With sadness, we announce the death on Sunday 19th February of Fr Seamus Fullam. Fr Seamus died peacefully at Our Lady’s Manor Nursing Home, Edgeworthstown in Co. Longford, Ireland. He had been receiving end of life care.
Fr Seamus was born in Dublin on 6th October 1932 and ordained for the priesthood in Westminster Cathedral as a member of the Oblates of St Charles for ministry in the Diocese of Westminster on 27th May 1961. In 2007 Fr Seamus retired and returned to Ireland to live in Granard, Co. Longford.
Condolences are extended to Fr Seamus’ family, friends and colleagues and to his former parishioners in parishes where he served as a priest in the Diocese of Westminster and to the clergy and parishioners of Granard, and to the staff and residents of Our Lady’s Manor Nursing Home.
Fr Seamus’ Funeral Mass took place on Thursday 23rd February at St Bernard's Church, Abbeylara, Co Longford. He is buried at Carra Cemetery, Granard.
Obituary
‘A man and priest of the people’, ‘a kind man’, ‘a gentleman’ are among the comments made by some people who knew Fr Seamus Fullam, a man who died at the age of 90 and who had been a priest for sixty-one years.
Born in Dublin on 6th October 1932 to James and Margaret Fullam, Seamus was baptized seven days later at St Micham’s church on Halston Street in the Smithfield area of Dublin. He was given the name ‘James Joseph Fullam’. However, because there was already a James Fullam, an uncle who was a priest, the young James became known as Seamus, the name familiar to most people in England who knew him.
When he sensed that he was called to the priesthood Seamus was accepted for studies by the Congregation of the Oblates of St Charles. The Oblates of St Charles was founded by Henry Edward Manning who had converted to Catholicism from the Church of England. Manning had been a clergyman in the Church of England, ordained in December 1833, with an interest in Catholicism. He joined the Oxford Movement and became a Catholic in 1851 He was ordained by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman as a Catholic priest soon after, in June 1851. When he returned to England after studies in theology in Rome Fr Manning wanted to set up a community of diocesan priests who would have a common life and who would serve the needs of the diocese, especially people who were poor, in west London. The Oblates of St Charles came into being in 1857 with the blessing of Cardinal Wiseman. Fr Manning took as his inspiration the Oblates of Milan. He modified their rule, as written by St Charles Borromeo, to suit the situation in London and Rome gave approval in 1877. The Oblates’ London mission was to the rapidly expanding urban poor in newly-created parishes and to the education of children in newly-built schools. Fr Manning, the first Superior, went on to become Archbishop of Westminster and a Cardinal, as later did another Oblate, Herbert Vaughan. The Oblates of St Charles was dissolved in the mid-1970s with the priests who were members now free to be appointed across the diocese.
Seamus Fullam studied for the priesthood at Campion House in Osterley from 1953 to 1955. He then went to the Oblates’ House of Studies, Montfort Lodge in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. James by baptism, Seamus by custom and Jacobus, Latin, on his seminary file. In March 1958 he took a solemn oath ‘to remain in the service of the Diocese of Westminster as a member of the Congregation of the Oblates of St Charles’. In 1960 he was ordained to the diaconate and to the priesthood the following year on 27th May 1961 in Westminster Cathedral by Cardinal William Godfrey.
Fr Seamus Fullam OSC was appointed Assistant Priest at St Mary of the Angels, Bayswater, where he served from 1961 to 1962. He was then appointed Assistant Priest at Our Lady of the Holy Souls, Kensal New Town, another parish in the care of the Oblates. After four years there he returned to Bayswater where he remained as Assistant Priest from 1966-73. He then went to St Aloysius, Somers Town, where he served as Assistant Priest until 1977.
Fr Seamus Fullam, no longer canonically an Oblate, was appointed Parish Priest of St Paul the Apostle, Wood Green from 1977 to 1980. His next appointment was to St Aidan of Lindisfarne, East Acton, as Parish Priest from 1980 to 1987 before being appointed Parish Priest at St Margaret Clitherow, Grahame Park, until 1997 when he moved to the neighbouring parish of St Patrick, West Hendon. He remained there until 2005 when he was appointed to St Thomas More, Knebworth, where he served as Parish Priest until his retirement to Co Longford in Ireland in the autumn of 2007 at the age of 75. He went to live in his own bungalow in Granard and remained active, exercising priestly ministry in local parishes in the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois. His ministry was greatly appreciated by priests and parishioners, and by the staff and residents of Laurel Lodge Nursing Home, where Fr Seamus regularly celebrated Mass and heard Confessions until 2019. He made regular visits to London, to supply in the parishes of Grahame Park and West Hendon. He maintained links with the London-based Longford Association, ‘bringing Longford people together since 1955’, supporting the Association as Patron.
Fr Seamus’ health gradually deteriorated in the last few years and his need of care increased. He died peacefully at Our Lady’s Manor Nursing Home, Edgeworthstown in Co Longford on Sunday 19th February 2023 having received end of life care since last September.
At Fr Seamus’ Funeral Mass in Abbeylara on 23rd February, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, was represented by Sr Clement Doran OSA. She had visited Fr Seamus annually following his retirement, on behalf of the Cardinal and the diocesan Committee for the Welfare of Sick and Retired Priests. At the Funeral Mass Sr Clement read a message from the Cardinal, including, ‘These last years Fr Seamus has had to endure many challenges. Today, I thank those who have supported him so faithfully…We pray that our Blessed Lord will bring this faithful servant of his to his Heavenly Father, so that he might enfold him in his mercy and ensure his eternal rest in his loving presence. Indeed, we pray that Fr Seamus’ soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, may rest in peace. Amen’.
We pray for the repose of Fr Seamus’ soul:
Almighty and eternal God,
hear our prayers for your son Fr Seamus
whom you have called from this world to yourself.
Grant him light, happiness and peace.
Let him pass in safety through the gates of death, and live for ever with all your saints in the light you promised to Abraham and to all his descendants in faith.
Guard him from all harm
and on that great day of resurrection and reward raise him up with all your saints.
Pardon his sins and give him eternal life in your kingdom.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia! If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him. Alleluia! (John 14:23)
May the soul of Fr Seamus, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.
