{"id":626498,"date":"2026-08-08T04:33:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/626498\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:33:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:33:47","slug":"these-are-her-people-friends-and-neighbours-remember-queen-of-the-liberties-brenda-fricker-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/626498\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018These are her people\u2019: Friends and neighbours remember \u2018Queen of the Liberties\u2019 Brenda Fricker \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

People gathered along Meath Street to say goodbye<\/a> to their friend and neighbour, 81-year-old Brenda Fricker<\/a>, known to the rest of us as the Oscar<\/a>-winning star of My Left Foot, The Field, So I Married an Axe Murderer and countless other films and TV shows. Everyone seems to know her well. <\/p>\n

Flower seller Catherine O\u2019Connor says: \u201cShe just pottered around here like the rest of us. She was a great friend of my late mother [Kathleen Farrell]. They\u2019d sit all day having the chats.\u201d Sarah Conway is giving out copies of a poem she wrote about her. On the railings of St Catherine\u2019s Church are some art works created by local children in her honour. <\/p>\n

Outside Catherine\u2019s Caf\u00e9 some people who knew her are trying to explain who she is to two curious German tourists. \u201cWhat\u2019s the name of the young fellah who was in that film with her?\u201d asks Brian O\u2019Neill, a former butcher. <\/p>\n

\u201cMacCauley something,\u201d says Sandra McAvoy (they are referring to Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone 2). <\/p>\n

\u201cShe was like a queen around here,\u201d says dapper and waistcoated 79-year-old Jimmy Doona, who used to walk his dog with Fricker, and her dog Juno. \u201cThe Queen of the Liberties.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cBut there was nothing grand about her,\u201d says McAvoy. \u201cNo airs and graces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter McSherry approaches Doona and says: \u201cBrenda said you owe her a few hundred quid. She left it to me. Pay when you have a chance.\u201d <\/p>\n

Doona laughs. \u201cThis is what she wanted,\u201d says Doona. \u201cThese are her people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was the real thing,\u201d says McSherry. <\/p>\n

The gathered crowd claps as the funeral cortege passes and arrives at the church. Inside, the service is simple but beautiful. Overseen by Msgr Eoin Thynne and Fr Se\u00e1n Donoghue and with music from Frankie Gavin, Catherine McHugh and Liz Duffy, the chief mourners are her niece Billie and nephew Chimo. Her brother-in-law Axel couldn\u2019t be there. <\/p>\n

\"Oscar-winningOscar-winning actor Brenda Fricker died on July 16th. Photograph: Stephen Collins\/Collins Photos \"PicturesPictures by children honouring Brenda Fricker at St Catherine’s Church, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill \/ The Irish Times \"PicturesPictures by children honouring Brenda Fricker at St Catherine’s Church, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill \/ The Irish Times \"MeathMeath Street poet Sarah Conway hanging up a poem she wrote about about Brenda Fricker. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

The service features a speech from her very close friend Liz Duffy (mother of her aforementioned namesake) who reinforces the local nature of the event with a list of Liberties\u2019 businesses that Fricker loved, and insisted be mentioned (including Rachel\u2019s chipper where her dog Juno got her treats). She ends with an entreaty from Fricker for everyone to smile and be happy. \u201cBe happy for her today,\u201d Duffy adds, \u201cbecause she is out of pain.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Swallow review: Brenda Fricker holds the screen as few others couldOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Her friend Tadhg O\u2019Sullivan, who directed Fricker\u2019s final film, The Swallow<\/a>, speaks about her attentiveness and her ability to \u201csee and hear people\u201d and how she, in return, insisted on being seen and heard. <\/p>\n

The director Virginia Gilbert notes how Fricker was \u201cferocious in her friendships\u201d. She references the poem If by Rudyard Kipling before imagining Fricker commenting in disapproval of such Englishness with the words: \u201cWhere\u2019s the fecking Heaney?\u201d <\/p>\n

She reads Jenny Joseph\u2019s poem Warning that opens with the line: \u201cWhen I am an old woman I shall wear purple\u201d, a poem Fricker loved, kept forgetting the name of and which had to be frequently re-emailed to her.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brenda Fricker: \u2018It was real violence, and I needed protection. Where was my father? There was blood all over me\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Fr Donoghue reads a prayer of thanks from Fricker herself, thanking her family, the community of the arts, the people of the Liberties, her dog Juno and all the dogs she ever owned. There are several references over the course of the ceremony to her angry insistence that nobody contact her before noon and a substantial chunk of the church laugh with recognition. The wicker coffin leaves the church to the sounds of Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley. <\/p>\n

\"BrendanBrendan Gleeson at the funeral of Oscar-winning actor Brenda Fricker. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/The Irish Times \"JimJim and Peter Sheridan at the funeral of Oscar-winning actor Brenda Fricker. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/The Irish Times \"RayRay D’Arcy at the funeral of Oscar-winning actor Brenda Fricker. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/The Irish Times \"JoanJoan Bergin at the funeral of Oscar-winning actor Brenda Fricker. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

It\u2019s only afterwards, as people mill around outside, that well-known figures appear among the crowd. The actor Brendan Gleeson<\/a> is asked for repeated selfies by the locals. The brothers Peter and Jim Sheridan<\/a> (for whose film, My Left Foot, Fricker won her Oscar) talk to other mourners. Presenter Ray D\u2019Arcy<\/a> notes sadly that it\u2019s the second funeral for an Oscar winner he has attended in a week (musician Glen Hansard was put to rest on Tuesday<\/a>). Fricker\u2019s close friend, the award-winning costume designer Joan Bergin (who Fricker said deserved her own book) says she was good at everything: acting, swimming, snooker. \u201cShe would out-snooker all the men.\u201d The street erupts into applause again as the hearse drives away. The man next to me films on his phone. \u201cThere she goes,\u201d he says for his video, \u201ca legend.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People gathered along Meath Street to say goodbye to their friend and neighbour, 81-year-old Brenda Fricker, known to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[50223,26674,18,117,129992,19,17,208253,7012,156917,56911],"class_list":["post-626498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-brenda-fricker","tag-brendan-gleeson","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-glen-hansard","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-sheridan","tag-oscars","tag-peter-sheridan","tag-ray-d-arcy"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117058025847544324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}