"That's my Jack," said Mairin Lynch after previewing the life-size bronze sculpture of her late husband, forever in Cork the "real Taoiseach", which was unveiled in his native Blackpool yesterday.
Mrs Lynch, elegant in a blue suit and yellow blouse, wore her years lightly. She thanked the people of Cork for receiving her so kindly when she first came to the county all those decades ago and met her future husband while on holiday in Glengarriff. "God was good to me for guiding me there," she said. They went on to share 53 years of married life and "Jack was a marvellous husband", Mrs Lynch added.
The bronze, by Cork sculptor James McCarthy, was commissioned by Blackpool Developments, owners of the Blackpool shopping centre, close to the old Glen Rovers club, where the late Taoiseach began his sporting career. It will be on permanent display in the main concourse of the centre.
It was fitting, Mrs Lynch said, that such a tribute should be made in Blackpool and near Glen Rovers, which he loved so well. Knowing Jack as she did, he would have felt unworthy of the "wonderful sculpture", but happy that the honour was being bestowed in his native place.
"Them were the days," a Jack Lynch admirer from another era whispered to Pearse Wyse, who soldiered with Lynch during his early political career and was with him on the canvass when he was first elected to the Dáil in 1948. Wyse went on to become almost as well-known in Cork Fianna Fáil circles as his friend, but left with Des O'Malley when the PDs were formed.
Mr O'Malley made the journey to Cork for the unveiling. The former deputy leader of Fine Gael, Peter Barry, was there as well, as were many other politicians. But it wasn't a day for politics, it was a day for the people of Blackpool.
The bronze depicts Lynch sitting on a bench reading a newspaper, with his pipe by his side.