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Thomas Joyce was born near Urlingford in County Kilkenny on 15 June 1906. He joined the Capuchin Franciscans in October 1926 and took Gerard his religious name. He enjoyed a brilliant academic career in Rome (gaining a Licentiate in Canon Law) and in Ireland (a Higher Diploma in Education from University College Cork). He was ordained to the priesthood at Ard Mhuire Capuchin Friary in County Donegal in June 1933. In 1937 he travelled to the Prefecture of Victoria Falls in Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia) and ministered in the region around Sihole for seven years. He died of blackwater fever at the mission outpost of Kalabo on 12 July 1944 at the age of just thirty-five. Fr. Capistran Singleton OFM Cap., a fellow missionary friar, ministered to him in his final hours while Br. Alexius Paolucci OFM Cap. made his coffin with some wooden planks intended for the new church.

Baptismal name: Thomas Joyce
Religious name: Fr. Gerard Joyce OFM Cap.
Place of birth: The Islands, Urlingford, County Kilkenny (Diocese of Ossory)
Date of birth: 15 June 1906
Name of father: Patrick Joyce (Farmer)
Name of mother: Mary Joyce (née Hennessy)
Date of reception into Capuchin Order: 4 Oct. 1926
Date of first profession: 5 Oct. 1927
Date of final profession: 5 Oct. 1930
Date of ordination (as priest): 29 June 1933
Educational attainments: BA (1930); LIC (Rome, 1933-6); returned from Rome in 1936 to prepare for missionary work in Africa
Missionary activities: Travelled to the Prefecture of Victoria Falls, Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia), in 1937
Date of death: 12 July 1944
Place of death: Kalabo, Northern Rhodesia (died of Blackwater Fever). Fr. Capistran Singleton OFM Cap. was with him.

Baptismal name: William Cullen
Religious name: Fr. Alban Cullen OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 7 Nov. 1898
Place of birth: Dublin
Name of father: James Cullen
Name of mother: Mary Ann ‘Margaret’ Cullen (née Ryan)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 12 Nov. 1917
Date of first profession: 17 Nov. 1918
Date of final profession: 17 Nov. 1921
Date of Ordination (as priest): 29 June 1925
Missionary activities:
1925-29 California, United States
1929-38 South Africa
1938-47 California, United States (returned to Ireland on 14 Oct. 1948)
Fr. Alban Cullen OFM Cap. was Pastor of Hermiston Parish, Oregon from 1939-43.
Fr. Alban Cullen OFM Cap. ministered in St. Anthony’s Parish, Willits, California from c.1943-7.
1948-52 South Africa (travelled to South Africa on 12 July 1948)
1956-70 California, United States
Date of death: 29 Apr. 1970
Place of death: Burlingame, California

Baptismal name: James Guy
Religious name: Fr. Benvenutus Guy OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 4 May 1860
Place of birth: Trim, County Meath
Name of father: Patrick Guy
Name of mother: Bridget Guy (née McMahon)
Ministries: Founded the Church Street Catholic Boys’ Brigade in Dublin March 1894. He also acted as the organisation’s first president. He left the Capuchin Order, moved to England, and was incardinated into the Diocese of Middlesbrough in 1899. He served as a Chaplain to the Forces during the First World War.
Date of death: 9 November 1927
Place of death: Halifax, England

Thomas Brennan was born (to Irish parents) in the town of Tow Law in County Durham in England on 9 December 1861. He joined the English Province of the Capuchin Franciscan Order at Pantasaph Friary in North Wales in May 1879, taking Sebastian as his religious name. He was ordained to the priesthood in September 1886. In the following years he was appointed to several pastoral positions in England. He was engaged in mission work in Peckham in London and held the position of vice-master of novices. At the Provincial Chapter of 1890 he was appointed spiritual director to the students and chaplain at a nearby convent, orphanage, and boarding school in Pantasaph. In June 1892 he was appointed Lector of Philosophy and Vicar of the House of Studies at Olton in Birmingham. In December 1897 he resigned from his position as guardian (local superior) of Olton to take up missionary work in the United States but was recalled and asked to finish out his term as guardian. Finally, in October 1901, he travelled to America and laboured there in ministry for the rest of his life. He ministered for some time in the Diocese of Lincoln in Nebraska. In September 1903 he and several other friars made their way to Mendocino County in California. Fr. Sebastian initially took charge of Fort Bragg and the area north to the county line. In December 1912 he moved to St. Mary’s Parish in Ukiah. He was appointed superior of the California mission in December 1910 and held this position until June 1920. In 1920 the English Capuchins were given a choice by the Minister General as to whether to remain in California or undertake missionary work in India. Fr. Sebastian opted to remain in the United States while the Irish Capuchins accepted a request from Archbishop Edward Joseph Hanna to take over pastoral work in Mendocino County. Fr. Luke Sheehan OFM Cap. arrived in June 1920 to take charge and Fr. Sebastian moved to Mendocino City. Fr. Sebastian was formally affiliated with the Irish Capuchin Province in 1924. In January 1923 he assumed parochial duties in Greenwood, Elk, and was posted to Willits in October 1928. His final assignment (from 1934) was at Mission Santa Inez near Solvang in California. He died in Santa Inez on 29 January 1937 and was buried in the adjoining mission cemetery.

Baptismal name: Thomas Brennan
Religious name: Fr. Sebastian Brennan OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 9 Dec. 1861
Place of birth: Tow Law, Durham, England
Name of father: Thomas Brennan
Name of mother: Mary Brennan (née Waters)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 18 May 1879
Date of first profession: 23 May 1880
Date of final profession: 23 May 1883
Date of ordination (as priest): 18 Sept. 1886
Missionary assignments: Travelled to California, United States, in 1901 and remained there until his death.
Date of death: 29 January 1937
Place of death: California, United States
Place of burial, Cemetery, Mission Santa Inez, California

Baptismal name: Frederick O’Brien
Religious name: Fr. Sebastian O’Brien OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 26 Feb. 1867
Place of birth: Dublin
Name of father: John O’Brien
Name of mother: Anne O’Brien (née Molloy)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 11 June 1887
Date of first profession: 18 June 1888
Date of final profession: 22 Feb. 1892
Date of ordination: 18 Oct. 1894
Date of death: 12 Sept. 1931
Place of death: Dublin
Place of burial: Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin

Baptismal name: John Van Damme
Religious name: Fr. Seraphin Van Damme OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 1820
Place of birth: Bruges, Belgium
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 1840
Leadership positions: Appointed Commissary General of the Irish Capuchins on 20 May 1882. He held this position until 1885; Provincial Minister, 1885-6.
Date of death: 15 Aug. 1887
Place of death: Cork
Place of burial: Cemetery, Rochestown Capuchin Friary, County Cork

Donal O’Mahony was born on 2 August 1936 in Blackrock, Cork, the son of Jeremiah O’Mahony and his wife Ellen (née Walsh). He was educated at Rochestown College, and then trained as a sports journalist with the ‘Irish Independent’ for three years. Finding he had a vocation for the priesthood, he was received into the Capuchin Franciscan Order on 8 November 1958, and trained at Ard Mhuire Capuchin Friary at Cashelmore, Creeslough, in County Donegal. He took Augustine as his religious name and was ordained on 1 June 1966 at St. Eunan’s Cathedral in Letterkenny, County Donegal.

Based at the Capuchin Friary on Church Street in Dublin, he was from the beginning prepared to confront sensitive topics, arguing in the 1967 edition of ‘The Capuchin Annual’ that contemporary Marian devotional practices were not undermined by the promotion of ecumenism and an emphasis on liturgical worship emanating from the Second Vatican Council. As editor from January 1967 of the monthly ‘Father Mathew Record’, he modernised the magazine’s design and layout (undertaken by illustrator Richard King), included his own photography, commissioned articles on contemporary secular culture (including from Micheál MacLiammóir), and highlighted the issues of poverty and deprivation in Ireland and abroad. From January 1968, he renamed the publication ‘Eirigh: A Magazine of Christian Optimism’, and co-opted lay editorial and managerial staff. Its editorial policy sought to ‘communicate the Christian message to a modern family readership in the light of our inherited spiritual, national, and cultural traditions’, urged the promotion of breastfeeding in the developing world, and stressed how social improvements based on economic development were resulting in resource depletion and ecological debasement. Within a year circulation had increased by 11,600; however, the magazine was distributed principally via mail and rising postal rates caused it to cease publication in December 1973. The last issue was devoted to unequal distribution of wealth within and between countries.

O’Mahony also wrote as a columnist with the weekly ‘Women’s View’ (December 1967 to September 1970), drawing on the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi when expounding on the role of women in the church, and on other issues such as student protest, just war and animal rights. Based at the Capuchin Friary in Kilkenny in the early to mid-1970s, he became involved with the local branch of Pax Christi (an international Catholic peace and reconciliation organisation based in the Netherlands), and organised peace concerts, talks and walks. He was active in European peace forums, religious and secular, seeking to defuse cold war tensions and mitigate religious repression in various Warsaw Pact states. In January 1975 he was appointed national chaplain of Pax Christi in Ireland and later joined the international board.

When Dr Tiede Herrema, the Dutch managing director of the Ferenka plant in Limerick, was kidnapped on 3 October 1975 by Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle of the Provisional IRA, Cardinal Bernard Alfrink, Archbishop of Utrecht and international president of Pax Christi, suggested O’Mahony as a suitable intermediary to negotiate with Herrema’s captors. On 9 October, O’Mahony, under Garda special branch surveillance, secretly received a tape from the kidnappers. Believing his moral responsibility allowed him to maintain confidentiality in contacts with the kidnappers, he offered to switch places with the married Herrema, visited the family of Gallagher in Ballybofey, and consulted a psychologist to better understand his interlocutors. Perceived as unwilling to criticise the government by the kidnappers, O’Mahony was replaced as intermediary by Philip Flynn – deputy secretary general of the Local Government and Public Services Union and a member of Provisional Sinn Féin – although he remained involved in the background. Herrema, released unharmed on 7 November, remained grateful for O’Mahony’s efforts on his behalf, and led a Pax Christi Ireland fundraising campaign in 1977.

In 1974 O’Mahony was entrusted with the ‘flat-dwellers apostolate’ by the Dublin Archdiocese; this involved administering the eucharist to flat-dwellers who had difficulties in going to church. Harrowed by the urban poverty he witnessed, he established an exploratory working group in 1976 to address housing deprivation, which evolved into the organisation Threshold, founded on 3 April 1978. A research-driven advocacy group lobbying for improved public and private housing conditions, on 19 August 1979 Threshold became a limited company with professional administration, providing training to volunteer advisors in conjunction with the Irish Management Institute, and advocating enhanced legislation and regulation to address the chronic shortage of quality accommodation. O’Mahony, as Threshold’s executive director, publicised the abject housing conditions endured by many and urged improved legislative and regulatory protection. The organisation concentrated on assisting private tenants to secure their legal rights and ameliorating the effects of homelessness, poverty, and deprivation, helping almost 3,000 people in its first two years. O’Mahony drew on his extensive international contacts as principal organiser of the Pax Christi International Council (Dublin) and the attendant peace conference (Derry) in April 1977. From the late 1970s, he regularly participated in seminars at the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, in County Wicklow, and contributed to ecumenical reconciliation forums that facilitated the establishment of what became the New Ireland Movement. Urging the recognition of the humanity of all those in any conflict, O’Mahony frequently participated in ecumenical and secular protests promoting peace and sustainable living in Ireland and around the world.

In March 1983 Archbishop Dermot Ryan invited the Capuchins to administer the parish of St. Michan’s and St Paul’s in the Halston Street and Arran Quay areas. O’Mahony was formally appointed as parish priest at a service in the Capuchin Friary Church of St. Mary of the Angels, Church Street, on 10 April 1983, and ministered in the parish until 1987. An internationally respected mediator and negotiator, he was called upon, both publicly and privately, to defuse hostage-takings in Honduras, Italy and elsewhere throughout the 1980s, as well as facilitating inter-faith cross-community workshops in Lebanon. Posted to the General Curia of the Capuchin Franciscan Order in Rome (1987-9), in 1990 he was briefly chaplain to Coolmine Community School in Blanchardstown in County Dublin, before returning to Rome to take charge of the Order’s justice, peace and ecology office (1991-4). Visiting ninety-four countries over seven years, he participated in several UN summits on issues such as environmental protection and development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), a UN habitat conference (Istanbul, 1996), and a UN forum on sustainable development (Johannesburg, 2002). He was also a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. The ‘American Franciscan Journal’ awarded him their Franciscan person of the year. From the late 1990s, he ministered at Holy Trinity Friary on Father Mathew Quay in Cork, and was instrumental in establishing Integrate Cork, an anti-racism group (2000).

He travelled to Pretoria in South Africa in 2001 and was appointed guardian (local superior) of the Capuchin Friary there. He served as justice, peace, and ecology coordinator for the East African Capuchin Conference. With the justice and peace department of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, he established the Damietta Peace Initiative in 2004 to promote peace and non-violence throughout Africa. Inspired by St. Francis of Assisi’s mediation between Christians and Muslims in the Egyptian port city of Damietta (c.1219), this multi-ethnic, multi-faith community development and mediation initiative sought to engage grassroots activists across the continent. For his work in expanding the initiative throughout Africa, in 2008 O’Mahony received the peace award of the Interfaith Foundation of South Africa. Early in 2009 O’Mahony was diagnosed with cancer and returned to Ireland for treatment. He died on 14 August 2010 at Marymount Hospice in Cork. He was buried in the cemetery attached to the Capuchin Friary in Rochestown, County Cork.

Baptismal name: Donal O’Mahony
Religious name: Fr. Donal O’Mahony OFM Cap. (previously Fr. Augustine O’Mahony OFM Cap., he reverted to his baptismal name after the Second Vatican Council)
Date of birth: 2 Aug. 1936
Place of birth: Blackrock, Cork
Name of father: Jeremiah O’Mahony
Name of mother: Ellen Walsh
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 8 Nov. 1958
Date of first profession: 16 Nov. 1959
Date of final profession: 16 Nov. 1962
Date of ordination (as priest): 1 June 1966 (St. Eunan’s Cathedral, Letterkenny, County Donegal)
Missionary activity: Travelled to South Africa in 2001; returned in 2010
Date of death: 14 Aug. 2010
Place of death: Marymount Hospice, Cork
Place of burial: Cemetery, Capuchin Friary, Rochestown, County Cork

Edouard Christian was born in Andermatt, a mountain village in the canton of Uri in Switzerland, in 1837. He was the fourth child (from a family of thirteen) of Joseph Maria ‘Sebastian’ Christen and Karolina Danioth. He spent his early years helping his parents on their cattle farm. On 5 October 1855, he entered the Capuchin novitiate at Lucerne and took Bernard as his religious name. He made his solemn profession on 8 October 1856. He then undertook his clerical studies and was ordained to the priesthood on 29 July 1860. In 1876 Fr. Bernard was elected a General Definitor (Councillor), in which role he successfully renewed and updated the philosophical and theological studies of Capuchin clerical candidates. He also worked tirelessly to tighten up regular observance among the friars of the Capuchin Order. At the General Chapter of 1884, Fr. Bernard was elected as Minister General. Under his leadership, Capuchin missions were once more placed under the direction of the General Minister. He was also instrumental in the revision of the original 1530 Constitution of the Capuchin Order. Under his administration the number of friars began to grow, studies were reorganised, missions were given a new lease of life and the number of Capuchin jurisdictions increased. Fr. Bernard was also the first Capuchin General Minister to visit North America. He served as General Minister of the Capuchin friars from 1884 to 1908. His ceaseless work for the renewal of the Order was recognised by both Popes Leo XIII and Pius X, with the latter naming him Titular Archbishop of Stauropolis in 1908. He died the following year (11 March 1909) in the Institute of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in Ingenbohl, Switzerland. He was buried in Lucerne.

John Kavanagh was born in Mountmellick in Queen’s County (later County Laois) on 12 June 1876. Having spent some years in the Seraphic College in Rochestown, County Cork, he was received into the Capuchin Order in March 1893. He was ordained a priest in Dublin on 23 February 1902. Soon after his ordination he was stationed in Kilkenny as a Professor of Philosophy, but most of his life as a priest was spent in Dublin and in Cork. An accomplished scholar, Kavanagh spent many years in libraries and archives in England, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium, transcribing thousands of documents in a very clear hand, recording everything relating to the Irish Capuchins which could be discovered overseas. His work in transcribing the seventeenth-century Latin text, the ‘Commentarius Rinuccinianus’, published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission in six volumes between 1932 and 1949, is well known. His extremely important corpus of manuscripts, surrogate copies and transcribed materials for early Capuchin history are now extant in the Irish Capuchin Archives. He served as Provincial Archivist for the Capuchin Order in Ireland from 1919 to 1958. In 1918 he was appointed to investigate the cause of two seventeenth century Irish Capuchin martyrs, Fr. Fiacre Tobin OSFC (d. 1656) and Fr. John Baptist Dowdall OSFC (d. 1710). Kavanagh also had a life-long interest in Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC (1790-1856) and amassed a huge quantity of research and documentary material relating to his life and nineteenth-century temperance campaign. In recognition of his contribution to Irish historical scholarship, the National University of Ireland awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Literature (D. Litt.) in 1947. Outside of academia, Kavanagh was a well-known preacher, missionary, and retreat-giver. In 1924 he was asked to travel to the United States where he spent several months assisting Irish Capuchin friars in missionary and preaching work. He was also a long-time incumbent of the position of Secretary of the Irish Capuchin Province (1922-31; 1937-55) and was elected Provincial Deifintor (Councillor) in 1931. His later years were blighted by dementia and he died on 16 May 1965 in the Bon Secours Hospital in Dublin. He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Baptismal name: John Kavanagh
Religious name: Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 12 June 1876
Place of birth: Mountmellick, Queen’s County (County Laois), Diocese of Kildare & Leighlin
Name of father: Edward Kavanagh
Name of mother: Joanna Kavanagh (née Costello)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 20 Mar. 1893
Date of first profession: 2 July 1894
Date of final profession: 25 Dec. 1897
Date of ordination (as priest): 23 Feb. 1902
Educational attainments: Doctor of Literature (D. Litt.), 1947
Leadership positions: Provincial Definitor, 1931-4; Provincial Secretary, 1922-31, 1937-55; Provincial Archivist, 1919-1958
Date of death: 16 May 1965
Place of death: Bon Secours Hospital, Glasnevin, Dublin
Place of burial: Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin

William Larkin was born in Ballintober, a village in County Roscommon, on 29 July 1894. He joined the Capuchin Franciscan Order in October 1910, taking Paschal as his religious name, and was ordained to the priesthood in March 1920. He graduated with an MA from University College Cork in 1916. In 1917 he obtained a university scholarship prize (worth £600) which allowed him to continue his studies overseas. A gifted scholar in the field of economic history, he held the position of Assistant Professor of Economics and Commerce at University College Cork from 1921 to 1923 and continued to lecture (on a part-time basis) in the University until the 1950s. He also supervised several students taking an MA degree in economics including Jack Nagle who later became an Assistant Secretary in the Department of Agriculture. Fr. Larkin also conducted tutorial classes for workers in Cork city and gave public University Extension Lectures on Catholic social teaching throughout the 1930s. His published works included ‘Marxian Socialism’ (1917), the highly influential ‘Property in the Eighteenth Century’ (1930), and ‘Economics and Frontiers’ (1957). He also authored several scholarly articles for ‘The Capuchin Annual’. He died on 7 December 1976 and was buried in the cemetery attached to Rochestown Capuchin Friary in County Cork.

Baptismal name: William Larkin
Religious name: Fr. Paschal Larkin OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 29 July 1894
Place of birth: Frenchlawn, Ballintober, County Roscommon (Diocese of Elphin)
Name of father: Michael Larkin
Name of mother: Mary Anne Larkin (née Kilbride)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 16 Oct. 1910
Date of first profession: 17 Sept. 1911
Date of final profession: 9 July 1916
Date of ordination (as priest): 20 Mar. 1920
Educational attainments: BA, 1st class hons. (1915); MA (1916); Studentship (1917); PhD, London (1928); Economics Lecturer in University College Cork, 1928-58.
Date of death: 7 Dec. 1976
Place of burial: Cemetery, Rochestown Capuchin Friary, County Cork