Eltin Griffin:Fr Eltin Griffin, who has died aged 81, was a leading figure in bringing post-second Vatican Council liturgical reforms to the Catholic Church in Ireland. In addition to travelling widely to promote the new pastoral liturgies, he spent many years in the Carmelite conference centre at Gort Muire in south Co Dublin, passing on his enthusiasm for the reforms to the hundreds if not thousands who attended courses and retreats there.
He was born in Ballinamona, Kinsale, Co Cork, on September 14th, 1925. Patrick was his baptismal name, Eltin his name in religion. His parents, Michael and Ellen, owned a farm at Mayfield, now a suburb of Cork city, but then in the countryside. In later years, he wrote an account of growing up in Cork for a publication called the Cork Holly Bough.
He recalled the influences on him of family, church, arts, drama and Mayfield neighbours like Eddie Golden and his brother, both of whom would become Abbey actors.
He received his secondary education at the Franciscan College, Multyfarnham, Co Westmeath, and entered the Carmelite novitiate in Kinsale in 1944. He studied philosophy and theology at Milltown Park in Dublin and was ordained a priest on July 16th, 1950. His first assignment was to the order's church in Whitefriar Street and he also ministered as a chaplain to nearby Mercer's Hospital.
In 1952, he went to Terenure College to teach in the junior school. Two of his pupils were Mike Murphy and the late Donal McCann, whose acting career he followed closely and with whom he kept contact.
Eltin developed his interest in drama at Terenure and co-produced Romeo and Juliet with the late PP Maguire. Some of his teaching experiments were less successful, such as bringing his pupils outdoors. The resulting unruliness had to be dispelled by a colleague who told Eltin that he was not Jesus and should not attempt to act like the Messiah.
After a year as a teacher, he was sent back to Whitefriar Street and built up a reputation for preaching missions and retreats. He edited and published religious books and over time, built up an impressive list of publications. In the latter part of the 1960s as the liturgical reforms promulgated by the second Vatican Council began to appear haphazardly, his Carmelite superiors sent him to the Catholic University in Washington DC from 1969 to 1971 to study for a master's degree in pastoral liturgy. He returned to Ireland, determined to spread the new gospel of liturgical reform.
From 1972 to 1982, Eltin was back at Gort Muire which he helped make a prime centre for pastoral liturgy and spirituality. Things now taken for granted like Advent wreaths, Jesse trees or the use of the Paschal candle were given new meaning to those coming to Gort Muire. Lay people, priests and sisters as well as clergy from other denominations came to the centre to learn and implement the new ideas. Innovations included liturgy courses for people with disabilities and school masses. Eltin taught pastoral liturgy in various centres in Ireland as well as abroad, but he kept the charismatic renewal at a distance, fending off fraternal embraces.
He was appointed prior and manager of Terenure College in 1982 and served there for six years. During this time, he commissioned stained-glass windows for the college chapel by the late Francis Biggs.
In 1988, he returned to Gort Muire, where he remained until his death, except for two years in 1991 and 1992 when he served as prior to the Carmelite community in his native Kinsale. He had a great affection for Kinsale, but could be non-plussed by examples of popular piety such as the time he was asked to say Mass for the healing of a sick cow. "What sort of grasp of the Paschal Mystery did this show?" he groaned to colleagues.
His last years in Gort Muire were happy ones. His fellow Carmelite, Fr Chris O'Donnell, reminded mourners at the funeral Mass that "Eltin had an enormous capacity to enjoy himself, to celebrate, to live fully". He was "always creative, always learning and on the look out for an insight. He learned early on the secret of the pastoral and academic life, which is recycling. He continually recycled his own and other people's material in a way that gave continual freshness."
Eltin Griffin is survived by his brothers, Gerard, Michael and Thomas and sisters, Bridie and Lil.
Fr Eltin Griffin: born September 14th, 1925; died December 31st, 2006.