Enniscorthy’s Sean Kavanagh spent his final days doing the things he loved

The funeral mass of the late Sean Kavanagh has heard how his last days were spent doing the things he loved. Speaking in St. Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Sean’s daughter Edel recalled her father’s final hours.

“If he could have written his final days they would have involved a Saturday watching the Six Nations, then The Tommy Tiernan Show in the Milehouse with mammy in front of the fire, on Sunday morning putting on his odd socks, having the fry, and then meeting his friends, before going for a spin with Pauline. And he did all those things. His light dimmed doing what he loved.”

A keen cyclist and long-time member of Slaney Cycling Club, Sean had stopped at his father’s grave to commemorate his birthday, singing a few songs to mark the occasion, before taking ill. Subsequently, he passed in Wexford General Hospital on March 19.

Thanking Pauline for looking after him, Edel described the things which made her dad so loved in the local community.

“This is not going to be a daddy-style eulogy, if it was we’d be here until evening Mass. I remember when he wrote the speech for my wedding he did so in a blue marker that could be seen from Vinegar Hill, and while he will be laid to rest at the foot of Vinegar Hill he will live on in here,” she said pointing to her heart.. “Daddy could make anything, every block laid in my house was laid by him with passion and care, how lucky I am to be able to look out and see his handiwork every day. Only last Friday he stitched Sean’s schoolbag.

“He loved everything about his family, he loved his grandchildren with all his heart; and he loved a bit of style, caps, blazers, brogues, and he loved the bike. He would tell mammy he was going for a short spin and 30km later he’d arrive home.”

Edel and the rest of the family were with Sean during his final moments, and those memories will stay with them she said.

“We held his hand and told him we loved him, I told him I’d mind the chaps, and I swore I heard him say ‘you better’. He was with us all when we took our first breaths, and we were with him when he took his last. He had a wonderful life, the last thing he said to me as he left my house in Saturday evening, ‘thanks Mailo, see you tomorrow’. See you tomorrow, daddy.”

Sean’s son, Ronan, then paid tribute to a man he described as a “grafter” and a “legend of the road”.

“He could be building a stone wall one day, tiling a bathroom the next, and making a sculpture of Vinegar Hill the day after,” Ronan said. “He loved cycling, would cycle from Dublin to Belfast, go for a small lemonade, and cycle back the next day, all for charity. He was a legend of the road, and those roads will miss the laughs he leaves behind him. To really know how good of a dad he was you only have to look at my sisters, at how beautiful, strong, tenacious, kind, and compassionate they are, if I do half as good a job with my daughter she’ll be in safe hands.

“We all know he loved us and he knew how much we loved him, sláinte dad, take it easy, chat to you later.”

Sean is survived by his wife Maria, children Edel, Ronan and Dareen, siblings Oliver, Joan, Carrie and Martin and grandchildren Conall, Sean and Bodhi.

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