{"id":252461,"date":"2025-12-26T14:38:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T14:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/252461\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T14:38:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T14:38:15","slug":"nigerian-priest-on-his-reverse-mission-to-mayo-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/252461\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian priest on his \u2018reverse mission\u2019 to Mayo \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is becoming ever more clear that Ireland\u2019s 20th-century missionary Catholic Church<\/a> is coming to the rescue of its distressed 21st-century counterpart.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, priests from South America, Asia and in particular Africa are serving in dioceses throughout the island of Ireland.<\/p>\n

No individual quite captures the symmetry of this story as perfectly as Fr Victor Akongwale, a priest of the diocese of Ogoja in southeastern Nigeria<\/a>. He is now administrator at Carracastle, Co Mayo<\/a>, in Achonry diocese.<\/p>\n

A founder of Ogoja diocese was the late Fr Thomas McGettrick, who was a priest of Achonry diocese, sent to Africa in 1939, becoming bishop in Ogoja in 1955. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn all his years in Africa, he built over 500 schools and was bishop of two dioceses: Ogoja and <\/b>Abakaliki,\u201d Fr Akongwale says of McGettrick.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see an arc, something that was designed by God. I am proud that I\u2019m a priest and I am very proud that I\u2019m in Ireland where my story started. My first teachers in becoming a priest were Irish, with a few Nigerians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Describing himself as \u201ca Catholic of Irish descent, as Nigeria is\u201d, he noted how in that country \u201cwe have more Patricks, and more Guinness is produced and consumed, than even in Ireland itself. St Patrick is the patron saint of Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018I see mistakes celebrating Mass in Ireland\u2019: The new parishioners filling Dublin pewsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Nigerian Catholics \u201care Irish Catholics\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father would say `my Lord and my God\u2019. I never saw in any book where there was a response at any Mass of `my Lord and my God.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He came to Swinford, Co Mayo, in 2022 and told the people there: \u201cI see where my father got his Catholicism from.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds that he did not need to come to Ireland to learn \u201cthe Irish speed of the rosary\u201d but that this was \u201ca relic of his Irish Catholicism\u201d via his father.<\/p>\n

In 2002 Fr Akongwale visited Drogheda, from where the Medical Missionaries of Mary hail \u2013 a religious order that helped address the high infant mortality rate in Africa. Their work is remembered in Nigeria. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhere I come from in Ogoja, when you get home and say you were in Ireland, they ask you: `How is Drogheda? They don\u2019t ask you about Dublin,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Irish ties in Nigeria run deep. In the early 1980s, before the nation\u2019s soccer went professional, two large colleges founded by Irish missionaries in Lagos \u2013 St Finbar\u2019s and St Greg\u2019s \u2013 produced half the national football team.<\/p>\n

They \u201cdid a lot for my country \u2013 in sports, education, health, my father,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

The Irish church, he says, made \u201chorrible mistakes\u201d in Ireland but he wonders what Irish people would say if they could visit sub-Saharan Africa with him to see the work of Irish religious orders.<\/p>\n

There was \u201ca lot to celebrate about the Irish church if you look to Africa\u201d, he says, believing the Irish church \u2013 if people look to the work in India, Korea and Australia as well \u2013 \u201chas punched above her weight\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fr Akongwale\u2019s father was educated by Irish teachers at primary school; seven children went to college. <\/p>\n

\n

The people look to the heart, and they even get my sense of humour now<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Co Mayo-based priest practised as a barrister in Nigeria and taught religion, government, history and theology. <\/p>\n

He built two schools in a rural parish. The first he named after English theologian John Henry Newman, who was instrumental in the establishment of the Catholic University of Ireland, later UCD.<\/p>\n

Last July he celebrated 25 years as a priest; he trained for priesthood at \u201cthe Maynooth of Africa\u201d: Bigard Memorial Seminary, in Nigeria\u2019s Enugu diocese, founded in 1922 by Spiritan priest and later bishop Joseph Shanahan. <\/p>\n

\"FrFr Victor Akongwale. Photograph: Conor McKeown <\/p>\n

Before his transfer to Co Mayo, Fr Akongwale served in Switzerland and Southwark in London.<\/p>\n

An outgoing man, Fr Victor has proven popular in Swinford since his arrival there. Last March the town made him grand marshal of its St Patrick\u2019s Day parade to honour his silver jubilee as a priest.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are kind; my vowels are all over the place and my consonants, but the people look to the heart, and they even get my sense of humour now,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Coming from Africa, Fr Akongwale has found the weather in the west of Ireland \u201cchallenging\u201d but he is \u201chappy in Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an honorary Irishman now \u2013 a black Paddy,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

He is not the only Nigerian serving in the diocese. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was one, then there were three. Now there are four, including two seminarians training for Achonry,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a reverse mission now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is becoming ever more clear that Ireland\u2019s 20th-century missionary Catholic Church is coming to the rescue of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,2512,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,2354,5,3713,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-252461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-catholic-church","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-mayo","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-nigeria","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115786384054108565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}