Patrick O'Neill

Patrick O’Neill, 55, fish whisperer
Patrick James O’Neill, an outdoorsman who loved nothing more than fishing the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, died peacefully in Noblesville, Indiana on November 27, 2020 of undiagnosed heart disease. He was 55.
Patrick grew up in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, graduating from Marple Newtown High School. Summers were spent at the former LLangollen Hills Swim Club and the beaches and inlets of the New Jersey shore, where he honed a sixth sense for spotting schools of fish. He also was known for his kind, gentle heart and took in countless strays of the human, canine and feline persuasion. “Dinnertime at our house was always an adventure,” said his sister, Ann, who was 10 years older. “My job was to call Patrick in for dinner, and that usually involved a thorough search of nearby ponds and creeks, where I’d find him happily catching leopard frogs and crawdaddies. He’d usually free them rather than let them meet an untimely and stinky death in our garage.”
He worked as a young man for his late father, Laurence J. O’Neill, who founded a diversion program for nonviolent, first time offenders in Philadelphia. Over the years, the pair visited the city’s police precincts weekly, swapping gossip as they gathered referrals for their Saturday morning diversion seminars. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they succeeded in keeping thousands of people charged with misdemeanors out of the city’s overburdened criminal justice system.
When he could no longer resist the call of the open water, Patrick relocated to Lewes, Delaware, where he put his fish-whispering skills to work as a crew member on chartered deep sea fishing excursions that took him from the waters off New England to  the Caribbean. Pat went on to become a licensed captain and owned and operated a charter fishing operation in St. John, Virgin Islands. He had numerous successes at the North Atlantic Shark Fishing Tournament.
Pat was preceded in death by his parents, Laurence James and Mary (Driscoll) O’Neill. He is survived by three older siblings: Ann O’Neill, of Newtown Square, Pennsylvania; Michael O’Neill, (Anne), of Zionsville, Indiana; Charles O’Neill, (Irene), of Newtown Square; and eight nieces and nephews who loved him dearly, Patrick, Colleen, Mary Kate, Jack, Claire, Shane, Grace and Madeline.
A memorial service will be held at Flanner Buchanan funeral home, 105 W Pine St., Zionsville from 5:30 – 8 pm on Friday, December 4. A requiem Mass will be held at St. Alphonsus Liguori Church on Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 11 am. Interment at Mount Olivet Cemetery, Ithaca, New York.

Visitation may be viewed via live stream at https://youtu.be/M79V_HOd-cQ

Funeral Mass may be viewed via live stream at St. Alphonsus Livestream