[Deathwatch] Cahal Daly, Cardinal, 92

[Notification of departing celebrities]

January 2, 2010


  Cardinal Cahal Daly Dies at 92; Led Irish Church

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DUBLIN (AP) --- Cardinal Cahal Daly, a philosopher who led the Roman 
Catholic Church 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/roman_catholic_church/index.html?inline=nyt-org> 
in Ireland 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/ireland/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> 
during some of the country's worst years of sectarian violence, died on 
Thursday 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/01/cardinal-cahal-daly-obituary> 
in Belfast. He was 92.

The church announced his death.

Cardinal Daly, a native of County Antrim, was best known as a trenchant 
critic of the Irish Republican Army 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/irish_republican_army/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, 
the illegal paramilitary group rooted in Catholic areas that long sought 
to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom.

He also worked to improved relations and cooperation with the 
Protestants of Northern Ireland.

The former British prime minister Tony Blair 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/tony_blair/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
who helped to negotiate Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace accord of 
1998, said Cardinal Daly "made a significant contribution to delivering 
peace as he worked to break down barriers between communities."

"His life is a real and lasting example of effective religious 
leadership working to build peace and resolve conflict in the most 
challenging of circumstances," Mr. Blair said.


As a bishop, he was widely credited with writing the speech delivered by 
Pope John Paul II 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/j/_john_paul_ii/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 
during his visit to Ireland in 1979, when he appealed to the I.R.A. to 
end its campaign. The underground army called a cease-fire in 1994, 
which it broke in 1996 but restored for good a year later.

He served from 1982 to 1990 as the bishop of Down and Connor, which 
includes Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. He frequently used 
that pulpit to denounce the killings and policies of the group and its 
allied political party, Sinn Fein 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/sinn_fein/index.html?inline=nyt-org>.

"It's plainly contradictory for the I.R.A. to be committed to violence 
as a way forward, and for Sinn Fein simultaneously to claim they are 
committed to the peace process," Cardinal Daly said in 1996. "And it 
would be insane to plunge this country again into the madness and agony 
of the last 25 years from which we so recently escaped."

In 1990 he was appointed archbishop of Armagh, the ecclesiastical 
capital of Ireland, to serve as the church's leader in both parts of 
Ireland. He was elevated to cardinal in 1991 and retired in 1996, but 
continued to write prolifically about ethics, ecumenism and the threat 
of climate change 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>.

Archbishop Sean Brady, who took over in Armagh, said Cardinal Daly was 
admitted to Belfast's City Hospital four days before he died, surrounded 
by family and friends.

Prime Minister Brian Cowen 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/brian_cowen/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 
of Ireland praised Cardinal Daly as "a man of great intellect and 
humanity" who "gave strong backing to the emerging peace process in 
Northern Ireland and determinedly used his influence in every way he 
could to bring about a peaceful solution."

Stafford Carson, the Presbyterian leader in Northern Ireland, said the 
cardinal improved cooperation between the British Protestant and Irish 
Catholic sides of society. He said Cardinal Daly displayed rare 
sensitivity to Protestant fears and "a deep understanding of the 
essential part that Presbyterians have played in the history of our 
community."


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