By Martin Gleeson

The youngest of seven children, James Daniel McDyer was born in the townland of Kilraine, in Glenties, in west Donegal in September 1910. After attending the Glenties National School and St. Eunan’s College, Letterkenny, he studied for the priesthood in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

After his ordination in June 1937, he was sent to work as a curate in London. He ministered for four years with Irish emigrants in Wandsworth and experienced the Blitz of World War II. He was then transferred to Orpington, Kent, where he raised funds for rebuilding their church which had been destroyed in a war air raid.

Father McDyer was then sent for four and a half years to Tory Island, the Irish-speaking island nine miles off the north-west coast of Donegal. With a population of under 300, Father McDyer must have felt very isolated in this remote place where decreasing numbers lived off fishing and farming. Father McDyer believed that the lack of local industry was due to government bureaucracy. He saw this when he was refused a grant to start a knitting industry on the island. 

In December 1951, Father McDyer arrived by bicycle in Carrick, a village in the parish of Glencolmcille in south-west Donegal. He remained there for the rest of his life. He found that the roads were bad, there was no electricity, no piped water, no industry and no hall for community gatherings. He was determined to solve these problems. He formed a council, and its members helped to build a community centre to rejuvenate the village. It took only twelve weeks of voluntary labour!

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