Niall Murnane (O47)
NIALL PATRICK JOHN MURNANE (O47) 18th JULY 1929 – 14th FEBRUARY 2017. During Niall’s time at Ampleforth, he was living with Mrs Magda Whyte in Ireland due to his father being a prisoner of war during the 2nd World War, in Changi prison in Singapore and the rest of the family were left in Australia where they all were on holiday at the time. Unfortunately, his father went back to Singapore where he was the Municipal Water Engineer as he had heard that the Japanese had over run the Malayan peninsular and it was then that he was caught by the Japanese. Niall was then parted from his family and sent to be looked after by Magda during his holidays until he joined his parents in Cape Town where his father and mother were recuperating after his father's long sojurn in Changi. A few of his holidays were spent at Ampleforth so the school paid a large part in his upbringing and paved his way in life.
He had such special memories of his time at Ampleforth and often told the story about how the boys enjoyed fire drill sliding down the escape hatch pole to the floor below. Also, how he used to hear the monks chanting in the chapel, which was located below his room. In his senior year, he was a monitor of St Oswald’s House. Following his time at Ampleforth he joined his parents in Cape Town, South Africa where they had retired after the 2nd World War. In Cape Town, he attended the Witwatersrand University obtaining a BA and LLB. On leaving university he joined a law firm to do his articles extending his degree to include conveyancing. He then moved to Rhodesia and joined a law firm in Salisbury converting his degree to be compatible with the Rhodesian requirements. In 1961, he married Joan Partridge who came from a large Rhodesian pioneer family. Soon after they were married they moved to Umtali, which was a fairly small city near the Mozambique border to join a law firm as a partner. He found the work very interesting and a good place to bring up his three daughters, but rather dangerous during the bush war. In 1980, he took his family back to Salisbury, which later became Harare, and joined government to become the Deputy State Attorney. He enjoyed this work as it enabled him to travel to different African countries as well as New York on government business.
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