Courtney McGrailby J. Anthony Gaughan
Former Minister for Education Martin McGuinness once described Canon Patrick Marron as formidable, and so he is. This is clear from Fr Marron’s recollections of his life-long service in the Diocese of Clogher.
Born in Carrickmacross in 1932, Marron was educated at the local Patrician Brothers’ school and later in St McCartan’s College. His description of his experiences in those institutions will resonate with his contemporaries. There was corporal punishment, an over-emphasis on examination results and a deficit of other aspects of education.
The regime in St McCartan’s was modelled on that in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and that probably explains the author’s rather brief account of the seven years he spent in the National Seminary.
Following his ordination in 1957 Marron, with five colleagues, was appointed to teach in the newly opened St Michael’s College in Enniskillen. The early years were challenging. Initially the priests had to find lodgings in the town and, owing to a lack of space, at times classes had to be held concomitantly in the one classroom!
At that time people in Southern Ireland had only a notional rather than a real knowledge of the plight of Catholics in Northern Ireland. Marron was shocked when he came face-to-face with the discrimination conducted against his fellow-Catholics in County Fermanagh.
Seventy two of the 74 school-bus drivers were either of a Protestant denomination or of no religion in a county where the majority were registered as Catholics. Catholics failed to be appointed to positions on being judged to be ‘too well-qualified’ or because of their surnames or schools they attended.
In Fermanagh there were just a few Catholics in the professions and none in the county’s library service. Marron and his colleagues regarded education as the key to this deplorable situation and, owing to the influence of St Michael’s and campaigns organised by the Civil Rights Association, a more equitable balance to society was achieved within a generation.
Challenging attempts by Unionists to continue to dominate society in Fermanagh was not easy. Marron was as fearless in that regard as Frs Denis Faul and Raymond Murray. He recalls an extraordinary exchange with a solicitor, named Cooper, a relative of Harry West, MP.
She was attempting to have his name and those of his colleagues in St Michael’s taken off the Register of Voters by alleging ‘Insufficient Residence’, after they had spent seven years in Enniskillen!
Opposition
At a public hearing he faced her down and pointed out that one of the priests had been born and raised in the house opposite her office.
During his years teaching Irish Marron published a number of textbooks on the subject. Also, as a keen student of current affairs, he frequently contributed to topical discussions in magazines and the press.
Much of Marron’s autobiography is a catalogue of worthwhile projects he completed during the course of his various appointments.
A rugged individualist, his initiatives and interventions at times upset some people and even occasionally the bishop.
However, this did not deter him from being ‘a man of the people’ and the esteem in which he was held by those he served was for all to see.
Now in the sunset of his ministry, Paddy Marron is as active as ever. May he continue to flourish.