When I arrived in Derry on the first Sunday of July 1973 there was the smell of CS gas in the air and the occasional rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire in the background.

I knew only three families, the Andersons (Martina’s family), the Gillespies of Lisfannon Park and the Gallaghers of the Glen Road.

I had no car. I was not allowed to have one until I had a formal parish appointment the next January.

So I walked down into the Bogside for the first time to meet the only families I knew.

They have been my friends ever since I came to replace the then Fr. Daly who had just been appointed as director of Religious Affairs at RTE in Dublin.

Those were big shoes to fill because he was such a devoted pastoral priest with ”the smell of the sheep” as Pope Francis puts it.

He got the job because of his skill in dealing with the media after Bloody Sunday and was relatively unknown before then.

A year later, he was made bishop and chose “feed my sheep” as his coat of arms.

Before this, bishops had little pastoral experience and were usually head teachers or had a degree in Canon Law.

Simply “Father Daly,” he had none of these but his choice was inspired for he soon became our beloved “Pope of Derry,” as his nephew described him, until his health failed in 1994.

He was a tireless worker, motivated by a zeal for his new episcopal calling and that enthusiasm was contagious.

I can remember clearly how his new vocation and mine ran parallel -he was on fire with a love of God and his people and so was I.

In spite of the troubles the diocese was buzzing.

We had pastoral centres in every deanery and pilgrimages to local shrines.

I remember a Mass one sunny summer Sunday that filled the Brandywell.

He visited every parish in the diocese and held self-assessment conferences.

A tireless worker, he soon set the standard for the other dioceses to follow.

My parish of Holy Family was the last in a series of new parishes he formed in the expanding city and I will be eternally grateful for the trust he had in me when he sent me to the good people here in August 1900 as Administer.

The dark clouds of war however meant he had to be especially courageous, condemning injustice one the one hand and the violence it led to on the other.

He suffered much anguish during those years. He would shed real tears when a priest would want to leave the priesthood.

It also broke his heart to see so many people die, no matter who they were.

He encouraged me to visit political prisoners - the men in Wormwood Scrubs, Crumlin Road, Long Kesh and the women in Armagh Jail, especially during the hunger strikes.

He was a man of reconciliation and peace, always reaching his hand out over the sectarian divide.

He gave of himself totally and completely in the service of the Kingdom of God. “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall inherit the earth.” May God have mercy on his gentle soul.

(I will have more stories on Bishop Daly next week).

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