Fr. Denis O'Connell was born in Milford, County Cork on 15th Feb 1918. He was trained for the priesthood at St Patrick's College Thurles where he was ordained on 15^th June 1941 by Bishop Jeremiah Kinane of Waterford & Lismore specifically for missionary work in the Diocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh. Fr. O'Connell then spent all of his life as a priest in Scotland.

 His first appointment in Scotland was at St Machan's Lennoxtown where he was to serve as assistant Priest to Fr. Wheelaghan from 1941 till 1949. During this time Fr O'Connell's life-long love of athletics was to come to the fore as he organized Community Games. During his early years in Scotland he was alarmed by the sectarian divide between Catholic and Protestant in West of Scotland society perpetuated through other sports, most notably football, and set about using athletics as a means to bring the different religious communities together. He instigated a series of Community Games where Athletes from all backgrounds could compete freely together.

 From 1949 to 1950 Fr O'Connell was to serve at St Agatha's Methil in Fife as an assistant Priest and then subsequently at St Columba's Edinburgh from 1950 to 1954 again as an assistant Priest. Fr. O'Connell then spent some time teaching at St Mary's College Blair's, the Scottish Junior Seminary in Aberdeen from 1954 to 1957.  It was about this time that he was deemed ready to become, in effect, a Parish Priest when he was appointed as Administrator of St Margaret Mary's Edinburgh for 3 years until 1960.

His next appointment was to change his life in many ways as he was then seconded to the BBC at Hatchend in London for almost 2 whole years where he was to work as a consultant on Catholic & Religious broadcasting making many radio and TV appearances whilst working for Fr. Angelus Andrew who was Head of Religious Affairs in the BBC at that time. This posting would give him access to many famous personalities which considerably influenced his ability to organize public events in subsequent years!

 Back in Scotland, his first appointment as Parish Priest proper was at Our Lady's, Stoneyburn in West Lothian where he was to serve for 4 years from 1961 to 1965.  Fr. O'Connell was then appointed Vice Postulator of the Cause for the Beatification of the Blessed Margaret Sinclair taking over this post from Monsignor McQuillan in 1964.

The St Andrews Annual 1964/65 pg 44

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 At his next Parish, St Matthew's Rosewell in Midlothian where he served from 1965 to 1972, he founded the National Centre for the Cause of the Beatification of Margaret Sinclair. From this time onwards and in all the Parishes in which he subsequently served, Fr O'Connell organised many annual Pilgrimages to St Matthew's Rosewell as well as to Mount Vernon Cemetery in Edinburgh where the remains of Margaret Sinclair had been buried for 76 years. More recently in 2003 her remains were moved to their current location, in the shrine at St. Patrick's, Cowgate in Edinburgh. The pinnacle of his time in this post as Vice Postulator came in February 1978 when the Cause for the Congregation of the Saints in Rome petitioned His Holiness Pope Paul vi who recognised Margaret Sinclair's case and raised her status from 'Blessed' Margaret Sinclair to that of the 'Venerable' Margaret Sinclair.

For more information on The Venerable Margaret Sinclair click here

Venerable Margaret Sinclair; Fr O'Connell preaches at Mount Vernon; The Shrine in St Patrick's Cowgate, Edinburgh.

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 Fr O'Connell then came here to St Patrick's Kilsyth in 1972 arriving on the same day as his new assistant Priest, Fr. Keith Patrick O'Brien, now His Eminence Keith Patrick Cardinal O'Brien.

Kilsyth Chronicle 1972

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In the picture below we can see Fr O'Connell visiting his retired predecessor as Parish Priest of Kisyth, Canon Thomas McGarvie at his retirement house in Johnston Avenue in Kilsyth.

Fr. O'Connell, Canon McGarvie and Fr. Portelli c1982.

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Fr. O'Connell was elevated to the Cathedral Chapter by the then Archbishop O'Brien on the 2^nd of Dec 1986 whilst still serving at St Patrick's Kilsyth.

Canon O'Connell with Archbishop O'Brien

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Left photo Canon O'Connell with his neices on the left of picture and Archbishop O'Brien, George MacDonald and Catriona Canavan, St Patrick's Housekeeper on the right of picture. Right photo members of the Cathedral Chapter of Canon's created December 1986.

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Canon O'Connell left preaches at his thanksgiving Mass in Kilsyth after joining the Cathedral Chapter. Right Rev. Alistair McLachlan of the Burns and Old Parish Church, Kilsyth addresses the Parishioners of St Patrick's in the Church hall after Mass.

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In 1988 Fr O'Connell undertook his final mission to the people and the Parish of St Mary's, Leslie in Fife where he was to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of his Ordination to the Priesthood.

Canon O'Connell' Golden Jubilee Prayer Card

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After a period of ill health and a battle with cancer, Canon O'Connell died on the 9th October 1997. After a requiem Mass with his parishioners at St Mary's Leslie on the 13^th October 1997 his body was taken to St Mary's Cathedral Edinburgh on the 14^th October 1997 where Archbishop O'Brien was the principle concelebrant at a requiem Mass and officiated at the graveside for his subsequent internment appropriately in Mount Vernon Cemetery Edinburgh, close to the spot where Margaret Sinclair was at that time buried.

Canon O'Connell - A visit from Sir Jimmy Savile OBE KCSG

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In Remembrance - Canon O'Connell's Prayer Card

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From good Irish farming stock Fr. O'Connell, was always fond of all animals. Over the years he kept pet birds, dogs and was also a noted horseman. Once on a visit to Peebles to say Mass as relief for the local Priest he was asked to take part in the common riding. The photo of him that day subsequently made the front page of the Scottish Catholic Observer.

 Fr O'Connell - a good horseman at the Common Riding in Peebles.

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The series of pictures below shows an athletic meeting he helped to organized in the High Park in Lennoxtown in July 1947 to which he had invited some members of the Irish Olympic Athletic Team.

 At that time it was thought that the first man to break the 4 minute mile was likely to be an Irishman - John Joe Barry also known as the 'Ballycunny Hare', was part of the squad which came to Lennoxtown and by then he was a famous athlete. John Joe came to Scotland on several occasions and once he competed at Parkhead municipal track in Glasgow specifically with a view to attempting the 4 minute mile. Sadly for John Joe and his fans in Scotland and Ireland, Roger Bannister was to be the first Athlete to break this barrier. John Joe Barrie is in the middle of the back row in the photograph below with white polo neck and Dave Guiney another famous athlete is in the back row at the right hand side in vest and shorts. Also in these photos is an African Prince - Prince Adedoin.

 Prince Adegboyega Folaranmi Adedoyin was a colourful character and was born 11 September 1922, in Nigeria. He competed in the London 1948 Olympic Games, representing Great Britain in the Long Jump and High Jump. He was also noted as one of the first black students to graduate from Queen's University Belfast. Given his celebrity status in the athletics world at the time this no doubt explained his connection to Fr O'Connell and the Irish Olympic team. The photo of Fr O'Connell shows him with his arm around a Glasgow man who was at the time the head of the Scottish Boxing Board of Control.

Fr O'Connell - Organises an Athletics Meeting at the High Park in Lennoxtown in July 1947.

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Fr Wheelaghan presents John Joe Barry with a cup at the Athletics meeting in the High Park in Lennoxtown in July 1947. Fr O'Connell is in the centre. The other two men are unknown.

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From an early stage in his ministry in Kilsyth Fr O'Connell promoted his interest in Athletics. With his great friend and fellow Irishman, Rev. Watson from the Burns and Old Parish Church, together with local athlete John Freebairn they founded the Colzium Athletics Club. This club represented Kilsyth for many years and provided Athletes who distinguished the town in competitions throughout the whole of the UK and at the highest level, thus providing a local focus for the great popular upsurge of interest in athletics during the late 1970 and early 1980's.

This Colzium Athletics Club initiative in Kilsyth was in Fr O'Connell's eyes about building upon an earlier experiment in St Machan's in Lennoxtown. He had tried successfully the concept of 'Community Games' so that different parts of the community could come together to enjoy sport without sectarian barriers. He used his contacts in Ireland and also his contacts from his time working at the BBC in London to great effect in attracting famous Athletes such as Brendan Foster the English International Athlete and now BBC Commentator and Eamonn Coghlan from Ireland to come and give coaching sessions to the Colzium Athletics Club members.

 Through the Community Games movement he established in Kilsyth, a close bond developed between the St. Patrick's Priest and the new Burns & Old Parish Church Minister who succeeded Rev Mr Watson. The personal friendship of Fr. O'Connell and Rev.Alistair McLachlan, was to be long lasting. This close bond between the two men subsequently built into a closeness between the two church congregations and effectively became a legacy which was subsequently handed down to every new Priest that followed in Fr. O'Connell's footsteps at St Patrick's. The height of this close bond came during 1999 and 2000 when the parishioners of Burns and Old Parish Church made a historic invitation to the parishioners of St. Patrick's to use their Church to say Mass during the period of renovation when St Patrick's church building was closed.

So for about a year during Fr Gerry Hand's time in Kilsyth, Saturday night vigil Mass took place in an active Church of Scotland church building - a remarkable and historic extension of Christian brotherhood. Sunday Masses were said in St. Patrick's School hall and the Burns and Old Parish Church handed back each Saturday night after Vigil Mass, to their own congregation for Sunday Services. This relationship between the two churches was founded by Fr. O'Connell and Rev Mr McLachlan who both take enormous credit for bringing the Christians of Kilsyth tangibly closer together.

Fr O'Connell was active in Kilsyth in the community in many other ways. He was a founder member of the Kilsyth Rotary Club. During the Queen's Silver Jubilee year in 1977 he was Co Chairman of the Cumbernauld and Kilsyth Silver Jubilee Committee and he can be seen in the picture below meeting Prince Charles to discuss the Jubilee Youth Camp which took place at Westerwood the following year.

Fr O'Connell meets Prince Charles with the other members of the Cumbernauld & Kilsyth Silver Jubilee Committee at the Opening of the Westerwood Youth Camp in 1978.

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For many years Fr O'Connell famously kept a mynah bird - which he trained to speak. It had a large and sometimes choice vocabulary! The bird was kept in a large cage in front garden of the Parish House where it could talk to passers by in the Low Craigends. Unfortunately this had the side effect that from some of the passers by, it learned a larger and more colourfull vocabulary than any resident of the Parish House would otherwise ever have! Fr O'Connell also used the bird to great effect to attract the youth to his children's Masses of which he was very fond and which are remembered by a generation of Kilsyth's Catholic men and women!

Fr O'Connell was appointed by Cardinal Gray to be one of the Scottish Priests who would organise and plan for the visit of His Holiness Pope John Paul ii in June 1982 where he was to address the Youth of Scotland at Murrayfiled Stadium Edinburgh and say Mass at Belahouston Park Glasgow. Much of the planning work was done at Westminster Diocese in London and this involved Fr O'Connell in much travel between London and Scotland. On one such visit his friend, the highly sucessful businessman and founder of Kwik-fit, Sir Tom Farmer, discovered that Fr O'Connell's shedulle was very tight and he offered to fly him to London on his private Jet.

Fr O'Connell with Cardinal Gray right and left with Sir Tom Farmer

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Partly because of his association with the BBC, Fr O'Connell was no stranger to celebrity which he used to good effect either for fund raising or for community events. Now, summer rock festivals are commonplace but there was a time when they were uncommon and one well remembered event set up by Fr O'Connell was the staging of a free open air concert in Kilsyth in 1976 by the Bay City Rollers, then at the height of their fame. He vaguely knew Tam Paton their manager but his secretary wouldn't let him in to his office after he had outlined why he was there - to get the Bay City Rollers to play Kilsyth - for free! But eventually she relented and he was allowed to make an audacious request which ultimately lead to another chapter of Kilsyth's recent history being written! The Colzium was taken over and a free open air concert was staged with many supporting acts and headlined by The Bay City Rollers.

Sir Jimmy Savile OBE KCSG was a frequent visitor during the period when he had a hit TV show 'Jim'll Fix It'  or was in between presenting 'Top of the Pops' or hosting a show on Radio 1 and could often be seen at 10 O'clock Mass of a morning, sporting a kilt. You could always tell when he was in Kilsyth as his white jaguar car was parked outside the Parish House.

It was Jimmy's mother who had originally got to know Fr O'Connell in his role as Vice Postulator of the Cause for the Beatification of (at that time) the Blessed Margaret Sinclair. She had a devotion to Margaret Sinclair following a period when the young Jimmy had been very ill after a fall. She always attributed his recovery to Margaret Sinclair's intercession. Jimmy and Fr O'Connell formed a close friendship when Jimmy's mother died which lasted until the then 'Canon' O'Connell himself died in 1997. It was in support of Fr. O'Connell's Community Games that Jimmy first sported his famous half Celtic half Rangers top which he often replicated on his other Scottish visits for charity marathon running and so on. In return for Jimmy's frequent visit's to Kilsyth and tireless fundraising, Fr. O'Connell built a fountain in the front piazza at St Patrick's in his name to recognise his charitable work.

Sir Jimmy Savile OBE KCSG cuddles Catriona Canavan the St Patrick's House Keeper. Also in this picture is Rev McLachlan, Kevin Kelly the Celtic Chairman and Fr George Paul. Right Jimmy Saville, Laird of Glencoe, shows 4 Priests around his highland home.

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Fr O'Connell with Sir Jimmy Savile holding his trademark cigar.

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There was an active snooker club in St Patrick's hall which had two 12 foot snooker tables and a pool table and for many years was a 'Mecca' once the sport became big on TV. There was a men's club and a Youth Club. In those days you could only see snooker on 'Pot Black' on BBC2 late on Thursday nights. Fr O'Connell organized a charity celebrity snooker match in the church hall in about 1976 when the reigning world snooker champion(!) John Spencer played an exhibition game with Denis Taylor and some pro-am games with local Kilsyth men, one of whom was Old Tam Chalmers- founder of the Aberdeen Fish Shop.

In the early 1980's Fr. O'Connell found out about the Irish Band 'U2' who were playing in Glasgow at a sold out gig. He had read about them in the Glasgow Herald where he discovered they were overly Christian with their music and that some band members were Catholic and some were Protestant. No one could get tickets but Fr O'Connell called some contacts he had in Dublin and St Patrick's got 2 complimentary tickets to raffle for fund raising courtesy of a contact he had at Regular Music.  

For both the Kilsyth Community Games and for Kilsyth Civic Week, of which he was a particular supporter, Fr O'Connell often utilised his old celebrity contacts and other than the perennial visitor Jimmy Saville, for many years Kilsyth was awash with celebrity visitors including Jock Stein (Celtic), Billy McNeil (Celtic), Sir Tom Farmer (Founder of Kwik-fit), Willie Woodburn (Rangers), George Young (Rangers), Frank Clement (International Athlete, Scotland), Brendan Foster (International Athlete, England), Eamonn Coghlan (International Athlete, Ireland), John Spencer (World Snooker Champion) and Tommy Younger (President of the SFA) Kevin Kelly (Chairman of Celtic) were a few that come to mind. He always had an eye for the type of sport or famous person who was likely to make a community event attract a larger crowd or raise a larger sum of money.

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In 1980 he organised for the under 16 World Champion Irish Dance troop to come over from Dublin to visit Kilsyth as part of the St Patrick's Day celebrations where they were to give an exhibition of Irish Dancing in the church hall. This was all at a time before Riverdance which subsequently made Irish Dancing popular on a worldwide basis.

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As a result of the efforts of Canon O'Connell in the post as Vice Postulator for the Cause for the Canonisation of The Venerable Margaret Sinclair there was a special devotion in the Parish of St Patrick's Kilsyth to Margaret Sinclair. This is a devotion which remains to this day. The Parish of St. Patrick's Kilsyth remains dedicated to the cause for the Canonisation of the Venerable Margaret Sinclair. A cause which was promoted here in Kilsyth by the tireless work of Denis Canon O'Connell.

Click here for more information on The Venerable Margaret Sinclair

 Our thanks to George MacDonald, John Trower and Catriona Canavan for much of the information and the photgraphs on this page.