William Michael Joseph Whelan is an Irish composer and musician. He is best known for composing a piece for the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. The result, "Riverdance", was a seven-minute piece of original music accompanying a new take on traditional Irish stepdance that became a full-length stage production and spawned a worldwide craze for Irish traditional music and dance. The corresponding soundtrack album earned him a Grammy. "Riverdance" was released as a single in 1994, credited to "Bill Whelan and Anúna featuring the RTÉ Concert Orchestra". It reached number one in Ireland for 18 weeks and number nine in the UK. The album of the same title reached number 31 in the album charts in 1995.
Mary Kathleen Turner is an American actress. Known for her distinctive husky voice, she is the recipient of two Golden Globes, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy, and two Tony Awards.
Maureen Paula O'Sullivan was an Irish actress who played Jane in the Tarzan series of films during the era of Johnny Weissmuller. She starred in dozens of feature films across a span of more than half a century and performed with such actors as Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbo, Fredric March, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, the Marx Bros. and Woody Allen. In 2020, she was listed at number eight on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Olivia Hussey is a British-Argentine actress. Her awards include a Golden Globe Award and a David di Donatello Award. The daughter of Argentine opera singer Andrés Osuna, Hussey was born in Buenos Aires but spent most of her early life in her mother's native England. She aspired to become an actress at a young age and studied drama for five years at Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London.
Maud Gonne MacBride was an Irish republican revolutionary, suffragette and actress. She was of Anglo-Irish descent and was won over to Irish nationalism by the plight of people evicted in the Land Wars. She actively agitated for home rule and then for the republic declared in 1916. During the 1930s, as a founding member of the Social Credit Party, she promoted the distributive programme of C. H. Douglas. Gonne was well known for being the muse and long-time love interest of Irish poet W. B. Yeats.
Blanchardstown is a large outer suburb of Dublin in the modern county of Fingal, Ireland. Located ten kilometres (6 mi) northwest of Dublin city centre, it has developed since the 1960s from a small village to a point where Greater Blanchardstown is the largest urban area in Fingal.
Brenda Fricker is an Irish actress, whose career has spanned six decades on stage and screen. She has appeared in more than 30 films and television roles. In 1990, she became the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award, earning the award for Best Supporting Actress for the biopic My Left Foot (1989). She also appeared in films such as The Field (1990), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993), Angels in the Outfield (1994), A Time to Kill (1996), Veronica Guerin (2003), Inside I'm Dancing (2004) and Albert Nobbs (2011).
Geraldine Mary Fitzgerald was an Irish actress. She received the Daytime Emmy Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. She was a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2020, she was listed at number 30 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Christy Brown was an Irish writer and painter whose cerebral palsy allowed him to write or type only with the toes of one foot. His most recognized work is his autobiography, titled My Left Foot (1954). It was later made into a 1989 Academy Award-winning film of the same name, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Brown.
Fionnghuala Manon "Fionnula" Flanagan is an Irish stage, television, and film actress. Flanagan is known for her roles in the films James Joyce's Women (1985), Some Mother's Son (1996), Waking Ned (1998), The Others (2001), Four Brothers (2005), Yes Man (2008), The Guard (2011) and Song of the Sea (2014). She is also known for her recurring role as Eloise Hawking in the series Lost (2007–2010). Notable stage productions she has performed in include Ulysses in Nighttown and The Ferryman, both of which earned her Tony Award nominations for Best Featured Actress in a Play.
Orla Brady is an Irish theatre, television, and film actress born in Dublin. She started her career as a touring theatre performer and began appearing regularly in television roles in the 1990s. She has been nominated for several awards from the Irish Film & Television Academy for her television work. Major or recurring TV roles continued in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with Brady appearing in over thirty series, limited series, or television movies up to the 2020s. This included her portrayal of two supporting characters in the CBS-Paramount+ series, Star Trek: Picard.
Bairbre Dowling was an Irish actress. She appeared in films, frequently on the American stage and on US TV as well as in Irish productions.
Maire O'Neill was an Irish actress of stage and film. She holds a place in theatre history as the first actress to interpret the lead character of Pegeen Mike Flaherty in John Millington Synge's controversial masterpiece The Playboy of the Western World (1907).
Ruth Negga is an Irish actress known for her roles in the AMC television series Preacher (2016–2019) and the film Loving (2016). For her portrayal of Mildred Loving in the latter, Negga received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. For her Broadway debut as Lady Macbeth in a production of Shakespeare's Macbeth in 2022, she earned a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Sarah Ellen Allgood, known as Sara Allgood, was an Irish-American actress. She first studied drama with the Irish nationalist Daughters of Ireland and was at the opening of the Irish National Theatre Society.
Coolmine Community School is a co-educational secondary school in the Coolmine suburb of Dublin. It lies within Greater Blanchardstown in the administration of Fingal.
Jade Amelia Thirlwall is an English singer. Her music career began at the age of 15, when she auditioned for The X Factor UK on three occasions before rising to prominence as a member of the girl group Little Mix. The group was formed and won the eighth series in 2011, and released six studio albums together, and amassed nineteen UK top-ten singles, five of which reached number one. Before going on hiatus in 2022, they became the first girl band to win the Brit Award for British Group. Inspired by pop and R&B music with elements of electronica and electroclash sounds, she has been described as one of Britain's next biggest pop stars.
Jade Anouka is an English actress. She is known for her various stage roles and for her appearances in His Dark Materials on BBC One and the ITV dramas Trauma and Cleaning Up.
Úna-Minh Kavanagh, is an Irish travel writer, journalist, and social media manager.
Nanny is a 2022 American psychological horror film written and directed by Nikyatu Jusu, in her feature directorial debut. The film stars Anna Diop, Michelle Monaghan, Sinqua Walls, Morgan Spector, Rose Decker, and Leslie Uggams. Jason Blum serves as an executive producer through his Blumhouse Television banner.
