Since Cillian Murphy just became the first Irish-born actor to win the Best Actor Oscar, I thought it would be appropriate to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a list of the most notable Irish actors who have been honored by the Academy with either Oscar gold or a nomination.
1. Cillian Murphy (Best Actor winner, Oppenheimer, 2024)
Murphy has played non-Irish roles so often and so well (Oppenheimer, The Dark Knight films) that some people may not realize or remember that he is Irish. His best Irish films include Breakfast on Pluto and The Wind that Shakes the Barley. And as noted above, he is the first Irish-born actor to take home an Academy Award in the Best Actor category.
2. Daniel Day-Lewis (Best Actor winner, My Left Foot, 1989; Best Actor nominee, In the Name of the Father, 1993; Best Actor winner, Gangs of New York, 2002; Best Actor winner, There Will Be Blood, 2007; Best Actor winner, Lincoln, 2012; Best Actor nominee, Phantom Thread, 2017)
Day-Lewis is English-born to an Irish father and maintains British-Irish citizenship. He has starred in such distinctly Irish films as My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father. He announced his retirement in 2017. To date, he is the most Oscar-honored Irish actor, and his record will be hard to beat.
Although he did not receive Oscar nominations for My Beautiful Laundrette or The Unbearable Lightness of Being, those films are also well worth checking out.
3. Barry Fitzgerald (Best Actor nominee and Best Supporting Actor winner, Going My Way, 1944)
Fitzgerald has the distinction of being the first Irish actor to receive Oscar attention but also the only actor ever nominated for the same role in the same film in the same year for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor (for which he won). He was an Irish stage actor who made his feature film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s Juno and the Paycock (1930), and then in 1936, he came to Hollywood where he enjoyed four decades of stellar and endearing work as a character actor.
4. Richard Harris (Best Actor nominee, This Sporting Life, 1963; Best Actor nominee, The Field, 1990)
Harris was born in Limerick, Ireland, but studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He helped usher in the British New Wave of the 1960s with his role in This Sporting Life. He also enjoyed fame as a singer.
5. Stephen Rea (Best Actor nominee, The Crying Game, 1992)
Born in Belfast, Rea started as a stage actor whose film career took off when he began collaborating with Neil Jordan on the films Angel (1982), The Company of Wolves (1984), and The Crying Game (1992). He moves easily between Hollywood and Irish/British films, but his best work has been with Jordan.
6. Liam Neeson (Best Actor nominee, Schindler’s List, 1993)
Neeson was born in Northern Ireland where he started a stage career and then moved to film in the 1980s with supporting roles in The Bounty and The Mission. He tackled Irish roles with Michael Collins, joined the Star Wars franchise with The Phantom Menace, and launched an action career with Taken.
7. Michael Fassbender (Best Supporting Actor nominee, 12 Years A Slave, 2013; Best Actor nominee, Steve Jobs, 2015)
Fassbender was born in Germany to an Irish mother. He made his eye-catching film debut in 300. It is a shame that the Academy has so far only recognized his lead work in a mainstream Hollywood film. His performances were much more award-worthy and challenging in a pair of films from director Steve McQueen: Shame, in which he played a sex addict living in New York City, and Hunger, in which he played Bobby Sands, the Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoner who went on a hunger strike.
8. Saoirse Ronan (Best Actress nominee, Brooklyn, 2015; Best Actress nominee, Lady Bird, 2017; Best Actress nominee, Little Women, 2019)
Irish actresses are far less represented on the Oscar honor rolls than actors. In the supporting category, Geraldine Fitzgerald (1939) and Sara Allgood (1941) garnered early attention. Ronan was born in The Bronx to Irish parents and holds dual American and Irish citizenship. She received her first Oscar nomination at 21.
9. Ruth Negga (Best Actress nominee, Loving, 2016)
Negga was born in Ethiopia to an Irish mother and is the first Black Irish performer to receive an Oscar nomination. In the biopic Loving, she played Mildred Loving, whose marriage challenged Virginia laws prohibiting interracial marriage.
10. Colin Farrell (Best Actor nominee, The Banshees of Inisherin, 2022)
The Banshees of Inisherin brought in a slew of Oscar nominations for Irish talent. Let’s start with Best Actor nominee Farrell. He was born in Dublin and made his feature film debut in Tim Roth’s The War Zone. He has moved easily between Hollywood and independent films. He previously collaborated with director Martin McDonagh and Brendan Gleeson on the critically acclaimed In Bruges.
11. Brendan Gleeson (Best Supporting Actor nominee, The Banshees of Inisherin, 2022)
Gleeson was born in Dublin and began his career in Irish Theater before starting a film career in 1990 with The Field. The fact that Gleeson got put in the supporting actor category for Banshees seems a studio strategy to prevent its two lead actors from competing, but his role was every bit as important as Farrell’s. Gleeson has also done stellar, lead, award-worthy work in films such as I Went Down, The General, and Calvary.
12. Barry Keoghan (Best Supporting Actor nominee, The Banshees of Inisherin, 2022)
Keoghan only began acting in 2011. Born in Dublin, he spent years in foster care after his mother died. He immediately received acclaim for his work in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Most recently, he moved to a leading role in Saltburn.
13. Kerry Condon (Best Supporting Actress nominee, The Banshees of Inisherin, 2022)
Irish-born Condon made her feature film debut in Angela’s Ashes in 1999. She began collaborating with Martin McDonagh on stage before working with him on the films Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin.
14. Paul Mescal (Best Actor nominee, Aftersun, 2022)
Irish-born Mescal started in theater, gained attention for the TV show Normal People, and made his feature film debut in The Lost Daughter. He received his first Oscar nod for only his second film, Aftersun, and probably should have received a second for All of Us Strangers last year. As with Keoghan, he is a young actor to watch.
And a quick nod to the Irish directors recognized by the Academy. No Irish director has yet won an Oscar.
1. Herbert Brenon (nominee, Sorrel and Son, 1928): Brenon was the first Irish-born director to be nominated by the Academy and he was part of the inaugural group of directors to be nominated at the very first Academy Awards.
2. Kenneth Branagh (nominee, Henry V, 1989; Belfast, 2021): Actor/filmmaker Branagh was born in Belfast but raised and trained in England. His film Belfast was a tribute to his memories of his birthplace. He was also nominated for Best Actor for Henry V.
4. Jim Sheridan (nominee, My Left Foot, 1989; In the Name of the Father, 1993): Sheridan was born in Dublin and began as a playwright and migrated to film. He eventually earned six Oscar nominations.
4. Neil Jordan (nominee, The Crying Game, 1992): Jordan is an Irish-born filmmaker who has tackled Irish history (Michael Collins), Irish literature (The Butcher Boy, Breakfast on Pluto), and contemporary takes on fairy tales (The Company of Wolves, Ondine).
5. Martin McDonagh (nominee, The Banshees of Inisherin, 2022): McDonagh was born in London to Irish parents and has not focused exclusively on Irish stories. The Banshees of Inisherin is the only film to date he has set in Ireland that he has directed.
