By Fr Seán Coyle
Co-founders Fr Edward Galvin and Fr John Blowick (seated) with Fr Owen McPolin, China 1920
On Sunday 9 October this year 31 priests and 16 lay missionaries went to Tagaytay City for a two-week meeting of Columbans under the age of 50. Among them was our Superior General, Fr Kevin O’Neill, who in a recent letter wrote: On 9 October 1916, in a ground-floor room of the main college building at Maynooth [St Patrick's College, the National Seminary of Ireland], the 28-year-old Fr John Blowick had the nerve to face the Standing Committee of the Irish Bishops and to present his and Fr Edward Galvin’s scheme for a new mission. After about half an hour’s talk with the bishops, [Michael] Cardinal Logue [Archbishop of Armagh] said that they were prepared to grant their approval for the two things Blowick requested, namely, the making of a collection in the country and the foundation of a Mission College in Ireland.
