The Dublin-born engineer, who lived in Boston from 1991 until 2000, had returned to Boston from Paris two weekends ago to look up his many US-based friends before heading out for a conference in Anaheim, California.

In the aftermath of the events that silenced the world, a number of people in Boston are remembering Patrick Currivan as a wonderful friend, a lover of life, and now as one of the Irish people who perished in the tragedy.

Currivan's family in Dublin knew nothing about their loss until informed by his friend and attorney, David Smith of Newton.

On Sunday evening, Currivan had dined with Smith and his wife. "My wife and he were both traveling on Tuesday morning," Smith told the Irish Voice. "He to Los Angeles, she on a later flight to Washington. We knew instantly it was his plane."

A 1971 graduate of Trinity College in Dublin, Currivan worked for Groupe Bull in Paris for 20 years before being transferred by the company to their Boston office.

It was there that he and Smith became friends. "My wife and I sort of adopted him," Smith said, laughing at the memory of some of Patrick's famous dinner parties at his Winchester home.

"We'd be a group of academics and executives, and he'd ply us with champagne and foie gras and then have us move some furniture or cut down a tree for him."

Returning to Paris last year to take up a position as senior vice president of the clearing business unit at Atos Euronet, Currivan kept up his connections in Boston, and in particular, with members of the Boston Trinity College Dublin (TCD) alumni, of which he'd been president from 1999 until his departure.

"He was in great form when he phoned me on Monday evening," said Anne McMonagle, the group's current president.

Describing Currivan as a world traveler and lover of opera and art, she too has fond memories of Currivan's penchant for parties, remembering one he gave on the excuse that he had a case of champagne he had to get rid of.

"When I told him about our plans for an upcoming fundraiser to restore the Trinity boat house, he was very enthusiastic and talked about coming over for it," she said.

Currivan had plans too for a trip to the south of France with his brother Dan, a chief engineer on an oil tanker that was stationed in Venezuela on September 11.

When the Irish Voice spoke with David Smith he was on his way to pick up Dan Currivan who had made it to Portland, Maine, and was planning to fly home to Ireland from Boston.

Speaking to the Irish Times, Currivan's sister Helen Redden, who lives in Rush, Co. Dublin with her husband, said of him, "He was a very generous person, and very clever. He would frequently arrive in Ireland with his suitcase bulging with gifts of wine, champagne and chocolates. We are all going to miss him terribly. It's incomprehensible."

The Boston friends of Patrick Currivan are planning a memorial service on September 28, on what would have been his 53rd birthday.