description: "The Chinese Batch" is the first book by an Irish writer to give an accurate account of the origins of the Columbans - the prehistory and early days of the Maynooth Mission to China. It focuses on Edward Galvin and John Blowick who, with other giants like Joseph Shanahan and Marie Martin, were architects of Ireland's astonishing missionary outreach in the twentieth century. For Galvin, then a happy curate in Brooklyn, the call became irresistible in 1911. For Blowick it grew apace in Maynooth College (1911-16). Providence drew the two together in 1916, each bringing a contribution impossible for the other. Galvin brought China experience (1912-16) acquired at that best of universities, the Chinese peasant village. Blowick, besides a brilliant mind, brought the charism of belonging intimately to the diocesan Irish church and its training centre, Maynooth. Through these two, the Columbans were born. --- Bernard T. Smyth, born in Monaghan in 1916, was ordained a Columban priest in 1940. He was editor of "Pagan Missions" from 1943 to 1953 and travelled widely in Asia and Latin America as a reporter and later (1970-76) as a member of his Society's general council. From 1972 to 1980 he was a spiritual director of Viatores Christi. Father Smyth worked in Chile as a missionary in the 1980s before taking charge of the Columban History Project. The editor of "But Not Conquered" (1958) and "Part of the Bargain" (1963), his "Paul, the Man and the Missionary" was published in 1980.
language: English
title: The Chinese Batch: The Maynooth Mission to China: Origins, 1911-1920
titlecomplete: The Chinese Batch: The Maynooth Mission to China: Origins, 1911-1920
publisher: Four Courts Press