WIDOW OF H. B. IRVING

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 121, 15 February 1935, Page 4

WIDOW OF H. B. IRVING

Annual Visit to Abbey (By Air Mail —Special Correspondent.) London, January 19. / A woman carrying a spray of red roses walked into Westminster Abbey every October 13 for 29 years. She laid them on the tomb of Sir Henry Irving, the famous actor. Every year they bore the same inscription:— “I shall remember while the light lives yet, and in the darkness I shall not foyget.” She will do so no more, for Eady Irving has just died at Folkestone. She was 91.

Florence O’Callaglian married Irving 64 years ago. The O’Callaghans were descended from the kings of Ulster. Her father never spoke to her after she married the famous actor.

Irving and his wife parted two and a half years after the marriage, four months after their second son was born.

“I should never have married an actor,” she said. “I was fond of the theatre and dazzled by IrVing and, of course, we were in love in the beginning. But it doesn’t last, you know; it doesn’t last. . . Lady Irving devoted herself to the upbringing of her sons —“H. 8. and Laurence. She educated “H. 8. for the Bar, and Laurence for the Diplomatic Service. Both threw over their careers for the stage. Laurence was drowned in 1914. "H. 8. died a few years later. Lady Irving had lived at Folkestone for 40 years.