Bishop Murray R.I.P.

Bishop Ian was born in Lennoxtown on 15 December 1932, the eldest of the four children of John and Margaret Murray. He began his education at St. Machan’s Primary School and in 1944 went to St. Ninian’s High School in Kirkintilloch. In 1946 he joined the National Junior Seminary of St. Mary’s College, Blairs.

Four years later Bishop Ian was one of a group of eleven students selected by the Scottish Bishops to reopen the Valladolid College which had been closed during the Spanish Civil War.For the next six years Bishop Ian was a student of the College, attending classes at the local seminary. He was ordained in the College Chapel on 17 March 1956 by Bishop Joseph McGee, himself a former student of the college.

Returning to the Archdiocese of St. Andrews & Edinburgh, Bishop Ian was initially appointed to St. Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh by Archbishop, later Cardinal, Gordon Gray. Three months later he was appointed curate in St. Kenneth’s, Lochore which was then a thriving mining village.

After a spell as curate in St. Columba’s,Edinburgh, Bishop Ian returned to Valladolid as Vice-Rector. In 1970 he returned to Scotland as the first resident Catholic Chaplain at the new University of Stirling where he remained for seven years. Thereafter, he served in Our Lady and St. Bride’s, Cowdenbeath and St. Ninian’s, Restalrig.

From 1987 to 1994 Bishop Ian was Rector of the Valladolid College and negotiated the transfer of the College to its present site in Salamanca. He later served in Galashiels and Falkirk and was appointed Vicar General of the diocese.

In 1999 Bishop Ian was nominated Bishop of Argyll & the Isles and ordained by Archbishop O’Brien on 7 December, the feast of St. Ambrose, Patron of the College in Valladolid. He retired in December 2008.

 

 

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.

Our Lady, Star of the Sea, pray for him

St. Columba, pray for him.