The Blessed John Sullivan Exhibition as part of National Heritage Week attracted an audience of 800 people in the People’s Church, Clongowes Wood College SJ, County Kildare, on 25 August 2019. The event, which featured a large collection of newspaper articles on the Irish Jesuit and an audio-visual display on his family, was launched by Bishop Denis Nulty of Kildare and Leighlin with the Rector of Clongowes, Michael Sheil SJ, and Conor Harper SJ, Vice Postulator for the cause of John Sullivan, also addressing the audience.

The exhibition had its origins at the National Ploughing Championships last year. Pat Coyle of Irish Jesuit Communications, who organised the Jesuit stand at the event, invited Cait Cullen to display images of John Sullivan at the stand. Cait, who is from the Clane area, has been a tireless promoter of the cause of Blessed John Sullivan for many years, and recently received a papal benemerenti medal for this work. The interest shown in the John Sullivan section at the stand and requests for additional information prompted her to organise an exhibition in Clongowes. She then collaborated with the John Sullivan Exhibition Team, a group of lay people in the locality who have provided assistance to the Jesuits with John Sullivan events in recent years.

The exhibition ran from 2 to 5 pm in the People’s Church in the College. The numbers that attended exceeded all expectations. There were long queues at the entrance, which prompted the organisers to extend the opening hours to 6 pm.

The newspaper articles featured in the exhibition dated from 1865 to 2017. They were taken from almost twenty different regional and national newspapers. Some of the earlier ones related to history of John Sullivan’s family, but the greater number concerned his pastoral work, his funeral in Clongowes in 1933, and the exhumation and transfer of his remains to St Francis Xavier Church, Gardiner Street, Dublin, in 1960. More recent articles covered the annual Clongowes Mass and Blessed John’s beatification in Dublin.

Articles on the ecumenical dimension of his life also featured. John Sullivan was a member of the Church of Ireland tradition for the first half of his life and a Catholic in the second half. The Church of Ireland was represented at the event by Deacon John Hillis.

It is intended to show the exhibition at other venues in the near future. And once again, some of these traces of Blessed John’s life and influence will be on display at this year’s National Ploughing Championships, which will be held from 17 to 19 September in Fenagh, County Carlow.

Jesuits in Ireland