Br. Raymond came to Iosagain in 1970 and spent, in total, 19 years there. He is fondly remembered by all who knew him and as reflected in a few comments in an article written by Br. Kevin.
Brother Raymond Grainger (1915-2007)
In the 1901 census, Edward (59) and Margaret (49) Grainger lived in Belrose, Knockavilla with their son, William (19) and five daughters, Mary (27), Margaret (26), Ellen (15), Jane (12) and Honora (10). Both Edward and Margaret were fluent in both Irish and English and they farmed at Belrose, Knockavilla, in the parish of Innishannon, just north of Crossbarry, Co Cork.
1901 Census: Residents of a house 4 in Belrose (Knockavilly, Cork)
| Surname | Forename | Age | Sex | Relation to head | Religion |
| Grainger | Edward | 59 | Male | Head of Family | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | Margaret | 49 | Female | Wife | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | Mary | 27 | Female | Daughter | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | Margaret | 26 | Female | Daughter | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | William | 19 | Male | Son | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | Ellen | 15 | Female | Daughter | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | Jane | 12 | Female | Daughter | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | Honora | 10 | Female | Daughter | Roman Catholic |
Ten years later, in the 1911 census, Edward Grainger is a widower living with his son, William, and two daughters Ellen and Jane and three grandchildren.
1911 Census: Residents of a house 4 in Belrose (Knockavilly, Cork)
| Surname | Forename | Age | Sex | Relation to head | Religion |
| Grainger | Edward | 71 | Male | Head of Family | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | William | 28 | Male | Son | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | Ellen | 24 | Female | Daughter | Roman Catholic |
| Grainger | Jane | 23 | Female | Daughter | Roman Catholic |
| Ford | Catherine | 9 | Female | Grand Daughter | Roman Catholic |
| Ford | Margaret | 7 | Female | Grand Daughter | Roman Catholic |
| Shea | Patrick | 3 | Male | Grand Son | Roman Catholic |
By all accounts, Willie Grainger was a successful farmer. As was the practice of the time, he ran a mixed farm but he was also an agricultural contractor and owned two steam engines which he used when threshing in the locality.
Brother Raymond was born on 26 March,1915, and was baptized the following day in the Church of the Sacred Heart, Ballyheada by Rev. P. Coveney. His baptismal sponsors were Edward Grainger, his grandfather (after whom he was named) and Catherine McCarthy, a sister of his mother, Nora. Three more children were born to Willie and Nora – John Joe, Margaret and Liam who was born on 28 April,1920. Sadly, that was also the same day that Nora died from complications in giving birth to Liam. Nora was just thirty-six years of age. She was buried in the McCarthy plot in the old cemetery in Ballinhassig where her father, John C. McCarthy, was buried in February,1910, aged 62 and her mother, Kate, was buried in February,1918.
It was a devastating blow for Willie to lose his wife of just over eight years and mother to four children under five years of age, including a new-born baby. Years later, Brother Raymond (fondly known in The Square as Uncle Eddie) told Eamonn, his nephew, that one of his earliest memories in life was when his baby brother, Liam, was put into bed alongside him following the death of his mother; Eddie would have been five years at that time.
As often happens in such occasions, the family and neighbours rallied around Willie to support him during those very difficult days – and no one more than Nan O’Mahony. In the words of her grand-niece, Teresa Buckley, Nan was “was a woman ahead of her time in many ways. She had tried to be a nun but she came out and reared my father’s family (Liam Grainger) as his mother died in childbirth when he was born. She also tried marriage but by all accounts didn’t hang around when it wasn’t working out. She was a wonderful woman and went in to a home for the last few years of her life where she seemed to be happy. She was never a burden to anyone.”
Teresa’s brother, William, said about Nan, “She lived in a house in the Glen in Glenbrook, Co. Cork, close to where I was born. She was a midwife. Nan had some problems with her marriage, so she left him and devoted most of her life working as a midwife and helping people like a lay nun. There was a family in Rochestown called the Hoopers who lost their mother so Nan moved in and reared their five children while Mr. Hooper went out to work. A few years later she moved into Tooreen Terrace, Glenbrook. In the 60s, I used to call to her on a Sunday on my way to a date and she always gave me half a crown! Growing up in our family if we were worried about anything, the saying was “say a prayer to Auntie Nan”; she was always there to help people in need.”
Eddie Grainger’s father, Willie, remarried but there were no children in the second marriage.
Willie Grainger’s younger sister, Ellen, (aka Nellie) married William J. Joyce and one of their sons, Edward, was born on 15 January, 1915, just two months before Raymond was born. Coincidentally, both of them were named after their grandfather; it was a common practice in bygone days to name the first boy in the family after the paternal grandfather. Their future lives would also follow parallel paths as both of them would later leave home to join the De La Salle Brothers around the same time.
One of Brother Augustus’s brothers, Fr. Tom Joyce SDB, described beautifully life on the Grainger farm when they were children. He wrote:
“They were wonderful days, and God in his providence opened up pastures new for both Ned (Brother Augustus) and our first cousin Eddie Grainger (Brother Raymond) with St. John Baptist de La Salle. As a young fellow I was impressed by the easy rapport of our first cousins. They farmed in West Cork and it was there that we learned how to milk the cows by hand and maybe be surprised by a jet of milk by an old hand who could aim a stream of fresh milk in different directions at a tangent above the bucket. We also covered our knees with sacks and binding twine when thinning and weeding the drills of young turnips and mangolds. The taste of the buttermilk and the memory of real butter we helped to churn are still fresh in my memory. We spent days in the hayfields bringing small cocks of hay to a central spot, using horse and rope, where bigger cocks were made in the fields. These cocks were then later brought to the haggard for winter feed.
We always associated the sound of the corncrake with life on Graingers’ farm. What a healthy life it was, full of fond memories! Uncle Willie was their Daddy and a young boy’s idol. He was one happy man and a wonderful raconteur of history and story and he laughed heartily. He was also a quiet, good and well-read man. We did all our tasks generously because of him. I think his eldest son, Eddie, took after his scholarly father.”
Fr. Tom Joyce also gave another insight into the early life of Eddie when he wrote, “Road bowling was very popular in that part of Cork when we were growing up. We three ‘the bowl of odds’ [when one bowler is one full shot fewer than his opponent, i.e., when a bowler is equal to or farther in distance than his opponent, but has thrown one less shot,] with a twelve or fourteen ounce bowl in friendly competitions along the country roads uninhibited by traffic which was thin on the ground in those days. Even the fighting men of different hues who billeted for periods in our area at various times did not trouble our young lives. But we saw the Black and Tans walk in and out during our dinner times to commandeer a horse and butt (cart), and later, from our position in a high field where we were at work, we saw the horse and butt over the road returning like a scene from the film ‘Ben Hur’!
Brother Joe Reid remembered the following about Raymond’s early life, “He told me much about his early life in Cork and how he was familiar with the family of Bro Charles Henry Buttimer former Superior General. Some Buttimers remained in Cork after Bro Charles’s family emigrated to the USA. Bro Raymond told me that his family was related to the Buttimers. He told me when I enquired that both their names were not typical Cork names that they had their origin in Huguenot migrations to Ireland. For reasons that he did not explain their families had converted to Catholicism.
Eddie attended the local national school at Ballyheeda where he got a good grounding in the basics including Latin and Greek under the tutelage of Johnny Hennessy. He already had a good teacher in his father, Willie, who clearly passed on to Eddie his love of books. Eddie was an avid reader throughout his life and he particularly enjoyed reading Western novels and he was a great fan of Louis L’Amour.
Where and how Eddie first heard of the De La Salle Brothers is not too clear. It was common practice in those days for ‘recruiters’ to travel the countryside visiting national schools searching for likely candidates to join the Brothers. Clearly, Eddie came from a strong, Catholic, traditional family – as did his cousin Ned Joyce: two of Ned’s brothers, Tom and Willie, became Salesian priests and worked in Passaskenry and Hong Kong respectively, while one of his sisters, Frances, joined the Presentation Sisters, was given the name Sister Immaculata, and spent some years in the convent in Dungarvan.
Eddie Grainger went to the De La Salle Juniorate in Castletown on 16 August, 1929 and was followed by his first cousin, Ned Joyce, the following year in March 1930. Eddie would have spent two years in Castletown preparing for his Inter Cert examination which he would have done in 1931. Castletown would have afforded Eddie the opportunity to measure his prowess in various fields against his peers from other parts of the country. Brother Damien Brady wrote, “When I arrived in Castletown in 1930 Ned Joyce’s class was due to take the Inter in 1931. They were a terrific class. Top of the class was a boy named Walsh from Muine Bheag (Bagenalstown) who studied Spanish on his own and secured honours in that subject. Next came a boy called Mulcahy who left the Novitiate and became a priest. The following names figured high up on the scale: Raymond Grainger, Fidelus McHugh, Augustus Joyce, Albert Traynor and Tom O’Brien. Brother Lawrence O’Toole was our English teacher.”
Having completed his Inter Cert, Eddie and his group moved on to the next stage of their formation as De La Salle Brothers: the Postulancy, which was a preparation period of approximately three months which preceded the Novitiate. He was formally received into the Institute on 14 August, 1931, put on the religious habit of the Brothers for the first time and was given the names Raymond George to signify the beginning of his new life which he came to love over the next seventy-five years or so. The ascetical Brother Albert Walsh was his Director of Novices until he was later succeeded by Brother Fintan Blake.
The novitiate lasted one full calendar year and on 15 August, 1932, the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Brother Raymond and his novitiate group made their first vows following a week’s Retreat. With the traditional canonical vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, he also vowed to “go wherever I may be sent and to do whatever I may be assigned by the body of the Society or its superiors.”
Located in South County Kilkenny and just three miles outside Waterford City, Greenville House, Kilmacow, was bought by the Brothers and used as a Scholasticate or a House of Studies for the young Brothers. By the time Raymond went there on 9 September, 1932, there were about thirty Brothers there between students and staff. Brother Lawrence O’Toole described life in Kilmacow in 1933 as follows: “Every Saturday I used to accompany Brother Berchan, the Director, and the Scholastics on the weekly walk. We (the senior Brothers) were a community of seven: Brother Berchan Close, Director; Brother Basilian Maguire was in charge of the farm; Brother Calixtus of the dairy; Brother Elias of the kitchen; and three of us teaching Brothers. Our little chapel was devotional and of course all the spiritual exercises were carried out with great regularity. One had only to step outside the door to be in the heart of the country and there were lovely spots all round, particularly by the river where one could stroll and relax.”
The Brothers followed a course of studies prescribed by the Ministry of Education for the Easter Scholarship Exam (known as the King’s Scholarship exam until 1921) including Irish, English, Mathematics, History, Geography, Drawing, Music and Botany. If a student passed the examination the following Easter he was eligible to enter the Teacher Training College in Waterford. Needless to say, Raymond passed his exams with flying colours at the end of the year and on 15 September, 1933, he made the short journey into Waterford city to begin his two-year training as a national (primary) school teacher.
In the Training College Raymond followed the usual gamut of subjects including English, Irish, Geometry, Algebra, Music, Christian Doctrine, Art and Pedagogy. Teaching practice was conducted in St Stephen’s Street School. The College was attended by both lay students and Brothers and there was a wonderful positive interaction among all students both in the classroom and on the playing field. Raymond often spoke of the boating trips the Brothers would take on the river Suir to Duncannon beach and around Little Island on the eastern outskirts of Waterford City. He also spoke of the long walks to the Barrow Bridge, Dunmore East and Tramore – not to mention the 100 mile round trips by bicycle to Thurles for the Munster hurling finals – although it was unlikely that these trips were made during these years. Clearly, fitness wasn’t an issue for Raymond and his peers and the lines of Wordsworth’s The Prelude come to mind: ““Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive but to be young was very heaven.” It was during these years that he developed a love relationship with Waterford and its hinterland; it was a relationship that would extend over a period of thirty-four years of his active life.
For some reason, Raymond did not sit his examinations at the end of the first year; the records indicate “A” or absent after his name. Whatever the reason, he certainly more than made up for it the following year when he came third in a class od eighty students; he was graded in the “1st Division” category (there were four divisions) equivalent to a first class honours in today’s parlance. Odd also that mathematics was not one of the subjects examined in that exam; had that subject been included he would surely have been first in his class.
In the centenary booklet brought out by the Brothers and the people in Hospital “De La Salle Brothers, Hospital, Co Limerick – Centenary 1893 – 1993”, it is noted:
“The first De La Salle Brothers arrived in Hospital in early September, 1893. They lived initially in a cottage attached to the Green House, next to where the current Ball Alley stands. In December, 1894, the community moved to Lower Main Street, to a house originally built in 1786 as a residence for Lord Kenmare’s agent.
The Brothers commenced teaching on 11 September, 1893, across the road in a building which was originally built as a market house and corn store. It remains one of the finest buildings along the main street with beautiful stone work and a fine central archway.
A letter from the Provincial, Brother Edmund Henry in the early 1900s to the local Director, Brother Thomas Daly, gives some idea of the richness of the syllabus covered in the school at the time which includes “practical gardening, bee keeping, poultry keeping, cultivation of fruit, drawing, typewriting, shorthand, elementary science, woodwork and ironwork.” In 1907 a grant of £80 was secured to equip a science laboratory in the school.”
Brother Raymond arrived from the Training College in Waterford on 28 June 1935. In the history of the community for that year it is written: “Brother Raymond George, who finished his course of training as a teacher in July 1935, was appointed Brother Raphael (Kelly’s) successor on the school staff.” It was also noted that Brother Aurelian Martin also came on the staff on 4 November the same year as a “supernumerary”. At first he worked in the primary school, but during those years there was a move afoot to open a secondary school and that dream was realized in 1940. Again, in the house records, it is noted on 9 December 1940: “Brother Raymond Grainger is still here in Hospital but has been transferred to our Secondary School here since last September.”
Raymond was to spend his next twelve years in this corner of south County Limerick – eight years in Hospital and four years in Bruff a distance of just over five miles away. He was not only young but energetic with energy to burn and he had plenty of opportunities to burn that energy during his stay in Hospital and Bruff. It was – and still is – a very strong hurling area and in 1934 the Hospital minor team beat Ahane in the county final: “The match was played in Croom on 12 June 1934. It was the first honour of its kind ever secured by Hospital. The boys were trained by Brother Raphael Kelly.” In the Hospital centenary booklet, Max Manahan reminisced about his days with the Brothers in the thirties: “The Brothers’ influence on us did not finish in the classroom or school yard. Sports’ meetings were very popular at that time and we cycled to all the surrounding fixtures to matches in Kilmallock and Limerick, usually accompanied by one or two Brothers; this hardened us for the road in later years when we cycled to Thurles for the Munster finals. The Brothers also arranged “big deals” for us in getting in for half price to plays and concerts in Mitchell’s Hall. At one time we had a Brother who was keen on fishing and shooting and I can remember many visits to Lough Gur and the Morning Star River near Elton for pike fishing.”
Brother Raymond was transferred to the nearby Bruff community on 29 October 1943 where he joined Brothers Philip Hanrahan (Director), Carthage Bohan and Polycarp Lenihan as An Bráthair óg; Brother Carthage was to spend fifty of the Brothers’ sixty-seven years teaching in Bruff and he and Raymond were to soldier together again in Ballyvourney in the seventies and the eighties. When Raymond started teaching in Bruff his monthly salary was £18; Philip’s was £33, Carthage’s £28 and Polycarp’s pension amounted to £14. By the time he moved to Wicklow in September 1950 his salary had increased to £28. During those years there were about a hundred pupils attending the primary school. In December, 1944, it was noted that Raymond had 52 pupils in his class (over half the total number) while Carthage and Philip had 26 and 22 respectively. Raymond taught the lower classes and he often remarked that they were among the happiest years of his life.
Tom Bulfin, a native of Bruff and a past pupil and principal of St Patrick’s Monastery School spoke very warmly of his own school memories and particularly of the memories of his father of Brother Raymond: “My dad’s passion was hurling and he often mentioned that he had hurled with Raymond and that he was ‘a lovely hurler’; I knew from the way my Dad talked about Raymond that he had a great regard for him.” He recalled how Raymond played hurling in The Grove down by the Morning Star River during lunchtime when he would stand in goals with his hurley and use his black robe to stop the ball from passing the goal-line. Tom continued: “I have in my possession an old Bruff GAA minute book and this clearly shows Brother Raymond’s interest and influence in the club. He was appointed chairman on 17 December 1943 and he was to remain in this position until the AGM on 4 January 1948 when he was given a going away present of ‘a fountain pen and a pencil.’” In the minutes of the GAA records of that time it was noted: “Before the meeting concluded, a presentation of a fountain pen and pencil was made to Brother Raymond on behalf of the club.” In the same minutes it was also proposed that “Brother Raymond be made a life long member of the club.”
In his account of The Brothers of Bruff, Bernard O’Donovan wrote: “Looking back on our first years in school, it was a world of fun and fear; of building blocks and toys; of blackboards and chalk; of copybooks and pencils. We recall our first attempts to write – those endless strokes and curves on our lined copybooks – and it endured endlessly. Sometimes we ran home only to return under escort to be reprimanded or spanked for our disobedience. There was no appeal. We had to toe the line as well as write legibly on it! The Brothers came in all sizes: tall and small, stout and slim, young and old, cross and easy ones; but what they all had in common was a dedicated devotion to teaching.”
Between 1947 until his graduation with a Bachelor’s Degree in Science, Brother Raymond was based in Ely Place while attending lectures in Earlsfort Terrace in those elegant buildings now occupied by the National Concert Hall. Houses 2 – 4 Ely Place, just off Stephen’s Green were bought back in 1912 and used for student accommodation, initially for lay students from the Training College in Waterford who were preparing for a Diploma in Education, and later it was also the place where Brothers stayed in Dublin while pursuing their degrees. While studying in Dublin Brother Raymond’s place on the staff was still held for him; his salary of £18 came to the Bruff community but the Brothers had to pay for his substitute. He would have returned to his community in Bruff during the holidays.
Brother Tommy Walsh’s closing piece on Raymond is a fitting tribute to both Raymond and Bruff: “After all his achievements in Maths, Crosswords, sports etc., Ray would say that his happiest time in his life was when he was sent to Bruff in County Limerick for his first assignment, teaching sometimes up to one hundred infants in the same classroom; for him, that was his pride and joy and really reflected the man that Bro Ray was, children were at the heart of all he did and Ray did everything for children.”
In October 1948 it is recorded in the history of the Ely community that there were thirty lay students and eighteen Brothers. It must have been at Ely Place that Raymond honed his skills as a billiard and snooker player, although I don’t think the saying that being a good pool player is usually a sign of a misspent youth would be applicable to him. It’s recorded in the history of the community that in November 1949 the students in Ely Place started a debating society and two of the motions debated around that time give us an inkling into what got their creative juices going: “That modern youth is steeped in celluloid,” and “That the GAA should remove the ban on foreign games,” a reference to the controversial Rule # 21. The latter motion was carried by a narrow majority – but it would take the GAA another fifty years before would be removed!
While many of the Brothers were B.A. students, Raymond naturally enough gravitated towards Maths and Science and graduated with 1st class honours in B.Sc in November 1950. In August 1950, he was transferred to Wicklow where he secured the Higher Diploma in Education also with a first class honours. From thence he was moved to Waterford Training College where he would spend a significant portion of his long and active life.
Brother Malachy Buckley remembered his time in the De La Salle Training College in Waterford as follows: “Brother Raymond Grainger “burst” into De La Salle College, Waterford, straight from university in 1951. His specialty was science, but he was a man of many parts. He was small of stature, but larger than life. At that time the Trainee Brothers were in residence in the College; he accepted us as equals. Brother Raymond succeeded the austere but highly efficient Brother Benignus Cuddihy: totally contrasting personalities. The College secondary school was still in its growing pains; Bro. Raymond was a tonic who made himself visible and present. Ever gregarious, he walked the schoolyard during break time and was always surrounded by different groups of students.” In a similar vein, Brother Augustine Freeley wrote: “I remember Raymond Grainger teaching me science. He was a very even-tempered and a great teacher. He would write the ‘notes’ on the blackboard in Irish and we’d write them down – explaining them in English when necessary. He used to pepper his talks with one liner quiet jokes that kept us interested. He was a kind of laidback type of teacher – yet he got us all through the exams. He was always interested in how we fared out in our exams. Again he was very patient with us when doing the practical college science tests – never raising his voice. He used to bring us down the avenue of the college examining each tree, shrub and greenery in general. He had a great knowledge of them all. When he retired, he used to help weak students with maths – using only blackboard and chalk, what he was used to all his life. When I’d visit him, he’d talk about historical incidents in his native place especially incidents involving Michael Collins.”
About his recollections of him, Brother George Whyte wrote: “Brother Raymond Grainger taught me science – botany, chemistry and biology – in the Training College in Waterford. He was a most conscientious teacher – deep knowledge of his subjects, approachable, pleasant manner, a sense of humour, a hard worker, with copper plate writing on the blackboard.” Brother Fintan Broderick added: “Bro Raymond taught me Science in Waterford College. His classes were a joy to attend; always interesting and in a relaxed atmosphere. He finished each class by giving a beautiful set of notes all from memory; never having to refer to books or other sources.”
And Brother Finbarr Murphy added: “My memories of Br Raymond Grainger date from Easter week, 1952. We were raw Junior Novices on a one-day outing from Castletown to De La Salle College, Waterford and to Tramore, and of course a football match with the local ‘day-boys’ was meant to be one of the highlights of the excursion. I personally encountered this nice friendly Brother on the sidelines of the pitch that drizzling afternoon. I was due to encounter him there again and again in subsequent years. A remnant of that class of Junior Novices registered in De La Salle Training College for the 1955 – 57 course when Brother Raymond was our science teacher. The science syllabus, from a hindsight of 56 years seemed to concentrate more on Methodology for science teaching than on any new content, but Raymond would open up to us some new frontiers with a single reference to Einstein or to space travel.”
Brother Damien Kellegher remembered Raymond as a teacher, a colleague and a confrere: “I remember him as a teacher of Biology when I was following the National Teacher Diploma Course in De La Salle Training College. This course accommodated many Religious Brothers from a number of Religious Men Congregations up to 1971. Brother Raymond was a very popular teacher with us, student Brothers, had a great respect for us and his classes were always interesting and entertaining for us. Later on I came to know him when I joined the school staff in De La Salle College in 1996. Raymond had retired from his full time teaching post, but he continued to offer classes on a voluntary basis to a number of individual students. He was a great mathematician, was blessed with a wonderful mathematical intellect and could solve the most intricate mathematical proposition with a few strokes of his pen. He also taught Applied Mathematics to individual students who wished to take this as an extra subject in their Leaving Certificate examination. These students invariably achieved grade As in their Leaving Certificate results. During the course of the Leaving Certifivcate examination, a number of the Maths teachers would visit the college and examine the Leaving Certificate Higher Grade (Homours ) Examination Papers. There was always some specific question that would be more difficult than was expected and Raymond would delight in showing his expertise in solving the ‘ intricate ‘ problem, in double quick time.”
Brother Joe Reid’s vivid memories of Raymond included: “Bro Raymond came to Faithlegg in 1968 as a full time teacher of maths and science. He was a member of the Scholasticate Community in which there were five other Brothers namely: Kilian O’Sullivan, Finbarr Murphy, Edmund Mullins, Basilian Maguire, (farmer) & William (gardener). Bro Raymond taught all the scholastics mathematics and science to those who took the subjects at Leaving Cert level. He was an extraordinary teacher who had the gift of explaining the most complicated of mathematical concepts in ways that made eminent sense to even the most ignorant students. He wrote the formulae on the blackboard for us to copy down in notebooks. As a consequence it was possible to read the mathematical principles as you would read a notebook. The mathematical problems that we had to solve for the Leaving Cert could be done by simply following the rules outlined in the mathematical notes that we had copied from the blackboard. Bro Raymond wrote the notes most beautifully in a tiny script that allowed him to compress the information in a way that it would have required us to use up several notebook pages just to copy one blackboard full of information. When it came to revising for the exams he used to write out all the answers to the Leaving Cert maths questions on a piece of paper no bigger than an average size envelope. No matter what question was being addressed, Bro Raymond never had to think about the way of solving the problem. He knew instantly the solution. Nor was he confined to one way to find the solution, he outlined the different ways of arriving at the same answer.”
“It wasn’t that Bro Raymond was just a fine teacher that we knew we were fortunate to have,” Bro Joe continued, “ He was first and foremost a gentleman. He always began his lessons with some interesting stories of a topical nature or an in depth analysis of games that we would have been aware of during the Scholasticate. He had a wide knowledge of current events and imparted his insights in a way that was engaging and engaged us with opportunities to express our own insights allowing us to express our opinions also.”
“During the Leaving Certificate which I sat in 1969 we had the unfortunate experience of having to re-sit a number of papers due to a number of papers having been stolenint Churchtown, Dublin. There was confusion about whether or not we had to sit the paper due on the day in question. We had to listen to the radio to find out what had to be done. Bro Raymond got to see the maths paper on the morning that the first paper was to be taken. He immediately recognised that there was an error in one question which would have made the solution impossible without correction. He requested the exams’ supervisor to point out the error and how the question should be stated. It was this information that allowed us to attempt the solution. It transpired that the error was admitted by the Department of Education and students were treated compassionately for the mistake. Bro Raymond’s approach was always that it wasn’t the correct answer that was important but that the solution to the problem had to be shown in a logical way. The process to solving a problem was the key and the correct answer was just an extra score.”
Brother Michael Loran recalled, “I first came to know Bro Raymond in 1963 when I went to the Training College in Waterford. He was teaching us science over those two years and all accepted him as a most knowledgeable and approachable person. His classes were sure to contain a rather critical analysis of some recent game – especially on the day after a hurling or football clash in the Munster Colleges’ Championship. Or better still after one of those torrid encounters between the Scholastics and Boarders where he would question one or two of the referee’s decisions – the ref’ was usually a member of his own community! Whatever the subject Bro Raymond’s comments were always given and received in a kind and humorous manner. His classes were by no means all talk. His teaching was always well laced with business and humour. His blackboard layout was simple, clear and to the point. He was admired by the boarders and scholastics alike for his expertise in mathematics, science or indeed any subject. A common scene on the corridors of Waterford College was Bro Raymond with a group of boarders or young Brothers around him discussing a mathematical issue with a few comments on the previous day’s game added on. Raymond was proud of our school, its good name, staff and students alike – he was always fearful should anything happen at games or other outings that might draw the Coláiste into disrepute. He constantly encouraged the students to speak Irish irrespective of grammar or any such mistakes. He often recalled a remark a Department Inspector wrote at the end of his visit – “an droch-Ghaeilge is fearr sa tír!”
Brothers, Jim (Kenmare) and Sean Brosnan (St John’s, Newfoundland) were both taught by Brother Raymond between the years 1954 and 1961. Jim wrote, “I was taught General Science by Bro Raymond; what a wonderful teacher and human being – a true Christian. He never carried a text book, just píosa cailce! He did not use a logs book for solving maths problems. His general knowledge was vast, but for me his greatest quality was looking after “lame ducks”. Pass Leaving students were as important as his honours classes. He tutored many a student in not only science, but also Irish, English and Latin in the old 5C classroom. Monday morning classes started with a run down on the GAA matches of the weekend. He never used corporal punishment and all students had a great respect for him.”
Sean elaborated on Jim’s observations when he wrote: “Bro Raymond taught me physics for the 1961 Leaving Cert. That means that he taught me during the academic years 59/60 and 60/61. Unquestionably, he was a brilliant man, in my opinion, by far and away the teacher with the most outstanding grasp of his subject. He could see the essence of a topic and teach it, rather than getting bogged down in peripheral details. In many ways he was a fairly low-key teacher, one who got the best from his students without resort to histrionics. He was always prepared to talk science to us outside the classroom.
“In a quirky way this may have led to my becoming a biochemist. I had never heard of Biochemistry until he mentioned it to a group of us in the lower corridor. I can still recall that it was near the shop when he began to speak of this new science that was attracting many students. He made it seem so interesting that I resolved to look into it when I got to UCC; I found that I liked it and was good at it and have been a biochemist for well nigh on 48 years, 30 of them as a full professor. He was one of the few teachers who wasn’t known by a nickname.
“Two vignettes: His passion was hurling which he followed avidly and loved to discuss. Of course we knew this and every Monday class someone would pipe up with a question about one of the Sunday matches; this was guaranteed to get him off on a tangent. ‘Brother, what did you think of the Cork vs. Kilkenny match?’ ‘Which was better Christy Ring or Nicky Rackard?’ He knew what we were up to but just couldn’t stop himself, as we had a class discussion on the state of hurling and the superiority of ground hurling. After 10 minutes of this he’d accuse us, quite rightly, of trying to derail his class and proceed with the lesson. He was also a really good billiard player, something of a pool shark. He spent a lot of time practising quite difficult bank shots. I used to think that he would calculate the angles off the cushion just as he taught us that that the angle of incidence of light on a mirror was equal to the angle of its reflection.”
Brother Tom Sheehy commented, “I first got to know him as one of our teachers in the Training College in Waterford. And what a teacher he was! He was especially a master of his subject, Science, which he loved and he was a gifted teacher. He had copperplate blackboard work. What a change from today’s technological age with students having their own tablets, laptops and iPads! He treated us as equals not as young Brothers – something not quite so common in those days.”
Brother Martin Curran remembered, “Bro Raymond taught me in Faithlegg. I was always struck by the relaxed manner in which he conducted his classes. He was always in good humour and enjoyed the chat but work was always completed in a meaningful way and was understood by all. He was a lovely person to meet outside of class when he would recall for you his early days teaching and how he enjoyed the games he played especially tennis.”
Personally, I remember Raymond as a teacher in Faithlegg House in Co Waterford (long before it became known to the nation in 1993 as Faithlegg House Hotel & Golf Resort) when we made our way down there in August 1969 following our novitiate year in Castletown. Following our introspective and claustrophobic experience in the novitiate, Faithlegg was like a breath of fresh air in more ways than one. Raymond was our science teacher then and when it came to the more difficult aspects of the course, he had the happy knack (to use an American idiom) of putting the cookies on the lower shelves so that the weaker students in the class would not be left behind. Just as we have Médecins Sans Frontières, Raymond’s style of teaching seemed (to us) effortless and sans frontières as he moved from Pythagoras to Pele, from Euclid to Einstein, from Aristotle to Archimedes, from Karl Marx to Karl Rahner. He took particular pride in the fact that it was a De La Salle Brother from Cavan, Brother Potamian O’Reilly, who performed the first x-ray in Ireland in De La Salle College, Waterford on 13 April, 1896, just three months after their discovery in Germany by the Nobel physicist Wilhelm Roentgen. Unfortunately, we were moved from Faithlegg to Waterford College in 1970 which coincided with the time that Raymond was transferred to Coláiste Íosagáin, Ballyvourney. Needless to say our performance in the scientific field also took a nosedive around the same time!
When Brother Raymond was transferred from Waterford College to Baile Bhúirne in August 1970 he was fifty-five years old; he would spend the next nineteen years there until he returned to Waterford again in 1989 when Coláiste Íosagáin amalgamated with the local Gairmscoil Ghobnatan to become Coláiste Ghobnatan. During that time he would forge a wonderful relationship with both students and colleagues and with an ceantar máguaird; he would also be re-connecting with An Bráthair Cárrthach, whom he would have known from his fifteen year stint in the Bruff/Hospital area. He would also re-connect with his cousin, Brother Augustus Joyce, who retired to An Coláiste from Castlebar. And it was also in the early seventies that both his nephews, (his brother John Joe’s sons), Eamonn and Willie, were to attend the college. Once again, there is a great similarity between the comments and memories of Raymond in Waterford and those from Ballyvourney. The way you do anything is the way you do everything!
Paddy Mann’s recollections of Brother Raymond and Coláiste Íosagáin included the following: “I was a student at Coláiste Íosagáin from 1967 to 1972. Brother Raymond came to us (I’m almost sure) in 1970 so I had him for my pre-leaving and leaving cert years. He was an extraordinary maths’ teacher but I’m afraid he had his work cut out with our mob who were a “pass” outfit but he struggled us through which was a major achievement! I can still see that pleasant ever-smiling man gently and noiselessly moving along the corridors with a salute for every scholar he passed. I have a recollection he was a pipe smoker and had a bass-baritone voice. I remember on many days when the concentration in class was waning (which was very, very often!), we’d often sidetrack the discussion to matters sporting and, again, we’d be amazed at his encyclopaedic knowledge of matches in any code, the players, the venues etc., and his mannerism of rubbing his chin as he spoke with that unique rich voice. He loved to tell of college teams that won big games in the schools where he worked. There were other teachers, Brothers and lay staff, that had their good and not-so-good points but Brother Raymond in my view had no deficit. He was what every teacher should be: kind, patient and pleasant so that every student should look forward to his class. We all did.”
Brother Finbarr Murphy asked an interesting question: “ How come that such a gifted personality and capable educator never headed up a school, nor even directed a community, nor, at a younger age opted for advanced studies in science or maths? I think the answer is found in the Spirituality of his time. Schooled in his own formation years in ‘blind obedience’ which required a continuous disposition of self-denial and self-effacement, personal initiative was deemed suspect, and often therefore was dismissed as a form of ambition and pride! Promotion per se never bothered Raymond. He found fulfillment in his maths and science lessons, in being available to boys who wanted to ask questions about this and that, or in just chatting casually to lads on the sidelines of football and hurling matches. Above all, Raymond had that essential human quality which St John Baptist De la Salle emphasizes: he was affable, which we can translate as empathic. Friendly and approachable, he loved to be in the company of his students and the feelings were mutual. His colleagues in the staff room, as well as his former students greatly esteemed him. Looking back, he personifies for me what all Religious Educators are called to be by the Congregation for Catholic Education: informed, critical interlocutors who get students to think beyond the clichés and the headlines.”
Anyone who lived with Raymond in community would attest to his deep faith and his unwavering commitment to his daily spiritual exercises – domhnach is dálach. Brother Tommy Walsh said, “Ray loved to pray and prayers had to commence on time; he would state that the rubrics given at the beginning of the Divine Office were given for good reason and should be strictly adhered to, once the rules were followed then life would fall correctly into place. Ray was open to all kinds of prayer and had his own devotions. The end of the prayers of the faithful was always complete when Ray would say ‘let us pray for the Pope’s intentions’ and daily we did: ‘The Lord preserve him and give him life, make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not to the will of his enemies.’
Brother Oliver Deane remembered An Bráthair Réamann sa Choláiste as a very kindly confrere: “Oftentimes, I’d supervise the boarders while they studied awaiting the return of An Bráthair Ben from Macroom; invariably, he was delayed. Raymond would always come in to relieve me after about an hour or so, something I really appreciated at that time.” A few Brothers on the missions (including the present writer) also related how Raymond always kept himself up to date on what was happening in different countries. Oftentimes, he’d give his monthly stipend with the words, “You need this more than I do.” Again, Brother Tommy Walsh remembered, “Raymond pulled his weight in all aspects of community life. In his twilight years (in Waterford) he did many necessary odd jobs around the place to make sure the community room and dining room were neat and tidy; he would unload the dish washer and prepare the table for the next meal and no job was too little for him. He always had a compassionate and understanding comment for his fellow brothers and often over-looked their foibles saying, “Sure it’s not his fault, he has so much to do, he really means well.”
Tom Bulfin has already shown Raymond’s great grá for the GAA during his time in Bruff, and Brother Tommy also picked up on this theme in his contribution: “Sport was Ray’s forte, he was an encyclopaedia on every sport possible, you name it Ray could hold a conversation for ages on it. By all accounts he was a dab hand at snooker and billiards and was renowned for holding the highest break in the District of Ireland. Golf he would have excelled at if he wasn’t in religious life but for Ray golf was time consuming and opposed to the vow of poverty. Gaelic games were his first love which he promoted everywhere he went; he knew both hurling and gaelic football inside out, played for years and coached many teams to success in various counties. Even though he hailed from Cork he really admired the Kerry football team and what they could do with the leather and the skills to toe, but his real love was hurling, the game of the gods; this was his passion, his true love, the skills, the grace, the colours, the flags and banners, the top class scores, the rivalry between parishes and counties, Munster derbies and All-Ireland final days. Ray would relish in recalling a final he saw from the 50s easier than what happened the year before. He really lived the “True Hurlers Prayer.”
Give me O Lord a hurler’s skill,
With strength of arm and speed of limb;
Unerring eye for the flying ball,
And courage to match whate’er befall.
May my stroke be steady and my aim be true,
My actions manly – my misses few;
And no matter what way the game may go,
May I rest in friendship with every foe.
When the final whistle for me has blown,
And I stand at last at God’s judgement throne,
May the great Referee when he calls my name
Say, “You hurled like a man; you played the game.”
Brother Michael Loran wrote: “I was fortunate to live with Raymond in our community in Baile Mhúirne. Here again he seemed to be very much at home in a boarding school setting. With an enthusiastic Gaelic staff, which included former Kerry Captain Mickey “Ned” O’Sullivan, football was invariably an everyday topic – right down Raymond’s alleyway! Lining out the college team on paper for the next game was on a par with the daily IrishTimes crossword. When the line out finally became public Raymond usually issued his humorous criticism and even more so if our boys failed to come home with the bacon!”
Brother Michael then went on to share a lovely incident from his days in Baile Bhúirne, “Games were invariably an important aspect of boarding school life. Coláiste Iosagáin took that seriously. It was my lot to get the first years organised after classes. Raymond usually came along spotting talent. I particularly recall one September afternoon when the going was tough in the long grass. At one stage a small newcomer to the game was having quite a bit of difficulty clearing the ball in the more than ankle deep high grass when suddenly a more seasoned Kerry lad shouted out “Ah willu buail an f***ing caid!” I called over a certain impatient but contrite Dino and admonished him for his bad language in my finest Gaelic. Dino was honest with his apologetic reply, “Ah, a Bhráthair, tagann sé go nádúrtha dom.” Raymond was near at hand and in stitches!
Mary Vaughan remembered An Bráthair Réamann from her years in the Coláiste in the eighties: “ Being a girl at the college was an odd experience as we were in the minority but also we were very much left to our own devices. That long lower corridor for a 1st year girl, having to pass all the big lads at the top corner heading to the prefabs, was always a task that required a deep breath to get through it. And along that long corridor Bro Raymond always walked and spoke to everyone. I always felt relaxed when Raymond was on the corridor because he was very much respected by the older lads. He seemed to know all the students even those of us that he didn’t teach directly. He spoke to the young students as well as the older ones; he spoke to the girls as well as the boys. Raymond also seemed to know us as individuals, he knew I was interested in Maths and Science, he gave me additional maths exercises to stretch my knowledge, he advised me on the choices I should make on my CAO form and was always available for a chat. I found him to be relaxed and open. He seemed to have a handle on everything and everyone, and is certainly someone that made my time in Iosagáin a very significant experience for me.”
Wikipedia informs us that John Derek Crozier, under the pseudonym “Crosaire”, was the compiler of the “Irish Times crossword” from its inception in 1943 until his death in 2010. (Coincidentally, he, too, like Raymond, lived to be ninety-two.) Brother Damien Kellegher remembered “His daily pastime was to locate and complete the Crossword, particularly the complex and cryptic Crosaire in the Irish Times, despite the efforts of other Brothers to gain access to the paper to check the results of some GAA or soccer matches in their native county. He would complete the Crossword each morning and would engage with other Brothers and explain his reason for selecting certain words to complete the Crossword. He delighted in completing this Crossword each morning no matter how difficult the clues were.” This writer also remembered Raymond taking the crossword page of the Irish Times every morning to be photocopied in triplicate – one for An Bráthair Fionnbarra Ó Sé, one for An Bráthair Donncha Ó Ruairc and one for himself.
Donnchadh Ó Luasa has already stated how accomplished and accommodating Raymond was in drafting school timetables. In fact, he was quite a genius in this regard; he was really exceptional at working out combinations and permutations both on paper and in his head. Raymond would collect and collate the relevant personnel and subject data and within a few days he’d have the perfect timetable drawn up, even when there was a staff of seventy and more; he was a godsend to De La Salle College, Waterford, which not only had a huge staff but also had an exceptional diversity of subjects on offer. Even when he was transferred to Baile Bhúirne, his timetabling expertise was still in demand in Waterford – not to mention Dundalk, Castlebar and Wicklow!
Just about everyone remembered Raymond for his magnificent singing voice. Brother Tommy Walsh wrote, “What a talent when it came to singing, a beautiful melodious bass-baritone voice, that shook the foundations of any building when he wet his lip to begin songs like “Ol’ Man River” and he revelled at every note, proudly rose to every crescendo and finished with gusto:
Ah, gits weary
An’ sick of tryin’
Ah’m tired of livin’
An’ skeered of dyin’,
But ol’ man river,
He jes’ keeps rollin’ along!
People were awestruck, dumbfounded and really amazed at his deep basso profundo voice and his vast range of repertoire. He was eagerly sought after at every Lasallian gathering to uplift the assembled and he would duly oblige and be extremely shy in starting but once he got going, there was no halting. Anyone listening for the first time would be flabbergasted by the gift of a voice that God had given Raymond. He was the backbone of the De La Salle College Waterford Teachers Staff Choir which was established by Bro Ben Hanlon in the year 2000, which gave rapturous performances at the Christmas and end of year concerts. Bro Ray sang his heart out and never missed a rehearsal; we hope he is now singing with the hosts of angels in heaven.” Brother George Whyte also added, “He Had a rich, deep, baritone singing voice. We compared him to the great Paul Robeson, as he sang Ol’ Man River, or his favourite, Mah Lindy Lou:
Lindy, did you hear that mockingbird sing last night?
Honey, he was singing so sweet in the moonlight
In the old magnolia tree, bustin’ his heart with melody.
I know he was singing of you, Mah Lindy Lou, Lindy Lou
I’d lay right down and die, and die,
If I could sing like that bird sings to you,
Mah little Lindy Lou.
Brother Malachy Buckley recollected, “Brother Raymond was at his hilarious best when it came to the annual concert. He produced his own humorous sketches. There, you would see a ‘nobody’ starring as a comedian. The highlight of the night always came when he, after fierce demand from the audience, would take to the stage. He had a magnificent base voice, comparable to that of Al Robeson, who was quite famous at the time, and for whom he had enormous regard and respect. His favourite song – and ours also – was “Ol’ Man River.” That generally brought the house down. He was undoubtedly the best singer in the Irish District – though he had a modicum of competition from other wannabes!”
Raymond had a wonderful relationship with his family in Ballinhassig and the surrounding area. Having outlived his siblings, he was the last link with the past for his nephews and nieces.One of his nieces, Teresa Buckley remembered him as a kindhearted genius from whom she learned her love of reading; she also said that a copybook with all of Raymond’s hand-written songs was among the most treasured memorabilia of him in her possession. Another niece, Kay Galvin, remembered him when she was a child as a person of great warmth who would always bring them gifts – sweets and books – whenever he visited them. Noreen McDonnell, another niece, said that Uncle Eddie was a joy to have around he place; he was like a grandfather to their children. Both Willie and Eamon Grainger would have known their uncle Eddie from his home visits and as students of him in Baile Bhúirne in the early seventies.
Understandably, Raymond resisted the move from Waterford College to Miguel House in Castletown until the very end. Waterford had become his home; he had spent almost forty years of his life there. The installation of a lift in the college made vertical movements considerably easier for him but there were still quite a number of steps to contend with. In the end, at the age of eighty-eight, he made to move to Castletown; it wasn’t an easy move for him but it was a necessary one and he would be the recipient of the wonderful services offered by the caring staff in Miguel House.
Of Raymond’s time in Miguel House, Brother Malachy Buckley wrote,” I next met Bro Raymond in Miguel House in 2006, where I was recuperating following a surgical procedure. I had the privilege of getting him from A to B in his wheelchair; I also sat opposite him at table. There was never a shortage of quality conversation in his presence. Even the mention of the word science was enough to get him going. He delighted in recalling the number of times the Department of Education consulted him about setting up new science laboratories.
“While wheeling him from the dining room to his sleeping quarters along the considerable corridor, we sang different duets; “Ol’ Man River” was still his favourite. On reaching his room we recollected ourselves; occasionally, he would have a flashback and enquire if the boarders had settled down in the dormitory and if Bro. Cornelius (Barrett) was around. Having been assured that everything was in order, he’d then settle down. During his stay in Miguel House Bro. Raymond had many distinguished and ordinary visitors – many more than the norm. They invariably brought a gift for the larder. Occasionally, I’d speak to them in passing; their verdict: “He was the most influential teacher or person I’ve ever had. I felt I owed him a visit.”
Brother Joe Reid shared, “When our paths diverged after leaving Faithlegg in 1969, I did not meet up with Br Raymond again until I arrived at Miguel House, Castletown in Dec. 2003. I was fortunate to be close to him where he had his room and each morning I brought the Brothers their teas in their rooms. It gave me the opportunity to converse with Br Raymond. He was a man of great energy and each morning he had the Times crossword solved in the early morning hours each day.” Concerning Bro Raymond’s stay in Miguel House Brother Martin Curran said, “He loved to chat about games, his time in Ballyvourney and his many past pupils who kept in touch with him. This was never done in a boastful way but was a means of conversation and I found them very interesting. He seemed to accept his confinement in Miguel very well and was always very happy.” And Frank O’Shea recalled, “I visited him in Castletown on one of my visits back to Ireland. It was not long before he died. I remember the visit very well. He was in the infirmary or perhaps just confined to his bed in his own room. Drifting a bit perhaps, he talked a lot about Mick O’Dwyer. But I left feeling that this was a life well lived, someone who made a difference.
Brother Raymond spent four years in Miguel House, Castletown, under the compassionate attention of the caring staff. During that time, he had many visitors – family, friends, and past pupils and colleagues from bygone days. It was the right place for him and he knew it. Brother David O’Riordan said, “Raymond was a great patient, gentle and considerate, a perfect gentleman. He had many callers; his family thought the world of him. In the end, he simply wore out.” In his excellent homily (included below) delivered during Brother Raymond’s funeral Mass, Brother Stephen Deignan said, “In his last months, while I couldn’t say that he was angry with God, Bro Raymond often wondered aloud, in my presence, why it was that in spite of such a long life of dedication, such an earth–completed life as his, God was not anxious yet to call him home. “I am ready and happy to go”, he would say and it was said with perfect alertness and full consciousness.
Brother Raymond passed away peacefully on 14 September 2007, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Addressing the packed gathering who had come to pay him homage, Brother Stephen Deignan said in his closing tribute to him: “Because he has been taken from us, there is a great void in all our lives, a feeling of irreplaceable loss, a consciousness that another Cedar of Lebanon has fallen. May our generous God reward him richly for his long and fruitful life of dedicated service to the cause of Christianity and Christian education.” It was surely a poignant moment at the end of his funeral mass that when his coffin exited the church it was to the strains of “Ol’ Man River” and the final words, “But ol’ man river, he jes’ keeps rollin’ along!” What a wonderful human being; and those of us who were fortunate enough to have been part of his life’s journey were truly most blessed of all.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Míle Buíochas…
I am truly grateful to the following people for their sharing and recollections about Brother Raymond: his family and relations – Eamonn, Willie and Sean Grainger; Kay Galvin, Noreen McDonnell, Teresa Buckley, Susan and William Grainger, Finbar and Veronica Deane. His confreres: Brothers Oliver Rodgers, Stephen Deignan, Pius McCarthy, Malachy Buckley, George Whyte, Augustine Freeley, Finbarr Murphy, Tommy Walsh, Damien Kellegher, Michael Loran, Tom Sheehy, Joe Reid, Fintan Broderick, Martin Curran, Tim O’Shea, Oliver Deane and David O’Riordan. His colleagues and past pupils: Frank O’Shea, Jim Brosnan, Sean Brosnan, Michael (Mickey Ned) O’Sullivan, Pat Mann, Paud Murphy, Donnchadh Ó Luasaigh, Mary Vaughan and Tom Bulfin.
Brother Kevin McEvoy fsc
Homily for Bro Raymond Grainger:
Brother Stephen Deignan
Rev. Fathers, Brothers, Sisters, relatives and friends of Bro Raymond Grainger, our gathering in Castletown today, while tinged with much sadness and feelings of regret, is, I feel, rather in the nature of a celebration of the wonderful life and peaceful death of one of our best-loved and most widely-cherished Brothers, Bro Raymond Grainger. Sometimes, when we have to prepare the proverbial ‘few words’, we are powerfully challenged to say something positive and inspirational and consoling about the subject. The invitation, on Friday last, to express a word of appreciation and valediction on behalf of his many confreres, friends and admirers and to recall some of the wonderful qualities and attractive personal traits of Bro Raymond, was accepted by me with a positive willingness, in the knowledge that one would be choosing, from a deep and rich treasury, just a few of the more outstanding pearls. Of course, one would have to be a Chaucer or a Dickens to do justice to the rich amplitude and multi-faceted life of Bro Raymond and I regret that no matter what I say, I will fail to do justice to a long and fruitful life of exceptional religious dedication, of warm simplicity, of rich intellect, of deep, Biblical faith and of attractive, friendly, charm.
We have gathered to offer the sacrifice of the Mass for the happy repose of Bro Raymond’s soul. We thank God for his long life of faithful service to God and to humanity as a De La Salle Brother and we thank God for the gifts of health and strength, of sharp intellect and creative perception he gave him, over many years, enabling him to make an extra-ordinary contribution to Irish Second Level education, especially in disciplines of Mathematics and Science, in many Lasallian Centres throughout the country.
I extend the sincere sympathy of the De La Salle Brothers of the Irish Province, the Manager, nurses, carers and other staff of Miguel House Nursing Home and the many friends of Bro Raymond who are here today, to his nieces and nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, great-grand nieces and great grand-nephews, to his cousins and a multitude of other friends and acquaintances.
In his last months, while I couldn’t say that he was angry with God, Bro Raymond often wondered aloud, in my presence, why it was that in spite of such a long life of dedication, such an earth–completed life as his, God was not anxious yet to call him home. “I am ready and happy to go”, he would say and it was said with perfect alertness and full consciousness. Well, God has finally called him home.
One of Bro Raymond’s favourite passages of scripture was from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. I quote: “My message and my proclamation were not delivered with persuasive words of wisdom but rather with a demonstration of the power of the Spirit so that your faith might rest, not on human wisdom, but on the power of God. Yet, we do speak a wisdom to those who would listen, but it is not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away. Rather, we speak of the wisdom of God, mysterious, hidden, determined by God for our greater glory: we speak of what eye has not seen and ear has not heard, things beyond the mind of man, what God has prepared for those who love him”.
It is a certainty of our faith that Bro Raymond is now enjoying those “things beyond the mind of man, what God has prepared for those who love him”.
I always understood why Bro Raymond sought refuge in St. Paul’s reference to ‘the wisdom of God’ and ‘the things beyond the mind of man’. He himself, for many years, was personally and deeply engaged in the Science versus Religion debate and, when he was a little younger, if one happened to enter his room and he had perhaps just finished taking an double honours Maths or Science class and some debate or argument had arisen there in relation to Science and God or Science and Religion, he would be muttering aloud, commenting on the lack of wisdom or the superficiality of today’s brightest students in their debating about religion and Science. He would get so internally angry, so upset with himself, that he seemed unable to bring them to a realisation of the infinite, transcendent, power of God. “I tell them”, he would say, “that God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom but they don’t heed me”. And, then he would pose the questions: Do our young people today express any wonder at divine things? at the great mysteries of existence? of creation? of time and of eternity? of nature and grace? And then he would turn and say: Yerra! shure these are lovely lads. They are far better than we were at their age. Life’s experiences will teach them far more than I can and with greater intensity.
Bro Raymond was born in Ballinhassig, Co. Cork in 1915. He often spoke about his home and his Christian upbringing. His parents were broadminded and liberal in their thinking and he always felt that at 15 he was somewhat ahead of his rivals in terms of his knowledge of the world and his literary and mathematical prowess. Following what he always said was a clear call from God to religious life, he came here to Castletown in 1929 and was professed on the 15th of August, 1932,
the year of the Eucharistic Congress. He completed his training in De La Salle College, Waterford in 1935 and he was finally professed in 1940. He studied for his degree in UCD from 1947 to 1950.
As you can see from the CV in your Mass leaflets, Bro Raymond spent periods of teaching in different Lasallian centres throughout the country. His longest spells were in Hospital, Co. Limerick, De La Salle College, Waterford, Coláiste Íosagáin, Baile Mhuirne. Hospital, Co. Limerick, Coláiste Íosagáin and De La Salle College, Waterford were his “most beloved” educational centres and he often spoke about them and told many stories about the achievements of different teams he was associated with in these centres, stories sometimes embellished with truths, but mostly untruths, about the opposing enemies, which often included the referee.
Bro Raymond was a brilliant teacher of Mathematics and Science. His former students describe him as an inspiring Maths/Science teacher who gave them a love for Maths and Science. He had his own methods and once the students grasped these what he called – short-cuts to the same answer – they revelled in the ingenuity of the technique and of the teacher and their ability to grasp it.
While he must have found it difficult to accept that some students could not grasp the theorems or concepts that were so clear to his sharp mathematical mind, he was always patient with them and, they would say today, he was always encouraging. There are countless former students of his, some elderly, around the country and further a-field, who recall, with great fondness, his brilliant teaching, his inspiring, welcoming personality and his opening up to them the hidden wonders of Mathematics and Science.
In De La Salle Waterford, when he was 70 and even into his 75th year, he was still teaching L.C. Mathematics. The students always looked forward to meeting him after L.C. Maths paper was completed. He would be standing at the door with an A4 page in his hand and the process and solutions to all the questions on one side of the page. One year he set himself a project of taking the previous ten years L.C. Maths papers (1 and 2) putting the process and answers to each question on one side of an A4 page. This was his genius. The short-cuts to the same answer in a few lines. These pages were the most popular and most photocopied sheets in Waterford.
When he finally retired, L.C. students, especially the repeats, knowing of his extraordinary Mathematical prowess, would go to his room and plead with him to take them for grinds. At first he would take a small group but in his final years it was always one to one. Apart from the books in his room in Waterford and his few personal belongings, the only signs of opulence were the beautiful presents given to him by these students when they received their results and, indeed, many a nice dinner we had with him through the auspices of these same students who had given him a voucher for a community meal.
Allied to his Mathematical ability was his genius for composing school time-tables, allocating classes and subjects to as many as 1000 students. At one stage in his life, long before the advent of the computer with its prepared time-tabling programmes, he was on-call all summer long by the Principals of the De La Salle Schools. Waterford, Ballyvourney, Castlebar, Wicklow, Kildare, Dundalk, were all on his summer agenda. His great genius was especially noted as the number of subjects increased, making it more and more difficult to permute and combine all classes and teachers and subjects without clashes, and perhaps, often in schools which were short of classroom spaces. He was especially gifted in ensuring that almost every student was given his or her preferred choice of subjects within the constraints of the school day. Those who have any knowledge of time-tabling will appreciate that there was a genius at work here.
When Bro Raymond was transferred from Waterford to Ballyvourney in West Cork, he must have been delighted with the move. He loved his native Cork, its people and its history. He often spoke of Tom Barry and his Flying Column as if they were old acquaintances and as if manoeuvres had been collegially organised. An excellent story-teller, he often regaled communities with exaggerated accounts of historic episodes, and by expanding or extending his imagination, he often embellished these episodes beyond the bounds of human possibility. He had a wonderful relationship with his family and his extended family. He took a great interest in his nieces and nephews and directed and advised them in their studies. To them, he was more than a mentor. He was a lovely human being. They all regarded him as a wise, kind and generous man, humble to a fault, the favourite of all the uncles and they always looked forward to his coming. He is remembered by them as a great lover of books and a genius at the crosswords. He was still doing the most difficult Times Crossword in Miguel House up to a few years ago.
Bro Raymond was a gift to the Lasallian communities he served in; a gift to the Brothers community by his presence, his wisdom, his approachability, his deep sense of the spiritual, his concern for the observance of the Rule, his love for the richness of the psalms, his great concern, even anxiety for the welfare and success of the students. He had a simplicity and a calmness and peacefulness about him which were palpable. There was, in him, a delightful blending of the man and the religious, of the natural and the supernatural, of nature and grace. He exemplified in his person the long-time principle that grace does not destroy nature but rather presupposes nature, builds on nature, perfects nature. He was truly a believing and professing Catholic, strongly traditional and capable of fighting his corner either in community or more often against what he used to call “a godless media”, a godless media which often offended him in his later years. Mystery, sacrament, prayer and a great consciousness of the transcendent were all part of who he was. He was a great singer, possessing a rich base/baritone voice and he possessed a rich repertoire of Stephen Foster and other songs which he shared generously with the community or the teaching staffs on feast days or other special occasions.
Because he has been taken from us, there is a great void in all our lives, a feeling of irreparable loss, a consciousness that another Cedar of Lebanon has fallen. May our generous God reward him richly for his long and fruitful life of dedicated service to the cause of Christianity and Christian education and may his soul and the soulsof the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.
Coláiste Iosagáin 
If you want to see him singing Old Man River, it is available on YouTube. A concert recorded in Colaiste Iosagan Ballvourney in 1985 has him singing two songs, one of them being his famous rendition of OMR.
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