“GOOD voice, lovey, but your Italian’s shite!” The Veronica Dunne portrayed by Alison Maxwell in her appropriately lively biography of the Dublin soprano and teacher can be summed up by her rather earthy assessment of Tara Erraught’s performance at the 2004 Feis Ceoil. Her words must have struck a chord, as the young Dundalk mezzo went on to study under “Ronnie” and become a star. This snippet is one of many anecdotes in the book which portray Dunne, now 88, as direct, helpful, fun and wilful – at times almost selfishly so.
Judy, her daughter, seems to have been particularly affected by her mother’s strong sense of self-reliance. “When I made my Holy Communion, I couldn’t do it with my friends because my mother was