McDowell, Kevin, 1919-1997 former Jesuit priest
- IE IJA ADMN/7/144
- Person
- 25 June 1919-1997
Born: 25 June 1919, Moville, County Donegal
Entered: 24 September 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 03 June 1944, pre entry
Final Vows: 02 February 1959, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 1997
Left Society of Jesus: 13 November 1974 (Returned to Dublin Diocese)
Father, Daniel, was a corn merchant and died in 1922. The family then lived at Frankfort Avenue, Rathgar, Dublin, County Dublin. Mother was Brigid (McDermott).
Youngest of five boys with six sisters.
Early education was at Muckross park School, Donnybrook, and then at Synge Street for nine years. In 1937 he went to Holy Cross College, Clonliffe getting a BA at UCD in 1940, and being ordained in June 1944. He was afterwards a chaplain in a Daughters of Charity convent in Henrietta Street, and later at the Dominican Convent Sion Hill.
1946-1948: St Mary's, Emo, Novitiate
1948-1950: Notre Dame de Mongre, Villefranche France (FRA) - studying Philosophy
1950-1962: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Spiritual Father an Teaching
1962-1973: Mungret College SJ, Spiritual Father an Teaching
1973-1974: Absent from community and working at St Pappin’s, Ballymun, Dublin
Incardniated back into the Dublin Diocese on the same day as dismissal from the Society - 13/11/1974
Address 2000 & 1991: Parochial House, Mount View, Blanchardstown, Dublin City
◆ The Clongownian, 1997
Obituary
Father Kevin McDowell (formerly SJ)
Kevin McDowell was ordained for the Archdiocese of Dublin and joined the Society of Jesus in 1948. He came to Clongowes in the autumn of 1950 fresh from the Noviciate to succeed a relatively elderly Jesuit as Spiritual Father. In those days the Spiritual Father was responsible for the whole school and Kevin struck us immediately by his youthful energy and enthusiasm. We grew to love his Omagh accent and his sense of fun.
Daily Mass at 7.30 am was compulsory for everyone and it was Kevin's duty to say Mass day in day out. In those days of frequent Confession, he was also available in his room every morning before Mass, as well as on every Saturday evening. From time to time he used also to give talks on “topical” matters - occasionally (especially following “Line matches” in rugby which he might have been called on to referee) making pleas for a decrease in unparliamentary language!
Kevin was a great soccer player and - along with Fr Frewen - was a regular companion on “soccer evenings”. Although always very fair and sporting, he was the sort of player who took no prisoners and was a much feared member of the “Community” XI = in those days there was a sufficient number of able-bodied Jesuits to face the Boys XI, with a little help from one or two “Laymasters”!
More than once Kevin played a very important role in pouring oil on troubled waters, acting as negotiator-cum-peacemaker in differences of opinion between the student body and school administration. On one famous occasion he managed to cram all of the 52 members of Sixth Year into the Spiritual Father's room to parley about a possible resolution of a row which had developed on account of “unacceptable behaviour” in the Refectory!
My own personal memory of Kevin is of a pleasant, if shy, person, gifted with immense patience and a great judge of character. His long years of service to Clongowes were interrupted only by the year of his Tertianship (a final year of spiritual formation in a Jesuit's training). When transferred from Clongowes, Kevin spent time in Mungret College, until its closure was announced. At the end of its penultimate year, Kevin left the Jesuits (with a broken heart? - or so it was said) to return to the Dublin Archdiocese. He served as Parish Priest in a number of parishes in and around Dublin and eventually retired from Ringsend, having reached the age of 75.
He had spent some time convalescing in Cherryfield after a serious cancer operation, and it was that terrible illness which carried him off. I used visit him in the Bullock Harbour Retirement Home and he was so grateful to be remembered, appreciating even the most fleeting call. He often surprised me by his detailed recollection of events in Clongowes over 40 years previously. He never lost his youthfulness and zest for life and he regretted his enforced inactivity. But I will always remember Kevin as ever-young and am grateful to have known him and to have been guided by him during my time as a boy in Clongowes in the 1950s. May he rest in peace.
MLS