Frank Jennings: Frank Jennings was a human rights defender. A man with the gift of friendship, he collected lifelong friends from all the phases of his life, from his time in Monkstown CBC, UCD, the Department of Social Welfare, his years as campaigns manager in Amnesty International and as head of research with Front Line.
Frank's wife, Angela, his love and closest friend, was "the anchoring sun in the solar system of his life". His love for her and their daughters Emma and Amy was his source from which everything sprang.
As speaker after speaker said during his wake and at his funeral, Frank was the closest embodiment of pure love that any of his colleagues and friends had ever encountered. He cared deeply and individually for every friend and for each person for whose human rights he worked. He knew them, and they became part of him. He made all of us see bigger than ourselves because he oozed tolerance, decency, gentleness and dedicated service.
What underpinned all those friendships was his belief in the inherent right of each person to live, laugh and be free. During his work with Amnesty, Frank was indefatigable. He organised protests outside the Chinese embassy after the Tiananmen massacre, outside the Nigerian embassy after the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa; at the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi, the repression of the Tibetan people, the death penalty, the genocide in Rwanda . . .
Frank's motivation was always the conviction that if thoughtfulness could be displaced by mindfulness, then this would be a far, far better world. His mantra was "I learn by going where I have to go".
During the war in the former Yugoslavia, as TV footage of killing, rape and destruction increased daily and the international community sat on its hands, Frank sought ways in which to channel the anger of people in Ireland.
He had the brilliant idea of mobilising people from all over the country to undertake a caravan of conscience to the borders of Bosnia to carry a message of solidarity to the people. Two busloads left on a 10-day journey through Europe, collecting activists in every country as they travelled. The trip at different times was hilarious and unbearably moving.
The first campaign Frank organised on the buses was against the video of Oklahoma that was playing, when he galvanised most of the passengers in a petition to "stop the torture, stop the tape" to the consternation of those at the front of the bus who were singing along.
When the caravan reached its ultimate destination, the meetings with survivors and relatives of the dead were overwhelming. Relationships established in those terrible days endure as strongly today.
In 1995 Frank attended the UN conference on women's rights in Beijing. He stood out as one of few men among thousands of women. When asked by a BBC reporter: "How does it feel to be among so many women?" Frank said: "At a preparatory meeting in Dublin a woman whispered to me 'Blessed art thou amongst women'. And that's just how I feel."
A meeting Frank and colleagues organised for Tibetan women was broken up by the security forces, and the Amnesty delegation had to protect the women on their way out of the room, such was the physical aggression. Frank was named "The Black Hand" in the Chinese press the next day, a loaded insult of which he was extremely proud.
But any conversation with Frank never focused for too long on the many problems of the world. He found great joy in his garden, in the beauty of Inis Meáin, in his Buddhist beliefs. He was for ever nurturing plants and passing them on to people. He loved good food and wine and the company of friends, and many events ended up with discussions and conversation that went on into the early hours.
Frank took leave of absence from Amnesty in 2002 to work with Front Line. During the worst ravages of his illness, he came up with the idea of an identity card for human rights defenders which would confer international recognition on the defender. The response to this initiative was overwhelming - they all wanted one, seeing the cards as enhancing their security in dangerous situations.
Poetry was also central to Frank's life, and Séamus Heaney's message was hugely sustaining during his illness:
Frank -
This is how poems help us live.
They match the meshes in the sieve
Life puts us through; They take
And give
Our proper measure
And prove themselves most transitive
When they give pleasure . . .
Frank was an inspiration to us all, he was great fun, his many friends loved him dearly, and we miss him. Frank has earned ". . . the kind of calm which comes when one has done the best one can". (Eleanor Roosevelt, 1938). Frank is survived by Angela, Emma and Amy, his sister Margaret and brothers Tony, Joe and Tom.
Frank Jennings: born December 9th, 1949; died October 1st, 2005