One of Ireland’s most highly regarded advertising copywriters Catherine Donnelly has died. A hugely gifted wordsmith, Donnelly was responsible for creating many memorable campaigns and in helping develop fledgling Irish brands, not least through her groundbreaking work for Ballygowan, Ryanair and Barry’s Tea. A perfectionist to the core, her work was characterised by a personalised simplicity and brilliance, with every conceivable ‘t’ crossed and ‘i’ dotted.
She worked in Arks during the 1960s where her contemporaries included Frank Sheerin, Bill Felton, Breandán O Broin, Phil Walsh, Barry Devlin and Jimmy Strathern. She went on to become a director of McConnells, winning ICAD awards for the Ballygowan press ads parodying the ‘Table for Two’ restaurant review in The Irish Times. Client Geoff Read never dared to change a syllable of Donnelly’s copy – not that any tampering was required.
In the Advertising Book – the History of Irish Advertising, Hugh Oram noted Read saying: “The writing has a fluidity that you cannot achieve with countless rewrites.” When signing off the book in 1986, Oram himself recalled Donnelly being with McConnells for nearly seven years at the time and yet the same creative ‘buzz’ that overwhelmed her the first time she took the lift to the third floor in McConnell House on the banks of the Grand Canal, still assailed her.
Donnelly went on to further success at Irish International where her storytelling prowess spawned new campaigns, the most notable of which was undoubtedly Barry’s Tea and the Christmas radio ad where a grown man recounts the wonder he enjoyed as a boy from a train set Santa left for him. The radio ad, with VO by actor Peter Caffrey, has been running each year since 1994 – a testament, if any was needed, to Donnelly’s indomitable talent.
In 2003, she wrote a novel called The State of Grace (Lilliput Press), about a TV producer in an ad agency whose troubled life is turned around as her personal circumstances take a turn for the better. Actress Pauline McLynn of Father Ted fame described the book as “funny, moving and wise”, while the late writer and journalist Nuala O Faoláin said that “beneath its cappucino exterior, there lies a heart of gold, a story told with increasing joie de vivre.”
A lady of intellect and wit, Donnelly also personified style through her trademark sartorial elegance. She truly could have been cast in Mad Men. In an interview with Mike Murphy on The Arts Show on RTE Radio 1 some years ago, she stated firmly that she never believed advertising was an art. While her assertion may be open to debate, there is no doubt whatsoever that Irish advertising has lost one of its most able writers.
Catherine Donnelly, requiescat in pace.
