Father Patrick Cooke is heading back to his homeland after 21 years serving the Catholic community at Our Lady of Lourdes in Havelock North.
Fr Pat, 86, has been in New Zealand most of his life, since coming over from Ireland with his brother Walter in 1960.
“There was an invitation from the bishop of the Wellington diocese. I had two aunties who had been religious sisters here.”
There was a shortage of priests in New Zealand at the time, and few countries that Irish priests were not going to, he said.
He is retiring to Castletown in County Laois where he will be living close to Walter, who retired three years earlier.