{"id":532862,"date":"2026-07-04T15:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T15:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532862\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T15:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T15:23:08","slug":"funeral-takes-place-of-former-minister-david-andrews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532862\/","title":{"rendered":"Funeral takes place of former minister David Andrews"},"content":{"rendered":"

The funeral has taken place of former government minister David Andrews, who died on Wednesday aged 91<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Friends and family gathered at the St John the Baptist Church in Blackrock, Dublin, for his funeral mass before he was buried at the nearby Dean’s Grange cemetery.<\/p>\n

The funeral was attended by a number of senior political figures, including Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern and former president Michael D Higgins, as well as Mr Andrews’ family and close friends.<\/p>\n

Giving the eulogy to his father this morning, Barry Andrews joked that “my older brother David should be doing the eulogy, but he has a hard and fast rule that he doesn’t try out new material on an audience, so you’re stuck with me”.<\/p>\n

He said his family has been touched by the tributes to his father in recent days, and in particular by the word “integrity,” which has been repeatedly used to describe how he lived his life.<\/p>\n

Barry Andrews said for his father it was “a source of immense pride” that he was one of four signatories of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, along with then taoiseach Mr Ahern, then British prime minister Tony Blair, and then secretary of state for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam.<\/p>\n

However, while referencing his life in politics, Barry Andrews also said his father had a fun sense of humour and lived a warm, and giving life, before relaying stories which rarely made the headlines.<\/p>\n

He said that while government chief whip in the early 1970s his father had the experience of meeting boxer Muhammad Ali during his visit to Leinster House.<\/p>\n

“Ali asked him what he did, and he told him ‘I’m the chief whip’,” he said, before pausing and recalling the boxer superstar responded: “I’ll whip you!”<\/p>\n

The eulogy also included a story of when then taoiseach Albert Reynolds told Mr Andrews he was appointing him as minister for foreign affairs.<\/p>\n

Barry Andrews said his father was initially told “you’re getting FA”, which his father felt “at that moment seemed an overly harsh way to break the news”, before realising Mr Reynolds meant “foreign affairs”.<\/p>\n

\n

Family members also spoke of Mr Andrews love of interacting with people, joking he had an arrangement with his constituents that “I won’t bother them if they won’t bother me”, and genuinely enjoyed making new acquaintances.<\/p>\n

Among the symbols of his life brought to the altar by grandchildren Daniel, Sophie, Eve, Tom and Kate were a fishing rod representing his love of Connemara and the outdoors, a signed copy of the Good Friday Agreement, a picture of his wife Annette with his children and grandchildren, and a TV remote control representing his love of sport.<\/p>\n

Mr Andrews was a Fianna F\u00e1il TD from 1965 until 2002, a former minister for foreign affairs as well as the defence and the marine and a key negotiator in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.<\/p>\n

He also campaigned on behalf of the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six and Brian Keenan, the Belfast man taken hostage in Beirut; while in the 1990s, he became the first EU foreign minister to travel to famine ravaged Somalia in 1992.<\/p>\n

After leaving politics in the 2002 general election, when he was succeeded by his son, and current Fianna F\u00e1il MEP Barry Andrews.<\/p>\n

Mr Andrews served as chair of the Irish Red Cross among other roles. He is survived by his wife Annette; his five children, Mary, Sinead, Claire, Barry and comedian David McSavage; as well as his nine grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The funeral has taken place of former government minister David Andrews, who died on Wednesday aged 91. Friends…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-532862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}