Hurling & Camogie

Dunloy native Fr McCamphill reflects on a life lived and praying for an Antrim victory

Fr PJ McCamphill at Frankie's Nursery in Kenya - named after the late Dunloy hurler Frankie McMullan
Fr PJ McCamphill at Frankie's Nursery in Kenya - named after the late Dunloy hurler Frankie McMullan Fr PJ McCamphill at Frankie's Nursery in Kenya - named after the late Dunloy hurler Frankie McMullan

‘Up the Macabees’

THE WhatsApp call to Nairobi is clear as day. It’s as if Fr PJ McCamphill is next door rather than 7,000 miles away in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, where he’s worked as a missionary priest for 51 years.

The Dunloy native hasn’t quite retired but he’s “slowing down”. The global pandemic that has cut through the east African country has probably assisted in ushering him into semi-retirement.

Fr PJ is a life lived. From swinging a hurl around the Glens to helping the poor in Kenya to being the chaplain of Jim Nelson’s ’89 crew to cheating death 10 years ago in a horrific incident, he’s crammed in an unimaginable amount of living in his 77 years.

When he wakes tomorrow morning he will be pacing the floor until 4pm local time before clicking into his GAAGO account to watch ‘live’ coverage of his beloved Antrim as they attempt to win their first Joe McDonagh Cup against Kerry.

In normal circumstances, he’d be making plans to get home for All-Ireland Hurling final day – his one cherished date in the calendar.

For Antrim to be part of the day - well, it’s the stuff of dreams for a hurling fanatic like him.

Tomorrow morning he’ll be praying for two things.

“I’ll be praying and praying that the electricity won’t go off here,” he says.

“And the other thing is that people won’t come and annoy me during the game. It’s Murphy’s Law - somebody who you haven’t seen for a year-and-a-half comes in five minutes before the match!

“I’ll be up in my room and I’ll not be coming out. I tell people here that there is only one man I’ll open my door for during the match and that’s Pope Francis.”

He breaks into hearty laughter.

“My brother bought me an annual subscription for GAAGO and I’ve been able to see all the Antrim matches. I’d be in contact with Neil McManus quite often and I’d send the team my best wishes before a big game.

“The current team seems to be very unified. You’ve got guys from the Johnnies, Rossa, St Enda’s, Cushendall, Dunloy and Loughgiel.

“I love the forwards the way they run at the backs. I love to see that and I love backs who give quick ball to the forwards.”

Neil McManus got to know Fr PJ during his minor days with Antrim in the mid-Noughties. Just as he did for Jim Nelson in the late eighties /early 90s, the amiable priest became something of a mentor to Terence McNaughton and Dominic McKinley’s young squad.

“Fr PJ continues to be a great source of encouragement and support all the way from Nairobi,” says McManus.

“l enjoy swapping messages before every game and really look forward to meeting him in person on his trips home to Ireland. His passion and commitment to Antrim extends over many decades. There’s a warmth and aura that lifts you after each encounter.” 

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FR PJ McCamphill couldn’t believe his luck. His timing was almost as good as ‘Cloot’ McFetridge’s against Offaly that day.

He’d decided to take a short break from his missionary work in Kenya and spend a few weeks at home.

It was August ’89, Jim Nelson’s hurlers were going places – ‘Cloot’. ‘Beaver’. ‘Hippy’. Terence McNaughton. ‘Woody’ - and Fr PJ was about to join them on an unforgettable journey.

He and his brother Seamus sat in Croke Park as ‘Cloot’ and co shredded Offaly beneath a beautiful saffron sun.

“I couldn’t believe when we beat Offaly that day, I felt so lucky to be home and that we were in an All-Ireland final.

“The other semi-final between Tipperary versus Galway followed – which was a rough, rough game – but I hardly saw it because my mind was full of Antrim being in an All-Ireland final.”

A gifted hurler in his youth, his love of the game has never dimmed despite being far from home for his entire adult life.

In the build-up to the 1989 All-Ireland final against Tipperary, Fr PJ turned up to watch the Antrim hurlers train in Ballymena one evening.

Jim Nelson came ambling over and began chewing the fat with PJ about life in Kenya, mutual hurling friendships and how the Antrim players were shaping up for the biggest day of their hurling lives.

‘So what are you doing in the week of the All-Ireland?’ Jim casually asked.

‘If I get a ticket I’ll be at the game,’ said PJ.

‘Would you like to come along as chaplain and say mass for the team?’

Fr PJ was dumbfounded.

‘Wow. Would I what?’

Fr PJ signed up on the spot.

“I was with the team all the way, on the bus, in the hotel the night before and in the dressing room.

“On the day of the final, I remember many things but just before the players ran down the corridor – at that time, the changing rooms were beside Hill 16 – and it was reserved for Antrim supporters. It was a sea of saffron.

“And they sang the Green Glens of Antrim. I’ll never forget it.”

Any time Fr PJ was home he usually made sure it was hurling season. He is weaved into Antrim hurling’s DNA and has remained a hugely popular figure.

“You always knew in his sermon there was going to be a reference to the game,” recalls Dominic ‘Woody’ McKinley.

“He’d start talking about the gospel and then he’d go off track and say stuff like: ‘I’m telling you boys today, you have to get stuck in.’ And then he would get back on track. He talked about the Maccabees a wild lot. They were fighters and he related this to the hurling.

“We had the Hippys, the Cloots, the Beavers – Fr PJ is as an important link as any of them. Jim [Nelson] wasn’t a bit slow. He knew what he was doing getting Fr PJ involved.

“I’m sure players had wee things going on in their lives and in their families’ lives but you could go to PJ.

“First and foremost, he was a priest and a very religious man, but he was a hurling man, hurling mad.”

“In my playing days he was our chaplain as such,” recalls Terence McNaughton.

“Before a big game you’d always go a walk along the seafront in Malahide or wherever we were playing. Even in later years when ‘Woody’ and me became the managers of the minor team and senior team, he was with us then...”

McNaughton adds: “The best thing I can say about Fr PJ is, he is what you think every priest should be. He can relate to young or old.

“When he went on the bus with our minor team, he wasn’t the priest that rammed religion down your throat. Nobody felt they had to change their personality in his company because he was a priest. That in itself is a great quality. And his love for the game never faltered.”

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IF you’re from Dunloy, you’re born with a stick in your hand. PJ McCamphill grew up like every other kid in the village, with ash and leather stitched to their hands.

Many an afternoon was spent pucking up and down the lane outside the family home on the Bellaghy Road and “breaking the odd window” with his brother Seamus and cousin ‘Madge’ Rainey, Antrim’s All-Ireland winning camogie captain of ’56.

He was schooled in Garron Tower and played most of his hurling at centrefield, captaining the team to junior and senior Ulster Colleges glory.

He was well able for the county scene too, starring for the minors and U21s. But there was a fork in the road up ahead. From his mid-teens, he was drawn to becoming a missionary priest.

“I was around 16 when I thought of becoming a missionary priest. At that time, we would have seen images of Africa on the TV, poor people, famine. I wanted to help from a religious point of view as a priest and I wanted to help from a human point of view.”

He studied in Wicklow before moving to Cork for a couple of years where he managed to combine his studies and hurling with UCC.

By 1965, though, hurling had taken a back seat as PJ moved to Rome to complete his theological studies. In September ’69 – on the feast day of St MacNissi – Fr PJ landed in Kenya.

If he’d left an impression on the hurling field back home, he was about to leave a more lasting one in Kenya.

Initially, his needs were practical ones. He needed transport to get around different parts of the country to do his mission work.

In 1973, the good people of Dunloy raised money to buy him a motorbike.

For a half century, Fr PJ has not only spread the gospel, he’s established countless projects to help alleviate some of human suffering of the poverty-stricken natives – from HIV Aids initiatives to providing financial assistance to local villagers to visiting prisons.

A young Fr PJ shows off the bike the Dunloy community bought him to help him to get around Kenya to do his missionary work
A young Fr PJ shows off the bike the Dunloy community bought him to help him to get around Kenya to do his missionary work A young Fr PJ shows off the bike the Dunloy community bought him to help him to get around Kenya to do his missionary work

One of his greatest ventures came in the guise of a nursery school he helped build in the Rift Valley.

It’s no ordinary nursey either.

A few years after the death of Dunloy hurler Frankie McMullan, Fr PJ raised enough money from back home to see the vision of a nursery school become a reality.

“People back home have been very generous towards my projects here,” he says.

“Frankie McMullan, God rest him. He was a hurler in Dunloy and Antrim. I knew the whole McMullan family. I used to hurl with their father Jimmy – but poor Frankie died.

“In the area I lived in here, I noticed there were a lot of children who weren’t going to nursery school. If you don’t go to nursery here, you’ll never get into primary school and therefore you’ll never get an education. So I built a nursery school in honour of Frankie McMullan – it’s called Frankie’s Nursery School.”

At the last count there were 84 children in the Nakuru area who were learning at the nursery. 

“The people of Dunloy have been very generous – not only Dunloy, but other places – and they have been over the years. I’d only regard myself as the sort of intermediary between them and the people who need help here.”

There were times when the missionary priest risked life and limb for others. After 16 years in the Rift Valley, he was transferred to Nairobi.

He got to know some of the locals and there was one particular woman who had fallen on hard times after her husband died suddenly. The dead man’s family had accused his wife of bewitching him.

Under threat, Fr PJ decided to take her and her son and daughter in. At the time he was building a house and planting a hedge around the compound.

“I asked her would she like to be my housekeeper and that I needed help with other jobs.

“Around this time 10 years ago the poor lady died. I’d actually had built a house for her. Her step brother appeared out of no-where and wanted to take the house after her death. He had three wives and they were all camped outside. So one day when the funeral was over I just confronted him and told him: ‘It’s not your house.’

“I’d gone down to the relevant ministry and told them I was the guardian for the woman’s wee boy and wee girl and that I had taken out a preventative order so that nobody could take the property from them.”

That evening a few hired hoodlums broke into Fr PJ’s house and beat him with iron bars, leaving him for dead.

“All the time I was thinking had they killed our night watchman, but everyone was paid off and the night watchman was told not to be there that night. One of them had a gun and was shooting into the air.

“I pressed the alarm and the people in the village wanted to come running but they couldn’t because they could hear shooting.”

He suffered a cracked skull and needed emergency surgery. Aside from the scar behind the back of his ear, Fr PJ carries no psychological baggage from that gruesome night. He looked after the housekeeper’s son and daughter for years after and is in regular contact with them to this day.

Her son recently graduated from university.

Up until the global pandemic struck, Fr PJ’s missionary work centred around visiting the prisons and only a few years ago he managed to set free a Dublin man who had fallen foul of the law in Nairobi.

“I had just been appointed to here and I was looking for a pastoral outlet. So I decided to try the prisons and I’ve been doing it ever since and I love it.

“But this Dublin fella who found himself in prison here was a character. I liked him. He was a bit rough, but a good-natured man...

“Anyway I got to know him well and I used to visit him every Saturday. Eventually, the Irish community here gathered money to get him out and to get him home. He’s now living back in Ireland.

“I used to bring in the news from Ireland. He didn’t know that Martin McGuinness had died. He’d a wee bit of history himself in the IRA.

“I used to smuggle him in bits of chocolate and cakes. He loved Snickers chocolate; he told me he hadn’t tasted one for donkey’s years…

“Anyway, after a while, the Irish Embassy got involved. I was the go-between. We kept at them until we got the compensation down to a reasonable amount – a million Kenyan shillings.

“When I told him people had raised the money for him to return home he cried. He couldn’t believe people here could be so good to him.”

With Covid condemning him to barracks, Fr PJ is still helping local villagers whose livelihoods have been decimated. Through bank transfers he gets money to families twice per week.

“Here, there is the super, super rich who are creaming everything off, with all sorts of financial scandals going on, then there is a growing middle class.

"But a big, big percentage of the population are living well below the poverty line. My living quarters is good but you go up the road less than a mile and you’re into a slum called Kamwangware…

"The people there are living cheek to jowl.”

He loves the people of Kenya – their warmth, their kindness and their generosity of spirit. He has spent 51 years on the other side of the world helping others. Not one day has been wasted.

“Everything I have been doing here is the fulfilment of the dream that I had when I was 16,” he says.

He has fond memories of the class of ’89 and subsequent years offering guidance and the occasional fiery sermon.

“One day we were playing a match down in Tullamore against Offaly in a League game and the first reading for the mass that day was from the Book of Macabees and so when I came to my homily and I looked down at the lads, I said: ‘Lads, do you know anything about these Macabees?’

“I remember [Aiden] ‘Beaver’ McCarry looking up at me and saying: ‘Never heard of them, PJ!’

“So I said: ‘They were young lads like you boys. They were fellas who were prepared to die for the cause. That’s the same as us today against Offaly, where we must die for the cause…”

Jim Nelson was certainly ahead of his time. Turned out, Fr PJ did many of his team-talks for him.

“Before the game, I saw ‘Beaver’ calling his team-mates in and shouting: “Up the Macabees!”

From his living quarters in Nairobi, Fr PJ McCamphill can see ‘Beaver’ McCarry in the mind’s eye down in Tullamore.

And he roars with laughter...