St Brendan’s Feast Day May 16th Ancient Order of Hibernians St Brendan the Navigator Division Mecklenburg County Division # 2 ISSUE #7 MONTHLY NEWSLETTER VOLUME#3 July 2011 Our next business meeting is on Thursday, July 14th at 7:30 PM Room 200 & 201 2011 Officers Chaplain Father David Miller President Joe Dougherty Vice President Brian Bourque Secretary Ray FitzGerald Treasurer Chris O’Keefe Financial Secretary Ron Haley Standing Committee Scott Stephan Marshall Ted Leahy Sentinel Deacon Bob Murphy Chaplain Emeritus Father Pat Hoare www.aohmeck2.org THE PRESIDENT’S SOAPBOX Brothers, First, let me wish all of you a good Independence Day. Since we are in the dog days of summer, I would think some of you are enjoying the lake and vacation. As the division President, I need to bring you up to date on some items of great importance. Last night, Thursday, June 30th, the County Board held a meeting to form a plan of action regarding the validity of the Mecklenburg County Board. At the last State board meeting, which started at 7:00 PM, it was determined that the State Secretary did not have minutes from the last State Convention in 2009 in Raleigh. At that convention, two amendments were presented, both of them making changes to the NC State By-Laws, one, recognizing the Mecklenburg County board and the second was giving the County officers the rights of voting delegates to all future State convention. Since the minutes of the convention have been misplaced and since all by-laws and amendments to the same, must be sent to the National Secretary for approval, the validity of these two amendments are in question. Another discussion at the meeting was the 2013 State convention, which we were lead to believe, was awarded to Charlotte. I was informed that is not the case, but that Charlotte would be asking to host it at the Wilmington convention in October of this year. After I brought up the fact that the State conventions are jointly both a AOH and LAOH endeavor, and since the two AOH divisions are putting in money, were the two LAOH divisions also going to match these funds. At this point the discussion became very heated. It also came out that the only representation on the Convention committee were from the Charlotte AOH division and the Huntersville LAOH division. I was reminded that on Feb. 13th I was sent an email asking for two representatives from our division to attend a committee meeting. The first meeting was to be held on Feb. 26th. After I received that email, I sent a request to the division officers asking for two volunteers. Again on Feb 22nd, I sent another email asking for someone to volunteer. On March 7th, after the committee meeting was held, someone did email me and said they would be one of the two. A day or two later, another brother offered to be on the committee. Again, this was after the first meeting was done and over. We were told last night that a hotel had been picked and a deposit placed, and that entertainment was already secured, and this all being done without any reps from Meck 2 AOH and Meck 1 LAOH. At that point, going on 9:00 PM, I informed the County President that the St Brendan division would not be part of the 2013 convention. There were other issues that Ron Haley, our division’s raffle chairman, had asked brother Ray Fitzgerald to bring up, but due to the heated atmosphere and the lateness of the hour, these issues were not brought up. I am asking all of the brothers of the St Brendan division to please try to make the July business meeting because some of these items need to be voted on and I would like to have a majority of brothers in attendance. God Bless Joe Dougherty THE RAFFLE TICKETS ARE IN AND AVAILABLE. PLEASE SEE BROTHER RON HALEY FOR YOURS. REMEMBER, THIS IS OUR ONE BIG FUNDRAISER FOR THE YEAR AND WE NEED YOUR HELP. WE ASK EACH BROTHER TO BUY OR SELL AT LEAST 7 TICKETS. BIRTHDAYS IN THE MONTH OF July Colin Haley Son of Brother Ron July 3rd Robert Murphy Jr. Son of Brother Robert July 3rd Charlie Swengros Division Brother July 4th Michael FitzGerald Son of Brother Ray July 6th Sandy O’Keefe Wife of Brother Chris July 7th Allison Fisher Daughter of Brother Scott July 9th Michelle Fisher Wife of Brother Scott July 14th Kathleen Mann Daughter of Brother Gene July 17th Amy Dougherty Daughter of Brother Joe July 21st Emily O’Keefe Daughter of Brother Chris July 28th Martin Fisher Division Brother July 28th Anniversaries in the Month of June Scott & Erin Stephan Married July 3 rd Shane & Mary Margaret Lis Married July 6th Joe & Nancy Dougherty Married July 12th View from Jury’s Hotel in Galway Father Voitus Blessing Inside Old St Patrick’s NYC Front door of Old St Patrick’s AOH Plaque at Old St Patrick’s Irish Saints Saint Oliver Plunkett Feast Day, July 11 Oliver Plunkett was born in 1629 in Loughcrew, County professor at the College of Propaganda Fide. At the Meath, Ireland to well-to-do parents of Hiberno-Norman Congregation of Propaganda Fide on July 9, 1669, he origin. He was related by birth to a number of landed was appointed Archbishop of Armagh, the Irish families, such as the recently ennobled Earl of primatial see, and was consecrated on November 30 at Roscommon, as well as the long-established Earl of Ghent by the Bishop of Ghent, He eventually set foot on Fingall, Lord Louth and Lord Dunsany. Until his Irish soil again on March 7, 1670, as the English sixteenth year, the boy's education was entrusted to his Restoration of 1660 had started on a tolerant basis. The cousin Patrick Plunkett, Abbot of St Mary's, Dublin, and pallium was granted him in the Consistory of July 28, brother of the first Earl of Fingall who later became 1670. After arriving back in Ireland, he set about bishop, successively, of Ardagh and Meath. As an reorganising the ravaged Roman Church and built aspirant to the priesthood, he set out for Rome in 1647, schools both for the young and for clergy, whom he under the care of Father Pierfrancesco Scarampi, of the found 'ignorant in moral theology and controversies'. He Roman Oratory. At this time, the Irish Confederate tackled drunkenness among the clergy, writing 'Let us Wars were raging in Ireland; these were essentially remove this defect from an Irish priest, and he will be a conflicts between native Irish Roman Catholics, saint'. The Penal Laws had been relaxed in line with the English, and Irish Anglicans and Protestants. Scarampi Declaration of Breda in 1660 and he was able to was the Papal envoy to the Roman Catholic movement establish a Jesuit College in Drogheda in 1670. A year known as the Confederation of Ireland. Many of later 150 students attended the college. On the Plunkett's relatives were involved in this organization enactment of the Test Act in 1673, which Plunkett He was admitted to the Irish College in Rome and he would not agree to for doctrinal reasons, the college was proved to be an able pupil. He was ordained a priest in levelled to the ground. Plunkett went into hiding, 1654, and deputed by the Irish bishops to act as their traveling only in disguise, and refused a government representative in Rome. Meanwhile, the Cromwellian edict to register at a seaport to await passage into exile. conquest of Ireland (1649–53) had defeated the Roman In 1678, the so-called Popish Plot, concocted in England Catholic cause in Ireland and, in the aftermath, the by Titus Oates, led to further anti-Roman Catholicism. public practice of Roman Catholicism was banned and Archbishop Peter Talbot of Dublin was arrested, and Roman Catholic clergy were executed. As a result, it Plunkett again went into hiding. The Privy Council in was impossible for Plunkett to return to Ireland for London was told he had plotted a French invasion. many years. He petitioned to remain in Rome and, in Despite being on the run and with a price on his head, 1657, became a professor of theology. Throughout the he refused to leave his flock. He was arrested in Dublin period of the Commonwealth and the first years of in December 1679 and imprisoned in Dublin Castle, Charles II's reign, he successfully pleaded the cause of where he gave absolution to the dying Talbot. At some the Irish Roman Church, and also served as theological point before his final incarceration, he took refuge in a church that once stood in the townland of Killartry in Lamspringe, near Hildesheim in Germany. The head County Louth, in the parish of Clogherhead, seven miles was brought to Rome, and from there to Armagh and outside of Drogheda. He was tried at Dundalk for eventually to Drogheda where, since June 29, 1921, it conspiring against the state by plotting to bring 20,000 has rested in Saint Peter's Church. Most of the body was French soldiers into the country, and for levying a tax brought to Downside Abbey, England, where the major on his clergy to support 70,000 men for rebellion. part is located today, with some parts remaining at Though this was unproven, some in government circles Lamspringe. Some relics were brought to Ireland in were worried about, and some used the excuse, that May 1975, while others are in England, France, another rebellion was being planned.