The Basilica Recreation Centre — 813be and After

CHAPTER 5: BASILI CA TO UTH CLUB

During the late 19405 and 505, St Dunstan’s parish had a large number of young people between the age of 17-35 and the Holy Name Hall was a logical place to “hang out”. Fr. Pat was always interested in ensuring that there were activities to keep the young people active and involved in parish life.

In 1929, the Redemptorist Fathers, at the request of Bishop Louis 0’ Leary, established The Holy Redeemer parish to serve the west and north end of the city. They had for several years a very active youth club called the Liguorian Youth Club, after

the founder of the Redemptorists, Saint Alphonsus Liguori. A number

of young people from the Basilica parish were anxious to have a similar club. According to John Eldon Green, who was one of the early promoters of the club, there was some discussion about joining with the

Fr. Jim Kelly, Wilf Smith and Holy Redeemer to have one club. Fr. Fr- Franc“ COFCOFGH- Baldwin, pastor of Holy Redeemer at the time was cool to the idea.

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We were fortunate to have three new young priests assigned to the parish

in 1950 and 51, Fr. Jim Kelly, Fr. Francis Corcoran and Fr. Francis Bolger. Fr. Kelly only stayed one year and went to St. Dunstans University to teach and Fr. Bolger followed in 1953, but Fr. Corcoran stayed until 1958. He fitted in very well with the young people, understood their needs and was great fan of modern music.

There were two popular youth organizations at the time. One was the Newman Club, which was basically for university students, and the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), a parish based organization.

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