Colin Farrell described his father Eamon as a “bold and unique and funny and charismatic and kind” man who had a somewhat loose interpretation of the rules of the road at his funeral service in the Lady of the Victories Church in Glasnevin, Dublin on Saturday.
In a moving tribute before more than 100 mourners including the deceased’s wife Eileen, delivered in the form of a letter to his father, the actor recalled moments he said were “frozen in time”.
He talked about how, as a five-year-old child, he had banged his head at school and needed stitches above his eye. He remembered sitting on his dad’s lap being comforted and “how safe I felt in that moment after getting back from hospital. I was just safe sitting there.
“I remember it so clearly, your arms around me, me trying to figure out the words to tell you what happened, and you looking at me with the strength of a father’s love and concern. The feeling of that memory, Dad, is so vivid and more so now that you are gone.”
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He told mourners how, on a family holiday to France, his father wanted to “sneak on to the grounds of the prince’s palace in Monaco, into an area that no one was allowed. That was clear. It was cordoned off and not only that but you had only a tight pair of football shorts and no shirt. I was only seven but even then, I knew it just wasn’t a great idea”.
But the son dutifully followed the father and, Farrell recalled, when they were inevitably caught by security who had received a report of “sunburned man strutting half-naked around the grounds” they had to engineer their escape, which they did successfully.
“It was so exciting breaking the rules with you. You were so exciting, you really were. You were a menace in a car driving up on the footpath to get around midday traffic ... and driving the wrong way down one-way streets, looking at me, saying: ‘sure, we’re only going one way’. You used to always say to me that I had a neck like a jockey’s bollix but Dad if that’s the case I didn’t lick it off the street.”
Eamon – who “knew the game of football inside out” having played at the top level and been a cup winner with Shamrock Rovers in the 1960s – coached his son on the Castleknock Celtic football team, an experience the actor described as “magic”.
“I loved being your son, Dad, you were a god to me growing up and even in my early adulthood during my drinking days, even though I was from the mean streets of Castleknock, I’d seek out the inner city pubs that had all the auld fellas in them, the dockers in the Wind Jammer or wherever, so that I could tell anyone who’d listen who my Dad was, the famous Shamrock Rovers star Eamon Farrell.”
Farrell touched on the varied career his father had after his footballing days. “You had a fish and chip shop, a few restaurants and newsagents, a Spar, an import-export business and then finally, a chain of health food stores.”
He said his father was “somehow both shy and outgoing whether you were Mr Farrell or Eamon or Eamo; people really loved you Dad, they gravitated towards you”.
He highlighted how hard his father had worked and how he had “provided amazingly for us all, myself, [and his siblings] Eamon, Catherine [and] Claudine really do thank you so much for that Dad, for how hard you worked to make sure we were safe and warm and clothed and fed and all the rest. I was so thankful you got to spend so much time in America too over the years, that you got to be with your grandsons and your granddaughter and see me as a dad.”
He expressed thanks to carers at the nursing home where his father had spent much of the last year and to the staff in Beaumont Hospital where he spent his final days.
The celebrants were Fr Frank Reburn and Deacon Derek Leonard, a man who knew the deceased for more than 50 years, having first met when Eamon Farrell was employed in the Leonard family’s fruit and veg business in the fruit market off Capel Street. The music was provided by Colin Farrell’s uncle, Paul Monaghan.
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The deacon described the deceased as a “beautiful man” with an infectious laugh and the capacity to give his full attention to those he was speaking to and make them feel like they were the centre of the world.
A Shamrock Rovers shirt, a cricket cap, a cycling helmet and a freshly baked apple tart with cream – something the deacon called dibs on – were left as offerings before the conclusion of the Mass and Eamon Farrell’s cremation at Glasnevin Cemetery.
