Fr Daniel Dargan:Fr Daniel Dargan, who has died aged 92, was central director of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association when 115,000 people gathered at Croke Park in 1959 to celebrate the association's diamond jubilee.
It is believed to be the largest crowd to have ever gathered in the stadium.
The Pioneers was founded by Fr James Cullen SJ in 1898, and Fr Dargan first became involved with the association in the 1940s. As assistant director in 1946, when Alcoholics Anonymous came to Ireland, he welcomed it with open arms and offered a platform to AA at Pioneer gatherings.
The Pioneers was primarily conceived as a prayer and prevention movement whose members, even if not personally affected by addiction, were willing to give a penitential expression to their concern for those who were. The association today has 400,000 members in Africa and South America.
In Ireland eight per cent of the population are Pioneers; a further 17 per cent abstain for other reasons.
Fr Dargan's successor as central director of the association, Fr Bernard McGuckian SJ, this week said of him: "He had not a fanatical bone in his body. He understood the Pioneer association as an expression of devotion to the Sacred Heart. It would never have entered his head that there was anything evil about wine. But he did realise that if not used wisely and well it can lead to endless heartbreak and sorrow."
Born at St Stephen's Green, Dublin, in 1915, Daniel Dargan was the son of Dr William Dargan and his Irish-Argentinian wife Teresa (née Ronayne). There were eight children in the family.
He was educated by the Christian Brothers, Patrick's Hill, Cork; the Patrician Brothers, the Academy, Mallow; and by the Jesuit Fathers at Clongowes Wood College.
A sports enthusiast, he held the Clongowes record for the largest score ever run up at cricket, played schools tennis at inter-provincial level, and made the senior cup rugby team.
He entered the Society of Jesus at Emo, Co Laois, in 1933, taking his first vows in 1935. Ordained at Milltown Park, Dublin, in 1946, he took his final vows in 1951.
Attached to St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street, Dublin, in 1948 he became assistant director of the Pioneers and the first editor of Pioneer magazine. He served as director of the Pioneers from 1957 to 1977, editing the Pioneer until 1980. He was director of the St Francis Xavier social service centre for three years until 1983.
Having served for eight years as parish priest at St Ignatius's, Galway, he was appointed to the Sacred Heart Church, the Crescent, Limerick.
Following heart surgery in 2002, he was admitted to Cherryfield Nursing Home, Dublin. After making a good recovery, he visited Limerick several times a year.
A great-grandnephew of William Dargan, the celebrated railway engineer and benefactor of the National Gallery, in 2004 he performed the opening ceremony of the Luas bridge at Taney Junction. Another great-granduncle, Daniel Murray, was Archbishop of Dublin.
Summing up his life on his 90th birthday, he told the Jesuit publication Interfuse: "Well, I will say my life in the Jesuit society has been very happy. If I began all over again, I'd enter the society. People have been good to me. I've had good friends."
Two of his brothers, William and Herbert, who predeceased him, also were ordained members of the Society of Jesus. He is survived by his sister-in-law Breda, nieces, Jesuit community and friends.
Rev Daniel Dargan SJ: born January 24th, 1915; died September 21st, 2007