Sir, - Jim Kemmy, the Irish socialist, is gone. There is a generation of people who will quietly mourn him. Jim's political role was not simply to bring down the FitzGerald coalition in 1982 over John Bruton's attempt to impose VAT on children's footwear. But that was, of course, a key event, and it marked the limit of what Jim Kemmy, a working-class socialist of the finest type, could accept.
He was a man of profound honesty and humanity - of which, as my father once put it, he had more in his little finger than most of his opponents had in their entire beings. In a very real way, it was he who saw off the grimness of 1950s Ireland. And, most significantly, he did this from his beloved city of Limerick, at one time the very symbol of that old Ireland. More than any other politician, he paved the way for the changes that would later make possible the election of Mary Robinson, a colleague of his.
The turning point in our recent history came with the first awful abortion referendum in 1983. As politicians and opinion leaders buckled under the threatened belt of the crozier, Jim stood firm and, although it was to cost him his Dail seat, he formed the centre of the moral stand against national madness. This stand required amazing courage - it is difficult to recall today just how timid our liberals were in those days.
Another area where Jim Kemmy stood firm and turned the tide was when, alone among Irish politicians, he rejected the madness of the militant nationalist consensus in the Republic. He pioneered the moral position on Northern Ireland and the rights of all its people which has since become orthodoxy and made possible the recent developments towards a real peace.
I am very proud to have worked and fought side by side with him. A great figure with a great heart, representing the very best and most cultured in the Irish Left, has passed, and there are few who can hold a candle to him. He will be remembered with love. - Yours, etc.,
Bayside Walk, Dublin 13.