Leo Madigan


Leo Madigan was a New Zealand author who settled in Fátima, Portugal.

Early life and education

Madigan attended Saint Thomas' preparatory school in Naenae, Lower Hutt, New Zealand, run by the Sisters of Mercy, and the Sacred Heart secondary school in Auckland, run by the Marist Brothers. He went to sea as Catering Boy, MV Wendover, London, in 1956. From 1958–1960 he was a novitiate with the Trappist religious order.

Career

After work as a psychiatric nurse and a short spell in the Royal Horse Guards, Madigan appeared in minor roles on the London stage in 1963. From 1964–75 he was a rating in the British Merchant Navy.
Madigan then attended Sidney Webb College and was awarded the BEd degree of the University of London in 1978. From 1979–81 he worked in the educational arm of The Marine Society, edited The Seafarer magazine and taught at Gravesend Sea School. He taught at Fatih Lisesi in İzmir, Turkey from 1981–82. He sailed to the Falkland Islands on MV Uganda for the Marine Society in 1982 before teaching in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets from 1983–88.
In 1988, Madigan moved to Fuseta, in Algarve, Portugal, where he worked as a local journalist and published several books. He moved to the world-famous Marian apparitions city of Fátima, Portugal, in 1998, where he has published extensively about the Shrine, about Blessed Alexandrina of Balazar and other Catholic-oriented works.

Non Fiction

Madigan has written short articles for The Seafarer, Blackwood's Magazine, Fairplay International Shipping Weekly and Catholic Life in the UK, Soul in the US and many English language publications in Portugal. His full-length works are:
In addition to short stories appearing in The Seafarer and East End Magazine in the UK and The Algarve Magazine in Portugal, Madigan has written the following full length fictional works: