Joseph Irien (15 October 1937 – 2 February 2025), better known by the pen name Job an Irien, was a French writer and Roman Catholic priest.
Life and career.
Born in Bodilis on 15 October 1937, Irien completed his secondary studies at the in Saint-Pol-de-Léon. From 1967 to 1982, he was a chaplain at the Lycée à l'Harteloire in Brest. In 1962, he was ordained in Pont-Croix after spending two years in meditation at Landévennec Abbey. In 1965, he began to celebrate masses in French, Breton, and Latin.
Irien taught the Breton language to children, serving as the chaplain of Bleun-Brug until 1982. In 1984, he founded a Breton spiritual center alongside and François-Mathurin Gourvès. In 1997, he published a missal in the Breton language under the authority of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Quimper. Throughout his career, he published controversial articles discussing the inclusion of married men, women, and homosexuality in the Catholic Church, as well as the historical desire of the French state to de-Bretonize the region.
Job an Irien died on 2 February 2025, at the age of 87.