Fr. Bill Treacy died on Sunday in his adopted home in the USA.
A midlands priest, who passed away at the age of 103, is being remembered for distinguished service.
Fr. Bill Treacy died on Sunday in his adopted home of Seattle in the USA.
He was ordained in Maynooth in 1944 before moving to Seattle. He was "on loan" to the Diocese to help deal with their shortage of priests.
The Laois man made the journey to the states on a ship bringing US soldiers home from World War Two.
He was heavily involved in the local Irish Community in Seattle and was appointed Chaplain to the Irish Club in the 1950s.
In the 1960s he along with Rabbi Raphael Levine launched an interfaith TV programme - which ran on KOMO for 14 years. They also founded the Treacy Levine Center, a retreat facility on 200-acres in Mount Vernon.
In 1982 during the worst of the Northern Ireland Troubles, he inaugurated Seattle's annual Catholic Mass in a Protestant Church on St. Patrick's Day, encouraging Catholics and others to pray for Peace in Ireland. He has celebrated Mass in the Irish language for Seattle's Irish community and, in 1982, helped start the sister-city relationship between Seattle and Galway.
Even at the age of 99 before Covid hit, he was presider and homilist at the Irish community's annual St. Patrick's Day Mass.
His vigil service will be on Friday, October 28, at 7 pm at St. James Cathedral, 804 9th Ave, Seattle, and his Funeral Mass on Saturday, October 29, at 10 am, also at St. James.
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