During his term of Bishop between 1974, Bishop Daly was a regular visitor to the parishes in Tyrone which are in the Derry Diocese. His first appointment was as a curate in Castlederg in 1957, where he spent five years before being appointed as a curate in St Eugene’s Cathedral in Derry.
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Dr Daly had served in the city since 1962. “Our memory will be of a man of many more images not just one”.
“For the people of Derry though, Bishop Daly was iconic for so much more”. However, he said that prior to working in the hospice what had frightened him was “the mechanics of dying – not so death itself – but getting there”. “I hope we in some way bring comfort when people are coming towards the end”.
“He was a key advocate for peace in Northern Ireland over a period of decades”.
The clergyman was awarded the freedom of the city past year alongside his Church of Ireland counterpart and hailed the rich “tapestry of cultures” which made up his adopted home.
Known for reaching out to the Protestant community and working for peace in Ireland, he also campaigned for those who suffered miscarriages of justice.
His friendship with “Bishop Jim” was most valuable in the aftermath of an atrocity when they would together visit the bereaved. They were able to talk to one another when either of them was having a hard time within their own community.
“I think that in terms of the immediate impact of Bloody Sunday, especially in the early stages where there was a lot of spin about what had happened, Eddie Daly was adamant and clearly insistent about what had happened”. One of the wounded later died.
One of his “great heroes” was Derry native John Hume, without whom he was convinced peace wouldn’t have come to Northern Ireland, as it was Hume’s ideas that were adopted.
He joined the march as it passed the cathedral en route to the city centre.
“Bishop Daly served, without any concern for himself, throughout the traumatic years of the Troubles, finding his ministry shaped by the experience of witnessing violence and its effects; through this awful period he always strove to preach the Gospel of the peace of Christ”.
In 2011, he made headlines by calling for an end to celibacy in the church.
In the book he argued, “There is certainly an important and enduring place for celibate priesthood”.
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“He was credible. He was quite a conservative man and not a radical priest”.
