The Athlone mission priest who grew into his vocation

'I have a deeper appreciation of the priesthood now than ever before and I think my vocation was from God, but I don"t take that as given, and feel that I have a relationship to God and he has given me this little task,' said Athlone born and reared mission priest, Fr Eamon Kelly. 'Religion is very personal and has to be very sincere, and there is a relationship between you and Christ, and giving this Christ to others, and making him available to others. Missionary work is as valid today as it ever was and it demands also that you share by being generous and helpful with others.' Eamon didn"t believe in the old world thought of "seeing the light", where following a vocation and becoming a priest is concerned. In fact it seems that the Athlone missionary priest became such by accident, because Eamon"s life to date hasn"t followed a set plan or pattern. He was born in Baylough, and was the youngest of four Kelly children. The family later went to live in Connaught Street and later St. Paul"s Terrace in the Batteries. He was a pupil of St. Peter"s Infants school and was taught by the legendary Sr. Margaret Mary. From the Dean Kelly school, Eamon went for a year to the Marist Secondary School and then to Summerhill in Sligo. However Eamon insists he didn"t go to Summerhill at the young age of 13 years with the intention of becoming a priest, and it was more likely because he had an uncle there who was a priest, Fr. Jack Kerrigan, who was a native of Connaught Street, Athlone. 'I used to love returning at Christmas, Easter and Summer, and I particularly loved Connaught Street, and places like Broderick"s Bakery which used to be very busy on Good Friday, because people used to come from every part of town and countryside for their hot cross buns,' he said. 'The big event on the street was the January fair though, and we got off school to see the street packed with horses, and animals used to be drawn up along the side of the streets.' He remembers paying a penny to ride a rocking horse in St Peter"s Infants school, and the penny went to the "Black Babies" - which was an Irish missions charity for many decades in the middle of the last century. Eamon"s father, Jack, who was from Kilcock, Co. Kildare, died suddenly at age 49 in 1949, and he worked for CIE, and later was an accounts clerk for O"Gorman"s, the building contractors. There were four children in the Kelly family, Michael, Dolores, Jude and Eamon who is now the last surviving member of his family. Jude, who lived in the family home in St Paul"s Terrace, died less than two years ago. Eamon admits to thinking that he had a liking to joining the priesthood when he was very young, but was not influenced in any way by his uncle, Fr. Jack Kerrigan. Eamon"s mother, who was formerly Josephine Kerrigan from Connaught Street, was a railway clerk at Ballinasloe station, and it was through their jobs in CIE that Eamon"s parents met. Eamon remembers his years in Summerhill as tough because the atmosphere was hard, and food wasn"t great, he says. 'The bus used to turn off the road into Riverstown, Co. Sligo, and this was very pleasant when going back to Summerhill, because it delayed our arrival in Sligo, but on the way back home it didn"t matter to us,' he said. 'But definitely it wasn"t a place which tried to influence you to join the priesthood.' Eamon spoke frankly about the reality of employment in Ireland in the 1950"s, which may have led to him joining the priesthood. 'If you were a lad living in Athlone at that time and had nothing particular in mind, you could go into the barracks and join the army, but there was also a great movement in the Irish church at the time to send fellows out to the missions,' he said. 'So in our last year in school, 1954, there was every priest under the sun, belonging to this order and that order, arriving to the school requesting any lad that was interested in going to work on the missions as a priest.' He said there were not many other jobs going for young men. One man who visited Summerhill school impressed him, and he was a priest from the Society of African Missions, and he educated Eamon on the life in African countries, which led to the Athlone man deciding to go for the priesthood. Eamon studied for six years in a seminary near Newry, Co. Down. He was ordained in 1960, and began his missionary life in Nigeria in October 1961. 'I was based in Iloran, which is one of the largest cities in Nigera, and there was a strong muslim presence there,' he said. 'Like Athlone of the time, there were few cars, and there were a lot of rural areas there, and over the years I was there, a lot of Christian communities developed. The people there were of many different ethnic groups. The British left the country in 1960.' Eamon travelled a lot out of Ilorin to remote places, setting up small Christian communities, and the first thing that most people wanted was the opening of a school, and Eamon"s society, the SMA, was very active in doing such work. 'I had a good Peugeot kit car which was like a small lorry for travelling, and I was in Nigeria for about 27 or 28 years, and came home as often as possible, and I had no great problem with the hot climate, and there was hardly any air-conditioning,' he said. At the time he was there, he learned the Yoruba language, which is one of about 40 languages in Nigeria. Eamon returned to live in his family home in St. Paul"s Terrace twenty years ago, and even though he is officially retired, he regularly plays his part in St Peter"s and Paul"s parish by helping out at masses in Athlone, Clonown and Drum whenever required. 'It"s good to be able to do a bit and it keeps me active, and I also swim a few times a week because of a few old injuries, and I visit people,' he said. 'I read a lot of spiritual books, and have great interest in that in recent years, and although I don"t really know why I joined up the priesthood really, I have a much deeper appreciation of the religious life now than I did 50 years ago.'