You can see him in the Abu Orioles of 1964-68.
- Teacher whose Senior Cambridge/ISC classes graduated
with
superior
results.
- Field hockey and football/soccer coach and player
for the
school team
against the town team, Government High School, CPTC
(later NPA) and
Gurkha regiment teams.
- Managed the operas and choir for all school
functions and
parents
week. Always had me in his operas as a female and in
his choirs as a
soprano !! (even when my voice went haywire trying the
scales for the
choir one year!!)
- Impressed us with his multi-instrument (piano,
guitar)
playing
skills. Played finger-picking folk, cowboy and Irish
tunes on his
guitar, with Deasy accompanying him.
- Woke with bad earache late one nite and knocked on
his room
(later
Br. Foran's) door at the end of the small dorm. He
gave me a chocolate,
read me an article about Roy Roger's horse Trigger and
told me a few
stories about them till I was ready to go to bed
again.
- When dorm sas complained to him about me one
Saturday
evening after
dinner, he made me "face north", whacked me across the
behind with a
hockey stick and let me go to the Saturday night movie
in the gym,
instead of holing up in the dorm, with only dorm sas
for company. (Thanks for not letting me miss "Flipper, the Dolphin", but did you have to whack so hard!!). He operated the movie projector for
the weekly movies.
- Spiritual director of the Crusaders (Classes IV-VII)
and
supervisor
of some great annual picnics for the group.
- Took me on my first conquest of Plummy when I was in
Class
III.
- Graduated me into the big leagues by making me swim
the
School Lake
channel non-stop. (But he had to play life-guard for a
bit on the way
back). Shallow Bay was for the "smallies" after that!
- Never taught me any classroom subjects since he
taught the
senior
classes, but was a big part of making my life in SMS a
happy and
learning one.
R.I.P.
—Ashley D'Souza (1972)
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Here he is, perched on a classroom bench, strumming on
his
guitar and singing Little Green Jug and I
Was Born
Ten-Thousand Years
Ago with inimitable Irish brio while we pre-teen
country
hicks
marvel at his genius and watch his Adam’s Apple bob up
and down to the
riffs coming off his strings.
And here he is again, striding down a moonlit road with
us
tripping over his heels trying to stay as close as
possible to avoid
being abducted by the demons he conjures from tales spun
from his
fertile imagination.
Every time someone from the cherished past passes away,
a
little something in us also dies.
God Bless you, Br O’Neill.
—Pierre Francis (1973)
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Br O'Neill was in some respects the Christian Brothers'
answer
to the Singing Nun. And our very own Bob Dylan. He was
almost
always to be found with his guitar or a keyboard,
whether it was
drilling
the boys through chromatic arpeggios to Bella Senora,
pumping
the squeaky pedals on the chapel organ, entertaining the
Crusaders with
Marty Robbins' and Faron Young's country & western
hits (Big
Iron on His Hip, El
Paso, Yellow Bandana), or something more
age-appropriate
like Mummy's Taking Us to the Zoo Tomorrow. He
carried Ireland
on his sleeve: created a school anthem out of an IRA pub
song, The Merry
Ploughboy, and
always had a good banshee tale for a dark night. He
should also be
remembered as the master of perhaps the most successful
ISC
class, a batch of 18 that finished in 1968 with 15 First
Divisions
and 3 Second Divisions.
“O the sea, o the sea, the grá geal mo chroí (the love
of my heart)
Long may she flow between England and me
It's a sure guarantee that one day we'll be free/God
bless the poor Scotsmen, they'll never be free
Thank God we're surrounded by water”
—Val Noronha (1973)
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