Frank Smith

BY SÉAMUS HAZLETT

REPUBLICANS were saddened to learn of the passing of Frank Smith at his home in Blanchardstown, West Dublin, on Tuesday night, 4 March.
The son of Bridie and the late Bob Smith, Frank grew up in Rathfarnham in a family steeped in the republican tradition.
Personally, I find it a rarity in life that you come across a person as genuine and sincere as Frank. I first met him over ten years ago during the local elections in Dublin West. I was only 16 at the time. Both of us were out leafleting and canvassing in the Mulhuddart ward. He happened to ask me where I was from. I replied that I was from Derry. He told me that he knew of some people from Dungiven. I explained to him that I myself grew up in Dungiven before moving to Dublin in 1989. “Who do ye know about Dungiven?” I asked. To my amazement he said he knew a man called Hughie Hazlett. Hughie was my uncle and we discovered that both grandparents on my father’s side had stayed in Frank’s parents’ house in the early 1970s when they were visiting my Da, imprisoned in the Curragh. It’s a small world they say.
A committed and selfless republican, Frank never sought any recognition for his role in the struggle. I have heard many a good story about Frank in his day and it is for others to share them with you. Anyone who wants to share a particular story, memory or even a picture of Frank can submit them on a website set up in his memory – www.franksmith.ie. He knew people from all over Ireland and had many friends, from Belfast in particular.


DIGNITY AND FORTITUDE
The dignity and fortitude he exuded in his battle against cancer speaks volumes about the man. He drew strength thinking of the Hunger Strikers and how they must have felt when his own endurance was tested by his disease. His wife, Anne, told me that, although gravely ill, he sat up to watch Gerry Adams’s presidential address to this year’s Ard Fheis a fortnight ago. He even turned out at a hastily-organised meeting in Corduff between local supporters and Gerry Adams last December at a time when he was undergoing chemotherapy. Right up until his death, Frank was always in good form and a pleasure to meet. In the short 10 years I knew him, he wasn’t shy about throwing his weight behind any campaign the party was involved in locally. Indeed, he wasn’t shy either when it came to singing a song when he was in good company.
The large turn-out at his funeral on Friday, 7 March, is testimony to the high regard in which Frank and his family are held in the community. I know I speak for every republican activist that ever came into contact with Frank when I say that he was really one of a kind and that Ireland has lost one of its best sons. Our deepest sympathies go out to his wife, Anne, and his family – Nuala, Roisín, John, Séamus and Bríd – and to the wider Smith family circle.