Eddie Finnegan First Anniversary 27th September 2025
(The anniversary Mass is in St Joseph’s Redemptorist Church, Dundalk today.)
His wife Leila flew into Belfast airport and was collected by Peter (Eddie’s brother) for this Mass and the gathering of the family. The Community of the ACP website will be part of their chat.
Eddie was a regular writer on the ACP website. He was sharp. He was clear. He was knowledgeable. He had the history. He knew the church characters. He was forensic on every issue. I saw him as one of the best writers for the site – if not the best! (I’m not forgetting you Brendan – but you write elsewhere and share your writings with the Site).
Eddie went missing. He disappeared from our Site. No one seemed to know where he had gone. I asked everyone that might have some information. I got none. When I was in the Algarve during the early days of June, I was determined to find out something. I couldn’t get much information but I kept working on it. Eventually, I tried the local undertaker of his home place. That led me to Peter (Eddie’s brother). Peter wrote an article then for the Site.
We miss Eddie. He was very provocative but brilliant. His linguistic skills were acerbic. His historical awareness of church matters and church people, gave such authenticity to his writing. Where are the replacements? It is only the usual suspects who keep writing these days. And then Liamy, brings on other pieces to stimulate and inform us. Have the priests lost their voices? We are supposedly Ministers of the Word!
Seamus Ahearne osa.
“When a learned man dies, what a great deal of learning dies with him!” John Aubrey. Apt in this case, I think, and on top of learning, in Eddie`s case, wit and humour.