William MacNamara (the Francis came later) who died on December 2nd aged 85 was a preacher, teacher, friend to Travellers, and best known to Irish Times readers for his Saturday Thinking Anew columns, initialled F. MacN.
He was born in Drumcondra, Dublin, on September 9th, 1916, the eldest child of William MacNamara and Rose Murphy. William, or Willie as he was known, was educated at the Christian Brothers' School, Saint Mary's Place, Dublin, a mere stone's throw from the Dominican Priory where he would later spend a considerable part of his life. He joined the northern province of the Christian Brothers in 1932.
Having taken his BA degree and the Higher Diploma in Education, Brother MacNamara taught in three Christian Brothers' schools in Belfast, Derry and Armagh.
He spent longer in Derry than in the other two locations and it was about Derry that he spoke most frequently in later life. Typically, his concern for his pupils did not cease when they left school. Many of them had reason to be grateful for his help in getting a job, at a time when jobs were scarce in Derry, and especially scarce for Catholics.
His sojourn in Northern Ireland came to an end in 1949 when he joined the Dominican Order and was given the name "Francis". Although Father MacNamara had no direct experience of the Troubles in the North, he had strong opinions on the subject - his condemnation of violence by the IRA was frequent and vehement.
He made solemn profession in the Dominican Order in 1950 and was ordained priest in 1955, after which he was sent to Rome for two years' further study.
He loved Rome and his receptive mind responded enthusiastically to the grandeur of so many of its ancient buildings and even to the rich variety of ecclesiastical garb. He loved too the monuments of another Rome, more ancient than Christianity.
The following six years were spent in a newly-founded Dominican secondary school in Arima, Trinidad, where he showed that he was still the brilliant teacher he had been in Derry and elsewhere. In addition, there was also now more scope for his deepening pastoral concern. Despite having a full teaching schedule, at weekends he made himself available for confessions, Mass and preaching at one or other Trinidadian parish.
His next assignment was to Kilkenny, where he was to spend 22 years in the famous Black Abbey, the only Dominican church in these islands to have remained in Dominican hands since before the Reformation. It is probably true that he loved Kilkenny and its people more than any other place and people. And many of them loved him in return.
What did he do to earn such affection, which would be replicated later when he was moved from Kilkenny to his native Dublin? A large part of the answer is "availability". Availability to people in their need. There is no evidence that his parents, or anyone else, had ever explained to him the protection afforded by judicious employment of the word "no". For there were times when he needed to say "no" to people's requests, or to the urging of his own insatiable pastoral concern.
A colleague who had been his Prior for several years said of him that "above all else he was a servant of the people in their various needs". He was especially devoted to the sick, visiting them daily in hospitals and in their homes. He gained the reputation of being a person of great sensitivity and holiness.
He reached out to anyone and everyone in need. As the same colleague said: "No journey was too long, no trouble too much, no inconvenience too great if it was a question of being available to someone who needed his help".
Many members of the Travelling community will lament his death. He was their special priest, their healing priest, their charismatic priest, who always had time for them and who listened attentively to their problems. He treated them with the respect which is their due but which is not always on offer. They sometimes travelled the length and breadth of Ireland and even from Britain to bring him their problems.
The change from Kilkenny to Dublin, after 22 years, was difficult for Father Mac, as he was now widely known. Not that he found Dublin unattractive: it was his native city, after all. But his work in Kilkenny had been fulfilling and he had made many friends there. Besides, change, any change, can be unwelcome when one is close to 70.
However, after a few protest meetings in the silence of his own soul, Father Mac bit the bullet. Which is a less theological way of saying that he accepted God's will and settled down to another regime of never saying "no" to priors, clerical colleagues, or rich and poor lay people.
Writing, possibly, came a trifle less easily to Father Mac, but he did not say "no" to a request to write a "much appreciated" weekly column for the Kilkenny People. Nor would he have dreamed of saying "no" to the Provincial Superior who invited him to edit a visibly ailing Dominican periodical, The Lantern, long since gone to whatever after-life there is for defunct periodicals.
Throughout the 1990s Father Mac was editor of a still robust, if like all print media somewhat threatened, St Martin Magazine. Never a shy man, he offered his services as a Saturday religious columnist to The Irish Times. The offer was accepted, with the happy result that for several years The Irish Times's Saturday religious column, Thinking Anew, was in the capable hands, alternatively, of the Catholic Father Mac and the equally pastorally-minded Anglican priest who brought the Samaritans to Ireland, Canon Billy Wynne. An excellent selection of their contributions has been published by The Irish Times under the title, Called to Think Anew.
Father MacNamara is survived by sisters Madge and Maura, and brother John.
Francis William MacNamara OP: born 1916; died, December 2001