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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

Denis Corkery was born in Ballyvourney in County Cork on 6 April 1914. He received his early education in Ballyvourney National School and subsequently, attended Rochestown Seraphic College (1929-32) in County Cork. He was received into the Capuchin Order in October 1932 and took Fiacre as his religious name. He made his solemn profession on 4 October 1936 and was ordained to the priesthood on 14 June 1942. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts from University College Cork (UCC) in 1936 and graduated with a Master of Arts in 1937. Four years of theological studies followed in Ard Mhuire Friary in County Donegal, after which he returned to UCC to obtain a Doctorate in Philosophy in 1944. He then went to the International Capuchin College in Rome and studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University where he received a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL) in 1947. On his return to Ireland, he was appointed a lector in theology in Ard Mhuire. He spent three years in the Church Street community in Dublin from 1958 to 1961 after which he was transferred to the Capuchin house in Raheny where he spent the remainder of his life. During this time, he was engaged in pastoral work giving retreats and missions (especially retreats to religious), hearing confessions, preaching and general friary duty. Fluent in both Irish and French, he contributed several articles to various publications and was a frequent contributor to ‘The Father Mathew Record’ (later ‘Eirigh’). He died in Raheny on 15 November 1997 and was buried in the Capuchin plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Baptismal name: Denis Corkery
Religious name: Fr. Fiacre Corkery OFM Cap. (he reverted to his baptismal following the Second Vatican Council)
Date of birth: 6 Apr. 1914
Place of birth: Toonlane, Ballyvourney, County Cork (Diocese of Cloyne)
Name of father: John Corkery (Farmer)
Name of mother: Brigid Corkery (née Vaughan)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 3 Oct. 1932
Date of first profession: 4 Oct. 1933
Date of final profession: 4 Oct. 1936
Date of ordination (as priest): 14 June 1942
Educational attainments: BA, 1st class hons. (1936); MA, NUI (1937); PhD (1944); Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL), Rome (1947)
Date of death: 15 Nov. 1997
Place of death: Raheny, County Dublin
Place of burial: Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin

John McNamara was born in Glin, County Limerick, on 10 September 1931. He was baptised in the Immaculate Conception Parish Church in Glin in the Diocese of Limerick. He attended the national school in Glin after which he received his secondary education at Rochestown College in County Cork. He was admitted to the Capuchin novitiate in Rochestown on 3 October 1950. Following his temporary profession in Rochestown a year later, he was transferred to St. Bonaventure’s Friary in Cork from where he attended University College Cork for three years, after which he was conferred with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He made his perpetual profession in St. Bonaventure’s on 4 October 1954 and then made his way to Ard Mhuire Friary in Donegal for theological studies. He was ordained to the priesthood by William McNeely, Bishop of Raphoe, in St. Eunan’s Cathedral in Letterkenny on 15 May 1958. Later that year, he commenced Canon Law studies in Rome and obtained a Licentiate in 1960. On 17 August 1960, Fr. Donatus departed for the Irish Capuchin mission in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). He first served as assistant pastor in St Therese’s and in Maramba, both in the Livingstone Diocese, from 1960 to 1963. He then went on to teach seminarians in St. John’s in Mongu, in Limulunga and in Nalionwa (Kalabo) from 1964 to 1978. He was rector of the school at Limulunga from 1965 to 1978. He returned to Ireland in 1978, when he became a member of the staff at Rochestown College, teaching there for the next ten years. In 1988 he was appointed Mission Secretary and worked out of the mission office at the Church Street Friary in Dublin. In 1998, he returned to Zambia. He was posted to Malengwa Friary in Mongu, the capital of the Western Province in Zambia, and was appointed chaplain to Mongu Teacher Training College. After a two-year stay (2008-10), in St. Pio Friary, Fr. Donatus was transferred to the recently built Capuchin novitiate at the Camerino Friary in Lusaka, where he lived until his death on 5 July 2021. He was buried in the cemetery attached to the Camerino Friary.

Baptismal name: John McNamara
Religious name: Fr. Donatus McNamara OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 10 Sept. 1931
Place of birth: Glin, County Limerick
Name of father: Thomas McNamara
Name of mother: Brigid McNamara (née Egan)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 3 Oct. 1950
Date of first profession: 4 Oct. 1951
Date of final profession: 4 Oct. 1954
Date of ordination (as priest): 15 May 1958
Educational attainments: BA, 2nd class hons. (1954); Licentiate in Canon Law, Rome (1960)
Missionary activities: Travelled to Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia), on 17 Aug. 1960. He returned to Ireland on 10 Aug. 1976. He returned to Zambia in Sept. 1998.
Date of death: 5 July 2021
Place of death: St. Clare’s Hospital, Makeni, Lusaka, Zambia
Place of burial: Cemetery, Capuchin Novitiate, Camerino Friary, Lusaka, Zambia

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

Daniel O’Reilly was born in Castlepollard, a small village in north County Westmeath on 22 November 1831. He was born into a reasonably affluent farming family, and he was sent to St. Patrick’s College in Carlow for his education where he excelled in classical studies. Having decided to join the Capuchin Franciscans, he was sent to Belgium for his novitiate studies in about 1850. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1855 and soon afterwards returned to Ireland. Most of his life in ministry was spent in Church Street in Dublin where he devoted his energies to financing the construction of St. Mary of the Angels (built between 1868 and 1881) on the site of an earlier Capuchin chapel. He served as guardian (local superior) of the Church Street community from 1864 to 1866. In 1873 he was appointed Custos (superior) of the Capuchin foundations in Dublin and in Kilkenny which remained subject to the supervision of the Provincial Minister of the Capuchins in Paris. Fr. O’Reilly preached at the opening of the Irish Capuchin novitiate in Kilkenny in October 1875. The original pulpit in St. Mary of the Angels (unveiled on 25 December 1883) was presented to him as a token of esteem by several wealthy benefactors. His work in rebuilding the Irish Capuchins was recognised when was he was afforded the title of Provincial Minister several years before the Irish Province was canonically restored in 1885. He died (of dropsy or edema) on 3 September 1894 in the Church Street Friary and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Baptismal name: Daniel O’Reilly
Religious name: Fr. Daniel Patrick O’Reilly OSFC
Date of birth: 22 Nov. 1831
Place of birth: Castlepollard, County Westmeath
Date of ordination (as priest): 1855
Date of death: 3 Sept. 1894
Place of death: Church Street, Dublin
Place of burial: Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin