LADY IRVING

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1935, Page 18

LADY IRVING

AN INTERESTING WOMAN

Widow of Sir Henry Irving, the famous actor, Lady Irving died at her home in Folkstone recently, aged 91. Sir Henry died in 1905. He and Lady Irving were married. 64 years ago. . ■ ■ : .

Lady Irving was the daughter of Surgeon-General Daniel James O'Callaghan, a distinguished naval' and Bengal Army doctor. It is believed that father and daughter quarrelledi when she married the actor, and they were still estranged when the father died.

Irving and his wife parted two and a half, years after the marriage. '1 should never have married an actor," Lady, Irving explained years afterwards, "although you know 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 . .-."■•

After the separation, Lady Irving devoted herself to the upbringing of her sons—"H3." and Laurence, the latter then a baby of four months. She educated "H.B.' r for the Bar and Laurence for the" Diplomatic Service. Both threw over their careers for the stage. Laurence was drowned in 1914, struggling to save his wife when the Empress of Ireland went down in the St. Lawrence' River. Harry "H.B."—died a few years later from a wasting disease.

Lady Irving had lived in Folkestone for. forty years—"Alone; after all these years, and childless," as she tragically put it a short'while ago. A faithful companion attended to her wants. At one time Lady' Trying was a familiar figure in Folkestone; but for several months prior to her death she had been unable to leave her house in Connaught Road. i

She was once urged to write the story of her life, but she refused. It would have vbeen the story of a great tragedy—and \a great romance. Each year on the anniversary of Sir Henry's death there was a spray of red'roses on his grave in' Westminster Abbey. Each year it bore the same inscription:—"l shall remember while the light lives yet, and in the darkness I shall not forget."