Called from among the fishermen

Personal Profile

The family of Fr John Joe Duffy, parish priest in Creeslough/Dunfanaghy Co. Donegal, have been fishermen for generations. His father, his grandfather, his uncles – all were involved in the fishing industry in one way or another. But the priesthood was always Fr Duffy’s calling and today he combines his life and calling in ministering to the fishing and farming communities in Donegal.

From the age of six, Fr Duffy felt the call of the priesthood. He remembers that all he wanted to do was imitate the actions of the priest on the altar”

“We can trace fishing back in our families for hundreds of years,” Fr Duffy tells The Irish Catholic. “My father was an islander, my mother was across from the island. I grew up in Burtonport which was then a premier fishing port. Everything that shaped my life before I went to college in Maynooth was part and parcel of that whole fishing scene.”

Though he grew up enmeshed in the life of a fishing community, Fr Duffy felt that his calling was elsewhere. It was never his desire to follow a career in fishing.

“I used to enjoy going out on the boats,” Fr Duffy explains. “I’d go with my father and some others on occasion. I’d go lobster fishing, which is very beautiful to see the lobster in the pot, the excitement as each pot would come in – would there be a lobster or crab in the pot?”

Fishing

“Where I grew up, we had quite a loss of life from fishing,” he continues. “When I was just two months old, my father’s cousin was drowned at sea together with others. I grew up listening to all that. It was very much part of our culture, that danger going to sea.

“When my father would go to sea, we didn’t know – there was that uncertainty, that he might not return. They were out in much smaller boats than today, the boats today are much safer.”

From the age of six, Fr Duffy felt the call of the priesthood. He remembers that all he wanted to do was imitate the actions of the priest on the altar.

“The first thing I wanted to do was what the priest was doing on the altar, when I was very, very young,” he says. “That never left me. Then another priest came from the US and I met him, my father was bringing him over to the island. He then said to somebody that I would make a good priest, which was music to my ears because I’d been thinking about this to myself all along.”

Ordained a priest for the diocese of Raphoe, which largely covers Donegal, Fr Duffy knew he would never be far from the sea. This was a good thing, as he found himself quite homesick away from the ocean.

Fr Duffy now ministers in a rural parish which is a combination of a fishing and farming community”

“When I was in Maynooth, I would be homesick for the sea,” Fr Duffy says. “You have to be from the sea to understand it. The same would be true when I was a bit in- land in Donegal. I had the Finn river running by me and yet I would have to drive to the sea, to look at the sea at times.

“Especially when I was faced with challenges, such as maybe the death of someone or difficult situations where when I would feel down in myself. I would go drive to the sea and there I could meditate and pray. I find I can meditate and pray by the sea or on a boat better than in any other place.”

Fr Duffy now ministers in a rural parish which is a combination of a fishing and farming community.

“It’s very satisfying here in Creeslough to be among the farming community as well,” Fr Duffy says. “Farmers and fishermen are very different in their make-up. One organises and plans, while fishermen are really hunters at the end of the day. It’s very hard to plan because the sea dictates when you can go to fish and when you can’t, even though there is a huge amount of planning in all that. One’s a cultivator and the other are hunters, that’s the difference between the two.”

Fr Duffy remains vocal about the needs of the fishing community, who he feels have been let down by successive governments.

“I believe that the department of fisheries seem in this country to persecute fishermen,” Fr Duffy says. “When European law is enacted, that law seems to be more draconian in Ireland than in other countries. In Ireland, the officials, very senior ones, seem intent on tearing the industry apart and not putting supports in place for the industry. Like you would have in farming for example.

“Small boats belonging to Irish residents, Irish taxpayers, they are now not allowing them to land at their home ports. They have to travel a huge distance to Killybegs to offload their fish. This is making life very risky, very dangerous and that’s what I’m most passionate about, the protection of life. I’m afraid for these men that we will have tragedies as we had in the past.”

People of God

The priest remains an integral part of parishes and communities in Donegal, Fr Duffy says, and adds that the pandemic seems only to have increased that: “I find that I have contact with a lot more people, even now in this time of pandemic, through Facebook and social media and in calls. People are asking for prayers for the sick. The role of the priest is to pray for the people of God, to pray for his fellow human beings.”