FOUNDER of the Progressive Democrats Des O’Malley was remembered at his funeral mass today as a “Statesman” and an Irish “patriot”, who lived a “wild, precious life”.
“Dessie” as he affectionately known, always shot straight from the hip, and was never far from controversy throughout his 40-year political career.
The 82-year old Limerick native formed the PDs in 1986 after being ejected from Fianna Fáil by then party leader Charles Haughey, for voting against the party and supporting a Fine Gael-Labour coalition government Bill liberalising the sale of contraceptives.
His famous 1985 Dail speech around the controversy, declaring his vote was a matter of “conscience”, and that he would not be towing the FF party line as “one of the lads”, but rather, he would “stand by the Republic”, was recalled by his friend, chief celebrant Fr Gerard O’Connor, a former PD member.
O’Malley, slept with a gun under his pillow and never stayed in the same address for more than a few days at a time while under threat from the P-IRA after being appointed FF Minister for Justice during the Arms Crisis of 1970.
He became a target for the Provisional movement after he established the non-jury Special Criminal Court to try subversives, as well as the Offences Against the State Act, which boosted the State’s armoury against dissidents.
Despite “red paint and coffins being thrown into the (front garden) of his family home in Limerick”, O’Malley never flinched in speaking out against the men of violence or in his pursuit of the truth, Fr O’Connor told mourners at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Donnybrook, where Des O’Malley married his soulmate Patricia, who died in 2017.
“Des was robust, utterly frank, often right, but he was also tender, loving, witty and funny. Des never dropped the habit of calling a spade a spade, he was never going to be one of the lads,” Fr O’Connor said.
Des O’Malley was more than able for the cut and thrust of Irish politics, the funeral heard. Fr O’Connor said the father of six had survived “playing golf in forty degrees heat in Iraq; a serious car crash; founded a political party; and, he was accused of having ideas”.
A pub owned by his parents-in-law was blown up twice by paramilitaries, and O’Malley was away a lot from his children when they were younger in order to concentrate on his busy ministerial schedule.
O’Malley was known for his modest character, and mourners chuckled as Fr O’Connor recounted how the former Limerick TD expelled a “mouthful” of choice words after a former PD colleague compared him to being “a combination of the best of JFK and Pope John Paul II”.
He regularly articulated how the “best role” in public life was “to challenge” and “hold the public square morally accountable”.
“Des had a powerful message, but instead of trying to dominate the public square, he informed and inspired it,” said Fr O’Conner.
The mass, attended by President Michael D Higgins along with his Aide-de-camp, Col Stephen Howard, and Cmdt Brendan McInerney the Taoiseach’s aide-de-camp, was told Des O’Malley believed the word “Republican” was “probably the most abused word in this country”.
Fr O’Connor said O’Malley was an “authentic republican, who carried a scary burden”, when he was under threat from subversives, at a time he was a young man with a wife and young family.
“He had courage and tenacity, and Des O’Malley dared greatly. He was a light that burned brightly in our midst.”
He was a fiercely “proud” father and devoted to his 13 grandchildren and he adored his native Limerick and Limerick loved him.
In latter years the “glint in his eyes would light up whenever he mentioned his grandchildren’s names” just as it had when he was thundering away as a political powerhouse searching for truth.
O’Malley’s son, Eoin, a social scientist at the School of Law and Government at DCU, and newspaper columnist, said his family were “grateful for all the tributes and kind messages” given his father’s “tough job, which invites criticism and conflict”.
He joked, “Dad was vain enough that he would have wanted a big funeral”, but Covid stole that dream.
A job in politics “takes a toll on a family”, he remarked, but he affirmed that he and his five siblings “were never ashamed of being Des O’Malley’s children”.
“He was absent a lot from our lives as children but Dad was quite a different person to the public persona.”
Drawing back the curtains on life inside the O’Malley household, he joked: “Dad was a fella we slagged quiet a lot, and on most occasions he was willing to take it, and loved dishing it out too, mostly to our mother, who he used to say was the main beneficiary of their marriage.”
Behind it all, Des O’Malley was “happiest playing golf and having a pint and chatting with friends”.
“When with friends or at home he never talked much about politics, he preferred to trade stories, to slag people, and he liked to engage in practical jokes, and later in life he started to do prank calls and ring people and pretend to be somebody else.”
—PRANK CALLS—
“One included pretending that he was going to put Thomond Park rugby stadium up for sale, and he had some ‘young one’, as he would have called her, from Sherry Fitzgerald (auctioneers) on the phone for about an hour, as he tried to convince her that Thomond Park was prime development land and ready for 500 (housing) units.”
“Dad would gamble on almost anything, he loved horses, and we, possibly because we are his children, opened a (betting) book soon after my mum died, as to how long Dad would last. He refused to lay the bets, because he felt he had an interest in the outcome or may not be able to pay out in time,” he joked.
Des O’Malley also “loved a bargain” and after retiring he would often spend his spare time frequenting “car boot sales and country markets, and would happily bargain with a stall holder in an attempting to get the price down”.
“He was in constant search of the cheapest petrol in Ireland, and took an irrational pride if it happened to be in Limerick City or County”, Eoin O’Malley added to bursts of laughter from mourners.
“The grandkids looked after him in the last years of his life, and taking care of him was a pleasure, and it probably gave us time to get to know Dad better than we would have otherwise have known him. He had mellowed significantly with age, and showed a tenderness and frailty that wasn’t always obvious when we were growing up.”
Eoin O’Malley thanked healthcare professionals at Belmont Nursing Home and Blackrock Hospice, Alona and Sam, and Dr Elmer Kelly in St Vincents Hospital “who looked after him very well”.
Former Tanaiste and PD leader, Mary Harney, who remained a close friend and confidant of Des O’Malley until his final days, paid tribute to her former mentor as “a Statesman, and person of courage and integrity”.
“The only regret he’ll have is that he didn’t make the front cover of the Racing Post in the last few days,” Ms Harney joked.
Despite his ailing health, O’Malley travelled to a polling booth 15 days ago, to vote in the Dublin South by-election, “still willing to do the right thing” by using his opportunity to have his voice heard in a democracy he had fought so hard to maintain.
—PATRIOTISM—
Ms Harney said in her opinion, O’Malley and his fellow Limerick men, Detective Garda Jerry McCabe who was murdered by the P-IRA in 1996, and his colleague Detective Garda Ben O’Sullivan, who was seriously wounded by the same gang, “embodied the essence of patriotism”.
“Public servants who risked their lives, like people in uniform, such as (Des’s) great friend Jerry McCabe or Ben O’Sullivan, knew that in Des O’Malley they had somebody that was prepared, not only to stand up for them, but to stand with them as they served their country.”
Singer Blathnaid Conroy Murphy, backed by pianist Vincent Lynch performed a haunting lilt of the hymn Abide With Me. A similar refrain Be Not Afraid was sung on June 10, 1996, at Detective Garda McCabe’s State funeral, as it was three-weeks later at the funeral mass of journalist Veronica Guerin, another who also pursued the truth, despite threats against her by criminals.
Summing up, Fr O’Connor said the lyrics from the hit song Loose Yourself, by US rapper Eminem, could have, in another world, been inspired by Des O’Malley’s tenacious search for honesty and truth in public life.
Quoting the lyrics, Fr O’Connor called on others in public life to take up the torch, hold onto their own memories of O’Malley and not let go: “Seize the moment, try to freeze it, and own it. Squeeze it and hold it.”
