Rev. Anthony M. Canning

Rev. Anthony Michael Canning was born on 22 September 1902 in Drumgowla townland, Cloone parish, County Leitrim, Ireland. He was the son of Michael Canning and Anne Donnelly. His father Michael died in February 1905, when he was only two years old. Rev. Canning entered the Pallottine Fathers (Society of the Catholic Apostolate) and pursued advanced ecclesiastical studies, earning a Master’s degree and a Doctor of Divinity by the mid-1930s.

After ordination, Rev. Canning was sent on mission to Argentina. He served as Rector of Fahy College in Buenos Aires, a boarding school for Irish orphan boys founded in memory of Father Anthony Fahy (a leading Irish priest in Argentina). Fahy College – “for Irish orphan boys in Argentina” – was itself a memorial to the Irish Catholic community abroad. In this role Canning ministered to the Irish-Argentine community and managed the college through the 1930s.

In the early 1940s Rev. Canning was transferred to England. Records of St. Mary Star of the Sea (High Street, Hastings) show “Fr A. Canning” serving as parish priest from 1942 to 1947. While at Hastings he contributed to theological discussion – for example, he authored an article titled “What is Sanctity” (published in a local newspaper on 21 August 1943) during his tenure at St. Mary’s. Rev. Canning returned to Ireland (or to other missions) after 1947 but remained active in Pallottine scholarship and writing.

Rev. Canning was also a noted church historian. He wrote A History of the Irish Pallottine Province^[1] and in 1971 contributed to Patrick Corish’s A History of Irish Catholicism. In Corish’s volume (Vol. VI, Gill & Macmillan 1971), Anthony M. Canning is listed as author of the “South America” section. Through these works he documented the Irish Catholic missionary and immigrant experience, especially in the River Plate (Río de la Plata) region and Latin America. His writings remain a resource on the Irish diaspora in South America.

Rev. Canning’s life bridged Ireland, South America, and England. By his later years he was regarded as an authority on the Irish presence abroad. He passed away at 83 years old on 9 May 1986 in Thurles, Co. Tipperary. Rev. Canning’s legacy endures in the institutions he served (such as Fahy College) and in his historical writings on Irish Catholicism and the Irish diaspora in South America.