ACTOR AND theatre producer Phyllis Ryan (90) was remembered yesterday as “a great lady of Irish theatre” as well as “a practical ecumenist”.
Fr Dermod McCarthy, who was chief celebrant at an ecumenical service of thanksgiving for her life in Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral said there was “something beautiful” about the manner of her death at Naas General Hospital on Monday. “There was a completeness and a sense of calm both in herself and her immediate family,” he said.
Actor Des Keogh described her a “a great lady of Irish theatre”. He quoted John B Keane, who said of her that “I’ve never been associated with a less selfish person.” Mr Keogh continued: “Those of us who were her friends were privileged to be so.”
Co-celebrants at the service were Church of Ireland Dean of Meath and Kildare Canon John Marsden and Pro-Cathedral administrator Fr Damian O’Reilly.
Ms Ryan had been a lay reader at the Pro-Cathedral. She “would be pleased at the ecumenical mix represented at her funeral service”, said Fr McCarthy. The first reading was from the King James Bible and the gospel reading was by Dean Marsden.
She was “very conscious of the unifying power of the Bible – the common denominator of all the Christian churches”, he added. “She was a practical ecumenist. Her wider family embraces both Presbyterian and Catholic roots and her son Greg is an ordained minister of the Church of Ireland, serving in the diocese of Kildare.”
Chief mourners were her daughter Jacqui, son Graham (Gregg), daughter-in-law Gillian, granddaughters Emma May and Sarah Victoria, and great-granddaughter Mia. The attendance included Tony and Margaret Ó Dálaigh, actors Barry McGovern, Alan Stanford, Pat Laffan, Geraldine Plunkett, Derry Power, Biddy White Lennon, Jonathan White, Aonghus Óg McAnally and Bríd Ní Neachtain.
Also present were director Michael Scott, publicist Gerry Lundberg, Robert Doggett of the Trocadero restaurant, Bernadette Colgan, Fergus Linehan, and Barry Kenny of Iarnród Éireann. Cremation will be at 11am today in Dublin’s Newlands Cross crematorium.
