Gerard Craughwell (Independent)

Senator McDowell said everything that I wanted to say. It is all gone. My speech is finished. Let us go back to the start of my relationship with Billy. he had a relationship with my brother. My brother bought the Twelve Pins Hotel from Billy when Billy was emigrating. My brother knew him very well. In 2016, I spotted a notice that Enda Kenny was about to appoint a guy living in Chicago to the Seanad. Not being one to be shy with Twitter, I put out a tweet about how outrageous this was. What a waste of a seat, bring some Yank over here to fill a seat in the Seanad. Billy pulled into the car park with Anne. They got out of the car and were walking across the car park. That morning, just before I saw Billy, I got a phone call from my brother asking what sort of clown I was. What was I doing? How could I say that about Billy Lawless? I saw Billy walking towards me and thought I had better apologise and get the kick in first. Just as I was about to speak, Billy said, "I know all about you." He sort of put me back in my box.

Everything has been said about Billy. He was incredible in the way he could mix with anybody in this House, irrespective of their party allegiance, or with visitors coming into the House. He towered over the place. He was an enormous man. He was a Galwegian, and that side of him came out. I recall how proud he was when he was made a freeman of Galway, how proud he was when the university recognised him and how proud he was, as Senator McDowell said, of his family.

Billy invited a number of us to go to Chicago for St. Patrick's Day. We thought this would be a really good gig, going over to live it up in Chicago. It was a great idea, so we went. Billy met us at the airport at about 8 a.m. and we did not stop working until 12 o'clock that night. Billy was back in the hotel at 8 o'clock the following morning. It was mass, followed by a meeting with the mayor, followed by a meeting with one of the Kennedys and finally a meeting with the Governor of Illinois. At the end of the day, I was absolutely shattered. He thought that a good thing for us to do then would be to participate in the St. Patrick's Day parade. He walked us through Chicago in the freezing weather.He thought it was a great idea, which it was. It truly was a great idea.

Billy approached me at one stage - he approached all of the group - when he wanted to introduce legislation to lift the ban on serving alcohol on Good Friday. He asked me whether I would sign the legislation, to which I said I would be happy to sign it, and I did so. What Anne does not know, however, is that after Covid-19 struck the world, I received an email from a woman in Galway. I am always sorry I did not keep it because she said that she hoped Billy Lawless and I were proud of ourselves for having brought a pandemic on the world and doing away with the ban on drinking on Good Friday. We will take that with us as we go. That was the kind of character he was. He was able to bring sensitive legislation like that into this House and get it passed, both in this House and in the Dáil, to ultimately get it signed by another half-Galwegian, Michael D. Higgins. That is the kind of character he was and that is what he did. That was his way of working.

Interestingly enough, when I look at his background in Galway, particularly as an oarsman man with the Tribesmen Rowing Club, he was incredible. The people he mixed with, if you meet them today, will still talk about Billy and the tremendous oarsman he was. His daughter also received a scholarship for rowing, which Billy was extremely proud of. He told me at one stage after he had left the Seanad that he was going back to rowing. I do not know if he did. If he did, I do not know if they had a boat big enough for him to get into because, certainly, he was a tower of a man.

I know that Anne misses him. I know how much he meant to her. I know how the two of them got on together. I saw them in Chicago and how kind they were to my wife, Helen. The way we all got on over there was just incredible. As Senator McDowell pointed out a few minutes ago, it is hard to believe that he is not at the end of a phone or that I will not find him sitting in the corner of the Dáil bar. Approximately one year into his role as a Senator, and after I had pointed out how ridiculous it was to appoint a Senator from Chicago, I walked into the bar and he told me, "Craugh", to come over to him. I went over to him and he asked, “What about my attendance now?”. He had a greater attendance in this House than many people who lived in Dublin, let alone anywhere else. He was dedicated 100% to the political position he had been appointed to. He was dedicated to building a relationship with the United States. When you got word of someone in the US in trouble, you could pick up the phone to him and Billy would immediately react. I am deeply sorry for Anne and the family. He was a great man and a great Galwegian. I am so proud that I had a chance to know him. May he rest in peace.