DANNEVIRKE

New Zealand Tablet, 30 November 1911, Page 2424

DANNEVIRKE

THE LATE FATHER DANIEL O’SHEA. At 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning a Requiem Mass was offered up at Danuevirke for the repose of the soul of the late Father Daniel O’Shea, whose death is recorded in our Wellington correspondence. A Home paper of a recent date gives the following account of the death of Father O’Shea, who during his fourteen years’ stay in New Zealand had labored in Waipawa, Takapau, Dannevirke, Kaponga, and Hawera, and who had numerous friends among the clergy and # laity in the Dominion. • After a long struggle with consumption (says our exchange), the Rev. Daniel O’Shea, C.C., passed away peacefully at the presbytery, Kilmallock, on Saturday evening, lie was the youngest of four brothers of the same family who were raised to the priesthood. Having studied in the Diocesan Seminary at Limerick, he passed on to Maynooth College in the summer of 1882, and was ordained priest for the Limerick diocese in June, 1889. During his course in the college his genial manner and entertaining ways endeared him to all his companions. Just then, before the young priests departed from the college to their homes, an Australian Bishop, the Right Rev. Dr. Corbetthimself a former priest of the Limerick diocese and city—came amongst them seeking missioners to help him in his newly-formed diocese of Sale, Gippsland, Australia. The Rev. Daniel O’Shea alone volunteered for the work. Having got his own Bishop’s permission (Dr. O’Dwyer’s) for an absence of five years, he went with Dr. Corbett to Australia in January, 1890. Whether it was the nature of his duties —generally very trying in a new diocese — or the climate, or his own constitution that brought about the result, he became seriously ill in Australia. His youth then sustained him, and having recovered sufficiently to enable him to undertake the voyage, he returned to Limerick in 1895. Not for long. The medical authorities at Home warned him that in the state of his lungs one winter in Ireland might be his last. So he went back again under the Southern Cross— time to New Zealand, under Archbishop Redwood, of Wellington. Here his delicate health continued to give him' trouble - Having battled on for some fourteen years, in which much good work for' the interests of religion was 'effected, he had to

resign all duty. He made up his mind to face his home and his own, and, sailing by Cape Horna weary journey for an invalid—he arrived in Ireland in the beginning of June last to his brother in Kilmallock. There he was surrounded by every possible care that affection could suggest;; but it is to be hoped the Lord was pleased with his efforts, for He soon called Father Dan O'Shea home to Himself. Having been consoled with the last Sacraments, and with the affectionate visit of his Bishop— Rev. Dr. O'Dwyer— breathed his last on Saturday very calmly whilst his rev. brother and spme more of the --family were kneeling at his bedside.— '.-,..>