Société des Missions Africaines –Province d'Irlande

né le 18 août 1917 à Skerries dans le diocèse de Dublin, Irlande serment permanent dans la SMA le 2 juin 1953 prêtre le 6 février 1954 nommé évêque le 7 mai 1962 décédé le 9 juin 1995

1954-1972 missionnaire au Liberia 1954-1958, préfecture de Cape Palmas 1958-1961, supérieur régional 1962-1972, vicaire apostolique de Cape Palmas 1972-1983 services dans les diocèses de Boston et de Newark, USA 1980-1983, Tenafly, supérieur 1983-1995 Tenafly, retiré décédé à Skerries, Irlande, le 9 juin 1995, à l'âge de 77 ans

Nicholas Grimley was born in Skerries, Co Dublin, Ireland, in the archdiocese of Dublin, on August 18, 1917.
He died in the family home at Skerries, on June 9, 1995.

Nicholas Grimley was one of six children born to Thomas and Mary Ann (nee O’Neill) Grimley. His Father carried on a shoe repair business in Skerries. Nicholas received his elementary school education at the local St. Patrick’s National School. He then entered the Holy Ghost Congregation as a postulant on September 1, 1931, following the usual secondary school course at Blackrock College, Dublin, and graduating in 1937. On completion of his secondary studies in September of the same year he was promoted to the Holy Ghost novitiate at Kilshane, Co. Tipperary, remaining there until December of that year when he withdrew of his own accord. He then went to work in England as a clerk in a car factory, remaining there for the duration of the World War (1939-1946). When the idea of priesthood returned, Nicholas emigrated to America with the intention of becoming a diocesan priest, lodging in the Bronx and worshipping at Immaculate Conception Church. However in America, as in Ireland, at the age of 31 years he found it difficult to gain entrance to a seminary. Four months after arriving in America Nicholas wrote to Fr. John. Sheehy, the SMA Vocations Director, and for once received a positive response. After the usual interviews, in September 1948, with the best of references from his former superiors in the Holy Ghost Congregation, Nicholas entered Queen of Apostles Seminary, Dedham MA to make his novitiate. He studied philosophy and theology at the Catholic University, Washington DC and in the Marist College, also in Washington. Nicholas was received as a member of the Society on June 24, 1950. He was ordained a priest at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC, by Most Rev. John M. McNamara, on February 6, 1954.

After ordination Nicholas was appointed to the Prefecture of Cape Palmas, a mission which had been entrusted to the American Province in 1950 and which was lead by Mgr Francis Carroll of the Irish Province. Alfred Love was President of the College and the other senior staff member was Joseph Guinan of the Irish Province. After a brief period during which he was gently introduced to the missionary life, Nicholas was appointed to the staff of Our Lady of Fatima College, a second and third-level school located in Cape Palmas. Later he was posted to the mission station of Pleebo which had been established in 1950. In 1958 Nicholas became Regional Superior of all American Province members in Liberia’s two jurisdictions, accountable for their temporal and spiritual welfare. In December 1960 Mgr. Carroll was translated from Cape Palmas to Monrovia as bishop, and in the following year Nicholas was nominated to succeed him. In addition, the Prefecture was raised to the status of a Vicariate which meant that Nicholas would have Episcopal rank. He was ordained titular Bishop of Turburbo Minore at the Pro-Cathedral, Marlborough St., Dublin, on July 25, 1962. The ordaining prelate was Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin, his former teacher at Blackrock College. Attending the ordination – indicative of the period in which it took place - was Eamonn de Valera, President of Ireland. A newspaper account of the day recorded that when Nicholas ‘emerged from the Pro-Cathedral in the full splendor of his Episcopal robes, he received an ovation from the large crowd lining both sides of Marlborough Street. He was cheered again as he posed for photographs with the Archbishop of Dublin and the assisting bishops. A motor cycle Police escort met his car at Blake’s Cross on the main Dublin-Belfast Road and escorted it to Skerries there the townspeople marched in procession accompanied by St. Maur’s Pipe Band, Rush, to St. Patrick’s Church, where Pontifical Benediction was imparted. The guard of honor was provided by men of the 10th Battalion, FCA Wexford who were on summer exercises at Gormanston.’ It was indeed a great day.

When Nicholas became bishop Liberia was a peaceful but very poor country. Most of the mission stations in Cape Palmas were not connected by road. Nicholas was determined to develop those areas and give their young people a chance to receive a good education. Much building went on, using surf boats along the coast to transport the cement, with local people hired to do the building. The result was several badly needed new schools and clinics. Nicholas was successful in recruiting three communities of Sisters in the States to staff the schools. He also built the Cathedral in Cape Palmas. Recognition of his contribution to the live of the region came in 1969 when Nicholas was decorated by the Liberian Government with the ‘Star of Africa’.

Bishop de Bresillac, founder of the Society, believed that the duty of the missionary was to establish a local Church and then to move on. In an extraordinary move, Nicholas, still a relatively young Bishop in 1972, volunteered to step aside so that a Liberian could succeed him in Cape Palmas. This was Patrick Kla Julwe, the first Liberian priest, who had been ordained in 1948. Nicholas had the distinction of ordaining three of Liberians who were later to become bishops: Michael K. Francis (Archbishop of Monrovia), and Boniface Dalieh (Bishop of Cape Palmas) and Benedict Doto Sekey (Bishop of Gbarnga).

It must be said that Nicholas’s decision to resign from Cape Palmas was a mixed blessing for him personally. After leaving Liberia he hoped to take up a post as a parish priest in England and for a while served in Nottingham diocese with Fr. Balfe, a former SMA. It proved an unhappy experience. In October 1972, still looking for a ministry, he visited the SMA house at Anson Road, Manchester. The Provincial of the British Province, Michael Walsh took him to visit the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles who ran a nursing home at Silverdale. He also brought Nicholas to meet Bishop Roley with whom he was already acquainted. It was thought that Nicholas might become parish priest of Silverdale ‘a church with three Sunday Masses, situated in the midst of a great holiday center with the sea only ten minutes walk away.’ The adjacent nursing home had fifty patients. And for leisure there was, according to Fr. Walsh, good shooting in the area, for Nicholas was a crack shot and the Sisters had thirty-four acres of woodland stocked with pheasants. But this was not the life that Nicholas had mapped out for himself. He returned to Dublin for a period, and then went to America where he took up residence in the headquarters of the American Province, at Tenafly, NJ. Between 1972-1983 he was engaged in the administration of the sacrament of Confirmation in the Archdiocese of Newark and the Archdiocese of Boston. Between 1980-1983 he served as Superior of Tenafly. He lived in retirement at Tenafly from 1983 until 1995, the year of his death. He had applied to Society superiors for permission to retire in Ireland in July 1992, citing repeated family requests that he should do so. It was his intention that, should he receive permission, he would return to Tenafly annually for a brief visit.

Nicholas had a major operation in 1994. At Christmas of the same year he attended the funeral of his sister, Hannah, in Ireland. He hoped to spend much of the time remaining to him with his other sisters, Theresa and Lily. He received his wish, dying suddenly but not unexpectedly in the family home.

He is buried in the family plot, in Skerries cemetery, Co Dublin, Ireland.