Final farewell for George Crosbie

HIS devotion to his wife and family was remembered yesterday at the funeral Mass of the late George Crosbie, the former chairman of Thomas Crosbie Holdings, who died last Friday at the age of 83.

A fourth generation shareholder with the newspaper group, which his great-grandfather Thomas Crosbie acquired in 1872, the late Mr Crosbie’s thoughts on funerals yesterday lifted the mood when recalled to those attending the ceremony in St John the Baptist Church, Kinsale, Co Cork.

In a eulogy given by his son Alan Crosbie, the gathering of family and friends was told that his late father had once said: “When I go, I want no tears, I want no bloody black ties, nothing morbid – just a bit of craic and I promise you I’ll be fine.”

The late Mr Crosbie was a lifelong member of Cork Golf Club and acknowledged as one of the finest golfers ever to come out of Cork. He was a golf international and played for Ireland in 1953, 1955, 1956 and 1957.

“Over the years, Dad and I went to a lot of funerals together. He didn’t like them much – he hated them... We used to smile a little bit at funeral eulogies, fellows who were maybe OK golfers in his eyes, suddenly became internationals or, guys who were OK sailors in his eyes, suddenly became championship winners or, ordinary guys in the space of five minutes became saints,” Alan said.

“He used to say things like ‘he was a good guy but I didn’t recognise him from the eulogy’. Well, Dad was an international golfer, he was a championship sailor and many other things, thankfully, a saint he was not and I’m not going to try to make him one here now.

“Dad was a fairly complex guy with fairly simple tastes. Yes, he did all the high profile stuff but what he really loved was to be at home with Mum and all of us. We all feel really loved by Dad but he loved Mum most of all and he was so proud to go out with her on his arm,” Alan told the mourners.

Leading the mourners was the late Mr Crosbie’s widow, Joan, and the couple’s eight children, Anne, Jean, Alan, Susan, Patricia, Una, Paul and Phillip as well as their 16 grandchildren.

Fr Robert Young said the late Mr Crosbie had brought the same Christian values evident in his love for his family to his life in business.

Mrs Joan Crosbie read a prayer of the faithful in which she asked for the gathering to remember in their prayers all those who had cared for her late husband over the past five years in the Bon Secours Hospital, Kinsale Community Hospital, at home and at Haven Bay Care Centre.

Items symbolic of his life and interests were among the offertory gifts brought to the altar by Mr Crosbie’s grandchildren and included a family photograph, a copy of the Irish Examiner, a golf club, a sailing pennant and a recording of one of the many songs he wrote.

Yesterday’s funeral Mass was concelebrated by retired Bishop Ray Boland of Kansas. Among the gathering were former chairman of Examiner Publications, Ted Crosbie, TCH managing director Anthony Dinan, TCH director Billy Crosbie, TCH director Tom Crosbie, Irish Examiner editor Tim Vaughan and Evening Echo editor Maurice Gubbins.