It was on the way to Mass that I first heard the story of St Joseph and Bobby Clarke. My friend’s aunt, Ann Kelly, needed a lift, and the pair of them were catching up, as I listened from the back seat. “As you know,” said Ann, “I fell out with St Joseph for 33 years.”
At first, I thought she was just joking. But she was very serious.
How could anyone fall out with St Joseph, not least a devout Catholic?
I eventually heard the whole story over a cup of tea after Mass last Ash Wednesday.
Attack
Ann, a grandmother with a charmingly girlish voice, recalled the events of July 5, 1973, events that have been burned into her very soul.
“My daddy,” said Ann, “went out to work that morning just before eight. He drove a big lorry and a fellow named Eamonn Largey had been killed in an accident at the roundabout at Eastwood’s scrapyard and he said to my mammy, ‘Kate will ye get my clothes ready and I will go tonight to the wake’.”
Bobby planned to pay his respects after he finished off his last shift as a contract lorry driver for Briggs of Pembroke Street, in the Village area of Belfast. It was a fiercely loyalist district and Bobby was the only Catholic worker. He drove into the yard, as usual, but this time he was set upon by a gang of loyalists, linked to the Ulster Freedom Fighters.
They were taking him to the back hall to hang him, but something went wrong, whatever it was”
“My daddy was the size of nothing,” said Ann. “He used to sit on two pillows when he drove the lorry into the yard.”
“This guy pulled him out and my dad thought it was a ‘hold up’ for the wages. They gave him an awful beating but I think my daddy gave as good as he got because his wee hands were all black and blue.”
“They were taking him to the back hall to hang him, but something went wrong, whatever it was. They shot him, and they shot him right through – I think it was the left side. But in the pocket was a picture of St Joseph ‘to protect you from the hands of the enemy’. And the bullet went right through the picture.”
“…and then they finished him off by putting a bullet straight through the temple of his head. That was at twenty past eight on July 5, 1973.”
Although Bobby’s murder was on the news fairly quickly, Ann, just 21, and newly-wed with a little baby, was oblivious to what had happened. “We didn’t know until half four that day. Everybody knew except me and my mammy.”
That afternoon, Ann met a young girl at the local van shop who blurted out the news : “That was awful what happened to your daddy!”
“No,” said Ann. “My daddy is at work.”
But the girl insisted: “‘No, Ann, your daddy was found dead’…”
Grief
Ann, one of seven children born to Bobby and his wife Kathleen, fell into shock and deep grief. “I was very, very angry. I could not tell you what way I felt, and I just hated St Joseph…”
Later she added: “…I don’t know if it was hate. I don’t know what to call it.”
She had eventually confided her feelings about St Joseph to a priest who told her: “You don’t hate him. You are hurt.”
While Ann focused her anger on St Joseph, her widowed mother, devastated by the loss of her husband, raged against the killers. “‘God curse the ones that killed your daddy’, she would say,” said Ann who would often pray to God for her mother’s healing with the words: “Oh, please don’t let mammy die with that on her heart.”
Her mother received a shortened pension because her father died on a Thursday”
The family’s grief was compounded when, six months after Bobby was killed, his brother Vincent, another innocent Catholic, who refused to pay the loyalists protection money, was also shot dead. The killers put ten bullets into him outside his mother’s West Belfast home on February 4, 1974.
Ann recalled that her mother received a shortened pension because her father died on a Thursday, rather than a Friday, when his work week began. She was given relatively little by way of state compensation. “Six thousand pounds for my father’s life. My mother called it ‘blood money’ and would not touch it.”
Years later, she gave it to a family member in distress.
“My daddy was only 54 and we lost so much,” said Ann. “I lost my daddy and my daddy never even knew his grandchildren.”
Solace
Her mother however treasured the bullet-ridden prayer card of St Joseph, a card she had given to her husband for his protection. She carried it in her handbag, along with a packet of Park Lane cigarettes that Bobby had on him when he was murdered. But even the prayer card and cigarette packet were taken, when the poor widow had her handbag snatched outside a West Belfast shop.
Ann was a long-time church volunteer, arranging the altar flowers at Clonard Monastery for the Redemptorist community. But she stubbornly refused to honour the statue of St Joseph on his feast days, March 19 and May 1. “I would not put a flower on his shrine for years and years.”
One time, she went on a bus-run to Knock where there was a ballot and one of the prizes was an 18 inch statue of St Joseph. “I am not sure if I won the ballot or my friend Patsy won the ballot but I came home with a statue of St Joseph I didn’t want.”
Eventually after 33 years she found it in her heart to put a yellow and white flower at St Joseph’s shrine at Clonard.
‘My daddy never went to Mass,’ she recounted. ‘But he was a very good person’”
And, last Ash Wednesday, at the 7am Mass at our parish of St Michael the Archangel, she was struck by Fr Ciaran Feeney’s prayer after an intercessory Hail Mary: “St Joseph, pray for us.”
Ann did not say if she now believed St Joseph, patron of a happy death, had perhaps protected her father’s soul, rather than his body.
But during our conversation she shared what happened in the days before he was murdered. “My daddy never went to Mass,” she recounted. “But he was a very good person. And the week before my father died, he went up every night to the mission in Turf Lodge.”
Thousands to gather to ‘Light the Fire’
Some good news, as we approach St Patrick’s Day. Singer-songwriter Dana and her husband Damien Scallon have confirmed plans for a massive Light the Fire event on Sunday August 3. Archbishop Eamon Martin is set to ‘light the flame’ at Slane, where St Patrick defied the High King of Tara and lit up the ancient hill in 433AD. Dana, who was inspired to write a song for Patrick called ‘Light the Fire’, said 2025 is a time of great grace on our island. “It is a crucially important year for Ireland. It is the Year of Hope, and the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of St Oliver Plunkett, the Centenary of the death of Venerable Matt Talbot, and Ireland has just launched a Sacred Heart Crusade. And it all came from St Patrick bringing the faith.” Many thousands are set to gather for Mass, praise and worship and Eucharistic healing. Our parish has already booked a bus. Save the date!
Thanks for no birth control…
Oscar speeches are not what they used to be. And to be honest I did not bother watching this month’s ceremony. In fact, I haven’t bothered for years, though as a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, The Oscars were unmissable. The other day I came across a speech by Dustin Hoffman, who won the Best Actor award in 1980 for Kramer v Kramer. One line really struck me. “I want to thank my parents,” he said. “…for not practising birth control.” Amen to that!
St Joseph and a bullet-ridden prayer card
It was on the way to Mass that I first heard the story of St Joseph and Bobby Clarke. My friend’s aunt, Ann Kelly, needed a lift, and the pair of them were catching up, as I listened from the back seat. “As you know,” said Ann, “I fell out with St Joseph for 33 years.”
At first, I thought she was just joking. But she was very serious.
How could anyone fall out with St Joseph, not least a devout Catholic?
I eventually heard the whole story over a cup of tea after Mass last Ash Wednesday.
Attack
Ann, a grandmother with a charmingly girlish voice, recalled the events of July 5, 1973, events that have been burned into her very soul.
“My daddy,” said Ann, “went out to work that morning just before eight. He drove a big lorry and a fellow named Eamonn Largey had been killed in an accident at the roundabout at Eastwood’s scrapyard and he said to my mammy, ‘Kate will ye get my clothes ready and I will go tonight to the wake’.”
Bobby planned to pay his respects after he finished off his last shift as a contract lorry driver for Briggs of Pembroke Street, in the Village area of Belfast. It was a fiercely loyalist district and Bobby was the only Catholic worker. He drove into the yard, as usual, but this time he was set upon by a gang of loyalists, linked to the Ulster Freedom Fighters.
“My daddy was the size of nothing,” said Ann. “He used to sit on two pillows when he drove the lorry into the yard.”
“This guy pulled him out and my dad thought it was a ‘hold up’ for the wages. They gave him an awful beating but I think my daddy gave as good as he got because his wee hands were all black and blue.”
“They were taking him to the back hall to hang him, but something went wrong, whatever it was. They shot him, and they shot him right through – I think it was the left side. But in the pocket was a picture of St Joseph ‘to protect you from the hands of the enemy’. And the bullet went right through the picture.”
“…and then they finished him off by putting a bullet straight through the temple of his head. That was at twenty past eight on July 5, 1973.”
Although Bobby’s murder was on the news fairly quickly, Ann, just 21, and newly-wed with a little baby, was oblivious to what had happened. “We didn’t know until half four that day. Everybody knew except me and my mammy.”
That afternoon, Ann met a young girl at the local van shop who blurted out the news : “That was awful what happened to your daddy!”
“No,” said Ann. “My daddy is at work.”
But the girl insisted: “‘No, Ann, your daddy was found dead’…”
Grief
Ann, one of seven children born to Bobby and his wife Kathleen, fell into shock and deep grief. “I was very, very angry. I could not tell you what way I felt, and I just hated St Joseph…”
Later she added: “…I don’t know if it was hate. I don’t know what to call it.”
She had eventually confided her feelings about St Joseph to a priest who told her: “You don’t hate him. You are hurt.”
While Ann focused her anger on St Joseph, her widowed mother, devastated by the loss of her husband, raged against the killers. “‘God curse the ones that killed your daddy’, she would say,” said Ann who would often pray to God for her mother’s healing with the words: “Oh, please don’t let mammy die with that on her heart.”
The family’s grief was compounded when, six months after Bobby was killed, his brother Vincent, another innocent Catholic, who refused to pay the loyalists protection money, was also shot dead. The killers put ten bullets into him outside his mother’s West Belfast home on February 4, 1974.
Ann recalled that her mother received a shortened pension because her father died on a Thursday, rather than a Friday, when his work week began. She was given relatively little by way of state compensation. “Six thousand pounds for my father’s life. My mother called it ‘blood money’ and would not touch it.”
Years later, she gave it to a family member in distress.
“My daddy was only 54 and we lost so much,” said Ann. “I lost my daddy and my daddy never even knew his grandchildren.”
Solace
Her mother however treasured the bullet-ridden prayer card of St Joseph, a card she had given to her husband for his protection. She carried it in her handbag, along with a packet of Park Lane cigarettes that Bobby had on him when he was murdered. But even the prayer card and cigarette packet were taken, when the poor widow had her handbag snatched outside a West Belfast shop.
Ann was a long-time church volunteer, arranging the altar flowers at Clonard Monastery for the Redemptorist community. But she stubbornly refused to honour the statue of St Joseph on his feast days, March 19 and May 1. “I would not put a flower on his shrine for years and years.”
One time, she went on a bus-run to Knock where there was a ballot and one of the prizes was an 18 inch statue of St Joseph. “I am not sure if I won the ballot or my friend Patsy won the ballot but I came home with a statue of St Joseph I didn’t want.”
Eventually after 33 years she found it in her heart to put a yellow and white flower at St Joseph’s shrine at Clonard.
And, last Ash Wednesday, at the 7am Mass at our parish of St Michael the Archangel, she was struck by Fr Ciaran Feeney’s prayer after an intercessory Hail Mary: “St Joseph, pray for us.”
Ann did not say if she now believed St Joseph, patron of a happy death, had perhaps protected her father’s soul, rather than his body.
But during our conversation she shared what happened in the days before he was murdered. “My daddy never went to Mass,” she recounted. “But he was a very good person. And the week before my father died, he went up every night to the mission in Turf Lodge.”
Thousands to gather to ‘Light the Fire’
Some good news, as we approach St Patrick’s Day. Singer-songwriter Dana and her husband Damien Scallon have confirmed plans for a massive Light the Fire event on Sunday August 3. Archbishop Eamon Martin is set to ‘light the flame’ at Slane, where St Patrick defied the High King of Tara and lit up the ancient hill in 433AD. Dana, who was inspired to write a song for Patrick called ‘Light the Fire’, said 2025 is a time of great grace on our island. “It is a crucially important year for Ireland. It is the Year of Hope, and the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of St Oliver Plunkett, the Centenary of the death of Venerable Matt Talbot, and Ireland has just launched a Sacred Heart Crusade. And it all came from St Patrick bringing the faith.” Many thousands are set to gather for Mass, praise and worship and Eucharistic healing. Our parish has already booked a bus. Save the date!
Thanks for no birth control…
Oscar speeches are not what they used to be. And to be honest I did not bother watching this month’s ceremony. In fact, I haven’t bothered for years, though as a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, The Oscars were unmissable. The other day I came across a speech by Dustin Hoffman, who won the Best Actor award in 1980 for Kramer v Kramer. One line really struck me. “I want to thank my parents,” he said. “…for not practising birth control.” Amen to that!
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