First ordination in Irish diocese for seven years

Padraig Fitgerald, Rev Michael Toohey and John Hassett

Seminarians of the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, September 2008

Appropriately, on the day the the Year for Priests begins I came across a report of the first ordination to the priesthood in seven years in the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, in the southeast of Ireland. Father Michael Toohey was ordained in Clonmel, County Tipperary, last Sunday, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.

Father Toohey was born in London in 1970 and spent his first 23 years there but seems to have moved to his parents' home town, Clonmel, after that. May he have a long and fruitful ministry.

I've only been to Clonmel once, way back in November 1956, when my father was working there for six months, the foreman in charge of the renovation of Old St Mary's, the Church of Ireland church, built in the 13th century as a Catholic church.

Old St Mary's Church, Clonmel