Louis McRedmond RIP

The crowds who packed Dundrum church for the Removal and then the Funeral Mass for Louis McRedmond, were paying tribute not just to a major figure in Irish journalism – the doyen of the school of Journalism in Rathmines DIT, and collaborator in founding DCU’s school – but much more, they were saluting a good man. The Irish Jesuits had a special affinity with Louis: he wrote their history. They had educated him in Clongowes, and saw him develop into – Fr Arrupe’s phrase – a man for others. He was a gentleman who would never willingly inflict pain. He suffered himself from the sluggishness with which the Irish church responded to Vatican II, which he had reported on from Rome, and, like his wife and soul-mate Maeve, absorbed into his own life and enthusiasms. God be good to him.