I was Secretary of the Department of Finance when Jack Lynch was Minister for Finance in 19651966 and we were in Washington together for IMF and World Bank meetings when the succession to Sean Lemass as Taoiseach was in question. Our good relationship in the official context broadened into a lasting personal friendship.
He called on me for some help in the early years of the Northern Ireland crisis and, in an unprecedented gesture, nominated a former public servant to Seanad Eireann in 1977 as an independent member (an honour repeated by Garret FitzGerald in 1982). It was accepted that I should speak my mind, even when it seemed I was biting the hand that fed me!
It was such a pleasure to work for Jack Lynch as minister and Taoiseach that his customary generosity in acknowledging any help was a superfluous kindness.
I valued our social contacts of latter years. Indeed, I sat beside him at an informal dinner the night before he suffered the stroke in November 1993, which was the disabling culmination of flickers of failing health.
Jack's whole nature induced loyalty and affection. Softness of speech and manner, consideration for others, readiness to listen, absence of pomp, a sense of humour, were elements of a most attractive personality which combined modesty and unpretentiousness with good judgement and a deep sense of responsibility and firmness of purpose. I never saw him in a rage or heard him say anything disparaging or hurtful about others.
The country - and his party - were fortunate that he was Taoiseach at the time of the arms crisis. Decisive action then taken and the widespread loyalty he enjoyed avoided a real risk of internal division and even of civil disorder.
In time of grief, it is a comfort to recall some brighter memories:
. . . the day when, taken by its realism, he tapped a glass in a still-life in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, setting off a blaring alarm;
. . . a fishing day in Castleconnell when his fame on the playing field had people of extremes in politics queuing up to shake his hand;
. . . the snowy day when we went to Stormont to meet Terence O'Neill and, hearing the Rev Dr Paisley's roars of "No Pope Here" as we got out of the car, Jack turned to me and mildly asked, "Which of us does he think is the Pope?"
. . . the sweltering day in Baltray when we abandoned golf temporarily and Jack described an obese fellow-bather in a green suit as a gross national product.
Jack Lynch's life was one of great honour and achievement, of devotion to Ireland, its people, its language, its games and all things Irish. He will be remembered as one of the best loved and most respected figures in Irish public life in this century. He fulfilled the ideals of the Irish triad:
Glaine in ar gcroi
Neart in ar laimh
Is beart de reir ar mbriathair
The stroke he suffered six years ago tragically deprived him of his sight but he bore his disabilities with quiet fortitude. It is a consolation for Mairin, whose love and care surrounded and sustained Jack for so long, that, with her and some friends, he was so happy on his 81st birthday on 15th August last, even singing The Banks! Our sympathies are with her. Guimid solas dithe agus solus siorrai da fear ceile oirearc.