Leo Madigan

Leo Madigan (28 September 1939 – 25 July 2015) 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 to 1960 he was a novitiate with the Trappist religious order (Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance).

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 to 1975 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 to 1981 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 (Fatih High School) in İzmir, Turkey from 1981 to 1982. 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 to 1988.

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 (the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima), about Blessed Alexandrina of Balazar and other Catholic-oriented works.