Peter CostelloBishop James Moynagh of Calabar
by Colman M. Cooke (Columba Press, €24.99)
Nigeria is so much in the news these days due to the actual and potential conflicts there, that any book which explores in any way the making of modern Nigeria is of interest.
This biography of James Moynagh is certainly of particular Irish interest. He went from Ireland to the-then British colony as a newly-ordained priest in 1930. He remained there until 1969 when a failed peace mission at the time of the tragic war in Biafra led to his exclusion from the country.
Colman Cooke’s biography traces his life from his early years in Cavan through his schooling and his training to be a priest — a chapter of great social interest. This was a time when there was (mirabile dictu) a surplus of Irish priests, and he thought of going to an English diocese until he was persuaded by one of Bishop Shanahan’s associates to volunteer for Nigeria.
Henceforth, his life was dedicated to the Prefecture of Calabar. This biography follows the changes there from being a mission into a fully-fledged church, led by Nigerian bishops and priests.
Bishop Shanahan was a great figure, a man that (as the author quotes) was paid a warm tribute by a Nigerian historian as a man who understood that the Ibo religion needed to be transformed rather destroyed.
Fr Moynagh (later bishop) laboured to continue the task. We can follow his work through all the difficulties and clashes of personalities among the missionary community to the emergence of a new way of life, but the book ends on a less happy note.
When he left the country on that unwisely-chosen peace mission, Fr James Moynagh never expected he would not return. Excluded, he had to make a new life in some way back in Ireland.
Parish priest
A time as parish priest was not a happy one. “I suppose part of my frustration stems from isolation, which I never experienced in Africa. Part of it too from the fact that one tended to have a simplistic idealised view of the Faith among our people and the disillusion when one experiences the reality.”
Written in the summer of 1974, that last sentence speaks volumes about the changes in Irish life since he had left home in 1930.
The author does not avoid uncomfortable issues in the life of James Moynagh, a man who was energetic, forward looking and resourceful. Nigeria owes a great
deal to him and other Irish priests.
However, a clue to the present religious scene in three southern states of Nigeria is provided by the Udo Catholics, a breakaway group of led by a former mission teacher. These days Nigeria is very much a country of individual protestant ministries – here one can see it beginning.
Then there was trouble with a local devotion to the Holy Face, which departed from its French origins to become more and more akin to juju in some ways – again a trend in modern Nigeria.
This is an insightful and interesting book, not only for students of the Irish missionary movement, but anyone concerned with Africa. The author, Colman Cooke, is a Kiltegan Father, who has already written and lectured widely on the history of the Catholic Church in West Africa.
Now in retirement in Galway he has renewed his investigations. It is to be hoped that he will now turn to his doctrinal thesis to deal with the wider scene in Nigeria that lies behind the long mission of James Moynagh.