THE RICH diversity of Nuala O'Faolain's friendships and passions was evident at her removal service yesterday evening to the Church of the Visitation, Fairview, Dublin.
Old friends from the arts, the media and politics, from mountain walks and country restaurants, mingled with her brother and sisters, nieces and nephews, and her faithful black Labrador, Mabel, who was with her to the end when she passed away at the Blackrock hospice late on Friday night.
The chief mourners, led by her partner John Low-Beer from Brooklyn, her brother Terry and her five sisters, Gráinne, Deirdre, Marian, Nóirín and Niamh, along with nieces, nephews and babies in arms, walked with the hearse to the church in warm sunshine.
The coffin, adorned with red roses, was borne by male relatives into the church, scented with bunches of freesias and wild flowers, where Fr Joe Connick, the parish priest, assisted by Msgr Tom Stack and Dr Enda McDonagh, presided over a short, simple, traditional, Catholic service and a gospel that read: "Jesus said to his disciples: 'Do not let your hearts be troubled . . .'"
Afterwards, pondering the blessing, "let perpetual light shine upon her", Msgr Tom Stack remembered with a sad smile, that Nuala once said, "Anybody who has that as a phrase can't be all bad". The books of condolence spoke of a gathering stretching from Dublin 4 to the Burren, and all the way back to classmates from St Louis' boarding school in Monaghan. "Slán leat Ghille mo chroí," wrote Helen Browne, from Doolin, Co Clare, who with her husband John and children, "time-shared" Nuala's beloved dogs, the dogs that "made me tender", as Nuala herself once put it. "Nuala was the kids' aunt you could say," said John Browne, "she corrected their English before the Leaving Cert . . ." - "and dissertations at college", added his daughter, Jenny.
There too were the women who came to mean so much to Nuala in her personal and professional life; Nell McCafferty, who was her partner for 15 years; Marian Finucane, her closest friend, and to whose late daughter, Sinead, Nuala was godmother.
In RTÉ, Claire Duignan, director of programmes, and Doireann Ní Bhríain, Marian and Nuala were the four who broke new ground in the 1980s by getting ordinary women to talk on radio and television, on such programmes as The Women's Programme, Women Talkingand Plain Talesand went on to have an annual Christmas lunch. "It was a better day after you met Nuala," said Claire Duignan, "she always lifted you."
Kieran O'Brien, Frank Hopkins and Seán Mac Connell recalled the mountain walks and lake swims in Wicklow: "We were only one compartment in her life," said Seán Mac Connell. Gemma Hussey, the former government minister, remembered the Nuala who fired up meetings of the Women's Political Association in the 1970s. "She'd come to speak and she'd have them laughing and crying . . . Sr Benvenuta used to say that Nuala had this 'sparkling anger".
Politicians present included TDs Joan Burton and Finian McGrath. Also among the congregation were writers Colm Toibín, Anthony Cronin, Anne Haverty and Peter Sheridan, Caitríona Crowe of the National Archives, Luke Gibbons, author and lecturer, Michael Farrell of the Irish Human Rights Commission, Dr Maureen Gaffney, broadcaster Joe Duffy, Sunday Tribuneeditor Nóirín Hegarty, and Bride Rosney.
Former colleagues from The Irish Timesincluded Gerry Smyth, Fintan O'Toole, Caroline Walsh, Patsey Murphy, Frank McDonald, Patsy McGarry and Frank McNally.
Nuala O'Faolain's funeral takes place today after 12 o'clock Mass, to Glasnevin Crematorium.
