FUNERAL MASS:STATE AND church leaders including President Mary McAleese, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the Catholic Primate of All- Ireland, Seán Brady, were among those from a broad spectrum of Irish life who attended the State funeral yesterday of former president Patrick Hillery.
A large contingent from the late president's home county of Clare travelled to Dublin for the funeral Mass at the Pro-Cathedral.
Mourners were told that Dr Hillery was a private and even shy man whose sense of fairness, kindness and hard work were based on the values he grew up with at his home in Milltown Malbay.
Fr Des Hillery, a nephew of the former president, who delivered the homily at the Requiem Mass, said that as a local medical doctor in west Clare, Dr Hillery had displayed a gentle manner and a dedication to duty.
The skills Dr Hillery had as a medical practitioner - which he had inherited from his own father - were the skills of listening, examining and diagnosis, Fr Hillery said. He recounted highlights of Dr Hillery's successful political career, during which he was a minister in several government departments before becoming Ireland's first EEC commissioner in the 1970s.
"Then in 1976, he allowed his name to be put forward as an agreed candidate for the office of Uachtarán na hÉireann, an office he held for 14 years."
Dr Hillery was in office, he said, when Pope John Paul II made his historic visit to Ireland in 1979 and he told the pope on his departure: "In the hearts of the people of Ireland, your memory will remain bright forever."
Away from the public dimension of his life, the late president was a private and even shy man. He was also a person who had been guided by faith, said Fr Hillery.
"In his life he was particularly devoted to walking humbly with his family. He shared over 50 years of marriage with Maeve, who was his constant companion and fearless supporter.
"His love for Vivienne [ his daughter who predeceased him] is reflected in his wish that he be laid to rest alongside her," he said.
Fr Hillery concluded by quoting a "favourite guiding principle of Patrick Hillery", taken from the writings of Teilhard de Chardin: "There's no place for the immobilist. There's no place for the sceptics. There's no place for the weary. There's no place for the sad of heart. Life is ceaseless discovery. Life is movement."
The President and the Taoiseach did the first and second readings, from Thessalonians and Philippians respectively.
In remarks at the outset of the Mass, principal celebrant Fr Aidan Lehane, a close family friend, said of Dr Hillery: "He has left the Europe and Ireland and the County Clare that he loved so much."
The Mass was concelebrated by Fr Hillery. Cardinal Brady and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin assisted at the Mass and Bishop Willie Walsh also attended.
Representatives of other churches who were present on the altar for the Mass were the retired Church of Ireland archbishop of Dublin, Donald Caird, representing the present Archbishop of Dublin, John Neill; the Rev David Clarke, representing the Presbyterian Community; Rev Godfrey O'Donnell, representing the Dublin Council of Churches and the Romanian Orthodox Church; Rev Athanasius George, representing the Coptic Orthodox Church; Rev Tom Carroll, representing the Greek Orthodox Church; the Rev John Stevens of the Methodist Church; and Rachel Bewley Bateman of the Religious Society of Friends.
Other Catholic clergy who attended included Msgr Eoin Thynne; Msgr Hugh Connolly; Msgr Séamus Conway; Fr Tim Ryan, Fr Joseph McMahon and Fr Brian Darcy.
Before the Mass, gifts that were symbolic of the late president's life were brought to the altar including a stethoscope (a symbol of his medical career); keys (representing schools he opened); a medal marking Ireland's accession to the EEC; a mobile phone (with which he stayed in touch with his grandchildren); a sailing cap; a painting and a golf putter.
His grandchildren - Sarah Jane, Patrick, Michael and David - read the prayers of the faithful. Near the conclusion of the Mass, his nephew Michael Hillery read a verse about Tobar Lachtín (Saint Lachtín's Well) in the townland of Annagh, close to where Dr Hillery was born: "I like to go there when the sun is sinking in the west, and sombre shadows gather around that sanctuary blest."
