Father Richard’s Story
I was born in 1976 and grew up in Dublin, the eldest of four children. I can’t really remember when the idea first came to me, but from at least before I was ten I can remember thinking that I’d like to be a priest. I don’t know what the attraction was, but the whole idea really appealed to me, looking back it seems like it was always there, probably nurtured by my experience serving Mass and being involved in music and choirs. Read more >
Brother Laurence’s Story
I was born in Dublin in the 1930s, the fourth of nine children, and it was a very different time to today. I had a brother who had joined the Dominicans and there were several people living around us at home who went away to be priests and brothers and nuns and these things made me think.
My parents were great people – my father was a real Christian man, he would give away his last penny and deprive himself for the sake of others and my mother was a great woman to pray. Read more >
Brother Malachy’s Story
I have no ‘Road to Damascus’ type of experience to recount. Instead, my vocational journey was just a slow realisation over a long period of time that God was calling me to the monastic way of life in Mount St Joseph Abbey.
I was born on 3 July 1965. I grew up in what I could probably be described as a normal working class northside Dublin family. Religion would have played a part in family life, though not a major part. One of my earliest memories is of the large children’s illustrated Bible that was in the house. Read more >