Born: Dublin, Ireland, December 27, 1821.
Took the habit: N.-D. de l’Osier, December 24, 1847.
Vows: Marseilles, December 25, 1848 (N. 230).
Priestly ordination, Ottawa, July 27, 1851.
Expelled: March 20, 1854.
Francis McDonagh was born in Dublin on December 27, 1821 and began his novitiate in Notre-Dame de l’Osier on December 24, 1847. He took vows in Marseilles on December 25, 1848. He had been admitted to profession by the General Council on the preceding December 18, together with the novices Pierre Rouge and Patrick Dalton. In the minutes of the General Council meeting the secretary general wrote: “The phlegmatic and apathetic character [of Brothers Rouge and McDonagh] will probably not be notably harmful to their studies, to their application to work. Common sense and right judgement give sufficient guarantee of the progress expected of them”. Having studied theology in the major seminary in Marseilles (1848-1850), Brother McDonagh was sent to Ottawa where Bishop Bruno Guigues of Ottawa ordained him to the priesthood on July 27, 1851.
He ministered in Ottawa cathedral from 1851 to 1854 and then asked for a dispensation from his vows. In the meeting of March 20, 1854, the general council, on the request of the provincial council of Canada, decided to expel him because this Father is “is a religious who habitually sets himself up as judge of his own actions”, “has nothing of the spirit of a religious”, “stating formally that he no longer feels the courage to observe the Rule” etc. After his departure he ministered in the diocese of Ottawa. He was in Williamstown, Ontario (1854-1858), in Onslow, Quebec (1860-1863). He then left for the United States and returned to Ottawa where he died in 1893.
Yvon Beaudoin
and Gaston Carrière, o.m.i.
