DEATH OF SEAN KILFEATHER:SEAN KILFEATHER, who died yesterday aged 70, was a highly respected Irish Timesboxing correspondent and a well known and loved writer on Gaelic games. He was also known in these islands as a determined defender of workers' rights through his activism in the National Union of Journalists.
He was a spirited raconteur, wit, Irish speaker and generous gentleman of erudition and scholarship, which he wore lightly. He was also a wonderful singer.
He became The Irish Timesboxing correspondent at the start of the 1980s, an exciting decade for the sport with several Irish fighters turning professional. It saw Barry McGuigan win the world featherweight title in 1985, and it was Kilfeather who nicknamed him "The Clones Cyclone".
He was the second youngest of eight children of Bridget and Jimmy Kilfeather, small farmers at Coolera, outside Sligo. His father sang and his mother read to the family, leaving him with an impressive knowledge of music and literature. There was hardship but his early years were happy ones.
He attended Summerhill College where (known as "Bart") he excelled academically and in athletics. He had particular affection for the forward-looking Father Tom Foy, his mentor.
Though he did not attend third-level, he was encouraged to pursue his studies by his sister, the late Bridget Kilfeather, who became RTÉ's legendary expert on pronunciation. He was proud to have gone to the same school as the tenor John McCormack and later loved to sing The West's Awake(as he did memorably on a hurling team-bus bringing the Liam MacCarthy Cup to Galway in 1980). He played hooker for the Sligo junior rugby club, soccer for Coolera and was a founder member of Collegians Football Club. In later years he played for Terenure College Rugby Club.
Kilfeather started on the now-defunct Sligo Independent. He later joined the Sligo Champion, and went on to work in a wide range of journalistic roles, from the west of Ireland to Baghdad, Beirut, Tehran and London before returning to Dublin, where he was with the Evening Mailand Sunday Review. When these papers closed, he moved to RTÉs newsroom as a sub-editor.
In 1974 he joined The Irish Times, soon becoming a GAA correspondent under the lyrical writer Paddy (PK) Downey.
He travelled widely to events, including the Gaelic All Stars' American tour in 1980, the 1992 Barcelona Olympics (where Michael Carruth won Ireland's first gold medal in 36 years) and the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995.
In 1984 he edited Vintage Carbery, a collection of writings by PD Mehigan ("Pato"), first Irish TimesGAA correspondent until 1963. Kilfeather's Fifth Columnearned him a reputation for incisive and often biting comment.
In the NUJ, Kilfeather served on the National Executive Council, as chair of the Dublin Branch, as deputy Father of the Chapel at The Irish Times, serving on the prestigious Editorial Committee there. He was honoured as a life member of the union in 2002. A caring, passionate - if occasionally cantankerous - figure, Kilfeather had a deep sense of justice.
He liked to tell a story from his London years. As he was cooking curry on a rainy night, a knock came at the door of his flat. A rather wet young man was looking for someone living above. Kilfeather struck up a conversation and it emerged the man was from Sligo. It further emerged he was one of the Gore-Booths of Lissadell House. The welcoming aroma of cooking revealed that the caller was also hungry. Kilfeather loved to tell how he dined one of the Gore-Booths. His mother had been a servant at Lissadell.
Over the past six years Kilfeather suffered ill health and his career ended prematurely several years ago. In a boxing reference, he once said: "I was fairly good at fighting other people's corners though I was strangely reticent about my own."
He was predeceased by his sister Bridget and brother Michael and is survived by sisters Mary, Lilly and Noreen and brothers Jim, and Eddie; nieces, nephews and godson Michael Scanlon.
Sean Kilfeather: Born June 2nd, 1938. Died: August 19th, 2008
