Madam, – In recent days, much has been written and said about the Christian life of the late Cardinal Cahal Daly: his courage, his ecumenism, his scholarship and his understanding of the Protestant people of Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, there has been scant mention of his very lovely sense of humour.
Back in the 1980s, he very generously invited me to address a meeting at one of his annual ecumenical weeks after worship in St Mel’s Cathedral, Longford.
While scanning the penultimate draft of preparation in breaks of work between attending out- patients at a clinic, the telephone rang: “Who’s speaking?” “Bishop Daly’s secretary here”.
“Oh,” said I naively, “Please let the bishop know that I’m ever so sorry not yet to have responded to his most recent letter. I’m really looking forward to my visit to Longford next Wednesday evening.”
“Well, I’m sorry, doctor,”, said the bishop’s secretary, “You’ll not be giving any talk at St Mel’s next Wednesday! The talk was scheduled for last night”.
Living with a philosophy of “face it, don’t funk it”, I hesitatingly appealed to the secretary to ask Bishop Daly to come to the telephone. In reply to his immediate response, I stuttered something about my great regret for what had happened. The response was some measure of that great person, bishop, later Cardinal Cahal Daly, “Doctor, doctor, don’t worry, it could have happened to the bishop.” Even that wasn’t the end of the matter; realising my regret and disappointment, come the following year, his generous invitation was repeated. What a great pastor of his people and, indeed a person for all the people. – Yours, etc,