The first members of the Esker Community to die were brought to Limerick for burial. The first burial in the new Esker Cemetery was that of Fr. Thomas O’Farrell. He was born in Longford  on Christmas Eve 1845. He entered Maynooth College and was ordained in Longford on March 14th 1869. He began his priestly ministry as a curate in Ardagh  and Banagher parishes. Five years later he became Administrator in Athlone. Seeing the effects of the
Redemptorist missions in the diocese he was attracted to the Congregation. He joined the Redemptorists in 1879 at Bishop Eton, near Liverpool.

The Australian Church’s many pleas to the Redemptorists to set up foundations there were finally answered in  1882 when the English
Redemptorists answered their call. In 1898 the Redemptorist foundations in Ireland hitherto subject to the English province, were constituted an Irish province, and Australia, a vice-province of the Irish province. Fr O’Farrell was appointed superior. He arrived March 1882 in Sydney bringing with him a picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, blessed in Rome by Pope Leo XIII. The work of the Redemptorists in Australia was about to begin. The whole of Fr. O’Farrell’s missionary life was spent there.

His superiors spoke of him as “of a warm personality and boundless energy ...one of the greatest preachers and missioners Australia has seen". A mere reading of his sermons today, after a lapse of a century, makes one thrill to his eloquence.
           

In September 1910 during a mission in Sydney he collapsed in the pulpit; he had suffered a stroke. He recovered to some extent, but could no longer speak distinctly or walk without assistance. When his strength seemed to have been restored a little, it was decided to allow him to return to Ireland. After a short stay in Limerick he was brought, at his own request, to St. Patrick's, Esker. During the sixteen months he lingered he was always at peace, in spite of the contrast between his present condition and the ceaseless activity he had known over the past thirty years. Those who were with him during those last months remembered how he used to murmur over and over at the cost of great effort. ‘Not my will but Yours be done'.

Father O'Farrell’s busy apostolate and long Gethsemene ended in October 1912.  He was buried in the little private cemetery the students had just finished preparing in the grounds of the monastery. For many years young Redemptorists were to come from Australia to prepare for the priesthood in Esker. For them the grave was a sacred spot rich in memories of the man who had brought so much honour to the name they shared with him.