For most of his 86 years, Des Manahan was devoted to the stage.
He had a decades-long association with the Theatre Royal in Waterford, but also performed in theatres the length and breadth of Ireland over the years, in musicals, plays, variety shows, and more.
A non-drinker and non-smoker, he was the picture of health throughout his life, devoted to his wife Mona and six children.
But when Covid-19 struck last December, with various members of the family testing positive, it was Des who was hit hardest.
He went into hospital shortly after Christmas and despite remaining in good spirits and communicating regularly with his family, he deteriorated as the new year rolled on and died on 22 January.
"He would always say how well he was being looked after and how much praise he had for the medical and nursing staff here in the hospital in Waterford," his son Simon told RTÉ News.
"They just rang to say he took a turn, and that was it. He had spoken to mum earlier in the day and just said he was really tired and wanted to go to sleep and in the end that's really what he did do.
"It's tough, because you don't get to be with them, you don't get to see them.
"There's far too many families around the country having to say goodbye to people while not being with them ... For mum, that's been one of the hardest things, coming to that reality that they're just not there anymore."
Up until his last months he was still performing and still attracting audiences, winning a lifetime achievement honour early last year in the Waterford News and Star Green Room awards, and his last performance on stage was in 2019 when he played the role of Gus the theatre cat in the ever-popular Cats.
"He would love going out on stage, and the audience's reaction to him ... It was never a job, never a chore, never an effort. He just loved every second of performing.
"Almost if you sat down to write a part for my father, that [in Cats] would have been it."
Des grew up in Waterford city, where his father was manager of the Theatre Royal and his cousin, the late Anna Manahan, cut her acting teeth before going on to award-winning international renown, and the "family trade" quickly drew him in.
As he and Mona told Ryan Tubridy on The Late Late Show in 2017, the couple met when he was working in Waterford Glass, as it was, and saw her as part of a group of friends, who regularly caught the train to Tramore at weekends.
From then, they were "inextricably linked" throughout their courtship and near 60-year marriage, their relationship summed up when, in latter years, Des learned how to apply Mona's make-up as her eyesight failed.
The family lived in Dunmore East for a time, establishing some businesses while there, before moving along the coast to the idyllic house in a picturesque area not far from the beaches of Brownstown Head, Saleen and Tramore, which remains the family home.
"My memory of him is loving life, everything about it," Simon recalled. "He's someone who just had a zest for life, enjoying himself, even when times were tough he looked for the best in everything."
Over the years, theatre remained his second most important passion - after his family - and he devoted as much time as he could to his craft, well-known by many as an actor but also as a musician and singer.
"In a way, we look up to him because while he was 86, that didn't define him. Old age was not something that was relevant to either of my parents, they just had a zest for life and a love for life."
Des Manahan's death caused great shock and sadness not only among his family members, but in the wider Waterford and theatrical communities and it was widely remarked afterwards that, in "normal" times, his funeral would have filled the cathedral in the city several times over.
But as so many families have had to do, the Manahans held a private, family-only service, for ten people, travelling afterwards past some of the landmarks of his life, before he was buried in Carbally Cemetery, not far from the house.
"It was really harrowing," Simon said. "He was such a well-liked, well-known person, he had such a huge, broad range of family and friends not just from Waterford but around the country. They probably would have had to close Waterford for the day..."
They are conscious of how much suffering there has been over the last year because of Covid-19, and would like to see future illness and death minimised as far as possible.
"I know it seems too hard to believe, but at some point we are getting out of this, at some point the end is in sight and some sort of normality will come back...
"This does kill people and to get normal back we just need to dig deep and try and just stay with it and hope that as the months and the weeks go by we're getting there, we're getting that little bit closer to getting out of this... We're nearly there and it would be great if we could just persevere that little bit longer."
