On Thursday, Kevin Flanagan’s will family join with his Albury and wider Catholic family to celebrate the life of this extraordinary man.
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The outpourings of love and praise from local people have been overwhelming and a great comfort. He was an amazing inter-generational priest with a welcoming and wise ear for all through life’s’ passages of baptisms, burials and marriages – “our man for all seasons”.
Kevin was also our dear Uncle, Great Uncle and Great Great Uncle. He was fun, trendy, engaging, sometimes wicked, learned, a carer and an inspiration. Uncle Kevin frequently visited his brothers and sisters. I remember posing for a photo with him looking dashing in his new priestly gear. Uncle Kev then grabbed the football and started kicking it into the air. He then danced with my little sister around the backyard.
Uncle Kevin had a wonderful knack for shattering people’s pre-conceptions of a priest. On one visit, back in 1972, in that so interested and understanding way, he asked “What was your favourite music?” We boasted about our new “American Pie” record. We put it on, and Uncle Kevin immediately started singing the lyrics. He was trendy and way ahead of us teenagers.
Uncle Kevin told great stories of times before entering the priesthood at the age of 34: fun as the baby of the family with Elizabeth and James his parents, and brothers and sisters Noel, Jack, Kathleen and Dorothy; growing up in a small community in Tocumwal; getting into trouble for doing well in a boxing competition; school at St Patrick’s in Ballarat; returning to look after the general store with his two sisters with whom he had a particularly close bond in their love of dance and song. I loved the family re-unions with cousins and aunts and uncles.
Kevin was also our dear Uncle, Great Uncle and Great Great Uncle. He was fun, trendy, engaging, sometimes wicked, learned, a carer and an inspiration
Uncle Kevin was a boxer and a dancer – a good combination for being deft on one’s feet and having a sense of rhythm. I remember the boxing lessons Kevin would give to any of us young ones. He was stronger than he looked, and was a formidable person to take on in an arm wrestle.
Uncle Kevin talked about how he was torn between becoming a diocesan priest or a missionary. He spent 1970-74 in a very remote area of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea among the Huli people. I was privileged to return there with him in 1978. The affection the people had towards him was extraordinary. His life was so basic during those times: meals on a simple wood stove in a simple thatched hut with access to the modern world limited to a ham radio and occasional missionary plane. Mass waited for up to an hour until the Huli dancers and drummers were ready .
Uncle Kevin loved the world and was a true internationalist. He loved his trip to Russia and maintained contact with friends made there. He loved tracing his origins, both his trips to Ennis in Ireland where his Flanagan family originated and his religious origins with visits to Jerusalem. When visiting my sister Louise in Hong Kong he’d of course insist on visiting the Hong Kong race track.
Uncle Kevin celebrated many of the marriages of his nieces and nephews, burying his mother and all his brothers and sisters and a niece, baptising our children, celebrating masses in our homes. Notwithstanding his generosity of time to others, he still found quiet time in each day to pray and be with his God.
He was also a dear cousin, including to the extraordinary Byrne family. Father Brendan Byrne, who was the lead celebrant at Uncle Kevin’s farewell mass, was the son of my Godmother Mollie Byrne. The only problem with the Byrne family was that their Dad Frank kept sending me the annual Collingwood medallion, trying to sway the Flanagan’s loyalty to the Melbourne AFL team.
Uncle Kevin, it was with great sadness that some of your family listened to your final breaths on December 21. We knew you were surrounded not just by our love, but by the Albury community and the wider Catholic community’s overwhelming love for this international, inter-denominational, classy, classless, compassionate, wise, inclusive, inter-generational priest. We thank you for all the fun times and the way that you have shaped our lives.
Uncle Kevin, our only fear for the journey you’re now on is that as you reach those pearly gates of heaven, you will be accosted by your elder siblings saying “You’re late. We’ve been waiting for you! Now we can finally all go down again to the beach at Tocumwal on the banks of the Murray and have a meal and swim together – did you bring your Kayak?” Uncle Kevin, thank you.
Tribute written by Paul Flanagan (his Godson) on behalf of Uncle Kevin’s nieces and nephews, great nieces and great nephews, and great great nieces and nephews.
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