Late Fr Don Burke SMA.

                 

I’ve never asked this question to any priest that I have known in my lifetime, but if I was to ask them is there a particular time of the year that they would like to die it would be in and around the season of Easter.

Fr. Daniel “Don” Burke a priest who lived his early days in the Stephen Street area of Waterford City born into the family of Maurice and Laura (nee Coffey), a family that also included five siblings, his brother Fr. Maurice, his sisters Mary (Stephens) and Peggy (Hennebry) who all predeceased him and sisters Laura Burke and Patricia Troy, while he did not make it to the Easter Season, he almost got there dying on March 31 (Spy Wednesday) this year and was buried in Cork on Good Friday.

Aged 88 while born in Waterford the greater part of his long life was spent away from the city as he followed his brother Maurice in becoming a Society of African Missionary (SMA) where he got to see and work in different parts of the world in his near 60 years as a priest.

Daniel or Don as he was known was born on March 4, 1933. After completing his leaving cert like many men of the time he found work working with the ESB, but after just four years he answered the call that his brother Maurice had answered earlier on and joined the SMA Novitiate at Cloughballymore in County Galway in September 1955. After he completed his Philosophy and Theology studies at the SMA seminary in Newry, he was ordained on December 10, 1961.

His first mission was to Lagos where he was to remain for the next 22 serving the people in the Mushin and Shomolu areas, two very poor areas, but he quickly set to work. The area had large numbers of unemployed young people who came from rural areas with little or no skills, looking for employment that did not exist. Don however established a scheme which helped train young people various skills such as in carpentry, plumbing and farming which helped them to integrate back into their own community with a vital trade.

In 1984 the SMA Superior General in Rome decided to end Fr. Don’s time in Lagos, and decided that his next posting should be to Poland, to be part of an international team tasked with re-establishing an SMA presence in the country.

Having to learn a new language as he had to do when he moved to Africa after his ordination was the least of his problems in Eastern Europe as he had to adapt the way he lived to live under constraints of the communist regime. Just as he had done while in Lagos he used his energy and zeal as he set about recruiting young people for missionary priesthood as a member of his own community.

In Poland he was known for his involvement in pilgrimages on foot to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, a journey that could take up to three weeks to complete. On these journeys he would mingle with thousands of young Catholics as they gave expression to their faith.

Thanks to his work in Poland, the SMA now have priests serving as missionary priests in Central African countries as well as in Egypt, Morocco, Tanzania and Togo.

His next posting after nine years in Eastern Europe was back in Zambia where he spend 18 years. Back in Africa he worked in the Diocese of Ndola and spent much of his time in a very poor region, Chipolokusu which is on the outskirts of Ndola, a city in the centre of the country.

Here he worked in an area where people had no education opportunities or health care facilities. But by now in his priestly life he was well used to such conditions and set about building a school that had no walls, just a large roof that came down almost to the ground, held up with large strong poles. He also served as Vocations Director, was the chaplain to the local hospital and to educational establishments that did exist but for many they could not enter, as well as the chaplain to the local Nursing Training College.

He would also find time to write many pamphlets and booklets which he would hand out to other missionaries working in the area to help them in their work.

After retiring, Don would spend a short while at the SMA parish in Walthamstow in London, before moving to the SMA community at Wilton in Cork where he would live a very active life, getting to know many involved in the many programmes happening within the SMA Community and at the Parish Centre, and also took part in many outings organised by the local Senior Citizens group.

In January of this year failing health meant that he transferred from Wilton to St. Theresa’s Nursing Unit on the Blackrock Road where he received the full time care that he needed.

In his years as a priest, he influenced so many people as a missionary priest and lead them to the Christ that he loved, and it is well known that even though he was retired for some time before his death he is still fondly remembered in the areas in which he served.

His remains reposed at the Community Chapel from where he was brought to St. Joseph’s SMA Church in Wilton on Good Friday morning. As it is not permitted to celebrate a mass in the Catholic Church on Good Friday and the morning of Holy Saturday, a Service of the Word was celebrated by the SMA Provincial Superior Fr Malachy Flanagan with Fr. Anthony Kelly another member of the SMA Community and a Priest that worked with Fr. Don in Zambia. After the service his remains were taken from the church and was buried with his brother Fr. Maurice.

Fr. Don is survived by his sister Laura and Patricia, his nephews and nieces, those that he worked with in the Archdiocese of Lagos in Nigeria and the Diocese of Ndola in Zambia, his confers in the Polish SMA Province and the members of the SMA Community in Cork.

 

 

Late Austin Flynn

Waterford G.A.A. mourned last week following the death of Austin Flynn.

The Abbeyside Club man who donned the number three shirt when Waterford last won the All-Ireland Senior Hurling title in 1959 was widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders in the game, not just within the county but across the country.

Austin came to prominence as a hurler in his teenage years having learned the skills of the game from Michael Foley, a teacher in the school in Abbeyside when was a young boy and developed them further when he went to secondary school at Dungarvan CBS on a scholarship.

Born in 1933, he helped Abbeyside capture the Junior Hurling County Championship in 1950, beating Dunhill in the Final.

With no Intermediate grade at the time so the Village Club moved straight up to the Senior grade the following year and despite his youthfulness he quickly established himself as an important member of the side over the following years, playing a vital role in the side as Abbeyside reached County Senior Hurling Finals in 1955, 1957, 1964 and 1969 but they were to lose out to Mount Sion in all four finals.

In his club colours he win two Sargant Cup (a competition that sadly no longer holds the prestigious that it once did in the Déise County) in 1963 and 1965. In the latter year he also helped his club win the county Intermediate Football Championship. 

His ability as a club player quickly caught the eye of inter county selectors and it was on his way home from the pictures one evening in 1952 that he learned that he was called up to be part of the Waterford panel to play Clare the following day, news given to him by fellow Abbeyside Club members while passing through the village. He was named as a sub for the game but came on in a game which ended in a draw and he kept his place for the replay, a game that Waterford lost out in.

Austin failed to play another championship game for Waterford again until 1955 but once he came back into the side he was like a rock in the Waterford full back line defending the goalkeeper as best he could in a time when goalkeepers did not get the protection they did now. He remained an important member of the panel until the second half of the following decade.

When it comes to honours won during his career, Austin was more successful at inter county level than he was at club level. He won three Munster Senior Hurling Final medals (1957, 1959 and 1963), an Oireachtas Cup (a competition that ran between 1939 and 1999) in 1962 and a National League Medal the following year. He was also selected on the Munster team that won the Railway Cup completion in 1960.

But the piece de resistance of his collection of medals won has to be the All-Ireland Hurling medal win in 1959 when Waterford beat Kilkenny aster a replay at Croke Park on October 4, the same day that the Russians launched Luna 3, a spacecraft which helped photograph the far side of the moon.

Since their launch in 1971, Waterford has won All-Stars in fourteen of the fifteen positions on the field of play. The only position Waterford has not won an All-Star is at full back. But in the unofficial All-Stars, the Cuchulainn Awards which were presented between 1983 and 1967 inclusive, Austin was named three times (1963, 1965 and 1967) on the best team of the year in the number three position. In the two years that Austin missed out on selection, the full back place was taken by Kilkenny’s Pa Dillon.

Surprisingly Austin was not named on the Waterford Hurling Team of the Century (1884-1984). Erins Own Charlie Ware was selected at full back on that team flanked by Mount Sion’s Andy Fleming and Jackie Goode from Dungarvan in the two corner back positions. But when the Waterford Team of the Millennium (1884-2000) was selected Austin was named at full back, flanked by the same two corner backs as picked in the team selected 16 years earlier, and as the GAA heads towards the 150 anniversary of its foundation, if a team is picked then, its possible that Austin will once more be selected in the full back position.

In 2017 Austin was honoured by the Munster Council when they indicted him into the Munster Hall of Fame with a special presentation.

For all his successes on the field of play Austin remained a very modest man and was one of life’s true gentlemen. He was a great conversationalist and none more so when the conversation involved hurling, and whether you had a box load of medals won or if you never played hurling and football, Austin was always willing to listen to what a person had to say as well as express his own opinion.

Like Ned Power who played behind him on many a Waterford team, Austin had a great interest in the development of underage hurling. For many years he was a frequent visitor to where games were played. On many occasions he was spotted speaking to groups of players, sometimes a whole team, where he would heap praise of the players and encourage them to keep learning the skills of the game.

On more than one occasion in recent years Austin expressed a fear that he would die without seeing Waterford win a third or more All-Ireland Senior hurling title. As the surviving members of the 1959 team began to grow smaller he often said that he did not want to be one of the last people in the county to win that exclusive All-Ireland medal. Alas for Austin it has happened as there is now only a handful of men in the county that own an All-Ireland senior Hurling medal at the time of Austin’s death.

Away from the world of hurling and football, Austin spent many years working in the hospital in Dungarvan. While many of those that work in the world of health in offices as Austin did are relatively unknown to patients and visitors to the hospital, Austin was well known to the staff at both St Joseph’s (the County Home) and St Vincent’s (the District) two hospitals on the one grounds, and it was not just the staff he was known to but the patients and visitors as well. He was also known to those who would have to call to the hospital for appliances to be used by those living at home who could not do so if they were not provided with them.

Austin was predeceased by his wife Sybil, his daughter Mary, his parents Gusty and Bridget as well as his siblings John, Michael, Ned and Kathleen. He is survived by his daughters Janice and Anita, his son-in-law John, his grandchildren Cormac, Cathal, Clara, Gus and Róisín, his nephews and nieces, his brother-in-law Tomás Walsh and his countless friends and acquaintances.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

 

 

Late Fr. Bob Arthure PE.

 
When a person lives into their 90’s it can be said that they had a good life. This could well be said of Fr. Robert (Bob) Arthure P.E. who died recently in Cappoquin.

Fr. Bob at the time of his death was in his 96^th year and was weeks away from celebrating the Platinum Jubilee (70 Anniversary) of his ordination to the priesthood.

Growing up in Lismore, a young Bob Arthure when to school locally at the Christian Brothers School and it could well be said that for much of his time at the school he had no serious intentions of becoming a priest, but by the time he finished school in 1943, he knew that this is what he wanted to do in life, a vocation that he would share with his uncle (his mother Maura brother was a priest in England).

In September 1943 he began his studies to be a priest at St. John’s College seminary in Waterford where he was one of over 100 students studying to be a priest across the English speaking world, but towards the end of his first year at the college he asked to be transferred to the seminary at Maynooth and became one of three seminarians from his class from the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, the other two been Gregory Power who died in 2019 and Dan O’Connor who resides in retirement in Dungarvan.

In Maynooth he was one of 70 students to enter the seminary on the one day and one of over 400 in total at the college at the time. He was ordained on June 17, 1951 by the then Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid. Others to be ordained with him that day were the future Archbishop of Dublin the late Cardinal Desmond Conell and the former Bishop of Kerry and of Galway Eamonn Casey.

Fr. Bob because of the large amount of priests available to the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore was sent to South Shields in the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle where he served until he was recalled by Bishop Daniel Coughlan in 1955.

On his return to Ireland he was appointed a Chaplain at Faithlegg House which at the time was a junior novitiate for the De La Salle brothers. He would later serve as a curate in the parishes of Ballybricken in Waterford City then at Kill, Carrick-on-Suir and Cappoquin. He was to spend just a short while in the latter parish before Bishop Michael Russell would appoint him a Parish Priest.

His first posting as a Parish Priest was to be at the parish of Kilrossanty and Fews. He would later serve in Portlaw and Ballyduff and later in Ballyporeen in South Tipperary.

Fr. Bob’s next appointment was to be to a familiar area as he was sent back to Cappoquin where he would administer for the remainder of his priestly life.

He retired as a Parish Priest in 2001 having reached the age of 75, the age where priests are asked to submit their intention to retire to their Bishop, but Bishop William Lee allowed Fr Bob to remain in ministry as was his wish as an Assistant Priest in Cappoquin.

Any hope for a quite life however were to be dashed. The number of men going forward to study for the priesthood had dropped radically since Fr. Bob first entered the seminary and when there was no available priest to be posted in the neighbouring parish of Modeligo and Affane it became administered from Cappoquin, increasing the workload of the priests of the parish.

Fr. Bob remained in Cappoquin until the arrival of the Coronavirus in Ireland. In advanced years Fr. Bob was asked by family members to go live with them, but he was going to have none of it. He wanted to stay locally and when the opportunity arose to move in with the Cistercian Community of Sisters at St. Mary’s Abbey outside Lismore Fr. Bob jumped at the chance.

Fr. Bob for a number of years wrote a short reflective piece each week for the Dungarvan Observer, but in Glencairn he found a new way to connect with people, as with the help of the community in which he lived, a Facebook page was set up and he had over 600 followers who he kept in touch with some of his informative writings.

Over his seventy years as a priest Fr. Bob had a great way of connecting with people. He believed that it was his job as a priest to serve the people in the areas where he worked both in their joys and their sorrows.

He helped people to celebrate the tried sacraments with the people and when it came to times of baptisms, weddings and funerals, he firmly believed that they were all personal occasions for the families involved and he would work with the families as much as was possible to make the occasions unique and personal as possible.

Like with many priests he loved to visit the people that were sick and would visit them in their own homes. He also made himself available to people that were in any sort of trouble and to those that might be lonely and needed someone to talk to.

Fr. Bob died at the Padre Pio rest home in Cappoquin where he moved shortly before he died. On the evening of his death he returned to the Cistercian Community in Glencairn which was his home for the past thirteen months. In the presence of the community of sisters a prayer service was held in the presence of his family and the community conducted by Fr. Michael Cullinan PP Lismore and Ballysaggart with Dom Richard Purcell O.S.C.O the Abbot of Mount Melleray Abbey also in attendance.

On the night before he was buried he was brought from Walsh’s Funeral Home in Cappoquin where prayers were once again said by Fr. Michael Cullinan through the town where many people came out of their homes to stand in silence as Fr. Bob passed through on his way to the church in Cappoquin where his remains were received by Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore and where he would spend the night.

His funeral mass was celebrated by Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, assisted by Bishop William Lee Bishop Emeritus of Waterford and Lismore, Fr. Nicholas O’Mahony V.G. PP, Fr. William Ryan V.G. PP, Fr. Michael Cullinan PP, Fr. Pat Butler PP, Fr. Patrick Ryan O.S.C.O representing the Cistercian Community at Mount Melleray and Fr. Michael McCullough, a Vincentian known to Fr. Bob.

After Mass and one final journey through the town including a stop at the local National School where a Guard of Honour was formed by Children and Staff, Fr. Bob was brought to St. Declan’s Cemetery where he was laid to rest with the Clergy, Sisters Marie, Eleanor and Mary from the Cistercian Convent at Glencairn and a small number of close friends and family present.