‘My Mam will completely freak out’ Fair City star on final scenes as tragedy strikes Carrigstown

"Being trusted with such weighty scenes as an actor is a dream."

The residents of Carrigstown were left devastated in last night's Fair City as Karen was murdered by an unknown attacker. After being recently turned down by Seán, Karen had been growing more and more unhinged. This ultimately ended up leading to a series of confrontations in the Station after she hit "self destruct". Following the events at the charity event earlier this week, Wayne ended up finding Karen lying in his kitchen and covered in blood, with the word 'slut' scrawled in lipstick behind her. Thursday night's episode saw Wayne try frantically to wake her up, only to get spooked when Robbie arrives - and he pretends he hasn't seen her. Wayne wraps up Karen in the blanket, bound for the hospital, and urges her to hold on. But when he's stopped to help Decco, he returns to the car to find that Karen has gone missing. A heartbroken Aoife later finds an unconscious Karen with Sean and Decco and immediately starts CPR. In denial that Karen is dead, Aoife continues CPR - only to be left distraught as the paramedics confirm her worst fear. And now Kate Gilmore, who played Karen on the RTÉ soap, has spoken out about her final scenes. Though she hadn't seen the end results just yet, she said that she was "dying to see how it all unfolds" - and hopes that the killer will be brought to justice. She said:

"I haven’t seen the scenes yet but I am really excited. "It’s always thrilling to be trusted with dramatic scenes such as these as an actor and I have to say I really enjoyed it. "My Mam will completely freak out though when she sees Karen dead, I know that."

And it turns out there was an extra layer of drama as it came time to film her final scenes. as the Beast from the East was hitting the next day. Praising the wardrobe and crew for their quick thinking with the freezing temperatures, she recalled:

"Ironically, it was quite dramatic filming the dramatic scenes due to an act of God called the Beast from the East. "We were filming my final outdoor scene the night before it really hit so it was freezing. "The crew were amazing in that they only allowed the actors outdoors when the scene was set up for a take and brought us back inside immediately after cut.

"Wardrobe were incredible too because they sealed heat packs everywhere they could under Karen’s little white dress and inside the boots. "It was fun to do but I was worried that I wouldn’t be convincing enough as a dead person because I was shaking."

Kate joined the series officially in March 2016, before becoming more of a series regular that August. And while there was a few memorable moments (like "fighting Aisling O’Neill dressed as green slime for the Halloween episode last year"), there was one storyline for Karen that particularly stood out. Kate explained:

"I have to say the last few weeks were really fun, even though I was crying a lot. "Being trusted with such weighty scenes as an actor is a dream and I will never forget that cold March evening in the pre-storm conditions when we all banded together as a team. "