The actress Fedelma Cullen, who has died aged 55, enjoyed a long and productive association with the Abbey Theatre. Having made her debut in a production of James McKenna's At Bantry in June 1967, the curtain fell on her Abbey career last September after she took part in a reading of Sonny by Philip Davison.
The theatre's former artistic director, Tomás Mac Anna, earlier this week described her as an "excellent and versatile actress with a most pleasant presence on stage and a gift for comedy". His successor, Ben Barnes, paid tribute to a very popular and professional performer who deeply loved the stage.
Born on October 23rd, 1948, she was one of the six children of Pat and Nell Cullen, The Rise, Mount Merrion. She was educated locally and at St Louis's convent in Monaghan.
At University College, Dublin, she was a contemporary of the actor Derek Chapman and journalist Kevin Myers, both of whom became lifelong friends. She graduated with a BA in 1969, securing a HDip Ed in 1971.
A pupil of the Abbey School of Acting, she appeared in several productions with the Young Abbey Theatre group, following which she was invited to join the permanent company. Early productions included P.J. O'Connor's adaptation of Tarry Flynn and Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She played Viola in Joe Dowling's 1975 production of Twelfth Night and her comic playing was praised by Séamus Kelly of The Irish Times.
She continued to impress in a wide range of plays during the 1970s and 1980s. Appearing with Cyril Cusack in Uncle Vanya, she gave what critic David Nowlan described as a "deeply felt performance" as Yeliena. He noted her "style and clarity" when in 1984 she played the role of Portia in The Merchant of Venice.
In the same year Nowlan also wrote that her "poor demented Nora Clitheroe take(s) one's heart out by the end" in The Plough and the Stars. Two years later there was praise for her "intense measured performance" in the title role of Ulick O'Connor's Deirdre at the Peacock.
When the Abbey's permanent company was dissolved in the 1990s, she embarked on a successful career as a freelance actress, overcoming serious illness along the way. In recent years she appeared in two Edward Albee plays, taking the role of Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and playing Edna in A Delicate Balance. She displayed all the necessary authority as Queen Margaret in Richard III. Last year she gave a particularly strong performance as Lady Bracknell - a part she thoroughly enjoyed - in The Importance of Being Earnest. She was also impressive in Sebastian Barry's Our Lady of Sligo.
Her most recent film was Starfish and she took part in a Fair City special screened earlier this month. The broadcast of her last radio play, Together Again, coincided with her death, and RTÉ dedicated it to her memory.
For many years the partner of Donal McCann, she created a stability in his sometimes turbulent life which facilitated some of his most memorable stage performances. In the course of her career she toured in Ireland and abroad with the Abbey and other companies. She sat on the Abbey's board of directors as an actors' representative (1989-93) and was at the time of her death a member of the co-operative actors' agency, Castaway.
Her mother Nell, sisters Fionnuala and Cathy, and brothers Paul, Fintan and Páraic, survive her.
Fedelma Cullen: born October 23rd, 1948; died November 15th, 2003.