Irish author and award-winning investigative journalist Mick Clifford who is currently working as a special correspondent with the Irish Examiner studied Engineering with Columban missionary Fr Dan Troy at UCC.
They both graduated in 1988. After working for three years as a civil engineer Dan felt called to missionary priesthood and so left the building site where he was working to begin his formation for priesthood.
On a recent visit home from Wuhan, Mick Clifford caught up with his old classmate and recorded this interview for ‘The Mick Clifford Podcast’ – Dan Troy: From here to Wuhan in which Fr Dan talks about the city of Wuhan where he lives, working with people with disabilities, the scale of everything in China, and being a missionary: “a wise decision and one that I have never regretted”.
The city of Wuhan’s total Catholic is about 3,000 and there are four catholic churches. Fr Dan explains how the Columbans have a historical connection with this area of China.
“Our first group of missionaries went to China in 1920. So we have a lot of goodwill established by our predecessors.”
With thanks to Mick Clifford and the Irish Examiner, you can listen to the podcast here: https://shows.acast.com/the-mick-clifford-podcast/episodes/dan-troy-from-here-to-wuhan