Obituary Notice
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The Cross - July 1951 Personality “Bishop of B e # Mount Argus” F. P. CAREY COULD not have blamed the old lady who, wandering and wondering among the trim, tidy, gravestones, asked: Was he the Bishop of Mount Argus? Many before and since that day have come away from the little cemetery beside St. Paul’s Retreat, inquisitive but unsatisfied as to the significance of that grave nearest the entrance gate upon the eastern side. The inscription is but barely informative : Most Rev. Patrick Fallon, D.D., Bishop of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora. In the mind of the casual visitor, the question is inevit- able : Who was this prelate of the princely Irish Hierarchy sleeping the last sleep in a humble conventual grave of earth far away from old Kinvara, his episcopal seat ? - ‘Like most edifying stories, that of Dr. Fallon is an unpretentious one, summarily describing a life of profound and unosten-: tatious piety but a life, as many of his’ contemporaries, including the illustrious Archbishop MacHale of Tuam, acclaimed _ the life of a saint. GON of farmer parents neither wealthy. nor influential, he was born in the near shadow: of the ruined Cathedral of St. Brendan at Clonfert, Co. Galway, about the year 1805. There was nothing extraordinary about his boyhood save that, as well as being a Mass server, he voluntarily took to himself the duties of clerk and keeper at the humble Penal Age chapel of his native place, the thatched roof of which he is said miore than once, and single-handed, to have repaired. In such circumstances, it is scarcely surprising to find that he was blessed by Almighty God with vocation for the religious- life. The distinction, religious life, must here be stressed, for the dream of Patrick Fallon was primarily of some remote cloister, in which seclusion, prayer, and contemplation constituted the established order. = TET reg geht er “Bp. PATRICK Fallon: ¢1805- 1879) ot e ® Sree esccceosesesoes 2008068 S SOR CHCOOOE ' Many who have visited the cemetery at Mount Areus, have often asked who the prelate was who is buried there, Here the author gives an interesting contribution on his life, OO eeeeeeresecesees " 92868 SOF SECC CORE COCO e e This preference which during his life as priest and bishop he .often, as if uncon- sciously, revealed—was possibly the outcome of his abiding interest in the lives of St. Bernard, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, St. John of the Cross, and the great monastic exemplars, in which he had been instructed by the holy, cultured, Parish Priest of Clonfert, who too had taught him to read and write. TH old Galway man who many years ago gave me these details was unable to recall the name of this kindly pastor. He made it clear that the future bishop owed to the priest all that my informant was pleased to refer to as “‘ the right start in life.” education which young Fallon received from his Parish Priest was of the-merest elementary character. For greater advancement the boys of the neighbourhood were indebted to the enterprise of a learned but eccentric | named Stafford, who spared neither rod nor rhetoric in the process of pedagogue, rendering all his protegés a credit to him, This worthy, originally an ecclesiastical student, had run away from college and entered the British Army during the period of Napoleonic wars. He served in several of the principal campaigns, and in course of his soldiering profited much by studious visits to Continental libraries, art-galleries, and museums. After the fall of Napoleon, however, he returned to Ireland, “ full of splendid knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome,” as he frequently announced, and, with the assistance of a local bookworm, opened a school at Kilchreest, near Loughrea. “There, young Fallon immediately presented . himself. A man of prodigious natural ability, and possessed of a useful reserve of self- confidence, Stafford quickly brought the venture to success. During the ensuing It is nevertheless, obvious that the : ¥ 4 ar 1 ‘
fifty or sixty years, mamy of the prominent ecclesiastics and professional men of South Galway could have been heard to state, not at all without satisfaction, that they had begun at this efficient, if somewhat unortho- dox, Kilchreest school. Dr. Fallon was certainly such a one, for he remained with his interesting preceptor almost until the date of. his entry at Maynooth. Ordained about 1829, Dr. Fallon served as curate in two or more parishes previous to his appointment, about 1844, as Parish Priest of Lisdoonvarna. Here the call to the episcopate found him. This was in 1853, when he was appointed by Pope Pius 1X as Bishop of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora,,. in succession to his friend, Most Rev. Dr. French, whose death a few months earlier had left him visibly sorrowing. "T #ouGcH he wisely ruled the united dioceses for nearly fourteen years, he suffered throughout with ever-increasing seriousness from a malady which had developed soon after his consecration, About the beginning of the eighteen-sixties his life became a veritable martyrdom, until event- ually his physicians not only . pronounced his condition incurable, but warned him that he was destined for what one of them predicted as a slow death. Yet, the brave prelate laboured on until 1866, when, at Jast unable to meet even the slightest of his — episcopal obligations, he petitioned the Holy See for the appointment of a Coadjutor. Pius IX honoured the request by naming temporarily the Bishop of Galway, Most Rev. Dr. McEvilly (afterwards Archbishop of Tuam) as Apostolic Administrator of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora. Relieved of the cares of the bishopric, Dr- Fallon almost at once turned his thoughts towards Mount Argus and the Passionist life. The outstanding characteristic of his personal piety had ever been devotion to Christ Crucified. But it was not until he had met the celebrated English convert, Father Ignatius Spencer, C.P., who had ‘been visiting Ireland in 1851 that he linked up his meditations in this connection with the zeal and purpose of St. Paul of the Cross and his Congregation, and ‘again with his own early desire for monastic séclusion and contemplation. The outcome of those reactions of his saintly spirit was that he came to live at Mount Argus, first as guest, in the very year of the canonization of the Founder of the Passionists, 1867. Subsequently, he was, by special dispensation of the Holy See, received into the Congregation. ig was at Mount Argus that Dr. Fallon died in May, 1879. His obsequies there proved an event that lived long in local memory. Most Rev. Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) McCabe, Archbishop of Dublin, presided at the Requiem High Mass, at which : the celebrant was Most Rev. Dr. McEvilly, and at which several members of the Irish Hierarchy, with a great concourse of priests from many dioceses, attended. The deacon, it is of touching interest to note, was the Servant of God, Father Charles, C.P. The Passionist Father who pronounced the funeral panygeric described Dr. Fallon as “a man of most unbounded charity,” of a suavity of disposition that endeared ° him to all who knew him, and of a piety that rendered his life a bright example. Dr. Fallon, even in his essential public capacity as Bishop of a diocese sought ever the shades: of obscurity and the solace of - retirement. Nevertheless, he has attained a distinctive place in Irish ecclesiastical history as having been the last Bishop of the independent dioceses of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora. i. "THERE are fourteen parishes in Kil- "macduagh, and thirteen in Kilfenora; and at the appointment of Dr. Fallon the smallness of each jurisdiction was being considered by the Holy See. In fact, the Decree of his appointment reserved to Rome the right and intention to separate the two dioceses. This would appear to have explained’ the. temporary appointment of Dr. McEvilly as Administrator of the united dioceses rather than as the Coadjutor petitioned by Dr. Fallon. ; Protracted correspondence upon the point passed between Ireland and Rome. mately, however, the arrangement of 1866 Ulti- - was made permanent, the see of Kilmacduagh | being united with that.of Galway, the Bishop | of which was invested with the additional office and title of Apostolic Administrator of Kulfenora,
Source: Obituary Notices, Provincial Archive, St Joseph's Province. Passionist Congregation.