Société des Missions Africaines –Province d'Irlande

né le 15 août 1918 à Kilbeggan dans le diocèse de Meath, Irlande membre de la SMA le 30 juin 1940 prêtre le 19 décembre 1943 décédé le 13 mars 1988

1945-1963 missionnaire au Nigeria archidiocèse de Kaduna 1964-1979 En Irlande, animation missionnaire 1979-1987 Blackrock Road, Cork, retiré décédé à Cork, Irlande, le 13 mars 1988, à l'âge de 69 ans

John Moorhead was born at Rossbeg, Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath, in the diocese of Meath, on 15 August 1918. He died in the S.M.A. house at Blackrock Road, Cork, on 13 March 1988.

John (Johnny) studied at the Christian Brothers' school, Tullamore, Co Offaly, for a year before entering the Society's preparatory secondary college at Ballinafad, Co Mayo, in 1934. In 1935 John went to St. Joseph's apostolic school, Wilton, Cork, matriculating there in 1938. John was then promoted to the Society's novitiate and house of philosophy at Kilcolgan, Co Galway. He received his theological formation in the Society's major seminary, at Dromantine, Co Down, between 1940 1944. John was admitted as a member of the Society on 30 June 1940 and was ordained a priest by Bishop Daniel Mageean of Down and Connor diocese, at Newry cathedral, on 19 December 1943. He was one of a group of twelve ordained on that day.

After ordination John returned to Dromantine to complete his theological course. In January 1945 he set sail for the prefecture of Kaduna, in northern Nigeria, accompanied by two of his classmates, Tommy Lennon and Gerry Scanlan. When they landed in Lagos they spent a week seeing the sights before taking the train northwards. The journey lasted two days. On arrival the prefect, John McCarthy, appointed John to the district of Kontagora. The principal station of this district, Masuga, had been founded in 1937 under the patronage of St. Columban. In 1947 John was appointed superior of Kurmin-Mazuga station, in southern Zaria province, which had been founded three years earlier by Malachy Gately. When John returned to Nigeria after his first home leave, in June 1950, he was posted as superior of Kurmin-Mazuga, where he worked with Tommy Lennon.

In 1953 John embarked on a new apostolate. He later described what had happened in an article published in the African Missionary: 'In the early 1950's I was working in the southern portion of Kaduna State, an area of about 20,000 square miles, with about half-a-million people, comprising some dozen or more tribes. I felt that I would like to work with one such tribe - the Kataf people, and try to make them Christians. With Archbishop McCarthy's consent I went ahead and secured a site for a school and a mission house at a place called Mabushi. I was the first priest ever to approach this tribe'. When John went to Mabushi (in southern Zaria, now known as southern Kaduna) the time for the Kataf people had come, and his work bore fruit almost from the beginning. Substantial Catholic communities with churches and schools were established in seven or eight Kataf localities.

Among the early disciples in the area were Christopher Aba and John Padda. Ordained in 1966, Christopher was appointed bishop of Minna in 1973. John's first dramatic contacts with John Padda occurred in 1962 when he began working in a new area on the other side of the Kaduna river where there was a tribe called the Cawai. John had a school and a catechist in a place called Zamondebo quite close to this tribe, and was happy to hear that some children from the Cawai village were coming to catechism classes there. When John went to visit the 17 catechumens, he learned that two of the younger boys were missing. Some time later he was led to a grass hut filled with smoke where both boys were lying unconscious on the floor near a still smouldering fire. Both had been badly burned. John brought them to Zonkwa mission hospital where they were revived.' Later one of these boys, John Padda, was tortured by his fellow villagers for abandoning traditional religion. But they failed to force him from his newly found faith and he was ordained a priest, dying only a few years after his ordination. In 1972 the schools which John Moorhead had built were taken over by the government. The Catholic churches, however, remain and the Catholic communities in the Kataf and Chawai areas have continued to flourish. John was an excellent organiser. He had a great body of catechists and headmen and through them he revolutionised southern Zaria.

John laboured in the archdiocese of Kaduna until 1963. In that year, home on vacation, he suffered a brain haemorrhage while attending an All Ireland final at Croke Park. From October 1964 until 1975 he was engaged in promotion work for the Society in Ireland, first residing with his family at Kilbeggan, and then at Blackrock Road. In December 1973 he visited the archdiocese of Kaduna for the ordination of John Padda. John Moorhead was a pleasant character; a good conversationalist on persons and places. He loved his game of bridge and, when in better health, his game of golf also. He was an expert, too, at crosswords. He was closely linked with the Westmeath Persons In Cork Association, called Rioghaire na Midhe, and a co founder of the annual dinner in Cork. While in failing health for some years John died unexpectedly of a heart attack in Blackrock Road. He was the younger brother of Michael Moorhead, S.M.A.

He is buried in Wilton cemetery.