Monaseed. His origin was there. His mother's people. And yesterday he was buried there deep in bright Wexford earth, fitting snugly into a small grave next to his uncle, Pat.
It was Pat, who died in 1992 at the age of 80, who once said: "The great thing about Donal McCann is that, no matter what part he plays, he is always himself." This was recounted by a cousin, Father Donal Berney, at the funeral Mass in Terenure College, Dublin, yesterday.
"For we are dust and unto dust we shall return," said another cousin, the Bishop of Cloyne, Dr John Magee, as he was lowered into the grave, ". . . grant that our brother Donal may rest here in peace."
And behind, that battalion of mourners. His sister Margaret McCann, his niece Lucy Cronin, his nephew and godson Jimmy Berney, cousins Noel Kenny, Vera and Michael Kelly, his aunts Mary, Benny, and Bessie, his partner Ms Beau St Clair, and all those upset friends from the arts, politics, religion, and sport. Worlds apart, together in grief.
"Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until separation," said his friend Father David Weakliam O.Carm, at the Mass, quoting from The Prophet. And so it was in that crowded country churchyard yesterday.
"The virtuous man though he dies before his time will find rest," read playwright Sebastian Barry, author of The Steward of Christen- dom in which Donal McCann gave his last great performance, at the Mass. He was in the graveyard too, as were playwrights Brian Friel, Hugh Leonard, and Jim Nolan. Tom Murphy, Bernard Farrell, Tom McIntyre, Peter Sheridan, and Jimmy Murphy had been at the Mass.
Writer James Plunkett had been at the Mass also, comedian Dave Allen, actor John Hurt, psychiatrist Dr Ivor Browne, Mr Ruairi Quinn of the Labour Party, retired Senator Eoin Ryan of Fianna Fail, Mr Ken Murphy of the Law Society, Father Dermod McCarthy of RTE, Ronnie Drew, Barney McKenna, and John Sheahan of the Dubliners, theatre critics David Nowlan and Emer O'Kelly, film censor Sheamus Smith, filmmaker Bob Quinn, broadcaster Ciaran Mac Mathuna, poet Theo Dorgan.
"I often looked up at the sky and assed myself `what is the stars, what is the stars?" so John Kavanagh as Joxer asked him in Juno and the Paycock. He had his own answers to such questions. John Kavanagh was there as well.
As were Anna Manahan, Pat Laffan, Colm Meaney, Johnny Murphy, Jimmy Bartley, Stephen Brennan, Fidelma Cullen, Maire O'Neill, Maire Ni Grainne, Maureen Toal, Robert Carrickford, Lorcan Cranitch, Alan Stamford.
Phelim Drew, Susan Fitzgerald, Val Joyce, Rosaleen Linehan, Garret Keogh, Barry McGovern, Derek Chapman, Bosco Hogan, John Olohan, Macdara O Flatharta, Deirdre O'Connell, Eamonn Morrisey, James Hickey, Patrick Mason and Martin Fahy of the Abbey Theatre, Marie Rooney from the Gate theatre, Dublin's Lord Mayor Cllr Mary Frehill, while the President was represented by Comdt Dermot O'Connor and the Taoiseach by Capt Micheal Kiernan. So many more.
"Donal had a deep faith," said Father Berney. In those last weeks he had told Father Weakliam "to love God is the most important thing, even more important than Beau, and she knows that."
Which is why a well-thumbed copy of the New Testament was among the offertory gifts. As was a copy of the Racing Post, acknowledging another great love of his - horses. They also brought up a period costume and a Steward of Christendom poster.
At the end of the Mass his good friend, the poet Paul Durcan, read his poem Faith Healer . . . with its recollection of the first night of the 1990 production of that play when "I walked on water into the bar." He spoke in Monaseed yesterday of his first journey to Wexford without Donal and the mare Donal had bought there, now in foal for the second time.
There too was Michael D. Higgins. He spoke of the "something wonderful that the nation should mourn the death of an actor" - one whose talent was "a kind of truculent gimp aimed at excellence" - a man of "wonderful story-telling skills".
His story now is ended.
