The passing of bestselling author, journalist and broadcaster Deirdre Purcell has been announced.
Earlier in her career, Deirdre Purcell was an actress at the Abbey Theatre, starring in several productions, and later worked as an award-winning print reporter and broadcaster for RTÉ.
She has written for newspapers including the Sunday Tribune, was named Journalist of the Year in 1986 and was the first female presenter of RTÉ’s Nine O’Clock News.
Deirdre Purcell has also written a number of critically and commercially acclaimed novels, including Falling in Love, which was adapted for television in 1998, Stone Land, That Childhood Land , Winter’s Grace and The Day We Remember.
She has also published a number of non-fiction books, including Time in My Life with Gay Byrne
She also presented It Says in the Papers on RTÉ Radio 1 for Morning Ireland’s newspaper.
Deirdre Purcell is survived by her husband, Kevin Healy, and their two sons, Adrian and Simon Weckler.
Deirdre Purcell (born 1945 in Dublin) is an Irish writer. A former Abbey Theater actress, Purcell has appeared in Inish’s Drama with Donal McCann, with Miss Frost in the stage adaptation of The Ginger Man and as Christine in Westworld Playboy Pegeen Mike. Purcell also worked as a television and news reporter. She has won Benson & Hedges and Cross Journalism Awards. She lives on the Billa Peninsula in West Cork. [1] Since October 2009, she has presented All About Music on RTÉ Lyric FM. She was the former presenter of It Says in the Papers on Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1.
Deirdre Purcell was born and raised in Dublin. She was educated at Gortnor Abbey, County Mayo.
She has published 12 critically acclaimed novels, most recently The Pearl and The Winter Gathering, both Irish bestsellers. She lives in County Meath with her husband. She has two grown sons. Purcell was appointed to the board of the Central Bank of Ireland in 2003 and took office in 2008 when the Irish banking system collapsed.
