross. The decision angered Catholic and Protestant locals alike. He staged his farewell by putting on for free, four plays acted by his pupils for the town, and then withdrew to Dublin.
1671-1673 Outside Dublin he conducted a small school by himself for two years
1673 Back in New Ross by popular acclaim and was there until 1678 - the year of his death
Most probably notifications of his death to the General would have gone astray due to the confusion caused during the Titus Oates's Plot.
By the Society’s standards, Stephen was not a clever man in book-learning, but his judgement on weighty matters affecting the Irish Mission was both sought for and respected by the General.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Stephen Gelouse SJ 1614-1675
In Ireland exact date and circumstances unknown died Fr Stephen Gelouse, a man of versatile talents and great zeal. He was born in Meath in 1614, was admitted to the Society in 1639 by Fr Robert Nugent in Dublin, did his noviceship in Mechelen and two and a half years of Philosophy under Fr Henry Cavell in the Dublin Residence.

He will always be remembered for his long and arduous ministry in New Ross, where for nineteen years he laboured as a priest and teacher. His school was famous. Fr Stephen Rice, the Superior writes this to the General : “Stephen Gelouse SJ has been working in and near New Ross this year 1669, and ever since 1650. When the plague and Cromwell’s tyranny ceased, Fr Gelouse taught a small school in a wretched hovel, beside a deep ditch, and there taught a few children privately. When the king was restored, his companion thought they might make a venture, the hut was levelled and a large house built, where they opened a school. It became famous and drew scholars from various parts of Ireland. There were 120 boys, of whom 35 (18 Catholics and 17 Protestants) were boarders. The Jesuits were forced to take the Protestants by their parents. The school flourished for 6 years. Fr Stephen produced a play which was enacted in the main square in new Ross. The play lasted three hours and was witnessed by a very large throng of Protestants and Catholics, many of whom came from distant towns to witness the novel spectacle. For the first time in Ireland, scenery was used on the stage. After the play there was a distribution of prizes”.

When the school was forced to close in 1670, in spite of Protestant parents who fought the authorities for its continued existence Fr Gelouse went to Dublin, where he taught a school of 40 pupils. In spite of persecution, he never missed a day saying Mass for 20 years. He was arrested 4 times, but managed to escape. He used adopt many forms of disguise : a dealer in faggots; a servant; a thatcher; a porter; a beggar; a gardener; a miller; a tailor; a milkman; a peddler, a carpenter and seller of rabbit skins. It was no wonder that he was so expert at training the youth to act.

In 1673 he tried to reopen the school at New Ross, but Protestant fanaticism defeated him. He was still alive in 1675.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GELOSSE, STEPHEN, born in 1617, was teaching Poetry in Kilkenny College in 1649, and was then reported by the visitor Pere Verdier, as a truly good and religious man. I believe he made his debut as a Missioner at Waterford, whence he was sent to Ross to attend F. Gregory Dowdall in his last illness, and who died in his arms, on the 9th of August, 1659. For the next 19 years he continued to exercise his pastoral functions in that town and neighbourhood. No dangers that threatened him from the Cromwellian party who filled every place with blood and terror, could deter this genuine hero from doing his duty : no weather, no pestilential fevers, no difficulties could hold him back from visiting the sick and the dying in their meanest hovels!. His purse, his time, his services, were always at the command of the distressed Catholic : it was his food and delight to exercise the works of mercy corporal and spiritual. Though the tyrant Cromwell had issued a proclamation to his troops, (and they were in the habit of searching the houses of respectable Catholics), that should they apprehend a Priest in any house, the owner of such house should be hung up before his own door, and all his property be confiscated; and that the captors of the Priest should be rewarded at the rate the Wolf destroyers formerly received (so little value was attached to a Priest s life); nevertheless F. Gelosse managed every day to offer up the unbloody sacrifice of the altar : his extraordinary escapes from the clutches of his pursuers border on the miraculous. He adopted every kind of disguise; he assumed every shape and character ; he personated a dealer of fagots, a servant, a thatcher, a porter, a beggar, a gardener, a miller, a carpenter, a tailor with his sleeve stuck with needles, a milkman, a pedlar, a seller of rabbit skins, &c. thus becoming all to all, in order to gain all to Christ. However, he was four times apprehended, as he told F. Stephen Rice; but his presence of mind never forsook him and he ingeniously contrived to extricate himself without much difficulty. After the restoration of Charles II. he set up a school at Ross, which took precedence of all others in the country, whether rank, numbers, proficiency, discipline, or piety, be taken into consideration, but this was broken up by the persecution in 1670. He then removed to the vicinity of Dublin, where he taught about forty scholars; and in August, 1673, he returned to Ross to reopen his school, but at the end of three months was obliged by the fanatical spirit abroad to abandon this favourite pursuit. He was still living in the summer of 1675, when I regret to part company with him.

Genet, Patrick, 1699-1728, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1359
  • Person
  • 17 March 1699-26 July 1728

Born: 17 March 1699, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 23 October 1716, Seville, Spain - Baeticae Province (BAE)
Ordained: 06 March 1726, Granada, Spain
Died: 26 July 1728, El Puerto de Santa Maria, Andalusia, Spain - Baeticae Province (BAE)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Probably a brother of Father James Gennet who died at Cook Street, Dublin, 16 October, 1763
Came to the Irish College Seville as a student of Humanities in 1714, and became a Seminarian 06 January 1615, before Ent 06 March 1726 Granada
After First Vows and completing his Philosophy at Seville he was sent to Granada for Theology and Ordained there 06 March 1726
1726-1727 Made Tertianship at Granada
1727 Sent to Jerez to teach Humanities but because of failing health he was sent to El Puerto de Santa Maria where with failing health he died 26 July 1728
His “carta necrologia” describes him as “a young man of great promise and remarkable holiness”

Devine, James, 1860-1892, Jesuit priest novice

  • IE IJA J/136
  • Person
  • 23 September 1860-17 April 1892

Born: 23 September 1860, County Derry
Entered: 12 November 1890, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained - pre Entry
Died: 17 April 1892, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Contracted flu a year and a half into his Novitiate. He was already a priest. he died at Tullabeg 17 April 1892

Geoghegan, Michael, 1775-1864, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1360
  • Person
  • 20 September 1775-09 August 1864

Born: 20 September 1775, Athy, County Kildare
Entered: 17 November 1817, Richmond, Virginia, USA - Maryland Mission (MAR)
Final Vows: 15 August 1829
Died: 09 August 1864, Georgetown College MD, USA - Maryland Province (MAR)

Gerrot, John, 1558-1614, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1361
  • Person
  • 1558-02 February 1614

Born: 1558, Wexford Town, County Wexford
Entered: 23 April 1580, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1589, Vienna, Austria
Final: Vows: 02 February 1597
Died: 02 February 1614, County Wexford

1584 Was in Jesuit Seminary in Rome 26 March 1584, as Prefect of the Dormitory. Has studied Humanities and Philosophy
1586 Was sent to Germany
1587 Was at Vienna since 25 December 1586. Has studied Philosophy and theology 3 years each. Talent for preaching
1590-1600 At Vienna College teaching. Very erudite in Philosophy and Theology
1603-1606 At Graz College teaching Philosophy and Ethics, Spiritual Director and Confessor.
There is a note probably by Fr Aquaviva lamenting that fit for the Mission cannot be admitted

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica” :
He was a learned man; In Vienna AD 1593; He was the twenty-second professed in order of antiquity at the Provincial Congregation at Olmütz (Olomouc) in 1597 - and sixteenth in 1603;
In Wexford AD 1609 and 1611; Of great zeal and mortification. (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had already begun his studies before Ent 23 April 1580 Rome
1582-1586 After First Vows he was sent on Regency as a Prefect at the Roman College.
1586-1589 He was sent to Austria for Theology, and was Ordained at Vienna 1589
1589-1609 He held a Chair of Philosophy and also Controversial Theology at Vienna and in 1603 was sent to teach at Graz and where he was the Dean of Philosophy.
1609 Sent to Ireland. This was very much against the wishes of the Austrian Provincial who highly valued not only his teaching, but also his skill as a Spiritual Director for the Scholastics. The General decided the needs in Ireland were more pressing, and so he set out on a long journey, seeing him arrive at the Dublin Residence in 1610. he was ill equipped for Missionary work, as he had no knowledge of Irish. He worked in the town of Wexford for a while, but left there to go to the countryside in Co Wexford among English speakers. He died there 02 February 1614.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GEROT, JOHN. His Superior F. Holiwood, soon after his return to Ireland, applied that F. Gerot might be sent over to him, as his services could be use fully employed at Wexford.

Gheraghty, Thomas, 1816-1846, Jesuit novice

  • IE IJA J/1362
  • Person
  • 21 December 1816-21 October 1846

Born: 21 December 1816, Ireland
Entered: 08 February 1845, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Died: 21 October 1846, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Gibbons, James, 1659-1717, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1363
  • Person
  • 25 July 1659-04 August 1717

Born: 25 July 1659, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 02 May 1677, Lisbon, Portugal - Lusitania Province (LUS)
Ordained: 14 March 1691, Coimbra, Portugal
Died: 04 August 1717, Dublin City, County Dublin

1704 Living at Grangegorman Dublin, PP of Kinsealy
1708 Catalogue Studied Philosophy 3 years and Theology 4 years. Taught Grammar for 6 years. Minister. Strong considering his age
1714 Catalogue A good Operarius. Was a PP but hindered by persecutors. Opened a school for boys but had to abandon that as well. Laboured then in secret. Learned and obedient to Superiors and loves the Society. He was accused through harsh words of giving offence to ours working in the city. He got mixed up in family affairs, but local Superior says he is modest and obedient.

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1694 Arrested on landing in Ireland and brought to Dublin, a distance of 100 miles, and examined by the Privy Council and then released. (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS and HIB Catalogue 1708 etc)
1697 I March he was lodging at Mr Elleston’s, Channel Row, Dublin (now North Brunswick St) and assisting at Channel Row Chapel (Spy’s Report)
1704 The List of Registered Popish Parish Priests (preserved at Clongowes) and gives his name as “Popish Priest’s name, James Gibbons; place of abode Grangegorman; Parish of which he pretends to be Parish Priest, Kinsaly; Received Popish Orders 14 March 1691 at Coimbra” etc
He was a learned and zealous Priest’ A Prisoner in 1695 (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows he studied Philosophy at Coimbra and then was sent to Braga for Regency. He returned to Coimbra for Theology (1687) and was Ordained there 14 March 1691
1691-1694 He was teaching Rhetoric at Porto College when he was sent to Ireland in 1694
1694 Returned to Ireland and sent to Waterford. On his arrival there he was arrested, held in a Dublin prison and then released (the authorities were apparently unaware of his Jesuit identity).
1697 He was an Assistant Priest at Channel (sic) Row and his identity was still unrecognised as a Jesuit
1704-1714 He became PP at Kinsealy and living at Grangegorman. In 1714 following the Proclamation against the hierarchy and regular clergy, he relinquished that position, probably because his identity as a Jesuit was at last discovered.
1714 He then engaged in a furtive Ministry in the city and managed to conduct a school for a short period until he died there 04 August 1717

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GIBBONS, JAMES. This Father was actually arrested in December, 1694, on landing; and conveyed to Dublin, a distance of 100 miles, and examined by the Privy Council on his reason for returning to Ireland. He was discharged from custody on the following February, He was living on the 15th of November, 1712.

Gibbons, Myles, 1812-1850, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1364
  • Person
  • 15 May 1812-07 August 1850

Born: 15 May 1812, Westport, County Mayo
Entered: 03 February 1837, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained: 1845
Died: 07 August 1850, Upper Marlboro, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Part of the White Marsh MD, USA community at the time of death

Gillam, James, 1686-1745, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1365
  • Person
  • 06 June 1686-31 December 1745

Born: 06 June 1686, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 02 December 1707, Bordeaux, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)
Final Vows: 02 February 1718, Irish College, Poitiers, France
Died: 31 December 1745, Irish College, Poitiers, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)

Alias Williams

1708-1713 Novice, Cook and emptor at Poitiers
1714-1717 At La Rochelle as Cook and emptor
1717-1724 Cook and emptor at Poitiers
1734-1742 Cook buyer and aeditus at various Colleges including Poitiers
At Agen Collège as Emptor and Architriclinus (steward)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows He gave faithful service for many years in different houses in AQUIT
1718-1724 and 1731 Sent to Irish College Poitiers where he died 31 December 1745

Ginivan, John, 1793-1893, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1366
  • Person
  • 08 February 1793-30 January 1893

Born: 08 February 1793, Kilworth, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1819, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 08 September 1837
Died: 30 January 1893, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
John was the eighth Brother to join the Irish Province. He began his Noviceship in the company of John Doyle; Patrick Doyle; Peter Egan and Michael Gallagher, who all Entered on the same day. He was “Master Tailor” and widely known to the Province - there is hardly one he did not clothe, either as boys or Jesuits.

Joseph Dalton writes of him :
“After many years in the College, he did not - though he probably felt it - ‘quorus magna pars fui’, he was moved to Dublin and St Francis Xavier’s Church and Presbytery, where he spent the rest of his days as tailor, assistant infirmarian, and Reader i the Community refectory. This last duty he performed very correctly and wit great ‘gusto’, even in his old age. He was greatly liked by all for his simple piety, respectful manner and kindness to the sick. He was well known by many from all parts of Ireland, who knew him when they were boys in the Colleges, and they spoke of him always with respect and affection. His fellow Lay Brothers looked on him as a Patriarch among them, and treated him with great respect.”

He was a truly edifying religious.

Note from John Nelson Entry
He took his Final Vows 02 February 1838 along with eleven others, being the first to whom Final Vows were given since the Restoration in Ireland. The others were : Philip Reilly of “Palermo fame”; Nowlan, Cleary, Mulligan, Michael Gallagher, Pexton Sr, Toole, Egan, Ginivan, Patrick Doyle and Plunkett.

Girschik, Josef, 1867-1930, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1367
  • Person
  • 20 March 1867-03 March 1930

Born: 20 March 1867, Hollenstein, Bohemia, Czech Republic or Hollenstein an der Ybbs, Austria
Entered: 03 October 1891, Sankt Andrä Austria - Austriaco-Hungaricae Province (ASR-HUN)
Final Vows: 02 February 1902
Died: 03 March 1930, Mater Hospital, Sydney Australia (St Aloysius College, Milson’s Point, Sydney, Australia)

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

Transcribed ASR-HUN to HIB : 11 February 1901

Came to Irish Australian Mission 1899

◆ 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 Sankt Andrä Austria. He was a cabinet maker and used this skill to beautify houses where he was posted.

1891-1898 He remained at Sankt Andrä and then was sent to the Australian Mission and the Northern Territory.
1899-1902 He was sent to Loyola Greenwich
1902-1903 He was at Xavier College Kew
1903-1919 He was sent to St Ignatius College Riverview where he built the elaborate vesting press in the sacristy.
1919 He was sent to St Aloysius College Sydney and remained there until his death.

He won the admiration of many for his piety and quiet and silent efficiency. He was a real artist and perfectionist, and it was a pleasure to watch him work in the carpenter’s shop. He also had a keen appreciation of classical music and painting.

For many years he suffered ill health, but he continued to work as hard as he could until the end.

Note from Patrick Keating Entry
Under his direction, Brother Girschik made a line cedar vesting press for the sacristy at Riverview, which still stands.

Note from Edward Pigot Entry
One result of his visit to Samoa was the building and fittings for the instruments in the half-underground, vaulted, brick building at Riverview. Brs Forster and Girschik performed the work.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 5th Year No 3 1930
Obituary :

Br Joseph Girschik

March 20th 1867 is the date of Br. Girschick's birth. In 1891 he joined the Austrian Province. Two years before the final transfer of the South Australian Mission to the Irish Province in 1901,we find the Brother’s name in the Irish Catalogue. From 1899 to 1901 he was at Loyola, Sydney. Then, after a year at Xavier's. he went to Riverview where he remained till

  1. He was then changed to Milson's Point, and did not leave it until he went to his reward on Monday, 3rd March, 1930.
    Br. Girschick was a skilled carpenter, and is described in the Catalogue either as “Fab, Lig. or Arcularius”.

◆ The Aloysian, Sydney, 1930

Obituary

Brother Josef Girschik SJ

Far from the spot where he now lies awaiting the Resurrection, Joseph Girschik was born sixty-three years ago, in Czecho-Slovakia, or as it was then known, Bohemia.

As a young man of twenty-four, and already a skilled carpenter, Brother Girschik entered the Austrian Province of the Society of Jesus. A Catholic mission for the conversion of aboriginals of Australia had been entrusted to the Austrian Province, and the first missioners had arrived in Australia in December 1848, after a voyage of four months out of the port of Hamburg.

Seven years after his entry into the Society Bro Girschik was attached to this mission, but hardly had he arrived at the headquarters of the mission at Daly River, when a flood wrought such havoc that the missioners had to retire from their settlement.

Bro. Girschik was then transferred to “Loyola”, Greenwich, near Sydney, the Noviceship of the Irish Province in Australia, and when offered the opportunity of returning to his native land elected to give the remainder of his life to the ser vice of God in Australia.

From that time until 1919, he was stationed in various colleges in Australia. The last eleven years of his life he spent at St Aloysius College, and saw many generations of young Aloysians pass through the College.

Few of the many boys who saw Bro Girschik quietly at his obscure work in the carpenter's shop knew that they looked on a man who was an artist, with a keen appreciation and deep knowledge of classical music and painting. His beautiful work was an index to the man's character. For Bro Girschik was never content unless a piece of work was perfect.

This life of retirement concealed an admirable courage and self-sacrifice. For many years, he suffered from continued ill-health, but only weakness and failing strength caused him to lay aside his tools. Ordered by the doctor to the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, he spent there a few weeks, making light of his sufferings, and at last on the 30th March of this year went to receive his reward. RIP

Glannon, Christopher, 1711-1773, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1368
  • Person
  • 10 May 1711-02 September 1773

Born: 10 May 1711, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 11 September 1731, Landsberg, Germany Germaniae Superioris Province (GER SUP)
Ordained: 1739, Ingolstadt, Germany
Final Vows: 02 February 1752
Died: 02 September 1773, Watling Street, Dublin

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1741 Sent to Irish Mission
1755 Assisting a PP in Dublin (cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
His brother lived at Kilmainham (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Educated at Jesuit school in Dublin and then began Priestly studies at Canon John Harold’s Academy
After First Vows he was sent for studies at Ingolstadt and was Ordained there 1739
1741 Sent to Ireland and to the Dublin Residence. He worked as an Assistant Priest at St James, and he died 03 September 1773 at Watling St Dublin (St Michan’s)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GLANNAN, CHRISTOPHER, born on the 10th of May, 1711 : entered the Society in Germany, on the 12th of September, 1731, and was Professed in the Order, on the 2nd of February, 1752. I find that he came to the Irish Mission in 1741 and was assisting a parish Priest in Dublin, 14 years later, when I lose sight of him.

Gleeson, J Philip, 1910-1969, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1369
  • Person
  • 04 April 1910-24 February 1969

Born: 04 April 1910, Glebe, Sydney, Australia
Entered: 04 February 1930, Loyola, Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 08 January 1944, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 15 August 1947
Died: 24 February 1969, Beckenham, London, England - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Campion Hall, Oxford, England community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931
Died whilst on Sabbatical in UK

◆ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University online :
Gleeson, John Philip Berchmans (1910–1969)
by Peter Steele
Peter Steele, 'Gleeson, John Philip Berchmans (1910–1969)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gleeson-john-philip-berchmans-10311/text18247, published first in hardcopy 1996

Catholic priest; school principal; theological college teacher

Died : 24 February 1969, London, Middlesex, England

John Philip Berchmans Gleeson (1910-1969), Jesuit priest and educationist, was born on 4 April 1910 at Glebe, Sydney, son of native-born parents Edward Lawrence Gleeson, grazier, and his wife Mary Ann Elizabeth, née Fitzpatrick. Philip was educated at Xavier College, Kew, where he was captain (1929) and distinguished himself at sport. In 1930 he entered the Society of Jesus, at Greenwich, Sydney, and in 1932-35 studied philosophy at Loyola College, Watsonia, Melbourne. He completed a bachelor of arts degree at the University of Melbourne in 1934 (although he did not graduate until 1950), and then taught at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, Sydney, and at the new St Louis school in Perth. Four years study of theology followed at Canisius College, Pymble, Sydney. Ordained priest on 8 January 1944, he pronounced his final vows as a Jesuit on 15 August 1947.

In 1946 Gleeson went to Newman College, University of Melbourne, as dean and college tutor in philosophy. He remained there until 1949, when he travelled to Oxford to study philosophy at Campion Hall. Renal illness hampered his work, but he obtained a B.Litt. (1951). After visiting Europe, he returned to Melbourne and in 1952 became the first Australian-born headmaster of Xavier College.

In December 1953 Fr Gleeson was appointed rector of Newman College. He was happiest and most effective during his eight years there. A careful and financially stringent administrator, he made provision for maintenance, renovation, and further building at the college, including the Kenny wing. He succeeded in greatly increasing student numbers. Gleeson had a close acquaintance with individual students, and was intent on their personal flourishing, although he was almost other-worldly, often uneasy in company and upheld traditional discipline. Not all students appreciated the fact that 'his idealism was conveyed with . . . earnestness and singlemindedness', but he could not be denied respect.

Twice called to be acting provincial superior of the Jesuits in Australia, from 1962 to 1966 Gleeson was rector of Campion College, the Jesuit house of studies at Kew; he was concurrently tutor at Newman and treasurer of the Australian Jesuit province. In 1967 he went to the Provincial headquarters at Hawthorn, while continuing his tutorial work and the giving of spiritual direction. He had become ill with cancer, and he was hospitalised intermittently. Next year he seemed to be recovering so well that he accepted an offer to study once again at Oxford. He died of cancer on 24 February 1969 at Beckenham, London.

Gleeson was one who made the most of his gifts. Except when ill, he was uncommonly vigorous. He was a good driver, but a reckless speedster. Short, close-knit, prim and brisk, he had a precise mind and was quick-witted, and he worked very hard all through his adult life. His inclinations were in part polemical, but his deepest commitment was religious, and he was much in demand for religious retreats. A 'sharp, alert man of action with too much energy for long-term planning or change', he relished minimising chaos and magnifying order.

Select Bibliography
G. Dening and D. Kennedy, Xavier Portraits (Melb, 1993)
Newman Magazine, 1985.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Philip Gleeson was educated at Xavier College, Kew, where in his final year he was captain of the school and captain of football and cricket, and a real leader among his peers. He entered the Society at Loyola College, Greenwich, 2 April 1930, and during that time showed the qualities that characterised him : unusual application and energy in doing whatever he had to do, an easy acceptance of responsibility, a certain toughness and austerity in his spiritual life, constancy and regularity in praying, and great equanimity.
After one year of his juniorate at Greenwich, he began his second year of juniorate and completed philosophy at Loyola College, Watsonia, 1934-37. His pass course in French at The
University of Melbourne was so good that he was offered an honours course, which he completed Regency was at Riverview, 1938, and St Louis School, Perth, 1939-40, where he was one of the pioneers.
He studied for the long course in theology at Canisius College, Pymble, 1941-44, and tertianship was at Loyola College, Watsonia, 1945. During his studies he rarely took more than
the obligatory minimum of recreation, but was an excellent community man: even-tempered good-humoured, tenacious but generally unruffled in argument, joining readily in community enterprises.
His first posting after studies was to Newman College, 1946-49, as minister and dean of discipline, as well as lecturer in philosophy He spent two years at Campion Hall, Oxford, Eng
studying modern philosophy. He did not gain the doctorate as renal illness hampered his work, but obtained the B Litt in 1951. After visiting Europe, he returned to Melbourne, and was appointed the first Australian born rector of Xavier College, Kew, 1952, before going to Newman College as rector in 1953. Here, he lectured in apologetics and philosophy. He was also a province consulter 1952-68.
University people experienced Gleeson as a man who approached life with optimism enthusiasm and willingness to become involved. He was seen as a most vital and complete person
deeply loyal to his ideals, people and institutions that merited his support. Highly intelligent, and deeply concerned and knowledgeable about an enormous range of aspects of life, he was capable of grasping with lightning incision, matters that most people could handle only ponderously. He was intense, dynamic and singleminded.
He was a prolific letter writer. He initiated a building programme that included the Kenny wing, at Newman College that virtually doubled the capacity of the college. He was well read and enjoyed his priestly ministry especially giving retreats. He said Mass with obvious devotion. He loved sport, and enjoyed winning. He played tennis until his health prevented it. He knew students by name, and enjoyed their company. They in turn respected his humility kindness and thoughtfulness.
Twice called to be acting provincial superior of the Jesuits in Australia, from 1961-66, he was appointed rector of the university scholastics at Campion College, Kew. He was also prefect of studies, bursar, province bursar, and continued to tutor in modern philosophy at Newman College, as well as teaching the history of philosophy at Loyola College, Watsonia. When his term of office expired in 1966, he was posted to the provincial residence for two years, continuing his work as province bursar and consulter, and lecturing at Newman College. It was during these last few years that he developed the cancer that caused him much distress, and whose treatment caused him additional pain. However, he bore his sufferings with great courage and cheerfulness. He went to Oxford, England, for a sabbatical in 1969, but became ill and died there. He was a very spiritual man, hard on himself and on others as a superior, but a delightful companion and most kind in all personal dealings. He was a very fair superior, upheld all the Society rules and customs, but guided the scholastics on how to combine the life of the secular academic with the dedicated religious. He combined traditional Jesuit piety with academic respectability. He warned the scholastics about “the natural tendency to ease off spiritual - to become too completely involved in secular study and secular life”. He believed that there were two most necessary virtues for a Jesuit - to be perfect in your obedience and to become ever more men of prayer. Gleeson found the changes of Vatican II very difficult, especially in the liturgy, but he tried to enter into its spirit. He did not believe that the changes meant that the Church was trying to make life easier for religious. He retained his belief that religious essentially should live “out of the world” to do God's work among people. He was a man more at home with a spirituality of the cross than that of the resurrection.
As rector of Campion College, the scholastics found him rather strict and old fashioned, as he seemed to want to run the college as his own juniorate some thirty years before had been. But he was open to representation and made some adjustments and concessions to the Vatican II Church. He was always willing to listen, and always acted decisively when he saw the wisdom of the arguments. Notwithstanding these qualities, Gleeson was a highly respected man, most gifted and hardworking. His only recreation in later life was to play a little tennis and watch Australian Rules football, supporting his team, Hawthorn.
His early death was a great loss to the province, not only for his considerable gifts, but because these were integrated by a strong interior life, which, in spite of his being comparatively reticent about such matters, made itself known to those who lived with him. For all his rather restless activity he was quite obviously a man of prayer, and the contrast drew attention to what otherwise might have gone unnoticed - his dependence on prayer in his decision making and in the direction of his enormous energy. Short, close-knit, prim and brisk, he had a precise mind and was quick-witted. A “sharp, alert man of action with too much energy for long-term planning or change”, he relished minimising chaos and magnifying order.

Note from Vincent Johnson Entry
He moved on to help the province procurator, Philip Gleeson, at Campion College, Kew.

Azzopardi, Michael, 1826-1893, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/137
  • Person
  • 05 May 1826-14 December 1893

Born: 05 May 1826, Gudia, Malta
Entered: 11 February 1854, Palermo Sicily Italy - Sicilian Province (SIC)
Final vows: 15 August 1864
Died: 14 December 1893, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin - Sicilian Province (SIC)

Came to HIB in 1861

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
1860 He came to Ireland with Aloysius Sturzo and many other Jesuits and Novices who had been expelled from Sicily. He spent nine years at Milltown as a cook.
1869 He was sent to Gardiner St as Sacristan. He was very diligent and kept everything in excellent order.
1888 He became totally blind, and in spite of that did his best to help, such as drying plates in the scullery, to the edification of all.
1893 He died most peacefully at Gardiner St, 14 December 1893 and is buried in Glasnevin.

Note from Thomas Mahon Entry :
He was sent to Gardiner St and carried out many duties there, including that of Infirmarian very successfully. When the famous Sicilian sacristan Azzopardi was showing signs of failing health, Thomas assisted him and eventually took complete charge.

Golden, Jeremiah, 1910-1980, Jesuit priest

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

Born: 03 May 1910, County Galway
Entered: 04 February 1929, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 31 July 1940, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1943
Died: 11 May 1980, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia- Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Jerry Golden began his early schooling in Galway and then in Cork until the age of twelve when his father came to other came to Sydney. His further education was with the Marist Brothers Darlinghurst and the Jesuits at Riverview. He entered the Society at Loyola College, Greenwich 4 February 1929. After taking vows he was sent to University College, Dublin, where he took a degree in history and economics with honours. He next studied philosophy in Jersey. Here, his French colleagues appreciated his ready humour.
During 1936-37 at the Institute Catholique, Paris, Golden spent nine months in a Paris hospital recovering from a leg injury that became gangrene This affected him deeply, and was
watershed of his life.
He returned to Ireland for his theological studies at Milltown Park, 1937-40. Tertianship was at Rathfarnham, Dublin, after which he returned to Australia.
Golden's first ministry was at St Mary's, North Sydney, 1943-48. Then he began a ministry as university chaplain, for which he became an icon. He was sent to Newman College in 1950 and remained there until 1966.
When he arrived at The University of Melbourne, most Catholic undergraduates went their own way, but the Newman Society of Victoria used to meet in the basement of the Central Catholic Library. This was a time of Catholic apologetics, of the defence of the Catholic faith.
At Newman College, Golden set about building up a sense of solidarity between the students at Newman College and the members of the Newman Society. A new era of student involvement in the life of the Church began. It was a movement both spiritual and intellectual and assumed the title of “the intellectual apostolate”. He acted as a catalyst among the students, stimulating discussion and encouraging greater Church involvement. Students began reflecting on the question of religious meaning, the ultimate orientation of their studies, and even questions about the nature of the university itself. The Newman Society was opposed to Bob Santamarias Movement, but the issues were never discussed. Student formation involved Summer Camps held at Point Lonsdale, when the university freshers were initiated into the spirit of the Newman Society, and of Winter Camps where the process was taken further. Topics discussed were major issues of Church, politics of the day and Life of the university. Golden's gift in this process was his presence and encouragement, and ability to enthuse students into organising themselves. He never gave a sustained talk. but was active in discussions.
During the academic year faculty groups developed, some 150 students being organised into discussion circles which would meet in the seminar rooms of the Kenny building. Lunch-hour lectures were held at the university, and a weekly Mass in the mathematics hall of the Old Arts Building was well attended in the early years. Much of Golden's own time was taken up individual counselling of students.
In this work his students experienced him as positive, affirming, optimistic and very intuitive. He was patient and a good listener, wise humorous, self-effacing, and apostolic. He was a welcoming man with an engaging smile, and always seemed relaxed. He was no revolutionary, but in practice was radical and risky as he sought to build leadership in others. He spoke openly about the distinction between lay and clerical spirituality, and gave students a glimpse of “the New Jerusalem”. He did not go out to the university as such, but encouraged students to join university activities as well as to engage social works. Students sold Catholic pamphlets outside the student union. By the 1960s society changed, and students began to lose their interest in searching together for eternal truth. It was an age of greater individualism, and Golden had more time to himself. Students were not coming to him in good numbers. Reflecting upon these days, Golden decided it was time to take a sabbatical in Cambridge 1966, where he experienced life in the chaplaincy. He later returned to Adelaide where he took up residence at Aquinas College and was chaplain to the Teachers’ College. From 1970 he returned to St Mary's, North Sydney, where he set up youth groups, and became well knows for his opposition to renovations to the church. He was traditional in his views church architecture. Then followed time in the parish of Avalon Beach, 1977-78, where he enjoyed the friendship of the local surfing community. During these years he spent short time in the parishes of Waterloo and Redfern. In 1979 he received appointment as chaplain to the Catholic College of Education at Castle Hill, NSW. There he became ill, was taken to hospital, and died quite suddenly. Golden was slightly gruff, good-humoured and sagacious. He was resilient. versatile and adaptable. Above all he was truly charismatic. This gave him a special influence with young people male and female. His enjoyment in playing tennis, golf and table tennis sustained his relationships with friends. He was a strong support to needy members of his family.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 55th Year No 3 1980

Obituary

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

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

Golding, Richard, 1867-1923, Jesuit priest

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

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

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

Editor of An Timire: 1919-1922.

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Clongowes.

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

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

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1924

Obituary

Father Richard Golding SJ

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

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

Cara da Chairdibh

Good, William E, 1527-1586, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1372
  • Person
  • 1527-05 August 1586

Born: 1527, Glastonbury, Somerset, England
Entered: 03 June 1562, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained by 1562
Final Vows: 08 September 1577, Rome
Died: 05 July 1586, Naples, Italy - Angliae Province (ANG)
1570 Returned from Ireland to Louvain

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Came to Ireland with Dr Creagh 1564-1569

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father William Good 1527-1586
William Good, scholar and fellow of Corpus Christi Oxford in 1552, received great preferment in the Church under Mary of England. On Elizabeth’s accession, he resigned all for conscience and betook himself to Tournai, where he was one of the first Englishmen to offer himself for the Society. This was in 1562.

His noviceship over, he was appointed chaplain to Archbishop Creagh to accompany him to his new Diocese of Armagh. The Archbishop however was captured in London, but Fr Good proceeded to Armagh. Here he met with a chilly reception from the Irish Chiefs, being an Englishman and knowing no Irish. So, he betook himself to Limerick where he put himself under the obedience of Fr David Wolfe.

Fr Wolfe put him teaching in the newly opened classical school at Limerick. It is related of Fr Good, that once, returning from a missionary journey he was waylaid and stripped of all his belongings. The robbers however, discovered from the Mass kit that their victim was a priest, pursued him and threw themselves on their knees before him. Fr Good did not understand what they said, but one of them took his hand and moved it in sign of absolution over himself. They wanted to be absolved from their sin of robbery.

Fr William was driven from Ireland by persecution, the same persecution which broke up the school in Limerick and sent Edmund O’Donnell to the continent. He laboured in Flanders and Rome, dying finally in Naples in 1585, aged 56, having been born at Glastonbury in 1527.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GOOD, WILLIAM, of Glastonbury. Soon after the accession of Queen Elizabeth, he resigned all his ecclesiastical preferments, and united himself to the Society at Tournay, in 1562. When he had completed his Noviceship, he was ordered by Superiors to accompany Dr. Richard Creagh, Abp. Armagh,into Ireland a Prelate most cordially attached to the Society, and for about four years the good Father laboured with the zeal of an apostle, to confirm the faithful in the ancient Faith. On quitting Ireland he proceeded to Belgium, and was stationed at Louvain for some time. In 1577 he was enrolled amongst the Professed Fathers at Rome, and received instructions to attend F. Possevinus to Sweden and Poland. On his return to Rome, in December, 1580, he was appointed Confessarius to the English College in that city. This appointment gave special satisfaction and delight to Dr. Allen, as I find in his letter to F. Agazzari, dated 1st of June, 1581. “Quod R. P. Gul. Good, vere vir bonus, sit Collegii Confessarius, lector non mediocriter : est enim imprimis nostrorum moribus formandis, ac in omnem partem moderandia, idoneus”. A pithy elogium this! He was truly a saintly and prudent man, and ready to give his life for the name of Christ. Retiring to Naples, he closed a life of pious labour, on the 5th of July, 1586, and was buried in the Jesuit s College there. Two years before his death he published at Rome a Folio with engravings, entitled “Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophaea”. F. More adds, p.14, that he left in MS. “An Abstract of the Lives of the British Saints”. See also his life in Tanner.

Goodge, Michael, 1815-1886, Jesuit brother

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

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

Goodwin, Michael, 1839-1867, Jesuit brother

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

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

Early Australian Missioner 1866

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

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

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

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

Goodwin, Peter, 1815-1905, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1375
  • Person
  • 24 September 1815-18 December 1905

Born: 24 September 1815, Draperstown, County Derry
Entered: 19 June 1851, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final vows: 08 September 1862
Died: 18 December 1905, St Mary’s, KS, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Gorman, Matthew, 1598-1619; Jesuit novice

  • IE IJA J/1376
  • Person
  • 1598-16 November 1619

Born: 1598, Thomond, County Clare
Entered: 1617, Lisbon, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)
Died: 16 November 1619, Lisbon, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)

Alias de Amaral

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Two Entries : Gorman (1); Michael Amaraly (2)
Matthew Gorman
DOB Tuam or Thomond; Ent 1616 Portugal; RIP post 1617
Michael Amalary
DOB Ireland; Ent 1619 Lisbon; RIP 01 November 1619

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
He died at the Novitiate fifteen months after Ent in Lisbon 16 November 1619

Gorman, Thomas, 1690-1767, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1377
  • Person
  • 29 December 1690-19 June 1767

Born: 29 December 1690, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Entered: 09 March 1714 , Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1721, Salamanca, Spain
Final Vows: 15 August 1726
Died: 19 June 1767, At sea, Gulf of Corsica - Castellanae Province (CAST)

Taught Grammar 4 years
1737 On the Irish Mission
1761-1762 At the Irish College Poitiers

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Studied Humanities at Compostella beginning 1709 before Ent.
1724 Sent to Ireland serving in Clonmel, Limerick and Cork, and he was in the latter in 1755 (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
1728 Fixed his Residence as Limerick (cf White’s “History of Limerick)
1763 At Poitiers (Arret de la Cour du Parliament de Paris, 1763)
“Of uncommon talent”; A Good Preacher; Stationed at Clonmel, Limerick and Cork

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Edmund and Margaret née Meagher
He studied Philosophy at Santiago 1709-1712 and having begun Theology at Salamanca Ent there 09 March 1714
After First Vows he was sent to Santiago to teach Humanities and then to Royal College Salamanca for Theology where he was Ordained 1721
1721-1724 Teaching Humanities at Logroño when he was sent to Ireland
1724-1728 Returned to Ireland and sent to Clonmel and worked for four years under Thomas Hennessy
1728-1737 Sent to re-open the Limerick Residence and was there for nine years.
1737-1761 Sent to Cork where he continued his Ministry of Administering Sacraments, Catechising, Preaching and preparing young men to enter the Irish Colleges in Europe.
1761 With Fr General’s permission he retires to the Irish College Poitiers as his health was in decline. He arrived there only a few months before the Society was expelled from France and the College (Irish property) was seized by the state.
1762 He found refuge in his origin Province of CAST and was sent to St Ignatius Church, Valladolid where he lived until the Society was expelled from Spain in 1767
On a journey to an unknown destination - including to the passengers / fellow exiles - he died of hardship at Sea near the Gulf of Corsica 19 June 1767. He was buried at sea.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GORMAN, THOMAS, born in Munster, on the 29th of December, 1691; was admitted in the Castile Province of the Society, on the 12th of March, 1714 : and ten years later came to the Irish Mission. His services were bestowed at Clonmel, Limerick, and Cork, when he shone as a Preacher. I believe he ended his days at Cork, where I leave him in 1755.

Gough, Ignatius, 1624-1693, Jesuit priest

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

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

Alias Goagh

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

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

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

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

Gough, James, 1700-1757, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1379
  • Person
  • 25 July 1700-25 January 1757

Born: 25 July 1700, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Entered: 11 September 1721, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 27 November 1729, Salamanca, Spain
Final Vows: 15 August 1737
Died: 25 January 1757, Irish College, Santiago de Compostela, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

Alias St Leger

1754 At Compostella teaching
Was a Doctor of Divinity. Taught Grammar, Theology and Philosophy

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Writer and Professor of Theology
1725 Father Gorman desires to be remembered to Father James St Leger (McDonald’s “Irish Colleges Abroad” and de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ”)
His Theological MSS are at Salamanca

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of William and Joan née St. Leger - like many Irishman in Spain he used his mother’s name (such practice was used by Irishmen in Spain in an attempt to outwit the English authorities who were intercepting correspondence between Irish families and their sons in Spain)
Had studied at Santiago before Ent 11 September 1721 Villagarcía
After First Vows completed his Philosophy at Palencia, and then went to Royal College Salamanca where he studied Theology and was Ordained there 04 December 1729. He continued his studies there graduating with a DD
1732-1738 Professor of Philosophy successively at Royal College Salamanca, Mithymna, Medina del Campo, Valladolid.
1738-1741 He then returned to Royal College Salamanca to hold a Chair of Theology
1741-1757 At Compostella where he had a Chair of Theology until his death there 25 January 1757
Ignatius Kelly and Thomas Hennessy tried to have St Leger sent to the Irish Mission. The Provincial of CAST agreed with the proposal but only on the condition that Ignatius Kelly should return to Spain to take up the Rectorship of the Irish College, Salamanca. The clergy and people of Waterford prevented the exchange of the two Jesuits

Brady, Laurence, 1818-1895, Jesuit novice

  • IE IJA J/138
  • Person
  • 1818-23 August 1895

Born: 1818, County Meath
Entered: 24 July 1895, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 23 August 1895, Clongowes Wood College SJ, County Kildare

Took vows on his death-bed?

He was at one time said to be in business, and also said to have means.
He was a Brother Novice for a very short period. He had lived at Clongowes as a “Parlour Boarder” for some years. He was a companion on the farm to Eugene Duffy.

Gough, John, 1580-1652, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1380
  • Person
  • 1580-12 December 1652

Born: 1580, Clonmel, County Tipperary
Entered: 1630, Ireland
Ordained: - pre Entry
Died: 12 December 1652, Clonmel, County Tipperary

Alias Goggins

1650 Catalogue “Gough” Good musician. Has been Rector at Clonmel 3 years and is a Confessor

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Studied Moral Theology privately. Knew Irish, English and Latin.
Rector of a Residence for three years and a Confessor for fifteen.
An accomplished musician.
1650 In Ireland

Gould, Ignatius, d 1734, Jesuit novice

  • IE IJA J/1381
  • Person
  • d 08 February 1734

Place of birth: [County Cork].
Entered: Palermo, Sicily Italy - Siculiae Province (SIC)
Died: 08 February 1734, novitiate, Palermo, Sicily, Italy - Siculiae Province (SIC)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ
His nationality is not mentioned but his surname suggests he may have been of County Cork origin.

Goulde, Richard, 1657-1680, Jesuit scholastic

  • IE IJA J/1382
  • Person
  • 10 May 1657-07 May 1680

Born: 10 May 1657, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 19 September 1675, Avignon, France - Lugdunensis, Province (LUGD)
Died: 07 May 1680, Chambéry, France - Lugdunensis, Province (LUGD)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows he was sent to Lyons for Philosophy, but due to ill health was transferred to Chambéry, where he died 07 May 1680
His obit says “He left his country amid many dangers and joined the Society in order to help his fellow-countrymen. But God summoned him already ripe for heaven through being tried by much suffering to a better fatherland”.

Grace, James, 1644-1673, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1383
  • Person
  • 1644-10 April 1673

Born: 1644, Ireland
Entered: 07 December 1664, Lisbon, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)
Died: 10 April 1673, At Sea in transit to Goa - - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)

Alias Didacus Garcez

1664 Mentioned
1673 at Port Indes

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
He went from Portugal to the Indies in 1673 (Franco’s “Hist of the Province of Portugal”)

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ :
1673 After studies set sail for GOA with a large number of Jesuits. Twelve Jesuits died of sickness on the voyage and the first was James Grace. Buried at Sea

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father James Grace SJ 1644-1673
Fr James Grace was born in Ireland in 1644, and entered the Society at Lisbon in 1664.

After finishing his studies he set sail for Goa early in 1673 with a large number of Jesuit Fathers. Sickness broke out on the voyage, and twelve missioners died. The first to die was Fr Grace on April 10th 1673. He was buried at sea.

Graham, John, 1855-1927, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1384
  • Person
  • 16 February 1855-10 April 1927

Born: 16 February 1855, Northampton, England
Entered: 07 September 1874, Roehampton, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1890
Final vows: 02 February 1895
Died: 10 April 1927, County Waterford - Angliae Province (ANG)

Died in Ireland (HIB) but member of ANG

Graves, George, 1846-1906, Jesuit brother

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

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

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

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

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

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

by 1916 at Rathfarnham (HIB) studying

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

Grene, Christopher, 1629-1697, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1387
  • Person
  • 29 August 1629-13 November 1697

Born: 29 August 1629, Co Kilkenny
Entered: 07 September 1658, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 07 September 1653, Rome, Italy - pre Entry
Final Vows: 02 February 1669
Died: 13 November 1697, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)

1665 In English College in Rome, Minister and Procurator
1675 ANG Catalogue Was in Rome
There was a “Chris Grene” Penitentiary of the Holy House, Loreto 1674-1686 and 01 November 1686 to July 1692

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of George and Jane née Tempest - who had retired to Kilkenny from their native land (England?) due to persecution. Younger brother of Martin
Early education was in Ireland, then Humanities at St Omer. Went to English College Rome for higher studies 20 October 1647, and Ordained there 07 September 1653 , and sent to England to work 08 April 1654
After First Vows he was English Penitentiary at Loreto and St Peter’s, Rome, living mostly in Rome.
1692 Appointed Confessor at English College Rome, where he died 11 November 1697
He rendered great service in the cause of the English Martyrs by collecting and handing down the scattered record of their sufferings, as the Stonyhurst MSS testifies.
He also carefully investigated and confirmed the truth of the tradition regarding the tender love entertained by Philip Neri towards the students of the English College Rome (cf his biography “Records SJ” Vol iii pp 499 seq, and Vol vi p 369)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
GRENE, CHRISTOPHER, a very intelligent Father, and brother to F. Martin Grene, of whom more hereafter. For some time Christopher was Penitentiary at Loretto; where I think he was admitted to the Profession of the Four Vows, on the 2nd of February, 1669; but he chiefly resided at Rome, where he was Penitentiary at St. Peter’s. There he died in 1697.

Grene, Martin, 1617-1667, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1388
  • Person
  • 1617-02 October 1667

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

Novice Master Angliae Province (ANG)

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

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

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

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

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

Grennan, James, 1829-1915, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/1389
  • Person
  • 05 April 1829-10 December 1915

Born: 05 April 1829, Tyrrellspass, County Westmeath
Entered: 01 January 1853, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 02 February 1864
Died: 10 December 1915, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Egan, Éamon, 1923-1973, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/139
  • Person
  • 04 July 1923-11 August 1973

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

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

Educated at Belvedere College SJ

by 1959 at Louvain (BEL M) studying

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

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1974

Obituary :

Fr Eamon Egan (1923-1973)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Risteárd Ó Glaisne

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1974

Obituary

Father Éamonn Egan SJ

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

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

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

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

KF

Griffin, Patrick, 1879-1949, Jesuit priest

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

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

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1910 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

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

Grogan, Kevin, 1913-1980, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1391
  • Person
  • 25 April 1913-30 November 1980

Born: 25 April 1913, Burwood, Victoria, Australia
Entered: 21 February 1931, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 08 January 1944, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 02 February 1979
Died: 30 November 1980, St Xavier’s, Bokaro Steel City, Hazaribag, Jharkhand, India - Ranchiensis Province (RAN)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931; ASL to RAN : 12 March 1956

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Kevin Grogan grew up in Melbourne, and attended St Patrick's College, East Melbourne. He entered the Jesuits at Greenwich, 21 February 1931, studied philosophy at Watsonia, taught at Riverview, 1938-40, and did his theology at Pymble. He then had a year as chaplain to the army in Timor. Tertianship was at Sevenhill with John Fahy, followed by four
years as parish priest of Sevenhill. In January 1951, with the founding group, he left for the Hazaribag region of India and began learning Hindi. His first parish assignment was in Rengarih in 1951, followed by Mahaudanr in 1952. He was parish priest of Hazaribag in 1953, where he found communicating in the Hindi language difficult.
He had happier days at St Xavier’s, Hazaribag, from 1955. He taught English and mathematics, promoted debating and public speaking, set up and taught handicraft, and turned his hand to landscape gardening. He became an active member of the local Lions Club. In the aftermath of the 1966-67 famine relief, he organised “sasti roti” (cheap bread) centres around the town, mainly for the rural poor who had gravitated to the town for help. The sponsoring of “eye camps” where volunteer doctors did cataract operations for the poor, one of them in St Xavier's classrooms, was one of his more memorable achievements. In the community he was a genial companion and the soul of hospitality with guests.
By the late 70s, he was often tired and moody. He sought a change, and finally went to St Xavier's, Bokaro Steel City from January 1979. He settled into school routines but he was not a well man He had heart trouble and a final heart attack caused his death.

Gryst, Edward, 1911-1981, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1392
  • Person
  • 25 July 1911-03 January 1981

Born: 25 July 1911, Port Adelaide, South Australia
Entered: 21 February 1930, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 08 January 1944, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 15 August 1947
Died: 03 January 1981, Rome, Italy - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Holy Cross College, Mosgiel, Dunedin, New Zealand community at the time of death

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
Ted Gryst received his secondary education with the Christian Brothers at Rostrevor, and entered the Society 21 February 1930, at Greenwich. His juniorate followed at Loyola, Greenwich and Watsonia, with a BA from The University of Melbourne in English and Latin. His regency was at Watsonia, 1938-40, teaching rhetoric. Theology was at Canisius College, Pymble, 1941-44, and tertianship at Watsonia, 1946, under John Fahy.
Gryst had a very strong will that turned itself inwards to inflict a stern self-discipline. Sometimes this was pushed too far and it affected his health. After theology at Pymble he taught scripture at Canisius College, Pymble, 1945. This meant that he spent seventeen years continually in a house of formation that undoubtedly intensified the simplicity of an obviously simple soul. From 1947-61 Gryst was a professor of philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Werribee. He also taught Latin, and was prefect of discipline and assistant librarian. For the next four years he was teaching philosophy and was minister at Loyola College, Watsonia. He also edited Province News. In 1966-72 he was rector at Werribee, teaching philosophy and scripture. It was at this time diet he developed a special bond with the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny. His association with seminary formation then continued for six years at the Holy Name Seminary, Christchurch, New Zealand. Later he moved with the seminary to Holy Cross, Mosgiel, and lectured in scripture. For 21 years he associated with the academic and spiritual formation of seminarians for the province of Victoria and Tasmania. He wrote a book on philosophy, “Talk Sense”, serialised in the Madonna. He loved working in the garden, His spirituality seemed to be an embodiment of the sacrament of “the present moment”. Gryst had three main careers-professor of philosophy for seminarians,. rector, and lecturer in scripture. He received no special training for these tasks, yet carried them out with his usual faith and shy grin. He believed in what he did. He was a man of obedience, a man of faith. Even in his last year of life, in his visit to the Holy Land, he was still seeking insight into the life of Jesus. He was also an Ignatian man - his whole life pointed unambiguously to Jesus. Finally, he was essentially of and for the Society. With a tendency to scrupulousness at all times, he was most particular about the food and drink he consumed. He would walk for hours in the heat, thirsting rather than risk drinking the water of river or stream beside him. He died suddenly in Rome on a Saturday afternoon. He had gone to the Blue Sisters to give a slide talk on his trip to Egypt, and while talking to the sister at the door, collapsed and died. The day before he had visited Monte Cassino, walking up and back the 10 kilometers required.

Guillereag, Cornelius, 1635-1676, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1393
  • Person
  • 1635-20 February 1676

Born: 1635, Co Clare
Entered: 1657, Mexico - Mexican Mission (MEX)
Died: 20 February 1676, St Francis Borgia Mission, Sonora, Mexico - Mexican Mission (MEX)

Alias Mac Giolla Riabhaigh

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ :
Entered in Mexico along with Stephen Font (de la Fuente)
1667 After finishing studies worked among the Indians at St Francis Xavier Mission in Sonora, Mexico
1668-1670 Worked among the Indians at St Ignatius Mission in Sinaloa, Mexico
1670-1671 Worked among the Indians at St Francis Borgia Mission in Sonora, Mexico, where he died in 1671
Stephen Font (de la Fuente) and Cornelius Guillereag (Mac Giolla Riabhaigh) were inseparable companions on the Indian Mission in Mexico

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Cornelius Guillereag (Mac Giolla Riabhaigh) SJ 1635-1671
Fr Cornelius Guillereag (Mac Giolla Rhiabhaigh) was born in County Clare in 1645. He entered the Society in Mexico in 1657 with Fr Stephen Font whose inseparable companion he was during the whole course of his studies and labours among the Indians.

He died at the Mission of St Francis Borgia in Sonora in 1671.

Guimerá, Vincente, 1869-1936, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1394
  • Person
  • 14 July 1869-30 September 1936

Born: 14 July 1869, Castellón, Spain
Entered: 26 April 1890, Borja, Zaragoza, Spain - Aragoniae Province (ARA)
Final Vows: 15 August 1908
Died: 30 September 1936, Valencia, Spain - Aragoniae Province (ARA)

by 1925 came to St Aloysius Sydney, Australia (HIB) teaching and working

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Vincente Guimera entered the 'Society in 1890, and after studies and some teaching, he was sent to New Guinea in the 1920s to help find a solution to the problems in a mission that had been acquired from the German Franciscans. The superior general asked the Australian superior, William Lockington, to settle the matter, and he sent Joseph A. Brennan to New Guinea. They closed the mission and gave it to the SVDs. Three Spanish Jesuits then came to Sydney briefly and stayed at Loyola. Guimera subsequently lived and taught at St Aloysius' College, 1924-25, which apparently meant little more than tutoring senior boys. He also assisted with the supplies of the house and was liked in the community even though he seems to have been recovering from serious malaria. He returned later to Europe. During the Spanish Civil War, he cared for sick and dying prisoners. For this he was martyred on 30 September 1936 by the Republican forces.

Gutiérrez Ossorio, Pastor, 1916-1999, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1395
  • Person
  • 12 September 1916-11 October 1999

Born: 12 September 1916, Marulanda, Caldas, Colombia
Entered: 20 September 1931, Colegio de María Immaculada, Bogotá, Colombia - Colombianae Province (COL)
Ordained: 19 May 1945
Final Vows: 02 February 1950
Died: 11 October 1999, Medellín, Colombia - Colombianae Province (COL)

by 1952 came to Aberdeen Hong Kong (HIB) teaching

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

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

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

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

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

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education at Coláiste Iognáid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1916

Obituary

Father John Gwynn SJ

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

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

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

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

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

The following is the account referred to :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. Aged 44 years.

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

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

May his soul rest in peace!”

◆ The Clongownian, 1916

Obituary

Father John Gwynn SJ

Chaplain to the 1st Irish Guards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1916

Obituary

Father John Gwynn SJ

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John Gwynn (1866-1915)

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

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

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

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

First World War Chaplain

Older brother of John - RIP 1915

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

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 26th Year No 1 1951

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

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

Hackett, Edward, 1595-1632, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1398
  • Person
  • 1595-22 September 1632

Born 1595: Ireland
Entered: 1615, Coimbra, Portugal - Lusitania Province (LUS)
Ordained: c 1623, Coimbra, Portugal
Died: 22 September 1632, Évora, Portugal - Lusitania Province (LUS)

Alias Duarte de Loyola

1626 LUS Catalogue in Portugal

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1626 in LUS Catalogue

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had studied Philosophy at University of Coimbra before Ent there 1615
After First Vows he was sent on regency, initially teaching Humanities at Coimbra, and then as proof reader to Francisco Soares in the preparation of the latter's works for printing. He completed his Theology at Coimbra and was Ordained there c 1623.
After his formation was complete he was sent as Operarius to Portalegre, Portugal and then to Évora where he died 22 September 1632

Hahn, William, 1841-1903, Jesuit priest

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

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

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

White, William, 1912-1988, Jesuit priest, teacher and counsellor

  • IE IJA J/14
  • Person
  • 02 December 1912-13 July 1988

Born: 02 December 1912, Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary
Entered: 03 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1944, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 03 February 1947, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 13 July 1988, St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin

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

Early education at Christian Brothers School (Carrick-on-Suir) and Mungret College SJ

by 1972 at Manhassett NY, USA (NEB) studying marriage

Prefect of Studies at Gonzaga, College SJ, Dublin: 1950 -1965
Rector of Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin: 1965 - 1971
Director of Marriage Encounter: 1974 - 1982
Superior of Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin: 1985 - 1988

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 63rd Year No 4 1988 (Final Edition)

Obituary
Fr William White (1912-1930-1988)
Fr William White, SJ, who died on July 13 1988, was a native of Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary. Born in 1912, he was educated by the Christian Brothers in the town of his birth and by the Jesuits at Mungret College, Limerick. Known as “Willie” to his family, he was “Bill” to the Jesuits, whom he joined in 1930. After the customary course of studies, interrupted by a teaching spell at Belvedere College, Dublin, he was ordained priest at Milltown Park, Dublin, in 1944.
When Fr Bill was sent back to Belvedere College in 1946, with responsibility for the preparatory school there, he expected to spend many years on the staff, so he was very surprised when the Provincial chose him as one of the four priests who, in 1949, founded Gonzaga College. Fr Bill was Prefect of Studies at Gonzaga from 1950 until 1965, when he became Rector of the college. He had to cope with all the demands of founding and building up a new school, but he never lost his sense of humour, nor his sense of fairness and never forgot any of the boys whom he had taught.
A new career began for him in 1971, when he went to Manhasset, New York, to study marriage counselling and he became one of the pioneers of Marriage Encounter in Ireland, being its director from 1974 until 1982. Apart from his formal involvement, Fr Bill was a counsellor and friend to many troubled people, always ready to give his whole attention to others and with a marvellously warm smile. Many couples, individuals (including many priests and religious) and whole families benefitted from his advice, his prayers and his friendship. His closeness to his own family was an important part of his life and he was an asset to every Jesuit house in which he lived.
Fr White's final assignment was as superior to the Jesuit Order's nursing unit at Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park, where he took up office in 1985. In recent months, it was obvious that his health was failing and he was in St Vincent's Hospital, Elm Park, for tests when he suffered a stroke, In the days between the stroke and his death, Fr Bill was serene, in no pain and with no worries. Even in the last hours of his life, his main concern was the well-being of others.
(Catholic Standard, 22nd July 1988).

In the quartet of Jesuits who founded Gonzaga, Fr Bill White was surprisingly identified as the Brawn, harnessing the energies of Blood (the O'Conor Don), Beauty (blond Fr John Murphy) and Brains (Fr Tim Hamilton, the only survivor). In Bill it was the brawn of the jockey rather than the ploughman. He walked like a horseman, out of his element with nothing between his legs, with a slightly limping shuffle. Though I never saw him on horseback, he seemed to belong there. He mounted his old bicycle like a hunter and rode it habitually between canter and gallop round the steeplechase of Dublin streets. He had a jockey's sense of the final furlong, hurling himself up the Gonzaga avenue just in time for dinner, or on other public occasions keeping the grandstand on its toes until the last moment. Two minutes before the house exams, which were treated with considerable solemnity, teachers, boys and desks would be in chaos until at the last moment Bill would slip into the hall, bundles of papers under his arms, restoring order just in time.
Though he founded the most urban and urbane of schools, Bill brought to it a countryman's sense of reality. He was sensitive to the moods of flesh and blood, a student of form, whether equine or human. In a school that had the reputation of being heady, he was the least heady of men. Do you remember his style of greeting? In a warm and characteristic way it was very physical. Moving towards you with a smile that was always slightly lop-sided, his hands never far from his body so that he came close enough to sense you, almost smell you, he would eye your skin, your colour, the lie of your muscles, the lift or droop of your mouth, so that when he asked “How are you?” it was with the concern of a friend who already surmised your world from the outside and was eager to know how you experienced it from the inside. At that moment, nobody else existed for him, and it is no wonder that so many found him unforgettable. The sense of loss at his funeral was tinged with intensity and often indignation. It seemed that hundreds were feeling: How could the Lord take a man who was so important to me - and to whom I was so important? At the ripe age of three score and fifteen, it still seemed grossly premature.
Bill is said to have been appalled at his appointment to Gonzaga in 1950. His old guru, Fr Rupert Coyle, had trained him to run the Junior School in Belvedere, and fingered him to succeed in the Senior School. He felt himself ill-equipped to launch, albeit in distinguished company, a pioneering educational experiment. He was reflective, wise and supportive, but not an originator - he left that to his talented staff, who always sensed his ungrudging support.
From the beginning he liked to teach the youngest class in the school, to get the measure of them from the start. While his staff gradually shaped a new style and curriculum, Bill was the one who knew the individual pupil, knew the dynamics of his family, sensed where his promise and his limits were. When I wrote school reports with him in the late sixties, I marvelled at his sense of how our words could impinge on the family, to build up or to destroy; how they would affect the depression of a mother, the driving ambition of a father, the vitality of a boy. The document finally put into the envelope was not just an objective assessment, but a communication to a family that was known, with a clear sense of how it would be used.
He ran a tight ship, and wielded the biffer in the fashion of the time, but with a fairness that is still remembered. Two small boys were heard discussing which teacher they liked best. “I like Fr White best” said Peter. “But he biffs you!” protested his friend. “Yes, but that's his duty” said young Sutherland, with that sense of order that makes him a formidable European Commissioner. In fact it was often the wayward who sensed most vividly the largeness of Bill's heart. More than once he stood under the great copper beech on the front lawn calling young X, a fugitive from the classroom, to come down out of that - and X has now joined the forces of law as a thriving solicitor.
To those who have, more will be given, says the Gospel, ironically, and Gonzaga's early pupils were manifestly blessed in the Dublin of their time. Fr White succeeded in saving these fortunate ones from an enervating sense of privilege. He challenged the clever to be more than clever: to be good. It is the task of every teacher, to build up children without pandering to narcissistic illusions, to confront their selfishness without destroying or depressing them, to forge an alliance with the good in them. This was a central theme in Bill's work with boys: to reach the truth in them, and not allow them to take their blessings for granted.
Every school principal knows the four am feeling that there is a serious chink in his armour, some point where the dyke can be breached and chaos break out. Bill's chink lay in the formalities of administration. He ran his files on what we called the deep litter system, then a popular method of poultry farming. Bill dropped letters, application forms, telephone messages, reports, departmental documents to form a carpet, sometimes ankle-deep, on the ample floor of his room. He was confident that he knew where things were, and we marvelled to find that this was sometimes true. But at a time when paper-work was multiplying, and applications for a place in the school were often made from the nursing-home as soon as the baby was identified as a boy, it was inevitable that the deep litter system sometimes let him down, with often painful consequences. In general he was ill at ease with the administrative aids that are now taken for granted: secretaries (he never had one), typewriters, cars, files, computers, VDUs, all the paraphernalia of yuppiedom, that shield one person from another. For him the only essential 20th century appliance (apart from the bicy cle--but his machine was more redolent of the nineteenth century) was the telephone.
If Fr White is ever portrayed or sculpted, it must be with a telephone to his ear, listening, murmuring, reassuring, cheering, and as the minutes lengthen saying: “Goodbye ... goodbye again” (even on one occasion “Goodbye at last”). It was an instrument he could not resist. His car was attuned to pick up a phone's ring from quite a distance, and he would move automatically towards it. It was a symbol of his accessibility that he laid himself open to. In the community we were jealous of his attention, and often saw him exhausted by his unwillingness to protect himself. One remembers him slipping through the Gonzaga hall, summoned to the first parlour by one lady, to the second parlour by another, and to the telephone by a waiting caller - all on the way to dinner, or on another occasion reaching the community house for six o'clock dinner after a working day that began at six a.m., to be grabbed by a parent with the pretty ruthless remark: “I knew I would catch you now; Father”. Others might fume, but not Bill, his face would light up to the visitor and he was listening again.
Not merely listening, but containing. He took bad news on board in a way that metabolised it, made it easier to bear. He could listen to tidings of hopelessness, depression, sickness, estrangement, and by sharing the bitterness, heal some of the pain, though he knew that no practical solution was in sight. When someone remarked on his gift of empathy, he traced it to his father, who he said was much better than he: old Mr White was known in Carrick-on-Suir as the man to contact in the aftermath of some particularly cruel tragedy, a man who would not shrink from the pain but could place himself alongside the sufferers, sharing their cross. As the years passed, Bill moved more and more into work (in Marriage Encounter, and with sick Jesuits in Cherryfield) that engaged his extraordinary gift of compassion.
A dear friend who revered Bill used to speak of the “other dimension” that he revealed: the BMW cruising down the avenue through the February rain gets a wave and smile from Bill White cycling up from a hospital visit or, as Rector, carrying across hot coffee to the staff room for the teachers break; among us as one who serves. His life would not make sense if God did not exist.
His faith sustained him to the end, with a manifestly aching body, but a face that became more radiant and transparent as his health declined. He had resolved as a young Jesuit that if ever there was an apparent conflict between the religious rule and the Gospel, he would opt for the Gospel, which for him was summed up in one or two truths: “I have loved you with an everlasting love” - his favourite phrase from Scripture; and the need to cast out fear, which he saw as the most damaging and pernicious effect of original sin.
We will not run out of administrators, or teachers, or priests. Fr Bill White was more; he was a healer, and the gap he left is still felt with pain by hundreds of friends.
(By courtesy of the Gonzaga Record).

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1988

Obituary

Father Bill White SJ

Fr. White was not a past pupil of Belvedere but those who were here in the 40s and 50s will remember him as a scholastic (1939-41) and, in the latter period, as Prefect of Studies in the Junior House (1946-50). He was a man of very unusual goodness and personal quality.

The following appreciation appeared in The Catholic Standard (July 22nd 1988):

Fr William White SJ, who died on July 13 1988, was a native of Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary. Born in 1912, he was educated by the Christian Brothers in the town of his birth and by the Jesuits at Mungret College, Limerick, Known as “Willie” to his family, he was “Bill” to the Jesuits, whom he joined in 1930. After the customary course of studies, interrupted by a teaching spell at Belvedere College, Dublin he was ordained priest at Milltown Park, Dublin, in 1944.

When Fr Bill was sent back to Belvedere College in 1946, with responsibility for the preparatory school there, he expected to spend many years on the staff, so he was very surprised when the Provincial chose him as one of the four priests who, in 1949, founded Gonzaga College. Fr Bill was Prefect of Stud Gonzaga from 1950 until 1965, when he became Rector of the college. He had to cope with a demands of founding and building up a new school but he never lost his sense of humour, nor his sense of fairness and never forgot any of the boys whom he had taught.

A new career began for him in 1971, when he went to Manhasset, New York, to study marriage counsellling and he became one of the pioneers of Marriage Encounter in Ireland, being its director from 1974 until 1982. Apart from his formal involvement Fr Bill was a counsellor and friend to many troubled people, always ready to give his whole attention to others and with a marvellously warm smile. Many couples, individuals (including many priests and religious) and whole families benefitted from his advice his prayers and his friendship. His closeness to his own family was an important part of his life and he was an asset to every Jesuit house in which he lived.

Fr White's final assignment was as superior Jesuit Order's nursing unit at Cherryfield Lodge Milltown Park, where he took up office in 1985. In recent months, it was obvious that his health was failing and he was in St Vincent's Hospital, Elm Park, for tests when he suffered a stroke. In the days between the stroke and his death, Fr Bill was serene, in no pain and with no worries, Even in the last hours of his life, his main concern was the well being of others.

At his funeral in Gardiner St Church, Fr Senan Timoney SJ said in his homily:

“He was a great Christian, a great human being. His humanity never suffered because he was Christ like. He was wise and yet not solemn. You can all recall his infectious laugh. He was authentic - there was nothing spurious, nothing artificial about him. He was fully himself. He was that elusive thing a man of God whose scale of values were those of Christ. A graced person, he was gentle. He had time for you. When he was talking to you no one else counted - this whether it was on the telephone or in the parlour. A man of immense compassion and at the same time a shrewd judge of any situation, He was in the words of Fr Pedro Arrupe ‘a man for others’. One phrase I can recall his using quite often - especially if you enquired after his well-being - ‘And now, tell me how are you?'’ He was selfless”.

One of those who cared for him in his last days said: “It was a joy to look after him. He died as he lived - a man for others”.

◆ The Gonzaga Record 1988

Obituary

William White SJ

In the quartet of Jesuits who founded Gonzaga, Fr Bill White was surprisingly identified as the Brawn, harnessing the energies of Blood (the O'Conor Don), Beauty (blond Fr John Murphy) and Brains (Fr Tim Hamilton, the only survivor). In Bill it was the brawn of the jockey rather than the ploughman. He walked like a horseman, out of his element with nothing between his legs, with a slightly limping shuffle. Though I never saw him on horseback, he seemed to belong there. He mounted his old bicycle like a hunter and rode it habitually between canter and gallop round the steeplechase of Dublin streets. He had a jockey's sense of the final furlong, hurling himself up the Gonzaga avenue just in time for dinner, or on other public occasions keeping the grandstand on its toes until the last moment. Two minutes before the house exams, which were treated with considerable solemnity, teachers, boys and desks would be in chaos until, at the last moment, Bill would slip into the hall, bundles of papers under his arms, restoring order just in time.

Though he founded the most urban and urbane of schools, Bill brought to it a countryman's sense of reality. He was sensitive to the moods of flesh and blood, a student of form, whether equine or human. In a school that had the reputation of being heady, he was the least heady of men. Do you remember his style of greeting? In a warm and characteristic way it was very physical. Moving towards you with a smile that was always slightly lop-sided, his hands never far from his body so that he came close enough to sense you, almost smell you, he would eye your skin, your colour, the lie of your muscles, the lift or droop of your mouth, so that when he asked 'How are you?' it was with the concern of a friend who already surmised your world from the outside and was eager to know how you experienced it from the inside. At that moment, nobody else existed for him, and it is no wonder that so many found him unforgettable. The sense of loss at his funeral was tinged with intensity and often indignation. It seemed that hundreds were feeling: how could the Lord take a man who was so important to me -- and to whom I was so important? At the ripe age of three score and fifteen, it still seemed grossly premature.

Bill is said to have been appalled at his appointment to Gonzaga in 1950. His old guru, Fr Rupert Coyle, had trained him to run the Junior School in Belvedere, and fingered him to succeed in the Senior School. He felt himself ill-equipped to launch, albeit in distinguished company, a pioneering educational experiment. He was reflective, wise and supportive, but not an originator — he left that to his talented staff, who always sensed his ungrudging support. From the beginning he liked to teach the youngest class in the school, to get the measure of them from the start. While his staff gradually shaped a new style and curriculum, Bill was the one who knew the individual pupil, knew the dynamics of his family, sensed where his promise and his limits were. When I wrote school reports with him in the late sixties, I marvelled at his sense of how our words could impinge on the family, to build up or to destroy; how. they would affect the depression of a mother, the driving ambition of a father, the vitality of a boy. The document finally put into the envelope was not just an objective assessment, but a communication to a family that was known, with a clear sense of how it would be used.

He ran a tight ship, and wielded the biffer in the fashion of the time, but with a fairness that is still remembered. Two small boys were heard discussing which teacher they liked best. 'I like Fr White besť said Peter. ‘But he biffs you!' protested his friend. 'Yes, but that's his duty said young Sutherland, with that sense of order that makes him a formidable European Commissioner. In fact it was often the wayward who sensed most vividly the largeness of Bill's heart. More than once he stood under the great copper beech on the front lawn calling young X, a fugitive from the classroom, to come down out of that - and X has now joined the forces of law as a thriving solicitor.

To those who have, more will be given, says the Gospel, ironically, and Gonzaga's early pupils were manifestly blessed in the Dublin of their time. Fr White succeeded in saving these fortunate ones from an enervating sense of privilege. He challenged the clever to be more than clever: to be good. It is the task for every teacher, to build up children without pandering to narcissistic illusions, to confront their selfishness without destroying or depressing them, to forge an alliance with the good in them. This was a central theme in Bill's work with boys: to reach the truth in them, and not allow them to take their blessings for granted.

Every school principal knows the four a.m. feeling that there is a serious chink in his armour, some point where the dyke can be breached and chaos break out. Bill's chink lay in the formalities of administration. He ran his files on what we called the deep litter system, then a popular method of poultry farming. Bill dropped letters, application forms, telephone messages, reports, departmental documents to form a carpet, sometimes ankle-deep, on the ample floor of his room. He was confident that he knew where things were, and we marvelled to find that this was sometimes true. But at a time when paper-work was multiplying and applications for a place in the school were often made from the nursing home as soon as the baby was identified as a boy, it was inevitable that the deep litter system sometimes let him down, with often painful consequences. In general he was ill at ease with the administrative aids that are now taken for granted: secretaries (he never had one), typewriters, cars, files, computers, VDUs, all the paraphernalia of yuppiedom, that shield one person from another. For him the only essential 20th-century appliance (apart from the bicycle — but his machine was more redolent of the nineteenth century) was the telephone.

If Fr White is ever portrayed or sculpted, it must be with a telephone to his ear, listening, murmuring, reassuring, cheering, and as the minutes lengthen saying 'Goodbye....goodbye again' (even on one occasion, 'Goodbye at last). It was an instrument he could not resist. His ear was attuned to pick up a phone's ring from quite a distance, and he would move automatically towards it. It was a symbol of his accessibility that he laid himself open to. In the community we were jealous of his attention, and often saw him exhausted by his unwillingness to protect himself. One remembers him slipping through the Gonzaga hall, summoned to the first parlour by one lady, to the second parlour by another, and to the telephone by a waiting caller - all on the way to dinner; or on another occasion reaching the community house for six o'clock dinner after a working day that began at six a.m., to be grabbed by a parent with the pretty ruthless remark: 'I knew I would catch you now, Father'. Others might fume, but not Bill; his face would light up to the visitor and he was listening again.

Not merely listening, but containing. He took bad news on board in a way that metabolised it, made it easier to bear. He could listen to tidings of hopelessness, depression, sickness, estrangement, and by sharing the bitterness, heal some of the pain, though he knew that no practical solution was in sight. When someone remarked on his gift of empathy, he traced it to his father, who he said was much better than he: old Mr White was known in Carrick-on-Suir as the man to contact in the aftermath of some particularly cruel tragedy, a man who would not shrink from the pain but could place himself alongside the sufferers, sharing their cross. As the years passed, Bill moved more and more into work (in Marriage Encounter, and with sick Jesuits in Cherryfield) that engaged his extraordinary gift of compassion.

A dear friend who revered Bill used to speak of the other dimension' that he revealed: the BMW cruising down the avenue through the February rain gets a wave and smile from Bill White cycling up from a hospital visit: or, as Rector, carrying across hot coffee to the staff-room for the teachers' break; among us as one who serves. His life would not make sense if God did not exist.

His faith sustained him to the end, with a manifestly aching body, but a face that became more radiant and transparent as his health declined. He had resolved as a young Jesuit that if ever there was an apparent conflict between the religious rule and the Gospel, he would opt for the Gospel, which for him was summed up in one or two truths: 'I have loved you with an everlasting love' — his favourite phrase from Scripture; and the need to cast out fear, which he saw as the most damaging and pernicious effect of original sin.

We will not run out of administrators, or teachers, or priests. Fr Bill White was more; he was a healer, and the gap he left is still felt with pain by hundreds of friends.

Paul Andrews SJ

Remembering Father White

In 1976, to stimulate interest in the activities of the past pupils' union, a 'Gonzaga Dinner' was advertised in The Irish Times and attracted 100 guests, the largest number that could be accommodated in the dining room of the University Club. There were rumours that an Alternative Gonzaga Dinner had to be convened around the corner in Captain America's for the late applicants. If so, the latecomers missed what for the participants in the real Gonzaga Dinner was the high point of the evening: the few words spoken by Fr White.

Fr White spoke that evening about freedom. I seem to remember some remarks about how much freedom the boys could use!. I seem to remember too that Fr White said that looking back, he could see ways in which it might have been safe to allow a little more freedom in the school than had been the case. But it was not primarily his words that made Fr White's appearance that evening so memorable. It was the sudden explosion of applause that greeted him as he rose to speak. It was heartfelt applause, deliberately prolonged. It had overtones of shared triumph. Fr White, in his person, seemed to represent the contribution of so many teachers, pupils, and parents to the decades of endeavour in Gonzaga. He represented the sense of belonging that each of us seemed to enjoy.

What was the secret of Fr White's enduring rapport with all the boys, and all the families, who were part of Gonzaga? As someone who came to Gonzaga only after Fr White became Rector, and who therefore had direct dealings with him only on a few occasions, I can speak on this subject as a member of the rank-and-file. Even at that distance, it was always clear that Fr White was someone who paid attention to individuals. He knew people by name and he knew what was important in their lives. He was a man with a heart, who by thinking things mattered made them matter. The school's concerns were Fr White's concerns. It was an example of joyful service that like other gentle features of our youthful landscape, we noticed too little.

One personal memory that I do have of Fr White is of the time I sat the entrance examination for Oxford in one of the two sitting rooms on the left off the hallway of the priests' house. Fr White himself was my supervisor. Each morning of the exam he brought me tea and biscuits on a tray, an impish smile of complicity conveying the support of the school - once again one finds it easy to identify Fr White with the school.

The supportive community which Fr White laboured to create in Gonzaga made the school the complement of a good home atmosphere. The certainty of being known and valued, the stability and predictability of school routine, the very high standard of dedication of the staff, were easy to take for granted, as was the absence of bullying and conflict among the pupils themselves. The consistent success of the school in these seemingly small things are a reminder of the truth of William Blake's dictum that he who would do good to another must do so in minute particulars'.

If Gonzaga had a particular intellectual stamp, it was a belief in the value of open discussion. In Fr Joe Veale's English class, we gave our own reactions to the works under study and were warned off potted summaries or appreciations. John Wilson, teaching Spanish, tolerated lengthy excursuses on the bullfight or the Spanish Civil War. In fifth year, in Religious Knowledge class, Fr Cull ran a sort of open forum on the question of whether God existed, with the result that the young university student a year or two later had an acquired immunity to some of the ruder challenges he faced. Whatever else one could say about the doubts of the Gonzaga past pupils on matters of faith, those doubts would never be the mere product of a “generation gap, or a young person's means of escape from a too-rigid authority.

In this sense, the spirit of the school ran counter to the tendency in many parts of Irish life to accept reality as one might accept the absentee landlord: as a force to be obeyed, cajoled, or evaded, but never tackled directly with argument, much less brought to account. It was a great blessing in Gonzaga that we felt free to delve into the truth and that we never felt, as perhaps so many have felt, that probing the causes of things is like tinkering with an unexploded bomb. Gonzaga, like Fr White, was always ready to listen.

I am told by a reliable source within the Jesuit Community that in his years as Rector, Fr White permitted himself only one concession to the flesh. My source discovered what this weakness was one Thursday afternoon in March. The Rector had failed to answer on any of the usual telephone extensions and was located by a search party in front of the television, engrossed in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. That was in 1967.

It is only one of the many memories of Fr White that have surfaced this summer wherever Gonzaga people have been together. Everyone has his own story to tell and yet each story blends perfectly with the next and each conversation has a lightness that is surprising considering that the topic of discussion is a death, a departure. Fr White's presence, like the presence in nature that ‘veins violets and tall trees makes more and more', seems still with us.

A few years ago, I was back in Ireland after nine years abroad and found myself confessing to a colleague that gaps and discontinuities had emerged in my relationships with my friends. “The truth is”, my colleague said, “that you never come home”. As we spoke, I realised that there is an exception to that rule, if it is a rule. On each of my Gonzaga friends I could lean as heavily as before, discover the same easygoing acceptance communicated with the same humorous certainty as before. Fr White would have wished it so. Perhaps that is what Thucydides meant when he wrote of good men, that the whole world is their memorial.

Philip McDonagh

An Appreciation

Father White was, in my opinion, the single most important figure in the history of Gonzaga. He was Prefect of Studies for fifteen years from the School's foundation and Rector for six years after that. He and Father Charlie O'Connor, our first Rector, were a perfect team. Fr O'Connor was a stickler for administrative detail and had a real feel for the development of the School. But he was a distant, slightly aloof figure.

Fr White, on the other hand, was hopeless about records and correspondence and other office work; he was a man for the here and now and had a genius with people. He was good-humoured, buoyant and had immense powers of sympathy. The other teachers found him supportive, especially those who were wilting under the strain.

With the boys he had a robust, slightly hectoring way and would not take too much nonsense. “You're only deceivin' yourself, he would say through clenched teeth, simulating exasperation. But he was too sensible to get really annoyed. He had the uncongenial task of dispensing corporal punishment but this did not diminish his popularity among the boys by whom he was known affectionately as ‘Walley'. To not a few of them he became an invaluable counsellor to whom they looked for advice and support long after they had left the school.

He was the kind of man who turned up when he was most needed, generally on his old bicycle which he mounted as if it were a steed. To meet him was always a happy experience. When you were with him, you were all that mattered. But there was more. Beneath the bustle he had the tranquil contentment that goes with deep faith. That was very impressive. He had immense insight into his fellow humans and he used this to serve them. He gave of himself totally and never thought of the cost, let alone count it.

I last met him in Gonzaga at the Mass for Fr O'Connor when he rendered a superb appreciation. Recalling small but significant episodes from those early days he re-captured his subject to perfection. I remember that he concluded by expressing the wish that Gonzaga boys would regard their education as a privilege to be shared, not a property to be defended. It was a characteristically generous thought. He himself had contributed mightily to making it such a privilege. He has left with us the challenge of proving worthy of it and an inspiration and example for applying ourselves to that task.

Charles Lysaght

Bergin, Michael, 1879-1917, Jesuit priest and chaplain

  • IE IJA J/140
  • Person
  • 18 August 1879-11 October 1917

Born: 18 August 1879, Fancroft, Roscrea, County Tipperary
Entered: 07 September 1897, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 24 August 1911, Hastings, England
Final vows: 17 November 1916
Died 11 October 1917, Passchendaele, Belgium (Australian 51st Battalion) - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)
Buried at the Reningelst Churchyard Cemetery, Belgium
First World War Chaplain.

Transcribed HIB to LUGD : 01 January 1901

Fancroft is on border of Offaly/Tipperary. The border dissected Fancroft Mill, the family home on one side (Tipperary).
by 1901 in Saint Stanislaus, Ghazir, Beirut, Syria (LUGD) Teacher and studying Arabic
by 1904 in Saint Joseph’s, Beirut, Syria (LUGD) teaching

◆ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University online :
Bergin, Michael (1879–1917)
by J. Eddy
J. Eddy, 'Bergin, Michael (1879–1917)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bergin-michael-5217/text8783, published first in hardcopy 1979

Died : 11 October 1917 Passchendaele, Belgium

army chaplain; defence forces personnel (o/s officers attached to Australian forces)

Michael Bergin (1879-1917), Jesuit priest and military chaplain, was born in August 1879 at Fancroft, Tipperary, Ireland, son of Michael Bergin, mill-owner, and his wife Mary, née Hill. Educated at the local convent school and the Jesuit College at Mungret, Limerick, he entered the Jesuit noviceship at Tullabeg in September 1897. Two years later he was sent to the Syrian mission where English-speakers were needed; he felt the break from home and country very keenly but became absorbed in his missionary work and the exotic customs of the local peoples. After learning Arabic and French he studied philosophy at Ghazir, and in October 1904 began teaching at the Jesuit College in Beirut.

In 1907 Bergin was sent to Hastings, England, to complete his theology studies and was ordained priest on 24 August 1910. After a short time at home he returned to Hastings for further study and then gave missions and retreats in the south of England. He returned to the Middle East in January 1914 and was in charge of Catholic schools near Damascus until the outbreak of World War I; along with other foreigners in Syria, he was then imprisoned and later expelled by the Turkish government. By the time he reached the French Jesuit College in Cairo in January 1915 the first Australian troops had arrived in Egypt, and Bergin offered to assist the Catholic military chaplains. Though still a civilian, he was dressed by the men in the uniform of a private in the Australian Imperial Force and when the 5th Light Horse Brigade left for Gallipoli he went with it. Sharing the hardships of the troops, he acted as priest and stretcher-bearer until his official appointment as chaplain came through on 13 May 1915. He remained at Anzac until September when he was evacuated to the United Kingdom with enteric fever.

Bergin's arrival home in khaki, complete with emu feather in his slouch-hat, caused a sensation among his family and friends. Though tired and weak after his illness, he was anxious to get back to his troops for Christmas. He returned to Lemnos but was pronounced unfit and confined to serving in hospitals and hospital-ships. Evacuated to Alexandria in January 1916, he worked in camps and hospitals in Egypt and in April joined the 51st Battalion, A.I.F., at Tel-el-Kebir. He accompanied it to France and served as a chaplain in all its actions in 1916-17; these included the battles of Pozières and Mouquet Farm, the advance on the Hindenburg Line and the battle of Messines. He was killed at Passchendaele on 11 October 1917 when a heavy shell burst near the aid-post where he was working. He was buried in the village churchyard at Renninghelst, Belgium.

Bergin was awarded the Military Cross posthumously. The citation praised his unostentatious but magnificent zeal and courage. Though he had never seen Australia he was deeply admired by thousands of Australian soldiers, one of whom referred to him as 'a man made great through the complete subordination of self'.

Select Bibliography
L. C. Wilson and H. Wetherell, History of the Fifth Light Horse Regiment (Syd, 1926)
Sister S., A Son of St. Patrick (Dublin, 1932)
51st Battalion Newsletter, July 1962
F. Gorman, ‘Father Michael Bergin, S. J.’, Jesuit Life, July 1976..

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jesuitica-irish-jesuit-at-the-front-2/

JESUITICA: Irish Jesuit at the front
When they remember their war dead on Anzac Day, Australians include in that number Fr Michael Bergin SJ, an Irish Jesuit who signed up with the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF)
in order to accompany them as chaplain to Gallipoli. Two facts give Fr Bergin particular distinction. Firstly, though he served with the AIF he never set foot on Australian soil. And secondly, he was the only Catholic chaplain serving with the AIF to die as a result of enemy action – not, however, in Gallipoli, which he survived, but in Passchendaele, Belgium, in 1917. According to the citation for the Military Cross, which he received posthumously, Fr Bergin was “always to be found among his men, helping them when in trouble, and inspiring them with his noble example and never-failing cheerfulness.”

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jesuitica-mungret-man-at-the-front/
Tomorrow, Remembrance Day, we might think of Michael Bergin, born in Roscrea, schooled in Mungret, a remarkable Irish Jesuit chaplain with the Anzac force, which he joined as a trooper in order to accompany the Australians to Gallipoli. He was the only Australian chaplain to have joined in the ranks, and the only one never to set foot in Australia. He always aimed to be where his men were in greatest danger, and having survived the Turkish campaign he was killed by a German shell on the Ypres salient in Flanders. The citation for the Military Cross, awarded posthumously, read: “Padre Bergin is always to be found among his men, helping them when in trouble, and inspiring them with his noble example and never-failing cheerfulness.”

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/featured-news/roscrea-remembers-heroic-jesuit/

Roscrea remembers a heroic Jesuit
An exhibition of the life of Jesuit war chaplain Fr Michael Bergin, who died on 12 October 1917 at Passchendaele on the Western Front, was launched on 4 October in Roscrea Library, Tipperary. Fr Bergin grew up in the millhouse of Fancroft, just a couple of miles north of Roscrea.
Though an Irishman, Fr Bergin joined the Australian forces during the war. He befriended some Australian soldiers during a stint in Egypt and then joined them, first as stretcher-bearer in Gallipoli and later as chaplain in Belgium. It was there he died from German shell-fire, one of the half-million casualties of the Third Battle of Ypres, at Passchendaele.
The exhibition was launched by Simon Mamouney, First Secretary and Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy. The curator of the exhibition, Damien Burke, assistant archivist of the Irish Jesuit province (pictured here), also spoke at the event. In attendance too were Fr. Frank Sammon, a distant relative of the Bergins of Fancroft, and Marcus and Irene Sweeney, current owners of Fancroft Mill. Irene Sweeney, in fact, is a cousin of another Irish Jesuit, Fr Philip Fogarty. The exhibition remains open until 31 October.
Damien Burke also marked the anniversary of Fr Bergin’s death on Tuesday, 10 October, with a talk in Mungret Chapel, Mungret, Limerick – appropriately, as Fr Bergin attended the Jesuit school Mungret College. About thirty people attended the talk. It was 100 years to the day since Fr Bergin made his way to the Advanced Dressing Station of the 3rd Australian field ambulance near Zonnebeke Railway Station, Belgium. The following day he was badly wounded by German artillery fire, and a day later, 12 October, he died from his wounds. He was posthumously awarded the Australian Military Cross of Honour. Damien mentioned that Michael Bergin was President of the Sodality of Our Lady while a boarder at Mungret College and “would have prayed and formed his vocation to the Jesuits here in this space”.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/newsletter/jesuits-at-the-front/

Jesuits at the front
This year of commemorating Irish Jesuit chaplains in the First World War will continue with an exhibition by Irish Jesuit Archives at Roscrea Library, Tipperary, from 2nd to 31st October. It will focus mainly on Fr Michael Bergin SJ (pictured here), a Roscrea-born Jesuit who was killed at the front in 1917, and five other Jesuits who served as chaplains with the Australian army in the First World War.
Fr Michael Bergin SJ holds the distinction of been the only member of the Australian forces in the First World War never to have set foot in Australia, and he was the only Catholic chaplain serving to have died as a result of enemy action.
Born in 1879 at Fancroft, Roscrea, Fr Bergin was educated at Mungret College, Limerick, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1897. From 1899 until the outbreak of war in 1914, he worked on the Syrian mission, which entailed his transfer to the French Lyons Province. When war broke out he was interned and then expelled by the Turks from Syria. While in Egypt in 1915, he become friendly with the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF), then training in Cairo.
In May of that year he went to Gallipoli with the Australian Forces, having enlisted as a Trooper. He carried out his pastoral duties as a priest, and worked as a stretcher-bearer and medical attendant. After his formal appointment as a chaplain in July 1915, Fr Bergin suffered influenza, chronic diarrhoea and enteric fever at Gallipoli, and was evacuated back to London to recover. Even though it was obvious that he was medically unfit to return to the front, he insisted on doing so and was back at Gallipoli in December 1915. Due to his ill health, however, he was transferred to hospital work.
In June 1916 Fr Bergin went to France with the 51st Battalion of the 13th Brigade. He lived in the front trenches, hearing confessions and celebrating Mass. He accompanied his men through such battles as Poziéres and Mouquet Farm, and was promoted from Captain to Major.
On 10 October 1917, his battalion moved up to the Front line Jesuitat Broodseinde Ridge. The next day he was with the Australian Field Ambulance when German shell-fire severely wounded him. He died the next day. There are a number of different accounts of his death but he died the following day. He is buried in Reninghelst Churchyard Extension, Belgium.
One colonel who knew the padre remarked, “Fr Bergin was loved by every man and officer in the Brigade... He was the only Saint I have met in my life.” The citation for the Military Cross awarded posthumously but based on a recommendation made prior to his death read: “Padre Bergin is always to be found among his men, helping them when in trouble, and inspiring them with his noble example and never-failing cheerfulness.”

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

On Saturday 25 April, the annual dawn Anzac commemoration will take place. It is the centenary of the failed Anzac engagement at Gallipoli. Six Jesuits, five of them Irish-born, served with the Australian Imperial Forces in the First World War. Frs Joseph Hearn and Michael Bergin both served at Gallipoli.
Fr Bergin describes Gallipoli in 1915: “There are times here when you would think this was the most peaceful corner of the earth – peaceful sea, peaceful men, peaceful place; then, any minute the scene may change – bullets whistling, shells bursting. One never knows. It is not always when fighting that the men are killed – some are caught in their dug-outs, some carrying water. We know not the day or the hour. One gets callous to the sight of death. You pass a dead man as you’d pass a piece of wood. And when a high explosive catches a man, you do see wounds”

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

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

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
After his education at Mungret, Michael Bergin entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1897, and two years later volunteered for the Syrian Mission and was sent to Lebanon to study Arabic and French before moving on to philosophy at Ghazir, and in 1904 to teach in the Jesuit College in Beirut.
Bergin did his theology in England at Hastings, and following ordination did retreat work in southern England until returning to Syria in January 1914. With the outbreak of World War I, he was interned by the Turks and then expelled from the region to arrive in Egypt in January 1915. Bergin offered to assist the Catholic chaplains of the newly arrived AIP, and, though still a civilian, was dressed in a privates uniform by the men of the 5th Light Horse, and left for Gallipoli with them.
He acted as priest arid stretcher-bearer until his formal appointment came through in May, and he remained on Gallipoli until invalided home in September with enteric fever. A photo taken of him in slouch hat and emu feathers created something of sensation at home, but he was not there long, returning to work on hospital ships until January 1916, when he went to Egypt with the 51st Battalion. He followed the battalion to France, serving as chaplain during some key battles leading up to the attack on the Hindenburg line. In 1917 a long-range shell burst near the aid station where he was working and killed him.
Bergin never came to Australia, but was awarded a posthumous Military Cross and in the late 1990s was awarded the Australian Gallipoli Medal. There is a memorial to him at the back of the Cairns Cathedral, as the soldiers he mainly worked with were from North Queensland. His life is included here because of his unique connection with Australia.
John Eddy has an entry on him in the Australian Dictionary of Biograpy, p. 274.

Note from Edward Sydes Entry
He and the Irish Jesuit Michael Bergin, who served with the AIP but never visited Australia, are the only two Australian Army chaplains who died as a result of casualties in action.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Michael Bergin 1879-1917
Fr Michael Bergin was born at Fancroft, about two miles from Roscrea, on August 16th 1879. His early education he got at the Sacred Heart Convent Roscrea, and then at Mungret. In 1897 he entered the noviceship at Tullabeg.

Together with two other scholastics, Mr Hartigan and Mr Fitzgibbon, he was sent to Syria and the University of Beirut. Here under the French Fathers, he did his Philosophy and Regency. While in Beirut he volunteered for the Syrian Mission, and there he returned after his ordination in 1913.

On the outbreak of the First World Ward he, with all the other priests and religious, was expelled by the Turks, and he went to Cairo. There Fr Bergin became Chaplain to the Australian Expeditionary Force. He came to France with them, and he was killed by a shell at Zonnebeke, North East of Ypres on October 11th 1917. He was buried near Reningelst.

His life story was written by his sister, a nun, under the title “A Son of St Patrick”, and it gives an idea of the steadfast, simple yet heroic life of Michael Bergin.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1904

Letters from Our Past

Michael Bergin SJ

Ghazir, Syria

“Mr. Power and Mr. Hartigan arrived safe and sound at Beyrouth. They paid a visit to Ghazir shortly after their arrival. They were looking very well. They had no difficulty in recognising me in spite of my venerable beard. They stay at Beyrouth, where they study. Oriental languages.

We are only ten Philosophers, but there are also four teen Scholastics destined for the Mission, who are making a biennium of Arabic. There are also three Juniors, and fortunately for them, we are all in the same Community. It is not a bit like Christmas here, except for the rain, We are too near the sea at Ghazir to have frost, but the mountains quite close to us are covered with snow. We have a pretty little Crib in the chapel, but there are no other decorations. The Maronites have Midnight Mass in a great many churches, they have also a Novena with Benediction and Recitation or Office in preparation for Christmas. Their faith is, perhaps, more demonstra tive, but scarcely as solid, as that of the Irish. Sometimes they fall out with their bishop or priest, and threaten to be come Protestants or Schisinatics, if they don't get what they want, and sometimes too, unfortunately, they execute their threat. The English and American Protestants, as well as the Russian Schisinatics, do a great deal of harm. They have schools, and, as they are rich; they can hold out great inducements to the poor. Our Fathers, with very little money, have to fight against them. The Maronite clergy, although rich enough, do very little, and give nothing, and thus it is for us to do all. After all it is hard to find people as good as in the old country”.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1905

Scenes and Manners in Syria - from the Letters of

Michael Bergin SJ and Austin Hartigan SJ

St Joseph’s University Beyrouth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1918

Obituary

Father Michael Bergin SJ

It is with the greatest regret we have to report the death of Fater M Bergin SJ, which occurred in France late in October last. After working in Syria for some years he was in Egypt at the outbreak of the war and volunteered as a chaplain. He saw service in Gallipoli and on the French front. The officer commanding the battalion to which he was attached writes :

I am sure no man was, nor could be, more popular and loved, not only by members of his own flock; but by all others.

In a report made in July, 1916, by the then commanding officer of the battalion giving the names of those who had shown qualities of conspicuous merit, the following entry is made opposite the name of our late Padre :

“For ready attention to wounded, indomitable energy, and pervading all ranks with cheerfulness.”

The subsequent months proved that those words only modestly express what we all owe to him, and those of us who had the privilege of knowing him longest find it difficult to believe that he really has left us for good and will not some day appear again with his usual smile and cheery words. He was killed instantly, by a fragment of a large shell which fell close to a party of officers belonging to the Brigade headquarters.

Our deepest sympathy to his brother, Mr John Bergin of Fancroft, Roscrea, and to his other relatives. RIP

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1932 : Golden Jubilee

Michael Bergin : A Mungret Jesuit at the Front

Father Michael Bergin SJ

Foreword to a memoir of Fr Bergin, shortly to be published under the title of “A Son of St. Patrick”.

To all who had the privilege of knowing Fr Bergin in life the following memoir will make instant appeal. How far it. will arrest the attention of others is more difficult to determine. It will hardly enter into rivalry with Prof O'Rahilly's “Life of Father Doyle” either as literary achievement or as a spiritual manifestation. It raises no problems, psychological or hagiographical. It is not likely to inaugurate any “cultus” of one, who, though undoubtedly holy and even heroic in his spirit of zeal and self sacrifice, was rather a finished specimen of what the institute he embraced aims at producing than an abnormal phenomenon. He is seen as an imitator, at a distance perhaps, of St John Berchmans rather than of St Aloysius Gonzaga. His sanctity though very real was not spectacular. He was just a zealous religious who practised in a very unobtrusive way the difficult art of self conquest, and thus prepared himself for facing the ordeal of the Great War with the certainty of playing a man's part in it, and, if needs be, of dying a brave man's death.

This he did, always without ostentation, always with that pleasant mask of a sunny smile, which veiled from the casual observer the depth and intensity of the spiritual fire burning in the soul of him all the time. His letters, utterly unstudied and unaffected, let us into the secret of his gaiety and make very beautiful the lifelong struggle against weak health which was his.

The present writer had the good fortune of knowing him in Tullabeg during two years and of meeting him once again just as he returned to the Front for the last time. And the impression left by that acquaintance tallies exactly with the picture those letters trace. Br Bergin was just one of some thirty young men being moulded in the Ignatian crucible, and taking shape gradually like the rest. He was fervent, no doubt, but in outward seeming indistinguishable from all others, except perhaps for a gaiety that, without being boisterous or even noisy, was infectious. I might sum him up by saying that you felt he was a good companion in recreation or on a walk, and a still better comrade in a tight corner. I have particularly in memory the sight of him holding on to an oar, on our rare boating excursions, until he was ordered by the person dressed in a little brief authority to relinquish it, and cheerful when other's nerves were getting a bit frayed and causing some outbursts of the old Adam in many, who, after all, were only ex-schoolboys labouring hard, but not always too successfully, to expel nature with a pitchfork. Though physically frail he not only never shirked his share of the common burden, he even clamoured for more, simulating immunity from fatigue. And it was curiously the same individual, only riper now and obviously more master of nature, whom I met for a few days at Ore Place, Hastings, in the winter 1915-16 - the precise date escapes my memory. He had been invalided home from the Front after a most trying time with the Anzacs in Gallipoli. He was obviously worn out and really unfit for further service. The thin form looked thinner than ever, the old stoop, indicative of the weak lungs that made Irish Superiors willing to part with this devoted worker in the hopes that the eastern sunshine might prolong a useful career, was more pronounced. He reluctantly admitted fatigue but insisted on reporting again for duty, when he need not have done so; and on going out once more to the Australian lads in danger, who had won his love and repaid it with a solid affection which does them honour. My counsel of prudence was wasted on one who never steered by that commonplace light when there was good work to be done. Yet, and here too he ran true to form, he tried to persuade me that it was just the fun of the thing that made him go forth again. In this, to tell the truth, he was not too successful, for I knew him of old. But of course I said nothing, and the last I saw of him was when he laid aside his vestments after his last Mass in his old scholasticate and hastened away, with a brave smile lighting up the tired face, to confront danger with the fearlessness he had already shown in action.

Apropos of danger I asked him once whether he had felt afraid under the rain of shells and bullets. His answer was characteristic: “At first the sensation is a bit curious. But you soon get used to it, and then do not mind it much”. Perhaps he had the gift of physical courage. But somehow the delicate frame and sensitive nature, responsive to all that was bright and joyous in life, did not indicate any natural indifference to death and its wartime horrors. Rather, I think, he found his strength in higher sources, even though his fine reserve recoiled from any parade of the deeper, supernatural impulses, which, for all that, very clearly guided his life.

War books are now a bit out of fashion - unless it be unsavoury, psychoanalytic pictures of men's bestiality in war. This may possibly militate against the success of this little volume where nothing is to be seen, but the white soul of one who walked this earth very innocently and quitted it very gallantly, displaying at all times a great unselfishness and an attractive piety. We may note that the piety is twofold. It is first of all and above all the Christian virtue of that name. But it answers also to the pietas of Virgil or the best pagans. His love of God and devotion to the greatest of all causes is found in perfect harmony with the human sentiments of family affection, love of country, sympathy with sorrow and affliction. Over all plays a sense of humour, genuine, natural, unfailing. If he had never died in action or left any line of self revelation, those who knew him would remember him as one who laughed easily (though not loudly), and made others laugh (without any pretentions to the reputation of a wit); who never seemed happier than when he could do a service to someone and would never admit that he was too tired or too busy to lend a helping hand; who was never censorious or critical of others; who fitted into various surroundings without friction of any kind; who glided serenely down the stream of life, making no noise and causing no commotion, well content to be unknown and accounted as nought - a beautifully placid nature to all appearance, yet not dull or apathetic, and always busy at some quiet task, tackling studies, for which he had no predilection, with conscientious ardour, aspiring unobtrusively to loftier heights of spiritual perfection than might have been suspected.

His biography may prove practically helpful to the general, fun of readers, whether in religion or in the lay pursuits, who feel no vocation to don the seven-league boots of the saints and stride from crest to crest of the Alpine heights, too far above the snow line for ordinary aspirations, but who never the less do desire to acquit themselves as men in the Great War always raging which is called Life. From him they can learn to hold their few yards of trench steadfastly and to the end, without flinching whether all be quiet on the front or the lines wake up to feverish and deadly activity, without “grousing” whether the petty hazards of the game or its major calamities try the temper. Here was one who to the outward eye gave no promise of special heroism, but when the call came said “Adsum” not only courageously but buoyantly, even boyishly, and above all without fuss or affectation, internally unconscious, I should think, that Gallipoli or Flanders were to be taken a whit more tragically than a long walk through the Bog of Allen or a long day at a creaking thole-pin. If any one had told Fr Bergin that a life of him would be written when he was gone it would have seemed to him the joke of the season. This will explain and excuse, if excuse be necessary, the homely style of his correspondence. He certainly never expected that any lines of his would have to face the scrutiny of critics on a printed page. If he had had the slightest suspicion of such a possibility, they could never have been written at all. He could not have penned a line with the spectre of publicity before his eyes, and he would laughingly have seized upon it as an excuse for saving precious time. He wrote as he lived, frankly and sincerely, without arrière pensée and he would only have shuddered at the very idea of posthumous fame. We have him thus in these pages as he was, without trappings of any kind, and I shall be surprised if the reader does not feel that his acquaintance was well. worth making

P J Gannon SJ

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1933

“A Son of St Patrick” by Sister S

Father Michael Bergin SJ

It is safe to say that most of our boys I will not even know the subject of this biography. Many will have seen his name in that list of our Sodality that hangs by the chapel door and may have wondered, half-idly, in the manner of the post-war generation, at the legend, “Killed in action, October, 1917”. To them and to many older boys we recommend this little book, unaffected in style, unadorned with wealth of words, but effective in its directness and simple truth. For we ought to know about this Mungret boy, who was President of Our Lady's Sodality, who went unselfishly to the East to work for Christ, and who, in the strange ways of God's providence, fell in Flanders at his post, for Christ. That he was one of ourselves should interest us. in his life. He answered the morning bell, he ran like us to morning chapel, he turned out to games with gusto, and he turned into study with the same cheerful grumble. He was a Mungret boy and he tried to be a saint. He tried in a way, that should encourage us all, not the way of frightening asceticism and mystic prayer, but the way, we all can try, of honest fervent piety and perfect obedience to God's Holy Will. How he succeeded in his effort, this life tells.

Simple, as we have said, and unaffected, this story of Father Bergin's life is attractive for its very simplicity. We have here no revelations of a soul's struggle, no attempt to read import into every slight action, no psychologizing of the saints. The story is told directly and with sympathy and by this is made human and appealing. The man himself speaks to us in his letters; frank, honest, brotherly letters, full of news and love and piety. He tells of himself as we feel we could do ourselves; but the plain tale he tells, we easily understand, to hide a life of daily heroism and striving after sanctity.

Michael Bergin was born at Fancroft, a few miles from Roscrea, in August, 1879, and spent his early days there, in the ideal Surroundings of a truly Irish Catholic family. He came to Mungret when he was fourteen and impressed his masters and his fellows as a pious, unselfish, jolly boy. Here God called him to the religious life and he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tullabeg in 1897. He finished his novitiate there, and to his surprise found himself next dispatched to Syria, to study Eastern languages at the University of Beyrouth. For two years he worked at the college and then went to Ghazir to study philosophy. Again he returned to college work at Beyrouth until Theology took him to Hastings in England, where he was ordained in 1910. He was back again in his beloved mission in 1914 at Damascus, and while working there the war broke out. First a “private soldier” chaplain and then a full recognized army Padre, he served in Gallipoli from 1915 to 1916. Then after a short leave, France claimed him and in a front line trench in Flanders he fell on October Iith, 1917.

We have told his career briefly lest we should ornit to give its outline in our anxiety to stress the importance of his life. There, is the life of a Mungret boy, told in short, and indeed a short life it was, and, taken in its period, no more eventful than many another. But this Mungret boy lived his life heroically and prayerfully throughout, and he taught himself to make great sacrifices with a careless smile and a convincing laugh. As a boy we find him jolly and natural; but he was the boy who walked to let others cycle; he was the boy who made himself nurse to a poor cripple; and he was the boy who fought for the right to say long prayers. We are very sure that he did these things with easy grace and without notice then, it is the retrospective eye that sees that here was a boy trying to be holy.

We feel, however, that it required genuine bravery of soul, to leave gaily a loved family circle and native land, to go alone, a boy, into the East. The novice is only a boy, for all his real spirituality, and the boy must have felt that wrench, felt it all the more when the novelty of a strange land passed and life became routine. But these honest letters of his show no trace of this; he loves all at home too well to share his sorrow.

He tells them all his adventures; he tells them, with a natural eye for beauty, of the sights of the East and of the flowers of its fields. Yet, now and then, we see that he has made a sacrifice, for he longs for Ireland's green fields and simple flowers. He grows a little jaded with brilliance and longs for plain things much loved and he often looks over the Mediterranean, westward, towards home.

In 1916 he knew the question was being discussed, as to whether he should remain permanently on the mission in Syria or return to his own Province. The heart could answer that question in but one way. To be permanently there meant that he belonged not to his own Irish Province, but to the French Province; it meant, one might say, naturalizing himself as a foreigner. It meant exile for ever. “Storm heaven that I may be kept”, he writes to his sister ; “yet non sicut ego volo sed sicut Tu”. This is the noble spirit that offers what it holds dearest and makes sacrifice almost easy, by forestalling it. Here is that touchstone of sanctity, the agere contra of St Ignatius; but here the man conceals it all, under a laugh, and makes his suffering appear a favour. This, we think, is the attractive thing in Father Bergin's attempt on the battlements of holiness. He carried them with honest gaiety, concealing high purpose and great determination.

When the Great War came, Michael Bergin was a priest and a Christian missionary in Damascus. He was a foreigner in the territory of Turkey. It was with difficulty he escaped spending the period of the war chafing in some internment camp; but he did manage to reach Egypt, and immediately looked for work. He found work among the soldiers of the Australian Expeditionary Force. He had no official standing among them, but zeal was ingenious in overcoming army regulation. He enlisted as a stretcher-bearer in order to be with his newly found flock. With them he went through the horrors of Gallipoli and endeared himself by gallantry and unselfish devotion to those careless, cheery souls. For sixteen months he lived in France with his Australians and fell among them, working to the last.

In that strange army life we notice the same characteristics we have seen in the religious. There is no capacity shown for finding the limelight; he did not “star” in the trenches. All day he worked unobtrusively and tirelessly, caring for the souls of the living and burying the bodies of the dead. Then he sat down in his dug-out and wrote cheerful letters to dear ones, laughing at his own exhausted body, relating the minor adventures of the day and asking for prayers for himself and for his men. Those who knew him in those days, tell the kind of story we would expect. They saw that the Padre was always at his post and did not seem to mind innumerable calls on him. They noticed that he walked six miles in the desert to say Mass and made no fuss about it. They felt, as we feel, that this quiet constancy and cheerfulness in duty called for admiration.

And all through, we find him asking for prayers for himself that he may be holy. He did not forget the goal of life in the adventures of war. Simple, open comments on his own unworthiness fill his letters. He calls himself a slacker, his soul is like his torn clothes, he is a spiritual bankrupt, Thus he spoke of himself, humbly, because to the really holy soul, humility is natural and without suspicion of the hook. We easily come to have a fellow-feeling for him. He finds, like us, that it is hard to live up to high ideals, that our spiritual lives suffer badly in the preoccupations of daily work.

We feel, like him, that we want a Retreat to tone up our systems and to invigorate the life of our souls. But this fellow-feeling must not make us think that he was as we are. He kept his love for prayer and his desire to be alone with God, in all the weary disgusts of war. A young scholastic, a boy, he had learned to turn towards the higher things. A delicate man, he lived the roughest of lives, upheld by an indomitable spirit and the zeal of an apostle. He wore himself out working, but never. ceased from prayer, that he might be holy. . He had learned to make sacrifice early, and his death was almost chosen, for he gave up his leave, when he heard the whisper that his lads were to go over soon. No one would blame a tired soldier-priest for taking his furlough, even on the eve of a "big push"; but such is not the way of the saints. The boy who prayed to be kept in Syria, far from home, the theologian who left his dying father, because he had not leave to stay, the chaplain who gave up his leave to help others to meet death, in these we see the same man rising to the heights on the wings of simple love.

This is the story of Father Michael Bergin SJ, a true son of St Patrick, told with evident affection and attractive simplicity by Sister S. We hope that what we have written may stimulate Mungret boys and others to read this life of a schoolfellow. They will find there a personality easy to love and the romance of one like themselves, Encouraged by so natural an example they may themselves strive forward, in simple piety and frank devotion, to the heights, which are the goal of all of us, but which so few reach.

Armand

Hackett, Edmund, d 1741, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1400
  • Person
  • d 17 January 1741

Born: Ireland
Entered: 20 June 1738, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained:, Rome - pre Entry
Died: 17 January 1741, Teramo, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Edmund studied at the Irish College in Rome and was Ordained before Ent 20 June 1738 Rome
After First Vows he was sent to Leghorn (Livorno) and then Teramo to teach, and he died at Teramo 17 January 1741

Haggerty, Gerard, 1910-1986, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1401
  • Person
  • 25 August 1910-23 September 1986

Born: 25 August 1910, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Entered: 01 February 1930, St Andrew on Hudson NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)
Ordained: 21 June 1942
Final Vows: 21 November 1977
Died: 23 September 1986, Thomastown, County Kilkenny - Neo-Eboracensis Province (NEB)

This man died in Ireland from NYK Province

Halley, Thomas, 1578-1613, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1402
  • Person
  • 1578-21 November 1613

Born: 1578, Kilmallock, Co Limerick
Entered: 13 October 1605, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 1605, Douai, France - pre Entry
Died: 21 November 1613, Saint-Winoc, Bergues, France - Belgicae Province (BELG)

Father was Robert and Mother was Joanne Verdon
Studied in Ireland, Douai and Lille. read 3 years Philosophy at Douai and 2 years Theology at Louvain
1611 Teaching Greek for 2 years at Louvain
1611 CAT “Strong constitution, upright though sometimes indiscreet. Rather mediocre, suited for Mission in Ireland, because of his local knowledge but also his readiness for work and powers of updating himself on the ways of others”
1617 Is in Ireland???

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of Robert and Johanna née Verdon
Studied partly in Ireland and partly at Douai under the Jesuits, and Ent after Ordination, received by BELG Provincial Oliverius
He was a very learned and pious Priest (cf Foley’s Collectanea)
(cf Tournay Diary MS, Brussels n 1016 p 557; Irish Ecclesiastical Record August 1874)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan :
Son of Robert and Joanna née Verdon
Had studied at Douai and was Ordained 1605 before Ent 13 October 1605 Tournai
After First Vows he taught Greek for two years
1609 Sent to Louvain to do more Theology
1612 Moved from Louvain to Berghe-Saint-Winoc where he died 21 November 1613
Noted for his command of Irish and so was in demand by the Irish Mission

Halpin, Peter J, 1883-1973, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1403
  • Person
  • 28 June 1883-21 March 1973

Born: 28 June 1883, High Street, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1901, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 28 June 1917
Final Vows: 02 February 1921
Died: 21 March 1973, Seattle, WA, USA - Oregonensis Province (ORE)

Transcribed HIB to TAUR : 1903; TAUR to CAL : 1909; CAL to ORE

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