It was a privilege to know Henry... and Ireland is a poorer place without him

LORD Henry Mount Charles, who died after a long illness yesterday, was one of the nicest people I ever met in my life.

- BY JOHN KIERANS

He might have had a Harvard education, a posh voice, the owner of beautiful Slane Castle which he loved with a passion, but he was down-to-earth and as honest as they come.

I met him as a cub reporter in 1981 when he was running his first-ever Slane rock concert which starred Thin Lizzy and U2. I was 19 and he was 30 and we have been friends ever since.

We had some great times together over the years. Parties after Slane, dinners in Beauparc which later became his home and many intense political discussions on everything from the Troubles to the state of the Irish economy, and the political shenanigans in Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.

I was a working-class boy from Brookville Park, Drogheda, and he a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy - but as the late John Hume would say, we had more in common than what divided us.

FIRE

When Henry inherited the Slane estate he inherited a headache. He had to reinvent Slane and make it pay - easier said than done.