Irish Jesuit Province

Father Tom FinlayAuthor(s): George O'BrienSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 68, No. 801 (Mar., 1940), pp. 142-144Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20514678 .

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142

Father Tom Finlay

By PROFESSOR GEORGE O'BRIEN.

(A Short Broadcast Reproduced by Permission of Radio Eireann and of the Author.)

IN broadcasting a short obituary appreciation of Father

Finlay, I am suffering under more than one handicap. In

the first place, I am labouring under the sense of a severe

personal sorrow. By the death of Father Finlay I have lost an

esteemed colleague and a dear friend, to whose benevolence and example I am indebted more than I can express. In the second

place, there is so much that I would like to say and so little time

to say it that I am conscious of the essential inadequacy of my brief tribute. Father Finlay's life was not only very long but it

was very eventful and full of action, and no conception of his intellectual or moral stature can be presented in a talk of this

length. He was distinguished in so many different ways that it is difficult to know with which aspects of his life I should deal.

On the whole, I think that it is as a great educationist that Father Finlay will be principally remembered. His connection with University College, Dublin, extended over forty-seven years, during which he was always a dominating personality in the life of the College, both on the teaching and the administrative side. In addition to this, he had been in his younger days a very successful schoolmaster, and his rectorship of Belvedere was a

memorable chapter in the life of the school. For many years he was a Commissioner of Intermediate Education, and he also acted for nearly thirty years as Chairman of the National Library of Ireland. Wherever he went, he impressed his associates with his

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FATHER TOM FINLAY 143

strong personality, and it is perhaps not too much to say that he was the foremost influence in the educational world in Modern Ireland.

It must not be concluded that Father Finlay was a mere academic or pedantic figure. On the contrary, he was essentially a man of action who had no use for theory that was unrelated to practice. Nobody, with the possible exception of Sir Horace Plunkett, did more than he did to lay the foundations of the Irish agricultural revival. As Vice-President of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society he did endless service to the cause of co-operation, and as a member of the Recess Committee he helped in the movement that led to the foundation of the Department of Agriculture. He was intensely interested in reviving Irish industry, especially in the West, and the Providence Mills at

Foxford owe their success largely to his energetic assistance. All his writings and all his lectures had a practical bent. He was an extraordinarily good University lecturer-fluent, lucid and ironical, and an equally good preacher. But in his lectures and his sermons alike, eloquence was always directed to obtaini-ng practical results.

Father Finlay, as a priest, a teacher, and a friend, moulded the lives of a good many people and left his mark on more than one generation. He valued character above ability, and pointed to a sturdy independence as the quality most needed by the Irish people. By way of example to others, he put up buildings with his own hands, while his colleagues were wasting their time on deputations seeking for grants for building. What attracted him in the co-operative movement was the spirit of self-help that it engendered; and, while he was prepared to agitate for public assistance when it was necessary, he believed that there was a large field within which the individual could improve his lot by means of his own endeavour. He was an individualist in the good sense

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144 THE IRISH MONTHLY

of the much abused word, a believer in men rather than institu

tions, in liberty rather than restraint. For his own part he prac tised a sturdy independence of thought and action. Once he was convinced of the correctness of a principle or a course of

behaviour, he acted on the strength of his conviction, quite undeterred by considerations of expediency or popularity.

The reason why Father Finlay was so confident in thought and

action was because his life was based on firm philosophical and ethical foundations. Behind all his dialectical brilliance, social charm and practical activity, there abode a simple Christian

Priest, full of good deeds and pity for the poor. No friend of his had any conception of the network of charity that centred

around him in all directions. There will be many listeners to this broadcast who, like myself, have benefited in one way or another from Father Finlav's kindness. Let us resolve to honour his

memory by practising these virtues of independence, integrity, toleration and charity, in which he set so shining an example.

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