Cahal Daly

Who was Cahal Daly?

Cahal Brendan Daly was an Irish philosopher, theologian, writer and international speaker and, in later years, a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

Daly served as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland from 1990 to 1996, the most elderly man to take up this role for nearly 200 years. He was then elevated to the cardinalate in 1991. He was the country's highest ranking Cardinal by the end of his life. His death in 2009 brought to an end a two-year period during which Ireland had three Cardinals for the first time in its history.

Prior to this Daly was based for three decades in Longford as Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise. He served for much of the 1980s as Bishop of Down and Connor at which time he was based in Belfast during The Troubles.

Considered "the hierarchy's foremost theologian", he strongly criticised the Irish Republican Army throughout his reign. Daly had many published works, as recently as 2004, and was known for his views on philosophy, theology and on the Northern Ireland situation, attracting global acclaim for writing the speech which Pope John Paul II used on his 1979 visit to Drogheda to ask for an end to violence on the island.