North Longford saddened by death of highly respected Patrick Finnegan

There was deep regret in the area when word spread last Wednesday, May 15 of the peaceful passing after a long illness of Patrick Finnegan, Dublin and formerly of Texas and originally from Cloonagh.

Patrick was eighty-two years of age, and was one of five children of the late Joe and Katie Finnegan, who ran the post office in Cloonagh for many years.

After his education in Cloonagh National School and St Mel’s College, he went on to University College Dublin where he studied engineering and was academically very successful, going on to the University of London where he completed a PhD in the area.

When in Dublin, he met and married the love of his life Emily Barrett, a native of Dublin, and they were happily married for more than fifty years until his death.

After graduating with his doctorate, Patrick was employed for many years in the oil industry, working in many countries in the Middle East before settling in the United States where he worked for an American oil company.

Upon his retirement in the late 1990s he offered to help out a transport and logistics company near his home in Texas run by members of the Reilly family, themselves natives of Cloonagh, and while originally intending to only help out for a couple of weeks he remained with the company for almost twenty years, being an indispensable expert in the areas of technology and logistics. (Incidentally, a son of the Reilly family resident in Texas, Eddie, was the most recent person to be buried in Mullinalaghta cemetery.)

In recent years after his second retirement, he and Emily returned to Ireland and it was there that he passed away after an illness of many years. He was predeceased by his parents and by his sister Kitty who died in infancy.

He is survived by his wife Emily, his sister Moira (Carra), his brothers D.P. and Martin (Cloonagh), his brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, his relatives, friends, and neighbours to whom we offer our sincere condolences.

Patrick’s Funeral Mass took place on Friday, May 17 in St Columba’s Church where the large attendance testified to the respect and esteem in which he and the wider Finnegan family are held.

The Mass was celebrated by Fr Michael Bannon PP assisted by Fr Peter Beglan and Fr Simon Cadam, both natives of the parish, and his interment in the local cemetery followed afterwards.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.