Published: Wednesday, 6th January, 2010 7:00pm

Cavan mayor attends Cardinal Daly's funeral

Cllr. Andrew Boylan greets Cardinal Daly during a civic reception in his honour in Cavan in 1992.

Cavan town mayor Andrew Boylan was among the large congregation that attended the funeral mass yesterday morning (Tuesday) for Cardinal Cahal Daly in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh.

The 92-year-old died on new year's eve, three days after being taken to Belfast City Hospital with acute heart problems.

Cardinal Sean Brady from Stradone in Cavan was the chief celebrant of yesterday's Requiem Mass. The late cardinal's remains had lain in state in the cathedral, as people paid their respects to their former archbishop. He was buried in the cathedral grounds beside his three immediate predecessors: Cardinals O'Fiach, Conway and d'Alton.

Speaking to The Anglo-Celt on Tuesday, Cllr. Boylan said he was chairman of Cavan County Council in 1992 when the late Cardinal Daly was accorded a civic reception on the occasion of his visit to Cavan Cathedral.

"I found Cardinal Daly to be a warm friendly man with a strong personality," he said. In a private conversation, Cardinal Daly told Cllr. Boylan that he was a great admirer of Cavan football and he hoped to see its revival.

In his address to the councillors on that day, he lauded the role of local public representatives and encouraged them to forge greater contact with public representatives in the North, and emphasised the benefits of cross-Border co-operation.

"It was a great honour for me to represent Cavan town and the BMW regional assembly at Cardinal Daly's funeral in Armagh, along with my party colleague and fellow councillor Aidan Boyle from Cootehill," added Cllr. Boylan.

Cardinal Cahal Daly was born in Loughguile, Co. Antrim, on October 1, 1917, the third of seven children. His father was a primary school teacher, originally came from Keadue, Co. Roscommon, and his mother was from Antrim.

He was educated at the local national school and St. Malachy's College in Belfast, and later attended the Catholic Church's national seminary at Maynooth.

Twenty years after ordination, the Queen's University philosophy don became an advisor to the Second Vatican Council. At 50, he was made bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois.

During the troubles, he emerged as Maynooth's most trenchant critic of politically-inspired violence. In 1979, he helped craft Pope John Paul's Drogheda appeal to the IRA to embrace peaceful methods.

He served as a bishop for almost three decades, based first in Longford, then in Belfast and finally in Armagh. He became the hierarchy's foremost theologian and its most trenchant critic of politically-inspired violence.

Following further promotion in 1990, to Armagh, the new Cardinal was dogged by clerical child abuse scandals, beginning with the Fr. Brendan Smyth case. He responded that he had approved an approach to the RUC by a diocesan social worker about the sole allegation he had received against Smyth. As the scandals multiplied, he said all Irish bishops were committed to immediately reporting allegations to the civil authorities. Months after guidelines to that effect were introduced, he resigned on age grounds.

He died believing that lasting peace was possible in Ireland.

Cardinal Daly is survived by his sister Rosaleen, his brother Paddy and sisters-in-law Barbara and Mavis, nieces and nephews, and extended family.

Cardinal Seán Brady said Cardinal Daly died peacefully at the City Hospital in Belfast in the presence of family and friends.

He paid tribute to his predecessor, saying it was difficult to do full justice to the significance and achievements of his life, but his legacy to the ecclesiastical and civil history of Ireland will be seen as immense.