Société des Missions Africaines – Province d’Irlande

né le 5 septembre 1923 à Haulbowline dans le diocèse de Cork, Irlande membre de la SMA le 2 juillet 1944 prêtre le 13 juin 1948 décédé le 17 juin 2000

1948-1950 Blackrock Road, Cork  1950-1959 archidiocèse de Lagos, Nigeria 1959-1968 diocèse d’Ibadan, Nigeria supérieur régional 1968-1973 Blackrock Road, Cork, conseil provincial 1973-1976 diocèse de Sunyani, Ghana 1976-1977 Luton, paroisse 1977-1978 Newry, supérieur 1978-1996 archidiocèse de Lagos, Nigeria 1996-2000 Wilton, retiré décédé à Wilton, Irlande, le 17 juin 2000, à l’âge de 76 ans

Bartholomew McCarthy was born at 11 Nelson Row, Haulbowline, Cobh, Co Cork, in the parish of Monkstown, in the diocese of Cork, on 5 September 1923. He died in the SMA house at Wilton, Cork, on Saturday, 17 June 2000.

Bartholomew (Bart) McCarthy was the fifth-born in a family of seven children. The family lived on Haulbowline Island until 1951 when they moved across the short strip of water to Rushbrooke. Bart received his secondary education in Presentation College, Cobh (1937-1942), graduating with an honours leaving certificate. He then entered the Society’s novitiate and house of philosophy, at Kilcolgan, Co Galway. Two years later, in September 1944, he commenced his theological studies in the Society’s major seminary, at Dromantine, Newry, Co Down. Bart was received as a member of the Society on 2 July 1944 and was ordained a priest by Bishop Eugene O’Doherty of Dromore, in St Colman’s cathedral, Newry, on 13 June 1948. He was one of a group of fourteen ordained on that day.

After ordination Bart was sent to study for a B.Sc. degree at University College Cork, taking up residence in the SMA house at Blackrock Road. Having succeeded in his lst Science examination in 1949 he fell ill early in the following year and had to discontinue his course. After making a good recovery he was then appointed to the recently erected archdiocese of Lagos, in South Western Nigeria, sailing for his mission in August 1950. Bart was one of four new Fathers appointed to the archdiocese, where his older brother, Jim (ordained 1943) was principal of St. Leo’s teacher training college, Ibara, Abeokuta. Bart’s first missionary tour of duty (the first of some sixteen tours) lasted four years and four months. On his arrival the archbishop, Leo Hale Taylor, sent Bart to Abeokuta for a short visit before appointing him to assist Jim Young in St. Sebastian’s parish, Ijebu-Ode, some fifty miles south-west of Lagos. In February 1952, during his brother’s absence on leave, Bart was sent on temporary assignment to the staff of St. Leo’s teacher training college, pending the arrival of two SMA Fathers who were just completing university degrees. A year later, with the arrival of these Fathers, Bart was appointed to assist Fr. Harry Sheppard in Ijebu-Igbo. On his return to Nigeria after his first home leave, in December 1955, Bart was re-assigned to St. Sebastians, to assist John Mooney, the parish priest. During these early years Bart showed himself to be a resourceful, dedicated missionary and when, early in 1957, the Immaculate Conception parish at Ibonwon became vacant Archbishop Taylor appointed Bart as parish priest giving him Dan Barrett as his curate (later replaced by Terry Bermingham).

In September 1959, shortly before he was due to go home on leave, a new chapter in Bart’s missionary career opened when he was appointed Deputy Regional superior for the jurisdictions of Lagos, Ibadan and Ondo. In this capacity he was to assist Tom Gorman, the Regional, in ensuring the spiritual and temporal welfare of SMA confreres. In particular he had responsibility, under Tom Gorman’s direction, for supervising the Tyrocinium, or school for training newly-arrived missionaries, situated in the regional headquarters at Challenge, Ibadan. He also did pastoral work within the local community at Challenge (today what was once a mass center has become the fully-fledged parish of St. Leo’s). On his return from leave in the autumn of 1960 Bart took charge of the Region when Tom Gorman went on leave. He was again in charge during Fr. Gorman’s next leave (March –September 1964). Bart acquitted himself well in carrying out his duties as Deputy (and Acting) Regional. Supervising the Tyrocinium was no easy task and not only did he make important improvements to the syllabus but he introduced external lecturers, including the Society’s brilliant anthropologist and linguist, Kevin Carroll.

It was no surprise, therefore, that when the next election for Regional Superior occurred in 1966 (Fr. Gorman had gone to Rome as a member of the Society’s General Council), Bart was elected. Further testimony to his abilities was to come quickly, when in 1968, as a delegate to the Society’s Provincial Assembly, he was elected to the incoming Provincial Council, and given charge of the area of ‘personnel’. During his years on the Council he was also house Bursar at ‘Feltrim’ (the Provincial House). On three occasions, during1968-1972, he went on visitation to Nigeria, spending much time with confreres in the unsettled mid-western region that had been devastated by Civil War. He was also sent (with Eugene Connolly) to investigate the possibility of opening missions in Kenya and Zambia. It was Bart and Eugene who paved the way for the arrival of the Province’s first team of missionaries in the diocese of Ndola, in Zambia, early in 1973. Some months later Bart traveled to Sunyani diocese in Ghana (with Joe Donnelly) to investigate a possible new missionary involvement for the Province. The results were encouraging and on the expiration of Bart’s term as Provincial Councilor he requested and received an appointment to open the Sunyani mission in November 1973. His pioneering work there was cut short in May 1976 (by which time the mission was well-established) when he was invalided to Ireland with a stomach ulcer. After several months convalescence he was then assigned to assist in the SMA parish at Luton, near London where he spent a year before being placed in charge of Dromantine where the superior had fallen ill.

Anxious to return to Africa Bart finally received an appointment to Lagos Archdiocese after the election of a new Provincial superior at the 1978 Assembly. On his return, Archbishop Anthony Okojie gave him a temporary appointment as assistant pastor at St. Anthony’s Church, Gbaja, Surulere. A few months later he was appointed curate to Fr. Kevin McGarry, in Abeokuta. He was to spend the next four years happily working in this busy parish. However his long experience as an administrator and his kindness and competence in dealing with confreres, was not unnoticed or unremembered and in the autumn of 1983 his Lagos colleagues elected him as their Society Superior, a post he occupied until 1987.

In May of that year he was invalided to Ireland and in July underwent heart bypass surgery. Making a good recovery Bart returned to Lagos Archdiocese in January 1988, spending his last eight years in Nigeria as assistant to Kevin McGarry in St. Agnes Church, Maryland. He described life at Maryland as ‘hectic’ with its thriving Church community, its busy Marian shrine and the building of a new parish church. In 1996, deeply committed to Africa and its people, Bart retired reluctantly from Nigeria, taking up residence in the SMA house at Wilton. Here, until the time of his unexpected death, he remained active, helping out in pastoral work and enjoying the company of several other confreres who like himself had recently retired from the active ministry. Always a keen sportsman and a competitive golfer, he was able to partner his old friend and colleague Paddy Carroll, in outings to Douglas golf club where they humbled competitors half their age. On the day of his death he had enjoyed one such outing. Having returned to Wilton and taken his tea he retired to his room and died in his sleep during the night.

Bart made an important and unique contribution to the building up of the Church in Nigeria and especially in the archdiocese of Lagos. As a leader within the Society he was renowned for his integrity and reliability. Vigorous in debate he was dedicated to implementing whatever decision was agreed. Bart’s aptitude and abilities often thrust him to the fore when administrative appointments were being considered. He himself would have preferred to serve in the front line, in parochial evangelisation. But this was not always possible. However he accepted every task he was asked to perform with humility and gracefulness and gave always of his best.

He is buried in Wilton cemetery.