‘Our Karl filled his life and lived it to the full’
Much-loved Fair City star remembered as a ‘comet’ by his partner
MOURNERS at the funeral yesterday of Fair City actor Karl Shiels were told that he had ‘filled his life and lived it to the full’.
The church of Our Lady Mother of the Church in Dublin’s Castleknock was overflowing yesterday as parish priest Fr Kieran Coghlan led the funeral Mass for Mr Shiels, who died suddenly last Monday aged 47.
The actor, who played Robbie Quinn in the RTÉ soap, was remembered by his partner, Laura Honan, as having ‘burned bright like a comet’. Speaking to the packed congregation, she recalled how on their ‘final night’ together the couple had watched Love Island and that Mr Shiels had ‘for no apparent reason’ reached out, took her hand and squeezed it.
‘He looked into my eyes with his own smiling, and told me warmly that he loved me. This was Karl in his final days,’ Ms Honan said.
Also speaking at the Mass was Mr Shiels’s father, Harry, who said Karl was ‘my eldest son and best pal’. ‘Him and I had our moments. I used to say to Laura “how do you put up with him?”’
When he told his parents he wanted to be an actor, his father remembered telling him, ‘I’m not surprised. You were an actor since you were two’. His son later studied at the Gaiety School of Acting.
Stars of stage and screen turned out to pay their respects to the Fair City and Peaky Blinders star.
Among the mourners were Eamon Morrissey, Bryan Murray, Pauline McLynn, Owen Roe, Barry McGovern, Tina Kelleher, Jonathan White, Phelim Drew, John Kavanagh, Michael James Ford, Arthur Riordan, Rex Ryan, Peter Hanly, Tony Tormey, Martina Shanley, Rebecca Grimes, Joe Hanley, Una Crawford O’Brien, Eric Lalor, and many other cast members from RTÉ’s popular soap.
During his career, Mr Shiels worked on internationallyacclaimed television shows and films including Batman Begins, Veronica Guerin, Intermission, Titanic: Blood and Steel, The Tudors and Capital Letters for which he was nominated for an Ifta for Best Actor in 2004.
He won a Best Actor Award at the Dublin Theatre Festival for his role in Comedians in 1999. He was nominated for a Best Actor Award at the Irish Times Theatre Awards in 2011, and for the 2010 Stage Awards.
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‘He told me warmly that he loved me’