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Bailey, Anthony, 1923-2007, Jesuit brother

  • IE IJA J/586
  • Person
  • 17 October 1923-09 May 2007

Born: 17 October 1923, Lettermore, Rosmuck, County Galway
Entered: 07 September 1945, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final vows: 02 February 1956, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 09 May 2007, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Originally Entered in 1942 but Left March 1942 due to leg injury, re-joined 1945

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 133 : Special Issue September 2007
Obituary

Br Anthony (Tony) Bailey (1923-2007)
17th October 1923: Born in Lettermore, Rosmuck, Co. Galway.
Early education in local National School.
Left Lettermore in 1936 for Rathcarn, Athboy, Co. Meath.
15th September 1941: Entered Society at Emo as a Postulant, but had to leave in March 1942, suffering from a leg disease.
7th September 1945: Rejoined the Novitiate at Emo. After First Vows stayed on at Emo as Cook and Houseman.
He did a cookery course at Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin.
1968 - 1975: Mungret -
1968 - 1970: Cook, in charge of house staff and infirmarian
1970 - 1972: In charge of house staff and infirmarian
1972 - 1975: Cook, in charge of house staff and infirmarian
1975 - 1986: Tullabeg -
1975 - 1985: Assistant Maintenance man and gardener
1985 - 1986: Assistant Minister
1986 - 2007: Manresa - Painter / Decorator and houseman
9th May 2007: Died at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Dermot Mansfield writes:
Tony Bailey always remembered his birth date, 17th October 1923, because it was the feast of St Margaret Mary Alacoque, one of his favourite saints. Always, indeed, he looked to the guidance and protection of the saints, including Ignatius, the young “Star”, as well as Margaret Mary, the Little Flower, and his own Anthony of Padua. Quite a motley lot, the seven are, but good congenial company for Tony. And now he has gone to join them. Many of us, I think, will include Tony among our favourites. Our memories of him are so rich, whether his mischievous wit and sparkling conversation are recalled, his quick intelligence, or his essential shyness, and deep love of quiet and contemplation. We surely have a good friend who will steer us still and keep us on the right track from the heavenly realms beyond.

He was born into the family of Colman Bailey and Anne Coyne at Lettermore, Rosmuck, in Co Galway. The world of Connemara, therefore, was his as a growing boy, and he received his formal education at the local National School. Then came a big upheaval, when the family moved in 1936 right across the country, to the new Gaeltacht set-up at Rathcarn, near Athboy in Co Meath. However, the West was not forgotten, and indeed Tony's first contact with the Jesuits was through our house in Galway. This eventually led him to first join the Society at Emo in September 1941 as a postulant. But TB meant he had to leave in March 1942, and he would then spend quite a while as a young patient in Cappagh sanatorium. Tony often spoke of that experience, and no doubt during it his spirit of patient endurance especially developed, as well as his gift of prayer. A legacy of his illness was the unhealed leg he had for the rest of his life.

In 1943, his sister Barbara joined the Society of the Sacred Heart at Mount Anville. Perhaps it was Barbara's example that helped Tony in his determination about his own vocation, leading him on 7th September 1945 to rejoin the novitiate at Emo. Without question, he was finally where he wanted to be, and was happy in that setting. In particular, he had a great warm regard for Tommy Byrne, his novice master, who cared for him in a fatherly way.

After his First Vows, Tony did a cookery course at Cathal Brugha Street in Dublin. He stayed at Milltown Park during that time, and was one of those who experienced the trauma of the life there. Then it was back to Emo, where he was to spend so many years as gifted cook, and where his vital personality would exercise an immense influence on the great number of novices passing through there in the 1950s and 1960s. In the somewhat Upstairs-Downstairs world of that time, it could be a pleasant change for us scholastic novices to be on experiment with the brothers and our fellow brother novices. The encouragement and humour of "the Abbot Bailey" helped many a downcast young soul, as did the example of what seemed to be his effortless spirit of prayer. Then again, his spontaneity could manifest itself in surprising ways, as when he brought home a captive cock pheasant, christened it “Montini” (after the new Pope in 1963), and with it started up a spectacular pheasantry. And it goes without saying that he loved the grounds, the farm, the lake and woodlands all around.

In 1968 he moved from Emo to Mungret along with Paddy Cusack. He was cook there for a while on the community side, but he had grown weary of that work, and moved out of it into dealing with the house staff and acting as infirmarian. Once again, nature enthralled him, especially the winter wildlife on Loughmore nearby, and along the Shannon estuary. In this regard Peter Doyle was a kindred spirit, as was Eric Cantillon, and also the fondly remembered scholastic of that time, Pat O'Farrell. They all had many interesting times and exploits together. Tony, of course, was interested in the boys and their welfare, and often those with similar interests would seek him out for chats.

With Mungret's closure in 1974, Tony was back up in the Midlands again, this time at Tullabeg. Although in itself not a house to inspire one or raise the spirits, Tony found much there to his liking. He had good company in Pat Guidera, Andy Bannon, and especially Brogan Whittle, his friend from Emo days. In particular, Michael Gallagher's time as superior was much valued by him, as were the visits and ministry of John Hyde. He loved the Public Church, its atmosphere, and was interested in all the people from near and far who found their way there. He made great friends in the neighbourhood, with families, like the McLoughlins, the Corcorans and the Guinans, to name but a few. As well, he took an active interest in the comings and goings of retreatants, both lay and religious, and also in the Tertians during their years there. His one trip out of Ireland was during these years, when he went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes organised by Brian McNamara. He thought very highly of Brian, and his heart went out to him as Brian struggled often in vain with his serious alcoholism.

In 1980 Tony's sister Barbara died, after 38 years in religious life. Eight years older, she, too, was a remarkable person, and was remembered affectionately by her Sacred Heart sisters. The things said of her point to somewhat similar aspects in Tony's character. She had “a passionate sense of justice, which made her suffer all her life”. She was seen as a “fiercely independent spirit”, who was “generous and forthright”. But, above all, this most certainly applies to her brother: “She was always filled with wonder at the work of God in the world and in people”.

A few years later came the next change, and one that posed a real challenge for Tony. For it can be said that our spacious country houses had suited Tony best, and very understandably. So how was he going to adapt when, in 1985, he finally came to Dublin and had to settle down in Manresa? How would he manage in the relatively confined atmosphere there? Formerly, because of his retiring nature, Tony could easily have his meals at times other than the official community one, but now there was no option like that open to him. Everyone came at the set times to dinner and supper, including the Novices from down the grounds. In addition, we had sisters and lay people on the retreat staff, and other visiting directors much of the time. But, in fact, Tony blossomed in such company, entering into conversation with everyone, and displaying interest in all that was happening. Again, too, he was in a Novitiate situation, and so he wished once more to be an encouragement to the younger men coming our way. And, importantly, he became especially close to Pat McNamara, who only a year or two earlier had made his own big change from Belvedere.

For other reasons one ought to have had no worries about Tony coming to Manresa. For, straightaway, he grew to love every inch of the grounds around him, and the trees, the birds, and all the wildlife along the seashore. At one stage he managed to entice red squirrels into our property, a delight to behold. Early on too, in memory of the great avenue of Californian Redwoods (”Wellingtonias”) at Emo, he planted a young example not far from the house, and which now twenty years later is steadily reaching for the sky - a fitting memorial to his own adventurous outlook. And the sky itself overarching Manresa in all its moods, and the movement of the stars and planets on winter nights, were for him a ceaseless source of wonder.

In February 1989 the spectre of ill health came over him again, with the sudden stroke that severely limited his activity, Courageously, he fought his way back to a good degree of mobility. If anything, however, he now became even more a central part of the community scene, aided by the care and friendship of Pat McNamara and Michael Gallagher, and then, too, Mike Drennan, among others. You could say that in these later years Tony really became the heart of our life together. He lightened things for us; he was full of questions and comment, and always his own spirit was a constant reminder of what really matters. Often be was to be found in the chapel. I will always picture him among that faithful group at our community Mass, along with Tom Donnellan, Pat McNamara, and Paddy Meagher.

It was a great shock, however, when Pat died suddenly just before Christmas in 1997. Tony missed him sorely. Yet he adapted in time, and continued on as best he could. There were still treasured family visits, of course, from his brother Jimmy and sister-in-law Kathleen, and from his fond nephew Seán, his wife Jacinta, and their children. There were the contacts from old friends of Rahan days. Sometimes there was loud laughter and animated talk over tea and cakes on Sunday afternoons in the community room, when Joe Osborne came to visit, or Jim Sutton and Brendan Hyland, Gerry Marks, or Jim Barry. George Fallon, too, was often a welcome guest at lunch. Also his faithful friend Brogan Whittle, who had left the Society at this stage, was a regular caller. And later, there was the valued company once again of Peter Doyle, and then of Joe Ward. As I recall, his last holiday was when Michael Gallagher brought him for some days to Galway, back once more to the West.

Then little signs were indicative, at least in hindsight, of the forgetfulness that overtook him more recently. We were all affected by this loss, by this withdrawal in him. Yet despite such diminishment somehow Tony always remained himself. The glint remained in his eyes, the liveliness in his striking voice. He really did continue to be a part of the community, until he required the permanent care that only Cherryfield could give. And finally, in his 84th year, he slipped gently away from this world, in the forenoon of Wednesday, 9th of May, 2007.

How fitting it was to bring his mortal remains back to Manresa – first, overnight, to the new Tertians' chapel, and then the next morning to the Retreat House chapel for his funeral Mass. In his homily, Joe Dargan spoke of Tony's gratitude at the end, and it was in a spirit of great gratitude that so many friends gathered for that final farewell, with large numbers of his family.

But also, although it was time for him to go, he cannot but be sorely missed by such a variety of family and friends, and by his Jesuit companions. Knowing Tony, and sharing our lives with him, was for many of us one of the greatest gifts we have ever received, His was a unique spirit, always vital, alert, interested, humble, vulnerable, and true. He could bring out the best in people, the humanity that was there, the prayer, the laughter within. And now in the company of the blessed, without a doubt he is still prodding us, and egging us on, and making us keep our eyes fixed on the main purpose of it all.

Gallagher, Leonard, 1898-1942, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/160
  • Person
  • 06 November 1898-14 July 1942

Born: 06 November 1898, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 16 September 1916, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 14 June 1932, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1935, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 14 July 1942, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Younger Brother of Richard Gallagher - RIP 1960

by 1927 in Australia - Regency at St Aloysius College, Sydney
by 1934 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Leonard Gallagher entered the Society in 1916 at Tullabeg, and after initial Jesuit studies was sent as a regent in 1925 to St Aloysius' College, and he taught there until mid~1929. He was also editor of the school magazine and assistant editor of the Jesuit Directory.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 17th Year No 4 1942

Obituary :

Rev Leonard Gallagher SJ

Fr. Gallagher, who was 44 at the time of his death, was a native of Cork City. He was a brother of Mr. Frank Gallagher, director of the Government Information Bureau, and of Fr. Richard Gallagher S.J. (Hong Kong). He entered the Society on 16th September, 1916. After completing his philosophical studies at Milltown Park he was sent in 1925 to Australia, then the Mission of the Irish Province, and spent four years as master in St. Aloysius College, Sydney. He returned in 1929 to do his theological studies in Milltown Park and was ordained there in 1932. After a period of teaching at Mungret College where he was for some years Prefect of Studies and Professor of Philosophy, he went to Gardiner Street in 1937.
As Assistant Director (to Fr. J Flynn) of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, he addressed hundreds of Pioneer Centres throughout Ireland, furthering the Cause of temperance, especially in the Secondary Schools. In conjunction with the Deans of Residence at University College, Dublin, he recently organised a very important centre of Total Abstinence among the students there. He was a gifted and popular preacher and author of several well-known writings on the spiritual formation of youth. He was Spiritual Director to branches of the St. Joseph’s Young Priests' Society. A tireless guide of souls in the Confessional, he spent himself in working for others. His amazing energy, good humour and selfless zeal endeared him to all classes. A writer in at certain Catholic paper said of him : “His booklets for boys and girls conveyed the sweetness of his spirit to tens of thousands of homes, but they were only a minor part of his indefatigable works.” By none will his death be more regretfully mourned than by the young patients of Cappagh Open Air Hospital, Finglas whose lives he helped to brighten in countless ways, and on whose behalf he made frequent appeals over the radio.
On Sunday, 12th July, with a splitting, burning headache he gave a one-day retreat to working girls at the Sacred Heart Convent Leeson Street - 5 lectures - and heard all the Confessions. That night he had violent pains all over the body and could not rest. Next morning he struggled down to say Mass and had to be helped back to his room. The doctor. who was called to see him, found his tonsils fearfully septic, and that evening he went into a nursing home . On Tuesday morning the doctor found him much worse and affected with partial paralysis. In the afternoon, at 3 o'clock, he received Extreme Unction most fervently, and died at 4 o'clock. His brother Mr. Frank Gallagher, and Fr. Superior were with him at the last. The funeral was an extraordinary tribute and demonstration, over a hundred priests were present (though half the Dublin diocesan priests were on retreat at the time). An Taoiseach, An Tanaiste, and many members of Cabinet were present, and there was an enormous congregation, and especially of the poor, at the Office and Mass, to do him honour and pray for his kindly soul. R.I.P.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Leonard Gallagher 1898-1942
The Province lost a lovable gifted and zealous young priest on the death of Fr Leonard Gallagher on July 14th 1942.

He came of a gifted Cork family, being a brother of Fr Dick Gallagher of the Hong Kong Mission and Mr Frank Gallagher, the well known writer and journalist.

Fr Leonard was himself the author of some pamphlets on the spiritual formation of youth. At the time of his early death he was Assistant Director of the Pioneer Association.

He was indefatigable in his work for souls in the confessional, in the hospitals and in giving retreats. But he was renowned above all for his personal gifts of gaiety and lovableness of character.

His funeral was one of the largest ever seen in Gardiner Street. The great crowd that filled the Church was a tribute of gratitude and affection for a priest who was the most unselfish of apostles and the most cheerful of givers.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1943

Obituary

Father Leonard Gallagher SJ

Mungret boys of the years 1934-37 must have been shocked to hear on July 14th, 1942, that Father Gallagher was dead. He was so much the live wire when he was here that death and he seemed likely to be strangers for many a long day. Yet now he was dead. Gone was the cheery, vivacious, humourous man full of energy, eager to do God's work and finding time to do many men's work. You remember him here - early at the altar every inorning his keenness there concentrated on the central act of his day; down for morning study, with a cheery word for the late-comer; round the classes breathing friendly fire, interested in every boy; out on the games field showing how it should be done or doing it with all zest. From preaching a sermon to mending a cricket net or decorating the stage - he had time to do them all well and to do them for you or for me but of course always to do them for God for whom he was literally on fire. The same eager enthusiasm he showed in the work of the ministry, in the great Pioneer work which was his main employment, in singing for poor slum children, in making up games to amuse them. Father Gallagher was prepared to do anything to help the cause of Christ. He died as he lived. He dragged his poor dying body down town and put in a last burst of energy to give a week-end retreat to poor city girls. Then he died. We give a short sketch of his life as it appeared in the press but we are sure that his memory is alive in the hearts of our boys - a bright, vivid, holy memory that will remind them to pray for him but perhaps more impor tant to live as he lived the life of a real follower of Christ on fire with love kindled by prayer.

“Father Gallagher, who was forty-four was a native of Cork City. He was brother of Mr Frank Gallagher, director of the Government Information Bureau; Rev Richard Gallagher SJ, Hong Kong; Mr Ronald Gallagher, BDSI, Waterford, and Sister Finbar, of St Mary's, Cappagh.

He entered the Society of Jesus in 1916 and after pursuing his philosophical studies at Milltown Park, Dublin, spent four years as master at St Aloysius' College, Sydney, Australia.

Returning to Ireland in 1929, he studied theology at Milltown Park, where he was ordained priest in 1932. After a further period of teaching at Mungret College, Limerick, where he was for some years Prefect of Studies and Professor of Philosophy, he came to Gardiner Street, Dublin, in 1937.

As Assistant Director of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Movement, he addressed hundreds of Pioneer Centres, furthering the cause of temperance, especially in the secondary schools. A vitally important centre of Total Abstinence he recently organised at University College, Dublin, in conjunction with the Deans of Residence.

A gifted and popular preacher, author of well-known writings on the spiritual formation of youth, Spiritual Director to branches of the St Joseph's Young Priests Society, a tireless guide of souls in the confessional, he spent himself in working for others.

His amazing energy, good-humour and zeal endeared him to all classes.

By none will his passing be more regretfully mourned than by the young patients of Cappagh Open Air Hospital, Finglas, whose lives he helped to brighten in countless ways, and on whose behalf he made frequent appeals from Radio Éireann.

Kiely, Benedict, 1919-2007, writer, critic, journalist and former Jesuit novice

  • Person
  • 15 August 1919-09 February 2007

Born: 15 August 1919, Dromore, County Tyrone
Entered: 05 April 1937. St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 09 February 2007, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin (Dublin, County Dublin)

Left Society of Jesus: 18 April 1938

https://www.dib.ie/biography/kiely-benedict-ben-a9533

DICTIONARY OF IRISH BIOGRAPHY

Kiely, Benedict ('Ben')

Kiely, Benedict ('Ben') (1919–2007), writer, critic and journalist, was born Thomas Joseph Benedict Kiely near Dromore, Co. Tyrone, on 15 August 1919, the sixth and youngest child of Thomas Kiely, a British army veteran and measurer for the Ordnance Survey (born in Moville, Co. Donegal, son of an RIC man from Co. Limerick), and his wife Sarah Anne (née Gormley), formerly a barmaid. Kiely had two brothers (one of whom died aged eight) and three sisters. When he was one year old the family moved to Omagh, Co. Tyrone, where his father became a hotel porter. Kiely received his primary and secondary education from the Christian Brothers at their Mount St Columba's school in the town; he always spoke of his teachers with respect, recalling with particular admiration a lay teacher, M. J. Curry (model for the central character in his novella Proxopera) and Brother Rice, a most unusually enlightened Christian Brother who introduced him to the work of James Joyce (qv). Kiely was a member of the local GAA club but was suspended for playing soccer with Omagh Corinthians.

Much of Kiely's literary oeuvre draws on his youth in Omagh, and throughout his life he imaginatively recreated the townscape with its surrounding Strule Valley, its social and political divisions, concealed or unconcealed scandals, second-hand reports and fantasies of the wider world, and juvenile sexual curiosity – both the sexuality and the lure of an exotic world being sharpened by Omagh's ongoing history as a garrison town. From 1932 (when he attended the Dublin eucharistic congress) Kiely regularly holidayed in Dublin, staying with a married sister; the mid-Ulster town and the southern city were to become the twin poles of his career and imagination. Other holidays, in the Rosses area of Co. Donegal, also contributed to his imaginative formation.

After completing his secondary education (with a first place in English and second in history), Kiely worked as a sorter in Omagh post office (1936–7) before deciding he had a religious vocation and entering the Jesuit novitiate in Emo Park, near Portarlington, Co. Laois, in the spring of 1937. After a year in the novitiate Kiely was diagnosed with a tubercular lesion of the spine; he spent eighteen months at Cappagh hospital, Finglas, Co. Dublin, and wore a back brace for five years. Kiely later claimed that his vocation dissipated within a week of his arrival in hospital, partly due to his move from an unworldly all-male environment to the presence of shapely female nurses. In hindsight, Kiely believed the short-lived burst of fervour that produced his religious vocation had been a misunderstood yearning for a wider life of culture and scholarship. He retained from the novitiate a sizeable collection of miscellaneous religious knowledge, a number of clerical friends whom he respected, and a lifelong habit of rising at 5 a.m. and getting in several hours' work before breakfast.

Dublin and journalism
On discharge from hospital late in 1939 Kiely returned to Omagh, where he persuaded his elder brother (a self-made businessman) to lend him the money for a BA course at UCD (commencing autumn 1940). While studying history, literature and Latin, Kiely was a part-time editorial assistant on the Standard, a catholic weekly, and wrote articles, stories and verse in journals published by the Capuchin priest Fr Senan Moynihan (1900–70) (notably the Capuchin Annual, Father Mathew Record, Bonaventura and Irish Bookman). During his student days Kiely also organised a protest against the niggardliness of the coverage of James Joyce's death by Irish newspapers.

After graduating in September 1943, Kiely began a research MA in history, but abandoned it after he was recruited by Peadar O'Curry (1907–85) to a full-time job on the Standard, where he took over a 'Life and letters' column previously written by Patrick Kavanagh (qv). Francis MacManus (qv) became a literary 'guide, counsellor and friend' (Eckley, 164), persuading him to cut down a rejected novel, 'The king's shilling', to a long short story (later published as 'Soldier, red soldier'). In 1945 Kiely joined the editorial staff of the Irish Independent. He later commented wryly on the difference between the romanticised image of journalism that he had acquired from his adolescent passion for the writings of the English catholic columnist G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) and his subsequent experience of sub-editors' queries and quotidian visits to provincial towns to cover 'human interest' stories; this experience, however, reinforced his fascination with the interplay of locality and personality. From his earliest journalism to his last years, much of his writing took the form of an itinerary. He also regularly reviewed books in Irish journals and on Radio Éireann.

On 5 July 1944 Kiely married Maureen O'Connell (d. 2004); they had three daughters and a son (born 1945–9). The marriage broke down in the early 1950s, partly because of the strain between family life and the nocturnal, pub-centred lifestyle of a journalist. From the late 1950s Kiely lived with Frances Daly, whom he married in 2005 after his first wife's death in Canada.

Kiely as critic
Kiely's first publications were non-fiction works. Counties of contention (1945) is a series of essays on partition whose central argument is that unionism is a defence of ascendancy sustained by appeals to protestant 'persecution mania', and that reconciliation and an end to partition are necessary to save the whole island from mediocrity. Poor scholar (1947) was a pioneering study of William Carleton (qv), whose experiences as a storyteller, who was both inspired by and at odds with Tyrone, in many respects paralleled Kiely's own. In his last years, Kiely was a patron and regular attendee at the Carleton Summer School in Clogher, Co. Tyrone.

A number of published essays on contemporary Irish writers (mainly in the Irish Bookman) were reworked into Modern Irish fiction: a survey (1950) published by the Standard's Golden Eagle Books imprint. Much of this material, with further reflections and reworking, was incorporated into the essay collection A raid into dark corners (1999), which also contains reassessments of nineteenth-century Irish writers from throughout Kiely's career. (These serve the dual function of identifying material on which Kiely himself can draw and justifying his departures from nineteenth-century idealism and decorum for conservative provincial readers who might still see Kickham (qv) or Canon Sheehan (qv) as models.) Kiely's literary criticism, in its attempt to chart a path for post-revival and post-partition Irish literature, is noteworthy for its implicit rejection of the cultural nationalist view (as expressed by Daniel Corkery (qv)) that most nineteenth- and twentieth-century Irish fiction was not really Irish, and the view (associated with Sean O'Faolain (qv) and Frank O'Connor (qv)) that post-revolutionary Irish society was too provincial and uncertain to allow for the development of the novel as a social art form. Kiely presents contemporary Irish literature as divided between an ethos of rebellion incarnated by Joyce and one of acceptance reflected in Corkery. His own literary work tries to bridge this gap, as he moved between the thriving and confidently pious Dublin catholic weeklies and reviews and the more cynical worlds of the dissident literary intelligentsia and of Dublin journalists brought into contact with aspects of Irish life unacknowledged by the idealised self-image of catholic Ireland.

Early fiction
Kiely's first three novels are 'state of the nation' exercises: group portraits of Ireland in wartime as a Plato's cave of stasis. Their narrative structure moves among groups of characters in cinematic style. The first two are set in a thinly disguised Omagh in the period 1938–40, and are characterised by a dyad of naïve young enthusiast and detached older intellectual which recurs in Kiely's work. Land without stars (1946) portrays a romantic triangle involving two brothers (a spoiled priest turned journalist and a romantic republican and ex-postal sorter, brought to destruction by association with a sociopathic IRA killer). In a harbour green (1949), set in 1938–9, is a more panoramic view of small-town Ulster catholic life owing something to Joyce's Dubliners; its depiction of a young woman's simultaneous sexual involvement with a naïve young farmer and a sybaritic older solicitor led to its being banned by the Irish censorship of publications board (while in Britain it was taken up by the Catholic Book Club). The ban encouraged Kiely's move (at the behest of M. J. MacManus (qv)) from the Irish Independent to the less clericalist Irish Press, where he became literary editor, editorial writer and film critic. Kiely's third novel, Call for a miracle (1950), a similar group portrait set in Dublin in 1942, escaped banning despite its portrayal of marital separation, prostitution and suicide, possibly because its dark ending could be interpreted as the wages of sin. Kiely later jocularly commented that he had disproved Aodh de Blacam's (qv) proud claim that no Ulster writer had been banned; this underplayed the anger visible in his 1966 anti-censorship essay, 'The whores on the half-doors', written in response to the censors' last stand against authors such as John McGahern (qv) and Edna O'Brien (b. 1930).

Kiely's next novels continued the earlier works' preoccupation with neurotic states of mind while experimenting with different narrative techniques and closer attention to single protagonists. Honey seems bitter (1952), a first-person narrative of neurotic obsession involving a murder, emotional voyeurism and sexual infidelity, was banned. The cards of the gambler (1953), regarded by some critics as Kiely's best novel, is a literary reworking of a traditional folk tale (a genre often favoured by nineteenth-century Irish writers): the gambler's receiving three wishes from an enigmatic God, and his attempts to evade Death take place in 1950s suburban Dublin. The novel is influenced by Chesterton's novel The man who was Thursday (1908) and by the 1929 play (and 1934 film) Death takes a holiday. After various ambivalent triumphs and traumas (including a narrow avoidance of hell described as another version of suburban Dublin, inhabited by pious haters so concerned with keeping up respectable appearances that they refuse to acknowledge the true nature of their surroundings), he departs for heaven via a celestial version of Dublin airport, then seen as symbolising a new Irish modernity.

Kiely's next novel, There was an ancient house (1955), was also banned. It describes a preliminary year in a religious novitiate seen principally through the eyes of McKenna, an idealistic young novice, and Barragry, a progressively disenchanted ex-journalist pursuing a late vocation, both of whom eventually leave. The portrayal of religious life is respectful but increasingly implies that idealism, religious or otherwise, takes too little account of everyday humanity and is finally inhuman. The book, like Kiely's other fiction with autobiographical elements, should be read as a fantasia inspired by real-life events rather than a simple transcript of Kiely's own experiences. (It is set in the mid 1950s, and involves a fictitious religious order based on the Redemptorists and the Marists as well as the Jesuits.) The ban may have been due to the strong hint that Barragry's spiritual crisis was caused by his girlfriend having an abortion. (After leaving the novitiate he resumes the relationship.) The captain with the whiskers (1960), much admired by Kiely critics, is a grim Gothic study of a tyrannical gentry patriarch's malign overshadowing of his children's lives even after his death, as told by a narrator who himself is corrupted by his fascination with the captain; it can be read as a comment on colonialism.

Broader horizons
The 1960s saw Kiely's professional blossoming as Ireland grew more prosperous and more open to outside influence. From the late 1950s the New Yorker began to publish his short stories, and Kiely established contact with American academics such as Kevin Sullivan, author of Joyce among the Jesuits (1958), whose search for his ancestral Kerry glen inspired Kiely's famous story 'A journey to the seven streams', and the novelist and critic of nineteenth-century Irish fiction Thomas Flanagan (1923–2002). Kiely moved away from professional journalism to become writer-in-residence at Hollins College (latterly University) in western Virginia (1964–5), visiting professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon in Portland (1965–6), and writer-in-residence at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia (1966–8). During this period in academia, Kiely contributed a fortnightly American letter to the Irish Times, commenting on American society with particular reference to the black civil rights movement and the wider upheavals of the 1960s; he also wrote numerous book reviews for the New York Times and essays and reviews for other periodicals (including the Nation of New York).

After returning to Ireland in 1968 Kiely spent the rest of his life as a full-time professional writer. (He was also an extern lecturer at UCD.) His later work is more exuberantly pagan and less haunted by faith. The 1968 novel Dogs enjoy the morning, an outspoken celebration of the sexual impulse and the bawdier aspects of Irish provincial life and folk culture which had been denounced or denied by censors such as William Magennis (qv), marks this new confidence and recognition in contrast to the social insecurity and aura of disreputability he experienced as a journalist-writer in the 1950s.

From the appearance of his first story collection, A journey to the seven streams (1963), Kiely's output was dominated by short stories, which became his most popular works and on which his literary reputation chiefly rests. In contrast to the 'well-made' short story encapsulating a life in a single emblematic incident, based on French and Russian models and favoured by many twentieth-century Irish authors, Kiely preferred an outwardly 'artless' approach, in which carefully structured digressions, multiple foci, garrulous narration, incorporation of familiar quotations and verse snatches, drawing on personal memories (generally recombined and reinvented, rather than straightforwardly reminiscent), and refusal to tie up apparently loose ends draw strongly on the oral storytelling tradition. (Surviving drafts in the NLI suggest Kiely composed many of these stories in his head for oral delivery, and that they underwent relatively little revision after being committed to paper.) Some critics complain that with age this operatic or performative style lapsed into self-indulgence, and Kiely's reliance on quotations and allusion grew to such an extent that his later works are virtual or actual anthologies. Kiely's later collections are A ball of malt and Madame Butterfly (1973), A cow in the house (1978), and A letter to Peachtree (1987). Several selections from these stories have also been published, and a Collected stories appeared in 2001 with an introduction by Colum McCann.

The image of Kiely as cosy storyteller was reinforced for a generation of Irish radio listeners by his melodious Northern voice reminiscing in six- or seven-minute radio essays on the Sunday morning RTÉ radio programme Sunday miscellany (from the early 1970s). The germ of these can be found in an Irish Press column about travels throughout Ireland (written with Sean White under the shared pseudonym Patrick Lagan). Kiely the raconteur is also in view in such works as All the way to Bantry Bay (1978), a collection of essays describing journeys in Ireland; Ireland from the air (1991), for which he provided text for a photobook; Yeats' Ireland: an illustrated anthology (1989); and And as I rode by Granard moat (1996), a selection of Irish poems and ballads with linking commentary on their local and personal associations. In 1982 Kiely received an honorary doctorate from the NUI. He served as council member and president of the Irish Academy of Letters, and in 1996 became a saoi of Aosdána. Admirers such as Colum McCann have complained that this late image of the 'grey Irish eminence' conceals Kiely's edge and significance from potential readers.

Troubles fiction
Kiely was profoundly affected by the Northern Ireland troubles from 1969; while denouncing unionist misrule and the extremism of Ian Paisley (qv) as having precipitated the conflict, he was horrified at the revelation of the violence latent in Northern Irish society, lamenting 'the real horrors have passed out the fictional ones', and commenting that the churches had contributed greatly to the divisions which made such things possible (Ir. Times, 29 January 1977). He praised Omagh as a solitary bright spot, marked by its people's efforts to maintain good cross-community relations. His last two lengthy works of fiction were the novella Proxopera (1977), whose cultured elderly protagonist is forced at gunpoint by IRA men to drive a proxy bomb into his native town, and the novel Nothing happens in Carmincross (1985), set in the early 1970s, in which the elderly Irish-American protagonist's joyful rediscovery of Ireland (in the company of an uninhibited old flame) on his way to a family wedding in an Ulster village ends with the death or mutilation of numerous villagers (including the bride) by bombs planted to divert the security forces from an IRA operation elsewhere. (This is based on the murder of Kathleen Dolan, killed by a loyalist car bomb in Killeter, Co. Down, on 14 December 1972 as she posted wedding invitations; Kiely abandoned a commission to write a coffee-table history of Ireland when the publishers refused to allow him to commence with this incident.) In contrast to his usual methods of composition, Kiely worked on Carmincross for twelve years; its narrative techniques experiment with postmodernism (the ageing lovers, pursued by the old flame's estranged husband, are ironically assimilated to Diarmuid and Gráinne (qv) pursued by Finn (qv)) and, beside Kiely's usual collage of literary and folkloric references, incorporate newspaper reports of real-life atrocities committed by republican and loyalist paramilitaries and state forces, and by regimes and guerrillas elsewhere in the world, whose fragmentary horrors mirror both the destructive power of the bomb and the breakdown of grand narratives of identity. These stories acquired additional significance after 15 August 1998 (Kiely's seventy-ninth birthday), when twenty-nine people were killed and over 220 injured in Omagh by a car bomb planted by the Real IRA splinter group.

Some critics hailed the Troubles stories as masterworks; other commentators (generally but not always holding republican views) argued that they were essentially outraged and myopic expressions of bourgeois complacency, and that their reduction of republicans' political motives to one-dimensional psychopathy was an artistic as well as a political flaw. (These criticisms are more applicable to Proxopera, where IRA members are portrayed directly.) A variant on this criticism argues that Kiely's view of culture as a naturally unifying force founded on human decency unfitted him to portray genuine disagreement as anything more complex than a destructive irruption of anti-culture (though his nuanced portrayal of the conflict between sacred and secular calls this into question). While these criticisms have substance, it can be argued that they run the risk of normalising the un-normalisable; a cry of pain and horror has its own integrity.

Kiely's last major works were two memoirs, Drink to the bird (1991), about his Omagh boyhood, and the more fragmentary and anecdotal The waves behind us (1999). He died in St Vincent's hospital, Dublin, on 9 February 2007 after a short illness and was buried with his family in Drumragh cemetery, Omagh. The principal collection of his papers is in the NLI, and additional material is in Emory University. Since 2001 he has been honoured by an annual Benedict Kiely Literary Weekend in Omagh. He awaits comprehensive reassessment; at his best he was a remarkable explorer of the pieties and darknesses of a mid-twentieth-century Ireland overshadowed in popular perception by the first and last thirds of the century.

Sources
Grace Eckley, Benedict Kiely (1972); Daniel J. Casey, Benedict Kiely (1974); John Wilson Foster, Forces and themes in Ulster fiction (1974); Ir. Times, 29 Jan. 1977; 13, 17 Feb. 2007; Benedict Kiely, Drink to the bird: a memoir (1991); id., The waves behind us: further memoirs (1999); Belfast Telegraph, 6 Aug. 1999; Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, Fiction and the Northern Ireland troubles since 1969: (de-) constructing the North (2003); Wordweaver: the legend of Benedict Kiely (dir. Roger Hudson, 2004; DVD with additional material, Stoney Road Films 2007); Sunday Independent, 11 Feb. 2007; Guardian, 12 Feb. 2007; Times, 19 Feb. 2007; Anne Fogarty and Derek Hand (ed.), Irish University Review, xxxviii, no. 1 (spring-summer 2008; special issue: Benedict Kiely); Derek Hand, A history of the Irish novel (2011); George O'Brien, The Irish novel 1960–2010 (2012); Benedict Kiely website, benedictkiely.info/index.html (accessed May 2013)

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/author-benedict-kiely-dies-aged-87-1.803094?

Author Benedict Kiely dies aged 87

Novelist, short-story writer, critic, journalist, broadcaster and seanchaí Benedict Kiely, who was a dominant presence on the Irish scene for many decades, has died aged 87.

Novelist, short-story writer, critic, journalist, broadcaster and seanchaí Benedict Kiely, who was a dominant presence on the Irish scene for many decades, has died aged 87.

Born in Dromore, Co Tyrone, Benedict Kiely was brought up in Omagh.

He began working as a journalist in Dublin, where he spent close to 70 years of his life. The first of his many novels, Land Without Stars,was published in 1946 and he will also be fondly remembered for his work on RTÉ's Radio One's Sunday Miscellanyprogramme.

"Over six decades he has created a body of work which is impressed indelibly in contemporary literature," Mary Cloake, director of the Arts Council, said. "His exquisite prose explored and celebrated humanity in all its complexity and intrigue."

Interfuse No 156 : Summer 2014

AN ANCIENT HOUSE

Kevin Laheen

The Omagh-born writer Ben Kiely entered the Jesuit noviciate in 1937 but left before taking vows. Shortly after he left, he wrote a book called There was an ancient house. The ancient house referred to was St Mary's, Emo, which is still standing but is no longer occupied by Jesuits. However, the Jesuits also occupied another ancient house which has since been demolished: Loyola House, Dromore, Co. Down, which for a brief four years (1884-88) was occupied by Jesuit novices. In 1888 Fr Robert Fulton, the Province Visitor from USA, ordered the novices to be moved to Tullabeg, which would prove more suitable for their training. The Jesuits sold the house in Dromore shortly after the novices moved, but until 1917 they retained the 211 statute acres on which that house had stood, leaving it in the hands of a caretaker. In October 1938 I asked Fr T V Nolan why they retained the land but sold the house.

He told me there were two reasons. Firstly, though the Orange Order and the local Protestants were anxious to purchase both house and land, the money they offered was less than what the Jesuits had paid for it. In addition the stock from the farm were regular prize-winners at the annual Belfast Agricultural Show. Eventually when T.V., as Provincial, received a satisfactory offer, he sold the property, making a handsome profit on what they had originally paid for it.

In 1818 four novices arrived from Hodder to continue their training as novices in Tullabeg. They found the building already occupied by pupils of the Jesuit school which had just been opened; there was no room for novices. From that date Irish novices could be found in various novitiates both in Ireland, in Hodder and in other places on the continent. Eventually in 1860 they were located in Milltown Park. In time this location proved incapable of providing the correct atmosphere for the training of novices, so they were moved to Dromore, which was regarded as a more suitable location. So in April 1884 the novices arrived in Dromore and were located there until July 1888.

Towards the time when the novices were about to leave Dromore, T.V. Nolan arrived there. He told me that another novice called O'Leary arrived about the same time. In later years their lives became entwined in a number of ways, when T.V. became Provincial and O'Leary began recording earthquakes.

Although the Jesuits left Dromore, they will always be remembered there, because the names of two of them can be read on a gravestone beside the parish church in Dromore. They were Elias Seaver, who had just completed his training as a novice, and Fr John Hughes who had been bursar and who died some weeks before the Jesuits departed from Dromore in 1888.

I was happy to have had this chat with Fr Nolan in 1938, because he died some eight months later, and the history of this ancient house might well have gone to the grave with him.