Eve Watkinson, the veteran actress who died on November 15th, was born in 1909. She was the daughter of an architect in the Board of Works, and the family also owned a well-known interior decorating firm, A. Panton Watkinson, situated for many years on St Stephen's Green.
She started her long career as an actress with the amateur Torch Theatre in Capel Street, but was mainly associated with Longford Productions at the Gate Theatre, from the late 1930s onwards. In her youth she was also a champion fencer.
She played many of the classic roles of the theatre, and was regarded as outstanding in both costume roles and in the plays of Ibsen, playing leading parts in, among others, Hedda Gabler and Rosmersholm.
Left a legacy on the terms that she would not invest it in any theatrical productions, she saved her pay packets, lived off the legacy, and mounted Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea, as well as doing a season at the Players Theatre in Trinity College.
Among the other plays in which she was regarded as outstanding were The Dark is Light Enough by Christopher Fry, Sheridan's The School for Scandal, and The Jealous Wife by the 18th century playwright George Coleman, as well as in several Shakespearean roles.
She appeared in the many adaptations written by Edward and Christine Longford for their company. They included Uncle Silas and the Grand Guignol piece Carmilla, in which she played the vampire Monster Mallarka (which became her nickname within the company). Theatre goers still remember her harrowing screams as a stake is driven through the vampire's heart.
She spent two years as a member of the company at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre.
In the early days of RTE television she appeared in several plays, including The Physicists by Durrenmatt. Her last roles were in Torchlight and Laser Beams by Christopher Nolan at the Gaiety Theatre and subsequently at the Edinburgh Festival, and in The Moses Rock by Frank O'Connor at the Abbey.
Former colleagues from the Longford Players spoke of her as a strong woman who had a lovely talent and a great sense of integrity - she was frank and outspoken, but with an impish sense of humour.
Eve Watkinson: born 1909; died November, 1999