{"id":5179,"date":"2025-03-28T12:50:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T12:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/?p=5179"},"modified":"2025-04-10T07:52:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T07:52:32","slug":"fr-matthew-matt-oconnell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/?p=5179","title":{"rendered":"Fr. Matthew (Matt) O&rsquo;Connell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Society<\/strong> <strong>of<\/strong> <strong>African Missions<\/strong> <strong>Irish Province<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"281\" height=\"327\" src=\"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Fr.-Mathew.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5180 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Fr.-Mathew.jpg 281w, https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Fr.-Mathew-258x300.jpg 258w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 281px) 100vw, 281px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f306e640d0f202f6142011e26f19cbf4\"><strong>Born in the Diocese of Killala<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bf1c115002c803c93c6b5097a5e70b73\"><strong>7 September 1932<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ed69a7c1fba01562a43e4c82aa7d433a\"><strong>He became a member of our Society on<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5a0161ca960744c2de8502617915bfd0\"><strong>2 July 1953<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-668829b7b9e1ad6faa9cf07471ab6766\"><strong>Ordained to the Priesthood<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6532be42417284821f37914cfd2b83d9\"><strong>18 December 1956<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-84bdab40af81022f803adf71041acc8e\"><strong>1957 \u2013 1965 Diocese of Benin City, Nigeria<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-02d2fed921f99140ecf8288197916de3\"><strong>1965 \u2013 1968 Archdiocese of Perth, Western Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ba490ebf0145a95542626b8f4d64619b\"><strong>1968 \u2013 1978 Diocese of Benin City, Nigeria<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9d03b390f6c51b83df77ad4efc3d4d38\"><strong>1978 \u2013 1979 Sabbatical Programme<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-25f4c8c11f8dd3f7663d4af1417bcb1e\"><strong>1979 \u2013 1991 Neilstown Parish, Archdiocese of Dublin, Ireland<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b577f081d2654f274074092add019b66\"><strong>1991 \u2013 1992 Sabbatical Programme<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f0872dfd300231640727e0c3c5cbbe02\"><strong>1993 \u2013 2000 Archdiocese of Benin City, Nigeria<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c273c41886f90471b95d1bcf2b8d8e1f\"><strong>2000 \u2013 2005 SMA Parish Asaba, Diocese of Issele-Uku, Nigeria<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5bc455e3652a8642cb41dc6d75d78096\"><strong>2005 \u2013 2013 SMA Parish Akure, Diocese of Ondo, Nigeria<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1230f6e89e1b780053b85765ab610519\"><strong>2013 \u2013 2025 Retired to African Missions, Blackrock Road, Cork, Ireland<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-149af17fd3df67b8a048b1f024f6be4a\">Fr Matt was in failing health for some years. He died peacefully in St Theresa\u2019s Nursing Unit, SMA<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f83db78fdf67cc83e2c9791b41dd96de\">House, Blackrock Road, Cork, on 28 March 2025, aged 92 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-abdcd201666a6f40a1578d0c7fe77264\"><strong>ETERNAL REST GRANT TO HIM, O LORD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9ac00cf961d1ea846fe5a532228b76c6\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fr. Matthew (Matt) O&rsquo;Connell, SMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-necrologe-sma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5179"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5183,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5179\/revisions\/5183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.defunts.smainternational.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}