Father John Baptist Woloughan, C.P. Entry in Salvian Nardocci’s Annals for 28 December, 1869 The next remark we have to make is about our dear poor Father John Baptist Wooloughan whom Almighty God was pleased to afflict by an aberration of mind, on some point regarding spiritual matter. Father John had always been rather “absent of mind” and his memory served him very little, although he was not wanting in depth of thought, in mathematics, and architecture, which he had been studying under the direction of Mr J. J. McCarthy, the eminent Architect of our church and monastery. Father John’s weak point was (it was found out after he had been ordained priest, and had began to hear confessions) that he considered himself highly gifted in the guidance of souls to a very high perfection, which conviction could not be removed from his mind, and in the attempt of bringing some silly women to the highest pitch of perfection and sanctity, lost his own brain, and shook also the brain of several of his penitents. He went on for long time with these foolish notions about spirituality, and being matters under the seal of confession, passing between himself and his penitents could not be known by his Superiors. After some time it was found out that his reason was impaired, and on that account he was removed from Saint Paul’s Retreat, and sent to Sutton, where he would have no faculties for hearing confessions, and by this means we were in hope that after some time he would be all right. Having done many foolish things, and his mind appearing to have gone entirely, by the wish and consent of his good Father, brothers and sisters, poor John was sent to the Asylum, near Tournay, Belgium, under the care of the Brothers of Saint John of God. He was brought there on the 1st of February of this year. After some years he was removed to another asylum under the same Brothers, and on the 12th of May, 1887, he was sent to Saint Patrick’s Institution for the Insane, at Belmont Park, near Waterford. The writer saw him on the 30th of November of the same year, and found him very happy and sensible enough in everything except on spiritual matters. Platea – Mount Argus: 9 May, 1887 F. John Baptist, (Wooloughan) came here accompanied by F. Colman en route for Waterford, On the 12th he was sent to St. Patrick’s Institution for the Insane at Belmont Park, Waterford, which Institution is under the care opf the Brothers of Charity, a branch of the Brothers pf St. John of God. It is now many years that our dear F. John Baptist is out of mind (religiously mad) and has been kept for several years in the House of the Brothers of St. John of God, at Tremont near Tournay, Belgium, an d for some other years at Brussels under the same Brothers. Now the good Brothers, having made a foundation at Waterford, our Superiors have thought it better to take poor F. John from Belgium and send him to St. Patrick’s where he will find people who will speak his own language. Note by Fr. Declan O;Sullivan, C.P., Archivist, Mount Argus, from an index card: The Brothers at Belmont told Fr. Edmund Burke, in the 60s, that Fr. John Baptist had a lucid interval some time before he died and expressed a wish to be buried in Waterford, where he’d been so long. This was done, Edmund saw the grave, (Declan)