Item 448 - Fr Charles Young SJ

Born: 21 December 1798, Bridge Street, Dublin
Entered: 02 September 1832, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England (ANG)
Ordained: by 1844
Final Vows: 15 August 1852
Died: 16 January 1896, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

by 1839 in Namur studying Physics
by 1852 in Rome studying
by 1854 at Malta College teaching (ANG)

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He had two brothers Priests of the Dublin Diocese, William and Henry - Henry was buried in the vaults of the Pro-Cathedral.
He had been a merchant who purchased Belvedere House for the Jesuits before Ent.
He had travelled much during his life, especially in Spain.

He studied in Rome and spent some time in Malta.
He was in the Dublin Residence for a short time.
He was Spiritual Father for long periods in Clongowes and Tullabeg.

Note from John MacDonald Entry :
He was attended there in his last hours by the saintly Charles Young.

Note from Patrick Rickaby Entry :
He also had a wonderful gift of taking care of the sick. This he did at Tullabeg, where he watched over the venerable Charles Young who died in his 98th year.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
from :
Young, Charles (1798–1896), found in Young, Charles (1746–1825)
by C. J. Woods

The youngest brother (son), Charles Young (1798–1896), born 21 December 1798, was educated at Oscott and lived for some years in Spain, becoming proficient in the Spanish language and literature. He assisted in the family business before joining the Society of Jesus (1832); he spent some years as a military chaplain in Malta but returned to Ireland (1840), divided his time between the Jesuit colleges at Tullabeg and Clongowes, and died 16 January 1896 at Tullabeg.

◆ The Clongownian, 1896

Obituary

Father Charles Young SJ

Midway through the first month of this year, one of the longest lives recorded in the domestic annals of the Society of Jesus in Ireland came to a happy end. Father Young was born on the 21st of December, 1798, and died on the 16th of January, 1896. He had thus completed his ninety-seventh year - the nearest to the full century that we know of except the holy lay brother, John Ginivan, who was only eight days short of a hundred years when he died at St Francis Xavier's, Dublin, on the 30th of January, 1893. But Father Young's ninety-seven years leave far behind all the Jesuit Fathers who were his contemporaries : Father Lentaigne and Father Grene passed away, at 80 years of age, Father Callan and Father Haly at 87, Father Molony at 90, and Father Curtis at 91. These patriarchs lacked at any rate one proof of the Divine partiality which is put forward in a famous Greek saying and in a famous passage of the Book of Wisdom.

Charles Young's father, from whom he inherited both Christian name and surname, was a wealthy Dublin merchant, residing in Bridge Street. Mr Young's brother was Bishop of Limerick. The pious Catholic spirit of the Young household may fairly be conjectured from the vocations of the children. One of the daughters became a Poor Clare at Harold's Cross, Dublin, and two entered the Ursuline Convent at Blackrock, near Cork. One of these composed the “Ursuline. Manual”, a more enduring and effective work than her “History of England”. Of Mr Young's six sons four became priests. William and James were both very zealous and holy priests, worthy of being the brothers of the celebrated Father Henry Young, whose saintly life has been chronicled by the sympathetic pen of Lady Georgiana Fullerton.

The youngest brother of this remarkable family resisted for a considerable time the blessed contagion of such example: He was educated at Oscott and intended for secular pursuits. During some years after leaving school he lived in the South of Spain, and many a good story he used to tell about Cadiz and Seville, and about the Spaniards and their ways. He had unbounded love and adıniration for everything Spanish. Those who knew him can easily recall the graphic descriptions of persons, scenes, and manners, to which his great charm of manner, voice, and expression lent such attractiveness. At Tullabeg, when he was well beyond 70 years of age, many can well remember the interest he took in teaching the language of “The Cid” to some boys from South America, who wished to keep the knowledge of it fresh. But nel mezzo del cammino, at the mature age of thirty-four, he retired from the world and entered as a novice into the Society of Jesus. His life-journey was not yet in reality half over, however it may have seemed at the time. There still remained to him that full span which, counting from the cradle, is called the grand climacteric - sixty-three years: These years except a few at first on the Continent and a brief residence in St Francis Xavier's, Dublin - were divided between the colleges of Clongowes and St Stanislaus, Tullabeg. The latter was the scene of his final labours, of his cheerful term of waiting when labour was over for ever, and at last of his happy death.

Through his long life Father Charles Young was loved and revered by all with whom he came in contact, and most by those who knew him best, his religious brethren. He was remarkable for his cheerful, unaffected piety, his simple gaiety of heart, and the delightful union of solid and amiable qualities which lent such a charm to the intimacy of community life.

Not a single boy who was at Clongowes in the Sixties, or at Tullabeg from 1870 to 1886, can fail to have any but the sweetest, recollections of the holy old man, who had for everyone he met the kind word, kind look, and, kind act.

They will remember distinctly the grace of manner and elegance of bearing which reminded us of the days of the Grand Monarque. May he rest in peace!