Société des Missions Africaines

né en octobre 1861 à Kilbricken dans le diocèse d’Ossory, Irlande membre de la SMA le 25 décembre 1884 prêtre le 26 juin 1887 décédé le 24 septembre 1892

1887… missionnaire à la Côte du Bénin Lagos, Porto-Novo …1892 maison sma de Lyon, malade décédé à Lyon, France, le 24 septembre 1892, à l’âge de 31 ans

A Lyon, le 24 septembre 1892, retour à Dieu du père Patrick Downey, à l'âge de 31 ans.

Patrick Downey naquit à Kilbricken, dans le diocèse d'Ossory (Irlande), en 1861. Il fit ses études à Cork et à Lyon. Il fit le serment à Noël 1884 et fut ordonné prêtre en juillet 1887. Un mois plus tard, le père Downey partait pour le vicariat de la Côte du Bénin.

Il travailla à Lagos et à Porto-Novo. Atteint de tuberculose, il dut revenir en France et mourut à Lyon.

Father Patrick DOWNEY (1861 - 1892)

Patrick Downey was born in Kilbricken, Co Kilkenny, in the parish of Callan, in the diocese of Ossory, in October 1861. He died in Lyon, France, on 24 September 1892.

Biographical information on Patrick is sketchy. He was born to Joseph and Anastasia (Prendergast). It is known that he studied at Cork, probably in the apostolic school established at Blackrock Road in April 1880. He commenced his philosophical and theological formation in the Society's seminary at Cours Gambetta, Lyon, France (where the Society had its headquarters), on 26th September 1882. Patrick took his oath of membership of the Society at Christmas 1884 and was ordained a priest in the seminary chapel at Lyon, by Bishop Dubuis of Lyon, on 26 June 1887. Scarcely two months later, on 21st August, without visiting his family in Ireland, Patrick departed for the vicariate of the Bight of Benin, a jurisdiction which then extended over the whole of southern and western Nigeria as well as a part of northern Nigeria.

Patrick sailed with a group of ten missionaries destined for the Bight of Benin, the Niger, Dahomey and the Gold Coast (Ghana). Designated for Benin with Patrick were Victorin Gallaud and two O.L.A. sisters, Marcel and Timothy. At the time Patrick reached his mission, the vicariate was seventeen years old, having been created in 1870 through a division of the even larger vicariate of Dahomey which had been entrusted to the Society in 1860. Pioneered by French members of the Society from the 1860's, the Benin mission superior was Jean Baptiste Chausse. Patrick worked at Lagos and at Porto Novo (Republic of Benin). Contracting tuberculosis he returned to die in Lyon. His companion, Fr. Gallaud was to die at Topo island, near Badagry, in 1903.

He is buried in the Society’s plot, in Lyon, France.