I CAN see him still clearly in my mind's eye, writes Peter Murtagh. Ahead of me, he walked steadily, neither too fast nor too slow. A good walking pace, making progress by stealth.
He leaned slightly to one side, an ill-fitting rucksack pulling out of his shoulders seeming to accentuate his tilt. He wore a floppy canvas hat and a windcheater and moved with the aid of walking poles, one clasped in each hand, the forward and backward motions of his arms matching his footsteps.
The first time I passed him, I noticed that he had white hair and a goatee beard. It's of no particular significance. I mention it merely because that is the way that it was. Except, I suppose, that it gave him a fatherly air, the look of a man one could trust. And when we met and, finally one night, had a long conversation lubricated by local wine, the initial feelings were confirmed.
Dan McCarthy is indeed a fatherly figure. A warm person who speaks with an inner conviction and wisdom that comes from being, well, 73 years old for a start. If you haven't copped on to a few things by then, I guess you're not going to. Dan McCarthy had lots of cop.
The long night's conversation came at the end of a long day's walking the Camino de Santiago. My daughter Natasha and I had passed over the mountains that separate Galicia and Castilla y León. By the time we got to the pilgrim's refugioat Fonfria we were soaked through and freezing from two snowstorms, and glad to be there.
Inside, we commandeered two bunks and made home for the night. Dan shuffled in, spotted a single bed by a radiator and made his nest.
After that evening's pilgrim's meal, Dan, Natasha and I fell into some easy chairs, at least one bottle of wine already taken care of, a fresh one open beside us. And we chatted.
This is Dan's story.
Dan came from Rhode Island in the US. That's where he grew up. But his family background was Irish. His father and uncle fought on opposite sides in the Civil War - father for de Valera, uncle for Collins. At the end of the war, although Collins's pro-Treaty forces had defeated the IRA, both father and uncle felt there was no future for them in Free State Ireland and they left for America.
Dan had made the Irish-American trip back to Ireland often enough. He knew his background; he had rummaged through the memories to be found around Sneem and Bantry, once finding the family home for sale (the price was too high, though he would have loved to buy it).
And then we hit upon something shared. Dan mentioned a documentary, old black-and-white footage of the early Troubles and a soundtrack of Irish music. " Mise Eireand Seán Ó Riada," I said.
And so began an intense conversation about Irish history, about music, about patriotism, about heroes and villains. We both put George Bush firmly in the villain category ("We gotta claim the flag back from those people," Dan said, angry at what America's neo-cons had done to his country and to the world; Barack Obama filled him with hope.)
Then we found we shared a couple of heroes: Oscar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg - two righteous gentiles, men who put own their lives on the line to save others, in both instances Jews from the Holocaust. Wallenberg paid with his own life but is not forgotten, as anyone who visits the great synagogue in Budapest will find.
As a young man Dan was motivated by a Christian ethic and a desire to do what he could to right some of the world's wrongs. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and was dispatched to the Amazon basin. There, he practised liberation theology but gradually lost faith in his church and left it.
I had not heard the phrase "spoiled priest" before and it struck me as cruel, carrying within it the hint that someone was not good enough, had somehow failed to measure up. For me, the church that cannot hold a man of Dan's goodness is the one that has failed.
The issue that ultimately ruptured his relationship with his church was celibacy: Father Dan decided he did not want to live a life unshared with a woman. He wanted that and more - he wanted to be a father of a different sort.
And so he left and was fortunate enough to find a wife who gave him a daughter, Kirstin. She is now a grown woman of 27 who works with a philanthropic organisation in Washington DC - a chip off the old block, no doubt. Kirstin is clearly the centre of Dan's universe: the unalloyed delight he takes from being with her, watching her achieve and develop her life is clear from the tears that form in his eyes as he describes his love for her.
Dan's wife died after some 10 years with him. He now shares his life with another woman and is active in the American Episcopalian Church. He describes himself as a "person of faith" and has a network of friends, former priests who chose a life outside the church. When we met, Dan was walking the Camino for the fifth time.
Natasha sat beside me that evening listening intently to everything that Dan said - about politics, life and love. She sipped hot chocolate. By the time Dan and I finished, I think there were three empty wine bottles.
Next day Natasha and I walked again. After a long silence, she said out of the blue: "Dad, when I'm 73, I want to be just like Dan." Nothing more. Just that. A wonderful endorsement across a vast generation gap.
There are many ways of being a father and Dan McCarthy found two of them. Yesterday was Father's Day. I hope you had a good one, Dan.