Columban Fr Gerard Dunn RIP

Fr Gerard Dunn

15 December 1937 - 24 September 2018

With the passing of Fr Gerard (Gerry) Dunn on 24 September 2018 the Region of Britain of the Columbans lost one of its most memorable characters.

Father Gerry was born on 15 December 1937 to a well-known Catholic family in Glasgow which had a mineral water business. He very much remained a Glaswegian at heart and in later years delighted in showing his fellow Columbans around his native city.

St Andrew's Cathedral, Glasgow [Wikipedia]

After his early education, Father Gerry followed his father into the medical profession.

Having qualified and practiced as a doctor in Glasgow for a relatively short time, he decided to embark on a different kind of healing ministry – as a Columban missionary priest.

He went to St Columban's, Dalgan Park, County Meath, Ireland, in 1962 and was ordained on 21 December 1967.  Because of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain that year, ordinations did not take place in Dalgan Park, which has a farm attached to it, because of strict Irish quarantine laws. So Father Gerry became the first and only Columban to be ordained on Scottish soil.

After ordination Father Gerry was assigned to Korea.

Within a few years he returned home in poor health and spent the remainder of his Columban life and ministry in Scotland, having ministered for a short time in a parish in Birmingham, England.

Legion of Mary altar [Wikipedia]

He engaged in mission awareness ministry, but gradually focused more and more on other ministries, such as promoting the Legion of Mary, leading pilgrimages to various shrines, and ministering to the small Chinese Catholic community in Glasgow. He learned enough Chinese to be able to celebrate Mass in that language.

St Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg, Ireland [Wikipedia]

Lough Derg is one of the places where Father Gerry regularly led pilgrimages from Glasgow.

When the Columban house in Glasgow closed in 2005 Father Gerry along with Fr Declan McNaughton, moved into the presbytery of St Gregory Barbarigo parish in Glasgow as the base for their continuing ministries.

The priests and people of the parish were very welcoming and supportive. Among the many ways Father Gerry endeared himself to the people in the parish was his preparation and distribution of large quantities of nutritious soup.

Father Gerry will be remembered as a lively conversationalist, witty storyteller and entertaining singer. He will also be remembered for his fearless promotion of the teaching of the Church as he understood it. Conversations with him tended to be blend of serious discussion on some controversial issue and frequent amusing anecdotes.

Father Gerry was a wounded healer who courageously coped with poor health for many years in a spirit of great faith.

In 2013 he retired to Nazareth House in Glasgow which is where he died. A large congregation attended his Funeral Mass in the Nursing Home Chapel on 28 September 2018.

Father Gerry’s nephew, Fr Stephen Dunn, was the principal concelebrant and was joined by more than twenty priests, including five Columbans. In his homily, Fr Dan Horgan, on behalf of the Columbans, thanked the Dunn family and others for the great care Father Gerry received and also spoke of his unique gifts and admirable faith.

Father Gerry was buried with his parents in St Peter's Cemetery, also known as Dalbeth Cemetery, Glasgow.

May he rest in peace.

Dalbeth Cemetery [Source]

A Personal Note

Father Gerry joined the Columbans a year after me but joined our class for theology in 1964. I lived with him for five months in Glasgow in 2002 while on a two-year assignment in Britain. I found to be true what the late Columban Fr Con Campion once said to me - he had lived with Father Gerry for some years in our Glasgow house - that there wasn't a kinder Columban. Before and after his funeral Mass I was chatting with persons who had known him and they all mentioned the great influence he had on their lives.

He had a great sense of humour and there was no one better to tell jokes about 'thrifty' Scotsmen. He was also a good singer. He had a number of songs in his repertoire but his favourite was A Scottish Soldier, written in 1960 by the late Andy Stewart who sings it here.

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country (Luke 1:39).

May our Blessed Mother, whom Father Gerry loved so dearly all his life, lead him to the hills of home.

Columban Fr John Vincent Gallagher RIP

Fr John Vincent Gallagher

(24 December 1923 - 18 December 2015)

Fr John Vincent Gallagher, known to his fellow Columbans as 'John V', died peacefully on 18 December 2015 in St Columban’s Nursing Home, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland.  Born on 24 December 1923, in Glasgow, Scotland, but raised in Dún Lúiche (Dunlewey), Gaoth Dobhair (Gweedore), County Donegal, Ireland. 

St Andrew's Catholic Cathedral, Glasgow [Wikipedia]

He was educated in Dunlewey National School, Meenaclady National School, and St Eunan’s College, Letterkenny. He went to St Columban's, Dalgan Park, in 1944 and was ordained there on 21 December 1950.

Poison Glen, near Dunlewey [Wikipedia]

Assigned to the Philippines, he had a series of appointments in his first three years to Silang, Cavite, Lingayen and Olongapo, and this was followed by a four-year stint as assistant in Malate Church, Manila. In 1960 he was appointed to Student Catholic Action in the Archdiocese of Manila. His capacity for relating with young people, his sense of humour and his dedication meant that he was very successful in this ministry where he spent the next eleven years. He then spent four years as Chaplain at Makati Medical Centre where he was deeply appreciated by both patients and staff.

Nuestra Señora de Remedios, Our Lady of Remedies
Malate Church, Manila [Wikipedia]

This was followed by a period as Director of the Student Pastorate in Baguio City; at the same time he proved a generous host as he took charge of the Columban Vacation House in that city. 

Baguio City [Wikipedia]

After Baguio, it was back to the lowlands again, with years spent first in Morong and later in Jalajala, Rizal, before being assigned once more to Malate, Manila.

In 1990, he was appointed to the Mission Promotion Team in Ireland. His abiding interest in people, his extraordinary memory for names and his gift for relating to young schoolchildren, made him a very valuable asset to the team. He returned once more to the Philippines in 1995 and spent his last three years there in pastoral work. When he returned to Ireland in 1998, he was available for all sorts of tasks, including radio interviews, in Irish and English, on all news events to do with the Philippines.

Father John V.  was a dedicated missionary, a fascinating companion and  a unique character. People who met him once never forgot him. He will be sadly missed by all of us. He was buried on 21 December from the chapel in St Columban's where he had been ordained priest exactly 65 years before.

May he rest in peace. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal - May his noble soul be on the right hand of God.

The obituary, slightly edited here, was written by Fr Cyril Lovett.

Fr Patrick Raleigh, Regional Director of the Columbans in Ireland, mentioned in an email that the lunch after the burial was followed by a sing-song mostly of songs dealing with Donegal. The song above, The Green Fields of Gweedore, is sung by Clannad, the members of which are from the place. The opening line refers to the townland where Father John V grew up: Down past Dunlewey's bonnie lakes.

Gleanntáin Ghlas' Ghaoth Dobhair, 'The  Green Glens of Gweedore', is sung by Altan, the lead singer of which, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, is also a native of this beautiful place. She sings in Irish (Gaelic), Father John V's native tongue, the ancestral language of most Irish people. The readings at the funeral Mass and the traditional decade of the Rosary at the graveside were in Irish. 

Both songs are songs of exile about the singer's native place and both videos show scenes around Gweedore.