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Eamonn O’Mahony was born in Middleton, County Cork, on 30 August 1934, the son of James and Máire O’Mahony (née Tobin). He received his secondary education at the Seraphic College in Rochestown and entered the Capuchin novitiate on 3 October 1952. He took Brendan as his religious name upon joining the Order. He undertook his early academic studies in University College Cork, where he obtained a BA (1956), followed by an MA in 1957, both with first class honours. He then went to Ard Mhuire Friary near Creeslough in County Donegal for his theological studies and was ordained to the priesthood on 24 September 1960. From there he proceeded to the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome where he was awarded a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL) two years later. From there he went to the University of Louvain in Belgium, where he obtained a PhD ‘Summa cum Laude’ in 1964. On his return to Ireland, he was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy in University College Cork, a professorship, his uncle, Fr. James O’Mahony OFM Cap., had occupied before him. There followed thirty-four years of busy academic work, during which scores of students destined for the priesthood in numerous congregations and orders received their grounding in philosophical studies. After several years as a member of the Provincial Definitory (Council), he was elected Irish Capuchin Provincial Minister in 1976, and was re-elected in 1979. In the latter year, under his guidance, the Western American Capuchin Province came into being in California and Oregon. In Ireland, he oversaw the opening of the Capuchin friary in Carlow in 1977. In 1982, the friars also took charge of Gurranabraher parish in the Diocese of Cork and Ross. He continued in his role as philosophy professor in University College Cork until his retirement in 1999. He died in Holy Trinity Capuchin Friary on Father Mathew Quay in Cork on 14 September 2020. He was buried in the cemetery adjacent to Rochestown Friary in County Cork.

Baptismal name: Eamonn O’Mahony
Religious name: Fr. Brendan O’Mahony OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 30 Aug. 1934
Place of birth: Midelton, County Cork (Diocese of Cloyne)
Name of father: James O'Mahony (Séamus Ó Mathúna)
Name of mother: Máire O’Mahony (née Tobin)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 3 Oct. 1952
Date of first profession: 4 Oct. 1953
Date of final profession: 4 Oct. 1956
Date of ordination (as priest): 24 Sept. 1960
Educational attainments: BA, 1st class hons., UCC (1956); MA, 1st class hons, UCC (1957); Licentiate in Sacred Theology, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (1962); PhD, Catholic University of Louvain (1964)
Leadership positions: Provincial Definitor (Councillor), 1967-70, 1970-3; Provincial Minister, 1976-82
Date of death: 14 Sept. 2020
Place of death: Holy Trinity Capuchin Friary, Cork
Place of burial: Cemetery, Rochestown Capuchin Friary, County Cork

Thomas Joseph Prendiville was born in Ballymacelligott in County Kerry on 27 November 1924. His early education was in the local national school and later at the Capuchin College in Rochestown, County Cork. He joined the Capuchin Franciscans in October 1944 and took Bartholomew as his religious name. He obtained a BA degree in philosophy from University College Cork in 1948. He completed his theological studies in Ard Mhuire Friary in County Donegal and was ordained to the priesthood on 12 June 1952. He returned to St. Bonaventure’s Friary in Cork and obtained a Higher Diploma in Education (UCC) before travelling to Norther Rhodesia (now Zambia) for missionary work in 1953. He spent eighteen years in Zambia. In 1971 he was transferred to the Cape Town mission in South Africa. His years in Zambia mainly involved work in the education sector, first as a manager of schools at several mission stations, and later as education secretary in Livingstone. In South Africa, he served as parish priest in several churches in various Cape Town suburbs including Langa, Belgravia and Parow. He served as consultor to the Regular Superior of the Cape Town mission on two occasions (1971-4; 1974-7). He was elected Regular Superior in 1977 and held this position until 1983. He died in Parow, Cape Town, on 7 July 2004 and was buried in Maitland Cemetery.

Baptismal name: Thomas Joseph Prendiville
Religious name: Fr. Bartholomew Prendiville OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 27 Nov. 1924
Place of birth: Ballymacelligott, County Kerry
Name of father: Michael Prendiville
Name of mother: Hanora Prendiville (née Scanlon)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 3 Oct. 1944
Date of first profession: 4 Oct. 1945
Date of final profession: 4 Oct. 1948
Date of ordination (as priest): 12 June 1952
Educational attainments: BA (1948); Higher Diploma in Education (1953)
Missionary activities: Travelled to Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia) on 26 Aug. 1953. He was transferred to Cape Town, South Africa, on 12 May 1971.
Leadership positions: Regular Superior, Cape Town Mission, South Africa, 1977-83
Date of death: 7 July 2004
Place of death: Parrow, Cape Town, South Africa
Place of burial: Maitland Cemetery, Cape Town, South Africa

Baptismal name: Matthew Brennan
Religious name: Fr. Crispin Brennan OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 5 Jan. 1917
Place of birth: Carnew, County Wicklow (Diocese of Ferns)
Name of father: Thomas Brennan
Name of mother: Sara Brennan (née Quin)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 3 Oct. 1937
Date of first profession: 4 Oct. 1938
Date of final profession: 4 Oct. 1941
Date of ordination (as priest): 20 June 1946
Educational attainments: BA (1942)
Missionary activity: Travelled to the Prefecture of Victoria Falls, Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia) on 29 Nov. 1946. He acted as Secretary for Education for the Zambian Capuchin mission and was diocesan consultor for Bishop Timohty Phelim O’Shea OFM Cap. in Livingstone. He returned to Ireland on 19 May 1977.
Date of death: 3 Aug. 2009
Place of burial: Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin

Baptismal name: James Brady
Religious name: Fr. Conor Brady OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 21 Aug. 1923
Place of birth: Crosskeys, County Cavan (Diocese of Kilmore)
Name of father: Eugene Brady
Name of mother: Mary Brady (née Finnegan)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 3 Oct. 1942
Date of first profession: 4 Oct. 1943
Date of final profession: 4 Oct. 1946
Date of ordination: 8 June 1950
Educational attainments: BA (1946)
Missionary activities: Travelled to Barotseland, Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia), on 26 Dec. 1993
Date of death: 20 Apr. 1993
Place of death: Kaoma, Zambia
Place of burial: Kaoma, Zambia

Michael Kelleher was born in Ballyvourney in County Cork on 3 June 1919. He was educated in Rochestown Seraphic College (County Cork), University College Cork and at the theological house in Ard Mhuire Capuchin Friary in County Donegal. He joined the Capuchin Franciscan Order in 1937 (taking Cyril as his religious name) and was ordained to the priesthood in 1946. From 1947, he was involved in various ministries with the Capuchins in what is now the Province of Our Lady of Angels in the Western United States, as director of clerics at Old Mission Santa Inés in Solvang (California) and later as Associate Pastor and Pastor. He was the director of clerics at St. Patrick’s Novitiate in Wilmington, Delaware, and served as both teacher and principal at St. Francis High School in La Cañada-Flintridge, California. He also served as guardian (local superior) of San Lorenzo Seminary in Santa Inés. For a time, he was also guardian and director of clerics at San Buenaventura Friary in San Francisco. He was also Vice Provincial of what is now the Province of Our Lady of Angels and was mission director while residing at Old Mission Santa Inés in Solvang. He died on 17 January 2002 in St. Francis Hospital in Santa Barbara and was buried in the cemetery adjoining San Lorenzo Seminary in California.

Baptismal name: Michael Kelleher
Religious name: Fr. Cyril Kelleher OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 3 June 1919
Place of birth: Ballyvourney, County Cork (Diocese of Cloyne)
Name of father: John Kelleher
Name of mother: Abby (Abigail) Kelleher (née Forde)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 3 Oct. 1937
Date of first profession: 4 Oct. 1938
Date of final profession: 4 Oct. 1941
Date of ordination (as priest): 20 June 1946
Educational attainments: BA 1st class hons. (1941); MA, 1st class hons. (1942)
Missionary activities: Travelled to the Western United States Mission on 29 July 1947
Leadership positions: Principal, St. Francis High School, La Cañada, California, 1956-71; Assistant Custos, 1959-61, 1962-5; Vice-Provincial Minister, 1973-6.
Date of death: 17 Jan. 2002
Place of death: St. Francis Hospital, Santa Barbara, California
Place of burial: Cemetery, San Lorenzo Seminary, Santa Inés, California

Patrick J. Maher was born on North Brunswick Street, opposite, what was then, the Richmond Hospital in Dublin on 9 June 1835. His family’s property extended to North King Street and possibly included the site (No. 49) on which a former Capuchin House stood. He was baptized and made his first communion (8 September 1848) in the old Church Street chapel where he served Mass for Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC from whom he took the total abstinence pledge. In 1851 he entered the Capuchin novitiate, taking the name Columbus, at Frascati near Rome, and made his solemn profession the following year. He then studied philosophy at Florence and theology at Sienna after which he was granted patents for preaching in 1855. The following year he received subdiaconate in Rome. Too young to be ordained, he spent some months with the Capuchin community in Pantasaph, Wales, until he returned briefly to Ireland to receive a diaconate from Cardinal Paul Cullen at Maynooth on 5 June 1857. The following year, at the age of twenty-three, he was ordained a priest in Liverpool with a dispensation of thirteen months from the Holy See. At the time it was noted that he was the first Capuchin priest to be ordained in England since the Reformation. At the Provincial Chapter in 1859 he was appointed guardian in Kilkenny where he served two terms and was in demand as a confessor and preacher until he was sent to Rome as a novice master. While there he was asked to go to Ancona to minister to about 800 men of the Irish Brigade who were on their way to defend Pope Pius IX.

Having returned to Ireland, he spent some time in Cork and again in Kilkenny until he moved to Dublin. Here, in 1880, he identified himself with the Temperance League and from then on, his whole life and energy were devoted to a crusade against the abuses of intoxicating drink. He became Vice-President of the Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society of the Sacred Thirst founded by his fellow Capuchin Fr. Albert Mitchell OSFC (1831-1893). When Fr. Albert left for missionary work in Australia in 1883, Fr. Columbus became President and undertook the herculean task of resuscitating the total abstinence movement, which had been declining ever since Fr. Mathew’s death. Gradually, as a result of his untiring efforts, Fr. Columbus made total abstinence popular, honoured and respected in Dublin. He succeeded in constantly enlisting individuals rather than enrolling large numbers at a time. Eventually, the old Temperance Hall at 3 Halston Street proved inadequate to meet the demands upon its space. With the centenary of the birth of Fr. Mathew approaching (1890), Fr. Columbus decided to perpetuate his hero’s memory by building a Memorial Hall on Church Street and by erecting a statue in Dublin. All classes and creeds contributed to collections made throughout the city, the country, and abroad. A committee presided over by the Lord Mayor met regularly in the Oak Room of the Mansion House, Fr. Columbus being one of its most attentive members. A competition for a suitable design for a statue was won by Mary Redmond (1863-1930). It would be eight feet tall, sculptured in light grey Sicilian marble and standing on a pedestal of limestone fourteen feet high.

On 30 October 1890, a procession of 50,000 made its way from St. Stephen's Green to O’Connell Street for the laying of the top stone of the pedestal. All the city trades turned out with bands and banners; and the various temperance societies and sodalities, the League of the Cross and other bodies were fully represented. On the platform there was a representative group of clergy, merchants, and other citizens of all denominations. Among them were sixty-five total abstainers who had taken the pledge from Fr. Mathew himself in 1840. It was a proud moment for Fr. Columbus when he was given the silver trowel, now preserved in the Irish Capuchin Archives, used by the Lord Mayor to lay the top stone of the pedestal. Three years later the statue itself was put in place.

Although the Memorial Hall’s foundation stone was blessed and laid in the centenary year, it took twelve months to build. Then on 25 January 1891 it was opened by Archbishop William Walsh who had been a supporter of Fr. Columbus from the outset. Before extensions were added (1904) the main auditorium was 73 feet in length and 39 feet wide and there was a gallery on three sides. Altogether there was accommodation for between 800 and 900 people. In addition to the main hall there was a coffee bar, a billiard room and reading rooms. Among the large representative group attending the opening were the Lord Mayor, the Sheriff, William Conyngham Plunket, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, and the Irish nationalist politician John Redmond who regretted that Dublin was the worst city for drunkenness that he had ever visited. The Temperance League now moved from Halston Street to their new Memorial Hall on Church Street. A monthly meeting was also held in the nearby Church of St. Mary of the Angels, but after only two years it was necessary to hold two meetings – one for men and another for women. Indefatigably, Fr. Columbus presided over the thousands striving for sobriety.

Fr. Columbus Maher OSFC died suddenly of a suspected heart attack on the morning of 10 September 1894 in the Capuchin Friary on Church Street, Dublin. He was 59 years old. At his funeral Mass Fr. Matthew O’Connor OSFC, Provincial Minister, stated that the Capuchin community had been deprived of an exemplary member, Church Street of a devoted confessor and preacher, the Temperance League of its protector and the City of Dublin of a public benefactor. The universal esteem in which he had been held was clear from the long file of mourning carriages and the estimated 6,000 people who attended his funeral in Glasnevin Cemetery.

James MacRory was born in Belfast on 26 May 1925, the son of John MacRory and Anne Margaret MacRory. He was received as a Capuchin Franciscan novice in Rochestown Friary in County Cork in October 1943. He took Camillius as his religious name upon joining the Order. He made his solemn profession in 1947 in Ard Mhuire Friary in County Donegal where he was also ordained to the priesthood on 25 May 1951. Following his ordination, Fr. Camillus was assigned to teach at Rochestown College, from August 1951 to October 1952. He was then sent to California where he worked as an Associate Pastor at Our Lady of Angels in Burlingame from 1952 to 1960. For the next eighteen years Camillus ministered as an Associate Pastor at St. Joseph’s Parish (Roseburg, Oregon), as Pastor at St. Aloysius (Point Arena, California), and Old Mission Santa Inés (Solvang, California), and at St. Francis of Assisi (Los Angeles, California). After his return from Oxford in England where he participated in special studies from 1978-80, he once again served as an Associate Pastor at Our Lady of Angels in Burlingame. After that last assignment he became Director of On-going Education for the Western America Capuchin Province, a member of the Peace, Justice and Ecology Committee, and the National Spiritual Assistant for the Secular Franciscan Organisation (SFO). He was also spiritual assistant to the Secular Franciscans at Our Lady of Angels Parish in Burlingame, California. He also served as a priest at Mater Dolorosa Parish in San Francisco. He died on 25 December 2011 at Mercy Care and Retirement Centre in Oakland, California, after suffering from respiratory complications. He was buried in the cemetery adjoining San Lorenzo Friary, Santa Inés, California.

Baptismal name: James MacRory
Religious name: Fr. Camillus MacRory OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 26 May 1925
Place of birth: Belfast, County Antrim (Diocese of Down & Connor)
Name of father: John MacRory
Name of mother: Anne Margaret MacRory (née Farnan)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 26 Oct. 1943
Date of first profession: 29 Oct. 1944
Date of final profession: 29 Oct. 1947
Date of ordination (as priest): 24 May 1951
Educational attainments: BSc (1947)
Missionary activities: Travelled to the Western United States mission custody in 1952
Date of death: 25 Dec. 2011
Place of death: Mercy Care and Retirement Centre, Oakland, California
Place of burial: Cemetery, San Lorenzo Seminary, Santa Inés, California

Baptismal name: John O’Riordan
Religious name: Fr. Colga O’Riordan OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 6 Jan. 1920
Place of birth: Cork
Name of father: Matthew O’Riordan
Name of mother: Hannah O’Riordan (née Kidney)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 3 Oct. 1939
Date of first profession: 4 Oct. 1940
Date of final profession: 4 Oct. 1943
Date of ordination (as priest): 5 June 1947
Educational attainments: BA, 2nd class hons. (1943)
Missionary activities: Transferred to the Prefecture of Victoria Falls, Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia), on 24 Dec. 1947. Transferred to the newly established Australian Capuchin Mission on 8 Aug. 1956. Returned to Ireland in 1967.
Date of death: 6 Oct. 2003
Place of burial: Cemetery, Rochestown Capuchin Friary, County Cork
Observations: Fr. Colga O’Riordan OFM Cap. was Novice Master in Australia in the 1950s and in the 1960s. He was also twice elected to the position of assistant to the Custos General of the Australian Capuchin friars. He had been invited to Australia for the formal establishment of the Australian Assumption Capuchin Province in 1956. He was later appointed the first parish priest in Priorswood in Dublin (1974-81). He was appointed guardian (local superior) of Raheny Capuchin Friary in Dublin in April 1981.
Note: An image of Fr. Colga O’Riordan OFM Cap. with novices at the newly built seminary in Plumpton, New South Wales, Australia, in January 1966 is extant at https://blacktownmemories.recollect.net.au/nodes/view/7582

Baptismal name: James Rice
Religious name: Fr. Canice Rice OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 26 May 1870
Place of birth: James Street, Kilkenny (Diocese of Ossory)
Name of father: William Rice (Police Constable)
Name of mother: Jane Rice (née Kennedy)
Date of death: 23 Feb. 1896
Place of death: Church Street, Dublin

Baptismal name: James Ruth
Religious name: Fr. Carthage Ruth OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 6 Mar. 1923
Place of birth: Enniscorthy, County Wexford (Diocese of Ferns)
Name of father: William Ruth
Name of mother: Margaret Ruth (née Dobbs)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 3 Oct. 1941
Date of first profession: 4 Oct. 1942
Date of final profession: 4 Oct. 1945
Date of ordination (as priest): 16 June 1949
Educational attainments: BA (1945)
Missionary activities: Travelled to the Prefecture of Victoria Falls, Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia), in February 1950. Later, he undertook missionary work in the Archdiocese of Cape Town in South Africa. Returned to Ireland in 1971.
Date of death: 26 Dec. 2010
Place of death: Bon Secours convalescence home, Mount Desert, Cork
Place of burial: Cemetery, Rochestown Capuchin Friary, County Cork