Puzzle solved for retired Archbishop’s jigsaw collection

By Catherine Sheehan

What should you do with 45 completed jigsaw puzzles? Donate them to Catholic schools of course. That’s exactly what retired Archbishop of Hobart Adrian Doyle is doing with his collection of 45 completed jigsaw puzzles that kept him busy during the Covid period and beyond.

The emeritus archbishop has donated all the puzzles to Catholic Education Tasmania and each one will be framed and given to a Catholic school.

Archbishop Adrian began working on jigsaw puzzles in 2020 while living by himself at Taroona. After Covid hit, friends loaned him some puzzles to keep him busy and he never looked back.

“I had a card table which actually belonged to my mother, and I bought a piece of thick plywood and I tied it, drilled some holes in it and tied it onto the card table,” Archbishop Adrian said.

“And that’s where I used to do them. And then I started to buy them and little by little I was buying more and more.”

Ordering the puzzles online, he restricted himself to 500-piece puzzles due to limited space in his apartment.

Overtime his strategy for completing puzzles became a fine art form.

“When you sit down, you’ve got to have a plan.

“I would go through all pieces and anything that had a straight edge, put it aside. And if it had two straight edges, I’d put that aside because that was one of the corners.”

Archbishop Adrian said both “patience” and “perseverance” were needed.

He estimates each puzzle took him two to three weeks.

“I was never in a hurry. It didn’t matter when I finished.”

Finding the last piece of the puzzle was always worth it.

“It was a great sense of satisfaction. There was nothing like getting the last piece in place.

“In all the time I was doing it, I never lost a piece.”

When he moved from his apartment in Taroona to his current accommodation at Fairway Rise in Lindisfarne in August last year, Archbishop Adrian discovered he had completed 45 puzzles and didn’t know what to do with them all.

Former Executive Director of Catholic Education Tasmania Dr Dan White, provided the missing piece of the puzzle, suggesting he donate one to every Catholic school in the state.

Current acting CET Executive Director, Dr Terry McCarthy, gratefully accepted the donated puzzles from Archbishop Adrian.

“What a wonderful gesture from Archbishop Doyle,” Dr McCarthy said.

“Each puzzle was personally chosen by him from his favourite online provider. Their colours are exceptional and make for a very attractive display in any area of a school.”

Future school visits from Dr McCarthy and incoming Executive Director Dr Debra Sayce, will include presenting principals with the framed puzzles.