WelCom May 2023
The leader of the Irish Church has said more must be done on reconciliation in Northern Ireland and Church leaders must bring people together. In an interview with The Irish Times, the Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin spoke about growing up in Derry during the Troubles and the challenges for the Catholic Church around Republican funerals. Priests, he said, were caught in the middle. In Spring 1987, all republican funerals were banned from St Eugene’s Cathedral in the city by the Bishop of Derry, Edward Daly. However, talks between the bishop and Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness resulted in a compromise. Archbishop Martin also recalled that Martin McGuinness was a regular at a Mass in Irish at Derry’s Nazareth House, which he said as a diocesan priest.