Tarsus Scripture School - Kieran O'Mahony RIP

Kieran was born in Youghal in 1951. He was educated by the Augustinians in Dungarvan and from school entered the novitiate of the Order. After theological studies in Rome he was ordained in 1976 and came back to Ireland to teach for a while in New Ross.

However, he soon returned to Rome, where he studied Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. In 1989, he began his academic career as a lecturer in Scripture in the Milltown Institute of Philosophy and Theology. While there, he began his PhD studies in Trinty College Dublin, studying under Prof. Seán Freyne.

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He continued lecturing there, mainly on St Paul, but he also taught courses on the Gospel of John and the Wisdom Literature. When Milltown closed, he continued lecturing in other venues, including TCD, the Mater Dei Institute, the Priory Institute and the Dominican Lumen Centre. Later he also worked for several years for the Archdiocese of Dublin coordinating biblical studies.

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He published several books, including his doctoral research on St Paul (Pauline Persuasion) and a popular volume entitled Do We Still Need St Paul? His interest in the liturgy saw him write an important work on preaching intended for the clergy. Around 2015, he began work on his website, www.tarsus.ie, where he offered commentaries on the Sunday readings and a range of resources on biblical topics. Some of his commentaries were subsequently published as Hearers of the Word (Messenger Publications, 2022). They are a remarkable testament not only to his prodigious work rate and his scholarship, but they speak above all to his love of Scripture and his desire to make it accessible to the laity.

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This was in evidence for decades when we consider his thirty-five years of tireless ministry of the word, which saw him move easily through parishes all over Dublin and further afield, speaking to parish groups whether in the leafy suburbs of Donnybrook or in Finglas West, from inner-city Gardiner St. to Sandymount, from Arklow to Lusk. Along with his pastoral and academic work, he also organised countless trips to places of interest linked to the Bible. He brought many groups to Greece, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and the Holy Land.

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All the while, he was contributing hugely to the work of the Irish Biblical Association and the Irish Bible Society (being President of both bodies for more than one term). He also helped to found and organise the Ecumenical Bible Week in Dublin.

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During much of this time, he was based in the Orlagh Retreat Centre, where once again he sought to find ways to share the wisdom of the word with the hungry searchers and pilgrims who found welcome and sustenance there with the Orlagh community, and out of which grew the "Orlagh in the City Community."

Being Kieran, he did all this with his characteristic rigour and intellectual integrity, but also with a great pastoral sensitivity that was a genuine response to the plight of people who were trying to live their faith lives burdened by an inadequate formation that did not take their life experience seriously, and that failed to offer them a meaningful way into the rich fare of the Scriptures.

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Even Covid couldn’t put a stop to his biblical gallop, as he also became a founding member of the Tarsus Scripture School in 2020, which has grown and continues to provide an invaluable resource to people all over the country.

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When he was diagnosed with cancer in 2023 he continued his work with the same passionate enthusiasm.

His passing is a great loss not just to his family, his Augustinian Community and his wide circle of friends, but also to the Church in Ireland today.

May he now enter into his rest and enjoy the vision of God which he so faithfully proclaimed and lived.

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" Life to me, of course, is Christ, but then death would be a positive gain."
(Phil 1:21)

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