Servant of God: Oliver O’Hanlon on Alfie Lambe, a modern-day Irish missionary in South America

Alfie Lambe covered a lot of ground in his short life. However, his name would not be as well-known as earlier Christian missionaries who set out from Ireland to spread the faith such as the sixth-century holy men Saints Colmcille and Columbanus.

During the 1950s, Alphonsus (Alfie) Lambe spent almost six years as a lay Catholic missionary in South America. After travelling extensively throughout the continent and meeting with locals to talk about his work, he died there at the age of 26 years.

His journey on the missionary road began in July 1950 when he joined the Legion of Mary in his hometown of Tullamore, Co Offaly. At the time he joined the organisation, which has been described as the “largest international association that has originated in Ireland”, it was in the process of expanding all over the world.

Founded in Dublin’s Francis Street in September 1921, it is a lay apostolic association of Catholics whose members give service to the church on a voluntary basis. In the beginning, Alfie did Legion work in some remote parishes around Ireland, before going to work full-time at the Morning Star hostel for homeless men in Dublin’s north inner city.

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He always had what was described as delicate health. This had caused him, much to his chagrin, to leave the Christian Brothers novitiate sometime earlier. He was quiet and shy and some of his fellow Legionaries were, therefore, surprised when they heard that he had been chosen to be a Legion envoy.

The work would involve meeting bishops, priests and parishioners to spread knowledge of what the organisation was about. It would also entail founding new branches but his shyness soon disappeared as he grew into the role.

Together with Seamus Grace, who was about 10 years his senior and had previous missionary experience, Alfie arrived in Bogotá, Colombia, in July 1953. Before leaving Ireland, he undertook an intensive Spanish course and perfected his command of the language while travelling through the mainly Spanish-speaking continent.

He turned out to be quite a competent linguist, having learned Portuguese, which he needed for Brazil, and Quechua, the most spoken indigenous language in the Americas.

Known affectionately as “el corderito” or little lamb, he took time to go to schools, leper colonies, and prisons to set up branches of the Legion there. Even though he was not overly fond of travel, he managed to cover an immense tract of land during his time on the continent. The list includes Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina. It was not all plain sailing, as some of these countries were experiencing political turmoil at the time.

Alfie remained positive and tried to see the funny side of things. For example, he liked to tell the story of the time he was kidnapped and how he was only released after he rang the Irish ambassador, who vouched for him. While in Argentina, communists pushed for his deportation from that country.

He was very taken with Argentina as it reminded him of home, describing it as the “country most like Ireland that I have seen yet”. He added that the people spoke English “just as my grandfather spoke it”, a nod to the thousands of Irish immigrants who made their way to Argentina in the 19th century.

Alfie became ill in late 1958. He died of stomach cancer in Buenos Aires on January 21st, 1959, and was buried in the Christian Brothers vault in La Recoleta cemetery. The cemetery is the final resting place of certain others with an Irish connection including the Foxford-born founder of the Argentine navy, William Brown, and the Irish Dominican priest, Anthony Dominic Fahy. It also contains the remains of the country’s charismatic former first lady, Eva Perón.

In spite of all Alfie achieved in setting up new branches of the Legion, he remained humble, with the Legion’s founder, Frank Duff, stating that “modesty shone out of him”. Alfie’s biography was penned by an Austrian in the 1960s. A convert to Catholicism, Hilde Firtel was herself a Legion envoy in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy after the second World War. She also worked as a translator for the American army in Germany and was one of the translators at the Nuremberg Trials.

The biography is relatively short at just over 120 pages, but it has been reprinted many times and translated into several languages. There is obviously still interest in his life and work as another Austrian writer brought out another book on Alfie last year.

The cause for his beatification was introduced by the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires in 1978. The case was accepted by the body in Rome that oversees the process of canonisation and Alfie Lambe was declared a Servant of God, the first step on the road to sainthood. The process is ongoing.