Obituary of Denis Gaherty

Obituary of The Late W. Denis Gaherty

July 29, 1933 - April 3, 2021

Happy Valley Goose Bay, NL

W. Denis Gaherty passed away in his 87th year on April 3. He had an eventful life with many ups and downs. He had a twin sister and a younger brother who predeceased him. He leaves behind 4 sons and 10 grandchildren in the UK and Canada. 

Growing up in Montreal, Denis went to school at LCC and Selwyn House. He was known for his humourous nature: one cousin said he had a "great sense of humour" and another, "I will always remember his cheeky warm smile!" Denis was a member of the Deke Frat House at McGill where they devised a prank of buying an emaciated cow in the Quebec countryside; then, at the beginning of a holiday break, they cajoled the hungry cow into the dean's office with a lot of grass for it to eat. When classes recommenced they needed to remove a wall to free the chubbier cow. 

After a bad head injury in a car crash he took a year off university and developed the motorized apparatus for weather radar developed at McGill: "Langleben and Gaherty (1957) devised an ingenious optical-mechanical system for the synthesis of CAPPI maps". He received his B.Eng in electrical engineering and began work at Marconi. Denis started working for the mine in Labrador City in the 70s when he was living in Montreal and eventually moved there around 1980. Recently, he had been under the kind care of Happy Valley Goose Bay Hospital for some time when his health quickly deteriorated in recent weeks.