MIRANDA GUINNESS:MIRANDA, DOWAGER Countess of Iveagh, who has died aged 70, was an iconic figure in Dublin. Beautiful, spirited with a wonderful figure, she was one of the world's best dressed women.
Always eager to promote Irish fashion designers, she wore the designs of, among others, Peter Fitzsimons, Michael Jacobs, Ib Jorgensen, John Rocha and Pat Crowley, who she said had a way of charming husbands into spending a lot more than they thought they would spend on their wives.
She did much unofficial and official work for Irish fashion including attending the opening of Irish Fortnight at the Neiman-Marcus store in Dallas with Justin Keating, then minister for industry and commerce.
Daughter of Maj Michael Smiley and his wife - a granddaughter of Lord Cowdray of the Pearson industrial group - she was brought up at Castle Fraser, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, which now belongs to the Scottish National Trust.
Her great-great grandfather was the barrister Sir Charles Gill, the son of a Dublin merchant, who was the crown prosecutor in Oscar Wilde's trial.
In a London society wedding in 1963 she married Benjamin Guinness who inherited the earldom of Iveagh from his grandfather, the second earl in 1967. His father had been killed on active service in Belgium during the second World War. He became chairman of Guinness in 1961, a position he held until 1992.
At one time he was a member simultaneously of two upper houses of parliaments, being a member of the British House of Lords and was appointed by then taoiseach Liam Cosgrave to the Irish Senate from 1973 to 1977.
In Ireland the family lived at Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, where they entertained a cross-section of Catholics and Protestants, and with her charm, Lady Iveagh encouraged good relations between them in those difficult years.
At the request of the then minister for foreign affairs Garret FitzGerald, Farmleigh was used as the residence for visiting foreign ministers during Ireland's presidency of the EEC.
Miranda Guinness had a great talent for interior decoration. She gave a certain joie de vivreto the houses she renovated. Farmleigh was restored from the grim Victorian mansion it had become into the light and delicate Georgian house it originally was. However, her interiors there were altered after the house was sold by the Guinnesses to the State in 1999. She had a difficult relationship with the OPW over Farmleigh and was once told that the Guinness ancestors would be good enough for the kitchen corridor.
In England in 1996 she bought Wilbury Park, a palladium house in Wiltshire, and spent six years restoring the property to such a high standard that it was the overall winner of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Building Conservation Award.
The Guinnesses have always been involved with St Patrick's Cathedral. In the mid-19th century a major restoration of the cathedral was undertaken at the expense of Sir Benjamin Guinness and since then the family have taken a concerned interest in it.
The deanery, derelict for 50 years, was renovated under Miranda Guinness's direction and she had the hall painted blue to match the robes of the Marquess of Buckingham in the portrait that hangs there.
Last year, a 1981 DeLorean DMC12 Coupe which had been on long-term display at the Robert Guinness Steam Museum, came up for sale. It had only 19,400 miles on the clock and was owned by Miranda Guinness who said she loved the car and "had happy memories of driving my sons to school. They weren't so positive about it since I had a knack of knocking myself out on the gull-wing door". The car was sold for €16,100.
In the 1980s her marriage had broken down and she and Lord Iveagh were divorced in 1984. They remained friends and she looked after him in the final months of his illness 1992.
She continued spending time in Ireland sitting on various boards, particularly the Friends of the National Collection of which she was a vice-chairwoman; the Adelaide Society and also the Iveagh Trust. She was a member of this trust for 39 years and regularly attended tea parties for the pensioners. It was she who ensured that one of the original interiors of an apartment was kept intact.
During the six-year relationship which she had with the late Tony Ryan, founder of Ryanair, she was the guiding influence in creating his important collection of new and emerging Irish artists
Last August she held a party at the Guinness Store House when her many friends and admirers were gathered to celebrate her 70th birthday.
She is survived by her two sons, Benjamin, fourth Earl of Iveagh, Rory and her two daughters Emma and Louisa.
Miranda Daphne Jane Guinness, Dowager Countess of Iveagh, born: August 19th, 1940; died December 30th, 2010