Longford's Monsignor Liam Quinn celebrates sixty years of dedicated service

In 1962 Ireland was beginning to look a little brighter. The independent state was just 40 years old and had come through the struggles of the Civil War, state building in the 1920s, the economic war with the UK during the 1930s and the tough emergency measures during the second world war.

The late ‘40s and ‘50s the dark times continued which saw the young state losing huge numbers of its young people to emigration to the UK and the US. Added to all that, many families had suffered the loss of loved ones due to the dreadful TB epidemic.

But things began to change for the better in the early ‘60s under the Lemass government and their adoption of the Whittaker Economic Plan - economic growth began to increase as did employment opportunities for more young people, who were able to stay in Ireland.

And TB was being taken in hand following the work of Noel Browne, Minister for Health in the inter-party government of 1948/’51. It was a decade of early promise and optimism in Ireland.

But there was added optimism in Killoe and Drumlish when a young clerical student, Liam Quinn from Ennybegs, was ordained to the priesthood in Carlow Cathedral on June 9, 1962, having studied in St Patrick’s Seminary in Carlow. The attendant excitement spread across north Longford, still remembered by many to this day, when he returned to his native Ennybegs as Fr Liam to say his first mass.

Soon the young priest was on his way to the US, having reconsidered his earlier intentions to go to Africa. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the RMS Mauretania – no doubt feeling the pangs of homesickness like many before him.

The experience gave him a deep understanding of the plight of the immigrants of the 17th and 18th centuries, having heard about and read their stories, he says. Msgr Liam’s first assignment was in Atlantic City, now famous for its casinos. He was parochial vicar at St Monica’s Church there from 1962 to ‘64, which he recalls as a most enjoyable posting. Parishioners were predominantly African-American, who taught him a lot about their culture. “There was no call for diversity in Ireland at that time,” he says.

Following that early introduction to US ministry the list of appointments and responsibilities up to his retirement in 2009 is truly impressive - from 1964 to ’69 he ministered in Gloucester’s St Mary’s Church where his parishioners included descendants of Irish immigrants, who he describes as wonderful people. There then followed a complete change of role in 1969 when he went from parish work to teaching theology at Camden Catholic High School.

After ten years teaching, which he loved - “as it kept you abreast of what was happening in the culture and in the minds and hearts of young people” - he was named pastor (parish priest) of St John of God Church in North Cape May in 1979, a role which lasted six years; and for the following 15 years, from 1985 through 2000, the Msgr served as pastor at St Ann’s Church in Wildwood. It was then on to Seven Mile Beach as pastor up to his retirement in 2009.

Underlying the simple chronology outlined is a lifetime of dedicated service and real achievement, involving church building in St John’s, renovation of the church in Wildwood and completing a new Regional Catholic School and building a much needed parish hall in Seven Mile Beach and much more.

The fundraising involved in completing the projects was also led by Msgr Liam himself. Although the parish hall in Seven Mile Beach bears his name, a decision made by others, he is much too modest to mention that fact.

And while all such additional responsibilities were in progress, the central duties of his role had also to be attended to, such as running and managing the various parishes and ministering to the people in relation to births, marriages and deaths. He recalls with sadness burying five veterans of the Vietnam War in his early years in the US. “The casualties of Vietnam were mostly among working class people.”

Happily, I had an external source for this short profile: Msgr Liam doesn’t like focusing on himself for he is a most humble and modest man, as anyone who has ever met him can testify.

Caption: Monsignor Liam Quinn, Jimmy Hannify and Liam Caldwell

I’ve been lucky on that score on many occasions and there was a pleasant repeat occasion with him, his brother, Gerry, and Jimmy Hannify when he visited Dublin for a few days when he was home recently to mark his Diamond Jubilee with Mass in Ennybegs.

Over refreshments on a beautiful sunny afternoon we covered quite a range from the frivolous to the serious, which included GAA and past games and players, local characters past and present, a few good yarns – and we even touched on existential matters, though not for too long; the craic was too good!

Sixty years is a lifetime in any currency, but Msgr Liam Quinn continues to be refreshingly open and wholesome in his thinking and has wonderful understanding and insight into human nature. It’s easy to come away with the impression that he is not given too much to dogma. The members of the Longford Association congratulate him on his Diamond Jubilee and wish him many years of good health in his retirement, during which he continues to help out.