CAITRÍONA HERTZ-WANDERSLEB: Caitriona Hertz-Wandersleb, who has died aged 83, taught Irish at the University of Bonn and was a well-known figure in the city's political and academic circles for 30 years.
She enjoyed socialising and, with her striking good looks and extrovert personality, she was the life and soul of every party she attended.
She lived in one of the most beautiful houses in Bonn, overlooking the Rhine and took great pride in the gardens, which she personally tended.
A generous hostess, she welcomed many Irish visitors to Bonn to her home, and her hospitality extended to providing accommodation where it was required.
She was an accomplished pianist, and drew on a wide classical repertoire to entertain guests.
She never lost her patriotic spirit. She drove an old Citroen car that was fitted with a tricolour pennant on the bonnet. And she wore an elaborate Irish dancing costume to the annual St Patrick's Day reception at the Irish Embassy. Indeed, so well known was she in Bonn that she was regarded as the "unofficial" Irish ambassador.
She was born Caitríona Crean on January 26th, 1919, one of the four children of Aidan Crean and his wife, Margaret (née O'Byrne). Both parents were veterans of the 1916 Rising.
The family lived in Dunboyne, Co Meath and her father was a permanent way inspector on the railways. Her background was strongly Irish-Ireland and Brian O'Higgins (Brian na Banba), editor of The Wolfe Tone Annual, was a family friend.
She attended Dunboyne National School and was later a pupil at the Convent of Mercy, Navan. She then joined the staff of Carysfort teacher training college in Blackrock, where she was a PE instructor.
She was a member of Conradh na Gaeilge for many years, having joined in the 1940s. A fluent Irish speaker, she was also a talented singer, harpist and dancer. She competed at many feiseanna and regularly performed at concerts around the country. A fellow-member of An Conradh remembers her as epitomising the "best of Ireland".
She met her first husband, Rudolph Hertz, a Celtic scholar from Germany, when he visited Ireland on a lecture tour in 1949. He had been decorated for his military service in the first World War. But because he was part Jewish, he was forced to abandon his academic career and go into hiding when the Nazis came to power. After the war, a second chair of Celtic studies at Bonn University was created for him.
The couple next met in 1959 when the first Congress of Celtic Studies was held in Dublin. They married that year and settled in Bonn. By now fluent in German, Caitríona began teaching at the university.
Rudolph Hertz died in 1966 and several years later Caitríona married Herman Wandersleb, a prominent member of the Christian Democrat party (CDU) and a close associate of Konrad Adenauer, the long-serving post-war chancellor of West Germany.
An architect by profession, Wandersleb had served as state secretary for transport and is credited with having had Bonn designated as capital of the Federal Republic. For this he was made a free man of the city.
In the early 1980s, while dining with a companion in an Italian restaurant, the CDU leader, Helmut Köhl, and some friends arrived for dinner. Köhl, whom she knew, didn't salute her until she was about to leave.
"I didn't notice you," he explained. "I noticed that," she replied.
She visited Ireland regularly, travelling alone by road and car-ferry until she was well into her 70s.
Some years ago she sustained serious injuries when she fell, while sleepwalking, from a second-storey balcony in her home. After spending five days in a coma, she made a quick recovery and returned home, where she now lived on her own following the death of her second husband.
She jealously guarded her independence but after her accident, friends became concerned for her safety and persuaded her to return to Ireland where her brother, Brendan, could look after her. She returned in 1999 and spent her last years in Clonee, Co Meath.
She was predeceased by brothers Richard and Aidan and is survived by her brother, Brendan.
Caitríona Hertz-Wandersleb: born January 26th, 1918; died October 28th, 2002