Fr Michael Edward Foley OP (1922 - 2021) - an obituary

 I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down–

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing – then –

                         - Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

Dominican priest, Michael Edward Foley died at 

Michael Edward Foley, OP

the Dominican Priory in Dublin’s Dorset Street yesterday.

He was born on July 18, 1922, which means he was exactly seven months from his 100th birthday.

One of the first lessons taught in journalism school is the importance of keeping the writer out of the story. 

It is a great lesson. But there are exceptions to every rule. There are times when the story is personal and there is a place for the narrator.

Michael Edward Foley was known in the Order as Ned, it’s the name to which he answered.

Ned spent his first years in Dunlavin, County Wicklow before moving to nearby Blessington, where the family lived in the house beside the Downshire Arms Hotel.

He attended the Carmelite-run secondary School at Terenure College, which at the time was a boarding school, but Ned, like his two brothers, travelled every day from Blessington on the 65 bus to school. Indeed, he missed the Blessington tram by a short number of years, as it stopped running in 1932. But he well remembers travelling on it. He was a regular passenger on the Dunlavin Sallins train. The line was closed to passenger traffic in January 1947, the year Ned joined the Dominicans.

Ned and I shared an interest in trains and buses but particularly trains. He often explained to me the difference between the motive power of a diesel and a diesel-electric locomotive and I would explain to him how modern railway signalling works. 

I’d also regale him with my own experiences of driving locomotives, indeed on one occasion a German Railways ICE from Hamburg to Dortmund, and how in the last two years I passed the first examination when Irish Rail opened the locomotive job to non-Irish Rail staff. I stopped at that stage, did not proceed to the next examination, knowing that my age would disqualify me.

He was up to speed on Irish Rail’s rolling stock, well acquainted with the Spanish-built CAF coaches, hauled by GM locos, and the newer South Korean rail cars, with power units slung under the carriages. 

Within the last three weeks he explained to me the advantages of hydrogen-run buses over electric or hybrid powered vehicles. He was intensely interested to learn that Bus Éireann has a number of hydrogen powered buses that are fuelled at nearby Broadstone. Hydrogen requires special attention when fuelling.

He is predeceased by his three siblings, Patsy, Paddy and Gerry, who all lived into their 90s.

Ned followed in his father’s footsteps, studying engineering in UCD and later taking up a job with Kerry County Council. His father was deputy county engineer in Wicklow. Ned also followed in the footsteps of his two brothers in becoming a priest. 

Paddy and Gerry were members of the Holy Ghost Congregation, now called Spiritans. Both Paddy and Gerry spent most of their priestly ministry working in Kenya and Nigeria. 

Both Gerry and Paddy died at the Spiritan community in Kimmage Manor in Dublin.

Ned joined the Irish Dominicans in 1947 and was ordained a priest in July 1953.

And like his two brothers, he spent a number of years working away from Ireland, on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, where he taught in Holy Cross College in Arima, later becoming headmaster of the Dominican-run school. After retiring from headmastership he was prior in the Dominican priory in Arima.

While in Arima he befriended Aubert Geoffry, known as Brother Navis, who died just some few weeks ago.  In recent years Navis visited Ireland when Ned was so delighted to meet him.

On returning to Ireland, Ned was parish priest in Dominick Street in Dublin’s city-centre, where he was also elected prior at the St Saviour’s community. 

After his time as prior he was provincial bursar for a number of years, which meant moving to live in St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght. On completion of his term of office he returned to St Saviour’s in Dublin.

In the 1950s when large numbers of young men joined religious congregations and diocesan seminaries, the Dominicans were no exception and consequently they ran out of space at their house of studies in Tallaght. 

A new building was constructed to house the numbers joining and to this day it is still referred to as the ‘new wing’.

The newly ordained priest and engineer, Ned Foley found himself clerk of works on the building. He and I often joked about all the mistakes he made.

In 1989 in my early 40s I was assigned to St Saviour’s, where Ned was prior at the time.

Right up to his death he reminded me of the altercation we had on one occasion. I was to give a three-day retreat to the Irish Air Corps at Baldonnell, close to Dublin. Back in the day, there were the chosen few, who had their own cars, and then maybe two community cars. I booked out a community car for the three days. Ned was not happy with my doing so without consulting with him first. 

We had words. I most likely lost my temper, used bad language. In the intervening 30 years he regularly reminded me of the words I used and he did so with a smile too. 

Whether it was that moment or some other occasion that was the catalyst, but for the last 30 years we have been close friends. I got to know his siblings and he in turn became a friend of my late father. 

Indeed, in so many ways my father and he shared so much. They were true gentlemen, who both had great pairs of hands. My father quickly recognised and appreciated the marvel of Ned.

Wherever Ned lived, he had a workshop, where he spent many hours crafting in metal and wood, fine artefacts. I am told his workshop in Trinidad was in his room.

The fruit bowl on my kitchen table was made with his hands and I am writing this on the last table he made. Probably in the mid-1990s we spent many hours and had many laughs, fixing the ballbearing housing on the back axle of my bicycle.

Ned and his siblings were guests of mine in West Kerry and I was privileged to be a guest of his sister in Kilcullen.  A priest of the Dublin archdiocese, who was a young curate in Kilcullen remembers Patsy Brennan as ‘Kilcullen gentry and a wonderful lady’.

Ned Foley was a gifted human being, who had the extraordinary ability and simple common sense to listen to everyone’s story and accept them for what they were. In conversation with a first cousin of Ned, who predeceased him, he told me that Ned had that talent of being able to straddle all branches of the family, young, old, devout, secular, and be genuine friend to all.

He made people feel completely at ease in his company. The other person was always felt important and respected. On the day of his death a parishioner commented how she saw him as simply being an ordinary person with no airs and graces and who never failed to make her feel welcome. She said he was a quintessentially kind person, who spoke no nonsense nor used patronising words.

Ned was an avid reader of the English classics. Hardy, Dickens and the Brontes were always at his bedside.

He could quote off at will large sections of Shakespeare and enjoyed poetry. In recent days he told me that he could comfortably read Latin.

Asked why he had not been sent on to do post-graduate studies in either theology or philosophy he would consistently say, with hints of  an impish smile, that he was not intelligent enough.

Ned had a great interest in nature, and in old age when he could no longer take to the fields, he enjoyed watching nature programmes on television.

He was a good shot and we had long discussions how he reconciled his shooting with his love of animals. I remember the day he decided to have his shotgun decommissioned. Laughing, he told me that under no circumstances would he give it to me.

A week before he died Ned was reading the Prophet Isaiah. He was also on top of his theology and took a keen interest in worldwide religious affairs. A fellow member of his community passed on every week a copy of The Tablet to him, which he read comprehensively.

Over the last 12 months or so I have jokingly said to people that I had at last converted Ned to my way of thinking. And in that context I asked him, maybe six months ago, if he believed in God and the resurrection. He looked at me and then said: “But Michael, if there be no God, we’ll never find out’.

Ned Foley was a wonderful human being, a great man and an outstanding Dominican priest. He was a man of faith, a style of faith that greatly appealed to me, and I think I can say, anyone who had the good fortune to know him.

I have lost a central pillar of my life.

Ned’s Requiem Mass is at midday on Tuesday, December 21 in St Saviour’s Church, Dominick Street, Dublin 1.

May he rest in peace.