local Irish media Dad dies

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: Craftsman worked on famous Chicago towers : KEVIN MORAN | 1921-2010: Passionate about fine woodworking, Ireland native loyal to family : April 23, 2010 : BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Staff Reporter : The next time you walk the upper floors of the Willis Tower, the Aon Center or some of Chicago's other marquee buildings and you notice artful, expertly crafted woodwork, think of Kevin Moran. : Mr. Moran, 88, died peacefully Wednesday at his home on Chicago's Northwest Side, surrounded by his nine children and his wife of 55 years, Christine. His was a lifetime of attention to detail, perfecting the carpentry and woodwork in some of Chicago's finest buildings. His battle with lung cancer was brief. : His youngest sons, Kevin and Jackie, are among Chicago's best-known Irish musicians, co-founding the Drovers Celtic folk rock band. His niece Margaret Moran is a member of the British Parliament. : At his son Kevin Jr.'s wedding at the Mid-America Club atop the Aon Center four years ago, Mr. Moran recalled working on the Sears Tower when it was being built. One of his children admired some of the woodwork in the room in which the wedding reception was being held. : "Yeah, that section there gave us a real problem," Mr. Moran said in his rich Irish accent, pointing to his signature handiwork on that very room. : Working with "The Foreman" on a construction project was an education -- sometimes a difficult one: "'Good enough' -- what's that?" he'd say, demanding the same high standards of his children and co-workers as he did of himself. : "My Dad always said, 'You start out a craftsman and then you become an artisan. And by the time you become an artisan, you die. Because it takes you that long.' My Dad was an artisan," said his son Patrick. "Even though he was a laborer at heart, he was a poet in his soul." : As passionate as he was about fine woodwork, Mr. Moran was also fiercely loyal to his family; to his homeland of Ireland; his adopted country, the United States; his union, the Carpenters Union Local 13, and his party -- the Democrats. : Friends and family who tried to persuade Mr. Moran to vote for Republican Tony Peraica over controversial Democratic nominee Todd Stroger for Cook County Board president four years ago were firmly rebuffed with the admonition that, "No good ever came from voting Republican!" : He brought his children out to march against the British government during IRA prisoner hunger strikes in Northern Ireland and against the Chicago Tribune when it fired union pressmen. : Mr. Moran was proudest of his nine children, 22 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren -- musicians, carpenters, nurses, teachers and programmers. Right up until the end, Moran traveled the country, working on carpentry and construction projects in their homes in Illinois, California, and Kentucky. Parkinson’s Disease made his hands shaky in recent years, but it never showed in his work. : Mr. Moran was born July 4, 1921, in Ballyhaunis, in County Mayo, Ireland, the youngest of 11 children. : His oldest brother, Jack, was a sergeant in the Irish Republican Army, fighting in the war for independence from Britain at the time. The British entered a truce with the Irish forces six days after Mr. Moran was born. : Mr. Moran visited his brother Jack's grave in Ballyhaunis every summer. : Mr. Moran was only a teenager when he left Ireland for England to work construction jobs during World War II. He also did stints as a radio operator in Ireland's army and in the Irish Post Office. In 1949, he moved to Chicago to live with his cousins, the O'Dwyers. : Though he never finished high school, Mr. Moran was better-read than most people with initials after their names. He followed the news on the Internet -- joining Facebook at age 88 -- and world news on television. : He never shied from an argument about politics, religion or world history. We would never have gotten into this mess if the CIA hadn’t overthrown [Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad] Mossadeq in Iran in 1953,” he has said for the last 57 years. : Mr. Moran was an eloquent spokesman for the Democratic Party in this country and the Sinn Fein party in Ireland. : Mr. Moran met Christine O'Neill shortly after moving to Chicago. They grew up a few miles from each other but never knew each other in Ireland. : They married in 1954 and began having children and moving the family back and fourth from Ireland to Chicago over the years, ultimately settling here in 1981. : Mr. Moran made sure all his children took an interest in Irish culture and music. He was a faithful listener at concerts given by his youngest sons, who appeared in movies such as "Backdraft" and "Blink." : A daughter told Moran of a theory that people leave a part of their spirits in everything they build. "Well, I'll be haunting a lot of buildings, then." he said. : In addition to his wife, Christine, Mr. Moran is succeeded by his sons Patrick, Kevin and Jackie; daughters Mary Buckley, Fionnuala Wagner, Chistine Martin, Kathleen Welch, Deirdre Pallasch and Eileen Robertson; and a brother, Gerald, of London. : Visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.m. today at Rago Brothers Funeral Home, 7751 W. Irving Park Rd. : Funeral mass will be offered at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Robert Bellarmine's Church, 4646 N. Austin.

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