Br Paul Hurley Born: May 5th, 1922 Died: October 26th, 2012The then taoiseach Seán Lemass did not know what he was letting himself in for when he agreed to give an interview to the editor of The Word.
Br Paul Hurley appeared to be an innocent abroad. He was in fact a journalist by instinct. With a wry smile (and some “softening” – he was a great raconteur), he inveigled the most powerful politician in the land to say more, perhaps, than he ought to have.
It was a wide-ranging interview covering many topics, including Irish-British relations which were showing some promise of improvement at the time, and on its publication in early 1966 the taoiseach found himself answering questions about it in the Dáil. Br Paul had had a scoop. One of many.
One person who didn’t underestimate him, it seems, was a policeman serving duty at the Border. As the story goes in Divine Word Missionary circles: the officer wrote in his notebook: “Watch out for this guy. He looks simple but he’s deadly dangerous.” Factual or apocryphal, it has the ring of truth.
Br Paul was born in 1922 and came from a distinguished family. His father, Seán, entered the British imperial customs service and, after a short spell in the US, was appointed to Shanghai in 1905. A fluent Chinese speaker, he helped train activists loyal to Sun Yat-sen to overthrow the last Imperial dynasty.
On his return to Ireland, Seán opened two photographic studios and poured much of his money into the film, Land Of Her Fathers, starring Phyllis Wakely and Micheál MacLiammoir.
Later he helped set up the IDA. He and his wife, Margaret (née Davis) had four children: Donal, Irish ambassador to Tehran and Paris; Peggy; Séamus (who took the name of Paul in religious life); and Maureen, a famous harpist. All had a voracious appetite for reading.
After leaving Synge Street CBS, Séamus Hurley first worked as a lumberjack in Wicklow and then as a clerk in the Great Northern Railway in Belfast. A sermon by Fr Stephen Brown SJ at the Jesuit Farm Street Church, London, sparked off his vocation.
In 1949, he joined the little-known Divine Word Missionaries (SVD) and entered in Donamon, Co Roscommon.
Immediately his religious superiors recognised his journalistic skill. He was appointed to help produce their annual, the precursor of pictorial magazine, The Word. On entering the novitiate in 1950, he began work editing the new monthly.
The first issue (March 1953) caused a sensation. It contained an article on Stalin, who had died that year on March 5th. This became the pattern of the future. The journalist Paul had a nose for what was happening in the world. He commissioned articles from famous writers and journalists.
Mostly under pseudonyms, some 1,000 articles came from his own pen. Up to early this year, he also published in Catholic magazines, as well as national newspapers, including The Irish Times.
The topics covered in The Word were as diverse as life is rich and beautiful. This was reflected in the some 60,000 images he published in the 40 years as editor. One of his main sources for images was the photographic library of The Irish Times, to which, as was his boast, he enjoyed unlimited access.
Thanks to a network of promoters set up mostly by Br Colm Hegarty SVD, The Word reached a circulation of 170,000 in Ireland alone in the 1960s and 250,000 worldwide.
In the editorial for the final issue in December 2008, the then editor-in-chief said of Br Paul : “He managed to convey a sense of the true Catholicity of the faith that embraced every aspect of our humanity, from literature to sport, from art to spirituality, and opened up new vistas at a time, when narrowness of mind and heart was not unusual.”
Truth, beauty and goodness (justice) were his passions, and he was a member of the St Vincent de Paul Society for some 70 years.
He is survived by his sister-in-law, Françoise Hurley and his nephews Columban and Paul .