By Michael McBane
There was great joy in Bytown the day Michael Molloy arrived. Father Damase Dandurand, a perfectly bilingual French Canadian, was ministering to the Irish Catholics. But the Irish wanted an Irish priest. Word reached the Oblates in Marseilles, and Bishop Eugene de Mazenod (now a saint) cut short Molloy’s training and ordained him on July 6th, 1845.
Molloy sailed three days later to New York and arrived in Bytown on September 16, 1845. A native of County Limerick, he had joined the Oblates at the age of 39 and was considered a late vocation.
Molloy set to work primarily in Lowertown, coming close to death in the summer of 1847 when he caught typhus fever while ministering to sick and dying refugees of the Great Famine. He went on to serve people in need in Bytown and Ottawa for the next 45 years.
Shortly after his arrival, Molloy founded a Temperance Society. His stirring appeals in “the purest and richest Irish brogue” led many casual attendees to take the pledge. His meetings ended with an appeal for contributions to his House of Refuge, located on what is now Guigues Street, and the assembly usually poured their silver coins and shinplasters [paper money of low value] into his hat at the door where he stationed himself.
He established the House of Mercy for unwed mothers, who were known as “Father Molloy’s Girls.” He founded what became St. Patrick’s Home for the Aged and the Good Shepherd Home, as well as the Ottawa chapter of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.
Father Molloy regularly begged for food for the residents of his homes from vendors in the ByWard Market. He would say: “When you give to me, you give to the good God and his poor.” His appeals seldom failed. His homes were open to all denominations and nationalities.
A humble man with a big heart, much of Father Molloy’s training was on the job. His theology was learned in Lowertown from people on the margins of society. When he died, the Ottawa Citizen wrote: “He was known as a pious and philanthropic priest and in him the poor have lost a friend and benefactor.”