Text from cutting:
DEATH OF THE REV. A. F. WALSH (R. C.).- The Diamond Fields Advertiser, published at Kimberley, South Africa, of September 19th, contains the following obituary notice of the late Father Walsh, who was for some years Mission priest at Lynn, and, going out to the Cape in 1875, fulfilled his duty in various places there, and amongst others, with the British troops in the South African wars, in the zealous and self-denying manner described by the biographer:-
Weeping women and men bowed down with grief clustered round the doors of the Roman Catholic Church and priests' residences on Saturday evening. Good cause had they for sorrow. At five o'clock the spirit of a brave and good man had passed away from earth, leaving a void in all that is noble and pure in Kimberley, which it will be hard to fill up. Andrew Francis Walsh had not only gone through the form of setting apart his life for the service of others, but up to the last had performed the vows of that high servitude to the letter. Born in County Tipperary in 1839, he evinced at an early age strong aspirations after spiritual life, and his determination to enter the priesthood was but the outcome of an inward conviction that therein lay his path of duty. His collegiate studies began at Carlow, and subsequently he passed some time at Bruges, Belgium. Having completed his training for the sacred calling, he was stationed for a period in England, chiefly at Nottingham. He allied himself with one of the religious brotherhoods of his Church, and he was despatched to South Africa in March, 1875. Several Sisters, amongst whom was the Rev. Mother now in Kimberley, accompanied him to the Cape. Father Walsh was located in various parts of South Africa. He was the first Roman Catholic minister at Pretoria. Afterwards he opened up a mission at Lydenburg, which for a time proved a busy field for religious work, and only declined when the place fell away as a gold bearing region. He was the pioneer priest of Jagersfontein, where he laboured with great acceptance for three years. He was transferred to Kimberley about two years ago. This is a brief and imperfect sketch of the various spheres of ministerial service in which Father Walsh worked earnestly and lovingly. But it is in another field of duty that he earned name and fame. Wherever in South Africa British soldier or volunteer has been called upon during the last seven years to fight the battles of his Queen, there Father Walsh considered it was his place to be. In the Zulu war and the Transvaal war he attached himself to the British troops as chaplain, and invariably contrived to gain the love and respect of the soldiers no matter what creed they professed. He was fearless in administering rebuke, and unflinching in giving caution and advice; the tenderest of nurses, the most unselfish of comrades. Often and often has he been known to break through the lines and go foraging around in the enemy's country in quest of fruits and vegetables or other succulent herbs for the fever-stricken or wounded patients, with whom he felt all a brother's sympathy. Laden with these spoils of a dangerous expedition - conducted all alone - he would return to camp, doff his coat, chop up sufficient wood for a fire, and then cook the delicacies he had gathered with solicitous hand, serving them to the sick with a touching tenderness that proved in many a case more than half the cure. When reminded of the danger to which he had exposed himself he would simply say: "Others must not do it, but I must. I cannot see these poor men suffering without doing something for them." In the hour of battle he presented an example of calm cool courage almost heroic. Ever watchful that the wounded were not left to be trampled down or ruthlessly done to death, he has been known time after time to have rushed from the shelter of a laager towards some fallen soldier pierced by bullet or assegai, and borne him swiftly and safely away beyond the reach of further danger. He was one of the numerous subjects of Her Majesty who in many an engagement has won the right to the Victoria Cross, if ever true valour won it; but the innate modesty of this truly brave, and thoroughly unselfish man, made him shrink from anything like a trumpeting of his deeds. "My duty" was his motto, and never did priest militant or loving pastor do that duty more loyally. In the Bechuanaland expedition, to which he was attached as chaplain, he was simply idolised by the soldiers. No duty was too arduous, no service too menial for him, when called upon amid the exigencies of camp life. In Kimberley the record of his pure and useful career will be long so remembered. His faith went beyond the boundaries of his own Church, his charity recognised no creed, the poor and sick knew him only as a ministrant of good. Stricken down last Sunday - just after he had been assisting in public worship - with inflammation of the lungs, he gradually sank, notwithstanding the constant attentions of Dr. Jameson, combined latterly with those of Dr. Matthews, until, as we have said, he breathed his last about five o'clock on Saturday evening. Let those who mourn his departure remember, with Petrarch, that
"Death betimes is comfort, not dismay;
And who can rightly die needs no delay."
