Fr Ó Peicín, Tory Island advocate, dies

FR DIARMUID Ó Peicín, the Jesuit priest whose passionate campaigning in the 1980s ensured that Tory Island off Donegal did not end up depopulated like the Blaskets, has died.

Fr Ó Peicín died peacefully at the Jesuit nursing home at Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin, yesterday morning 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 Tory 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 Ó Peicín was appalled at the lack of facilities for the 150 or so people who lived on Tory 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 10 island families. Fr Ó Peicín feared this would signal the start of the 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.

© 2008 The Irish Times

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