Pat Burke R.I.P.

Pat Burke R.I.P.

It is with great sadness that we share the news that Pat Burke, cherished long-standing IASIL member died on 11 November after a heroically-borne advanced Parkinson’s disease.

Pat’s passionate love for drama and theatre, his bright essays on Brian Friel and other playwrights, his tireless work as adjudicator of amateur performances all over Ireland, his success as director of Irish and non-Irish plays, are well-known to many members, of which he gave a sample when he produced and directed Yeats’s Purgatory at the 2001 IASIL conference at St Patrick’s College-DCU – a conference which he co-organized.

Pat’s enthusiastic participation, his wit, good humour, kind and gentle personality, as well as his inspiring singing of Irish folksongs and ballads at several after-IASIL-banquet sessions will be long remembered by all those who were fortunate to know him.

May he Rest in Peace.