Dick Walsh's daughter Francesca felt "he would have just loved this". Standing by her father's coffin she gestured to the collection of family and friends at Colliers Funeral Home on Old Connaught Road, Bray last night.
Mr Walsh himself lay in an open coffin in a red velvet dressing gown with a bunch of primroses in his hands and resting on his chest the book Danube by Claudio Magris. "It was his favourite book," said Francesca. A fly-leaf read that it was "a sentimental journey from the source to the Black Sea". Ms Ruth Kelly, Mr Walsh's wife, felt her husband "looked like Lenin" in repose.
Also present at the coffin was his daughter Susie and son-in-law Jonathan. Among the gathering were former ombudsman Michael Mills, former RTÉ political correspondent, Joe Fahy, broadcaster and commentator Seán Mac Reamoinn, writer Liam Ó Muirthile, Irish Ambassador to Paris, Paddy MacKernan, Des Geraghty of SIPTU, Liz McManus, TD and many others as well as a number of Irish Times colleagues past and present.
