William (Bill) Meany, who has died in Kilkenny at the age of 82 after a considerable period of failing health and serious illness, was for 32 years (19511983) professor of Greek at St Patrick's College, Maynooth. Bill Meany was an outstanding Classics student in his time at Maynooth, and achieved the highest finals mark in Greek in the history of Maynooth since its foundation in 1795. His knowledge of the meaning of Greek words was legendary, and awesome, and probably no man, except Liddell and Scott themselves, has had a more detailed knowledge of the minutiae of that dictionary.
Bill Meany was one of four brothers. Tragically, one of the four died young while Bill was still a seminarian; the remaining two lived until the late 1980s and early 1990s respectively, and the pleasure which Bill took in his visits home from Maynooth to Kilkenny was greatly foreshortened by their passing. Bill's final years at Maynooth, until he moved back to Kilkenny two years ago, were often very lonely.
After ordination for the diocese of Ossory, Bill Meany started his academic life as lecturer in Classics at St Kieran's College, Kilkenny, before moving to Maynooth in 1951. Those were the days before the "Celtic Tiger", and Bill's starting salary at Maynooth was £147 a year. Academic distinction continued, in the form of two doctorates (a Ph.D. and a D.D.), and, later, Bill Meany was for many years Irish representative of the British School at Athens, where, after retirement from Maynooth, he spent an enjoyable year as visiting fellow.
Bill Meany was essentially a shy man, but also immensely kind. An inveterate traveller, particularly in his younger days, he once claimed that there were only two countries he had not visited, South Africa and Northern Ireland. He was in Lourdes, on what proved to be his final trip abroad, only last year. He was, in the best sense, a "man of the world", tolerant and understanding of, and unfailingly interested in, different ways of approaching and living life. Probably of no one has Terence's statement been more true: "I am a human being, and nothing which concerns human beings I consider alien to me."
Above all, William Meany was a fine and conscientious priest, delighting to spend his summer vacations on parish work in places such as the United States and on occasion Australia, and full of irrepressible stories on his return. Now at last, in the words of the poet, "Out of his sufferings he knows the face of Christ". May he rest in peace.
M.P.