Silent tribute paid to Japanese emigre

He corresponded with princes and presidents, but silence was the prominent presence at Matteo Matubara's funeral in Glasnevin yesterday. It was probably appropriate too, as he could neither hear well nor speak properly.

Silence was what he knew best in his 73 years, though he could write in seven languages, including Irish. So silence, his old friend, did the honourable thing yesterday and stayed those last 20 minutes, its conspicuous presence highlighted by the casual sounds from life outside.

There too were the chief mourner, Matteo's niece Akiko Matubara, interpreter Yuko Connolly, Hidenori Ito and Hideyuki Yamauchi from the Japanese embassy, gardaí Ciaran McGrath and Michael Hughes from Harcourt Terrace station in the city, and The Irish Times.

Not a word was spoken. Nothing, for those minutes, upset the dignity of silence in mourning. Then, at a signal from second secretary Ito, a member of the crematorioum staff came inside, pressed a button, blessed himself, and walked out again as the red velvet curtains closed on Matteo's existence forever.

He came from Miyagi in northeast Japan, where his father worked with a power supply company. He attended "a Christian school" in Tokyo but left Japan in the mid-1950s because "society in Japan was harsh on the disabled then," Akiko explained.

She is a 45-year-old classically graceful Japanese woman who had never met her uncle. But she knew about him because he would write to her late father every year, at the end of the year.

He would tell him what he was studying - he was a well-known face around Trinity College Dublin for 20 years - "and boast about the letters he received from important people", including presidents and princes.

Akiko's father died last year so Akiko wrote to Matteo herself recently. She was coming to Belgium and had hoped to meet her uncle.

It was not to be. Her letter was found by gardaí in Matteo's Dublin flat, where he died last month. Aikiko returns home today and her uncle's ashes will follow.

It's been a long homecoming.