IN 1979 Diarmuid Peicin, a Jesuit priest just retired from missionary work abroad, set himself a task for his retirement - to learn the Irish language. Like many of his generation he had the cupla focal but he wanted more. A refresher course in Dublin, a couple of months on the Aran Islands, and June 1980 found him touring Donegal. Alighting from his car at Bloody Foreland he had his first glimpse of Tory Island and without a second thought he found a boat to take him there.
Like a spider working on a fly, the local curate lured him into his abode and with indecent haste propositioned him: would he like to be the curate on Tory? Then go and see the bishop. Thus was Peicin caught in a web of establishment intrigue, deceit and hostile bureaucracy, but also in the unravelling weave of a community under attack
The people of Tory were neglected by the state agencies that should have been supporting them, and were demoralised to the point of disintegration. Within a few days the new priest discovered that Donegal County Council had immediate plans to evacuate Tory. The bureaucrats saw it not as a bastion of culture and lanuage, but as a rock in the Atlantic suitable only as a firing range, for quarantine purposes or as a high-security prison, its people inconvenient pawns to be tidied on to the mainland. The horrified curate engaged in battle.
There is a temptation to blame a demoralised people themselves for their situation; but in Islanders, Diarmuid Peicin saw the plight of the people of Tory in a larger context. Abandoned by the agencies (County Council, Roinn na Gaeltachta and Udaras na Gaeltachta) that should have treated them equally with the mainland, the community found neglect becoming self-generating. Politicians gave their stock answer: they "would do their best but things were difficult"; when the church chose not to speak for the islanders, there was nobody left.
The mentality behind this official neglect and later intransigence against island demands is explained by Peicin by referring to the dichotomy between state and community, between bureaucracies set up to perform public functions and the public whom they have come to regard as the enemy. This mentality left Tory (and indeed other islands around the coast) with disintegrating roads and houses, no water or sewerage system and a decrepit generator that gave only one hour of electricity each day.
He set out to improve the community's self-confidence and self-esteem; within a month they were at work mending the road. Then he encouraged them to form a drama society and to write their own play. This was an outstanding success and won first prize at the Gaelic Drama Festival in 1981. A visit with singers and dancers to Conradh na Gaeilge's Oireachtas in Dublin, and a successful week- long festival on Tory that summer, gave the lie to the calumny rife on the mainland that the people of Tory were strange and superstitious and didn't like visitors.
Their battle with bureaucracy is a litany of intransigence, obstruction, defamation and hostility, but basic services were won. One can only guess at Diarmuid Peicin's relationship with his parish priest on the mainland, over which he draws a diplomatic veil; crusaders are not easy people. Finally he was sacked but his four years of campaigning at home and abroad had helped the community to assert itself and had shamed the agencies.
Tory now has a £1 million luxury hotel and £4 million has been allocated for a new harbour; the long-sought-after airstrip will undoubtedly follow. The island lost its champion and one-quarter of its population to the County Council's resettlement plan, but the war was won. Father Peicin retired to the Jesuit House at Milltown where he founded the Island Trust which continues to work for the improvement of life on all the islands.
