Part 2 - Fr Birch to Bishop Gray: National Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham

20 October 1919: born Finternagh, Co. Cavan; ; died Birkenhead, Merseyside 7 May 1999. Educated at Patrick's College in Cavan; St Mary's Oscott, Birmingham, in 1937. Ordained priest in the Cathedral of St Patrick and Felin, Cavan, in the middle of the Second World War. 1943 assistant priest for 5 years at the Sacred Heart Church in Aston, Birmingham. Entered Dunboyne Institute at Maynooth College, Co Kildare, in 1948, receiving his Licentiate in Canon Law in 1950, appointed to an administrative post, as Secretary to the Archbishop, and a year later became the Diocesan Chancellor. 1955, parish priest at St Michael's in Birmingham; went to Rome to study at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas. When he returned to Birmingham, though still in charge of St Michael's Parish, he was made Vicar-General. 16 February 1969 he was consecrated as Titular Bishop of Mercia and Auxiliary Bishop of Liverpool by Archbishop George Beck. Then, Bishop of Shrewsbury in 1980. He retired in 1995.