Terri Bahr, Albert, boarded a jumbo jet in Kansas City at the beginning of spring break in March with her family, bound for Ireland.
While most of their baggage was stowed away, Bahr cradled a special carry-on package in her lap that she kept close the entire 23 hours in flight, through the Atlantic coast layover and the stopover in London. She dared not relax until the family was met in Dublin, on Irish soil. Her mission, involving the last wish of her parish priest was almost done.
“I guess I knew that I would be the one to do it,” she said. “He’d asked me to; it was one of his last wishes to see it done. It took a while to find a way to do it.”
With Terri, Michael and their boys Tom and Ike in attendance, a First Anniversary Mass for the Rev. Ultan Patrick Murphy was said at the Ardcath, Clonalvy and Curraha Parish Church in Crickstown, County Meath, Ireland on March 12.
The Mass featured the return to Ireland of the communion chalice bestowed at commission to the popular Irish priest who spent his vocation in a Kansas Diocese and whose last wish included bringing the chalice back to his home parish.
The Mass wasn’t the final stop for the chalice; it would eventually rest at St. Peter and Paul’s Church in neighboring Dunboyne, Father Murphy’s boyhood home and the site of his ordination and First Holy Mass.
Tucked away in its box covered with black leather, the chalice’s return was Bahr’s last duty to Father Murphy, after serving as his parishioner, amanuensis and bookkeeper during a 33-year tenure as pastor of St. Ann’s parish in Olmitz and his retirement at River Bend Assisted Living in Great Bend.
A lengthy stay
At their ordination, Roman Catholic priests are encouraged to go out into the world and leave their homes behind them.
In life, Father Murphy did just that in coming to Kansas after receiving his commission at his native parish at Dunboyne, County Meath, Ireland.
While still in seminary in Ireland, Father Murphy was recruited by the Diocese of Wichita. Following his ordination and First Holy Mass on June 7, 1953 at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Dunboyne, he was sent to the newly-established Diocese of Dodge City with classmates, Frs. Eugene Kenny, Andrew McGovern and Kieran Murray.
Following his ordination, Father Murphy served as an assistant pastor at St. John’s Hoisington and St. Rose of Lima, Great Bend. His pastorates included: St. Mary Help of Christians, Loretto, (1960-65); St. John, Kiowa, (1965-66); St. John’s at St. John, with St. Francis Xavier, Seward as a mission (1966-1970); Holy Rosary, Medicine Lodge, with St. John, Kiowa (1970-80) and St. Ann, Olmitz, with Holy Trinity, Timken (1980-2014). At the time of his retirement on Jan. 3, 2014, Father Murphy, then 87, was recognized as the oldest active Catholic pastor in Kansas.
A promise kept
Even in retirement, as “part of the furniture,” he stayed close to the people of the Olmitz parish as “parochial administrator.” He was quick with an observation, a story, or a joke as the situation warranted. “When you went somewhere with him, like to a restaurant, it was like taking a celebrity out to eat. Father never blinked an eye with people, it didn’t matter to him what religion you were or who you were,” Bahr said. “His own joke with me was he didn’t know if Michael and I should get married, because he was from north of K-4 and I was south.”
But as close as he was to St. Ann’s, Father Murphy never lost track of his Irish roots, Bahr said. “He never left Ireland.”
He would return there, she said, sometimes taking one or two parishioners with him, to show them what he was proud of in the southern part of Ireland. His niece Joan Phelan would “cross the big water” to Kansas, and even after the visits were fewer and farther between, he still called his niece once a week to check on things.
Murphy passed away at the age of 94 on Feb. 12, 2021, and was buried at St. Ann Cemetery, Olmitz.
Among her many duties, Bahr was also Father Murphy’s power of attorney, which also meant following the codices in his will.
“He wanted his chalice taken back to Ireland. It was in his will,” she said. “I had talked to him about it and I said I just couldn’t see mailing it; would it be OK if I just took it back. That made me responsible for getting it back to Ireland.”
The pandemic, already underway, intervened.
“We would have taken in back already by now, but because of COVID we couldn’t,” she said. Bahr and Murphy’s niece Joan then set out to plan the return, with Phelan handling the arrangements on the Irish side.
It was Phelan who met Terri, Michael and the boys in Dublin, when they had landed.
While there, they were introduced to surviving members of Father Murphy’s family. As they traded stories, Bahr noted that on some things, they wound up knowing more about Father Murphy than his family did.
“It was because they would only have him on visits once in awhile, but we got used to having him all the time,” Bahr said. “He really had two families, the one in Kansas and the one in Ireland.”
The Bahrs were taken to some of Father Murphy’s favorite home places, including the Tullamore Distillery in County Offaly and Our Lady of Knock Shrine in County Mayo.
A significant visit, however, was made to the cemetery at St. Peter and Paul’s, where Murphy’s family was buried. There, with his mother, father and brothers, Father Murphy is recognized through the granite plaque commissioned by Phelan in loving memory.
Through the experience, Bahr is still working on closure.
“It is nice that the chalice is back where it’s supposed to be,” she said. “But it is hard thinking that I’m done; I’ve taken care of everything he asked.
“All of us, together, just want people to know how much Father Murphy meant to us, in both families, in both countries,” Bahr said. “The fact that he left his own family to come to America means a lot to us. We got to have him here with us every day; his own family got to see him once in a while. He was a part of so many lives. We are so grateful that his family was able to share him.”
