The family, originally from Foreglen, established a small grocery, selling wine and spirits in the 1840s. Trade flourished and teams of horses carted alcohol into counties Derry, Tyrone parts of Antrim and Donegal. The family started up a bottling business supplied by Guinness and began blending their own whiskey and spirits from a premises at the junction of Cross Street and Clooney Terrace. Father Carlin remarks on the peculiarity of a rural Catholic family investing in an alcohol business in the years of the potato famine.

The first three of the family of 10 lived in Ballyowen House, a rambling farmhouse in the Waterside. When he was two his family went to live in Newtoncunningham before moving again to Fahan in 1953.

I became convinced I still wanted to be a priest in a lay organisation. I saw an ideal model there for the kind of priesthood I felt called to. I was testing my vocation and at the same time developing my spiritual life. I returned to Ireland with this ideal as the foundation on which I would, God willing, build a Christian Community." A small group of individuals met to pray and share together on an ongoing basis and ask for God's guidance. Community began to happen.

We left immediately for Queen Street. The burned-out house had lain vacant for nine years. The RUC had occupied it in the late-60s. Once the troubles ignited the place was firebombed and the police abandoned it.

"It was occupied by the WELB and used for a short time as a sort of truants’ den for school boys who didn’t attend class. We bought it from the board through a friend I’d known from athletics in my youth – he was one of the very few I could have approached penniless and I asked him to buy the house on my behalf.

"We had a two-sentence conversation ‘You buy that house and I’ll live in it.’I said,

‘Right.’ A Belfast man, Terry Crossan, replastered it with Billy Reilly and Michael McKinney along with a lot of other voluntary workers. To be fair, half of Derry helped rebuild it, or later said they did! We had our first all night vigil there and the sense of community on that occasion in particular was thrilling."

Establishing Columba House as a refuge for ex-prisoners raised a few demons. There was some real concern and agitation in the neighbourhood – "but as time has illustrated, the Columba community enhanced, rather than degraded the area," he notes.

He visited prison twice a week for six years and met with people sympathetic to his views, praying, giving retreats and leading charismatic prayer meetings and the community grew. The Columba Community tried to offer consolation to prisoners’ relatives and some help towards the imprisoned themselves.

Again his position was ambiguous. The RUC and army he encountered on his visits regarded him as "nationalistic" but the provisional IRA, he says, certainly didn’t accept this. He was strongly opposed to the military campaign but he understood how people from both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds could get caught up in the Troubles. "I felt drawn to the needs of the marginalised. There was an unspoken empathy between us. Because a person found him/herself on the margins of the Church that didn’t leave them cut off from God's love and mercy."

For 10 years between 1984 and 1994 Christians Together met in the Guildhall monthly and prayed for guidance and for one another in ongoing ventures to heal the divide. The highlight of that time was on Good Friday 1985 when some 300 people followed three Protestant ministers and myself carrying a large cross from Columba House to the Guildhall Square where prepared statements of repentance were declared by the representatives of each tradition. In the silence of that walk and gesture the sense that there would be no violence in the streets for many months was strongly felt and proved in time to be a real prophecy. The Lord seemed to be honouring this type of genuine repentance by giving us the longest period without violence in Derry City since the start of what we call the troubles. Recognising the value of Good Friday 1985 friends of ours in London, Dublin and Belfast repeated similar repentance services in their cities on Good Friday 1988. The joy with which we lit the Paschal fire and celebrated the Resurrection at Slane that Easter Sunday morning I'll never forget. Paschal fires were also lit simultaneously on 36 hills across Ireland.

Praying for healing is at the heart of his ministry: "I would say we’ve prayed with 10,000 people in the Derry diocese. Most of them I have spoken with only once. Counsel is a spiritual gift and my own sense is that there are not enough people discerning the needs of those who are hurting and who need God’s peace and freedom from guilt, fear and anger."

In 1984 Father Carlin went to Dundrean, near Burnfoot, to thank a man who had made a donation to Columba House. When he arrived the man's wife said he was up on the farm and directed the priest to it. There and then he offered him an old farmhouse and extensive garden for his retreat centre. Father Carlin says simply, "it was a blessing." A tattered plastic calendar hung on the gatepost. On it was a picture of St Anthony of Padua holding the child Jesus – when they returned the following day the calendar was gone. Providentially some community members realised that the original St. Anthony was Anthony of the Desert, a mystical hermit who lived an austere life. The eastern desert tradition he epitomised greatly influenced early monasticism. He inspired Celtic spirituality and his image appears on some of the High Crosses of Moon and Clonmacnoise.

The place was dilapidated. It had a tin roof and an old Stanley cooker and for a few hundred pounds the group bought a windmill and generated their own power. A storm later blew it to pieces. With the help of local people the farmhouse was restored and four hermitages were built to provide accommodation for retreatants. One of the first people to help form community there was Liam McCloskey who’d been on 54-day hunger strike.

"We’ve identified four keys to Christian life: prayer; formation of community; evangelisation and reconciliation through repentance. These are very much based on the charisms of Columba, after whom the community is named, and the patron saint of the City. As well as intercessory prayer we place great emphasis on listening prayer. We should ask what the Lord is saying through the events of day to day life for example what is the foot and mouth epidemic saying about care for animals and care for the earth and industrial farming? The prevailing question for us is where is the hand of God amid all the other hands trying to shape and influence our work."

In 1994 Bishop Hegarty invited The Columba Community to St Eugene’s Cathedral to be commissioned. It was a memorable celebration for them marking the official canonical recognition of their community. A large number of priests concelebrated mass in the Cathedral. Before this gesture of approval, Father Carlin had talked to the Bishop a number of times and he found him supportive and encouraging. In his welcome Bishop Hegarty highlighted healing work in the community and encouraged a packed Cathedral to avail of the ministry and support it.

As a result of working in the area of healing and counselling over the past twenty years and emerging as we are from the troubles Fr.Neal and the Community saw a great need for a centre to help those with addiction and a new venture was embarked upon in 1998. After three years hard work, and listening prayer the provision of a centre for rehabilitation is about to become a reality.

Those who are marginalized are acutely aware of boundaries. Fittingly, the White Oaks rehabilitation centre, located on a remote border crossing between Derry and Donegal is interdenominational in ethos. It is also a bridging point for those re-entering "normal" society and it offers help for those burdened by the cross of their addiction and those who suffer with them.

White Oaks (from the Gaelige for the townland Doire Bhan) is financially the most ambitious project Father Carlin and the Columba community have taken on. Sadly there is a great need for a facility of this kind. There is already a waiting list for the 8-week residential programme.

The £1.9 million centre it is hoped will be operational by May. The sixty-bed facility is situated on a 35-acre farm. Over a minimum six-week residential stay, treatment focuses on detoxification, spirituality, physical work therapy and counselling. The treatment provided in this centre should complement the good work already being done in this area by other local agencies.

Across the road from White Oaks is the site for a new Celtic Peace Garden. The project which is in its infancy involves the Columba Community, St. Canice's Parish, Eglinton and local ministers. This cross border, cross community and environmentally aware venture is based on the relevance of the Celtic saints ( with their emphasis on prayer, healing, reconciliation and appreciation of God in creation) to the present day needs of society. It will provide work and therapy for the residents of White Oaks as well as a place of prayer, pilgrimage and learning to all who visit in the future.