In the annals of the modern Irish priesthood, variety in discernment, career progress and choice of mission is not unknown. But it would be very difficult to equal the variety of direction and cumulative achievement experienced by Aidan Larkin over a period of fifty five years: Maynooth clerical student, lay scholar and teacher of Classics, Jesuit aspirant, civil rights and political activist, local councillor, member of the Stormont Assembly, barrister, European Union adviser and civil servant, priest of Dublin, university chaplain, and missionary. To these he added the skills of linguist and author.

Aidan was born into a family steeped in the political, educational, sporting and religious traditions of South Derry. His uncle, Seán Larkin, took the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, and was executed in that cause in March 1923 at Drumboe Castle, an event still commemorated by annual ceremonies at his grave in The Loup cemetery.

Aidan's parents, Patrick and Catherine (Cassie), were both natives of the area, Patrick from Bellaghtery near Magherafelt, and Cassie from The Loup. Both were primary school teachers, first at Lissan, where Aidan was born. Cassie would go on to serve as principal there for over thirty years, until her retirement in 1969 (she died two years later aged fifty six) while her husband progressed to become principal in The Loup, by which time the family had relocated to the Moneymore Road in Magherafelt.

The Larkin ancestral territory of Belaghtery was in farmlands south of the road between the village of Ballyronan on the western shores of Lough Neagh (to which it was adjacent) and Moneymore to the west, in the five-parish enclave in south east Derry that formed a north-western extremity of the Archdiocese of Armagh.

Through their careers as teachers, the Larkin parents would be part of the pastoral infrastructure of that network, made up of the parishes of Magherafelt, Ardtrea (Moneymore), Lissan, Coagh, Ballinderry, with their churches at Magherafelt itself, Newbridge, The Loup, Tullynure and Drumullan. 

But the Larkin legacy went beyond that important contribution: Fr. Thomas Larkin, Aidan's grand-uncle, had been parish priest of Ardtrea at the end of the nineteenth century, and an uncle Fr. James Larkin, ordained in 1916 at Maynooth, died as parish priest of Lordship in 1958 aged 68. 

By co-incidence Patrick, one of Aidan's twin brothers who both became priests (they were ordained at Maynooth in 1968), also served as parish priest of Lordship; he died in retirement in 2022. The second brother Seán served in Lower Killeavy until his retirement in 2020.

Another uncle Michael Larkin, who had been taken to the U.S. by his own uncle at the age of eight, and settled in Washington D.C., became a member of the Marist order and studied in France and the US, acquiring a Ph.D in Philosophy for a thesis on the moral issues of railroad development. He was for three years head of the Notre Dame regional seminary in New Orleans, as well as serving in numerous educational institutions, parishes and offices of his order (he died in 1988 aged 95).

Aidan entered Maynooth in 1963, and was nominated as Number 1 in seniority, in a system, supposedly based on lottery, that condemned students to the same ranking for their entire time in the seminary, regardless of ability or achievement, moving up only when others left. The quality of the class can be judged from the fact that the number two position was occupied by Philip Pettit, now Professor of Politics at Princeton University, and the number three by Joseph Brosnan, a former Secretary of the Department of Justice and Chef-de-Cabinet to the Irish E.U. Commissioner.

Though Aidan did not persist at that time in his journey to the priesthood, it was to the European Union that he subsequently gravitated, a development that caused his brother Colm, also a Eurocrat to observe that Aidan 'was an accomplished scholar and linguist. He was a capable, thoughtful and inspiring politician. He could have built a career as a barrister or a European official. He was well read in theology and doctrine. One could imagine him as a key official of the Curia.'

The following obituary appeared in the Irish News:

Father Aidan Larkin led a remarkably varied and fulfilled life.

As a young man, he played a leading role in the development of the SDLP and represented Mid Ulster in Stormont during the Sunningdale period.

As a barrister, he acted as a legal adviser to the Council of Ministers in Brussels.

And at the age of 35 he joined Clonliffe seminary and served as a priest in Dublin and South America, before returning to Ireland and writing books on St Columbanus and St Patrick.

Fr Aidan had many abilities. He was an accomplished scholar and linguist. He was a capable, thoughtful and inspiring politician. He could easily have built a career in law or as an official in the European Union or the Curia.

Yet while he had his health he pursued a path that saw him do none of these things but instead put his gifts at the service of the poor in a desert in Chile.

His life took so many turnings but was ultimately defined by his drive to know, love and serve God and his unwavering loyalty to the Church and its teaching.

Aidan was born in Lissan, near Cookstown, Co Tyrone in 1946. Both parents were principals of local primary schools.

From his father, a founder of the GAA in Derry, he inherited a love of Ireland, its language and history. From his mother, who taught him, a religious formation and loyalty to the Catholic Church.

He went to St Patrick’s College, Armagh where he played colllege football and on the Derry county minor team. He also captained the debating team and was deputy head prefect.

He joined his brothers Sean and Patrick in Maynooth but transferred to UCD where he graduated with a first class honours Masters in Ancient Classics. He then entered the Jesuit Novitiate in Emo.

He left again after a year, returned to Magherafelt, Co Derry (where his parents were then living), took up teaching and, having participated in civil rights marches including October 5 1968 in Derry, joined the newly formed SDLP.

Aidan founded a branch in the town and in 1972 won a seat on Magherafelt council. In 1973 he was also elected to the Stormont assembly which implemented the Sunningdale Agreement.

In a much-admired maiden speech, he said: "Our task is to bring trust to birth... and set ourselves free from the legacy of history."

Aidan also warned that if the assembly failed Northern Ireland would be condemned to "hatred, violence and death" and evoked Martin Luther King by concluding: "I too have a dream – an end to hatred... that we will move forward on a basis of mutual appreciation rather than mutual destruction."

Seeing the need to legislate for civil rights and equality, he studied law at Queen’s University and was called to the Bar, taking one of the first successful anti-discrimination cases.

Sunningdale fell in the wake of the Ulster Workers Council strike and continued IRA violence and Aidan narrowly failed to be elected to the Constitutional Convention in 1975.

As he had warned, politics entered a bleak period of drift and stalemate. He was appalled by the violence, and he felt powerless.

A committed European, his sights turned to Brussels. He was appointed to the Legal Service of the European Council in 1976 where he worked through French.

He participated in the Charismatic Renewal Movement under the guidance of Cardinal Suenens, an architect of the Vatican II reforms. Gradually the idea of priesthood returned.

In 1981 he joined the diocesan seminary in Dublin and was ordained in 1985. On that day he experienced, he often said, the joy of being a priest - a joy which never left him.

Fr Aidan spent five happy years in Corpus Christi parish, Drumcondra. He was then allowed to work in Chile with the Columban Fathers.

He mastered Spanish and spent six years ministering in a deprived area of Santiago and built a church, mainly with funds provided by his father.

Returning to Ireland, he was appointed chaplain to Trinity College Dublin where he enjoyed the company of students.

In 2002 he joined the Columbans, returned to Chile and spent four years ministering in Alto Hospicio, a shanty town in the desert populated largely by economic refugees from Peru.

With support from Irish Aid he established a day centre for vulnerable young people and drug addicts, and with funding from Greystones parish he built a church. He also organised the area's first secondary school.

In 2006 Fr Aidan was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and returned home to reside in the Columban Centre in Dalgan.

At the request of the Superior General he researched and wrote Saint Columbanus, Pilgrim for Christ, acknowledged as greatly increasing our understanding of the life and thought of the ‘Father of Christian Europe’.

Despite failing health he also prepared the book St Patrick and the Fathers of the Church. Its publication is foreseen in 2020.

His final months were difficult but he bore them stoically. He was exceptionally well cared for by the nursing staff in Dalgan and the community of Columbans.

Fr Aidan Larkin died on March 31 2019, his 73rd birthday. He was survived by his brothers Frs Sean and Patrick, Colm and his sister Roisin.