Born: February 29th, 1936<\/p>\n
Died: Died June 21st, 2026 <\/p>\n
Most striking on the death of actor Des Nealon (90) was the warmth of so many tributes from a diverse group of fellow actors and others across such a wide range of theatre\/film companies. To be that popular after such a long life among so many people possessed of the notoriously thin artistic sensibility suggests talents and personal qualities that go far beyond the norm in any walk of life.<\/p>\n
A clue to the essence of the personality that made this a reality can be found in one such tribute, from actor\/writer Jonathan White. He recalled being 16 at his first audition with professional actors when he met Nealon. He heard him say: \u201cI may always be third choice, but I\u2019m always in work.\u201d For White, it was a pivotal moment. \u201cI decided that day that that was the career I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
This \u201cthird choice\u201d comment illustrated the innate humility of a talented actor who performed challenging roles in plays by Brecht, Ibsen, Shakespeare, Tom Murphy, Brian Friel, Synge, John B Keane and Marina Carr.<\/p>\n
Nealon\u2019s long screen career also included parts in films such as Educating Rita (1983), Dead Bodies (2003), Dark Lies the Island<\/a> (2019) the Oscar-nominated short film Pentecost (2011) while on television, his credits included Bachelors Walk, The Tudors, Love\/Hate, Red Rock and The Dry<\/a>, as well as several TV and radio plays on RT\u00c9<\/a> and the BBC<\/a>. Not forgetting his role as Santa Claus on RT\u00c9 Radio 1 in the 1970s. <\/p>\n Offstage\/screen, he was great company. Or, as White put it, \u201cDes had brilliant stories, often told against himself. Like the well-paid job he got on an Italian gangster movie being made in Dublin, where all he had to do was be thrown out of a car with a note pinned to his chest which said Death to Informers! Except he hadn\u2019t realised the film was being made in three different languages.\u201d Nealon, White concluded, was \u201ca consummate actor, the pro\u2019s pro, his like will most decidedly never be seen again.\u201d<\/p>\n Theatre director Ben Barnes had \u201cvery fond memories of working with him at the Abbey. He conjured a particularly effective brand of outrage in his dealings with the Bull McCabe in our staging of The Field and travelled to Moscow with the production. Always a joy to work with \u2013 a gentleman and a gentle man.\u201d<\/p>\n Lynne Parker of the Rough Magic Theatre company remembered him, \u201cchuckling away with his pal Derry Power and thinking that I\u2019d like to have as much craic in my career as they did. He came from a generation to whom we owe so much.\u201d<\/p>\n The Druid Theatre company noted how Nealon had \u201cworked in nearly every theatre in the 32 counties and on radio and screen. Des leaves an impressive legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n The Abbey Theatre recalled \u201ca true gentleman, gentle and generous in nature to all around him and ferociously good fun\u201d. He had acted there from 1956, when he performed in George Bernard Shaw\u2019s The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet [at the Abbey\u2019s then temporary home, the Queen\u2019s Theatre on Pearse Street]. His last appearance there was in Philly McMahon\u2019s Come on Home at the Peacock in 2018.<\/p>\n What people at the Abbey may not have known is that on receipt of his first pay packet there during that production of The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, he gave it all to a homeless man.<\/p>\n As Nealon\u2019s son Stephen recalled at the funeral Mass, \u201che always wanted to work in the Abbey and he made a promise to God that, had he got a job at the Abbey, he would make a very big sacrifice, and the sacrifice was [that] he came out of the Abbey stage door with his first pay cheque ever, which in those days was cash in an envelope, and he gave it to the first homeless man he saw on the street, the whole envelope of cash. I was always very impressed with that story. It was a very brave thing to do. It showed a lot of faith.\u201d<\/p>\n Nealon was born on a leap day, February 29th, 1936 and grew up on Dublin\u2019s Eccles Street, where Joyce\u2019s fictional character Leopold Bloom had also lived.<\/p>\n Nealon was a fifth-generation Dubliner and the second in a family of five reared by his father, Jack, who worked for CI\u00c9, and his mother, Teresa. He left school at 12 and went to work in a jeweller\u2019s, while he was soon also attending the Brendan Smith Academy of Acting. It was there he met his future wife, Bernie Keogh, a dancer. <\/p>\n Nealon was also in a choir. When he was 19, he heard that an actor had pulled out of a show at the Olympia Theatre. He called the producer and, at short notice, it was agreed he would step into the role of an English policeman.<\/p>\n As Stephen said, \u201cthat really was the start of a great career for him. He toured with the fit-ups and in rep. He learned lines in the afternoon to go on that night in a play he probably had never seen before, a new play, maybe a Shakespeare or Wilde, whatever it was. It taught him great confidence and a lot about his stage craft.\u201d<\/p>\n He and Bernie did a show together, Finian\u2019s Rainbow, in the early 1960s and married in 1966 with two children to follow, Catherine and Steven. By then, they were living in Tallaght with \u201cfantastic neighbours\u201d, said Stephen. Bernie has dementia and was unable to attend the funeral.<\/p>\n Nealon loved the film Shane and watched it over and over again, \u201chundreds of times,\u201d said Stephen. \u201cThat archetype of the Saviour really appealed to him, the battle of good over evil.\u201d<\/p>\n The end was peaceful. Aware of death, \u201che wasn\u2019t afraid\u201d. At one point, he said to those at his bedside, \u201cI never knew what happiness was until now.\u201d He died \u201ca beautiful death surrounded by people who loved him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Born: February 29th, 1936 Died: Died June 21st, 2026 Most striking on the death of actor Des Nealon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-544057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}