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| POPPIES PAINTED BY HEATHER |
Today, Remembrance Day 2016, we remember
two priests with a connection to St Patrick’s Parish who served as chaplains in
WWI and WWII.
Earlier this week, on 8th
November, Padre Thomas Nangle was recognised as a person of significance across
Canada when a commemorative plaque was unveiled at Canadian Forces Station,
Pleasantville.
Thomas Nangle was born in St John’s in
1889. In 1913, after studies in Ireland,
he was ordained a priest by Archbishop M F Howley at the Cathedral of St John
the Baptist in St John’s. Father Nangle
served St Patrick’s Parish from 1914 to 1916.
He enlisted in the Newfoundland Regiment and was its respected and well
loved chaplain. After the war, Padre
Nangle supervised the exhumation of known graves and was responsible for the erection
of the five Caribou Memorials across Europe.
Four are in France and one is in Belgium.
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| NEWFOUNDLAND BATTLEFIELD MEMORIAL, GUEUDECOURT, SOMME, FRANCE |
He was also the driving force behind the
building of the War Memorial in St John’s.
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| WAR MEMORIAL, ST JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND |
Regarding Memorials, Padre Nangle was quoted as saying that they were “monuments to our glorious dead and
to our just as glorious survivors. They
are monuments to the mothers that bore such brave sons and the land that bred
them”. Padre Thomas Nangle rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In the 1920s he left the priesthood and
settled in Rhodesia where he married and had four children. He died there in January 1972.
I knew nothing of Fr Francis James Jackman
until recently when Eleanor Dalton sent me a photo taken at St Patrick’s
Convent more than 70 years ago. Among a
group of Presentation Nuns was a smiling priest in military uniform. Eleanor didn’t know who the priest was so she
sought the help of Frank Galgay.
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| FR FRANCIS JAMES JACKMAN |
Frank was able to tell Eleanor that the
priest in question was Fr Francis James Jackman. Fr Jackman was born in 1903. During WWII, in 1941, he moved his residence
to St Patrick’s. Around that time, Fr
Jackman enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy.
He served as a Naval Chaplain for the duration of the war. On 31st December 1945 Fr Jackman
was demobilised with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
After the war Fr Jackman returned to
Newfoundland where he again took up duties as a parish priest. From 1948 until 1977 he was parish priest of
St Edwards Parish, Kelligrews. He
retired in 1977 and died four years later, in 1981. The Knights of Columbus Fr Francis Jackman Council
9303 was formed in 1986 and is named in his honour.
