Frank Duff Interviews
Edel Quinn
Meeting Cardinal Bafile
Frank Duff knew Edel Quinn personally and, in fact, was largely responsible for her being assigned to East Africa as an Envoy of the Legion of Mary. Some years ago Mr. Duff and three other officers of the Concilium visited Rome and while there met with Father Cairoli, who was then Postulator of Edel Quinn's cause. Actually, before they saw him, they met Cardinal Bafile, who was the Cardinal in charge of the whole congregation that attends to canonizations. He was a prelate whom they knew very well. When he was the personal Chamberlain of Pope John XXIII, he gave the Legion the compliment of inviting them to the ceremony of consecration which was performed by the Pope himself. Then on the day after that they were brought into Pope John himself and had a delightful session with him.
After that Cardinal Bafile became Nuncio to Germany. He was wonderfully keen about the Legion. He was one of the very first that received them on the last trip and he entertained them to tea and had ordered a cake which had been made especially for them. He was wonderfully pleasant and he was a tremendous believer in Edel Quinn. Of course, he never knew her personally but he was a convinced believer in her.
Then they saw Father Cairoli who was the Postulator. He was resident in a Franciscan House out near the Via Aurelia. They went out to him and had a very long session with him. Now from the very first he had protested his entire conviction about her. At one time, for instance, he wrote to them saying that by reason of something or other he had been taken away from her cause for a few weeks and he had just gone back to it. And he said, "I always rise up refreshed anew by reading this vivid unbelievable life." The two of them said that she presented a model for every way of life in the world, that she had an irresistible attraction for people and that every type of person seemed to find a lesson in her life. “Well,” Frank said, “you don't get Rome dancing in that ecstasy of enthusiasm in the ordinary way.”
Too Many Miracles
The problem at the moment is miracles. The position there is peculiar. The Legion has a tremendous number of cases reported to them. One of Brother Nagle's specialties was to deal with these and he used to send them on to Rome. Now they have a great big load of them in Rome but they have not been in a position to investigate them and this they requested the Legion now to do. They want them to have conversation with the Vice-Postulator of the Cause who is now residing in Dublin. They are to pick out some of the distinctive ones and have them medically investigated.
She Arrived in the Crowd
Edel Quinn came into the Legion about 1927 and Concilium wasn't even aware of her entry. She joined a Praesidium over on the North side. The fact that she did so would never come to the attention of Concilium because of so many other people coming in simultaneously. She just arrived in the crowd. But after a while mention began to come in about her. They'd always be very glad to hear of such and her name began to be mentioned as someone of great quality. Eventually Frank sent for her. She came over and she had tea with him and then they had a chat for a good part of the evening. That visit made an indelible impression upon Frank and that impression was altogether favorable. She did not present any appearance of delicacy. She was an utterly charming, most charming person, obviously of very good intelligence and, at this particular time, obviously very keen on the Legion. It was a very happy little session with her.
“I cut no ice”
Then, as a consequence of Frank Duff’s meeting with Edel Quinn, soon afterwards Concilium got a request from this Praesidium, Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, (Number Four in order of coming into life), which used to visit the low-down women's lodging houses, a very difficult work. A girl called Colette Gill, who had been the President and a marvelous one, had to resign. They sent word over to Concilium that they wanted a President who had to be good, just had to be. The answer to that request was Edel Quinn. Well, when this “child” turned up, at least they were most polite and they did not lay their thoughts on the table when she was there. But they held a meeting afterwards and they sent the Spiritual Director over to Concilium to protest vehemently. At that time Edel Quinn was about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age. They felt she was too young and therefore too inexperienced to be President of a praesidium. Her youth was what counted against her. She looked very child-like. Dr. Dempsey came along and saw the Concilium officers and delivered this message. They laughed at him and told him that they ought to be down on their knees thanking their lucky stars at getting such a person and that they would find out soon for themselves their luck. So, he went back and told them and reported back, "I cut no ice." They did find very quickly that they had a treasure and she stayed on.
Dumbfounding News
Edel Quinn was in the work in the praesidium of Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, visiting the low-down women's lodging houses and also constantly inside Sancta Maria as well because the two works hinged on each other. She was there until her breakdown. Of course, soon enough Concilium was thinking very big about her. But soon enough they learned that she had ambitions elsewhere. She had actually arranged to enter the Poor Clare Convent over in Donnybrook. When it got closer to that time, the Nuns substituted the Belfast Convent because it was shorter of vocations. And then came the dumbfounding news that she had TB and she was swept away. She went out to the Sanatorium in Wicklow and there she was for a year and a half. She came out of there in circumstances which are a little bit puzzling. It is alleged that she just walked out. She said she was tired of dying in that fashion. She wanted to get back to her Legion work. And that's one of the things that has been lodged against her Cause, yet strangely enough not made much of. There doesn't seem to be much desire on the part of Rome to find fault with her.
Off to Wales
Edel Quinn came back to Dublin and resumed ordinary life but this time everybody was concerned. She entered a junior praesidium and she complained bitterly that she was treated like a person sitting up in a coffin. That's the way they treated her. Then in 1936, the English Legionaries were going to stage a big extension campaign and they wrote to Concilium to say that they had no Legionaries with extension skill. They had the good will but they hadn't the practical experience. They proposed that they would provide one Legionary for every team. An English legionary and an Irish legionary would go together. They called for those willing to go over and among those who presented themselves was our lady, Edel. Well, this was breathtaking. The lady had apparently “got up out of her coffin” for the purpose of offering herself. So, this caused them now to think, "Why should she who was able to stand and to walk, to use her own phrase, 'be kept sitting in a coffin'?”
Why should she? This consideration ended in the suggestion that they'd let her go but they'd want to send somebody with her who would know all the circumstances and watch over her. That person presented herself in Muriel Wailes because they were close friends.
So, the two of them went off and they were allocated what's called the Diocese of Menevia which covered three-quarters of Wales. They started off actually in the English Diocese of Shrewsbury and they got permission for the Legion there just as an aside. Then, they moved on into Menevia and they worked very hard there. They came back after two weeks and the two of them came up and Edel was actually blooming, blooming and tremendously lifted up by the success. So was Concilium. So that was that. Then very shortly after that, she came up and said that she was going to resign her from her job and she was going over to live in Chester in England where she had been and that she was going to find employment there. It was a great center and she was going to follow, after hours and at weekends, the routine that she had been pursuing during the fortnight. Well, of course, she wasn't really asking permission. She was just telling Concilium. The inference was as blunt as possible. She hoped they'd consent but that if they didn’t...
“Why keep this wild bird in a cage?”
Edel Quinn was an extraordinary person for getting her way. Concilium knew what she would mean there. They had great evidence apart from her previous record as a Legionary in Dublin. They saw what she could do on extension and while they were debating this whole question as to whether they should or should not approve the Chester adventure, an awful consideration presented itself. Ruby Dennison was our Envoy in South Africa, where the distances are great, and she had frequently demanded help. The suggestion was made now, "What about Edel Quinn? Let her go out there. It would not be a bad assignment for TB. Why keep this wild bird in a cage?" They were thinking it over. Oh, yes, they brought it up at the Concilium and the Concilium approved. Then arrived a letter from Archbishop Heffernan, the Archbishop of Nairobi, and this letter said, "I understand that you have got a promising person on hand you're going to send to South Africa. Why?" he said, "South Africa already has an Envoy. My own territory has none and we were asking to start the Legion and she'd be worth any money." There was a lot of discussion and the agreement was come to: they would send her out to East Africa.
"I cannot shake hands with you because yours are covered with blood”
Archbishop Heffernan's request to have Edel Quinn sent to Nairobi instead of South Africa would seem to be providential. He wanted someone at the very time that they had Edel in mind. The sequel to that was the consideration of this proposition by the Concilium. You must remember the Concilium officers did not have the power to make that kind of decision.
But they did have to come to an agreement among themselves taking into consideration a whole lot of circumstances that a big meeting would not give value to. For instance, they did face up to the fact that she might die on the way out. Well, you can't put that sort of thing before a big meeting. They might not see the logic behind it. A meeting is terribly governed by sentiment. Somebody might get up and say, "You don't mean that you're deliberately sending that girl off to her death, knowing it?" How would you give answer to that sort of thing? But the fact was that they were taking account of all circumstances. If she were going to die, as the prophets were to say, isn't it better she die as an Envoy than as a girl “sitting in a coffin”? That seemed to be the way Edel herself felt? And then, on the other hand, she might get a new lease on life out there. So, in any case, she was put down on the agenda.
At that time the Concilium was meeting in premises which have now been wiped out by new buildings and they met 8:00 o'clock in the evening then. The moment that became to be known a tempest arose. The sentimental considerations were in full blast. There was a girl whose name was Mona McCarthy. She was a very close friend also of Edel Quinn. And Mona was also a particular friend of Frank’s. He had brought her into the Legion. He knew her family. She was a niece of that person whose name has been mentioned frequently, Tom Fallon. Well, Frank met Mona somewhere or other and he held out his hand to shake hands with her. Her retort was to put her hands behind her back and say to him, "I cannot shake hands with you because yours are covered with blood."
“You’ll be a picnic for something.”
Mona McCarthy had taken it as a dreadful act of assassination to send Edel Quinn out to Africa. Well, they began to hear this sort of thing and this, of course, filled them with apprehension in regard to the Concilium. Then they heard as a crowning horror that the celebrated Dr. Elias Magennis, the ex-General of the Carmelites, also had that opinion. He was a wonderful person, oh, a wonderful person. They said: "We're lost."
So the day came and the premises were packed. They gradually worked along through the agenda and finally came to the big item. The first person to get up was Dr. Magennis. He was a powerful man with a powerful personality and appearance and he proceeded to launch out against this monstrous proposition. He treated them to accounts from Cardinal Hinsley of England, who had been Apostolic Delegate out there, and somebody else and somebody else about the difficulties of all that which would put even a strong person to the test and he said that it was murderous and ferocious.
The Edel got up at one stage and she said to him that all this had been fully explained to her, that she knew that it was a difficult enterprise. She knew it all. Nothing had been hidden from her as regards its difficulty. And then she stopped and she said "I don't want to be sent off on any picnic." Any picnic!
So, Father Magennis ruined himself in his answer to that. He was a man in whom humor ran very strong. It was too strong for him and his answer was, "A picnic," he says, "you'll be a picnic for something." You'll be a picnic! At this stage there was a great roar of laughter. Frank got up then seizing on this and he called upon all in the hall to witness that “she would not be a very substantial one”. And that set them off roaring laughing again and a new atmosphere entered in at once. So, the laughter ushered in an atmosphere of reality and so they were willing to discuss the thing in a sane fashion. When the opportunity came, the thing was proposed and seconded. Nobody voted against it. Not even Dr. Magennis!
Silver Tokens and Wedding Bells
It was well over a month before Edel Quinn went to Africa. A lot had to be done such as booking and that sort of thing. They had to go over to London to book her on what was called the Union Castle Line. A fair crowd of them went over. Frank remembered one incident in particular. She had a very big trunk of literature, Legion literature, and this had to be tied up securely. They encountered their first little difficulty in Liverpool - they went by Liverpool. The Customs insisted on tearing open all that elaborate packing looking for Irish Sweep Tickets.
Then there was one rather fortunate episode in the trip. She was invited down to Parkminster, the Carthusian monastery, and there she saw several members of the community. Two of them promised to say Mass for her every week during her envoyship.
Many were there at the ship to see her off. There were some funny episodes attached to Edel's departure for Africa. Among those who went over to see her off were Jack Nagle and Emma Bodkin who was a great character. Emma Bodkin was one of a trio who were very close to Edel Quinn; Muriel Wailes, Mona McCarthy and Emma Bodkin. So, they all went over and then just at the last moment they were notified that the departure of the ship was delayed for twenty-four hours. Two of their number could not stay for that extra day. They were due home. They were Jack Nagle and Emma Bodkin. Instead of their seeing Edel off, everyone went down to Euston to see Jack and Emma back to Dublin.
The train was packed beyond all possible packing. They had just been able to secure two corner seats for them in the carriage. When the bulk of them arrived into the station and went down to the carriage by which they were travelling, they found this had been elaborately decorated for a wedding party, silver tokens and wedding bells all around the whole carriage. And who was the perpetrator of all this but Edel Quinn and a few others. She was seeing them off. They were not seeing her off. At the moment Jack Nagle and Emma Bodkin arrived on the scene, the other passengers decided this was the wedding party - they were the newly-wedded pair. Well, Miss Bodkin brazened it out but Jack Nagle was utterly embarrassed and, according to Emma's account, he put his nose into an evening paper and never took it out until he reached Holyhead. He was terribly embarrassed. Just when the signal went for the starting of the train, a lot of the girls produced packets of confetti and poured them into the carriage - on all in it. The Legionaries were standing there when the train departed and up came a few porters sweeping up. Apparently there had been a wedding party at each end of the train and this was the one in the middle. The two porters were swearing about the amount of litter this particular party had created. There was an extra allowance of confetti on the platform which had to be swept up. That was Edel Quinn. She'd be utterly happy over a thing like that - regarding that as great fun.
In East Africa
After Edel Quinn had been in East Africa for a time, they began to see a great extension of the Legion there. You might say that she was successful in every case. You must remember that she started in very favorable conditions, that is, the Archbishop was backing the whole thing. He had pledged the support of himself and all the missionaries. Those were his arguments to Concilium originally and he certainly tried to carry out everything.
Then there was another element altogether and that was the human one. Word went around about her that she was a very jolly, nice person to have and it used to be said that the missionaries were all looking forward to her coming. It was the Archbishop himself that subsequently said that the furious rattling of her motor car was heard through miles of jungle by the lone missionaries who were out at the end of the trail.
When Concilium communicated that to her about the rattlings of her car, she pretended to be indignant and she said, "If that person is the one that I think it is, the friendly relations which exist between us at present will be interrupted." There was always that run of humor in her. That meant that before she came to a missionary, he was already willing to face up to the worst.
Landgibby Castle
Going back to the time of departure, back to the day that Edel actually departed for Africa. The name of the ship was the Landgibby Castle. It was departing from a place called Gravesend. They all went down to this place. There was free entry to the liner and so they went up onto it and circulated about. There was a band playing on deck and she showed us her cabin. She had been forced to take a first class cabin because when they applied for accommodation on the ship, everything was gone except this first class cabin. As it was imperative she should go, there was no question that that was her abode. It would give her a little extra comfort, no doubt, but it fulfilled a particular role on the ship, that is, it became a chapel and she became the Sacristan. After she got up in the morning, the place was made ready for the Masses which followed. There were a fair number of missionaries on board and a fair number of missionary Nuns. She blended in with them at once.
Now after a while on the deck of that ship, a signal was given and this meant the Legionaries had to get ashore. So, they all got off and they stood on the quay wall and she stood on the ship looking at them. After a little while the ship began to move off. It was a very tense moment because they didn't think they'd ever see her again. The question in all their minds was the agonized one, "When?" So the ship drew off from us and everyone’s eyes were a little bit wet, but not Edel’s. Very extraordinary! When they were out of her range of vision, she went off down to her cabin. Her typewriter was ·packed and she didn't attempt to open it. She had something on her mind which she wanted to get off it very quickly and she took the cap off her fountain pen, which incidentally Frank had given her, and she wrote her first Envoy's letter.
“I will never again refer to this subject”
In the closing time of Pope Paul, he sent over his secretary, Father Magee, and the Holy Father asked Concilium to give him a letter from Edel Quinn's correspondence, a letter which we thought was the most distinctive, characteristic document which proceeded from her. Well, now, at first thought, that was asking an impossibility because she wrote at least a couple of letters every week. To pick out one from that great number would be impossible. But, as it was, one letter jumped to their thoughts and it was this letter that she wrote. It was a letter saying good-bye and promising to serve them faithfully. The letter is in her Life in facsimile. That's the letter they sent the Pope and he had also asked along with it a memorandum stating the reason they thought it so wonderful a letter. In this letter she rendered all her feelings but then very typically she said, "I will never again refer to this subject." And she never did. She never let the softer side out again.
Perhaps this letter is going to make some impact on furthering her cause especially since it was done in her own handwriting and was her first letter as an Envoy. That's why they asked for the letter. But they got a bigger letter than they expected. And in the memorandum which accompanied it its various features were brought out. Actually while the Legionaries were in Rome, there was an exhibition of important documents going on and that letter and the memorandum were part of that exhibition. They had the extraordinary experience of going into the Vatican where they had to give their names and the official took out a book and he said to them, "Do you not know that you are due over at the other side of the city today?" "We?" "Yes, for this exhibition."
Edel, You Haven't Done Badly
When Frank Duff was asked why he thought Edel Quinn's case should be advanced to Sainthood, he said, “Well, in the first place, to produce a Saint is a feather in the cap of any society. Every religious congregation aims at having a Saint. It's the first desire they have, it's a guarantee. Some congregations, it is alleged, bankrupted themselves in the effort to get one of their members canonized. But then surely the mere reading of her life is a desirable thing. A great number of people have been moved by her. She has, as this Postulator says, been an incitement to every rank, every type of the population and a minor thing to render thanks to herself. There's the thanks of the Catholic Church, Edel. You haven't done badly. So, that would be why we would be wishful to see her canonized.”
Then, from an unexpected quarter altogether, Rome has been telling Concilium that they must also go on with the cause for Alfie Lambe. While the complete conviction has prevailed in South America as to his sanctity, you would expect that the local place would attend to that. If they have some Legionary there whom they thought to be worthy of canonization, they'd expect that it would not be Concilium that should be taking the first step but they. But that was not done. Now they have one of the greatest Roman figures who has peremptorily demanded from Concilium that they get started on Alfie Lambe in Argentina.
“She's telling me that she is dying”
Frank Duff was asked if he could tell how he felt when he received the news that Edel had died.
He remembered it clearly. Edel Quinn had in her nice way deceived them throughout. She had given the impression from the moment she reached Africa that she was progressing steadily. Those photographs were to that extent untrue. They were picked by her to create that impression. They wrote out to her when she was there for, perhaps, a year and they said to her, "What about a little trip home? It will fortify your improvement in health and send you back in great form." "Oh," she replied, "it would only make me ridiculous, coming home after a year. Why some of the missionaries have been here their whole lives without a homecoming. You only want to make me absurd." But her real reason was that she was afraid to come home because she knew she wouldn't be let go out again for her appearance was showing the disimprovement.
One day Frank got one of the first air mail letters, one of these things you fold, aero-grams, they came out in the war for the first time, from her and Frank opened it and read it. She said in it, "I am in very poor form at the moment. I have never been able to pull myself together since my trip to Kisumu." When Frank read that letter, he said to himself, "She's telling me that she is dying." Never before had that note been sounded. As he was looking in consternation at the letter, the doorbell rang. It was the post office messenger with a telegram informing him that Edel Quinn had just died.
It was a great shock coming right with the other. So, Frank knew what he had to do. He at once got up on his bicycle and rode out to Monkstown. He knocked at the door and it was opened for him by Mr. Quinn, her father. At the bottom of the stairs which came down from above was Mrs. Quinn and the moment she saw Frank, she burst into crying and hurried upstairs. She knew, the moment she saw him, before he'd spoken a word. That's the way the family took it. It was an anguishing moment. It came with the terrible amount of suddenness. They had been in a fool's paradise thinking all was well. It was a death that Edel herself would like to have, very little being laid up, really. The end came quite suddenly. No matter how poor she felt she used to fight it and move about.
For more on Venerable Edel Quinn click here