"He was not a man for plamas. He spoke from the heart and called a spade a spade. And when I was at the graveside this time last year and saw the white sea sand freshly dug up, I thought what a perfect setting for such a mighty man to take his last sleep - the Atlantic ocean lapping the underworld of the dead and the granite rocks of Connemara rising up out of the landscape."
The mighty words of Joe Molloy, who was one of the participants in a celebration of the life and work of Dr Noel Browne in Galway's Town Hall Theatre at the weekend.
Hosted by Lelia Doolan, the event was held to mark the first anniversary of the politician's death and also to afford those who had been unable to pay tribute to him last year the chance to do so - in the company of his wife Phyllis and family.
In a powerful tribute by his grandson, Glyn Carraher, the audience - which included Dr Paddy Leahy, who has returned from Thailand - was told that his uncut headstone was also a tribute to the unknown emigrant.
Opening with Our Country, a Clann na Poblachta campaign film of 1947, and closing with the final scene from Frank Stapleton's biographical film, Dr Browne Also Spoke, the celebration included music by Kathleen Loughnane, Alec Finn, Mary McPartlan, Cormac Breathnach, Gary Hastings, Joe Molloy, Sean Tyrrell, and Luka Bloom, among others. Rita Ann Higgins and Mary Moylan read from their poetry and artists such as Brian Bourke, Ann Kennedy, and Joe Boske exhibited work.
John O'Donohue, philosopher and author of Anam Cara, described him as the lone bush that should never be cut, and said it was no wonder he had come to live in Connemara, given the "anarchy of the landscape". His close friend, Michael D. Higgins TD, read a message from the British Labour MP, Tony Benn. Dr Browne was much more than a "lonely bush", Mr Higgins said. He was a "blasted bush", who had crossed that bridge from private to the public world at considerable cost.
He was a man of vision and dedication who had been instrumental in changing the way people thought and who had been an "irrepressible force" for the positive, the Northern Ireland Women's Council said in a message.