Source:- Maynooth College: Its Centenary History, Browne & Nolan 1895

He was appointed to that high office (Prefect of the Dunboyne) in 1843 and retained it until his death in 1871. During those 28 years nearly all the distinguished students of the College who afterwards rose to the highest places in the Irish Church, passed through his classes in Theology, Ecclesiastical History and Canon Law; and all, without exception, bore testimony to his profound and various learning, as well as to the great and lasting advantage which they derived from his lectures. No other member of the College Staff, during all those years, was more influential within the college, and better known to those without, than Dr. O'Hanlon. His opinion was highly valued on all disputed questions; and we may assume it as certain that he was consulted oftener in cases of difficulty, both by bishops and priests, than any other theologian that ever taught at Maynooth. Even before he became Prefect of the Dunboyne, he had been, for fifteen years, Professor of Dogmatic and Moral Theology, so that if we include the years of his student life he spent no less than fifty years in the Study of the Divine Science. It is no wonder that, with his great natural ability, he became, indeed, a Doctor Eximius, whose opinion was held to be the very first in the Schools of Ireland.

According to one account (received through Canon Howley of Callan, from Doctor O'Hanlon's sister who was alive but very old in 1895) John O'Hanlon, the son of Michael O'Hanlon and Ellen Bluett, was born in Jame's Street Kilkenny in 1803. But Dr McCarthy, the late Bishop of Kerry stated that Dr O'Hanlon himself told him that he was born in the townland of Curraghduff, parish of Freshford, Co. Kilkenny. At the age of five years he was sent to a school in the city of Kilkenny, in which, to use his own words, 'Mrs. Molly Mara had supreme rule.' At that time the family had come to reside in Kilkenny but shortly afterwards they removed to Dublin and young O'Hanlon was, for some time, placed under the care of a master, in Dublin. After some time, his parents having returned to Kilkenny, he came with them and was now placed under the tuition of a certain Mr. M'Donnell who, it appears, was a portrait painter, as well as a schoolmaster This is, doubtless, the teacher who, according to his sister's accounts, handed over young O'Hanlon to his parents, '..as knowing more now than the honest pedagogue himself.' Perhaps he was the Professor at Burrell's Hall Academy to which young O'Hanlon was also sent although he himself made no reference to the fact in his conversation with Dr McCarthy.

At the age of sixteen he entered the College of Kilkenny, that is in 1819, where his first superior was the Rev. Mr. Reynolds, but afterwards Dr Kelly of Waterford to whose acquirements and ability Dr O'Hanlon bore the highest testimony. (With reference to the Rev. Mr. Reynolds, Canon Howley supplied very detailed information). The very day on which Dr Kelly was consecrated Bishop of Richmond in Virginia, was that on which young O'Hanlon left Kilkenny for Maynooth College bringing with him more than the usual amount of learning and the very highest reputation for ability. He matriculated for the Rhetoric class in Maynooth on the 21st of August 1820 which shows that he was not much more than twelve months in the College of Kilkenny, that is, if he were born in 1803 - a date, however, about which his sister was by no means certain.

The 'Records' do not show that young O'Hanlon was highly distinguished during the earlier years of his course. In his first year's theology (1824) he got first 'accessit' both in Scripture and Dogmatic Theology; but then the classes were very large. During the later years of his course, however, he carried all before him and gave ample proof of that eminent ability which he afterwards so well utilized to the advantage of the entire Irish Church.

In 1828, considerable changes were made in the Theological staff and a Concursus was held for the vacant chairs. The candidates were Carew, O'Hanlon and O'Keane, (afterwards Bishop of Cloyne). The Trustees, having heard the reports of the judges read, and duly considered the same, appointed The Rev. Patrick Carew to the Second Chair and the Rev. John Hanlon (sic) to the Third Chair of Dogmatic and Moral Theology on the 30th of August.

Dr O'Hanlon taught his chair of Theology with signal success down to the year 1843 when Dr M'Nally became Coadjutor Bishop of Clogher. Thereupon Dr Renehan, the Vice-President, and Dr O'Hanlon, became candidates for the Prefectship of the Dunboyne. The Trustees, however, having decided by vote that the offices of Vice-President and Prefect of the Dunboyne were incompatible, and Dr Renehan being unwilling to resign the former office, Dr O'Hanlon was appointed to the office of prefect of the Dunboyne Establishment, 16th of November, 1843.

There are some points worth noting in Dr O'Hanlon's examination before the Commissioners in 1853. He thought it desirable that the study of the Eastern languages - Chaldaic, Syriac and Arabic, as well as Hebrew - should be included in the course for the Dunboyne students, if not as a matter of necessity, at least as a branch of learning which some of them might be free to cultivate. He also said that he would be most desirous to see a professor of Greek appointed for the Theological students; he did not apprehend that such a multiplication of Professors and of classes might interfere with the Theological studies when he regarded as the most important and essential.

A short time before, 'Bailly' was removed from the list of class-books and 'Scavini' was substituted by the trustees. When asked why, he answered: 'Because Bailly was placed on the Index.' Asked why this was done, Dr O'Hanlon replied that he had no official or positive knowledge on the subject but his opinion was that Bailly was condemned 'because he was a decided Gallician and it is perfectly certain that Gallician doctrines - at least in their full extent - are not acceptable to the Pope, Besides, Bailly's teaching on the subject of marriage in which he contends that marriage amongst Christians may exist as a valid contract, without being a Sacrament, is also distasteful to Rome.'

Dr O'Hanlon also said 'the Index is not received, and therefore imposes no obligation in this country' - a doctrine which, we suspect, would also be very distasteful at Rome. He also remarked, no doubt justly, with reference to the preliminary education of the students, that 'students who came from those districts, where a person might suppose that there was the worst possible provision for their preparatory education, generally evinced a superiority, as far as Latin was concerned, over those who were educated in seminaries and colleges.'

Of the twenty superiors and professors then in the house, eighteen had, he said, been Dunboyne students - the two exceptions being Professor Neville, who was ordained early, in consequence of the great mortality amongst the priests of his diocese, and Dean Gaffney, who was not educated in Maynooth. This was a very striking proof of the efficiency of the Dunboyne as a means of providing Professors for the College. Of the Irish bishops, at the time, twenty-three had been educated at Maynooth, out of twenty-nine; but of those twenty-three he only remembered six to have been Dunboyne students. Drs. Cullen and Kilduff, and Dr. Blake were educated in Rome; Dr. Walsh and Dr. Keane in Paris; and Dr. Slattery, though he had been President of Maynooth, studied his classics in Trinity College, and his Theology in Carlow.

Dr. O'Hanlon died in the College on Sunday evening, November 13th, 1871, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, according to the very meagre notice of his death published in the Freeman's Journal at the time. It is truly said, however, that Maynooth was the only world with which he was familiar. 'His home was within its walls; its great cares, its solemn concerns, its occasional relaxations, were the elements that went to make up a life, which might, perhaps, have been more dazzling, but could scarcely have been more permanently useful.'

'As a Professor, his teaching was clearness itself - it left no room for doubt, and shunned no difficulty that arose for discussion. The most abstruse points were explained with marvelous precision; and in dealing with a controversial adversary there was never known a shadow of suppression, nor an understating of an objection.'

That is perfectly just and true; and the writer adds, with no less truth that Dr. O'Hanlon was a sort of theological referee for nearly all Ireland. There was never an appellant to his kindness and wisdom to whom he was not, as in the olden College days, the father, the theologian and the friend; and so great was his reputation amongst his brother priests, that by the clergy of more than one diocese, his name was placed amongst those recommended for the dignity of a mitre. (He held a high place on the lists of candidates selected by the clergy, both for the Primacy and for the mitre of Elphin.)

'Of his personal and, so to speak, his domestic qualities, Dr. O'Hanlon had few in the rank of the Church, or indeed, of any profession, to surpass him. Warm and unflinching, as a friend; generous to a point that knew no bounds, save in the display and publicity of that generosity; genial and social in private life, so as to make himself the very heart and soul of the circles in which he was wont to take his little recreations; kindly to the young, compassionate to the poor, he has left a void which it will be hard to fill, and on which the longer we gaze, the more thoroughly we shall feel that one of the best of a goodly sort has gone from amongst us.'

Dr. O'Hanlon was witty as well as wise, and many stories were told of the good things said by 'Jack', in the Dunboyne Hall, and at the Examinations.

But the tables were sometimes turned on the Professor. We heard him once examine a student, named Dominick Egan, from the diocese of Cork. Dominick was very glad that he was to be examined by Dr. O'Hanlon, because he was not strong in the business, and it was 'no disgrace to be stuck by Jack.' 'How do you prove the sanctity of the Church, my child' said the examiner, half in English, half in Latin. 'By proving, [said the other] that it always contains a great number of people eminent for holiness &tc. 'But you cannot show that, my child, if it is impossible to show that any one single individual in the Church is, beyond all doubt, in a state of grace?' 'I would undertake to prove nothing of the kind,' said Dominick; and Jack dismissed him, with a 'Very well, indeed my child,' amidst a universal roar of laughter.

It is to be greatly regretted that, although he left several manuscripts, Dr. O'Hanlon neither published any of them himself, nor left any quite ready for publication. The Rev. W. Brennan of Kilkenny College says, (in a letter to Canon Howley, of 26th December, 1894) that it would seem he was preparing for publication a treatise on Matrimony, and that most of the documents which he had seen referred to that subject. The have not, however, yet seen the light.

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