Slán abhaile Father Joe
BY LLOYD GORMAN
ONCE WHEN I WAS INTERVIEWING FR. JOSEPH “JOE” WALSH AT ST. JOSEPH’S CATHOLIC CHURCH FOR A STORY FOR THE SUBIACO POST I ASKED IF WE COULD TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH OF HIM INSIDE THE CHURCH.
Photo courtesy Post Newspapers
It was a weekday and we were the only people in the church. He thought a picture with an empty church in the background would reinforce a negative media bias about the numbers of church goers so we shot him inside a section of the church that had been recently renovated under his watch. The church in Salvado Road where he was parish priest for 16 years was the opposite of empty on the morning of Thursday February 10 for his funeral. Arriving early for the 10am Thanksgiving mass was no guarantee of a seat or even a standing spot inside so that many mourners found themselves outside listening in. The service – which was recorded and live streamed on the Bowra O’Dea website for people in Ireland, Australia and beyond – was watched on the day and afterwards – an incredible 4,000 thousand times. There were a large number of condolences messages published in the West Australian and even hundreds of messages posted on the website of Midwest Radio in Mayo, after it published details of his death and the funeral service. Clearly Fr Joe inspired intense loyalty, love, trust and friendship in very many people. But there are others – including within the church and Irish communities
4 | THE IRISH SCENE
– who held a very different opinion about him, even before the allegations and investigations about the alleged theft of parish funds of up to $500,000 – an affair that was eventually settled out of court – that marred most of his final years alive and as a priest. The painful episode was mentioned by those who knew him best but was not allowed to overshadow happier and fonder thoughts about him. Amongst the many stories and memories shared about him at the service his Irish heritage shone through. The Irish tricolour and the Australian flag (carried by Lee McKay and Rick Ferdinands respectively) led his coffin in and out of the church but there was so much more. Shortly after the opening prayers the second reading near the start of the mass was a reading of the poem ‘Beannacht’ (Blessing), by Irish poet John O’Donohue. “Fr Joe Walsh was fond of poetry, as is evidenced by the reading of that poem we just had,” his close friend Fr. Peter Black said. “There was another poem he liked so much in fact I remember that he had every verse framed and placed upon the wall in St. Joseph’s presbytery...The Lake of Isle of Innishfree by William Butler Yeats. Why this poem?,” he said. “Because it
