It was a homecoming for sure, even though they’d never been here before – but the priests and alumni of one of America’s oldest universities know that their roots are deeply embedded in the rocks and soil of Connemara.
Because St Francis University in Loretto, Pittsburgh, owes its existence to six doughty Franciscans who left Clifden and Roundstone in the middle of the Great Famine to spread the word on the other side of the Atlantic.
They left Galway in 1845 – and two years later, they founded the school that is now a university with 2,500 students….one of the most prestigious universities in the United States.
And last week, 44 visitors from St Francis University – among them four Franciscans, including the College President Fr Malachi Van Tassel – came to Ireland to see where it all began.
And while a visit to the ruins of the old Franciscan monastery in Roundstone may have been the emotional highlight, they also enjoyed the trip of a lifetime across Ireland over a jam-packed twelve-day programme, organised by Go West, the Galway-based tour company.
Kathleen McDonagh and Kerry O’Sullivan of Go West had hosted a similar group from the prestigious Princeton University in Galway a week earlier, where they met with NUI Galway President Jim Browne among others.
But this was a more emotional homecoming and a more comprehensive tour that took the visitors from the Giant’s Causeway to the Cliffs of Moher, the Aran Islands to Glendalough – with a visit to the Guinness Storehouse thrown in for diversion!
“It’s been emotional and spiritual and the trip of a lifetime,” said Fr Malachi, after one of the trip’s other highlights – a concelebrated Mass with their Franciscan brothers at the Abbey in Galway last Friday.
“It certainly felt like we were walking in the footsteps of our founders; maybe we now understand a little more of where they came from,” he said.
Not that they’ve ever forgotten those six founding friars – there is a day in their honour at St Francis University each year.
The story begins when – at the invitation of Bishop Michael O’Connor of Pittsburgh – the six friars from the Diocese of Tuam left Roundstone and Clifden in Connemara to establish a school in Loretto.
Br. Giles Carroll, Br. Domnick Lee, Br. Vincent Welstead, Br. Joseph Corcoran, Br. Peter McDermott and Br. Jerome O’Keeffe then laid the foundation of what became Saint Francis University, the oldest Franciscan University in the United States.
See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.
The post Franciscans bring it all back home to Galway – after 170 years appeared first on Connacht Tribune - Galway City Tribune.