PERSONAL FAREWELLS:"I JUST wanted to see him," one mourner said having spent a short time at the open coffin of her former archbishop.
Sitting alone in a pew near the high altar in St Patrick’s, her tone was more of contentment than sadness – something that appeared common among the many in the impressive cathedral.
“It was important for me to do that. I thought he was a great man.”
Hundreds of others filed to pass the casket bearing the remains of Cahal Daly. Some touched his cheek, others his bishop’s vestments, while others again prayed silently in the few seconds they had before being ushered onwards.
Two nuns, both Sisters of Mercy, said they too had wanted to bid personal farewells to the former primate.
One smiled and said simply she was there “to pray”. Another said she wanted to “be there”.
Entire families joined the winding queue of mourners. Some parents held up young puzzled-looking children to see the man who had served in Armagh before his retirement 1996.
“It’s right that we come out on nights like this,” said one father, suggesting that Armagh people had duties above those in other parts of Ireland at such times.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” offered one elderly lady. “You give thanks for people like him.”
Many said there was something special about a deceased cardinal returning to Armagh and the mood was decidedly different to that at St Peter’s Cathedral in Belfast earlier yesterday afternoon.
Mourners stood in the porches of their homes near the entrance of the restored cathedral in the lower Falls area as bells tolled and the cortege slowly moved off, escorted by bishops and priests on Dr Daly’s final journey from Down and Connor to his resting place in Armagh.
The hearse made its way slowly along the Falls Road and the few who had braved the cold but still afternoon stood in reverence as the coffin passed.
Many more lined the narrow streets to Armagh’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in sub-zero temperatures an hour later.
They filed in behind the hearse as it entered the gates and up the steep hill, giving the occasion the air of a substantial local funeral rather than a grander affair fit for a cardinal.
One mourner said of Dr Daly: “He was a man of peace, and maybe we wouldn’t have peace nowadays only for him.”
It was a tone echoed by the main concelebrant, Dr Gerard Clifford, who recalled the words of the appeal for peace issued by Pope John Paul at Drogheda in 1979, which were allegedly written by Dr Daly.
“It took some years, too many years, before people began to listen,” he said.