Fionnuala Flanagan
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Fionnuala Flanagan is an Irish-born, Hollywood-based actress who has appeared on American TV (Rich Man, Poor Man, Murder, She Wrote, etc.) and in various feature films.
Born Fionnghuala Flanagan on December 10, 1941, and raised in Dublin, she grew up speaking both English and Irish fluently. Although her parents weren't native Irish speakers, they wanted Fionnuala and her four siblings to learn the language. She was educated in Switzerland and England, and she trained at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and traveled throughout Europe before settling in Los Angeles.
With her portrayal of "Gerty McDowell" in the 1967 film version of Ulysses, Flanagan established herself as one of the foremost interpreters of James Joyce. She made her 1968 Broadway debut in Brian Friel's Lovers, then appeared in such Joycean theatrical projects as Ulysses in Nighttown (as "Molly Bloom") and James Joyce's Women (1977). The last-named project earned her Critic's Circle awards in Los Angeles and San Francisco; it was subsequently filmed in 1988, with Flanagan repeating her portrayal of "Harriet Shaw Weaver".
A familiar presence in American television, Flanagan has appeared in several made-for-TV movies, among them The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Mary White (1977), The Ewok Adventure (1984) and A Winner Never Quits (1986). She won an Emmy for her work as "Clothilde" in the 1976 network miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man.
Flanagan's weekly-series stints have included "Aunt Molly Culhane" in How the West Was Won (1977), which earned her a second Emmy Award nomination. She played "Lt. Guyla Cook" in Hard Copy (1987) and "Kathleen Meacham", wife of a police chief played by John Mahoney in Help (1990).
Flanagan is also well known for her guest appearances in three of the Star Trek spin-offs. She guest starred in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode Dax, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Inheritance, and she also appeared as the Vulcan "Ambassador V'Lar" in Star Trek: Enterprise. She also recently guest starred in the episode Flashes Before Your Eyes of Lost.
She has also appeared in numerous films, most notably The Others opposite Nicole Kidman, and Waking Ned Devine, as well as television series and stage productions - most recently in the Emmy-nominated miniseries, Revelations, starring Bill Pullman and Natascha McElhone, and in Transamerica starring Felicity Huffman.
In 2006, Flanagan began a continuing major role in the eleven-episode Showtime drama Brotherhood. She plays "Rose Caffee", the mother of fictional Rhode Island State Representative Tommy Caffee. Brotherhood has been picked up for a second season of 10 episodes to air in the summer of 2007, and Flanagan is slated to reprise her role in the drama. She currently resides in Hollywood Hills, California.
[edit] Northern Ireland/politics
She appeared with Helen Mirren in Some Mother's Son, written and directed by Terry George, as the militantly supportive mother of a Provisional Irish Republican Army hunger striker in 1981.
Subsequently, she spoke at a memorial hosted by Sinn Féin at the Citywest Building in Dublin for Irish republicans and their kin who were killed during the latest installment of the Irish Troubles.
Flanagan and her husband (since 1972), Dr. Garrett O'Connor, also an Irish nationalist, are known to give lavish parties at her Hollywood Hills home for people in the "Irish community".
[edit] Filmography
Four Brothers (2005) - Evelyn Mercer
Brotherhood (2006) - Rose Caffee
