Rev Edmund Creagh
Title:
Rev
First Name:
Edmund
Middle Names:
Riordan
Preferred Name:
Surname:
Creagh
Order:
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Co Limerick
Country of Birth:
Ireland
Date of Ordination:
Place of Ordination:
Country of Ordination:
Ordination Diocese:
Seminary:
Date of Death:
Place of Death:
Greenough WA
Country of Death:
Australia
Date of Burial:
Place of Burial:
Greenough WA
Country of Burial:
Find A Grave URL:
Appointments Table
Diocese | Place | Role | Start Day | Start Month | Start Year | End Day | End Month | End Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | Pyrmont | Linane Vol 2 | |||||||
| Geraldton | Northampton | Linane Vol 2 | |||||||
| Geraldton | Greenough | Jun | 1917 | Linane Vol 2 |
Biographical Notes
Fr T.J. Linane, From Abel to Zundolovich, Vol. 2: Biographies of Priests on the Australian Scene up to 1900, 1980, pp 103-104:
Creagh, Edmund Riordan, Irish
He Begged for a Trifle to Go to Lourdes
Assuming he was genuine, we quote his letter written from Greenough, an early parish in the Geraldton Diocese, on 11 August 1913. It certainly tells a sad story and was sent to all priests on the Australian Mission:
"If you refer to the Ordo you will find my name on the Sick List. For more than 20 years I have suffered from a very painful spinal disease, now resulting in my being almost a complete cripple. I am confined to my room and mostly to my bed. By the aid of a stick I am able only to move a few steps. In the progress of the disease my sight has been so impaired that reading and writing are a great difficulty. I have not been able to attend to any of my active duties for a year. During the last six years I have had strenuous work to cope with in my District, and had to grip on to the Altar to say my Mass. I have been in hospitals often and long, and have left no remedies untried that are known to medical science. All to no purpose, except to leave me penniless. I have determined now, when I have found the needful, to visit Lourdes and see if it may please Our Lady to do there something for me. This is my last plank. There is so far no Infirm Fund in this Diocese. The Diocese is poor and has few priests. They do the little they can to help me to exist. I would like to have 30 more years of active work. Father, please help with a trifle so that I can make Lourdes.
Yours in much pain and misery
Edmund Creagh ......."
The response to this printed appeal is not recorded, but, seemingly the crippled priest never reached Our Lady's Shrine. In the years succeeding 1913 he is still listed in Directories as being stationed at Greenough, and there he expired on 16 June 1917, at the age of 52. A plaque in the sacristy, from which he struggled to the Altar, spells out the details: "Pray for the soul of Edmund Creagh, during whose Pastorate this Church was built. His body lies in the nearby Cemetery where the former Church of St. Peter stood".
Otherwise, all that we know is that he belonged to the Sydney Archdiocese and was once stationed at Pyrmont. On arrival in W.A. he served the Lord for a few years at Northampton before being assigned to the windswept Greenough Flats. As though in chorus with the misfortunes of Creagh, and of the first pioneer Catholics jn the North-west, the trees on the nearby highway have bowed to the pressure of the gales. They lie prone on the ground but still cling tenaciously to the foliage of life.
(Footprints, Vol. 3, No. 2)
Information: Fr. Brian Ahern, Geraldton Diocese