Fr Robert Cooke OMI
The Foundations of the Oblates in Ireland
On 21 June 1856, Father Robert Cooke OMI took possession of a 25-acre farm with a big house and useful outhouses, purchased for the Oblate foundation at Inchicore. Eight days later, thanks to the remarkable efforts of 700 volunteers from the nearby Railway Works, “there stood a neat little chapel, complete with sacristy and bell-tower and fully furnished, ready for the large congregation that turned up for the Mass of inauguration and thanksgiving on Sunday, June 29th”.
Robert Cooke was born in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, in 1821. As a young man he studied law and medicine in Dublin. Devotion to Mary Immaculate led him to the Oblates and a meeting with Fr Casimir Aubert. He studied theology in Marseilles and was ordained by the Founder on 28 June 1846. Bishop de Mazenod wrote of him: “he is an excellent religious, a capable man who does a lot of good among the English who work in St. Henri (railway line Marseilles-Avignon)...I am counting on him for the direction of our missions in England and Ireland”.
With Fr Casimir Aubert, he laid the foundation for the mission of the Anglo-Irish province. He was provincial from 1851-1867 and 1873-1877. Robert Cooke was an outstanding missionary, preacher and leader. As provincial, he concentrated on foundations in the large industrial towns and cities of Britain in the service of Irish workers. Fr Robert Cooke OMI died at Tower Hill, London on 18 June 1882.
Fr Casimir Aubert OMI
Casimir Aubert was born in Digne, Provence, in 1810. At his ordination in Marseilles, in 1833, he became the first Oblate to be ordained by the Founder. It is a mark of Bishop de Mazenod’s confidence in him that he appointed him Novice Master shortly after ordination, a position he held until 1841. He also taught theology at the seminary in Marseilles and, as private secretary to the Founder, collaborated closely with him in the government of the Congregation.
Bishop de Mazenod attached such importance to the mission in Britain and Ireland that he sent his closest confidant as mission leader. Fr Aubert arrived in Dublin in July 1842, hoping to find support for establishing the Oblates in Ireland. After many disappointments and apparent failure, he moved to England where the Congregation experienced rapid growth under his leadership.
In August 1855, Fr Aubert, at the instigation of the Founder, returned to Dublin where once again he met with little success. Undeterred, he sent Fr Cooke to Dublin a few months later. The Oblate foundation at Inchicore quickly followed.