I've discovered a new hero.
As regular followers of this blog will realise, my greatest interest is South African history and in reading a column from the Daily Dispatch newspaper in 1975, I have found the tale of the most remarkable person.
He might not have the morals of Mandela or the status of Sisulu. He lacks the thoughtfulness of Tutu and the tenacity of Tambo. His memoirs are unwritten, and no film has been made of his life. Yet when I recount to you his story, I believe you will come to regard him as a hero too. He is known as "Fighting Father Mac."
Father Matthew McManus was born in Kilkenny in Ireland, became a boxing instructor and then a parish priest and moved to South Africa, where he seemed to be constantly in trouble with his bishop, who moved him to more and more difficult parishes as punishment. Had he remained in Ireland, he may well have ended up on Craggy Island.
His first spot of trouble was not instigated by him. An eyewitness testifies that Father Mac was enjoying a coffee at a hot dog stand in Port Elizabeth when he was set upon by three young men. Returning to his boxing form, he swiftly left two of them unconscious before chasing the third into the distance, kicking him as he ran.
As punishment for this unpriestly conduct, Father Mac was sent to a remote rural mission, but before long he was before the bishop again after pulling a con-trick on a fellow priest. Father Michael Ahearne, also from Ireland, was priest in Grahamstown and was homesick for the Emerald Isle and longed to be able to listen to radio broadcasts from Dublin.
Father Mac used a tape recorder to prepare some news in Gaelic and some Irish music, then placed this in a side room under the control of an accomplice. He then took a cheap local radio and placed a microphone behind it so that his accomplice could hear a button being pressed on it. He invited Father Ahearne to come and try his "international receiving set" and he was so impressed that this set could pick up Radio Dublin that he purchased it from Father Mac for R30 (about £15 - a lot of money in those days). When his dishonesty was pulled-up, Father Mac cried with laughter saying, "Ahearne sat up three nights trying to get Dublin, and all the poor bugger got was Grahamstown."
Father Mac was removed from his rural duties and placed in a probationary parish in Cradock, where he was appalled by the incidences of wife-beating. He immediately set out on a mission to eradicate the practice... by beating up the beaters.
Again he was moved, this time to a notoriously violent black township near Port Elizabeth where he became a vigilante, patrolling the township at nights armed with a club and a collection of knives he had confiscated from local residents.
Father Mac's next move was to a white parish, but he didn't last there long. Just before mass, a group of parishoners entered the sacristy to complain to him about blacks receiving communion at the same communion rail as them. Father Mac ejected them, and they complained to the bishop. As the Daily Dispatch reports, "It wasn't his rejection of their complaint that caused the bishop anguish, it was the manner of it. The bishop felt it hadn't been necessary to throw them physically out of the sacristy while shouting: "Get stuffed, ye bastards!""
Moved to yet another parish, Father Mac was soon running an all-priest poker school which was always drunken and at times violent. He was then convicted of poaching kudu (a type of antelope) from Addo Nature Reserve and exiled to the remote parish of Komga in the Cape Province. When he was fined in court for this incident, Father Mac told the magistrate, "This is a case of much Kudu about nothing."
For two years before his retirement, Father Mac collected enough poker winnings to allow him to afford a cruise from Durban to Cape Town for himself and a colleague on the eve of his return to Ireland. Having managed to sneak into the first class lounge, the two priests could not seem to attract the attention of the waiter, who was more interested in the American tourists who were offering lavish tips. Father Mac tried on several occasions to order a drink from the waiter, who each time by-passed him for a more wealthy passenger.
When Father Mac eventually caught the waiter's attention, he put on his most priestly look and solemnly and shyly beckoned him over. The waiter realised that this kindly old priest clearly had something confidential to share with him, so he bent his ear towards Father Mac who whispered into his ear softly but distinctly:
"Fuck off."
Oh, please, someone make a film of the life of Fighting Father Mac.
