TRIBUTES HAVE BEEN paid to the former RTÉ journalist, political advisor and historian Liam Cahill who died yesterday.

President Michael D Higgins has led sympathies for Cahill, saying people throughout Irish media, politics and beyond will be saddened to have heard of his sudden passing at his home in Co Meath.

The president said: “The contribution Liam made to Irish society was a wide and varied one. It included his work, his research, and his writing as a journalist, historian, and as an adviser across political and public affairs.”

To all of this he brought a well-informed, humorous and passionate spirit,” he said, adding that he had the “privilege of engaging with Liam” over the decades of their respective careers.

Cathy Halloran, RTÉ’s Mid West Correspondent, paid tribute on Rip.ie to Cahill, described his writing and long working life of over 50 years a “gift and a legacy” to the man.

From Ballybricken in Waterford, his career spanned a number of political parties and the public and private service.

He also wrote books documenting episodes from Irish revolutionary history, including the brief Limerick Soviet and his native city’s connections to the Spanish Civil War.

Cahill, who was aged in his 70s, worked as political correspondent for RTÉ from 1988 to 1991, having earlier covered industrial relations and the economics brief.

He is pre-deceased by his wife Patricia and is survived by his daughter Susan and son Eoin, together with his sister May.

His funeral arrangements will be announced later here.

After leaving RTÉ, Cahill later worked as press officer for AIB and multinational Intel, before working with various political parties, including a stint as Director of Communications for Labour. 

His also worked as an advisor to Fianna Fáil TD David Andrews when he Minister for Defence and the Marine.

He later worked as an advisor to ministers in the Fine Gael-Labour coalition of 2011-16, including the late Meath TD Shane McEntee and Tipperary TD Alan Kelly.  

One of the junior ministers from that time, ex-Waterford TD Paudie Coffey, paid tribute to Cahill on RIP.ie, describing him as a gentleman who he was honoured to work alongside.

Another politician who he advised, Fianna Fáil TD Thomas Byrne, said he was shocked to hear of Cahill’s death.

“He was a great, great friend for many years.  Liam was always available for advice and guidance and  he was always sensible and direct,” Byrne wrote on Rip.ie.

In tributes paid to him this morning, a number have said they came to know him through social media over the past decade.

Cahill released two books on Irish history. The first was Forgotten Revolution, which explored the two-week-long soviet formed in Limerick in 1919, while the other – From Suir to Jarama – told the story of a volunteer who left Waterford to join the International Brigades to fight in 1930s Spain.

Paying tribute to this work, President Higgins said it showed a passion for “the excluded or the neglected” from Cahill.

He was due to be presented with a copy of the latter book in the coming weeks at Áras an Uachtaráin, the president added. 

“It is a great sadness that we will not get the opportunity to have that meeting,” he said.

“To all of his many endeavours he brought, and has left, a particular personal legacy.

“His work in seeking to bring greater attention to the Limerick Soviet of 1919 reflected a particular interest in the cosmuintir, and the excluded or neglected.”

He added: “May I express my deepest sympathies to his daughter Susan, his son Eoin, to all of his wider family, and his many friends across the political spectrum.”

After leaving school in the 1970s, he first worked in the civil service before moving to RTÉ where he spent 11 years. Cahill also did stints with SIPTU and, after RTÉ, as a spokesman for the Presidency of the European Council of Ministers when Ireland held the role.