Businessman and wind energy pioneer Eddie O’Connor was remembered at his funeral as a man of boundless enthusiasm and ambition who had changed the world.
The secular service, conducted by Entheos Ireland celebrant Karen Dempsey, was attended by politicians, business people, friends and extended family of Mr O’Connor, who died aged 76.
Mr O’Connor had been a former purchasing manager in the ESB and the chief executive of Bord na Móna before he became aware of the connection between fossil fuels and global warming and established Airtricity in 1996.
His daughter Lesley told the congregation at the Mount Jerome chapel in Dublin that they would concentrate on the private rather than the public man. He was a supreme organiser, but that did not include planning his own funeral, she said.
Her father, she said, was a “visionary” who believed in “going big or going home. He has been quoted in saying that there is no point in being modest and no point in not being ambitious. That to us was him. That was normal. He made us all believe in the possible.”
He had created companies with a “bold, critical mission driven by values. Values were so important that he talked about them incessantly.”
There had been so many public tributes to her father and messages of “admiration and affection that were too many to count from all corners of the world,” she said.
He was a “loving husband” to Hildegarde for 50 years, an “incredible Dad and an energetic and loving grandfather, a friend who was always game for adventure”.
Ms O’Connor said her father was so busy that her mother used to “buy The Irish Times to keep up with what he was doing. They were a brilliant team.”
Robert O’Connor said his father had been impressed by the medical personnel who had treated him in his final days at St Vincent’s hospital. “He was an expert on day two about his illness. He didn’t get the head start that he needed, but we know he would have found a cure if he had a little more time.”
His father loved sports, especially rugby and in particular Lansdowne RFC. His love of fishing took him around the world from salmon fishing in Ballysadare, Co Sligo, to places like British Columbia, Cuba and the Bahamas chasing tarpon, marlin and tuna. He loved fine wines and finally got an opportunity to buy his own vineyard last year in Bordeaux for “which he had great plans”.
Among those present at his funeral were the Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan, former minister Pat Rabbitte, Senator Timmy Dooley and former TD Frank Fahey. The business world was represented by EirGrid chief executive Mark Foley, Wind Energy Ireland chief executive Noel Cunniffe, Airtricity co-founder Brian Hurley, SuperNode chief executive John Fitzgerald and Mainstream Renewable Power chief executive Mary Quaney among others. Broadcaster Pat Kenny was also in attendance.
The soundtrack for his funeral included The Beatles’ Here, There and Everywhere, Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop and Bob Seger’s In Your Time – the lyrics of which were printed on a sheet and was one of his favourite songs. It included the lines “Feel the Wind and set yourself the bolder course”.
The final song, appropriately for a man who made his reputation and fortune from wind energy, was the 1980s classic Together in Electric Dreams by Philip Oakley of the Human League and producer Giorgio Moroder.
Mr O’Connor is survived by his wife, son, daughter, brother Des, sisters Mary and Anne his five grandchildren Oisín, Scout, Sadie, Robyn and Max.
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