Born: 06 June 1900, Mountrath, County Laois
Entered: 28 November 1933, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final Vows: 02 February 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 26 December 1992, Our Lady’s Hospice, Harold’s Cress, Dublin
Part of the Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park, Dublin community at the time of death
1933-1935: St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois, Novitiate
1935-1941: Belvedere College SJ, Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Painter
1941-1942: Sacred Heart College SJ, Crescent, Limerick, Maintenance
1942-1948: St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois, Plant Maintenance
1948-1990: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly, Plant and Church Maintenance, Fundraising
1990-1992: Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, Praying for Church and Society
◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Painter before Entry
◆ Interfuse No 75 : Christmas 1993 & Interfuse No 82 : September 1995
Obituary
Br Patrick Guidera (1900-1992)
6th June 1900: Born, Mountrath, Laois
Worked as painter/decorator for 20 years in the family business
28th Nov. 1933: Entered the Society at Emo
1935 - 1941: Belvedere - Painter
1941 - 1942: Crescent College - Maintenance
1942 - 1948: Emo - Plant Maintenance
1948 - 1990: Tullabeg - Plant and Church maintenance/Fundraiser
1990 - 1992: Cherryfield Lodge
26th Dec. 1992: Died at Cherryfield Lodge
Pat Guidera was a few days short of his thirty-third year, when in the belief that God was calling him to the religious life, he arrived at the door of the Jesuit Novitiate, St Mary's, Emo Park. It was the evening of May 28th, 1933. The decision which brought him that evening from his home in Mountrath to the steps of St Mary's was not an easy one for a man of his age and experience.
Pat was the eldest son in a large family; he was a skilled painter and decorator whose work was widely appreciated. His father and younger brothers had come to rely on his skills and on his ability in dealing with the business side of his and their work. He was, too, a devout Catholic, a popular neighbour, a mature man with, as he tells us himself, serious plans to marry and father a family of his own.
Such in a nutshell was his position when the call to the religious life, of which he had been vaguely conscious, became more insistent. The Hound of Heaven was not to be denied! It was on the occasion of the Eucharistic Congress in 1932 that Patrick made his first outward response. Through the Brigidine Sisters at their convent in Mountrath, he made contact, with his first Jesuit, the late Fr James Whitaker who was conducting the Sisters' annual Retreat. Under this priest's kindly and understanding direction, Pat finally made up his mind to apply for admission as a religious Brother in the Irish Province of the Company of Jesus.
Thus it was that Pat Guidera, after much soul-searching and prayer, came to leave all' to follow the Christ who went down to Nazareth and lived a life of dependence on his parents to whom He was subject. The surrender of his independence as a mature man was, perhaps, at the core of his sacrifice. Indeed, few, if any, of his fellow novices, had anything like the sacrifices to make as those required of him on answering that same call. Surely that tells us something of the mutual love between God and himself as he knocked at St Mary's door. Even then he was a man after St Ignatius' own heart - a man of generous spirit and desiring to be detached from “all that the world loves and embraces”.
After his first chat with the master of novices, Pat realized that Canon Law required him to wait six months in residence at St Mary's before admission to the Noviceship. This proved a wise provision in his case as it gave him time and space to reconsider in a prayerful atmosphere his decision to leave a comfortable home, to forego the happiness of married life and to bind himself to a life of obedience and dependence. It was during these first months he came to appreciate the wise and fimm direction of the late Fr John Coyne of whom Pat was untiring in his praise all his long life. He began his two-year noviceship on Nov 22nd 1933, and immediately entered on the Thirty Day Retreat; after this experience, he never “looked back”.
Now in later years Brother Pat would say that he found his noviceship years a real trial. It is to his credit and to the continuing power of the grace of vocation that he persevered and happily made his first Vows as a Brother in the Society of Jesus.
During the next eleven years, 1935-46, he had ample opportuni ty to exercise his talent as a painter and decorator, first at St Mary's Emo, then at Belvedere and for a short period at Rathfamham. And as was the common practice at the time for every member of the Province, he was expected to be ready and able to help out in spheres of activity for which he had no special training or aptitude. Brother Pat, no doubt, found the words, Ad dom! after his name in the annual Catalogus. In practice it direct ed him to be at the service of all whenever he might be needed. In this, too, he was like his Master who was 'among us as one who serves'. So, as the years went by Brother Pat could be found at work as a carpenter, or electrician, a motor mechanic and chauffeur, a builder in stone, a plasterer, a glazier and general handy-man. This was the patter of his daily work from February 2nd, 1946, when he made his final vows in the Company of Jesus, up to a few years before his death on December 26th 1992.
Sometime in 1948, he was asked to leave St Mary's Emo and go to Tullabeg on loan for the purpose of painting and decorating the People's Church there. However, he remained in Tullabeg for the next forty-two years, 1948-1990. During the years up to 1962, Brother Pat's life was hidden from most of us, even from some of his fellow Brothers! Being a jack-of-all-trades and master of most, he was difficult to find in the labyrinth that was old Tullabeg House and farm out-offices. Moreover, he rose earlier than most and was always a step ahead in his morning prayers. He often breakfasted on the foot and after a long day's toil was the last to retire. In part, this was the kind of life he chose to live. If one permitted a mild criticism, it would be that perhaps our brother was too wedded to his work. But he'd surely have a reply to that.
It would be true to say of him that he was a worrier, a man not easily satisfied with himself or his work, whatever it might be. And if his efforts did not always please others, they did not always please himself. His standards as a religious were high, and high, too, were the standards of work he set for himself. Often finding himself pulled from “Billy to Jack”, often expected to make “a silk purse out of a sow's ear”, our Brother occasionally found his fellow Jesuits disapproving either of his way of acting or of his actual work. He would listen in silence, make little or no defence, offer no excuse, but with head bowed and with a characteristic back ward shovelling of his feet, he would depart with his new instructions, which he feared would not remedy the situation. In such situations, the example of Jesus, the Son of the Carpenter of Nazareth, was a source of strength to him. His way of silence in the face of criticism, of obedience to lawful authority, of charity to all was the way Brother Pat continued to strive to follow Him who is the way for every religious. Like many of his contemporaries Pat lived his life in the Second Degree of Humility with many an excursion into the Third. And in his last years, he came to be like his Master in others ways, too, not least in his love of prayer, in his love of the Mass and in his devotion to the Mother of Jesus. In 1991 he visited our Lady's Shrine at Medjugorje and in 1992 he visited Knock with a group from Rahan and Tullamore.
In 1990, the Lord asked one more sacrifice from his faithful friend - to leave Tullabeg and retire to Cherryfield Lodge. In time he came to accept that too. In the story of his life as told to, and beautifully edited by Fr Eddie O'Donnell, SJ, there is much to admire, much to smile at, and not a little to make one wonder at the loving providence of God.
Edmond Kent SJ
◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1995
Obituary
The above is Fr Kent's account of Br Pat's life, but Pat, in the months before he died wrote his own autobiography, “The Story of my Life”. What follows are his own words on his years in Belvedere (1935- 41):
I spent most of my life as a Jesuit Brother at Rahan, near Tullamore, County Offaly. I was stationed there for over forty years, from 1948 to 1990. Since that period deserves a chapter all to itelf, what I'm going to do here is bring you from the year I took my First Vows (1935) up to 1948. Okay?
Immediately after taking my vows in Emo, I was transferred to Belvedere College, the Jesuit day school in Dublin. My first job there was to repair the roof of the community building with the help of a couple of handymen. I bought lead sheeting from Lenehan's shop in Capel Street - which is still going strong - and had the work finished in no time.
Then I was asked to paint all the windows on the front of the house. This entailed the erection of a scaffolding, which was quite an awkward operation on account of the “area” beneath the building. We managed it all right. At that time there was a lot more painting to be done on the windows than there would be today. The windows were “Georgian”, with a lot of small panes like those in the houses nearby. In later years, these were replaced by single-pane, plate-glass windows, a mortal sin from the architectural point-of-view.
At that time in Belvedere, there was a fountain in the middle of the school yard. It had a pond or basin around it. I was asked to clear it away altogether. I started this work with the help of a few construction workers but a twenty-six week builders' strike had just started and these lads were told not to work with me. A group of workmen came into the yard and kicked up a shindy, so I was left on my own. One of the priests in the community - Fr Charlie Scantlebury SJ, who was editor of “The Sacred Heart Messenger” for many years - came out to give me a hand.
The militant workmen returned and tried to beat him up! Punches were exchanged and I had to go to his rescue. We waited for the strike to finish before completing that job, although I did a lot of work on it early each morning myself.
Another task I was given was to install electric chandeliers in the Front Parlour. I knew nothing about electricity but decided to have a go all the same. When I was nearly finished, I remember standing up on a ladder to cut off some loose ends with a sharp knife. Suddenly, there was a sheet of flame, a flash like lightning, that knocked me off the ladder. I will never forget that narrow escape.
My next assignment was to paint the school hall, or the “Gymnasium” as it was called. It's where the boys did their drill as part of the curriculum. It's also where the school operas were staged and where the Old Boys held their annual dinners. Everyone was very pleased with the work I did there, especially with the college crest and its motto, “Per Vias Rectas”, painted on the centre of the side wall. Fr Charlie Byrne SJ, was particularly delighted. He was in charge of putting on the operas - usually Gilbert & Sullivan - and he realised he had found someone who could do a proper job on the scenery in future.
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, there were a lot of shortages in Dublin. Coal boats couldn't cross over from England so we had to make do with turf. During the winter of 1939 itself, we still had a fair bit of coal left but Fr Rupert Coyle, SJ, in an effort to spare the fuel, told me to leave off the boiler in the Senior School during the Christmas holidays. There was a bad frost, unfortunately, and the pipes burst, flooding the whole building from top to bottom. There was an awful lot of damage done. I can leave you to guess whose job it was to clean up the mess.....
In 1940 the Rector of Belvedere, Fr John Mary O'Connor, SJ (affectionately known as “Bloody Bill”) received a letter from his opposite number in Rathfarnham Castle, Fr P G Kennedy SJ (the famous ornithologist) asking if he could send me over to paint the chapel. Like Emo and Belvedere, Rathfarnham Castle had ornate Georgian ceilings. The ceiling in the chapel took me over a month to paint. Like Michelangelo in Rome, I had to lie on my back on top of a scaffolding for days on end painting the intricate ornamentation.
When the ceiling was finished I did the walls and the sanctuary and then painted the front and sides of the altar. To restore the altar to its original glory, I had to purchase special gold-leaf paint which was manufactured in Dublin by a firm called Phillips (it can only be obtained from a firm in England nowadays). The Rector and his second-in-command, Fr “Dolly” Byrne SJ, were both very satisfied with what I did.
Then it was back to Belvedere, where the Minister, Fr Leo Donnelly SJ, had a major enterprise awaiting me. Away back in 1881 the Jesuits had bought a house on Temple street (opposite the Childrens' Hospital) and for two years it had been run as a third-level college called after St Ignatius. During the Second World War, this building was being used to house the domestic staff of Belvedere, but it was very dilapidated. I was asked to construct a bridge from the back of Belvedere College, across Temple Lane, into the back yard of “Temple Chambers” as the place was known then. This took quite a while, On account of the shortage of building materials during the war.
Anyhow, we got the bridge built and had to cover it in because it was the object of numerous missile attacks by kids from ... (nearby).
Then I had to renovate Temple Chambers. Another Brother and myself used to sleep there at night, Our rooms were right at the top, with the domestic staff occupying the lower storeys, now nicely re-papered: My room must have been at the front, because I remember being kept awake at night by the crying babies in the hospital across the street. Early in 1941, one of these babies was suffering from a rare-insect bite and screamed all night for weeks on end. He grew up to become Fr Eddie O'Donnell, SJ!
Later in 1941, the Rector of Milltown Park (Fr John McMahon SJ) who had admired my work in Rathfarnham, asked if I could come over and paint the domestic chapel at Milltown. This was a fairly straightforward job in comparison with the one at Rathfarnham. It took me less than a month to repaint the entire chapel.
When I returned to Belvedere during the summer of that year, most of the community were away on holidays. The Bursar, Fr John Calter SJ, was in charge and he asked me to paper and paint the room of Fr Frank O'Riordan. This was a tall order because Fr O'Riordan used to practise playing golf in his room! He'd hang a blanket, so I had to spend ages repairing the plug marks in the walls before the re-papering could start. All went well, however, and Fr Calter was delighted with the finished product, so delighted, indeed, that he decided to move into that room himself! When Fr O'Riordan returned, there was an awful rumpus. But I wasn't there to hear it because I had been transferred to Clongowes Wood.
◆ https://offalyhistoryblog.wordpress.com/2023/09/30/14979/
Bro Pat Guidera of the Jesuit college, Tullabeg, Tullamore recalls his role in the War of Independence and the Civil War, Mountrath and Johnswell, Kilkenny. A contribution to the Decade of Centenaries
SEPTEMBER 30, 2023 ~ OFFALY HISTORY
Brother Pat Guidera S.J. (born 1900, died 1992) was a familiar figure in Tullamore over a period of forty-two years from his transfer to Tullabeg College in 1948 up to its closure in 1990. Today the old college is falling to ruin. Many will recall its very good order up to the 1990s and thereafter it was used in part as a nursing home. Brother Guidera wrote a short ‘Story of my life’ in 1991 and this is an extract from that now very scarce memoir – of which there is a copy in Offaly Archives (courtesy of the Irish Jesuit Archives). The college was opened in 1818 and several volumes have been published on its history but few as intimate as that of Bro. Guidera. His memoir is interesting also for the marked distinctions in the religious orders between those fully ordained and those who were effectively providing support services in the college or convent. Brother Guidera was a carpenter cum painter and many will remember him shopping in Tullamore and carrying the large carton of cigarettes in the town for his colleagues in the college
Pat Guidera was born in Mountrath in 1900 and died in 1992. The family saw lean times in his early years in the town. Here he talks about his time with the IRA from 1919 and with the Republicans in the Civil War, 1922–23. Some Tullabeg Jesuits provided support services to the old IRA in the War of Independence, especially after the attack on Clara barracks. That was long before Bro. Guidera arrived.
Bro Guidera wrote: ‘My life in the I.R.A began in 1919 and ended in 1923. For the first two of these years we were fighting the British in what is now called the Anglo-Irish War but was known as the “Black and Tan” War at the time. Then, after the 1921 Treaty which partitioned our country, the Civil War began. My father, and all the boys in our family, took the side of de Valera and continued to fight for the Republic.
The “Black and Tan” War was called after the colours of the uniforms worn by the jail-birds and bowsies recruited by the British Army and sent to Ireland to help crush the Republican Army. The I.R.A.., I should emphasise, was totally different from the two bodies who use that name today and bring it such disgrace. Neither the Provisionals nor the Officials have the people behind them. We did.
The “Tans” were a different type altogether from the regular British Army which was quite well respected in the Midlands of Ireland because it fought “by the rules”. The “Tans” simply swept into town one day and proceeded to shoot up the place. Bullets whizzed everywhere and a lot of them hit our house causing my mother to panic. They stationed themselves in the Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks which stood on the corner of the Rusion Road. When they weren’t drinking themselves stupid in the two local pubs, they’d be careering around the town in a couple of Crossley “tenders” – as the Lorries of the Auxiliaries were called.
I was recruited into the I.R.A by a friend of my father (who was himself a member) but I was never really involved in the Army’s plans or organisation. Like most of the young fellows in town, I was simply ‘conscripted’ without ever having to take the I.R.A. oath. I continued to work during the day, to avoid suspicion, but at night I’d be out in the hills – the nearby Slieve Bloom Mountains – going through the army exercises. We did a lot of marching and physical training and had to master a very severe obstacle-course that had been devised by our leaders.
There were very few rifles or revolvers going around, so we mainly practised with shotguns. Even though we wore no uniform, we thought of ourselves as an Army and obeyed orders promptly and as efficiently as possible. I still remember practising my shooting: we used white cardboard targets and I often scored a “bull’s eye”. Obviously, my previous experience aiming at porcelain insulators stood to me.
The barracks used by the “Tans” was only about three-quarters of a mile from where I lived, so I was often given the job of reporting on the movements there. If I were painting a house or a shop nearby, it made the job all the easier. I suppose you could call it spying but, as far as I’m concerned, that would be too serious a term for what I was doing. I was just keeping my eyes open.
Bro Guidera recalled in January 1993.His wonderful public church and the ‘college’ now feature in Rachel Brownlie’s Abandoned Ireland.
I suppose the most useful thing I did for “the cause” was when I was working in a Protestant country manor about twelve miles from Mountrath. This was in 1920 and the house was temporarily deserted, the owners having fled for their lives. I was supposed to be painting the study, but I was having a good look around all the same. Out of curiosity more than anything else, I opened a drawer of the desk and discovered two fairly new revolvers. The senior officers in my I.R.A. battalion were named Fitzpatrick, Deegan, Ryan and Miller. I gave one of them the story of my find and, when I went back to work the next day, I checked the desk drawer. I was not surprised to find that the guns had disappeared.
Not long afterwards, the I.R.A. carried out an ambush attack and several “Tans” were killed. Nobody felt sorry for them, I’m afraid, because they had killed a lot of innocent people and had terrorised the town. They were forever carrying out “raids” on the houses of innocent victims. The worst part was that they took women and children with them in their Crossley tenders when carrying out these “raids” – supposedly to give them directions but in fact to act as hostages. They also made children act as spies.
Spying, of course, did take place on a serious level on both sides. I distinctly remember the death of one of my neighbours. I remember his name, too, but I’m not going to write it down here. He was dragged out of his house in broad daylight by some of my confreres in the IRA and left dead in the gutter right outside his own front door. A neatly printed sign was pinned to his body saying “Spy and Informer”.
During their occupation of Mountrath, the “Tan” went from bad to worse. There was only one of them that seemed to be a decent sort of a fellow. He was only there for the beer, as far as we could tell, because (when he wasn’t asleep in the corner of a bar) his life seemed to consist of one non-stop pub crawl. But he wasn’t violent.
The rest of them were violet. Even the British Army was ashamed of them. The worst incident that occurred in Mountrath was the day when a tender-full of drunken “Tans” roared into town and killed a woman dead on the Camross Road. They simply ran over her with Crossley tender. They didn’t bother to avoid her. And they didn’t bother to stop.
After the cease-fire and the Treaty in 1921, I went to work in Johnswell, which is in County Kilkenny about eight miles from the city of that name. I became attached to the local branch of the I.R.A. Some people called us the “Irregulars”. Despite my allegiance, however, I was shocked by the tragic death of Michael Collins in the Civil War.
Pat’s old I.R.A. leader, Micheal Collins, was ambushed and killed here at Bael na Blath in 1922.
The routine was the same as before: we’d go “drilling” in the hills by night and keep our eyes open by day. We were better armed in Johnswell, having rifles with bayonets. One of our duties was to guard the banks during Fair Days. Even if I was working somewhere else, I’d be called up for duty on a Fair Day.
My father, God be good to him, was a fairly prominent member of the “Irregulars” and would often be up in Dublin with de Valera. My brother, Tommy, was also very “active” at this time. He was a dispatch rider, which was a particularly dangerous occupation. He had a few hair’s-breadth escapes from the “Regulars” – and, when it was all over, he had many a tale to tell.
As for myself, during the day I was at work decorating the lovely little church in Johnswell. As night came down quickly in the winter, I often had to work by candle-light. After work, I’d go back for a bite to eat in the farm-house where I had my “digs”. Some evenings my father would come over from Mountrath for a mixture of “I.R.A business” and pleasure. The woman of the house was a member of Cumann na mBan – the women’s branch of the I.R.A. – and she’d have lots of her members come to the farm-house at night. Red-haired colleens, they were, and all of them lovely young girls.
After the meeting was over and the “Irregulars” had made their plans, my father would start the music. He was a great musician and played the concert flute for hours, often until two o’clock in the morning or even later. There were plenty of girls to dance with and we had great crack.
Things grew more serious when “our” side began to lose the Civil War. De Valera’s men were being pushed further south. I remember one Saturday night in Johnswell we were all ordered to go to confession by the local curate, Fr. Holohan, who was a very holy man. He had a tip-off that there was going to be a raid or a shoot-out in Johnswell and he wanted us all to be prepared, body and soul, in case anyone was shot in the attack. As far as I recall, we all escaped into the mountains where we knew lots of secluded places for hiding. We had tins of food hidden there, so we could hide out for a long time.
I was soon back at work in Johnswell where I had a perfect “cover”. Seen as I was working on the church for Fr. Holohan who was respected by everybody. I remember well that, as soon as I finished the job, I got a terrible toothache and went home to Mountrath to have the tooth extracted. Its funny things that stick in one’s mind.
I took a rest after that since I was glad to be at home. It was during this break that the Irish Civil War came to an end. It had been a terrible struggle. As you probably know, in very many homes brother had been fighting against brother and fathers had been fighting against their sons. Luckily, that was not the case in my own family. We were all solidly behind “Dev. It’s a pity he lost.
◆ https://offalyhistoryblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/31/bro-pat-guidera-recalls-his-time-in-tullabeg-rahan-from-1948-to-1990-no-1/
Bro Pat Guidera S.J. recalls his time in Tullabeg, Rahan from 1948 to 1990 – no 1. Contributed by Offaly History
DECEMBER 31, 2022 ~ OFFALY HISTORY
Brother Pat Guidera S.J. (born 1900, died 1992) was a familiar figure in Tullamore over a period of forty-two years from his transfer to Tullabeg College in 1948 up to its closure in 1990. Today the old college is falling to ruin. Many will recall its very good order up to the 1990s and thereafter it was used in part as a nursing home. Brother Guidera wrote a short ‘Story of my life’ in 1991 and this is an extract from that now very scarce memoir – of which there is a copy in Offaly Archives (courtesy of the Irish Jesuit Archives). The college was opened in 1818 and several volumes have been published on its history but few as intimate as that of Bro. Guidera. His memoir is interesting also for the marked distinctions in the religious orders between those fully ordained and those who were effectively providing support services in the college or convent. Brother Guidera was a carpenter cum painter and many will remember him carrying the usual large carton of cigarettes in the town for his colleagues in the college. His recollections of life in the Rahan area show the value of personal histories so why not give it a go.
Brother Guidera’s recollections of his early years
Away back in 1818, the Jesuits opened St. Stanislaus College at Tullabeg near Rahan in King’s County (now County Offaly). At the beginning it was the novitiate and a boarding school that was amalgamated with Clongowes Wood College in 1886. St. Stanislaus College then became the philosophate of the Order and that’s what it was when I went over “on loan” from Emo in 1948.I was sent over from Emo to paint People’s Church which was attached to the College. That was a big job because the walls hadn’t been touched for years. I had to wash them down and give them three coats of paint all on my own.
Then I thought I’d be getting back at Emo, but the Provincial (Fr. Tommy Byrne S.J.) said that I might as well stay there for a bit to help with electricity. The D.C. plant was giving trouble and the whole house had to be re-wired. I remember Brother Bonfield saying to me: “Ah, sure you’ll be alright here with us, Pat. We’ll look after you”. But I can tell you that I didn’t fancy the idea of staying on at all.
The Brother’s life was a hard one in those days. You had to be up at half past five in the morning and you had to be in the house at half past eight every night. You couldn’t go out much, and even in the house the Fathers rarely spoke to you.
There were very standoffish. The “philosophers”, students going on for the priesthood, were fine lads, however, and I got on grand with them. They often gave me a hand. One day, for instance, I was painting the lower corridor of the house. It was over fifty feet long and over fifteen feet high. One of the “philosophers”, Ned Keelaghan – who is now Fr. Keelaghan S.J. and Superior of the house where I live – was up on a plank with me, helping to paint the ceiling. The plank was stretched between two step-ladders but didn’t one end of it slip off and the pair of us came tumbling down. A whole bucket of paint fell on top of poor Ned. I’m sure he remembers that day as well do I.Anyhow, to get back to the electricity and to the rewiring of the house. Electrical supplies were still hard to find in those post-war years and we had to “make do” with all sorts of bits and scraps. We had no pneumatic drill and it took months and months to finish the wiring because the walls were so thick. The wires had to be run through gun-barrel tubing and approved by the engineer in charge. It was a firm through Dublin, Bective by name that was the main contractor. I had to help them a lot of the outside work too. We had to put a row of poles all the way down the back avenue, as far as Rahan village, to connect with the mains electricity.
Again I thought I’d be going back to Emo, but there were thirty-two bedroom to be painted and I was simply told to get on with them! No sooner had I completed that job and washed the paint off my hands than I was told than there were another thirty rooms to be painted and papered in another block of the house. This time, all the ceilings were badly cracked and I had to spend ages filling in the cracks before beginning to paint. The critics kept wondering why I was so slow.Next I had to put up a slab partition to divide the refectory in two, no easy matter with such high ceilings, and then I had to put fireplaces into the staff bedrooms because they had no central heating. The “philosophers” had no central heating either. Each of them had a fifty-six pound, wooden butter-box full of straw under his table. That’s where they’d put their feet while they were studying. I can leave you to imagine what conditions were like in the Brothers’ quarters. . . . . .
In the 1950s, I did a lot of work out of doors, mainly in the vegetable garden where I built two large glass-house and a very large storage shed. The most interesting outside job, however, was the construction of the swimming-pool. Two of the “philosophers”, Tom Scully (whom the flats in Dublin are named after) and Paddy Cunningham (who died tragically in a plane crash over Vietnam) were very enthusiastic about the idea but the Bursar of the house, Fr. John Deevy S.J was a real Scrooge, so we had to be very economical.
Tom Scully had an engineer, but I read up all I could about the work to be done, all about water-levels, the reinforcing of cement and so on. We had a lot of fun making the “sightings” for the two miles of water-pipe. When we had the site for pool excavated, I borrowed a lorry from Peter Byrne of “The Hollies, near Rahan, and brought up all the gravel we needed for the foundations. And here’s a good one for you. Father Deevy had a machine in the farm for pulping turnips. I sort of pinched it for mixing concrete but there were ructions because they’d nothing to pulp the turnips with in the farm. Anyway, I attached a motor to this gadget and as a cement-mixer it worked like a dream, (Of course I left the machine back when I was done).
There was great suspense, then, when the time came to fill the pool. I’ll never forget it. It was a Saturday night and I walked the two miles across the Grand Canal with Tom Scully. It was my job to open that end of the pipe. Well! There came a rush of air out of it that nearly shot me up into the air! A kind of back-shot it was, bejaypers. But eventually it righted itself and the waiting crowds in Tullabeg saw a lovely, clean flow of water begin to fill the pool.The next thing was to pipe water up to the house itself because they were going to install central heating at last. This meant laying another mile of pipe to the local water-main. To pump the water up the hill to the house I needed a special type of hydraulic “ram”. You’d nearly want to see it working: it’s too complicated to describe here. The machine was made in Wales by a Catholic firm by name of Lake. It cost very little, but it was a wonderful invention. I sent the plans of it to two Jesuits Brothers, Paddy McElduff and Jim Dunne, who were working in Zambia where the Irish Jesuits have a mission. As far as I know, they ordered two “rams” from Wales and have them working out in Zambia now.
The Irish Jesuits also have a mission in Hong Kong. That’s where Fr. Paddy Cunningham S.J. was working before he died. He helped to build a swimming-pool in Wah Yan College out there – but I doubt if he laid his hand on a turnip-pulper!
In those days we had laundry in Tullabeg which was quite a big concern. I installed a new, eighteen-horse-power engine for the laundry boiler because the old one was hard to start and would often stop. To get it going I had to turn a big wheel which was about a ton weight and it was dangerous. Sometimes I nearly got caught in the cam-shift. Three men came over from Moate one day and took it over to Peter McCormack’s garage. I don’t know what happened it after that: I hope it didn’t kill anybody.
One day in Tullabeg I had to go down the well, which was over ninety feet deep, to inspect the water. After opening the man-hole cover, I climbed down a metal ladder to the first landing which was about half-way down. So far, so good
Then I climbed on down to the second landing which was sometimes submerged by water. I stepped on the wooden planking there and didn’t the whole platform give way under me. With the fright, I dropped my torch and grabbed blindly for something to hang on to. By chance, I grasped an iron stay and was able to work my way back on to the ladder. My heart was thumping like a pulping machine. If I hadn’t managed to clutch that iron stay, I would certainly have been drowned and nobody would have known what became of me.
The Lord, however, had other plans for me because next day the Rector sent for me and said that the People’s Church needed to be painted again.
1954 was the year my mother died. It was also the Marian Year. In memory of my mother and in honour of the Mother of God, I decided to make a statue of Our Lady for the garden at Tullabeg. I had never attempted to do anything like this before, so it was quite a challenge. I managed to get hold of the special materials and tools needed for the sculpture and I was as amazed as everybody else by the result. People came from miles around to pray in front of that statue, so I felt very pleased that I had done my bit for the Marian Year.
I always had great devotion for our lady and during my years in Tullabeg I was able to go on my many Marian pilgrimages. I brought groups to knock seven or eight times a year and used to lead the prayers in the bus or on the train. In knock itself I would serve as and help in sacristy. I also used to help Mrs Annie Horan who was so well known to every pilgrim to knock over the years.
I was also on six or seven to Lourdes. I went with different groups from Laois, Offaly, Ardagh and Clonmacnois. I went there once with Oblate pilgrimage from Inchicore in Dublin. On this occasion I was working as a Brancardier, helping with sick people. One morning I was there at the grotto, just opposite the statue of Our Lady, with a lad from Galway. We were helping this little Italian girl who was suffering from polio and had metal braces on her legs. She was dressed in white. Suddenly the iron trappings which bound her fell from her
Legs and she stood up for the first time in years. I took her in my arms and embraced her and all the crowds started shouting out “A Miracle! A Miracle!” her father and mother took the little girl from my arms and hugged her. Then, without a bother, she walked over as near as she could get to the statue of the Blessed Virgin. I saw an old man with tears in his eyes walking behind her. It was a very emotional moment.
Another year, more recently, I went on a pilgrimage to Mejagore. That was a very moving experience as well. I was taken every day to the places of devotion and although there were many Masses and blessings and devotions and healing ceremonies and so on, I never felt tired. That was the amazing thing about it. I found the people of Yogoslavia very inspiring and pray for them a lot these days when they are in so much trouble. The highlight of the pilgrimage was the last night, a Monday night when we were to the Hill of the Apparition. It was a beautiful night with a full moon. There were thousands of people present, singing hymns and saying the rosary. At about ten o’clock a soft, white cloud appeared to encircle the moon and there was an awesome silence as the crowds just stood there in wonder.
I also have great devotion for Saint Patrick, my own patron saint. I went to Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Derg, at least nine or ten times and I’ve climbed Croagh Patrick twice. I’ll never forget the first time I climbed “The Reek” because it nearly destroyed me! It was about 1960, if I remember rightly, and I walked the two-and-a half miles up the steep mountain in the middle of the night in my bare feet: doing “the big fellow” I suppose. There was thunder and lightning first and then the rain poured down. When I reached the top I was so cold that I couldn’t say a prayer. Frozen stiff I was. I decided to keep on the move and come back down straight away. Unfortunately a fog descended and I lost my way. In fact I came down the back of the mountain which is very dangerous. My feet were cut to ribbons on the sharp stones but eventually I made it to the foot of the mountain and saw a nice green ward of grass below me. I jumped down on to it and sank up to my tummy!
It wasn’t grass at all: it was a huge bog-hole covered with a green weed. When I pulled myself out and pulled myself together, I managed to find a road and, believe me, I left a trail of blood along the Castlebar. If you don’t believe me, ask any of the Pellys of Castlebar. If you don’t believe me, ask any of the Pellys of Castlebar because they brought me in and gave m breakfast. They had a brother in the Jesuits so they made quite a fuss over me. It took months for me to recover from that pilgrimage. I had to have sixteen injections and wear a large pair of slippers, my feet were that bad.
The next time I climbed Croagh Patrick, let me tell you, I wore a strong pair of boots.
Other pilgrimages I made over the years were in honour of ancient Irish saints of the Midlands. One Holy Well of Saint Fintan was at a place called Cromoge, on the right-hand side down a bohreen on the way into Abbeyleix from Mountrath. There is a lovely shrine there and a Holy Well with spring water that is lovely to drink. Beneath the water there is a bed of lovely rounded pebbles. They were called “lucky stones”. The soldiers going out to fight in World War I used to take a pebble with them for safety. They all returned safely. Some were injured, certainly, but not one them died.
Many is the time I visited the other Holy Well of Saint Fintan at Clonenagh. This is a most unusual well because it’s half way up a tree. The bark of the tree is absolutely full of buried coins that have been pushed unto it over the centuries. I don’t know if it’s kind of superstition but you’re supposed to leave a coin for Saint Fintan if you want his cure to work. Anyway, his tree is well worth seeing – to make a pun. To find your way, ask for the graveyard at Murphy’s Cross on the road to Portlaoise from Mountrath.
Before going back to my story, I should add that I also have a very great devotion to the Sacred Heart and I pray every single day that Our Lord will send us some young men who would like to become Jesuit Brothers.
I believe there a lot of young men in Ireland who would find his a very rewarding way of life.
Back in Tullabeg, I did a lot of work as a carpenter, and liked it because I felt it was Christ-Like. For most of His Life, Jesus worked with his hands as a carpenter, and I often pondered about that while I was at work. I don’t want to bore you by listing all the jobs I did over such a long period of years. I could tell you about the six boats I built for the canal and about the acoustic ceiling I added to the huge refectory and about the rexine padding I put on the kneelers of the People’s Church, and on and on. But I’m sure you only want to hear the exciting bits, so let me tell you about the night Rahan Hall went on fire.
The old school-house in Rahan village was falling to piece, so John Monaghan – a great carpenter – and myself were asked to “Put some kind of a face on it”. This meant renovating it from top to bottom, inside and outside. We were told to build a stage so that the building could be used as a Local Hall for meetings and stage shows. The work took ages but it turned out fine in the end and the locals were very proud of it. Over the years some great acts were put on there, plays and dramas and pantomimes and all the rest of it. I played my part in all the scenic sketches, producing the side wings and the rest of the scenery just as I had done at home as a young fellow. Sometimes I’d be able to borrow back-drops from the College at Tullabeg where we had a stage the same size.
Well, one night in the winter of 1961 I was asleep in bed. My room was in the wing of the building nearest to the village. It was well after eleven o’clock that night when a sudden bang woke me up. There was a loud, cracking noise and when I looked out my window I could see flames rising in the distance. Brother Andy Bannon– our famous cook- was in the room next to mine and he was wakened too. The pair of us got dressed in an instant and sped down to Rahan on our bikes.
To my horror I soon discovered that it was the Community Hall that was on fire, with flames leaping into the air and the whole building blazing like a furnace. We couldn’t even approach it, the heat was that bad. The nearest Fire Brigade was in Tullamore but sure the whole building had burned to the ground before the firemen arrived. Everything was destroyed: all the scenery and the props and the stage I had built and everything. It was a great pity because all the local people had happy memories of the fun they had in Rahan Hall. It was years before they were able to replace it.
