Michael Lyster was a devoted family man with “a curiosity for all things in life and a passion for his hobbies that was infectious”, his funeral has heard.
At a celebration of his life attended by family, friends and colleagues, his son Jack said the outpouring of public affection for his father since his death last weekend had provided “a light in a very dark time” for those who loved him.
He was, he said, “magic in human form”.
For all of the fame he had achieved over his long career in journalism and as a presenter on television, most memorably with The Sunday Game, which he presented from 1984, five years after he had arrived in RTÉ from the Tuam Herald, it was “when he had no audience except for his family that he shone most brightly”.
In addition to the GAA, Lyster’s love of rally driving and music was highlighted at the service at Mount Jerome in Dublin. A Led Zeppelin album was among the items placed on his coffin by family members as mementos of his life. His hurl and the gloves he wore when competing in rally drives were also among them.
His son Jack recalled his father’s fondness of telling stories at the dinner table, his love of Galway and his assessment of Ulysses after he had read it: “A bit wordy.”
“I remember the way he made us laugh,” he said.
Speaking about his father’s devotion to his wife, Anne, he said his father “spent his life going on adventures and she was his partner in crime for every one of them”.
The ceremony, which was overseen by RTÉ broadcaster and Rising Time presenter Shay Byrne, was attended by former colleagues from the national broadcaster including Joanne Cantwell, Eileen Dunne, John Saunders, Bill Lalor, Roy Willoughby, Paul Byrnes and Dave Keenan.
[ Michael Lyster had the skill and talent to make his job look effortlessOpens in new window ]
Many more could not attend, it was acknowledged, because they were in Prague for Ireland’s World Cup game. Among those from the world of Gaelic games to attend were Joe Brolly, former Cork footballer and hurler Tom Mulcahy and Galway football manager Pádraic Joyce. Three time all-Ireland winning Galway hurling manager, Cyril Farrell, who like Brolly worked with Lyster many times on The Sunday Game, was also present, along with Ronan Morgan, the former rally co-driver.
The President was represented by her aide-de-camp, Capt Cian Fusco.
Lyster’s long-time friend, the sportswriter Vincent Hogan, who rallied with him for 12 years, said the pair had come to know each other when they shared a house in the early 1980s. “Michael was the worst timekeeper and his dress sense …” he joked, “but you couldn’t help but warm to him.”
He recalled their social circle’s bewilderment at Lyster’s appointment as manager of the RTÉ women’s football team and how seriously he seemed to be taking the role, until they realised there was a two-word explanation: Anne Morrison.
Hogan recalled the occasion in 2015 when “we nearly lost Michael” after he discovered him by chance shortly after he had had a heart attack. “Anne saved him. She did CPR for the seven or eight minutes that it took to keep Michael alive until the ambulance arrived.”
The paramedics still had to work on him for so long that Hogan found it hard to believe he had survived, but when he went to see him in hospital the following week, Lyster sauntered up and asked: “How are you, boss?”
He had, Hogan said, “an easy likeability, a decency with people, a complete absence of self-importance”.
Another old colleague and friend, Martin Breheny, said Lyster was “one of the great broadcasters and one of the great people”.
He is survived by his wife, Anne, his children Mark, Rebecca, Ellen and Jack, his sister Anne and grandchildren, Molly and Tadhg.
They left the chapel to the sound of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love.