Fr Dan Dargan, the man credited with being responsible for the largest crowd ever to attend an event in Croke Park, and who also cut the ribbon on the new Luas bridge at Dundrum, south Dublin, has died at the age of 92.
A Jesuit priest, he was great-grandson of railway engineer William Dargan, whose statue is opposite the Natural History Museum in Dublin's Merrion Square.
Fr Dargan cut the ribbon on the Luas bridge at Dundrum in 2004, which was named after his ancestor, who was engineer on Ireland's first railway from Dublin to Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) in 1833.
Fr Dargan was central director of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association when 115,000 people gathered at Croke Park in 1959 to celebrate the association's diamond jubilee. It is believed to be the largest crowd to have ever gathered in the stadium.
Fr Dargan was born in January 1915 at St Stephen's Green in Dublin.
He joined the Jesuits in 1933 and worked with them at Gardiner Street in Dublin and at the Sacred Heart church on the Crescent in Limerick.
He returned to Dublin five years ago, where he lived at the Jesuit Cherryfield nursing home until his death on Friday.
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