Fr Michael McCarthy was born on 28 October 1939 in Bealnadeega, Co Kerry and attended Meentogues NS before going to St Brendan’s, Killarney and joined the Columbans from there in 1958.
Ordained in 1964 he was appointed to Korea and after language studies was stationed in the southern diocese of Kwangju.Within a short time he became diocesan chaplain to the Young Christian Workers (YCW). It was the beginning of a life-long involvement with people who were on the margins of society.
Before the end of his first term he moved from the city to the island parish of Huksando eight hours out in the Yellow Sea. Always ready to learn from those who had gone ahead of him, he was well grounded both in culture and language as well as pastoral skills when he took charge of his first parish in Sadangdong, Seoul in 1976.
These were years of agitation and political strife as the Church responded to the needs of the workers and the marginalized in the expanding urban areas.
As a committed Kerryman his cultural adaptability was further enhanced by a four year appointment to the Columban parish in Ballymun, Dublin in 1980.
He relished that experience for its opportunity to ‘dialogue with the Dubs’ and to discover the new Ireland in whose politics and progress he always maintained a keen interest.
By 1984 he was back in Tobong parish in Seoul before being asked to develop a new parish in Unamdong in Kwangju. From 1993, he was drawn more into the Columban effort to develop Korea as an independent Region with its own support base and training programme for overseas mission.
He made lasting friends with supporters all over the country and as usual he made sure to keep in touch over the following years. Appointed as vice Director of the Korean Region in 2004 he helped to ensure that Korean Columbans would become an essential part of our mission teams around the world.
Mick had the temperament to contribute to mission in a myriad of ways not least in sitting down to chat and share stories into the night. Ill health began curtail his ministry in latter years and he returned to Ireland diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014.
Even as his memory deteriorated he never let go of the determination to keep in touch with friends and neighbours even if he could only smile in recognition at the end.
Mick died in Dalgan Park, Navan on 5 March 2018. He was a friend for life to so many people who were blessed by his care and companionship.
May he rest in peace.
Mick McCarthy Funeral Mass 9 March 2018
Homily by Fr Noel Daly SSC
Today we celebrate and give thanks for Fr Mick McCarthy’s life and support each other in the face of his death and our own mortality. And in truth, we have much to be thankful for and much that is worth celebrating.
I know that ‘authenticity’ is not a word that Mick wouldn’t use, certainly not about himself but it is the word I can find that describes him and the life he lived.
He was genuine and honest, what you saw was what you got, and he never felt any need to be anything else, or pretend to be anyone else. He was a Kerryman, a carer and a Columban in any place and in any company.
Years ago we spent a lot of time trying to devise a programme that would train our students to be missionaries in today’s world. As I remember it, there were pages of goals, studies and activities all geared to produce the modern missionary. There was even a profile of that imaginary ideal.
Now, years later, I think we’d have done a lot better if we just introduced our students to Mick McCarthy – because that’s what they did in Korea anyway when they were looking for a role model for their students.
To Columbans everywhere he was Micky Ma. ‘Ma’ being the family name he was given during our first weeks in Korea in 1965, and it defined him almost as much Kerry did throughout his life.
Nearly everyone has stories about Mick and he certainly had stories about the rest of us. He was one of our seanchies. You could share your life with him, as I did, and not see half the fun and humour that he found in or shared experiences.
I regularly discovered that I had been party to some epic or hilarious event that I hardly remembered or probably never even noticed. But then I’d hear Mick relate it in full living colour at a late night session I’d begin to think life is passing me by…..but I could always be sure it would sound even more unforgettable the next time I heard it.
Mick was a good storyteller because he was a people person; he had and eye and an ear attuned to people and to their needs and people could see that his heart was in it too.
He brought that gift to mission and it was the one that made all the difference: positive regard for people: he was interested in people – he was concerned for them and he showed it and, all the while, he enjoyed them and their mannerisms.
The other gift he brought with him was the God he believed in. His wasn’t a God who came tailor-made, all neatly pre-packaged and ready for delivery worldwide.
His was a God who was a lot bigger than he could name, a God who would look different when they met under a Korean sky, a God he was willing to learn about.
You can see from the Mass leaflet that life for Mick was a continuing series of new challenges, from Ireland to Korea, from Kwangju to Hukdando, from Seoul to Ballymun and back to Korea to face into leadership roles for Columbans. All heavy duty, cross cultural challenges.
It is a proof of how well he coped with all of those that he was, as I said, asked to mentor and support our Korean students and lay missionaries in their years of training for mission.
But surely, the biggest challenge he faced was to do all this while fighting bouts of illness and to keep going to the end despite the onset of dementia. And that’s what he did and he did it in style.
The withering away of our golf game was typical of what was happening for him over the last few years. We used to be able to play nine holes of golf in an hour and a half, then it was down to five holes and we finished our last day managing just three….
But, despite my unwelcome suggestions, he did manage to get his drive away on the last hole and knowing well that we had come to the end of the road, he stood there admiring the flight of the ball as if it had gone 400 yards and said to no one in particular: remind me to listen to your advice the next day!
Today as we reflect on Mick’s journey across the world and beyond the horizon of death, we too are faced with the challenge to take Jesus at his word and accept that his God, is a‘God not of the dead but of the living, for to God all people are in fact alive’ (Lk 20:38). In the Christian perspective, there are no dead persons, only persons who have passed through death and are now fully alive to God and others.
This resurrection faith that defines us is woven into our sharing of grief-laden and sad of days like this. It is the thread that runs through our stubborn belief that life is still worth living, that death is not the end, …that we were born for life not death.
The time for Faith and Hope may pass away but God’s love will remain… and the shape of that love is the gift of the resurrection, our rising to unending life.
It is with that confidence and sure of that love that we can entrust Mick into God’s hands and do what he would do, finish with a story.
A Story:
Just one story from Fr Ji Kwang-kyu Peter who left here a few weeks ago after studying English and is now in the Philippines.
He was a student when Michael was in the formation house in Seoul..[Peter is the person who before he left last month bought four buckets of red roses and put one on each grave in the cemetery….That was Peter’s tribute to the Columbans who have gone before him, but it was a great tribute to Peter too and to those, like Mick, who trained him.]
Peter’s story was:
“At one of his first meals with the students in the Formation House where people were introducing themselves the one thing that they remember Mick saying was that he was really looking forward to learning about young people and the new Korea”.
And just a few months ago when Kwang-kyu came to meet again with Michael here in Dalgan, Michael could not remember him. All Michael said was “I am sorry I cannot remember you now but thank you – I received so much love from people in Korea – I was very happy there.” Peter could only say that he hoped he’d be able to say that after a life on mission.
Mick was open and honest and, sorry Mick, ‘authentic ‘up to the last and we were blessed to have him as a friend and companion. May he rest in peace.
