'Billa was to panto what Roy Keane was to soccer: Amazing, energetic, and totally focused'
(Left to right) Jimmy Quaelly, Paddy Comerford and Billa O'Connell gearing up for a panto at the Cork Opera House. Photo: Maurice O'Mahony
Bono, Bjork and Beyonce - great entertainers known by just one name. And for Corkonians, there was Billa.
As the curtain rose for the first time tonight after 547 dark days at one of the city’s great theatre venues, the Everyman, the curtain fell on one of its greatest entertainers with confirmation that the great Billa O’Connell died peacefully this morning. He was 91.
He is survived by his wife, Nell, their six children, their 19 grandchildren, and their 10 great-grandchildren. One of his grandchildren, James O’Sullivan, said Cork will be a strange place without Billa.
“He hung out with Taoisigh and stars, spent a life on stages from the tiniest halls in West Cork to the Late Late Show,” he said.
"He told me once that his biggest regret in life was not taking a photo of Christy Ring and Jack Doyle the day he introduced them: 'I could have flogged it to every publican in Ireland', he told me.
"He'll live on through his stories."
Taoiseach Micheál Martin led tributes, describing him as “one of our most iconic singers and entertainers”.
In a Tweet from New York he said: "Billa O’Connell was quintessential Cork and we will miss him. My deepest sympathies to his wife Nell and all the family.”
A singer, a performer, a wit and raconteur, Mr O’Connell was born near the Lough on the southside of Cork city on Christmas day 1929.
He made his pantomime debut in 1947 in West Cork, but made his first panto appearance on the stage of Cork Opera House in 1955, marking the start of a remarkable career which spanned decades. Opera House CEO Eibhlín Gleeson said he quickly became the backbone of their panto, and went on to become one of the country’s best-known panto dames.
“He was adored by all who worked with him and all who saw him perform. It was an honour for Cork Opera House to call him one of our own,” she said.
Mr O’Connell was also involved in the Opera House Summer Revels series for many years and often guested on the Late Late Show in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1996, he was conferred with an honorary MA from University College Cork (UCC) and in June 2013, he was conferred with the Freedom of Cork by then-mayor, Cllr John Buttimer, alongside fellow entertainers, Frank Duggan and Michael Twomey, who died in August 2017.
Mr Buttimer said the three men were "instantly recognisable" in their native city and were “the essence of what it means to be Cork”.
Independent Cllr Mick Finn described Billa as "the doyen of the Cork entertainment scene” and said he had “a magical presence” on stage.
“He had a fabulous singing voice and his version of Beautiful City, which was brought out on single, was definitive,” he said.
“I also recall while working in Golden Discs in the early 90s the unmeetable demand for his eponymous album when it came out.
“May he enjoy his ‘haven of rest, where the sun sinks by night in the land of the west’.
Another independent Cllr, Kieran McCarthy, said: “Billa was the ultimate Corkonian who when he sang ‘Beautiful City’, believed and championed every word of it. Cork, his “home by the Lee”, has lost another knight.”
Chair of the Everyman Theatre Board, Denis McSweeney, said the name Billa was enough to bring a smiling and maybe a tearful memory to mind.
“He was, for many Corkonians, our first experience of the magic of theatre across the dazzle of the footlights,” he said.
"Whether as a wit, a raconteur, a singer, or a performer, he had that power to hold an audience in the palm of his hand, and to lead them through sadness, disappointment, shock, tears but above all laughter.
“The theatre in Cork is poorer for your passing, Billa. Thank you.”
Producer Pat Talbot described Mr O'Connell as a giant figure of Cork theatre history. "Billa was a panto phenomenon. He was one of the best Dames this country has produced," he said.
"He was to panto what Roy Keane was to soccer as a player: hugely motivated, amazing energy, and total focus on what he was doing in a show," he said.
"And he was an astonishing reader of the mood of an audience and knew exactly what to do if an audience's mood needed boosting."
Cork City Council has opened an online Book of Condolences for the legendary Cork entertainer.
Lord Mayor of Cork, Councillor Colm Kelleher paid tribute to Mr O’Connell, saying: “I’m deeply saddened to learn that Cork has lost another legend, a true ambassador for Cork, both on and off stage. Billa left a huge impression on generations of young Corkonians who remember him for his antics as the Dame in the Cork Opera House panto, and many more of us cannot hear the song “Beautiful City” without hearing his voice."
Members of the public can express their sympathy on www.corkcity.ie/bookofcondolences.
Mr O'Connell's Requiem Mass at 10am on Saturday will be live-streamed from the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the Lough.
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