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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: 10 February 1916, Killyon, County Meath
Entered: 14 August 1934, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois

Left Society of Jesus: 19 November 1934

Coppinger Row, Dublin

Clongowes Wood College was bought by the Jesuits in 1814 at the cost of £16,000. In 1886, the Jesuit-run St. Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, county Offaly, was amalgamated with Clongowes Wood College. The school is dedicated to St. Aloysius of Gonzaga and is twinned with Portora Royal School, Enniskillen.

Rectors of Clongowes:
Peter Kenney 1814
Charles Aylmer 1817
Bartholomew Esmonde 1820
Peter Kenney 1821
Bartholomew Esmonde 1830
Robert Haly 1836
Robert St Leger 1841
Robert Haly 1842
Michael Kavanagh 1850
Joseph Lentaigne 1855
John McDonald 1858
Eugene Browne 1860
Robert Carbery 1870
Thomas Keating 1876
Edward Kelly 1881
John Conmee 1885
Matthew Devitt 1891
Michael Browne 1900
James Brennan 1900
Vincent Byrne 1904

Born: 1609, Galway City, County Galway
Entered: 09 August 1631, Seville, Spain - Baetica Province (BAE)
Ordained: 1636, Seville, Spain
Died: 05 December 1637, Galway Residence, Galway City, County Galway

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ General Notes
James Clune
DOB 1609 Galway; Ent 08 August 1631 Seville; Ord 1636 Seville; RIP 1638 Galway Residence
Studied at Santiago and Sevillle before he Ent at Seville 08 August 1631

After First Vows he returned to Theology at the College of San Hermenegildo Seville and was Ordained April 1636
1637 Sent to Ireland and probably sent to the Galway Residence. His career was short and he died sometime in 1638

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Two Entries

James Cluarus and James Clancy (corrected in pencil to Cluarus)
DOB Connaught; Ent 1627 or 08 August 1631 Spain (Dr W McDonald’s, of Salamanca, letter to Hogan) ad in pencil “recte 09 August 1631”

In Old/15 (1), Old/16 and Old/17
In CATSJ A-H

Born: 28 February 1900, Australia
Entered: 30 April 1917, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)

Left Society of Jesus: 1918

Born: 05 February 1895, Waiau, North Canterbury, New Zealand
Entered: 15 August 1914, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 31 July 1927, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1931
Died: 16 February 1967, St Aloysius College, Milson’s Point, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1920 in Australia - Regency
by 1924 in Le Puy, Haute-Loire, France (TOLO) studying
by 1928 at Valkenburg, Limburg, Netherlands (GER I) studying
by 1930 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
Having Entered at Loyola Greenwich, he remained there for two years Juniorate after First Vows.
1919-1920 He was sent for a year teaching at St Aloysius College, Milsons Point
1920-1922 He was sent to Milltown Park Dublin for Philosophy
1922-1925 He went to Vals, France for further Philosophy
1925-1929 He was sent to Valkenburg Netherlands for Theology
1929-1930 He made Tertianship at St Beuno’s Wales
1931-1945 He returned to Australia and St Patrick’s College Melbourne where he taught Science and during that time was also Editor of the “Patrician” (1936-1939). He was an avid reader and had a good memory for many facts, especially in matters scientific. This, combined with a gift for seeing the unusual and less obvious angle made him a most interesting controversialist.
1945-1947 He went to work at the Norwood Parish
1947-1958 He was sent to the Holy Name Seminary at Christchurch, New Zealand, where he was Minister responsible for the house and farm. He also taught History of Philosophy and Chemistry at various times there.
1958 His last appointment was to St Aloysius College, Milsons Point, where he taught junior Religion, and did much work with the financial planning for the College re-development in 1962. He worked at this task with much enthusiasm and spent many hours filling in documents, checking records, and making out receipts, whilst also taking a keen interest in every stage of the redevelopment.. He took great pride in the establishment of every stage.

He became quite depressed during the last dew years of his life, and towards the end, when he developed heart and lung problems, he decided not to keep fighting to stay alive. He was buried from the College with the boys forming a guard of honour.

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

by 1893 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1894 at Enghien Belgium (CAMP) studying
by 1895 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1896 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER) studying
by 1900 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship

◆ 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

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: 1518, Embrun, France
Entered: 15 August 1535
Died: 29 August 1541, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)

Born:
Entered: 1612, Rome, Italy
Ordained: pre entry

Left Society of Jesus: 1612

◆ In Chronological Catalogue Sheet as Ent 1612

◆ Old/16 has a : “P Marcus Cody”; Ent 1612

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Was sent to Rome as a candidate for admission September 1612

Born: 12 July 1830, Trim County Meath/Loughanure, Clane, Co Kildare
Entered: 23 May 1858, Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare
Professed: 15 August 1868
Died: 29 March 1911, Mungret College, County Limerick

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was born at Trim but brought up at Loughanure, on the Meath and Kildare border.

At the time of Entry he had good knowledge of carpentry and building. In the 50 years he spent in the Province, he is in nearly all the houses, wherever a trusty man was needed to oversee and tale charge of a building project, or some important structural change safely through. So, he was at Crescent for the building of the Church there. He was also in Galway during the building of the Church there. Later he went to St Beuno’s in Wales during the construction of the new library there.
1887 By this time he began a special relationship with Mungret. He taught carpentry to a number of young men who came to the house to be trained as Brothers for the Missions. Later he went to Milltown as clerk of works for the building of the chapel there, and then back to Mungret to supervise the building of a new storey on the old buildings of the former Agricultural College.
Even though age had begun to undermine his strength he was still able to do a fair share of work by overseeing the work of others. He was a man of reflective and contemplative style, and his conversation often gave evidence of true insight and good judgement. Among the football and cricket students he was their oracle for the weather!
He was an observant religious, peaceful in his dealings with all, never querulous, and he bore the increasing infirmities of age with great patience. Winters became more taxing, but he always seemed to emerge from this season hale and hearty. Even toward his end, there had been hopes by all that he would be seen strolling thought the grounds and corridors. He said “If the east wind holds it will carry me off, if it changes I shall pull round again for a bit, please God”.
He died peacefully 29/03/1911, and after the Requiem Mass he was brought to the small cemetery and buried between William Frayne and David MacEvoy, and close to the grave of William Ronan.

Note from Francis Hegarty Entry :
He did return after some months, and there he found in Father Bracken, a Postulant Master and Novice Master, and this was a man he cherished all his life with reverence and affection. His second Postulancy was very long and hard - four years. he took the strain and was admitted as a Novice with seven others who had not had so trying a time as himself. He liked to say that all seven along with him remained true to their vocation until death, and he was the last survivor. They were Christopher Coffey, John Freeman, David McEvoy, James Maguire, John Hanly, James Rorke and Patrick Temple.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Brother Christopher Coffey 1830-1911
Christopher Coffey was born in 1830 at Loughanure, on the borders of Meath and Kildare. In 1858 he entered the Society as a coadjutor Brother. He had a good knowledge of building and carpentry, so during the half century he spent in the Society, he resided in those houses where building or structural works were necessary.

This he was at Crescent for the building of the Sacred Heart Church. Similarly he was in Galway for the building of the Church of St Ignatius. He was actually sent across the water to St Beuno’s for the erection of the library there. In 1887 his special connection with Mungret began.

In Mungret he taught a class of young men who had come to be trained as coadjutor brothers for the foreign missions. He interrupted this task to go to Milltown Park for the building of the chapel, but was soon back in Mungret to assist at the building of the new storey to the original house.

He was an observant religious “just before God, walking in all the Commandments of the Lord without blame”. In his old age he was remarkably edifying and cheerful under his disabilities.When hopes were expressed by his friends of seeing his familiar figure round the grounds and corridors for many more years, he used say “If the east wind holds it will carry me off; if it changes I shall pull around again for a bit, please God”.

He retained his faculties to the last, and fortified by the Rites of the Holy Church, he passed away peacefully on March 29th 1911, and he was buried in the cemetery at Mungret, close to the grave of Fr Ronan.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1911

Obituary

Brother Christopher Coffey SJ

Another of the old familiar faces has vanished from our midst. Few of our past students but will remember Br Coffey. On and off he had lived some twenty years in the college. During that time he had ever the cheery “good-day” for all, the big and the little, the young and the old.

Born at Trim in 1830, and brought up at Loughanure, on the borders of Meath and Kildare, Christopher Coffey entered the Society in 1858 as a Lay Brother. He had at the time a good knowledge of building and carpentry, During the half century he spent in the Society he resided in nearly all the houses of the Irish Province, wherever a trusty man was needed to take charge of a rising edifice or to see some important structural change safely through. Thus he was at the Crescent House, Limerick, for the building of the Church of the Sacred Heart some 46 years ago. Similarly he was at Galway, when the Church of St Ignatius was built, and he went later on to the College of St Beuno's, N Wales, for the erection of the new library there.

His special connection with Mungret began about 1887, when he taught carpentry to a number of young men who had come to this house to be trained as Lay Brothers for the foreign Missions, under a plan which was in trial for a couple of years. Later on he was at Milltown Park, as clerk of the works for the building of the chapel, and back here again when the new storey was being added to the old buildings or former Agricultural College.

As age undermined his strength he could still do his share for the general good by overseeing the labours of others. He was of a reflective and even a contemplative turn of mind, and his conversation often gave much evi dence of true insight and sound judginent. Among the football and cricket enthusiasts of the school he was looked up to as their trusted oracle of the weather.

He was an observant religious, and we may say of him that he was “just before God, walking in all the Commandments of the Lord without blame”. Peaceful in his dealings with all, he was in no wise querulous, bearing, the increasing infirmlties of old age with admirable patience: Last winter had tried him severely; but in spite of the ups und downs he would re-appear seemingly hale and hearty as ever. Even to nearly the end, hopes were entertained of again seeing his familiar figure stroll about the corridors and grounds. . But In his own philosophic way; he said - “If the east wind holds it will carry me off, if it changes I shall pull round again for a bit, please God”. He retained his faculties to the last, and fortified with the rites of Holy Church he passed away peacefully on Wednesday, the 29th of March. . On the following Friday, after Requiem Mass and Office, his re mains were borne to the little' cemetery, and were there laid to rest between those of Brs Frayne and MacEvoy, and close to the grave of Fr Ronan, where with them and some other fellow-workers he awaits the final trumpet-call. RIP

Born: 14 November 1901, Ardbarra, Magazine Road, Cork, County Cork
Entered: 29 September 1925, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly

Left Society of Jesus: 15 February 1932 (from Belvedere College SJ, during Regency)

In the year of his birth his parents took over a drapery business in Washington Street, Cork City.

Fourth of six boys with two sisters.

Early Education at a local Convent school he went to Christian Brothers College Cork City. After school he went to work for Cork County Council, and then moved to the Ministry of Finance, Merrion Street, Dublin

1925-1927: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, Novitiate
1927-1928: Rathfarnham Castle, Juniorate
1928-1931: Heythrop College, Oxfordshire (ANG) studying Philosophy
1931-1932: Belvedere College, Regency

RIP by 1991

Born: 15 October 1844, Killaloe, County Clare
Entered: 14 November 1864, Milltown Park, Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 1867

Educated at Sacred Heart College, Crescent, Limerick; Summerhill College; Irish College, Paris

by 1866 at Palensis (TOLO) Novice, health

1864-1865: Milltown Park, Dublin, Novitiate
1865-1866: Palencia, Spain (TOLO), Novitiate (for health reasons)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - From delicate health, was compelled to leave after three and a half years. He was not allowed take First Vows.

Born: 10 June 1909, Washington Street, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 01 September 1926, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1941, Milltown Park
Final Vows: 02 February 1944, Mungret College SJ, Limerick
Died: 19 August 1983, Kilcroney, County Wickow

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

Parents had a drapery business in Washington Street, Cork City.

Youngest of six boys with two sisters.

Early Education at a Convent school, he went to CBC Cork. in 1921 he went to Presentation Brothers College, Cork City

1933-1934 Caring for Health
by 1967 at West Heath Birmingham (ANG) working
by 1970 at Southwark Diocese (ANG) working
by 1971 at St Ignatius, Tottenham London (ANG) working
by 1972 at Deptford London (ANG) working

Tertianship at Rathfarnham

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 58th Year No 4 1983

Gardiner Street
The summer months saw the passing of two members of our community. Fr Johnny McAvoy († 26th July), who had given us an outstanding example of cheerful endurance during his long struggle with ill health, was the first to go. As noted in our last report, he had had to return to Cherryfield Lodge some months ago, to receive special care. At the very end, however, he moved to Our Lady's Hospice, where he died after a brain haemorrhage which mercifully saved him from prolonged suffering.
Fr Paddy Coffey, who died almost a month later († 19th August), was also attached to our community, though he had been living at St Joseph's, Kilcroney, or many years. It is no exaggeration to say that he was a legend in the Province for his amazing will-power and persistence. It would have been fascinating to listen in to his last battle of with the Lord! His ever-widening circle of friends will miss his gentle but determined winning ways.
May he and Johnny rest in the the serenity of eternal peace.

Obituary

Fr Patrick Coffey (1909-1926-1983)

Paddy Coffey arrived in Tullabeg on 1st September 1926: a sporty little Corkonian ready for anything, a bony little flier at football who would go through you with delight, kicking the shins off you in his passage. He seemed to lose a lot of this zest in the he had a period of pious “broken head” - a term which older Jesuits may have to explain to younger, less pious ones.
As far as I recall he was well while in Rathfarnham, where he got an Honours BA, but after that he was seldom free from illness and disability. In philosophy at Tullabeg he had a long and serious illness, during which he was reduced almost to the state of a vegetable. It is said that the authorities thought he should leave the Society, but Paddy dug his heels in. That dogged and even obstinate determination became a well-known characteristic of his. He began philosophy in 1931, but his was so interrupted that it did not end until 1936.
After Tullabeg he spent two years in Mungret, where he was prefect of Third Club and teacher. After theology in Milltown, where he was ordained in 1941, in 1943 he returned
to Mungret, where by far the greater part of his life was to be spent: indeed, he became identified with Mungret. For two years he was prefect of First Club. The boys used to mimic a saying from a pep-talk of his: Rugby is a game of blood and mud! When there was a difference of opinion about policy or a fixture, he would fight quite fiercely to the last and when he yielded, it was from his religious spirit.
Besides teaching, he also edited the Mungret Annual. This was his greatest work in and for Mungret. He had a great feeling for the boys - I never heard him running them down - and an exceptional involvement with the Past: probably the reason he was made editor of the Annual. Indeed, he founded and produced the Mungret Eagle for the Past. This was a brochure of about 8 to 12 pages,containing photographs and all the bits of news that could be gathered about their whereabouts and activities, with a section about the Present. It was sent out free several times a year, and was eagerly read.
I don't think any function of the Mungret Union took place without him. Later on, in Gardiner street, he asked Fr Kieran Hanley if he might go to the Mungret Union dinner. When that benign and not easily outwitted superior, said, “Certainly,Paddy, in fact you ought to go”'. Paddy added, with his little grin, “It's in London, you know”.
Paddy's life-story is less than half told without mention of his serious accident. He was on a supply in the Dartford area of Kent in August 1953: the date was the 16th. His motor-bike stalled as he was crossing the highway, and a speeding car crashed into him. He was unconscious for at least a week and a leg had to be amputated. The hospital staff said that in his situation any ordinary person would have died, and they were astonished at his exceptional determination, which gradually carried him through. He never learned to use the artificial leg as it could be used, but when he returned to Mungret, he had obviously resolved to carry on as if nothing had happened. He got a bicycle made with one loose pedal crank, and on it he propelled himself shakily with one leg into town almost every day. He also insisted on keeping his room at the very top of the house, until the community could no longer bear the nerve-racking sound of him stumping up the stairs at midnight or later. It was during these years that his notable work with the Union and the Annual was done. He also taught (at least until 1964), but was quite likely to fall asleep in class.
He was well-known to be quite shameless and even peremptory in 'exploiting' his friends of the Past with regard to motor transport by day or by night. When he had left Mungret (which he did in 1966), I happened to be with a group who were jokingly recalling the occasions when they were commandeered, and it made me wonder when they ended up saying unanimously “All the same, he was a saint”. I have always suspected that he gave a good deal of his presence to less well-off people in Limerick, but Paddy played his cards so close to his chest that one never
knew the half of his activities,
Mention of cards reminds me that he loved card games, “hooleys”, sing songs, hotels, and visiting his friends. Yet I always felt that though he was ready for any escapade that didn't involve excommunication, with himself he was a very strict religious, unswervingly faithful to the way he was brought up.
I don't think anyone expected that he would ever leave Mungret as well again, but in 1966 he launched out, “wooden leg” and all, to Birmingham, where he did parish work for three years, then for six more years did the same in Deptford (Southwark diocese). In 1975 he joined the Gardiner street community, but lived in some kind of accommodation in North Summer street and worked in Seán McDermott street parish.
He was about a year in Dublin when he suffered a stroke which left: one arm useless and affected his leg. With his unconquerable determination he soldiered on in St Joseph's, Kilcroney, for seven long and trying years, keeping in touch with his friends by continual letters, getting taken out at every opportunity, even when he was reduced to using a wheelchair. He was always glad to see members of the Society. The last, almost inaudible, words I heard from him, a few hours before he died (19th August 1983), were “Coffee, piles of it, but don't tell the nurse!”
May he rest in peace at last, and may his long sufferings and indomitable spirit merit for him 'above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.

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: 28 December 1873, Shanrahan, Clogheen, Cahir, County Tipperary
Entered: 07 September 1893, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 26 July 1908, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1911, St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Died: 10 October 1954, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway

by 1896 at Roehampton London (ANG) studying
by 1897 at Valkenburg Netherlands (GER) studying
by 1910 at Linz Austria (ASR) making Tertianship

Editor of An Timire, 1912.

◆ 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 30th Year No 1 1955
Obituary :
Father Bartholomew Coghlan

Fr. Bartholomew Coughlan Fr. Coghlan was born on December 28th, 1873 at Clogheen, Co. Tipperary. After attending Mungret College he entered the Noviceship at Tullabeg on September 7th, 1893. He went to Roehampton for his classical studies in 1895, and did Philosophy in Valkenburg from 1896-1899. He came to Crescent College, Limerick in the summer of 1899, and taught there until he went to Belvedere in 1901. In 1903 he went to teach in Clongowes, and in 1905 began Theology in Milltown. He was ordained there in 1908 and after Theology taught for a year in the Crescent, then going to Linz, in Austria, for his Tertianship.
After Tertianship, Fr. Coghlan spent a year in Belvedere, teaching, and assisting Fr. Joseph MacDonnell, in the work of the Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart. Then he spent three years teaching in the Crescent, followed by four in Mungret. In 1918 he came to Galway to work both in church and school. He taught in the college until it was suspended in 1926, when he continued on with his work in the church. For a number of years he was Director of the Irish Sodality attached to St. Ignatius.
After long years of unswerving devotion to all aspects of church work, but especially to the arduous toil of the confessional, advancing age began to make its demands on his splendid constitution. For a time he fought off these attacks and continued to live by the regime he made peculiarly his own, but in the end he could no longer rally spent forces, and died peacefully, fortified by the rites of the Church, on October 10th. He was laid to rest mourned alike by the community, to which his very presence gave a special, highly-prized character, and his passing a sense of irreparable loss; and by the people of the city whom he had served so long and so unselfishly.
We give below two appreciations of Fr. Coghlan which have reached us. That the writers are separated by almost a generation suggests the universality of the appeal of Fr. Coghlan's personality,
“A man of giant frame, and of giant intellect and amazing memory; a reader and speaker of the chief European languages, Irish, German, French, English, Italian, Russian and Swedish and a lover of the classics; a historian consulted by many on the bye-ways of history, a theologian whose advice was widely sought for, especially in moral questions; a confessor, who was a real anam-chara, a soul friend, to prelates and priests and people, high and low, from all over Connacht; a true patriot, in the Fenian tradition, one of the first priests to join the Gaelic League, and always at hand with his aid in the fight for freedom - Fr. Batt was all that. But it was his sheer honesty and sympathy with our common humanity, his kindly self-sacrificing ways with the poor and the sick, and his rich fund of humour, springing from its spiritual root, humility, that endeared him to all who were privileged to know him. From that root, too, came a strange childlike simplicity that made him abhor all pose or affectation and was the chief characteristic of his death-bed, when as men view all life from ‘that horizontal’, all pose or affectation falls away.
“We have lost a mine of information, an unsparing confessor and comforter of souls, a true Irish priest, and a real community man.
“Go ndéantar toil Dé. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam umhal uasal”.
“When I thought of writing something by way of appreciation of Fr. Coghlan, a remark of Fr. Peter Dwyer, who died some years since, occurred to my mind : '’ am a good friend of Fr. Coghlan's’ - and then, ruefully, ‘But Fr. Coghlan is very hard on his friends’. He was alluding, of course, to Fr. Coghlan's obliviousness of time, once he had induced you to sit down in the big chair - which he himself rarely or never used, ‘for a few words’. Fr. Coghlan loved a chat - it was his only relaxation in these later years when he became unable to move about freely; the wonder is that he survived, and with relatively good health, without some modicum of physical exercise.
And then while you were thus ensconsed you had the benefit of his varied knowledge the method was informal - the transitions, simplicity itself; but when you surveyed this mass, you found included - Russia and Sweden, and Germany and Italy, an episode from Michelet, a remark from Pastor. But these were only a fraction of his acquisitions; then Silva Gadelica and Séadhna and the Homes of Tipperary brought him home and it was home moulded his outlook, however extensive his other learning. With all that he was not merely bookish; his wide experience as a confessor had broadened the humanity in him which won him so much esteem and so many friends at home and without. Some of these friends were won many years previously, and correspondence continued when direct contact had long become impossible; his Christmas letters were well nigh as far-flowing as his reading - to religious whose vocations he had fostered, to scholastics or young priests who had won his intimacy while attached to the staff here. In his friendship for the latter particularly, I think, he preserved his youth.
His character and whole temperament was simple and straight forward; nothing studied or calculated attracted him; he was impatient of affectation or what appeared affectation to him and he reacted accordingly; if he had a ‘wart’ it was this - that he was possibly over-sensitive on this point.
The sincerity, which was instructive, was readily recognised; the sympathy and consolation he could provide in his equable fatherly way made him the confessor par excellence and priests and laity, having once discovered this treasure, returned continuously over long years for his guidance. These demands were no small burden, but he was devoted to this work and even towards the end - when his strength was evidently overtaxed - he replied to expostulations ‘some people will probably be waiting below who would find themselves less at home with another’ and he trudged to the box.
These appear to be the salient points in this review from one who only knew him late; if Fr. Dwyer's remark was true we only now appreciate ‘when the well is dry’ that the balance of payments for time expended was all in our favour his value was of things from afar. R.I.P.”

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Bartholomew Coughlan 1873-1954
Fr Batt Coughlan, as he was affectionately called, was a man of giant frame, giant intellect and amazing memory, a reader and speaker of the eight chief European languages, including Russian and Swedish.

He was a lover of the classics, an historian, consulted by many on the by-ways of history, a theologian whose advice was widely sought for, especially in moral questions. He was a confessor who was a real “anam-cara”, a soul friend to prelates, priests and people, high and low from all over Connaught.

He was a true patriot in the Fenian tradition, and one of the first priests to join the Gaelic League, always at hand with his aid in the fight for freedom.

But is was his sheer honesty and sympathy with our common humanity, his kindly self sacrificing ways with the poor and the sick, and his rich fund of humour springing up from its spiritual root, humility, that endeared him to all. From that root too came a strange childlike simplicity, that made him above all pose of affectation, and was the chief characteristic of his death bed, when as men view all life from that horizontal, all poise of affectation falls away.

He was born in Clogheen Tipperary inn 1873, educated at Mungret and entered at Tullabeg in 1893.

His life in the Society was spent mainly in the classroom and Church. From 1918 he was stationed at Galway, till the breath left him peacefully and effortlessly on October 10th 1954.

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1955

Obituary

Father Bartholomew Coghlan SJ

Fr Batt Coughlan was born on December 28th 1873, at Clogheen, Co Tipperary. After leaving Mungret College he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Tullabeg in 1893. After doing some of his studies abroad he was ordained in 1908 at Milltown Park. After completing his studies, Fr Coughlan spent a year in Belvedere assisting Fr Joseph McDonnell in the work of the Irish Messenger. There followed three years teaching in the Crescent College, with four in Murgret. In 1918 he went to Galway to work in both school and Church, where he spent the remainder of his life.

Fr Coughlan was a man of great intellect, and amazing memory. He spoke the chief European languages, Irish, French, German, Italian, Russian and Swedish, and loved the classics. He was a historian consulted by many on the byeways of history, a theologian whose advice was often sought on moral questions, a confessor who was a real soul friend to prelates, priests and people of all classes from all over the West. It was, however, his sheer honesty and sympathy with our common humanity, his kindly self sacrificing ways with the poor and sick and his rich fund of humours spring from its spiritual root, humility, that endeared him to all who were privileged to know him. From thắt root too came a strange childlike simplicity that made him abhor all pose and affectation, and was characteristic of his deathbed when all pose and affectation fall away. As some one remarked “We have lost a mine of information, an unsparing confessor and comforter of souls, a true Irish priest, and a real community man”. RIP

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

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

Father Bartholomew Coghlan (1873-1954)

Was born in Clogheen, Co. Tipperary and at the end of his school days at Mungret College, entered the Society in 1893. He studied at Rhoehampton, Valkenburg, Milltown Park, and in Austria. He was ordained priest in Dublin in 1908. Father Coghlan's first association with the Crescent was during his scholastic days from 1899-1901. He returned as a priest in 1908 but spent only a year. He was again at the Crescent from 1911 to 1914. He continued as master at Mungret College (1914-18) when he left for St Ignatius College, Galway, where he remained until his death. By modern standards, Father Coghlan was not a great teacher. He was, perhaps, too learned to be a successful master. His repertoire of languages included Gaelic, French, German, Italian, Russian and Swedish. But he carried his gifts modestly. He was universally loved and respected by his pupils. During his long association with Galway city, Father “Bart”, as he was affectionately known, was the anam-chara of the town and county. His spiritual direction was highly valued by the clergy, religious and laity alike.

Born: 07 January 1840, Cloonboy, Claremorris, County Mayo
Entered: 07 September 1861, Milltown Park, Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 04 October 1872

Educated in Tuam and at Belvedere and Clongowes

1861-1863: Milltown Park, Dublin, Novitiate
1863-1864: Manresa, Roehampton, England (ANG) studying Philosophy
1864-1865: Sacred Heart College Crescent, Limerick, Regency
1865-1869: St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, Regency
1869-1871: Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying Philosophy
1871-187: St Beuno’s, Wales, studying Theology

Born: 21 April 1829, Templebraden, County Limerick
Entered: 23 July 1852, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Ordained: 20 September 1862, St Francis Xavier Church, St Louis University, St Louis MO, USA
Professed: 02 February 1866, Leavenworth KS, USA
Died: 07 August 1897, St Louis University St Louis, MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Diocese of Meath.

First World War: Served as Chaplain.

Following the outbreak of World War II on September 3, 1939, Monsignor Coghlan was appointed Assistant Deputy Chaplain-General of the British Army and the principal Roman Catholic Chaplain to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), that sailed to France to serve alongside the French Army.

On returning to Britain from Dunkirk, Monsignor Coghlan was appointed to the rank of Vicar General of the British Army, becoming, in effect, the commanding officer of 700 Roman Catholic Chaplains who were serving in the British Army.

Born: 10 November 1936, Orchardstown Drive, Templeogue, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1955, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 10 July 1969, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1977, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died : 26 December 2023, London England

Left Society of Jesus: 1988

Father was a departmental manager in a plastics factory.

Mother lived at Linden Gardens, London, England.

Older of two boys.

Early education was at a Convent school and then at Donore CBS for six years after which he went to Synge Street. He won a Dublin Corporation University Scholarship.

by 1963 at Loyola Spain (LOY) studying
by 1975 at Medellín, Colombia (COL) making Tertianship

Address 2000: Roseberry Road, Hounslow, London, Middlesex, England

Born: 29 October 1933, Erinagh, Farranshone, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1951, St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 29 July 1965, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 15 August 1970, Wah Yan College, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Died: 02 September 2021, St Paul’s Hospital, Hong Kong - China Province (CHN)

Part of the Ricci Hall, Hong Kong community at the time of death

Son of Mr and Mr. John Coghlan. GFather was a Civil Servant in the Department of Posts & Telegraphs.

Two older sister.

Early education was at a Convent school in Limerick and then at Crescent College SJ for nine years.

1951-1953 St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
1953-1956 Rathfarnham Castle - Studying
1956-1959 St Stanislaus College Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1959-1961 Xavier, Cheung Chau, Hong Kong - Regency, studying language
1961-1962 Wah Yan, Hong Kong - Regency, teaching
1962-1966 Milltown Park - studying Theology
1966-1967 Rathfarnham Castle - Tertianship
1967-1978 Wah Yan Kowloon, Hong Kong - teaching; Rector (1972)
1978-1981 Provincial’s Residence, Ricci Hall, Hong Kong
1981-1983 Casa Ricci, Largo de Sto Agostinho, Macau, Hong Kong
1983-1988 Wah Yan Kowloon, Hong Kong
1988-1996 Wah Yan Hong Kong
1996-2021 Provincial’s Residence, Ricci Hall, Hong Kong

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/sean-coughlan-rip/

Remembering Sean Coghlan, SJ (1933-2021)

Sean was born in Limerick in 1833 and was educated at Sacred Heart College, the Crescent. A good student, with a quiet sense of humour and easy manner, he had a keen interest in sport, especially rugby and hurling, though his own slight frame militated against prowess in such games.

Beneath an unassuming exterior, he had a strong will and a deep spiritual sense. He joined the Jesuits on leaving school and followed the usual programme of formation until 1959 when he was appointed to Hong Kong. Returning to Ireland for theology, he was ordained priest in 1965. He returned to Hong Kong two years later and in 1972 was appointed rector of the Wah Yan College, Kowloon. Aged 40 years, he was the youngest of the 46 Irish Jesuits in Hong Kong.

Many years on, marking his golden jubilee in 2001, the General of the Society wrote praising him for his leadership as rector of Wah Yan, Kowloon, 1972-’79, and as principal of Wah Yan, Hong Kong, 1986-1997. There was also a mention of his efforts in support of the rights of seamen (a life-long interest), and his initiatives in the work of street sleepers. The General might have added his service of refugees, and his abiding interest in and care of students, past and present.

In this last area, he and Fr Deignan, as principals of the two Wah Yans, went to Canada in August 1990 as guests of the Past Students Association in Toronto and Vancouver. They received a most warm welcome. Seven years later, during a furlough, Sean had a memorable visit to past students in the United States and Canada. He recalled: ‘Ex-HK people were in tears when they saw me’. He was ‘bewildered and humbled by the gratitude and respect expressed by the alumni’.

One past student put into writing a tribute to Jesuit education which Sean cherished – “Jesuit education … probes the meaning of human life… Its objective is to assist in the fullest possible development of the God-given talents of each individual person as a member of the human community … Jesuit education insists on individual care and concern for each person.” It reflected Sean’s own care and concern.

Despite the responsibilities of position and office, Sean, though he could be quite assertive when the occasion required it, remained affable, approachable, and kept his sense of fun and humour. This characteristic could lead to unusual situations at times. Notably in 1989 when Father General, Pedro Arrupe, visited Hong Kong.

Sean, as rector, and Paddy McGovern, as his minister, waited at the lift one night for the return of the General from a late dinner. From time to time they used to put in time clowning at bull fighting. On this occasion, after a long wait, they indulged in the pursuit. To the extent, indeed, that they did not hear the lift starting up. Consequently, when the General emerged from the lift he found the Father Minister crouched down with his fingers to his head representing horns and fiercely charging the Rector in trousers and singlet, waving his shirt as a cape and executing a dangerous pass. Fortunately, Fr Arrupe, a Basque gentleman, found the spectacle amusing.

Ten years later, in 1999, there was much concern over an operation for cancer on Fr Freddie Deignan. After the operation, Sean sent a relieved fax message to the Provincial that Fr Deignan had come through the operation very well – ‘Shortly after the operation he asked me if Manchester United had won their match last night’.

In 2005, on the occasion of a visit from the Irish taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, Fr Deignan, in his address, mentioned that the Irish province had sent a total of 105 Jesuits to Hong Kong and that now there were just ten left. The decline in numbers led to a decision to produce a history of the Hong Kong Mission. This was commissioned in 2005 and was published in 2008 as Jesuits in Hong Kong, South China and Beyond (1926-2006), a volume of more than 800 pages and 236 photographs.

In the subsequent years the work of the mission proceeded at a somewhat lesser pace, with Fr Deignan receiving honorary doctorates in recognition of his work for education in Hong Kong, while his friend Sean Coghlan remained a welcoming presence at Ricci Hall and went on with his quiet work for students as warden.

For recreation, he continued his practice of long walks, often accompanied by his friend, a Protestant minister. As the years passed, his health deteriorated gradually, but he still kept an active interest in the fortunes in rugby of his home province and rejoiced at the all-Ireland success of his home county in hurling. He died loved and respected at the age of eighty-eight years. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Thomas Morrissey,

Born: 22 December 1813, County Offaly
Entered: 21 October 1844, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Died: 07 April 1854, Osage City, KS, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Since 1620 the Jesuits have, with some involuntary intermissions, been working in Galway. In 1645 our first school was founded through the generosity of Edmund Kirwan. The school, incorporated it seems into a Jesuit residence in the present Abbeygate St, survived and flourished although it had been established at a time of political upheaval and military activity. After the surrender of Galway to the Cromwellian forces in 1652, the Jesuits tried to maintain contact with the people of the area, and there is reference in 1658 to three members of the Society living secretly in County Galway. Jesuits returned openly to Galway after the Restoration of Charles II, but were banished again by Williamite forces in 1691. Once more they made a comeback in 1728 and for forty years they worked among the people of Galway. Sadly, a decrease in manpower forced the withdrawal of the “Mission” in 1768.

In 1859, at the request of the Bishop, members of the Order once more took up residence in the city, this time in Prospect Hill and served in St Patrick’s Church. Within a year they had opened a college near the site of the present Bank of Ireland at 19 Eyre Square. The college’s present location on Sea Road dates from 1863. The modern phase of Coláiste Iognáid began in 1929. The local enthusiasm for the language revival efforts of the emerging State was to be served by a re-invigorated Coláiste Iognáid, which became an Irish-medium School in 1931.

The college now is a co-educational, bilingual, non-fee-paying secondary school.

Born: 23 February 1909, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 20 December 1927, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 15 August 1939, Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin
Died: 25 March 1991, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin

Born: 26 December 1888, Bagenalstown, County Carlow
Entered: 07 September 1908, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Died: 29 November 1911, Petworth, Sussex, England

Father was a doctor and mother died on 7th January 1889 (12 days after his birth).

Youngest of one boy and one girl.

Early education was five years at Dominican Convent Wicklow, then five years at Castleknock College, and then four years at Clongowes Wood College SJ. He then spend sixteen months studying medicine at the Royal University.

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was the youngest son of Dr Francis Colgan of Carlow, and before Entry he had been studying Medicine, having been called to Honours in the Royal University in all of his subjects.

He was a Scholastic of good promise, but he died of decline 29 November 1911 at Petworth, where he had been receiving care for his health.

◆ The Clongownian, 1912

Obituary

Father Ernest Colgan SJ

It is with sincere regret that we have to announce the death, at the early age of twenty-two years, of Mr Ernest Colgan, which occurred at Petworth, Sussex, on November 29th last. Ernest was the youngest son of Dr Francis P Colgan JP, Carlow, to whom in this great bereavement manifestations of sympathy and sorrow have gone forth from a wide circle of friends. Mr Colgan, having completed his collegiate studies at Clongowes, where he had been from 1902 to 1906, elected to follow in the footsteps of his father and eldest brother by adopting the medical profession, and during his studies showed so much ability as to be called to Honours in the Royal University in every subject in which he presented himself. Realising that he had a higher calling, he abandoned the career of his choice, and entered the Novitiate of the Jesuit Order. Showing signs of delicacy last year, he was transferred to the Jesuit Sanatorium at Petworth, where, despite every care, he passed away very peacefully. He was buried in the Jesuit cemetery at Petworth.

Born: 14 January 1849, Kilcock, County Kildare
Entered: 18 March 1868, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1881, North Great George's Street, Dublin
Final vows: 02 February 1888
Died: 06 August 1915, Mount Saint Evin’s Hospital, Melbourne Australia

Part of St Mary’s community, Miller St, Sydney, Australia at time of death.

Brother of John - RIP 1919
Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1871 at Roehampton London (ANG) studying
by 1877 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1881 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
Came to Australia 1896

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education at Clongowes.
Owing to ill health he made some studies privately.
He was sent for Regency as a Prefect at Tullabeg.
He was Ordained at the Convent Chapel in Nth Great George’s St Dublin, by Dr Patrick Moran, Bishop of Dunedin.
He was Procurator for some years at Clongowes and Dromore, and was Procurator also at Clongowes, and then Minister at UCD. He also spent time on the Missionary Band in Ireland.
1896 He sailed for Australia to join a Missionary Band there. He was Superior for a time at Hawthorn.
1914 He returned to Ireland but set sail again for Australia in 1915.
1915 He returned to Melbourne, but died rather quickly there 06 August 1915.

Note from John Gateley Entry
1896 He was sent to Australia with James Colgan and Henry Lynch.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
Brother of John - RIP 1919

His early education was at Clongowes Woof College before he Entered at Milltown Park.
1869-1870 He was sent to St Acheul, France for his Juniorate.
Owing to ill health he did the rest of his studies privately, and he was Ordained by Dr Moran of Dunedin, New Zealand in Ireland in 1881
1874-1880 He was sent to St Stanislaus College Tullabeg as a Teacher and Prefect of Discipline
1880-1888 He was sent to Clongowes where he carried out much the same work as at Tullabeg
1888-1891 He was sent to St Francis Xavier Gardiner St for pastoral work, and then spent some time on the “Mission” staff giving retreats.
1891-1892 He was sent to University College Dublin as Minister
1892-1896 He went back to working on the Mission staff.
1897-1902 He was sent to Australia and began working as a rural Missionary
1902-1910 He was appointed Superior and Parish Priest at Hawthorn
1910-1915 He was appointed Superior and Parish Priest at St Mary’s Sydney

In 1914 he went back to Ireland, but returned to Australia the following year and died suddenly. He was a man of great austerity of life, and was valued as a Spiritual Director.

◆ The Clongownian, 1916

Obituary

Father James Colgan SJ

We deeply regret to learn of the death of the Rev James E Colgan SJ, which occurred at St Evin's Hospital, Melbourne, on Friday afternoon, August 6th, after an operation.

Fr Colgan was born on January 14th, 1849, at Kilcock, Co Kildare, Ireland. He entered the Society of Jesus on 18th March, 1868. His people were large property holders in that county. After entering the Society he studied at Milltown Park, Dublin, and subsequently continued his studies in France, England, and Ireland. He was for some time engaged in teaching in St Stanislaus College, Tullamore, and at Clongowes. After his ordination he filled important positions in both these colleges. Later he was engaged in missionary work. He occupied the position of Vice-President and Dean of Residence in the University College, Dublin. Subsequently he laboured in South Africa.

About 18 years ago he came to Australia, and was engaged in missionary work in Queensland, New South Wales and New Zealand. For eight years he was Parish Priest of Hawthorn, after which he was appointed to the parish of St Mary's, North Sydney, which position he held for five years. Two years ago he had the misfortune to break his thigh at North Sydney, and this confined him to hospital for some eight months. After his recovery be proceeded to Ireland, where he spent a year recuperating. He returned to Victoria about three months ago, and whilst giving a retreat at Bendigo recently he was seized with illness, and had to come to Melbourne and undergo an operation, from which he never rallied, passing away peacefully, as stated, on the afternoon of Friday, 6th August, fortified by all the consolations of Religion. On Saturday morning, the 7th August, the solemn dirge for the repose of his soul was celebrated in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Hawthorn, at 10.30 2m. The church was crowded - a proof that the people were not unmindful of the self-sacrificiog labours of the deceased priest, His Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne (the Most Rev Dr Carr) presided, and His Grace the Coadjutor-Archbishop of Melbourne (the Most Rev Dr Mannix) was also present.

“Advocate” (Melbourne), August 14th, 1915,

Born: 08 November 1846, Kilcock, County Kildare
Entered: 12 November 1867, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1883
Final Vows: 02 February 1886
Died: 26 June 1919, St Francis Xavier's, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Brother of James - RIP 1913

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1870 at Amiens, France (CAMP) studying
by 1871 at Leuven, Belgium (BELG) Studying
by 1882 at St Beuno’s, Wales (ANG) studying

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
After Noviceship he studied Philosophy in Europe, was Prefect for a long time at Clongowes for Regency, and then did Theology at St Beuno’s.
After Ordination he was appointed Socius to the Novice Master at Dromore, eventually becoming Master himself.
1888 Dromore Novitiate was closed and he took the Novices to Tullabeg.
1890 His health had begun to suffer so he was sent to Clongowes as Spiritual Father, and did this for a number of years.
He was next sent as Minister to Milltown for a couple of years, but again returned to Clongowes in the same capacity as before.
1901 He was sent to Gardiner St. He was always in compromised health and had a very weak voice, but worked away there for a number of years.
In the end he had a very long illness which he bore with great patience and he died at Gardiner St 26 June 1919. His funeral was held there, very simply, as it was difficult to get a choir together at that time.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Made his first Vows at St Acheul, France 13 November 1869

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father John Colgan 1846-1919
Fr John Colgan was born at Kilcock County Kildare on November 8th 1846.

At the end of his theological studies he was appointed Socius to the Master of Novices at Dromore, eventually becoming Master of Novices himself. In 1888 Dromore was closed and he took the novices to Tullabeg.. His health broke down and in 1890 he went to Clongowes as Spiritual Father. In 1901 he was posted to Gardiner Street.

He was never of robust health and he laboured according to his strength for a number of years. His last illness, which was long, he bore with great patience until his death on June 28th 1919. His funeral took place after Low Mass, as it was impossible to get together a choir of priests. His funeral was very simple, as every Jesuit’s should be.

◆ The Clongownian, 1920

Obituary

Father John Colgan SJ

John Colgan passed quietly away at St Francis Xavier's Presbytery, Gardiner Street, on June 19th last year. He was in Clongowes from 1860-67, where his brothers James and Edward, who both predeceased him, were also students. Fr Colgan spent most of his earlier life as a Prefect in Clongowes, Externally cold and formal, he was in private a most kind-hearted and even indulgent man. His Theological studies over, he was sent as Socius to the Master of Novices at Dromore, county Down. He subsequently became Master of Novices himself, and it was he who took the Novices to Tullabeg after that college had been amalgamated with Clongowes. Not long after, his health breaking down, he came to Clongowes as Spiritual Father, at which post - excepting a short interval as Minister at Milltown Park - he remained until 1901. The remainder of his life was spent in works of the ministry at St Francis Xavier's, Dublin, where he rarely left the precincts of the Presbytery except for an occasional short walk. His interest in and kindly disposition towards visitors helped not a little the success of his sacredotal functions. To his sister we tender the sympathy of many generations who knew Fr Colgan.

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.

Robert Sparkes, 31 Westmoreland Street, Dublin.

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: 17 March 1821, Donaghmoyne, County Monaghan
Entered: 15 July 1854, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Ordained: 1863
Professed: 08 September 1869
Died: 01 December 1876, Osage City, KS, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 25 September 1870, Duleek, County Meath
Entered: 05 January 1898, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Final Vows: 02 February 1909, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 14 March 1945, Milltown Park, Dublin

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 20th Year No 2 1945
Obituary
Br. Richard Collier (1870-1898-1945)

Brother Collier's happy death took place at Milltown Park on Wednesday night, March 14th, shortly before 9 p.n. He had received, a few hours previously, the last Sacraments. Though suffering from heart trouble and realising that the end was not far off he kept working gallantly, being occupied even on the day of his death, after the doctor had been with him, with details of bookbinding. Brother Collier was born at Duleek, Co. Meath, on September 25th, 1870, and entered the Society at the age of twenty eight on January 5th, 1898. Previous to his entry he had worked in Dublin in the meat. trade. His employer, Mr. Dowling, had two butcher's shops, and found Richard Collier so efficient and trustworthy that he handed over to him the complete management of the shop in Britain Street. Brother Collier made his noviceship in Tullabeg under Fr. James Murphy as Master of Novices, and was cook and dispenser for twelve years, first at Tullabeg and then at Milltown Park, 1903-'12, and again at Tullabeg. After a year spent at Belvedere College he went to Rathfarnham Castle in 1913 as mechanic. He was destined to spend almost thirty years in this house, chiefly in charge of farm and grounds. When declining health forced him to retire from strenuous outdoor work, he was transferred to Milltown Park in 1942, where he continued to labour with great fidelity in the bookbinding department as assistant to Bro. Rogers. On more than one occasion during these last years of his life his help was sought at Gardiner St., when he supplied for a Brother who was sick or absent on retreat. On such occasions he gave of his best, and displayed his love of hard work and his genial affability, characteristic qualities of his, coupled with a spirit of prayer, which he seems to have possessed to a notable degree. At the Castle the sign of Brother Collier's hand is everywhere visible in farm and garden. He entered the Castle with Fr. James Brennan, the first Rector, on the day it was opened as a house of Ours, August 18th, 1913. One of his last gifts to Rathfarnham was the wonderful dry track right round the grounds, which he completed before leaving for Milltown. In Milltown the spick and span condition of the books in both libraries will long be a reminder of his industry. R.I.P.

Born: 24 November 1910, Laragh, Swatragh, County Derry
Entered: 02 September 1929, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 29 July 1943, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final vows: 03 February 1953
Died: 12 August 1987, St Ignatius, Lusaka, Zambia - Zambia Province (ZAM)

Part of the Namwala Catholic Church, Narwal, Zambia community at the time of death

Transcribed : HIB to ZAM 03 December 1969

Father was a farmer who died in 1924. Mother then lived at Beechcroft, Rasharkin, County Antrim, and is supported by private means.

Youngest of six boys with two sisters..

Early education Corlacky, and then a national school in Swatragh he went to St Columb’s College Derry

by 1948 at Rome Italy (ROM) - editing “Memorabilia”
by 1952 at Chikuni, Chisekesi, N Rhodesia (POL Mi) working - fourth wave of Zambian Missioners

Tertianship at Rathfarnham

◆ Companions in Mission 1880- Zambia-Malawi (ZAM) Obituaries :
Fr Bernard Collins (known to his friends as Barney) was born in the north of Ireland at Laragh, Co Derry. He entered the Society in September 1929. His course of studies was the usual one followed by members of the Irish Province. After the novitiate, a degree at the university in Dublin in humanities and a Higher Diploma in Education, philosophy in Tullabeg, and theology in Milltown Park where he was ordained on 31 July 1943.

At the university he took a classics degree, Latin and Greek, and when he did the Higher Diploma, he got a certificate to enable him to teach through Irish. He went to Rome for a number of years after his tertianship as an assistant secretary to the English Assistant. He added an extra language to his store, namely, Italian.

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. The ship's doctor diagnosed heart trouble in Barney so that he spent most of the voyage immobile in the prone position including when going through customs. At the Blue Sisters hospital in Cape Town, he was pronounced healthy and free from any heart ailment. It must have been the sea air that cured him as they were at sea for two weeks!

From 1951 to 1960 he was parish priest in Chikuni. It was here his renowned proficiency in Tonga showed itself. His earlier linguistic studies stood him in good stead as he composed several booklets. In Tonga, he produced 'Lusinizyo', his pamphlet against the Adventists; ‘Zyakucumayila’, 61 Sunday sermons for harried missionaries; a Tonga grammar (now used in schools); a short English/Tonga dictionary; a translation of a pamphlet on the Ugandan Martyrs; and ‘A Kempis' which was written but never published. His knowledge of the villages and people of his time is legendary and he was always willing to give of his time to any willing ear that might wish to know the Chikuni people and their relationships. Towards the end of this period in Chikuni, he founded the first Pioneer Total Abstinence Centre.

From 1960 to 1966, he worked in Chivuna as parish priest and Superior and also taught the language to the scholastics, who delighted in relating stories of far off days when they struggled to master the prehodiernal past.

Barney moved to Namwala parish from 1968 to 1973 with Fr Clarke as his companion in the community to be joined later by Fr Eddie O’Connor (and his horse). From 1973 to 1977 he was parish priest at Chilalantambo and returned to Chikuni in 1977 to be assistant in the parish to Fr Jim Carroll. He went back to Namwala as superior and parish priest with Fr Piekut as his assistant. The scene changed in 1984 when Fr Frank 0'Neill became superior and Barney was the assistant in the parish. This was his status at the time of his death
It was during lunch at St Ignatius, Lusaka, on Wednesday 12th August that Barney began to show signs of not being well. By five that evening he had gone to his reward. The funeral took place at Chikuni with 29 priests concelebrating. Fr Dominic Nchete, the principal celebrant, paid tribute to the long years that Fr Collins had mingled closely with the Tonga people. Bishop Mpezele in both English and Tonga re-echoed the sentiments of Fr Nchete.

Fr Collins, a very unassuming man, had a deep knowledge of the Tonga people and was truly an incarnation of becoming all things to all people. With his fluency in Tonga, it was a delight to listen to him preach which he did in the grand manner. He had a sympathy and understanding of the mentality and customs of the Tonga that few from overseas have achieved. Here are the concluding remarks of the funeral oration: "We pray that Fr Barney may have eternal rest where we are sure he will be able to sit and speak with so many from Tongaland that he had sent on before him"

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 62nd Year No 4 1987

Obituary

Fr Bernard Patrick Collins (1910-1929-1987) (Zambia)

The following obituary notice has been adapted from the one printed in the newsletter of the Zambian province, Jesuits in Zambia.

Fr Bernard Collins, born on 24th November 1910 in northern Ireland, entered the Society on 2nd September 1929. His course of studies was the usual one followed by members of the Irish province: noviciate (at Tullabeg and Emo, 1929-31), juniorate (at Rathfarnham, 1931-34) with university degree in classics, philosophy in Tullabeg (1934-37), regency in Belvedere (and Higher Diploma in Education: 1937-40), theology in Milltown Park (1940-44, with priestly ordination on 29th July 1943), and tertianship in Rathfarnham (1944-45). After two more years' teaching in Belvedere (1945-47) he was sent to the General Curia in Rome, where he worked as substitute secretary for the English assistancy (1947-51). There he also edited the Latin news-periodical, “Memorabilia Societatis Iesu”, which was a forerunner of the present-day “SJ news and features”.
In 1951 he accompanied the first two scholastics, Bob Kelly and Joe Conway, and Br Jim Dunne on their way to Northern Rhodesia (as Zambia was then called). En route the ship's doctor checked Barney's medical condition and diagnosed heart trouble, so that for most of the voyage and the passage through customs he lay flat and immobile. At the Blue Sisters hospital in Cape Town he was pronounced healthy and free from any heart ailment.
From 1951 to 1960 Barney was parish priest of Chikuni, and it was here that he developed his renowned proficiency in Tonga and wrote his Grammar, also “Lusinizyo”, his pamphlet against the Adventists. His knowledge of the villages and people of the Chikuni area were legendary, and he was always ready to give of his time to any hearer wishing to learn about the Chikuni people and their interrelationships. It was in April 1958, towards the end of his first time in Chikuni, that he founded the first Pioneer Total Abstinence centre.
From 1960 to 1966 he worked in Chivuna parish and was vice-superior of the community. He also taught the language to newly-arrived scholastics, who still entertain us with stories of those happy far-off days when they struggled to master the intricacies of the pre hodiernal past. During this time he was also a mission consultor.
From 1969 to 1974 Barney worked in Namwala parish with Frs Arthur Clarke and Edward O'Connor as his companions in the community. In 1975 for a short time Barney was parish priest at Chilalantambo. In 1976 he returned to Chikuni to be parish assistant to Fr Jim Carroll. During this his second spell in Chikuni, he had for some time Frs Joe McDonald and T O'Meara as collaborators. In 1983 he went to Namwala as superior and parish priest with Fr Antoni Piekut as his assistant. In 1984 the scene changed, with Fr Frank O'Neill becoming superior and Barney becoming parish assistant: this was his status at the time of his death.
It was during lunch at St Ignatius (Lusaka) on Wednesday, 12th August, that Barney began to show signs of illness. By five o'clock that evening he had gone to his reward. His funeral took place on the Friday (14th), with 29 priests concelebrating Mass. Fr Nchete as principal celebrant paid tribute to Fr Collins for mingling so closely with the Tonga people for long years. Bishop Mpezele in both English and Tonga re-echoed Fr Nchete's sentiments.
Fr Collins, a very unassuming man, had a deep knowledge of the Tonga people, and was truly an incarnation of the Pauline ideal of being all things to all people. He had a sympathy and understanding of Tonga mentality and customs that few from overseas have achieved. We pray that Fr Barney may have eternal rest where, we are sure, he will be able to sit and speak with the many from Tongaland that he had sent on before him.

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.

Entered: 1725
Died: 15 February 1725, Douai, France - Franciae Province (FRA)

In Old/15 (1); Chronological Catalogue Sheet; CATSJ A-H

Born: 04 July 1920, Clonskeagh Terrace, Clonskeagh, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1939, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1953, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1956, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 02 February 1996, Mater Hospital, Dublin

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

Youngest brother of John (RIP 1997) and Ted RIP (2003)

Father was a commercial traveller for Bovril. Parents lived at Strand Road, Sandymount, County Dublin.

Fourth of five brothers with two sisters.

Early education at O’Connells School for 8.5 years.

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 86 : July 1996
Obituary
Fr Desmond (Des) Collins (1920-1996)

4th July 1920: Born in Dublin
7th Sept. 1939: Entered the Society at Emo
8th Sept. 1941: First Vows
1941 - 1944: Rathfarnham Castle, BA at UCD
1944 - 1947: Tullabeg, Philosophy Limerick,
1947 - 1949: Crescent College, Regency
1949 - 1950: Belvedere College, Regency
1950 - 1954; Milltown Park, Theology
31st July 1953: Ordination at Milltown Park
1954 - 1955: Rathfarnham Castle, Tertianship
1955 - 1959; Clongowes Wood College, Teacher and Study Prefect
2nd Feb. 1956: Final Vows
1959 - 1973: Belvedere College, Teacher
1973 - 1976: Rathfarnham Castle, Minister
1976 - 1996; St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street
1976 - 1980: Assistant Prefect of the Church
1980 - 1981: Minister, Church Ministry
1981 - 1990: Chaplain to St Monica's, Director Jesuit Seminary Association (TSA), Church Ministry
1990 - 1994: Assistant Chaplain to St. Vincent's Private Hospital, Director JSA, Church Ministry
1994 - 96: Director JSA, Church Ministry, Assistant to Cherryfield Lodge.
Fr. Collins continued his Chaplaincy work at St. Vincent's Private Hospital until very recently, although in failing health. At the end of January, he got a severe pain and was operated on the same day for a ruptured aneurism. He suffered a heart attack during the operation, followed by renal failure. He never came off the life-support.
2nd Feb. 1996: Died at the Mater Hospital.

“I believe in the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting”.

This belief in the communion of saints is the reason for us all being here today for the funeral Mass of Fr. Des Collins who died last Friday. We are here either because we are his relatives or his companions as Jesuits or parishoners and friends who experienced his love and affection. The communion of saints is a bond which is not broken even by death.

In this funeral Mass we come together to ask God to have mercy on Des and to forgive him any sins which he may have committed in this life and to beg God to admit Des into the company of His saints in heaven.

Our Mass is also our Eucharist. We come together to thank the Lord for all the gifts he has given to this companion of Jesus and for all the good done by the Lord through Des during his life on this earth.

Des gave himself to the Society of Jesus when he was 19. After 14 years in formation, he was ordained a priest of the Society in 1953 and lived the priestly life to the full for 43 years - until he died last Friday, on the feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple. Des could say as Simeon said so long ago: “At last, all powerful Master, you give leave to your servant to go in peace, according to your promise”.

I have lived as a priest in Hong Kong for the past 46 years and so many of you had more contact with Des over the years here in Ireland. For the first 18 years of his priestly life he was teaching, first in Clongowes and then for about 14 years in Belvedere. For this period of his life I had little contact with him, as we did not come home so often from the missions. What I remember about him at that time was that he was a dedicated tennis coach in Belvedere, as well as being a dedicated teacher. But for the rest of his priestly life he was involved in more direct pastoral work and for over twenty years lived in this community of St. Francis Xavier's Gardiner Street, assisting in the Church but involved in many other pastoral activities as well.

To find out what people thought of Des, I asked several persons here with whom he lived or who knew him well. Many said he was a quiet, unassuming person. A person of great faith, he had a great love of persons. He had a good whimsical sense of humour. He was a very dedicated person both to his work and to his friends, many of whom were poor or sick. One colleague said to me at breakfast this morning “I wonder what will he say to Martin Luther when he sees him in heaven”, I myself thought afterwards, “And what will Paul the 6th say to him when Des meets him in heaven?” I met Des on the stairs one night at about 12.30, just after he had let a man out of the house. When I asked Des how come, he told me that this person had AIDS and that he was trying to find a place for him to live. Des had his limitations, as all of us have. But he was a kind, dedicated person who stood up for two fundamental values which he considered paramount: in the wider society he was pro-life and in his life in the Society he was pro-Pope. He concentrated so much on these two issues that I myself for a long time thought he over-emphasised them: the dignity of the human person, big or small and loyalty to the Pope as the mark of a Jesuit. But now he knows the truth and I wonder if he will feel vindicated. These two human and Christian values have many ramifications which we are now only beginning to realize.

Christ was a man for others and Des was a follower of his in this respect. When I was asked to say something about Des, a saying from Vatican II came to mind: “God has willed to make persons holy and save them, not as individuals but as members of a people” or of a family. I said that Des was involved in many other pastoral activities besides St. Francis Xavier's Church. For over twenty years he lived here and served in different capacities and was well loved by people in the parish. He was interested in the history of Gardiner Street Church and on the occasion of its 150th anniversary wrote a pamphlet on its history. What, then, were these other pastoral activities? I will mention only two here because I feel those were ones in which he had a special involvement. The first was being assistant chaplain to St. Vincent's Private Hospital. He was chaplain there for only five years but was sad and a bit indignant when his religious Superiors withdrew him for reasons of health. “I consulted several doctors”, he said to me, “and they told me my heart was alright”. But events showed that his superiors were right. The people in St. Vincents, whether patients or staff, had a deep affection for him.

The second pastoral activity was his summer holiday in California. Every year for more than twenty years he took a month or six weeks holiday in Susanville, north California, taking the place of the Irish pastor there who took his holidays in Ireland. Des would protest when we asked him: When are you going on holidays this year? I'm not going on holidays, he would say, I'm going to work in a parish. The parishioners there loved him and I found many letters to him in his room. Des could never take a holiday just for the sake of a holiday. When in Susanville he liked to golf on his free day. But this was an occasion for a group of Irish pastors in the diocese of Sacramento to meet him on the golf course, some travelling quite a distance. I believe he was to many of them an “anam chara” to whom they could bring their troubles, even on the golf course. They will miss him. So too his relatives, many of whom are here today.

One last remark. Since coming back, I have been living in Des's room and only here have I realized how much he himself has suffered from ill-health. I think it was a secret he kept to himself for he never complained until the pain was acute and he had to go to hospital. I chose the reading from St. Matthew's gospel today because I thought it appropriate to Des. Des had a love for persons, especially the sick and the marginalized. It was an Ignatian type of love, shown more by deeds than by words, for Des was not a demonstrative type of person. I can hear Christ saying to him: “Come you blessed of my Father and enter the kingdom, prepared for you since the coming of the world. As often as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me!” May we too hear these words from Christ's lips when we too come to the end of our journey in this life!

Ted Collins SJ, Tuesday, 6th Feb 1996 Feast of SS Paul Miki and Companions.

◆ The Clongownian, 1996
Obituary

Father Desmond Collins SJ

Those who were in Clongowes in the late 1950's may remember Fr Des Collins, who was teacher and study prefect here from 1955-59. A Dubliner, he spent the bulk of his working life as a Jesuit in the centre of the city - seventeen years in Belvedere College and the last twenty years of his life in Gardiner St. He died on the 40th anniversary of his Final Vows, 2 February 1996, aged 75. May he rest in peace.

Born: 09 August 1915, Clonskeagh Terrace, Clonskeagh, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1933, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 30 July 1947, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1951, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 27 February 2003, Canossa Hospital, Hong Kong - Sinensis Province (CHN)

part of the Ricci Hall, Hong Kong community at the time of death

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

Middle brother of John (RIP 1997) and Des RIP (1996)

Father was a commercial traveller for Bovril. Parents lived at Strand Road, Sandymount, County Dublin.

Third of five brothers with two sisters.

Early education at O’Connells School (1925-1933)

by 1939 at St Aloysius Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
After a short illness, Father Edward Collins, SJ, went peacefully to the Lord in Canossa Hospital (Caritas) on Thursday evening, 27 February 2003.

He was born into a very devout Catholic family in Dublin, Ireland, on 9 August 1915. At the age of 18 he followed his elder brother, John, into the Society of Jesus; another brother, Desmond later followed their example.

After first vows, he studied for a B.Sc. in maths and physics and complete his philosophical studies, then taught for three years before beginning a four-year course in theology. He was ordained a priest on 30 July 1947.

In 1949, he was sent to Hong Kong where he joined his elder brother John. After two years studying Cantonese, he was assigned to teach moral theology in the Regional Seminary, where he remained until 1964. Father Collins took two years during that time to obtain a doctorate in Rome.

In 1964, the Regional Seminary closed its doors and the building was handed over to the diocese of Hong Kong. Father Collins then devoted much of his time to setting up the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (CMAC), which was finally gazetted in 1967. At the same time he acted as defender of the marriage bond in the Diocesan Tribunal and became embroiled in the controversy about the legalisation of abortion in Hong Kong.

By 1971, he was back in the chair of moral theology, first in Dalat, Vietnam (1971-1973) and then in the Holy Spirit Seminary in Aberdeen, Hong Kong (1973-1981). He did not confine himself to forming the consciences of seminarians in the classroom. He also made himself available to give retreats and spiritual direction. His friendly manner ensured that he was much sought after as a confessor.

For years he was the spiritual guide of the Catholic doctors’ guild and the Catholic nurses guild. He spent the years from 1986 to 1992 as the master of novices and then as a full-time director of retreats in Xavier Retreat House, Cheung Chau.

Apart from teaching and spirituality, Father Collins took a keen interest in helping the marginalised in Hong Kong. He followed the example of his brother John, who had set up credit unions and fought for the rights of the disabled. The two brothers made a great contribution to giving Hong Kong a human face. Father Collins requested that a photo of his brother be put in his coffin with him.

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He was born into an ardent Catholic family in Dublin. He followed his older brother John into the Society, and a younger brother Des joined later.

After his Novitiate he studies at UCD, graduating with a BSc in Mathematics and Physics. He then studied Philosophy, and Theology.

He came to Hong Kong where he studied Cantonese and later taught Moral Theology at the Regional Seminary in Aberdeen until 1964. He then went to Rome to study for a Doctorate.
When he returned to Hong Kong he was devoted to setting up the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (HKCMAC) and helping the marginalised in Hong Kong. In this he was following in the footsteps of his older brother John who had set up credit unions, and fought for the rights of the disabled.

According to Freddie Deignan, Ted founded CMAC and was a Member of the Hong Kong Social Service.
In 1969 he took care of the lepers in Hong Kong and wrote many articles on moral questions.

He was a great defender of the marriage bond, and he also served as Spiritual Advisor to the Catholic Doctor’s and Nurses Guilds.

Note from Herbert Dargan Entry
He freed Fr John Collins for full-time social work, set up “Concilium” with Frs Ted Collins, John Foley and Walter Hogan. he also set up CMAC in 1963. He sent Fr John F Jones for special training in Marriage Life. He also sent Fr John Russell to Rome for training in Canon Law. he was involved with rehabilitation of discharged prisoners and he visited prisons.

Note from Paddy Finneran Entry
Ted Collins was with him in Limerick

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 117 : Special Issue November 2003

Obituary

Fr Edward (Ted) Collins (1915-2003) : China Province

Born, Dublin 9 Aug 1915.
Entered Emo, 7th September 1933.
Ordained in Milltown, 20th July 1947.
Joined the Hong Kong Mission, 1950,
Died in Hong Kong, 27th Feb 2003

Harry Naylor writes:

A month previously, Ted had been at a meeting of Spiritual Directors, dressed neatly and colourfully as usual, but with the obvious forgetfulness for which he was well known. A week earlier, he had been hearing confessions at the Catholic Centre as he had done for many years. The Monday before he died, he was at the priests' Day of Recollection.

The day before his operation, Fr Bemard Tohill SDB went to ask his advice and heard him say that he was second oldest Jesuit in Hongkong, after Joe Mallin.

Ted was taken to the Canossa Hospital on Wednesday 26th February for an operation because of a blockage in his intestines but, because of his heart condition, he declined to undergo it. He died at 9 pm in the hospital with Freddie Deignan (Delegate for Hongkong), Robert Ng, Seán Coghlan and Eaodain Hui (a longtime CLC member who had kept vigil by his bedside).

It was a mild dry evening on Monday 3rd March, when the Vigil Liturgy began at 8pm in a small room which could only seat fifty at the North Point Funeral Parlour. Fr Paul Chan conducted the service and spoke of Fr Ted as a real friend to many and a soulfriend to many more. The large crowd present was a clear indication of this. There were up to two hundred people in the corridor, bathed in the Buddhist sutra chants and sounds of cymbals and drums coming from an adjacent room. It was only with the singing of a hymn and later, when Paul Chan led the Glorious Mysteries, that all could participate in a loud voice.

The chief mourners were Freddie Deignan, Sean Coghlan and Sean Ó Cearbhalláin, with about a dozen other Jesuits, including Jimmy Hurley, Ciaran Kane, William Lo, Tom McIntyre, Joe Mallin, Harold Naylor, John Russell, Joe Shields, Simon Wong, There were also six other priests and a Protestant pastor friend, Hans Lutz. Among the Sisters were 6 Missionaries of the Immaculate Conception (MIC), 5 Little Sisters of the Poor, 3 Little Sisters of Jesus, 4 Columban Sisters. There were also lay people from the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council, Caritas HK, from the chapels of our two Jesuit schools and our retreat house. Fr Ted had worked with all these congregations and had spent his final years with the Little Sisters of the Poor, first as chaplain and later as a resident of their home.

On the day of the funeral there was a light drizzle and strong gusts of wind. The funeral Mass was held at the spacious Christ the King Chapel at St Paul's Hospital (Sisters of St Paul de Chartres) in Causeway Bay. The chapel was packed. It was a diocesan and not just a Jesuit funeral. The chief celebrant was Bishop Joseph Zen of Hongkong. Concelebrating in the sanctuary were Auxiliary Bishop John Tong with Msgr Eugene Nuget, Freddie Deignan, Ciaran Kane, Thomas Leung, Anthony Tam and Robert Ng and, in the body of the church, a large number of priests including Jesuits, diocesan priests from the cathedral, the seminary and parishes (17), Dominicans (3), Maryknoll (5), PIME (7) and Salesians (6) - about 60 altogether.

Also in the body of the church were some 300 mourners including representatives from the religious congregations (Little Sisters of the Poor, Canossians, Good Shepherd Sisters, St. Paul de Chartres, Irish Columbans and others). The laity were represented by the Catholic Women's League, the Focolare Movement, prayer groups as well as many elderly people whom Fr Ted had served. The liturgy was entirely in Cantonese.

Fr.Robert Ng spoke in Cantonese of Ted's seventy years as a Jesuit, 50 of which had been spent in were in Hong Kong and 30 teaching moral theology in seminaries. Robert spoke of Ted as being all things to all: poor and rich, Chinese and foreign, sick and healthy. He was a counsellor and an apostolic priest. Often on pilgrimages, he was recently in Shanghai and asked where he would like to make his next pilgrimage, to which he replied, “Eternal Life”.

Freddie Deignan spoke of him as one who loved his own family members, two of whom are still alive in Ireland, along with many nephews and nieces. With a group of dedicated Catholic doctors and nurses, Ted had set up the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council much to the delight of Bishop Bianchi of Hongkong. He made a significant contribution to the Church in Hong Kong and its society for more than fifty years. His life was one of hope in Eternal Life. There was a time to mourn as we do now, but also a time to die.

Ted was laid to rest in the Catholic cemetery in Happy Valley together with those Jesuits who had gone before him.

Arriving in Hongkong in 1950, Ted taught at the South China Regional Seminary and then went to Rome in 1959 for a doctorate in moral theology. On his return Bishop Bianchi asked him to help Catholics after the controversial encyclical Humane Vitae of 1968. Ted remained a loyal member of the CMAC till his death. He was most esteemed as a spiritual counsellor and had dedicated his life to spiritual direction.

After the Regional Seminary became the Hong Kong diocesan seminary, Ted continued to teach there while also being involved in other ministries, such as giving retreats. He also spent two years teaching moral theology at the major seminary in Dalat, South Vietnam. On his return to Hong Kong he became very interested in the plight of the Vietnamese “boat people”, thousands of whom had fled to Hongkong in the 1970s and after.

In later years, he spent a number of years at Xavier Retreat House on Cheung Chau Island but had to leave it in 1992 as a heart condition made the steep climb to the house difficult for him. He then became chaplain to St. Mary's Home for the Aged in Aberdeen, on the south side of Hong Kong Island, until 2000, when he himself became a resident, while still attached to the Ricci Hall community.

Ted was always deeply interested in the evangelisation of China and made spiritual direction his priority. He was also, for many years, a member of the Jesuit Faith and Justice Group and, like his older brother John, very committed to social justice.

Entered: 1690
Died: 12 November 1696, Douai, France - Franciae Province (FRA)

◆Catalogus Defuncti 1641-1740 has Carol Franciscus RIP 12 November 1696 Douai

◆Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Brother
RIP at Liège 12 November 1696 (CAT RIP SJ Louvain Library)
Name not found in Province CATS

Born: 19 January 1912, Clonskeagh Terrace, Clonskeagh, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 02 September 1929, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 08 January 1944, St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 05 November 1977
Died: 17 June1997, St Joseph's Home, New Kowloon, Hong Kong - Sinensis Province (CHN)

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

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

Oldest brother of Ted (RIP 2003) and Des RIP (1996)

Parents lived at Strand Road, Sandymount, County Dublin.

Second of five brothers with two sisters.

Early education at O’Connells School.

by 1938 at Loyola, Hong Kong - studying
by 1941 at Pymble NSW, Australia - studying

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Father John Collins, S.J.
(1912-1997)
R.I.P.

Father John Collins SJ., died on 17 June 1997 at St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged in Kowloon. He was 85 years old and a priest of the Society of Jesus for 53 years.

John Collins was born in Dublin, Ireland on 19 January 1912 and entered the Society of Jesus in 1929. After his novitiate he did his university and philosophical studies in Ireland and then left for Hong Kong, arriving in September 1937. He spent his first two years here studying Cantonese. He became a fluent speaker and read Chinese with ease. He spent a year teaching in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong.

In January 1939, while still a language student, he had a very significant experience, which greatly influenced the course of his life. He went with some other Jesuits to an area near the border to help look after 1500 refugees who had fled the advance of the Japanese army. This experience gave him a feeling for those in trouble and made him a patient, resourceful and well informed battler for a wide variety of the sick, the poor and the dispossessed.

He learned then to recruit others to work with him in his activities on behalf of fairness and justice. Many of his recruits became loyal followers, trusted associates and close personal friends.

In 1940 Father Collins left Hong Kong for Australia where he studied theology and was ordained priest in 1944. A long voyage across the Pacific and the Atlantic in the last weeks of World War II brought him to Ireland when he finished his ecclesiastical studies.

He returned to Hong Kong in 1946 where, apart from two years of study and numerous trips abroad in the course of his work, he remained until his death. These two years of study brought him to London University for Chinese studies and to the Philippines and Fiji to observe the Credit Union movement.

Father Collins taught for several years in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong and Wah Yan College, Kowloon. He also devoted himself to pastoral work outside the schools.

Gradually, however, Father Collins began to move into the area of social work. He became deeply interested in the Credit Union and was a founder and permanent adviser of the Credit Union League of Hong Kong. He would probably regard his greatest achievement in this work as being able to distance himself gracefully from the day-to-day running of the League. The followers he inspired made the League a real Hong Kong body and had much to do with spreading the Credit Union movement to other parts of the world.

By an almost parallel involvement Father Collins became one of the most practical advocates of the rights of the disabled to as normal a life as possible. He was a founder member of the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation. He was actively involved in the work of the St. Camillus Benevolent Association and held posts too numerous to mention in Local, Asian and international organisations for the disabled.

Father Collins was an internationally known expert on access and transport for the disabled. He advised Government in these two areas and strove to ensure that the disabled were given a chance to earn their living. He represented Hong Kong at many meetings overseas and received numerous awards in recognition of his work for the disabled.

In 1979 he became an MBE He was an executive committee member of the Hong Kong Council of Social Services and helped found the Educators’ Social Action Committee. He was a director and instructor of the Hong Kong Centre of the Gabriel Richard Institute which trains young professionals in developing confidence.

Father Collins was an Advisory Committee member of the Red Cross a former chairman and member for twenty years of the Family Welfare Society and a chairman of the International Year of the Child Commission. He also helped to found SELA (Committee for the Development of Socio-Economic Life in Asia), and organisation for Jesuits engaged in socioeconomic work.

Father Collins made innumerable friends. Being a perfectionist and relentlessly hard worker he knew exactly what he was talking about in his chosen areas of work. He was dogged and intelligent campaign for those who did not have much power and influence. He worked to ensure that not only were those in difficulty helped, but that they learn to help themselves and others.

Because he was a fighter he no infrequently clashed with other. However, his dedication and sincerity probably led most of his sparring partners to forgive him for his pugnacity. He also knew when a battle was lost. He complained vigorously regrouped and tried another strategy.

Father Collins kept meticulous files. He was proud of them and the were a solace to him. He worked for as long as he could. Progressively health made it impossible for him sally forth to pursue his numerous causes. He spent the last months his life in retirement in hospital, Wah Yan College, Kowloon and with the Little Sisters of the Poor Ngauchiwan.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 29 June 1997

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
John made his University and Philosophy studies in Ireland. He came to Hong Kong in 1937 to study and become fluent in Cantonese. By 1929 he was working to help the refugees, sick, poor and dispossessed, and he fought for fairness and justice.
1940 He left Hong Kong for Australia to study Theology at Canisius College Pymble and he was Ordained there in 1944. The last weeks of WWII saw him able to return to Ireland and Milltown Park and there he finished his studies.
He then went to the Philippines to observe the Credit Union movement. He was a founding member of the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation (HKSR) and the St Camillus Benevolent Association (now St Camillus Credit Union)
1979 He was awarded an MBE and was an Executive Committee Member of the Hong Kong Council of Social Services, and he was also in the Education Social Action Committee, Advisory Committee Member of the Red Cross, and was for a time Chair of the Family Welfare Society. He also served on the Committee for the Development of Socio-Economic Life in Asia (SELA - Jesuits in socio-economic work). He was involved in the building of a special Rehabilitation Centre for Handicapped.
In 1962 he began organising Credit Unions in Hong Kong.

In 1929, while a Regent, he had a significant experience which greatly influenced the course of his life. he went with some Jesuits to an area near the border to help look after ,500 refugees who had fled the advance of the Japanese army. This experience gave him a feeling for those in trouble, and it made him a patient, resourceful and well-informed battler for a wide variety of the sick, poor and dispossessed. he also learned then how to recruit others to his work on behalf of justice and fairness. Many of his recruits became loyal followers, trusted associates and close personal friends.
He taught for several years at Wah Yan College Hong Kong and Kowloon, and he also devoted himself to pastoral work outside the schools. Gradually he moved more and more into the are of Social Work. he started with the lepers who came to Telegraphic Bay in the late 1940s. He became deeply interested in Credit Unions, and he was a founder and permanent advisor to the Credit Union League of Hong Kong. The followers he inspired made the League a Hong Kong body and were involved in spreading the Credit Union movement to other parts of the world.
By an almost parallel involvement, he became on of the most practical advocates of the rights of the disabled, involved in founding HKSR. In this he represented Hong Kong and received many awards for his achievements. As well as his involvement in the St Camillus Benevolent Association, he was involved in local, Asian and international organisations for the disabled and became a world expert on access and transport for the disabled.
Meanwhile he also was a founding member of the Hong Kong Centre for the Gabriel Richard Institute, which trained young professionals in developing confidence.

According to Freddie Deignan it was a deliberate decision by the Provincial of the day to release John from teaching so that he could engage in social work.

Note from Ted Collins Entry
When he returned to Hong Kong he was devoted to setting up the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (CMAC) and helping the marginalised in Hong Kong. In this he was following in the footsteps of his older brother John who had set up credit unions, and fought for the rights of the disabled.

Note from Herbert Dargan Entry
He freed Fr John Collins for fulltime social work, set up “Concilium” with Frs Ted Collins, John Foley and Walter Hogan. he also set up CMAC in 1963. He sent Fr John F Jones for special training in Marriage Life. He also sent Fr John Russell to Rome for training in Canon Law. he was involved with rehabilitation of discharged prisoners and he visited prisons.

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 20th Year No 2 1945

Frs. J. Collins, D. Lawler and P. Toner, of the Hong Kong Mission, who finished theology at Pymble last January, were able to leave for Ireland some time ago, and are expected in Dublin after Easter.

Irish Province News 22nd Year No 1 1947

Departures for Mission Fields in 1946 :
4th January : Frs. P. J. O'Brien and Walsh, to North Rhodesia
25th January: Frs. C. Egan, Foley, Garland, Howatson, Morahan, Sheridan, Turner, to Hong Kong
25th July: Fr. Dermot Donnelly, to Calcutta Mission
5th August: Frs, J. Collins, T. FitzGerald, Gallagher, D. Lawler, Moran, J. O'Mara, Pelly, Toner, to Hong Kong Mid-August (from Cairo, where he was demobilised from the Army): Fr. Cronin, to Hong Kong
6th November: Frs. Harris, Jer. McCarthy, H. O'Brien, to Hong Kong

Kilkee and Clonmel.

Born: Ireland
Entered: 1639, Rome, Italy
Died: 29 December 1640, Rome, Italy
Official Catalogus Defuncti MISSING

◆ In Chronological Catalogue Sheet as Ent 1639 and Old/15 (1)

◆ Old/16 has : “William Collins”; DOB Ireland; Ent 1639

◆ CATSJ A-H has an Anglo-HIB novice RIP 29/12/1640

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Two Entries

DOB Ireland; Ent 1639;

Of English parents.

Applied for admission to the Society in 1639 or 1649, Robert Nugent, Superior of Irish Mission, in a letter dated 01/10/1640 recommends him for admission to the Society in Rome : “William Collins, born in Ireland of English parents; a youth of great promise” (cf Oliver’s Collectanea, from Stonyhurst MSS)

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
COLLINS, WILLIAM. In a letter of F. Robert Nugent, Superior of the Mission in Ireland, dated the 1st of October, 1640, he recommends for admission into the Novitiate at Rome, William Collins, born in Ireland of English parents, and a youth of great promise.

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
COLLINS, WILLIAM (Irish). Father Robert Nugent, Superior of the Irish Mission, in a letter dated October 1, 1640, recommends for admission into the Society at Rome, William Collins, born in Ireland of English parents ; a youth of great promise. (Oliver's Collectanea, from Stonyhurst MSS.)

Born: 05 December 1893, Melbourne, Australia
Entered: 14 August 1915, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 31 July 1926, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1930, Xavier College, Kew, Melbourne, Australia
Died: 08 October 1973, Burke Hall, Kew, Melbourne, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

by 1919 in Australia - Regency
by 1925 at Hastings, Sussex, England (LUGD) studying
by 1927 at Paray-le-Monial France (LUGD) studying
by 1929 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship

◆ 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 CBC Parade College Melbourne and had then worked with the Customs department for a number of years before Entry at Loyola Greenwich.

His Jesuit studies were undertaken in Ireland and France and he was Ordained in 1926.
When he returned to Australia after his studies he was sent as Minister to Sevenhill and then Sportsmaster to Xavier College Kew.
1942 He returned to Sevenhill as Superior and Parish Priest
1942-1949 He was sent to St Ignatius College Riverview as Minister. As Minister at Riverview, he knew the boys well, and while not universally popular, he was considered fair. As a disciplinarian in the refectory he was without equal, and always in control of the situation. His concern for the health of the boys was well known, as was his concern for what he considered wasteful expenditure. At time he was perhaps not the happiest of men, but he was always doing his job. He was always where he needed to be, and if you needed something you wouldn’t get more than you needed, and perhaps less.
1949-1950 He was sent to the Hawthorn Parish as Minister
1950-1955 He was appointed Minister at St Patrick’s College Melbourne. This gave him more time to smoke his Captain Petersen pipe and a trip down Brunswick Street on a Saturday afternoon. However this situation did no last, as an accident involving the Rector and some other members of the community caused him to be appointed Acting Rector and later confirmed as Vice Rector (1951-1955) This didn’t eliminate the moments of reflective smoking or visits to the Fitzroy Football Club. Indeed it was said this was one of the happiest periods of his life.
1956-1961 When Henry Johnston had to attend a conference in Rome, he was appointed Acting Parish Priest at St Mary’s, Sydney, and he was later confirmed as Parish Priest.
1961-1968 He returned to St Patrick’s College teaching Religion, History, Latin, Mathematics and English. In addition he took on the job of Procurator for the Province, a job he held until he was almost 80 years old.
1968 His last appointment was at Burke Hall Kew.

He was very parsimonious with money, always critical of requests, and sometimes required the direct intervention of the Provincial or Socius. He also found it hard to adapt to the Church of the post Vatican II era. So, Community Meetings and Concelebrations were not congenial. He could be a difficult man, but he was reliable. In tough times he did the work that he was given as well as he could.

Born: 25 September 1858, Foxford, County Mayo
Entered: 06 September 1890, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: Paris, France - pre Entry
Final vows: 15 August 1905
Died: 04 October 1920, St Ignatius College, Manresa, Norwood, Adelaide, Australia

Part of the St Aloysius, Sevenhill, Australia community at the time of death

Early education at Ballaghadereen and Irish College, Paris

by 1903 in Rhodesia (ANG) - Military Chaplain
by 1904 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1906 at Chinese Mission (FRA)
Came to Australia 1908

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was in his native locality and then he went to the Irish College, Paris, where he was Ordained for the Achonry Diocese before Ent.
He had a varied career. he taught at Belvedere, Clongowes and Galway. He was on the Mission Staff. He went as Chaplain to the British Troops in South Africa. He then spent some time in Shanghai as a Missioner, where he did great work, but found it difficult to work with the French.
He was then sent to Australia, where he did various jobs, including being a Chaplain to Australian troops.
He was a man of great talent but unusual temperament and difficult to manage. He died at Norwood 04 October 1920.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
He enetered at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg as a secular Priest.

1892-1894 After First Vows he studied Theology for two years at Milltown Park.
1894-1895 He was sent teaching at Belvedere College.
1895-1896 He was sent teaching at Clongowes Wood College
1896-1898 He was involved in the “Mission” staff
1898-1900 He was sent teaching at Coláiste Iognáid Galway.
1900-1902 He was sent to work in the Church at Tullabeg
1902-1903 He was assigned as a Military Chaplain to British Troops in South Africa
1903-1904 He made Tertianship at Drongen.
1905-1907 He went on the French Chinese Mission at Shanghai
1907-1908 He returned to Parish work at Coláiste Iognáid.
1908-1911 He was sent to Australia and first to St Ignatius Norwood
1911-1913 He was sent to the Immaculate Conception Parish at Hawthorn
1913-1914 He was at Loyola Greenwich
1914-1919 He returned to St Ignatius Norwood. During this time he was appointed as a Military Chaplain to Australian troops and went to Egypt in 1915. However by September of that year his service was terminated due to ill health. He only completed the voyage and did not see any action. When he returned to Australia he gave missions and retreats in various parts of the country.
1919 He was sent to Sevenhill.

He was a man with intemperate zeal, but dogged with ill health. He had considerable talent which could be hard to harness, which may help understand why he moved around so frequently.

18 & 20 Grafton Sreet, Dublin

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

Born: 1608, Kilkenny City, County Kilkenny
Entered: 24 November 1627, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Died: 06 June 1636, Ireland - Romanae Province (ROM)

◆Fr Francis Finegan SJ
Comerfort
DOB Kilkenny; Ent 24 November 1627 Rome;
After First Vows he was sent to study Philosophy at the Roman College
Nothing further is known of his career except that he was Ordained. He returned to Ireland and died shortly afterwards - a letter of Fr General dated 07 June 1636 made reference to news received of Father Comerford's holy death

◆In Old/17 and CATSJ A-H

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: 27 January 1885, Ballinakill, County Laois
Entered: 06 September 1902, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 01 July 1919
Final Vows: 02 February 1922
Died: 10 October 1963, Dishergarh, Asansol, West Bengal, India - Kolkata Province (CCU)

Transcribed HIB to BEL : 1904; BEL to CCU

Father was a hotel keeper and died in 1891.

Second eldest of two sons, the older one being deceased. He has six sisters of whom two are deceased.

Early education at a local National School and then went to Clongowes Wood College SJ

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 3rd Year No 3 1928
India :
The following is from Fr James Comerford, an old Clongowes boy.
“Here I am in a mud hut, where books and manuscripts are exposed to destructive insects. The Church is neat as far as a thing of mud can be. Malaria and cholera are the two chief diseases. The water is salty, the effects of the seawater not being wholly removed. I shall have to build a cottage, but I am not afraid of the cost, as I never yet heard of missioners
being obliged to withdraw from outposts on account of expense. People from Calcutta come out here in quest of game - tigers - that abound in a part of the district. I have to look after.nIn all my district there are 800 Catholics and about as many Protestants. The latter are visited occasionally by Fr. W., a high Anglican clergyman. It is now nearly two years since his last visit. He walks like the Indians in his bare feet across the rough rice fields. I don’t know how he does it. With shoes I get blisters on my feet after 5 or 6 miles, His people tell me that they will become Catholic, if I open a school. This I have done for our own Catholics, but one has to move slowly when dealing with Bengalese, as they easily change.
South of Kharry is Ponchimkondo, a stronghold of Baptists and The Catholics number about 50, all converts from the Baptists. The great trouble down there is the mud that covers part of the district. It is sticky and slimy, and you must sometimes submit to being carried through it by a couple of men. Once my carriers sank deep into it, and it was only with difficulty they were able to bring me to a place of safety. Efforts are being made in the Madura Mission to erect a Church that will he dedicated to St. Patrick. Prayers are asked for the success of the venture. The cost will be about 20.000 rupees. Up to a short time ago only 1,200 had been received. Fr. Sloan, S. J., the moving spirit, would he grateful if contributions were turned in his direction. In the Patna Mission, entrusted a short time ago to the Missouri Province, there are 25.000.000 heathens with just 15 priests to reap the harvest. A Seminary and High School have recently been started.

Irish Province News 3rd Year No 4 1928
A Missionary outpost : The following are scraps from a letter from Fr James Comerford. I wish space allowed me to publish the whole of it.
“The mud walls of my hut crack, and in these recesses cockroaches retire during the day, and appear at night. Lizards abound, Bats find a snug shelter on the inside of my thatched roof. As soon as I light my lamp I am visited by all the grasshoppers in creation. Ants and mosquitos are numerous. Yesterday I caught a rat. Are there such rats anywhere else in the world? They have a most abominable smell. If I got rid of the rat the smell remained. The application of one of the senses in the meditation on hell would be easy and profitable in my present environment. My worst experience so far was on the eve of the Ascension. At midnight a terrific storm burst, and my roof, in parts, gave way. Then came the rain and poured over my bed. I opened my umbrella and enjoyed whatever partial help it gave. To-morrow, Feast of the Ascension, I shall reserve the Blessed Sacrament. lt has not been reserved here for the last 50 years. The rains have begun and I shall soon be submerged. My hut and the Church will be the only dry spots. When I want to go out I proceed in my bare feet, if the distance is short, otherwise by canoe. Such is life in the wilds.”

Irish Province News 5th Year No 1 1929
India :
The following is from Fr James Comerford, an old Clongowes boy.
I went on a visit lately to a distant village at the mouth of the River Hoogli. I had to make the journey in a country canoe, and, starting at 6 am reached the end of my water passage at 8pm. It was dark, and I had to do the remaining mile on foot. I did that mile often, yet, we lost our way. At 10.30 the men, carrying my Massbox, were so fatigued that they asked
me to stop, saying that we were getting further and further into the jungle. I yielded, and we sat down on the mud embankment to await dawn, i.e. to wait from 10.30pm to 4.30am.
After the trudge I had through quagmires of mud, I was not opposed to rest. At mid-night however the rain began to come down in a flood. At 2am there was another short but copious downpour, and when it was over, in spite of everything, I began to nod. I also began to slip down the mud embankment towards the deep water that now lay around. What troubled me most was that I would be compelled to deprive my poor people of their Sunday Mass. But when everything seemed hopeless, a kindly Providence came to our aid. At 4.30 I heard a man singing. We called him and with his help we were able to make our exit. I managed to get through my two Masses by 10.30. Then, after breakfast (I had taken nothing since breakfast on the previous day at 4.30, except some bread and jam with a flask of coffee) through six baptisms , and when all was over had a real, sound sleep on a plank bed. You get used to a plank bed. At the beginning of my career as an outpost missioner, a plank bed was a genuine mortification. Now I can sleep as comfortably on one as on the most up-to-date article in Calcutta or Dublin. I had a big consolation to make up for the troubles of the previous day. Some 12 or 13 protestants expressed a desire to join the true fold!

Irish Province News 52nd Year No 2 1977

Calcutta Province

Extract from a letter from a Jesuit of Calcutta Province, Darjeeling Region (Fr. Edward Hayden, St. Joseph's College, North Point, Darjeeling, Western Bengal)

I was one of the old “Intermediate” boys of the Christian Brothers, Carlow. I left off in 1910, 67 years ago, at the end of June. Yes, we learnt the Gaeilge. The Brothers - or some I met, one in particular, a Brother Doyle, was very keen on it. The others didn't teach it as it was only in the “Academy” that they began with languages: French, Gaeilge, Algebra, Euclid and of course English. (5th Book - Senior Elementary Class - was followed by the “Academy”). The Brothers had dropped Latin just before I joined the “Academy”. We were living at a distance of 5 Irish miles from Carlow, and I was delicate, so I often fell a victim of 'flu, which didn't help me to make progress in studies - made it very hard: but at that time the rule was “do or die”. There was only one excuse for not having home work done – you were dead! That was the training we had: it stood me in good stead through life; it is the one thing I am grateful for.
We had a number of Irishmen here, a handful: Fr Jos Shiel, Mayo, died in Patna. Fr James Comerford, Queen's County, died in Bihar. I met the Donnelly brothers, they were Dubliners. The one who died (Don) was Editor of the Sacred Heart Messenger. Many of his stories were about horse-racing - he must have read plenty of Nat Gould when he was a boy! (Nat wrote a number of horse-racing stories supposed to have been in Australia). There are three Irishmen in Ranchi: Frs Donnelly, Phelan and Lawlor. Fr Phelan has spent nearly his whole life in India. As a boy he was in North Point, and after his Senior Cambridge he joined the Society. At that time there was only the Missio Maior Bengalensis of the Belgian Province. The Mission took in half or more of north-east India - Patna, Ranchi and south of it, Assam, Bhutan and Sikkim - an area four or five times that of Ireland! Needless to say, there were parts of it which had no SJ within a hundred miles ...Down here in the Terai where I am “hibernating” out of the cold of Darjeeling, some forty-five years ago there was no priest. One or two of the professors of theology from Kurseong, some 40 miles away, used to visit this district at Christmas and Easter. It was very malarious. Catholics from Ranchi came here to work on the tea plantations. Then a Jesuit was sent to reside in it. Now the district has schools and Jesuits galore, also non-Jesuits. Great progress has been made. The Salesians took up Assam, the American SJs took over Patna. The Northern Belgians took over Ranchi and the Southern Belgians took Calcutta. (The Belgian Province grew till its numbers reached 1400. Then, about 1935, Belgian separated into Flemings - North - and Walloons - South). Ranchi was given to the North and Calcutta to the South. On the 15th August last year (1976) Calcutta was raised from being a Vice Province to be a full-blown Province. 100% of those joining the SJ now are sons of India. Madura in the south has been a Province for years. Nearly all the Europeans are dead: no more are allowed to come permanently unless for a very, very special reason, India has begun to send her sons to East Africa in recent years.
Fr Lawlor is Irish-born but somehow joined the Australian Province about the time it started a half-century or so ago.
Brother Carl Kruil is at present in charge of an ashram: a place for destitutes, in Siliguri. Silguri is a city which grew up in the last forty years around the terminus of the broad gauge railway and the narrow (two-foot) toy railway joining the plains with Darjeeling - one of the most wonderful lines in the world, rising from 300 feet above sea-level, 7,200 feet in about 50 miles and then dropping down to about 5,500 feet in another ten. Three times it loops the loop and three times climbs up by zig-zags. I seem to remember having met Fr Conor Naughton during the war. Quite a number of wartime chaplains came to Darjeeling. The mention of Siliguri set me off rambling. Br Krull remembers his visit to Limerick. (He stayed at the Crescent, 11th 13th June, 1969). He is a born mechanic. Anything in the line of machinery captivates him. He has to repair all the motors and oil engines – some places like this have small diesel generators which have to be seen to from time to time and all other kinds of machinery: cameras, typewriters etc. At present he comes here to do spot welding (electric welding of iron instead of bolts and nuts.
The PP, here is replacing an old simple shed with a corrugated iron roof by a very fine one with brick walls and asbestos-cement roof. Two years ago or so, the roof was lifted by a sudden whirlwind clean off the wooden pillars on which it rested. Since then he has been saying the Sunday Masses on the veranda of a primary school. In this school 235 children receive daily lessons and a small mid-day meal. The Sisters are those of St. Joseph of Cluny – all from South India. They are really heroines: no work is too difficult for them. They do all their own work and cook for us. Their Vice-Provincial is from somewhere in the centre of the “Emerald Gem”. They are growing in numbers and do great work, running a dispensary amongst other things. The church is very broad, approximately 90 by 60 feet. As no benches are used - people sit on the floor - it will hold nearly 450 people at a time. The altar is in one corner. :
Fr Robert Phelan (Ranchi Province) had a visit one night from dacoits (armed robbers), but with help managed to beat them off.
Ranchi had several of these raids last year. In nearly every case the dacoits managed to get some cash.
One night about two weeks ago a rogue elephant (one that is wild and roaming away from the herd) came to a small group of houses close by. A man heard the noise and came out. The elephant caught him by the leg and threw him on to a corn stack - fortunately. The corn stack of rice waiting to be thrashed was quite broad and flat on top! He was very little the worse for the experience. And that is the end of the news.
One more item: please ask the new Editor of the Irish Province News to let me have copies as (?) and send them by overland (surface mail). Even if they are three months coming, they will be news. God bless you and reward you handsomely.
Yours in our Lord,
Edward Hayden, SJ (born 15th October 1893, entered S.J. Ist February 1925, ordained 21st November 1933, took final vows on 2nd February 1936. Now conf. dom. et alumn. and script. hist. dom. at the above address).

James Comerford

Entered: 1657
Died: 31 December 1678 Ireland

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

Born: 1544, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 1583, Madrid, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: 1563, Waterford City, County Waterford
Died: 31 January 1599, Spain

◆ In Chronological Catalogue Sheet Ent 1583

◆ Old/16 has DOB 1544 Waterford; Ent 1583; Prof 4 Vows; RIP 1599 in Spain

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Comberford or Comerford

DOB Waterford; Ent c 1583

He was BA Oxford c 1562. Wood, “Athen. Oxon” Vol I, p 200, ed 1721 says “Nicholas Comerford was born in the city of Waterford in Ireland; took his degree in Arts 1562, after he spent at least four years in this university pecking and hewing at Logic and Philosophy. Which degree been being completed by determination, he went into his own country, entered the sacred function, and had preferment there, but was turned out from it because of his religion. He wrote in English a pithy and learned treatise, very exquisitely penned, as one (Richard Stanihurst, “In Descript Hibern.” c 7) saith, entitled “Answers to certain questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford”. Soon after he left his country for the sake of religion; he went to the University of Louvain, where he was promoted to the degree of DD 23/06/1576; and afterwards as ‘tis said, wrote and published diverse other things.” He died in Spain. (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS)

Professor;

Peter Lombard addressed a Latin poem to him on his taking his DD (cf Foley’s Collectanea; his life in IbIg; Wood’s Athen. Oxon)

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online
Comerford (Comberford, Quemerford), Nicholas
by Anthony M. McCormack

Comerford (Comberford, Quemerford), Nicholas (c.1541/5–c.1599), Jesuit, was born in Waterford city, son of Patrick Comerford and his wife, who was a Walsh. He was educated at Peter White's renowned school in Kilkenny city before studying at Oxford for at least four years, graduating BA (20 February 1563). He returned to Waterford, where he was ordained a priest and granted church office, of which he was later deprived due to his catholic views. In September 1565 he entered the university of Louvain (then in the Spanish Netherlands) to study theology. Described as one of the most eminent lecturers there, he received from Louvain (23 October 1576) his DD degree, on which he was congratulated by his friend, the future archbishop of Armagh Peter Lombard (qv), in a poem entitled ‘Carmen heroicum’ (‘Heroic song’). By April 1577 he was at Waterford, where the royal authorities complained that he preached continually against the established religion, and marked him down as one of the leading catholic clergymen in the area.

Renewed religious persecution in Ireland probably compelled him to leave c.1580–81 and he then entered the Society of Jesus at Madrid. Thereafter, he lectured in a number of Spanish colleges, appearing at Bayona in 1589, and at Lisbon in 1590. That year his candidacy for the archbishopric of Cashel was promoted by a number of Irish catholic clergy, but nothing came of this. His life after 1590 is unknown but he is said to have died in Spain in 1599. He wrote a tract in English entitled Answers to certain questions propounded by the citizens of Waterford, a number of sermons, and a poem in Latin entitled ‘Carmina in laudem comitis Ormondiae’ (‘Songs in praise of the earl of Ormond’).

Charles Smith, Ancient and present state of the county and city of Waterford (1746), 360; W. Harris, The whole works of Sir James Ware (1764), ii, 96; DNB; E. Hogan, Distinguished Irishmen of the sixteenth century (1894), 71–8; Crone (2nd ed., [1937]); B. Jennings, ‘Irish students in the University of Louvain’, Measgra i gcuimhne Mhichíl Uí Chléirigh, ed. S. O'Brien (1944), 74–97

◆ Henry Foley - Records of the English province of The Society of Jesus Vol VII
COMBERFORD, or COMERFORD, NICHOLAS (Irish), entered the Society about 1583. (Father Hogan's Ihernia, p. 249.) He was a native of Waterford ; studied at Oxford. Wood, then. Oxon., vol. i. p. 200, ed. 1721, says: “Nicholas Comerford was born in the city of Waterford, in Ireland; took his degree in arts 1562, after he had spent at least four years in this University in pecking and hewing at logic and philosophy. Which degree being com pleted by determination, he went into his own country, entered the sacred function, and had preferment there, but was turned out from it because of his religion. He wrote in English a pithy and learned treatise, very exquisitely penned, as one (Richard Stani hurst, In Descript. Hibern. c. 7) saith, entitled, Answers to certain questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford. Also divers sermons. Soon after he left his country for the sake of religion ; went to the University of Louvain, where he was promoted to the degree of D.D., June 23, 1576; and afterwards, as 'tis said, wrote and published divers other things." He died in Spain. (Oliver, as above).

◆ Memorials of the Irish Province SJ June 1902 1.6
A Brief Memoir of Father Alfred Murphy SJ - by Matthew Russell SJ

Father Nicholas Comerford SJ

In Spain, about the year 1599, died Father Nicholas Comerford, a native of Waterford in Ireland. He was the first of sixteen Waterford Jesuits of the name who lived between the years 1590 and 1640, and the first of the many celebrated natives of Waterford who joined the Soeiety of Jesus. Among the three thousand students who at one time frequented the lecture halls of the famous University of Louvain, the genius and learning of this city of Waterford shone with the brightest lustre. Having received his early training at the then well known school of Dr Peter White, Comerford went to Oxford, where he received his degree of Doctor of Divinity on the 23rd October, 1576. He then returned to Ireland, where his zealous labours in the ministry attracted the hostile notice of the Lord President of Munster, who spoke of him as “teaching against our religion”, and thereby “causing a number to despair”, or in other words, to be converted to Catholicity. The same high authority speaks of him as being, with Father Archer, afterwards of the Society, “the principal agent of the Pope”, and complains that “Popery is mainly supported by the students of Waterford educated at Louvain, by whom”, he adds, “the proud and undutiful inhabitants of this town are cankered in Popery”.

Father Comerford was ultimately obliged to yield to the stress of persecution, and take refuge on the Continent along with Father Archer. While abroad he entered the Society at Madrid. Brennan, in his Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, says that “he was one of the most eminent lecturers in Louvain . ... Wishing to combine the religious with the literary life, he entered the Society of Jesus. He was afterwards”, he adds, “sent to Spain, and he was there honour ably employed for many years, and obtained unbounded applause in some of the most celebrated colleges of that kingdom”. Cardinal Allen and other influential persons endeavoured, in 1589, to have him appointed to the Archbishopric of Cashel, but the humble religious succeeded in evading the proferred dignity. He wrote in English a learned discourse, entitled, An Answer to certain Questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford, as well as a volume of sermons, and many learned tracts on philosophical and theological subjects.

◆ Rev. Edmund Hogan SJ : “Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century” - London : Burns and Oates, Limited, New York, Cincinnati : Chicago, Benzinger Brothers, 1894 : Quarterly Series : Volume Ninety

Nicholas Comerford

FATHER WHITE received great help in his arduous undertaking from the presence and influence in Spain of his distinguished kinsman, Father Nicholas Quemerford or Comerford, S.J., who “was honourably employed and obtained unbounded applause in some of the most celebrated colleges of that kingdom”. (1) The Comerfords showed ardent attachment to the Faith in the sixteenth century. A wayside cross erected at Danganmore at that period bears the inscription : “Pray for the souls of Richard Comerford and of his wife Dame Johanna Saint-Leger”. In 1592, Richard Comerford of Waterford, Merchaunt, is reported to the Government for entertaining Sir Morren, a priest; and Belle Butler, wife unto Thomas Comerford of Waterford, Merchaunt (now in Spain), is denounced. for retaining Sir John White, priest. Nicholas was the son of Patrick Comerford, (2) of Waterford, and of his wife, a lady of the influential family of Walsh; he was uncle of Dr. Patrick Comerford, the distinguished Bishop of Waterford and Lismore; he was related to the best families of his native city, was the first of sixteen Waterford Jesuits of the name, who lived between the years 1590 and 1640; and he was the first of the many celebrated natives of Waterford who joined the Society of Jesus. He was educated at the school of Dr. Peter White, “from which”, says Stanihurst, “as from a Trojan horse, issued men of distinguished literary ability and learning - the Whites, Comerfords, Walshes, Wadings, Dormers, Shees, Garveys, Butlers, Stronges, and Lombards. (3) Out of this schoole have sprouted such proper ympes through the painfull diligence and the laboursome industry of a famous lettered man, Mr. Peter White, as generally the whole weale publike of Ireland, and especially the southerne parts of that island, are greatly thereby furthered. This gentleman's methode in trayning up youth was rare and singular, framing the education according to the scoler's veine. If he found him free, he would bridle hym, like a wyse Isocrates, from his booke : if he perceived hym to be dull, he would spur hym forwarde; if he understoode that he were the worse for beating, he would win him with rewardes; finally, by interlacing study with vacation, sorrow with mirth, payne with pleasure, sowernesse with sweetnesse, roughness with myldnesse, he had so good successe in schooling his pupils, as in good sooth I may boldly byde by it, that in the realme of Ireland was no Grammar School so good, in England, I am well assured, none better. And because it was my happy happe (God and my parents be thanked) to have been one of his crewe, I take it to stand with my duty, sith I may not stretche myne habilitie in requiting his good turnes, yet to manifeste my good will in remembrying his paines. And, certes, I acknowledge myselfe so much bounde and beholding to hym and his, as for his sake I reverence the meanest stone cemented in the walles of that famous schoole”. (4)
From White's school Comerford went to Oxford (where White himself had been some time Fellow of Oriel), and, according to Anthony Wood, “he there took his Degree of Arts in the year 1562, after he had spent at least four years in pecking and hewing at logic and philosophy. Which degree being completed by determination, he went into his own country, entered the sacred function, and had preferment there, but was turned out from it because of his religion. He wrote in English a pithy and learned treatise, very exquisitely penned, as one Richard Stanihurst saith, entitled Answers to Certain Questions Propounded by the Citizens of Waterford. He also wrote divers sermons. Soon after he left his country for the sake of religion, went to the University of Louvain, where he was promoted to the degree of Doctor of Divinity June 23, 1576, and afterwards, as it is said, wrote and published divers things”. (5)
Wood was mistaken with regard to the date, the 23rd of June, as we know from Foppens MS. History of Louvain (6) that Comerford went to that University in 1565, and became Doctor of Divinity, on October 23, 1576; on which occasion his fellow citizen, Peter Lombard, who ranked “Primus Universitatis”, composed and published a Latin poem entitled Carmen Heroicum in Doctoratum Nicolai Quemerfordii. Comerford came at once to the help of his countrymen; his presence was soon felt and was thus reported in 1577 by the Lord President of Munster : “Doctor Quemerford of Waterford is also of late come out of Louvain; he and all the rest taught all the way between Rye and Bristol against our religion, and caused a number to despair. There are a great number of students of this city of Waterford in Louvain, at the charge of their friends and fathers”. (7) The fame of Louvain spread over Europe, its lecture-halls were frequented at times by three thousand students, and Cardinal Bellarmine declared he had never perhaps seen anything equal to it as to numbers, learning, &c. (8) Among those thousands the genius and learning of the city of Waterford shone with the brightest lustre.
A people so gifted and enlightened as the in habitants of Waterford could neither be cajoled nor coerced into the embraces of heresy. This is fully recognized and deplored by the missionary Lord President of Munster, who continues in these terms : “James Archer of Kilkenny, Dr. Comerford of Waterford, and Chaunter Walsh are the principal agents of the Pope. Popery is mainly supported by the students of Waterford educated at Louvain, by whom the proud and undutiful inhabiters of this town are cankered in Popery, undutiful to Her Majesty, slandering the Gospel publicly, as well this side the sea as beyond in England, that they fear not God nor man, and hath their altars, painted images, and candlesticks in derision of the Gospel, every day in their synagogues - so detestable that they may be called the unruly newters rather than subjects. Masses infinite they have in their several churches every morning without any fear. I have spied them; for I chanced to arrive last Sunday at five of the clock in the morning and saw them resort out of the churches by heaps ; this is shameful in a reformed city”. This “shameful” conduct went on for twenty years longer, for Dr. Lyon, Protestant Bishop of Cork, reports to Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, in a letter dated July 6, 1596, “The Mayor of Waterford, which is a great lawyer, one Wadding, carieth the sword and rod (as I think he should do) for Her Majesty; but he nor his sheriffs never came to the church sithence he was mayor, nor sithence this reign, nor none of the citizens, men nor women, nor in any other towne or city throughout this province, which is lamentable to hear, but most lamentable to see; the Lord in His mercy amend it when it shall please His gracious goodness to look on them”. These canting knaves, Drury and Lyon,
Were of that saintly, murderous brood,
To carnage and the gospel given,
Who think through unbelievers' blood,
Lies their directest path to Heaven.
If Drury could have “spied”, and caught Comerford and Archer, he would have got themn hanged, drawn, and quartered, as two years previously he had served their brother in religion, Edmund O'Donnell, S.J. However, this cruel man, who reported the movements of Comerford, went a year afterwards to give an account of himself to God; having hanged Bishop O'Hely, he suddenly got sick and died, uttering blasphemies. (9).
Fathers Comerford and Archer escaped the clutches of Drury, perhaps through the kindness of Annie O'Meara, the wife of Magrath, the Queen's Archbishop of Cashel. Annie was in the habit of eliciting State secrets from his Grace, and of giving timely warning to priests when any danger was impending. Indeed the poor apostate friar aided her in the good work; for on June 26, 1582, he wrote to her from Greenwich : “I desire you now to cause the friends of Darby Creagh (Bishop of Cork) to send him out of the whole country, if they may; for there is such search to be made for him that, unless he be wise, he shall be taken. I desire you, also, to send away from your house all the priests you are in the habit of having there”. This unfortunate man and his wife were ultimately reconciled to the Church by Dr. O'Kearney, the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel.
Dr. Comerford and James Archer, after their departure from Ireland, entered the Society of Jesus; the latter at Rome in 1581, the former at Madrid. (10) The erudite Franciscan, Father Brennan, says in his Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, that Comerford “was one of the most eminent lecturers in Louvain. ... Wishing to combine the religious with the literary life, he entered the Society of Jesus. He was afterwards sent to Spain, and he was there honourably employed for many years, and obtained unbounded applause in some of the miost celebrated colleges of that kingdom”. He was at Bayona de Galicia, in Spain, in the year 1589, at Lisbon the year after, when he was by Cardinal Allen and divers others estates sent for from Rome to have the archbishoprick of Cashel”. (11)
After the year 1590, Father Comerford disappears from our view; he is not named in the Catalogue of Irish Jesuits of 1609, and is supposed to have gone to receive the reward of his labours in the year 1599. Sketches of his career are given in Stanihurst's Descriptio Hiberniae, Wood's Athene Oxonienses, Harris' Edition of Ware's Irish Writers, the Collectanea of Dr. Oliver and Brother Foley, S.J., Brennan's Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, Meehan's Memoirs of the Irish Hierarchy, the Ibernia Ignatiana, and in the National Biography. He wrote : a. Many learned tracts on philosophical and theological subjects. b. Sermons. c. Carmina in laudem Comitis Ormondia. d. An Answer to certaine Questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford.
Father Comerford was the first of a long line of distinguished Waterford Jesuits, and as he and his immediate relatives worked with all their might for the preservation of Catholicity in their native city, their efforts were crowned with success. The Lord Chancellor, “in his speech upon his granting a seizure of the Liberties of Waterforde”, said, “The city of Waterforde hath performed many excellent and acceptable services to the Queen of England, insomuch that they deserved the posie of Urbs intacta manet. . . . But this citie which thus flourished, and the inhabitants and citizens thereof, whom I know to be equal, for all manner and breeding and sufficiencie, to any in the King's dominions, or in Europe; yet when they yielde their heart to foreign states (12) (which is the principal part of man), then they neglected their duty and fidelity, (12) so far forth ; as being directed by Popish priests and Jesuits, that they could not within their whole corporation find one man (14) to serve the King's majesty in the magistracy of Mayor, for want of conformity. (15) . . . And so I pronounce that a seizure be awarded of all their liberties”. This English document, from which I have given a few extracts, is in the Irish College of Salamanca, and has foot-notes appended to it, apparently by Father White, of which I also give a few instances.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
QUEMERFORD, NICHOLAS, of Waterford, educated at Oxford, where he took his degree of Arts in 1562. Anthony Wood, (according to Harris, p. 96. Writers of Ireland, but I cannot verify the passage) says, that after spending four years in that University he returned to Ireland and took Orders. Repairing to Louvain, he was promoted to the degree of D.D. 23rd of June, 1576, on which occasion his countryman Peter Lombard, who ranked “Primus Universitatis” wrote “Carmen Heroicum in, Doctoratum Nicholai Quemerfordi”. p. 219, vol. I. Athenae. Oxon. Afterwards he became a Jesuit and died in Spain. He wrote in English a Learned discourse intitled “Answers to certain Questions propounded by the citizens of Waterford” also “Sermons” and other works."

◆ Memorials of the Irish Province SJ January 1903 1.6

A Short History of Some Irish Jesuits : Joseph McDonnell SJ &
Short Memoirs of the Early Irish Jesuits Who Worked in Ireland Down to the Year 1840: Joseph McDonnell SJ (Pamphlet)

Father Nicholas Comerford SJ
In Spain, about the year 1599, died Father Nicholas Comerford, a native of Waterford in Ireland. He was the first of sixteen Waterford Jesuits of the name who lived between the years 1590 and 1640, and the first of the many celebrated natives of Waterford who joined the Soeiety of Jesus. Among the three thousand students who at one time frequented the lecture halls of the famous University of Louvain, the genius and learning of this city of Waterford shone with the brightest lustre. Having received his early training at the then well known school of Dr Peter White, Comerford went to Oxford, where he received his degree of Doctor of Divinity on the 23rd October, 1576. He then returned to Ireland, where his zealous labours in the ministry attracted the hostile notice of the Lord President of Munster, who spoke of him as “teaching against our religion”, and thereby “causing a number to despair”, or in other words, to be converted to Catholicity. The same high authority speaks of him as being, with Father Archer, afterwards of the Society, “the principal agent of the Pope”, and complains that “Popery is mainly supported by the students of Waterford educated at Louvain, by whom”, he adds, “the proud and undutiful inhabitants of this town are cankered in Popery”.

Father Comerford was ultimately obliged to yield to the stress of persecution, and take refuge on the Continent along with Father Archer. While abroad he entered the Society at Madrid. Brennan, in his Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, says that “he was one of the most eminent lecturers in Louvain . ... Wishing to combine the religious with the literary life, he entered the Society of Jesus. He was afterwards”, he adds, “sent to Spain, and he was there honour ably employed for many years, and obtained unbounded applause in some of the most celebrated colleges of that kingdom”. Cardinal Allen and other influential persons endeavoured, in 1589, to have him appointed to the Archbishopric of Cashel, but the humble religious succeeded in evading the proferred dignity. He wrote in English a learned discourse, entitled, An Answer to certain Questions propounded by the Citizens of Waterford, as well as a volume of sermons, and many learned tracts on philosophical and theological subjects.

http://comerfordfamily.blogspot.com/2007/12/comerford-profiles-3-revd-dr-nicholas.html
The Revd Dr Nicholas Comerford or Quemerford (ca 1541/1545-ca 1599) was a prominent Jesuit theologian from Waterford in the aftermath of the Reformation, and was the first of 16 members of the Comerford name who were Jesuits or members of the Society of Jesus in the half century between 1590 and 1640. He lived in Oxford, Waterford, Louvain and in Portugal and Spain, he spent some time living in Rome as the Pope’s guest, and at one time he was nominated as Archbishop of Cashel, although the nomination was blocked by the King of Spain and was never accepted by the Vatican.
Nicholas Comerford was born in Waterford ca 1541-1545, the son of Patrick Comerford and his wife, […] Walsh.[1] It is said that Nicholas was sent to school at Peter White’s famous academy in Kilkenny,[2] although he may have been too old to have been one of White’s pupils. White was educated at Oxford, and was a Fellow of Oriel College before returning to Waterford, where he was Dean of Waterford Cathedral until he was ejected for nonconformity. He then established his famous academy or school in Kilkenny in 1565, and his pupils there included the historian Richard Stanihurst (1547-1618), and later the Franciscan theologian and historian Luke Wadding (1588-1657), as well as other members of the White, Comerford, Walsh, Wadding and Lombard families from Waterford and Kilkenny.[3]
After school, Nicholas Comerford went on to Oxford. Although it is not known which college he was a student in – perhaps White’s Oriel or his professors’ Magdalen College –we know he spent at least four years “in pecking at logic and philosophy” and graduated BA on 20 February 1563.[4] During his time at Oxford (ca 1559-1563), his contemporaries included Edmund Campion (1540-1581), a friend of Stanihurst and later a Jesuit martyr, who was a student at Saint John’s College and graduated in 1564; and Richard Stanihurst, who went to Oxford from Kilkenny in 1563.
The Regius Professors of Divinity in Oxford during Nicholas Comerford’s time there as an undergraduate were Richard Smyth (1559) and Lawrence Humphrey (from 1560).
Smyth was Oxford University’s registrar when by royal appointment he became the university’s first Regius Professor of Divinity in 1536. He was principal of Saint Alban’s Hall (later incorporated into Merton College) and Divinity Reader at Magdalen College. He was reported to have renounced Catholicism and the authority of the Pope at Oxford on the accession of Edward VI, but accounts show him as a Catholic again soon after, and he was replaced as Regius Professor in 1548 by Peter Martyr. Smyth and Martyr held a public disputation in 1549, and Smyth was arrested soon afterwards and imprisoned for a short while. On his release, Smyth left Oxford to become Professor of Divinity at Louvain, but he returned to England on the accession of Mary, became Regius Professor once again (1554-1556 and 1559), a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and a royal chaplain, and he took a leading role in the trials of Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer. Smyth was regius professor once again in 1559, but only briefly, and soon lost this position and all his benefices following Elizabeth’s succession to Mary in 1558. He was briefly imprisoned in Archbishop Matthew Parker’s house, and on his release fled to the continent. In Douai, Mary’s widower, Philip II of Spain, appointed him dean of Saint Peter’s Church and then in 1562 he became the first chancellor and Professor of Theology at the new Douai University.[5]
For most of Nicholas Comerford’s time at Oxford, however, the Regius Professor of Divinity was Lawrence Humphrey (ca 1527-1590), who had lived in Basel, Zurich, Frankfort and Geneva during Mary’s reign. There he made acquaintances with the leading Swiss reformers, and adopted their ecclesiastical. He returned to England on Elizabeth’s accession to the throne in 1558, and was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1560. A year later, he was elected President of Magdalen College, despite the opposition of the fellows, and gradually converted the college into a stronghold of Puritanism. In 1580 he was made Dean of Winchester, and when he died on 1 February 1590 he was buried in the chapel of Magdalen College.[6]
After graduating from Oxford in 1563, Nicholas returned to Ireland, and was ordained priest in Waterford.[7] But he soon moved to Continental Europe on account of his religious views.[8] By 1564, he was in Louvain, where Richard Smyth had found refuge 15 years earlier. Nicholas Comerford’s brother, James Quemerford or Comerford of Waterford, a former chaplain to the Mayor of Waterford, wrote to Nicholas in Louvain on 14 August [1564], professing himself to be “of the old religion.” He was still in Louvain in 1565. [9]
But Nicholas was soon back in Ireland again. By 1569, he was chaplain to Sir Edmund Butler of Roscrea, Co Tipperary, and Cloughgrenan, Co Carlow, a younger brother of Thomas Butler, ‘Black Tom,’ the 10th Earl of Ormond. On 3 July 1569, Sir Edmund Butler wrote to the Lord Deputy, Henry Sydney, beseeching him “to allow the messenger whom I sent to you and them with two letters to return with answer, at least my chaplain, Sir Nicholas Comerforde.”[10]
Nicholas was Rector of Kilconnell in the Diocese of Cashel until about 1570, when the Dean and Chapter of Cashel wrote to Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, on 19 May 1570 nominating and presenting the Revd William Phelan as his successor.[11]
In 1571, the notorious pluralist, Miler Magrath, became Archbishop of Cashel. With this appointment, Ireland, and the Diocese of Cashel in particular, were now unsafe places for a man of Comerford’s Catholic convictions. He moved to the Continent, and by 1574, he was back in Louvain once again. The Catholic University of Leuven or Louvain was founded in Brabant, or present-day Belgium, in 1425, and its distinguished students included Desiderius Erasmus and Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens (Pope Adrian VI).
In Louvain, he was a contemporary of Peter Lombard of Waterford, later Archbishop of Armagh. When Nicholas Comerford received his doctorate in theology (DD) at the Catholic University of Louvain on 23 October 1576, the occasion was marked by a poem in Latin penned by his cousin Peter Lombard (1555-1625) from Waterford, who later became Professor of Theology at Louvain and then Archbishop of Armagh: Carmen heroicum in Doctoratum Nicolai Quemerfordi.[12]

In 1577, Nicholas was reported by the Lord President of Munster, Sir William Drury, as having recently come out of Louvain with the Kilkenny Jesuit James Archer and others, and had been preaching “all the way between Rye and Bristol against our religion.” Later, Drury spoke of him as one of “the principal agents of the Pope.”[13]
Nicholas returned to the Continent, and by 1578 it was reported that the chief Irish ecclesiastics then living in Rome on the bounty of the Pope included Dr Nicholas Comerford.[14] Gregory XIII was a liberal patron of the Society of Jesus and is best remembered for his reform of the calendar, giving his name to the Gregorian Calendar.

Later in 1578, Nicholas Comerford was living in Porto in Portugal, where he was said to be “of great authority among the Irish by reason alike of doctrine and of probity.”[15] Between 1578 and 1583, he joined the Jesuits or the Society of Jesus in Madrid, and was professed of the four vows.[16] He spent some time in Rome, later moved to Porto in Portugal, and then lectured in theology in a number of colleges in Spain and Portugal.

By 1589, he was living in Bayona in Spain. Christopher Arthur, a merchant from Limerick who was visiting Spain in 1589, reported to the Lord Deputy, Fitzwilliam, that among the Irish bishops in Spain, Dr Comerford of Waterford was living in Bayona de Galizia. [17]
By 1590 he was in Lisbon.[18] In January that year, Comerford was nominated by Cardinal William Allen (1532-1594) and others as Archbishop of Cashel in opposition to Miler Magrath, who was Archbishop of Cashel 1571-1622. Allen had been the Principal of Saint Mary Hall, Oxford, which was closely linked with Oriel College, while Nicholas Comerford was an undergraduate at Oxford, and Allen – like Comerford – moved to Leuven in the 1560s. However, the nomination did not receive the support it needed from King Philip II of Spain. Six years before Comerford’s nomination, Dermot O’Hurley, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel, had been hanged at Dublin Castle on 20 June 1584. However, the Spanish monarch did not want Comerford to leave Spain for Ireland, and instead, the king offered him any other post he might chose in Spain. As a consequence, Comerford’s nomination as Archbishop Cashel was not accepted in Rome, and the see remained vacant until 1603, when David Kearney was appointed in 1603; a Comerford was eventually appointed to Cashel in 1693, when Edward Comerford was appointed Archbishop of Cashel in succession to John Brenan.[19]

The failure to become Archbishop of Cashel marks the end of Nicholas Comerford’s ecclesiastical career. It is possible that he continued to live out his days in Spain, although there is no further mention of Nicholas Comerford in the Jesuit records after 1590, and he is reported to have died in Spain ca 1599.[20]

Nicholas Comerford was the author of Answers to certain questions propounded by the citizens of Waterford, said to have been “a learned and pithy treatise.” He also wrote a number of tracts on philosophy and theology, some of his sermons were published, and he was the author of a poem in Latin, Carmina in laudem comitis Ormondiae (Songs in praise of the Earl of Ormond).[21]

[1] Dictionary of National Biography, vol 4, p. 894 (where the date of birth is given as ca 1544); Hogan, Catalogue of Irish Jesuits (Dublin, 1880) p. 6, which also prefers ca 1544; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), vol 11, p. 866, where the date ca 1540 is preferred. More recently, Anthony M McCormack prefers ca 1541/1544; see Anthony M McCormack, ‘Comerford (Comberford, Quemerford), Nicholas,’ pp 715-716, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (eds James McGuire, James Quinn), vol 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2009).
[2] ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.
[3] J. Browne, Transactions of the Kilkenny Arch. Soc., 1. (1849-51), 221-29; Richard Stanihurst, Description of Ireland, Chapter 7; Power, Brenan, p. 244; Dowling, Continuity Ossory, pp 247-249.
[4] Foster vol 1, p. 314, which gives the date 20 February 1562-63; Brenan, Ecclesiastical History, p. 443; DNB 4, p. 894, which gives the date 1562 for his BA; Hurley says he graduated at Oxford in 1562, see Patrick Hurley, ‘Memoir of Dr Patrick Comerford, OSA, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, 1629-1652,’ Irish Ecclesiastical Record, December 1887, p. 1083; ODNB 11 gives the date 1562(see p. 866); McCormack agrees with 20 February 1563 (see p. 715).
[5] J. Andreas Löwe, Richard Smyth and the Language of Orthodoxy: Re-imagining Tudor Catholic Polemicism (Studies in Mediaeval and Reformation Traditions: History, Culture, Religion, Ideas, 96; Leiden: Brill, 2003), passim; JP Spellman, ‘The Irish in Belgium,’ Irish Ecclesiastical Record, July 1886 (Dublin: 1886), p. 642.
[6] C.H. Cooper and T. Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigienses (Cambridge 1861), vol 2, pp 80 ff.
[7] DNB 4, p. 894; ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.
[8] DNB 4, p. 894.
[9] Ronan, p. 114; Cal State Papers Irl 1601-1603, p. 663.
[10] Carew vol 1, p. 385.
[11] Ormond Deeds, 5, p. 185.
[12] Foster 1, p. 314; Spellman, pp 642-643; Hogan, Catalogue of Irish Jesuits, p. 6; ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.
[13] ODNB 11, p. 866; Hogan (1894), p. 74.
[14] Ronan, p. 580.
[15] Ronan, p. 590.
[16] Hogan, Catalogue of Irish Jesuits, p. 6; DNB 4, p. 894; ODNB 11, p. 866.
[17] Cal State Papers Irl, vol 4 (Elizabeth 1588-1592), p. 136; ODNB 11, p. 866.
[18] ODNB, vol 11, p. 866.
[19] Cal State Papers Irl vol 4 (Elizabeth 1588-1592), p. 295.
[20] Hogan, Catalogue of Irish Jesuits, p. 6; Spellman, p. 663; DNB 4, p. 894; ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.
[21] Brenan, Ecclesiastical History, p. 444; ODNB 11, p. 866; McCormack, p. 715.

◆ Menology of the Society of Jesus: The English Speaking Assistancy

October 12

Father Nicholas Comerford was the first of a long line of distinguishcd Waterford Jesuits, who worked with great fervour and energy for the preservation of Catholicity in their native city, and whose efforts were crowned with success. Father Nicholas was born in Waterford and began his education in the well-known school of Mr. Peter White. He went up afterwards to Oxford, and took his degree in 1562. Returning to his own country, he was ordained and advanced to some preferment, but was afterwards deprived of it on account of his religion. He then repaired to Louvain, where he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1577, his reappearance in Ireland drew the following comments from the Lord President of Munster “Dr. Comerford of Waterford is also of late come out of Louvain, he and the rest argued the whole way between Rye and Bristol against our religion, and caused doubt in several persons. There are a great many students of this city studying in Louvain, at the charge of their parents and friends”.

Fathers Comerford and Archer escaped the hands of Sir William Drury and, leaving Ireland, entered the Society; the former in Madrid, the latter at Rome. Father Comerford was employed in Spain for many years with great success and distinction in several Colleges, Bayonne in Galicia and Lisbon being among the number. His name occurs in the Irish State Papers, bearing date March 14th, 1589, as having been summoned from Rome by Cardinal Allen in order to be promoted to the archbishopric of Cashel, but
at this time he disappears from our view, and as he is not named in the Catalogue of 1609, he probably died about the same period.

Born: 07 January 1911, Chiltern, Victoria, Australia
Entered: 02 March 1927, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 08 January 1944, Sydney, Australia
Final Vows: 15 August 1946
Died: 14 September 1970, St Aloysius College, Milson’s Point, Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 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 before Entering at Loyola Greenwich.

1929-1932 After First Vows he was sent to Rathfarnham Castle Dublin for his Juniorate at University College Dublin. During his time there he had an accident, which though it did no lasting damage gave him quite a shock, and so he returned to Australia.
1932-1936 On return he was sent teaching to St Aloysius College Milsons Point where he also assisted the Prefect of Discipline.
1937-1939 He was sent for Philosophy to Canisius College Pymble and Loyola Watsonia
1939-1940 He returned to St Aloysius College for a year
1941-1944 He was sent for Theology to Canisius College. His Ordination group in 1944 was the first to be ordained in Sydney.
1944-1945 He made Tertianship at Loyola Watsonia
1946-1961 He returned to teaching in the Junior school at St Aloysius, also teaching Science in the Middle school. His greatest work was the annual production of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera in cooperation with Mr William Caspers. These operas were one of the great highlights of the College each year, and were most professionally produced. They were his crowning glory.
1961-1967 he was one of the casualties of the Visitor’s changes within the Province in 1961 and he was sent to St Ignatius College Norwood, where he taught Religion, English, Physics, Chemistry and elementary Science for some years, but ill health finally reduced him to working in the tuck shop.
1967 The Rector of St Aloysius, Vincent Conlon finally succeeded in gaining his return to the College, and when he did he taught Religion, Geography and elementary Science. It had been hoped that he might resume involvement in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, but his health di not allow that. In 1968 he looked after the bookshop.

He was one of natures real gentlemen, a man of great courtesy who respected the dignity of each individual. He was also a most genuinely humble and self-effacing person. He was easily upset by student immaturity, but was much appreciated by those whom he taught and those who worked with him in opera productions. He had great creative talent, was a good teacher of English, spoke polished English and had a fine singing voice.

His practice of personal poverty was obvious to all, and he was most faithful to his ministerial duties as priest. He finally died of a stroke and heart complications. His funeral from the College Chapel was most moving. Four former Rectors were present as well as Archbishop O’Brien, his mother and three sisters, and many former parents. The Mass was sung by the students of the College, who also formed a guard of honour outside at the end of the ceremony.

All those who knew him held him in high esteem.

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: 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: 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: 1583, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 1612, Spain
Died: 08 July 1640, Salamanca, Spain

◆ Catalogus Defuncti 1540-1640 has Iacob Comofortius RIP 1640 Waterford (Hist. Soc. 46, 49v

◆ In Chronological Catalogue Sheet as Ent 1612

◆ Old/15 (1) in pencil (16) “Comerford” RIP July 1640

◆ Old/16 has a : “C James Comerton”; DOB ? Waterford; Ent 1612 Spain; Coad Temp; RIP 1640 Salamanca

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
DOB Waterford; Ent 1612 Spain as Brother; RIP pre 1640 probably Salamanca

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