Eternal Memory: Joseph Farrelly KSG

Fr John Salter writes in Chrysostom, Pascha 2012


Joe Farrelly has died at the advanced age of 94. I had known Joe for well over half a century, when he was a key-pin in the Legion of Mary. He had joined the Legion in Dublin, his home city, and worked tirelessly for this lay apostolate. He left Dublin shortly after the outbreak of World War II, and came to London and, although a citizen of the neutral Irish Republic, he enrolled in the Royal and Mechanical Engineers, in which he served as an N.C.O. in India from 1943-1947. It was in India that he set up the Catholic Club for service personnel. He found his vocation in teaching when he was demobbed and became a well-loved and highly respected figure in the classroom, in which he stood for no nonsense! He became head of English at the Catholic school of St. Francis in Peckham, moving to be head of Religious Education at St. Thomas the Apostle school at Nunhead, where he remained until his retirement in 1982.

 Joe was a rarity in ecumenical circles in that he was a Catholic and an Irishman. He was keenly interested in the Society of St. John Chrysostom, but was not one of its founders – he was one of those who revived the fortunes of the society in the 1950s, eventually becoming its chairman of committee. I first got to know Joe when I was a student and took him and one of our former chairmen, Bishop Ceslaus Sipovitch, head of the Byelorussian Catholic community in the United Kingdom, and a Latin priest, to the Anglican Benedictine Convent of the Holy Cross at Haywards Heath. We attended Latin Vespers before having tea with the Mother Superior. Joe was wryly amused that although Bishop Ceslaus had joined in the Divine Office, the Latin priest had joined us but had not taken part in the Divine Office, which was sung in Latin, but proceeded to say Vespers to himself in the car on the return journey to London, having attended a beautifully sung Vespers only an hour earlier! Joe was even more wryly amused when the said priest joined the Church of England! That sort of reversed ecumenism tickled Joe.

Apart from the Legion of Mary, Joe was very involved with Martin Gillett’s new venture – the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary - and it was due to Joe that the society was truly put on the map, seeing to it that the Methodists were involved with the society. It was while on one of the society’s visits to Rome that Joe heard of the tragic and lonely death of his daughter. His faith and courage and that of his wife, Ann, carried them through this tremendous burden of grief and loss. 

In 1969 the Primate of Belgium, Cardinal Suenens, the spiritual descendant of Cardinal Mercier of the Malines Conversations fame, made Joe a Knight of St. Gregory. Joe was a man full of fun and courtesy; an eirenicist as much as an ecumenist and a truly Catholic gentleman.

The Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary is arranging a Memorial Mass for Joe Farrelly in  the Lady Chapel of Westminster Cathedral at 2 p.m.on 28th April 2012, to pray for the repose of his soul and to thank God for his life and work. The Mass will be followed by a reception and those wishing to attend should notify the General Secretary of the ESBVM, Father Bill McLoughlin O.S.M. gensec@esbvm.org.