You don’t have to look to South or Central America for liberation theology in action. We witnessed it in Ballymurphy.
Growing up in West Belfast in the 1970s at the height of the Troubles, my family attended 8.30 am Sunday Mass in Corpus Christi church in Ballymurphy. One Sunday, a small group of nuns I hadn’t seen before appeared in the pew next to us. They were dressed in white saris with a blue trim. They started to come every week, always taking the same pew next to ours. I started to give way to the nuns as we walked to communion. The oldest would whisper a thank you and gently rub my arm in acknowledgement. Her name was Mother Teresa (now Saint Teresa of Kolkota).
The priest who had welcomed Mother Teresa to “the Murph” was Fr Des Wilson. He was an inspirational figure to many working class Belfast Catholics, who felt he had stood full square with his parishioners throughout the darkest days of conflict while the Catholic hierarchy had not. Ballymurphy, by every social indicator, was the poorest and most deprived urban area in the British isles. Poverty and anti-Catholic discrimination stretching back to the foundation of Northern Ireland one hundred years ago had been compounded by the Troubles and an overflow of refugees from other parts of the city. It was a staunchly Republican area, with hundreds of young men and women joining the IRA and hundreds more ending up in jail for IRA-related activity. Hundreds of people were killed or seriously injured by loyalists and British security forces. Like many working class nationalist areas the normal functions of the state, be it policing or social services, did not operate. It felt like we were living under siege.
As violence spiralled, the bishops – often living in big, comfortable houses in leafy suburbs – were dismissed as out of touch. There was no Oscar Romero figure who stood in solidarity with the people against the intimidation and brutality visited upon them by paramilitaries and British soldiers. To us, Fr Des seemed very different. He chose to live among the poor, moving into a council house within the Ballymurphy estate, to the dismay of his bishop. In August 1971 his friend Fr Hugh Mullan was one of 11 local citizens murdered in the Ballymurphy Massacre – he had been shot by a British soldier after going to the aid of his neighbour Bobby Clarke, who had been shot in the back. Fr Mullan, the coroner found, was “an innocent man, not armed or acting in any untoward manner”.
Mother Teresa and her nuns arrived in Ballymurphy a few weeks later. After 18 months, they were gone, “edged out”, according to Fr Des, by senior clergy. By 1975 relations with his bishop were so bad that Fr Des resigned. Forbidden to celebrate Mass in a church and his pay cut off, he said Mass in his house. (In the mid-1980s he reached a cautious rapprochement with his diocese, and was allowed to continue his ministry.) His home, now known as Springhill Community House, became a “house of hospitality” somewhat like the Catholic Worker houses set up by Dorothy Day. It was a place of refuge, learning and spirituality. Each day harassed mothers came to use the telephone – it was one of the few houses in the estate to have one – to make desperate enquiries about the non-arrival of social welfare payments or get news of a son arrested after a British Army swoop.
Living among the working class of west Belfast opened Fr Des’s eyes to the full scale of the poverty and deprivation in west Belfast. He spoke of his shock at the poor housing and the way women were treated. Inspired by the example of Worker Priests in France in the 1950s and the thinking of the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s Fr Des began to question the relationship of the Church with wealth, property and the powerful in society. Many Irish priests had friends and relatives in Africa and Latin America who were missionaries, some of whom were returning to Ireland with new ideas influenced by liberation theology. He helped found local co-ops, started a People’s Theatre and developed outreach with working class loyalist communities. By the early 1980s his Ballymurphy home became too small for the many classes he organised, and he established the Conway Education Centre in a disused mill, offering vocational and non-vocational courses.
After the introduction of internment without trial and the Ballymurphy massacre in 1971 and Bloody Sunday in January 1972 “the Murph” experienced riots, explosions, and gun battles almost daily. While the bishops joined the media in demonising Republicans, working class Catholics in urban areas queued up to join the `Ra`. In July 1972, Fr Noel Fitzpatrick, another Ballymurphy priest and friend of Fr Des, was shot dead by an Army sniper as he went to give the last rites to a young girl of thirteen – Margaret Gargan. Fr Des was fiercely critical of what he saw as church leaders’ one-sided condemnation of Republicans and the bishops’ failure to condemn the root cause of violence, including the actions of the British government and its soldiers. While some liberal Catholics in London and Dublin felt more comfortable speaking out about repression in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Fr Des believed the Church had a responsibility to stand against injustice and repression wherever it occurred, including Belfast and Derry.
He commanded the respect of many priests afraid to publicly defy the hierarchy. It was not uncommon for young men from places like Belfast, Derry, Newry, or South Armagh to enter the priesthood while one of their siblings or cousins was joining the IRA. A notable example was the McCreesh family. During the 1981 hunger strike Fr Brian McCreesh, brother of Raymond, an IRA volunteer who died after 61 days without food, declared publicly that his brother was not a criminal but a political prisoner.
Fr Des started a dialogue with loyalist paramilitaries, played a vital role as a mediator in violent inter-Republican feuds and was to help bring about the ceasefires in the 1990s. Before he died Fr. Des made his peace with the Church, and became good friends with the Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor, who joined others to preside at his funeral.
Liberation theologists like Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff and Archbishop Oscar Romero have always inspired me. As has the late American Catholic and social justice activist Dorothy Day. In a similar vein it’s high time the inspiring life and ideas of Fr. Des were introduced to a global audience so that they too may be inspired by the people’s priest like the people of west Belfast.
Kevin Rooney is a teacher and writer.
Des Wilson’s legacy has now been captured in a new booklet Des Wilson: A Voice for The Poor & Oppressed and a new documentary film, Fr. Des – The Way He Saw It (YouTube), narrated by Belfast born actor Steven Rea.
This is an amended version of an article which first appeared in the Catholic magazine The Tablet.
You don’t have to look to South or Central America for liberation theology in action. We witnessed it in Ballymurphy.
Growing up in West Belfast in the 1970s at the height of the Troubles, my family attended 8.30 am Sunday Mass in Corpus Christi church in Ballymurphy. One Sunday, a small group of nuns I hadn’t seen before appeared in the pew next to us. They were dressed in white saris with a blue trim. They started to come every week, always taking the same pew next to ours. I started to give way to the nuns as we walked to communion. The oldest would whisper a thank you and gently rub my arm in acknowledgement. Her name was Mother Teresa (now Saint Teresa of Kolkota).
The priest who had welcomed Mother Teresa to “the Murph” was Fr Des Wilson. He was an inspirational figure to many working class Belfast Catholics, who felt he had stood full square with his parishioners throughout the darkest days of conflict while the Catholic hierarchy had not. Ballymurphy, by every social indicator, was the poorest and most deprived urban area in the British isles. Poverty and anti-Catholic discrimination stretching back to the foundation of Northern Ireland one hundred years ago had been compounded by the Troubles and an overflow of refugees from other parts of the city. It was a staunchly Republican area, with hundreds of young men and women joining the IRA and hundreds more ending up in jail for IRA-related activity. Hundreds of people were killed or seriously injured by loyalists and British security forces. Like many working class nationalist areas the normal functions of the state, be it policing or social services, did not operate. It felt like we were living under siege.
As violence spiralled, the bishops – often living in big, comfortable houses in leafy suburbs – were dismissed as out of touch. There was no Oscar Romero figure who stood in solidarity with the people against the intimidation and brutality visited upon them by paramilitaries and British soldiers. To us, Fr Des seemed very different. He chose to live among the poor, moving into a council house within the Ballymurphy estate, to the dismay of his bishop. In August 1971 his friend Fr Hugh Mullan was one of 11 local citizens murdered in the Ballymurphy Massacre – he had been shot by a British soldier after going to the aid of his neighbour Bobby Clarke, who had been shot in the back. Fr Mullan, the coroner found, was “an innocent man, not armed or acting in any untoward manner”.
Mother Teresa and her nuns arrived in Ballymurphy a few weeks later. After 18 months, they were gone, “edged out”, according to Fr Des, by senior clergy. By 1975 relations with his bishop were so bad that Fr Des resigned. Forbidden to celebrate Mass in a church and his pay cut off, he said Mass in his house. (In the mid-1980s he reached a cautious rapprochement with his diocese, and was allowed to continue his ministry.) His home, now known as Springhill Community House, became a “house of hospitality” somewhat like the Catholic Worker houses set up by Dorothy Day. It was a place of refuge, learning and spirituality. Each day harassed mothers came to use the telephone – it was one of the few houses in the estate to have one – to make desperate enquiries about the non-arrival of social welfare payments or get news of a son arrested after a British Army swoop.
Living among the working class of west Belfast opened Fr Des’s eyes to the full scale of the poverty and deprivation in west Belfast. He spoke of his shock at the poor housing and the way women were treated. Inspired by the example of Worker Priests in France in the 1950s and the thinking of the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s Fr Des began to question the relationship of the Church with wealth, property and the powerful in society. Many Irish priests had friends and relatives in Africa and Latin America who were missionaries, some of whom were returning to Ireland with new ideas influenced by liberation theology. He helped found local co-ops, started a People’s Theatre and developed outreach with working class loyalist communities. By the early 1980s his Ballymurphy home became too small for the many classes he organised, and he established the Conway Education Centre in a disused mill, offering vocational and non-vocational courses.
After the introduction of internment without trial and the Ballymurphy massacre in 1971 and Bloody Sunday in January 1972 “the Murph” experienced riots, explosions, and gun battles almost daily. While the bishops joined the media in demonising Republicans, working class Catholics in urban areas queued up to join the `Ra`. In July 1972, Fr Noel Fitzpatrick, another Ballymurphy priest and friend of Fr Des, was shot dead by an Army sniper as he went to give the last rites to a young girl of thirteen – Margaret Gargan. Fr Des was fiercely critical of what he saw as church leaders’ one-sided condemnation of Republicans and the bishops’ failure to condemn the root cause of violence, including the actions of the British government and its soldiers. While some liberal Catholics in London and Dublin felt more comfortable speaking out about repression in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Fr Des believed the Church had a responsibility to stand against injustice and repression wherever it occurred, including Belfast and Derry.
He commanded the respect of many priests afraid to publicly defy the hierarchy. It was not uncommon for young men from places like Belfast, Derry, Newry, or South Armagh to enter the priesthood while one of their siblings or cousins was joining the IRA. A notable example was the McCreesh family. During the 1981 hunger strike Fr Brian McCreesh, brother of Raymond, an IRA volunteer who died after 61 days without food, declared publicly that his brother was not a criminal but a political prisoner.
Fr Des started a dialogue with loyalist paramilitaries, played a vital role as a mediator in violent inter-Republican feuds and was to help bring about the ceasefires in the 1990s. Before he died Fr. Des made his peace with the Church, and became good friends with the Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor, who joined others to preside at his funeral.
Liberation theologists like Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff and Archbishop Oscar Romero have always inspired me. As has the late American Catholic and social justice activist Dorothy Day. In a similar vein it’s high time the inspiring life and ideas of Fr. Des were introduced to a global audience so that they too may be inspired by the people’s priest like the people of west Belfast.
Kevin Rooney is a teacher and writer.
Des Wilson’s legacy has now been captured in a new booklet Des Wilson: A Voice for The Poor & Oppressed and a new documentary film, Fr. Des – The Way He Saw It (YouTube), narrated by Belfast born actor Steven Rea.
This is an amended version of an article which first appeared in the Catholic magazine The Tablet.