Born: 18 March 1683, Clonmel, County Tipperary
Entered: 28 October 1700, Ratisbon (Regensburg) - Germaniae Superioris Province (GER SUP)
Died: 24 January 1712, Liège, France - Angliae Province (ANG)

Excellent character, seems capable of discharging any duty in the Society

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1655 At Paderborn

Born: 31 October 1921, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1939, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1954, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 05 November 1977, Della Strada, Dooradoyle, Limerick
Died: 14 September 1999, Toulouse, France

Working at St Thérèse en Corbières, Lagrasse, France at the time of death.

by 1971 at Paris, France (GAL) studying
by 1988 at Garancières, Île-de-France, France (GAL) working
by 1994 at Lagrasse, France (GAL) working

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 105 : Special Edition 2000

Obituary

Fr Barry O’Dowling (1921-1999)

1921, Oct 31: Born in Cork
Early education: Christian Brothers' College Cork and Mungret College
1939, Sept 7: Entered the Society at Emo
1941, Sept 6: First vows at Emo
1941 - 1944 Studied Arts at U.C.D.
1944 - 1947 Tullabeg, studying philosophy
1947 - 1951 Belvedere - Regency, H.Dip in Education
1951 - 1955 Milltown Park, studying philosophy
1954, July 29 Ordained priest at Milltown Park
1955 - 1956 Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1956 - 1958 St. Ignatius, Galway, Minister
1958 - 1970 Crescent College, Teacher
1970 - 1971 Paris, Studying Catechetics & French
1971 - 1987 Crescent College Comprehensive, Teacher
1987 - 1989 Versailles, Parish work
1989 - 1993 Clongowes, Teacher
1993 - 1999 France, Parish work

In his last year, Barry experienced health problems. During the spring and summer he received post-operative radiation treatment for cancer. In his last week he felt very weak and was taken to hospital in Toulouse where he died peacefully on Tuesday morning, September 14th.

Liam O'Connell preached at a special mass in Limerick after Barry's burial in France ...

When Fr. Barry O'Dowling died, the Bishop of Carcassone described him as a great priest and peacemaker, and as a most discrete person. Because of this discretion, because of Barry's efforts to be totally private, it is difficult to give an outline of his life. And yet it can help our prayer and thanksgiving, and I will attempt to do so.

Barry O'Dowling was born in Cork on October 31st 1921, one of four children, Ciaran, Deirdre, Barry and Aidan. He received his early education at C.B.C. and in Mungret College, which he attended with his brother Aidan. In 1939, at the start of the war, he joined the Jesuit noviceship at Emo, near Portlaoise. Fr. Sean O Duibhir and Fr, Bill McKenna who are on the altar with us today joined on the same day, and celebrated 60 years as Jesuits on 7th of this month. Barry followed the usual Jesuit course of studies, studying Arts at UCD, Philosophy at Tullabeg near Tullamore and Theology at Milltown Park. He had the usual break in his studies when he taught from 1947 until 1951 at Belvedere, and Fr. Hugh Duffy who is also with us today remembers how Barry was his water polo trainer at that time.

After ordination in 1954, Barry worked in St. Ignatius Galway as Minister, or Assistant Superior for two years, and then in 1958 began his long association with the Crescent, which lasted for 20 years until 1987. At a time when authority was strong, and arguments from authority were accepted in our homes, in our schools, and in our churches, Barry used a different approach in the teaching of Religion. He would introduce a question, and often not tell his students what his position was so that the questioning could go on. One student got his own back, after he was fed up with arguments with Marx and Feurbach and Camus. This student wrote in a student magazine that Fr. O'Dowling was considering joining the Catholic Church. But to this day his past pupils appreciate that they had the right to express their own views and to speak their minds, and they received approval and support for doing this. His colleagues on the teaching staff still remember the great theology lectures he organised for the staff in the late 1970's.

I will only refer to the other qualities Barry brought to the school:
As a teacher of English, Barry had a skill in teaching students to write well. This was achieved through the quality of his regular marking of students' English essays. Despite the right to free speech, there was an orderly atmosphere in the classroom, and speaking out of order could be met with an exclusion order - expressed in one word - “out”. While he did not like large groups, Barry had a great gift for conversation, wide ranging, long conversations, and some of these were fondly recalled over the last few days. Barry was an unlikely impressario, but in the 1960's he organised a theatre group from past pupils, and he once had to rearrange a production at the last minute, because the theatre owners did not approve of Tennessee Williams. He also organised youth discos, until they became too successful, and too large.

In 1987 when the time came to retire from Crescent, Barry feared that there might be speeches and presents, so he obtained permission to slip quietly away, the day before the end of term. This was not because he did not care. With his family or with his friends or with his God, while he cared deeply, he did not always want what was most important to him to be dealt with in public.

Starting in the 1960's, during school holidays Barry used to recharge his batteries in France, as often as he could. There he enjoyed the beauty of the French language, the energy and style of the church, and the friendship of French Jesuits, priests and other acquaintances. He needed this French dimension in his life, and it helped him to live fully and to breathe.

After retirement Barry worked for two years in a parish outside Paris, near Garancière. Then he returned to some teaching of English classes at Clongowes. He enjoyed his new life of teaching and gardening and reading, and could have been very happy at Clongowes till the Lord called him. But he never sold his French car, a sign that he still felt the pull of missionary work.

Then in 1993 at the age of 72 Barry accepted a new challenge, and went to work in Lagrasse in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The Bishop of Carcasonne found it difficult to get priests to work in this mountainy place. The region of the Corbieres has 22 villages in a large area, but only 2000 people living in them. Many of these isolated villages have long since lost their shops and post offices, and when the tourists go home, there are often as few as 10 or 20 people, mostly old people, left behind. Some people from northern Europe have settled in the area, and are finding it difficult to be accepted. Barry recently conducted a small survey among the people of this region, and he learned that their greatest problem was loneliness. Barry ministered to them, travelling 25,000 kilometres a year on tiny mountain roads, to help keep the small churches and their small communities alive.

At the Mass in Lagrasse last Sunday, the church was full of the people of the surrounding 21 villages, from Albieres, and Auriac and Davejan and Dernicueillette and Felines Termenes, and Laviers, and Lanet and Lanroqe de Fa and Maisons and Messac and Mouthournet and Montgaillard and Montjoi and Paliarac and Ribaute and Salza and St. Martin des Puits and St. Pierre des Champs and Termenes and Vignevielle and Villerouge Termenes and La Grasse. Tears were shed by the old inhabitants and by newcomers to the area, for the man who was willing to live in simplicity and in loneliness himself, as a man of the Gospel.

At the end of the Mass Madame Pla spoke about Barry, and I would love to have the text of what she said. She spoke of the Barry we see in the photograph that is displayed in the church, as he prepared to bless the vines from the top of a mountain. She spoke of the rocky hilly area, with tiny congregations, and how Barry was welcomed into that area by everybody, believers and non-believers. In an area where people were suspicious of each other and of outsiders, he was accepted and loved as everybody's priest.

Barry's death was sudden in the end, but he had been preparing for a long time. When his own mother died, he told the Jesuit Community at Dooradoyle, in an unusual moment of self-revelation, since my mother's death heaven and earth have been drawn closer together, this is an extraordinary time. When Charlie Davy's mother died, Barry told Charlie that he loved the part of the Mass where we remember the dead. In his recent homilies in Lagrasse Barry returned again and again to the faithfulness of God. During the summer in Toulouse, while he received radiation treatment, Barry read the books of the Jesuit theologian, Varillon, and discussed them with the Superior of the community. He was especially moved by the book entitled The Humility of God. On the Sunday before he died Barry asked his Jesuit colleague Père Daniel, to read the readings for the day, the 24th Sunday of the year, and then he asked for communion.

Today we pray that Barry enjoys eternal communion with God, and that after all the open ended discussions without answers, that Barry enjoys what eye has not seen and ear has not heard.

Liam O'Connell SJ

◆ The Clongownian, 2000

Obituary

Father Barry O’Dowling SJ
Fr Barry O'Dowling, who had spent much of his working life as a Jesuit teaching in Crescent College Comprehensive, came to Clongowes in 1989. By then he had retired from teaching and had just done a two-year stint in a parish near Versailles in France. As he had suffered a heart-attack, the solitary life of a curé in rural France was no longer appropriate. He taught English with us for four years on a part-time basis until he felt well enough to resume pastoral work in 1993. This time he went much further south to Lagrasse, a depopulated region of scattered mountain villages with a low level of religious practice, in which there were twenty-one churches in the parish. He served his people with fidelity and characteristic good humour, while living in poverty in a rambling, ramshackle presbytery beside the church in Lagrasse. His health had been declining for some time before he died on 14 September 1999, at the age of 77, in Toulouse, where he now lies buried. At a memorial Mass in Lagrasse the Sunday after, when the church was filled with parishioners from the different villages in his care, one of them, speaking for others, said: “Il nous a fait tant de bien”.

The local paper, Midi Libre, published the following touching appreciation a week after his death :

Nous apprenons avec tristesse le décès du Père Barry O'Dowling, hospitalisé mercredi dernier dans un établissement de soins à Toulouse. Curé de Lagrasse depuis plus de six ans, il avait en plus la charge du secteur paroissial du Termenès Orbieu.

Nous nous étions habitués à sa haute silhouette coiffée de son éternelle casquette, arpentant les rues du village. Très affable, un mot gentil à tous, il aimait se mettre à l'écoute des Lagrassiens ainsi que des personnes qu'il était appelé à rencontrer dans le secteur. Au village il connaissait tout le monde et chacun, pratiquant ou non, appréciait son ouverture d'esprit et sa tolérance. Les fidèles ont eu l'occasion d'apprécier ses homélies particulièrement profondes et tournées vers la vie quotidienne de ses paroissiens.

L'abbé Barry était Jésuite, et comme un grand nombre de ses collègues, il a pratiqué l'enseignement dans son pays d'Irlande qu'il aimait bien. Il ne manquait jamais les matchs France-Irlande. On lui posait quelquefois la question: “Vous soutenez évidemment l'Irlandé?' et il n'hésitait de répondre: Ah non! Que le meilleur gagne!” Après s'être dévoué à l'enseignement, il a voulu se mettre au service de la pastorale. C'est ainsi qu'il a servi à son arrivée en France, dans la région parisienne. Le tumulte de la ville ne lui convenait pas. Il a demandé à exercer dans la France profonde: “Donnez-moi le secteur le plus reculé de France”. Il faut croire qu'à Lagrasse il avait enfin trouvé le calme qu'il cherchait, puisqu'il avait souhaité rester dans ces Corbières sauvages tant qu'il pourrait exercer. Il a servi Dieu et l'Église jusqu'à l'extrême limite de ses forces.

Souhaitons à cet homme juste qu'il ait retrouvé la plénitude qu'il recherchait. Pour ses paroissiens, c'est le Père spirituel qui les a quittés et pour nous tous c'est un ami qui n'a fait que passer.

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

Older Brother of Billy Trodden - RIP 1984

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

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

Obituary

Fr Peter M Troddyn (1916-1933-1982)

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

Born: 04 September 1700, County Tipperary
Entered: 07 September 1720, St Omer, France - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1728
Final Vows: 02 February 1738, Pontoise, Île-de-France, France
Died: 26 May 1773, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

1727 At Liège in Theology
1730 At St Omer - was First Prefect of Discipline

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1727 In Second year Theology
1730 Prefect of Morals/Studies at St Omer
1734 For many years a Missioner at Newcastle-upon-Tyne until the chapel was burned down in 1746, when the Duke of Cumberland marched through the town. When tranquility was restored he returned to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and served there and in the Durham District until his death.
For many years a Missioner at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Durham District .
1749 Superior of St John the Evangelist Residence, Durham District. His accounts are beautifully written and still in the archives. (”Records SJ” Vol v, pp 665 seq)
Of remarkable talent

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
WALSH, JOHN, born in 1700 : admitted at the age of 20 : Professed at Pontoise on the 2nd of February, 1738. This zealous Father was serving the Mission at Gateshead, when the Duke of Cumberland passed through the place in January, 1746. His Chapel was burnt to the ground on that occasion; and he narrowly effected his own escape. When tranquillity was restored, F. Walsh settled himself at Newcastle, where, I am told, he died on the 26th of May, 1773, and was interred in St. Nicholas Churchyard.