Edward
Patrick Anthony Traynor was born in Glasgow on 11 January 1952. He was the son
of Michael and Josephine Traynor and one of eight children, the others being Catherine,
Michael, Jo, Brigid, Mary, Tessy and Liz. He was educated at various primary schools,
the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, Banbury Grammar School, Saint Illtyd's
College, Cardiff and St Michael's Academy, Kilwinning. He was a parishioner of
the Church of Saint Peter in Chains while his family lived at 51 Eglinton Road,
Ardrossan from 1968 to 1973.His first appointment was as a curate in Inverness. In 1988, he was appointed as Parish Priest of Saint Peter's Church in Buckie, Aberdeenshire
Pope John Paul II made him a Prelate of Honour in 2001 with the title of Monsignor. In 2005, he was appointed a Canon of St Mary's Cathedral in Aberdeen but illness precluded his formal installation.
Monsignor
Eddie died peacefully of cancer on 8 March 2006 in Seafield Hospital, Buckie.
He was buried in Saint Ninian's Cemetery, Tynet near Buckie. May he rest in peace.
The photograph
on the right was taken in about 2000.
The obituary below appears by kind permission
of Independent Catholic
News.
Edward
Patrick Anthony Traynor was born in Glasgow on 11 January, 1952, and received
his secondary education at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, Banbury Grammar
School, St Illtyd's College, Cardiff and St Michael's Academy, Kilwinning, Ayrshire.
For a period, he studied Civil Engineering at Strathclyde University and
Computer Studies and Statistics at North London Polytechnic.
He worked
in computing and as a volunteer care assistant in communities for mentally handicapped
people and for alcoholics, and had been working for some time with L'Arche Community
in France when, at Christmas 1977, he visited his family who lived near Banchory
on Deeside.
During this vacation he began to think seriously about the
priesthood as his possible vocation. Soon after this he made an Ignatian thirty-day
retreat in order to decide on his state in life.
In 1978 he asked Bishop
Mario Conti of Aberdeen to accept him as a candidate for the priesthood. He then
studied at the Scots College in Rome and was ordained priest in 1985. A further
two years in Rome led to a Diploma in Psychotherapy.
Back home in Scotland,
Fr Eddie served as Assistant to Canon Duncan Stone in Inverness. When Fr John
Beveridge, parish priest of Buckie, died suddenly in 1988, Father Eddie was appointed
to succeed him as Parish Priest and later as Diocesan Vocations Director.
During this time he was involved in the psychological screening of candidates
for the priesthood and was a member of the Executive Committee of the National
Conference of Priests and Permanent Deacons of Scotland.
Later, he succeeded
Monsignor John Copland as Dean of St Thomas Deanery, a position he held until
his death.
He was also Bishop Mario Conti's Vicar General during his
last two years as Bishop of Aberdeen and then delegate of the Diocesan Administrator
for another two years.
Pope John Paul made him a Prelate of Honour in
2001, with the title of Monsignor. In 2005 he was appointed a Canon of St Mary's
Cathedral in Aberdeen but was never well enough to go to the Cathedral to be formally
installed.
Mgr Eddie has been described as "a robust individual,
a devout Catholic and a good priest." As a priest, his genius was his total
sincerity in addressing both the spiritual and the temporal needs of people.
He was essentially a man of deep prayer, always totally faithful to the Prayer
of the Church. His prayerfulness came through in his preaching, which was often
very moving and profound - and always without a single note in the pulpit. He
combined an orthodox faith with the knack of knowing how to look after people
in any kind of need.
Mgr Eddie had a strong devotion to Our Lady, and
it was no surprise when he took on the mantle of Diocesan Lourdes Pilgrimage Director.
In Lourdes, he found those things he held most dear - prayer and the opportunity
to help those who are less fortunate - the sick and dying pilgrims.
A
colleague who knew him well said: "When you saw Eddie among disadvantaged,
dispossessed, sick, dying, handicapped people, or people troubled in any way,
then you saw Eddie at his best."
He was a man of the people, - and
not just of his parishioners. He had the care and interests of everyone in his
local community at heart. Faced with someone's need, Eddie became impatient with
formalities and convention. He could often be found in the middle of the night
going off to help someone in distress. A friend comments that "he would happily
give the shirt off his own back to help someone who needed it: as far as he was
concerned, they needed it more!"
When foreign workers with little
English and less finance arrived on his doorstep in distress, Mgr Eddie would
help them personally and immediately, but he also lobbied and campaigned for their
rights where he believed that employers or the statutory authorities should be
doing more.
Public recognition of this aspect of Mgr Eddie's personality
led to an invitation to become a local Justice of the Peace. This was a role he
took extremely seriously, and a role which put him in contact with a lot of troubled
people. These were people Monsignor Eddie never criticised or condemned, but always
helped well beyond the call of duty. This was shown by his concern for prisoners:
through his initiative, each year St Peter's, Buckie provided every single inmate
of Peterhead prison with a present at Christmas.
Full of life and enthusiasm,
Mgr Eddie completed an extensive programme of restoration works at St Peter's,
Buckie, both to the interior and to the exterior of the church. He oversaw the
re-ordering of the sanctuary, the laying of a marble floor, the re-positioning
of the pulpit and the installation, in the choir-loft by the great West window,
of the magnificent pipe-organ rescued from the Abbey Church at Fort Augustus.
Mgr Eddie was something of an 'action man' and in happier days extremely
fit and active. He was always the first to head off to Tomintoul with a group
of young parishioners - organising activities for them. If they went abseiling,
he had to be the first down the rope! It came as no surprise when he took up gliding
- a pursuit he found most enjoyable and very relaxing.
Five years ago,
when he was first diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only a short time to
live, he gave away his guitar and other possessions, while his people held prayer
meetings to ask God for his recovery. Despite his illness, Mgr Eddie continued
to engage in pastoral ministry. For over four years his energy during periods
of remission belied the seriousness of his condition. He was even seen outside
his church mowing the lawn just after coming out of hospital.
But last
year, 2005, he struggled to say Mass publicly, and he was often in great pain.
In and out of Gray's Hospital, Elgin and of the Seafield Hospital, Buckie, and
in his own home at St Peter's, he was supported by the loving care of medical
professionals, some of whom became personal friends. Mrs Kyron Phimister, the
parish secretary, and Dr Jim Tuckerman, Eddie's GP, are only two of the many who
helped him to remain very much alert and in charge of things right to the end.
In mid-December Mgr Eddie readily agreed that Bishop Peter Moran might appoint
an Assistant Priest for Buckie, and in mid-January he welcomed back Fr Gerry Livingstone,
who had served his apprenticeship as a deacon in Buckie.
As well as this
support from so many, Mgr Eddie had the great consolation of being cared for,
over many weeks, by the numerous members of his ownfamily his brother Mike
and their sisters, most especially his sister Jo whose own home is in Portknockie
only a few miles away.
Utterly honest and determined in the face of
injustice or hardship affecting others, and in the face of his own illness, Mgr
Eddie will be remembered as a man totally dedicated to the Church, to his parishioners,
and to a life of prayer. His aim was always to do whatever he could to help those
in need, and he was kind and generous to a fault.
He is survived by
his sisters Cathy, Jo, Mary, Bridget, Tess, and Liz and his brother Mike.
May he rest in peace.
© Independent
Catholic News 2006