Entertainers gather for Maureen Potter funeral

Figures from the world of the theatre and entertainment were at the funeral in Dublin today of popular actress and comedienne Maureen Potter, who died this week aged 79.

President Mary McAleese and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern were both represented at the ceremony.

The funeral mass was celebrated at St Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church in Dublin’s Killester suburb, and the burial went ahead in nearby Clontarf cemetery.

Parish priest Father Dermot Leycock highlighted the many honours collected by Maureen Potter and paid tribute to the way she tackled ill health in her later years.

A one-time regular top-of-the-bill star of pantomime on the stage of the Irish capital and well-known to generations of Irish theatregoers, the actress had been ill for some time.

She was a freeman of the city of Dublin and had also been honoured with a doctorate by Trinity College.

Her first professional engagement was at the age of seven and she went on to establish herself as both a straight and comic actress.

As well pantomime and reviews, Maureen Potter featured in works by Sean O’Casey, Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett.

Before the second world war, she toured in Europe with the Jack Hylton orchestra and later recalled with distaste performing before Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders while in Germany.

Four years ago, President Mary McAleese attended a special tribute to Ms Potter, and the actress became the first star of place her handprints in a “walk of fame” outside Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre.

One of her last public appearances was on a TV programme in January to mark the 100th anniversary of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre.