Bairbre Dowling (born Barbara Patricia Dowling; 27 March 1953 – 20 January 2016) was an Irish actress. She appeared in films, frequently on the American stage and on US TV as well as in Irish productions.

Early life

Dowling was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, the daughter of actor

Vincent Dowling Vincent Gerard Dowling (7 September 1929 – 9 May 2013) was an Irish actor and director. Ireland Dowling was born in Dublin and educated at St Mary's College and Rathmines College of Commerce. He came to prominence in the 1950s for his role ...

and actress Brenda Doyle (who died in a motorcycle collision in 1981). She had three sisters, Louise, Valerie and Rachael, and a half-brother, Cian. Irish politician

Richard Boyd Barrett Richard Boyd Barrett (born 6 February 1967) is an Irish People Before Profit/Solidarity politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dún Laoghaire constituency since the 2011 general election. Boyd Barrett is a former member of Dún L ...

was Dowling's biological half-brother, though this fact was not made public until after Vincent Dowling's death in 2013.

Career

Stage

In 1970 Dowling was part of the company at the

Abbey Theatre The Abbey Theatre ( ga, Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland ( ga, Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann), in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the pu ...

, where she appeared in ''The Becauseway'' (1970) and ''Rites'' (1973). In 1977 she worked with her father at the

Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival Great Lakes Theater, originally known as the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, is a professional classic theater company in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1962, Great Lakes is the second-largest regional theater in Northeast Ohio. ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, Ohio. She shared the stage with her husband

Colm Meaney Colm J. Meaney (; ga, Colm Ó Maonaigh; born 30 May 1953) is an Irish actor known for playing Miles O'Brien in '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1987–1994) and '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (1993–1999). He has guest-starred on many T ...

in ''

And a Nightingale Sang ''And a Nightingale Sang'' is a play by British playwright C.P. Taylor (1977) and commissioned by Newcastle upon Tyne's Live Theatre Company. The play was made into a TV program in 1989 by Jack Rosenthal for Tyne Tees Television. Described as a ...

'' in 1985. She was seen on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

in '' Da'' by

Hugh Leonard Hugh Leonard (9 November 1926 – 12 February 2009) was an Irish dramatist, television writer, and essayist. In a career that spanned 50 years, Leonard wrote nearly 30 full-length plays, 10 one-act plays, three volumes of essay, two autobiograph ...

. In 2011 she appeared in a play by playwright

Teresa Deevy Teresa Deevy (21 January 1894 – 19 January 1963) was an Irish dramatist and writer, who was deaf from the age of 19. Best known for her works for theatre, she was also a short story writer, and writer for radio. Early life Teresa Deevy w ...

, ''Temporal Powers'', a Mint Theatre production presented as part of the Teresa Deevy project. She established an ongoing presence at the Miniature Theatre of Chester in Massachusetts, often working with her father as director or co-star. In 1992 she starred in ''Last Tag'', and in 1993 in ''An Audience with Fanny Kemble,'' a one-woman show by Anne Ludlum, based on the life of actress and writer

Fanny Kemble Frances Anne "Fanny" Kemble (27 November 180915 January 1893) was a British actress from a theatre family in the early and mid-19th century. She was a well-known and popular writer and abolitionist, whose published works included plays, poetry ...

. In 2004, she appeared in Isobel Mahon's ''So Long, Sleeping Beauty'', and in 2007, in ''The Gravity of Honey'', in ''

Dear Liar ''Dear Liar'', full title ''Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters'' is a play by American actor, director, and playwright Jerome Kilty. It was first staged in 1957 and published in 1960. A television adaptation was made in 1964, directed by David Gardner ...

'' and in ''Is Life Worth It?'' in 2009.

Film, television and radio

Dowling's first film appearance was in

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five A ...

's ''

Dementia 13 ''Dementia 13'', known in the United Kingdom as ''The Haunted and the Hunted'', is a 1963 independently made black-and-white horror-thriller film, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Roger Corman. It was Coppola's feat ...

'' (1963). She acted with her husband in the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

television film ''Playboy of the Western World'' in 1983, in

John Huston John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...

's 1987 film '' The Dead'', and in the 1994 drama '' War of the Buttons''. She also appeared in

John Boorman Sir John Boorman (; born 18 January 1933) is a British film director, best known for feature films such as ''Point Blank'' (1967), ''Hell in the Pacific'' (1968), ''Deliverance'' (1972), ''Zardoz'' (1974), '' Exorcist II: The Heretic'' (1977), ...

's ''

Zardoz ''Zardoz'' is a 1974 science fantasy film written, produced, and directed by John Boorman and starring Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling. It depicts a post-apocalyptic world (which Boorman says, in the audio commentary, may or may not be ma ...

'' (1973), and '' Changing Habits'' (1997). American television credits included roles in ''

Murder She Wrote ''Murder, She Wrote'' is an American crime drama television series, created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson and William Link, starring Angela Lansbury, and produced and distributed by Universal Television for the CBS network. The series f ...

'', ''

Crossing Jordan ''Crossing Jordan'' is an American crime drama television series created by Tim Kring, that aired on NBC from September 24, 2001, to May 16, 2007. It stars Jill Hennessy as Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, a crime-solving forensic pathologist employed in ...

'', ''Days of our Lives'', '' Star Trek: Voyager'' and ''ER''. On

RTÉ (RTÉ) (; Irish language, Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the Public broadcaster, national broadcaster of Republic of Ireland, Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on RTÉ Television, telev ...

, she was known for a long-running role in ''

The Riordans ''The Riordans'' was the second Irish television drama serial made by Raidio Telefís Éireann (then called ''Telefís Éireann''). It ran from 1965 to 1979 and was set in the fictional townland of Leestown in County Kilkenny. Its location fil ...

''. Dowling was a member of The California Artists Radio Theatre (CART) ensemble and performed in over 30 of their live radio plays.

Personal life

Between 1982 and 1994, Dowling was married to actor

, with whom she had a daughter, Brenda, in 1984. Dowling died in 2016, aged 62, in New York.

Filmography

Film

*''

'' (1963) *''

'' (1974) * '' Cry of the Innocent'' (television film, 1980) * ''

Playboy of the Western World ''The Playboy of the Western World'' is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge and first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 26 January 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's public house in County Mayo (o ...

'' (television film, 1983) * '' The Long Journey Home'' (television film, 1987) * '' The Dead'' (1987) * '' War of the Buttons'' (1994) * '' Changing Habits'' (1997)

Television

* ''

Murder, She Wrote ''Murder, She Wrote'' is an American crime drama television series, created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson and William Link, starring Angela Lansbury, and produced and distributed by Universal Television for the CBS network. The series f ...

'' (1995) * '' ER'' (1997) * '' Star Trek: Voyager'' (2000) * ''

'' (2003) * ''

Days of Our Lives ''Days of Our Lives'' (also stylized as ''Days of our Lives''; simply referred to as ''Days'' or ''DOOL'') is an American television soap opera that streams on the streaming service Peacock. The soap, which aired on the American television net ...

'' (2007)

References

External links

* *Bairbre Dowling at th
Teresa Deevy Archive
*Bairbre Dowling a
Mint Theatre Company
*Bairbre Dowling a
The Abbey Theatre Archive
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dowling, Bairbre 1953 births 2016 deaths Actresses from Dublin (city) Irish film actresses Irish television actresses 20th-century Irish actresses 21st-century Irish actresses