Born: February 4th, 1937
Died: : October 2nd, 2025
Ann Fuller, who has died aged 88, was a major figure in Ireland’s classical music scene and a cofounder of the Dublin International Piano Competition.
Tempestuous, opinionated and a force of nature, she is remembered by family and friends as a larger-than-life character, with a “can-do” attitude and a zest for life, which she lived and enjoyed to the full.
RM Block
She was born Ann Patricia Mahon and grew up on Eglington Park in Donnybrook on Dublin’s southside. Her father Raymond was an engineer who saw service in Britain’s Royal Air Force.
Her mother Moira was a strong advocate of animal rights and helped establish the Blue Cross animal welfare organisation in Ireland. She was also a keen golfer and, in her latter years, an accomplished florist.
Ann, who had a brother named John, attended the Sacred Heart Convent School, then on Lower Leeson Street but since amalgamated with Mount Anville school. Trinity College followed and then a career at the United States embassy in Dublin.
Her job there was to act as a contact person for visiting US citizens of note, introducing them to the right people across a range of areas of Irish life, including business, politics and public affairs.
It was through this work that she met her husband to be, Warren Fuller. Tall, handsome and 17 years her senior, he was a full-time, professional US diplomat and government official who spent much of his career with the UN Children’s Fund.
“He was blown away by her organisational skills,” recalls a friend, “but she hated him on first sight. He invited her to dinner but she sent him off with a flea in his ear.”
He was undeterred, and his persistence eventually paid off.
In due course, he was posted to London, where he was joined by the two children from his first marriage, Graham and Liza, and by Ann. While living there, she helped establish the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, now the oldest such awards in the UK and, for Ann, an early foray into the world of art promoting.
Later, Warren was posted to India, where, in New Delhi, he fell and succumbed to his injuries. Ann returned to Ireland and lived initially in Rathgar and then Sandymount, her home for almost the entirety of the rest of her life.
One of her good friends from those years was Maureen Cairnduff, the sometime journalist, socialite and party host. Like Cairnduff, Fuller earned a reputation as a dinner host and a party giver.
“She was very, very social and great fun,” remembers her nephew Paul Mahon. “She loved entertaining and hosted lots of dinner parties in Sandymount.”
At the time, she helped run events for An Taisce, the environmental group then best known for fighting to preserve Dublin’s built heritage, rather than for environmental campaigning as is the case now.
In the early 1980s, she met the pianist John O’Conor at a drinks party. The National Concert Hall had just opened in the former UCD premises on Earlsfort Terrace and, over lunch two weeks later, Fuller suggested to him that he perform the full cycle of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas.
“She sort of bedazzled me into it,” recalls O’Conor. “You couldn’t say no to Ann.”
O’Conor’s nine concerts were a great success and so began a lifelong and deep friendship. At a bridge party (another of Ann’s passions), the pianist mused about setting up an international piano competition.
“I’m in,” said Fuller ... and with that was born the Dublin International Piano Competition (DIPC), today one of the foremost in the world, brought about by Fuller and O’Conor, with the help of two other cofounders, Laurie Cearr and the late Ida Delamer.
With Fuller as the administrator and guardian, the inaugural competition was held in 1988 and it has gone from strength to strength ever since.
To get it off the ground, she and O’Conor won support from Bill Maxwell of Aer Lingus, Brian Coyle of Adam’s and Tony Ryan, then of Guinness Peat Aviation. Dublin City Council lent Fuller some office space.
“I adored her,” says O’Conor. “She was a volatile but fabulous character. [With an idea] She was always, like, ‘why not?’”
Her nephew remembers the same big personality.
“She was very outgoing and gregarious and opinionated at the same time,” says Paul Mahon. “Passionate is a good way to describe her. I remember her as someone who was good fun.”
Apart from working hard and playing with equal enthusiasm, Fuller was an avid follower of international tennis. She also loved to travel, Italy being a favourite destination. Paul and his brother David occasionally accompanied her on foreign forays.
From 1996 to 2000, she was a member of the board of the Fullbright Commission, which oversees education, teaching, research and other learning activities between the US and Ireland. She was on the board of other cultural institutions, including Opera Theatre Company (now Opera Ireland) the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the National Concert Hall.
She had familial tied to the west of Ireland and kept a holiday home near Clifden, Co Galway, where she was a strong supporter of the local arts festival.
Adrienne Carolan, executive director of the DIPC, said Fuller had “fostered a supportive community of volunteers, mentors and international juries, and shared the vision of all for promoting excellence in piano performance”.
She added on RIP.ie: “We remember Ann’s warmth, kindness, and infectious enthusiasm”.
The pianist Hugh Tinney said Fuller’s motivation with the competition was always “to do the very best she could for all the outstanding competitors (not just the winners of first prize)”. This “shone out like a light”, he wrote.
Fuller spent her declining years in Sandymount and, following the onset of dementia, was cared for more latterly at the Leeson Park Nursing Home. Her family asked that in death, she be remembered through donations to the Blue Cross.
