seamus dubhghaill

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Death of Francis Lenny, Roman Catholic Bishop

Francis Lenny, Irish Roman Catholic bishop in the last third of the 20th century, dies in Mullavilly, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, on July 16, 1978.

Lenny is born in Cookstown, County Tyrone, on September 27, 1928. He is educated at St. Patrick’s Grammar School, Armagh, and St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. He is ordained priest for the Archdiocese of Armagh on June 21, 1953. Pursuing his studies in ancient classes and canon law in Maynooth and the Dunboyne Institute, in July 1955 he is named secretary to Cardinal John D’Alton, Primate of Ireland, and upon his death in 1963, proceeds in the same position with his successor, Cardinal William Conway.

Lenny is appointed parish priest in Mullavilly in 1972. Less than two years later he is named coadjutor bishop of Armagh, receiving his episcopal consecration with the titular see of Rotdon from Cardinal Conway on June 16, 1974. Financial secretary to the Bishops’ Financial and General Purposes Committee, upon Conway’s death, he becomes vicar capitular of the archdiocese until Tomás Ó Fiaich is named his successor.

Lenny is a well known canonist and it is he who transfers a major relic of Saint Oliver Plunkett from Downside Abbey to Ireland in 1975, and is presently preserved in Oldcastle, County Meath, Plunkett’s birthplace.

A man of great charity and deep disposition, Lenny experiences great opposition from members of the Protestant community of Mullavilly, refusing to leave the village despite threats he receives. His bungalow is maliciously set on fire and he dies at the early age of forty nine on July 16, 1978, the fourth anniversary of his episcopal consecration, from injuries received complicated by a heart attack. Dressed in chasuble and mitre, he is laid to rest in a simple solid oak coffin following the celebration of a Funeral Mass celebrated at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh, presided by Archbishop Ó Fiaich which sees the participation of thousands.


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Birth of Daniel Cohalan, Bishop of Cork

Daniel Cohalan, Irish Roman Catholic clergyman who serves as the Bishop of Cork from 1916 to 1952, is born on July 14, 1858, in Kilmichael, County Cork.

After graduating at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Cohalan is ordained a priest at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne, Cork on July 25, 1882. His first pastoral appointment is a curate at Kilbrittain, County Cork, from October 1883 to January 1884. He briefly resumes his post-graduate studies at St. Finbarr’s Seminary (now College), Cork, from January to November 1884. His second curacy is at Tracton, County Cork, from November 1884 to September 1896. He returns to St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, as a professor of Theology from September 7, 1896 to June 7, 1914.

Cohalan is appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Cork and Titular Bishop of Vaga on May 25, 1914. He is consecrated bishop at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne on June 7, 1914 by John Harty, Archbishop of Cashel and Emly. Two years later, he is appointed Diocesan Bishop of Cork on August 29, 1916.

Cohalan is an outspoken critic during the Irish War of Independence, condemning acts of violence on both sides. In particular, he denounces the policy of reprisals. In July 1920, he pronounces an interdict on the killers of a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) sergeant, shot dead in the church porch in Bandon. He declares that anyone killing from ambush will be excommunicated. On December 12, 1920, Cohalan issues a decree saying that “anyone within the diocese of Cork who organises or takes part in ambushes or murder or attempted murder shall be excommunicated.” In turn, his life is threatened by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In August 1928, he condemns the British government which had allowed Terence MacSwiney to die on hunger strike in 1920.

The Bessborough Home in Cork is run by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and when the department “sought a change of superior in Bessborough because of the appallingly high death rate, he [Catholic Bishop of Cork Dr. Daniel Cohalan] denounced the request. The replacement of the Bessborough superior was delayed for four years after the department requested it, and many infants died during that time. It seems probable that the bishop’s intervention was elicited by the congregation.” In general the report finds that the major causes of infant mortality in the homes were respiratory infections and gastroenteritis, while “public attention has focused on marasmus [malnutrition]” suggesting “willful neglect.” However, it says that “the term marasmus is best seen as indicating that a child was failing to thrive, but medical experts suggest that this was due to an underlying, undiagnosed medical condition.”

Cohalan dies in office at the age of 94 at Bon Secours Hospital, Cork, on August 24, 1952. A story, current at the time in Cork, refers to his antipathy towards bishops of the Church of Ireland who styled themselves “Bishop of Cork.” A month before his death, and on his death-bed, word is brought to him of the death of the Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, Robert Hearn. The response of Cohalan, known “affectionately” as “Danny Boy”, is reputedly, “now he knows who’s Bishop of Cork.”

Originally buried at St. Finbarr’s College, Farranferris, Cohalan is reinterred in the grounds of St. Mary and St. Anne’s Cathedral, Cork, in 1996. His nephew of the same name, Daniel Cohalan, is Bishop of Waterford and Lismore from 1943 to 1965.


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Death of Francis Browne, Irish Jesuit & Photographer

Francis Patrick Mary Browne, distinguished Irish Jesuit and a prolific photographer, dies in Dublin on July 7, 1960. His best known photographs are those of the RMS Titanic and its passengers and crew taken shortly before its sinking in 1912. He is decorated as a military chaplain during World War I.

Browne is born to a wealthy family in 1880 at Buxton House, Cork, County Cork, the youngest of the eight children of James and Brigid (née Hegarty) Browne. His mother is the niece of William Hegarty, Lord Mayor of Cork, and a cousin of Sir Daniel Hegarty, the first Lord Mayor of Cork. She dies of puerperal fever eight days after his birth. After the death of his father in a swimming accident at Crosshaven on September 2, 1889, he is raised and supported by his uncle, Robert Browne, Bishop of Cloyne, who buys him his first camera shortly before the younger man embarks on a tour of Europe in 1897.

Browne spends his formative years at Bower Convent, Athlone (1888–91), Belvedere College (1891–92), Christian Brothers College, Cork (1892–1893), St. Vincent’s Castleknock College (1893–97), graduating in 1897. He goes on the aforementioned tour of Europe, where he begins taking photographs.

Upon his return to Ireland, Browne joins the Jesuits and spends two years in the novitiate at St. Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly. He attends the Royal University of Ireland, Dublin, where he is a classmate of James Joyce, who features him as Mr. Browne the Jesuit in Finnegans Wake. In 1909, he visits Rome with his uncle and brother, a bishop and priest respectively, during which they have a private audience with Pope Pius X with the Pope allowing Browne to take his photograph. He studies theology at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy in Dublin from 1911 to 1916.

In April 1912 Browne receives a present from his uncle: a ticket for the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic from Southampton, England, to Queenstown, Ireland, via Cherbourg, France. He travels to Southampton via Liverpool and London, boarding the RMS Titanic on the afternoon of April 10, 1912. He is booked in cabin A-37 on the Promenade Deck. He takes dozens of photographs of life aboard RMS Titanic on that day and the next morning. He captures the last known images of many crew and passengers, including captain Edward J. Smith, gymnasium manager T. W. McCawley, engineer William Parr, Major Archibald Butt, writer Jacques Futrelle and numerous third-class passengers whose names are unknown.

During his voyage on the RMS Titanic, Browne is befriended by an American millionaire couple who are seated at his table in the liner’s first-class dining saloon. They offer to pay his way to New York and back in return for him spending the voyage to New York in their company. He telegraphs his superior, requesting permission, but the reply is an unambiguous “GET OFF THAT SHIP – PROVINCIAL.”

Browne leaves the RMS Titanic when she docks in Queenstown and returns to Dublin to continue his theological studies. When the news of the ship’s sinking reaches him, he realises that his photos would be of great interest, and he negotiates their sale to various newspapers and news cartels. They appear in publications around the world. The Eastman Kodak Company subsequently gives him free film for life and he often contributes to The Kodak Magazine. It is unknown what type of camera he used to shoot the famous photos aboard RMS Titanic.

After his ordination on July 31, 1915, Browne completes his theological studies. In 1916, he is sent to Europe to join the Irish Guards as a chaplain. He serves with the Guards until the spring of 1920, including service at the Battle of the Somme and at Locre, Wytschaete, Messines Ridge, Paschendaele, Ypres, Amiens and Arras in Flanders.

Browne is wounded five times during the war, once severely in a gas attack. He is awarded the Military Cross (MC) on June 4, 1917 “for distinguished service in the field”. He is awarded a bar to his MC on February 18, 1918. He is also awarded the Croix de Guerre by France.

Browne takes many photographs during his time in Europe. One, which he calls “Watch on the Rhine,” is considered a classic image of World War I. He assembles a collection of his war photographs in an album named after his most famous photograph and distributes copies to his colleagues in the Guards.

After the war, Browne returns to Dublin, where, in 1922, he is appointed superior of Gardiner Street Church in Dublin. Ill health dogs him, however, and in 1924 it is thought that he would recover more quickly in warmer climes. He is sent on an extended visit to Australia. He takes his camera along, photographing life aboard ship and in Cape Town, South Africa, where he breaks his voyage.

On his way back to Ireland, Browne visits Ceylon, Aden, Suez, Saloniki, Naples, Toulon, Gibraltar, Algeciras, and Lisbon, taking photographs of local life and events at every stop. It is estimated that he takes more than 42,000 photographs during his life.

Browne resumes office as the Superior of Saint Francis Xavier Church, Dublin, upon his return. In 1929 he is appointed to the Retreats and Mission staff of the Irish Jesuits. His work entails preaching at missions and religious retreats all over Ireland. As most of this work is necessarily performed on evenings and Sundays, he has considerable time to indulge in his hobby during the daytime. He takes photographs of many parishes and towns in Ireland, and also photographs in London and East Anglia during his ecclesiastical travels to England.

Browne dies in Dublin on July 7, 1960, and is buried in the Jesuit plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. His negatives lay forgotten for 25 years after his death. They are found by chance in 1985 when Father Edward E. O’Donnell discovers them in a large metal trunk, once belonging to Browne, in the Irish Jesuit archives. “When the trunk was opened in 1985, people compared him to the greats like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau, but his work predated theirs by decades,” archivist David Davison later recalls.

O’Donnell brings the negatives to the attention of several publishers. The RMS Titanic photographs are published in 1997 as Father Browne’s Titanic Album with text by E. E. O’Donnell (Fr. Eddie O’Donnell). In all, at least 25 volumes of Browne’s photographs have now been published. The features editor of The Sunday Times of London calls this “the photographic equivalent to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Many of these books have become best-sellers, the latest being the Centenary Edition of Father Browne’s Titanic Album in 2012 by Messenger Publications, Dublin.

The Irish province of the Jesuits, the owner of the negatives pursuant to Browne’s will, engage photographic restoration specialists David and Edwin Davison to preserve and catalogue the fragile and unstable negatives. The Davisons make copies of every negative and are in the process of transferring every usable image to a digital format for future generations. The Davisons later acquire the rights to the photographs and still own the rights as Davison & Associates.


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Execution of Oliver Plunkett, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh

Oliver Plunkett (Irish: Oilibhéar Pluincéid), Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland who is the last victim of the Popish Plot, is executed in Tyburn, London, England, on July 1, 1681. He is beatified in 1920 and canonised in 1975, thus becoming the first new Irish saint in almost seven hundred years.

Plunkett is born on November 1, 1625 (earlier biographers give his date of birth as November 1, 1629, but 1625 has been the consensus since the 1930s) in Loughcrew, County Meath, to well-to-do parents with Hiberno-Norman ancestors. A grandson of James Plunket, 8th Baron Killeen (c. 1542-1595), he is related by birth to a number of landed families, such as the recently ennobled Earls of Roscommon, as well as the long-established Earls of Fingall, Lords Louth, and Lords Dunsany. Until his sixteenth year, his education is entrusted to his cousin Patrick Plunkett, Abbot of St. Mary’s, Dublin, and brother of Luke Plunket, 1st Earl of Fingall, who later becomes successively Bishop of Ardagh and of Meath.

As an aspirant to the priesthood, Plunkett sets out for Rome in 1647, under the care of Father Pierfrancesco Scarampi of the Roman Oratory. At this time the Irish Confederate Wars are raging in Ireland. These are essentially conflicts between native Irish Catholics, English and Irish Anglicans and Nonconformists. Scarampi is the Papal envoy to the Catholic movement known as the Confederation of Ireland. Many of Plunkett’s relatives are involved in this organisation.

Plunkett is admitted to the Pontifical Irish College in Rome and proves to be an able pupil. He is ordained a priest in 1654, and deputed by the Irish bishops to act as their representative in Rome. Meanwhile, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–53) had defeated the Catholic cause in Ireland. In the aftermath the public practice of Catholicism is banned and Catholic clergy are executed. As a result, it is impossible for Plunkett to return to Ireland for many years. He petitions to remain in Rome and, in 1657, becomes a professor of theology. Throughout the period of the Commonwealth and the first years of Charles II‘s reign, he successfully pleads the cause of the Irish Catholic Church, and also serves as theological professor at the College of Propaganda Fide. At the Congregation of Propaganda Fide on July 9, 1669 he is appointed Archbishop of Armagh, the Irish primatial see, and is consecrated on November 30 at Ghent by the Bishop of Ghent, Eugeen-Albert, count d’Allamont. He eventually sets foot on Irish soil again on March 7, 1670, as the Stuart Restoration of 1660 had begun on a basis of toleration. The pallium is granted him in the Consistory of July 28, 1670.

After arriving back in Ireland, Plunkett tackles drunkenness among the clergy, writing, “Let us remove this defect from an Irish priest, and he will be a saint.” The Penal Laws had been relaxed in line with the Declaration of Breda in 1660 and he is able to establish a Jesuit College in Drogheda in 1670. A year later 150 students attend the college, no fewer than 40 of whom are Protestant, making this college the first integrated school in Ireland. His ministry is a successful one and he is said to have confirmed 48,000 Catholics over a four-year period. The government in Dublin, especially under the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde (the Protestant son of Catholic parents), extend a generous measure of toleration to the Catholic hierarchy until the mid-1670s.

On the enactment of the Test Act in 1673, to which Plunkett does not agree for doctrinal reasons, the college is closed and demolished. He goes into hiding, travelling only in disguise, and refuses a government edict to register at a seaport to await passage into exile. For the next few years he is largely left in peace since the Dublin government, except when put under pressure from the English government in London, prefer to leave the Catholic bishops alone.

In 1678 the so-called Popish Plot, concocted in England by clergyman Titus Oates, leads to further anti-Catholic action. Archbishop of Dublin Peter Talbot is arrested, and Plunkett again goes into hiding. Despite being on the run and with a price on his head, he refuses to leave his flock. He is arrested in Dublin on December 6, 1679 and imprisoned in Dublin Castle, where he gives absolution to the dying Talbot. He is tried at Dundalk for conspiring against the state by allegedly plotting to bring 20,000 French soldiers into the country, and for levying a tax on his clergy to support 70,000 men for rebellion. Though this is unproven, some in government circles are worried about the possibility that a repetition of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 is being planned and, in any case, this is a convenient excuse for proceeding against Plunkett.

Plunkett is found guilty of high treason in June 1681 “for promoting the Roman faith,” and is condemned to death. Numerous pleas for mercy are made but Charles II, although himself a reputed crypto-Catholic, thinks it too politically dangerous to spare Plunkett.

Plunkett is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on July 1, 1681, the last Catholic martyr to die in England. His body is initially buried in two tin boxes, next to five Jesuits who had died previously, in the courtyard of St. Giles in the Fields church. The remains are exhumed in 1683 and moved to the Benedictine monastery at Lamspringe, near Hildesheim in Germany. The head is brought to Rome, and from there to Armagh, and eventually to Drogheda where since June 29, 1921 it has rested in St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church. Most of the body is brought to Downside Abbey, England, where the major part is located today, with some parts remaining at Lamspringe. On the occasion of his canonization in 1975 his casket is opened and some parts of his body given to the St. Peter’s Church in Drogheda.


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Death of John O’Reily, Archbishop of Adelaide

John O’Reily, the first Bishop of Port Augusta and the second Archbishop of Adelaide, dies in Adelaide, Australia on July 6, 1915.

O’Reily is born John O’Reilly on November 19, 1846, in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, the son of Michael, a military officer, and Anne, née Gallagher. He completes his primary education at the parochial school of St. John’s Parish, and spends six and a half years at St. Kieran’s College. Due to poor health, he decides against pursuing a military career, and in 1864 he enters All Hallows College in Dublin to study for the priesthood. He learns the Irish language and studies mental philosophy, mathematics and ecclesiastical studies, achieving first prize in each of his classes.

After being ordained on June 21, 1869, O’Reily leaves Ireland for Western Australia in October, arriving in January 1870. Having served briefly in Newcastle (present day Toodyay) and Northam, he becomes a parish priest in Fremantle, establishing the West Australian Catholic Record in 1874 and serving as its publisher, editor and printer from 1883.

When the Diocese of Port Augusta is established in 1887, Pope Leo XIII names O’Reily as its first bishop. Concerned about the financial position of the diocese, which had inherited significant debt from the Diocese of Adelaide, he accepts the posting reluctantly. As bishop, he greatly improves the financial position of the new diocese, reducing its debt by half and earning a reputation as a competent administrator.

In 1894, O’Reily is appointed to replace the deceased Christopher Reynolds as Archbishop of Adelaide. The archdiocese he inherits is burdened with substantial debt, again left over from the old Diocese of Adelaide. Through the sale of church assets and a fundraising campaign, he is able to eliminate most of the Archdiocese’s liabilities while still investing in church infrastructure. He also actively participates in public discussions relating to education policy at a time when the role of the state in supporting religious education is topical. He publicly advocates government assistance for religious schools, stating that it is unfair Catholics pay taxes to support state schools, but receive no funding for their own.

In the later years of his life, poor health forces O’Reily to spend less time attending to his episcopal duties, and from 1905, he keeps to himself in his house in Glen Osmond, leading to the local press referring to him as the “Recluse of Glen Osmond.” Increasingly, his episcopal duties are fulfilled by Bishop of Port Augusta John Norton, who has to visit the more remote parts of O’Reily’s see on his behalf.

As he becomes more frail, O’Reily asks certain priests to accompany him when he travels, among whom is the Dominican prior Robert Spence. When O’Reily requests a coadjutor in 1913, he chooses Spence as his first preference for the role. Despite the reluctance of some clergy to the appointment of a religious as Archbishop, Spence is consecrated as coadjutor, with right of succession, in August 1914.

O’Reily dies at his house in Adelaide on July 6, 1915 and is buried under a large Celtic cross at the West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide. He is highly regarded by many in South Australian society, with Adelaide’s daily newspapers praising his character, administrative ability and positive relations with non-Catholics.


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Birth of Richard Downey, Archbishop of Liverpool

Richard Downey, English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, is born in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny on May 5, 1881. He serves as Archbishop of Liverpool from 1928 until his death.

Downey is ordained to the priesthood on May 25, 1907 at St. Joseph Seminary, Up Holland, Skelmersdale, Lancashire. He is Professor of Philosophy at Sacred Heart College, Hammersmith, and then Professor of Dogmatic Theology at St. Joseph’s College, Up Holland, where he is also Vice-Rector. On August 3, 1928, he is appointed Archbishop of Liverpool by Pope Pius XI, succeeding the late Frederick William Keating. He receives his Episcopal consecration on the following September 21 from Cardinal Francis Bourne, with Bishops Robert Dobson and Francis Vaughan serving as co-consecrators.

Downey’s tenure sees the construction and dedication of the crypt of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, built to a design by Sir Edwin Lutyens, although the Cathedral itself is never completed as he had envisaged. A picture of Lutyens proposed cathedral is printed on postcards sold to raise funds.

In 1929, before the actual construction begins, Downey states, “Hitherto all cathedrals have been dedicated to saints. I hope this one will be dedicated to Christ himself with a great figure surmounted on the cathedral, visible for many a mile out at sea.” He also declares that while the Cathedral will not be medieval and Gothic, neither will it be as modern as the works of Jacob Epstein, a statement somewhat at odds with the design that is finally realised after his death.

In 1933, after the urn containing the bones of King Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York is removed from Westminster Abbey for examination and then returned with an Anglican burial service, Downey says, “It is difficult to see what moral justification there can be for reading a Protestant service over the remains of these Roman Catholic princes, even though it were done on the plea of legal continuity of the present Anglican Church with the pre-Reformation Church of Britain.”

Downey dies in Liverpool at the age of 72 on June 16, 1953, having served as Liverpool’s archbishop for twenty-four years. His remains are interred in a crypt at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Liverpool.


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Death of Fr. Abram Joseph Ryan, Poet & Priest

Abram Joseph Ryan, Irish American poet, active proponent of the Confederate States of America, and a Catholic priest, dies in Louisville, Kentucky on April 22, 1886. He has been called the “Poet-Priest of the South” and, less frequently, the “Poet Laureate of the Confederacy.”

Ryan is born Matthew Abraham Ryan in Hagerstown, Maryland on February 5, 1838, the fourth child of Irish immigrants Matthew Ryan and his wife, Mary Coughlin, both of Clogheen, County Tipperary, and their first to be born in the United States.

In 1840 the family relocates to Ralls County, Missouri, and then, in 1846, to St. Louis, where the father opens a general store. Ryan is educated at St. Joseph’s Academy, run by the De La Salle Brothers. Showing a strong inclination to piety, he is encouraged by his mother and teachers to consider becoming a priest. He decides to test a calling to the priesthood and on September 16, 1851, at the age of 13, enters the College of St. Mary’s of the Barrens, near Perryville, Missouri, a minor seminary for young candidates for the priesthood. By the time of his graduation in 1855, he has decided to pursue Holy Orders.

Ryan then enters the Vincentians, taking the oath of obedience to the Congregation. He does three more years of study at the college during the course of which, on June 19, 1857, he receives minor orders. In 1858, shortly after the death of his father, he is sent to the Seminary of Our Lady of the Angels near Niagara Falls, New York.

As a Southerner, Ryan feels out of place at the seminary, and soon begins to express his opposition to the abolitionist movement then gaining popularity in the Northeastern United States. He then joins in the sentiment expressed by the Catholic bishops and editors of the nation in that period, who feel threatened by the anti-Catholic opinions expressed by the leadership of the Abolitionists. His writings in that period begin to express suspicion of Northern goals. Possibly for that reason, he is sent back to St. Mary of the Barrens.

During the winter of 1860, Ryan gives a lecture series through which he starts to gain notice as a speaker. His abilities as a preacher gain wide approval, and his superiors decide to have him ordained a priest earlier than is the normal age under church law. On September 12, 1860, he is ordained a priest at his home parish in St. Louis, with the ordination being performed by the Bishop of St. Louis, Peter Richard Kenrick.

In the Fall of 1861, soon after the start of the American Civil War, Ryan is transferred back to the Seminary of Our Lady of the Angels in New York. After a couple of bouts of illness, he declares himself fit to teach again in April 1862, but his superiors instead transfer him to parish duties in LaSalle, Illinois. After arriving there, he realizes that he will not be able to express his strong views in support of the Confederacy. Frustrated, and feeling ignored by his immediate superior, he requests his release from his oath of obedience. Upon his release he returns home, where he and his brother David intend to enlist in the Confederate States Army.

Ryan makes sporadic early appearances as a freelance chaplain among Confederate troops from Louisiana and begins making appearances in Tennessee in 1862. He begins full-time pastoral duties in Tennessee in late 1863 or early 1864. Though he never formally joins the Confederate Army, he clearly is serving as a freelance chaplain by the last two years of the conflict, with possible appearances at the Battle of Lookout Mountain and the Battle of Missionary Ridge near Chattanooga, and well-authenticated service at the Battle of Franklin and the subsequent Battle of Nashville. Some of his most moving poems —”In Memoriam” and “In Memory of My Brother”— come in response to his brother’s death, who died while serving in uniform for the Confederacy in April 1863, likely from injuries suffered during fighting near Mount Sterling, Kentucky.

On June 24, 1865, Ryan’s most famous poem, “The Conquered Banner,” appears in the pages of the New York Freeman’s Journal over his early pen-name “Moina.” Starting in 1865, he moves from parish to parish throughout the South. Beginning in November 1881 he spends a year in semi-retirement at Biloxi, Mississippi while completing his second book, A Crown for Our Queen. In Augusta, Georgia, he founds The Banner of the South, a religious and political weekly in which he republishes much of his early poetry, along with poetry by fellow-southerners James Ryder Randall, Paul Hamilton Hayne, and Sidney Lanier, as well as an early story by Mark Twain.

In 1879, Ryan’s work is gathered into a collected volume of verse, first titled Father Ryan’s Poems and subsequently republished in 1880 as Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous. His collection sells remarkably well for the next half-century. His work also finds a popular following in his family’s ancestral home of Ireland. An article about his work appears in Irish Monthly during his life, and a decade after his death, yet another collection of his poetry is published in Dublin by The Talbot Press under the title Selected Poems of Father Abram Ryan.

In 1880 Ryan’s old restlessness returns, and he heads north for the twofold object of publishing his poems and lecturing. He dies April 22, 1886, at a Franciscan friary in Louisville, Kentucky, but his body is returned to St. Mary’s in Mobile, Alabama for burial. He is interred in Mobile’s Catholic Cemetery. In recognition of his loyal service to the Confederacy, a stained glass window is placed in the Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans in his memory. In 1912 a local newspaper launches a drive to erect a statue to him. Dedicated in July 1913, it includes a stanza from “The Conquered Banner” below an inscription that reads: “Poet, Patriot, and Priest.”


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Death of William Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin

William Joseph Walsh, archbishop and nationalist, dies in Dublin on April 9, 1921. He serves as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin from July 3, 1885 until his death.

Walsh is born at 11 Essex Quay in Dublin, the only child of Ralph and Mary Perce Walsh. His father is a watchmaker and jeweler. He inherits his sympathy for Irish nationalism and independence from his father, who has the boy enrolled in the Repeal Association before he is two years old. He is educated locally at Mr. Fitzpatrick’s School on Peter St. and at St. Laurence O’Toole Seminary School, Harcourt Street, Dublin. In 1856, he goes to the Catholic University of Ireland and three years later to St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth where he becomes Professor of Theology in 1867. He is appointed vice-president of Maynooth in 1878 and president in 1880. A poor preacher, he makes the press his pulpit, making a name for himself in the areas of land law and education.

Walsh is ordained into the priesthood on May 22, 1866. He is appointed Archbishop of Dublin on July 3, 1885 followed by his consecration on August 2, 1885. He serves in this position until his death in 1921 and is succeeded by Edward Joseph Byrne.

The Land issue divides the Irish hierarchy. Walsh supports agrarian reform on behalf of the rural population. He is openly sympathetic to Irish nationalism, and an advocate of both Home Rule and agrarian land reform. It is his support for this movement, led by Michael Davitt, which leads the Vatican to honour Michael Logue in Armagh with the dignity of Cardinal in 1893 rather than Walsh in Dublin.

Walsh serves on the Senate of the Royal University of Ireland (1883–84) and as part of the Commission of National Education (1885–1901). He is appointed Chancellor of the newly founded National University of Ireland in 1908, a position he holds until his death, after which he is succeeded by Éamon de Valera.

Walsh has been described as “the greatest archbishop of Dublin since Laurence O’Toole (Lorcán Ua Tuathail). Walsh Road in Drumcondra, Dublin is named after him.


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Death of Cardinal John Joseph Glennon

Cardinal John Joseph Glennon, prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, dies on March 9, 1946 in Dublin. He serves as Archbishop of St. Louis from 1903 until his death. He is elevated to the cardinalate in 1946.

Glennon is born on June 14, 1862 in Kinnegad, County Westmeath, to Matthew and Catherine (née Rafferty) Glennon. After graduating from St. Finian’s College, he enters All Hallows College near Dublin in 1878. He accepts an invitation from Bishop John Joseph Hogan in 1882 to join the newly erected Diocese of Kansas City in the United States. After arriving in Missouri in 1883, he is ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Hogan on December 20, 1884.

Glennon is then assigned to St. Patrick’s Church in Kansas City and, briefly returning to Europe, furthers his studies at the University of Bonn in Germany. Upon his return to Kansas City, he becomes rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. He is later made vicar general (1892) and apostolic administrator (1894) for the diocese.

On March 14, 1896, Glennon is appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Kansas City and Titular Bishop of Pinara by Pope Leo XIII. He receives his episcopal consecration on the following June 29 from Archbishop John Joseph Kain, with Bishops Maurice Francis Burke and John Joseph Hennessy serving as co-consecrators. At age 34, he becomes one of the youngest bishops in the world.

Glennon is named Coadjutor Archbishop of St. Louis on April 27, 1903. He succeeds Archbishop Kain as the fourth Archbishop of St. Louis upon the latter’s death on October 13 of that year. Realizing the Cathedral of St. Louis can no longer accommodate its growing congregation, he quickly begins raising funds for a new cathedral, the cornerstone of which is later laid on October 18, 1908.

Glennon opens the new Kenrick Seminary in 1915, followed by the minor seminary in Shrewsbury. He delivers the eulogy at the funeral of Cardinal James Gibbons, and is appointed an Assistant at the Pontifical Throne on June 28, 1921. He opposes British rule in Ireland, and supports the leaders of the Easter Rising. He is an outspoken opponent of divorce, condemns gambling games, and prohibits dancing and drinking at church-sponsored events. He sometimes throws the opening ball for the St. Louis Cardinals, but does not play any sports himself, once saying, “I once tried golf, but I so disfigured the scenery that I never played again, in fear of public indignation and reprisal.”[2]

Despite a rather popular tenure, as Archbishop of St. Louis Glennon opposes racial integration in the city’s Catholic schools, colleges, and universities. During the early 1940s, many local priests, especially Jesuits, challenge the segregationist policies at the city’s Catholic schools. The St. Louis chapter of the Midwest Clergy Conference on Negro Welfare, formed locally in 1938, pushes the all-female Webster College to integrate first. However, in 1943, Glennon blocks the enrollment of a young black woman at the college by speaking privately with the Kentucky-based superior of the Sisters of Loretto, which staffs the college. When approached directly by pro-integration priests, he calls the integration plan a “Jesuit ploy,” and quickly transfers one of the complaining priests away from his mission at an African American parish.

The Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American newspaper with national circulation, discovers Glennon’s intervention and runs a front-page feature on the Webster incident. In response, Father Claude Heithaus, professor of Classical Archaeology at the Catholic Saint Louis University, delivers an angry sermon accusing his own institution of immoral behavior in its segregation policies. Saint Louis University begins admitting African American students that summer when its president, Father Patrick Holloran, manages to secure approval from the reluctant Archbishop Glennon. Nevertheless, St. Louis maintains one of the largest numbers of African-American parishes and schools in the country.

On Christmas Eve 1945, it is announced that the 83-year-old Glennon will be elevated to the College of Cardinals. He originally thinks himself too old to make the journey to Rome, but eventually joins fellow Cardinals-elect Francis Spellman and Thomas Tien Ken-sin on their flight, during which time he contracts a cold from which he does not recover. Pope Pius XII creates him Cardinal Priest of San Clemente al Laterano in the consistory of February 18, 1946.

During the return trip to the United States, Glennon stops in his native Ireland, where he is received by President Seán T. O’Kelly and Taoiseach Éamon de Valera. While in Dublin, he is diagnosed with uremic poisoning and dies on March 9, 1946, ending a 42-year tenure as Archbishop. The Cardinal’s body is returned to St. Louis and then buried at the Cathedral.

Glennon is the namesake of the community of Glennonville, Missouri. The only diocesan hospital for children, Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, affiliated with Saint Louis University Hospital, is created in his name.

(Pictured: Cardinal John J. Glennon, photo by the St. Louis Dispatch)