Terence McLoughlin OP, RIP

Fr Terence McLoughlin, who died in Galway on Monday, was born in Mohill, Co. Leitrim in 1929. The family moved to Galway when he was a child.

He joined the Dominicans in 1949 and was ordained a priest in 1955.

Fellow Dominican Ned Foley, who studied with Terence and was ordained in 1953, recalls that he was a great mimic.

Terence  spent many years in the Irish Dominican priory in Lisbon, where he was greatly appreciated for his kindness and good humour. 

He went to Lisbon in 1957 and remained in the Portuguese capital until 1991, with a short break of one year in Paraná, Argentina.

He was prior at the Dominican community in Newry from 1996 to 1999. I had the good fortune to get to know him during that time.  From Newry he moved to Sligo, where he spent three years.

Terence was a gracious man, an old-style Irish gentleman. Always had a smile for you. Sometimes you might not know exactly what he was saying, you might wonder did he, but he may well have been two steps ahead of you.

While he used modern means of communications he had a special aversion to fax machines. Email was surely a God-send for him.

He had an extensive network of close friends, ranging from royalty and ambassadors to the poorest of people. He was a most effective preacher with a great pastoral outreach, which included prostitutes.

As a senior he moved to Rome to administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Terence experienced a period of ill health in recent times but it never stopped him form smiling and being kind.

During a visit to Galway in July he went to great trouble for me to make my stay in the priory as pleasant and as comfortable as possible.

He was a close friend of the former provincial of the Irish Dominican Province Flannan Hynes, who died in July, and also of Damian Byrne, who was Master of the Order.

Terence McLoughlin was a special person, a kind man, who saw through so much of the nonsense of clericalism but had the grace and vision to say little and simply smile at it all.

A gentleman.

Terence McLoughlin's funeral Mass is in the Dominican church in the Claddagh, Galway at midday today. His friend and fellow-Dominican Tom Jordan will preach the sermon.

May Terence rest in peace.