Following a multi-year battle with cancer, Oblate Father Michael R. O'Hara died at the Oblate Residence in Tewksbury on Sept. 22, 2024. He was born in Bangor, Maine, but grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., one of the 11 children of the late Robert and Mary Ellen (Aungier) O'Hara.

He entered the Oblate Novitiate in 1969, and following his seminary formation, was ordained to the priesthood on May 15, 1976, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in the nations' capital.

Over the next 46 years, he served in varied ministries of his Oblate family. He began as a teacher at Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach, Fla. Subsequent ministries were as prison chaplain with the Federal Bureau of Prisons in New York and Pennsylvania.

In 2012, he was serving in parishes: Holy Redeemer, Miami, Fla.; and Our Lady of Good Counsel, New York, N.Y. He arrived in the archdiocese, serving as chaplain of the Soldiers' Home in Chelsea; as pastor of St. Patrick Parish, Lowell; and, more recently, at St. Mary Parish of Georgetown and Rowley.

He was much appreciated in the parishes of the archdiocese and was the "patriarch" of his extensive, both geographically and numerically (90 members), O'Hara clan.

Father O'Hara is survived by his siblings: Joseph, Kathleen Falcone, Eileen Tickner, Sheila Coughlin, and Kevin, all of Syracuse, N.Y.; Robert, San Antonio, Texas; Teresa Powell, Middletown, R.I.; Daniel, Baldwinsville, N.Y.; and Donna Powell, Portsmouth, R.I.

Merrimack Regional Bishop Robert F. Hennessey was the principal celebrant of Father O'Hara's funeral Mass, which was celebrated at Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel, Tewksbury, on Sept. 27. Fellow Oblate Father Seamus Finn, OMI, was the homilist. Father O'Hara was buried in St. Agnes Cemetery, Syracuse, N.Y.