Funeral takes place of former attorney general Patrick Connolly

The passing of the former attorney general Patrick Connolly SC marked the "end of an era", his funeral mass in Dublin heard on Saturday.

Mr Connolly, who served as attorney general in the Government formed by the late Charles Haughey in March 1982, was a highly-regarded barrister who was for a long time a senior figure of the Irish Bar.

The Chief Justice, Susan Denham, as well as two former holders of the position, the President of the Court of Appeal Seán Ryan, four former attorney generals, judges of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court, and senior members of the Bar joined family and other friends at requiem mass in the Church of the Assumption in Dalkey.

“Unlike Paddy, I will try to be brief”, Mr Connolly’s nephew, Stephen Connolly, said when beginning his eulogy. His uncle, he said, had been a “unique and loveable man” who was talented, humourous, loyal, hugely generous and compassionate, and a man of principle and integrity. His love of opera was known to all, including his neighbours.

“This is a happy day as we celebrate Paddy’s very complete and accomplished life,” he said.

Fr Declan Gallagher, who celebrated the mass, said he had been told earlier by a colleague of Mr Connolly’s that his passing was “the end of an era”. Mr Connolly, he said, was someone who had loved his work, had the highest esteem of his colleagues, had a wicked sense of humour, loved conversation, and appreciated life.

At the outset of the mass the items brought to the altar to mark Mr Connolly's interests were: a photograph from when he was admitted to the Bar in 1949; a programme from the 2013 Croke Park clash between Dublin and Mayo, the last GAA match he had attended; an encyclopedia of opera; a travel book; and a copy of Finnegans Wake given to him by his colleagues to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his being called to the Bar.

The attendance at the mass included former chief justices Ronan Keane and John Murray (who is also a former attorney general), former attorney generals Dermot Gleeson SC, Michael McDowell SC, and Paul Gallagher SC, Supreme Court judge Mary Laffoy and former Supreme Court judges Hugh Geogeghan and Nial Fennelly, Court of Appeal judge Mary Finlay Geoghegan, and High Court judges Michael Moriarty and Barry McGovern.

The mass was also attended by the Chairman of the Bar Council, David Barniville SC, as well as Paul O’Higgins SC, Maurice Gaffney SC, Conor Maguire SC, Maurice Collins SC and other members of the Bar.

The chief mourners included Mr Connolly’s nephew Stephen, his nieces Geraldine Connolly, Helen Macey, and Aideen Goffi, and his sister-in-law Gertrude Connolly.

Mr Connolly was a central figure in one of the most extraordinary events to impinge on Irish political life.

In summer 1982 the country’s most wanted man, murder suspect Malcolm Macarthur, was arrested in Connolly’s apartment in Dalkey. The arrest created a sensation, compounded when Connolly left the country for a planned holiday in the United States.

Then taoiseach Charles Haughey, who was already at the centre of a number of controversies, was plunged into a fresh crisis with all sorts of rumour and innuendo developing from Macarthur’s arrest at the attorney general’s home. At a press conference, Haughey described the sequence of events leading to Macarthur’s arrest as “grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented.

Connolly was an innocent party in the affair but it took some time for that to become clear as the media and public were caught up in a frenzy of speculation.

That prompted Haughey’s fiercest critic Conor Cruise O’Brien to coin the term “Gubu” to describe him and his government.