Port Lincoln, Port Pirie, Whyalla, Leigh Creek, Georgetown, Radium Hill, Woomera, Snowtown, Streaky Bay, Myrtle Bank, Peterborough, SA

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Fr Frank Cresp, Good and Faithful Servants: Recalling the Spirit of the Deceased Priests of the Diocese of Port Augusta and Port Pirie 1888-2008, 2008:
Carmody, George

Born: 23/8/1916 in Jamestown, SA.
Ordained: 1942 at Peterborough, SA.
Worked in Port Lincoln 1942; Port Pirie 1943-4 7; Peterborough 1953; Whyalla ? Inland Mission 1955; Radium Hill; Georgetown 1959; Woomera 1960; Snowtown 1966; Streaky Bay 1976-83; Peterborough 1985-89. Retired to Glen Osmond.
Loved to debate.
Died: 18/1//1990. Buried at Centennial Park, Adelaide.

Memories: Father George Keith Carmody
by Father Bill Wauchope

He recalls the life and times of Father George Keith Carmody with mention of Jimmy Dunne and Vinnie Shiel.

George Carmody came from Georgetown, studied at Manly (and I guess, Springwood) and from 1936 until 1940 at Propaganda College in Rome. While he was there in the early 1940s, much concern was felt that Mussolini could bring Italy into World War II; this would have made life perhaps dangerous for the students from the Allied countries, and the decision was made to give them the choice of continuing their studies in Rome.

Among the Australians who decided to return were from South Australia, George Carmody, Lou Travers and Tom Horgan. There could have been others. These came home via USA, crossing the Atlantic Ocean safely, eluding the Nazi U-boats. They, I think with some American students from mid-west and west coast, bought motor cars and drove across the continent sailing on another ship to Australia. This was fairly safe as Japan had not entered the war and there were not many U-boats in the Pacific Ocean then. George and Lou continued their studies at St Patrick's College, Manly, NSW, with other returnees, while Tom resumed at Corpus Christi College, Werribee, Victoria; George was ordained at St Anacletus Pro-Cathedral, Peterborough, on the 26h July, 1942.

In about 1943 or 44 he was appointed to Port Pirie. In his time at Port Pirie, a group Young Christian Workers came to Port Pirie to address priests and young workers about Canon Cardijn and the Jocist movement, and branches were established at Port Pirie and Peterborough and at Port Augusta, I think. Later Father Carmody was transferred to Whyalla, and founded the YCW there also.

In (I think) 1948, he was appointed to Bush Mission, begun earlier, about 1937 or 1938 by Bishop McCabe when he appointed Father Jimmy Dunne to rove the bush to bring the Mass to any Catholics he could find. The entry in the Ordo of those days gave an enormous list of places and concluded with something like - and elsewhere wherever Catholics may be found. Jimmy didn't keep within Diocesan boundaries, ministering at Tippoburra, Birdsville, Bedourie and surrounding places where people had rarely seen a priest in those days before four-wheel drive vehicles were common.

George owned, or was paying off, a loan from the diocese for a Holden car; Holdens, 'Australia's Own Car', were manufactured first in 1948, so it was something special to have one. There was a six to twelve month wait for a car. He was toying with the idea of removing the near side central pillar, strengthening the floor and installing a bed! Jimmy Dunne had a utility.

George finished with an Austin 30 cwt truck with a canopy on the back and a forty-four gallon drum slung on each side as petrol tanks. George got fairly upset when John Curran christened it 'Carmody's Circus'.

The Bush Mission, or Outback Mission was re-named The Catholic Mission probably because John Flynn had begun The Australian Inland Mission.

Father Carmody was stationed at Peterborough at first, later at Leigh Creek Coalfield where he built a church, the first St Barbara's. He travelled the Peterborough-Broken Hill railway line, ministered at Radium Hill Uranium mine, the sheep stations and railway towns/camps. (Father Vin Shiel later was stationed at Radium Hill. Built a church there, served the area and took wonderful films for Bishop Fulton Sheen of New York State, USA, their Propagation of the Faith leader. One of the outstanding ones was of a bush wedding, complete with a horrendous journey to get to this far away station, getting bogged, etc., The Radium Hill golf clubhouse came up well!)

Father Carmody travelled the north-south line, and all the country inside the state between the NSW/QLD border, north of and including Brachina to the northern limits of the diocese at the 23d parallel which passes just north of Uluru, known in those days as Ayer's Rock; then south to the Transcontinental Railway Line to the Western Australian border. He dispensed with the Austin; I don't know if this had anything to do with it, but once it got bogged coming up out of Stewarts Creek at Curdimurka. He got it out of the bog using a spade then his three-point winch. After he had it on level ground, he rolled a smoke and sat down watching the ducks as he smoked his cigarette. When he stood up to get into the truck the wheels had sunk forward several inches into the soft clay! So he began to winch again to move the truck forward a short distance to firm ground. He told me he was happily, more or less, winching away and wondered why he was looking at the sky. When he moved his chin hurt terribly: a tooth of the cog in the winch had broken off and the steel bar with which he was working the winch had hit him on the chin and laid him out. Whatever about that he became convinced that the ideal priest's car for the bush was a Volkswagen van. In the van he had a mattress resting on an old house door and all supplies were protected.

George was a keen golfer. He told me that he reckoned that he was the only man who'd hit a golf ball from Maree to Oodnadatta. There were railway fettlers' camp generally every twenty miles and George would leave a camp after breakfast, drive a while, pray his breviary, bring out his bucket of golf balls and hit them forward, get into the truck and drive up to the balls, play them forward and repeat the performance. That was for, if I remember correctly, 264 miles. He designed the Tarcoola golf course and had something to do with the Oodnadatta one, but this wasn't so successful. One fairway had to pass over the corner of a house yard and, while all was well with good golfers, there weren't many of them at Oodnadatta and mothers objected to their offspring being hit by golf balls, so that was a failure. To finance the Mission, George had to come up with some extraordinary methods: he introduced to the area the buying of tickets for the horses nominated for the Melbourne Cup; there used to be three or four hundred.

The ticket cost, I think, ten shillings and if the horse started in the Cup some money was paid and the winner, second and third collected decent amounts as prizes and the rest financed the building of the church. He also had a motor gymkhana on a salt pan near Lyndhurst, with the usual horse events competed by cars! They were great social days attended by people from miles around: from Maree, from the Talc Mine, Leigh Creek, and Hawker.

George went on long service leave in 1958 and then was posted to Georgetown, followed by Woomera, Snowtown, Streaky Bay and Peterborough. He retired to Glen Osmond in 1989 and died on 18/11/1990.

Carmody was a keen contract bridge player, having learned the game at Leigh Creek.

After Vatican II he became very concerned about the direction being taken by many in the Church, seeing much of it as being somewhat akin to Modernism condemned in Lamentabili. This soured much of his later life, although away from that he was still a good companion, with a fund of stories from his time in the bush and at Woomera.

(Reproduced with the approval of Sister Mary Cresp RSM)