Obituary Notice
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Daniel McCloskey 1897 - 1978 DANIEL MC CLOSKEY C.P. Patrick Joseph McCloskey was born on St. Patrick's Day, 1897, in Belfast. He was an only child and his parents died when he was still very young. Two aunts took him to their home in Strabane, Co. Tyrone and it was there he spent his formative years. He was professed a Passionist on the Feast of the Assumption, 1918, taking the name Daniel. He was sent to Australia as a student and ordained there in 1923. He returned to Ireland in 1932. In his younger years his health created problems and through most of his life his heart condition seemed to create in his mind some anxiety; but, even in advancing years this did not cause him to slow down in any of his activities. In Australia, from central parish houses he made long forays on horseback to outlying mission stations to preach to small groups of Catholics in each area. The people listened, made peace with God, rejoiced , ate, and sang the songs of their homelands through the three-day missions. As the horse-back missionary recalled it nostalgically in later years it was an agape in the "back-blocks". In those years he developed a tremendous admiration for his fellow Irishmen, the mighty Archbishop Mannix of Melbourne whose oratorical triumphs were many against the anti-Catholic and often anti-Irish salvoes of the Australian Press. Fr. Daniel could regale an audience with many a controversial tour-de-force interspersed with brilliant witticisms of the controversial archbishop. Perhaps this background influenced his own powerful preaching. A first-class orator, he enlightened his preaching with many original, polished turns of phrase. He could give fresh, modern and local application to the Gospel parables. His sharp, northern wit went to the heart of a matter; for he believed the best way to cure a festering wound was to lance it and let out what was bad. Yet he was considerate and sympathetic to the sinner. He had little patience with the Pharisee; but the publican he handled gently. He was one of the last of what is now dubbed “old time missioners". For him it was better that, than nothing! While he was a realist and would not down-play Hell or the evils of crime and sin, he always left his mission audience with hope and trust in the goodness of God. He was at his best and most inspiring when Preaching on the friendships of Christ and the Saviour's approach to the poor and lowly. Returning to Ireland, he gave much of his remaining forty years on missions and retreats; and many will remember him for his forthright, outspoken enunciation of truth as he saw it. After much toil in the vineyard of the Lord, he finished his long years in his native Belfast. On a hill overlooking his troubled city, the eighty-one years old "wanderer for the Lord" was laid to rest amid his brethren. May he rest in peace.
Source: Obituary Notices, Provincial Archive, St Joseph's Province. Passionist Congregation.