Thomas Herbert O'Driscoll (17 October 1928 – 25 July 2024) was an Irish-born Canadian Anglican priest. After emigrating he became one of the most highly regarded preachers in the Anglican Church. A consummate storyteller, a popular broadcast and print commentator, and prolific hymn writer, he authored numerous books on Bible interpretation and the spiritual life, many of which reflect Celtic Christianity.Premier
O'Driscoll was born in 1928 in Cork, Ireland;"Singing the Faith: Presentation Edition" (Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes p13:Ferndown, Andrew Parker 2011 educated at Trinity College Dublin; and ordained in 1953.Crockford's Clerical Directory 1980–82 p1756 London: OUP, 1983 After curacies at Monkstown from 1952 to 1954, then Ottawa from 1954 to 1957, he was a naval chaplain from 1957 to 1960, stationed in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He then became rector of Carp, Ontario, from 1960 to 1962, following which he returned to Ottawa. He served in Ottawa until his appointment as dean in the Diocese of New Westminster.
Biography Born in 1928, O'Driscoll spent his childhood and student years in the city of Cork in the south of Ireland. His summers were spent on his grandfather's farm in Donaguile, County Kilkenny.
Following the footsteps of many before him, he sailed across the Atlantic in 1954, and briefly returned to Ireland the following year to marry, then settled permanently in Canada. Since O'Driscoll was a prolific writer, his own words have been selected for most of this entry.
Childhood "When I was growing up, to be Protestant in the south of Ireland was to have your otherwise friendly neighbors or professional colleagues assume that you and they had different loyalties. … As a young adult I felt caught between two worlds. My family name indicated quite undeniably that whether or not I was Anglican, my father's family had been Irish and Roman Catholic and had lived in Ireland for untold generations." (1)
Student days "In my formative years in Ireland, one entered the past to be prepared for the future. From 1941 to 1945, I was a boarding student at Midleton College, a school founded in 1673 on the estates of the Earl of Midleton. From 1948 to 1952, I attended Trinity College Dublin, a foundation of Elizabeth the First in 1592." (2)
Ministry/Career "In July 1952, I was ordained in Dublin's Christ Church Cathedral, having entered by walking past its Norman remains. Pointing from the pulpit that day, directing our eyes to the stone step on which we were about to be ordained, the homilist said: ‘Never forget that men have been ordained on this step for 950 years." O'Driscoll's career, spanning more than 40 years, is described in section below, as is his theology.
Marriage and family "I had met the person who would one day become my wife. I was torn between wanting to go to Canada and not wanting to leave Paula. In the end we agreed on a plan. We would become engaged, I would go to Canada and return the following summer for the wedding." Herbert and Paula were married and had four children: Deirdre, Erin, Moira, and Niall.
Life in retirement O'Driscoll retired in 1993 and published sixteen books, in addition to contributing regular columns for church publications, leading pilgrimages, and preaching. "The Rev. Canon Dr. Herbert O'Driscoll is many things: former parish priest and cathedral dean, internationally renowned conference and pilgrimage leader, hymnodist and storyteller, author of over fifty books. Perhaps above all, he is a great preacher and teacher of preaching. When invited recently to give an Easter Day sermon on Zoom (at age 92) Herb accepted at once. "After all," he explained, "I'm hard-wired for preaching."
The O'Driscoll Forum was established in 2022. Envisioned as an annual three-day event during the Summer School at the Vancouver School of Theology, includes public lectures by distinguished teachers and practitioners of preaching, teaching, and the liturgical arts.
O'Driscoll died on 25 July 2024, at the age of 95.In Memoriam The Rev. Canon Herbert O'Driscoll
Career 1952 – 1954 Curate, Parish of Monkstown, Dublin, Ireland
Following graduation from the Trinity College in Dublin, O'Driscoll was ordained as a deacon and later priest in the Church of Ireland. "I had been instructed to dress in clericals in preparation for ordination. Other parts of my wardrobe—black cassock, white surplice, black stole—were waiting for me at the cathedral. I was aware that I was about to become part of something much greater than myself."
1954 – 1957 Curate, Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa, ON
O'Driscoll left Cork in October 1954 aboard the RMS Franconia and immigrated to Canada. "Strangely enough, I cannot recall the actual moment when I made one of the most significant decisions in my life, to relocate to Canada. Perhaps much of our decision-making is like that. We think we take a particular step at a certain time on a certain day, but the fact may be that our subconscious has been working away at it for a long time and what we imagine to be a decisive turning point is really just the last stage in a process."
1957 – 1960 Chaplain, Royal Canadian Navy
As a chaplain must be a Canadian citizen, this position required a transition. "I recall standing at the counter (Immigration Office) in downtown Ottawa and being given an application form. The task completed, I was asked to hand over five dollars: a token amount these days, but in those days a substantial subtraction from my curate's income of ninety dollars every two weeks. … I was told sometime later than an RCMP officer from the Canadian Embassy in Dublin came to the parish I had left two years before to come to Canada. He must have been satisfied that I was not trailing any legal baggage behind me and that I was really the person I claimed to be, because some weeks later, I was asked to return to the citizenship office to swear allegiance to Her Majesty as Queen of Canada and to receive my citizen certificate, a valued piece of paper that has been carefully preserved over the years."
1960 – 1962 Rector, Parish of Huntley, Diocese of Ottawa
Huntley was a small three-point parish with a long tradition of rural Anglican life in the Ottawa Valley of Ontario. "This meant that the parish had three of everything—three choirs, three graveyards, three parish councils, three annual vestry meetings. Everything except three rectors. … A bishop who was a long-time good friend used to say of such places that their commitment to the church was so steady, so unwavering, so instinctive, that if they had the best parish priest in the country, there would be at most three people more in the pew on Sunday, and if they had the worst priest going, there would be at most three people less."
1962 – 1968 Rector, St. John the Evangelist, Ottawa, ON
In addition to regular parish duties, O'Driscoll was active in media ministry with weekly Sunday radio broadcasts for the Diocese of Ottawa. A recurring image in O'Driscoll's ministry is ‘earthquake.' Why does God shake the earth from time to time? "So that what cannot be shaken may remain." (Heb 12:27). "Hearing that preacher 's insight in 1963 has been a golden thread through my years of ministry. It has become a metaphor of vocation I have offered to others many times. To serve in an age of cultural and theological earthquake is to be forced to decide what it is for each one of us that cannot be shaken."
1968 – 1982 Dean & Rector, Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, BC
Shortly after O'Driscoll's arrival, church membership voted to demolish the 1895 building and replace it with a hi-rise tower complex with a new underground cathedral. The redevelopment was opposed by the public and in 1976 after much lobbying the cathedral was designated a Heritage Building. "For some, I was a cultural barbarian and philistine. For others, I was the harbinger of a newly invigorated Christianity. … During the early stages of the cathedral issue, I tried to discuss things with Isabel (a parishioner), but she would have none of it. As far as she was concerned, the whole thing ‘would come to no good.' … One morning … Isabel appeared holding a large placard on a pole whose text read, ‘The dean should resign.' … It was a strange kind of friendship. …There came a time when the ambitious plans for change had to be abandoned. … Some years later, when I had left for ministry elsewhere, other changes were conceived and brought to fruition, enhancing the traditional cathedral's life at the centre of the city. …I am certain that had she lived to see that renewed cathedral, Isabel would have approved." His daily radio series, "One Man's Journal" offered reflections on contemporary living. He wrote, "The idea of a daily radio program seemed too demanding when it was first suggested to me. I felt that the first fifty ‘pages' of such a journal would be easy, the next fifty would take more thought, and the third fifty would be a burden, and the next fifty an agony! What I didn't realize was that life itself, and our living of it, writes our daily journals."
1982 – 1984 Canon and Warden, National College of Preachers and National Cathedral of St. Peter & St. Paul, Washington DC
The College of Preachers, opened in 1929, was originally conceived as a centre for the renewal of preaching for Episcopal clergy. "For more than half a century before I arrived, the college offered courses in preaching to clergy from all parts of the country. It was regarded as a significant resource within the Episcopal Church." "For me, those two years as a warden were a deep learning experience. Put simply, I realized that the college was far more than a place of teaching and learning. It was nothing less than a haven of healing in an age when clerical ministry was—as it still is—becoming increasingly stressful and demanding. The experience of attending the college alongside colleagues with similar challenges had the potential to be a part of this healing process." During this period he also participated in a broadcast series for the Episcopal Radio-Television Foundation and NBC's National Radio Pulpit Series USA.
1983 – 1993 Rector, Christ Church, Calgary AB