Former Labour Party TD Joe Sherlock (76) was yesterday praised for his sense of public duty and his willingness to put the interests of others first, particularly those of the people of his native north Cork and the less well off. Barry Roche, Southern Correspondent, in Mallow
Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore told mourners at Mr Sherlock's funeral that the late Workers' Party and Labour deputy had, upon his retirement last May, completed an "an astonishing 40 years of unbroken service" to the people of north Cork as a TD, senator and county councillor.
"There could be no greater contrast between the selflessness of Joe Sherlock on the one hand and the shameful self-serving activities of a small minority who have besmirched the name of politics in recent decades, on the other," said Mr Gilmore in an oration at St Gobnait's cemetery in Mallow.
"He was a fearless battler of the bureaucracy that he saw time and time again depriving people of their just entitlements, particularly in the areas of health and housing," said Mr Gilmore, as he recalled Mr Sherlock's efforts to retain Mallow General Hospital. Earlier, at the Church of the Resurrection in Mallow, close to 1,000 mourners heard Mr Sherlock's sons, Joe jnr and Seán, speak poignantly about their father, with Seán, who succeeded his father in the Dáil after the May general election, recalling his father's political philosophy.
"He was a forceful character, he was a man of deep, deep conviction. He was truly a man of the people and the one credo that he lived by was that everything he was doing in his life, he was doing for the people and if you stick by the people, they will stick by you.
"And he carried that credo deep in his heart and in his soul and everything he did. Whether it was the pothole in Kildorrery or the medical card or the fight for Mallow hospital, everything was with the people in mind."
Describing his father as "a devout republican" who followed Wolfe Tone's principle of not distinguishing "Catholic, Protestant or dissenter", Mr Sherlock said his father "had a great love of his country, but more importantly, he had a great love of its people".
Among the many political figures to attend the funeral were Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa; Labour TDs Pat Rabbitte, Michael D Higgins, Emmet Stagg, Joan Burton, Joanna Tuffy, Ciarán Lynch and Kathleen Lynch; and former Workers Party TD and now a judge, Pat McCartan.