Bunny Carr

Bernard Carr was born and raised in Clontarf, Dublin.[1] His father, James Carr, was a civil servant who had served in the British Army in India.[1] Bunny later recalled that his father hated his job and unfortunately died before he could retire. Bunny vowed never to be in the same position himself.[2]

The Carr family lived in Clontarf and he attended O'Connell School where he was taught through the medium of Irish.[1][3] One of the nuns at school gave him his nickname of "Bunny" on account of the size of his ears.[2] Carr grew up with a love of amateur dramatics.[2]

After leaving school he became a bank clerk for the Bank of Ireland and was eventually posted to Ballinasloe "because he spoke Irish".[1][2] Once he had returned to Dublin, he realised that wanted to change track and successfully auditioned for RTÉ just before it launched in 1962.[1] He later recounted that he had no strong desire to work in television but knew that he "just didn't want to work in the bank".[4]

On RTÉ, he hosted such shows as Quicksilver and Going Strong.[5] In 1964, he won a Jacob's Award for his television series, Teen Talk.[6] He devised and presented the political interview programme The Politicians.[4]

In 1973, Carr founded Carr Communications a public relations and communications training company, the first of its kind in Ireland.[7]

The company grew to become one of the largest public relations and executive coaching firms in the country - it trained six of Ireland's Taoisigh (prime ministers).[4][2] Carr also worked with the Catholic Communications Centre to train priests and nuns on how to make media appearances.[8] Carr was involved with the Gorta organisation in the early 1980s as a public supporter and fundraiser, and rumours circulated that he had absconded with funds.[1] He left RTÉ in the mid 1980s to concentrate on his business and retired in 2004.[4][2]

Carr was married to Joan, who he noticed whilst she was climbing onto the roof of the pavilion to retrieve a ball at Sutton Tennis club.[4] They had one son, Alan and two daughters, Carolyn and Philomena.[8] She contracted polio during her pregnancy with Philomena, after having cleaned down Alan who fell into a former cess pit in the back garden.[4] She was confined to an iron lung for the remaining seven months of the pregnancy and afterwards had to use a wheelchair.[4] The couple lived in Sutton, Dublin, before Joan died in 2005, after which Bunny lived alone.[4][8] He had 11 grandchildren.[2]

In 1998 Carr suffered a heart attack and had cancer diagnosed by chance during the treatment. Carr was diagnosed with macular degeneration in 2011 and was registered blind.[4] He died on 19 September 2018, aged 91 in Howth Hill Nursing Home in Dublin.[6][9] His family requested that donations in his memory be made to a charity supporting sufferers of Pitt–Hopkins syndrome.[10]

• A discussion of Quicksilver