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South China Morning Post

Former La Salle College principal on his tenure in Hong Kong

I WAS BORN IN 1942 on a small farm in the west of Ireland. We were poor; no toilet, no electricity. We did have animals, cows and pigs, turkeys and hens, but it was hand to mouth, because we were a big family. There were 12 children and I was No 12. We sold milk and eggs. It was a village called Snugboro, near Castlebar in County Mayo. Castlebar is the county town and there was a La Salle school there and that's where I went. In Primary Six, a recruiter (for the Catholic La Salle order) came in and said, 'Would you like to join the brothers?' I raised my hand. That was the beginning, 70 years ago. My oldest brother, Thomas, also joined the La Salle brothers. Brother Patrick's novitiate group, 1958-59, at Castletown, County Laois, Ireland. Photo: courtesy Brother Patrick MY MOTHER HAD to go shopping for pyjamas, shoes and football boots; I really wanted those. We didn't have a football apart from in Primary Four, when Brother Conleth organised the town into street leagues. That was Gaelic football, of course. I was sent to Mallow, in County Cork, to this place run by the brothers and then on to County Laois to prepare for O-levels. Then we had to do one year of spiritual formation. That was tough. There was a lot of prayer, a lot of chapel and a lot of manual labour as they had big grounds. There was a lot of silence. Brother Patrick (left), Sister Maria, principal of Sacred Heart Canossian College, and G.J. Grant, of the University of Hong Kong, attend a geography exhibition at St Joseph's College in 1977. Photo: SCMP Archives LA SALLE IS ALL ABOUT education. (The De La Salle Brothers, officially called the education. (The De La Salle Brothers, officially called the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools , was set up in France in 1680 and is a Catholic order dedicated to education.) So the mission basically is educating young people, hopefully for the betterment of society in the future. To me, it's the most beautiful vocation in the world. We're dealing with young people who help us to be young also in mind and heart. SO THAT WAS THE novitiate year and we were asked, 'Would anyone like to go to the Far East?' And up went my hand. First we went to England, and it was there that we did our A-levels and teacher training college. Two years in the beautiful Berkshire countryside in a village called Kintbury. And then three years at a teacher training college run by the brothers in Middleton, on the outskirts of Manchester. This was the early 60s, and that's where some of us fell in love with Manchester United, because you had these legends there. You know, 1963, 64, you had Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, George Best. We were sometimes allowed to go to Old Trafford and watch them. We hardly ever saw them lose, not like nowadays, where they're losing quite a bit. Brother Patrick as a student at University College Dublin in the late 1960s. Photo: courtesy Brother Patrick IN 1964, TWO OF US were were selected for Hong Kong . My first assignment was St Joseph's College. In 1967, I had a very good view from the roof of our college, which is on Kennedy Road, looking down at the Hilton Hotel intersection where rioting occurred . I also had a very good view of the students marching up, chanting and holding up Mao Zedong's 'little red book'. I TAUGHT for four years – English, religious studies and PE (physical education). Then, after a holiday with my family in Ireland, I was sent to University College Dublin, where I studied English literature and history, mainly of Europe. We had a great time at university. I got into bad habits, including smoking. Everybody smoked. You could not imagine having a Guinness without smoking. But I got rid of all that later. We were also sent to help out in orphanages or homes for delinquents because we ran some of these. I was sent to Northern Ireland and again, wow, 69 was the riots in Northern Ireland. It was a bad time but we continued to run the schools. By the time I finished university, it was the early 70s and I carried on teaching at St Joseph's. Then the principal had to go to our secondary school in the New Territories, and I was kicked upstairs (made principal of St Joseph's College in 1974). The old boys still talk about how they got out of the shanties of Lion Rock, Diamond Hill, Sham Shui Po and so on, when they were accepted here, and the huge change it made in their lives. We had a nice mix of them, the middle class and then some who were rather well off. Brother Patrick (right) with his eldest brother, Thomas. Brother Patrick is the youngest of 12 siblings. Photo: courtesy Brother Patrick