'I'm lucky to be alive, and thankful for every day' says Canon Liam Devine

News is shared quickly these days, but in some cases the facts get lost in the retelling.

Well-known Roscommon priest Canon Liam Devine formally retired during the summer, but, as he recalled with a chuckle, one local report mistakenly stated that he had "resigned from the priesthood" after 52 years.

"After that happened I met a man in Castlerea who said to me, please, can I plead with you again, don't abandon the collar!" he laughed. "There's a subtle difference there between resigning and retiring.

"Resigning would mean giving up the priesthood, which I have no intention of doing, but retiring... there's an obligation in Canon Law to retire when you're 75. I am 77 now, so I've gone two years beyond it, and I'm happy enough with that."

Canon Devine is a very popular figure in Athlone, having been based in Battery Heights, as the parish priest of St Peter and Paul's, for sixteen years, from 2001 until 2017.

He spent the last five years in the West Roscommon parish of Loughglynn and now, in retirement, he will be living in Kilmurry, in the parish of Tulsk, where he said he would be "helping out" the parish priest, Fr John Gannon.

Speaking to the Westmeath Independent recently, Canon Devine said he was lucky to be here at all, following a serious health scare in February of this year.

It started when he began noticing feelings of weakness from time to time.

"If I was sitting for a period of time, once I got up, I'd have to go to the nearest wall, for fear I would fall. I discovered that it was a condition called Bradycardia, which I had never heard of before. It's a slow heartbeat," he said.

He was very grateful to his GP, Dr Kelly in Castlerea, who sent him to Castlebar hospital, from where he was transferred to Galway to be fitted for a pacemaker.

While in hospital in Galway, his condition deteriorated. He passed out on a Friday, February 18, came around again, and made it through the next day without incident.

That Sunday, however, he had eaten lunch and was getting ready to watch the day's gaelic football matches on TG4 when he again lost consciousness.

"The last thing I remember was just a fuzzy feeling in my head, and I went unconscious. When I woke up, the doctors and nurses were giving me CPR," he recalled.

"Luckily, the surgeon had just phoned in at that very moment, to see how I was. They told him, and he said, 'theatre, immediately. I'll be there in five minutes.' So he put in a temporary pacemaker."

Canon Devine discovered afterwards that the Guinness Book of Records included an entry for the lowest resting heart beat on record, which was 27 beats per minute in the case of a Martin Brady in the UK.

"In my case, my heart rate dropped to 21 beats a minute, and 20 is certain death, so I was very lucky," he said.

"On the Monday, I got the pacemaker and my life has changed since…. if my heart rate drops, it kicks in immediately and brings it back up to normal.

"I have a watch now which tells me (my heart rate). The normal heart rate is between 60 and 100. Mine is around the 70 mark, which is pretty healthy for my age."

He believes that if he had not been in Galway hospital when he fell unconscious on February 20, he would have died. "That's no reflection on Castlebar hospital, but they don't have the facility to put in a pacemaker, which they have in Galway.

"I was lucky to be there at the time, in the heart unit. The staff are marvellous and I'm forever indebted to them for keeping me alive.

"Every day is a bonus and I thank the Lord for every day I have. I'm in great health at the moment, thank God. But it's just a warning for people, if they have a slow heartbeat and they feel they're going to get weak, they should have it checked out because it can be a serious condition."

Canon Devine is originally from Fuerty, close to village of Castlecoote. He started his career in the priesthood by teaching in St Enda's College in Galway, before taking up a post at Sligo Cathedral in 1971.

"That was supposed to be for a short period, but I ended up being nearly 10 years there. During that time, I was also chaplain at Sligo General Hospital, which was changing over at the time from the old hospital to a newer, more modern hospital, nearly what it is today." he said.

He was then a curate in the Strandhill area of Sligo for a few years before being appointed as a parish priest for the first time at St Joseph's, in the northern part of Sligo town.

"I was probably the youngest parish priest ever in the diocese of Elphin, I was 45, and at that time you normally wouldn't be a parish priest until you were 60," he said.

"I enjoyed my years there and then, of course, in 2001 I went to Athlone, to St Peter and Paul's. It was a great challenge but I loved Athlone, really, and still do.

"I love going back there. I found St Peter and Paul's very interesting because you had the different areas out as far as Monksland, and then you had the Batteries, Connaught Street, and down as far as the bridge.

"I got to know Athlone fairly well, and I enjoyed it, but I'm still an unrepentant Rossie!" he laughed.

Gaelic games is one of his great interests and he had the distinction of serving as the PRO for two county boards, firstly Sligo, and then Roscommon, over an 11-year-period between 1996 and 2007.

He was somewhat surprised by the departure of Anthony Cunningham as Roscommon manager, saying he had done well overall during his tenure.

"Roscommon punch above their weight in many ways. They have a brilliant forward line, and an adequate midfield, but the backs are very porous and that was the problem," he said.

On July 3 last, after his five enjoyable years in Loughglynn, the parish organised a function in the local community centre to mark Canon Devine's retirement.

"I was amazed by the number of people who turned up. What surprised me was that all my relations and friends were there, from Donegal down to Athlone, and from Athlone to Dublin," he said.

In a sign of the increasing shortage of native Irish priests, he was succeeded in Loughglynn by Fr Glen Crisilio Alipoyo, from the Philippines, who had spent the previous 18 months in St Peter and Paul's in Athlone.

Canon Devine is in the process of getting settled into his new home in Kilmurry and he is looking forward to having more free time in his retirement.

"I will have some more time to read, to pray, which I need to do, and to maybe go to football matches, which is very much a part of my life as a Roscommon follower," he said.