DEATH : Cardinal Dies on Lourdes Visit

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Roman Catholic Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich, the primate of all Ireland and an ardent Irish nationalist, died Tuesday after falling ill on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, the church announced. He was 66.

The cardinal, who was head of the church in both the Republic of Ireland and Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland, died of cardiac arrest in a hospital at Toulouse, 95 miles from Lourdes, officials said.

A church statement said O Fiaich had appeared unwell to doctors accompanying the group of 600 pilgrims from his seat at Armagh in Northern Ireland.

Lourdes is a Catholic shrine where a peasant girl reported a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Miraculous cures have been reported there.

The cardinal was admitted first to a hospital in Lourdes, then flown by helicopter to Toulouse. Philippe Giovanni, director of the Rangueil Hospital there, said O Fiaich died of a “brutal cardiac arrest” soon after being admitted.