Lord McAlpine, the former Conservative Party treasurer who died last week, was hugely popular with thousands of Irish builders' labourers and tradesmen even though they did not share his admiration for Margaret Thatcher.

He started work with his family’s vast construction company in London in the 1960s when a large proportion of the workforce was Irish – many of them from Co Mayo – and known at home as “McAlpine’s Fusiliers” .

Lord McAlpine's obituary in the Daily Telegraph this week recorded that he frequently worked long hours "and being covered in dust meant that he was never invited to society balls, but in any case he preferred the company of Irish navvies and the Bohemian friends he met in Soho pubs".