So it was no surprise to us that from the start of Ivan's illness and upon his death we were often told by many people of the town of the high esteem they held him in, of how kind and gentle and compassionate a person he was. How he had helped so many people over so many years.
Whilst the kind words were very welcome and appreciated no one needed to tell us of the special person Ivan had been, because Ivan Barr was our brother.

It is often spoken of the private and public faces of the politician. Ivan had only one face to display. He was the same gentle, kind and compassionate man to everyone he met as he was at home.

It was a standing joke among us of how difficult it was for us, his family, to see Ivan. When you went into Ivan's he was invariably in the kitchen, he liked his grub and was a dab hand with the frying pan.
We will always picture him there with the pan in hand, the TV and at least two radios tuned into the news, the phone ringing and often someone at the door and Ivan unperturbed telling a humorous yarn with that wee quiet chuckle he had. His phone and door quite literally never stopped, always someone with a problem and to Ivan no problem was too small or too large. Always he would deal with those problems with the compassion and commitment he believed the working people deserved.

He had a love of and commitment to the ordinary man that was unlimited.
He always had a great sense of humour and could in the most trying of situations see the funny and ironic side of life.

Like the irony in the day back at the start of the Civil Rights when Walter Elliot stopped Ivan and told him he would never work in Strabane again; Walter wasn't threatening Ivan, he was advising him in a friendly manner. Well as Ivan often told with his wee chuckle, Walter nearly got it right, he was never employed in Strabane again but work, he got plenty of.

'Unpaid social worker'

I don't believe there can be many, if indeed any, who have put in the hours that he put in over this last forty years. For a large part of this time he was an unpaid social worker on behalf of the working people of Strabane.

He once nearly got a paid job; one day during the Troubles he got a letter, he was to start in HMS Sea Eagle on the following Monday. Unfortunately a good story was ruined when not unexpectedly the next morning he got the apology but no, he wasn't getting the 'start' after all.

Like all families we have so many fond and happy and some very sad memories of our loved ones who have passed on. Ivan was so important to our family, he was our father figure, out strength, the one who was always there for us when we needed him, we never needed him more than we need him now to help us deal with our loss. It was an indication of the man he was to become that when our father died very young leaving a young family, Ivan - barely sixteen - tried to take on the responsibility of the father role in the family.

He took this responsibility so seriously he made himself ill. Going to work in England he religiously sent our mother home money every week to help run the home. Writing to us all regularly, he was always encouraging us to do what was right.

From a young age Ivan was interested in Republican politics, but it was on going to England as a young man that he developed what was to become his unfaltering belief for the next fifty years, a love of the working people. And that is what it was, a love not simply politics, because Ivan's Socialism came from his heart.

Active from the very start of the Civil Rights' struggle he worked tirelessly for Civil Rights serving for a time as chairman of the Civil Rights' Association. Throughout the 1970s he held fast to his principles, suffering internment on 'the ship' and the social pressure when it wasn't popular to be 'a sticky'.

We remember fondly our pride when he won his first seat on the council, a just reward for his years of work on behalf of working people.

The years of struggle on the council to get others to accept the right of everyone to be treated equally, eventually winning the respect of those who would have been opposed to him. They came to recognise what we had always known that Ivan had never had a sectarian bone in his body.

'Steely determination'

An unusual man in that he combined a great gentleness and compassion with a steely determination to hold fast to his principles. He had had so much bad luck in his life yet rather than make him bitter his compassion seemed to grow.

The death of his beloved and so loyal mother, the murder of our beautifully innocent sister, Denise, his accident on the picket line, suffering severe burns, the tragic death of Judy's and his lovely little daughter Karen.

Any of these events would have been sufficient reason to give up the struggle, but not for Ivan, he returned to and worked as hard as ever for his beliefs. This commitment was true courage and to us he will always the the true working class hero.

Ivan was so proud of his roots, to be Irish and working class, a Strabane man from the 'foot of the town', or our mother's roots in the Ulster Scots' tradition of our community and to be a Barr, he never ceased to miss and he so loved the memory of his father.

As a family we have always considered ourselves to be blessed with love, when trouble came we were always there for each other, unconditionally, none more so than Ivan. We worry if we can maintain that, now that our rock has gone.

Never one to accept accolades let alone seek them, Ivan you may accept this from us, your brothers and sisters. If only our Dad had lived to see the way you lived your life he would have been very, very proud."

WILMA MCNALLY
CHARLIE BARR
THOMAS BARR
RAYMOND BARR
FINWELL McPEAKE