'From Muckalee to Mindanao and Back' by Fr Martin Ryan

Kilkenny Columban publishes book on missionary life in Philippines

 Saturday, November 28th, 2009

Columban Father Martin Ryan at his book-launching last Sunday

I came across the report below on ciNews. There are further reports, in the Kilkenny People and Kilkenny Alive. A Happy 80th Birthday to Father Martin! He is a few weeks older than Fr Michael Sinnott, who will turn 80 on 17 December. both will celebrate their ordination anniversaries on 21 December, Father Martin his 56th and Father Michael his 55th. To both: 'Ad multos annos!' - 'To many years!'

A Kilkenny born priest who spent 55 years working as a missionary priest working in the Philippines has this week launched a new book comparing his life in Ireland to his life there. 

Columban Missionary Fr Martin Ryan’s who this month celebrates his 80th birthday and is a native of Muckalee in County Kilkenny, last Sunday launched a book entitled “From Muckalee to Mindanao and Back.” 

It is described as a missionary round trip, of a man who gave unselfishly of himself to his native parish and then to a Filipino people, and is the culmination of nearly a years work.  The former St Kieran’s College student writes fr

ankly of his school days in Muckalee, his years as a boarder in Kieran’s and his preparation for the priesthood in Dalgan, home of the Columban Fathers. 

There were many highs and lows in his missionary life, a life that was fraught with danger in a semi-feudal society.  A day of great joy was marked by the opening of the IT WORKS rehab centre for alcoholics and drug abusers, a centre that he co-founded with Filipino Rene Francisco.  Then there was the cruellest day of his missionary years when word was broken to him that his brother, Fr Lar Ryan, a fellow Columban missionary, had died in a tragic accident in the Philippines. 

In his book, Fr Martin opens his heart and tells of life as it really was, in rural Ireland and agricultural Mindanao.  He recalls the day he mitched from school and, with almost the same stroke of his pen, he condemns the power brokers who refuse to loosen their grip on might in order to make for a more tolerable life for the poor of the Philippines. 

His story has rural roots but is cosmopolitan in outlook.  Like the man himself, it is bright, breezy, all embracing, but laced with agony and ecstasy, times when he longed for Muckalee as he worked in Mindanao, occasions when he craved for the Philippines as he ministered in Kilkenny.

by Sean Ryan