Lar was a big man: big in size, big in vision, big of heart. Whatever he did he did with gusto. When he talked, he talked; when he ate, he ate; when he played the piano, he played; and when he admired, he really admired.
It was in his huge capacity for admiration - a capacity which he embodied on a rare scale - that we find the essence of Lar. In its pure form, the ability to admire is a rare and deeply civilised achievement and Lar had it in abundance. Those who admire the world love it and, loving it, want the best for it. This is what makes sense of Lar's life and work.
Even at 16 or 17 Lar had a touch of the patriarch about him: his height, his hair, his authoritative enthusiasm. In those years of the late 1960s and early 1970s Lar was a key player in that ambitious enterprise which we knew as the Foxrock Folk Club. He did his first degree in Trinity College, where he deepened his love of literature and, let it be said, of conviviality.
As the 1970s progressed, the elements which later fused in Lar found expression. His deep sense of identification with those who were oppressed or in pain found expression in the time he worked for Women's Aid; his love of music found expression in his period as a concert promoter and in his own piano playing; his love of the world found expression in his travels down the hippy trail to India and on to New Zealand, from where he returned on learning of the untimely death of his father Larry.
The disparate strands of his life and abilities found an opportunity for the most productive of harmonies when he joined the Arts Council 17 years ago as Literature Officer. Very many writers and artists, art-workers and art-lovers, whom the Arts Council exists to serve, found an advocate at the council table who never failed to put their best foot forward.
Because Lar himself lived so satisfyingly and comfortably in his deep appreciation of art, his language was frequently a well-developed language of praise. This occasionally challenged more mundane minds. Often I'd say to him about some particular project or application: "But Lar, is it really `absolutely brilliant' or just merely `brilliant'?" His own commitment was absolute and his achievements so many that a summary judgement is all that is necessary today.
Lar's involvement in developing policies of support for writers, for writing, for publishing and for readers has been felt beneficially by everyone connected with literature in Ireland. Simultaneously he pursued his deeply-felt desire for a justice of access and from an early stage championed what is sometimes called community arts.
Last year he achieved a particular ambition of his own in making Ireland the focal country of the Frankfurt Book Fair with the theme "Ireland and Its Diaspora". He achieved this against great odds. It was highly successful both for Ireland and as an event for the Book Fair itself. However, it was an achievement that can now be seen to have been all the greater in human terms because the cancer with which Lar was confronted had in subtle and unnoticed ways begun to debilitate him even then.
The qualities of Lar's work were the qualities of his life, and his love of the arts was at one with his love of his family and of his friends. His "girls" - Lynne, Polly, Megan - formed a vibrant heart at the centre of his life. In his mother Bridgin, Lar had a lifelong friend and an abiding source of inspiration. Annie, Cess, Christine and their families all formed a close and loving ring around him, as did Olga, Roisin and Dick, who was also laid to rest just a few months ago. Carrickdoon is a home from which two great presences have gone.
On a sunny July afternoon this year, as we lay in the grass of Crohy Head in Donegal - one of Lar's all-time favourite places - gazing out over the Atlantic, the question of how we should live our lives in the thought of time came into the conversation. Lar said he had no sense of another, "after" life. He said that he found this life more than rich enough for him. And that is how he lived his life and that is how he faced his illness. His view of the world was generally Buddhist and his sense of the present moment's importance was Zen-like.
Lar died as the sun was setting on an October evening. His friends at his bedside noted this. We have a word for the event marked by the dying of a light; we say it is extinguished. We have no word for the fading of a laugh. Lar and Lar's laugh - large, uninhibited, total, always generous - will remain one and the same for us. And the fact of having no word for its extinction tells us perhaps that it is not in fact gone but - and I think this is what he would have wanted - it ripples on through all who were lucky enough to have known and loved him.
C.B.