Thanks Slugger O’Toole for inviting me to put in writing one thing about Jim Fitzpatrick RIP.
My first ideas at present are with Jim’s household, with Anne, Bríd, Bernard, Eileen, Dominic, Clare, Jim (Junior) and Andrew and his different family members. And with the Irish Information household who’re additionally grieving a revered patriarchal determine and starting to return to phrases together with his loss. I prolong to all of them my sympathy and prayerful solidarity at this unhappy time. Nonetheless, it is usually a time of thanksgiving for the good giftedness of Jim.
And as it’s Sunday I’m additionally keenly conscious of a lacking face within the congregation on the 12 o’clock Mass in St Brigid’s Parish church on Derryvolgie Avenue the place Jim, my fellow parishioner, was a well-known reassuring presence till very lately.
I really feel privileged to have identified him, to have labored for him as his first editor, and to have had him as an individual to whom I may flip to for sensible counsel subsequently in my profession, certainly till fairly lately. It was not one-way visitors. There would even be an encouraging observe, telephone name or textual content infrequently after a programme he had appreciated or when he thought I had written a great piece.
He was a great and respectable man who handled individuals with respect. And alongside his gentleness and kindness have been the steeliness, decisiveness and resolve that enabled him to turn out to be a really profitable businessman and a large in our aggressive media sector.
The clue to understanding Jim, to attending to the essence of the person, is within the motto that seems above each editorial in The Irish Information : the Latin phrases “Professional fide et patria” which imply “For religion and fatherland” or in some trendy translations “For religion and nation.”
Jim had a deep religion that was central to his life and a few would possibly contemplate such a motto anachronistic or one way or the other un-PC in a secularised world however such a thought would have been alien to Jim.
He liked God. He saved the religion. He liked his nation, the piece of earth the place God had positioned him.
I keep in mind Jim stressing that the phrase “fide” within the motto meant the Christian religion and shouldn’t be interpreted in a slim denominational sense.
He was a religious Catholic however an independently minded one who didn’t – when he felt he needed to – hesitate to talk his thoughts privately in his so light voice to prelates (and politicians too ) and inform them issues they didn’t want to hear.
Practising the religion for Jim meant listening to and appearing out the directions of Jesus within the Gospel. I typically thought there was one verse from the Sermon on the Mount he particularly embraced: “However whenever you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your proper hand is doing.” (Matthew 6:3).
Jim by no means publicised his beneficiant philanthropic work or spoke about his quiet unsung position within the peace course of. He was a modest man who eschewed self-promotion and studiously averted the limelight. To my data, he by no means gave a media interview in his 93 years. Not a few years in the past he very politely declined a request by me for an Irish Catholic interview. Per week or two later, the gentleman that he was, he made a beeline for me after Sunday Mass to apologise if he had been brusque with me.
Doing good and doing the precise factor was by no means about him however in regards to the individuals who wanted assist or the trigger that wanted assist. He was guided by his conscience and it’s no coincidence that his nice hero was St Thomas Extra, additionally a lawyer, who was martyred for conscience.
No trigger mattered extra to Jim Fitzpatrick than the reason for peace in his place of birth.
As I said in the middle of my tribute on Twitter yesterday Jim was “one in every of our unsung heroes who strove tirelessly for peace behind the scenes and quietly constructed bridges and fostered reconciliation with out ever in search of the limelight.”
Taoiseach Micheál Martin in his tribute remarked that “his position within the earliest days of the embryonic peace course of just isn’t broadly identified, but it surely was essential.”
To my data the one glimpse we’ve got had of the significance of Jim’s position within the peace course of has are available in Mary McAleese’s beautifully written memoir Right here’s the Story (Sandycove/Penguin Books).
Mary chooses her phrases rigorously and signifies that even at this take away there’s a lot that can’t be revealed about her work with Jim as members of the Clonard Peace Ministry in supporting the seminal Hume-Adams initiative. However that was solely part of his wider work for peace and reconciliation. I recall that lengthy earlier than Hume-Adams, throughout my time as Editor within the early Nineteen Eighties Jim was reaching out and interacting with senior loyalist paramilitaries amongst others.
Jim’s nice legacy is the colourful Irish Information newspaper of at present that in difficult occasions is outperforming its rivals. It now falls to Jim’s son Dominic, the managing director, and his colleagues to guard and develop that treasured patrimony and we want them nicely.
Jim Fitzpatrick was a patriot who has left his mark for good on this group in some ways and his loss leaves an awesome void. His life was a present and people of us who mourn him are additionally grateful for his friendship and for his contribution to the frequent good.
Jim has now gone to his everlasting reward to be reunited with Alice, his spouse and soulmate who supported him immeasurably all through their lengthy marriage.
Might his light soul relaxation in peace.
Martin O’Brien is a former editor of The Irish Information. You may comply with him on Twitter.
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