Forristal, Desmond Timothy ('Des')

by Turlough O'Riordan

Forristal, Desmond Timothy ('Des') (1930–2012), priest, broadcaster and writer, was born on 25 September 1930 at 70 Botanic Road, Glasnevin, Dublin, to Anthony James Forristal, civil servant, and his wife Máirín Genevieve (née McInerney), who were then living at 8 Weston Villas, Upper Kenilworth Park, Rathmines. He was educated at O'Connell CBS primary and secondary schools, North Richmond Street, and at Belvedere College, Great Denmark Street (1946–8), where he was an active debater and president of the Mission Society (1948). He experienced a deeply religious upbringing and excelled academically, gaining first place in Ireland in both Latin and music in his leaving certificate. Winning an entrance scholarship to UCD, as well as a Dublin Corporation scholarship, he graduated with a first-class BA in philosophy (1951), and then undertook postgraduate studies. He studied for the priesthood at Holy Cross College, Clonliffe, and was ordained a priest (1955). In 1956 he became chaplain to the Marie Reparatrice (Maria Reparatrix) convent, 53 Merrion Square, Dublin, then worked as a curate in Palmerstown, Co. Dublin (1957–60), and was later curate at Halston Street, Smithfield, Dublin (1961–7).

Forristal wrote perceptively about the advent of television for the Catholic Standard, and reviewed television programmes for the Furrow, discussing the opportunities and implications for religion created by the new medium. His articles caught the eye of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid (qv), who in 1959 dispatched Forristal and Joseph Dunn (qv), a classmate from Belvedere and Clonliffe, to study television production at the academy of broadcasting arts run by the archdiocese of New York. Forristal also visited the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, observing the operations of their television station, a local affiliate of NBC.

On their return, Forristal and Dunn began to produce short films, and formed Radharc Films as a partnership (indemnifying the archdiocese). Radharc's first film, Lá 'le Bríde (1961), examined devotional customs around St Brigit (qv), and was recognised by the National Film Institute as the outstanding Irish-language film of the year. McQuaid funded the purchase of a 16-mm sync-sound camera, which enabled three more short films to be made. These were broadcast in 1962 in the Radharc series on the recently founded Telefís Éireann to considerable critical acclaim and excellent viewer ratings (exceeded only by news and sports broadcasts). Unique amongst early Irish documentary television in addressing serious subject matters, Radharc Films was Ireland's first independent television company. The Radharc series won a Jacobs television award in 1963, which was donated to McQuaid. In films mostly scripted and produced by Forristal, Radharc searchingly examined domestic social and political issues, and the Irish missions in the developing world. After Dunn founded a church-sponsored Communications Centre in Booterstown, Dublin, in 1967, Forristal directed and presented more of Radharc Films' output. In all, the Radharc series screened over 400 films produced by the company and filmed in some seventy-five countries (1962–96).

During this time, Forristal continued to write for the Furrow, inter alia as its film and theatre critic. He also covered the second Vatican council for the Irish Independent and Doctrine and Life. During the early 1960s, McQuaid complained privately to J. G. McGarry (qv), editor of the Furrow, about Forristal's independent views, although he supported his work publicly; Forristal later recalled: 'I can well remember those days before Vatican Two when writing for the Furrow was not an exercise in prudence' (Horgan, 186). Forristal was typical of the younger, liberal priests who began to change the tone and presentation of Irish catholicism during the 1960s. He urged the adoption of folk masses to appeal to younger worshippers, arguing that the whole liturgy (both the 'word' and the 'sacrifice') had become an act of communication, to be transmitted in the linguistic and social vernacular. Believing strongly in the importance of extending communication to other faiths, he was a committed ecumenist, who contributed to anglican journals, and regularly participated in ecumenical services and initiatives.

Forristal did not confine his writing to journalism, but also branched into playwriting. He was a valued friend of Hilton Edwards (qv) and his partner Micheál MacLiammóir (qv), and officiated at their respective funeral masses. His dramatic treatment of the imprisonment and execution of Oliver Plunkett (qv), 'The true story of the horrid popish plot', was directed by Edwards in spring 1972 at the Gate theatre. The ecclesiastical ban on priests attending live theatre performances (rigorously enforced by McQuaid) had only recently been rescinded, and McQuaid's successor, Archbishop Dermot Ryan (qv), attended the premiere. (Forristal and Ryan formed a close working relationship.) In 1975 the play was revived at the Gate to mark Plunkett's canonisation (the first of a proclaimed Irish saint in 700 years), and was adapted and directed by Forristal as The late Dr Plunkett for Radharc that year. Forristal also published the hagiographical Oliver Plunkett in his own words (1975). Several other plays followed, including 'Black man's country' – inspired by Forristal's visit to the Biafran war zone while filming with Radharc – which centred around an Irish missionary priest's experience of the conflict, and was directed by Edwards at the Gate (spring 1974). Although it was reprised for that autumn's Dublin Theatre Festival, prominent Irish missionary orders publicly disassociated themselves from the production after Nigerian diplomatic complaints. Forristal's morality play 'The seventh sin', examining the thirteenth-century elections of Pope Celestine V and his successor Boniface VIII, premiered at the Gate in May 1976. The play was essentially a dramatic theological debate, with both God and Satan given speaking roles. The ambitious 'Captive audience', a psychological thriller examining a woman's kidnapping, played at the Gate for the 1979 Dublin Theatre Festival. Despite being panned by critics, the production ran past the close of the festival in October and into late November. 'Kolbe' chronicled the last three months of the life of Maximilian Kolbe (1894–1941), a Polish Franciscan friar who had volunteered to die in the place of a stranger at the Auschwitz concentration camp. It was directed by Ray McAnally (qv) at the Abbey theatre for the Dublin Theatre Festival (autumn 1982). The critic David Nowlan (qv) found the play 'more a religious tract than a true drama' (Ir. Times, 7 January 1983), but despite poor reviews its run was extended into mid November. Forristal's accompanying Maximilian of Auschwitz (1982) marked Kolbe's canonisation, and was the bestselling Irish non-fiction book in October 1982.

Forristal also wrote specifically for television drama, scripting Inquiry at Knock, an explicitly faith-orientated depiction of the 1879 apparition, shown on RTÉ television (August 1979). He worked closely with Fr Michael Cleary (qv) to organise the mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II in Dublin's Phoenix Park (September 1979), selecting folk groups to perform, and commissioning communion plates from Irish potteries. Forristal published a number of devotional tracts and hagiographies with the Catholic publisher Veritas, managed by Dunn; with Dominican Publications, managed by Austin Flannery (qv); and latterly with the Columba Press. These included The Christian heritage (1976), an account of religious art; The second burial of Bishop Shanahan (1990), examining the missionary bishop Joseph Shanahan (qv); Seventeen martyrs (1990), profiling mostly Munster-based religious figures due for beatification; Edel Quinn 1907–1944 (1994), an account of the noted Legion of Mary missionary; and The Siena story (1999), a history of the Dominican contemplative nuns in Drogheda, Co. Louth.

Through these years, Forristal worked as a curate in Dún Laoghaire (1969) and Bray (1970–81). Greatly enjoying pastoral work, he regarded his writing and television work as secondary to being a good priest, noting that 'as a priest you are concerned with the immortal part of man' (Ir. Times, 15 September 2012). In 1969 he was elected to the Dublin diocesan council of priests, which he chaired in the mid 1990s, and was a delegate to the National Conference of Priests (1985). He wrote, produced and directed passion plays at the church of the Holy Redeemer, Bray, and in 1975 led an unsuccessful campaign to establish a Theatre Royale in Bray. After his final curacy, at Iona Road, Glasnevin (1982–5), he was appointed parish priest in Dalkey in 1986. To relax, he enjoyed playing the piano and improving his fluency in several languages; he learned German to appreciate fully Wagner's operas, and greatly enjoyed playing Scrabble. His final play, 'The crozier and the crown', was commissioned to mark Dublin's millennium (1988). Performed at the city's pro-cathedral that November with a cast of over one hundred, it examined the life of Laurence O'Toole (qv), patron saint of Dublin. Among his later publications were Archbishop Dermot Ryan: selected writings and addresses (1984) and Reading the signs of the times (1997), an analysis of an extensive survey of diocesan priests undertaken in Dublin, which he co-edited. Forristal retired in 2001. After briefly being cared for at Our Lady's Manor nursing home, Dalkey, he moved in December 2001 to St Joseph's Shankill, Co. Dublin, run by St John of God Hospitaller Ministries, where he died on 9 September 2012; he was buried in Glasnevin cemetery.

Having entered diocesan life at the zenith of the Irish church under Pope Pius XII, Forristal attempted to examine faith and spirituality from the perspective of liberal clergy and the newly empowered laity in over twenty publications and six plays. An active liturgist (addressing and attending the Glenstal Liturgical Congress for many years), he was highly perceptive of the impact of mass communication and broadcasting upon religion in Irish society, and urged a less doctrinaire conception of the liturgical community. Frequently appearing on television and radio to comment on religious affairs and clerical issues, he often discussed the excitement and hopes of the clergy engendered by Vatican II. He invariably impressed with his intelligence and quiet courtesy, and became one of Ireland's best known and most respected priests.