While at Clonliffe, he completed his undergraduate degree in Philosophy at University College Dublin.
He served for a period as Army Chaplin, as a curate in Crumlin and Westland Row, Dublin.
On returning, he was appointed by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid as first director of the Dublin Institute of Adult Education in 1951.
[5] In 1977 he successfully intervened at the request of the families and trade union movement with Provisional IRA prisoners in the Curragh Military Hospital who were on Hunger Strike.
[6][7] He also spoke out and lent his name to campaigns for the release of the Birmingham Six, Guilford Four and Nicky Kelly.