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Redmond O’Neill |
Mayor’s adviser who transformed St Patrick’s parade
REDMOND O’Neill, who has died aged 55 during a hospital operation, was a political activist who became special adviser to former London Mayor Ken Livingstone at City Hall.
He lived with partner Kate Hudson, chairwoman of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), in Dartmouth Park Hill, Tufnell Park.
Mr Livingstone, Labour MP Diane Abbott and Sinn Fein MP Pat Doherty were among the 300 who attended the funeral at Highgate Cemetery on Friday. Mourners sang the Internationale and Irish Soldier Laddie, taking turns, as is the tradition in Ireland, to toss earth over a coffin draped in the Red Flag and Irish Tricolour.
Ms Hudson said: “It was the perfect send-off – exactly what he would have wanted.”
The second of five children born to Irish parents in Hillingdon, Mr O’Neill became politically active in anti-colonial campaigns while studying biochemistry at Sussex University in the early 1970s.
Ms Hudson met him at a meeting in Holloway Road in 1991. She said: “I was there as a member of the Communist Party and he was from the IMG. We both recognised that, despite its faults, the Soviet Union collapsing did not mean we should jump ship and convert to capitalism.”
Mr O’Neill met Mr Livingstone in 1987 and later became his main adviser on Irish issues. He is credited with transforming the St Patrick’s Day parade into a national celebration and was described as a “kind, generous and courageous comrade” by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
Ms Hudson said that during eight years as Mr Livingstone’s deputy chief of staff he worked towards a vision of London that “was better for ordinary people”. She recalled her partner’s love of gardening, Sunday mornings at Parliament Hill Fields farmers’ market and swimming in the mixed pond on Hampstead Heath.
Mr O’Neill died during surgery at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel after a recurrence of adrenal cancer. He is survived by Ms Hudson and his sisters Ann, Fidelma and Tara.
TOM FOOT |
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