Item 1702 - Br John McElroy SJ

Born: 01 May 1812, Tydavnet, County Monaghan
Entered: 01 October 1840, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final vows: 15 August 1859
Died: 15 January 1894, Boston, MA, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Part of the Holy Cross College, Worcester, MA, USA community at the time of death.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 98 : Autumn 1998

Obituary

Fr John McElroy (1782-1877)

As we remember the 1798 Rebellion it is interesting to note that there is a Jesuit connection with this event. It is not well known that John McElroy, (1782 - 1877) who later became a Jesuit and founder and first President of Boston College, was a part of the Rebellion.

This is a summary of his entry in the Dictionary of American biography. Boston College itself knows of his early life. Fr. Frank Mackin, SJ, at Boston College would be grateful for any information.

John McElroy was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, where according to the Dictionary of American Biography, he obtained a scant education in a hedge school. The Dictionary goes on: 'A gigantic fellow, wiry, and red faced, he spoke with the nasal twang of Ulster and committed treason with the Presbyterian United Irishmen.'

Like many of the United Irishmen he had to leave Ireland and went on a flax ship to Baltimore where he began a business in Georgetown. After a conversion experience he joined the Society as a brother in 1806. Eventually he decided to be a priest and was ordained in 1817. McElroy build a church at Liberty in 1828, another new church of St. John at Frederick, an orphanage under the Institute which at one time rivalled Georgetown. McElroy also became famous as a preacher and mission giver, and he conducted the first clerical retreat in the Boston diocese. He was the favourite preacher for many an episcopal ordination, cornerstone ceremony, and anniversary.

In 1846 McElroy served in Taylor's army as a chaplain during the Mexican War. The Dictionary of American Biography says that “He won the soldiers' favour and became a living argument to the Mexicans that the war was not being waged against their Catholic religion”.

After the war McElroy was assigned to St. Mary's Church in north Boston by Bishop Fitzpatrick who found the “congregation fractious”' As the first Jesuit pastor in Boston and as Rector of the largest Catholic Church in Boston, he became an influential leader in the city. Even at the age of 78 he went through vexatious litigation in order to purchase lands to found Boston College in 1860. McElroy died in 1877 when he was the oldest Jesuit alive in the world.

In September this year I attended a function at Boston College at which the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, launched a programme to train the new Assembly members in the art of governnient at Boston College.

At this event I certainly felt the paradoxical presence of Fr. John McElroy, SJ from Enniskillen who left Ireland after 'committing treason' in the 1798 Rising!