Priest recalls life and charm of author

“IF you have come here this morning for the funeral of a cripple, you have come to the wrong place,” the chief celebrant of yesterday’s requiem Mass for author Christopher Nolan warned

“This is a Mass of gratitude and thanksgiving for the life, the charm, the compassion, the tenderness of Christopher Nolan,” Fr Declan Cassidy told those gathered in St Fintan’s Church in Sutton, Dublin, to bid a final farewell to the poet and novelist.

The Jesuit priest from Belvedere College, Dublin, started by reminding everyone of how they envisaged Christopher Nolan.

“Was it the wheelchair and the disability we noticed, or had we the grace, the gift from God, to look into those eyes and see a bright, learned, empathetic and intelligent man.”

His sister, Yvonne, who sat hugging her young daughters, Sunniva and Djuna, has described her brother as the bravest, toughest, fiercest man that ever lived.

She said there was only one word to describe how she and her parents, Bernie and Joe now felt — bereft.

Christopher, who died suddenly last week aged 43, was born with cerebral palsy and battled against his disability to produce three critically acclaimed novels.

Christopher used a steel device resembling a unicorn’s horn to communicate and it was poignantly presented, together with copies of his books, by his two nieces during the Mass.

Conor Mullen, who played Joseph Meehan in Torchlight and Lazerbeams — the stage adaptation of Christopher’s autobiography Under the Eye of the Clock, that was granted the Whitbread Award in 1988 — gave the readings.

Fr Cassidy said Christopher spoke volumes before he could even write — through his eyes.

But winning the Whitbread Award allowed people to lift their gaze from his disability into the eyes of a bright, intelligent and imaginative person. “What frustrated him incredibly were people who, almost unthinkingly, dismissed him. Instead of seeing that lovely person through his eyes, they allowed their blindness to be captured by the wheelchair, by the disability, by the floppy face, by the flaying limbs, and missing God’s gift to them.”

Both President Mary McAleese and Taoiseach Brian Cowen were represented at the funeral.

Christopher Nolan was laid to rest at St Fintan’s Cemetery in Sutton.