On Friday June 25, Bishop Terence Brain of Salford celebrated a diocesan Requiem Mass for Fr Pat Keane at St Bernard’s church, Burnage, in Manchester.
Priests and people of the diocese and members of the Keane family attended. Fr Keane was first ordained a priest in 1960. His first parish was St Edmund’s Little Hulton and he joined the Catholic Missionary Society.
On his return to the Salford diocese Fr Keane was made a curate at St Edmund’s at Miles Platting, Manchester, before becoming a parish priest at St John’s, Burnley. Finally he joined St Bernard’s in Burnage in 1989.
Fr Keane retired home to County Kerry in Ireland in 2008, died on April 24 and was buried from St John’s church in his home village of Ballybunion. Close to 2,000 people attended his funeral of this dearly loved priest in Ireland and a further 1,000 of his parishioners in Burnage attended an identical service on the same day.
Fr Steven Parkinson, St Bernard’s new parish priest, paid tribute to Fr Keane, saying that the priest was “devoted to his parish and loved by his parishioners”.
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