The Late Fr. Peicin His friends in Beara especially in Castletownbere and Bere Island learned with regret of the death of Fr. Diarmuid O Peicin, the Jesuit priest whose passionate campaigning in the 1980s ensured that Troy Island off Donegal did not end up depopulated like the Blaskets, has died. Fr O Peicin died peacefully at the Jesuit nursing home at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin aged 91. He taught for several years before and after his ordination in 1949 in Clongowes, Co. Kildare, Mungret, Limerick, and Rathmines Technical College, Dublin. He engaged in pastoral work with Irish emigrants in Birmingham and London and spent a year working in South Africa. It was when he returned to Ireland in 1980, and travelled to Troy Island to learn Irish that he came to prominence as a champion of the island and later of all of Ireland's coastal islands. Fr O'Peicin had no need to go to Tory Island in 1980. He had just returned from the missions in Zimbabwe and was of retiring age. He could have simply settled into a quiet life at Milltown Park in Dublin. But the man of the cloth had a lifelong ambition to learn the Irish language and to speak it with fluency. This innocuous aspiration was to lead to the foundation of a powerful pressure group, whose aim was the salvation of dwindling island populations. The Jesuit shuns the theory of coincidence; as far as he was concerned it was Providence which first took him to Troy. Whatever the reason, it was an event which was to reshape his life, instigate a new career and makes him the saviour of island dwellers right around the Irish coast. It was also to render him a thorn in the side of many a Government department, and a scourge to his superiors in the Catholic Church. He was appaled at the lack of facilities for the 150 or so people who lived on Troy and at what he believed was an implicit official policy to see the island become a 'deserted rock'. This was reinforced when during his initial period on Tory, Donegal County Council offered mainland houses in Falcarragh, Co. Donegal, to ten island families. Fr O Peicin feared this would signal the start of he death of Tory. So he decided to stay and fight for houses, jobs, a proper water supply, a full-time electricity system, a ferry, a secondary school, a harbour and tourist amenities. He was a founder member of the first Comhdhail na n-Oilean in 1984. Following a falling out with that organisation he founded The Island Trust (Ireland) and was editor of The Offshore Islands of Ireland magazine. Fr O Peicin made many visits to Castletownbere and Bere Island over the past number of years. Following a tragic drowning of Donal (Jack) Harrington and his wife Anne when their boat overturned when near their home in Derrycreeveen, Fr. Peicin visited the island where he spent a week with the bereaved families. The Dursey islanders and their broken cable car was also a concern for his and the Island Trust drew attention on a radio programme to the critical situation on Dursey Island when the islanders were cut off from mainland for over three months. They organised a private helicopter mercy mission to the apparently hopeless situation on the beleaguered island as there was no sign of help coming from the authorities. He also spent a week on Bere Island back in February 1994 when the Bere Island ferry to Castletownbere sank with the loss of four lives. When Dr Ian Paisley and Fr. Piecin met on Rathlin Island to switch on the island's first electricity, they were meeting after nine years since they first met in Strasbourg. Dr. Ian said on Rathlin that he greatly admired Fr. Peicin's work that the Island Trust was doing since the first met in October 1983 in the European Parliament Building, Strasbourg. We first got to known Fr Peicin when he was in London as a Chaplain to the Irish immigrants in that city and we became good friends. He was very active in several Irish organisations especially the GAA as a delegate and he was very well known at County Board meetings. He was for a time chairman of the Geraldine GAA Club in North London, a club associated with Michael Collins who was County Board Delegate. Over the years several Beara men played for the club. We remember having a 'fall out' with Fr. Peicin when he decided to take the club's minute books which he kept by Michael Collins and present them to a Jesuit College in New York. On another occasion when one of his teams won the London County Football Championship, which we covered and photographed for the Irish Post, he tried to stop us using the photograph of the team, which we refused. The result was that the team was disqualified for having illegal players. But we still remained friends. Whenever Fr. Peicin visited Beara he always contacted us to meet with him, which we were delighted to do. We offer our sympathy to his family and the Jesuit community. Courtesy of the Southern Star 15th March 2008 Tweet

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