Maureen O’Hara - Death of an icon

THE actress Maureen O’Hara, who has died at the age of 95, was one of those rare figures — a legend in her own lifetime.

While her beauty forged a spectacularly successful Hollywood movie career, her wit, intelligence, passion and warmth endeared her to most people in Ireland. It was where she was born, the country she loved the most, and where she lived for many years in later life.

She was one of the last female icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age and, last year, she received an honorary Oscar for her lifetime contribution to film.

Most famous for her role in The Quiet Man, Maureen O’Hara was no quiet woman.

She was feisty, fearless and fun, both on and off the screen, and, like any smart Irish lady, she believed in getting her retaliation in first.

In her 2004 memoir, ‘Tis Herself, she explained that she had decided to chronicle her life “before some self-serving writer pens a heap of rubbish about me after I’m gone from this Earth”.