Omaha pilgrims find a warm welcome in Father Flanagan’s hometown

On a recent pilgrimage to Ireland, Father Ryan Lewis, pastor of St. Robert Bellarmine Parish in Omaha, and his fellow travelers viewed breathtaking landscapes, visited ancient historical sites and prayed in centuries-old cathedrals.

However, it was a visit to the tiny village of Ballymoe – the birthplace of the Venerable Father Edward J. Flanagan, founder of Boys Town – that left the greatest impression on the group.

“It was a little bit of a roll of the dice. I’m dragging these people out of the way to this little village, and I don’t quite even know what we’re going to find,” Father Lewis said. “It ended up being, in a trip that was just full of highlights – I think everybody on the trip would say – one of the biggest highlights.”

The Father Flanagan Visitor Centre. PHOTO COURTESY OF FATHER FLANAGAN VISITOR CENTRE

Ballymoe, a town of about 400 residents in County Galway in the west of Ireland, was not on the trip’s original itinerary, but Father Lewis knew that a visitor center dedicated to Father Flanagan had opened there in 2022, so he decided to add it. The visit took on special significance with Pope Leo XIV declaring Father Flanagan venerable, officially recognizing his heroic virtue and advancing his cause for sainthood, about three months earlier, on March 23.

Pilgrim Luci Bolding agreed that the June 28 stop in Ballymoe was the highlight of the trip.

“Oh, the people! They were extraordinary,” Bolding said. “They were so warm and loving and so happy to have us there.”

One of those people was Fidelma Croghan, a visitor center tour guide who was part of a local group that connected with the Boys Town Alumni Association in 2001 to bring a life-size statue of Father Flanagan to Ballymoe. The group, which began as a Father Flanagan prayer group, continues to work to commemorate Father Flanagan and preserve his story.

The Father Flanagan Visitor Centre is located in one of the oldest buildings in Ballymoe. Built in the mid-1880s, it served as the local presbytery until 2007. Father Flanagan frequented the presbytery when he traveled back to Ireland.

Renovations began in 2021, and in 2022, the visitor center officially opened, featuring exhibits detailing Father Flanagan’s life and ministry. Many of the items on display there come from Boys Town in Omaha. The grounds also include a memorial garden.

Father Flanagan Memorial Garden. PHOTO COURTESY OF FATHER FLANAGAN VISITOR CENTRE

While Father Flanagan’s home no longer stands, its ruins can be seen on a privately owned farm in nearby Leabeg in County Roscommon, not far from the visitor center.

Given Father Lewis’ role in Father Flanagan’s cause for canonization – he is the episcopal delegate for his cause – Croghan said it was a special privilege to welcome Father Lewis and his group to Ballymoe.

Although Bolding, a parishioner at St. Robert Bellarmine, attends daily Mass at Boys Town and has been to the visitor center on its campus, she didn’t know a lot about Father Flanagan before visiting Ballymoe.

“I am embarrassed to say I didn’t know a lot about his past. I didn’t even know he was born in Ireland,” she said.

She is not alone.

“One of the women from the visitor center told me that the people of Ireland don’t even know that much about Father Flanagan,” she said.

Today, the visitor center serves as a place where people from all over the world can come to learn about Father Flanagan and his work with orphaned, abandoned and at-risk youth.

According to the visitor center’s website, that work included a trip to Ireland in 1946 when Father Flanagan “highlighted the terrible practices and poor conditions of Irish reformatories and juvenile facility systems in operation here.  The Irish government railed against the spotlight that Father Flanagan shone on Irish society of the time and he was essentially written out of Irish history – until now.”

Today, Father Flanagan’s work on behalf of neglected children around the world is considered prophetic, Father Lewis said.

The visitor center is much more than a museum, Croghan said, offering a place of pilgrimage, reflection and inspiration.

“It provides an opportunity to celebrate his enduring legacy while deepening appreciation of the virtues that have inspired his cause for sainthood,” she said.

Bolding said that this sense of pride and devotion to Father Flanagan was something that everyone – Irish or American – felt during their visit.

“They are so proud of the visitor center,” Bolding said. “I think they were excited that we could appreciate it as much as they did. We could share their joy.”

As part of the group’s visit, a prayer service was held in the Church of St. Croan, adjacent to the visitor center.

“That was a powerful, uplifting experience for us all,” Croghan said. “Certainly, Father Flanagan was right there with us. We were full of joy in each other’s company, friends from Ballymoe and Omaha, brought together through Father Flanagan.”

Father Lewis at the prayer service held in the Church of St. Croan in Ballymoe. COURTESY PHOTO

Father Lewis said the people of Ballymoe were “tickled that we would take the time and make the effort to come to them and hear about Father Flanagan in his hometown. The whole town came out to really welcome us.”

And the impact of Father Flanagan on the people of Ballymoe was not lost on Father Lewis or his fellow pilgrims.

“We’re so proud of him right here in Omaha, but then just to see, they are also just as proud of him, but from a different perspective,” Father Lewis said.

Father Ryan Lewis poses with his fellow pilgrims in the Church of St. Croan. COURTESY PHOTO

If Father Flanagan’s cause for canonization continues to move forward, more people would likely make the trip to Ballymoe, Father Lewis said, “and that would please its residents to no end. Their faith is very, very strong in a country where the faith isn’t so strong as it once was.”

In the meantime, the visitor center continues to create a lasting impact on those who stop in, Croghan said.

“It is so touching to hear visitors say, ‘Only for Father Flanagan, my dad would not have been saved,’ or ‘Only for Father Flanagan, I would not have a wife and family and grandchildren.’ ‘I was heading for jail only for him,’ or ‘I had to come to Ballymoe. I had to see where he began, and now I understand what made him the man he was,’” Croghan said.

PHOTO COURTESY OF FATHER FLANAGAN VISITOR CENTRE

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