Patrick Rice died suddenly on July 7th at the age of 64.

Many people in Ireland may not know who he was since, although born in Fermoy, Co Cork, he spent the greatest part of his life in Latin America. However, his was a life less ordinary – a great understatement – and his story should be widely told.

Paddy Rice was a young priest serving in a poor working class barrio in Buenos Aires in 1976 when a right wing military junta took control of Argentina. The Generals then initiated what would be a seven year reign of terror against all those thought to have Left-wing sympathies, ranging from suspected members of radical guerrilla groups to priests organising with the local communities to improve their lives. It has become known as “The Dirty War” and with good reason.

Returning from a parish meeting one evening, Paddy and a young parishioner, Fatima Cabrera, were kidnapped by plain clothes police and “disappeared” to a secret detention centre where they were subjected to horrific torture including beatings, electric shock and what is now known as water boarding. It was a fate that was to befall tens of thousands of Argentines, an estimated 30,000 of whom were murdered by the regime, many remaining “disappeared” forever.

Paddy was lucky to survive. After the intervention of Irish diplomatic staff, he was deported. Despite his terrible ordeal, and with consummate courage, he returned to Latin America and devoted the rest of his life to the fight for human rights and to bringing the military torturers to justice.

After the fall of the junta, Paddy searched for Fatima Cabrera and found she had survived. Then, in an amazing twist, he later left the priesthood, they got married and had three children, Carlos, Amy and Blanca. Both were tireless advocates for justice for the “Disappeared”, with Paddy travelling far and wide for that and wider human rights causes.

I met Paddy Rice in Buenos Aires two years ago when I was there with a wonderful team of professional documentary makers working for the small Gaeltacht based Sonta Productions. We were making a film for TG4, roughly following the motor cycle trail of the young Che Guevara and looking at aspects of contemporary life in Latin America. Paddy generously participated in our project, giving testimony about the terrible fate of the “Disappeared” and the struggle for justice.

In my column for this newspaper [Daily Mail], filed from Latin America, I wrote: “It was a humbling and poignant experience to accompany Paddy to a new memorial for the Disappeared in Buenos Aires. Etched in walls of polished granite are the names of thousands of victims, with their ages and year of disappearance. Heartbreakingly, most were in their teens, twenties, or early thirties. He pointed out several names like O’Kelly, Cullen and Murphy, descendants of Irish emigrants who arrived in Argentina from about a hundred and fifty years ago. The memorial runs down to the banks of the Rio de la Plata, fitting, in that, horrifically, many of the disappeared were thrown live from military aircraft into this massive river.”

After filming, and with characteristic generosity, we were guests in the home of Paddy and Fatima for an “asado!, an Argentine barbecue with copious helpings of delicious food and Argentinian wine. For us, they even arranged a fantastic display of tango dancing from Fatima’s sister and her partner who form a very talented professional Tango partnership, Negracha&Diego.

After his death, Fatima, Carlos, Amy and Blanca wrote a moving tribute to Paddy in the Argentinian Left-wing newspaper, Página 12,: “Patrick was our father and our comrade. Former worker priest, former disappeared detainee. A fighter and actvist for life and human rights. He had the most beautiful smile, . . . the most generous heart. He lived all his days with great joy, convinced that a just world, with solidarity and without discrimination, was possible. He taught us that, to change it, we had to start with our own hands. He knew how to join together all the struggles and acts of resistance in the world…”

They relate a quote from Paddy which expresses his humanity and his revulsion at the barbarism inflicted on himself and countless others worldwide by vicious regimes: “Until this day, I find it difficult to believe how you can have human beings so depraved and perverse that they could torture other humans even while they were utterly defenceless.”

Courageous activists like Paddy Rice are bravely struggling the world over against enormous odds for human rights, and for the economic and social transformation of society. Like him,they are the real heroes of our time though, unfortunately, usually crowded out of the mass media by the worthless obsession with an inane and vacuous, so called, celebrity culture.

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