Memories

Fr. Ambrose Woods 1995

Uploaded: 29/01/2017

P.S. to his letter to Frank McKevitt Australia
P.S. So many things keep coming to mind. You may know some of them already.

I was born on the 2nd Jan. 1913, so I am now a few months over 82, You and I, I think are near enough of an age. I went to an English Seminary when I finished in St Pats in Armagh in 1931.I was ordained in 1938 and was curate in Guilford for 8 years. Then I was supposed to be running the youth work in the diocese and curate in Barnes ( in London where the O’Neills lived. Then in 1954 I was sent as P.P. to Ashford Kent where I remained as P.P. for the next 34 years. I retired in 1988 and am out and about and in good form. I offer the 11.30 public Mass every Sunday and do the weekday Masses if the P.P. is away. The church is closed at the moment and Masses are in St. Michaels Hall (next door to McKevitt’s shop as it use to be.)

Do you remember how Fr Finegan ran films on a Sunday night and in fact paid off the debt on the hall itself.?

Fr Stokes, Fr Mark Quinn, Fr Christy Finegan, Fr Beck, and indeed later curates than Fr Finegan( eg.Fr John Devlin if you remember him) are all gone to their reward – I hope!! God rest them!.
The only Boyle (Michael John Boyles family) around here is the eldest Desmond. A couple of his sisters and youngest brother are in Dublin. Sean Boyle lives and has a family in Ardee.

The old railway line from the Oysterman’s (The Greenore side of Shilties Lough) to the Cardinal’s bathing box is now the road to Newry. The station building and the Stationmasters house are now the “Dispensary” the doctors surgery as we would now call it.While the toilets there fulfil the same purpose but now in a more public capacity! And just inside the old station gates (that use to be) is the Monument to Thomas Darcy McGee who wrote most of the constitution of Canada.

Please forgive the writing. Most of it was written from laziness in an armchair on my knee. Keep us in your prayers. I heard your wife was not well and will keep her in my prayers to Our Lady of Lourdes.
God Bless you again
Ambrose Woods