Born Under the Gun (ePub)

Rev. O'Neil spent his first years as a Catholic priest on mission in Cameroon, Africa and wrote a PhD dissertation on the Moghamo people of the North West Region of Africa. (Columbia University, 1987). He maintained his connection to Cameroon over many years while based first in the UK and then in the archdiocese of New York, at St Mary's on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Born in Bridgeport Connecticut, Fr. O'Neil studied at Fairfield and Fordham Universities, and at St Joseph's College, Mill Hill, in London. He was ordained in Westminster Cathedral in July 1965. While On mission in Cameroon from 1965 to 1978, he taught in a secondary school but was mostly in rural areas of the North West Region. He spent 1984 in Moghamo country doing field research for his PhD. He returned again in 1988 and 1989 and then in 1991 wrote Mission to the British Cameroons. In 1995 he completed a biography of the founder of the Mill Hill Missionaries, Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, and in 1997 a book on the Uganda, Mission to the Upper Nile. From 1995 he was Assistant Pastor at St Mary's Parish on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a community with a large population of Spanish speaking members from Latin America. He has held various positions in the administration of his missionary congregation in the USA and has lived in Hartsdale, New York, since 2014.