Born: January 28th, 1943Died: July 23rd, 2026 Patricia (Pat, Patsy) Donlon, who has died peacefully aged 83 at Blackrock Hospice, Dublin, was a leading light in that remarkable generation of Irish women who were among the first in their families to attend university in the 1960s, and then made significant contributions to national institutions previously dominated by men.She was an inspiration to many much younger women, whom she mentored so generously. “When you grow up, don’t you want to be like her?” a 20-something woman quipped after Donlon gave one of her , witty and erudite public presentations at the Irish Film Centre in the 1990s.But if she broke into male bastions, she also shattered negative stereotypes of feminist professionals. She was glamorous, dressing with daring and elegance. This was a trait she shared with her husband, the late Phelim Donlon, to whom she was always “Patsy”. They left similarly rich legacies of professional respect and personal affection in the world of culture.Donlon was brought up in the capital, in Dolphin’s Barn and then Rialto. But her mother Marcella was from Co Westmeath, and her father Patrick McCarthy, a Garda inspector, from Galway, so her schoolmates called her a “culchie”. She insisted she was a Dub.She graduated with an honours BA in English and Spanish from UCD in 1964. A decade later her masters on Spanish golden age poetry was rated so highly that she was able to convert it into a doctorate. She always retained a love of all things Spanish. However, her diploma in library and information studies drove her professional future.Children’s books (and their illustrations) were also a lifelong passion, but she gave up teaching in this field at UCD to become assistant librarian at the Royal Irish Academy in 1979.Two years later, as curator of western collections at the Chester Beatty Library and Gallery, she showed that making hidden cultural treasures accessible to a broad public would be one of her hallmarks. So would creating innovative and appropriate partnerships with business. Aer Lingus sponsored her Flights of Angels exhibition, and Image Magazine her show based on Belle Époque fashion plates.This is an energetic woman, alarmingly devoid of gravitas ... No big suit, no entourage of minions, no jargon, no clinical detachment, a dangerous inclination towards approachability, a tendency to listen to others and above all a natural unorthodoxy which amounts to taking chances— Eileen BattersbyThere was steel beneath her flair and charm, a fierce sense of integrity that was not always appreciated. Very reluctantly, as her suspicions morphed into evidence, she became a whistleblower, exposing her colleague Dr David James for his theft of many valuable artefacts from the Chester Beatty.In 1989 she became the first woman to direct the National Library, a prestigious chalice that was more than a little poisoned. Donlon made hugh efforts to reverse its chronic underfunding, but the frustrations she encountered arguably led to a severe deterioration in her previously excellent health.She and her staff produced the first strategic plan for a national cultural institution. She was key to drafting the first legislation governing such institutions in a century, passed the year she left, in 1997. She established the National Photographic Archive as a branch of the library in Temple Bar. She again negotiated sponsorship deals, with IBM on automating the catalogues, and with Boyne Valley Honey on the book and exhibition, Treasures of the National Library.But the strategic plan was never adequately funded under her tenure, though the minister responsible in her final years was Michael D Higgins. He is remembered as a dynamic visionary as arts minister, but his focus was on other cultural institutions.Donlon was outraged, and her candour probably did not aid her case. “Lack of access to the [literary] heritage is a form of censorship,” she told The Irish Times in 1996. One imagines the minister was not amused.The late Eileen Battersby captured this period perfectly for this newspaper on the day Donlon left the job: “Donlon’s ... arrival at the National Library could be compared with an American entering Victorian London society. This is an energetic woman, alarmingly devoid of gravitas ... No big suit, no entourage of minions, no jargon, no clinical detachment, a dangerous inclination towards approachability, a tendency to listen to others and above all a natural unorthodoxy which amounts to taking chances.”[ Pat Donlon, first female director of a national institution in Ireland, dies aged 83Opens in new window ]She did not let her disappointment at the library sour her later life. She contributed to numerous voluntary boards, did consultancies, and held distinguished teaching and research positions at Queen’s University Belfast, Cambridge University, Boston College and Dublin Institute of Technology, often linked to her abiding passion for children’s literature.From 2007 to 2010 she was director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, where she again pursued organisational and technological reform with undiminished energy.Despite her zealous professionalism – she confessed to being “driven” – she led an intense family life, and became a loving and much-loved grandmother. Her circle of friends was wide and diverse, and she loved travel and food almost as much as books. Though ill health repeatedly curtailed her later life, she kept returning to her beloved Vernazza, in Italy’s Cinque Terre, with groups of friends and family, until 2015.While Phelim became known there as il maestro for his piano performances, Pat was recognised by many in the village as one of their own, a force of nature. She is survived by her daughters Lorna and Sinéad (Kelly), her son-in-law Paul Kelly, and her grandchildren Emma, Paddy, Rachel Eva, Ruth and Hannah.