Bernard Alphonsus O'Neill (b. 02 Feb 1908, d. 06 Jan 1986)
Fr Bernard O'Neill
Bernard Alphonsus O'Neill (son of Bernard O'Neill and Elizabeth (Ellen) Carey)211 was born 02 Feb 1908 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland212, and died 06 Jan 1986 in Navan, County Meath, Ireland213.
Notes for Bernard Alphonsus O'Neill: The Chinese Uncle Liam Martin
As children we were always intrigued by the stories about our absent uncle. Our elder uncle, Richard (b 1896) had gone to St Malachy's College and choose to enter the priesthood as a diocesan clergyman via Queen's University, Belfast and Maynooth College in the Republic of Ireland. Bernard, 12 years his brother's junior and the youngest in the family, was destined to take over the family business. He surprised his parents by deciding on a religious career instead and joined a missionary order called the Columban Fathers whose ambition was to convert the billion or so Chinese population to Christianity. Shortly after his ordination at St Patrick's College, Navan, he duly boarded a Japanese passenger ship called the Hikusan Maru at Southampton in 1931, four years before I was born, and sailed with his colleagues to Shanghai.
There were photo albums in the house in Mill Street illustrating the voyage of the Hikusan Maru as it called in almost every port on the way to China. They visited Gibraltar, Marseilles and Naples (where they explored Pompeii and Capri). Photographs of Port Said were followed by those taken of British Somaliland, Singapore, Hong Kong and finally Shanghai. After a course in Chinese in Shanghai (there was a photograph with his Chinese tutor), Fr. Barney moved inland to Tao Pai to administer a parish with its school and orphanage. From 1937 to 1940, Japanese Imperial forces occupied Shanghai and foreigners in China had a thin time. Eventually, at the end of the war in the Pacific, Uncle Barney was able to come home for leave and he arrived in triumph in Mill Street.
The family decided to prepare a feast and duly presented Fr. B. with, among other things, roast chicken for lunch. This had not been a well thought out menu because, on taking one look at the chicken, the Rev. ordered it removed from the table and demanded steak instead. Apparently he had been living on fowl for the previous 10 years and had sustained himself thinking about his mother's fried beef in the interval. Another of the culinary idiosyncrasies at Mill Street was their habit of mashing potatoes in a device (A Victorian Ricer) that forced the tubers through a metal mesh, produced long strings of white material. A gaggle of Fr B's old China buddies gathered for a meal on another occasion and refused to touch the proffered carbohydrate. A query at the end of the meal produced the explanation that they thought the dish consisted of boiled rice. Old China hands were obviously not partial to either chicken or rice.
The arrival of our uncle generated an insatiable urge in my middle brother and I to behave badly. On one occasion we giggled at the antics of a new kitten during the family rosary and each got a clip on the ear from an outraged aunt Nellie. On another occasion I was spotted talking to a friend during Mass and got a clip on the ear from the Rev. Uncle himself. We settled down after that and gradually passed through a period of subtle propaganda, designed to direct the young Martins towards the Maynooth Mission to China. The upshot of this was that my two senior brothers joined the order at St Patrick's College, Navan, and were later ordained priests to spend their lives on missions in the Philippines and South America.
On the other hand I chose a different route and always seemed to earn the disapproval of the Rev. B. Once he was persuaded to give me some driving lessons but after only one attempt he reported back to my aunts that I was totally inept and would never be able to drive a motorised vehicle. After I had been persuaded by my aunt to write and inform him that I wished to study chemistry at university he wrote back suggesting I learn to spell the word before venturing inside the academic portals.
We spent the next 36 years on different sides of an ideological fence, maintaining a polite if distant relationship. Eventually, in December 1985 his health deteriorated when he was visiting Ballymena and he became almost helpless, suffering severe breathlessness brought on by a diseased heart and a lifetime of smoking. He asked me to drive him back to St Patrick's College, Navan and we set off with my wife as a passenger to make the 100 mile trip into the Republic of Ireland.
At this point he was almost unable to speak and provided directions by waving a finger to the left or the right. Eventually I drove the car to his parking spot beside the college infirmary and he mustered up enough breath to exclaim a somewhat surprising compliment to my driving skills -
"I could not have done it better myself"
This was the first time the Chinese Uncle had expressed approval at anything I had ever done and after he said this, the nursing sister rushed out to escort him into the infirmary. My wife and I returned to Ballymena and Father B. died two weeks later from heart failure.
Quite a large crowd gathered for the funeral and about twenty of his fellow priests conjointly celebrated requiem Mass. He was buried in the college cemetery, one grave among several rows of his fellow clerics. The previous night I had gathered with several of his old comrades from the far off mission days in China. They told me stories of how Father Barney had always spoken about me with great admiration and how he had recounted with pride my various achievements over the years. The various university degrees, my marriage, the birth of our children, their education, our lives in Africa were events they were all very familiar with.
Before leaving the college I went down to the graveyard for a final goodbye and looked at the pile of brown soil so recently disturbed. If my Chinese Uncle had only expressed some of his regard for me when he was still alive we might even have become friends instead of remaining mere relatives.
More About Bernard Alphonsus O'Neill: Burial: Unknown, St Columban's College, Navan, County Meath, Ireland. Fact 1: Rev.. Fact 2: DOB from Bapt. Cert. Fact 3: DOD from Death Cert.. Ordination 1: 1931 Ordination 2: St Columban's College, Navan, Ireland.
Bernard Alphonsus O'Neill (b. 02 Feb 1908, d. 06 Jan 1986)
Notes for Bernard Alphonsus O'Neill: