Rev. Daniel Noel Gallagher, faithful servant and priest of the Roman Catholic Church, died Wednesday, November 27, at St. Catherine’s Village in Madison, Mississippi.
A native of Cashel, South Curry in County Sligo, Ireland, Father Dan was born on Dec. 19, 1940. He completed his seminary studies at St. Kieran’s College in Kilkenny, Ireland, and was ordained on June 6, 1965, in Kilkenny’s St. Mary Cathedral.
Throughout his 60 years of priestly ministry, Father Dan served in parishes in Yazoo City, Hattiesburg, Bay St. Louis, Batesville, Rosedale, Natchez, and West Point. In 1994, he began his dedicated service as a hospital chaplain at the VA Hospital in Jackson as well as the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Methodist Rehab Center. Father Dan was in residence at the Cathedral in downtown Jackson and often celebrated the daily noon mass.
He was appointed Director of the Cursillo Movement in 2002 and then the in-residence chaplain at St. Dominic’s Hospital in Jackson in 2007.
Father Dan retired from active ministry in 2016 and enjoyed several years of quiet priestly presence at St. Catherine’s Village in Madison. Friends remember Father Dan as a dedicated, spiritual, and humble priest and man of faith, who always put service to God’s people before all else and lived the Gospel message in all that he did.
Father Dan is survived by his brother, Thomas Gallagher of Curry, Co. Sligo, Ireland, and his sister, Anne Cunney of Riverdale, NY, as well as many nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews.
He is predeceased by his parents Thomas and Katie Gallagher; his brother, Father Patrick Leo Gallagher, Carmelite and Missionary; sisters, Bridget Meehan and husband Pat and son Danny, Margaret Sloan and husband Bill, and Kathleen Brennan; sister-in-law Angela Gallagher; and brother-in-law Patrick J Cunney.
Visitation and Wake will be held Thursday, Dec. 5, from 5 – 6:30 pm at Sebrell Funeral Home in Ridgeland. Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz will celebrate a Mass of Christian Burial on Friday, December 6, at 11 a.m. in the Cathedral of Saint Peter the Apostle. Interment will follow in the Priests’ Section of St. Joseph Cemetery in Gluckstadt.
Please send Donations in Memory of Father Dan Gallagher to the Association of Priests for the Dioceses of Jackson and Biloxi, Mississippi, USA; and to St. Catherine’s Village, Madison, Mississippi, USA.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let Your perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.