When the Bond girl became a Drishane nun

Marian, who was Marian Hickey back in 1974 when 'In This House of Brede' was shot on location at the Duhallow convent, has fond memories of meeting Diana Rigg, who died at the age of 82 last week, on set at the school she herself attended.

"We spent a lot of time chatting as we were in the costume room getting prepared for going in front of the camera - she would smoke Silk Cut Red," said Marian. "She was very chatty and would ask me a lot about my teacher training and the like."

"At the time I was home from teacher training college and I saw an ad looking for people for auditions which were to be held in the Wallis Arms Hotel," Marian, then Marian Hickey from Millstreet, told The Corkman.

It was only when she went up to the auditions that she found out that they were for a part as one of the nuns who would be acting alongside Diana Rigg in a TV movie in which Rigg plays a business-woman from London who decides to give up her cosmopolitan lifestyle.

"There were lots of girls who had been in Drishane as pupils acting alongside actual nuns from Drishane who had taught us," said Marian.

She recalls spending a long day in front of the camera where she was supposedly feeding a sick nun, one of her teachers in the days she was a pupil, and eventually the scene was re-shot when they were gone.

"My scene ended up on the cutting room floor," said Marian, but she didn't really rue her chance at silverscreen glory as she went on to a fulfilling career as a teacher.

Seán Radley, who runs the local museum in Millstreet and also founded popular local news website millstreet.ie, said that his post about the passing of Diana Rigg had prompted a lot of people to share their memories of the time Rigg, who went on to star as a nun in a number of other productions, including her last role as Mother Dorothea in a forthcoming BBC drama, Black Narcissus, was in Drishane.

"People remember her fondly as a very polite lady who chatted with them but kept to herself generally," he said.

Her role as Philippa in 'In This House of Brede' saw Diana Rigg smoking her last cigarette in a pub, 'across the road' from Drishane, before walking with determination up the driveway to the grill to be admitted to the convent.

"That scene was filmed in the Old Thady Inn near Farnanes," said Marian.

There was plenty of more film magic during the time they were in Drishane but what is recalled most fondly is how well Marian and the other extras were looked after.

"There was a cafeteria set up on site and we got breakfast, a mid-morning cup of coffee, lunch and afternoon tea.

"We spent a lot of time sitting around waiting to be called into action," said Marian.

The money was good too - between £10 and £12 per day at a time during the mid 1970s when that was good money.

The reporter from The Corkman who visited the set reported it was hard to tell the real nuns from the actors in a piece titled 'It's Fun Being A Nun'.