A friar’s life

A popular Athlone-based friar admits to living a life of instability living of no fixed abode, despite having spent more than a decade here in the midlands. “People say us friars are supposed to be monks, but monks take a vow of stability and we take a vow of instability, and we can be sent anywhere, because we are only appointed for three years at time,†said Fr Brian Allen of St Anthony's Friary. “I'm here nearly nine years now, and probably next year there will be changes for me.†Brian said that, while he understands the importance of his vow of being a friar, he finds it gets more difficult as he moves on in years. “It's difficult because you put down roots, and make friends, and it does shake you up a bit,†he said. However the former Guardian of St Anthony's Friary has a passion for his adopted town of Athlone, and give or take a year or two, he is over fourteen years residing at the friary. He played the clarinet with the Town Band some years ago, and this helped him continue his love of music, which he gained decades before as a child in Donnycarney, Dublin. Brian is trained to play clarinet up to Grade 6. “Life without music would be unimaginable, and as Shakespeare wrote – ‘the man that has no music in his soul, is fit for treason, stratagems and spoils,â€, said Brian. Brian Allen, the future Athlone friar, grew up “at the tail end,†as he said himself, of a family of eight children, four girls and four boys. He was the last son, and had a younger sister, and his father was a printer/lithographer. The extended Allen family were tradespeople in the printing business because Brian had three brothers and one sister in the trade, and he had uncles, cousins and in-laws also involved in the various printing companies in Dublin. The family industry stretched back to Brian's grandparents, and his grandmother, who died in 1964, was a bookbinder and his grandfather worked for the Educational Company in Talbot Street, Dublin, working on schoolbooks. Following working in a shoeshop after he left school, Brian did a seven-year apprenticeship with a printing business in Glasnevin, which included attending Bolton Street College. “I was in the trade long before computers were heard of, and I did lithography and plate making, and worked out of a general print office, making cartons and cheques, and books,†he said. Brian's love of music began in his Christian brothers' primary school, in Marino, where he was part of the school band. In his late teens, Brian got involved in a ballad group, playing guitar and tin whistle in folk clubs. It was the early 1960s, and following his time in the College of Music, he was also a member of the Post Office Brass and Reed Military band, playing clarinet. Brian was fascinated by the clarinet playing of Paddy Cole of the Capital Showband, and he danced to the many Dublin showbands of the mid-1960's. He also developed his main music love, for classical, symphony and operatic music, and attended the many free music concerts in the Francis Xavier parish hall for Pioneers. “For free you could go there to listen to studio concerts, and hear beautiful concert music, and when I was a child, orchestras used to come to the school in Dublin, to explain music and parts of the orchestra to young people so teaching music to schoolchildren, is not a new phenomenon,†he said. Brian's ballad group was the Currach Folk Group, and was made up of four musicians playing banjo, mandolin, two guitars and a tin whistle. “None of us could sing, and all of us could sing,†he laughed. Brian's time in the Currach ran for about 10 years, from the early 60's to the early 70's, and while they didn't get paid for their music, he found it enriching. Brian doesn't really know where he got his vocation to join the Franciscans, but he believes it dawned on him gradually. He had come from a strong Catholic family, and was raised in the Dublin of Archbishop McQuaid's era. “But I was not a daily mass-goer, and we weren't a family who said the rosary, but during my work in Bolton Street, I felt something was missing from my life,†he said. He had travelled extensively, and spent some time in America with two of his brothers, and he did experience social life of dancing and music. “It was a gradual thing, and I don't think Vocation is a clear-cut thing or something that can be easily defined, and it's not like a phonecall or a letter, but I suppose you are just drawn in a certain direction, although it may be a spiritual impulse that draws you there,†he said. He chose the Franciscan life rather than other religious life, because he attended the summer school of music in Gormanstown in the 1960s, and got to know many of the Franciscans running the centre. “I was interested in how their community worked, and the whole notion of living the gospel and living in poverty, chastity and obedience appealed to me,†said Brian. “But I wasn't really exposed to scripture till I joined the Franciscans, and realised that I had been scratching the surface, before that, and I now find many parts of the scriptures poetic.†Brian did his study for his new way of life through studying Philosophy, German, Psychology, and Sociology in UCG, where he got his first degree and later he got a Theology degree at the Gregorian University in Rome. He has travelled widely in his chosen life, and has worked as Dean of Students in Multyfarnham College, and has served at friaries through several tours of duty at different times in Killarney, Wexford, and Athlone. “I'm a man of few books, but I read them over and over again and I spend spare hours reading history, philosophy, biography, and I'm very interested in general science and the local history of Athlone,†he said. Obviously, because of his chosen life path, Brian has a spiritual belief in the season of Christmas. He said that he thinks of Christmas past of his childhood, when people were poor and needy, but he felt that there was less complaining then than nowadays. “When my grandparents died, there was no pension and no children's allowance at all, and certainly nobody wants to see cutbacks, and people are relatively poorer than they were, but we must still try to improve our situation,†he said. “But what Christmas means to me, is how the word became flesh, and that has changed history, and changed the reality of life, and God has come to share our existence.â€