Scotland's first First Minister, Mr Donald Dewar, was cremated yesterday following a service in Glasgow Cathedral attended by the Taoiseach, the leaders of Fine Gael and Labour, and Mr David Trimble and Mr Seamus Mallon, alongside Prince Charles and the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair.
Mr Dewar "ennobled the very idea of public service" according to his friend and political ally, the British Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, who gave the main address.
An estimated 1,300 people attended the ecumenical funeral service lead by the Rev Douglas Alexander, a university friend. In an affectionate ceremony peppered with jokes, Mr Alexander said Mr Dewar was a "conspicuously cultural Presbyterian" while the journalist and broadcaster Ruth Wishart said he had been a "great Scot and a very fine human being".
Mr Brown said of his lifelong friend "constitutional reform was not an end in itself but a means to social reform. What motivated Donald was the simple and unshakeable believe that poverty was wrong." Mr Brown said Mr Dewar "embodied the egalitarian spirit" of Glasgow and was "endlessly charismatic but always modest, a constant friend".
Mr Blair read from Isaiah. Prayers were said by Father Joseph Mills of Corpus Christi, a parish in Mr Dewar's constituency of Glasgow Anniesland, and by the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Right Rev Andrew McLellan, a university friend.
Several thousand people lined the route of the cortege through the city centre en route to the crematorium at Clydebank.
Mr Dewar died suddenly last week from a brain haemorrhage following major heart surgery earlier in the year. He had a distinguished political career. He campaigned all his life for a devolved parliament and wrote the Scotland Act that brought Scotland's parliament into existence last year, to which he was elected its first First Minister.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, Mr John Bruton of Fine Gael, and Mr Ruairi Quinn of Labour attended the service. Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon represented the Stormont Assembly. Yesterday's planned meeting of the British Irish Council in Dublin was cancelled to allow attendance at the funeral.