Matthew Gibney

Killeshandra in County Cavan is the birthplace of Matthew Gibney, the Irish priest who entered a burning Glenrowan hotel to give Ned Kelly and his doomed gang their final rites. That violent act of mercy followed a boy raised on a Cavan farm, trained in Dublin, and sent across the world to build churches in Western Australia. The town remains ordinary on the surface, but it produced a man brave enough to walk into flames for strangers.