Pat Smyth, a civil servant with the National Assistance Board in West Tyrone from the 1930's to the 1950's, recalls his memories, experiences and the larger than life personalities he encountered on the way.

Father John McKenna or 'Black John' as we later got to know him, was a bit like ourselves. Whatever else the priesthood had done for him, it had not taken the country out of the man. He confided on one occasion that he often felt lonelier walking down Omagh's Market Street than he would have felt in the heart of the Sperrins, where he grew up.

He dressed shabbily and always carried a battered black hat, which older priests never went without. 'Hello there! You're new aren't you? You are very welcome to Killyclogher'. He shook hands with us cordially and then he scratched his shiny, bald pate and eyed us quizzically. 'Is it the Missus? It is. You are not long married, maybe? Are you living in Omagh?'

The questions came thick and fast, but he was such an open, friendly little man, that one only warmed all the more to him. Soon he had sorted us out. 'Ach! So you are the new people in Frank O'Kane's place. I knew the man who was here before you, very well. Nice people. She was from Warrenpoint - he was a Ballymena man'.
   
Then he pointed to a red brick villa nearby. 'That's my house drop in any time. You will be very welcome. It's not very stylish, but it does me. I'm in and out a lot. They call me 'Black John'. I got the name at Maynooth. Soon after I went, the Dean called out all the names. 'John McEnna' he called. Two of us stood up. 'John McKenna, Derry,' he repeated. We both stayed on our feet. Then he eyed us impatiently and grinned. 'We will call you 'Black John,' he said, pointing to me. 'You will be 'Red John', he told the other fellow.
   
We met him frequently in the town after that although he was not our Parish Priest. Father John had the adjoining parish of Killyclogher, just outside the town. He had a great reputation as a confessor. They came from far and wide on a Saturday night on their bicycles, many of them courting couples. The wee man spent hours in a cold box in winter, and always there was a queue.
   
One of his most endearing traits was his absentmindedness. One Monday morning he accosted me as I emerged from the railway station. It was a hot day and the sweat was glistening on his bald pate as he ambled along, hat in hand, as usual. 'Did Leo Mulhern come off that train?' he enquired, without preliminary chat
   
'No he didn't' I replied without hesitation. 'Are you sure? Did you come off it? Maybe you missed him? He should have been on it'. 'He didn't come off it', I said firmly. 'I met the train and I saw every single person who got off it.'
   
He looked puzzled, and like a child let down. Then he turned and walked down to the courthouse with me. He headed towards Bridge Street, and I went down High Street, but before we parted he stopped suddenly, scratched his head and enquired 'Now, who's this you are?' and I laughed as I reminded him.
   
Bumbling and absent-minded though he was about the trivia of this world, Black John was a very different character in spiritual matters. Years later when I was downcast and worried the sight of him on Market Street lifted my spirits. I hurried over to him and told him my story quietly. My wife had been taken ill, and rushed to hospital for immediate surgery, would he pray for her? He listened in silence with his head down, as if in prayer, then slowly he raised it and looked me straight in the eyes.

'She will be all right. I'll pray for her and say Mass for her in the morning.' Twenty-four hours later, we met again, in the hallway of the County Infirmary. He immediately enquired about the patient, and I was able to give him good news. 'I will be up to see her in a minute or two.

I hadn't been long in my wife's room until Father John followed me. His obvious concern for the patient was impressive. In an instant the bumbling, hearty little man became a man of God. Silently he prayed over her. Then he raised his hand in benediction, smiled and promised he would bring her Holy Communion as soon as the nurse said he could.

As he stepped back, he looked at me and gave me a pat on the shoulder and discarded his solemn mien. Then he was off pacing at the end of the bed, with his characteristic grin. 'You're from Aghagallon? How's James Connolly? A wee white-haired man now, didn't you tell me? And a Canon! I'm not a Canon, but at least I still have black hair.'
   
'Did he ever tell you about the night I borrowed the parish priest's 'pownie' (pony) to go to Cushendall? I was in Skerries as a Curate, and James had come over to me. He is a Ballinascreen man, you know. Anyway, the 'pownie' took 'the bots' (the colic). When I took him out of the trap he was in a lough of sweat and, like an eejit, I let him off to graze. He got a feed of young grass and clover, and we all thought he was a goner. I was ready to get the first boat to Scotland. There was no way I was going back to Father O'Hare after killing his 'pownie'.
   
He had both of us in stitches. Finally, Father John pointed out of the window. 'That's my house. I haven't far to come to see you. I'm up and down that path at all hours of the day and night'. Later, the hospital porter explained that the path was known as 'Father McKenna's walk'. He was up and down it forty times a day.

Every patient knew him, for he went round every ward looking for new faces and sad faces, cheering everyone up. Orange and Green, Christian and Jew - they were all the same to Father John.
   
The next time I saw Father John was in the Sacred Heart church, at the Holy Week ceremonies. All the priests of the parish were involved as it was a big liturgical occasion. Most were expecting Doctor McShane himself to give the homily, and there was a kind of gasp of disappointment when wee Father John took the big pulpit.

He was hardly visible over the rim of it, and his opening sentences were ragged and bewildering, for Father John had no command of English, in fact he was almost illiterate. I have listened to many a homily in the intervening years, but the one that has stuck is the one given by that simple, illiterate, saintly priest.
   
As he grew older, he tended to re-live his earlier years. One night in his own little chapel he told us a strange story. While he had been a curate in Aghyaran he got a sick call one wild and wintry night. A wee grey-haired woman, with a faded shawl around her head, knocked on his door and instructed him to go at once to a certain address, near the Black Bog chapel, where an old man 'hadn't long to live'.

She said he lived alone, and gave very precise and clear directions. He lived up a loanen near Gortnagross School. There was a wee tumbledown thatched house at the end of the loanen. He could still take the trap up the loanen, although it was nearly grown up with briars. Father John was able to identify the location but it wasn't till the woman had left, that it dawned on him that she hadn't given him the man's name.

The woman apologised for not being able to go with him. She 'had a journey to go, and had only come as a messenger'. Father John said he had been shaken when he saw the loanen. He had only the trap lamp and the place looked impassable. However the woman had been adamant that he could get the trap up, so he urged the pony on.

It got worse the further he went. Soon the briars were scratching his ears and one wheel was so far up the ditch he was afraid of 'couping' (knocking over) the trap. Fortunately the moon was rising, and when he reached the house, he was able to discern where the door was.

No light was showing, but the door was on the latch, so he stepped inside without knocking, carrying the trap lamp. The interior looked a shambles, even to a man well used to rough conditions. The fire was out with only a heap of white ash and the charred stump of a tree remaining.

There was a heap of coverings on the bed to the right of the hearth, but no sign of life. A dout (stump) of a candle was stuck on the seat of a rickety chair at the bedside, but it was out, so he struck a match to light it. As he stooped, the stench from the bed sickened him, but it was nothing compared with the animal-like yelp, which came from under the bedclothes, when the patient saw his collar.

'Who the hell are you? Who sent you? Get to hell out of here. I want none of your breed' were the spate of invectives spewed out. In the dim light he identified the emaciated unkempt features of a man, with a diabolical snarl on his lips.

Father John said he had shaken like a leaf at the fury of the creature that seemed barely human. Then he pulled himself together, and told the man who he was, and how he had been directed to come to him. But the old man was not listening and kept up the snarls of abusive language.

He yelled 'Nobody sent for you. Don't try your lies on me', 'I tell you a woman came for me' Father John shouted back at him 'Not an hour ago.' Then his eyes fell on the faded and grimy picture on the fireboard. He picked it up. 'There she is, there! That's the woman', he shouted.

'What woman? There's no woman here. What are you making up now?' 'This woman whose picture you have on the fireboard. She came for me. Who is she?' Father John asked and he held the picture before the old man's eyes.
   
The muttering suddenly subsided and not another word came out. Then a sound, half sob, half groan, broke the stillness. The priest made no response, but waited.
'If she brought you, I want to make my confession. That is my mother, and she has been dead for forty years.'
   
Father John, visibly moved, even in retelling the experience, told us that before he had left, the man had died - at peace with God, and it was joy in his heart that he had given his soul the final absolution.
   
As the weight of years bent his small figure double, Father John's reputation as a saint increased, and so did the numbers who flocked to him for confessions on a Saturday night. They came on bicycles from far and near. In his eighties, the cold of the old church drove him out of the box, but he continued to hear confessions in his own house, where they queued in the hall and on the stairs.

One night a burly County Tyrone farmer went to rise from his knees, as the words of Absolution died on the priest's lips. A loud moan startled the penitent and he just had time to catch Father John as he slumped to the floor. Black John had died as he had lived - absolving a sinner.

Father John McKenna by Niall Dynes.

Pat Smyth, 2001