DR GARRET FitzGerald’s family have paid personal tributes to their late father whom they described as warm, generous, enthusiastic, and with “a great sense of fun and the ridiculous.”
His sons, Prof John FitzGerald of the ESRI, and prominent auctioneer Mark FitzGerald, recalled their father’s extraordinary energy, curiosity, and eclectic interests.
“He had the enthusiasm of an 11-year-old and the guile of a shrewd diplomat,” said Mark. “He never lost that childhood enthusiasm. He was full of figures.
“He was a very warm man but was very focused with a great sense of detail.”
John said that he had continued his work while in hospital with his final illness, both on The Irish Timescolumn he loved doing and on his latest project, a study based on a data set of Irish education dating back to 1820. John and his sister Mary (Dr FitzGerald's only daughter) had discussed both with him in hospital.
“He was working on a data set from 1820 in parallel with writing a book. He was setting out to find out who was in education in 1820.
“When he was in hospital just before he was very ill, I tidied up the spreadsheet. We discussed that and tax returns for April. His ability to switch from one subject to another never left him.”
Mark said that during his final illness, Dr FitzGerald woke up and he became quite alert while the ceremonies at the Garden of Remembrance involving Queen Elizabeth were being broadcast. It was a moment of significance for him and his family. “The family had a good time with him . . . as we watched it. It was the Queen’s presence along with the national anthems that woke him.”
Both brothers referred to his long association with The Irish Timesstretching back to 1954.
“It gave him a platform to develop an independent view,” said Mark. “He was committed to public services from the very outset. He was motivated by his parents. He believed in a continuing revolution and evolution in Ireland. Jack White offered him work at The Irish Times in 1954. That set him up for a multi-faceted career. “Looking through the digital archives, he wrote some wonderful pieces in the late 1950s and early 1960s.”
Mark said that when his political career was finished he was delighted to be asked to resume the column. “My late mother was incapacitated at the time and he spent a lot of time confined to barracks. It gave him an outlet,” he said.
Similarly, John said his journalistic ability to churn out intelligible articles in a short period of time was impressive, though in later years, he spent a lot of time “polishing” his columns. “I can remember when I was young, when he was Financial Times correspondent, there was the mad dash for Pearse Street to make the post for the last mail boat.”
According to Mark, his father had more strings to his bow that were perhaps not known to the wider public. One thing of which he was very proud was that he set up the regional overseas Irish aid programme in 1974 when minister for foreign affairs. He managed to push it through towards the end of a cabinet meeting when some ministers had departed and there was barely a quorum.
He was also the strategic adviser when the Kerrygold butter brand was being set up 50 years ago. Though he himself did not come up with the idea of the brand, he was the adviser to the group, including Tony O’Reilly, who did. “If he was able to set up a brand it would be butter,” said Mark. “It was his favourite food along with cream.”
He said the third thing stemmed from his father’s love of France. “He saw there was no direct car ferry which he thought was ridiculous. He got a book on ships that John had as a boy. He read about passenger capacity and fuel capacity and rang Shell to find out the current fuel costs for ships. After doing all that he contacted Irish Shipping. “On foot of that the Rosslare to Le Havre service was set up in 1968.”
His father also worked for a long period with Aer Lingus and was the person who devised all the EI codes and numbers that are still displayed on its fleet.
John said his father had a great sense of humour: “He would see important things and see the ridiculous side which I think partly contributed to his success.”