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GDAŃSK OLIWA
Edward O’Rourke
One curious connection between Gdansk/Danzig and Ireland
is the fact that the city’s first Roman Catholic bishop
was Count Edward O’Rourke. A Russian of Irish ancestry he
was descended from a branch of the O’Rourke family which
had been forced emigrate to the European continent during
the 17th century. With several generations of O’Rourke’s
having achieved great success fighting in the French and
Russian armies, they eventually settled down on a large
landed estate in what is now Belarus.
Future bishop Edward O’Rourke was born in 1876 and grew
up on the family estate and having attended a Jesuit boarding
school, he studied Economics and Theology at Innsbruck
University in Austria. Ordained in Kaunas in 1907, he rose
quickly in the Church, becoming Bishop of Riga in 1918. Following
the extensive redrawing of Europe’s borders after the
First World War, O’Rourke was sent on a special mission to
the newly-founded Baltic States in 1920. Two years later, he
took up the post of ‘apostolic administrator’ (quasi-bishop)
in the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk) where he would remain
for the next fifteen years. In 1925, as a separate political
entity, the Free City was given its own diocese with its seat
in Oliwa cathedral with O’Rourke becoming its first Roman
Catholic bishop.
When the Danzig Nazi Party took control of the Senate in
1933, O’Rourke became one of the strongest allies of the
Polish community in Danzig. With the Church now facing
persecution by an external enemy, internal ethnic divisions
in were set aside and the attitude of Bishop O’Rourke and
part of the German-speaking clergy became more favourable
towards the Polish community. Along with Irishman
Sean Lester, the League of Nations’ High Commissioner
in Danzig, O’Rourke was one of the very few independent
voices prepared to publically criticize Nazi policies in the
Free City. Of particular concern to O’Rourke were attempts
by the Nazi Senate to absorb Catholic youth organizations
and charities into Nazi structures and its pressure to
completely ‘nationalize’ the Church in Danzig.
Despite the fact that Sean Lester was a Protestant and they
initially had no common language except French, the two men
became close friends and political allies. Both considered
personae non grata by the Danzig Nazis, O’Rourke and
Lester found a common affinity in their respect for human
rights, their opposition to Nazism and their Irishness. Indeed,
O’Rourke was intensely proud of his Irish ancestry, with Lester
recalling in his diary how on their first meeting in 1934 the
bishop came into the room ostentatiously carrying an Irish
magazine and patriotically forcing himself to smoke ‘Irish’
cigarettes over his preferred Russian brand.
Once, however, Lester had been forced from his post in
February 1937, O’Rourke’s became the last independent
voice left in the so-called ‘Free’ City. With a section of the
German-speaking Catholic clergy, along with the Nazis,
openly opposing his support for the foundation of a Polish
parish, O’Rourke finally resigned in October 1937, and moved
to the Polish city of Poznan. In 1939 he renounced his Danzig
citizenship and became a Polish citizen before fleeing to
Rome at the outbreak of the Second World War. Although
O’Rourke died in Rome in 1943, in recognition of his defence
of the Free City’s Polish community during the Nazi period, his
bones were reinterred in Gdansk Oliva Cathedral in 1972 and
a plaque can be viewed there commemorating the event. In
fact, along with Sean Lester who had a plaque unveiled in his
honour by Gdansk City Council in 2010, Gdansk is unique its
commemoration of two men with Irish blood in their veins who
stood up for the human rights of all of the Free City’s citizens
in the face of Nazi totalitarian aggression.
Some 5km northwest of city centre, the sleepy Gdańsk
suburb of Oliwa began life as a small Slavic-Pomeranian
settlement that grew around a Cistercian monastery established
in the latter half of the 12th century. After a long
period as a religious centre and a few catastrophes along
the way including substantial devastation caused by the
Swedes in 1626 and again in 1656 , Oliwa settled down to a
peaceful and prosperous life, becoming an independent city
from 1874 until 1926. Escaping major damage during WWII,
today’s Oliwa is home to around 20,000 people as well as a
number of beasts living in the city’s superb zoo, is the proud
owner of one of Gdańsk’s best parks, boasts a couple of
wonderful museums and offers visitors a charmingly bucolic
and distinctively different excursion.
Getting there
The easiest way to get to Oliwa from Gdansk is to take tram
11 from the main train station. The Tri-City train (kolejka) runs
from Gdańsk Główny station and stops at Gdańsk Oliwa. Oliwa
can be reached by car in about 20 minutes from central Gdańsk.
What to See
Ethnographic Museum (Muzeum Etnograficzne)
E-1, ul. Cystersów 19 (Oliwa Park), tel. (+48) 58 552 12
71 ext. 101, www.muzeum.narodowe.gda.pl. Located
inside the 18th-century Abbatial Granary inside Oliwa Park,
this delightful little diversion features three floors showcasing
all manner of folk-related artifacts from Eastern Pomerania
and is considered to be one of the best collections of its kind
in Poland. Exhibits include a wide range of folk art from wood
carvings to some really amazing paintings made between
the 18th and the early 20th century as well as folk furniture,
displays of traditional fishing implements and other oddities.
Explanations are in Polish only and there are no guide books
for sale, but the museum is such a treat that you hardly notice
this at all. Highly recommended. Q Open 10:00 - 17:00. Closed
Mon. From June open 10:00 - 17:00, Tue 12:00 - 19:00. Closed
Mon. Last entrance 45 minutes before closing. Admission
8/4zł, family ticket 15zł. Fri free for permanent exhibitions. Y
Kuźnia Wodna ul. Bytowska 1a (Oliwa), tel. (+48) 58
552 51 51, www.kuzniawodna.eu. A former water mill whose
interiors now reveal the secrets of making metal. Also open for
musical evenings and events. Q Open 09:00 - 16:00, Sat 11:00 -
17:00, Sun 11:00 - 18:00. Admission 6/3zł, party ticket 15zł. Y
Museum of Modern Art (Odział Sztuki Nowoczesnej
Muzeum Narodowego w Gdańsku) E-1, ul.
Cystersów 18 (Oliwa Park), tel. (+48) 58 552 12 71 ext.
124, www.muzeum.narodowe.gda.pl. Inside the superb
Pałac Opatów, of which the oldest parts date back to the 15th
century but which owes its present look to a splendid Rococo
overhaul in the mid-18th century, the Contemporary Art Museum
houses works by more than 140 post-WWII Polish artists
as well as putting on the occasional temporary show. Q Open
10:00 - 17:00. Closed Mon. From June open 10:00 - 17:00, Tue
12:00 - 19:00. Closed Mon. Last entrance 45 minutes before
closing. Admission 10/6zł, family ticket 18zł. Groups over 15
people 6zł per person. Fri free for permanent exhibitions. Y
Oliwa Cathedral (Katedra Oliwska) E-1, ul. Biskupa
Edmunda Nowickiego 5, tel. (+48) 58 552 47 65, www.
archikatedraoliwa.pl. Oliwa’s towering Cathedral taking pride
of place at the western end of Oliwa Park was originally built
as a simple wooden structure in the 12th century, and it was
only in 1224 that the brickwork was added. The year 1350
saw a half-wit kitchen boy accidentally start a fire that engulfed
the whole building. Reconstruction began immediately, but in
Gdańsk In Your Pocket gdansk.inyourpocket.com
1626 the building was again destroyed, this time by marauding
Swedish soldiers. Not content with stealing its bells, altars and
valuables, the Swedes kidnapped Oliwa’s hapless monks for good
measure and in a twist of irony, it was in this very building that
Poland and Sweden finally put the past behind them and signed
a peace treaty in 1660. Built along a classic three-aisle design
with a vaulted basilica and shaped in the form of the Latin cross,
today’s interior is dominated by the extraordinary organ over
the main entrance. Built between 1755 and 1780 by the organ
master Johann Wulf, and at the time the largest organ of its type
in Europe, it features moving cherubs, trumpet-playing angels and
comes with a staggering 7,896 pipes and 110 registers allowing
for an incredible range of pitch and sounds including rippling water,
animal cries and human voices; hear it for yourself at the hours
listed. A couple of other points of note are the memorial plague
to inter-war Danzig bishop Edward O’Rourke found on the wall to
the right as you enter from the main entrance and, at the other
end of the church, a strange and beautiful canopy around the high
altar, covered with stars and featuring 150 angels poking out of a
mass of clouds. QOpen 09:00 - 17:00, Sat 09:00 - 13:30, Sun
14:00 - 17:00. Organ performances are at the following times.
May: Mon-Sat 10:00 - 13:00 (every hour), Sun 15:00 and 16:00.
June: Mon-Fri 10:00 - 16:00 (every hour apart from 14:00),
Sat 10:00 - 15:00 (every hour), Sun 15:00 - 17:00 (every hour).
July & August: Mon-Fri 10:00 - 17:00 (every hour apart from
14:00), Sat 10:00 - 15:00 (every hour), Sun 15:00 - 17:00 (every
hour). Admission free unless visiting during a virtuoso organ
performance (entry 4.50/2.50zl).
Oliwa Park (Park Oliwski) E-2, ul. Opacka 12, tel. (+48)
58 552 17 50. The exact origins of Oliwa’s delightful 10-hectare
park are lost to time, but what is known is that Oliwa’s last
Cistercian abbot, Jacek Rybiński (1701-1782) had the gardener
Kazimierz Dębiński originate the beginnings of its contemporary
appearance by designing a French Rococo part of the garden,
still in existence today in the south of the park. After Rybiński’s
death a family by the name of Hohenzollern-Hechingen took
over the park, introducing even more grand designs, and over
the years, and in the hands of several different people, Oliwa
Park gradually took on its modern look, with the addition of a
Chinese garden, English touches, a botanical gardens (closed
in winter) and palm house. Today’s park is a hugely popular
place for people to come and relax, picnic and enjoy the many
sights it has on offer. A fun attraction are the so-called Whispering
Caves (aka. Dionysus’ Ears) to the southeast of the Pałac
Opatów. Assuming that nobody has relieved themselves here
for a while, it’s possible for two people to stand in each ‘ear’ and
have a conversation in the quietest of whispers. A dispute with
Oliwa’s monks seems to have been settled meaning residents
and visitors can continue to look forward to enjoying the park.
Q Park open 05:00 - 23:00. Palm House and Botanical Gardens
open 09:00 - 17:00. Admission free.
gdansk.inyourpocket.com
GDAŃSK OLIWA
May - July 2012
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