Glenstal Abbey 
Glenstal Abbey’s oldest monk has celebrated 80 years as a professed religious.
Fr Placid Murray, who is 98 years old and currently lives in a nursing home in Newport, Co. Tipperary, returned to the Limerick monastery to celebrate the Oak Jubilee of his first profession, which he made on the Feast of the Epiphany, 1937.
He and the monastic community were joined by many of his family and friends for Mass, where he renewed his vows. During the homily, Abbot Brendan Coffey pointed out that he would have to live to 109 should he ever celebrate his own oak jubilee, and that the monastery was a growing but “fledgling community” just 10 years old when Fr Placid first made profession.
Fidelity
“It is a tremendous testimony to fidelity, all too seldom seen today in any walk of life, that someone faithfully carries out their work for 80 years,” he said.
