How long can one family sustain a tradition of priesthood in one diocese?

For more than a century --- 117 years, actually --- the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has been served by priests whose roots can be traced to a little section of County Galway known as Williamstown, in western Ireland.

Today, the Conneally family is represented by 90-year-old Jesuit Father Philip Conneally, an alumnus and now retired teacher at Loyola High School, and nephew of three Conneally brothers who became priests (one of whom has been called the inspiration for the classic film "Going My Way," which premiered right around the time of Father Phil's 1944 ordination).

And, it is represented by Father James Ford, pastor of San Roque Church in Santa Barbara, whose grandmother Bridget Conneally Furlong was a sister of the three priests --- Patrick, Michael and Nicholas. Bridget's parents, John and Bridget Coyne Conneally, had many children all of whom later would come over to the Los Angeles area in the turn of the century. Only one son, John, remained back on the family homestead, Knockanara House, in Williamstown.

Following is a brief history:

Rev. Patrick A. Conneally: 1861-1888
Born on the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross (Sept. 14), Father Pat was ordained for the County of Galway, then was sent in the mid-1880s to the Diocese of Kansas City/St. Joseph, Missouri, under Bishop John J. Hogan. Fully equipped with the theology and priestly training necessary in this new mission field of the American west, Irish priests were imported by the droves as new dioceses were created with the push westward in the late 19th century.

Father Pat was initially assigned to St. Patrick Church in St. Joseph, and was listed in the diocesan directory for that parish even when on medical leave. He left Kansas City because he suffered greatly from tuberculosis, and came to Los Angeles for about two years where he worked at St. Vincent's Hospital, "as a chaplain and as a patient," noted his nephew, Father Philip Conneally. "California was seen as the cure-all for many with TB. The climate was viewed as better for them."

His older brother Thomas (born 1860), had emigrated to New Jersey in 1885. It was there Tom heard about his sibling's deteriorating medical condition, and left the East Coast to join Pat in California. "Actually," said Father Philip (Tom's son), "there was quite a push to bring people in to Southern California at that time, to populate it. You could buy a railroad ticket for only about a dollar."

Father Pat's condition had worsened, and he was hospitalized at St. Vincent's. The medical expenses must have been mounting. "My father [Thomas] cared for the hospital cows and thus paid for his brother's hospitalization," remembered Father Philip.

Bishop Hogan wrote Father Pat a most encouraging letter from Kansas City, received no doubt just days before he passed away. Part of the letter (dated 26 June 1888) reads:

I have been thinking of you and of the loss to religion that my diocese has to suffer on account of your illness, for I well know what good you could do for God's honor and glory and the salvation of souls were you only in good health. I fear, too, that you must suffer greatly through weakness and pain from so long a sickness. May Almighty God give you strength to bear your infirmities with resignation to His Most Holy and Adorable Will, and to merit through patience and union of your heart with Christ's Most Adorable Heart the martyr's reward and crown which must be yours because you suffer so much.

But you can help me even in your sickness praying for me and my diocese and your brother priests here who remember you well for the good example you gave them while you were among them. And if you go to Heaven before we do, for we hope truly with God's help to get to Heaven some time even after our Purgatory, we trust you will pray for us --- pray for our delivery from all danger and sorrow.

I am sure, while in your sickness, that you pray constantly to the Mother of God --- the Holy Mother of God who is the joy and delight and hope of every good priest, especially in sickness and at the hour of death.

On Sept. 2, 1888, just 12 days short of his 27th birthday, Father Patrick Conneally was called home to be with the Lord.

Rev. Michael J. Conneally: 1870-1940
Father Michael, ordained in All Hallows College, Drumcondra, Dublin, arrived in New York in October of 1895 on board the Germanic. It must have been a thrill and a half for his oldest brother, Tom, to see Michael, now a priest, join him in California.

Following an assignment at San Luis Obispo (the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles then covered the southern half of California), Michael was assigned as pastor of St. Francis de Sales Church, Riverside. But as the only priest in all of Riverside County, he went to seven different locations to say Mass for its 1,300 Catholics, including Elsinore, San Jacinto and Corona.

Indeed, it wasn't uncommon in the 1890s to see Father Michael riding into Corona from Riverside on a bicycle, with a suitcase on his back containing his vestment, chalice and altar dressing for Sunday Mass. He later served as pastor of Mary Star of the Sea in San Pedro, where in 1907 he hosted his kid brother Nicholas' first Mass after ordination.

Father Michael was "a wonderful, wonderful person," said his niece, Margaret Mary Wolfe. "He gave generously. He was fun."

Father Michael became a U.S. citizen on July 20, 1910, later serving as pastor of St. Joseph, Pomona (1912-1918), Sacred Heart in San Diego, and St. Sebastian in Santa Paula. He pastored also at St. Francis of Assisi Church in the Silverlake area northwest of downtown L.A.

"A real jokester," recalled his nephew, Father Philip. "When giving his introductory sermon at St. Francis, he laughingly said, 'You can keep the Lake, but I want the Silver!'" With many donations from the faithful, Father Michael later helped build St. Stephen Church in Monterey Park.

Sister Kathleen Conneally (a cousin in Ireland also descended from the John Conneally branch) recalled that Father Michael made many trips back to Ireland. In 1923 (the year before he went to St. Stephen's) he brought to the U.S. his niece, Bridie Conneally, who stayed with Father Michael and worked for him. In Father Michael's retirement he lived with his niece, Bridie, and her husband, Ralph Josten, passing away in their house in Monterey Park.

Msgr. Nicholas Conneally: 1879-1949
Nicholas was the youngest of the Conneally clan. As was the custom in those days, he was named after another brother, an infant who died at childbirth. He probably didn't know his brother Patrick well, since Father Patrick was in the seminary and then came to the States when Nicholas was just a child.

The last of his siblings to leave Ireland about 1904, Nicholas attended St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, and was ordained a priest July 11, 1907 --- the day after his 28th birthday --- by Bishop Thomas Conaty in St. Vibiana's Cathedral for the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles. He served in parishes in San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, Redondo Beach (St. James), El Segundo and San Bernardino, gaining a reputation as a builder of churches and schools, before being assigned to St. Monica Church, Santa Monica, in 1923.

His niece, Holy Names Sister Bridget of Mary (nee Cecilia) Furlong, said Msgr. Nicholas "ended up building a beautiful church" and much more at St. Monica's, including the elementary and high school, rectory and convent. She told of his "love and care for the sick and the poor wherever he went."

On the occasion of the silver jubilee of his ordination in 1932 (two years before he was named a monsignor), a newspaper clipping spoke of him:

"…since but few priests of this diocese have to their credit a more outstanding record as builder of churches and schools, zealous priest and missionary, as has Father Conneally….

"His 25 years in this diocese have never found him without a class of converts receiving instruction. He has counted his converts by the hundreds. In works of charity he has been tireless. Today [during the Depression] in these times of stress he keeps open house for the hungry and destitute, nearly four hundred people being fed each month at the rectory.

"His hand was out, but never for himself," Sr. Bridget of Mary said. "When he died he left just enough for his burial. At times Monsignor Nicholas was abrupt in his manner of speaking; at other times he was gracious and humorous. He loved children, too, often getting on the school bus with them and buying them all an ice cream cone on their way home."

Msgr. Nicholas knew where his strength lie --- his deep faith. Virginia Prussing McShane, a St. Monica's parishioner remembered, "He had a dog called Lollipop --- a cute little cocker spaniel. They would walk back and forth, back and forth in front of the church while the monsignor would be saying the divine office, reading from his breviary. He gave beautiful sermons too." She added, "There was not a mean bone in his body."

April 27, 2004 marked the 60th anniversary of the classic film, "Going My Way." The film found its inspiration for the feisty old Irish priest's character in Msgr. Nicholas Conneally. Director Leo McCarey was a parishioner and friend of the cleric's.

It was written about McCarey that the idea for the story came to him in a conversation with an old Irish priest with "a brogue as thick as a peat bog" who had built the church near McCarey's home in Santa Monica. The priest had approached McCarey seeking funds for a new loudspeaker.

The director happily gave a donation. While chatting with the priest, he asked the older man a question. "How," McCarey wanted to know, "do you get along with your young priests?"

"They're nice fellows," the priest replied, "who are figuring on how they can change things around when I die."

"I didn't know it then," McCarey recalled later, "but I was meeting the Barry Fitzgerald character in 'Going My Way.'"

When Msgr. Nicholas died in 1949, the newspaper clipping read:

"Mr. McCarey said that the monsignor was a frequent visitor at his home. The priest's many anecdotes about his work in the parish and St. Monica's School gave the director the idea it would make a good film story. It did."

"Going My Way" won seven Academy Awards in 1944 including best picture, direction, original story, original screenplay, song ("Swinging on a Star"), actor (Bing Crosby) and supporting actor (Barry Fitzgerald, who portrayed a priest much like Msgr. Nicholas Conneally).

In 1951, three of Msgr. Nicholas' sisters were present at the rededication of Christ the King Chapel, Oxnard, where family members donated a hand-embroidered altar backdrop tapestry in their brother's name. Four years later, St. Monica students gathered for the dedication of an 11-foot marble statue of Our Lady of Grace that they had donated in memory of their late pastor. Presiding at the dedication was his nephew, Father Phil.

Rev. John Philip Conneally, SJ: 1914-
Born May 9, 1914 in Los Angeles to Thomas and the former Mary V. Hurley, Phil Conneally (whose father died when he was six) was the eldest of three boys. He attended St. Cecilia School (Los Angeles), St. Rita School (Sierra Madre), and graduated from Loyola High School in Los Angeles in 1931, the year he entered the Society of Jesus.

He was ordained to the priesthood June 17, 1944 by Archbishop John Mitty at St. Mary's Cathedral, San Francisco, and celebrated his first Mass July 2 at St. Monica Church, where his Irish-born uncle, Msgr. Nicholas Conneally, was pastor and moving force behind "the church of the stars." Such notables as Pat O'Brien and Maureen O'Sullivan attended his first Mass and shared in the festivities afterwards Mass at Father Philip's Communion breakfast reception.

Father Phil taught for many years at Loyola High School, and is now in residence at the facility. He officially marks 60 years of priesthood on June 17.

Additional family
---Father Phil's aunt, Bridget, was the grandmother of Father James Ford, ordained for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1966, a former pastor at Our Lady of Peace in North Hills, and currently pastor at San Roque in Santa Barbara.

---In 1923 the three Irish priests' niece, Bridie Conneally (1901-1944), came from the Ireland homestead to the Los Angeles area. She later married and became the mother of Father (John) Stephen Josten, O. Carm,, missionary in Africa and later stationed at Knock Shrine, Ireland.

---Most of the Conneally priests' siblings and relatives eventually came to Los Angeles also. By 1899 the Los Angeles Catholic Directory listed these Conneallys on Western Avenue: Thomas (Phil's father), Marion (who married George Doyle) Kate (who married Tom Furlong), Bridget (who married Luke Furlong), Luke (and his wife, Mary) and "F Michael" (as in "Father" Michael).

Christine A. Enright Snyder, whose mother was a first cousin of Msgr. Nicholas Conneally, lives in Marlborough, Mass. In addition to various family members, sources for this story include Catholic Digest, December 1994 ("The Real Story behind Going My Way").