The people of Co Galway know well the highlights of Fr Coen's career: curate in Liscannor, Co Clare; teacher at St Mary's College; author of the scholarly history The Wardenship of Galway; frequent contributor to the Mantle and The Irish Times; pastor in Gort and Craughwell; confidant of the late Brendan Holland, Mayor of Galway, the late Dr James Mitchell, UCG, and of the Rt Rev Michael Browne, former bishop of the diocese. Others may know of the personal tragedies he faced and his stoical battles with emotional and physical ailments.
I suspect, however, that few know of his contributions to history west of the Atlantic. More than 30 years ago, I placed a notice in The Irish Times seeking information about the Irish years of the Irish-American inventor John Philip Holland (1841-1914). A response came from the curate in Holland's native Liscannor, Co Clare. It was detailed and highly informative. A voluminous correspondence ensued.
Shortly before my biography of Holland first appeared in print (1966), Father Coen visited the States. We were to meet him at the airport in Hartford, Connecticut, and this was to be our first meeting. We watched the passengers disembark. I was looking for a middle-aged man, or older; I was taken aback when a youthful, fairhaired priest approached us and said, "I am Martin Coen."
I was privileged to introduce him to officers at the US Navy Submarine Force base in Groton, Connecticut. He was the focus of their undivided attention. They arranged for him to board the submarine Conger SS-477. As he slid down the main hatch, the commanding officer announced to the crew below: "Watch your language, men, we have a priest aboard!" That thoroughly amused him.
Father Coen arranged for my first visit to his country. In 1967, I was invited to deliver the Fenian Centennial Address at University College Galway; there was a cordial reception at a hotel in Salthill and a post-address banquet at Dunguaire Castle, Kinvara. I became a Gaelophile from that day on. On two subsequent visits to Ireland, I was able to renew our friendship, and it deepened.
My fondest wish is that someone will preserve, edit and publish his 13 or more handwritten volumes of Galway county history and folklore, which he had so meticulously recorded and which he allowed me to peruse in his cosy study at the rectory in Craughwell. Also, Fr Coen and I lived for the day when the Irish people would come to appreciate, as fully as Americans do, the greatness of their own John Holland whose centennial pinnacle of success will be celebrated in the year 2000.
Ireland has lost a scholar, and I have lost a friend. May Martin Coen rest in peace in the graveyard of his parents among the beautiful ruins at Kilmacduagh, on the Burren of Co Clare.
R.K.M.