Société des Missions Africaines – Province d’Irlande
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né le 8 décembre 1897 à Mayo Abbey dans l’archidiocèse de Tuam, Irlande membre de la SMA le 12 septembre 1919 prêtre le 26 mai 1923 décédé le 18 octobre 1960 |
1923-1928 missionnaire au Liberia décédé à Carlow, Irlande, le 18 octobre 1960, |
Le père Thomas HUGHES F (1897 – 1960)
A Carlow (Irlande), à l’hôpital Sainte-Brigitte, le 18 octobre 1960, retour à Dieu du père Thomas Hughes, à l’âge de 63 ans.
Ne en 1897 à Mayo Abbey, en Irlande, dans le diocèse de Tuam, Thomas Hughes fit ses études dans les maisons de notre province d’Irlande. Ayant émis le serment en 1919, il fut ordonné prêtre en 1923. Missionnaire en la préfecture du Liberia, il dut en revenir pour raison de santé en 1927.
Nommé propagandiste en Irlande, il s’y révéla très doué. A lui seul, il obtint 30.000 abonnements pour la revue « African Missionnary » qu’il introduisit ainsi dans de nombreuses villes et villages d’Irlande.
Le père Hughes était un homme très spirituel, joyeux et charmant. Très diplomate et sociable, il était très aimé. En 1946, il partait pour les Etats-Unis mettant à la disposition de la nouvelle province ses talents de propagandiste.
En 1952, il devint curé de la paroisse Saint-Cyprien, à Georgetown, dans la Caroline du Sud, et y construisit une église.
Father Thomas Francis HUGHES (1897 – 1960)
Thomas (‘Tommie’) Francis Hughes (to be distinguished from his classmate, Thomas John Hughes SMA) was fifteenth in a family of twenty children born to Walter Hughes and Kathleen (nee Gildea) Hughes.
He received his elementary education in Mayo Abbey national school, Claremorris, Co Mayo. In 1913 he entered the Society’s junior apostolic school, the Sacred Heart college, Ballinafad, Co Mayo, and, two years later, went to St. Joseph’s college, Wilton, Cork, where he completed his secondary education. In September 1918 he was promoted to the Society’s novitiate and house of philosophy, at Kilcolgan, Co Galway (he was a member of the first class to study there). Admitted to membership of the Society on September 12, 1919, he received his theological training in the major seminary at Blackrock Road, Cork, completing his formation there in l923. Thomas was ordained a priest in St. Joseph’s church, Blackrock Road, by Bishop Thomas Broderick, Vicar Apostolic of Western Nigeria, on May 26, 1923. He was one of a group of four ordained on that day.
After ordination Thomas was assigned to the West African Prefecture of Liberia. Liberia was a ‘Black Republic’ established in the early decades of the 19th century by emancipated slaves from the USA. It was an impoverished country, with a small, scattered population and a most exacting climate. When Thomas arrived the Prefect, Mgr Jean Ogé, appointed him to the district of Betu, on the Kru Coast. Denis Horgan was superior of the principal station, Betu, established in 1914. The other principal station was Wappi, founded in 1922. The total Catholic population of the district was 500 with over 100 catechumens. Betu mission was built on a low-lying site, which was unhealthy for Europeans. Two years before Thomas was ordained, in 1921, Denis O’Hara, the assistant priest in Betu had died (although he died in New Sasstown, where he came to tend a sick confrere, he had contracted blackwater fever in Betu). Francis J. McGovern died in Betu shortly before Thomas’ arrival, in 1922. A third priest, John Barry, was to die there in 1925. Thomas spent three years in this difficult environment before his health collapsed and he was invalided home, unsuited for further service in the tropics.
Thomas’ aptitudes fitted him to make a very different (but no less important) contribution to the work of missions. After convalescing he was appointed to promote the missions in Ireland and was instantly to reveal a special talent for such work. In an era when electric lighting was rare, with an old fashioned carbide lit projector he showed lantern slides of mission work in Africa in almost every town and village in Ireland. Few people had heard or seen a radio then nor were there ‘talkie’ films, and there were many people who first heard ‘Just for Today’, ‘Ave Maria’ and ‘Ireland Mother Ireland’, sung in Thomas’s clear tenor voice when he came to talk to them about missions in the local school or hall. Thomas ‘had a way’ with him. He entertained people first with story and humour and song. Then, in desperate earnest, he asked them to help the missions, of which he was the living token in their midst. He is credited with having obtained, single-handedly, over 30,000 subscribers for the Province’s journal, The African Missionary.
In l946 Thomas went to the United States putting his talents as a promoter and propagandist at the disposal of the recently founded American Province of the Society. Once again his efforts were crowned with success. His obituary in the African Angelus described in some detail his promotional techniques and added: ‘perhaps a great showman was lost in him’. In l953, no longer able to travel widely, he became associate pastor in St. Benedict’s mission parish in Savannah, Georgia. Three years later he became pastor of St. Cyprian’s parish, in Georgetown, South Carolina where he constructed a fine church.
Thomas became an American citizen on February 9, 1955. His sister was Sister Metchtilde, of the Little Sisters of the Poor, in Washington DC. Another family member, his brother Denis, lived in Brooklyn and whenever Thomas came to New York he would made his home with him. Thomas was keenly interested in Irish affairs and for five years after his arrival in America was chaplain to the Englewood Ceilidhe Club.
Thomas died while on holidays in Ireland. He had been staying with his friend, Fr. Paddy Byrne, at Graiguecullen. On Friday evening, October 14, he went out to visit friends and while on the way had a heart attack. He was taken to St. Brigid’s hospital where he died some days later.
He is buried in the SMA cemetery at Wilton, Cork, Ireland.