THE IRISH MONTHLY

JANUARY, 1906

W

EDWARD KELLY, S.J.

A FEW NOTES IN REMEMBRANCE

'HEN a telegram came to me on the 8th of February, 1905, bidding me send to a certain newspaper by the next post an obituary of Father Edward Kelly, who had died the day before, the first words that fell without premeditation from a running pen were these: "One of the holiest and most amiable, one of the most admirable and most gifted, one of the most widely known and most warmly loved of Irish priests, has finished his course on earth.” And now,

after nearly a year to think of something better, no better words occur to me to describe the sort of man he was of whom I am attempting a fuller but still a very slight and inadequate memorial.

How hard it is to escape errors in making statements about matters of fact! The hurried sketch just referred to, began with two mistakes. Knowing that the home of his childhood had been in Dorset Street, I said that Father Kelly had " died almost in the street in which he was born." But the sole survivor of that household, the eldest of the family, the first to come and the last to go, has informed me that he and his next brother, Edward, were born on the other side of the city, on the south bank of the Liffey, under the shadow of St. Patrick's Cathedral. All the streets near that venerable pile have ecclesiastical names: Dean's Lane, Patrick Street, Chantry Lane, Mitre Alley, etc. The house at the corner of Kevin Street and VOL. XXXIV-No. 391.

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Mitre Alley has long since disappeared to make way for a Constabulary Barrack. Here Edward Kelly was born in the year 1824, not on the 3rd of December, (as has always been set down in our domestic records) but on the following day. This correction blunts the point of my previous statement that "his birthday was the feast of the most famous of Jesuit saints, under whose invocation was soon to be erected hard-by the wellknown church in which Father Edward Kelly did the chief part of his life's work."

But if he was not actually born on the spot where he was to die, he migrated very early to the neighbourhood which was to be the scene of his labours. Soon after the birth of his second son, Mr. Laurence Kelly removed his household to Dorset Street; and there a third son was born to him, to whom he gave his own name. This was the only one of the family to escape early out of this world without having borne the burden of the day and the heat. For nearly thirty years he had the Glasnevin grave all to himself, under a headstone, " erected by Laurence Kelly, of Dorset Street, in memory of his amiable and dearly beloved son, Laurence, who departed this life, 3rd May, 1835, aged 9 years." After many years the father, and then, after another interval, the mother joined him there-these only, for the four others were called away from the home that was very dear to them, resigning their place at the family hearth and in the family tomb. The one sister of the household lies in her convent cemetery in far-distant Western Australia; and of the brothers two rest and the third will rest under the shadow of a noble Celtic cross in another portion of that same picturesque and almost historic Glasnevin, which holds the remains of their father and mother and little brother. Serus in coelum redeat the one who remains with us still.

Although "Gardiner Street" had not yet become in those days, as it is now in some circles, synonymous with "the Jesuit Fathers," the Society of Jesus had already, since 1816, established itself in the neighbourhood, in the first home that it possessed in Dublin since its restoration by Pope Pius VII. Their home was still nearer to the Kelly household, on a spot already sanctified. The Poor Clares who are at present serving God according to their holy state, at Harold's Cross, had courageously carried out their vocation amidst all the dangers and

hardships of the Penal times. In 1752 they removed from North King Street to Drumcondra Lane-as Dorset Street was called at that time. In the kitchen garden at the rere they built a chapel, which is easily recognized as No. 28 Hardwicke Street, a street that did not then exist. What changes take place year by year, generation after generation, in the houses that cluster together to form a city! How deeply interesting a subject Sir John Gilbert chose for the first of his great series of works, "The Streets of Dublin"!

This Jesuit chapel, close beside their home, must have been the first frequented by the little Kelly children that we are now concerned with. The eldest of them, however, was only nine years old when this chapel was closed, after the opening of St. Francis Xavier's Church in Upper Gardiner Street, in 1832. The house in Hardwicke Street became then a day school, conducted by the Jesuit Fathers, till Belvedere College was opened at No. 6 Great Denmark Street, in 1841. Thomas Kelly, the youngest of the brothers, was a pupil of Hardwicke Street, and then of Belvedere ; but Edward's early schooling was done under a young man, John Walsh, who supported himself by acting as schoolmaster while "eating his dinners" and preparing to be called to the Bar. He seems to have been a man of great ability, and two of his pupils were fond of speaking of him. One of the cases in which he distinguished himself was his defence of Delahunty, accused of the murder of a little Italian boy, an organ grinder-a trial which excited immense interest at the time. His career might have been as successful as that of his namesake and contemporary, John Edward Walsh, who became Master of the Rolls; but John Walsh the ex-schoolmaster, was drowned in the Tolka, as he was taking his afternoon stroll and watering his dog.

This rising young barrister was not the only member of the Irish Bar in whom these boys took an interest. In later years they used to describe with zest their mild substitute for the excitement which young lads find nowadays in the varying fortunes of cricket, the turf, or football matches, such as the All Blacks versus Taffys. Each of the three boys had a favourite lawyer, and the chief interest the Freeman's Journal had for

A little before him this school was attended by a boy from Newry' John O'Hagan, who was to do honour to his country in many ways.

them lay in the number of cases in which their respective champions appeared. Do the advocates that shine in the Four Courts nowadays inspire equal enthusiasm in youthful bosoms? Till the end the brothers took a keen interest in legal matters. Thomas Kelly, in particular, would have made a capital Chancery lawyer if he had not been reserved for better things.

Another of John Walsh's pupils lives still in love and honour among us. In reply to my enquiries, Monsignor Miles M'Manus, St. Catherine's, Dublin, wrote:-" Though we were together at the same school (Walsh's, in Bolton Street), Edward Kelly was much my senior. Hence we were not in the same classroom, and I knew little of him. Father Tom was my contemporary. All I recollect of Father Edward is, that he was considered in school to be the best classical scholar among the senior boys. I heard him say that, when at Walsh's, he read Homer and Virgil through and through twice over. He was looked up to by the youngest amongst us as a model of all that a schoolboy should be."

This promising schoolboy in riper years transferred his allegiance from Homer and Virgil to Horace, whom he could quote very readily, as readily as he quoted his favourite "Childe Harold." He used to describe humorously, and with a certain amount of approval, the businesslike flogging which formed a regular part of the school daily programme in those primitive days.

When his younger brother, Thomas, passed on to the new Jesuit school at Belvedere House, 6 Great Denmark Street, Edward Kelly continued his classical studies at Clongowes, under one who is still well remembered by many, Father Henry James Rorke, a prominent figure in his last years at St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, Dublin. Edward Kelly was his favourite pupil, his pride and boast, and he took an affectionate interest in him ever after. His grateful pupil used to recall how, when Father Rorke was the busiest priest in St. Francis Xavier's Church, and his pupil had in turn become a master in St. Francis' Xavier's College, Belvedere, his old master would call for him, at the close of school hours, with a "fleet car” (as he called it) and give him a refreshing drive through the green lanes of Clontarf. As I chance to possess a curious relic of Father Rorke, I shall take advantage of his close connexion

with the subject of this sketch to share with the reader the edification it has given me.

Till the Sisters of Mercy penetrated to Belfast and Derry and many other Ulster towns, the only convent north of the Boyne-or, to be quite accurate, north of Drogheda, for Sienna Convent is on the northern bank of the river-was the Convent of Poor Clares, Newry. They came from Harold's Cross, and twenty years after their migration, they attracted from Dublin also a bright young lady whose director was Father Rorke. This was Miss Fottrell, aunt of the present Superior of the community attached to the Church which has been already named so often. Father Rorke gave her his last advice in writing with a good deal of the old-fashioned formality. For instance, his pupil, Father Edward, on a similar occasion, would not ask "respectful leave" to keep his promise of sending his young penitent a farewell letter.

MY DEAREST CHILD,

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S,

UPPER GARDINER STREET,
June 25, 1850.

I promised you a few lines at parting, and I now take respectful leave to redeem my pledge.

You have been called, and you have generously given yourself away to your Lord and Master. Your dispositions are most happy, and I anticipate for you a large amount of true internal peace and calm of mind. But in your regard I would be a false friend, were I to conceal from you what the Apostle of Nations has proclaimed before the world, viz., that through many tribulations must we pass in order to enter the Kingdom of God." For you, is it for you to pass through tributations, through trials ? And yet so it is: you and I and every one must suffer, first, because we must be tried; secondly, because we must be likened unto Jesus Christ, without which there is no perfection. Now it is, you will allow, honest and honourable on my part to say this openly and fairly to you; but for the better understanding this very important matter let me reduce it to some principles which hereafter may perhaps be of some utility to you.

1st Principle: We must all suffer in this life.

2nd Principle: We must suffer what God wishes us to suffer, not what we wish to suffer; for merit is derived from doing the will of God. 3rd Principle: As we must suffer, and as we must suffer what God wishes us to suffer, why not suffer for the sake of Jesus who has given us such an example?

Let me now leave this subject for the present, and direct your atten