Akiko Hoashi came to Ireland with her three young children from near Tokyo more than 20 years ago. It was a remarkable step by a remarkable woman. Soon afterwards she started the first Japanese restaurant in Dublin - while at the same time devoting herself to the upbringing of her children.
The restaurant, the Ayumia, a combination of her own and her daughter's names (Akiko and Yumi), soon became a focus for the Japanese community in Ireland and a popular venue for an Irish clientele gradually acquiring a taste for the mysteries and delights of first class Japanese cuisine.
A woman of considerable character, combining remarkable strength and great gentleness, Akiko had equal time and often a helping hand for everyone in her wide circle of friends, which included alike the highest and the humblest.
Everything she did she did with vitality and enthusiasm. often accompanied by the soft joyful laugh so characteristic of her.
Having devoted much of her life to her children and to the development of the restaurant, she retired 10 months ago to join her companion, Sasadasan, and began a new life of personal happiness in horticulture and lamb rearing near Christchurch in New Zealand.
It is particularly poignant that she was taken so suddenly in a tragic motor accident less than a year after entering so wholeheartedly into this new life in which, as she wrote to me recently: "I am so happy."
To her children, Yoichi, Shu and Vumi and to Sasada-san go the heartfelt sorrow and sympathy of all who knew Akiko, who brought something enduring of the cherry blossom to the land of the shamrock.
Meifuku o inorimasu.
Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis.