Death of Athboy native actor, Laurie Morton, aged 98

Best known for roles in 'Tolka Row' and 'Fortycoats'

The death has occurred of the actor Laurie Morton, who was a native of Athboy.

She died on Wednesday at the Royal Hospital, Donnybrook, in her 99th year.

Known to a generation for her role as Peggy in RTE drama series, ‘Tolka Row’, and another as the Whirlygig Witch in children's series ‘Fortycoats’, she was married to the late actor, David Kelly.

She had made many visits to her native town over the years, the most recent almost a decade ago to celebrate her 90th birthday. She met many of her old school friends for lunch during the visit organised by the late Fr Seamus Fleming, a Holy Ghost Father based in Blackrock, Dublin, and a friend of Laurie and her late husband.

Laurie Morton’s father was Edward Morton, a builder and the foreman who oversaw the building of the Ulster Bank building in Athboy, as well as the Bank of Ireland conversion, and many other buildings. Her mother, Margaret Mary Morton, was a member of the local Manning family, publicans on Main Street, who died at the age of 26. Afterwards, her father remarried Mamie Peters who had a grocery shop beside the Darnley Hotel.

“I was born in Curleyland, just outside the town,” she said in an interview in recent years. “People joked that was the only straight-haired girl to come out of Curleyland.”

At the shop on Main Street, Athboy, she often played a game of following raindrops down the window pane.

“You could see Fitzpatrick’s Drapery through the window.”

She grew up in Athboy in the 1920s and ‘30s, when most people hadn’t a great deal of money and “you’d be hoping someone would give you six pence for something”.

“As children, we spent our time in the Church of Ireland playground, it was our playground,” she recalled.

“There was a caretaker there, and we drove him mad. At the front of the church, there were cushions on the kneelers where the ‘big people’, the lords and ladies, would sit. We’d move all the cushions to the seats at the back of the church!”

Mitchells, Ryans and Cusacks are names which spring to mind as playmates at the time.

“Another great pastime was fishing for pinkeens along the river.”

Recalling her mother’s death at an early age, she said the church caretaker told her a lovely story about death which she’d never forget.

“I asked him why people had to die, and he said we can’t all stay - there wouldn’t be enough to go around - we have to think of those coming after us.”

After boarding school in Loreto in Balbriggan, the young lady joined the staff of the Irish Sweepstakes. Her interest in acting had been aroused back in Athboy, where her father had built a cinema alongside the Ulster Bank building.

“A woman named Annie Kellett looked after me when I was young. She’d tell me to go up to bed, but not to change into my bedclothes. Then, after a while, the two of us would sneak off to the film. Of course, I’d let the cat out of the bag the next morning, when I’d tell them all about the film at breakfast.”

Her father didn’t want her to get involved in theatre, but she joined the Brendan Smith School of acting at night, and was then offered a part on tour with Vincent Dowling’s group.

Her boss at the sweepstakes, where she was earning £6 to £7 a week, wasn’t impressed.

“I told him I was leaving to better myself, and he asked me was I going to work in a bank.”

Laurie said she was going on tour, and her asked how much she’d be earning.

“£5 a week.” On hearing this, he told her the job would still be there for her in six months if it didn’t work out. Later, he approached her outside a Dublin theatre, where she was performing in a Maura Laverty play, and told her he didn’t think she’d be back to them.

She had auditioned for a part in a Maura Laverty’s first play, ‘Liffey Lane’, with Hilton Edwards and Micheal MacLiammoir. They were looking for someone to do a Dublin accent, and I tried it and got it. I was 26, playing a 14 year old.”

She was engaged at the time, and Edwards, seeing her ring, asked her why she was wearing her mother’s jewellery. On hearing she was engaged, he exclaimed to MacLiammoir ‘the child’s not a child’, but at this stage, the play was well into rehearsals, and it was too late to change the cast. She went on to play the 14 year-old for months. She had met David Kelly while performing in a revue in The Pike Theatre in London.

‘Tolka Row’ was also written by Maura Laverty, and ran on RTE from 1964-’68. In 1965, then playing in ‘Tolka Row’, Laurie returned to Athboy to open a cancer research fund fashion show, ‘The Story of Spring’. She received many accolades for her role as the mother in the award-winning ‘A Day in the Life of Martin Cluxton’, a 1971 urban drama.

Film work included ‘Hear My Song’ and ‘Adam and Paul’ and Laurie also appeared in ‘The Clinic’ as well as on TV commercials.

Actor Barry McGovern, paying tribute, said: "I was very sorry to hear of lovely Laurie's death. She was always a great joy to be with and the few times we worked together were always such fun", while Barbara Brennan said she was a wonderful and funny lady, and she always enjoyed working with her.

Predeceased by David Kelly in 2013, she is survived by their family, David and Miriam, relatives, neighbours and a wide circle of friends.

She is reposing at the Royal Hospital, Donnybrook on Monday afternoon from 3pm to 5pm. Removal on Tuesday morning to the Church of the Miraculous Medal, Bird Avenue, Clonskeagh arriving for Funeral Mass at 11 am followed by cremation at Mount Jerome. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired, to LauraLynn https://www.lauralynn.ie/