Supporters pay respects to Mac Giolla

FAMILY, FRIENDS, political associates and former constituents filed past the open coffin of Tomás Mac Giolla at Ballyfermot Civic…

FAMILY, FRIENDS, political associates and former constituents filed past the open coffin of Tomás Mac Giolla at Ballyfermot Civic Community Centre in Dublin on Saturday.

The centre was the venue for his last public appearance, in a lifetime of political activism, when he spoke there at a meeting opposing the Lisbon Treaty last year.

Mr Mac Giolla, former president of Sinn Féin and later the Workers’ Party, TD, lord mayor of Dublin and city councillor, died at Beaumont Hospital on Thursday.

He will be buried today in Palmerstown Cemetery, following a ceremony of tribute at the Ballyfermot centre at 12.30pm.

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Saturday afternoon was grey and overcast when the body of the man, whose death notice described him as “a loyal follower of Tone and Connolly”, arrived at the centre. The Tricolour flew at half-mast.

The chief mourners were his wife, May, sister Evelyn, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews.

Among the attendance were Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins and former Workers’ Party general secretary Seán Garland.

Pensioner Rose Mary Healy, from Ballyfermot, slipped quietly into the centre, pausing briefly at the open coffin. She had reason, she said, to be very grateful to Mr Mac Giolla.

“I had difficulties with an unscrupulous landlord, and Tomás sorted them out,” she said.

“He then helped me secure a corporation house.

“I thought him a quiet-spoken man, who smoked his pipe and listened sympathetically to people’s problems.”

John Martin, chairman of Chapelizod Residents’ Association, was at the centre long before the hearse arrived.

Referring to his old friend of decades as “Thomas”, Mr Martin said: “I got to know him first through trade union and political activities.

“When I lived in Ballyfermot in 1987, I met him there as the local TD. There was a Nigerian corporation tenant, in Cherry Orchard, facing deportation and Thomas dealt very effectively with it. He was allowed stay.”

Mr Martin described his friend as “personable, kind and approachable” whose door was always open to the community.

Séamus Marken, a native of Dublin’s Moore Street, came to pay his respects for personal reasons, having been part of a group, including Máire Mac Giolla, who went céilí dancing in the Mansion House on Sunday nights 60 years ago.

“Everybody danced with everybody at those dances. It was a different Ireland, pure innocent fun,” he recalled.