Noli timere: ‘Farewell to public figure and private friend’

“Don’t be afraid” were the last the poet ever used, sending them in a text message to his wife Marie from his hospital bed, just minutes before his death on Friday.

Of course, he wrote them in Latin, in the more economical “noli timere”, for the poet of the people was also a learned man who walked both paths with an equally vibrant spring in his step.

The shock and sorrow that followed the sudden quenching of that vibrancy was evident all around the Church of the Sacred Heart in Donnybrook, Dublin, where sadness soured appetites for celebrity-spotting, and contemplation won out over conversation.