Back row, Frs Luke Mullany, Romuald Hayes, Hugh Donnelly and front row, Frs William McGoldrick, Edward Maguire & James Hayes.
On October 10, 1916, the bishops of Ireland gave permission to a group of Irish diocesan priests, led by Frs Edward Galvin and John Blowick, to set up a college for the training of missionary priests for China. Permission was also given to raise funds for this project. In this way the Maynooth Mission to China was begun. The next step was approval from the authorities in Rome. This came on June 29, 1918, with the new name of ‘Society of St Columban’, as the great 6th century Irish missionary to Europe had been chosen to be the patron of this new venture.
By that date twenty Irish priests and a large number of seminarians had volunteered to join the Society, a large Georgian building had been purchased for a college and the seminarians installed and a new mission magazine, The Far East, was being widely distributed. While his co-founder, Fr John Blowick, was busy with these developments in Ireland, Fr Edward Galvin was active in the USA organising support for the new mission society there. Once that was underway their next target was Australia and New Zealand.
Dr Edward Maguire had been ordained in 1912 and was teaching theology at All Hallows College in Dublin when he was moved to resign his chair there and join the new society. “I felt it wasn’t a job for a young man,” was the way he put it. The call of China was making itself heard. But it was to Australia and New Zealand that he was asked to go to seek support for China there. He was joined for the trip to Australia by Fr James Galvin, another Irish Columban, ordained less than two years.
Their road had been prepared. Co-founder, Fr John Blowick, had been a professor at the Maynooth seminary when Dr Mannix was the Rector there some years before and he had already written to Archbishop Mannix asking for his help. In response Archbishop Mannix had sought and received authorization from the bishops of Australia and New Zealand to invite the Columbans to come to both countries to seek funds for their cause.
Printed in the December 1920 edition of The Far East.
On January 6, 1920, the two new Columbans arrived in Sydney. They were warmly welcomed by Archbishop Kelly and some Irish priests serving in Sydney and then boarded the train for Melbourne where a limousine sent by Archbishop Mannix met them.
At the suggestion of Archbishop Mannix, Fr Maguire addressed the diocesan priests when they gathered for their annual retreat. The response was enthusiastic and generous.
Frs Maguire and Galvin began the work of visiting parishes, preaching about the China mission and collecting funds. The first issue of the Australian edition of The Far East magazine, edited by Fr Maguire, came out in October, 1920. Earlier in the same year two young priests of the Melbourne Archdiocese sought and received permission to join the Society. Remarkably, Frs Romuald Hayes and Luke Mullany were curates in the same parish of Northcote, Melbourne, and both of them decided independently to join up for China. The following year Fr Maguire purchased the first Columban house in Australia at Mentone, Victoria, and two years later replaced it for the present Columban house in Essendon. Meanwhile early in 1923 Columban mission appeals began across the Tasman in New Zealand.
Dr Maguire was superior in Australia and New Zealand until 1924 when he went as a delegate to the first General Chapter of the Society at which unsurprisingly he was elected to the Superior General’s Council. He stayed on that Council until 1947 and at the same time edited the Irish edition of The Far East until 1936. In later years he taught in the Columban seminary in Ireland and engaged in administration in Columban houses in San Francisco and Brooklyn. Dr Ned Maguire died in Los Angeles in June 1957 and is buried there in Calvary Cemetery.
As we commemorate our centenary we remember and give thanks for the great start St Columbans was given in Australia and New Zealand by such inspirational missionary pioneers as Dr Maguire and his co-workers.
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - October 2017
