DAIRE BREHAN:DAIRE BREHAN, who has died aged 55, was an actor, broadcaster, barrister and health and fitness instructor. Both her acting and legal careers began at Trinity College Dublin, while it was as an actor that she made her name in Ireland.
In 1985 she and her then husband Maciek Bernatt-Reszczynski founded Theatre Unlimited. Based in Kilkenny, the company was inspired by modern eastern European theatre and the Irish cultural tradition.
An early production of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and The Man drew praise from David Nowlan in this newspaper: “Freed from the constraints of literal interpretation, this production liberates Shaw’s ideas and, notwithstanding a young cast in search of experience, provides an evening of good fun.”
However, despite Brehan’s best efforts, as actor manager, and her husband’s, as director, the company struggled financially from the beginning. A production of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach for schools, as well as drama classes for pupils, failed to compensate for poor box-office receipts.
The couple kept the show on the road with the aid of funding from the Teamwork scheme, but moved the company to Dublin in the hope of attracting bigger audiences.
Productions of such plays as The Servant of Two Masters and Alice in Wonderland, for children, were well received. In 1986 The Murder of Gonzago, one of the successes of the Dublin Theatre Festival, was also staged at the Edinburgh Fringe. The company won the Harvey’s Irish theatre award as best newcomers.
Also in 1986 the company’s adaptation of Brendan Kennelly’s Cromwell won the Sunday Tribune arts award for best production.
But with two children, a regular income was a necessity and in 1987 Brehan made her debut as a radio broadcaster. She went on to present the RTÉ legal series Brehan’s Law as well as Saturday View and Playback.
Born in Dublin in 1957, she was the third of four children of Patrick Holahan and Mary Brennan-Holahan, who separated when she was eight. Educated at St Mary’s Dominican Convent, Dún Laoghaire, with her mother’s encouragement she engaged in extra-curricular activities, ranging from elocution lessons to drama and dance classes. From the age of 12 she took part in competitive school debates and became an all-Ireland debating champion.
At secondary school, and later at university, she displayed the characteristics that she drew on in her various careers – an inquiring mind, a lively intelligence, verbal fluency, a strong sense of justice and delight in a good argument.
She studied legal science at TCD and also was active in college societies and the Players drama group.
On graduating from Trinity, she set aside the law to join a dance troupe for a four-month tour of Germany. A nightly routine of “two Can-Cans, four Charlestons and three feather numbers” helped her secure an Equity card and she adopted the stage name Brehan, a conflation of her surname Brennan-Holahan.
In 1983 she won a scholarship to study with Kazimierz Braun, artistic director of the Wroclaw contemporary theatre. Married the same year, in 1984 she and her husband returned to Ireland, arriving in Newry on a coal boat from Poland.
In addition to her work with Theatre Unlimited, Brehan also appeared in the RTÉ television film Raic, set in Connemara during the Emergency, and in the prison drama series Inside.
In 1989, the family moved to London. Brehan became a reporter for BBC Radio 5, providing features for Sound Advice and Johnnie Walker’s AM Alternative. In 1994 she began hosting the Sunday phone-in Nightcall on what had become 5Live. She then moved to Radio 4 to present You and Yours, where her experience of consumer broadcasting together with her legal training came into play.
She got her big break when she was chosen as one of two presenters of Radio 4’s The Afternoon Shift. She impressed the critics.
Sue Gaisford of the Independent on Sunday wrote: “Brehan particularly is a fine, dispassionate interviewer, allowing guests ample time to air their views and unobtrusively bringing them back to the point when they wander.” Peter Bernard in the Times warmed to a voice, “splendidly tuned” to radio.
Subsequently, she presented Pick of the World, broadcast by the BBC World Service, which attracted audiences of up to 30 million people. In 2000 and 2001 she also worked as a presenter for Lyric FM, commuting from London to Limerick.
Having been diagnosed with cancer in 1999, she returned to the law. Called to the English Bar in 2002 and to the Irish Bar in 2005, she specialised in criminal cases.
Arising from her illness she developed an interest in holistic therapy to aid pain management and healthy living, and received training so that she could provide massage, aromatherapy, Pilates and fitness exercises. She also acted as a part-time walking tour guide in London and was given the Freedom of the City in 2009.
Her first marriage ended in 2004; she married Dave Marsden in 2009. Her husband and daughters from her first marriage, Klara and Niamh, survive her.
Daire Brehan: born August 7th, 1957; died August 30th, 2012