Within the last few days we have been painfully but vividly reminded of what shadows we are by the knowledge that since our last meeting death has overtaken two prominent Dublin citizens in circumstances of appalling suddenness and within a few brief hours one of the other, one being a Deputy of the Dáil and the other a colleague of our own in this Seanad. I hope I am properly interpreting the desire of this Seanad in giving Senators, in a few moments, an opportunity of placing upon record their sorrow for the deaths of these men and an expression of their sympathy with those who have been so tragically bereaved. As to Deputy Philip Cosgrave, he was, from all I have ever known or heard of him, a man held in the highest esteem by his many friends and fellow-citizens, and no more signal proof could have been given of this than the fact that the citizens elected him but a few weeks ago at the head of the poll as a Deputy for his native city. In business affairs he was a man of unswerving rectitude and integrity, and these qualities had enabled him to take a part for many years in many forms of public activity to the credit of himself and to the advantage of our city. He gave, in addition, unselfishly courageous service to all that he considered to be the best interests of his country. To his family, and more especially to his distinguished brother, the President of the Irish Free State, the shock of his death must have come with crushing weight, and we only hope that he will be given the strength to bear this added strain with the same courage and resignation as enabled him to confront so courageously the trials and the tragedies of the last few years.
But to us in this Seanad, the death of Thomas McPartlin comes with even a more profound and intimate appeal. I knew little of him until we met as colleagues at the institution of this Seanad, but at once he left upon me the impression of a man of exceptional intellect and strength of character. His unassuming disposition led him but seldom to intervene in our debates, but he did generally speak upon questions affecting the interests of the working classes, to whose cause he had so unselfishly devoted his life. His speeches on those occasions always commanded attention from Senators in every part of this Seanad, because they felt they were listening to a man of transparent honesty of purpose and sincerity of conviction. Always courageous and outspoken, he never took the extreme or narrow view, and what he did say left no sense of bitterness behind it. For myself, I am convinced that had he been spared he would have played an important and an honourable part in the counsels of his country and would have left his mark on the future of the Irish Free State. To his colleagues on the Labour Benches I especially tender my sympathy in the irreparable loss of one who, I know, was always to them a loyal and constant guide, philosopher and friend; one whose work they recognised by selecting him on every opportunity for any position of honour and dignity in their congresses or in their councils that it was in their position to confer. I am sure they and the rest of us will recall, as some slight consolation, the fact that but a few weeks ago this Seanad, by unanimous vote, selected him as one of the two Senators to fill this Chair when occasion required it, and when death overtook him he was acting as delegate from this country at the great International Congress of Labour at Geneva. To-day our hearts must go out in sorrow and sadness for his death and in sympathy with the stricken widow and orphan children.