Charlie Haughey was remembered at his funeral Mass today for his many roles; a politician, a husband, a father and grandfather and again - lest we forget - as the man who gave free travel to the elderly.
He was remembered as a man who loved the arts and who loved the sea, but who taught his children and grandchildren to fear its power.
Fr Eóghan Haughey
He was remembered with fondness by the chief celebrant, his brother Fr Eóghan Haughey, for his strength and resilience and for what his brother said was his lack of bitterness and rancour despite all the "storms" that raged around him in his lifetime.
Mr Haughey was remembered as a "great father" and grandfather by his son Seán, who also thanked President Mary McAleese, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Government officials and all those who had helped to organise the ceremony "in the past few weeks".
Seán Haughey noted how much his father was interested in meeting people, in talking to them, listening to them and engaging with them.
"I know it's a cliché, but my father could truly be described as a man of the people," Mr Haughey said. "The welfare of the people was his political priority."
Seán Haughey also recalled the speech his father made on his last day in the Dáil, which contained the statement that he served "all the people to the best of his ability".
"And that is absolutely true," he said, his voice cracking slightly for the first time. He was applauded warmly several times during his recollection by a congregation largely composed of grey heads, of politicians and of men in suits, although some local parishioners found places in the packed church.
After he retired and through his illness, through his "trials and tribulations", Seán Haughey said, his father had received "thousands" of letters wishing him well and thanking him for things he had done. They came from artists, trade unionists, writers, from retired public servants, from "Northern nationalists".
But above all, Charles Haughey received letters from pensioners "thanking him for the free travel". He replied to all the letters personally, the congregation heard.
There was some laughter. There were, again, some mobile phones. Even the tinny telephone interruptions during the removal service last night failed to deter phone users today. At least six times, ringtones pierced the air during today's Mass.
Music included the lament Port na bPucaí, played by Liam O'Flynn, and Finbarr Furey's rendition of the soulful Lonesome Boatman, played for a man whose love of the sea and his boat Celtic Mistwas noted more than once during the Mass and the removal ceremony.
In his homily, Fr Eóghan noted his late brother's early contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process.
Fr Eóghan's words for those who might judge his brother harshly were that history would remember him in a positive light. "How often mistaken are the judgments we humans make of others," he said.
Remembering the Arms Trial of 1970 and Mr Haughey's later contacts to put in train the peace process, Fr Eóghan urged those present to "remember the suspicion that would have been put on those first feelers he put out to the republican movement in those early days".
Fr Eóghan compared his late brother to the invincible Cúchulainn, who was mortally wounded by the spear of Lugaid, and yet remained standing by tying himself to a pillar and "died erect...refusing to fall".
Recalling a statue of Cúchulainn that his brother had made from an old lemon tree that had fallen down on his estate in a storm, Fr Eoghan said the tree had what looked like a "deep wound" running the length of it. It was a crack in the wood like "an old battle scar". But CJ's own wounds had healed, he said. "There was no battle scar," he said.
It was a reminder, if one more were needed, to those carrying the "spears" of vilification that they could do no harm to the late Charles Haughey of Kinsealy.
Mr Haughey's coffin was carried down the aisle in Donnycarney church at 2pm after a two-hour Mass followed by his family and the State's political and religious leaders. Under the bright lights, the tiniest beads of sweat were visible on the foreheads of the military policemen who bore his coffin on its last journey from the humid church.
Applause filled the air outside and the traffic stopped one last time for CJH.