Born January 31st, 1942
Died October 22nd, 2025
It was 1982. Fr Dermod McCarthy had just been appointed to the Dublin inner-city Pro Cathedral parish. He had already been to 75 countries filming more than 400 programmes for the groundbreaking Radharc series of religious-themed programmes for RTÉ, when he met two elderly women with an question for their new curate.
It almost flummoxed him.
RM Block
With Radharc since 1965 he was, for instance, one of the crew that produced Night Flight to Uli (1969), believed to be the first televised programme about famine. It dealt with civil war in Nigeria where the Biafran people were being starved to death.
Radharc’s New Day in Brazil (1977) was the first English-language documentary on liberation theology under the military regime there. It had to be smuggled out, and McCarthy was involved with the last interview given by the since canonised Archbishop Oscar Romero before he was assassinated in March 1980 by government forces in El Salvador.
He had survived a spear-wielding witch doctor, a bad crash in the south Pacific and, closer to home, his arrest by gardaí in 1981 for trying to broker the release of his friend, the late Ben Dunne, who had been kidnapped by the IRA. His attempt to pay a ransom was intercepted by gardaí. The gang released Dunne following a direct television appeal by Fr McCarthy.
He had even survived a brush with Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, who exiled him to Athy, Co Kildare, at the farthest end of the Dublin archdiocese, because of two Radharc programmes critical of the Irish church.
Though hardly intended, he spent “two very happy years” there, before a new archbishop, Dermot Ryan, recalled him to Dublin and the Radharc team in 1972.
None of which prepared him for the question posed by these two women at the Pro Cathedral in 1982: “Father, do Padre Pio’s mittens cure asthma?”
Momentarily thrown, he considered, then said: “They cure everything.” One woman was happy. “There y’are now,” she told the other, “and you said they were only good for headaches.”
A born raconteur, it was one of his favourite stories about his time in a community of which he was very fond.
Dermod McCarthy had been involved with Radharc since the 1960s when he was a seminarian in Clonliffe College, Dublin. Originally from Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, he attended the Cistercians at Mount St Joseph, Roscrea, Co Tipperary, before Clonliffe.
Ordained in 1966, he was a hospital chaplain while continuing to work with Radharc, as producer/director, alongside Frs Des Forristal, Joe Dunn and Peter Lemass.
Among their many memorable programmes was Mother of the Kennedys (1973) with Rose Kennedy, whose sons, president John F Kennedy and senator Robert Kennedy, had been assassinated. She cancelled the interview, but they flew to Massachusetts anyhow, believing she would not refuse Irish priests. She did not.
For People and Power (1978) was about a hydroelectric scheme in the Philippines which threatened to wipe out the livelihood of local people and, there too, they produced the first documentary on the work among street children at Olongapo of Irish Columban missionary Fr Shay Cullen.
Speaking years later, Fr McCarthy recalled: “We went to Brazil, to Africa, to Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Hong Kong, and dozens of other countries. The programmes helped to open the eyes of people to the realities of the worldwide church.”
Then, in 1982, Archbishop Ryan appointed him to the Pro-Cathedral as a curate. It was a shock but he adjusted, soon discovering the remarkable “resilience, courage, and patience” of women in that parish.
He became involved with the All Priests Show, raising millions for charity through performances in Ireland, England, Scotland, Australia and the United States, including Carnegie Hall in New York.
Fr McCarthy served at “the Pro” until 1991, the latter five years as parish administrator, before being approached by RTÉ to take up a newly created position there as editor of religious programmes.
Responsibilities then included 105 hours of television a year, as well as church services, documentaries, information programmes and short reflective spots. He also created the long-running Would You Believe series.
In 1993 he was appointed chairman of the European Broadcasting Union‘s religious broadcasting committee, a position he held until 1997. It was a busy, fruitful period.
On retirement in 2007, he said the greatest challenge facing religious programming in Ireland was in reflecting the growing plurality of religions. Highlights of his time at RTÉ, he said, were the funeral of Pope John Paul and the installation of Pope Benedict, both in 2005, and the funeral of St Mother Teresa in 1997.
Years before the death of Pope John Paul, he had persuaded the Jesuits near Rome’s St Peter’s Square in Rome to allow RTÉ free access to their roof for coverage of the event. Meantime, international networks were paying huge sums years in advance for exclusive access to similar vantage points around the square.
After retirement, he continued to work with RTÉ, in commentary on the big religious events, as well as on the funerals of former president Patrick Hillery (2008), former taoisigh Garret FitzGerald (2011) and Liam Cosgrave (2017), and Nobel Prize winner for Literature Seamus Heaney (2013).
Unofficially, his work at RTÉ extended to also being chaplain there, with a “flock” that soon extended to include people in the media and the arts generally in Dublin, until illness struck in 2023. His latter years were difficult.
In 2012, on the death of his colleague and friend Fr Des Forristal after a long illness, Fr McCarthy remarked how upsetting it was “to witness a brilliant mind fade into oblivion”.
Latterly, the same might have been said of himself.
He is survived by his sister Beth (Earley), brothers Mel and Michael. Following Masses in Dublin and Ballinamore, he was buried in the family plot at Fenagh Abbey cemetery.
