Born: 04 May 1921, Shanaclough, Oola, County Limerick
Entered: 14 August 1950, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final Vows: 15 August 1960, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 08 September 1995, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

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

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 92 : August 1996

Obituary
Br William (Willie) Fitzgerald (1921-1995)

4th May 1921: Born in Shanaclough, Oola, Co. Limerick
Education: Oola NS, Co. Limerick
Employment: 10 years farming
14th Aug. 1950: Entered the Society at Emo
8th Sept. 1952: First Vows at Emo
1952 - 1959: Emo, Farm Steward Tertianship,
1959 - 1960: Roehampton, England
15th Aug. 1960: Final Vows, Emo
1960 - 1967: Emo, Farm Steward
1967 - 1995: Clongowes - Plant maintenance, House and College
1st June 1995: Admitted to Naas Hospital. Convalescence in Cherryfield Lodge
8th Sept. 1995: Died at Cherryfield Lodge

There is a tradition in the neighbourhood around Clongowes that there is always a “holy Jesuit” at the College. In recent years the pupils at the school would have had no doubt about who the “holy Jesuit” was. Br. Willie Fitzgerald was their idea of a holy man. They have their own stringent criteria for assessing holiness. And according to their criteria he never failed: he was invariably helpful and he repaired the same window they had broken yet again with the same patient good humour. He never gave out to them. Maybe his reputation said more about his fellow Jesuits in Clongowes than about Willie, but the reputation stood the test of time.

In a college where Fr. John Sullivan had set the standard, his fellow Jesuits noticed the similarities: Willie had a most extraordinarily cheerful willingness to help, no matter what time it was, no matter how inconvenient it was, and no matter how often he had had to do it even that very day. And that same cheerfulness survived nearly thirty years of breakages, broken windows, missing slates, clogged drains and blown bulbs. He often uncomplainingly repaired the same window twice in the same day.

For him love was found in deeds not in words. As with John Sullivan he knew when he was being taken advantage of, yet neither of them lost their temper, neither used recrimination even when they knew the damage was malicious. When you come across that kind of thing you know you are dealing with something special. As the boys in Clongowes knew in both cases, for nothing fake could take that much.

Br. Willie was hard to find, except twice a day, in the chapel. No matter what had disturbed his sleep during the night he was up and in the chapel as usual at 5,10 the next morning. In this too he was like John Sullivan. It was quietly done, but he was never late, never absent. He was there unobtrusively at different hours when nobody else was around. And we knew we were blessed; he prayed for us, the community, the boys.

Like John Sullivan too he suffered and always in silence. He suffered much from arthritis and was nearly crippled before he underwent the hip-operation, Afterwards there were strict injunctions that there was to be no climbing of roofs, no lifting of ladders. There was no stopping him. There was work to be done, and he did it. In his final illness there were long periods of pain, sleeplessness, but as always it was borne without complaint.

Vocation - that mysterious calling to imitate Christ - for Br. Willie it was not to imitate him in his teaching ministry but in his serving ministry. “I have come not to be served but to serve". For Willie it was a pouring out of self, without question, without complaint, AND doing it willingly, doing it cheerfully.

I think for the pupils of the school it was a choice they found difficult to envisage. With their young talents they dream of taking a place in life commensurate with their gifts. His vocation was challenging, all the more challenging because it was free. Willie Fitzgerald had talents that few guessed at. He had been best in his class at school, he had been a talented actor as a young man, and a keen sportsman. He would cycle to Carlow of a Sunday for a GAA match. Gerard Manley Hopkins was his favourite poet, and he could recite whole poems of his by heart. He had many talents but he chose a life of service as his way of imitating Christ.

I entered the noviciate in 1950, the same year as Willie Fitzgerald; we took our vows on the same day. I heard him make his dedication of himself; I saw him over more than forty years live out that dedication, not as a burden but cheerfully and willingly - just like his warm salute every time you met him.

Willie had a hermit streak, but he was a vital member of his community because he prayed for us. It was typical of him that when he was in Naas hospital during his final illness other patients and their visitors gravitated towards him and asked for his prayers. In his final days in Cherryfield I visited him and before taking my final leave of him I made sure to add my request to that of others, pray for me”. I know a good thing when I see it. The Community miss all the things he did around the place, but we feel sure of his prayers. Willie Fitzgerald died on 8th September 1995.

JL

◆ The Clongownian, 1996

Obituary
Brother William Fitzgerald SJ

“Willie Fitz”, as we called him in the Jesuit community, died peacefully after an illness of some months on the morning of 8 September 1995 in Cherryfield Lodge, the same day as young Stephen Downes a few miles away in Beaumont Hospital.
Willie came from Oola, Co. Limerick, where he was born on 4 May 1921. He farmed there until joining the Jesuits on 14 August 1950, at the age of 29. Almost uniquely for a Jesuit, his whole life was lived in just two houses: St Mary's, Emo, where he entered and remained a member of the community until 1967, shortly before the house was closed, and then Clongowes. In Emo he looked after the farm; here he was part - or several parts - of the maintenance staff. As we discovered after his death, although we had suspected it long before, he did the work of three men and no neat description of his job or his duties could properly encompass all the labours with which he filled his days.

He was a skilful handyman in several departments, in addition to the mechanical jobs for which he was formally responsible. Much of the work he did was hard, physical labour. He worked with complete fidelity and reliability. Broken windows never remained broken for long. The boiler was switched on and off personally - Willie never had much time for mechanical devices and preferred personal supervision. But the hallmark of all his work and his personality was his unfailing cheerfulness. This, more than the work itself, was one of the clues that Brother Fitzgerald was an unusually holy man. He was impossible to put out of countenance. Whatever the demand, he responded without complaint.

The present writer remembers him being called from his bed (or at least from his bed room - he retired late and rose extremely early) long after the midnight hour to secure entry to the top floor of the infirmary for a lay teacher who had got locked out. This necessitated Fitz going down to his workshop, carrying a heavy ladder to the back of the building and climbing up outside and through a window on the back-stairs. We, who were waiting inside, knew he had arrived when we heard his characteristically jovial singing on the other side of the door. That small, but revealing, incident was repeated time after time and typified his complete availability to others, utterly unmindful of any cost to him self. This is surely one of the principal marks of sanctity in a human being.

He was physically very robust and agile, until the end of his life. The heavy ladder he hoisted on his shoulders that night was one of countless loads we saw him carrying round over the years. The sight of Fitz up a ladder erected against a precariously wavering flag pole on top of the “29 Building” to run up the flag for Union Day inspired severe misgivings in others but he clearly thought nothing of it himself When he travelled, his favoured mode of transport was the bicycle. He went for long trips when he was allowing himself a little time off and, when he went home on holidays once a year, he cycled to Oola and back. We had no evidence that he even broke the journey.

All the while, he was making a more important journey and scaling other heights. We knew that he prayed - not as so many of us pray, as if, in the words of the Curé of Ars, we were saying, “I am just going to say a couple of words, so I can get away quickly”, but more like John Sullivan (and the reminiscence is not by chance), about whom a fellow scholastic once marvelled: “Mr Sullivan actually talks to Jesus in the chapel”. We only caught glimpses of this in Fitz - from the nature of things and because much of it was in the early hours when no one else was about - but we were keenly aware of it.

He was, in any case, a deeply private man. He was not unfriendly or unsociable. He was anything but unapproachable. But you did not feel he needed conversation or recreation, In some ways, living his slightly reclusive life, he was almost more a Carthusian than a Jesuit. He kept a certain kind of reserve, always, for example, addressing the rest of us as “Father” or “Brother”, never by our first names. He lived in obscurity, unknown except by the small circle of his family, his fellow-Jesuits in the community and those he worked with or met through his work. That was the way he wanted it and it revealed another dimension of his profoundly Christian personality, a humility which had no false note.

He had a good, alert mind and he was a shrewd observer of what was going on around him. We remember the sight of him in the community library after tea (his taken early), studying the newspaper, always The Irish Independent. He was keenly interested in sport, especially hurling and football. He had a hearty sense of humour, which could be sharp but was never unkind. We were amused and touched to discover that he used to send jokes to Ireland's Own, in the hope of winning the small prizes offered. Whoever the money was for, if he did win, it was certainly not for himself.

There was a depth of goodness and humanity in Willie Fitzgerald, which touched every one and he was a completely real person. Although his contact with the boys was some what indirect, “Brother Fitz” was a very familiar figure, always working, always on the move, always good-humoured and cheerful, and many of them had a sense of his special quality.

The day he died was the 43rd anniversary of his First Vows as a Jesuit. Those of us who had the privilege of living with him know that few have lived those vows with such awe-inspiring goodness and commitment as Willie Fitzgerald did. We convey our deep sympathy to his family.

Born: 11 April 1879, Oola, County Limerick
Entered: 14 August 1895, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 28 July 1912, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1915, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway
Died: 27 January 1959, Crescent College, Limerick

by 1900 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 34th Year No 2 1959
Sacred Heart Church and College, Limerick
With dramatic swiftness, Fr. Barragry passed away on Tuesday, 27th January. On the previous Saturday, he complained of a chill but continued throughout the day at his confessional. On Sunday, he was up and about but complained of loss of appetite. In getting into bed on Sunday night, he felt restless and depressed. Early on Monday morning, he was discovered lying on the floor of his room, by Fr. Rector. The doctor advised his removal to hospital, suspecting a recurrence of the diabetes. From the moment of his arrival in hospital in the late afternoon, his temperature began to rise steadily. He had another very restless night and on Tuesday morning, the community learned that there was no chance of his recovery. He remained perfectly lucid until about forty minutes before his death which occurred about 2.15 in the afternoon. On Wednesday, his remains arrived at the residence about noon and were laid out in the back parlour. Throughout the evening, crowds of his penitents and his friends came to say farewell to this very lovable priest. We all knew that Fr. Barragry was widely respected, but for many of us it was a revelation to discover the extent of his friendships. At the solemn obsequies on Thursday, His Lordship the Bishop attended with a large gathering of the secular and regular clergy. The boys of Sacred Heart College marched with the cortège to the city boundary and many of them finished the journey to Mungret by car or bicycle.

Obituary :
Fr John Barragry (1879-1958)
By the death of Fr. John Barragry on the 27th January the Province has lost, not only a colourful and interesting character, and one who provided a great deal of innocent pleasure for those who knew him or lived with him, but also an observant religious: remarkable for his devotion to poverty and for his exact obedience; a man of deep faith and simple piety, and a great lover of the Society. Many, both inside and outside the Society, feel they have lost a loyal and devoted friend.
Fr. Barragry was born at Oola, Co. Limerick in 1879, educated at the Crescent, and entered the Society at Tullabeg at the age of sixteen. Having completed his novitiate and juniorate, he was sent to Valkenburg in 1899 for his three years philosophy and, to the end of his life he retained an interest in the Niederdeutsche Provinz, and in the careers of those with whom he studied. On finishing seven years' teaching at Clongowes and three years theology at Milltown Park, he was ordained in 1912. Between 1914 and 1920 he was Prefect of Studies at Galway and at Mungret, and those who studied under him recall the firmness, enthusiasm and kindness, which characterised his work on their behalf.
For a short period he was Minister of Juniors and Professor of Mathematics at Tullabeg and then, from 1925 to 1931, he was again Prefect of Studies, but this time at the Crescent. Here, with the exception of seven years, when he taught at Clongowes and at Belvedere - where he was Procurator from 1934 to 1938, he was to spend the rest of his life. In the course of these years at Limerick he contributed in no small way to the success of the college as we know it today, and to the building up of the Ignatian Sodality. From 1944 till his death he was Procurator, and fulfilled this office with that exactitude and care which marked all his work.
Fr. Barragry was an efficient and understanding teacher, and he was remembered with affection by many of his past pupils years after they had left. Gratitude and warm appreciation are still expressed by those who knew him, even as far back as forty years ago. Last September, Monsignor Power of Saltley, Birmingham, recalling the old days in Limerick, asked :
“Is Fr. Barragry still alive? Good! How is he? The same as ever, I hope?”
All his life Fr. Barragly showed a great interest both in men and in affairs, and both his memory for the past and his knowledge of their careers were prodigious. Not a few of his pupils owe their start in life to the solicitous interest he took in placing them after school. Indeed many others also found in him a friend and a willing helper. His apostolate of "job-finding" and assisting the less fortunate, the poor and the unemployed, took up a great deal of any leisure he had.
As time went on he lost nothing of his interest in current affairs, specially in relation to Ireland. He had a deep love of his country, and watched daily, with a growing sense of pride, the material, economic and cultural achievements that had come about since the days of his boyhood. Though he felt that the study of the Irish language was beyond him, he championed its cause on more than one occasion, both , in private and in public.
His savoir vivre was tremendous, and up to the end he remained. keen in mind and active in body. A friend who spoke to him shortly before his death could not but admire the unimpaired, alert mind of a man in his eightieth year. He uttered no complaint on the score of health and was apparently the same as ever."
In 1955, four years before his death, he celebrated his Diamond Jubilee in the Society. His old friends - the Ignatians - gave him great joy by presenting a golden chalice to mark the occasion, and by arranging that an award—the Fr, Barragry medal— should be presented annually to the most outstanding pupil at the College.
During his years as operarius at the Crescent, Fr. Barragry was a kind and conscientious confessor, and as long as health allowed him to preach, his sermons were carefully prepared. Though in his eightieth year, he had no thought of going “on the shelf”, and was active and at his post practically to the end.
After confessions on Friday night, 23rd January, he complained of a bad shivering fit and was advised by the Rector to keep to his room. He said Mass on Sunday and seemed improved, but towards evening he took to his bed. At 4.30 on Monday morning the Rector thought he heard the sound of knocking and went in to see if anything was wrong. He found Fr. Barragry on the floor, where he had fallen during the night, and being unable to rise or attract attention, he had pulled a few blankets from the bed to keep himself warm. Later that day the doctor ordered him to hospital, and on Tuesday, when it was evident that he was dying, he was anointed and received Holy Viaticum about noon. Shortly before two o'clock, Fr. Rector and Fr. Naughton began the prayers for the dying, and at 2.10 he passed peacefully away.
It can be truthfully said that Fr. Barragry went through life joyously, maintaining always a bright and infectious cheerfulness. He dearly loved his little joke.
On one occasion, slipping quietly away for a villa in Donegal, he left strict injunctions that his life-long friend and colleague, Fr. Martin Corbett of Mungtet, was not to be told. As Fr. Martin and he were always keenly interested in the “latest”, he felt he had scored quite a victory in getting off “unbeknownst”, and was determined that when the time was opportune, he would make known his triumph.
Sitting by the side of the road, surrounded by the wild beauty of the Barnesmore Gap and the sunshine, and pulling a picture post card from his pocket, he scribbled with glee - taking pains to avoid any indication of his exact location : “Lovely views! Any news? J.B.”
Fr. Barragry traded his talents industriously, by patient, faithful service and by prayer. We may well hope that he now enjoys the reward of a well-spent life-a far more beautiful sight than he ever saw in Donegal.
Solus na Soillse agus radharc na Tríonóide d'á anam.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father John Barragry SJ 1879-1959
One could hardly live in a community with Fr John Barragry – or Barrags as he was affectionatle called – without feeling the impact of his energetic and vivid personality.
A Limerick man, born in Oola County Limerick in 1879, after a brilliant career as a boy in the Crescent, he became a Jesuit at Tullabeg at the age of 16.

His life in the Society was spent in the Colleges as Prefect of Studies in Mungret, Galway and the Crescent – 30 years in the classroom, as he himself used describe it. The latter part of his life was spent as procurator, first in Belvedere and then in the Crescent. This was his favourite house, and Limerick his natural habitat. “I know my Limerick” he was heard to retort to one he thought had pretensions to a greater knowledge.

He was intensely interested in people and affairs, especially in matters of the Society government and appointments. His curiosity was boundless and harmless, though to some it was irksome and annoying. To many it was a great source of recreation. His storied of how he dealt with difficult situations were famous. While stationed in Tullabeg teaching the Juniors, it was reported that Our Lady had appeared to a little girl on the avenue. There was great excitement, and the local IRA were on duty, armed, to regulate the people who came to see. “Down I went to see” would recount Fr Barragry. “A young fellow on guard stopped me”. “Halt” said he. “Shoot” said I, and that finished him”. To a Rector to whom he had suggested a way of saving money and who took the suggestion as a slur on his vow of poverty, he said “My Dear Father Rector, you mist never confound poverty with economy”.

He was a hard worker for souls, and energetic Director of the Ignatian Sodality, and tireless in his efforts to place old students in good situations in life.

He died on January 27th 1959 after a brief illness.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father John Barragry SJ (1879-1959)

Born at Oola, studied at this school from 1893 to 1895 when he entered the Society at Tullabeg. On the completion of his classical studies, he was sent for his course in philosophy to Valkenburg, Holland (1899-1902). His period of regency was spent at Clongowes, after which he entered on his theological studies at Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1912. For the next ten years after his tertianship, he was engaged in teaching at Galway (1914-1918); Mungret (1918-20); Tullabeg (1920-22), where he was prefect of studies for the scholastics; Belvedere (1922-24). He spent the next seven years at Sacred Heart College where, as prefect of studies, he did much to modernise teaching methods. After a year back in Clongowes (1931-1932) he spent the next six years as procurator in Belvedere College. His last and longest assignment was again at Sacred Heart College where, as procurator, he laboured until his death (1938-1959).
Father Barragry was a man of many gifts; he had a fluent command of German and French; he was an able classical scholar and a brilliant teacher of mathematics. His organising ability was proven in his work as prefect of studies and in the considerable help he gave to the formation of the Belvedere Old Boys' Union. Here, at the Crescent, he reorganised the Ignatian Sodality in the 1920's. He was a talented preacher and sodality director. For many years he was much sought after as a confessor. After an illness of only two days, he died on 27 January, 1959 and was laid to rest in the Jesuit plot at Mungret Abbey. RIP