OBITUARY

New Zealand Tablet, 1 October 1914, Page 49

OBITUARY

REV. JOSEPH PAUL KEHOE,vNE\V : PLYMOUTH iOn Friday morning last (writes a New Plymouth correspondent), in St. Joseph’s Presbytery, occulted the death of a venerable pioneer priest, the Rev. Joseph Paul Kehoe, in the seventy-fourth year of his age and the forty-sixth of his priesthood.; The deceased soygarth moon was a native of Dublin, where he made his preliminary ecclesiastical studies, but finished his course in the Irish College, Rome, of which institution he for a time occupied the important and responsible position of Vice-President and had under him students not a few of whom now wear the mitre. he first sixteen years of his priestly.career were passed in ministering to the .spiritual wants of the Catholics in his native city; and many were the anecdotes—amusing, others pathetic—which he used to relate of his experiences amidst the slums of the Irish capital. As a counterbalance he enjoyed the intimate friendship of the greatest dignitaries and lights of the Church, including Cardinals Cullen and McCabe and the famous lather Tom Burke. The noted wit and humorist, Father Healy, of Bray, was a personal friend of Father Kehoe. With the concurrence and consent of his Superiors, he decided to give the remainder of his life to the foreign missions, and emigrated to distant Australia, where he became attached to Adelaide, then presided over by the Most Rev. Dr. Reynolds, another Dublin man. Finding the climate of South Australia too trying because of the intense heat, he severed his connection with Adelaide and came to Auckland, and in that diocese he spent close on thirty years. lie was stationed successively at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the North Country, Gisborne, and finally at Parnell, where, owing to declining health, he was forced to relinquish charge of the parish and place his resignation in the hands of Bishoji Lenilian, who reluctantly accepted it. lie retired to the Mater Misericordias Hospital, Mt. Eden, where he attended to the sick, gave Mass to the Sisters, and besides assisted in parochial work on Sun days. To the regret of the Sisters of Mercy, and friends generally in Auckland, he left the Mater Hospital and went to reside with his life-long friend and co-laborer, Father Costello, at Palmerston. There he wished to live and die under the watchful and solicitous care of one with whom he felt at home and with whom he had been so long associated. God decreed otherwise, for in His inscrutable wisdom the younger was taken and the older left. Father Kehoe keenly felt the blow of Father Costello’s death, and from that blow he never afterwards thoroughly recovered. At the suggestion of Father MacManus, Father Costello’s successor at Palmerston," Father Kehoe volunteered to give a helping hand temporarily at New Plymouth; then without an assistant priest. What at first was but a temporary arrangement, owing to circumstances, became permanent, and the last eighteen months of Father Kehoe’s life were spent' under .the shadow 1 of beautiful Mount Egmont. Although in feeble health, he insisted on doing the work of- a strong and vigorous man Sunday; after Sunday, both in New Plymouth and at Waitara. His geniality of manner, superabundance of wit ; and humor, and great kindness of heart won him hosts' of friends amongst all classes of the community. He may be said to have died in harness. The last scenes in a life fruitful and abundant in gQod works were touching and edifying, and’those who had. the privilege of assisting him in his dying moments will long remember the faith, the fervor, and the confidence with which he breathed forth his soul into the hands of his merciful Creator and Redeemer. May his soul rest in peace. r