Early Life
Born in Liverpool to Irish and French parents, Thomas Michael Kevin Elmore-Meegan spent his childhood between Grenoble, France, Freshfield Lancs and Rishworth, Yorkshire. Educated in Vaughan House and Bishops Court Prep School, Heathfield, Yorkshire. He was Baptised by John Heenan, the future John Carmel Cardinal Heenan. He was inspired by the work of the Mill Hill Missionaries from an early age and had a passion for Africa and Asia greatly influenced by the example of retired missionaries in Freshfield.
He began sculpting at an early age. By 1971 He moved to Dublin.He attended Terenure College in Dublin where he began his early drafts of spiritual axioms, All Shall be well, later to be a series of reflections on poverty published by Collins ( Fount Religious paperbacks ) forwarded by John Powell SJ.
In 1977 he entered the Roman Catholic Society of White Fathers - The Missionaries of Africa Les Pères Blanc - hoping to become a Missionary in Africa. Due to a serious burn injury he left the White Fathers and after completing a degree in Philosophy ( Jesuit Institute at Milltown Park,Dublin )awarded from the Holy See following which he entered Noviciate in the Society of Jesus. In 1979 Meegan left to pursue his passion for Africa and founded the Community for the Relief of Starvation and Suffering ( CROSS ) which, by 1984, he renamed the International Community for Relief of Starvation and Suffering.CROSS as it was known began funding health projects in Africa and India. He became widely known for his lectures on human suffering and hunger. The rapid growth of ICROSS between 1979-1983 was in response to a series of lectures, articles and campaigns together with the support of several renowned pioneers in Tropical Medicine, Dr Joseph Barnes, Professor David Morley and the Editor of the LANCET Dr Ian Monroe. Dr Barnes co-founded what would become ICROSS. In the United States ICROSS established a small non profit with the support of Norman Jaffe and Dr Ken Cairns in the Hamptons,Long Island, New York called ICROSS EAST END.
He spoke French and Latin at the age of ten. In 1977, he completed his seconday school studies at Dublin's Terenure College, run by the Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He moved to Kenya where he settled in the Great Rift Valley and began to perform aid work among the local people., Changing the World.http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Meegan
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