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Born: 26 February 1789, Scotland
Entered: 07 September 1810, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1820
Died: 12 March 1835, Aberdeen, Scotland

Left Society of Jesus: 1830

in Clongowes 1817;
in Friburg Switzerland 1826

Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Father Murphy says that at the age of 10, he entered the Scotch College at Ratisbonne, at 16 he went to Stonyhurst. His inscription is “Carolus Fraser, Miss : Ap : in Planis Scotiae ob : Aberd. xii Mar 1835, aet xlvii”. (cf FD Murphy’s “Collections”

He belonged to HIB and was very much esteemed by all his brethren in Ireland.
He was a Professor and Prefect at Clongowes and a most distinguished Preacher, as well as the author of a History of the Suppression, which is in the Milltown Park Archives.

Although he left the Society, he kept up a correspondence with the Irish Jesuits.
Loose leaf note in CatChrn : Entitled “Left Stonyhurst for Castle Brown” :

Born: 1 February 1872, Aglish, County Waterford
Entered: 22 August 1896, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 28 July 1907, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1915, Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin
Died: 11 May 1946, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin

Parents farmers. Eldest of five boys and two girls.

Eduated at NS Aglish, Clashmore and Villierstown and Mount Mellary. Then to St John’s Seminary, Waterford and St Patrick’s College, Maynooth

1896-1898: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate
1898-1900: Séminaire de Vals, Vals-près-le-Puy, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France (TOLO) , Philosophy
1900-1905: Sacred Heart College SJ, Crescent, Limerick, Regency
1905-1909: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1909-1912: Sacred Heart College SJ, Crescent, Limerick, Teaching
1912-1913: Freinberg, Linz, Austria (ASR), Tertianship
1913-1918: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Teaching, “Pioneers”
1918-1920: St Mary’s College, Ore Place, Hastings, Sussex, England (LUGD), Theology
1920-1946: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Teaching

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Had studied for 5 years at St Patrick's College Maynooth before Entry

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 1st Year No 3 1926

The Irish Sodality : This Sodality is directed by Fr Michael McGrath. It grew out of the first week-end retreat in Irish at Milltown Park in 1916. After the retreat, steps were taken with a view to the formation of an Irish-speaking Sodality for men. Success attended the effort, and the first meeting was held in Gardiner Street on Friday in Passion Week. The Sodality soon numbered 400 members. In 1917 a second Irish-speaking Sodality, exclusively for women, was established. In a short time it was found advisable to amalgamate the two branches. The Sodality is now in a flourishing condition, and has every prospect of a bright future before it. In addition to the Sodality, there is an annual “open” retreat given in Gardiner Street to Irish speakers. The first of these retreats was given in 1923 by Fr Coghlan, he also gave the second the following year. The third was given by Father Saul.

◆ Irish Province News 21st Year No 3 1946

Obituary

Fr Michael McGrath (1872-1896-1946)

Fr. Michael McGrath was born at Aglish, Co. Waterford, on February 1st, 1872. Educated at Mount Melleray, then at St. John's College, Waterford, and lastly at Maynooth, he entered the Society at Tullabeg on August 22nd, 1896, and later went to Vals for philosophy. He taught in the Crescent 1901-5. He was ordained with Fr. William Doyle and Fr. John Sullivan in Milltown Park by Archbishop Walsh in 1907. He made his tertianship at Freienberg in Austria, and then taught for five years at Belvedere. A course of Canon Law under Pére Choupin at Ore Place, Hastings, completed his long formation, and the rest of his life was spent at Milltown Park, where he was Professor of Canon Law from 1920 to 1932, Lecturer in History of Philosophy from 1924 to 1930, Professor of Patrology, Christian Archaeology, Liturgy and Ascetics from 1932 to 1946. The Irish language always remained Fr. McGrath's favourite study. He established the Irish Sodality of the Blessed Virgin at Gardiner Street in 1916, and continued to direct it until 1935. His edition of Amhlaoibh Ua Suilleabháin's Irish Diary for the Irish Texts Society (1936-8) will be a lasting testimonial to his mastery of Irish and English. He was, at the time of his death, engaged on the preparation of many other Irish works, some of which were nearing completion. Among these were an Irish translation of the New Testament (apart from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles) with a detailed commentary, the Irish Missal of O'Hickey brought up to date, the Life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and the Lives of Distinguished Celtic Scholars. During his long years in Milltown his encouragement and advice were highly appreciated by many a theologian, and his hard. work and cheerfulness were a model to all.

Fr. Garahy has kindly contributed the following personal appreciation :
My acquaintance with Michael McGrath began at Mount Melleray in 1888. He had been there a year or two before my arrival. We soon formed a friendship which lasted during the year and a half I spent in that romantic retreat at the foot of Knockmealdown Mountain. I left Melleray at the end of the Christmas term for Mungret College. Michael McGrath remained on for another couple of years and then passed to St. John's College, Waterford. Later still he was sent to Maynooth, having won a free place in the National College. He had finished two years of his theology course when, with the leave of his bishop, he offered bimself as a candidate for the Society in 1896.

In Melleray Michael McGrath was of the quiet type, rather shy and retiring, but a sincere friend when one had succeeded in breaking through his reserve. He was a painstaking student, eager to absorb all the knowledge offered us boys in classics, the sciences and history. One advantage he had over the rest of us he had a fair acquaintance with the Gaelic. It was spoken freely in his native townland of Aglish, Co. Waterford. It was also the language of the little mountaineers who attended the National School at Melleray. I used to envy Michael McGrath when I heard him exchanging jokes in Irish with those youngsters on their way home from school. Irish was not taught in the College in those days, though we were living in the heart of an Irish speaking district. Melleray was not singular in that matter. The Gaelic revival did not come till several years later. When it did come Michael McGrath threw himself with all the ardour of his soul into the movement.

He and I met again in the Crescent after fourteen years. I was so taken with his enthusiasm for the language that I accepted his offer of instruction and within a few months found myself appointed to teach the first couple of O'Growney's booklets to & class of small boys in the Crescent. During the year I spent with him in Limerick he held the office of Prefect of Studies although still a scholastic. His whole hearted devotion to the duties of his office during that year was to be expected of the Michael McGrath I knew at Melleray—with his passion for study and his earnestness of character. What I did not expect and what was always a wonder to me was his unsparing self-sacrifice in helping the more backward boys to succeed in the examinations. What this cost him in time and in strain on his nerves only himself knew. We, his fellow masters, knew that he regularly sacrificed the couple of hours so badly needed after a hard day's work in the school room to this work of charity; and the wonder was how he escaped a nervous collapse.

At the end of the year he and I left Limerick for Milltown Park to begin our theological studies. The Gaelic revival was then in full swing. Milltown Park had caught the infection ever before our arrival, Fr, Lambert McKenna, Fr. J. F. X. O'Brien and Mr. Tomás Ó Nualláin were, I think, the pioneers of the movement in Milltown. It was natural that those of us who were anxious to master the difficulties of the spoken language should turn to Mr. McGrath for help. He had what we all lacked, a rich sonorous Déisi blas. I well remember his patience in helping us to acquire the correct sounds of the broad and slender vowels. Fr. B. Coghlan, one of our really great Irish scholars to-day, was an enthusiastic pupil, and so was Fr. Dominick Kelly, now for many years a distinguished professor in Newman College, Melbourne.

When Fr. McGrath returned to Milltown as a professor, I had already been transferred to the Mission staff. From that time forth I had few opportunities of meeting him. May he rest in peace”.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Michael McGrath 1872-1946
Fr Michael McGrath, while yet a scholastic, was Prefect of Studies at Crescent from 1901-1905.

Born in Aglish County Waterford on February 1st 1872, he was educated at Mount Melleray. He passed on to Maynooth and from there entered the Society in 1896.

Having studied Canon Law for a period after his ordination, the rest of his life was spent in Milltown Park, as professor in various faculties, Canon Law, Patrology, Liturgy and Ascetics. Normally a most kindly and lovable man, he could be most vehement in argument. For example, as Professor of Ascetics, when lecturing on the vice of curiosity, especially in religious, he used to refer to a Father (unnamed) notorious for this fault, and would almost have a stroke, so vehement would be his effort to convey his scorn for such pettiness.

He was a great Irish scholar, with a vast enthusiasm for the revival of the language. He edited the Diary of Amhlaoimh O’Sullivan for the Irish Texts Society. At the time of his death he was engaged in a new translation of the Bible, an Irish Missal, a life of St Aloysius Gonzaga and the lives of distinguished Irish scholars. He founded the Irish Sodality in Gardiner Street in 1916, and he continued to direct it until 1935.

His retreats were famous, being based on John Oxenham “Bees in Amber”, and there was hardly a convert in Ireland that had not heard his opening words : “Yo every man there openeth, a high way and a low”.

He was a model of observance, kindly in advice both as professor and confessor, and many generations of Jesuits owe him a deep debt for his faithful and patient service in their formation. He died on May 11th 1946.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Michael McGrath (1872-1946)

Was born at Aglish, Co. Waterford and educated at Mount Mellary. He was accepted by the Bishop of Waterford for his diocese and commenced his ecclesiastical studies at St John's, Waterford. From Waterford he was transferred to Maynooth where he completed two years' theology. With the permission of his bishop he applied for admission to the Society and began his noviceship at Tullabeg in 1896. His higher studies were made at Vals, Milltown Park and in Austria. He was ordained in Dublin in 1907. Father McGrath spent six years regency at the Crescent and was the first scholastic since Father Tom Finlay to be entrusted with the onerous duties of prefect of studies. After the completion of his studies, Father McGrath was employed in teaching for five years at Belvedere College, when his superiors bade him once more return to his own studies: he was sent off for higher studies in Canon Law to prepare him for a professor's chair at Milltown Park. He held the chair of Canon Law from 1920-32 but remained a member of the theological faculty until his death. He was a native Gaelic speaker and deeply learned in the language.

Born: 17 February 1892, Clifton, Bristol, Gloucestershire, England
Entered: 30 September 1912, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1924, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1929, St Ignatius, Leeson Street, Dublin
Died: 18 May 1983, Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin Community at the time of death

Father was an MP in the British Parliament and lived at Temple Chambers, London.

He is the second of four sons and has two sisters. Mother and children were received into the Catholic Church in December 1902.

Early education was at a Protestant school. and in 1903 went to Clongowes Wood College SJ until 1908. After this he spent some time in France and Germany. He went to the NUI in 1909 winning two entrance scholarships and four exhibitions in the succeeding years. He did not obtain his degree in 1912, as he forgot to enter his name in time for the exam.

1912-1914: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate
1914-1915: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Juniorate
1915-1917: Campion Hall, Brewer Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, (ANG), Scholarship Studies
1917-1919: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1919-1921: Sint Jan Berchmans, Rue des Récollets, Leuven, Belgium (BELG), Philosophy
1921-1925: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1925-1926: Canisianum, Exaeten, Limburg, Baexem, Netherlands (GER I), Tertianship
1926-1963: St Ignatius, Leeson Street, Dublin, Assistant Prefect at University Hall, Lecturing at UCD
1931-1945: Superior from 06/11/1932 to 17/04/1945; Editor of “Studies”; Lecturing at UCD
1945-1963: Lecturing at UCD
1963-1983: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Teaching and Writing

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Gwynn, Aubrey Osborn
by Noreen Giffney

Gwynn, Aubrey Osborn (1892–1983), Jesuit priest and academic, was born 17 February 1892 at Clifton, Bristol, England, the second son among six children (four boys and two girls) of Stephen Lucius Gwynn (qv), writer and MP, and his wife and first cousin, Mary Louise Gwynn, daughter of Rev. James Gwynn of Dublin and Bath. Born into an esteemed Church of Ireland family, he was the great-grandson of William Smith O'Brien (qv), the grandson of Rev. Dr John Gwynn (qv), regius professor of divinity at TCD (1888–1907), and the nephew of Edward John Gwynn (qv), provost of TCD (1927–37). On his mother's conversion to Roman catholicism (1902), Aubrey, his brother Denis Gwynn (qv), and their siblings were received into the catholic church at Farm Street, London, and brought up as catholics. Due to the nature of his father's work, much of Aubrey's early life was divided between London and Dublin.

Educated at the Jesuit Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare (1903–8), Gwynn spent a year of private study in Munich before becoming the first student to sign the register at the newly chartered UCD, where he later gained first-class honours (BA, 1912; MA 1915) in classics. When Fr William Delany (qv) admitted him to the Jesuit noviceship in Tullabeg, Rahan (1912), Gwynn intended to join the Chinese mission and work in Hong Kong, but under the guidance of Delany's successor, Dr T. V. Nolan, he entered academic life. After studying for a year at Rathfarnham, he went in 1916 on a travelling studentship to Oxford (Campion Hall), where he was awarded the Cromer essay prize (1917) and graduated B. Litt. (1919). He taught classics and German for two years at Clongowes (1917–19) before spending two years studying philosophy at the Jesuit College, Louvain (1919–21), and a further four years studying theology at Milltown Park, Dublin. He was ordained at Milltown Park on 24 July 1924 and trained for a final year in Exaten, the Netherlands (1926), then took his final vows in Dublin on 2 February 1929.

Initially employed (1927) as an assistant lecturer in ancient history at UCD, Gwynn replaced Daniel A. Binchy (qv) as lecturer in medieval history on the latter's appointment as Irish Free State minister in Berlin. When John Marcus O'Sullivan (qv) resumed his duties as professor of history in 1932, he was so impressed with the young lecturer's abilities that he had his position made permanent. Sixteen years later, in 1948, Gwynn was appointed first professor of medieval history. Actively involved in the administration of UCD, he was a member of the governing body, dean of the faculty of arts (1952–6), and a member of the NUI senate. He also served as president of the RIA (1958–61).

A pioneering scholar, Gwynn wrote or edited numerous contributions to ancient, medieval, and modern history, on such subjects as Roman education, Archbishop Richard Fitzralph (qv) of Armagh, and Irish emigrants in the West Indies. His many articles, numbering over one hundred, as well as his reviews, which he often initialled P. D. (‘Poor Devil’), were published in various journals, including the Journal of Hellenic Studies, Analecta Hibernica, and the Irish Ecclesiastical Record. As a member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission (1943–74) he revived the study and publication of the Calendar of Papal Letters. He was exonerated after being accused, by Regina Zukasiewicz, of stealing her deceased husband's manuscripts (1956). Despite being plagued by bouts of depression, he gained international recognition and an array of awards, among them offers of honorary doctorates from QUB (1964), and TCD (1965) – the second of which he declined. However, Gwynn was not impressed with his honorifics asserting that the only qualifications he required were SJ – alluding to his membership of the Society of Jesus.

Gwynn lived mostly with the Jesuit community at 35 Lower Leeson Street (1927–62), where he was superior of residence (1932–45). A keen supporter of the Missionary Sisters of St Columba and St Joseph's Young Priests’ Society, he helped to establish the latter's civil service branch (1930), advised on the preparing of their constitution (1945), and was editor of their quarterly magazine, St Joseph's Sheaf (1927–49). After he retired from UCD in 1961 he moved to Milltown (1962), where he lectured for two years on church history and tended to the library (1962–6). He remained active, despite failing eyesight, until a fractured femur left him in St Vincent's Hospital; he then moved to Our Lady's Hospice, Harold's Cross, where he died 18 May 1983. He was buried two days later, following funeral mass at the Jesuit church, Gardiner Street.

Aubrey Gwynn's private papers, Jesuit archives; file of correspondence between Robert Dudley Edwards and Aubrey Gwynn (1950–68), UCD Archives, LA 22/782–3; F. X. Martin, ‘The historical writings of Reverend Professor Aubrey Gwynn, S. J.’, Medieval studies presented to Aubrey Gwynn, S. J., ed. J. A. Watt, J. B. Morrall, and F. X. Martin (1961), 502–9; Geoffrey Hand, ‘Professor Aubrey Gwynn’, Hibernia (1962), 10; University College Dublin. Report of the president for the session 1961–62 (1962), 72–4; Burke, IFR (1976), 532–3; Geoffrey Hand, ‘Father Aubrey Gwynn, S. J.’, Ir. Times, 21 May 1983, 8; Irish Province News, xx, no. 11 (1983), 348–50, 367–9; Report of the president, University College Dublin 1982–83 (1983), 154; R. D. Edwards, ‘Professor Aubrey Gwynn, S. J.’, Anal. Hib., xxxi (1984), xi; F. X. Martin, ‘Aubrey Osborn Gwynn, 1892–1983’, Royal Irish Academy Annual Report, 1983–4 (1984), 2–6; Clara Cullen, ‘Historical writings of Aubrey Gwynn: addendum’, Aubrey Gwynn, S. J., The Irish church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, ed. Gerard O'Brien (1992), xiii–xiv; Geoffrey Hand, ‘Aubrey Gwynn: the person’, Studies, lxxxi (1992), 375–84; Fergus O'Donoghue, ‘Aubrey Gwynn: the Jesuit’, Studies, lxxxi (1992); 393–8; Katherine Walsh, ‘Aubrey Gwynn: the scholar’, Studies, lxxxi (1992), 385–92

◆ Irish Province News 17th Year No 1 1942

Recent articles by Fr. Aubrey Gwynn in the “Irish Ecclesiastical Record” were the subject of a very flattering notice in the 4 October issue of the 'Times Literary Supplement'. They referred to valuable contributions made by him to the history of the Dublin diocese in the 11th century, and in particular to interesting discoveries about Bishop Patrick of Dublin, whom he proves to have been a monk at Worcester under St. Wulfstain and author of the medieval scholastic poems in one of the Cotton MSS.

◆ Irish Province News 58th Year No 3 1983

Milltown Park
Fr Aubrey Gwynn (†)
Aubrey Gwynn went to his Maker at 6.45 on the morning of 18th May: requiescat in pace! The Province will hardly see his like again. From his childhood days in London at the turn of the century, he could remember great events like the funeral of Queen Victoria, and the celebrations on the relief of Mafeking. Yet right to the end he took an interest in everybody and everything; he was in no way out of touch or out of sympathy with the times; he and the scholastics greatly enjoyed each other's company. Again, he was both a consummate scholar and a zealous, devout priest. In his late eighties he was still contributing learned articles to Seanchas Ardmhacha, and was rarely, if ever, missing from his accustomed spot at community Mass. In his earlier years he had been closely associated with St Joseph's Young Priests Society and the Columban Sisters, and both these bodies have contributed appreciations which are printed below. It is also perhaps worth recalling how well Aubrey succeeded in being on excellent terms with staff at Maynooth College and with members of the Hierarchy. At the funeral, Maynooth was represented by Mons. Patrick J. Corish and Dublin archdiocese by Bishop James Kavanagh: Cardinal 0 Fiaich regretted being unable to attend, owing to the death of his own brother (Dr Patrick Fee).

Aubrey is remembered with great affection by the Milltown Park community (here we are gathering into one many golden opinions) as a Simeon like figure, who redeemed the dignity of old age, never grumbled, complained or criticised, was so full of gratitude for his Jesuit vocation; who forty years ago treated scholastics as adults; the last of the generation of giants. He will continue to be remembered for his patient faith, his independence of spirit, tolerance of change, good humour, conviviality at table, debonair gentlemanliness, desire for life and determination to live, helpfulness and encouragement, graciousness, faithfulness and dedication, simplicity and humility.

One member of the community writes as follows: “Every day for ten years Aubrey concelebrated the Community Mass: at 10 am on Sundays, at 5.30 pm on weekdays in term, at 12.15 pm on weekdays in vacation and on Sundays. This showed an impressive willingness to adapt to different hours - a strength of faith which enabled him really to enjoy such varied styles of worship.

His loyalty to ‘The College’ (UCD, represented at the funeral by Mons. Feichin O'Doherty) showed me that an institution can be served with discrimination, with neither cynical detachment nor bland adoration.

His warm interest in each of us in the community was enormously encouraging - so different from the intrusive questioning by those who want to pigeon hole me for some future use, and different from the inattention of those who seem afraid to make human contact with me even for the length of a meal.

Another member expresses his appreciation in the following words: “I will remember Aubrey as a big man, a man who spanned the centuries and felt at home in many of them including much of our own. I will remember him as a grateful man, grateful to God and to us at Milltown. I will remember him as a lovable man who aged with grace and dignity. Finally I will remember Aubrey the priest, who celebrated the daily Eucharist with us faithfully and with determined step.

A fellow-historian and friend of Aubrey's, Katherine Walsh, who dedicated to him her recent work on Archbishop Richard FitzRalph, wrote from Vienna to the Rector as follows: “Kind friends contacted me by telephone and telegram to break the sad news of the death of Fr Aubrey Gwynn, May I offer through you my deepest sympathy to the community of Milltown Park, also to the Irish Jesuit Province, of which he was for so long a distinguished and respected ornament at home and abroad. My personal sense of loss is great - it was not merely FitzRalph that bound me to him. His personal and scholarly qualities were such that I valued his friendship, advice and encouragement very much. Also my husband Alfred learned to share my very deep affection for him and wishes to be associated in this word of appreciation. Our subsequent visits to Ireland will be the poorer without the pleasure of his great company. Requiescat in pace”.

Mr Brendan Daly of Waterford, who was National President of St Joseph's Young Priests Society from 1975 to 1982, sent the following appreciation: “For over forty years, Fr Aubrey Gwynn played a very important part in the formation and development of St Joseph's Young Priests Society. Space will allow for only a brief mention of the highlights of these activities. From 1927 1949 he was the Honorary Editor of ‘Saint Joseph's sheaf’, the Society's quarterly magazine. During most of this same period, he was also a member of a the Society's governing Council. In 1930 helped to establish the Civil Service Branch, and was its chaplain until 1936. He was also actively involved in the formation of other vocational branches. He advised on the preparation of the Society's 1945 Constitution.

Fr Gwynn gave of himself quietly but building up a Lay Society that its identity, purpose and motivation in the Eucharist and membership of the Mystical Body of Christ. He encouraged greater lay participation in the Apostolate of the Church, and imbued members with those ideals that were subsequently to be voiced in the decrees of the Second Vatican Council. He was a true priest of Jesus Christ who helped many lay people to live their own royal . priesthood. He has helped St Joseph's Young Priests Society to build up a rich heritage - a heritage which it values and shares with many, many others'.

The Vicar-General of the Missionary Sisters of St Columban, Sr Ita McElwain, sent the following tribute: Fr Aubrey Gwynn had a long and happy association with the Missionary Sisters of St Columban. This came about through his relationship with Mother Mary Patrick, formerly Lady Frances Moloney, who was a friend and contemporary of his mother. Mother M. Patrick knew Aubrey from his childhood and followed his career with interest. He, in turn, had a lifelong regard for her, and greatly admired her spirit and courage when, at the age of fifty, she joined the little band of women who were destined to become the first members of the Columban Sisters.

“Fr Gwynn was a regular visitor to the Motherhouse at Cahiracon, Co Clare. On at least two occasions he gave retreats to the sisters there, as well as an occasional triduum of prayer to the to student sisters at the house of studies located at Merrion square at that time. The house at Merrion square was cquired in 1942 when Mother M Patrick was superior-general of the he Columban Sisters and Fr Gwynn superior of the Jesuit house at Leeson Street. Father offered to provide a weekly Mass for the sisters, and this continued He advised on the preparation of the for many years. He came whenever he could and took a keen interest in the sisters studies and in the sisters fully in themselves when they were missioned finds overseas. Especially worthy of note was his invaluable help and support to the sisters doing medical studies: this was at a time when it was quite a departure for sisters to undertake the study of medicine and surgery. Fr Gwynn is remembered by us as a devoted priest and renowned scholar; a loyal friend whose invaluable advice and experience were greatly appreciated by a comparatively young and struggling congregation; a very open-hearted and good-humoured man who kept in close touch with us through all the years of our existence. May his great soul rest in peace”.

The following is the text of Aubrey's last letter to the Columban Sisters: 2nd Dec. 1982.

Dear Sister Maura.
Very many thanks to you all at Magheramore for the splendid bird that was duly delivered here yesterday evening as on so many other happy occasions. And my special greetings to those of your community who may remember me from the old days in Merrion square and Fitzwilliam square. I shall be 91 years old next February, and am beginning to feel that I am an old man.

For the past 21 years I have been very happy here, where everyone young and old about here is very kind. And I am ever more grateful for the many blessings I have received during my 91 years. Blessings on you all at Magheramore, and may Mother Patrick, who was my mother's friend, rest in реаcе.
Yours in Xt, / Aubrey Gwynn, S.J.'

The appreciation by Professor Geoffrey Hand appeared in the columns of the Irish Times on Saturday, 21st May.

◆ Obituary & ◆ The Clongownian, 1983

Fr Aubrey Gwynn (1892-1912-1983)

By the death of Fr Aubrey Gwynn the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus has lost one of its most distinguished and well-loved members.
He was born on the 7th February, 1892, at Clifton, Bristol, where his father, Stephen Gwynn, man of letters, historian, poet and member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, was at that time tutoring in a private crammer's. The Gwynn family were descended from Welsh settlers in Ulster during the 17th century, and were noted for the number of them who entered the ministry of the Church of Ireland. They also had a long and distinguished connection with Trinity College. Stephen's father, Rev John Gwynn, was Regius Professor of Divinity 1888-1917, and author of the great edition of the Book of Armagh, whilst his brother, Edward John Gwynn, was Provost of Trinity 1927-37. But the later generation of Gwynns had a strong infusion of Celtic blood, for Stephen Gwynn's mother was the elder daughter of William Smith O'Brien.

In 1896 the Gwynn family settled in London, where Aubrey attended a private preparatory school. He used to relate how amongst the small pupils was one Harold Macmillan – later British Prime Minister - who in some way made himself obnoxious and was sent to Coventry by his schoolfellows. The head master complained to their parents, with dire results for Aubrey, since at that time his father relied largely for income on his work as reader for the firm of Macmillan. In 1902 Mrs Mary Louise Gwynn was received into the Catholic Church and was followed by her children. Two years later Stephen Gwynn decided to return to Ireland and Aubrey was sent to Clongowes. He was accompanied by his elder brother, Lucius, a promising scholar who died at the age of twenty-nine after a long struggle against tuberculosis, and his younger brother, Denis, later a distinguished biographer and Professor of Modern Irish History in University College, Cork. Whilst at Clongowes, Aubrey already displayed his brilliance. He spent two years in Rhetoric class, winning in the first year the medal for first place in Senior Grade Latin, and in the second year the corresponding medal for Greek.

On leaving Clongowes, Aubrey had a year's private study in Munich and then entered University College, Dublin, becoming a member of Winton House, the predecessor of University Hall, He took his BA degree in 1912 and entered the noviceship at Tullabeg. After the noviceship he studied at Rathfarnham for a year, preparing for the MA and travelling studentship. The two years of the studentship were spent at Oxford, ending with the B. Litt. degree and Cromer Greek prize. Then followed two years teaching classics at Clongowes, philosophy at Louvain, theology at Mill town Park, ordination in 1924 and ter- tianship at Exaten, Holland, 1925-26.

Father Gwynn's first entrance into the life of University College was in 1927, when he was appointed lecturer in Ancient History. From then on, he was the recipient of one distinction after another. He became lecturer in Medieval History in 1930, professor of Medieval History in 1948, Dean of the Faculty of Arts 1951-56, member at various periods of the Governing Body of University College and of the Senate of the National University, President of the Royal Irish Academy 1958-61. In 1964 he was awarded the honorary degree of D. Litt. by Queen's University, Belfast.

As lecturer and professor Father Gwynn won universal praise. On his retirement in 1962, he was made the recipient of a Festschrift, a volume of essays on medieval subjects, edited by three of his colleagues, J. A. Wal . B. Morrall and F. X. Martin, OSA. The contributions by some twenty scholars from Irish, British, continental and American universities, were evidence of Father Gwynn's reputation outside Ireland. In the Foreword Professor Michael Tierney, president of University College, Dublin, emphasised the esteem in which Father Gwynn was held in his own country.

The essays gathered in this book are a well-deserved tribute to a man who has been a leader in historical work and in general scholarship for more than thirty years ... His unanimous election as President of the Royal Irish Academy was already evident of the position he held in the Irish world of learning... for a quarter of a century he has been the leader and teacher of a band of young scholars, and his pupils have achieved fame outside Ireland in countries where his own reputation had preceded them.'

Reviewing this volume in the Irish Times, another tribute was paid to Fr Gwynn by Professor F. S. Lyons, (later Provost of Trinity College) :

“Perhaps we are still too close to assess the full impact of Fr Gwynn on medieval studies in Ireland. But even now we can recognise that it has been very great. Great not only by virtue of his talents which, rather casually maybe, we have tended to take for granted, great not only because of the extent and quality of his published work, but great precisely through the influence he must have exer ted as a teacher”.

In addition to his constant work as lecturer or professor, Fr Gwynn displayed throughout his life an extra ordinary activity as a writer. Three of his major books are considered to be standard works of their kind, Roman Education from Cicero to Quintilian, Oxford, 1920, The English Austin Friars in the time of Wyclif Oxford, 1940. The Medieval Province of Armagh 1470-1545, Dundalk, 1946. He also collaborated with District Justice Dermot F Gleeson in producing the monumental History of the Diocese of Killaloe, Dublin, 1962. But, in addition, a flood of articles poured out from his pen, or rather typewriter. In the volume above referred to, Rey Professor Martin has listed over fifty of these articles, which are not articles in the ordinary sense, but learned monographs on ancient, medieval and modern topics. And this does not include the book reviews which he contributed steadily over the years to Studies and other learned journals. In this connection, a piece of Province folklore is worth preserving. Formerly book reviews in Studies were signed only with the writer's initials. Fr Gwynn felt that the initials AG were appearing with monotonous frequency, and alternated them with P.D. Asked what these letters signified, he smilingly replied ‘Poor devil'.

Although Fr Gwynn played such an active part in the life of University College, this did not mean that he he was in any way remote from the life of the Province. On the contrary, he was a most loyal and devoted member of it. He was a good community man, always in good humour, interested in the doings of others and ready to put his talents at their disposal. During his long stay in Leeson Street (he was Superior, 1932-'45), he did much to advise, encourage and help our Juniors who were passing through University College. For a considerable period he acted as editor of St Joseph's Sheaf, the organ of St Joseph's Young Priests Society, and enticed to write articles for it, thus giving them a useful introduction to the apostolate of writing. His loyalty to the Society in general was manifested by his constant study of its history, and many his articles dealt with the apostolate of Jesuits in various ages, especially on the foreign missions. Fr Gwynn had a special interest in the missions, and had close links both with our own missionaries and with others throughout the country, notably the Columban Fathers and Sisters.
On his retirement from University College, Fr Gwynn moved to Milltown Park. He lectured for two years on Church History and acted as librarian, 1962-6, but it became clear that he was no longer able for such tasks, and the rest of his retirement was devoted mainly to the revision of his articles on the medieval Irish Church, with the purpose of publishing them in book form. This again proved too much for his failing powers, and his final years were spent as a semi-invalid, consoled by the kindly care of the Milltown community, who came to regard him as a venerable father figure. His ninetieth birthday was signalised with a concelebrated Mass and a supper at which he received an enthusiastic ovation. He was reasonably active to the last until a fall resulted in a broken femur, the effects of which he was unable to recover. After some was weeks in St Vincent's Hospital, he was moved to Our Lady's Hospice, where he died peacefully on 18th May. His funeral at Gardiner Street was the occasion of a remarkable ecumenical event. It was presided over by BishopJames Kavanagh, representing His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, and some of the burial prayers were recited by Right Rev.George Simms, former Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin and of Armagh, whose wife is a cousin of Fr Gwynn.

Fr Aubrey used to relate an incident which occurred when he was studying at Oxford. When the time came to submit part of his thesis to his supervisor, he followed the old Jesuit custom of inscribing the letters AMDG at the top of each sheet. The manuscript was returned to of him addressed to Rev A M D Gwynn, The writer unconsciously hinted at a truth. The familiar letters may not have been Fr Aubrey's initials, but they were most certainly the inspiration of his life.

◆ Interfuse No 30 : December 1983

PORTRAIT FROM THE PAST : FATHER AUBREY GWYNN

Sister Sheila Lucey

A Columban Sister working in the Philippines pays tribute to the life and work of Father Aubrey

I first met Father Aubrey Gwynn in August in 1945, when I was assigned, straight after my profession, to our house of studies at 56 Merrion Square. Even then he had become a kind of Guardian Spirit to our young student sisters - some were studying medicine, others nursing, and I and a companion were taking up arts.

It was through Mother Mary Patrick that our sisters had come to know Father Gwynn. It seems that she had been a friend of his mother's. So, when the Columban Sisters came to Merrion Square in the early 40's a friendship started .which was to last throughout Fr Gwynn's long life.

His special concern was for the young student sisters. It was he who started the tradition of an eight o'clock Mass on Sunday morning, for the Merrion Square community, so that the students could have a longer sleep. He made it clear that there was to be no getting up earlier to study! When he couldn't come himself, he arranged for one or other of his brethren in Leeson St, to say the Mass, In later years, in the late 40's and early 50’s, he came for daily Mass.

Invariably he came for Midnight Mass at Christmas, in his very best attire, a beautifully-cut long clerical dress-coat. That was always a big occasion, and he seemed to enjoy every moment of it. Indeed, he was part of so many community celebrations in those years.

I remember how well he cooperated with all our clandestine preparations for Sister Mary Veronica's Silver Jubilee.

Right from the beginning, I found him a fascinating and stimulating personality, and a warm friend. He took a keen interest in each of us and in our studies. At the end of my first year I was asked to switch from German, as a degree subject, to history, which it was considered would be more useful on the missions. Certainly he made a difficult change easier for me. For two years I was his student. He initiated me into realms of history which were new to me, so I found his lectures valuabie, though I learned more from him outside the lecture-room than inside. Each vacation he arrived over to our house with an armful of books for me to read during the break, and he didn't limit himself to history - he also brought along some critical works on the English writers I was studying.

But it was after I finished my basic degree, and was sent on for graduate studies, that I really got to know Fr. Gwynn. At that time, he was coming for daily Mass, and at least a few times each week I was asked to see him in the parlour while he was having his breakfast, Those breakfast sessions stretched out longer and longer! He was so much of a medievalist that he could enter into all aspects of my MA thesis, on The Ancren Riwle (a medieval rule for anchoresses, which was also a treatise on the spirituality of that kind of life).

Later, when I got into my doctoral thesis, he got even more involved. This was right into his field, because the topic (English Prose Written by Irishmen in the Seventeenth Century) turned out to be as much historical as literary. It couldn't be otherwise in such a century, so full of religious and political controversy. From Professor Hogan I had imbibed a life-long appreciation of seventeenth century Eniglish literature. Now under Fr Gwynn's unobtrusive prodding I discovered for the first time that I had a glimmering of and historical sense after all!

Working on those seventeenth century writings, many of them anonymous, or written under pseudonyms, one had to be something of a literary sleuth. To satisfy" Fri Gwynn the evidence had to be exact and complete. He was a scrupulously honest scholar, and he expected those he worked with to be the same.

I certainly owe it to Fr Gwynn that I was able to persevere with my research and complete my PhD thesis. Theoretically Professor J.J. Hogan was my adviser, but he was an extremely busy person in those years. Besides he wasn't, familiar with the writings I had got into. In practice, Fr. Gwynn was my adviser and strong support throughout the years when I worked on my PhD thesis.

Indeed, many growing points of my life I seem to owe to Fr Gwynn. He it was who first launched me into print. While I was still a student he got me to review a book for Studies, a distinct honour in those days. (in fact, Fr Burke-Savage, the editor, asked that I used a nom de plume because “he didn't want all the nuns in Ireland to be wanting to get into the pages of Studies”. Shades of women's lib!). This was how I earned my first cheque for writing, and no later cheque ever made me feel so proud, (Strictly speaking my payment should have been the book, but Fr Gwynn purchased this for the Leeson St. house).

Another growing-edge of the mind happened when I'r Gwynn persuaded my superiors to allow me to go to Oxford and to the. British Museum in London, so that I could research by topic more thoroughly. Many of the writings. by Irishmen of the seventeenth century survive as very rare books, some indeed as single copies. The British Museum has some of them, others are in Oxford and Cambridge.

Father got quite a thrill out of sending me off on my Grand Tour, and he went to great pains to ensure that my visit would be a success. I went armed with letters of introduction to David Rogers of the British Museum, Fr. Basil Fitzgibbon of farm St.,and the library authorities in Oxford, He wrote beforehand to the Holy Child Sisters in Cherwell Edge, Oxford, where he knew some of the Sisters - his own sister had been a member of the congregation - and enjoyed their hospitality while I was in Oxford.

Of course, I fell in love with Oxford, as he intended me to, and he listened with happy amusement, as I shared my excitement with him on my return. This happened more than thirty years ago, in November December, 1950, yet it is still vivid in my memory. There was I, a young inexperienced person, given a welcome into the fellowship of scholars, and accepted as one of themselves. Ah, the daring and courage of youth!

Thinking back over all this, I believe I have hit on something very basic to. Fr. Gwynn's character, and very important: he helped people to grow. His own standards were high, and he helped others to live up to their highest potential, to a potential they weren't aware of until he pointed it out.

He was, too, a man of great patience and kindness. I'm sure a scholar of his calibre must have had to make many adjustments in trying to understand us young students. But his kindness bridged all distances. He had a genuine respect for others, and he paid: tribute to any gifts a person had, even if still in the bud!

It wasn't all an academic interchange. He had a puckish sense of humour, and those eyes could twinkle even over such daily dilemmas as “the problem of toast and butter: If I take more toast, I'll need another butter-roll, and if I take another butter-roll I'll need more toast to finish it!” At breakfast, one morning in our basement dining-room, I heard my gong ring upstairs. When I emerged at the top of the stairs, there was Fr. Gwynn, with a quizzical look on his face, saying: “How do you expect a fellow to eat his porridge without a spoon?” I had brought him in his breakfas. “You'd better stick to the History!”

Another time - I think it was when I was about to leave on my Oxbridge adventure - Fr Gwynn told me to kneel down for his blessing. Then, as I got up off my knees, he chuckled and told an anecdote about some Irish bishop, who was reputed to have said to his priests: “How did I get this cross on me belly? ... HARD WORRUK, YOUNG MEN, HARD WORRUK!” And he acted it out, standing tall and sticking out his chest.

He had a delightful sense of humour. I wish I could recall other incidents. I remember a letter he wrote shortly after he retired from UCD. He had been offered a chair of Philosophy (or History) in Milltown Park, he said, only to discover it was a sofa he had to share it with Fr. John Ryan!

It was while I was a student in Merrion Square that his father died. In fact, I answered his phone-call telling us the news. His father had been failing for some time - he lived to be a great age - and all the time Fr. Gwynn kept hoping that his father might be given the gift of faith before death. That did not happen I can recall the grief in his voice that morning over the phone. Later he described the funeral for us, saying how strange it felt to be an outsider at one's own father's funeral. As far as I remember, a dispensation had to be got from the Archbishop of Dublin, so that he could attend and, at the graveside, it was the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin who officiated and blessed the remains, while Stephen Gwynn's priest-son stood apart, on the fringe.

The faith; not given to his father, was very precious to him. In those years immediately after his retirement from UCD he got joy and great fulfilment from instructing some young. TCD students, converts to Catholicism. He referred to this in a number of letters written in those years.

It was in such things, and at such times, that the quality of his own spirituality shone through. It was never obtrusive. Yet, when he sensed that a person was anxious, or that obedience was hard, he knew how to say the right thing, or do just what was needed, tactfully, with gentleness and good hunour. He seemed to have a great, yet sensibly balanced, respect for obedience. But it was
his kindness and compassion, a compassion learned through his own suffering, that made him the person he was for others. There was always that the feeling that he too had been through it all.

He was a marvellous person to give anything to. He received as graciously as he gave, and never took a gift for granted. About two years ago I had a letter from him, thanking.me for the gift of a book on Philippine culture. Actually I hadn't been the person who sent it, but I had talked about him to someone who sent him the book as a result of our conversation - Fr. Miguel Bernad, SJ.

During all my years in the Philippines we corresponded a few times each year. Then, while I was in Ireland, from 1970 to 1979 I met him many times, mostly in Milltown Park, but once in the University club. On that last occasion we walked across St. Stephen's Green together - just imagine that!

There were times, too, when I went over to Milltown Park, only to learn that Fr, Gwynn wasn't well and couldn't see visitors. Then I knew that my old friend was deep into one of his bouts of severe depression, and I suffered with him. That finely-honed, brilliant mind, and yet the dark shadow of depression that hung over him so often ...

The last time I saw him, before I left for the Philippines in 1980, he was in great form, and he took some mischievous delight in my reaction to his beard. When I remarked that he looked the spit image of George Bernard Shaw, he said, “Sister Helen (he liked to call me by my old name), I would expect more originality from you!” Then he told me about all the other people who had made the same comparison, including a lorry-driver who had stopped beside him on the road and called out, “I thought Bernard Shaw was dead!” He was really enjoying his masquerade.

In his last letters to me, he told me about his latest and dearest research, the paper he was requested to write for the Royal Irish Academy, on the Mass in Ireland in the early Middle Ages. Much of it was based on a missal that had come to light in recent times. (Am I right?) He spoke of this paper with warmth and enthusiasm, as being the culmination of his life-work. I do hope that his failing eye-sight allowed him to finish this work, so dear to his heart.

I marvel at the courage of this man who, even at the age of ninety, was still using to the full those rare gifts God had given him, and sharing with us the fruits of his long years of reflection and study. I do not know now he died. I hope that his mental faculties were as sharp as ever. It would be poignantly sad if such a brilliant mind were dulled.

I thank God for the gift of this most dear friend, and for all that he has been to all the Columban Sisters.: His death is a personal loss for me. I miss him very deeply.

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 47, Number 2

“Varia: Ireland - Cromer Greek Prize Won by a Scholastic of the Irish Province” p262

Early in 1917 the Earl of Cromer, notable for his long career as British Representative in Egypt since 1880, and recently President of the Classical Association of England, founded an annual prize of two hundred dollars, to be administered by the British Academy, for the best essay on any subject connected with the language, history, art, literature or philosophy of Ancient Greece. His purpose is defined to be the maintenance and encouragement of the study of Greek in the national interest; preference to be given, in the approval by the Academy of subjects proposed by competitors, to those which deal with aspects of the Greek genius and civilization of large and permanent significance. Essays submitted are not to exceed 20,000 words, exclusive of notes: and publication of the winning essay each year is to be made through the Journal of a learned Society or in some other suitable way. The first award was made in March, 1918, to Mr Aubrey O Gwynn SJ, AM, (National University of Ireland) for his essay on the “Characteristics of Greek Colonization”. Mr Gwynn is at present a classical master at Clongowes Wood, following on two years' residence at Campion Hall, Oxford, as Travelling Student of Classics, NUI.

This distinction - the highest in the new university - was won by Mr. Gwynn in 1915, with the AM degree in Classics. His dissertation on that occasion, treating of the School of Rhetoric in the Roman Empire, elicited very high praise from the External Examiner, Professor R W Conway of Manchester. It has been further elaborated during Mr Gwynn's stay at Oxford, and it will appear in print as soon as possible. The Cromer Prize Essay will, it is understood, appear in the Jounzal of Hellenic Studies. A previous winner of the Travelling Studentship in Classics at the National University was Mr John J A Coyne SJ, AM, who proceeded to the University of Innsbruck, and has been unable to leave Austria since the beginning of the European war.

◆ https://issuu.com/innermedia/docs/clongownians_of_distinction/s/16278466

Aubrey Gwynn, SJ

Aubrey Gwynn, SJ I Clongowes 1903-1908

Aubrey Gwynn, SJ (1892-1983), historian, was a native of Dublin, who attended Clongowes in 1903-08. The son of Stephen Gwynn, nationalist MP and writer, he was brought up a Catholic by his convert mother. He graduated from UCD in 1912 with first-class honours in classics and became a Jesuit novice the same year. After study at Louvain and in the Netherlands, and a period teaching at Clongowes, he was ordained in 1924. In 1927 he began his academic career as a history lecturer in UCD and was the college’s first professor of medieval history in 1949-63, also serving as dean of the arts faculty. In 1958-61 he was president of the Royal Irish Academy. He was an important scholar who wrote or edited contributions on ancient, medieval and modern history. He published over a hundred journal articles, many reviews and several books, of which the best known and most widely consulted is the classic survey (in collaboration with Neville Hadcock) Medieval religious houses: Ireland (1970). A frail and modest man, he was the recipient of many international awards, but said that the letters SJ were the only qualifications he required. He was a keen supporter of St Joseph’s Young Priests’ Society, editing for more than twenty years their quarterly magazine St Joseph’s Sheaf. His brother, Denis Gwynn (1893-1971), attended Clongowes in 1903-08. A journalist and historian, Denis Gwynn was a member of the Royal Irish Academy and held a research chair in modern Irish history at UCC, where he was also general editor for Cork University Press.

◆ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Gwynn

Aubrey Gwynn

Aubrey Osborn Gwynn (17 February 1892 – 18 May 1983) was an Irish Jesuit historian.

Life
Aubrey Gwynn was born in Dublin on 17 February 1892. His father was the author and sometime Member of Parliament Stephen Gwynn; his paternal grandfather was John Gwynn, Regius Professor of Divinity at Trinity College Dublin. His mother Mary Gwynn (generally known as May Gwynn) was a first cousin of his father's, her own father being the Reverend James Gwynn, sometime chaplain of the Octagon Chapel, Bath.[1] The Gwynn family at that time adhered to the Protestant tradition.

Aubrey Gwynn converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of ten, at the same time as his mother May Gwynn was received into the Roman Catholic Church.[2] He attended Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit secondary school in Kildare, near Dublin, from 1903 to 1908, then studied at University College, Dublin (where he received his BA degree in 1914 and his MA in 1915) and Campion Hall, Oxford (where he obtained the degree of B Litt in 1919). In 1912, while still a student at University College, he became a member of the Society of Jesus.[1]

After graduating Aubrey Gwynn worked as a teacher at Clongowes College (1917–1919), Louvain (1919–1921) and Milltown Park (1921–1925).[1]

In 1927 Father Aubrey was appointed Lecturer in Ancient History at University College, Dublin. He went on to lecture in Medieval History (1930–1947), then in 1948 he became the college's Professor of Medieval History, a post he retained until 1962. He was President of the Royal Irish Academy from 1958 to 1961.[1]

Aubrey Gwynn wrote extensively on Irish and church history as well as on other topics. His brother Denis Rolleston Gwynn (1893–1971) was also an historian, being for much of his life Professor of Modern Irish History at University College, Cork.[3]

A watercolour portrait of Aubrey Gwynn as a child by his godfather Walter Osborne is in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland.[4]

Works
Roman Education from Cicero to Quintilian (1926)
The English Austin Friars in the Time of Wyclif (1940)
The Medieval Province of Armagh, 1470–1545 (1946)
The Writings of Bishop Patrick 1074–1084 (1955)
Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland (1970) with R. N. Hadcock
The Irish Church in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, edited by Gerard O'Brien
Twelfth Century Reform (A History of Irish Catholicism II) (1968)
Anglo-Irish Church Life: Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (A History of Irish Catholicism) 1968
Aubrey Gwynn, Cathal Óg mac Maghnusa and the Annals of Ulster (1998 reprint), edited by Nollaig Ó Muraíle
Notes
Burke’s Irish Family Records, Burke’s Peerage Ltd, 1976.
Hugh Kearney, Ireland: Contested Ideas of Nationalism and History (2007), p. 15.
Cadogan, Tim and Falvey, Jeremiah, A Biographical Dictionary of Cork (Four Courts Press, 2006), Page 117.
"Lot 65: Walter Frederick Osborne, R.H.A. (1859–1903)". Christie's. 17 May 2002 – via www.invaluable.com.
References
J. A. Watt, J. B. Morrall, F. X. Martin (1961), Medieval Studies Presented to Aubrey Gwynn S. J.

Aubrey Osborn Gwynn SJ
Born 17 February 1892
Dublin
Died 18 May 1983
Dublin

Born: 07 March 1925, Leitrim, Kilmihill, County Clare
Entered: 07 September 1943, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 05 November 1977, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died:17 May 1981, Cahercalla Hospital, Ennis, County Clare - Zambiae Province (ZAM)

part of the Sacred Heart Church, Monze, Zambia community at the time of death

Transcribed : HIB to ZAM 03/12/1969

Parents worked for the Irish State.

Third of four boys with four sisters.

Early education was nine years at a National School at Leitrim, Kilmihill, he then went to Mungret College SJ for five years

1943-1945: St Mary's, Emo, County Laois, Novitiate
1945-1948: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Juniorate, UCD
1948-1951: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Philosophy
1951-1954: St Canisius College SJ, Chikuni, Chisekesi, Northern Rhodesia (Pol Mi), Regency
1954-1958: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1958-1959: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Tertianship
1959-1971: St Canisius College SJ, Chikuni, Chisekesi, Zambia, Parish Priest
1971-1981: Sacred Heart Church, Monze, Zambia (ZAM), Vice Superior from 01/09/1971; Secretary to Bishop of Monze

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Joseph Conway was born in Co. Clare, Ireland on 7 March 1925. After the normal period of primary and secondary education, which latter he did at Mungret College, he entered the noviceship on 7 September 1943. He followed the usual university and philosophical studies and arrived in Chikuni in August 1951 with Fr Robert Kelly, the first two Irish scholastics to be sent to the Zambian mission. He spent three years at Chikuni teaching but at the same time made himself thoroughly fluent in Tonga. In 1954 he returned to Ireland to study theology and was ordained in July 1957. By August 1959, he was ready to return to Zambia to begin his real life's work, beginning as parish priest in Chikuni for 13 years. He had no difficulty in learning the ciTonga language and was the picture of a man who had the ability, determination and dedication to carry out his life's work. For the next 13 years he labored single-handed in Chikuni parish, which for part of that time included areas covered by the present Monze town and St. Mary's parishes.

As parish priest Joe was meticulously dedicated to his work. Not only did he take great care of the parish records but by degrees he equipped himself with pocket records of all the parishioners, village by village, which he brought up to date on his annual visitations. The people knew their parish priest and Joe was known and is remembered as a pastor who "spoke about God", as one .who “told us the ways of God", as one who "told us how God wants us to live". At times people referred to him in the same context as Fr Moreau. He was also manager of schools. In this capacity he once again had direct contact with his teachers now in their more professional and temporal needs. He built outstations at Chipembele, Choompa and Gwembe. Just before he left Chikuni, he supervised the building of the new parish church which was designed by his architect brother, Senan Conway and built by Br Martin Murphy.

Appreciating the value of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Movement in the promotion of strong Christian family life, Joe was the diocesan director of the Movement for most of his time at Chikuni. To promote recreation among the young men of the parish, he started a football league between the different districts. This league was most successful, culminating each year in the big event of the Bishop's Cup.

After 13 years as parish priest at Chikuni, he became secretary to the Bishop of Monze which post he held until he was forced to go to Ireland because of failing health in December 1980. On top of all this responsibility, his work also included being bursar of the diocese and coordinator of the diocesan building team.

Joe's greatest contribution was his service to the personnel in the diocese. Being at the same time superior of the Bishop's house, he kept an open door. Everyone experienced his hospitality and helpfulness, especially the sisters of the diocese.

Joe did not lose his pastoral interests during this long period of administration. Each weekend he did his "supplies", preferring the small and isolated communities to the centers of large congregations. Fundamentally, he was a community man, loved the Christmas get-together and other similar occasions. He never wore his spirituality on his sleeve. One of the dominant features of Joe's spiritual life seems to have been the sacramental life offered to us by the Church and about which he frequently preached.

In 1977 he went to Ireland on long leave. He had a complete medical check-up together with operations for gall stones and hernia. When he returned to Zambia, he was the picture of health.

For more than a year and a half, he remained in good form. Then his health began to decline and he was flown to Ireland in December 1980. Almost immediately on arrival, a tumor on the brain was diagnosed. His family took him home to Co. Clare and agreed to his own request to keep him there as long as possible. He became totally blind. Two days before his death, Joe became semi-comatose and was moved to a nearby hospital run by the Sisters of St. John of God. While in this state, he spoke Tonga and also answered Fr O’Driscoll in Tonga who was with him the day before he died. His two sisters, both of whom are nuns, were with him when he died on Sunday evening, 17 May 1981.

The Lord took Joe peacefully home though not at the time of life Joe would have planned for himself. One of Joe's last prayers was to the Lord of the Harvest to send more shepherds, especially Zambian shepherds, to the Church in Zambia.

Note from Bernard (Barney) Collins Entry
In 1951 he accompanied the first two scholastics, Bob Kelly and Joe Conway, and Br. Jim Dunne, on their way to the then Northern Rhodesia.

Note from Bob Kelly Entry
He followed the normal course of studies in the Society but for regency he went to Northern Rhodesia in 1951 with Fr Joe Conway.

Note from Fred Moriarty Entry
He inherited the Credit Union from Fr Joe Conway and was able to live with all the hassle involved.

◆ Irish Province News 56th Year No 4 1981

Obituary

Fr Joesph Benignus Conway (1925-1932-1981)

Joseph Conway was born in Co Clare, and after secondary education at Mungret College entered the noviceship. After the usual university and philosophical studies he arrived in Chikuni in August 1951, being one of the first two scholastics of the Irish Province to be sent to the Zambian Mission. He spent three years in Chikuni and made himself thoroughly fluent in Tonga, did some teaching and helped in the building of some of the out-stations and schools. In 1954 he returned to Ireland, and after theology, ordination and tertianship, returned to Zambia in August 1959.

I remember well the arrival in Chikuni of himself and Fr Robert Kelly - the first scholastics to return as priests. Both Joe and Bob were full of enthusiasm for the building of God’s Kingdom among the Tonga people. In his first Sunday sermon, in the old parish church, Joe told his people of all the questions the people of Ireland had asked him about Zambia and Chikuni in particular. He exhorted all present to live up to the answers which he gave to their questions. He was buoyant after Mass and was warmly greeted by the Bapati, the Kachosas, the Nkandus, the Choobes, by teachers and past students who had known him previously. As he met group after group under the shade of the great fig-tree (which alas was soon to disappear!) he had no language difficulty. He could even joke and enjoy jokes in Tonga. For the next thirteen years he laboured singlehanded as priest of Chikuni parish, then including areas covered by the present Monze town and St Mary's parishes.

He was meticulously dedicated to his work. Not only did he take great care of the parish records, but by degrees equipped himself with pocket records, village by village, which he brought up to date on his annual visitations. He aimed at visiting all areas in his far-flung parish at least once a year. He carried out this heavy programme during the dry season, staying out from Tuesdays to Fridays, sleeping in classrooms and cooking for himself; later he acquired a caravan. His people knew their parish priest. He met them at home in their villages. He had first-hand contact with the teachers. He expected a lot from his Catholic teachers - perhaps too much at times - but he saw that they were key figures in the planting of the faith in the hearts of the youth. He did all he could to help them keep their families together and to be faithful to their marriage. His flock saw him baptising, offering the Eucharist, blessing marriages, preaching, looking after and visiting the sick and the dying, conducting funerals. Before the day of the catechetical training centre at St Kizito’s, Joe took care of his own catechists. Every First Friday they were brought into Chikuni for instruction, Mass and an opportunity of the sacrament of Penance from some priest other than himself.

For a period he was also Manager of Schools; he ferried supplies of textbooks and school materials to his near and distant schools, and planned the siting and the building of new schools or extensions to existing ones. Later he had to take responsibility for the diocesan building programme: the building of out-churches at Chipembele, Choompa and Gwembe; and just before he left Chikuni, he was able to supervise the building of the new parish church designed by his architect brother Mr Senan Conway,

Joe was diocesan director of the Pioneer Total Abstinence movement for most of his time in Chikuni. Because of their growth, the annual Pioneer rallies had to move out from the original small classroom to larger and larger halls. Joe saw the great need for the Pioneer movement if family life was to be rescued from near destruction.

The temporal side of his parishioners’ life also interested him. He started a football league between the different districts of his parish. In this also he was a pioneer! - seeing the need of wholesome social activity. The league was most successful, culminating each year in the big event of the Bishop’s Cup. So successful was the league that later on, local football organisers copied the idea, and in the end robbed the Chikuni league of many of its best players! Joe felt this deeply, but did not become embittered.

To improve his parishioners’ standard of living, he started a parish credit union - a most successful and lasting venture. He preached the need of Zambian vocations among both boys and girls.

Following the call of obedience (September 1971) Joe took up the post of secretary to the Bishop of Monze, which post he held until forced to return to Ireland because of failing health (December 1980). As well, he was a diocesan consultor, consultor of the Vice Province, and bursar of the diocese. When Br James Dunne returned to Ireland for medical reasons, Joe had to assume the extra responsibility of the full diocesan building programme. As Superior of the Bishop’s house he kept an open door. All diocesan personnel and visitors alike experienced his hospitality and helpfulness. Fundamentally, at heart, Joe Conway was a community man. He loved the homely game of cards. He greatly enjoyed week-ends with the community and Christmas get togethers.

Sickness was something almost foreign to him, but from 1976 onwards he began to experience ill-health; sudden attacks of numbness in jaw and arm. In 1977 he went to Ireland and had a complete medical check-up together with operations for gallstones and hernia. The doctors failed to get to the root cause of the numbness: a brain scan revealed nothing. Back in Zambia, seemingly the picture of health, occasional attacks of the numbness recurred, this time with vomiting and severe headaches, from which he had never before suffered, and depression. On medical advice he was flown home to Ireland, where almost immediately a brain tumour was diagnosed, unknown to Joe himself. From Belvedere he was taken home to his family in Co Clare. Despite nursing, day and night, his health steadily declined. Total blindness set in. After Easter he was visited by Frs J Dargan (Irish Provincial), V Murphy and his brother Msgr Kevin Conway, who anointed him. After that he became increasingly resigned and peaceful. Two days before his death Joe was moved to a hospital at Cahercalla, Ennis, run by the Sisters of St John of God. His two sisters, both of whom are nuns, were with him when he died late on Sunday evening, 17th May, 1981. .

Even though in nursing Joe at home his family carried a great burden of love, yet I am convinced that nobody was more relieved at his passing than Joe himself. Some weeks before his death he had admitted that it had been “a long haul”. May the presence and peace of the risen Lord be felt by his sorrowing family. To his aged father, his brothers, sisters, relatives and friends let us offer the consolation and certainty of our faith in the Resurrection.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1966

Mungret Jesuits in Zambia

Fr Joe Conway SJ (1938/43) played wing forward on the JCT that won the Cup in 1941 and on the SCT in '42 and '43. He is now back in Ireland on holidays after spending six years on parish work in Chikuni Mission in Zambia, Zambia is about 15% Catholic. Chikuni parish has a population of 10,000 and dis 75% Catholic. It has 16 out schools, each of which represents an area the size of a small Irish country parish. The average number of pupils in these out schools is about 150. The rate of baptisms in the parish is at present 1,000 per year. Fellow Jesuits on the staff of Canisius College help out with Sunday supplies so that each area gets Mass once a month. The rest of the week Fr Conway is the only priest at the service of this vast parish.

Lay catechists are employed to help pre pare children for First Communion.

Chikuni parish has its own Soccer League and Cup Competition. The ground is too hard for rugby. There are 12 teams in the parish and between them they make up a team called “Chikuni United” which turns out in the green and white (the same colours as Shamrock Rovers).

◆ https://www.dioceseofkerry.ie/2017/01/remembering-br-john-conway-tralee/

Remembering Br. John Conway Tralee

A Tralee man who was murdered in a guerrilla attack on a Mission in Africa will be remembered in town next week. St John’s Parish, Tralee will be organising prayers at the monument dedicated to Br John Conway SJ in St John’s Park, Tralee on Monday, February 6 at 5.30pm. Fr Bernard Healy, St John’s, explains the reason for the upcoming prayer service. “It is important for us as a parish that we remember one of our own, a native of the town, someone with family and friends here in Tralee, who gave witness to the Gospel by solidarity to the poor and by shedding his blood. That kind of heroism should inspire us and remind us of our own responsibilities. In commemorating Br John, we honour all Irish missionaries who served with the same generosity of spirit and selflessness.” Fr Bernard will be talking on Horizons next Sunday morning 5th February about Br John.

It will be the 40th anniversary of the guerrilla attack on the Musami Mission in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) during which Br John and seven colleagues were shot. Br John, born in 1920, was a native of Brogue Lane, Tralee. He was educated at the CBS School in Strand Road and at the Technical School in Moyderwell, Tralee. At age 20 he emigrated to England, and following work in construction and as a lorry driver, he entered the English Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) as a lay brother in 1948. Assigned to the large Rhodesian mission station of St Paul’s in Musami, he served there from 1954 until his death in 1977. Remembered as a man of prayer and of good humour, he worked tirelessly in building up the mission station, involving himself in construction, driving, medical care, preaching and work with the young people who attended the mission’s schools. At the time of his death, the mission included schools, a hospital, a farm and a social centre.

Following Rhodesia’s declaration of independence under the white-dominated government of Ian Smith in 1965, the country was torn apart by a civil war as African nationalist forces under Robert Mugabe resisted Smith’s government.

European missionaries, often working in solidarity with the native population, found themselves in the middle of this conflict and faced violence from both sides of the conflict.

Offered the opportunity of moving to a safer location, the Jesuits and the Dominican sisters who served at Musami chose to stay at their mission station.

On the 6th of February 1977, armed men came to the mission station at about 8pm and rounded up four of the Jesuits (Br John and three English Jesuit priests) and 4 of the Dominican sisters (three Germans and one English) who worked there.

They were taken outside, and following discussion amongst their captors they were lined up and shot. Br John, two of the Jesuits and all four sisters were killed. Only one of the English Jesuits survived. The identity of those responsible for the attack has never been fully determined.

Plaque to be seen in St John’s Park Tralee opposite Dunnes

Born: 12 July 1808, Minorstown, County Tipperary
Entered: 13 March 1843, Ste Marie, Bardstown KY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final Vows: 02 February 1861
Died: 22 August 1879, Jersey City Sisters Hospital, NJ, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Part of the St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY community at the time of death.

1843-1845: Ste Marie, Bardstown KY, USA (FRA), Novitiate
1845-1846: Ste Marie, Bardstown KY, USA, working
1846-1848: St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY, USA, working
1848-1854: Sacred Heart, Wikwemikong, Manitoulin Island, Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada, working
1854-1858: Immaculate Conception Mission, Fort William, Lake Superior, Ontario, Canada, working
1858-1860: St Mary Assumption, Sandwich, Windsor ONT, Canada, working
1860-1861: St Mary’s College, Montréal, Québec, Canada, working
1861-1864: St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY, USA, working
1864-1866: Guelph Parish, Guelph ONT, Canada (CAMP), working
1866-1879: St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx NY, USA, working (NEB from 1969) (MARNEB from 1879)

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 19, Number 1
Obituary

“Br John Callaghan SJ” p114

Died at Jersey City NJ, August 22nd 1879

Brother John Callaghan was born July 12, 1808, in County Tipperary. Ireland. He entered the Society. March 13, 1843, at St. Mary's College, Lebanon, Kentucky. Seeing his intelligent skill, the superiors gave him, while still a novice, complete charge of a grist mill belonging to the college. By a judicious use of the kiln for parching the grain before passing it through millstones, he succeeded in prodncing superior grades of flour and cornmeal. Bread made from his flour and cornmeal was greatly admired by the boys and by the community. In working the machinery, he employed, instead of water-power, mules which, he said were so well trained that they could do anything but speak. They knew the hour to begin and stop work so precisely, that if he happened to be late, the mules, especially “Blind Dick”, got into their places and started the work to the great detriment of the mill-stones which were thus rasped against each other for want of grain. In August, 1846, Brother Callaghan was relieved of his charge, and with the other members of the Kentuckv Mission of the Province of France, was sent to St John's College, Fordliam, where he was employed ad domestica.

From Fordham he was sent to the Indian Mission of Manitoulin Island, where he started a grist mill for the benefit of the Indians. In 1858 obedience sent the willing brother to the novitiate at Sault-au-Récollet. Later he was employed at St Mary's College, Montreal; then at Guelph, Ontario, where with his other works he helped to teach a little school. The last years of his life he spent at Fordham College. Broken down with age and labor he piously breathed forth his soul on Aug. 22, 1879, in the Jersey City Sisters Hospital, whither he had been sent by the Rector of Fordham College, Father Gockeln.

Born: 02 February 1802, County Louth
Entered: 01 September 1835, Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: - pre Entry (Armagh Diocese)
Final Vows: 02 February 1850
Died: 24 May 1888, St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, Dublin

1835-1837: Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG), Novitiate
1837-1839: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Teaching
1839-1840: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Teaching
1840-1843: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Teaching
1843-1846: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Teaching, Procurator
1846-1854: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Teaching, Minister
1854-1888: St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin, working
1855-1856: Superior from 01 November 1856 to 31 July 1864
1858: Province Consultor from 07 March 1858 to 1863
1871-1872: Superior from 21 July 1871 to 10 October 1877

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Was a Priest of the Armagh diocese for some years before Ent.

1841 Teaching at Tullabeg,
1843-1846 Sent to Clongowes as a teacher.
1846-1854 Sent to Belvedere as Teacher and was also Minister for a time there.
1854 Sent to Gardiner St as Operarius, and worked there until his death, including two stints as Superior (1856-1864 and 1871-1877). His death occurred 24 May 1888.

He was a very remarkable man, very straight and thoroughgoing. He was very devoted to the work of the Confessional, but he never Preached. He was sought out by countless penitents, both rich and poor, and to all he was the same, patient and kindly. He also had something of a reputation as a Moral Theologian, and he was consulted in very difficult cases, not only by Priests, but also by judges and doctors, and other professionals.

Born: 01 January 1800, Mansfieldstown, County Louth
Entered: 01 June 1837, St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 02 February 1848
Died: 14 July 1881, Xavier University, Evanston Station, Cincinnati OH, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

1837-1839: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA (MIS), Novitiate
1839-1848: St Charles Residence, Florissant MO, USA, Cook
1848-1850: Chilicothe Residence, Chilicothe, Ohio, USA, Cook
1850-1881: Xavier University, Evanston Station, Cincinnati OH, USA, working (by 1881 Caring for health)

Born: 01 February 1629, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1648, Kilkenny
Ordained: 27 March 1655, Lille, France
Died: 29 April 1697, Bridge Street, Dublin

Studied 2 years Philosophy before entering
1655 On the Mission
1666 Living near Drogheda teaching, catechising and administering sacraments
1698 “Fr Carberry and Michael Fitzgerald lived at Bridge St Dublin”. In 1678 he lived in Baldoyle (Hogan reporting Fr Nicholas Netterville in a report”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Three Entries Ignatius and Edward
Son of James - who, before he Ent, took him to see the celebrated Dr Arthur, or Limerick (cf Arthur’s “Diary” in “Kilkenny Archaeological Journal”, and Foley’s Collectanea
Had studied Humanities and two years Philosophy before Ent. Knew Latin, Spanish, Irish and English. (HIB Catalogue 1650 - ARSI)
1666 Living near New Ross engaged in Teaching, Catechising and administering the Sacraments. A Missioner for ten years (HIB Catalogue 1666 - ARSI)
1697 Reported to the Government as living at Bridge St, Dublin
Edward Carberie
Ent c 1648; RIP post 1660
His name appears written in Tursellini’s “Epitome Historiarum” printed in 1660
Note from Entry on Michael FitzGerald (Ent 1679) :
Ignatius Carbery, Priest, and Michael GitzGerald, Priest, lived in Bridge Street in 1697 (Report by a spy). Both were Jesuits probably.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows he completed his studies at Lille and was Ordained there 27 March 1655
1655 Sent to Ireland and Dublin, and in spite of the “commonwealth” was still living in Dublin in 1658
The large part of his missionary work was outside Dublin and lived at Drogheda 1664-1666
For many years after this he lived at Baldoyle as a Catechist, Schoolmaster and Assistant Priest. After the Williamite occupation of the country he returned to Dublin where he worked until his death 29 April 1697. he is buried in St Catherine’s churchyard.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CARBERRY, IGNATIUS, was, a Novice at Kilkenny in 1648

Born: 24 May 1909, Teltown, Navan, County Meath
Entered: 10 September 1929, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 08 January 1944, St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 15 August 1948
Died: 11 May 1985, St Aloysius College SJ, Milson’s Point, Sydney NSW, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Parents were farmers.

Third of four boys with two sisters.

Education was at Oristown NS, he then went to the Salesian Agricultural College (Warrenstown College), Warrenstown, Drumree, County Meath. After a year there he went to the Scoil Mhuire, Abbey Road, Navan. He then went to St Finnian’s College, Mullingar.

1929-1931: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate (ASL from 1931)
1931-1934: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Juniorate, UCD
1934-1937: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Philosophy; Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick, Regency (6 months)
1937-1940: St Aloysius College, Milsons Point, Sydney NSW, Australia, Regency
1940-1944: Canisius College, Pittwater Road, Pymble NSW, Australia, Theology; Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin (HIB), Tertianship
1944-1968: St Aloysius College SJ, Milsons Point, Sydney NSW, Australia, Teaching, Rector
1968-1973: St Ignatius College SJ, Riverview, Cove Lane, Sydney NSW, Australia, Teaching
1973-1985: St Aloysius College SJ, Milsons Point, Sydney NSW, Australia, Teaching

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
One of eight children, his early education was at the Salesian Agricultural College (Warrenstown), Drumree, County Meath, as it was thought that he would follow his father into farming. However, he changed to the De La Salle School, Navan, County Meath for the last two years of his education, and from there entered the Diocesan Seminary (St Finian’s) in Westmeath, and two years later Entered the Society at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg.

1931-1934 He went to Rathfarnham Castle and studied for three years at University College Dublin, but without taking a degree.
1934-1936 He returned to St Stanislaus College for Philosophy
1936-1937 He spent six months at Mungret College Limerick for Regency
1937-1940 He was sent to Australia and St Aloysius College, Milsons Point
1940-1943 He went to Canisius College Pymbe for Theology
1943-1944 He went to Ireland and Rathfarnham Castle to make Tertianship
1944-1968 and 1973-1985 He spent 36 years at St Aloysius College
1968-1973 He was sent to St Ignatius College Riverview teaching.

In the thirty six years he spent at St Aloysius, generations of Old Aloysians, especially those involved with sport, appreciated the interest he showed in them, the Sports Master of the 1950s, who constantly encouraged the boys to fair-play and sportsmanship, despite regular lack of success. His own patience and persevering optimism were an inspiration. He also taught Latin to young boys.
He was a fair man and boys knew where they stood with him. He was admired for his hard work preparing all the sporting fixtures and equipment, driving to and from Willoughby for cricket and football practices, and calling out the names for a decade of the rosary in the Chapel, setting up table-tennis tables at lunchtime, attending sportsmasters’ meetings, controlling tuckshop queues, rolling the College Oval cricket with the aid of the College horse when the groundsman was unwell, and as an editor of the “Aloysian” for many years.
In 1962 he became a reluctant Rector of St Aloysius, and performed his duties with the utmost dedication. He was praised for his occasional addressed, and for the way he successfully supervised the redevelopment of the College. He also taught Senior Religion. In later years he administered the Sacraments, looked after the maintenance of the buildings, coached boys, worked on the archives, managed the boys transport passes, collected the daily school mail, visited the sick and tended the garden.

He was a quiet, private, even shy man, but eminently reliable and thorough. His death marked the passing of an era for the College, as he was so well known and knew so many people. His compilation of lists of all students from 1879 to 1979 was a most valued record.

He was an indefatigable worker and especially good at carpentry. His colleagues remember his selflessness, his balanced self-control, his Irish humour, his faith and confidence i God, his complete loyalty to the Society and his prayerfulness.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 23rd Year No 1 1948

Fr. Peyton left for Australia on the “Mauretania” on 31st October in company with Fr. Conway, a member of the Viceprovince. Fr. Kevin Carroll, also a member of the Viceprovince, left Shannon Airport on 3rd November for New York, bound for San Francisco and Sydney. Mr. Monahan left Southampton on the “Queen Mary” on 20th November for New York; he took boat at San Francisco on 12th December for Sydney which he reached on 4th January. He will be doing his first year's philosophy at Loyola, Watsonia in the coming year.

◆ Irish Province News 60th Year No 3 1985

Obituary

Fr Vincent Conway (1909-1929-1985) (Australia)

Fr Vincent Conway (1909-1929-1985) (Australia)

Born on 24th May 1909. 10th September 1929: entered SJ. 1929-31 Tullabeg, Emo, noviciate. 1931-34 Rathfarnham, juniorate. 1934-37 Tullabeg, philosophy. 1937-46
Australia. 1946-47 Rathfarnham, tertianship. 1947-85 Australia. Died on 11th May 1985.

Fr Vincent Murphy, Mission Procurator, and Fr Senan Timoney, Executive Socius, organised a requiem for Vin Conway in the domestic chapel in Gardiner street. Vin’s last surviving sister
was present, also nieces and nephews with their families: 35 relatives in all. Nine Jesuits concelebrated the Mass: Frs Seán Hughes (of Vin’s year), Séamus Mac Amhlaoibh, Frank Hennelly, Matty Meade, Martin Brennan, Jim Moloney; Senan Timoney, Vincent that Murphy and John O'Keeffe (Superior, SFX). Brs Keogh and Colgan were present. Afterwards we met the relatives and friends over a cup of coffee.

Vin was that little bit older than most of us when he entered Tullabeg in 1929. He had spent some years in an agricultural college before he opted forthe Society. He was quiet, retiring and shy, but not bashful. He would never push himself to the front, would stay with the foot-sloggers, and was happy to be one of the crowd. Only with company, where he felt fully at home, would Vin relax and reveal his sound judgments on all sorts of subjects and his lovely contagious sense of humour, He had a wonderful laugh full of sniggers, snorts and incipient convulsions, so that it was well worth one's while to keep a good story for him.

Vin had a good head, but not the kind that would make a professor of literature or philosophy. His was more the head of a practical man and an administrator. His shyness was an asset, because when circumstances forced him to take responsibility he won respect and affection. He won respect because he was not a self-seeker, and affection because of his genuine loyalty and social graces. Australia brought him to the fore. Why Australia?..

Vin was one of ten Irish Juniors who discovered by accident that they were not members of the Irish province: I remember well the day a group of us came from the ball-alley, to be met by Michael McGrath. Michael always had the gift of finding news in the small print. He had browsed through the catalogue, and under the heading Ex aliis provinciis in hac degentes he found listed ten of our community of Juniors. Jokingly he congratulated the visiting Irish members of the Australian vice- province. It was considered a good joke and an obvious slip made by the editor of the catalogue. But no, it was not a slip. It would seem that for years Australia had been financing these and other) Juniors, but by an oversight - and what an oversight! – they had never been told that they were to belong to Australia.

Be that as it may, Vin was one of those transferred, and his was certainly a case of digitus Dei. Had Vin remained in Ireland, I doubt if his talents would have been uncovered. Anyway, he had a lovely way with people, and got on well with the Australians.

The boatman of Glendaloch used to tell of the daring of young Australian Juniors who dived into the upper lake from St Kevin's Bed. What they did not know, apparently, was that three other Juniors, not to be outdone, dived from a ledge some fifteen feet above St Kevin's Bed. Vin Conway was one of those three.
Vin's early years of study in the Society were hard. While in Rathfarnham he had a bout of sleeplessness, one which came to a climax in November 1933 when Fr Michael Browne was dying. At the time, Fr Browne was occupying the room later given to the Tertian Instructor. Vin was quartered in the little room (nearly all window) next door. His dying neighbour moaned and groaned for several nights and unnerved the sleepless Vin.

He carried his tensed nerves to Tullabeg, where he studied philosophy. There he was fortunate to have as Minister (1935-'7) Fr Jim Scally, who had a kind and understanding heart. He told Vin to forget classes, repetitions and circles, and sent him to the carpenter's shop to make shelves for the philosophers' library – big high shelves, standing ceiling-high. They are still to the good.

Outside the big window of Tullabeg community refectory there is a big long seat. It is in a sheltered nook outside what used to be called the philosophers' door. The angle-space is a sun-trap in the morning and was a gathering-place for philosophers at all times. It was in 1937 that Vin got the idea of putting that seat there. It was like Vin himself, sturdy and strong, without pretensions, and genuinely serviceable and useful.

Vin however really served his time in the building trade when he was given charge of the boats. There was a boat house on the canal and six clinker-type boats, the novices' bequest to the philosophers. Thursday after Thursday (villa-day) from October 10 April, Vin spent his day not just repairing but rebuilding boats. He went to Norton, the boatbuilder in Athlone, who generously shared all his professional skills with him. Some boats he stripped almost to the gunwale and rebuilt.

Vin studied theology in Australia, where he was ordained to the priesthood, After the war, however, it was in Rathfarnham that he did his tertianship. He had a special interest in preaching, and was keen to hear Fr Patrick O Mara, whose fame as a conductor of the First Friday Holy hour had travelled as far as Australia. After a very few minutes in the church he left. “Oh, I couldn't stick that! When he started with “Up there amongst the candles and the flowers” I felt I'd had enough.” He was honestly unimpressed with Fr O’Mara's style.
Fr Garahy's toast to the priests of Killaloe could very aptly be applied to Vin:

They have no time for honeyed words or sentimental gush;
they do not lightly make a foe, or into friendships rush,
Would you be numbered 'mongst their friends? Be straight, as steel be true.
They ask no more, they take no less, the priests of Killaloe.

On the day following the news of his death, Vin's sister received a letter from him, saying that he was in the best of form. He died peacefully in his sleep. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal agus go méadaí Dia a ghlóir.

The Australian province's Fortnightly Report had this to say (no. 377, 1st June 1985):

“The sudden and most unexpected death of Fr Vin Conway was a great shock to us all and a profound loss to the College St Aloysius', Milson's Point, Sydney]. Virtually all his priestly life was spent here, where he laboured with prodigious industry and constantly, in humble obscurity, never seeking recognition. With Fr John Casey, he was co-founder of the redeveloped college. Against seemingly insuperable odds he forged ahead in most difficult times, sustained and fortified by his deep faith. I cannot begin to describe how deeply the College is indebted to him. The large congregation at his funeral was ample witness to his wide esteem among the Old Boys whom he helped so much”.

Irish Province News 60th Year No 4 1985
Obituary

Irish Province News 60th Year No 4 1985
Obituary

◆ Fr Vincent Conway (1909-1929-1985) (Australia) : continued
(† 11th May 1985)

Giovanni Papini, in one of his several books of appreciation of the lives of great men, included an essay on 'Nobody' who, quite rightly, proved to be the most outstanding subject of all. He was the great unknown who invented the wheel, built the pyramids, designed and built the great mediaeval cathedrals of Europe: great achievers, like the “Unknown Solider”, “known only to God”. Every society has had them and the Least Society no less than any other.

Vincent Conway's achievements are not entirely unknown, and he was certainly one of those Jesuits of whom we may say his life was more subdued and hidden and its splendid achievement less advertised on earth, but certainly known to God as that of a “good and faithful servant”.

It has been said that Vin was born a simple farmer's son: he lived a simple farmer's son, and he died a simple farmer's son. That may be true enough so long as we recognise that the “simple Irish farmer” is mostly a man endowed with a very high degree of shrewdness. He was born one of eight children in County Meath between Navan and Kells, and he died just two weeks short of his 76th birthday.

As he began his secondary studies in the Salesian Agricultural College in his native county it may be assumed that it was first thought that he would follow in his father's footsteps as a farmer. The change for his last two years to the De La Salle School in Meath might suggest that a priestly vocation was looming on his horizon. This is confirmed by the fact that from there he entered the Diocesan Seminary in Westmeath.

After two years in the seminary he entered the Society at Tullabeg in 1929. He studied for three years at the National University of Ireland, but without taking out a degree. He returned to Tullabeg for four years philosophy and after six months regency at Mungret he was assigned to the Australian Vice-Province. He taught for four years at St Aloysius College, Milson's Point. Except for his four years theology at Pymble and Tertianship in Ireland, and five years teaching at Riverview, St Aloysius College was to be his home for nearly forty years.

It was there that he died on the night of May 11th. He was found in the morning slumped on the floor as if having fallen from his chair. The large attendance of Old Boys at his requiem was a tribute to their respect, admiration and affection for one who had served them so faithfully while they were students, and no less as members of the Old Aloysians. In Ireland, too, he was remembered at a requiem Mass at Gardiner street, at which a good number of his contemporaries concelebrated with other priests and at which there were thirty-five of his relatives.
Vin was a great man and indefatigable worker. His years at the Salesian Agricultural College had given him some training in carpentry, which he put to good use during his theology at Canisius College as “College Carpenter”. When, after the first “boom” year of ordinations, there were twenty-six priests in the house, and before the days of concelebration, many altars were required for daily masses, all more or less at the same time in the morning. Vin made the missal stands and all sorts of altar furnishings in wood. The designs were County Meath but everything was like himself, plain, strong and serviceable. He was never a man for frills, any more than he was a man to cut corners on the essentials.

When the College had been built, a short time before, the builders had provided mirrors above the wash basins in each room, but no shaving cabinets. It was Vin who undertook to make a cabinet to fit each mirror and he trained a few other scholastics to help in this work. There were over forty to be made and some modest celebration marked the completion of this very welcome service.

These were only some of his tasks. He was always ready to lend a hand at any job with perseverance and a ready smile, whether it was hard digging in the garden or field, or to learn an instrument to play in the orchestra. He would give a groan, more of modesty that he should be asked than of complaint, and take up the task with a will, Like all the men who came to us from Ireland, he was a dedicated apostle.

As Fr Cecil Smith points out, much of the the burden of carrying out John Casey's plan for the completion of St Aloysius College fell on Vin's shoulders. Cecil was closely associated with him in these years of his rectorship of the College, 1961-67. It is his tribute that follows:

Vin Conway's name was seldom seen in the Fortnightly Report. He was the original “quiet achiever”. Because he avoided the limelight and his voice never rose above a conversational level and was more often below it, few knew him outside his much loved St Aloysius College.

Apart from a brief spell as Headmaster Riverview Junior School, most of his working life was spent at SAC. As Sportsmaster he delighted in coaching Rugby, especially the skills and schemes of the forward pack. Later, when he was appointed Rector to succeed Jack Casey, surprised and bewildered that Provincials could be so lacking in judgment. Coming into dinner that night he gave a very good impression of a stunned mullet. He knew what had been dumped in his lap: a programme to rebuild St Aloysius, initiated by Jack Casey, but far from activated.

An expensive excavation had been cut by Civil & Civic and there was no money available to pay for it. Jack, despite application to numerous financial institutions, had been unable to raise a loan. Provincial consultors were asking basic questions like, 'How do you expect to build a school costing millions when you have no money?', and such like.

Because he was convinced it was 'God's work', Vin bounded over all the fences using his almost ruthless determination and his skill at making people see his way, as his springs.
He had a remarkable memory for the names and faces of people he had met . Old Boys - hundreds of them - he greeted by name and could reel off the dates they were at school, and all gory details, No wonder they all loved him! He had a reputation for being tight-fisted with tight-fisted with money and with good reason - he was! He had to be in those early days at SAC where the pound had to be stretched; and stretch it he did. He just could not comprehend the affluence of today as anything but sinful.

Vin was a remarkable man, much underestimated by many. His selfless ness, his balanced self-control, his Irish humour, his faith and confidence in God, his complete loyalty to the Society,
his prayerfulness – so many qualities to make the man Peter Steele described as a good servant and a good Jesuit'.

May he enjoy his new job of oiling and painting the gates of heaven of

Cecil Smith, SJ

According to Irish province catalogues, Fr Conway's philosophy course lasted he was the usual three years, not four, Thanks to Jesuit life for mentioning his six month regency in Mungret, which because of its shortness escaped notice our 1938 catalogue. in More importantly, though: his assignment to Australia took place, not after that regency (c. Christmas 1937), but during (or before) the first year of his juniorate (c. 1931). The story of the accidental discovery by ten Irish juniors, including Vincent, of their assignment to Australia was recounted in IPN, July 1985, p. 181.

Born: 27 September 1829, Cobh, County Cork / Green Park, Youghal, County Cork
Entered: 20 October 1854, Abbaye Saint-Acheul, Chaussée Jules Ferry, Amiens, Hauts de France, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1855, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Professed: 15 August 1866
Died: 03 September 1903, Milltown Park, Dublin

1854-1856: Abbaye Saint-Acheul, Chaussée Jules Ferry, Amiens, Hauts de France, France (FRA), Novitiate
1856-1862: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Teaching,
1862-1865: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Minister to 1854 and Prefect of Studies
1865-1870: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Spiritual Exercises, Socius to Master of Novices
1870-1876: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Rector from 21 July 1870 to 17 February 1876, province Consultor from 10 November 1870 to 17 February 1876
1876-1878: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin , Caring for health
1878-1879: St Mary’s RC Church, Wellington Road, Rhyl, Wales (ANG), Caring for health
1879-1887: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Rector from 10 October 1880 to 11 June 1884, Socius to Provincial from 31 October 1880 to 25 August 1882, then Spiritual Exercises
1887-1898: University College, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, Rector from 10 April 1888 to 23 March 1897, Prefect of Studies
1898-1903: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Spiritual Exercises (from 1902 Caring for health)

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Came from a well known and highly respected family in the Youghal district, and was a general favourite among all classes there.
Early education was local, and then he went to Trinity, and also studied at Clongowes where he did some Theology. He then went to Maynooth for Theology, and was Ordained there. Soon after he Entered the Society.

After First Vows he was sent teaching at Tullabeg, and he was there for twelve years.
He was then appointed Rector of Clongowes. His charm and character won him great admiration and affection from his students there.
He was then sent as Rector to UCD. Here he found his métier. Under his tenure he raised the stature of the College for teaching in Ireland.
When he retired from UCD he was sent to Milltown, and was involved in giving Retreats to Lay people and Religious.
He enjoyed good health up to a few days before his death. He contracted a bad cold which quickly became more serious, and even the ministrations of Sir Francis Cruise were able to impede its progress.
(Taken from “The Freeman’s Journal’ 04/09/1903)

Note from Edward Kelly Entry :
He was to have gone to the Congregation which elected Father Luis Martin of Spain, but bad health kept him away, and Robert Carbery replaced him as 1st Substitute.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Robert Carbery 1829-1903
Fr Robert Carbery was born in Youghal County Cork on September 27th 1829. Strange to relate, according to his biographer, he went first to Trinity College and then to Clongowes. He was ordained a priest in Maynooth and became a Jesuit soon after in 1854.

He taught for about twelve years in Tullabeg and then became Rector of Clongowes. He is best remembered, however, as Rector of University College. His tenure of office was one of the most successful in the history of the College, and may be said to have constituted it to the centre of higher Catholic education in this country.

The last years of his life he spent in Milltown Park engaged in the work of giving retreats. He died in this house on September 3rd 1903.

He wrote a book on devotion to the Sacred Heart, and his pamphlet on the Novena of Grace did much to spread that devotion.

◆ The Clongownian, 1904
Obituary

Father Robert Carbery SJ

by Father Matthew Russell

Father Robert Carbery has more than one claim to be specially commemorated in these pages : he was a Clongowes boy, a Clongowes professor, and a Clongowes Rector. He was born in the year of Catholic Emancipation, and sufficiently late in the year 1829 to be from his birth one of the emancipated. His birthday was the 27th of September, a domestic feast in the Society of which he was destined to be a member - not on account of any special devotion to the saints of the day, Cosmas and Damian, but because that day is the anniversary of the confirmation of the Society by Pope Paul III, through the Bull “Regimini Militantis Ecclesia”, dated September 27, 1540.

Robert, son of William Carbery (of Green Park, Youghal), and Elizabeth Olden, was born at the Cove of Cork, which twenty years later changed its undignified name of Cove into Queenstown, in honour of Queen Victoria's first visit to Ireland, with perhaps a better reason than Dunleary had for becoming Kingstown in honour of the last of the Georges. His home, however, was not Cove but Youghal, that interesting old town “at the mouth of the exquisite Blackwater, which is the Anniduff of Spenser and the Avondhu of many an Irish tale and legend”. Here it was that Sir Walter Raleigh.smoked the first tobacco seen in Europe (and much more important), planted the first potato. The house in which he lived is well preserved, with its “outhanging oriel window in which Spenser read the beginning ‘Faery Queen’ to Raleigh”. (Some of these phrases are taken from a delightful paper, At Youghal, by Lady Gilbert, in The Irish Monthly, vol. xix,, pp. 617-627.)

Robert Carbery's father, and his uncle Andrew Carbery, of Shamrock Lodge, Dungarvan, were among the first Catholics appointed to the office of Justice of the Peace after Catholic Emancipation. They were the chief instruments in introducing the Christian Brothers into Youghal and Dungarvan.

I have sought in vain for some particulars concerning Robert Carbery's childhood. The Right Rev Monsignor Keller, the beloved pastor of Youghal, conjectures that young Carbery attended a school established there about that time by a zealous curate, the Rev John Russell, afterwards Dr Keller's predecessor as Dean of Cloyne. († Mr. Joseph Carbery, of Beila Vista, Queenstown, tells me that his brother's first schoolmaster was a : Dr. Edwards.) The little boy from Green Park was not old enough to be a pupil of the classical school conducted at Youghal by the father of the late Father Alfred Murphy SJ, who told Dr Keller'that he was born at Youghal but that his family removed to Cork so soon after that he did not remember the event. The home of Robert Carbery's childhood is now the Green Park Hotel, which transformation implies that it must have been a spacious family mansion. No doubt the boy felt very homesick for it when he was sent to Clongowes in 1844. He went through all the classes there till the summer of 1848. During all his time the Rector of the College was the holy and genial Father Robert Haly, well known as a missioner in almost every parish of Ireland twenty or thirty years ago his work, indeed, was over then, but well remembered; and, as Young of the “Night Thoughts” said of himself, “he has been so long remembered that he is now almost forgotten”. How many are there who can still recall the pleasant old man with the snow-white head stooped down, so venerable looking that in the country parishes the people would say of him, when he and Father Fortescue and Father Ronan were giving a mission, “I want to get to confession to the ould bishop”.

The only record of Robert Carbery's achievements during his Clongowes course that has come into my hands regards the school year 1846-1847. In the academical exercises which wound up the term in July, 1847, he took the part of Bassanio in a scene from “The Merchant of Venice”, and the part of Malcolm in a scene from “Macbeth”; and in the printed list of prizes the name Robert Carbery is very conspicuous. It appears first and alone in Christian Doctrine, and fourth in Natural Philosophy. In the Rhetoric class he was second as regards the examination in the authors studied, while, as regards original composition, he came first in the Greek oration, English oration, Latin Alcaic ode and English ode, second in Latin and French, and third in the Greek ode. In the first class of mathematics he got the second prize, and in the Debate he and his friend Nicholas Gannon of Laragh are marked as equal in their competition for the medal for excellence, A still more intimate friend, whose friendship lasted till the close of his life, won from him the first prize in mathematics. This was Christopher Palles, who has since gained an illustrious place in the history of the legal profession in Ireland as the greatest and the last of the three Catholic Chief Barons of the Exchequer, who have between them filled almost the whole of the long period that has elapsed since the Emancipation Act made Catholics eligible. This high office is now abolished, the Court of Exchequer being amalgamated with the rest of the High Court of Justice in Ireland, though the last, and certainly not the least distinguished holder of the extinct office continues to enjoy the title. Long inay he continue to do so, and to discharge with characteristic thoroughness the duties of President of the Clongowes Union. (Chief Baron Palles's immediate predecessor was David Pigot, who succeeded Stephen Woulfe. The former was grandfather to the Rev Edward Pigot SJ, who has recently been obliged to exchange China for Australia as the scene of his labours. Chief Baron Woulfe, in one of his parliamentary speeches, used a phrase which “The Nation” newspaper adopted as its motto - “To create and foster public opinion in Ireland and to make it racy of the soil”. This half sentence i now all that is remembered of him,)

Robert Carbery spent another year under the care of his Alma Mater, in the class of philosophy, although the register of Trinity College, Dublin, shows that he matriculated there on the 8th of November, 1847, and was assigned as a pupil to Dr Sadlier. He stayed on, however, as we have said, in Clongowes, till the summer of 1848. His acknowledged prowess in the Debating Society had helped to turn his thoughts towards the Bar. We do not know how his vocation was finally settled. We are not allowed to overhear “what the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist”, or rather what the Holy Spirit said to the heart of the young man. Long afterwards he told one of his brothers in religion that the following incident had been the turning point in his career, or at least had some share in fixing his determination to quit the world. He was over in London, enjoying keenly his first sight of the wonders of that already overgrown metropolis. It was the beginning of the year 1849, for he had during his visit an opportunity of seeing Queen Victoria open Parliament in person on the ist of February. The kindness of Richard Lalor Sheil, who was Youghal's brilliant representative in the House of Commons, had secured for his youthful constituent an excellent place for viewing the outside portion of the pageant. Even if it were worthwhile, the details of the scene cannot be verified on the spot at present. The old Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire in October, 1834. Sir Charles Barry began to rebuild them in 1840. The Lords entered their new premises in 1847, but the Commons did not assenible in theirs till November, 1862. In the building as it stood at the time of which we are writing there was, it seems, a balcony over the entrance, from which one particularly observant pair of Irish eyes looked down upon the expectant throng. Among other things they watched the efforts of a gentleman to provide a somewhat similar coign of vantage for a lady whom he was escorting. There was a corner fenced off by a low iron railing, and it occurred to the gentleman that, if the lady were snugly ensconced behind this railing she would be guarded from the crush and could see in security nearly all that was to be seen. Accordingly a chair was procured and placed against the railing to enable the lady to cross the barrier, but in the hurry of her excitement, or through some sudden swaying of the crowd, she slipped and struck ber forehead violently against one of the spikes. She was hurried off to the nearest hospital, but died before reaching it. Meanwhile plenty of sawdust was scattered over “.. the pathway to hide the blood that had gushed forth profusely, and the ringing cheers of the multitude went up, as the royal carriages with their brilliant escort at last swept in, while no one thought of the poor soul that had just been hurried before the Judgement-Seat. The dreadful contrast of life and death affected Robert Carbery powerfully; and, whatever may have been his hankering after the Bar, he sacrificed it for ever.

He did not, however, enroll himself at once under the banner of St Ignatius. Most of the Twelve Apostles were called twice, the first time not involving so complete and permanent a renunciation as the final “Follow Me”. This dual vocation has its counterpart in many lives. “Show, O Lord, thy ways to me, and teach me Thy paths”. (Psalm xxiv., 4). First, via the road that turns the traveller's footsteps in the proper direction, and then senita, the path that leads him straight to his special destination.

To prepare for the ecclesiastical state, Robert Carbery entered Maynooth College as a student of the diocese of Cloyne, on the 19th of September, 1849, and satisfied the Board of Examiners so well in logic that he was placed at once in the Physics Class, then taught by the holy and gifted Dr. Nicholas Callan. Throughout his course he won the first or second place in nearly all departments of study, his chief competitor and also his closest friend. being a saintly youth from Derry, Patrick Kearney, though I suspect that the third of the triumvirate who were “called to the first premium” was the most solid theologian of the three; this was John Ryan of Cashel - the holy and learned priest of that - southern archdiocese considered by his fellow-priests “most worthy” to succeed the Most Rev Dr. Patrick Leahy. Dr Croke, who was appointed Archbishop by the Holy See, had the most profound confidence in Dr Ryan as his Vicar-General.

It is needless to say that for piety and virtue, Robert Carbery stood very high in the esteem of his superiors and his fellow-students. One proof of the character that he had gained for himself is the fact that in September, 1852, at the beginning of his third year of theology, he was one of the two prefects placed in charge of the Junior House, which comprised the Classes of Humanity, Rhetoric, and Logic. As that was my second year in Maynooth, I was one of his subjects, but not a single word ever passed between us. My most vivid memory of him regards the speech that he made at our festive dinner in the Junior Refectory on St Patrick's Day, 1853. To set his eloquence off to greater advantage his colleague happened to be Peter Foley of Killaloe, afterwards a Jesuit also - he died at St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, Feb 1st, 1893; aged 67 - a holy man, and one of the subtlest of thinkers, but one of the worst of speakers, and - till the end of his life the most inaudible of the race of articulately-speaking men, On the other hand “Carbery of Cloyne” proved that not in vain had he won the prize of excellence ii the Clongowes Debate. He electrified his youthful audience, one of whom guarantees after fifty years the almost verbal accuracy of one passage: “The greatest military genius of modern times, addressing his army before the Battle of the Pyramids, exclaimed : ‘Soldiers of France! from the summit of yonder Pyramids four thousand years look down upon you!’ And to you, students of Maynooth, I will say fourteen bundred years look down upon you, From their place in Heaven our forefathers in the Faith” - but if I went further, my guarantee for literal exactness would fail.

Soon after this God's will became clear to hin. He obtained leave to join the Society of Jesus, beginning his noviceship on the 20th of October, 1854. His friend, Patrick Kearney, continued another year or two in College, on the Dunboyne Establishment before joining the Vincentian Fathers. After he had come to an understanding with his confessor, Dr Thomas Furlong (after wards Bishop of Ferns) on this important point, he told me at the time that he sometimes wavered in his choice of a religious order, casting a wistful glance towards the Society of Jesus on account chiefly of his love for St Aloysius and Robert Carbery - this was precisely the way be put it - but whenever he ventured to moot the matter in confession, Dr Furlong would say: “Beware of the pillar of salt! Beware of the pillar of salt!” - an admonition that would have been more pertinent if the young priest had borne a closer resemblance to Lot's wife by “looking back” in a very different direction.

After two years in the novitiate of St Acheul, near Amiens, in France, Father Carbery was called home to Ireland in the summer of 1856. and was ordained priest in St Francis Xavier's, Dublin, in the presence of his father and mother. He was then placed on the teaching staff of his old “nutrix pientissima”, Clongowes Wood, where be taught for many years with great success. I have heard a very competent judge speak with warm admiration of the care and skill with which he trained his pupils to turn the various authors into good English. (Those who knew Father William Molony SJ, as a nonagenarian may be surprised to learn that Canon James Daniel, himself a clever writer of the journalistic type, praised the elegance of Father Molony's versions of Virgil, etc., when he was his professor at Belvedere College.)

I will not attempt to trace his course year by year. For some years towards the close of the sixties he filled very efficiently the office of Socius to the Master of Novices at Milltown Park, Father Aloysius Sturzo; who is still working in Australia, and who is still remembered with affection and respect in Ireland. A novice thus partly trained by Father Carbery, tells us that the novices recognised a sharp line of distinction between the Father Socius and Father Carbery. The former was a rigid and implacable stickler for rule and regularity, on whose lips the admonition was frequent: “Brother, no innovations!” But if a novice fell ill, or in any other way needed a mother's tenderness, then Pater Socius disappeared and his place was taken by Father Carbery, who was unceasing in his kindness and patient care.

In 1870 he returned to Clongowes as Rector. During his reign the new dormitories and class rooms and the present infirmary were built, the foundation stone of the new wing being laid and blessed by the oldest Clongownian then living, Dr James Lynch, who was also the bishop of the diocese. Since the good old bishop's death, who is the oldest alumnus of Clongowes Wood?

He was succeeded at Clongowes by Father Thomas Keating in 1876, taking his place (but after an interval) as Superior in St Patrick's House, 87 St. Stephen's Green, a house of residence for students of the Catholic University. I had the happiness of being his only companion there, as I had been for his two predecessors, Father Keating and Father James Tuite; and in so small a community I had the opportunity of being more intimately acquainted with him than a much longer term of years might allow in a large community. Father Carbery bore this test admirably. The arrangement with the Bishops of Ireland in reference to St Patrick's House came to an end in the summer of 1880; but Father Carbery was destined to return to St Stephen's Green under different circumstances, succeeding Father William Delaney as Rector of University College April 1oth, 1888, till he was succeeded by him in turn in 1897.

During the years that we have traced thus hurriedly, and especially in the intervals between his terms of office, Father Carbery discharged with great fruit the various functions of a preacher whether in churches or in convent chapels. He had very exceptional qualifications for the pulpit. His voice was excellent for public speaking - clear, penetrating, musical, sympathetic. One who was at Clongowes during his rectorship mentions that, during one year in particular, the Rector preached to the boys almost every Sunday; and - to this day he remembers the impression made by the voice and tone with which he said the prayer, “Come, Holy Ghost, etc”, before the sermon - as in Notre Dame Père Ravignan made the sign of the cross before his sermon so impressively that one of the listeners whispered to his neighbour, “Il a déjà prêché”. One of the boys themselves remembers a beautiful series of sermons addressed to them at this time on devotion to the Sacred Heart, preserved no doubt substantially in the beautiful little treatise which Father Carbery afterwards published on this divine theme. His tall, spare figure, his piercing eye, his refined and ascetic face, added much to the impressiveness of his discourses, which were always delivered with great feeling and earnestness.

Perhaps, however, the intermittent exercise of these faculties, which was all that his other duties permitted; was the best for his efficiency as a preacher. To use a homely phrase, his sermons took a good deal out of him. There are some to whom it costs nothing to speak in public, but generally it costs a good deal to listen to them. I have known Father Carbery to be quite exhausted after a touching charity sermon in St Francis Xavier's, Dublin, and obliged to lie down for a time. He was not a preacher of a robust and massive type, like the Father Peter Kenny of recent tradition, or the present Archbishop of Tuam, but rather of that nervous, electric temperament, of which the best example that occurs to me is the very eloquent English convert, Father Thomas Harper SJ, whom some one described as “a bag of nerves”, and who certainly was a nervous, incisive. preacher.

Immediately after a retreat which Father Carbery had conducted at Maynooth for the priests of the Archdiocese of Dublin, I met Canon William Dillon who died. quite lately. He praised the retreat very warmly. One item of his eulogy was this: “It was intensely gentlemanly”. This criticism, which his friends will recognise as characteristic of the critic, referred to a certain refinement of tone peculiarly acceptable to the Canon's fastidious taste; but this refinement did not hinder the preacher from being at the same time intensely priestly and apostolical.

His retreats were greatly valued in many convents, One of these was given in July, 1870, at Mount Anville, Dundrum, Co Dublin, not to the Religious of the Sacred Heart but to ladies who retired there for a few days from the world. Among these was the Countess of Portarlington, whose notes of the meditations have been shown to me by a lady who enjoyed the same spiritual luxury, and who says that the Father's instructions were most touching and holy. Lady Portarlington was a daughter of the third Marquis of Londonderry, and a fervent convert like her sister-in-law the Marchioness. of Londonderry. Soon after the Mount Anville retreat she fell dangerously ill and sought the assistance of Father Carbery, who had just then been appointed Rector of Clongowes. She recovered however, and did not die till the 15th of January, 1874, in the 51st year of her age. During her last illness Father Carbery's visits to Emo Park were a great consolation to her, and he was asked to speak at her obsequies, Her devoted husband, a kind and liberal man, had gratified the pious desires of the holy Countess (as he calls her in some memorial lines), by building a very beautiful parish church at Emo, and there the funeral words were spoken which are still praised enthusiastically by some who heard them. They won at the time the admiration of a young inan then at the beginning of his brilliant and too short career, Lord Randolph Churchill, who attended as a kinsman, with his father the Duke of Marlborough, the Marquis of Londonderry, the Marquis of Drogheda, and others of that titled class from which the deceased had turned to mingle with “the simple poor she loved so well”, as the bereaved husband wrote afterwards in the lines to which we have alluded, and which begin thus:
“ She rests within that hallowed spot,
Which in those early days she chose,
When first these sacred walls were built,
And first those pious altars rose”.

This was one of the very many death-beds that Father Carbery helped to make bright and happy. He was peculiarly kind and thoughtful about the sick; but when the dying one needed special help, God seemed to bless his zealous efforts in an extra ordinary degree. I remember two famous Irishmen to whom he longed to render this last and best service; but alas he was not summoned, as he had. hoped he might be, to their deathbeds - William Carleton and Isaac Butt. Butt, another great orator; succeeded Sheil as MP for Youghal. Carleton, in his last years, lived in Sandford Road, close to the entrance of Milltown Park, and so was Father Carbery's neighbour and made his acquaintance.

About his own death nothing need be said but that it was the fitting close of such a life. It took place at Milltown Park, Dublin, on the 3rd of September, 1903. Thus September was the month of his entrance into the world and of his two exits from the world He had spent seventy-three years on earth, and forty-eight in the Society of Jesus.

His grave is in Glasnevin. He rests from his labours, and his works follow him.

◆ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Carbery

Robert Carbery SJ (1829–1903) was an Irish Jesuit priest, who served as Rector of Clongowes Wood College, and President of University College Dublin. Born in Youghal, County Cork in 1829. He studied for a time at Trinity College, Dublin, then at Clongowes Wood College, before going to St. Patrick's College, Maynooth to study for the priesthood for the Diocese of Cloyne, where he was ordained. He then joined the Jesuits in 1854, St Acuil, Amiens in France. He taught for some twelve years at the Jesuit St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, Co. Offaly, he taught at Clongowes, and served as Master of Novices in Milltown Park.[1] While in Miltown he befriended the writer William Carleton although a convert to Anglicanism, Fr Carbery offered him the last rites, which Carleton politely refused. Fr Carbery was appointed Rector of Clongowes in 1870 serving until 1876.[2] He succeeded William Delany SJ as President of University College Dublin, in 1888 and was also succeeded by Fr Delany in 1897.[3]

Fr Carbery died in Milltown Park, on September 3, 1903.[4]

References
Carbery, Robert, 1829-1903, Jesuit priest, The Irish Jesuit Archive.
The story of Clongowes Wood, A.D. 1450-1900 by Rev. Timothy Corcoran SJ, Catholic Truth Society, Dublin 1900.
University College Dublin by Michael T. Barrett, New Advent.
Obituary Father Robert Carbery SJ, by Matthew Russell, The Clongownian, 1904.

Born: 02 August 1832, Ballymore Eustace, County Kildare
Entered: 12 July 1855, St Stanislaus, Beaumont Lodge, Old Windsor, Berkshire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Final Vows: 02 February 1866
Died: 20 June 1870, St Stanuislaus College SJ , Beaumont Lodge, Old Windsor, Berkshire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

1855-1857: St Stanislaus, Beaumont Lodge, Old Windsor, Berkshire, England, (ANG), Novitiate
1857-1864: St Stanuislaus , Beaumont Lodge, Old Windsor, Berkshire, England,, working
1864-1868: St Francis Xavier College SJ, Salisbury Street, Liverpool, Lancashire, England, working
1868-1869: Manresa, Roehampton, London, England, Caring for health
1869-1870: St Stanuislaus College SJ , Beaumont Lodge, Old Windsor, Berkshire, England, Caring for health

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
CARDIFF, WILLIAM, Temporal Coadjutor, a native of Ireland, born August 7, 1832 ; entered the Society on July 12, 1855, at Beaumont. Had previously lived at Liverpool, where he had been engaged in the shoemaking trade. He was the shoemaker at Beaumont Novitiate for some years, and was then sent to St. Francis Xavier's College, Liverpool. Attacked by consumption, he was removed to Manresa Novitiate, Roe hampton, and thence again to Beaumont, where he piously died June 20, 1870, æt. 38. He was a man of solid virtue, and an excellent religious.

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :

DOB 02/08/1832 Ireland; Ent 12/07/1855 Beaumont;

Born: 1617, Waterford
Entered: 1639, Lisbon, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)
Ordained: 1649, Coimbra, Portugal
Professed: 15 August 1662
Died: 21 May 1696, Waterford Residence - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)

Alias Cary

1642 Student of Philosophy
1645 At Coimbra College; taught Latin at Évora College 1645
1649 Teacher “Mag in Artibus” at Lisbon College
1654 In Angra College in Madeira
Taught Latin and Cases of Conscience at Bragança
1665 Rector of College at Funchal, Madeira, teaching Moral Theology

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Is perhaps the Richard Carew, Irish Jesuit, who sailed from Portugal to Marañon in 1659, and then went to Pernambuco. (Franco’s “Annales”)
Recommended by his Superior, Francis White, as a Consultor of the Mission in a letter dated Kilkenny 19 December 1668

◆ Fr John MacErlean SJ ;
Distinguished career as professor of Theology in Portugal and the Azores, accompanied Fr Hyacinth de Magistris to visit Maranhon (Maranhão) in Brazil which lasted (1659-1662)
1662 Returned to Portugal
1668 Came to Ireland

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
1641-1649 After First Vows studied at Coimbra and graduated MA. He was Ordained there in 1649
1649-1654 He had a distinguished teaching career at Braga and Branança and was later Professor of Theology at Angra on the island of Terceira in the Azores
1654-1662 He volunteered to work in Brazil, and this did not happen until 1659 when he accompanied the Jesuit Visitor Hyacinth de Magistris to Maranhon (Maranhão) in Brazil He became Superior at the Maranhão Residence, but during a conflict was expelled after three years.
1662-1665 On return to Portugal was appointed Procurator at the Irish College Lisbon
1665-1668 Sent as Operarius to the Church at Funchal, Madeira
1668 He returned to Ireland and was sent as Operarius to the Waterford Residence where he died 21 May 1696

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Richard Cary (Carew) SJ 1619-1696
Fr Richard Cary (or Carew) was born in Waterford in 1619 and entered the Society at Lisbon in 1639.

After a distinguished career as a professor of Theology in Portugal and the Azores, he accompanied Fr Hyacinth de Magistris on a visitation of Maranhon and Brazil.

On his return, he remained 6 years in Portugal, and then he came home to Ireland. He was stationed at Waterford until 1696, the year of his death.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CAREW, RICHARD. (I suspect of the ancient family of Carew, of Garryvoe, in the Barony of Imokilly) I find that he was recommended for a Consultor by his Superior, Francis White, in a letter dated Kilkenny, 19th of December 1668.

Born: 29 June 1812, County Kildare
Entered: 14 October 1837, St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 08 April 1845, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin

1837-1839: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate
1839-1840: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, working
1840-1845: St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin, working

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was a dispenser at Gardiner St during 1844, and died there 08 April 1845 greatly regretted.
He was of very small stature.

Born: 27 September 1722, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1744, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1754, Liège, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1762
Died: 05 September 1794, London, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

1764 Prefect of Sodality at Bruges
1767 Chaplin to Sir Richard Stanley, Eastham in Cheshire
1768 CAT said to be at Hooton near Chester

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1754 Sent to England and served at Lincoln for some time.
1774 After the suppression went to Maryland with Father John Carroll, the future Archbishop of Baltimore, arriving 26 June 1774
1775 he returned to England from America. He served at Liverpool, Shepton Mallet Somerset, Exeter, Worcester etc.
1776 He published a translation of many of Bourdaloue’s sermons under the title “Practical Divinity in four volumes at London. (cf de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ”)
1794 He was attacked by robbers in Red Lion Court, London, and died at St Bart’s hospital a few hours after. (cf “Records SJ” Vol v, p 620)

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Anthony Carroll 1722-1794
Fr Anthony Carroll was born in Dublin on September 16th 1722.

He worked at Shepton Mallet, Exeter and other places. Finally in London on September 5th 1794, he was knocked down and robbed in red Lion Court, Fleet Street. He was carried speechless to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he died the next morning.

He translated Bourdalou’s sermons, and himself wrote a treatise on Theology in 4 volumes, entitled “Practical Divinity”.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CARROLL, ANTHONY, was born on the 16th of September, 1722. He began his Noviceship at the age twenty-two, and was numbered among the Professed Fathers in 1762. Shortly after his promotion to the Priesthood at Liege in 1754 he was ordered to the Mission. After exerting his zeal and talents at Shepton Mallett, at Exeter, and some other places, he came to an untimely end in London. On the 5th of September, 1794, he was knocked down and robbed in Red Lion Court, Fleet street, and carried speechless to St. Bartholomew s Hospital, where he died at one o’clock the following morning - See Gent. Magazine, 1794, p. 1555.
His translation of some of Bourdaloue’s Sermons, under the title of “Practical Divinity”, was published in 4 Vols. 8vo, London, 1776.

Born: 02 December 1896, Kickham Street, Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary
Entered: 22 May 1920, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1928, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1937, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 17 July 1985, Canisius College SJ, College, Chikuni, Chisekesi, Zambia - Zambiae Province (ZAM)

Transcribed : HIB to ZAM 03/12/1969

Mother died in 1904 and his father remarried, still living in Carrick-on-Suir. His father was a mechanical engineer and also had a shop.

Eldest of eight boys and three girls.

Early education was at the Presentation nuns in Carrick, and then then at the Christian Brothers also in Carrick. He then was awarded a Scholarship in 1915 at the Royal College of Science, Merrion Square (1915-1919) for engineering. At the same time he had also completed the external BSc for London University. The commissioners of the 1851 Exhibition, London, on the approval of the College Council gave him an Industrial Bursary of £150 pa to do a practical course in engineering over two or three years. he began it for a couple of months at the British Westinghouse Electric Company, but he did not complete it as he joined the Society.

Awarded a B.Sc. honoris causa by the N.U.I. in 1936.

1920-1922: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
1922-1929: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Philosophy to 1925; Theology
1929-1932: Ricci Hall, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, Teaching in University of Hong Kong, Minister
1932-1934: Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong, Superior from 25/12/1931 to 15/07/1934; Mission Consultor; Lecturer
1934-1935: St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales (ANG), Tertianship
1935-1937: Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong, MISSION SUPERIOR from 09/11/1935
1937-1938: Wah Yan College SJ, Robinson Road, Hong Kong, MISSION SUPERIOR from 09/11/1935
1938-1941: Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong, MISSION SUPERIOR from 09/11/1935 to 09/10/1941
1941-1943: Wah Yan College SJ, Robinson Road, Hong Kong, teaching
1943-1945: Villa Flor, Macao, China, Teacher, Mission Procurator
1945-1953: St Ignatius College SJ, Riverview, Cove Lane, Sydney NSW, Australia, Teaching; Vice Province Consultor
1953-1985: St Canisius College SJ, Chikuni, Chisekesi, Zambia (Pol Mi), Mission Procurator (to 1970); Buildings Director; Teaching

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He was educated by the Christian Brothers at Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. Afterwards he attended University taking a BSc (Engineering) from the University of London and a BSc (Hons) from University College Dublin.

1922-1929 After First Vows he studied Philosophy and Theology at Milltown Park Dublin, and was Ordained in 1928.
1929-1945 He was sent to Hong Kong, where he became Rector of the Seminary (1929-1945) and became Superior of the Mission (1935-1941). This also included a break to make his tertianship at St Beuno’s, Wales (1934-1935)
He lived through the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong (December 1941-August 1944). He left for Macau for a short time and then moved to Australia as his health had broken down.
1945-1953 He taught at St Ignatius College Riverview where he related well with everyone and was an efficient Prefect of Studies. Many people sought his counsel. He taught general Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry and achieved good examination results. His students felt his interest in them and found him very supportive and encouraging.
1953-1985 He went to the Irish Province Mission in Zambia and remained at Chukuni until his death. From 1955-1970 He was the Mission Bursar. When the Teacher Training College at Charles Lwanga was to be built in the late fifties, he was the one who looked after the construction of a dam. before the spillway was ready there was an exceptionally heavy rainfall that caused the dam to fill rapidly, so that there was a danger the dam wall would be swept away by the pressure of water. Every morning during those critical days, he was down early to scrutinise the rising levels of water.

He had a real fondness for animals. He rarely took a holiday but loved a visit to a game park.

He was a gentleman in every sense of the word, and he had an extraordinary gift for making people feel welcome at Chikuni, carrying the bags of visitors, making sure they were looked after and would try to e present when they left to wish them a good journey.

He was a very dedicated and painstaking teacher of Mathematics and Science at Canisius College and was appreciated by his students - no nonsense was ever tolerated in his classroom!

◆ Companions in Mission1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
On 17 July 1985 in his 89th year, Fr Tom Cooney went to his long awaited reward. He was born on the 2 December 1896 in Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, Ireland. He attended the Christian Brothers school in Carrick-on-Suir and won a scholarship to the university in his last year at school. He was a brilliant student and took his B.Sc. from London and a B.Sc. from Dublin, getting honours in the latter. He was a mechanical and electrical engineer.

He first learned about the Jesuits from the Encyclopaedia Britannica which did not speak too highly of them in that particular edition but Tom decided to join them. While an engineering student in Dublin (1915-1919) he used a lot of his spare time in the making of bombs in the Dublin Mountains as his contribution to the final struggle for independence.

He joined the Society in 1920 and, after the usual studies, he was ordained a priest in Milltown Park on 31 July 1928. He was appointed superior of Hong Kong while still in tertianship and arrived out there in 1929. While there, he was Rector of the Major Seminary and also acted as Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University in Hong Kong. He lived through the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and left for Macao for a short time before moving on to Australia (1946-53), as his health had broken down. He had a hard time persuading the Japanese that being Irish was not English, but he succeeded and so was not interned.

In Riverview College, Sydney, he taught for seven years, being completely fulfilled in the job. He often said that he liked the Australian boys. He was heart and soul in the effort then being made to overhaul the curriculum. In the senior Mathematics and Physics classes he was able to bring promising pupils to their full potential.

When the Irish Jesuits came to Zambia in 1950, the Provincial, Fr Tommy Byrne, was on a visit in 1952 and was being asked for more men especially for one or two senior men. He thought of Fr Tom in Australia and wrote to him that evening inviting him to come, extolling the excellence of the climate (it being the month of May!) and describing it as a veritable paradise. Fr Tom flew to Johannesburg and from there took the three day train journey to Chisekesi, arriving on 15 February 1953 in the middle of a downpour of rain which did not let up for two weeks. His transport got stuck in the Magoye river on the way to Chikuni and for a fortnight after his arrival he could be seen at midday sloshing his way in wellingtons and umbrella across the campus to the dining room. More than once he was to exclaim, "This is what Tommy Byrne called a pleasure resort"!

From 1953 to his death, he always lived at Chikuni both as a teacher at Canisius Secondary School and as procurator of the mission for many years. No big decision was taken on the mission without sounding out the advice and experience of Fr Cooney. When the Teacher Training College at Charles Lwanga was to be built in the late fifties, Fr Cooney was the one who looked after the construction of the dam. Before the spillway was ready, there was an exceptionally heavy rainfall which caused the dam to fill rapidly, so that there was danger of the dam wall being swept away by the pressure of water. Every morning in those critical days an anxious Fr Cooney was down early to scrutinize the rising level of the water.

He had a fondness for animals. Though he rarely took a holiday, a visit to a game park was an occasion he would always rise to. The instant memory people have of Fr Tom is the sight of him walking in the evening with his dog. His favourite one was a collie called Pinty.

Fr Cooney was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He had an extraordinary gift for making people feel welcome to Chikuni and would carry the bags of visitors, making sure that they were looked after and he would try to be present when visitors left, in order to wish them a safe journey.

He was a devoted, dedicated, painstaking teacher at Canisius, something which the pupils appreciated and realized that no nonsense was ever tolerated in his classroom. In the early years, when Grades 8 and 9 were usually 'fails' in the Cambridge examination, he would tell his pupils, "Gentlemen, Grade 8 is a fail and Grade 9 is a first class fail"!

He was a good Jesuit and had a great devotion to the Mass and the Divine Office. His kindliness and welcoming traits reflected that inner appreciation of the person of Christ which flowed out in his attitude to people. He was so willing to help others. Fr Tom was lent to the mission for two years but stayed 32 years until his death.

A strange thing happened on the day Fr Tom was laid to rest in the Chikuni cemetery. "Patches", his last dog, died on that same day.

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He lectured (Electrical Engineering) at the University of Hong Kong, as he had graduated from University of London in that subject. During the war years (1942-1945) he went to Macau teaching at Luis Gonzaga College. He was Rector of the South China Regional Seminary in Aberdeen, Hong Kong in 1931. In 1936 he was responsible for obtaining a large telescope from Ireland which he used in the Seminary for the education of the seminarians. His idea was that Hong Kong would join the Jesuits in Shanghai and Manila in astronomical observation and meteorological work.
In 1953 he was Mission Superior in Zambia where he died.

Note from Joseph Howatson Entry
He came to Hong Kong as Regent with Seán Turner who was a different personality and whose whole world was words and ideas. Travelling with them was Fr Cooney who was bringing the Markee telescope

◆ Irish Province News 60th Year No 4 1985

Obituary

Fr Thomas Cooney (1896-1920-1985) (Zambia)

Born on 2nd December 1896. 22nd May 1920: entered SJ, 1920-22 Tullabeg, noviciate. 1922-25 Milltown, philosophy. 1925-29 Milltown, theology. 1934-35 St Beuno's, tertianship,
1929 to Hong Kong. 1930-32 Ricci Hall, minister and lecturer in university. 1932-34, 1935-37 Regional Seminary, Aberdeen, rector. 1935-41 Superior of the Mission. 1941-43 Wah Yan Hong Kong, teaching. 1943-45 Macau, Mission bursar, teaching.
1945-53 Australia, Sydney, Riverview, teaching.
1953-85 Zambia, Chikuni: teaching till c 1982; 1955-70 Mission bursar; confessor to community and local Sisters. Died on 17th July 1985 in Monze hospital.

In the last few years Fr Cooney's declining health gave plenty of scope to Ours at Chikuni to exercise true fraternal charity. In spite of a heavy workload they all rose to the challenge magnificently. One of those who knew him since 1953 writes:

On 17th July 1985 in his 89th year, Fr Tom Cooney went to his long-awaited reward. He was born on 2nd December 1896 in Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, Ireland. He attended the Christian Brothers' school in Carrick-on-Suir and won a scholarship to the university in last year at school. He was a brilliant student and took his BSc (Engineering) from London and a BSc from Dublin, getting honours in the latter.

He first learned about the Jesuits from the Encyclopaedia Britannica which did not speak too highly of them in that particular edition, and Fr Tom decided to join them. While an engineering student in Dublin during the years 1915 to 1919, hę used a lot of his spare time experimenting with the making of bombs in the Dublin mountains.
In 1920 he joined the Society of Jesus and after philosophy and theology in Milltown Park, Dublin, he was ordained a priest on 31st July, 1928. He completed his Tertianship at St Beuno's in Wales during which year he was appointed Superior of the Mission in Hong Kong. From 1929 to 1946 he worked in Hong Kong, being among other things Rector of the Major Seminary. He lived through the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and left for Macao for a short time before moving on to Australia as his health had broken down. Seven years he spent in Australia teaching at the Jesuit college at Riverview.

The Irish Jesuits had been asked to come to the then Northern Rhodesia to help their Polish fellow-Jesuits there. Fr Tom was asked to join them in 1953. From 1953 to his death, he lived at Chikuni both as teacher at Canisius Secondary School and procurator of the mission for many years. No big decision was taken on the mission without the advice and experience of Fr Cooney. When the Teacher Training College at Charles Lwanga was to be built in the late fifties, Fr Cooney was the one who looked after construction of the dam.
Before the spillway was ready, there was exceptionally heavy rainfall which caused the dam to fill rapidly so that there was danger of the dam wall being swept away by the pressure of water. Every morning in those critical days, an anxious Fr Cooney was down early to scrutinise the rising level of the water.

He had a fondness for animals, Though he rarely took a holiday, a visit to a game park was an occasion he would always rise to. I suppose the instant memory people have of Fr Tom is the sight of him walking in the evening with his dog. Among the many dogs that trailed at his heels over the years, his favourite one was a collie called Pinty.
Fr Cooney was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He had an extra ordinary gift of making people welcome to Chikuni, would carry the bags of visitors, making sure they were looked after, and would try to be present when visitors left to wish them a good journey.

He was also a very devoted and pains taking teacher at Canisius. The many pupils who have had him for maths and science appreciated this talent but at the same time realised that no nonsense was ever tolerated in his classroom. His dedication and 'being an elder' (he was fifty-seven when he first came to Chikuni) offset any discipline he would insist on. In the early years in Chikuni, when Grades 8 and 9 were “fails” in the Cambridge examination, he would tell his pupils: “Gentlemen, Grade 8 is a fail and Grade 9 is a first-class fail.”
Of his spiritual life one can say only what one saw. He was a good Jesuit and had a great devotion to the Mass and the Divine Office. His kindliness and welcoming trait reflected that inner appreciation of the person of Christ which flowed out in his attitude to people. He was ever willing to help others.

To end this brief appraisal: a rather strange thing happened on the very day Fr Tom was laid to rest in Chikuni cemetery - 'Patches', his last dog, died.

May Fr Tom's soul now rest in peace.

◆ https://www.geni.com/people/Thomas-Cooney/6000000165705989243

Thomas Cooney
Birthdate: December 02, 1896
Birthplace: Carrick on Suir, Co Tipperary (Lough St, )
Death: July 17, 1988 (91)
Zambia
Immediate Family:
Son of James Cooney and Margaret Hurley
Brother of Michael Cooney; Private; James Cooney and Patrick Cooney
Half brother of Private; Anna Cooney; Kathleen Cooney; Edward 'Eddie' Cooney; Private and 6 others

Born: 05 August 1717, Ireland
Entered: 07 September 1741, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1747
Final Vows: 02 February 1752
Died: 12 November 1756, Newtown, Maryland, USA - Angliae Province (ANG)

1746 at Münster in Westphalia in 3rd Year Theology

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1749 Sent to Maryland Mission
RIP 12 November 1756 Maryland aged 39 (Peter Kenney’s papers)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CARROLL, JAMES,was born on the 5th of August, 1717. He joined the Order in 1741, and died in the Maryland Mission on the 12th of November, 1756

Born: 23 February 1805, Borrisokane, County Tipperary
Entered: 07 September 1836, Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 02 February 1851
Died: 09 October 1884, Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

1836-1838: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA (MAR), Novitiate
1838-1839: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA, Infirmarian
1839-1840: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, Infirmarian
1840-1843: Bohemia Mission, Bohemia Manor Farm MD, USA, working
1843-1860: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, Assistant Infirmarian and working
1855-1858: At St Inigoe’s MD, USA, working
1858-1860: Whitemarsh Residence, Whitemarsh MD, USA, working
1860-1863: Whitemarsh Reesidence, Whitemarsh MD, USA, working
1863-1864: St Joseph’s Church, Willings Alley, Philadelphia PA, USA, working
1864-1869: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, working
1869-1873: St Francis Xavier Residence, Bohemia Manor Farm MD, USA, working
1873-1874: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA (MAR), Caring for health

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 13, Number 3

Obituary

“Brother Michael Carroll SJ” p412

Brother Michael Carroll has been taken from our midst, and now rests from labor after long years of faithful service. It would seem that God wished to mark him out by a special favor, in calling him to Himself on the feast of St Francis Borgia, - a day which is so sacred among us. As we look back upon the life of our departed Brother-a life beautiful as it was simple-we find in it much that makes us bow down in silence and admiration of the ways of God.

Brother Carroll was born in Tipperary, Ireland, on the 23d of February, 1805, of good family. On leaving Ireland he lived for atime in Canada; but later came to Mt St Mary's, Emmittsburg, with the intention of studying for the priesthood. He spent some years at the Mount, and in after times loved to speak of his stay there, and its many happy memories. It was there he first met with our saintly Fr McElroy, and it was the advice of this holy man that influenced him to put aside all thought of the priesthood, and enter the Society of Jesus as a lay-brother. This he did Sept 7th, 1836; but not before his simple and amiable character had won all hearts at the Mount. Some years after he returned to the old Seminary on a visit, and the glad welcome tendered him showed in what esteem he was held.

This good and holy Brother passed most of his life in the Society in the houses of Georgetown, Whitemarsh and Bohemia; but about ten years ago he was sent to the Novitiate at Frederick to prepare for death. He wore his age well, and though no longer fit for active service, was never idle, but ever engaged in some light work. Always cheerful and kind, in everything he seemed the model of a lay-brother, and worthy of imitation. As his life had been the joy and consolation of his religious brethren, so, too, was his death; and we may fondly hope that he now enjoys the glory ofthe chosen servants of God.

In all this there is nothing striking; it is one quiet round of religious duty: in the eyes of the world he has passed away, and left after him but a modest fame; yet for men who know the merit of a hidden life, who seek not the glory of this world, but the bliss of a life to come, there is here much that is at once edifying and consoling.

May the example of this holy Brother long live m the memory of his fellow religious. RIP

Born: 26 July 1801, Ireland
Entered: 01 September 1843, Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 15 August 1854
Died: 22 July 1860, Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

1846-1845: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA (MAR), Novitiate
1845-1846: The Basilica of Saint Mary, Royal Street, Alexandria VA, USA,, working
1846-1853: Conewago Mission, Conewago PA, USA, working
1853-1860: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, working at Trinity Church

Born: 29 July 1810, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 29 October 1828, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Died: 16 March 1833, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin

1828-1830: St Andrea, Rome, Italy (ITA), Novitiate
1831-1832: Travelling to Ireland
1832-1833: St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin, Caring for health

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CARTAN, JAMES, a most promising Scholastic, who died in Dublin on the 17th of March, 1832. Soc. 4. aet.22

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
CARTAN, JAMES Scholastic (Irish), born 1810; entered the Society 1828, and died in Dublin March 17, 1832. (Oliver, Irish Section, from Stonyhurst MSS.) (Oliver, Irish Section, from Stonyhurst MSS.)

Born: 27 December 1876, Castle Street, Nenagh, County Tipperary
Entered: 07 December 1895, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 28 July 1912, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1914, Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin
Died: 05 January 1957, Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

1895-1897: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate
1897-1899: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Rhetoric
1899-1902: Ignatius-Colleg, Valkenburg aan de Geul, Limburg, Netherlands (GER), Philosophy
1902-1903: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency - Editor of “Clongownian”
1903-1905: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Regency - Assistant Editor of “Messenger”
1905-1909: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1910-1912: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1912-1913: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Tertianship
1913-1917: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Minister and Bursar; Assistant Editor of “Messenger”
1917-1918: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Missions Procurator
1918-1924: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Procurator
1924-1957: Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick, Procurator; Teaching

◆ Irish Province News 32nd Year No 2 1957

Obituary :

Fr Martin Corbett (1876-1957)

On the morning of Sth January, Fr. Corbett was unexpectedly taken from us in the 81st year of his age and the 62nd of his religious life, Only a few days before, during the Christmas festivities, we had been celebrating a well-known domestic event, his birthday. This year there seemed to be special cause for jubilation. Fr. Corbett had just made a very good recovery from a cycling accident which had kept him in St. John's Hospital for many weeks, he was now almost back to normal acitivity, and we looked forward with confidence to see him add quite a few more years to the goodiy four score completed, On Friday, the day before his death, he had an X-Ray examination in St. John's which it was hoped might throw light on a certain stomach trouble that had been causing anxiety over Christmas. He returned to us at midday, a little tired after the ordeal, but obviously pleased that a thorough investigation had been made, and also relieved that nothing serious had been discovered. The remainder of that day went in the usual community round and he retired after Litanies at 9 o'clock. Next morning he was up in good time and apparently fully dressed when he felt the first warning of a heart attack, without seeming to recognised it as such. When it was just time to go down for Mass he came out to the corridor and, finding one of the Community nearby, asked him to come over to his room. Here he explained in a few words the symptoms of a sudden attack which seemed to puzzle rather than frighten or distress him. With a slight hesitation he accepted a suggestion to lie down for a while, then stretched himself as he was full length on his bed and seemed to settle down to rest. In perhaps less than a minute more, and with only a slight sign of struggle, he had passed into unconsciousness.

Father Rector was immediately summoned and anointed him. All the available members of the Community gathered to say the last prayers.

At the Solemn Office and Requiem on Monday His Lordship the Bishop presided and gave the last Absolution. Father Rector was celebrant of the Mass and Father Provincial said the prayers at the graveside. A large number of priests and laity were present.

Fr. Corbett was born on 27th December, 1876. After five years as a boy in Clongowes he entered the Noviciate on the eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1895. When the usual period of Noviceship and Juniorate was completed he was sent to Valkenburg for Philosophy where he remained three years. His first year of colleges was spent in his Alma Mater as Prefect and Editor of The Clongownian. Next year he was transferred to the staff of Belvedere, where, besides being engaged in teaching, he was assistant editor of the Messenger for two years, In 1905 he returned to Clongowes as Prefect for four years after which he went to Milltown Park for Theology. He was ordained priest in 1912 and made his Tertianship in Tullabeg the following year. From 1913 to 1917, years eventful enough in Irish and world history, he was Minister in Belvedere College and was witness of many stirring scenes in Dublin in those days. In 1917 he went for a year as Procurator to Tullabeg and then as Procurator to Clongowes for a further six years. In 1924 he began his long association with Mungret, where he was first Procurator of the house and farm for two years, then Procurator of the farm for the next seven years. From 1933 onwards he was chiefly engaged in teaching, most of the time taking charge of the subsidiary subjects, English and Physics, in the school of Philosophy. In this work he continued to the end, and no doubt will be kindly remembered by many an Old Mungret priest on the Foreign Mission field.

Fr. Corbett was an excellent community man. Despite his deafness, increasing with the years and so patiently borne, he always managed to keep contact with the brethren and to contribute a full share to the happiness and gaiety of every one. The community was his home, he was never willingly far away, Polite and courteous - in a word, found as he would like to be found, a gentleman. His sound judgment, accurate memory and shrewd sense were recognised, and his verdict or opinion sought on a variety of subjects. Was there a big legal case or a sworn inquiry in the news - he was in his element commenting on the cross examination, speculating on the probable result. Invariably he would recall a similar case of long ago, or tell a good story of a clever swindle or a dramatic arrest-his stories in this line were numerous, but he had many others too, not all in serious vein, of course, but all told word perfect. In matters of practical bearing on the improvement of Mungret, which indeed he ever had at heart, his suggestions were listened to by Superiors with respect and often acted on with profit. It was no small tribute to his practical versatility that he was chosen by Fr. Fahy, when Provincial, to take charge of the arrangements for the preparation of St. Mary's, Emo, for the Novices in 1930. When he was Master of a Villa the community could be confident that every detail would be seen to, in particular that the commissariat would be all right. They could be sure too, incidentally, that, kind-hearted though he was, a modicum of discipline would be maintained for the good of everyone. Fr. Corbett was himself, first and last, a man of regularity, who did not believe in avoidable absence or unpunctuality in community duties. His own example in this, and in particular his devotion to the Brothers' Points night after night for over twenty years were most edifying.

But no picture of Fr. Corbett could be complete without the old bicycle. The local people will surely miss the vision of the ageing priest, upright on the high frame, quietly and purposely pushing his way, hugging the side of the road - he took no needless risks - as the cars and lorries whisked past. It was his afternoon recreation, simple, inexpensive and healthy, and must have kept him not only healthy but cheerful and bright in darker times. He loved the countryside, the stretch of Lough More, the ploughed fields, the waving corn. He loved the Limerick Docks and the ships from all parts - to speak here and there perhaps with an old friend or acquaintance and then to tell at home of all he heard and saw. “A grand old man” “a noble priest” “a most loyal Jesuit”, they said about him.

At the turn of the year, when days are lengthening, a season of hope, he liked to talk about and think upon, it was then it came the day that knows no darkening - “that the highest Truth ever enlighteneth, a day always secure and never changing its state for the contrary”. R.I.P.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Martin Corbett SJ 1876-1957
Like Fr William Kane, Fr Martin Corbett was connected so long with Mungret as to become almost identified with it. Like Fr Kane too, his imposing frame seated on the inevitable bicycle was familiar to all the inhabitants of Mungret and the denizens of the Docks. This was his invariable form of recreation and exercise for years.

A man of remarkable gifts of mind, he was hampered throughout his life by deafness, yet his judgement and practical ability were prized by Superiors.

He held the post of Procurator in Tullabeg, Clongowes and Mungret, and was chosen for his administrative ability by the Provincial Fr Fahy, to open our new house at Emo.

He was a valuable asset in the community, a model of punctuality and observance, faithful to the duties assigned to him, teaching English and Physics to the Apostolic School for many years. All of these past Apostolics will remember him with affection and gratitude.

He had quite a flair for writing in his younger days and wrote a couple of boys’ stories which had a wide circulation published by the CTSI and the Messenger Office.

He died quite suddenly on January 5th 1957 in his 81st year, having lived 61 years in the Society he loved so well.

◆ The Clongownian, 1957

Obituary

Father Martin Corbett SJ

Father Corbett was born on December 27th, 1876. After five years as a boy in Clongowes, he entered the Novitiate on the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1895. When the usual studies of Humanities and Philosophy were completed, he returned to Clongowes as Prefect and editor of “The Clongownian”. Next year he was transferred to the staff of Belvedere where, besides being engaged in teaching, he was assistant editor of the Irish Messenger for two years. In 1905 he returned to Clongowes as Prefect for four years, after which he went to Milltown Park for Theology. He was ordained priest in 1912 and made his Tertianship in Tullabeg the following year. From 1913 to 1917, years eventful enough in Irish and world history, he was Minister in Belvedere College and was witness of many stirring scenes in Dublin in those days. In 1917 he went for a year as Procurator to Tullabeg and then as Procurator to Clongowes for a further six years; In 1924 he began his long association with Mungret College, where he was first Procurator of the house and farm for two years, then Procurator of the farm for the next seven years. From 1933 onwards he was chiefly engaged in teaching, most of the time taking charge of the subsidiary subjects, English and Physics, in the School of Philosophy. In this work he continued to the end, and no doubt will be kindly remembered by many an Old Mungret priest on the Foreign Mission field. May he rest in peace.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1957

Obituary

Father Martin Corbett SJ

Although Fr Corbett was not an Old Boy of the College it would be ungracious not to pay a tribute to him considering the number of years he was on the staff.

In 1924 he began his long association with Mungret where he was first Procurator of the House and farm for two years, then Procurator of the farm for seven years. From 1933 onwards he was chiefly engaged in teaching English and Physics in the Apostolic School. In this work he c012 tinued to the end and will no doubt be remembered by many an old Mungret priest on the Mission field.

Fr Corbett was an excellent community man. Despite his deafness he always managed to keep in contact with others in the College, and contribute to the happiness and gaiety of everyone. Polite and courteous-found as he would like to be found, a gentleman. He was always ready to stop and chat with others about local topics in which he had a great interest. He had a great interest in past students of the College, and a great interest in the College itself. He was deeply devoted to its welfare. In his death we are sure he was remembered by many a far flung Apostolic with love and respect. To his brother and relatives we offer our deep sympathy. RIP

-oOo-

In Memory of Father Corbett SJ - RIP

By O Kemp

He was a man, a man of God
He fought for right, he fought the wrong
But now he's laid beneath the sod
His life was like one long sweet song.

Although he's gone, there still remains
A memory we hold most dear
A golden sheet without a stain
A life heroic without fear.

Then let his lasting epitaph be
He loved all as the one above
He departed life lightly and free
To all he gave his labour and love.

And then o'er his lonely grave at night
As the bloss'ming flowers sway to and fro
As the twinkling stars above show their light
On his lonely gyavestone on earth below
We send up a prayer which comes from our hearts
That he may go to God ne'er more to part
And may he abide with his cherished reward
With God and His Mother to act as his guard.

◆ Mungret Annual, 1957

Obituary

Father Martin Corbett SJ

Although Fr Corbett was not an Old Boy of the College it would be ungracious not to pay a tribute to him considering the number of years he was on the staff.

In 1924 he began his long association with Mungret where he was first Procurator of the House and farm for two years, then Procurator of the farm for seven years. From 1933 onwards he was chiefly engaged in teaching English and Physics in the Apostolic School. In this work he c012 tinued to the end and will no doubt be remembered by many an old Mungret priest on the Mission field.

Fr Corbett was an excellent community man. Despite his deafness he always managed to keep in contact with others in the College, and contribute to the happiness and gaiety of everyone. Polite and courteous-found as he would like to be found, a gentleman. He was always ready to stop and chat with others about local topics in which he had a great interest. He had a great interest in past students of the College, and a great interest in the College itself. He was deeply devoted to its welfare. In his death we are sure he was remembered by many a far flung Apostolic with love and respect. To his brother and relatives we offer our deep sympathy. RIP

-oOo-

In Memory of Father Corbett SJ - RIP

By O Kemp

He was a man, a man of God
He fought for right, he fought the wrong
But now he's laid beneath the sod
His life was like one long sweet song.

Although he's gone, there still remains
A memory we hold most dear
A golden sheet without a stain
A life heroic without fear.

Then let his lasting epitaph be
He loved all as the one above
He departed life lightly and free
To all he gave his labour and love.

And then o'er his lonely grave at night
As the bloss'ming flowers sway to and fro
As the twinkling stars above show their light
On his lonely gyavestone on earth below
We send up a prayer which comes from our hearts
That he may go to God ne'er more to part
And may he abide with his cherished reward
With God and His Mother to act as his guard.

Born: 01 May 1783, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 1815, Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare
Died: 05 September 1818, Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare

He doesn’t appear in the HIB Catalogues 15 -->; He is in the Jesuit Universal Defuncto List - No 0.182

1815-1818: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Novitiate and Rhetoric

Born: 29 September 1714, Ireland
Entered: 07 September 1735, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 24 March 1742
Final Vows: 02 February 1753
Died: 11 June 1788, Thame Park, Oxfordshire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Alias Stafford

1768 was at Wackworth, Banbury, England (poss Warkworth)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Cassidy alias Stafford (Uncertainty about his real name, the Provincial’s Note-book says vere Stafford, and the 1754 Catalogue says vere Cassidy)
Educated at St Omer before Ent
1746 On the London Mission
1758 On the Mission of Oxburgh, Norfolk
1771 Superior of St Mary’s Residence, Oxford (cf Foley’s Collectanea)
1779 On the Dorchester Mission, near Oxford
On his tombstone “IHS, Bernard Stafford, died July 12th, 1788, aged 76” (Reverend TG Lee, DCL, FSA) and a copy of that inscription on the floor of the chapel at Thame Park. As it is most improbable that he would have been buried under his assumed name, this monumental inscription may be taken as convincing evidence that his real name was Stafford. In the brief notice of Warkworth, Northampton, which formerly belonged to the Holman family, and then passed by an heiress to the Eyres of Derbyshire, it is stated that the only Father of the Society that could be traced there was father Bernard Stafford alias or vere Cassidy, who was residing at Warkworth 1764, and subsequent years, finally at Thame Park, where he died June 11 1788. It is further stated that Mr Holman, the Squire of Warkworth, married the Lady Anastasia Stafford, probably a sister or near relative of Father Stafford. The family connection may have been a reason for Lady Holman’s retaining Father Bernard as Chaplain.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
STAFFORD, BERNARD, (his true name was Cassidy) : he was born in Ireland during the month of December, 1713. At the age of 22 he entered the Novitiate at Watten : and was admitted to the Profession of the Four Vows in London in 1753. For some time he resided at Thame Park, where he died on the 11th of June, 1788. His services on the Mission well deserve remembrance and imitation.

Born: 20 March 1813, Latnakelly, Clontibret, County Monaghan
Entered: 05 September 1836, Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 15 August 1847
Died: 06 January 1890, Woodstock College, Woodstock MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

1836-1838: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA (MAR), Novitiate
1838-1847: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, working
1847-1848: Boston Mission, Boston MA, USA, working
1848-1850: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, working
1850-1852: Holy Cross College, Worcester MA, USA, Cook
1852-1860: St Joseph’s Church, Barre Street, Baltimore MD, USA, working and Cook
1860-1861: Boston College, Boston MA, USA, working
1861-1871: The Basilica of Saint Mary, Royal Street, Alexandria VA, USA,, Cook
1871-1880: Loyola College Maryland, North Charles Street, Baltimore MD, USA, working and Cook
1880-1890: Woodstock College, Woodstock MD, USA, working

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 19, Number 1

Obituary

“Brother Patrick Cassidy” p107

Br. Patrick Cassidy was born in the County Monaghan, Ireland, on March 20th, 1813. A t the age of sixteen he came to America in quest of a sphere more congenial for the expansion of his native energies and the freedom of shaping his future in accordance with the talents that nature had bestowed upon him. Once assured of this freedom and confiding in his own powers, he had no misgivings of his success in overtaking a fortune. But a kind Providence, into whose arms he had cast himself with all the ardor of his Irish faith, had a future and a fortune in store for him surpassing all his boyish dreams. It had been the parting wish of his simple and loving mother that her boy should explore the regions of the New World and send her an account of its wonders. With this end in view Br Cassidy, after some years spent in New York City, set out on his mission of love. He wandered southward as far as Richmond, Va. One day while gazing down upon the city from one of the hills that overlook the town, his fancy rested on an elegant mansion prominent in the picture. Even while he gazed, a cloud of smoke followed by flames and flying embers burst forth from the building. These soon spread to a neighboring mansion, and in an incredibly short time two of Richmond's statliest dwellings were a mass of crumbling and charred ruins. Brought thus face to face with the instability of material splendor his mind was impressed deeply with the futility of laying up earthly treasures and the danger of allowing his heart to go out to them. Haunted by this thought, though almost unconscious of its guidance, he wandered back to New York with a vague resolve of burying himself in the solitude of some private family, where he might find leisure to attend to the all important subject of his salvation. In New York he communicated his intention to Bishop Dubois, while confessing to that saintly prelate. The bishop, recognizing at once a divine call to something more sublime, directed him to Georgetown College as the place best suited to realize his aspirations.

Armed with a letter from Bishop Dubois he again set his face toward the South. Arrived at Georgetown he spent some years as a postulant, making himself in the meantime very useful as assistant gardener. On Sept. 8th, 1836, he was admitted into the Society, and was sent to Frederick, where he made one year's noviceship under Fr Francis Dzierozynski. What solid foundations he there laid of the virtues of humility, obedience, and self-abasement, his after life in the Society gave evidence. Sent back to Georgetown he was put in charge of the boys refectory and filled that office till he took his religious vows the following year. During the next years up to 1848 he was employed successively as gardener, assistant baker and infirmarian, as sacristan and vine-dresser, in all of which duties he ever showed that scrupulous care and diligence which were so noticeable in his later years at Woodstock. In 1847 he was chosen to accompany Fr McElroy to Boston when the latter opened our first residence there, but returned at the end of a year to Georgetown as cook. In 1851 and 1852 we find him as cook in the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, whence he was sent to St Joseph's Church, Baltimore, then under the care of Fr W F Clark. It would seem that he made himself almost indispensable in this new sphere, where he remained eight years.

It was here too that he came into unsought-for prominence among the enemies of the Church. Know-nothingism was then rampant in the land. Before his entrance into the Society he had witnessed in Boston the fanaticism which ended in the Charlestown conflagration, and which burned a stain into the escutcheon of Massachusetts that the succeeding years have failed to efface. Here in Baltimore while out on business for Fr Clark one election day, his modest and religious mien, no doubt, marked him as the natural enemy of American ruffianism. At all events, he was violently handled and knocked down in the street by the fanatics.

Returning in 1861 to Boston, he was employed in the new scholasticate. From Boston he in 1862 to Alexandria, Va, and remained there throughout the civil war and for some years after it. His graphic and accurate reminiscences of those turbulent years were a substantial proof of the keen powers of observation as well as the truly wonderful memory with which he was gifted. Not an incident that came under his observation during those distant years ever seemed to fade or grow dim up to the day of his death. From 1872 to 1881 he was engaged as buyer at Loyola College, Baltimore, whence he came to Woodstock in the latter year.

Though he came to Woodstock ostensibly to die, the works he wrought during the years he was among us fully attest the amount of vitality he still retained, and if these works are any index of what he accomplished in the youth and bloom of manhood, his labors in the Society may be safely set down as prodigious. The rapid growth and perfect finish of all his undertakings were a source of constant remark among the scholastics. And the roads that grew out of his patient toil around Woodstock might do honor to the Caesars. Quiet, persevering toil, religious silence, and perfect recollection at all times, seemed to be his characteristics. At recreation he was ever genial and sunny. His long life in the Society, joined to his accurate and retentive memory of men and things whilst making his conversations always entertaining and instructive, gave to his utterances a historic value which makes us regret .that they were not more extensively utilized.

In the autumn of 1888 he was attacked by a severe cold which brought him to the verge of death. His strong constitution, however, got the mastery, and he regained apparently during the following year his former health. Still, age was silently but surely undermining his frame. An attack of rheumatism at the beginning of the New Year still further weakened him. On the night of January the 4th he fell over a chair in his own room, which shock induced paralysis. He sank rapidly during the following days. Having received all the rites of the Church he became unconscious, and on the evening of the Epiphany, after an illness of less than forty-eight hours, he breathed forth his pure soul into the hands of his Creator. RIP

Born: 10 July 1823, Dingle, County Kerry
Entered: 07 April 1846, Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USAA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 08 December 1857
Died: 12 March 1900, Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

1846-1848: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA (MAR), Novitiate
1848-1852: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, working
1852-1856: Conewago Mission, Conewago, New Oxford, PA, USA, working and Cook
1856-1858: St Joseph’s, Willing’s Alley, Philadelphia PA, USA, Cook
1858-1859: Holy Cross College, Worcester MA, USA, Cook
1859-1860: St Francis Xavier Residence, Bohemia Manor Farm MD, USA, working
1860-1862: Boston College, Boston MA, USA, Assistant Cook and working
1862-1868: Newtown Residence, Leonardstown MD, USA, working
1868-1876: Woodstock College, Woodstock MD, USA, working
1876-1889: Whitemarsh Residence, Collington MD, USA, Cook (MARNEB from 1879)
1889-1898: Woodstock College, Woodstock MD, USA, working
1898-1900: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA, working

Born: 23 June 1707, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 28 January 1726, Seville, Spain - Baeticae Province (BAE)
Ordained: 1737, Granada, Spain
Final Vows: 17 March 1742
Died: 04 June 1772, Dublin Residence, Dublin City, County Dublin

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Rector at Salamanca
1738 Sent to Ireland from Seville
1786 He is found in a list of Dublin Priests by Battersby.
He was stationed in Dublin for the rest of his life.
(Curiously all his dates are the same as those of Simon Shee in the HIB Catalogues of 1752 and 1755).
His name is found in many old Spanish books.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of a Protestant father who converted later
After First Vows he made all his studies at Granada and was Ordained by 1737
1738 Sent to Ireland and to the Dublin Residence, serving as a Curate at St Mary’s Lane Chapel.
1755 Superior of Dublin Residence and remained there till his death 04 June 1772
From time to time he ministered to the Graham family Ballycooge House, near Arklow. He died in Dublin 04 June 1772, and was buried in the Old Abbey cemetery, Arklow, in the tomb of the Graham family.

◆ Clongowes Wood College SJ HIB Archive Collection - SC/CLON/142
Michael Cawood 1707-1787
Michael Cawood, son of a Protestant father who was later received into the Church, was born in Dublin 23 June 1707 and received into the Society at Seville, 28 January 1726. He made all his ecclesiastical studies at Granada and was ordained priest by 1737. Recalled to Dublin in 1738 he was assigned to the Dublin Residence and served as curate at Mary's Lane, He was superior of the Residence for some time after 1760. From time to time he exercised his ministry at Ballycooge House, Arklow, seat of the Graham family. He died at Dublin 4 June 1772 and was buried at the Old Abbey cemetery, Arklow in the tomb of the Graham family.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CAWOOD, MICHAEL, of Leinster, was born in 1708; joined the Order at Seville on the 28th of January, 1726, and came to the Irish Mission twelve years later. He took his solemn Vows on St. Patrick s Day Day, 1742. For several years he assisted a Parish Priest in Dublin; but further information I have been unable to procure.

◆ Fr Joseph McDonnell SJ Past and Present Notes :
16th February 1811 At the advance ages of 73, Father Betagh, PP of the St Michael Rosemary Lane Parish Dublin, Vicar General of the Dublin Archdiocese died. His death was looked upon as almost a national calamity. Shops and businesses were closed on the day of his funeral. His name and qualities were on the lips of everyone. He was an ex-Jesuit, the link between the Old and New Society in Ireland.

Among his many works was the foundation of two schools for boys : one a Classical school in Sall’s Court, the other a Night School in Skinner’s Row. One pupil received particular care - Peter Kenney - as he believed there might be great things to come from him in the future. “I have not long to be with you, but never fear, I’m rearing up a cock that will crow louder and sweeter for yopu than I ever did” he told his parishioners. Peter Kenney was to be “founder” of the restored Society in Ireland.

There were seventeen Jesuits in Ireland at the Suppression : John Ward, Clement Kelly, Edward Keating, John St Leger, Nicholas Barron, John Austin, Peter Berrill, James Moroney, Michael Cawood, Michael Fitzgerald, John Fullam, Paul Power, John Barron, Joseph O’Halloran, James Mulcaile, Richard O’Callaghan and Thomas Betagh. These men believed in the future restoration, and they husbanded their resources and succeeded in handing down to their successors a considerable sum of money, which had been saved by them.

A letter from the Acting General Father Thaddeus Brezozowski, dated St Petersburg 14/06/1806 was addressed to the only two survivors, Betagh and O’Callaghan. He thanked them for their work and their union with those in Russia, and suggested that the restoration was close at hand.

A letter from Nicholas Sewell, dated Stonyhurst 07/07/1809 to Betagh gives details of Irishmen being sent to Sicily for studies : Bartholomew Esmonde, Paul Ferley, Charles Aylmer, Robert St Leger, Edmund Cogan and James Butler. Peter Kenney and Matthew Gahan had preceded them. These were the foundation stones of the Restored Society.

Returning to Ireland, Kenney, Gahan and John Ryan took residence at No3 George’s Hill. Two years later, with the monies saved for them, Kenney bought Clongowes as a College for boys and a House of Studies for Jesuits. From a diary fragment of Aylmer, we learn that Kenney was Superior of the Irish Mission and Prefect of Studies, Aylmer was Minister, Claude Jautard, a survivor of the old Society in France was Spiritual Father, Butler was Professor of Moral and Dogmatic Theology, Ferley was professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Esmonde was Superior of Scholastics and they were joined by St Leger and William Dinan. Gahan was described as a Missioner at Francis St Dublin and Confessor to the Poor Clares and irish Sisters of Charity at Harold’s Cross and Summerhill. Ryan was a Missioner in St Paul’s, Arran Quay, Dublin. Among the Scholastics, Brothers and Masters were : Brothers Fraser, Levins, Connor, Bracken, Sherlock, Moran, Mullen and McGlade.

Trouble was not long coming. Protestants were upset that the Jesuits were in Ireland and sent a petition was sent to Parliament, suggesting that the Vow of Obedience to the Pope meant they could not have an Oath of Allegiance to the King. In addition, the expulsion of Jesuits from all of Europe had been a good thing. Kenney’s influence and diplomatic skills resulted in gaining support from Protestants in the locality of Clongowes, and a counter petition was presented by the Duke of Leinster on behalf of the Jesuits. This moment passed, but anto Jesuit feelings were mounting, such as in the Orange faction, and they managed to get an enquiry into the Jesuits and Peter Kenney and they appeared before the Irish Chief Secretary and Provy Council. Peter Kenney’s persuasive and oratorical skills won the day and the enquiry group said they were satisfied and impressed.

Over the years the Mission grew into a Province with Joseph Lentaigne as first Provincial in 1860. In 1885 the first outward undertaking was the setting up of an Irish Mission to Australia by Lentaigne and William Kelly, and this Mission grew exponentially from very humble beginnings.

Later the performance of the Jesuits in managing UCD with little or no money, and then outperforming what were known as the “Queen’s Colleges” forced the issue of injustice against Catholics in Ireland in the matter of University education. It is William Delaney who headed up the effort and create the National University of Ireland under endowment from the Government.from the Government.

Born: 01 September 1869, Ballycumber, County Offaly
Entered: 08 October 1891, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 15 August 1902, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 08 November 1956, Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare

1891-1893: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate
1893-1894: Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Sea Road, Galway, working
1894-1904: St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin, Infirmarian and Dispenser
1904-1956: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Dispenser, working

◆ Irish Province News 32nd Year No 1 1957 & ◆ The Clongownian, 1957

Obituary :

Br Kieran Corcoran (1869-1956)

With Br, Corcoran there passed away a figure that had become something of a legend in the life of Clongowes. We of a later vintage lived with him and saw his passing; but who, with a solitary exception, can recall his coming over fifty years ago, or indeed can think of a Clongowes without that stalwart figure moving impressively about its lawful occasions? For even till about a couple of years ago, when his heart attacks became more crippling, he bore himself upright as always, and though his work became more and more curtailed, he sought employment about the house, and it is not so long ago since one saw him, as ever, in the midst of buckets and crates of eggs making his weekly tally! After three months as a Postulant he joined the Noviceship at Tullabeg in 1891, whence he was posted to Galway in 1893, taking his first Vows in the October of that year. From 1893 to early in 1904 he was stationed in our Gardiner Street house and the list of positions he filled makes impressive reading. There he pronounced his final Vows in 1902, and from there he left in February of 1904 to begin his unbroken half-century and more in Clongowes Wood till the day of his death. Jubilee succeeded Jubilee, and on his Diamond one in 1951 he was favoured with a letter from the hand of Very Rev. Father General; and in 1954, the Golden Jubilee of his sojourn in Clongowes Wood, was marked by celebrations and many messages of congratulation.

The maintenance of the fabric of the College was his prime care all those years, that and the employing and supervising of the small army of artisans and servants involved in that care. This he did with conspicuous skill and mastery and he could rightly claim (if ever he thought of it) that his activities vitally touched the lives of masters and boys, asleep or awake at many points. How much of that is simply taken for granted in a big institution and how small the meed of recognition! The host of daily, almost hourly, activities involved in "maintenance" of a large and sprawling and, in places, antiquated building who thinks of them? The endless inspections and checking; the planning ahead; the expert knowledge in many fields; the sudden improvisations called for and demanding sound judgment; crises in lighting or heating or drainage systems, all these involve considerable responsibility and systematic care. Suffice it to say that through all the years of his stewardship Br. Corcoran was seldom or never unequal to the heavy task laid on him by day or by night. For he was thorough in all he did, deeply conscientious and rigidly systematic. Only the best workmanship, whether it was sweeping a Gallery or slating a roof could pass muster with his eagle eye. Workmanship of the best, materials of the best and a job that would last “to and through the Doomsday's fire” if necessary was what he demanded, and he had the knack of getting these from his staff. And he never spared himself physically in his endless routine of daily and hourly inspections. In fact so rigid was his sense of routine that one could almost infer the time of day from his passing, whether it was in and about the building or “beating the bounds” on his daily perambulation of the main and Kapolis avenues! As a result the spick and span state of walls and floors and ceilings everywhere in the place from endless scrubbings and paintings and polishings were justly the admiration of his Brethren and of visitors. He took a pride in his office, and had he been capable of boasting he could justly have pointed to the myriad of improvements he effected (the walls of the Lower Line Gallery were in whitewash when he first came!) throughout his fifty years as an enduring monument to his memory.

And sustaining and inspiring in all this was his sterling worth as a Religious. He impressed all with his deep Faith and simple and genuine piety; his unfailing presence and punctuality at every religious duty; bis reverence for the priestly state and his considerateness for others. In pressing forward for the good of the College he never lost sight of the claims of the individual, and in the exercise of the considerable authority that rested with him he strove for fairness. The handicap imposed by frequent heart attacks must have been a galling one to a man of his disposition, and his endurance of this; his uncomplaining acceptance of God's will, especially in the last year or two, when he had often to keep to his bed or his room, was impressive to those who had any dealings with him.. Characteristic of him was his rejoinder at the very end to one who counselled him to say his prayers internally" instead of vocalising them (as was bis wont), “Oh, but one would have to be very sick to do a thing like that!" And to a visitor leaving his room at night he motioned with his hand to the alarm-clock beside his bed and murmured, "The clock, the clock, wind it! For meditation! It was set for half-past six, and this was the day before he died.

Fully conscious to the end, and in his 87th year, he passed away without pain on the 7th of November in the room he occupied so long in the very heart of the School he served for half a century with such fine loyalty, and with young life pulsating all around him. On the 9th he was borne to his grave down the long avenue so familiar to him in his unvarying daily walk, the community and entire school preceding the coffin. May he rest in peace!

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Brother Kieran Corcoran 1862-1956
Br Kieran Corcoran was identified with Clongowes for over fifty years. The maintenance of the fabric of the College was his prime care, together with the running of the whole place, both Castle and College, Methodical, efficient, though kindly with all, he managed the domestic staff and got astonishing results out of them. As a result, the spick and span state of the walls, floors and ceilings everywhere in the place, from endless scrubbings, polishings and paintings, was justly the admiration of his brethren and visitors.

Sustaining this continual effort was his religious spirit. He impressed all with his simple faith and deep piety. He had a natural dignity which commanded respect and reverence for his cloth.

He entered Tullabeg as a novice in 1891, and in 1954 he celebrated the golden jubilee of his stay in Clongowes. He died on November 7th 1956 in the room which he had occupied for over half a century, in the very heart of the school he had served so well ad majoram Dei Gloriam.

Born: 04 August 1644, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 23 October 1666, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1674, Rome, Italy
Final Vows: 15 August 1680
Died: 05 October 1709, Dublin City, County Dublin

Alias Kitson

Studied for 5 years at Tournai (BELG) the 3 years in Rome (ROM)
1670 arrested and examined re Peter Talbot
1672 Teacher at Monte Santo and Illyric College, Loreto (ROM) - was Spiritual Coadjutor Penitentiary at Loreto for 3 years
1673 or 1678 Teaching Grammar at Loreto and studying Theology
1679-1682 Procurator of the Irish College at Poitiers (which was opened in 1675)
1683-1691 Dublin Residence and at Carlow College
1695 had spent three years in London
“1697 Fr Chamberlain and other Fathers still in prison 02 May 1697” (Archives Irish College Rome)
1702 Imprisoned and to be deported to Cadiz with Anthony Martin (convicted of being a Jesuit)
“Fr Chamberlain and other old Fathers in Dublin very poor having for 4 years lost what was common and private” (Archives Irish College Rome). Was living at Dominican Convent, Cooke St Dublin

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1683 In Ireland at the Dublin College
1695 In Spain
1697 Living near the Dominican Convent, Cooke St, Dublin (Report of a spy, in St Patrick’s Library MSS Vol iii p 118)
He was a Penitentiary in Loreto for three years; Procurator of Poitiers; In London for three years

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Studied Rhetoric at Tournai and Philosophy at Irish College Rome before Ent 23 October 1666 Rome
After First Vows he was sent for Regency at Monte Santo and Loreto, completing his studies at the Roman College and being Ordained there 1674
After Tertianship he was an English speaking Confessor for pilgrims at Loreto until 1678
1678-1681 Sent to Irish College Poitiers as Procurator
1681 Sent to Ireland and to Dublin where he remained until his death 07 October 1709. He taught secondary school for many years and was Procurator of the Dublin Residence when the city fell to the Williamites. He was then imprisoned along with other Jesuits and members of his own family. He was twice sentenced to deportation but managed to remain.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CHAMBERLAIN, MICHAEL. I meet with two Fathers of this name.
The Junior I find engaged at the commencement of James the Second’s reign, with F. James Kelly and F. Hugh Thaly, in teaching a school in Dublin. They had twenty Pensioners, and a respectable Chapel recently erected in that city. He was living in Ireland, but in secret, during the persecution in the Autumn of 1698. Sacellum salis insigne

Born: 01 August 1590, County Meath
Entered: 13 May 1610, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1618, Douai, France
Final Vows: 1619
Died: 27 December 1662, Cork City, County Cork

Studied Humanities in Ireland and Philosophy at Douai
1611 Sent to Flanders for health
1615-1619 at Douai studying Philosophy (not in FLAND CAT 1619)
1619 Came to Irish Mission in weak health but with 3 Final Vows
1621 On the Mission, health delicate, good judgement and prudence
1622 In Meath or Dublin
1626 In Ireland & 1637; 1649 in Cork
1649 Fr Verdier mentions him as chaplain to a noble family. A man of great integrity, possible Master of Novices
1650 A preacher and confessor for many years

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Studied Humanities and two years Philosophy before Ent, and three years Theology in the Society. He knew Irish, English and Latin.
1617 Was in Belgium
1619 or 1620 Came to Ireland, and taught Humanities for three years, and was a Confessor and Catechist (HIB Catalogue 1650 - ARSI) and was a good religious and excellent Preacher (Foley’s "Collectanea")
Mercure Verdier’s Reoprt to Fr General on the Irish Mission 24 June 1649, mentions him as being then chaplain in a nobleman’s family, and a man of great integrity, and about whom there was a question of his being made Master of Novices. (Oliver, "Stonyhurst MSS")

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ
Son of Stephen and Margaret née Deise
Studied at Douai before Ent Rome 1610
During his Novitiate for health reasons he was sent to complete this at Tournai.
After First Vows he studied at Douai and Ordained there in 1618
During Mercure Verdier’s Visitation of 1648-1649 he said that Chamberlain was living, not in a Jesuit community, but in the house of a nobleman. He also mentioned him as a potential Master of Novices.
1620 Returned to Ireland and ministered in Leinster. During the early “commonwealth” years he worked in Tipperary and later in Cork where he died 27 December 1662

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Michael Chamberlain SJ 1590-1662
Fr Michael Chamberlain entered the Society in 1610.

In 1640, together with Fr O’Hartegan and Fr Thomas Maguire he was appointed Chaplain “ad castra regia” this was to the Confederate Army in Ireland.

He was still alive in 1649, a sexagenarian and acting as chaplain to a nobleman’s family.

He hasd the reputation for prudence and sanctity, and there was a question of appointing him Master of Novices, a post later filled by Fr John Young.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CHAMBERLAIN, MICHAEL. I meet with two Fathers of this name.
The Senior is mentioned in a letter of the 22nd of November, 1640, as having been sent “ad regia castra” about two month’s before. Again, in F. Verdier’s Report, dated 24th of June, 1649, as being then Chaplain in a nobleman s family that he was a Sexagenarian a man of great integrity and that there was question of appointing him Master of Novices.

Born: 14 January 1836, Miltown Malbay, County Clare
Entered: 29 March 1861, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Ordained: 1873
Final Vows: 02 February 1877
Died: 06 September 1895, St Patrick’s College SJ, Cathedral Place, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Studied 1 year at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth

1861-1863: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Novitiate
1862-1863: Manresa, Roehampton, London, England (ANG), Rhetoric
1863-1864: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Regency
1864-1869: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1869-1874: Sint Jan Berchmans, Rue des Récollets, Leuven, Belgium (BELG), Theology
1874-1875: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, Minister, Prefect of Church, Teaching
1875-1876: Oude Abdij, Drongen, Belgium (BELG), Tertianship
1876-1877: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Teaching
1877-1879: St Patrick’s College SJ, Cathedral Place, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, teaching
1879-1890: St Aloysius College SJ, St Kilda House, Sydney NSW, Australia, Teaching
1880: Rector from 01 January 1880 to 01 January 1890
1883: St Aloysius College SJ, Bourke Street, Sydney NSW, Australia
1890-1893: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Procurator and Teacher
1893-1895: St Patrick’s College SJ, Cathedral Place, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, teaching and Spiritual Father

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He worked hard in the HIB Colleges before going to Australia, and there he took up similar work.
He was Rector of St Aloysius, Sydney shortly after it opened.
The votes of Fellows made him Rector of St John’s within Sydney University, a job he maintained for some time.
He died at St Patrick’s, Melbourne 06 September 1895

Note from Thomas McEnroe Entry :
1877 He set sail for Melbourne with Daniel Clancy, Oliver Daly and James Kennedy

Note from Patrick Hughes Entry :
He was then sent to Drongen for Tertianship. along with Joseph Tuite and Daniel Clancy.

◆ 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 at Milltown Park Dublin and after First Vows he did some further studies.

1865-1867 He was sent for Regency to Clongowes Wood College
1867-1874 He was sent to Leuven for Theology and made Tertianship at Drongen.
1874-1875 He was sent to St Stanislaus College Tullabeg as Minister
1877-1880 He was sent to Australia and initially to Xavier College, and then to St Aloysius College at St Kilda House in Sydney, becoming Rector there in 1880.
1884-1889 He was elected Rector of St John’s College, a position he held only for a few weeks He did not take up the position because the Fellows were not unanimous in electing him. So remained Rector of St Aloysius College, teaching, and at the same time a Mission Consultor, Bursar and Prefect of Discipline.
1890-1893 He was sent to Xavier College Kew
1893 He was sent to St Patrick’s College Melbourne as a Teacher and Spiritual Father until he died two years later of cancer.

His students at St Aloysius experienced him as a severe disciplinarian, even though his punishments were recognised as well deserved.

◆ The Xaverian, Xavier College, Melbourne, Australia, 1895

Obituary

Fr D Clancy

As usual, we have a fairly, full list in our obituary columns, but it is rarely that grief is so keenly felt as when. Father Clancy passed away. He was born at Milltown Malbay, in Clare, Ireland, and at an early age entered as a student for the Priesthood at Maynooth. After spending four years in that institution, he became a member of the Society of Jesus, and completed his studies at Louvain. He came to Melbourne in 1878, and was stationed in this house for some two years, and went to Sydney to assist in founding St Aloysius College, at St Kilda House, in Woolloomoolov. On the transfer of the college to Bourke Street, Surrey Hills, Father Clancy became rector and held that position for ten yoars. He then came to Melbourne, and spent the remainder of his days in Kew and St. Patrick's, dying at the latter house on Sept. 6th, 1895. The cause of death was an ulcerated liver, which caused him no small pain during the six months of his indisposition. This aflliction he bore with the most edifying fortitude, frequently declaring that he had no desire to live longer, and. went to his reward in the most peaceful manner. He was buried in Kew Cemetery, by the side of many of his Jesuit brothers with whom hy had labored in life. RIP

https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/don_tran/fam_his/obit_daniel_clancy.htm

◆ Obituary of Father Daniel Clancy S.J., 1895 donated by Kevin Murphy

Title: Obituary of Father Daniel Clancy S.J., 1895
Type of Material: Newspaper Obituary
Places: Miltown Malbay; Melbourne; Sydney
Dates: 1861-1895
Source: The Sydney Freeman on TROVE http://trove.nla.gov.au/
Family Names: Clancy
Transcriber/Donator: Kevin Murphy
Father Daniel Clancy S.J.

Father Daniel Clancy S.J. was born in Miltown Malbay, County Clare in 1836. In 1861 he joined the priesthood with the Society of Jesus and later on in 1877 he went to Melbourne Australia. During the next 18 years he held senior positions at a number of the Society's colleges in both Melbourne and Sydney. Father Clancy died of liver cancer at the age of 59 in Melbourne on 6 Sep 1895.

The following article was published in ‘The Sydney Freeman’s Journal’ of 25 January 1896. It was penned by one John O’Dwyer-Aglauna, a frequent correspondent to the Journal.

The Late Rev. Father Dan Clancy
Reminiscences of Historic Clare
Picturesque Miltown-Malbay
(For ‘The Sydney Freeman’.)

By a paragraph which appeared in the Sydney Freeman some couple of months ago, I learned, with very deep regret, that the late Rev. Father Clancy, S.J., was in a precarious state of health, but I was hardly prepared for the sad news that he was to pass away. I, unfortunately, missed the number of the Freeman which contained the account of his decease, together with the Rev. Father Watson's fine poem on his death, which, I am sure, will be keenly appreciated by Father Clancy's numerous relations in old historic Clare. It is seldom that I touch on matters concerning the Catholic clergy, leaving such for more competent hands to deal with than those of an Australian backblock selector. However, I think I need make no apology to you, Mr. Editor, or to your numerous readers, for penning a few remarks regarding Father Dan and the county from which he came. I knew Father Clancy both in the old country and in Australia, and I little thought that when I last saw him, in apparently robust health, about eight years ago, when he was Rector of St. Aloysius' College, Bourke-street, Sydney, that his life was to come to an end until he reached a green old age. At that time I was not long out from the old country; and the sparkle that came into his eyes and the colour to his cheeks when I related some stirring incidents which happened in his native land — and more particularly news regarding his own people — would have done anyone's heart good to see. We parted, it is hardly necessary to say, the best of friends, and I have every reason to cherish his memory for the tokens of his good will and his remembrance of me.

The late Father Dan having been at college most of the time when your correspondent lived in the neighbourhood of the hospitable home of the Clancys, I only remember having seen him on a few occasions in Ireland, before he joined the Australian mission. But I met the other members of the family frequently, and, with the exception of one brother, who holds a high public position in the town of Ennistymon, some 7 miles distant from Miltown-Malbay, I was well acquainted with them.

Before I fairly commence these few notes, which I feel sure will be perused with interest by hundreds of your readers - for the Sydney Freeman has no stauncher supporters than Claremen - I may say that the late Father Clancy came of a fine old Catholic family, and, although both East and West Clare can boast of a splendid Catholic population, there have been few families so consistent champions of Ireland's rights, and few more ardent and enthusiastic supporters of the old faith, than the Clancys. Few families have been held in higher respect and esteem by all classes. Mr. James Clancy, the father of Father Dan, died, if I remember rightly, only a few years ago, and I think I read in an Irish newspaper that he had one of the largest funerals that ever passed through Miltown-Malbay, it being attended by the priests and people for many miles around. The Clancy family, I think, numbered six, viz., five sons and one daughter, the latter being known far and wide as the charming and accomplished Miss Katie Clancy. This lady married a well-known and enterprising townsman, namely, Mr. James, or, as he was generally known, ' Jamsie,' O'Neill, a merchant doing a large business in Miltown-Malbay.

The names of Father Dan's other brothers are John, Andrew, and Patrick. These are well-to-do and devout sons of the Church. Mr. John Clancy is married to a daughter of Mr. John O' Sullivan, who was for many years master of the local Public School - the real pedagogue, by the way, of O'Dwyer-Aglauna, who deeply regrets that he did not stay longer under, and pay more attention to, his tuition. Mr. John Clancy built a large hotel in Miltown-Malbay, and was some years back, and no doubt is at the present time, doing a lucrative business. Mr. Andrew Clancy is married to an aunt of O'Dwyer-Aglauna. Her maiden name was Ellen Honan, and she was a charming and talented young lady, and was possessed of a large fortune. When the yeomen of the locality discovered that Miss Ellen was a well-dowered maiden, it is needless to say that she had no lack of admirers. The ‘genial stranger from afar,' however, came upon the scene, and carried off the fair Ellen to the home of his fathers, to the deep chagrin of the local and unsuccessful swains. Mr. Andrew Clancy opened an hotel also in Miltown-Malbay, and, under the management of himself and his spouse, it speedily became the leading hostelry in the place. He is still carrying on the business. Mr. Andrew Clancy, I may mention, is a highly-educated gentleman, and has written many a letter from Clare to their children who had gone to seek their fortunes beneath the kindly Southern Cross. Mr. Andrew Clancy's marriage was regarded as a master-stroke both in love and diplomacy; for not only did he obtain a charming helpmate, but he became connected with families throughout the length and breadth of Clare. The 'clans' which this marriage brought Mr. Andrew Clancy into relationship with are as numerous, perhaps, as those the old Scotch chieftains were mixed up with. The 'clans' were the O'Kellys, of the National Bank, Kilrush; O'Gormans, of Carhunagry, famous for their hospitalities and joviality; Cahills, Hayeses, and O'Darcys, of Mullagh and Kilmurray.

Miltown-Malbay is, or used to be, an exceedingly lively town. There were six or seven fairs held annually there, and these generally attracted the rural folks for miles around. Amusements were provided in galore. The most popular entertainers were, perhaps the gipsy street ballad-singers. A pair of these itinerant minstrels— husband and wife generally— travelled together. When they started some patriotic ditty— especially if it was unpopular with the authorities— large crowds gathered round, and eagerly listened to the song, and as eagerly purchased the words, which were offered for sale on printed slips immediately after they had been sung, The old songs it may be said, were mostly always the best liked. The old ballads included “The Green Linnet,” “Colleen dhas Crutha Namow,” “Rory of the Hills,” “Shan O’Dheir, Aglauna,” “ Brennan on the Moor,” “Peeler and the Goat,” &c. It was here I first heard the Australian bushranging song which was popular in this country in the olden days. I only remember the following four lines : —

“I'll roam these brooks and valleys,
Like a wolf or a kangaroo,
Before I'll work for Government,
Said bold Jack Donohue.”

In subsequent years the songs of the Grand Old Man of the Irish Party, Mr. T. D. Sullivan, became very popular. One of them, in particular, was sure to be received with wild outbursts of enthusiastic and ringing cheers. This song was none other than the famous “Murty Hynes.” The eyes of the farmers' daughters sparkled, and their cheeks glowed, when the singers came to these verses : —

“And then he wrote a letter, and he sent it to the Lague,
Saying, from the cause of Ireland I never will renague;
Never more, I promise, while Heaven above me shines,
Will I for land go “grabbing,” said honest Murty Hynes.

When the boys heard this, they gathered in a crowd,
The boys brought out their banners, and they bate their drums aloud.
And there were songs and 'spaches,' and dancing light and gay,
Around the flaming bonfires, that night in Ould Loughrea.”

An hotel in a town like Miltown-Malbay was, as you may be sure, pretty nearly as good as a goldmine, and it is no wonder that Mr. Andrew Clancy became opulent. At the fairs, Guinness's porter for the young, and old Irish punch for those of mature years, were the favourite beverages. These occasions were made opportunities for social reunions, as the people met and interchanged kindly greetings, courtesies, and news while disposing of their pigs, horses, cattle, butter, &c. During these fairs the parish priest and his curate generally had a trying time of it. On the previous Sunday they never failed to urgently exhort the people to keep straight, and avoid strong liquors during the fair. The Irish priest, it is well known, can get an Irishman to do almost any mortal thing except to refrain from drinking Irish whisky. Father Mathew was, perhaps, the only priest who ever succeeded in this line. The priest, of course, is fully aware of this, but he endeavours to minimize the imbibition and the consequences thereof. On the evening of the fair, the priest, accompanied by his curate, patrols the streets, and good-humouredly endeavours to prevent too great indulgence. The presence of the priests in such scenes does more to preserve “law and order” than a whole regiment of soldiers. It must in fairness be said that the Irishman in the old country rarely drinks largely - except at these gatherings. In most cases he does not drink at all except at the fairs. The consequence is that, being unused to potent liquors and being of a mercurial temperament, a few friendly glasses soon send him “half seas over,” and then fun develops. But to return to the minstrels. The celebrated song, “The Green Linnet,” was sung in plaintive cadences, which lingered long with those who listened thereto. One verse runs —

“For I'm a daughter of Daniel O'Connell,
From England I've lately come o’er,
To wake up those slumbering peasants,
Who lie sleeping on Erin's green shore.”

This would be sung by the woman, and the husband would then probably strike up “Rory of the Hills,” a verse of which, referring to the “indisposition” of some old-time landlord, would be listened to with jovial good humour. The verse is as follows : —

“In Slievenamon I met a man who asked, ‘Was Scully dead ?’
I cannot give you that account; but I hear he's sick in bed.'
He turned my mother outside the door, but I might meet him still;
For I'm the bold Tipperary boy,' said Rory of the Hill.”

The other and youngest of the brothers Clancy married into another popular Catholic family of Miltown-Malbay - that of Mr. Patrick M'Mahon. Miltown-Malbay is a thriving township, situated about 14 miles from Ennis, seven miles from Ennistymon, four from the wave-washed battlements of Lyhinch, 15 from the famous Spa Wells of Lisdoonvarna, and 12 and 15 miles respectively from Kilrush and Kilkee. The barony is called Isbricken. The land around the town is very fertile, and is chiefly used for cattle-grazing, potato, and turnip growing, and meadowing - the yield of hay being often as much as four tons to the acre.

The Atlantic Ocean breaks on the shore about two miles to the west of the town, and the wild roar of the “many sounding seas” is heard there and far around. The seaside is a favourite and charming resort in summer-time, and many splendid mansions and charming villas are built, facing the blue waters. In addition to the always entrancing broad Atlantic, Mutton Island and, the far-famed Islands of Arran can be seen. About five miles to the eastward of the town, and on the road to Ennis, is Slieve Collaun. Here is the colossal tomb of Diarmid and Grania, a gentleman and lady of the gigantic race of the contemporaries of Brian Boru. This place supplies turf or peat to the farmers in the vicinity, and the deposits of this fuel are regarded as being as valuable by the people there as a coalmine would be in this country. Large numbers of brooms are made out of the heather that flourishes in profusion in the vicinity of Slieve Collaun. The Catholic church in Miltown-Malbay is one of the finest that any of the inland towns of Munster, or probably of Ireland, can boast. It is capable of containing 7000 worshippers, and is often taxed beyond its utmost capacity, many having to kneel on the green sward outside during Mass. The church is built of green stone, with a steeple towering about 150 feet high, from the belfrey of which hangs one of the most notable bells in Munster, which can be heard on a fine summer's day a distance of fully ten miles. Had Father Mahony visited this place, he might have rendered the bell as famous as

“The bells of Shandon
That sounds so great on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.”

Miltown-Malbay has had many priests who have been famed, loved, and revered. One of the most notable was the Rev. Patrick White (now Dr. White), and who is at present stationed at Nenagh, County Tipperary. Father White was for many years here, where he built a splendid parochial residence, mostly by the aid of the labour of his flock, who not only worked at the edifice, but provided horses and carts to convey the material to the building. Father White took a prominent part in the battles of the Land League, and whenever it became known that he intended to speak in public, the people flocked to hear him from far and wide. In addition to being an eloquent and telling public speaker, Father White was a powerful and impressive preacher. It is a matter for wonder in all the country round that he was not made a Bishop long ago. His curate for many years was the Rev. Father Stewart, who was beloved by all classes, and who died a comparatively young man some time ago. Father Kingsley, P.P. has charge of the parish at present. Another notable young curate was stationed in the parish of Kilmurry, which is situated some four miles away, about twelve years ago. His name was Father Meagher. He was a brilliant preacher, and many predicted that he would rival the famous Father Tom Burke, but he died, to the great sorrow of the people, when quite a young man probably not more than thirty years of age. He attracted hundreds occasionally from Miltown-Malbay to hear his discourse on the Gospel of the day. The Rev. Father Cahir was parish priest of Mullaugh and Kilmurry, each of which parishes had a splendid chapel.

The system of religious instruction in this part of the country was very complete. The National schools were under the direction of the parish priests, and a portion of the school hours was daily devoted to religious instruction. The Catechism was, of course, the feature of this instruction, and it was astonishing how quickly the children committed the contents of the little book to memory. Sunday religious instruction was also systematically carried out under the supervision of the clergy after last Mass in the churches. Classes were also formed in the churches under the school-teachers and the pupils who had passed their examinations - the school staff being often insufficient in number to instruct the large crowds of children of both sexes who congregated. A prominent feature of these Sunday classes was the number of overgrown youths whom necessity had compelled to leave school at too early an age, and who were consequently backward in their Catechism and other things. These eagerly took advantage of the Sunday classes to repair their deficiencies. The parish priest and his curate, previous to the classes breaking up, always took a tour around, and causing the scholars to close their Catechisms, questioned them closely to ascertain the progress they were making. The praises often bestowed on some bright boy or girl caused a feeling of friendly rivalry to spring up, and instigated numbers to energetically study at home so as to merit commendation some following Sunday. It was really marvellous how quickly, by the system adopted, the juveniles mastered their lessons. Of those who were instructed in the schools mentioned and in the manner described, many thousands departed from their native home to seek their fortunes in the “beautiful land of the West,” or in this fair continent of the Southern Cross, strong in the faith of their fathers, staunch to their early teachings, and as proof against the tide of modern infidelity as the very rock of St. Peter itself.

It was among scenes like these that the saintly Father Dan first saw the light, and when his friends, who still dwell among them, see the account of his death in the Sydney Freeman's Journal (which largely circulates in Clare), together with Father Watson's poem, in which he describes the “ Cliffs of Mohur,” deep and painful as the shock must be, it will afford them the highest consolation to observe that neither his friends nor the Sydney Freeman's Journal forgot him when he passed to his reward in this land so far from his birthplace, and in which he laboured so faithfully until the imperative summons came for him. I almost forgot to mention that about three miles from Miltown-Malbay, towards the south, there is a holy well called after St. Brigid. Thousands of people assemble here periodically to partake of the cool, beautiful, spring water, and to walk round the well barefoot a certain number of times. Prayers are repeated during these “rounds,” consisting of so many “Our Fathers” and so many “Hail Marys.” It is a magnificent sight to see the peasantry, who have gathered from the most remote parts, going round the well one after the other in a circle, each solemnly abstracted in turning over his or her beads, which are used to count the number of the appropriate prayers. Many spiritual blessings are believed by the people to spring from these devotional exercises by the intercession of St. Brigid in Heaven, and many temporal blessings are confidently stated to have been conferred thereby.

At the time I write of, viz., about 12 years ago, his Eminence Cardinal Moran was stationed in the Diocese of Ossory, having his headquarters in the city of Kilkenny. His Eminence's reputation as a classical scholar and, as an eminent divine had spread far and wide among all classes of the Irish people, and, if I remember rightly, the Catechisms used in the Munster and Connaught schools, and which proved to be admirably suited to their purpose, were compiled by him. The Plan of Campaign was vigorously enforced in the locality under note, but only, however, on one estate - that of Mrs. Moroney, situated near Miltown-Malbay. Mr. James Clancy, a relative of the Miltown-Malbay Clancys, was the victim. He was a well-to-do farmer but fought for a reduction of rent, the result being that he was evicted. He fought implacably in the Land League and Home Rule ranks, but just as he was about to be reinstated in his farm, he died at Dunsalla, near Slieve Collaun. His remains were followed to their last resting-place by an immense number of mourners. The principal landlords around Miltown are Lord Leconfield (who resides in England), Lord Inchiquin, Messrs. Stackpool and Cunningham, Captain Ellis, Colonel Synge, the Studdarts, and others. Lord Leconfield is represented by Mr. John W. Scott, a good, humane agent. There is a Presbyterian church in Miltown, which is attended by a fashionable congregation, as “Brother Albanach”' has, in many cases, forsaken his beloved “Land o' Cakes” and settled down here. The Catholics, though numbering 90 per cent of the population, live in very harmonious relations with their Scottish fellow-citizens, who are always excellent neighbours and very friendly to those among whom they dwell, although they are of a different nationality and creed. No religious differences of any kind have strained the relations between Catholics and Protestants here, and the same may be said, truthfully, of the three Catholic Provinces of Ireland. It is only in parts of the “Black North” that racial and creedal bickerings break out, and these are caused, as everybody knows, by the irritating barkings of the “Yellow Pup,” which, after all, are to be deplored in a spirit of pity, for ignorance and petty feeling evolves them. An illustration of the praiseworthy spirit that prevails in Miltown-Malbay was to be seen every Sunday, when a rich Scottish landowner drove his Catholic wife to the church of her fathers, and, after she descended, drove off to the “Kirk.” After the service at the “Kirk” was over, he drove back to the chapel gates, where his wife joined him in the carriage, and they drove home together. This part of Munster, and the region a little distance away, has been the birthplace of many who have made their mark beneath the Southern Cross.

Amongst those may be mentioned Sir Bryan O'Loghlen, Bart., of Victoria, who hails from near Ennis; Judge Casey, of Victoria, who landed on this sphere near Miltown ; Mr. John Meagher, of Bathurst (the Anthony Hordern of the West) ; Father Cahill, of Bourke (I hope yet to see him a Bishop) ; Mr. Patrick Hayes, Botany-road, Waterloo (a relative of O'Dwyer-Aglauna's) ; Mr. O'Grady, the genius of Byrock, who unsuccessfully contested the Bourke electorate at the time of the labour upheaval ; Mr. M. C. O'Halloran, the editor and proprietor of the Cobar Leader, who hails from Bodyke. Among others may be mentioned Tom Malone (whose father-in-law, Mr. Mitchell O’Brien, keeps the Commercial Hotel in Miltown-Malbay), the great and straight runner; Mr. John Curtin, of the George Hotel, Sydney, not far from the Freeman's Journal office. Last, but by no means least, is Mr. Patrick MacMahon, of Circular Quay, Sydney. Many more might be mentioned, but I am afraid that the mere enumeration of their names would pretty nearly fill the Freeman up, so I call a halt. I must not, however, forget one of the celebrities of the place, who was a great friend of mine, and who, I am sure, many Claremen will recollect. I allude to Patrick O'Connor, who died by the seashore, and who was a local bard of wide fame and popularity. He was likewise a fervid, fluent, and frequent orator, and some of his speeches, I venture to say, would eclipse many of the Demosthenic utterances our own and only Dan O'Connor ever delivered when he was most inspired by the ancient Greeks and Romans. No doubt your readers perused at the time the account of the great Clare election, when Sir Bryan O'Loghlen, although in Victoria, was elected to the House of Commons against the veteran O'Gorman Mahon. The great name of the O'Loghlen family - which was one to charm with in Clare - carried Sir Bryan through without an effort on his part. He, however, preferred to remain in the Cabbage Garden, and the great twenty-eighter and supporter of O'Connell was subsequently elected for the county, which he represented until the day of his death. The late general election in West Clare was fought very bitterly. The constituency was previously held by a Redmondite. The people, however strongly attached as they undoubtedly were to Charles Stewart Parnell, seeing the folly of encouraging factionists, who, they felt assured, were only ruining the cause most dear to their hearts, “closed up their ranks,” and hoisted the flag of unity. They saved the reputation of the grand old electorate which had for centuries fought in the van for liberty and freedom. And they are sworn never to halt or falter by the way until the old banner floating triumphantly over the legislative halls by the shining Liffey proclaims that the nation's inborn right to enact its own laws has been recognized and acknowledged.
Yours truly,
John O’Dywer-Aglauna
“Backblocks.”

Born: 15 October 1806, Toomevara, Cloughjordan, County Tipperary
Entered: 28 August 1838, Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 25 March 1851
Died: 20 January 1886, Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

1838-1840: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA (MAR), Novitiate
1840-1886: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, Teaching and working
1879-1880: Caring for health

Born: 17 March 1662, Kilkenny City, County Kilkenny
Entered: 07 September 1681, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1689
Final Vows: 02 February 1699
Died: 01 May 1723, Ghent, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)

Of same family as Duke de Feltre
Talented and remarkably good memory
Was Master of Novices
Was on Mission at Liège - Missionary to the soldiers at Ghent??; Was in Spain as a Camp Missionet; Prefect of Church at Watten
1693 Preaching and engaged in Church work
1705 Spiritual Father at Ghent
Mentioned in ANG Catalogue 1690, 1693, 1700-5; 1711-14

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Relative of John Philip Mulcaile

“The Apostle of Belgium”
Studied Humanities at St Omer’s
1690 A Tertian at Ghent
1693 A Missioner and Preacher
1696 Camp Missioner in Ghent
1699 For several years a Missioner at Watten
His apostolic career is very similar to that of John Francis Regis, both in labour and fruit. The Colleges of Liège, Watten and Ghent, with their respective neighbourhoods. were the principal scenes of his missionary work, and he was frequently engaged as a camp missioner to the English, Irish and Scotch forces in the Low Countries. he was almost always engaged with his countrymen and in missions in Belgium. We do not trace him in England.
The Annual Letters abound in reports of his labours, and the marvellous results, in which constant and striking miracles are not wanting extending over a period of nearly twenty-nine years. (cf “Records SJ” Vol v, and Annual Letters for Liège, Ghent and Watten)

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father John Clarke SJ 1662-1723
Fr John Clarke was born in Kilkenny in 1662. Educated at St Omer, he entered the Society at Watten Belgium in 1681. All his life he was occupied as a misioner in the Netherlands, mainly as chaplain to the Irish, Scots and English soldiers campaigning there.

In the course of his work he rescued between 2,000 and 3,000 souls from heresy or evil living, mainly among the officers. His chief object in his preaching was to counteract Jansenism, and to recommend the frequent use of the sacraments.

So great was his success as a preacher that whenever he appeared on the streets, crowds pressed round to see and hear him. He laid is down as a necessary condition of success for a missioner “that he throw his whole heart and energy into the work, be unsparing of self in every useful work, and yet place his whole dependence on God”.

This saintly and zealous preacher died at Ghent on May 1st 1723, aged 61.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CLARKE, JOHN The second of this name, whose life was a model of the Apostolic career of St. John Francis Regis, died at Ghent, 1st May, 1723, aet. 61, Soc. 42.

Born: 23 April 1896, Mount Pleasant Square, Rathmines, Dublin
Entered: 30 August 1913, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1927, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1933, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 20 January 1978, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin

Older brother of Desmond - RIP 1962; Studied Arts at UCD

Parents alive and living at Glenburu, Castle Avenue, Clontarf. Father is a staff officer at the Department of Agriculture.

Third eldest of six sons (1 deceased).

After two years private education he went at age 7 to Belvedere College SJ (1903-1912). Then spent a year studying Greek at the Royal University.

1913-1915: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate
1915-1918: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Juniorate, UCD
1918-1919: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Dublin, Regency
1919-1920: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Philosophy
1920-1923: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1923-1928: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Philosophy (1 year) then Theology
1928-1931: Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick, Teaching; Prefect of Studies from 1929
1931-1932: St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales (ANG), Tertianship
1932-1978: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Prefect of Studies from 1933 to 1955; Teaching; Editor of “Belvederian”; Editor “Ordo”

Born: 18 January 1800, Castletara, Ballyhaise, County Cavan
Entered: 31 December 1826, Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 02 February 1841
Died: 05 July 1868, Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

1826-1828: Georgetown College, Washington DC, USA (MAR), Novitiate
1828-1868: Georgetown College, Washington DC, USA, Infirmarian and Bookeeper

◆ https://library.georgetown.edu/sites/default/files/Biographical%20Information%20about%20Maryland%20Province%20Members%20and%20Other%20Jesuits.xlsx%20-%20Sheet1_0.pdf

Clarke Sylvester born 18 January 1800;
entered 31 December 1826;
final vows, 2 February 1841;
infirmarian, Georgetown College, 1828-1829;
bookkeeper, Georgetown College, 1830-1868;
died at Georgetown 5 July 1868
Never ordained; permanent
coadjutor

Born: 04 July 1802, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1823, Montrouge, Paris, France - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 24 September 1836, Stonyhurst College, England
Final Vows: 02 February 1844
Died: 11 January 1862, St Ignatius College, London, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Older brother of Malachy Ent 18/09/1825; Cousin of Thomas RIP 1870 (ANG)

1823-1825: Montrouge, Paris, France (ANG), Novitiate
1825-1829: Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Philosophy and Regency
1829-1936: St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Philosophy and Theology
1836-1840: St Aloysius College SJ, Lancashire, England, Missioner at Norwich, Preston, Gillmoss and Pontefract
1840-1841: Lalouvesc, Ardèche, Occitanie, France (LUGD), tertianship
1841-1845: Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Teaching
1845-1854: Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, Rector, Novice Master
1854-1860: St Stanislaus College, Beaumont, Windsor, Berkshire, England, Rector, Novice Master
1860-1862: St Ignatius College, Hill Street, London, England, Spiritual Father, Curate

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Studied Humanities at Stonyhurst and Maynooth College before Ent

1825-1829 Master at Hodder School until 08 December 1829
1837-1839 Missioner at Norwich, Preston and Pontefract
1840 Tertianship
1845-1860 Master of Novices at Hodder 28 August 1845-September 1860 Succeeded by Alfred Weld
1860 A Preacher at Immaculate Conception London and died at St Ignatius College, London in the presence of the Provincial Father Seed, and the community. His death was edifying, and his last act at the moment of death was to beg a Father standing by to assist him in raising his arm to make the sign of the Cross, being unable to move it himself (Province Register)

Note on Novitiate at Hodder :
By his exertions, the Novitiate was moved from Hodder Place, Stonyhurst to Beaumont Lodge, a noble mansion in the Parish of Old Windsor, purchased in August 1854, and given to the Province by Father Joseph Maxwell. The house was taken possession of by Fathers Clarke and Maxwell, and the compiler of the Collectanea on 04 September 1854.
The Novitiate at Hodder had begun in 1803 at the time of the Restoration of the Society, was closed for a time in 1821 and reopened again in September 1827, moving in 1854 to Beaumont. It moved again in 1861 from Old Windsor to Roehampton, with Fr Weld as Novice Master, and Beaumont becoming St Stanislaus College.

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Note from Edmund Donovan Entry :
Father Donovan entered the Society of Jesus on 07 September 1858 and made his Noviceship at Roehampton, under that distinguished Spiritual Director Father Tracey Clarke SJ.

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
CLARKE, THOMAS Tracy, Father, born in Dublin, July 4, 1802 ; made his humanity studies at Stonyhurst and Maynooth Colleges ; entered the Society at Mont Rouge 1823. From 1825 till December 8, 1829, he was master at Hodder School; September 24, 1836, was ordained Priest at Stonyhurst by Bishop Briggs. In 1877-0. missioner at Norwich, Preston, and Pontefract; and, after his tertianship in 1840, was appointed Professor of History and Librarian at Stonyhurst College. He was professed of the four vows February 2, 1844, and on August 28, 1845, was made Master of Novices at Hodder, and held that important office until September, 1860, when declining health rendered a change necessary, and he was succeeded by Father Alfred Weld. (1) He was subsequently a preacher in the Church of the Immacu late Conception, London, for a short time, and died at the Residence of St. Ignatius College, in Hill Street, London, January 11, 1862, æt. 60, the Provincial, Father Seed, and all the community being present. His death was edifying, and his last act at the moment of death was to beg a Father standing by to assist him in raising his arm to make the sign of the Cross, being unable to move it himself. (Province Register.)

1. By his exertions the Novitiate was removed from Hodder Place, Stonyhurst, to Beaumont Lodgc, a noble mansion in the parish of Old Windsor, purchased in August, 1854, and given to the Province by Father Joseph Maxwell. The house was taken possession of by Fathers Clarke and Maxwell, and the compiler of this Cillatanca, September 4. 1854. The Novitiate at Holder began in 1803, at the time of the restoration of the Society; was closed for a time in 1821, reopened September, 1827, and transferred as above. In the autumn of 1861 it was again removed from Old Windsor to Rochampton, near London, Father Alfred Weld being then Master of Novices, and the present flourishing College of St. Stanislaus succeeded to the Novitiate.

◆ The English Jesuits 1650-1829 Geoffrey Holt SJ : Catholic Record Society 1984
Brother of Malachy and cousin of Thomas
Educated: Stonyhurst 1815-1821; Maynooth 1821-1823
Entered 07/09/1823 Montrouge Paris
1825-1829 Hodder
1830-1836 St Mary’s Hall Philosophy anmd Theology
Ordained: 24/09/1836 Stonyhurst
1837-1838 Norwich
1839 Preston
1839 Pontefract
1840 France Tertianship
1841-1845 Stonyhurst
1845-1854 Hodder Rector
1854-1860 Beaumont Rector
1861 Lonndon

◆ Catholic Record Society, Volume 70, 1981

The English Jesuits, 1650-1829: A Biographical Dictionary

by Geoffrey Holt

Clarke, Thomas Tracy. Priest.
b. July 4th, 1802, Dublin.
br. of Malachy and cousin of Thomas.
e. Stonyhurst 1815-c.21.
Maynooth (phil) 1821-3.
S.J. September 7th, 1823.
Montrouge (nov) 1823-5.
Hodder 1825-9.
St Mary's Hall (phil) and theol) 1830-6.
Ordained priest September 24th, 1836, Stonyhurst.
Norwich 1837-8.
Preston 1838.
Pontefract 1839.
France (tert) 1840.
Stonyhurst 1841-5.
Hodder 1845-54 (Rector).
Beaumont 1854-60 (Rector).
London 1861-2.
d. January 11th, 1862, London. bu. St Thomas' churchyard, Fulham.

(Fo.7; Nec; 113; 114; 115; CG; For writings see Sut).

Born: 24 January 1804, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1823, Montrouge, Paris, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 20 December 1834, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England
Final Vows: 15 August 1841
Died: 02 September 1870, Blackpool, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Cousin of Malachy Ent 1825 and Thomas Tracy RIP 1862 (ANG)

1823-1825: Montrouge, Paris, France (ANG), Novitiate
1825-1826: Abbaye Saint-Acheul, Chaussée Jules Ferry, Amiens, Hauts de France, France (GALL), Philosophy
1826-1832: Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Philosophy, Regency
1832-1834: St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Theology
1834-1841: St Aloysius College SJ, Lancashire, England, Missioner at Gillmoss, Lancashire
1840-1841: Tertianship
1841-1842: St Aloysius College SJ, Lancashire, England, Missioner at Lydiate, Lancashire
1842-1843: Mount St Mary’s College SJ, Derbyshire, England, Rector
1843-1844: Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Provincial Socius from 25/07/1843
1844-1847: St Hugo’s College, Boston, Lincolnshire, England, Missioner at Irnham, Lincolnshire
1845-1847: Missioner at Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England
1847-1848: Missioner at Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England
1848-1850: St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales, Minister, Procurator
1849-1850: Procurator, Missioner
1850-1859: College of the Holy Apostles, Suffolk, England, Missioner at Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England
1859-1866: St Ignatius College, Hill Street, London, Missioner at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England
1866-1867: St Stanislaus College, Beaumont, Windsor, Berkshire, England, , Spiritual Father
1867-1870: St Ignatius College, Hill Street, Berkeley Square, London, England, Missioner at Wardour Castle, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England
1869-1870: Awaiting assignment
1870-1870: St Aloysius College, Lancashire, England, Caring for health at Blackpool

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Early education at Stonyhurst before Ent.

After First Vows, studies at Saint-Acheul, France and Stonyhurst, Regency and Theology at Stonyhurst, he was Ordained there by Bishop Penswick 20 December 1834
1834-1841 He was at the Gilmoss (near Liverpool) Mission
1841-1842 On the Lydiate - near Liverpool - Mission
1842 Appointed Rector of Mount St Mary’s. He left there some time after and served the Missions of Preston, Irnham, Lincoln and Market Rasen for brief periods.
1848-1850 Appointed Minister and procurator at St Beuno’s
1850-1859 On the Market Rasen Mission
1859-1867 On the Tunbridge Wells Mission, which was ceded to the local Bishop in 1867.
1867 He became a Missioner at Wardour Castle, from where, in declining health, he was sent to Blackpool, and he died there 02/09/1870 aged 66.
He was also Socius to the Provincial

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
CLARKE, THOMAS, Father, first cousin of the above, was a native of Dublin, born January 24, 1804 ; made his humanity studies at Stonyhurst College, and entered the Society Scptem ber 7, 1823. After his higher studies at St. Acheul and Stonyhurst Colleges, and performing the duties of Prefect, Master, &c., and studying his theology, he was ordained Priest at Stonyhurst, by Bishop Penswick, December 20, 1834, and was missioner at Gilmoss until January, 1841. Made Spiritual Coadjutor August 15, 1841, and served the Lydiate Mission until December 6, 1842, when he was de clared Rector of Mount St. Mary's College, Spinkhill, county Derby, but left it some time after, and then served the missions of Preston, Irham, Lincoln, and Market Rasen, for more or less brief periods. He was also Socius to the Provincial. In November, 1848, he was appointed Minister and Procurator of St. Beuno's College, near St. Asaph, which he left February 16, 1850. 'Again served the mission of Market Rasen until 1859, and left for Tunbridge Wells, which he served until January, 1867, when that mission was ceded to the Bishop of the diocese. He then became missioner at Wardour Castle, and his health soon declining, was sent to Blackpool, where he died, April 2, 1870, æt. 66. (Province Register.)

◆ Catholic Record Society, Volume 70, 1981

The English Jesuits, 1650-1829: A Biographical Dictionary

by Geoffrey Holt

Clarke, Thomas. Priest.
b. January 24th, 1804, Dublin.
Cousin of Malachy and Thomas Tracy.
e. Stonyhurst 1814-c.20.
S.J. September 7th, 1823.
Montrouge (nov) 1823-5.
St Acheul (phil) 1825-6.
Stonyhurst 1826-32.
St Mary's Hall (theol) 1832-4.
Ordained priest December 20th, 1834,
Stonyhurst. Gillmoss 1834-41.
Hodder (tert) 1841.
Lydiate 1841-42.
Mount St Mary's College 1842-3 (Rector).
Preston 1843.
Socius to the provincial 1843-4.
Irnham 1844-5. Lincoln 1845-7.
Market Rasen 1847-8.
St Beuno's College 1848-50.
Market Rasen c. 1850-9.
Tunbridge Wells 1859-67.
Wardour 1867-70.
Blackpool 1870.
d. September 2nd, 1870, Blackpool, bu. St John's church, Poulton-le-Fylde.

(Fo.7; Nec; CRS.22/198; Gil.5/61; 113; 114; 115).

Born: 19 January 1773, County Offaly
Entered: 01 February 1817, Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare
Final Vows: 08 September 1837, Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare
Died: 24 December 1840, Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare

1817-1819: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Novitiate
1819-1840: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, working

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He took his First Vows at Clongowes 02 February 1819, and Charles Aylmer said the Mass. There were six others with him : Brothers Egan, Nelson, Plunkett, Mulligan, Bennett and Sherlock, all who persevered happily in the Society to the end.

He was for many years land steward at Clongowes. he was a truly edifying religious.

Note from John Nelson Entry :
He took his Final Vows 02 February 1838 along with eleven others, being the first to whom Final Vows were given since the Restoration in Ireland. The others were : Philip Reilly of “Palermo fame”; Nowlan, Cleary, Mulligan, Michael Gallagher, Pexton Sr, Toole, Egan, Ginivan, Patrick Doyle and Plunkett.

Born: 1580, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 16 February 1605, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: c 1609, Rome, Italy
Died: 19 July 1649, Waterford Residence, Waterford City, County Waterford

Alias Clare

Had studied Philosophy and Theology at Irish College Douai before entry
Was the oldest of the Professed Fathers in 1648
Was stationed for a while at the Dublin Residence (his name appears on a book at Carlow College of that residence)
1617 was in Ireland - mentioned in the 1621 and 1622 Catalogue : talented with good judgement, prudence and experience. A pleasing character who might be formed to be a Superior
1649 Superior in Waterford

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
He was a Preacher; The oldest of the Professed Fathers in 1648; Superior at Waterford in 1649; A man of talent

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Studied Rhetoric at Irish College Lisbon before, then Philosophy at Douai before Ent 1605 Rome
After First Vows completed his studies probably in Rome, and was ordained by the time he returned to Portugal 1609
1609 Returns to Portugal
1611-1616 Sent by the General to Irish College Lisbon as Prefect of Studies to replace Robert Bathe. In his letter to the Portuguese Provincial he said “I have seen such reports of Fr Cleere’s prudence, mature judgement and learning, that I trust the Irish College will not suffer by the change of Fr Bathe”
1613 Sent to Ireland and to Waterford Residence and worked there, Cork and the rest of Munster
1642-1649 Appointed Superior at Waterford Residence (1642-1647) and was Acting Superior of the Mission awaiting the new Mission Superior (1647-1648). In 1649 he was again appointed Superior of the Waterford Residence and died in Office19 July 1649

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Edmund Cleere (Clare) 1580-1649
Fr Edmund Cleere was a Waterford man.

Fr Holywood, writing on June 30th 1604 says : “I left behind me in Paris studying theology Mr Edmund Cleere”

As a priest Fr Cleere worked in Waterford and was Superior of our House there for many years. In 1648, Bishop Comerford of Waterford presented a memorial to the Nuncio beggin a revocation of the censures. Among the signatories was Edmund Cleere together with John Gough, William McGrath and Andrew Sall, all of the Society.

When the Visitor Fr Verdier visited Waterford, he found Fr Cleere almost superannuated. He died shortly afterwards in Waterford on July 19th 1649.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CLARE, EDWARD, of Waterford. The first time that he comes across me is in a letter of F. Holywood, dated the 30th of June, 1604, in which he says, “I left behind at Paris studying Theology, Mr. Edward Clare”. For many years he was Superior of his Brethren at Waterford; and when F. Verdier visited him, he found him almost superannuated. I learn from F. William Malone’s letter, dated Galway, the 2nd of August, 1649, that F. Clare, the most ancient of the Professed in the Mission, died at Waterford on the preceding 19th of July, “dierum et meritorum plenus”.
N.B. Anthony Wood and his copyists, Harris and Dodd, evidently confound this Father with his contemporary, F. John Clare. Had they turned to the conclusion of F. John Clare’s admirable work, The Converted Jew, they would find that he expressly calls himself an English Pryest.

Born: 20 September 1624, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 02 July 1640, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1650, Valladolid, Spain
Final Vows: 14 April 1659
Died: 26 November 1682, Waterford Residence, Waterford City, County Waterford

Alias Clare

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Was a student with Andrew Sall and Andrew Lincoln (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)
Writer; Prisoner
1660 came to Ireland and was working in Waterford 1660-1666, where he revived the BVM Sodality, administered the Sacraments, was a preacher and for a while in prison (Foley’s Collectanea) (HIB Catalogue 1666 - ARSI)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows and Regency is CAST Colleges he studied at St Ambrose Valladolid where he was Ordained 1650.
Then sent to teach Humanities and as Minister at San Sebastián,
1658-1660 Sent for two years as Prefect of Studies at Irish College Poitiers
1660 Sent to Ireland and sent to Waterford Residence
1670-1676 Superior Waterford Residence. There he restored Sodality of the Blessed Virgin which had ceased to function during the “Commonwealth”
During the Titus Oates Plot a summons was issued for his arrest but was not acted upon as he was ill at the time. Died sometime before 1684

Born: 29 January 1828, Mullingar, County Westmeath
Entered: 16 October 1857, St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 15 August 1868
Died: St Mary’s College, St Mary’s KS, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

1857-1859: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA (MIS), Novitiate
1859-1860: St Gall’s Church, West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, Cook
1860-1863: St Francis de Geronimo, Osage, Neosho, Kansas, USA, working
1863-1865: Manresa Villa Residence, St Louis University, Grand Boulevard, St Louis, MO, USA, Cook
1865-1866: St Gall’s Church, Sycamore Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, USA, Cook
1866-1870: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA, working
1870-1879: St Mary’s Mission, Pottowattomie, KS, USA, working
1879-1881: St Ignatiuis College SJ, Chicago IL, USA, working
1881-1892: St Mary’s College, St Mary’s KS, USA, working
1892-1893: Sacred Heart Church, Nineteenth Street, Chicago IL, USA, working
1893-1894: St Mary’s College, St Mary’s KS, USA, working

Born: 06 January 1657, Ireland
Entered: 24 September 1674, Toulouse, France - Tolosanae Province (TOLO)
Ordained: 1687. Tournon-sur-Rhône, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1691
Died: 21 November 1720, Tournon-sur-Rhône, France - Tolosanae Province (TOLO)

1686 was in TOLO and asked for in Irish Mission
1690-1691 at Irish College in Poitiers

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Was in TOLO in 1686, and asked for in the Irish Home Mission (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan Sj :
1676-1684 After First Vows studied Philosophy for 2 years at Toulouse and then six years Regency at Billom College.
1684-1687 He resumed Philosophy at Rodez and then to Tournon for Theology where he was Ordained 1687
His abilities were much sought after in TOLO and Irish Mission and the Mission Superior requested he be sent to Ireland because there was thought to be great opportunities for the Mission to expand during the reign of James II, especially in the area of education, but ill health prevented that, and some evidence for this is that the General allowed him to do a very short Tertianship, which he made (1690-1691) at Irish College Poitiers
1691-1697 He returned to TOLO and held a Chair in Philosophy successively at Carcassone, Albi and Le Puy
1697 He was sent as Professor of Philosophy and Prefect of Studies for Scholastics to Tournon, and he remained for 23 years there, also exercising ministry in the Church attached to the College at and he died at Tournon 21 November 1720.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CLERY, FERDINAND, was certainly in the Thoulouse Province in the Spring of 1686. His services were then petitioned for in Ireland. Probably he came over, and in the Revolutionary storm was driven back to the Continent.

Born: 30 April 1668, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 11 April 1696, Lyons, France - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)
Ordained: 1703/04, Avignon, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1713
Died: 06 August 1757, County Kildare

Alias Wilis

Studied 3 years Philosophy and 4 years Theology in Society
Taught Grammar for 4 years
“Pious and gentle, though bred to arms. Loves obedience and poverty and favourite of everyone. Hard worker”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
A former Captain in Sir Maurice Eustance’s Foot (cf D’Alton’s King James Amy List - Is very pious, and though a Captain, (Dux), and in warfare from his youth, is very gentle. He works hard, and does not much fear dangers. )
1708 Came to Ireland (HIB Catalogues)
In 1752 he is said to have been thirty years in Kildare, in the house of some gentleman (nobilis) to the great edification of all the household and neighbours ( cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
He had a military career before Ent 12 April 1696 at Lyons
After First Vows he studied at Lyons and Avignon and was Ordained at Avignon 1704
When he had finished studies and formation he engaged in Missionary work in France.
1708/09 Sent to Ireland and was to the Dublin Residence. He worked mostly in Kill, Co Kildare where he lived at the house of a nobleman, teaching, Catechising and Preaching in the local area.
He was a consultor of the Mission and was himself often proposed for the post of Mission Superior or as Rector of Irish College Poitiers, but always pleaded poor health in excuse for declining the office. He lived, however, to an advanced age
He died 6 August, 1757 in Kildare (though the sources also mention Dublin as the place of his death)

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father James Church (Clinch) 1664-1757
Fr James Church or Clinch was born according to some in Limerick, to others in Meath, in 1664. He became a Jesuit in 1695, returning to Ireland in 1703. He was solemly professed in 1713.

The last thirty years of his life he spent as a Domestic Chaplain to a family in County Kildare. He died on August 6th 1757, aged 93 years, of which 61 were spent in the Society.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CLINCH, JAMES. This Patriarch of his Brethren was born in Leinster, and embraced the rule of St. Ignatius at Lyons, on the 12th of April, 1696. He came to the Irish Mission in 1708, and made his solemn Vows, on the 15th of August, 1713. The last thirty years of his life he spent as domestic Chaplain to a family in Co. Kildare. His death took place on the 6th of August, 1757, aet. 92. Soc. 61.

Born: 03 July 1901, Lansdowne Road, Dublin City / North Strand, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 01 September 1919, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 14 June 1932, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1935, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 29 October 1985, Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park, Dublin

Part of St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly community at time of his death.

Father was a country Inspector with the RIC. Mother died in 1918.

Second eldest of four sons and has two sisters.

Educated at initially up to age 10 by a governess and then at Crescent College SJ

1919-1921: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate
1921-1922: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Rhetoric
1922-1925: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Philosophy
1925-1928: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Regency
1928-1929: St Ignatius College SJ, Riverview, Cove Lane, Sydney NSW, Australia, Regency
1929-1933: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1933-1934: St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales (ANG), Tertianship
1934-1935: Catholic Mission, Ngau-Pei-Lan, Shiuhing (Zhaoqing), Guandong, China (LUS) language studies
1935-1936: Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong, Minister, Teaching, studying language
1936-1938: Wah Yan College SJ, Robinson Road, Hong Kong, Teaching and language studies
1938-1939: Loyola, Taai Lam Chung, Un Long, Hong Kong, Studying language
1939-1942: Wah Yan College SJ, Robinson Road, Hong Kong, Teaching
1942-1944: Catholic Mission , Kweilin (Guilin), Kwangsi Province, China, working
1944-1945: Xavier University, Park Street, Calcutta, West Bengal, India (BEL M), working
1945-1947: Bishop's House, Yensing Road, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India (BEL M), working
1947-1948: Sacred Heart Church, Bradshaw Row, Accrington, Lancashire, England (ANG) , Curate
1948-1954: St Joseph’s Church, Mather Lane, Leigh, Lancashire, England (ANG), Curate
1954-1977: St Francis Xavier, Salisbury Street, Liverpool, Lancashire, England (ANG), Curate
1977-1985: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Curate and Spiritual Exercises

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives

Father Harold Craig, SJ
R.I.P.

Father Harold Craig, S.J., died in Ireland on 31 October 1985, aged 84.

He worked in Hong Kong, mainly as a teacher in Wah Yan College, until 1941. After the Japanese occupation he went to India, flying the hazardous route then known as ‘across the Hump.’ He worked in India till after the end of the war. He then worked in parishes in Lancashire, England, for over a quarter of a century. About a decade ago he transferred to a rural parish in the Irish midlands, and did not give up this work there till after his 83 birthday. His retirement lasted less than three months.

Few people in Hong Kong will remember Father Craig after a gap of over forty years, but that few will remember him vividly. He was original in thought, word and action. Such men are not easily forgotten.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 8 November 1985

Born: 18 January 1859, Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia
Entered: 12 November 1886, Xavier Melbourne, Australia
Ordained: 1898
Final Vows: 15 August 1906, St Mary’s, Miller Street, Sydney, Australia
Died: 12 September 1931, St Francis Xavier, Lavender Bay, North Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

1886-1888: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (HIB), Novitiate
1888-1892: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Regency
1892-1895: Maison Saint-Louis, St Hélier, Jersey, Channel Islands (FRA), Philosophy
1895-1896: Ignatius-Colleg, Valkenburg aan de Geul, Limburg, Netherlands (GER I), Theology
1896-1899: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1899-1900: Oude Abdij, Drongen, Belgium (BELG), Tertianship
1900-1901: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Minister, Prefect of Church
1901-1903: St Aloysius College SJ, Bourke Street, Sydney NSW, Australia, Minister and Bursar
1903-1905: St Ignatius College SJ, Riverview, Cove Lane, Sydney NSW, Australia, Minister, Bursar, Prefect of Church, Teaching
1905-1908: St Aloysius College SJ, Milson’s Point, Sydney NSW, Australia, Teaching
1908-1916: Manresa, William Street, Norwood, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, Librarian, Catechetics, Director of “Hibernians” and “Literary Society”; Minister from 1913; Superior from 22/08/1915
1916-1919: St Ignatius Church, Church Road, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Curate; Minister and Mission Procurator from 1917
1919-1931: St Francis Xavier, MacKenzie Street, Lavender Bay, Sydney NSW, Australia, Curate (ASL from 1931)

◆ 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 St Patrick’s College Melbourne, and he then spent thirteen years as an accountant in a bank, before he entered at Xavier College Kew.

1888-1890 After his First Vows and Juniorate he was sent to Xavier College Kew for two years Regency.
1890-1892 He spent a further two years Regency at St Ignatius College Riverview.
1892-1895 He was sent to Hersey, Channel Islands for Philosophy
1895-1899 He was then sent for Theology to Milltown Park Dublin and Valkenburg Netherlands
1899-1900 He made Tertianship at Drongen.
1900-1901 He was made Minister at Milltown Park Theologate Dublin.
1901-1902 He returned to Australia and was sent teaching at St Aloysius College Milsons Point
1903-1905 He was sent teaching at St Ignatius College Riverview
1905-1908 he was back teaching at St Aloysius College. While in Sydney he frequently lectured in the “Domain”.
1908-1916 he was sent to the Norwood Parish, with the last two years as Superior and Parish Priest.
1916-1919 His health had broken down so he went to St Ignatius Richmond
1919-1931 He was sent to the Lavender Bay Parish.

He was a fairly portly man who had great devotion to the liturgy. He read widely, especially in Philosophy and Theology. He was also a controversialist, able to defend truth vigorously. He was known to be a man devoted to the ordinary duties placed on him.

Note from Dominic Connell Entry :
He was sent mid year to Manresa Norwood to replace Henry Cock. This resulted in a major drama when the Rector of St Aloysius, Patrick McCurtin, resigned in protest, claiming that Dominic was his only good Jesuit teacher

◆ Irish Province News 7th Year No 1 1932
Obituary :
Fr Henry Cock

Born in Melbourne 18 January 1859, educated at St. Patrick's, and Melbourne University, Fr. Henry Cock entered the Society 12 Nov. 1886 at Xavier College, Kew. (In that year the Australian Novitiate had been transferred from Richmond to Xavier, Fr. Sturzo still remaining Superior of the Mission and Master of Novices). He was 28 years of age when he entered having been engaged in accountancy for 13 years. Noviceship over, he remained for a year's Rhetoric, at Xavier, and also for a second year, but this time his private studies were varied by a certain amount of prefecting. Then he was changed to Riverview. Here he spent two years as Master and Prefect before starting for Jersey where he made his philosophy. Theology immediately followed, the first year at Valkenburg, and the last three at Milltown Park. After Tertianship at Tronchiennes he was Minister for a year at Milltown, and started for Australia in 1901.
In Australia he saw service, in varied forms, at Bourke St., Loyola, Milson's Point, Norwood, and Richmond. During that period, extending over 18 years, he was Minister for 7 years, and for one year Superior at Norwood. In 1919 he went to Lavender Bay as Operarius, where he remained until his death. Amongst his many duties he was “Exan. neo-sacerd, Adj
Jesuit Direct., Cens. Lib., Consul. Miss. Syd”.
He died at Lavender Bay, 12 Sept. 1931. RIP

Born: County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1807, Hodder, Stonyhurst, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Died: 14 October 1810, Palermo, Italy

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
This pious Scholastic “was beloved by all, died most placidly the death of the just, and wore in death the same amiable expression which he had in life” (Provincial Zuñiga to Father Plowden)

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He went together with Messers Aylmer, Esmonde, St Leger, Ferley and Butler to Palermo to make their noviceship, as appears from a letter of Father Sewall SJ 07 July 1809 Stonyhurst. There is an interesting letter of his in the Irish Archives, written from Palermo to Master Robert Haly (afterwards Father), then a boy at Hodder, Stonyhurst

◆ Fr Joseph McDonnell SJ Past and Present Notes :
16th February 1811 At the advance ages of 73, Father Betagh, PP of the St Michael Rosemary Lane Parish Dublin, Vicar General of the Dublin Archdiocese died. His death was looked upon as almost a national calamity. Shops and businesses were closed on the day of his funeral. His name and qualities were on the lips of everyone. He was an ex-Jesuit, the link between the Old and New Society in Ireland.

Among his many works was the foundation of two schools for boys : one a Classical school in Sall’s Court, the other a Night School in Skinner’s Row. One pupil received particular care - Peter Kenney - as he believed there might be great things to come from him in the future. “I have not long to be with you, but never fear, I’m rearing up a cock that will crow louder and sweeter for yopu than I ever did” he told his parishioners. Peter Kenney was to be “founder” of the restored Society in Ireland.

There were seventeen Jesuits in Ireland at the Suppression : John Ward, Clement Kelly, Edward Keating, John St Leger, Nicholas Barron, John Austin, Peter Berrill, James Moroney, Michael Cawood, Michael Fitzgerald, John Fullam, Paul Power, John Barron, Joseph O’Halloran, James Mulcaile, Richard O’Callaghan and Thomas Betagh. These men believed in the future restoration, and they husbanded their resources and succeeded in handing down to their successors a considerable sum of money, which had been saved by them.

A letter from the Acting General Father Thaddeus Brezozowski, dated St Petersburg 14/06/1806 was addressed to the only two survivors, Betagh and O’Callaghan. He thanked them for their work and their union with those in Russia, and suggested that the restoration was close at hand.

A letter from Nicholas Sewell, dated Stonyhurst 07/07/1809 to Betagh gives details of Irishmen being sent to Sicily for studies : Bartholomew Esmonde, Paul Ferley, Charles Aylmer, Robert St Leger, Edmund Cogan and James Butler. Peter Kenney and Matthew Gahan had preceded them. These were the foundation stones of the Restored Society.

Returning to Ireland, Kenney, Gahan and John Ryan took residence at No3 George’s Hill. Two years later, with the monies saved for them, Kenney bought Clongowes as a College for boys and a House of Studies for Jesuits. From a diary fragment of Aylmer, we learn that Kenney was Superior of the Irish Mission and Prefect of Studies, Aylmer was Minister, Claude Jautard, a survivor of the old Society in France was Spiritual Father, Butler was Professor of Moral and Dogmatic Theology, Ferley was professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Esmonde was Superior of Scholastics and they were joined by St Leger and William Dinan. Gahan was described as a Missioner at Francis St Dublin and Confessor to the Poor Clares and irish Sisters of Charity at Harold’s Cross and Summerhill. Ryan was a Missioner in St Paul’s, Arran Quay, Dublin. Among the Scholastics, Brothers and Masters were : Brothers Fraser, Levins, Connor, Bracken, Sherlock, Moran, Mullen and McGlade.

Trouble was not long coming. Protestants were upset that the Jesuits were in Ireland and sent a petition was sent to Parliament, suggesting that the Vow of Obedience to the Pope meant they could not have an Oath of Allegiance to the King. In addition, the expulsion of Jesuits from all of Europe had been a good thing. Kenney’s influence and diplomatic skills resulted in gaining support from Protestants in the locality of Clongowes, and a counter petition was presented by the Duke of Leinster on behalf of the Jesuits. This moment passed, but anto Jesuit feelings were mounting, such as in the Orange faction, and they managed to get an enquiry into the Jesuits and Peter Kenney and they appeared before the Irish Chief Secretary and Provy Council. Peter Kenney’s persuasive and oratorical skills won the day and the enquiry group said they were satisfied and impressed.

Over the years the Mission grew into a Province with Joseph Lentaigne as first Provincial in 1860. In 1885 the first outward undertaking was the setting up of an Irish Mission to Australia by Lentaigne and William Kelly, and this Mission grew exponentially from very humble beginnings.

Later the performance of the Jesuits in managing UCD with little or no money, and then outperforming what were known as the “Queen’s Colleges” forced the issue of injustice against Catholics in Ireland in the matter of University education. It is William Delaney who headed up the effort and create the National University of Ireland under endowment from the Government.from the Government.

A letter from Nicholas Sewell, dated Stonyhurst 07 July 1809 to Betagh gives details of Irishmen being sent to Sicily for studies : Bartholomew Esmonde, Paul Ferley, Charles Aylmer, Robert St Leger, Edmund Cogan and James Butler. Peter Kenney and Matthew Gahan had preceded them. These were the foundation stones of the Restored Society.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
COGAN, EDMUND. This devout Irish Scholastic died at Palermo of a putrid fever, on the 14th of October 1810

Born: 22 December 1813, County Offaly
Entered: 21 October 1844, St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Died: 07 April 1854, St Francis de Geronimo, Osage, Neosho, Kansas, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

1844-1846: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA (MIS), Novitiate
1846-1847: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA, working
1847-1854: St Francis de Geronimo, Osage, Neosho, Kansas, USA, cook and working

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 19, Number 1

Obituary

“Br Thomas Coghlen SJ” p119

Br Thomas Coghlen, an Irishman by birth, was one of the first three brothers who came to Osage Mission with Father John Schoenmakers in I847. He was ad domcstica, that is to say, he had to do all kinds of work around the house. He served the community with great charity, and had an extraordinary patience in dealing with Indian children. His health was not very good, but he would never complain, nor ask for any exemption from the common life. At last he had to give up. His sickness was long, during which he frequently spoke of the happiness which, through the mercy of God, he expected in heaven. Strengthened with the last sacraments, he slept in the Lord, on the 7th of April, I854, being then forty years old; of these he had lived nine years and six months in our Society.

Born: 21 August 1707, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 15 March 1726, Novellara, Italy - Venetae Province (VEM)
Ordained: 1741, Rome, Italy
Final Vows: 15 August 1743
Died: 15 December 1772, Dublin Residence, Dublin City, County Dublin

Left Irish College Rome for Novellara with Captain Harvey of the Irish Guard at Ravenna - then Entered Venetian Province 15 March 1726

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1931 Taught Logic at Parma (in pen)
1741 Sent to Ireland
1752-1755 Assisting a PP in Dublin
1772 Director or Confessor of the Poor Clares in Dublin

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Educated at the Jesuit school in Dublin and Dr John Harold’s Academy before Ent 15 March 1726 Novarella
After First Vows he spent a short Regency at Carpi and then studied Philosophy at Piacenza. He was then sent back to Regency, also at Piacenza. He studied Theology at the Roman College and was Ordained in 1741.
1743/44 Tertianship (VEM)
1744 Sent to Ireland and to the Dublin Residence. He worked in the chapel of Dirty Lane (ancestor of St. Catherine's Parish Church, Meath Street) and was also Spiritual Director to the Poor Clares.
He died in Dublin Residence 15 December 1772

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
COLGAN, PATRICK, was born in Dublin, on the 16th of March, 1706, and joined the Society in the Venetian Province, on the 11th of January, 1725. He came on the Irish Mission in 1741, and was Professed on the 2nd of February, 1752, at Dublin, where he was assisting a Parish Priest. I meet with him three years later, after which he escapes my observation.

Born: 04 March 1699, St Germain en Laye, France
Entered: 27 December 1718, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Final Vows: 15 August 1729
Died: 20 May 1733, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)

His father Cornelius Collens was a “pensionnaire du Roy Angleterre”. His mother’s name was “Nerne Scotch (Écossaise)”
Was a hairdresser for about 8 years before entry. Received at Douai by Père Quarré - both parents were deceased on entry.

Born: 10 June 1887, Mountjoy Square, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 February 1907, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 15 August 1920, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1924, Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick
Died: 06 April 1951, Dublin City, County Dublin

Part of St Mary's community, Emo, County Laois at time of his death

Father was a sheep and cattle salesman and he died in 1888. Mother is still living and lives at Westbrook, Rathnew, County Wicklow.

Youngest of six sons and has two sisters.

Early education at a convent school in Athlone he went to a college of the Josephite Fathers in Melle, near Ghent , Belgium, and then returned home for private instruction. He then went to the Eastern Telegraph Company, Electra House, Moorgate, London for six months. He returned home and went to Clongowes Wood College to gain a matric.

1907-1909: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate
1909-1910: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Rhetoric
1910-1911: Sint Jan Berchmans, Rue des Récollets, Leuven, Belgium (BELG), Philosophy
1911-1913: St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG), Philosophy
1913-1915: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Regency
1915-1916: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1916-1918: Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick, Regency
1918-1922: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1922-1923: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Tertianship
1923-1933: Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick, Teaching at Apostolic School
1933-1943: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Teaching
1943-1951: St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois, Spiritual Father

◆ Irish Province News 26th Year No 3 1951

Obituary :

Fr Frederick Cuffe

Fr. Cuffe was born in Dublin on June 10th, 1887. He was educated in the College of the Josephite Fathers, Ghent, Belgium, and at Clongowes. He entered the Society in 1907, and after his Juniorate, studied philosophy at Louvain and St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst. As a scholastic he taught in Clongowes, Belvedere and Mungret, besides being Third Line Prefect in Clongowes and Third Club Prefect in Mungret. He studied theology at Milltown Park, where he was ordained in 1920. After his Tertianship at Tullabeg (1922-23), he was appointed Vice-Superior in the Apostolic School, Mungret, a post which he held until 1933. He was then transferred to Clongowes where, in addition to his duties as master, he had charge of the People's Church. In 1943 he was appointed Spiritual Father at St. Mary's, Emo.

During the last few years of his life he suffered from heart trouble, which steadily became more acute. Shortly before Easter of the present year he went to stay with his family at Rathnew, Co. Wicklow, where, it was hoped, a period of complete rest and quiet would revive his fast-ebbing strength, But he was soon attacked with congestion of the lungs. His case became so serious that he was transferred to a nursing home in Leeson St., Dublin, where, fortified with the rites of the Church, he peacefully died at about 7 p.m. on Friday, April 6th.
Fr. Cuffe's personality and character, simple, straightforward, honest, devout, answered in a striking manner to the description of “the just man” in Holy Scripture. For him life had no brain-bewildering, heart-aching problems, but was a plain matter-of-fact business of ordinary duties to be faithfully performed day in day out. Be was of a courteous, cheerful disposition, a pleasant companion to live with, free from every trace of moodiness or low spirits, scrupulously exact in doing the work assigned to him, and ever ready to help in times of stress and strain. He was easily disturbed, it is true, when things went wrong, but impatience was but a passing “shadow of annoyance”, swiftly fleeting across the sunny landscape of his spirit. He was, indeed, incapable of deep and enduring resentment, and I doubt if he ever said a hard word about any of his brethren.

His religious life was cast in the same mould. Upon the deep spiritual foundation laid down by him in the noviceship, he raised the solid structure of his holy life as a Jesuit. The performance of his spiritual exercises, observance of rule, progress in virtue, he never failed to regard as duties of strict obligation, which he fulfilled with edifying exactitude. During the last few months of his life on earth, when physical debility rendered him incapable of even the lighest work, he was most assiduous in prayer, with the rosary or Dolour beads constantly in his hands. Death came to him peacefully; and I can well believe that he answered the Master's call with unruffled tranquility, as though it were part of the da:y's routine.
To simple-hearted, faithful servants such as Fr. “Freddy” Cuffe Our Lord Himself gives testimony : “Of such is the Kingdom of God”.

◆ The Clongownian, 1951

Obituary

Father Frederick Cuffe SJ

The news of the death of Father Fred Cuffe early in April will come as a sur prise and a shock to all Old Clongownians who knew him either as a boy in the college or as an enthusiastic and energetic professor of the French language. One who knew him intimately for a quarter of a century finds it difficult to imagine any part of his life not characterised by this enthusiasm and energy. Over that considerable period one could not, on the closest observation, discover the slighest change in the principles that guided his every action, little or great. These principles were founded on a deep appreciation of the supernatural; for Fr Cuffe was above all a man of God possessed of a self-belittling humility that was never scandalised, and consequently souls were drawn to him as iron to the magnet. People who had met him only casually frequently and affectionately asked for him. Past pupils home on holidays from their labour's as priests in the far-flung mission fields of South Africa and Australia went out of their way to visit Fr Cuffe at Clongowes. His fervent sermons from the altar of the People's Church are still recalled; likewise his tender and untiring care and solicitude for the sick of the locality.

But the strongest of constitutions could not indefinitely withstand the demands of his unbounded energy and enthusiasm for God's work. Some eight years ago saw him struck down by an illness that forced him to retire from his work in Clongowes. That was doubtless a great blow to a man of such supernatural ambitions as Fr Cuffe; but here, too, the character of the man of God was apparent. Never once was he heard to murmur a word of complaint though he inust certainly have regretted that he no longer possessed his former energy to spend in the service of the well beloved Master. A cold developed while attending the Easter ceremonies in the parish church brought on a severe attack of pneumonia, which he was not strong enough to resist, and Fr Cuffe passed to a well-deserved reward. RIP

The Irish Province of the Society of Jesus is the poorer for his loss. To his brothers and sister we tender our deepest sympathy in their bereavement.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1951

Obituary

Father Frederick Cuffe SJ

It is with deep sadness that we chronicle the death of Father Frederick Cuffe, Vice-Superior of the Apostolic School (1923-'33). Though Father Cuffe has been in poor health for a number of years, bis last illness was short. On April 5th he was taken suddenly ill and died the following day in a Dublin hospital.

Father Cuffe's connection with Mungret goes back to 1917 when he came here as a Scholastic. Having himself been educated in Belgium, he was well grounded in the French language, and consequently his two years' teaching was very fruitful in its results. After his ordination in 1923; Father Cuffe returned to Mungret as Vice-Superior of the Apostolic School, Again he showed himself as a skilled and highly efficient teacher of French, but his main work lay in a different sphere. As an upholder of the highest ideals, Father Cuffe is principally remembered by the students of this time who passed under his care. Thoughtfulness, gentle ness with firmness, piety, strength of character, a great devotion to the Sacred Heart and Our Lady were the virtues that he inspired in those whom he helped to form both by word and his own example; for Father Cuffe was above all other things a saintly priest. A grotto to the Sacred Heart in the Apostolic playground bears witness to his efforts to adorn the college. The boys who passed through his hands in Mungret can each testify to his special interest in them, for he never failed to write to each of his old alumni on the occasion of their ordination, and later, when he was at Clongowes and Emo Park, was constantly inquiring about the Past whom he had known.

Two years ago we were glad to have a visit from him. It was apparent then that he was not in good health. Yet he bore his suffering with his accustomed cheerful spirit. We offer our sincere sympathy to his brother George, who was a student here, to Colonel Cuffe, DSO, and to his sisters. RIP

Born: 08 October 1566, Youghal, County Cork
Entered: 08 December 1598, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (CAST)
Died: 31 October 1602, Youghal, County Cork (Hanged Drawn and Quartered - Martyr)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica” :
He was Chief of the Clan-Colan; Commander of heavy cavalry in France; Captain of Corunna Port; Hanged Drawn and Quartered for the Catholic Faith
(cf IbIg pp89, 102, and which includes also a complete copy of Carew’s examination - 09/07/1602 - of Collins at Dunboy; Tanner’s “Martyr SJ”; Drew’s “Fasti”; IER September 1874))
Parents were a “high family” who owned the property of Labrouche (in France??). His family name was O’Callan, but he changed for humility’s sake to Collins
Age 22 entered the military profession in Europe, spending five years in the French and seven in the Spanish service. He began at Nantes for three years, then he became a dragoon with the League, for eight or nine years, then went to Spain where the King gave him a pension of twenty-five crowns per month.
About a year after he arrived in Spain, he met Fr Thomas White, Rector of Salamanca, and by his advice entered the Society. Two of his fellow novices were Richard Walsh and John Lee He Entered at Santiago de Compostela where had spent two months following an attack of the plague. After First Vows he was sent to Ireland as a companion to James Archer, who was a Chaplain to the Spanish invading force sent by Philip III of Spain. He was taken prisoner and rejected the overtures to reject his faith he was hanged (at Cork or Youghal).
Captain Slingsby, in a report of the taking of Dunboy Castle, July 1602 says “We gained the top of the vault and all the Castle upwards, and place our colours on the height thereof; the whole remainder of the war-men, being seventy-seven men, were constrained to retire into the cellars, into which we , having no descent but by a straight winding stone stairs, they defended themselves against us, and thereupon, upon promise of their lives, they offered to come forth, but not to stand to mercy; notwithstanding, immediately after, a friar, born in Youghal, Dominic Collins who had been brought up in the wars in France, and there, under the League, had been a Commander of Horse in Brittany, by them called Captain de la Broche, came forth and simply rendered himself.” (Carew, Irish State Papers, 1602, Public records Office, London). Carew to the Privy Council letter of 13 July 1602 says “In my journal sent into your Lordships by the Earl of Thomond, I mentioned three prisoners of the ward of Dunboyne (sic) which for a time I respited...the third called Dominic Collins, whom I find more open hearted than the rest (and whose examination I send enclosed) the which, although it does not merit any great favour, ye because he hath so long education in France and Spain, and that it may be that your Lordships heretofore, by some other examination, have had some knowledge of him whereby some benefit to the State may be made, I respite his execution till your further pleasure be signified unto me”

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of John and Felicity O Dril ( O’Driscol or Ó Duala)
He emigrated to France in 1586 he served as a soldier under Philip Emmanuel of Lorraine who soon promoted him commander of cavalry. In 1594/95 he served in the Spanish Army until 1598 - he was with the Spanish Fleet off Portugal in March, 1597 - before Ent 08 December 1598 Compostella
1602 After First Vows on 04 February 1601 he was chosen as companion to James Archer then about to return to Ireland. Dominic sailed there in the Spanish fleet in 1602. He was in the fort of Dunboy during the siege, not as a combatant but occupied with the spiritual and corporal needs of the besieged who eventually chose him to treat for terms with the English. Taken prisoner, he was offered liberty on condition of renouncing his faith and swearing allegiance to Elizabeth 1. He was hanged at Cork, 29 October, 1602, apparently without due form of trial. From the time of his death, Brother Dominic was regarded as a true martyr for the Faith. His cause for beatification is before the Holy See. (NB All contemporary accounts state that he suffered at Cork. The story that he was martyred at Youghal is of a much later date. Details of his execution such as disembowelling and quartering are also found only in later sources).

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Collins, Dominic
by David Murphy

Collins, Dominic (c.1566–1602), soldier, Jesuit, and martyr, was born in Youghal, Co. Cork, son of John Collins, previously mayor of Youghal, and Felicity Collins (née O'Dril or O'Duala). In the aftermath of the passing of the acts of supremacy and uniformity (1560) he was born at a time of increasing religious tension, as the population of his home town was being put under considerable pressure to convert to protestantism. As a child he witnessed the failed rebellion of James fitz Maurice Fitzgerald (qv) in 1579 and it is possible that he attended the Jesuit school run by Fr Goode, and later by Fr Rochford and Fr Lea, in Youghal.

Deciding on a military career on the Continent, he left Ireland in 1586 and travelled to France. He initially lived in Nantes, where he worked in an inn and, when he had accumulated some money, joined the army. Enlisting in the army of Philip Emmanuel de Vaudemont, duke of Mercoeur, he fought with the Catholic League against the huguenots in Brittany, serving for nine years and reaching the rank of captain of cavalry. He captured the chateau of Lapena in Brittany from the huguenots and was appointed by Mercoeur as its military governor. In March 1598 Mercoeur agreed terms with Henry of Navarre and Collins left the service, handing over Lapena to the Spanish general Don Juan del Aguila (qv). He moved to Spain, where he met an Irish Jesuit, Fr Thomas White (qv), at Corunna and, experiencing a change of heart of truly Ignatian proportions, he applied to enter the Society of Jesus. Due to his age and previous career, he was initially refused but was finally accepted as a brother-novice at the Jesuit College at Santiago de Compostela in late 1598. The records of the college for 1601 note that he entered in 1598, was of distinguished parentage, had been a captain of cavalry, and was past 32 years of age. In February 1601 he made his first religious profession and seven months later was appointed by his superiors to join the Irish mission, as Fr James Archer (qv) had specifically asked for him, perhaps due to his previous military experience and also his Spanish contacts.

Archer had been described by Sir George Carew (qv), president of Munster, as ‘a chief stirrer of the coals of war’ (Morrissey, Studies, 318) and was being constantly sought out by government agents. Collins's association with him was to prove dangerous. He sailed with the Spanish expedition to Ireland on 3 September 1601, one of the commanders being Don Juan del Aguila, to whom Collins had surrendered Lapena in 1598. The flotilla with which he travelled arrived late at Castlehaven due to bad weather. After the defeat of the Irish and Spanish forces at Kinsale, Collins finally met Archer in February 1602 at the castle of Gortnacloghy, near Castlehaven. When English reinforcements arrived in June 1602 he was in the party of Captain McGeoghan, which retreated to Dunboy castle. They endured a long siege, which ended on 22 June, and there is some suggestion that Collins was taken prisoner when he made an attempt to negotiate with the besiegers. When the castle finally fell, the remaining members of the garrison were immediately executed and he was one of only three prisoners taken.

He was brought to Cork, where he was imprisoned and interrogated. Tried by court martial, he was sentenced to death, the court finding that due to his arrival with the Spaniards, his association with Archer, and his presence at Dunboy he was a traitor and his life forfeit. He was not executed immediately, however, as his captors urged him to recant his religion, provide information, and also enter into their service. He steadfastly refused and in October 1602 was taken to his hometown of Youghal for execution. On 31 October he was taken to the scaffold and in a last statement exhorted the assembled crowd to remain true to their faith. Before he finished his statement, he was pushed from the ladder and hanged. It is believed that his body was taken away that night by some local people and buried secretly.

It was clear from Collins's attitude and final words that he was convinced that he was being persecuted for his religious beliefs. Carew's account of Collins's statements under interrogation support this and this fact became crucial in his cause for beatification. The Society of Jesus immediately accepted that he had been martyred, and his status as a martyr was soon generally accepted by catholics across Europe. Some miracles were later attributed to him. In 1619 David Rothe (qv), vice-primate of Ireland and later bishop of Ossory, included details of Collins's life in his De processu martyriali quodundam fidei pugilum in Hibernia, and during the next two centuries there were continued efforts to have Collins beatified. In the nineteenth century, Patrick Francis Moran (qv), vice-rector of the Irish College in Rome, promoted Collins's cause and those of the other Irish martyrs. Archbishop William Walsh (qv) of Dublin further promoted the cause, and in 1917 the apostolic process opened with 260 causes put forward for further investigation, Collins being only one of these. Further research was carried out during the terms of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid (qv) and Archbishop Dermot Ryan (qv). Much of this research was carried out by Mgr Patrick Corish, Fr Benignus Millet, OFM (1922–2006) and Fr Peter Gumpel, SJ. Finally, on 27 September 1992, Pope John Paul II beatified Dominic Collins and eighteen other Irish martyrs.

There is a portrait in oils of Dominic Collins in St Patrick's College, Maynooth. This dates from the seventeenth century and originally hung in the Irish College in Salamanca. There is a large collection of papers relating to his cause for beatification in the Jesuit archives in Dublin.

Edmund Hogan, SJ, Distinguished Irishmen of the sixteenth century (1894), 79–114; Louis McRedmond, To the greater glory: a history of the Irish Jesuits (1991); Desmond Forristal, Dominic Collins: Irish martyr, Jesuit brother (1992); Thomas Morrissey, SJ, ‘Among the Irish martyrs: Dominic Collins, SJ, in his times (1566–1602)’, Studies, lxxxi, no. 323 (autumn 1992), 313–25; information from Fergus O'Donoghue, SJ, of the Jesuit Archives, Dublin

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/jesuitica-jumping-jesuits/

JESUITICA: Jumping Jesuits

Tavellers in the Beara Peninsula will remember the Priest’s Leap, a mountain cliff in the townland of Cummeenshrule, where (around 1600 AD) a priest on horseback escaped from pursuing soldiers by a miraculous leap, which landed him on a rock near Bantry. Was the lepper a Jesuit? One tradition claims him as James Archer SJ; another as Blessed (Brother) Dominic Collins. In view of some dating difficulties, one can only say: pie creditur – a common phrase in Latin hagiographies, meaning “It is piously believed…”!

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 36th Year No 1 1961
THE UNVEILING OF A PLAQUE N HONOUR OF FR. DONAL O'NEILLAN, O.F.M., AND BR. DOMINIC COLLINS, S.J., MARTYRS
The old town of Youghal was en fete, gay with flags and bunting, on Sunday, 23rd October, 1960, for a unique tribute of honour to the memory of two martyred sons of the town, Fr. Donal O'Neillan, O.F.M., and Br. Dominic Collins, S.J., who gave their lives for the faith there in Elizabethan times.
There was a Solemn High Mass in the parish church at which an eloquent tribute to the martyrs was given by Fr. William Egan, P.P., Castlemartyr. The greater part of his discourse dealt with the life of Br. Dominic, as very little was known of Fr. O'Neillan. The parish priest of Youghal, Canon Sheehan, presided and with him in the Sanctuary were Fr. Celsus O'Brien, the Franciscan Provincial, and Fr. Pearse O'Higgins, who was representing Fr. Provincial. Canon Sheehan, an old Mungret man, is well-known to our Fathers who served as Chaplains in both World Wars.
After the High Mass, there was a procession through the town to the Clock Gate for the unveiling by Canon Sheehan of a commemorative plaque to the two martyrs. A big number of clergy, secular and regular, marched in the procession and there were also units of the Army, F.C.A. and Civil Defence Corps, as well as a great many of the citizens of Youghal. The music was provided by the Christian Brothers' Boys' Band and by a Pipers' Band, A. 16mm, colour-film of the commemoration is in process of development and the Organising Committee have promised to loan it for showing in our Houses.
The speakers on the platform were Canon Sheehan, who paid glowing tributes to the Society, Fr. Celsus O'Brien, who briefly traced the history of the Franciscan foundation in Youghal from its inception in 1224 and showed that both the martyrs had a common purpose, the glory of God and the welfare of the Irish people, and Fr. O'Higgins.
Fr. O'Higgins, who spoke in Irish and English, in the course of his speech said: “This is a proud day for us Irish Jesuits when we see the great honour accorded to our own Br. Dominic Collins by his fellow-towns people. Our Society has long associations with Youghal, going back to the latter part of the sixteenth century, when our Fathers established a school here and laboured zealously for the greater glory of God and the good of souls. Theirs was not a tranquil nor an easy life, for they were hunted men and lived ever in the shadow of death. But they were dedicated to their noble task and were blessed because, like their Divine Master, they suffered persecution for justice's sake. These were the men who trained Dominic Collins in his early years and it was, no doubt, the example of their zeal and heroism which inspired him in later life to emulate St. Ignatius Loyola by turning away from the glory of a distinguished military career to put on the armour of God. He proved himself indeed a true soldier of Christ and never shirked his duty, even in face of the fiercest opposition”
A recording unit from Radio Éireann was present, and a report of the proceedings was broadcast the following day in the Provincial News.
The Society was represented by the following: Frs. Andrews, Perrott, Cashman, Daniel Roche, Leahy, John Murphy and J. B. Stephenson, and by Brs. Priest, Murphy, Kavanagh, Cunningham, Brady and Fallon.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Brother Dominic Collins 1553-1602
The Irish Province of the Society of Jesus is proud to number among her list of martyrs that of one of its spiritual coadjutors, Brother Dominic Collins.

He was born in Youghal in 1553. His people were wealthy burghers of the town, good Catholics, who had their son educated in all probability at the school run by Fr Charles Leae and Robert Rochford at Youghal. Dominic became a soldier in the French and Spanish armies, rising to the rank of Captain.

Being stationed at Corunna, since famous for its memories of Sir John Moore, he had more time for reflection and decided to become a religious. He was received into the Society as a Brother, at his own unshakeable request, by Fr Thomas White at Salamanca in 1598. Having taken his vows, he was sent to Ireland as Socius to Fr James Archer, and he took part in the famous siege of Dunboy Castle.

On the surrender of Dunboy Castle, he was taken prisoner and lodged at Shandon Castle, tortured and condemned to death. He was led forward to esecution clothed in his Jesuit gown, his hands tied behind his back, all the way from Shandon Castle to his native Youghal.

On arriving at the scaffold, he burst forth into those words attributed to St Andrew “Hail Holy Cross, so long desired by me. How dear to me this hour for which I have yearned since I first put on this habit”. To the people he said “Look up to heaven and be not unworthy of your ancestors, who boldly professed the Faith. Do you too uphold it. In defence of it, I desire to give up my life today”. Thereupon, he was hanged, drawn and quartered on October 23rd 1602.

On October 23rd 1960, his fellow townsmen, proud of his name, erected a tablet to his honour, which can be seen today in the clock tower of Youghal.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
COLLINS, DOMINIC, (his own signature spells the name Collensse) was of a good Irish Family. After embracing the military life, and spending as a Captain five years in the French, and eight years in the Spanish service, he began and finished his Noviceship in the Jesuit’s House at Compostella. I learn from an original letter of F. Richard Field, dated Dublin, the 26th of February, 1603, that this ill-advised Lay-brother accompanied a Spanish expedition, which made a descent on the coast of Munster - that when these forces capitulated to the Lord Lieutenant, on certain conditions, and returned to Spain, Dominic, full of ancient military ardour, remained behind and repaired to a Castle (Dunboyne) - that after a seige of some months it was taken by storm. Dominic was thrown into prison, and on the 3rd of October, 1602, when he could not be induced by threats or promises to renounce his religious Institute, abjure the Catholic Faith, and support Queen Elizabeth s claims to his allegiance, he was executed at Cork ( by Mountjoy), “cum summa omnium aedeficatione, proaequente eum lachrymis tota paene civitate Corcagiensi”. Drews incorrectly fixes his death on the 31st of October, 1604. In p. 34 of Bromley’s “Catalogue of Engraved English Portraits”, is mentioned a small head of Dominic Collins, Jesuit, who died in 1602.

Born: 1626, Kilkenny City, County Kilkenny
Entered: 1651, Madrid Spain - Toletanae Province (TOLE)
Ordained: 1658, Murcia, Spain
Final Vows: 15 August 1666
Died: 06 December 1712, Irish College, Poitiers, France

1699-1712 at Irish College, Poitiers (1708 taught Grammar and of delicate health)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Three Entries : Some confused dated between James Comerford 2 and James Comerford 3
1698 In exile at Poitiers
Of remarkable piety and zeal; His loss was deplored in Waterford, even many years after his exile. (cf Letter of father Knoles 1714)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had already studied Philosophy for two years before Ent 1650 TOLE (Madrid)
After First Vows he was sent to Murcia for studies and was Ordained there 1658
He was later engaged in the following roles : Teaching Humanities; Minister; Teaching Moral Theology and Operarius at various locations : Huesca; Imperial College Madrid; the Residence of Navalcarnero and the Residence of Alcalá all in TOLE
1676 Sent to Ireland and Kilkenny
1694 Consultor of Irish Mission
1698 Arrested and deported to France and sent to Irish College Poitiers, where he was a Consultor up to the time of his death there 06/12/1712
The General of the time highly valued his judgement on maters touching the Irish College Poitiers and the Irish Mission itself.
Such was his contemporaries esteem for him that even in his advanced years he was proposed as Rector at Poitiers
The Superior of the Mission at the time, writing to the General 06 April 1714, recalled his memory : “James Comerford was a man remarkable for holiness whose loss is deplored this day”.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
COMERFORD, JAMES, died in exile, as I find in a letter of the 6th of April, 1714, “insignis pietate”.

Born: 23 April 1598, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 24 August 1618, Mechelen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: c 1624
Died: 14 August 1629, Waterford Residence, Waterford City, County Waterford

Parents : Philip C Comerford and Anne Goeghe or Joeghe or Gough?
Fellow novice of St Jan Berchmans
Studied Humanities in Ireland and Philosophy at Douai
1622 in Flanders Province
1626 Catalogue In Ireland (Comerfortius)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Two Entries
Son of Peter Philip Comerford and Ann née Geoghe
Studied Humanities at various places in Ireland for five years and then Philosophy at Douai under the Jesuits at Aachen
1626 In Ireland
Admitted to the Society by Charles Scribano at Courtray (Kortrijk) 19 July 1618 and then began his Noviceship at Mechelen 24 August 1618 (”Mechlin Album” Vol I p449, Burgundian Library, Brussels)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Philip and Anne née Geoghe
Studied Humanities and Philosophy under the Jesuits at Douai before Ent 24 August 1618 Mechelen
After First Vows sent to Louvain to complete his studies.
1621 He received Minor Orders 04 June 1621, but the date and place of Ordination are unknown (probably c 1624)
1624 Returned to Ireland but in poor health and was at the Waterford Residence until his death in August 1629

James Comerford

Entered: 1657
Died: 31 December 1678 Ireland

Three Entries : Some confused dated between James Comerford 2 and James Comerford Jr

Born: 1582, Waterford, City, County Waterford
Entered: 1601, Santander, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: c 1611, Salamanca, Spain
Final Vows: 14 June 1620
Died: 08 July 1640, Waterford Residence, Waterford, City, County Waterford

Alias Comerton

1614 A Regent at Oviedo
His cousin or nephew is in Healy’s Kilkenny p 120”
also (p152) DOB 1583 Waterford; Ent 1601; FV 14 June 1620; RIP 08 August 1640 Waterford
1611 at Salamanca (CAST)
1614 at Oviedo (CAST) has done 3 years Philosophy and 4 years Theology
1619 at León College (CAST) teaching Grammar and was Minister
1622 at College of Montserrat
1620 Rector of Irish College Salamanca

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Nephew of Chief Justice Walsh
1607 in Castellanae Province
Pious and learned; came to Ireland 1630 worked there for 10 years and was thirty nine years in the Society (letter of Irish Mission Superior Robert Nugent to Fr General 20 July 1640 (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS, who calls him Quemford)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Studied at the Irish College Salamanca before Ent 1601 Salamanca
After First Vows he resumed his studies at Montforte College and Royal College Salamanca where he was Ordained in 1611
1612-1623 Minister and Missioner in various places at the Colleges of Oviedo and León, and then appointed to the Mission Staff
1623-1626 Rector Irish College Salamanca succeeding Fr Thomas Bryan (Briones)
1626 Appointed Operarius at León - His removal from Salamanca seems to have been occasioned by his success in questing for the College. Alms-questing in Spain was a constant source of friction between Irish Jesuits in Spain and their Spanish Superiors.
1630 Sent to Ireland and to the Waterford Residence up to the time of his death there 08 July 1640
Robert Nugent, in a letter of 20 July to the General, said of him "Father Comerford died on the eighth of this month as piously as he lived, fortified by the sacraments of the Church after he had laboured strenuously for about ten years our Mission. He had spent 39 years in the Society.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
QUEMERFORD, JAMES, (in Latin Comoforthius, Comofortus, Comoforteius,) of Waterford. I have seen a letter of this Father written from Madrid, 28th of September, 1607, to his Rev. Brother Richard, S. J. at Rome. Amongst other things he says, “here I am yet in court with F. Archer, with matters of the Seminarie : we have many sutes in hand, and goe verie slowe in all. Commendations to all and chieflie unto my good and well remembered brother Thomas Quemerford”. In a letter of F. Robert Nugent, dated 20th July, 1640, he informs the General Vitelleschi that F. James had died at Waterford on the 8th instant, “pie ut vixit” - that he had laboured diligently in the Irish Mission for ten years, and had passed 39 years in the Society.*

• Gerard Quemerford, a native of Ireland, joined the English Province of the Society in 1651, aet 19. and was studying his second year of Divinity at Liege in 1655. What relation was he to F. James Quemerford?

Born: 18 July 1632, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 01 November 1651, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 31 March 1657, Liège, Belgium
FinalVows: 15 August 1675, Waterford Residence, Waterford City, County Waterford
Died: 19 March 1688, Irish College, Poitiers, France

1655 Catalogue at Liège in 2 years Theology
1680-1688 Irish College, Poitiers, first as Infirmarian, then as Procurator and Minister
also : Germanus recte Gerard Comerford”; RIP 19 March 1687

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1655 In second year of Theology at Liège - had great talents and made great progress in his studies
1658 Taught Mathematics at Liège
1664 A missioner at St George’s Residence, Worcester district
1667 At College of Holy Apostles, Suffolk district

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had already begun Priestly studies before Entry 01 November 1651 ANG
1653-1657 After First Vows he was sent for studies, graduating MA, to Liège for Theology and was Ordained there 31 March 1657
1657-1660 After he made Tertianship, for a time he was Prefect of Studies and taught Mathematics at the Juniorate in Liège. He was considered to be a man of more than ordinary ability, but dogged by ill health.
1660-1667 On the Mission in England, at Northampton, Lincoln and Worcester
1667-1675 His whereabouts from 1667 are unclear, except that he had become a member of the Irish Mission by 1672, and strong evidence that he was already in Ireland by December 1669 and at the Waterford Residence (probably for health reasons) and made Final Vows there 15 August 1675. There is little or no account of his work thereafter on the Irish Mission. Because his earlier associations with England were known to the promoters of the Titus Oates Plot, he escaped to France and served as Minister and Procurator of the Irish College Poitiers until his death there 19 March 1688

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
QUEMERFORD, GERARD, a native of Ireland, joined the English Province of the Society in 1651, aet 19. and was studying his second year of Divinity at Liege in 1655. What relation was he to F. James Quemerford?

Born: 30 March 1924, Millmount Avenue, Drumcondra, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1942, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1960, Wah Yan College SJ,Nelson Street, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Died: 15 June 1972, Fujen Catholic University, Dalat, Vietnam (Kingsmead Hall, Victoria Park Road, Singaporee) - Hong Kong Vice-Province (Died in air crash)

Part of Kingsmead Hall, Victoria Park Road, Singapore community at time of his death. Died in air crash

Transcribed : HIB to HK 03/12/1966

Mother died in June 1937, and father was an official in the Rents Department of Dublin Corporation. Family lives at Avondale Road, Phibsborough.

Older of two boys.

Early education was for three years in a private school and then at Belvedere College SJ.

1942-1944: St Mary's, Emo, County Laois, Novitiate
1944-1948: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Juniorate
1948-1951: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Philosophy
1951-1952: Wah Yan College SJ, Robinson Road, Hong Kong, Regency, studying language
1952-1953: Language School, Battery Path, Hiong Kong, Regency, studying language
1953-1954: Wah Yan College SJ,Nelson Street, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Regency
1954-1958: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin Theology
1958-1959: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Tertianship
1959-1970: Wah Yan College SJ, Waterloo Road, Kowloon, Honbg Kong, Teaching; Vice Principal from 1966
1960-1965: Chaplain to “Apostolate of the Sea”
1970-1972: Kingsmead Hall, Victoria Park Road, Singapore, Curate in Parish

◆ 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 at Belvedere College SJ, Dublin. he had a keen interest in things that moved : cars, ships, trains and planes, but above all he was interested in helping people.

His strength was his pastoral work, and particularly teaching catechistics, which he taught at the Swiss School, the Australian Army School and the International School.
He was a founder of the Road Safety Association in Hong Kong.
He also worked in Singapore where he focused on drug addiction.

he died in 1972 when the plane he was in blew up over South Vietnam.

Note from Paddy Finneran Entry
He came to Hong Kong as a young priest with Peter Dunne and 5 Scholastics - Liam Egan, Paddy Cunningham, Matt Brosnan, Tom O’Neill and Tony Farren. He spent two years at the Battery Path Language School learning Cantonese.

◆ Irish Province News 47th Year No 2 1972

The tragic news of Fr Patrick Cunningham's death, together with 80 others, in the air-smash in Vietnam, reached us in the middle of June, first surmised, then confirmed. We hope to have further information later.

We offer sympathy to Fr Cunningham's brother, Frank, on the calamity.

Fr P. Cunningham's remains, after various delays, were conveyed to Dublin - Gardiner Street - 20th July. There was an Obsequial Mass concelebrated by Fr Provincial and twelve other participants on Friday 21st. R.I.P.

◆ Irish Province News 47th Year No 4 1972

Obituary :

Fr Patrick Cunningham SJ (1924-1972)

A brief notice of the tragic death of Fr Cunningham in the middle of June and of his obsequies in Gardiner Street on July 20th was contained in the last issue of the Province News Editor.]
When we think of Fr Paddy Cunningham (PJ or Pat as his contemporaries knew him) we think of mechanical things and movement. We think of cars and aeroplanes, of launches and ships and of a man who was ever on the move. We think of a man ready at a moment's notice to address any audience on any topic what ever and in any part of the world. He would then return home and either delight or annoy his community with endless chatter about the people Pat had met and the things Pat had done. I once saw him rather obviously choose a place at recreation beside the late Fr Tommy Ryan and I heard Fr Ryan's opening remark : “Well, I suppose you're going to tell me about all your works and pomps!” Pat could be pompous at times especially when wearing one of those unnecessary uniforms he loved so well.

Never a scholar, he was a man, nonetheless, whose interests were limitless and he carried in his head an astonishing amount of factual information about all kinds of unlikely persons, places and things. He used to chuckle over a comment made by a superior who once told him that he would make an excellent railway porter with information about timetables, ticket prices and train stops at his finger-tips. But you could not be sure of the information at Pat's finger-tips. He never could say, “I don't know” or “I'll check that for you”. To any question he always made an immediate and definite reply and he would be right a surprising eighty per cent or so of the time. The trouble was you never knew which twenty per cent was not correct so you always had to verify Pat's statements.

On 7th September 1942 twenty three novices entered Emo, five of them from Belvedere and Patrick Joseph Cunningham was one of these. It was not long till he made his presence felt especially at Socius' Conferences where we looked forward to his shared reflections, observations and suggestions which were never dull and often sensational. Once he suggested that a novice should be appointed to collect the skin from on top of the hot milk - enough could be collected each morning, Pat assured us, to make a plastic egg-cup. That was Fr Brendan Brennan's first year as Socius and he never quite knew how to manage Brother Cunningham.

In Rathfarnham Pat was more at home ... not because it gave him an opportunity for study but because Dublin was the place where Pat was born and he knew Dublin street by street. Indeed if one believed him he knew everyone who lived in every street - at least everyone who mattered. He claimed connections at managerial level with many commercial firms and not only scholastics but fathers, too, were taken in by this. More than one man entered Dublin firms on Pat's recommendation hoping to get special terms by using his name only to discover that nobody in the firm knew a Patrick Cunningham. Tullabeg meant back to the country and Pat was essentially a city man and his three years there might have been trying ones for him were it not for the building of the swimming pool in which he was deeply involved. He also claimed a multitude of relations in the neighbourhood.

Then came his appointment to Hong Kong and his influence with people really blossomed. No one would rate him an expert at the Chinese language and yet he could somehow establish contact with Chinese people in almost any dialect. But he did not confine his apostolate to Chinese people. He had a universal love for mankind and a desire to help wherever help was needed. A characteristic he revealed in Emo was a generosity with his time and a readiness to go to the assistance of anybody and this characteristic he never lost. He was a man for others. He loved people and served them. Thus, as well as the boys in our schools, the groups he worked for or with in Hong Kong included Chinese hostesses from Cathay Pacific Airways, British Airforce personnel, Rotary Clubs, Road Safety Associations, to say nothing of the seamen of varied nationalities that he dealt with in his work for the Apostleship of the Sea.
The pattern in Singapore was the same as the following paragraphs from Father Liam Egan testify :

“In a little less than two years in Singapore Pat had won an astonishing number of friends and admirers. ... Pastoral work, and in particular, catechetical work proved to be his forte. To those of us who knew him well his success with children and especially with teenagers both boys and girls and of all nationalities was incredible.
He taught catechism in two convent schools, in the Swiss school, the Australian Army School, the International School and the children loved him. Not only did he teach them but he established an extraordinary rapport with them. He organised a weekly evening session in Kingsmead Hall for the “tough” teenagers of the American School and the International School. They attended in ever increasing numbers: they brought their friends : some of them brought their parents. They became enthusiastic about their religion, possibly for the first time in years”.

And then came the fatal air-disaster of 15th June and with it the end of life for Pat at the age of 48. He loved to be alive and he loved to be on the move and for one who was liable to turn up almost anywhere at almost any time it is hard to believe that he won't turn up again. An enquiry into the cause of the crash established that it was caused by a bomb placed on the plane in Bankok and which exploded over Vietnam. The exceptionally large crowds that turned out for requiem Masses offered for him at Singapore and Hong Kong bear testimony to the love and esteem that so many had for him. He will be remembered by many for a long time. May he rest in peace.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1962

Belvederians On The Hong Kong Mission

Just before Easter, Fr Paddy Joy SJ gave a talk in the gym on the Irish Jesuit Mission in Hong Kong.

Father Pat Cunningham SJ
Father Cunningham is in charge of this Apostleship of the Sea, and flies the papal flag on the smartest launch on the harbour. He has vitalised this work, which had just got beyond its growing pains, and he is “on the job” in a way that has won wide attention. Last yeat, after attending the Sea Apostolate convention in Rome he toured most of the important ports in Europe and Asia. to see what is being done, and he will not be happy until he has made Hong Kong as good as the best for Catholic seamen. Twelve ships visit Hong Kong every day and none of them escapes his notice. Father McAsey and he dovetail their work excellently and between them they have gained the goodwill of ships of all flags.

Transport is one of Father Cunningham's surprising interests, and it has brought him into connection with our local traffic problems. He is known to many as a member of the Port Welfare Committee, but when a “Road Safety” committee was brought into being he was roped on to it and promptly made chairman. He has given lectures and addresses and interviews on the subject, and has won the special goodwill of the Police Traffic Department because of the practical help that he is giving in keeping blood off the roads.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1965

Sons of Xavier

Father Pat Cunningham (1942). For several years Father Pat Cunningham kept the flag of the Apostleship of the Sea flying very prominently in our harbour-which ac cording to our local statisticians was visited by over 27,000 ships last year in addition to its own 20,000 local craft. Now that he is engaged on land activities he is as a ubi quitous on shore as he ever was on land. In addition to being Assistant Prefect of Studies, and Prefect of Discipline as well as teacher, he has taken a very prominent part in the promotion of “road safety”. All his life he has been interested in everything that moves on wheels, and is greatly annoyed at the number of pedestrians that get in the way of vehicles on our roads. As those statisticians to whom I already referred tell us that there is a vehicle for every 200 feet on our roads and as those are more than 31 million people use those roads, it is not surprising that we have an abundance of accidents, with 20 killed every month and nearly 1000 injured. Father Cunningham is President of a Road Safety Association and in this capacity is heard frequently on the radio and in addresses to various organisations.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1972

Obituary

Father Patrick J Cunningham SJ (’42)

Father Paddy was killed in an air disaster over Vietnam. The cause of the disaster has not yet been made public. It was a fitting death for him and I am sure he would not have had it otherwise.

When he left school he entered the Society and very soon got a reputation for getting things done - no matter what the things were. For such a man the missions offered limitless scope and as soon as he could he went out on the Chinese mission and remained on it till his death. The most obliging of men nothing was too trivial, nothing too arduous for him to undertake. The following appreciation of him appeared in the “Evening Press”.

A Hong Kong meeting. between the then bosun of the Irish Larch and Father Paddy Cunningham, the Dublin born Jesuit who died tragically in Thursday's Vietnam air disaster, is recalled by the bosun, Joe Fay, in the following article:

“Thousands of seamen from all over the world, including many from behind the “Iron Curtain” will hear with deep regret the death of Fr Patrick Joseph Cunningham, a Dublin Jesuit, who was killed in an air crash in South Vietnam.

He wasn't only a good soldier of Jesus, but he was also a good sailor for him. To many mariners he was known as just plain Paddy and others referred to him as affectionately as the “Vatican Skipper” or “The Commodore Chief of the Vatican Navy”.

How well I remember my first meeting with Paddy. It was the day after we anchored off Hong Kong. Some of the crew and I were loading cargo from the Irish Larch into Chinese junks, It was somewhere near the middle of summer in 1963. At about 10.15 am, the deck boy came along to me on the after deck and said, ‘Bosun, there's a quare looking boat coming along side with sailors in funny looking uniforms’. At this time the sweat was running out of us and I was just about to tell him to go and get stuffed when he said, “Honest to the living Bosun, there
is a funny looking boat alongside”.

I looked over the side and saw a beautiful large motor launch with what looked like Chinese crew boys dressed in navy uniforms in the Vatican colours of yellow and white.. On the small bridge stood a tall well-muscled slim man well over six feet tall. He was wearing a dark grey uniform with a Roman collar. On the stern of the Launch the Vatican flag was flying and underneath, the name Stella Maris and below that the words Reg in the Vatican. I knew that this was the man I had heard referred to in many ports I had visited as the “Vatican Skipper”.

He came up the gangway looking at me and said: “Céad Míle Fáilte”. I felt a right mug and looking for a quick answer I said: “Sorry me ould flower, I only speak Dublinese”. He put his hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Don't worry I'm a Jackeen Myself’. I then asked him if I'd take him up to the officers' mess and he replied: ‘Let the gold braid wait. I can see them later, but I would like to have a little talk with the five-eights’. As it was only a few minutes to go for smoko (tea break) I blew the men up and we all went into the crew's messroom.

It must have been one of the longest tea breaks on record as it lasted about an hour and a half. His love and knowledge of Dublin was fantastic. He knew the Liberties and Dublin dockland like the back of his hand, We spoke about Biddy Slicker and her barrel organs. He knew a lot about the old Dublin boxing fraternity and names like Spike McCormack and Paddy Dowdell came as easy to him as if he had lived next door.

Next morning he came aboard and said Mass. I'm sure he helped to bring our native shores closer to all the crew. I am sure when you meet your maker, Paddy, he will give yon the job of chartering a steady course for many seamen in the years to come”.

Evening Press

◆ https://mas-jesuits.org/past-jesuits/father-patrick-cunningham-sj-2/#:~:text=In%20September%201970%2C%20Father%20Cunningham,teaching%20religion%20to%20foreign%20students.

Father Patrick Cunningham, SJ
Born: 30 March 1924, Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1942, St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois, Ireland
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1960, Wah Yan College, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Died: 15 June 1972, Vietnam

In September 1970, Father Cunningham arrived in Singapore from Hong Kong to be an assistant in the parish, replacing Father Keane who was to move to the then newly proposed Catholic Junior College. His main work involved teaching religion to foreign students. Pastoral work and in particular, catechetical work, was his forte. Kindly and benevolent, he had a soft spot for the young. Between him and all children, regardless of age, gender or nationality, appreciation and affection were mutual.

Father Cunningham taught catechism in a number of educational institutions — two convent schools, the Swiss school, the Australian Army School and the International School — and was much beloved by the children there. Not only did he teach them, he also established an extraordinary rapport with them by organising out-of-class activities. He organised a weekly evening session in Kingsmead Hall for the “tough” teenagers of the American School and the International School. They attended in ever increasing numbers: they brought their friends : some of them brought their parents. They became enthusiastic about their religion, possibly for the first time in years

When we think of Father Cunningham, we think of mechanical things and movement. We think of cars and aeroplanes, of launches and ships and of a man who was ever on the move. We think of a man ready at a moment’s notice to address any audience on any topic whatever and in any part of the world. He would then return home and either delight or annoy his community with endless chatter about the people he had met and the things he had done.

And then came the fatal air disaster of 15 June 1972. His life was tragically cut short at the age of 48 when the plane he was in blew up over South Vietnam. An enquiry into the cause of the crash established that it was caused by a bomb placed on the plane in Bangkok and which exploded over Vietnam. The bomb was planted by a Thai army officer who, in the hope of gaining from his wife’s life insurance, had plotted to kill her while she was on board that flight. Father Cunningham’s body was among the few still intact and recognisable which were recovered from the wreck. His body was flown to Dublin for burial.

Ironically, while in Wah Yan Kowloon, he founded the Aviation Club on 29 Oct 1960, to maintain the students’ interest and possibly to help further a career if desired. Also in light of that, the Auto Club was started on 12 March 1962.
He also became the RAF Chaplain in November 1966, taking charge of about 60 Catholic families of the Royal Air Force stationed at Kai Tak.
In addition he founded the Air Scout Troop in the summer of 1967.
He was the speech instructor of cabin crew for Cathay Pacific Airlines too.
Also in 1969-70, using his connections, he helped Mr Warren Geddes put together the HK Air Cadets Corp, culminating in its establishment in 1971.

Reference: https://www.jesuitarchives.ie/cunningham-patrick-j-1924-1972-jesuit-priest https://www.wykontario.org/index.php/featured-articles/2479-the-50th-year-of-air-scout-troop-leo-chu https://www.wykontario.org/wykaao_doc/documents/2017/PJ_Obituary.pdf
Book: 50 years of the parish of the Church of St Ignatius, 2012 https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/02/archives/time-bomb-reported-as-cause-of-airliner-crash-in-vietnam.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathay_Pacific_Flight_700Z_bombing https://www.baaa-acro.com/sites/default/files/2018-12/VR-HFZ.pdf https://simpleflying.com/cathay-pacific-flight-700-z-bombing-story/ http://desastresaereosnews.blogspot.com/2021/06/aconteceu-em-15-de-junho-de-1972.html

Born: 22 November 1580, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 11 January 1605, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1609, Rome Italy
Died: 21 April 1620, Waterford City, County Waterford - Romanae Province (ROM)

Alias Comerton

Had studied 2 years Philosophy and 1 year Theology before entry
1609 at Ingolstadt after 4 years Theology repeating studies
1609-1610 Sent to Ireland with Daton and Briones
1610-1611 Librarian at Limoges
1611 at College of Limousin doing Theology
1614 Teaching Theology at Limoges
1615-1616 called to the Irish Mission
1617 in Ireland

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica”
Brother of James 1st and Thomas
1607 Was in Rome and received a letter from his brother James dated Madrid 28 September 1607. He was in bad health that year and Father Archer recommends his being sent to the Irish Mission (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS, who calls him Quemford)
1609 In Bordeaux
1617 He appears in Ireland (IER 1874)
(Comerton entry suggests that he was Rector at Salamanca 1621-1624, but this is more likely to have been James Comerford 1st)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ
Brother of James (Senior) and Thomas (infra)
Had studied at the Irish College Salamanca before Ent 11 January 1605 Rome on the same days as his brother Thomas
1607 After First Vows he was sent to resume Theology studies - most likely in Rome - and was Ordained there 1609;
1609 Arrived with Richard Daton in Bordeaux. Both had been sent to and were on their way to Ireland but in fact both were detained in France for some years.
Richard taught Philosophy for four years at Limoges College
1617 Arrived in Ireland and Waterford where he remained until his death there in 1620

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
QUEMERFORD,RICHARD. He was in bad health at Rome in the autumn of 1607, and F. Archer recommended his being sent to the Irish Mission.

Born: 30 September 1583, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 11 January 1605, St Andrea, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1609/10, Rome, Italy
Died: 10 September 1636, Waterford City, County Waterford

Had studied Philosophy 2 years before entry
1617 in Ireland
1621 Catalogue Good preacher not yet Gradus
1622 in West Munster
1626 in Ireland

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Nephew of Archbishop Lombard
Brother of James Comerford 1st (RIP 1640) and Richard
Educated at Rome, and died holily, as he had lived, September 1636 (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS, who calls him Quemford)
1621 In Cork
Professor of Theology at Compostela; A distinguished Preacher in Waterford and Cork; Of great learning and piety, and zeal for souls (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Brother of James Senior and Richard
Had studied at the Irish College Salamanca before Ent 11 January 1605 Rome on the same days as his brother Richard
After First Vows he was sent to continue studies at the Roman College, being Ordained 1609/10.
1609/1610-1617 Taught Philosophy at Irish College Santiago, where he was appointed Vice-Rector in 1614
1617-1621 Sent to Ireland and to Waterford
1621-1626 Worked with Edward Cleere in Cork
1632 Sent to Spain on financial business but returned in the Winter of that year and remained in Waterford until his death in September 1636.
Robert Nugent in a letter to Fr General on 15 September 1636 wrote “Fr Thomas Comerford, educated in Rome, died at Waterford a dew days ago. He exercised his zeal and learning there for many years and with great fruit. He died as piously as he lived. he is mourned by his fellow Jesuits and those to whom he ministered”

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
QUEMERFORD, THOMAS, brother of FF. James and Richard, studied at Rome. In a letter written from Ireland, on the l5th of September, 1636, 1 read as follows : “A few days since died at Waterford F. Thomas Comeforteius, formerly educated at Rome. The zeal and learning he acquired there he exercised here with great profit : he died, holily as he had lived, to the great regret of all our Brethren and of all who knew him”.

Born: 1616, County Meath
Entered: 30 April 1637, Tournai, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 1645, Rome, Italy
Died: 25 March 1646, County Cork - described as Martyr

Son of Hugo and Catherine Daly.
Studied Grammar and Humanities for 6 year in Ireland, 2 years Philosophy at Douai under Jesuits
1642 & 1646 at Roman College studying Theology teaching Grammar
Holywood writes Conín, Conan, Cunane”

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
A letter of William Malone, Irish Mission Superior 02 August 1649, which mentions that Father Conain, on first landing in Ireland c1646, was seized by the enemy, and shortly afterwards escaped from their hands, and is variously related as having been killed by the heretics, on the highway, or to have been drowned in the river.
He is named in a report of the Irish Mission SJ 1641-1650 {Verdier?} (in the Archives of the English College, Rome; a copy is in the Library of Public Record Office, London), as being then in the Cork Residence; that he contrived to escape from prison by the aid of the Catholics, after great sufferings there, and that he died “in itinere”.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Christopher Connain (his own spelling)
Son of Hugo and Catherine Daly
Studied Humanities in Ireland and Philosophy at Douai with the Jesuits before Ent 30 April 1637
After First Vows he spent three years Regency in Colleges doing light work as his health was poor
1642 Sent to Rome to for Theology. He was Ordained c 1645
1645 He sent to Ireland in September, but on his arrival he was either captured or killed by the Puritans, or he drowned while attempting to escape. His recorded date of death was 14 August 1646, but it was thought that he had been reported as dead many months previously.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Christopher Conain 1590-1629
Christopher Conain was born in Ireland about 1590. The only acount we have of him is found in a letter of Fr William Malone, dated August 2nd 1629 :
“He was apprehended by the enemy or Protestant persecutors, that he escaped after a short while, but soon after, was either massacred by them on the high road, or was drowned in some river, as was then reported”.

Not very much information, yet his name deserves to be recorded as one of the many, who like him, faced the terrors of persecution in their native land, and died “unknown, uncoffined and unknelled”.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CONAIN, CHRISTOPHER. All that I can collect about him is from a letter, dated the 2nd of August, 1629, of F. William Malone, who reports that the Father, about three years ago, on first landing in Ireland, was apprehended by the enemy, that he shortly after slipped from their hands, and that he was either massacred by them in the highway, or was drowned in some river, as is variously related.

Born: 10 December 1866, Romsey, Victoria, Australia
Entered: 18 March 1887, Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Ordained: 27 July 1902, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1905
Died: 22 August 1933, Manresa, Burwood Road, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - Australiae province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

1887-1889: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Novitiate
1889-1891: St Aloysius College SJ, Bourke Street, Sydney NSW, Australia, Regency
1891-1896: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Regency
1896-1899: Sint Jan Berchmans, Rue des Récollets, Leuven, Belgium (BEL), Philosophy
1899-1903: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1903-1904: Oude Abdij, Drongen, Belgium (BELG), Tertianship
1904-1913: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Teaching, Minister
1913-1916: St Ignatius College SJ, Riverview, Cove Lane, Sydney NSW, Australia, Minister
1916-1922: Manresa, Norwood, South Australia, Australia, Superior from 18/03/1916 to 01/01/1922, Teaching in school
1922-1929: St Mary’s, Miller Street, Sydney NSW, Australia, Superior from 01/01/1922 to 13/09/1928; Prefect of Church; Sydney Mission Consultor
1929-1933: Manresa, Burwood Road, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Caring for Health

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
Younger brother of Frank - RIP 1951.

His early education was at St Patrick’s College Melbourne, and then he Entered the Society at Xavier College under Luigi Sturzo.

1889-1891 After First Vows he was sent to St Aloysius College Bourke Street, where he taught Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry
1891-1896 He was sent to Xavier College Kew to be a Teacher and Prefect
1896-1899 he was sent to Leuven Belgium for Philosophy
1899-1903 He was sent to Milltown Park Dublin for Theology.
1904-1913 He returned to Australia and Xavier College
1913-1915 He was sent to St Ignatius College Riverview.
1915-1916 He was sent teaching at St Aloysius College Sydney
1916-1922 He was sent mid year to Manresa Norwood to replace Henry Cock. This resulted in a major drama when the Rector of St Aloysius, Patrick McCurtin, resigned in protest, claiming that Dominic was his only good Jesuit teacher. Meanwhile he was appointed Superior and Parish Priest at Norwood. During this time he was also a Consultor of the Mission.
1922-1929 He was then sent to St Mary’s, Miller Street
1929 He spent his final years at the Hawthorn Parish, when his health was poor.

He was a man of untiring zeal, who had very robust health in St Mary’s, but this disappeared in later times.

Note from Patrick McCurtin Entry
The question of poor teaching staff at St Aloysius' College led to the dramatic resignation of McCurtin as rector in 1916, when the mission superior transferred Dominic Connell, “one of our best masters”, to become parish priest at Norwood, SA. At the time there were very few competent teachers on the staff, and finances were not good, which made the employment of lay teachers difficult. McCurtin believed that the image of the school would suffer.

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 1st Year No 2 1926
Residence. SS. CORDIS, SYDNEY :

In 1878 Archbishop Vaughan handed over the Parish of North Shore to the Society. The church was exceedingly small, had very little church furniture and the Fathers were obliged to hire a Presbytery at 16s. a week. The Residence S.S. Cordis completed by Fr D Connell in 1923. The parish now numbers some 3,000 souls. It has two splendid primary schools, with an attendance of about 740 children. These schools. the Brothers' residence and the hall capable of holding 1,000 people, owe their existence to the energy of Fr Corish. In 1924 there were 45,000 Confessions heard, and about 50,000 Communions given. Attached to the church are two Sodalities, a Catholic club, a debating club, an athletic club a tennis club, and a branch of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

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

Obituary

Father Dominic Connell

It is with deep sorrow that we record the death of Father Dominic Connell, a former Minister of Riverview. He came to us in 1914 from Xavier College, Kew, after a long period of association with that School. His stay with us was only too short. After twelve months he left us to take charge of the Parish of Norwood, South Australia, and carried away with him the respect of all. In 1922 he was appointed Superior of the Parish of North Sydney, where he worked himself to death in the service of his beloved people. He was a man of untiring zeal. He was in robust health when he went to North Sydney, but in the course of six arduous years he had completely exhausted his physical strength. In August of the present year he was called away to receive his rich reward.

May he rest in peace.

Born: 11 June 1800, Cabinteely, County Dublin
Entered: 10 May 1818, Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 22 Aeptember 1832, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England
Final Vows: 15 August 1838
Died: 29 March 1853, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Studied Humanities at Stonyhurst before Ent.

1818-1819: Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG), Novitiate
1819-1822: Roman College, Rome Italy (ROM), Novitiate then Rhetoric and Theology
1822-1830: Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Regency
1830-1833: St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Theology
1833-1836: Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Teaching
1836-1841: St Aloysius College SJ, Preston, Lancashire, England, Minister
1841-1845: Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Rector; Novice Master
1845-1850: Maltese Mission, Valletta, Malta, Superior
1851-1853: Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Teaching and Caring for Health

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
Connell, GEORGE, Father, born near Cork, June 11, 1800; made his humanities at Stonyhurst College ; entered the Society at Hodder, May 10, 1818. His health failing he was sent to Italy in July, 1820, and spent upwards of a year in Rome, repeating rhetoric, &c. On October 1, 1822, he commenced his philosophy at Stonyhurst College, and after a course of teach ing, prefectship of studies, and theology, was ordained Priest by Bishop Penswick. After filling the office of Prefect of Studies at the College, he was sent to Preston, February 13, 1836, as mis sioner and Superior of St. Aloysius' College. Professed of the four vows August 15, 1838; appointed Master of Novices at Hodder, March 12, 1842; and on September 11, 1845, was declared Rector of the English College, S.J., in Malta. He returned to England in 1850 with his health and constitution. utterly broken, and his mental faculties seriously impaired, and died at Stonyhurst, March 29, 1853, t. 53.

◆ Catholic Record Society, Volume 70, 1981

The English Jesuits, 1650-1829: A Biographical Dictionary

by Geoffrey Holt

Connell, George. Priest.
b. June 11th, 1800, near Cork, Ireland.
e. Stonyhurst 1812-18,
S.J. May 10th, 1818.
Hodder (nov) 1818-20.
Rome (theol) 1820-2.
Stonyhurst 1822-30.
St Mary's Hall (theol) 1830-3.
Ordained priest September 22nd, 1832,
Stonyhurst. Stonyhurst 1833-6.
Preston 1836-42. Hodder 1842-5 (Rector).
Malta 1845-50 (Rector).
Stonyhurst 1850-3.
d. March 29th, 1853, Stonyhurst, bu. Stonyhurst.

(Fo.7; 113; 115; 6 f.257; Stol; CRS.20/12).

Born: 02 January 1911, Lippa, Spiddal, County Galway
Entered: 07 September 1931, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1945, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1948, Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick
Died: 02 June 1960, St Stephens Hospital, Glanmire, County Cork

Part of Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick community at time of his death.

Parents were farmers.

Second eldest of six boys with six sisters.

Educated at local National School for ten years, he then went to St Mary’s College, St Helen’s Street, Galway. In 1928 he went to the Apostolic School at Mungret College SJ

1931-1933: St Mary's, Emo, County Laois, Novitiate
1933-1936: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Juniorate, UCD
1936-1939: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Philosophy
1939-1942: Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Sea Road, Galway, Regency
1942-1946: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1946-1947: Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, Tertianship
1947-1948: Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick, Teaching

◆ Irish Province News 35th Year No 3 1960

Obituary :

Fr Stephen Curran (1911-1960)

Stephen Curran was born near Spiddal, Co. Galway, on 2nd January, 1911. He was at school at St. Mary's College, Galway, but in 1927 he transferred to the Apostolic School, Mungret College, where he remained until he entered the Noviceship at Emo in 1931. In due course he moved from Emo to Rathfarnham Castle for his Juniorate (1933-36), during which he read for his degree in Celtic Studies at University College, Dublin. For the next three years we find him studying Philosophy at Tullabeg, In 1939 he was assigned to St. Ignatius College, Galway for his “Colleges”, and in 1942 he began Theology at Milltown Park, where he was ordained in 1945. After Tertianship at Rathfarnham Castle, 1946-47, he spent the remaining years of his life in teaching at Mungret College, Limerick.

“A gentle scholar, poet and universal friend”. These words from a very appreciative letter of sympathy from the Mungret Union give a true impression of Fr. Curran.
Gentle he was all his life and in every way, notably in a certain delightful charm in his manner of speech and conversation, gentle too in his habitual judgments and outlook, in his dealings with others, and in his exceptional degree of modesty about his own very highly cultivated talents.

A true scholar also. He was blessed with the knowledge of Irish as his natural language, he had enriched this knowledge by a deep and lifelong study. He also had studied kindred Celtic languages. Added to this was a persistent study of Irish history, literature, poetry and art, ancient and modern. A few years ago he became interested in Spanish; this interest turned into serious study and he became proficient at the language and taught it successfully to the Philosophers. It is characteristic that at the same time he studied the history, literature and art of Spain, reading Cervantes, St. John of the Cross, modern drama, novels and biography, Added to this he cultivated Spanish boys in the school, listened to Spanish radio, got to know their newspapers and periodicals, and hoped to have an opportunity of visiting Spain.

This all indicates that he “saw life whole”; it also brings us to his predominant characteristic, his wholehearted and affectionate interest in people. This was evident in the whole bent of his conversation, especially in Irish. Another example is this : the Hungarian Rising inspired him with sympathy and admiration for that people. He studied their history and literature and mastered some of the fundamental mysteries of their so very different language; but his real happiness was when he visited the refugee camp and got in touch with the living Hungarian people. As well as this natural interest there was the urge of his apostolic priesthood. He envisaged translations of religious matter from Spanish into Irish, and had published at least one article, an Irish version of a poem on the Nativity. He worked in England for the last two or three summers and returned with great sympathy for the people. The outstanding example of this interest of his comes from his time in hospital in Cork; he got to know all the patients around him, and all about their families, occupations, ailments and personal histories. When visited by any of his Community he divided the time talking, with wholehearted interest, about the patients and about Mungret. Incidentally his genuine and obvious delight at seeing his brethren was a pleasure to witness, and his sense of gratitude, for what he truly thought quite undeserved attention, would almost overcome him. In a letter shortly before his death he said that so good had everyone been to him by prayer and every way that he expressly wished that to every prayer of petition for him should be added one of thanksgiving

After his Tertianship in Rathfarnham he came to Mungret, his own school, in 1947, and there he laboured until his last illness. The word is used deliberately. Fr. Curran laboured to the fast ounce of his strength. He taught Irish classes right through the school, every day and nearly all day. But the curriculum was merely basic. Irish for him was something loved and living, and he strove with all his inward and outward power to make it live for others. He was like one devoted, lighting little beacons in the darkness and little fires in a great cold. He seemed fully informed about every development in Irish, about writers of the day in prose or poetry, about books, periodicals and plays, and even about techniques in printing and publishing; in general, all received his happy approval, He spoke Irish to the boys, interested them in Club Leabhar na Sóisear, Inniu, An Gael Og, etc. With scarcely any recreational space or facilities he kept Cumann na Gaeilge going with conversation, debates, dramas, prize essays, and a lending library.

Indeed in his last illness he provided for the awarding of the Bonn Óir le haghaidh óráidíochta and the Corn le haghaidh comhrá. Once or twice a year he produced Irish plays. For these he himself planned the stage, painted the scenery, did all the coaching in speaking and acting, costurned the players and was an expert at make-up. One year he produced the opera Maritana, making his own translation very beautifully. On several occasions his players took part in the Féile Luimní, He really was the life and soul of Irish in the College, and we seriously fear that without him, whom all of us together cannot match, it may lapse into a mere class subject.

He whose home tongue was Irish and whose native earth was betwixt the hills and the sea in Cois Fhairrge must have found the inland plains dull and the English language flat. Be that as it may, an unwonted gaiety and joyousness took possession of him when on holidays in a gaeltacht beside the sea and his companionship was a delight. There he who ordinarily was so retiring became a leader, full of happy enterprise and initiative; there too his natural gifts as a homely raconteur shone.

His last illness began with what might have been an ordinary attack of flu. He soon showed symptoms of pleurisy and pneumonia and was brought to the Regional Hospital. They found grave disorder in the lung and recommended Surgeon Hickey, St. Stephen's Hospital, Cork. He made the journey by car on Shrove Tuesday. He had there a big exploratory operation and it was found that the lung and surrounding area was flooded with a great quantity of blood. It had come from a leak in the main artery very near the heart. This artery was in a very thin and worn condition. For nearly two weeks after this he was so low that those who visited him thought him dying. But he made a great recovery and became quite himself, saying Mass and spending some time out in the grounds. He knew he was building up for the crucial operation and he knew its nature, but he kept cheerful and optimistic, planning away for the future, always with the proviso, “If it be God's Will”. The operation consisted in grafting a patch on to the defective artery. Without this he could not live, but the chances of its success were small. It was said that the only other place it could be performed is in Texas. Nothing could exceed Mr. Hickey's devotedness and attention, and Fr. Stephen had full confidence in him and a tremendous admiration for him. The operation began at 1 p.m, and was not over till after 9 p.m. About 10 p.m. Fr. Stephen came to himself and spoke to the doctor, Mr. Hickey. Mr. Hickey said to Fr. Rector: "You may go home now Father and pray he may get through the night, if he does he should be all right". About an hour later he took a bad turn and at 12.25 on Thursday, 2nd June he died. He had been anointed and the chaplain was with him. Those who saw him after death remarked on the tranquillity and peacefulness of his appearance. He was buried in the Community cemetery on the Eve of Pentecost.
Ar dheasláimh Dé go raibh a anam ar feadh na síoraochta.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Stephen Curran 1911-1950
Fr Stephen Curran was a truly gentle and ovable soul. Born near Spiddal on January 2nd 1911, he never lost his tender love of his native language nor his native place. Next to God and the Society, this was his one love.

He wroked unremittingly in his Alma Mater, Mungret, from his tertianship in Rathfarnham in 1947 until his death in 1960. Is devotion to his classes was his leading trait, and his energy was unflagging in promoting our native language, in producing plays and running debating societies, and in writing for various Irish periodicals.

His early tragic death at the age of 49 may be traced to the exemplary execution of his duties. The early habits and customs of the noviceship he carried out right to the end. If ever a man earned the right to hear those words “Well done good and faithful servant”, Stephen Curran surely did.

“Ár dheis-lamh Dé go raibh a anam”, as he himself would like to say.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1961

Obituary

Father Stephen Curran SJ

Few of us thought that when Father Curran went to hospital last February twelve months, that he would never return to the College alive.

Father Curran was born in Spiddal, Co Galway, on January 2nd, 1911. He went to school at St Mary's College, Galway. From this he transferred to the Apostolic School in Mungret in 1927. Here he remained until he entered the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1931. After the long studies of the Society he was ordained in 1945. After two years he came to Mungret where he spent the remaining years of his life.

Father Curran's name will always be associated with the Irish language, He spoke it with anyone he found willing to do so. He gave all his free time to working for the Irish Society in the College. His greatest love, perhaps, was centred on the Irish play he produced every year. For this he planned the stage, painted the scenery and did the make-up. In his last illness he made arrangements for the awarding of the “Bonn Oir le haghaidh oraidiochta” and the “Corn le haghaidh comhra”. The Editor of the Annual got a yearly reminder of the Irish Essay.

Many tributes were paid to Father Curran by past students. The Mungret Union spoke of him as “A gentie scholar, poet and universal friend”.

Another wrote of him as “A grand priest”.

Father Curran was an outstanding teacher, but those of us who were priviliged to live with him, will best remember his gentleness, kindness and charm of manner. Father Curran died in St Stephen's Hospital, Cork on June 2nd, 1960. May he rest in peace. RIP

Born: 17 March 1807, Castletown-Kilpatrick, Navan, County Meath
Entered: 08 October 1832, Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 02 February 1843
Died: 18 September 1871, Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

1832-1834: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA (MAR), Novitiate
1834-1838: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, working
1838-1839: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA (MAR), Cook
1839-1856: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, Cook, assistant cook and working
1856-1860: Philadelphia College, Willings Alley, Philadelphia PA, USA, Cook
1860-1871: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, Cook

Born: 1779, Ireland
Entered: 31 August 1807, Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1810, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England
Died: 05 September 1818, St Mary’s, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

1807-1809: Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG)
1809-1812: Palermo, Sicily, Italy (SIC) and Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England
1812-1818: Irnham, Lincolnshire, England, working and and St Mary’s, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1812 Succeeded Charles Leslie at the Oxford Mission. He died there from a rupture of a blood vessel 05 September 1818 aged 39. He was buried in the old chapel of St Clement’s, Oxford, where a small tablet was erected to his memory.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CONOLLY, JOHN. This Irish Father succeeded Rev. James Leslie at Oxford, in the autumn of 1812, but was cut off in the prime of life, on the 5th of September, 1818. A small Tablet in the Chapel states that the mortal remains of Rev. John William Conolly are deposited there - that he had been the Incumbent from 1812, to 1818, and that he was aged 39 years at the date of his death.

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
CONNOLLY, JOHN WILLIAM, Father, a native of Ireland, born 1779. He entered the restored English Province, September 7, 1805, at Hodder, and succeeded Father Charles Leslie in the Oxford Mission in the autumn of 1812, and died there from the rupture of a blood vessel, September 5, 1818, æt. 39. He was buried in the old chapel, St. Clement's, Oxford, where a small tablet was erected to his memory.

◆ Catholic Record Society, Volume 70, 1981

The English Jesuits, 1650-1829: A Biographical Dictionary
by Geoffrey Holt

Connolly, John. Priest.
b. 1779, Ireland.
?e. Stonyhurst 1799-?
S.J. September 7th, 1805-1806 and August 31st, 1807.
Hodder (nov) 1807.
Sicily (phil and theol).
Stonyhurst 1810 (phil and theol).
Ordained priest c.1810.
Hodder 1811.
Irnham 1812.
Oxford 1812-18,
d. September 5th, 1818, Oxford. bu, old St Clement's church, Oxford.

(Fo.7; 113; 114; Nec; 62 n.351b; CRS.7/407-9; 21 v.2; 31 pp.52-5; 7 f.214; 6 f.204).

Born: 08 February 1723, Barcelona, Spain
Entered: 04 November 1749, Madrid, Spain - Toletanae Province (TOLE)
Died: 13 February 1758, Murcia, Spain - Toletanae Province (TOLE)

1757 was “Director” and teacher of French in the Royal College of Madrid

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Irish parents Patrick (of Limerick) and Margaret O’Dwyer (of Tipperary)
He had served in the Spanish Navy and took part in the Battle of Toulon
After First Vows he studied at Alcalá and completed these in the short space of 4 years (1652-1656), including making the “Grand “Act”
1756 An accomplished linguist he succeeded James Davin as Professor of French at the Imperial College Madrid, but was forced to retire a year later having contracted consumption
1758 He died at Murcia 13 February 1758
The “carta edificante” drawn up after his death is extant.

Born: 1597, Cashel, County Tipperary
Entered: 1620, Seville, Spain - Baeticae Province (BAE)
Ordained: 1628, Seville, Spain
Died: 10 August 1642, Cashel, County Tipperary

1625 at Salamanca
1625 at Seville 2nd year Theology
1628 a native of Cashel is Minister and Operarius or Irish College Seville
John Conway of Ross in Villagarcía 1301, 1617, 1619
John Conbeus (no 2) of Ross DOB 1598, at Salamanca 1621
John Conbeus of Ross in College of Leon 1628
1637 Catalogue at ARSI proficient in letters, judgement, experience and prudence mediocre
also DOB 1600 Cashel; Ent 1620; 1625 at Seville Theology; 13628 at Seville Minister and Operarius
also DOB 1598 Ross Diocese; Ent 1617; 1619 at Villagarcía; 1625 at Salamanca
Much confusion of John Conways here - there are 4 : 3 priests and 1 brother the confusions is with the priests

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
He is described as a religious hardworking priest; Came to Ireland 1630 (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Peter and Elizabeth née Saule
Had begun studies at Salamanca 04 June 1620 before Ent 1620 Seville
After First Vows he was sent for studies to San Hermegildo in Seville and was Ordained there 1628
1628-1630 Sent as Minister to Irish College Seville
1630 Sent to Ireland and Cashel where he died 10 August 1642. He was described by the Mission Superior as “a man of deep piety and a useful missioner”

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CONWAY, JOHN. This Professed Father died at Cashell, on the 10th of August,1642, “Vir vere Religiosus et in vinea hac utilis operarius”, as his Superior, F. Robert Nugent, writes of him, 10th of October that year.

Born: 1605, Cashel, County Tipperary
Entered: 1625, Madrid, Spain - Toletanae Province (TOLE)
Ordained: 1635, Alcalá (Alcalá de Henares), Spain
Died: 14 May 1662, Llerena, Badajoz, Spain - Toletanae Province (TOLE)

1625 In Madrid Novitiate - is more than of mediocre talent
1628 Taught at College of Plasencia (TOLE)
1635 On Irish Mission - being at Cashel in 1649, Superior of a Residence for 3 years then returned to Spain in Cromwell’s time
1655 CAT Taught Grammar at Ocanna (TOLE)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1628 At College of Placencia, Spain (in pen)
1635 Came to Irish Mission
1649 In Cashel - “a very worthy man”; Was Superior at Cashel; Taught Humanities;

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
After First Vows he studied Philosophy at Murcia and then Theology at Alcalá, and was Ordained c 1635
1635-1654 Due to ill health he was sent to Ireland, and was appointed to Cashel Residence. It is most likely that he was Ordained before he departed on the journey. He was at Cashel for nineteen years and for a time he was Superior. During the “Commonwealth” period he was deported to Spain and TOLE.
1654 He served as Operarius at Ocaña and later Llerena, where he died 14 May 1662
He was thought to have some ability as a Moral Theologian and to have been a zealous Spiritual Director

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CONWAY, PATRICK. This worthy Missionary was stationed at Cashell, in 1649. He was then about 44 years of age, and of a feeble constitution

Born: 1572, New Ross, County Wexford
Entered: 22 July 1592, Coimbra, Portugal - Lusitaniae province (LUS)
Ordained: 1600, Salamanca, Spain
Professed: 06 January 1613
Died: 01 December 1626, Irish College, Seville, Spain - Baeticae Province (BAE)

Uncle of John Conway SJ - DOB 1617, Ent 1627, LEFT July 8, 1631

Studied 3 years Arts and 2 of Theology at Coimbra before Entry
1603 At Salamanca has 3 years Philosophy and 4 years Theology and is a Confessor
1612 in Compostella where he wrote an account of O’Devaney’s in Ireland martyrdom from an eyewitness
1614 At Madrid College
1617 In Province of Castellanae
1622 Rector of Irish College Seville
1624 At Madrid, Prefect of College

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica”:
He was a Rector and a great promoter of the Irish Colleges in Spain; Writer;
He was zealous and pious.
He was tied to a tree by robbers and miraculously freed by the Blessed Virgin Mary and his Angel Guardian (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ:
Son of Patrick and his wife née White
Studied Humanities at Irish College Lisbon 1589/1590 before Ent 22 July 1592 at Coimbra
After First Vows was sent to Spain for studies, to Montforte for Philosophy and Royal College Salamanca for Theology and was Ordained there 1600.
From the completion of his studies until the end of his life he was destined to play an important part in the organisation and support of the Irish Colleges of Salamanca, Santiago, and Seville.
1600-1608 At Salamanca as Spiritual Father but frequently filled in as vice-Rector during the many absences of Thomas White, who was constantly travelling seeking alms for the College,
1608-1613 Rector Irish College Salamanca
1613-1618 Appointed Rector of Irish College Santiago
1619-1622 First Rector of new Irish College Seville - lent to BAE
1622-1625 Freed from Seville to organise the finances of the Irish Colleges from the procurator's office at Madrid.
1625 Appointed Rector of Seville again and died in Office 01 December 1626
Richard Conway, it can ·be justly claimed, was one of the most eminent of Irish Churchmen of the seventeenth century. Under his prudent guidance for over a quarter of a century the three Irish Colleges under the control of the Jesuits in Spain sent forth to the Mission in their home country an army of splendidly trained priests prepared with knowledge and animated by zeal to maintain the Catholic faith in all its purity amongst their countrymen.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Conway, Richard
by Terry Clavin

Conway, Richard (1572–1626), Jesuit, was born in New Ross, Co. Tipperary, son of Patrick Conway; nothing is known of his mother. In 1590 he travelled to Lisbon and studied humanities at the Irish college there. On 22 July 1592 he was received into the Jesuit noviciate at Coimbra. After completing his noviceship at Coimbra, he studied philosophy at Monterey in Spain (1595–8) and theology at Salamanca. Highly regarded by his superiors, he was ordained in 1600 at Salamanca and was preacher and confessor there (1600–08). From 1605 he was often acting rector of the college, as the rectors were frequently absent raising funds. Conway also went on fund-raising missions for the college and became close to influential figures at the royal court and elsewhere. His skill at tapping wealthy benefactors for money facilitated his appointment as rector of the Irish college at Salamanca on 6 May 1608.

By 1608 Conway had been made procurator of the Irish mission. This was an important but burdensome office, which involved variously arranging correspondence between the Jesuits in Ireland and Rome, providing travel expenses for Jesuit novices studying abroad, advising Irish exiles who went to Spain, and promoting the interests of the Irish seminaries at the royal court in Madrid. Further, in the years following the conclusion of the Nine Years War in Ireland in 1603, large numbers of Irish refugees began arriving in Spain, and Conway was heavily involved in providing for them. As a result of these administrative responsibilities, from 1608 he resided for part of each year at Madrid.

Despite his heavy workload, Conway kept in contact with his former pupils who had joined the Irish mission. Their dispatches from Ireland had left him keenly aware of the dangers that faced the catholic clergy there. In 1611 he began writing a book outlining the persecution suffered by Irish catholics at the hands of English protestants. However, his superiors dissuaded him from completing this work, for fear that it would anger the English government.

In 1611–13 he was heavily involved in negotiating the transfer to the Irish Jesuits of the Irish college at Salamanca, which had previously taught both the laity and candidates for the priesthood. The Jesuits intended to use the college exclusively to train priests, but this was strongly opposed by the existing students. In July 1613 Conway took possession of the college and informed all students there that they would be expected to become priests. Many students refused to accept this and were expelled. In 1614 the powerful exiled Irish catholic nobleman Domhnall O'Sullivan Beare (qv) protested at Conway's conduct, but his superiors stood by his actions and he remained rector at Salamanca until 1618. As before, he proved hugely successful at raising funds to maintain the college, which was soon able to support twenty-five students.

In 1618 he resigned his rectorship and moved to Madrid, where he focused on raising money for the Irish colleges in Spain and for the Jesuit mission in Ireland. However, in 1619 he was made rector of the Irish college at Seville. The college was in a miserable condition, but his ability to raise money brought about a rapid improvement. Such was his success that complaints were directed against him for depriving other Jesuit houses in the city of charity. In late 1623 he was replaced as rector in Seville and went to Madrid to resume his role as procurator. He returned to Seville to become rector again in late 1625 and died there 1 December 1626.

John McErlean, ‘Richard Conway S.J.’, Irish Monthly, no. 51 (1923); Francis Finegan, ‘Irish rectors at Seville, 1619–1687’, IER, 5th ser., cvi (July–Dec. 1966), 45–63

◆ James B Stephenson SJ The Irish Jesuits Vol 1 1962

FR RICHARD CONWAY, SJ 1573-1626
(Abbreviated from the account published by Fr. John Mac Erlean, S.J. in the IRISH MONTHLY, 1923-24)

The preservation of the Catholic Faith in Ireland during three centuries of brutal persecution was largely due to the colleges and seminaries which patriotic Catholic Irishmen founded in several countries of Europe for the instruction of Irish youths and the education of Irish priests. Such signal service to the cause of God and Fatherland deserves to be remembered with everlasting gratitude. Their work was crowned with success. The most deadly efforts of the persecutors were gloriously defeated. One strange effect, however, of the long continuance of the persecution has been that the lives and works of those who commenced and carried on its triumphal resistance have been forgotten by those who even now are enjoying the fruits of their self-denying labours. To rescue their memory from oblivion is a pious and patriotic task.

Three Irish Jesuits stand out prominently as founders of Irish colleges in the Spanish peninsula: Fr John Howling, of Wexford, founder of the Irish College of Lisbon in 1590; Fr Thomas White, of Clonmel, founder of the Irish College of Salamanca in 1592; and Fr Richard Conway, of New Ross, who with Fr, Thomas White founded the Irish College of Santiago de Compostella in 1613, and that of Seville in 1619. Sketches of the careers of Fr. Flowling and Fr White were published by the late Fr. Edmund Hogan, S.J. in his Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1094). Fr. Conway is mentioned frequently by the Rev, William McDonald, then Rector of the Irish College of Salamanca, in his articles entitled Irish Colleges Since the Reformation, published in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record in 1873, but a consecutive account of his career is well worth attempting for the light it throws upon the ecclesiastical history of the times.

The Conways were one of the leading families of New Ross in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The head of the family in the middle of the sixteenth century was Patrick Conway, who died in 1587, He married a Miss White, by whom he had two sons, George and Richard. Richard, the future Jesuit, was born at New Ross in 1572 or 1573. There is not much to record of his childhood or early years. He left Ireland for Spain when about sixteen or seventeen years of age, but, young as he was when he left his native land, he did not leave without personal experience of England's methods in Ireland, for his mother's house was raided on a forged warrant “to seize upon chalices, money and other things ... in respect of priests and Jesuits that were there harboured to say Masses”. In a note written in 1612 he sets forth clearly the reasons that forced him to seek abroad the education denied him at home. He says: “The greatest injury the English heretics have done, and one which has had the most serious consequences, has been the prohibition of all Catholic schools in our nation, naturally so inclined to learning, except an odd infant school in the principal cities and towns where reading, writing, and a little grammar are taught. Their object was to sink our people to degradation, or fill the universities of England with the children of those who had any means to educate them, where they might become more dependent on heretics and contaminated with their errors. They have also taken singular care that all children be taught English, and chastise them if they hear then speak their own native language. But all the efforts of these crafty heretics do not produce the desired effect. The natives not only did not go to England, but preferred rather to remain in ignorance than run the risk of their faith and religion by doing so, or they went secretly and quietly to many foreign parts, but particularly to Spain”.

It was in the year 1590, seemingly, that Richard Conway landed at Lisbon. There he met many other Irish students, who had come abroad for the same purpose, and whose interests and welfare were the object of the solicitous care of the Wexford Jesuit, Fr John Howling, then resident at the Jesuit house of S Roque, in that city. Fr Howling was at that very time engaged in founding a college for these Irish students, which was opened soon after'. During the next two years, 1590-1592, Richard Conway remained in the Irish College, studying humanities or classics. Then, as a Spanish writer says, “feeling that the end he had in view, the preservation of the faith and the conversion of heretics in Ireland, could be attained with greater security and perfection in a Religious Order, he offered himself to the Society of Jesus, and was received into it”. He entered the Novitiate of Coimbra on July 22nd, 1592.

After completing his two years! noviceship at Coimbra, and taking his vows as. a scholastic on August 20th, 15941, he was sent in the following year to the College of Monterrey in Spain, where he devoted himself to the study of philosophy for the next three years, 1595-1598, During this time he won the highest praise from the authorities of the College for his intellectual gifts, his prudence and skill in the management of affairs, and his progress in philosophy. He is described as being of gentle disposition, and even at this early date is said to be one who would be an excellent labourer in the vine yard of the Lord, and be suited for the office of Superior of his nation.

From Monterrey he passed, in 1598, to the Royal College of Salamanca, where he studied theology for the next four years, 1598-1562, though not without interruption, for, as our Spanish authority says: “The Superiors recognising his remarkable talent for looking after those of his nation, and the holy zeal that he had for their welfare, took him from his studies before he had completed them to employ him in this work, whereupon he began to aid the Irish seminaries”. The Irish Seminary, or College of Salamanca, founded by Fr Thomas White, had been put under the care of the Society of Jesus by King Philip, in 1592, in answer to a petition presented by the Irish gentlemen at the Spanish Court. From 1592 onwards, Fr White and Fr James Archer were in charge of it. As they were often absent on missionary labours, or seeking aims for the support of the College, the duty of loo!:ing after the Irish students devolved on Fr Richard Conway, especially after his ordination as priest in 1600, and though he had still to do two years of his theological course, he acted from time to time as Vice-Rector.

Thus began Fr Conway's work on behalf of the Irish seminaries. He was stationed at Salamanca as preacher and confessor from 1600 to 1608, and often acted as Vice-Rector, he had full charge of the Seminary of Salamanca as Rector from 1608 to 1613, then of that of Santiago, 1613-1618. In 1619 he became Rector of the newly-founded Irish College of Seville, a position he held until 1622, and to which he was again appointed in 1625, and which he continued to hold till his death in 1626. Nor did this exhaust his labours. During these same years he acted as Prefect of all the Irish colleges in Spain, and as Procurator of the Irish Mission, in which capacity he was called to attend to the financial and other affairs of the Irish Mission in countries so far apart as Rome, Germany, Spain, Flanders, France, and Ireland,

When first he took up these multifarious duties it was a time of extraordinary difficulty. The victory of the English arms in Ireland in 1603 not only cut off all hope of receiving alms from Ireland, such as Fr James Archer had collected for the colleges in 1596, but threw upon the shores of Spain in the succeeding years destitute crowds of Irish men, women, and children, fleeing in ever-increasing numbers from the cruelty of the English, while continuing the main work of providing for the necessities of the colleges, Fr Conway strove hard to relieve the distress of these helpless refugees. Of the religious and scholastic fervour of the Irish Seminary of Salamanca in these years the Annual Letters of the Province of Castile for the year 1604 bear : striking testimony. There were then four Jesuits living in the College, filling the offices of Rector, Confessor, Professor, and Spiritual Director respectively. The students numbered twenty-two, of whom eight were studying theology and four philosophy. Eight students had entered the Society of Jesus, and four had entered other Religious Orders. All students made a week's retreat, some even made two weeks, and all were assiduous in religious practices. The Bishop, the Magister Scholae, and other Doctors testified in laudatory terns to the doctrine, conduct, and training of the students.

But, meanwhile, those to whom was due whatever provision for Irish students existed were subject to a new and unexpected trial. The administration of the Irish Colleges was bitterly and unreasonably assailed. These institutions were so necessary, and the good they were doing for the preservation of the faith in Ireland was so striking, that some well-meaning persons forgot, no doubt unconsciously, the ceaseless efforts required to procure for them the limited and uncertain resources which they possessed; but the bitterest critics were those who had done nothing towards the founding of the Colleges, and had never contributed a penny towards their support. The history of the two centuries that followed offers many examples of similar attacks on the administration of the Irish Colleges in Spain and Rome. The motives in the main were provincial animosities, suspicions of partiality, and the interference of ill affected outsiders, who for their own ends fomented dissensions and encouraged insubordination within the college walls.

This agitation was begun in 1602, when a memorial against the continuance of the Irish Fathers of the Society af Jesus in control of the Seminary of Salamanca, drawn up in the names of O'Donnell and O'Neill, was presented to King Philip III, and demanded: (1.) that half the students of the Seminary should be selected from Ulster and Connaught; (2) that Fr Thomas White should be removed from the rectorship as being one who could not be trusted to carry out such a selection, or who would ill-treat those students whom he would be forced to receive; and (3) that a Spaniard, who would see to the punctual execution of this decree, should be appointed Rector.

The plot was skilfully conceived and vigorously carried out. The malcontents dared not go so far as to demand that the seminaries should be handed over to themselves, but yet they hoped by appealing to Spanish prejudices to oust the Irish Jesuits. The controversy continued for more than two years, memorials and replies alternating. In defence of the Irish Jesuits, the Irish nobles and gentlemen residing in Valladolid refuted the accusations and defended the existing administration; the Provincial of Castile denied that there was any preference against Northern students; the Bishop of the place testified to the good conduct of the students and the discipline observed in the government, and said he had never heard any complaints of the rule of the Irish Fathers. Finally, the Rector of the Royal College, to whose supervision the Irish College was subject, declared that all the charges made by the memoralists were false and wholly destitute of foundation.

In spite of these testimonies in favour of the Irish Fathers, the government of the Irish College was by order of the King taken from then and a Spanish Jesuit was appointed Rector. This royal order remained in force for only three years, 1605-1608. The arrangement was found by experience to be unsatisfactory both for the finances and the discipline of the College, Indeed, it would have proved ruinous to the College had not Fr William Bathe, Fr Richard Conway, and, later, also Fr Janes Comerton, who dwelt in it as confessors and preachers, exerted all their influence to keep things quiet, and in general to promote the interests of the College.

The efforts of the Irish Fathers to help the Irish students in the midst of numerous difficulties were fully appreciated by the Jesuit General, Fr Claudius Aquaviva, who on April 3rd, 1607, complimented Fr Conway on what he was doing for them. But the state of affairs brought about by the royal interference rendered all efforts well nigh futile. Soon the General came to see that if the Seminary was to do efficient work it would have to be committed to the charge of the Irish Fathers, and wrote to this effect to the Spanish Provincial on July 24th, , 1607. The Spanish Rectors themselves readily admitted their unsuitability for the position, and the last of the three who held office during those three years appealed to the Provincial to appoint Irish Rectors in future. Finally the King was requested to revoke his former order, which he did on March 24th, 1608. Fr Richard Convay was chosen as the person most fitted to take on the government of the College, and he entered upon his office as Rector on May 6th of the same year.

During the time of the Spanish Rectors, as well as during the whole of his subsequent career, Fr Conway continued his activity on behalf of the Irish students and refugees. In a contemporary account we read that he often went to the Court and other places to seek alms for the support of his seminarists and by his zeal, pleasant manners, and exemplary life succeeded in getting large contributions for their relief, many other students and priests, for whom the Seminaries had no room, he assisted by giving them enough to enable then to pursue their studies in Salamanca, Alcala, Valladolid, Granada, and Cordova. His zeal did not confine itself to students, ecclesiastical or lay, but extended itself to relieving a large number of Irish girls who fled from Ireland for religion's sake to Spain. He sought alms for them all, and settled them in good positions. Some entered convents, while for others he begged dowries, and left then honourably and virtuously married. In the matter of getting alms, he was greatly helped by the fact that he had easy access to the houses of the highest gentlemen at the Court, including even the King and Queen, and the Prelates and Chapters, all of thom he won over by his good example and by his conversation. Thile seeking to relieve the material necessities of his countrymen, he did not neglect their spiritual needs. He preached not only to his seminarists, but also to externs, gave them the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, and sought their society only to win them and improve them spiritually.

His interest in the students did not cease when they left college, He followed then with paternal anxiety, and supported them by his advice when they had returned to their dangerous mission, and they on their part kept up a filial correspondence with him. Their letters shout the spirit with which they faced the danger's that surrounded them. The Rev Eugene O'Brien wrote to Fr Conway from Galway on September 30th, 1606, to tell him of the efforts made to take him when the persecutors found that he was an alumnus of the Spanish College. From Waterford the Rev John Wadding wrote in October of the same year, praising the constancy of the Mayor and Councillors of that city, several of whom had been taken prisoners by the heretics. Another former student, Rev Luke Bennett, a relative of his own, writing from Dunmore, in Leinster, in April, 1607, describes the persecution in his native New Ross, and tells how the faith is preserved in the district by the ministrations or four other priests from the Slamanca College, The Licentiate, Thomas Wise, who had gone from Salamanca to Rome, wrote to Fr Conway in June, 1607, telling hin of the barbarous cruelties inflicted on another former pupil. Thady Dimiran, because he refused to abjure the faith.

In 1611 the General wished Fr Conway to go to Rome and assist him with his advice in matters concerning the Irish Mission; but he yielded to representations made by Fr Thomas White and others, who explained how much his services were required in Spain.

In the year 1610 the Irish College of Salamanca was the recipient of several privileges and favours, A new building was presented to the Irish by the States of Castile, etc. A slab was placed over the door to commemorate the event. A new title, Colegio de Nobles Irlandeses (College of Irish Nobles), was given to the new establishment, which was formally made a royal college, and placed under the protection of the Kind, and, in addition to the ordinary annual alms given by the King to the College, Philip III undertook to pay every student his travelling expenses back to Ireland on the completion of his studies. These grants, largely due to Fr Conway's intercession, secured the future of the College.

But the government of the College, the begging of alms for its support, the solicitation of royal favours, did not exhaust the activities of Fr. Conway. Whilst engaged in these absorbing occupations, he compiled a work on English tyranny in Ireland, the publication of which was stopped lest the irritation of the King of England might endanger the lives of the Jesuits in Ireland and England and lead to a more violent persecution of the Catholic priests and laity in these countries. Whether the book was ever completed or not is not known, but certain short tracts, which may have been intended to form chapters of the complete work, have been preserved. Among these, his treatise on Irish saints marks him out as one of the pioneers of Irish hagiography.

During the last two years of Fr Conway's rectorship at Salamanca he was much occupied with the negotiations that transferred the Irish College at Santiago de Compostella to the care of the Irish Fathers or the Society of Jesus in Spain. This College had been founded in the year 1605 by the King of Spain, at a time when thousands of Irish exiles fled to that country to escape the persecution of the English heretics. £100 per annun was granted to the students by the King, and the Rev Eugene MacCarthy, a secular priest, was appointed Rector of the College. This arrangement did not work satisfactorily, and Philip III determined to entrust it to the Irish Fathers. He wrote to this effect to the Provincial of Castile, Fr Gaspar de Vegas, and the Governor of Galicia, D Luis Henriquez. Owing to the straitened circumstances of the Province of Castile the Provincial hesitated about accepting the additional burden. Fr Conway forwarded to the General a statement of the case, giving the reasons for and against acceptance. The General in his reply favoured acceptance. Meanwhile Fr Eugene MacCarthy undertook the defence of the existing arrangement, and in a letter to the Provincial accused the Irish Fathers of being actuated by motives of ambition and self-interest in attempting to capture the College. Fr William White, SJ, had no difficulty in refuting these charges; the Provincial's opposition weakened, and in April, 1613, the question was finally settled by an express order to the Provincial from the Duke de Lerma, on the part of the King, for the Fathers to take charge of the College.

In consequence of this order, Frs Thomas White, William White, and Richard Conway sent to Santiago and took possession of the College, and on the 16th July the General wrote to the Provincial to order Fr Conway to take up the government of the Seminary of Santiago.

Fr Conway occupied the position of Rector from 1613 to 1618, though his other office of Procurator of the Irish Mission often compelled him to be in Madrid, especially towards the end of his term. He threw llimself with characteristic energy into the work of establishing and developing the new Seminary. The royal allowance of £100 per annum sufficed for the support of a small number of students, but by alms which he succeeded in obtaining from the clergy and the faithful he was able to maintain as many as twenty-five. He drew up plans for linking up the Seminaries of Salamanca, Santiago, and Lisbon, to prevent overlapping, by having humanities taught in one, philosophy in another, and theology in the third. He looked after the spiritual interests of the Irish in Santiago, and as many of them were soldiers from France and the Low Countries, he arranged for the sending of Irish Jesuits who understood French and Flemish to minister to them. Another favourite idea of his was to unite the two Colleges of Salamanca and Santiago at the latter place. This would have economised on the staff and would have been beneficial to the health of the students; but no change was made.

Some disagreements and disputes arose during these years between O'Sullivan Beare and Fr Contay. In 1614 the former complained to the General of the expulsion of certain students from the Seminary, which, he said, had been established by the royal bounty, and with his consent transferred to the Society of Jesus. After full examination, however, Fr Conway's action was approved by his Superiors. Another complaint was in respect of a house granted him by the King, of which he had been deprived by Fr Conway. This dispute was brought into the courts, and the claim of O'Sullivan Beare was upheld. It was a curious example of a double grant. In the decree of the Royal Camera, dated 29th July, 1617, it is said that the Camera, when it granted the house in question to the Seminary, was not aware that a grant had previously been made of the same house to O'Sullivan Beare, and that consequently the house was adjudged to him. There is no imputation against the good faith of Fr Conway in this law suit,

During the progress of the case, O'Sullivan Beare petitioned the King to have the former semi-laical character of the College of Santiago continued, maintaining that there was greater need of Catholic gentlenen in Ireland than of priests. Fr Conway resisted this interference, and his action received the approval of the General, Fr. Mutius Vitelleschi, who succeeded Fr Aquaviva on the latter's death in 1615. In April, 1618, on the appointment of Fr James Comerfort as Rector of Santiago, Fr Conway was left free to act as Procurator of the Irish Mission in Madrid. He had been carrying on the duties of this position since 1608, and had to deal with many important matters concerning the welfare of the Irish seminaries in Spain. Between 1613 and 1624 he carried on a good deal of correspondence about what is termed “the Sicilian money” - a legacy of the late Queen, amounting to between 6,000 and 7,000 ducats, half of which was to be invested for the support of the Mission. The exhausted state of the Sicilian treasury caused the payment of this sum to be deferred, and finally all hope of receiving it was abandoned.

Another important affair entrusted to the care of Fr Conway was that of the pension of Archbishop David Kearney, of Cashel. As the Archbishop was for many years at the beginning of the seventeenth century the mainstay of ecclesiastical organisation in Ireland, Philip III of Spain, in order to enable him to promote the interests of the Church, assigned to hin a pension of 2,000 ducats on the Bishopric of Cadiz. With the approval oi the General, the Archbishop in 1611 appointed Fr Conway his agent to conduct the necessary negotiations. These negotiations continued until the Archbishop's death in 1621, and the subsequent arrangements to carry out the disposal of the money in accordance with his wishes, and to resist the claims of the English and Scotch Colleges in Spain, occupied the attention of Fr Conway till his death, two years later, and dragged on for four years after that time.

In 1619 Fr. Conway vas recalled from Madrid, and sent to take up the position of Rector of the Irish College of Seville, which in that year was handed over to the Irish Jesuits. Eight years previously the General had been asked by Don Felix de Guzman, a Sevillian nobleman, Archdeacon and Canon, to undertake the management of such a college, but the General was unwilling to do so, as an English College already existed in the same city, and he wrote to that effect to Fr Conway, who as then in Lisbon, on December 6th, 1622. In the following year the Apostolic Nuncio in Spain gave leave for the collecting of alms for the Irish students of Seville, but again in this year, and in the two succeeding years, the General expressed his unwillingness to have the Society associated with the projected College.

The College was duly opened, and for the next few years was governed by a succession of secular priests, of whom the first two were Irish and the next four Spaniards. As the numerous changes indicate, the arrangement did not prove satisfactory, and Don Felix de Guzman and Don Geronimo de Medina Ferragut renewed their exertions to induce the Jesuits to take over the government of the College. Don Felix offered to support the Fathers sent, and Don Geronimo offered to make over the house which the students occupied, on the sole condition that the College should be called the College of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God and of the Holy Catholic Faith, which name it retained ever afterwards. Fr Conway was now in favour of the Society taking over the College, and the King wrote expressing his desire that this should be done. In April, 1619, the Provincial and his Consultors agreed to accept, notwithstanding the grave difficulties which presented themselves, and this decision was approved by the General on June 19th. On the same day he wrote to Fr Richard Conway telling him to proceed to Seville to take charge of the new College.

The Society took possession of the College on August 20th, 1619. Fr Conway and Fr Michael de Morales (Cantuell) drew up an inventory of its goods and a list of the students. The effects left by the preceding administration were valued at only £12, and several large debts had been incurred which had to be paid afterwards. Fr Conway mentions the names of six students. The names of six others are known, and another account says that there were in all fifteen.

In view of the necessities of the Irish Seminary of Seville, the Holy See on September 9th, 1619, granted, in answer to a petition of Fr Conway, permission to the fishernien of Andalusia to fish on șix Sundays and holidays in the year, on the understanding that “the fruit of their toil should be given freely and without condition to the Irish College of Seville for the support of the Rector and students and persons employed in their services”.

To raise funds for the Irish Seminaries, all of which, but especially that of Seville, were in great need, Fr Conway proposed that some Irish Fathers should be sent from Spain to the Indies, that is, to Mexico and South America, with a view to collecting alms. When that proposal was not favourably entertained, he begged the General to write to the Provincials of the Indies to ask then to do whatever they could, and he suggested that the Provincial of Mexico should be requested to set aside Fr Michael Godinez (Wadding) for that work. The first part of the proposal was agreed to, but what the ultimate success of the project was we do not know.

During the years 1622-1623 complaints were made to the General of the way in which Fr Conway was running the College. The matters complained of were not of serious import. He is said to have admitted more students than the revenues of the institution could support, and to have allowed confessions to be heard in the church of the Seminary instead of sending the penitents to the Casa Professa, according to the regulations already laid down. Another complaint was that “the students of the Irish College went one day during the summer months in their collegiate gowns to bathe in the river, and returned home two hours after nightfall”. The real reason underlying all the complaints were seemingly Fr Conway's zeal in collecting alms, and new regulations were made with regard to requesting support for the College in the city. Fr Conway's alms-questing was not without some exciting experiences, for at least on one occasion, when going along the road for this purpose, he was set upon by robbers, who deprived him of everything he had, beat hin severely, and left him with his hands tied at the foot of an olive tree, where he lay for some time before he was able to free himself and make his way to a neighbouring village.

Towards the end of the year 1623, Fr Luis Ramirez was appointed Rector of the Irish College of Seville, and Fr Conway returned to his forner office of Procurator of the Irish Mission at the court of Madrid. On the 22nd December of that year he laid before the General a new plan for increasing the provision made for the education of the Irish secular clergy. This was to petition the Holy See to allow the Chapters of the Churches of Spain to receive tho Irish students each for the Irish Missions into the seminaries founded by order of the Council of Trent, notwithstanding the decree of that Council that the seminarists should be natives of the dioceses. The General deferred the consideration of this suggestion until the approval of the Chapters should have been obtained.

Another prospect for the development of colleges for the Irish secular clergy opened when towards the end of 1623 the Grand Prior of England of the Order of St. John set aside 2,000 ducats as a beginning of a foundation of an Irish College in Rome. Fr Conway was directed to forward the sum to Rome, so that it might be used to buy a site or be allowed to lie at interest until there would be enough for the end intended. In the following year, 1625, the General announced to him that the foundation of an Irish Seminary in Rome by Cardinal Ludovisi was taking shape slowly, but that it was not known when it would be put into execution.

On June 2nd, 1624, Fr Conway informed the General that the King and Council, recognising that the Irish Seminary at Douay was not being well administered by those who had charge of it, wished to entrust it to the Society. In reply, the General told him that, if the matter was as represented, the King and Council would be sure to give some sign of their desire, but that meanwhile he was not to speak about the subject or try in any way to have the Seminary entrusted to the Society. Similarly, when he announced in the following year the foundation of a new Irish Seminary at Alcala, he was told to have nothing to do with it: “Better improve those of Salamanca, Seville, and Santiago, so that they may be able to support more alunni”.

In 1624 he appealed to the Catholic King to recommend the needs of the Irish students to the bishops of Spain, and in a letter dated St Laurence (the Escorial), 31st October, 1624, King Philip III wrote recommending them to the Bishop of Zamora, as he had already recommended then, he says, to the prelates of Seville and Jaen.

Meanwhile affairs were not proceeding well in the Irish Seminary of Seville, Before a year elapsed Fr Ramirez asked to be relieved of the rectorate. The Spanish Fathers were not able to manage the Irish students. On the 7th July, 1625, Fr. Conway was ordered to proceed to Seville and take charge of the Seminary, as soon as he had settled up his affairs in Madrid; but it was not until Christmas that he arrived in Seville, and entered upon his duties as Rector of the Seminary for the second time. Under his management the disorders ceased, and he was congratulated on the zeal with which he looked after the interests of the College.

In January of the following year, 1626, the Seminary suffered great loss from the overflowing of the river. A good part of the building collapsed, and Fr Conway's efforts for the welfare of his students won considerable praise. He found accommodation for them in different places, but remained on in the house himself, and when he had collected what was necessary for their support he carried the food to them every day on foot. A few months later, in August, 1626, he became seriously ill, and he died on the lst of December, after having received the last Sacraments.

In this sketch of Fr. Conway's life and work little has been said of his spiritual life. From the difficulties he overcame and the greatness of the work he accomplished it has been possible, no doubt, to form some idea of those interior forces which supernaturalised his external activities, but there is abundant testimony given by those who lived with him to his religious virtue and holy life. Especially remarkable was his constancy in prayer. As the hours of the day did not suffice for his many devotional exercises, he devoted to them a large part of the night. We are told, that, though it was generally twelve or one o'clock when he retired to rest, he rose before four in the morning. His spiritual note-books, which reveal the daily life of his soul, contain so many prayers and devotions, distributed by days, weeks, months, and years, that it would seen he had nothing else to do. His fasts and other mortifications were also noticed by his contemporaries. He slept three nights a week on the ground; he fasted every Saturday, and each day he gave a large part of his food to the poor. He wore clothes cast off by others, and at his death the only thing that he seems to have possessed was a small cross, half broken. As a final example of his spirit of detachment and abnegation may be mentioned the fact that, although for many years he had leave from his Superiors' to return to his native land, he never made use of it, lest by doing so he might neglect the Irish exiles abroad.

Fr Conway was not only a devoted son of the Catholic Church, but a great lover of Ireland. In the heat of controversy O’Sullivan Beare spoke of him as Anglo-Irish. Geoffrey Keating was accused of being the same, and his reply to the accusation might have been penned by Fr Richard Conway. For Fr Conway spoke the Irish language, and was as familiar with Irish history and tradiions as any O'Sullivan. By his words and writings he revived the name and fame of Ireland on the Continent. It was through him, as far as we can discover that the Codex Salmanticensis, from which Fr. John Colgan, OSF, and the Bollandists derive so much of their knowledge of Ireland's early saints, came into possession of the Irish College of Salamanca, and was thus preserved for future ages. The seminaries he founded frustrated the British plan of perverting Ireland through enforced ignorance.

To Salamanca, the first of the seminaries which lie ruled, he transmitted that tradition of learning and love of Ireland which such men as Fr Paul Sherlock and Fr Peter Reade afterwards handed on. Ireland may well be proud of him, and so may the Society of Jesus. At a time when the memory of the canonisation of St Ignatius and St Francis Xavier was still fresh in Spain, a Spanish contemporary does not hesitate to compare him with both these illustrious saints : “Fr Richard Conway”, he says, “was one of the true sons of our glorious Father, St Ignatius, and a true imitator of that zeal for souls that consumed the heart of the glorious Father, St Francis Xavier, on the eve of whose feast he was called to his reward by God, leaving to us who remain after him his exemplary life for our initiation and consolation”.

John MacErlean SJ

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Richard Conway 1572-1626
Fr Richard Conway, together with Fr John Houling and Fr Thomas White, may be reckoned as one of the Saviours of the Faith in Ireland. This claim is based on his work of founding and maintaining Irish Colleges, mainly in Spain and Portugal, by means of which a steady flow of secular priests, Jesuits and educated Irish gentlemen was poured into the country, when all means of higher education had been eeradicated by the English authorities

Richard Conway was born in New Ross in 1572, and he sought the education, deniend him at home, in Lisbon, at the age of sixteen or seventeen. There he met Fr John Howling, and under his aegis became a Jesuit at Coimbra in 1592. Thenceforward, his whole life was dedicated to the education andservice of trhe countless Irish refugees flybing from persecution at home. He founded the Colleges of Santiago and Seville, and by a lifetime questing alms and wisely governing various Irish Colleges, fought the good fight, which prompted Fr MacErlean to say of him “Ireland may well be proud of him, and so may the Society of Jesus”.

Some time before his death, while collecting alms, he was waylaid by robbers and deprived of everything he possessed.He was neated severely, and he was left with his hands toed to the bottom of an olive tree. He cried aloud for help but noone came. He invoked Our Lady and his Guardian Angel, whereupon his bonds were loosened, and he made his way to a nearby town.

On his death bed, December 1st 1626, before he closed his eyes forever, Christ Our Lord appeared to him, and as a foretaste of the glorious reward in store for him, led him unto a charming region, where he beheld strange and secret sights.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CONWAY, RICHARD. I learn from two letters of Dr. David Kearny, Archbishop of Cashell, of the 15th of July, 1616. and the 30th ot September, 1616, that this confidential Agent was actively employed In Spain in his Grace s service. The Father was at Madrid in October, 1624.

Born: 14 July 1683, Flintshire or Ireland
Entered: 1702, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1710
Died: 13 September 1741, St Omer, France - - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CONWAY, WILLIAM, admitted in 1702 : was living at Ghent 26 years later, “sine officio” died at St. Omer, 13th September, 1741, set. 59.

Born: 1659, Flintshire or Ireland
Entered: 14/10/1679, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1688
Died: 25 February 1689, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Born: 14 July 1808, County Meath
Entered: 02 February 1843, St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 15 August 1862, St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 20 May 1877, St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly

1843-1845: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Novitiate
1845-1877: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Cook, working, Sacristan

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He spent nearly all his religious life at Tullabeg. He was a baker or cook, and also drove one of the Bianchi coaches in his early days.
He was something of a poet and a genius. Towards the end of his life he was Sacristan in the People’s Church at Tullabeg, and he died there 20 May 1877.

Born: 28 July 1844, Stratford, Essex, England
Entered: 07 September 1868, Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1877, St Beuno's, St Asaph, Wales
Final Vows: 15 August 1882, Manresa, Roehampton, London, England
Died: 08 June 1889, University College, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin - Angliae Province (ANG)

1868-1870: Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG), Novitiate
1870-1873: St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Philosophy
1873-1874: Manresa, Roehampton, London, England, Regency
1874-1877: St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales, Theology
1877-1878: Mount St Mary’s College SJ, Spinkhill, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, Subminister, Teaching
1878-1879: Oxford Oratory Church of St Aloysius Gonzaga, Woodstock Road, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, Curate
1879-1881: St Francis Xavier, Salisbury Street, Liverpool, Lancashire, England, Curate
1881-1882: Manresa, Roehampton, London, England, Tertianship
1882-1884: Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England, Teaching
1884-1889: University College, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin (HIB), Teaching

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Cholmeley Grammar in Highgate. He later studied Classics under the famous Dr Jowett at Baliol, Oxford. He had a keen interest indrawing, ever since his aunt introduced him to Layard, and he never ceased drawing and painting, as asell as studying Art and Architecture - such as Butterfield, the architect of Keble. He also had a great interest in music, and possessed a lovely voice. He won a school Exhibition, and an Exhibition at Baliol in 1863.
1866 he became a convert under the influence of Jowett and especially John Henry Newman, and two years later Entered the Society.

1884 After an arduous career on the mission in various parts of England, Scotland adn Wales, he came to UCD as Professor of Greek. he taught there for five years, and then contracted typhus, and he died there in 1889, butied in Glasnevin.

Though constantly engaged by botht the criticism of Poetry, and composing his own, he never published anything during his lifetime. He sent all his poems to his great friend Robert Bridges, who after his death set about having them published. He exercised great judgement, in terms of timing in the culture, fo these publications, allowing only a few at a time, lets they be considered oddities. It was not until 1918 that he decided that they be published in an edition. Only at the publication od the 2nd edition in 1930, and after Bridges’ death, was he considered a master of the art. The publication of Hopkin’s correspondence with both bridges, and later Richard Watson Dixon were very well received. The only disappointment was that the letters from Bridges have not survived, especially when he had written questioning Hopkins about thethe value of his continuing to write poetry, since we have Hopkins’ tender reply. He in fact valued Bridges’ poetry hugely. In addition his correspondence with Coventry Patmore has also been published. The published correspondences show how ill at ease Hopkins was in the world, but also that faith was the strongest and happiest part of him. (”MT” Irish Independent. March 1935)

He Ent at Hodder 07/09/1868, and his fellow Novices well recalled his pangyric on St Stanislaus as brilliant and beautiful.
1873 After Philosophy he went back to the Juniorate for Regency. he then wentfor Theology at St Beuon’s and was Ordained there 1877.
1878 He began life as a Missioner in London, Liverpool and Oxford, showing a great love of the poor and young, and devotion to the Vincent de Paul Society.
1881-1882 He made Tertianship at Manresa and took Final Vows there 15/08/1882.
1882-1884 He taught the “secular Philosophers” at Stonyhurst.
1884 Came to Dublin and UCD, having been made a fellow of the Royal University, and he taught Latin and Greek there, and examining the Classics for the Royal. He liked teaching but hated examining. Although he hated it, he was assiduous in his attention to this duty.

Most of his spare time was devoted to literature. He had prepared for publication a work on idioms and dialects in Ireland, and wrote some articles for the “Classical Review”. At the time of his death he was angaged in work dealing with dificult passages in Aristophenes. He read literature extensivley, though itmwas said he would e happy only to have his Breviary. He also compsed some fugues, which were well thought of by Sir Robert Stewart, an Irish composer : “On everything he wrote and said, there was the stamp of originality, and he had the keenest appreciation of humour. I think the characteristics whoch most struck all who knew him were firstly his priestly spirit....and secondly his devotion and loyalty to the Society of Jesus.

A day r two after Low Sunday 1889 he fell ill of typhoid. he was fully aware of the seriousness, but hoped he would pull through. His condition deteriorated seriously on June 5th, and he was attended to with great care by Thomas Wheeler. hearing that his parents were coming from England, he dreaded their arrival, because of the pain it would cause them to see him like this. Once arrived he was happy they had come. He knew that he was dying and asked each day for the Viaticum. On receiving the Last Rites on the day of his death, he was heard to say “I am so happy”. He was then too weak to speak, but seemed able to follow the prayers that Thomas Wheeler spoke, and he was joined by his parents for these. (“Letters and Notices”)

◆ “Letters and Notices”
He Ent at Hodder 07 September 1868, and his fellow Novices well recalled his panegyric on St Stanislaus as brilliant and beautiful.
1873 After Philosophy he went back to the Juniorate for Regency. he then went for Theology at St Beuno’s and was Ordained there 1877.
1878 He began life as a Missioner in London, Liverpool and Oxford, showing a great love of the poor and young, and devotion to the Vincent de Paul Society.
1881-1882 He made Tertianship at Manresa Roehampton and took Final Vows there 15 August 1882.
1882-1884 He taught the “secular Philosophers” at Stonyhurst.
1884 Came to Dublin and UCD, having been made a fellow of the Royal University, and he taught Latin and Greek there, and examining the Classics for the Royal. He liked teaching but hated examining. Although he hated it, he was assiduous in his attention to this duty.
Most of his spare time was devoted to literature. He had prepared for publication a work on idioms and dialects in Ireland, and wrote some articles for the “Classical Review”. At the time of his death he was engaged in work dealing with difficult passages in Aristophenes. He read literature extensively, though it was said he would be happy only to have his Breviary. He also composed some fugues, which were well thought of by Sir Robert Stewart, an Irish composer : “On everything he wrote and said, there was the stamp of originality, and he had the keenest appreciation of humour. I think the characteristics which most struck all who knew him were firstly his priestly spirit....and secondly his devotion and loyalty to the Society of Jesus.
A day or two after Low Sunday 1889 he fell ill of typhoid. he was fully aware of the seriousness, but hoped he would pull through. His condition deteriorated seriously on June 5th, and he was attended to with great care by Thomas Wheeler. hearing that his parents were coming from England, he dreaded their arrival, because of the pain it would cause them to see him like this. Once arrived he was happy they had come. He knew that he was dying and asked each day for the Viaticum. On receiving the Last Rites on the day of his death, he was heard to say “I am so happy”. He was then too weak to speak, but seemed able to follow the prayers that Thomas Wheeler spoke, and he was joined by his parents for these.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Hopkins, Gerard Manley
by Patrick Maume

Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844–89), poet and Jesuit, was born 28 July 1844 at 87 The Grove, Stratford, Essex, eldest of nine children (eight of whom survived to adulthood) of Manley Hopkins (1818–1897), marine insurance adjuster, and his wife, Catherine, or Kate (née Smith; 1821–1920). His parents encouraged their children's artistic interests, inspired by the Ruskinian view that close observation of the natural world was intimately linked to moral perception; Gerard developed a talent for drawing, and two of his brothers became professional artists. His interest in poetry dated from his mid-teens. Hopkins was educated at Highgate School (1854–63), where he was regularly and brutally flogged, and Balliol College, Oxford (1863–7), where he thrived. Here he moved in Anglo-Catholic ritualist circles, whose views went beyond those of his high-church family. He began to practise auricular confession, and his religious faith centred on sacramental belief in the real presence of Jesus in the eucharist. Anglo-Catholic ritualism sometimes had a certain homoerotic element; there is little doubt that Hopkins's orientation was homosexual and that he was troubled by his fascination with the male body. He was a small and slightly built man who suffered from persistent health problems; some acquaintances regarded him as mildly effeminate, but others disputed this.

In the summer of 1866 Hopkins came to believe that the anglican claim to be a part of the one church founded by Christ was untenable; on 21 October 1866 he was received into the Roman catholic church by John Henry Newman (qv). After graduation he taught for two terms at Newman's Oratory school at Birmingham, but then decided to enter the religious life. After making this decision, on 11 May 1867, he burned his manuscript poems, believing them to be a possible obstacle to his religious vocation, but they survive in copies that he had sent to friends. In the ensuing years he continued to keep journals of his observations from nature.

In September 1868 Hopkins entered the novitiate of the English province of the Society of Jesus at Roehampton. In undertaking for the first time the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius Loyola he experienced a spiritual crisis (which he later recalled in his poem ‘The wreck of the Deutschland’). It appears that the Ignatian method both exercised his powers of observation (the Ignatian meditant is encouraged to visualise precisely the scenes on which he meditates) and heightened his tendency to morbid introspection and depression. After taking his vows on 8 September 1870 he spent 1870–73 in further training at St Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, Lancashire, and 1873–4 teaching classics and English to junior novices at Roehampton. In August 1874 he was sent to St Beuno's College in Wales to study theology; he developed a special devotion to St Winifred, whose shrine is nearby, studied Welsh – a pursuit that combined an interest in prosody with a desire for the conversion of Wales – and continued his observations of nature. He also discovered the writings of the medieval scholastic Duns Scotus, who taught that each individual thing has its own distinct essence, by contrast with the Thomist view that matter is in essence undifferentiated; this accorded with his own view of the physical world as a sacramental medium through which God makes his presence known. Hopkins's aesthetic rejected ‘Parnassian’ regularity and tried to deploy words to bring out afresh the inherent design and energies of the sensual world. His adherence to Scotism, rather than Thomism, which was the officially favoured school, is believed to have hindered his advancement in the Jesuit order. Hopkins made the most of the fact that Scotus – unlike Aquinas – had been a zealous advocate of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which Pius IX had declared binding on all catholics in 1854. On 28 August 1874 he received the four minor orders of doorkeeper, lector, acolyte, and exorcist.

In December 1875 Hopkins was fascinated by newspaper accounts of the deaths of five German nuns, while escaping to America from Bismarck's Kulturkampf, in a shipwreck off the English coast; in response to a casual remark from his superior about the possibility of writing a poem on the subject, he composed an ode ‘The wreck of the Deutschland’, which combines an account of Hopkins's own submission to God with the story of the nuns’ deaths, and hails them as martyrs whose end will hasten the return of England to catholicism. Hopkins was acutely aware of the conflict between the catholic church and temporal powers across Europe; he believed that English civilisation faced imminent disintegration as a long-term effect of the Reformation, and hoped that his poetry might be an instrument of God in the subsequent reconstruction. The ode was completed by June 1875 and submitted to the editors of the Jesuit journal, The Month, who found its metrical and stylistic experiments incomprehensible and turned it down. Hopkins regarded their response not merely as an ordinary rejection but as an expression of official disapproval; after The Month refused a more conventional ode on a shipwreck, ‘The wreck of the Eurydice’ in 1878, he came to realise that his work would probably not be published in his lifetime. He continued to write – though in less complex forms – and to send copies of his poems to a small circle of friends, the most important of whom were Robert Bridges, an Oxford contemporary who became poet laureate and served as Hopkins's literary executor, and the anglican canon R. W. Dixon, a poet who had briefly taught Hopkins at Highgate.

After his ordination to the major orders of subdeacon, deacon, and priest (21–3 September 1877) Hopkins began a period of movement from place to place. He found this profoundly disturbing, though he accepted it in accordance with the Jesuit self-image of soldiers removed from inordinate attachment to their surroundings and willing to go where they were sent without hesitation. He taught at Mount St Mary's College, near Sheffield (October 1877 to April 1878), and was curate at the fashionable Jesuit church in Farm Street, London (July to November 1878) and at St Aloysius’ church, Oxford (December 1878 to October 1879); this experience of appearing as a revenant in the setting of so many fond memories produced a number of poems on transience and mortality.

In October 1879 Hopkins was assigned as curate to St Joseph's church at Bedford Leigh in Lancashire. This appointment saw the start of a period of service in the slums of the industrial north, which the nature-loving southerner found oppressive, particularly after he moved to St Francis Xavier, Liverpool (January 1880 to August 1881). His ornate style of preaching was ill suited to audiences more responsive to the direct style of Father Tom Burke (qv), in whose honour he composed some Latin verses. Hopkins once reduced a dining-room full of Jesuits to laughter by an extended comparison between the shape of the Sea of Galilee and that of the human ear, and he unintentionally scandalised a Farm Street congregation by comparing the church to a cow with seven teats – the sacraments. On a temporary posting to St Joseph's church, Glasgow (August to October 1881), he found ‘the poor Irish’ at Glasgow ‘very attractive . . . though always very drunken and at present very Fenian, they are warm-hearted and give a far heartier welcome than those at Liverpool’. In October 1881 Hopkins began his tertianship at Roehampton, and on 15 August 1882 he took his final vows, after which he was sent to teach at Stonyhurst.

In December 1883 Hopkins was invited to Ireland by Father William Delany (qv), who wished to raise the standard of teaching at University College, Dublin, the remnant of Newman's Catholic University, newly taken over by the Jesuits, and to recruit Jesuit staff whose salaries could be ploughed back into the college. Delany sought several English Jesuits but was able to get only Hopkins (who was regarded as eccentric and expendable). In February 1884 Hopkins was elected to a Royal University of Ireland classics fellowship, which enabled him to take up the position of professor of Greek at University College. His election produced a dispute between Delany and the future archbishop of Dublin William Walsh (qv), who believed that RUI fellowships should be spread among the catholic secondary schools around Dublin and not reserved for University College; there was also some resentment at the importation of an Englishman.

Hopkins, his expectations shaped by Oxford, was dismayed at the low standard of learning and the utilitarian attitude to education found among his pupils, who treated him with considerable irreverence. His English voice and mannerisms grated on colleagues as well as pupils; his closest friend was a Jesuit lay brother debarred from ordination by epilepsy, and he found occasional solace on visits to upper-class catholic families, notably the Cassidys of Monasterevan, Co. Kildare. Scrupulous attention to vast piles of examination scripts intensified his depression; an unfinished ‘Epithalamium’ for a brother's marriage, incongruously centred on an image of nude male bathers, was jotted on an answer book while Hopkins invigilated an examination in 1888. The six ‘terrible sonnets’ of 1885, never sent to friends and found among his papers after his death, are classic expressions of mental desolation and despair. He planned various scholarly projects which were never finished (sometimes hardly begun).

Hopkins was further divided from colleagues and pupils by his political views. The only other English Jesuit in the college, Joseph Darlington (qv), was pro-nationalist. Hopkins was despised as hysterical and effeminate – ‘a merely beautifully painted seashell. I never found any mollusc inside it of human substance’. Although Hopkins believed Britain had done injustice to Ireland in the past, he regarded the methods used by Irish agitators as immoral; he thought home rule was inevitable and should be accepted on the basis of getting the worst over as soon as possible, but he felt a visceral hatred for Gladstone for destroying the empire. Even after the exposure of the Pigott forgeries he continued to believe that Charles Stewart Parnell (qv) had been complicit in the Phoenix Park murders, adding that even if the accusations against Parnell were false they were less libellous than the claim made by William O'Brien (qv) that Arthur James Balfour (qv) deliberately caused the deaths of prisoners. Hopkins contrasted the sincere faith of Irish congregations with what he regarded as their immoral political activities, referring to ‘the unfailing devotion of the Irish, whose religion hangs suspended over their politics as the blue sky over the earth, both in one landscape but immeasurably remote’. Some of Hopkins's most assertively English poems date from his residence in Ireland. A number were encouraged by watching military displays in Phoenix Park – Hopkins was always fascinated by soldiers.

In the middle of 1889 Hopkins contracted typhoid, probably transmitted by the defective drainage system of University College (which was renovated shortly afterwards). This developed into peritonitis, from which he died 8 June 1889 at 86 St Stephen's Green; he was buried on 11 June in the communal Jesuit plot at Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin. In subsequent decades Bridges, his literary executor, tried to prepare the ground for the acceptance of Hopkins's work by submitting examples of his poetry to anthologies. In December 1918 Bridges published Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, on which Hopkins's fame is based. His attention to language as a medium led him to be hailed as a forerunner of literary modernism. More recent critics emphasise his Victorianism.

Some accounts of Hopkins see his religious vocation as having provided structure and meaning to his life and enabled his poetic achievement; in this interpretation the dark years in Ireland are seen as a sacrifice offered to God. Other readings see him as fleeing from self-knowledge into an externally imposed discipline, which crippled and ultimately destroyed him; in this view the darkness of his later years reflects a painfully resisted awareness of frustration and futility. To a great extent this dispute reflects disagreement about the truth or falsehood of the faith to which Hopkins devoted his life, and the question of whether suffering is utterly futile or capable of redemption; neither side can deny the centrality of faith to Hopkins’ self-image, nor the intensity of his pain, and both can wonder what greater achievement might have been his had his superiors been receptive to his literary gifts.

Paddy Kitchen, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1978); Robert Bernard, Martin Gerard Manley Hopkins: a very private life (1991); Norman White, Hopkins: a literary biography (1992); Norman White, Hopkins in Ireland (2002)

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 9th Year No 1 1934

Leeson St :

Monday, November 20th, was a red-letter day in the history of Leeson street, for it witnessed the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the House's foundation. In November, 1833. the Community came into being at 86 St Stephen's Green, where it remained until 1909, when the building was handed over to the newly constituted National University. The Community, however, survived intact and migrated to a nearby house in Lesson Street, where it renewed its youth in intimate relationship with the Dublin College of the University.

Its history falls this into two almost equal periods, different, indeed, in many ways, yet essentially one, since the energies of the Community during each period have been devoted to the same purpose, the furtherance of Catholic University Education in Ireland.

A precious link between the two eras is Father Tom Finlay, who was a member of the Community in 1883, and ever since has maintained his connection with it. His presence on Monday evening, restored to his old health after a severe illness was a source of particular pleasure to the whole gathering. It was also gratifying to see among the visitors Father Henry Browne, who had crossed from England at much personal inconvenience to take part in the celebration. Not only was Father Browne a valued member of the Community for over thirty years, but he acquired additional merit by putting on record, in collaboration with Father McKenna, in that bulky volume with the modest title " A Page of Irish History," the work achieved by the House during the first heroic age of its existence. It was a pleasure, too, to see hale and well among those present Father Joseph Darlington, guide, philosopher and friend to so many students during the two periods. Father George O'Neill, who for many years was a distinguished member of the Community, could not, alas. be epected to make the long journey from his newer field of fruitful labor in Werribee, Australia.

Father Superior, in an exceptionally happy speech, described the part played by the Community, especially in its earlier days of struggle, in the intellectual life of the country. The venerable Fathers who toiled so unselfishly in the old house in St. Stephens Green had exalted the prestige of the Society throughout Ireland. Father Finlay, in reply, recalled the names of the giants of those early days, Father Delany, Father Gerald Hopkins, Mr. Curtis and others. Father Darlington stressed the abiding influence of Newman, felt not merely in the schools of art and science, but in the famous Cecilia Street Medial School. Father Henry Browne spoke movingly of the faith, courage and vision displayed by the leaders of the Province in 1883, when they took on their shoulders such a heavy burden. It was a far cry from that day in 1883, when the Province had next to no resources, to our own day, when some sixty of our juniors are to be found, as a matter of course preparing for degrees in a National University. The progress of the Province during these fifty years excited feelings of admiration and of profound gratitude , and much of that progress was perhaps due to the decision, valiantly taken in 1883 1883, which had raised the work of the Province to a higher plane.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Gerard Manly-Hopkins 1844-1889
There can be few more remarkable stories in the history of literature than that of Fr Gerard Manly-Hopkins.

Born in 1844 at Stratford in Essex, he received his early education at Cholmeley Grammar School at Highgate. From earliest childhood he showed great talent for drawing and painting. He had an exquisite voice, and music absorbed him. He won an exhibition at Balliol College Oxford in 1863. Here, in addition to his ordinary course, he continued his studies of art, especially architecture. His course as a classical scholar was brilliant, under the famous Dr Jowett.

In 1866, under the influence of Newman, he became a Jesuit, and two years later entered the Society. After an arduous career on the mission in various parts of England, Scotland and Wales, he came to Dublin as Professor of Greek in the newly constituted Uiversity College at St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. There he laboured with success but increasing strain. The drudgery of correcting examination papers gradually wore him down. He was a man who was not vigorously healthy and so suffered more less continually from nervous depression. “It is killing work” he wrote once “to examine a nation”.

As a Theologian, he greatly admired Scotus, owing to the traces of Plato he found there. This leaning involved him in difficulties with his Thomist and Suaresian professors. It has been suggested by some of his many biographers, that he was uneasy if not unhappy as a Jesuit. That charge is easily answered out of his own mouth. To a friend, he remarked one day that he could get on quite happily with no other book than his breviary. Another friend wrote of him “I think the characteristics in him which most struck all of us who knew him were first, what I should call his priestly spirit, and secondly, his devotion and loyalty to the Society of Jesus”.

He contracted typhoid fever and received the Viaticam, and he was hear to murmur two or three times before he actually expired “I am so happy, I am so happy”. He died with his parents at his bedside on June 8th 1889.

He was first and foremost a poet, though he never published any of his poems while he was alive. He bequeathed them all to a friend, Robert bridges, Poet Laureate of England. The latter published them at forst one by one, gradually preparing the public for their originality. The first full edition came in 1918. By the time of the second edition in 1930, Hopkins was accepted as a master of his art, and is ranked as the most revered and influential poet of the second half of the nineteenth century.

◆ Interfuse No 37 : Easter 1985
Portrait from the Past

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (Province Archives)

Our archives contain menologies of Jesuits who died before the foundation of the Province News (when obituary notices took their place). Here's the piece on our most famous poet.

Born in 1844 at Stratford, in Essex, Gerard Manley Hopkins received his early education at the Cholmeley Grammar School at Highgate. From earliest childhood he showed a great talent for drawing, and his work was distinguished for its marvellous delicacy. His aunt used to read to him of the then recent discoveries of Layard, and they seized on his imagination and he never ceased drawing and painting subjects suggested by them. He had a very exquisite voice, and took great interest in music. This, with art and literature, became his special studies. His originality showed is itself from when he was a child in his objection to practical views on things.

He won a school Exhibition and gold medal in 1862, and an Exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1863. There he had scope for his brilliant talents, and pursued, with great enthusiasm, in the scant intervals of hard work, his studies of art. Architecture was a branch in which he took deep delight, and he was a fervent worshipper at the shrine of Butterfield, the architect of Keble College. “His conversation was clever and incisive”, writes an old friend, “and perhaps critical in excess. As to the quality of this criticism I thought much at the time - and have thought much since - that it was the best of the kind to be had in England, in places where production and criticism do not, as is the case at Oxford, keep pace. If he had not been the victim of a lengthened and overwrought critical education, which makes men sut jects of an operation, rather that trained instruments for work, Hopkins had all the elements of an eminent artist or literary man. His acquaintance with poetry was extensive, and his judgments differed upon various poets considerably from what most people entertain. When I first knew him he called himself a ‘Tractarian’, on the ground that he believed ‘Tractarian’ doctrine true, and if the Church of England rejected it, so much the worse for the Church of England. His leaving it was not to change, but to give expression to his religious faith. He had no patience with a Catholic plea for beliefs which are not on the surface, at least, of the Articles and Common Prayer Book”.

Gerard passed 1st Class in Mods., and in the June of 1867, 1st. Class in Honours in the final Schools. The late Dr. Wilson, his examiner for ‘Greats’, thought highly of his talents. It was very extraordinary to achieve such success when his mind was pre-occupied by the struggles of conversation.

The views of the Master of Balliol, Dr. Jowett, seem to have contributed towards his abandonment of Anglicanism, and Liddon is said to have expressed regret at his conversion as a serious loss to Anglicanism. He had made his ‘first confession’ to the learned Canon, and he used to say that he never had exceeded the contrition with which it was accomplished.

He entered the Novitiate on September 8, 1868, and his fellow-novices remembered long his panegyric of St. Stanislaus, which was as brilliant and beautiful as it was out of the usual routine of pulpit deliveries. As soon as he had taken his vows, he went to his Philosophy at the Seminary, and returned in 1873 to be Professor of the Juniors. The following year he began his life as a missioner at London, he spent some time also at Oxford and Liverpool, where, as in all places, he showed his beautiful love of the poor and the young, and devotion to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. 1881 - 1882 he made his Tertianship, and took his vows on August 15, 1882 at Manresa. His next two years were spent as Professor to the “Secular Philosophers” at Stonyhurst.

He came to Dublin fron Stonyhurst in 1884, on his appointment to a Fellowship in the Royal University. I have heard from Lord Emly, the Vice Chancellor of the University, that the recommendatory letters presented when he sought election spoke so highly of his character and attainments (especially one from Dr. Jowett, the Master of Balliol, in praise of his scholarship), as to make the Senate most anxious to obtain his services; and Lord Emly at the same time expressed, what is the universal feeling among that body, the loss the University has sustained by his death.

His duties consisted in teaching latin and Greek in the Catholic University College - where he resided - and in examining in classics for the various degrees of the Royal University. The first of these duties he liked, taking much interest in his pupils; but he had a great repugnance to the labour and responsibility involved the preparation of the examination papers, and in subsequently correcting and awarding them marks. Nevertheless, in his scrupulous anxiety to be just and fair, he was accustomed to give to these tasks a far greater amount of care and time than most conscientious examiners would have considered necessary.

He occupied his spare hours, which were not many, in literary work. He had collected and put together, with a view to publication in some work on British dialects, the idioms of the different Irish provinces. He wrote several articles for the “Classical Review”. I do not know how many of them appeared. He was engaged at the time of his death upon a critical work dealing with difficult passages in the plays of Aristophanes, the true meaning of which he believed that he had discovered. He read a great deal of general literature, considering the little leisure time he had, but I have heard him say he could get on quite happily with no other book than his Breviary. He was very fond of music, and composed some “fugues”, which were very much admired by Sir Robert Stewart, Mus. Doc.

On everything that he wrote and said there was the stamp of originality, and he had the keenest appreciation of humour. I think the characteristics in him that most struck and edified all of us who knew him were, first, what I should call his priestly spirit; this showed itself not only in the reverential way he performed his sacred duties and spoke on sacred subjects, but in his whole conduct and conversation; and, secondly, his devotion and loyalty to the Society of Jesus.

A day or two after Low Sunday, 1889, he fell ill of typhoid fever. From the outset he was fully alive to the gravity of his state, and, I believe, never shared the hope that others from time to time entertained - that he would pull through.

During the night of Wednesday, the 5th of June, a serious change for the worse took place in his condition, and when the doctors arrived early next morning, they pronounced his case well-nigh desperate. Father Wheeler, S.J., who attended him all through his illness with affectionate care, told him of his danger, and gave him the Holy Viaticum, which he
received with the greatest devotion.

On hearing that his parents were coming from England, he appeared to dread their arrival, because of the pain it would give them to see him so prostrate; but when the first interview was over, he expressed the happiness he felt at having them with him.

He quite realised that he was dying, and asked each day for the Holy Viaticum. He received it for the last time on the morning of the day of his death, Saturday, June 8, 1889.

The final blessing and absolution were also then given him at his own request, and he was heard two or three times to say, “I am so happy, I am so happy”. Soon afterwards he became too weak to speak, but he appeared to follow mentally the prayers for the dying, which were said a little before noon by Father Wheeler, and joined in by his parents. As the end approached he seemed to grow more collected, and retained consciousness almost up to the moment, half-past one o'clock, when he passed peacefully away. He was buried in the burial-ground of the Society at Glasnevin.

◆ https://biography.wales/article/s14-HOPK-MAN-1844

HOPKINS, GERARD MANLEY (1844 - 1889), poet and priest

Name: Gerard Manley Hopkins
Date of birth: 1844
Date of death: 1889
Parent: Manley Hopkins
Parent: Catherine Hopkins (née Smith)
Gender: Male
Occupation: poet and priest
Area of activity: Poetry; Religion; Education

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on 28 July 1844, at 87, The Grove, Stratford, Essex, the eldest of eight, or possibly nine, children of Manley Hopkins (1818-1897), the founder of a marine insurance firm, and his wife Catherine (née Smith, 1821-1900). His parents were devout High Church Anglicans with family connections in intellectual and artistic circles. In 1852, the family moved to Hampstead and Gerard was sent to board at Highgate School. He considered himself to be half-Welsh on the basis of his surname, which is common in south Wales.

In 1863, Hopkins went up to Oxford where he graduated with a First in Classics. Here he met one of his closest friends, Robert Bridges, who would become the Poet Laureate and the editor of his poetry. It was while he was at Oxford that he turned to a more ascetic way of life, one that would lead him to convert to Roman Catholicism, a move that led to his estrangement from his family. After graduation he was helped by (Cardinal) John Henry Newman, the leader of the Oxford Catholic converts to obtain a teaching post. At this time he turned away from poetry, even burning his poems, and decided to enter the ministry as a Jesuit. While he was studying for the priesthood at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire he came under the influence of the Franciscan philosopher and theologian Duns Scotus, whose idea of haecceitas, or 'this-ness' led to the coinage of inscape by Hopkins.

In August 1874, he went to continue his training at St Beuno's College, Tremeirchion near St Asaph in Denbighshire, north Wales. His three years there are regarded as the most influential and happiest of his life. Here he fell under the spell of what he called the 'instress and charm of Wales', responding enthusiastically to the landscape of the Vale of Clwyd.

Locality is vital to much of Hopkins's work. St Winifred's shrine at Holywell was an important local site for him, and he began a verse play on Beuno's miraculous resuscitation of Winifred. Garreg Fawr ('Great Rock') just south of St Beuno's - of which the poet wrote in his diary: 'The Rock is a great resort of hawks and owls' - inspired the poem he considered in 1879 to be 'the best thing I ever wrote', 'The Windhover', dedicated 'to Christ Our Lord'.

In a Dominican, a practice sermon for trainee Jesuits, delivered on 11 March 1877, Hopkins went so far as to compare the geography of the Vale of Clwyd with the Sea of Galilee. Drawing inspiration from the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola, which required those involved to relive and invest emotionally in the geography and events described in the Bible, Hopkins invited his fellow students to imagine the geomorphology of the Sea of Galilee in terms of the landscape familiar to them. In a complex attempt at superimposition of geographical features, he fixed Bethsaida Julias, the river Jordan, Capharnaum and Tiberias on the map of Wales and located the place of the miracle of the loaves and fishes at the refectory at St Beuno's College, where he and his fellow Jesuits were taking their meal. That audience found the sermon less than convincing and even comical, as Hopkins himself testified. Damian Walford Davies, however, sees it as a 'confession couched as cartography', a manifestation of his Welsh identity and 'a rich example of Welsh writing in English'.

Hopkins began learning Welsh, taking lessons from a local Catholic woman, Miss Susannah Jones, despite discouragement from his superiors unless he was to use it to convert local people. He mastered the language sufficiently to compose some poetry in it, although his compositions are stylistically awkward and unconvincing. His 'Cywydd' celebrating the silver jubilee of the Bishop of Shrewsbury, written in 1876 under the bardic name 'Brân Maenefa' (The Crow of Maenefa, a mountain overlooking St Beuno's College), in which he laments that land and water bear witness to the old faith of Gwynedd more strongly than the people of the region, employs the Welsh strict-metre verse form with its alternate stressed and unstressed rhymes, but achieves only two correct examples of the requisite cynghanedd in its eighteen lines.

Hopkins found that the consonantal correspondences and internal rhymes of cynghanedd aligned well with his own poetic practice, and adapted them to the purposes of his English poetry, most notably in 'The Wreck of the Deutschland'. These are mostly employed loosely, such as 'Stanching, quenching ocean of a motionable mind', and only occasionally do they form full cynghanedd (e.g. 'The down-dugged ground-hugged grey' which is cynghanedd sain). Hopkins coined the term 'sprung rhythm' to describe the technique he used in the poem, suggesting it was derived from classical, Old English and Welsh models. His use of prosody was influential on many poets of the 1930s writing in English, including Dylan Thomas.

'The Wreck of the Deutschland' was written at the suggestion of the Rector of St Beuno's College, Father John, to commemorate the drowning of Franciscan nuns fleeing persecution in Germany in December 1875, and in it Hopkins expressed his sense of guilt at the contrast between his physical and spiritual safety in Wales and the peril and martyrdom of the nuns. Having given up poetry for seven years to devote himself solely to God, this was the beginning of a surge of creativity during which Hopkins produced a third of his poetry.

'In the Valley of the Elwy' is one of a number of lyrical responses to the beauty of 'this world of Wales' composed in 1877. He wrote of Wales fondly to his friend Robert Bridges referring to 'my Welsh days... my salad days'. Hopkins wrote to Bridges of his use of cynghanedd in another poem deeply influenced by locality, 'The Sea and the Skylark', written during a stay for the sake of his health at the seaside resort of Rhyl.

Hopkins had to leave Wales in September 1877 when he was ordained to the priesthood. Over the next seven years he held various posts in England and Scotland, before eventually taking up the post of professor of Greek and Latin at University College Dublin in 1884. Hopkins had felt at home in the surroundings of what he called 'wild Wales', but found himself out of place in Ireland. His final burst of creativity came during this dark period towards the end of his life when he produced his gloomy and much admired 'terrible sonnets'.

Gerard Manley Hopkins died of typhoid fever in Dublin on 8 June 1889, and was buried in the Jesuit plot in Glasnevin cemetery.

Author
Eugenia Russell

◆ https://www.ncregister.com/blog/gerard-manley-hopkins-great-poet

England’s Greatest Catholic Poet Anyone?

Who was Gerard Manley Hopkins and why should we read him?

After the death of Jesuit Father Gerard Manley Hopkins in June 1889, almost 30 years would ensue before the poetry for which he is justly celebrated saw the light of day. Another 30 years would elapse before their original integrity was restored, the first edition having been so thoroughly botched by people who hadn’t understood what he was doing. Even now, in fact, nearly a century and a half later, readers continue to be baffled and put off by the poems.

Many of my students, for instance, on whom I’ve been copiously inflicting his verse for as long as I can remember. They just don’t get it, even as they are often stunned by the rhythm and imagery of the work. The titles, too, have often proven to be wonderfully arresting. Who can resist a poem called “The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe?” Or, “That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and on the Comfort of the Resurrection?” If the aim of literature is to be, in the words of Kafka, “an axe for the frozen sea within us,” then the poetry of Hopkins is the perfect icebreaker.

Who was he and why should we read him? Especially Catholics, that is, for whom an understanding of Hopkins may provide a marvelous and incisive key to unlocking the central mysteries of our faith.

But first a word or two about his life, which, from the moment he chose to convert, was dogged by disappointment. By rejecting the empty ritualism of the Church of England for the deeper realism of Rome, a conversion catalyzed by the influence of St. John Henry Newman, who received him into the Church in 1866, Hopkins had pretty much burned all his bridges. His family reacted with sheer bewilderment to the news, which only worsened when he decided to become a Jesuit, no more odious an order than which can be imagined among 19th-century English Anglicans.

And then, of course, there is the poetry itself, which longed for an audience he never really had, owing not only to the oddities of diction and syntax, but to the fact that early on he’d resolved not to write any more. Renouncing the muse, he believed, seemed the least sacrifice he could make to God for granting him the gift of his vocation. And so, on entering the Jesuit novitiate in 1868, he made a holocaust of all his youthful verse. It was only after one of his superiors, seven years later, read about a shipwreck at sea in which hundreds drowned, including seven Franciscan nuns exiled from Bismarck’s Germany, and then wondered aloud if anyone might undertake to memorialize the event, that Hopkins offered to do so. Permission granted, he plunged at once into the making of “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” which has since become one of the enduring masterpieces of modern literature, despite the Society’s refusal to publish it.

More misunderstanding and neglect followed, including the appointment in 1884 to a professorship in Greek at University College, Dublin, where he labored amid an avalanche of numberless student exams which nearly drove him mad. Dublin was an awful place and within a few short years it left him dead from typhoid due to a polluted water supply, which the Jesuits were too cheap to try and remedy.

But the Dublin years, for all the wretchedness they brought down upon him, were not entirely wasted thanks to the poetry that resulted from them, most particularly those dark and terrible sonnets on which his reputation for lasting greatness rests. They are, simply put, an astonishment, evincing the great unassuageable hunger for God that stoked his soul from the start. Only now, of course, in these last weeks and months of a life that, more and more, he views as abject failure (“All my undertakings miscarry,” he writes. “I am like a straining eunuch. I wish then for death.”), God seems not to be there at all, his presence felt as sheer excruciating absence:

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
But the letters have not come back empty, have they? Nor have they been left unopened, their heavenly recipient indifferent to the laments of those who fear themselves lost. Any more than the tall gaunt nun, her cries piercing the darkness of the storm — “Christ, come quickly! Come quickly!” — has gone unanswered. Christ has come, will come; indeed, he comes for all of us. Because he has never left us, not once has he left us. Because he does not live alas! away.

And the most confirming sign that this may be true, that Father Hopkins too felt the reassuring hand, the imminence of a presence not of this world, yet there in that sickroom where he lay dying in order to beckon him to another world? It would be the very last words he ever spoke, words whispered while another Jesuit, a Father Wheeler, who was there to care for him, heard them on his rounds. Entering the room on the very last day of his life, he leans over the dying Hopkins to try and make out what he’s saying. “I am so happy,” he hears him saying. Again and again he will hear the same refrain: “I am so happy.”

Regis Martin Regis Martin, S.T.D

-oOo-

◆ https://www.jesuitarchives.co.uk/post/gerard-manley-hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Mary Allen Aug 27, 2018 Updated: Feb 23, 2023

150 years ago, on 7 September 1868, Gerard Manley Hopkins entered the Society of Jesus at Manresa, Roehampton. Born in Stratford, Essex in 1844, he received his early education at the Cholmeley Grammar School in Highgate. According to his obituary in Letters and Notices, “from earliest childhood he showed a great talent for drawing, and his work was distinguished for its remarkable delicacy... He had a very exquisite voice and took great interest in music. This, with art and literature, became his special studies.” During his time at Balliol College, Oxford, Hopkins was received into the Catholic Church by John Henry Newman. After completing his studies, he entered the Jesuit Novitiate.

After ordination in 1877, Hopkins began his life as a missioner in London, but also spent some time at Oxford and Liverpool. During his time at Oxford, he was required to �ll in as parish priest at St Aloysius’ for Fr Thomas Parkinson SJ, who had been injured after a fall from a cart. Unfortunately, although “he had come [to the Society] with a record of brilliance and with all the enthusiasm of a convert, Hopkins had yet to succeed in the practical, workaday duties with which most Jesuits are expected to cope.” This description of his character �nds echoes in reminiscences of contemporary Jesuits in his obituary. “Of his ability I need scarcely speak. He had a distinct dash of genius. His opinions on any subject in Heaven and earth were always worth listening to and always fresh and original.” However, wrote another, “his mind was of too delicate a texture to grapple with the rougher elements of human life”, although “his kindness of heart and unsel�shness showed themselves in a thousand ways... The high order of his intellect was at once made evident to all who came into serious contact with him... True it was of a somewhat unpractical turn, but the various and often amusing extravagations into which it was from time to time in consequence beguiled, only added another point of attractiveness to his character.”

In 1884 he went from Stonyhurst to Dublin after receiving a fellowship at the Royal University, where he taught Greek and Latin. His spare hours where occupied with literary work, putting together a work on British dialects, which he hoped to publish, writing several articles for the Classical Review, and towards the end of his life, he engaged on a critical work of the plays of Aristophanes. Soon after Easter, 1889, Hopkins became ill with typhoid fever and died a few days later, 8 June, aged 45.

To read Hopkins’ obituary, one hardly gets the sense that he was one of the most important poets of the Victorian era. It is also perhaps surprisingly short, about six pages in total, and although it hints at a remarkable man, it does not show any inkling of the fame or recognition that he would later receive. Although it stresses his knowledge and passion for literature, the only mention of poetry does not refer to his own work:

His acquaintance with poetry was extensive, and his judgement differed upon various poets considerably from what most people entertain.

This re�ects the fact that during his lifetime and up to the early 20th century, Hopkins’ work remained largely unknown until his Oxford friend, the Poet Laureate Robert Bridges, published a volume of his poetry in 1918. On the publication of its second edition in 1930, his work was �nally recognised as among the most original and powerful poetry of his time.

Among the Jesuits in Britain Archives, there are a few items in Hopkins’ own handwriting. These include his �nal vows, a transcription of a poem by Digby Mackworth Dolben (who Hopkins met in 1865), and a Porter’s Journal from the noviciate at Manresa, covering December 1869 to October 1871. The Porter, or Beadle, was a student assigned with the task of recording daily events. In the earliest part of the journal, one can easily recognise Hopkins’ distinctive handwriting, and an entry partway through the volume marks his departure for the Scholasticate.

If you are interested in Gerard Manley Hopkins or the work of the archives in general, please contact us. Collections of Hopkins’ papers can be found at Campion Hall, Balliol College, Oxford, and Gonzaga University, Washington. The British Jesuit Alfred Thomas devoted much of his life to the study of Hopkins, and his papers are open at the discretion of the Archivist.

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 71, Number 2 p 131

The Sacred Heart

When we worship Christ's heart it is a great deal more than the heart we mean, it is after all Christ Himself that we worship. For, my brethren, this is how we speak in many things. We say that in a town there are so many thousand souls; we mean so many thousand men, and children and not their souls only. We speak of a kind body, a busy- , body: we mean some man or woman that is kind or that is busy and not his or her body only. We call sailors or laborers hands; we say “all hands”, “a new hand”, and so on: it is men we mean, not their hands only. We call Plato and Shakespeare great minds: it is Plato and Shakespeare we mean, not their minds only. Nay, we call a man a warm heart, the very word, a large heart and the like: it is the man we mean and not his heart only. So then when we say the Sacred Heart it is of Christ Himself we are thinking and not of His Heart only. Not but what there is good reason for so speaking in all these cases: if living men are called souls, it is because the soul is the source of life in man; if they are called bodies it is because the body strikes the eye; if sailors and laborers are called hands, it is because their hands are what they work with; if great thinkers are called minds, it is because by their minds they have become famous; if kind people are called large hearts, it is because the quality of the heart makes them more remarkable than others.

When we speak so often of the heart, a great heart, a narrow heart, a warm heart, a cold heart, a tender heart, a hard heart, a heart of stone, a lion heart, a craven heart, a poor heart, a sad heart, a heavy heart, a broken heart, a willing heart, a full heart, of heart's ease, heart ache, heartscald, ofthinking in one's heart, of loving from one's heart, of the heart sinking, of taking heart, of losing heart, of giving the heart away, of being heartwhole-it would be endless to name all the ways we could bring the heart in-in all these expres- sions what we call heart is not the piece of flesh so called, not the great bloodvessel only, but the thoughts of the mind that vessel seems to harbour and the feelings of the soul to which it beats. For the heart is of all the members of the body the one which most strongly and most of its own accord sympathizes with and expresses in itself what goes on within the soul. Tears are sometimes forced, smiles may be put on, but the beating of the heart is the truth of nature. And as in others, so in Christ: the Sacred.Heart is that Heart which swelled when Christ rejoiced in spirit and sank when He was sad, which played its dark and sacred part in all Christ's life, in all He did and suffered, which in His Agony, with frightful and unnatural straining forced His blood out of Him in a teeming sweat, and after it had ceased to beat was pierced and spent its contents by the opening in His side. The Sacred Heart is all Christ did for us; the Sacred Heart is all Christ's joys, griefs, hopes, fears, love unto death, heroic courage, tender pity; the Sacred Heart is Christ's most per- fect character. Once see the matter in this light and surely there is no Christian who will blame, none will not admire, there should be none that would not practise, the de- votion to the Sacred Heart.

G M Hopkins SJ

◆ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins#:~:text=Gerard%20Manley%20Hopkins%20SJ%20(28,use%20of%20imagery%20and%20nature.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among the leading English poets. His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innovator, as did his praise of God through vivid use of imagery and nature.

Only after his death did Robert Bridges publish a few of Hopkins's mature poems in anthologies, hoping to prepare for wider acceptance of his style. By 1930 Hopkins's work was seen as one of the most original literary advances of his century. It intrigued such leading 20th-century poets as T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis.

Early life and family
Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in Stratford, Essex[1] (now in Greater London), as the eldest of probably nine children to Manley and Catherine Hopkins, née Smith.[2] He was christened at the Anglican church of St John's, Stratford. His father founded a marine insurance firm and at one time served as Hawaiian consul-general in London. He was also for a time churchwarden at St John-at-Hampstead. His grandfather was the physician John Simm Smith, a university colleague of John Keats, and close friend of the eccentric philanthropist Ann Thwaytes. One of his uncles was Charles Gordon Hopkins, a politician of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

As a poet, Hopkins's father published works including A Philosopher's Stone and Other Poems (1843), Pietas Metrica (1849), and Spicelegium Poeticum, A Gathering of Verses by Manley Hopkins (1892). He reviewed poetry for The Times and wrote one novel. Catherine (Smith) Hopkins was the daughter of a London physician, particularly fond of music and of reading, especially German philosophy, literature and the novels of Dickens. Both parents were deeply religious high-church Anglicans. Catherine's sister, Maria Smith Giberne, taught her nephew Gerard to sketch. The interest was supported by his uncle, Edward Smith, his great-uncle Richard James Lane, a professional artist, and other family members.[1] Hopkins's initial ambition was to be a painter – he would continue to sketch throughout his life and was inspired as an adult by the work of John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites.[1][3]

Hopkins became a skilled draughtsman. He found his early training in visual art supported his later work as a poet.[1] His siblings drew a lot of inspiration from literature, religion, and the arts. In 1878, Milicent (1849–1946) enrolled in an Anglican sisterhood. Kate (1856–1933) would help Hopkins publish the first edition of his poetry. Hopkins's youngest sister Grace (1857–1945) set many of his poems to music. Lionel (1854–1952) became a world-famous expert on archaic and colloquial Chinese. Arthur (1848–1930) and Everard (1860–1928) were highly successful artists. Cyril (1846–1932) would join his father's insurance firm.[3]

Manley Hopkins moved his family to Hampstead in 1852, near where John Keats had lived 30 years before and close to the green spaces of Hampstead Heath. When he was ten years old, Gerard was sent to board at Highgate School (1854–1863).[1] While studying Keats's poetry, he wrote "The Escorial" (1860), his earliest extant poem. Here he practised early attempts at asceticism. He once argued that most people drank more liquids than they really needed and bet that he could go without drinking for a week. He persisted until his tongue was black and he collapsed at drill. On another occasion he abstained from salt for a week.[3][4] Among his teachers at Highgate was Richard Watson Dixon, who became an enduring friend and correspondent. Of the older pupils Hopkins recalls in his boarding house, the poet Philip Stanhope Worsley won the Newdigate Prize.[5]

Oxford and priesthood
Hopkins studied classics at Balliol College, Oxford (1863–1867).[6] He began his time in Oxford as a keen socialite and prolific poet, but seems to have alarmed himself with resulting changes in his behaviour. There he forged a lifelong friendship with Robert Bridges (later Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom), which would be important to his development as a poet and in establishing his posthumous acclaim.[6] Hopkins was deeply impressed with the work of Christina Rossetti, who became one of his great contemporary influences. The two met in 1864.[7] During this time he studied with the writer and critic Walter Pater, who tutored him in 1866 and remained a friend until Hopkins left Oxford for the second time in October 1879.[8]

Alfred William Garrett, William Alexander Comyn Macfarlane and Hopkins (left to right), by Thomas C. Bayfield, 1866
In a journal entry of 6 November 1865, Hopkins declared an ascetic intention for his life and work: "On this day by God's grace I resolved to give up all beauty until I had His leave for it."[9] On 18 January 1866, Hopkins composed his most ascetic poem, The Habit of Perfection. On 23 January, he included poetry in a list of things to be given up for Lent. In July, he decided to become a Roman Catholic and travelled to Birmingham in September to consult the leader of the Oxford converts, John Henry Newman.[7] Newman received him into the Roman Catholic Church on 21 October 1866.

The decision to convert estranged Hopkins from his family and from a number of acquaintances. After graduating in 1867, he was provided by Newman with a teaching post at the Oratory in Birmingham. While there he began to study the violin. On 5 May 1868 Hopkins firmly "resolved to be a religious." Less than a week later, he made a bonfire of his poetry and gave it up almost entirely for seven years. He also felt a call to enter the ministry and decided to become a Jesuit. He paused first to visit Switzerland, which officially forbade Jesuits to enter.[3][10]

In September 1868, Hopkins began his Jesuit novitiate at Manresa House, Roehampton, under the guidance of Alfred Weld. Two years later he moved to St Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, for philosophical studies, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience on 8 September 1870.[11] He felt that his interest in poetry had stopped him devoting himself wholly to religion. However, on reading Duns Scotus in 1872, he saw how the two need not conflict.[12] He continued to write a detailed prose journal in 1868–1875. Unable to suppress a desire to describe the natural world, he also wrote music, sketched, and for church occasions, wrote "verses", as he called them. He later wrote sermons and other religious pieces.

In 1874, Hopkins returned to Manresa House to teach classics. While studying in the Jesuit house of theological studies, St Beuno's College, near St Asaph in Wales, he was asked by his religious superior to write a poem to commemorate the foundering of a German ship in a storm. So in 1875 he took up poetry once more to write a lengthy piece, "The Wreck of the Deutschland", inspired by the Deutschland incident, a maritime disaster in which 157 people died, including five Franciscan nuns who had been leaving Germany due to harsh anti-Catholic laws (see Kulturkampf). The work displays both the religious concerns and some of the unusual metre and rhythms of his subsequent poetry not present in his few remaining early works. It not only depicts the dramatic events and heroic deeds, but tells of him reconciling the terrible events with God's higher purpose. The poem was accepted but not printed by a Jesuit publication. This rejection fed his ambivalence about his poetry, most of which remained unpublished until after his death.

Blue plaque commemorating Hopkins in Roehampton, London
Hopkins chose the austere and restrictive life of a Jesuit and was gloomy at times. His biographer Robert Bernard Martin notes that "the life expectancy of a man becoming a novice at twenty-one was twenty-three more years rather than the forty years of males of the same age in the general population."[13] The brilliant student who had left Oxford with first-class honours failed his final theology exam. This almost certainly meant that despite his ordination in 1877, Hopkins would not progress in the order. In 1877 he wrote God's Grandeur, an array of sonnets that included "The Starlight Night". He finished "The Windhover" only a few months before his ordination. His life as a Jesuit trainee, though rigorous, isolated and sometimes unpleasant, at least had some stability; the uncertain and varied work after ordination was even harder on his sensibilities. In October 1877, not long after completing "The Sea and the Skylark" and only a month after his ordination, Hopkins took up duties as sub-minister and teacher at Mount St Mary's College near Sheffield. In July 1878 he became curate at the Jesuit church in Mount Street, London, and in December that of St Aloysius's Church, Oxford, then moving to Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.[3] While ministering in Oxford, he became a founding member of The Newman Society, established in 1878 for Catholic members of the University of Oxford. He taught Greek and Latin at Mount St Mary's College, Sheffield, and Stonyhurst College, Lancashire.

In the late 1880s Hopkins met Matthew Russell of the Irish Monthly, who introduced him to Katharine Tynan and W. B. Yeats.[14]

In 1884, Hopkins became a professor of Greek and Latin at University College Dublin.[15] His English roots and disagreement with the Irish politics of the time, along with his small stature (5 ft 2 in or 1.57 m), unprepossessing nature and personal oddities, reduced his effectiveness as a teacher. This and his isolation in Ireland deepened a gloom that was reflected in his poems of the time, such as "I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, not Day". They came to be known as the "terrible sonnets", not for their quality but according to Hopkins's friend Canon Richard Watson Dixon, because they reached the "terrible crystal", meaning they crystallised the melancholic dejection that plagued the latter part of Hopki

Born: 20 December 1790, Edenderry, County Offaly
Entered: 09 October 1825, Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare
Final Vows: 08 September 1841
Died: 21 June 1866, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

1825-1827: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Novitiate
1827-1837: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, working
1837-1839: St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin, working as a mason
1839-1842: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, working as a mason
1842-1846: St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin, working as a mason
1846-1851: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, working as a mason
1851-1866: St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin, working as a mason

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :

DOB 17/01/1789 Edenderry; Ent 09/10/1825; RIP 21/06/1866 Dublin

He did a very long Postulancy at Tullabeg, while it was being built, being received there in 1817 by Peter Kenney. He had come with an architect by whome he had been taught masonry.

He eventually Ent formally at Clongowes 09/10/1825.
For forthy years he was employed as a mason in different houses, and died at the Dublin Residence 21/06/1866

He was a man of great integrity and true simplicity. Always the same, of a most even temper, he was very well suited to the Society. Even in his lon Postulancy and Novitiate, he was remarkable for his deep humility and patience.

Born: 29 December 1827, Clarecastle, County Clare
Entered: 30 October 1854, St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Ordained: - pre Entry
Final Vows: 25 March 1865
Died: 23 June 1912, St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

1854-1856: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA (MIS), Novitiate
1856-1857: St Louis College, Grand Boulevard, St Louis, MO, USA, working
1857-1858: St Ferdinand Residence, Rue St François, Florissant MO, USA, working
1858-1859: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA, Socius to Novice Master
1859-1863: Chicago Residence, Chicago IL, USA, Minister, working
1863-1869: St Louis University, Grand Boulevard, St Louis, MO, USA, Prefect of the Church
1869-1871: Leavenworth City, Kansas, USA, Prefect of Church of the Immaculate Conception
1871-1873: St Ignatius College SJ, 12th andf May Streets, Chicago IL, USA, Prefect of the Church
1873-1884: Church of the Sacred Heart, John Street, Chicago IL, USA, Minister; Prefect of the Church
1874-1875: Sacred Heart Residence, West 19th Street, Chicago IL, USA, Superior from 01/10/1873 to 04/07/1879; President of parish school
1879-1884: Minister; working
1884-1888: St Louis University, Grand Boulevard, St Louis, MO, USA, Prefect of Church
1888-1895: Church of the Sacred Heart, West 39th Street, Chicago, IL, USA, Superior; Prefect of the Church
1895-1908: Detroit College, Jefferson Avenue, Detroit MI, USA, Curate
1908-1909: Marquette University, 12th Street and Grand Avenue, Milwaukee WI, USA, Spiritual Father
1909-1912: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA, Confessor

◆ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/52215084/michael-j.-corbett
Rev Fr Michael J. Corbett
BIRTH
29 Dec 1827
County Clare, Ireland
DEATH
19 Jun 1912 (aged 84)
Florissant, St. Louis County, Missouri, USA
BURIAL
Calvary Cemetery and Mausoleum
Saint Louis, St. Louis City, Missouri, USA
PLOT
33,, 22

Corbett, Rev. Michael J. born in Co. Clare, Ireland on Dec. 29, 1827, Jesuit priest at Holy Family parish until 1875, then transferred to Sacred Heart Parish until 1886 when he left for St. Louis. He died at Florissant, MO June 19, 1912.

Born: 25 December 1605, Yorkshire or Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1627, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1632, Belgium
Final Vows: 05 August 1641, College of St Omer, France
Died: 11 April 1649, English College, Rome, Italy - Angliae Province (ANG)

Alias Corbington

Youngest brother of Robert RIP - 1637; Ralph RIP - 1644
Son of Gerard RIP - 1627

There are 4 “Corby” entries
Ambrose Ent 1627
Gerard Ent 1627 (Father of Robert, Ralph and Ambrose)
Robert Ent 1628
Ralf DOB 1598; Ent 1624; RIP 1644 at Tyburn (martyr)
Another Son/Brother Richard, died at St Omer College
Two daughters/sisters, Mary and Catherine, became Benedictine nuns, as did Isabella in 1533 (she died 25/12/1652 a centenarian)
Gerard married to Isabella Richardson, and they moved to Dublin, where his sons were born, and eventually Belgium. He became a Jesuit Brother when he and his wife decided to separate and consecrate themselves to God. All three sons were born in Dublin

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Father Gerard and brothers Robert and Ralph became Jesuits. His mother Isabella and sisters Mary and Catherine became Benedictine nuns.
Sent by his father to St Omer for Humanities
1622 Went to English College Rome for studies 11 October 1622. He won the praises of all there and received Minor Orders.
He was then sent to Belgium, where his father was now living in exile, for health reasons, and Ent 07 September 1627
1645 Minister at Ghent
1649 Was Minister at English College Rome when he died
He wrote and interesting biography about his father Gerard, who in his old age became a Brother of the Society
He taught the “belles lettres” for some years at St Omer, was highly accomplished in Greek and Latin literature, and was distinguished for great modesty, humility, patience and charity towards others, and piety towards God.
Nothing to do with HIB or Irish Mission
(cf “Records SJ” Vol iii p 97 and another volume p 299; de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ”)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CORBIE, AMBROSE, born near Durham, on Thursday, 7th December,1604, O.S. as I find in a memorandum. In the Diary of the minister of the English College at Rome, he is recorded to have defended Logic 20th August, 1623 “con honore”. Four years later he embraced “the pious Institute” of the Society, at Watten : was ordained Priest at St. Omer, 20th September, 1633, and raised to the rank of a Professed Father 5th August, 1641; was Confessarius to the English College at Rome, 11th April, 1649. From the classic pen of this young Jesuit, we have “Certamen Triplex, or the Life and Martyrdom of his Brethren Ralph Corbie, of F. T. Holland, and of F. Hen. Morse”, all of S. J., 12mo. Antwerp, 1645, pp. 144, with portraits. This Latin book is in great requisition among collectors.

Born: 25 March 1598, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 1625 - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: pre 1625, Valladolid, Spain
Final Vows: 01 May 1640, Durham, England
Died: 17 September 1644, Tyburn, London, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Martyr

Middle brother of Robert RIP - 1637; Ambrose RIP - 1649
Son of Gerard RIP - 1627

There are 4 “Corby” entries
Ambrose Ent 1627
Gerard Ent 1627 (Father of Robert, Ralph and Ambrose)
Robert Ent 1628
Another Son/Brother Richard, died at St Omer College
Two daughters/sisters, Mary and Catherine, became Benedictine nuns, as did Isabella in 1533 (she died 25 December 1652 a centenarian)
Gerard married to Isabella Richardson, and they moved to Dublin, where his sons were born, and eventually to Belgium. He became a Jesuit Brother when he and his wife decided to separate and consecrate themselves to God. All three sons were born in Dublin
1628 at Liège studying Theology - in CAT 1628-1636

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Father Gerard and brothers Robert and Ralph became Jesuits. His mother Isabella and sisters Mary and Catherine became Benedictine nuns.
Sent by his father to St Omer for Humanities aged 15
Went to English College Rome then Seville and Valladolid where he was Ordained. He then Ent 1627.
1631 Sent to English Mission. He worked in Durham mostly.
1644 Seized by the Parliamentarian rebels at Hampsterley, while vesting for Mass 18 July 1644, and then committed to Newgate Prison at London 22 July 1644 in the company of his friend John Duckett. They were tried and condemned at the Old Bailey 14 September 1644 (Feast of Exaltation), and sent to the gallows at Tyburn 17 September 1644
His Brother Ambrose wrote and interesting biography about his father Gerard.
He taught the “belles lettres” for some years at St Omer, was highly accomplished in Greek and Latin literature, and was distinguished for great modesty, humility, patience and charity towards others, and piety towards God.
Nothing to do with HIB or Irish Mission
(cf “Records SJ” Vol iii pp 68 seq)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CORBIE, RALPH. This blessed martyr was actually born in Ireland, whither his father was suddenly compelled to fly to escape prosecution at home. Ralph in 1626, united himself to the Society : five years later began his missionary career at Durham and its neighbourhood, and laboured with all the spirit and zeal of the Apostles, until he fell into the snares of his enemies at Horpserley, 8th July, 1644. Put on board a Sunderland vessel for London, he was thrown into Newgate, 22d July, whence he was dragged to Tyburn, 7th September following, O. S., to receive that abundant reward in Heaven, which Christ has insured to those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness.

Born: 1596, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: September 1626, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: by 1629
Died: 17 April 1637, St Ignatius, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

Alias Corbington

Eldest brother of Ralph RIP - 1644; Ambrose RIP -1649
Son of Gerard RIP -1627

There are 4 “Corby” entries
Ambrose Ent 1627
Gerard Ent 1627 (Father of Robert, Ralph and Ambrose)
Robert Ent 1628
Ralf DOB 1598; Ent 1624; RIP 1644 at Tyburn (martyr)
Another Son/Brother Richard, died at St Omer College
Two daughters/sisters, Mary and Catherine, became Benedictine nuns, as did Isabella in 1533 (she died 25 December 1652 a centenarian)
Gerard married to Isabella Richardson, and they moved to Dublin, where his sons were born, and eventually Belgium. He became a Jesuit Brother when he and his wife decided to separate and consecrate themselves to God. All three sons were born in Dublin

Procurator and penitentiary at Loreto and Rome (Necrology ANG ARSI)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Procurator and penitentiary at Loreto and Rome (Necrology ANG ARSI) :
Father Gerard and brothers Ambrose and Ralph became Jesuits. His mother Isabella and sisters Mary and Catherine became Benedictine nuns.
Sent by his father to St Omer for Humanities
He was for some time Procurator and also Penitentiary at Rome and Loreto. A good linguist, he heard confessions in Dutch, Italian, Spanish, French and other languages.
On one of the pillars in the nave of the church of Loreto is an inscription i Scottish-English, giving an account “The Wondrous Flittinge of the Halie House, by Father Robert Corbington”. At the foot is “Translated by Robert Corbington, Preust of the Socyete of Jesus, by order of Cardinal Morone. His Brother Ambrose wrote and interesting biography about his father Gerard. Nothing to do with HIB or Irish Mission [Pillars is in Old Welsh]

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CORBIE, ROBERT, brother to FF. Ambrose and Ralph before-mentioned, died in the English mission on Good Friday, 17th April, 1637. He was considered as a respectable linguist, and heard confessions in Dutch, Italian, Spanish, French and other languages.

Born: 14 December 1862, London, England
Entered: 29 November 1884, Loyola House, Dromore, County Down
Ordained: 01 August 1897, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1901
Died: 08 January 1951, Loyola College, Grimshaw Street, Watsonia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed : HIB to ASL 05/04/1931

1884-1886: Loyola House, Dromore, County Down, Novitiate
1886-1890: Milltown Park, Dublin, Rhetoric and then Philosophy
1890-1893: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1893-1894: Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick, Regency
1894-1895: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Theology
1895-1897: Colegio del Jesus, Tortosa, Catalonia, Spain (ARA), Theology
1897-1899: Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick, Teaching
1899-1900: Oude Abdij, Drongen, Belgium, Tertianship
1900-1902: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Minister, teaching
1902-1908: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Teaching; Minister from 1903
1908-1913: St Francis Xavier, MacKenzie Street, Lavender Bay, Sydney NSW, Australia, Australia, Curate
1912-1913: Minister, Curate and Teaching
1913-1918: St Mary’s Church, Miller Street, Sydney NSW, Australia, Superior from 11/06/1913; Prefect of Church
1918-1922: Manresa, Burwood Road, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Curate
1919-1922: Minister and Procurator; Curate
1922-1923: St Mary’s Church, Miller Street, Sydney NSW, Australia, Curate
1923-1931: Manresa, William Street, Norwood, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, Superior from 28/07/1923 to 06/03/1930, Procurator, Curate
1930-1931: Curate and teaching (ASL from 1931)
1931-1934: St Mary’s Church, Miller Street, Sydney NSW, Australia, Curate and Assistant Editor of “Jesuit Directory”
1934-1940: Manresa, Burwood Road, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Minister and Curate
1940-1948: Canisius College, Pittwater Road, Pymble NSW, Australia, Spiritual father
1948-1951: Loyola College, Grimshaw Street, Watsonia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Praying for the Society

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He was born in England and received his early education from the Benedictines at St Augustine’s Abbey, Ramsgate, Kent. In spite of this, he Entered the Society in the Irish Province at Dromore, County Down.

1886-1890 After First Vows he made a Juniorate at Milltown Park Dublin and St Stanislaus College Tullabeg, and then did a year of Philosophy at Milltown Park.
1890-1893 He was sent for Regency to Clongowes Wood College
1893-1895 He continued his regency at Mungret College Limerick.
1895 He began his Theology studies at Milltown Park, and was then sent to Tortosa in Spain, in the Aragon Province, and was Ordained there after two years, receiving a special dispensation due to health.
1897-1899 He was sent to Mungret teaching
1899-1900 He made tertianship at Drongen.
1900-1902 He was sent teaching to Belvedere College Dublin, where he was also Minister and Prefect of the Church.
1902-1908 He arrived in November and was sent to teach at Xavier College Kew, where he also served as Minister.
1908-1913 He was sent to the Lavender Bay Parish
1913-1918 and 1922-1923 He was sent to St Mary’s Parish in North Sydney, where he was also Superior for a while.
1918-1922 He was sent to the Hawthorn Parish
1923-1931 He was sent to the Norwood Parish where he was also Superior for a time.
1931-1934 He returned to St Mary’s in North Sydney. While there he turned a former factory into Manresa Hall
1934-1940 He returned to the Hawthorn Parish. Hawthorn parishioners spoke of his kindness and fine social gifts.
1940-1948 He was sent to Canisius College Pymble as Spiritual Father and examiner of candidates. Whilst here he also gave a monthly day of recollection to Cardinal Gilroy
1948 His final mission was to Loyola Watsonia, for care and prayer.

His early ill health accounts for the sporadic nature of his studies in Philosophy and Theology. In Australia no one would have thought that he had suffered from ill health. He was a most zealous man, a whirlwind of activity, throwing himself heart and soul into any work that he was given to do, and doing it very well.

He was a kind and charitable man always willing to give a helping hand to others. As a Superior he probably did not allow the men enough scope and was inclined to very fixed views, and he struggled when dealing with others who had equally fixed but opposing views. he did great work especially at North Sydney and Norwood. He had a fine old gentlemanly manner,

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 1st Year No 2 1926
Residence. SS. CORDIS, SYDNEY :

In 1878 Archbishop Vaughan handed over the Parish of North Shore to the Society. The church was exceedingly small, had very little church furniture and the Fathers were obliged to hire a Presbytery at 16s. a week. The Residence S.S. Cordis completed by Fr D Connell in 1923. The parish now numbers some 3,000 souls. It has two splendid primary schools, with an attendance of about 740 children. These schools. the Brothers' residence and the hall capable of holding 1,000 people, owe their existence to the energy of Fr Corish. In 1924 there were 45,000 Confessions heard, and about 50,000 Communions given. Attached to the church are two Sodalities, a Catholic club, a debating club, an athletic club a tennis club, and a branch of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

◆ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/172516298

Death of Rev. E. Corish, S.J.

Rev. Edward Corish, S.J., who died on Sunday in his 89th year, was well-known in Melbourne a generation ago, when he was attached to the Immaculate Conception parish, Hawthorn.
Born in London in 1862, he entered the Society of Jesus 66 years ago, studied in Ireland and Spain and came to Australia in 1902. He was for six' years at Xavier College, Kew, and later was transferred to Sydney, where he was stationed at St. Francis Xavier's parish, Lavender Bay. Afterwards, he was superior at the Jesuit house at Ridge-street, North Sydney, and in 1918 returned to Melbourne and remained at Hawthorn until 1922. Thereafter he was at Norwood, Adelaide, again at Sydney, and once more at Hawthorn. In 1940, Fr. Corish took up residence at Canisius College, Pynible, N.S.W., where he remained until 1949, when he was transferred to "Loyola," Watsonia. Father Corish was distinguished for his energetic priestly zeal and for a genial disposition that won for him an unusually large circle of friends. On the occasion of his golden jubilee of ordination in 1947 the Catholic Weekly, Sydney, said of him that he had become a legendary figure. "His friends and hundreds of people who have never even met him delight in telling stories about him—of his encyclopaedic knowledge of streets and of transport timetables, and of how he was reprimanded for jumping on a moving electric train at Wynward station when past his 80th birthday."

Solemn Requiem Mass for Father Corish was celebrated at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Hawthorn, on Tuesday. Archbishop Mannix, Bishop Vesters, sixty regular and diocesan priests, Marist Brothers, nuns and a large number of parishioners were present. Dr. John G. Hurley represented the Old Xaverians' Association.

Archbishop Mannix 'presided and was attended by Very Rev. W. O'Collins, S.J., and Rev. G. Lawlor, S.J. Very Rev. W. T. Drake, M.S.C., was assistant priest. Rev. E. Riordan, S.J., was celebrant; Rev. T. Bourke, S.J., deacon; Rev. J. Fitzgerald, S.J., sub-deacon; and Rev. J. Byrne, S.J., master of ceremonies. The priests' choir sang the music of the Mass, cantors being Revs.
G. Coghlan, M. Rafter, C. Miller and S. Lennon, S.J.

Archbishop Mannix preached the panegyric (the report of which will be published next week), and gave the final absolution. The funeral left the church for the Boroondara Cemetery, Kew,
Archbishop Mannix and several priests assisting in the last prayers.

Born: 11 April 1658, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 13 November 1673 - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)
Final Vows: 02 February 1691
Died: 15 November 1721, Bordeaux, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)

1675 First Vows 17 November 1675
1687-91 Missioner in Siam

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
First Vows 17 November 1675 AQUIT

Born: 12 February 1817, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 16 December 1836, Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: c 1850
Final Vows:: 08 December 1857
Died: 04 January 1905, St Ignatius College SJ, Riverview, Cove Lane, Sydney NSW, Australia

Mission Superior Australia : 1866-1872; 01 November 1879 - 02 September 1833

Older bother of James - RIP 1907

1836-1838: Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG), Novitiate
1838-1846: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1846-1847: Séminaire de Vals, Vals-près-le-Puy, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France (LUGD), Philosophy
1848-1851: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Theology then Teaching
1851-1854: St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales (ANG); Theology
1854-1861: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Minister, Prefect of the Church (again in 1857)
1856-1857: Teaching and Tertianship
1861-1866: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Rector from 09/10/1861 and Procurator
1866-1878: St Ignatius Church, Church Road, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Superior of Mission from 18/02/1866 to 25/07/1872; Mission Procurator; Curate
1872-1878: Superior from 25/07/1872 and Curate; Mission Consultor
1878-1905: St Ignatius College SJ, Riverview, Cove Lane, Sydney NSW, Australia, Superior from 01/12/1879
1879-1883: MISSION SUPERIOR from 01/11/1879 to 02/09/1883 and Superior at Riverview
1883-1888: Superior (Rector from 1886) from 01/12/1879 to 08/12/1888; Mission Consultor
1888-1904: Spiritual Father; Mission Consultor from 1893 to 1897
1904-1905: Caring for health

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was an older bother James - RIP 1907
His early life after Ordination in the Society saw him as rector at Tullabeg from 09 October 1861. previously he had been Minister at Clongowes, where he had been a teacher and prefect for Regency earlier.
1866 he was sent to Australia as Mission Superior, and duly sailed in the “Great Britain” to Melbourne.

Paraphrasing of “The Work of a Jesuit in Australia : A Grand Old Schoolmaster” - taken from a Sydney Journal, who took it from the “Freeman’s Journal” :
The name of Joseph Dalton is known and reverenced by many people, both Catholic and Protestant. He was known as “the grand old man of the Order” in Australia. Though he is known throughout Australia, it is possible that many don’t quite realise the benefits this man brought through his practical, wisdom, foresight and hard work during the past quarter of a century. The Catholic community were hampered by the fact that the State withheld all aid from higher scholastic institutions, witnessed by the fact that both St Patrick’s Melbourne and Lyndhurst Sydney were both closed before the Jesuits came. Towards the end of 1865, William Kelly and Joseph Lentaigne came to Melbourne, and were quickly joined by Joseph Dalton, Edward Nolan and John McInerney and they reopened St Patrick’s. Three years later, Joseph with consummate foresight, purchased seventy acres at Kew - at that time a neglected little village near Melbourne - and today stands Xavier College. It was bought for 10,000 pounds. When the Richmond Parish was handed over to the Jesuits in a dreadful state, Joseph bought some land where he immediately set about building a new Church and Presbytery. He also built a fine Church at Hawthorn, and a chapel at Xavier, where poor children were taught for free.
1879 Joseph was sent to Sydney, leaving behind a lot of disappointed friends. He came to Sydney at the invitation of Archbishop Vaughan. There he found the chief Catholic school also closed. So, he rented St Kilda at Woolloomooloo and began a day school. Soon, after Daniel Clancy was installed in what was now called St Aloysius at Surrey Hills.
1880 With more foresight, Joseph purchased Riverview for 6,500 pounds, and immediately started a boarding school there. The early seven scholars lived in very cramped conditions in rooms which were multi-purpose - classroom, dining room, bedroom etc.
There was also a school built at Lavender Bay in Sydney.

The value of Joseph Dalton’s contribution to Catholic - and indeed Australian - education in Sydney and Melbourne is incalculable. In the end, ill health forced him to retire from his work, and all he had to show for it was a pair of crutches. Hopefully people will donate to the “Dalton Testimonial” which intends to build the “Dalton Tower” in his honour and grateful memory.
He died at Riverview 04 January 1905

Note from Joseph O’Malley Entry :
1858 He was sent as Fourth Prefect to Clongowes with Joseph Dalton (1st) and William Delaney (3rd)

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He was the third of two sons and four daughters and was raised in Waterford City. His early education was at St Staislaus College Tullabeg and Clongowes Wood College. He was admitted to the Society by Patrick Bracken who was Provincial at the time, and he sent him to Hodder, Stonyhurst, England for his Noviciate.

1838-1846 He was sent to Clongowes Wood College as a Prefect
1846-1848 He was sent to Lyon for Philosophy and recover his health, but the French Revolution of 1848 meant he had to come back to Ireland.
1848-1851 He came back to Ireland and he was Ordained prematurely by Dr Daniel Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, at Maynooth.
1851 He was sent to Clongowes for a year of teaching Grammar and Algebra
1851-1854 He was sent to St Beuno’s Wales to complete his Theology
1854-1861 He was sent back to Clongowes Wood College in a mainly non-teaching administrative role, and he completed his Tertianship during that time (1857).
1861-1865 He was appointed Rector at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg on 09 October 1861. During his time as Rector the school expanded to enable boys to complete their secondary education for the first time, and he improved the quality of the school buildings and scholastic standards. He was appreciated there for his kindly yet military approach to discipline and good order.
1865 He was asked to volunteer for the newly founded Irish Mission in Australia. He was aged 49 at this time, his confreres described him as a man of great energy and vision, who communicated a driving ambition for the success of any venture to which he committed himself,
1866-1872 He arrived in Melbourne, and he lived at St Ignatius Richmond as Superior of the Mission, and he remained in that role until 1872. During that time he was also Rector of St Patrick’s College Melbourne (1867-1871). The Jesuits worked the “Richmond Mission”, which included the suburbs of Kew, Hawthorn and Camberwell, and he began building the Church of St Ignatius at Richmond which was completed in 1870. The Church building at Hawthorn was opened in 1869, but it did not become a separate parish until 1881. He also bought 69 acres of land at Kew for Xavier College in 1871, and the College was opened in 1878
On 14 October 1869 Joseph accompanied the Bishop of Melbourne, Dr Goold, to New Zealand. Discussion were had there with the Bishop of Dunedin, Patrick Moran, about the possibility of establishing a Jesuit college and parish. In the short term, insufficient manpower prevented the establishment of St Aloysius College, Waikari along with the Parish of Invercargill until 1878. Continuing manpower shortage resulted in the College being closed in 1883, and the Parish was handed over in 1889.
1878 moved to St Kilda in 1878 and he started St Kilda House (1879), later called St Aloysius College, and he was Rector there for one year. He had provided Jesuits for the St Mary’s Parish North Sydney in 1878, and then went on to establish St Ignatius College Riverview with its 118 acres in 1880, with 26 pupils.
1879-1883 He was again made Mission Superior from 01 November 1879 to 02 September 1883
1888-1893 He was the First rector at St Ignatius College Riverview, and at the time he was 71 years old. He was also doing Parish work in Sydney at the same time. Later he was an Assistant to the Rector, supervised the farm and garden and was Spiritual Father to the community and the boys.
1895-1903 He was Assistant Bursar and Spiritual Father at St Ignatius Riverview. He did no teaching.
He finally died of old age after suffering a bout of rheumatism. Upon his death, plans were immediately accepted to build a chapel as his memorial, and this was completed in 1909.

When he first arrived in Melbourne he described the Catholic people as very needy, not practising religion and having slight education. He believed they were oblivious to God and the sacraments because of bad example, mixed marriages, drunkenness, poverty and hard work, and only thought of a priest at the hour of death. He noted that if parents were like that, what hope had the children. Later, he observed with concern that many Catholic boys were educated in colleges run by heretics, which was a great danger to the faith. Many Melbourne Catholics had petitioned him for a boarding school, which was considered essential to prevent another generation of Catholic youth being educated in non-Catholic schools. Xavier College was opened in response to this need.

His former students, including the Australian poet Christopher Brennan and Sir Mark Sheldon revered him for his warm-hearted character, unaffected manner and gentleness. They were strongly influenced by his concern for them as people. He was also a keen judge of character. His firm but kindly style was recalled “I would rater take a hiding than hear Dalton say he is surprised and pained, because I know he is speaking the truth, and we ought to be ashamed of ourselves”.

Patrick Keating, later Superior of the Mission and Rector of Riverview, wrote that “Fr Dalton is a man of most wonderful influence with outsiders. I don;t think there is a priest in Australia who is more known and respected as he is.....” His wisdom, tact and common sense made him the friend and confidant of bishops, especially the Bishop of Maitland, Bishop Murray. he won respect from vie-royalty and Members of Parliament, including Lord Carrington, Sir Edward Strickland, and Sir Charles and Sir Frank Gavan Duffy, as well as distinguished overseas visitors such as William Redmond, the old Home Rule campaigner.

He always remained unequivocally Irish, but he showed no animosity towards England or Englishmen.

His diaries reveal a restrained and diplomatic man of considerable warmth, but above all, practical, black and white and pious.They also indicate a range of prejudices, such as democracy - he never liked the outspokenness of the boys.He showed a strong consciousness of religious differences, combined with a friendly ecumenical spirit. Non-Catholic boys were always treated justly. However, one’s religion could be used to explain a good or evil action, although the evidence was not always one way or the other! He was quick to note the efficacy of Catholic practices, such as the wearing of the scapular. When commenting on the worthiness of a man to become a Jesuit Brother he thought would make a good religious, praising him for being a very steady, sensible, pious man, very humble and docile. he had an aversion to alcohol, especially among employees, who were frequently drunk, and ye he allowed the boys to be served wine on Feast Days!

He was not an innovator in education, not a scholar or intellectual, but a simple and courageous man with extraordinary strength. He founded four Colleges and gave them the traditional Jesuit character of the European model. He accepted the existing standards of educated Catholic gentlemen and communicated these to others. His spirituality was pious and practical, religious beliefs demanded application to real life. He was concerned for the faith of Catholic students, their academic progress and character development, keen that they be influential in the development of Australia. His educational views were religious and academic, hoping to provide what was necessary for the sound development of students. The pattern of schools and parishes and basic style of educational practice established By him still remains strong in the works of the Society in Australia.

Note from Michael Goodwin Entry
Michael Goodwin entered the Society in Ireland, 11 October 1864, and arrived in Melbourne as a novice 17 September 1866, with Father Joseph Dalton. Shortly after his arrival he burst a blood vessel and died of consumption at St Patrick's College, just after taking his vows.

Note from Patrick Keating Entry
In 1883 Keating arrived in Australia, joined Joseph Dalton at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, and succeeded him as rector in 1888. Writing to Ireland in 1894, Dalton, at Riverview, believed that Keating's students had great confidence in him and “liked him well”

Note from Edward Nolan Entry
He was a founding father to Australia in 1866 with Joseph Dalton

Note from William Wrigley Entry
He soon proved to be a very capable master, a good religious, and, in Joseph Dalton's view, the most useful and efficient of all the Australian Novices.

Note from David McKiniry Entry
David McKiniry entered the Society in 1854, and after novitiate in Milltown Park studied in Europe before joining Joseph Dalton aboard the Great Britain, arriving in Melbourne in September 1866. Immediately he was sent to St Patrick's College to teach, but on weekends he worked in the Richmond Mission. The arrangement continued until the end of 1869, when McKiniry spent more time in Richmond, and during the middle of the year joined Dalton on a series of successful country missions around Castlemaine, Kyneton and Ararat districts.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Dalton, Joseph
by David Strong

Dalton, Joseph (1817–1905), Jesuit priest and missioner, was born in Co. Waterford at Slieveroe or Glenmore 12 February 1817, third of two sons and four daughters of Patrick Dalton and his wife Mary Foley, who married on 15 January 1809. In 1841 they were living at 11 Michael St., Waterford. Dalton was educated by the Jesuits at St Stanislaus’ College, Tullabeg, 1833–4, and Clongowes Wood College, 1834–6. The fees for two years for the latter were £71. 0s.. 0d., indicating that the family was comfortably placed.

On completing his schooling, Dalton was admitted to the Society of Jesus by Fr Patrick Bracken, the Irish provincial, 16 December 1836. For the next two years he completed his noviciate at Hodder House, Stonyhurst, England, and on 17 December 1838 took his vows before the master of novices, Fr Thomas Brownbill.

Dalton was immediately sent to Clongowes Wood College as division prefect until 1846, when he went to France to recover his health and study philosophy at Lyons. Because of the revolution of 1848, he returned to Ireland and was ordained to the priesthood prematurely 2 June 1849 by Dr Daniel Murray (qv), archbishop of Dublin, at Maynooth. A further year of teaching grammar and algebra at Clongowes followed in 1851, before returning to England and St Beuno's, Wales, to complete his theological studies. In 1854 he returned to a non-teaching role at Clongowes, mainly administration, completing his tertianship in 1857. Dalton was appointed rector of St Stanislaus' College, Tullabeg, 9 October 1861. He remained there until October 1865, when he was nominated to the newly formed Irish Jesuit mission in Australia in his fiftieth year. His Irish colleagues of the time described him as a man of great energy and vision, who communicated a driving ambition for the success of any venture to which he committed himself.

He arrived in Melbourne, and resided in the parish of Richmond in 1866 as superior of the Jesuit mission in Australia, and remained superior until 1872. He was also rector of St Patrick's College, East Melbourne, 1867–71. He was superior of the mission again, from 1 November 1879 to 2 September 1883. The Jesuits worked the ‘Richmond mission’, which included the suburbs of Kew, Hawthorn, and Camberwell, from 1866, and Dalton began building the church of St Ignatius at Richmond, which was completed in 1870. The building of the church of the Immaculate Conception at Hawthorn was opened for worship in 1869, but did not become a separate parish until 1881. Dalton also bought sixty-nine acres of land in 1871 for Xavier College, which opened in 1878. The college has produced many distinguished alumni, especially in the medical and legal professions.

On 14 October 1869 Dalton accompanied the bishop of Melbourne, James Alipius Goold (qv), to New Zealand. Discussion took place with the bishop of Dunedin, Patrick Moran (1823–95), about the possibility of establishing a Jesuit college and parish. In the short term insufficient manpower prevented the establishment of St Aloysius' College, Waikari, and the parish of Invercargill, until 1878. Continuing manpower shortage resulted in the college closure in 1883, and the handover of the parish in 1889.

Dalton moved to Sydney in 1877, where he started St Kilda House (1879), later named St Aloysius' College, and was its rector for one year. He provided Jesuits for the parish of St Mary's, North Sydney, 1878, and established St Ignatius' College, Riverview, with its 118 acres, in 1880. He was its first rector until 1888, when he was 71 years old. During this time he also did parish work in Sydney. From then until 1893 he was the assistant to the rector, supervised the farm and garden, and was spiritual father to the community and the boys. From 1895 to 1903 he was assistant bursar and spiritual father. He did no teaching.

Upon his arrival in Melbourne, Dalton described the catholic population as very needy, not practising religion, and with slight education. He believed that they only thought of a priest at the hour of death. Later, he observed with concern that many catholic boys were educated in colleges run by ‘heretics’, which he considered was a great danger to the faith. Many Melbourne Catholics had petitioned him for a boarding school, which was considered essential to prevent another generation of catholic youth being educated in non-catholic schools.

Dalton's former students, including Australian poet Christopher Brennan and Sir Mark Sheldon, revered him for his genial and warm-hearted character, unaffected manner, and gentleness. They were strongly influenced by his genuine concern for them as people. Fr Patrick Keating, later superior of the mission and rector of Riverview, wrote that ‘Fr Dalton is a man of most wonderful influence with outsiders. I don't think there is a priest in Australia who is more known and respected than he is . . .’ (Fr Patrick Keating to Fr Thomas Brown, 29 January 1885; RSJA general curial archives, Rome). Dalton's wisdom, tact, and common sense made him the friend and confidant of bishops, especially Bishop Murray of Maitland. He won respect from viceroyalty and members of parliament, including Lord Carrington, Sir Edward Strickland, and Sir Charles (qv) and Sir Frank Gavan Duffy, as well as distinguished overseas visitors such as William Archer Redmond (qv) (1825–80), home rule campaigner.

Dalton was not an innovator in education, nor a scholar or intellectual, but a simple, practical, and courageous man with extraordinary strength. He gave the four colleges he founded the traditional Jesuit character of the European model. He accepted existing standards of the educated catholic gentleman, and communicated these to others. His spirituality was pious and practical; religious beliefs demanded application to real life. He was concerned for the faith of catholic students, their academic progress and character development, keen that they be influential in the development of Australia. His educational views were religious and academic, intended to provide what was necessary for the sound development of students.

Dalton died of old age after many years of suffering from rheumatism at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, Sydney, 4 January 1905 New South Wales, aged 87, and plans were immediately accepted to build a chapel as his memorial. It was completed in 1909.

Dalton diaries, 1879–1902 (St Ignatius' College, Riverview, archives); letters in general curial archives, Rome, provincial archives, Melbourne, Australia, and Irish province archives, Dublin; newspaper extracts, 1886–1911; J. Ryan, A short history of the Australian mission (in-house publication, June 1902); Clongownian, 1905, 57–8; Anon., The Society of Jesus in Australia, 1848–1910; A. McDonnell, ‘Riverview in the eighties’, Our Alma Mater, 1930, 25; T. Corcoran, SJ, The Clongowes Record (c.1933); G. Windsor, ‘Father Dalton's likes and dislikes’, Our Alma Mater, 1975, 19–22; T. J. Morrissey, Towards a national university: William Delaney SJ, 1835–1924 (1983), 18; E. Lea-Scarlett, Riverview: a history (1989); E. Lea-Scarlett, ‘In the steps of Father Dalton’, Our Alma Mater, 1999, 37–44

◆ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University online :
Dalton, Joseph (1817–1905)
by G. J. O'Kelly
G. J. O'Kelly, 'Dalton, Joseph (1817–1905)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dalton-joseph-3358/text5063, published first in hardcopy 1972

Died : 5 January 1905, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Joseph Dalton (1817-1905), Jesuit priest, was born on 2 December 1817 at Waterford, Ireland. He was educated at the Jesuit colleges of Clongowes and Tullabeg and entered the Society of Jesus in December 1836. For the next thirty years he studied and worked in Jesuit Houses in Ireland, and became rector of St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg.

Austrian Jesuits had begun a mission to the German settlers near Clare, South Australia, in 1848 but were diffident to extend their work to Victoria where Dr James Goold was eager to found an Irish Jesuit Mission. The Jesuit priests, William Kelly and Joseph Lentaigne, reached Melbourne in September 1865. Dalton was appointed superior of the mission and arrived in April 1866. The first of his many tasks was to revive St Patrick's College, which had opened at East Melbourne in 1854 with a government grant but closed after eight years through maladministration. Dalton appointed Kelly to its staff and by 1880 'Old Patricians' could boast many graduates at the University of Melbourne, and two of its three doctorates in law. At St Patrick's Dalton was also persuaded by Goold to train candidates for the diocesan priesthood, but he resisted Goold's pressure for a more ambitious college until he had sufficient resources. On land bought at Kew in 1871 he built Xavier College which opened in 1878 and cost £40,000.

Dalton was also entrusted by Goold with the parochial care of a very large area centred on Richmond where some of the colony's most eminent laymen lived. With William Wardell and a magnificent site, Dalton worked towards the grandiose St Ignatius Church, capable of seating almost his entire 4000 parishioners. In his district he built other chapels, schools and churches, including the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Hawthorn. He gave many retreats, lectured often on secular education, and engaged in controversy which led once to litigation. He went with Goold to reorganise the diocese of Auckland in 1869 and after Archbishop John Bede Polding died, the Irish Jesuit Mission was invited to Sydney in 1878. As superior there Dalton took charge within eight months of the North Sydney district, founded St Kilda House, the forerunner of St Aloysius College, Milson's Point, and was its first rector. He also bought 118 acres (48 ha) at Riverview where, as rector, he opened St Ignatius College. There he lived after his retirement in 1883 and died on 5 January 1905.

Dalton founded two great public schools and made more than a dozen foundations, of which only one at Dunedin proved abortive; they involved debts of at least £120,000 which were mostly paid by 1883. He published nothing and his inner life is not revealed in his diary (1866-88). Those who knew him well attested that he was first and foremost a holy priest, and he was widely revered in Richmond and Riverview. His energy and vision were striking, and his work established the Irish Jesuits in the eastern colonies.

Select Bibliography
J. Ryan, The Society of Jesus in Australia (privately printed, 1911)
papers and St Patrick's College records (Jesuit Provincial Archives, Hawthorn, Melbourne).

◆ Australian Jesuits http://jesuit.org.au/a-story-often-graced-but-sometimes-grim/

A story often graced, but sometimes grim
'Dalton lost 40 per cent of his workforce, his team, in one year. Did it stop him? Of course not. He was never one to look back.' Fr Ross Jones SJ, Rector of St Aloysius' College Milsons Point, recalls the life and ministry of the school's founder, Fr Joseph Dalton SJ, on the occasion of the school's 140th anniversary.

The 140th Birthday of the College is only possible because there were great men and great women who preceded us and built the sure foundation. The larger-than-life and the unassuming, the people of faith and wisdom, the living and the dead. ‘A house built on rock’ as today’s Gospel encourages. That’s why we are here. So many people of influence and so many stories to recall and share. We could spend many days speaking of all those heroes and telling their stories. But I will recall just one. Our Founder, Fr Joseph Dalton SJ.

Joseph Dalton was born at Waterford, soon after the restoration of the Jesuits and their return to Ireland. Young Joseph went to school at Clongowes Wood, whence our present ‘Gappies’ hail. Dalton joined the Society of Jesus and later became Rector of two Jesuit Colleges in Ireland. Then the new Irish Mission to Australia was launched.

The Provincial wrote to all the Jesuit communities inviting volunteers to be missioned halfway round the world. Dalton later said, ‘I couldn’t expect anyone in my community to volunteer if I, the superior, didn’t put my name down first.’ So he did. And the Provincial chose him. He was then aged 50 — at the time, that was more than the life expectancy of a male in Ireland. Imagine that. Dalton is living the magis. Never past his ‘use by date’. For him, there was always another door to be opened.
He left for Australia, with two other Jesuits, as superior of the new Mission ‘Down Under’. In pre-Suez Canal days, the good ship Great Britain took the passage around the Cape. By all reports, it was a tough journey. Passengers did not see land after leaving Wales until they sighted Australia.

En route, there was a duel on board and a case of smallpox. A cow, kept below decks to provide fresh milk for well-to-do First Class passengers, died of sea-sickness after only one week at sea. The crowd of Second Class passengers cheered maliciously as it was thrown overboard. But then the vacant cow stall was used to lock up troublesome passengers of the lower classes! Perhaps the cow had the last laugh. The three Jesuits were quite active on board and Dalton records that there were ‘three converts to the Faith’ along the way.

They arrived in Melbourne in 1866 to join two confreres already there — three priests and two brothers now in all. But in their first year, one of the brothers left to marry. And the other brother just plain disappeared — perhaps to the goldfields? So Dalton lost 40 per cent of his workforce, his team, in one year. Did it stop him? Of course not. He was never one to look back.

Fr Dalton immediately took over the decrepit and moribund Cathedral school, St Patrick’s in Melbourne, and soon turned it around. He was there for 12 years. Its enrolment, its spirit, its outcomes, all soared. Dalton never shied away from a challenge. Sadly, that great school, St Pat’s — ‘the Aloys of Melbourne’ — was taken from us by the Archdiocese in the 1960s and demolished.

Fr Dalton purchased 70 acres of land for the new Xavier College at Kew which opened in 1878. He established our two parishes at Hawthorn and Richmond with a primary school each. A man whose vision was nothing less than bold. Even during that first year at Xavier, he was negotiating expansion to Sydney.

In 1878 he moved to Sydney amid a great deal of anti-Jesuit feeling here and campaigns to thwart the Jesuits’ arrival. Even Archbishop Vaughan, who eventually invited the Jesuits to Sydney, was advised by his own brother, a Bishop in Manchester, that, in welcoming the Jesuits to his Archdiocese, he was only ‘creating a rod for his own back’. A number of NSW parliamentarians were on the offensive. Some Catholic quarters were also suspicious.

Dalton went into that lion’s den. And he soon won them over. His weapons would only be a natural openness and the conversational word.
Dalton took over the parish of North Sydney, which then extended from the harbour to Palm Beach across to Berowra and back. Huge! We are told those first Jesuits lived very poorly in a four-room shanty built from corrugated iron and flattened kerosene tins. Imagine that in a Sydney summer. But he was building God’s Kingdom — that was enough. I think Dalton lived out that Prayer for Generosity — ‘to toil and not to seek for rest’. Turning his attention to education, he then rented St Kilda House in Woolloomooloo, which was to become our St Aloysius’ College.

Dalton was Rector for one year before purchasing 118 acres to establish yet another boarding school at Riverview. Our ‘Founding Father’ also established the Lavender Bay parish and parish schools as well. Such an energetic man. The only foundation of his that was to fail was St Aloysius’ College and Parish in Dunedin, New Zealand, which operated 12 years between 1878 and 1889.

Fr Dalton remained at Riverview the rest of his life. Despite all those earlier misgivings and distrust of Jesuits, in his lifetime Dalton had become the friend and confidant of many members of the hierarchy, as well as earning the respect of vice-regals and parliamentarians. His pupils loved him. He died in 1905, aged 87, and was buried from St Mary’s North Sydney. The funeral was enormous. Church and civic leaders, parliamentarians, non-Catholic friends, families and so many Old Boys — all mourning such a great loss.

Interestingly, Dalton was no great innovator in education. He was not an academic or an intellectual. He left few writings, apart from his diary. And his faith was lived out simply and practically. But so pastoral. He loved others and was loved in return.

As a young man, he could never have guessed where his life would take him. But he left a mark beyond his dreaming, in a place beyond his imagining. Here. For us. Joseph Dalton’s story is a rich one. A story so often graced. But also a story sometimes grim. Dalton’s experience of success and failure, of hardship and ease, of the permanent and the passing, of allies and enemies, is something we all know from time to time. It is part of our story, too. That’s why he is such a good patron.

Apparently, during his life, Dalton’s favourite expression, a Latinism, to wish people well in a venture was Felix faustumque. ‘May it be favourable and prosperous.’

So today, we look about us here. Felix faustumque? Yes, it has been.

◆ Irish Province News 1st Year No 1 1925

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

◆ Irish Province News 5th Year No 2 1930

St Aloysius College Sydney Australia : Golden Jubilee
St Aloysius College celebrated the Golden Jubilee of its Foundation in the course of last year. The principal functions were held on the 22nd July, and from the 25th to the 29th September.
The beginning of the College is mentioned in Fr, Dalton's diary, under date Nov. 21st 1878. After much negotiation terms were accepted for St. Kilda House at £260 rent per annum. At that date, if the Jesuits, at the invitation of Archbishop Vaughan, had not come to the rescue, there would not have been a single Catholic College in Sydney.
The College was opened early in 1879 with Fr. Dalton as first Rector and Fr, Wm Kelly, Prefect of Studies At the first distribution of prizes, Dec. 23rd 1879, Archbishop Vaughan presided, and claimed the responsibility of having brought the Jesuits to Sydney. “It is I who invited Fr. Beckx, the venerable and saintly General of the Society of Jesus, to found a school and finally a College in Sydney, and gladly do I publicly acknowledge before you all my great gratification at having done so”.

◆ Irish Province News 6th Year No 1 1931

From 23 to 27 August, Riverview celebrated the Golden Jubilee of its foundation... The College was founded in 1880 by Fr. Joseph Dalton, He was “wisely daring enough” to purchase a fine property on Lane Cove from Judge Josephson, The property consisted of a cottage containing eight or nine rooms with substantial out offices, and 44 acres of land, at a cost of £4 500. 54 acres were soon added for £1 ,080, and an additional 20 acres later on completed the transaction. This little cottage was the Riverview College of 1880. The modesty of the start may be measured by the facts, that the founder of Riverview, and its first Rector, shared his own bed-room with three of his little pupils , and when the College played its first cricket out match, it could muster only ten boys to meet the opposing team. By the end of the year the number had increased to 15.
In addition to Fr. Dalton's, two other names are inseparably connected with the foundation of Riverview. The first is that of His Grace, Archbishop Vaughan, who invited the Jesuits to Sydney, formally opened the College and gave the Fathers every encouragement.
The second is the name of the great Australian pioneer, the Archpriest Therry. “One hundred years ago”, says one account : “Fr Therry was dreaming of a Jesuit College in Sydney... and when he went to his reward in 1865 he gave it a special place in his final testament”. Fr Lockington called Frs. Dalton and Therry the “co-founders” of Riverview, and added
that it was the wish of the latter to see Irish Jesuits established at Sydney.
An extract from the Catalogue of 1881 will interest many. It is the first time that Riverview is mentioned as a College in the Catalogue :
Collegium et Convictus S. Ignatius
R. P, Josephus Dalton, Sup a die 1 Dec 1879, Proc_ Oper
P. Thomas Gartlan, Min, etc
P. Joannes Ryan, Doc. 2 class. etc
Henricus O'Neill Praef. mor. etc
Domini Auxiliairii duo
Fr. Tom Gartlan is still amongst us, and, thank God, going strong. Soon a brick building (comprising study hall, class rooms and dormitories) wooden chapel, a wooden refectory, were added to the cottage, and in three years the numbers had swelled to 100, most of them day-boys.
The first stage in the history of Riverview was reached in 1889, when the fine block, that up to a recent date served as the College, was opened and blessed by Cardinal Moran.
The second stage was closed last August, when, amidst the enthusiastic cheering of a great gathering of Old Boys, the splendid building put up by Fr. Lockington was officially declared ready to receive the ever increasing crowd of boys that are flocking into Riverview. The College can now accommodate three times as many students as did the old block finished in 1889. Not the least striking part of the new building is the Great Assembly Hall erected by the Old Boys as a memorial to their school-fellows who died during the Great War.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Joseph Dalton SJ 1817-1905
At Riverview College, Sydney, on 4th January 1905, died Fr Joseph Dalton, who with justice be styled “The Father of the Australian Province of the Society”. Born in Waterford in 1817, he entered the Society in 1836. He was Rector of Tullabeg in 1861 till his appointment as Superior of the Australian Mission in 1866.

He immediately re-opened St Patrick’s College Melbourne, which had failed through lack of funds. Three years later, with remarkable foresight he purchased 70 acres at Kew, then a neglected village near Melbourne, where to-day stands the magnificent College of St Francis Xavier. When the parish of Richmond, also near Melbourne, was handed over to the Jesuits, Fr Dalton bought a piece of land there for three thousand pounds, and which he built a splendid Church and Presbytery. He also built a fine Church at Hawthorn and a school-chapel in the village of Kew where the children of the poor were taught free.

Having performed such herculean labours in Melbourne he proceeded to Sydney at the invitation of Archbishop Vaughan. His first enterprise in Sydney was to rent St Kilda House at Woollo and to establish a day-school which eventually became St Aloysius.

In 1880 he purchased the Riverview property for £6,500 and at once started a boarding school with seven scholars, three of whom had to share the same bedroom with Fr Dalton in the old cottage, which served as Study Hall, Refectory, Classroom, Playroom and Dormitory. This was the beginning of St Ignatius College Riverview.

The fine school at Lavendere Bay must also be numbered among Fr Dalton’s achievements.

The “Dalton Tower” at Riverview stands today as a vivid memorial to this great man to whom more than any other may be attributed the marvellous progress of Catholic education in Australia.

Truly might he say as he died at the ripe age of 88 “exegi monumentum sere perennius”.

◆ Our Alma Mater, St Ignatius Riverview, Sydney, Australia, 1905

Obituary

Father Joseph Dalton SJ : Founder of Riverview

When we published the last number of “Our Alma Mater”, we little thought that the Founder of Riverview - Rev Father Dalton - was so soon to pass from our midst to his eternal a rest. He just lived to see about five days of the year 1905, in which the Silver Jubilee of the college he founded in 1880 is being celebrated ; indeeci, it looks as if Providence had spared hili just to witness that alispi cious event, and then chant his Nunc dimit tis. We publish the following account of the life, works, and obsequies of our veniet able founder, as it appeared in the Freemani's Journal of January 14th, 1905

The life that faded out at Riverview on Thursciay, Jan. 5th, was that of a Catholic educationalist whose work was singularly free from incompleteness. The Very Rev Joseph Dalton SJ, had the felicity to see the full fruition of his later life-work. There have been toilers in the vineyard who were called to their reward before their eyes had seen the glory of their harvest gleaned from the labour of their lives. Not so with Father Dalton. His long life flickered out amnid the beautiful environment of the great educational establishment which he founded on One of the fairest eininences that smile down upon the waterways of Sydney. Five and twenty years ago he saw it a scrubby height, embastioned by forbidding rocks. Long before his eyes closed in death that suburban Wilderness had vanished, leaving in its place a veritable fairyland that delights the eye of the traveller. In the beautiful grounds that slope down to the Lane Cove River, are set the noble buildings of the college of St Ignatius, where the sons of Australia drink deep of the springs of learning. Such a monunient should alone suffice to engraft the name of Father Dalton upon the tablets of memory. Yet it was not his only monument of the kind, He had accomplished a life's work ere he came to Sydney. But it was at Riverview he chose to end his days. And he ended them as a light gently flicker ing out. For some days prior to death he suffered from a cold. Doubtless the heat wave tended to complicate the ills insepar-- able from old age, and for a few days before death he was in a comatose condition. Yet, with all his infirmity, he had a good hold on life. Five days before liis end, we are told, he was wheeled in his invalidi's chair to the grounds.

As Father Gartlan, the Rector, said, he simply ceased to breathe. The spark of life flickered gently out He had, of course, been prepared for the end, and the end was peace. The sorrow occasioned extended to far corners of Australia. One of the earliest messages of sympathy was froni Mr. William Redmond, MP for East Clare, at that time sojourning at Orange. Soon after setting foot on Australian soil, Mr. Redmond renewed acquaintance with the college where he had been welcomed many years before on his first visit to Australia. He liad not forgotten Father Dalton or his hospitality. Father Dalton's life, like that of many another distinguished exile of Erin, was well spent in two hemispheres. The nineteenth century was but sweet seventeen when Joseph Dalton was born in Waterford, that southern city of Ireland which has given of its best to the Church. It is difficult to realise that the life closed last week began a few years after the battle of Waterloo.

His ecclesiastical studies commenced in his native town, and were prosecuted fur ther in the Jesuit Colleges of Clongowes and Tullabeg. In 1836, when but 19, he entered as a novice of the Society of Jesus, and, fulfilling his probation, took the vows. Thereafter for eight years he taught in the principal Jesuit colleges of Ireland. The year of the great famine, '47, saw him in France pursuing the philosophical studies of the Society. These mastered, as well as other scholastic attainments, he, in 1854-58, went through a complete theological course in St. Beuno’s Jesuit Seminary, North Wales. Dr Murray, Archbishop of Dublin (uncle of the Bishop of Maitland), ordained him priest at Maynooth. Education once more claimed him, and at Clongowes Wood College he devoted four or five years to disciplining the students. As Rector of St Stanislaus', near Tullamore, he presided over a body of students, some of whom are now on the Australian mission. In 1866 the General of the Society ordered him to take charge of the Jesuit Mission in Victoria, and he accordingly, with the Rev Fathers Nolan and McKiniry, left Ireland for Liverpool on the steamer St. Patrick, bound for St. Patrick's College, Melbourne, bound to be, as Father Dalton used to say, “Paddies evermore”. The good ship Great Britain, on which they sailed, steamed and sailed as the spirit moved her skipper, or as the wind favoured her. The voyage, anyhow, was leisurely, and Father Dalton declared long afterwards that he never had had so long a rest in all his life. The Suez Canal was not then finished, and the voyage was around the Cape. The passengers saw no land froin the last glimpse of the Welsh coast till they sighted Australia. One can easily understand how they counted the days between them and Australia. But the little incidents of the voyage varied the monotony. As fellow-voyager, Father Dalton. had the present venerable. Archbishop of Hobart (Dr Murphy), and the two whiled away many an hour over the chess board. Nor were the other passengers uninteresting. Father Dalton used to mention one who had been a member of the crew of the Alabama, the Confederate privateer, that worked such havoc with the shipping of the Yankees in the Civil War, and which made a gallant last stand off Cherbourg, where the Kearsage squared hier accounts. It will be remembered that Great Britain had to pay a heavy award for her breach of neutrality in connection with the Alabama. Doubtless the survivor had stirring adventures to relate. Another passenger was a survivor of the wrecked London, and others were heroes of the Civil War, men who, having fought in fratricidal strife, now met on common terms of peace to seek fortune in the then El Dorado. There were women as passengers, too, whom the war had left desolate. Of course there was a disagreeable passenger on board. He had been an army captain, and somebody having offended him, he challenged the shipmate to a duel of fifteen paces. The “challenger and the challenged”" occupied the same cabin, which may account for the captain's ferocity, especially if the object of his ire snored loudly. But the ship's captain spoiled the duel. A sailor was attacked with smallpox when the ship was in the Bay of Biscay, but the case was isolated, and it only affected the one person, who soon recovered. Those were the days before refrigeration, and the ship was stored with live stock to provide fresh meat for the passengers. There was also a cow, which was to provide the first-class passengers with milk; but it took ill and died of sea sickness at the end of the first week. The passengers declared that they didn't notice any difference in the milk before and after the cow's death, but the second-class crowd rejoiced maliciously. The skipper utilised the vacant cow-stall as a lock-up for troublesome passengers, and many were the opportunities for the other passengers to express the hope that the prospective offenders, would be cowed by his incarceration in the cow-house. Of course, there was the usual amusement committee of five, of which Father Dalton was one. The trivialities of the voyage did not prevent the priests from attending to their sacred duties.

Three Masses were said every Sunday. The Catholics on board approached the Sacraments. Some two or three converts were received into the Church, and many Catholics on board realised for the first time in their lives that Catholics, even Jesuits, were not the bogey men their early training had led them to believe they were. Father Dalton had the privilege of preparing for death a young Irishman who died on the voyage. On April 11, after a voyage of 55 days, which wound up with very rough weather, Father Dalton and his friends were landed in Melbourne, where he was welcomed by Father W. Kellyand Father Lentaigne, pioneers of the Jesuit Order in Australia. Twelve years were spent in directing the studies at St Patrick's College, Melbourne, as well as in missionary labours at Richmond, the suburb set apart for the Jesuits by Archbishop Goold. Four years after his arrival Father Dalton was enabled to purchase seventy acres of an estate at Kew, whereon he began to build the College of St. Francis Xavier. In 1878 Archbishop Vaughan invited him to Sydney. His arrival was signalised by his appointment as Superior of the Jesuits in New South Wales and Victoria, and he may justly receive the credit of founder of the Society of Jesuis in New South Wales. North Sydney was then known as St Leonards, and here the Jesuit mission was established. The day school of the Order at Woolloomooloo, which afterwards became St. Aloysius' College, Surry Hills, and later was transferred to North Sydney, as well as St Ignatius' College, Riverview, were all established by him. Writing at the time of the purchase of Riverview, a Sydney biographer said : “The mere acquisition of the fine estate at Riverview for educational purposes is a strong proof of Father Dalton's keen business faculties, and the success of the college he has founded there affords striking evidence that his early training, ripe scholarship, and long experience admirably fit him to be the head of a great public school”.

When Riverview was opened in 1880, it : provided but scant accommodation for ten or twelve students. Since then the number of its resident pupils has increased by leaps and bounds. In 1892 the then Rector, Very Rev J Ryan SJ, gave a holiday in honour of the 150th boy. Since then the college has gone on prospering, despite the adverse seasons which Australia has known. Father Dalton took a lively interest in the sports of the collegians, and even when overtaken by the infirmities of age, managed to be present at the games. Rather a good tribute was paid to him at the last re-union of the, ex-students of St Ignatius' held in Sydney by Senator Keating, of Tasmania, a former student, who said :

“Time might pass, but he ventured to say the name of Father Dalton would be held as the centre and source of the college, for as long as it existed. They knew that as a priest and a man he was endowed with qualities which a man and a citizen should possess. They all knew he liked manliness in a student, and he thought they could say with justice and truth that his life was gentle. They knew hie exercised a potent influence on the students. To very few men had it been given to exercise so large an influence aş had been given to him."

In his educational efforts Father Dalton's anıbition to see his pupils of Riverview achieve the best results was gratified in the University examinations, in which the boys gave a good account of themselves. Father. Dalton was esteemed not only by those who came frequently within the sphere of his in fluence, but by all who happened to meet him. His was a personality that sought no publicity, but one that found its vocation in devotion to duty, the exercise of true charity, and the practice of those graces which sweeten daily life. Many of his best friends were non-Catholics, who rejoiced in the friendship of one so sincere and serene and, withal, genial in his disposition. The presence of so many former students at the obsequies proved the loyalty of his pupils to his memory. His sympathies were broadly human, and his kindness in accord with them.

The casket containing the remains was re moved on Friday, Jan 6th, to St. Mary's Church, Ridge Street, North Sydney. Here on Saturday morning the Solemn Dirge was chanted and the Requiemn Mass offered for the soul's eternal welfare. It was meet that the Ridge-street church should hear the last chant for the dead ; for was it not liere the Jesuit Order first found an abiding place in New South Wales ? The late Archbishop Vauglian it was who assigned the parish of North Sydney to them in 1879, wheni the Order branched Sydney-wards fronı Melbourne, And, attached to the parish, is the burial-ground of members of the Order at Gore Hill, where already some notable missionaries sleep the long sleep. So it was that the Jesuits' Church was chosen for the obsequies of one who had been no lesser light in the field of the higher religious eclucation, His Grace the Coadjutor Archbishop of Sydney (Most Rev Dr Kelly) presided, the Ven Archpriest Sheehy and Rev M A Flemming assisting. The chanters were the Right Rev Monsignor O'Brien (Rector of St John's College) and the Rev Reginald Bridge. The celebrant of the Mass was the Rev Father O'Malley SJ, the Rev Father H E Cock, SJ, being deacon, and the Rev Father Peifer SJ, sub-cleacon. Right Rev Monsignor O'Haran was master of ceremonies, and there were also present in the sanctuary Right Rev Dr Murray (Bishop of Maitland) and Right Rev Mgr Carroll, VG. Among the other clergy assisting were the Very Rev Dean Slattery PP, Very Rev T Gartlan SJ (Rector St. Ignatius'), Very Rev J L Begley OFM, Rev Fathers J S Joyce OFM, T A Fitzgerald OFM, P B Kennedy OFM, P B Lawler OFM, Rev Father Fay (Rector St Aloysius' College), Rev J McGrath SJ, Rev J Sullivan SJ, Rev C Nulty SJ, Rev J Corboy, Rev Father Cleary SJ, Rev A Sturzo SJ, Rev J Brennan, SJ (Riverview), Rev Father Hassett SJ, Rev G Kelly SJ, Rev J Brennan SJ (North Sydney), Rev J Gately SJ, Rev Father Carroll SJ, Rev T O'Reilly PP (Parramatta), Rev P O'Brien SJ, Rev P Dwyer SJ, Rev G Byrne SJ, Rev JP Movinagh, PP, Rev Father Meaney, Rev Dr Burke, Rev J Furlong, Adm (St. Benedict's), Rev M Flemming, Rev J O'Gorman, Rev P Dowling, Rev T Phelan, Rev J Collins, Rev P Byrne PP, Rev J Grace, Rev D O'Reilly, Rev J Bourke SJ, Rev J J O'Driscoll, Rev Father Gerard CP, Rev Fatlier Ginisty SM, Rev. Father Hall CM, Rev Father McEnroe CM, Rev E O'Brien, Rev Father Cochard MSH, Rev Father Bormann MSH, Rev Father J C Meagher, Brother Stanislaus (Provincial of the Patriician Brothers, Redfern), and Brother Thomas (Patricians, Redfern), the Hon John Hughes, KCSG, MLC (Vice-President of the Executive Council), Mr E W O'Sullivan, MLA, Hon Francis Clark (Federal Tariff Commissioner), T J Dalton, KCSG, J J Lee, KCSG, D O'Connor, KCSG, Mr W J Spruson, Mr Mark Sheldon, Mr C G Hepburn, Mr P Hogan, Major Lenehan, Mr Phil Sheridan, Mr T B Curran, Aldemnan J Lane Mullins, Mr J Blakeney, Mr George Crowley, Mr Lenehair. Former students were largely represented in the congregation, which filled the church, and which included many nuns. Of the former students of Riverview there were present Mr T J Dalton (President of the “Old Boys'” Union), Messrs F W J Donovan, J T McCarthy, PJ O'Donnell, A Deery, and R Lenehan (vice-presidents), and Messrs J Hughes (secretary), B A McBride, A A Rankin, F Mulcahy, W Hensleigh, F Deery, C Birrell, F du Boise, A Cox, B Norris, Paul Lenehan, T D O'Sullivan, J McCarthy, W O'G Hughes, J Slattery, L Kelly, F McDonald, H Oxenham, F Coen, P J Clifford, B Coen, T B Curran, J Punclı, Austin Curtin, Harvey Brown, S Rorke, P Lawler, A W D'Apice, Tom Walsh, J J D'Apice, T Mullins, Nolan, F Fitzgerald, T and L Manning. The Rev Mr Ryan SJ, and the Rev Mr C Cuffe, SJ, were also present.

His Grace, Archbishop Kelly, in solemn and measured tones, delivered the panegyric, in the course of which he said :

“For a moment I will bespeak your indulgence, if I am led to break the solemn obsequies by a few words which seem to be suggested by the memory of the life which closed but yesterday - the life of the most lamented Father Dalton. Full eighty eight years inark the span of that life. We are now at one reach of the life of Father Dalton, but the other end of that life, or rather the beginning, goes back to the year. 1817. You will feel with me, I am sure, ; that, however ill prepared a speaker may be, he should not allow the occasion to pass without utilising it to the greater glory of God and the better service of the Church ; for if ever we find in this life the grace of edification we find it in the lives of the saints, who bring all the principles of the Gospel into play in the forination of their character and the direc tion of their works. One of the principles of this Gospel is that your light so shine before men that your good works may glorify your Father in Heaven. The light of faith was received by Father Dalton from parents who were children of martyrs. It was a grand talent, this talent of the Irish faith, and particularly grand in the olden, times. This talent, great in itself, was like the faith of a Pancratius. But he would regulate the light that was in him so that it would shine with the greatest effulgence in sight of God and man, copying from Christ Himself every perfection, and so becoming a wortlıy disciple of the great Ignatiuis Loyola. This great saint set an example by which we may set our life in order, by whiclı we may be instructed and be led step by step to conden evil and seek that which is more perfect. Father Dalton had a hidden light. Yet his light did shine before men in the schools in which he taught, and his light was shining before men in the schools he founded. His life has been crowned with success, according to the Gospel principles. Is there one who does not feel that the world is poorer to-day by his loss? That light would live in memory, and his memory would be eternal. Another feature I must call to your minds is in the Gospel : “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and I have sent you that you go and bear fruit, and that the fruit will remain”. Now, the great fruit proposed specially to every son of St Ignatius is Christian education. With a confounded lie on its lips, the so called Reformation attributed ignorance to the Church of Christ. Every treasure of the scientist, of the litterateur, and of art, vouchsafed to humanity, every talent will be cultivated, as it has ever been cultivated in the Church of God. Our libraries are filled with the works of litterateurs and scientists and with volumes of all kinds—all produced by the Society, and all made triblutary to the glory of God and the salvation of souls. The supreme effort of St Ignatius was to cultivate the talents and make all tributary to the glory of God. In this arny Father Dalton rose from the ranks to eminence. His memory will be treasured by the laity and clergy of Australia. Father Dalton's name will be remembered as that of a great educationalist. Here before his remains, I speak in your presence, reverend Fathers, and I would rather you speak than I/we pray that God may give us a share of his spirit to try and do all that he tried to do for Australia, to try and found a true Christian civilisation in Australia, and so attain the end for which we were created. This would be any special recommendation. I speak in the presence of one of our veteran prelates who was a Bishop when, as an ecclesiastic, I might be said to have been in the cradle, I would emphasise one thing let us. not spare ourselves, but spend ourselves and be spent for Christian education for Australia, for this is the true basis and the source of greatness of Christian civilisation. And this remains a condition sine qua non of a nation's greatness and prosperity. That body has often formed one of our circle. His place knows him, no more, but we know good use has been made of all his members. These remains go to the earth as the seeds of corn, but they will yet rise to the crowning glory which God has prepared for him. Brethren, it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, therefore the Church prays, and we here to-day, with all the fervor of our souls, pray “eternal rest give him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him”.

The last Absolution was given by the Archbishop, assisted by the Bishop of Maitland, and the Monsignori. The funeral took place to Gore Hill Cemetery, where the interment was made in the space reserved for members of the Jesuit Order, His Lordship the. Bişliop of Maitland officiated at the grave, and as the body was consigned to the earth the “Benedictus” was sung by the assembled clergy.

-oOo-

Father Dalton

The following appreciation of Father Dalton’s work as an educationalist, formed the leading article in the “Freeman’s Journal” for Saturday January 14th

Arnold, Master of Rugby, stands as best type of what the schoolmaster in higher education may be apart from the question of religion. He was, of course, a deeply-religious man, but his pedagogic system was not based on religion. It was, briefly, to make each student the trtustee of the school's honor; it inculcated not only the value of culture, but the immensely greater value of those qualities : which go to the making of the true gentleman - truth and fair play between boy and boy; and left the punishment of the mean arid despicable, if not to the boy's own conscience, to the public opinion of the school. Wherefore, Arnold, Master of Rugby, stands wherever the English language is spoken for the personification of all that is highest in the English public school by that simple rule of three ability, love, and probity.

What Thomas Arnold was to the secon dary educational system of England more tlan half a century ago, only in a higher degree, the Rev Joseplı Dalton, the “Father of Riverview”, who has just passed to his reward full of years and sanctity, has been to the Catholic secondary schools of Australia. Our biographical sketch of the venerable Jesuit's life we leave to other columns in this issue. We only propose here to reflect in all-too-inadequate measure. an appreciation of his life's work as it should strike anyone who has. watched the career of St. Ignatius' College a career of which not only the Catholic community but the Commonwealth should be proud. The man who can, as Father Dalton has done, found a college on the humble lines which are still in evidence in the little cottage on the brow of Riverview hill, and see his efforts crowned by the magnificent structure a few yards away; who attracts hundreds to his school as much by his great personality as by his gift of learning; and who renders the school days a tradition to which the foremost men in our Commonwealth look as to the ark of honourable manhood, must be regarded as one of the great influences in our nation-building which cannot be ignored.

Father Dalton's methods superadded to those of the Master of Rugby the obligation of doing right, not simply because it was right in the abstract, but because it was pleasing in the sight of Almighty God; and set a valuie on culture only so far as it inade for the perfection of that highest of God's creatures, the Christian gentleman. Ask any Riverview ex-student - whether he came under the immediate influence of Father Dalton's Rectorship, or has had it reflected in the traditions of that time - what has deterred him from many a time doing somethiing unworthy, and he will tell you that it is the high standard of conduct which from the old cottage days to those of the. palatial present has been set before those who entered St. Ignatius' College.

We think we are correct in saying that since the inauguration of the Riverview “Old Boys' Union”, of which he has from the first been patron, and which in the spirit and letter of its constitution embodies the old master's ideals, the infirmities which accompany the advancing years of a strenuous life prevented Father Dalton's actual presence at any of the reunions of that body. But nobody who has had the privilege of attending them could doubt that his spirit was there. The toast of “Our Patron” on such occasions always evoked the heartiest of greetings, and when that laad been honoured with a reverence which had to be expressed in what the reporter. termed “musical honors”, Father Gartlan (hardly less loved as present Rector than the Founder) would read a letter in which the genial old gentleman would bless the gathering as if he were there; and then, entering into the spirit of that community which always joins the old master with his oid pupils, would plead infirmity of body while betraying youthfulness of heart, in such wise that the laughter of the “old boys” came near to tears. He was a brave, genial, old gentleman, who knew his hold upon the “boys” long after they had become “grave and reverend seignors” in the Church, the Law, the Forum, or the Hospital; and we think the highest memorial there is to him to-day is, not the mighty pile of stone which is called St Ignatius' College, Riverview, but that human institution. quivering still in its every member with a tenderness of affection in which the college and its Founder share, and which we know as St Ignatius' Ex-Students' Union. In the present generation we remernber no figure which in its declining years more resembles that of Fr Dalton in its embodiment of the spirit of the past and present than that of that other grand old man, Cardinal Newman, whose very physical feebleness recalled and enshrined the strength and goodness of other days. Requiescant in pace.

In Memoriam

Father Dalton SJ

Lo! his life's work done, doth sleep
Set Peacefully the spotless priest,
Wrapped in endless slumber deep,
From this world's warfare released.
Honoured life and happy end :...
Heavenly bliss be thine, O friend!

We who 'neath his kindly sway
Lived-ah! many years ago -
Fervently, yet humbly, pray,
That no purgatorial woe
Shall afflict him; but on high
Unto God his pure soul fly.

Where the fadeless asphodel
Blossoms in God's garden fair,
Grant, O Lord, our friend may dwell!
Where comes never grief nor care,
Where Christ, Who on Calvary died,
Reigns o'er the beatified,

JGD

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

Death of Fr Joseph Dalton SJ - Founder of Riverview

On January 5th, 1905, Father Dalton passed from our midst to his eternal rest. He just lived to see about five days of the year 1905, in which the Silver Jubilee of the College he founded was celebrated. This Jubilee Book is itself the most lasting and most striking tribute we can offer to all the goodness, the charm, the strength and intellectual abiliy of Father Joseph Dalton. But we cannot forego placing in the book some of the testimonies as to the varied merits of the saintly founder of Riverview, which were given by others. The “Freeman's Journal” of January 4th, 1905, has the following:

The life that faded out at Riverview on Thursday, January 5th, was that of a Catholic educationalist whose work was singularly free from in completeness. The Very Rev Joseph Dalton, SJ, had the felicity to see the full fruition of his later life-work. There have been toilers in the vine yard who were called to their reward before their eyes had seen the glory of their harvest gleaned from the labour of their lives. Not so with Father Dalton. His long life flickered out amid the beautiful environment of the great educational establishment whic

Born: 04 May 1655, Clonmel, County Tipperary
Entered: 01 October 1675, Avignon, France - Lugdunensis Province (LUGD)
Ordained: c 1688, Avignon, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1693
Died: 31 August 1713, Toulouse, France (Alès, France)

1688 Professor of Mathematics at Irish College Poitiers
1690-1691 Taught Humanities, Rhetoric & Mathematics at Irish College Poitiers

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
712 In LUGD Province. Proposed as fit to be Rector of Irish College Poitiers. He died in the course of 1714

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
1677-1679 After First Vows he was sent for Philosophy at Lyons
1679-1684 Sent for Regency at Roanne and Dôle
1684-1688 Sent for Theology to Avignon where he was Ordained was Ordained c 1688
1688-1691 Teaching at the Irish College Poitiers AQUIT,
1691 He then returned to LUGD and made his tertianship at Lyons
1694-1698 Sent to teach Philosophy at Nîmes and Arles
1698-1710 Began Missionary work in the Cévennes
1710 Fr Anthony Knoles, Superior of Irish Mission wanted him appointed Rector of Irish College Poitiers, but instead he was appointed Rector of the Seminary at Alès
1713 While on a Mission at Toulouse, he contracted the plague working among the sick and died 31 August 1713
On the orders of the General Father Cor's library was assigned to the Cork Residence

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
COR, THOMAS, was in the Lyons Province in the spring of 1712, and was proposed as a fit person to be Rector of the national Seminary of Poitiers. He must have died in the course of the year 1714; for I find a letter of F. Lavallin, dated September 6th, 1714, thanking his Superior for allowing him the use of the Library belonging to the deceased F. Cor.

Born: 15 August 1659, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 14 September 1681, Toulouse, France - Tolosanae Province (TOLO)
Ordained: 1690, Poitiers, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1697
Died: 18 June 1721, Tulle, Limousin, Aquitaine, France - Aquitaniae Province (AQUIT)

1688-1692 Studies Theology, first at Bordeaux then at Poitiers
1693 at College of Saintes AQUIT teaching Humanities and Grammar
1695 at College Périgord, teaching Humanities, Logic and Physics
1696 Tertianship at Bordeaux
1699 at Agen College teaching Logic
1699-1721 at Tulle College Spiritual Father, Teaching Casuistics
Never returned to Ireland. Gentle, prudent clear judgement excellent teacher and administrator

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had studied Philosophy before Ent 1681 Toulouse
After First Vows he spent five years Regency in TOLO Colleges, and then Transcribed to AQUIT
He resumed studies at Bordeaux but completed them at Poitiers, where he was Ordained 1690
He then returned to teach at Humanities at AQUIT Colleges
1686-1699 Sent to hold a Chair of Philosophy at Périgord and then later at Agen
1699 He volunteered to come to the Irish Mission, but he was sent as Spiritual Director and Professor of Theology to Tulle and spent twenty two years there. He became a noted Preacher and died at Tulle 18 June 1721
Contemporary documents speak of his ability for teaching and governing as well as his success in Preaching and Spiritual Direction

Born: 1596, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 14 November 1619, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1625, Pont-à-Mousson, France
Died: 10 June 1627, Dublin

1622-1625 Theology at Pont-á-Mousson - came from Rome
1625 4th year Theology in CAMP
1626 In Ireland (Coyleaus) - sent from Pont-á-Mousson having finished Theology

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1626 A priest in Ireland

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had begun his Priestly studies at Douai before Ent 14 November 1619 Rome
1621-1625 After First Vows and due to health issues he was sent to Pont-à-Mousson for Theology
1625 It was thought that his health issues should prevent him from Ordination, but that was changed and he became a priest in 1625. He was then sent to Ireland and was probably sent to Dublin, where he died 10 June 1627

Born: 15 July 1848, Dalysgrove, County Galway
Entered: 12 November 1870, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Ordained; 1886, St Hélier, Jersey, Channel Islands
Final Vows: 03 February 1890, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 19 October 1907, St Mary’s RC Church, Wellington Road, Rhyl, Wales - Angliae Province (ANG)

Part of Holy Name Church, Oxford Road, Manchester, Lancashire, England (ANG) at time of his death.

Youngest brother of Hubert - RIP 1918; Oliver - RIP 1916; James - RIP 1930 Oliver was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter.

Early education at Mount St Mary’s, Derbyshire and St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg

1870-1872: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Novitiate
1872-1874: Manresa, Roehampton, London England (ANG), Rhetoric
1874-1877: La Maison de Saint-Michel, Laval, Pays de Loire, France (FRA), Philosophy
1877-1878: École Libre St Joseph, Poitiers, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France (FRA), Regency, teaching English
1878-1883: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1883-1886: Maison Saint-Louis, St Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands (FRA), Theology
1886-1887: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Teaching
1887-1888: Sacred Heart College SJ, Crescent, Limerick, Teaching
1888-1890: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Teaching
1890-1891: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Minister and Prefect of Church
1891-1897: Mungret College SJ, Mungret, County Limerick, Teaching
1897-1901: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Missioner
1901-1907: Holy Name, Manchester, Lancashire, England (ANG), Missioner at St Mary’s, Rhyl, Wales

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Third brother of Hubert - RIP 1918; Oliver - RIP 1916; James - RIP 1930 Oliver was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter. They were a very old Catholic family who resided in the Elphin Diocese. Oliver joined earlier than the others in Rome and was allotted to the Irish Province.

After First Vows he studied Philosophy in France and Theology in jersey.
He taught for many years at Belvedere, Clongowes, and Mungret.
He also served on the Mission Staff in Ireland for a short time, and then he went to Manchester as a Missioner.
He received permission to go to Rhyl for a rest, had a stroke there and never recovered consciousness.
Some Fathers from St Beuno’s assisted at the requiem Mass in St Mary’s Rhyl. He was then buried at Pantasaph, North Wales.

Appreciation by Vincent Naish preached at the Church of the Holy Name Manchester :
“...it is my duty, my dear brethren, to ask your prayers on behalf of the soul of my dear old friend and fellow-worker, Francis Daly. It so happens that it is given to me, by chance, to say a few words in support of my plea. I have had the privilege and pleasure of knowing Father Daly well. Forty three years ago we were boys together at school, and during those years of unbroken friendship I never knew a soul more full of zeal for God’s glory, more possessed with simple faith, and more devoted, in his own sweet way, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and His Blessed Mother.
Of the family - a grand old Irish Catholic family - five were boys and three girls; he was the youngest of the boys, who became members of the Society of Jesus, of whom all the three elder survive him. One sister joined a religious Order. That family was known throughout the length and breadth of Ireland for its spotless life and perfect devotion, which seemed to unite all the members in the beauty and piety of the family life. There was a family private chapel in the house, and father, mother, boys and girls all joined together each day at God’s altar.”
He continues saying that the four brothers worked in different parts of the world - in Ireland, England, Scotland and Australia. They in the Holy Name Parish who knew of the devotion and zeal of Father Daly were fortunate, because to very few men was it granted in their time to know a more hard-working Priest, devoted to the spiritual welfare of Catholics in this country of Ireland. Hundreds of hopeless fallen cases of human nature he was ever eager to attend to, and by the very simplicity of his faith, and his transparent earnest manner, he often succeeded where others were afraid or shrank from.
He then asked that as many as possible would attend the requiem Mass the following day, and to offer their Communion for the good, holy, zealous Priest who had gone to his reward. At the end of Mass the organist played the “Dead March” from Saul, and the people stood.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Francis Daly 1848-1907
Fr Francis Daly, who died at Rhyl North Wales on October 19th 1907, was the author of “The Child of Mary before Jesus Abandoned in the Tabernacle”. In 1953, this book had entered on its 38th edition, enjoys to this day a steady sale of 582,000 copies. He was on the staff of Mungret College when he compiled this prayer book. At his request, the profits accruing were expended on the furnishing and establishment of the sacristy of the Boy’s Chapel.

Francis was the youngest of five sons, four of whom became Jesuits, the others being Oliver, James and Hubert. Born in Ahascragh County Galway in 1848, he entered the Society at Milltown Park in 1870.

He taught for many years in Belvedere, Clongowes and Mungret. After some years on the Mission Staff he went to Manchester as a missionary.

While resting at Rhyl in 1907 he had an apoplectic stroke, cause by over exertion in his labours, from which he never recovered. He is buried at Pantasaph, North Wales.

◆ The Clongownian, 1908

Obituary

Father Francis Daly SJ

The Rev Francis H Daly SJ, who was the fourth son of the late Mr Peter Paul Daly, of Dalysgrove, Co. Galway, Ireland, was born on July 15th, 1848. He came of a deeply religious and pious family. There were five boys and three girls. Of the former, four became Jesuits, and of the latter one entered a religious Order. On his mother's side the deceased priest was a cousin of the late Father Peter Gallwey SJ, and also of Fathers Grehan and Sherlock, other well known Jesuits. His brothers, all in the Society of Jesus - Fathers Oliver, James, and Hubert survive him: the first-named is at present in Glasgow, whilst Father James has for over thirty years been Prefect of Studies of Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare, Father Hubert Daly SJ, is in Australia.

The deceased received his early education by private tuition, and subsequently at St Stanislaus' College, Tullamore, King's County. Later on he was sent to Mount St Mary's College, near Chesterfield, and afterwards to Namur, in Belgium. His theological and philosophical studies were made on the Continent, and about twenty-five years ago he was ordained priest in the Channel Islands. During his priestly career the late Father Daly SJ, worked with unremitting zeal and energy in many districts, his missionary work in various parts of England, north and south, being well-known and appreciated. With the Irish people in this country he was especially at home, and to them quite naturally was always a welcome visitor. He was most kind and charitable, and many acts, ungrudgingly done, have been related since his death in several quarters. Many a prayer has during the past week ascended to Heaven for the repose of the soul of the dear, good, kind priest.

A Notable Work
The late Father Daly SJ, was the author of the little book known as “The Child of Mary Before Jesus Abandoned in the Tabernacle”. This useful work was intended for the members of the Confraternity of the Children of Mary, and its circulation has run into many thousands, Only this year the tenth edition was published. Its spiritual reading has done incalculable good amongst those for whom it was intended.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1908

Obituary

Father Francis Daly SJ

Two special friends of Mungret have been, during the past year, called to their reward. These were Rev Francis Daly SJ, who died at Rhyl, N Wales, 17th October, 1907; and Rev Jas Murphy SJ, who died at Tuliabeg, Ireland, March, 1908.

Father Francis Daly had been Professor in Mungret College, 1891-1897. It was during those years that he compiled “The Child of Mary” and “The Ignatian Album”, both of which we have reviewed in the “Mungret Annual” on the appearance of new editions. “The Child of Mary” is still used almost universally by the pupils. On Father Daly's initiative the profits on the sale of some of the editions of this little book were allocated to the purpose of furnishing and decorating the sacristy of the college chapel, and this work, carried out under Father Daly's own direction, remains as a monument of his taste and skill. Aster leaving Mungret in '97 he worked for several years on the missionary staff in Ireland and afterwards in England. He never lost interest in Mungret, and remained to the last a steadfast and zealous friend of the college. When he visited Mungret a short year ago he seemed to be as vigorous and cheery as ever, and we were little prepared for the news of his fatal illness which reached us towards the end of September. The apopleclic stroke by which he was prostrated seems to have been hastened, if not caused, by excessive exertion in his missionary labours. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Francis Daly (1848-1870)

A brother of Father James Daly (infra) came to the Crescent teaching staff for one year only, 1887-88. On finishing his tertianship in Belgium, he was engaged in teaching in the Irish Jesuit College, when he joined the mission staff. In 1902 he was loaned to the English Province where he engaged in mission work until his death.

Born: 1612, Cashel, County Tipperary
Entered: 27 September 1635, Mechelen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 07 April 1640, Antwerp, Belgium
Final Vows: 1654
Died: 17 November 1685, Limerick City, County Limerick

Alias Piers Crow

His father John was an alderman in Cashel. His mother was Elizabeth Flemine
Studied at Cashel, then Lille, Louvain and Douai under Jesuits
1642 at Lyra (Lier FLA)
1644 First came to Irish Mission
1654 a formed Spiritual Coadjutor
1655-1658 at Arras College (FRA) teaching
1666 Living near Limerick teching Grammar, Catechising and administration - then banished to France for 6 years

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Son of John and Elizabeth née Flemme. Uncle of Dr Creagh, Archbishop of Dublin.
Early education was at Cashel and then studied Humanities under the Jesuits at Lille and two years Philosophy at Douai at Anchin College before Ent. He was admitted to the Society by the FLA Provincial Frederick Tassis, and Brussels 28/09/1635 (Mechelen Album)
After First Vows he did three years Theology taught Humanities for five years
1642 At the Professed House in Antwerp (FLA Catalogue)
1644 Came to Irish Mission (HIB Catalogue 1650 - ARSI)
1666 Living near Limerick, teaching Grammar and Catechism, and administering the Sacraments
He was an exile in France for six years and on the Mission for twenty-five (HIB CAt 1666 - ARSI)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of John (Alderman) and Elizabeth née Fleming
Studied Humanities under lay masters at Cashel and later at the Jesuit College of Lille. He then began Philosophy at Douai before Ent 1640 at Mechelen
After First Vows he was sent for his studies at Antwerp and was Ordained there 07/04/1640
1641-1642 Tertianship at Lierre (Lier)
1644 He sent to Ireland and to the Limerick school to teach Humanities.
1652-1660 Under the “Commonwealth” he was deported to France, where he taught Humanities at Arras College and later Prefect at Bourges
He returned to Ireland again after the restoration, and sent first to Cashel, but then in 1666 until his death he worked as a teacher and catechist at Limerick, where he died 17 November 1685

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Piers Creagh 1612-1685
Piers Creagh was born in Carrigeen Castle 3 miles form Limerick on the Robborough Road in 1612. He was a nephew of the Primate Martyr, and a brother of the Mayor of Limerick who distinguished himself during the siege. Another brother was Domestic Prelate to Alexander VII.

Piers entered the Society in 1637. He was attached to our College in Limerick as a Master, as we find in the examination of Fr Netterville of October 1678. Later he taught at Poitiers, where he had as his pupil his nephew Peter, later Bishop of Cork and finally Archbishop of Dublin.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CREAGH, (or Crow) PETER, was 33 years of age in 1649, and then residing at Limerick

Born: 1594, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 27 February 1670, Limerick
Ordained: Limerick - pre Entry
Died: 28 February 1670, Limerick City, County Limerick (“in articulo mortis”)

Alias Creevy

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Had the General’s permission to enter “in articulo mortis” (cf Foley’s Collectanea)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Ordained before Ent 1628 Back Lane Dublin
In the Winter 1626-1627 he asked to be received into the Society. The General wrote a letter to the Provincial of Flanders on 24 April 1627 instructing him to receive Fr Creagh into the Novitiate at Mechelen, and he Entered there the following year (1628). During his Noviceship he was advised that the Society was not suitable for him, and so he LEFT on good terms with the Society.
He then returned to Limerick and remained a staunch friend of the Society over the succeeding years.
In 1663 he asked the Superior of the Mission if he could be received into the Society again “in articulo mortis” and the General agreed to his request. Seven years later, the Mission Superior Richard Bourke (de Burgo), while on a visit to Limerick, received him into the Society on 27 February 1670, and he died there the following day 28 February 1670.
He may well be the young priest mentioned as working with Thomas Bourke in Limerick of 1621, and described as an “aspirant” to the Society.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CREEVY, ROBERT. He is thus mentioned in F. Richard Burke s letter, dated Galway, the 4th of April, 1670, - “Mr. Robert Creevy, Priest, aged 57, with your permission was admitted at Limerick to the simple vows of the Society, on the 27th of February, and died on the day following

Born: 1626/7, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 04 July 1648, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1655, Salamanca, Spain
Died: 13 September 1660, Soria, Castile y León, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)

1649 in the Villagarcía Novitiate
1655 Operarius at Salamanca College and last year of Theology

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Andrew and Joan née Lea
Had already begun studies in Philosophy at Salamanca before Ent 04 July 1648 Villagarcía
After First Vows he was sent for Theology to the Royal College Salamanca where he was Ordained c 1655
When he finished his studies he was sent to Soria to teach Latin, where he also gained a reputation as a zealous Operarius and - even though he was a man who suffered greatly from scruples - as a Spiritual Director. After a short illness there he died 13 September 1660

Born: 26 April 1821, Ireland
Entered: 02 May 1847, St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Died: 10 July 1847, St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)

1847-1848: St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY, USA (FRA), Novitiate

Born: 25 December 1814, County Monaghan
Entered: 30 October 1842, St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Died: 10 February 1849, St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

1842-1844: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA (MIS), Novitiate
1844-1846: St Louis College, Grand Boulevard, St Louis, MO, USA, working
1846-1847: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA, Infirmarian
1847-1848: St Louis College, Grand Boulevard, St Louis, MO, USA, working
1848-1849: St Stanislaus College, Howdershell Road, Florissant MO, USA, working

Born: 26 March 1653, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 26 November 1673, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: 1685, Rome, Italy
Died: 24 March 1690, Drogheda Residence, Drogheda, Co Louth

1675 In the Novitiate at St Andrea
1678 In Roman College studying Philosophy for 2 or 3 years
1681 At Sezze College
1685 In 3rd Year Theology at Roman College

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Was educated at the Jesuit School in Tournai before Ent 26 November 1673 in Rome
After First Vows and a course of Philosophy at the Roman College he spent three years Regency at the Colleges of Sezze and Fermo.
1682-1686 Sent to the Roman College for Theology and was Ordained there in 1685
1686-1688 After a short Tertianship he was sent to Irish College Poitiers as Prefect
1688 Returned to Ireland and sent to Drogheda, but died there 24 March 1690

Born: 26 December 1637, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 06 September 1657, Toulouse, France - Tolosanae Province (TOLO)
Ordained: 20 April 1669, Tournon-sur-Rhône, France
Final Vows: 02 February 1676, Poitiers, France
Died: 28 November 1694, Ballingarry, County Cork - Tolosanae Province (TOLO)

1660 At Toulouse College
“Jerry C = Gemanus or Dom, means that Germanus and Domitius are equivalent of Diarmaid”
1671 Set out for Ireland
1682-1684 Prefect of Studies at Irish College Poitiers

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1671 After studies and Tertianship he came to Ireland
1694 In a poor district of Cork.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
1639-1666 After First Vows Studied Philosophy for three years at Toulouse and then spent four years Regency in TOLO Colleges.
1666-1670 He was then sent to Tournon for Theology and Ordained there in 1669
1671-1675 When his studies and Tertianship were complete, he was sent to Ireland and for a while was at the Jesuit School in Drogheda, before heading to the West Cork Mission
1675-1676 Sent to the new Irish College at Poitiers, but spent only a year there including making Final Vows.
1676-1682 He then returned to Ireland continuing his missionary work - presumably in West Cork
1682-1684 After a further six years on the Irish Mission he was sent as Prefect of Studies to Poitiers
1684 He returned to West Cork, though in 1691 he was suggested as Rector of Poitiers, but because he had such a command of the Irish language it was decided to leave him in West Cork. He lived a life of great poverty and died prematurely 02 December 1694

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Dermot Cronin 1637-1694
The tragedy of the history of our Province, is that so little is known of our brethren who “bore the burden of the day and the heats” during the Penal Days. We should be anxious therefore, to perpetuate what little we know, even of the most obscure of them.

Such a man is Fr Dermot Cronin. In a list of Jesuits we find the date 1651 after his name, presumably the date of his entry into the Society. Beyond that, all we know is that he laboured as a parish priest near Drogheda, and that he was so poor that he had to wander about in sheep and goat skins.

He exemplifies the words of St Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews (9:37) “They were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted.

His death is recorded in “Fasti Breviores” as taking place probably on December 10th 1694.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CRONIN, DERMOT. On finishing his studies at Toulouse, and his third year of Probation, he was placed at Drogheda towards the end of the year 1671. He excelled as a Preacher and Catechist, and had the advantage over several of his Brethren by his perfect acquaintance with the Irish language. In a letter written by the Superior F. Knoles, at Waterford, on the 25th of November, 1694, it is said that he had a charge of a poor country Parish and had to wander about “in sheepskins and goatskins”, (Heb. c. xi. v. 37. ) on account of the extreme poverty of the Catholics. The Apostolic man must have died a few days later; for the same Superior thus begins a letter, dated the 17th of February, 1695: “On the 9th of December, I wrote announcing the death of F. Dermot Cronin in this Mission, and requesting the usual suffrages for his soul”.

Born: 21 February 1847, Ahascragh, County Galway
Entered: 04 November 1864, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin
Ordained: 1878
Final Vows: 25 March 1885
Died: 27 January 1930, Twyford Abbey, London, England

Part of the Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare community at the time of his death.
Buried at St Mary's Cemetery, Harrow Road, Kendal Green, London, 30 January 1930, grave number 24NE.

Fr James Daly SJ punished Stephen Dedalus unjustly in James Joyce's, 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'.

Third brother of Hubert - RIP 1918; Oliver - RIP 1916; Francis H - RIP 1907

Early education at Collège Notre-Dame de la Paix, rue de Bruxelles, Namur, Belgium; St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly

1864-1866: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Novitiate
1866-1867: Manresa, Roehampton, London England (ANG), Rhetoric
1867-1868: St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales (ANG), Philosophy
1868-1869: St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG), Philosophy
1869-1874: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1874-1875: St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG), Philosophy
1875-1879: St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales (ANG), Theology
1879-1883: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin Teaching
1883-1884: Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Socius to Novice Master and Tertianship
1884-1887: Sacred Heart College SJ, Crescent, Limerick, Teaching
1887-1917: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Prefect of Studies and Teaching
1917-1918: Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Sea Road, Galway, Teaching
1918-1930: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Caring for health at Twyford Abbey, London, England

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Third brother of Hubert - RIP 1918; Oliver - RIP 1916; Francis H - RIP 1907 . Oliver was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter. They were a very old Catholic family who resided in the Elphin Diocese. Oliver joined earlier than the others in Rome and was allotted to the Irish Province.

◆ Irish Province News 5th Year No 3 1930

Obituary :

Fr James Daly

Fr, James Daly died at Twyford Abbey on Monday, Jan. 27th 1930.

He was born in Co. Galway on the21 st Feb. 1847, educated at Tullabeg and in Belgium, and entered the Society at Milltown Park on the 4th, Nov. 1864. Fr. Joseph Lentaigne was his Master of Novices. A year's rhetoric at Roehampton was followed by two years' philosophy at Stonyhurst, after which, in 1869, he was sent to Clongowes. Here, according to the good old fashion of those days, he brought his class from Rudiments to Poetry inclusive. Next came the third year's philosophy at Stonyhurst, and four years theology at St. Beuno's. Ordlination in 1878. The following year found him at Belvedere teaching , and there ho remained for four years, adding in the fourth year, to his other activities, the duties of Spiritual Father. In 1883, he began his tertianship at Milltown, and, in addition, helped the Master of Novices as Socius. Tertianship over,he was sent to the Crescent to teach . The following year he became Prefect of Studies, and at the next examinations the Crescent took a spring towards the top of the list of Irish schools. The real Daly was discovered!

When the Status appeared it was seen that Fr. T. Brown, Provincial, had named him Prefect of Studies in the recently amalgarnated Colleges of Clongowes and Tullabeg. Despite the Limerick success, this occasioned some astonishment and a little criticism, but his marvelous success abundantly proved the wisdom of the Provincial's action. Fr. Daly shot up Clongowes to a high, sometimes the highest place in the Intermediate results list, and kept it there during the twenty-nine years he was Prefect of Studies.

About 1917, his health began to fail, and he was changed, to see what effect the bracing air of Galway would have. It did not produce the much desired result, and Fr, Daly remained an invalid to his holy death in 1930.

Fr. James Daly has certainly left his mark on the Irish Province. What Fr. Peter Finlay did for it in the lecture hall, Fr.Robert Kane in the pulpit, that Fr. Daly did in the classroom where boys were being prepared for the Intermediate Examinations. (All three died between the 21 st Oct, and the 27th of the following January). To say that he was utterly devoted to his work is really, in his case, a “damning with faint praise”. He was absorbed in that work. He seemed to think of nothing else. He actually did what Hamlet said he was going to do : “Yea, from the tablet of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there, And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmix'd with baser matter”.

And then, the terrific energy he put into that work. Had a scientistist cared to make a study of perpetual motion he had only to visit Clongowes during class hours on any of these days when Fr. Daly was speeding on the studies. Searcely had the boys assembled in their class rooms at 9.30 in the morning than Fr.Daly was at the door of one of them, and before that door was half opened he had commenced a speech. His speeches were distinctly peculiar, quite characteristic of the man. They were even calculated now and then to produce a smile, but who dared, under the circumstances, to inddulge in such a luxury? When the speech was over, if there was a slacker present he was invited to a private interview. There he learned how wicked a thing was idleness, how it endangered the bright future that lay before him if he worked, what a bad return it was to his good father who was paying a high pension for his education, etc, etc. All this punctuated, driven home, by loud-resounding strokes of the pandy-bat,not administered one after another quickly, but at regular intervals.

Then off at full speed to another class, and to another, and another until the bell rang at 3.15 for the end of school. At once, again a peculiarity of the man, he disappeared. Like the witches' “The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them. Whither are they vanished”.

However, he was hovering some place about, for coming up to 8.45 he materialised again, took charge of late night studies, and then of “voluntaries”, that, under his too vigorous regime, did not end until 11pm.

Such was the life Fr. Daly led in Clongowes during the 29 years he was Prefect of Studies. He was not a man of high intellectual attainments, nor was he a cultured scholar. His wonderful success must be attributed to other qualities : to his deadly concentration on the work in hand, to his intense energy in carrying that work to a successful issue, and to the large measure of shrewd common sense with which nature endowed him. He certainly had the gift of inspiring masters and boys with an enthusiasm that nothing would satisfy except the very highest places at the end of the year.

But it is a strange fact that he himself was not a good master, yet he knew a good master when he met him, and he certainly got the most out of him. He met good masters, and masters not so good, but he never desponded. He did what was possible with the material at his disposal, and it is not on record that he ever failed to secure success.
If Fr. Daly had to stand an examination in the theory and practice of education, it is probable that our educational experts would feel compelled to give him very low marks indeed. His success did not come from reducing to practice the theories of others however wise these theories might be. When he got a free hand, within the law, he was great. Had he been hedged in by rules and regulations, the chances are that he would have been less than ordinary.

Fr. Daly spent the declining days of his life under the kind care of the Alexian Brothers at Twyford Abbey, near London, where he closed a holy and hard-working life by a very happy death.

The Chaplain who attended him wrote: “It has been a valued privilege to me to help Fr. Daly during his last days. He was so genuinely pious. When I gave him Exterme Unction he was so reconciled, and tried to answer the responses himself, Later when I gave him the Viaticum, he was so devout, and made his thanksgiving and Act of Faith, and renewed his vows very sincerely. He soon became semiconscious, but always tried to make the sign of the Cross when I prayed with him. Yesterday I gave the last blessing and Absolution, and said the prayers for the dying”.

During these last days, Fr. Daly was constantly visitedby our Fathers from Farm St, For their kindness they richly deserve,and are heartily given the best thanks of the Irish Province.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father James Daly SJ 1847-1930
What Fr Peter Finlay was as a theologian, and Fr Robert Kane as preacher, Fr James Daly was as a Prefect of Studies, outstanding in such an eminent degree as to become identified with their respective achievements.

For twenty-nine years Fr Daly held the office of Prefect of Studies in Clongowes, during which period he kept the College in the first rank of scholastic success in Ireland.

Born in Galway on February 1st 1847, he made his mark first as a Prefect of Studies in the Crescent Limerick. Then on the amalgamation of Tullabeg and Clongowes he took charge of the studies at Clongowes, and devoted the rest of his life to that duty. He was not a great scholar, of any outstanding intellectual ability, but he had the gift of detailed organisation, which enabled him to inspire both masters and pupils to the highest attainments. His motto was “Keep the boys writing”.

His last days were truly edifying, being spent at Twyford Abbey, near Lonfon, under the care of the Alexian Brothers. He died on January 27th 1930.

◆ The Clongownian, 1930

Obituary

Father James Daly SJ

Some years prior to 1893 I knew Fr Daly well by reputation. I had brothers in Clongowes since '86 and during their vacations they entertained and frightened the younger members of the family by the recital of blood-curdling yarns about Fr Daly - what he said and most of all - what he did. Since September, 1893, I have been personally acquainted with him; for the first five years of this period as a boy in his classes; later on as a Master working under him, and finally as his assistant in the closing stages of his work in Clongowes, where he took me into his confidence and went to great pains to explain to me his principles, methods of procedure and ideals in the matter of education.

When I arrived for the first time in Clongowes the Retreat was in progress and, being small and young, I was put with those judged incapable of making it. Each day we had class, but not of a serious character, and contrary to my expectations, Fr Daly put in no appearance. On the day the Retreat ended I remember asking an elder brother of mine “When shall we see Fr Daly?” and receiving the answer “Oh, Golly, you'll see him time enough!” I saw him next day. It was in the second class in the wooden building - II Preparatory in those days. Class had not been long in progress when a heavy step was heard on the corridor, in a moment the door was fung open and Father Daly burst into the room. His appearance filled me with apprehension. As he stood before the class he seemed the very embodiment of strength, energy and determination. Though not then as stout as he afterwards became, he looked decidedly big and, as he paced up and down, puffing, expanding his chest and issuing instructions, he decidedly left one under the impression that it would be more prudent to carry them out. His hair, which he wore very tightly cropped, was then turning grey; a beard showed over his Roman collar and gave him a weird appearance; but it was the penetrating and uneasy glance of his small grey eyes which most of all inspired fear in those meeting him for the first time I was to learn later that beneath that awe-inspiring exterior there beat a most kindly and sympathetic heart.

At the time of which I speak, Father Daly had been Prefect of Studies for six years. The resentment and surprise caused by the changes he introduced, by his utter disregard for institutions and customs which generations of Clongownians held in reverence, and, most of all, by his insistence upon hard work and his summary method of administering justice to offenders, had died down, and he and his ways were taken for granted. In later years he often referred to the struggle he sustained at the beginning in introducing the changes which he considered essential and establishing in the College the spirit and atmosphere in which he believed. That it was a struggle those acquainted with the conservatism of Clongowes will readily believe. But the new Prefect of Studies brought with him to the task a combination of qualities which are rarely found united in one man. Physically, he was a man of great strength, upon whom long and continuous periods of labour produced little effect; in addition, his energy, determination of will and capacity for taking pains, were altogether unusual. Nothing was left to chance; he thought out carefully beforehand ways and means and no detail was too small to escape the consideration and attention of his perspicacious mind. Moreover, he was tactful and prudent in dealing with others, dexterous in keeping them in good humour, conciliatory, considerate of their health and comfort and, though intolerant at times of views differing from his own, careful not to offend by openly avowing his true convictions. His knowledge of human nature acted as a curb upon his impetuosity and caused him to temper energy and zeal with prudence and to stop short when further pressure on his part would have resulted in discontent or even revolt. Nevertheless, I believe that notwithstanding these gifts, Father Daly would have failed but for the extraordinary sense of humour which was his, and for the element of comicality which was present in most of what he said and did, and which almost always succeeded in converting anger and resentment into fun and amusement. If I were asked to state from my knowledge of Fr Daly what I believe to have been the mainspring of his activity, I should answer: first, absolute belief in, and enthusiasm for, the educational ideals which were his; secondly, a desire to do something big for God while the opportunity offered, and, lastly, love, enthusiastic love for Clongowes and Clongowes boys.

His methods were vigorous and manly; he had a horror of slacking or half-measures of any kind; he was not harsh or severe, much less cruel, in the ordinary acceptation of those terms. True, Fr Daly was ubiquitous; he was there to catch you no matter with what care your plans were laid; his voice was raised every day in expostulation and warning and encouragement; his old clumsy pandy bat was seen and heard and felt at frequent intervals - and did all this terrorise us and make us unhappy? Not in the least. It made life interesting, lending to it an elment of adventure; and, as time advances, it furnished us with memories which we recall, not with resentment, but with pleasure and affection. No word he spoke in rebuke, not even his pandy bat, caused a pang which endured for more than five minutes. Had they even done so, it would assuredly have been in the case of H F, for if ever Fr. Daly had a bête noir it was he. Both his heart and his hands remained respectively unaffected by the frequent assaults made upon them by his eloquence and his pandy-bat. In pathetic language, Fr Daly appealed to him “to think of his good parents, toiling and working while he, etc, etc”. But in vain. Again, adopting different tactics, he warned him of the “awful future” which lay before him: “Misery-starvation-the poor-house; and last, most dreadful of all, death on the scaffold!” But H went his smiling way until in the end Fr Daly seemed to abandon him to his fate! And now, looking back over the years at these incidents, what are his feelings in their regard? Could anyone imagine for a moment that they are for him anything but happy and amusing memories? And that they are such he very clearly told us in that delightful speech he delivered on the occasion of the dinner of Munster Old Clongownians held in Cork last February, when, with so much humour, affection and gratitude, he recalled the figure of the old man with whose warnings and threats and pandy-bat he was quite familiar as a boy.

On returning to Clongowes in September, 1905, after an absence of seven years, I found Fr Daly and his ways in all essential features the same, though modified in certain minor particulars. Increasing age had produced its mellowing effect upon his character; he was now more paternal, more approachable and more considerate. The atmosphere of mystery in which he lived and the attitude of aloofness he adopted in dealing with boys were less pronounced, though by no means gone. He now greeted a favoured few on their return after the holidays; he invited boys occasionally to let him know if they wished to speak to or consult him, but on the whole the invitation was rarely accepted and for good reason - if one were not certain that one's record was perfect it was dangerous to go too near him. It was at this period that I came to know Fr Daly intimately, not merely from without, as when a boy, but from within. Now for the first time I realised how completely he had devoted himself, his energy and whatever gifts God had given him, to the work in which he was engaged in Clongowes. I realised, too, what a price he was paying in labour, and worry for the success he was winning for the College, year after year. Ways and means of helping the studies and urging boys on to greater effort were constantly the subject of his thoughts, and their reflection bore fruit in the shape of all those devices with which generations of Clongownians are quite familiar, including the famous “Secret of Success”, the appearance of which each year before the Intermediate caused a sensation. He laid great store upon keeping in touch with the work of the House by constantly visiting the classes, and was a firm believer in the power of his eloquence to keep both masters and pupils at concert pitch and urge them on to greater efforts. Those famous speeches of his! So earnest, so rambling and so comical! And yet the substance of them and sometimes, partially at least, the form were carefully prepared beforehand. It was exceedingly hard at times to keep serious during the course of these speeches. I have seen boys at times almost in convulsions in their endeavours to suppress an explosion of laughter; for, in Fr Daly's eyes, to smile or “to grin” on such a solemn occasion was a capital offence. How could one listen with a straight face to a discourse such as this which I once heard Fr. Daly deliver to a class just before the Intermediate : “Listen to me now for a few moments. There is a question I want to ask - a solemn question - (to a boy not attending) - look at me, sir, while I'm speaking a solemn question, and it is this: What will happen to a boy who laughs on the eve of a great crisis? Well?” (looking round the room as though waiting for an answer). “Well, I shall tell you take it down now everybody. First, he will be flogged, not once but several times; Secondly, he will be deprived of the great privilege of sitting for the Examination; and, thirdly, he will get a report - Ah, boys, this is where the sorrow comes in - (in most pathetic and tearful tones) a Report which will make his good parents weep. (Shouting) Think of this selfishness, this ingratitude! Land where will the course of the bounder and the mountebank end? Ah, dear boys (pathetically), his career can be summarised in one expressive Italian word : (spelling) F I A S C O, fiasco!!!”

At the opening of the school year 1916-17 - his thirtieth in the office of Prefect of Studies - Fr Daly's health showed definite signs of failure, and it was clear that his days of active service were drawing to a close. Nevertheless, he tried to carry on as of old in the classroom and study hall, struggling under the weight both of years, and of ill-health. He realised perfectly himself that the great work of his life was over. He grieved most of all at the idea of his coming separation from the boys for whom he had been working so long, and whom, though they little suspected it, ħe sincerely loved. I remember one night at this period his turning to me as I helped him to his room after the late study - which he had himself inaugurated thirty years before - and remarking : “The presence of those good boys keeps me on my feet, when they disappear I collapse”.

After Christmas his health broke down completely and by the doctor's orders he went to England for a change and rest. In May he returned to Clongowes, but was unable to resume work. I was absent in July of that year, giving retreats, and on the morning of the 31st received a letter from him informing me that he was no longer Prefect of Studies and was about to leave Clongowes for good. The letter was a pathetic one, and ended : “J A D Last Day, 1887-1917”. When I returned to Clongowes he was packing his few belongings and preparing for his departure. It was clear he felt leaving intensely, but like a true son of St Ignatius, disguised his feelings and even affected gaiety. On the eve of his departure I asked him at what time I should see him in the morning. “Of course”, he replied, “any time at all you like”. I knew perfectly what he meant - there was to be no good bye, he would slip off unobserved. Next morning he rose early and said Mass; then descending to the corridor he went out by the III Line door, and passing along by the bicycle house, made the circuit of the garden and finally reached the bridge over the Gollymocky on the Sallins road, where a car, by previous arrangement of his own, was in waiting to bring him to the station. Such was his exit from the scene in which for thirty years he played such a prominent and successful part. Fr Daly never saw Clongowes again. Within a few months of his leaving ill-health forced him into complete retirement, where, for the remaining twelve years of his life, he busied himself in preparing to meet in Judgment the Master, Whom, throughout life, he served with so much loyalty and devotion. May he rest ini peace.

L J Kieran SJ

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father James Daly (1847-1930)

Born at Daly's Grove, Co Galway and educated at Tullabeg and in Belgium, entered the Society in 1864. Apart from his fluency in the French language, he seemed, in his formative years in the Society, to be a man of ordinary ability. Ordained in 1878, he was sent to teach at Belvedere. In 1884, he came as master to the Crescent. The following year he was appointed prefect of studies. He had at last discovered his real metier. The remarkable success of the Crescent boys in the Intermediate examinations at once showed that a prefect of studies can achieve genius in his calling. For the next two years, the profession of idling was at an end amongst the boys. The Crescent was making history in the number of its academic successes. Unfortunately, in 1887, Father Daly was taken away to Clongowes where for the next thirty years he kept his school in the forefront of Irish educational institutions. By 1917, however, Father Daly's health was visibly failing and he was transferred to St Ignatius' College, Galway, to teach French. But in the course of the year, he suffered a complete nervous breakdown from which he never fully recovered. His last years were spent in the more benign climate of the south of England. Just a year or two before his death he wrote, at the request of the then Rector of the Crescent, some of his reminiscences of his golden days in Limerick.

Born: 08 April 1715, County Kilkenny/Tenerife Canary Islands
Entered: 08 May 1737, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained” 1744
Final Vows: 15 August 1755
Died: 22 April 1785, Worcester, England - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Was on the Mission of Vera Cruz
1764 Rector of St Ignatius College (London) 13 November 1764 for many years
Subsequently he served the Worcester Mission, where he died 22 April 1785 aged 70

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
CROSS, BERNARD, born in Tenerife, 8th April, 1715, and on his 22nd birth-day consecrated himself to God in the Society. He was admitted to the profession of the Four Vows on the Feast of the Assumption, 1755. For some time he exercised his missionary functions at Vera Cruz : for several years, I am informed, he was stationed in London, but died at Worcester, 22nd April, 1785; another account say 22nd October, and another 3d February that year. 1 think the first date is the correct one

Born: 28 February 1817, County Carlow
Entered: 10 January 1845, St Mary’s, Lebanon, KY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final Vows: 15 August 1855
Died: 08 August 1869, St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY, USA - Neo-Eboracensis-Canadensis Province NEBCAN)

Transcribed FRA to CAMP 1864 to NEBCAN 1869

1845-1846: St Mary’s, Lebanon, KY, USA (FRA), Novitiate
1946-1847: St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY, USA, Novitiate
1847-1869: St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY, USA, working

Born: 1657, Ireland
Entered: 1677, Lisbon, Portugal - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)
Ordained: 1681, Évora, Portugal
Died: 22 July 1703, Tuticorin (Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu), India - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)

Alias Colan

Nephew (?) of Hugh Hughes (Cullen) - RIP 1705

1681 Went to the Indies (Franco’s synopsis)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Possibly a nephew of Hugo Cullen (alias Hues, Hughs)
Had already begun Philosophy before Ent 1677 Lisbon
After First Vows he was sent to Évora for studies, but only remained until 1681 when he was Ordained and was heading for the Indian Mission
In India he worked at Travancore (Thiruvithamkoor) in Tamil Nadu and the Malabar Region, and he died in Tuticorin (Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu) 22 July 1703

Born: 16 November 1842, Ahascragh, County Galway
Entered: 13 June 1862, San Andrea, Rome Italy - Romanae Province (ROM for HIB)
Ordained: 1873
Final Vows: 02 February 1880
Died: 02 February 1918, St Aloysius College, Sevenhill, South Australia, Australia

Eldest brother of Oliver - RIP 1916; James - RIP 1930; Francis H - RIP 1907. Oliver was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter.

1862-1864: San Andrea, Rome Italy (ROM for HIB), Novitiate
1864-1865: Manresa, Roehampton, London England (ANG), Rhetoric
1865-1866: Clongowes Wood, College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1866-1867: Sint Jan Berchmans, Rue des Récollets, Leuven, Belgium (BELG), Philosophy
1867-1868: St Joseph Residence and College SJ, North Woodside Road, Glasgow, Scotland (ANG), Regency
1868-1870: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Regency
1870-1874: St Beuno’s, St Asaph, Wales (ANG), Theology
1874-1875: St Wilfrid’s Church, Chapel Street, Preston, Lancashire, England (ANG), Curate at Clitheroe
1875-1876: St Aloysius College SJ, Dalhousie Street, Garnet Hill, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland (ANG), Curate
1876-1877: Lowe House, St Helen’s, Lancashire, England (ANG), Curate at Bedford Leigh
1877-1878: Maison la Colombière, Faubourg de la Rez, Paray-le-Monial, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France (LUGD), Tertianship
1878-1881: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Teaching
1881-1888: St Patrick’s College SJ, Cathedral Place, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Teaching
1888-1893: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Teaching
1893-1901: St Patrick’s College SJ, Cathedral Place, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Teaching
1901-1918: St Aloysius College, Sevenhill, South Australia, Australia, Curate and teaching locally

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Eldest brother of Oliver - RIP 1916; James - RIP 1930; Francis H - RIP 1907. Oliver was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter. They were a very old Catholic family who resided in the Elphin Diocese. Oliver joined earlier than the others in Rome and was allotted to the Irish Province.

After his Noviceship he studied Rhetoric at Roehampton, and then sent for Regency to Clongowes teaching.
1866 He was sent to Louvain for Philosophy.
1868 He was back at Clongowes teaching, and then in 1869 a Prefect at Tullabeg.
1871 He was sent for Theology to St Beuno’s and Roehampton.
After ordination he worked in the Parishes of Clitheroe, Glasgow and Bedford, Leigh.
He was then sent to Paray le Monial for Tertianship.
1878 He sailed for Australia with John O’Flynn and Charles O’Connell Sr.
While in Australia he was on the teaching staff at St Patrick’s Melbourne for a number of years.
1902 he was sent to Sevenhill where he worked quietly until his death there 07 February 1918

Note from Charles O’Connell Sr Entry :
1879 He was sent to Louvain for further Theological studies - Ad Grad. He was then sent to Australia in the company of Hubert Daly and John O’Flynn.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He was one of four brothers to become Jesuits, the others being James, Oliver and Francis.

1865-1866 After First Vows he was sent to Clongowes Wood College to teach Rudiments and Arithmetic.
1866-1867 He was sent to Leuven for a year of Philosophy.
1869-1870 He was sent to St Stanislaus College Tullabeg teaching Writing and Arithmetic
1878-1881 He arrived in Australia 09 November 1878 and went to Xavier College Kew
1881-1888 He was sent teaching to St Patrick’s College Melbourne
1888-1893 He was sent back teaching at Xavier College Kew
1893-1901 He was back teaching at St Patrick’s College where he also directed the Choir and boys Sodality. He also taught to boys how to shoot.
1902 He was sent to the St Aloysius Parish at Sevenhill

His own main form of recreation was music.

Born: 22 June 1804, Aghaloo, County Tyrone
Entered: 12 April 1845, Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 08 January 1857
Died: 27 September 1888, Mercy Hospital, Baltimore, MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Part of the Woodstock College, Woodstock MD, USA community at the time of death.

1845-1847: Novitiate, East 2nd Street, Frederick MD, USA (MAR), Novitiate
1847-1870: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, Informarian
1870-1888: Woodstock College, Woodstock MD, USA, Infirmarian to 1883

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 17, Number 3

Obituary

“Brother John Cunningham SJ” p386

Brother Cunningham was born in the County of Tyrone, Irelund, on the 22nd of June, 1804.

After the years of childhood, he seems to have been employed as a weaver, first in his native country, and afterwards in Englund. During this time he witnessed many of the effects of the Penal Laws, and doubtless some of the scenes which resulted from their enforcement, made a lasting impression on his mind, since throughout his life, he ever evinced a most tender love and compassion for the poor and the unfortunate. At the age of twenty-two, he sailed from Belfast for America, and after a voyage of seven weeks, reached Quebec. Having cast about for some time, he finally settled in Canada West, as a dealer in woolen goods.

Twelve years were thus employed, until the breaking-out of the disturbance known as the Mackcnzie Rebellion in 1837; when having been too active in the movement, he considered it an opportune time for extending his business into the States. So he crossed over to Rochester, in company with all who had been engaged in the rebellion.

The immediate cause of this prudent move, was the announcement that Lord Durham, the Governor· General at the time, had, as Brother John used to say, “issued an essay” to the effect that all who had taken part in the uprising were to be hanged.

Having crossed the boundary, he did indeed extend his business; as may be judged from the fact that in a short time, he was travelling over the entire country, through which our present province extends, from Maine to Virginia. On one of his journeys, he made the acquaintance of a man, who had discovered a new method of making cisterns by the use of cement. This man being without any capital, invited him to become a partner with him. He did so, and gradually relinquished the woolen business, finally giving himself entirely to the new enterprise, and realizing in a short time a handsome profit. He still continued to travel, however, through the Eastern and Middle States, calling chiefly upon farmers, who would naturally appreciate the advantages of having a good cistern. This gave him quite an experience of life in various phases; for at one time he would be found spending a few days at the mansion of some well-to-do merchnt; at another, he would be sharing the hospitality of a way-side inn; and at another, the cottage of a poor farmer would give him welcome.

Thus engaged, we find him about the year 1843, in the neighborhood of Martinshurg, Virginia, attending a mission which was in progress under the direction of a Jesuit father. Almighty God then gave him a portion of the rewnnl for his hitherto well-ordered life, by calling him to a higher state, in the Society of his Divine Son. And indeed, that his life up to that time hau been an unusual one, we know from the testimony of farmers, doctors, lawyers, priests and even bishops. He seems to have made himself very serviceablc to Archbishop Hughes and to Bishop O'Reilly of Hartford, as also to several of their parish priests; and doubtless many a poor soul received the consolations of religion in life and in death, through the generous devotion of Brother John. He used to place himself with his horse and carriage at the disposal of the clergy during the winter months, thus enabling them to go amongst their people more than they could otherwise have done. He lost no opportunity for doing good; now by a kind word, now giving much needed advice or relieving the distressed, and at all times exhorting his friends and acquaintances to look to the welfare of their immortalsouls He endeared himself to all withwhom he came in contact, by his generosity of spirit, and his amiable, gentle manner, so that with truth has it been quaintly remarked, by a good old lady in Washington, who knew him in those days: “Everywhere he left behind him the value of his night's lodging”.

Having consulted the father in charge of the mission about his vocation, he was advised to drive down to Georgetown and apply to the superior there. Without a moment's hesitation he started for Georgetown saying “Forty years have I served the world; would that the Lord might grant me yet another forty, to serve him”. Having arrived at the college, he was greeted by the superior, whom he asked to receive him as a lay-brother, at the same time presenting flattering letters of introduction from the bishops of New York and Hartford, as well as from several secular priests.

The superior, seeing that he was a man in the prime of life, with the dress and manner of a gentleman of the world, answered with some surprise: “My good man, you surely do not rwalize the character of a lay- brother's duties; you seem to be too much of a gentleman, to be willing to perform the humble offices ofa lay-brother”. “Father”, he replied, “the gentleman, as you are pleased to call the character I represent, I can at any time put on or off; and will do so whenever Your Reverence so desires”.

Even this earnest reply did not save him from the trial in store for him. His application was not entertained; and with a heavy heart, he faced the world once more. Soon however, hearing about the great reputation of Fr McElroy at Frederick, he determined as a last resort to pay him a visit, and make another effort. He met with great encouragement from the good Fr McElroy, but he was not received into the order. Nevertheless he remained around Frederick, building cisterns and contributing generously to to St John's Church; at one time giving the sum of $100 for the erection of one of the side-altars.

One day the Fr Provincial of the Dominicans came along, and in the course of a conversation, he told the provincial how he had wished to become a Jesuit, but had been refused. The provincial replied: “All right, .Johnnie, I will take you; and you may start at once for Zanesville, Ohio, if you wish”. But Johnnie, as he was even then familiarly called, remained steadfast and loyal to the Society, despite his trials. The call to the Society which he had received at Martinsburg was not his first one. Years before, in his dear native land, his young mind had been strongly impressed by the vigor of an expression which he had frequently heard: “The Jesuit is the strongest rower in the bark of Peter”. The result was that he actually set out for Clongowes College, to sec Fr Peter Kenney about applying for admission; on learning. however, that Father Kenney had been sent to America, as Visitor to the Maryland Province, he proceeded no further, but shortly after left for America himself.

Time passed on at Frederick, during which he had mnny interviews with Father McElroy, who finally advised him to see Father Verhaegen, who was the provincial at that time. He did so, and this time received a promise of admission, provided he first spend two years as a postulant in some college. To this arrangement, however, he was very much opposed, saying that he had alrendy served in that capacity, during the two years which had then elapsed, since his application at Georgetown.

After further consultation he was finally received, and, to his great delight, enrolled amongst the novice-brothers, April 12th, 1845. After pronouncing the simple vows in 1847, he was sent to Georgetown College to act as infirmarian, remaining there until the year 1870, when he was transferred to Woodstock, to act in the same capacity. During the quarter of a century spent at Georgetown, he was always a consoler to the afflicted and distressed. Even the animals were objects of his tenderness; and the knowledge he had previously acquired of their different ailments, particuarly those of the horse, enabled him frequently to come to their relief; whence came the suggestive name, by which the college-boys often referred to him. Hundreds of Georgetown students might testify to his loving care and watchfulness over them in sickness. When they were really ill, he was all attention; but for those who feigned sickness in order to avoid class, he had no sympathy; for of all things he detested duplicity.

From the many instances of his kindness, we select the following. During the war a young lad was taken seriously ill, and, as his father was in active service for the government, his mother was duly notified, and she repaired at once, in company with her daughter, to the college. After three weeks of anxious care the boy recovered. The mother and daughter, who had witnessed the devoted attention to the boy, were lavish in expressions of gratitude; and, previous to their return home, came to thank the good brother for all that he had done; when to their amazement he answered: “Good ladies, no thanks are due to me; but in God's name, do you, my good woman, go at once and be reconciled to your God, by approaching the sacraments; and then return thanks to him for your son's recovery”. What followed may be better imagined than described. The poor woman thought that the fact of her having been once a member of the Catholic Church was a profound secret. The advice was heeded; and thus Brother John was not only instrumental in procuring bodily health for the son, but, by the grace of God, contributed also to the spiritual renovation of the mother, and we may believe, of the entire family.

Of the many exalted gifts which fitted him for his office, perhaps the most attractive was the happy faculty he possessed of always saying something amusing just at the moment when his patient was suffering the greatest pain, and perhaps had reached the critical stage of a surgical operation. So ludicrous indeed at times were his remarks, that the poor patient would be obliged to laugh outright, forgetting for the moment the ordeal through which he was passing. His influcnce over the boys, even in spiritual matters, was extraordinary; and God alone can tell ofthe good he accomplished in this respect, up to the time when he was summoned to Woodstock, in October, 1870

While speaking of Georgetown, it may be well to point out how perfectly he fulfilled the promise made to the superior there, when he first applied for admission. Beside the duties of infirmarian, he was expected to wait upon all visitors to the college, particularly the parents and friends of sick students; and when the number of the sick was small, he would employ his spare time in whitening various outer parts of the college buildings, or in doing some mason-work. When, at the close of the school-year, the President of the United States, accompanied by several memhers of his cabinet, would become the guests of the college, an entertainment was usually given at the infirmary. Then indeed could be seen the realization of his promise; when, laying aside his trowel or white-wash brush, he would put himself in readiness to wait upon the distinguished guests, with that becoming grace which was so particularly his own; and after all was over, “put off the gentleman”, put on his overalls, and resume the work which for the time had been suspended.

The manny who have come to, and gone forth from the house of studies since its foundation, know better than can be here described the portion of his life spent by our venerable brother since he came to Woodstock. If in the world and at Georgetown he joined to his manual labors the zeal of an apostle, how much more now did he exert himself to instil lofty thoughts nnd aspirations into the minds and hearts of those who were soon to labor for the Lord, in every quarter of the world! His many wanderings and travels had revealed to him the dangers and snares of the world, to which even missionaries were exposed; for, as we have already seen, he had preferred to associate with them as much as possible. And doubtless during all these years, many a silent prayer was offered for tbe perseverance of the Lord's anointed, and particularly those nmong his own brethren. Here, too, his spare time was usefully employed. Once, with the permission of superiors, he gathered the more delicate ones of the scholastics into a band, and invited them to assist him in some out-door employments, and thus better their physical condition; and, if need be, fit themselves for the Zambesi Mission, to which several of them in after years actually went. Thus be was ever the same, sparing no pains or labor, constantly consoling and relieving his sick brethren, or edifying them by his zeal in laboring at some useful employment. Seeking the favor of none, be knew no fear; never without a kind word for all, he was in turn loved, respected and revered by all. And so at length the forty years, for which be had prayed, came sweetly to a close.

Without the slightest warning, the Lord, in his merciful goodness, laid his gentle hand upon him, sending him a stroke of paralysis, which caused him to retire from his office of infirmarian. Recovering shortly after he had been anointed, he applied to superiors for some occupation, and during three years was variously engaged in little offices about the house. The paralysis returned each succeeding year, and each time he was anointed, only to recover in a short time. But at Christmas a year ngo, he became rapidly more and more feeble; so much so, that he required an attendant almost constantly, even at night. Thus assisted, however, he was able to go about the house, and to be present at all the community
duties; in attending which, he was ever known to be most regular and constant. And here we might recall a beautiful instance of his lively faith and simple unaffected piety, which took place on last Good Friday; The hour for the morning services having arrived, it was deemed advisable not to notify him even for the adoration of the cross; because, on the same occasion in the previous year, after having performed his act of adoration, he was raised from his prostrate position only by the greatest effort on the part of his assistant; but the good old man was not thus to be deprived of his share in this consoling act of devotion. So, when he found that all were engaged elsewhere, and that even his attendant was absent, he quietly left his room, and with the aid of his cane succeeded in reaching the chapel. Going up to the sanctuary, all unobserved as he thought, with great difficulty he got down on his knees on the bare floor; then taking from his pocket his large crucifix which he had brought from his bed-side, he laid it on the steps of the altar, and with profound veneration adored the five wounds. Then rising after a great effort, he proceeded with crucifix and cane in band, to make the Way of the Cross; not resting on some convenient bench, which he never did even when in good health, but kneeling on the floor. and supporting himself with his cane. So dangerous was the effort, that the one present, but not seen, judged it better to notify his attendant, who in the meantime had begun to search for him.

Towards the end, it was with difficulty that he could be persuaded to refrain from going to meals with the community; but with this single exception, he faiithfully fulfilled every duty, even that of recreation, where he was ever most welcome, because of his bright and cheerful ways, and many pleasant remarks.

Thus he continued up to the hour of departing for Baltimore, whither it was considered best to send him, and place him under the care of the Sisters of Mercy, who having heard of his condition, begged to he allowed to attend to the closing days of one, who for forty years had consoled and assisted so many. The good sisters had him but a few days, when they were delighted to find in him so saintly and amiable a character, so bright and amusing because of his quaint and pointed remarks.

How well, even during his few days at Baltimore, he rcnlized the character of the true Jesuit. may he inferred from the confidence with which the sisters entrusted to him their petitions to our Lord!. They regarded it a great blessing to have him die in their midst, nnd even placed a picture of him in the box for the corner-stone of their new huilding, fully persuaded that in him thev would ever have a most powerful advoeate in heaven.

Every possible attention wns given him by the sisters, several of whom frequently came, in the midst of their work, to say a kind word to him, only to be edified by his saintly deportment and bright nnswers. This, together with the constant visits of his brethern from Woodstock and Loyola, made it seem to the dear old man scarcely possible thnt he was away from his own community. Even the daily Mass, said by one of the fathers from Loyola, in the neat little chapel of the sisters, was not wanting. Thus passed three short weeks, when the good sister in special charge of him, and the superioress, became anxious as to the meaning of his continually asking for the one who had heen his life-long companion. The time for the usual visit of this friend had elapsed; so the sisters telegraphed for him, and as soon as the train could bring him, he was by the dying brother's side, and in time to he recognized by him. In the meantime, a messenger had been dispatched to Loyola College, and in a few moments the last sacraments were administered to him for the fourth time in four years. His entire right side, and even his tongue, had become paralyzed, so that only at intervals wns he able faintly to repeat the words of some pious aspiration, suggested to him by one of the fathers, several of whom had been in frequent attendance during the eight days preceding his death. Although he was in his agony for twenty-four hours, no movement indicated the slightest pain. Thus in the fulncss of years, at the age of eighty-four our venerable brother passed to his reward, early in the afternoon of the 27th of September. There were present to encourage him in his last moments, the Father Minister of Loyola, the Mother Superior and her two assistants, and the brother from Woodstock.

The body was taken to Woodstock during the night; and, on the following morning, the Office for the Dead was recited by the community, and the holy sacrifice of the Mass offered by Father Rector for the repose of his soul.

The funeral took place during the afternoon of the same day. May he rest in peace!

Br D

Born: 29 March 1817, Cobh, County Cork
Entered: 07 September 1834, Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG)
Ordained: by 1847
Final Vows: 02 February 1858
Died: 26 December 1858, St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly

1834-1836: Hodder, Stonyhurst College SJ, Lancashire, England (ANG), Novitiate
1836-1839: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Regency
1839-1843: Clongowes Wood College SJ, Naas, County Kildare, Regency
1843-1846: Roman College, Rome, Italy (ROM), Theology
1846-1849: Maltese Mission, St Paul’s College SJ, Mdina, Malta, (ANG) Teaching
1849-1858: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Minister and Teaching to 1854;
1854-1856: Prefect of Studies and Teaching
1856-1858: Caring for health

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at Clongowes - “Here he made such rapid strides at his books, that in a short time he had few equals in class” (Biographer). All through school he was noted for his remarkable talent, piety and good conduct. he Entered the Society in his 17th year, 07 September 1834.

After First Vows he was sent to teach Humanities and Mathematics, doing this for a number of years until his health broke down. A man of resolute character, this quality helped him deal with his illness. He was sent to Rome for a change of air, and hopefully to pursue his Priestly studies. He was advised to go for these to Sicily and later to Malta, after which he was Ordained. He then returned to Ireland and Tullabeg, both to teach and as Operaius at the new Church attached to the College. He was also Minister there for a while. he spent all his spare time on the Confessional, and eventually was appointed to concentrate solely on this work. Crowds came to him. He was kind and sympathetic in manner, and helped many troubled souls. The people looked on him as a kind of “Thaumaturgus” (miracle worker), and many are the stories related of him. Some years before his death his health failed him again, and he had to give up this work in the Confessional. He had a long and painful illness, though throughout he never complained.

Worn out, he died 26 December 1858.

The crowds at his funeral were immense. His remains were first interred in the College grounds in a cemetery near the Church. Alfred Murphy had been a pupil of his at Tullabeg, and held him in such high esteem, that when he became Rector there, he had a special vault built on the Gospel side in the Church, and John was reinterred there.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Cunningham SJ 1817-1858
John Cunningham was born at the Cobh of Cork on March 29th 1817. At Clongowes “He made such rapid strides in his studies that he had few equals in class”. He entered the Society in 1834, being then 17 years old.

After his noviceship he was sent to teach Humanities and Mathematics. He continued at this for some years until his health broke down. To improve his health he was sent abroad to Rome, Sicily and Malta. Ordained a priest, he returned to Tullabeg as professor and operarius in the newly built church attached to the College. He spent all his spare time in the confessional, till he was finally assigned to this work alone. Crowds came to him from all sides.The people looked at him as a kind of “Thaumaturgus”, and many are the stories related of him.

His health failing, he had to spend work in the church. He had a long illness, crowned by a long and bitter agony. Worn out in body and mind, he expired on St Stephen’s Day 1856. The crowds of people at his funeral were immense. His remains were interred first in a cemetery in the College grounds. Later on, Fr Alfred Murphy, who had been a pupil of his, had a special vault built in the church on the Gospel side, whither his remains were re-interred.

He died with the reputation of a saint and miracle worker.

Born: 30 December 1824, Mountrath, County Laois
Entered: 07 September 1849, St Mary’s College, Bleury Street, Montreal, Quebec, 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 Maison Saint-Joseph, Boulevard Gouin, Sault-au-Récollet, Montréal, Québec, Canada community at the time of death

1849-1851: St Mary’s College, Bleury Street, Montréal, Québec, Canada (FRA), Novitiate
1851-1854: St Mary’s College, Bleury Street, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Regency
1854-1857: St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York NY, USA, Theology
1856-1857: Teaching
1857-1864: Xavier College SJ, West 15th Street, New York NY, USA, Teaching
1864-1865: Maison Saint-Joseph, Rue des Jésuites, Sault-au-Récollet, Montréal, Québec, Canada (CAMP), Tertianship
1865-1868: St John’s College, Fordham, Bronx, New York, NY, USA (CAMP from 1864), Teaching
1868-1874: Xavier College SJ, West 15th Street, New York NY, USA, Teaching (NEBCAN from 1869)
1874-1876: St John’s College, Fordham, Bronz, New York NY, USA, Teaching
1876-1880: Xavier College SJ, West 15th Street, New York NY, USA, Teaching (MARNEB from 1879(
1880-1888: St Peter’s College SJ, Grand Street, Jersey City NJ, USA, Teaching
1885-1888: Caring for health out of community
1888-1889: Maison Saint-Joseph, Boulevard Gouin, Sault-au-Récollet, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Caring for health at Hospice Saint-Jean-de-Dieu, Longue-Pointe, Québec, Canada

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 18, Number 3

Obituary

“Father John Cunningham SJ” p379

Father John Cunningham was born Dec. 30, 1824, in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin, Mountrath, Queen's Co, Ireland. At an early age he came to Canada, and, when
fifteen, entered the college of the Sulpitians in Montreal, to make the full classical course of seven years. After two years of mental philosophy and ethics, he began the study of theology in the Grand Seminaire, and two years later, on receiving minor orders, he applied for admission into the Society. He was admitted by Fr George Schneider, then master of novices, but being needed hy the Sulpitian Fathers to conduct their English studies, he could not enter until a year later, in the September of 1849. He began his noviceship in the
house of M Rodier of Montreal, and finished it in our college there, taking his vows on Sept 8, 1851. After teaching a commercial class and prefecting at our college in Fordham for two years, he reviewed his theology during the two following years, and was ordained priest by Archbishop Hughes of New York, Aug 17, 1855. The following year he was again a prefect at Fordham. After teaching middle grammar there, for a year and a half, he was called to New York in the early part of 1858 to take the class of humanities. This he taught four years and a half, after which he was appointed professor of rhetoric. He began his third year of probation in 1864, at Sault au Recollet, under the instructorship of Fr James Perron. After a year spent in teaching humanities in Fordham, he made his last vows, Aug 15, 1866. For the two years following he taught rhetoric in that college, and in 1868, he was again appointed to teach humanities in St Francis Xavier's, NY. There he remained until 1874, and after two years at Fordham, thither he returned again in 1876, teaching at various times the classes of humanities, rhetoric, and special Latin. He was professor of Latin in the short-lived collegium inchoatum in Troy, during the school year beginning 1877.

Returning to St. Francis Xavier's in 1878, he again taught humanities there until 1880, when he was sent to take special Latin class in St Peter's, Jersey City. After two years, ill health forced him to leave the classroom and so bring to a close a career of teaching which had lasted upwards of thirty years. The following year he spent as confessor, but from the summer of 1883 until his death, his bodily and mental powers were so impaired that he could no longer work or lead the ordinary community life. He spent these years in L'Hospice de S Jean de Dieu, Longue Pointe, near Montreal, PQ, where he died peacefully in the Lord, on May 20, 1889.

Father Cunningham, as a teacher, spared no pains to further the training of his pupils. The vigor and activity of his earlier life were faithfully employed in devising means to re- lieve the drudgery of the classroom, and these stood him in good stead in his declining·years. His simple diagrams of the more difficult declensions and conjugations facilitated the first steps of many a grammar pupil, and his careful transla- tions, and tasteful models were at once the help and admira- tion of the students of riper years. Like a true Jesuit, he showed much more solicitude for the souls than for the minds of his pupils, and this zeal of his led superiors to employ him as director of sodalities and confessor of boys and young men, until ill health unfitted him for the work. He lost no occasion of showing his interest in the spiritual welfare of his charges, and howsoever importunate he may have seemed when doing so, they never disliked him for it, but grew to love him more and more every year. His infirmities in the decline of life were very painful, but he bore them in patience and humility, the object of sympathy and prayers which his zeal and sin- cerity had won for him everywhere. RIP

Born: 25 October 1796, Athleague, County Roscommon
Entered: 29 September 1827, Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained: 01 June 1833
Final Vows: 02 February 1841
Died: 24 July 1889, Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

1827-1829: Georgetown College Georgetown, Washington DC, USA (MAR), Novitiate
1829-1830: St John’s College, Frederick MD, USA, Regency, Teaching
1830-1889: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA, Studying Theology and Teaching
1833-1848: Teaching Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, Director of Observatory (from 1941 to 1886), Museum Curator, Librarian (for a time); Botanist
1847-1860: Province Consultor
1850-1860: Socius to Provincial from 12/09/1950 to 31/07/1860

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 1, Number 3

“Georgetown College” p 159

Our religious family is composed of twelve Fathers, five Scholastics and nineteen Brothers. Of the former, besides Fr Rector and Fr Minister (who is also Prefect of Studies), one teaches Theology to the three who are here engaged in that study, and is Spiritual Father; the students in Philosophy and Rhetoric absorb three more; Chemistry and Physics, another: our ex-Professor in these branches, (and, as everybody who has been to the College within the last thirty-five years knows, this means Father Curley,) is still as devoted as ever to his green-house, so that green-house and Fr. Curley are correlative terms.

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 3, Number 1

“St Joseph’s Church, Philadelphia” p 98

In August of this year, Father James Curley, the venerable professor of Astronomy at Georgetown College, for a short time, performed parochial duties at St. Joseph's.

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 15, Number 3

“Varia : Georgetown” p339

....... The venerable Father James Curley, so long director of the astronomical observatory and professor of botany at Georgetown College, celebrated his ninetieth birthday on Monday, October 25th, having been born in 1796. His health and activity at this advanced age are remarkable, and his mental faculties unimpaired. He has been at Georgetown College since 1827, and was a valued friend of Joeph Henry and other eminent scientific men in their dav. He now bids fair to rival the years of the centenarian Professor Chevreulin Paris, and a host of friends join in the wish that he may do so.

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 16, Number 3

“Varia : Georgetown College” p330

....... The venerable Fr James Curley, now the only relic of tlw last century in our province, who recently celebrated his 91st birthday and the 60th anniversary of his advent to Georgetown College, is still sound in mind and body. (May he continue so!) Being consulted recently with regard to a sword in the College museum whose history did not seem to correspond with the story of Fr Rey's death us told in this number), the vernerable nonagenarian answered as follows:- We regret that we cannot reproduce a facsimile of the note in the simple and exact. handwriting which so well bespeaks the simplicity and exactness of the writer's eharacter)

Dear Mr ------, An officer of a Volunteer Co a native of Washington, gave us the sword you allude to. He told us it was found on the ground alongside of Fr Rey’s dead bodly,   when the villagers of the place first found Fr R.'s body, and from that circumstance alone it was supposed he was killed by it.
Yrs in Christ, James Curley SJ

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 18, Number 3

Obituary

“Father James Curley SJ” p381

At Georgetown College, on the 24th day of July, 1889, at the advanced age of nearly ninety-three years, in the sixty-second year of his religious life, the fifty-eighth of his connection with Georgetown College, and the fifty-seventh of his priesthood, died Fr James Curley.

As we hope to pqblish in a future number of the “Letters” the recollections of those whose happiness it was to know Fr Curley personally, we shall content ourselves for the present with giving only an outline of his career, and a few details about his death. “His life was so placid”, writes an old student of Georgetown, “that but little is found in it to supply colors for a vivid picture. The traditionary hero, somebody has said, breaks upon us like the rugged mountain peak or plunging cataract. Not so Fr. Curley. His life was like the soft landscape, without striking features, but harmonious in all its parts, and presents a picture of such rare simplicity and delightful unity, that the eye of an artist can alone contemplate it and appreciate it fully and completely”.

Father Curly was born in County Roscommon, Ireland, on Oct. 25, 1796. His father died when he was quite young, and his earlier education was confined to the simplest rudiments
of English. A little later, however, a professor of mathematics in his town discovered in him a wonderful taste for that branch, in which he afterwards became famous. He left Ireland in 1817, and arrived in Philadelphia on the 10th of October of that year. There he worked for two years as book-keeper. He afterwards taught mathematics for some time in Frederick, Md. In 1826, he came to Washington and began the study of Latin in the Catholic Seminary with a view to preparing himself for the priesthood. At the same time he taught a class in the seminary, and one of his pupils was James A Ward, the present venerable reetor of the novitiate at Frederick and socius of the provincial. After the close of the seminary, he applied for admission to the Society, and began his noviceship at Georgetown on Sept. 29, 1827.

At the end of his two years of probation, in Aug 1829, he was sent to Frederick to teach. He took his first vows on Oct 10th of that year, and returned to Georgetown in the spring of 1831. In September of that year he began to teach natural philosophy, studying moral theology at the same time. It was shortly after this, on Dec 21, 1832, that he became a naturalized American citizen. In the following year, he was ordained subdeacon on May 29th, deacon on May 31st, and priest on the 1st of June. His first Mass was said on Corpus Christi in the chapel of the Visitation Convent at Georgetown, which he continued to attend as chaplain for fifty years. During nearly all this time, for the space of forty-eight years, he taught mathematics and astronomy at the college. He drew up the plans and superintended the work of establishing the college observatory, and made many valuable contributions to science. Among these may be mentioned his correction of the computation for the meridian of Washington. The observations which he then made, half a century ago, have been officially verified by the government astronomers. He was socius and procurator of the province from Sept. 12, 1850 to 1860, under three successive provincials, FF. Brocard, Stonestreet, and Villiger. It was he who established the green-house of the college, which he made a means of perfecting his skill as a botanist. His interest in this branch was active even to the last days of his life. Toiling along on his crutches, when he became no longer able to move about without them, he went daily to visit these old friends, and when some very rare one bloomed he brought the flower to the fathers recreation-room, that others might share his delight. He was very fond also of visiting the government botanical gardens, to observe the progress of some special botanical pets in which he had taken an interest for years.

The last class that Fr. Curley taught was the Class of '79· Among the papers found after his death was a list of this and all his previous classes from 1831. That their faces and records were preserved in his memory, he proved to every one of them that ever returned to visit the college. It might be that decades of years had passed, and that the boy was now a grandsire, but in a moment after hearing his name, Fr Curley, his own face brightening with that indescribable expression of childlike joy so familiar to those who have lived with him, would go back with his former pupil to the days of long ago, assemble again the class, perhaps, of '35 or '40, surround this group with the faculty and college “'characters”' of that day; and astonish all listeners with his wonderful store of information about each and every one of those whose good fortune it was to have been “his boys”. But this is a phase of his character which, doubtless, will be better touched upon by those who will give us their personal recollections of him. We shall now tell, in the words of the College Journal the story of his last days on earth.

In February last he slipped and fell on the stairs that lead from the college infirmary to the students chapel. He recovered sufficiently from this to appear in public once or twice during the centennial celebration; but the shock resulting from this fall, and a cold brought on by passing from the warm reception-rooms of the college to the cool air of the corridors, made rapid inroads into a system already enfeebled by old age. His stubborn constitution, however, and high degree of vitality bore him up in the struggle for life, until far into the summer. In July, he was attacked by malaria, and then he began to sink so rapidly that extreme unction was administered. His mind remained clear and vigorous until a week before his death. Then intervals of delirium began, during which his mind wandered back over the earlier years of his connection with the college, and he held imaginary conversations with FF Ryder and Mulledy, who were presidents of the college many years ago. These deliriums, however, lasted but a short time, and up to his last moments his mind was generally clear.

On Wednesday, February 23rd, it became evident that his end was approaching, and the watchers at his bedside grew anxiously attentive. Early on the afternoon of the 24th, a sudden change for the worse was noticed; Fr. Fox was called, and the prayers for the dying were recited. The prayers were hardly ended when, dropping his head on his breast, and drawing a long breath, almost a sigh, he passed peacefully away.

'On Friday morning, his remains were laid in the reception-room of the new building, whither many of his friends came to take a last look at their father and friend. At ten o'clock, the funeral procession, composed of fathers of the college, visiting clergy, scholastics, and brothers, started for Trinity Church, Georgetown, where the Office ofthe Dead was recited, and a low Mass of Requiem offered for the repose of his soul. The celebrant of the Mass was Fr William F Clarke, Georgetown's oldest living graduate. His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, kindly assisted at the Mass and pronounced the last absolution. The funeral procession, chanting the Benediflus, then returned to the college grounds, where the venerable father's remains were laid to rest in the college cemetery. RIP

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 30, Number 1

“Reminiscences of Some Distinguished Men of Science Connected in the Past with Georgetown College - Father James Curley SJ” p97

Next I wish to speak of Father James Curley, whose pupil in astronomy Father Secchi had been at Georgetown. He was an astronomer and man of science, and a remarkable man. Early in life he manifested a talent for mathematics, came to this country from Ireland when a young man, and entered the Society of Jesus. When Father William F. Clarke was a boy at the old Gonzaga College on F Street, then known as “The Seminary”,' Father Curley was there, handling electrical apparatus, and probably electrifying the boys when they desired: Father Clarke died at Gonzaga in 1890, at the age of seventy-five. Father Curley was afterward sent to Georgetown College, where he died in 1889, after having lived there more than fifty years. He was a long time professor of mathematics and natural science at Georgetown, and the founding of the astronomical observatory there about 1845, was due to his inspiration. He planned it, laid out the ground, superintended the erection of the building and directed the purchase of instruments - though he was to a great extent self made. At that time there were few observatories in the United States. Soon by his observation he determined the meridian of Washington: he found a result slightly different from that of the astronomers of the Government, which they refused to accept, until years afterwards when the Atlantic Cable was laid successfully, his calculation was found correct.

At one time he was associated in experiments on the electric current with Professor Chas G Page of Washington, an eminent electrician, for whom the original invention of the Ruhmkorf Coil has been claimed, and who devised a successful electric locomotive long before the cheap production of the current made our trolley car feasible. Father Curley enjoyed the esteem also of Professor Henry, the distingttished director of the Smithsonian Institution, who was always ready to recognize genuine scientific merit in any one. His visits to Professor Henry's house during his dying hours, to make friendly inquiry, were much appreciated by the professor and family. I remember walking with Father Curley from the college to Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown, the day of Professor Henry's burial, about twenty years ago, and viewing with him the large funeral cortege that accompanied the remains of the eminent Natural Philosopher to their last resting place.

Father Curley was also a skilled botanist and when he became old, passed his time partly in his green-house, attending to his flowers. Once when the Fathers were seated in evening recreation, on the old porch at Georgetown, he brought before us a night-blooming flower from his collection, and looking at his watch, showed us how it opened into bloom at the very minute announced for sunset. In his Christian faith and piety he viewed all the phenomena of nature as manifestations of the wisdom and power of God. In his old age when he was to a great extent relieved from duty, he often kindly accompanied visitors through the college, and in the cabinet of physical instruments entertained them with his favorite experiment of the acoustic figures. Sprinkling the sand lightly on one of his metalic plates of various shapes, then touching the edge with his violin bow and always causing a different musical note, he made the sand dance into a variety of geometrical figures as perfect as the ruler and compass could make. When I first saw him evoke them, I was much impressed and felt convinced that very few people in the country could equal him in this skill. When wonder was expressed, he said he had been practising them for forty years.

He had a remarkable memory for genealogies. Often when receiving visitors to the college, after a few words of questioning he surprised them by telling thein that he had known their fathers and mothers, possibly their grandfathers and grandmothers, uncles, aunts, etc. Those who had been his pupils during the many years of his professorship of mathematics and natural science at Georgetown, were scattered over the country, many of them successful professional or business men, not a few having attained honor and distinction. Judge George Brent, who about twenty-five years ago was one of the judges of the Maryland Court of Appeals, had been his pupil; and a classmate, Father Charles Stonestreet, once Provincial of the Maryland Province, used to tell how, when Father Curley was explaining at the blackboard the theory of the inclined plane, he would interrupt his explanation, look toward the future judge and say: “Now, George, are you in full possession of the inclined plane?” Father Curley had great simplicity of character, a very kindly disposition, great piety, and such delicacy of conscience that he would not say aught unkind about any one. Hence it is no wonder that he won so many genuine friends. At a meeting in Washington, over twenty years ago, of the Alumni Association of Georgetown College, Judge Walter Cox, who afterwards presided on the bench at the trial of Guiteau, was present as a member. He had been a pupil of Father Curley's, and in a speech spoke of his old professor and expressed the wish that his memory might be ever as blooming and fragrant as the flowers he loved to tend, and as bright and pure as the stars he loved to gaze upon.

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 62, Number 2 p 308

History of the Maryland-New York Province: The Province in 1833

by Edward I Devitt SJ

..........
Father James Curley, the professor of physics and higher mathematics was already making a reputation for the Society in Astronomy. He was certainly one of the most eminent of his day in this matter and, in addition, was himself like the archives of knowledge of the Society in America until the very last years of a life that went welll towards the end of the third quarter of the 19th century. The man's simplicity and constancy of work may be known from this:- “Like a child in all things, he loved his Brethren above all things, and woe betide the man that came to him and told him of his want of charity towards his companions”. Father Devitt used to say, “You couldn't mention such a thing in those days to those men without being brought to the knowledge of what the Society's love for her children, and her children's love for one another must always be, if the Society is to do her work”.

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 71, Number 2 p 158

A Dispute Between Procurators

In 1850 the provincial of the Maryland Province resided at Georgetown College. On September 12th of that year, Father James Curley (1796-1889) was appointed socius of the provincial and procurator of the Province while remaining a member of the faculty of the College. The local procurator, who was not over- looking anything, sent a bill to Father Curley for his room and board. That brought forth the following re joinder which, without date or address, is preserved in the Georgetown Archives.

It seems to Mr. Curley that it will appear singularly strange and unreasonable to Father Provincial when he finds that the College intends to charge the Province for Mr    Curley's board, etc.
I have been eighteen years teaching, having care of the greenhouse; for the last eight or nine, I have had the care of the observatory and the confessions of three-fourths of  those engaged for the College - and of all this, the Provincial freed me from one and a half hours teaching each day for this year, and for this relief you intend charging for my  board. It is true that my name is down for socius and procurator and I spent an hour or two a day for some weeks looking over some old papers for the Province in order to  burn useless papers. That is all I have done for the Province.
I have the Sisters confessions one evening, besides the recreation evening, each week, and once a month hear their children from two to five on Saturdays, but they keep me in  stockings, shirts, flannel and cotton, drawers, collars, white handkerchiefs, cravats, habits and cloaks; and they make and mend all the albs, amices, purificators and vestments   for the College, and sometimes other jobs. And for the second last play I brought seven or eight silk and velvet caps made from the silk and velvet belonging to the Sisters, that  could not be bought for less than a dollar and a half or two dollars apiece, so that the little done by me for the Sisters is not lost to the College.
Now besides these things there is no scientific difficulty or information made to the College, from without or from within, that I am not necessary for, unless we risk the shame   of much reflection. And for all this someone else must pay for my diet and lodging and as for the observatory I see no help nor any chance of help and now I have to take care  of our plants or they would finally go to ruin.

Father Curley did not leave a record of the outcome of the dispute.

William C Repetti SJ

◆ https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552728#:~:text=James%20Curley%2C%20S.J.%2C%20was%20born,Botany%20at%20Georgetown%20in%201831.

James Curley, S.J., Georgetown University Professor and founder of the University Observatory

James Curley, S.J., was born in County Roscommen, Ireland, on October 25, 1796, and came to the U.S. in 1817. In 1827, he entered the Society of Jesus and became Professor of Physics, Mathematics and Botany at Georgetown in 1831. In 1840, he proposed the construction of an observatory on the Georgetown campus, drew up plans for it, and supervised the construction work. In 1846, Fr. Curley calculated the longitude and latitude of the Observatory and, by triangulation, that of significant sites in Washington, including the White House. This represented the first scientific determination of the longitude of the capital. Fr. Curley taught at Georgetown until 1879 and died there on July 24, 1889.

◆ https://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/life-society/science-technology/irish-scientists/curley-james/

James Curley S.J. (1796-1889)
Geographer, Meteorologist, Founder of Georgetown Observatory

James Curley was born at Athleague, Co. Roscommon. His aptitude for mathematics was recognised and to some extent developed by his teacher in Athleague. He emigrated to the United States in 1817 and arrived in Philadephia where he worked for two years as a bookkeeper and taught mathematics at Frederick, Maryland.

In 1826 Curley decided to prepare himself for the priesthood. He joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1827 and after completing his novitiate he again taught in Frederick and later taught philosophy at Georgetown University. He was ordained priest in 1833.

Curley taught philosophy and mathematics at Georgetown University for 48 years. Despite numerous difficulties and delays, he planned and superintended the building of Geogretown University Observatory which was completed in 1846 and he became its first director. Its equipment included an Ertel transit instrument, a meridian circle by Simms and a 5-inch refractor by Troughton and Simms.

One of his earliest achievements was the determination of the longitude and latitude of Washington DC in 1846. His results disagreed with those obtained by the Naval Observatory and it was not until the laying of the first transatlantic cable in 1858 that his determination was found to be close to the truth. However, the coincidence was fortuitous as the method he used was not very precise.

Father Curley kept a continuous series of weather records at Georgetown and was also much interested in Botany. He continued as director of Georgetown Observatory until 1888 at the age of 92 and he died the following year.

Born: 02 July 1845, Ahascragh, County Galway
Entered: 27 April 1861, Oude Abdij, Drongen, Belgium - Belgicae Province (BELG)
Ordained: 1873
Final Vows: 22 April 1878
Died: 11 January 1916, Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Sea Road, Galway

Second brother of Hubert - RIP 1918; Francis - RIP 1907; James - RIP 1930 Oliver was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter.

1861-1863: Oude Abdij, Drongen, Belgium (BELG), Novitiate
1863-1868: Sacred Heart College SJ, Crescent, Limerick, Regency
1868-1870: Maria Laach College, Maria Laach, Germany (GER), Philosophy
1870-1871: Pressburg College (Gamča, Gymnasium), Grösslingová, Pressburg (Bratislava), Austria (Slovakia) (ASR-HUN), Philosophy
1872-1875: Jesuitenkolleg, Sillgasse, Innsbruck, Austria (ASR),
1875-1876: St Stanislaus College SJ, Tullabeg, Minister, Prefect of Church
1876-1877: Maison Saint-Vincent, Laon, Hauts-de-France, France (CAMP), Tertianship
1877-1878: St Ignatius Church, Church Road, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, working
1878-1880: Xavier College SJ, Barkers Road, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Teaching
1880-1881: St Patrick’s College SJ, Cathedral Place, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Minister and Teaching
1881-1882: St Kilda House SJ, Woolloomooloo Street, Sydney NSW, Australia, Minister and Teaching
1882-1883: St Ignatius Church, Church Road, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, working at Hawthorn
1883-1887: Manresa, Burwood Road, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, AustraliaHawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Superior from 01/01/1883 and Parish Priest at Immaculate Conception Church to 1886
1886-1887: Missioner
1887-1890: St Ignatius Church, Church Road, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Missioner
1890-1893: St Mary’s, Miller Street, Sydney NSW, Australia, Superior from 19/01/1890, Parish Priest
1893-1897: St Ignatius Church, Church Road, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Superior, Parish Priest
1897-1901: St Mary’s, Miller Street, Sydney NSW, Australia,
1901-1902: Loyola, Greenwich Road, Greenwich, Sydney NSW, Australia, Minister, Cyrate
1903-1905: St Aloysius College SJ, Milson’s Point, Australia and then came to Milltown Park, Dublin, Spiritual Exercises and Missioner
1905-1906: St Aloysius College SJ, Dalhousie Street, Garnet Hill, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, residing at St Joseph Residence, North Woodside Road, Glasgow, Curate
1906-1916: Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Sea Road, Galway, Missioner
1915-1916: Caring for health

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Second brother of Hubert - RIP 1918; James - RIP 1930; Francis H - RIP 1907. He was the first of the Daly brothers to Enter. They were a very old Catholic family who resided in the Elphin Diocese. Three of his brothers Entered the Society. Oliver joined earlier than the others in Rome and was allotted to the Irish Province.

1858-1859 He first appears in HIB as a Teacher at the newly opened Crescent day school.
he then studied the long course in Theology at Innsbruck, and at the end of his fourth year acted as Minister at Tullabeg.
1876 He was sent on Tertianship (Laudunensis, CAMP)
1877 He sailed to Australia with Daniel Clancy, James Kennedy and Thomas McEnroe.
He was in Australia for about twenty years, including being Superior at Hawthorn, and he returned in charge of Father John O’Neill who had become deranged.
He then spent some time in Glasgow and Milltown.
1907 He was sent to Galway, and remained there until his death 11 January 1916

Note from Thomas McEnroe Entry
1877 He set sail for Melbourne with Daniel Clancy, Oliver Daly and James Kennedy

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He was the first of four brothers to become Jesuits, the others being Hubert, Oliver and Francis.

His early education was at Crescent College Limerick

1864-1868 After First Vows and his Juniorate he was sent for Regency to Crescent College teaching Rudiments, Writing, French and Arithmetic.
1868-1871 He went to Maria Laach College in Germany for Philosophy
1871-1876 He was sent to Innsbruck for Theology
1876-1877 He made Tertianship at Lyon in France
1877-1880 He arrived in Australia on 12 December 1877 and went to Xavier College Kew, where he was one of the first staff at the College
1880-1881 He was sent to St Patrick’s College Melbourne as Minister and Prefect of Studies, where he also directed the Sodality and did some pastoral work
1881-1882 He went to St Kilda’s House in Sydney as Minister and Teacher
1882-1886 He was sent to Hawthorn and was appointed first Superior and Parish Priest (1883-1886)
1886-1889 He became involved in rural missionary work
1890-1893 He was sent as Superior and Parish Priest of St Mary’s North Sydney
1893-1897 He was sent as Superior and Parish Priest of St Ignatius Richmond
He was subsequently at St Mary’s Parish, North Sydney and Loyola Greenwich for a few years each
1902 He returned to Ireland on 18 December 1902, and he worked in Glasgow Scotland, Milltown Park Dublin and finally at Coláiste Iognáid Galway as a rural missioner.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Oliver Daly (1845-1916)

Brother of the two preceding, (Francis and James) was a scholastic here in the first decade of the existence of the Crescent, 1864-1868. He was many years on the Australian mission but returned to Ireland some ten years before his death.