From Millstreet’s West End to Nebraska and back
FR PADDY O’BYRNE RECALLS HIS TIME AS A MANAGER OF US ATHLETICS TEAM AT OLYMPICS
FOR the first time in his sixty years of priesthood, Fr. Paddy O’Byrne wasn’t able to celebrate Mass at the famous Tubrid well in his native Millstreet on Friday last.
Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the priest who returned home every Summer of the 47 years he spent in Nebraska, USA, was unable to celebrate the anniversary of his ordination with a mass at the well.
Undaunted, however,he con-celebrated a mass with the town’s Parish Priest, Fr. John Fitzgerald, to mark the occasion instead.
Fr. Paddy, now in his 80s, was ordained a priest on June 19, 1960, in All Hallows College in Dublin.
All Hallows was a Missionary seminary and Fr. Paddy and his 38 classmates were dispersed all over the Englishspeaking world. He was sent to the vast state of Nebraska.
“I went there because a neighbour across the street was a priest in Nebraska and he said to come out and that we’d be close together.
“I didn’t realise how vast a state Nebraska is until I went out and I was 320 miles from my neighbour!”
Fr. Paddy spent most of his time in Nebraska around the State capital, Lincoln, where he worked in three large parishes, a school and with local athletes.
“The school was a Catholic school which meant that the Church paid for the teachers - it was a challenging project to keep going.”
An All- Ireland champion runner before he left Ireland, the Millstreet AC man quickly became involved in athletics and athletics coaching in his new home in Lincoln.
In fact he rose through the ranks and was appointed a manager of the US athletics team which competed internationally at a number of Olympic Games.
He was at the Los Angeles Olympic Games when Carl Lewis won four gold medals, breaking a number of world records in the process, and has fond memories of the record breaking sprinter and long jump specialist. He described him as a ‘very nice guy’.
He recalls his Bishop volunteering to fill in for him on one of his many trips abroad with the US team. His greatest friend there was John McDonald, a Mayo man known as a legend of US athletics coaching.
Now running a religious goods shop in Millstreet, Fr. Paddy has two surviving brothers and two surviving sisters.
A survivor of a quadruple heart bypass, Fr. Paddy keeps hale and hearty and likes to lift weights to keep in fine fettle.
He also gives a hand to the local parish by celebrating Mass .