Blánaid Mac Cann (née Costello)

Blánaid Mac Cann died on Friday 23 October 2026. The Waterford News & Star, which reported her death the following day, described it as untimely; her age and the cause of death were not given in published reports.

She was survived by her husband Liam, her sons David, Neill and Eoin, her daughters Aoife, Bebhinn and Gráinne, her grandchildren and her brother Finán. She was to repose at Thompson's Funeral Home, Barrack Street, Waterford, on the evening of Sunday 25 October, with Requiem Mass at Holy Cross Church, Killea, Dunmore East, at 2pm on Monday 26 October, followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery. The family asked that donations, in lieu of flowers, be made to the Society of St Vincent de Paul.

Blánaid Costello grew up in St Luke's, on the north side of Cork city. She said her mother was involved in backstage work with a musical society in Cork, though only once a year. Blánaid herself was always interested in sewing. As a child she was unwell for a couple of years, and a dressmaker who lived next door gave her leftover scraps of fabric, which she used to make clothes for her dolls. "That's how I started sewing," she told the Waterford News & Star in 2026.

She later married Liam Mac Cann and settled in County Waterford, eventually making her home in Dunmore East. She made her own children's communion and confirmation clothes.

Mac Cann's costume work began as a hobby. When the Tops of the Town competition started in Waterford, an annual charity contest in the Theatre Royal between teams from local workplaces, a friend whose husband chaired the banks and finance team asked her to help, and she agreed to take over its costumes, "not knowing what was involved." She went on to dress the team for many years, including an all-Ireland final at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin.

With her best friend Cathy Nolan, who was from the United States, she founded Nomac Productions in the late 1980s, taking the name from the first letters of their surnames. They began in a small rented premises beside an alley off O'Connell Street in Waterford, at around the time the Garter Lane arts centre was opening. When Nolan went back to the United States, Mac Cann continued the business alone. For years she fitted it around raising six children, and she said it remained something she did for love.

Nomac later moved to the Tycor Business Centre and became one of Ireland's largest costume hire companies, supplying theatre groups, schools, pantomimes in Dublin, and film and television productions. Most of its stock was handmade, and its collection included items worn in Ballykissangel and Father Ted. She made all the costumes for the Waterford Panto Society from its start, and designed for the Irish premiere of Man of La Mancha. Before the internet, she researched each period from her own library of books.

In March 2026 she was given the Waterford News & Star Green Room Lifetime Achievement Award, joining earlier recipients including Des Manahan, Eric Sweeney and Jim Nolan. On 9 May 2026 a fire at the Tycor Business Centre destroyed Nomac's unit, with more than 50,000 costumes, its sewing room, machines, fabrics, patterns and resource library. Mac Cann spoke about the loss on RTÉ Radio 1 and to national newspapers, and launched an appeal to rebuild the business.

Mac Cann was married to Liam Mac Cann, and they had six children, three sons and three daughters, the eldest of them twins. She said that none of her children had taken up costume making, but that two of her grandchildren were keen on sewing. She formed long friendships through theatre, pantomime, musicals and Tops of the Town, and said in 2026: "The love of theatre; that's what it's all about." Tributes described her family as her greatest pride.

Mac Cann's work is part of decades of Waterford pantomimes, Tops of the Town shows, musicals and school productions, and of costumes hired out across Ireland. The Waterford News & Star wrote that her legacy would endure "in the thousands of costumes she created, the productions she helped bring to life and the countless people she encouraged along the way." Presenting her lifetime achievement award, its arts correspondent Pat McEvoy praised her for moving from being involved in costumes to building a business that became part of "the apparatus of all of the theatres and shows." She had spent her last months working to rebuild Nomac after the Tycor fire.