Who was Matt Talbot?
Matt Talbot was a working class
Dubliner born in the middle of the nineteenth century.
He was someone who through a profound religious conversion overcame his
addiction to alcohol
and went on to live a reformed life of heroic sanctity.
He is the model and inspiration for all those struggling with
addictions of various kinds
and for those who work with them.
Below is a brief chronology of his life.
1856 Matt
Talbot was born on 2nd May to Elizabeth and Charles
Talbot at Alderborough Court, North Strand.
He was baptised in the Pro-Cathedral, on
5th May of that year.
1868 Having
attended school for only one year, Matt got his first job.
At this time he began to drink and
later admitted that from his early teens
to his late
twenties his only aim in life was heavy drinking.
1884
Matt stopped drinking and made an initial three month pledge to God not to
drink.
Despite great temptation in the early stages he never took a drink
again.
1884-1925
His remaining forty-one 'dry' years, were lived heroically, attending
daily Mass, praying constantly, helping the poor and living the ascetic
life-style of Celtic spirituality. This life was his prayer to God and his
defence against a reversion to alcoholism.
1925 +
Matt died in Granby Lane on Trinity Sunday, 7th June on his way to
Mass in the Dominican Church in Dominick Street. The chains found on his body at death were a symbol of
his devotion to Mary, to whom he wished to devote himself as a slave.
Within a short time of his death, Matt's
reputation as a saintly man and especially as a protector of those suffering
from all forms of addiction and their families was being established. Matt
Talbot was declared Venerable in 1973 which means the Church has decided that
from a human point of view he has the qualifications of a Saint.
His tomb is in the Parish Church of Sean McDermott St. near the heart of his
native city.