After his ordination in 1945, Father Thomas McGurk spent four years studying at Cambridge where he was a blue (football) and for 14 years was a professor at Blair's.

 

He came to Bellshill in 1978 after having been the Director of Religious Education for Motherwell Diocese since 1969.

 

During his time in Sacred Heart parish, the Saturday Vigil was introduced replacing the Sunday Evening Mass. In 1980, Fr McGurk founded, along with the Rev. Barr and others, the Bellshill Cross Centre, a drop-in centre for people with drink related problems. Sacred Heart SVDP gave financial aid to help it survive before it became state funded. 

 

Fr McGurk was Parish Priest at the time of the historic Papal Visit of 1982 and led the parish in preparation for those wonderful days and Murrayfield and Bellahouston.

 

In 1983, Fr McGurk moved to become Parish Priest of Christ the King in his home town of Holytown and was made a Canon in 1988. 

 

Canon McGurk died on 17th May 1991 aged 69. After his Requiem Mass in Motherwell Cathedral, he was buried in St Patrick's Cemetery, New Stevenston.

 

Fr McGurk's sister was the first head teacher of St Gerard's Primary School, Bellshill when the school opened in 1973.