BURIAL OF PRESIDENTS, VICE-PRESIDENTS,

PROFESSORS AND DEANS 1880-1995

 

Section in course of preparation

 

 

ROW 1 (at rear): Graves in this row mark the beginning of the interments in this section of the cemetery; the order of interment is from right to left, i.e. beginning nearest the Pioneers' Plot

 

PATRICK MURRAY  (1811-1881) Clogher Born Clones, Co. Monaghan; ordained at Maynooth 1837; Professor of English (1838), Theology (1841) and Prefect of Dunboyne Establishment (1879); author of several specialist theological works and possessor of strong views on major ecclesiatical and political issues of his time.

 

HUGH O'ROURKE (1837-1885) Tuam Born Maam, Co. Galway; ordained at Maynooth 1861; Professor of English and French (1862); died aged 48 after some years of indifferent health.

 

RICHARD HACKETT (1823-1887) Armagh Born Knockbridge, Co. Louth; ordained at Maynooth 1852 and appointed a junior dean in the following year; Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy (Logic, Metaphysics and Ethics) 1862.

 

CHARLES MACAULEY (1830-1889) Down and Connor Born Glenarm, Co. Antrim, the son of a local doctor (Charles' sister Rosetta was the mother of the notable O'Neills, including Eoin, the prominent figure in revolutionary politics and later Professor of Early Irish History at UCD; James, later Governor General of the Irish Free State; and Hugh, Professor of Classics at UCD; some of the O'Neill siblings received their early education under their uncle's supervision at Maynooth); ordained at Maynooth 1854, and immediately appointed Professor of Rhetoric; Professor of Sacred Scripture 1878.

 

DENIS GARGAN (1819-1903) Meath Born near Duleek in Co. Meath; ordained at Maynooth 1843 and spent some time on the staff of the Irish College in Paris (where he taught Physics and Astronomy) before returning to Maynooth in 1845 as Professor of Humanities; Professor of Ecclesiastical History from 1859 and (apart from a brief interlude as parish priest of his native parish in 1863) would spend the remainder of his sixty-five-year tenure at the college as an active staff member, being appointed Vice-President in 1885 and President in 1894, when he was seventy-five. He was the first President to be honoured with appointment as a Domestic Prelate.

 

 

ROW 2 Note that the first two graves in this row are out of sequence in the date order of interment, and the burials there took place before that of Monsignor Gargan in the previous row, which may indicate that the latter had 'reserved' his place of rest

 

THOMAS FARRELLY (1814-1890) Meath Born Ballintubber, Kells, Co. Meath; ordained at Maynooth 1843 and appointed assistant bursar, and (in 1845) bursar; handled the finances of the major expansion of college facilities under Laurence Renehan, appointed President in the same year; retired 1881.

 

THOMAS GILMARTIN (1857-1892) Achonry Born Achonry, Co. Sligo; ordained at Maynooth 1881; Professor of Ecclesiastical History 1886 and author of a two-volume Manual of Church History which became a standard work of reference, and the significant royalties from which fund the Gilmartin Prize for an essay in Ecclesiastical History; contracted consuption and died at the age of thirty-four. (Fr. Gilmartin is not to be confused with his near-contemporary of the same name who became dean in the college in 1891 and later Bishop of Clonfert).

 

JOHN MYERS C.M. (1830-1896) Appointed in 1887 with Fr. Patrick Boyle C.M. as the first official Spiritual Directors at Maynooth, beginning a tradition of their order's involvement that would last as an exclusive assignment until 1990, and continue to the present day. Fr. Myers however is the only member of his order to be buried in the college cemetery (Edward Ferris, a member of the original Lazarists is buried at Laraghbryan, and some members of the Vincentian sister-order, the Daughters of Charity, are interred in a special section of the college cemetery).

 

JOHN F. HOGAN (1858-1918) Killaloe Born Coolreagh, between Bodyke and Feakle in east Co. Clare, he was educated at the Paris seminary of the Sulpicians, of which order his uncle, John Baptist Hogan, was a prominent member. After ordination and completion of his studies at the University of Freiburg, he was appointed to the Chair of Modern Languages at Maynooth in 1886, and two years later became Vice-President. In 1912 he became President in succession to Daniel Mannix, beginning a brief tenure that saw the college through the turbulent years of the First World War and the Rising of 1916. He resigned in October 1918 and died in the following month, aged sixty.

 

WALTER McDONALD (1854-1920) Ossory Born at Emil, Mooncoin, Co. Kilkenny, and ordained at Maynooth in 1876, he taught at his former secondary school, St. Kieran's College, for some years before being appointed as Professor of Theology at Maynooth in 1881. Over the next forty years he was one of the most controversial clerics in Irish theological and social circles, campaigning on a wide range of issues focused on freedom and transparency, both within Maynooth College and without, and informed by friendships with major figures in Irish cultural life, including the dramatist Sean O'Casey. Despite being appointed Prefect of the Dunboyne Establishment in 1888, few of his major written works found favour with his colleagues or superiors, with only his Principles of Moral Science (1903) receiving official approval. His irreverent and controversial Reminiscences of a Maynooth Professor was published posthumously by Jonathan Cape in 1925.

 

ROW 3:

 

FRANCIS LENNON (1838-1920) Clogher Born Tyholland, Co. Monaghan; entered Maynooth while still in his mid-teens, and showed an aptitude for scientific studies under the direction of Nicholas Callan, whom he succeeded as Professor of Natural Philosophy on the latter's death in 1864. Produced textbooks on Geometry and Trignometry and directed the scientific education of two generations of Irish priests until his retirement in 1911 due to ill-health; lived with family connections in Dublin and buried at his own request in Maynooth. An annual prize in Mathematical Studies at Maynooth University is named for him.

 

HEINRICH BEWERUNGE (1862-1923) Born in Lethmathe in rural Westphalia but brought up in Dusseldorf, he was educated for the priesthood at the Collegium Willibaldum in Eichstadt (now the Catholic University of Eichstadt-Ingoldstadt). He studied theology at Würzburg University and music at the Bayerisches Staatskonservatorium der Musik, taking a post-graduate diploma at the Kirchenmusikschule in Regensburg, and working extensively under the notable Cecilian Fr. Franz Haberl in that movement's task of promoting the use of plainchant and polyphony in the liturgy. Ordained priest in 1885 for the Diocese of Paderborn was seconded to the archdiocese of Cologne, where he acted as secretary to the vicar general and cantor at the cathedral in the new administration of Archbishop Krementz. In 1888 he was 'head-hunted' through Fr. Haberl by the Irish hierarchy for a contract assignment to establish Church Chant and Organ as an area of major study, succeeding the lay German tutor Alois Volkmer, who had taught organ studies there on a part-time basis. Appointed permanently to the position of professor shortly thereafter, he would dominate the burgeoning church music scene in Ireland for the next quarter-century, working with bishops, priests and a new generation of continental organists and choirmasters across Ireland to introduce a higher standard of musical performance to liturgies. He combine this with the production of regular articles on his subject in publications in Ireland and Germany, the transposition of notable choral works for male voice parts, and major inputs into the specification and building of organs, and membership of the committee of the Feis Cheoil. On holiday in Europe in 1914, he was prevented from returning to Ireland by the outbreak of the first World War; when he did return in 1921 he was not in good health, and survived for only two years, dying at the age of sixty-one.

 

MALACHY EATON (1882-1929) Tuam Born Bekan, Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo into a family that produced three priests in the service of Archdiocee of Tuam (Alexander was President of St. Jarlath's College and Bernard was a parish priest; a niece Ena was a music teacher and church organist in Westport for many years); ordained at Maynooth 1906; appointed dean 1911; died aged forty-seven.

 

JAMES DONNELLAN (1856-1932) Tuam Born Ballinlough, Co. Roscommon; ordained at Maynooth 1877; appointed dean 1884 and bursar three years later; continued in that position for almost forty years until his retirement in 1923; involved in major developments of financial and insurance provision for Maynooth College and the wider national Catholic property infrastructure, including becoming a founding director of the Catholic Church Property Insurance Company.

 

GARRETT PIERSE (1883-1932) Kerry Born Ballydonoghue, Ballybunion, Co. Kerry; ordained at Maynooth 1906; went to America in 1909 and taught theology at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity for five years; appointed Professor of Theology at Maynooth 1914; Prefect of the Dunboyne Establishment 1923; author of two volumes on theological subjects, one published at the beginning of his career, the second posthumously, and several Catholic Truth Society pamphlets and scholarly articles.

 

PATRICK McSWEENEY (1872-1935) Dublin Born Dublin City; ordained at Clonliffe College c. 1896 and taught there for some years before appointment to Maynooth College as Professor of English in 1912; despite this commitment, much of his time was spent in promoting studies of Celtic literature, and his A Group of Nation Builders (1913) paid homage to the Celtic scholars John O'Donovan, Eugene O'Curry and George Petrie as saviours of the linguistic and cultural heritage of Ireland and preservers of its national identity. Deeply involved in the affairs of the Columban League and its publication Irishleabhar Muighe Nuadad.

 

ROW 4

 

JAMES McCAFFREY (1875-1935) Clogher Born Fivemiletown, Co. Tyrone to parents from near the village of Clogher; ordained at Maynooth 1899 and appointed Professor of Ecclesiastical History two years later after post-graduate studies in Paris and Freiburg; author of major studies of the history of the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century and from the Renaissaince to the French Revolution, and pioneering figure in the activities of the Catholic Record Society of Ireland and the journal Archivium Hibernicum; appointed Vice-President 1915 and President 1918 at the age of forty-three; died in 1935 aged sixty.

 

GERARD O'NOLAN (1875-1942) Down and Connor Born Belfast; ordained at Maynooth 1899 and immediately succeeded to the position of Professor of Irish previously occupied by Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh, who died in the same year in the United States; produced a five-part series on Irish Grammar; retired 1940.

 

PETER COFFEY (1876-1943) Meath Born Rathrone, Enfield, Co. Meath; ordained at Maynooth 1900, and appointed Professor of Logic and General Metaphysics in 1902 after post-graduate study, which continued intermittently until 1905 when he was awarded a Ph.D at Louvain and a second chair of Mental Philosophy at Maynooth was filled by a fellow Louvain graduate; author of definitive commentaries or textbooks on The Inductive Sciences, Logic, Epistemology and Ontology and a widely-respected commentator on social issues, particularly in regard to labour practices, in the wake of the publication of the Papal Encyclical Rerum Novarum. Most of his pamphlets were denied official approval because of their radical proposals of what in effect was a Christian Socialism. Often hailed as 'the social conscience of the Irish church in the first half of the 20th. century' and the object of an approving review by the poet T. S. Eliot, who held up Coffey's work as proof of the fact that 'the Catholic Church is the only church which can even pretend to maintain a philosophy of its own.' In later years, he was an enthusiastic promoter of the Irish language.

 

JOHN R. MAGUIRE (1870-1946) Clogher Ordained at Maynooth 1902; appointed Assistant Bursar 1919 and Bursar 1923; retired 1944 due to ill health.

 

JOHN O'NEILL (1880-1947) Cashel Born Tipperary Town; ordained at Maynooth 1903; on staff of St. Patrick's College Carlow 1903-8 and also pursued post-graduate studies at Louvain; appointed to a third chair of Philosophy (Special Metaphysics) at Maynooth 1908, joining his fellow Louvain graduates Coffey and Forker; author of textbook on Cosmology.

 

MICHAEL TRACY (1892-1954) Limerick Ordained Maynooth 1916, having served as a student replacement from 1914 for organist and choirmaster Heinrich Bewerunge during his enforced stay in Germany; continued in this position until Bewerunge's return in 1921, and after his death in 1923; appointed Professor of Church Chant and Organ 1927; retired due to ill-health 1951.w

 

ROW 5: Note that in the forty years between 1954 and 1994 only four members of the college staff were interred in the cemetery; their gravesites are not in order of interment

 

JOHN McMACKIN (1904-88) Raphoe Born in Glasgow to Ulster parents, he was educated in Ireland and ordained at Maynooth in 1929; appointed Professor of English and Elocution six years later, he joined Neil Kevin in that department, and continued in the position for over forty years until his retirement in 1976, sharing the responsibility for almost a quarter of a century with Peter Connolly, who succeeded Kevin and who himself would achieve a tenure of over thirty years until his retirement in 1985 (Connolly died in 1987 and is buried in his native Meath).

 

EDWARD KISSANE (1886-1959) Kerry Born Lisselton, between Listowel and Ballybunion and in the parish of Ballydonoghue, he was ordained at Maynooth in 1910 and was then sent by Bishop Mangan to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, which had been established in the previous year. His residence at the Canadian College in the city led to an invitation to teach Scripture at St. Augustine's Seminary in Toronto, which in 1913 was in process of being established by Archbishop Fergus Patrick McEvay with money from Bandon-born Eugene O'Keeffe, a banker and industrialist who founded a successful brewing company. In 1917 he was recalled to Ireland and appointed Professor of Scripture at Maynooth. He served in this position for twenty-five years, becoming Vice-President in 1941 and President the following year on the appointment of John D'Alton as Co-adjutor Bishop of Meath. 

 

EDWARD O'BRIEN* (1893-1974) Dublin Born 2 June1893 in Fethard, Co. Tipperary; attended Rockwell College, Holy Cross Seminary (Clonliffe), Irish College Paris and Maynooth where he was ordained 28 April 1918 in Maynooth by Bishop Patrick Morrisroe.  He continued his studies in Maynooth 1918-20, attaining a Doctorate in Canon Law, a subject he then taught at All Hallows College 1921-28. His first pastoral appointment was as curate in Little Bray 1928-40.  He then transferred to University Church, St. Stephen's Green 1940-1953. He was appointed Professor of Canon Law at Maynooth in 1943. On his appointment as parish priest of Clondalkin in 1953 he retired from his professorship, donating his collection of books to the college library (then being organised by its first full-time librarian). He moved as parish priest to Aughrim Street in Dublin city centre in 1965 and retired in 1973 at the age of eighty. He died on 31 October 1974.

 

THOMAS MARSH (1932-1994) Waterford Born in Ardfinnan, Co. Tipperary, to which place he had a lifelong loyalty and was honoured for his support of Gaelic games (particularly football, at which this parish excelled), he was ordained at Maynooth in 1957 and appointed to the staff of St. John's College, Waterford, where he professed Dogmatic Theology and also acted as Dean until he was appointed Lecturer in Dogmatic Theology at Maynooth, being further appointed to the Chair of Theology in 1978. He died in 1994 at the age of 62.

 

*Special thanks to the staff of Dublin Archdiocesan Archives for supplemetary information.