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Birth of Alan McGuckian, Bishop of Down and Connor

Alexander Aloysius “Alan” McGuckian, SJ, the 33rd Bishop of Down and Connor, is born on February 25, 1953, in Cloughmills, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

McGuckian is the youngest of six children to Brian McGuckian and his wife Pauline (née McKenna). He is named after his uncle, also Alexander Aloysius McGuckian, who dies five month before he is born. Yet another uncle, Daniel McGuckian, is a priest of the Diocese of Down and Connor and serves as parish priest of Cushendun and then Randalstown until his death in 1980. His father is a successful pig farmer who, alongside his brothers, develops the world’s biggest pig farm.

Two of McGuckian’s brothers are also Jesuit priests, while another brother is a businessman. Both of his sisters predecease him.

McGuckian attends primary school in Cloughmills and secondary school at St. MacNissi’s College, before beginning studies in Irish language and scholastic philosophy at Queen’s University, Belfast (QUB) in 1971, where he is a near-contemporary of future brother bishop Dónal McKeown. He first visits Ranafast, County Donegal, in 1968, and has since become a regular visitor to the Donegal Gaeltacht.

After one year in Belfast, McGuckian enters the Jesuit novitiate at Manresa House in Clontarf, Dublin, during which time he completes a Bachelor of Arts in Latin and Spanish from University College Dublin (UCD) between 1974 and 1977, a Bachelor of Philosophy from Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy between 1977 and 1979, and a Master of Divinity and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from Regis College, Toronto, between 1981 and 1985. He subsequently completes a Master of Arts in Irish translation from Queen’s University, Belfast.

McGuckian is ordained to the priesthood on June 22, 1984, and makes his final profession on February 15, 1997.

Following ordination, McGuckian spends four years as a teacher in Clongowes Wood College and vocations director for the Jesuits, before undertaking a six month period of spiritual renewal in southern India and serving in a shanty town in Quezon City, Philippines.

McGuckian returns to Ireland in 1992, where he is appointed director of the Jesuit Communication Centre, during which he develops Sacred Space, a website which allows people to pray at their computer, in 1999, and Catholic news service CatholicIreland.net in 2004.

McGuckian also serves as editor of both An Timire and Foilseacháin Ábhair Spioradálta, later translating the autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola into Irish under the title Scéal an Oilithrigh. He also co-authors the drama 1912 – A Hundred Years On with Presbyterian historian Philip Orr in 2011, which looks at the experiences of the Ulster Covenant and the wider Home Rule movement from both nationalist and unionist perspectives.

McGuckian also serves as chaplain to many of the Gaelscoileanna in the Diocese of Down and Connor, and subsequently as chaplain to Ulster University campuses in Belfast and Jordanstown. Following the publication of the Living Church Report, which outlines the findings of a synodal process within the diocese, he is appointed by Noël Treanor in 2012 to set up and lead the Living Church Office, whose aim is to realise the hopes and aspirations expressed in the report and subsequently in the upcoming diocesan pastoral plan.

McGuckian is also appointed diocesan director of formation for the permanent diaconate in 2014, and also works during his directorship of the Living Church Office to establish pastoral communities across the diocese, through fostering a culture of co-responsibility for the mission of the Church between clergy and lay people.

McGuckian is appointed Bishop-elect of Raphoe by Pope Francis on June 9, 2017. His appointment makes him the first member of the Jesuits to be appointed a bishop in Ireland.

McGuckian is consecrated by the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Eamon Martin, on August 6, 2017, in the Cathedral of St. Eunan and St. Columba, Letterkenny. He uses the name and title Alan Mac Eochagáin, C. Í. when ministering in the Gaeltacht.

In an interview with The Irish Catholic in September 2019, McGuckian says that having a home is as fundamental as the right to life and education, and that the Government must be “pushed” to enshrine a right to housing in the Constitution of Ireland. He also joins a number of church leaders in the West of Ireland on September 16, 2021, in calling on the Irish government to offer reparations to homeowners whose properties are affected by defective concrete blocks.

In an interview with The Irish Catholic in February 2021, McGuckian takes issue with the view held by political leaders that public worship is deemed to be “non-essential” during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland. Quoting Pope Francis, who states that “the right to worship must be respected, protected and defended by civil authorities like the right to bodily and physical health,” he expresses a need to let political leaders know that public worship is not only central, but also “utterly essential.”

Following a fatal explosion in Creeslough, County Donegal, on October 7, 2022, McGuckian refers to the explosion as “the darkest day in Donegal,” adding that the local community is “living through a nightmare of shock and horror.” He also concelebrates at the Funeral Masses of each of the victims, describing the fact that the parish church would be holding two funerals in the space of three hours as “surreal.”

McGuckian is appointed Bishop of Down and Connor by Pope Francis on February 2, 2024. In his first address following his appointment, he expresses his hope that the restoring of the Northern Ireland Executive will help the most vulnerable in society.


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Birth of Desmond Connell, Future Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church

Desmond Connell, cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church and former Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, is born in Phibsborough, Dublin, on March 24, 1926.

Connell is educated at St. Peter’s National School, Phibsborough and the Jesuit Fathers’ second level school, Belvedere College, and studies for the priesthood at Holy Cross College. He later studies Arts at University College Dublin (UCD) and graduates with a BA in 1946 and is awarded an MA the following year. Between 1947 and 1951, he studies theology at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth for a Bachelor of Divinity.

Connell is ordained priest by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid on May 19, 1951. He takes up a teaching post at the Department of Metaphysics at the University College Dublin. He is appointed Professor of General Metaphysics in 1972 and in 1983 becomes the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology. The College’s Department of Metaphysics is abolished after his departure.

Connell is appointed Archbishop of Dublin by the Holy See in early 1988. He is consecrated at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin on March 6, 1988. He is created Cardinal-Priest by Pope John Paul II at the Consistory in Rome on February 21, 2001, with the Titulus S. Silvestri in Capite. Archbishops of Armagh, who hold the higher title of Primate of All Ireland, are more frequently appointed Cardinal than Archbishops of Dublin. The last Archbishop of Dublin to have been a cardinal is Cardinal Edward MacCabe, who was appointed in 1882. A large Irish contingent from Church and State, along with family and friends of the Cardinal, attend the installation which for the first time takes place at the front of the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica.

On April 26, 2004, Connell retires as archbishop, handing the diocese to the coadjutor bishop, Diarmuid Martin. All bishops submit their resignation to the Pope on their 75th birthday. Connell’s is accepted shortly after his 78th birthday.

Connell is one of the cardinal electors who participates in the 2005 papal conclave that selects Pope Benedict XVI. Connell is considered quite close to Pope Benedict, both theologically and personally, both having served together on a number of congregations. He attends the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in June 2012 and concelebrates at the Statio Orbis Mass in Croke Park.

It is Connell’s failure, when Archbishop of Dublin in 1988–2004, to address adequately the abuse scandals in Dublin that lead the Vatican to assign Archbishop Martin as his replacement in the country’s largest diocese. The Murphy Report finds that Connell had handled the affair “badly” as he was “slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation.” It does praise him for making the archdiocesan records available to the authorities in 2002 and for his 1995 actions in giving the authorities the names of 17 priests who had been accused of abuse, although it says the list is incomplete as complaints were made against at least 28 priests in the archdiocese.

From 1988 Connell also continues to insure his archdiocese against liability from complainants, while claiming to the Murphy Commission that the archdiocese is “on a learning curve” in regard to child abuse. He arranges for compensation payments to be made from a “Stewardship Trust” that is kept secret from the archdiocese’s parishioners until 2003. In 1996 he refuses to help a victim of Paul McGennis and does not pass on what he knows about McGennis to her, or to the police. He apologises for this in 2002.

Desmond Connell dies in Dublin at the age of 90 on February 21, 2017, exactly sixteen years after his creation as Cardinal.


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Death of Desmond Connell, Cardinal & Archbishop of Dublin

Desmond Connell, cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church and former Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, dies peacefully in his sleep in Dublin on February 21, 2017, following a lengthy illness.

Connell is born in Dublin on March 24, 1926. He is educated at St. Peter’s National School, Phibsborough and the Jesuit Fathers’ second level school, Belvedere College, and studies for the priesthood at Holy Cross College. He later studies Arts at University College Dublin (UCD) and graduates with a BA in 1946 and is awarded an MA the following year. Between 1947 and 1951, he studies theology at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth for a Bachelor of Divinity.

Connell is ordained priest by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid on May 19, 1951. He takes up a teaching post at the Department of Metaphysics at the University College Dublin. He is appointed Professor of General Metaphysics in 1972 and in 1983 becomes the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology. The College’s Department of Metaphysics is abolished after his departure.

Connell is appointed Archbishop of Dublin by the Holy See in early 1988. He is consecrated at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin on March 6, 1988. He is created Cardinal-Priest by Pope John Paul II at the Consistory in Rome on February 21, 2001, with the Titulus S. Silvestri in Capite. Archbishops of Armagh, who hold the higher title of Primate of All Ireland, are more frequently appointed Cardinal than Archbishops of Dublin. The last Archbishop of Dublin to have been a cardinal is Cardinal Edward MacCabe, who was appointed in 1882. A large Irish contingent from Church and State, along with family and friends of the Cardinal, attend the installation which for the first time takes place at the front of the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica.

On April 26, 2004, Connell retires as archbishop, handing the diocese to the coadjutor bishop, Diarmuid Martin. All bishops submit their resignation to the Pope on their 75th birthday. Connell’s is accepted shortly after his 78th birthday.

Connell is one of the cardinal electors who participates in the 2005 papal conclave that selects Pope Benedict XVI. Connell is considered quite close to Pope Benedict, both theologically and personally, both having served together on a number of congregations. He attends the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in June 2012 and concelebrates at the Statio Orbis Mass in Croke Park.

It is Connell’s failure, when Archbishop of Dublin in 1988–2004, to address adequately the abuse scandals in Dublin that lead the Vatican to assign Archbishop Martin as his replacement in the country’s largest diocese. The Murphy Report finds that Connell had handled the affair “badly” as he was “slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation.” It does praise him for making the archdiocesan records available to the authorities in 2002 and for his 1995 actions in giving the authorities the names of 17 priests who had been accused of abuse, although it says the list is incomplete as complaints were made against at least 28 priests in the archdiocese.

From 1988 Connell also continues to insure his archdiocese against liability from complainants, while claiming to the Murphy Commission that the archdiocese is “on a learning curve” in regard to child abuse. He arranges for compensation payments to be made from a “Stewardship Trust” that is kept secret from the archdiocese’s parishioners until 2003. In 1996 he refuses to help a victim of Paul McGennis and does not pass on what he knows about McGennis to her, or to the police. He apologises for this in 2002.

Desmond Connell dies in Dublin at the age of 90 on February 21, 2017, exactly sixteen years after his creation as Cardinal.


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Desmond Connell Created Cardinal-Priest by John Paul II

desmond-connell

Desmond Connell is created Cardinal-Priest by Pope John Paul II at the Consistory in Rome on February 21, 2001. He becomes the first Archbishop of Dublin in over 100 years to be installed as a Cardinal. A large Irish contingent from Church and State, along with family and friends of the Cardinal, attend the installation which for the first time takes place at the front of the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica.

Connell is born in Dublin on March 24, 1926. He is educated at St. Peter’s National School, Phibsborough and the Jesuit Fathers’ second level school, Belvedere College, and studies for the priesthood at Holy Cross College. He later studies Arts at University College Dublin (UCD) and graduates with a BA in 1946 and is awarded an MA the following year. Between 1947 and 1951, he studies theology at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth for a Bachelor of Divinity.

Connell is ordained priest by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid on May 19, 1951. He takes up a teaching post at the Department of Metaphysics at the University College Dublin. He is appointed Professor of General Metaphysics in 1972 and in 1983 becomes the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology. The College’s Department of Metaphysics is abolished after his departure.

Connell is appointed Archbishop of Dublin by the Holy See in early 1988. He is consecrated at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin on March 6, 1988. He is created Cardinal-Priest by Pope John Paul II at the Consistory in Rome on February 21, 2001, with the Titulus S. Silvestri in Capite. Archbishops of Armagh, who hold the higher title of Primate of All Ireland, are more frequently appointed Cardinal than Archbishops of Dublin. The last Archbishop of Dublin to have been a cardinal is Cardinal Edward MacCabe, who was appointed in 1882.

On April 26, 2004, Connell retires as archbishop, handing the diocese to the coadjutor bishop, Diarmuid Martin. All bishops submit their resignation to the Pope on their 75th birthday. Connell’s is accepted shortly after his 78th birthday.

Connell is one of the cardinal electors who participates in the 2005 papal conclave that selects Pope Benedict XVI. Connell is considered quite close to Pope Benedict, both theologically and personally, both having served together on a number of congregations. He attends the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in June 2012 and concelebrates at the Statio Orbis Mass in Croke Park.

It is Connell’s failure, when Archbishop of Dublin in 1988–2004, to address adequately the abuse scandals in Dublin that lead the Vatican to assign Archbishop Martin as his replacement in the country’s largest diocese. The Murphy Report finds that Connell had handled the affair “badly” as he was “slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation.” It does praise him for making the archdiocesan records available to the authorities in 2002 and for his 1995 actions in giving the authorities the names of 17 priests who had been accused of abuse, although it says the list is incomplete as complaints were made against at least 28 priests in the archdiocese.

From 1988 Connell also continues to insure his archdiocese against liability from complainants, while claiming to the Murphy Commission that the archdiocese is “on a learning curve” in regard to child abuse. He arranges for compensation payments to be made from a “Stewardship Trust” that is kept secret from the archdiocese’s parishioners until 2003. In 1996 he refuses to help a victim of Paul McGennis and does not pass on what he knows about McGennis to her, or to the police. He apologises for this in 2002.

Desmond Connell dies in Dublin at the age of 90 on February 21, 2017, exactly sixteen years after his creation as Cardinal.