Fr George McLaughlin was 'a man who had time for every thing and every body'

Father George McLaughlin passed away peacefully at Carndonagh Community Hospital on Friday last, aged 93.

Mourners who gathered for his funeral on Monday afternoon at St. Pius X Church, Moville - where he served from 1987 to 2007 before retiring to Greencastle- were told that he was “the man who had time for every thing and every body”.

In his Homily, Monsignor Andrew Dolan charted Buncrana native Fr McLaughlin’s many years ministering to, and living among, the people of Creggan, Long Tower and Pennyburn in Derry, Strabane, Ormeau Road in Belfast as well as Inishowen.

Ordained back in 1956, he personified, mourners were told, what it was to be a Catholic priest at the heart of the community in Ireland, but he also ministered at the coalface of a traumatised Derry at the height of the Troubles, for which there had been no handbook.

“I realise what I say will not do him justice but I’m also conscious Fr George would not like this to be a canonisation ceremony,” Msgr. Dolan said. “He was affectionately known as ‘Wee George’ to ourselves, but whatever about the physical stature of the man, he was in many ways larger than life itself and lived life to the full for as long as he was able.”

Msgr. Dolan recalled how the young George McLaughlin made his first journey into Derry in 1944 to study at St Columb’s College, where he was a contemporary of the boy who would later become Bishop of Derry, Dr Edward Daly. The two would become firm friends in adulthood and it was Fr George who introduced the Bishop to home and away matches at the Brandywell to watch his beloved Derry City F.C.

An extremely capable student, he was called to the College of Surgeons in Dublin but choose instead to follow his calling to the priesthood.

When the then new Creggan parish’s St Mary’s Church opened he was transferred there with Fr Joe Carlin and Fr Martin Mooney, in a tenure that was to last 18 years until 1978.

"Fr George got to know the area,” Msgr. Dolan said. “He got to know his parishioners because he walked the streets, knocked on doors, visited people, blessed their new homes and so on, typical of priests in the city at that time. In all of that a strong bond was established between priest and people, and in subsequent years that was so essential especially with the outbreak of the Troubles for when homes were being searched, arrests made and people were being interned, people turned to their priests and never found them wanting. People knew that Fr George and others were definitely in their corner.”

Fr. George was at one point during the Troubles arrested and spent two days at Ebrington barracks. He also came under a hail of gunfire himself as he carried the dead body of a young man shot dead by the British army, the priest told those gathered. “No preparation; no training for the priesthood could ever prepare a man for that type of mission. It wasn’t in the books then,” Msgr. Dolan said, adding:

"There was one memory imprinted in the minds of many of us of a certain vintage – Fr. George receiving the 13 bodies at St Mary’s Church in Creggan the night before they were buried. They were the victims of Bloody Sunday, including some of his parishioners.”

Whether it was there on Bloody Sunday, or when people under siege during the Troubles, or when the BSR closed and people were told their jobs were gone, Fr George stood with the people, and the people never forget. Indeed many of the young couples he married at St Mary’s stayed in touch with him throughout the decades.

In sentiments echoed towards the end of the Requiem Mass by Bishop Donal McKeown, Msgr. Dolan spoke of how it was important to record what priests in Derry and elsewhere were dealing with during those dark days of the Troubles, as it often went unsaid.

The Mass was concelebrated with Bishop Donal McKeown and parish priest Fr Eddie Gallagher, with dozens of brethern clergy in attendance.

Bishop McKeown told those gathered that as a young priest Fr George administered to a community ‘blessed with culture and hope’, but also one which was blighted by unemployment and poverty.

“Times were changing, and he changed with them. The awful years of the Troubles then saw parishes pulled in different directions, ministering Christ to the suffering but trying to build a sustainable future.

"For young priests coming out of the seminary at that stage, ill prepared as Fr Andrew said, for what was happening in the north, Fr George and others provided a formative environment where you could learn to administer grace amidst endless strife and sad news. Together they had to stumble through terrible events, trusting in the God who was hidden but active in the mess, in the fog of Conflict.”

Following the Requiem mass, burial took place in the cemetery at Ballybrack.

Fr McLaughlin was the son of the late Winifred and John McLaughlin and was predeceased by his brothers, Charlie, Edward, William, John, Paddy and Neil. His passing is deeply regretted by his brother Andy, nieces, nephews, grand nieces, grandnephews, Bishop Donal McKeown and the priests of the Derry diocese.

Speaking to the Journal back in 2016 as he marked 60 years in the priesthood, he recalled: “My first parish was the Holy Rosary on the Ormeau Road in Belfast and I was there for a year.”

Father George then moved back to the Derry Diocese to serve in Strabane before being transferred to the Long Tower “where I stayed until the following May, the day St. Mary’s Church in Creggan was opened”.

“On May 31, I received a message from the Bishop that I was to go to Creggan. I was the first priest in St. Mary’s alongside Father Rooney. I stayed there for 20 years.”

Fr George McLaughlin served as CC in St Mary’s Church from its opening 1959 to 1974, and as administrator of the parish from 1974 to 1978.

His two decades in Creggan saw him live through and witness the worst of the ‘Troubles.’

“Creggan was lovely at the beginning,” he recalled in his interview with the Journal back in 2016.

“Families were young and people were enthusiastic, we were getting new schools, a new hall, the new church and everyone was enjoying it. That was until the second half of the ‘60s when things began to go wrong and it was tough enough for a number of years.

“As the local priest I would have been called to all sorts of places at all sorts of hours, it was what you were there for and if you could help, you wanted to."

Recalling the events of Bloody Sunday, he added: “There were some terribly sad times including ‘Bloody Sunday’ and the funerals of the victims in Creggan.

“I can still remember the sight of the coffins in the church. The families were devastated. It was very sad. It took the whole place a long, long time to recover, if it ever really recovered.

“It’s all part of history but the memories of ‘Bloody Sunday’ and the funerals will never leave me. That day I marched from Creggan to Rossville Street and we had gathered around the new flats. The first shot that was fired struck a young fellow from Creggan Heights who stood very close to me. The second shot hit an old man named Johnson, who was standing a wee bit further away, he died one month later.

“We attended the inquiries and gave evidence but we were not listened to at all. Years later I gave evidence to the Saville Inquiry. I wasn’t in Derry when the Report was published but the news was good. It had taken years and I never thought the truth would come because everything used to be covered over.”

In 1978 Father George was moved to the parish of St. Patrick’s in Pennyburn, and nine years later moved to Moville Parish.

“It was lovely in Inishowen, a lovely situation by the river and there are such friendly people.”

Speaking back in 2016, Fr McLaughlin said the tragedy of the ‘Carrickatine’ was an episode in the peninsula’s history that will never leave him.

Later the same year following the death of his friend and fellow former St Columb’s College pupil Bishop Edward Daly, Fr George McLaughlin told the ‘Journal’: “I have known Bishop Daly for 70 years since we were both students at St Columb’s College.

“We always remained very close together over all those years. The ‘Troubles’ brought us even closer. We faced a lot of difficulties and problems together.

https://www.derryjournal.com/news/bishop-edward-daly-i-feel-very-lonely-today-fr-george-mclaughlin-770231

“We then became priests and after ordination I was one of the first priests in Creggan whilst he was in Castlederg.

“He was a great man with tremendous courage and he was a great priest. He committed his life to serving his Lord and master. He was a man of absolute faith.

“When he was a curate in the Cathedral and I was in Creggan I introduced him to the Saturday matches at the Brandywell. We rarely missed a match.

“We travelled as far as Dublin and even to Glasgow for matches. Football always kept us in touch with each other. And, whether they won or lost we always went back.

“He was great company and a happy man and had a great way of looking at things. He always received people very graciously-he had a great approach to people and I admired that very much about him.”