At least Fr D’Arcy got to finish the Pope’s dinner

IF Fr Brian D’Arcy hadn’t been bursting to go to the toilet, he might never have had the chance to finish the Pope’s dinner.

Sounds like a joke — but for the man once dubbed Fr Trendy, there was nothing funny about disturbing His Holiness mid-bite in the Phoenix Park 30 years ago this month.

Father D’Arcy was one of the organisers of the historic papal visit to Ireland in 1979 and inadvertently met the pope backstage after the celebration of Mass in front of over a million people.