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Maureen O Hara Centenary Celebrations At Foynes goes virtual on Monday, August 17

Maureen O Hara Centenary to be celebrated at the Foynes Flying Boat Museum next month.

Maureen O Hara Centenary Celebrations At Foynes

Hollywood movie icon Maureen O’Hara will be honoured on the centenary of her birth at a special one-off event being held at Foynes Flying Boat Museum.

The Holman-Lee Model Agency will present a selection of items from the actor’s personal collection in a special virtual Fashion Show from the museum on Monday, August 17. Catherine Hickey is kindly offering her service complimentary to do the Hair & Makeup for the event.


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Plans had been made to host a weekend of celebration in Foynes but due to Covid-19 this had to be cancelled. They will now celebrate with her thousands of fans all over the world by live streaming this special event on their ‘Foynes Flying Boat Museum’ Facebook page at 3 pm on Monday, August 17.

Maureen O Hara Centenary

‘The Quiet Man’ star and Honorary Oscar winner had a long association with the County Limerick visitor attraction and the town of Foynes.

‘The Quiet Man’ star and Honorary Oscar winner had a long association with the County Limerick visitor attraction and the town of Foynes through her late husband Captain Charles Blair – a dashing Flying Boat Pilot and O’Hara’s husband from 1968 to 1978.  

Blair, an immensely popular figure, was a pioneer of transatlantic aviation, a former brigadier general of the United States Air Force, a former chief pilot at Pan Am, and founder and head of the United States Virgin Islands airline Antilles Air Boats.  Maureen officially opened the museum in July 1989, became its Patron and visited almost every year.

Maureen O’Hara left Ireland in 2012 to live with her grandson, Conor Beau Fitzsimons, in Boise, Idaho.  On October 24, 2015, aged 95, O’Hara died in her sleep at her home in Boise.  Her remains were buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia next to her late husband, Charles Blair.

In 2017, her grandson donated a vast collection of Maureen’s memorabilia to Foynes Flying Boat Museum with the intention of establishing a permanent exhibition in her honour.  The collection holds more than 300 garments, shoes, hats, bags, costume jewellery, her Honorary Oscar, Horse trap from the Quiet Man Film,  hundreds of personal items, awards, movie contracts,  furniture, and a vast amount of papers and personal letters and diaries.

Visit www.flyingboatmuseum.com or contact Foynes Flying Boat Museum at 069-65416 / 087 2490830 for further information.

For more stories about Maureen O Hara, click here. 

Richard is a presenter, producer, songwriter and actor. He was named the Limerick Person of the Year (2011) and won an online award at the Metro Éireann Media and Multicultural Awards (2011) for promoting multi-culturalism online. Richard says that the ilovelimerick.com concept is very much a community driven project that aims to document life in Limerick. So, that in 20 years time people can look back and remember the events that were making the headlines.