Dervla Kirwan
Encyclopedia
Dervla Kirwan is an Irish actress famous for roles in British television shows such as Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel is a BBC television drama set in Ireland, produced in-house by BBC Northern Ireland. The original story revolved around a young English Roman Catholic priest as he became part of a rural community. It ran for six series, which were first broadcast on BBC One in the UK from 1996 to 2001...

and Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart is a sitcom that ran for six series on BBC1 from 1993 to 1999. It stars Nicholas Lyndhurst as Gary Sparrow, an accidental time traveller who leads a double life after discovering a time portal allowing him to travel between the London of the 1990s and the same area during the...

. She also appeared in the Doctor Who Christmas special episode, "The Next Doctor" and provided the voiceovers for the well-known "this is not just food" television advertising campaign for UK retailer Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer
Marks and Spencer plc is a British retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, with over 700 stores in the United Kingdom and over 300 stores spread across more than 40 countries. It specialises in the selling of clothing and luxury food products...

.

Kirwan was born in Churchtown
Churchtown, Dublin
Churchtown is a largely residential suburb on the southside of Dublin, Ireland, between Dundrum and Rathfarnham. It is in the postal districts Dublin 14 and Dublin 16.- Ely's Arch :...

, Dublin, Ireland. Her father was an insurance broker, and her mother was a language teacher. She is the youngest of three daughters. Dervla is a great grand-daughter of Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll
Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll
Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll was an Irish Cumann na nGaedheal politician. She was the sister of the Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins. She was educated at Baggot Street Training College and was a schoolteacher and school principal before entering politics...

 who was a sister of Michael Collins
Michael Collins (Irish leader)
Michael "Mick" Collins was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance and Teachta Dála for Cork South in the First Dáil of 1919, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations. Subsequently, he was both Chairman of the...

, one of the Irish leaders during the War of Independence
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...

.

Career

Her first credited TV roles were in the TV series Troubles in 1988 and The Lilac Bus
The Lilac Bus
The Lilac Bus is a collection of interrelated short stories by the writer Maeve Binchy, first published in 1984. The stories were later republished, along with the earlier collection Dublin 4, in The Lilac Bus: Stories....

 in 1990 alongside Stephanie Beacham
Stephanie Beacham
Stephanie Beacham is a British television, film and theatre actress. Making her film debut in 1971's The Nightcomers opposite Marlon Brando and becoming more well-known on British television in the BBC series Tenko and the ITV series Connie , her worldwide breakthrough came as a result of playing...

 based on Maeve Binchy
Maeve Binchy
Maeve Binchy is an Irish novelist, newspaper columnist and speaker. Educated at University College Dublin, she worked as a teacher then a journalist at The Irish Times and later became a writer of novels and short stories.Many of her novels are set in Ireland, dealing with the tensions between...

's novel.

Dervla moved to London when she was sixteen when she was cast in a play at the Bush Theatre. She won acclaim in 1988 for her performance as the factory girl Linda in A Handful of Stars, the Bush Theatre premiere of the first play in Billy Roche
Billy Roche
Billy Roche is an Irish playwright and actor. He was born and still lives in Wexford and most of his writings are based there...

's Wexford Trilogy. In 1992, again at the Bush, she starred in a revival of the complete trilogy.

She got her television break in the 1991 BBC Scotland production of A Time To Dance, adapted by Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg FRSL FRTS FBA, FRS FRSA is an English broadcaster and author best known for his work with the BBC and for presenting the The South Bank Show...

 from his own novel, playing Bernadette Kennedy. In the same year, she also appeared in the play Water Music at the Cockpit Theatre
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was christened The Phoenix....

, written by award-winning playwright Lyndon Morgans (singer-songwriter with the Welsh folk noir band Songdog
Songdog
Songdog are a Welsh three-piece folk noir band noted for their intelligent lyrics and sparse musical arrangements.-Background:...

). In 1992, she also starred in Hush by April De Angelis
April De Angelis
April De Angelis is a British dramatist of part Sicilian descent. She is a graduate of Sussex University who trained at East 15 Acting School....

 at the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...

, while January 1994 found her playing in Peter Hall's seasonal production of Georges Feydeau
Georges Feydeau
Georges Feydeau was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his many lively farces.-Biography:Georges Feydeau was born in Paris, the son of novelist Ernest-Aimé Feydeau and Léocadie Bogaslawa Zalewska. At the age of twenty, Feydeau wrote his first comic...

's farce An Absolute Turkey at the Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...



Kirwan briefly appeared in Casualty
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...

, and in the first three series of Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart is a sitcom that ran for six series on BBC1 from 1993 to 1999. It stars Nicholas Lyndhurst as Gary Sparrow, an accidental time traveller who leads a double life after discovering a time portal allowing him to travel between the London of the 1990s and the same area during the...

alongside Nicholas Lyndhurst
Nicholas Lyndhurst
Nicholas Simon Lyndhurst is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Rodney Trotter in Only Fools and Horses, Gary Sparrow in Goodnight Sweetheart, and as Adam Parkinson in Carla Lane's series Butterflies...

. In 1997, she sang with Dustin the Turkey
Dustin the Turkey
Dustin the Turkey is a puppet, "television presenter" and star of RTÉ television's The Den since 1989. A turkey with a strong Dublin accent, Dustin is voiced by John Morrison, brother of Ciaran Morrison who was one of the creators of Zig and Zag. Dustin first appeared on The Den with Zig and Zag in...

 on his cover of "Fairytale of New York
Fairytale of New York
"Fairytale of New York" is a song by the Irish rock group The Pogues, released in 1987 and featuring the British singer Kirsty MacColl. The song is an Irish folk style ballad, written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan, and featured on The Pogues' album If I Should Fall from Grace with God...

" for his album Faith of Our Feathers.

For 23 episodes, from 1996–1998, she appeared in Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel is a BBC television drama set in Ireland, produced in-house by BBC Northern Ireland. The original story revolved around a young English Roman Catholic priest as he became part of a rural community. It ran for six series, which were first broadcast on BBC One in the UK from 1996 to 2001...

in the role of Assumpta Fitzgerald. Assumpta is the landlady of BallyK's only pub, Fitzgeralds, and is no friend of the church - until Father Peter Clifford (Stephen Tompkinson
Stephen Tompkinson
Stephen Tompkinson is a British actor. He is best known for his work in comedy and drama productions such as Drop the Dead Donkey, Ballykissangel, Grafters, In Deep, Wild at Heart and DCI Banks....

) is posted to the village from his previous parish in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

. She also continued this role for a Comic Relief
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...

 special of The Vicar of Dibley
The Vicar of Dibley
The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It aired from 1994 to 2007...

, and in a Father Ted
Father Ted
Father Ted is a comedy series set in Ireland that was produced by Hat Trick Productions for British broadcaster Channel 4. Written jointly by Irish writers Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan and starring a predominantly Irish cast, it originally aired over three series from 21 April 1995 until 1 May...

special. Dervla's performance in Ballykissangel won her the National TV Award for Best Actress in 1996, and the Irish Post Award for Best Irish Entertainer in 1997. In 1998, she starred alongside Christopher Eccleston in the film With Or Without You as Belfast girl Rosie Boyd.

In 1999, she appeared in another BBC production, a made for TV Christmas film called The Greatest Store in the World. She played the single mum of two girls who are made homeless a few days before Christmas. Kirwan co-starred with Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed is an English actor, known for his sonorous voice and "hearty, king-sized portrayals".-Early life:The son of William Blessed, a socialist miner, and Hilda Wall, Blessed was born in the town of Goldthorpe, West Riding of Yorkshire, England...

 and Peter Capaldi
Peter Capaldi
Peter Dougan Capaldi is an Academy Award and BAFTA award winning Scottish actor and film director. In 1995, his short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film...

. In 2001, she starred in the TV series The Bombmaker as a former IRA bomb maker.

Kirwan starred in School for Seduction
School for Seduction
School for Seduction is a 2004 British film directed by Sue Heel. The plot is about an Italian temptress who arrives at a school in Newcastle to teach a group of Geordies about the art of romance.-Cast:...

, a 2004 film which also starred Kelly Brook
Kelly Brook
Kelly Brook is an English model, actress, entrepreneur, television presenter and Playboy model.-Early life:...

. She appeared in the BBC 1 crime drama series 55 Degrees North
55 Degrees North
55 Degrees North is a BBC television drama series starring Don Gilet as DS Nicky Cole, a London detective relocated to Newcastle upon Tyne after exposing police corruption. Dervla Kirwan co-stars as Claire Maxwell, an ambitious solicitor....

with Don Gilet
Don Gilet
Don Gilet is a British actor, best known for his roles in BBC productions Babyfather, EastEnders and 55 Degrees North. Don's surname is actually pronounced 'Gillit' but takes the stage name 'Jillay'.-Personal life:...

, which aired in 2004. She returned for a second series in 2005. The series was shown in the US under the title The Night Detective. In 2005, she also appeared on the Lyttelton stage at the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 in the role of Alice in Brian Friel
Brian Friel
Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"...

's Aristocrats. In 2006, she played Bertha in Exiles at the National Theatre.

In 2007, she appeared in the BBC drama True Dare Kiss
True Dare Kiss
True Dare Kiss is a British television drama produced for BBC One. It is written by Debbie Horsfield and produced by Marcus Wilson and features Dervla Kirwan, David Bradley and Lorraine Ashbourne...

and on stage in Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

's Betrayal
Betrayal (play)
Betrayal is a play written by Harold Pinter in 1978. Critically regarded as one of the English playwright's major dramatic works, it features his characteristically economical dialogue, characters' hidden emotions and veiled motivations, and their self-absorbed competitive one-upmanship,...

at the Donmar Warehouse
Donmar Warehouse
Donmar Warehouse is a small not-for-profit theatre in the Covent Garden area of London, with a capacity of 251.-About:Under the artistic leadership of Michael Grandage, the theatre has presented some of London’s most memorable award-winning theatrical experiences, as well as garnered critical...

.

Kirwan appeared as the villain Miss Hartigan in The Next Doctor, the 2008 Christmas special of Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

, alongside David Tennant
David Tennant
David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...

 and David Morrissey
David Morrissey
David Mark Morrissey is an English actor and director. Morrissey grew up in the Kensington and Knotty Ash areas of Liverpool, and learned to act at the city's Everyman Youth Theatre. At the age of 18, he was cast in the television series One Summer , which won him recognition throughout the country...

.

In 2009, Kirwan was in the BBC drama Moving On
Moving On (TV series)
Moving On is a British television series consisting of standalone contemporary dramas first shown on daytime BBC One. Although originally broadcast in an early-afternoon slot, less than a month after the initial airing the first series was repeated to an evening audience...

, where she played Laura in the episode Dress To Impress. She also guest starred in Law & Order: UK, playing the role of Beatrice McArdle.

Dervla's appeared in the Irish film Ondine
Ondine (film)
Ondine is a 2009 Irish romantic drama film directed and written by Neil Jordan and starring Colin Farrell and Alicja Bachleda.The film mixes themes from Irish mythology into contemporary settings.-Plot:...

alongside Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....

 and Stephen Rea
Stephen Rea
Stephen Rea is an Irish film and stage actor. Rea has appeared in high profile films such as V for Vendetta, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire and Breakfast on Pluto...

 which was released in 2009. She played Maura, the alcoholic bitter ex-girlfriend of Colin's character Syracuse. Dervla won the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Film at the 2010 Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs) for her role in Ondine.

Dervla appeared in the BBC drama series Material Girl
Material Girl (TV series)
Material Girl is a British romantic comedy produced by Carnival Films, that first aired on BBC One on 14 January 2010. It stars Lenora Crichlow, Dervla Kirwan and Michael Landes.Set in the fashion world, it was inspired by the book Fashion Babylon...

, which aired in January 2010. She was also cast in the role of Bundle
Bundle Brent
Lady Eileen Brent, a fictional character known to her family and friends as "Bundle" Brent, was a spirited "It girl" in two novels of Agatha Christie , The Secret of Chimneys and The Seven Dials Mystery...

 in Agatha Christie's Marple.

Dervla also appeared in the 4-part BBC drama The Silence. She played the role of the warm-hearted aunt of a young deaf girl who witnessed a murder. The Silence aired in July 2010. For her role as Maggie, Dervla won the Dagger for Best Supporting Actress at the 2010 Crime Thriller Awards.

Dervla has also been the subject of an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? in which she found out more about her Irish and distant Jewish descent. It was first shown on August 2, 2010.

In 2011, Dervla worked on Injustice
Injustice (TV series)
Injustice is a five-part drama television series about criminal barrister William Travers, who has lost his faith in the legal system following a traumatic series of events. The one-hour drama premiered on June 6, 2011, on ITV1...

a five-part psychological thriller on ITV written by Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Craig Horowitz is an English novelist and screenwriter. He has written many children's novels, including The Power of Five, Alex Rider and The Diamond Brothers series and has written over fifty books. He has also written extensively for television, adapting many of Agatha Christie's...

. Dervla starred as Jane Travers, wife of main character, Will Travers played by James Purefoy
James Purefoy
James Brian Mark Purefoy is an English actor best known for portraying Mark Antony in the HBO series Rome.-Early life and work:...

.

Other works in development include a fantasy film Luna and an independent thriller, Entity.

Personal life

Kirwan is married to actor Rupert Penry-Jones
Rupert Penry-Jones
Rupert William Penry-Jones is an English actor, best known for his role as Adam Carter in the British television series Spooks, also broadcast under the title MI-5.-Family life:Penry-Jones was born in London on September 22, 1970...

, with whom she has two children, Florence and Peter. She met him in 2001 while appearing in Dangerous Corner and they married in 2007 after a three year engagement. She had been engaged to her co-star in Ballykissangel, Stephen Tompkinson
Stephen Tompkinson
Stephen Tompkinson is a British actor. He is best known for his work in comedy and drama productions such as Drop the Dead Donkey, Ballykissangel, Grafters, In Deep, Wild at Heart and DCI Banks....

 in 1998.

She and Penry-Jones both appeared in Casanova in 2005, although they did not share any scenes. They had worked on stage together in 2001 in a West Yorkshire Playhouse
West Yorkshire Playhouse
The West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, England is a theatre which opened in March 1990 as part of the regeneration of the Quarry Hill area of the city...

, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

, production of J B Priestley's Dangerous Corner, when he played Robert Caplan to her Olwen Peel. In November, the production transferred to the Garrick Theatre
Garrick Theatre
The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It opened on 24 April 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. In its early years, it appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama, and today the theatre is a...

 for a successful four-month West End season.

External links

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