Outstanding Achievements

This year's Irish Film and Television Awards saw Irish-born actors Maureen O'Hara and Pierce Brosnan honoured with two special awards. To mark the recognition of their contributions, Alan Keyes casts an eye over the careers of the two actors.

Ask an international audience about Irish actors, and two names you are bound to hear are those of Maureen O'Hara and Pierce Brosnan. Maureen O'Hara, whose career ranges from How Green Was My Valley in 1941 to Only The Lonely in 1991, has been honoured with IFTA's Lifetime Achievement Award, while Pierce Brosnan, a megastar of the big screen and supporter of the Irish film industry, receives the award for Outstanding Irish Contribution to Cinema.

The Queen of Technicolor
Maureen O'Hara was born in Ranelagh in 1920. Her mother was an accomplished singer, her father was a businessman with a share in the Shamrock Rovers football team. Maureen herself was athletically-minded in her childhood, and was a particularly adept camogie player. Maureen was accepted for the Abbey school of acting at the age of 14, though her parents insisted that she also take secretarial training.

Premium Bond
Pierce Brosnan was born in County Louth in 1953, moving to London with his family when he was 11. Before turning to acting, Brosnan found employment as a taxi driver and a commercial illustrator. He joined an experimental theatre group, and began studying drama. He made his debut on the London stage at 25 in a production of Wait Until Dark by Tennessee Williams. He went on to play the role of McCabe in the British premiere of Williams's The Red Devil Battery Sign, a performance for which he was commended by the author himself. Brosnan's first major film was John Mackenzie's gritty gangster thriller The Long Good Friday, the same year he appeared in Agatha Christie adaptation The Mirror Crack'd.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 101