(Culled from SMA Ireland website)
The death has taken place of Fr Michael Waters, SMA. Fr Michael died peacefully with his family around him at the SMA House, African Missions, Blackrock Road on Tuesday, 5 November 2024.
Brief biography
After completing his secondary education in Cork. It was no great surprise when Michael decided to join the African Missions following in the steps of his uncle, Fr Con O’Driscoll, SMA, who was a missionary in the Midwest of Nigeria.
In September 1966, the seminarian Michael was ordained a priest in Newry Cathedral. After his Ordination, Fr Michael returned to Cork to study for a Higher Diploma in Education, following which he travelled to Nigeria where he was to spend forty-seven years as an SMA missionary priest.
Missionary in trajectory
Fr Michael was appointed to the SMA Mission team in the north of the country, still in the throes of the Nigerian Civil War. He served for twenty-three years in the Archdiocese of Kaduna. He then spent nine years in what is now the Diocese of Kano and finally fifteen years in the Diocese of Kontagora.
He returned home finally to Ireland in 2018 and has been living in the SMA House of the African Missions on Blackrock Road, Cork. He has been in failing health for some time.
He is deeply regretted by his sisters Kathleen Noonan, Ina White, Denise McGrath, Cornelia Murray, Marian O’Donoghue and his brothers Dermot and Tony, his sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews, relatives, friends, the clergy and faithful of the Archdiocese of Kaduna, Dioceses of Kano and Kontagora, Nigeria, and his confreres in the Society of African Missions.
Funeral arrangements
The funeral arrangement of the burial of Fr. Waters was as follows:
- Reposing at St Joseph’s SMA Parish Church, Blackrock Road, Cork from 4pm to 6.30pm, Wednesday, 6 November 2024.
- Removal from the SMA House, Blackrock Road, Cork at 11.15am on Thursday, 7 November, to St Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, Cork.
- Funeral Mass at 12 noon,
- Burial in the adjoining cemetery in Wilton.
Requiem Masses in Nigeria
Funeral and memorial Masses were celebrated in Kano, Kontagora… Dioceses in Nigeria where Fr. Waters was a missionary.
May Fr Michael rest in peace.