Two different sides of the man known as ‘The Cruiser’ were honoured at his funeral yesterday.

There was the public figure, Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien, who was hailed as “one of the outstanding international diplomats, writers, historians and public intellectuals of his generation”; and the private person, “a staunchly loyal friend who was always there for those he cared about in times of crisis”.

The hundreds of mourners who attended the funeral Mass in the Church of the Assumption in the north Dublin suburb of Howth yesterday morning heard warm and moving tributes to Conor from his sons Patrick and Donal, and from a family friend, Father Patrick Claffey, from the Milltown Institute.

The unexpectedly mild day, brightened by a blinding winter sun hanging low in a blue sky, showed Conor’s beloved Howth at its most picturesque, as family and friends came to say their last farewells to one of Ireland’s most remarkable men before his burial in Glasnevin cemetery.

The chief mourners were his wife, Maire Mhac an tSaoi, his children Donal, Fedelma, Patrick and Margaret and his grandchildren.

But his enormous influence on the spheres of Irish literature and politics were also evident by the presence of former President Mary Robinson and her husband Nick, former Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald, Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney and his wife Marie; the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, John Hegarty, and chairman of the National Forum on Europe, Maurice Hayes.

And representing the Irish Labour Party were its current leader Eamon Gilmore, deputy leader Joan Burton and former leaders Ruairi Quinn and Pat Rabbitte.

It was a simple ceremony in which Conor was remembered with affection and eloquence by those who were close to him.

Towards the end of the funeral Mass, his son Patrick shared some of his personal memories of his father, painting a vivid portrait of a loving family man.

He finished his tribute with a quotation from a Yeats poem, ‘The Municipal Gallery Revisited’. “Time may bring approved patterns of women or of men, but not that selfsame excellence again.”