Michael Canice MurrayMICHAEL CANICE (Mick) Murray was a missionary priest who, after working in Africa, sought to combat drug addiction and poverty in Dublin and also promoted the idea of walking pilgrimages.
He was born in Inchicore, Dublin, to Michael and Nancy Murray, both of whom were deeply religious. The family later moved across Dublin to Clontarf.
After attending O’Connell Schools, where he acquired his love of Gaelic games and his life-long grá for Irish language and history, he studied philosophy with the Spiritan (Holy Ghost) Congregation in Kimmage Manor.
Some in his family still recall that day when he left home to go to the seminary, in his black suit, white shirt, black tie and black hat.
He was part of the Kimmage college team which won four in-a-row in the Devine Cup (inter-colleges) in the 1970s. Big Chest, as he was affectionately known, was an old-style soccer centre-half who gave no quarter but who saw sport, like life, as fun.
Having completed his BSc at UCD, he was ordained a priest in 1972. His first appointment as a Spiritan missionary was to Gambia in 1972 where he established an early reputation for being close to the people. This was greatly helped by his evident rapport with his parishioners and students, his good relationships with the country’s Muslim majority and, not least, by his ability to say Mass in Woloff, the language of Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania.
Since his death, the offer of an annual scholarship to the best science student in Banjul’s St Augustine’s High School, where he taught chemistry for a year, has been announced in his memory.
Returning to Ireland in 1982, his first task was as co-ordinator of a project in Dún Laoghaire working with young drug addicts. His subsequent work in the area of vocations culminated in him becoming national vocations director in 1992. This was followed by a six-year period of ministry in Fatima Mansions where he challenged the injustices that locals faced.
He then became the first assistant director of the newly established Spiritan asylum-seeker initiative, Spirasi. Keen that it would be synonymous with a warm welcome for those who sought refuge in Ireland, his mantra was that “coming to Spirasi should be like falling into cotton wool”. This attitude, his great humanity and his willingness to go the extra mile for people, endeared him to many of those who had fled torture in their native countries, a number of whom turned up at his funeral.
His knowledge of the insidious practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) from his decade in west Africa is understood to have played a critical role in the recognition by Ireland of a refugee whose asylum case was linked to FGM.
Inspired by the 100-mile Christian pilgrimage walks in Scotland and England in the late 1980s, his interest in early Irish Christianity and Celtic spirituality led him to organise similar walks in Ireland in 1991. The walks would take in key shrines, from Slane (St Patrick) through Kildare (St Brigid) to Glendalough (St Kevin).
He was a big-hearted man, always good-humoured and bore his illness bravely. He is survived by his sisters, Mary, Sheila and Feena, his brother Dermot, sister-in-law Fran, brother-in-law Brian and their extended families.
Fr Michael Murray CSSp; born 1946, died August 22nd, 2009