IRISH show jumping team manager Michael Blake was not permitted much down-time after returning from Paris this week with the funeral of his beloved aunt, prolific writer and feminist trailblazer Edna O’Brien, due to take place today (Saturday).

President Michael D. Higgins will be amongst the mourners at the funeral in their home county of Clare after which, as per Edna’s wishes, she’ll be buried on Holy Island, off the County Clare shore of Lough Derg.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Radio One yesterday, Blake said his London-based aunt was adamant about coming home to be laid to rest.

“Well, back maybe 10 or 12 years ago, Edna wrote me a letter after the passing of my father,” he said.

“The most important thing, obviously, was she wanted to come back to Ireland. She wanted to have her service in the local church, where she received all the sacraments when she was young and she wanted to be buried in Holy Island.

“She went there with her first cousin, Jack Keane. One day, I brought her out to his house and they decided to go for a boat trip out on Lough Derg, and they ended up on the island.

“We have relatives buried on Holy Island, the Clearys, and she went and she saw the graves and it’s been on her mind ever since. Every time I would ever meet her, she would remind me.

“I suppose that’s the case with a lot of things, whether it be sport or whatever, a lot of people seem to have to go away to achieve. I don’t know why it is, but it seems to be the way in most cases. But I suppose you can have a broader outlook on something when you’re not looking at it with rose-coloured spectacles.

“You know, I wouldn’t say I was her total confidante, but she’d seek my advice on a lot of things, and asked me to help her with research.

“And sometimes she said, ‘I have an idea for a book’ and, you know, we’d have a discussion and I’d say, do you think you should, because sometimes the topics were a little bit touchy, but if she felt she should write it, she would write it.

“Sometimes she wrote the book for different reasons to what people thought she might have written the book for. She wrote books to give an honest account of something that happened that needed to be told. She needed to relate a story, and that’s what she did.

“I loved her very much. I was very proud of her.”

Blake explained there will be television screens and speakers outside of the church at the service at 11am today in St Joseph’s Church, Tuamgraney.

The service will also be broadcast live by RTÉ News.