Kenny show goes on despite mother’s death

IT WAS supposed to be a night of celebration for Fine Gael, and Enda Kenny insisted that was exactly what it would be.

But his voice broke as he spoke of his mother, Eithne, who had died at the age of 93 earlier in the day.

“For me myself and for my family this evening, it’s also a celebration of a life long lived, one of devotion and respect, if I may say so,” he said to heartfelt applause.

The venue was the Burlington Hotel, where Fine Gael’s annual presidential dinner was being held on Saturday.

With 1,200 people attending, there was never a possibility of the dinner being cancelled. But many felt the Taoiseach would skip the event following his mother’s passing.

But he was determined his bereavement would not overshadow the night for supporters celebrating Fine Gael’s election victory.

And so, accompanied by wife Fionnuala, he walked into the Burlington ballroom shortly after 8pm to a standing ovation and steeled himself for his speech.

It was a speech mainly about the task facing the Government, with Mr Kenny covering a lot of familiar ground — promising the coalition would live up to its mandate, fix the broken economy and restore sovereignty.

He acknowledged the budget would be “tough on everyone” but pledged that the Government would do its utmost to protect the most vulnerable.

And having delivered the political message, he returned to the personal.

“I suppose I could say a word about herself who has left,” he said, before explaining that his mother’s father was a lighthouse keeper who served on Tuskar Lighthouse during World War I.

“And you know, fate plays its own coincidence in these things, I suppose,” Mr Kenny added, saying that, having visited the Haulbowline naval base in Cork on Friday, he had travelled back to Dublin aboard the LE Roisín. It was while aboard the vessel on Saturday that he heard the news of his mother’s passing.

“Being a woman who loved the sea, and had a great affection for the lifeboats, I suppose it was fitting that, shortly after eight this morning, I had a call from Fionnuala to tell me — it was just north of the Tuskar Rock — that her spirit had gone off into eternity. Go ndéana Dia trócaire uirthi.”

However, Mr Kenny was determined his grief would not cast a pall over proceedings, and he dug into his reservoir of anecdotes to deliver a light-hearted, yet poignant, end to his speech.

“My final words are these: it’s not all gloom and doom, because I spoke to Nicolas [Sarkozy] himself about the new bébé, and I congratulated both himself and his good wife and the Elysee on the arrival of Giulia, the bébé.

“And he said the bébé is called Giulia for the Italian connection, and then he gave me his really strong point because he said...” — here Mr Kenny imitated the French president’s accent — “... ‘The good news is that the bébé takes after the mother.’”

It brought the house down, and Mr Kenny concluded over the laughter: “And that’s why mothers, at the end of their lives or the beginning of their lives, are very important to us all.”

The funeral of Eithne Kenny will take place in Castlebar today.