ADOPTED Cork man, Vincent Murphy, who has been living in the city since the 1970s and is the founder of the Cork charity, The Next Step, has been doing some extra-curricular activity. It has resulted in a book about his granduncle, Michael Kickham, who was something of a mystery, particularly in the last years of his relatively short life.
Born in Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary in 1861, Micheal died at the age of 48 in Buenos Aires, having left the priesthood. What evidence exists reveals an interesting life that included petitioning Pope Leo XIII and a diary of Michael’s time as a Jesuit novitiate.Eighteen Irish secular priests, including Michael, sent a petition to Pope Leo XIII in 1888 giving out about how they were treated by the Marists, who saw the secular priests as merely being there to serve them.