Madam, - Many tributes will be paid to one of the most decent, intelligent and patriotic men ever to have walked our soil and cherished our seas.
I had the privilege to work with Dr John de Courcy Ireland on his (as yet unpublished) memoirs some years back. Each Wednesday morning for a couple of years he would read out his notes and I would record his thoughts on a clunky old tape recorder in his deliciously disorganised Dalkey living-room.
After an hour or two, cups of coffee and a plate of biscuits would appear as if by magic, and we'd chat about one of those late-1980s scandals that made him splutter with indignation, or one of the victories for the underdog that kept him going.
One week he realised I had never met the source of those coffees and biscuits, and he called out to Bet, his wife and beloved partner. "Bet, come and meet Joe". At first she demurred but he insisted. In she shuffled, a halo of white hair and a wrinkled, sparkling face. "Here she is," said John, as proud as a new groom. "And I love her more every day".
He stooped low and kissed her on those cloudlike curls. "Ah, you old fool", she teased.
I looked at them, the product of over a century of shared summers and thought: "If that is love and happiness, I hope I can one day have a snippet of it." Everything about John will be missed on this earth - his wisdom, his decency, the huge smile that warmed that cold little Dalkey living-room. - Yours, etc,
JOE LOWRY, International Federation of the Red Cross, Male, Maldives.