A memorial to the late meteorologist and author Brendan McWilliams, combining two of his passions - meteorology and trees - was unveiled at the weekend.
In the final event of National Tree Week, an arbutus was planted in front of Met Éireann's headquarters in Dublin's Glasnevin, with a small stone plaque beside it engraved with his name.
Executive director of the Tree Council of Ireland John McLoughlin told the gathering, who included family members, friends and former Met Éireann colleagues, that as the "Weather Eye" columnist in The Irish Times for almost 20 years "Brendan always gave trees a special mention in his column, particularly during National Tree Week".
They had picked the arbutus tree "because it is native to Kerry where Brendan grew up and it is the only native tree that is not native to Britain". It came directly from France before the land bridge disappeared 10,000 years ago and "Brendan would have got at least three columns from that, and that the land bridge to the south lasted longer than the bridge to the east".
Met Éireann director Declan Murphy said that in meteorology "we are part of a global jigsaw and all dependant on each other", and Brendan was the ideal link in that international co-operation.
"When we think of his personal qualities - urbane, calm, unfussy, tolerant and probably above all else humorous - he always carried it with him and he used it against himself as well. He was a great friend and colleague to work with and approached every situation, no matter how difficult, with calmness, an agile and logical mind.
"We don't need any monuments and mementos of Brendan - we carry him in our hearts. But the arbutus is a fitting tribute," he said. They would look at it and think of him as they go in and out of the office.
Stephen McWilliams said that his father had been surrounded by meteorology from the beginning when his own father Seáwas a meteorologist in Valentia, Kerry. He retained a great fondness for Met Éireann and even while abroad always liked to come home "and today he has come home".
His father had a double life, as a public person and as a family man with a wry, irreverent sense of humour, who frequently had them in stitches laughing. He had been described as a Renaissance man and he was just as much at home fixing their dilapidated family car as he was reading and doing the crossword or repairing furniture. He would have been very proud and honoured at the tribute.
