Kathleen Watkins lived “the wonderful life”, her daughter told her funeral Mass.
Ms Watkins, a broadcaster, harpist, singer and children’s author, died at the age of 90 last week. On Tuesday, her remains journeyed from Howth, where she originally lived with her late husband Gay Byrne, to the Church of the Sacred Heart in Donnybrook, next door to the RTÉ campus where both had groundbreaking careers.
Her life was dominated by the four Fs, her daughter Suzy O’Byrne told the congregation: family, friendship, faith and fun.
She was known as Kathleen to her husband and to the wider public; Kit to her friends and family; and Nana Kit to her five grandchildren, a title she bestowed on herself when she became a grandmother in 2004.
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“It is this wonderful life we celebrate today – a life truly lived to the full, a woman who developed all of her talents, but remained interested in learning,” Ms O’Byrne said in her funeral eulogy.
She was first and foremost a wife and mother. Gay Byrne “quite simply adored mum”, Ms O’Byrne said. She had created a sanctuary for him at home and did the lion’s share of the parenting.
Their lives together were “relentless” and her support for her husband “unwavering”.
“‘You must understand,’ she told us. ‘Everybody wants a piece of your father.’”
She had persuaded him to come out of retirement and start broadcasting again.
She had a huge interest in children and always gave her time to them.
She had been in and out of the Blackrock Clinic for the past year but was always cheerful and she valued her friendships to the end of her life.
In his sermon, Fr Leonard Moloney, the Irish Jesuit Provincial who had also been the chief celebrant at her husband’s funeral Mass in 2019, said Ireland had no monarchy but if there had been one, it would have been Gay Byrne and Kathleen Watkins.
[ Kathleen Watkins, broadcaster and author, has died aged 90Opens in new window ]
They had been a beloved fixture of Irish life for decades. They had made friends the length and breadth of Ireland, many of whom joined them on holidays in Donegal, he explained.
The Mass booklet featured the now well-known photograph of her in the car driving off from her husband’s funeral in 2019 applauded away from the steps of the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin by a large crowd led by President Michael D Higgins and then taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
She was the first female broadcaster on RTÉ, and the first and only woman to present the Rose of Tralee.
Yet, she was an “ordinary” woman, Fr Moloney said, “but only in the best sense of that word. She was so talented, but she was not egotistical or egocentrical.”
That extended to her dying wish that no symbols of her life be placed on the altar other than a crucifix and a Bible.
[ Kathleen Watkins: ‘Occasionally I find myself talking to Gay in my head’Opens in new window ]
“Why? She didn’t want anything to distract from the Mass. In her being ordinary, she really was extraordinary. Her life was a hymn of love. She was a woman of empathy and compassion.”
Her grandchild Cian O’Byrne said Nana Kit had lived under two abiding principles. One was to give people time “which is the most precious gift at all” and to always give people the benefit of the doubt because you do not know what they are going through.
“We take this opportunity today to thank Nana Kit for her time, her joy and her unconditional love and support and most of all her friendship,” he said.
Music was provided by Frank McNamara, a long-time music director of the Late Late Show, the soprano Claudia Boyle, the oboe musician David Agnew and the Lassus Scholars.
The harp was played by her niece, Sadhbh O’Byrne, Ms Watkins having been a harpist before she met her husband.
In the congregation, RTÉ was represented by director-general Kevin Bakhurst. Broadcasters Joe Duffy, Dave Fanning and Mary Kennedy were present alongside John McColgan and his wife, former RTÉ board chairman, Moya Doherty; the entrepreneur Harry Crosbie; and Ballymaloe founder Darina Allen.
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