The late journalist Terry Keane was known for her cordial, colourful and controversial persona, mourners at her funeral heard today.
The 68-year-old had worked as a fashion writer and gossip columnist but shot to fame after publicly revealing her 27-year affair with former taoiseach Charles Haughey in 1999.
Friends, former colleagues and family including son-in-law celebrity gardener Diarmuid Gavin, who recited a eulogy, attended the service at St Joseph’s Church in Glasthule, south Co Dublin.
Alluding to her relationship with Haughey, celebrant Fr Noel Barber said the public disclosure transformed Ms Keane from columnist to pariah.
“She became in due course the cordial, colourful and controversial persona and that aspect of her life has been trundled in obsessive detail,” Fr Barber said. “But in all such persona, the real person can remain elusive.
“We all make wrong calls from time to time. It is when such errors and wrong calls are in the public stare ... and with Terry, a serious error of judgment turned a social columnist into a pariah.
“And in dealing with that, Terry fortunately had the steadfast support of family and friends.”
Today her son-in-law Mr Gavin delivered a moving tribute to her, talking of her warmth and love for her family, her insatiable desire to keep up with the news and her appetite for socialising.
“Men loved her, women loved her. With men it was obvious - she was charming, beautiful and witty. Women loved her because she was so feminine.
“But I think she had an extraordinary effect on ordinary Irish women. They loved the fact that she lived the life that they could only dream of.”
Ms Keane, who died at St Vincent's Hospital after a long illness, is survived by her children Jane, Madeleine, Justine and grandchildren.
Born Ann Therese O’Donnell in Surrey 1939, she spent time in Ireland as a child and returned to study medicine in Trinity College Dublin.
She married barrister Ronan Keane who went on to become Chief Justice. The couple had three children but later separated.
Ms Keane became well known as a gossip columnist with the Sunday Independent.
In her Keane Edgecolumn, she often hinted at a relationship with with a leading political figure, calling him "Sweetie". In 1999 she went public with her affair with Haughey in an interview with Gay Byrne on RTÉ's Late Late Show.
However, in 2006 she said she viewed the appearance as a "mistake". Ms Keane said she had panicked at the prospect of a "tell-all" book being published and had decided to reveal details of the relationship first.
She worked as fashion editor with The Irish Timesfrom 1963 to 1970 and with the Sunday Pressfrom 1970 to 1989. She joined the Sunday Independentin 1989 after being wooed by deputy editor Anne Harris but left a decade later having sold her story to a rival newspaper.
Asked how history might remember her, Ms Keane said she had at least another 20 years to change the public perception of her, but she was essentially "someone who loves her family and who is loved by her family".