Société des Missions Africaines –Province d'Irlande

né le 1er février 1916 dans le dans le diocèse de Kerry, Irlande membre de la Société le 30 juin 1940  prêtre le 19 décembre 1943 décédé le 14 mars 2002

1945-1949 vicariat apostolique d'Asaba Bénin, Nigeria 1950-1969 diocèse de Bénin City 1969-1991 diocèse de Warri 1991-2002 Blackrock Road, retiré décédé à Cork (Irlande), le 14 mars 2002, à l'âge de 86 ans

John Browne was born in Gallerus, Ballydavid, Co Kerry, in the parish of Ballyferriter, in the diocese of Kerry, on 1 February 1916. He died in St. Theresa’s nursing unit, SMA house, Blackrock Road, Cork, on 14 March 2002.

John (Johnny) was one of six boys and four girls born to Michael and Mary (nee Walshe) in the West Dingle peninsula. Michael Browne was a farmer and fisherman. John went to Smerick national school for his primary education and then remained at home helping his father. In September 1932, aged 16, he enrolled in the Christian Brothers secondary school in Dingle, cycling the eight miles to and from each day. During his lunch break he was in the habit of going to the house of a shoemaker, Michael O’Sullivan, who was a friend of the family. There he noticed a framed photograph of the SMA ordination class of 1929. One of the newly-ordained was John P. Murphy, a native of Ventry. John began to think of the missionary vocation and applied to enter the Society that year but was too late. During his two years in Dingle C.B.S. he achieved local fame as a Gaelic footballer when he captained the team that won the Dungloe Cup in 1933, beating Killarney in the final. John had even wider fame when on Palm Sunday 1934 he played for the Munster Schools and Colleges against the Leinster Schools in Roscrea.

John finally gained admission to the Society’s secondary colleges in 1934. In September of that year he went to the Sacred Heart College, Ballinafad and then to St. Joseph’s College Wilton (1935-1938). It was not easy for a student some four years older than his classmates and a native speaker with little knowledge of English. In a memoir written in later life he recorded the ‘need to stay out of sight’ and to ‘act cunning’ because of the dismissal of students for what seemed to be trivial reasons. On matriculating he was promoted to the Society’s novitiate and house of philosophy, at Kilcolgan, Co Galway, where he found the atmosphere more congenial and adult. Here, as was the practice of the time, the class did the 30-Days Ignatian Exercises under Fr. Tom Counihan S.J. One unusual practice by today’s standards which John recorded was ‘use of the lash’ as a form of penitence. ‘Fr. Counihan would take you to his room and teach you how to use it. He’d leave it under the pillow and tell you that you could come at any time and use it there. He would flog himself to show you how to do it. I flogged myself once, and I said “never again!”’

In the autumn of 1940 John entered the theological seminary at Dromantine, Newry, Co Down. He recalled American soldiers billeted in the grounds in 1943 in preparation for the invasion of Europe. ‘We took no notice of them. A lot of them were coloured people, mainly American. Alphie Glynn (superior of Dromantine) used to visit them.’ He also remembered a night’s bombing when the college had to be evacuated. John was first received as a member of the Society on 30 June 1940. He was ordained a priest on 19 December 1943, at St. Colman's cathedral, Newry, one of a group of twelve ordained on that day by Bishop Daniel Mageean, of Down and Connor diocese. His ordination was attended by his father and a sister who worked in Dublin (his mother, though alive, did not travel) and it took them two days to journey home afterwards in trains fired by turf.

After ordination John returned to Dromantine to complete his theological course. He was then appointed to the Vicariate of Asaba-Benin in mid-Western Nigeria where he was to spend the next forty-six years of his life. Difficulty in obtaining a sea passage delayed his departure and while waiting he taught Irish in Wilton. Finally in May 1945 he took ship and after two weeks at sea arrived at Lagos. Travelling by lorry to Benin city took a full day and night. John’s first appointment, given to him by Bishop Patrick J. Kelly, was to the town of Okene where Matt Walsh was superior. Kabba, some 36 miles distant, was vacant at the time so both stations had to be serviced. After a year John was transferred to Warri, taking up residence in the mud mission house situated atop a hill with Michael Foley, the superior, and Mick Kavanagh. At that time Warri encompassed most of Urhoboland and Ijaw country. Visiting the outstations of Ijaw country in a paddled canoe took six weeks, while Urhoboland took five weeks by bicycle. John’s first tour of duty lasted five years. John wrote of that tour and his subsequent years in Africa: ‘I was never once homesick. And I was alone most of the time, for nearly 50 years, out in the bush; but I never felt lonely’. In those days home leave lasted a year of which seven months were spent in Blackrock Road. John found residence in Blackrock restrictive and was glad to get back to the missions in January 1951.

John’s second tour saw him posted to Ubiaja as parish priest. After ten months he was transferred to Okpara Inland, near Warri, a new parish opened some four years earlier. John spent the remainder of his tour in Okpara building a new house and opening outstations. After his next home leave (during which he visited America) he was posted to Igarra, remote from Benin City. In 1959 his experience as a missionary and his good relations with his confrères were recognised when he was appointed Regional Superior, based in Uromi, responsible to his superiors in Ireland for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the confrères in Benin and Warri. He was to remain Regional for a decade. John felt he lacked the charisma for this position, but the contrary was the case. He was sensitive to the different personalities in the Region, showing respect to all, never judgemental, always ready to sit down and listen. At times of crisis, when men were sick or in trouble, he acted discreetly and effectively. His good relationship with Bishop Kelly, based on mutual respect, was of particular benefit to the Region, especially where the appointment of personnel was at issue. Equally John got on well with Bishop Lucas Nwaezeapu when he was appointed to the new diocese of Warri in 1964.

John was Regional Superior during the crisis of the Nigerian civil war (1967-1970). He was in Uromi when Federal troops entered the town towards the end of the war. On the day after their arrival he was travelling to an outstation some ten miles from Uromi when he encountered a Biafran roadblock. He was immediately accused of being a spy, taken to a senior commander and sent under guard to Agbor for questioning and detention. Approaching a crossroads in Agbor John, who was driving his car, instead of taking the turn to the camp took the turn which led to the mission, to the dismay of his guard who ordered him to desist. On reaching the mission where he was greeted by John Dunleavy, Brian O’Kane and Willie Cusack, he dismounted and made it clear to his guard that he would not leave. He felt it likely that he would be shot, but in the event the guard just walked away.

At the end of his term as Regional John went to Asaba, the scene of great slaughter, with mass graves in many quarters. His knowledge of Urhobo saved his life when he was again arrested near Asaba. After six months in Asaba John was transferred to the staff of Warri diocese and placed in charge of his old station of Okpara Inland. There he built some 12 churches in outstations which have since become parishes. John was to remain ten years in this mission. His next appointment was to Ubiaruku where he had difficulties with the people who were half-Ibo. On his return from his next leave Bishop Lucas appointed him to Aragba. John remained there until 1986 when he was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. After six months chemotherapy John felt sufficiently well to return to Aragba. In 1990 no longer able to manage this large and bustling parish, he took charge of the outstation of Abraka where in April 1991 he laid the foundation stone of a new church - for Abraka, it had been decided, was to become a parish. Shortly afterwards John retired from the active ministry. He emerged from retirement briefly for three months in 1992-1993 when he returned to Abraka to replace Michael McGlinchey at Umutu. Again in 1995 he relieved Jack Casey for three months in Uromi.

John’s years of retirement were punctuated by annual visits to Lourdes where, in later times, Sister Rosalie OLA (in charge of St Theresa’s Nursing Unit) took care of him. Earlier in his retirement he visited two old friends in Trieste, an Italian doctor married to an Irish teacher, both former colleagues in Okpara Inland. John was much liked by confrères and staff alike during his years of retirement. He bore his increasingly debility with courage and would say, philosophically, ‘The Years are There!’ There was an enigmatic quality to John. He liked to ‘tell story’, to retail anecdotes, but he was essentially a private man and well skilled in preserving his privacy, something learned, perhaps, during his years in the Society’s Colleges. He was also a man of strong faith, again something which he worked to keep hidden from view, but which was transparent to all who knew him.

John died peacefully in the presence of his nephews, Fr. Michael S.P.S. and Muiris Browne, and members of his community. In the months before he died he frequently said that he had no fear of death and looked forward to it.

He is buried in Wilton cemetery.