The dreadful massacre in Las Vegas highlights another sad week. We keep loosing people we love and cherish both public and private. Last week news came of Seamus Kelters death and a most moving tribute to his friend penned by Brian Rowan. This is part of that tribute:. The sun was shining; not one of those days when the rain and the cold and the clouds arrive uninvited to add their sorrow and presence to death.
We had just left the graveside of Seamus Kelters and his burial after the most remarkable of masses. In his own style and way, Seamus had written his own eulogy; delivered brilliantly and with so much love by his two sons Brendan and Michael. Seamus was just He died on Wednesday after a short illness β a fight and a battle with cancer. His journalist career spanned the Irish News and the BBC and he was one of the co-authors of Lost Lives β a book of a million words logging all the deaths of the conflict period; a book that in its detail remembers what many have long since forgotten.
The funeral priest Fr Martin Magill spoke of its importance, how he keeps that book beside him on his desk. It is a memorial to the victims β to all the dead β of a past that is still our present; unaddressed and unanswered.
Far away yet near for those who loved his music, Tom Petty died in Los Angeles yesterday. By all accounts a modest man held in high regard by his fellow musicians. Tom Petty was only 66 when his heart gave up and a legend was born. And then there was Hugh Hefner he was granted a longer life dying at 91 and being buried in Los Angeles beside Marilyn Munro. Such mixed views about this man. Just shows, here are two sides to every story.
Musician, broadcaster, family man, much loved for his wit and reminiscences of playing with the greats, especially Chris Barber, also Paul McCartney. Rod Stewart, Bowie. Jackie was a character, his own man who was happy as long as his beloved double bass was in the back of the car. Tributes came in from all arts and part. Chris Barber send me this message, and gave a little insight into his own background:. Jackie was a good friend and a fine musicianβ¦..
