Born: 30 April 1917, Bank of Ireland House, Charleville, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1935, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1949, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 08 December 1976, Hong Kong
Died: 02 July 1989, St Paul’s Hospital, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong - Macau-Hong Kong Province (MAC-HK)

Part of the Wah Yan College, Hong Kong community at the time of death

Father was a Bank Manager and died in April 1917. Mother then lived at Ashdale Road, Terenure

Youngest of four boys with two sisters

Early education at the Christian Brothers in Bagenalstown, at 12 ears of age he went to Clongowes Wood College SJ.

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966
◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Cyril Barrett Died after Long Illness, S.J.
R.I.P.

Father Cyril Barrett, SJ, died in St. Paul’s Hospital, Causeway Bay, after a long illness, very bravely on Sunday, 2 July 1989.

The late Father Cyril J. Barrett, SJ. was born in Charleville, Co. Cork Ireland in 30 April 1917. He was educated in Clongowes Wood College and in 1935 he entered the Jesuit Order. He finished his academic studies and professional training in 1951 and in that year came to Hong Kong where he has lived and worked since then.

At first he was assigned to study Chinese (Cantonese) for two years and then went to Wah Yan College, Hong Kong at first as a teacher, then in 1954 became Prefect of Studies, in 1956 he was appointed Rector and Principal. In 1962 he went to Ricci Hall Studies, in 1956 he was appointed Rector and Principal. In 1962 he went to Ricci Hall where he was Warden until 1969 and during this time Ricci Hall, with minimal dislocation to the residents was totally rebuilt, and Father Barrett was very busily engaged in the fund raising for this new project. In 1970 he returned to Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, as Principal where he continued until 1982. Since then he has in 1983 received an honorary doctorate “Doctor of Social Science” from the University of Hong Kong, and has busied himself with making contact, either in person or through letters with practically every former Wah Yan Student studying abroad. He made long trips to Australia, the United States and Canada, and the United Kingdom, visiting secondary schools and Universities and other higher educational institutions, and there meeting with the Wah Yan past students.

In the past five years he has known that he has a serious cancer condition and other debilitating illnesses. He has suffered a great deal, but was always trying to lead as normal a life as possible. In summer 1988 he went to Ireland on holiday and returned to Hong Kong even though most of his friends thought the journey would be too much for his greatly weakened condition. Since then he has been almost continually in hospital, getting gradually weaker. Until finally on 2 July 1989 he died.

All through his life he was interested in many other matters besides education. He was a dedicated bird watcher and an occasional helper in archaeological digs in the New Territories. He was a fairly constant writer of letters to the papers on matters connected with education.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 7 July 1989

◆ 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 the son of a banker and received his early education in Bagenalstown County Carlow and then at Clongowes Wood College.
In his Jesuit studies he graduated BA at UCD, then spent three years studying Philosophy at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg.
He was then sent to teach at Belvedere College SJ for Regency.
He then went to Milltown Park for four years Theology, followed by a year making Tertianship at Rathfarnham Castle.

1951-1953 He came to Hong Kong and spent two years at Xavier House, Cheung Chau, studying Cantonese.
1953 He began his long connection with Wah Yan College Hong Kong, as a teacher, educationalist and Principal. In 1983 he was awarded a Doctorate of Social Science by the University of Hong Kong, in recognition of his contribution to Hong Kong society. He set up the Wah Yan Post-Secondary Education Trust Fund, set up to award scholarships to former students wishing to study overseas. At the same time he had a keen interest in the archaeology of the New Territories.
He was a regular contributor to the newspapers and a keen campaigner for the Anti-smoking movement in Hong Kong.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1989

Obituary

Father Cyril Barrett SJ

Those who were in Belvedere between 1943 and 1946 will remember Mr Barrett, as he then was. Cyril spent most of his life working in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, and he leaves behind him golden memories of his exceptional capacity for personal friendship and his enormous commitment to Hong Kong and to Wah Yan in particular. On his retirement from the position of Principal of Wah Yan in 1982, the University of Hong Kong conferred an honorary doctorate on him in recognition of the work he had done for education at all levels. Stricken by cancer, he paid a final visit to Belvedere in the summer of 1988, when he was unfortunately too weak to explore the new buildings which have arisen here since his years as a scholastic forty years ago. Few of his Hong Kong brothers thought he would ever return but Cyril Barrett had no intention of dying away from the land he had made his own. He died there on 2nd July 1989.

◆ The Clongownian, 1989

Obituary

Father Cyril J Barrett SJ

The late Fr Cyril J Barrett, was born in Charleville, Co Cork, Ireland on 30th April, 1917. He was educated in Clongowes Wood College and in 1935 he entered the Jesuit Order. He finished his academic studies and professional training in 1951 and in that year came to Hong Kong where he has lived and worked since then.

At first he was assigned to study Chinese (Cantonese) for two years and then went to Wah Yan College, Hong Kong at first as a teacher, then in 1954 became Prefect of Studies, in 1956 he was appointed Rector and Principal. In 1962 he went to Ricci Hall where he was Warden until 1969 and during this time Ricci Hall, with minimal dislocation to the residents, was totally rebuilt, and Fr Barrett was very busily engaged in the fundraising for this new project. In 1970 he returned to Wah Yan College, Hong Kong, as Principal where he continued until 1982. Since then in 1983 received an honorary doctorate “Doctor of Social Science” from the University of Hong Kong, and busied himself with making contact, either in person or through letters with practically every former Wah Yan student studying abroad. He made long trips to Australia, the United States and Canada, and the United Kingdom, visiting secondary schools and universities and other higher educational institutions, and there meeting with the Wah Yah past students.

All through his life he was interested in many other matters besides education. He was a dedicated bird watcher, and an occasional helper in archaeological digs in the New Territories. He was a fairly constant writer of letters to the papers on matters connected with education.

Born: 23 March 1821, Carlisle, Cumberland, England / County Tyrone
Entered: 17 September 1845, St Mary’s, Montreal, Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 15 August 1854, New York, NY, USA
Final Vows: 15 August 1861
Died: 08 May 1904, Hôpital Saint-Jean-de-Dieu, Longue-Pointe, Montréal, Québec, Canada - Canadensis Province Province (CAN)

part of the Collège Sainte-Marie, Montréal, Canada co0mmunity at the time of death

Born in Carlisle, England of Irish parents and brought up in County Tyrone. Emigrated to with family to Canada in the 1830’s.

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 34, Number 1

Obituary

“Father Richard Baxter SJ” p167

Father Baxter, born at Carlisle in England on March 28th 1821, was of Irish parentage and received his early training at Tyrone. His father had there enlisted in the 15th Foot Infantry - Cromwell's Own - and afterwards became a convert to the Faith. The future missionary caught, and through life retained, some traits from the medium in which he was
brought up. An erect, soldierly bearing, joined to frankness of manner and directness of speech; the laconic answer ever ready, set off with a rich vein of humor, opened for him the way to hearts and disarmed prejudice. His mother, from the city of Limerick, was a woman of remarkable piety and her influence and example left an indelible impression on his character. It showed itself to his latest years in an almost exaggerated reverence for womanhood, always giving the place of honor, and when remarked on he would say: “How can I forget the Blessed Virgin and my own mother”.

He was gifted with a strong and healthy constitution which he loved in college to exhibit by athletic feats and sometimes by pugilistic encounters, in which he was seldom worsted, but particularly in his long and indefatigable missionary journeys. "God gave me good legs" he would say “and I can do nothing better than use them for his glory”.

In the third decade of the last century young Baxter came to Canada with his father and the other members of the family and settled near Barrie, Ont., where a sister still survives. He began his studies in Toronto and completed his classical course in the Montreal College in 1845. In September of that year he entered the Jesuit Novitiate, then but recently established in Montreal. It was opened at the Rodier residence on St Antoine St, now replaced by a more imposing and academic structure.

Our missionary as well as the other members of the Order who enjoyed the hospitality of that distinguished family, never tired relating on the proofs of kindness they had received from its members.

In 1847 the young religious made the ordinary Jesuit vows at Fordham, NY. His first ministry was a professorship in a grammar class in the college, which was opened that year in Elizabeth Street, New York. When this institution was transferred to more commodious quarters in Fifteenth Street, in 1849, the young professor moved with it. He began his career under the direction of that distinguished priest and famous educator, Father Larkin, who had been professor at the Montreal College, but entering the Society of Jesus, founded in New York the present St Francis Xavier's College, and became a noted preacher and orator. The young teacher was appointed by him to a class of French, and such was the enthusiasm he excited for that particular branch that mothers complained that their boys since they came under Mr Baxter, would only talk to them at home in French. He completed his theological studies at Fordham, in 1854, and on the feast of the Assumption, in the same year he was raised to priesthood by Bishop Loughlin of Brooklyn.

The fresh apostle then started out on an active career of fifty years, over forty of which were to be spent along the Great Lakes within the limits of what is now known as New Ontario. After some time in Troy, NY, where the Jesuits where then engaged in parish work and preaching, in August 1863 he was sent to Sault Saint Marie. During eighteen months he travelled continually along the shores of Georgian Bay and in the present diocese of Marquette, saying Mass in the houses of the settlers, baptizing children, blessing marriages, and giving missions in the white centres of population. In these apostolic works he spent five or six years in the neighborhood of Garden River and the Sault. Here with Brother Reardon he dug the foundations of the church of the Sacred Heart, which Bishop Jamot had just begun to erect, and is now the titular church of the Diocese of Sault Saint Marie. In 1871, we find him in the ministry in Guelph and a few months later in Troy.

During the summer of 1872, he went to Prince Arthur's Landing at the head of Lake Superior. In a letter to the writer of these pages, Father Baxter mentions a few interesting details. “I had everything to begin on my mission at Port Arthur, when I landed there on the fourth of June, 1872. I said Mass in several buildings and sheds, and in Mr Dawson's house, alongside Flaherty's hotel. I finally secured a house, now at the point opposite the depot of the new railway - Port Arthur, Duluth and Western Railway. I had hard work in erecting St Andrew's church. Mr Dawson's Glengarry men gave me a hundred dollars. That start procured the Scotch titular for the church, which was burnt down and rebuilt immediately”.

The modest pioneer says nothing of the popularity he soon acquired among all classes of that place. He was looked upon as one of the town's valuable assets, and his figure with long beard and straw hat, held the foreground in all the photo's of the booming town. Wives would not follow their husbands to the north shore till assured there was a priest and church for themselves and a Catholic school for their children. Business stifled bigotry in those days.

The dedication of the Church, which was a great event in the young town, was shared in by all, the ladies mostly Protestants, improvised a choir - the motu proprio had not yet appeared - and a decorating committee, while the more prominent officials held places of honor. The occasion was splendid for one of Father Baxter's characteristic traits and uncompromising disposition. After the execution of the Gloria he turned around at the altar to preach the sermon from the text: Out of the church no Salvation. Needless to say the sermon was a forcible one, and from another might have given offence; but from Fr Baxter it was good form and is yet spoken of. “A nice trick” said a prominent citizen on meeting him next day “to invite us all to your church and assistance and then turn on us and send us to ---- in that fashion”.' “'But”' said the priest '”could I show you my gratitude in any better way than, when you were on the wrong road, by warning you”.

Those were the days of the silver excitement, when the precious metal was taken out in such quantities from the solitary islet under the shadow of Thunder Cape, the Sleeping Giant of the Otchipways. Father Baxter was the miners' missionary. “I had often and long to visit and stay at Silver Islet”,' he writes. “I added something to the church built by Captain Frew, and the addition served for cooking, etc. I visited all around Isle Royale and McCargoe's cove, nearly opposite Silver Islet. At other times, I went to the mines over the mountains.....” Father Baxter ministered to the miners' spiritual wants until the flooding of the Silver Islet mine compelled the owners to cease operations indefinitely.

He was, at the same time, the missionary of the workmen employed in the construction of the Dawson route, the highway that was to link the prairies to Lake Superior. When that enterprise was discontinued and the building of the railway from Fort William to Winnipeg was undertaken by the Government, in 1875, Father Baxter started out on his career as a railway missionary. He travelled from camp to camp with his chapel on his back, and said Mass for the natives on Sundays and holidays. Many instances of his charity are still fresh in the memory of the people of Fort William. Let us give one example. When the grading of the new railway had extended fifty or sixty miles west of Thunder Bay, scurvy, familiarly known as “black leg”, spread among the workmen. It was not a rare sight to see the old missionary trudging that long distance over the swampy country with a bag of potatoes on his back, solely to provide vegetable food for stricken men.

Several times he had to swim across streams to carry the consolations of religion to the injured and dying during those strenuous years. He built the church at West Fort William and called it the Nativity, because, as he tells us, the first Mass was celebrated in it on Christmas night. He made his headquarters in the little house in the rear, and there he retired after his long tiring journeys for a few days of well-earned rest. But the holy missionary found his rest in prayer. A light burning in the church one morning at two o'clock betrayed his presence at the foot of the altar.

That God was pleased to show the efficacy of his prayers we have several proofs. A couple of instances will suffice. An abscess was eating away the life of one of his flock, a young woman of West Fort William. The physicians had abandoned her case as hopeless, upon which the confiding sufferer recommended herself with earnestness to the prayers of Father Baxter. The good missionary betook himself immediately to the church and did not leave it for hours. Next day the patient was out of danger. These details were given to the writer ten years after by the woman herself, who attributed the saving of her life solely to the prayers of the holy priest.

On another occasion the missionary was called to the bedside of a dying woman in the township of Murillo, a few miles west of Fort William. Finding the patient better, and on the way to recovery apparently, he decided not to administer the Last Sacraments. After having reached nearly home, on his return journey, he was impelled by some influence to return immediately to the sick home. He started over the dreary road a second time. When he reached the house it was far into the night. He found the woman on the point of death. After he had given her Extreme Unction, she breathed her last. A consoling fact in connection with this holy man's career is that, notwithstanding the distances, very often hundreds of miles, he had to cover, and the difficulties he had to overcome, no one in his immense district ever died without the Sacraments; this district extended over a territory six hundred miles in length. It is tangible proof that the old priest's guardian angel kept a diligent watch over his ministry.

In 1881, the last stage of his remarkable career began. The newly formed Canadian Pacific Railway Company undertook the construction of the road along the north shore of Lake Superior, and a period of activity unparalleled in modern enterprise opened up. Thousands of men were sent to tunnel out mountains of granite and to bridge those rivers and streams that rush into the lake. Father Baxter was the missionary sent to live with the workmen. He shared their food and their hardships during the years of construction. He followed their camps from point to point, and in his journeys twice narrowly escaped drowning. While crossing a stream near Nepignon, the ice gave way, precipitating the old missionary into the water. His strong lungs did him good service on the occasion; but he was submerged nearly a couple of hours before he was rescued. When asked how he got out of the water, he simply replied : “Head first”. He was chilled through on that occasion, but apparently none the worse for his wintry bath.

Father Baxter stayed in the construction camps until the road was completed. When the workmen employed in the building of the road disappeared, a fresh element came in. Regular trains started to run across the continent and his ministry began among the employees of the railway from Chapleau to Bonheur, the western limit of the diocese of Peterboro. He built churches for their use at the divisional points of Schreiber and White River, and later, a third one at East Fort William.

The completion of the railway did not lighten the burdens of his ministry. He travelled continually up and down the lake shore, living more than half his time on the trains. It mattered little what kind of conveyance led to his destination. Freight cars, locomotives, hand cars, as well as colonist and first-class coaches were patronized by him. He had a particular distaste for Pullmans, giving as his reason that he liked fresh air too well to be cooped up in pillows and cushions. During the last five years of his stay on the Canadian Pacific his mileage record ran into the hundreds of thousands. Those were the years of the development of the road, when slow trains, wearing delays and hardships innumerable were the lot of travellers. He went from station to station and said Mass for the Catholics, rarely spending more than two days at one place. The incommodities of this kind of life were many and bitter. “When there is a family at a siding”, he wrote to the author of this “there is generally a means of having a bed there”. Not always however; for he wrote again recalling his own experiences : “If your Reverence uses more judgment than I did, the want of sleep and cold waiting rooms will not give you as much annoyance as they gave me”.

Father Baxter's affability and his readiness to render a service, no matter how painful, made him beloved by the railway employees and their families. The old man, laden with chapel and sacks which, as we learned from one of his flock, would prevent him from entering anything smaller than a flat car, was always a welcome figure, in his threadbare cassock and well-worn hat. The little children looked for him, for they knew his pockets were filled with candies and toys.

Three times he narrowly escaped being killed in accidents on the railway. One of these episodes he kept vividly ever after in his mind. He was on the baggage car when the train left the track at McKenzie station. The missionary was found under a pile of trunks, and escaped with a few bruises. Later, when he was asked how he succeeded in getting out of the wreck so easily. “Through the door”, was the prompt reply.

The weight of years, and the fatigues of this nomadic life, kept up for so many years, began at last to tell on the vigorous frame of the old priest, and it was felt that the time had come to relieve him of. some of his burdens. In 1893, his superiors sent him to Sault Ste Marie, Mich., where he remained three years, and then back to Port Arthur - both scenes of his former activity. He was now eighty-two years of age, and the state of his health was becoming precarious. He returned to Montreal, where his religious life was begun, to prepare himself in retirement for the moment when he was to go to meet the Master he had served so well. That moment came three years later, May 8, 1904, and the old man carrying with him the merits of fifty-nine years in the Society of Jesus, and fifty years of priesthood, entered into his reward.

The solemn moment of his death had been before him for years; when it came, it did not find him unprepared. In his writings, found after his death, it is remarkable how frequent the value of time, and the right use we should make of it, comes under his pen. Here are a few of the maxims which were the watchwords of his life: “Time flies”; “Time is like a dream”; “Nothing is more precious than time”; “Time is given us to serve and glorify God;” We meet these truths, eloquent in their simplicity, in almost every page of his private papers. In a letter sympathising with a family, bereaved through a railway accident at Gravel River, he writes: “So many accidents on land and water! We should often say the Litanies. From a sudden and unprovided death, Good Lord deliver us”. In another letter, written after his retirement, he writes: “Let us often think of our Father and our eternal home, which, I hope, will be a happy one for all of us, and where we can sing our Father's praises for all eternity. It is really a pleasure to hear the notes of our organ and the singing of our choir. It makes me think of heaven. Earthly pleasures soon cease. The many and sudden deaths along the line ought to make us seriously think of eternity. This should not make us sad or miserable; but ·it should make us act reasonably, as becomes God's children. We have time in order to prepare for eternity”. These extracts give us the clue to the inner circle of the soul of one of the heroes of the Ontario missions, who, in his long career, had in view only the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

(From E J Devine in “The Canadian Messenger”)

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/baxter_richard_13F.html

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

BAXTER, RICHARD (in later life he sometimes signed Richard Xavier Baxter), Roman Catholic priest and Jesuit; b. 28 March 1821 in Carlisle, England, second son of Samuel Baxter and Mary Anne Bennis, both natives of Ireland; d. 8 May 1904 in Montreal.

Richard Baxter’s father worked as a military tailor in England and Ireland, and after the family immigrated to Barrie, Upper Canada, around 1830, he likely continued his trade as a civilian. In Barrie he and the four children converted to Catholicism, the religion of his wife. Love of reading and piety characterized the Baxter home. Young Richard, who had begun his education in Ireland, attended school in Toronto before enrolling in classical studies at the Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice in Montreal, where his extracurricular activities included contact sports such as boxing. Upon graduation in 1845 he entered the newly established Jesuit noviciate in Montreal on 17 September as the order’s first English-speaking novice in Canada.

In 1847 he was sent to New York City. After taking his first vows there, he taught grammar and French for four years at a boys’ school opened by Father John Larkin*. He then studied theology at St Francis Xavier College until his ordination to the priesthood on 15 Aug. 1854. Two years of teaching at St John’s College, now Fordham University, ended his academic career (except for further study in Montreal in 1859–60). He would take his final vows in the order on 15 Aug. 1861.

Father Baxter’s pastoral career began in 1856 at Troy, N.Y. Seven years later he was posted to the Jesuit mission at Garden River, Upper Canada [see Frederic Baraga*]. His large size, physical stamina, driving energy, and ready wit made him well suited for the frontier, as did his fluency in English and French and his familiarity with Ojibwa. Except for visits to Troy and to Guelph, Ont., in 1871–72 and in 1878–79, he would spend the rest of his working life in the Georgian Bay and Lake Superior region. At his first missionary posting he celebrated mass, taught catechism, and performed baptisms, marriages, and funerals for settlers there and at Bruce Mines, Serpent River, and Sault Ste Marie, Mich. Travelling usually by boat or on foot, he always wore the voluminous black cassock of his order and carried packsacks containing a portable altar, vestments, altar cloths, candles, and other necessities.

In June 1872 Baxter was transferred to his second posting, Thunder Bay, where he would remain until 1893. Before his arrival in the district, the small group of Catholics at Prince Arthur’s Landing (later Port Arthur and now Thunder Bay, Ont.) had been served by occasional visits from Father Dominique Du Ranquet, a Jesuit posted to the Indian mission of the Immaculate Conception on the Kaministiquia River [see Nicolas-Marie-Joseph Frémiot*]. Baxter himself spent a good deal of his time until 1876 at Silver Islet, which was becoming an important mining centre, and from there visited neighbouring mining communities such as Isle Royale (Mich.), Silver Harbour, and Vert Island. He ministered regularly at Prince Arthur’s Landing, saying mass at the house of engineer Simon James Dawson until a church was erected. Named St Andrew’s in honour of a group of Scottish Catholic workers on the Dawson Road who had contributed $100 toward its construction, the church was dedicated in 1875 and rebuilt in 1881 after a fire. Baxter helped found a convent for the Sisters of St Joseph, who came to Prince Arthur’s Landing in 1881 to teach school and three years later opened St Joseph’s Hospital.

With the onset of railway construction in 1875, Baxter had begun the ministry that would earn him the sobriquet Apostle of the Railway Builders. He shared their hardships, following them from camp to camp, and brought them potatoes to prevent scurvy. After the completion of the railway he travelled by train to serve communities between English River and White River, covering a distance of about 420 miles. Several churches were built in the area during his incumbency, including St Rose of Lima at Silver Islet in 1873, St Patrick’s at Fort William (Thunder Bay) in 1882, and the Church of the Nativity and St Agnes at Fort William West in 1884. His accounts of life along the line frequently appeared between 1876 and 1878 in the Thunder Bay Sentinel, edited by the Catholic layman Michael Hagan*.

Although he was expected to retire in 1893, at the age of 72, he transferred instead to serve as pastor at Sault Ste Marie, Mich., until 1897, and then back in Port Arthur until 1900. His last years were spent at the Hôtel-Dieu du Sacré-Cœur de Jésus in Montreal. He suffered from a progressive mental disorder and in 1903 was moved to Hôpital Saint-Jean-de-Dieu, where he died the following year.

Father Baxter not only acted as a catalyst in the development of northwestern Ontario’s Catholic institutions, but he demonstrated the practical workings of Christianity to everyone he met. Essentially a man of the people, he was renowned for his great generosity and his sense of humour. Official recognition came in 1978 when a provincial plaque was erected in his memory at St Andrew’s Catholic Church, Thunder Bay.

Elinor Barr

An undated letter addressed by Richard Baxter to the mission procurator has been published under the title “Requirements for a mission” in Martyrs’ Shrine Message (Midland, Ont.), 31 (1967), no.1: 22–23.

An obituary article by Edward James Devine*, Baxter’s successor as railway missionary in the Thunder Bay area, appeared in the Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart (Montreal), 15 (1905): 259–67, and was reprinted, with the exception of a brief introductory note, in Woodstock Letters (Woodstock, Md), 34 (1905): 167–72.

ASJCF, BO-5-2; BO-19-16; BO-19-19. Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Garden River, Ont.), Diary, 1868–92; RBMB, 1856–87. NA, RG 31, C1, 1861, Barrie: 22. Private arch., Elinor Barr (Thunder Bay, Ont.), Fort William Mission, diary, 1874–82 (photocopies). St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church (Thunder Bay), RBMB, vol.1 B. Sisters of St Joseph of Sault Ste Marie Arch., St Joseph’s College (North Bay, Ont.), “Father Richard Baxter, s.j.,” in Sister Mary Evarista Walsh, “The annals of the Sisters of St Joseph, 1881–1939” (typescript). Soc. of Jesus, Upper Canada Prov. Arch., Regis College (Toronto), B-B-9 (Richard Baxter file). Daily Times-Journal (Fort William [Thunder Bay]), 13 May 1904, 14 Dec. 1929. Weekly Herald and Algoma Miner (Port Arthur [Thunder Bay]), 26 May 1893. R. J. Baxter, The Baxter family history (Pembroke, Ont., 1981). Dictionary of Jesuit biography: ministry to English Canada, 1842–1987 (Toronto, 1991). Michael Nash, “Reminiscences of Father Michael Nash,” Woodstock Letters, 26 (1897): 268–82. F. J. Nelligan, “Catholic beginnings at Port Arthur,” Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart, 67 (1957): 384–93, 437–46, 516–21, 594–600. St. Andrew’s Catholic Church centennial, 1875–1975 (Thunder Bay, [1975]). S. [C.] Young, “The life and work of Father Richard Baxter, missionary,” Thunder Bay Hist. Museum Soc., Papers and Records, 11 (1983): 49–52.

Born: 20 December 1908, Le Bic, Rimouski, Québec, Canada
Entered: 14 September 1932, Florennes, Belgium - Campaniae Province (CAMP)
Ordained: 07 June 1944
Final vows: 02 February 1948
Died: 09 January 1991, Sudbury ONT, Canada - Canada Superiors Province (CAN S)

by 1954 came to Singapore (HIB) working - 1st group in Singapore with Patrick Joy

Born: 06 March 1941, Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire/Northampton, Northants, UK
Entered: 07 September 1959, Manresa, Roehampton England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 24 August 1974, Northampton Cathedral of St Mary & St Thomas, England
Final Vows: 02 February 1981, Bogotá, Colombia
Died: 12 January 2022, Craigavon Area Hospital, Portadown, County Armagh

part of the Iona, Portadown community at the time of death

Born : 6th March 1941 Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, England
Raised : Northampton, Northants, England
Early Education at Beaumont College SJ, Windsor, England
7th September 1959 Entered Society at Manresa House, Roehampton, London
8th September 1961 First Vows at Manresa House, Roehampton, London
1961-1964 Studying Philosophy at Studying Philosophy at Heythrop College
1964 living at Harlaxton & St Mary’s, Woodhall House, Woodhall Road, Colinton, Juniper Green, City of Edinburgh
1964-1965 Wimbledon College London, England - Regency : Teaching Latin & English at Wimbledon College, Edge Hill
1965-1968 Campion Hall, Oxford, England - Studying English Language & Literature at Campion Hall, Brewer St
1968-1971 Stoneyhurst College, Clitheroe, Lancs, England - Regency : Teaching English at Stonyhurst College
1971-1972 Southwell House, London, England - Studying Theology at Heythrop College, London, England
1972-1975 Toronto, ON, Canada - Studying Theology at Regis College, Ontario, Canada
24th August 1974 Ordained at Northampton Cathedral of St Mary & St Thomas, England
1975-1976 Tertianship at Medellin, Colombia
1976-1980 Medellín, Colombia - Pastoral Work in Parroquiua María Auxiliadora, barrio Zamora, & Fe y Alegría
1980-1982 Cali, Colombia - Pastoral Work in Parroquia San Ignacio
2nd February 1981 Final Vows at Bogotá, Colombia
1982-1984 Santander, Colombia - Parish Work at Parroquia de la Santissima Trinidad, Sabana de Torres
1984-1998 Liverpool, England - Parish Priest at The Friary, Bute Street; Director of Inner-City Project; Studying for MSc in Drugs & Addictions at John Moore's University
1998-2022 Iona, Portadown - Community Development and Reconciliation Ministry; Spiritual Director; Treasurer
1999 Trainer with Meditation Northern Ireland
2001 Studying for M Phil at Irish School of Ecumenics/TCD; Board “Northern Ireland Support Group”
2005 Prison Ministry
2007 Youth Conferencing with Northern Ireland Youth Justice Agency
2011 Prison Ministry (ex-prisoner support); Community Development
2013 Studying for Doctorate in Professional Studies in Practical Theology at University of Chester

William George Michael Bingham SJ
Michael had a good Christmas day with the Belfast community. On St Stephen’s day he had the symptoms of a heavy cold and tested positive on the Antigen test two days later. His temperature went up on 5th January and he was taken to hospital by the emergency services the following day. He moved on full oxygen through the last stages and died peacefully on the 12th January.

Michael was a member of the British Province who published the following notice to the Province on Wednesday January 12th 2022:

Dear Brothers in Christ,

I am sorry to let you know that Fr Michael Bingham SJ died at around 9.10am this morning, Wednesday 12th January, in the Craigavon Area Hospital in Portadown. He had been admitted there last Thursday with COVID, exacerbated by underlying health conditions. He was 80 years old, in the 63rd year of religious life.

Michael was born on 6th March 1941 in Chalfont St Peters, Buckinghamshire. He was educated at St John’s preparatory school, and then at Beaumont College. On finishing school he entered the novitiate at Manresa, Roehampton in 1959. After taking his First Vows there, he was sent to Heythrop in Oxfordshire for philosophy. An intervention by the Province’s Visitor, Gordon George, interrupted these studies, but in 1964 he began a year teaching at Wimbledon College. He next took an MA in English literature and language at Campion Hall, and then taught for three years as a regent in Stonyhurst. A year of theology at Heythrop (by then in London) followed, and then between 1972 and 1975 he studied for an MDiv at Regis College in Canada, returning for ordination in Northampton in 1974. The following year he made his tertianship in Colombia, remaining there afterwards, working for eight years with Fe y Alegria and in parish ministry. In 1984 he returned to Britain, and worked in the SFX and Friary parish in Liverpool for the next fourteen years. Finally, in 1998, at the invitation of the Irish Province he moved to Northern Ireland, where he would spend the rest of his life, in a variety of ministries of reconciliation in Portadown.

Funeral arrangements will be sent out in due course. May he rest in peace

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/michael-bingham-sj-a-heart-of-gold/

Michael Bingham SJ – ‘a heart of gold’

Many tributes in the local press of Ireland and England have been paid to Fr Michael Bingham SJ, the British Jesuit who worked for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland for over two decades. He died peacefully at 81 years old at Craigavon Hospital, Portadown, County Armagh, on 12 January 2022. Frank Brady SJ, the homilist at the Funeral Mass on 17 January, spoke of Michael’s long and varied life as a Jesuit and his capacity to always see the good in others.

Fr Damian Howard, Provincial of the British Jesuits, responded to Michael’s death on Twitter. He commented:

“So sad to announce the death this morning of Fr Mike Bingham SJ. Over two decades working for reconciliation in Portadown, Northern Ireland and a lifetime dedicated to justice and human dignity. Truly an unsung hero. May he rest in peace.”

SDLP MLA Dolores Kelly paid tribute in the online publication Armagh I. She said:

“Originally from Liverpool, he was soon adopted as a local after moving to Portadown. When tensions arose in this area Fr Bingham was known to be a calming voice. He also worked hard to foster good cross-community relations and he himself enjoyed a strong relationship with the other church denominations in the area.

He was widely recognised for his work with the Drumcree Community Trust, where he served for over 20 years, including as chairperson, where he worked to make a real difference to the lives of ordinary people in this area.”

The Funeral Mass took place in the Church of St John The Baptist, Drumcree, on 17 January, followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery. Homilist Frank Brady SJ, who lived and worked with Michael in Portadown, referred to his broad experience and ministry around the world.

He noted Michael’s five masters degrees, competence as a cellist and appreciation of nature. He spoke of his ministry with Native American people in Canada, his work in Colombia, other Latin American countries, inner city Liverpool and 23 years in the local community of Portadown.

He also mentioned Michael’s dedication to hearing the stories of prisoners and ex-prisoners in Northern Ireland, Britain and Toronto and his work with young offenders in Northern Ireland.

Speaking to the congregation at the Funeral Mass, Fr Frank said:

“Michael had a great sense of direction. He walked the walk and he talked the talk with us, with young people, on your behalf, to create a hope-filled future for us all. And he was achieving that because we and particularly young people let him in, let him in to our lives.

You helped him to discover God. You helped him to discover the Father of Jesus and our Father. As he said himself, God, the one who always believes in us long before we ever believe in him or even name him, and long before we believe in ourselves.”

Fr Frank continued:

“So many have said that Michael could always see the good in others. He was all give, had a heart of gold. And he could get quite angry at what he saw as injustice, but he learned to use that anger to move him peaceably, to do something about it.

His hope is that we too will discover God, our discovering God to one another as we walk this way together. That we too will discover the meaning of St Paul’s prayer as Jesus’ love grows in our hearts. God rest you Michael.”

Fr Michael Bingham SJ is deeply regretted by his sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, the Jesuit community in Portadown, Armagh and other Jesuit communities in Britain and Ireland.

Requiescat in Pace

Born: 21 August 1904, Grandes-Piles, Québec, Canada
Entered: 07 December 1921, Sault-au-Récollet, Montreal - Canadensis Province (CAN)
Ordained: 12 August 1934
Final vows: 23 March 1939
Died: 10 December 1979, Saint-Jérôme, Québec, Canada - Canadae Inferioris Province (CAN)

by 1951 came to Aberdeen Hong Kong (HIB) working 1950-1956

Born: 23 September 1920, Bartra, Dalkey, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäus (Frankfurter Dom), Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Final Vows: 15 August 1964, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 03 July 2002, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

Born at North Frederick Street, Dublin (Rotunda)

Son of Joseph Brennan and Margerita Ryan. Father was manager of a number of insurance and finance companies.

Fourth in a family of twelve with two sisters and nine brothers (1 deceased).

Older Brother of Gabriel Brennan - Left1945; Joe Brennan SJ - RIP 2018; Harry Brennan - Left 1950

Educated at the Holy Faith Convent, Haddington Road and in a private school, he went to Belvedere College SJ for four years. He then went to Castleknock College for nearly three years. After school he went to wok at the Hibernian Insurance Company, whilst at the same time doing private study under a tutor for matriculation. Then from July 1940 until January 1945 he served in the Irish Army. After this he returned to the Hibernian, and then joined his father’s company for a couple of months, before spending time studying Latin and Greek before entry.

by 1949 at Laval, France (FRA) studying
by 1955 at Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt (GER I) studying
by 1978 at Toroto ONT, Canada (CAN S) sabbatical

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 2002

Obituary

Father Jack Brennan SJ (OB 1937)

My brother, Jack, was born on 23rd September, 1920, at 7 North Frederick Street, Dublin, our mother's home town. He was christened John Francis Joseph Brennan - sometimes, particularly with and to me, he was Seán Ó Braonáin. At that time, the family, of which he was the fourth child, was living in Caherciveen, Co. Kerry, our father's home town. He was about six months old in May 1921 when our father's house and others in Caherciveen were blown up by the English Army towards the end of the War of Independence in what were called “official reprisals”. The family then moved to Dublin, which is how Jack came to be educated at Belvedere College. He also spent a brief period at St Vincent's College, Castleknock.

Following school, Jack worked for a time with the Hibernian Insurance Company. After the outbreak of the Second World War, during the Emergency as it was called here, Jack joined the Irish Army, rising to the rank of Captain. The family lore tells, somewhat humorously, that initially when he was a Private, the Hibernian paid him the difference between his army pay and what he had been paid by the company. This did not happen in the case of our eldest brother, Charlie, our first Belvederian, who also joined the army, having been working in our father's insurance brokerage! Jack joined the latter in 1945 after leaving the army.

On 7th September 1946, about a fortnight before his 26th birthday, Jack entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Emo where he took his first vows two years later. He then spent a year in the Jesuit Juniorate, College St Michel, in Laval, France, after which he went to St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, Co Offaly, to study philosophy. He was a scholastic in Belvedere College from 1952-'54, following which he went to the Jesuit college, Sankt Georgen, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to study theology and was ordained there on 31st July 1957. He returned in 1958 to Dublin, for his year's Tertianship in Rathfarnham Castle, then went to Mungret College, Limerick (1959-'64) where he took his final vows on 2nd February 1964. I believe, and heard from some of his fellow Jesuits, that, in his period as Minister there and subsequently as Principal in University Hall, Hatch Street, Dublin (1964-68 and 1978-'95); as Rector in Milltown Park (1968-'71); and as Rector in Clongowes Wood College (1972-'77), his talents for organisation, administration, and dealing with others were helped by his experience in the Irish Army. With regard to the latter, he celebrated the annual Mass for many years in commemoration of the tragic accident in the Glen of Imaal which happened at the time he was in the army.

Jack had a very fruitful and varied life. It was a life of true spirituality, generous helpfulness and unfailing good humour, a life which touched the lives of so many others. He was involved in the Samaritans, of which he was Director in Ireland (1970-'72). He had a particular interest in the second Vatican Council and was noted for his sympathy and understanding on the one hand and his encouragement on the other, in relation to those considering or dealing with its varied aspects. He was also noted for his commitment to ecumenism. He spent a sabbatical studying at Regis College, Toronto (1977-'78) where he obtained an MA in Theology. He enjoyed his spells of summer parish work in the state of New York, where he brought the word of God to many in his quiet, humorous and spiritually effective way. Messages of sympathy and great affection came to us from the friends he made there.

Jack is remembered with affection by our family and by his Jesuit family, to whom we are so closely tied; by those who looked after him so well and so lovingly during his year of reasonably good health at first and eventual last illness in the Jesuits' nursing home, Cherryfield Lodge; and by all who knew him at home and abroad. I was privileged to be among those of the family and of the Jesuit community who were with him when he died peacefully on 3rd July 2002. My other Jesuit brother, Joe, now of Gonzaga College, asked me to compose the prayers of the faithful to be recited by three of Jack's nieces and by one of his nephews (my son Cormac) at the funeral Mass. Cormac, who had frequently visited Jack with me, added his own composition which I include here as it reminded us of that good humour which Jack showed so often:

“Some of you may know that in his room, Jack had a plaque which said, ‘Working for the Lord doesn't pay much, but the retirement benefits are out of this world’! Let us pray that he is now enjoying those benefits”.

l and many fellow-Belvederians and others join in that prayer with certain hope and in gratitude to God for bringing Jack among us. Guim Solas na bhFlaitheas ar a anam uasal, dilis.

Anraí Ó Braonáin (O.B. 1949)

Born: 09 October 1845, Carbonear, Newfoundland, Canada
Entered: 01 August 1866, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1881, St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales
Final Vows: 15 April 1883
Died: 28 September 1915, Loyola College, Greenwich, Sydney, Australia

Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, 7 May 1883-2 February 1888
Mission Superior Australia 14 June 1908

by 1867 at Vannes, France (FRA) studying
by 1873 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying
by 1874 at Stonyhurst, England (ANG) studying
by 1878 at Innsbruck, Austria (ASR-HUN) studying
by 1879 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying
by 1883 at at Hadzor House, (FRA) making Tertianship

Father Provincial 07 May 1883
Came to Australia 1888
Mission Superior 14 June 1908

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Owing to some delicacy he spent some time in France.
He was then sent as Prefect of Third Division at Tullabeg for Regency, and soon became First Prefect.
He then went to Stonyhurst for Philosophy, and then back to Tullabeg for more Regency.
1877 He was sent to Innsbruck for Theology with W (sic) Patrick Keating and Vincent Byrne.
He was Ordained at St Beuno’s.
During Tertianship in France (1883) he was summoned to Fiesole (the Jesuits had been exiled from Rome so the General was there) and appointed HIB Provincial
1883-1888 Provincial Irish Province, During his Provincialate Tullabeg was closed and Father Robert Fulton (MARNEB) was sent as Visitor 1886-1888.
1889 He sailed for Australia and was appointed Rector of Kew College, and later Superior of the Mission.
1908-1913 He did Parish work at Hawthorn.
1913 His health began to decline and he went to Loyola, Sydney, and he lingered there until his death 28/09/1915.
Note from Morgan O’Brien Entry :
1889 In the Autumn of 1889 he accompanied Timothy Kenny and Thomas Browne and some others to Australia

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
His early education was at Carlow College before entering the Society at Milltown Park, Dublin, under Aloysius Sturzo.

1869-1874 After First Vows he was sent to St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, where he was Prefect of Discipline and taught Writing and Arithmetic.
1874-1876 He was sent to Stonyhurst College, England for Philosophy
1876-1879 He was sent to Innsbruck, Austria for Theology
1879-1881 He returned to Stonyhurst to complete his Theology. he was not considered a good Theology student.
1881-1882 He was sent to Clongowes Wood College SJ as Minister
1882-1883 He was sent to Hadzor House, Droitwich, England to make Tertianship. During his Tertianship he was summoned to Fiesole, Italy, where the General was residing, and appointed PROVINCIAL of the Irish Province.
1883-1888 PROVINCIAL of the Irish Province. He was reputed to be a sound administrator, and he was only 37 years of age when appointed.
1888-1889 He returned to Clongowes as Minister
1889-1897 He went to Australia, and appointed Rector of Xavier College, Kew 1890-1897. he was also a Consultor of the Mission, and served as Prefect of Studies at Xavier College during 1890-1893. While at Xavier, he had the foresight to build the Great Hall and the quadrangle, which even by today’s standards is a grand building. He also planted many trees. However, at the time, money was scarce during the Great Depression, and many in the Province considered him to be extravagant. So, from then on, Superiors were always watchful over him on financial matters. Grand visions were rarely appreciate by Jesuits of the Province at this time.
1897-1898 Generally he did not seem to be a gifted teacher, and so he didn't spend much time in the classroom, However, in 1897-1898 he was appointed to St Patrick’s College, Melbourne, where he taught and ran the “Sodality of Our Lady”.
1899-1901 He was sent to St Ignatius Parish, Richmond
1901-1902 He was sent to the parish at Norwood
1902-1906 He returned to the Richmond parish
1906--1908 He was sent to the Parish at Hawthorn.
1908-1913 Given his supposed administrative gifts, it must have been hard for him to do work that did ot particularly satisfy him. However, he was appointed Superior of the Mission. After a sudden breakdown in health he returned to Loyola College, Greenwich, and died there three years later.

He was experienced by some as a man of iron will and great courage, broad-minded with good judgement, a man whom you could rely on in difficulties, and with all his reserve, an extremely kind-hearted man.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Thomas Brown 1845-1915
Fr Thomas Brown was born in Newfoundland on October 9th 1845. He received his early education in Carlow College, entering the Society in 1866.

He was ordained at St Beuno’s, North Wales, and during his tertianship he was summoned to Fiesole and appointed Provincial of the Irish Province 1883-1888. He then sailed for Australia where he later became Superior of the Mission.

During his Provincialate in Ireland Tullabeg was closed as a College, and Fr Fulton was sent from Rome as a Visitor.

Fr Brown died in Sydney on September 28th 1915.

◆ The Xaverian, Xavier College, Melbourne, Australia, 1915

Obituary

Father Thomas P (T P) Brown SJ

On September 28th of this year, Fr Brown, another of the old Rectors of Xavier, passed away. He was well known in the Eastern States, and much esteemed for his great qualities. He was a man of iron will and great courage, broad-minded, and of good judgment, a man upon whom one could rely in difficulties, and with all his reserve an extremely kind-hearted man.

Born in Newfoundland in 1845. he entered the Society of Jesus in 1866, and studied in Ireland, England and Germany, On the completion of his studies, after a short period of office at Clongowes, he was made Provincial of the Irish Province in 1883. He came to Australia in 1889, and soon after his arrival was appointed Rector of Xavier. Here he remnained till 1897, his chief work in Australia being done during this period. To him the school is indebted for the fine hall and the quadrangle, He was much interested in the plantations, and many of the trees now thriving so well were planted and tended with much labour by himself and Fr O'Connor. The troubled times following upon the bursting of the “boom” occurred during his rectorate, and made management of the school difficult, the number of boys falling very low. But he was far-seeing and not easily discouraged, and the spirit which he introduced lived; and those who have seen the school through many of its vicissitudes know what a debt it owes to Fr Brown.

His long reign at Xavier ended in 1897, after which he was occupied with parish work in Adelaide and Melbourne till 1908, when he was made Superior of the Jesuits in Australia. In 1913 his health completely broke down, and for the next two years he lived as an invalid - at the Novitiate and House of Retreats in Sydney. To the end of his life the very name of Xavier College seemed to be written in his heart. He followed the fortunes of the school with the most intense sympathy. He died on September 28th, and is buried beside Fr Keating, at the Gore Hill Cemetery, North Sydney. RIP

◆ The Clongownian, 1916

Obituary

Father Thomas P Brown SJ

Though Father Thomas Brown was not at school at either Clongowes or Tullabeg, he was long connected with both these colleges as a master and prefect. During his time of work in Clongowes and afterwards as Provincial, Father Brown was responsible for many improvements in the College. We take the following notice of his death from . an Australian paper :

On Tuesday morning last, Sept. 28th, 1915, Rev. Father T P Brown SJ, of “Loyola”, Greenwich, died, after an illness extending over nearly three years. Towards the end of 1912 he got a paralytic stroke. Though he rallied a little. now and again, from the first it was quite clear that in his case complete restoration to health was out of the question. At the time of his death he was within a few days of his 70th year, and had his life been prolonged for another twelve months he would have celebrated the golden jubilee of his career as a Jesuit.

The late Father Brown was born in Newfoundland, but went to Ireland when quite young, and was educated at Carlow College. On the completion of his secondary education he entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Milltown Park, Dublin, when not yet 21. Two years later he went to Paris for his juniorate, or further classical studies. This was followed by philosophy. He then returned to Ireland, and was head prefect of discipline for some years in St Stanislaus' College, Tullamore. He studied theology at Innsbruck, and St Beuno's College, Wales. After ordination he returned to college work in Ireland for a short while. In 1882 he went to England for his Tertianship, the further year spent by Jesuits in training after priesthood. Early in 1883 he was appointed Provincial of the Irish Province.

We have given the bare outlines of his career so far - but, that one so youthful as he then was should be elevated to a position of such dignity and responsibility, clearly indicates that he had all along shown eminent qualities. His period of office as Provincial was one of unchecked progress for the Order in Ireland, With a foresight which did not commend itself to all at the time, but which every year has confirmed as wise, he closed a flourishing college, St Stanislaus; threw concentrated energy into Clongowes Wood College, a movement which has ever since leít Clongowes amongst the foremost, if not actually the first, institution of the kind in the United Kingdom. When he ceased to be Provincial, Father Brown went to Australia. He was immediately appointed to the Rectorship of Xavier College, Melbourne - a position he held for many years. His hand is visible there yet. Its noble assembly ball, its tasteful quadrangle, and the many features that make “Xavier” the best appointed college in Australia, are owing almost exclusively to Father Brown. When relieved of the burdens of office there followed some years of other scholastic work and missionary labours. In 1908 he had to take up government once more; for the General of the Jesuits called him to the office of Superior of the Order in Australia - an office which he filled till the illness began which brought about his death.

“To have known him”, wrote one of his former pupils, “is to have known what is best in man” - and these words express the thought of his many admirers. He was a bigmnan in every sense - big in stature, big in heart and sympathy, big in ideas and of unflinching fortitude. He was eminently a man of character, a man whose life was regulated by principles of the noblest type. His judgment was faultless, and up to a few days before his death one went to him with confidence in that his opinion on any matter would be invaluable. He was widely read in many branches, and few had amassed more information on useful topics. His taste was cultured and refined. At the same time he abhorred show. The world outside his own Order heard little of him. But the impression made by him on those who came into close contact with him will last as long as life itself. Judged by the severest test of human worth the opinion of those who know us best - Father Brown was a great man. This is the verdict of those who lived with him on terms of intimacy, of his pupils, of his religious brethren, and of his wide circle of admirers amongst the clergy up and down through Australia.

His Grace the Archbishop of Sydney presided at a Solemn Requiem High Mass for the late Father Brown, SJ, at St Mary's Church, North Sydney, on Wednesday morning.

“Catholic Press” (Sydney, N.S.W.), September 30th, 1915.

Born: 17 December 1896, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 13 October 1920, Guelph, Ontario, Canada - Canada Superioris Province(CAN S)
Ordained: 31 July 1930, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1967
Died: 14 January 1979, St Vincent’s Nursing Home, Windsor Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada - Canada Superioris Province (CAN S)

by 1929 came to Milltown (HIB) studying 1928-1931

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1979

Obituary

Father Walter Burke Gaffney SJ

Colonel J J Burke-Gaffney has released some cuttings about the life of his brother Walter S.J. We reprint one from the Halifax Star, and follow this with the panegyric preached by the Most Rev Dr Joseph Hayes, Archbishop of Halifax Nova Scotia. The Halifax Star concentrates on Fr Walter's formidable academic achievements; the strong light which the bishop directs from the side, shows up some new depths in the image.

We will perhaps be pardoned for proudly drawing attention to the few simple words: “the Canadian Martyrs Church” ... Those martyrs are Jesuit martyrs, and some of the most glorious martyrs in the history of the Church! Not a cape, not a headland, not a river estuary in Eastern Canada exists, that was not rounded, tramped, waded, splashed, cut-through and beaten down by French Jesuits. They were among the first Europeans on the “location”. A total world away from their native land, among natives of matchless cruelty and savagery, their intense spirituality and total dedication might almost make St Lawrence envy them. In fact their actual slow-fire martyrdom, their actual lack of cooperation with their torturers in not responding with screams, is strongly reminiscent of the accounts of the death of St Lawrence Martyr: “This side is cooked, turn me over ...”, “... now eat me!” In the case of St Lawrence Martyr there may be some exaggeration, but in the case of saints Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brebeuf, and Companions, Jesuit Martyrs, there is none. (One wonders who named the St Lawrence River? Was it so named by these first European explorers because of what they foresaw of their likely end?)

We repeat our apology, but protest that we are proud to belong to a company that produced such men as these, the “Canadian Martyrs”. Fr Walter, in life, was proud to be numbered in such a group, and surely, his spiritual life during forty years in Canada must have been influenced by such glorious roots.

From The Halifax Star 16.1.1979

Rev Michael Walter Burke Gaffney, well known teacher, engineer and astronomer at St Mary's University, died Sunday in St Vincent's Guest House, Halifax, He was 82.

A native of Dublin, Ireland, Father Burke Gaffney was one of the original group of Jesuit priests who arrived in Halifax in 1940 to begin teaching and administration at Saint Mary's.

He studied at Belvedere College and University College in Dublin and graduated from the National University of Ireland with the degree of Bachelor of Engineering in 1917.

Attached to the British war office and air ministry in London from 1917 to 1920, he constructed aerodromes in Britain during the First World War.

He later designed bridges in Manitoba before making the decision to enter the Society of Jesus in 1920...

...Ordained a priest in 1930 he took a Master of Science degree in 1933 and two years later his doctorate in astronomy, both at Georgetown University, Washington.

Following four years as a lecturer at the Jesuit Seminary in Toronto and a year at St Paul's College, Winnipeg, he came to Saint Mary's in 1940. He was dean of engineering for eight years and dean of science for four years. He was professor of astronomy from 1955 to 1965 when he became professor emeritus.

He was a past member of the board of governors and the senate of the Nova Scotia Technical College. He was the first Canadian to hold membership in the International Academy of the History of Science and in 1951 he was elected honorary president of the Nova Scotia Astronomical Society, an organisation he helped to found.

A member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, the American Astronomical Society and the Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia, he has written books and articles about astronomy and engineering for scholarly journals.

An astronomical observatory unit atop Saint Mary's academic residence was named in his honour.

He is survived by a brother, Lieutenant-Colonel John Joseph Burke-Gaffney, Dublin, and 14 nieces and nephews. Besides his parents he was predeceased by six brothers and three sisters.

The body will be at the Canadian Martyrs Church from 2 p.m. today, Office of the Dead will be recited this.evening at 8 o'clock.

Funeral liturgy will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Canadian Martyrs Church, Most Rev James M. Hayes, Archbishop of Halifax presiding.

The address of Archbishop Hayes

In the second reading from I Corinthians, St. Paul is speaking like a scientist of his day. He goes to the scientific facts commonly known and held to help his readers understand the mystery of God's great gift of new life and of a future resurrection. Biology or botany (the seed and the plant) astronomy: (the make-up of human beings) he uses all to teach what was for Him a deeper and more basic truth. The dead will rise again.

It seems to me most appropriate that we should hear Paul speaking in this way when we come to the funeral liturgy for our departed brother Michael Walter Burke-Gaffney. The sciences have advanced a lot since Paul's day but the eternal truths revealed to us by God in His Son Jesus, have not changed at all. The good man whom we come to remember and honour today used the scientific knowledge which he possessed to pass on the same eternal truths about God and His saving work.

In the passing of Father Burke-Gaffney, we have lost a friend or an associate or a brother in the priesthood and we all feel his passing in a different way. But no matter what our association was, we all mourn a good man, an accomplished scientist and author, who was first and always a priest and a devoted religious member of the Society of Jesus.

A store of scientific knowledge he possessed; and he was always ready to share it with others. But all his talents and knowledge were, in his mind, to be used only for one purpose, to teach the kingdom of God and bring it to his students, his Listeners, his readers.

Just yesterday, his latest publication came from the press. It is an account of the devotion of our Lady among the missionaries and early settlers in New France from 1634 to 1641. This essay was awarded first place in a Canadian history contest held during the Marian year in 1954.

We learn in the scriptures that the tiny seed must die to produce a rich harvest. Otherwise it remains alone in the earth and barren. Jesus used this exam ple to point to His own self-giving, His own death and resurrection. We christians believe that those who die believing in Jesus will rise with Him to a new life. We celebrate these funeral rites today, precisely because we believe these truths. As we look back over the life of our departed friend and brother, it is not hard to make the comparison. Here is a man, who for the almost 40 years we in Halifax have known him, gave himself generously to be of service to others as a teacher, a counsellor, a community builder, a priest. It can be said without equivocation that Father Burke-Gaffney literally gave his life for others. His service was complete, his dedication total, so that he served others as long as his physical and psychic strength permitted him to do so. Even after it was difficult for him to read, his fertile mind continued to Speculate on so many things, things he liked to share with his visitors. Doing his life's work as he did joyfully for the sake of Jesus, we confidently believe that the servant and the master are united. That the glory of the resurrection is now to be the fruit of a life generously and gladly given.

It was as an astronomer that Father Burke Gaffney received public acclaim in Halifax. The advent of space travel gave him ample scope to deepen and share his knowledge of the heavens and the stars. I remember my first contact with him 38 years ago, to hear him lecture on “New stars”. I am told that he showed delight recently when he heard that his 1937 article on the “Star Of Bethlehem From An Astronomer's Point Of View”, is still quoted as a reference for scripture scholars.

This interest in astronomy like all the others, was used by this good man to bring other people to know God better. For him every star, like the Star of Bethlehem was a means of bringing wise men nearer to Jesus, “The heavens declare the Glory of God and the firmament proclaims His handiwork”. (Ps. 19)

I don't think we would be far wrong in saying that now, when the limitations of the mortal body have been thrown oft, Father Gaffney will realise, make real, the word of the Lord spoken through Daniel: “The learned will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven, and those who have instructed many in virtue, as bright as stars, for all eternity”, (Daniel 12:3). Surely a part of his heavenly reward will be to marvel at the wonders of the universe that fascinated him so much while he was with us.

Now that he has gone from us, many people will miss him. I think particularly of his brothers in the Jesuit Community; of Monsignor Granville, the Chaplain at St Vincent's Guesthouse, for whom he was a friend and a brother; of Sister Susan Duggan and the other sisters, nurses and members of the Guesthouse staff who were so kind and dedicated to him. In the name of all the priests, I want to thank you for all you have done.

It remains now for us to remember; and to pray that the peace and glory of the Resurrection will be his and that we hope someday follow him to that reward. Let that be our intention as we continue the celebration of the Eucharist.

Born: 10 November 1703, Besançon, France
Entered: 31 January 1722, Paris, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1735, Paris, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1739
Died 17 March 1771, Cadiz, Spain - Franciae Province (FRA)

1734 at College in Paris
1737 at Senlis
1743 At Cannes College (FRA) Minister for 9 years, Taught Humanities for 6 years, Rhetoric 1 year, Philosophy 3 years, Procurator for 6 years
1761 Superior at Nantes Residence from 16/03
Fr John Butler born or Irish parents in France about 1701. Was anxious to be sent to the Irish College at Poitiers

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1726 Went to Canada
1731 Returned to France
(”Documents inédits” of Carayon)

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ :
1726-1731 Sent to Canadian Mission
1731 Returned to France

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
1724 After First Vows he was sent for Philosophy at La Flèche followed by Regency in FRA and in Québec, Canada.
1731 After three years abroad he was sent to Paris for Theology and was Ordained there 1735
1735-1741 He taught successively at Compiègne, Alençon and Amiens
1741-1745 Sent as Spiritual Father to Vannes
1745-1761 Sent as Minister and Prefect of the Church at Compiègne and later at Orléans
1761/1762 Superior of the Nantes Residence at the dissolution of the Society in France
1764-1768 Found refuge at Cadiz and had to find further refuge due to the expulsion of the Society in Spain
The date and place of his death are unknown. Father Butler, although born in France, was not regarded by contemporary Irish Jesuits as a foreigner. He was asked for to take up various posts of the Irish College of Poitiers, including that of Rector, but he was unable at the time to leave his own province. He was also consulted on financial business of the Irish Mission.

Born: 01 August 1849, Belz, Morbihan, Brittany, France
Entered: 15 October 1869, Angers, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1883
Professed: 15 August 1903
Died: 16 November 1909, Guelph, Ontario, Canada - Canadensis Province (CAN)

Part of the College of the Immaculate Conception, De Larimer, Montreal, Québec, Canada community at the time of death

Transcribed FRA to Camp : 1887; CAMP to CAN 1891

by 1885 came to Mungret (HIB) teaching 1884-1885

Born: 31 July 1892, Baltinglass, County Wicklow
Entered: 20 October 1910, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly/St Andrew-on-Hudson, NY, USA
Ordained: 31 July 1924, Milltown Park, Dublin
Professed: 02 February 1928
Died: 12 December 1955, Milwaukee, WI, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Transcribed HIB to MARNEB : 1911; MARNEB to MIS

Parents living now at Lower Dorset Street, Dublin. They are both shopkeepers.

Third eldest of four sisters and three brothers.

Early education was at St Pat’s, Drumcondra and then O’Connells Schools. At the age of fifteen he went to Mungret College SJ

◆ Mungret Annual, 1956

Obituary

Father Joseph Carroll SJ

Fr. Joseph Carroll was born in Baltinglass in 1892. He was in Mungret in the years 1907-10. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of eighteen. Shortly afterwards he went to America to continue his studies. He studied at St Andrew's on the Hudson, Woodstock and Georgetown. As a scholastic he taught for two years at Regis College, Denver and two years at Marquette University where he taught physics. This was when he first became acquainted with the Marquette seismograph. After that he went abroad to complete his theological studies in Holland and to study physics, mathematics and chemistry at the University of Munich, and the University of Bonn. There he received the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. After ordination at Milltown Park in 1928, he returned to Marquette University as head of the physics department. He taught physical optics and spectroscopy to advanced students. His main interest however was in the seismograph. With the wit that was characteristic of him, he used to recall the first seismograph he saw at Mungret. “It stood in a little shed in the middle of a pasture. But it was never of mạch use. The cows would come up to the shed and scratch their backs against it. Every time they did County Limerick had a major earthquake”.

In his classroom work Father Carroll was respected by both students and faculty members for the seriousness and thoroughness of his teaching. Besides this he took an active interest in the spiritual welfare of the students. When ever he heard that anyone was ill he went to see him. Besides these visits to the sick his duties included leadership of the Jesuit Mother's club an organization of mothers whose sons were Jesuits. To his two surviving brothers we offer our deep sympathy. RIP

Born: 10 April 1943, Howth, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1965, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 21 June 1974, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Final Vows: 04 March 1985, Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Galway
Died: 30 March 2017, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin

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

Father (Patrick) was a hotellier. Family lived at Thorncastle Street, Ringsend, Dublin City. Family also lived at various times in Ballyfermot & Donnycarney, Dublin.

Fourth in a family of six, comprising three girls and three boys.

Educated the De La Salle Primary School in Ballyfermot in 1957, he entered the legal profession for two years. He then went to work in the Licensed Trade for three years, qualifying as a barman. In 1962 he went to the Apostolic School at Mungret College SJ for three years and acquired a Leaving Certificate.

by 1977 at Regis Toronto ONT, Canada (CAN S) studying

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : & ◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 2013 https://www.jesuit.ie/news/derek-cassidy-sj-man-soulful-presence/

Derek Cassidy SJ – a soulful presence
Fr Derek Cassidy SJ died peacefully on Thursday morning, 30 March, in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin. He had been a dialysis patient for many years. In recent months, his health began to deteriorate very rapidly. The staff of Beaumont Hospital knew him well and gave him great care. He lay in rest at Belvedere College SJ on 2 April and his funeral mass took place on 3 April in Gardiner Street Church, followed by burial at Glasnevin Cemetery. Leonard Moloney SJ, the Irish Provincial who worked with Fr Derek in Belvedere College, was the principal celebrant and homilist at the mass.
Fr Derek served as Rector of Belvedere College since 2002 and was a much-loved member of the College community. He was also a member of the Jesuit community in Gardiner St, Dublin and will be sadly missed by them. He is deeply regretted by his brother Damien and wife Anne, sisters Thelma, Sandra and Denise, nephew Joe, nieces Frances, Susan and Jennifer, grandnieces Chloe, Lucy, Katie and Baby Anne, Jesuit brothers, extended family and his many friends.
Tributes were paid to Fr Derek through the Irish Jesuits page on Facebook. Bláth McDonnell commented, “Rest in Peace Fr. Derek. He had always been such a calm, kind and gentle presence around the College and will be sadly missed”. Thomas Giblin said, “What I remember of Derek was his complete presence in a conversation. It is in his eyes in the photo above. When you needed him, he was with you. There was no doubt. That made him a great chaplain and a wonderful friend”. And Clar Mag Uidhrin said, “So sorry to hear this. I’m blessed I had the opportunity to work alongside him. Rest in peace Fr Derek”. And Niall Markey noted, “Rest in peace, Derek. Thank you for the kindness you showed to me throughout my Jesuit journey. God bless”.
Fr Derek worked in school chaplaincy for a large part of his Jesuit life. He also taught as a Religious Education/Religious Studies teacher at Belvedere for several years. His ratings were above the average at 4.35/5 stars as recorded on ratemyteachers.com. Students comments included: “Biggest baller going, inspiration and a half, aspire to be like this man”; “legend of the school”; “great guy”; and “a class act, very quiet but when he preaches it all makes sense, especially with the Simpsons references”. The school’s pastoral blog noted his Golden Jubilee in 2015 and remarked, “Fr Derek is a wonderful example of what Jesuit life represents”.
Fr Derek made deep impressions on the Belvedere community during the last 16 years of his life. Headmaster Gerry Foley was particularly close to him, as evident from this personal tribute:

Remembering Derek
When we gathered in St. Francis Xavier Church, in Gardner Street, we gathered in sadness, but we wanted to celebrate and give thanks for Fr. Derek’s life with his family and with the Jesuit province. Each of us knew Derek in a different way and we all have memories of a man who could laugh at himself, the world and laugh and talk with people of very different ages and backgrounds. In mourning him we remember fondly stories that highlight his wit, his willingness to confront what he perceived was wrong, even if that led to a difficult experience for both himself and whoever thought he was going to hold back, simply because of his vocation. You did not have to guess Derek’s opinions and views. He could be subtle or when required, bold and forthright when subtlety failed.
Derek’s response to illness made you realise that we should never take being alive and having health, for granted. The theology of salvation was not theoretical for him, it was a lived example.
Images of him laughing, chatting driving in the car or the cheerleaders in the minibus, mix with images of him being silent and attentive. I was lucky enough to bring him the Leinster Senior Cup on the Sunday morning after St. Patrick’s Day. He was delighted and it was uplifting to see the chief cheerleader who loved rugby so much. He received that cup three times previously on the Front door of Belvedere House, so it represented commitment and dedication for him.

There are many things in his office, which point to who Derek is and what he brought to the college. There is a small-framed reproduction of the painting, Light of the world, Holman Hunt, Jesus carrying a lantern knocking on the door. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice, open the door, I will come to him, and I will sup with him and he with me”. On the left side is the human soul, locked away behind an overgrown doorway. Derek invited people to listen more carefully for that knock and when it came, wrench open the door, which could be difficult, and invite Jesus in.

On the table in Derek’s office is “The Simpsons and Philosophy, The D’oh of Homer.” It’s noteworthy that Richard Dawkins, Brief Candle in the Dark” is on the shelf, so Derek was catholic in his sources of inspiration. The connection may not seem obvious, but one of Derek’s favourite episodes of the Simpsons, which he used in his homilies, is the one where Bart, declaring he does not believe in having a soul, sells it, only to regret it when he discovers that life with soul is a life deprived.

If you re- watch the episode of the Simpsons he oft quoted, where Bart sells his soul, you will get a better understanding of Derek’s ability to pick something simple and use it to point to what is profound. He used it in his homily to remind all of us that soul is important, the essence of who we are and not to sell out for something else. For what doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what should a man give in exchange for his soul?

By using the Simpsons, Derek highlighted the challenge of Jesuit Education, to place the person of Jesus at the heart of what we do.

So, amid all Derek’s jocularity, there lay a sincerity, a belief that life was so much better lived if the gentleness of humility and care of Jesus was our inspiration.

Looking around his office, the photograph of one of the first Kairos, a card depicting Fr. John Sullivan, the photo of Fr. Reidy, photos of his family, the mass booklet from one of the Past Pupil Reunions, the framed newspaper article on the Jes winning the cup, The Belvo black and white, the Poster of the Holy Land, the model of the BMW 3 series reveal that Derek treasured many people and held them close to his heart, and indicated why he was held in their heart.

One of Derek’s many achievements in Belvedere was to develop the role of Rector, which was a challenge given we are not residents in the school but we are a community almost without boundaries. His presence as a man who was reflective and invited reflection has had an impact on so many people and on so many different levels.

His dry wit often brightened the moment and his genuine question asking “How are you?...” was never followed by a hurried moment, he gave generously of his time and gave people space so they could take time out of their hurried day, to stop, think and enter that space where prayer leads us. That appreciation of the moment lay at the heart of so many memories of him either sharing a glass, or at a meal or on a journey in somewhere like Greece, Rome, with students, or for me, very fond memories of when we were setting up the Chinese Exchange or the Boston exchanges. In Hong Kong, climbing a steep hill, the hand drawn rickshaw pullers approached Derek and avoided both the late Barry O’ Leary and I. We joked that it was the result of old age being respected in China, he quipped that their reluctance to approach us was a justified concern for their back, given our weight!

These exchanges expanded the Jesuit network and helped develop the sense of being a community sharing our faith journey. As with his untiring work in Fundraising and on the Buildings Committee, and Jesuit Identity Committee, he was passionate in providing the right environment to nurture community, friendship and learning.

Derek’s publican background gave him the skills to be fully present to people, to hear their story and enter into it with them. That is why so many students hold his memory dearly and fondly. He was there, fully present, not just physically, but in his un-divided attention to them.

If you asked Derek how he was, he never complained, instead he would reply with something like, “looking down on the daisies, which is better than looking up at them!” Even when he lost his toe he made a joke of it, saying the coffin was getting lighter by the day, and that was another aspect of Derek that made him attractive, particularly to students, he was a bit of a rebel, could be anti-establishment, feared not death because he believed and yet remained true to all that was good.

When we went to Hong Kong, Derek met Fr Joseph Mallin SJ (102), the last surviving child of Michael Mallin, executed leader of the Easter Rising in 1916. Derek and he shared a Republican background and he was immensely proud to be Irish. The Coleman’s mustard, sitting on the shelf in his office, is probably the only British thing he would admit tasted good.
On the little table is the statue of the Holy Family, Joseph and Mary looking at Jesus as he learns the trade of carpentry. Joseph’s hand is raised, obviously in instruction, while Mary looks on with great pride in her son. Derek had that care and pride for the students as they grew in their apprecticeship of what would betheir adult personality. He loved young people and loved the privilege of being involved in their life. Lastly there was the prayer on the wall, and I think it captures a lot of his humour and honesty.

“Dear God, so far today I’ve done alright, I haven’t gossiped, I haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or over indulgent. I’m very thankful for that. But in a few minutes God, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on I’m probably going to need a lot more help...”

Derek was that help for a lot of us and while extending our sympathy and condolences to his community and his family, I want to extend, on behalf of the Belvedere family, a sincere Thank You. For 16 years, we enjoyed Derek as chaplain, teacher, Form Tutor, Rector and Board member. You shared him with us and we are forever grateful for that. His soul will continue his work with the students and families and we gain strength from his example as a Jesuit, a priest, a friend and a companion.

May he rest in the peace of Christ. Gerry Foley

Early Education at St Mary’s Convent Arklow; SS Michael & John, Smock Alley, Dublin; De La Salle, Ballyfermot, Dublin; Mungret College SJ; Apprentice Solicitor & Barman

1967-1970 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1970-1971 Mungret College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying for H Dip in Education at UCD
1971-1976 Milltown Park - Studying Philosophy & Theology (integrated)
1974 Milltown Park - Administration at Irish School of Ecumenics
1976-1977 Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Studying Theology at Regis College
1977-1978 Tabor House - Vice-Superior; Minister; Assistant Director of Retreat House
1978-1980 Leave of Absence
1980-1982 Coláiste Iognáid SJ - Chaplain; Teacher
1982-1983 Tullabeg - Tertianship
1983-1989 Coláiste Iognáid SJ - Director of Pastoral Care; Teacher
1989-1990 Tabor - Vice-Superior; Young Adults Delegate; Assistant in Retreat House
1990-1999 Campion House - Vice-Superior; Young Adults Delegate; Assists Tabor House & JVC; Young Adult Ministry
1993 Superior at Campion
1995 Principal & Treasurer at University Hall
1996 Formation Delegate
1999-2001 Leeson St - Principal & Treasurer at University Hall; Young Adults & Formation Delegate
2000 Sabbatical
2001-2004 Belvedere College SJ - College Chaplain; Teacher
2002 Rector of Belvedere College SJ
2003 Superior of Gardiner St Community; Rector of Belvedere College SJ
2004-2017 Gardiner St - Superior of Gardiner St Community; Rector of Belvedere College SJ
2011 College Chaplain & Teacher at Belvedere College SJ
2012 Rector of Belvedere College SJ

Born: 28 October 1846, Killina, Rahan, County Offaly
Entered: 18 August 1875, Sault-au-Rècollet, Canada - Neo-Eboracensis-Canadensis Province (NEBCAN)
Ordained: 1881 Leuven, Belgium
Died: 20 July 1885, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Originally joined the New York / Canada Province, but belonged to New York, and was then assimilated into the Maryland / New York Province of 1880.

Ordained in 1881 and sent to St Joseph’s Church in Philadelphia.
1884-1885 Sent to Roehampton (ANG) for Tertianship, he became ill and came to Tullabeg, where he died 20 July 1885.

Born: 30 December 1824, Mountrath, County Laois
Entered: 07 September 1849, Montréal, Québec, Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 17 August 1855
Final Vows: 15 August 1866
Died: 20 May 1889, Hospice Saint-Jean-de-Dieu, Longue-Pointe, Québec, Canada - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

part of the Sault-au-Récollet, Montréal, Québec, Canada community at the time of death

Born: 24 February 1906, Taieri, Otago, New Zealand
Entered: 04 March 1924, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 12 August 1934
Final Vows: 10 March 1942
Died: 03 September 1959, St Patrick’s Mission, Barrow (Utqiagvik), Alaska, USA - Oregonensis Province (ORE)

Transcribed HIB to CAL : 1929; CAL to ORE

by 1928 at Eegenhoven, Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
His grandfather was deported from Ireland to Australia for some act of patriotism. His secondary education was with the Christian Brothers at Dunedin, New Zealand before he Entered the Society in Australia at Loyola Greenwich, 1924.

1926-1927 He was sent to Rathfarnham Castle Dublin for a Juniorate
1927-1930 He was sent for Philosophy to Eegenhoven Belgium and Spokane Washington, USA. During his third year of Philosophy he was transcribed to the Oregon Province (ORE) having volunteered for the Alaska Mission. At Spokane he was known as a quiet and hardworking student with a fine mind, who never seemed to get tired. He was fiercely competitive at sports and the best soccer player among the scholastics.
1930-1931 He was sent to Kashunak School, Holy Cross, Alaska for Regency
1931-1934 He went to Montreal Quebec, Canada for Theology
1934-1935 He made Tertianship at Mont-Laurier Quebec, Canada
1935-1936 He began his missionary work at Nome Alaska
1936-1944 He was sent to work at Little Diomede Island Alaska. He became a US citizen 01 October 1941.
1944-1946 He was a Military Chaplain with the US Army, during which time he visited Australia and the Pacific region, which included New Caledonia, Manila, Honolulu, Guam and Japan. He even spent four months in Korea in 1946
1946-1947 After the war he returned to Little Diomede Island
1947-1950 He was sent to work with the Eskimos at King Island Alaska. Here he taught school at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as well as catechising, visiting the sick and sharing in village life. This included joining the local men hunting.
1950-1952 He became a Chaplain with the Air Force, spending much of his time teaching Arctic survival to servicemen.
1952-1953 He spent a year as a missionary at Kotzebue (Qikiqtaġruk) Alaska
1953 He moved further north in Alaska to Point Barrow (Nuvuk). Using this as a base, he went on long dog-sled journeys across the world’s last frontier, seeking Eskimo souls for Christ and working with white Catholics in Point Barrow (Nuvuk), construction workers, military personnel, people connected with the school, the hospital, the US Weather Bureau and the Civil Aeronautics Administration. He also ministered to the men working on the “Distant Early Warning” radar sites.

His life in Alaska was a saga of heroic deeds. he once saved a village from starving by personally conducting a hunt on the Arctic Ocean during very severe weather. His trained eye picked out the ice floe that was to be the home of scientists and airmen for eighteen months during the “International Geophysical Year” of 1957. This project was known as “Operation Ice Skate” and was completed under the guidance of Thomas Cunningham.

His “Parish” had been the 150,000 cold square miles of Alaska above the Arctic Circle. His parishioners were anyone he met. For a quarter of a century he laughed at Arctic dangers, survived pneumonia - which he caught while cruising the icy Bering Sea in a leaky sealskin boat. He leapt down an icy cliff and jumped to safety from ice cake to floating ice cake as Soviet officials sought to take him captive when his boat had been blown into Big Diomede Island (Gvozdev) during an Arctic storm. He mushed through winter blizzards that had kept even the Eskimos indoors, travelling on one missionary journey for 2,500 miles behind dogs.

His deeds in the Arctic became legendary and were told and retold wherever Eskimo or white men gathered along the Arctic coast or north of the glacier-packed Brooks Mountain range.

He learned the Eskimo language during his early Alaskan years, and spoke it with a fluency that amazed the natives. He was a scholar, who compiled an Eskimo dictionary of over 7,000 words and their English equivalents. He could look at an ice flow and tell the age of the ice, and accurately guess its depth and longevity. He knew more of the traditions, legends and anthropological lore of the Eskimo than anyone else in the north. He held a Major’s commission in the Air Force and had received a commendation-of-merit ribbon from the Secretary of the US Air Force.

He was a very cheerful person, very pro Irish and anti British, and a marvellous raconteur. He was small in stature, but very strong. He said he chose the Alaskan Mission because it was cold like his native place in New Zealand. He died in his Rectory cabin at Point Barrow (Nuvuk) from a heart attack. The US Air Force flew his body from there to Fairbanks, and he was buried there with full military honours and a 15-gun salute.

He was a remarkable Jesuit, described by a fellow missionary as “one of the most loved, versatile and dynamic missionaries ever to serve the Alaska Missions”. He was recorded in the “Congressional Records” as “a noble and gallant figure, a devoted servant of God and his fellow men”. Both “Time” and “Newsweek” magazines noted his passing.

cf “Memoirs of a Yukon Priest”Segundo Llorente SJ, Georgetown University Press, Washington DC 1990 - ISBN 10: 0878403615

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 6th Year No 2 1931
Alaska :
Mr Tom Cunningham has already been doing excellent work in Alaska. He will be most likely prefect and principal of a school next year.
Irish Province News 8th Year No 2 1933
Montreal
A great many of us remember Mr. Tom Cunningham, an Australian, who finished his juniorate at Rathfarnharn in 1927. He volunteered for the Alaskan mission, and at the end of philosophy was sent to the far north. He is now doing 2nd Year Theol. at the “Immaculate” Montreal. He sends an interesting letter :
It will be no time 'till I find myself back in Alaska for a life sentence, and the moment cannot come too quickly for me. It is true that life in Alaska is hard. You are lonely and cold, the food is of the crudest kind, the silence of the Arctic winter nearly drives you crazy, and you begin to wonder sometimes if you will ever see the sun again, or get a letter from home.
But it has its compensations. There is a sort of mysterious something about the Yukon that gets a grip on you, and makes you wish to be there rather than any place else. It must be the grace of God. I know that I wouldn't stay in Alaska one day if it were not for a supernatural motive.

Irish Province News 12th Year No 2 1937
ALASKA :
The following letter is from Father T. Cunningham who was a Junior at Rathfarnham in the year 1926-27. Shortly afterwards he joined the California Province in the hope of being sent to the Alaska mission. He now belongs to the Oregon Province, and when his theology at the Immaculate Conception, Montreal, was finished his hopes were realized, and he was sent to Alaska, the land his heart desired. Our regret is that limited space prevents our giving the entire letter, but the parts we are enabled to give are decidedly interesting. The letter is an answer to one received from a Jesuit friend.
“When your letter arrived the spirit was low. I don't mean low in the wrong sense of the word, but that lowness that comes from a long, miserable, cold winter, with always a couple more months to go, and a lowness that is increased by had grub, hard work and loneliness.
Much to my astonishment I was assigned on my return to Alaska to Nome. (Father Cunningham had spent some time in Alaska before his theology.) Nome has a reputation of wrecking havoc in the minds and bodies of the clergy. Of my predecessors one went completely mad, one froze to death, three lasted a year and then had to leave through ill health. I have been here since September, 1935, alone, and believe me it's no picnic. I have been to confession once since then when I went fifty miles out of my way to call on my neighbor in Kotzebue 200 miles north of here.
When I saw what I was up against I drew up a schedule to be followed as closely as possible here and when travelling. The day was divided from 5 a.rm. to 10.30 p.m. between prayer, study teaching catechism and manual labor, in such a way that I didn't have time to sit down and feel sorry for myself.
Outside of Nome the work was fine. My territory stretches as far north as the Noatak River, well within the Arctic Circle, and as far west as Cape Prince of Wales, the most westerly point on the Continent. I got over the whole district twice and my procedure was always the same, study of the various changes of dialect in each village, and teaching catechism to the children in the afternoon and to the adults at night. In between times, when I had the dishes washed, dogs fed, and the wood chopped against the next morning, I would do what I could towards easing the various bodily ailments to which the Eskimo is prone. I relied as often as not on the grace of God as on my own medical knowledge. Anyhow I produced some surprising results, and didn't kill anyone.
The winter was moderate. The coldest around here was 70 below zero, but only for a day or so. There was a seven weeks spell of minus 50 during March and April. The coldest I experienced when travelling was 58 below zero. That was too cold to travel but I didn't want to spend the night in the open. I came through the winter with only feet frozen twice, and frost-bitten hands and nose every other week, nothing serious, only inconvenient. It is really hard to describe the cold and the famous north Wind which makes it much worse.
Now we are enjoying what is rightly called Little Winter or that period of two months or so between the end and beginning of the Big Winter. We had five beautiful days early this month (July), but most of the time it's a cold damp atmosphere with an occasional frost and snow flurry. It did clear up enough to see the Midnight Sun on two occasions.
I have made satisfactory progress in the language, and can preach, hear confessions, teach catechism without much difficulty, and I hope to know it as well as possible in two more years. There are no books on the subject, and most of all I know I had to find out just by asking around.
The language has one big rule turn everything possible into a verb. Thus, “I didn't eat all day” is “I dayed without eating” - “Oubluzunga herrinanga”. They have no generic words, for the six kinds of foxes, they have six different words.
The method of counting is queer but logical. They count to twenty, as that is as far as the fingers and toes go. Then they multiply and add till they reach a hundred. 67 would be 20 by 3 plus 7.
Now, my status for next year. I have been billed to found a new mission on Little Diomede Island, in the Bering Sea, near Siberia. I shall be the first priest to winter there, and, as far as I know, the only white man. I go there in September (1936), and will have no communication with the mainland from October till the following July, when the ice begins to break up. Someone has to go there as it is a good place in case we can ever work on the Eskimos in Russia. The address will be : Ignalit - Diomede Island, via Nome. Alaska.
I would take it as a favour if you gave this letter to the Editor of the Province News, as I like to think that all my old Irish friends have not completely deserted me simply because I turned Eskimo.
We haven't enough men here. We cannot do half enough. I have at least six native villages to attend to outside Nome, and a fellow can be only in one place at a time, and dogs go only an average of six miles an hour, and that's good going. I was lucky to get all around twice.
Give my regards to all my old co-juniors,
Sincerely,
TOM CUNNINGHAM, SJ”

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948
Letter from Fr. Tom Cunningham, King Island, Alaska :
“... A plane flew over this island last week and dropped some mail - a most pleasant surprise. This mail had been accumulating at Nome since last September and it contained two 1947 copies of the Irish Province News. Though it is a long time since 1929, the names of the older members of the Province are still very fresh in the memory.
If you know of any budding missionaries who wish to come out here, tell them from me that they need only one quality above other missionary requirements, viz. the desire and the ability to learn the Eskimo language, which I am convinced is the hardest language imaginable. I don't know though - a few years ago I came across a tribe in Liberia, who were Eskimo in every respect except language. Their language was very simple and after less than a month's association with them, I could get along fairly well. If a future missionary can grasp a language, he has overcome the most difficult part of the Alaska Missions. The weather, travel, terrain, etc. can be handled easily.
If you don't mind, let me bring you up to date on my personal activities. I was on Diomede Island from 1936 to 1940, when I then went to tertianship. Back again on Diomede till 1942 when the war had upset everything. There were soldiers all over Alaska except on these remote islands. I worked with the army quite a lot as adviser on Arctic conditions and spent some time training Arctic Search and Rescue Crews on the Alaska Liberia Wing of the Ferrying Command. Thousands of planes went through Alaska to the European Front. Americans would fly them to Alaska and the Russian pilots would take over there.
In 1944 I was commissioned in the Chaplain's Corps and sent to the S. W. Pacific, being on Hawaii, Guam, Saipan, Manila and eventually Tokyo and Korea. I was released from the army and went to Lewis Washington in September, 1946 and arrived back at Nome two weeks later. I spent last winter between two Missions on the mainland and from January to June, I was on Diomede Island,
Last summer, Fr. Lafortune, the priest who built the Mission on this island died, and King Island was added to the territory which I already had. My Present Parish is composed of King Island and Diomede Island in the Baring Straits and Teller and the village of Igloo on the Mainland. The latter three are accessible during the winter, but once on the island you must stay put till the ice goes.
My plans now are to alternate between one winter here and one divided between Diomede, Teller and Igloo. The population here is 198, all Catholics. Diomede has 94 of whom 86 are Catholics. Teller has 35 Catholics out of 150 and Iglo has 48 people, all Catholics. The distances between are considerable : Teller to Igloo 50 miles, Teller to Diomede 98 miles and Teller to here 40 miles. Teller is a sort of Headquarters. There are two stores there. I built the Chapels at Diomede, Teller and Igloo. This island and its buildings, I have inherited so to speak; a fine Church, nice living quarters and the most fervent congregation I have ever come across. There are at least 25 Communions daily and over 100 on Sundays.
I have been assigned considerable territory as you see, but except for Igloo it's much the same language and I happen to be the only one who knows it. The language will be necessary for at least two more generations. Here I am the only White, so the White population always sees eye to eye in Religion, recreation, politics and is a staunch follower of De Valera.
I have a Radio and get good reception on an average of once a week, so I don't know much about the outside. The programme except for the excellent News broadcasts are poor. The only station I can hear is an Army station at Los Angeles. Even the news, the odd time I hear it, is not very reassuring.
Life here is tranquil. The island is about one mile and a half in circumference, rising abruptly out of the ice. The village is an in credibly steep rocky slope, at least a 60° incline. It is quite an art to manoeuvre around the village. The only way that I can make it when taking Holy Communion to the sick on dark mornings is to tie a rope. around one of the Church supports and hang on. The Eskimos pick out the darndest places to live.
The living is made entirely off the ice and it takes rugged characters to survive. The weather is not too severe. Our coldest day so far was 44 degrees below zero, with a wind of 45 miles per hour.
My day starts at 5 am. and goes on till 10.30 p.m. There are four Catechism classes per day for the children and one in the evening for adults. On Wednesday and Saturday, I hunt in the afternoons, as I. need to eat too. All hunting is done on moving ice and it is sometimes dangerous and always cold and miserable. I take care of my own cooking, washing and house-keeping, so I really have not time to feel sorry for myself. Still, the hardest chore for me is making altar-breads. The iron must be hot, but not too hot and not too cold, and the dough not too thick and not too thin. A sort of equation with four unknowns. All in all it's a busy and I hope, a useful life.
St. Patrick's Day is coming and I have a sermon all ready for Benediction on Wednesday night. Can't help thinking of the days at Eegenhoven when March 17th was the big day and the Belgians and the Englishmen envied us. I understand our old home was pretty well blown up. I wonder what happened to all the friends we had there.
While in Korea, I had hopes of going as far as Hong Kong but I didn't get beyond Shanghai and I was there for only one night. There was an Irish Sister from Roscommon in Seoul, Korea in charge of an Orphanage and every other American soldier was helping her with stuff for her fold. While in Tokyo I heard that Fr. M. Bodkin was chaplain on a British aircraft carrier but I just couldn't visit him.....”

Irish Province News 35th Year No 1 1960
Obituary :
Fr Thomas Cunningham (1906-1959)
(From the Oregon- Jesuit, October 1959)

The frozen frontier of the Alaska Mission lost its restless “Father Tom” on 3rd September, 1959, when Rev. Thomas Patrick Cunningham, S.J. died of a heart attack in his rectory cabin at Point Barrow, Alaska.
His parish had been the 150,000 cold square miles of Alaska that lie above the Arctic Circle. His parishioners were anyone he met.
For a quarter of a century Fr. Tom had laughed at Arctic dangers. He had survived pneumonia, caught while cruising the icy Bering Sea in a leaky sealskin boat. He had leaped down an icy cliff and jumped to safety from ice cake to floating ice cake, as Soviet officials sought to take him captive, when his boat had been blown in to Big Diomede Island during an Arctic storm. He had mushed safely through winter blizzards that had kept even the Eskimos indoors, travelling on one missionary journey 2,500 miles behind his dogs. His deeds in the Arctic had become legend and were told and retold wherever Eskimo or white man gathered along the Arctic coast or north of the glacier-packed Brooks mountain range. His death was as Fr. Tom would have chosen, a quiet going to eternal sleep as he began another exhausting day.
When Fr. Thomas P. Cunningham joined our philosophy classes at Mount St. Michael's, Spokane, WA., in 1929, we knew him as a quiet, hard-working student with a brilliant mind, who never seemed to get tired. He was fiercely competitive in sports and the best soccer player any of us had ever faced. He had grown up in New Zealand where, on 24th February, 1906, he had been born on a farm near Taieri. He talked little of himself, but in defending some political figure in Ireland, he once said that his grandfather had been deported by England to Australia for some act of Irish patriotism.
Fr. Cunningham travelled a roundabout route to his Alaska mission, High school was spent with the Christian Brothers at Dunedin, New Zealand. He entered the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus at Sydney, Australia, 24th March, 1924. He spent his Juniorate at Rathfarnham, Ireland, his philosophy years at Louvain, Belgium, and Mt. St. Michael's, Spokane. He taught school at Holy Cross, Alaska, 1930-31, before entering theology studies at Montreal, Canada. He was ordained 12th August, 1934, at Loyola College, Montreal, and made his tertianship at Mount Laurier, Quebec, Canada. In 1935 he began his missionary work at Nome, Alaska, and the following year went to Diomede Island for a three-year stay.
Giving a chronological account of Fr. Cunningham's work in Alaska tells so little of what he did. Except for his year out for tertianship, he was at Diomede Island from 1936-44. From 1944-46 he was chaplain with the U.S. army. After another year at Diomede Island, he spent three years as missioner to the Eskimos at King Island. From 1950-52 he was chaplain with the air-force, spending much of his time teaching Arctic survival to service-men. After a year as missionary to Kotzbue, he moved north to Point Barrow, Alaska's northernmost tip and, from there, went on long dog-sled missionary journeys across the world's last frontier, seeking Eskimo souls for Christ.

Many Acts of Heroism
Fr. Cunningham's life in Alaska was a saga of heroic deeds. He once saved a village from starving by personally conducting a hunt on the Arctic Ocean during very severe weather. His trained eye picked out the ice floe which was to be the home of scientists and airmen for 18 months during the Geophysical Year. The project, known as “Operation Ice Skate”, was completed under his guidance. He was first ashore on the ice island and last to leave when it broke up. He foretold that the ice island would break twice during their stay and guessed within a week of when each break-up would occur. No life was ever lost in any of the air-force or scientific operations which he supervised.

A Skilled Scientist
Fr. Cunningham learned the Eskimo language in his early Alaskan years and spoke it with a fluency that amazed the natives. He was a scholar who compiled an Eskimo dictionary of over 7,000 words and their English equivalents. He could look at an ice floe and tell the age of the ice and accurately guess its depth and longevity. He knew more of the traditions, legends and anthropological lore of the Eskimo than anyone else in the north. He held a Major's Commission in the Air Force Reserve and had received a commendation-of-merit from the Secretary of the U.S. Air Force.
Fr. Cunningham's body was flown by the U.S. Air Force from Point Barrow to Fairbanks and buried there on 8th September with full military honours and a fifteen-gun salute by the Air Force of Ladd Field. Bishop Francis D. Gleeson, S.J. said the Mass in the presence of twenty missionaries from all over Alaska and innumerable friends from the military, civilians and Fr. Tom's beloved Eskimos.
Erwin J. Toner, S.J.

Born: 29 December 1924, Botanic Avenue, Glasnevin Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 02 October 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1959, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 06 January 1978, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 14 August 1999, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

Father was a commercial traveller who died in 1942.

Eldest of three boys with three sisters.

Early education at Holy Faith Convent, Glasnevin, and then at St Vincent’s CBS, Glasnevin. After school he began to work as an apprentice projectionist, passing examinations in electricity, light, heat, sound and projection.

by 1949 at Laval, France (FRA) studying
by 1985 at Regis Toronto, Canada (CAN S) Sabbatical

Born: 20 April 1918, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1951, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1955, Loyola, Tai Lam Chung, Hong Kong
Died: 22 June 1993, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Peter Faber community, Belfast, County Antrim at the time of death.

Transcribed : HIB to HK; 03/12/1966; MAC-HK to HIB 19/11/1991

Youngest brother of Bill - RIP 1983; Dan - RIP 2007

Great grandnephew of Daniel Murray, 1768-1852, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin

Father was a doctor at St Vincent’s Hospital.

Fifth of five boys with one sister.

Early education at Sacred Heart Convent, Leeson Street, he went to St Gerard’s College, Bray (1927-1931) and then at Clongowes Wood College SJ (1931-1936)

Superior of the Irish Jesuit Mission to Hong Kong Mission: 21 June 1960-1965
Father General's Assistant for East Asia: 1966
Tertian Instructor, Tullabeg: 1978

Transcribed HIB to HK: 03 December 1966; MAC-HK to HIB: 19 November 1991

by 1956 at Ricci Hall Hong Kong - working
Mission Superior Hong Kong 21 June 1960
by 1966 at Rome, Italy (ROM) Assistant for East Asia
by 1977 at Regis, Toronto ONT, Canada (CAN S) Spiritual year
by 1978 Tertian Instructor

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :

Note from Daniel MacDonald Entry
At the Chapel of Ricci Hall, Catholic Hostel at the University of Hong Kong, a solemn Requiem Mass was offered last Thursday by Father Herbert Dargan, S.J. the present Warden of Ricci Hall, for the repose of the soul of one of his predecessors, Father Daniel McDonald, S.J., whose death occurred in Ireland on 14 May 1957.

◆ 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 born into the family of a prominent Dublin doctor. Following his education at Clongowes he was a pre-medical student before joining the Society in 1937. His elder brother Bill was already a Jesuit who was for many years procurator of the Irish Province, and his younger brother Dan also became a Jesuit and was head of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association for many years. Yet another brother was a magistrate in Hong Kong.

He did his Regency at Belvedere College SJ and a HDip in Education, and then he was ordained at Milltown Park i 1951. After Tertianship he was assigned to Hong Kong. he began studying Chinese at Cheung Chau and was then appointed Warden at Rici Hall.. Later he was Rector of Wah Yan Hong Kong (1955-1957).
In 1960 he was appointed Mission Superior in Hong Kong (1960-1965).

He was appointed to the Board of Education which produced a white paper “Reorganization of Primary & Secondary Education”. He was Chair of the “Catholic Grant Schools Council”. He freed Fr John Collins for fulltime social work, set up “Concilium” with Frs Ted Collins, John Foley and Walter Hogan. he also set up CMAC in 1963. He sent Fr John F Jones for special training in Marriage Life. He also sent Fr John Russell to Rome for training in Canon Law. he was involved with rehabilitation of discharged prisoners and he visited prisons.
He was also involve din the Executive Committee of the Hong Kong Housing Society, serving on four of its sub-committees.
He was also involved in religious broadcasting and began regular internal Jesuit communication with the “Hong Kong Newsletter”.

At his Golden Jubilee with Fr Séamus Doris, he was contrasted as being “mobile”, whereas Séamus, who had never missed a class in teaching (1954-1982) was said to be “stable”. He served in Rome as Fr General’s East Asian Assistant (1965-1975), was then Tertian Instructor in Tullabeg (1977-1986), and then went to Belfast to work as a spiritual director of priests

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 82 : September 1995
Obituary
Fr Herbert Dargan (1918-1993)

20th April 1918: Born, Dublin
Early Education: Clongowes Wood College, and pre-medical year at University College Dublin
7th Sept. 1937: Entered the Society at Emo.
1939-1942: Juniorate: Rathfarnham - UCD Degree
1942 - 1945: Tullabeg - studying Philosophy
1945 - 1947: Regency: Crescent College, Limerick
1947 - 1948: Regency: Belvedere College (H. Dip. Ed.)
1948 - 1952: Milltown Park - Studying Theology
31st July 1951; Ordained, Milltown Park
1952-1953: Tertianship
1953 - 1955: Cheung Chau - Studying Chinese language
1955 - 1957: Ricci Hall - Superior and Warden
1957 - 1960: Wah Yan College - Rector and Principal
1960 - 1965: Superior, Hong Kong Mission
1965 - 1976; Jesuit Curia, Rome, Regional Assistant for Eastern Asia
1976 - 1977; Sabbatical, Toronto Tullabeg:
1977 - 1986: Tertian Instructor (Superior: 1983-86)
1986 - 1987: Milltown Park - Giving the Spiritual Exercises
1987 - 1989: Manresa - Giving the Spiritual Exercises and Director of NCPI
1989 - 1993: Belfast - Giving the Spiritual Exercises
22nd June 1993: Died in Cherryfield Lodge.

It was in Herbert's last year in Belfast that I arrived there. As a member of the British Province I was soon made to feel at home in Brookvale and this was very much due to his presence. Herbert was first and foremost a member not of the Irish Province but of the world-wide Society of Jesus. It showed in the way that he welcomed Jesuits from any part of the world. His interests too were far from provincial.

During the cricket season he would ask to share my “Guardian”; he would be glued to the TV during the snooker matches, and loved to forecast the next shot. He was at his best when, with a glass of Bushmills in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth, he was telling stories about his friend and hero Pedro Arrupe or encouraging Paddy Doyle in his more extra-terrestrial flights of philosophic fancy.

My most vivid memory of him is at the British Province Assembly the Easter before his death, We invited him to Leeds knowing that it was probably the last time he would be able to visit his many British Province friends. He spoke about his life in Belfast and said that Brookvale was the happiest community he had lived in. He spoke straight from the heart of how the community members prayed with each other and tried to support each other in ministry. It was his best experience of community life. By the many who attended that meeting, his words will long be remembered.

Herbert Dargan was a very warm and loving person. The enlarged photograph that we have hanging in the community room at Brookvale captures something of the freedom and warmth of the man. It was a privilege for me to have lived with him in his last days.

Ron Darwen

Working with Herbert and with Paddy Doyle on his Armagh Priests Survey, I came to appreciate his enormous wisdom. He could listen attentively to a point of view and eventually, without ever claiming to speak from mere authority, he gave his opinion firmly and confidently but without arrogance. His long association with NCPI courses for priests had given him an insight into the lives of diocesan priests as well as a sympathy and understanding which they deeply appreciated.

Over a period of a year we visited nearly every priest in the 60 parishes of the diocese. We met regularly as a threesome and also with the sponsoring committee and it was Herbert who eventually wrote the section on the personal life of the priest. In the light of Pastores dabo vobis and subsequent Roman instructions, Herbert's understandings and insights can be seen to be prophetic. His was a demand for an incarnate spirituality based on a formation and support structure which were firmly based in reality.

All his life experience was drawn on - in Hong Kong and Malaysia, the Far East, Rome and as Tertian Instructor, This reflection went on to the very end.

He drove from Belfast to Milltown Park for the Province Assembly when he was clearly a dying man. The journey back had to be taken in easy stages, but it was a journey he wanted to make. He fulfilled his ambition

Senan Timoney

◆ The Clongownian, 1993
Obituary
Father Herbert Dargan SJ

Death is sad because it is a parting, and partings are painful. But Jesus Christ has promised us that death is only a temporary separation, and that it is the gateway to eternal life. He has told us that this life is a pilgrimage and we are only pilgrims passing through.

We are here this morning to pray for a pilgrim, my brother Herbert, and to ask the Lord in His mercy to grant him eternal happiness.

We are here also to thank God for Herbert and for the good he was able to do throughout his life. He had a very varied life. As a young priest he went overseas to work on the Irish Jesuit Mission in Hong Kong. The first two years he spent in a language school, learning Chinese, which is a very difficult language for us in this part of the world. The same sound has a different meaning if spoken on a high, medium or low pitch of tone. I remember Herbert telling me that one morning he said to his Chinese teacher that he wanted to get a haircut that afternoon. So the Chinese teacher told him what to say and patiently got him to repeat it over and over again, so that he would get it absolutely right. That afternoon he went along to a hairdressers, and in his best. Chinese asked for a haircut. The barber looked at him, puzzled, and replied: “Me no speak English”, Herbert felt like coming home on the next boat, but he soldiered on.

The Lord was very good to Herbert, and gave him several gifts, including a level head, an understanding heart and a creative mind.

It was, I suppose, largely due to these gifts that for most of his life he was asked to take on important posts of responsibility. He held the offices of Rector and Principal of Wah Yan College, a large secondary school for Chinese in Hong Kong. He was then made Superior of the Jesuit Mission in Hong Kong, and in 1965 he went as Assistant to our Fr General in Rome where he was based for the next eleven years, with responsibility for the Jesuit Provinces of East Asia and Australia.

On his return to Ireland he became Director of the Tertians. Every Jesuit priest does a third year noviceship after ordination - this is known as his Tertianship, and Herbert was director of the Tertians for nine years.

After that, his main work was giving retreats, and directing twelve-week courses, under the auspices of the National Council of Priests, courses for the pastoral and spiritual life of priests.

When our Jesuit house opened in Belfast in 1988, he was one of the small community. Life in Belfast can be very stressful but he told me that he liked it very much, not only because he was living in a very happy community but also because the bishops, priests and people of Belfast gave the Jesuits such a warm welcome. The Lord also gave Herbert a good sense of humour and an ability to fit in easily with others. He was well-liked and had many friends from all quarters of life.

The first indication of his serious illness occurred when, one Sunday while he was saying Mass for the prisoners in Crumlin Road gaol, he collapsed suddenly. Some days later he received a letter from the prisoners expressing concern about his illness and saying how much they liked him coming to them. He was very touched by this. The day before he died he told me that two good friends of his, Terry and Linda, were coming from the United States to see him, and he added: “I wonder will I be alive”. In fact Fr Paddy Doyle (his colleague in Belfast) phoned them the news of his death. Terry was not able to get away but Linda flew the distance of five thousand miles and arrived at this church just as this Mass was about to begin.

Herbert was a very spiritual person, and several priests and people have told me that he gave them great help with their prayer life, through his talks and spiritual guidance.
With his wide experience and common sense, and his readiness to give encouragement to others, he was in much demand as a counsellor, and many priests, nuns and lay people used to come to him. Fr Doyle tells me that people were constantly knocking at the door asking to see him.

When he was diagnosed as having a tumour, he accepted the news bravely and with resignation and continued to work for as long as he could. He remained cheerful to the end.

At the moment like this my thoughts naturally turn to my parents, and I feel 'I should say and I know that Herbert would endorse this, that our mother and father, especially as they went on in years, were very grateful to God that three of their six sons became Jesuit priests.

Daniel Dargan SJ (Funeral Homily)

Born: 22 May 1891, Bailieborough, County Cavan / Birr, County Offaly
Entered: 15 October 1910, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 30 June 1924, Montreal, Canada
Final Vows: 02 February 1928
Died: 19 June 1966, Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL, USA - Neo-Aurelianensis Province (NOR)

Transcribed HIB to NOR : 1911

Father was Head Constable in the RIC at Birr, County Offaly.

Eldest of five brothers and three sisters.

Educated at an NS in Cavan he then went to the Presentation Brothers in Birr and then went to theApostolic School at Mungret College SJ

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1967

Obituary

Father John Deignan SJ

Very Rev John V Deignan died in June, 1966, at Springhill College, Mobile, Alabama. He was aged 75.

Fr Deignan was a native of Birr, Co. Offaly. Educated at the Presentation Brothers' School, Birr, and at Mungret College Limerick, he entered the Society of Jesus at Tullabeg, Offaly, in 1911; and the following year he joined the American Province of the Order. He was ordained in 1924.

Fr Deignan was for some years on mission work in St Joseph's Church, Bronx, New York, and on retreat ministry at Newark, New Jersey, but he spent most of his life at Springhill College, Mobile, Alabama.

He established the faculty of Science at Springhill College, and was Dean of the Faculty for many years. He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Chemical Society and of the Association of Chemical Education.

Fr. Deignan celebrated his Golden Jubilee as a Jesuit în 1961. His last visit to Ireland was in that year.

He was brother of the late Rev Francis Deignan, Pastor of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, USA, of Sister Mary Imelda, Convent of Mercy, Swinford, Co Mayo, and of Mrs Lillian Mary Buckley. To all his surviving relatives we extend our sympathy. May he rest in peace.

Born: 13 July 1832, Blackditch, County Wicklow
Entered: 21 August 1857, Sault-au-Rècollet Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1865
Final Vows: 15 August 1878
Died: 31 October 1880, Fordham College , NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 29 January 1923, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Entered: 17 August 1940, Rizal, Philippines (MARNEB for HIB)
Ordained: 31 July 1953, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 03 February 1958, Wah Yan College, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Died: 04 December 1993, Our Lady’s Hospice, Dublin

Part of the Cherryfield Lodge community, Dublin community at the time of death.

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

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Francis Chan Fook Wai, SJ., a long-serving teacher in Wah Yan College Kowloon and a sought-after priest at St. Ignatius Chapel there, died in Dublin, Ireland, on 4 December 1993, aged 70 years.

Born to a Catholic family in Shamshuipo, Kowloon, in 1923, he graduated from Wah Yan College Hong Kong which was then situated on Robinson Road. He joined the Jesuits (Society of Jesus) in 1940 and went to the Philippines for his novitiate, taking his vows there under Japanese occupation in 1942.

After studies there in humanities and philosophy, he returned to teach for a year at his old school and then moved to Ireland to study theology in 1950-54 at Milltown Park, Dublin, where he was ordained a priest in 1953. He made his final year of spiritual formation in Wales, followed by a year of educational studies in London.

After returning to Hong Kong in 1956, he took up what was to be his life-long career as a secondary-school teacher, this time in Kowloon Wah Yan College on Waterloo Road.

He was to teach full-time at Form Five level for over 30 years, a period broken only by his going to Canada in 1969 to take a Master's degree in history at the University of Saskatchewan. Even after official retirement at 65 in 1988, he continued with a reduced teaching load for a further two years. During the course of those long years, he had served also as Prefect of Studies of the school and as the first Chinese Rector of the Jesuit community.

His pastoral work at St. Ignatius Chapel had begun as early as 1972 but from 1990 this became his main concern. There he had already become known for the many groups whom he personally instructed for Baptism. Every year he prepared two groups of over fifty adults. He often baptised a whole family, including grandparents and grandchildren.

In early 1992 he moved to England to care for the Chinese Catholics living in London. But soon after taking up that responsibility, he had to undergo major surgery. He was happy to be able to resume his pastoral work for some months but when the problem recurred in mid-1990, he sought medical treatment in Ireland and it was there that he died peacefully on 4 December.

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
His early education was in Wah Yan College Hong Kong.
He made his Novitiate in Manila, and the studied Humanities and Philosophy.
1950-1954 he was sent to Ireland and Milltown Park for Theology.
After that he studied Spiritual formation in Wales and Educational studies in London.
He taught at Wah Yan College Kowloon and then in 1992 he moved to London, England to care for Chinese Catholics living there.

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 82 : September 1995

Obituary

Fr Francis (Frank) Chan (Fook-wai Chan) (1923-1993)
29th Jan. 1923: Born in Hong Kong to a Catholic family Primary studies: Tun Mui School, Hong Kong
Secondary studies: Wah Yan College, Hong Kong - Graduating 1940
14th Aug. 1940: Entered Society at Novaliches Novitiate, Philippines
15th Aug. 1942: First Vows at Novaliches
1942 - 1944: Juniorate at Novaliches, studied English, Latin and Greek
1944 - 1946: Philosophy at Novaliches
1946 - 1950: Regency in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong
1950 - 1954: Theology in Milltown Park
31st July 1953; Ordained a priest in Milltown Park by J.C. McQuaid
1954 - 1955: Tertianship at St. Bueno's, Wales
1955 - 1956: Diploma in Education at Strawberry Hill College, London
1956 - 1958: Taught in Wah Yan College, Kowloon
3rd Feb. 1958: Final Vows, professed
1959-1965: Prefect of Studies in Wah Yan College, Kowloon.
1965-1967: Fund-raising for new school wing
1967-1970: Studies for M.A. in history at University of Saskatchewan, Canada
1970-1990: Taught in Wah Yan College, Kowloon
1972-1978; Minister of community
1972-1991: Prefect of Church
1972-1982: Consultor of Vice-Province
1978-1994: Rector of Wah Yan College
1985-1991: Minister of community
1991-1992: Sabbatical Year
1992-1993: Director of London Chinese Catholic Association, St. Patrick's Church, London
1992: Transcribed to Irish Province
4th Dec. 1993: Died at Our Lady's Hospice, Harolds Cross

I suppose “single-minded” is the word that best sums up Fr. Francis Chan. I first noticed this when we were together in Theology in Milltown Park in the early fifties. For Francis it was slog and swot every spare hour of the day. The result was that he outshone many of his colleagues who considered that they were of higher intellectual ability than him. There was a certain amount of chagrin that Francis got his “Ad Grad” and was thus on the way to becoming Professed Father, while some of his colleagues had to be satisfied with becoming "mere" Spiritual Coadjutors.

Francis continued to show that same determination to achieve academic success after completing his tertianship in St. Beunos, North Wales. He first studied for a Diploma in Education in Strawberry Hill, London. Then, after his return to Hong Kong in 1956, he sat his Matriculation Exam and an external degree in history from London University - no mean achievement as he was a full-time teacher during that period. Later, he obtained a Master's degree from Regina University, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Francis devoted himself with the same single-mindedness to the very difficult task of fund-raising for Wah Yan College, Kowloon. He was Chairman of the Committee and gave himself wholeheartedly to the task, contacting his many friends and Past Students of the College.

When he became Minister of Wah Yan College, Kowloon he showed the same efficiency that he had displayed in classroom teaching and in his term as Prefect of Studies in the College. However, his single mindedness and his determination to achieve sometimes meant that he was lacking in the art of good personal relationships. However, I must say that whenever I visited the College when Francis was minister, or later when he became Rector, he was always most welcoming, considerate and attentive.

I think that this appointment as Minister of Wah Yan was really a turning-point in Francis's career. As Minister, he was in charge of the “School Chapel”. It needs to be explained that the “Chapel”, to all intents and purposes, is a “mini parish church”; funerals or weddings are not performed, but other normal parish activities are carried out. (The official designation of St. Ignatius Chapel is a “Pastoral Zone” - the only one in the whole diocese of Hong Kong!!). It was in this work that Francis really blossomed and it became evident that while he threw himself wholeheartedly into his work as a teacher, his heart wasn't really in it. This might help to explain why he never developed a close personal relationship with his students. Anyhow, he relished his work with the people who came to St. Ignatius Chapel and took a deep interest in them. He prepared very many for Baptism himself, when the general practice of the diocese was to leave this task to catechists. And the people loved him. When he later became Rector, and would normally have ceased being in charge of St. Ignatius Chapel, he continued his association with it. Still later, when he retired from full-time teaching in the College he was able to devote practically all his time to his “parishioners”.

The thought of the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 was something that caused Francis a great deal of anxiety and he made no secret of the fact that he intended to leave well in advance of that date. So, in 1992 he left Hong Kong: first to visit his former parishioners living in Canada and then he came to Ireland. He obtained an Irish passport and became a member of the Irish Province in September of that year. Earlier, he had signed a three-year contract with the Archdiocese of Westminster to be the priest in charge of the Chinese Catholics in London - “Director of the Chinese Catholic Association, London” was his official title.

However, he soon experienced ill health and had prostate surgery in Dublin that same year. Against medical advice, Francis insisted on returning to his flock in London. He realised that, on account of his cancer, he didn't have very long to live so he paid a final visit to Hong Kong without revealing to anyone his serious medical condition. When the cancer worsened he had to leave his pastoral work in London and took up residence in Cherryfield Lodge in August, 1993. As his health continued to deteriorate, he moved to Our Lady's Hospice, Harold's Cross, Dublin where he died on 4th December, 1993.

Something of the single-mindedness that had marked his life was evident in his final illness. He knew that he hadn't long to live so he committed himself totally into the hands of his Creator. The nurses in the Hospice said that they had never seen anyone die with such peaceful resignation - a peace that was clearly evident on his face after his death. May he rest in peace.

JG Foley

Born: 12 September 1916, Joliette, Québec, Canada
Entered: 07 September 1933, Sault-au-Récollet, Canada - Canada Inferiors Province (CAN I)
Ordained: 08 June 1946
Final vows: 17 September 1978
Died: 23 February 2002, St Jérôme, Québec, Canada - Sinensis Province (CHN)

Transcribed CAN I to ExOr; app HK 1952-1960

by 1953 came to Aberdeen Hong Kong (HIB) teaching 1952-1960

Born: 23 April 1941, Dangan, Thomastown, County Kilkenny
Entered: 06 September 1958, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 20 June 1971, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1977, St Ignatius, Lusaka, Zambia
Died: 06 May 2020, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

Born in Dublin.

Parents were farmers.

Eldest with one brother and one sister.

Educated at National schools for seven years he then went to Mungret College SJ for five years.

by 1963 at Pullach, Germany (GER S) studying
by 1974 at Guelph ONT, Canada (CAN S) making tertianship
by 1975 at Lusaka, Zambia (ZAM) working
by 1978 at Pleasanton, CA USA (CAL) studying
by 1981 at Chicago IL, USA (CHG) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/david-gaffney-sj-a-gentle-and-dedicated-jesuit/

David Gaffney SJ: a gentle and dedicated Jesuit
Irish Jesuit David Gaffney, a native of Thomastown, Kilkenny, passed away in St Vincent’s Hospital on 6 May. He was 79. Due to current government guidelines regarding public gatherings, the funeral is private. A memorial Mass to celebrate David’s life will take place at a later date.

The condolences posted on the RIP.ie website display the high regard and warm affection which people had for him wherever he lived and worked. The same adjectives are used repeatedly: kind, wise, gentle, pleasant, peaceful, caring.

“We joined the Jesuits on the same day, September 6, 1958,” writes Barney McGuckian SJ; “He always edified me with his gentleness but also his tenacity in following the highest ideals of a Jesuit vocation. Gifted intellectually, he placed his God-given talents at the service of ordinary people, both as a writer and as a “hands-on” visitor to their homes.”

In the decades after he joined the Jesuits, David gained a great deal of intellectual and pastoral experience in many parts of the world. After an Arts degree in UCD, he went to Germany to study philosophy, returned to Ireland to study theology, then did further Jesuit formation in Canada before working for three years in a parish in Lusaka, Zambia.

He then worked in the United States in marriage counselling for four years before his definitive return to Ireland in 1982.

In the years since then he worked in marriage and family apostolates and as an editor of various publications. He was a regular columnist at the Kilkenny People and later with The Avondhu for a number of years, writing reflective opinion pieces regularly.

Regarding this work, Conall O’Cuinn, former Jesuit and Rector of Milltown Park, notes that in his articles David wanted to promote truly human values and “worked ceaselessly to ‘vamp up’ in his own mind his writing so that it would be more eye-catching, even if that aspiration was contrary to his retiring personality...”

In all of David’s activities he worked with great grace and devotion.

Read below the appreciation by Conall. He had not known of David’s illness and so says, ” I write this piece as my way of mourning David’s passing, for a passing it is, into the permanent presence of Jesus who leads him into the Joy of the Father.” :

A Gentle Giant
I ‘met’ David first in 1989 when I sent him a letter from Zambia on hearing he had taken over the editorship of Interfuse, an internal Irish Jesuit Province magazine. I had had an article rejected by a previous editor, and, once David took over, I immediately resubmitted it for consideration. By return post, he accepted the article. Since then on he has remained in my good books!

David took his editing and writing seriously, and later, during the years I lived with him in Milltown Park, I witnessed him faithfully send out his articles to provincial newspapers which were still accepting spiritual reflections. He worked ceaselessly to ‘vamp up’ in his own mind his writing so that it would be more eye- catching, even if that aspiration was contrary to his retiring personality, full of a depth that promoted true human values.

His other ‘apostolate’ at that time was Parish Visitation. Day after day he left the comfort of Milltown Park in his legendary anorak, in good, bad, or indifferent weather – “you’d never know, it might rain, or turn cold “- to travel by car across to Cherry Orchard Parish to visit the parishioners in their homes. He went with such dedication that I am sure he had many fans over there who appreciated his sincerity and his unassuming and unimposing manner.

David did not like fuss. He came quietly into a room and left quietly. Ideal for him would be a chat with one or two people in a quiet corner, where his sense of comedy and humour would show. A gathering was enhanced and deepened by his presence, even if he never took centre stage.

Many will remember that driving was not his forte. Smooth transitions from gear to gear eluded him, and he kept the local garage busy in clutch replacement. Eventually, we got an automatic in the community, and he liked that.

David was a member of the Milltown Park Consult. I valued his quiet, gently proffered, wisdom. He always looked for the kind step to take, never encouraging harshness, always advising to proceed with gentleness and prudence.

I will always remember him as a gentle giant. He was personable and encouraging, always able to meet you in a way you knew afterwards you had been seen, had been regarded, esteemed, and valued. You felt bigger, never smaller. He did not crush the bruised reed, not extinguish the flickering flame. May he rest gently in the bosom of his Lord.

Conall O’Cuinn 12 May 2020

Early Education at Thomastown NS, Kilkenny; Mungret College SJ

1960-1963 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1963-1966 Pullach, Isartel, Germany - Studying Philosophy at Berchmanskolleg
1966-1968 Belvedere College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying H Dip in Education at UCD
1968-1972 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1972-1973 Manresa House - Socius to Novice Master; Directs Spiritual Exercises
1973-1975 Belvedere College SJ - Teacher
1974 Guelph, ON, Canada - Tertianship at Ignatius Jesuit Centre
1975-1978 Lusaka, Zambia - Assists in Matero Parish
1978-1980 Pleasanton, CA, USA - MA in Counselling at Santa Clara University & Parish work at St Augustine’s Church
1980-1982 Chicago, IL, USA - Marriage Counselling at Our Lady Mount Carmel Church
1982-1987 John Austin House - Marriage & Family Apostolate; Community Co-ordinator; Minister; Bursar
1987-2020 Milltown Park - Parish Assistant, Most Holy Sacrament, Cherry Orchard; Marriage & Family Apostolate
1989 Editor “Interfuse”
1992 Parish Assistant, St Vincent de Paul Parish, Marino
1994 Assistant Editor of “Messenger Booklets”; Family Apostolate
1998 Assistant Editor “Pioneer”
1999 Family Apostolate; Working in “Studies”; Writer
2017 Family Apostolate, Writer

Born: 25 August 1939, The Dispensary Residence, Collooney, County Sligo
Entered: 08 October 1961, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 23 June 1972, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows; 02 February 1978, University Hall SJ, Dublin
Died: 06 November 2015, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

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

Born in Dublin

Parents were both doctors. Father - Andrew

Only child

Early education at a National school in Collooney for five years, he then went to Clongowes Wood College SJ for six years.

He won an award of financial support in Modern Languages at UCD, winning a scholarship each year and gaining a BA. He then went to the University of Caen, France 1960-1961. He then sat for the Travelling Studentship in English at the NUI and was awarded it along with an MA in English.

by 1964 at Campion Hall, Oxford (ANG) studying
by 1966 at Heythrop, Oxford (ANG) studying
by 1969 at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore MD, USA - studying
by 1986 at Toronto, Canada (CAN S) Sabbatical
by 1991 at Bellarmino, Rome, Italy (DIR) Sec to Congregation for Unbelief
by 2001 at Gesù, Rome, Italy (DIR) teaching at Gregorian

Born: 22 August 1912, Sorel-Tracy, Québec, Canada
Entered: 30 July 1933, Sault-au-Récolle, Canada - Canada Inferiors Province (CAN I)
Ordained: 07 June 1944
Professed: 03 February 1947
Died: 09 April 1973, Taipei, Taiwan - Sinensis Province (CHN)

Transcribed : CAN I to CHN 1992

by 1958 came to Aberdeen Hong Kong (HIB) working 1957-1961

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

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

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

Parents were farmers and family then lived at Toureen, Ballysimon, County Limerick

Youngest of four boys with three sisters.

Educated at Bohermore National School, Limerick he then went to Crescent College SJ for seven years.

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

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

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

Interfuse No 92 : August 1996

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 19 December 1920, Main Street, Moate, County Westmeathth
Entered: 20 September 1938, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1952, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 22 April 1989, John Austin House, Dublin
Died: 09 January 1990, Fuengirola, Spain

Part of the John Austin community, North Circular Road, Dublin at the time of death.

Parents run business.

Younger of two boys with seven sisters,(one his twin)

Early education at Moate NS he then went to St Mary’s, Athlone the Marist school. (Cycled 20 miles a day)

by 1979 at Toronto ONT, Canada (CAN S) sabbatical

Born: 30 April 1825, Keady, County Armagh
Entered: 07 August 1850, Montréal, Québec, Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1858
Professed: 15 August 1864
Died: 21 October 1866, Montpellier, France - Campaniae Province (CAMP)

Part of the Issenheim, France community at the time of death

Born: 01 August 1876, Halifax, Yorkshire, England
Entered: 07 September 1893, Roehampton London - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 24 September 1911
Final vows: 02 February 1914
Died: 16 April 1956, St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales - Angliae Province (ANG)

by 1913 came to Tullabeg (HIB) making Tertianship
by 1940 came to Rathfarnham (HIB) - Tertian Director 1939-1942

Born: 12 April 1835, Clogher, Co Tipperary
Entered: 17 March 1858, Santa Clara CA, USA - Taurensis Province (TAUR)
Ordained: 31 July 1870, Vancouver, Washington USA (Canada)
Professed: 02 February 1876, Santa Clara CA, USA
Died: 27 September 1887, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara CA, USA - Taurensis Province (TAUR)

Born: 24 June 1889, Annagh House, Birr, County Offaly
Entered: 31 August 1921, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 18 October 1926, Fourvière, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1932, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 06 February 1949, St Francis Xavier, Lavender Bay, North Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Father was a farmer and died in 1907. Mother now resides at Darrinsalla House, Birr supported by private means.

Youngest of secen sons with two sisters.

At 13 he went to Knockbeg College, Carlow until 1907. Then went to UCD to study medicine, qualifying in 1913. He then took medical postgraduate studies.

He then worked as Medical Officer at Silvermines Dispensary in Nenagh (1913-1914); House Surgeon at Royal Hospital Wolverhampton and North Ormesby Hospital in Middlesbrough (1914-1915); Lietenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps (1915-1916); Ships Surgeon, Cunard Company (1916-1917); GP in Nenagh (1917-1918)

In 1918-1919 he studied 1 year of Theology at Dalgan Park, County Meath with the Columban Fathers and was destined for Chinese Mission

Medical Officer at Terryglass Dispensary, Borrisokane, County Tipperary.1920-1922

by 1927 at Paray-le-Monial France (LUGD) studying
by 1929 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) making Tertianship
by 1930 third wave Hong Kong Missioners
by 1934 at Gonzaga College, Shanghai, China (FRA) teaching
by 1938 at Wah Yan, Hong Kong - working

Served as Medical Doctor in RAMC during 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
Gerald Kennedy served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during WW1 in Flanders and on a ship on the Atlantic. He entered the Society 31 August 1919 (1921 in fact) at Tullabeg with a medical degree, and after Philosophy at Milltown Park, 1923-25, and Theology at Ore Place, Hastings and Fourvières, 1925-28, completed Tertianship at St Beuno’s, 1928-29.
He was then sent to the Hong Kong Mission 1929-1945, and spent these years at Ricci Hall, the university residence, the seminary (at Aberdeen) or Wah Yan College, lecturing and teaching as well as doing pastoral work, but he never learned the Chinese language. He was popular with the students in the seminary, entertaining them with his charm. He gave the Jesuits their hints on how to be successful classroom teachers, and wrote a textbook in Chemistry and Physics whilst at Wah Yan.
He spent 1934 with the Jesuits and Shanghai, in Gonzaga College. From 1938 he worked with refugees in a hospital in Canton. Medical supplies were scarce, but he discovered a partial cure for cholera. He worked as rice-forager, money collector and spiritual guide to the sisters who ran the hospital. During 1941 he was at St Theresa’s hospital Kowloon, but he was worn out. He had fought the good fight.
As a result, he was recalled to Ireland, where he recovered his former vigour sufficiently to give Retreats in Galway, 1945-46, and did pastoral work in Tullabeg. He was sent to Australia and the Lavender Bay parish 1948-49, where he worked for six months in the chapel of the Star of the Sea, at Milsons Point. He was remembered for having a dry, searching humour, and a mixture of kindly trust and breeziness.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Doctor before Entry

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 21st Year No 1 1946

Arrivals :

Our three repatriated missioners from Hong Kong: Frs. T. Fitzgerald, Gallagher and G. Kennedy, arrived in Dublin in November and are rapidly regaining weight and old form. Fr. Gallagher has been assigned to the mission staff and will be residing at St. Mary's, Emo.

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948

Frs. Kennedy G., O'Flanagan and Saul leave for Australia on 9th July.

Irish Province News 24th Year No 2 1949

Death of Fr. Gerald Kennedy :
Fr. G. Kennedy died in Australia on February 6th. He had been in failing health for a considerable time, and it was hoped that the Australian climate might restore his former vigour. But in China, before and during the war, he had been prodigal of his energy in the service of others. He did wonders during the cholera outbreak at Canton he accomplished wonders, not only by his devoted attention to the sufferers, but by his medical knowledge. Out of the very limited resources available he compounded a remedy which saved many lives and achieved better results than the Americans were able to obtain with their vastly superior equipment.
To know Fr. Kennedy was to love him. He has left to the Province a fragrant memory.

Irish Province News 24th Year No 3 1949

Obituary

Fr. Gerald Kennedy (1889-1921-1949)

When Gerald Kennedy became a Jesuit, he was already a mature man of thirty-two. Born in 1889, he took his medical degree at the National University in Dublin, went through World War I in the R.A.M.C., and then settled down to a dozen years of country practice in Nenagh and Birr. Having spent a few months at Dalgan Park, he entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1921. His noviceship over, two year's philosophy at Milltown Park were followed immediately by theology at Hastings and Fourvière, where he was ordained on December 18th, 1926. After making his tertianship at St. Beuno's (1928-1929), he sailed for Hong Kong. He remained on the Mission until his return to Ireland in November, 1945. He then spent a year on the retreat staff. The 1946 Status found him once more back in Tullabeg as Prefect of the Church, in which office he continued until June, 1948. That same summer he made his last trip - to Australia, which he reached in August. He was assigned to parish work in Melbourne, and there he died on February 6th, 1949.
In his twenty-eight years as a Jesuit, Gerald Kennedy won the esteem and affection of all who lived with him. The measure of that warm respect may be found in the name by which he was universally known : “Doc”. It was a term that did more than merely remind us that he had lost none of the shrewd skill and observation of the country practitioner. It held a far richer connotation. “Doc” was, in the best sense of the world, a character. There was nothing dark about his dry, searching humour-a mixture of kindly thrust and breeziness (no one who heard it will forget his cheery salute to the company : “God save all here - not barring the cat!”). In spontaneous mood he was inimitable for his humorous description of situations and personalities. His account of a Chinese banquet will be remembered as a masterpiece of gastronomic analysis. For all his sense of fun, however, “Doc” had a deep and steady seriousness of mind - his very gait was purposeful. A constant reader, his main interests were biography and history with a particular leaning towards French culture. Both as a doctor and as a Jesuit, he was for years keenly preoccupied with the psychological problems of the religious life and of spiritual experience. One of his many obiter dicta was to the effect that no Jesuit should be allowed on the road as a retreat-giver or spiritual director, who through ignorance or prejudice was incapable of helping souls in the higher forms of prayer. His own spiritual life was simple, direct and matter of fact. A strong yet gentle character, his unobtrusive simplicity went hand in hand with a certain blunt forcefulness of purpose. Outstanding among his virtues were a remarkable sense of duty and an unfailing charity.
Of his life as a Jesuit, Fr. Kennedy spent more than half on the Hong Kong mission. Over forty when he arrived in China, be never acquired a grip of the language. This did not prevent him, however, from quietly poking fun at the advanced students and old hands, to gravely correcting their tones or shamelessly manufacturing new phrases for their puzzlement and exasperation. Nor did his ignorance of Chinese materially lessen his usefulness. During his early years on the mission, he was in turn Minister in the Seminary and on the teaching staff of Wah Yan, His Ministership coincided with the period of the building and organisation of the Seminary - a harassing time. His cheerfulness was well equal to it. As an extract from a contemporary letter puts it : “In spite of many inconveniences of pioneering (e.g. the absence of a kitchen and a water supply) the Minister's sense of humour remained unshaken”. While at Wah Yan, he found time and energy (and, considering the steam-laundry quality of the climate for many months of the year, that says much) to compose a small text-book of Chemistry and a further one of Physics for his class. He was always on the job.
It was from 1938 onwards, however, that “Doc” really came into his own. In the November of that year a food ship was sent from Hong Kong to the relief of the refugees in Japanese occupied Canton. Fr. Kennedy travelled up as one of the organising committee, On account of his medical experience he was soon attached to the Fong Pin hospital, run by the French Canadian Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. Here he found full scope for his doctor's knowledge and for his untiring charity. There was work for a dozen doctors and for as many administrators. Fr. Kennedy was alone. He had to deal with a hospital overcrowded beyond all reasonable capacity, to refuse patients was to let them die on the streets and to incur the censure of the Japanese. The nursing staff was pitiably inadequate and could not be made good even by the heroic devotion of the Sisters. Sufferers were two and three in a bed, and on the floor of the wards, the dead, awaiting removal and burial, lay cheek by jowl with the dying. All medical supplies were scarce - some were unobtainable. It was in such conditions that “Doc” had to treat his patients. Yet, amazing as it may seem, it was in the midst of such killing and stupefying work that Fr. Kennedy discovered a partial cure for cholera. He did some thing more amazing still - with his work as doctor he managed to combine the offices of rice-forager, money-collector and spiritual director to the Sisters. Both in Canton and in Hong Kong he went the rounds raising supplies and funds for the hospital, and gave the Sisters regular conferences and an eight-day retreat-in French. He kept up this pace for over two years.
He was back in Hong Kong for the outbreak of war in December, 1941. During the hostilities and for the most of the subsequent Japanese occupation of the Colony, he was in St. Teresa's Hospital, Kowloon. His work there was much the same as he had had in Canton, although the conditions were slightly better. He was doctor, administrator and again, spiritual guide and consoler to the French Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres. With his fellow Jesuits he underwent all the strain, mental and physical, of those three and a half years. More than others, perhaps, he suffered from the almost starvation diet. Yet, his cheerfulness never failed nor his unremitting devotion to his work. The same cannot be said for his health. When the peace came, he was a tired man, worn out in mind and body.
Fr. Kennedy was always a fighter. Back in Ireland, he recovered some of his old vigour - sufficient, at all events, to urge him to volunteer for Australia. He must have suspected that he had not very long to live, for shortly before sailing he expressed the hope that he might be given two or three years of work in which to justify the expense of his passage out. He need not have worried. Six months was all he had in Australia, it is true. But by his whole life in the Society, by his fund of good humour, by his charity, by his immense labours on the mission, by his deep, simple spirituality, “before God and men”, “Doc” more than paid his way.

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: 27 June 1865, Terra Nova, Newfoundland, Canada
Entered: 10 April 1885, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 1900, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1903
Died: 21 July 1933, Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Brisbane, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

part of the Manresa, Toowong, Brisbane, Australia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1895 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
Came to Australia in 1887 post Novitiate for studies and Regency
by 1902 at St David’s, Mold, Wales (FRA) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Robert Little was the son of the then premier of Newfoundland, but was domiciled at Monkstown, Dublin, and was educated at Clongowes College, 1880-84.
He entered the Society 10 April 1885 and, early in 1887, was sent to Australia to complete his noviciate and juniorate. He began teaching French and English at Riverview, 1888-94, and was also involved with rowing, debating and the library. He went to Jersey for philosophy and then Milltown Park for theology; and was ordained in 1901. Tertianship was undertaken at Mold, Wales, 1901-02. He taught at Belvedere College, Dublin, 1902-03, and was solemnly professed, 15 August 1904. He set sail again for Australia in 1903. For several years he was attached to the staff at Riverview, and was prefect of studies, 1905-13. He spent a few years in the parish of Richmond and St Patrick's College, and in 1916 was transferred to the Brisbane parish of Toowong where he remained until his death. During these years he distinguished himself as a controversialist. While at Riverview, his students believed him to be an admirable English teacher. He loved Chaucer and was given that name. Not only was he painstaking in his work, but he also gave the impression of giving his students individual tutorship. He gave graphic illustrations of what he wanted to convey in his teaching. There was a charm of mind and manner about Little that no one who knew him well would easily forget. He was a reserved person, even shy, which was not easy to penetrate. He had a mind well stocked with a wide range of information, an excellent literary taste and a delicate sense of values that made his criticism valuable and sought after. His keen intellect made him deadly in controversy and this led to his being feared by anti-Catholic propagandists. He had an old world culture that was singularly attractive, but he was also unpractical and somewhat distrait. To this he added a gentleness of manner and a kindness of heart. Through his charm of manner there shone a strong, spiritual man. His last illness lasted two years and he bore his pain with resignation and patient endurance.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 8th Year No 4 1933

Obituary :
Father Robert Little
Father Robert Little died in Australia, Friday, 21st July 1933.
He was born in Newfoundland, 27th June, 1865, educated at Tullabeg and Clongowes, and began his novitiate at Dromore, Co. Down, 10th April, 1885. According to the Catalogue Father Little was at Kew Melbourne, in 1887, where he studied for a year, six years at Riverview, as master or prefect, followed, He began philosophy at Jersey in 1894, theology at Milltown Park, 1897, tertianship at Mold 1901. After a year as Minister in Belvedere he returned to Riverview. He spent one year in that College as Master and was then appointed its Prefect of Studies, which position he held until 1913. One more year at Riverview as Master etc., was followed by a year at Richmond, another at St, Patrick's College, and then in 1916 he became Minister at Brisbane. He held that post until 1931. As Cur. Val. he passed the last two years of his life at Brisbane.
The following is taken from the “Irish Independent” 25th July, 1933 :
By the death of Rev. Robert Little, SJ., at Toowong Brisbane, the Jesuit Order has lost a brilliant member, an erudite theologian, and eloquent preacher. He was son of the late Philip F. Little, a premier of Newfoundland, and brother of Mr. P. I. Little, T.D,, Private Secretary to the President of the Executive Council , Mr. E. J, Little, D.J., and Mr. C. W. Little of the Land Commission.
Born in 1865, he was educated at St. Stanislaus College Tullabeg, and Clongowes Wood College. After his novitiate at Dromore, Co, Down in 1885, he was sent to Australia and
engaged in College work at Riverview College, Sydney. After nine years he went through philosophical and theological studies in Jersey and Milltown Park, where he was ordained in 1900. Following a year in Belvedere College, he again went to Australia where he was a close friend of Archbishop Mannix.

◆ Our Alma Mater, St Ignatius Riverview, Sydney, Australia, 1933

Obituary

Father Robert J Little

Father Robert Little SJ, died at the Mater Hospital, Brisbane, on July 21st, after a long and painful illness. Confined to his bed for the last two years of his life and in constant pain, he bore his lengthy and severe trial with a patience and resignation which edified all who were with him. To those who knew him, his patient endurance and calmness of soul fitted in with that deep holiness and perfect mastery of himself which distin guished him through life.

Father Little was born in Newfoundland in 1865. He was thus in his sixty ninth year when he died. He was the son of the late Judge Little who, for many years, was district Judge in Ireland.

He was educated at St. Stanislaus College, Tullabeg. Ireland, where he laid the foundation of that ripe scholarship which he acquired so fully in after life.

He entered the Society of Jesus in 1885 and, early in his career, was sent to Australia. He began his years of teaching at Riverview in company with the late Fr Pigot SJ, and under the Rectorship of the late Fr Keating SJ In due course he returned to Ireland for his higher studies and was ordained in 1901. Two years later he set sail again for Australia. For several years during his second period in this country he was attached to the staff at Riverview. For some twelve years he held the position of Prefect of Studies. In 1916 he was transferred to Brisbane to the newly founded Parish of Toowong, where he remained till his death, During these years he distinguished himself as a controversialist-a work in which he showed himself very skilled.

There was a charm of mind and manner about Father Little that no one who knew him intimately will easily forget. Perhaps these will be comparatively few, for he had a reserve, one might say a shyness, which it was not easy to penetrate. He had a mind well stocked with a wide range of information, an excellent literary taste and a delicate sense of values which made his criticism valuable and sought after. : It was an old world culture which was singularly attractive. To this he added a gentleness of manner and a kindness of heart which won him a multitude of friends. And through this charm of man ner shone the earnestness of a soul imbued with holiness and utterly unselfish. His work for God and for souls absorbed him. No one was too insignificant, nothing too small if there was question of something to be done for God.

Father Little's was a life passed close to God from Whom he derived that love of men of which nothing too great could be demanded. He united the simplicity of soul of a St Francis to the culture of a University don; and the austerity of the religious garb did not hide his gentleness, his urbanity and his unfailing sincerity. These fitted him well for his life's work as teacher of youth and seeker of souls for Christ. RIP

◆ The Clongownian, 1934

Obituary

Father Robert Little SJ

Father Robert Little was born at St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1865. He was the son of Judge Little, who became Premier of Newfoundland. The family also lived in Prince Edward Island. Mrs Little had property in Ireland and thither the family went, Robert being educated at Clongowes with his numerous brothers, More than one of his brothers adopted the profession of law, and one of them is at present a judge in the Free State. His brother Ignatius was a major in the Indian Army, spent a considerable time in India, and is now in Ireland. His brother Philip Francis is well-known as a poet, some of his compositions being of remark ably high quality.

Robert entered the Society of Jesus in 1885 and went to Australia in 1887. He was a master in St Ignatius' College, Riverview, for some seven years and then went to Europe to complete his studies for the priesthood. In 1897 he was ordained at Milltown Park, Dublin, and a couple of years later returned to Australia where he resumed work first at Riverview, and then in other Houses, being finally appointed to Brisbane where, after several years of parish work, he died.

Father Little was a fascinating personality, of remarkable originality, and of the keenest sense of humour. He radiated fun wherever he went, and I venture to say that in the whole course of his life he never said an unkind word to anybody, though his pranks assumed, at times, almost the characteristic of eccentricity. So great was his geniality and his kindness that no one ever felt any resentment at whatever he did. He was the perfect gentleman to the tips of his fingers. It was in his blood and in every member of his family.

He dearly loved a discussion. In order to finish a discussion it made no matter whether you or he missed a train, tram, steamer, or aeroplane. On the point of punctuality he was well-nigh hopeless. His great delight, as a younger man, was - to use a humorous metaphor that he sometimes adopted - to catch the train or the boat “on the hop”. He always arrived at the last moment, just as the conveyance was moving out. Sometimes he bounded into it while it was in motion, at other times he chased it, and even one time leaving Galway for Dublin - got an express to stop outside the station for him.

He was continually in the centre of amusing pictures. His Ford car was well-known around Brisbane, especially when he was learning to manipulate it, and it is said that those who went out with him in those hectic days, on the return felt so near Eternity that they began to make their wills! On one occasion he found himself out a distance of a few rniles from Toowong, The Ford car would not go forward, so he backed it all the way from Mogill to Toowong, to the amazement of the population. On another occasion when Father Roney, a great stickler for punctuality, was his Superior, Father Little arrived an hour and a half late for dinner, Father Roney looked very grave and said solemnly, “You are an hour and a half late. What has happened?” “Oh”, said Father Little, “those motor cars, you know, are apt to play tricks on one and cause delays on the road”. This was very satisfactory so far as it went, but the whole story is as follows: Father Little, having reached a certain river and not finding the ferry which would take the car across, accidentally drove the car into the river - which was deep - and left it there. The following morning he organized a relief party of men and boys with ropes, horses, and things, and they pulled the car out of the river.

On another occasion the Superior of the Australian Mission (Father J Sullivan) was on visitation and Father Little undertook to drive him around in his Ford, They got up the hills all right, but they had a tempestuous time coming down. Father Little had a theory that it was a mistake to use the brakes, as it wore them out, so he let the Ford run by the force of gravity down the hills. Suddenly the horrified Superior saw they were heading full career for a stone wall, and when the car leaped on to the footpath he was expecting an instantaneous departure to Eternity, when fortunately, the mudguard was hooked by a lamp-post and the car waltzed around into the road. This experience must have appreciably shortened the life of the poor Superior

On another occasion when the Superior was leaving for the South, Father Little undertook to see him safely to his train, He was to pick the Rev Father up at 8.30, but did not appear till 8.40. The poor Superior was already anxious about his train, but what was his amazement when Father Little asked him to give a hand at shoving the Ford out into the road as the engine would not move till warmed up. Father Suilivan threw his weight on to the machine and got it out, under the direction of Father Little, into the middle of the road. But the Ford refused to move, so Father Little said genially, “Let's get out and shove it down the hill, The engine is not yet warmed up”. Having started it down the hill, Father Little and the Superior frantically leaped in, and down the hill went the Ford and reached the bottom without any sign of activity in the engine. Father Little said coolly, “It is not yet warm enough. We'll have to push it up another hill!” Thereupon the Father Superior and Father Little astonished the population by shoving their car up a long hill. They got in and again let it slide down, the Superior almost despairing of getting to his train, when suddenly the Ford's engine started running and all seemed well until at a certain point it stopped dead in the middle of the tram line with a tram tearing down behind them. Here they had to get out again and shove the Ford off the line. Finally, at another halt near the station the Superior seized his luggage and made a frantic dash for the train which he boarded, all breathless, when it was already in motion. Then Father Little, radiant with pleasure at the morning's excitement, appeared, waved him a cordial farewell, and said in the most matter-of-fact way, “Be sure to tell Arthur (his cousin) to take up the study of metaphysics instead of literature”. The Superior sat back and tried to calm the excessive palpitation of an overstrained heart.

Incidents like the above are distributed through the whole life of Father Little and, in his case, produced amusement where in the case of anyone else they would have produced explosions of indignation. He was popular everywhere, with children, with old people, with learned professors, and Protestant divines. Everyone liked him, and I feel sure that his many controversies in the Brisbane papers never made him an enemy. He is greatly missed by the parishioners of Toowong. He was the soul of charity, and as already mentioned, never said an unkind word of anyone.

The gaiety of the world is lessened by his departure, but the remembrance of his delicate charity and courtesy will remain like a sweet perfume in the hearts of all his friends.

E Boylan SJ

Born: 27 April 1933, Bantry, Country Cork
Raised: Bantry, Co Cork; Youghal, Co Cork; Carrick-ob-Shannon, Co Leitrim; Killarney, Co Kerry
Entered: 07 September 1955, St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 10 July 1968, Milltown Park Chapel, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1981, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 30 December 2022, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park Community at the time of death

Father was Postmaster in Bantry at the time of his birth. He was then promoted to Youghal, Carrick-on-Shannon and Killarney. Family then settled in Eden Terrace, North Circular Road, Limerick City, where father was Postmaster of Limerick.

Eldest of six boys and three sisters.

Educated at the Presentation Convent and Christan Brothers school in Youghal. His father was then moved to Carrick-on-Shannon. Here he passed his Intermediate Certificate and then the family moved again to Killarney (1948) as his father was promoted again there. He finished his schooling at St Brendan’s Seminary, Killarney.

He then went to Dublin in 1950 to take a job with the Post Office. In the same year he was appointed a Clerical Officer in the Civil Service, Accounts Branch of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, and then worked in the Stores Branch there. He then changed jobs to the ESB and was working at the Head Office. During this time he went to night classes at the College of Commerce in Rathmines. gaining Certs in Commerce and Accountancy, and also studied violin at the Municipal School of Music in Dublin. He then went to UCD and studied Commerce and Arts.

Born: 26 April 1926, Iona Road, Glasnevin, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1944, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1958, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 05 November 1977, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 04 May 2005, Victoria Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia - Zambia-Malawi Province (ZAM)

Part of the Nakambala Church, Mazabuka, Zambia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03 December 1969

Father was a doctor. Father, step-mother and family lived at Wilkinstown, Navan, County Meath.

Eldest of five step-brothers and have one step-sister.

Educated at a Christian Brothers school in Kells, County Meath for five years, he then went to Clongowes Wood College SJ for six years.

by 1953 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) Regency - fifth wave of Zambian Missioners
by 1967 at SFX University Antigonish Canada (CAN S) studying

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Fr Norman MacDonald was born in Dublin on 26 April 1926. His mother died while he was still a child. However he had stepbrothers, three of whom came to see him while he was in Zambia.

He went to Clongowes Wood College as a young boy and had the nickname of 'Curley Wee', not after the cartoon character but because of his short curly hair at that time. After secondary school, he entered the Jesuits at Emo Park in 1944 and pursued the normal study course of arts, philosophy and theology. He went to the then Northern Rhodesia in 1951 as a scholastic, learned ciTonga and taught for two years in Canisius Secondary School, as well as being involved in brick making.

Returning to Ireland for theology, he was ordained priest at Milltown Park Dublin on 31 July 1958. After tertianship, he returned to Northern Rhodesia and was minister at Chikuni for a year.

Looking at his curriculum, Fr Norman was parish priest or assistant parish priest for over forty years. This was work he was good at and did well. He first went to Kasiya Parish (1961-1970), then to Mazabuka to Assumption Parish (1970-1976). His longest continuous stint was at Chilalatambo as parish priest from 1976 to 1993 – 17 years. He built a number of small churches at the outstations where he went to say Mass and over a number of years he was part of a team involved in translating the Bible into ciTonga.

He lived on his own over these years and established a daily routine for himself, everything in its place, an unchanging routine meticulously laid out. He was attached to Mukasa Community in Choma 60 miles away and would come in once a week to load up with supplies, arriving at a set time and departing next morning. Before he stopped smoking, it was a lesson in itself to see him prepare and light his pipe in the evening. Everything he did was carefully jotted down, things done, things to be done, in his round copperplate almost childlike handwriting.

He loved the game of rugby, for he was on the school rugby team as a boy, a solid fullback. In fact when he went on leave he opted for the winter months so that he could attend the rugby matches in Ireland.

A year spent in Chikuni parish brought him again to Mazabuka, this time to Nakambala parish in 1994. As he worked there, a day came which was to change his life. In early July he got a stroke, just as he parked his vanette and was getting out of it. He was incapacitated and was brought to John Chula House in Lusaka. His mind and speech were clear. Slowly he began to mend; he got to the stage that with a walker he could make his way to the dining room for morning tea. He was brought to Victoria hospital for treatment and there he fell out of bed and broke his shoulder. This really set him back and he seemed worse than when he came in at first. However he began again with physiotherapy and slowly, oh so slowly, he tried to get onto his feet again but with little improvement. He was aided to get in and out of bed and at night a minder was there, William by name. He complained of stomach trouble, an ulcer he called it and would take antacid tablets before bed. As the stomach pain got worse he was taken to Victoria hospital with his minder William. Stomach cancer was diagnosed. On the morning he was to be operated on, he asked William to hold his hand, and thus he died on 4 May 2005 at 05.10, a complete surprise!

His brother Paddy came from Australia for the funeral with Mass at Nakambala and afterwards Norman was buried at Chikuni. Fr O'Keeffe gave the homily in ciTonga and Fr Walsh in English.

During his period at John Chula house, from the time he came until he died, Fr Norman showed extraordinary courage. His sense of humour, his day-to-day acceptance of his condition and his lack of self-pity were the fruit of his inner life. A fellow Jesuit described Fr Norman as 'a nice person' in the sense that he had a pleasant disposition and was very pleasant to visit – and that does sum him up.

Note from Philip O’Keeffe Entry
And now the darkness of the open door into some small African house is reflected on the blue water across the river where he has now gone. Maureen and Bill, his parents are there to meet him. Rufina Mwiinga and Jennifer Ndima and Norman MacDonald and many many others are there too.

https://ordo.jesuitssouthern.africa/obit/05-04-2005%20%E2%80%93%20Norman%20MacDonald.pdf

Obituary

Norman MacDonald (1926-2005) : Zambia-Malawi Province

April 26th 1926: Born in Dublin, Ireland
September 7th 1944: Entered in Emo Park
July 31st 1958 Ordainedin Milltown Park, Dublin
November 5th 1977 Final Vows in Chikuni
May 4th 2005: Died in Lusaka

From Newsletter for Zambia-Malawi:
Norman's mother died while he was still an infant and her only child. However, his father remarried and Norman had five stepbrothers and a stepsister; three of the brothers and the sister came to see him while he was in Zambia.

He went to Clongowes Wood College as a young boy and had the nickname of “Curley Wee”, not after the cartoon character, but because of his sort curly hair at that time. After secondary school, he entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Emo Park in 1944 and pursued the normal study course of arts, philosophy and theology. He was sent to the then Northern Rhodesia in 1953 for regency, where he learned Chitonga and taught for two years in Canisius Secondary School.

Returning to Ireland for theology, he was ordained at Milltown Park on July 3154 1953. After tertianship, he returned to N. Rhodesia and was minister of Chikuni for a year.

Looking at his curriculum vitae, we see Norman was parish priest, or assistant parish priest for over forty years, work he enjoyed and did well. He first went to Kasiya Parish (1961-1970), then to Mazabuka to Assumption Parish (1970-1976). His longest continuous stint was at Chilalantambo as parish priest from 1976 to 1993, 17 years. There he built a number of small churches at the out stations where he went to say Mass and was part of a team involved in translating the Bible into Chitonga over a number of years.

He lived on his own over these years and established a daily routine for himself, everything in its place, an unchanging routine meticulously laid out. He was attached to the Mukasa Community in Choma 80 km away and would come in once a week to load up with supplies, arriving at a set time and departing the next morning. Before he stopped smoking, it was a lesson in itself to see him prepare and light his pipe in the evening. Everything he did was carefully jotted down, things done, things to be done, in his round copperplate almost childlike handwriting.

He loved the game of rugby. As a boy, he himself was on the school rugby team, a solid fullback, When he went on his home leave, he opted for the winter months so that he could watch the rugby matches in Ireland.

After Chilalantambo, he spent a year in Chikuni Parish and then on to Mazabuka, this time to Nakambala parish in 1994. As he worked there, a day came which was to change his life. In early July he got a stroke, just as he parked his vanette and was getting out of it. Incapacitated, he was brought to John Chula House in Lusaka. His mind and speech were clear. Slowly he began to mend; he got to the stage that with a walker he could make his way to the dining room for meals. A little setback sent him to Victoria hospital where lie fell out of bed and broke his shoulder. This really set him back but he began again with physiotherapy and slowly, oh so slowly, he tried to get on his feet again but without much success. He returned to the hospital on the morning of 3rd May because of severe abdominal pains. Early the following morning he asked William Sakala, his attendant, to hold his hand and thus he died.

A tribute from a Bishop: Bishop Emilio Patriarca, Monze
Our sincere condolence on the death of Fr. Mac Donald. He was a great missionary and did a lot for our people. He gave inspiration to our young Priests beginning their parish work and we thank God for his life among us. He will be greatly missed.

A tribute from a Scholastic: Kenneth Simalalo, S.J.
I am saddened that a friend and father has left us. At the same time I am glad that he has gone to meet the Lord whom he served so tirelessly among his Tonga people for many years....I would be telling myself that one day I should be like him in his love for the people in his care. It was then that my desire to become a Jesuit was strengthened...... Fr. Norman influenced and inspired me in many ways; he really has left a mark on me. I thank the Lord for what Norman was to me and to many youths in the places that he worked. I will miss a friend and father in him.

◆ The Clongownian, 2005

Obituary

Father Norman MacDonald SJ

Following his “stroke” at the age of 78, Norman was reminded in jest that he had always regarded years beyond the age of 75 (at which age his father died) as "”xtra time”. He responded, while smiling from his wheelchair, “yes, but I didn't want to spend it on the bench”. He died some months later and is buried among the people he served in Zambia for more than forty-five years.

Norman was born in Navan in 1926 where his father was a family doctor. His mother died one year later and Norman was integrated into a family that eventually grew to six boys and one girl. As a boy he had green fingers and enjoyed all aspects of gardening, bee keeping and domestic farming. In Clongowes “Curley Wee" showed above average ability in team sports and became a skilled fullback or scrum half on the SCT in 1944 (one of the years CWC did not win the cup!). He enjoyed nusic and played in the Gondoliers at Christmas as well is being a regular choir member. He enjoyed all aspects of his time in Clongowes.

He entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Emo in September 1944 following an Irish holiday during which he joined his father on a 500 mile cycling tour around Ireland: good training for hard times ahead! (Doctors were allowed 8 gallons of petrol monthly.) He moved through Rathfarnham, Tullabeg and Milltown before ordination in 1958. Three of those years were spent at the Jesuit mission station in Chikuni, Zambia. He often said that pushing a Raleigh around Ireland was easy when compared to the six week journey by boat to Cape Town and train to Chikuni: a journey he subsequently made many times in twelve hours by jet. He was ordained in July 1958 and returned to Zambia in 1961 and apart from visits home or to Canada or the USA for different courses the remainder of his busy life was spent among bis parishioners there.

Norman was a warm and caring person with a keen sense of humour. He maintained close contact with family officiating at weddings and baptisms where possible. He travelled home to his father's funeral in 1975. Family also went to visit him in his “native habitat”. Rugby football was his passion particularly when his Alma Mater or any Irish team were involved but he also enthused about receiving the late Micheal O'Hehir's commentaries via Radio Brazaville in the early days of international sport. In general he enjoyed good health but was forever grateful to his caregivers in Zambia who brought him through a severe attack of cerebral malaria. Perhaps his greatest contribution was being one of a small team that made the good news of the Bible available by translation to more than half a million people. His parishioners, colleagues and friends in Zambia celebrated his life in a genuine and moving fashion at his funeral.

Many in Zambia and will miss him as will his family in Ireland: his brothers Gerald (OC 1950), Dermot (OC 1951), Jimmy (OC 1958), Paddy (OC 1958), Donal (OC 1960), and his sister Caroline (nee Byrne).

Born: 22 December 1943, Ballinasloe, County Galway
Entered: 07 September 1962, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 21 June 1974, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Final Vows: 10 January 1986, John Sullivan House, Monkstown, County Dublin
Died: 07 May 1996, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Leinster Road, Rathmines, Dublin community at the time of death

Father (Matthew) was a County Manager. Family lived at Rathdown Avenue, Terenure, Dublin.

Eldest of three boys with four sisters.

Educated for three years at Laurel Hill Convent school in Limerick he wemt to Crescent College SJ for eight years, and then to Gonzaga College SJ for three years. There he won a University Entrance scholarship.

by 1972 at Regis Toronto, Canada (CAN S) studying
by 1974 at St Ignatius Guelph ONT, Canada (CAN S) studying
by 1978 at Tübingen Germany (GER S) studying

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 86 : July 1996
Obituary
Fr John Macken (1943-1996)

22nd Dec, 1943: Born at Ballinasloe, Galway
Early education: Crescent College, Limerick and Gonzaga College
7th Sept. 1962: Entered the Society at Emo
8th Sept. 1964: First Vows
1964 - 1967: Rathfarnham, Study of Eastern languages at UCD.
1967 - 1969: Milltown Park, study Philosophy/M.A Languages, UCD
1969 - 1971: Crescent College - teaching/H DipEd, UCC
1971 - 1973 Toronto, Regis College, Guelph, Master of Divinity
21st June 1974: Ordained priest, Milltown Park
1974 - 1977: Loyola House, Special Secretariat
1977 - 1984: Tubingen, Doctoral Studies, Theology Tullabeg,
1984 - 1985: Tertianship
1985 - 1992: Sullivan House, Lecturer in Theology, Milltown Institute
1992 - 1995: Dominic Collins House - Superior/ Milltown Institute
1995 - 1996: Residence, Leinster Road/ President and lecturer at Milltown Institute

John felt very tired at the Easter break and had some tests done which revealed cancer of the liver. Further tests showed this to be the secondaries. The doctors discussed the option of treatment with John, but in the light of the prognosis it was decided against. He died peacefully a month later on 7th May.

Sermon at the Funeral Mass of Fr. John Macken

When Sir Thomas More heard of the death by execution of one of the bishops who had refused to bow to Henry's bullying: he said, “Ah Fisher, a lovely man”. Perhaps that sums up what is to be said about John - a lovely man.

Everyone here has their own treasured memories of him - how can you sum up anyone's life on their funeral day - it's foolish to think you can - but perhaps we can get glimpses. Asking a fair number of people over the last few days - perhaps the most consistent word was “gentle”.

We are faced with a mystery, dismayed and bewildered by the abrupt summons and departure of John, and we mourn and grieve as tenderly as we awkwardly can with his mother Eleanor, his brothers James and Frank, and sisters, Marian, Eleanor, Sheila and Nuala; their spouses Maeve, Andrew, Paraic and Susan, their children and the Macken relatives - but also with his large Jesuit family, his many friends and colleagues from the Milltown Institute, whose president he briefly was, friends in Toronto and Tübingen - the list goes on of those his life has graced

But we try to face into this mystery in the light and hope of the Resurrection - as Fr. Laurence Murphy said last evening John staked his life on the Word of God, on Christ - and his faith quickened and sustained many others.

St. Paul reminds us that we are God's work of art - everyone of us is a word of God - John was a special word and work of God's art. Our grief and loss are tempered by gratitude for such a gentle, lovely, gifted, simple man.

He was not faultless (unlike yourself and myself) - he could be heavy or morose or irritable. But these limitations were vastly outweighed by his gifts (as indeed they are in all of us if only we could see with God's eyes.)

He was a man of learning - but learning worn so lightly and unselfconsciously. He sort of belied the Gospel today, (Matt.11, 25 30) being the exception to whom the things of God are revealed. He was a scholar, a theologian, ecumenist, yet combining great intellectual integrity with a corresponding intellectual humility. He never patronised you or put you down. He could correct you, and very directly, but somehow graciously, painlessly. After five weeks in Tübingen he knew more about theology than others who had spent 20 years. When he left Crescent 100 years ago to move to Gonzaga, we all breathed a sigh of relief because we all moved up a place in class. “If he wasn't so nice and good”, a relative was saying yesterday, “he would have been intolerable, he knew so much”.

But he was also a very human and simple man: a great companion and dear friend - so easy to be with (most of the time anyway), so non threatening or judgmental. Interested in you and understanding - gently compassionate - courteous - in a delightful simple sense of humorous enjoyment. “Don was always a peacemaker”, his mother used to say of him - he spent many happy hours with his friends the MacNamara's in Waterford and Kilkee and his visits were much looked forward to by many. Sr. Marie in Maryfield - in visiting his mother used to say of him: “He left a kind of peace”. A colleague on a commission - he didn't say very much, but you were always aware of his supportive presence. He was a man of faith - his family was very important to him and he to them - he was so faithful to his mother and to Eleanor his sister, ill for many years, faithful to his calling as a Jesuit priest, a son of Ignatius - a faithfulness that was profoundly focused and simplified in his last weeks. The way he handled his illness was astonishing, to me certainly, but consistent with his life up to that point. He remained attentive to others and concerned about them to the end, and so appreciative of anything done for him. Mary, a nurse in Cherryfield said it was “a privilege to look after that man”.

God certainly put him to the test and found him worthy of him, as the reading from Wisdom said. He had said 'yes' to his life and he said yes to his death, with a courage ad objectivity that neither exaggerated or minimised the reality he was undergoing - yet without any posturing or bitterness that I could see - on the contrary his tranquillity made it all easier and bearable for his family and the rest of us.

If John of the Cross is right when he said “in the evening of our lives we will be judged on love” John will do very well in this only ultimately important exam. So while we do mourn most painfully even more do we celebrate and give thanks for such a rich and fruitful life, which has graced us all in different ways, evoking in everyone so many good feelings. He did incarnate Newman's prayer “Help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go”.

So perhaps mysteriously, providentially Don's work is done: and ours now to follow with appreciative hearts this gracious, gentle friend of Christ, privileged to have walked some of the way with him. Maybe Bernanos was right in saying that the only sadness is not to be a saint. A lovely man, increasingly like his Lord who said “Come to me all you who labour.....”

It seems appropriate to end with a prayer written by Karl Barth, perhaps the most influential Protestant theologian of this century, and John's special study:

At the Start of Worship
O Lord our God! You know who we are, men
with good
consciences and with bad, persons who are
content and
those who are discontent, the certain and the
uncertain,
Christians by conviction and Christians by convention,
those who believe, those who half-believe,
those who
disbelieve.
And you know where we have come from:
from the
circle of relatives, acquaintances and friends or
from the
greatest loneliness, from a life of quiet
prosperity or from
manifold confusion and distress, from family
relationships
that are well ordered or from those disordered
or under
stress, from the inner circle of the Christian
community or
from its outer edge.

But now we all stand before you, in all our
differences, yet alike in that we are all in the
wrong with
you and with one another, that we must all one
day die,
that we would all be lost without your grace,
but also in
that your grace is promised and made available
to us all in
your dear Son Jesus Christ. We are here
together in order
to praise you through letting you speak to us.
We beseech
you to grant that this may take place in this
hour, in the
name of your Son our Lord.

Peter Sexton SJ

◆ The Gonzaga Record 1986

John Macken SJ

I came late to Gonzaga, joining Fourth year in 1962. I had already been in a Jesuit school, in Crescent College in Limerick, where I grew up, though I was born in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway. Going to Gonzaga appealed to me. I wanted a Jesuit school and had at the back of mind the idea that I might join the Jesuits. Gonzaga did little to hinder and much to reinforce the idea. The atmosphere, like the grounds, was open, positive and encouraging, in fact one might say sunny. The approach to education was a broad one and most of us enjoyed it thoroughly. What added an extra spice to our year was that we had in Paul Durcan a genuine poet who kept us entertained with his juvenilia.

My religious inclination was catered for by Mass-serving (we cycled in early to school and home again for break fast) and Fr Sean Hutchinson's sodality as well as the excellent R.E. programme. (I still preserve some note books from fourth year as well as notes from a retreat in Rathfarnham Castle which now have first-class his torical value!) I did in fact join the Jesuits in 1962 and to my surprise I had two companions: David Murphy and Frank Roden. It was a surprise because each of us had kept the decision very private. I'm sure we weren't the only ones to whom the idea occurred, but it wasn't something to be discussed.

The two years noviceship in Emo Park were much as they had been described in Ben Kiely's There was an ancient House twenty-five years before, monastic and quiet - too quiet some of the time! In UCD I was asked by Fr Charles O'Conor to study subjects that would prepare me for theology later on, so I took Hebrew with Prof Dermot Ryan (later Arch bishop) and Greek with Prof. Michael Tierney jun. We took as much part in College life as we were allowed -- joining College societies was permitted except for L & H and Dramsoc. I enjoyed UCD and continued with it for two more years, doing an MA simultaneously with philosophical studies in Milltown Park. But Mill town was the more exciting place to be then, studying with Philip McShane, an uncritical enthusiast for the transcendental Thomism of Bernard Lonergan. A welcome interruption to studies was the two years I spent teaching in my old school, Crescent College in Limerick, which was then beginning to go comprehensive. There I also did a HDip in UCC under the direction of Fr James Good.

In 1971 I was permitted to go to Toronto, Canada for theological studies. This was a great experience as the Canadians were at the time far more advanced than we in the study and practice of Jesuit spirituality and the Spiritual Exercises, in pastoral training (it was the age of the encounter group and of Rogerian counselling) and in ecumenism. The college was joined in a consortium of seminaries that included Anglicans (High and Low), United Church and Presbyterian as well as three Roman Catholic Institutions. Students were encouraged to take lectures in Colleges of the other denominations, although the main examinations and the syllabus remained that of one's own college. I was especially grateful to a Scotsman, Dr David Hay, for a lively introduction to Presbyterian theology. My ordination in Gonzaga Chapel in 1974 alongside David Murphy was a memorable experience. But it was followed, not by pastoral activities, but by three years of administrative work with the Jesuit Provincial. I was leader of a team of management consultants for the Irish Jesuits. (The experiment has since been dropped!) Thereafter I was still wondering what I would do when I grew up! In fact, I returned to Fr. O'Conor's vision of me and went to Germany for seven years, studying philosophy and theology in Tübingen and Munich under Prof. Walter Kasper. My Presbyterian training stood me in good stead and I returned with a thesis on the famous Swiss theologian Karl Barth, whose centenary occurs this May. I began teaching theology this year (1985-86) in Milltown Park (now a consortium of eleven religious orders) and am enjoying it thoroughly.

◆ The Gonzaga Record 1996

Obituary
John Macken SJ
by Peter Sexton SJ
John Macken SJ, president of the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy in Dublin, died at the age of 53 on May 7th. The death of such a gifted man, apparently in the summer of his career, has left his many colleagues, students and friends deeply saddened. And yet, as Bernanos says, perhaps the only sadness is not to be a saint.

John (Don to his family) was the son of Eleanor and the late Matthew Macken, former Dublin city and county manager. He was born in Ballinasloe and educated first in Crescent College, Limerick, where his father was city manager at the time, and later in Gonzaga College, Dublin.

He joined the Jesuits in 1962 and studied Eastern languages at UCD under Professor (later Archbishop) Dermot Ryan. He combined an MA at UCD with philosophical studies at Milltown. After two years on the staff of Crescent College, he went to Regis College, Toronto for theology.

After ordination in 1974, John worked for a number of years on the Provincial's administrative team, before taking up post-graduate studies in Tubingen under Walter Kaspar. His doctorate, for a dissertation on the concept of autonomy in Karl Barth's theology, was awarded in 1984. Soon afterwards, he began teaching at the Milltown Institute.

Throughout his life, he was a committed ecumenist and in those years he also taught in the Irish School of Ecumenics and the Church of Ireland theological College. In August 1995 he became president of the institute, but his term in office was cut tragically short by his premature death.

John Macken was a brilliant and cultured man, who excelled at every stage of his studies. He had remarkable powers of concentration, that capacity for "attention” which Simone Weil considers to be the heart of study. He was an ideal companion when travelling - anywhere in Ireland, in Paris, Tubingen, Rome – because of his easy, profound grasp of history. But he wore his broad learning lightly and unselfconsciously. "If he wasn't so nice and good", one of his relatives remarked, “he would have been intolerable - he knew so much!”

He was a great friend to so many people, human, simple, gentle, non-judgemental, qualities which made a deep impression on those he met. He had an unusual ability to be on equal terms with all sorts of people, including children.

News of his cancer came as a great shock to those who loved and admired him. But the dignity and unfussy realism with which he faced his illness gave courage and a certain peace to his family and friends, during the short weeks which remained to him in the gentle, competent care of St. Vincent's Private Hospital and Cherryfield Lodge.

Our deepest sympathy goes to his wonderful mother and family. A friend, speaking for all of us, wrote on hearing of his death:

Farewell, noble friend. God knew you under the fig tree,
God knows You now, gentle one The cup drained, pain spent, the
burden shouldered, No projects unfinished,
Consummatum.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/john-macken-sj-1.85109

John Macken SJ

Wed Sep 11 1996 - 01:00

John Macken SJ, president of the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy in Dublin, died at the age of 52 on May 7th

John Macken SJ, president of the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy in Dublin, died at the age of 52 on May 7th. The death of such a gifted man, apparently in the summer of his career, has left his many colleagues, students and friends deeply saddened. And yet, as Bernanos says, perhaps the only sadness is not to be a saint.

John (Don to his family) was the son of Eleanor and the late Matthew Macken, former Dublin city and county manager. He was born in Ballinasloe and educated first in Crescent College, Limerick, where his father was city manager at the time, and later in Gonzaga College, Dublin.

He joined the Jesuits in 1962 and studied Eastern languages at UCD under Professor (later Archbishop) Dermot Ryan. He combined an MA at UCD, writing on the Old Testament theology of von Rad, with philosophical studies at Milltown. Then, after two years on the staff of Crescent College, he went to Regis College, Toronto for theology.

After ordination in 1974, John worked for a number of years on the provincial's administrative team, before taking up post graduate studies in Tubingen under Walter Kaspar. His doctorate, for a dissertation on the concept of autonomy in Karl Barth's theology, was awarded in 1984. Soon afterwards, he began teaching at the Milltown Institute.

Throughout his life, he was a committed ecumenist and in those years he also taught in the Irish School of Ecumenics and the Church of Ireland Theological College. In August 1995 he became president of the institute, but his term of office was cut tragically short by his sudden, premature death.

John Macken was a brilliant and cultured man, who could at every stage of his studies. He had remarkable powers of concentration, that capacity for "attention" which Simone Weil considers to be the heart of study. He was an ideal companion when travelling anywhere in Ireland, in Paris, Tuhingen, Rome because of his easy, profound grasp of history. But he wore his broad learning lightly and unselfconsciously. "If he wasn't so nice and good", one of his relatives remarked, "he would have been intolerable he knew so much!"

He was a great friend to so many people, human, simple, gentle, non judgmental, qualities which made a deep impression on those he met. He had an unusual ability to he on equal terms with all sorts of people, including children.

News of his cancer came as a great shock to those who loved and admired him. But the dignity and unfussy realism with which he faced his illness gave courage and a certain peace to his family and friends, during the short weeks which remained to him in the gentle, competent care of St Vincent's Private Hospital and Cherryfield Lodge.

Our deepest sympathy goes to his wonderful mother and family. A friend, speaking for all of us, wrote on hearing of his death

Farewell, noble friend
God knew you under the fig tree,
God knows
You now, gentle one,
The cup drained, pain spent, the burden shouldered,
No projects unfinished
Consummatum

Born: 04 January 1905, Oughterard, County Galway
Entered: 28 September 1933, St Stanislaus, Guelph, ONT, Canada - Canada Superiors Province (CAN S)
Ordained: 30 June 1946
Final vows: 02 February 1949
Died: 15 July 1986, Phoenix AZ, USA - Canada Superiors Province (CAN S)

by 1948 came to Rathfarnham (HIB) making Tertianship

Born: 17 March 1827, Glaslough, County Monaghan
Entered: 06 June 1854, Sault-au-Récollet, Montréal, Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1865
Professed: 15 August 1875
Died: 09 October 1885, New York, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Part of the Boston College, Boston MA, USA, community at the time of death

Brother of John McQuaid (MARNEB) - RIP 1904

Born: 21 July 1799, Newfoundland, Canada (Co Waterford)
Entered: 24 February 1828, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 29 September 1834, Marlborough Street, Dublin
Professed: 02 February 1846
Died: 17 April 1855, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin

Uncle of Thomas Francis Meagher.

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Came to Stonyhurst for early education and studied Humanities. He was keen to be a barrister, and studied law for some years afterwards before Entry.

He joined HIB Vice-Province 24 February 1828
After First Vows he was sent as Prefect either to Clongowes or Tullabeg
He was ordained by Dr Murray, Archbishop of Dublin - who had also ordained him Deacon - in Marlborough St 29 September 1834.
1847 he had been nine years Minister in Belvedere, and 14 March 1847 he was appointed Rector. He died in office 1855. As well as his work in Belvedere, he was also a Spiritual Director to a community of Carmelite Nuns. At one stage he was ill for a while, and the esteem in which he was held is witnessed by the number of visitors that called daily to enquire after him. He was remarkable for his union with God and great prudence in business. He was a truly spiritual man, and he viewed everything with the eyes of faith. he was perfectly straightforward and a model of charity towards others. He was a model religious, and never did his virtues appear to better advantage than during the last months of his life: as he lay dying, suffering most intensely, he was most patient and never murmured. Father Frank Murphy assisted him in his last moments, and he died on 17 April 1855.

Born: 24 June 1822, County Armagh
Entered: 14 November 1851, Montréal, Québec, Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: - pre Entry
Final vows: 15 August 1866
Died: 14 January 1891, Fordham College, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 06 August 1829, County Kildare
Entered: 07 September 1858, Beaumont Lodge, Berkshire - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1870
Final vows: 02 February 1877
Died: 04 April 1886, Manresa, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia

by 1865 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) studying Philosophy 1
by 1867 at Laval France (FRA) studying
by 1868 at Roehampton London (ANG) studying
by 1875 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship
Early Irish Mission to Australia 1884

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Clongowes.

After Ordination he spent a good few years as a Missionary in Ireland, and for a time he was Central Director of the Apostleship of Prayer.
1882 He went to America to give Missions and lectures in the USA and Canada, and in the middle of the following year arrived in Australia.
For the next two years he worked giving Missions and Retreats, and also as Central Director of the Holy League.
1885 He suffered from cancer, which should have ended his life in three months, but he had surgery which added another year at least to his life. He died a holy and edifying death at Hawthorn Residence, near Melbourne 04/04/1886. He was mourned far and wide, for he had become a universal favourite with both priests and people.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Edward Murphy was educated at Clongowes, and entered the Society at Beaumont, 7 September 1858. He studied philosophy at Tournai, Belgium, and at Laval, France. Tertianship was at St Beuno's, 1874=75. After studies he became a rural missionary and director of the Apostleship of Prayer. In 1882-3 he gave missions in USA and Canada, and the following year arrived in Sydney. While in Australia, 1883-86, he gave rural missions and established the Apostleship of Prayer in Australia.
Murphy was a late vocation, and at the age of 27 went back to school at Clongowes for a year before entering the English noviciate. He was spiritual adviser of Mother M. Paul who led the first band of Presentation Sisters to Australia. He developed cancer, and underwent an operation in May 1885, but he did not live much longer. He suffered intensely during his last few months, with great patience.

Born: 24 November 1831, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh
Entered: 19 May 1855, Sault-au-Rècollet Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1866
Died: 05 October 1870, Brooklyn, NY, USA - Neo-Eboracensis-Canadensis Province (NEBCAN)

1870 Tertianship at Drongen, Belgium

Born: 19 July 1859, Rathmines, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1877, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 26 July 1891, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1898, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 09 April 1936, St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin

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

Early education at St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg

by 1905 at St David’s, Mold, Wales (LUGD) studying
by 1897 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 11th Year No 3 1936
Obituary :
Father Thomas Murphy was called to his reward on Holy Thursday just at midnight. He would not have selected another day, for his great devotion was to the Blessed Sacrament. We miss his cheery presence in the Community , and his Sodality working men - proved their affection by walking in his funeral to the number of 400, many losing their day's wages.

Obituary :

Father Thomas Murphy
Fr. Murphy was born in Rathmines, Co. Dublin, on the I9th July, 1859, educated at Tullabeg, and began his novitiate at Milltown Park on the 7th September, 1877. After a year's juniorate he was sent to Belvedere as master, thence, after another year to Clongowes as prefect, where he remained three years. In 1885 he began philosophy at Milltown, but with 1886 came the amalgamation of Clongowes and Tullabeg, and it was considered that Mr. Tom Murphy was just the man to fill the place of lower line prefect during that critical year, and to Clongowes he went. Next year he resumed philosophy, this time at Mold, the French house in England. Philosophy over, 1889 saw him once more a prefect at Clongowes. The following year a novel arrangement was tried at Clongowes, not attempted either before or since The Minister, Fr. Henry Fegan, appears in the catalogue as “Praef gen Mor” and only three prefects are mentioned instead of the customary four, Fr. Murphy was amongst them. For the next two years he was " Praef aul max”.
He began theology at Milltown in 1893, and in 1896 went to Tronchiennes for tertianship. When it was over he began his remarkable missionary career.
1897 - Belvedere, Miss. Exeurr
1898-99 - Gardiner St, Miss. Excurr
1900 - Gardiner St, Minister, etc
1901 - Gardiner St, Miss. Excurr
1902-04 - Tullabeg - Miss. Excurr
1905-16 - Gardiner St - Miss. Excurr
1917-36 - Gardiner St - Oper etc.
He died Thursday, 9th April 1936 at St. Vincent's, Dublin
There is no doubt whatever that Fr. Tom Murphy was amongst the most successful and helpful men that the Irish Province had for a great many years. Yet, as was evident from his early school days, he was not anything like a brilliant scholar. This is said to his great credit, for, though he quite realised it himself, it never deterred him in the very least from throwing himself heart and soul into whatever work he was given to do. The care he brought to the preparation of his, missionary sermons was marvellous and their success fully repaid his strenuous efforts. Perhaps his greatest gift was the power to catch the ear and arrest the attention of the people. He often used their own familiar language, and the gravest charge brought against his preaching was that at times he went too far in this direction and used it a little too much. Be that as it may the fact remains that he won their confidence as few
other men ever did, and worked a world of good amongst them. No wonder that the great big sodality of working men he had conducted for years in Gardiner St. gathered round his coffin and accompanied it to Glasnevin where they said prayers and sang hymns over the grave of their father and their friend.
His Superior in Gardiner St, for many years, Fr. Macardle, has kindly sent us the following :
His habit appears to to adopt and incorporate into his sermons the best passages and thoughts he could find in eminent authors, He had a power of bringing together these thoughts in ordered sequence, and, being gifted with a good voice and presence, he gave out what he had to say with great courage and verve, and succeeded in producing an excellent impression on his audience. He always tried to import something humorous into his remarks and appealed to the human side of those listening. He certainly acquired great influence over his various sodalities, and was held in great veneration and love by them. Outside the pulpit he always interested himself in their welfare and tried to get them work. He had a great power of organisation, and left no stone unturned during the course of a mission to bring about the best possible results.
During his missionary career he was in close touch with Fr Cullen, and adopted his pioneer pledge. Sometimes in delicate circumstances, and before the new idea had taken root, he carried off the people with him by liveliness and humour when the more ponderous eloquence of his chief would have failed. He enjoyed his tour with Fr, Cullen in South Africa. Another big adventure of his was a visit to Canada where he preached a series of sermons in Montreal.
His later years, spent in Gardiner St., were occupied in fostering his sodality of working men. Under his care the numbers gradually increased until there was scarcely room for them in the Church. He preached the Seven Last Words on Good Friday at least six times, and also all the other special sermons that occur during the year. He had charge of “The Bona Mors Confraternity” which he made a huge success, with a membership of over a quarter of a million.
He often gave “The Holy Hour,” when the Church would be overcrowded twice the same day. He had to separate the men and the women.
It is interesting to note that Matt Talbot was a member of Fr. Murphy's sodality. It erected a tombstone over his grave and Fr. Tom kept in close touch with all that has been done to sanctify his memory.
In conclusion it may be said that Fr. Murphy is one who without evidence of that book learning which is so often associated with success, did enormous work for God during his life, and has left after him an enduring memory.
Our veteran and popular missioner, Fr. Michael Garahy, has very kindly sent us an appreciation of Fr. Murphy :
It must be surely 19 years since I worked with Fr. Tom Murphy on the missions. One's impressions of a personality, even so original as Fr. Murphy's, are naturally a little blurred with the passing of the years. None the less certain memories have survived.
What stands out most vividly in my recollection is the intense earnestness of the man. Given a work to do he threw himself with a passionate energy into its accomplishment. This, naturally was most evident in his preaching. Here there was nothing left to chance. I should say that every thought was well weighed and every sentence carefully prepared. Whether he had the gift of improvisation I cannot say. My impression is that he rarely risked it. Some of his sermons were marvellously effective, notably a sermon on drink and one on hell. His instruction on the Ten Commandments was the finest thing I ever heard in that line. His action in the pulpit was, when occasion called for it, intensely dramatic, so much so that I fear he injured his heart in consequence.
He was most faithful to his duty as a confessor, even when the long hours in the confessional told severely on his failing strength.
Taking him all round he was one of the most successful missioners of his time, His memory is revered in every parish in which he worked, and there are few parishes in Ireland in which he did not labour at one time or another.
For a considerable time before Fr, Murphy's death his health was wretched, heart trouble, shingles, etc., yet he never complained sought no exemption, allowed himself but few comforts, and continued to preach almost to the very end. The people did not always hear what he said, but they were delighted to see him in the pulpit. Towards the close of March he caught a bad cold that developed into cardiac asthma. He was taken to St. Vincent's where despite the greatest care, he rapidly got worse and died on Holy Thursday, 9th April.
The coffin was brought to Gardiner St. on Good Friday, where a huge congregation awaited the arrival of the remains. They all marched past the coffin, each person touching it as he passed. He was buried on Holy Saturday. The Office and Requiem took place on the following Tuesday, his nephew, Fr. Curtis, C.C., being Celebrant, the Milltown Park Community did the rest. R.I.P

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Tom Murphy SJ 1859-1936
The name of Fr Tom Murphy was well known and beloved in his day. He was not a highly gifted man, but he had one talent which he developed to its utmost for the greater glory of God. He was first and foremost a preacher and missioner.

He made no secret of the fact that he plagiarised wholesale for matter for his sermons. As he himself used to say “My sermons are a bit of Newman, a soupcon of Lecordaire and a smattering of Murphy”. His sermons on Hell and Drink were especially effective and his instruction on the Ten Commandments was unforgettable. He was proud to have had Mat Talbot in his Sodality in Gardiner Street, and was instrumental in having a tombstone erected over that holy man’s grave.

He died on Holy Thursday April 9th 1936 and the tribute paid by the huge congregation at his obsequies (they all filed past the coffin and touched it in passing) speaks eloquently of the love and veneration the people had for him.

He was 77 at his death.

◆ The Clongownian, 1936

Obituary

Father Thomas Murphy SJ

During 1870, when in his 11th year, Thomas Murphy entered St Stanislaus College and continued as a pupil there until 1877. Two of his brothers, Michael and William Grace, had preceded him at the College and the first-named had vivid recollections of their days at Tullabeg.

Tom's career at school was uneventful. He was fairly good at the games and especially good during the “Stilting” days. When in the Higher Line he was one of the officials in “the Shop” and a great salesman, giving good example himself by his love for toffee. Before leaving Tullabeg he presented him self to his adviser, then Provincial, Father Nicholas Walshe, for admittance into the Society, and was told to wait like another of his companions until his 18th year. Accordingly he presented himself to Father Walshe's successor, Father A Sturzo, and was admitted into the Society of Jesus on the 7th April, 1877. He had four other companions - Mr O'Gorman, who died at Woodstock, the saintly Mr Michael Browne, and two others, Messrs N J Tomkin and C Farley, who survive him.

During his Juniorate he was afflicted with headaches and was sent, in 1880, to Belvedere College. The following year he was on the Clongowes Staff. He was Prefect there for over 12 years. Earnest and vigorous, he was a Prefect with “wrist” - more than he needed at times - some of the Boys of those days thought. In the interval he was sent to Mold, North Wales, for his course of Philosophy. After this he commenced his course of Theology and was ordained in 1891 by Most Rev Dr Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin. 1896-7 was spent in Belgium, and in 1898 he was in full swing at his great work - the work of his life as a most successful Missioner and giver of Retreats. In a word, he was a man of heart and his heart was rightly directed in Mission and Retreat work whether at home in Ireland or in South Africa, whither he went with Father James Cullen, or in Canada where he gave a very successful course of Lenten Lectures in Montreal. He was, for about 21 or 22 years, one of the Missionary Staff and by his example and extraordinary zeal brought it to great perfection.

One of the secrets of his successful work in so many fields was that he always was a boy at heart. There was nothing stand-off about him. Those in his Line as well as the Members of his Sodality later at Gardiner St, the boys to whom he gave Retreats as well as the many priests whom he helped in the Clergy Retreats, all felt his fresh enthusiasın. As the years added themselves to his score, one felt no change in his heart, just as one saw little trace of white in his coal-black hair. Near the end it was characteristic of him to love to talk, not of the recent years and persons, but of the days some 20 years ago. The names of Fathers Conmee, Verdon, Henry Lynch, Bannon and the Kelly trio would crop up in his talk and his anecdotes, as of those he had but just met in the street.

In the popular lectures and addresses which he was often called on to deliver, he showed a true Irish humour. He particu larly excelled in the art of making some absurd statement with a face which pre served solemnity up to the last moment, when a humorous twinkle in the eye and the dawning of a smile on the face would reveal to the audience that they had been “had”. Many will recall the famous statement which he more than once made that his only claim to greatness was that he was the grandnephew of the two Father Murphys who fought at Vinegar Hill.

About 1917 he joined the Staff at St Francis Xavier's, and at once took up the work of the Bona Mors Confraternity. On the death of Father Fottrell he took charge of the Mens' Sodality of the Immaculate Conception and immediately his vital force was visible in results-he had scarcely room enough for his vast audience.

Referring again to his work as Missioner, it is always safe to avoid superlatives in dealing with one we esteem and adrnire. I have no hesitation in saying he stood in the foremost rank of popular preachers. His impassioned eloquence was heard in very many of the pulpits of nearly every diocese in Ireland and he was requested time after time to come and renew the fervour of the people, who were never tired of hearing him. His dramatic power and eloquence had rather the effect of rousing them to enthusiasm.

For years past, but especially from 1932, ill-health dogged him, but he still continued to work in the church and pulpit. Up to the very end-January and February, 1936 - he continued to thrill his hearers of the Sodality and the Bona Mors Confraternity. He knew for a long time that death was knocking at his door daily, hourly, but the thought cast no gloom on his mind. He smiled at the thought of death, not as those who do not believe, but as one who is at home with the thought and to whom death is not an end, but a beginning.

The numbers at his funeral surprised even those who knew how well he had been loved, especially by his Men. Never since the days of the great Father Henry Rorke was such a throng seen. It rivalled even the stream of mourners that followed to the grave that other well-beloved man, Father John Conmee.

To very many within and without the Society, Father Tom Murphy's death leaves a blank that will not soon be filled. RIP

Born: 28 October 1934, Templeogue Road, Terenure, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 06 September 1952, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1966, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1971, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 14 March 2002, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

Father was a Staff Officer in the Civil Service.

Third in a family of five boys and three sisters (one a Dominican Novice in Adelaide, Australia)

Early education was at the Presentation Convent in Terenure and then at the National School in Terenure. he then moved to Synge Street for nine years.

by 1986 at Regis Toronto, Canada (CAN S) on sabbatical

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 112 : Special Edition 2002

Obituary
Fr Brendan Murray (1934-2002)
28th Oct. 1934: Born in Dublin
Early education at St. Joseph's, Terenure and CBS, Synge Street.
6th Sept. 1952: Entered the Society at Emo
7th Sept. 1954: First Vows at Emo
1954 - 1957: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1957 - 1960: Tullabeg- Studied Philosophy
1960 - 1962: Mungret College - Regency
1962 - 1963: Clongowes - Regency; Clongowes Cert. in Education
1963 - 1967: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
28th July, 1966: Ordained at Milltown Park
1967 - 1968 Tertianship at Rathfamham
1968 - 1974: University Hall - Principal, Bursar
15" Aug. 1971: Final Vows at Clongowes
1974 - 1978 John Austin House - Chaplain, D.I.T. Kevin St; Bursar
1978 - 1985: Campion House - Chaplain, D.I.T. Kevin Street; Bursar, Co-ordinator, Communications
1985: Vice-Superior.
1985 - 1986: Toronto - Sabbatical year
1986 - 1991: Tullabeg - Superior; Minister; Pastoral Delegate
1991 - 1993: Gardiner Street - Vice-Superior, Minister; Pastoral Delegate
1993 - 1997: Superior; Editor, Messenger; National Secretary Apostleship of Prayer; Pastoral Delegate
1997 - 2002: Leeson Street - Superior; Editor, Messenger; National Secretary of Apostleship of Prayer 14th Mar.
2002: Died at Mater Hospital, Dublin.

Brendan was taken ill at the end of February, 2002. In St. Vincent's Hospital it was diagnosed that he had had a heart attack. He suffered a second heart attack in the hospital. His condition worsened a week later. He was taken to Mater Hospital, where they performed a double by-pass operation. The doctors gave his chances of recovery as 50/50. He was kept on a life support system, but did not respond. From the early hours of March 14th his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he died peacefully in the morning of the same day, surrounded by members of his family.

Michael Drennan writes....
One could wonder what Brendan might have done, had he not joined the Jesuits. With his keen intelligence, great sense of humour and his ability to mimic, many avenues could have opened up for him. He might have outdone Gay Byrne, who also did the Leaving in 1952 at Synge Street CBS. Brendan could have attained fame in many fields, but his desire was not for earthly treasure. God's fidelity and commitment met a faithful response in a life that was a nice blend of the serious and the light-hearted. Brendan had a gentle hold on life. Yet, in his life he achieved much, left us a lot to cherish and be grateful for, as he had a depth and wisdom that was too good to be forgotten.

We gathered for his funeral on the Feast of St. Joseph, who is described as a “man of honour”. The same words might be used of Brendan. There was a deep sadness evident as we bade him farewell; he was taken so quickly that we had little opportunity to say goodbye.

The Gospel of the Emmaus journey seemed relevant as a way of giving a brief summary of Brendan's life. It is a good story. Brendan was a man of story having a great abundance of them; and he could tell them well. He had the capacity to embellish and make them richer, even giving the more elaborate version back to the person who had shared it with him, originally - unknowingly? In talks and retreats, he used stories to illustrate aspects of God's story from Scripture; many appeared in his well-written editorials in the Sacred Heart Messenger. A good story can have many levels of meaning.

It is a story of good companionship, which shortens a journey and leaves lasting memories. Brendan was a good companion to many people, especially, to his own family, whose loss was great; he kept in contact with them, wherever they were, sharing their joys and sorrows. In community he could brighten up a dull day with his witty interventions. He was a companion to many people whose lives he touched in ministry, whether that was in Kevin Street DIT, or to people who came to see him, or in talks or retreats he gave, or to those he worked with. Through the Sacred Heart Messenger, he reached many who felt they knew him through his writing.

He was a good companion because he had depth as well as humour. Discussions on theology, scripture, religious life, or art, engaged him. He loved fun, also, though some of his pranks did not work out as envisaged and recovery tactics were required on occasion. His sense of humour was endearing and had the lovely ability to laugh at himself. He told me the story not so long ago, about someone overhearing two people at another table in a restaurant talking about religious magazines. Finally they came to the Messenger; one said she loved the Messenger and she particularly liked Fr Murray whose photo was inside the front cover; he had a lovely smile, but then she added, “Of course, I don't believe a word of what he says”. A phone call to him was enough to raise one's heart and bring to the fore the lighter side of life.

The journey to Emmaus was made in the company of Jesus. Being a Jesuit, being in the Company of Jesus, walking the journey of life with Him was of central importance to Brendan. He was a good companion to all of us who walked with him. He contributed much, with most of his Jesuit life spent in leadership roles, often taking on difficult tasks and carrying them through. He was a dedicated worker, who had a bright, analytic, and perceptive mind, being a good judge of people and situations. While he could make the hard decision, he had a compassionate nature. He was loyal and faithful, with a generous heart, making his many talents available to others, whether it was taking on a new project, refurbishing a house, or closing one down. He had the flexibility to adapt to new situations and was at this best when under pressure. While he could get impatient at times, and sometimes he was not especially tolerant of lesser mortals, it tended to blow over quickly and it was soon forgotten.

In the Emmaus story, the opening of the word of God is significant. Brendan had a great love and appreciation for the word of God and opened it out to many. Most of his talks were based on Scripture, with a helpful story or two to lead into them. It was a living word for him; what he shared came from his own reflection and prayer and it spoke to many who heard him.

God's story of love, lived out in Jesus, met Brendan's story; he was generous in response. The gifts that God offered were those that Brendan, behind the mischievous smile and often subtle humour, wanted. Those latter years in the Messenger gave more scope to his creative side, to write, to edit, to design, and to help continue the updating of the magazine and its organisation. He relished the task and loved it, but he was good at it. The redoing and relocating so beautifully of the Evie Hone windows in Manresa also owed much to him. His attention to detail, ensuring that were placed where they would get maximum light, was carefully thought out. It could be said that in other areas, such as ordering a meal, he tended to be less creative and adventurous, there was a consistency there as he stayed with the tested and reliable. I suppose he could not be flexible on everything! Yet, there was something more than ordinary about him. He was forty-five when he learned to drive; he is the only person I know, who, on the successful completion of his driving test, came away with a Mass intention from his examiner!

He had the openness and freedom to walk with and accept the call of the Lord, letting the Lord enter his story in a new way. In that story there is a deepening of the call, as it moved towards the final part of it. He invited the Lord in, so that the Lord could reveal himself more intimately and break bread with him. Now the Lord has issued a new invitation; the journey is completed; the story has been told, the messenger's work is done, the banquet is ready. But we are to remember that story, interwoven with God's story; we are to live in its spirit, as we continue to walk on in faith.

We weep for his untimely passing, we will miss his gentle presence, but we are the richer for knowing him. His life is a good story, narrated by a very competent messenger. We pray that God will be merciful to him for any failings and give him the rewards of life that is eternal love, which is God's desire for him and for all of us. May he rest in peace.

-oOo-

Noel Barber wrote the following “Appreciation” for THE IRISH TIMES...
Fr. Brendan Murray, who died on March 14", aged 67, ploughed what many would consider infertile soil. For the past 10 years he edited a devotional religious magazine, The Sacred Heart Messenger. Many will be surprised, however, to learn that the circulation of The Messenger is well into six figures; surprised, too, to learn the range of its readership - from the very simple to the highly sophisticated. This magazine, an extraordinary survival, bears testimony to the fact that a religious monthly can still command a place in the market.

Its standard was high when he took over; the previous editors had adapted it to the needs and tastes of changing times without sacrificing its religious thrust. Building on the work of his predecessors, he brought to his task an exceptional attention to detail, an immense care with its artistic production, and a keen financial eye. His editorials, beautifully written with wit, verve and wisdom, touched a large and devoted readership; some have already expressed their sense of loss at the prospect of The Messenger without him.

He was born in Dublin on October 28th, 1934, to Frank Murray, a Civil Servant, and Lucy Dunne, one of nine children, of whom his brothers Frank and Declan and his sisters Colette Nolan, Maureen Flanagan and Carmel Murray survive him. He was educated by the Christian Brothers, Synge Street, and entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Emo Park, Portarlington, in 1952, He was an able and serious student, obtaining a good degree in Latin and Irish, and Licentiates in Philosophy and Theology. He had the capacity to become a specialist in any one of these disciplines. His character was a quixotic mix of high seriousness and earthy frivolity. There were few who could discuss better serious matters of literature, theology, philosophy - or art, in which he had a particular interest and a discriminating taste. On the other hand, he was a joker and prankster, a raconteur and mimic, who brightened many a dark afternoon for his fellow students. His stories grew in the telling in which his mentors, academic and religious, assumed a second existence.

After his Ordination in 1966, he held a variety of positions in all of which he used his considerable ability, charm and, when necessary, his formidable determination to achieve his purpose, be it in closing down a Retreat House, as Principal of a University Residence, as Chaplain to the Dublin Institute of Technology, or as a Superior of Jesuit Communities. He had outstanding pastoral skills as so many will testify: the priests who followed his retreats, the religious whom he counselled and people of all walks of life who came to receive his shrewd, kindly and practical advice. As a preacher and retreat giver he used his talents as a storyteller to great effect but his story telling was always at the service of a deep spirituality and sound common sense. These in turn reflected his warm, rich personality. In his case, the person was very much the message.

His friends were surprised that his fatal heart attack had not happened earlier. Despite his intelligence, wisdom, understanding of others and the advice of his brethren, his style of life was almost self-destructive. He worked impossibly long hours, took no exercise, rarely, if ever, had a holiday, and sustained himself on great quantities of nicotine and caffeine. He was a man of great goodness with an inexplicable disregard of himself. He will be greatly missed and it will take an exceptional person to fill his shoes.

Born: 29 August 1852, County Limerick
Entered: 07 February 1870, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1889
Final Vows: 02 February 1891
Died: 12 June 1913, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada - Belgicae Province (BELG)

Part of the L’Imaculée Conception, De Lorimier, près Montréal, Canada community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to BELG : 1888

Educated at Belvedere College SJ and St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg and Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire

by 1880 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1884 at Oña Spain (CAST) studying
by 1885 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1888 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1890 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
In India for many years before Canada
1894 St Francis Xavier College, Chowringhee India (BELG) Rector
1896-1904 St Joseph’s, Darjeeling, India (BELG) Parish Priest
1904 St Francis Xavier, Liverpool
1905-1909 Holy Name Manchester ,

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Transcribed into BELG Province 1888, and went to India

◆ The Clongownian, 1914

Obituary

Father Vincent Naish SJ

Advices from Canada in the June of last year brought the unexpected announcement of the death of the above-named distinguished ecclesiastic. Although born and educated in Ireland, the greater part of Father Naish's life was passed in foreign lands. Belvedere and Tullabeg Colleges were accountable for his early education, and in the latter establishment he was fellow student with many men whose public life is familiar to our readers, and among his class-fellows was the late Mr Alfred Blake, of Cork, whose rather sudden death caused such a sensation in the Four Courts two days ago. Father Naish came from an ancient and distinguished stock well known in Co Limerick, of whom the late Lord Chancellor Naish was not the least distinguished member. Early in his career as a Jesuit, after teaching for some six years in Clongowes and Tullabeg, he volunteered for work on the foreign mission, and although Irish by sympathy and every tie, he was attached to the Belgian Province of the Order, and consequently his work lay principally in India, which is one of the mission fields of that province. For several years Father Naish was engaged in that missionary work, and directed with distinguished success the great Catholic College of Calcutta. Later on he was recalled to Europe, and was well known as a preacher of eminence all over the North of England. As a missionary in Canada he laboured among his own countrymen in almost every town of any note from Labrador to Vancouver. He was a man of remarkable presence and of most distinguished gifts, both as a scholar and a preacher, and his loss will be deeply felt by those to whom he gave the unstinted labour of his later and riper years. With his immediate relatives much sympathy is felt, and those with whom his name was familiar thirty years ago will feel a pang of regret as they breathe a prayer for the eternal rest of a friend of very noble and winning character.

“Freeman's Journal” June 19th, 1913.

-oOo-

Rev Vincent Naish SJ, a distinguished Churchman and scholar, passed away at Moncton, NB, shortly after six o'clock last night (June 12th), death ensuing after an illness of three days' duration, Ten days ago the deceased went down to that city in company with Rev Father Gagnieur SJ, to conduct a mission in St Bernard's Church. At the close of the spiritual exercises last Sunday he contracted a severe cold, which later develop into pneumonia. On Monday he was removed to the City Hospital for treatment, but yesterday his condition became such that no hopes could be held out for his recovery. He remained conscious to the end, and was attended in his last moments by Father Gagnieur, as well as by the priests of St Bernard's. During his sojourn in India he made exhaustive studies of the Buddhistic, Islamistic, and other Oriental religions, and became authority on these branches. But it was as a missionary that he excelled. A powerful speaker, lucid of argument, with an eloquent and easy flow of language, backed by a seemingly inexhaustible fund of knowledge of men and things, he had that quality which made him tower far above many engaged in mission work. A man of deep piety and religious conviction, he was an inspiration his fellow members of the Jesuit Order, as well as to all those with whom he came in contact in the course of his missionary labours. Since his arrival in Canada, some six years ago, Father Naish was engaged exclusively in missionary work, and in the course of his activities along this line he has been heard in Catholic pulpits of almost every Canadian city from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

“Montreal Gasette”, June 13th, 1913.

Born: 19 February 1923, Mill Street, Westport, County Mayo
Entered: 07 September 1942, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1956, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1959, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 18 October 2004, Crossna, County Roscommon - Nazareth House, Sligo - Zambia-Malawi Province (ZAM)

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

Father was an agricultural instructor.

One older sister.

Early education at the Christian Brothers school in Westport for seven years he went to Clongowes Wood College SJ

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03 December 1969

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Fr Denis O'Connell (known to all as 'Dinny') was born in Westport, Co Mayo. After primary school, he went to Clongowes Wood College, run by the Jesuits, until he finished his secondary education. The attraction to religious life was already there for he went to the Cistercians for a short time but turned back to the Jesuits he knew from school, and entered the novitiate at Emo Park in 1942. He followed the normal course of studies of university, philosophy, regency at Belvedere and on to theology at Milltown Park Dublin, where he was ordained priest on 31st July 1956.

He came out to Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) in 1958 and went to Chikuni to learn CiTonga, the language of the people. After a year at Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College he came to Monze (1962/63) where he worked in the parish. Pastoral work was to be his vocation for the rest of his life. A big step from here took him to the large urban parish of St Ignatius in Lusaka where he worked for six years (1964–1970). Nakambala on the Sugar Estate in Mazabuka held Dinny for eight years, again working with the people.

During that time he oversaw the building of Christ the King church, the second church on the estate along with St Paul's.
After thirty years of fruitful, patient work in Zambia, he returned to Ireland to continue his pastoral work, first in the archdiocese of Dublin for three years and then in the west at Clarinbridge and Lisdoonvarna in the diocese of Galway where he did pastoral work and chaplaincy. After nine years at this he went north to Sligo to Nazareth House as assistant hospital chaplain. He returned to Galway from Sligo on the 18 October 2004, staying with a priest friend at Crossna, Co Roscommon on the way, but died peacefully in his sleep while staying there.

These are the facts of Dinny's life, a pastoral priest at all times. What of the man himself? Outwardly he was a very laid-back person, easy going in the sense that very little disturbed him much. Always associated with him was his pipe and his hand basket in which he carried the essentials for his pastoral work as he moved around. The pipe brings to mind a story about him while he was on a sabbatical in the United States. A quiet evening smoke in the room where he was a guest activated the sprinklers in the ceiling and drenched the room.

As a pastoral worker and chaplain, he was most faithful to the work at hand, proceeding quietly and with no fuss, almost unnoticed. He had an easy way of talking to the elders, putting them at their ease, whether visiting their homes or attending at their bedside in hospital. He loved to walk on his own by the sea if it was nearby or along a river bank and for him this was also a time of prayer. He loved a good chat with friends once he had the pipe lit and glowing.

He was not adverse to recounting stories or events about himself. One that springs to mind is the time when he was traveling to Lusaka with a Jesuit colleague, a colleague who would quickly speak of spiritual matters. ‘Dinny’, the colleague said, ‘I admire you’. ‘Huh! why's that?’ said Dinny. ‘Well’ was the reply ‘you are a man of few talents but you use them to the best of your ability’. Dinny's talent was the quiet, unobtrusive ability to get his pastoral or chaplaincy work done and his easy manner with people.

Before he died, Dinny donated his body to the National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway for medical research. After the evening service in St Ignatius Church, the body was taken away so that at the Mass for Dinny on the following morning in Dublin, his body was not present.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 123 : Special Issue February 2005

Obituary

Fr Denis (Dinny) O’Connell (1923-2004) : Zambia Malawi Province

Feb. 19th 1923: Born in Westport, Co. Mayo
Early education at CBS, Westport, and Clongowes Wood College
Sept. 7th 1942: Entered the Society at Emo Park
Sept. 8th 1944: First Vows
1944 - 1947: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD
1947 - 1950: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1950 - 1953: Belvedere College - Teacher
1953 - 1957: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
July 31st 1956: Ordained at Milltown Park
1957 - 1958: Rathfarnham - Tertianship
1958 - 1959: Chikuni - Studying local language; Spiritual Director
Feb. 2nd 1959: Final Vows at Chikuni Mission
1959 - 1960: Teacher Training College Chisekesi – Teacher; Spiritual Director
1960 - 1963: Sacred Heart, Monze - Prefect of Church
1963 - 1964: Sacred Heart, Monze - Mission Bursar; Prefect of Church
1964 - 1970: St. Ignatius Church Lusaka, - parish priest
Dec. 31st 1969: Transcribed to Zambia / Malawi Province
1970 - 1971: Chikuni, Canisius community - studying Chitonga
1971 - 1973: St. Mary's, Monze, - parish priest, minister
1973 - 1974: Chikuni, Canisius community - PP Fumbo
1974 - 1975: Ireland
1975 - 1980: Mazabuka, Nakambala- assistant PP
1980 - 1983: Mazabuka, Nakambala- superior, PP
1983 - 1984: Toronto-sabbatical
1984 - 1987: Kalomo - PP
1987 - 1988: Loyola House, Dublin - pastoral work
1988 - 1990: Arklow, Co Wicklow - pastoral work
1990 - 1991: Galway - pastoral work in Galway Archd.
1991 - 1993: Lisdoonvarna, Stella Maris Convent chaplain
1993 - 1999: Galway - assistant director of Mission Office.
1999 - 2003: Sligo, Nazareth House -asst. hosp. chaplain
2003 - 2004: Galway - Assist in church
Oct. 18th 2004: Died in Co. Roscommon

On October 9th Denis left Galway to visit friends in Sligo. He planned to be away for about a week. On Monday 18th he left a message for John O'Keeffe to say that he was with friends near Lough Key and that he planned to return to Galway on Wednesday 20th. On the evening of the 18th a message was received in Galway from the PP of Crossna, Co. Roscommon, to say that Denis did not come to tea as expected and that on going to his room he found him dead. He had gone to take a siesta.

Tom McGivern writes in the ZAM Province News Oct. 2004:

Dennis O'Connell (known to all as “Dinny”) was born in the west of Ireland, in Westport, County Mayo, on 19 February 1923. After primary school, he went to Clongowes Wood College run by the Jesuits, until he finished his secondary education. After school he tried a vocation with the Cistercians for a short time but turned back to the Jesuits whom he knew from school....He came out to Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) in 1958 to Chikuni where he studied Chitonga. After a year at Charles Lwanga Teachers' Training College, he went to Monze (1962-63) where he worked in the parish. Pastoral work was to be his vocation for the rest of his life. From Monze he took a big step to the large urban parish of St. Ignatius in Lusaka where he was parish priest for six years (1964-1970).

After Lusaka he moved again to the South where he worked for a while out of Chikuni and later in Monze. Then, for eight years (1975-1983) he worked at Nakambala in Mazabuka. During that time he oversaw the building of Christ the King church, the second church on the Sugar Estate after St. Paul's. His final years in Zambia were spent as parish priest in Kalomo (1984-1987). After thirty years of fruitful, patient work in Zambia, he returned to Ireland to continue his pastoral work. First he worked in the Archdiocese of Dublin for three years and then went to the West to the Diocese of Galway. There he did pastoral work and chaplaincy in Clarinbridge and Lisdoonvarna. After nine years at this he moved north to Sligo to Nazareth House as assistant hospital chaplain. In the latter part of last year he moved back to the Jesuit community in Galway where he was assisting in the church. Returning to Galway from a visit to Sligo on 18 October, he stayed with a priest friend at Crossna, County Roscommon. He died peacefully in his sleep while staying there.

These are the facts of Dinny's life. What of the man himself? Outwardly, he was a very laid-back person, easy going in the sense that very little disturbed him much. Always associated with him was his pipe and his hand basket in which he carried the essentials for his pastoral work as he moved around. The pipe brings to mind a story about him while he was on his sabbatical in the States. A quiet evening smoke in his room above the Downtown Chapel in Portland, Oregon, where he was a guest, activated the smoke detector in the ceiling and set off the sprinkler system, drenching the room.
As a pastoral worker and chaplain, he was most faithful to the work at hand, quietly, no fuss, almost unnoticed. He had an easy way of talking with elders, putting them at their ease, whether visiting their homes or attending their bedside in hospital. He loved to walk on his own by the sea or along a river bank. For him it was a time of prayer. He loved a good chat with friends once he had the pipe lit and glowing.

He was not adverse to recounting stories about himself. One that springs to mind was a time when he was traveling to Lusaka with a Jesuit companion, a companion who would quickly speak of spiritual matters. “Dinny”, the Jesuit said, “I admire you”. “Huh! Why's that?” asked Dinny. “Well”, was the reply. “You are a man of few talents, but you use them to the best of your ability!”
Dinny's talent was his easy, welcoming manner with people and his quiet, unobtrusive pastoral ability.

◆ The Clongownian, 2005

Obituary

Father Denis O’Connell SJ

On October 9th Denis left Galway to visit friends in Sligo. He planned to be away for about a week. On Monday 18th he left a message for John O'Keeffe to say that he was with friends near Lough Key and that he planned to return to Galway on Wednesday 20th. On the evening of the 18th a message was received in Galway from the PP of Crossna, Co Roscommon, to say that Denis did not come to tea as expected and that on going to his room he found him dead. He had gone to take a siesta.

Dennis O'Connell (known to all as “Dinny”) was born in the west of Ireland, in Westport, County Mayo, on 19 February 1923. After primary school, he went to Clongowes Wood College run by the Jesuits, until he finished his secondary education. After school he tried a vocation with the Cistercians for a short time but turned back to the Jesuits whom he knew from school. He came out to Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) in 1958 to Chikuni where he studied Chitonga. After a year at Charles Lwanga Teachers Training College, he went to Monze (1962-63). where he worked in the parish. Pastoral work was to be his vocation for the rest of his life. From Monze he took a big step to the large urban parish of St Ignatius in Lusaka where he was parish priest for six years (1964-1970).

After Lusaka he moved again to the South where he worked for a while out of Chikuni and later in Monze. Then, for eight years (1975-1983) he worked at Nakambala in Mazabuka. During that time he oversaw the building of Christ the King church, the second church on the Sugar Estate after St Paul's. His final years in Zambia were spent as parish priest in Kalomo (1984-1987). After thirty years of fruitful, patient work in Zambia, he returned to Ireland to continue his pastoral work. First he worked in the Archdiocese of Dublin for three years and then went to the West to the Diocese of Galway. There he did pastoral work and chaplaincy in Clarinbridge and Lisdoonvarna. After nine years at this he moved north to Sligo to Nazareth House as assistant hospital chaplain. In the latter part of last year he moved back to the Jesuit community in Galway where he was assisting in the church. Returning to Galway from a visit to Sligo on 18 October, he stayed with a priest friend at Crossna, County Roscommon. He died peacefully in his sleep while staying there.

These are the facts of Dinny's life. What of the man himself? Outwardly, he was a very laid-back person; easy going in the sense that very little disturbed him much. Always associated with him were his pipe and his hand basket in which he carried the essentials for his pastoral work as he moved around. The pipe brings to mind a story about him while he was on his sabbatical in the States. A quiet evening smoke in his room above the Downtown Chapel in Portland, Oregon, where he was a guest, activated the smoke detector in the ceiling and sec off the sprinkler system, drenching the room.

As a pastoral worker and chaplain, he was most faithful to the work at hand, quietly, no fuss, almost unnoticed. He had an easy way of talking with elders, putting them at their ease, whether visiting their homes or attending their bedside in hospital. He loved to walk on his own by the sea or along a riverbank. For him it was a time of prayer. He loved a good chat with friends once he had the pipe lit and glowing. Dinny's talent was · his easy, welcoming manner with people and his quiet, unobtrusive pastoral ability.

TMCG

Born: 27 August 1912, Iona Road, Glasnevin, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 03 September 1930, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 06 January 1945, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 15 August 1948, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 23 January 1987, Mount Alvernia Hospital, Singapore - Macau-Hong Kong Province (MAC-HK)

Part of the Kingsmead Hall, Singapore community at the time of death

Transcribed : HIB to HK 03/12/1966

Father worked for Guinness Brewery Dublin.

Youngest of six boys with one sister.

Early education for seven years at Convent schools, at age 12 he went to O’Connell’s School, Dublin (1924-1930)

by 1939 at Loyola Hong Kong - studying

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father Kevin O’Dwyer
R.I.P.

Father Kevin O'Dwyer, SJ., formerly of Hong Kong, died in Singapore on Friday, 23 January 1987, aged 74.
Father O'Dwyer was born in Ireland in 1912 and joined the Jesuits in 1930. He came to Hong Kong as a scholastic in 1938, studied theology in Australia 1941-1944 and was ordained priest there. After further studies in North America on social work, he returned to Hong Kong where he worked chiefly in organising cooperative marketing. In 1959 he went to Singapore where he served in St. Ignatius Church till his death. His health was failing in his later years, but he worked to the very end.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 6 February 1987

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
Note from Tommy Byrne Entry
During his term as Provincial (1947-1963) he sent many Jesuits to Hong Kong, and then in 1951 he started the Irish Jesuit Mission to Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). He also saw the needs in Singapore and Malaysia and sent Jesuits to work there - like Kevin O’Dwyer, who built St Ignatius Church in Singapore; Patrick McGovern who built St Francis Xavier Church in Petaling Jaya, and also Liam Egan, Gerard (Geoffrey?) Murphy and Tom Fitzgerald.

Note from Thomas Ryan Entry
He sent young Jesuits to work on social activities there - Patrick McGovern and Kevin O'Dwyer

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 21st Year No 1 1946

Frs. John Carroll, Kevin O'Dwyer and Cyril Peyton, of the Hong Kong Mission, who completed their theology at Pymble recently, left, Sydney on December 9th on the Aquitania for England via the Cape. They hope to be home by the end of January. They are accompanied by Fr.. Vincent Conway, an old Mungret boy, member of the Vice Province. All four will make their tertianship in Rathfarnham next autumn.

Irish Province News 23rd Year No 3 1948
Frs. Casey G., Grogan and Sullivan leave England for Hong Kong on 2nd July on the ‘Canton’. On the following day Fr. Kevin O'Dwyer hopes to sail with Fr. Albert Cooney from San Francisco on the ‘General Gordon’ for the same destination.
The following will be going to Hong Kong in August : Frs. Joseph Mallin and Merritt, Messrs. James Kelly, McGaley, Michael McLoughlin and Geoffrey Murphy.

Irish Province News 62nd Year No 2 1987

Obituary

Fr Kevin O'Dwyer (1912-1930-1987) (Macau-Hong Kong)

27th August 1912: born in Dublin. Schooled at Dominican Convent, Eccles Street; Holy Faith Convent, Glasnevin; O'Connell (CB) Schools, North Richmond Street.
3rd September 1930: entered SJ. 1930-32 Emo, noviciate. 1932-35 Rathfarnham, juniorate. BSc in mathematics and mathematical physics. 1935-38 Tullabeg, philosophy.
1938-41 Hong Kong: 1938-40 Taai Lam Chung language school, learning Cantonese; 1940-41 Wah Yan HK (2 Robinson road), form-master of 2B, and teaching mathematics to matriculation class.
1941-5 Australia: '41 (for four months, while awaiting the start of the Australian academic year) Xavier College Kew, Melbourne, teaching; 42-5 (four years) Pymble, Sydney, theology. 6th January 1945: ordained a priest.
1946-47 Ireland: 1946 (January-June) Mungret, teaching; 1946-47 Rathfarnham, tertianship.
1947-48 Tour of inspection of co-operative organisations, in order to learn their method and success: in Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia, Low Countries, France; Antigonish (Nova Scotia), where he spent two months as guest of SFX university extension department; then to about twenty cities, four in Canada and the rest in USA.
1948-54 (Feb.), 1955-'9 Hong Kong: 1948-49 Regional seminary, Aberdeen (HK), improving his Cantonese and writing a report on co-operatives; 1949-52 (Feb.) Ricci Hall, minister. While there he acted as organising adviser in the setting-up of the rural service division of the HK government's vegetable marketing organisation. This was the foundation for the co-operative development in Hong Kong (his own words). In November 1949 he went on a lecture-tour of the Philippines, representing Mons. L. G. Ligutti, Vatican observer to the United Nations agency.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), He spent three weeks visiting most of the main centres of the islands and lecturing on the advantages of co operative organisation, 'the presence of a priest being considered essential for the proper selling of the idea to the people'. 1952 (Feb.)-54 (Feb.) Faber House (of writers), Braga Circuit, Kowloon, minister. During this period he became a member of the vegetable marketing advisory board, chaplain to the HK defence force and committee member of the HK housing society. (1954 (Feb.)-55 Singapore. 1955 (for a short time) Ricci Hall, then, 1955-59, Wah Yan HK, port chaplain (Apostleship of the Sea), bursar, 1954 (Feb.)-55, 1959 (Nov.)-1987 Singapore: 1954 (Feb.)-55, helping Fr Paddy Joy to equip the newly-built hostel for student teachers (Kingsmead Hall). Bursar (of the house (1960-87), of the parish (1961-87), and of the new “Dependent Region' of Malaysia-Singapore” (1985-87). “Builder” of the church of St Ignatius, its first administrator (1961-66) and its first parish priest (1966-74). Minister (1960-63, 1978-87). Warden of Kingsmead Hall (1967-72), then Warden's assistant (1972-86). 23rd January 1987: died.

The Australian province's Fortnightly report (15th April) quotes a letter from a Sr Elizabeth Curran: "I was in Singapore (a stop-over on my return trip to Adelaide) and I saw the beauty of death on the face of Fr Kevin O'Dwyer, SJ, I was with the FMM Community to sing Vespers near Fr Kevin. The Asians made carpets of flowers round the coffin for their beloved parish priest. Resurrection ‘was in the atmosphere’ ... there was deep peace everywhere ... By request of Fr Kevin, the Chinese New Year decorations and banners were still in the church: it was a triumphant celebration”.

Irish Province News 62nd Year No 3 1987

Obituary

Fr Kevin O’Dwyer (1912-1930-1987) (Macau-Hong Kong)

Memories of earlier days
Kevin entered the novitiate one year after me and I was, in fact, his angelus. Nevertheless, even though he was with me in Rathfarnham and later in Tullabeg, Hong Kong and the Australian theologate at Pymble, it is not easy to recall, after all these years, any particular incident, whether humorous or exciting in which he might have been involved, except very pleasant memories of a good Jesuit and an entertaining companion with a ready laugh and a fine sense of humour.
In Tullabeg, he was a keen tennis player and reached the high level of skill which earned him a place in Arthur Little's exclusive tennis team, a great honour not easily achieved.
Kevin was also very keen on music, so much so that when Hilary Lawton formed the Tullabeg orchestra, Kevin painstakingly taught himself the violin so that he would at least be able to make some small contribution to the second or third strings.
He arrived in Hong Kong in 1938 and was subsequently among the second group of Hong Kong scholastics to go to Canisius College in Sydney for theology.
During his period in the theologate, he found an outlet for his love of music. He organised an orchestra (no easy feat in wartime) with literally no instruments to begin with except a piano, an old trombone and a couple of violins. This did not daunt him, however. Somehow or other, he managed, with the help of an army chaplain, to obtain a contract to make (or rather assemble) sets of plastic rosaries which were sold, mostly, to the army.
With the small income from this and probably some other donations he gradually acquired two drums, a clarinet, a flute, a cello (which someone had learnt to play), more violins, one viola and probably some instruments I can now no longer remember. Soon there was an orchestra of about eight or more players and the community was successfully entertained to pieces like Tancredi, Hebrides March, Rosamund Ballet and the Second Movement of Haydn's Surprise Symphony.
On his return to Hong Kong as a priest in 1947, Kevin was able to make a lasting contribution to the life of the farmers in the New Territories, Tommy Ryan, then Mission Superior, sent him to the Cody Institute attached to St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where he made a close study of co-operative societies.
On his return to Hong Kong, he was instrumental, together with Mr (now Sir) Jack Cater, in forming the first vegetable co-operatives to be established in Hong Kong. These co-operatives and the vegetable co-operative markets have been operating successfully in Hong Kong for more than 30 years and have saved many a farmer from the greed of the middle-man.
Some people gave Kevin the nickname 'Barbdwyer.' This could give a wrong impression to those who did not know him. Kevin loved the cut and thrust of good repartee. It did not matter what the subject was, he watched with glee to see how his opponent would extricate himself, or, with a chortle, concede defeat.
John Collins

Vivacious to the end
My earliest recollections of Kevin go back to noviceship days in Emo. He was delivering one of those short practice sermons on the theme of the Epiphany. Being mere schoolboys, the theological significance of the feast was somewhat beyond us, and in those days our familiarity with Scripture was that of the aver age Catholic closer to Vatican I than Vatican II. What impressed Kevin about the Magi was that at the end of a long, tiresome journey, they were still on talking terms with each other!
In this reflection on the Wise Men, Kevin was being quite realistic. He was a great talker and, at the end of a long trek in Tullabeg days while still smartly stepping out a military pace with three other stalwarts, he would keep the conversation moving until they reached home.
For almost two years before his death, Kevin was receiving blood transfusions to make up for the haemoglobin deficiency in his system. Despite this marrow failure, he remained vivacious to the end. At first, the transfusions fasted several months but later had to be repeated at shorter intervals until finally his energy dissipated after a few weeks.
Though with his community he spoke in a light-hearted manner about his illness, he did recommend in glowing terms the article in the December 1986 issue of The Furrow by Fr Peter Lemass, 'The call to live.'
Like Fr Lemass, Kevin had many people supporting and encouraging him in his struggle to survive. When an appeal for blood donations was made from the pulpit over a year ago the response was overwhelming. On that occasion no blood type was indicated. Last December, when another appeal was made this time for “B” type blood, several parishioners apologised for being unable to donate according to the specific type. It turned out that type “B” is quite rare in Singapore. One of the last to donate blood was a girl Legionary from the University of Singapore. Kevin was spiritual director to one of the six praesidia on the campus.
Despite the rare type of blood he needed, Kevin was never denied blood when it was required. About a week before his death, he was given a transfusion of six pints and when they did not raise his haemoglobin count sufficiently, he was given two more pints before being allowed home.
On Wednesday, January 21, at 3 am, suffering from high fever and body pains, he phoned doctor and ambulance and was taken to the intensive care unit of Mount Alvernia Hospital, in the care of the FMDM Sisters. Only Tom O'Neill was disturbed by the commotion and finding a taxi cruising at that unearthly hour followed the ambulance to discover what was amiss. What had been feared from the beginning of the illness had happened. He was stricken with a virus infection and was unable to combat it. I had the privilege of anointing him and giving him Communion that afternoon. On Friday, about 11.30 am, his brea thing became difficult and he died with out further suffering.
Despite my recommendation that all watching and praying close down at 11.00 pm, while Kevin's body was lying in the parish hall, his friends would have none of it. For three nights, they organised relays of watchers, while some remained through the night. There were several phone calls from people who said he had officiated at their marriage twenty or so years previously and had baptised their children.
John Wood

Respect, yes - but affection?
To those who knew Kevin O'Dwyer only as an efficient Minister, a meticulous Econome, a competent teacher and, at times, a quite sharp-tongued critic, the depth of mourning displayed at his passing would have come as a surprise.
He died rather suddenly at the end, just before noon on Friday, 23 January, The body was embalmed and brought that same evening to the Parish Hall. At 9.00 pm there was a concelebrated Mass in the Hall at which about three hundred people were present. How the word had got around so fast is still a mystery.
Over the weekend the parishioners took it in turns to watch by the body, day and night. Each evening at 9.00 Mass was said. On Monday morning Archbishop Gregory Yong concelebrated the funeral Mass together with over 70 priests before a full congregation. Although it was an ordinary working day, three busloads of parishioners, as well as several private cars, went to the cemetery.
All this was a tribute to a man who many would have thought incapable of inspiring such affection. Respect, yes - but affection? The answer seems to be that Kevin did not wear his heart on his sleeve, but, over the years, a great number of people came to realise that, while he might sometimes seem severe on the outside, he was, on the inside, not only a big-hearted man but a tender hearted one.
To say that Kevin O'Dwyer could not accept fools gladly would be misleading: it depended on the sort of fools. With those who were simply impractical or woolly-headed, he could be quite gentle. His sharp tongue was reserved for those who engaged in bombast, boasting or loud-mouthed proclamations of their opinions. Towards these he could be scathing.
But with the poor, even the 'under serving poor', Kevin was not only sympathetic but helpful in a practical way.
Twenty-five years ago, as soon as the Church of St Ignatius was built, he started the St Vincent de Paul Society and remained their Spiritual Director until his death.
Towards the sick his devotion knew no bounds. For years he brought Holy Communion to the sick in their homes every week and even when he himself was ailing, he continued to visit sick parishioners in various hospitals until the doctor insisted that he must confine himself to one hospital each day.
For almost two years Kevin was living on borrowed blood and therefore as he well knew, on borrowed time. Yet, although he could speak fluently on many subjects, he rarely spoke of this, He just went on working, in a restricted fashion as he grew weaker, until the end. Three days before he died, he was still busy at the accounts.
On one occasion he had confided that he did not want to end up a burden to the community. He didn't. He died quickly and quietly, without a fuss. Kevin always disliked making a fuss.
Liam Egan

Where only the best was good enough
I used to think that procurators generally were mean with money. Living with Kevin cured me of that. I do not consider myself stingy but he was far ahead of me in generosity.
Many a time I asked him for alms for a deserving case. “How much?” he would say and then suggest an amount far more than I had in mind. The same was true on occasions when, as a community, we discussed making a donation to some current charity or other. There was no single time when Kevin's proposed figure was not far above my own.
But a “bum” (a specifically “Kevinensian” term) got short shrift. For the uninitiated, a “bum” was/is someone “on the make”, a fraud, a faker of hard-luck tales, a taker who never gives. The direct opposite, in other words, of Kevin's own blunt honesty and self-giving. On one famous occasion, the (locally-born) priest secretary of one of our inter-parish meetings faithfully recorded the term in his minutes but confessed he had to consult a dictionary as he had thought the word had only one meaning,
Two things were always calculated to rile Kevin: if you asked a silly question, you got more, far more, than a silly answer! And if you happened to turn up even a little late for a public Mass or stupidly forgot some parish matter you were supposed to attend to, it was best to keep out of his path for a while until he had simmered down a bit.
The parishioners deserved only our best and always. They knew that, too. His service of them was complete dedication. That was why they loved him; and unceasingly asked for and after him during his illness; and why they poured in to pay their respects and shed their tears when the news spread, like a prairie fire, that God had taken him home.
A parishioner whose opinion I greatly value asked if we priests could do more to influence the parishioners. “Let them see the priests praying”, she said, “We know you pray but let them see you at it”. It so happened that only Kevin and I were in residence at the time and I saw at once that this was a gentle admonition to myself.
My preparation for Mass and thanksgiving were done in private, in my room or the sacristy, but Kevin was long on his knees daily in church before and after his Mass. He was a prayerful priest. Go to his room any day about 5 pm and you would find him saying his rosary.
In the final months, when his activities were necessarily curbed, he spent long periods, not with his beloved music or engaged in reading, but in the domestic chapel, next to my room. I saw him there, to quote a Milltown professor, whom my contemporaries will instantly identity, with my own two eyes'. For that example, as for so much else, I am
very grateful.
Des Reid

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

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

Transcribed HIB to ZAM : 03 December 1969

Parents were farmers.

Youngest in a family of five boys and three girls.

Early education was in the National school at Eyeries, and then he went to the Apostolic School at Mungret College SJ for six years.

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

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

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

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 145 : Summer 2011

Obituary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born: 26 November 1878, Puebla, Mexico
Entered: 07 September 1897, Loyola Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST for MEX)
Ordained: 30 July 1911, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 25 February 1916
Died: 05 April 1953, Residencia de la Votiva, Mexico City, Mexico - Mexicana Province (MEX)

by 1912 came to Tullabeg (HIB) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He Entered the Society 1897 at Loyola Spain for the Province of Mexico.
After First Vows he studied Rhetoric at Burgos and then Philosophy at Oña, Spain.
1904-1906 He was sent to Mexico for regency at Mascarones College and Guadalajara College
1906-1911 He returned to Oña and Hastings, England for Theology
1911-1912 He made Tertianship at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg, Ireland
1913-1915 He was sent home to Mexico and Mascarones College, Mexico City, and he also worked around the city.
1916-1924 He was sent to teach Theology in Montreal, Canada
1925-1931 He came to Australia and Corpus Christi College, Werribee to teach Theology. He was lent to Australia to give some strength to the Diocesan Seminary when it was in its infant stages. He was a man of keen intellect and considerable learning, and was a good Professor. He could be a little oversensitive and downcast when things did not go as he wished. He asked on a number of occasions to leave Corpus Christi, but was, with difficulty, persuaded to stay. He was also highly valued as a retreat giver, especially to Priests.
1931-1932 He was engaged in pastoral work in Toronto, Canada
1932-1941 He returned to Mexico as a Chaplain to English speaking Americans and doing pastoral work
1941 He was Superior at the Enrico Martinez Residence, and held the same office at Residencia de la Votiva in Mexico City from 1952

His contemporaries believed him to be a great Jesuit., very intelligent, a good and generous friend with a large heart. he had a strong character and somewhat austere appearance. He made a good impression on all he met.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 6th Year No 3 1931
Werribee :
Fr. de la Peza has been recalled to Montreal. When the hour of his departure arrived a very large contingent of the students gathered on the railway platform. With them were all the available Fathers of Corpus Christi and representatives of other houses. Fr. de la Peza was evidently moved at the kindness shown to him. A rousing three cheers accompanied the moving off of the train.
At Sydney there were other demonstrations of farewell, particularly an entertainment given by the Rector of Riverview, in which the Apostolic Delegate and other representative clerics took part, and in which complimentary speeches were made referring to the departing Father's success as a preacher, professor, and giver of clerical retreats.

Born: 27 May 1952, Easton PA, USA
Entered: 27 August 1981, St Stanislaus, Denver CO, USA, Missourianae Province (MIS)
Ordained: 12 June 1987, St Francis Xavier Church, St Louis MO, USA
Final Vows: 02 October 1994
Died: 14 April 2023, St Stanislaus, Florissant, Missouri, MO, USA, USA Central and Southern Province (UCS)

In 2000-2001 came to Gonzaga College, Dublin (HIB) on a sabbatical year studying and assisting in school

https://www.jesuitscentralsouthern.org/memoriam/pinne-christopher-p-father/

April 19, 2023 – Father Christopher P. Pinné, SJ, died April 14, 2023, in St. Louis. He was 70 years old, a Jesuit for 41 years and a priest for 35 years.

Remembered by his Jesuit brothers for his kindness and fortitude, Fr. Pinné will be remembered in a Mass of Christian Burial at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 22, in St. Francis Xavier College Church in St Louis. A visitation will be in the same location, beginning at 8:00 a.m. before the Mass. The Mass will be livestreamed on YouTube. Search for “Mass of Christian Burial for Fr. Christopher Pinné, SJ.” Download the worship aid. Burial will follow immediately after the Mass at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.

Christopher Pinné was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, on May 27, 1952. His parents, Frederick J. Pinne and Alice T. Pinné, preceded him in death. He is survived by his brothers and sisters-in-law: Allan (Nancy) M. Pinne; Frederick “Rick” (Wendy) Pinne, III; and Terence (Susan) G. Pinné, as well as his brothers in the Society of Jesus.

A graduate of Rockhurst University, he entered the Society of Jesus on Aug. 27, 1981, in Denver, after acquiring both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in theology. He pronounced first vows on Aug. 21, 1983, and was ordained a priest on June 12, 1987, at St. Francis Xavier College Church. He pronounced final vows on Oct. 3, 1994.

He began his Jesuit ministry in 1983 at De Smet Jesuit High School in St. Louis, where he taught religion. Following his theology studies and ordination, he returned to De Smet Jesuit in 1988 as dean of students, religion teacher and counselor.

In 1993, he was assigned to Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Mo., where he taught theology and served as superior of the Jesuit community. He served as interim president there for part of the 1999-2000 school year.

Following a sabbatical, Fr. Pinné returned to St. Louis, where for six years he was the provincial assistant for vocations, associate director of the advancement office and coordinator of the Alum Service Corps program.

Father Pinné’s life took a dramatic turn in the spring of 2007, when he was struck by a car. Some months later, his back began giving him serious trouble, resulting in the first of three painful surgeries, the last of which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Throughout the ordeal of multiple recoveries and then adjustment to life in a wheelchair, Fr. Pinné inspired many with his cheerful, hopeful and determined spirit.

During this time, from 2007 to 2011, Fr. Pinné taught theology and served as chaplain at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colo. In 2011, health needs necessitated a return to St. Louis, but always wanting to be of service, he served as chaplain of the Saint Louis University Law School.

Father Pinné returned to the classroom at St. Louis University High School in 2014 and moved to De Smet Jesuit in 2016 to serve as campus minister.

He returned to pastoral ministry at Jesuit Hall in 2017 and moved with his community to St. Ignatius Hall in St. Louis County in January 2023.

He never ceased being the compassionate, encouraging, prayerful priest that so many students and colleagues had come to know.

Father Pinné earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and theology at Rockhurst University, a master’s degree at Saint Louis University, and both Bachelor of Sacred Theology and a Master of Divinity at Regis College in Toronto, Ontario.

We remember with gratitude all that God has done through Fr. Pinné’s life of service to God and God’s people.

Born: 29 October 1937, China
Entered: 05 Novemnber 1958, Cheung Chau, Hong Kong HIB for Extemis Orientalis Province (ExOr)
Ordained: 30 May 1970, Toronto, Canada
Final Vows: 17 August 1978, Toronto, Canada
Died: 27 October 1922, Clarkston, MI, USA - Sinensis Province (CHN)

Transcribed HIB to HK 03 December 1966

Born: 14 February 1831, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 04 October 1853, Angers, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1858
Final Vows: 15 August 1871
Died: 16 August 1872, Guelph, ONT, Canada - Neo-Eboracensis-Canadensis Province (NEBCAN)