History made as Br Salvador turns 100

History was made in Multyfarnham when Br Salvador Kenny became the first Franciscan Friar in the 800-year history of the Province to reach the age of 100 years. Fellow friars and family gathered to mark the occasion.

This amazing man started out as a psychiatric nurse in St Loman’s Hospital, Mullingar, and went on to serve as a friar, tailor, music hall events organiser, and caregiver to those less fortunate.

His career with the Franciscans started in Multyfarnham and took him to Killarney, Merchant’s Quay, Dublin, Rome, and Louvain in Belgium, and now back to Multyfarnham.

John was one of four children born to Matt and Helen Kenny, née Stewart, in Killoe, County Longford. Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner after his celebrations, Br Salvador explained that his mother was born one side of Killashee and his father the other.

His father worked in the United States, on the buses, for about 10 years. He was there during World War I but avoided conscription because the buses were deemed an essential service.

When he returned, he married Helen Stewart. “The marriage was arranged, but it worked out,” Br Salvador commented.

The family moved to Edgeworthstown when John was seven and he and his siblings, Matthew, Tommy and Annie, walked “to school through the fields”. He went on to study at the tech in Longford for two years.

When he was 21, John got a place on the training course at St Loman’s Hospital, then the Mental Hospital.

He worked there from 1946 to 1952, a time when new treatments were being introduced and when there were about 100 staff, medical, nursing and general services, and 1,200 patients – “it was packed… We worked 56 hours a week and the pay was fairly good,” Br Salvador recalled.

He played left full back with the St Loman’s football team, then counting on players from several counties.

“We won the championship for the first time when I was there; I don’t know how long we were attempting it, but we won it,” he chuckled.

It was while he was working in St Loman’s that John felt the urge to change to “a regular spiritual life”.

“I would go to Mass in the chapel any morning I was free and, coming out of Mass one morning, the chaplain, Fr Finian O’Connor, said would I not go the whole way.

“We started chatting and I looked into it. I hadn’t the standard of education to go immediately into the priesthood, but I was thinking of a religious life, not the priesthood,” Br Salvador explained.

He cycled out to Multyfarnham to the Franciscan Friary, but the man he met there told him he was told old, his brain had been formed.

Not daunted, John subsequently returned to the Friary and met a different man, who agreed to “look into it”, and put him in touch with other friars.

Eventually, John Kenny joined the Franciscan Noviciate in Killarney and was subsequently accepted on a two-year course.

The Guardian in Killarney was eager to get the community more involved with the Order. A hall was built and Br Salvador was put in charge of getting professional entertainment groups to perform there. “We were more involved with the community, which was a new departure,” Br Salvador explained.

His involvement in community work continued when he moved to Merchant’s Quay in Dublin. “There was a brother there who was helping dropouts, people looking for money or something to eat. I suggested I might help him, and he said great, and handed the whole thing over to me,” Br Salvador laughed.

There were 100 to 150 coming in for tea and a sandwich every week, but it developed into more eventually, he remarked.

Br Salvador was also enlisted to do tailoring. “They needed someone to make habits because the Brother that was doing it got interested in the Missions and went to Africa where he spent the rest of his life. I got the job,” he laughed.

Br Salvador spent time in Rome and was there in 1958 when Pope Pius XII died. He also spent time in the Franciscan College in Louvain, Belgium.

One of his most memorable travels is a trip he and his sister Annie made to Rome with the Legion of Mary during the Holy Year 1950, before he joined the Order. “Someone left us in on a pony and trap to the station in Edgeworthstown and we got the train to Dublin.

“We had luggage, but my sister asked a shopkeeper to mind it for us and we went exploring the city before returning in the evening for the boat,” he remembers.

They travelled by boat, then train, then boat again and then train again, landing in Paris where the Legionnaires showed them the sights before they got the train on to Rome.

“We had a great week in Rome. Accommodation was arranged for us not far from St Peter’s, and activities were organised,” he said.

Br Salvador attributes his long life to healthy living and never having smoked.

He now lives at Portiuncula Nursing Home, Multyfarnham, on the grounds of the Franciscan Friary, where it all began more than 70 years ago.