Death of Most Rev. Dr. Mangan, Bishop of Kerry
The Kerry Weekly Report, ca 1 July 1917

Funeral and Internment

The grave within the great Cathedral of Killarney, at the foot of St. Patrick's Altar, side by side with some former Bishops of the Diocese of Ardfert and Aghadoe, on Thursday received the earthly remains of the Most Rev. Dr. Mangan in the presence of priests and laity representing every part of Kerry as well as many other Irish counties etc. From it's peaceful bosom there will spring home but fond regrets and tender recollections of the dead Priest. The grateful memory of good things he did will have cut the stars so the sorrow of his people will show the truth of what he did for them. The friendship which death creates will recall only the religious spirit, the fixed and the dear .. that ..difficulties when necessary and ever .. them. Let two events be recalled today to tell the story of the Most Rev. Dr, Mangan's years as Bishop. The Cathedral was unfinished and faint hearted people spoke . The Most Rev. Dr. Mangan saw and all these questions but went ahead with the work and completed it. It was a gigantic task, carried through so quietly and indeed so quickly, that we may be disposed to forget it's magnitude. But in the record of twenty Bishops go or to come there was not, and will not be, a greater effort accomplished so well and with such little display. Thus was the other one, Edward O'Meagher Condon, the felon condemned to death in Manchester in 1867 with Allwn, Larkin, and O'Brien but reprieved because of his American citizenship, returned to his native land and visited Killarney in the summer of 1904. They faint hearted little men who were in some of the public positions in the town ran away before they would be brought in touch with the old ..; but the Most Rev. Dr. Mangan startled the backboneless creatures by inviting O'Meagher Condon to visit the Palace and partake of his lordship's hospitality!

These and such events rose before the mind as the Office for the Dead was chanted today by the Rev. D. Finneane and Re. P. O'Carroll, and the responses given by a large number of Kerry priest. During the Solemn Requiem High Mass at 11:30, of which the celebrant was the Most Rev. Dr. Harty, with the Very Rev. Dean O'Sullivan as Assistant Priest, the Very Rev. Canon Fuller Deacon and the Rev. T. Kelliher Sub-Deacon, and the Very Rev. P. J. Fitzgerald, V. F. Master of Ceremonies, the Cathedral was filled with hundreds of the clergy and laity. Afterwards the huge procession left the Cathedral , and marching by St. Margaret's Road and through High street and New street, returned. The Rev. Rev. D. J. O'Sullivan, bearing the Cross, led the procession. Behind him came the Children of Mary of the Presentation Convent, the Presentation school children, the Industrial School children, the Children of Mary of the Mercy Convent, and the Mercy School children and the Monastery School children, all of who were suitably and neatly attired and regulated. After the school children came 24 helmeted sergeants and policemen under District Inspector Cheeseman. Then followed hundreds of members of the men's and women's Confraternity of the Holy Family, about fifty school teachers, the students of St. Brendan's, ten members of the County Council, the Killarney Urban Council, members of the Tralee U.D.C. and R.D.C., twenty-five members Killarney R.D.C., nearly two hundred clergymen, including Religious Orders, the bier with coffin, and the general public. When the end was reached and the last prayers were said beside the open grave within the Cathedral, there was great sympathy by the hundreds of onlookers and a general feeling that Death had taken all too soon another of the distinguished Bishop whose name and memory will be enshrined in the annals of the Diocese of St. Brendan.

It would be impossible to give names of the laity, but the following were among the clergy: It goes on to list some 100-200 names.

Action of Tralee U.D.C.

At the monthly meeting of the Tralee Urban Council, Mr. J.M. Slattery, J. P. Chairman, presided and the other members present were -- Messrs. J. Bailey, T. Kelliher, P. O'Connor, J. McSweeney, T. Healy, J. A. Slattery, Maurice Quilan and Robert McCowen, J. P.

The Chairman said that owing to the lamented death of their respected Bishop, Most Rev. Dr. Mangan, they would transact no business today. They would adjourn their meeting as a mark of their respect for his memory. Their beloved Bishop was held in the highest esteem not only in Kerry but throughout Ireland and his business capacity on their public Boards set them an example which they all ought to copy. He proposed-"That, we the Urban District Council of Tralee deeply the widely lamented of the Most Rev. Dr. Mangan, Bishop of Kerry, and desire to associate ourselves with the priests and people of the Diocese in deploring the loss of a brilliant and saintly Prelate, a true and Patriotic Irishman and a wise and capable administrator of public affairs. That we tender to the members of his family our sincere sympathy in their bereavement and that we adjourn this meeting without transacting any business as a mark of our regret for his death and respect for his memory. That copies of this resolution be forwarded to the Very Rev. Dean O'Sullivan and to Messrs. Michael Mangan, Kilfeighney, Lixnaw and Pat Mangan Bedford, Listowel.

The above copy was an extract from articles concerning the death of Bishop John Mangan from the "The Kerry Weekly Report", ca 1 July 1917. I received this article from Father Kieran O'Shea of Knocknagoshel Presbytery, Ireland, September 2000. Not all the words were legible.

Ann Brown-Juarez

Thanks to Ann for this contribution!