Funeral of Threshold founder Fr O’Mahony to take place today
Fr Donal O’Mahony, the Corkman who founded the organisation in 1978 after being appointed chaplain to Dublin’s flat-dwellers, was also internationally respected as a human rights advocate and peace activist.
Aideen Hayden, chairperson of Threshold, yesterday led tributes to the late Fr O’Mahony, a member of the Capuchin Franciscan Order.
He established Threshold as a peace and justice project, focusing specifically on housing and homelessness.
Ms Hayden said her organisation felt deep sorrow at the death of Fr O’Mahony, who passed away last Saturday at Marymount Hospice, aged 74.
“He was a visionary, who was convinced that housing was a human right and that having a home means more than just having a roof over your head.
“His definition of homelessness was far ahead of its time, and continues to underpin the work of Threshold to this day,” Ms Hayden said.
She said that, in later years, Fr O’Mahony’s work focused on peacekeeping and he also had an internationally acclaimed career in that area.
“But he left a hugely significant legacy for the housing sector in Ireland.
“Threshold continues to work to secure a right to housing, particularly for households experiencing poverty and exclusion, and we help over 20,000 people with housing issues each year.
“Fr O’Mahony’s vision of a more inclusive and just society – where everyone has a proper home still informs our work today,” she added.
Fr O’Mahony, who was educated at CBC, Rochestown College and UCC, entered the Capuchin Franciscan Order as a late vocation in the late 1950s.
After ordination he was based in Dublin and worked in the inner city where he became aware of the number of provincial young people working in the city and living in flats, many of which were sub-standard and with no protection of tenancy.
Fr O’Mahony later served as national chaplain of Pax Christi in Ireland and was a member of the international board based in Holland.
This involved him in many undercover visits to Iron Curtain countries before the fall of Communism and the Berlin Wall.
He was principal mediator in a number of well-publicised international kidnapping cases, all of which were concluded successfully.
He also worked in the North during the 1980s, engaging with paramilitaries on both sides to promote and facilitate dialogue as an alternative to violence.
In recent years, Fr O’Mahony was international director of the Damietta Peace Initiative in South Africa, a project he founded to promote peace and a non-violent culture throughout the African continent.
In 2008, his contribution to peacemaking was marked with a Peace Award from the Interfaith Foundation of South Africa.
His requiem mass will take place at noon today at Holy Trinity Church, Cork, after which he will be buried at the Capuchin cemetery in Rochestown.
Chief mourners will be his sister, Mary O’Flynn, brother-in-law, Dominic, and nieces Colette, Jane and Lisa.
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