Family and friends gather to celebrate life of Justin Keating

FAMILY, FRIENDS and political comrades yesterday gathered at the home of Justin Keating to celebrate the life and achievements of the former government minister, academic and television personality who died on New Year’s Eve.

His body lay in a sun-lit drawingroom, flanked by a grand piano and a bronze bust of his father Seán, the painter, before a window that opened onto the snowy landscape of Bishopland, his farm near Ballymore Eustace in Kildare.

The service was humanist as befitted one who was honorary president of the Humanist Association; the coffin was cardboard, in homage to his passion for the environment; the music was provided by the congregation – singing songs such as Love is Pleasing– interspersed with traditional flute pieces by Alan Doherty.

As children and grandchildren prepared to carry the coffin from the room, the defiant voice of Edith Piaf in Je ne regrette rienrang through the old house and the aroma of fine cooking wafted in from the kitchen, a feast to which everyone was invited.

He would have been 80 tomorrow and had enlisted his granddaughter Danielle, a chef, to cook the birthday dinner. It would have included shellfish and guinea fowl, she said.

One of four grandchildren present, she spoke about a generous and affectionate man who inculcated in them the pleasures of the natural world.

His wife and partner of 17 years, Barbara Hussey, said that although he made his footprint on earth as light as possible, that did not make him grim. “He loved food and wine and he loved to cook . . . But first and foremost he was a scientist. He liked to say ‘if you show me better, then I must change’ . . . Though he was vehement in anger and didn’t shirk from saying the hard word, either publicly or privately, he was a peacemaker . . . To misquote the poet Whitman: he was large, he contained multitudes.”

Brian Hussey, Barbara’s brother and Keating’s friend, recalled to some amusement that a British foreign secretary had referred to him as a “Bollinger Bolshevik”; and there was indeed a picture nearby of Justin with a bottle. He also noted Justin’s tendency to “savage indignation”, which in later years he would replace with “mindfulness”; Barbara was “pivotal” to this, he added.

Eilís Quinlan, one of three children of Justin and his first wife, Loretta, read from her mother’s diary. After the news of Keating’s death had been broken to her, she had written: “I became Justin’s girlfriend at 19; he was 21. We married two years later. The marriage lasted 38 years and we remained good friends afterwards. I feel it is the closing of a chapter which lasted most of my life. He was a wonderful person, not easy to live with at times, but I feel privileged to have had this long relationship.”

Eilís’s sister, Carla King, spoke of the illness with which he was diagnosed while still in his 40s, Paget’s disease, a progressive, destructive and very painful bone condition, resulting in “deafness, damage to the heart and the loss of his balance at times”.

Michael D Higgins paid tribute to the man who sacrificed his private life and academic talent to the public sphere.

At Eadestown cemetery, Ruairí Quinn gave the graveside oration, describing how Keating had held UCD students of 1967 spellbound by his stature, oratory, charm and erudition.

The President and Taoiseach were represented by their aides de camp. Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan represented the Government. Also present were two former taoisigh, Garret FitzGerald and Liam Cosgrave; Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, with Pat Rabbitte, Liz McManus, Michael D Higgins, Ruairí Quinn, Alex White, Gemma Hussey and Mary Henry; trade union leaders Jack O’Connor and Séamus Scally; Brendan Halligan, John Rogers, Arthur Reynolds, Michael Johnston, John Hussey and Terence McCaughey.