Lean Scully, a veteran public relations consultant who died aged 72 last year, religiously attended the internationally renowned festival for more than a decade. She was a well-known face at its classical concerts and had promised staff she would “see you right when I’m gone”. But the bequest still came as a shock.

“This is the type of bequest arts organisations dream about,” said Sir Brian McMaster, director of the festival, which officially opens today. “Lean’s been a regular visitor for the last 10 years. She was very passionate about the arts.”

The legacy was from the sale of two homes next to one another on Leeson Park in Ranelagh, one of Dublin’s most upmarket streets. Scully lived in one of the properties that also housed her business, Lean Scully PR, and rented out the house next door.

Scully left instructions that the money be invested in a trust, which will yield €223,000 a year in interest to the festival “to support the careers of young artists”. “She left us the residue of her estate, after gifts to friends, which is two Dublin homes,” said McMaster. “Of course, property values in Dublin have rocketed over the past few years so the homes were worth quite a lot of money.

“She was a lovely person but we had no idea of her wealth, she didn’t flaunt it. She had a wonderful turn of phrase. Some said she was lonely but she was a big partygoer, she loved to have a drink.”

This year the legacy is helping to pay for the appearance of the pianist Llyr Williams with the Minnesota Orchestra, and a staging of Schumann’s Manfred, which features several young artists performing with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Scully, a member of the festival’s Muse supporters programme to which she gave just €70 a year, liked to go on trips run for festival supporters.

Susie Burnet, a fellow Muse member, said: “I once went to Wexford Festival Opera with her which was a fantastic experience — there were long nights. She knew so many people here and was always part of the crowd. She was a wonderful woman, the life and soul, full of energy, always telling stories. She was a very popular, outgoing, fun woman. We have had a very long relationship with her, although obviously it was a wonderful surprise to find out she had left this money in her will to us.”

An executor from Dublin has been handling the donation but does not want to speak to the media about it.

Scully was considered one of the pioneers of public relations in Ireland. She worked in Peter Owens advertising agency in the late 1960s and then set up her own company, Lean Scully PR, based in Leeson Park. Among her clients was Lord Henry Mount Charles and Slane Castle.

Jim Dunne, former editor of Business & Finance, said: “It surprises me. I knew there was money in PR but I didn’t know there was that much. Lean was very good company.”

Renagh Holohan, of The Irish Times, an old friend of Scully’s said: “She was a very nice woman. She liked going to the theatre, as much for the social side of it as anything else.”

The extra cash will be welcomed — the festival has an £8m (€12m) budget, but reported a £1m deficit earlier this year.

Times Recommends

• Thousands of Tamils dying in 'welfare camp'
• Jackson 'rebuilt his nose before he died'
• Renewed Iran protests crushed by militia