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The Story Behind
the Discovery of Fr. Charles Carey's
"Why The Fighting Irish?" Essay

by Dorothy V. Corson

My first meeting with Fr. Carey occurred midway in my research of the Notre Dame Grotto. I had been told by a priest friend at Holy Cross House that he probably knew more about Notre Dame than anyone else since he had lived on campus most of his life. I had a question to ask him about the hand gun used by biologists, Fr. Nieuwland and Prof. Greene, to shoot down the leaf specimens from trees on campus they couldn't reach. It was a story that made me smile just imagining it, so I couldn't resist finding out if it really was true. I had heard that the hand gun was still kept in Fr. Nieuwland's former desk in the Nieuwland Science Hall and that the priest who now worked at the same desk lived at Corby Hall on campus with Fr. Carey.

I spoke to Fr. Carey and we arranged to meet on the porch at Corby Hall. It was a beautiful summer day. We had a lovely companionable visit sitting in two of the rocking chairs lined up along the Corby Hall porch. I was soon to learn that Fr. Carey had the answer to more than one question I had to ask him throughout my research. "That's a new one on me," he said, "but I'll ask the priest who has the desk now. He also lives at Corby Hall and we play cards once a week." It was another story of human interest I completed during my research and added to my A Cave of Candles manuscript. We talked about the Legendary Sycamore that day too, and he added a charming bit to its story as well. He said they had a commanding view of the huge sycamore from the back porch of Corby Hall and that it was always well watered because it was in a low spot near the Grotto. Whenever it rained hard they called the area "Corby Hall Lake" because it always flooded after a heavy rain. All of which explained why on several occasions when I visited the tree during my research, I often noticed that the grassy area around it made me feel as if I were walking on wet sponges.

Fr. Carey visited Holy Cross House on a regular basis to take confessions from the retired and infirm priests living there. On Friday afternoons I would run into him on my regular visits to Holy Cross House to see my priest friends. I have been visiting there since 1971 when Fr. Jan, who hired my father to build the St. Stan's Grotto, because of failing health, moved there from the Mission House on campus. Upon occasion, I took a Sister friend from St. Mary's Convent to visit Fr. Jan (Fr. Sigmund Jankowski, C.S.C.) and she always referred to Holy Cross House as the "Vestibule of Heaven."

At one time, it was the last place priests wanted to go; they would stay instead at Corby Hall in the middle of the campus until there was no other alternative. Now Holy Cross House has been renovated and enlarged with many views of the campus across St. Joseph Lake. The windowscapes are magnificent. And the care and comforts afforded its retirement guests are splendid.

It got to be a habit for Fr. Carey to join Fr. Schidel and me for juice or coffee and cookies in the tastefully appointed dining room in mid afternoon before taking confessions. Each time we saw each other he would ask if I had discovered anything new in my research to share with him. When I was researching Empress Eugenie's crown and had gotten as far as I could go, I took a photograph of the Empress wearing a crown with me to Holy Cross House just in case Fr. Carey knew anything about it. I could hardly believe it when he told me that he not only had heard about the missing crown but had seen it as well. I wrote about his memory of it in the Empress Eugenie chapter in my manuscript. He also shared his own Grotto stories associated with Corby Hall. He told me about all the engagement rings left in his keeping in the Corby Hall safe (five at one time) for young Notre Dame students who planned to go to the Grotto to propose marriage to their girl friends. Fr. Carey couldn't even begin to count the number of marriages he had performed, my neighbor, a Notre Dame Alumnus, being one of them.

One day at the archives I was going through a file of Religious Bulletins which were begun by Fr. John F. O'Hara, C.S.C. during his time on campus. They were continued after he left by others, so it was a thick file. One of the items of interest I found that day and recorded in my manuscript was an interesting suggestion made to the students that made me smile when I read it:

If your guest should be non-Catholic,
to make her feel at ease
introduce her to the Grotto first:
That's probably where you'll go first anyway.

Notre Dame Religious Bulletin
October 14, 1941

Another item I ran across the same day also impressed me. It was an essay entitled: "Why The Fighting Irish"? It was dated March 16, 1953. I had never seen anything quite like it and was sure it must have been hidden away all those years just waiting for someone like me to rediscover it. Since it was very Irish, I knew just the person to share it with on my next visit to Holy Cross House, the very Irish Fr. Carey. He responded immediately to the twinkle in my eyes as I handed it to him expecting it to be another of my interesting discoveries about Notre Dame's early history. I told him how impressed I was with it, but that unfortunately, there was no indication of who wrote it. Anticipating a positive response from him, I was watching for his reaction and commented, "Now if we just knew who wrote it." A grin crept across Fr. Carey's face as he read it and there was a light in his smiling Irish eyes. As he handed it back to me he said: "Well, if you've got a pen, I'll autograph it for you." Fr. Schidel had already read it before Fr. Carey joined us and we both looked at Fr. Carey in wide-eyed wonder.

What a mystifying coincidence that I would be wishing to know the author and it would turn out to be Fr. Carey himself. I still have never seen a better explanation of "Why the Fighting Irish?" Fr. Carey said he'd almost forgotten about it and he was pleased to see it again and learn that I had run across it in such a happenstance way. Now at the top of the essay is his autograph to me: "For Dorothy, Charles M. Carey."

Fr. Carey's health began to decline just before the Holy Cross House residents were to be relocated at an off-campus facility for the lengthy renovation of their retirement home. Fr. Carey was concerned about the move because he didn't want to die away from Notre Dame the place he called home almost his entire life. Blessedly, at age ninety, just a few weeks before they were moved, Fr. Carey passed away at his beloved Notre Dame. He was not alive when my manuscript went online on Lourdes Day 2000, but his encouragement while I was writing it and his contributions to my research will be found in its pages. He was a delightful man, admired and loved on campus by everyone who knew him.

Dorothy V. Corson
May 29, 2001