The well-known Jesuit, sociologist, and social justice activist Micheál Mac Gréil was laid to rest on Thursday afternoon in Aughavale Cemetery.
Large crowds attended the earlier Requiem Mass in St Mary’s Church, Westport. One of Fr Mac Gréil’s brothers, Fr Owen Mac Gréil was the main celebrant.
Dr Michael Neary, former Archbishop of Tuam, a colleague of Fr Mac Gréil at Maynooth College, delivered the sermon. Journalist and publisher Liamy McNally gave a eulogy.
In his sermon, Dr Neary recalled Fr Mac Gréil’s life as a university lecturer, trade unionist, campaigner for various causes including the revival of the Irish language, the rights of minorities, promotion of the Irish language and the reopening of closed railway lines.
Markets in Vienna or Christmas at The Shelbourne? 10 holiday escapes over the festive season
Ciara Mageean: ‘I just felt numb. It wasn’t even sadness, it was just emptiness’
Stealth sackings: why do employers fire staff for minor misdemeanours?
Carl and Gerty Cori: a Nobel Prizewinning husband and wife team
“But he was always primarily a priest,” Dr Neary noted.
Dr Neary went on to describe his late friend’s life as “radical yet profoundly traditional”.
It was radical, he maintained, in the true sense of the word, a life of forging back to the roots of where we came from, back to St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Patrick and Jesus Christ.
Delivering the funeral eulogy, Liamy McNally described his late friend as “a colossus in mind, body and spirit”.
He continued: “Regardless of opposition, church or state, justice was his mission. He was central to the legal case seeking the decriminalisation of homosexuality.”
“Fr Micheál was ahead of his time”, he remarked.
Mr McNally went on to describe his late friend as a great ecumenist and supporter of women in the church, always wanting women to have more responsibility rather than ‘little jobeens’.
He also encouraged priests who afterwards married to “Offer your services. They need you all”.
Éamon Ó Cuív TD delivered the first reading while the second reading was given by Geraldine Delaney, a former student at Maynooth College.
The final prayers were recited by the present Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Francis Duffy.
President Michael D Higgins was represented at the funeral by aide de camp Col Stephen Howard.
Fr MacGréil, who died on Saturday last at Mayo University Hospital, aged 92, was laid to rest in Aughavale Cemetery.