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The ordination to the Catholic priesthood took place on Sunday July 20th 1930 at Mill Hill Foreign Missionary College London of Father Vincent Farrell. Bishop Bouter of Nellore, Madras Missions, India conducted the ordination of 24 young priests.
Father Farrell, the second son of Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Farrell, of Thursfield Road, Burnley, is an old boy of St. Mary's Boys School. From a very early age he was an altar server at St. Mary's Church, and before leaving to commence his ecclesiastical studies he was master of ceremonies on the altar. After completing his course of humanities at St. Peter's Foreign Missionary College, Freshfield, near Liverpool, he proceeded to Brabant, Roozendaal, Holland for his studies in philosophy. His theological studies were then continued at the Mother House of the English Missionary Society, St. Joseph's College, Mill Hill, London. Father Farrell has been appointed to the Kavironda Mission Kenya, East Africa, and will sail from Genoa on October 5th.
On the 11th May 1946 the Burnley Express reported that the Order of the British Empire had been conferred upon Father Farrell for his work as a padre with the East African troops in the Burma campaign. More detail about this work is given in a further Express article dated 16th October 1946 when Father Farrell visited Burnley. After the outbreak of war, to use his own phrase 'his parish joined up' and he accompanied them in the Abyssinian campaign, and was present at the fall of Gondar. After the East African fighting Father Farrell stayed in Somaliland and he afterwards saw more of the war in Ceylon and Burma.
Father Farrell is to resume his missionary work having been appointed to open a new mission in Kenya.