Fr Denis W. Martin, Priests of 1928, Brisbane, 2003, pp 217-219:
Mons. Edmond Keating

From his commanding position in the centre of the back row, Fr Edmond Keating probably never ever thought be would be the last one in the group to die. He was then 30 years of age but there were several there younger still.

Edmond, or 'Ted' as he was always known, came from the Darling Downs. He was one of the eight Keating children and was born at the family home Fairview at Cabarlah outside Toowoomba in 1898. Four of the children were to embrace the religious life.

Ted's education was begun at Highfields State School. Then, after Scholarship, he went to the Christian Brothers in Toowoomba, boarding in the town with the Donoghues, his mother's family. Fellow boarders were John Dowd, John Concannon and Joseph Troy who were also destined for ordination.

In 1914, one of his elder brothers, Tom, was ordained. In the next year, Ted went to Springwood and later Manly. The ordination was a great event for Catholic Toowoomba as Archbishop Duhig obtained special permission for the ordination to take place in a parish church on 8th December 1920. Five 'Darling Downs boys' were to be ordained together at St Patrick's: Jack Dowd, John Concannon, Joseph Troy, James Flanagan and Edmond Keating who was not quite 23 years of age. Two other students in that same class at Manly were Errol Stanaway and Leo Carlton, but these had asked to be ordained in the South.

Fr Keating spent two years at Warwick, then in 1922 moved to Wooloowin. Within a few days of his arrival there, Archbishop Duhig arrived at the presbytery and took Ted across to Kedron where he had recently acquired property and wanted a church built there. Ted soon had the land paid off and the Little Flower Church erected. Even before a Mass could be celebrated in it, a savage storm flattened it. Undaunted, he set to and had a brick church up within the year.

In 1925, he was acting Parish Priest at Red Hill and spent 1926 at St Patrick's in the Valley.

It was now time to settle down and that is what Ted did: he went to West End as Parish Priest in 1927 and there he stayed for 50 years. When he arrived, the Church had just been re-sited from across the road and positioned beside the old O'Reilly home, now the Convent. Immediately, Fr Keating set to work and had a school built. This was opened on the day that the foundation for a presbytery was laid in January 1928.

Over the succeeding years, Fr Keating came to be esteemed, respected and loved by his parishioners even though he was a martinet. Barney O'Shea tells the story of visiting around Dutton Park when he innocently transgressed the parish boundary into Ted's West End. 'There came a phone call from his neighbour that I had violated the boundary and Ted was not at all pleased!'

He took a great interest in racing and always placed bets on Saturday afternoon from a public phone booth near the presbytery. At the time before the TAB, two rival groups of bookies controlled the West End area and on one particular day when it was under surveillance by the police, Ted got picked up in the phone booth. He got out of trouble somehow.

In 1954 or so, Fr Keating fell ill, so ill that he was admitted to hospital and it seemed as if all was up. As he lay in bed, unconscious to all appearances, Archbishop Duhig and Tim Molony called to pay their 'last' respects. He heard them agreeing that they would immediately go ahead and sell that land behind the presbytery (at West End). Ted couldn't do a thing. But Ted recovered and returned to West End. He found the sale arrangements so far advanced that he was unable to prevent it. His next appointment was a visit to Archbishop Duhig to object. He was appeased by being made a Domestic Prelate and Monsignor in 1955.

In his old age, Mons. Keating cut a dignified little figure as he arrived and parked his black Holden in the Cathedral yard. He wore his black hat and suit, and a purple stock crossed by a gold fob watch chain.

In 1977, Mons. Keating retired to live at Villa Verona [Canossa], Oxley. He celebrated his Diamond Jubilee Mass there in 1980. At over 90 years of age he died there on 24th June 1988.

After the Requiem Mass at St Francis' Church, West End, the funeral left for Nudgee Cemetery. Archbishop Rush summed up Mons. Keating admirably:

'His attitude to his priesthood had always been as simple as one could imagine. He believed he had been ordained to serve God's people. Here was a priest who knew and loved the people to whom he ministered. ... He held his convictions strongly and could express them with considerable vehemence. But any hint of irascibility disappeared with the years. Never had he been as mellow and lovable as in these last 11 years at Verona Villa.'

Mons.' brother, Fr Thomas Keating, was born in 1888 and ordained in 1914. He served mainly in Roma but developed a spinal problem and had to be nursed until he died in 1941.

Two Keating girls entered the Sisters of Mercy - Srs Columcille and Cassian.

There were two other Fr Keatings in the Archdiocese but they were not related. They were Dr Thomas Keatinge who departed from Bishop Quinn for the United States and died in 1877. And there was the young Paul Keating, curate at Sth Brisbane, who died in July 1919. His Parish Priest, Francis Dorrigan, followed him to the grave two weeks later. Both were victims of the pneumonic influenza which swept the world.

(Reproduced by permission of Fr Denis Martin.)

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Prayer Calendar: Deceased Priests who have ministered the Catholic Faith throughout Toowoomba and districts, 1864–2025, Compiled by Annie Carrett, Diocesan Archivist, 2001, Updated by Gabrielle Saide, Diocesan Archivist, 2023:
Rt Rev Monsignor Edmund Joseph Keating, died 24 June 1988

Edmund Joseph Keating was born at "Fairview", Cabarlah, on 24th January, 1898, the second son of the eight children of Thomas and Catherine Keating (nee Donohue). (A brother, Thomas, also became a Priest of the Brisbane Archdiocese. Two sisters became Sisters of Mercy). He was educated at Highfields State School and at St Mary's CBC, Toowoomba. Seminary studies were begun in 1915 at St Columba's and from there he went to St Patrick's, Manly. He was ordained in St Patrick's Cathedral, Toowoomba, by Archbishop Duhig on 8th December, 1920. Fellow ordinandi were Frs J Dowd, J Concannon, J Troy and J Flanagan. He served in the following places: Assistant Priest, Warwick (1921); Wooloowin (1922-24); Administrator, Red Hill (1924); Assistant Priest, Fortitude Valley (1925-26); Parish Priest (the first, and his only such appointment), West End (1927-77). In 1955 he was made Domestic Prelate with the title Monsignor. He retired to Verona Villa , Canossa Hospital, Oxley, on 31st March, 1977 and died there on 24th June, 1988. He is buried at Nudgee Cemetery.
(Ref. Brisbane Archives)

Reproduced by permission of Bishop Ken Howell.