The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Tributes to a ‘lovely, lovely man’ after tragic death of Seán Mairtín
SEÁN Mairtín Bácéir who died last Tuesday after falling from a ladder at his home in Coimín was described this week by former Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris as “a lovely, lovely person with a very gentle disposition and a natural empathy for people stuggling against injustice.
Seán Mairtín, who was aged 63, was working on the gable of the house he shared with his wife Bríde Power when he fell from a ladder and was fatally injured. Emergency services were called and Seán Mairtín was airlifted by helicopter to University Hospital Cork where he died on Tuesday night.
Seán Mairtín was well known and respected in the community and at his funeral on Friday there was a large attendance outside the church in Coimín and again at Milltown cemetery in Dingle. He was a life-long member of Sinn Féin and the party provided a guard of honour as the cortege, led by a lone piper, approached the cemetery where Seán Mairtín’s tri-colour draped coffin was shouldered to his final resting place.
Speaking to The Kerryman after the funeral former Sinn Féin TD for Kerry Martin Ferris described Seán Mairtín as “one of the most gentle people I have ever known, with a natural empathy for people struggling against injustice… He was a lovely, lovely person with a very gentle disposition.”
“I knew Seán Mairtín for a long time and he was a person with a great sense of social consciousness all his life. He was an internationalist in that he identified with people who struggled for justice, whether they were in Palestine or the Basque Country or Cuba or anywhere in the world struggling against the effects of imperialism.”
Mr Ferris said Seán Mairtín played an active role in the hunger strikes in the early 1980s, taking part in marches and raising awareness and support throughout the country.
In 2016 he was an organiser, and took part himself, in a march from Baile an Fheirtéaraigh to Tralee to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a similar march by the Ballyferriter Volunteers. At the time Seán Mairtín told The Kerryman: “We were very, very proud going in to Tralee, and there was a bit of emotion as well, doing what our grandfathers did before us.”
Seán Mairtín began his working life as an apprentice with P&T (subsequently Telecom Éireann) and later lived and worked for a couple of years in
Sweden where he is reputed to have been the only man ever to sell the republican newspaper An Phoblacht. He also lived for a time in the USA but didn’t like it much and returned home to go fishing. In more recent years he qualified as a bus and taxi driver and national tour guide and worked as a coach driver with Rose Travel. It was a job well suited to a man who liked being behind the wheel. “He loved driving,” said Bríde. “If anybody wanted to be taken anywhere he’d drive them from one end of the country to the other at the drop of a hat.”