REMEMBRANCE DAY 2016

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 8^th 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.  

NEWFOUNDLAND BATTLEFIELD MEMORIAL, GUEUDECOURT, SOMME, FRANCE

He was also the driving force behind the building of the War Memorial in St John’s. 

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. 

 

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 31^st 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.