Fr Des Wilson died in 2019 at the age of 94 years. On 8thJuly this year Fr Des would have been 100 years of age, had he lived. The people in Springhill Community House will be remembering him in a short service. 

Fr Des Wilson wrote in the Foreword to a book by Fr Maurice Burke called ‘Britain’s War Machine in Ireland’, published in 1987:

“As to why priests or other clergy would be involved in putting forward political views, the answer is simple. The removal of tyranny which afflicts God’s people is a moral duty, a duty of conscience. And the first means of fulfilling that duty is to tell the trut

Telling the truth goes with being a person of conscience. Truth tellers is what we are called to be as priests –all the baptised, ordained ministers or non-ordained.

Fr Des was a truth-teller and a person of conscience. He once used a quote from an Irish democrat: “it is immoral to put fear into the hearts of the innocent; it is virtuous to strike terror into the heart of a tyrant.” I think Des would have been a big fan of Kneecap.