13/06/2026
NOT SO FABULOUS
Famous actress and billionaire frustrate entry to car park -absolutely!
By Christy Parker
A west Waterford woman has had a brief but intriguing encounter with multi-billionaire James Dyson and famous actress, Joanna Lumley but found the experience at a riverside heritage site somewhat more “irritating” than fixating.
Retired GP Melanie Kelly, from Shanacoole had driven, with her friend Penelope, to Templemichael one recent morning.
The idyllic, serene location lies within a seagull scream of Ballynatray House and is part of the 850-acre Ballynatray estate that Mr Dyson purchased for reportedly over €30m in 2024.
On arriving at the site, Melanie and her companion, who was on crutches, found the car park, narrow and sharply to the right of the rudimentary entrance, obstructed by a vacated, black Land Rover Defender.
A white Volkswagen, equally unable to access the car park, was tucked in patiently behind it. The Volkswagen driver transpired to be a young man from Tallow.
It’s unclear how long the Volkswagen driver had been waiting for the Defender crew to return but perhaps fearful of gathering cobwebs, he set off to find them. Penelope, supported by her crutches, soon followed.
Melanie meanwhile tried to turn her Kia Ceed around but eventually settled for sliding her vehicle in behind the white car and “just about off the road.”
Within a few minutes the Tallow man returned, with two elderly ladies strolling in his wake, keeping pace with the growth of the grass. They were sorry about the blocked car park and assured that the rest of their group would shortly return.
Whatshername....
Sure enough, “two tall men and one small woman”, as Melanie described, soon came walking up the leafy pathway to the cars. Neither gathering addressed the other, perhaps surprisingly and certainly disappointingly, but Mr Dyson “looked at us with slightly raised eyebrows and a half smile”, Melanie recalls.
While Melanie instantly identified the gaffer himself, she only recognised the small woman as “a famous actress” whose name she couldn’t quite place. Happily her passenger, who had been gone but not forgotten, also returned and had recognised Ms Lumley.
For those who survived without a television set in the 1990’s, or who have maintained their tortured souls on a strict diet of RTE only, may appreciate that Ms Lumley was and probably still is, a supremely talented actress with very many diverse roles to her name across stage, screen and studio.
However, she has to live with being arguably best remembered for her 1990’s role as the chain smoking, amoral Patsy Stone in the Absolutely Fabulous television sitcom.
For no other reason than it sounds appropriate in the circumstances to mention it, the 80 year-old, double BAFTA and OBE recipient is also quoted as once saying, “I've been to very poor countries and I'm convinced that happiness is not connected with wealth."
Ironically, back in Templemichael, with everyone returning to their cars, nobody could go anywhere until Melanie backed onto the roadway to create space. This she gingerly did, being conscious, no doubt, that she didn’t own the place!
“I found the whole thing a bit irritating to be honest, but then it only lasted less than 15 minutes, so maybe it wasn’t too bad”, she reflects with a smile. “It was just one of those strange experiences”.
Would kind of make you think about getting a helicopter pad all the same...
Courtesy of the Dungarvan Observer
