Former RT╔ broadcaster Treasa Davison, who died on September 4th aged 72, had her world shattered on November 29th, 1963, and she was never really able to put the pieces properly together again.
Cooking dinner in her Toronto home and waiting for her husband to return from a business trip to Montreal, she was keeping an eye on the early TV news, which had a breaking story. A Trans Canada Airlines' aircraft had crashed shortly after take-off from Montreal. Ironically, the airport hinterland into which it ploughed was called Sainte-ThΘrΦse.
Michael Davison's loss was irreparable: it was the defining event of her life and she always spoke of him as if he had died only weeks previously.
She was born to Bridie Gilmore and Richard Curley in Boston on July 8th, 1929, a date adroitly concealed from every friend and nosy interviewer right up to the end.
Richard Curley's business was automobiles and when, with the addition of a second daughter, Cora, he brought his family back to Galway, he established a premises called the American Garage. With the addition of three more children, two girls and a boy, the family acquired a poky little shop two doors away from the garage. During its conversion into a pub, a hoard of gold sovereigns was discovered under the floorboards, providing marriage money in due course for the four Curley girls, as they became known around Galway, and providing a name for the pub: The Golden Key.
Treasa Curley and her siblings were sent to Scoil Fhursa, an all-Irish primary school, where she developed a life-long love of the language; she was then sent as a boarder to the Dominicans in Eccles Street, Dublin. In her final year she developed TB and was in Merlin Park Sanatorium for almost a year. By her own account, the regime was rigorous, almost draconian, yet she used it to read voraciously and to dream of her future.
Released from "the san" with part of one lung missing, she auditioned for Taidhbhearc Na Gaillimhe and to her delight, was cast by M∅cheβl MacLiamm≤ir as Grβinne in Diarmuid Agus Grβinne.
Thus began an association with Edwards MacLiamm≤ir Productions at the Gate Theatre and the peripatetic, rambunctious life of the touring player.
In 1958, she married actor Michael Davison from Belfast. They gave up acting and moved to New York and then Toronto. They had two children, David, who was born in 1959, and Dairine in 1961.
Treasa Davison threw herself with gusto into the world of domesticity. She loved being a wife and mother: "loved it, loved it, loved it".
Following her husband's death she returned to Ireland and found part-time employment as a continuity announcer with Radio ╔ireann in 1970.
Always ambitious (a trait she despised in others), in the next few years she worked her way from the fusty microphones of the Henry Street studios into the much more appealing world of Overseas Requests, which, under the Treasa Davison rule of living, became the centre of her own and of the broadcasting universe. It also opened doors into other programmes, Lebanon Requests and latterly, Playback, for which she won a Jacobs Award.
A huge part of her broadcasting life was her association with the Irish Army and her annual forays to the Lebanon, where she was officially the forces' sweetheart and had a tank named for her. On her retirement, she was "promoted" and made a special presentation.
Along the way, she became an icon of style around RT╔: her clothes were never less than colour co-ordinated and stylish and she acted as unofficial fashion guru to many of her colleagues. She was a loyal friend and her hospitality (she was a brilliant cook), and big-hearted generosity became and remains legendary. Her days were marked by ecstatic enthusiasm for anything she loved - of which "good" radio was top of the list - and its exact converse: incandescent fury at anything, or anyone she disliked.
Yet there was always something missing. The "something" was Michael and the life they had had together. And there was a restless, dissatisfied streak to her make-up. Given attention and praise, she flowered, but the flowering was frequently brief, while underneath, lay deep-rooted resentment that she was not properly appreciated by the powers within RT╔. Her departure from the organisation, three years after her official retirement age, was marred by unfortunate controversy, but her legacy among listeners and those who love radio is secure. It was fitting that she glided to the steps of the Radio Centre in the longest, whitest stretch limousine that could be found in Dublin for one of the biggest tribute parties ever seen in RT╔.
She was granted only a short span of health in which to enjoy her retirement because within a year or so, she suffered the first of the series of increasingly debilitating strokes which were eventually to lead to her death.
She is survived by her son and daughter, David and Dairine, her brother Joe and by two of her three sisters, Patsy and Dani.
Treasa Davison: born 1929; died, September 2001