Finbar Kelly OP, RIP

Domincan priest Finbar Kelly died in a nursing home in Kilkenny on Tuesday.

Finbar was the quintessential gentleman.

He was born in Kilcullen, Co Kildare in1925, joined the Dominicans in 1944 and ordained a priest in 1951

Finbar was one of four Irish Dominicans who studied in Oxford after World War ll. They were joined by a  number of German Dominican students including Rüdiger Ortmeyer and Germanus Lensker. Lensker served on the Russian front. Having been wounded near Moscow he made his way back to Germany, walking long distances. He later experienced a flattened Cologne. The city had been so severely bombed that he was unable to find or recognise familar streets.

The other Irish Dominicans with Finbar in Oxford were Leonard Boyle, Austin Flannery and Fergal O'Connor.

The project was to heal wounds and help bring people on opposing sides together.

Finbar studied at University College Cork and began his priestly ministry teaching in Newbridge College from where he also attended Maynooth College where he obtained his Higher Diploma in Education.

He spent a number of years in the Dominican Priory in the Australian capital Canberra, where he was chaplain at the Dominican-run university residence.

In the early 1970s he was prior at Holy Cross Dominican Priory in Tralee.

Fr Finbar Kelly was brother of the late Jimmy Kelly who was CEO of the Electricity Supply Board.

Jimmy joined the ESB by chance, having gone down to the Pigeon House Power Station with a pal for a spin and was offered a job on the spot. He became CEO in 1970.

Finbar had that great ability of making one feel at home in his company. He was genuinely interested in people.

Being kind and gracious came naturally to him.

At the time of his death he was assigned to the Dominican community at the Black Abbey in Kilkenny where he had lived and worked for 27 years.

May he rest in peace.