For a few years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, you could not turn on an RTÉ news broadcast on radio or television without seeing Kieron Wood, first as religious affairs correspondent and later as legal correspondent. He cut a distinctive figure with his enunciation of the English language and with his bow tie. He disappeared from the public eye afterwards to practice law and go into print media, eventually as senior assistant editor of The Sunday Business Post. In the same time, he wrote several books on diverse topics which reflected his professional and personal interests.
Kieron Wood was born in London on 15 August 1949, son of Rex and Mollie (née Emblem). His father was Australian and was part of an active Catholic family - Rex's father was a papal knight. However, Rex Wood was not a constant presence in his son's life. Kieron married earIy and found himself as a father of a young family while still a young man himself. He attempted to join the Royal Marines, which did not come to very much. Then he went into journalism. He was very much the old school journalist, meticulous in checking his sources with superb shorthand skills.
As a traditionally minded Catholic in the early 1970s, he formed part of a group which gravitated around a priest of the Brighton and Arundel diocese named Alan Wilders. Many were Irish or had Irish connections. Eventually, Father Wilders moved to Ireland, to found St Patrick's Academy beside the village of Islandeady, Co Mayo, just off the main road beween Castlebar and Westport. Kieron and his family settled in Wicklow and he was employed by RTÉ, the Irish state broadcaster.
In the late 1970s, Kieron became part of a group which brought Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre to Ireland and later arranged for the Society of St Pius X to establish a base here. The other four members predeceased him, but at first they arranged for hotel rooms, then the R & R Music Hall in Rathmines, then a chapel on Crawford Avenue until eventually the former Anglican Church of St John the Evangelist was purchased on Mounttown Road in Dún Laoghaire. He was close to the first resident priest, Father John Emerson who was subsequently a founder member of St Peter's Fraternity. Kieron and his family assisted with the cleaning and decorating of the church.
The indult Quattuor Abhinc Annos happened in 1984 and in 1985, Archbishop Kevin McNamara instituted a first Friday Indult Mass in the chapel of the Sacred Heart Convent in Tivoli Road. The Woods arranged another indult Mass in a convent in Delgany, Co Wicklow on first Fridays. Father Emerson encouraged his people to support this, but he was replaced by Father Daniel Couture who took a different attitude.
Around this time, Kieron became religious affairs correspondent in RTÉ. He was a breath of fresh air as a lot of religious affairs journalist in Ireland at the time where part of an informal club originally put together by Father Austin Flannery OP, famous for the English version of the Second Vatican Council documents and the destruction of St Saviour's Church in Dominick St in Dublin. Kieron was a head and shoulders above all these. The Phoenix Magazine, which is actually a successor of a liberal Catholic journal named The Hibernian, patronised him by saying he couldn't fill the shoes of his predecessor, Kevin O'Kelly. I'll agree - O'Kelly's shoes were far too small - the man was never able to depart from the boiler plate commentary out of the liberal text book.
Kieron was pursuing stories without fear or favour and many of the clergy were aware of his leanings which did not win him many friends. He made a decisive break with the Society of St Pius X in 1988 following the Econe consecrations and consequent excommunications. This is where his role as religious affairs correspondent in RTÉ was almost providential. The traditional Latin Mass in Dublin moved from Tivoli Road to the Daughters of the Cross hospital in Cabinteely, but with no publicity. The relatively new Archbishop of Dublin, Desmond Connell, wanted to instate a new venue for the traditional Mass, especially after Pope John Paul II called for 'wide and generous' application of the 1984 Indult in his apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei Adflicta. Initially, the Poor Clare convent in Harold's Cross was chosen. It was clear that the nuns were having none of it and the designated priest Monsignor John Moloney told people that nothing could be done. At this point Kieron told him he would be waiting with a camera crew at the convent on the Sunday morning to interview the people disappointed with the cancellation. Very shortly afterwards, it was announced that the Church of Ss Michael and John, Wood Quay would be the alternative venue. Kieron ensured there was maximum publicity and eventually, there was a congregation of around 500, where the previous congregation in Cabinteely was rarely more that 25.
Around this time, there was a change in Kieron's career. He got too close to certain stories and two bishops lobbied RTÉ to have him moved out of religious affairs. The two bishops were the then Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh, Dr Éamon Casey and the then Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey SS.CC. I don't believe I need say any more on this topic. Kieron was naturally disappointed, but it opened a whole new avenue as the first Legal Affairs Correspondent in RTÉ. He also produced an instructional video on how to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass entitled The Most Beautiful Thing This Side of Heaven, which became an international best seller.
Kieron did not have the opportunity to go to university when he was younger, so in 1991, he began studying law in the Honorable Society of the King's Inns in Dublin. Here his journalistic skills stood to him because it is often important to get the text of the law lecturers almost verbatim. Kieron took it down in shorthand and typed it up immediately afterward. Many students paid to purchase these notes.
I began attending the traditional Latin Mass on a regular basis in summer 1992 at St Paul's, Arran Quay and I began studying in the King's Inns that Autumn, so I had two points of contact with Kieron Wood. I think I was introduced to him in the Inns, but he already knew my face from Mass. I got to know his family by sight, or at least I thought I did as I regularly saw a young woman late that year with Maria or one of their daughters, but she was not a relative. She was a German student au pair named Sabine Zick to whom I am now married.
Kieron did his level best to publicise the traditional Latin Mass at every opportunity, but at this time in his life, there was an underlying issue. The marriage between himself and Maria took place when they were both extremely young and was fraught with problems. In Spring 1993, he went on television with his family and another group of worshippers from St Paul's, Arran Quay. The folllowing week, the column by the late Terry Keane (or her ghost writer) on the back page of The Sunday Independent gave a very smutty take on issues between the couple, with special reference to Kieron's attachment to the traditional Latin Mass. I was aware of these problems. I heard things in the King's Inns which I did not repeat in Arran Quay. I noticed Kieron never received communion at the time. So Kieron and Maria separated. In time, the marriage was dissolved through a church annulment and civil divorce. Someone very indiscreetly passed me information on the ground for annulment on which I will comment only that if accurate, the marriage was indeed void. But I will say one thing. Where I have observed marital breakdown, normally one spouse, sometimes both, suffer thereafter. With Kieron and Maria both appear to have benefited from being apart, which suggests to me that the Church was right in concluding they were never married. So, for this reason, I think the Irish state foolish never to have looked at the possibility of promoting the idea of civil nullity decree rather than going down the avenue of divorce.
Kieron became an expert on Family law and divorce in particular. He graduated with first class honours as a barrister-at-law in 1995 and he published books on Divorce in Ireland: The Options, The Issues, The Law, A Guide to the Court of Appeal, The Kilkenny Incest Case, The High Court: A User's Guide, Family Breakdown: A Legal Guide, Contempt of Parliament and in a more religious direction, The Latter Day Saints which describes a scandal which nearly torpedoed Mormonism. Much later he penned a biography of Kay Summersby entitled Ike's Irish Lover. This period of Kieron's life was unsettled and I was a close witness to this. I suppose this was how I demonstrated that I was his friend. I remember sharing his company after Mass in 1998 which Father William Richardson (not to be confused with the bishop who has that name the other way round) celebrated in St Audoen's in High St after returning to Ireland following ordination in the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter. Archbishop Connell was present. Kieron showed up with a camera crew (and there were about 600 people in the church). The Hon Mr Justice Peter Kelly was adamant the event was not newsworthy. Eventually, Father Richardson said he didn't want the event televised. Kieron and I sensed this was a missed opportunity.
Towards the end of the decade, Kieron settled down somewhat (I have seen this with others in similar circumstances too - not just men) and established a relationship with Catherine and began a second family. He still wasn't receiving the sacraments.
When we founded the Latin Mass Society of Ireland in 1999, Kieron was present. We lamented that the predecessor organisation Ecclesia Dei Ireland had not got anywhere in ten years. Kieron mentioned that despite the problems, there were positives, in particular the network of contacts we had built up. He was heartening to listen to. The problem with Ecclesia Dei Ireland was that one officer tried to build it up as an opposition in residence in St Paul's and later St Audoen's in Dublin and killed any initiative by others. As a result, the traditional movement in Ireland was focused on Dublin. Insofar as I have made a contribution, it was laying a network enabling the development of Mass centres outside Dublin, particularly in Ireland's other cities and larger towns.
Kieron provided me with an angle into the media. I had a few pieces published in The Sunday Business Post, at least one of which achieved temporary notoriety. I appeared on the Vincent Browne Show with him on RTÉ radia, when we debated Father Seán Cassin OFM (a very nice man) and Anne Looney. We had agreed a good cop, bad cop approach and Kieron was more than happy to be 'bad cop' and at one point Kieron looked at Father Cassin and said 'That is is heresy', when Father Cassin described transubstantiation as a subjective rather than objective occurence. A fried of mine emailed me to say either I had softened or 'Kieron Wood is a mad barking fascist of the extreme right'.
Kieron and Catherine were building up a family and in 2008, they got married in St Kevin's Church, Harrington St with Father Gerard Deighan as celebrant. Catherine specifically asked if I would serve the Mass, which I did. It was the only time I served the Extraordinary Form Mass in Harrington St. I recalled I had once served an ordinary form Funeral Mass there in 1985, when the mother of one of the boys in my class in Synge St died tragically. But this was Kieron and Catherine's day. From this day on, Kieron received the sacraments again.
I did keep in touch with Kieron after, but I was usually attending Masses outside Dublin from 2009. From 2012, he was very supportive of my taking on the role of editor of The Brandsma Review.
I think it hurt Kieron that he was deprived of the opportunity to be a full time religious affairs correspondent. He was very successful as a legal journalist and lawyer, but his passion was religious affairs. I think it is a pity that in the traditional Mass situation, he didn't take on a more international role. I also recall the late Mgr Cremin fulminating that Kieron Wood should have been left in religious affairs.
In 2019, Kieron announced through an article in the Irish Indepent that he had Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a very rare, degenerative brain disease, which killed Dudley Moore, Bob Hoskins, Nigel Dempster and Peter Sarstedt (Where do you go to my lovely?). He could no longer type or text. I had very little contact with him and he went into nursing care soon after.
Kieron died yesterday 25 February 2023. He was predeceased by his son Dominic. He is survived by his wife Catherine, children Tabita, Laura, Sarah, Timothy, Riain, Grace, Molly, Billy and Teddy, and fourteen grandchildren with a wider circle of family and friends. Traditional Catholic Ireland has lost a constant and powerful advocate.
Anima eius et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum per Dei misericordiam requiescant in pace. Amen.
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