The late Catherine Donnelly could curse better than any woman, and some men, and would have made a great Lady Bracknell – but she was also kind, warm and encouraging, according to friends who gathered to celebrate the life of one of Ireland's best-known advertising copywriters.
She was, above all, a storyteller, her husband Frank Sheerin told a packed house at the Project Arts Centre in Temple Bar, Dublin, on Saturday.
Catherine Donnelly was the writer behind some of the most memorable ads of the past 40 years, including the Barry’s Tea Christmas train-set radio ad, the Ryanair no-breakfast ad (a feature of the airline’s service she was specifically told by the client not to mention), and the Kerrygold butter “who’s taking the horse to France?” television ad, which has become famous to a new generation as a T-shirt slogan.
She died last October, aged 66, not long after being diagnosed with cancer, and more than 200 people attended her funeral Mass in St Mary’s Church on Haddington Road.
“We had so many cards, and Mass cards, and letters; there were so many people to thank,” Mr Sheerin said. “So instead of just putting a notice in the paper, we decided, in the words of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney: ‘Hey, gang, let’s put on a show!’”
Novel, plays and stories
In addition to her advertising work, Ms Donnelly wrote a novel,
The State of Grace
, based in the world of advertising, plays and short stories, and was a restaurant critic for the
Sunday Independent
and a columnist for
Irish Tatler
. She was also heavily involved in the theatre and was the first chairwoman of Rough Magic theatre company. Several actors attended Saturday’s event, including Pauline McLynn,
Rosaleen Linehan
, Michael McElhatton,
Joe Taylor
and
Stanley Townsend
.
Friends and family members read from a selection of her writing, including not just her advertising work and her fiction, but personal letters and, finally, her thoughts on her illness, which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 later this year.
Her older brother Jimmy Donnelly spoke of her early promise, reading Yeats instead of Ladybird books with her nanny, Eileen, before being “packed off” to boarding school at not yet five years of age.
“Lovely Catherine has now left us. Her kind do not pass this way often,” he said.
Effortless
Friend and colleague John Fanning said she produced copy with a naturally effortless appearance that could only be achieved through long effort. When preparing his tribute, Mr Fanning found himself writing that she was the first advertising copywriter to achieve national attention, before realising that “she was the only one to attract national attention”.
He spoke of her well-known Christmas train-set Barry's Tea ad, featuring the voice of the late Peter Caffrey, which was three times the length the client had expected."Like a great artist in any discipline, Catherine broke the rules." She would have made a great Lady Bracknell, he added. "She faced death with a characteristic insouciance and customary style."
Tim Healy, an advertising protege of Donnelly’s, said “she could curse better than any woman I know, and some men”, but was warm-hearted, kind and thoughtful, and deserved to be called “timeless”.
“Nothing she did was ever out of trend, just out of reach to most people,” he said. As Frank Sheerin put it, “a creative star has left the building”.
