The actor, Joe Lynch, best known for his role as Dinny in the long-running RTE series, Glenroe, has died.
The seventy-six year old was in Alicante, Spain, when he was admitted to hospital today. He died at 6 p.m. this evening.
Born in Mallow in 1926, and educated at North Monastery CBS in Cork city and Blackrock College, Dublin, Mr Lynch graduated with an honours in music.
Although working as a horse breaker, a tree feller and manager of a wine business, acting was his first love. He turned down an offer to become a professional soccer player in Britain to join Radio Éireann players.
Mr Wesley Burrowes, who devised the Glenroepaid tribute to Mr Lynch on RTE's Nine O'Clock News, tonight.
"He was full of life as a man and an actor," Mr Burrowes said. "He was a wonderful actor as anyone who worked with him would attest to."
A star of many TV and radio productions, including Coronation Street, he will always be remembered as the curmudgeonly but shrewd patriarch, Dinny Byrne, in Glenroe.
Mr Lynch is survived by a son and a daughter, and his wife Marie.