Edward Daly: Priest who came under fire on Bloody Sunday

Bishop Edward Daly, who has died at the age of 82, was one of the major figures in the Irish Catholic Church in the last quarter of the 20th century. He served as bishop of Derry from 1974 to 1993, and he had particular credibility among Northern nationalists because he forthrightly condemned state injustice.

One of the defining images of the Bloody Sunday massacre is of Daly waving a bloody handkerchief as he escorted the mortally wounded Jackie Duddy.

Daly, firmly on the church's liberal wing, brought the spirit of the Vatican Council into his diocese. In an organisation suspicious of the media, he developed an excellent relationship with journalists.

Edward Kevin Daly was born in 1933 in the West Rock Nursing Home, Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, to parents who lived in Belleek, Co Fermanagh. He was the first child of Tom Daly, of Belleek, and his wife Susan (née Flood) from Pettigo, Co Donegal. His father was a shopkeeper and undertaker: the Floods managed the shrine at Lough Derg.

His parents protected Edward from the political violence that touched their earlier years. His father had fought in the IRA in the War of Independence, taken the Republican side in the Civil War, been imprisoned, and had to leave Ireland for a period. His mother’s cousin, Patrick Flood, had been killed by British forces in 1922.

Young Edward was educated at Commons Primary School, Belleek, and at secondary level in St Columb’s College, Derry. He studied for the priesthood at the Irish College in Rome, where the regime was much more liberal than the Irish seminaries of the 1950s.

Talent for funding

After ordination, Daly’s first posting was as curate in Castlederg, Co Tyrone, where, he developed skills as a redoubtable fundraiser for church causes. He honed his talents as a theatre director with an amateur drama group. He also chafed against the petty restrictions of a conservative diocesan regime.

In the early 1960s, Daly was transferred as a curate to St Eugene’s Parish in Derry. This covered the Bogside, where he was horrified by housing conditions.

In Derry, Daly honed his skills as a fundraiser. (He claimed to have introduced bingo to the city.) He staged weekly variety concerts, and was one of the first to book Phil Coulter, Dana and Frank Carson.

He was also popular as a confessor. His confessions were efficient, a maximum of three minutes, “sin no more”, then on to the next penitent.

After October 1968 his parish became the centre of the Troubles. He took part in peaceful sit-down protests after internment in August 1971 and was in the courtyard of Derry’s Rossville Flats on Bloody Sunday, under fire from the British paratroopers.

The first of the dead, Jackie Duddy, was shot beside Daly as both ran from army vehicles. He gave the teenager the last rites, and with a group of men brought him to army lines for medical attention. The blood- stained handkerchief he waved is preserved in Derry’s Bloody Sunday Museum.

After the massacre, Daly articulated the community’s horror. He travelled to the US to appear on television.

As Bloody Sunday and the upheavals in Derry proved hugely stressful, Daly was unexpectedly appointed a religious affairs correspondent with RTÉ in Dublin. Always a good communicator, he later used the experience when, as a bishop, he helped establish the Catholic Press and Information Office.

Daly was just coming to grips with the RTÉ job when, again unexpectedly, he appointed bishop of Derry in 1974. In his early 40s, he was the youngest Catholic bishop in Ireland, and one of the youngest in Europe. He had not taken the then traditional route to the bishopric through being principal of a diocesan college – he had never even been a parish priest. At times Daly felt out of place among his fellow bishops, noting that many had never been called out at night to the bedside of a dying parishioner.

Refused sacraments

Daly brought the spirit of the Vatican Council to the diocese after a strongly conservative predecessor had reigned for more than a generation. His attitude brought him into conflict with one fellow Northern bishop, who had refused the sacraments to children who did not attend Catholic schools. Daly arranged for the children to receive religious instruction, and administered the sacraments in Derry diocese.

His bishopric ran for most of the duration of the Troubles. He took a strong stand against the IRA campaign and its shows of strength at funerals of dead members. He allowed them Christian burial, but decided their bodies could no longer be received in churches.

“A Christian funeral,” he said, “is intended to be a dignified, peaceful religious ceremony, not a carefully orchestrated propaganda exercise.”

He took a strong a stance against abuses by the security forces. He visited republican prisoners, though he was not always welcome. Through prison visits, he built a relationship with some loyalists and their families. He got to know the Birmingham Six, and was an active supporter.

Daly retired following a stroke in 1993,. In retirement, he was chaplain to Derry’s Foyle Hospice and helped establish the Derry Diocesan Archive. He continued to speak out on issues, such as priestly celibacy. He made headlines in 2011 when he said there needed to be a place in the modern Catholic Church for married priests.

Edward Daly is survived by his sisters Marion and Anne. He was predeceased by his sister Dympna and brother Tom.