Comrades bid MacGiolla farewell

FORMER Workers’ Party leader Tomás MacGiolla was laid to rest in Dublin yesterday with an uilleann pipes lament and praise for his lifelong commitment to the unity of “Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter”.

A gathering of comrades and friends in a cold Palmerstown cemetery followed a secular celebration at Ballyfermot Civic Centre, in the heart of the community he served for many of his 86 years, 10 of them as a TD.

The building, which houses a citizens information centre and library was a fitting venue for the committed socialist and republican’s last public act. Since he assumed the leadership of a then united Sinn Féin party in 1962 MacGiolla had strove to put social issues and citizens rights to the fore in Irish politics.