Michael Murray was born in Lismore, Co. Waterford, on 7 October 1918. Following the early death of his father, his mother moved with her young family to Dublin. Following school at Blackrock College he entered Glenstal Priory (as it was then) in September 1935. Receiving the name Placid, he made his first vows in January 1937 and was sent to Maredsous Abbey where he studied philosophy and began to study theology.
When the Second World War broke out the community at Maredsous (along with Br Placid) fled briefly to the south of France, returning to Belgium when that country surrendered to the invading German forces. Abbot Celestine Golenvaux, fearing danger to an Irishman in occupied Belgium, sent his young charge to Rome, to complete his studies at Sant’Anselmo. There Br Placid developed his love for the works of John Henry Newman, a love that remained with him all of his life.
On the grounds of delicate health, Br Placid was ordained priest ahead of his time in the Abbey of Saint Scholastica at Subiaco on 20 December 1941; he celebrated his first Mass in the nearby Sacro Speco, where St Benedict once lived and prayed. The deteriorating military situation on the Continent and the ambiguous status of neutral Ireland suggested that he should return home; this he did by what he frequently described as an “inconvenient” train journey up through Italy, across the south of France and the north of Spain to Portugal, where he boarded a flying boat from Lisbon. At the time, the route from Lisbon to Foynes was one of the main conduits for the infiltration of Allied spies into war-torn Europe.
Back at Glenstal, Fr Placid became assistant novice-master and taught religion and German in the Priory School for several years. Following the resignation of Dom Bernard O’Dea in 1952 he became Glenstal’s second Conventual Prior; he held this position until Glenstal became an abbey in 1957. During his time as prior he completed the abbey church and created the present monastic refectory by integrating several rooms on the ground floor of what is still called the Fathers’ Wing.
Dom Placid developed a strong interest in the liturgy; he was very much involved in the setting up of Societas Liturgica and was its first President from 1967 to 1969, with the first of its cycle of biannual meetings taking place at Glenstal in 1969. He established the annual Liturgical Conference at Glenstal, which he continued to organise until it was discontinued in 1975.
Following the election of Abbot Joseph Dowdall, Fr Placid had time to return to his research on John Henry Newman. This resulted in the publication, in 1969, of Newman the Oratorian: Cardinal Newman’s Oratory Papers, for which he received a doctorate in theology from Sant’Anselmo. A consultor of ICEL, the International Commission for English in the Liturgy, established during the Second Vatican Council, Dom Placid became involved in many projects for the translation of liturgical texts into English.
In 1970 he was asked by the bishops of Ireland, Great Britain, and Australia, to chair the committee that translated the Liturgy of the Hours for use in these countries. The resulting breviary, in three volumes, remains the standard breviary for most non-American speakers of English. Fr Placid’s final involvement with ICEL was as a consultor for the communion prayers of the revised Roman Missal of 2011. The official changes to his translations did not please him.
In the years before this last endeavour, Dom Placid took great delight in mastering the use of a computer. This greatly aided his final major project on Newman. This involved co-operation in a planned five-volume edition of the cardinal-saint’s unpublished Anglican sermons, which had been delivered between the years 1824 and 1843. The great Newman scholar Father Charles Dessain, of the Birmingham Oratory, shortly before his sudden death, had specifically asked that this task be entrusted to Fr Placid. He co-edited the third volume of the series, which was published in 2010.
During his final years in the monastery Dom Placid continued to teach classes in the novitiate and to tutor boys from the school in German; he also helped in the monastery reception area and ministered as a confessor. The last fourteen years of his long life were spent in Millbrae Nursing Home in Newport, Co Tipperary, where he had an active ministry until shortly before his death. He regularly came to the monastery for Mass and lunch, and celebrated his 104th birthday with the community only a few weeks ago. After 85 years in Benedictine vows, he died peacefully after First Vespers of All Saints Day, 2022.
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