Arthur Plunkett, who died on March 19th at the age of 58, was a Law Reform Commissioner. Until 1997 he had been deputy head of the Attorney General's Office, which he had joined in 1973, the year Ireland joined the EEC.
He was effectively chief adviser to successive governments on European law for over 20 years. If he had colleagues who were quicker, more ingenious, and more articulate, none was so painstaking, so concerned to be fair and so invariably right. He worried a problem like a dog with a bone well past the hour when civil servants were expected to work. It was not easy to shift him from a view, once formed.
His magisterial opinion on why Ireland could not make a unilateral declaration to the Single European Act was read into the record of the Dail. But, for the most part, his immensely important contribution was hidden from public view and will be appreciated only when the files are opened. It must be said that such freedom of information would cause him some misgivings; few civil servants observed the Official Secrets Act so meticulously. He was a highly discreet and reserved person.
He loved his work and to some extent he sacrificed the rest of his life to it. He was seldom seen at parties, though when he came, he was the most gracious and appreciative of guests, equally attentive to the important and less important, the glamorous and the not so glamorous. He was a habitue of the Kildare Street and University Club, of which he was a trustee. He loved good food.
At Gonzaga, where he was a founder pupil in 1950, he had been a star cricketer, once taking four wickets in successive balls against Blackrock. It was in an effort to reduce his girth that he returned to the cricket field with Phoenix and the Leprechauns in the late 1970s. He was still a deadly accurate bowler. His grunt when delivering his more vicious off-spinner was famous. He was proud to have once dismissed the Ireland captain Alec O'Riordan. On the cricket field, as elsewhere, he was a restful and good-humoured companion, always keen but never unsporting or abrasive.
He was sickened (his own word) by events in the Attorney General's office at the time and after the departure of Harry Whelehan, who was his favourite among all Attorneys that he had served. Those events completed his disillusionment with politicians. He was delighted when in 1997 he was appointed to the Law Reform Commission where he enjoyed working with Tony Hederman and Declan Budd as presidents. The imprint of his steady conservative judgement is writ large on the commission's recent work. After he was diagnosed with his fatal cancer seven months ago, he threw himself into completing a number of reports on which he was engaged. They were launched on the eve of his funeral.
Arthur Plunkett was above all a man of deep loyalty - to his faith, his values, his work and to his family, colleagues and friends. He accepted his cruel fate courageously and without self-pity. Even when he was ill he found time to worry about others who were also sick. In his life of dedicated service and in his modesty, dignity, courtesy and invincible honour he was true to the ideal of a Christian gentleman that he would have treasured above all else.
C.E.L.