JOHN J. DUGGAN (1932-2021)

 

In 2022 the Catholic diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, established under the leadership of Kilkenny-born BishopThomas Hendricken in 1872, celebrated the 150th anniversary of its foundation. 

It did so in the knowledge that the link to Ireland - and to Kilkenny and the national seminary at Maynooth - spans virtually that entire period, latterly in the person of Father John Duggan, most recently senior priest in residence at Sts. John and Paul parish in Coventry, Rhode Island, who died on November 4th. 2021 at the age of eighty-nine.

Like Bishop Hendricken, Fr. Duggan had studied at St. Kieran's College in Kilkenny and at Maynooth, where both were intended for service in the diocese of Ossory. But Thomas Hendricken was recruited for the U.S. mission during a visit by Bishop O'Reilly of Hartford to Ireland in 1853, and was ordained in Dublin alongside several other volunteers from All Hallows College. The new diocese of which he was appointed first bishop was created nineteen years later (he was forty-three at his consecration, and died fourteen years later at the age of fifty-seven).

In 2021 Father Duggan, a priest of the diocese of Ossory whose pastoral  engagement and outreach has taken an unusual path over a period of almost sixty-five years, celebrated his thirty-sixth year of continuous residence in the United States the country of his adoption. 

Although Ossory priests have regularly spent some years in America and elsewhere overseas, most of them have eventually been officially 'incardinated' into their new dioceses (most notablyWilliam Treacy, ordained at Maynooth for Ossory in 1944, who in 2021 celebrated his 102nd birthday in Seattle). But like his more recent diocesan colleague Monsignor Liam Bergin in Boston College, Fr. Duggan remained formally attached to his native diocese.

John Duggan was born on February 7th 1932, one of seven children of Richard Duggan, a farmer and rate collector of Flemingstown, Glenmore and his wife Molly, nee Gorman, who came from Luffany, Slieverue. Richard Duggan, who was born in 1895, was of strongly nationalist background; he was involved in the struggle for independence and was also prominent in local GAA circles, being a member of the Glenmore-Kilmacow junior hurling team who famously defeated the favored Dicksboro in the 1923 county final. Richard lived to be ninety, dying in 1985; his wife had died in 1977, aged seventy six.

John was educated at St. Kieran's College, where he had a distinguished academic career from 1944 to 1949, and at the national seminary and Pontifical University at Maynooth, where he took an honours degree in Classics in 1952, just as his former  mentor at St.  Kieran's, Dr. William Meany, joined the faculty at Maynooth (John's success in the competition for a Solus essay on The Spartan Constitution, was put forward by the then bishop of Ossory as a good example of Dr. Meany's academic formation capabilities in the assessment of the candidates).

After four years of theological study, during which he was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Divinity, John Duggan was ordained priest for service in the diocese of Ossory in 1956. He then studied for his Higher Diploma in Education at Maynooth's Dunboyne Institute, where his professor was Dr. Peter Birch, who would become co-adjutor bishop of Ossory some five years later (he had also been on the teaching staff of St. Kieran's during John's time there). 

In 1957 Fr. Duggan was himself appointed to the staff of St. Kieran's, where he was also nominated as Dean of Studies, and where he would continue to teach Classics for fifteen years. During that time he was also involved in producing plays on the college 'layside' and had a wide range of friendships in social and cultural circles in Kilkenny and beyond with whom he would maintain contact throughout his life.

From the early 1960s he was a regular visitor to the United States, working as a holiday relief pastor in parishes where St. Kieran's seminary alumni (some from Glenmore) were stationed. During the latter of these stays he also acted as a summer intern with the Boston Police Narcotics Abuse Study Program.

In the early 1970s he was sent, along with his St. Kieran's colleague Fr. Joe Delaney, to study for a Master's degree in Education with a a specialisation in counselling psychology at Boston College. As part of the requirements for his degree he undertook five hundred hours of practicum work under the supervision of Tom McCarthy, the Chief Psychologist of Dublin City Vocational Education Committee.

While in America he famously became involved with the Pittsburgh Steelers football team, where his ministry is generally credited with influencing the franchise's string of Superbowl victories in the 1970s (they had never got beyond a divisional final in the forty years since the foundation of the franchise).

In 1972 he returned to the United States to study for a doctorate in counselling, again at Boston College. During his time there he applied to join a national association of academic counsellors, which required an interview before admission to membership. A member of the interviewing panel later told an Irish contact that it was the only time that he ever saw the panel members actually learning themselves from an applicant's presentation.     

In pursuance of the practical requirements for his doctorate he acted as adviser and counsellor to several rehabilitation projects, including the Halfway House at Leonard Shattuck Hospital in Boston. He was also a visiting fellow at Harvard University as well as acting as a member of the voluntary support group for several Boston College sports teams.

He presented his thesis on 'Personality Dimensions of College-bound Students' in 1975 and was awarded the degree of Ph.D.

On his return to Ireland Fr. Duggan was appointed by Bishop Birch as the first full-time director of the Ossory diocesan adult education centre at Seville Lodge. Several pastoral appointments followed (notably in Johnstown from 1976 and Ballyouskill from 1980).

In 1983 he returned to the U.S., subsequently joining the staff of Salve Regina College in Newport, Rhode Island, a co-educational college established by the Sisters of Mercy and headed at that time by Sr. Lucille McKillop, the Chicago-born daughter of Antrim parents, who served as president from 1973 to 1994 and was responsible for the institution's designation as a university in 1990. She based her approach to learning on the dictum of the her order's foundress, Catherine McAuley, who told her early Mercy sisters that a life of service could not be measured in precise amounts of time; there must always be an allowance for what might otherwise be regarded as 'wasting time'- 'you need to waste time (tempus terere) with visitors because if you only take time to do business you are not being available as a religious.'

Fr. Duggan's appointment as Priest Counsellor therefore involved helping students to adopt a more holistic approach to personal and campus life, with a strong emphasis on the spiritual, during the decade that he spent in that position. In 1995-6 he completed four units in clinical pastoral education, a requirement for hospital chaplaincy in the United States. He also graduated with a B.A. in Spanish from Salve Regina University

While based in Newport he acted as counsellor in several rehabilitation settings, including Hazelden Recovery Services in Minnesota and Corkery House Residential Treatment Center in Rhode Island. He also acted for a period of two years as week-end chaplain at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod.

In 1997 Fr. Duggan moved to the city of Coventry in Rhode Island. There he became Senior Priest in Residence at St. John and Paul parish, where colleagues and staff provided a supportive environment for almost twenty-five years. 

Although (like Bishop Hendricken) he suffered from lifelong health difficulties, and contracted a sepsis infection in 2010 that seriously affected his wellbeing, he maintained an active lifestyle.

A regular visitor to Ireland over the years (his last visit was in 2016), he maintained extensive local connections. His brothers Dick, Tom and Michael continued the Duggan name in the Glenmore community and the next generation has expanded the family's involvement in the garage and transport business. Another brother, Nicholas, who studied for the priesthood at St. Kieran's College and was ordained for  service in the Californian Diocese of Sacramento in 1962, died there in retirement in 2018 aged eighty-one. Their sisters are Mary (Sr. Vincent, Sisters of Nazareth, Dublin) and Anne (Brereton), who lives in England.