T.K. Whitaker has been remembered as a joyful man and a patriot.

The funeral mass of the 100 year old former civil servant, took place this morning at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Donnybrook in Dublin.

President Michael D Higgins, former President Mary McAleese, Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald and Finance Minister Michael Noonan were among those in attendance.

Celebrant priest Fr Lomán MacAodha – a family friend of Whitaker – said he was a positive man in tough times: “Ken had the art of growing old, it was an art, it was an artform and I think he perfected it.

“He would have had what I would have seen in him so constantly, was a way of being joyful despite everything.”