I had known Fr. Brosnan since F3 and knew him to be a serious man with good organization skill. I can still picture him saying “Appalling” when one gave a wrong answer. Sometimes he would add “You should be shot” for good measure. The first time I was impressed was when he gave a critique on the new City Hall. I do not remember his comments but the fact that one could say intelligent things about buildings was a novel idea to me at that time.
He showed his knowledge in many other areas. He talked about the Assyrians and the influence of their culture on later art development. When he taught Shelley’s “Ode to West Wind,” he caught on the last line “When winter comes, will spring be far behind” as indication that Shelley had maintained hope in spite of his reputation as an atheist. Faith was never far away from him.
So one important thing that I learned from Fr. Brosnan was the interconnection among things. Instead of compartmenting knowledge into different school subjects, they should be integrated and understood as a whole.
After teaching us Form 5, Fr. Brosnan went to Cheung Chau as the Director of the Retreat House. When I organized a class trip to visit him, I wrote him a letter. Yes, that was how communications were done in those days. He wrote back to welcome us and included in his letter: “茍日新，日日新，又日新。” I was quite astonished. I did not even know that the words were from 《湯之《盤銘》（1）. He worked hard in everything, including Chinese.
I think that concentrating on serious matter all the time at Cheung Chau may not be good for his brooding character. A few years later, he was transferred to teaching at Wah Yan College, Hong Kong. I visited him there in the late ‘60s and had a rather complicated conversation. He explained to me that coming all the way from Ireland to teach us English might not be a good idea. It gave us an opportunity to do well in the society but Hong Kong was going to be China. It is more important to learn well the Chinese language and culture. He was quite ahead of his time. We spoke in Cantonese the whole time we talked.
That was the last time I saw Fr. Brosnan.