Much sadness as colourful Offaly character passes away
ONE of Clara's most avant-garde sons has passed away, leaving a legacy of colourful and glorious memories. JJ Gibbons has penned this tribute to Bernard Dunne.
Bernard M. Dunne, who died aged 94, was an RAF veteran and former drag artiste whose performances were staged on board ships in exotic locations. The Clara man knew everyone from Jeremy Thorpe to the Krays and even had a brief relationship with one of the twins.
He had an endearingly individual approach to life. His outré lifestyle began at the age of 6 on the Church Road in Clara when friends cajoled him into wearing a dress on Wren Day: “I made quite a bit of money,” he recalled, “and they all said I had Bette Davis eyes, so I thought to myself that there might be something in all of this.”
Hunting the wren in Clara as a mini Bette Davis, led to a part-time career as a drag artiste and the opportunity to visit Barbados, “the Argentine” and Thailand. He felt that his skill as an impersonator was best kept hidden from those, “who would have been shocked to learn that I was one of best Cleopatra’s out there.”
Before gaining his sea legs, he joined the RAF, aged 18: “It was just after the War and they didn’t know what to do with me,” explained Bernard.“The Squadron Leader took one look and decided there and then, that the best role for me was to accompany his wife, Mrs Hext, to dances.”The Hexts’ son, Robin, remained in contact with the Clara man and always referred to him as ‘Paddy’.
A few years later, he had a pied-a-terre in Chelsea, London, and loved attending opera; his first, La Bohème, at The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, featured Elisabeth Schwarzkopf perform in the role of Mimi.
Bernard loved to reminisce during long telephone calls from his home in Hampshire to his nieces in Clara and the usual topics included: Maggie Handy’s shop in Raheen; Frank Reilly’s on Church Street; his beloved sisters Eileen (almost twenty years his senior) and Lizzie; his brother-in law Dan Quinn of River Street, “who lived next door to a bridge going nowhere”; his neighbours in Raheen, the Devaneys; a Ms Convey winning the Queen of the Carnival, and Maeve O’Hara, of Church Street.
He frequently spoke of his aunt, Mary Catherine Meehan, who was murdered as a child and is at rest in the Church of Ireland churchyard in Clara.
He ensured that a considerable sum of money was donated to the Donkey Sanctuary during his lifetime and was a great admirer of both Dr Elisabeth Svendsen and Averil, Lady Swinfen. Fate dealt him a cruel blow at the turn of century when his life-long friend, John Todd, passed away and Bernard never fully recovered, instead he retreated into himself and in recent years developed dementia.
The Clara man was an early Joycean whose favourite protagonist was Leopold Bloom of Joyce’s modernist novel, Ulysses. “You know that the Romans called Odysseus by the Latin name of Ulysses,” Bernard would say, while encouraging his listeners to, “approach Ulyssesas you would an opera.” Homer’s Odysseus set out on a voyage to his homeland of Ithaca and Bernard decided he wanted to return to Clara from Southampton, ‘if only to see Cnoic Aiste once more from the gap in the ditch at Aughamore.’
He adored listening to recordings of opera at full blast; reading; Paddy Ryan’s of Horseleap; a bargain and Radio 4. He yearned for Harrods, especially their outlet in Buenos Aires, “where despite the holes in the carpets, one could always be sure of Listerine toothpaste.” He was lukewarm about early nights; people who didn’t drink rum, and presenters on BBC Radio 3 who, “spoke for far too long between the ‘snippets’ of music.”
He returned to live in Clara in 2018 and is survived by his nieces and nephews and their respective families. He was unmarried.