Father Desmond Forristal R.I.P.

HOMILY – FUNERAL MASS
Church of the Assumption Dalkey September 13th 2012

The last twelve years have been a long Calvary road for Des Forristal. First he was looked after with gentleness and compassion by the sisters and staff of Our Lady’s Manor here in Dalkey. Then in December 2001 he went to St Joseph’s John of God Centre in Crinken, Shankill, where the care and love residents receive has to be seen to be believed. The charism of St John of God is very much alive there.

It was upsetting to visit Des in this last decade and to witness a brilliant mind fade into oblivion.
At first flashes of clarity would appear and then …nothing. His devoted housekeeper of 24 years, Phyllis Totterdell visited him daily to the very end, thanks to a small team of people loyal to both her and Des who drove her out and back, every day. Ón behalf of all of us, Phyllis, thank you!

As I sat there beside his chair or his bed, the only thought in my mind was summed up in Pádraig Daly’s lovely lines –
‘How can the blank that keeps your features link
with the glory that was you?’.

The glory that was you – indeed!
Des Forristal was unique. Priesthood can be exercised in many ways. Most commonly as pastors,  caring for their parish communities. But others are contemplatives, scholars, writers, teachers, administrators, broadcasters or musicians.  Des combined every one of those forms of ministry in his 45 years of active life as a priest.

The list of his parochial appointments is simple enough – ordained in 1955, chaplaincies or curacies in Palmerstown, Halston St., Bray – where he made many friends who remained so to the end, Iona Road and then parish priest in Dalkey from 1985. But meanwhile he had a parallel life in the arts – literature, film-making and theatre, reviewing television and films for The Furrow, writing plays which were staged in both the Gate and the Abbey, some translated into other languages and produced abroad, and writing a long list of books on a broad range of topics.

In September 1959 Archbishop McQuaid sent him and his school classmate in Belvedere Fr Joe Dunn to New York to learn something about the new broadcast medium, television, that was due to begin in Ireland soon. When they returned they gathered a few like minded priests with creative talent around them and began to produce short documentary films. When these were shown to Michael Barry who was to become the Controller of the new TV service, he immediately  commissioned them for broadcast and the first Radharc programme was aired 12 days after Teilifís Éireann opened fifty years ago this year.

Des was curate in Halston Street at the time and it was at a meeting in his sitting-room that the name Radharc was first thought of and agreed. As script-writer of the early Radharcs, Des brought his sensitive writing skills to those programmes. He had been a member of the St Vincent de Paul Society in the north inner city during his school days and it was there and again in his Halston St surroundings that he encountered some of the poorest and most deprived people in Dublin. They made a lasting and deep impression on him.

Here is a paragraph from his script for one of the first Radharc programmes Down and Out in Dublin -

          ‘Poverty takes many forms and exists in many degrees. Modern society has banished poverty to this extent , that no-one need die of hunger in Dublin today. Even the most destitute knows that he will get enough food to keep alive and that is something for those that have nothing else. And there are those that have nothing else -no home, no work, no income, no prospects of any kind. The clothes they wear have been cast off by others. They are unemployed and unemployable. They are studied by sociologists, watched by police, surveyed by statisticians. They’re condemned by the righteous, and given alms by the soft-hearted. They are called by many names – tramps, hoboes, vagabonds, beggars, down-and-outs. They exist rather than live, sheltered by state and religious institutions, fed by charitable organisations, avoided by their fellow citizens, moved along by the authorities, jeered at by children in the street. They lead the most public and the most private of lives. Everyone knows them to see but scarcely anyone knows them to talk to or understands just how or why they have drifted into their present hopelessness.’

I think you’ll agree – beautiful writing and great compassion.

He was a consummate word-smith. Mind you, that could be infuriating if you played Scrabble with him. ‘Hey, that’s not a word!’ I’d exclaim. ‘Well look it up!’ And of course it would always be there – a rare kind of fish in the South Atlantic, or a medieval English word for a robber or something equally obscure.

I know it’s an over-used term, but in his wide reading, his mastery of languages, his knowledge of music, his familiarity with both Old and New Testaments and his ability to play the piano well, he was indeed a Rennaissance man.

One day after flying halfway round the world we arrived in Kota Kinabalu in Borneo, tired and hot after a few long flights. We had a couple of hours to spare so we found a beach and went swimming. Our colleague Billy Fitzgerald was having difficulty with the rhythm of a breast-stroke.
Des stood up in exasperation and said ‘Billy, for heaven’s sake, when you’re doing that stroke think of Wagner and the Pilgrim’s Chorus in Tannhauser!’ He la-la-ed the melody, waving his two arms in the air performing the breast stroke in sync with the tune!

An unforgettable mental picture – Des up to his waist in the South China Sea demonstrating a swimming lesson through Wagner!

I was fortunate to spend many years working with Des in Radharc, producing programmes both here in Ireland and in countries around the world. He was a pleasure to be with – although often he could be a bit distant when his mind was somewhere else while writing one of his books or plays.

I once went into his office next door to mine to find him sitting at his typewriter but gazing into space.
‘Penny for them, Des?’
‘Ah I was just wondering how they hang curtains in heaven. I’m writing a few lines for God’!

Christopher Casson later played God in the finished play.!

On these filming trips, he never forgot the reason we were there…to find different ways of living the Gospel and to bring to an Irish audience various expressions of the Gospel of Christ being put into practice by our missionaries throughout the world ..or by communities here at home. Nearly every Irish family had an uncle or aunt or cousin working as a missionary somewhere  and Radharc programmes brought their lives and stories to life on a TV set back home. Sometimes it brought us to dangerous places, to war zones, to police states or to famine locations.

One of these trips, to Biafra, in 1968, making the programme Night Flight to Uli resulted in a play in 1974 titled Black Man’s Country. But his play-writing career had begun two years earlier, in 1972, with  The True Story of the Horrid Popish Plot, a play about King Charles 11′s dilemma concerning the Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett. The script was sent to Hilton Edwards of the Gate Theatre. Edwards liked the play and invited the playwright  ‘Desmond Forristal’ to join him and Micheál MacLiammóir for tea one evening at their home in Harcourt Terrace.

At the very time their visitor was due, MacLiammóir looked out the window and exclaimed ‘Good God , there’s a priest coming in the gate!’ ‘It’s all right, Michael, leave it to me, I’ll get rid of him!’ said Hilton. Despite his considerable acting experience, there was no hiding Hilton’s shock and confusion when Des announced himself. That began a friendship and mutual respect that was to last for decades.

His books cover a wide range of topics – all of them associated in some way with matters of faith or spirituality. His lives of saints like Oliver Plunkett or Maximilian Kolbe, or significant saintly people like Edel Quinn or Bishop Shanahan, bring these people alive and reveal them to succeeding generations of readers. His book ‘Saltair’ written in collaboration with Fr Pádraig Ó Fiannachta contains contemporary translations of old Irish traditional prayers. There are twenty titles at least in his published works, including six plays.

When we needed something at the Pro-Cathedral in 1988 to mark Dublin’s Millennium it was to Des we turned and he wrote the play The Crozier and the Crown  about the turbulent times in the Dublin of St Laurence O’Toole and King Henry ll. With a wonderful cast and directed by Michael Scott, it packed the Pro for ten days.

I think it was when he came here to Dalkey in 1985 that Des really came into one of the happiest periods of his life. He loved Dalkey and Dalkey loved him. The parishioners here came to appreciate the sense of spirituality that radiated from him. He had a calm quiet presence that touched everyone in this church. Not many knew that he had the Blessed Sacrament in an upstairs room in his house and he began every day by bringing up a mug of coffee and spending time there in prayer and reading. It was this that enabled him to maintain his contemplative presence in the heart of a busy parish – it was the essence of his being.

His beloved colleague, Fr Bill Fortune, and he, formed an effective double act here in Dalkey – combining their different personalities and talents to bring a vibrancy and energy to the parish.
I think people respected Des’ openness to all forms of expression about the Church – he wanted to let people with all shades of opinion about Catholicism have their voices.  One day he met Maeve Binchy on the street. ‘Desmond’ said Maeve ‘even though I’m a collapsed Catholic, can I be buried from Dalkey church?’ Quick as a flash, Des replied ‘Maeve, living or dead, you’ll always be welcome in Dalkey church!’

A German mystic, Mechtilde of Magdeburg, once wrote

I still have a great fear
as to the way my soul will
pass from my body.
Then the Lord said to me:
‘It shall be thus:
I will draw my breath
your soul shall come to me
as a needle to a magnet.’

I’m sure Des’ great soul has indeed flown to God like a needle to a magnet.

I referred earlier to the Pilgrim’s Chorus in Tannhauser. This was one of Des Forristal’s favourite pieces of music – not only for the power of the music but also for the words the choir sings. In fact it was in order to become more familiar with Wagner’s works that he learned and became fluent in German. This is a translation. It’s the prayer of the pilgrims arriving back in their homeland after a long pilgrimage to Rome on foot. .

Once more with joy, O my home I may meet,
Once more ye fair flow’ry meadows I greet.
My pilgrim’s staff henceforth may rest
Since heaven’s sweet peace is within my breast.

The sinners ‘plaint on high was heard,
Yes, heard and answered by the Lord.
The tears I laid before his shrine
Are turned to hope and joy divine.

O Lord, eternal praise be Thine

The blessed source of Thy mercy o’erflowing
Our souls repentent seek ye all-knowing.
Of hell and death I have no fear
My gracious Lord is ever near.

Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Eternity is evermore here!

Now, dear Des, you can lay down your pilgrim staff as you arrive in your homeland.
Your gracious Lord is ever near!  May heaven’s sweet peace be within your breast!

Let’s hear that great chorus now and picture him among the pilgrims!

Dermod McCarthy
Radharc producer 1965-1982
Editor Religious Programmes RTÉ 1991-2009

The Parish Pastoral Council thanks Fr McCarthy for his permission to reproduce the above.