In the mid-1980s I was working with the chaplaincy team, which served the universities in West Berlin.
I wrote a letter to the Irish daily newspapers welcoming Irish visitors to call on the chaplaincy centre, which was off Kurfürstendamm.
Soon after the appearance of the letter I met Harris. He responded to the letter and commented that he saw it as a cry of lonliness on my part.
Back in the 1970s when teaching in Newbridge College, walking across the quad, he greeted a student, saying simply, "Skelly". Like a shot, "Skelly" quickly replied, "Harris".
And Harris would like that.
Gerard Skelly later joined the Dominicans, was ordained a priest, left the provine and tragically died at a young age.
Many fellow Dominicans, maybe those who admired him, called him simply 'Harris'.
The Irish Dominicans have lost a character, a clever man too.
His friendship was a life-long affair. He was regularly to be seen, sitting down the church, at the funerals of friends, Dominicans, past pupils.
He was born on August 8, 1938.
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