Heaney leads funeral tributes to Kiely

The unmistakeable voice, writing talent and human qualities of Ben Kiely were the subject of a warm tribute from poet Seamus Heaney at the end of his funeral mass at Donnybrook in Dublin yesterday.

He was buried later in his native Omagh, Co Tyrone.

Heaney said Kiely "looked with a warmer eye on our human and natural world".

He "rose every morning like a monastic scribe to the blank page" and turned the pages into "speckled books", Heaney said.

"His ability to hold the floor was unequalled," he said.

"He was highly learned and highly tolerant of the unlearned."

On the issue of Northern Ireland Troubles, Heaney said Kiely "knew the score" and worked to improve it "by his own decent behaviour".

Speaking about his contribution to the RTÉ Radio 1 programme, Sunday Miscellany, he said: "Ben's mighty, unmistakeable voice was the nearest thing to the voice of God that most of us will experience".

And from a poem written to celebrate Kiely's 80th birthday, Errata for Ben Kiely, he quoted: "For pearls cast read broadcast" and "For funeral read miscellany".

Chief mourners at the funeral Mass in the Church of the Sacred Heart in Donnybrook, were Kiely's wife Frances, his daughter Emer, son John and sister Kathleen. President Mary McAleese was represented by Comdt Lester Costello and the Taoiseach by Comdt Michael Murray.

The large attendance also included Cathal Goan, director general of RTÉ, writer Anthony Cronin, former minister Michael D Higgins, former Irish Independent editor Vincent Doyle, broadcaster Ciarán Mac Mathúna, Marie Heaney, as well as writer Dardis Clarke, Garech de Brún, founder of Claddagh Records, broadcaster Proinsias Ó Conluain, Prof Kevin B Nowlan, former PD leader Des O'Malley and former local TD Joe Doyle.

Michael Finlan, former western correspondent of The Irish Times and a colleague of Kiely's from their days in The Irish Press in the 1950s, was also there, as was Tony Quinn of the Irish Writers' Union, of which Kiely was an honorary member.