Maureen O’Hara

Kells Co Meath held a homecoming festival and presentation for the film actress, Maureen O’Hara, during which the town council bestowed the Freedom of Kells upon her.  ORGANIZING COMMITTEE “As a daughter of the town, Maureen O’Hara has brought pride to her many relatives in the area and to the town in general. She has lived a long and distinguished life, but at all stages, her remembrances of her origins and her father’s home town has reminded us that, despite her legendary career and great success, she is still this town’s most distinguished daughter,”

 

Aged 91, Maureen O’Hara is best known for her role as Mary Kate Danaher in the Oscar-winning ‘The Quiet Man’ with John Wayne, and now lives in Glengarrif,CountyCork.

I went to hthe dinner dance last nite, it was lovely to see her looking so well despite being in a wheel chair and overall it was a lovely evening.  I was intrigued to hear that she was a daughter of Charles Stewart Parnell FitzSimons – however having done my research this morning she was not related to Charles Stewart Parnell who was born in Wicklow and later went on to be TD for Meath.

Maureen O’Hara (born 17 August 1920) is an Irish American film actress and singer. The famously red-headed O’Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne.

O’Hara was born as Maureen FitzSimons on Beechwood Avenuein the Dublinsuburb of Ranelagh. She was the second oldest of the six children of Charles Stewart Parnell FitzSimons and Marguerita Lilburn FitzSimons. Her mother, a former operatic contralto, was a successful women’s clothier. O’Hara was raised as, and still is, a Roman Catholic.   O’Hara’s father was a very practical man and did not entirely support her theatrical aspirations. He insisted she learn a skill so that she would have something to fall back on to earn a living in case her experience in the performing arts was not successful. She enrolled in a business school and became a proficient bookkeeper and typist. Those skills proved helpful many years later when she was able to take and transcribe production notes dictated by John Ford for the screen adaptation of Maurice Walsh’s short story The Quiet Man.

In her memoirs, ‘Tis Herself’, Maureen Fitzsimons, to use her original name, recalls her father, Charles Stewart Parnell Fitzsimons, as a decent, honest man, born to farming folk outside Kells. Her father’s real passion was soccer. He played Gaelic football until he was caught at a soccer match once and he was kicked off the team, victim of the infamous ‘ban’ and he later bought into Shamrock Rovers.

The actress often returned to Kells in later years to visit her uncle Frank, a blacksmith onFarrell Street, and meet her many relations, some of whom still live in the area.

The nite was lovely – we had a lovely dinner (I avoiding desert – just want to put that on the record) , but when the music kicked off – we had a workout that left us going home lighter than when we arrived.

 

Thought for the day

An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips  Proverbs 24:26