Rite and Reason: Ireland's missionaries have earned great and deserved respect at home and abroad. Their work is celebrated by Irene Lynch.
Those of us aged over 30 grew up with some knowledge of the work of our missionaries, spreading the Gospel and helping the poorest of the poor abroad.
Magazines distributed in schools, such as The Far East, gave us an insight into their day-to-day lives. The happy images in those magazines and the accompanying stories inspired many of our idealistic young men and women in the 20th century to devote their lives to the mission fields.
Their numbers peaked in the 1960s when in Nigeria alone there were more than 2,000. Today there are approximately 250. Realising, when I went to live in Nigeria, that we would never see their likes again, I decided to write a book about their extraordinary stories.
When I arrived in Lagos in September 1998, following my husband's appointment as Irish ambassador to Nigeria, my quick acclimatisation to a new environment was enhanced by early encounters with the many missionaries who visited the embassy. Their lives contrasted considerably with the relatively gilded existence of diplomats and well-heeled expatriate employees of multinational corporations.
The second week in December, in keeping with tradition since the embassy was established in 1960, brought great numbers of them to our residence for the annual Christmas dinner. This proved to be a highlight in the social calendar. These men and women radiated fulfilment, contentment - indeed joyfulness. Difficulty, struggle and illness were routinely absorbed with little fuss, and the onward push to achieve goals, such as building or funding a school or clinic, developing a social centre, offering succour to a decimated community or a family following some tragic event, was always to the fore of their minds.
It was the French missionary congregations who first ventured into west Africa in the mid-19th century. Many died within weeks of their arrival in what was then known "as the white man's grave" due to its climate and virulent tropical diseases.
Later they founded their congregations in Ireland and, in the early 20th century, worked alongside the Irish in British colonial territories. Eventually, they departed to concentrate on French West Africa. It was then that the Irish began to plough their own mission fields with a zeal equal to their French counterparts.
Sr Edith Dinan, almost 90 years and still in eastern Nigeria, recalls her early days. She arrived during the war in 1944 after a hazardous voyage on the Isipingo, which detoured to avoid enemy vessels. On arrival in Lagos, she took the train to Enugu - a journey which lasted two nights and a full day.
"When night came, I tried to get some rest but the cockroaches took over the floor. Later the train ran into a swarm of locusts which managed to enter the carriages. I was very fearful and began to wonder how I would cope with my new life." That life, since those early fretful steps, has been full of extraordinary missionary activity. Her early months were peppered with illness, fatigue and disorientation.
Fr Tim Buckley, of the Holy Ghost Congregation, arrived in 1952 and fought bout after bout of malaria until he finally got the better of it. He was one of the many who helped the Igbo people pick up the pieces after the disastrous Biafran war. "I have got very used to the life here," he told me, "and I have no wish to return home for another while."
Sr (Dr) Leonie McSweeney of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, now almost 50 years in Nigeria, feels "a deep gratitude to the Nigerian people for the happiness I have enjoyed in their country. From my earliest days in medicine and surgery right up to the present time, I have felt their encouragement. Their tolerance of white people and the mistakes we make is remarkable. I want to continue to work here as long as my health permits."
Bishop John Moore, SMA, who arrived in 1966 and who has no wish to leave, exudes exhilaration. "My years here have been wonderful and they have lived up to all my expectations, but don't have any doubt about it - you have your low days on the missions - days when you are depressed and feeling down and out. Sometimes these are brought about by bouts of malaria or it could be that you are not getting the response you expected."
Fr Jim Sheerin of the Kiltegan Fathers, who arrived in 1956 and who recently celebrated his golden jubilee, recalls with joy his early days. "I came into a church that was bubbling with development. Schools, teacher training colleges, hospitals and nursing schools were being established. Looking back on my life as a missionary, my predominant feeling is one of deep gratitude. I don't think any other way of life could have given me the excitement, the richness, the variety or the insight into the lives of so many people."
Irene Lynch is the author of Beyond Faith and Adventure - Irish Missionaries in Nigeria