Ed Markey: “I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Moakley] for calling this very special session. The words spoken by Mr.…”

“I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Moakley] for calling this very special session. The words spoken by Mr. Moakley at the funeral, and by his son, Tom O'Neill, who delivered the most beautiful eulogy I have ever heard in my life, and perhaps one of the three or four most beautiful speeches I have ever heard in my life on any subject--and the subject was Tip O'Neill. As with the gentlemen from Illinois [Mr. Rostenkowski], and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Michel], every person here has special memories of Tip O'Neill. When I was elected to Congress in 1976, I came down here as an Irish Catholic, Boston College graduate, but part of the reform movement ready to meet an Irish Catholic, Boston College, in a month to become speaker of the U.S. Congress, someone who had been elected in 1936 as a State representative in the State of Massachusetts. The amazing thing about Tip O'Neill was that he was as relevant and as vibrant to the times of 1976 as he was to the times of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the mid-1930's when he was elected for the first time.”