Quick-witted 'Harris' was also as quick with his tongue

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.