Longford has "lost a giant" of a man in former councillor and publican Peter Clarke
Former colleagues pay glowing tribute to Fine Gael stalwart
The popular printer turned councillor and later businessman passed away peacefully in the the caring surrounds of Laurel Lodge Nursing Home yesterday (Saturday) evening.
A number of his former colleagues on Longford Town Council, of which he was an esteemed member of for almost four decades, have been paying their own respects to one of the county's most likeable and revered characters.
"He was a great man and someone who I had an awful lot of time for," said former Town councillor Tony Carberry.
"He was elected before I was in 1979 and he had the experience. He was a very easy councillor to work with."
Mr Carberry said his long time political opposite number took those same unassuming virtues into many other facets of his life, most notably his successful running of his family run bar business on Dublin Street.
"Peter was a man who was the very same outside the bar as he was inside the bar.
"The minute you went in that door, you knew you were welcome.
"Peter would tell things as he saw it and he was admired for that. Politics would rarely ever come into it with Peter.
"He was a great friend of mine and is someone who I will miss dearly."
Those sincere sentiments were ones which were underlined by another of Peter's long serving town council colleagues, Christy Warnock.
The now retired Independent local representative who bowed out of local politics in 2011, said Longford had lost one of its most cherished and inimitable figures in the form of the former Fine Gael political heavyweight.
"I am very sorry to hear of Peter's passing," said a sombre sounding Mr Warnock.
"I have to say, he was a very personal friend of mine and was a very honourable, straight man.
"We served together for many years on the council and he was a first class councillor.
"Longford will be a lot poorer for his passing."