REAGAN FUNERAL: There were numerous references to Ronald Reagan's Irish heritage during his funeral service yesterday.
A close friend and former Canadian prime minister Mr Brian Mulroney read the second of four eulogies in which he recalled in 1987 waiting with Mr Reagan in Ottawa airport for the arrival of their wives, prior to departure ceremonies for the Reagan's return to Washington.
"As they headed towards us, President Reagan beamed, threw his arm around my shoulder and said with a grin: 'You know, Brian, for two Irishmen we sure married up.' "
Mr Mulroney also spoke about how presidents and prime ministers wonder how history will judge them. He referred to the insecurity of Thomas d'Arcy McGee, an Irish immigrant and a founder of the Canadian nation, who worried in one poem "Am I remembered in Erin".
"Ronald Reagan will not have to worry about Erin because they remember him well and affectionately there. Indeed they do: from Erin to Estonia, from Maryland to Madagascar, from Montreal to Monterey. Ronald Reagan does not enter history tentatively - he does so with certainty and panache," Mr Mulroney said.
He then read a line from a WB Yeats' poem, The Municipal Gallery Re-visited: "Think where man's glory most begins and ends and say - my glory was that I had such friends."
Irish tenor Ronan Tynan sang Franz Schubert's Ave Maria and Amazing Grace at the end of the service.
Mr Reagan's ancestors emigrated to the United States from Ballyporeen, Co Tipperary, in the mid-19th century. He visited the town in June 1984 during his trip to Ireland as US president.