LEGENDARY actress Maureen O’Hara’s grandson has revealed one of her biggest fears was being “forgotten by the Irish people”.
The veteran screen star was born in Ranelagh, Dublin, but made her way to Hollywood to star in 1939’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and went on to enjoy a long and illustrious career.
She moved to Idaho in 2013 to be closer to her children after spending four decades in Glengarriff, West Cork.
The lifelong Shamrock Rovers fan died in her sleep at her US home in October 2015 at the age of 95.
And grandson Conor Beau FitzSimons said he made a promise to her that he would “keep her legacy alive” in Ireland.
Speaking in TG4 documentary Banrion Hollywood, he said: “I made a promise to my grandmother, her fear was that she was going to be forgotten by the Irish people.
“She actually didn’t even care if she was forgotten in Hollywood.
“It was the Irish people, she didn’t want to be forgotten by them and so we have a museum opening in Foynes hopefully next year that will hold all her trophies and awards and personal items to keep the legacy alive.
“That was a promise I made her and I will spend the rest of my life doing what I have to, to keep her name alive in Ireland.”
‘HARD DAY’
Conor said the day she passed away was a “hard day” as he realised he was “alone in the world”.
He said: “It was a sad day, it was a hard day because it was the end of an era for my life and for all her fans that a woman of such strength had passed.
“That day was the day I realised I think that I was alone in the world.
“I always had her to pick up the phone and say ‘hey, I’m having a problem. What’s your advice?’ you know.
“Her passing was a time that I realised that I could never make that phone call again.”
‘SUPERHERO’
He said Maureen was “like having your own superhero as a grandmother” and recalled spending summers at her Glengarriff home when he was a child.
He said: “The little boy in me liked her swashbuckling movies, jumping from one mast to another with a knife in her mouth and sliding down the mast of a pirate ship.
“I got to watch those films in the 1970s on a little black-and-white TV on RTÉ, sitting in my house in Blackrock in front of a fireplace with all my friends.
“We’d dress up and play pirates and swordfights with the Zorro swords that had the little chalk at the end.
“I always thought it was cool that my grandmother was a badass.
“It was kind of like having your own superhero as a grandmother.”
Maureen loved living in Glengarriff as she wasn’t given “celebrity” treatment by the locals.
He added: “My grandmother liked Glengarriff so much, and treated it as her home, because the locals treated her like a normal person and not a celebrity.
“Even though she came into church on a Sunday with black sunglasses on and a big red scarf and red lipstick, thinking she was ‘incognito’.
“The locals played along and let her be just a normal part of the village.”
2020 is the 100th anniversary of her birth and the new documentary looks back over the life and career of one of the most extraordinary Irish women of all time.
One of Ireland’s best-known performers, she starred alongside such leading names as John Wayne, Alec Guinness and Henry Fonda.
At the height of her fame, she was known as the Queen of Technicolor because of her flame hair and pale complexion. She played little Natalie Wood’s mother in the Christmas classic, Miracle on 34th Street.
But she was best known for her performance in the Academy Award-winning film The Quiet Man, where she played Mary Kate Danaher.
‘GREAT RESPECT’
John Wayne’s son Patrick, who also appeared in the flick, said his father had “great respect” for her.
He said: “In The Quiet man I actually had scenes with Maureen and got to know her.
“Maureen was very comforting and reassuring to me and made my job a lot easier.
“My dad had great respect for Maureen, they got along great.”
He added: “They believed in a lot of the same things and they were both professionals when it came to work.
“They had tremendous respect for each other because of that.”
Conor added: “She became friends with Wayne, Ford and Anthony Quinn.
“I think she was one of the few women that would belly-up to the bar and have a drink with them.
“I think she was able to stand with the men because she had been around men from a young age.”