Conor Cruise O’Brien was described as a “remarkable Irishman, surely one of the most remarkable of the 20th century’’ by family friend Fr Patrick Claffey at his funeral Mass in Howth, Co Dublin, today.
The various strands of Irish life, in which Dr O’Brien was a participant, were represented at the Church of the Assumption. It was a mild day, with Howth, his home for a half-century, bathed in winter sunshine.
The principal celebrant was parish priest Msgr Brendan Houlihan and the concelebrants were Dr O’Brien’s cousin, Fr Richard Sheehy, parish priest of Rathmines and a cousin of Dr O’Brien, and Fr Claffey.
Rev Dr William O’Neill, of Howth Presbyterian Church, gave a scripture reading before the coffin was removed from the church for burial in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Fr Claffey said that they were mourning the passing of a much loved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, since at 91, he had surely moved well beyond the biblical limits of age, “80 for those who are strong’’, and into the category of a genuine biblical patriarch.
“For some reason, biblical allusion come quite easily when we talk of Conor, and I like to think he would enjoy that.’’
Fr Claffey said that he would not try to replicate the obituarists and others who would doubtless write in more detail about a long, often controversial and always interesting life as one of the outstanding diplomats, writers, historians and public intellectuals of his generation.
“They should be warned, however, that their musings will be gone through with a blue pencil in the great beyond, seeking out infelicities of style, inconsistencies of intellectual argument and, above all, any trace of hypocrisy.’’
Fr Claffey said that he had chosen a reading from the Old Testament prophet Amos, partly because of Dr O’Brien’s “close and and often controversial affinity with Israel, but also since in recent years, and as I got to know him a little better, I have come to see Conor as a prophetic figure, inhabiting the somewhat lonely spaces that prophets do, on the margins’’.
It was in the nature of prophets, he added, “to be prickly, awkard, angular, contrary in every sense, saying things we don’t always want to hear and calling for us to change our way of thinking in building a world based on truth and justice’’.
Dr O’Brien, he said, had often “run a coach and four through our accepted orthodoxies, some of which he portrayed as dangerous myths leading to violence and destruction’’.
Dr O’Brien’s son, Patrick, spoke of a loving father who enjoyed walking on the hill of Howth. The family knew that they were loved absolutely and unequivocally, he added.
As a father, he was always there for his children, including “sitting through truly awful school plays’’ He finished his eulogy by quoting lines from one of Yeat’s great poems The Municipal Gallery Revisited. “And I am in despair that time may bringApproved patterns of women or of menBut not that selfsame excellence again.”
His other son, Donal, recalled how throughout his life he was the recipient of his father’s “advice and guidance, given gently’’.
Other family members present included his wife, Maire Mhac An tSaoi, daughters Fedelma and Margaret, son-in-law Nicholas Simms, grandsons Mark and Laurence Simms and Alexander Kearney.
President Mary McAleese was represented by Capt Niamh O’Mahony ADC, and Taoiseach Brian Cowen by Comdt Michael Treacy ADC.
Supreme Court judge Ms Justice Susan Denham was in attendance while serving and former politicians there included former president Mary Robinson, former taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, deputy leader Joan Burton, former leaders Ruairi Quinn and Pat Rabbitte, Labour senator Alex White, Independent senator Eoghan Harris, former senators John A Murphy, Maurice Hayes and Liam Cosgrave, former Fine Gael minister Richard Burke, who served in Cabinet with Dr O’Brien in the 1970s.
Media representatives included John Bowman, Olivia O’Leary, Joe Mullholland.
Provost Dr John Hegarty and Prof Terence Brown were there from Trinity College, as was Dr Paul Bew, professor of Irish politics at Queen’s University Belfast and a member of the House of Lords, Dr Dennis Kennedy, former journalist and EU official, Charles Lysaght, historian and lawyer, and Una Claffey former special advisor to Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.
Noel Dorr and Padraig McKiernan, two former secretaries general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, where Dr O’Brian served during the early part of his career, also attended. The Israeli embassy was represented by counsellor Nadav Cohen.
Dr O’Brien was buried in Glasnevin Cemtery with his daughter, Kate, who predeceased him.