The Latin School, Moyne

Saintly Healing Priest Looks Back

Cover to book

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Fr Tommy O’Reilly is very well known throughout these islands. Since his return to Ireland in 1979 from forty years’ ministry in the Diocese of Leeds, he has travelled the length and breadth of Ireland visiting sick people in hospitals or in their own homes. Many of these people have been returned to good physical health or have experienced inner healing through the prayers and blessing of this saintly man.
Fr Tommy is a native of Moyne in North Longford, a past pupil of the Latin School, a contemporary of Msgr John V Sheridan of Malibu, Ca, the last remaining of ten brothers, four of whom became priests and served in the US and England. For the past number of years he has been residing in Our Lady’s Manor, Edgeworthstown. He is now in his 94th year, having been ordained almost sixty-nine years ago, in 1940. After returning to Ireland from Leeds diocese following the sudden death of his younger brother Fr Brian, he ministered in Celbridge, Co Kildare and in Killoe and Athlone parishes.

Despite his advanced years, Fr O’Reilly enjoys relatively good health though confined to his wheelchair when going every morning to the oratory in the Manor Nursing Home. Here he concelebrates Mass with Fr Patrick Murphy, PP, Edgeworthstown and retired priests Canon Gerry Macaulay and Fr Peter Beglan. He is quite alert and his mind is clear. He has tremendous drive and energy, so much so that he wished to see in book form highlights of his long life. This book titled “To Do Your Will” was launched on Palm Sunday, April 5th 2009. It is quite a slim volume, beautifully and attractively produced with photographs of his parents and siblings and of the parish centre in Sheffield, which was his dream come true in 1969. The centre is dedicated to St Thomas More and consists of not only a church, but a social centre for the entire parish, catering for young and old. The banqueting hall is used for weddings and is a source of income for the parish. He is justifiably very proud of this wonderful achievement, which will remain a monument to him.

The book is based on interviews he gave over the past two or three years to Anne Gallagher, Jude Flynn and James MacNerney who is the editor. Fr Tommy’s reminiscences and memories are very poignant indeed but even more important to him is the spiritual message contained within the pages of the book. His very strong devotion to Our Lady of Medjurgorje is of prime importance to him. He wishes also to see a return to family prayer, just as it was in his youth when all the family knelt down to say the rosary. He says that children must be taught to pray and the best way to do this is to learn from the example of their parents who pray with them at some time during the day. Without prayer, vocations will become a thing of the past. The Church needs priests desperately, and young people need to be encouraged to devote their lives as priests and sisters to those who are crying out for guidance and support in this utterly changed, self-centred, dangerous world of drugs and violence.

Fr Tommy believes he was cured miraculously of double pneumonia in 2005 through the intervention of Pope John Paul II, who had just died. Doctors were unable to account for the disappearance overnight of any trace of the condition, which at his age of ninety was likely to prove fatal.

Since the book was launched by Ms Catherine Donohoe of The Legion of Mary, it has sold very well at home and abroad. At €5 it’s a steal and should be required reading for every home and school. Copies are being requested daily in the UK and USA. Fr Tommy is delighted and welcomes, as usual, the many visitors who phone or call to see him for his blessing and absolution. He never seems to tire. You can buy the book in Moyne Stores, Corrigan’s Service Station in Legga, Lynch’s in Arva and Kane’s Supermarket, Edgeworthstown as well as from Fr Tommy himself.