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Born: 06 October 1833, Fernitz (Fernitz-Mellach), Styria, Austria
Entered: 17 January 1857, Vienna, Austria - Austriae Province (ASR)
Professed: 02 February 1868
Died: 14 January 1906, Manresa, Norwood, Adelaide, Australia - Austriaco-Hungaricae Province (ASR-HUN)

Transcribed ASR-HUN to HIB : 01 January 1901

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Belonged to the ASR Mission in Australia up to 1901 when HIB took responsibility for the Mission, and he decided to stay with the HIB Jesuits.

Note from Franz Pölzl Entry :
1863 Franz arrived on the Austrian Mission to Australia at Adelaide 04/11/1863 with Francis Lenz and Ignacy Danielwicz. They were all skilled in various branches of domestic service.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Francis Lenz entered the Society in Austria, 6 January 1857. He arrived at Sevenhill, 4 November 1863, and worked as a farrier and smith. In 1869 he went to Norwood to inaugurate the new residence, but returned to Sevenhill in 1871, as baker and gardener, and performed general house duties. He was cook at Norwood. 1889-93 and 1904-06. and also at Sevenhill. 1894-04, doing similar duties.

Born: 27 October 1848, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 26 September 1865, Loyola College, Loyola, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1877, Leuven, Belgium
Final Vows: 02 February 1884
Died: 18 August 1922, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ & Jesuit College in Spain

Nephew of Joseph Lentaigne, First Provincial of HIB - RIP 1884

by 1869 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1871 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1876 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) Studying
by 1883 at at Hadzor Hall, (FRA) making Tertianship
by 1903 in Collège Saint-François Xavier, Alexandria, Egypt (LUGD) Military Chaplain and Teacher

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Son of Sir John Lentaigne (Lawyer and Privy Counsellor and one of the first Clongowes students) and Nephew of Joseph Lentaigne, First Provincial of HIB - RIP 1884

He did his early studies in Spain, and the Philosophy and Theology in Belgium, where he was Ordained 1877.
1900 He was sent to Alexandria, Egypt as a Military Chaplain, and when he returned he was appointed Spiritual Father at Belvedere.
After this he was sent as Spiritual Father and Missioner to Clongowes which he loved dearly and did a lot of good work.
Much to his own disappointment, he was move from Clongowes to Rathfarnham, and died unexpectedly a short time afterwards 18 August 1922.

He was a very indistinct Preacher, so did not make much impact from the pulpit. He as of a very sensitive nature, and a thorough gentleman to all classes of people.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 21st Year No 3 1946
FROM OTHER PROVINCES :
England :
Fr. Quigley, who is Senior Chaplain to the British Forces in Egypt, finds the names of other Jesuit chaplains in the Register at Alexandria, and among them Fr. David Gallery (1901), Fr. V. Lentaigne (1904-5) and Fr. Joseph Flynn (1907-14).

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Victor Lentaigne 1848-1922
Fr Victor Lentaigne was the son of Sir John Lentaigne, and a nephew of the first Provincial of then Irish Province. Born in Dublin on October 27th 1848, he made his early studies in Spain, his philosophy and theology in Belgium, where he was ordained in 1877.
He was sent as a Military Chaplain to Alexandria in 1900. On his return, he was Spiritual father in Belvedere, and later in Clongowes. He read all his sermons, and owing to indistinctness, failed to impress his flock as a preacher.
He was of a very sensitive nature, but a thorough gentleman with everybody, both poor and rich.
Being changed from Clongowes to Rathfarnham, he died very suddenly and was buried from Gardiner Street on August 18th 1922.

◆ The Clongownian, 1923

Obituary

Father Victor Lentaigne SJ

A French Doctor named Lentaigne escaped from France during the horrors of the French Revolution, and made his permanent home in Dublin, where he continued to practise his profession. He attended Wolfe Tone when the latter was dying, and saved him from execution by giving a certificate stating that the patient could not be moved without a causing his immediate death. One of his sons named Joseph joined the Jesuits. After having been for some years Prefect of Studies at Clongowes, he was sent to Australia, where he did very useful work, until his health at last broke down and he returned to Ireland, a victim of chronic asthma. His brother John, afterwards Sir John Lentaigne, became, as head of the Prison Board, nobly famous as a pioneer in the reclamation of criminals, and proved, by his success in very many cases, the soundness of his philanthropic principles. Two of his daughters became nuns, one a Carmelite in Firhouse Convent, while the other joined the Irish Sisters of Charity and became celebrated for her most able and most kind management of the Blind Asylum at Merrion. Of Sir John's sons, Joseph obtained a high Government position as Secretary to the Lord Chancellor. John became one of our most distinguished Dublin surgeons, and was knighted in recognition of his high merits; Victor, who, although not the youngest, survived all his brothers and sisters (except Benjamin, who now holds a leading legal position in Burmah), became a Jesuit.

Victor Lentaigne was born in Dublin on the 27th October, 1848. When I had been at Clongowes for about a year, Victor Lentaigne joined our ranks in the Third Line. That would have been in the autumn of 1860, or . some time in 1861. He was only at Clongowes for about twelve months when his father sent him to a Jesuit College in Spain.

While still in Spain he joined the Society, 26th August, 1865, and made his noviceship at Loyola, the ancestral home of St Ignatius. After his noviceship he was sent to Louvain in Belgium, where he studied philosophy for two years, and was sent to Stonyhurst for his third year's philosophy. In 1871 he was sent to Clongowes, where he remained until 1875. In 1871. I was also sent to Clongowes. It was the first time that we had met since we had been little boys together in dear old Clongowes, and I still cherish the memory of many happy walks and intimate chats which we had together in those old days. He was one of the simplest, gentlest, kindest and most sympathetic friends whom I have ever known, In 1875 he was sent back to Louvain for his theological studies, and on their termination in 1879, Father Victor Lentaigne came back again to our dear old Alma Mater, where I again was with him.

The winter of 1880 was a superb one for skating The field between the grand avenue and the Kapolis gate had been flooded, and there was superb surface of mirror-like ice all. over the wide expanse. Even to this hour I can see in fancy that great tall figure moving with the speed of a good motor-car, and yet with the grace and gentleness of the apparently, effortless flight of an eagle circling above in the thin air. Never have I seen man or woman skate with such combined ease and power as Fr Lentaigne.

In 1886, after a couple of years spent at Tullabeg, Father Lentaigne was again back at Clongowes. In 1888 he was sent to Galway as minister, but in 1893 he was again back in Clongowes. On the death of Father John Anderson SJ, Chaplain to the British Troops at Alexandria in 1900, Father Lentaigne was sent to take his place, and remained there until 1906, during which time a great admirer and friend of his, Father Patrick Kane SJ, held a similar position at Cairo, and they were able occasionally to meet. From Egypt he was recalled in 1906, and sent as minister to Belvedere College, but 1911 found him once more again in Clongowes. This time he was Spiritual Father to the Community. He had also the charge and care of the People's Chapel. All the people, but most especially the poor and sick, soon grew to feel for him the deepest veneration and the most affectionate gratitude. At last his health broke down completely. He be came utterly unable for work of any kind, A change was inevitable. In 1921 he was sent to Rathfarnham Castle - he had to bid his last good-bye to Clongowes. To him it was a sore wrench; he accepted it nobly and patiently, but it broke his heart. He died peacefully and happily on the 18th August, 1922.

Father Lentaigne was known as the calmest yet most masterful of Study Prefects. Seated in the high pulpit, his glance passed so quietly over the great silent Hall that it seemed as though he saw all the boys at once, until some : incautious idler suddenly felt the magnetism of a steadfast gaze fixed upon him, and looking up beheld the wide brow lowered in a frown of thunder; while from the indignant eyes beneath flashed forth an electric fire that shrivelled up the terrified culprit, who straightway cowered intently over his book or pen.

Father Lentaigne was a gentleman. This is one of the first remarks usually made by those who knew him well. It means very much more than the mere circumstance of gentle blood and good breeding. It means much more than the mere politeness of out ward manner, or social becomingness. In its full sense, which is the only true sense, it means that great broadmindedness of judgment, that generous kindliness of appreciation, that delicate sympathy for feeling, that refined considerateness for failing, or even for fault, which each and all are of the very essence of that noble character whose out ward evidences are in the word, manner, and action of high courtesy.

He loved Clongowes. He loved it with a love characteristic of the old Clongownians of long ago, a love proud, chivalrous, warm, with the tenderness and sympathy of a true home-love, a love that loved the old place itself, the old spot, the old Castle, the old Halls, the old rooms, the old playground, the old avenue, the old woods, but above all, the old schoolfellows, the old subjects and the old Masters; a love which, I trust, still exists in the minds and the hearts of the new old Clongownians who are called to face a graver, a more perilous, but it is to be hoped, a more glorious future than we of the older past. :

Father Victor Lentaigne was deeply religious, not in the sense which mere piety commonly has and is by many thought to have deserved the name, but in the old noble Christian sense of sterling holiness. God bless him, and may he rest in peace.

Robert Kane SJ

Born: 27 July 1805, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 25 November 1843, Avignon, France - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)
Ordained: 17 June 1849, Cathédrale Notre-Dame-du-Puy, Le Puy-en-Velay, Auvergne, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1858
Died: 23 December 1884, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Uncle of Victor Lentaigne - RIP 1922

First Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus: 8 December 1860 - [ ] 1863;
Vice Provincial: 11 February 1858-1860
Superior of the Irish Jesuit Mission to Australia Mission: 1865-1866;

by 1847 at Vals (LUGD) studying
1st Missioner to Australia with William Kelly 1865

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Brother of Sir John Lentaigne (Lawyer and Privy Counsellor and one of the first Clongowes students); Uncle of Joseph Lentaigne - RIP 1922

1849 Ordained at Vals France, by Dr Morlhaer (?) 17 June 1849
1850-1858 Arrived at Clongowes, and was Prefect of Studies and Teacher until his appointment as Rector in November 1855.
1858-1863 He was appointed Vice-Provincial, and then on 08 September 1860 the First HIB Provincial, in which office he served until 1863.
1863-1865 Appointed Rector and Master of Novices at Milltown.
1865-1866 He sailed with William Kelly to Australia to found the Irish Australian Mission.
1866-1871 He returned to Ireland and Gardiner St.
1871-1872 he was sent to Clongowes as Spiritual Father.
1872-1873 Appointed Rector of Belvedere.
1873 He went back to Gardiner St, and remained there until his death 23 December 1884.
During the last years of his life he suffered a lot from bronchial trouble, and it ended up rendering him a complete invalid. The July before his death he was sent by the Provincial Thomas Browne to Milltown, but this never came to pass. Interestingly, that same summer, John Gaffney was sent to Limerick, William Fortescue to Galway, John Norton to Milltown and John Keogh to Tullabeg. (not sure why this is recorded, perhaps because none of them moved??)

Note from Peter Freeman Entry
By a strange coincidence, Fr Joseph Lentaigne, who had received him as Provincial, died in the same community the day before. Both coffins were laid on the High Altar on 26 December 1884.

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

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

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Joseph Lentaigne, after studying law at Trinity College and serving at the Irish bar, entered the Society at Lyons in his 38th year on 25 November 1843. He studied at Vals, and was ordained priest, 17 June 1849. He arrived at Clongowes about the year 1850, where he acted as prefect of studies and taught until his appointment as rector in November 1855. In 1858 he became the first Vice-Provincial, an office he held until 1863. From 1863-65 he was rector and master of novices at Milltown Park, and during 1865 sailed to Australia with Father William Kelly to found the Irish Australian Mission.
On 21 September 1865, after 58 days at sea, Lentaigne and Kelly disembarked at Melbourne. They had been fortunate to secure a passage on the “Great Britain”, Brunel's steamship which four years earlier had carried the first all England cricket eleven to tour Australia. Compared with the sailing vessels that sometimes took up to or over 100 days to reach Australia, it had been luxury travel. There were 100 Catholics on board, and the two priests administered to their spiritual and sacramental needs.
On the evening of their arrival Kelly preached at St Francis' Church in the city centre where Bishop Gould was conducting a mission. The climate, Lentaigne reported, was like that of the south of France, but food, clothing and housing were expensive, perhaps twice as much as in Ireland.
The arrival of the Jesuits appears to have caused little comment from the people of Melbourne. “We have never met any incivility, our being Jesuits has not excited any attacks”, wrote Lentaigne.
He was not slow to comment on Australian society. He believed that Melbourne was particularly corrupt, with heretics, Jews and idolatrous Chinese. In addition, he was concerned that the Protestant colleges flourished in Melbourne, and Catholics needed to retain the faith, so great need existed for a boarding school. He found it difficult to raise funds, as the Catholics were generally poor, small business people.
Lentaigne praised the Catholic boys as “affectionate, manly but wild creatures. Great liberty has been allowed them by their parents. The mixture with Protestants, Jews and infidels is most dangerous to them”. Furthermore, he believed that Melbourne Catholics suffered from mixing with these people and they were not good at approaching the Sacraments, or hearing Mass. He was concerned about much drunkenness and immorality in Melbourne society.
In March 1868 Lentaigne was recalled to Ireland, as he suffered from bronchial trouble.
During his time in Melbourne he had been responsible for making the original agreement with Bishop Goold, and in fact laid the juridical foundation of the Irish Mission for both missionary and educational work.
He spent the rest of his life, except for two years as rector of Belvedere College, 1872-73, at Gardiner Street, where he died. He was a member of a famous, old Anglo-Norman family, a real gentlman, and a prominent Jesuit.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 1st Year No 1 1925

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

Lensmen was founded in the year 1952 by Andrew Farren and Padraig MacBrian in Dublin

Born: 31 January 1906, Longwood Avenue, Portobello, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1924, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1939, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 07 February 1942, Craighead, Bothwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland
Died: 10 October 1979, Holy Cross Hospital, Myers Street, Geelong, Victoria, Australia

Part of the St Joseph’s, Geelong, Victoria, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death

Father was a photographer.

Youngest of one girl and five boys.

Early education at a Convent National School (seven years) and then at CBS Synge Street

by 1952 in Australia

Second World War Chaplain

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Sydney Lennon received his secondary education with the Christian Brothers, Dublin, and entered the Society at St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, 1 September 1924. During his juniorate at Rathfarnharm, 1926-31, he studied at University College, Dublin, and also gained a diploma in Gregorian chant from Solesmes Abbey. Philosophy studies were at Tullamore, 1931-34, and theology at Milltown Park, 1936-39. Tertianship was completed in 1940.
Lennon's Erst priestly ministry was as a chaplain with the British army, 1941-46, followed by a few years in the parish of Gardiner Street, Dublin. He was then sent to Australia, and after a few years teaching, went to Corpus Christi College, Werribee, 1949, to profess liturgy, elocution, voice training and chant. He was at various times minister, dean of students and bursar. He remained there until 1969, when he did parish work at Norwood, SA. His final appointment was as a chaplain to St Joseph's Mercy Hospital, Aphrasia Street, Newton, Geelong, Vic., 1978-79.

◆ 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 21st Year No 4 1946

Australia :
Frs. Fleming and Mansfield (who is a member of the Australian Vice-Province) were able to leave for Australia via America in July.
Frs. Lennon and Morrison are still awaiting travel facilities.

Irish Province News 48th Year No 1 1973

Fr Sydney Lennon to whom we are indebted for the details of the tragic accident in Australia reported later, is an Operarius in our parish at Adelaide. He is engaged, with, other activities, in giving retreats, talks and conferences and participated in the recent Lombardi retreat which was attended by some 65 Australian brethren ranging in age from 91 to 20.

Irish Province News 55th Year No 1 1980
Obituary :

Fr Sydney Lennon (1906-1924-1979)
Sydney Lennon was always interested in music. Even while still a schoolboy in CBS, Synge Street, he acted as organist in his local church. From his noviceship onwards, he was choirmaster in every Jesuit house where he was stationed. For four years in University College, Dublin, he studied music under Dr John Larchet. On many occasions he visited Quarr Abbey, Isle of Wight, for courses in Gregorian chant given there by the Benedictines: he himself became an authority on gregorian or plain chant. These were the days when Frs John Bourke and Bertie O’Connell combined to bring gregorian chant and the liturgical movement to a high point of perfection in Dublin.
His choirs both at Rathfarnham and later at Milltown Park were in frequent demand by Radio Éireann for items such as the Lamentations and Passion music of Holy Week; also for the requiem Office and Mass on such occasions as the death of a Pope or Archbishop. At the requiem liturgy for Ours at Gardiner Street and Glasnevin Cemetery, the choirmaster was nearly always Sydney.
Even when he was in Tullabeg, doing philosophy, on the occasion of the Eucharistic Congress, he and his choir were called upon to sing the Russian texts for the Divine Liturgy in the Eastern rite which was celebrated in Gardiner Street. On a lighter note, he organised Gilbert and Sullivan operas in every house to which he was assigned. In Milltown Park, these were performed during the Christmas vacation for the inmates of the Royal Hospital, Donnybrook (popularly known as the “Incurables”); the Blind asylum, Merrion Road and the Magdalen asylum, Gloucester Street (now Seán McDermott Street).
Sydney was a perfectionist in all that he did

Fr. Syd Lennon died at 7 o'clock on Wednesday morning, 10th October, in Holy Cross Hospital, Geelong, Victoria, Australia. He had been admitted the previous morning following a bout of acute abdominal pain. This had been controlled but he remained somewhat confused during the day. Though his condition was not good he was not expected to die. There was a vigil Mass on Thursday at the Immaculate Conception Church, Hawthorn, celebrated by Fr Ambrose Byrne and 30 concelebrants. Fr Paul Keenan in his homily spoke of Syd's complete absorption in whatever work he was doing and of his deep interest in people.
The funeral Mass next day drew a very large number of clergy, the fruit of Syd’s 20 years at Corpus Christi College, Werribee. Archbishop Frank Little was principal celebrant, joined by Bishops Fox, Mulkearns, O'Connell, Perkins and Daly, together with 90 concelebrating priests. At the beginning of the Mass the Archbishop linked the name of Syd Lennon with that of Fr Albert Power, the 31st anniversary of whose death was 12th October.
Fr Provincial centred his homily on Syd Lennon the man for priests. In the congregation were Sisters from several congregations with whom Syd had worked over the years. Present also was a small group of people from Maryknoll where Syd had spent so many Christmas vacations during his time at Werribee. Some time ago he expressed the hope that he might be the first chaplain at St. Joseph's hospital, Geelong, to be buried in the little cemetery along with those he had ministered to over the past eighteen months.
Ambrose Byrne, John Monahan and Bill Daniel accompanied the hearse to Geelong where another Mass was celebrated by Monsignor Jim Murray and 23 priests in the chapel of the Mercy convent at Newtown. Jim Murray paid a worthy tribute to Syd in a ceremony which was a great act of thanks from Sisters and patients alike. Six of the priests carried the coffin from the sanctuary to the cemetery in the hospital grounds. There is to be a Mass in St Ignatius, Norwood, on Thursday, 18th October, with Archbishop Gleeson as the principal celebrant.
(Australian Province Fortnightly Report, no. 256)

The Australian newspaper, The Advocate, fills in some of the back ground to his Werribee and later years (acknowledgments to Fr PJ Stephenson, who sent a copy of this and the above extract):
Fr Lennon arrived in Sydney early in 1947 to teach at St Aloysius College, Milson's Point. He spent 1948 teaching at Burke Hall, Kew, before joining the staff at Corpus Christi College, Werribee. He worked there for twenty years, the first ten as dean of discipline. He held the post of minister twice for short spells, and when he relinquished the post of dean, he became a popular spiritual director for many of the students. During his time in the seminary, he was responsible for teaching gregorian chant, liturgy and public speaking. He also lectured in Scripture. Music played a large part in his life, both in choir work and directing orchestras In 1970 he ended his long association with the seminary and on medical advice moved to South Australia, where he worked in St. Ignatius parish, Norwood. He also gave papers on liturgical topics to the Senate of Priests and other groups in the archdiocese of Adelaide. For the last eighteen months of his life Fr Lennon was resident chaplain at St Joseph’s hospital of the Sisters of Mercy for their sick and aged sisters at Newtown, Geelong.

Born: 1561, Drogheda, County Meath
Entered: 10 November 1596, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: pre Entry
Final Vows: 1617
Died: 06 September 1621, Dublin Residence, Dublin City, County Dublin

Studied Theology before Ent. BA An Oxford graduate, MA of Douai and BD of Louvain. For 6 years a student of Stapleton and Lessius
1600 Not in Catalogue
1616 Catalogue On Irish Mission 14 years Age 60 Soc 17. Consultor on Mission. Strong in health, preacher, talented and zealous, pleasing address. Fit to be Superior. Of a choleric nature. Gifted as a Missioner “in perpetual motion”, a reconciler of enemies.
1617 Age 63 Soc 20. In Ireland
1621 At Poitiers, confined to bed by sickness
1622 In Leinster, Consultor of Mission. Suffering from Apoplexy.

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica” :
He was a missioner in Leinster and is mentioned in a letter of Thomas Lawndry (vere Christopher Holywood) to the General, November 1611, and printed in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record April 1874.
The Royal Commissioners in 1615 state :Lennon, a famous Priest, is kept by Nicholas Netterville” (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
He was an accomplished Theologian and Missioner “in perpetual motion”, the great reconciler of enemies.
He was a graduate of Oxford; MA Douai; BD Louvain; for six years a pupil of Stapleton and Lessius - a gifted solid man. (cf Holiwood and Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Studied Humanities at Oxford. Graduated MA at Douai and BD at Louvain, and was already Ordained on Ent 10 November 1596 Rome
1598-1600 After First Vows he studied at the German College
1600 Sent to Ireland and to the Dublin Residence and his work was limited to the city due to his lack of Irish language.
1606 Superior of Dublin Residence, succeeding Richard Field, until his death in office there 06 September 1621

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Patrick Lenan SJ 1561-1621
In Drogheda in 1554/5 was born Father Patrick Lenan. He was an accomplished scholar and theologian, a graduate of Oxford, an MA of Douai, BD od Louvain. He was for 6 years a pupil of Dr Stapleton, the great English controversialist, and also had Leonard Lessius as his Professor. He became a Jesuit in 1597, returning to Ireland in 1601.

His work lay mostly in the Pale and in Dublin, where together with Henry Fitzsimon and Barnaby O’Kearney, he was engaged in educating the youth of Dublin.

The Superior Fr Holywood referred to him as a very mature and reliable man and appointed him his Socius. The Royal Commission or Visitation of Dublin, charges Sir Nicholas Netterville as privately harbouring Lenan, a famous popish priest, and others in 1615.

A Proclamation of October 18th 1617 banished all priests from the country and Father Lenan was forced to leave. His subsequent history is unknown, but he died about 1621.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
LENAN, PATRICK. With regret I am obliged to confess that I can barely state of this worthy Jesuit, that I find him actively employed in Leinster, in February, 1603, and in February, 1605. I believe he is the person thus reported by the Royal Commissioners in 1615, “Lennon, a famous Priest is kept by Nicholas Neterville”.

Born: 29 August 1922, Belfast, County Antrim
Entered: 10 February 1947, Millfield, OH - Chicagensis Province (CHG);
Ordained: 24 March 1958
Professed: 02 February 1961
Died: 06 June 1999, Chicago, IL, USA - Patness Province (PAT)

Irish Jesuit community at 27 Lenister Road, Dublin.

Born: 03 June 1885, Walluf, Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany
Entered: 13 April 1904, Exaeten, Limburg, Netherlands - Germaniae Province (GER)
Ordained: 27 August 1916
Professed: 02 February 1920
Died: 26 January 1963, Maring-Noviand, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany - Germaniae Inferioris Province (GER)

by 1940 came to Leeson St (HIB) writing and Censor 1939-1946
by 1947 came to Tullabeg (HIB) writing 1946-1948

Roman Catholic association whose members serve it on a voluntary basis.

Born: 07 December 1915, Ferrybank, County Waterford
Entered: 09 October 1934, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 30 July 1947, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1950, Sacred Heart College SJ, Limerick
Died: 04 June 1992, St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin

Part of the St Ignatius, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin community at the time of death

Father was Station Master and Goods Agent at Waterford Station Family resided at Newtown, Waterford City, County Waterford.

Youngest of four boys with five sisters.

Early education Ferrybank BNS and then at Waterpark College, Waterford.

by 1951 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working - third wave of Zambian Missioners

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Fr Bill went through the usual studies of the Jesuits, was ordained in 1947 and after tertianship was posted to Limerick. Plans were then afoot to send Irish Jesuits to what was then Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). Bill conceived a keen desire NOT to go there. He was just settling down in the Crescent when he received a letter telling him to get a medical check-up with a view of going to Northern Rhodesia. The Irish Jesuits had been asked to help out their Polish colleagues there. So in 1950, nine Irish Jesuits sailed from Ireland, including Fr Bill.

For many years, Fr Zabdyr had moved out from Chikuni, his base, in order to set up elementary schools in various places. In 1951, two of these places (Kasiya and Chivuna) became new mission stations. Kasiya was set up by Fr. Bill Lee in 1951, the year after he arrived in the country. Later in December, he was joined by Fr J Gill. A letter from Fr Bill to Fr Zabdyr dated 17 June 1951 reads:

‘I have been in “permanent residence” here since the beginning of May, more or less, and will continue so for the future. I am busy building my Mission-station and it is going fairly satisfactorily. A space has been cleared in the bush, foundations are down, a well dug in the river, and grass for thatching cut and piled. After that, things will go smoothly as far as I can foresee. Somewhere near the end of July the house will be finished as far as I can do it this year. I may have to wait until later for cement to make proper floors. lt will be a two-roomed house, with a small kitchen near it. In the meantime I have a class going each evening for Christians who have not married in church’.

When Fr Gill arrived and a 250cc motorbike was available, Fr Gill looked after the station and set out to visit the centres of Christianity within a radius of up to 30 miles. Bill was transferred to Fumbo and later to Chikuni where he taught and was Spiritual Father to the African Sisters. He was also, for a time, secretary to the Bishop of Lusaka.

Having spent seven years in Zambia, he returned to Ireland to Gonzaga College for 30 years, teaching physics etc. up to 1987. The remaining five years of his life he spent at University Hall and at 35 Lower Leeson Street. He died in St Vincent's Hospital on 4th June 1992.

Bill came from a large Waterford family and was distinctive among them, ‘he alone of the 10 children greeted orders with “Why” and all information with “How do you know”? and he always enjoyed a good argument as much as other children enjoyed a party. He endearingly retained these characteristics to the end’. He loved discussion and debate but his kindness, good humour and generosity were no less noticed and appreciated. He was a good teacher and had a marvellous rapport with his students who really loved him. He was a colourful member of his community, enjoying the interchange and contributing much to it. He always had a sense of wonder. As he watched a fellow Jesuit perform some simple 'magic' tricks, he would be enthralled and laugh.

In pastoral work he was most successful, if somewhat diffident. Indeed he was suspicious of those who trafficked in certainties. Nor was he one for laying down an inflexible code of behaviour. He accepted people as he found them and in whatever circumstances they were in. He was keen to help them to make sense of their lives in their own way and to give their own meaning to their lives. He never entertained the idea that he could solve all people's problems but he did try to help others to live more easily with those human and religious problems that everyone experiences and that are beyond solution in this life. He was especially good with those whose faith was fragile, whose link with the Church was tenuous or whose practice was spasmodic. He himself lived happily with questions unanswered and problems unsolved but with the absolute certainty that the day would come when he would get his answers and solutions.

Pulmonary fibrosis was what took him in the end. Actually he had planned to visit Zambia with his sister in the autumn of the year he died but the Lord had other plans for him.

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 75 : Christmas 1993 & Interfuse No 82 : September 1995

Obituary
Fr Bill Lee (1915-1992)

7th Dec. 1915: Born, Waterford
Early education: Christian Bros. Schools, Waterford up to Matriculation
9th Oct. 1934: Entered the Society at Emo
1936 - 1939: Juniorate, Rathfarnham
1939 - 1942: Philosophy at Tullabeg
1942 - 1943: Teaching at Clongowes
1944 - 1948; Theology at Milltown Park
1947: Ordained
1948 - 1949: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1950 - 1957: Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). Having studied the language, he served in Kasia, Fumbo, Chikuni, etc.
1957 - 1987: Gonzaga, teaching Physics, etc. (In 1981 he took a sabbatical in the U.S.A.)
1987 - 1989: University Hall - adj. Prefect; also keeper of Records, Milltown Institute
1989 - 1991: 35 Lower Leeson Street, Minister in 1990. Assistant Registrar at Milltown Institute and teaching Latin
4th June 1992: Died at St. Vincent's Hospital, Dublin

William Lee, known to his family as Willie and to his Jesuit brethren as Bill, was born in 1916 in Waterford where he spent most of his youth. He was one of ten children of whom Sheila, Teddy and Peggy survive and to them we offer our sincerest sympathy. They will miss him terribly. Our sympathy also to his nephews, nieces and other relatives amongst whom he was greatly beloved and in whom he took a keen and warm avuncular interest. Within the family he is remembered as being distinctive: he alone of the ten children greeted all orders with “Why?”, all information with “How do you know?” and enjoyed an argument as other children enjoyed a party. He endearingly retained these characteristics to the end. He was educated in Waterpark College by the Christian Brothers whom he held in the highest esteem and of whom he had the happiest memories. As a student, he was most capable, a voracious reader and utterly stubborn in refusing to learn or study any thing that did not capture his interest. Attempts to break this habit by carrot and stick proved fruitless.

He had little or no contact with Jesuits until a Fr. Mackey descended on Waterpark College to give the boys a retreat. It appears that this man was a famous recruiting sergeant for the Jesuits in the '20s and '30s and he added Bill to his list. Bill's parents received the news that he was to join the Jesuits as a sign of lamentable judgement. After all he had acquired a good position in the bank, and if he was thinking of the priesthood or religious life, did he not know the Franciscans, the diocesan priests and the Christian Brothers? So why join the Jesuits of whom he knew nothing? Characteristically, the more his parents opposed it, the more Bill warmed to the idea. He cut the argument short one day, by getting on his bike in Waterford ad cycling to Dublin. He arrived at Leeson Street to meet Fr. Mackey. Just as the good father was extolling the virtues of the religious life in general and those of the Jesuits in particular, Bill, tired out by his journey, fell fast asleep. When the startled priest discovered the reason for this, he was suitably impressed and sent Bill to the Provincial with a strong recommendation. By the time Bill returned to Waterford, he had, more or less, signed on. The family's disappointment at his decision was mitigated by the conviction that he would soon be sent home from the Jesuit novitiate. They did not put a tooth in it: they told him that the Jesuits, of all people, would not put up with his incessantly asking, “Why?”, “Wherefore?” and “How do you know?”. However, Bill proved not to be one of nature's natural martyrs. He reserved his taste for robust debate for his fellow novices, one of whom reported that going out with Br. Lee for a discussion was like walking across a mine field. However, if Bill made his mark as a lover of debate and discussion, his kindness, good humour and generosity were no less noticed and appreciated.

After the novitiate, he began his studies that he greatly enjoyed, obtaining a good honours degree in Arts, and then in Philosophy in Tullabeg, and completed what was then known as the long or higher course in Theology. He was ordained in 1947, Between Philosophy and Theology he showed great promise as a teacher in Clongowes and The Crescent. His theological studies left him with an abiding interest in the subject. For him, theology was not merely an academic or intellectual interest. He read it seriously as a means of making sense of his beliefs and convictions. If in latter years his reading tended to concentrate on Schillebeeckx, Kung and the more unorthodox theologians, this reflected his moderate esteem for orthodoxy. He completed his formation with tertianship in Rathfarnham Castle. Plans were afoot to send some Irish Jesuits to what was then Northern Rhodesia. Bill conceived a keen desire NOT to go there, was greatly relieved not to be sent and in these circumstances found a posting in Limerick quite attractive. He was just settling down comfortably to life in the Crescent when he received a note from the Provincial's assistant telling him to get a medical check with a view to going to Northern Rhodesia.

He went in 1950. He was one of the pioneering group, and experienced all the difficulties of establishing the mission. He built a mission station physically with one or two others, taught, spent some time as secretary to the Bishop and picked up a touch of malaria.

He returned to Ireland in 1957 to teach in Gonzaga, which was founded as he was leaving for Africa. He joined a gifted staff that was conscious that the school was doing something new in Irish education. He appreciated the refreshing and innovative ethos of the place but was critical of the role of science in the curriculum. He rightly considered that it did not enjoy a sufficiently central place in the new school and that science should be at the heart of 20th century liberal education. He persuaded the authorities to permit him to go to the USA for six summers to obtain a degree in Physics. He set up the science department in Gonzaga, initially in a loft over converted stables, and introduced a demonstration course in science. This was hardly ideal but was all that resources allowed. Over the years he was joined by excellent teachers and science gradually assumed a central place in the curriculum but by the time the splendid new science wing was built he had retired. However, he was certainly the founding father of the now flourishing science department in Gonzaga.

He was a very good teacher, albeit with a short fuse at times and with less than an unerring way with experiments. He had a marvellous rapport with his students by whom he was much beloved. He was deeply interested in his subject, and had broad intellectual interests that enabled him not merely to teach but to educate.

Bill, however, was appreciated for what he was, rather than for what he did: humane, kindly, tolerant and unpretentious. There was about him something difficult to define but palpable to experience; one did not relate to him as a teacher or a cleric. He did not, as many clerics do, give the impression that he was fulfilling a role or assuming a function. He was very much the human face of the clerical and religious life. He was immensely popular in the staff room and was a colourful member of the community life. He was clubable, enjoying and contributing much to community life. He had his own style. He seemed to “sniff” the general drift of conversation and then assume a position against the commonly held view. The more vigorous the argument, the more pleased he seemed to be. While some found his style more attractive than others, it was salutary for those who took themselves too seriously.

He left Gonzaga in 1987 after 30 years and moved to University Hall and then to Leeson Street while working in The Milltown Institute as Bursar, Assistant Registrar and teacher of Latin, To his colleagues in Milltown he was a popular and lively companion. He was Minister for a year in Leeson Street in addition to his tasks in Milltown and was always ready and happy to supply in the Barrett Cheshire Home where he had the affection and respect of the residents.

In pastoral work he was most successful, if somewhat diffident. He was not one for passing on certainties. Indeed, he was suspicious of those who trafficked in certainties. Nor was he one for laying down an inflexible code of behaviour. He accepted people as he found them and in whatever circumstances they were. He was keen to help them to make sense of their lives in their own way and to give their own meaning to those lives. He never entertained the idea that he could solve peoples' problems but he did try to help people to live more easily with those human and religious problems that we all have and that are beyond solution in this life. He related well to the dedicated and practising Christians in the Teams of Our Lady who so much appreciated him. The presence of the residents of the Barrett Cheshire Home, who went to so much trouble to be at his funeral, reflects their appreciation of a man who unostentatiously and unondescendingly conveyed his understanding of those whom providence left gravely disadvantaged. He was especially good with those whose faith was fragile, whose link with the Church was tenuous or whose practice was spasmodic. He was helped in dealing with such people by his awareness that Faith and its consequences are a gift and so he tended to be more surprised by their presence than by their absence. He himself lived happily with questions unanswered and problems unsolved but with the absolute certainty that the day would come - and for him it has - when he would get his answers and solutions. However, should they turn out to be the orthodox ones, he will, I suspect, be bitterly disappointed.

About a year ago, the pulmonary fibrosis that was to prove fatal was diagnosed. This restricted his activity greatly, and consider able damaged his quality of life. The signs were there for all to see. The work in Milltown became a little too much for him. He frequently and uncharacteristically absented himself from community recreation. He went to his sisters on Fridays and Sundays armed with a video as the effort to keep up his usual rate of conversation waned. But he retained his spark and interest in life. He had acquired a second hand computer shortly before going into hospital and was happily working on it when he got his fatal attack. He had planned to visit Zambia this Autumn with his sister Peggy and generally was looking forward rather than looking back.

We will miss his colourful manner, kindly personality, and genuine goodness but he has left us the happiest memories of a good life lived to the full.

◆ The Gonzaga Record 1992
Obituary
William Lee SJ
I am very pleased to have been asked to write about Fr William Lee. But I shall refer to him simply as Bill, for that was his name among his religious colleagues. The boys, I know, used to call him Willie behind his back with a sense of daring: they may be slightly deflated to learn that this was the form of William by which he was known among his own family.
When I received the news of Bill's death, along with a great sadness came the relieving thought ‘Now, at last, he knows all the answers!'

Bill was always noted for his questioning spirit. His was always a curious mind, in the Latin sense of the word. Everything was of interest to him and he wanted to know everything about it. But then, Alistair Cooke says ‘Curiosity is free-wheeling intelligence', or, in the words of Samuel Johnson, 'It is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect!'
This, I think, was one of the qualities that made him an exceptional teacher, a stimulating companion and a great asset to community life.

He loved a good argument. I, a purveyor of the classics, could see in him a touch of Socrates who, with his famous maieutic method, could lead his adversary first into a confession of total ignorance and then be opened to the truth. Bill, of course, was always conscious of that salutary admonition of St Ignatius - that, when a Jesuit argues “it is not to get the upper hand, but that the truth may appear'. Or haven't you noticed it?

He and I always kept up a good-natured rivalry. It was science versus the classics. But, really, it was a rather uneven contest, for while I was almost completely ignorant of matters scientific and had little interest in them, Bill was no mean Latin scholar. He could quote his lines of Virgil and Horace with the best and, towards the end of his life, was actually teaching Latin for a time in the Milltown Institute.

There was a memorable summer (1974) when we went together on a trip to Greece. As we visited the great sites. - the Acropolis, Delphi, Mycenae, Epidaurus, Knossos — his thirst for answers was insatiable. I recall with some amusement how once, in Athens, he remarked on the crowds that gathered every evening in Omonia Square. There were large groups of men engaged in earnest and vociferous discussion. The natural conclusion (for him) was that they were talking politics - a scene that would have brought joy to the heart of old Socrates who encouraged people to dialogue on the real essentials of life and the eternal verities. Great, however, was his disillusionment when Bill discovered that they were merely arguing about the soccer results of the day.
Surprisingly enough, Bill's university degree was not in physics or any science subject, but in English and history. When he came to teach in Gonzaga in 1957, though already more than competent, he worked hard to prepare himself for the task of being the College's one and only science teacher for many years. Besides attending courses in Dublin and Cork he spent many of his early summers in the US plundering the brains and know-how of the Americans at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Universities of Kentucky, Fordham, Notre Dame and Colombia. There he studied such diverse subjects as physics, chemistry, electronics and geology.

Thus he equipped himself superbly as a teacher who could introduce into Gonzaga a physics course that would be in line with modern developments and requirements. In 1962 he was President of the Irish Science Teachers' Association, Editor of their magazine in 1966 and Public Relations Officer in 1971.

Bill was Editor of the first three issues of The Gonzaga Record (1985-87). The first and second issues contain his succinct and invaluable 'History of Gonzaga College 1950-85'. In it was a section entitled “The Introduction of Science Teaching' wherein he gives the reasons why there was no place for science in the original curriculum and describes how the subject made a tentative beginning in 1959 as a sort of gentleman's demonstration course. He recounts how the facilities gradually improved - from the humble beginnings in the upper room in the lower yard (until recently the Music Room) to a pre-fab. structure that, erected in 1972, was eventually replaced, in 1983, by the present well-equipped specialist science block. Now that we have it,' he wrote in his editorial of 1987, ‘one wonders how we did without it.' One wonders even more how he did without it, for, alas! Bill himself never enjoyed the luxuries of this building. Having reached pensionable age in 1981 he withdrew from the classroom and never looked back.

However, in spite of the limitations of a mere demonstration course and the below-par facilities, many of his pupils did him great credit, not only in examinations but also at the annual Young Scientists' Exhibition. Notable among these were Lothar Enders, Leslie Daly, Peter Duggan and John David Biggs.

I could have adjudged Bill, even a priori, an excellent teacher. He had this earnest, patient way of explaining difficult things simply, lucidly, logically. What's more, he gave everyone he talked to his full attention, taking quite seriously even the most stupid question. Had I been, e'en briefly, a 'fly on the wall' in one of his classes, I could have observed what went on, but had to settle for a few words with some of his past pupils. Somehow I had expected to extract from them some special insider information - personal idiosyncrasies, funny incidents, the stuff of legend. I was, in a way, disappointed. They all - as past pupils will — suggested that they had been the bane of his life, but remembered him with deep affection and gratitude and no-one had an unkind word to say of him. There were memories of occasions when the experiments went a bit wrong, of the odd prank, but nothing of epic proportions. When I asked what special measures he took to maintain discipline, one answer was that his main weapon was a wide smile which could, in turn, register pity, reproval or encouragement.

Bill would be highly amused at any mention of his sporting proclivities or achievements. But I should like here to record that, on his arrival at Gonzaga, he humbly undertook the office of Gamesmaster for about three years. Reffing rugby, umpiring cricket and organising sports was really not his scene, but, as in everything else, he did a whole-hearted job. I remember, with a touch of awe, the first time he took part in the cricket match between staff and boys and revealed himself as a fast bowler of some merit, though with a strong tendency towards involuntary bodyline. He possessed, too, a meagre and poverty-stricken collection of golf clubs with which he once got his name on the Veterans' Trophy at the Annual Jesuit Golf Outing. The clubs, incidentally, were left-handed, and yet he was right-handed in most things else. This ambidexterity was, perhaps, a physical expression of his ability to argue from both sides of any question.
It is fitting that this account of Bill should confine itself mainly to his years as teacher in Gonzaga. Were I writing a wider appreciation I would have much to say about him as a spiritual man, a zealous religious and about his role as guide, counsellor and friend to so many people. Here, at least, I might recall that before his coming to Gonzaga in 1957 he had worked as a pioneering missionary in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) for some seven years: among his souvenirs from this period was a touch of malaria. Along with his science he taught religion in the classroom and did his share of counselling. In holiday time, apart from his attendance at many courses, he was often engaged in pastoral work especially in the US and in England. In 1981 he made a tour of the Holy Land.

For many years there was a regular Sunday Mass in the college chapel. Bill's homilies, I know, were greatly savoured. He always had a fresh and original angle. A Gonzaga mother was talking to me about this recently and she recalled a little story he told about a boy who had some scruples about reading in bed because his parents had told him to put the light off as soon as he turned in. (Ah for the days when disobedience to parental instructions was regarded as at least an imperfection!) Anyway, this boy confided his unease to Bill. “What I do”, he said, “is to leave the bedroom door open and by a system of mirrors draw the light from the corridor onto the pages of my book”. Far from condemnation, Bill had nothing but commendation for such ingenuity and scientific know-how. I wonder was this homily on Luke 18, 8?

Bill left Gonzaga in the summer of 1987. His first appointment was to University Hall, Hatch St, where he acted as Assistant Prefect; at the same time he was Keeper of the Records in the Milltown Institute. Thence he moved, in 1989, to the Jesuit residence in Leeson St where for a time he was Minister while he still commuted daily to the Milltown Institute, now as Assistant Registrar. But soon his health began to deteriorate. He was hospitalised on 24 May, 1992, with pulmonary fibrosis, and died peacefully in the early hours of 4 June. He was 76.

Jesuits working in Dublin are usually buried from St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner St, but circumstances did not so allow. Gonzaga was the next obvious choice but its chapel had already been reserved for another ceremony. And so, his Requiem Mass was concelebrated in Milltown Park, and I can't help thinking that Bill must have felt a little heavenly glee in having his obsequies presided over by Father General himself and in upsetting the timetable drawn up for a Meeting of the whole Jesuit Province.

Our deepest sympathy to all his relatives and friends. We, his confrères, miss him sorely.

Edmund Keane SJ

Fr Wlodimir Ledóchowski SJ was a Jesuit priest who served as the twenty-sixth Superior General (Father General) of the Society of Jesus (1915-1942).

Born: 15 March 1798, Edgeworthstown, County Longford
Entered: 23 May 1835, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained: - pre Entry
Died: 29 November 1848, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Born: 25 August 1846, Ballinasloe, County Galway
Entered: 05 August 1865, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1880, Laval, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1886
Died: 11 February 1908, St Patrick’s, Melbourne, Australia

Educated at Summerhill College, Athlone; St Brendan’s Seminary, Loughrea

by 1868 at Amiens France (CAMP) studying
by 1870 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1871 at Antwerp Institute Belgium (BELG) Regency
by 1879 at Laval France (FRA) studying
by 1885 at Roehampton London (ANG) making Tertianship
Came to Australia in 1887

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education at College of Immaculate Conception, Summerhill, Athlone. Here he had as fellow students, Michael Watson SJ, Sir Anthony MacDonnell who became Under-Secretary for Ireland and Mr TP O’Connor, later editor of “MAP” and other Journals.

After First Vows he studied Rhetoric at Amiens, Philosophy at Louvain, Theology at Louvain and he was Ordained there in 1880.
He was a Teacher at various Colleges, Tullabeg, Galway and Belvedere, and later Minister at Crescent.
1880 After Ordination he was sent to Australia.
1890 Appointed Rector of St Patrick’s Melbourne. After his time as Rector he continued on teaching at St Patrick’s, acted as Minister for a time, and remained there until his death 11 February 1908 aged 62.
He was thought gentle and courteous to all, and sometimes called “Silken Thomas”. His death was reported as most edifying.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Thomas Leahy studied at Athlone before entering the Society at Milltown Park, 5 August 1865 . He studied philosophy at Louvain, 1869-70, and theology at Laval, France, 1879-80. He taught mathematics and natural philosophy at the Crescent, Limerick, 1874-76, and French, mathematics and physics at Belvedere College, Dublin, 1880-83. Before tertianship at Roehampton, England, 1884, he was minister at University College, Dublin. Then he was appointed to teach at the Crescent and in Galway, 1885-87, before leaving for Australia in 1887. His first appointment was to prepare students in Classics, French and English for the public examination at Riverview. He became prefect of studies at St Aloysius' College, Bourke Street, 1889-90, and continued his teaching for the public examinations. His first administrative appointment was as rector of St Patrick's College, 1890-97, when he was also procurator and prefect of studies, as well as a teacher. Afterwards he taught in succession at St Aloysius' College, 1897-98, Xavier College as minister, 1898-1901, and St Patrick’s College as minister 1901-08. He was a very gentle, kind man, whom everybody seemed to like, and he did a great deal of good work, but without any fanfare. At Riverview he was considered a fine teacher of classics.

◆ The Xaverian, Xavier College, Melbourne, Australia, 1908

Obituary

Father Thomas Leahy SJ

Xaverians of the early nineties will remember Father Leahy. He was Minister of the College during part of the time in which Father Ryan was Rector. Later he was transferred to St Patrick's. He was remarkable for his kindness and good nature, having al ways a cheerful word, and loving a quiet joke. He died at St Patrick's, after a short illness, on February 11th, RI.P.

◆ Our Alma Mater, St Ignatius Riverview, Sydney, Australia, Golden Jubilee 1880-1930

Riverview in the ‘Eighties - A McDonnell (OR 1866-1888)

Fr Leahy, who came to Riverview at the same time as Fr Tuite, in 1886, was his opposite in many respects.. A big handsome man with a singularly benevolent face. And he was as good as he looked. When he took over the office of Prefect, he addressed us, and announced his policy, and told us what we might expect from him, and what he expected from us. For the first two or three weeks he rather kept us at arm's length, but after that he put unbounded confidence in us, and I think I can fairly say that this attitude was justified. During the half it was not necessary for the Prefect to secure order, the boys relieved him of that duty. Some times one of the “game chaps” would be inclined to play up, but an admonition from the more steady ones to the following effect would secure order: “Don't be a fool, you don't know when you have a good thing on”. Such warning or advice was not couched in formal terms, or strictly correct language, but it was always effective, because it expressed the opinion and the will of the majority. I have said that Fr. Leahy was not to be imposed upon by “leg-pullers”, and the boys soon found that out. They tried it in the playground, and they tried it in class, but he was proof against all their wiles. He was teacher of classics in my class, and a fine teacher, too. His idea of learning any language was to acquire it by ear. Acting on this principle, he used to make the whole class recite, in a good loud voice, declensions and conjugations, he leading. This was soon found to fix the grammar, even into the heads of the inattentive. It also had the effect of imparting a correct idea of “quantity”. When construing a Latin text, he would recite, in his fine style, parallel passages from both Latin and Greek authors, and it was a treat to hear him giving out the sonorous Greek. The artful boys used to “fag up” passages from “word books” of these languages, and put them to him as posers, but he was equal to them. When they attempted to coax him away from the class work, he would say: “Now boys, we have digressed sufficiently, let us return to our work”. Nothing delighted him more during playtime, than to engage the boys in conversation, above all he was anxious to learn all he could about Australia. Its birds, animals and plant life interested him intensely, and he longed to see the conditions of life in the interior.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Thomas Leahy (1846-1908)

A native of Ballinasloe, entered the Society in 1865. He spent four years of his regency at the Crescent, 1874-78. He returned for a year after the completion of his studies when he held the position of minister. The next year was spent in the same office at St. Ignatius', Galway when he was transferred to the Australian mission. The greater part of his career was afterwards spent at Melbourne, where he was rector of St Patrick's College from 1890 to 1896.

Born: 22 July 1920, County View Terrace, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1952, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1978, Mazabuka, Seminary, Choma, Zambia
Died: 26 October 2004, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin Dublin - Zambia-Malawi province (ZAM)

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

Brother of Henry (Harry) Leahy - LEFT 10 January 1944 for medical reasons; Uncle of Niall Leahy SJ

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 01 December 1977

Parents were supported by business.

Eldest of three boys with six sisters.

Early education was at a National School in Limerick and then at Crescent College SJ.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Brother of Henry (Harry) Leahy - LEFT 10 January 1944 for medical reasons

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
To look at Fr Maurice, a rather frail figure, one would not imagine that he was a fine rugby player on the school team during his schooldays at the Crescent College, Limerick. In a way, Maurice was a Limerick man through and through. He was born there on 22 July 1920, grew up there and went to school there. He was a bright student coming top of his class year by year and winning many prizes. He was a good sportsman and athlete, playing on the school junior and senior rugby teams. With those long thin legs of his he was, not surprisingly, the Boys’ High Jump Champion of Limerick.

He joined the Society in 1937 at Emo Park, took Latin and History at University, studied philosophy at Tullabeg and went back to Limerick for regency to his old school. After ordination at Milltown Park, Dublin, in 1952, he spent six years at Gonzaga College in Dublin teaching and holding the job of minister. From 1960 to 1972 he was back in Limerick, first in Crescent College teaching and then for five years at Mungret College, again teaching and vice-superior at the Apostolic School. His qualities of simplicity and outstanding patience and kindness must have made teaching rather a trial.

1966 seems to have been a turning point in his life as regards work. He moved to the Sacred Heart Church in Limerick as a pastoral worker for six years, functioning quietly and successfully. In 1972 another big change took place in his life, this time he was missioned to Zambia at the age of 52 where he spent the rest of his life at pastoral work. After his ordination he had asked to be sent to the missions (Hong Kong) and twenty years later his wish was answered (Zambia).

To begin with, he studied ciTonga at Chikuni and then moved to Namwala (1973) as parish priest and superior there. Here he had plenty of practice at the language as he worked in the parish with all that that entailed. After nine years there he was transferred to Assumption Parish in Mazabuka for a year before moving to the Sugar Estate at Nakambala, where he worked for eleven years in the parish, ten years of these as superior and eight years as parish priest.

His younger brother Harry singles out his gentleness and simplicity. He was always kindly and thoughtful, never bad-tempered or argumentative. He really was ‘the good peaceable man’ of Thomas a Kempis. Everyone was good in Maurice’s eyes. His brother tells of his happiness during these years in Zambia. He was at home among the villagers in Namwala, the urban dwellers in Mazabuka and Nakambala, as well as the sick and feeble in Chikuni hospital. As one person put it: ‘A man of simple and quaint goodness, who had his heart in the right place’.

In 1994, Maurice now 74, moved to Chikuni again as pastoral worker. He was a very dedicated priest, a man of God and deeply spiritual. This the people recognized in their own perceptive way. He was an easy person to live with as he was so undemanding even as a superior. He became a charismatic, again in his own quiet way and became a much-sought-after giver of directed retreats.

He developed a peculiar up-down characteristic in his speech, one minute bass and the next falsetto. This affected his preaching in public but it did not interfere with his retreat giving. He was a very methodical man. The data on the outstations where he supplied were kept up to-date so that the priest who took over the outstations, when Maurice was transferred to Chikuni, had a clear picture of each of these outstations and of the people there, who were being prepared for baptism, for marriage and so on.

At the end of 2003, he was operated on in Lusaka for a colostomy and moved to John Chula House. While there the doctor remarked that Maurice had the recuperative powers of a man of 25! – Maurice was 83 years of age at the time. The doctor suggested that he return to Ireland for the next operation for a number of reasons. This Maurice did on 14 February 2004. The operation was a success. Later, while at Cherryfield Lodge, he suffered a stroke, unrelated to the operation and he died on 26 October 2004 in Dublin but he was buried in his own beloved Limerick.

Founder and editor of The Ireland – American Review.

Born: 12 February 1924, County View Terrace, Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1942, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 18 November 2017, Shelbourne Road, Limerick City, Limerick

Left Society of Jesus: 10 January 1944

Father was a builder.

Fourth in a family of nine with two brothers and six sisters

Educated at a National School and then at Crescent College SJ for nine years.

http://www.ourladyoftherosaryparishlimerick.ie/deathnotices/dr-harry-leahy/

The death has occurred of Dr Harry LEAHY
Shelbourne Road, Limerick City, Limerick

Dr Harry Leahy (Shelbourne Road, Limerick) 18th November 2017, in his 94th year, peacefully at home. Beloved husband of Joan. Dearly loved father of Fiona, Sarah, Criona, Emma, Rebecca, Julie, Harry and the late Geraldine. Dear brother of the late Betty, Fr Maurice SJ, Mary, Kathleen, Nancy and Dr John. Sadly missed by his loving family, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, sisters Celine and Bernice, nephews, nieces, extended family and friends. Rest in peace.

Born: 1619, County Meath
Entered: 25 March 1644, Kilkenny
Ordained: - pre Entry
Died: 27 March 1650, County Kilkenny - described as a Martyr of Charity

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
He was the first Novice to enter at Kilkenny. The foundress of this house was Lady Elizabeth Nugent, sister of the Earl of Westmeath. She died 26 October 1645 “A true mother of the Society in Ireland”, quoted from a letter of Robert Nugent 31 October 1645 (cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS).
He died a victim of charity in attending the plague stricken in Kilkenny with four companions.
He is highly eulogised in Drew’s “Fasti SJ”. S great was the opinion of his sanctity, that people would run in crowds from the houses to kiss the hem of his garment as he passed, being attracted by the sweet odour of virtue beaming from his face and entire person.
Besides being distinguished for his learning, he was skilled in the medical science, of which he made full use in his missionary career. He was described as a “doctor by nature, and he seems to have the gift of healing. Taught in Kilkenny 1648, he was a Martyr of Charity. He qualified to profess with éclat Theology, Philosophy and Medicine. A man of extraordinary learning and holiness.
He is also named in Mercure Verdier’s long Report on the Irish Mission 1641-1650 made to the General, a copy of which from the English College in Rome is at the Library of the Public Record Office, London.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Already Ordained before Ent 1646 Kilkenny
His skill as a 'natural doctor' was widely known and commented on by the visitator, Mercure Verdier. But while ministering to the plague-stricken he fell a victim to the disease himself and died at Kilkenny 27/03/1650. Described as being a “Martyr” (of charity?)

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Patrick Lee SJ 1619-1650
Patrick Lee was the first novice admitted to the new Novitiate in Kilkenny in 1644. He died a martyr of charity during a plague which broke out in Kilkenny in 1650. “It is incredible” says Dr Oliver, “how this angel of comfort assisted, relieved and restored so many of his fellow creatures, by his heroic courage and active zeal and medical services; for he was a skilful physician of the body as well as of the soul”. It is interesting to note that he was a physician like his namesake and fellow Jesuit Lea, who attended Archbishop Hurley in his torture and death. It seems to prove that they came from the same old Gaelic stock who were devoted to medicine.

So great was the opinion of the sanctity of Fr Lee amongst the people that they used to run in crowds from their houses to kiss the hem of his garments as he passed. It happened that poor man he was attending died. The body was spreading contagion all around. Ft Lee took up the body in his arms and carried it to a nearby cemetery, and digging a grave he buried it. Owing to the heated conditions he was in and the contact with the corpse, he was stricken down with the fatal disease. As soon as it was known that he was dying, the people hurried to get his blessing and it was said that many were cured by touching his gown.

He had been received into the Society on the eve of the Annunciation and before he went to attend the dying he declared to others that he himself would die on the anniversary of his reception. And so it came to pass.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
LEE, PATRICK, was the first Novice admitted into the house of Probation at Kilkenny. In this Novitiate,* erected under the auspices of the Blessed Virgin Mary, F. Lee imbibed the genuine spirit of the Society, which is essentially the spirit of zeal and charity. Whilst in the prime of life, this fervent and highly gifted Father devoted himself to the care of the infected, when Kilkenny was ravaged with the pestilence. It is incredible how this angel of comfort assisted, relieved and restored so many of his fellow creatures by his heroic courage, active zeal, and medical services : for he was the Physician of body as well as of soul. At length he fell a victim of charity on the 27th of March, 1650, (the day before the town surrendered to the besiegers,) in the most edifying sentiments of piety and joy. His death was justly regarded as a public calamity.

• The founders of the Novitiate was the Lady Elizabeth Nugent, (Countess of Kildare, and sister to the Earl of Westmeath.) who died, after an illness of eight months, most piously, on the 26th of October, 1645. “Haec vere erat Mater Societatis nostrae in hoc Regno”, says F. Robert Nugent in his letter of the 31st of October, 1645. This Novitiate flourished at Kilkenny for four years, under that able master of spirituality, F. John Young. It was then removed to Gal way in 1649, and in the autumn of the year following, the young men were transferred to the Continent, and drafted among the various provinces of the Society.

Born: 1605, County Waterford
Entered: 11 June 1626 - Villarejo, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Final Vows: 28 March 1644, Paraguay
Died: 15 March 1675, Santa Fé de Bogotá, Colombia - Nuevo Reino Mission : COL, ECU, VEN (NEU REI)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
In pencil 1628 At Villareal

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ :
Shortly after Entry was sent to South America and was the first Irishman to enter the new Province of “Nuevo Reino” (Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela)
Having completed his studies at Santa Fé de Bogotá, he engaged in missionary work, being a distinguished preacher in Spanish and Indian languages.
1641 Minister at Fontibón Residence (suburb of Bogotá)
1655 Professor of Theology at Santa Fé de Bogotá
1656-1663 Rector of Merida College, Venezuela
1664-1671 Rector of Pamplona College, Colombia

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Francis Lea SJ 1605-1675
Fr Francis Lea of Waterford was the first Irishman to join the Province of Nuevo Reino, comprising the modern South American States of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

He was born in 1605 and he entered the Society at Villarejo in Spain in 1626, whence he passed soon to South America.

He did his studies at Santa Fe de Bogota and thereafter was engaged in missionary work. He was a distinguished preacher in Spanish and Indian. Later on in his life he was engaged in administration and professing, being Rector in Venezuela and Colombia.

He died at Santa Fe de Bogota in 1675 after a strenuous life of missionary and administrative activity.

Born: 1545, Cloyne, County Cork
Entered: 24 June 1570, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Provine (ROM)
Died: 23 July 1586, Cork

Alias MacMuiris

1574 General Catalogue Aged 27 in Rome 24 June 1570. Made vows 6 months later. Studied 2 years Theology at Roman College (1573-1584). A prisoner on parole and practising medicine. In Ireland was teaching under the Bishop of Cork

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of Dr Morris Lea
Educated at Paris, Oxford and Cologne
Taught School in Youghal in 1575
Was imprisoned for the faith; Was a Physician and Surgeon who gave great relief to Archbishop O’Hurley, who in June 1584 had been tortured by having his legs broiled in a fire.
Perhaps he was “Mauritius”
(cf "Hibernia Ignatiana" p28 and O’Sullivan Beare’s “Hist” p 125)

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Charles Leae SJ 1545-1586
The fellow labourer of Fr Rochfort in the school at Youghal was Fr Leae.

He was born in Cloyne in 1545. His father was a doctor of medicine, Charles Morris Leae. Charles studied at Paris, Oxford and Cologne, and finally entered the Society on June 24th 1570. Rome was the scene of his activities for some years. Then in 1575 he came to Ireland with Bishop Tanner of Cork,

He taught in the school at Youghal till 1579, in which year Bishop Tanner died. Fr Leae was captured and put in prison in Dublin. Hence he was released on account of his skill in medicine and was allowed a certain amount of freedom to move around the city. He was known by his fathers name Charles MacMorris.

In the course of his official duties he attended Archbishop Hurley after his torture by the English : A worthy priest names Charles MacMorris of the Society, skilled in medicine, found access to the archbishop and treated his wounds with such skill that in a few days, he was enabled to sit up in bed”. Fr Leae continued to work in Dublin for some years after the execution of the Archbishop.

His death in 1586 brought to an end the Second Mission of the Society of Jesus to Ireland.

◆ Rev. Edmund Hogan SJ : “Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century” - London : Burns and Oates, Limited, New York, Cincinnati : Chicago, Benzinger Brothers, 1894 : Quarterly Series : Volume Ninety

Father Charles Leae

Father Rochfort's fellow-labourer in Youghal was Father Charles Leae; he was born in the town of Cloyne, co. of Cork, in the year 1545; his father was Morris Leae, a doctor of medicine, and probably the same whom Stanihurst called “Leie a learned and expert physician”. His mother's maiden name was Mary Sheehy or Hickey; he had studied literature from his early years, and was educated at Paris, Oxford, and Cologne. He became a Jesuit in Rome on June 24, 1570; in 1575 he came to Ireland with Bishop Tanner and Father Rochfort, and taught school, and preached at Youghal and in the surrounding districts up to the year 1579, when Dr. Tanner died, after having endured great sufferings in prison for eighteen months. Father Leae remained in Ireland, and was captured and imprisoned, as we may gather from the following narrative, if we remember that an Irishman was very often called after his father's Christian name, and that Charles the son of Morris Leae would be named Charles McMorris. On the 4th of June, 1584, Diarmait O’Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, was hanged in Dublin for the profession of the Faith. Some days before his execution, his feet and legs were forced into boots filled with oil and salt, and a fire was put under them. The oil heated by the flames, penetrating the soles and other parts, tortured him in an intolerable manner, and “his skin fell from the flesh and portions of the flesh from the bare bones”. There happened to be then at Dublin a priest of the Society of Jesus, named Charles MacMorris, who had much experience in medicine and surgery, and who had been himself confined in prison by the English, but was released on account of the skill with which he had treated some noblemen who were dangerously ill. This Father visited the Archbishop and applied some remedies which gave him great relief. The hideous details of the roasting are confirmed by the State Papers, and must for ever brand with infamy the names of Loftus and Wallop. I lose sight of Father Leae after this; I know not whether he was able to remain in Ireland for some time going about under various disguises, and instructing and consoling the Catholics of that country, or whether he was driven away by the fury of persecution, and was sent by his Superiors to teach in the Continental Colleges - a task for which he was well fitted by his University training. He was certainly dead before the year 1609. I was fortunate enough to find the following entry, written by him in the Roman Novice Book on the 24th of June, 1570 : “I was born in the town of Cloyne, diocese of Cork; my father and mother are dead; my father was Maurice Leae, a Doctor of Medicine, my mother's maiden name was Mary Chihi. From my earliest years I have devoted myself to learning; I have studied one year at Paris, then I went to the University of Oxford, and lastly I have read Logic and Philosophy during three years at Cologne, when I took the degree of Master of Logic and Philosophy. I promise to observe all the rules, constitutions, and mode of life of the Society, and to do whatever the Society shall order. In witness of which I subscribe this with my hand, CHARLES LEAE”. In the same book I found these items : Charles Leae, an Irishman, made his first vows. in the Professed House on January 17, 1571, on the 24th of

Born: 04 April 1912, Richmond Hill, Cork City, County Cork
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

Father was an accountant.

Youngest of three boys.

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

Born: 31 May 1825, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 26 August 1851, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Ordained: 1856
Final Vows: 25 March 1865
Died: 18 June 1879, St Ignatius College Prep, Chicago, IL, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 28 October 1911, Mary Street, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 12 November 1934, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1946, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1949, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 06 December 1989, St John’s Hospital, Limerick

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

Father was a tailor’s cutter.Family moved to Ballinacurra, Limerick City, County Limerick.

Third of five boys with five sisters.

Educated at Christian Brothers in Limerick (Sexton Street). He then went to the De La Salle Training College in Waterford., and became a National School Teacher. He then taught at Mungret College SJ for one year.

Grew up, 3 County View Terrace, Ballinacurra, Limerick.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Teacher at Mungret College before Entry

Born: 15 March 1907, Durham Place, Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin
Entered: 05 January 1925, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1939, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1979
Died: 17 January 1994, St Xavier’s College, Bihar, India - Ranchi Province (RAN)

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

Father was a journalist with the Irish Times. Parents live at Guanamara, Dalkey, County Dublin

One of five boys with two sisters.

Early education at Prentation Brothers College, Dun Laoghaire (Glasthule)

Socius to Vice-Provincial Austin Kelly in Australia

by 1930 at Chieri Italy (TAUR) studying

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Gerald Lawlor was the fifth and youngest son of seven children. His father, James, had lived in London as a young man and had trained as a stenographer. His mother, Frances Teasdale, was born of a Protestant family, but later became a Catholic. His early education was entrusted to the Presentation Brothers in Dublin, and through the instrumentality of a Loreto Sister he came to experience Jesuit mission-preacher. Lawlor decided to become a Jesuit. He entered the Society at Tullabeg, 5 January 1925. His juniorate studies were at Rathfarnham Dublin, when he studied for a BA at the National University of lreland, graduating with honors. He studied philosophy at Chieri, Italy and at Tullabeg. During these years, Lawlor had a growing desire to become a missionary. He was at first interested in China, then Russia, and finally Australia. He was sent to Australia for regency for four years at St Aloysius' College, Sydney. He was a memorable teacher and well liked by the boys. In the autumn of 1936 Lawlor went to England for his theology studies at Heythrop College. He was ordained, 31 July 1939, just weeks before the outbreak of World War II, and returned a year later to Australia. The story of his trip on the boat, which rammed an enemy submarine, was recalled with exciting detail. After his return, he worked in the parish of North Sydney, taught philosophy at Loyola College Watsonia, and taught secondary students at St Louis School, Perth. He was then appointed socius to the vice-provincial, Austin Kelly, in 1947. In mid-January 1952 Lawlor was assigned to the new mission in India, where he was head of the department of English at St Xavier's College, Ranchi. Except for short periods, he was to remain at the college for the rest of his life. Lawlor was experienced as a man of genuine culture and innate courtesy, as well as a distracted, wistful person. He was a remarkable teacher, dramatising what was dull and making it come alive, by illustrating whatever seemed too abstruse or complex. He was also interested in and successful in directing a variety of plays with his own personal flair. He even wrote his own dramas that were well received. Another important ministry of Lawlor's was pastoral care for the English-speaking Catholics of Ranchi. He was experienced as a caring, assiduous pastor, compassionate to all. He was always available to people, his door always open, and his alms giving was most generous, even to the apparently undeserving poor. He was called the “Messiah of the Shunned”, a title given to him for his work with the Missionaries of Charity and for the rehabilitation of leprosy sufferers. He rejoiced in Vatican II, claiming that it gave him a real sense of freedom, but the movement of the Spirit never gave him fluency in Hindi. He was a true charismatic whose usual mode in every relationship was the theatrical-dramatic. Added to that was his personal aura, the air of mystery that seemed to surround him no matter where he went or what he did. The end result was that he always made an impact on people and situations. It was never easy to challenge his ideas and never easy for him to accept those of others. He was a man once encountered, never forgotten.

Note from John Phillips Entry
Regency was at Riverview, where, with Gerald Lawlor, he produced a notebook called “Notes on European History”, designed to remedy deficiencies in the presentation of Catholic aspects of history.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948
Extracts from a letter from Fr. P. J. Stephenson, Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne :
“... We had brilliant results last year. Xavier boys won 28 1st Class Honours and 68 2nd Class Honours in the December Examinations, 1947. Besides that, they won Exhibitions in Greek, French and Physics ; and four General Exhibitions and 2 Free Places in the University. That was a fine record for a class of about 40 boys. Five Xavierians joined the Noviceship this year : four were boys just left school. An Old Xavierian took his LL.B. Degree and became a Dominican.
Fr. Mansfield has been kept going since his arrival. He will be a great addition to our staff as he can take over the Business Class and the Economic Class. Fr. Lawlor came over from W.A. about three weeks ago and has taken up the duties of Socius to Fr. Provincial. Fr. Boylan and his assistant Editor of the Messenger leave for Ireland and Rome soon”.

Irish Province News 52nd Year No 2 1977

Calcutta Province

Extract from a letter from a Jesuit of Calcutta Province, Darjeeling Region (Fr. Edward Hayden, St. Joseph's College, North Point, Darjeeling, Western Bengal)

I was one of the old “Intermediate” boys of the Christian Brothers, Carlow. I left off in 1910, 67 years ago, at the end of June. Yes, we learnt the Gaeilge. The Brothers - or some I met, one in particular, a Brother Doyle, was very keen on it. The others didn't teach it as it was only in the “Academy” that they began with languages: French, Gaeilge, Algebra, Euclid and of course English. (5th Book - Senior Elementary Class - was followed by the “Academy”). The Brothers had dropped Latin just before I joined the “Academy”. We were living at a distance of 5 Irish miles from Carlow, and I was delicate, so I often fell a victim of 'flu, which didn't help me to make progress in studies - made it very hard: but at that time the rule was “do or die”. There was only one excuse for not having home work done – you were dead! That was the training we had: it stood me in good stead through life; it is the one thing I am grateful for.
We had a number of Irishmen here, a handful: Fr Jos Shiel, Mayo, died in Patna. Fr James Comerford, Queen's County, died in Bihar. I met the Donnelly brothers, they were Dubliners. The one who died (Don) was Editor of the Sacred Heart Messenger. Many of his stories were about horse-racing - he must have read plenty of Nat Gould when he was a boy! (Nat wrote a number of horse-racing stories supposed to have been in Australia). There are three Irishmen in Ranchi: Frs Donnelly, Phelan and Lawlor. Fr Phelan has spent nearly his whole life in India. As a boy he was in North Point, and after his Senior Cambridge he joined the Society. At that time there was only the Missio Maior Bengalensis of the Belgian Province. The Mission took in half or more of north-east India - Patna, Ranchi and south of it, Assam, Bhutan and Sikkim - an area four or five times that of Ireland! Needless to say, there were parts of it which had no SJ within a hundred miles ...Down here in the Terai where I am “hibernating” out of the cold of Darjeeling, some forty-five years ago there was no priest. One or two of the professors of theology from Kurseong, some 40 miles away, used to visit this district at Christmas and Easter. It was very malarious. Catholics from Ranchi came here to work on the tea plantations. Then a Jesuit was sent to reside in it. Now the district has schools and Jesuits galore, also non-Jesuits. Great progress has been made. The Salesians took up Assam, the American SJs took over Patna. The Northern Belgians took over Ranchi and the Southern Belgians took Calcutta. (The Belgian Province grew till its numbers reached 1400. Then, about 1935, Belgian separated into Flemings - North - and Walloons - South). Ranchi was given to the North and Calcutta to the South. On the 15th August last year (1976) Calcutta was raised from being a Vice Province to be a full-blown Province. 100% of those joining the SJ now are sons of India. Madura in the south has been a Province for years. Nearly all the Europeans are dead: no more are allowed to come permanently unless for a very, very special reason, India has begun to send her sons to East Africa in recent years.
Fr Lawlor is Irish-born but somehow joined the Australian Province about the time it started a half-century or so ago.
Brother Carl Kruil is at present in charge of an ashram: a place for destitutes, in Siliguri. Silguri is a city which grew up in the last forty years around the terminus of the broad gauge railway and the narrow (two-foot) toy railway joining the plains with Darjeeling - one of the most wonderful lines in the world, rising from 300 feet above sea-level, 7,200 feet in about 50 miles and then dropping down to about 5,500 feet in another ten. Three times it loops the loop and three times climbs up by zig-zags. I seem to remember having met Fr Conor Naughton during the war. Quite a number of wartime chaplains came to Darjeeling. The mention of Siliguri set me off rambling. Br Krull remembers his visit to Limerick. (He stayed at the Crescent, 11th 13th June, 1969). He is a born mechanic. Anything in the line of machinery captivates him. He has to repair all the motors and oil engines – some places like this have small diesel generators which have to be seen to from time to time and all other kinds of machinery: cameras, typewriters etc. At present he comes here to do spot welding (electric welding of iron instead of bolts and nuts.
The PP, here is replacing an old simple shed with a corrugated iron roof by a very fine one with brick walls and asbestos-cement roof. Two years ago or so, the roof was lifted by a sudden whirlwind clean off the wooden pillars on which it rested. Since then he has been saying the Sunday Masses on the veranda of a primary school. In this school 235 children receive daily lessons and a small mid-day meal. The Sisters are those of St. Joseph of Cluny – all from South India. They are really heroines: no work is too difficult for them. They do all their own work and cook for us. Their Vice-Provincial is from somewhere in the centre of the “Emerald Gem”. They are growing in numbers and do great work, running a dispensary amongst other things. The church is very broad, approximately 90 by 60 feet. As no benches are used - people sit on the floor - it will hold nearly 450 people at a time. The altar is in one corner. :
Fr Robert Phelan (Ranchi Province) had a visit one night from dacoits (armed robbers), but with help managed to beat them off.
Ranchi had several of these raids last year. In nearly every case the dacoits managed to get some cash.
One night about two weeks ago a rogue elephant (one that is wild and roaming away from the herd) came to a small group of houses close by. A man heard the noise and came out. The elephant caught him by the leg and threw him on to a corn stack - fortunately. The corn stack of rice waiting to be thrashed was quite broad and flat on top! He was very little the worse for the experience. And that is the end of the news.
One more item: please ask the new Editor of the Irish Province News to let me have copies as (?) and send them by overland (surface mail). Even if they are three months coming, they will be news. God bless you and reward you handsomely.
Yours in our Lord,
Edward Hayden, SJ (born 15th October 1893, entered S.J. Ist February 1925, ordained 21st November 1933, took final vows on 2nd February 1936. Now conf. dom. et alumn. and script. hist. dom. at the above address).

Maretimo, Blackrock, County Dublin

Born: 01 January 1787, County Wicklow
Entered: 09 October 1821, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare
Died: 09 January 1831, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was singularly honourable and straightforward. His one thought seemed to be the diligent discharge of his duties. He was most careful to avoid anything that might give offence to others, or wound charity in any degree.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
LAWLESS, PETER. This meek and humble Temporal Coadjutor died at Clongowes on the 9th of January, 1831, Soc.9.

Born: 04 January 1829, Naas, County Kildare
Entered: 16 November 1859, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Professed: 15 August 1870
Died: 15 July 1894, St Mary’s, KS, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 28 May 1921, Riverview, Newtownbarry, Bunclody, County Wexford
Entered: 07 September 1938, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1952, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1956, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 14 April 2001, Clongowes Wood College, Naas, Co Kildare

Father was a doctor and died in 1935. Mother died in 1924. Father remarried.

Second of three boys with one sister.

Early education at Dominican Convent Wicklow he went to Clongowes Wood College SJ (1932-1938)

by 1982 at Regis Toronto, Canada (CAN S) Sabbatical

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Fr Raymond Lawler was born in Co. Wexford, Ireland on 28 May 1921. Fr Raymond (Ray) came to Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit boarding school, as a small boy of eleven years. Little did he realise that he would spend almost half of his life there as teacher, prefect of studies, higher line prefect, and finally as third line Spiritual Father which he was when he died at the age of 80. Clongowes (CWC) was the love of his life (apart from golf) and it was a mutual relationship between him and the successive generations of boys – always a difficult and critical body, who held him in high esteem. After the funeral Mass, members of his family and students of the school carried his coffin along the Third Line gallery where he had passed so often in the final six years of his ministry. A guard of honour was formed by present and past pupils in a moving tribute to someone who had come to mean so much to so many young people over so many years.

Ray followed the normal formation of the Society: humanities (BA honours in Latin and French), philosophy, regency in Crescent, Limerick and CWC, and theology in Milltown Park where he was ordained on the feast of St Ignatius in 1952. After tertianship, he was posted to CWC as teacher and then prefect of studies for eight years. An official visitor from Rome to the Province did some shuffling of personnel and Ray found himself changed to Belvedere College for two years. He returned quietly to CWC in 1964 again as higher line prefect (1964 - 68) and teacher from 1968 to 1981.

Now at the age of sixty, Ray had a sabbatical in Toronto. Then came a big change in his life when he opted to come to Zambia, Africa where he spent two years teaching French and Scripture to the novices in Lusaka. Fr Bob Kelly went on sabbatical for a year and left his gleaming new car in charge of Ray whose talents did not extend to motor maintenance! But this was ideal for Ray to ferry himself and his clubs to the nearby golf course. He had a passion for birds and was appreciative of anyone who helped him add to his beautiful collection of Zambian bird stamps.

When he returned to Ireland he worked in Tullabeg as Director of the Spiritual Exercises for a year followed by ten years at Gardiner Street Church as parish chaplain. Like a captain viewing the horizon from the bridge of his ship, Ray looked south to his beloved CWC and at the age 74 moved there to be third line spiritual Father.

He enjoyed good health to the end. He preached on Holy Thursday to the past pupils who were on retreat in CWC and played golf all Good Friday afternoon. He died in his room on Holy Saturday following a massive heart attack, on the 14 April 2001 at the age of 80.

Ray was a man who found God in all things whether playing cards, scrabble, chess, whether on the golf course, whether teaching, whatever he was doing he was never far from God. Before he left for Zambia, the school made him a presentation of a set of golf clubs. The school secretary said in his speech, ‘If there were a university degree for gentleness, I think that Father Lawler would have a PhD’. His character was summed up in the phrase “a lovable and loving person”.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 108 : Special Edition 2001

Obituary
Fr Raymond (Ray) Lawler (1921-2001)
28th May 1921: Born in Bunclody
Early education at Clongowes Wood College
7th Sept 1938: Entered the Society at Emo
8th Sept 1940: First Vows at Emo
1940 - 1943: Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1943 - 1946: Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1946 - 1948: Crescent College - Regency
1948 - 1949: Clongowes Wood College - Regency
1949 - 1953: Milltown - Studying Theology
31 July 1952: Ordained at Milltown
1953 - 1954: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1954 - 1962: Clongowes Wood College - Teacher
2nd Feb 1956: Final Vows
1956 - 1962: Clongowes - Prefect of Studies
1962 - 1964: Belvedere - Teacher
1964 - 1968: Clongowes - Higher Line Prefect
1968 - 1981: Clongowes - Teacher
1981 - 1982: Sabbatical Year
1982 - 1984: Zambia
1984 - 1985: Tullabeg - Director of Spiritual Exercises
1985 - 1995: Gardiner Street - Parish Chaplain
1995 - 2001: Clongowes - Third Line Spiritual Father; Assisted in Cherryfield
14th April 2001: Died Clongowes Wood College

Ray enjoyed good health to the end. He preached on Holy Thursday to the Past Pupils, who were on Retreat in Clongowes, and played golf on Good Friday afternoon. He died in his room on Holy Saturday following a massive heart attack. He will be greatly missed by all, but particularly by his beloved Third Liners.

Michael Sheil writes

When Ray Lawler came to Clongowes as a young boy of 11 in 1932, he had already spent 7 years in boarding school. At the tender age of 4 he had started his academic career in Dominican Convent, Wicklow. When he died suddenly in Clongowes at Easter, he had experienced over three-quarters of a century of institutional living.

He once described his birthplace, Bunclody, as the back of beyond (he was preaching at the funeral Mass of his neighbour and friend Dr Tom Murphy, former President of UCD, who lived “a bit beyond that”!) But he was always loyal to Wexford and rejoiced when good fortune came the way of their teams,

After leaving Clongowes, where he figured prominently at cricket and rugby, Ray followed the usual pattern of Jesuit formation in the 40s and 50s, studying Arts at UCD, philosophy in Tullabeg. He did his regency in Crescent College and Clongowes and was ordained on 31 July 1952. Afterwards Tertianship in Rathfarnham followed and then began his long association with his beloved Clongowes.

He filled a number of posts there, beginning as a Teacher for 5 years and then as Prefect of Studies for a further 3, until in the general mass migrations which signalled Fr Visitor's (McMahon) passage through the Province in 1962, Ray moved to Belvedere,

My own memories of him go way back to 1949 when, in my first year in the Third Line in Clongowes, we used to hear everyone talking about the marvellous Mr Lawler, who had left the year before. For he had just finished his regency there. In my last two years, I had him for Latin and French and Religion - and was able to realize for myself just why he had been held in such high esteem by that most discerning - if not downright difficult, critical body - the students themselves!

After two short years in Belvedere, Ray returned for what was to be his longest stint in Clongowes - 17 years, until 1981. He began as Higher Line Prefect ( 4 years) and rejoined the teaching staff for the remainder of that time. He was an excellent teacher of French and duly coached rugby and cricket (he played cricket regularly for the local club, North Kildare.) But it was during this time that he fell in love...he discovered the joys of golf! He became a regular sight on the College's golf course and competed frequently in competitions in Naas Golf Club. One year he came home with no less than 5 turkeys won there. And the school's S.R.P.A. (The Society for the Relief of the Poor and Aged - founded by Fr Brian Cullen) was the happy beneficiary.

He was still here when I returned as Higher Line Prefect in 1975 and was a marvellous companion in Community .... and I don't ever remember getting the better of him in a game of golf! Before the golf course was as good as it is today, he used to practise hitting golf balls from the Third Line rugby pitches on to the cricket oval - in all kinds of weather. I remember one day taking a Senior Rugby Practice in miserable, cold, sleety weather. After a while the Captain dared to suggest that we were only wasting our time, for it was too cold to do anything really useful. But I insisted that we might have to play a Cup match in such conditions (as indeed turned out to be the case - it even snowed!). So we battled on. However, after a while, the Captain approached me again and said, “Look, Fr Lawler has gone in!” “All right”, I said, “if it's too cold for Fr Lawler, then it's too cold for us!” And so in we went!

Six years ago we both returned together for what was to be such a wonderful Indian summer of his life. The story is told of how a fellow-Jesuit, on meeting Ray shortly after that change to CWC was announced, said that he had heard that it had taken him only 5 minutes to accept to come back here as Spiritual Father to the Third Line. The story goes that Ray got quite angry at the suggestion and protested that that was an awful thing to say about him. His companion - unused to see the usually placid Ray showing anger - back-pedalled a bit and said that it was only what he had heard from someone else. But Ray was only having him on - and to put him out his agony explained that 5 minutes was a gross exaggeration - it had taken him only 5 seconds! Just after he died, someone said: Surely he is in heaven - to which the reply came back: Sure he arrived in heaven when he came back to Clongowes! That speaks wonders for the spirit which he helped to encourage. It also means that the boys themselves had a part to play in making him so happy - in making him what he was - a lovable and loving person.

When he left CWC in 1981 to go to Zambia - the school made Fr Lawler a presentation of - surprise, surprise! - a set of clubs ... for that, even then, was his great pastime love. In his speech in the Concourse, the School Secretary said something which I never forgot - and which summed Ray up to perfection. “If there were a University degree for gentleness - I think that Fr Lawler would have a PhD.!” For that was indeed one of his great qualities.

On his return to Clongowes in 1995 he became Spiritual Father (or, as some used to say, Spiritual Grandfather!) and he became a central figure in the lives of very many young boys - some of them desperately homesick - and of their parents. The testimony of the great number of letters of sympathy written to the Community bears witness to this. His night prayer with Third Line was spiritual and deeply thought out - informal and always interesting - relevant and touching the lives of Third Liners where they were. How appropriate was it - however much it brought a lump to the throat - to see him on the recent RTE programme, leading this year's Opening Assembly last September, for what was to be the last time - reminding the assembled school of the importance of what really brought the school community together - when they gather to give thanks and glory to God.

St Ignatius of Loyola wanted his companions to be able to find God in all things. And, surely, didn't Ray do just that?! Whether playing cards - scrabble - chess - whether on the golf-course (as he was on the very day before he died) - whether teaching the yoyo (the very first online purchase made by CWC on the internet was yoyo string!) whatever Ray was doing - wherever he was - he was never far from God. For God was never far from him. Psalm 138 (139) was his favourite and he often quoted the lines: “It was you who created my being... ...I thank you for the wonder of my being, for the wonders of all your creation”. The Psalm ends with the words: “See that I follow not the wrong path and lead me in the path of life eternal”.

And so God did come to lead Ray home - as quietly as he had lived - in the silence of a Holy Saturday morning. As the Church waited to celebrate again the great Feast of Christ's Resurrection Ray left for a better place. Although his funeral took place during the school holidays at Easter, the College Chapel was full for Mass. Afterwards, members of his family and students of the school carried his coffin along the Third Line gallery (where he had passed so often in the final six years of his ministry.) A guard of honour was formed by present and past pupils in a moving tribute to someone who had come to mean so much to so many young people over so many years. In Clongowes Ray continues to be an inspiration to his Brethren who remember with gratitude and affection his pleasant companionship. And his memory will long be held in reverence in the school where he spent nearly half of his long and full life.

Born: 02 March 1911, Main Street, Newtownbarry, Bunclody, County Wexford
Entered: 01 September 1928, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 08 January 1944, St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 03 February 1947, Wah Yan College, Hong Kong
Died: 04 December 1984, Lisheen, Rathcoole, County Dublin

Chaplain in the Second World War.

Younger Brother of Brendan - RIP

Father was a business man and died in 1914

Youngest of three brothers.

Early education at Dominican Convent Wicklow for two years and then at Clongowes Wood College SJ for seven years.

Transcribed HIB to HK - 03 December 1966; HK to MAC-HK; MAC-HK to CHN

by 1937 at Aberdeen, Hong Kong - Regency
by 1941 at Pymble NSW, Australia - studying

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Death of Father Donald Lawler, S.J.
R.I.P.

Father Donald Lawler, SJ, formerly of Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, died in Ireland on Tuesday, 4 December 1984, after a very long illness, aged 73.

Father Lawler was born in Ireland in 1911 and joined the Jesuits in 1928. He came to Hong Kong in 1936. After two years of study of Cantonese, he taught for two years in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong. He then studied theology in Australia and was ordained priest there in 1944. After a final year of Jesuit formation in Ireland, he returned to Hong Kong in 1946 and was senior Science Master in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, for thirty years. He suffered a stroke in 1976, and for the rest of his life was as invalid sinking steadily into ever more complete helplessness as the years went by. About five years ago he was brought by hospital plane to Ireland, where the care of his elder brother, also a Jesuit, helped to mitigate the hardship imposed such prolonged illness.

Death came gently.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 14 December 1984

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 20th Year No 2 1945

Frs. J. Collins, D. Lawler and P. Toner, of the Hong Kong Mission, who finished theology at Pymble last January, were able to leave for Ireland some time ago, and are expected in Dublin after Easter.

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 60th Year No 1 2 1985

Obituary

Fr Donald Lawlor (1911-1928-1984) (Macau-Hong Kong)

2nd March 1911: born in Bunclody, Co Wexford. 1st September 1928: entered SJ. 1928-30 Tullabeg, noviciate. 1930-33 Rathfarnham, juniorate (physics and chemistry to B. Sc.), 1933-36 Tullabeg, philosophy. 1936-40 Hong Kong (study of Cantonese. 1938-40 teaching in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong). 1940-45 Australia, theology (Pymble, NSW: ordained priest in 1944). 1945-46 Rathfarnham, tertianship. 1946-78 Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, teaching science chiefly. 1979-84 Lisheen nursing home, Rathcoole, Co Dublin.

The following notice of Fr Lawler, written by Fr Alan Birmingham (M-HK), has been copied from Macau-Hong Kong Province Letter no. 265 (12: 1984):

On Tuesday 4th December, Fr Vincent Murphy telephoned from Ireland to tell us that Don Lawler had died a few hours earlier. Everyone's first reaction was one of gratitude for the ending of Don's long Purgatory on earth. There was of course shock in learning that the companion of so many years was no longer in this world, but it would have been hypocritical conventionalism to pretend to sorrow over his death. The Don of the crystal clear mind, the Don of the lithe vigorous body, the Don of unquestioning independence, had gone years before. Death had brought to an end joyless years of fading powers.
Don Lawler received his schooling at Wicklow Convent and at Clongowes Wood College. I first met him when we arrived together to start our noviceship at Tullabeg. His elder brother Brendan took his first vows on the morning after our arrival and he stayed on in Tullabeg for a short time to act as Don's angelus, The Don of noviceship days was in most ways very like the Don of full maturity. He already had a sturdy distaste for loose thinking and for conventional expression or manifestation of piety. Eschewing gush, he had an unrivalled grasp of the theological and spiritual principles underlying noviceship training and the whole Jesuit life. He took his vows in the ambulacrum in Emo Park (newly acquired as the noviciate house) on 2nd September 1930.
He might have been miserable if he had been asked to do an arts degree in the juniorate. It is hard to imagine Don labouring over Wordsworth or Mrs Gaskell. In fact, he worked for a BSc in physics and chemistry. Clear theory derived from exact experiment was what he seemed made for. Philosophy also suited him; Platonism would have seemed to him to be merely sublime vagueness. If he had been born in another age, Descartes' clear and distinct ideas' might have won him: but as it was he found satisfaction in the highly rational Aristotelianism taught by Fr E Coyne. Philosophy always remained one of his major interests.
He had always been deeply interested in the missions, and he felt that one of his dearest dreams was being fulfilled when he was chosen for Hong Kong, along with Paddy Walsh and.me, in 1936.
My abiding friendship with Don dates from that time. In earlier years I had been mildly alarmed by his ruthless intellectualism and his black-and-white judgements on right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, sense and folly. A month with him in a two-man cabin in the Sua Maru was enough to teach me that I had found a true comrade, able to take peculiarities in his stride, and ready to depend on others and to have others depend on him. I never had to alter that judgement.
After two years of not very successful drudgery in the language school, there came the year in Wah Yan in the old Robinson Road building. In that year Don was not merely a teacher. He was a vigorous sportsmaster. He was deeply interested in the boys. He took part in nearly every school activity. In addition he began to make numerous friends round the city. Already, on the way to Hong Kong, he had been the social centre of the ship. Now he seemed to be on to becoming one of the people that everyone knows, almost a second and more scientific Fr George Byrne. The vitality he showed in that year was something unimagined by those who knew him only in later years..
In the summer of 1939, he and I were expecting to sail for Ireland, but the necessary documents did not arrive until later than the date on which Joe Howatson and Seán Turner had sailed in the previous year. When the documents did arrive, late in June, they contained bad news. Don was offered either immediate return to Ireland with removal from the Hong Kong Mission, or a ‘fourth year’ in Wah Yan. Without hesitation he chose the second alternative, and at once set about organising the tasks of the coming year, notably the forthcoming St Vincent de Paul Bazaar (the predecessor of the Caritas Bazaar).
Normally a fourth year in the colleges is a relatively unimportant setback not worthy of obituary mention. Don's fourth year was an exceptionally hard blow, and seems to have changed his whole life. In summer 1939, war was certain. If he did not sail at once, he would not return to Ireland for theology, and the suddenness of the change made this hard to bear. More important probably was the suggestion that he should consider leaving the Mission. He had always cherished missionary hopes; now a cloud had come over them. Joe Howatson, who probably knew Don better than any other Hong Kong Jesuit, once told me that Don had taken the fourth year as a condemnation of all his past expansiveness. Certainly, when I met him again after tertianship, all that side of his life seemed to have vanished, and he had largely withdrawn from the city into Wah Yan. He made friends through his educational committee work and through his abiding interest in games, but the old expansiveness was gone. I never discovered why he got the fourth year. To me he had seemed a model of what a scholastic in the way a college should be. My guess was some of his superiors had worked through mild suggestions and gentle hints, regarding these as sufficient indications of what they wanted to be done. Don, however, was never sensitive to hints. Anything less scientific than a clear and direct statement seemed contumacious when he was quite unconscious of ignoring orders.This, however, is only a guess.
In 1940, he went to Australia for theology, and he was ordained there in January 1944. He liked Australia, and he had many friends there from juniorate and philosophy days. In 1945 he went to Ireland for tertianship.
In 1946 he returned to Hong Kong to start the long career as senior science master that was to last till his strength ailed thirty years later. This was the main work of his Jesuit life, but there is little to be said about it. He was an outstanding and extremely conscientious teacher of physics to the higher forms, and he played a considerable part in the organisation of scientific teaching in the schools of Hong Kong. He was also always ready to take on the instruction of more intellectual converts whom others regarded as formidable. One of these converts is now a Dominican priest. In the 1960s one of the professors in the University of Hong Kong was waging an all too successful war for atheism. Don took him on in a radio debate and by cool and courteous logic won a striking victory that helped to diminish the professor's influence. This debate was almost his only dramatic incursion into public life in his long years as a priest-teacher.
In community life, however, he was no hermit. He was always ready to expound at length any theological, philosophical or scientific theory that came up. Sometimes his expositions would develop nearly into a lecture, but it was a good lecture, clear, orderly, full, and devoid of rhetorical irrelevance or dialectical tricks.
Over the years he was an unremitting student of the Bible, reading it over and over again. He was also careful to keep abreast of scientific progress. For diversion, more and more as the years went by, he turned to scientific fiction, the frivolous counterpart of his work. to him mere whimsy.
No account of Don would be completed without some reference to his congenital tidiness with both time and things. Every action seemed to have its exact unchangeable time - his shower for instance at exactly 6.30 pm. If any visitor to his room moved an ashtray on his desk, Don would put it back where it had been, not chidingly, but because the ashtray had its own unchangeable place. In 1976 he had his first stroke. For a time he tried to carry on, hoping that by using a microphone he could still talk to his classes, but this proved impossible. After a second stroke he was given generous hospitality for some months by the ever-generous Columban Sisters in Ruttonjee Sanatorium. He returned to Wah Yan and was able to take a slight part in community life. He managed to attend his Golden Jubilee dinner for a short period. He was able to concelebrate Mass on extreme invalid terms. He could still read, and a fading memory enabled him to read and reread his favourite scientific fiction books with fresh interest at every reading. Another stroke transformed him into a complete invalid, and he was brought to St Paul's Hospital, Causeway Bay. His hospital room was comfortable and he had plenty of visitors, the Columban Sisters being exceptionally kind. Yet his complete dependence on others must have been galling to one of his independent character. His Cantonese had never been very good, and as his voice was failing he found it almost impossible to communicate with the hospital staff. It was decided that he would be happier in Ireland. He was far too ill to travel by an ordinary plane, but helpful authorities agreed to give him space in a space in a military Red Cross hospital plane. In Ireland, he went first to St Vincent's Hospital and then to Lisheen Nursing Home, Rathcoole, co. Dublin. His brother Brendan and Fr Vincent Murphy were assiduous visitors, despite ever increasing difficulty in communication.
He sank slowly but steadily. Those who visited him during holidays in Ireland brought sadder and sadder news, yet he did not seem to suffer much physically and the gradual dimming of his consciousness of this world probably lessened mental suffering. Always we were waiting for the last news. It came on December 4th.
He worked hard. He suffered much. God be with him. May he be with God.

◆ The Clongownian, 1986

Obituary

Father Donald Lawler SJ

Don Lawler received his schooling at Wicklow Convent before coming on to Clongowes. His elder brother Brendan took his first vows in Tullabeg on the morning after Don's arrival and he stayed on for a short time to act as Don's angelus. The Don of noviceship days was in most ways very like the Don of full maturity. He already had a sturdy distaste for loose thinking and for conventional expression or manifestation of piety. Eschewing gush, he had an unrivalled grasp of the theological and spiritual principles underlying noviceship training and the whole Jesuit life. He took his vows in the abulacrum in Emo Park (newly acquired as the noviciate house) on 2nd September 1930.

He might have been miserable if he had been asked to do an arts degree in the juniorate. It is hard to imagine Don labouring over Wordsworth or Mrs Gaskell. In fact, he worked for a BSc in physics and chemistry. Clear theory from exact experiment was what he seemned made for. Philosophy also suited him; Platonism would have seem to have to be merely sublime vagueness. If he had been born in another age, Descartes clear and distinct ideas might have won him: but as it was he found satisfaction in the highly Aristotelianism taught by Fr E Coyne. Philosophy always remained one of his major interests.

He had always been deeply interested in the missions, and he felt that one of his dearest dreams was being fulfilled when he was chosen for Hong Kong, along with Paddy Walsh in 1936. After two years of not very successful drudgery in the language school, there came the year in Wah Yah in the old Robinson Road building. In that year Don was not merely a teacher. He was a vigorous sportsmaster. He was deeply interested in the boys. He took part in nearly every school activity. In addition he began to make numerous friends around the city. Already, on the way to Hong Kong, he had been the social centre of the ship. Now he seemed to be on the way to becoming one of the people everyone knows, almost a second and more scientific Fr George Byrne. The vitality he showed in that year was something unimagined by those who knew him only in years later.

In 1940 he went to Australia for theology, and he was ordained there in January 1944.

He liked Australia, and he had many friends. there from juniorate and philosophy days. In 1945 he went to Ireland for tertianship.

In 1946 he returned to Hong Kong to start the long career as senior science master that was to last till his strength failed thirty years later. This was the main work of his Jesuit life, but there is little to be said about it. He was an outstanding and extremely conscientious teacher of physics to the Higher forms, and he played a considerable part in the organisation of scientific teaching in the schools of Hong Kong. He was also always ready to take on the instruction of more intellectual converts whom others regarded as formidable.

In community life, however, he was not a. hermit. He was also always ready to expound at length any theological, philosophical or scientific theory that came up. Sometimes his expositions would develop nearly into a lecture, but it was a good lecture, clear, orderly, full and devoid or rhetorcal irrelevance or dialectical tricks.

Over the years he was an unremitting student of the bible, reading it over and over again. He was also careful to keep abreast of scientific progress. For diversion, more and more as the years went by, he returned to scientific fiction, the frivolous counterpart of his scientific work.

In 1976 he had his first stroke. For a time he tried to carry on, hoping that by using a microphone he could still talk to his classes, but this proved impossible. After a second stroke he was given generous hospitality for some months by the ever-generous Columban Sisters in Ruttonjee Sanatorium.

It was decided that he would be happier in Ireland. He was far too ill to travel by an ordinary plane, but helpful authorities agreed to give him space in a military Red Cross hospital plane. In Ireland, he went first to St Vincent's Hospital and then to Lisheen Nursing Home Rathcoole, Co Dublin. His brother Brendan and Fr Vincent Murphy were assiduous visitors, despite ever-increasing difficulty in communication, He sank slowly but steadily.

Alan Birmingham

Born: 29 October 1909, Main Street, Newtownbarry, Bunclody, County Wexford
Entered: 01 September 1926, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 17 July 1938, Innsbruck, Austria
Final Vows: 02 February 1944, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 16 June 1993, Our Lady’s Hospice, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park, Dublin community at the time of death.

Eldest Brother of Donald - RIP 1984

Early education at Clongowes Wood College Sj

by 1933 at Valkenburg, Limburg, Netherlands (GER I) studying
by 1936 at Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria (ASR) studying

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 8th Year No 4 1933

Father T. Corcoran's labours in connection with the examinations for the Higher Diploma had scarcely concluded when he had to betake himself to Holland to preside at the second International Congress of Catholic Secondary Education. The meetings of the Congress took place at the Hague each day from 31st .July to 5th August.
Their Excellencies, the Bishops of Holland, were patrons of the Congress, which was attended by some 350 delegates representing the leading Catholic countries. Among the delegates were about 45 members of the Society from lands outside Holland. Prominent among the visitors were the Provincial of the Paris Province, with various Rectors and Prefects of Studies from our French Colleges. Père Yoes de la Brière, the Rectors of Brussels, Namur, Liege and other Belgian Colleges, Fathers Errandonea, Herrera and others from Spain,the French Oratorian Sabatier and various distinguished lay-men from Germany and Italy.
Cardinal Pacelli, in the name of the Holy Father, sent a long and cordial telegram of good wishes to the Congress , also the Nuncio Apostolic in Holland, who was prevented by serious illness from attending in person.
In the absence of the Nuncio the final allocution was delivered by the Bishop of Haarlem, after the Rector Magnificus of the University of Nijmegen and Father Corcoran, as President of the Congress had already spoken. Mr. J. O'Meara from Louvain Messrs. B. Lawler and C. Lonergan from Valkenburg acted as assistants to Father Corcoran at the Hague.
A splendid paper on “The Present Condition of Secondary Education in Ireland” was read by Dr. John McQuaid, the President of Blackrock College. All accounts agree in stating that the Congress was a brilliant success.
As the proceedings at the Hague coincided with the Biennial Conference of the World Federation of Education Associations, Father Corcoran was unable to be present at the functions in Dublin, but an important paper from his pen was read by Mrs McCarville, Lecturer in English in University College, Dublin. This paper expounded the Catholic philosophy of Education.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 77 : Summer 1994 & Interfuse No 82 : September 1995
Obituary
Brendan Lawler (1909-1993)

29th Oct. 1909; Born, Bunclody, Co. Wexford
Early education: Clongowes Wood College
Ist Sept. 1926: Entered the Society at Tullabeg
1928 - 1932: Rathfarnham - studying Science (biology) at UCD
1932 - 1935: Valkenburg, Holland, studying Philosophy
1935 - 1938: Innsbruck, studying Theology
17th July 1938: Ordained at Innsbruck
1939 - 1940: Tertianship, Rathfarnham
1940 - 1941: Tullabeg, Professor of Cosmology and Biology
1941 - 1943: 35 Lower Leeson Street, Private Study
1943 - 1962: Tullabeg - Professor of Cosmology and Biology. (From 1953 - '59 he was Rector)
1962 - 1968: Loyola House - Socius to Provincial
1968 - 1992; Milltown Park: Secretary, Institute of Theology/Philosophy, and Lecturer (Philosophy), (1982 Assistant Registrar)
1993: Cherryfield Lodge. Hospitalised in The Royal, Donnybrook and then in Our Lady's Hospice.
16th June 1993. Died Our Lady's Hospice.

For many members of the Irish Province the name of Brendan Lawlor is synonymous with memories of the philosophate in Tullabeg, Once can see him still on a dark day in the tiered lecture-room, reading from the yellowing pages of his cosmology notes or play-acting as to whether the continuum could be found in the drawer or under the table. These memories can be crowned with those of drowsy afternoon sessions with diverting slides portraying the innards of the amoeba. In retrospect one can only admire the patience and endurance of those who, after years of no mean scholastic attainment, accepted from the Society the “world without event” of life in Tullabeg.

Brendan had a distinguished scholastic career behind him when he came to Tullabeg as Professor of Cosmology and Biology in the autumn of 1943. He was one of those “stars” who had been picked out for a four-year Juniorate (1928-1932), ending up with a MSc in biology. In the autumn of 1932 he made his way with Con Lonergan to do his philosophy with the exiled Germans in Valkenburg, and then in 1935 both of them went on to join Donal O'Sullivan for theology in Innsbruck. It was typical of the man that he could spend those years so close to the drama of the rise of Hitler and the Anschluss of Austria and so rarely speak of these momentous events afterwards. Even the theology of the times was rarely mentioned by him, though Innsbruck in those years was the centre of “kerygmatic theology” and of the liturgical and catechetical renewal spearheaded by JA Jungmann. Within a short time of Brendan's leaving Innsbruck the house in Sillgasse was turned into the headquarters of the Gestapo, but Brendan by that time was safely back in Ireland doing further studies in Leeson Street.

It will come as a surprise to most people to realize that by far the longest period Brendan spent in one place was not Tullabeg but Milltown Park. He spent nineteen years in Tullabeg at a stretch, being Rector there from 1953 to 1959. He left the midlands in 1962 to become Socius to the Provincial (1962-68), and after those six years in Eglinton Road was assigned to Milltown Park, where he was to spend the next quarter of a century. For many years during this period he did some teaching in the area of logic, but his principal task was to look after the administrative staff of the Institute and to keep the scholastic records of the students. He was also responsible for organizing what came to be called “Saturday Theology”, a very successful programme of lectures for extra-mural students which, over a period of twenty years, introduced innumerable religious and laity to the mysteries of Vatican II.

For a person who in many respects was the quintessence of predictability, Brendan could be a source of hidden talents. The last instance of this came about only a few weeks before his death, when his community was presented with an amazingly competent landscape which Brendan had painted during occupational therapy in the hospice. Who would have thought that we had another Paul Henry in our midst? Then there was his early interest in the scriptures, which eventually bore fruit in his book, Epistles in Focus, widely read in Ireland at the time, and for many years the only scholarly book on scripture by a member of the Province. During his years as Professor in Tullabeg, he rarely, if ever, published anything in philosophy, but in his final years in Milltown he had some published work in Milltown Studies, including one article of which he was particularly proud, “The Star of Implication” (Milltown Studies, no.5).

Those who knew Brendan in the two main periods of his life, that in Tullabeg and that in Milltown, will have been struck by the contrast between the two, especially if one was a scholastic in the earlier period. In Tullabeg he seemed constrained by the stricter regime of the times. In Milltown his natural humour and spirit of companionship blossomed, so that he became one of the most appreciated members of the community. He maintained amazingly good health, even after retirement, and took a great interest in all that was happening in the world, not least in the world of sport, Brendan before the television-set, with cigarette in hand, was one of the fixtures of Milltown life during those years. This continued up to the time that the onset of Parkinson's necessitated his hospitalization. The decline that set in developed with a speed that surprised us all. The disease took him from us within a matter of months, and so he died at the impressive age of 83. May he rest
in peace.

Ray Moloney

Born: 05 June 1927, Gurteen, Knapton Road, Monkstown, County Dublin
Entered: 22 September 1948, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1960, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 05 November 1977, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 04 February 2012, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Clongowes Wood College, Naas, Co Kildare community at the time of death

Father was a District Justice

Early education was at local preparatory schools in Dublin and then at Clongowes Wood College SJ for six years. He then attended lectures at the Kings Inns for three years.

by 1951 at Laval France (FRA) studying
by 1976 at Loyola Hall, Lahore, Pakistan (PAK MISS) working

Director of Player Wills.

Born: 1670, Magheralin, County Down
Entered: 06 January 1698, Bordeaux, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)
Ordained: 1697, Rome, Italy - pre Entry
Final Vows: 02 February 1709
Died: 07 August 1725, Dublin City, County Dublin - Romanae Province (ROM)

Completed his studies before Ent
1700 At Bordeaux College teaching Grammar
1705 At Xaintes (Saintes) College (AQUIT) teaching Humanities and Philosophy and studying Philosophy and Theology
1706-1708 At Poitiers
1714-1717 At Poitiers Spiritual Father
1717 CAT Good talent, learned and speaks elegantly. It is wished he had greater love of poverty. When on Mission people complained he was irascible and wanting in meekness and humility

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of Patrick and Mary of Ulster. Probably a brother of Susan Lavery OSB, a nun, of Dunkirk (Foley’s Collectanea Vol vi p 439)
He was one of James II Demies sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, 1687
Entered the English College Rome for Higher Studies 30 March 1689.
Professor of Philosophy; Eloquent Preacher; Charming in conversation
1708 and 1714 In Ireland (HIB Catalogues)
1717 At Poitiers

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had studied Irish College Rome and was already a Priest 1697 Rome, before Ent 06 January 1698 Bordeaux
1700-1707 After First Vows he taught Humanities at Bordeaux, Nantes and Poitiers
1707-1714 Sent to Ireland and Dublin and worked in the Dublin district.
1714-1717 Sent to Irish College Poitiers as Spiritual Father
1717 Sent to Dublin and worked as an Assistant Priest until his death there 07 August 1725

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Charles Lavery SJ 1670-1717
Fr Charles Lavery was born at Magheralin County Down in 1670. He entered Magdalen College Oxford, as one of James II demie or foundationers At this time great efforts were being made to obtain for the Fathers a firm footing in the University. Although both Christ Church and University College were governed by Catholics, the chief hope was placed in Magdalen, which had been given by the King to his Catholic subjects. In 1688 however, all fifteen demies at the College were expelled. Charles Lavery first went to Rome and entered the English College. He returned to Ireland without taking orders, and he entered the Society in 1697.

He was appointed Professor of Philosophy. In addition, he was an eloquent preacher and a gifted conversationalist. His name is found as having been in Ireland in 1708 and 1714.

He died in Poitiers in 1717.

Born: 09 April 1932, Ard na Gréine, Castleknock, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1950, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1964, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1967, St Ignatius, München, Germany
Died: 12 September 2019, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park, Dublin community at the time of death.

by 1961 at Heythrop, Oxford (ANG) studying
by 1965 at Münster, Germany (GER S) making Tertianship
by 1966 at Munich, Germany (GER S) studying
by 1985 at Vocation Sisters, Angmering Sussex, England (ANG) working
by 1999 at St Augustine’s Priory, Hassocks, Sussex, England (ANG) working

Son of Richard Lavelle and Patricia O’Mara. Father was a doctor.

Third of four boys with one sister.

Early education was at Ballinasloe NS, County Galway, he went then to Belvedere College SJ for eight years.

Born: 24 November 1655, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 05 September 1675, Paris, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1686, La Flèche, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1691, Rouen
Died: 13 January 1726, Irish College, Poitiers, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)

1685 At La Flèche teaching Humanities and Rhetoric
1690 Gone to Ireland for 3 years
1693 At Quimper College teaching Grammar, Rhetoric, Philosophy
1696 At Brest. MA in University of Nantes. Teaching Philosophy.
1705 At Blois College teaching Grammar, Philosophy. Spiritual Father, Minister and Procurator 4 years
1709-1720 At Irish College Poitiers. Rector 1718-1710
1724-1725 Infirmus

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1717 Rector at Poitiers
Said to have been a learned man; Professor of Philosophy; Of pleasing address; He had been on the Irish Mission (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had previously studied at Nantes graduating MA before Ent 05 September 1675 Paris
After First Vows he was sent to Hesdin for Regency, and then to La Flèche for Theology where he was Ordained 1686
1687-1691 Sent to Ireland, but four years later was deported to France
1691-1695 Sent to Quimper and holding a Chair in Philosophy
1695-1696 Missioner at Brest where he was also chaplain to the French navy in the Mediterranean for a year.
1696-1709 Sent to Blois College as Minister and Procurator
1709 Rector of Irish College Poitiers for two terms 1709-1717 and 1722-1724. he died there 13 January 1726

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Walter Lavallin 1655-1726
Fr Walter Lavallin a native of Ireland, was appointed Rector of the Irish College at Poitiers in 1709. He was still Rector in 1714, when he wrote to the Superior that he had erected a new public chapel for the use of the College, that the expense had exceeded his expectations, but that hen would not contract any debt that he was not able to discharge.

He died at Poitiers on the 10th or 13th of January 1726.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
LAVALLIN, WALTER, was certainly appointed Rector of the Seminary at Poitiers in 1709. He was still filling the same office on the 6th of September, 1714, when he addressed a letter to his Superior, acquainting him of his having erected a new public Chapel for the use of the College; and that the expenses had exceeded his original calculation, but that he had not contracted, nor would contract, any debt, which he was not able to discharge.

Born: 08 April 1924, Portersize, Grange Con, County Wicklow
Entered: 18 December 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois

Left Society of Jesus: 31 October 1955

Parents were farmers. Father, Edward, RIP at time of entry, and mother was Elizabeth Beckett. Parents separated and mother brought John to live in new family, in which six children were born. When his father died in 1944, mother legally married the father of her six other children.

Address at time of entry: Coolavah House, Narraghmore, Ballitore, Athy, County Kildare

Had worked on family farm and as a lorry driver for a Mr Reddy in Carlow before entry.

Educated ay St Laurence’s National School, Crookstown, Ballytore, County Kildare.

Baptised at Moore Church (Most Holy Trinity), Castledermot, County Kildare, 12/04/1924
Confirmed at Ss Mary and Laurence, Crookstown, County Kildare 27/06/1934

1946-1948: St Mary's, Emo, Novitiate
1948-1950: St Mary's, Emo, working
1950-1955: Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working

Having left he was understood to be working in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia

Born: 1591, Naas, County Kildare
Entered: 05 April 1625, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae province (ROM)
Ordained: - pre Entry
Died: 17 January 1647, Unknown

1626 ROM Catalogue Novice in Rome
1637 Catalogue Mediocre in all and choleric - has experience
Kildare Arch Journal Vol III p190

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Of the Morristown-Lattin family (cf Foley’s Collectanea)
1627 Came to Irish Mission
1642 Living and working in Dublin in disguise.
1643 Imprisoned
Named in two letters, Waterford 10 October 1642 and Galway 03 August 1643
Though many Priests and Religious had been seized and executed by Puritans, James Latin and two of his Brethren braved every danger and were indefatigable in consoling and assisting suffering Catholics.
In the postscript, of the first letter the writer had just received intelligence of Latin’s arrest and committal to gaol. In the second letter it says he was still in prison, and had been arrested in the street while on his way to administer the Sacrament of the Sick. (cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Already Ordained on Ent 08 April 1625 Rome
1627/28 Sent to Ireland and Dublin Residence after only eighteen months in Novitiate. He arrived in Rouen to get a passage to Ireland, but while there the Mission Superior Christopher Holywood asked him to head for Paris on some Irish Mission business. So it was probably around 1628 by the time he arrived in Dublin. Once there he stayed in Dublin and along with Thomas Quin and John Purcell, survived the expulsion of clergy there by the Puritans of 1641-1642. However, he was then arrested and thrown into prison, Autumn 1642 or Spring 1643, and was still in prison a year later. For a while in prison he was able to say Mass and receive visitors, but these privileges were eventually revoked.
He was still living 10 June, 1647 when he managed to say Mass but was after the consecration stripped him naked and scourged him in the presence of bystanders by parliamentarians who profaned the Sacred Species, but the bystanders out of compassion prevailed on the torturers to spare him further ill treatment.
It is likely that he died soon after. He is not mentioned in Verdier’s report 'of the mission in 1649
About ten years after his arrival on the Mission he came into a sizeable fortune, sufficient to found a Residence and support two Jesuits at Naas.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
LATIN, JAMES. All that I can gather concerning this zealous Father is from two letters, one dated from Waterford, (Manapia) 10th of October, 1642, the other from Galway, the 3rd of August, 1643. The first informs me, that though many Priests and Religious had been seized and executed by the Puritans, yet F. James Latin, and two of his Brethren braved every danger, and were indefatigable in assisting and consoling the Catholics groaning under Puritanical despotism. In the Postscript the writer says, he had just received intelligence of F. Latin s apprehension and commitment to gaol. The second States, that he was still a prisoner, and that he had been apprehended in the street in the act of proceeding to administer the sacraments to the sick.

2021 notes:
3 July 1614 James Lattin, youngest son of John Lattin & Alson Ashe from Morristown Lattin, Co. Kildare, was ordained in Rome. He joined the Jesuit order in 1625 and became a coadjutor in Dublin. He was arrested & deported in 1642 #localhistory

Born: 29 July 1931, Convent Road, Tullamore, County Offaly
Entered: 07 September 1950, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1964, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1967, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 09 January 1998, Chikuni, Zambia - Zambia-Malawi province (ZAM)

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

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 02 February 1967

Son of Mr Frank Lane Mrs Lane of Tullamore. Father was a commercial traveller.

Younger of two boys with two sisters.

Early education was with the Christian Brothers in Tullamore for nine years. He then went to UCD studying engineering for a year before entry.

by 1959 at Chivuna, Monze, N Rhodesia - studying language Regency

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Not long before Fr Bill Lane died, he was chatting with Fr Bob Kelly at St lgnatius, Lusaka. A young lady whom they both knew had died in a very sudden manner at U.T.H. Fr Bill remarked, ‘You know, Bob, that's the way I'd like to go, quickly and without fuss’. And that is the way it happened. 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’.

Bill was born in Tullamore, Co Offaly, Ireland in 1931. After school with the Christian Brothers, he went to Dublin University to study engineering for a year. At the end of that year he joined the Society in 1950. For his regency he was sent to Zambia and taught at Canisius for a year as well as learning ciTonga. After the usual course of studies, he was ordained priest in 1964 at Milltown Park, Dublin.

Returning to Zambia he worked in the Kasiya parish, then Mukasa Minor Seminary at Choma. From 1969 to 1973, he was education secretary in the diocese of Monze, responsible for a network of 80 primary schools. His organizing and administrative talents were recognized at this time. He was the last expatriate Education Secretary in the Monze diocese as the primary schools were handed back to Government.

Bill was moved to the Archdiocese of Lusaka. The late Fr Dominic Nchete asked, ‘Why are they moving our best men away from the diocese? Fr Lane knows how to work with our people’. He was asked to become secretary for communications (1978-85). He combined the job with the office of province bursar (1982-88). From 1990 until his untimely death, Bill worked for the Zambia Episcopal Conference first as secretary for catechetics and then as coordinator of the Bible apostolate.

Publishing was big in his life during all these years, to help people come to grips with Sacred Scripture, with methods of prayer and with the history of the Church in Zambia. His writing was clear and concise and very practical in the many booklets he produced. All Bill's activities were carried out with wit and good humour which made him a popular member of any group he was in. He could also be a devastating critic when aroused by what he considered hypocrisy. Bill considered himself to be politically incorrect in that he expressed his views honestly, rather than resort to making the right noises in the right places and he was aware that this did not enhance his chances for advancement through the hierarchy of the Society. In fact he never was a superior.

The number of people whose lives he touched was great indeed. He had a rare gift for reaching out to those whom others might have considered black sheep. His sensitivity to those who were ill at one time or another was another remarkable facet of his life. Bill was a gifted person who gave generously of his time and talents to the Church and people of Zambia for the forty years he worked in the country.

Throughout his years in Zambia, he preached and directed numerous retreats as well as helping at Kalundu Study Centre and in the Major Seminary. In his busy career he was always willing to help out in the parish, supplying Masses and other church services when needed. He was a good confessor and a no nonsense preacher.

Note from Fred Moriarty Entry
Fr Fred was a radio program coordinator. He recorded many programs in ciTonga and English for ZNBC. He coordinated with Fr Bill Lane and Fr Max Prokoph in this area.

Born: 23 December 1820, Ireland
Entered: 31 January 1844, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Died: 14 January 1847, St Inigo’s, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Milltown Park, Dublin

Born: 14 June 1848, Luxembourg
Entered: 31 May 1885, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Final Vows: 15 August 1895, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 02 March 1925, Milltown Park, Dublin

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was German by birth, born at Luxembourg and had fought at the Franco-German war.

He made his Novitiate at Dromore under John Colgan.
He was an excellent carpenter.
During the Great War he went for rest to Galway. The local police became aware of his presence and brought him to the station. He was disturbed by this incident and returned to Dublin the following day.
He died at Milltown 02 March 1925.

Born: 18 February 1919, Dublin City, County Dublin & Bray, County Wicklow
Entered: 16 September 1938, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1952, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1955, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 26 March 2019, Highfield Healthcare, Whitehall, Dublin

Part of the St Ignatius, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin community at the time of death.

Brother of Br Christopher J Laheen Ent 23/03/1940 - LEFT 24/04/1945

Parents are supported by private business. Family moved to Bray, County Wicklow and then back to Dublin.
Youngest of three boys with two sisters.
Early education was at Presentation College Bray. Then he went to Belvedere College SJ.

Born: 24 June 1916, Nephin Road, Cabra, Dublin
Entered: 23 March 1940, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 17 September 2012, Kerlogue Nursing Home, Rocksborough, Kerlogue, County Wexford

Left Society of Jesus: 24 April 1945

Christopher Joseph Thomas Laheen

Son of John Laheen and Elizabeth (Smyth), brother of Kevin A Laheen - RIP 2019. Parents were supported by private busines. Family moved to Bray, County Wicklow and then back to Dublin.

Educated at Presentation Brothers College Bray.

Before joining he was in business with his father and a brother in a boot mending business in Stoneybatter, Dublin as well as good experience in farming.

Baptised at the Holy Family, Aughrim Street, 30/06/1916
Confirmed at Holy Redeemer, Bray, by Dr Byrne of Dublin, 20/05/1930

1940-1942: St Mary's, Emo, Novitiate
1942-1945: Clongowes Wood College SJ, working

Address 2000: St Xavier’s, Station Road, Rosslare Harbour, County Wexford

https://rip.ie/death-notice/christopher-laheen-wexford-rosslare-harbour-165649

The death has occurred of

Christopher Laheen
Station Road, Rosslare Harbour, Wexford

Laheen (Station Road, Rosslare Harbour, Co. Wexford), September 17, 2012, at Kerlogue Nursing Home, Christopher, beloved husband of the late Eileen and father of John, Patrick and David;deeply regretted by his loving family, in-laws, grandchildren, great-granddaughter, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends. R. I. P. Reposing at Mulligans Funeral Home, The Faythe, Wexford from 11o’c, Tuesday with removal at 7o’c, to St Patrick’s Church Rosslare Harbour. Funeral Mass on Wednesday at 11o’c, burial afterwards in St. Aidan’s Cemetery Kilrane. Family flowers only. Donations in lieu if desired to Kerlogue Nursing Home.

Born: 14 January 1914, Diósgyőr, Borsod, Miskolc, Hungary
Entered: 30 July 1936, Hungariae Province (HUN)
Ordained: 08 June 1946, Shanghai, China
Professed: 15 August 1952
Died: 23 September 1990, Canossa Hospital, Hong Kong - Sinensis Province (CHN)

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

Transcribed HUN to ExOr; Applied ExOR to HK 1950
by 1949 came to Ricci Hall, Hong Kong (HIB) working 1949-1967

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Veteran China Watcher
Father Laszlo Ladányi Dies

Father Laszlo Ladányi S.J., veteran China watcher died of lung cancer on 23 September 1990 at the Canossa Hospital, Hong Kong, aged 76 years.

Laszlo Ladányi was born in Hungary in 1914. He later graduated from the University of Budapest and he also received training in the violin at the Music Academy in Budapest. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 22 and arrived in Beijing, China in 1939. He was later transferred to Shanghai where he was ordained to the priesthood in 1946. In mid 1949, Fr. Ladányi came to Hong Kong and was appointed chaplain to university students at the Ricci Hall.

In 1953 Fr. Ladányi founded the China News Analysis (CNA) in Hong Kong, a weekly and later a fortnightly newsletter. Ever since then, he worked as Editor to this publication for the following 30 years. The main purpose of the CNA is to keep missionary circles informed of Mainland China’s developments. The CNA is widely subscribed by those who are interested in the Mainland China affairs.

In 1982, the editorship of the China News Analysis was passed over to the present team of Jesuit priests, but Fr. Ladnay was still deeply engaged in his China studies up to the time he was admitted to Hospital last month.

The funeral took place at 10am on 26 September with a Mass of the Resurrection concelebrated by his Jesuit confreres and friends at St. Margaret’s Church, Happy Valley, Hong Kong. He was buried in the St. Michael’s Catholic Cemetery.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 5 October 1990

In Memory of Father Laszlo Ladany, S.J.
R.I.P.

On 23 September 1990, 9:35am, our beloved Father Ladányi left this world. My mother phoned me from Hong Kong, weeping, and informed me about his death. As soon as the news came, the Chinese Catholics in America passed the information round and all expressed their affection and remembrance of him, as well as their sorrow and prayer for him…

Father Ladányi was a Hungarian, ordained priest in China in 1946. When he was a missionary in China, he already had deep love for China. After mainland China was taken over by the Communists, he was expelled and sent to Hong Kong. He always wanted to be near China and so he stayed in Hong Kong and began his work there. Diligently, spending 40 years as one day, he studied the problem of China with total dedication. In this way, he worked silently for the Church in China to the end of his life.

He was an outstanding political observer. He had a unique understanding of the problem of China. No one could match him for penetrating understanding, foresight, the depth and width of his study in the problem of China. He was a gifted writer, scholar and commentator. He wrote many analyses about China and the present and past situation of the Church in China. His sources made his information very accurate, looking at the question from every angle and written with simple precision so that his Analysis became an essential source of information for others and had much authority. All the Embassies bought and used his China News Analysis for reference. Libraries throughout the world have his writings, which are of the greatest historical value.

But, we are not only commemorating his outstanding work or his life, but paying tribute to his heart which really understood, loved and sympathised with the Church in China - this heart was precious as gold and as bright and crystal-clear as water. This is what we most cherish today and find most worthy of remembrance. His clear and firm stand-point and views always harmonised with the spirit of the faithful Church in China. His sense of Justice, experience and solid knowledge of the facts, moved him to speak from a sense of Justice. He never left anything unsaid which he knew could be said and he always said everything without fear of human respect. He worked with dedication and spoke up for the faithful Church in China. His heart beat as one with the faithful Church in China. He was the intimate companion of the faithful Church in China, and the good understanding teacher and friend of the faithful Church in China.

In the 1950’s the Catholic Church in mainland China was severely crushed. Bishop Kung of Shanghai was arrested. Many priests and Catholics were imprisoned. Only a few Catholic had the chance to flee abroad. It was he, the good shepherd, who organised these exiled sheep, cared for them, gave them guidance in their spiritual life and helped them to keep their faith. When the Trappist Monastery in Yang Jai-ping was persecuted, some of the monks fled to Hong Kong. It was he, their spiritual brother, who consoled them and later helped them to build the monastery and restore their community life.

When my younger sister became very sick in Shanghai Prison, she was allowed to leave the prison for medical treatment and died a year later. It was father Ladányi who crossed to Kowloon during the night to console my sorrowful parents. It was he who always opened wide his arms to embrace with affection the suffering Chinese Catholics. In his simple office, he used to talk intimately with these exiled faithful so that they might enjoy the warmth of a family spirit.

When I arrived Hong Kong in 1979, I carried within myself all the wounds as well as a loving memory of the faithful Church in China. He said to me; “Write it down! Write it down as soon as possible!” I said reluctantly, “I have been imprisoned for so long, I don’t know how to write freely. Also, I have no experience in writing.” He said very earnestly: “Write! When you begin to write, as you go along, you will discover how to write!” So with his encouragement, I finished writing the book entitled “Catholic Children in the Labour Camp” within half a year.

I visited him in his office a number of times, listening to all he had to say. He spoke Mandarin perfectly, sometimes mixed with a few sentences of Cantonese. There was no difference of nationality between us. Sometimes when I saw him two hands trembling because of his sickness, I wanted to give him a helping hand but he always made every effort to arrange everything himself. Sometimes when I saw his desk was in disorder and wanted to put in order for him, he would said, “Not necessary. I am accustomed to it.” Yes, even if your desk was disordered, this would not affect your clear mind and thinking, nor your keen eye-sight. His tall, thin frame conveyed an impression of profound wisdom. His ageing face expressed the warm affection of his heart. It would not be easy to find another good missionary like him, an understanding priest!

Good-bye, Father Ladányi! Best wishes for your journey. The memory of you will never fade from our hearts. But now, your long journey, this important long journey, has made us in this world, think so much of you and your life.

You are another Father Lebbe, the glory of missionaries. May you still continue from Heaven, to protect the Church in China. Bless our faithful brothers and sisters who are still suffering now, who are crushed to the ground and are not understood! Bless those who are exiled in other countries, waiting for the mercy of God to re-establish the Church in China.
By Ho Hoi-ling from America
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 9 November 1990

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He was a scholar who published many articles and books which include :
“The Catholic Church in China” (Freedom Press, New York 1987); “The Communist Part of China and Marxism : A Self-Portrait” (Hoover Institute Press, Stanford, 1988); “Law and Legality in China : The Testament of a China-Watcher” (Hurst, London, 1992).

His books are scholarly and influential to the study of modern and contemporary China.

Note from Alan Birmingham Entry
He was the Editor of the “Sunday Examiner” for almost 33 years (1957-1991). For more than twenty years he edited the English writings of László Ladányi in the “China News Analysis”

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 64 : Easter 1991
DEATH OF A CHINA-WATCHER - Fr Laszlo Ladany
Jurgen Domes

For several decades, Hungarian Jesuit Fr Laszlo Ladany edited in Hong Kong his China News Analysis: the publication attempted, by comparing different versions of official reports, by noting omissions and changes, to outline the true trajectory of events within China. He died on 23rd September, 1990, and is recalled in a commemorative issue of the periodical (kindly sent by Michel Massan, S.J.).

Robert Elegant, journalist, writes:
He was very proud and fiercely defensive of his work. He had contempt for journalists who rewrote his reports under their own names. Still, he had pity for those, sometimes the same individuals, who could not make the intellectual and imaginative jump that would enable them to see what was happening in China with the same clarity he did.

That incapacity was particularly marked during the Cultural Revolution, which, as we later discovered, outdid in horror even our most daring reports. Nonetheless only four professional China Watchers came close to the true story: Laszlo Ladany in the van; Burton Levin of the American Foreign Service, later Ambassador to Burma; Knobby Clark of the Regional Information Office; and myself with Ladany's guidance. Almost everyone else first believed that Chairman Mao Zedong had everything under control - and later refused to believe the enormity of the cataclysm.

Simone de Beauvoir called him “a fanatic anti-communist full of hatred”. After many accusations in the same vein, Han Suyin eventually remembered him as her “Hong Kong Jesuit Friend”, “tall and dignified and admirably versed in Chinese”, “owner of uncommon intellect” who spoke “with eloquence and restraint” and had “humour, zest and knowledge”.

For the many sycophants and apologists of totalitarian communist dictatorship in American and West European Contemporary China Studies, he was hardly quotable. They tried to ignore him as much as possible. But for all of us who ventured the attempt to develop a distanced and sober view of the Peoples' Republic of China, he had assumed an unprecedented prestige as a China scholar. Indeed he was the dean of the international trade which observes contemporary politics in the Peoples Republic of China.

With Fr. Ladany, we lose a brilliant analyst, a steadfast Christian, and warm-hearted friend.

For almost forty years of continuous observation of the developments on the Chinese mainland, thirty years of which were dedicated to the regular publication of China News Analysis, he succeeded in submitting, with very few exceptions, a correct and precise picture of the Peoples' Republic of China as well as projections of her future perspectives which have proven much more often right than wrong. When thinking back, we remember that he was the first among the very few observers who, at that time, realized that the “Great Leap Forward” resulted in economic chaos, and in the greatest famine in this century. In January 1967, he suggested that the military leaders in the provinces were the men to watch in the following years. And in his last conceptual January edition of China News Analysis entitled “Deja Vu”, he drew the first comparison between the developing features of communist collapse and the final years of Kuomintang rule on the Chinese mainland.

What made him so correct in his descriptions and so reliable in his analysis? Three observations provide the answer to this question. First, he knew China and the Chinese very well. His sovereign command of Chinese among altogether eight languages which he spoke fluently gave him access to all available sources including the extremely important interviews with recent refugees from the Peoples' Republic of China. Second, he had a firm and deep understanding of Marxism-Leninism. Philosophically trained, he had developed the ability to divest the communist ideology of its fallacious prophecies and to penetrate the rosy fog of the doctrine to unveil the realities of totalitarian rule. Third, he had a deep compassion for humanity, for the joys, trials and tribulations which affect human beings everywhere in the world.

These three elements produced his unique analytical approach, the method of qualitative content analysis which is based on rigid and uncompromising Textkritik.

But apart from his fundamental contribution to the understanding of China, he was also a wonderful person. While never propagandizing his Christian beliefs in a patronizing manner, his life as a Christian has been convincing for many and decisive for some.

Hence, we have lost a great scholar and a passionate man. Hong Kong changed, and the international community of China specialists changed when God called him. It is a small consolation in this moment of grief that Fr Ladany could still be alive when his Hungarian motherland was liberated from Communism.

Entered: Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)
Died: 05 December 1705, Irish College, Poitiers, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)

Born: 11 May 1906, Northcote, Melbourne, Australia
Entered: 08 March 1925, Loyola, Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained 30 June 1940, Liverpool, England
Professed: 02 February 1979
Died: 19 March 1991, St Xavier’s, Bokaro Steel City, Hazaribag, Jharkhand, India - Ranchiensis Province (RAN)

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

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :

Note from Francis Keogh Entry :
His death was keenly felt by those who served under him, especially at Sevenhill. Mr Lachal there wrote “He was the kindest of Superiors, a real father to the Novices, keeping a particularly keen eye on their health. I wish I had Father Rector’s ticket to heaven, Father Master once said to his Novices.’

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Lou Lachal received his early education at the local parish school and his secondary education at Xavier College, Kew, where his father had been before him. Though he excelled perhaps more in sports than in studies, he graduated in 1924 with honours in French and Latin in the final examinations.
In March 1925 he joined the Jesuits at Greenwich, Sydney, and in 1927 he went to Rathfarnham for his juniorate studies, gaining a BA from the National University of Ireland. Philosophy studies followed in France, and he did regency at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, from 1933. He was rowing master among other things, and received a reprimand from the general for allowing the boys to mix with non-Catholics in the rowing sheds!
Theology studies followed at Naples, Italy, but World War II broke out and he moved to Liverpool in 1940 with a letter of commendation to any bishop to ordain him. He was ordained in Liverpool, completed his theology at Heythrop, Oxford, and then spent a few months caring for the needs of working class people in the city of Glasgow, Scotland.
Towards the end of 1941 Lachal returned to Australia via the Panama Canal. He was once again sent to Riverview. Tertianship at Loyola College, Watsonia, followed in 1945, after which he taught for two years at St Patrick's College. He worked in the parish of Richmond in 1948. He enjoyed his time there, and they appreciated the tall, strong, modest, pipe-smoking priest who could he relied upon for service at any time of day or night.
Lachal was among the first Australian Jesuits assigned to the mission in the Hazarihag region of India in 1951. He was 45 years old at the time, and was to spend another 40 years in India. He found Hindi studies difficult, but could generally make himself understood. His good humor and friendliness did the rest. Soon after arrival in India he became involved with direct missionary work at Chandwa, then one of the two parishes in the district of Palamau.
Later, he became parish priest of the Chechai region, which stretched for 130 miles, and then at Mahuadanr, followed by Hazaribag, Chandwa, Bhurkunda and Bokaro Steel City
Wherever he worked, his constant aim was first to provide an adequate education system, followed by health and other development projects to uplift poor people.
One of his greatest triumphs was setting up the Christian Centre at Bokaro Steel City in the vanguard of the ecumenical movement, Lachal proposed the Christian Centre as his
solution to the problem of how to share one small piece of real estate allotted by the Steele Authority to no less than ten groups all claiming to be Christian.
He was a caring father to all Jesuits in the Hazaribag diocese and to religious and lay people all over the Daltonganj diocese. Many sought his wise advice, encouragement and
companionship. People meant much to Lachal. He was a great conversationalist with a quick wit. In addition, he wrote thousands of letters, especially to the mission's friends and
supporters in Australia, assuring them of his interest and concern.
Lachal, commonly known as 'Lou', was greatly loved, respected and trusted by everyone, Jesuits and lay friends alike. He had a strong, outgoing personality, a man of immense charm, wisdom and optimism. His life was characterised by his availability to people anywhere at any time. He was rarely seen alone, he always had people around him. He had a solid, simple spirituality with a great devotion to Our Lady. He was regularly seen saying the Rosary, or heard singing Marian hymns during Mass. He regularly said two public Masses a day, even when he could only travel by rickshaw. When asked what he had been doing, he jokingly said that he had been “witnessing”, a constant feature of his long and happy life.