The sense of loss engendered by Donal McCann's untimely death can only be all the greater among those of us who, watching RTE just six nights ago, sat enthralled by his recollections and observations in Bob Quinn's documentary on him, It Must be Done Right. Then there was his beautifully understated performance in The Dead, shown immediately afterwards.
Anyone who savoured that memorable performance can only marvel at how such a talent went largely untapped by film-makers. That McCann made theatre the priority of his career is surely cinema's loss, but then he was never one of those actors who defined his craft in terms of career-making decisions.
The young Donal McCann made his film debut in 1966, playing a minor role in Disney's Irish romp The Fighting Prince of Donegal, but his best early screen work came in RTE television productions such as Strumpet City, The Silver Tassie and Sean.
However, he made a fine Gar Public, with Des Cave as his alter ego, Gar Private, in the stage-bound 1970 film of Brian Friel's Philadelphia Here I Come!.
His distinctive sense of humour shone through in Bob Quinn's inventive 1978 Irish language film Poitin. Working with Quinn again on Budawanny in 1987, and in its expanded version, The Bishop's Story, seven years later, McCann caught both the authority and the vulnerability of a priest who has an affair with his housekeeper. In the film's immortal line, McCann is perfectly deadpan as the priest addressing his parishioners with the words, "Soon you will have another reason to call me father."
In the first of three collaborations with Neil Jordan, McCann played the corrupt detective Bonner in Jordan's first film, Angel, in 1982, followed by a supporting part in the 1988 comedy High Spirits, and one of the key roles in The Miracle three years later.
During the 1980s he also featured notably in Reflections with Gabriel Byrne and Fionnuala Flanagan, directed by Kevin Billington, from a John Banville screenplay; and in Pat O'Connor's film Cal, as the father of the eponymous young IRA volunteer played by John Lynch. However, it was The Dead, John Huston's swansong to cinema in 1987, which offered McCann his most memorable screen role, and he was marvellously expressive as Gabriel Conroy. Anjelica Huston played his wife who reveals a past secret to him in this richly nuanced treatment of a James Joyce short story from Dubliners.
Three years later, McCann was formidable in another literary adaptation, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's film of Sam Hanna Bell's novel December Bride.