Funeral of former 'Irish Press' editor

"To me he was a romantic," said Paul Lambert of his father, Hugh. "He loved the night sky. . ."

He was speaking yesterday in St Joseph's Church, Glasthule,Dublin, at the end of the funeral Mass for Hugh Lambert (61), editor of the Irish Press until its closure in 1995. He died on St Stephen's Day after a brief illness. In tribute to his father, Paul read Yeats's poem, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.

"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,/Enwrought with golden and silver light,/The blue and the dim and the dark cloths/Of night and light and half-light,/I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

Chief mourners were Hugh Lambert's wife, Angela, and his sons, Alan, Paul, John and Sam.

Among the large attendance at yesterday's Mass and at the removal on Wednesday evening were Irish Press plc executive Dr Eamon de Valera, and Mary Jennings, whose husband Vincent Jennings, also an executive at Irish Press plc, is ill. Present too were former Sunday Press editor Michael Keane; former Evening Press editors Seán Ward and Dick O'Riordan; former Irish Press editor Tim Pat Coogan; and former Irish Press deputy editor John Garvey. Also in attendance were former Irish Times editor Conor Brady; its former deputy editor, Pat O'Hara; former Irish Independent editor Vinnie Doyle; and former Sunday Business Post editor Tim Harding.

Representing the Editor of The Irish Times who was abroad was deputy editor Paul O'Neill. Also in attendance were managing editor Gerry Smyth, Paul Gillespie (foreign policy) Joe Breen (production), and Seán Flynn (education); night editor Noel Costello; advertising manager Liam Holland; letters editor Liam McAuley; special reports editor Michael McAleer; property editor Orna Mulcahy; commercial property editor Jack Fagan; arts editor Deirdre Falvey; and Jan McLaughlin of human resources.

Séamus Dooley represented the NUJ. Former Press group journalists included Ray Burke, Tim Ryan, Seán Conway, Eoghan Corry, Éanna Brophy, John Boland, Emmanuel Kehoe, Frances O'Rourke, Fionnuala Mulcahy, John Kelly, Maol Muire Tynan, Des Nix, Seán Mannion, Willie Rocke, Richard Moore, Noeleen Dowling and Liam Flynn.