Born: 30 June 1910, Aglish, Cappoquin, County Waterford
Entered: 01 September 1927, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1941, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1947, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway
Died: 03 April 1989, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway

Early education at Mungret College SJ

Nephew of Fr Michael McGrath SJ (1872-1946).

Born: 1 February 1872, Aglish, County Waterford
Entered: 22 August 1896, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 28 July 1907, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1915, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 11 May 1946, Milltown Park, Dublin

by 1899 in Vals France (LUGD) studying
by 1913 at Linz Austria (ASR) making Tertianship
by 1919 at Hastings, Sussex, England (LUGD) studying

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Had studied for 5 years at St Patrick's College Maynooth before Entry

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 1st Year No 3 1926

The Irish Sodality : This Sodality is directed by Fr Michael McGrath. It grew out of the first week-end retreat in Irish at Milltown Park in 1916. After the retreat, steps were taken with a view to the formation of an Irish-speaking Sodality for men. Success attended the effort, and the first meeting was held in Gardiner Street on Friday in Passion Week. The Sodality soon numbered 400 members. In 1917 a second Irish-speaking Sodality, exclusively for women, was established. In a short time it was found advisable to amalgamate the two branches. The Sodality is now in a flourishing condition, and has every prospect of a bright future before it. In addition to the Sodality, there is an annual “open” retreat given in Gardiner Street to Irish speakers. The first of these retreats was given in 1923 by Fr Coghlan, he also gave the second the following year. The third was given by Father Saul.

Irish Province News 21st Year No 3 1946

Obituary :

Fr. Michael McGrath (1872-1896-1946)

Fr. Michael McGrath was born at Aglish, Co. Waterford, on February 1st, 1872. Educated at Mount Melleray, then at St. John's College, Waterford, and lastly at Maynooth, he entered the Society at Tullabeg on August 22nd, 1896, and later went to Vals for philosophy. He taught in the Crescent 1901-5. He was ordained with Fr. William Doyle and Fr. John Sullivan in Milltown Park by Archbishop Walsh in 1907. He made his tertianship at Freienberg in Austria, and then taught for five years at Belvedere. A course of Canon Law under Pére Choupin at Ore Place, Hastings, completed his long formation, and the rest of his life was spent at Milltown Park, where he was Professor of Canon Law from 1920 to 1932, Lecturer in History of Philosophy from 1924 to 1930, Professor of Patrology, Christian Archaeology, Liturgy and Ascetics from 1932 to 1946. The Irish language always remained Fr. McGrath's favourite study. He established the Irish Sodality of the Blessed Virgin at Gardiner Street in 1916, and continued to direct it until 1935. His edition of Amhlaoibh Ua Suilleabháin's Irish Diary for the Irish Texts Society (1936-8) will be a lasting testimonial to his mastery of Irish and English. He was, at the time of his death, engaged on the preparation of many other Irish works, some of which were nearing completion. Among these were an Irish translation of the New Testament (apart from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles) with a detailed commentary, the Irish Missal of O'Hickey brought up to date, the Life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and the Lives of Distinguished Celtic Scholars. During his long years in Milltown his encouragement and advice were highly appreciated by many a theologian, and his hard. work and cheerfulness were a model to all.

Fr. Garahy has kindly contributed the following personal appreciation :
My acquaintance with Michael McGrath began at Mount Melleray in 1888. He had been there a year or two before my arrival. We soon formed a friendship which lasted during the year and a half I spent in that romantic retreat at the foot of Knockmealdown Mountain. I left Melleray at the end of the Christmas term for Mungret College. Michael McGrath remained on for another couple of years and then passed to St. John's College, Waterford. Later still he was sent to Maynooth, having won a free place in the National College. He had finished two years of his theology course when, with the leave of his bishop, he offered bimself as a candidate for the Society in 1896.
In Melleray Michael McGrath was of the quiet type, rather shy and retiring, but a sincere friend when one had succeeded in breaking through his reserve. He was a painstaking student, eager to absorb all the knowledge offered us boys in classics, the sciences and history. One advantage he had over the rest of us he had a fair acquaintance with the Gaelic. It was spoken freely in his native townland of Aglish, Co. Waterford. It was also the language of the little mountaineers who attended the National School at Melleray. I used to envy Michael McGrath when I heard him exchanging jokes in Irish with those youngsters on their way home from school. Irish was not taught in the College in those days, though we were living in the heart of an Irish speaking district. Melleray was not singular in that matter. The Gaelic revival did not come till several years later. When it did come Michael McGrath threw himself with all the ardour of his soul into the movement.
He and I met again in the Crescent after fourteen years. I was so taken with his enthusiasm for the language that I accepted his offer of instruction and within a few months found myself appointed to teach the first couple of O'Growney's booklets to & class of small boys in the Crescent. During the year I spent with him in Limerick he held the office of Prefect of Studies although still a scholastic. His whole hearted devotion to the duties of his office during that year was to be expected of the Michael McGrath I knew at Melleray—with his passion for study and his earnestness of character. What I did not expect and what was always a wonder to me was his unsparing self-sacrifice in helping the more backward boys to succeed in the examinations. What this cost him in time and in strain on his nerves only himself knew. We, his fellow masters, knew that he regularly sacrificed the couple of hours so badly needed after a hard day's work in the school room to this work of charity; and the wonder was how he escaped a nervous collapse.
At the end of the year he and I left Limerick for Milltown Park to begin our theological studies. The Gaelic revival was then in full swing. Milltown Park had caught the infection ever before our arrival, Fr, Lambert McKenna, Fr. J. F. X. O'Brien and Mr. Tomás Ó Nualláin were, I think, the pioneers of the movement in Milltown. It was natural that those of us who were anxious to master the difficulties of the spoken language should turn to Mr. McGrath for help. He had what we all lacked, a rich sonorous Déisi blas. I well remember his patience in helping us to acquire the correct sounds of the broad and slender vowels. Fr. B. Coghlan, one of our really great Irish scholars to-day, was an enthusiastic pupil, and so was Fr. Dominick Kelly, now for many years a distinguished professor in Newman College, Melbourne.
When Fr. McGrath returned to Milltown as a professor, I had already been transferred to the Mission staff. From that time forth I had few opportunities of meeting him. May he rest in peace”.
It is hoped to include an account of Fr. McGrath's Milltown career in the October issue.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Michael McGrath 1872-1946
Fr Michael McGrath, while yet a scholastic, was Prefect of Studies at Crescent from 1901-1905.

Born in Aglish County Waterford on February 1st 1872, he was educated at Mount Melleray. He passed on to Maynooth and from there entered the Society in 1896.

Having studied Canon Law for a period after his ordination, the rest of his life was spent in Milltown Park, as professor in various faculties, Canon Law, Patrology, Liturgy and Ascetics. Normally a most kindly and lovable man, he could be most vehement in argument. For example, as Professor of Ascetics, when lecturing on the vice of curiosity, especially in religious, he used to refer to a Father (unnamed) notorious for this fault, and would almost have a stroke, so vehement would be his effort to convey his scorn for such pettiness.

He was a great Irish scholar, with a vast enthusiasm for the revival of the language. He edited the Diary of Amhlaoimh O’Sullivan for the Irish Texts Society. At the time of his death he was engaged in a new translation of the Bible, an Irish Missal, a life of St Aloysius Gonzaga and the lives of distinguished Irish scholars. He founded the Irish Sodality in Gardiner Street in 1916, and he continued to direct it until 1935.

His retreats were famous, being based on John Oxenham “Bees in Amber”, and there was hardly a convert in Ireland that had not heard his opening words : “Yo every man there openeth, a high way and a low”.

He was a model of observance, kindly in advice both as professor and confessor, and many generations of Jesuits owe him a deep debt for his faithful and patient service in their formation. He died on May 11th 1946.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Michael McGrath (1872-1946)

Was born at Aglish, Co. Waterford and educated at Mount Mellary. He was accepted by the Bishop of Waterford for his diocese and commenced his ecclesiastical studies at St John's, Waterford. From Waterford he was transferred to Maynooth where he completed two years' theology. With the permission of his bishop he applied for admission to the Society and began his noviceship at Tullabeg in 1896. His higher studies were made at Vals, Milltown Park and in Austria. He was ordained in Dublin in 1907. Father McGrath spent six years regency at the Crescent and was the first scholastic since Father Tom Finlay to be entrusted with the onerous duties of prefect of studies. After the completion of his studies, Father McGrath was employed in teaching for five years at Belvedere College, when his superiors bade him once more return to his own studies: he was sent off for higher studies in Canon Law to prepare him for a professor's chair at Milltown Park. He held the chair of Canon Law from 1920-32 but remained a member of the theological faculty until his death. He was a native Gaelic speaker and deeply learned in the language.

Born: 01 August 1917, Hillstreet, Drumsna, County Roscommon
Entered: 14 September 1936, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1949, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1952, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 25 August 2007, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 135 : Spring 2008

Obituary

Fr Bernard (Barney) Murray (1917-2007)

14 August 1917: Born in Hillstreet, Co. Roscommon
14th September 1936: Entered the Society at Emo
15th September 1938: First Vows at Emo
1938 - 1941: Rathfarnham -Studied Arts at UCD
1941 - 1944: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1944 - 1946: Mungret College, Limerick - Regency
1946 - 1950: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31 July 1949: Ordained at Milltown Park, Dublin
1950 - 1951: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1951 - 1970: Belvedere College - Minister; Teacher (English, Religious Knowledge - Senior School)
2nd February 1952: Final Vows
1955 - 1962: Teacher in Prep. School
1962 - 1970: Assistant to Prefect of Prep School; Teacher (Religion, Maths and English)
1970 - 2007: St. Ignatius, Galway -
1970 - 1978: Teacher (Art); Ministered in Church
1978 - 1990: Parish Curate
1984 - 2004: Director of Nazareth Fund; St. Vincent de Paul and Legion of Mary
1990 - 1992: Chaplain to Scoil Iognáid
1992 - 2004: Asst. in Church; Asst. Chaplain in Univ. Hosp.
2004 - 2005: Asst. in Church; Director Nazareth Fund
2005 - 2007: Cherryfield - Prayed for Church and Society
25th August 2007: Died at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Bruce Bradley writes:
Bernard Murray “Barney” as we often referred to him, but Bernard is the name he wished to be known by - was born on August 1, 1917, in Hillstreet, Co. Roscommon, where he spent his early years. While living in Co. Roscommon he attended Kilbride National School. When the family moved to Dublin he was at school with the Christian Brothers, Richmond St., and, as a boarder, at St Mel's, Longford, where he won an All-Ireland Colleges Football medal, of which he was very proud. In later life, he liked to narrate how the medal was lost in the Milltown fire and, long afterwards, he applied to Liam Mulvihill, general secretary of the GAA, and, to his delight, was given a replica. He entered the Society in Emo in September 1936 and was ordained in Milltown Park thirteen years later in 1949.

All his life he worked in, or was associated with, the schools. His regency was in Mungret, 1944-46, and, after tertianship, he was sent to Belvedere, where he was to spend almost twenty years. He taught in both the senior and junior schools and also functioned as minister and as assistant to Junior School prefect of studies, Eddie Murphy. The role of minister included supervision of the boys' dining room at lunchtime and Bernard kept a sharp eye on what happened there. Boys who were showing themselves less than enthused at the somewhat pedestrian fare, or who misbehaved, were apt to find themselves being brought to the phone for a pep talk with their parents at home. For those who were in Belvedere in those years, the friendship between Bernard and the much-respected Fr. Charlie Byrne, producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas and considerably his senior, was noteworthy and they were often seen walking together in the city after school was over.

After such a long stint in Dublin, the move to Galway in 1970 was a big change but he responded by re-inventing himself as an art teacher, and staying there for the rest of his very long life, until ill-health forced him to move to Cherryfield in his closing years. It was obvious that he was happy in Galway, and someone who knew him said that he felt it was there that he really found himself. He took over Liam Greene's art classes in the lively years of transition at the 'Jes' under the headmastership of Seán O'Connor. It was a completely new world for Bernard but he quickly made himself at home and had the capacity to make others around him feel at home too. He took on the challenge of teaching art with enthusiasm and applied himself to it methodically. His colleagues enjoyed his friendship and were glad to work with him.

From the start he also worked in the church and, in 1978, he was appointed curate, a role he continued to exercise until 1992. He was particularly committed to house visitation, where his capacity to make contact and develop friendships stood him in excellent stead. He became a well-known figure in the parish, much-appreciated for always seeming to have time and an interesting word with the people he met. When he retired as curate he continued to work in the church and began to assist the chaplaincy team at University College Hospital. He continued this latter work for thirteen years. He is fondly remembered for this by patients and the team alike.

Gradually the boundaries of his parish widened and he took up supplying in a parish in California. It was there that he took up oil-painting in his spare time, a pastime he brought back to Galway. Liam Greene, who knew his work, has written of how observant he was and how aware of details. “The subject matter of his painting was often the same – the wild Pacific Ocean, with waves crashing on the rocks'. He would sometimes speak to Liam of 'the delicate moments when he tried to capture the light reflected on the breaking wave and the difficulty of doing so'. His love of the sea expressed itself in a different form in his commitment to regular swimming in Galway, even into old age.

He was chaplain to Scoil Iognáid for several years. He was director of the Nazareth Fund, which raised money to alleviate hardship for people who had known better times financially, and continued this work for twenty years. It continues to flourish. In his latest years, he began to come to Clongowes to supply for the 'incumbent of the People's Church, wholly equal to the demands of rising early, celebrating every day and preaching to the local people, many of whom he came to know, on Sundays. Towards the end he was troubled by increasing deafness and, in 2005, he suffered a stroke, which brought his hospital work to an end. Fr. Bernard Murray was very independent. He had been attending a cardiologist for a weakening heart in early 2005 and was transferred from hospital in Galway to Cherryfield Lodge on 4th March 2005. He made a full physical recovery from the stroke, but had dysphasia (could not be understood when trying to talk) which was very frustrating for him, but he remained very pleasant, gentle and mobile until 20th August, when he got weak and was confined to bed from then onwards. He died peacefully on August 25, 2007, full of good works and days.

For an Old Friend and Fellow Jesuit
That soothing phrase for "death" doth close apply
To dear old Barney Murray here today:
Just at 4.40 p.m., with quiet sigh,
He left us. He had simply "passed away”.

We'll miss his glowing cheeks and charming smile,
Though communication oral was his problem,
He, none the less, could most of us beguile
With 'buzz-buzz' noises Words? He'd simply gobble-em!

His life was colourful and his heart was large,
He painted many pictures in his day.
His “Fund” for poverty he made his special charge,
His paintings to his friends he gave away.

May God reward this “good and faithful servant”
In ways beyond the scope or need for speech.
We follow “Barney” with our prayers fervent,
Assured that he is not beyond our reach.

Thomas MacMahon SJ, Cherryfield Lodge, Sat. 25h August, 07, at 10.10 pm

Born: 18 January 1920, Geashill, Walsh Island, County Offaly
Entered: 22 September 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1950, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1955, St Ignatiuis, Lusaka, Zambia
Died: 29 October 1992, Kizito Pastoral Centry, Monze, Zambia - Zambiae Province

Part of the Mukasa Secondary School, Choma, Zambia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03 December 1969

by 1953 at Lusaka, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working - fifth wave of Zambian Missioners

Younger brother of John Carroll - RIP 1957

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Fr Denis Carroll, known to his colleagues as "Dinny", was born in Offaly, Ireland in 1920, into a large family of farming stock, with strong religious traditions. These traditions were far more prominent during his life than his agricultural background, though at one stage he took charge of the school garden in Mukasa. Five of his sisters entered religious life and his brother, John, was a Jesuit on the Hong Kong Mission.

After his schooling at Mungret College, he entered the novitiate at Emo in 1937 and went through the normal training, being ordained a priest in 1950. Two years later he came to Zambia and went almost immediately to the eastern province to learn ciNyanja at which he became quite proficient.

Dinny's life can be divided into two distinct ministries: the apostolate of the school and the apostolate of the parish, the latter being determined to a large extent by his proficiency in ciNyanja. He served in many parishes along the line of rail in the Monze diocese. He started his parish work, however, in Regiment parish in Lusaka around 1953. He came to Chikuni in 1956 as Rector of the community, teaching and supplying at Mazabuka, Choma and Kalomo. A bout of sickness took him to Ireland for two years and when he returned he was posted to Choma parish in 1962. Mazabuka and the Sugar Estate saw him from 1968 to 1975.

One would never have classed Dinny as a well organised person whose program of work was drawn up with meticulous care. Yet despite his fluid approach, one thing was uppermost in his mind while he worked in the parishes: the administration of the sacraments. He made them available to his parishioners and was always willing to administer them. He was conservative in his theology and never liked the phrase "the people of God". His vision of God's people was as a Sacramental People, a Eucharistic People. He saw the Eucharist as the centre of Catholic parish life. He himself had a very deep faith and reverence for the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

He tried to serve the people as he found them, offering liturgies in different languages. He preached strongly and upheld the sanctity and sacramentality of Catholic marriage. In his parish work he believed in family-by-family visitation. In that way he got to know his parishioners, both adults and youth. At a later stage, many would consult him on their marriages and the advice he freely gave was, solely and loyally, from the Catholic point of view. He worked with the St. Vincent de Paul Society and engaged the services of some of his adult parishioners in the teaching of catechism to the youth.

While his move from parish work to school work in the mid seventies was partly necessitated by considerations of health, (his arthritis was making constant physical movement around the parish more and more difficult for him) nevertheless he had a firm conviction of the value of Catholic education. He decried the closure of Jesuit schools here and there, and he saw the practice of superiors of allowing young Jesuits to choose apostolates other than teaching as abdicating responsibility for the Catholic educational apostolate. For 17 years he liked teaching and was not happy at the thought of possibly having to give it up because of failing health. The Lord read his mind and Dinny taught right up to three days before his death. He was a fine teacher, attaining excellent results in all his subjects, English and English Literature, History and even ciNyanja. He understood the youth and had good rapport with them. From time to time the unwise and misguided behaviour of boys would depress him, but by and large he had the understanding and patience to accept such conduct in its own context. He took it for granted and did not judge them harshly. He often acted as mediator between them and the administration, thus earning for himself the title of "Peacemaker" while, at the same time, he would never compromise the Headmaster, his fellow members of staff nor the aims of Mukasa Seminary. At his funeral Mass, at least five of the concelebrants were Zambian priests who had been past pupils of his.

As a religious and Jesuit, Denis Carroll was a man of prayer and deep faith with a personal closeness to Christ in the Eucharist. He was loyal to the Society and interested in its growth and its apostolates. He was worried about how devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus seemed to have taken a less prominent place in the life of the Society. He felt that it should be more actively promoted and practiced by all.

Though failing in strength little by little, his death was sudden and very simple. He had gone to St. Kizito's Pastoral Centre for ten days rest as ordered by the doctor. While waiting for supper on the second day there, the Lord called him home to his reward on 29th November 1992.

"Criost an Siol" was an Irish religious phrase frequently on his lips. It means "Christ of the Sowing" and they are the first words of a beautiful poem and Eucharistic hymn which talks about Christ sowing and reaping and bringing us from death to new life. In a way, it sums up Dinny's life of faith and the work Christ did through him even though at times he might have uttered them in order to express mild exasperation.

Born: 12 February 1934, Caherconlish, County Limerick
Entered: 06 September 1952, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1966, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1971, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 02 May 2006, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin - Zambia-Malawi Province (ZAM)

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

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 15 August 1971

by 1961 at Chivuna, Monze, N Rhodesia - studying language Regency

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Big Jim, as he was often referred to, grew up in Limerick Ireland and was of farming stock. He attended the Jesuit Crescent College in Limerick and entered the Society at the end of his secondary school. At school, he was a fine rugby player and would have gone far in that field if he had not entered the Society. After novitiate, he attended the university for his B.A. and went to Tullabeg outside Tullamore for philosophy.

Then he headed for the then Northern Rhodesia to Chikuni where he remained from 1960 to 1963. Here he learned ciTonga, the local language, taught in Canisius Secondary School along with performing the other duties which a scholastic in regency normally does. He returned to Ireland to Milltown Park for theology where he was ordained on 28th July

1966. On completion of tertianship, he returned to Zambia.

Jim was both able and adaptable. When he returned to Chikuni, he became Minister of the house and assistant parish priest. In 1969, he became rector and taught in Canisius again for six years. He then moved to the parish for five years as parish priest. He went to Monze as secretary to the Bishop, Rt Rev James Corboy S.J. in 1981. This he did for seven years and then became director of building for the diocese. This entailed buying supplies, supervising building, carpentry, electrical work and plumbing. He added wings to Monze hospital and built a chapel there. Outstations benefited from his ability with the building of schools and churches. A special building dear to his heart was the school for the handicapped, St Mulumba, in Choma. His interest in these handicapped children never waned and varied from helping to send a few of them to the USA for the Special Olympics (where some medals were won) to sending money on the 21st birthday of the school so that the children could have a treat.

Heart trouble brought him back to Ireland for two years from 1991 to 1993, where he did some pastoral work in his beloved Limerick. With improved health, he returned to Zambia, this time to a rural area, Chilalantambo, a one-man station on the road from Choma to Namwala.

Jim loved the place and the people. He extended an awning from the veranda of the house and here he met, talked to, chatted with, debated local affairs with the people from all walks of life, including Chief Mapanza himself who lived quite near. Coming from a farming family, he gardened and planted trees in all the places he lived. He helped the farmers around Chilalantambo, buying their maize and selling it in Choma to the Indian traders, bringing back seed and fertiliser for them. He organised schemes for the women for food production. His advice, usually good, was sought for and listened to.

On weekends, Jim would head out to an outstation to celebrate Mass for the people. Confessions, baptisms, church council meetings were all part of the Sunday supply work.

Being of a practical turn of mind, he had a no-nonsense approach to life and its problems and could be quite critical of the institutional Church for its failure to allow and encourage lay participation in the running of the Church. This, combined with his placid and unruffled disposition, did not endear him to everyone. In fact, some found him difficult to understand. He was a good cook and when you went to visit him at Chilalantambo, you were sure of a tasty meal.

After five years in Chilalantambo, he went to Ireland on leave but his health prevented him from returning. That was a sad day for him, for his heart was in Zambia. That was in 1998. He was posted to Gardiner Street, Dublin, where he joined the church team. He never complained about his ill health but would say with a grin, "Looking after your health is a full time job"!

His end was a no-fuss one. He was in bed in hospital and was talking to his sister, a nun, about the possibility of moving out of the hospital when he turned over in the bed and died. He loved Scripture and spent some time in Jerusalem during a mini-sabbatical which consolidated that love.

Note from Bernard (Barney) Collins Entry
Barney moved to Namwala parish from 1968 to 1973 with Fr Clarke as his companion in the community to be joined later by Fr Eddie O’Connor (and his horse). From 1973 to 1977 he was parish priest at Chilalantambo and returned to Chikuni in 1977 to be assistant in the parish to Fr Jim Carroll.

Note from Bill Lane Entry
On Friday, 9 January 1998, Bill was on his way to Chilalantambo with Fr Jim Carroll to give some Scripture talks to the parishioners. As they drove on that bumpy road, Bill suddenly stopped talking. Fr Jim was shocked to find that Bill was dead beside him. There seems to have been no intervening period of sickness or pain. His departure was, as he had wished, ‘quickly and without fuss’.

Note from Joe McCarthy Entry
Jim Carroll was with him for his last four hours of life. When taking his leave of Jim in his final moments, Joe revealed so much of himself in his final words: ‘I think you should leave me here, old chap; there are certain formalities to be undergone from here on’! Within minutes Joe had died

Note from Patrick (Sher) Sherry Entry
Br Sherry's passing was sudden. On Friday ‘Sher’ (as he was known to his friends) stayed in bed for the greater part of the day. He came to meals and evening prayer. The following morning saw him as usual at the early Mass. At about 1300 hours on Saturday he phoned the Sisters in the hospital. The Sisters and doctor came over. The crisis came at about 22.50 when Sher struggled to the door of Fr Jim Carroll’s room to say that he could not breathe. Sr Grainne arrived and started cardiac massage. But the Lord had called Sher to himself.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 128 : Special Issue June 2006

Obituary

Fr James (Jim) Carroll (1909-2005) : Zambia-Malawi Province

12th February, 1934: Born in Limerick, Ireland
6th September, 1952: Entered in Emo Park, Co. Leix, Ireland
1960 - 1963: Chikuni, Canisius, teaching, regency
28th July, 1966: Ordained in Milltown Park, Dublin
1968 - 1969: Chikuni, Canisius, minister, asst. parish priest
1969 - 1975: Chikuni, Canisius, rector
15th August, 1971: Final Vows in Chikuni
1976 - 1981: Chikuni, Chikuni parish, parish priest
1981 - 1988: Monze, secretary to the Bishop of Monze
1988 - 1991: Monze director of building for the diocese
1991 - 1993: Limerick, pastoral work
1993 - 1998: Chilalantambo, parish priest
1998 - 2000: Ireland, recovering health
2000 - 2006: Dublin, Gardiner Street, assisting in Church
2nd May, 2006: Died in Dublin

Paul Brassil writes:
The death of Fr. James Carroll has come as a shock to all who knew him. The major part of his life was lived out in Zambia where he served from 1960 until 1998. During that time he held many posts of responsibility in various fields, as well as being a Consultor for both the Province and for the Diocese, a tribute to his ability and adaptability.

There is no doubt that his farming background played a big part in shaping his outlook and apostolate. He was always observant of the natural order, and had a sympathy for those who worked the land. In his pastoral ministry he set an example by planting trees and orchards and getting vegetable gardens under way as soon as he moved into a new parish. For the local farmers he helped organise the provision of ploughs, seeds and fertifiser and assisted them in the marketing of their crops. In this he was very much a faithful follower of Fr. Joseph Moreau the founder of Chikuni Mission back in 1905. Inevitably Fr. Carroll was involved in fighting drought and famine which recurred with dreadful frequency.

Towards the end of his studies in Milltown, consideration was given to sending him on for further studies in Moral/Canon Law. But the need for men back on the mission in Zambia prevailed. With hindsight this was a pity because his practical and down to earth approach to life could have tempered the academic approach more usual in those areas of specialisation.

His talents as organiser were called on to guide the building programme of the Diocese of Monze. In the course of his time in charge of that programme he was responsible for building hospital wards, churches, schools, houses and third level institutions. This meant having three separate teams of builders, carpenters, electricians and drivers. It meant buying, transporting, storing and distributing all necessary supplies. At certain times there were severe shortages due to political instability caused by the war in neighbouring Zimbabwe and the cutting of economic ties with South Africa. In overcoming these difficulties Jim showed great ingenuity.

Among his special interests was St. Mulumba's School for the Handicapped, where he collaborated with Sr. Phillippe in building and supporting various initiatives. It was in connection with St.Mulumba's that he was involved in the Special Olympics. This work was dear to his heart. He was also concerned with the Aids epidemic.

In his pastoral work, especially during his time at Chilala Ntambo, he had warm relations with the local Anglican community, both clergy and laity. At his house the Chief, Chief Mapanza, and other Government officials, could be found enjoying his hospitality and discussing local matters. His voice on these matters was listened to because of his obvious concern for the people. Despite his own poor health, endured for many years, he travelled extensively and regularly on bad roads to bring Mass and services to the far flung out stations of the parish. Jim mixed easily with the people; his fluency in the language greatly helped, as well as his empathy for their rural way of life.

In the course of his missionary life Jim was very interested in the promotion and formation of both diocesan clergy and religious life candidates. Many young seminarians spent extended time with him, getting to know pastoral methods, and learning at first hand parish work. He was very encouraging to the religious Sisters with whom he worked, sympathetic to their efforts and supporting them as best he could

As a young man, Jim was an outstanding rugby player and was considered a loss to Irish Rugby on his entry to the Society of Jesus. He was very athletic, and had a great interest in all kinds of sport. He certainly was a skilled hurler and rode the few horses that came our way bareback. He played many a round of golf and enjoyed the game. He walked the Dublin and Wicklow Hills with verve and energy throughout his time as a student in Rathfarnham and Milltown. He always retained an interest in the horses, and had the occasional flutter. On more than one occasion he mentioned that as a boy he had exercised the greyhounds for his father, In truth he was a real Limerick man in his interests and his skills.

Jim loved a good meal and was no mean cook himself. But for the most part he lived a life of frugality and simplicity especially during the years he spent alone in Chilala Ntambo. This was certainly true during times of famine, when all his available resources were employed for the alleviation of hunger in the area. It speaks volumes for Jim that he found willing allies among the Indian traders in his relief efforts, just another example of his ability to relate well with so many different people.

One special interest that grew with the years was his interest in Scripture. He had the opportunity during his brief stay in Ireland to give a number of retreats to laity and found this work very much to his taste. The role of the laity, as proposed by the Second Vatican Council, was vital for the future of the Church in his opinion. In fact, he was very critical of the institutional Church for its failure to allow and encourage lay participation in the running of the Church.

During a mini-sabbatical he spent some three months in Jerusalem at the Biblicum. This was very special for him; it gave him an abiding interest in the Scriptures and in the Holy Land, which he used with good effect in the various retreats he directed.

It has been a privilege and a blessing for me to have known Jim and experienced his support and kindness. I can only guess at the loss that his family are enduring. For Jim, his family meant so much. He followed their careers with intense interest, especially those of the next generation, and was proud of their achievements. He found in them a source of pride, support and love. May he rest in peace.

Born: 31 August 1905, Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin
Entered: 31 August 1923, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1935, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1938, Loyola, Tai Lam Chung, Hong Kong
Died: 06 December 1997, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin - Sinensis Province (CHN)

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

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966; HK to CHN : 1992

by 1927 in Vals France (LUGD) studying
by 1937 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship
by 1960 at St Aloysius College Birkirkara, Malta (MEL) teaching

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Albert Cooney, S.J.
R.I.P.

Father Albert Cooney died in Dublin on 6 December 1997. He was 92 years old and had been a Jesuit priest for 62 years.

Albert Cooney was born in Ireland on 31 August 1905 and as a young man became very interested in the performing arts.

Before entering the Society of Jesus on 31 August 1923 he toured Ireland with a drama group. He was ordained on 31 July 1935.

On completing his formal training in the Society he was sent, in 1937, to the Hong Kong Mission where he immediately went to Tai Laam Chung, a language school in the New Territories, to study Cantonese.

At the end of two years of language study he was sent to Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, where he was in charge of providing for the material needs of the community when the Pacific War began on 8 December 1941.

With the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Wah Yan became a Chinese middle school and Father Cooney joined his confreres who set out for free China in April 1942. First they went to Macau and from there on to fort Bayard (Kwangchowan). Towards the end of May he set out from Fort Bayard on the carrier of a bicycle for Pak Hoi in Southern china where he worked in a parish before moving on to Hanoi for a spell. Eventually he came back again to Pak Hoi but in less than a year he was recalled from there to join a new Jesuit venture in Macau.

With the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, about 4000 Portuguese families returned to Macau. To look after the youth, the Macau governor asked the Hong Kong Jesuits to set up a school with all expense paid. The school, St. Luiz Gonzaga, began in January 1943 and Father Albert Cooney was called back from Pak Hoi when the school was well under way. He always looked back to the time that he spent in Macau and happily remembered the boys he taught there.

The war over, St. Luiz Gonzage College closed its doors in December 1945 and Father Albert returned to Hong Kong Wah Yan College. He worked on several committee dealing with social work, helping the Boys and Girls Clubs Association, saying Mass for the US naval forces, and helping students to get into US universities.

In 1947 while on home leave in Ireland, he was informed of his appointment as Rector of Wah Yan. Before returning to Hong Kong he went to the US to collect information about school buildings and equipment for possible Jesuit schools both in Hong Kong and Canton and made arrangements with universities to take students on graduating from Wah Yan College.

Although administration was not his forte, he was well-beloved by the community and was noted for his kindness and thoughtfulness.

On 31 July 1951 he was transferred to Wah Yan College, Kowloon. In October of that year he suddenly suffered a stroke. Although he survived the crisis, a long convalescence kept him in Ireland for the next 10 years.

In November 1962 he arrived back in the Orient, this time to Singapore to take up parish work. The following year he was transferred to St. Francis Xavier’s Church in Petaling Java, Malaysia to work in the church giving retreats and conferences. He was also warden of Xavier Hall. But in 1969, the “right of abode” issue for foreign missionaries in Malaysia forced him to move on.

Early in 1970, he arrived back in Wah Yan College, Kowloon. He was to spend the next 22 years of his life here doing light work and keeping in contact with his former students of St. Luiz Gonzaga College.

In September 1992 he finally said good-bye to the Orient when he returned home to Ireland.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 11 January 1998

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He came from a wealthy family and a brother of his became a Carmelite priest. He had a keen interest in the performing arts and toured with a group in Ireland.

When he came to Hong Kong after Ordination in 1937, he went to Tai Lam Chung to study Cantonese. He taught at Wah Yan College Hong Kong and became involved in various social work committees. He also worked with the Girls and Boys Clubs and said Mass for the US Naval forces.

In August 1942 he moved to Luis Gonzaga College in Macau. He also went to Singapore for parish work, and he spent time at St Francis Xavier Church in Petaling Jaya, working in the church and giving retreats and conferences.He enjoyed producing English plays acted by students, and had a great love of drama and poetry..

He left Hong Kong in 1951 and returned again in 1969 until 1996. At one time he was Principal at Wah Yan College Hong Kong.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 1 1948

On 22nd October were announced the appointments of Frs. Albert Cooney and Harris as Rectors of Wah Yan College and the Regional Seminary, Hong Kong respectively. The former who is still in Ireland will be returning soon to the Mission via the United States.

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948

Frs. Casey G., Grogan and Sullivan leave England for Hong Kong on 2nd July on the ‘Canton’. On the following day Fr. Kevin O'Dwyer hopes to sail with Fr. Albert Cooney from San Francisco on the ‘General Gordon’ for the same destination.
The following will be going to Hong Kong in August : Frs. Joseph Mallin and Merritt, Messrs. James Kelly, McGaley, Michael McLoughlin and Geoffrey Murphy.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 97 : Special Edition Summer 1998

Obituary

Fr Albert Cooney (1905-1997)

31st Aug. 1905: Born in Dublin
Education: Belvedere and Mungret
31st Aug. 1923: Entered the Society at Tullabeg
1925 - 1926: Rathfarnham: Juniorate
1926 - 1929: Vals: Philosophy
1929 - 1932: Belvedere College: Regency
1932 - 1936: Milltown Park: Theology
31st July 1935: Ordination
1936 - 1937: Tertianship St. Beuno's:
1937 - 1939: Hong Kong studying Cantonese
2nd Feb. 1938: Final Vows
1939 - 1941: Wah Yan Hong Kong: Minister and Teacher
1941 - 1943: Pak Hoi, China: Church work
1943 - 1945: Macau: Minister and Teacher
1947 - 1951: Wah Yan Hong Kong: Rector and Teacher
1951 - 1953: Recuperation from illness
1953 - 1957: Mungret: Teacher
1957 - 1958: Belvedere College: Teacher
1958 - 1959: Gardiner Street: Convalescence
1959 - 1960: Malta: Teacher at St. Aloysius College
1960 - 1962; Loyola Dublin: Librarian
1962 - 1963: Singapore: St. Ignatius Church, Pastoral work
1963 - 1969: Malaysia, Petaling Jaya: Warden of Xavier Hall
1969 - 1992: Wah Yan College Kowloon: Pastoral work, Tutor
1992 - 1997: Cherryfield Lodge.
6th Dec. 1997: Died aged 92.

Fr. Cooney maintained a consistent state of health during his time at Cherryfield. At the end of October concern was expressed at his condition, but he recovered. He made his farewells and left instructions that he was to be laid out in his Hong Kong gown. On December 5th he said he would go to the next life on the following day. He died shortly after prayers for the dead were recited in the early hours of December 6th. May he rest in peace. Albert enjoyed every moment of his five years in Cherryfield Lodge. He appreciated the comfortable lifestyle and especially the great care and attention he received from his Jesuit colleagues and the staff. He could not speak highly enough of the great kindness he received in the declining years of his long life. When one realizes that Albert was quite a demanding patient, the loving care and attention he received was all the more praiseworthy.

I suppose it was only natural that Albert should fully appreciate and thoroughly enjoy the kindness he experienced during those five years in Cherryfield, because he was such an extremely kind person himself so he could graciously accept the care and attention he received. He spoke frequently of the happiness he enjoyed; he was satisfied that he made the right decision when he decided to return to Ireland. I accompanied him when he left Hong Kong in 1992 and I feared that after a little while in Cherryfield he would grow restless and pine for a return to the Orient, but I need not have worried. His heart may still have been in the East, but he was happy and content in Cherryfield.

One of the most prominent traits in Albert's character was his concern for others, and his desire to do all he could to make life more comfortable and agreeable for them. One of my first memories of him goes back to Holy Week of 1948. Four of us, scholastics, were studying Chinese in Canton at the time and Albert, as Rector of Wah Yan College, Hong Kong invited us to join his community during the Easter holidays. I can well remember his sending us out to Repulse Bay - one of Hong Kong's most popular beaches - to enjoy a swim and sunshine on Holy Thursday. Can you imagine, long before the more relaxed days that followed Vatican II, there we were, on Holy Thursday, relaxing in the glorious sunshine. If some of us had qualms about such frivolity during Holy Week, Albert felt that was what we needed and he saw to it that was what we got. That was just one of the many kindnesses Albert showed us as we struggled with the intricacies of the Chinese language. We were always welcome to join his community during our vacations and he frequently sent us cakes, chocolates and other goodies while we were in Canton.

In those days clerics were permitted to go to the cinema in Hong Kong only if they had the express permission of the Bishop granted on each occasion. Albert must have thought this was an unfair position. He used to borrow 16mm films and invite all the Jesuits in Hong Kong to showings in Wah Yan College. Another of his initiatives was to prevail on one of his friends who owned a cinema to have private previews for the convenience of all the clergy in Hong Kong. This was a facility that was much appreciated and well attended. It was just another example of Albert's desire to help all he could.

When the Japanese occupied Hong Kong in 1941 plans that had already been prepared by the government were put into operation. Albert, along with several other Jesuits, was assigned to “billeting” duties. The job consisted mainly in finding quarters for those who were displaced by the fighting, Little more than a year after the occupation, Albert, like many other Hong Kong residents, left the colony. Many Chinese returned to their native villages and many of Portuguese extraction set out for Macau - a Portuguese overseas territory, not far from Hong Kong. After some time Albert made his way first into South China, then Vietnam and then back again to South China, where he worked in a parish.

Then began for him what was probably one of the most interesting periods of his life. The government of Macau invited the Jesuits to open a college for young Portuguese boys who had come to Macau from Hong Kong. Albert seems to have loved the two years he spent there, and up to the end of his life he took an intense interest in the young men he had been teaching. He continued to keep in touch with some of them over the years - one of them even visited him while he was in Cherryfield.

After the end of the war in Asia Albert returned to Ireland on home leave and in 1947 he was informed that he would be the new Rector of Wah Yan College, Hong Kong. School administration was not one of Albert's strong points but he was extremely fortunate that during his term of office he had two excellent Prefects of Study - Fr. Harry O'Brien and Fr. John Carroll - who ran the College very efficiently. More or less relieved of the responsibility of running the College, Albert was able to devote much of his time to other activities. He took a special interest in the “Shoeshine Boys Club” - a club started by Fr, Joe Howatson for “Shoeshine Boys” - young lads who earned a meager living by shining shoes in the Central district of Hong Kong. In the Club they were given some basic education, they could play games in the College and they were given a hot, nourishing meal three evenings each week.

In July, 1951 Albert was transferred to Wah Yan College, Kowloon and in less than three months he was taken suddenly ill, due to a blood clot near his brain. For some time he was in a critical condition and eventually had to return to Ireland for a very long period of convalescence. He did not return to the Orient until 1962, this time to Singapore where he did parish work for one year and then was transferred to Petaling Jaya, in Malaysia, where, in addition to parish work he was Warden of a hostel for University students. Immigration restrictions limited his time in Malaysia and he returned to Wah Yan College, Kowloon in 1970. There he helped out in the church engaged in a good deal of tutoring, and kept in touch with past pupils of Wah Yan College and St. Luis Gonzaga College - the College in which he had taught in Macau.

With his health declining, Albert expressed a wish to return to Ireland; thus in September, 1992 he took up residence in Cherryfield. As long as his health continued, he did some tutoring; one of his pupils was a French gentleman to whom he taught French! He also took a keen interest in foreign scholastics who were helping out in Cherryfield, and helped them with their English.

Albert led a full life, active as long as he could be and went peacefully to his reward on 6th December, 1997. May he rest in peace.

Joe Foley, SJ

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1998

Obituary

Father Albert Cooney SJ (OB 1938)

Fr Albert Cooney died on 6th December 1997 in Cherryfield Lodge. He was educated at Belvedere and taught there in the late 50's. Albert was an extremely kind person. He spoke frequently of the happiness he enjoyed. He had lived so much of his life in Hong Kong but he was satisfied that he made the right decision when he decided to return to Ireland for health reasons. His heart may still have been in the East, but he was happy and content in Cherryfield.

One of the most prominent traits in Albert's character was his concern for others, and his desire to do all he could to make life more comfortable and agreeable for them.

As long as his health continued, he did some tutoring in Cherryfield; one of his pupils was a French gentleman to whom he taught French! He also took a keen interest in the foreign scholastics who were helping out in Cherryfield, and helped them with their English.

Albert led a full life, active as long as he could be and went peacefully to his reward. May he rest in peace.

Born: 23 January 1915, Boyle, County Roscommon
Entered: 07 September 1934, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained :28 July 1948, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1951, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 01 October 1989, Wah Yan College, Kowloon, Hong Kong - Macau-Hong Kong Province (MAC-HK)

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Death of Father Patrick Finneran SJ
R.I.P.

Father Patrick Finneran of Wah Yah College, Kowloon, died on 1 October 1989.

Father Finneran, who was still working last week, collapsed suddenly on the evening of Sunday, 1 October. He retained consciousness long enough to receive the Last Sacraments, but died very soon after that, aged 74.

Father Finneran was born in Roscommon, Ireland, on 23 January 1915. He was educated in Mungret College, Co. Limerick, where he showed himself an outstanding games player. He joined the Jesuits in 1934, was ordained priest in 1948 and came to Hong Kong in 1950.

The rest of his life was devoted mainly to his work as teacher and sports master in Wah Yan College, Kowloon. He took a deep interest in this work and in the students he was working for. He was happy to spend long hours training students in sports and showing by example how things should be done. For many years, under his direction, the tennis teams of Wah Yan, Kowloon, played a major part in schools tennis in Hong Kong, to his great satisfaction.

He had a special gift of a virtue much praised by the Apostles, hospitality. Visitors to Wah Yan, Kowloon, were made to feel that he was glad that they had come and that he hoped that they would stay.

His cheerful disposition won him many permanent friends both among Wah Yan students and among the people he met in the course of pastoral work. He will be missed by many.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 1 October 1989

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
His early education was at Mungret College SJ in Limerick. With the encouragement of Michael Murphy he then entered the Novitiate at St Mary’s, Emo under the newly appointed Novice Master John Neary. Michael Murphy followed him to Emo as Spiritual Father, and then onward to Rathfarnham as his Prefect of Studies in the Juniorate. Paddy was then sent to Tullabeg to study Philosophy. He was then sent for Regency to Crescent College Limerick and Belvedere College SJ, Dublin, where he also studied for a H Dip in Education at University College Dublin. Ted Collins was with him in Limerick, and among his students were Ciarán Kane and Frank Doyle in Belvedere.
1945-1949 He was at Milltown Park Dublin studying Theology, and then on to Tertianship at Rathfarnham under George Byrne.

He came to Hong Kong as a young priest with Peter Dunne and 5 Scholastics - Liam Egan, Paddy Cunningham, Matt Brosnan, Tom O’Neill and Tony Farren. He spent two years at the Battery Path Language School learning Cantonese.
1956-1958 He went to Way Yan College Hong Kong as Minister
1958 He went to Wah Yan Kowloon and remained there until his death.

He taught students English and Biblical Knowledge, and every year he baptised some of his students - over 100 in total. He also published some books on the teaching of English. However it is as a Games Master that he will be particularly remembered. He was one of the driving forces behind Wah Yan’s sports. He loved and coached tennis and won many championships.

For many years he also gave monthly talks to the Maryknoll Sisters and was active in other spiritual ministries. he gave Retreats in many Catholic schools in Hong Kong and was also involved in religious activities in Singapore and Malaysia

Born: 14 December 1903, Ardmore, County Waterford
Entered: 30 December 1922, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1935, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1940, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 24 February 1998, Canisius College, Pymble, Sydney, Australia - Sinensis Province (CHN)

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966; HK to CHN 1992

Mission Superior of the Irish Jesuit Mission to Hong Kong: 03 October 1950-1957

Early education Mungret College SJ

by 1928 at Chieri Italy (TAUR) studying
by 1930 third wave Hong Kong Missioners - Regency
by 1937 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship
by 1938 at Aberdeen, Hong Kong - working
Hong Kong Mission Superior 03/10/1950

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Richard Harris, S.J.
R.I.P.

Father Richard Harris, SJ, died in Sydney, Australia on Tuesday 24 February 1998. He was 94 years old and a Jesuit priest for 62 years.

Father Harris was born on 14 December 1903 and entered the Society of Jesus on 30 December 1922. He first came to Hong Kong in 1937.

His first assignment was to the Regional Seminary in Aberdeen where he remained from 1937 until the final months of the Pacific War. From 1947 to 1951 he was rector of the seminary as well as professor of sacred scripture.

In 1950, Father Harris was appointed superior of the Society of Jesus in Hong Kong. He remained superior until 1957 after which he moved to Ricci Hall where he was warden until 1962. In 1962, Father Harris was assigned to the Church of the Assumption in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

In 1964 he was transferred to Australia where he worked in various places and in various capacities until shortly before his 93 birthday.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 8 March 1998

Note from George Byrne Entry
Requiem Mass for the repose of his soul was celebrated in Ricci Hall chapel by the warden Father R. Harris, S.J., on Monday, 8 January.

Note from Thomas F Ryan Entry
A man of striking initiative, he showed himself ready as superior to welcome initiative in others. “It has never been done before” always made him eager to reply “Let us do it now”. The plan for new buildings for Wah Yan Colleges in Hong Kong and Kowloon came from him, though the execution of the plan fell to his successor, Father R. Harris.

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He arrived in Hong Kong in 1937. His first assignment was to the Regional Seminary in Aberdeen, where he remained until the final months of the Pacific War. From 1947-1951 he was Rector of the Seminary and Professor of Scripture.
In 1950 he was appointed Mission Superior in Hong Kong and when he finished in 1957 he moved to Ricci Hall where he was Warden until1962.
In 1962 he was appointed to the Church of the Assumption, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.
In 1964 he transferred to Australia.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Richard Harris was educated at Mungret College, Limerick, as a boarder, his family working a store in the small seaside village of Ardmore, Co Waterford. He entered the Society at Tullabeg, 30 December 1922, being drawn to the Jesuits because of their missionary work in the Far East After the noviciate he studied at the National University, Dublin, gaining BA in Mathematics Latin and English.
Philosophy followed at St Antonio, Chieri, Italy, 1927-28, a place that tested his vocation because it was difficult to enter into the life of the community He, and others, found the place cold and austere, regimented and hard. He was challenged to develop and inner strength and a strong life of prayer at this time.
From Italy, Harris went to Hong Kong and Canton for regency, 1929-32. He spent the first year studying Cantonese in the Portuguese Mission at Shuihing, and it was another lonely time as he could communicate with so few people, and only ate rice. In Canton he also taught English in the Catholic secondary school. At this time two of his fellow Jesuit priests died of cholera.
In 1932 he returned to Milltown Park, Dublin, for theology, and was ordained in 1935. Tertianship followed immediately after theology at St Beuno's, Wales, 1936-37. The following
year he returned to Hong Kong as professor of moral theology at the regional seminary, Aberdeen, teaching there until 1947. He was also rector of the same place, 1947-51.
In 1941 Hong Kong experienced many bomb raids with the advent of the war, and Harris heard confessions in the Grosvenor Hotel where he had many clients. During these days he
acted as chaplain and staff assistant, tending the injured and dying at the Queen Mary Hospital at Pokfulan just prior to the surrender of Hong Kong to the Japanese Imperial Army.
During the Japanese occupation Harris was a great source of strength to his fellow Jesuits. The community survived because of a bargain struck with some influential and rich Chinese who loaned bars of gold to buy rice and vegetables. The condition of the bargain was that the Jesuits had to repay two gold bars for every one at the end of the war.
During these years Harris nearly died from fever. As medicines were scarce, the doctor prescribed a dose of opium. Harris said that he enjoyed that experience. He was even given a
second dose!
Shortly after the Japanese surrender, Admiral Harcourt arrived in Hong Kong aboard the British flagship with an Irish Jesuit chaplain who sought out Harris and his companions. News of their safety was telegraphed to Ireland. After. six months rest and recuperation in Ireland, Harris returned to Hong Kong as rector of the seminary where he trained 60 seminarians who later worked as priests in South China.
He was appointed superior of the Hong Kong Mission, 1950-57, and became highly respected amongst the academic and medical community of Hong Kong, including the governor of the day, Sir William Gratharn, who granted the Jesuits two generous amounts of land on which to build two secondary colleges. They are the present day Wah Yan colleges in Hong Kong and Kowloon. In 1957 he was appointed superior of Ricci Hall, the Catholic residential hall of Hong Kong University. Five years later he was sent as parish priest of Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, until 1964. He was there for only two years until the Malaysian government, which was Muslim and anti-Christian, demanded that the parish he closed.
Rather than return to Hong Kong, Harris chose to go to Australia as he wished to perform parish work and believed that opportunities existed there. In September 1965 Harris arrived in Sydney, and was greeted by Fr Paul Coleman. After a short time at St Mary's, North Sydney, he was sent to the parish of St Ignatius', Richmond, where he spent a pleasant and happy six years. He was also minister, and hospital chaplain.
He returned to St Mary's in 1971 performing similar duties until 1987. He became a very popular priest with all kinds of people and was a committed visitor to patients of the Mater Hospital, both public and private. He was in demand for his sound and experienced advice. He enjoyed keeping informed about world events and sporting results. He had three significant joys his worn Irish worn rosary beads, a small battered transistor radio, and a sip of Irish Bailey's. Harris said that he never had any regrets in his life, and thanked God daily for being a priest, and for being able to work with good health for so long.
For two years he became chaplain at the Retirement Hostel, McAuley Gardens, Crows Nest, and then moved in 1990 to Justinian House, Crows Nest, where his daily Mass was much
appreciated by residents and local followers. For the last year of his life he lived at Canisius College, Pymble, praying for the Church and Society He died suddenly after a severe stroke. and he was buried from St Mary's Church, North Sydney, his eulogy being given by his long time friend and supporter, Fr Paul Coleman.
He was a man of warm humanity kindly acceptance and intuitive insight into the needs of the human heart. He was a totally human person tinged with the stubbornness of the Irish, but had a sparkling wit. He encouraged and sustained all those who came to know and love him. He became an anchor and a symbol of constancy for those privileged to cross his path.

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

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 1 1948

On 22nd October were announced the appointments of Frs. Albert Cooney and Harris as Rectors of Wah Yan College and the Regional Seminary, Hong Kong respectively. The former who is still in Ireland will be returning soon to the Mission via the United States.

Born: 02 June 1924, Toureen, Ballysimon, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1943, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1961, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 26 July 1996, Caritas Christi Hospice - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Newman College, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966; HK to ASL : 1984

by 1952 at Hong Kong - Regency
by 1965 at Rome, Italy (ROM) assisting Procurator General
by 1966 at Regis College, Willowdale (CAN S) teaching
by 1967 at Heythrop, Oxford (ANG) teaching

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Arnie Hogan received his secondary education at the Sacred Heart College, Limerick, and entered the Society in Ireland, 7 September 1943. Following his noviciate he studied arts at the National University of Ireland. After philosophy at Tullabeg, 1948-51, regency in Hong Kong, 1951-54 and theology at Milltown Park, Dublin, 1954-58, he lectured on moral theology and canon the Regional Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong, 1959-60, followed by a year lecturing at Milltown Park, Dublin. While in Hong Kong he learnt Cantonese and also gave retreats.
Hogan completed graduate studies in theology (STD) at the Gregorian University, Rome. 1962-65. For the rest of his life he lectured in moral theology around the world: Regis College Willowdale, Canada, 1965-66; Heythrop College, London, 1966-68; Boston College, USA, 1968-69; Weston School of Theology (living at John Lafarge House), Cambridge, Mass, 1969-73; and St Joseph Centre. Charlestown Mass. 1973-75.
He came to Australia in 1975, was transferred to the Australian province in 1984, and lectured until his death at the Jesuit Theological College, Parkville and the Yarra Theological Union. He worked at the National Pastoral Institute in Melbourne and gave many talks to parish and school groups around the country. He warmly entered into the ecumenical environment at the United Faculty of Theology.
In community he was a breath of fresh air enthusiastic for hospitality and celebration. He was a traditional religious who loved to be generous. At the same time he was shy and insecure which led to some abrasive and complaining ways. He was easily hurt and would withdraw for a time
As a lecturer, Hogan showed warmth, humour, precision and provocation. He gave many lectures on moral questions to groups in parishes around Australia, and was much appreciated for his liberal understanding of current moral issues. He was a colourful man, full of charm and good company. He could show compassion to anyone in difficulties, and was most helpful in sharing his theological insights. He was the author of a book on moral theology and of a number of articles, which enshrined some of his wit and wisdom. His colleagues at the Melbourne College of Divinity said that they would miss “the twinkle in his eyes, his impish personality, his outstanding scholarship and Christian grace”.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Born diocese of Cashel
◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 92 : August 1996

Obituary
Fr Arnold Hogan (1924-1996) - Australian Province

1924: Born in Limerick
1943: Entered the Society Arts course at National University of Ireland
1945 - 1948: Philosophy at St. Stanislaus College, Tullabeg
1948 - 1951: Regency in Hong Kong (Language Studies and teaching) at Wah Yan College
1954 - 1958: Theology at Milltown Park
31st July 1957: Ordained a Priest
1958 - 1959: Tertianship at Rathfarnham Castle
1959 - 1960: Lectured on Moral Theology and Canon Law at Regional Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong.
1961 - 1962: Lectured on Moral Theology at Milltown Park, Dublin
1962 - 1965: Post graduate studies at Gregorian University, Rome
1965 - 1966: Lectured at Regis College, Willowdale, Canada
1966 - 1968: Lectured at Heythrop College, England
1968 - 1969: Lectured on Moral Theology at Jesuit Theological College, Parkville and Yarra Theological Union
1984 : Transcribed into Australian Province
26th July 1996: Died at Caritas Christi, Australia,

Michael Paul Gallagher happened to be staying in the Jesuit Theological College, Melbourne, when Fr. Arnie Hogan was closer to death than anyone realized. Michael Paul sent us the following memoir:

“Arnie seemed particularly glad to see a Jesuit from home, and in his typically blunt way did not hide the fact that death was close. The doctor had told him not to take any courses for the coming semester. He had just finished grading various essays from the previous session. ‘72 is not a bad innings’, he told me more than once. He was delighted that his book on moral theology had just sold out its first printing.

A few days before I was due to leave I asked Arnie if he would like to come out with me for a meal in his favourite Italian restaurant. At first he said he would not be up to it; then one evening he suddenly decided that we would risk it and off we went (getting a scholastic to give us a lift). Arnie was obviously well known at Cafè Roma: the Sicilian cook and his Australian wife had a great welcome for him and prepared the food just as he wanted. I think he enjoyed himself immensely, and at the end of the evening the lady of the house insisted on driving us home. She knew she might never see him there again.

A day or two later Arnie was due to go into hospital and I accompanied him. It was a somewhat large and impersonal place, and I felt for him as he went through the cold admission procedures and was brought to his ward. He had a good view of the city from his bed, When it was time for me to go, Arnie said to me (knowing that I was to return to the Gregorian for the first semester): ‘every blessing on the Eternal City’. I replied ‘the same to you Arnie, in another sense’. It was a goodbye that I recall with gratitude, as I remember all those days with him, and his tough courage and faith.
May he rest in peace”.

Born: 28 August 1897, Ardglass, County Down
Entered: 31 August 1915, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1929, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1933
Died: 20 October 1990, Nazareth House Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Immaculate Conception Church, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Younger brother of Henry A Johnston - RIP 1986

by 1932 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Thomas Johnston, brother of Henry, and the youngest of nine, received his secondary education at Mungret College, Limerick, and entered the Society at Tullabeg, 21 August 1915. His juniorate and university studies, 1917-21, were in classics, English, French and ancient history, and he gained a BA with honours. Philosophy and theology were at Milltown Park, and tertianship was at St Beuno's, Wales, 1931-32. He taught religion and the classics at Clongowes, 1924-27.
Arriving in Australia in 1932, he was appointed to Xavier College, Kew, where he taught religion, Greek and Latin. From 1933-38, he lectured in philosophy at the diocesan seminary, Corpus Christi College, Werribee. His lectures and spiritual talks were concise, clear, well reasoned and easy to listen to. He was dean of Newman College, within The University of Melbourne, 1939-45, and tutored in philosophy. For two years he was rector of St Ignatius' College, Riverview, teaching Latin and religion.
From 1948 to 1952 he was rector of the Holy Name Seminary, Christchurch, New Zealand, and taught Latin. During this time some considered him aloof and unfriendly in his dealings with students and priests.
After a year at Werribee teaching moral theology, 1953, he was appointed rector of St Leo's College, University of Queensland, 1954-66. From 1967-74 he was minister and assistant pastor at the parish of St Ignatius' Toowong within the archdiocese of Brisbane. During these years in Brisbane, Johnston was confessor and confidant to the archbishop. He preached on the occasion of the archbishop's diamond jubilee in the priesthood, 19 September 1956.
When he left Queensland in 1975, he worked in the Sale diocese until 1983, when ill health finally forced his retirement from active ministry. His presence in the diocese was greedy
appreciated by the bishop and the priests he assisted. The people appreciated his to the point homilies for their brevity and clarity.
As a teacher and lecturer he was clear and interesting, with an economy of words. As dean of discipline at Werribee, he was always kind, gentle and supportive. His exposition of the Spiritual Exercises was precise and brief, but challenging. He believed in the work of the Holy Spirit.
His life style when engaged in parish duties was very regular. He rose at 5.30 am and liked to say the early Mass. He had breakfast at 8 am and by 9.30 he was visiting parishioners. Following a siesta after lunch, from 4 to 6 pm he resumed visiting the parish. The Rosary was said after the evening meal in common when possible, and he retired to bed by 9.30 pm.
Eventually he retired to Hawthorn, but for the last four and a half years of his life resided at Nazareth House, a home for the aged.

Born: 10 March 1913, Rathgar, Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1931, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 19 May 1945, Zi-Ka-Wei, Shanghai, China
Final Vows: 02 February 1949, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 01 March 1991, Our Lady’s Hospice, Harold’s Cross - Macau-Hong Kong Province (MAC-HK)

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

??Brother Ted McAsey - RIP 2001??

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966

Entered as James;

by 1940 in Hong Kong - Regency
by 1943 at Bellarmine, Zi-ka-Wei, near Shanghai, China (FRA) studying

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :

Note from John B Wood Entry
Father Wood began his theological studies in 1942 in Zikawei, Shanghai. He was ordained on 19 May 1945 with Fathers Timothy Doody, Matthew Corbally and Joseph McAsey, all of when spent most of their working lives in Hong Kong.

Born: 22 May 1924, Kildimo, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1942, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1956, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1982, Hong Kong
Died: 17 December 2003, Wah Yan College, Hong Kong

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966; HK to HIB : 15 September 1992

by 1951 at Hong Kong - Regency

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Patrick O’Rourke, SJ
R.I.P.

Father Patrick O’Rourke, SJ died rather suddenly but peacefully on 17 December 2003, aged 79 years.

He died, appropriately, in Wah Yan College Hong Kong, where he had lived and taught for 45 years, and in the college chapel, of which he was the prefect in recent years.

In many ways a quiet-spoken man of simple tastes, but coming from a farming background in his native Ireland, he was also shrewd and somewhat skeptical by nature, not suffering fools gladly. He lived very simply, his room was left almost bare.

He possessed a well-developed sense of humour and enjoyed having a good laugh and also causing a good laugh.

A keen sportsman in earlier days, he enjoyed football, playing left-wing and, like many of his students, was a keen fan of Manchester United and latterly played a useful game of tennis in the school yard.

In his 45 years of teaching in Wah Yan College, he certainly taught hundreds, perhaps thousands of boys, in successive generations.

Many of his students returned to their mother school for his funeral Mass on 21 December 2003, presided over by Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun SDB and Bishop John Tong Hon and followed by burial in the Catholic cemetery in Happy Valley.

Just as his patron, St. Patrick, was called by God from being a shepherd boy to bring the Gospel of Christ to the pagan Irish in the 5th century AD, his 20th century namesake, a farmer’s son from Limerick, was also called to devote his long life to offering a sound education and the same Gospel to the Chinese youth of this sophisticated city with its age-old culture and yearnings for the infinite.

May God richly reward this latter day “Mr. Chips” and bring him quickly to Heaven, if he is not already there.

May Father Patrick O’Rourke have many Hong Kong Jesuit successors to continue the Wah Yan tradition into the future. May his gentle soul rest in the peace of Christ!
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 11 January 2004

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He first came to Hong Kong as a Regent in 1952 to study Cantonese at Cheung Chau. He then returned to Ireland for Theology

1958-1989 He returned to Hong Kong to teach English and religious Knowledge at Wah Yan College Hong Kong and lived there for over 40 years. During this time he also helped with pastoral work on weekends with Sunday Masses, and he was Chaplain to the Hong Kong Volunteers for 20 years.

He was known for his humour and was very popular with his fellow Jesuits.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 123 : Special Issue February 2005

Obituary

Fr Patrick (Paddy) O’Rourke (1924-2003)

May 22nd 1924: Born in Kildimo, Co. Limerick
Early education at Kildimo National School and Sacred Heart College, The Crescent, Co. Limerick
Sept. 7th 1942: Entered the Society at Emo
1944 - 1947: Studied Arts UCD
1947 - 1950: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1950 - 1952: Hong Kong - Language School
1952 - 1953: Wah Yan College - Regency
1953 - 1957: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
July 31st 1956: Ordained at Milltown Park
1958 - 1959: Tertianship at Rathfamham
1959 - 2003: Wah Yan , Hong Kong - Prefect of the church, Spiritual Director (SJ), Treasurer, Teacher.
Feb. 2nd 1982: Final Vows in Hong Kong
Dec.17th 2003: Died in Hong Kong.

Fr Paddy O'Rourke died in the chapel in his community at Wah Yan College, Hong Kong. His death was completely unexpected. The cause of his death is believed to have been a heart attack. He had been in fair health right to the end. Another member of the community spoke to him on the phone an hour before he died.

Homily preached by Fr. Seán Coghlan on December 21st at a Vigil Mass, the night before his funeral:

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Today, instead of speaking about Advent or the fast approaching feast of Christmas I want to share with you some thoughts about Fr. Paddy O'Rourke who died last Wednesday in this chapel and who will be buried from here tomorrow.

Wah Yan College moved from Robinson Road to this site on Mount Parrish in 1955. Fr. O'Rourke took up residence here in August or September 1958 and has lived here ever since. Before his ordination in Ireland he taught for one year in Robinson Road after two years of Cantonese studies in Battery Path. 48 years of Fr. O'Rourke's nearly 80 years of life were spent in Hong Kong, 46 of them in Wah Yan.

He will be remembered by generations of Wah Yan students. Many of you will remember him too. For the last few years of his life his health made it impossible for him to go out for Mass on Sundays. Instead, he looked after this chapel with great care. He was always standing down there at the back of the chapel or hearing Confessions and then he would come up to the altar to help the celebrant distribute Holy Communion.

Fr. O'Rourke taught for most of his life, and even after his retirement he assisted the teachers and students in a wide variety of extra curricular activities. He was Minister of the community for many years. That is, he looked after the material needs of his fellow Jesuits.

He knew where every pipe in the building was. He did the jobs that needed to be done. He was that essential person in a religious community who can be relied on to be around, keeping an eye on things.

Fr. O'Rourke was chaplain to the Hong Kong Regiment (”The Volunteers”). Until quite recently he would offer Sunday Mass and preach in St. Margaret's and St. Jude's Parishes and Christ the King Chapel. Fr. O'Rourke was a good footballer in his younger days and played tennis on Sunday afternoons on the court beside the chapel, just a few yards away from where we are now. His partners were Mr. Frank Yung, Mr. Anthony Ip and Fr. Derek Reid.

He was a simple man but shrewd and somewhat skeptical by nature. He did not get wildly enthusiastic about new ideas but was absolutely reliable in all his commitments. He lived very simply. His room was almost bare. It will be very easy to clean up. Some Jesuit rooms take much time and energy to clean up after the occupant has left us for the Lord. Remember Fr. O' Rourke was 45 years in the some room!

Fr. Deignan was speaking to Fr. O'Rourke's nephew on the phone last Thursday. His nephew said too that he was a very simple man. He was quite content to stay around the old home, wandering about the farm and cycling on the bicycle which is still there. Fr. O'Rourke was very interested in local history. On holidays in Ireland he would visit the local parish churches and look up the publicly available marriage and baptismal registers. He would go to the local government offices and study the title deeds to the local farms and properties. These records stretched back many years.

On one occasion I asked him to look up some details about my family. When I asked him about his findings he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “If I were you I wouldn't look too deeply into the matter, some of the dates are a bit difficult to reconcile”. Fr. O'Rourke was very humorous and enjoyed having a good laugh and causing a good laugh.

Fr. O'Rourke lived in the country. His home was nine or ten miles from the nearest town where there was a Jesuit school, He cycled to school and back home in all kinds of weather. That was hard at times.

When Fr. O' Rourke was in school, Ireland was going through difficult years. It had recently become independent. The economy, nationally and internationally, was bad. Farmers in particular faced difficult problems. But Ireland was a Catholic country. It had a tremendous missionary tradition. Young women and young men like Fr. O' Rourke became priests and nuns and went to bring God's light to many different parts of the would. Fr. O' Rourke was one of those who, despite very difficult economic conditions, received a good education. He was available for God's work.

Now life is very different in Ireland. The economy is booming. But Ireland has not adapted well to prosperity. There is a crisis in the religious life of the people. The number of practicing Catholics has dropped drastically. Vocations to the priesthood and religious life have diminished correspondingly. It has to be said, too, that the Church has not coped well with the crisis. It is a very different scene from the one Fr. O' Rourke was familiar with. I would ask you to pray that God will recall his people to a richer and more mature faith.

I think that Ireland is at one with the rest of the Western world in a certain tiredness and sickness. It seems to lack creativity and imagination in finding spiritual and humane answers to the challenges of a new world.

If one reads the financial and business pages of our newspapers and journals one finds that the experts are divided as to whether India or China will be the great economic force of the world in the not too distant future. Are the countries of the East emerging as the power houses of the world?

Prosperity and a spiritual outlook on life do not always go hand in hand. However, a general awakening and growth in one area of life may be accompanied by a growth in other areas. There is a hunger for spiritual meaning in many Eastern countries. Religious novitiates in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India and Korea have many candidates. In China there are many young men and women preparing for the priesthood and religious life.

Lay Christians are active and confident. Recently I met a young Hong Kong woman who has already spent seven years with a Catholic refugee service in South East Asia. She is now preparing to commit herself for life to the work. She is one among many lay people from Hong Kong and other parts of Asia who are “on mission” to the world. In God's loving plan the Western world brought his light to the world for many centuries. Could it not now be the tum of the Eastern world to bring spiritual values to a world which thirsts for meaning?

Fr. O'Rourke came from a farming community, fields stretching down to the River Shannon, the hills of Clare rising from the fields on the other side of the river. Now it may be the time for a young man or woman from the green fields of Korea or from one of the immense bustling cities of China to bring God's light to those who long for it.

-oOo-

Homily preached at the Requiem Mass for Fr. O'Rourke by Fr. Robert Ng Chi-fan:

My dear Wah Yan friends,

We have gathered here today to celebrate a Requiem Mass for Fr. Paddy O'Rourke who died last Wednesday. For most of you he was either a teacher, a colleague or a good friend.... Hong Kong people appreciate stability greatly. Fr. O' Rourke was a very stable person indeed! He believed that things shouldn't be changed if they were good, so he stayed in Wah Yan for 45 years and never left it. He lived in the same room for those 45 years and every morning had his breakfast at 6:45. Then he started his day's work. His main responsibility was teaching, especially teaching English. He had his own special way of teaching. For the first few minutes of each class he asked his students to repeat again and again words which could be easily mispelt. Then he would ask them to memorize some proverbs. Fr, O'Rourke was the teacher who helped me most to improve my English. If a student couldn't answer his questions he would poke him with his finger until the right answer came. But he didn't confine himself to helping the students in class. He trained them to take part in English debates and verse-speaking competitions. He continued to do so almost to the very end of his life. Shortly before he died he acted as judge in one of the competitions. It can truly be said that he worked humbly and simply until his death.

Many people can be good teachers but, as a Jesuit and priest, Fr. O'Rourke came to Hong Kong from Ireland to fulfil a further mission. He wanted people to know God. He liked teaching English but he liked teaching religion even more. He gave religious instruction and was spiritual director of a Catholic society. He was very happy when a student was baptized. His apostolate extended beyond the school. He was chaplain to the locally enlisted Hong Kong Regiment (”The Volunteers”) On Sundays he went for many years to St Margaret's Parish and Christ the King Chapel to offer Mass.

As a Jesuit and missionary he was a traditional type. He followed the rules carefully. He was obedient. He led a simple life and was generous in sharing with others. When I was a student I used to see poor people coming up to Wah Yan every Saturday to look for help. It was always Fr. O'Rourke who came downstairs to talk to them and give them some money. For many years he was the Minister of the Jesuit community and as Minister was very willing to share with those in need. In St. Mathew's Gospel Jesus speaks of the criteria for judgment on the Last Day. The criteria are almost exclusively concerned with helping those who need our help. Fr, O'Rourke will get high marks in this area.

Those who know Fr, O'Rourke were well aware of how much he liked football. He played football when he was young. In the 60's, the "Fathers' team" always beat the students' team. A few of the Fathers played for the Hong Kong Football Club. Fr. O'Rourke played on the left wing and the students found it very hard to block his very accurate centering of the ball. When football was mentioned, one could see a big smile on his face. Friends know that the Fathers liked football so they generously installed Cable TV for them. This gave Fr, O'Rourke the entertainment he loved. His favourite team was Manchester United, probably because there were always Irish players on the Manchester United team. The reason why I mention his love of football is to show that Fr. O'Rourke was not a rather remote, distant priest and missionary. On the contrary, he mixed with ordinary people and shared their likes and interests. He insisted, however that entertainment should be healthy. This reflects his character. He was an upright man, but a humorous one too.

Since Fr. O'Rourke loved games and sporting activities it would be appropriate and the truth to quote of him St. Paul's words. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing”. (2 Tim 4:7 & 8)

When Jesuits die, they wish to go to the Lord quickly. They envy those who manage not to delay on their way to Him! Fr. Corbally died while eating his breakfast, Fr. Doody while offering Mass. Last year Fr. McLoughlin died in his sleep. The Lord was merciful to Fr. O'Rourke. At noon on Wednesday 17th Fr. O' Rourke arranged with a colleague to have some Masses offered. Before 5:00 p.m. he died while praying in the chapel.

We chose to have Fr. O'Rourke's Requiem Mass in the school chapel because it has a special meaning for him and for us. He served Wah Yan for 45 years. This is the chapel he loved and looked after. Here he offered numerous Masses. Here he prayed for the students. I am sure he will be happy to say “good bye” to the teachers and students in this place. He must be happy to have two Bishops and many priests offering Mass for him, his student to preach about him, and so many teachers and students, past and present, to pray for him.

Those who spoke to him recently must feel a little sad at his passing. But for a Jesuit to die in the bosom of the Lord is a consoling thing. Let us unite in praying for him who offered his life to God by his work of education among the students of Wah Van. May he hear the words of to-days Gospel being addressed to him by Our Lord himself. “Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Mt. 11:28)

Born: 03 March 1918, County Waterford
Entered: 07 September 1936, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1949, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1954, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 04 September 2003, St Ignatius, Lusaka, Zambia - Zambia-Malawi Province (ZAM)

Superior of the Irish Jesuit Mission to Zambia Mission : 27 November 1962
Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03/12/1969

by 1951 at Paray-le-Monial France (LUGD) making Tertianship
by 1952 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working - fourth wave of Zambian Missioners
Mission Superior Chikuni (HIB) 21 November 1962 - 1969

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Des (as he was known to his fellow Jesuits) died on 4 September 2003 at the age of 85, completely unexpectedly. His mother lived to be 101 and all thought that Des would follow suit. He had gone to the Mina Medical Centre with a touch of 'flu with another member of the community, and then he died.

He was born in Waterford, Ireland, in 1918, attended school at Blackrock College and Ballyfin and then entered the Society at Emo Park in 1936. The usual course of studies, arts, philosophy, theology, brought him to ordination in 1949 at Milltown Park, Dublin. For his tertianship he went to Paray-le-Monial in France, 1950/1951.

The second batch of Irish Jesuits to come to the then Northern Rhodesia in 1951 included Des who came to Chikuni to be Assistant principal of the newly opened Canisius College, 1951-52. He then went north to learn CiBemba for a year and came to Lusaka to work in the Regiment church for a few months before moving to St. Ignatius (1953-l959), doing parish work at Chilanga and Kafue, and being chaplain to Munali Secondary School and Chalimbana Teacher Training College. He became judicial Vicar for the Archdiocese. He moved to Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College to teach for a few months in 1960. He returned to St .Ignatius as Superior and chaplain as above.

He was appointed Regular Superior of the Mission from 1962 to 1969, first residing in Choma and then in Mazabuka in Moreau house. As Des never gave a snap decision but one which was cautiously thought out, where he lived became known as ‘Tomorrow House’. He returned to Lusaka to St. Ignatius in 1970 where he spent the rest of his life. Parish priest there from 1970 to 1977, he then became full time chaplain to the University Teaching Hospital, a devoted priest to the sick and dying. This was from 1977 to 1991 where he also built a chapel in the hospital. Even after retiring as official chaplain, his devotion to the sick took him twice a week to other hospitals in Lusaka, Hill Top, Mina Medical Centre and Mine Hospital etc. At the same time parish work in St Ignatius: Masses, funerals, marriages, occupied his ever busy life right to the end.

Des was a very hospitable person, sincere and genuine in his relationships with others. He was sensitive to the needs of others and had a great serenity about him. He never became upset, was 'unflappable' as the homilist at his funeral described him. He ‘hastened slowly’ and was known to arrive for meals or any other function always 'slightly late'.

He had a marvellous memory for people and occasions, and could be relied upon to remember who was who, and recall when such an event took place. ‘Ask Des’ was always the solution when one was looking for information about the past. In fact after he died, letters, newspaper cuttings, records etc were found in his room, in short, ample material to gladden the heart of the archivist!

He would never be rushed. Once when he was having a cuppa in the sitting room at St Ignatius, someone came to the parish office to see him without an appointment. He continued with his tea even pouring a second cup and was reminded that someone was still waiting at the parish office. He is said to have remarked ‘I am not a fireman’! But, despite that, he was always kind and understanding to all who came to him. He was the perfect example of a gentleman in his graceful old age who had spent 52 years of dedicated priestly service in Zambia and especially Lusaka.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 123 : Special Issue February 2005

Obituary
Fr Desmond (Des) O’Loghlen (1918-2003) : Zambia-Malawi Province

3rd March, 1918: Born in Waterford, Ireland
7th Sept. 1936: Entered the Society at Emo
1944 - 1946: Crescent College, Limerick, teaching, regency
31st July, 1949: Ordained
1950 - 1951: Tertianship at Paray-le-Monial, France.
1951 - 1952: Chikuni, Canisius, assistant principal
1952 - 1953: Chingombe, Kabwe, Mpika, language study
2nd Feb 1954: Professed of four vows
1953 - 1959: Lusaka, St. Ignatius, pastoral work
1955 - 1959: Chaplain at Chalimbana
1956 - 1959: Chaplain at Munali
1959 - 1993: Judicial vicar for Archdiocese of Lusaka
1960: Chikuni, Charles Lwanga, teaching
1960 - 1962: Lusaka, St. Ignatius, Superior,
1962 - 1967: Choma, Regional Superior for Chikuni Mission
1967 - 1969: Mazabuka, Regional Superior for Mission
1970 - 1977: Lusaka, St. Ignatius, Parish Priest
1977 - 1992: St. Ignatius, Chaplain, University Teaching
1992 - 2003: St. Ignatius, Assistant PP, Hospital Chaplain
Sept. 4th 2003: Died in Lusaka, Zambia.

Des had been planning for home leave in 2004 and had gone to visit his brother, Dinnie, who was dying in Durban. On returning to Lusaka, he contracted a chest infection which, indeed, many had picked up. On September 4, he was driven to the clinic, although there was no sign of anything critical. However, his breathing suddenly became very acute and he was anointed. Shortly afterwards, he died.

Clive Dillon-Malone writes:
Des entered the Society after secondary school in 1936 when he was eighteen years old. He went through the ordinary formation of Jesuits: novitiate, juniorate at University College, Dublin, philosophy, regency in Limerick, theology, ordination in 1949, tertianship and final vows in 1954.

It was in the years 1950 and 1951 that the Irish Province of the Jesuits had been asked especially to help the Polish Jesuits in staffing their work in what was then Northern Rhodesia. The Irish Province responded generously and sent eight to ten men in each of these two years in order to lay a solid foundation for their work. Des was amongst the group that came in 1951.

He became Superior of Chikuni Mission in 1962, the year in which the late Bishop Corboy was ordained Bishop of Monze. While the greater part of Des's life was spent in the Archdiocese of Lusaka, he spent seven years as Superior of Chikuni Mission from 1962-1969 in the Diocese of Monze, residing in Choma from 1962-1967, and at the newly-built Moreau House in Mazabuka from 1967-1969. As a result Des, though in many ways a man of cautious bent, was closely associated with the energetic and far-sighted expansion of the early years of Bishop Corboy's tenure in Monze. During those years, many new parishes were established and Jesuits served in those of Mazabuka (1964), Chilalantambo (1967), Chirundu (1967), Nakambala (1967), and St Mary's Monze (1969). Charles Lwanga Teachers' Training College had opened in Chikuni in 1959, Mukasa Minor Seminary in Choma in 1966, and St. Kizito Catechist Training Centre in Monze in 1967. A Jesuit had also become Chaplain of St. Edmund's Secondary School in Mazabuka in 1964.

In Lusaka, the new residence at St. Ignatius was built in 1966. Des presided over a talented and generous group of Jesuits whose achievements he would have been the first to
recognise. He had the vision to encourage a number of younger Jesuits, who saw the need to do further studies, especially in anthropology, sociology, music and linguistics.

Des loved to recall stories of his travels in small aircraft using various remote airfields in different corners of East and Central Africa. He accompanied Fr. General Arrupe during his early visit to Zambia in 1965 and delighted in pioneering meetings with other Major Superiors, meetings which were the remote forerunners of the Jesuit Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar (JESAM) and the establishing, years later, of the African Assistancy. It was at the end of his time as Superior in July 1969 that the famous meeting took place in Chikuni at which the Jesuits of Chikuni Mission agreed in a cliff-hanger of a vote to be part of the proposed new Vice-Province of Zambia (3rd December, 1969). Des was justly proud of his part in the setting up in 1969 of the Jesuit Novitiate at Xavier House in Lusaka, a novitiate which was soon to cater not only for Zambia and Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), but also for the five countries of the East Africa Region as well as the Nigeria-Ghana Region.

In 1969, Des was assigned to St. Ignatius Parish in Lusaka where he spent the rest of his life. From 1970 -77, he was the parish priest; then followed his long stint as chaplain at the University Teaching Hospital which he finished in 1991. During his time in Lusaka, he was also the vicar for the archdiocese of Lusaka.

He was always a man of caution. No quick decisions, no hasty moves. He looked ahead and planned carefully. Everything he did was done well and conscientiously. If mistakes were made, they were very few. He would go to any lengths to help and would see a problem right through to the very end. Despite his more conservative bent, he remained open to change and could joke about the internet, e-mails and computers which he acknowledged to be out of his reach. His good humour and wit were even more pronounced in his later years.

Punctuality was not one of his greatest virtues. In fact, arriving late for everything seemed to Des to be itself a virtue in view of his appreciation of the value of time. And he adamantly refused to be rushed. There is a true story of how, one day when he was taking his afternoon tea in the recreation room, a member of the community came in and told him that some woman wanted to see him at the reception area of the parish offices. As always, he enquired if she had an appointment and, when the answer to that question was negative, he continued taking his tea. About ten minutes later, the same member of the community returned to the recreation room. Seeing Des still taking his tea, he gently said to him: “I hope, Des, that you understand that there is a woman waiting to see you at the parish reception area”. His comment was: “We're priests, not firemen”.

Des was always available and so anxious to help everyone with his advice and wisdom. Well versed in Canon Law, he had a way of cutting through the legal technicalities and focusing on the persons involved. He felt for people in a special way and his pastoral sensitivity ran through everything he did. His pastoral work spanned three generations, and he had a phenomenal memory for people and places. He would take delight in telling young married couples of having married their parents and having known their grandparents. He touched so many through baptisms, weddings, marriage counselling, funerals, the sacrament of reconciliation and the Eucharist. He was always on call in the parish and his phone was seldom silent.

But perhaps his endless concern for the sick and the dying is what stands out more than anything else in his life. As Chaplain at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Des will be remembered especially for his kindness to the sick and the dying and their families, as well as for his unfailing interest in the medical staff and their formation, especially the nurses and doctors. The Chaplaincy Centre with its Interdenominational Chapel which was the outcome of persistence and determination on his part is a lasting memorial to his far-sightedness in the face of many difficulties. When he retired from being official chaplain there after over twenty years, he continued to visit three smaller hospitals to cater to the needs of all patients without distinction right up to the end. He brought healing to so many on so many different levels. He was a living channel of God's loving care and concern for the suffering and the dying.

Des was a wonderful community member, always ready to share in whatever problems arose. He was a most pleasant, heartfelt and sincere person to live with, and always a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. He was kind, compassionate and gentle in all that he did. He might get angry with people at times for breaking appointments or coming late but it was a momentary frustration. He would always find a way of excusing those involved. He would get so sorry if he felt that he had hurt anyone and would go out of his way to put things right. He was incapable of becoming bitter or holding a grudge.

Des was a man of God and a man of the people. First thing every morning, he would be there in our small oratory with the Lord. Every evening last thing, he would be there in that same small oratory. But his contact with the Lord continued throughout the day in his contact with people. Des loved people and he loved the people of Zambia in particular. After coming to Zambia, he had become a Zambian citizen as a sign of his total commitment. It was his ardent wish to live and die here. He got his wish.

Born: 02 July 1904, Castletownbere, County Cork
Entered: 08 September 1922, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1935, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 22 April 1977
Died 19 April 1980, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Macau-Hong Kong Province (MAC-HK)

Part of the Xavier Hall, Petaling Jaya. Malaysia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966

by 1937 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) making Tertianship
by 1939 at Loyola, Hong Kong - working
by 1944 at Xavier, Park St, Calcutta, West Bengal, India (BEL M)

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Edmund Sullivan, S.J.
R.I.P.

It is easy to outline the career of the late Father Edmund Sullivan, SJ. It is almost impossible to give an adequate picture of that dearly loved, ever busy, ever original priest, who died on 19 April 1980 at Kuala Lumpur, aged 75.

Almost twenty years have passed since he left Hong Kong, yet even in this city of short memories he is still held in affectionate regard. The parishioners of St. Francis Xavier’s Church, Petaling Jaya, where he spent his later years, must feel that they have lost a dear friend and an irreplaceable light on the way of life.

Father Sullivan was born at Castletownbeare, Ireland, on 2 July 1904. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1922 and was ordained priest on 31 July 1935. After study of Cantonese, he joined the staff of Wah Yan College, Hong Kong. He spent the war years, partly with the Maryknoll Fathers in China, partly in Calcutta, where in addition to doing parish work, he started a much valued centre for the wartime swarm of army chaplains, giving hospitality also to many servicemen of all ranks.

After the war he worked for a time in Canton. When that became impossible he returned to Hong Kong where he taught in Wah Yan College, Kowloon, and worked as a ready helper in the college chapel and in St. Teresa’s Church. It was this church work that made him known to the Catholics of Hong Kong.

In 1961 Father Sullivan moved to Malaysia to become assistant priest at St. Francis Xavier's Church, Petaling Jaya, an industrial suburb of Kuala Lumpur, and remained attached to that church till his death. When the time came at which he, as a foreigner, was told that under Malaysian law he would have to leave the country, the parishioners raised such a clamour of dismay that the government granted him a personal exemption from the law, allowing him to remain though without a specific post.

A fairly typical priestly life! But there was nothing typical about the man himself. Even in the minor details of daily life he was always original. He was a man of the highest courtesy, but this was never conventional courtesy; it always seemed to be a personal tribute evoked by the person he was dealing with. His advice, in the confessional and outside, was treasured, and it was never merely conventional advice; it was always an original judgment on the immediate facts. In his time there he was probably the most carelessly dressed priest in Hong Kong, but he could not shake off the air of being a great gentleman. Throughout his student days, his mind went blank at every examination; he had that much excuse for regarding himself as academically null, but he was a well-read and illuminating commentator on a wide variety of subjects. He was fundamentally serious, but he was always great fun; even those who are lamenting his death smile through their grief as memory after memory comes to mind.

He leaves a record of unstinted kindness, unfailing charm and complete devotion.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 2 May 1980

Father Edmund Sullivan S.J.

A Requiem Mass for the repose of the soul of the Rev. Father Edmund Sullivan, S.J., who died in Kuala Lumpur on 19 April 1980 will be offered in Wah Yan College, Waterloo Road, Kowloon, at 6:30pm on Monday, 19 May 1980. All are welcome.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 9 May 1980

Mourning for Father Sullivan

Father Edmund Sullivan, S.J., died three days after falling off a retaining wall outside the Jesuit residence here.

For two days and nights, a continuous line of people - young and old, from all walks of life and religious belief - streamed past his body in the St. Francis Xavier Church basement. Mothers with babies in their arms could be seen touching his hands and then, as if to transfer the blessings to their offspring, caressing and patting their babies’ faces. Muslims mingled with Catholics and other Christians to pay their last respects.

The crowd at the funeral Mass was larger than that on Easter Sunday. Archbishop Dominic Vendargon, tears streaming down his face, was the main celebrant. Forty priests concelebrated. Near the end of the Mass, two parishioners read their tribute to Father Sullivan:

“Our very dear Father Sullivan,” “More than anything else, we must say how much we are going to miss you: your ready smile, your cheery word, your inimitable Irish wit, you approachability and availability, your sensitivity and understanding. The days your spent trudging along the streets of Sungei Way and Petaling Jaya radiating simplicity and joy all spoke so eloquently of your genuine saintliness. The innumerable times you brought the healing touch of Christ to those of us discouraged by the weight of sin, always shining through came His spirit of encouragement and loving forgiveness.” The tribute continued in the same Vein.

A close friend says: “Father Sullivan taught me something very precious. He taught me the importance of laughter. He used to laugh at himself a lot. He always saw the funny side of things, and when he fell off the retaining wall outside his home, instead of shouting for help, a Sister found him laughing at the foot of the retaining wall.”

The Jesuits at Xavier Hall have had to lock up Father Sullivan’s room to prevent “looting” by relic hunters. Many stories are circulating about Father Sullivan’s great love for people, especially the poor. “I caught him many times transferring his portion of food off his plate into a plastic bag whenever he thought on one was looking, hiding it in his large pocket to be given to his poor friends in the village,” Marie, the cook says.

His friends ranged from the very rich to the very poor. Often when he was waiting at bus stops, people in Rolls Royces and Mercedes Benzes would stop to offer him rides. Reluctant to put anyone out, he would go wherever the car was heading and conveniently forget to mention his own destination.

Notable among his mail were scruffy slips of paper from his friends in Pudu prison requesting soap and rubber slippers.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 23 May 1980

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 1 1948

Gardiner Street

Fr. R. Kennedy supplied in the Church for some weeks before leaving for China on October 8th. Fr. Brian Kelly has been at work with us since September. He preached on Mission Sunday.

Fr. E. Sullivan stayed with us on two occasions since his arrival from Hong Kong.

Irish Province News 55th Year No 3 1980

Obituary

Fr Edmund Sullivan (1904-1922-1980)

Fr Ned Sullivan entered the novitiate from Mungret in 1922. As that was the year of the civil war in Ireland communications were badly disrupted. Ned’s home town was Castletownbere and to reach the novitiate he had to take a small coastal steamer to Limerick and thence the train to Tullamore. The novicemaster was Fr Michael Browne, from whom Ned received his strong devotion to our Lady which he retained all his life. After juniorate at Rathfarnham he went to Milltown Park for philosophy and then back to Mungret to teach. We met again at Milltown Park for theology. Ned did not find philosophy and theology easy. He suffered from an inferiority complex and had a very low estimate of his own ability. In fact he had a wide knowledge of literature and was a good musician.
After tertianship he was sent to Hong Kong. When the Japanese took the island (1941) Ned, with several others, went to the Maryknoll Fathers in the Wuchow mission. He was posted to a mission station away up in the mountains where he spent a very happy few years working among the Chinese Catholics. The Japanese army invaded this area also and Ned had to move, this time to India.
On the way out from his mountain mission the man carrying his luggage complained of the weight. Ned searched inside to find out what could be got rid of and decided that the two heavy volumes of Genicot's moral theology could be left by the wayside for study by the Japanese soldiers. The American Air Force offered Ned and one or two more a seat in a small plane. The engine of the plane took some time before it decided to start. When it finally got started the plane winged its way over some frightful mountains and aided by Ned’s repeated recital of the rosary, landed safely. This experience did not endear him to air travel.
During his stay in Calcutta Ned worked in a parish and began his confessional apostolate which he kept up till the end of his life. The security police in Calcutta impounded his diary, but failing to make any sense out of his handwriting returned it after a few days.
At the end of the war Ned returned to Hong Kong where he spent a few years before being sent to Malaya to begin a new phase of his life. I have been told that his parishioners looked on Ned as a kind of saint. He himself would have thought this a huge joke. But anyone who has lived with him will agree that it would be hard to find a man more humble, cheerful and self-sacrificing. A man also who was always ready to go anywhere or do anything for the good of souls.

A client of his from Kuala Lumpur sent a touching letter to the Irish Messenger and enclosed a newspaper cutting. The paper said that Fr Sullivan had been found unconscious after Mass on the Tuesday morning (15th April] at about 6.30 a.m. on the steps of the parochial house. His death four days later was reported as due to vesicular failure and head injuries. The client’s letter may be worth quoting in full:
“In speaking of our beloved friend Father Ed Sullivan, we cannot forget the way he used simple and humble things to reach out to souls and to awaken in them a deeper love of God.
When a rosary or a medallion needed to be blessed - Father Ed could be called any time from the rectory for this - he would do it with so much devotion that one went back with one's faith strengthened. Although he was called upon to perform this office countless times, never could it be said that he was ever perfunctory about it, never did he give the impression that he was humouring the superstitions of ignorant people.
In the confessional his absorbing interest was to bring God’s forgiveness and reassurance to the penitent. In my case he would invariably commence his counsel with these words, “You don't want to offend God, do you?” Then he would send me to Mother Mary. It was on such occasions that the face of Jesus could be glimpsed.
Hardly a day passed when he was not called out to straighten out some domestic problem or other. His wide experience of human nature and his easy friendliness always reconciled the disputants.
His devotion to Mother Mary was as unobtrusive as it was steadfast. Every evening after Mass he would join the congregation for the rosary. By this example and by his sympathetic understanding of their problems, he was able to lead back to Mary many errant charismatics. He liked Pius XII’s definition of the rosary - a compendium of the gospels - and often used it in his talks.
In spite of his infirmities, which towards the end of his life made walking very painful for him, he remained cheerful and would readily make himself available for blessing homes, saying Masses there or bringing the Bread of Life to the sick. He even joked about his infirmities. Many were the occasions when, recalling a line from St John Gogarty, he would laughingly tell me that consumption cared not for fair face or blonde hair.
On the night before he died, I was at his bedside reading him prayers from Dermot Hurley's Everyday Prayer Book. I am particularly happy that on that occasion I was inspired to read to him the prayer of consecration to Mary by St Francis de Sales, saying it on his behalf. May his soul rest in peace. (Signed: Joesph B Lopez, Railway station, Kuala Lumpur).

The client enclosed a brochure used at the funeral service: it had been typed and polycopied on foolscap-size paper and ran to 16 pages, mostly of hymns - including two of Fr Sullivan’s favourites - with a full-page tribute in the form of a letter to Fr Sullivan from his parishioners. The chief celebrant at the Mass was the archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Tan Sri Dominic Vendargon

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1950

News from Mungret Missionaries

Father Edmund M Sullivan SJ

Fr E Sullivan SJ (22), is now in Communist occupied Canton. We give an extract from his diary, prior to the occupation by the Communists :

Thursday, Oct. 13th: Things are beginning to happen in the city ... the streets are dangerously full of military cars . . . evidently getting out ... there seemed to be a panic ... we are guarding the house to-night. Fr Kennedy has drawn up a list of watchers reminiscent of the Adoration list on Holy Thursday night ... Incidentally we have no electric light. The new transformer down the road has been stolen and nothing can be done about it. I am glad we are staying. I think people expect it of us . . . I suppose there will be a “between” period when we cannot go out. One feels much literary planning going on in one's mind. We shall have time now to read all those books whose backs we know , . . It is great to feel that we are all part of a great body which is praying for us all here and actually worried about us.

Friday, Oct. 14th: My private pupils came much to my surprise., .. We heard that a train of refugees to Hong Kong only got as far a Sheklung. The poor people; they always suffer ... I passed the police barracks and talked to the police ... They wanted to know what country I was from. Poor old Ireland ... people always think I say Holland. All the evening there have been all kinds of explosions in the Tin Hoi airfield. The dumps are evidently being blown up ... It is quite near to the little Sisters of the Poor.

Saturday, Oct. 15th: So it has happened. Apparently they came in this morning. Those who saw them said they were led to their places by the police ... the town is quiet and everyone is relieved that the change came so easily. When we came home, we saw Fr O'Meara of the Cathedral. He is alright. He called to see the Little Sisters of the Poor. They were quite near the explosions and while admiring the fireworks effect had a noisy night ... it will be interesting to see if there are many at Mass to-morrow.

Sunday, Oct. I6th: There was the usual crowd at Mass. I think there was no dropping off through fear, I got off the bus at the Hon Man road. There were dumps of books and magazines everywhere. People were buying them. I saw a most appropriate book, Benson's “Lord of the World”. The last time I read it was as a boy at Mungret. I never thought that I would see it in practice, Grace is still working even under the Five Stars. Fr Egan was entertaining a prospective student convert this evening.

Wednesday, Oct. 19th: We had our first air raid from the Nationalists. I believe they tried to bomb the Railway station ... most of the shops are open. Prices are going up hour by hour :.. I hear planes again.

Early this year Fr. O'Sullivan wrote of life in the new regime :

People are beginning to start off new ways of living. There will be less English taught in the schools but more Russian. Many who started to learn Russian are giving it up. I know one class which in three weeks has dropped from 200 to 20. The food position is all right at present and rice is cheap since most of the farmers have brought a lot of it to town to be sold for the army has a habit of taking “loans” of rice from the farmers.

Born: 26 September 1913, Cashel, County Tipperary
Entered: 11 September 1931, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 19 May 1945, Zi-Ka-Wei, Shanghai, China
Final Vows: 02 February 1949, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 26 March 2000, Kingsmead Hall, Singapore - Indonesian Province - Malaysia (MAS)

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966; HK to IDO (MAS) : 1991

by 1940 in Hong Kong - Regency
by 1943 at Bellarmine, Zi-ka-Wei, near Shanghai, China (FRA) studying

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father John Wood, S.J.
R.I.P.

Father John Wood died in Singapore on 26 March 2000 at the age of 86.

He was born in Cashel, County Tipperary, Ireland on 26 September 1913. He did his secondary school studies in the Apostolic School of Mungret College, Limerick joined the Society of Jesus in 1931 and was assigned to Hong Kong in 1939. Father Wood was the last surviving Jesuit to have been assigned to Hong Kong before World War II.

Father Wood began his theological studies in 1942 in Zikawei, Shanghai. He was ordained on 19 May 1945 with Fathers Timothy Doody, Matthew Corbally and Joseph McAsey, all of when spent most of their working lives in Hong Kong.

After a short stay in Ireland Father Wood returned to Hong Kong 1947 to teach Philosophy in the Regional Seminary in Aberdeen, becoming Rector in 1957. When the Regional Seminary closed in 1964 he went to Malaysia and did parish work in Petaling Jaya.

In 1978 Father Wood was transferred to St. Ignatius’ Parish, Singapore and remained engaged in pastoral work there until the end of his life.

He was a gentle, unassuming man with a keen sense of humour, a good superior, zealous pastor, always ready to be of service to others. Wherever he went he made many friends and was much esteemed and loved by those who know him.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 9 April 2000

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

Note from Tim Doody Entry
1941-1946 Due to WWII he was sent to Zikawai, Shanghai for Theology with Mattie Corbally, Joe McAsey and John Wood until 1946, and in 1945 they were Ordained by Bishop Cote SJ, a Canadian born Bishop of Suchow.

Note from Mattie Corbally Entry
Because of the war he was sent to Shanghai for Theology along with Tim Doody, Joe McAsey and John Wood.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 21st Year No 4 1946

Milltown Park :
Fr. P. Joy, Superior of the Hong Kong Mission, gave us a very inspiring lecture entitled: "The Building of a Mission,” in which he treated of the growth, progress and future prospects of our efforts in South China.
In connection with the Mission we were very glad to welcome home Frs. McAsey, Wood and Corbally, who stayed here for some time before going to tertianship.

Born: 12 February 1904, Limerick
Entered: 23 November 1923, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final vows: 02 February 1913
Died: 29 April 1931, St Ignatius College, Manresa, Norwood, Adelaide, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
His early education was at Belvedere College SJ. He then studied Pharmacy and worked as a qualified Chemist in Dundalk.

1926-1930 After First Vows at St Stanislaus Tullabeg, he went to Rathfarnham as Infirmarian and in charge of the servants
1930 He became ill and was sent to Australia, stationed first at Riverview, then at Sevenhill and finally at Norwood, Adelaide, where he died.

Brother of Brendan Bracken (1901–58), politician.

◆ Irish Province News :
Irish Province News 6th Year No 3 1931

Obituary :
Br Kevin Bracken

Br. Bracken died at Norwood, Australia, on Wednesday 29 April 1931. His unexpected death, at the early age of 27, was a shock to all his friends in Ireland. Since the sad news arrived one of our Scholastics received a letter written by Br. Bracken 29 March. It is showed him to be in excellent health and as energetic as ever. Unfortunately, no details of the sad event have yet come to hand.

Br. Kevin Bracken was born 12 Feb. 1904. educated at Belvedere, and on leaving school, spent some time in the world as a chemist. For good reasons he preferred to join the Society as a Lay Brother, and began his noviceship 23 Nov. 1923 at Tullabeg. The noviceship over he get a hospital training in England that made him - when he returned to Ireland - a very efficient infirmarian at Rathfarnham. In addition to his work as infirmarian he had charge of the general up-keep of the house, and it was often remarked that under his care Rathfarnham was second to no house in the Province in neatness, and general material order. It came as a surprise to many that Br. Bracken sailed for Australia with the party that left Ireland in 1930.
Having spent a short time at Riverview he was sent to Sevenhill to nurse Fr. Fleury, and, when the patient died, was changed to Norwood to look after the material up-keep of the house. Here he died 29 April.
Br. Bracken was indeed a conscientious religious and attended as carefully to the interests of his own soul as he did to the various household duties that he discharged so thoroughly and so well. RIP

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Brother Kevin Bracken SJ 1904-1931
Br Kevin Bracken was born in 1904. His family resided first at Kilmallock and then at Templemore. He was a brother of the famous Brendan Bracken, who was Minister of Information in Churchill’s Cabinet in World War II.

Kevin was educated at Belvedere College and spent some years after school training to be a chemist. He entered the Society in 1923 as a temporal coadjutor, declining the priesthood., He was of large stature, powerfully built with a luxuriant shock of red hair, cheerful nay even gay in manner, following that dictum of WB Yeats “For the good are always the merry save by evil chance…”

He was very popular with generations of Juniors in Rathfarnham, where he acted as Infirmarian. In September 1930 Br Kevin went to Australia where, to the surprise of all, he died the following year on April 29th 1931, young in years, but rich in merit.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1931

Obituary

Brother Kevin Bracken SJ

It was only last August that Brother Bracken, full of buoyancy and health, left us for Australia. He was then in his twenty-seventh year. Bidding him farewell his many friends wished him every blessing during the long years of service that seemed in store for him under the southern skies. How great then was the shock with: which, at the end of April last, we received the sad announcement of his death. Few could have dreamt that God had destined to call him so soon from our midst. As we write, details of his death are not yet to hand. Having left Belvedere, in 1919, Kevin Bracken, the son of the late J K, and Mrs Bracken of Ardvullen, Kilmallock, and of Templemore, for some time studied pharmacy and worked as a qualified chemist in Dundalk. In 1923, however, he abandoned his position and at his own special request was admitted as a lay-brother postulant into the Society of Jesus. He did his noviceship in Tullabeg College, Offaly, and went afterwards as infirmarian to Rathfarnham Castle where he remained until his departure for Australia last August. In Australia he spent some time at St. Ignatius' College, Riverview, at St Aloysius', Sevenhills, and went finally, to Norwood in Adelaide, where he was stationed at the time of his death. He was the first Jesuit lay-brother ever attached to the house of the Society there and, as he said himself in a letter, tragically received some days after the announcement of his death, was the . cause of “a lot of curiosity”, at the time of his arrival. In his care of the sick none could be more devoted, while his previous training and experience as a chemist made him most efficient in every way. Deeply do we regret his early death; and to the sorrowing members of his family most truly offer our sincere sympathy. RIP

Born: 09 October 1882, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh
Entered: 07 September 1900, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1916, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1922
Died: 10 March 1966, Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare

Chaplain in the First World War.

by 1905 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
Came to Australia for Regency 1907
by 1917 Military Chaplain : 2/8 Battalion, Sobraon Barracks, Colchester
by 1918 Military Chaplain : 8 Battalion East Lancs, BEF France
by 1919 Military Chaplain : Clipstone Camp, 13 lines, Mansfield, Notts

Morris Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jesuitica-model-school-jesuit-2/

JESUITICA: Model School Jesuit
The recently published history of the Model School, Enniskillen has quite an Orange flavour – many of the old boys are pictured wearing the Sash. It is a surprise to find a Jesuit
among them, Fr Paddy Morris. His father, Charles, was an independent-minded educator and the first headmaster of the Model School. He built it up against the determined opposition of the local Catholic clergy, who saw it as rivalling the national schools under their control. In 1900 Paddy entered the Jesuits with John Sullivan (also educated in Enniskillen, at Portora), served as a British army chaplain in the First World War, and later spent twelve years in Belvedere, six of them as its Rector, before ending his days, like John Sullivan, serving the People’s Church in Clongowes.

https://www.jesuit.ie/blog/damien-burke/the-last-parting-jesuits-and-armistice/

The last parting: Jesuits and Armistice
At the end of the First World War, Irish Jesuits serving as chaplains had to deal with two main issues: their demobilisation and influenza. Some chaplains asked immediately to be demobbed back to Ireland; others wanted to continue as chaplains. Of the thirty-two Jesuits chaplains in the war, five had died, while sixteen were still serving.
Fr Patrick Morris SJ, who worked at the Clipstone Camp in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, comments: “What havoc the influenza has brought... We had a bad time in camp here... Three of my boys died, but they were well prepared”. He caught the flu himself but “went to bed immediately and nipped it in the bud”.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Patrick Morris entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1900, and after initial studies arrived in Australia and Xavier College in 1907 where he taught senior students, and was assistant prefect of discipline, and looked after the choir and debating.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 41st Year No 3 1966

Clongowes Wood College, Naas
About 10.30 p.m. on Thursday, 10th March, Fr. Morris died peacefully in the college infirmary. He had been in failing health since the beginning of the school year and kept asserting that he felt his strength dwindling. Just after Christmas he got a chill and was confined to bed in his room for some ten days or so. As soon as matron returned at the beginning of the new term he was transferred to the infirmary. The outlook seemed gloomy but bit by bit he recovered his strength and by the beginning of March he was able to sit in his room and to walk about a little. He then fell a victim of the flu and though at one point he appeared to have taken a turn for the better, the improvement did not last. Special nurses were got for him but his position deteriorated rapidly at the end.
On the evening of 11th March the remains were brought to the People's Church where all the Masses on the high altar the following morning were offered for Fr. Morris. On the morning of the 12th the remains were removed to the Boys' Chapel, the boys of the college lining the route. At 10.30 the Office for the Dead was chanted and Solemn Requiem Mass was celebrated by Fr. James Casey. As it was Saturday many of the local clergy found it impossible to attend, but Monsignor Millar came from Newbridge and some priests came from other neighbouring places. There was a large gathering of the local people gathered at the graveside. (A notice on Fr. Morris' life appears at the end of this issue.)
Following Fr. Morris' death many letters of condolence were received. It was obvious that he had been widely known and greatly revered by a big circle of friends. Within the community he continued to the end remarkable for the regularity of his ways, his pleasantness of manner and his high esteem for spiritual things.

Obituary :

Fr Patrick J Morris SJ (1883-1966)

Fr. Morris was born in the town of Enniskillen in the year 1883. He was one of the youngest of a large family-five boys and five girls. His father, Charles Morris, was the first Catholic headmaster of the Enniskillen Model School, whose pupils were 80 per cent Protestant. His father was a great man in the town, and was known as Boss Morris. It was in this school that Patrick got his early education, and he never lost touch with it. He was one of the chief guests of honour when the school celebrated its golden jubilee. We read that he made the outstanding speech of the evening, and got an enthusiastic reception from all the old boys, Catholic and Protestant alike. One of his contemporaries wrote that he had a peculiar spring in his walk which always stood to him when playing football and other games - hardly the activities we associate with the staid Fr. Morris of later years, though indeed he was always a most graceful performer on the ice,
In September 1900 he entered Tullabeg as a novice, having Fr. John Sullivan and Fr. John Hannon as fellow novices. Fr. James Murphy was then at the height of his prowess as Master of Novices, and he gave the novices a very hectic time of it, which was not appreciated by all. Fr. Morris used to tell of the great relief he felt when, on the Feast of St. Stanislaus at the end of the Long Retreat, Fr. Keating the Provincial announced that the novices were about to be orphaned, as their Master of Novices had just been appointed Provincial. The novices had a far quieter life henceforth under the genial guidance of Fr. Michael Browne. Fr. Morris was the last survivor of the little band of novices who entered in 1900. After the two years noviceship, he remained on in Tullabeg for the following year as a junior. In 1904 he went to Gemert for his three years philosophy. While there he mastered the French language and became a fluent speaker, which stood him in good stead in after years.
At the end of his philosophy he set sail for Australia. He was one of a party that was brought out by the Provincial, Fr. Conmee, who was undertaking a visitation of the Australian Mission; and ever afterwards he held Fr. Conmee in the highest veneration. He used to say that he was the outstanding personality on the boat, and was sought after by all the passengers on account of his geniality, learning, and experience of life. Fr. Morris spent his six years in Australia teaching at Xavier College, Kew, where he first showed signs of that pre-eminence as a teacher which he afterwards attained. On his return to Ireland in 1913 he went to Milltown Park to begin his theology. He was ordained there on St. Ignatius Day 1916, and very nearly lived long enough to celebrate the golden jubilee of that day. Soon afterwards he was appointed chaplain in the First World War, and continued in that office for three years. He seldom referred to those harrowing years, but on a long-table day evening one would sometimes be given a glimpse of the sole Irish Padre in the Officers' Mess upholding the honour of the one true Church against all comers, in the days when the ecumenical movement was not as popular as it is now,
In 1919 we find him in Mungret as a teacher. The following year he did his Tertianship in Tullabeg, and at the same time acted as Socius to the Master of Novices. He then returned to Mungret for three years, the first as Sub-Moderator of the Apostolics, and the following two as Minister of the House. He than moved on to Belvedere in 1924 and remained there for 12 years. The first six he taught in the college; and then in February 1931 he was appointed Rector, and held that office until 1936. He than went to Emo where he was Minister and taught the novices. In 1943 he moved on to Clongowes, where he spent the remainder of his life. He took part in the teaching of the boys, and took over the care of the People's Church which he served devotedly until a year or so before his death. It was not until some months before he died that he notably began to fail. He used say that he would welcome death. It came to him finally towards the middle of March, when he passed peacefully away to his reward. .
To sum up Fr. Morris is not an easy task. There were so many facets to his character and work. A good part of his life was spent in teaching. All who came under his charge spoke in the highest terms of his ability in this line. Many have said that he was the best teacher they ever had. He was methodical to a degree, and a master of his subject, whether it be English, Latin or French. He was widely read in these languages, and was blessed with a very retentive memory a source which was often tapped to good purpose by the devotees of the Times Crossword Puzzle! He was specially devoted to Belloc and Chesterton, and knew them thoroughly. When a grammatical question turned up at recreation, he would handle the point with great clarity and exactness. He expected the boys to correspond. Anyone whom he felt was not doing his best would be given very short shrift. All held him however in high regard, and many were the expressions of gratitude to him, expressed by his former pupils at the time of his death.
Of his Rectorship in Belvedere he used to say himself that he had not been a great success. He generally referred to it half-jokingly as “when I sat in the chair of Moses!” He was probably too punctilious and exacting to make a really successful superior. Yet Belvedere made steady progress during his term in office. It was due to his foresight that the fine new playing fields at Cabra were acquired, when the ground had very nearly been disposed of otherwise. He took a personal interest in every sphere of the college activities, the studies, the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the Union, and the games though his intervention here may not always have been wise or tactful. Once he had decided on a course of action, it was very difficult indeed to get him to change his mind. On the other hand, he could be very kind and thoughtful where boys were concerned. On one occasion when some of them arrived at school cold and covered with snow, he at once brought them to the refectory and got them a hot meal before allowing them to go the classroom. He was very loyal to the school and its good name, and would tolerate no conduct that would bring it into disrepute.
Perhaps one may say that his greatest work was done when he had charge of the People's Church in Clongowes. He was devoted to the work, and was ever ready to come down from his room at the top of the Castle to hear a confession at any time of the day or night. His sermons on Sundays were prepared with meticulous care; and his kindness to the sick or those in trouble knew no bounds. As his name became a familiar one in the countryside, many came to consult him and to ask his blessing. They were all received with the greatest of charity. He was frequently called out to visit the sick, often long distances away, and had a special gift of bringing peace and comfort to the dying. One of the local curates drove him the whole way down to Carlow or Kilkenny to bring consolation to his own mother when she was on her deathbed. In earlier days, he rode his bicycle for many miles on these errands of mercy. In the latter days, when people saw he was unable for this exertion, and when motor cars became more common, they came in their cars and carried him off. He was ready to go at any time and any distance. It will be many years before the name of Fr. Morris will be forgotten in County of Kildare. The amazing thing was that he suffered from very bad health himself over a number of years - low blood pressure, asthma, insomnia, and a number of other complications, but his fighting spirit triumphed over them all, so that he was very rarely confined to bed until his last illness. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1966

Obituary

Father Patrick J Morris SJ (Rector 1931-1936)

Father Patrick J Morris SJ, who taught in Belvedere for many years and was also a former Rector of the college, died in March 1966. His former pupils will remember him as a lover of the classics and a truly well-read man. He was a brilliant teacher and imparted to his pupils an appreciation of great literature. An Army Chaplain in France in the 1914-18 war, Father Morris expected a high standard of loyalty and discipline from his boys. Nevertheless he could relax on occasions and his classes laughed with counterfeited glee at his classical or literary quips. In his later years he was magnanimous enough to admit that he had been too demanding during his years at Belvedere.

It was Father Morris who gave Belvedere its ideal - “per vias rectas”. A North of Ireland man, he set a high value on integrity. He had a shrewd and sound judgment and former members of his Sodality of Our Blessed Lady will readily recall the many lectures he gave to the Sodalists in which he enumerated the qualities they should expect in the ideal wife. All this was in the 1930s when student counselling was almost unheard of in Ireland. He always stressed a virile and manly holiness and a true and sincere dedication to Christ the King.

On leaving Belvedere he spent some years at Emo Park before his transfer to Clongowes. There, in failing health, he won acclaim as a devoted and kindly confessor in the people's church and as a Christ-like lover of the sick. In his last years he made no secret of the fact that he longed to die. On 11th March he went to his reward. God rest his soul.

Born: 07 February 1879, Blackrock, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1894, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 30 July 1911, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1914, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 03 January 1962, Milltown Park, Dublin

Younger brother of William Byrne - RIP 1943

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

Came to Australia for Regency 1902
by 1899 in Vals France (LUGD) studying
Superior of the Irish Jesuit Mission to Hong Kong Mission : 02 December 1926
by 1927 first Hong Kong Missioner with John Neary
by 1931 Hong Kong Mission Superior 02 December 1926

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
1894-1898 After his First Vows at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg, he remained there for two further years of Juniorate
1898-1901 He was sent to Valkenburk Netherlands for Philosophy.
1901-1908 He was sent to Australia and St Ignatius College Riverview for Regency, where he taught and was Third Division Prefect. He was also in charge charge of Senior Debating (1905-1908) and in 1904 was elected to the Council of the Teachers Association of New South Wales.
1908-1912 he returned to Ireland and Milltown Park Dublin for Theology
1912-1914 He made Tertianship at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg, and the following year appointed Socius to the Novice Master.
1914-1919 He was sent to Australia as Superior and Master of Novices at Loyola College Greenwich. He was also a Consultor of the Sydney Mission and gave Retreats and taught the Juniors. This occurred at a time when it was decided to reopen the Noviceship in Australia. As such he was “lent” to the Australian Mission for three years, but the outbreak of war and some delaying tactics on the part of the Mission Superior William Lockington, he remained longer than expected.
1919-1923 On his return to Ireland he became Novice Master again.
1930 He went to the Irish Mission in Hong Kong and worked there for many years, before returning to Ireland and Milltown Park, where he died.

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father George Byrne
R.I.P.

Father George Byrne, S.J., the first Regional Superior of the Hong Kong Jesuits and for many years one of the best Known priests in Hong Kong, died in Ireland on Thursday, 4 January 1962, aged 83.

Father Byrne arrived in Hong Kong from Ireland, with one other Jesuit Father, on 2 December 1926, and at once started to look for work, both for himself and for the Jesuits who would soon follow him to Hong Kong. He found abundant work for both. Within a decade, though always very short of men, he had staffed the Regional Seminary, Aberdeen, built and opened Ricci hall, a Catholic hostel for students in the University of Hong Kong, taken over Wah Yan College from its founders, restarted as a monthly the Hong Kong Catholic review, The Rock, which had ceased publication shortly before his arrival, and provided for a time Jesuit teachers for Sacred Heart College, Canton.

These were the works he did through others. His own personal work was infinitely varied, as might have been expected from one of his many-sided character - at once scholarly and practical. At the time of his ordination he had been informed that he was destined a specialist’s life as a professor of theology. This plan was later changed and for the rest of his life he was to be, not a specialist, but one ready for anything. Nevertheless he retained some of the marks of the savant.

He was always a voracious reader, able to pour out an astonishing variety of information on almost any subject at a moment’s notice in English, French, or Latin. This gift, joined to a strong personality, a commanding appearance, and a powerful and very flexible voice, made him an admirable public speaker, whether in the pulpit, at retreats and conferences, at meetings of societies and associations, or in the lecturer’s chair in the University of Hong Kong. Where he readily deputised during the furloughs of the professors of education and of history. As a broadcaster, he had the rare gift of being able to project his personality across the ether and so hold the attention of his unseen audience.

As a writer, and he wrote much, he was primarily a discursive essayist, a member of a literary tribe that seems to have disappeared during World War II. His monthly articles in The Rock and the weekly column that he contributed for years to the South China Morning Post under the title ‘The Student’s Window’ might be in turn grimly earnest, genially informative, and gaily trivial, but they were always written in urbane and rhythmic English that carried the reader unprotestingly to the last full stop.

Despite these numerous public activities, he was probably best known as an adviser. During the many years he spent in Ricci Hall, he was always at home to the great numbers of people of all kinds - lay and cleric, Catholic and non-Catholic, men and women, young and old - who came seeking the solution of intellectual, religious, or personal problems from one who they knew would be both wise and kind.

Father Byrne was in Hong Kong in the early days of the war and displayed remarkable courage and physical energy in defending Ricci Hall against a band of marauders. By this time he was no longer superior, and he was already over 60. He went, therefore, to Dalat, Vietnam, where he spent the rest of the war years, Soon after the war, he went to Ireland for medical treatment and, though still capable of a hard day’s work, was advised on medical grounds that he must not return to the Far East.

This was a blow, but he did not repine. He retained his interest in and affection for Hong Kong, but he quickly set about finding an abundance of work in Ireland. Once again he found it. Not long after his arrival the director of retreats in Ireland was heard to say that if he could cut Father George Byrne in four and sent each part to give a retreat, he would still be unable to satisfy all the convents that were clamouring for him.

He still wrote and he still lectured and he still gave advice. Only very gradually did he allow advancing old age to cut down his work. As he had always wished, he worked to the end.

Requiem Mass for the repose of his soul was celebrated in Ricci Hall chapel by the warden Father R. Harris, S.J., on Monday, 8 January. In the congregation that filled the chapel, in addition to his fellow Jesuits, there were many who still remember Father Byrne even in the city of short memories. Those present included Father A. Granelli, P.I.M.E., P.P., representing His Lordship the Bishop; Bishop Donahy, M.M., Father McKiernan M.M, Father B. Tohill, S.D.B., Provincial, Father Vircondalet, M.E.M., Brother Felix, F.S.C., Father P. O’Connor, S.S.C., representative groups of Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres of the Maryknoll Sisters, of the Colomban Sisters, and many others. The Mass was served by Dr. George Choa.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 12 January 1962

RICCI Souvenir Record of the Silver Jubilee of Ricci Hall Hong Kong University 1929-1954

Note from John Neary Entry
He has nevertheless his little niche in our history. He was one of the two Jesuits - Father George Byrne was the other - who came here on 2 December 1926, to start Jesuit work in Hong Kong. Their early decisions have influenced all later Jesuit work here.

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He could be called the founder of the Irish Jesuits in Hong Kong, as most of the older institutions in Hong Kong were started under him at Ricci (1929), Aberdeen (1931 and Wah Yan Hong Kong (1933).
After his term as Mission Superior (1926-1935) he lectured, preached and wrote. He had a weekly column in the “South China Morning Post” called “The Philosophers Chair”. During the Japanese occupation he went to a French Convent School to teach Philosophy. After 1946 he returned to Ireland and taught Ascetical and Mystical Theology yo Jesuits in Dublin.
Imaginative and versatile, pastoral and intellectual, he gave 20 of his peak years to Hong Kong (1926-1946) after which he returned to Ireland to give another 20 years service.

Note from John Neary Entry
In 1926 Fr John Fahy appointed him and George Byrne to respond to the request from Bishop Valtora of Hong Kong for Jesuit help.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 2nd Year No 2 1927

Fr Pigot attended the Pan-Pacific Science Congress in Tokyo as a delegate representing the Australian Commonwealth Government. He was Secretary to the Seismological Section, and read two important papers. On the journey home he spent some time in hospital in Shanghai, and later touched at Hong Kong where he met Frs. Byrne and Neary.

Irish Province News 21st Year No 4 1946

Leeson St :
We were very glad to have several members of the Hong Kong Mission with us for some time: Frs. P. Joy, T. Fitzgerald, and H. O'Brien, while Fr. George Byrne has joined us as one of the community.

Irish Province News 37th Year No 2 1962

Obituary :

Fr George Byrne (1879-1962)

Few men in the history of the Irish Province for the last sixty years have seen so many aspects of the life and development of the Province as did Fr. George Byrne, who died in Dublin on 4th January at the ripe age of 83, of which 67 were spent in the Society. Born in Cork in 1879, he received his early education first at Clongowes (where he was in the Third Line with a boy three years younger than him called James Joyce!) and later at Mungret. He entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1894; made his philosophy at Vals, in France, taught for seven years as a scholastic in Riverview College, Australia; then back to Milltown Park, Dublin, for theology where he was ordained in 1911. His tertianship was made in Tullabeg, and he remained on there in the following year as Socius to the Master of Novices, but after a few months Australia claimed him again.
Early in 1914 he was named Master of Novices of the resuscitated Australian novitiate at Loyola, Sydney, combining this with the office of Superior of the House until 1918. A year later, in 1919, he is on the high seas again, this time returning to be Master of Novices at Tullabeg from 1919 to 1922,
In 1922 he became an operarius at St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, and during the next four years, among his other ministeria, was the first chaplain to the first Governor-General of the newly-established Irish Free State, Mr. Timothy Healy, K.C.
With 1926 came the decision that the Irish Province establish a Jesuit mission in Hong Kong at the invitation of the Vicar Apostolic, Bishop Henry Valtorta. Fr. Byrne, with Fr. John Neary, arrived in Hong Kong on 2nd December of the same year. Shortly afterwards Fr. Byrne became the Superior of the young mission. The years that followed, until his retirement to Ireland for health reasons in 1946, will undoubtedly be the period of Fr. Byrne's life that will establish his important standing in the recent history of the Irish Province. It is therefore fitting that we should allow them to be dealt with from Hong Kong sources. We take the following from The South China Morning Post for 5th January, 1962:
“News has just been received from Dublin, Ireland, of the death there of Fr. George Byrne, S.J., who was well known in Hong Kong for many years. He was the first Superior here of the Irish Jesuits. He was 83.
Fr, Byrne, with one other Jesuit priest, came to Hong Kong in Dec ember 1926. It was under his direction that arrangements were made for the various forms of work undertaken by the Jesuits in the Colony. The first of these was the Regional Seminary in Aberdeen, which was under the direction of the bishops of South China, and was intended for the education and training of candidates for the priesthood in their dioceses. The staffing of it was entrusted to the Jesuits.
Fr. Byrne also arranged for the building of Ricci Hall, a Catholic hostel of the University of Hong Kong. He lived there for many years and always maintained a close contact with the university. He was a member of the Court and deputised, during periods of leave, for the Professor of Education and the Professor of History,
He was prominent in the years before the war as a lecturer and broadcaster and writer. He re-started the publication of the Catholic monthly magazine, The Rock, to which he was a regular contributor. He also for a long time contributed a weekly article, "The Student's Window", to The South China Morning Post.
He took an active part also in educational matters. He was a member of the Board of Education, and he arranged for the taking over of Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, from its original founders. He had many associations with the religious institutions, where he was much in demand for conferences and retreats, He spoke with equal fluency in English, French and Latin.
During the war he was in Dalat, Indo-China, and soon after his return to Hong Kong got into bad health and returned to Europe for medical treatment. His recovery was more complete than was expected, but medical advice was against his return to the East.
During recent years, though old and in failing health, he was still very active as a writer in Catholic periodicals, and he always maintained his interest in Hong Kong. He left here many friends who remember him as a man of great kindness and universal sympathy, who carried lightly his wide scholarship, and who was always unchanged in his urbanity and good humour. Many professional men remember him too for his wise guidance in their student days and they, with a host of others, will always recall him with respect and affection”.
It only remains to say that though medical authorities refused to allow his return to Hong Kong, the years from 1946 until his death were as full of activities as ever. He continued to write and to lecture and to direct souls as of old. He filled the important post of Instructor of Tertians for years at Rathfarnham and from than until his death he was Professor of Ascetical Theology and spiritual director to the theologians at Milltown Park. Only very gradually did he allow advancing years to cut down his work. As he had always wished, he worked to the end.

From the Bishop of Hong Kong

16 Caine Road,
Hong Kong
10th January, 1962.

Dear Fr. O'Conor,
The news of the death of Rev. Fr. George Byrne, S.J., caused deep regret among all the many friends he left in Hong Kong, among whom I am proud to count myself.
His pioneer work here was that of a great missionary and of a far sighted organiser. His memory and the example of his zeal will be cherished in Hong Kong.
While expressing to you, Very Reverend Father, my sympathy for the great loss of your Province and your Society, I wish to take the opportunity of assuring you of tne grateful appreciation by the clergy and laity of Hong Kong for the generous collaboration your Fathers are offering to us in carrying the burden of this diocese.
Asking for the blessing of Our Lord on your apostolic work,
Yours very sincerely in Christ,
+Lawrence Bianchi,
Bishop of Hong Kong.

The Very Rev. Charles O'Conor, S.J.,
Loyola,
87 Eglinton Road,
Ballsbridge,
Dublin,
Ireland.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father George Byrne SJ 1879-1962
Few men in the history of the Province for the last 60 years have seen and contributed to so many aspects of the life and development of our Province than Fr George Byrne, who died in Dublin on January 4th 1962.

He was born in Cork in 1879, educated at Mungret at Clongowes, and he entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1894.

In 1914 he was named Master of Novices to the resuscitated Novitiate at Loyola, Sydney, Australia, returning from that post to take up a similar one at Tullabeg from 1919 to 1922.

On the foundation of the Irish Free State he became chaplain to the first Governor-General, Mr Tim Healy.

When we started our Mission in Hong Kong, Fr Byrne went out as founder and first Superior. These were creative days,. He built Ricci Hall, negotiated the taking over of the Regional Seminary at Aberdeen, and he took over Wah Yan College from its original owners. At the same time he was prominent as a lecturer, broadcaster and writer, as well as part-time Professor in the University. He started the Catholic magazine “The Rock”, and for a long time contributed to the “South China Morning Post”

For health reasons he returned to Ireland in 1946. During the remaining years of his life he was Tertian-Instructor at Rathfarnham and Spiritual Father at Milltown. He continued to write, give retreats, thus keeping in harness till the end, as he himself wished.

Truly a rich life in achievement and of untold spiritual good to many souls. As a religious, he enjoyed gifts of higher prayer and was endowed with the gift of tears.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1929

Our Past

Father George Byrne SJ

Fr George Byrne SJ, who was in Mungret for some years in the nineties, is bringing glory to the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus. Under him as Superior the little band of pioneer missionaries of the Irish Jesuits at Hong Kong, Canton, and Shiuhing are doing wonderful work for the Church. In addition to his business of organisation, Fr George frequently contributes to “The Rock” and to a new Chinese monthly, the “Kung Kao Po”. His articles are usually reprinted in many of the local papers, with the result that Fr Byrne has gained a great reputation in Hong Kong. He is constantly giving retreats and missions. Two retreats were given by him in Latin to groups of Chinese priests, Fr Byrne is at present attending to the building of Ricci Hall, the new Hostel for Chinese University students. At the laying of the foundation stone by the Governor General, Fr George made a brilliant speech. Plans are being drawn up for the building of a new Regional Seminary. This building will be completed in 1930, and Fr Byrne will have an additional burden thrust upon him. May God give him strength to continue his wonderful work.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1930

Three Years in China : Impressions and Hopes

Father George Byrne SJ

The Superior of the Irish Jesuit Mission to China, Very Rev George Byrne SJ, visited us in March, and gave us a very interesting lecture. We expected great things from Father George, and were not disappointed. He gave a very clear account of the present position in China, of the Customs and mentality of its people, and of the working of grace amongst them. The many anecdotes told by Father Byrne and the beautiful illustrations he showed us kept our interest alive. Throughout the lecture We heard the call of China - the call of Christ the Redeemer of the world, appealing for helpers to bring those who are in the valley of the shadow of death to the Life that comes by knowledge and love of the Son of God.

We experienced no little joy when we heard of the work that has already been accomplished by the thirteen missionaries who have gone to China during the past three years. Their first task was, of course, study of the Chinese language, and in this they have already made progress sufficient to enable them to under take some missionary work through the medium of that language. The work of editing a Catholic monthly magazine called”The Rock” was entrusted to them by His Lordship the Bishop of Hong Kong; but their biggest undertaking has been the erection of Ricci Hall, a hostel for students attending the University of Hong Kong. When their numbers and resources increase, they hope to undertake a still more important work, namely, the management of the new Regional Seminary which is at present in course of erection, and in which the native clergy of Southern China will be educated and prepared for the priesthood. God's grace is manifestly assisting them in their labours.

Mungret rejoices in these achievements, especially as three of her old pupils and one old master are amongst the thirteen. Father G Byrne SJ, the Superior, was here in the nineties. Father J McCullough SJ, a boy of 1912-14 and a master here a few years ago, is working in Canton. Rev R Harris SJ, who left us in 1922, is teaching in Shiu Hing. Father R Gallagher SJ, who is remembered by many Old Boys, is the zealous Editor of “The Rock”. Anyone who knew Father Dick will not be surprised to hear that in addition to the burden of editorship, he cheerfully shoulders many other burdens.

The interest of Mungret boys in the Mission can be very practical. Help is needed. Perhaps those who read may help in one or many of the following ways: (1) By prayer ; (2) by sending books to stock the libraries of the Hostel or Seminary (Ricci Hall, Hong Kong, China); (3) by collecting old stamps and tin-foil, and forwarding them to Treasurer, Ricci Mission, Milltown Park, Dublin ; (4) by subscribing to The Rock (Editor, PO Box 28, Hong Kong); (5) by contributing to the Ricci Mission Fund (The Treasurer, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin). Those who cannot be with their friends in the front trench, as it were, where Paganism meets Christianity, can help them greatly. Spiritual and material help are necessary. By helping them, you give them strength and courage, and will have the privilege of consoling your Greatest Friend.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1962

Obituary

Father George Byrne SJ

It is with great regret we chronicle the death of Father George Byrne, which took place in Dublin on January 4, at the 1 age of 83.

Father Byrne was born in Cork. After leaving Mungret he entered the Society of Jesus. He taught in Australia for seven years as a scholastic, and then returned to Milltown Park for his theological studies.

After ordination, he was recalled to Austrialia, where he became Master of Novices and Superior of the House. After a few years he was back in Ire land again, this time to Gardiner St, While in Gardiner St he became first Chaplain to the first Governor-General of the Free State, Mr Tim Healy, KC.

In 1926 came the decision to establish a Jesuit Mission in Hong Kong, Father Byrne was appointed Superior of the newly-formed Mission. On him fell the burden of much of the organisation. He arranged for the staffing of the Regional Seminary. He also arranged for the building of Ricci Hall, a University Hostel. He was also instrumental in taking over Wah Yan College from its original founders.

In Hong Kong he was a well-known broadcaster, writer and lecturer. He was always prominently associated with education.

In 1946 he returned to Ireland for health reasons. He continued active work. He was Instructor of Tertians for a number of years and after that, until his death, he was Professor of Ascetical Theology and Spiritual Director of the Theologians at Milltown Park, He worked until the end. RIP

Born: 26 May 1888, Garvaghy, County Tyrone
Entered: 07 September 1908, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1921, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1925, Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia
Died: 10 October 1972, Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL 05 April 1931

by 1916 at St Aloysius, Jersey, Channel Islands (FRA) studying

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Thomas Montague was educated by the Vincentian Fathers at St Patrick's, Armagh, 1901-08, and entered the Jesuit noviciate at Tullabeg, 7 September 1908. He completed his juniorate at the same place, but ill health forced him to begin regency at Mungret, 1911-15, completed, 1918-19. Philosophy was studied at Jersey, 1915-18, theology at Milltown Park, 1919-23, and tertianship at Tullabeg, 1923-24.
He came to Australia in 1924 and spent 1925-31 at Xavier College, Burke Hall, and was headmaster from 1927. Here he began the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, put the boys into uniform and laid out the grounds, supervising the construction of the main oval and wide shovels and spades building up the banks that surround it.
He spent a year at St Patrick's College, 1934, and except for a further few years at Burke Hall, 1937-40, spent the rest of his life at Xavier College, Barker's Road, teaching mainly mathematics and French. He was prefect of studies in 1932, then minister from 1941-53, choirmaster, 1947-62, and director of the opera for about 25 years until 1968. He continued his work in the grounds and strengthened the banks that surround the chapel and those on the south wing. He frequently had a band of unwilling workers-boys with penals. The punishment took the form of filling up barrows with soil and wheeling them to wherever he wanted them. One of his choirs won a competition in the Melbourne Town Hall and the members took it in turn to carry the trophy up Collins Street around midnight.
Montague retired from teaching in 1969. He was keen on cricket and showed endless patience in teaching small boys how to bat. He coached teams at Xavier, and in one year, the First XI. He supervised the boarders' meals three times a day for over twenty years. He was a hard worker, always willing to substitute for someone else.
His direction of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas at the college were well appreciated by all associated with them. He loved the words, music, dances and stage administration. He was a good musician and knew Gilbert and Sullivan operas well. He taught the dances, and conducted the orchestra. To his opera students he was held in high esteem, even awe. He demanded high standards of the boys, and was a hard taskmaster, but the boys learnt discipline and teamwork as well as music accomplishments. The opera productions were not a lone production. For twenty years, from 1943, Montague had the assistance of the ever efficient and reliable Eldon Hogan as Opera General Manager and Stage Manager.
Basically, Montague was shy and retiring, but could be pleasant in community He was a man of few words. In the classroom he kept boys working, in the dining room he seldom spoke, except about table courtesy, at cricket practice his comments were short and clear. When he was annoyed with boys he needed few words to correct them, usually “nonsense” or “humbug” were quite sufficient to let people know his disapproval. He was certainly well respected. In the community he showed a sense of humour and enjoyed a game of billiards, but his usual terse comments were telling. In his latter years he read much, but never a newspaper, as he considered them a waste of time. Nevertheless, he always wanted to have news of the latest cricket score. He was certainly a powerful presence in the Xavier College community for many years.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 47th Year No 4 1972

The death of Fr Thomas Montague has occurred in Australia, October 10th, RIP

Born: 10 April 1836, County Monaghan
Entered: 29 July 1865, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained - pre Entry
Final vows: 15 August 1875
Died: 13 April 1910, Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick

Master of Novices 1874-1882

by 1872 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1873 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) teaching
by 1874 at Drongen France (FRA) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Brother of Msgr John McKenna, Dromore, County Tyrone

He made his priestly studies at Maynooth, and became a distinguished member of the Dunboyne Establishment (the original postgrad house of Maynooth). Some of his fellow students there were Dr William Walshe, Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Edward T O’Dwyer, Bishop of Limerick, and many other remarkable men.

After First Vows he was sent as a Teacher to Galway and then as a Teacher and Operarius at Limerick, as a form of Regency.
1872 He made further studies in Theology at St Beuno’s and became “Professor of the Shorts”.
1873-1874 He was sent to Drongen fr Tertianship.
1874-1882 He was appointed Master of Novices at Milltown.
1883 He was sent to Galway again as a Teacher.
1885 He spent time at Tullabeg caring for his health.
1891 At the opening of the Theologate at Milltown, he was appointed Professor of Logic and Moral Theology.
1908 He retired to Mungret in failing health. He attended the 1910 Provincial Congregation, and when he got back to Mungret he had a bad cold. This brought about his death with great speed, and he died there 13 April 1910.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Charles McKenna SJ 1836-1910
Fr Charles McKenna was already a priest of the Clogher Diocese when he entered the Society in 1865. His career at Maynooth had been brilliant, his fellow students in the Dunboyne being the Archbishop Walsh of Dublin and Bishop O’Dwyer of Limerick.

He became Professor of the Short Course at Milltown and from 1874 to 1882 was Master of Novices in the same house. When Milltown Park was inaugurated as a Collegium Maximum in 1891, he was appointed professor of Logic and Moral Theology.

In 1908 he retired to Mungret in ill health, and he died there two years later on April 13th, having given 45 years of solid and outstanding service to the Province.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1910

Obituary

Father Charles McKenna SJ

Within less than a year after the death of Walter Colgan, the Angel of Death has again visited Mungret, not now to call one of the boys, but one of the Fathers. Fr Charles McKenna, notwithstanding his advanced years, seemed to be in his usual health till about the 8th of April last when he had a weakness from which he appeared to recover, but which returned the same day. For some time he held his own, but finally we were grieved to hear that pneumonia had developed, and on the 13th he passed quietly away, having received the last sacraments. Fr McKenna was born in 1836 in Monaghan. Having entered Maynooth College he was ordained for the diocese of Clogher anal became a member of the Dunboyne Establishment. In 1865 he entered the Society of Jesus. Besides, holding other offices, he was for some years Professor of Moral Theology and Canon Law, and was much consulted for his opinion. His health becoming enfeebled, he was attached to this house about two years ago. Though his duties here did not relate directly to the school, his bright look and cheerful inanner were well known to all and will be missed for many a day. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Charles McKenna (1836-1910)

Was a secular priest of the Clogher diocese when he was admitted to the Society in 1865. After his noviceship, he came as master to the Crescent where he remained for four years. Father McKenna was a man of fine intellectual gifts and was in due course appointed to the chair of moral theology and canon law at Milltown Park, where he remained until the year before his death. He was a member of the Mungret community for the last few months of his life.

Born: 19 April 1836, Youghal, County Cork
Entered: 05 October 1856, Beaumont, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1869
Final Vows: 02 February 1877
Died: 07 March 1909, Milltown Park, Dublin

by 1859 at Stonyhurst, England (ANG) Studying Philosophy
by 1866 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying Theology
by 1868 at St Bueno’s, Wales (ANG) studying
by 1871 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He taught for many years at both Clongowes and Tullabeg.
In the 1870s he joined the Missionary Band with Robert Haly, Robert Fortescue, Edward Murphy and James Cleary.
Towards the end of his life he was Assistant Missioner at Tullabeg, and had also been a Minister at Mungret.
In failing health he retired to Milltown and remained there until his death 07 March 1909
His genial manner, ready wit and kindly heart made him dear to all, and the self-sacrifice and courage he showed in the face of failing strength and painful disease was most edifying.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1909

Obituary

Father William Flynn SJ

All our past students of the last dozen years will be sorry to hear of the death of Father Flynn. He filled the post of Minister in Mungret for the ten years - 1896-1906. His genial manner, ready wit, and kindly heart made him dear to all. No one could avoid admiring the self-sacrifice and courage with which Father Flynn stood to his post when suffering from failing strength and painful disease, which would long before have prostrated a less courageous man.

At last, in August, 1906, it was considered that he could no longer cope with the duties of his office, and he was sent to Milltown Park, Dublin, for a change and rest. Since then his health steadily failed, and last March he passed away peacefully and happily to the rest which he had so long worked for and desired. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father William Flynn (1836-1909)

A native of Youghal and received into the Society in 1856, was at the Crescent in 1873-74 and 1886-87. He was master in Clongowes, Tullabeg and Belvedere and for many years minister at Mungret College. His later years were spent in Milltown Park.

Born: 10 December 1910, Bohernagore, Ardpatrick, County Limerick
Entered: 01 September 1928, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 29 July 1943, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1946, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 27 July 1969, James Connolly Memorial Hospital, Abbotstown, Dublin

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

Early education at Mungret College SJ

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 44th Year No 4 1969

Belvedere College
On July 26th we were saddened to hear of the death of Fr. Alf O'Connell. For the past few years he had been going down hill steadily but his death took us all by surprise. During the latter months he was able only with difficulty to get around the house, his arthritis and other complications getting steadily worse. Two days before he died it was thought imperative that he should have oxygen and he was transferred to Blanchardstown Hospital on Thursday 24th; he survived only two days, dying on the 26th. It is no exaggeration to say that his name was synonymous with Belvedere as far as the Old Boys were concerned and he thought nothing too much trouble whether it was fixing them up in jobs, arranging retreats for them or attending their social functions. He was an encyclopaedia on their doings and many an editor of The Belvederian got invaluable help from him in compiling notes on the past. Though it was in the midst of holidays a big representative gathering of the past managed to be present at his Requiem Mass and funeral. We shall miss him in the community and class room, R.I.P.

Obituary :

Fr Alphonsus O’Connell SJ (1910-1969)

Fr. “Alf” as he was familiarly known, was born December 10th, 1910 in Kilfinane, Co. Limerick. After his secondary education at Mungret he entered the Society in Tullabeg, September ist, 1928 and saw the end of Tullabeg as a novitiate and the start of Emo. After his degree in U.C.D. and philosophate in Tullabeg he spent three years teaching in Galway. On July 29th, 1943 he was ordained in Milltown and after Tertianship in Rathfarnham he spent the rest of his life in Belvedere.
An able and intelligent man, he had a wide range of interests which he pursued during the different stages of his career. At the university he studied Archaeology and contributed a section to a life of St. Carthage. He produced the boys' plays in Galway and during his long term at Belvedere he was always on call to make up the boys for the College opera. He contributed a number of poems to various magazines in his early life. For many years he was director and confessor at the Morning Star Hostel, assisted in the running of St. Stanislaus' Boys' Club and had many a tale of the Irish courses at Gibstown. In his youth he was a fine athlete excelling in hurling and rugby. In later life he suffered so much from arthritis one tended to overlook his former prowess. Up to practically the end of his life he was in charge of rugby and cricket teams in the school. He graced many a school pavilion, trudged up and down the touch-line, umpired even when he had to use his hunting stick. He was extremely popular with his opposite number in other schools, They admired his devotion and enthusiasm and many a time quoted him as an example.
He was a first-class teacher and went to great pains to make up his course, for, in his time, he taught many subjects, Whatever he did he did well. He boasted in his own quiet way of the different subjects he had taught.
He had an extremely retentive memory, looked simple but was as sharp as a knife. Always ready to help, he never refused an appeal. Teachers, games' masters, the past, the boys knew this and appreciated it. Year after year, he filled our Retreat Houses with the past and always had his red note-book available with a surplus of names. In fact the past were never quite sure whether Fr. Alf of "Jeff" as he was affectionately known to them, came to games to cheer them on or to seek retreatants. But they did know he was interested in them. Many a Belvederian owes his present position to Fr. Alf's unflagging interest. Editors of the Belvederian readily availed themselves of his wide knowledge of the Past.
He was a good Religious in an unostentatious way and showed his love of God in his love of others - kindly, generous and a good companion. A good community man, filled with a sense of humour, he told many a story against himself. He suffered much and few of us realised that, as he said, he was working on borrowed time. We feel that Fr. Alf who never refused a call to help will not forget us now that his physical pains and distress are over, May his soul rest in peace.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1970

Obituary

Father Alphonsus O’Connell SJ

Sunday, July 27th, was a clear, bright day at Cabra Oval. Our cricket season was going well and the morale of our players was high, We were enjoying ourselves.

Suddenly, the enjoyment, the bright skies and the high morale were all overshadowed in our minds. Fr O'Connell had died at 5 am on that morning and we had just heard the very sad news. Little was said; the feelings of shock, of loss and of sadness were clear. We had lost a great friend.

Fr O'Connell came to Belvedere College in August 1946. He had been to school in Mungret in Limerick and worked as a scholastic in St Ignatius College in Galway where he obtained his HDip. From the moment he came to Belvedere his life's interest centred mainly around Belvederians and Old Belvederians. It is an understatement to say that everyone connected with sport in Belvedere and many not directly involved in Belvederian activities knew and respected him. It is unnecessary to recall the devotion and enthusiasm of Fr O'Connell for his “seconds”, for these are already well known to us.

What is perhaps not so well known is the great human personality which was behind the kind and unassuming exterior which presented to the outside world. He was kind, humble and always cheerful. He was a simple man without a trace of vanity and although he had a very heavy work load at all times he seemed to have plenty of time to listen all who approached him for help with their problems.

Few of us who attended Belvedere Colege and particularly those of us who played on his cricket or rugby teams, will forget the fantastic kindness and interest he displayed in each student in his care. His anxiety to involve as many as possible in his organised activities was typified by his appointing the writer “permanent substitute linesman” on the Second A Rugby XV. His memory for faces and facts about Old Belvederians was extraordinary and his meticulous recordings in his multiplicity of notebooks of academic achievement, business promotions, weekend retreats, marriages or deaths were the subject of many a good joke.

Fr O'Connell was a natural priest, for such was his great humanity that although his deep, simple piety was evident, one forgot he was a priest. In religious discussion with members of the St Stanislaus Boys Club, of which he was holiday spiritual director for twelve years, he was tolerant and open-minded but quietly firm. From all of these boys he earned respect and affecticion as he did in his tremendous work with the “Morning Star”. He had the great gift of winning the loyalty and confidence of people whether they were students in Belveder the less fortunate members of Dublin society for whom his devotion and work was a splendid example.

His simple and ever cheerful manner made association with him a pleasure. The fund of jokes, very often stories against himself seemed limitless. How he enjoyed telling of his difficulty in confusing a student, so he could discipline him, when the particular student labelled a parallelogram J, E F and F; or by his calling a boy by his older brother’s Christian name and getting the reply “Yes Mutt?” His most relaxing and pleasing personality ensured that “Jeff” was popular and welcome person at all social events.

We will miss Fr O’Connell greatly - his optimism and very positive views on life and on the development of our club contributed greatly to the establishment of solid foundations for us and for all organisations with which he was associated. The best tribute to his memory is to carry on his work in the many fields where he laboured.

Ár dheis lámh Dé go raibh a anam.

Tim Sheehy

Born: 19 January 1913, Belfast, County Antrim
Entered: 16 November 1931, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1945, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1948, Wah Yan College, Hong Kong
Died: 23 February 1971, Cahir, County Tipperary

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

by 1960 at Brophy Prep, Phoenix AZ (CAL) working
by 1962 at St Francis Xavier Phoenix AZ, USA (CAL) working

Died in a car accident.

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Death of Father Rory Maguire S.J.
R.I.P.

Father Rory Maguire, S.J., formerly of Wah Yan Colleges, Hong Kong and Kowloon, was killed in a road accident in Ireland on 23 February 1971, aged 58.

Father Maguire came to Hong Kong in 1947. His whole time here was devoted to education. He was principal of the afternoon school in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, and later was prefect of studies in Wah Yan College, Kowloon.

During much of his time in Hong Kong he suffered grievously from an intractable slipped disc. Ultimately he had to go to Arizona, where the extreme dryness of the climate helped him to a partial recovery. After a period there he was able to return to Ireland, but there was no prospect of his being able to stand up to Hong Kong humidity.

Requiem Mass for the repose of his soul will be celebrated at 6pm, today, Friday, 5 March, in the chapel of Wah Yan College, Kowloon.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 5 March 1971

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 46th Year No 3 1971

Obituary :

Fr Rory Maguire SJ (1913-1971)

Sudden death always leaves a sense of shock; sudden and violent death leaves one numb. When the news of Fr Rory Maguire's death in a car crash reached us on Tuesday, February 23rd, those of us who knew Fr Rory well were overwhelmed. He had left Dublin that day with Wilfrid Chan, SJ, to go to Cork. Near Cahir, about 2.30 p.m., the fatal accident occurred. Fr Rory was killed instantly and Wilfrid Chan was seriously injured. Fr Knight, CSSp, of Rockwell College, and Mr Carey of Cahir Vocational School, the occupants of the other car, were both injured but are now well on the road to recovery. Wilfrid Chan, after a long and painful time in St. Vincent's Hospital, Elm Park, is now back in Milltown Park and making satisfactory progress.
On Wednesday evening, February 24th, Fr Rory's remains were brought from Cashel Hospital to Gardiner Street Church. Those who travelled with the funeral will long remember the immense crowd awaiting the arrival at Gardiner Street - a tribute from so many people to one who during his life as a priest had been a sincere friend and unfailing helper to countless people in all walks of life. That tribute was repeated on Thursday morning in a packed Gardiner Street at concelebrated Mass. At Glasnevin he was laid to rest and one felt that each person at that graveside mourned for a personal loss. In his lifetime as a Jesuit he had endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact,
Fr Rory's life as a priest was lived in three continents. His early years, since he joined the Society in 1931, were all spent in Ireland. Those early years of study were not easy for him, but he applied himself to them with that spirit of duty and devotedness that were to be so characteristic of all his work in later years. After ordination in 1945 and tertianship in 1946-47, he went to Hong Kong. Those who worked with him on the mission during the long years he spent in the Far East, bear the highest tribute to his zeal and energy as a missioner, the impact he made on all he met and, above all, his tremendous influence on the boys he taught and guided for so many years in Wah Yan College.
It was in China that he contracted that back illness that was to stay with him until the end of his life and cause him so much suffering. After a disc operation in Hong Kong, he returned to Ireland and the next few years were spent in and out of hospital and always pain and discomfort. Yet, through all this, Fr Rory was always looking for something to do in the way of an apostolate. And in all those efforts the man, who was also the priest, shone out. No one, not even his closest friends, will ever know the work he did for people in those days.
On medical advice, he went to Arizona, to the Jesuit house in Phoenix and his next few years were spent there doing church work and teaching religion. After the years in Arizona, with little by way of improvement to his health, he returned to Ireland and joined the church staff in the Crescent, Limerick. The same devotion to duty, the same concern for people characterised his work there and his box in the church was a popular one. 1970 saw him transfer to Tullabeg and the mission staff. He was happy in this work as it gave him many opportunities to work.
His sympathy and his understanding, his unfailing good humour and his obvious sincerity won him many friends all over Ireland and England during his short time on the mission staff. A heart attack during the last year before his death forced him to retire from the too heavy work of travelling and preaching missions and he joined the Retreat House staff in Rathfarnham. This was his last appointment and in the short time he was to spend at this work he gave the same zeal, enthusiasm and effort. His life might be summed up in words written of another great Jesuit : “He was at home with all kinds of people and in many different worlds - this was part of his greatness - but his own personal world had at its centre that priestly and religious dedication to which he was heroically true to the end”. May he rest in peace and to his family, four brothers and one sister, deepest sympathy from all who were privileged to have known Fr Rory.

Born: 23 December 1896, Sallins, County Kildare
Entered: 31 August 1914, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 27 August 1929, Valkenburg, Netherlands
Final vows: 15 August 1933
Died: 27 August 1965, Lusaka, Zambia

Part of the Chivuna, Monze, Zambia community at the time of death

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

1942-1946 Military Chaplain

by 1921 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1927 at Valkenburg, Limburg, Netherlands (GER I) studying
by 1932 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship
by 1949 at Lusaka, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working - joined Patrick Walsh and Patrick JT O’Brien in Second group of Zambian Missioners
by 1951 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Maurice’s family used to spend a month in Skerries, an Irish seaside resort, in the summer. Maurice Dowling was a keen, strong swimmer and one morning, as a teenager, he saved the life of a girl who was drowning. He went home to lunch and never mentioned the incident. It was when the family had finished tea and Mr Dowling was reading the evening paper, that he came across a paragraph or two describing the plucky rescue by his son. Passing no comment, he scribbled "Bravo"! beside the passages and silently handed the paper to his son. This incident in some way, sums up a characteristic of Maurice that he had already developed at that age, – he was modest in his achievements and helpful to others.

He was born in 1896 in Dublin. His father was the Registrar of the College of Science in Dublin. His mother died early in her married life leaving Maurice and his brother Desmond behind. Both boys went to Clongowes Wood College for their secondary education.

At the age of 18, Maurice entered the Jesuits at Tullabeg and followed the normal course of studies which were followed by Irish Jesuits of the time. He was ordained in 1929 on 29th August. He spent some time in the colleges as teacher and prefect e.g. the Crescent, Limerick in the thirties.

As a young Jesuit, he learned to speak Irish, spending many a holiday in the Gaeltacht (Irish speaking area). He genuinely loved the language and when home on what was to be his last leave, he was delighted to hear that there were in existence Irish-speaking praesidia of the Legion of Mary. He had a great admiration for Edel Quinn who died working for the Legion in Africa.

During the Second World War he volunteered as a chaplain. Just before departing, he was involved in an accident where he was thrown through the window of the bus in which he was traveling. As he lay on the ground in his own blood, he heard one of the rescuers say to another nodding towards Maurice "He's had it"! (but in much more colourful language).
After the war, when the Jesuits in Northern Rhodesia were looking for men, two Irish Jesuits volunteered in 1946 (Fr Paddy Walsh and Fr Paddy O'Brien) to be followed by two more in 1947, Maurice and Fr Joe Gill. They came to Chikuni.

The Bishops had been endeavouring then to set up a Catholic Secondary school for Africans. There was only one secondary school for Africans in the whole country, a Government school at Munali, Lusaka which had been founded a few years before. In 1949 Canisius Secondary School opened its gates to the first class. Speaking of Maurice's work in the college during the first few years, Fr Max Prokoph who had been instrumental in getting Fr Dowling for the mission and who had been his principal, said of him, "I have never met a more loyal man". Fr Prokoph described how in the initial difficult days, Maurice had stood by him on every occasion, always ready to help, never questioning a decision, absolutely loyal.
While at Chikuni, he would travel south to Choma at the week-end to say Mass long before a mission was opened in 1957; also to Kalomo still further south. Then back to the school for another week of teaching. In 1962 he went to Namwala to the newly built mission as the first resident priest bringing with him some Sisters of Charity. He later moved to Chivuna in 1964 and died in Lusaka on 26 August, 1965.

Fr Maurice had great qualities: his deep spirituality and union with God, his great zeal for souls, his kindness and courtesy to all, his optimistic outlook even when things looked by no means bright. He had a zest for life, his cheerfulness was catching. He was loyal as Fr Prokoph remarked. Loyalty would seem to have been the source of his strength, loyalty to God as a priest and religious, loyalty to his country as shown by his deep love of it, loyalty to the Society as shown by his great respect for it and his dislike of even the slightest criticism of it, loyalty to his Alma Mater and to his many friends as shown by his great interest in all that concerned them. His life had been a full one, in the classroom, in the army and on the mission.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 16th Year No 4 1941
General :
Seven more chaplains to the forces in England were appointed in July : Frs Burden, Donnelly, J Hayes, Lennon and C Murphy, who left on 1st September to report in Northern Ireland, and Fr Guinane who left on 9th September.
Fr. M. Dowling owing to the serious accident he unfortunately met when travelling by bus from Limerick to Dublin in August will not be able to report for active duty for some weeks to come. He is, as reported by Fr. Lennon of the Scottish Command in Midlothian expected in that area.
Of the chaplains who left us on 26th May last, at least three have been back already on leave. Fr. Hayes reports from Redcar Yorks that he is completely at home and experiences no sense of strangeness. Fr. Murphy is working' with the Second Lancashire Fusiliers and reports having met Fr. Shields when passing through Salisbury - the latter is very satisfied and is doing well. Fr. Burden reports from Catterick Camp, Yorks, that he is living with Fr. Burrows, S.J., and has a Church of his own, “so I am a sort of PP”.
Fr. Lennon was impressed very much by the kindness already shown him on all hands at Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh and in his Parish. He has found the officers in the different camps very kind and pleased that he had come. This brigade has been without a R.C. Chaplain for many months and has never yet had any R.C. Chaplain for any decent length of time. I am a brigade-chaplain like Fr Kennedy and Fr. Naughton down south. He says Mass on weekdays in a local Church served by our Fathers from Dalkeith but only open on Sundays. This is the first time the Catholics have had Mass in week-days

Irish Province News 17th Year No 1 1942

Chaplains :
Our twelve chaplains are widely scattered, as appears from the following (incomplete) addresses : Frs. Burden, Catterick Camp, Yorks; Donnelly, Gt. Yarmouth, Norfolk; Dowling, Peebles Scotland; Guinane, Aylesbury, Bucks; Hayes, Newark, Notts; Lennon, Clackmannanshire, Scotland; Morrison, Weymouth, Dorset; Murphy, Aldershot, Hants; Naughton, Chichester, Sussex; Perrott, Palmer's Green, London; Shields, Larkhill, Hants.
Fr. Maurice Dowling left Dublin for-Lisburn and active service on 29 December fully recovered from the effects of his accident 18 August.

Irish Province News 18th Year No 1 1943

Fr. Maurice Dowling was awarded substantial damages with costs in the action against Great Southern Railways Co. which came before Mr. Justice Hanna and a jury in the High Court on 4th November. It will be remembered Fr. Dowling met with his serious accident 18th August, 1941, when the bus in which he was travelling from Limerick to Dublin in order to report for active service was involved in a collision near the Red Cow, Clondalkin.

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948

Frs. Dowling and Gill will be leaving soon for the Lusaka Mission, N. Rhodesia.

Irish Province News 24th Year No 1 1949

Frs. Dowling and Gill who left Dublin for the Lusaka Mission, N. Rhodesia, on 7th October reached their destination on 4th November; for the present they are stationed at Chikuni and Lusaka respectively.

Irish Province News 24th Year No 3 1949

LETTERS :

Fr. M. Dowling in a letter from Chikuni Mission, N. Rhodesia :
He says there are now 282 boys in the Central Boarding School ; and 60 girls under the care of the Irish Sisters of Charity. All are native Africans, 95% baptised and but a few catechumens. The staff consists of Fr. M. Prokoph, Principal of the School, Fr. Dowling himself, Fr. Lewisha, an African, two Sisters of Oharity, an English laymaster, and four African teachers.

“I am teaching Religious Knowledge, Chemistry, General Science, History and Maths. My classes vary in number between 45 and 50. We are rather understaffed and so are kept busy. The top classes at present reach a standard equivalent to our Inter-Cert. There is also a course for Teachers, and a Trades School for carpenters and brick layers.
The mission depends on us for its Catholic teachers and the number of Catechumens depends on them too. The mission is very short of men and many are old and ill. Many of the Polish Fathers have been out here 20 and 25 years without a break.
Normally the rainy season begins here in October and lasts till March. This year it has been a failure. We have had 18 inches of rain instead of our usual 35-40 and there is grave danger of famine in all Central Africa. Famine has already begun in Nyassaland.
There are six different African languages spoken by different sections of the boys. All teaching above standard IV is in English. Many are quite good at English.
The weather is pretty hot, which I like but some don't. It has averaged 95 degrees in the shade for a long time recently. I have lost two stone since I came here and gone down from 16 stone to 14. You wouldn't know my slender form!”

Irish Province News 41st Year No 1 1966

Obituary :

Fr Maurice Dowling SJ (1896-1965)

Fr. Dowling's death was a great shock even for us on the mission. His operation had been successful, he was making a good recovery, and then the end came suddenly and unexpectedly in a heart attack. Rev. Fr. Superior, who was in Lusaka at the time, was called by telephone and was able to give him Extreme Unction and recite the prayers for the dying. He died during the prayers without regaining consciousness.
The funeral, preceded by Requiem Mass, took place on Sunday afternoon. He was buried in Chikuni, as he certainly would have wished, beside Fr. A. Cox and Fr. D. Byrne, and close to the founders of the mission - Frs. Moreau and Torrend. Fr. Dowling had known Fr. Moreau, he had been with him for a few months before his death in January 1949, and had anointed him before he died.
There was a very big attendance at the Mass and funeral, for he had made many friends during his seventeen years in the country. They came not only from the neighbourhood but even from Livingstone, Lusaka and Brokenhill. They included boys whom he had taught many years ago and who were now young men of importance in Government positions, Sisters and Brothers of several congregations to whom he had given retreats, and many priests both African and European. His Grace the Archbishop of Lusaka and His Lordship Bishop Corboy were also able to be present as they had not yet left for Rome.
In his panegyric during the Mass, Rev. Fr. Superior paid tribute to Fr. Dowling's great qualities, his deep spirituality and union with God, his great zeal for souls, his kindness and courtesy to all, his optimistic outlook even when things looked by no means bright. His life had been a full one, in the classroom, in the army and in the mission, and his reward must therefore be very great.
When Fr. Dowling came to Chikuni in 1948, there was only one secondary school for Africans in Northern Rhodesia, a Government school at Munali which had been founded ten years before. He played a big part in founding the second school, Canisius College. Speaking of his work in the college during the first few years, Fr. Prokoph, who had been instrumental in getting Fr. Dowling for the mission and who had been his principal, said of him: “I have never met a more loyal man”. He described how in the initial difficult days Fr. Dowling had stood by him on every occasion, always ready to help, never questioning a decision, absolutely loyal. Loyalty then would seem to have been the source of his strength, loyalty to God as a priest and religious, loyalty to his country as shown by his deep love of it, loyalty to the Society as shown by his great respect for it and his dislike of even the slightest criticism of it, loyalty to his Alma Mater and to his many friends as shown by his great interest in all that concerned them. He was a man of whom it can be truly said that it was a privilege to have known him and to have lived with him.

Death of a Jesuit Friend
The first intimation our family received on Easter Monday, 1916, that the Volunteers had risen, taken over the General Post Office and other key buildings, was when a neighbour, Mr. P. A. Dowling, Registrar of the College of Science, knocked at the door and excitedly told us the news.
This morning (2nd September 1965) I attended a Requiem Mass in the Jesuit Church, Gardiner Street, offered for the soul of Fr. Maurice Dowling, S.J, second son of the neighbour who rushed to us with the news of the Rising. Fr. Maurice, though he had undergone a serious operation some time ago, had, I under stood, made a good recovery and it came as a great shock to his relatives and friends at home to hear that he died suddenly last month in Zambia, on Friday, 27th August, and was buried the following Sunday.
As I take a look at the ordination card, printed in Irish, he sent me from Germany in 1929, I notice he died - 36 years later on the anniversary of his ordination.
Maurice and his brother Desmond (his senior by a year or so) were educated at Clongowes. After the death of their mother early in her married life, Mr. Dowling eventually married again and it was when he and his second wife came to live on Anglesea Road, a few doors from where we then lived, that the two families became friends. We, as children, came to know the second family very well, only meeting Desmond and Maurice at holiday time and, in any case, they were older than I was by six or seven years. That age gap makes a great difference in early youth, later on it does not.
I recall one incident in the boyhood of the future Jesuit perhaps never known to his step-brothers and step-sisters - to whom he was always devoted as they were young children at the time. I myself was about 10 or 11 years of age, I suppose, and it was Mrs. Dowling who related the incident to me :
Both families used to spend a month or two in Skerries in the summer. Maurice Dowling was a keen, strong swimmer and one morning he saved the life of a girl from drowning. He went home to lunch and never mentioned the incident. It was when the family had finished tea and Mr. Dowling was enjoying a read of the evening paper that he came across a paragraph or two describing the plucky rescue by his son. Passing no comment, he scribbled “Bravo!” about the paragraph and silently handed the paper across to his son.
But the future Jesuit, teacher, Army chaplain, African missioner, was no quiet, retiring youth in other respects. Of a natural bright, cheerful, optimistic disposition, he was immensely popular with both girls and boys of his own age.
As a young Jesuit he learned to speak Irish fluently, spending many a holiday in the Gaeltacht. But most important of all, he genuinely loved the language and when home on what was to be his last “leave” he was delighted to hear from me that there were in existence Irish-speaking praesidia of the Legion of Mary. He had a great admiration for Edel Quinn who had died working for the Legion in Africa and, if I recollect rightly, I gave him a copy of the prayer for her canonisation printed in Irish.
We only met him for a few hours on the rare occasions he came on holidays from Rhodesia. He was always very attached to his family, relations and friends. I could never keep track of all his cousins and friends he mentioned in conversation but I do remember the names of two friends, perhaps because I know both by sight, Fr. Leonard Shiel, S.J, and Very Rev. Fr. Crean, now P.P. of Donnybrook, but Head Chaplain in the last war in which Fr. Maurice also served as chaplain.
He loved to visit the home near Naas of his step-sister, Shiela and her husband, Paddy Malone, taking a great interest in their son and three daughters. The young man is now helping to manage the farm; one of the girls is in the Ulster Bank in Baggot Street, another is training as a nurse in St. Vincent's Hospital and the third is still at school.
Thus, another Irish priest dies in voluntary exile for love of the African people. Go ndeinidh Dia trocaire ar a anam.
Nuala Ní Mhóráin
From the Leader Magazine

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 126 : Christmas 2005

MISSIONED TO ZAMBIA : MAURICE DOWLING

Taken from some 50 “portraits” submitted by Tom McGivern, who works in the Archives of the Province of Zambia Malawi.

The family of Fr. Maurice used to spend a month or two of the summer in Skerries, a seaside resort in Co. Dublin. He was a keen, strong swimmer and one morning, as a teenager, he saved the life of a girl from drowning. He went home to lunch and never mentioned the incident. It was when the family had finished tea and Mr. Dowling was reading the evening paper that he came across a paragraph or two describing the plucky rescue by his son. Passing no comment, he scribbled “Bravo!” beside the passage and silently handed the paper to his son. This incident in some way sums up a characteristic of Maurice which developed at that age - modest in his achievements and helpful to others.

He was born in 1896. His father was the Registrar of the College of Science in Dublin. His mother died early in her married life leaving Maurice and his brother, Desmond, behind. Both boys went to Clongowes for their secondary education. At the age of 18, on August 18th 1914, Maurice entered the Jesuits at Tullabeg, and followed the normal course of studies followed by Irish Jesuits of the time. He was ordained on August 27th 1929. In the thirties, he spent some time in the colleges (e.g. the Crescent, Limerick) as teacher and prefect. As a young Jesuit, he learned to speak Irish, spending many a holiday in the Gaeltacht. He genuinely loved the language, and, when home on what was to be his last leave, he was delighted to hear that there were in existence Irish-speaking
praesidia of the Legion of Mary. He had a great admiration for Edel Quinn, who died working for the Legion in Africa.

Come the Second World War, Maurice volunteered as a chaplain. Just before departing, he was involved in an accident where he was thrown through the window of the bus in which he was travelling. As he lay on the ground in his own blood, he heard one of the rescuers say to another, as he nodded towards Maurice: “He's had it!” (but in much more colourful language). After the war, when the Jesuits in Northern Rhodesia were looking for men, two volunteered in 1946, to be followed by two more in 1947 - Maurice and Joe Gill. They came to Chikuni.

The Bishops had been endeavouring then to set up a Catholic Secondary school for Africans. There was only one secondary school for Africans in the whole country, a government school at Munali, which had been founded a few years before. In 1949 Canisius Secondary School opened its gates to the first class. Speaking of Maurice's work in the college during the first few years, Fr M Prokoph, who had been instrumental in getting Fr. Dowling for the mission and who had been his principal, said of him, “I have never met a more loyal man”. Fr. Prokoph described how in the initial difficult days, Maurice had stood by him on every occasion, always ready to help, never questioning a decision, absolutely loyal.

While at Chikuni he would travel south to Choma at the weekend to say Mass, long before the station was opened there in 1957; also to Kalomo still further south. Then back to the school for another week of teaching. In 1962 he went to the newly built mission in Namwala as the first resident priest, bringing with him some Sisters of Charity. Later, in 1964, he moved to Civuna.

Fr. Maurice had great qualities, his deep spirituality and union with God, his great zeal for souls, his kindness and courtesy to all, his optimistic outlook even when things looked by no means bright. He had a zest for life, his cheerfulness was catching. He was loyal, as Fr. Prokoph had remarked. Loyalty would seem to have been the source of his strength, loyalty to God as a priest and religious, loyalty to his country as shown by his deep love of it, loyalty to the Society as shown by his great respect for it and his dislike of even the slightest criticism of it, loyalty to his Alma Mater, and to his many friends, as shown by his great interest in all that concerned them. His life had been a full one, in the classroom, in the army, and on the mission.

Born: 20 June 1920, Knockaney, Hospital, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1938, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1952, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1955, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambua
Died: 05 May 1964, St Mary’s Hospital, Choma, Zambia

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

by 1955 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) Regency

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
It was about 11.30 that morning of 5 May 1964 that the hospital in Choma was asked by the police to send an ambulance immediately to a spot about 15 miles out on the Livingstone road where an accident had occurred. When the ambulance arrived back at the hospital bearing the two survivors who had been found still breathing, the Sister of Charity who met it realized that one of them was wearing a roman collar. On looking closer, she recognised Fr. Dan (who had a sister in Ireland who was a Sister of Charity). In spite of the terrible shock, she immediately phoned the church and Fr Luke Mwanza was on the scene within minutes and gave him Extreme Unction. The bishop had just arrived back in Monze from Chikuni when the news reached him.

No one knows exactly how the accident occurred. Between Livingstone and Choma it is mostly tarred road but at that time there was a stretch of about 25 miles remaining untarred. It was on this "dirt" road that Dan was in head-on collision with another car coming from Livingstone. The coroner at the inquest remarked on the deplorable condition of the road at the part where the collision took place. In the car with Fr Dan were Mr Mungala, his manager of schools, a loyal and devoted supporter of Ours, as well as the manager's nephew. In the other car were Mr Nash, a teacher, and his wife, their two year old daughter and a Mr Hassan. The only survivor of the accident was the child who escaped with relatively light injuries. No witness has been found although the man who first found the crashed cars said at the inquest that, when he returned with the police, the bodies in the Nash's car had been removed from the car to the side of the road.

The burial of the three who died took place at Chikuni on Tuesday 6th May. At the end of the Mass, the Bishop spoke of the universal anguish at the great loss sustained by the Church and the teaching profession.

Fr Dan, who was 44, was born at Knockaney, near Hospital, Co. Limerick. He completed his secondary school at Mount Melleray (Cistercians). He admitted later in life that it was a retreat given at Mount Melleray by a Jesuit that set him on his way to Emo which he entered in 1938. During his formation years, his gifts were more practical than speculative: he liked working with wood and there is hardly a house in the Irish Province which has not got some evidence of his handiwork. He noticed things that needed to be done. There was a quality and finish about everything he set his hands to; he did indeed 'do all things well'.

It was inevitable that Dan's practical abilities should have been recognised and used on the missions. He had not been many months in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) when he was hard at it, building schools and teachers' houses. From then until his death it is true to say that he had more than a 'finger' in all the major (and minor) building activities of the Mission. Some of the churches he designed and built, for example Fumbo and Kasiya. Later, as education secretary, he really found himself and had much more scope for his talents. His mind was very orderly and he never allowed himself to be snowed under by the mass of architects’ drawings, bills and letters that streamed into his office. When death removed him so tragically from the scene, he had left everything as if he were about to hand over to his successor.

Dan remained always a shy man although he concealed it with a brusqueness that became more pronounced as he got older. This disconcerted people who did not know him; at times they thought him off-hand, casual and blasé. He had little time for non- essentials, came to the point quickly and liked others to do the same. He was completely detached from personal comfort and convenience; at times he expected the same detachment and integrity from others, not doubting that others were as self-sacrificing as himself.

The same attention to essentials was apparent in his spiritual life. There were no 'spiritual frills' in Dan's life. Even in the novitiate there was a quality of robustness about his spirituality. That his devotion went deep is evident by the life he led. He was very much a "faithful and prudent servant" intent on service, indifferent to what people thought of him. He conquered all human respect early in life. One who lived with him in Monze for several years said that he never knew him to miss a spiritual duty, a remarkable thing in a man so busy.

Bishop Corboy said of him: "He was a truly saintly man – in the chapel every morning at five o’clock with his Mass at six. He was unassuming and never displayed his holiness and the love of God that inspired his whole life. Back in the office at 7.30 a.m. a day began that could have fully occupied two men, and that was true of six days in the week. On Sunday he regularly said two Masses at out-stations, and returned here to Monze for lunch. On Sunday afternoon when he was free, he would visit some schools to inspect a building he was erecting. He never took a day off and never had a holiday. He is a great loss, but may God's will be done’.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 39th Year No 3 1964

Obituary :

Fr Daniel Byrne SJ (1920-1964)

The Rhodesian Mission has had its calamities over the years but none as sudden and unexpected as the tragic death of Fr. Dan Byrne on May 5th last. Little did His Lordship Bishop Corboy think, as he bade farewell to Father Dan that very morning at Chikuni, that on the following day he would be officiating at Fr. Dan's burial in the cemetery at Chikuni.
A week before the accident Fr. Byrne had been in hospital at Mazabuka. He was treated for malaria and after a few days rest was back at work. On Saturday, May 2nd he attended a Conference on educational matters. The Monday following he took part in a meeting between a Delegation of Teachers and the Bishop, together with a group of the priests. This meeting, for which he had done a good deal of the preparatory work, lasted until afternoon. He was due in Livingstone on the Wednesday for yet another educational meeting. As his own car was in Monze garage for repairs, the Bishop offered him the use of his. On Tuesday 5th there was to be a Priests' Meeting at Chikuni, called by the Bishop; but Dan had been exempted from attending this. However, he did take His Lordship to Chikuni. On arriving at Chikuni, Dan said to the Bishop “Are you sure you wouldn't like me to stay for this meeting?” The Bishop assured him that it wasn't necessary and Dan left with his African passengers for Livingstone (180 miles).
It was at about 11.30 that morning that the Hospital in Choma was asked by the Police to send an ambulance immediately to a spot about 15 miles out on the Livingstone road where an accident had occurred. When the ambulance arrived back at the hospital bearing the two survivors who had been found still breathing, the Sister of Charity who met it realised that one of them was wearing a Roman collar. On looking closer she recognised Fr. Dan. In spite of the terrible shock, she immediately phoned the Church, and Fr. Luke Mwansa was on the scene within minutes and gave Extreme Unction. The Bishop had just arrived back at Monze from Chikuni when the news reached him.
No one knows exactly how the accident occurred. Between Livingstone there is mostly tarred road, but one untarred stretch of about 25 miles remains. It was on this dirt road that Dan was in head-on collision with another car coming from Livingstone. The Coroner at the Inquest, remarked on the deplorable condition of the road at the part where the collision took place. In the car with Fr. Dan were Mr. Mungala, his Manager of Schools, a loyal and devoted supporter of ours, also the Manager's nephew. In the other car were Mr. Nash, a teacher, and his wife, their two year old daughter and a Mr. Hassan. The only survivor of the accident was the child who escaped with relatively light injuries. No witness has been found although the man who first found the crashed cars said at the Inquest that when he returned to the scene with the police, the bodies in the Nash's car had been removed from the car to the side of the road.
The burial of the three who died in the Bishop's car took place at Chikuni on Tuesday, 6th May. The Requiem was sung by Very Rev. Fr. O'Loghlen. Crowds came for the Mass; there were as many outside the Church as inside and for them Fr. Conway conducted a separate service. Many cars came from as far as Broken Hill and Livingstone, bringing representatives of Government and Education bodies. The Churches were also represented -even to Dan's opposite number in the Salvation Army! At the end of Mass the Bishop spoke of the universal anguish at the great loss sustained by the Church and the teaching profession.
Dan, who was 44, was born at Knockaney, near Hospital, Co. Limerick. He was at school with the de la Salle Brothers at first; then he went to Mount Melleray, where he completed his Secondary schooling. He admitted later in life that it was a Retreat given at Mount Melleray by one of Ours that set him on his way to Emo, which he entered in 1938. In the noviceship he was reserved, and shy. In Rathfarnham he had a broken head for some time, which perhaps forced him to turn his attention to mundane and practical things in the house and grounds. His gifts were more practical than speculative; he liked working with wood and there is hardly a House in the Province which hasn't got some evidence of his handiwork. Even when Dan was on a rest, it was more than likely that he would notice something that needed repairing. He noticed things that needed to be done. one remembers him looking in a calculating way one day at the old pavilion of the tennis courts at Milltown Park. Within a few days the pavilion had been 'stripped down and in a matter of weeks it had been replaced by a bigger and (of course) better structure. There was a quality and a finish about everything he set his hands to; “he did, indeed, do all things well”. He was the perfect Sub-beadle, an office which he was burdened with from noviceship to tertianship. When Dan took office, there was a big reorganisation, unwonted order was introduced, everything was given its place and it was a delight to use the Sub-beadle's Press.
Dan taught at the Crescent and Belvedere. He was a good teacher, exacting, who was respected by his pupils. It was always hard to know what he thought about things; but one who knew him and worked with him said that he couldn't imagine Dan volunteering to teach for the rest of his life. In Theology, he was always abreast of the work and was better than average at Moral. He had begun in Milltown, to suffer from the anaemia which dogged his days to the end but of which he spoke little.
It was inevitable that Dan's practical abilities should have been recognised and used on the Mission. He hadn't been many months in Rhodesia when he was hard at it building schools and teachers' houses. From then till his death it is true to say that he had more than a “finger” in all the major (and minor) building activities of the Mission. Some of the Churches he designed and built for example those at Fumbo and Kasiya. Later as Education Secretary he really “found” himself and had much scope for his talents. His mind was a very orderly one and he never allowed himself to be snowed under by the mass of architects drawings, bills and letters that streamed into his office. It was the Bishop who said of him that he never knew a man who kept better files, for he could find any document in a matter of seconds. When death removed him so tragically from the scene, he had left every thing as if he were about to hand-over to his successor.
Dan remained always a shy man although he concealed it with a brusqueness that became more pronounced as he got older. This disconcerted people who did not know him : at times they thought him off-hand, casual, blasé. He had little time for unessentials; came to the point quickly and liked others to do the same. Often he had little small talk and could be preoccupied by his work. He was completely detached from personal comfort and convenience; at times he expected the same detachment and integrity from others, not doubting that others were as self-sacrificing as himself.
The same attention to essentials was apparent in his spiritual life. There were no “spiritual frills” in Dan's life; even in the noviceship there was a quality of robustness about his spirituality. That his devotion went deep is evident by the life he led. He was very much “servus prudens ac fidelis”, intent on service, in different to what men thought of him. He conquered all human respect early in life. One who lived for several years with him in Monze said that he never knew him to miss a Spiritual duty - a remarkable thing in a man so busy. And so he had lived since 1938. In the attache case which was retrieved from the wreckage of the car was found, as well as his few toilet things, a book for Spiritual Reading . . . Can we doubt but that he has already received that “unfading crown of glory” of which he read in the last Mass he said, a few hours before he died?
In a letter Fr. O'Loghlen said of Fr. Byrne : “From every point of view it is a terrible blow. He was a first class religious, and there is the consolation of knowing that if anybody was prepared to meet his death he was. The first thing I found in his bag was a book on the Mass which he used. In his work he was equable and capable. He will be very hard to replace”.
Bishop Corboy said of him : “He was a truly saintly man-in the chapel every morning at five o'clock with his Mass at six. He was unassuming and never displayed the holiness and love of God that inspired his whole life. Back in his office at 7.30 a.m, a day that could have fully occupied two men began, and that was true of six days a week. On Sunday he regularly said two Masses at out-stations, and returned here to Monze for lunch, On Sunday afternoon, when he was free, he would visit some school to inspect a building he was erecting. He never took a day off and never had a holiday. He is a great loss but May God's will be done”.

Very Rev. Fr. Provincial received the following letter :
Parochial House,
Fethard,
Co. Tipperary,
May 13th 1964.
Very Rev. and dear Fr. Provincial,
I would like to offer my sympathy to you and to the Fathers of the Irish Province on the sad death of Fr. Daniel Byrne S.J. in Northern Rhodesia.
It is a matter of regret for me that I cannot attend the Mass for him in Gardiner Street tomorrow. I have already offered Mass for him.
He was the first boy in whose vocation I had a hand as a young curate and he was one of the best. One could not fail to be impressed by his sincere piety, kindly disposition and twinkling humour.
I wish too to sympathise on the loss to the Mission of so competent a priest in educational matters. May he rest in peace.
With kind personal regards,
Sincerely yours in Christ, Christopher Lee P.P.

Born: 19 December 1923, Kilkishen, County Clare
Entered: 07 September 1942, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1956, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1959, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 15 May 1970, Fordham University, The Bronx, New York, USA - Zambiae Province (ZAM)

Part of the Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia community at the time of death

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
The suddenness of Fr Paddy's death came as a great shock. He had left Chikuni for a well deserved leave in January 1970 and during the course of that leave went to the USA to do some career guidance. He had been doing this at Canisius Secondary School with great success and went overseas to acquire the latest techniques. He was staying at Fordham University when he died, and an extract from a letter from the Rector there, Fr James Hennessey S. J., gave the details of Fr Paddy's death:

"He had been here a month and we were delighted to have him. Rarely has anyone fitted into the community so well. He was always pleasant and his humour was delightful, he went about his business seriously and impressed all who came into contact with him. He was cheerful to the last; several who were with him at dinner last evening remembered that he had been in fine fettle. He must have retired early. This morning a relative, Br Bernard F.M.S., came to call for him. They had planned to spend the day together. It was about 10 a.m. and when Paddy did not answer, he went to his room and found him dead. It looked to me as if he had tried to get up, then had fallen back and died quickly and peacefully. There was no evidence of struggle or pain. Fr Minister anointed him and our house doctor pronounced him dead of a coronary".

Paddy was born in Co. Clare, Ireland, on 19th December 1923, an only child. He went to St Flannan's College in Co. Clare and after his final year in school, entered the Society on 7 September 1942 much to the regret of the diocesan clergy who would have liked him for the diocese. He went through the usual training in the Society doing his regency at Belvedere and Mungret. While at these places he was known for his selflessness and the memory everyone had of Fr. Paddy was of his willingness to help others in any way he could. He was ordained at Milltown Park on the 31st July 1956, a happy event which was tempered by the fact that neither of his parents lived to see him ordained. After his tertianship he came to Zambia.

After spending some time learning the language, he became Manager of Schools for a year, then did two years at Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College and finally came to Canisius in 1962, as Senior Prefect, a position he held until 1969 when he was acting principal for almost a year.

If one were to pick out two virtues in Fr Paddy, all would agree that his ever-cheerfulness and readiness to help others are the two outstanding ones. He was a man who rarely thought of himself or his own comfort and this combined with a simplicity of soul, endeared him to all who had dealings with him. In all the houses in which he had been, he left his mark, for he was gifted with his hands and electricity had always been his chief hobby. In Milltown Park, Dublin he did the wiring for the telephone system while he was studying there. In many houses in Zambia, both in the Society and elsewhere, there are "many things electrical" which are working due to Fr Paddy's dexterity.

He was never too busy to help others and was ready to drop everything in order to be of assistance to the many who called on him to do "little jobs", to fill in for a supply if someone was sick or unavailable, or just to be cheerful in conversation. This willingness to help others and his fondness for the steering wheel, gave him a certain mobility and it was not uncommon to see him disappearing in clouds of dust down the avenue.

He led a tiring life but even so, at the end of a hard week put in at the school work, he would go off on Mass supply to preach and baptise or help in the parish at Chikuni. To one who lived and worked with Fr Paddy for many years, the oft quoted Latin tag "consummatus in brevi, expleveit tempora multa" (he accomplished much in a short time) takes on a new meaning.

Though he died in New York his body was returned to Ireland to be buried at Mungret where he had taught and which was not too far from his old home.
Many letters of sympathy came to Fr O'Riordan, Education Secretary General, not least from the Minister of Education and his Permanent Secretary. Here are some extracts: "Fr Benson will always be remembered for his warm humanity, keen sense of humour and willingness to assist others." (Minister of Education); "Fr Benson's calm and reasoned approach to education problems, his sense of humour and the cooperative and helpful spirit with which he went about his affairs, remain in the memory." (Permanent Secretary, Min. Ed.).

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 45th Year No 3 1970

Obituary :

Fr Patrick Benson SJ (1923-1970)

The news of Fr. Benson's death in New York on May 15th had a stunning effect on those, and they were many, who but a short time previously had welcomed him back for the holiday break from Zambia; he had spent some intervals in his native Clare and had visited a number of friends in the various houses and professed himself sufficiently fit to do an educational course at Fordham before returning to the missions proper.
After the first announcement of his death Fr. James Hennessy, Rector of Fordham, set himself immediately to give a more detailed account : “Several of those who were at dinner with him last evening remarked that he had been in fine fettle. He must have retired early. This morning a relative, Br. Bernard, F.H.S., came to call for him. They had planned a day together. It was about 10 am, and when Paddy did not answer Br. Bernard went to his room and found him dead. It looked to me as if he had tried to get up, then had fallen back and died quickly and peacefully. There was no evidence of struggle or pain. Fr. Minister anointed him and our house doctor pronounced him dead of a coronary”.
Fr. Provincial here was contacted and it was decided to have the burial at Mungret sixteen miles from Fr. Paddy's native place Kilkishen, across the Shannon.
In Fordham the obsequies were not neglected; over twenty Jesuits were present at the exequial Mass on May 18th; the lessons were read by Frs. Joseph Kelly, Brian Grogan and Hugh Duffy. Fr. Paddy Heelan gave an appreciation of his contemporary and friend at an evening Mass previously and Fr. George Driscoll, Superior of the Gonzaga Retreat House for boys, with whom Fr. Benson had already formed a firm friendship, gave the homily or funeral oration. The suffrages on Fr. Benson's behalf from the Fordham community amount to 150 Masses.
Fr. Paddy was a student at St. Flannan's College, Ennis, and had come to our novitiate in 1942 in company with his fellow collegian Michael O'Kelly whose lamentable early death occurred when later they were theologians together in Milltown. Paddy followed the conventional courses - juniorate and degrees from UCD at Rathfarnham; colleges at Belvedere and Mungret, and theology at Milltown, priesthood 1946.
He went to Zambia (North Rhodesia then) in 1948. An energetic teacher and missionary with considerable versatility and skill in practical matters - his flair with electric fittings saved the mission considerable incidental expenses, obliging and resultantly much in demand. He possessed a pleasant sober manner, not dominating but willing to take his share quietly in the conversation, a sense of humour and a droll remark where apposite. About five years since he was home for the normal break and on this present occasion no one from his appearance would have surmised that the end was approaching; since his death we have been informed that in Africa, he had recently experienced a bout of languor which made it advisable that he take a change which he did in Southern Rhodesia and he appeared to have been re-established on his return to Ireland; the sad and unexpected event of May 15th proved other wise. May he rest in peace.

Fr. C. O'Riordan has forwarded the following letters of sympathy from the Minister of Education and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education in Lusaka :

Dear Fr. O'Riordan,
I have learned, with a deep sense of shock, of the untimely death of Fr. Benson whilst in New York. To those of us who were privileged to have known and worked with Fr, Benson, this comes with a heartfelt sense of regret.
Fr. Benson, apart from his long and dedicated service both at Charles Lwanga Training College and Canisius Secondary School at which, towards the end of last year, he acted as principal, will always be remembered for his warm humanity, keen sense of humour and willingness to assist others.
I am writing to you because of Fr. Benson's involvement in education, but would be most grateful if you could convey my sincere condolences, coupled with those of the Minister of State, to Fr. Counihan and to His Lordship, Bishop Corboy, to each of whom Fr. Benson's death must be a grievous loss.
Yours sincerely,
W. P NYIRENDA (Minister of Education).

Dear Fr. O'Riordan,
I was deeply shocked to hear, from our telephone conversation this morning, of Fr. Benson's death.
One is conscious of the significant contribution he made, both at Canisius Secondary School and Charles Lwanga during the years he served in Zambia. His calm and reasoned approach to education problems, his sense of humour and the co-operative and helpful spirit with which he went about his affairs, remain in the memory.
Please accept not only my own heartfelt condolences, but those on behalf of all my officers within the Ministry, who I know will feel Fr. Benson's death keenly.
Yours sincerely,
D. BOWA (Permanent Secretary).

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1970

Obituary

Father Patrick Benson SJ

Fr Benson taught in Belvedere as a scholastic during the years 1951 to 1953. He went to Zambia in 1959 and was engaged in teaching. This spring, he passed through Dublin on his way to the States for further study and paid two visits to Belvedere of which he cherished such happy memories. It was a great shock to all when he died suddenly in Fordham University early in May.

Born: 10 April 1912, Clontarf, Dublin
Entered: 03 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1943, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1948, Woodstock College MD, USA
Died: 11 October 1962, St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park, Dublin Community at the time of death

Younger brother of Rupert - RIP 1978; Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1947 at Woodstock MD, USA (MAR) studying

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 21st Year No 4 1946

America :
Fr. Desmond Coyle, Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland :
“There were three other priests on board, two Irish-American parish. priests and a Capetown parish priest, so we had four Masses each morning in the ship's library, the first said by myself at 5.30. The times of the Masses were announced over the public address system in English and French, A French sub-deacon from Marseilles did the French announcing. We had Confessions on Thursday for the First Friday and 47 went to Holy Communion. After the Masses on Friday the Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart was recited. One of the priests, who bad made the voyage several times, said he had never seen so many attending Mass. The three priests were a godsend to the passengers, as they were very lively and organised sing-songs every evening for young folk. It was amusing to see some very black Protestants from Belfast succumb to the charm of Fr. Thomas Masterson of Longford, now of Springfield diocese, Illinois. He ran the ship. They could not understand how a Catholic priest could be so affable. He is a great friend of our Fathers in St. Louis, and for the last seventeen years has had them three times a year for missions and retreats.
I am staying at St. Ignatius' Rectory, Park Avenue, for the moment. Fr. Vincent McCormick very kindly showed me some of the parish after dinner, as well as Mrs. Julia Grant's house (we had suffrages for her a few years ago ; she built and endowed the only endowed Jesuit school in U.S.A.). A few of the Fathers bound for Rome are here at present Among them is Fr. Dragon of Canada. The church here has two patrons : St. Ignatius and St. Lawrence O'Toole”.
Fr. Coyle is doing the second year of his doctorate in theology at Woodstock. He reached New York on August 4th after a pleasant sea trip on the S.S. Brasil

◆ Irish Province News 38th Year No 1 1963 & ◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1963

Obituary :

Fr Desmond Coyle SJ

Desmond A. J. Coyle as he usually liked to sign himself-was born in Dublin in 1912, the youngest of a large family of boys. He went to school in Belvedere in 1921 and from there to Clongowes, in 1923, after the death of his mother. His brother, Father Rupert, was Lower Line Prefect at the time. A friend who remembers him at that time writes: “What stands out most in my memory is his complete friendliness. He was one of those happy boys who have nothing to conceal and who win friendship by taking it for granted that others are their friends”. In his final year in school - a year incidentally in which Fr. E. Mackey gave the retreat - six boys entered the novitiate; three of these were from a group of five friends: Val Moran, Harry Fay and Des Coyle. It would be hard, I think, to exaggerate the influence that Harry Fay had on Des's life. All of that large vintage of novices for a time there were fifty in the newly-opened Emo - will have vivid memories of Harry's break-down in health from heart disease and his long struggle from that first year in Rathfarnham until his death in Milltown Park in 1939 before he was ordained. Desmond did not have his own first serious skirmish with death till 1937, but even during Juniorate he was seldom really well. He had an unbounded admiration for Harry Fay's extraordinary unselfishness and courage. For Harry kept to the end a great zest for life, especially intellectual life, and he had a flattering way of making everyone else of his numerous friends feel that they had the same kind of capacity as he.
After getting a B.A. in Classics, Desmond went to Tullabeg for Philosophy. In November 1937 the very serious nature of his illness showed itself; he had a haemorrhage from duodenal ulcer early in the morning. Mr. Donal Mulcahy was soon on the scene and then Fr. Billy Byrne. He was anointed and Fr. Billy pronounced him “finished” of course thinking he was unconscious. Des heard this at the time and recalled it with relish as soon as he started to recover. In this crisis he showed himself an extremely courageous and even humorous patient. His remark, when he could barely whisper, “I am as tired as So-and-so”, went into folklore. From this on for a few years his studies were disorganised. He did a brief period in the colleges - Mungret - and then returned to Tullabeg.
When he came to Milltown Park he settled into a routine of life which in essentials he maintained to the end: extremely hard, conscientious work at theology, coupled with a surprising capacity for other interests. He thoroughly enjoyed concerts, matches, etc., perhaps more as social occasions and a meeting place for friends than for themselves. One thing he allowed no place for and that was self-pity on the score of health, which remained more than precarious. He could on occasion be vigorous in protest about some lesser snag but never about this. During his fourth year he became so engrossed in work that he husbanded every minute; though the story that he blessed the Palms in Roundwood from the bus to save time and be able to get back home in the morning is probably apochryphal!
After the Tertianship in Rathfarnham under Fr. L. Kieran, he was assigned to further study in theology; but as this was now the middle forties there was no question of going to Rome or any European centre. After a year in Maynooth he went to Woodstock College, Maryland. Here I should say, from the way he always spoke of it, he was extremely happy. Desmond really loved meeting new people; he was keen to hear all they had to tell him about their work and interests, and was tireless, in turn, in arranging things for them, whether a journey through the realms of dogma or through a city.
He taught the “Short Course” for a while and then Major Dogma; this was probably for him the term of his “ambition”. He was an enthusiast for theology and while in formal lectures his method was somewhat dry for most tastes and too cumulative of authorities, his industry and confidence in its supreme importance were inspiring. He was at his best in his room, speaking privately; visitors always seemed most welcome to him. While he shrank from committing himself to print he was tireless in helping others to amass authorities and sources for an article or book. With his encouragement and assistance, papers, originally read in class, were subsequently published in first-class theological journals. Fr. L. O'Grady, then Provincial, gratefully remembers the work he did in checking references and sources for his two papers read at the Maynooth Summer School and afterwards published in the book Mother of the Redeemer,
A notable and very pleasing trait in his character was his readiness to congratulate anyone who had written, lectured in public, etc. He was most genuinely appreciative on these occasions. In offering condolence and saying Mass for those in trouble he was particularly thoughtful and kindhearted.
He was very interested in Mariology and was an active member of the Irish Mariological Society. A run wrote of “a wonderful course of theological lectures which he gave to the community in the Marian Year on the Maternity of Our Lady. So we were much impressed by the fact that Our Lady should call him on that identical feast”. Another spoke of “his ardent zeal for theology which was contagious. ...”
Fr. A. Gwynn in a recent Province News commented on Fr. Coyle's most useful work as librarian in Milltown for nine years, in the increase “in number and quality of the periodicals purchased”, which attract students also from outside the Society.
Fr. Desmond had a number of very devoted lay friends whom he helped in all family events - baptisms, deaths, marriages, etc. He became a great apostle of the timely and frequent administration of Extreme Unction, as also of Confirmation of dying children and Communion for the sick. It gave him real pleasure to make full use of the relaxation of the fasting laws in such cases. In fact, for Desmond, not to use a privilege to the full was almost equivalent to heresy!
It was a hard bout of work on recent rubrical changes which showed that his strength was ebbing. At first it appeared that he was only some what overwrought and needed rest. While he was in hospital receiving suitable treatment the old, or similar, trouble recurred and he underwent surgical treatment for it. He had a long and trying illness during much of which he struggled with all his old resilience to get back to work. At what stage he realised that this was very unlikely is hard to know. However much he suffered he probably refused to think other than optimistically of his prospects and may have managed, as it were from habit, to exclude other considerations from his consciousness; certainly he never made melancholy play with them. He was a fine example of how to lead a hard life happily. May he rest in peace.

Born: 23 July 1893, Parkton House, Enniscorthy, County Wexford
Entered: 19 September 1916, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1928, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1931, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 01 February 1972, Ballingarry, Mullingar, County Westmeath

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1930 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

Seems he Entered 07 September 1911 then left in 1912 and then reentered in 19 September 1916

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 47th Year No 2 1972

Obituary :

Fr Robert O’Dempsey SJ (1893-1972)

Father Robert O'Dempsey was one of a family who for generations, from their big house on the outskirts of Enniscorthy, had played a prominent part in the life of Wexford, giving a series of professional men, teachers and religious to the county-men and women of more than ordinary ability and a tradition of selfless service. As a boy at Clongowes Father Robert held his own in a Rhetoric, which included the genius of Father Paul Healy and Ray OʻKelly, and the outstanding abilities of Gilbert Laithwaite, Tom Finlay and Father Paul O'Dea. True, from the first his outlook was not merely serious but tense, and sometimes meticulous. Probably modern Psychologists may register a doubt of the idea of a religious vocation with a long tradition of long and detailed training for such a character. That Father Robert's first attempt to be thus dedicated, resulted in real nervous tension would seem to confirm such an attitude. He had to leave the Noviceship with no prospect of return. Rejecting the professional studies to which other members of the family had devoted themselves, he chose to become an apprentice in Todd Burns Drapery business, explaining later that he wanted constant contact with people to counteract his tendency to introspection. He wanted also a way of life he would not find it a wrench to abandon, should he be re-established for a fresh start. He was, after an interval, and went back to begin all over again the trial of the Noviceship and this time to succeed.
The years in Dublin were happy ones, and they enabled him later, to bring practical experience to his aid in renewing the Clongowes Social Study Club, which had fallen on evil days. Indeed throughout his life he held and fostered principles of social justice only gradually coming to be accepted. These early delays precluded the academic opportunities of his brilliant contemporaries; but an exceptionally strong interest in mathematics and mechanical things - he was something of an expert in his hobby of railway development - enabled him to teach with great success in Clongowes and Belvedere for many years. When in 1962 with the closing of Tullabeg he closed his text books for the last time, it gave him real pleasure to know that one of his last students could write from Chantilly that, though his new professor had a world reputation “he's not a patch on Father Bob O'Dempsey”.
One of the last generation of pre-motor car men, Father O'Dempsey had a taste for long walks, often solitary, and observation that distinguished such men as Lloyd Praeger; he was seldom happier than when on a long tramp, as one who climbed Mweelrea and Errigal with him can testify. On one of the Wexford Villas of the early twenties, he and six companions rode from Gorey to the foot of Mount Leinster and climbing it, from that eminence surveyed the county he loved. That the local paper next day described him as the Leader of the Party of which in fact he was the Junior wasn't surprising, but the other members all surviving may recollect his amusing and delighted disclaimer, which the local journalism rejected.
For such a man the routine of a College like Belvedere, with not a blade of grass in its field of vision, and endless drab streets for “Morning Supplies" was not an ideal setting; nonetheless for many years he took not only his full share of class work, but also helped with Debates and other activities, notably in the staging of the most memorable of the Operas, which Father Glynn and Father Byrne produced.
Father O'Dempsey kept a small carefully selected stock of tools, and was always ready to put his skill with them to helpful use. He had an independent mind with an abiding hate of fashionable cant or meaningless cliché. A loyal old Clongownian, he abhorred all that goes with the “Old Tie” tradition. A true Patriot, he detested the “stage” Irishman and all that smacked of Jingoism. In the days when Telefis Eireann - then known as Radio Baile Atha Cliath poured out a succession of sentimental ballads he liked to refer to the Corporation as Radio Bla Bla! He insisted on the 'O' in O‘Dempsey, and was indeed as far removed as it is possible to imagine from the “Eloquent Dempsey”. In short absolute sincerity was his abiding gift.
It was perhaps unfortunate that for an interval in his latter years at Belvedere, the assignment to Bolton Street Technical School was less congenial, provoking stresses which happily, were dissipated by his term of teaching mathematics to the Philosophers at Tullabeg until the dispersal of the faculty there. The concluding years in Tullabeg left him somewhat forlorn, this occupation gone. As time passed he gave up the long cycle rides and even reading be came a burden.
It is a pity he does not seem ever to have put together, much less put in print, his knowledge of the history of the Wexford Rising, which was more detailed and accurate than that of many professional Historians. (His Grandfather had in fact been “out” in the ‘98 Rising). He was neither romantic nor dramatic in his approach, indeed he was almost mathematical in his pre-occupation with facts and the objectivity with which he assessed them was remarkable.
It was sheer strength of character that enabled his long life to be a story of severe mental trials, valiantly encountered, and a noble service done for God and his fellow men.

◆ The Clongownian, 1972

Obituary

Father Robert O’Dempsey SJ

Robert O'Dempsey was born in 1893 at Parkton House, Enniscorthy. His father was a well known solicitor in that town, Robert was one of a large family, four brothers and seven sisters. His early education was with the Christian Brothers, Enniscorthy, for five years, and in 1907 he came to Clongowes, where his three elder brothers had preceded him. He showed considerable ability while at school, and won prizes in the Junior, Middle and Senior Grades of the Intermediate examinations.

On leaving Clongowes in 1911, Robert O'Dempsey entered the noviciate of the Society of Jesus, but broke down in health and was obliged to leave. He went into business in Messrs Todd Burns in Dublin, but always retained the hope of following his vocation to the priesthood, In 1916, his health being restored, his hope was realised, and he was again received into the Society of Jesus. He studied philosophy and theology at Milltown Park and was ordained in 1928. Before his ordination he taught for two years at Clongowes, and after it for thirteen years at the Crescent, Belvedere and Mungret. From 1943 to 1952 he was assistant to the editor of the “Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart”. He then went to Tullabeg, where from 1953 to 1962 he taught mathematical physics and chemistry to the Jesuit students, and after that acted as bursar until his health broke down a few years before his death in 1972,

Father O'Dempsey's life was in one sense uneventful, but in another it was truly remarkable. From his youth, he was periodically affected by nervous trouble, but he courageously overcame it again and again, and thus led a full, active and useful life. When in the colleges, though not a particularly good teacher, he was most devoted and hard working, and was a great “general utility” man, ready to help in the organisation of debates, plays, concerts and games. The work he had to do in the Messenger office was largely routine and not particularly interesting, but he carried it out with great fidelity and accuracy. When appointed to teach maths physics and chemistry in Tullabeg, forty years had elapsed since as a boy, he had distinguished himself in these subjects, and he applied himself courageously to the task of renewing his acquaintance with them.

His Jesuit colleagues remember him as a loyal friend, always ready to help, and as an inspiring example of fortitude in the face of constant adversity.

Born: 26 June 1814, Killyman, County Tyrone (Armagh)
Entered: 24 April 1850, Amiens, France (FRA)
Ordained - pre Entry
Final vows: 15 August 1866
Died: 23 February 1888, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

by 1866 at Rome Italy (ROM) making Tertianship

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
After First Vows he was for a short time at Clongowes.
1853-1884 He was sent as Operarius and Missioner to Gardiner Street. As a Missionary he preached in all parts of Ireland with Robert Haly and others.
1884-1888 He was sent to Galway and then to Limerick
1888 He was moved to the Mater Hospital Dublin where he died 23 February 1888, and of the Gardiner Street Community.
He was a powerful Missionary, and very strong on Hell!

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father William Fortescue (1814-1888)

A native of Co. Louth, was admitted in France as a secular priest into the Society in 1853. He was many years in Gardiner St Church or engaged in missions throughout the country. He came to the Crescent in 1885 but died in Dublin on 23 February, 1888, after an operation.

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

Part of Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin community

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

Chaplain in the First World War.

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 32nd Year No 1 1957

Obituary :

Fr John MacSheahan (1887-1956)

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

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

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

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

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

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1957

Obituary

Father John MacSheahan SJ

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

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

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

A truly Christlike priest, he walked unflinchingly the hard road to his Calvary. Far from hardening him, his sufferings developed, rather, that exquisite charity which bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things. He impressed all by his simplicity and humility. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John MacSheahan (1885-1956)

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

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1912 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

Irish Province News 42nd Year No 2 1967

Obituary :

Fr Henry Croasdaile SJ (1888-1966)

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

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1967

Obituary
Father L H Croasdaile SJ

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

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

Irish Independent, 2-12-1966

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

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

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

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

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

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1950

Obituary

Father Michael Murray SJ

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

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

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

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1898 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/blog/damien-burke/jesuits-and-the-influenza-1918-19/

Jesuits and the influenza, 1918-19
Damien Burke
The influenza pandemic that raged worldwide in 1918-19 (misnamed the Spanish flu, as during the First World War, neutral Spain reported on the influenza) killed approximately 100 million people.

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 5th Year No 3 1930

Obituary :

Fr Henry Foley

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1930

Obituary

Father Henry Foley SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Henry Foley (1862-1930)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 138 : Christmas 2008

Obituary

Fr John (Jack) Donovan (1931-2007)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 29 October 1933, Farranshone, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1951, St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1965, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1970, Wah Yan College, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Died: 02 September 2021, St Paul’s Hospital, Hong Kong - China Province (CHN)

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

1951-1953 St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
1953-1956 Rathfarnham Castle - Studying
1956-1959 St Stanislaus College Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1959-1961 Xavier, Cheung Chau, Hong Kong - Regency, studying language
1961-1962 Wah Yan, Hong Kong - Regency, teaching
1962-1966 Milltown Park - studying Theology
1966-1967 Rathfarnham Castle - Tertianship
1967-1978 Wah Yan Kowloon, Hong Kong - teaching; Rector (1972)
1978-1981 Provincial’s Residence, Ricci Hall, Hong Kong
1981-1983 Casa Ricci, Largo de Sto Agostinho, Macau, Hong Kong
1983-1988 Wah Yan Kowloon, Hong Kong
1988-1996 Wah Yan Hong Kong
1996-2021 Provincial’s Residence, Ricci Hall, Hong Kong

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/sean-coughlan-rip/

Remembering Sean Coghlan, SJ (1933-2021)

Sean was born in Limerick in 1833 and was educated at Sacred Heart College, the Crescent. A good student, with a quiet sense of humour and easy manner, he had a keen interest in sport, especially rugby and hurling, though his own slight frame militated against prowess in such games.

Beneath an unassuming exterior, he had a strong will and a deep spiritual sense. He joined the Jesuits on leaving school and followed the usual programme of formation until 1959 when he was appointed to Hong Kong. Returning to Ireland for theology, he was ordained priest in 1965. He returned to Hong Kong two years later and in 1972 was appointed rector of the Wah Yan College, Kowloon. Aged 40 years, he was the youngest of the 46 Irish Jesuits in Hong Kong.

Many years on, marking his golden jubilee in 2001, the General of the Society wrote praising him for his leadership as rector of Wah Yan, Kowloon, 1972-’79, and as principal of Wah Yan, Hong Kong, 1986-1997. There was also a mention of his efforts in support of the rights of seamen (a life-long interest), and his initiatives in the work of street sleepers. The General might have added his service of refugees, and his abiding interest in and care of students, past and present.

In this last area, he and Fr Deignan, as principals of the two Wah Yans, went to Canada in August 1990 as guests of the Past Students Association in Toronto and Vancouver. They received a most warm welcome. Seven years later, during a furlough, Sean had a memorable visit to past students in the United States and Canada. He recalled: ‘Ex-HK people were in tears when they saw me’. He was ‘bewildered and humbled by the gratitude and respect expressed by the alumni’.

One past student put into writing a tribute to Jesuit education which Sean cherished – “Jesuit education … probes the meaning of human life… Its objective is to assist in the fullest possible development of the God-given talents of each individual person as a member of the human community … Jesuit education insists on individual care and concern for each person.” It reflected Sean’s own care and concern.

Despite the responsibilities of position and office, Sean, though he could be quite assertive when the occasion required it, remained affable, approachable, and kept his sense of fun and humour. This characteristic could lead to unusual situations at times. Notably in 1989 when Father General, Pedro Arrupe, visited Hong Kong.

Sean, as rector, and Paddy McGovern, as his minister, waited at the lift one night for the return of the General from a late dinner. From time to time they used to put in time clowning at bull fighting. On this occasion, after a long wait, they indulged in the pursuit. To the extent, indeed, that they did not hear the lift starting up. Consequently, when the General emerged from the lift he found the Father Minister crouched down with his fingers to his head representing horns and fiercely charging the Rector in trousers and singlet, waving his shirt as a cape and executing a dangerous pass. Fortunately, Fr Arrupe, a Basque gentleman, found the spectacle amusing.

Ten years later, in 1999, there was much concern over an operation for cancer on Fr Freddie Deignan. After the operation, Sean sent a relieved fax message to the Provincial that Fr Deignan had come through the operation very well – ‘Shortly after the operation he asked me if Manchester United had won their match last night’.

In 2005, on the occasion of a visit from the Irish taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, Fr Deignan, in his address, mentioned that the Irish province had sent a total of 105 Jesuits to Hong Kong and that now there were just ten left. The decline in numbers led to a decision to produce a history of the Hong Kong Mission. This was commissioned in 2005 and was published in 2008 as Jesuits in Hong Kong, South China and Beyond (1926-2006), a volume of more than 800 pages and 236 photographs.

In the subsequent years the work of the mission proceeded at a somewhat lesser pace, with Fr Deignan receiving honorary doctorates in recognition of his work for education in Hong Kong, while his friend Sean Coghlan remained a welcoming presence at Ricci Hall and went on with his quiet work for students as warden.

For recreation, he continued his practice of long walks, often accompanied by his friend, a Protestant minister. As the years passed, his health deteriorated gradually, but he still kept an active interest in the fortunes in rugby of his home province and rejoiced at the all-Ireland success of his home county in hurling. He died loved and respected at the age of eighty-eight years. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Thomas Morrissey,

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

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

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

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

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

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 152 : Summer 2013

Obituary

Fr Bill (Liam) McKenna (1921-2013)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 24 November 1925, Liverpool, Lancashire, England
Entered: 07 September 1943, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäus (Frankfurter Dom), Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Final Vows: 02 February 1960, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 15 November 2000, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1955 at Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt (GER I) studying
by 1979 at Rue de Grenelle Paris, France (GAL) sabbatical

Born: 1616, County Limerick
Entered: 22 July 1640, Bordeaux, France (AQUIT) - Aquitainiae Province
Ordained: 1648, Galway
Died: 11 January 1681, La Rochelle, France - Aquitainiae Province

Alias de Stricke

1646 At La Rochelle teaching Grammar
1648 Went to Ireland with Frs Mercurian and Verdier (Fr Verdier returned before 1649, for in this and the following year he taught Theology at Bordeaux)
1651 AQUIT CAT On the Martinique Mission
1666 CAT Is living at Limerick where he revived the Sodailty of BVM. He teaches Humanities, is Preaching, Catechising and administering the Sacraments. Was on the Mission in the Indies 12 years. On Irish Mission 4 years.
1666 Thomas Stritch SJ teaches school
1670 Fr Stritche was in Ireland, Limerick or Ennis (Arch Ir Coll Rome I 85-87)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1648 At Bordeaux
1649 Came to Ireland with Mercure Verdier - Visitor to Irish Mission - and was Ordained by the Nuncio
Twelve years a Missioner in West Indies
1662-1666 In Limerick, Preaching, Catechising, administering the Sacraments and teaching Humanities. (HIB CAT 1666 - ARSI)
He had extraordinary adventures, which are told in Hogan’s “Irish Exiles in St Kitt’s”.

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ :
1647 Teaching at La Rochelle and chosen to accompany Fr Mecure Verdure as Socius and interpreter for his Visitation of the Irish Mission
When the Irish Visitation was finished he returned to France for further studies and then volunteered for the West Indies Mission, where there were thousands of Irish exiles who needed spiritual support.
1650 Arrives in Martinique and went from there to Guadaloupe to work with the Irish, English and negro people
1662 Failing health necessitated return to Europe.
1663-1679 Came to Ireland and worked in Limerick, and then was banished to France at the time of the Titus Oates plot in 1679
1680 Arrived at La Rochelle in poor health and died the following year there

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had made Priestly studies and graduated MA probably at Bordeaux before Ent 1640 Bordeaux
After First Vows he was sent teaching in AQUIT Colleges for six years, and was then designated as a travelling companion for Mercure Verdier on the occasion of his Visitation of the Irish Mission 1648-1649.
After Verdier and Stritch’s arrival in Ireland, John was Ordained Priest by the Nuncio at Galway.
During the Visitation of the Mission he was interpreter for Father Verdier. At the end of the Visitation, he returned with Verdier to France and was assigned to the task of completing his theological studies at Bordeaux.
1650-1662 He had volunteered for the missions and arrived in Martinique in 1650. From there he travelled on to Guadelupe where he worked among the Irish, the English and the negroes until in 1662 failing health forced him to return to Europe
1663-1679 Came to Ireland and worked in Limerick, and then was banished to France at the time of the Titus Oates plot in 1679
1680 Arrived in poor health at La Rochelle and died there the following year 11 January 1681

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father John Stritch SJ 1616-1681
Fr John Stritch was born in Limerick in 1616. He entered the Society at Bordeaux in 1640.

While teaching at La Rochelle in 1647 he was chosen to act as Socius and interpreter to Fr Mercure Verdier during his Visitation of the Irish Mission.

His studies completed he volunteered for the West Indies Mission. Arriving at St Kitt’s he was welcomed and bless by the Irish slaves there, heard the confessions of 3,000 of them and then passed on disguised as a timber merchant to Mount Serrat where great numbers of Irish were employed as woodcutters. He revealed his real character to the, and he spent the mornings administering the Sactraments, and the day in hewing wood to throw the dust in the eyes of the English. Meanwhile, the heretics, jealous of the religious consolations of the Catholics of St Kitts, transported 150 of them to Crab Island and left them to die of starvation. Fr Stritch got together as many of the Irish in St Kitts as he could, and he passed with them to the French island of Guadeloupe, where he lived a long time with them, now and then going in disguise to help the Irish on the other islands. He converted in his excursions about 80 Protestants a year.

Owing to ill health he retired to Ireland in 1662 and laboured in Limerick where he revived the Sodality of Our Lady.

In 1679 he was banished to France owing to the Titus Oates Plot and he died at La Rochelle in 1681.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
STRICH, JOHN,* quitted Bourdeaux with Pere Verdier, 2nd November, 1648: was obliged to wait at Rochelle for five weeks until a sea-worthy ship could be procured : sailed thence on the 5th of December, and after a rough and stormy voyage reached Galway, on the 28th of December, that year, when I lose sight of him.

The first Jesuit school in Limerick was founded by Father David Wolfe SJ (1528-c.1578) in 1565. Over the next three hundred years, the Jesuits presence in Limerick ebbed and flowed. By 1640, a Jesuit residence was established at Castle Lane and by 1672, a school was opened near St Mary’s Cathedral. After an interval of eighty-six years from the Suppression of the Society in 1773, the Jesuits returned to Limerick in 1859 after Bishop John Ryan (1784-1864) had invited the Society to establish a school in the city. The school initially opened in 1859 as St Munchin's College on Hartstonge Street. The pioneer Jesuit community in 1859 were Frs. Edward Kelly (1824-1905) (Rector), Thomas Kelly (1829-1898), Peter Foley (1826-1893), Edmund Hogan (1831-1917), Matthew Saurin (1825-1901) and one scholastic, Mr. Matthew Russell (1834-1912). In January 1862, the Jesuits purchased a neighbouring residence, Crescent House. The church building was started in 1864, opened in 1868 and named after the Sacred Heart in 1869. The college had ceased to be a seminary for the diocese in 1867 and was renamed the Sacred Heart College in 1873. Commonly known as the Crescent College, it ceased to be a fee paying school in 1971 and became the Crescent College Comprehensive SJ. In 1973 the Comprehensive moved to a modern greenfield site at Dooradoyle. Later it became a co-educational school and the Crescent Preparatory School was closed in 1976.

Born: 09 April 1934, Dalkey, County Dublin
Entered: 14 September 1951, St Mary’s Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1965, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1968, St Ignatius, Stamford Hill, London, England
Died: 17 September 2021, Coptic Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia - Southern Africa Province (SAP)

Part of the Chula House, Lusaka community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ZAM, 03 December 1969

1951-1953 St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
1953-195 Rathfarnham Castle - Studying
1956-1959 St Stanislaus College Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1959-1962 Chivuna, Moinze - Regency studying language, then teaching at Canisius College, Chikuni
1962-1963 Innsbruck, Austria - studying Theology
1963-1966 Milltown Park - studying Theology
1966-1967 Rathfarnham Castle - Tertianship
1967-1971 St Ignatius College London - studying Education, then studying Music
1971-1980 Charles Lwanga, Monze, Zambia - teaching Music
1980-1991 Kizito Pastoral Centre, Monze, Zambia
1991-2017 Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
2017-201 Chula House, Lusaka, Zambia

https://www.iji.ie/2021/08/24/maembo-the-one-who-sings/

Padraig Swan, Director of Faith and Service Programmes in Belvedere College, reflects on the life of Frank Wafer SJ, who worked with the Tonga people in Zambia to preserve their language and music.

This year, Frank Wafer SJ marks his 70th anniversary in the Society of Jesus, an incredible achievement and celebration of a lifelong vocation.

Frank was born in 1934 in Dublin and attended Christian Brothers’ schools in Dun Laoghaire and Monkstown. He joined the Jesuits in 1951 when he was just 17. He completed his Bachelors’ Degree in UCD before going to Tullybeg for Philosophy. He first went to Zambia in 1959 for his Regency, and spent the next two years in Chivuna and Chikuni. In 1961 he went to study theology in Innsbruck, Austria and he completed this part of his Jesuit education in Milltown, Dublin, where he was ordained in 1965.

He completed his Tertianship in 1966, obtaining an MA from the London University School of Oriental and African Studies. That year he also went back to Zambia as a missionary, following in the footsteps of many Irish Jesuits. It was the beginning of many years living and working in rural Chikuni in the diocese of Monze in Southern Zambia.

Preservation of Tonga Culture

Andrew Lesniara SJ, who worked with him in Chikuni spoke of his love of music and of the Tonga culture and described his work to preserve the heritage of the people who lived there.

“At the very beginning of his work in Zambia Fr Frank Wafer recognised the importance of music and dance in the life of the Tonga people. He was one of the first missionaries of inculturation that was not being talked about or addressed. He drove on his motorbike and recorded traditional music. Based on these tunes, he worked with a team of people who composed Catholic hymns in native Tonga for use at Mass and other occasions.

These became very popular and from them sprang activities of local composers who were given the green light to break tradition of singing Latin hymns and translating lyrics into Tonga. The music was recorded on reel-to-reel tape recorders and these recordings were used to teach hymns and songs to others in their native language. The collection is currently being digitised to preserve them, otherwise the unique and large collection will be lost. These audio archives will eventually be available online for researchers and cultural enthusiasts.”

In addition to writing and recording liturgical music – which is still in use today – Frank spent much of his priestly life writing dictionaries. He created the only Tonga-English dictionary available in the world. He also established the Mukanzubo Institute and Museum in Chikuni for the promotion of Tonga culture, music and dance for the next generation.

The One Who Sings

Frank is known as maembo in the Tonga language, meaning ‘the one who sings’. He recognised the importance of holding on to the traditions for the younger generations, and in particular the music. In June 2019, I travelled with a radio producer and professional photographer to Chikuni to start the work of preserving the many recordings made by Frank. In all there are 343 ‘reel to reel’ tapes and 201 cassette tapes of recordings. I had been visiting Chikuni and Mukanzubo for many years and responded to an ongoing request to help preserve the recordings that were stored in a metal filing cabinet and in danger of deteriorating giving a sense of urgency to the project.

The process of preserving the recordings was to first create a catalogue of what recordings were there and to index them with details such as numbering each tape, describing the box, writing a note of the description on the box, the condition of the tape, the size etc. Each tape and associated notes were also photographed. This process took several days and was facilitated by Yvonne Ndala and Mabel Chombe from the Mukanzubo Institute. The final result is most likely the only comprehensive record of all the recordings made by Frank.

Retirement in Lusaka

Since his retirement from Mukanzubo and Chikuni Frank has spent his time in John Chula House in Lusaka where he is cared for by the Jesuits and a medical team. We were delighted to see him look so well and to be able to share with him the news that work had begun on preserving the large archives of recordings he made, when we visited him in 2019. The news that his recordings would be kept for posterity brought him great joy.
As he marks his 70th anniversary in the Jesuits it is without doubt that he has already left a great legacy – to the Zambia Jesuit Province, to his own personal vocation as a missionary, and to the Tonga people. He has indeed served his mission for the Greater Glory of God. AMDG.

https://jesuitssouthern.africa/2021/09/17/fr-francis-wafer-sj-rip/
The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) mourns the loss of Fr Francis Wafer SJ.

After several years of declining health he passed away peacefully this afternoon, Friday 17 September 2021, the Feast of St Robert Bellarmine, at the Coptic Hospital in Lusaka. Fr Wafer will be remembered for his deep care for the Tonga people in Chikuni Mission, where he founded and directed the Mukanzubo Kalinda Institute.

We commend Fr Wafer to the Lord, knowing that he is now at peace.

https://www.mukanzubo.org

Fr Francis Wafer was born on 9 April 1934 in Dalkey, Ireland to William and Kathleen Wafer. After completing his schooling with the Christian Brothers in Monkstown, he entered the Novitiate of the Society on 14 September 1951 in Emo Park. He completed his Juniorate at Rathfarnham from 1953-1956 and then went on to do his Philosophy studies at Tullabeg (1956-1959). In 1960-1961 he was missioned to complete his Regency at Canisius Secondary School in Chikuni, Zambia. He did his Theology at Innsbruck and Milltown between 1962-1966, and was ordained 29 July 1965 in Dublin. He was soon sent on Tertianship at Rathfarnham between 1966-1967 and took Final Vows on 2 February 1968. He read for an MA at the University of London' School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), graduating in 1969, before moving to Zambia where he became a Lecturer at St Charles Lwanga College in Chikuni from 1970-1978. Some stints of pastoral work followed, in Kasiya in 1979, and Nakambala in 1980. He then returned to Chikuni and was Parish Priest at St Mary’s, Monze from 1981-1989 but fell ill. Between 1989-1990 he returned to Dublin to recover. He then returned to Chiknui and started the Mukanzubo Kalinda Institute from 1990-2007 where he worked as Director. He stepped down as Director but remained working there from 2007-2014, and from 2014-2015, with his failing health, he took a step back, only assisting when he could, but finally retired to Chula House in Lusaka in 2015 where he stayed until his death on the Feast of St Robert Bellarmine, 17 September 2021. He will be remembered for his formidable contributions in learning and conserving Tonga Culture and for his deep respect for and love of the local people.

Born: 29 February 1912, Aughrim Street, Stoneybatter, Dublin
Entered: 26 May 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final Vows: 15 August 1947, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 09 January 2008, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Transcribed HIB to ZAM: 30 July 1970; ZAM to HIB : 31 July 1982

by 1941 at Rome Italy (ROM) working at Curia

29th February 1912 Born in Dublin
Early education at CBS, St. Mary’s Place and Bolton Street Technical College
1929-1936 Worked at French Polishing
26th March 1937 Entered the Society at Emo
1st April 1939 First Vows at Emo
1939-1940 Milltown Park – Book binding and French Polishing
1940-1946 Roman Curia – Secretary
1946-1958 Crescent College, Limerick – sub-sacristan; in charge of staff and Infirmarian 15th August 1947 Final Vows at Crescent College
1958-1960 Loyola House – Provincial’s secretary
1960-1961 Manresa House – Secretary to Editor of Madonna
1961-1963 Curia Rome – Mission Secretariat
1963-1970 Zambia – Assistant Secretary : Bishop of Monze
1970 Transcribed to Zambia Province
1970-1979 Bursar – Canisius College & Community, Chikuni
1979-1984 Milltown Park – ‘Messenger’ Office administration
1982 Transcribed to Irish Province
1984-2008 St. Francis Xavier’s, Gardiner Street –
1984-1993 Bursar
1993-1995 Assistant Treasurer; House Chapel Sacristan.
1995-2002 House Chapel Sacristan
2002-2008 Cherryfield Lodge – Prayed for the Church and the Society
9th January 2008 Died at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin.

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Brother Christopher Murray, known to his fellow Jesuits as Christy, but always to his family as Kit, was born on 29 February 1912. He was always ready for a joke or wisecrack about the fact that he had a birthday only once every four years and so was still only in his 23rd year when he went to Cherryfield at the age of 90!. During that long life he was to live in close proximity to some of the great drama of the 20th century both in Ireland and in Europe. He was born about six weeks before the Titanic foundered in the Atlantic, and two years before World War 1 broke out. He was too young to join his elder brothers and sisters who walked a mile down North Circular Road from their Aughrim Street home to say the Rosary outside Mountjoy Jail as Kevin Barry was being hanged. As a boy he saw Michael Collins walk past the Christian Brothers' School beside the Black Church at the head of the funeral cortege of Arthur Griffith. A short week later he saw Collins' own funeral pass the same spot on its way to Glasnevin Cemetery.

He did his early schooling at the Christian Brothers School in St. Mary’s Place and got a two year scholarship to Bolton St. College of Technology but only stayed for one year. He worked for seven years apprenticed to a French polisher of furniture. He was an official in the Trade Unions. Those who knew him will not be surprised to know that he led at least two strikes! At the age of 27 he entered the novitiate (1937) having made what he said was a ‘mature decision’. Later his mother said she was surprised at the decision but he saw no problem once he made his mind up.

Shortly after he ended his novitiate, he was posted to Rome in 1940. While en route he had barely passed through Paris when it fell to the Germans. The day he arrived in Rome was the time Mussolini declared war. As long as he stayed in the house he was technically in the Vatican but if he walked out the front door he was in Italy! It was a difficult time since on arrival he was asked to type a letter in Latin. He had no idea of Latin and never typed in his life. However he soon mastered the necessary skills with his usual intelligence and determination. While he was in Rome the food shortages became desperately severe. The situation took such a toll on his health that he was on a milk diet for a whole year after the war ended. One thing that upset him very much afterwards was the suggestion that Pope Pius XII had abandoned the Jews to their fate during the war. He himself had run messages on behalf of the Holy Father to Jewish families in hiding around the city, bringing them food and other supplies. He rarely traveled twice by the same route lest he was under surveillance. Christy worked with Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, the legendary "Vatican Pimpernel" who did so much for the Jews and whose life was portrayed by Gregory Peck in a major feature film. He did two stints at Rome 1940-46 in the secretariat of the English Assistant and 1961-63 at the Mission Secretariat.

Back in Ireland he did various jobs in the Crescent both in the Church and the community from 1946 to 1958, before being appointed secretary to the Provincial from 1958 to 1960. He also worked as secretary to the editor of The Madonna from Manresa House in 1960/61.

While in Rome he volunteered for the Zambian mission and for seven years (1963-70) he was secretary to Bishop Corboy, whom he had known as a novice. These were the heady years of post-independence. At the end of his life it was these years with Bishop Corboy that always came to his mind. He then was bursar at Canisius Secondary School from 1970 to 1979.

He returned to Ireland in 1979 and worked from Milltown Park in the Messenger Office up to 1984 from where he went to Gardiner Street where he spent his remaining years (1984-2002) before he went to the Nursing Unit of Cherryfield. His work always included looking after the finances and the sacristy.

Christy was gifted with a high IQ as was evident in his ease in dealing with figures and accounts. He was widely read and well informed. This led to his holding a very definite position on a variety of matters. In any discussion it was not long before this was made clear with the words ‘the facts of the matter are’. Naturally this ensured lively and occasionally heated discussions on a variety of topics. An inveterate walker, he must have known every street in Dublin. Until he was into his 90s he did a four mile walk every Wednesday up and down the North Circular Road to visit Stephanie, his youngest sister, still living in the family home. She herself categorized him as a "man of will". We, in John Austin House, noticed his pace slacken towards the end until at last he had to give it up.

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/christy-murray-rip/

Christy Murray RIP
Please pray for Rev. Brother Christopher Murray, S.J. who died at Cherryfield Lodge on 9 January 2008, aged 95 years. May he rest in peace.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/from-french-polisher-to-roman-secretary/

From French Polisher to Roman Secretary
An interview with Christy Murray on Nov, 10, 2005
First published in Interfuse
Interfuse: I was amazed when I found out that you were born in 1912 – on February 29! You are one of those special people.
Christy Murray: Yes. A birthday only every four years.
That’s why you have lived so long, probably! Sure you’re only 23 years old! 1912 – that was before the First World War. Have you any interesting memories from those early days?
I can’t really say I have. I didn’t start school until I was nine.
Was the school in Dublin?
Yes. I didn’t go to Junior School. I went to a med Miss Ryan on the Berkeley Road, and only spent a year there. Otherwise I got taught until I was nine at home. And then I went to the Christian Brothers in St. Mary’s Place near the Black Church.
How many years were you there?
All my school life – until I was 14 or 15. I did the exam for Bolton Street Tech and got a scholarship there. So I was there for a couple of years, catching up on some of the things I was short on in my education. I got a scholarship for two years, but I didn’t stay the two years. I went as an apprentice to a trade. I was a French polisher.
A French polisher! That’s very interesting.
I worked for seven or eight years at French polishing before I entered the Society.
So you were a late vocation?
Yes. I was 27 when I entered. One of the things I decided was that I must qualify in something before I enter religious life. It was a planned thing, you know, and then I was interviewed in Gardiner Street by the Provincial there. When I went to Emo I wanted to feel that, if I didn’t like what I met with there, I could go back to the trade. As well as being a qualified tradesman I was an official in the trade union.
Was Gardiner Street your church, or how did you come into contact with the Jesuits?
No, Berkeley Road was my parish church. But I went down to Gardiner Street to have an interview. Since I was thinking of entering the religious order there, I had to be interviewed by a Jesuit, so that’s what brought me to Gardiner Street.
And you met the Provincial. Who was the Provincial then?
I don’t remember. I thought at that time that it was the Superior of Gardiner Street who interviewed me.
You went to Emo in 1936, and finished your novitiate about 1939. What was your first assignment?
My first assignment was to Rome. I was sent directly to our head house in Rome. I was secretary to the Assistant General – the English assistant.
So, instead of polishing wood you were writing letters.
I had to learn to use a typewriter there. When I was sent out I hadn’t any experience of doing secretarial work. So in Rome they had to give me time to learn how to use a typewriter, and so on. I remember that well because I felt very awkward then, arriving. And, you see, I couldn’t come back from Rome because I arrived in Italy the day that country entered the war alongside Germany, so there was no question of coming back.
So you spent all the war years there. And when you went there the General was Fr. Ledochowski. He died during the war.
Yes. He died the second year I was there.
I see. And then you had Father Janssens.
That’s right.
It must have been interesting knowing both of those men. Any memories of those times?
Well, I can’t say I can remember clearly now, but the fact was that I found them both very encouraging. I was doing a type of work I had never done before and they were giving me time to get used to doing it. There were fifteen assistants – general assistants. When I arrived I didn’t know anything about typing or anything like that and they gave me time to learn it. It was a Canadian brother who taught me.
You were there till the end of the war. And then in 1946 you came back to Ireland. Had you been away all seven years without coming back?
There was no question of coming back. I was locked in Italy. I was one of the enemy, so I couldn’t travel. And, of course, there wasn’t any question of Mussolini giving permission to anybody but himself. It was a hard time, because we hadn’t enough to eat. We were living on Vatican territory. The Curia of the Jesuits was on Vatican land. When we stepped outside of the house we were in Italy, but when we were in the house we were in the Vatican. And therefore, the police couldn’t come into the house to arrest anyone. Once you stepped outside the hall door you were officially in Italy, but once you remained in the house you were a Vatican citizen.
What kind of work did you do in Ireland when you came back at the end of the war? Were you in Gardiner Street?
Yes. I was in Gardiner Street. Brother Priest was the sacristan there and I was his assistant.
Brother Priest?
That’s right. A funny name, but I found him very good. He helped me along.
You were assistant there. And did you stay in Gardiner Street for many years?
To tell you the truth, I forget.
You didn’t go to any other place? Were you in Gardiner Street for the rest of your days?
I forget the sequence, but I know I volunteered to go to Zambia.
Oh, so you went to Zambia?
Yes. It was the time that Father Corboy was made bishop. I knew him in his noviceship. Later he became Bishop Corboy. I volunteered to go because I had secretarial experience.
So you volunteered to work as secretary to Bishop Corboy.
That’s right. I spent fifteen years in Zambia with him.
And that was secretarial work, too.
Yes. I was in Rome at the time I volunteered to go to Zambia. I had a chat with the General at the time that Bishop Corboy was created bishop, and I had a chat with the General about going and joining him. He invited me to go and do the same kind of work as I had been doing.
You went back to Rome on a visit and when you were there you talked to the General about going with Bishop Corboy?
Yes. I was appointed to Rome at the time. I had been in Rome a number of years. It was my second time in Rome.
Oh, you went back a second time, after the war?
Yes. I was invited back.
That was after time as assistant sacristan in Gardiner Street?
That’s right.
That was a good few years afterwards because Bishop Corboy didn’t go until well into the 50s. You had quite a few years then in Zambia, did you?
I had fifteen years there. I got leave every five years – this is how I know. I just got leave once in five years…
Back to Dublin?
I was on my third leave back to Dublin when someone else was placed in my job.
I see. And were you then back in Gardiner Street again? You didn’t have any other assignment?
No, not that I remember.
So you’ve had a very varied career – Rome and Zambia and Ireland. And of course you came here to Cherryfield from Gardiner Street, so that was your last assignment there. And how do you find it here in Cherryfield?
The fact of the matter is that I was over 90 when I came here. Actually it was my 90th birthday the day I came in here. The 29th of February. I’ve been here over a year. I’m close to two years here.
And are you comfortable here?
In fact I’m surprised I’m so comfortable, because I had some experience of being in hospital, in care, before. I was in a ward with five or six others. Then I come here and I have my own room. This place is a great idea, I think. We’re really blessed to have this place. We’re one of the few Orders that has a good organised house for the aged.
The changes that have taken place in your time in the Society are tremendous. Especially, there were a lot more brothers when you entered.
Yes. Hadn’t got the same chances, you might say.
They had larger communities of brothers in the society.
Yes. There were a bigger number of brothers then than now. The brothers did a lot of work taking care of the houses and the farms. There were far more vocations then. In fact, it was nearly a fight to get into the Society then. Personally, I think I had an exceptionally happy time in all my years in the Society and in all the different jobs I was doing, and I got a fair amount of travel done.
Would you have a word of advice or a special message you’d like to give to the Province as you celebrate nearly 94 years?
I would like to say that they should keep the Brothers’ vocations in Ireland. They shouldn’t be sent to England. And even if they are few, they’ve a better chance of increasing their number by keeping them at home. I think that parents get preoccupied if they can’t visit them. I remember the impression I got from the first visit from my family in the novitiate in Emo. When I got talking to my mother – six people came to see me – she said that she expected to be bringing me back home, that I really wasn’t a person who was a likely Religious, and she thought she’d be taking me back home. She told me afterwards, “I didn’t expect you to be so happy; I thought you’d be coming back home, that you’d made a mistake”.
But you hadn’t made a mistake.
That’s the thing. I was thinking the opposite – that I was old enough to decide at that point in my life what my future was going to be, because I had already served my time at French polishing and as a trade union official.
You never felt like giving up. You were happy in your vocation.
I thought I was deciding when I was mature enough to decide. I felt that I had made it quite clear that I wasn’t making a mistake. I was surprised when she told me that.
That satisfaction with your vocation seems to have continued over the years.
Yes. When I was working in Rome, for example, everything went so well that I couldn’t believe it.
It’s great to be able to say in your nineties that you have no regrets about the way you chose.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Polisher before entry
Quite the reverse.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 15th Year No 2 1940

Milltown Park :
Rev. Fr. Assistant (P. A. Dugré) reached Dublin 21 December 1939, and stayed with until 30 January, when he left for Scotland via Belfast. He counted on reaching Rome on 1 March. He was accompanied from London by our Brother Christopher Murray who has taken up the duties of amanuensis in the Curia at 5 Borgo Santo Spirito.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 135 : Spring 2008

Obituary

Br Christopher (Christy) Murray (1912-2007)

Homily preached by Barney McGuckian at the Funeral Mass at St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner St., on Jan. 11th, 2008
On a headstone in one of the catacombs of Rome, where Brother Christopher Murray spent a number of challenging years, there is an inscription which reads “He has completed his baptism”. This short statement reveals something of how the early Christians understood Baptism. For them it was not a simple rite of passage or a brief passing ceremony. It was the first step in a process that would only end with death. Just as in show business it takes a life-time to become an over-night success, so it takes a whole life time to become a fully baptized Christian. This completion came for our Brother Christy two days ago in the Nursing Home at Cherryfield Lodge. He was holding the hand of Rachel McNeill, and, evidently, was quite conscious right up until the end. I, exceptionally, was among the concelebrants at Mass in the chapel across the corridor. As we had been told that Christy was very low, we commended his soul to the Lord. We do so again today strengthened by the encouraging text from the book of Maccabees that it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, including even those “who make a pious end” that they may be released from their sins. cf II Maccabees 12:43-45.

Jesus Himself was baptised in the River Jordan at the beginning of his public life as we will hear at Mass on Sunday next. But this was only the first of many Baptisms that he would undergo. When Jesus referred to Baptism he seemed to become tense. “There is a baptism I must receive, and what a constraint I am under until it is completed” (Luke, 12:50). His complete Baptism came on Calvary when he finally gave up the ghost, after taking the vinegar, surely symbolic of everything distasteful in life and bowing his head in acceptance. (Cf John 19, 29-30). As his followers, who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, as St Paul puts it, we are all called to follow a similar path.

If Brother Christopher, known to his fellow Jesuits as Christy, but always to his family as Kit, had lived until February 296 of this year he would have been 96. He was always ready for a joke or wisecrack about the fact that he was still only in his 23 year while in Cherryfield. During that long life he was to live in close proximity to some of the great drama of the 20th century both in Ireland and in Europe. He was born about six weeks before the Titanic foundered in the Atlantic, and two years before World War 1 broke out. He was too young to join his elder brothers and sisters who walked a mile down North Circular Road from their Aughrim Street home to say the Rosary outside Mountjoy Jail as Kevin Barry was being hanged. As a boy he saw Michael Collins walk past the Christian Brothers' School beside the Black Church at the head of the funeral cortege of Arthur Griffith. A short week later he saw Collins' own funeral pass the same spot on its way to Glasnevin Cemetery. Shortly after he ended his novitiate, he was posted to Rome in 1940. While en route he had barely passed through Paris when it fell to the Germans. On arrival, he was in time to see Mussolini declare war. However, when in 1963 he went to join Bishop Corboy in the Diocese of Monze in Zambia, it was to the relative stability of the newly-won independence of the country. While there he was a most conscientious worker. As assistant secretary for education at Canisius Secondary School in Chikuni, he is still remembered as someone dedicated to his work, carrying it out meticulously to the last detail.

Christy won a scholarship to Bolton Street College of Technology on leaving primary school and became a French Polisher. Many of us still remember the beautiful finish of the doors in the Chapel at Emo, a testimony to the quality of his workmanship. Before entering the Jesuits he was active in the Trade Unions. Those who knew him will not be surprised to know that he led at least two strikes! After working for seven years at his trade he decided to embrace religious life. He may have been influenced in this by the example of two of his elder sisters who had joined the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, and headed off for Australia and New Zealand respectively. One of them, Sister Lua is still alive at 98 in New Zealand.

Christy took his first vows on April 1st, 1939 at Emo. Realizing that he had “turned pro" that day he took the implications of what he had done with the utmost seriousness for the rest of his life. His commitment, particularly his obedience, was sorely tried very shortly afterwards. He had only arrived a few days in Rome when he was told to type an important letter in Latin. Not only did he not know the basics of Latin, he had never ever typed a word in any language in his life! The kindness of Fr, General Ledochowski, one of his great heroes, helped him survive this and other trials. While he was in Rome the food shortages became desperate. The situation took such a toll on his health that he was on a milk diet for a whole year after the war ended.

One thing that upset him very much afterwards was the suggestion that Pope Pius XII had abandoned the Jews to their fate during the war. He himself had run messages on behalf of the Holy Father to Jewish families in hiding around the city, bringing them food and other supplies. He rarely travelled twice by the same route lest he was under surveillance. Christy worked with Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, the legendary “Vatican Pimpernel” who did so much for the Jews and whose life was portrayed by Gregory Peck in a major feature film. Another of his friends was Mrs Thomas Kiernan, wife of the Irish Ambassador to the Holy See, better known for her renderings of "If I were a blackbird" and “The three lovely lassies from Banyon" as Delia Murphy. Her relationship with non-Nazi German officers through the Irish Embassy, the only English-speaking Embassy in Rome after the U.S. entered the war, proved a life-saver for many endangered young Italians. Christy remembered her arriving at the Borgo Santo Spirito with the gift for the starving community of a much appreciated pig in the boot of the ambassadorial car,

Christy was gifted with a high IQ. This was evident in his ease in dealing with figures and accounts. He was widely read and well informed. This led to his holding a very definite position on a variety of matters. In any discussion it was not long before this was made clear with the pronouncement “the facts of the matter are”. Naturally, this ensured lively and occasionally heated discussions on a variety of topics. However once he entered the chapel he moved into a different mode. His recollection and silence here was very evident. Most of his life in religion was spent either in finances or in the sacristy of our churches. He is still remembered with great affection in Limerick, where he was sacristan for 12 years from 1946-58.

An inveterate walker, he must have known every street in Dublin. Until he was into his 90s he did a four mile walk every Wednesday up and down the North Circular Road to visit Stephanie, his youngest sister, still living in the family home. She herself categorized him as a “man of will”. We, in John Austin House, noticed his pace slacken towards the end until he had to give it up. Shortly afterwards, we heard that he had moved to Cherryfield. He was remarkably regular in both his religious observance and his physical exercise right up until he was confined to a wheel-chair in Cherryfield.

As a disciple of Ignatius of Loyola, Christy would have learned to begin his daily prayer with the same formula; that all my intentions, actions and operations may be directed solely to the service and praise of the divine majesty. This is a prayer for holiness and one that is only fully answered at the hour of death. Indeed it could be described as a prayer for the fullness of baptism into Christ Jesus. We hope that it was fully answered for our brother Christy when the time came. Like Ignatius he was a man small in stature and, indeed, in death his features reminded me very much of the death-mask of our Holy Founder that has come down to us. As we pray today for the repose of Christy's soul there is nothing to prevent us also praying to him.

Born: 02 May 1922, Carrigaholt, County Clare
Entered: 07 September 1940, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1954, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1978, Mazabuka, Seminary, Choma, Zambia
Died 21 July 2008, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Fr Seán was 49 years of age when he first came to Zambia in 1971. It was for him a new country, a new people and a new language. In the normal course of events, he would have come to Zambia thirty years earlier during regency time. As a scholastic, he spent his three years regency teaching, one year at the Crescent College in Limerick and two years at Clongowes Wood College.

He was born in Kilkee, Co Clare, a seaside resort, in 1922. His schooling was at the Christian Brothers in Limerick, at The Crescent College in Limerick and also at St Flannan's College in Ennis.

At the age of 18 he joined the Jesuit novitiate at Emo Park in 1940. After his first vows, he followed the normal course of studies: humanities, philosophy, regency and theology, being ordained at Milltown Park in 1954. Tertianship came at the end of his formation in 1956. He spent a short time in Emo as bursar, then for twelve years he was back in Limerick at the Sacred Heart Church as minister of the house and prefect of the church.

Fr Seán brought to his work as a priest a spirit of prayer, a warm personality, a spirit of hard work, a friendliness which people found easy to approach, a concern for people and a good sense of humour.

In 1971 there came a great change of life and of lifestyle for Fr Seán. He came out to Zambia. His first assignment was as secretary to the Bishop of the Diocese for six months. Then he went to Malawi to the Language Centre at Lilongwe to learn this new language called ciNyanja, followed by a few months in a parish in the Chipata diocese to practice what he had learned.

Returning to Zambia, he was posted to Nakambala to the Sugar Estate in Mazabuka where he spent the rest of his time in Zambia doing parochial work among the people on the Estate. These were workers who came from various parts of Zambia with their different languages. For this, the ciNyanja Fr Seán had learned, was ideal as it is a sort of lingua franca in Zambia, though its main location is the Eastern Province and Malawi.

Poor health took him back to Ireland for a long break but he returned to continue his work at Nakambala until 1986 when he had to return to Ireland for good. When he had recovered after a few years in Ireland he had hoped to come back again to Nakambala, as he wrote clearly to his Provincial, ‘I am keen to return to Nakambala’. But unfortunately, his health took a turn for the worse and he could not return.

For the next sixteen years until his death, Fr Seán soldiered on, working in the church, often in pain but he was always most welcoming to all who sought his services. The qualities – shall I call them virtues – which Fr Seán brought to his priestly life in the Crescent in Limerick, he brought also to Nakambala in Zambia and he also brought them back with him to Gardiner Street in Dublin. He died in Cherryfield Lodge infirmary in Dublin on 21st July 2008 at the ripe old age of eighty six years.

My fond memory of Fr Seán (known to his near contemporaries as Fr Max) is a Sunday evening in Mazabuka with two of his fellow Jesuits from other communities, meeting for a chat, a cuppa, a bar of chocolate, one of them lighting his pipe, and a game of canasta. May he rest in peace.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 137 : Autumn 2008

Obituary

Fr Seán (Max) Murray (1922-2008)

2nd May 1922: Born in Carrigaholt, Co. Clare
Early education at Crescent College, Limerick.
7th September 1940: Entered the Society at Emo
8th September 1942: First Vows at Emo
1942 - 1945: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1945 - 1948: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1948 - 1949: Crescent College, Limerick - Teacher
1949 - 1951: Clongowes - 1949-1950 Teacher
1950 - 1951: Prefect
1951 - 1955: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
29th July 1954: Ordained at Milltown Park
1955 - 1956: Emo - Treasurer
1956 - 1957: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1957 - 1958: Emo - Treasurer; Assistant Socius to Novice Director
1958 - 1971: Sacred Heart Church, Limerick - Minister; Prefect
1971 - 1980: Zambia - Parish Ministry
2nd May 1978: Final Vows at Mazabuka, Zambia
1980 - 1983: SFX, Gardiner Street - Minister; Assisted in Church
1983 - 1986: Zambia- Parish Ministry
1986 - 2007: SFX, Gardiner Street -
1986 - 1995: Assisted in the Church
1995 - 1997: Ministers in Church; Superior's Admonitor;
1997 - 1998: Vice-Superior; Assisted in the Church; Superior's Admonitor;Assisted in Cherryfield Lodge
1998 - 2007: Assisted in the Church
2007 - 2008: Cherryfield Lodge - Prayed for Church and Society
21st July 2008: Died at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Homily preached at Funeral Mass by Barney McGuckian on July 24th, 2008 in St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner St., Dublin
“Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Mt 11:25)

These final words of our Gospel passage must have proved challenging to the faith of Fr Seán Murray over the last years of his life. The Lord's yoke may be easy and the burden light but to those of us looking on that's not how it appeared in Seán's case. His ordinary daily round entailed much labour with the overburdening of chronic arthritis and diabetes. Here in Gardiner Street we were conscious of the painfully slow movements, the unappetizing, indeed, bizarre diet and the self administered injections. It was truly a way of the Cross entailing several falls leading to broken limbs and on one occasion serious facial injuries. When I saw him after one fall I could not but think of Isaiah's Suffering Servant. “He had no form or charm to attract us, no beauty to win our hearts; he was despised, the lowest of men, a man of sorrows, familiar with the suffering, one from whom, as it were, we averted our gaze”. Isaiah 53: 2-3.We were blessed to be in a position to entrust him to the tender care of the staff at Cherryfield Lodge.

None of these vicissitudes, however, could wipe away that benign smile which was so much a part of him since any of us ever knew him. I'm sure that same smile was there during his boyhood in Co Clare where he was born on 2 May, 1922 just as our tragic Civil War was about to break out. Seán did not let his sufferings get him down. In his case God certainly fitted the back for the burden. During his last years it struck me that he lived out a spiritual maxim attributed to St John of the Cross, the Carmelite saint, who in his early years like Sean, also received a Jesuit education. “Adjust your cross to yourself, not yourself to your cross”. In other words don't let difficult things get you down. Stay on top of them. Seán did. Growing old gracefully isn't too demanding when we enjoy on-going good health. To do so, as Seán did, in his situation, was an indication of no small degree of virtue.

I kept a diary during a visit to Zambia over thirty years ago in 1978. The entry for January 28th refers to a journey from Chivuna to Mazabuka with the late, kindly Fr Robert Kelly. It reads “Breakfast with Joe, Frank and Bob. Said goodbye to the Ferrybank Sisters and set out. Made it without mishap to the Holy Rosary's, after having a coke with Max Murray, a photo with Vinny Murphy's roses and a meeting with Dinny O'Connell en route though the Sugar Plantation to a great rally in the afternoon at Mazabuka”. Of the six Jesuits mentioned two are still happily with us, Frank O'Neill and Vinny Murphy. The other two have gone on the slí na firinne. I mention this because it was the first time in my life that I had met Sean. He was to become a great support and anam chara to me as he was to so many others during his priestly life. Members of the family may be puzzled by the name Max Murray. So was I. It was a nickname so commonly used that I did not know that his name was Seán. When he entered the novitiate in 1940, his co-novices called him Maximus, Latin for big and strong because of his towering presence as a formidable back at football. Others have told me that that is putting it too mildly. Apparently he was anything but gentle on a football field. The two remaining novices from his own year, Michael Hurley and Stephen Redmond are still happily with us. It was Michael who has just read the Gospel for us.

What may have been characteristic of his football persona was in no way reflected in his religious and priestly life. There, he shared in the gentleness and humility of the Sacred Heart to which he was greatly devoted. Some little prayer to the Sacred Heart often featured in the penance he prescribed in the Confessional, a place where many people were touched by his kindness. It would be no exaggeration to say that he was a man who was universally loved. This would be admitted even by those who considered him to be gentle to a fault. They thought that he would do anything to avoid conflict even where a little bit of it was required. He was strongly influenced by the idea of St Francis de Sales, known as the Gentle Doctor, that you catch more flies with a little pot of honey than a big barrel of vinegar. Only God alone knows the number of souls he influenced for their good.

One of the last things I did for him after a visit to our Nursing Home in Cherryfield was to bring back to Gardiner Street the stipends he had received for the Masses he had offered for the donors' intentions. This prompted the choice of the reading from the Book of Maccabees where there is a distinct emphasis on the importance of sacrifice and atonement for sin, both for the living and the dead. Sean never wavered in his love for his daily Mass and always started his day with it. He tended to do this at such an unearthly hour that his congregations tended to be small. However those who did join him could detect the sincerity behind the somewhat mournful cadence he adopted when on the altar.

He never asked for concessions on the grounds of his health and made himself available all day for priestly duties. He is remembered affectionately for this in all the placed he served; Limerick, Clongowes, Zambia and in more recent years here in Gardiner Street. He always had a concern for the poor and the under-dog expressed in the work he has done over the years as a most conscientious Spiritual Director of the parish Conference of St Vincent de Paul. In his personal life he showed a marked detachment from the goods of this world. I have been told by one of the community with a direct interest in the matter that clearing the personal belongings from his room will take about five minutes, it is so sparse. Sean was deeply committed to religious life with all that he signed up to when he took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience upwards of sixty year ago.

He was a delightful person to have in a community. He encouraged others and believed in praising them during their lifetime. He kept abreast of events, read widely in spirituality and current affairs, spoke kindly of others and always made an interesting contribution to conversation. His very hearty laugh did not leave him even in his debilitating illness. I remember especially one story that he enjoyed telling, even using the actual French words used. In one of the French-speaking Jesuit houses on the continent, where there was a large community, two of the priests had the same name, let's call them Duval. One had a reputation for well-authenticated holiness. The gifts of the second one seem to have lain in some other direction. During dinner one of the staff came into the refectory and called out that the Père Duval was wanted at reception. “Lequel?” (Which of them?). “Le Saint” (the Saint). “Oh, j'arrive” (I'm coming), said the truly holy man as he stood up. There is a touching simplicity about goodness, a more ordinary word for holiness, something that all of us recognise.

The Gospel read today provides us with an opportunity to eavesdrop on Jesus as He prays to His Father. It provides us with a window into the ongoing conversation between Father and Son that we have been invited to join in forever. “No one knows the Son but the Father and no one knows the Father but the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him”. Seán spent his life as a Jesuit praying that the Son would reveal the Father to him. Now that it has come to an end he can appreciate better than ever the wisdom of the words of St Bernard. “Life is for love and time is for searching for God”.

Just as the young man came to the refectory door to ask for one of those in that French-speaking house, so Someone came a couple of days ago on a similar errand to Seán's door. “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened and I will give you rest." Eternal rest. Sean may have been surprised to hear himself numbered among the saints with an invitation to remain in their number forever. The rest of us would not.

Additional note: An t-athair Prionsias O Fionnagáin vouched for the authenticity of the anecdote about the two Jesuits with the same name. His source was Fr John Ryan. The “saint” in question was, in fact, Fr. Alphonse Petit, a celebrated Tertian Master in the South Belgian province, whose cause for canonisation is in process. Among his Tertians was Fr James Cullen, S.J.

Taken from an obit written in Zambia by Tom McGivern:
In 1971 there came change of life and of lifestyle for Fr. Seán. He came out to Africa, to Zambia. His first assignment was secretary to the Bishop of the Diocese for six months. Then off to Malawi to the Language Centre at Lilongwe to learn this new language called CiNyania, followed by a few months in a parish in the Chipata diocese to practice what he had learned. Returning to Zarnbia, he was posted to Nakambala to the Sugar Estate in Mazaabuka, where he spent the rest of his time in Zambia doing parochial work among the people on the Estate, workers who came from various parts of Zambia with their different languages. For this, the C:iNycl.nia he had learned, was ideal as it is a sort of lingua franca in Zambia though its location is the Eastern Province.

Poor health took him back to Ireland for a long break. But he returned to continue his work at Nakambala until 1986 when he had to return to Ireland for good. When he had recovered after a few years in 1942 he had hoped to come back again to Nakambala, as he wrote to his Provincial, “I am keen to return to Nakambala". But unfortunately, his health took a turn for the worse and he could not return. ..

For the next sixteen years until his death, Fr. Seán soldiered on working in the church, often in pain but welcoming all who sought his services. The qualities - shall I call them virtues? - which he brought to his priestly life in the Crescent in Limerick, hc brought to Nakambala and he brought back with him to Gardiner Street in Dublin. He died in Cherryfield Lodge in Dublin on 21st July 2008

My fond memory of Fr. Seán (known to his near contemporaries as Fr. Max) is a Sunday evening in Mazabuka with two of his fellow Jesuits (living in other houses) meeting for a chat, a cuppa, a bar of chocolate, one of them lighting his pipe, and a game of canasta. May he rest in peace.

Ready for the Call - July 2008
Our members dwindle as the days go by
And one by one the Father calls His sons.
Seán Murray was the very last to die -
We knew that he was one of our weaker ones.

“Oh world, O life. O time
on whose last steps we climb”
Why should we mourn our friends' decease
When our faith assures us they are in peace?

How will it be with me when my time has come,
Who should have been a true son of Ignatius?
With all my sins, shortcomings, I'll stand dumb
Before our God, forgiving and most gracious.

And may he join me to my better brothers;
I lived with them in this life, after all.
I know I am not worthy as those others,
Yet be I cleansed and ready for the call.

Thomas MacMahon

◆ The Clongownian, 2009

Obituary

Father Seán Murray SJ

Seán was 49 years of age when he first came to Zambia in 1971, a new country, a new people, and a new language. In the normal course of events, he would have come to Zambia thirty years earlier during regency time. He was born in Kilkee, County Clare, a seaside resort in Ireland, in 1922. At the age of 18, he joined the Jesuit novitiate at Emo Park in 1940. After his first vows, he followed the normal course of studies, humanities, philosophy, regency and theology and was ordained at Milltown Park in 1954, Tertianship completed his formation in 1956. (He was Third Line Prefect in Clongowes from 1949-51; Ed)

Seán brought to his work as a priest a spirit of prayer, a warm personality, a spirit of hard work, a friendliness, a concern for people and a good sense of humour, In 1971 there came a great change of life and of lifestyle for Seán. He came to Zambia. His first assignment was secretary to the Bishop of the Monze Diocese for six months. Then off to Malawi to the Language Centre at Lilongwe to learn Chinyanja, followed by a few months in a parish in the Chipata Diocese to practice what he had learned.

Returning to the Monze Diocese, he was posted to Nakambala where he spent the rest of his time in Zambia doing parochial work among the people on the Sugar Estate. He also served as superior of the Jesuit Community in Mazabuka for some of that time. Poor health took him back to Ireland in 1981 for a long break but he returned to continue his work in 1983 at Nakambala until 1986, when he had to return to Ireland for good.

May he rest in peace.

Courtesy of SJ Africa News

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

Chaplain in the First World War.

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

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

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Castleknock.

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

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1924

Obituary

Father Frank Shaw SJ

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

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

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1924

Obituary
Father Frank Shaw SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam!

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

Born: 03 October 1915, Sherkin Island, County Cork
Entered: 04 October 1935, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1949, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1952, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died 18 June 2008, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Della Strada, Crescent College Comprehensive, Dooradoyle, Limerick community at the time of death.

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/remembering-tom-mccarthy-sj/

Remembering Tom McCarthy SJ
Fr. Tom McCathy SJ was born in Co. Cork in 1915 and he entered the Society at Emo in 1937. He studied Arts at UCD before his philosophy and theology, and was ordained in Milltown Park in 1949. He taught in Clongowes Wood College for 8 years before going to St. Ignatius, Galway as Minister. Over the years, he also taught in the Crescent College and Gonzaga College, gave the Spiritual Exercises, and worked with the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Limerick. He went to Cherryfield Lodge in 2004 and despite deteriorating health, he enjoyed being out in the garden. He died peacefully on Wednesday, 18 June 2008, aged 92 years.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 137 : Autumn 2008

Obituary

Fr Thomas (Tom) McCarthy (1915-2008)

3rd October 1915: Born in Sherkin, Co. Cork
Early education at Sacred Heart College, Cork
4th October 1935: Entered the Society at Emo
5th October 1937: First Vows at Emo
1937 - 1940: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1940 - 1944: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1944 - 1946: Clongowes Wood College - Regency
1946 - 1950: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31st July 1949: Ordained at Milltown Park
1950 - 1951: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1951 - 1959: Clongowes Wood College - Teacher
2nd February 1952: Final Vows at Clongowes Wood College
1959 - 1961: St. Ignatius, Galway - Minister
1961 - 1963: Crescent, Limerick - Teacher, Games Manager
1963 - 1965: Gonzaga College - Teacher
1965 - 2004: Limerick -
1965 - 1977: Crescent College
1977 - 1978: Dooradoyle - Vice-Superior; Teacher
1978 - 1982: Superior
1982 - 1983: Sabbatical
1983 - 1997: Dooradoyle - Directed Spiritual Exercises
1997 - 1999: Parish Visitation
1999 - 2004: Parish Visitation; St. Vincent de Paul Society
2004 - 2008: Cherryfield Lodge - Praying for Church and Society
18th June 2008: Died at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Liam O'Connell writes:
Sherkin Island:
Tom McCarthy was born on the 3rd October 1915, on Sherkin Island, off the coast of Cork, and he had a strong love of his family and his native place all his life. His parents had seven children, Patrick, James, John, Simon, William, Mary and then the youngest, Tom. One day when Tom was 9 years old, his father went away for the day. Tom took this chance to take out his father's boat, hoisted the sail and manoeuvred his way over and back around an inland lake, and he handled the boat very well. What he did not know until much later was that his father had returned early from his business, and from a distance he saw Tom sailing the boat. His father was very impressed by Tom's skill and was proud of him.

On May 21st, 1927 when 11-year-old Tom and his father were out fishing from a boat when Charles Lindberg passed overhead while flying from the USA to Paris, on one of the early translantic flights. Tom explained that at first they thought they heard a ship's engine, and then they thought they saw a large bird flying towards them, before then they realised that it was an aeroplane. Lindberg afterwards wrote about this: "The first indication of my approach to the European Coast was a small fishing boat which I first noticed a few miles ahead and slightly to the south of my course. There were several of these fishing boats grouped within a few miles of each other.

There is another story from Tom's childhood, which gives a hint of what is everlasting. One Christmas Eve, Tom and his mother had gone shopping to the mainland, to the town of Baltimore. During the day a storm blew up, and they were marooned in Baltimore, and feared that they would miss Christmas back in Sherkin with their family, because the seas were too dangerous. Late in the evening the captain of the ferry decided to set sail, and they all arrive home safely. 80 years later Tom still recalled the delight of going home with his mother and being reunited with his family.

The sea was one of Tom's great loves. Another was a life long love affair with language. He loved to find the right word for a situation. He delighted in words like 'insouciance' or
apposite' or 'flout - used correctly of course. This craft with words went back a long way. One day a schools inspector at his national school asked the students to spell three words: Furze, Yacht and Arctic. Tom got the prize for being the only person to get all three spellings correct. All his life until fairly recently he was a great reader, especially of biography and history, and books about sailing, and he loved good writing.

In 1978 when Tom retired from teaching, I suspect that it was not because he lacked energy, but, perhaps, because of the terrible things his young scholars did to language, and that this began to wear him down.

Jesuits
As a boy Tom moved from Sherkin Island to the mainland to stay with an uncle and aunt, to attend school in Baltimore, and then he moved on to the Sacred Heart Secondary School in Cork city as a boarder. After school he joined the Jesuits in October 1935. He formed great friendships with his contemporaries, especially with Michael Reidy and Eddie Diffley. In later years in community Tom was a most kind and encouraging presence, with a great sense of humour, and a lovely ability to laugh at himself. Sometimes his encouragement took the form of long homilies that kept us late for dinner on cold winter days. But no one could deny that these came from a kind spirit and a sincere zeal for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Tom's work as a Jesuit brought him as Minister to Galway, and he taught Irish in Gonzaga College, and Latin and Irish in Clongowes. When he came to Limerick in the 1961 Tom taught these subjects again, and he also took on the job of Games Master. During the holidays he gave retreats, and he did Summer supply in a parish in New York. This also helped him to keep in touch with his brothers and sisters over there, and their families.

Old Crescent, Vincent de Paul
He was a Munster Schools Rugby Selector, and a Patron of Old Crescent Rugby Club. Devotion to Old Crescent was a big part of his life. It went very deep and in pride of place in his room was a picture of him blessing the new pavilion at Rosbrien. He enjoyed his visits to the clubhouse, where he was made feel so welcome, and where his pipe smoking was graciously tolerated.

Tom's other great interest was the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, and the Conference of past students of Crescent, that works in St. Joseph's hospital. On Tuesdays after dinner, Tom first enjoyed a good smoke of his pipe, a mixture of Balkan Sobrany and Maltan tobacco, and then he was collected by some kind Brother, to go to St. Joseph's hospital, where they organise entertainment during the winter months. During the summer months they held outings to scenic locations around Limerick. The Brothers of this Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, and the patients of St. Joseph's were strong and constant friends to Tom. In recent years Tom said Mass at the Oratory at the Crescent Shopping Centre, and again made very good friends here. Retirement

After teaching, Tom worked with the parish priests in Southill on Parish visitation, and he travelled there on his Honda 50. He enjoyed this contact and admired the good people of Holy Family Parish. In later years, and in another part of the city, much closer to the city centre, Tom was driving by one day, when he came upon an altercation. He stopped the car and walked into the middle of the furore, and said something like “Desist from this inappropriate and unseemly behaviour”. The assailants could not believe what they were seeing and hearing; they scattered before this vision of a frail but valiant 82 year old.

Golf
Tom was a beautiful golfer with a neat and tidy swing, and he loved the cut and thrust of competition. Just before ordination in July 1949, he had a golf lesson from Christy Greene in Milltown, and discovered the secret of golf. By the end of the lesson every shot was perfect, and he could not wait to try out his new swing in a full round. However he had wait, first because of a Retreat and then Ordination and First Mass and then Mass in Sherkin Island. Eventually, two weeks later he got back to a golf course, in Killarney with his brothers. But alas! He used to chuckle as he explained that the secret of golf had escaped again. Tom had the distinction in Limerick Golf Club of winning a stroke competition, the Mungret Cup, despite taking 10 shots at one hole. Later he won the Holmes Cup with a partner, but Tom would never allow his partner, to say that 'we? won the cup, as Tom disparagingly refused to acknowledge the other's contribution.

Cherryfield
In recent years Tom's independent Island Man spirit meant that he did not want to accept help in coping with old age. However that most persistent of women, the Jesuit Health Officer, Mary Rickard, cajoled Tom to stay at the Jesuit Nursing Home in Cherryfield from time to time on short visits. At first he went reluctantly. Tom even went missing during some of Mary's visits to Limerick, but then as he grew weaker, he enjoyed the extraordinary care and goodness of the staff there, and he came to love Cherryfield, and in turn was loved and cherished by the Cherryfield Staff.

When Tom was Superior of the Jesuit Community at Dooradoyle, there was a frugality about the living conditions at Della Strada. However this was frugality with a purpose, as the community made a large contribution towards the cost of a new Jesuit community house in Kitwe in Zambia. Today this house serves as a home for Jesuits working in the University and in a Spirituality Centre. Nowadays. We use the phrase "Live simply so that others may simply live, but Tom anticipated this worldview of sharing. It came from a spirituality of the Body of Christ, which values solidarity and communion between people, and where we are all our brothers and sisters keepers.

When he was well into his 60's Tom was sent on a sabbatical year to train as a Spiritual Director and Retreat Giver. His letters from the training course to his community in Dooradoyle were masterpieces, as Tom poked fun at himself and his mistakes. But these letters were also profound, and gave an insight into Tom's willingness to unlearn old ways and to learn new skills, and to retain what was central to the message of Jesus Christ, and the Jesuit way of life. These letters showed that Tom was both daring and humble in the face of change. We had a sense that he walked with his God at his side, and in the middle of every difficulty God was his shield and his staff.

We pray that the love he learned from his father and mother, this love story with God which began at Tom's baptism, this love he kept alive all his live, will be enjoyed by Tom forever. Go dté tú slán ar shlí na firinne. Mile buíochas duit. Go dtreorai na haingil isteach sna flaithis thú.

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

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

Transcribed HIB to AOR: 25 April 1989

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 142 : Spring 2010

Obituary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03 December 1969

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

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

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

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 145 : Summer 2011

Obituary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03 December 1969

by 1965 at Loyola Watsonia, Australia (ASL) working

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 44th Year No 2 1969

Obituary :

Fr John Aloysius Deevy SJ (1887-1969)

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

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1974

Obituary

Father John Deevy SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 32nd Year No 3 1957

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

Irish Province News 44th Year No 4 1969

Obituary :

Fr Edward Dillon SJ (1874-1969)

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

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

Studied for BA at UCD

Editor of An Timire, 1930-31.

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

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

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 46th Year No 4 1971

Obituary :

Fr Michael Murphy SJ (1914-1971)

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

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1974

Obituary

Father Michael Murphy SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 47th Year No 2 1972

Obituary :

Fr John F O’Connor SJ (1921-1971)

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

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

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

Early education at O’Connell’s School

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

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 117 : Special Issue November 2003

Obituary
Fr Seán Hughes (1910-2003)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 04 April 1912, Richmond Hill, Cork City
Entered: 07 September 1929, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 13 May 1942, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1947, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 26 January 1984, Dublin, St Ignatius, Lower Leeson St, Dublin

Early education at CBC Cork and 1 year of Science at NUI before entry

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 59th Year No 2 1984

Obituary

Fr Hilary Lawton (1912-1929-1984)

Entered Tullabeg 7th September 1929. First vows 8th September 1931.
Juniorate, Rathfarnham 1931-33. Philosophy, Tullabeg 1933-36. Regency, Clongowes 1936-39. Theology, Milltown 1939-43; ordained 13th May 1942. Tertianship. Rathfarnham 1943-34. Apostolate: Clongowes: teaching, 1944-47; Prefect of studies, 1947-59; Rector, 1959-65. Crescent College: teaching, 1965-66; Prefect of studies, 1966-71. Crescent College Comprehensive: Administrative assistant, 1971-74. Loyola: Socius to Provincial, 1974-80. Leeson street: Minister, 1980-81; Superior, 1981-84.
Hilary joined us for First Probation in September 1929 at Tullabeg. I can see him, a spruce slight young man in a bowler hat and light tweed coat, mounting the steps to the hall-door while we sat in the sunshine in the Spiritual meadow'. He was then the youngest of us all in years - and yet, at 17, somehow our senior; for we had, none of us, attained higher academic distinction than a Leaving Certificate or Matriculation, but Hilary had an Honours First Science qualification from UCC to his credit, with all the sophistication, real or imagined, that was festooned around such.
“Festoons” - that word, I think, sums up - one of the most engaging characteristics that we all can recall of Hilary - his festooning of his memoirs and adventures. Though one of the most private of men, he would tell many a tale of his boyhood, youth, and as years went by, of his later experiences - tales that gave rise to much enjoyment in his own family and a certain scepticism among his contemporaries and brethren. Yet there was always, as careful sifting revealed, a hard kernel of fact: the rest was an artistic verisimilitude' festooning the “bald and unconvincing narrative”.
Among the hard facts were indeed his being directed to the Society by the late Archbishop Finbar Ryan, OP, who was prior of the Dominicans in Cork when Hilary was a boy. Another: he played the organ in the Dominican church, Pope’s quay, Cork, being a student of the Royal College of Organists. He must have been quite an exceptionally brilliant school boy. He matriculated at the age of sixteen, was apparently considered by his teachers at “Christians' College, Cork”, suitable material to attempt an Entrance scholarship at Cambridge (this is the fact behind his working in the Cavendish laboratory and his “coxing of the College Eight”). Though he did qualify for an honours Science degree and was an excellent teacher of science in Clongowes, academic ambitions seemingly held no very great attraction for him.
Hilary's interest and competence in music - both organ and piano, and I believe the viola - has left quite a mark on the Province, notably in Clongowes, where he spent so many years. Organist as novice, junior, philosopher; choirmaster as a scholastic in Clongowes (where he followed another little remembered musician of the Irish Province, Fr Sydney Lennon † 1979); organist and choirmaster in Milltown, he trained many of us both in execution and appreciation of classical ecclesiastical music. As one who followed Hilary's footsteps as choirmaster in Clongowes and in Milltown, I can testify to the results of his training of the choirs which I took over from him. He was choirmaster, finally, of the choir of the Sacred Heart Church, The Crescent. Limerick: but then the great days of church music were fading, if they had not already faded, and scope for his gifts and interests were unhappily narrowed. Perhaps it is worth recording (for posterity!) that he and I collaborated in editing a Hymnbook for Clongowes. Mungret and our scholasticates ... Our hopes of a total acceptance of this product were never realised. One man's hymn is another man's horror!
I must leave to others a fuller appreciation of Hilary's work for Clongowes throughout his eighteen years there as Prefect of studies and Rector, (cf, the obituary notice in the Clongownian). One knew by report what he was doing in upbuilding the lay staff, in imaginative curriculum development, in the creation of one of the finest music schools, both choral and orchestral, in the country. Interspersed of course was the occasional account of his own doings from Hilary himself, never wanting in the “festoons” of “corroborative details”.
It would ill become me were I not to record that the burgeoning of Sacred Heart College, The Crescent into Crescent College Comprehensive Dooradoyle, would have been fraught with immense difficulties were it not for Hilary's calm, unperturbed, meticulous planning of the transfer. As the Headmaster's Administrative Assistant' - a post created for him by the Department of Education! - we had flawless “ignition and lift-off”. I think Hilary really enjoyed his short spell in Dooradoyle: and he regretted his return to the metropolis.
So much for his public career, so to speak. He was as I said a most private man, his stories of his life-adventures maybe only covering up his desire for privacy. As a friend he was ever-cheerful and even tempered. He enjoyed company; enjoyed his hobbies of photography and music-making; enjoyed the frequent visits to the ruined abbeys and castles which dot the counties of Limerick, Tipperary and Clare (how many he visited in some eight years!). We could and did go on villa together for twenty-odd years, and could year by year contemplate going (but never did go, unfortunately) on foot to Compostella for the feast of St James.
What more can I say? “He was my friend, faithful and true to me ...” May God have him in his keeping and may we be merry together in heaven.
SH

◆ The Clongownian, 1984

Obituary

Father Hilary Lawton SJ

Clongowes 1936-39 and 1944-47;
Teacher: 1947-59
Prefect of Studies;
1959-65 Rector

A Renaissance artist, faced with the task of painting a portrait of Hilary. Lawton, would see at a glance that he was con fronted with the challenge of producing on canvas a picture of l'uomo universale. We can visualize the masterpiece: the strong features of the seated figure, the intelligence and determination shining in the bright eyes, a touch of cardinatial red on an arm holding a quill, and on the table before him a Bible open at the Psalter, and close by that other revelation of God - the terrestrial globe; on a second table a lute, to one side an alembic, and, beyond all doubt, a long-bow hanging on the wall. All this against a background of Tuscan landscape with among the cypresses a choir in full song.

But those of us who lived and worked for long years in Clongowes with Fr Hilary will probably carry in our minds a very different but equally vivid picture to remember him by. It is of the Christmas festivities we spent together for many years before television had arrived to banish conversation and diminish conviviality. After a long and very trying term, unrelieved by many playdays and with no midterm break, we used to enjoy three days of almost baronial celebrations. After dinner each night a vast fire roared up the chimney from its basket in the library, Games of cards were started, but after a couple of hours singing began. We were blessed with a number of fine voices in the Community, doubly blessed with Fr Lawton at the piano. And so the fun continued until the small hours when, fortissimo, our pianist brought the evening to an end with “Home James, and don't spare the ‘orses!”.

No casual spectator of such a scene could have guessed the talents and personality of that laughing pianist. His early studies had been devoted to pure science and mathematics, yet even during his university terms and his seven long years of philosophy and theology he found time, among other things, for his beloved music. In every house in which he lived he was asked to become choirmaster; and one acquaintance, an accomplished singer and musician, has assured me that never in a long life has he seen a man with such talent for creating in a very short time an efficient choir, even from indifferent voices. He excelled at the cello too, but above all at his favourite instrument, the organ.

It would be long and even tedious to catalogue all Father Lawton's gifts as a teacher and as a supremely efficient administrator. It will be enough to mention the new or refurbished organ in the chapel; and those of us old enough to have lived through the long depressing years of debt and the war will remember that it was he who at last raised the cloud, who mobilized the extraordinary generosity of the Past, and began to build and improve once more, But his greatest achievements will have no memorial: the hidden influence he exercised so carefully and so subtly on the boys he taught or who came under his care when he was Prefect of Studies.

Yet his most remarkable feat, in the writer's opinion, was his handling of the difficult situation that arose in Clongowes in the early fifties. Two important decisions affected the school gravely: the first that to expand considerably the nascent mission in Zambia, the second the founding of a new college, Gonzaga, in Dublin. We lost a number of excellent teachers; but with immense resource Fr Hilary built up a new corps of splendid lay men, many of them still happily with us.

Indeed, any appreciation of Fr Lawton is beyond the scope of one man and I am most grateful to several of those teachers who have helped with their views and recollections, all of them admiring and affectionate. First, as educators, they were impressed with the breadth of Fr Hilary's views, Mr Cathal O'Doherty recalls in this connection his establishment of the Academy, an institution which led its members and their audiences far beyond . the confines of formal certificate education; and he insisted too on his encouragement of any worthwhile initiative.

Then, for the first time in the 150 years of the school's existence, the world of music assumed a really prime importance. The three splendid teachers he recruited brought with his help the school to the very first rank in Ireland. His devotion and skill and that of Messrs TC Kelly, Weedle and Kane were rapidly rewarded by outstanding success. In his recollections of those early years Mr Kelly, omitting in his humility his own heroic contribution, underlines the enthusiasm and encouragement given by Fr Hilary, recalling how generously he gave his time, taking boys out to concerts, singing at choir practice and playing the cello at the weekly orchestra practice.

He continues:

He formed the Musical Society for boys interested in music. We had a succession of young Irish performers who gave their coming-out performances here. Names like Bernadette Greevy, Philip Martin and Veronica McSweeney are but a few of them. The entertainments afterwards were often as memorable, with Fr Hilary as host, as were the recitals. He had an innate capacity to entertain people.

Still, his bubbling cheerfulness was often the outward armour of a very shy man. With much perspicacity Mr O'Doherty has noted that he was more than shy - a very private person. 'His ease with people resulted from a genuine interest in others, However it was in relation to his deep personal feelings that his shyness became apparent. It was as if he felt that these were of no interest to anybody but himself. The present writer for several days each week, year after year, accompanied him after school on an after-dinner walk around the two avenues. Much interesting bio graphical reminiscence came out in the course of these strolls, and much that was amusing; it was clear that Fr Hilary had a strong historical sense, but one that could prescind completely from historical fact. It was a form of artistry, akin to epic poetry. Yet in all those walks nothing really personal ever emerged.

Before his coming to Clongowes there seemed a great chaos fixed between the unmarried resident lay staff and the Community. There was friendliness of course and mutual confidence; but it did not go much beyond a cheerful daily greeting. All that was changed under Hilary. Very frequently he made a point of joining the lay staff at supper, and far from imposing a constraint he was, in Mr Ben Sherry's words, more than the life and soul of the party: “The flow of yarns, the accounts of funny episodes in class or elsewhere and the provocative tall stories told in all seriousness by his reverence kept the atmosphere lively, stimulating and enjoyable”. It could be intellectual too: Mr Brendan Campbell, another of the teachers of his beloved physics, recalls an obiter dictum which showed how he kept up his reading: and used it to take a rise' out of people: “Do you know the specific heat of water is now 4?” I didn't and was suitably mystified. Next day, in the latest scientific journal, I found what he was referring to; it was the beginning of the end of the calorie, at least ten years before the end.'

Of course, his friendship with his lay staff was deep and very genuine and his interest in their welfare complete. This came easily to him, for these were men whom he had for the most part carefully chosen and all were eminently worthy of his friendship.

It is hard to sum up his achievements, whether in administration, in science, in music or in general, impossible to dis entangle all the strands of his influence. I think we can say that in every department of the school, games alone apart, one can still find traces of his efforts and his inspiration. In the words of his dear friends, fellow-scientists too, Brendan Campbell and Ben Sherry, “he forged a team against the day when there would be fewer Jesuits available in Clongowes. He always wanted standards upheld and improved. And he led by example, for he was unsparing of himself. We were privileged to know him; we enjoyed his friendship; we loved him and we miss him”.

How many, in every corner of Ireland, or scattered far from their alma mater, can say the same? How many boys, masters, friends all over the world heard with a deep shock of sadness and personal loss - “Father Hilary is dead?” They will pray for his eternal repose, confident that God will reward his good and faithful servant, who loved Him and them so unobtrusively, but so very deeply. That will be the ultimate consolation for his dearly loved brother and sister-in-law.

John A Leonard SJ

Born: 15 January 1915, Rathfarnham, Dublin
Entered: 30 September 1933, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 30 July 1947, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1950, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 24 January 2009, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

◆ Irish Jesuit Missions : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/memories-of-father-tom/

Memories of Father Tom

Nine days after his 94th birthday Tom McMahon died peacefully on Saturday 24 January in Cherryfield, which he never tired of praising for the happiness and hope he enjoyed
there. Not all his memories died with him. Apart from innumerable poems about his friends and enthusiasms, he has left a video clip (now on YouTube – also viewable on Jesuit.ie) taken from the DVD about the closing of the Sacred Heart Church in Limerick, and an interview about his life, made three years ago, which you can read below. His Limerick friends came in strength to his funeral, and he would have loved the sound of Cecilian voices filling the Milltown chapel.
The Society still has a kick in it !
An Interview with Tom Mc Mahon, Sept 3rd, 2005, reported in Interfuse, Autumn 2005
You were born way back in 1915, at the very beginning of it. You’re almost 91, and you must have wonderful memories. Tell me some of your early memories of the time before school, at school, and before you entered the Society.
Well, I was only an infant when we went to live in Rathfarnham and, of course, Rathfarnham was completely different then. We had little cottages with half doors on them, and we had a forge in the middle of the village. And there was Prescotts, where the trams originally went round by the Protestant church, and then back; that was the tram station. And there was another one down in Terenure, opposite the Catholic Church. But I remember during the troubles in 1922, the Barracks that was at the corner there was blown up. But before that I remember we went to school in the Presentation Convent in Terenure. Myself and my older sister were walking down to school when we were stopped in horror by the Dodder Bridge, because there was a whole line of barbed wire across it. There were soldiers, so we turned back and hurried home. We were frightened out of our lives. I remember, for instance, the taking of a barracks on the South Circular Road. You could hear the shots in Rathfarnham. And one single shot I saw fired during the Civil War was when the Free Staters were leaving the Barracks. They walked up through the village and one fellow pulled out his revolver and fired a shot, because the Free Staters were coming up. But actually they had had a bolt hole dug through the Castle wall to escape through the Castle gardens and out that way, but they eventually went up through the village and away off, so that was the one shot I actually saw being fired.
You were only six then– you’ve a good memory to go back that far.
Yes, and, of course, Rathfarnham was completely open in those days. There were fields all the way across to the road where the steam tram used to go. And the tram went away off up to Blessington. The Castle was terra incognita, but you saw the Juniors coming out. We thought they were young priests, you know, and we would see them on Sundays, coming out for their walk. And they used to sing in the Parish Church. We thought they were magnificent, which they were. I learned one of the pieces of music I have loved all my life – it’s by one of the classical writers – I can’t think of the name just now but I was fascinated by it.
So did you go from Rathfarnham to school in Synge Street?
Oh, yes, yes. I went to Synge Street after that, and I used to cycle. And I remember we had to go to Catechism on Sunday morning, and I decided I’d cycle the whole way in without putting my hands on the handle bars – of course, on Sunday mornings there wasn’t much traffic but I did it. You wouldn’t do it now!!
You had Religious Education on Sundays, and you spent your primary and secondary school days in Synge Street?
Uncle of Father Joe Veale, a marvellous man. I remember one of the Brothers asking me what I was thinking of being. I said I was going to be a civil servant. I was too shy about telling him the other ideas I had.
What gave you the idea of the Jesuits? Had you some association with them?
Well, first of all, they lived opposite us – I could see into the grounds there in Rathfarnham Castle. Secondly the fellow sharing a bench with me at school was Terry Mc Parland, who became a novice with the Jesuits, though he died after eleven months there. He was a marvellous fellow – quite shy and retiring – but he really had something, for he managed to gather seven of us for a retreat the day after our Leaving Cert. In those days Bishop Byrne (I think it was he.) wouldn’t allow CBS boys to go on Jesuit retreats, because, he said, the Jesuits were taking all the vocations, which, of course, wasn’t true. So we couldn’t go until we had left school. Literally, the day after our Leaving Cert we went out on retreat. And who should we have for our retreat but Fr. Neary!
Ah, the man who later was to be your Master of Novices.
Yeah, and I can remember him well on that retreat saying (mimics) “Prevent, we beseech thee, O Lord, all our actions...” And then when we got to the novitiate, he came as Novice Master after Fr. Coyne. There he was again saying “Prevent, we beseech thee, O Lord...” (laughs). So that was my introduction to the Society.
And then, of course, you went to Rathfarnham, I presume.
That’s right – back to home territory. Interestingly enough, my father got a stroke and died during our Tertianship in the Castle. And I could see the blind pulled down in his window from where I was in the Castle. And, very kindly, the Instructor of Tertians allowed me to go home once a month to see him. And my father died at Easter, so I never got round to doing the statutory mission that the tertians went on, because he died just at that time. Charlie Heron was to have been with me in Milltown. I don’t know what Charlie did, but I was left off it because of my father’s death.
You have an extraordinary memory for so many things. So you went through the ordinary formation up to tertianship. And, after tertianship, where were you assigned?
Straight down to the Crescent.
But you didn’t spend all your life in the Crescent, did you?
No, but a great deal of it – the best part of 40 years. From 1949 (I think) till 1963, and then I was sent up to Belvedere, where I spent a year putting them on their feet (laughs). And, after that, I went to Galway for 11 years. I had quite an interesting time there. I remember I used to bring the boys out for their Irish fortnight to the Islands. But, once, I had to supply for one of the priests there. I don’t know what the islanders made of my Irish. However I got through. One very interesting thing happened when I was there. Do you remember there were two men – British soldiers – that rowed across the Atlantic in what I think they called a ‘dory’. And I met them when they came across because the islanders couldn’t talk to them in English, and I welcomed them onto the island. The next day the island was swarming with newspaper fellows from all over the world and there was a book written about it afterwards and I was mentioned in it. “Fr McMann” they called me (laughs)! So I was in Galway for 11 years, and then from 1975 on I was in the Crescent until I came a cropper!
Well, you don’t look to me as if you came a cropper! However, your time in the Crescent – boy, that was a long time!
Well, I had very interesting pupils: I had Cormac McNamara, who became a big man in Irish medical circles. He represented Ireland on the Continent and he also was, apparently, responsible for joining the two sections of the medical people here in Ireland. I don’t understand the mechanics of it, but he got them together into one. He was a very famous medical man who often appeared on TV. Brian O’Leary was another pupil, and there were quite a number of Jesuits. I can’t think of their names immediately, but they all went through my hands. We had great times together.
And, of course, if I remember correctly, you were kinda famous with the Cecilian society.
Oh yes. I ran with them for many years. And, if my memory serves me rightly, between the boys in the Crescent and the Cecilians, I think I did 29 shows. We used to do three a year at the beginning – a pantomime at Christmas and an autumn musical and an Easter musical. The result was that I never got a real holiday, because the Christmas holidays were banjaxed by the show, and the Easter holidays the same.
And were these present pupils and past pupils?
No, no. There were no present pupils in it. Really the idea was that it would be past pupils, recently left, and their sisters, and their girlfriends, and it was a very young group of very happy people.
It must have been a great time; you could use your acting ability.
Oh no, no. I didn’t do that at all. I did the singing and I did up to 21 hours of singing a week. I used to sing with the sopranos, the tenors, the altos and the bass! You see a lot of them didn’t know much about music, but they had an ear, and if you sang it at them, they’d pick it up! I literally sang for 21 hours a week!!
My goodness! And did you also play an instrument like the piano?
Oh I did, but I didn’t play it in the Cecilians. We had an orchestra and I was the conductor. It had 24 instruments in it. It was quite a thing! It was begun before the Cecilians as a separate entity, and then they all joined up. They were all amateurs at the beginning, but we got a teacher from the musical school, and he insisted on trade union regulations, and people had to be paid, which, of course, put an enormous burden on the Cecilians. They had a huge bill every year – and we’d all been amateurs before that. And then I had the church choir, and this is their last year. They’ll end up next June, because the Church (Sacred Heart Church, Limerick) is shutting down. I wrote a farewell thing to them ....... (goes and gets paper) There it is. I’ll read it for you. It’s entitled: SING, SING, CHORUS OF ANGELS, LORD, POUR GRACES AND BLESSINGS ON YE!
So have you sent it to them?
Oh yes I have – it’s what you might call a swansong.
And, please God, you’ll be able to be with them for their final session there. One thing, I think, readers of Interfuse would be interested in hearing is what you feel about the different changes that have take place in the Society and in the Province?
Well, I’m afraid I take an abstract and abstracted view of the whole thing. I feel it’s not up to me to either suggest or remedy anything. I leave that to the younger generation – and I think that’s fair enough too.
You’re comfortable with things.
Ah, look here, I’m in heaven here. I don’t know how I deserved it. Everything is so beautifully laid on. I believe it was Paddy Doyle who had the idea first of all, but, whoever it was, was inspired. You couldn’t ask for a nicer place or a nicer set of people, nurses and community and everything – absolutely marvelous.
So you still maintain that you don’t have to take care of yourself, as you said to me once, because THEY take care of you.
Yes, they take care of me – more care than I could possibly offer myself. You certainly are a great advertisement for Cherryfield.
And, of course, I have a little – what would you call it? – business here. I do teaching of English and my first pupil was Darota – a great little soul – a Pole, and then I got a Chinese lady, who’s the wife of the gardener here, and two hours with her every Saturday which was pretty hefty, and then I got another Pole – Stasik – the short for Stanislaus in Polish. There’s a bit of information for you!
So you do that as a kind of sideline?
Yes, a sideline.
You’re keeping up your extra-curricular activities.
Yes. And do you know? I find now I have time for reading that I never had before. I’ve been reading Palgrave’s Golden Treasury for many many years back, but now I get through half an hour of it every night, or maybe three quarters of an hour. And then I have the Oxford Book of Quotations, on which I spend half an hour, and I do my main reading from nine until midnight and, at 5 to midnight I say Compline. And then, as people say, ‘so to bed’.
That’s a very good day there. Apart from what you’ve said, which includes a lot of encouraging words for the brethren, if you were to sum up your last words for this interview, what would you say?
Well, I’d say this. That I suppose, like my own generation, I began to feel that – ‘ah the spirit has gone out of the province and the Society’ and so on, and then you begin to read what they‘re doing, and you think, ‘My God, there’s life in the old boy still.’ You see, ignorance is part of it. You just don’t hear what’s going on, and then you find to your surprise and delight that there’s a lot of good things going on – a lot of them. You know its like saying that young people don’t go to Mass anymore. But there’s a lot of them that do – there’s a lot of them go to Confession, and so on. But the Society has a kick in it...
And that’s a very encouraging word, particularly for us who work in the field of communications. Now with AMDG and Update – not to mention Interfuse – we aim to share those things so that people may know what’s going on ...
Yes, well take heart! An old fellow like me had his eyes opened when I poked around and saw what was going on – even by accident. I found out but it was good to know it, ‘cos otherwise I’d be a little bit soured in old age, which is a horrible thing to be. (laughs)
Well, you certainly haven’t been. God bless you, and thanks very much.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 139 : Easter 2009

Obituary

Fr Thomas (Tom/Thos) MacMahon (1915-2009)

15th January 1915: Born in Dublin
Early education in Presentation, Terenure, and CBS Synge Street
30th September 1933: Entered the Society at Emo
15 October 1935: First Vows at Emo
1935 - 1938: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1938 - 1942: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1942 - 1944: Clongowes - Teacher
1944 - 1948: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
30th July 1947: Ordained at Milltown Park
1948 - 1949: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1949 - 1962: Crescent College Limerick -
2nd February 1950: Final Vows
1949 - 1960: Assistant Prefect of Studies.
1960 - 1962: Prefect of Studies in Crescent
1962 - 1963: Belvedere College - Teacher
1963 - 1975: St. Ignatius College Galway - Teacher
1975 - 2006: Sacred Heart Church, Limerick
1975 - 1991: Assisted in the Church; Subminister; Assistant Prefect of Theatre
1989 - 1991: Spiritual Father
1991 - 1992: Minister
1992 - 1997: Subminister; Choirmaster; Director Cecilians Musical Society
1997 - 2003: Subminister; Assisted in Church; Choirmaster; Assistant Director of Sodality BVM & St. Joseph
2000 - 2002: Director of the Church Shop
2002 - 2009: Cherryfield Lodge -Prayed for Church and Society
2006-2009: He was a member of Milltown Park community .
24th January 2009: Died at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin.

Todd Morrissey writes:
Tom MacManon, who died at Cherryfield Lodge on 24 January 2009, aged 94 years, informed the Provincial some years previously that he had never been happier. “I'm in heaven here”, he told an interviewer in 2005, “you couldn't ask for a nicer place or a nicer set of people, nurses and community and everything - marvellous”. (cf. Interfuse 125, Autumn 2005). He radiated happiness and cheerfulness.

Tom was born on 15 January 1915, and grew up in Rathfarnham, when it was a village almost surrounded by fields, and the means of travel was by foot, bicycle, horse and trap/cart, or tram. The castle was unknown territory to him, but he was familiar with the “young priests” going for a walk on Sundays and singing in the parish church. He and his older sister walked to school at the Presentation Convent, Terenure; and later he cycled to the Christian Brothers' secondary school at Synge Street. After his Leaving Certificate he, and some others from Synge Street, attended a retreat at Rathfarnham under Fr John Neary. Subsequently, he was to have Fr Neary as novice master. He entered the Society at Emo on 30 September 1933, took his vows on 1 October 1935, and thereafter followed the usual course of training in Rathfarnham (for Arts degree), Tullabeg, regency (at Clongowes), and theology in Milltown Park. He was ordained in 1947, and returned to Rathfarnham for tertianship

He served in Crescent College, Limerick, from 1949-1962: teaching Irish and Technical Drawing, and acting as assistant to the prefect of studies until 196 From 1960-1962 he had a less than successful spell as prefect of studies. The position did not suit his temperament. He was a cheerful man but also very precise, even rigid. The cheerful, human side, so prominent in other circumstances and in later years, was overshadowed by the other aspects when it came to administering discipline as prefect of studies. After Limerick, he spent a year at Belvedere, eleven years in Galway, and then came back to Limerick, where he remained attached to the Sacred Heart Church community from 1975 to 2002. In 2002 he arrived at Cherryfield.

From the start of his second term in Limerick he was assistant in the church, and, in addition to his functions in the community, was assistant prefect of the theatre. This last brought him into work which he greatly enjoyed, and of which he had experience from his earlier years at the Crescent, namely, being involved in the preparation of various musical performances. Between the boys and the Cecilians, he recalled being involved in some 29 shows. Early on, there used to be a pantomime at Christmas, and an autumn and Easter musical. Tom, with his fondness for precision and thoroughness, worked hard to achieve excellence. The Cecilians, indeed, were known for the high quality of their performances. As a result, he seldom got a break during the Christmas and Easter vacations. He conducted the Cecilian orchestra of 24 instruments, and the Sacred Heart Church Choir, and did up to 21 hours of singing each week. Many of the participants did not read music, but they had an ear and could manage if he sang the material for them, so he used to sing with the sopranos, the tenors, the altos and the bass!

Among his other gifts, Tom was a 'carpenter'. There was not a room in the community house that did not have a chair, table, wardrobe, drawer or door that had not been mended or touched up by him. He could not bear to be idle, and, in the process, saved the house much expense. So marked was this, that Dick Coyne was moved to uncharacteristic versification:

    Our Tom is no stranger to pain
    If in anything there can be gain,
    For to save a few bob He'll do any job
    And paint it again and again.

Tom filled his day to the end. Interviewed three years before his death, he rejoiced that he now had more time for reading than ever before. He had always enjoyed Palgrave's Golden Treasury of Poetry, and in his final years he read it for half an hour, or three quarters, each evening. He followed this with the Oxford Book of Quotations for half an hour, and then his main reading from nine until midnight, and at 5 to midnight he said Compline. I was honoured to be part of the “main reading”. Time and again he told me about a book of mine that he had read. In addition to this tight nightly programme, he taught English during the day to two Polish and a Chinese lady. And then there were the numerous Limericks and other verse, which took up his time and found expression in province publications. To mark the closure of the Sacred Heart Church and the end of his much loved choir, he wrote a song with the long title “Sing, Sing, Chorus of Angels, Lord, Pour Graces and Blessings on Ye”. Six of the lines might well have been written for Tom himself:

    Now that you start this last great final year,
    Be glad of heart and shed no useless tear.
    But think of all the graces you have won
    Now that your final course is nearly run.
    If next September you'll not meet again,
    Then end this session with a great AMEN

Tom's “Amen” came after days of decline and difficulty. His Limerick friends came in strength, together with his fellow Jesuits, to his funeral to give thanks for his life and his companionship. Doubtless, he joyfully conducted and sang along in spirit with the Cecilian and Sacred Heart Choir voices that filled the Milltown chapel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mission Superior, Hong Kong - 1996-2002

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beloved Jesuit mourned

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 2017

Obituary

Father Jim Moran SJ

An Appreciation by Peter Thompson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 145 : Summer 2011

Obituary

Fr Prionsias Ó Fionnagáin (1909-2011)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1977

Appreciation

Father Patrick Crowe SJ

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

◆ The Clongownian, 2017

Obituary

Father Paddy Crowe SJ : A Quality Educator

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 14 September 1936, Phibsboro, Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1954, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 10 July 1968, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 01 February 1974, Della Strada Community, Dooradoyle, Limerick
Died: 28 April 2017, St James’ Hospital, Dublin

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

by 1970 at Auriesville NY, USA (NEB) making Tertianship
by 1971 at New York NY, USA (NEB) studying
by 1980 at Bronx NY, USA (NYK) studying
by 2004 at Bronx NY, USA (NYK) working
by 2011 at Seattle University ORE, USA (ORE) teaching

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/hugh-duffy-gentle-jesuit/

Hugh Duffy – ‘a gentle Jesuit’
Fr Hugh Duffy SJ died in St James’s Hospital on Friday 28 April 2017, aged 80 years old. Born and raised in Dublin, Hugh won a senior cup rugby medal with Belvedere College SJ and entered the Jesuits in 1954. He spent several years in Limerick as a teacher and lecturer. He did his Doctoral degree in English in the United States and he worked in parish ministry and as a visiting professor there. Brian Grogan SJ gave the homily at his funeral mass in Milltown Park Chapel on 3 May.

Fr Grogan said about his friend and classmate, “This man was more there than the average man. He was able to reveal gold to other people”. He fondly remembered when Hugh went on to do his doctoral training after four bachelor degrees during a time when the Church was struggling to adapt to the times. His PhD thesis explored a fresh following of faith in a God who infinitely loves.

Regarding his life as a teacher, “Hugh struggled to liberate his students from destructive images of God. He had a passion for the genuine liberation of the human heart. He wanted people to know that they are loved and appreciated beyond words”. And he taught thousands of pupils in thousands of classes over his lifetime. A friend once noted: “He was a pet; he had soft eyes”. Fr Grogan also thanked his family for sharing Hugh with his Jesuit companions.

Referring to the Jesuit’s decline in health where he moved from autonomy to dependency, Fr Grogan remarked that “He did not yield to dark moods. He was humble and patient, and he offered his suffering for the Church and the world”. The Gospel for the funeral mass depicted Jesus asking his disciple Peter if he loved him, then commanding him to look after his flock. Fr Grogan imagined Hugh answering wholeheartedly, “Yes, I love you, Lord”.

“And so, Hugh found that dying is safe because God is safe, and all restricting images melt away. In his transfigured body, he’s able to dance and sing, and sing and dance, without a stick. And I think that laughter and merriment will be a large part of his contribution to the cosmic party.”

Damien Burke, assistant archivist in the Province, was also at the funeral mass. Hugh helped Damien in his work, identifying Jesuits from earlier days whom Damien would not have known. The very night before his stroke, Hugh was working with Damien on a pamphlet from Belvedere College SJ. “We were discussing a flyer for a 1953 production of the Mikado in which Hugh had a part – he was in the chorus. He was his usual lovely self, a kind and gentle Jesuit, and I really enjoyed working with him.”

A large number of Hugh’s family were in attendance including nieces and nephews who returned from many different countries. His nephew Ian spoke movingly about him. He said he would have made a great father so it was all the more inspirational that he had dedicated his life to the Church. And he raised a laugh when he talked about Hugh’s love of America and how he drove right across the continent from one coast to another – adding, “probably very slowly, but he did it!”

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Scoil Colmcille, Dublin; Belvedere College SJ

1956-1959 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1959-1962 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1962-1965 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying for CWC Cert in Education
1965-1969 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1969-1970 Monroe, Auriesville, NY, USA - Tertianship at Our Lady of the Martyrs
1970-1971 Rice High School, NY, USA - Studying for MA and MEd at Columbia University
1971-1979 Crescent College Comprehensive SJ, Dooradoyle - Teacher; Transition Year Co-ordinator
1979-1980 All Hallows High School, Bronx, NY, USA - Doctoral studies in English at Columbia University
1981-1982 Fordham University, NY, USA - Doctoral studies in English
1983 Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, San Francisco, CA, USA - Parish Work
1983-1985 Gonzaga College SJ - Teacher; 6th Form Master
1985-2002 Crescent College Comprehensive SJ, Dooradoyle - Head of & Lecturer in English Department, Mary Immaculate College
1994 Chair English Department & Lecturer in English at Mary Immaculate College (UL)
2002 Sabbatical
2003-2004 St Thomas the Apostle, Hepstead, New York, NY, USA - Parish Work
2004-2012 Seattle University, Seattle, WA, USA - Visiting Professor in English and Theology
2012-2017 Leeson St - Assistant Chaplain in Cherryfield Lodge

Born: 01 June 1933, Ballyfoyle, County Laois
Entered: 17 September 1951, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1966, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 17 June 1981, Sacred Heart Church Crescent, Limerick
Died: 24 April 2017, Mater Hospital, Dublin (Highfield Healthcare, Whitehall, Dublin)

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

by 1970 at Mount St London (ANG) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/fr-dermot-cassidy-sj-reflective-voice/

Fr Dermot Cassidy SJ – a reflective voice
Fr Dermot Cassidy SJ passed away peacefully on the night of 24 April at the Mater Hospital in Dublin. Fr Cassidy was 83 years old. Born and raised in County Laois, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1951. During his regency training, he worked as a teacher in Crescent College SJ in Limerick. Upon ordination in 1966, he returned to Limerick where he assisted in the Church of the Sacred Heart and promoted the missions for over thirty years (1975-2006). He spent his last few years between Cherryfield Lodge and Highfield Healthcare in Dublin where he prayed continuously for the Church and the Society.

An interview with Fr Dermot
In an interview with Pat Coyle from Irish Jesuit Communications, Fr Dermot spoke about his Jesuit life. He had a very active pastoral ministry for many years where he loved to talk to ordinary people on the streets, in shops and in pubs. Speaking about meeting people in Limerick, he said, “I was always gentle on them. It wouldn’t mean that you could never have an argument. An argument is often a way of contact too and the next time you would meet then you might discuss things at a more human level.”
Since a child, he had a gift of reflection and could perceive things differently, “That’s my nature you know, and what comes by nature can’t be defeated by artifice and artificiality”.
Fr Dermot saw the spiritual hunger of people as a very positive force. As he saw it, this hunger was a mainstay of Irish life. It showed in the determination of people to learn from the past, to build Irish society with a sense of purpose, and to find new and better ways to do things.
The Jesuit had a special connection with Northern Ireland. “I always had a love for the North and still have. They have changed the world perspective on things. People used to say, ‘You’d never think that Christians could fight’ and the same people have now said, ‘You’d never think that Christians could unite and find a way forward’”. He was a committed nationalist and admired Sinn Féin and the way the party worked to try and bring about a united Ireland by engaging in the peace process. And former Sinn Féin Director of publicity and author Danny Morisson expressed his appreciation to Fr Dermot after the ceasefire with a signed and dedicated book. He always kept that book in his room.
Fr Dermot remembered a spontaneous meeting at a pub in Limerick with a Muslim television journalist who was preparing a production on ‘What is Ireland?’. The Jesuit spoke to him about conflict and peace in Ireland and abroad. He also spoke about the spiritual needs of the world. At the end of the talk, the journalist said: ‘I came in here rather upset, and after our conversation I am at peace’.
Asked if he had any regrets, he said: “Only that I haven’t had more opportunity to say what I want to say and that other people who have nothing to say have every opportunity”. His words were certainly not wasted on the queues of people who often came to see him.

A special friendship
Nissanka (Nicky) Gooneratne was a long-time friend of the late Jesuit. Here, the Sri Lankan pays tribute to and regularly kept in touch through visits to Ireland and via telephone calls across continents. Nicky sought spiritual accompaniment from the late Jesuit right up until the time of his death.
Nicky was a young agnostic engineer when he first met Fr Dermot in London. The Jesuit told him, “London is not a Christian country unlike the USA, Canada and Australia”. After a while, they went for walks in Hyde Park where Dermot spoke about the history of the British empire. Eventually, Dermot returned to Ireland and Nicky visited him on holidays and called him regularly. The Sri Lankan was especially grateful to the Jesuit for helping him to discern his career. For example, his resignation from an engineering job in Scotland brought him great peace.
Nicky returned to Sri Lanka where he got married in the Catholic Church and had five children. From across continents, he often heard of his friend’s love for the sick and poor of Limerick. When Dermot moved to Cherryfield Lodge Nursing Home, they promised to look out for each other to the end. “I used to call almost daily without exaggeration,” says Nicky, “recently, he used to be asleep quite a bit but he was always sharp. He was always gentle and kind. He used to end our conversations with a long Irish blessing. And I was filled with shock and sorrow when I heard he died.”
The Sri Lankan remembers one of his friend’s favourite sayings: “An answer will be given beyond our thinking”. And he recorded one of Fr Dermot’s poems from 1975, written after a young relation died. :

Door a-jar
Come, guide the stars Little one
God has held for you heaven’s door a-jar. Ah, boy that died Young man profitable Young man, young You started the origins of life to flow.
The high corn
is green grown now The child is borne
The blessing of summer is heaven in the sky
Ah, heaven high
on earth does grow.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Early Education at CBS Athy, Co Kildare

1953-1956 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1956-1959 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1959-1960 Crescent College SJ - Regency : Teacher
1960-1962 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying CWC Cert in Education
1962-1963 Crescent College SJ - Regency : Teacher
1963-1969 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1967 Assistant Editor of “Messenger”
1969-1974 Mount St, London, UK - Assists in Mount St Church
1974-1975 Tullabeg - Assists in Community work
1975-2006 Crescent Sacred Heart, Limerick- Assisting in Church; Promoting Missions
2006-2017 Coláiste Iognáid SJ - Assisting in Church
2009 Praying for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge
2013 Praying for the Church and the Society at Highfield Healthcare, Whitehall, Dublin

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

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

Early Education at St Joseph’s, Marino

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

Born: 19 April 1929, Ranelagh, Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1954, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1964, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1972, Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin
Died: 28 November 2016, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Transcribed HIB to ZAM: 03 December 1969; ZAM to HIB : 1989

by 1960 at Chivuna, Monze, N Rhodesia - studying language Regency

Early Education at CBS Synge Street; Bolton Street DIT

1956-1959 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1959-1961 Monze, Zambia - Regency : Bursar at Charles Lwanga Teachers’ Training College; Learning CiTonga
1961-1965 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1965-1966 Rathfarnham - Tertianship
1966-1972 Mazabuka, Zambia - Parish work in BMV Assumption Parish & Nakambala Sugar Estate
1972-1987 Gardiner St - Director of Mission Office; + Province Vocations Task Force
1972 Transcribed to Zambian Province [ZAM] (02/02/1972)
1977 Assists in Church
1987-1988 Sabbatical
1988-1994 Crescent Church, Limerick - Superior ; Prefect of the Church; BVM & St Joseph Sodalities; Promoting Zambian Missions
1989 President “Cecilians Musical Society”
1989 Transcribed to Irish Province [HIB] (05/12/1989)
1994-1996 Gardiner St - Promotes Apostleship of Prayer and Messenger; Ministers in Church
1996-2016 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Treasurer and Administrator; Ministers in People’s Church; 2000 Assistant Chaplain in St Vincent’s Private Hospital, Dublin
2007 Assistant Guestmaster; Assistant Community Treasurer
2010 Ministers in People’s Church: Assistant Community Librarian
2014 Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Note from Jean Indeku Entry
During this time his real solace, as he says himself, was the weekend supplies in Mazabuka where he was duly missioned together with Frs Tom O’Meara and Vinnie Murphy.

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/rip-vincent-murphy-sj/

RIP: Vincent Murphy SJ
Irish Jesuit Fr Vincent Murphy passed away peacefully on the morning of Monday 28 November at Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park. A native of Ranelagh, Dublin, Fr Vincent qualified as a Quantity Surveyor and played for Shamrock Rovers FC prior to joining the Jesuits in September 1954. He was ordained ten years later, in 1964.
Vincent spent a number of years on mission work in Zambia, then returned to Dublin, where he was in charge of the Mission Office in Gardiner Street and was Chaplain in St. Vincent’s Hospital. In 1996, Vincent moved to Clongowes Community, and he remained there until 2014, when a stroke required that he move to Cherryfield.
His last few weeks were spent very peacefully, and he told his Rector that Cherryfield was a great preparation for heaven because of the care he was receiving there from the Staff who came to love him dearly.
Below is the homily given by Fr Michael Shiel SJ at the funeral Mass :
“This I know, that my redeemer lives, and, after my awaking, He will set me close to Him. And from my flesh I will look on God.”
As we gather to celebrate the long and full life of Vincent – rich in years and bearing much fruit – the above words are very appropriate to sum up the depth of faith of this follower of Ignatius Loyola and his ‘Friends in the Lord’. For if ever anyone was prepared to meet His Lord it was Vincent.
Some time last year, when I visited him in Cherryfield, he told me that his consultant had promised that he would live to see the new RWC Champions crowned. After the final, I asked him what his next deadline was. He said: “Now, I’m just waiting for Godot!” To which all I could say was: “Well, I hope you’ll have more luck than the other pair – Vladimir and Estragon!
Today we, as Christians, believe that he has. For we believe in the promise of Jesus just heard in the Gospel: “I am going to prepare a place for you, and I shall return to take you with me”.
Vincent was born in the year of the Great Depression. He went to school in Synge Street – and how proud he was of his Christian Brothers’ education there! He joined the Jesuits in 1954 as a late vocation, having qualified as a quantity surveyor in Bolton Street, DIT. Outside his professional life, he made his mark in (as he put it) the glory-days of Shamrock Rovers! His contemporaries in the Society used to recount how frustrated Vincent could become as they tried to find an approach to the beautiful game other than a Jack Charlton-like Garryowen-type hoof and follow!
The Irish Province’s mission to Zambia was still developing, and Vincent joined the growing band of Irish Jesuits for his regency there in 1959. After theology and ordination here in Milltown, and a final year of study in Rathfarnham, Vincent returned to Africa where he ministered in parish work before coming back again to Ireland to head up the Mission Office in Gardiner Street. His generous care of returning missionaries knew no limits and was greatly appreciated. He also helped out in the Church, and he was Vocations Director as well.
est of his apostolic life was spent in Dublin and Limerick, before he joined our Community in Clongowes just 20 years ago. He followed in the footsteps of Fr John Sullivan as he served in the People’s Church and then ministered as Chaplain in St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. And lastly, as failing health brought him to Cherryfield Lodge, his final – and very important – mission was to pray for the Church and the Society of Jesus, for his Companions who continue to carry on God’s work in many different fields.
Such, in very few lines, is the life of Fr Vincent Murphy SJ. He was unsung and unheralded in the world at large, but so too was he rewarding and fruitful in doing good and in enriching the lives of very many people and families to whom he brought the Good News of God’s saving power, as he lived it in his own life. God’s love was indeed inscribed with iron chisel (his faith) and engraving tool (his generosity) cut into the rock of people’s lives as they experienced his ministering zeal. Nowhere was this seen to greater effect than in his years as Hospital chaplain, where his patience and care for both the sick and the hospital staff bore much fruit and brought comfort and hope to those who were facing an uncertain future.
In later years, first of all in Clongowes Wood College and more recently in Cherryfield, God continued to give Vincent as a special gift to others, this time as someone in need of their love and care. It is only right, at a time like this, to pay tribute to the CWC Infirmary Nurses and Community Staff whose care allowed him bonus-years there.
For someone who, as I said at the start, was surely prepared to meet his Lord, Vincent seemed simply not to want to let go of his Cherryfield carer-friends, as I was to witness during the past week. It began for me as a simple overnight stay, and it ended as an extraordinary and privileged experience of seeing at first hand – behind-the-scenes, early mornings and late nights – the care of every single one of the staff, both nursing and support. It was fitting that the former dispenser of God’s caring love as a hospital chaplain should himself be the receiver of a quite extraordinary outpouring of care and love by the team in Cherryfield. On behalf of the CWC Community, and of the Irish Jesuits, I can only say a deep-down thanks to each and every one of you.
“I am going to prepare a place for you – and, after I have gone and prepared a place for you – I shall return to take you with me, so that, where I am, you may be too.”
It is our Christian faith which brings us to the Eucharist this morning – our Faith that Christ did indeed return to call His disciple home, when just two days ago, accompanied by George Fallon and myself, Vincent came to the end of his long and faith-filled journey. It was his dies natalis, his heavenly birthday, as the Roman martyrology called it, as his tent that we live in on earth was folded up, and he moved to the everlasting home, not made by human hands, in the heavens. Now, in his turn, Vincent has gone ahead of us to help prepare a place for us and he will be on hand to welcome each one of us to Our Father’s home.
So often in life we say good-bye. It comes from the ancient wish or prayer ‘May God be with you’. And today we say it to Vincent at this, his last Mass.
And so we pray: “May Christ enfold you in His Love, and bring you to eternal life; may God and Mary be with you.”
Be assured that we will pray for you, Vincent. May you also pray for us. And so we say farewell, and, until we meet again, good-bye.

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

Note from Tommy Martin Entry
1974 He retired from this work of Missions Procurator and handed over to Vincent Murphy.

◆ The Clongownian, 2017

Obituary

Father Vincent Murphy SJ : A Special Gift to Others

A member of the community of Clongowes Wood College SJ, Fr. Vincent Murphy SJ, passed away peacefully last November (28th), in Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park; he will be sadly missed.

Vincent was a valued member of the Clongowes Community since his arrival here in 1996 as Treasurer and Administrator. In 2014 Vincent suffered a mild stroke and spent a weekend in Naas Hospital. He then transferred to Cherryfield Lodge where he lived very contentedly until around Hallowe'en when he began to decline. His last few weeks were spent very peacefully, and he told his Rector that Cherryfield was a great preparation for heaven because of the care he was receiving there from the staff who came to love him dearly.

Below is the homily given by Fr Michael Shiel SJ at Vincent's funeral Mass.

This I know, that my redeemer lives, and, after my awaking, He will set me close to Him. And from my flesh I will look on God. As we gather to celebrate the long and full life of Vincent - rich in years and bearing much fruit - the above words are very appropriate to sum up the depth of faith of this follower of Ignatius Loyola and his “Friends in the Lord”. For if ever anyone was prepared to meet His Lord it was Vincent. Some time last year, when I visited him in Cherryfield, he told me that his consultant had promised that he would live to see the new Rugby World Cup Champions crowned. After the final, I asked him what his next deadline was. He said: “Now, I'm just waiting for Godot!” To which all I could say was: “Well, I hope you'll have more luck than the other pair - Vladimir and Estragon!” Today we, as Christians, believe that he has. For we believe in the promise of Jesus just heard in the Gospel: “I am going to prepare a place for you, and I shall return to take you with me”.

Vincent was born in 1929 - the year of the Great Depression. He went to school in Synge Street - and how proud he was of his Christian Brothers' education there! He joined the Jesuits in 1954 as a late vocation, having qualified as a quantity Surveyor in Bolton Street, DIT. Outside his professional life, he made his mark in las he put it) the glory-days of Shamrock Rovers! His contemporaries in the Society used to recount how frustrated Vincent could become as they tried to find an approach to the beautiful game other than a Jack Charlton-like Garryowen-type hoof and follow!

The Irish Province's mission to Zambia was still developing, and Vincent joined the growing band of Irish Jesuits for his regency there in 1959. After theology and ordination here in Milltown, and a final year of study in Rathfarnham, Vincent returned to Africa where he ministered in parish work before coming back again to Ireland to head up the Mission Office in Gardiner Street. His generous care of returning missionaries knew no limits and was greatly appreciated. He also helped out in the Church, and he was Vocations Director as well. He was not destined to return to Zambia, although he retained strong affectionate links with Africa. The rest of his apostolic life was spent in Dublin and Limerick, before he joined our Community in Clongowes just 20 years ago. He followed in the footsteps of Fr John Sullivan as he served in the People's Church and then ministered as Chaplain in St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. And lastly, as failing health brought him to Cherryfield Lodge, his final - and very important - mission was to pray for the Church and the Society of Jesus, for his Companions who continue to carry on God's work in many different fields.

Such, in very few lines, is the life of Fr Vincent Murphy SJ. He was unsung and unheralded in the world at large, but so too was he rewarding and fruitful in doing good and in enriching the lives of very many people and families to whom he brought the Good News of God's saving power, as he lived it in his own life. God's love was indeed inscribed with iron chisel This faith) and engraving tool (his generosity) cut into the rock of people's lives as they experienced his ministering zeal. Nowhere was this seen to greater effect than in his years as hospital chaplain, where his patience and care for both the sick and the hospital staff bore much fruit and brought comfort and hope to those who were facing an uncertain future. In later years, first of all in Clongowes Wood College and more recently in Cherryfield, God continued to give Vincent as a special gift to others, this time as someone in need of their love and care, It is only right, at a time like this, to pay tribute to the Clongowes Infirmary Nurses and Community Staff whose care allowed him bonus-years there.

For someone whom, as | said at the start, was surely prepared to meet his Lord, Vincent seemed simply not to want to let go of his Cherryfield carer-friends, as I was to witness during the past week. It began for me as a simple overnight stay, and it ended as an extraordinary and privileged experience of seeing at first hand - behind-the-scenes, early mornings and late nights - the care of every single one of the staff, both nursing and support. It was fitting that the former dispenser of God's caring love as a hospital chaplain should himself be the receiver of a quite extraordinary outpouring of care and Love by the team in Cherryfield. On behalf of the Clongowes Community and of the Irish Jesuits, I can only say a deep-down thanks to each and every one of you.

“I am going to prepare a place for you - and, after I have gone and prepared a place for you - I shall return to take you with me, so that, where I am, you may be too”.

It is our Christian faith which brings us to the Eucharist this morning - our Faith that Christ did indeed return to call His disciple home, when just two days ago, accompanied by George Fallon and myself, Vincent came to the end of his long and faith-filled journey. It was his “dies natalis”, his heavenly birthday, as the Roman martyrology called it, as his tent that we live in on earth was folded up, and he moved to the everlasting home, not made by human hands, in the heavens. Now, in his turn, Vincent has gone ahead of us to help prepare a place for us and he will be on hand to welcome each one of us to Our Father's home.

So often in life we say good-bye. It comes from the ancient wish or prayer May God be with you and today we say it to Vincent at this, his last Mass. And so we pray:

May Christenfold you in His Love, and bring you to eternal life; may God and Mary be with you. Be assured that we will pray for you, Vincent. May you also pray for us.

And so we say farewell, and, until we meet again, good-bye.

Born: 26 May 1831, Mullingar, County Westmeath
Entered: 29 September 1849, Amiens, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 22 September 1861, St Beuno's, St Asaph, Wales
Final vows: 02 February 1868
Died: 30 November 1891, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, 31 July 1880-6 May 1883

by 1853 at St Marie, Toulouse (TOLO) for Regency
by 1861 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying Theology
by 1867 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
Provincial 31 July 1880

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Studied for some years at Toulouse.
1854 Sent to Tullabeg for Regency.
1855-1859 Further Regency as a teacher in Clongowes.
1859 he was sent to Paderborn for Theology, but in failing health he came to England and did his studies at St Beuno’s, where he was Ordained by Dr Brown 22 September 1861.
After Ordination he was sent to Clongowes, and later to Limerick.
1866 He was sent to Drongen for Tertianship.
1867 He was appointed Vice-Rector at Galway.
He was then sent to Clongowes as Minister for two years, and then the same for two years at Limerick.
1873-1876 He was at Milltown.
1876-1877 He was Superior at UCD.
1878-1887 he was appointed Rector at Milltown January 1878, and continued living there when he came out of office in 1883.
1887 he was sent to Gardiner St as Operarius and lived there until he died after a very short illness 30 November 1891
He was a man of great literary culture, a good classical scholar and of a very retiring disposition.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father James Tuite (1831-1891)

Born at Mullingar and educated at Clongowes, was admitted into the Society in 1849. He pursued his higher studies at Toulouse, Paderborn and St Beuno's, Wales and was ordained in 1861. Father Tuite was master at the Crescent in the first decade of its foundation, 1864-66, and returned to the teaching staff in 1870. During the last year of his association with the Crescent he devoted himself entirely to church work, 1872-73. He was later rector of Milltown Park and appointed Provincial in 1880. His later years were spent in church work at Gardiner St, Dublin.

Born: 18 September 1927, Inchicore, Dublin
Entered: 22 October 1955, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final vows: 15 August 1966, Sacred Heart Church (Crescent), Limerick
Died: 01 October 2016, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Early Education at CBS Inchicore, Dublin; CBS James’ Street, Dublin; Post Office, Islandbridge, Dublin

1957-1959 Emo - Gardener
1959-1961 Milltown Park - Gardener
1961-1971 Crescent - Sacristan
1966 Tullabeg - Tertianship
1971-1985 Loyola - Minister; Bursar; in charge of Maintenance
1985-1990 Tullabeg - Treasurer
1986 Assistant Minister
1990-2010 John Austin - Subminister; Sacristan; Library Bursar in Milltown Park
1991 Cherryfield Lodge - Convalescing
1998 Minister; Treasurer
2000 Minister; Sacristan; Garden
2010-2016 Milltown Park - Helps in the Garden
2012 Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/ordinary-things-love/

Doing ordinary things with love
The life and death of Brother Brendan Hyland SJ was marked with moving tributes from his family and fellow Jesuits at his funeral mass in Milltown Park Chapel on Monday 3 October. Brendan died peacefully at the age of 89, in Cherryfield Lodge. He’d been living with the Jesuit community there for the last four years of his life when severe arthritis curtailed his physical health and affected his mobility, particularly in the last six months of his life.
Brian Grogan SJ, who preached the homily at the funeral mass was a novice with Brendan in 1955. “He was 28 and I was 16 but we had shared backgrounds notably our Christian Brother education and hurling.” Brendan was a keen gardener and fine hurler, and Brian developed a life-long friendship with the man he said was, ‘Like Cassius Clay… He could fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee!”
He had many roles in his Jesuit life, said Brian. He was a minister, treasurer, gardener, sacristan, maintenance man, who eventually ended up invalided. And in all these roles he was always welcoming and gentle. Brian said it was appropriate that he died on the feast day of Thérèse of Lisieux who practiced her ‘little way’, serving God with great love by doing the small things in life really well. “That was Brendan. He was one of God’s little ones, with a great charge given, an Ignatian command – in all things to love and serve. And Brendan did just that.”
Bill Callanan SJ confirmed this in the tribute poem he read at the Mass. It was from the pen of Gerard Manly Hopkins and about another Jesuit brother St Alphonsus Rodriguez, who was a doorkeeper for forty-five years. The theme centred around doing ordinary things with love: “Those years and years by of world without event/ That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.”(Read full poem below)
Brendan’s family chose hymns concerning gardening and growth and, referring to the famous gospel of the beatitudes that they also chose for the Mass, Brian said: “They chose this gospel outlining the eight forms of happiness because they knew this is what made Brendan tick. When you live as this gospel requests, then you enter a different world, the world of God. If you live like this, then happiness is yours and you radiate blessings to a needy world. Brendan radiated that happiness in his smile.”
And his was a special smile, according to Brian, who quoted the French mystic who once said to God, ‘You gazed on me and You smiled’. And that smile, that gaze of God, conveys infinite love. “Brendan knew that smile for he knew the truth of Pope Francis’ words, ‘When all is said and done we are infinitely loved.’ And Brendan smiled back. Even in his suffering. And he suffered greatly with depression, feeling of uselessness, arthritis but he bore it all patiently… and even with a smile.”
Speculating on Brendan’s new journey, Brian said he has now becoming radiant, like a morning star, “becoming like God because he sees God as God is. Freed from the constraints of space and time, Brendan’s full life, for which this one was only a rehearsal, begins. Now he’s playing in the galaxies in the company of the ever-creative God. And one day we shall join him there.”
In the meantime we have our own lives to live here. With that thought in mind, Brian speculated on what advice Brother Brendan Hyland might have for those present. “He’d say Fr Arrupe was right when he wrote, ‘Nothing is more practical than finding God’. May Brendan help us find God more and more. Amen.”
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilís.

Born: 14 April 1931, Magherafelt, County Derry
Entered: 07 September 1950, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1963, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1968, Chiesa del Gesù, Roma, Italia
Died: 26 January 2017, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

Early Education at NS Magherafelt, Co Derry, Northern Ireland; Clongowes Wood College SJ

1952-1954 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1954-1957 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1957-1960 Crescent College SJ - Regency : Teacher
1960-1964 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1964-1965 Paray-le-Monial, France - Tertianship at Maison La Colombière
1965-1967 Bellarmino, Rome, Italy - Studying Theology at Gregorian University
1967-1968 Trier, Germany - Diploma Course in Liturgy at German Liturgical Institute
1968-1984 Milltown Park - Teacher of Theological Dogma & Liturgy
1977 President of Milltown Institute
1983 Sabbatical
1984-1989 Nairobi, Kenya - Professor of Theology at Hekima College School of Theology
1989-2017 Milltown Park - Professor of Systematic Theology at Milltown Institute
1993 Director of Lonergan Centre
1996 Visiting Professor at Hekima College School of Theology
2001 Professor Emeritus of Theology at Milltown Institute; Director of Lonergan Centre; Writer
2015 Director of Lonergan Centre; Writer

by 1965 at Paray-le-Monial, France (GAL M) making Tertianship
by 1966 at Rome, Italy (ROM) studying
by 1968 at Trier, Germany (GER S) studying
by 1985 at Nairobi, Kenya (AOR) teaching - Hekima

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/fine-scholar-outstanding-lecturer/

‘Fine scholar, outstanding lecturer’
Jesuits, family and friends of the late Ray Moloney SJ packed into Milltown Chapel for his funeral mass celebrated by Bill Matthews SJ. Ray died on 26 January, aged 85. He was born in Belfast in 1931 and raised in Magherafelt, Co. Derry. At the age of 12 he went to Clongowes Wood College SJ and joined the Jesuits in 1950. Most of his life revolved around the Milltown Institute where he taught theology and liturgy. He spent five years on the missions in Kenya where he learnt Swahili so he could travel and celebrate Mass with the local people. He was the respected author of many theological books, and well known for his theology of the Eucharist.
Homilist Brian Grogan SJ noted that Ray’s writings on the Eucharist offered fleeting glimpses into his soul. Ray summarised his book Rediscovering the Eucharist not in terms of sacrifice, or obligation, or the Real Presence, but in terms of friendship. “In the Eucharist we already anticipate something of what our friendship with Christ will be when it comes to its full flowering in heaven. In the long run that friendship is all that matters,” he wrote.
Referring to his long academic ministry, Brian said that Ray was a “fine scholar and outstanding teacher.” This view was echoed widely by many of his former students who posted on the Irish Jesuits Facebook page. “Fond memories of learning theology from Ray Moloney. A scholar and a gentleman”, wrote Thomas Giblin. And US Jesuit James Pribek commented, “He combined fine scholarship with genuine humility and benevolence. In a group, he was usually on the edge, taking everything in and smiling. He radiated peace. May God be good to him”.
In his wide-ranging homily Brian spoke also about Ray’s life as a Jesuit, noting that his ministry in the intellectual apostolate was underpinned by a deep faith, committed prayer life and love of God. He said he lived an ascetic, almost monastic life, and a fitting symbol for that life was his breviary. “Ray leaned into the contrary wind and lived an orderly and predictable day. Some clerics, I have heard, sailed with the prevailing wind and eased up on the divine office, but not he... At the end his well-worn breviary was the only book beside his bed.”
Brian acknowledged that Ray held firmly to what some would call a more conservative theological position and was slow to relinquish beliefs that were dear to him. “But agree with him or not, he commanded your respect. He knew where he stood, and had a steely quality characteristic of his Northern Ireland roots.” He was also prepared to change and develop, something attested to in a few words from Provincial Leonard Moloney just before the final commendation. He said he had been speaking to Ray not too long before his death and Ray told him that his prayer had changed in recent times and was now much more affective than rational.
Speaking at the end of the Mass, Ray’s niece also told a revealing story about the man her family knew and loved. She remembered with fondness his visits to her home as a child and how he would let her put her feet on his shoes as he danced her round the room.
Brian concluded his homily with the following words: “In a little while we will say: ‘We shall become like God, for we shall see him as he is.’ Like Aquinas when asked by God ‘What do you want?’, Ray would have responded, ‘Teipsum, Domine. Yourself, Lord.’ ... Ray now sees God. He is enlightened, entranced, immortalised and divinised. Our Eucharist today is a thanksgiving for all that God has accomplished in our brother and friend, Ray Moloney”.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Born: 11 January 1939, Avondale, Corbally, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1957, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 20 June 1971, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 24 January 1976, Milltown Park, Dublin

by 1963 at Chantilly, France (GAL S) studying

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 51st Year No 2 1976

Crescent
Fr Billy Carroll (at school here 1946-257): After a short period in St. John's hospital, Limerick, Billy died in Dublin on 24th January. As a past pupil and member of the Society, he was much loved and respected by his schoolmates and all his friends in Limerick. The concelebrated Mass (29th January) was attended by a great number of past pupils, relatives and friends.

Obituary :

Fr Billy Carroll (1939-1976)

It is difficult to get used to the idea that Billy Carroll, who would have been thirty-seven in June this year, is no longer with us. I spent about thirteen years with Billy in Emo, Rathfarnham, Chantilly, Clongowes and Milltown. He was always quiet, with a wry sense of humour, always able to pick out and imitate the various accents and idiosyncrasies of sports commentator, superior or lecturer. An excellent athlete from his schooldays, he arrived late in Emo because he was playing rugby for Munster in the summer of '57. He was on the Irish school boys international athletic team, and as a novice, junior, philosopher or theologian he seemed at his happiest on the football field.
Billy was never an academic. He found the years of training tough, but quietly and uncomplainingly steered his way through the various intellectual forests. He was at his happiest with youngsters, and the number of them at his funeral witnesses to the fact that they were impressed with his instinctive goodness, ready wit and genuine concern.
Billy did his philosophy in France where if, like the rest of us, he did not learn too much philosophy, he certainly learnt French and was a very popular figure in that large community of Chantilly. His soccer abilities were invaluable to the Chantilly team and his wit enlivened many a gloomy hour in exile. His ability to imitate was used on occasion to brighten up philosophy lectures and when, at the end of a course, it was the custom to do a “take off” of a particular professor, Billy would use his talent to the delight of professor and students alike.
On returning to Ireland, Billy was sent to Clongowes as Third Line prefect. Here he showed great rapport with the boys, but a mysterious Providence had him moved to Limerick the following year. He was happy to be back in his home town.
He ploughed his way through theology with difficulty and was ordained in 1971. The next year found him back in Limerick, and it was here that his illnesses began. His most bitter disappointment was when he was moved from the Crescent to the Milltown Retreat House and he found it difficult to settle into his new job, particularly as his health was poor. But he gave himself to his job with dedication.
It was always difficult to read Billy’s heart, for he seldom spoke of his inner self, but his quiet ways and gentle smile will always be a happy reminder of how good it was to have him around and to have known and worked and played with him. I hear that on the day he died he enjoyed watching the Australia/ Ireland rugby match. It fits. We look forward to joining him in times to come.
PF

◆ The Clongownian, 1976

Obituary

Father Billy Carroll SJ

Those who were in the Third Line in 1965-66 were saddened to hear that their prefect of that year, Mr Billy Carroll, died in January at the early age of thirty-six, just five years after ordination. Although he had never enjoyed robust health, Billy's death came as a shock to his many friends, who will not easily forget his unusual goodness and his quiet, gentle ways.

Born: 07 May 1922, Menlough, County Galway
Entered: 07 October 1945, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1955, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1963, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 20 January 1968, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ : Admissions 1859-1948 - B.E and BSc at UCG before entry

In 1968 the galloping cancer which killed 46-year-old Tom Scully SJ must have been nourished by the tension in which he lived: between the demands of full-time science teaching in Belvedere, demands that were sharpened by an exigent headmaster, and the needs of the poor which Tom saw outside his door. When he died, the flats which he had funded and planned for the aged poor and for newly weds, were given his name. They have served their purpose for forty years, and now, they are being tossed with a view to replacement. https://www.jesuit.ie/news/father-scully-house-comes-down/

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 43rd Year No 2 1968
Belvedere College
On January 20th, Fr. Tom Scully who had been in the Mater Hospital for about three weeks, passed quietly away. For the previous fortnight he had suffered a great deal but remained ever cheerful at all times. Right up to the end he showed an active interest in all college affairs. The day before he died a group of the boys (from one of the three St. Vincent de Paul Conferences which he directed) visited him and he wished to know whether certain cases had been visited during his absence. On the same day he spoke to Fr. Rector in a moving way of his appreciation of the charity and kindness of the community to him and stressed how much he was indebted to them. His passing will leave a great void to be filled not only in the various activities in which he immersed himself in the College, but also in his St. Anne's Housing Aid Society which was his brain-child and of which he was the mentor in all its developments, material and financial.
January 23rd. Requiem Mass for Fr. Scully at which practically all the school participated. It was one of the largest funerals from Gardiner St. for some time with representatives from all walks of life. Various tributes to him appeared in the Press, all written in the same key - “to the memory of a kind and gentle Priest”. It is only since his death that we realise what a prodigious amount of work he fitted into his already overcrowded daily schedule. R.I.P.

Obituary :

Fr Thomas Scully SJ (1922-1968)

A writer of obituaries is often faced with the task of reconciling kindness with the truth. In writing of Tom Scully no such problem arises. To say that he was an exemplary religious, loved by his family and his friends, popular in Belvedere both among the community and the boys, cherished by those who shared his social work is not a kindly half truth, masking the darker side of his character. There simply was no dark side to Tom's character. Doubtless being human, he had his faults but they were mere trifling imperfections that flesh and blood must live with and accept.
Tom was born in Menlough, Co. Galway in May 1922. He attended the local National School and then spent a very happy period in secondary school at St. Joseph's, Ballinasloe. He was immensely proud of being educated at St. Joseph's, now called Garbally Park, and often remarked on the happy casualness of school life there in the golden thirties.
At U.C.G. he took, without undue effort his B.Sc, as well as a degree in civil engineering. He enjoyed the University, especially its social life, picking up at this time the bad habit of being a very good card player.
After leaving the University, he spent some time as an engineer in the Board of Works, before being appointed an Assistant County Surveyor for Co. Wicklow.
He entered the Society in October 1945, taking in his stride the traditional noviceship regime, which is now in process of being changed. In Tullabeg he enjoyed life greatly, philosophy, his new companions, card playing, talking, walking, boating, designing and building a swimming pool, in fact the lot! He was by temperament a Celt, but of the cheerful variety, full of fire and fun, quick and clever in everything, a strong personality with a most unCeltlike ability to control his moods. In this, he was helped by his temperament which was basically optimistic and cheerful.
He spent two years in the Crescent as a scholastic. He found teaching no problem, enjoyed the boys and in a different sort of way, the community. He had some good stories about those days, featuring the escapades of a bizarre contemporary, still alive, but alas no longer with us.
In Milltown he worked conscientiously, passed all the exams, accepted all the doctrines, had no doubts as far as one could see, played his game of bridge once a week and above all remained the same, vivacious, lively and reliable. He was, perhaps, by nature a conservative. He respected and admired the religious traditions of his country and in a sense it could be said that his piety was more Irish than Jesuit, more redolent of Croagh Patrick and Lough Derg than Farm Street or, dare we say it, Milltown Park.
He spent almost his last ten years in Belvedere as science master and had become one of the pillars of that great college. He taught his classes with great care and was respected by all his students. One of the greatest signs of his interest in teaching was the way in which he successfully obtained his H.Dip. in Ed. only two years ago. Some years previous to that he went to America for a summer-course in the teaching of science. The tidiness of the physics laboratory and his care of its instruments were other indications of his deep love for this work. His devotion to the school was very real, he liked both the community and the boys and greatly admired the past pupils, especially those in the Vincent de Paul Society and the Newsboys Club. He showed many of the signs of that devotion, varying from a certain deep contentment in his surroundings to a shared sympathy in all the joys and sorrows of the school. His intelligence, however, tempered the narrowing effects of devotion and he retained to the end a genuine interest not only in the other schools of the Society but in all the problems peculiar to Irish education.
His life work was in a sense crowned by his activities in the Catholic Housing Association. This group was founded by a number of Catholic laymen in order to provide homes for the aged poor of Dublin. Tom was invited to join the group as chaplain. In a short time he found himself playing a very important part in running the new organisation. Every spare moment was devoted to it, and he loved the work. In fact towards the end his greatest interest was in this problem of housing the poor and the old of Dublin. He felt deeply that a Christian country should above all else, aid its elderly impoverished citizens, whose misery we see all around us in the Ireland of today. Tom did not want to die. He had too many interests, too many friends, too much work on hand, to wish to leave this world. But when he was told the truth, he did not seem to mind. I think he had long suspected it and had already turned his mind away from this life and its seismic disturbances to the contemplation of eternity. It was in this spirit that he died, an outstanding Christian and a great priest.
His funeral was immense, a tribute from the good people of Dublin to an exceptionally good man. Those, whom he knew well, will never forget him. May he rest in peace.

An Appreciation

The following is part of an appreciation of Fr. Scully by one of the officials of the Catholic Housing Aid Society. Fr. Scully was the chaplain of this Society and often acted as its spokesman and advocate of its cause.
“He loved the poor. It was through his association with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul that he came to realise their many needs. It can truly be said that he was one of the first to pull back the curtain in Dublin City on the appalling conditions of cold, hunger and loneliness in which a large number of old people were forced to live. The lowliest were his friends, because he did not forget that the most humble piece of human flotsam is the dignified possessor of an immortal soul. He had a special gift for using all of his time. If it was even a half hour between classes in Belvedere, he used to drop in with equal facility on a leader of industry or an old person in a tenement. If it was the former, he might come away a little richer for the Catholic Housing Aid Society, or if the latter 10/- (very often his last 10/-) poorer. His dedication was to the aged poor of Dublin. He gave them everything he had, including his heart through the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and through our Catholic Housing Aid Society.
When we set out to collect £120,000 in the daring social experiment of building a block of flats for the old and the young (St. Anne's Court in Gardiner St.) we had little money and few helpers. However in just close on three years we had collected over £60,000 from rich and poor-company directors, trade unionists, workers in factories and in business houses and even the widow's mite. As well as that we had arranged for £33,000 in grants and received promises of another £15,000. It was a long, hard road. Fr. Scully spent every Wednesday afternoon (his half-day from classes) begging here and there. He went to the leaders of Unions and Industry and into the factories and workshops of the workers in his quest for funds. He was always happy to speak to factory workers. He called them the salt of the earth. He always stressed that his scheme was non-sectarian and many of his biggest subscriptions came from Protestants. In doing all his great charitable work he shunned publicity with the result that it was only the few he had around him who knew the colossal amount of work he put into his task. To the members of the Catholic Housing Aid Society he was a lovable leader. He never drove anyone to do anything; you were attracted towards him and felt that you had to do it. Just before he died this gentle and lovable Jesuit in a message to the members of the Catholic Housing Aid Society told them that this year would be a crucial one for the Society and he asked them to redouble their efforts to gather in the balance of the money. The members have already set about the task because they feel that the success of the venture will be a fitting tribute to the unselfish and inspiring work of Fr. Scully for the lonely and necessitous aged. It was a privilege and joy to have helped him and those who knew him will always remember him. Let our continuing work insure that his memory is perpetuated in the only memorial he would wish for a home for his poorer brothers and sisters. We are all sorry he did not live to see his dream take shape in bricks and mortar. We shall miss him on this earth, but it is good to know we have such a friend in Heaven."
J. Macs.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1968

Obituary

Father Thomas J Scully SJ (Master in Belvedere 1957-1968

Father Thomas Scully was born in Menlough, Co Galway, in May 1922. He was educated at St Joseph's, Ballinasloe and later went to University College, Galway, where he obtained the BE degree (Civil) in 1942 and the BSc degree in the following year. After graduation he worked for some time as an engineer in the Board of Works and later obtained appointment as Assistant County Surveyor for Co Wicklow.

He entered the Society of Jesus on 7th October 1945 and studied Philosophy at St Stanislaus College, Tullamore, for three years, after which he spent two years teaching in Crescent College, Limerick. He then went for his theological studies to Milltown Park, Dublin, where he was ordained in 1955. He spent the last 11 years of his life as a science teacher in Belvedere College. During that period (in 1964) he attended a Physics course at the Rutgers University summer session in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. This seven week course was sponsored by the American National Science Foundation.

In Belvedere Fr Scully was regarded as a very competent teacher. He had the gift of winning the confidence and loyalty of his pupils. Never robust - he was not an active games man - he was nevertheless a staunch supporter of the School Teams in their annual Cup-winning quests. He appreciated the finer points of Rugby and never failed to appear at the Schools Cup matches. But it is perhaps for his work in the social field that he will be most remembered. In the school he had the direction of the two Conferences of the St Vincent de Paul Society and the enthusiasm he inspired among the members was apparent to all. He was also the Director of one of the Old Belvedere Conferences of the Vincent de Paul Society. He was not content with interesting the boys of Belvedere in the plight of the poor under his inspiration a wide circle outside the College came to share in his Christlike attitude to the suffering, for whom, as he himself put it : “Pity is not enough”.

For some years the plight of the aged poor of Dublin, living on their own, had come very much to his notice. With the help of the boys in the school conferences he did what he could to help with this problem in the locality. Much more important, however, was the fact that he initiated some surveys of the conditions in which old people are living on their own in Dublin and published a number of articles calling attention to their plight. Thus it was that at an early stage he became associated with the Catholic Housing Aid Society which is planning a number of flats to accommodate some of the aged poor, as well as newly-wed couples. Fr Tom devoted a great deal of the time and energy of his last years to this work. The importance of what he was trying to do was recognised by the Lord Mayor when he dedicated this year's annual Lord Mayor's Ball (on St Patrick's Day) to the memory of Father Scully and appealed for support so that the proceeds might be greater than usual and could be used for the projects of the CHAS. After his death, the Lord Mayor, in a letter to his sister, paid tribute to Fr Tom's work for the aged poor of the city.

We have already mentioned his writings on social questions which aroused a good deal of interest; for instance his advice was asked and generously given to the Limerick Housing Aid organisation and to the Methodist work on the same line in Dublin. But Father Scully over the years produced a number of other items which were published, both of a spiritual and engineering nature. First we should mention his booklet on “The Mass in Your Life” and the series of articles which he contributed in 1963 to the Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart on “The Devotional Life of the Soul”. In the now defunct publication “The Irish Monthly” there appeared under his name (in 1949) articles on such diverse topics as “Peat Electrical stations”, “Arterial Drainage”, “The Tennessee Valley Authority” and “New Land for Old”. He was certainly a man who made the most possible use of his talents and energies in good causes but particularly in the field of social problems.

So far this tribute has been mainly factual and may have given little impression of Father Scully the man. To say that he was a gay companion and an edifying religious may sound trite, but it was true - as those who lived with him can testify. He was generous, sympathetic and interested in the work and problems of everyone, and this despite his own very busy life and the many cares that burdened him increasingly. It was perhaps only at the end that we really appreciated his qualities and the amount of work that he had been doing.

Fr Tom became ill last summer, and serious illness was diagnosed. Those who were close to him knew that it was very probable that he had not long to live. Still, he went back to the classroom and continued to work with increasing fervour for the aged poor. Just before Christmas he became ill again and died most peacefully after some weeks in the Mater Nursing Home. But during those weeks, in spite of devoted nursing, he suffered very greatly and those who visited him will not forget the example of fortitude that he gave and his continued interest, up to the day before his death, both in the affairs of the school and in the social work to which he was so deeply committed.

Father Tom died on Saturday, January 20th 1968. The removal took place on the following Monday at 5.15 to the Church of St. Francis Xavier and the remains were preceeded and followed by a large attendance on foot. They included many of the old people for whom he had worked so hard. Among the attendance was the late Minister for Education, Mr. Donogh O'Malley, an old friend from University days in Galway.

There was a very large attendance at the Office and Requiem in St. Francis Xavier's on Tuesday at 10.45, and at the funeral which followed to the Jesuit Cemetery in Glasnevin. Some of the Belvedere boys who had been in the Vincent de Paul Conference carried the coffin from the hearse to the mortuary chapel and many of the school lined the path to the grave.

Our sympathies go to Father Tom's sister and brother Sr Colombière, Presentation Convent, Galway, and Dr Eamonn Scully, Moycullen, Co. Galway.

Born: 12 September 1896, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 29 September 1913, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1928, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1933, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 13 July 1985, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway

by 1924 in Australia - Regency
by 1932 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Edward Andrews came to Australia at the end of his philosophy studies in 1922 and was sent to Riverview. From 1923-25 he was third division prefect, taught in the classroom and assisted with cadets, He seemed to be a born teacher and he enjoyed his time in Sydney.
His subsequent work in Ireland included being prefect of studies in The Crescent and Galway, as well as being rector at The Crescent, finally teaching for 42 years in schools. Andrews was an outstanding Irish scholar, and a fine musician.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 60th Year No 4 1985

Obituary

Fr Edward Joseph Andrews (1896-1913-1985)

Born on 12th September 1896. 29th September 1913: entered SJ. 1913-35 Tullabeg. noviciate. 1915-19 Rathfarnham: 1915-16 home juniorate, 1916-19 studying at UCD. 1919-22 Milltown, philosophy. 1922-25 Australia, regency at Riverview, Sydney. 1925-29 Milltown, theology. 1929-31 Galway, teaching 1931-32 St Beuno's, tertianship.
1932-40 Crescent, prefect of studies. 1940-42 Rathfarnham, minister of juniors. 1942-56 Galway, prefect of studies. 1956-62 Crescent, rector. 1962-85 Galway: teaching till 1972 doc. an. 42); house confessor; 1963-98 spiritual father to community; 1971-85 church and parish confessor.

Edward Joseph Andrews was born in Dublin on 12th September 1896. He was educated at Belvedere and entered the noviciate at Tullabeg on 19th September 1913. During his juniorate in Rathfarnham he took his degree in modern languages, and then went on to philosophy in Milltown. His first experience of college work was in Australia, at Riverview college, where for three years he was Third Prefect. He also taught and was in charge of the junior cadets. He returned to Ireland for theology and was ordained at Milltown Park in 1927.
After tertianship at St Beuno's Fr Eddie went to the Crescent as prefect of studies. He is recalled as having been very active, dedicated and successful. The number of pupils in the school had gone down considerably in previous years: he was responsible for building it up noticeably, especially by giving great attention to the junior classes. He established friendly relations with the parents, and enlisted their aid in securing that sufficient time was given to homework.
In 1940 Fr Eddie was appointed Minister of Juniors, but after two years was transferred to Galway as prefect of studies, which position he was to hold for the next fourteen years. This was probably the happiest and most successful period of his life. His eight years at the Crescent had given him valuable experience, and he was still young enough to undertake his new assignment with enthusiasm. The level of the Irish language was at its highest during these years, largely due to his efforts, and, as previously in the Crescent, he was on intimate terms with both the boys and their parents.
In 1956 he was appointed Rector of the Crescent. He held this position for six years with considerable success, but one gathers that the expectations aroused by his previous success as prefect of studies were not completely fulfilled. It was thought that there were changes in the air which he did not understand, and that his mentality was too greatly influenced by his long sojourn in Galway. At this time also his health began to deteriorate, arthritis making itself clearly shown.
In 1962 Fr Eddie returned to Galway, and was destined to give service to school and church for over twenty more years. For the first few years he did some teaching, but later devoted himself to work in the church, which he was able to continue, though on an ever-diminishing scale, to the end of his life. He had in this period several heart attacks, and his arthritis become more and more crippling. During the last year or so he became almost a complete invalid, and at this time was the recipient of most kind care from Br William McGoldrick and Sr Mary of the Little Sisters of the Assumption.
Towards the end of this year there was a noted deterioration in his condition. On 1st July (a Friday) he had been feeling particularly unwell, and decided not to offer Mass. Later in the evening he felt better and offered Mass at 8 pm, after which Br McGoldrick assisted him to bed. About 1.30 am he rang the emergency bell for assistance, and it was seen that he was near the end. He received the sacrament of the sick, and the doctor was immediately summoned but came only in time to certify death.
Looking back over the long and full life of Fr Eddie Andrews, one sees three outstanding points. Firstly, there was his love of the Irish language. He devoted much time to its study, and made frequent visits to the Gaeltacht, often accompanied by groups of his pupils, to whom he communicated his own genuine enthusiasm. Then there was his great musical talent. He was a good pianist and cellist, had a fine tenor voice, and was the leader of the Milltown choir during philosophy and theology. He encouraged music amongst his pupils, and, during his long period as prefect of studies in Galway, staged, in collaboration with Fr Kieran Ward, a whole series of musical plays. Lastly, one recalls with affection his cheerful and courageous disposition, which remained unchanged during his later years when ill-health made life so difficult for him.
Suaimhneas Dé dá anam.

Born: 1550, Kilkenny City, County Kilkenny
Entered: 25 May 1581, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: c. 1577 Louvain, Belgium, - before Entry
Died: 19 February 1620, Irish College, Santiago de Compostela, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

Uncle of James Butler - RIP 1639

2 yrs Theology in Rome, concentrating on Moral;
In the Roman College 1584; at Pont-à-Mousson as Minister and student confessor, Campaniae Province (CAMP) 1586-7- moved to Nancy 1587 due to danger of war;
First Rector of Salamanca;
famous Missioner in Ireland during “Tyrone war”;
Bruxelles et Castrensis Mission in 1590;
at Salamanca in 1603;
At Bilbao - Castellanae Province (CAST) - in 1614 - Prefect of Irish Mission;
Irish College Salamanca in 1619 and then died in Santiago 15 February 1620.

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica” :
First Rector of Salamanca ad great promoter of education; A Most celebrated man whose name was very dear to Irishmen, and with whom he possessed unbounded influence.
He was a famous Missioner in Ireland during the War of Tyrone
In 1617 he was in Castellanae Province (CAST).
Succeeded Fr Thomas White as rector of Salamanca 1592-1605
His name also appears incidentally in the State Papers, Public Record Office, London, 1592, 1594.
He is highly eulogised in a report of Irish Affairs addressed by Capt Hugh Mostian to Louis Mansoni, the Papal Nuncio for Ireland, towards the latter end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. (Oliver’s “Collectanea” from Stonyhurst MSS. Oliver also refers to several of Archer’s letters as still extant)
1606 Archer was constituted the first Prefect of the Irish Mission in the National College, Rome (Irish Ecclesiastical Record April 1872, July 1874 and a biography September 1874)

Note from Bl Dominic Collins Entry
After First Vows he was sent to Ireland as a companion to James Archer, who was a Chaplain to the Spanish invading force sent by Philip III of Spain. He was taken prisoner and rejected the overtures to reject his faith he was hanged (at Cork or Youghal).

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
He had studied at Louvain and was Ordained some time before March 1577. Before he entered the Society he was already a Master of Arts. When he returned to Ireland in 1577, he remained for at least he next eighteen months. He was at Kilmallock, 21 August 1578, when he assisted the Franciscan, Father Conrad Rourke, the eve of his death “in odium fidei”
After First Vows, Archer was deputed to revise his studies at the Roman College and Pont-à-Mousson. At the latter place he served also as Minister of the community and the student-boarders. It would seem that his Superiors were grooming him for professorial duties - However...
1590 By May he was serving as a military chaplain at Brussels
1592 He was sent to Spain to take charge of the newly founded Irish College, Salamanaca.
1596 He returned to Ireland to raise funds there for Salamanca College but his contacts with the Irish chieftains won for him the repute of a political intriguer and the hatred of the administration at Dublin. There can be no doubt that his sympathies lay with the Old Irish whose cause he saw was bound up with the survival of the Catholic Church in the country. He seems to have met Hugh O'Neill about the time of the battle of the Yellow Ford and was later at the camp of the Earl of Desmond. The MacCarthy Mor stated that Archer, by letter, solicited him to rise in rebellion.
1600-1602 He left Ireland for Rome, 20 July, but returned with the fleet of Juan Del Aguila, 23 September 1601 and remained until July 1602. Before his return to Spain he reported to the General on the state of Ireland.
1602-1612 Returned to Spain he held various posts in the Irish College, Salamanca, but seems also to have spent much time questing for the support of the Irish students. For a time he was stationed at Bilbao to win the support of new benefactors of the Irish colleges of the Peninsula.
His later years were spent at Santiago where he died, 19 February 1620

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Archer, James
by C. J. Woods

Archer, James (1550–1620), Jesuit priest and administrator, was born at Kilkenny and belonged, it can be deduced, to a patrician family prominent in that city. To prepare for an ecclesiastical career he went (c.1564) to the Spanish Netherlands, to Louvain, a hotbed of the new militant catholic theology and a strong influence on attempts at extending the counter-reformation to England. On his return to Ireland (1577) he was considered by the English authorities there to be a danger to the Elizabethan church settlement. Undoubtedly he had some sympathy with principals of the Desmond rebellion.

In 1581 Archer entered the Society of Jesus in Rome, continuing his studies there before moving (1585) to Pont-à-Mousson in the duchy of Lorraine, where there was a small seminary for Irish and Scottish students. Showing talent mainly as a confessor and administrator, he was sent (1587) to minister to the 1,200 Irish, English, and Scottish soldiers in the so-called Irish regiment, whom their commander, Sir William Stanley (qv), had persuaded to forsake the English service for the Spanish. The activities of Stanley and his entourage were an aggravating circumstance in the Spanish threat to Elizabeth I's England. Archer was said to have been involved in an alleged plot to murder the queen.

At the close of 1592 he went to Spain. After visiting the royal court at Madrid, he settled in Salamanca, the seat of Spain's foremost university, and took over the administration of the Irish college being founded there. In 1596 he returned to Ireland to seek money for the college and to explore the possibility of re-establishing a Jesuit mission. He was obliged to lie low in the countryside and eventually to join Hugh O'Neill (qv), whose rebellion had been raging since 1593. On all sides he acquired a legendary reputation. Summoned to Rome (1600) to give an account of his mission, he acted also as an envoy of O'Neill. In 1601 he was back in Spain, involved in planning the Spanish military expedition to Ireland as well as settling differences among the Irish at Salamanca. Archer was a member of the force numbering 4,432 men that headed for Kinsale in September. For the defeat of the expedition he blamed the commander, Juan del Águila (qv). Archer left Ireland for Spain in July 1602; his views about the failure of the enterprise were heeded at first, but when Águila was exonerated and peace was made with England (1603) his career as a negotiator for Spanish aid for Irish rebels was over. Although his Jesuit superior would not allow him to return to Ireland, rumours abounded there of his presence.

The rest of his life was given, as ‘prefect of the mission’, to the Irish seminaries in the Iberian peninsula. Once again Archer had to deal with differences among the Irish catholics: the Old English were accused by the Old Irish of unfairness towards them, and the Jesuits were accused by other clerics of self-preferment. Archer's work in Spain bore fruit in 1610 when the Spanish authorities built a new college for the Irish in Salamanca, the Colegio de los Nobles Irlandeses, to which the king gave his support. Archer spent his last years at Santiago de Compostela. It was at the Irish college there that he died on 15 February 1620.

Although he was a man of no more than moderate ability and an indifferent scholar, Archer had qualities that served to make him an important figure in the Irish counter-reformation: he was phlegmatic and a good administrator; he had some influence at the Spanish court and, thanks to his experience in Ireland in the 1590s, the confidence of both of the rival groups of Irish Catholics – Old English and Old Irish. Only a few letters of James Archer survive, and there is no known portrait or even a verbal description.

Thomas J. Morrissey, James Archer of Kilkenny, an Elizabethan Jesuit (1979)

Note from Bl Dominic Collins Entry
In February 1601 he made his first religious profession and seven months later was appointed by his superiors to join the Irish mission, as Fr James Archer (qv) had specifically asked for him, perhaps due to his previous military experience and also his Spanish contacts. Archer had been described by Sir George Carew (qv), president of Munster, as ‘a chief stirrer of the coals of war’ (Morrissey, Studies, 318) and was being constantly sought out by government agents. Collins's association with him was to prove dangerous. He sailed with the Spanish expedition to Ireland on 3 September 1601, one of the commanders being Don Juan del Aguila, to whom Collins had surrendered Lapena in 1598. The flotilla with which he travelled arrived late at Castlehaven due to bad weather. After the defeat of the Irish and Spanish forces at Kinsale, Collins finally met Archer in February 1602 at the castle of Gortnacloghy, near Castlehaven

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jesuitica-jumping-jesuits/

JESUITICA: Jumping Jesuits

Travellers in the Beara Peninsula will remember the Priest’s Leap, a mountain cliff in the townland of Cummeenshrule, where (around 1600 AD) a priest on horseback escaped from pursuing soldiers by a miraculous leap, which landed him on a rock near Bantry. Was the lepper a Jesuit? One tradition claims him as James Archer SJ; another as Blessed (Brother) Dominic Collins. In view of some dating difficulties, one can only say: pie creditur – a common phrase in Latin hagiographies, meaning “It is piously believed…”!

◆ James B Stephenson SJ The Irish Jesuits Vol 1I 1962

FATHER JAMES ARCHER SJ 1550-1625
Few men played a greater part than Father James Archer in the tremendous effort to smash the growing power of England in Ireland that marked the closing years. of the sixteenth century. Arriving in Ireland in 1596, he found the country already in the throes of war. The Tudors. had by this time realised that England could not be safe unless Ireland were subjugated. By the end of the sixteenth century, England had shaken off the last shackles of medieval restraints and had emerged as one or the strongest powers in Europe, The threats of Spain and the Pope had been warded off, and England was looked upon as the leader and head of Protestant Europe. It was at this time that she turned her face in real earnest towards Ireland.

The history of the Reformation in Ireland during the sixteenth century can be told briefly. The reform movements of Henry VIII and Edward, his son, were a complete failure. Neither of these kings had sufficient political control outside the Pale to enforce their authority, and even within the boundaries of the Pale the movement made little progress. During the reign of Mary the Catholic Church again flourished, though the confiscated monasteries were not restored. In 1558 Elizabeth succeeded to the throne of England,. Prior to her succession, she had never shown any remarkable zeal for religion. As queen, what she desired pre-eminently was peace and harmony. For the first years of her reign, her position in England was too insecure to permit her to embark on any intensive persecution of the Catholics, The clergy, however, were subject to a persecution that varied all through her reign; it was intensified or slackened according to the political circumstances of the moment. Up to 1578 religion did not play a vital part in opposing the anglicisation of Ireland. Gradually from that time on, it became more and more important, until finally in the reign of James I the Catholics, both Irish and Anglo-Irish, clung to their faith as the only part of the heritage that had been left. So too it was religion that at the beginning of the next century was to unite the two races, by inciting them both to oppose the alien creed. Later it was on the rock of her Faith, preserved and enlivened at this time, that the nationality of Ireland was founded.

Perhaps before we examine the work of Fr Archer, a word on the state of religion in Ireland during the sixteenth century may not be out of place. It is certain that it was not a very vital force in the lives of many of the people. They were Catholics More by custom than by conviction. Here is one account left by Dr Tanner, who had to leave the Society of Jesus owing to ill-health and who was later appointed Bishop of Cork: “He (Dr Tanner) is assured by grave men that during all this time not a hundred Irishmen in all Ireland have been infected with heresy, though not a few ... attend the profane rites of the heretics, and the demoralisation of the people is such that a pious Catholic is hardly to be found; and no wonder since the clergy are the most depraved or all. Moreover, there is so little instruction to be had in the Christian Faith that few can so much as repeat the Lord's Prayer, the Articles of the Faith, or the commandments, and still fewer understand them. Sermons are so uncommon that there are many that have never so much as heard one. The Sacraments are rarely administered. In fine so gross is the ignorance of the people that there are many who, passing all their lives in the grossest sin, have grown accustomed thereto”.

In general we may conclude that religion was dormant in Ireland at the end of the sixteenth century. The people indeed had the Faith and seemed eager for instructions and there is no evidence of anti clericalism as in England. On the contrary, the priests were generally loved and would always find a safe shelter among the people, who had seen so many of them give up their lives for the Faith. But unfortunately, many of the priests were not active. The morals of the people were often depraved. There was little scope for Catholic education. The monasteries for the most part had been dissolved. The external organisation of the Church was shattered, and the wars had increased the laxity and poverty of the people. But the light of Faith had been kept glowing by the zealous labours of the Friars and the heroic priests and bishops who had endured persecution and death to shield, their flocks. This then was the state of the country, political and religious, when in 1597 Fr James Archer landed in Waterford to inaugurate what was to become the first permanent mission of the Society of Jesus in Ireland.

James Archer was born in Kilkenny in 1550. He attended the school of the famous Dr Peter White or that town, where the young Archer seems to have been a distinguished scholar. Very little is known of his career for the next fifteen years. In 1577 he was at Louvain, but in the following year he was back again in Ireland. On the 25 May 1581 he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome, and the next we hear of him is that in 1592 he was at Pont-à-Mousson with Fathers Richard Fleming, Richard de la Field and Christopher Hollywood, all Irish Jesuits. In the same year he was sent to Spain to collaborate with other Irish Jesuits in the foundation of the famous Irish college at Salamanca, which was instituted for the training of secular priests for the home mission. He remained there until 1596, when he was sent back to Ireland with Fr Henry Fitzsimon to re-open the Jesuit mission there which had lapsed for ten years.

Almost immediately after his arrival in Ireland, Fr Archer went northward to meet Hugh O'Neill, who was already in rebellion against Elizabeth. Archer looked upon the '”Nine Years War” as a crusade against the heretic queen. Therefore, during the few years that he was in Ireland, he strove to the utmost of his powers to unite the Irish under the leadership of Tyrone and to induce the Spaniards to send aid, His influence with the Irish chief's during these years was of paramount importance. He was looked upon by the English as one of their most dangerous enemies, and they laid several traps to ensnare him. If we were to rely on official contemporary documents alone, we should imagine that Archer was a traitorous intriguer and an enemy to all stability and good government. From other sources we can see that he was, first and foremost, a zealous missionary for the Faith.

In his first letter to his General in Rome, written on 10 August 1598, he gives an account of the precarious life he was leading even at this early stage. “The Government”, he says “hates me very much, hunts me very often in frequent raids, and has set a price on my head. This forces me to live in the woods and in hiding-places. I cannot even return to Spain, as merchants are afraid to receive me into their vessels, for they know well that there are spies in every port on the look-out for me”. Then he goes on to describe his missionary work: “I have already heard many thousand confessions, and have instructed an uncultivated and rude people. I brought back some to the Church and reconciled a noble person and his wife, and thus put a stop to dangerous dissentions which existed among members of both families who were leading men in the land, I administered the Sacraments in the camp, and it is marvellous to see the crowds that cone from the surrounding districts to hear Mass and go to Confession”.

In the beginning of the year 1598, the informer William Paule notified Lord Justice Loftus of the activities of Archer. He said that Jesuit lurked sometimes in Munster with Lord Roche and sometimes in Tipperary with Lord Mountgarrett. Paule urged Loftus to induce these Lords to betray Archer. Alternatively he suggested that the Protestant Bishop of Kilkenny should be ordered to capture him when he visited his friends in that town. Warning Loftus that Archer was wary, Paule informed him that the priest knew that his enemies were searching for him. Paule further suggested that he should have no scruple in killing Archer if he resisted arrest. Even at this early date, Fr Archer had attained to a position of outstanding influence with the Irish chieftains. He had already been universally accepted by them and an able adviser and true friend and had won the esteem and affection of the Irish people. He was equally hated and feared by their enemies.

In October 1598, Archer was mentioned in a despatch as “the chief stirrer of these coals (i.e., conspiracies) and promises to many the coming of forces from Spain”. He certainly did not spare himself in his effort to unite the Irish chiefs in their struggle against England, the common foe. In November 1598, he succeeded in inducing the Baron of Cahir to join the rebellion against Elizabeth. He hoped that by Easter 1599 “we, and such as be of our Catholic confederacy, shall be masters of all the cities, towns and forts in Ireland”. His reasons for the war throw a flood of light on his attitude to politics, and afford a convincing refutation of those who doubted his motives. They were first to restore the Catholic Church to its former position in Ireland; second, to repair the injuries done by the English to the Catholic nobility and gentry of Ireland; and finally to place a Catholic Prince on the throne of Ireland. Did Archer hope to set up Hugh O'Neill as High King of all Ireland or did he intend to make Ireland a vassal state of Spain? We do not know. The concepts of nationality, and a national state were only being moulded in the minds of men at this very time. It is even doubtful whether men like James Fitzmaurice or even Hugh O'Neill himself conceived it. Nationality in Ireland takes its origin from the religious persecutions of the seventeenth century; yet undoubtedly there existed in the sixteenth century some tendency towards local patriotism, especially as opposed to English tyranny. It is difficult to state definitely the motives and desires that agitated the mind of Archer during these years. One thing is certain that he considered freedom from English rule as essential to the spiritual welfare of Ireland.

In December 1598, Archer and his constant companion Bishop Creagh were accused of inciting the whole province of Munster to rebel. So great was his influence that his name had already come to the notice of Elizabeth, who charged him with “raising her subjects to rebellion”. Soon afterwards Elizabeth was again informed that the Irish priests, especially Archer “the Pope's Legate”, had assured the lords and chieftains who supported the queen or who remained neutral that after the war they would receive no better treatment from the English than the rebels. In this way they hoped to alienate her subjects from their allegiance. Rewards were offered for the capture of Archer, dead or alive. O'Neill's crushing victory at the Yellow Ford on the 15 August 1598 had shaken the loyalty of many supporters of the English. Archer's influence was more pernicious than ever. He was constantly on the move, visiting now one chieftain, now another. Several attempts were made to capture him, but all miscarried. Soon after his arrival in Ireland he had been arrested. He had managed to escape however and had determined never again to fall into the hands of his enemies. He can easily imagine the precarious position in which he was placed by the constant watch of spies, especially in areas where the Irish chieftains were not openly hostile to the Crown. But, through the goodwill and ever-watchful care of the Irish people, he escaped unscathed - though often at the last moment. His capture was looked upon by the Government as vitally important, his life being deemed of greater value to the Irish than those of the chieftains themselves. In 1600, in a report of Captain Hugh Mostian who had been won over by Archer from the English side, we read that “Archer by his sole authority as a private religious brought more comfort to the Irish than a great force of soldiers could do, and that the voice of the people gave him the title of Legate, At his nod the hearts of men are united and held together not only in the territory of Berehaven and all Munster, but in the greater part of the Kingdom ...”

In 1600 occurred a famous incident - the capture of the Earl of Ormonde by Owny O'More. The circumstances connected with the plot are fully described in the Calendar of Carew MSS. and elsewhere. Fr Archer happened to be staying with O'More when the latter captured Ormonde. There is no evidence to prove the charge that he was the instigator of the act. Naturally enough he was blamed by the English for having contrived the treachery and for refusing to liberate the Earl; although, according to them, some other Jesuits desired his release. He was also described as Ormande's “bed-fellow” and was said to have tried to convert him, which seems to be true. Several years later Ormonde was converted by two Irish Jesuits, Frs O'Kearney and Wale.

Early in 1600 Archer was summoned to Rome to give an account of the Irish Jesuit mission. It is strange that he should have been called away at such a critical juncture in the history of Ireland. Possibly the General in Rome did not fully realise what was at stake at the moment, or perhaps he night have thought that the final victory had already been won by the Irish. In a letter to the General, written by the Superior of the Mission, Fr Richard de la Field, an extremely cautious and conservative man, we read of Archer: “He has been a source of light and help in our work here. He has always lived with these Irish lords who are endeavouring to promote the interests of religion, and in consequence he is the object of an intense hatred of the Queen's officials and of the army. His presence here at the same time is very necessary for the advancement of the Catholic Faith in these calamitous times. It is important for us that he should be sent back as soon as possible. This letter is very valuable as coming from one who, at this time, was himself hesitating as to what side he should support in the conflict. It rightly stresses the spiritual nature of Archer's work, for it was that which predominated in all his other activity.

Of Archer's visit to Rome we know nothing. He was back again in Ireland in a few months, as his spies obligingly informed us. It was falsely reported to Cecil that Archer was returning from Rome armed with a Bull of Excommunication against all those who supported Elizabeth in the war. A few months later Cecil was again informed that Archer had landed in Ireland and was inciting the people to revolt. On his return he was again almost captured; but, as often before, he managed to escape his pursuers, Sir George Carew reported that Archer's arrival foreshadowed the advent of a Spanish fleet and the renewal of the war in Ireland. From an account given by his confrère, Brother Dominic Collins SJ, we learn that Archer actually did return to Ireland with Spanish help. His influence with the Irish soldiers was again evinced when, on the 29 May 1602, Carew informed Cecil that but for Archer many of them would have returned to their homes after the defeat at Kinsale or would have gone over to the side of the English. “Every day”', says Carew, “he devises letters and intelligences out of Spain, assuring them of succour, and once a week confirms new leagues and seals them with the Sacrament”. In another letter written by Carew we find the following amusing passage: “If Archer have the art of conjuring, I think he hath not been idle; but ere long I hope to conjure him. The country of Beare is full of witches; between them and Archer I do believe the devil hath been raised to serve their turn”. Even in defeat the English feared him. They seemed to have believed that he possessed superhuman powers, that he could walk on the sea and fly through the air. His name should have been not Archer but “Archdevil!” One can readily imagine the fate that awaited Archer, had he been captured. Shortly before this time he “was very near taken by a draught laid by the Lord Lieutenant, but happily escaped”.

In a report of Robert Atkinson, an informer and pervert, we got another account of Archer's activities. He says that he met Archer in Ireland when the latter was “chief commander of the Irish troops, horse and foot”. He also states that Archer commanded for his own guard as many men as he pleased, especially for “any bloody actions to be done upon the English Nation”. There is no evidence to show that Archer ever took part with the Irish soldiers in the actual fighting. Atkinson further states that Archer was commonly called the Pope's Legate and was Archprelate over all the clergy of the provinces of Munster, Leinster and the territory of the O'Neills. By others, he says, he was called Tyrone's Confessor, just as formerly he had been Confessor to the Archduke of Austria. For the rest we shall let Atkinson speak for himself: “Of all the priests that ever were, he is held for the most bloody and treacherous traitor, sure unto none in friendship that will not put his decrees in action by warrant of his Apostolic authority, as he calleth it, from time to time renewed by Bulls from Rome. He is grown to be so absolute that he holds the greatest Lords in such awe that none dare gainsay him”.

Even at the eleventh hour Archer's hopes did not give way. On the 14 June 1602 he was again supplicating for Spanish aid. For the next few weeks he remained with the Irish soldiers at Dunboy. Finally, on July 6th he left Ireland to induce the Spanish King to send another fleet to help a broken cause. He was more fortunate than his companion, Br Dominic Collins SJ, who was captured by the English and hanged in Cork on the 31 October 1602, being the third Jesuit to die for the faith in Ireland.

Fr Archer never again returned to Ireland. His life on the Continent we shall only review briefly. On the 6 May 1504 the General of the Jesuits appointed him Prefect of the Irish Mission in Spain. This appointment is clear proof that his Superiors held him in the highest esteem. They paid little attention to the lying reports that had been spread over England and Ireland in an effort, to blacken the reputation of one who was both a zealous priest and a great Irishman. In 1608, six years after his departure from Ireland, his name was still feared by the English. At this time he was accused of making preparations for another rebellion in Ireland. Chichester issued an order that spies be placed in various parts of the country to inform him of the arrival of Archer.

During all this time, Fr Archer was actively engaged in Spain as Prefect of the Irish Colleges. These Colleges were founded by Irish Jesuits. at Salamanca, Lisbon, Santiago and Seville for the training of Irish secular priests. In 1617 he was the oldest Irish Jesuit alive, being seventy-two years of age. He was still Superior of the Mission in Spain. The date of his death is uncertain, but it occurred before 1626. Thus ended the career of one of the most remarkable Jesuits who laboured on the Irish Mission during these years.

If we are to assess the value of Archer's work in Ireland or the magnitude of the task he set before himself, we must not leave out of account the circumstances in which he lived. Although Archer's aim was first and foremost spiritual, he saw clearly that political independence of England was utterly essential to the religious welfare of Ireland. The idea of toleration was not yet born in Europe.
Neither Catholic nor Protestant was ready to brook the existence of the other. Even in Ireland the word “Counter-Reformation” connoted not only a spiritual movement within and without the Catholic Church, but also an effort to compel the return of erring souls by force of arms. Moreover the political and religious state of Ireland itself must also be taken into account. For almost a century the country has been a prey to disunion and internal strife. Religion too was not a vital force in the lives of the people, Had the persecution been as severe as it had been in England, or in other words, had political circumstances been favourable, Ireland might have succumbed to the new doctrines, All these facts were well known to Fr Archer when he arrived in Ireland in 1596. Thus we can understand why he strove to unite the country under O'Neill and to procure aid from Spain and the Pope.

Before concluding this article, it might not be out of place to discuss briefly how far Fr Archer influenced the wars of O'Neill, and, especially, the extent to which he influenced the Great Earl himself. One thing is certain, that Fr Archer was regarded by the English authorities as O'Neill's ambassador and representative not only at all the courts of the local Irish chieftains but in Spain and Rome. It is equally certain that he acted as intermediary between the Irish and Spanish several times, and even for years after the Irish collapse at Kinsale the English feared that he would again organise another Spanish expedition. Several years after that fatal day, the authorities had spies placed in all the Irish ports on the watch for Archer's return. Indeed many false alarms were given, and at one time the English actually believed that he had landed in Ireland. These precautions would not have been taken if the Government had not already experienced the powerful, stay that Fr Archer had over the people. How far were their fears justified? It is very probable that Hugh O'Neill did not realise what was at stake when he first launched his rebellion. In fact it seems that he would never have revolted and there been any alternative, What was he fighting for? An Irish Ireland, or a Catholic Ireland, or local independence? The problem has not yet been solved. But I think it is true to say that, whatever may have been his motive in starting the war, he never fully realised all that that war involved. Probably even he did not foresee that the struggle would take on a national aspect before its close; and it is far less likely that he realised that it would become part of a European campaign and would be looked upon by many nations on the Continent as just another element of the Catholic Counter Reformation. Moreover, if Hugh O'Neill did not realize all this, he would not have been able to combine all these forces in a vast movement against the common enemy. The problem could almost be stated thus: Was O'Neill the unconscious leader of a movement that was indeed begun by him, but whose consequences and ramifications he had not foreseen and perhaps did not even realise up to the last?

This question is difficult to answer. But I think some light is thrown on it by glancing at the part played by Fr Archer in these crucial years. Immediately after his arrival in Ireland, Fr Archer went direct to O'Neill, as we have seen. Coming from Spain, where he was well-known, he was suspected, probably rightly, of bringing a message from the Spanish Court. Soon after this he visited all the Irish chieftains, including O'Donnell, O'Sullivan Beare, Owny O'More, the Earl of Desmond, Florence MacCarthy, James Fitzthomas (who claimed to be the Earl of Desmond), Lords Barry, Roche and Mountgarrett, as well as the Mayors of the southern towns - including Cork, Waterford and Kinsale. The mention of these three towns is significant. They are on the coast nearest Spain. Why did Archer visit these chieftains? The answer is obvious. From the outset, he regarded the struggle as a Catholic crusade against England. Therefore his policy was to unite all the Irish under O’Neill and, if possible, secure help from Spain and Rome. His aim and purpose, as well as the means to achieve the end, were clear and decisive - unlike those of Hugh O'Neill. And it is well to remember here that O'Neill's environment, even if we allow for a period spent in England, was mainly the local life and tradition of a petty chieftain of Ireland with all the narrowness that it entailed. While Archer's background was not only Irish tradition modified by Anglo-Norman ancestry, but also an international education the best that Europe could offer, an almost first-hand realisation of what the Reformation meant to Europe, a partiality for things Spanish with a natural bias against England, and finally a full comprehension of the danger to the Catholic religion in Ireland in an English domination there. Unfortunately we have little reliable evidence to guide us. But from the information we have I think we can safely affirm that Fr Archer was responsible, at least partially, for the change of outlook that is so marked a feature in the development of O'Neill's character as the years went by. It is interesting to note that, in a report sent by the Bishops of Dublin and Meath to the King in June 1603, much of what I have said is corroborated. Having stated that O'Neill had revolted to defend his rights and privileges, they go on to assert that the Jesuits and other priests afterwards induced him to fight for the sake of the Catholic religion and to secure the aid of the Pope and King of Spain. In many other places in the official documents the Jesuits are blamed for spreading the revolt. We know now that, of the Jesuits of the time, only Fr Archer exerted any direct political influence on a wide scale. To him, therefore, we largely attribute the change that took place. Thus, as the English realised only too well, “to have Archer taken were a great service to both the realms (England and Ireland), he being a capital instrument for Spain and the poison of Ireland”.

Hated by the English, Fr Archer won the hearts of the Irish, both rich and poor. In all the references to him there is not one which in any way tarnishes his memory, except those that come from the hands of his political enemies. Had the Irish been victorious at Kinsale, James Archer would probably have been one of the most influential men in the country. But after the defeat of 1601, his position in Ireland was even more invidious than that of O'Neill's himself. The Great Earl could adapt himself to the new conditions and try to begin life all over again, but for Archer there were no alternatives but death or exile. He had been looked upon by the English as the symbol of the rebellion in Ireland, and in his person he crystallised the hopes and aspirations of the majority of the Irish people. He stands forth as one of the foremost champions of his time of the Catholic religion in Ireland. By the English he was believed to be the source of all the discontent in the country. He was the emissary of the King of Spain, the Pope's ambassador and a member of the Society of Jesus. For him there could be no forgiveness.

James Corboy SJ

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father James Archer SJ 1550-1626
Fr James Archer was known to the English as the Archdevil. So active was he o behalf of the Irish, and so adept at evading capture, that magical powers were attributed to him. He is the only Jesuit of those days of whom we have a personal description, due to the interest of his enemies in him. We read in the report of the spy that “Archer, the traitor, was small of stature and black of complexion, that his hair was spotted grey, that he had a white doublet, and that the rest of his apparels was of some colour suitable for disguise”. Indeed, we may say that we have a photograph of him for an engraving of him may be found in “The History of British Costume” : “He had black mantle, and the high-crowned hat of the times. He appeard in straight trouse”.

Born of one of the leading families of Kilkenny in 1550, Fr Archer was one of the most remarkable Jesuits who laboured on the Irish Mission. What Henry Fitzsimon was to the Pale, James Archer was to the native Irish. By his clear grasp of the political and religious situation, his tireless efforts to unite the country against the sworn enemy of her faith and culture and to enlist in her cause the support of Spain, Fr Archer deserves to be ranked with Hugh O’Neill and Red Hugh o’Donnell as one if the leading champions of national independence and of the Catholic religion in the Ireland of his day.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
ARCHER, JAMES. In p. 301, History of British Costume (Library of Entertaining knowledge), is a delineation of O’More, an Irish Chieftain, and Archer, a Jesuit retained by him, both copied from a map of the taking of the Earl of Ormond in 1600. The Rev. Father is dressed in a black mantle, and wears the high crowned hat of the time. I read in a Report or Memorial of Irish Aflairs, addressed by Captain Hugh Mostian to Lewis Mansoni, the Papal Nuncio for Ireland, towards the latter end of Q Elizabeth s reign, “Unus Pater Archerus major fuit illis (Hibernis) consolatio, quam potuit esse magnet militum copia. Testis sum illius praesentiam tantum profuisse, ut vix aliud tantum : ad ipsius enim Nutum uniuntur et tenentur, corda hominum non solum in teritorio Beerhaven et Provincifc Australis : sed et in majori parte totius Regni.” “Father Archer alone was a greater comfort to his Irish countrymen than even a considerable reinforcement of troops. I am a witness, that his presence was almost more serviceable to the cause than anything else : for at his nod the hearts of men were united and bound together, not only in the district of Beerhaven and Munster, but in the greater part of the whole kingdom”
A few of F. Archer s letters have been fortunately preserved. The first is dated from the Camp, 10th of August, 1598. He states the difficulty of all Epistolary communication the intense anxiety and diligence of the Government to apprehend him; insomuch, that he was obliged to live generally in the woods and secret places, “ita ut in sylvis et latebris ut plurimum degam”. Still he never ceased from exercising the functions of his ministry - he had received two thousand general Confessions - he had instructed and confirmed many in the Faith, and reconciled several to the Catholic Church - that there was every prospect of an abundant harvest of souls, if he had some fellow-labourers; and that the gentry in the North and South parts of the island were most desirous of a supply. It seems that he had been ordered to Ireland to procure assistance for the Irish Seminary at Salamanca, “in subsidium Seminarii Hybernorum”, and that he had succeeded in sending over several youths with funds for their education. In conclusion he says that he was intending to proceed by the first opportunity to Spain from the North of Ireland. Iter in Hispaniam cogito prima occasione ex Septentrionali parte. NB : I find by a letter of F. Richard Field, dated Dublin, 20th of July, 1600, that he as Superior of the Irish Mission, had made F. J. Archer the actual bearer of that very letter to Rome. He recommends to him Mr. Robert Lalour, qui se socium itineris adjunxit Patri Jacobo (Archer.)
The second letter is dated, Compostella, 26th of February, 1606. It proves his active industry in procuring donations for the purpose of educating his countrymen, as also his zeal for the conversion of souls. He had just reconciled to God and his Church three English merchants.
The third letter to F. George Duras, the Assistant for Germany, is dated Madrid, 4th of August, 1607. He was then living at Court, “Ego in aula versor”, and had been successful in collecting Subscriptions.
The fourth letter is to F. Duras, from Madrid, 29th September, 1607. and is only subscribed by F. Archer, who, from illness, “prae dolore pectoris”, was obliged to employ a Secretary. He recommends the erection of an Irish Novitiate in Belgium. After treating of the business of the Irish Mission, he mentions “the conversion of three Scotchmen at Madrid : one was so desperate a Puritan, as often to declare that not all the Doctors of the World should ever withdraw him from his sect and opinion. Truth, however, had conquered : from a lion he became a lamb, and has chosen the life of a Capuchin Friars. I have others in hand in the suit of the English Ambassador, whom I will endeavour to reform”. Further particulars of this Rev. Father I have not been able to collect.

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

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 34th Year No 4 1959

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

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

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

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

Born: 13 November 1862, County Limerick
Entered: 18 September 1880, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 24 July 1883, Richmond, Melbourne, Australia

Early Irish Australian Mission 1882

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
1882 He was sent for Regency to Australia with John Flynn, both being delicate in health. He took his First Vows there in 1883, but died shortly afterwards at the Residence in Richmond, Melbourne 18 September 1880.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
Having been educated at St Stanislaus College Tullamore and entering the Society at Milltown Park, Edmund became ill and was sent to Australia, where he took vows just before his death.

Note from John Flynn Entry
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.

Born: 24 June 1588, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 06 October 1607, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: c 1615
Died: 12 December 1651, Limerick Residence, Limerick City, County Limerick

Alias de Burgo

Parents Thomas de Burgo and Jane Arthur were a distinguished family
Studied at Limerick and Douai - became an MA 19 August 1607 : a good classical scholar, reconciling many to the Church, Professor of Theology (Verdier)
1617 Is in France studying Theology at Bordeaux
1621 Catalogue : On the Irish Mission 9 years, has talent and judgement but lacks prudence and experience. Is a valetudinarian and slow. Confessor.
1622 Catalogue In Western Munster
1626 Catalogue : “Thomas Burkeus” in Ireland
1636 has talent but cannot progress due to ill health
1649 Is in Limerick

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Two Entries : de Burgo (1) and Burke (2)
(1) de Burgo
DOB 01 July 1580 or 24 June 1588 Limerick; Ent 21st or 06 October 1607 Tournai; RIP Limerick (?) after 1650
Son of Thomas de Burgo and Mary née Arthur
Studied at Limerick and Douai, graduating MA 19 August 1607 -
“A good classical scholar; Professor of Theology; Noted Preacher; Has reconciled many to the Church” - Mercure Verdier, Visitor to Irish Mission
(2) Burke
DOB 1586 Limerick; Ent 1608 Tournai;
Son of Thomas de Burgo and Mary née Arthur
“A good classical scholar; Professor of Theology; Noted Preacher; Has reconciled many to the Church” - Mercure Verdier, Visitor to Irish Mission
Reconciled : Burke is probably de Burgo named in the Diary of Tourney, December 21, 1607 as DOB 24 June 1588; Admitted 19 August 1607 and Ent 21 December 1607 Tournai;
1617 In France
Letter of 04 November 1611 from Thomas Lawndry (Christopher Holiwood) to Mission Superior Richard Conway he is mentioned as assisting Nicholas Leynach in the west part of the Southern Province (Irish Ecclesiastical Record, April 1874)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Thomas and Joanna née Arthur
Studied Humanities in Ireland graduating MA before Ent 06 October 1607
Early years after First Vows not easily traced.
1615 Returned to Ireland as priest but yet to complete his studies.
1616 Sent to Bordeaux to complete his studies.
On his return to Ireland he was assigned to the Residence in Limerick where he spent the rest of his life. For many years he taught Humanities at the Jesuit school there. He died 12 December, 1651

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
BURKE, THOMAS, was of a good family, and entered the Society in 1606. F. Verdier reports of him that he was an excellent Classic Scholar - that he had been Professor of Polemic Divinity, and was famed at Limerick, where he was settled, as a Preacher and that he had reconciled many to the Catholic Church. After the summer of 1649, I can trace him no longer.

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

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

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

Obituary
Patrick (Paddy) Brady (1922-1994)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daniel Dargan

Born: 05 December 1920, Liverpool, Lancashire, England / Lifford Avenue, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1938, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1952, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1955, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 07 May 2012, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

◆ Interfuse No 148 : Summer 2012 & ◆ The Clongownian, 2012

Obituary

Fr Joseph (Joe) Brereton (1920-2012)

5 December 1920: Born in Liverpool;
Early education in St. Mary's Primary, Liverpool, and Crescent College, Limerick
7 September 1938: Entered Society at Emo
8 September 1940: First Vows at Emo
1940 - 1943: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1943 - 1946: Studied philosophy in Tullabeg
1946 - 1948: Crescent College - Teacher
1948 - 1949: Belvedere College – Teacher
1949 - 1953: Studied theology in Milltown Park
31 July 1952: Ordained at Milltown Park
1953 - 1954: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1954 - 1960: Crescent College, Limerick - Teacher
2 February 1955: Final Vows
1960 - 1963: Gonzaga
1960 - 1962: Teacher
1962 - 1963: Minister, teacher
1963 - 1968: Manresa - Minister, Assisted Director of the Retreat House
1968 - 2012: Clongowes
1968 - 1990: Teacher of Religion, French and English
1990 - 1997: Teacher of English; Assistant to Higher Line Prefect; Chaplain to Hazel Hall (1992)
1997 - 2012: Teacher; Assistant to Higher Line Prefect; Tutor to foreign exchange students; Chaplain to Hazel Hall
7 May 2012: Died Cherryfield

Fr Brereton was admitted to Cherryfield Lodge on 7th January 2012 suffering from recurrent respiratory problems. His treatment necessitated occasional visits to hospital. He remained in good spirits and mentally alert. His condition deteriorated since mid-April. Fr Brereton passed away peacefully in the company of his sister, Josephine, and Fr Michael Sheil in the early morning of May the 7th 2012. May he rest in the Peace of Christ

Obituary : Michael Sheil
The Fiant solita suffragia for the average Jesuit extends to a full page - and sometimes beyond, Fr Joe's CV does not fill even one. But then, Joe was not an “average" Jesuit – he was not an “average" person. The fact that he spent all of 44 years in the same job in Clongowes suggests proof of this !

Joseph Brereton was born in Liverpool and was always loyal to his origins - as the many red soccer jerseys given to him by successive Rhetoric Years in Clongowes will atest. When his father died young, Joe's mother moved her family of three boys and two girls back to her native Limerick, where the sons attended Crescent College. From there Joe entered the Jesuits in 1938 – and the subsequent story of his life is simply told.

He followed the traditional Jesuit training course - BA in UCD [40-43] - Philosophy in Tullabeg [43-46] - Regency in Crescent and Belvedere [46-49]. After three years of theology in Milltown Park, he was ordained there in 1952. Tertianship followed in Rathfarnham (53-54] and Joe returned to his Alma Mater in Limerick as a Teacher for 6 years before moving to Gonzaga College (60-63] and was Minister in Manresa Retreat House from 1963 to 1968. In August 1968 he came to CWC. Fr Tom Layden - our present Provincial - who gave the final Absolution - had not even arrived to start school there at that time!

That made up a grand total of 44 years - give or take a few weeks - for there he stayed ever since. He would probably have occupied the same room for all that time, if a new Rhetoric Wing had not been built in 1999 - but he simply moved about 20 metres west and two floors down to his new quarters.

Joe was a very private sort of person himself – but was deeply interested in other people. In his long life of teaching - all of 56 years in total - and looking after his young charges – he fully justified God's faith in his ability to make his five talents bear fruit. It is calculated that he influenced the lives of over 3,000 students in Clongowes alone -- and the many tributes and messages of sympathy to the Community bore rich testimony to their gratitude to him:

The present writer had the joy and privilege of working with him for 18 years as Higher Line Prefect. Joe always referred to the members of his area as Officers – and dismissed all others as Baggage-Handlers until - when I arrived – I insisted on calling my charges Gentlemen ! He was always there in support - to praise - to encourage – to lower the rising temperature (when needed!] - to offer advice - and, on occasion, to chide ! To be called Villain by him was not a compliment. --- and no one, high or low, Officer or Gentleman - Student or Teacher - was spared! On his encouraging side, his trademark phrase was: That's OK ! That's OK ! A few days after he died this email arrived from Hanoi, Vietnam, from a former pupil: Officers and Gentlemen alike (and also some Villains) will be united in sadness at the news of Fr Joe's death -- and equally warmed by the myriad of happy memories of a great Teacher and a remarkable man.

Very often I used to meet past pupils who would enquire after some of their former Jesuit Teachers – and, after giving them the sad news of the death of A + B +C, I might be asked: And when did Fr Brereton die ? I used to reply, to their surprise: Well I saw him this morning and he was OK !

Sadly for them and for us - as we heard in the second reading at his funeral Mass - this will be no longer so. Joe's tent has been folded up - as he moved – for the last time – to an everlasting home in the heavens. In our first reading – the Prophet Isaiah presents the image of God's Kingdom as a banquet of rich food prepared for all peoples. Joe would surely approve of my choice – for, while Joe was a very private person - in his own quiet way, he was quite a party-man ! While he eschewed the grand manner – he loved the occasional (and increasingly frequent] occasions of sharing some sweets - fruit - biscuits - and a variety of other edibles - from the depths of a seemingly bottomless pocket - with unsuspecting beneficiaries who happened on his path.

In the context of the greater world out there Joe's life was unheralded and unsung - but not so in the daily living of a grace-filled and remarkable life - remarkable in its simplicity and commitment. For his was a life full of love – care - kindness – concern -- thoughtfulness for others – phone-calls - cards – notes – all came to surprise and delight the recipients. His was a life animated by prayer - especially by his devotion to Our Lady, which was well-known - the Breviary and his daily Mass [with his own unique liturgy complete with interjections and dialogue questions!] Joe's proverbial kindness - his five talents (it was the Gospel chosen for his farewell Mass] - was an investment which bore rich dividends for the recipients. Many are the memories – personal and precious - which everyone had of his kindness - each person with his/her own story to tell. He had a particular soft spot for the House Staff - and undertook an unashamed defence of the Eves among them – often reminding the Adams of anniversaries/birthdays, which might otherwise have been forgotten! Exchange students were also among his favourites. At the end of one year – during the Leaving Certificate exams in June - Rhetoric Year gave Joe a present of an electric blanket - for he always seemed to feel the cold very keenly – and was often wrapped in layers of pullovers and his famous coat - beneath which (at least it was rumoured] were several hot-water bottles! He put up a notice to thank the Students for their “very thoughtful gift – which will be so useful now that winter is drawing on” .............. and this was in the first week in June !

At an age when most of his contemporaries were long retired or invalid - Joe continued to patrol the corridors of the Higher Line's “R Block” in Clongowes – encouraging the lame ducks – searching for the lost souls – sharing his wisdom with all and sundry. He had such a canny knack of foretelling what might "come up" in the Leaving that there many of his charges could not be persuaded that he did not have “insider information” in the Department !

In the evening of his life Joe became more frail in body - but with his spirit's sparkle never dimmed. The Nurses in Clongowes looked after him with a tender devotion far beyond the call of duty (as did the Staff in the village pharmacies). During his last few months, it was the turn of the Nurses and Staff of Cherryfield to fall under his charm and to care for him with their renowned love and attention. This task carried its own challenge - and many of them found themselves on the receiving end as they enquired after his health -- only to find themselves responding to Joe's interrogation as to how they were getting on ! Joe had never wanted to go there - and it is their great triumph that they succeeded in making it a real home-from home for him. Once a Prefect - always a Prefect - or so it is said! In Cherryfield Joe remained always “on duty”. On one occasion he entered someone else's room late at night and told him to Turn off that TV - and do it now! I have people studying for the Leaving Cert. along this corridor – and you are distracting them! His startled companion duly complied!

Late on the evening of Sunday 6th May the Night Nurse in Cherryfield alerted the Rector and Joe's Sister that he had taken a turn for the worse. I have a very moving cameo-memory of seeing Josephine sitting by Joe's bed, reciting prayers from an old Child of Mary prayerbook - occasionally glancing round at her Brother as he listened to her prayers for and with him - as we shared his last moments on earth. Night Staff in a hospital or nursing home live a sort of owl-like existence - rarely heard or seen ............ Joe introduced us to three wonderful people on that Sunday evening - aş, at the moment of his final departure, they cared for both of us trying to cope with the finality of it all. Three minutes into a new day -- on Monday 7th May - Joe celebrated what the ancient Roman martyrology called our dies natalis - his Heavenly Birthday. He had reached God's holy mountain -- to share in the New Life promised by Jesus to those who eat the Bread of Life and drink from the wells of Salvation.

At the Community Mass in Cherryfield on the day Joe died, Fr Paul Andrews quoted a celebrated phrase of Prof. Winnicott, a distinguished psychiatrist who once said: I pray that I will be alive when I die ........ I pray that I will be alive when I die! This was so true of Fr Brereton - and his spirit will live on - both in CWC and throughout the world – where so many of his former pupils mourned his passing – fully alive, aged ninety-one-and-a-half years old.

◆ The Clongownian, 2012

The passing of Fr Joe Brereton SJ saw Clongowes lose one of its most faithful servants. The many tributes and messages of sympathy referred to by Fr Michael Sheil SJ included the following, one from a present pupil, Tom Goodman, and one from an Old Clongownian...

The Captains Last Voyage

by Tom Goodman (Poetry)

The sky was a ceiling of deep blues and greys when we arrived at the dock. Clouds hid the moon, but from some lighted windows we were able to make out the shape of some of the structures along the seafront. Nature's silence lay our with us, which, combined with the wind and water in their whirling, created a sublime calm. So much so, that we were afraid to speak above a whisper, content to be keepers of serenity. At last we reached the ship, a looming yer majestic vessel bobbing slowly on the chop, and stepping up to the gangplank, we boarded. The ship itself creaked gently as we almost tiptoed across the rain-slick deck. Then, coming to a pair of large wooden doors, banded with riveted iron strips, we stepped in to meet The Captain.

Leaving the rain on the other side of the door, we took off our coats and, in our surroundings, not for the first or last time. The room was quite compact and plain. On one side there stood elegantly a shrine to Our Lady, and on the opposite side to this the room was walled with wooden-slatted shutters that were pulled right down to the ground. Faintly from behind these, the murmur of hymns floated, changing the silence into a soft praising song. Heels clacking on the planks beneath our feet, we approached the shutters and knocked firmly; after a few moments they opened.

The Captain stood there, measuring us intently He was an elderly man, with a kindly face and silky snow-white hair. With a slight hunch he stood shorter than he should and he held his gnarled hands down in front of him. Smiling, he invited us to sit; and we did, the reverent music resounding out behind us from the horn of the gramophone, and waited as The Captain sat silently at his desk, working his way through his rosary beads with quavering lips. Looking past The Captain out the porthole, we caught a glimpse in the newly emergent moonlight of the glorious bone-white castle standing vigilant to the night with its golden doors. The gramophone dinked as the clay disc finished its circuit and The Captain's beads pattered as he laid them on the table and sat back in his padded pinewood chair. Behind us the heavy wooden door groaned to admit a woman with a small frame, long straight brown hair and specracles. Neither we, nor The Captain said a word as she sat herself down on one of the benches at the wall. But after a few moments we realised that she was praying for The Captain, and by this time she had already risen, blessed herself and was making for the door, while The Captain quirked a little smile in thanks. After glancing to each other and then to The Captain, we resumed our quietude.

Sitting for so long in that room with the silent Captain, we began to notice all its little details, as one could not help but do in such a situation. Twelve candles stood in gilded sticks, ten of which were alight, casting a mellow and soft radiance across The Captain's quarters. Out another of the porcholes, which was fitted with red glass, a shining shaft of light shooting from the lighthouse could be seen. It added to the strange atmosphere in the room that persuaded silence. The Captain's kindly smile still lingered from the woman's visit, and rekindled as two more figures stepped through the large wooden doors.

The two men were quite different yer similar in appearance. Both held some weight on their paunches, both looked a considerable age (one more so than the other.) and both looked strangely as if they had just recently emerged into joy from grief. They were speaking quietly to one another as they stepped across the threshold and brushed off their coats, their firm shoes tapping on the floor. After they had said their prayers in a similar fashion to the woman previously, the two men paused to look at The Captain, who was sitting back, straight in the eye. Resuming their conversation (which seemed to revolve around The Captain himself) they quietly departed, leaving The Captain smiling,

The time to speak
Now the time came when we finally began to speak to The Captain and one another; quietly at first but gradually as we breached the swallowing silence of the cabin, the level of our voices began to rise. The Captain sat like a stone through it all, smiling in a calm thoughtful bliss.

It was past midnight when we finally left The Captain. We were admittedly reluctant to leave; but we needed our sleep for the following morning, for The Captain's final journey on the sea. Walking in the crisp, cold night, we left the harbour already dreaming of bed beneath the moonshine in the ever-creeping weariness.

The morning rose bright and blue, but soon the sea-breeze swept clouds in over our heads, and with the clouds came rain, light at first. As we walked down to the docks feeling the first spots of rain on our faces, gulls reeled and screeched along the wind, and from afar we could see the crowd that had formed around The Captain's vessel. Even from that distance we could pick out some officers, though the general rabble of other crewmembers melded into one uniformed crowd. At the fringes could be seen both men and women, dressed in many different fashions. Here some ex-officers in formal. raiment, and there women, both old and young, in their own finery.

Coming closer along the water a wave plashed against the harbour wall, spraying us lightly with an early blessing. The cobbles beneath our feet mimicked tiles in their various colours and shapes and wall murals stuck up at regular intervals. Fourteen we counted by the time we joined the crowd that stood watching the captain on the deck.

The great splayed mix of voices quietened as priests in their white robes stepped up to bless The Captain and his voyage. Silence, as well governed as on the previous night, blanketed the crowd as The Captain was blessed, for it was well known that The Captain himself was a man of God, and as the ceremony progressed, The Captain visibly stepped out of his hunch, standing tall to the wind and vast ocean ahead of him. At The Captain's side stood his sister, regal in her equanimity; for it was no easy thing to do, leaving a brother to the voyage alone. At the will of the priests, we began to sing. Deep sonorous bass notes were complemented by the higher ones, swirling together into a great farewell, filled with the respect and praise The Captain was due. While we slid from song to prayer and back again those men on-deck lined the way to the helm; a guard of honour for The Captain, despite the raindrops, which fell down with abandon. When the songs were over and The Captain stood nobly gripping at the pinewood wheel with his hands, the rest of us that could fit climbed up upon the ship, ready to sail The Captain to the places where map and sight failed to guide. Without order we hitched the booms, hoisted the sails and cast off, the bow cutting into the water, cleaving our way forward with the aid of the sails. With the bowsprit pointing our way we departed, The Captain leading with an open grin on his face, which had youthened, his hair now turning a tawny colour, and his eyes holding the light of excitement.

After quite some time in the pouring rain, whipping wind and amidst the tang of salt in one's nostril, a small elbow of land sitting green on the horizon came into view, it was on no sea-chart, no map or in no book that the men could find, The Captain had taken us, and he had led with the surety of somebody heading home along an old road from their childhood, but we all knew that he had never visited this place; none of us had. When we made closer to the islands, mists rose out of the sea to shroud them. The Captain bade us stop, so we weighed anchor. The Captain now holding the youthful look of a man of thirty, with all the wisdom of an eighty year old behind the eyes, leapt down onto the deck past us, utterly astonished, to the rowing boats which were tied off at the side of the ships hull and hopped into the sleek, varnished pine boat. We all stood around agape at first as he began to lower himself down, but at the signal of one of the priests who ventured along with us, we began a final lamenting praise for The Captain. Weak and sad to begin, the melody took us to a time when The Captain began to prepare for this voyage, to the care he showed to us, each of his crew-members, his love and concern, his imagination and his ability to see that it was okay when chaos and ruin seemed to loom; to now, as the sky opened up to the warm embrace of the sun we realised that this journey is made by all good men and women, those who are in their nature - for others. The Captain was leaving now, his boat had silently dipped into the water and had begun gliding along, tending towards the shore, but we would see him again. Smiles broke out among the crew as we watched him shrink. When he was still clearly visible he turned his young face that was filled with life ship-ward and smiled one last time for us, as the golden mists enveloped him, hiding him from our view. And so we sat and thought of the time when we ourselves would have to make a similar journey, through this life into another. Still smiling.

And into the misty isles of time,
We all shall sail ourselves.
Whether in morning, day or dusk,
We drink now from the well
That quenches all; the fair of heart
Villains, liars, fiends
And leaves behind no thirst for men
Or thought of mortal dreams.
Failing body, prevailing soul
Through all that ever is.
Someday hope you'll take your boat
On through the golden mists.

-oOo-

Officers, Gentlemen and Villains

by Rossa McDermott (OC ‘78)

It was a far from soft day when the casket of Fr Joe Brereton SJ was lowered into the grave by a new generation of Clongownians in the community graveyard, just off the main avenue. Alongside the recently departed Fr Paddy Lavery SJ, the man more affectionately known ‘Bertie” Brereton was laid to his final place of rest in front of many Clongownians, past and present. It was somehow unfair that this most gentle of men did not get more deserving weather - some bright Spring sunshine - in order to record the sad moment when he left the Clongowes Community for good. But then again, Bertie was never one for the limelight.

In recalling the long shadow he cast over the Clongowes Community, Fr Michael 'Mocky' Sheil fondly remembered that the Bertie era started even before the current Jesuit Provincial, Tom Layden, had arrived in Clongowes many years ago. Mocky estimated that his influence had been cast over 3,000 pupils during his tenure, and a testament to that influence was the cross-section of ages in the Boys Chapel for his funeral service, all reflecting a man who, in a very quiet, yet determined way, had managed to impact on many, many generations during his teaching years.

For those who wondered in the early days why soccer played such a role in the teaching of English, it was due to his roots in Liverpool, where he lived until the premature death of his father, after which the family moved back to Limerick. In looking back over old copy books in clear outs and house moves, it is now clearer to me why so many essays, projects and drawings of the 1974 World Cup were acceptable English copy for Fr Brereton. Unbeknownst to many of us he loved football, but he also took an interest in all sporting achievements of his charges, especially his “Officers”. In a moving, honest and potent homily Fr Sheil recalled a particular rivalry between prefects in the old Rhetoric Building, Since forever, it seemed, Bertie called his fellow dwellers on the top floor of the old 1966 building “Officers”, all seemingly a reflection of a higher quality of Rhetorician in the scheme of things - in his mind. This was carried further in the cup teams and other sports, as no winning team went without a competitive count from Joe Brereton as to his Officer numbers in the wining side.

But it was perhaps the term “Villain” that evoked the most recognition from the packed church during Mocky's fond recollections on Thursday morning. It was the fiercest term that Bertie ever mustered when talking about the most mean of people. In an era when the hard edge of The Raz - aka Fr Gerry O'Beirne - was not slow about calling things as they were (and often in the most non-Jesuitical language) Fr Joe Brereton never moved beyond the term “villains”. This, perhaps, most accurately reflected the soft and caring nature of the man, characterising everything he stood for during his four plus decades in Clongowes. Whatever about being an Officer or a Gentleman, one thing you never wanted to be was a Villain. There was possibly nothing more troublesome.

In the closing prayers at the graveside on Thursday Fr Sheil and Fr Moloney ended concelebrating the life of a great man in the company of Fr John Looby, Fr Phil Fogarty, and Fr Colin Warrack. They did so with a befitting sense of ceremony perhaps so typical of the Jesuit Community over the generations. Sadly though the Clongowes Jesuit community graveyard is filled with too many stalwarts now long since at peace, yet evoking memories for each and everyone of us: Fr Cyril Power, Fr James “Pop” Casey, Fr Charlie O'Connor, Fr Ray Lawler, Fr Percy Winder, Fr Gerry O'Beirne, Fr Frank Frewen, Brother Willie Fitzgerald, Brother William Glanville and the one and only Jim Treacy - to mention just a few. On May 10th 2012 Fr Joe Brereton, SJ sadly joined them. May he rest in peace.

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

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

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

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1934

Obituary

Father Michael Browne SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1934

Obituary

Father Michael Browne SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Michael Browne (1853-1933)

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

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

Born: 05 March 1882, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 01 March 1921, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 02 February 1933, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 07 September 1941, Milltown Park, Dublin

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 17th Year No 1 1942
Obituary :
Brother Patrick Burke

Brother Burke was known to have expressed more than once the desire to die in harness, yet not even he can have imagined that the end would come so suddenly. He complained for the first time on Monday 1st of September, but it was not until Saturday that his illness took a serious turn and he was removed to hospital. His condition grew rapidly worse and be died the following day.

Born in Cork city in the year 1882, he was from an early age attached to Messrs. Egan, jewellers, and remained with them for twenty two years. From there he went to Stokes in Westmoreland Street Dublin, where he worked from 1918 to 1921. Then. to use his own words, there came to him the call to leave the world and he decided to enter the Society as a, Lay-Brother. His Noviceship days were spent in Tullabeg. In 1925 we find him in Belvedere, in 1929 he went to the Crescent, whence, after a year, he was transferred to Milltown Park. where he remained until his death.

Perhaps it is as sacristan that Br. Burke will be always best remembered. In all that had to do with that office he showed an enthusiasm and devotedness quite remarkable. “The happiest moments of my life were spent in work for Our Lord on the Altar” he was heard to say, and there can be no more eloquent testimony of his devotion to his hidden Master than the care and pains he took with all the Altar arrangements. He rose magnificently to all great occasions, such as major feasts, and, most of all, ordinations, when his altars won many a word of admiration.But his daily care of the altar and of the chapel was a finer proof of the reality of his devotion. Many of us can be painstaking on occasion, but Br. Burke was painstaking in the chapel always. No effort that this work demanded of him was too great for his diminutive. but indomitable frame, no detail too small for his care and attention. Day after day and year after year this unwearying care went on, and Br. Burke continued to be to all who knew him an example of one who waited for his Lord, and kept his lamp trimmed, and all in readiness. With true zeal Br Burke wished to share with others his devotion to the altar. He trained boys to serve Mass and was ever at pains to imbue them with his own reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. He intensified and extended this work in the last year of his life, and the bearing of those he has trained is living testimony to his success. His contact with those who brought flowers for the altar gave him another outlet for his zeal. Those who thus came in contact with him loved him for a may humour he had and for his very real. sympathy with them, but it was his simple and sincere piety that most of all affected them.
Br. Burke's life in the Society was a little life, the thoughtless will say, taken up with simple hidden things. It may seem little in the eyes of the thoughtless, but it was the work his Master had given him to do, and it was splendidly done. That, for all its apparent littleness that his life shone before men is evidenced by the surprising number of people who attended the Requiem Mass for Bro Burke in the chapel of Milltown Park, and followed the coffin afterwards to Glasnevin. Br Burke left many friends to mourn him, not least among them, his little Mass-servers, and many who have learnt from him the beautiful lesson of devoted. reverent service of the Blessed Sacrament. and left behind the record of a life that was this lesson lived. Such a life may be little by the standards of the world, but it must be very great by the only standard that counts when life is over. R.I.P.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Brother Patrick Burke 1882-1941
Br Patrick Burke was referred to by externs as “The Saint”.

Born in Cork in 1882, he was attached to Egan’s the jewellers in that city, and then with Stokes of Westmoreland Street Dublin. It was here that he heard the call in 1921, and answewred it to become a lay-brother in the Society.

Always extremely neat in his person, he was precise in his manner and exact in his duties. All his religious life he devoted to the altar as Sacristan, and there he displayed exquisite taste in adorning the altar and looking after the vestments.

He had a wide circle of friends and admirers, who revered him as a holy man, many of whom had known him “in the world”, under the soubriquet of “The Major”.

He was most closely associated with Milltown Park, where he died an edifying death on 7th September 1941.

Born: 04 September 1848, Galway City, County Galway
Entered: 07 November 1865, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1880
Final Vows: 02 February 1888
Died: 03 February 1907, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

by 1868 at Amiens, France (CAMP) studying
by 1869 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1871 at Spring Hill College AL, USA (LUGD) Teaching
by 1874 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1879 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Educated at Coláiste Iognáid.

After First Vows he studied Philosophy at Laval and Theology at Louvian.
He was then lent to NOR as a scholastic for three years.
When he returned from New Orleans he was sent to Clongowes for some years. He spent some time as a Priest at Tullabeg, and when the College closed there he went for Tertianship to Drongen. He then joined the Missionary Band and was an excellent and very vigorous speaker.
He spent the remaining years of his life at Gardiner St where he died 03 February 1907

Excerpts (paraphrased in part) from An Appreciation by One Who Knew Him (EM SJ)
He was a native of Galway. That he was endowed with natural talents of no mean order is quite true, talents for a somewhat extended range in Mathematical and Philosophical speculation. It is true that during his lifetime he improved and developed these natural gifts by assiduous toil. Truer still that he possessed a rare sensibility for the fine arts, especially for the art of Music. Those who are capable of forming a just judgement bear witness to the elegance and perfection of execution which he reached on more than one instrument, but especially on his favourite instrument, the violin..........he was far from looking on Music as the serious occupation of his life........He looked on it more as a legitimate means of relaxation after a hard day’s work, or still more, as a legitimate means of ministering to the recreation and enjoyment of others.
........After First Vows he went to St Acheul near Amiens for Rhetoric, and then to Louvain for three years Philosophy. He was then sent for Regency to Clongowes, and Spring Hill College Alabama on the New Orleans Mission. He was then sent to Louvain again for Theology, and was Ordained 1880. His Priestly life was spent at Tullabeg, Crescent and Gardiner St until his death there.
....Father Butler’s nature was highly sensitive and refined will, I suppose, may readily be taken for granted by those who understand what are the qualities which combine to make a talent for music approaches to genius. Whatever Father Butler may have appeared to strangers, this writer can amply testify that he was to those who lived with him, and knew him intimately, the simplest, most genial, and the most kind-hearted of men. To the end of his life he was as light-hearted, I had almost said frolicsome, as a boy. Few men could rival the gusto with which he told or listened to a merry tale. Few equalled the heartiness of his laugh.
....But though taking a measured delight in the innocent joys of this life, it was very evident that his serious purpose was often “to muse on joy that will not cease”. Underneath all his outward gaiety there was the abiding consciousness of weighty responsibility.......laboriously taming and bringing to subjection a somewhat naturally hot and impulsive nature. Certainly he did not wear his religion on his sleeve........but....he possessed in no stinted measure a deep faith, informed by a piety at once simple and tender.......

Note from John Naughton Entry :
1896 He finally returned to Gardiner St again, and was President of the BVM Sodality for girls, being succeeded by William Butler and Martin Maher in this role.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father William Butler (1848-1907)

Born in Galway, educated at St Ignatius College, and received into the Society in 1865, was at the Crescent for two short periods, 1888-1889 and 1901-1902. He was a talented preacher and most of his active religious life was spent as missioner or at work in Gardiner St Church. Father Butler, in his day, was known to many as a musician of outstanding ability. He was a violinist of sensitive technique and his services as leader for orchestral accompaniment to the choir at Sacred Heart Church were frequently availed of.

Born: 28 February 1886, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 06 September 1902, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 16 May 1918, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1922, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 22 February 1967, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

Educated at Belvedere College SJ

by 1907 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 42nd Year No 2 1967

Obituary :

Fr Charles Byrne SJ (1886-1967)

Fr. Charles Byrne was born in Dublin on 28th February 1886. He received his primary education at Synge Street and his secondary education in Belvedere, where he went in 1897. James Joyce was one of his companions but Fr. Charles did not find him a congenial soul. He entered the noviceship at Tullabeg in 1902 and remained there as a junior to study for his B.A. “Work was real, work was earnest”, in those days and he felt grateful to have survived the ordeal unscathed and with a B.A. to boot.
The three years of philosophy were spent at Stonyhurst and on his return to Ireland he was sent for a year to the Crescent where he taught the First Arts class and then for four years, as a teacher, to Clongowes where he had His Grace, Archbishop McQuaid as a pupil. In 1915 he began his theology in Milltown Park and was ordained in May 1918, the early date being due to the conscription scare of that year. At the end of theology he was sent to the Crescent for a year before tertianship and returned there in 1921. For ten years he was operarius, teacher and Minister at the Crescent. Then in 1931 he was transferred to Belvedere where he taught for 29 years without a break. When he retired from teaching he was appointed Superior of Loyola House and then last summer (1966) he returned to Belvedere where he died on 23rd February after the briefest of illnesses.
Of his 65 years in the Society, Fr. Byrne spent 46 in the colleges, doing that work which the General Congregation has again asserted to be one of our most important ministries. He was the kind of totally dedicated teacher that every college wants - for all his activities were centred around the work of the house whether it was teaching or theatricals or games. He had far more of the graces than the average Jesuit and he made use of them in a way that impressed the boys. Thus, he had a fine voice which was heard to advantage at a High Mass; he was a most graceful skater on ice, an elusive half at soccer and so good a hockey player that he was capped for Munster, which must be a Jesuit record.
As a teacher of Latin he used many industriae, mnemonics, rhymes, anecdotes and competitions, so that he rarely had need to order punishment. Then the lazy boy was shamed into working by noticing how hard his master worked for him and he could not help noticing it. Every mark for a theme was duly noted down and every mark in an examination was duly entered so that there was available a complete record of the work of each pupil during his progress through the school. For most of his time at Belvedere Fr. Byrne taught the first divisions in the top years. There was a very close bond between him and his class, so close indeed that when he was replaced by a younger Jesuit they resented losing him and the Prefect of Studies had his work cut out trying to smooth things over.
When Minister at the Crescent Fr. Byrne entered wholeheartedly into the activities of the Cecilian Society and tales of those days are still current in Limerick where he was remembered with affection, as his Christmas post from Limerick testified. On his transfer to Belvedere he put his skill at the disposal of Fr. M. Glynn who had just launched out on his long programme of Gilbert and Sullivan Operas. During opera week Fr. Byrne was a familiar sight in the green room in a khaki dust coat and with neat boxes of grease paint laid out like a surgeon's instruments.
On Fr. Glynn's breakdown Fr. Byrne at a moment's notice stepped into his shoes and with admirable skill and still more admirable patience produced year after year the college opera from 1939 to 1960. He appreciated good singing, good speaking and graceful movement. Year after year to make some forty boys good singers, good speakers and graceful movers called for heroic devotion. Fortunately, like Fr. Glynn, he possessed the secret of attaching the cast to himself so that all were anxious to do their best.
As has been said already any school was glad to have him and the same may be said about any community. The reason was obvious; he was unassuming, considerate and prompt to offer assistance. He was the Prefect of Studies answer to prayer for he considered the work assigned to him on the status had first claims on his time and energy. Only when he had conscientiously done his work did he consider himself free to do work of his own choice.
From our mode of life most of us are inclined to develop marked bachelor characteristics, carelessness of dress, untidy habits and general disregard for what we despise as “the frills”. Others of us react strongly against such ways and Fr. Charles was one of these. He is said to have asked a friend whose dishevelled breviary he viewed with disapproval : “Do you wash your hands after using that book?”
Without being foppish he was always carefully dressed. He took great care of his clothes and made them last a long time. A visit to his room was quite an experience; it was so unlike the typical lair of a Jesuit. Nothing was out of place. Everything was brushed and polished and the humblest furniture decorated.
When he returned to Belvedere last September he endeavoured to follow the order of time as far as possible. And he remained like this to the end. Indeed he was at recreation the evening before he died. Then on the day of his death he celebrated Mass and in the afternoon before dinner walked up and down the corridor saying his beads. Shortly afterwards he was found in his room suffering obviously from a stroke. He was anointed by Fr. B. Murray. A doctor was summoned (Dr. E. Guiney, one of his former pupils) and he advised transfer to hospital. He was brought by ambulance to the Mater, but before he could get treatment he passed quietly away.
He was considerate to the end, dying in the manner that would inconvenience the community as little as possible. May his quiet and gentle soul rest in peace.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1967

Obituary

Father Charles J Byrne SJ (Pupil 1897-1902; Teacher 1931-1960)

Fr Charles Byrne died most unexpectedly : on the evening of 22nd February 1967. He had returned to Belvedere the previous summer having spent six years as Superior of Loyola House, Eglinton Road, Dublin. On the day of his death he said Mass, in the afternoon recited his Breviary and before dinner walked up and down the corridor saying his Rosary. Shortly afterwards he was found in his room apparently dozing in his chair but really in a semi-coma. He was conscious of what was going on around him but was unable to communicate with those present though he made efforts to do so. The Last Sacraments were administered to him and then it was decided to transfer him to hospital. He was brought to the Mater Hospital but before he could get treatment he passed quietly away. This gentle and unobtrusive going was in complete keeping with his whole life, considerate for others at all times and dying in the manner that would cause as little inconvenience as possible.

After five years as a pupil in Belvedere Fr Byrne entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Tullabeg in 1902 and after his profession remained there as a junior to study for his BA degree. The three years of philosophy were spent at Stonyhurst College, England, and his teaching as a scholastic extended over six years, one at the Crescent and five at Clongowes where he taught science. In 1915 he began his theology at Milltown Park and was ordained there in May 1918. After tertianship he returned to the Crescent College, Limerick, where he combined the duties of Minister and teacher and was also in charge of the public church. During this period he entered wholeheartedly into the spirit of the Cecilian Society and even to this day he is remembered with affection in Limerick.

In 1931 he was transferred to Belvedere where he resumed a long unbroken association with his Alma Mater for almost thirty years. He taught mostly Latin to the Senior Honours classes in which he had remarkable success. He had a close bond with all his pupils and never had to resort to sanctions as an incentive to work. He had a fund of mnemonics, rhymes, anecdotes which made life for the boy that little more interesting and somewhat easier when it came to imbibing knowledge. He was a very dedicated and industrious teacher, noting down most meticulously every mark for a theme and every mark for an examination, so that there was available a complete record of the work of each pupil during his progress through the college.

Fr Byrne had a lively interest in sport and maintained this interest right to the end. He supported all the college matches and was keenly interested in the welfare of the old boys rugby and cricket clubs. He was no mean athlete himself giving a good account on the soccer field, golf course and tennis court. He had the unusual distinction of being capped for Munster in hockey.

The work for which he is best remembered was the annual staging of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. For twenty-two years he produced almost single-handed a very polished and finished work. He attended to every aspect of the opera - production, music, dialogue, stage grouping and make-up. No detail escaped his eye whether it was a note of music, a small point of pronunciation, gesture, deportment - all was brought to a fine art making each play more impressive than the previous one. It cannot be said too often that it is to his credit that he secured his achievement from a cast which were in the most literal sense school boys. Year after year to make forty boys into good singers, good speakers and graceful movers called for heroic devotion. Fortunately he seemed to have the gift of attaching the cast to himself so much so that the boys vied with each other in attempting to put his directives into practice.

In the 1948 “Belvederian” we read: “Fr. Byrne labours for some four months and each year he must, if he is human, wonder if this straw will yield brick. Each year as the fruit of his work appears he must have a qualm. Each year we leave saying with awe - he has done it again. There are bold statisticians who tell us this present production is the best ever”. And indeed so it was with all operas - each one seemed to be better than the previous one. The community, the boys, the parents, and the old boys often reminisce on those wonderful and enjoyable nights with his memorable productions. It was his fervent wish that the college operas would be resumed in the not too far distant future. For many years he was the mentor and support of the Old Belvedere Musical and Dramatic Society, guiding it through its hazards in its early years.

In his dealings with others he exercised a gentle but very marked influence. He was unassuming, considerate and ever prompt to offer assistance. He was courteous to the extreme and even the slightest favour rendered would never go unrewarded. He had a wonderful equanimity of temperament and whether approached first thing in the morning or last thing at night he always gave the impression of being ever ready and pleased to deal with the particular situation in hand. With his many loyal helpers during opera week, and there were many, and with others with whom he came into contact during the course of every day life, he left the impression that it was a privilege to be associated with him or having to do business with him.

Ungentlemanliness was foreign to his character and the boys realised this, respected him for it and did their best at all times to behave as gentlemen in his presence. More than once he has been described as one of nature's gentlemen - a truer estimation would be a gentleman of God.

He was happy to return to Belvedere last summer. He entered into the spirit of the college activities, picking up the broken threads after a lapse of six years. He died as was his wish, almost in harness, slipping away in his own quiet and unobtrusive way.

May his kind and gentle soul rest in peace.

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

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

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

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Note from James Redmond Entry :
He studied Rhetoric at St Acheul, Amiens with Michael Weafer, Thomas Finlay and Peter Finlay, Robert Kane and Vincent Byrne, among others.
Note from Thomas P Brown Entry :
1877 He was sent to Innsbruck for Theology with W (sic) Patrick Keating and Vincent Byrne
Note from Br Philip McCormack Entry :
Father Vincent Byrne said his funeral Mass which was attended by many of the Brothers from the city houses.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 19th Year No 1 1944

Obituary :

Father Vincent Byrne SJ

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

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 38 : September 1985

Portrait from the Past

FR VINCENT BYRNE : 1848-1943

Seán Hughes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We shall not see his like again.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1944

Obituary

Father Vincent Byrne SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1944

Obituary

Father Vincent Byrne SJ

Rector (1904-1907)

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

◆ Mungret Annual, 1944

Obituary

Father Vincent Byrne SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Vincent Byrne (1848-1943)

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

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

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

Older brother of George Byrne - RIP 1962

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

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

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

Obituary :

Father William Byrne SJ

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1944

Obituary

Father William Byrne SJ

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

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

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

AL

-oOo-

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

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

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

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

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

◆ Mungret Annual, 1944

Obituary

Father William Byrne SJ

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

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father William Byrne (1868-1943)

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

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

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

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

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

Obituary

Fr Eric Cantillon (1924-2011)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 20 February 1878, Kilbeheny, County Cork
Entered: 09 September 1896, Roehampton London - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 28 July 1912, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1914
Died: 27 February 1919, Calais, France - Angliae Province (ANG)

by 1910 came to Milltown (HIB) studying 1909-1912
First World War chaplain

His brother, Fr Thomas Carey, Rector of the Catholic Church. Eden Grove, Holloway, and Chaplain to Pentonville Prison, ministered to Sir Roger Casement up to his execution at Pentonville prison, August 3, 1916.

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/blog/damien-burke/jesuits-and-the-influenza-1918-19/

Jesuits and the influenza, 1918-19
Damien Burke
The influenza pandemic that raged worldwide in 1918-19 (misnamed the Spanish flu, as during the First World War, neutral Spain reported on the influenza) killed approximately 100 million people.

The influenza was widely referenced by Irish Jesuit chaplains in the First World War. The Spanish flu was a contributor factor in the death of Fr Timothy Carey SJ (1877-1919) on 27 February 1919, at Calais, France. Hailing from Kilbehenny, on the Cork-Limerick border, Carey joined the English Jesuit Province and served as chaplain from 1916, until his death.

https://www.jesuit.ie/blog/damien-burke/the-last-parting-jesuits-and-armistice/
The last parting: Jesuits and Armistice
At the end of the First World War, Irish Jesuits serving as chaplains had to deal with two main issues: their demobilisation and influenza. Some chaplains asked immediately to be demobbed back to Ireland; others wanted to continue as chaplains. Of the thirty-two Jesuits chaplains in the war, five had died, while sixteen were still serving.
Fr Timothy Carey SJ, of the British Province, would die from the effects of influenza in February 1919, at Calais, France

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

Educated at Mungret College SJ

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

◆ Irish Province News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1935

Obituary

Brother Tom Casey SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 11 April 1916, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 12 November 1938, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1951, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 05 November 1977, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 08 March 1995, John Chula House, Lusaka, Zambia - Zambiae Province

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03 December 1969

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
After leaving school at Clongowes Wood College in 1933, Arthur worked for about five years in the Hibernian Bank. Later he enjoyed recalling his days as an oarsman in a crew of eight, racing on the river Liffey in Dublin.

Arthur took as his model and ideal his Master of Juniors, Fr Charles O'Conor Don, whose motto, ‘faithful always and everywhere’, Arthur took as his own. He was noticeable for his observance of rules, regularity at prayer, simple faith, thoroughness in his work – even polishing the floor of his room. He was outstanding for his charity especially towards those in trouble or unwell. These traits remained with him all his life. One who lived with Arthur said that he had a characteristic blend of the ridiculous with a stern sense of duty.

When he finished tertianship, Arthur became socius to the Master of Novices for about two years and then became Minister at Clongowes Wood College for two years. The job of Minister seemed to have followed him in all the houses he was posted to.

1958 saw him in Zambia, in Chivuna where he studied ciTonga and acted as Minister. He was transferred to Chikuni, again as Minister, but after two years became Rector there, In the role of rector, as in the rest of his life, Arthur never once showed the slightest trace of malice, vindictiveness or favouritism. During his six years as rector, he was blessed with such outstanding heads of Canisius as Dick Cremins and Michael J Kelly. Arthur's vision for Canisius as a leading secondary school was influenced by his experience of Clongowes Wood College in Ireland. First, he wanted a proper house for the community. Though the actual building was the responsibility of Fr McCarron and Br Pat McElduff, the siting and design of the spacious community house are largely Arthur’s. Then came the expansion of Canisius with better quality classrooms and dormitories, a fitting dining room and kitchen. Arthur was deeply involved too in the design of the college chapel.

From 1967 to 1973 he was at Namwala Government Secondary School as teacher and later as Deputy Head. Arthur revelled in giving himself to the demands made on him: teaching, conscientious correction of assignments, availability to students, and counsellor to his fellow teachers. Becoming Deputy gave him the extra load of maintaining discipline and setting high standards of behaviour and work among the students. This seems to have been one of the happiest times of Arthur's life in Zambia and every indication was that he had excellent relations with the staff and pupils, due no doubt to his inherent kindness and generosity. He actually wore himself out and was then transferred to the smaller Mukasa minor seminary in Choma in 1974.

However, in 1974, he went on long leave to Ireland where he was exposed to new styles of living the religious life and nuanced modifications of traditional ways of expressing Catholic doctrine. Arthur became confused and deeply upset, as his simple faith had always delighted in accepting the traditional textbook expression of the Catholic faith which he had learnt in theology. So he held on grimly to his convictions for the rest of his life, as he continued to think and preach in scholastic categories. He found Mukasa too small for him after the vastness of Namwala and was moved after two years. His eight years (1976–1984) at Charles Lwanga T.T.C. gave him fresh scope for his zeal and energies. He enjoyed being in a large community house which he kept spotlessly clean during his years as Minister. His lecturers were meticulously prepared and all assignments corrected. He was tireless in supervising teaching practice. He worked hard to build up the morale of a small group of Catholic pupils at Rusangu Secondary School.

In the end he wore himself out again and was transferred to St Ignatius in Lusaka as assistant in the parish (1984-1990). He was especially devoted to hearing confessions and generous in answering calls on his time. When Fr Max Prokoph began to fail, Arthur was as assiduous as ever in helping him. Ascetical in his own life, stern towards those for whom he felt responsibility, Arthur was surprisingly indulgent towards the various strays and ‘inadequates’ who quickly detected in him and easy touch and flocked around St Ignatius.

He was moved to the infirmary at John Chula House as his mind began to fail even though his body was strong and healthy. It was painful to see him slowly losing touch with the outside world as Alzheimer’s took its inevitable toll. At the end, Arthur died quite suddenly. It was discovered that he had widespread cancer of which he never complained. He was never one to vacillate or waffle and when the time came he took his leave of life as he had lived it, with dispatch and no nonsense.

Note from Bernard (Barney) Collins Entry
Barney moved to Namwala parish from 1968 to 1973 with Fr Clarke as his companion in the community to be joined later by Fr Eddie O’Connor (and his horse). From 1973 to 1977 he was parish priest at Chilalantambo and returned to Chikuni in 1977 to be assistant in the parish to Fr Jim Carroll.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 82 : September 1995

Obituary

Fr Arthur Clarke (1916-1995)

Arthur Clarke was born on April 11th 1916 in Dublin and went to school in Clongowes, After he left school he entered the Bank of Ireland, but was not fully satisfied. A close friend told me that both he and Arthur considered going to Kenya under a British Government scheme to grow coffee. On a solitary walking holiday in the South of Ireland Arthur stayed in a Trappist monastery and decided that this was what he wanted. A short stay with the monks led to their advising Arthur that “he was too introspective” for their way of life and directed him to the Society of Jesus. There he stayed until he died in the retirement home in Lusaka Zambia on 8th March 1995.

He entered the novitiate in Emo on November 5th 1938 and followed the usual course of formation, doing his regency in the Crescent College Limerick. After Tertianship he was Socius to the Novice Master and then Minister in Clongowes, where he learnt of his appointment to Northern Rhodesia in the normal way, by someone telling him casually on the way into the refectory.

Five of us travelled out by Union Castle to Cape Town. At the Rhodesian border in Bulawayo, Arthur, always a man of integrity, insisted on paying duty on all his new clothes, despite the efforts of the Customs to assure him that as all our goods and chattels were going to Chikuni Mission there was nothing to pay.

This illustrates Arthur's characteristic blend of a keen sense of the ridiculous with a stern sense of duty. When these two clashed, Arthur would resolutely do what he considered was his duty, while muttering the while that it was all a lot of nonsense, but we had to do it. This he applied to his stints as Minister in our communities. He made no secret of his dislike of the job, but laboured might and main to keep the house spotless, and turn out magnificent meals on big occasions, even though he was not at ease in celebrations. From time to time Arthur would recount hilarious incidents of his formation years, normally involving the deflation of some pomposity or affectation. The following morning there would be an attack of conscience resulting in a stern admonition to us scholastics to show more respect in speaking of the very people Arthur had been taking off the previous evening.

Arthur had a difficult time adapting to life in Africa at first, though not through lack of trying. He was of that generation which had done no studies outside Ireland and this must have been his first experience of another culture. He took a long time to shake free of the conventions of the Irish Province, many of which were ill suited to life in the bush.

Arthur became Rector of Chikuni where he ruled with an utterly unbiased if somewhat stern hand. Sean McCarron, in Zambia to build the Teacher Training College, would point out that even he had been taken to task by Arthur for some misdemeanour, leaving us mystified as to why he should consider himself immune to Arthur's sense of what was appropriate behaviour. In the role of Rector, as in the rest of his life, Arthur never once showed the slightest trace of malice, vindictiveness or favouritism.

After his stint as Rector, Arthur went to teach in Namwala Government Secondary School. The Zambian Principal, no doubt in recognition of Arthur's commitment to order and discipline, appointed him Vice-Principal and then allowed him to get on with running the entire school, while he pursued a more leisurely way of life. This seems to have been one of the happiest times of Arthur's life in Zambia and every indication was that he had excellent relations with the staff and pupils, due no doubt to his inherent kindness and generosity.

While stationed at St. Ignatius parish in Lusaka Arthur showed his compassionate side in his care for Fr. Max Prokoph who was deteriorating in health and required constant care around the house, which Arthur showed him to a remarkable degree of patience. Fr. Dominic Nchete, a Zambian priest, said that if for nothing else, this would assure Arthur's going straight to heaven. Ascetical in his own life, stern towards those for whom he felt responsibility, Arthur was surprisingly indulgent to the various strays and inadequates who quickly detected in him an easy touch and flocked around St. Ignatius.

For someone who led such an organised and full life, it was painful to see him slowly losing touch with the outside world as Alzheimer's took its inevitable toll. Increasingly it was clear that he did not recognise those who had lived with him over the years. At the very end Arthur died quite suddenly. He was never one to vacillate or waffle, and when the time came he took his leave of this life as he had lived it, with despatch and no nonsense.

Frank Keenan

◆ The Clongownian, 1995

Obituary
Father Arthur Clarke SJ

After leaving school in 1933, Arthur worked for about five years in an Irish bank. Later he enjoyed recalling his days as an oarsman in a crew of eight, racing on the River Liffey in Dublin.

After his noviceship at Emo Park, he spent four years at Rathfarnham Castle and took a degree in English and other languages. Arthur's model and ideal was his Master of Juniors, Fr Charles O'Conor Don, whose motto, “faithful always and everywhere”, Arthur took as his own.

He enjoyed three quiet years (1944-47) studying Philosophy at Tullabeg, in the heart of rural Ireland. His prowess as an oarsman made him in demand for working the heavy boats on the nearby canal, which was popular on the weekly villa day. His physical strength qualified him for rowing as far as Shannon harbour, 30 kilometres away and back, a feat reserved for the strong.

He was noticeable for his observance of rule, regularity at prayer, simple faith, thoroughness in his work - even in polishing the floor of his room. He was outstanding for his charity, especially towards those in trouble or unwell. These traits remained with him all his life.

After a year's teaching as a regent at Crescent College, Limerick (1947-48), Arthur studied theology at Milltown Park, where he was ordained in 1951.

After Tertiariship at Rathfarnham Castle (1952-53), he became Socius to the Master of Novices, Fr Donal O'Sullivan, again at Emo Park. Fr O'Sullivan spoke most highly of his abilities. He then spent two years as Minister at Clongowes (1955-57), before coming to Zambia in 1957

Arthur lived for a year or more at Civuna where he studied Chitonga and worked as Minister. In 1959 he was transferred to Chikuni as Minister, where he soon felt the need to build up Canisius Secondary School, now that Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College had given an example of a higher standard of building. He was appointed Rector of Chikuni in July 1960. During his six years as Rector, he was blessed with such outstanding Heads of Canisius as Dick Cremins and Michael J Kelly.

Arthur's vision for Canisius as a leading secondary school was influenced by his experience of Clongowes. First, he wanted a proper house for the community. Though the actual building was the responsibility of Fr McCarron and Br Pat McElduff, the siting and design of the spacious community house are largely Arthur's. Then came the expansion of Canisius, with better quality classrooms and dormitories, a fitting diningroom and kitchen etc. Arthur was deeply involved too in the design of the College Chapel.

1967 saw him back in Civuna for a year or two, until he was appointed to teaching in the newly opened rapidly expanding Namwala Secondary School, where he lived in one of the staff houses. Arthur revelled in giving himself to the demands made on him - class teaching, conscientious correction of assignments, availability to students, coun sellor to his fellow teachers. When he was appointed Deputy Head of Namwala, he took on the extra load of maintaining discipline in this co-educational school and of set ting high standards of behaviour and work among the students. This involved working late into the night, so that frequently he was unable to get more than four or five hours sleep. It became too much for him, so that he became utterly worn out, and so was transferred to the smaller Mukasa in 1974.

The isolation of Namwala and his commitment to his work there largely protected Arthur from the aggiornamento of Vatican II which was then filtering into Zambia. However, in 1974, he went on long leave to Ireland where he was exposed to new styles of living religious life, and nuanced modifications of traditional ways of expressing Catholic doctrine. Arthur became confused and deeply upset, as his simple faith had ever delighted in accepting the traditional textbook expression of the Catholic Faith which he had learnt in theology. So he held on grimly to his convictions for the rest of his life, as he continued to think and preach in scholastic categories.

On his return to Zambia, he spent about two years at Mukasa as Minister and teacher. He found the place too small for him, after the vastness of Namwala.

His eight years as lecturer (1976-84) at Charles Lwanga TTC gave him fresh scope for his zeal and energies. He enjoyed being in a large community house, which he kept spotlessly clean during his years as Minister. His lectures were meticulously prepared and all assignments corrected. He was tireless in supervising teaching practice. He also worked hard to build up the morale of the small group of Catholic students at Rusangu Secondary School.

In the end, he again wore himself out, and so was transferred to St Ignatius as assistant in the parish (1984-90). He was especially devoted to hearing confessions and generous in answering calls on his time. When Fr Max Prokoph began to fail, Arthur was as assiduous as ever in helping him. .

Though Arthur's body was strong and healthy, his mind began to fail. So in 1990, he was posted to Cherryfield Lodge in Dublin, where he could receive extensive health care. He was deeply unhappy there, and begged to be allowed to return to Zambia, nominally as guest master at Chikuni. Soon he found himself in the newly opened John Chula House. Even there he found scope for his charity in helping Eddy O'Connor.

Given his strong constitution, Arthur found his enforced inactivity hard. Early in 1995, his increasing physical pain, of which he never complained, led to the discovery of widespread cancer. The Lord was calling his faithful servant to himself, through a final sharing of His Cross and he died on 8 March 1995. May he rest in peace.

John Counihan SJ

Born: 13 September 1922, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 06 September 1941, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1955, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 03 February 1958, Loyola, Eglinton Road, Dublin
Died: 21 September 2009, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

by 1974 at Oxford, England (ANG) working
by 1986 at Reading, England (BRI) working
by 1989 at North Hinksey, Oxfordshire (BRI) working

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 142 : Winter 2009

Obituary

Fr John Clear (1922-2009)

13th September 1922: Born in Dublin
Early education Stanhope St. Convent and CBS Richmond St.
6th September 1941: Entered the Society at Emo
8th September 1943: First Vows at Emo
1943 - 1946: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1946 - 1949: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1949 - 1951: Crescent College - Teacher
1951 - 1952: Clongowes - Prefect
1952 - 1956: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
28th July 1955: Ordained at Milltown Park
1956 - 1957: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1957 - 1958: Loyola House - Minister
3rd February 1958: Final Vows at Loyola House
1958 - 1961: Gardiner Street - Church work; Sodality
1961 - 1968: Emo - Mission staff
1968 - 1969: Rathfarnham - Mission staff
1969 - 1971: Tullabeg - Mission staff
1971 - 1973: Rathfarnham - Mission and Retreat staff
1973 - 1978: Holyrood Church, Oxford, England - Parish work
1978 - 1985: Rathfarnham -
1978 - 1981: Mission and Retreat staff
1981 - 1983: Mission and Retreat staff; Asst. Director Pioneers
1983 - 1985: Asst. Director Retreat House; Asst. Director Pion.
1985 - 1986: Reading - Parish Ministry; Asst. Editor Messenger
1986 - 1990: Oxford -
1986 - 1988: Parish Ministry
1988 - 1990: Parish Priest
1990 - 1991: St. Ignatius, Galway - Parish Curate; Spiritual Director, Our Lady's Boys' Club
1991 - 1998: Dooradoyle -
1991 - 1996: Subminister; Asst. Treasurer; Asst. for John Paul II Oratory; Asst. in Sacred Heart Church
1996 - 1997: Minister; Care of John Paul II Oratory; Assistant in Sacred Heart Church; Health Prefect; Librarian
1997 - 1998: Treasurer; Care of John Paul II Oratory; Assistant in Sacred Heart Church; Health Prefect; Librarian; Asst. Minister
1998 - 2002: John Austin House - Pastoral work; Vice Superior; Assistant Hospital Chaplain
2002 - 2009: Gardiner Street - Assisted in the Church
4th August 2009: Fr. Clear was admitted to Cherryfield Lodge Nursing Home on from the Mater Hospital following a short illness. His condition deteriorated very quickly.
21st September 2009: Died peacefully in Cherryfield Lodge

Brian Lennon writes:
John died early on Monday 21st September 2009 at the age of 87. His health had gradually declined over the past few years. He was beginning to lose his memory, Over the summer he had a few bouts of confusion and pain. He spent some time in hospital in the Mater and Vincent's in Dublin. Eventually inoperable cancer was diagnosed and he arrived in Cherryfield on 4 August, where, like so many, he got great care.

He was born in Dublin on 13th September 1922 and educated by the Christian Brothers at O'Connell's School, North Richmond Street, Dublin. He went to Emo in 1941, so was a Jesuit for 68 years. He went through the normal course of studies and then spent 21 years working in parishes and 19 on the Mission staff. Hearing confessions was very important to him, especially in the years he spent in Gardiner St. since 2002 right up to the year of his death. It was a natural apostolate for him because he had great kindness. He told me once that in his parish work he always involved lay people, and - extraordinarily - he never had a row with any of them.

At different times he was based in Emo, Rathfarnham, Tullabeg, Oxford, Reading, Galway, Limerick, Loyola and John Austin House, as well as Gardiner St, from 1958 to 1961 and then again since 2002.

He wrote a lot: pamphlets on “Mary My Mother”, “Elizabeth of Hungary: Princess, Mother and Saint”, the “Japanese martyrs”, and “Lily of the Mohawks - Kateri Tekawitha”, the first North American saint. He also wrote many articles for the Pioneer and other journals.

My memory of him is of someone with a great sense of humour. I sometimes teased him about not attending events like Province Days and also polluting his room and the whole corridor with his infernal pipe smoke, to all of which he would respond with a deeply satisfied belly laugh. He had no airs or graces and he had a natural way of relating to people. He had a very simple view of life with a great devotion to Our Lady. He was deeply grateful for even the smallest things one did for him.

When his remains were brought to Gardiner Street there were several Sisters of Charity present. Two of them knew at least seven other sisters who traced their vocation to meeting John. One of them said: 'He showed me my way to God', a pretty good obituary for anyone. There must have been a lot of others in those 21 years in parishes and 19 years on the Missions who would say the same thing, but these are the stories that we other Jesuits may be the last to hear about.

He took an interest in what was happening around him. He was a great reader. One of the topics that fascinated him in recent years was research on DNA pools, showing where we have all come from, and that all of us all over the world are much more closely related to each other than many might like. He would always check out new publications by Jesuits.

He had a great friendship with some families, and loved to go back to Oxford to visit them. One of them told the story of John giving out to a young three year old, Daniel, by telling him that he was “too bold”, to which the young man responded that he was not “two bold”, but “three bold”.

He was a great swimmer in his young days. His brothers say that they coped with his leaving home for Emo with a certain amount of delight because they had more room in the house, and they suggested also that John, the eldest, was a bit correct and rule bound at that stage. They danced on his bed when he left, something they would not have had the nerve to do while he was still there. By the time he had grown old gracefully he had certainly lost any stiffness.

He died on the feast of St Matthew. The tax collectors were bad apples: not only did they rob people with little money, they also collaborated with the foreign occupiers who polluted the holy places. The fact that Jesus had fellowship with them by eating and drinking with them was deeply scandalous to the Jews, and understandably so. The meal in Matthew's house may have taken place after Matthew's conversion, but others there were surely not converted. But that did not stop Jesus eating with them. Calling Matthew to follow him was worse.

It's a feast that is appropriate for John's own day of entry into eternal life. He too reached out to people in trouble, and the cause of the trouble was never a block for him. He has now gone to join Matthew and the other tax collectors, and many of those with whom he walked during his ministry. He will also join the Pharisees, whom he knew are in each one of us. May he rest in peace.

Born: 30 April 1668, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 11 April 1696, Lyons, France - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)
Ordained: 1703/04, Avignon, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1713
Died: 06 August 1757, County Kildare

Alias Wilis

Studied 3 years Philosophy and 4 years Theology in Society
Taught Grammar for 4 years
“Pious and gentle, though bred to arms. Loves obedience and poverty and favourite of everyone. Hard worker”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
A former Captain in Sir Maurice Eustance’s Foot (cf D’Alton’s King James Amy List - Is very pious, and though a Captain, (Dux), and in warfare from his youth, is very gentle. He works hard, and does not much fear dangers. )
1708 Came to Ireland (HIB Catalogues)
In 1752 he is said to have been thirty years in Kildare, in the house of some gentleman (nobilis) to the great edification of all the household and neighbours ( cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
He had a military career before Ent 12 April 1696 at Lyons
After First Vows he studied at Lyons and Avignon and was Ordained at Avignon 1704
When he had finished studies and formation he engaged in Missionary work in France.
1708/09 Sent to Ireland and was to the Dublin Residence. He worked mostly in Kill, Co Kildare where he lived at the house of a nobleman, teaching, Catechising and Preaching in the local area.
He was a consultor of the Mission and was himself often proposed for the post of Mission Superior or as Rector of Irish College Poitiers, but always pleaded poor health in excuse for declining the office. He lived, however, to an advanced age
He died 6 August, 1757 in Kildare (though the sources also mention Dublin as the place of his death)

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father James Church (Clinch) 1664-1757
Fr James Church or Clinch was born according to some in Limerick, to others in Meath, in 1664. He became a Jesuit in 1695, returning to Ireland in 1703. He was solemly professed in 1713.

The last thirty years of his life he spent as a Domestic Chaplain to a family in County Kildare. He died on August 6th 1757, aged 93 years, of which 61 were spent in the Society.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CLINCH, JAMES. This Patriarch of his Brethren was born in Leinster, and embraced the rule of St. Ignatius at Lyons, on the 12th of April, 1696. He came to the Irish Mission in 1708, and made his solemn Vows, on the 15th of August, 1713. The last thirty years of his life he spent as domestic Chaplain to a family in Co. Kildare. His death took place on the 6th of August, 1757, aet. 92. Soc. 61.

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

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

Early Education at Presentation Brothers College, Cork City

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

Tertianship at Rathfarnham

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 58th Year No 4 1983

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

Obituary

Fr Patrick Coffey (1909-1926-1983)

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

Born: 03 July 1901, North Strand, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 01 September 1919, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 14 June 1932, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1935, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 29 October 1985, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Educated at Crescent College SJ

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

by 1929 in Australia - Regency at Xavier College, Kew
by 1934 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship
by 1935 at Catholic Mission, Ngau-Pei-Lan, Shiuhing (Zhaoqing), Guandong, China (LUS) language studies
by 1936 at Aberdeen, Hong Kong - working
by 1944 at Xavier, Park St, Calcutta, West Bengal, India (BEL M)
by 1948 at Sacred Heart Accrington (ANG) working
by 1949 at St Joseph’s Leigh (ANG) working
by 1955 at St Francis Xavier Liverpool (ANG) working

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Harold Craig, SJ
R.I.P.

Father Harold Craig, S.J., died in Ireland on 31 October 1985, aged 84.
He worked in Hong Kong, mainly as a teacher in Wah Yan College, until 1941. After the Japanese occupation he went to India, flying the hazardous route then known as ‘across the Hump.’ He worked in India till after the end of the war. He then worked in parishes in Lancashire, England, for over a quarter of a century. About a decade ago he transferred to a rural parish in the Irish midlands, and did not give up this work there till after his 83rd birthday. His retirement lasted less than three months.

Few people in Hong Kong will remember Father Craig after a gap of over forty years, but that few will remember him vividly. He was original in thought, word and action. Such men are not easily forgotten.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 8 November 1985

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He came to Hong Kong in 1934 after Ordination and left Hong Kong in 1941

Note from Thomas Ryan Entry
In 1942 with Fr Harold Craig - who had come with him in 1933 - he went to Kwelin (Yunan) in mainland China, staying with Mgr Romaniello.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
After early studies in the Society, Harold Craig was posted to Xavier College for regency, where he taught from 1926-28, followed by a year at Riverview in 1929.After tertianship, Craig worked in the Hong Kong Mission, 1934-44, including 1942-44 at Guilin, Guangxi province, China, after the Japanese occupation brought the work of the mission to an effective halt. He then moved to India, 1944-47, working in Calcutta and Darjeeling before going to England. There he worked in a series of parishes until 1977 when he moved to Tullabeg as a base for more pastoral work. Harold Craig was known in the province as a raconteur frequently regaling people with stories of the past, particularly of his time in Australia.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 61st Year No 1 1986

Obituary

Fr Harold Craig (1901-1919-1985)

3rd July 1901: born in Limerick,1911-19. studied at Sacred Heart College, The Crescent. Ist September 1919; entered SJ.
1919-22 Tullabeg, noviciate and home juniorate, 1922-25 Milltown,philosophy.
1925-'9 Australia, teaching: 1925-28 in Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne; 1928-29 St Ignatius' College, Riverview, Sydney.
1929-233 Milltown, theology (14th ordained a priest). 1933-34 St Beuno's, Wales, tertianship.
1934-44 China/Hong Kong mission.
1934-35 Shiuhing, learning Cantonese.
1935-36 Regional Seminary, Aberdeen, HK, minister.
1936-38 Wah Yan HK again. The Japanese occupation of of Hong Kong brought the work of the Irish Jesuit Mission to a virtual standstill.
1942-44 Kweilin, Kwangsi province.

1944. India.
      1944-45 Calcutta.
      1945-47 Darjeeling.
      1947-77 England, pastoral work.
      1947-48 Accrington.
      1948-54 St Joseph's church, Leigh.
      1954-77 St Francis Xavier's church and parish, Liverpool.
      1977-85 Tullabeg, pastoral work.
      1985 Cherryfield Lodge nursing unit (his health failing). He died suddenly and and peacefully at 3 am on Tuesday, 29th October 1985.

I personally met Harold for the first time only in 1977, when he came to Tullabeg, so I cannot speak with first-hand knowledge of the earlier and longer part of his life. However, it seems to me that such a man revealed a great deal about the long years that went before: the man who in the late autumn of his life was always friendly, always cheerful and serene, always bubbling with life, always faithful in performing the work to which he had been assigned - this was the Harold I knew.
The most immediately obvious characteristic of Harold was that he was a great talker. He loved to talk and to recount experiences of his long and varied past. (Take for example his four years' teaching in Australia, a period that left an indelible mark on his memory). His love of talk was all part of his instinctive friendliness, his desire to reach out to others. The last time I saw him was about 10th October Cherryfield Lodge, I had feared that enforced inactivity might damp down his accustomed cheerfulness. Not at all. He was as cheerful and talkative as ever. He told me - not without pride - that the people of the neighbourhood, where he had already made many contacts, called him “the friendly priest”. I believe that right up to the end he showed people what he had always been, a sign God's friendliness, of God's interest in them and concern for them.
We all know that there is a vast difference between chronological old age and mental old age. Harold was 84 years of age and therefore chronologically old, but certainly was not mentally old. On the contrary, he had a wide range of interests. Despite the weakness of his legs, he spent at least a couple of hours every day in the garden; he had his favourite tv and radio programmes, he read widely about a variety of topics. That an old man could be so alive is an encouragement to those of us who are beginning to approach old age.
During those years in Tullabeg, I was always moved by the alacrity with which he answered the almost continual summonses to the confessional or hall-door. I do not know how many times I saw him sit down to a favourite tv programme - and getting into a chair was no small feat for him. A minute later he'd be called to the parlour or confessional. Invariably, without a murmur of complaint, he'd manoeuvre himself back onto his feet and go straight to the person who needed him, I am sure this generous availability characterised his whole life.
Finally, Harold had an immense affection for the members of his family. He was interested in each of them - old and young - and very proud of them. When I saw him last in Cherryfield, he told me how warm-heartedly his family responded to his affection, how frequently they visited him, and how happy they were that at last he was allowing others to care for him. His family - like the community in Cherryfield - will miss him greatly. May he live in Christ.

Born: 1612, Cashel, County Tipperary
Entered: 27 September 1635, Mechelen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 07 April 1640, Antwerp, Belgium
Final Vows: 1654
Died: 17 November 1685, Limerick City, County Limerick

Alias Piers Crow

His father John was an alderman in Cashel. His mother was Elizabeth Flemine
Studied at Cashel, then Lille, Louvain and Douai under Jesuits
1642 at Lyra (Lier FLA)
1644 First came to Irish Mission
1654 a formed Spiritual Coadjutor
1655-1658 at Arras College (FRA) teaching
1666 Living near Limerick teching Grammar, Catechising and administration - then banished to France for 6 years

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of John and Elizabeth née Flemme. Uncle of Dr Creagh, Archbishop of Dublin.
Early education was at Cashel and then studied Humanities under the Jesuits at Lille and two years Philosophy at Douai at Anchin College before Ent. He was admitted to the Society by the FLA Provincial Frederick Tassis, and Brussels 28/09/1635 (Mechelen Album)
After First Vows he did three years Theology taught Humanities for five years
1642 At the Professed House in Antwerp (FLA Catalogue)
1644 Came to Irish Mission (HIB Catalogue 1650 - ARSI)
1666 Living near Limerick, teaching Grammar and Catechism, and administering the Sacraments
He was an exile in France for six years and on the Mission for twenty-five (HIB CAt 1666 - ARSI)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of John (Alderman) and Elizabeth née Fleming
Studied Humanities under lay masters at Cashel and later at the Jesuit College of Lille. He then began Philosophy at Douai before Ent 1640 at Mechelen
After First Vows he was sent for his studies at Antwerp and was Ordained there 07/04/1640
1641-1642 Tertianship at Lierre (Lier)
1644 He sent to Ireland and to the Limerick school to teach Humanities.
1652-1660 Under the “Commonwealth” he was deported to France, where he taught Humanities at Arras College and later Prefect at Bourges
He returned to Ireland again after the restoration, and sent first to Cashel, but then in 1666 until his death he worked as a teacher and catechist at Limerick, where he died 17 November 1685

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Piers Creagh 1612-1685
Piers Creagh was born in Carrigeen Castle 3 miles form Limerick on the Robborough Road in 1612. He was a nephew of the Primate Martyr, and a brother of the Mayor of Limerick who distinguished himself during the siege. Another brother was Domestic Prelate to Alexander VII.

Piers entered the Society in 1637. He was attached to our College in Limerick as a Master, as we find in the examination of Fr Netterville of October 1678. Later he taught at Poitiers, where he had as his pupil his nephew Peter, later Bishop of Cork and finally Archbishop of Dublin.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CREAGH, (or Crow) PETER, was 33 years of age in 1649, and then residing at Limerick

Born: 1594, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 27 February 1670, Limerick
Ordained: Limerick - pre Entry
Died: 28 February 1670, Limerick City, County Limerick (“in articulo mortis”)

Alias Creevy

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Had the General’s permission to enter “in articulo mortis” (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Ordained before Ent 1628 Back Lane Dublin
In the Winter 1626-1627 he asked to be received into the Society. The General wrote a letter to the Provincial of Flanders on 24 April 1627 instructing him to receive Fr Creagh into the Novitiate at Mechelen, and he Entered there the following year (1628). During his Noviceship he was advised that the Society was not suitable for him, and so he LEFT on good terms with the Society.
He then returned to Limerick and remained a staunch friend of the Society over the succeeding years.
In 1663 he asked the Superior of the Mission if he could be received into the Society again “in articulo mortis” and the General agreed to his request. Seven years later, the Mission Superior Richard Bourke (de Burgo), while on a visit to Limerick, received him into the Society on 27 February 1670, and he died there the following day 28 February 1670.
He may well be the young priest mentioned as working with Thomas Bourke in Limerick of 1621, and described as an “aspirant” to the Society.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CREEVY, ROBERT. He is thus mentioned in F. Richard Burke s letter, dated Galway, the 4th of April, 1670, - “Mr. Robert Creevy, Priest, aged 57, with your permission was admitted at Limerick to the simple vows of the Society, on the 27th of February, and died on the day following

Born: 1626/7, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 04 July 1648, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1655, Salamanca, Spain
Died: 13 September 1660, Soria, Castile y León, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

1649 in the Villagarcía Novitiate
1655 Operarius at Salamanca College and last year of Theology

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Andrew and Joan née Lea
Had already begun studies in Philosophy at Salamanca before Ent 04 July 1648 Villagarcía
After First Vows he was sent for Theology to the Royal College Salamanca where he was Ordained c 1655
When he finished his studies he was sent to Soria to teach Latin, where he also gained a reputation as a zealous Operarius and - even though he was a man who suffered greatly from scruples - as a Spiritual Director. After a short illness there he died 13 September 1660

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

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

Transcribed : HIB to ZAM 03/12/1969

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

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

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

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

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

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 147 : Spring 2012

Obituary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 04 September 1864, Carlow Town, County Carlow
Entered: 07 September 1899, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 02 February 1909
Died: 27 February 1909, Mater Hospital, Dublin

Part of the Crescent College, Limerick community at the time of death

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Before Entry he had been working at a butcher’s in Thomas St, Dublin, and had been a member of John Bannon’s Sodality in Gardiner St.

He made his Novitiate at Tullabeg, and was then sent as Buyer and Cook to Crescent.
1909 He had a bad heart attack due to overwork and strain. He was sent to the Mater Hospital in Dublin, and died there to the surprise and great regret of his community 27/02/1909.
A good, holy, patient, good-humoured and hardworking Brother.

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

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

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ.

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

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 26th Year No 3 1951

Obituary :

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

◆ The Clongownian, 1951

Obituary

Father Frederick Cuffe SJ

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

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

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

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1951

Obituary

Father Frederick Cuffe SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 123 : Special Issue February 2005

Obituary

Fr Patrick (Paddy) Cusack (1918-2003)

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

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

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

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

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

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