RIP 5/21/2017
Sean was born in Ireland in 1938. He spent most of his formative years in Cork where he was educated by the Christian Brothers of the North Monastery and developed a love of the Gaelic games of hurling and football. He sang under the tutelage of choirmaster Aloys Fleischmann in St. Anne’s church of Shandon Bells fame. It wasn’t long however before wanderlust took him to the UK where he worked as a young clerk at Lloyds of London.
With this experience under his belt he decided to branch further afield and when the Canadian Air Force came recruiting, the next thing he knew he was getting off a plane in Gander, Newfoundland at the beginning of his first Canadian winter. His military career began with maintaining aircraft, then flying them and finally tracking them at radar bases across Canada as a CELE officer. Education and self-improvement were always very important to him and he went on to obtain a B.Sc. degree from the Jesuits at St. Mary’s University (SMU) in Halifax, establishing the first SMU soccer program, and an M.Sc. from the University of Ottawa and an MBA from Queen’s University. A highlight of his career was managing the communications, with a staff of 150 for the Montreal Olympics in 1976.
He met and married his sweetheart Liette Jacqueline Pettigrew and five children later, he uprooted yet again to settle in Luxembourg in 1979 with a job with NATO. He reaffirmed his Irish roots there by becoming the president of the expat Gaelic Athletic Association and travelled around Europe showing the locals how to play hurling.
Another decade later and after losing his wife in a car accident, he returned to Canada. He realized that this adopted country had become his terra firma and that he would live out his days here. This he proceeded to do with great happiness. He reestablished roots in the Irish community in Ottawa and encouraged his children to play Gaelic sports. He remained active as a SMU alumnus playing in the annual golf tournament and winning the Husky Howl family foursome with his sons more times than not. It must be said that one of his greatest loves was tennis. He loved competing and giving back to the game. He became president of the Rockliffe Lawn Tennis Club where he initiated the installation of what are referred to as “four of the best clay courts available in all of Ottawa”.
Although he loved spending summers in his beautiful garden, the Canadian winters started to exact their toll on him and he began living the life of a snow bird until this past winter when the opportunity was denied him due to a cancer of the ampulla which proved to be more than a match for him. He is survived by his five children and their families; Kevin, Una, Aisling and Jack; Patrick, Kate, Aidan and Declan; Brian, Meredith and Willem; Michelle, Cian and Sean; Mike, Stephanie, Madison, Logan, Quinn and Violette; and Anita who became his companion and confidante following his return to Canada.
He was a charming, gregarious, warm and wonderful dad, grandad, husband, uncle, brother, brother in law and friend and he will be deeply missed. Visitation, funeral service and interment will be held at Beechwood Cemetery on Wednesday May 30 from 4 to 7 pm and Thursday June 1 at 2 pm.
