The Black Abbey in Kilkenny, one of Ireland’s best-known Dominican foundations. Photo: Fr Tom Jordan OP. The near-collapse and subsequent recovery of the Irish Dominican Province was not a matter of inevitable cycles but the work of both the miraculous and determined individuals, according to Fr Terence Crotty OP, who has written a history of the Order.
Reflecting on the Province’s fortunes, Fr Crotty rejected the idea that decline and revival simply follow one another as if governed by fate. “Cycles give the impression that you’re dealing with fate or invisible forces,” he said. “Whereas really what you’re dealing with, to be quite honest, is great men. You’ve got men who take something that’s in decline, in severe decline, and they grab it by the shirt and they make something out of it.” He added that renewal does not always depend on formal leadership. “Once you’ve got a leader in the right place, things begin to happen. Not even a leader, not even the boss. Sometimes it’s just an individual. It’s this person and a small group of friends who change everything.”
Speaking to The Irish Catholic Fr Crotty recalled a period, within living memory, when many Irish Dominicans believed the Province was effectively finished. Properties were sold or given away at the time, partly because of a belief that other organisations had a future while the Order did not.
A turning point came in 2004, when the Province received a visitation from the Master of the Order. “One of the things he said was, ‘It seems to me you’re all depressed. You don’t know where you’re going, and if you did know where you were going, you wouldn’t have the men to do it anyway,’” Fr Crotty recalled.
“But around that time we began to get a trickle of vocations, which has completely turned things around. When I was young, there was a sense that the Order was finished. The fact that we’ve had some sort of revival and we’ve got some sort of future is quite miraculous.”
Looking back, Fr Crotty sees both human agency and providence at work. “Sometimes you get the impression that the Lord flicks the switch and all of a sudden things grow again,” he said. “From a human point of view, it’s really leadership that makes the big difference. When you’ve got great men to lead, things tend to revive. Also, when the Province was strict, it revived. When it was lax, it declined. But one always has to see that providence is there.”