Madam, - Máire Gavan Duffy died recently. She was the granddaughter of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy and of A.M. O'Sullivan of The Nation, and the daughter of Sir George Gavan Duffy, a signatory of the Treaty and one of our most outstanding jurists. She was the niece of Louise Gavan Duffy. Her late brother, Colm, was a former librarian to the Law Society. She was the last survivor of a distinguished line.
She was with her family in Paris for the peace talks and the following year she and her brother received their first communion from Pope Benedict XV at the Vatican palace. Tim Healy, the Governor General, got down on the floor of the Vice-Regal drawing room to play with them while their mother visited his invalid wife, her kinswoman.
When she was recovering from an operation in a clinic in Munich, aged six, the formidable Dr Dan Binchy, then a diplomat, brought her flowers. She remembered the aftermath of Roger Casement's trial in which her parents and her uncle Tim, the last Sergeant of Ireland, were so closely involved. Máire was a remarkable person, non-judgmental, wise, spiritual, utterly lovable and with a natural modesty.
Her passing appears to have gone unnoted by the political establishment, with the exception of Michael McDowell. The former would neither have surprised nor disturbed her in the slightest, but she had a great affection for Eoin McNeill, Mr McDowell's grandfather. - Yours, etc,
MARY KOTSONOURIS, Castleconnell, Co Limerick.