Joan O'Hara
Encyclopedia
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
stage
Stage (theatre)
In theatre or performance arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience...
, film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
actress. She was a member of the renowned Abbey Players and performed in many plays in the Abbey Theatre
Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...
in Dublin, including those by Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...
, Lady Gregory
Augusta, Lady Gregory
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory , born Isabella Augusta Persse, was an Irish dramatist and folklorist. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote numerous short works for both companies. Lady Gregory produced a number of...
and W.B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
. She appeared as Maurya in the 1988
1988 in film
-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:* Act of Piracy* Action Jackson, starring Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, Vanity, Sharon Stone* The Adventures of Baron Munchausen* Akira* Alice...
film The Dawning
The Dawning
The Dawning is a 1988 British film, based on Jennifer Johnston's novel, The Old Jest which depicts the Irish War of Independence through the eyes of the Anglo-Irish landlord class...
.
She appeared in a number of other films, including Ron Howard
Ron Howard
Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
's Far and Away
Far and Away
Far and Away is a 1992 adventure-drama-romance film directed by Ron Howard from a script by Howard and Bob Dolman, and stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Cinematography by Mikael Salomon, with a music score by John Williams...
, Da
DA
DA, da, or dA may refer to:* Da , a Tony-winning play by Hugh Leonard* Da , a movie adaptation of the play by Hugh Leonard* Adi Da, a spiritual leader once known as Da Free John, and Da Love-Ananda...
, Footfalls
Footfalls
Footfalls is a play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English, between 2 March and December 1975 and was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre as part of the Samuel Beckett Festival, on May 20, 1976 directed by Beckett himself. Billie Whitelaw, for whom the piece had been written, played...
, Home is the Hero
Home Is the Hero
Home Is the Hero is a 1959 Irish drama film directed by Fielder Cook. It was entered into the 9th Berlin International Film Festival.-Cast:* Walter Macken - Paddo O'Reilly* Eileen Crowe - Daylia O'Reilly* Arthur Kennedy - Willie O'Reilly...
and just before her death, How About You
How About You
How About You is a 2007 Irish film directed by Anthony Byrne. The film is based on a short story sometimes published as "How About You" and sometimes published as "The Hard Core" in a collection of short stories titled "This Year It Will Be Different" by Maeve Binchy...
. In this her final film, she starred with Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
and her friend Brenda Fricker
Brenda Fricker
Brenda Fricker is an Irish actress of theatre, film and television. She had appeared in more than 30 films and television roles...
. The strength of her performance and bravery in carrying it out, was acknowledged by the cast and crew in a standing ovation.
More recently, O'Hara was best-known for appearing in the popular Irish television soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Fair City
Fair City
Fair City is an award-winning Irish television soap opera on RTÉ One. Produced by Radio Telefís Éireann, it was first broadcast on Monday, September 18, 1989...
, broadcast on RTÉ One
RTÉ One
RTÉ One is the flagship television channel of Raidió Teilifís Éireann , and it is the most popular and most watched television channel in Ireland. It was launched as Telefís Éireann on 31 December 1961, it was renamed RTÉ Television in 1966, and it was renamed as RTÉ One upon the launch of RTÉ...
. She joined the soap in 1994, portraying the character Eunice Phelan until her own (O'Hara's) death in 2007.
Thus she was described as both one of Ireland's most popular actresses and as one of the finest actors of her generation on her death.
She admired in particular Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, Federico Garcia Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
and Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
. While she took a no-nonsense approach to her craft, famously giving the advice that when in doubt, one should relate to the fireplace, she was educated at the Abbey School of Acting and had a deep appreciation and knowledge of theoretical approaches to acting and was an admirer of the European and American avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
.
She was highly regarded as an actor by her peers. As actor Alan Stanford
Alan Stanford
Alan Stanford is a well known Irish-based actor and director.-Personal life:Stanford has lived in Ireland since 1969. He trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London....
said after her death, "She had the most amazing energy. She was in the truest sense one of the last of the greats".
Personal life
O'Hara was born and raised in Rosses PointRosses Point
Rosses Point is a village in County Sligo, Ireland and also the name of the surrounding peninsula. The point guards Sligo Harbour and is marked by the Metal Man lighthouse, a 3.7 metre high guardian statue placed offshore by local seafarers in 1821 and maintained by the Commissioners of Irish...
County Sligo, the daughter of Major John Charles O'Hara, an officer in the British Corps of Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
and Mai Kirwan. She attended the same Ursuline
Ursulines
The Ursulines are a Roman Catholic religious order for women founded at Brescia, Italy, by Saint Angela de Merici in November 1535, primarily for the education of girls and the care of the sick and needy. Their patron saint is Saint Ursula.-History:St Angela de Merici spent 17 years leading a...
convent school as fellow actress (and friend), the late Pauline Flanagan
Pauline Flanagan
Pauline Flanagan was a County Sligo, Irish Free State-born actress who had a long career on stage. American television audiences best knew her as Annie Colleary on the soap opera Ryan's Hope....
.
O'Hara went on to live most of her life in Monkstown in Dublin, with a stay in London, with her husband, the poet and architect Francis J. Barry and four children, Siubhan, Sebastian, Jane and Guy. Sebastian is the author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
Sebastian Barry
Sebastian Barry
Sebastian Barry is an Irish playwright, novelist, and poet. He has been shortlisted twice for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and has won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year....
, who wrote The Steward of Christendom
The Steward of Christendom
The Steward of Christendom is a 1995 play written by Irish playwright Sebastian Barry. Its story is about one Thomas Dunne, which was the name of Barry's great-grandfather, who is loyal to the British Crown during the Irish War of Independence and suffers accordingly.-Plot summary:The play opens...
. One of O'Hara's sisters, Mary O'Hara
Mary O'Hara
Mary O'Hara is an Irish soprano and harpist from County Sligo. O'Hara achieved fame on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Her recordings of that period influenced a generation of Irish female singers who credit O'Hara with influencing their style, among them Carmel...
, is a soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
and harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
ist. Her brother Dermot lives with his family in Canada.
Death
Joan O'Hara Barry (she kept her maiden name as her stage name) died in Dublin on 23 July 2007 of complications from heart diseaseHeart disease
Heart disease, cardiac disease or cardiopathy is an umbrella term for a variety of diseases affecting the heart. , it is the leading cause of death in the United States, England, Canada and Wales, accounting for 25.4% of the total deaths in the United States.-Types:-Coronary heart disease:Coronary...
, aged 76. Her death was announced on RTÉ News
RTÉ News: Six One
RTÉ News: Six One is the evening news programme broadcast each night on Irish television channel RTÉ One...
the following day.