Sunday, 30 October 2011 12:27

MICHAEL TIERNEY, FIRST PARISH PRIEST OF RANDWICK

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Fr Michael O'Connell MSC, Denis Hickey, author of the biography of Fr Tierney, and relative, Tony Tierney.

 

With the celebration of 125 years of the parish of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Randwick, we focus on a book on Fr. Michael Tierney MSC, the first parish priest.  Later, Fr Tierney established the Irish province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in 1909.

Fr Michael Tierney who brought Missionaries of the Sacred Heart to Ireland in 1909 is remembered in a book launched by the former president of the European Parliament, Pat Cox. The book – Fr Michael Tierney MSC: a priest with a mission – was written by Churchtown-born author and historian, Denis Hickey, and published by MSC.

In his address at the launch at the MSC Community House at Western Road, Cork, Pat Cox said: “It takes people to animate projects. It needs institutions to sustain them. Fr Michael Tierney is a powerful example of personal action allied to institutional sustainability. His life and times are wonderfully captured in this short biography by Denis Hickey, who like his subject hails from Churchtown in north Cork”.

Recalling Fr Tierney’s life from his departure from Cork in 1877 until his arrival back in 1909, Mr. Cox continued: “History speaks to us in many ways. The journey from the Fenians to independence marks the backdrop of modern Irish history to Michael Tierney’s life and times. His life, however, tells of another history, no less authentic and certainly no less significant. It is a history from the bottom up, not from the top down – a reminder that all can make a contribution to the development of the world around them to a greater or lesser extent.

“The history of Michael Tierney is of a rural upbringing in a large family imbued with a strong sense of religious formation and conviction, of boundless energy, of missionary passion and of singular determination to establish the Ireland and the Cork of his time as a source of MSC missionary zeal. He achieved his goal and wherever he worked he left a powerful and positive legacy behind.

“Fate occasionally reveals no less a depth and subtlety than history itself. Mozart died in December 1791 and three days later, through the hand of fate, the first ever performance of his then unfinished Requiem Mass in D Minor, his last composition, was played in his own honour. So it was with Michael Tierney. He died in June 1931 just two days before the official dedication of the Church of the Sacred Heart here in Cork. His funeral Mass was the first Mass celebrated in this church in a place suffused with his memory and his legacy”.

Concluding he said: “Michael Tierney through his focus and conviction made his dream possible. The MSC priests and brothers, their families, their donors and supporters since then have kept that dream alive, recalling to mind the words of Jean Monnet (founding father of the European Union) that ‘nothing is possible without people .. nothing is lasting without institutions”.

MSC Provincial, Fr. Pat Courtney said the author takes the reader on a journey that offers a unique insight into a man whose life had such a profound influence on and significance for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Ireland and elsewhere. “It is truly a labour of love by one native of Churchtown for another. This book will serve as an important historical and public record in libraries and archives” he said.

Local launch in Churchtown

A local launch of the book took place in Churchtown, Co. Cork in the presence of relatives of Fr Tierney. The speaker there was Gerry Murphy of the Tierney Memorial Committee. Fr Michael O’Connell, Director of the MSC Mission Support Centre in Cork presented a copy of the book to Tony Tierney – a relative of the founder who had travelled from Dublin for the occasion.

Copies donated to libraries

The book is a follow-on from the MSC centenary celebrations of 2009. A key objective of publishing the book was to bring all available information on Michael Tierney together within one cover and to perpetuate his memory, his vision, and his legacy in the public domain. Hence, copies have been donated to Cork City Library, Cork County Library, Cork City & County Archives, the National Library of Ireland, the Catholic Library, Dublin, the RDS Library (catholic section), as well as to libraries in the Milltown Institute, Mater Dei Institute, All Hallows College, the Marino Institute, UCC, UCD, DCU, TCD, UL, NUI Galway, NUI / St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, the National College of Ireland, St. Patrick’s Training College, Dublin, Mary Immaculate Training College, Limerick, GMIT, Galway, St. Angela’s College, Sligo, St. Patrick’s College, Thurles, and the Newman Institute, Ballina.

In recognition of St. Albans in England and Randwick in Australia where Fr Tierney ministered copies have been donated to St. Albans Central Library, Randwick Central Library, Randwick Historical Society, and the University of New South Wales.

Future resource for scholars and writers

The book with chapters on the centenary celebrations and the Tierney commemoration held in Churchtown in 2009 will serve as a public record of these important events in the history of the Irish MSC province. It will also serve as an important resource for scholars and historians researching the Irish missionary movement in future years.

MSC are indebted to author and historian, Denis Hickey, who provided his services free of charge in researching and writing the text.

michael_tierney_2  Fr Pat Courtney MSC with author Denis Hickey, speaker Pat Cox and Mgr Kevin o@Callaghan of Cork