Fr Kevin Liam Condon OP (1932 - 2021) - an obituary

Irish Dominican priest

Kevin Condon died in a nursing home in Camberwell, Australia today, Monday, June 14.

Kevin was born on January 31, 1932 in Glenroe, County Limerick near Ballylanders and not far from Mitchelstown.

He was christened Liam and took the name Kevin when he joined the Dominicans.

Kevin won a scholarship to Newbridge College, where he spent his  five years of secondary school. He joined  the Irish Province of the Dominican Order on September 14, 1949, spending his noviciate year at St Mary’s Priory, Pope’s Quay, Cork, before moving to Tallaght, where he studied philosophy and theology. Kevin was ordained a priest in July 1956. He spent the following year in Rome and readily admits the highlight of his time in the Eternal City was not studying but rather playing rugby with San Gabriele in Frascati.

Kevin, new to Italy, had never drunk wine before. On one occasion after a rugby game in great heat he was extremely thirsty. In innocence, immediately after the game, he imbibed far too much wine, taking it simply to quench his thirst. Very quickly he realised what he had done.

On his return from Rome he spent a pastoral year back at his alma mater in Newbridge, where he taught a young Dermot Weld. Many years later in Australia he met up again with Dermot, who by that time was a world-famous horse trainer. It turned out a profitable meeting.

The late Dominican, Gerard O’Keeffe was a first cousin of Kevin’s, and he was a nephew of Terence O’Donoghue, who played a major role in his joining the Dominicans.

As a newly ordained priest Kevin was sub-master of novices in Cork in 1958.

During his time in Pope’s Quay in Cork he played for Sunday’s Well Rugby Club. While playing for the Cork rugby club he played against many Irish internationals.

The story goes that on Saturdays he would always rush back from rugby to hear confessions in Pope’s Quay at 4pm.

Kevin went to Australia in November 1960 and travelled under the assisted passage scheme. It meant the fare to the sub-continent cost the princely sum of £5.00. It was Fr Antonius Costello who suggested that he go to Australia.

In 1974 there were 23 Irish Dominicans working in Australia, five of whom had transfiliated to the Australian province.

Unlike the Welsh man, who got so home sick on arrival in Australia that he airmailed himself in 1965 in a box back to Wales, Kevin stayed and spent the rest of his life working in different Australian cities.

He was prior in a number of Dominican communities, including in Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. He spent many years working as a parish priest in Dominican-run parishes.

As a young priest in Adelaide he carried out a census of the parish, which lasted a year. He visited over 4,000 homes and in that time he received only two rebuffs. He tells the story of one man telling him that he had left the church because he had a row with the local priest. “I told him there were bastards in every walk of life.” One thing led to another, with the man eventually returning to the church and indeed becoming a stalwart member.

It fell on Kevin to raise funds for the building of the house of studies in Canberra, where he was later superior.

He attended a renewal course at Berkeley University in the academic year 1978/’79 and saw it as a wonderful experience.

The Second Vatican Council gave the Limerick man a new lease of life and he was quick out of the traps to develop parish councils even in spite of the difficulties he experienced from fellow priests and parishioners.

Kevin was parish priest in Perth from 1983 to 1989. At the chapter of 1989 he was asked to go to Camberwell to be parish priest, where he spent a number of years.

Beginning in 2000 he  worked for a number of years in various parishes across the Archdiocese of Sydney.

Here I am, Lord: Memories and Musings of a Wandering Dominican, is a short memoir written and published by Kevin in Melbourne in 2000.

In 2008 he was appointed chaplain in Nazareth House at Ballarat in Victoria. But due to ill-health he had to retire. He duly recovered and was told by his consultant that it was God and golf that were responsible for his recovery.

During all his years in Australia he kept in touch with the Irish province. He was a regular visitor to Ireland and was always interested in what was happening in the home province. His most popular homes from home were the priories in Limerick and Sligo.

Any time he was home on holidays he would tell the pp in Mitchelstown to take off on holidays and he and his brother, Fr Sean Condon, a priest of the Limerick diocese, would celebrate Mass for him.

On one occasion a woman said to him there must have been a third Fr Condon because she had been at Mass one day and the priest saying Mass was very handsome.

Kevin was an accomplished golfer and had a lifelong interest in sports.

During the Rugby World Cup in Australia in 1987 Kevin was feverishly looking for a ticket for the Ireland Australia quarter-final game in Sydney and was having no luck. After many phone calls back to Ireland two tickets for the game arrived for him on June 5 in the Concord Oval in Sydney just in time before the kick off on June 7.

He was also a regular visitor to the world-famous horse racing spectacular, the Melbourne Cup.

Kevin had a great sense of humour and related well with people.

He was greatly saddened when the Irish Dominicans closed shop in Glentworth Street, Limerick. He felt the Dominicans had abandoned the city, a city with which his family had a long association. It also meant he would no longer be able to avail of the hospitality of the Limerick priory, something he had grown to cherish and appreciate for over 45 years.

His brother, Seámus died on May 6 in the family home in Glenroe. He was 92.

May Kevin and his brother Seámus rest in peace.