Finn applied his high standards to everything he touched - his duties, his turn-out in uniform or civilian clothes, his relations with others, his attitude to honour and truth.
Educated at Colaiste Mhuire, he was one of the thousands who joined the Army (Volunteer Force) in 1940. He was later commissioned and sent to 18 Rifle Battalion. He commanded C and then B Company between 1943 and 1945. He trained recruits, underwent two courses in Britain and became an instructor in the Infantry and Command and Staff Schools in the Curragh.
In 1960 he went to the Congo with a skeleton Brigade HQ requested by the UN authorities. No equipment was to be brought: the HQ was to live with one of our battalions, using its communications to control the other.
When the HQ was suddenly handed command of seven battalions in Katanga and Kivu provinces, he and the late Lt-Col Kevin O'Brien, both Camberley graduates, set up an efficient headquarters, with Swedish, Ethiopian and Moroccan operators and radios borrowed from units. Finn's tact, impeccable manners and professionalism ensured good relations with the battalions.
He accompanied the late Col Harry Byrne and Ian Berendsen (the Secretary-General's representative), to meetings with President Moise Tshombe in the former Belgian Governor's house - memorable occasions. His French was good; his understated, drily witty briefings on these meetings were fascinating.
Tshombe was a performer - sometimes charming in his excellent French, sometimes wildly threatening. "I will nail your hides to the wall, you will leave your heads in Katanga," was his reaction to the Manono rioting in September 1960. He never shook Finn's aplomb.
Manono was an isolated town of 30,000 Ba-Luba people. With a firm grasp of essentials, a 150man Irish Company secured the vital airfield, concentrating and protecting all the Europeans and any Congolese who felt endangered. Tshombe and his advisers seemed to feel that our troops should have fired on the rioters. His police had initially done this, worsening the situation. Fortunately, a Scottish journalist described the situation honestly.
It was a happy staff - Harry Byrne, Gerry Coghlan, Kevin O'Brien, Bill Bunworth, Donal O'Suibhne, Dick Hinchy, Alv Johnsen (the Norwegian Medical Officer) - all "imithe ar sli na firinne anois". Only one remains to remember the comradeship, and the pressures of intense days and nights.
Returning home in 1961, Finn went as an observer to the Middle East, serving in Damascus, Tiberias and Jerusalem. Gen Von Horn regarded him highly and brought him to the Yemen to see if the fighting there would be amenable to UN intervention. Clearly, it was not.
Finn was completely adaptable. He served in Operations at Army HQ, then as Adjt 5 Brigade and with Civil Defence. He retired with the rank of Commandant to work with the Heart Foundation. He rapidly established good relations with similar organisations all over the world and did much travelling.
A one-time Captain of the Cill Dara and Howth Golf Clubs, he played rugby for Bective and sailed in Blessington. Illness affected his voice recently, but he managed to share old recollections and crack jokes - even about the approaching end, which he accepted in a calm, Christian spirit.
Eileen, his good-humoured, elegant wife, predeceased him. His many friends, inside and outside the Army, extend their sympathy to his family.
E.D.D.