CORNELIUS TIERNEY (1872-1931)

Martyr for the Faith in China

Student 1893-99

 

Cornelius Tierney was born in Clones in 1872. He became a student at St. Macartan’s College in 1888. In 1893 he entered St. Patrick’s College Maynooth, and was ordained in 1899. On his ordination, Fr. Tierney returned to St. Macartan’s College as bursar and teacher.  Between 1911 and 1917 Fr. Tierney was curate in Ballyshannon and in 1918, he joined the Society of St. Columban, generally known then as the Maynooth Mission to China.

Fr. Tierney travelled to China with sixteen others priests in 1920, for the next decade  he worked with local people and his fellow Columbans as a missionary to the then civil war torn people of China. At 6.00 a.m. on a cold November morning as he was about to celebrate Mass at the  Shang Tang Hsu mission station near Kien Chang, Fr. Tierney was arrested by a communist gang who had just taken over the local area. Ill-treated by his Communist captors, a ransom of $10,000 was demanded for Fr. Tierney’s release. This demand later increased to $50,000. With no hope of the ransom been paid, his last letter to a friend included in the conclusion reference to the St. Macartan’s College motto: "Ora Deum et omnes sanctos pro me ut fortis et fidelis sum" (Pray to God and all the saints that I may be strong and faithful.)

Fr. Tierney died at the hands of his captors in the purple mountains of Central China on February 28th 1931. 

With acknowledgement to the St Macartan's College website