That their good deeds may not be forgotten by Cornelius Lynch
Book Launch,
Macroom
9 November 2025
A Cháirde,
Táim fior bhuíoch do Con don chuireadh a bheith i bhfur is measc don on foilseacháin iontach seo “That their Good Deeds May not be Forgotten” a seoladh agus a scaoileadh ós bhur comhair.
My friends,
It’s a joy and privilege to accept the invitation from Con Lynch, to launch this wonderful publication, “That their good deeds may not be forgotten.”
The feast of All the Saints of Ireland, is celebrated on November 6th just in this past week. On that feast, the Church proposes a Reading from the Book of Ecclesiasticus 44: 1-15.
Its opening line reads,
“Let us praise illustrious men and women
Our ancestors in their successive generations
The Lord has created an abundance of glory
and displayed his greatness from earliest times.”
The Reading goes on to list the many ways in which they may have distinguished themselves in life and then remarks,
“Some of them left a name behind them
So that their praises are still sung
While others have left no memory
and disappeared as though they have never existed.”
My friends, it’s been a long held thought in Con’s mind, that from these parishes there are and have been an illustrious cohort of women and men who emerged from our families and parishes and went forth to the ends of the earth accomplishing great and small things in the communities they lived among and served. It is to Con’s credit they or their deeds not be forgotten.
Here is a list of the illustrious women and men
whose good works have not been forgotten.
In their descendants there remains a rich inheritance born of them.
Ecclesiasticus 44:10
My friends, this work of compilation and recall of so many facts, insights and accomplishments, by so many by its very title, “that their good deeds may not be forgotten,” invites us to reflect on the nature of our remembering today. It was John O’Donoghue, the late philosopher and poet, whom I first heard making the distinction between the kind of memory that a computer has, as against the nature of our personal memory of people and the impact that our interaction with them has had and often continues to have on our lives. Our remembering today is more than a storage of facts but a living recollection.
One of the insights being offered by those seeking to understand what’s happening today in the country and in the Church, is that there is a steady loss of Christian memory and identity. On a personal level, many families know only too well, the experience of dementia and Alzheimer’s. The loss of memory leads to a loss of relationship to the point of disengagement; because there is no longer the common ground of shared memory and experience. The emotional loss is painful because a person without memory is but a shadow of themselves.
So too in society. For that reason, we’re blessed to now have this volume. It is an exceptional retrieval of a cherished segment of the faith memory of the parishes of Macroom, Clondrohid and Cill na Martra. The last century or more is widely acknowledged as a golden era of missionary endeavour from Ireland to the ends of the earth.
Con and his team have done us a great service of compilation of the contribution made by those who responded to that call from these parishes – Your brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins. This work is a gift to us in this generation but more so to new generations whose parents will tell them the stories of other days.
These women and men whose lives and mission are recorded in these pages are and have been people of exceptional nobility of mission, gift and character. Their good deeds are beyond counting. You their families are rightly proud of their accomplishments. Their lives are distinguished by a boundless sense of generosity.
They went from here with a clear intent to share and be ‘Good News’ wherever they were called to serve. My Lord, what a crop they have sown, and their harvest is boundless. It’s no wonder because so many prayed the prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
“Teach us, Good Lord to serve you as you deserve
To give and not count the cost
To fight and not heed the wounds
To toil and not seek for rest
To labour and not ask for reward
Except that of knowing we are doing you will.”
So many names included in this collection have gone to their eternal reward – so many having been laid to rest among the people they served. We pray the reward of their goodness upon them. Thankfully, there are many too who continue to share the pilgrim journey with us. We thank them for their noble witness and pray continue blessing of health and serenity upon them.
