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June 13th 2023

In addition to her post on the message board yesterday, Patricia Hawkins de Medina writes:

"I did leave a message on The Pelicans message board yesterday, to inform of the death of Mairead O'Dolan, Belcoo, Co. Fermanagh

The notice reads:

Peacefully at the Tillery Nursng Home. Mairead O'Dolan, late of Station House, Belcoo, and Rusheen House, Belcoo.

Dear sister of Paddy, Olivia, Eilish, Una and Frances. Predeceased by her parents Joe and Elizabeth and her brothers Malachy, Johnny, Joey, Charlie and Mickey. Maíread will be lovingly remembered and sadly missed by her brother, sisters, nieces, nephews and wider family circle, friends and neighbours.

Maíread will be reposing at Station House, Belcoo from 7pm on Monday.

Removal of remains on Wednesday morning at 10.30am to St Patricks Church, Holywell arriving for 11.00am Requiem Mass with interment to the adjoining cemetery.

Go bhfóire a hanam séimh faoi shíocháin

Many will have known Mairead down through the years, and her sister Olive."

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June 6th 2023

Following from our previous post we have received a correction from Fr. Frank Nolan M.Afr. by way of Maurice Billingsley:

"In the PELICAN website you report the death of Lady Masham. She was a remarkable woman as any reading of her obituaries explain. However, she had no connection with Danby Hall. That was the property of the Scrope family who offered the use of it to the Provincial after the St Boswells fire. The Scrope family is a very old family; one member appears in Shakespeare's Henry V, another was Archbishop of York. They kept the faith throughout penal times until the present.

However, some members of the Priory met Lady Masham in 1965 when Brian Garvey took the Priory cricket team to the Yorkshire dales to play a few games. One match was against the Earl of Swinton's team, outside his vast stately home. Lady Masham umpired the match from her wheelchair. A year of two earlier she had had an accident when horse riding and suffered a broken spine. The Earl's son, Lord Masham, later Earl, was married to Lady Masham and after the match they invited us to their house - a large bungalow in which the kitchen has been planned so that Lady Masham would make full use of it from her wheelchair. The stately home is now a very posh hotel."

In addition, sadly, we have a couple more passings to report.  On May 18th Tom Canning (Broome Hall 1967)'s wife Mary passed away and on the feast of Pentecost Karen, wife of Winfried Hartwig passed away. Both Tom & Winfried (a German (we believe) WF student who did his theology at Totteridge), have contributed many photos to our Gallery.  Let us remember them in our prayers & may their wives rest in peace.

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March 20th 2023

Unfortunately we come today with a couple of sad pieces of news.  Particularly for those that attended Danby Hall after the fire at St. Columba's. You may recall that the property was owned by Lord & Lady Masham who happily loaned the property to the White Fathers following that tragic fire.  It is with great sadness that we have learned that Lady Masham passed away on March 12th.  Maurice Billingsley has sent us the following link to her death notice: https://tinyurl.com/3wpy95br  Our condolences to her family, may she rest in peace.

In addition, we have also learned from Maurice that Mike Ellis (St. Columba's 1960-63) & his wife (Trish) recently lost their daughter, Veronica.  Please, remember Mike & his family in your prayers.  Thank you.

January 31st 2023

Here we are already at the end of January (Happy New Year, everyone!) another year well underway.  You may notice that our current total of  "donated to date" has dropped this is due to paying our 2023 bills. Unfortunately, due to the significant increase in the number of cyber-attacks around the world our site security charge has made a whopping jump from £22 per year to £30 per year. This along with our domain registration fee of £12 plus taxes brought this years bill to $48.00.  Happily this still leaves us with a positive balance. We anticipate 2024's bill will be very similar to this year' but 2025 will have the hosting fee included, another £168, but still plenty of time to reach that target again.  Thank you.

It is with great sadness that the UK Sector of the Society has announced the passing of Fr. Aylward Shorter M.Afr on Sunday 29th of January, 2023. Fr. Shorter was president of The Missionary Institute London (MIL) from 1988 - 1995.  May he rest in peace.