| Admin_History | Frank Hannan was born on 12th May 1902 in Kilkenny and educated at Hodder and then Stonyhurst where he stayed when his family emigrated to Canada in 1912. After leaving Stonyhurst at the end of WW1 he joined his parents in Toronto for a year and a half and it was during this time he applied for admission to the Jesuit noviceship.
Hannan was semi-blind, which was attributed to a fall from an express train which set on fire on its way from Holyhead from Stonyhurst in 1915. The fall left him with serious injuries and he was lucky to escape with this life. This partial blindness meant that he was initially put off joining the Jesuits but when a retired priest at Stonyhurst wrote a strong letter in his favour he was accepted. Potential difficulties with his ordination relating to his sight were raised by canon law expert Fr Keough, but he was sent to Ireland to be ordained which overcame the problem.
After ordination Hannan taught for seven years at the Mount St Marys College and for thirteen at Barlborough where he taught English, Maths and Religious Doctrine, before moving to Clitheroe and spending thirty years on the parish staff.
Nearing the end of his life he moved to the Alexian Brothers in Twyford Abbey in London where he died on 9 December 1984 aged 82, he was buried in Stonyhurst. |