Columba (Declan) Leahy OP, who died on May 17th, was born in Cork city on July 23rd, 1922, the fourth of five sons of Elizabeth (née Hayes) and Paddy Joe Leahy.
When, in 1940, Declan Leahy entered the noviciate of the Dominican Order he was given a new name, as was then customary. It was Columba, the Latin word for dove. The new name did not suit him particularly as he found it difficult to adapt to dove-like behaviour.
Ordained a priest in 1947, in the following year he was sent to the Dominican priory at the Claddagh, Galway, where he ministered for five years. From 1953 he worked for a short time in the Irish Dominican mission in Trinidad, and later at the Dominican retreat centre at Montenotte, Cork.
In 1959, he worked with US Dominicans in Lagos before being invited to organise the bishops' conference there and to act as its secretary. Three years later he was back again in the Claddagh, having, by his own account, been unfairly ousted from his secretarial post.
While in Galway he attended the university and took a master's degree, the Claddagh fisheries being the subject of his thesis. It was a monumental piece of work, uncovering in great detail the history of the fisheries.
In 1962, while still in Galway, he met Mrs Maire Smye, an encounter which was to shape the rest of his life. She had organised a pilgrimage to Lourdes and had gone to the priory in the Claddagh in search of a chaplain for her pilgrims. Columba Leahy was given the job.
From that time, Lourdes and its sick and handicapped were central to his life and that of Mrs Smye. Some time later the pair founded CLM, Cuairteoiri le Muire (Visitors with Mary). Columba Leahy was named spiritual director. One of their handouts has this to say about the organisation: "Cuairteoiri le Muire is a voluntary lay organisation for youths and adults (but especially for those who are sick, poor, deprived or physically handicapped). Besides helping its sick and handicapped members to live fuller human lives, CLM teaches them to understand and accept their sufferings and handicap in union with the sufferings of Jesus Christ."
CLM has an equally idealistic message for the healthy young people and adults who see to the needs of the sick and handicapped pilgrim. It teaches them that their road to happiness is the practice of the Christian life, especially in serving those less fortunate than themselves.
Every year, CLM takes several hundred sick and handicapped pilgrims and voluntary carers to Lourdes. What may surprise many is the self-sufficiency of CLM. Since 1972 it has, increasingly, been providing its own accommodation for pilgrims in Lourdes. One of its buildings is called Villa CLM and another, to the puzzlement, perhaps, of French locals, is known as Áras CLM. In 1984, CLM bought its own luxury coach in which it transports pilgrims and carers directly from Cork to Lisieux, Paris, Nevers and Lourdes.
Columba Leahy was a visionary. In that lay his strength. But like many another visionary he sometimes was insufficiently careful about the small print of organisational detail. A certain amount of chaos - usually manageable - sometimes attended his efforts.
It is not known if he was ever tempted to quote in his own defence (it might have served his purpose), a self-exculpatory claim made by his sixth-century near namesake, St Columbanus. In a famous letter to his monks in Luxeuil Columbanus claimed "love does not keep order, hence my message is confused".
For love of God and of humanity was behind Columba Leahy's efforts for the sick and handicapped. And it is fair to say that when his temper flashed it was often because he thought their needs were not being adequately met. His temper may not have been as formidable as that of St Jerome, of whom Butler's Lives of the Saints says that he was "one of the most difficult, and most restless and combative of all the saints in the church's calendar".
Nor would Columba Leahy have been capable of the saint's cruel put-down of an adversary: "If he would conceal his nose and keep his mouth shut he might be taken for both handsome and learned." But one can take it that Columba Leahy's temper sometimes helped to get things done.
He is survived by his brothers, Dan and Pat.
Columba (Declan) Leahy OP: born 1922; died, May 2002