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Image source: RIP.ie
The late Patrick V (Paddy) O’Sullivan, whose funeral Mass was celebrated this Tuesday, was remembered during the service as a man who loved nature and animals and his long and distinguished career with agriculture and food development authority, Teagasc, brought him close to both on a daily basis.
Killarney Parish Administrator, Fr Kieran O’Brien, told the congregation in St Mary’s Cathedral that nature and our surroundings can teach us all so much about life and Paddy’s work allowed him to pass on that knowledge to the many farmers he visited all over the county.
He said Paddy watched and admired the nature all around him and he knew all about the changes in the environment and in the seasons since he was a child growing up in the countryside in Kilmallock, Co Limerick where he first developed a love for land and animals.
“This followed through in his work with An Teagasc, visiting farmyards and advising the farmers and he was known throughout the county,” Fr O’Brien said.
“It’s like the saying ‘you can take the man from the country but you cannot take the country from the man’,” he added.
Fr O’Brien said Paddy continued his love for the great outdoors while living in Killarney for more than 50 years and, in his spare time, he even developed and nurtured a polytunnel at the back of his home in Woodlawn which was unusual to see in a town but he found space for it and spent so much time pottering in it and tending to what he was growing.
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“His interest in nature was also his passion,” Fr O’Brien said, adding that Paddy was close to God through nature and consolation can be taken from the fact that death is just only another way of life.
A lifelong dog lover, seldom without his canine companions, Paddy was also a keen golfer and a long-time member of Killarney Golf and Fishing Club where he spent many great days and had some really great friends.
Paddy is remembered this week by many as a kind and generous neighbour, a great conversationalist, a great source of knowledge and information and engaging company.
Fr O’Brien, who was joined on the altar by Canon Tom Looney, said Paddy was a great family man who was very proud of the many achievements of his children and grandchildren with whom he was blessed and who all brought him so much joy and happiness.
Paddy, who passed away in University Hospital Kerry, following an illness, at sunrise on Saturday morning, is survived by his wife, Jacquie, daughters Paula (Murphy), Valerie and Jennifer (Pyne) son Patrick, grandchildren Sarah, Amy, Brian, Mark, Ollie, Alice and Robbie-Patrick and his great grand-daughter Lucy.
He is further survived by his sons-in-law Paul, Derek and Marcus, his sisters Ann (Honohan), Vera (Lane) and Lily (Liddy), sister-in-law Serena, brothers-in-law Seán and Cormac, nieces and nephews and many other relatives, friends and former work colleagues.
A private cremation took place following today’s Requiem Mass.
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