Eamonn Horgan was born on 13 October 1929 at Littlefield, Co Kilkenny. He was educated at Clinstown NS and St Kieran’s College, Kilkenny.
He came to Dalgan in 1947, and was ordained priest on 21 December 1953 and assigned to Japan in 1954. His next sixty years would be spent in Japan apart from a brief three-year spell on promotion in Britain.
After language studies, his early years were spent in Kumamoto, serving successively in Yatsushiro Church, Oye Church and Tetori Church.
After a vacation in Ireland he would spend the following twelve years as Chaplain in St Joseph’s Hospital, Yokosuka.
His next appointment was to Hitoyoshi Church, again in Kumamoto. From 1980 to 1994 he served in Ryujin Church, Wakayaya. There followed the three-year spell on promotion in Britain.
On returning to Japan in 1999 he served in Minamata Church, Kumamoto, until he finally left Japan in 2013.
From this last address, from 2005, he edited the Japanese Regional Newsletter, Tayori. He enjoyed this task which gave full scope to his love of a well-turned phrase, and his editions of the magazine often bore quotations in Latin, Greek and Irish.
Eamonn was a man of wide interests. He had a lifelong fascination with Japan and its people: he admired their refinement and their many natural virtues.
He made many friends and would gladly have stayed on in Japan and been buried among its people if his failing health had not dictated that he return to Ireland.
In the four years that he spent in St Columban’s Retirement Home, he liked to be involved in everything and made valiant efforts to adapt to an Ireland that had changed so much since his youth. He died on 21st January 2019 in Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan.
May he rest in peace.
