After he went missing, we never heard from him or saw him again. It seemed like he just disappeared off the face of the Earth. A group of friends we used to share believed he must have emigrated to America, but we weren t sure and we never found out what happened. Then, when I saw the newspaper articles and photographs last week, I thought, Here is a man with the same name as Michael and with strikingly similar features. I dug out the old photos of him when he was the best man at my wedding and they looked very alike.
In life, Michael Byrne, known affectionately as âOld Man Belfieldâ for quietly roaming the UCD campus for three decades, had no home. In death, he is being gifted a âhome from home.â
The 71-year-old homeless man, who was found dead in a sleeping bag on the universityâs grounds on Monday, is being given a final resting place in the south Dublin countryside.
After seeing the outpouring on social media after his death, Kilternan Cemetery Park and Massey Bros funeral directors are giving him a funeral, burial, plot and headstone free of charge.
âIt is a fitting place because for a guy who lived out in the wild, under the stars and under the trees around UCD, he is going to a place like where he lived, a natural place. Our cemetery is out in the country. It is the same type of landscape,â said the cemeteryâs manager Rory Mulhall.