THE death has occurred in Dublin of the priest and filmmaker, Father Joe Dunn. He was 66.
Father Dunn was best known as the co-founder and longest serving director of Radharc, the documentary film series. He was highly regarded in Ireland and abroad for his hands on, multi skilled approach to film making.
Radharc, which is RTE's longest running series, has made almost 450 films in 75 countries on religious and humanitarian topics. It arose out of a decision in 1959 by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid to send Father Dunn and Father Des Forristal to New York to study TV technology. The first Radharc film was shown on Telefis Eireann during the station's first week of broadcasting in 1962.
In 1969 Father Dunn became director of the Catholic Communications Institute. He oversaw the founding of Veritas Publications and Intercom magazine and was involved in the setting up of the Catholic Press Office, Trocaire and the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace. He returned to Radharc in the late 1970s.
Many of his films received international acclaim, including the last interview with Archbishop Romero of San Salvador before his murder and an award winning documentary on refugees in Cambodia.
Father Dunn, who was strongly influenced by Vatican Two and the radical Catholic Church in Latin America, wrote a number of outspoken books about the church. The most controversial was probably his 1994 book No Lions in the Hierarchy, in which he criticised the "authoritarian" rule of Pope John Paul II and revealed how Irish priests' wishes were overruled and consultation was simulated in the appointment of several archbishops.
"He had the honesty and integrity of a great journalist. He would go through fire and water to get a story. When he had investigated things thoroughly and made a judgment about an issue, he was absolutely candid and courageous in saying what he thought", said his friend, Father Tom Stack.
Father Stack said that Father Dunn had been "traditional and pious" in his religious life, "always anxious to say Mass, whether it was in a Moscow hotel bedroom or in a rundown Haitian boarding house".
RTE's assistant director general, Mr Bob Collins, paid tribute to the "amazing breadth" of Father Dunn's programmes, which he said had "played an extremely important role by giving a world dimension to something that was very important in the lives of the people who watched them". He called Father Dunn "a truly independent producer with a truly independent mind operating in an area in which it is not always easy to be independent".