2006winter

4 GLENSTAL NEWSLETTER Autumn 2006

LET US REMEMBER Robert Walker (1986) Bernard Byrne (1945) Eddie Dwyer (1947) John Punch (1947) Noel Dennehy (1949) Robert Morehead (1940) Oswald Barton (1948) Madeleine Egan, mother of Brian, Rory, David, Patrick.

Joan Kieran, mother of Patrick, John, Brian, Richard, Peter, Eugene & six grandsons.

John Griffith, father of Colin.

Joan Ryan, mother of Vincent and Cyril Ellie Shee, mother of Nicholas & 2 grandsons Helen Dennehy, wife of Douglas, mother of Eric & Mark Thurloc Swan, father of Brian Vivien Chung, mother of Billy Ryan Ed Prendergast, father of Kevin (Ist year).

Elizabeth Clarke, School Secretary (retired) Marcus McInerney, father of Marcus

Recent Publications Dermot O’Flynn: Kitchen Calm (Currach/Athena) Colmán Ó Clabaigh & Martin Browne, Ed. The Irish Benedictines: A History (Columba) Andrew Nugent: The Four Courts Murder (Headline); The Slow-Release Miracle (Columba/Paulist); Second Burial for a Black Prince (St. Martin’s) Richard Kearney: Navigations: Collected Irish Essays (Lilliput) Ambrose Tinslsey: The Ever-Open Door, Memories (Columba) Colmán Ó Clabaigh & R. Moss, S. Ryan, Ed. Art and Devotion in Late Medieval Ireland (Four Courts) Mark Patrick Hederman: Walkabout: Life as Holy Spirit (Columba) Dan Binchy: Loopy, a Novel of Golf and Ireland (St. Martin’s) Seán Ó Duinn: The Rites of Brigid (Columba) Edited by Andrew Nugent osb Layout & Print by INTYPE Ltd.

JOHN PUNCH (1939-1947) John Punch – known to his friends as Johnny – was born into a merchant family almost eighty years ago and being one of three boys and four girls he was dispatched to board in Glenstal in 1939 at the tender age of ten. At that time the school was small and had not quite grown to the extent that it did as the war in Europe intensified, so we all knew each other whether in junior or senior class. After eight years of incarceration John joined U.C.C. and duly earned a B.Comm. so as to enter the world of business. His elder brother, Sydney, was then looking after the growing family business especially the wholesale groceries development so John spent a couple of months in Germany and then returned to specialize in the factory end of the business. After Sydney’s untimely death in 1963 the whole burden of the expanding business fell on John who by now had acquired valuable management skills. Undoubtedly this would all have been too much to bear had he not had the good fortune to meet and marry Rosemarie Tarnowska the previous year. Her support and the distraction of the birth of his five children all swept him along as the business grew in the economic upswing of succeeding years.

One of John’s earliest passions was for sailing and while he had sold his boat prior to getting married he took to the seas again later in life – in 2002 – when he commissioned Hegartys of Oldcourt to build him a Heir Island lobster fishing boat. He delighted in sailing and found in this pastime the peace and tranquillity that helped to heal the scars of life’s trials and tragedies. He was, too, at times an intrepid traveller, having crossed the Sahara desert with Rosemarie on a safari of several weeks’ duration.

Unlike his father who had a special interest in motorcars, John was fascinated by clocks and was quite adept at taking them asunder and successfully putting them back together again. Family, however, was his absorbing and first love and it was at home in his beloved Kilroan with its beautifully laid out garden and rustic setting that John felt most at home.

He died in the Bons Secours hospital

after a short and sudden illness that he bore with exemplary fortitude and a robust faith in the joys of the life to come.

www.myubique.com info@myubique.com

Philip Tierney

When Father Matthew Dillon became Headmaster of a tiny school of under twenty boys, his first move was to find more – by hook or by crook! Qualifications were basic in 1937: of good family background, sound of limb, and no longer requiring breast-feeding between classes.

Bernard was netted in this first major Dillon trawl, and when I first met him in September 1939 on the train from Kingsbridge to Limerick Junction, he was already a seasoned campaigner, an athlete swift as a bird, and a classic tennis player.

His lenghty school career was studded with cups and prizes in both the academic and the sporting fields. A brilliant mathematician, he passed easily into Engineering in UCD on leaving school.

As an engineer he worked mostly on his own, on imaginative and unusual projects, as well as on bread and butter civil work for local authorities.

Bernard was an essentially optimistic, positive and cheerful person, qualities which served him well in later life, when his marriage faltered and he found himself alienated from his children. In these difficult years he was sustained by his inspiring mother, who lived to be 102.

A regular Holy Week visitor, most of us last saw him in 2005 when he came south to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our leaving school in 1945. He was frail but buoyant, and his parting gift to me were several photos of himself with his children – and grand-children – with whom he had been happily reconciled in his last years.

He died quietly in his sleep in April 2006. May he rest in peace.

Abbot Celestine Cullen

UBIQUE 2007

Glenstal Abbey

BERNARD LE CESNE BYRNE (1937-1945)

Scholarship Award

T

here will be an information meeting on the Glenstal Abbey Scholarship Award at Glenstal on Friday the 10th of November 2006 at 8.00pm, followed by dinner at 9.00pm. The meeting will be attended by delegates from each year group who will then publicise the Scholarship Award among their peers. It is hoped that the Old Boys will support this new and innovative scheme which will contribute to making Glenstal a modern and dynamic school.

The Award provides a full scholarship to students whose parents cannot afford the fees and who meet certain other criteria, such as ability to adapt to a boarding environment. The Award is already supporting 2 scholarship students. It is hoped to provide one extra scholarship each year so as to have at least six scholarship students in the school at any one time. This will require significant financial support. A warm thank you is extended to all those who have already contributed and enabled the Award to be set up.

Inquiries to Br. Luke MacNamara, luke@glenstal.org Tel. 061-621099

CONGRATULATIONS TO/ Fr. James McMahon on his ordination to the priesthood TO/ Br. Luke MacNamara on his ordination to the diaconate TO/ Fr. Ambrose Tinsley on his golden jubilee of profession.

A.G.M. GLENSTAL SOCIETY Sunday, November 5th 2006 ■ 10.00 Mass with the Community ■ 11.00 Coffee ■ 11.30 AGM ■ 1.00 LUNCH COME FOR ALL – OR ANY PART OF THE DAY!

We hope to publish a NEW EDITION of UBIQUE early in the New Year.

Please update your entry NOW. You can do this yourself by going online to <myubique.com> You are almost certainly on our database already.

The only reason that you cannot access the member’s section of our web-site is that you have not given us an e-mail address or that you have not chosen a password (minimum of five letters). If you have any difficulty updating your entry, please, PLEASE, write to me NOW, either at andrew@glenstal.org or by good old-fashioned post.

Wedding Bells Howard Reddy (1995) & Hanan Tarabay Nico Gore-Grimes (1994) & Lizzie Meagher Julian Grant (1993) & Rebekah Rafferty Geoffrey Deasy (1992) & Delphine Wilson Peter Lavelle (1988) & Lotte Goroll Eddie Barry (1992) & Naomi Godkin Christopher Pearson (1990) & Louise Duggan

IMPORTANT DATES NOV. 4th Class of ’86 Dinner.

NOV. 5th A.G.M. of the Glenstal Society.

NOV. 10th Meeting in Glenstal of Agents Provocateurs to promote scholarships.

NOV. 15th London Dinner at the Reform Club.

Class of 1994 REUNION

T

he class of 1994 had its 11 year reunion on Saturday the 7th January 2006 at Waterman’s lodge in Ballina, Co. Tipperary. Due to other commitments we let the 10 year reunion slide slightly!!

Much gratitude is owed by all to Stephen Lannen who organised the event. It was an immensely enjoyable evening and a fantastic opportunity to catch up with old friends some of whom many of us had not seen since June 1994.

Despite the long gap in time, everyone settled down to enjoy themselves and very soon, no doubt aided by the excellent food and wine, it could have been a Christmas Dinner in the Glenstal Ref such was the conviviality. Needless to say, the old slagging matches and the odd row ensued as the night wore on.

Sadly the evening was to be the last evening at Waterman’s Lodge as the premises has since been sold. Our reunion was fittingly named the last supper by Brother Timothy who joined us and who has been to many a reunion in the premises! Much to

our disappointment, Fr. Andrew, Fr. Simon and Br. Denis had to decline due to other commitments.

Our school captain Sean Grimes made an excellent speech befitting the occasion which was punctuated by his usual wittiness. The event finished in the early hours of the next morning and sore heads were in abundance at breakfast as almost everyone departed to their homes, families and various different airports. It was pleasantly reassuring that each man despite all that life had thrown at him was still the same grand fellow some 11 years after leaving Glenstal.

Great resolve was put into organising a 15 year reunion, in particular in trying to get in contact with those who have become untraceable. For those of you reading this and who should have been there, updating your details on the Ubique website would have given Stephen a few less grey hairs and perhaps would have meant that we could have made the 10 years!!

Alec Gabbett

2 GLENSTAL NEWSLETTER Autumn 2006

Autumn 2006 GLENSTAL NEWSLETTER 3

The Philosophy behind Kitchen Calm

W

hen Fr Andrew asked me the question, what is the philosophy behind Kitchen Calm? I had to think for a few moments and reflect back as to where my interest in food came from? My memories of food as a child included the smell of Sunday roast beef, the taste of my first avocado pear with vinaigrette, picking fresh raspberries in Donabate in July, Glenstal flap jacks and eating fresh barbequed mackerel with a squeeze of lemon juice.

quick solution to the problem, so that an air of Calm can be maintained in the kitchen at all times.

My interest in food and cooking remains to this day, so much so that friends constantly ask me for tips or suggestions and that’s how the idea for the book evolved. I went to all the leading bookshops in Ireland, went on to the internet to research; and what I found were beautiful cookery books but no book just offering tips and suggestions and no recipes!

One book reviewer described the tip on how to flour meat correctly as, “so simple and direct, it is like the Theory of Relativity.”

Cooking is meant to be fun and enjoyable; however too often it ends in a mess, particularly at party times!

Kitchen Calm identifies in a fun way the crisis and the

Kitchen Calm has answers to those important questions, like what do I do when the hollandaise sauce splits? How do you remove the skin from your gravy? What is the correct time and temperature for the turkey, How is it possible to get double the juice from a lemon and more!

If you haven’t already got a copy of Kitchen Calm then it is available in hard back from Currach Press, and in soft back from Athena Press through Amazon.

Remember every Kitchen deserves a little Calm. Enjoy!

Dermot O’Flynn Glenstal 1978

EDDIE DWYER (1943–1947)

JOHN THUNDER (1940-1945)

It is not hard to understand why Eddie Dwyer was so popular. It was his relaxed and friendly personality coupled with his youthful, even boyish, good looks which he kept right up yo the end. Roscrea was his home town and his roots ran deep. His substantial diary farm was just outside the town. Everybody knew and loved his six children. They were a credit to Eddie and to his wife Ailish.

The name of John Thunder may evoke in the minds of many his cheerful wave, smiling face and his sincere inquiry after your well-being. For these John was renowned. But the extent of his concern and welcome was exceptional: it can be traced back to his inviting friends to spend school holidays at his home in the Wicklow mountains. However it was most outstanding throughout his adult years in Glenstal. John Thunder for forty years, from the 1960’s to 2000, was permanently ‘on call’ to welcome the ‘men-of-the-roads’ and members of the travelling population, to Glenstal. As often as not he opened his purse to them as well as the door. Mention of his name to this day in the underbelly of Irish society will bring goodwill gestures and a safe passage. To rich and poor alike, John followed our Lord’s teaching ‘I was a visitor and you welcomed me’.

Eddie was President of the Glenstal Society from 1986 to 1990. His presidency was a crusade of sustained concern and active support for the monks of Glenstal and the school. It marked the revival of interest in the Society which was sadly in decline at that time.

Eddie had developed a love of sport in Glenstal which he maintained for the remainder of his life, rugby, cricket, tennis, shooting and racing. He was very proud of Andrew his son who was Captain of Rugby at Glenstal (1984-85).

He relished the complimentary seat in the Presidential Box at Lansdowne Road which the I.R.F.U. gave him in recognition that he had not missed a home international in fifty years.

Those of us who knew him in school are consoled by the thought that most of his class-mates are now enjoying his company.

John started to reside at Glenstal as an adult at the invitation of Fr Matthew. Modern psychology could scarcely countenance placement in a monastery as an appropriate alternative to unpromising prospects in business or the professions. But such were the times in which he lived. Mostly male company, bouts of illness, and the almost complete absence of the normal sources of fulfilment became John’s lot. The most poignant pain he experienced, in the later years, was a temptation to despair of God’s compassion. For most of us, keeping faith alive, through the stages and vicissitudes of our lives, is a continual challenge. Faced with the seemingly endless suffering in the world or even of our own impending death, we can feel the pull to abandon the way of Life.

But doubt did not win over with John and the last years found in him a refreshed and mature faith We trust that as John welcomed others he may now himself be welcomed by the Author of all kindness into paradise.

Frederick Morris

Fr. John O’Callaghan OSB

Eddie was the mainstay of his cricket club in the Roscrea area. He took them touring to England and, of course, beat all-comers in the Shires.

All of this masks the personality of the real Eddie. A warm sympathetic character, he related to everybody in the same way. He was someone who was totally comfortable in his own skin, someone in whose company you felt safe.

He was your friend. He was everyone’s friend and a true friend.

Remembering Fr. Matthew F

ather Matthew (Brian) Dillon OSB (1905-1979) was born on the13th of March 1905 to John and Elizabeth Dillon of 2 North Great George’s Street, Dublin. His paternal grandfather was John Blake Dillon, rebel and Young Irelander. His father was the Land Leaguer and parliamentarian. His mother, the brilliant and beautiful Elizabeth Mathew, was the daughter of Sir James Mathew, Judge of the High Court, London, and was grandniece of the famously temperate Father Theobald Mathew. Brian was youngest brother to John Mathew (Fr. Shawn Dillon), Anne Elizabeth (Nano Smith), Theobald Wolfe Tone (b.1898, Theo), Myles Patrick (Celtic scholar) and James Dillon, sometime leader of Fine Gael.

His education began privately before continuing at the remarkable school of Fr. John Sweetman at Mount Saint Benedict, Gorey. The rugged independence, sporting respect for the freedom of others, and spartan authenticity he found there were to remain his guiding principles and inspiration for life. Proceeding in 1923 to law at UCD and Kings Inns he became a Brooke scholar and practiced at the bar. Then, studying for theology at Wonersh and at the Beda and the Angelicum in Rome, he became a priest in 1933 of the Southwark diocese before joining the newly founded Benedictine monastery at Glenstal, Co. Limerick in 1934.

He did his novitiate in Maredsous, Belgium under Dom Idesbald Ryelandt. On his return to Glenstal he was involved in the fledgeling school which became the creation of his genius. He was appointed headmaster in 1937. As the battle of Stalingrad raged, he was expanding room by room through Glenstal Castle until, at the end of the war, with numbers augmented by Irish refugees from English public schools, the secondary boarding school at Glenstal, so tentatively begun in 1932, seemed almost viable.

Apart from the years 1948 to 1953, spent in Dublin founding and running a university residence at Balnagowan, Palmerstown Park, Fr Matthew was headmaster at Glenstal until 1961. He then went to Lima to examine the prospect of founding a school there, thought better of it, and came back to administer Balnagowan until 1966. His last years were spent fighting to defend the cultural patrimony of the Church, plotting with Samuel Morris of Waterford and others to found a school on the principles of Fr. John Sweetman, and,

finally, free from the programmes and demands of great adventures, in writing, translating and reading, and in humble service to school and monastery. He died on the 25th of October 1979 at the Bons Secours Hospital, Glasnevin, having said of the school ‘it was a great adventure’.

Fr Matthew had an unfailing sense of purpose and a forceful intelligence and wit. Education was the area where grace and nature combined most happily in genius. A sometimes rather gruff and abrupt manner hid a good humoured kindness that gave to young people freedom both from worldly vulgarity and from the integrist piety of the age. In his five minute introduction to the school given to the new boys in 1959 he made a clear distinction between the moral law and school law. One need have no scruples if one breaks the latter, but “God help you if you are caught’’ (our reporter was there).

In a memorandum on industrial or reformatory schools written in the 1950s after the Curtis Report, he suggests that the courts, when they commit a child, should appoint some worthy citizen as patron or guardian so that the child may know he has someone to refer to outside the institution, some access to appeal in the event of any apparent injustice he may meet within. Further, every child in such care should have pocket money and a locker where he may keep things he may call his own. There should be holidays: if no private homes could be found, then, at least, the tedium of the child’s life, locked for years in an institution, should be relieved by periodic holidays in other institutions. Finally, access to secondary education should not be systematically denied, regardless of aptitude, to children whom the State has taken into its care. The freedom and rights his ancestors championed for adults in the Nineteenth Century, Fr Matthew extended to children of the twentieth.

His writings include ‘The Parent and the Child’ (CTS booklet), translations from the French of Dom Columba Marmion’s ‘Christ the Ideal of the Priest’ 1952), of three books

by Dom Idesbald Ryelandt (1938, 1964; 1966) and of Dom Bernard Capelle (A New Light on the Mass, 1961), translation of Pope Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) and some compelling unpublished works among his papers in the archives at Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick.

Anthony Keane OSB

ELIZABETH CLARKE

M

rs. Clarke. who died recently, came to Glenstal as Headmaster’s secretary in 1977 and served in that capacity until 1991, under the aegis first of myself, then of Fr. Andrew, and finally that of the joint Headmasters, Brothers Patrick and Timothy.

Mrs. Clarke’s own curriculum vitae had given her a wide experience of life. Born in London, she worked in the Colonial Office as a young woman and survived the London blitz before marrying and moving to Ireland in the wake of the war.

As the Headmaster’s baton passed along the line, Mrs. Clarke’s role expanded and blossomed until eventually she became the factotum supreme, coping with all aspects of school life, other than teaching.

From Whitehall she brought an appealing formality of manner. Her Christian name, Eliza – let alone “Lily” – was unknown to most of us. She remained “Mrs. Clarke” to most of us until her dying day.

The most precious component of her expanding role was that of agony aunt, a role which developed spontaneously as boys recognised a wise and shrewd counsellor.

An admirable lady and a fast friend. May she rest in peace.

Abbot Celestine Cullen

2 GLENSTAL NEWSLETTER Autumn 2006

Autumn 2006 GLENSTAL NEWSLETTER 3

The Philosophy behind Kitchen Calm

W

hen Fr Andrew asked me the question, what is the philosophy behind Kitchen Calm? I had to think for a few moments and reflect back as to where my interest in food came from? My memories of food as a child included the smell of Sunday roast beef, the taste of my first avocado pear with vinaigrette, picking fresh raspberries in Donabate in July, Glenstal flap jacks and eating fresh barbequed mackerel with a squeeze of lemon juice.

quick solution to the problem, so that an air of Calm can be maintained in the kitchen at all times.

My interest in food and cooking remains to this day, so much so that friends constantly ask me for tips or suggestions and that’s how the idea for the book evolved. I went to all the leading bookshops in Ireland, went on to the internet to research; and what I found were beautiful cookery books but no book just offering tips and suggestions and no recipes!

One book reviewer described the tip on how to flour meat correctly as, “so simple and direct, it is like the Theory of Relativity.”

Cooking is meant to be fun and enjoyable; however too often it ends in a mess, particularly at party times!

Kitchen Calm identifies in a fun way the crisis and the

Kitchen Calm has answers to those important questions, like what do I do when the hollandaise sauce splits? How do you remove the skin from your gravy? What is the correct time and temperature for the turkey, How is it possible to get double the juice from a lemon and more!

If you haven’t already got a copy of Kitchen Calm then it is available in hard back from Currach Press, and in soft back from Athena Press through Amazon.

Remember every Kitchen deserves a little Calm. Enjoy!

Dermot O’Flynn Glenstal 1978

EDDIE DWYER (1943–1947)

JOHN THUNDER (1940-1945)

It is not hard to understand why Eddie Dwyer was so popular. It was his relaxed and friendly personality coupled with his youthful, even boyish, good looks which he kept right up yo the end. Roscrea was his home town and his roots ran deep. His substantial diary farm was just outside the town. Everybody knew and loved his six children. They were a credit to Eddie and to his wife Ailish.

The name of John Thunder may evoke in the minds of many his cheerful wave, smiling face and his sincere inquiry after your well-being. For these John was renowned. But the extent of his concern and welcome was exceptional: it can be traced back to his inviting friends to spend school holidays at his home in the Wicklow mountains. However it was most outstanding throughout his adult years in Glenstal. John Thunder for forty years, from the 1960’s to 2000, was permanently ‘on call’ to welcome the ‘men-of-the-roads’ and members of the travelling population, to Glenstal. As often as not he opened his purse to them as well as the door. Mention of his name to this day in the underbelly of Irish society will bring goodwill gestures and a safe passage. To rich and poor alike, John followed our Lord’s teaching ‘I was a visitor and you welcomed me’.

Eddie was President of the Glenstal Society from 1986 to 1990. His presidency was a crusade of sustained concern and active support for the monks of Glenstal and the school. It marked the revival of interest in the Society which was sadly in decline at that time.

Eddie had developed a love of sport in Glenstal which he maintained for the remainder of his life, rugby, cricket, tennis, shooting and racing. He was very proud of Andrew his son who was Captain of Rugby at Glenstal (1984-85).

He relished the complimentary seat in the Presidential Box at Lansdowne Road which the I.R.F.U. gave him in recognition that he had not missed a home international in fifty years.

Those of us who knew him in school are consoled by the thought that most of his class-mates are now enjoying his company.

John started to reside at Glenstal as an adult at the invitation of Fr Matthew. Modern psychology could scarcely countenance placement in a monastery as an appropriate alternative to unpromising prospects in business or the professions. But such were the times in which he lived. Mostly male company, bouts of illness, and the almost complete absence of the normal sources of fulfilment became John’s lot. The most poignant pain he experienced, in the later years, was a temptation to despair of God’s compassion. For most of us, keeping faith alive, through the stages and vicissitudes of our lives, is a continual challenge. Faced with the seemingly endless suffering in the world or even of our own impending death, we can feel the pull to abandon the way of Life.

But doubt did not win over with John and the last years found in him a refreshed and mature faith We trust that as John welcomed others he may now himself be welcomed by the Author of all kindness into paradise.

Frederick Morris

Fr. John O’Callaghan OSB

Eddie was the mainstay of his cricket club in the Roscrea area. He took them touring to England and, of course, beat all-comers in the Shires.

All of this masks the personality of the real Eddie. A warm sympathetic character, he related to everybody in the same way. He was someone who was totally comfortable in his own skin, someone in whose company you felt safe.

He was your friend. He was everyone’s friend and a true friend.

Remembering Fr. Matthew F

ather Matthew (Brian) Dillon OSB (1905-1979) was born on the13th of March 1905 to John and Elizabeth Dillon of 2 North Great George’s Street, Dublin. His paternal grandfather was John Blake Dillon, rebel and Young Irelander. His father was the Land Leaguer and parliamentarian. His mother, the brilliant and beautiful Elizabeth Mathew, was the daughter of Sir James Mathew, Judge of the High Court, London, and was grandniece of the famously temperate Father Theobald Mathew. Brian was youngest brother to John Mathew (Fr. Shawn Dillon), Anne Elizabeth (Nano Smith), Theobald Wolfe Tone (b.1898, Theo), Myles Patrick (Celtic scholar) and James Dillon, sometime leader of Fine Gael.

His education began privately before continuing at the remarkable school of Fr. John Sweetman at Mount Saint Benedict, Gorey. The rugged independence, sporting respect for the freedom of others, and spartan authenticity he found there were to remain his guiding principles and inspiration for life. Proceeding in 1923 to law at UCD and Kings Inns he became a Brooke scholar and practiced at the bar. Then, studying for theology at Wonersh and at the Beda and the Angelicum in Rome, he became a priest in 1933 of the Southwark diocese before joining the newly founded Benedictine monastery at Glenstal, Co. Limerick in 1934.

He did his novitiate in Maredsous, Belgium under Dom Idesbald Ryelandt. On his return to Glenstal he was involved in the fledgeling school which became the creation of his genius. He was appointed headmaster in 1937. As the battle of Stalingrad raged, he was expanding room by room through Glenstal Castle until, at the end of the war, with numbers augmented by Irish refugees from English public schools, the secondary boarding school at Glenstal, so tentatively begun in 1932, seemed almost viable.

Apart from the years 1948 to 1953, spent in Dublin founding and running a university residence at Balnagowan, Palmerstown Park, Fr Matthew was headmaster at Glenstal until 1961. He then went to Lima to examine the prospect of founding a school there, thought better of it, and came back to administer Balnagowan until 1966. His last years were spent fighting to defend the cultural patrimony of the Church, plotting with Samuel Morris of Waterford and others to found a school on the principles of Fr. John Sweetman, and,

finally, free from the programmes and demands of great adventures, in writing, translating and reading, and in humble service to school and monastery. He died on the 25th of October 1979 at the Bons Secours Hospital, Glasnevin, having said of the school ‘it was a great adventure’.

Fr Matthew had an unfailing sense of purpose and a forceful intelligence and wit. Education was the area where grace and nature combined most happily in genius. A sometimes rather gruff and abrupt manner hid a good humoured kindness that gave to young people freedom both from worldly vulgarity and from the integrist piety of the age. In his five minute introduction to the school given to the new boys in 1959 he made a clear distinction between the moral law and school law. One need have no scruples if one breaks the latter, but “God help you if you are caught’’ (our reporter was there).

In a memorandum on industrial or reformatory schools written in the 1950s after the Curtis Report, he suggests that the courts, when they commit a child, should appoint some worthy citizen as patron or guardian so that the child may know he has someone to refer to outside the institution, some access to appeal in the event of any apparent injustice he may meet within. Further, every child in such care should have pocket money and a locker where he may keep things he may call his own. There should be holidays: if no private homes could be found, then, at least, the tedium of the child’s life, locked for years in an institution, should be relieved by periodic holidays in other institutions. Finally, access to secondary education should not be systematically denied, regardless of aptitude, to children whom the State has taken into its care. The freedom and rights his ancestors championed for adults in the Nineteenth Century, Fr Matthew extended to children of the twentieth.

His writings include ‘The Parent and the Child’ (CTS booklet), translations from the French of Dom Columba Marmion’s ‘Christ the Ideal of the Priest’ 1952), of three books

by Dom Idesbald Ryelandt (1938, 1964; 1966) and of Dom Bernard Capelle (A New Light on the Mass, 1961), translation of Pope Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) and some compelling unpublished works among his papers in the archives at Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick.

Anthony Keane OSB

ELIZABETH CLARKE

M

rs. Clarke. who died recently, came to Glenstal as Headmaster’s secretary in 1977 and served in that capacity until 1991, under the aegis first of myself, then of Fr. Andrew, and finally that of the joint Headmasters, Brothers Patrick and Timothy.

Mrs. Clarke’s own curriculum vitae had given her a wide experience of life. Born in London, she worked in the Colonial Office as a young woman and survived the London blitz before marrying and moving to Ireland in the wake of the war.

As the Headmaster’s baton passed along the line, Mrs. Clarke’s role expanded and blossomed until eventually she became the factotum supreme, coping with all aspects of school life, other than teaching.

From Whitehall she brought an appealing formality of manner. Her Christian name, Eliza – let alone “Lily” – was unknown to most of us. She remained “Mrs. Clarke” to most of us until her dying day.

The most precious component of her expanding role was that of agony aunt, a role which developed spontaneously as boys recognised a wise and shrewd counsellor.

An admirable lady and a fast friend. May she rest in peace.

Abbot Celestine Cullen

4 GLENSTAL NEWSLETTER Autumn 2006

LET US REMEMBER Robert Walker (1986) Bernard Byrne (1945) Eddie Dwyer (1947) John Punch (1947) Noel Dennehy (1949) Robert Morehead (1940) Oswald Barton (1948) Madeleine Egan, mother of Brian, Rory, David, Patrick.

Joan Kieran, mother of Patrick, John, Brian, Richard, Peter, Eugene & six grandsons.

John Griffith, father of Colin.

Joan Ryan, mother of Vincent and Cyril Ellie Shee, mother of Nicholas & 2 grandsons Helen Dennehy, wife of Douglas, mother of Eric & Mark Thurloc Swan, father of Brian Vivien Chung, mother of Billy Ryan Ed Prendergast, father of Kevin (Ist year).

Elizabeth Clarke, School Secretary (retired) Marcus McInerney, father of Marcus

Recent Publications Dermot O’Flynn: Kitchen Calm (Currach/Athena) Colmán Ó Clabaigh & Martin Browne, Ed. The Irish Benedictines: A History (Columba) Andrew Nugent: The Four Courts Murder (Headline); The Slow-Release Miracle (Columba/Paulist); Second Burial for a Black Prince (St. Martin’s) Richard Kearney: Navigations: Collected Irish Essays (Lilliput) Ambrose Tinslsey: The Ever-Open Door, Memories (Columba) Colmán Ó Clabaigh & R. Moss, S. Ryan, Ed. Art and Devotion in Late Medieval Ireland (Four Courts) Mark Patrick Hederman: Walkabout: Life as Holy Spirit (Columba) Dan Binchy: Loopy, a Novel of Golf and Ireland (St. Martin’s) Seán Ó Duinn: The Rites of Brigid (Columba) Edited by Andrew Nugent osb Layout & Print by INTYPE Ltd.

JOHN PUNCH (1939-1947) John Punch – known to his friends as Johnny – was born into a merchant family almost eighty years ago and being one of three boys and four girls he was dispatched to board in Glenstal in 1939 at the tender age of ten. At that time the school was small and had not quite grown to the extent that it did as the war in Europe intensified, so we all knew each other whether in junior or senior class. After eight years of incarceration John joined U.C.C. and duly earned a B.Comm. so as to enter the world of business. His elder brother, Sydney, was then looking after the growing family business especially the wholesale groceries development so John spent a couple of months in Germany and then returned to specialize in the factory end of the business. After Sydney’s untimely death in 1963 the whole burden of the expanding business fell on John who by now had acquired valuable management skills. Undoubtedly this would all have been too much to bear had he not had the good fortune to meet and marry Rosemarie Tarnowska the previous year. Her support and the distraction of the birth of his five children all swept him along as the business grew in the economic upswing of succeeding years.

One of John’s earliest passions was for sailing and while he had sold his boat prior to getting married he took to the seas again later in life – in 2002 – when he commissioned Hegartys of Oldcourt to build him a Heir Island lobster fishing boat. He delighted in sailing and found in this pastime the peace and tranquillity that helped to heal the scars of life’s trials and tragedies. He was, too, at times an intrepid traveller, having crossed the Sahara desert with Rosemarie on a safari of several weeks’ duration.

Unlike his father who had a special interest in motorcars, John was fascinated by clocks and was quite adept at taking them asunder and successfully putting them back together again. Family, however, was his absorbing and first love and it was at home in his beloved Kilroan with its beautifully laid out garden and rustic setting that John felt most at home.

He died in the Bons Secours hospital

after a short and sudden illness that he bore with exemplary fortitude and a robust faith in the joys of the life to come.

www.myubique.com info@myubique.com

Philip Tierney

When Father Matthew Dillon became Headmaster of a tiny school of under twenty boys, his first move was to find more – by hook or by crook! Qualifications were basic in 1937: of good family background, sound of limb, and no longer requiring breast-feeding between classes.

Bernard was netted in this first major Dillon trawl, and when I first met him in September 1939 on the train from Kingsbridge to Limerick Junction, he was already a seasoned campaigner, an athlete swift as a bird, and a classic tennis player.

His lenghty school career was studded with cups and prizes in both the academic and the sporting fields. A brilliant mathematician, he passed easily into Engineering in UCD on leaving school.

As an engineer he worked mostly on his own, on imaginative and unusual projects, as well as on bread and butter civil work for local authorities.

Bernard was an essentially optimistic, positive and cheerful person, qualities which served him well in later life, when his marriage faltered and he found himself alienated from his children. In these difficult years he was sustained by his inspiring mother, who lived to be 102.

A regular Holy Week visitor, most of us last saw him in 2005 when he came south to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our leaving school in 1945. He was frail but buoyant, and his parting gift to me were several photos of himself with his children – and grand-children – with whom he had been happily reconciled in his last years.

He died quietly in his sleep in April 2006. May he rest in peace.

Abbot Celestine Cullen

UBIQUE 2007

Glenstal Abbey

BERNARD LE CESNE BYRNE (1937-1945)

Scholarship Award

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here will be an information meeting on the Glenstal Abbey Scholarship Award at Glenstal on Friday the 10th of November 2006 at 8.00pm, followed by dinner at 9.00pm. The meeting will be attended by delegates from each year group who will then publicise the Scholarship Award among their peers. It is hoped that the Old Boys will support this new and innovative scheme which will contribute to making Glenstal a modern and dynamic school.

The Award provides a full scholarship to students whose parents cannot afford the fees and who meet certain other criteria, such as ability to adapt to a boarding environment. The Award is already supporting 2 scholarship students. It is hoped to provide one extra scholarship each year so as to have at least six scholarship students in the school at any one time. This will require significant financial support. A warm thank you is extended to all those who have already contributed and enabled the Award to be set up.

Inquiries to Br. Luke MacNamara, luke@glenstal.org Tel. 061-621099

CONGRATULATIONS TO/ Fr. James McMahon on his ordination to the priesthood TO/ Br. Luke MacNamara on his ordination to the diaconate TO/ Fr. Ambrose Tinsley on his golden jubilee of profession.

A.G.M. GLENSTAL SOCIETY Sunday, November 5th 2006 ■ 10.00 Mass with the Community ■ 11.00 Coffee ■ 11.30 AGM ■ 1.00 LUNCH COME FOR ALL – OR ANY PART OF THE DAY!

We hope to publish a NEW EDITION of UBIQUE early in the New Year.

Please update your entry NOW. You can do this yourself by going online to <myubique.com> You are almost certainly on our database already.

The only reason that you cannot access the member’s section of our web-site is that you have not given us an e-mail address or that you have not chosen a password (minimum of five letters). If you have any difficulty updating your entry, please, PLEASE, write to me NOW, either at andrew@glenstal.org or by good old-fashioned post.

Wedding Bells Howard Reddy (1995) & Hanan Tarabay Nico Gore-Grimes (1994) & Lizzie Meagher Julian Grant (1993) & Rebekah Rafferty Geoffrey Deasy (1992) & Delphine Wilson Peter Lavelle (1988) & Lotte Goroll Eddie Barry (1992) & Naomi Godkin Christopher Pearson (1990) & Louise Duggan

IMPORTANT DATES NOV. 4th Class of ’86 Dinner.

NOV. 5th A.G.M. of the Glenstal Society.

NOV. 10th Meeting in Glenstal of Agents Provocateurs to promote scholarships.

NOV. 15th London Dinner at the Reform Club.

Class of 1994 REUNION

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he class of 1994 had its 11 year reunion on Saturday the 7th January 2006 at Waterman’s lodge in Ballina, Co. Tipperary. Due to other commitments we let the 10 year reunion slide slightly!!

Much gratitude is owed by all to Stephen Lannen who organised the event. It was an immensely enjoyable evening and a fantastic opportunity to catch up with old friends some of whom many of us had not seen since June 1994.

Despite the long gap in time, everyone settled down to enjoy themselves and very soon, no doubt aided by the excellent food and wine, it could have been a Christmas Dinner in the Glenstal Ref such was the conviviality. Needless to say, the old slagging matches and the odd row ensued as the night wore on.

Sadly the evening was to be the last evening at Waterman’s Lodge as the premises has since been sold. Our reunion was fittingly named the last supper by Brother Timothy who joined us and who has been to many a reunion in the premises! Much to

our disappointment, Fr. Andrew, Fr. Simon and Br. Denis had to decline due to other commitments.

Our school captain Sean Grimes made an excellent speech befitting the occasion which was punctuated by his usual wittiness. The event finished in the early hours of the next morning and sore heads were in abundance at breakfast as almost everyone departed to their homes, families and various different airports. It was pleasantly reassuring that each man despite all that life had thrown at him was still the same grand fellow some 11 years after leaving Glenstal.

Great resolve was put into organising a 15 year reunion, in particular in trying to get in contact with those who have become untraceable. For those of you reading this and who should have been there, updating your details on the Ubique website would have given Stephen a few less grey hairs and perhaps would have meant that we could have made the 10 years!!

Alec Gabbett