Siobhan McKenna was born in Belfast on May 24, 1923. She was educated at the Dominican Convent, Taylor’s Hill, Galway, (from which she was expelled for attending a student Rag Week), and St Louis Convent, Monaghan. At St Louis, she showed her aptitude for the stage and translated Charlie’s Aunt into Irish and also captained the comogie team.
After graduating from UCG, where her father Eoghan McKenna was a professor, she made her debut on the public stage as Lady Macbeth at Galway’s Gaelic theatre, An Taibhdhearc, and in 1944 joined the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, where she would later star in GB Shaw’s St Joan.
It was while she was at the Abbey she met actor Denis O’Dea, whom she married in 1956, and they had one child, Donnacha O’Dea, the swimming and poker champion.
In 1947, she debuted on the London stage and on Broadway in 1955 in The Chalk Garden for which she would receive a Tony Award Best Actress nomination. In 1956, she appeared in the Cambridge Drama Festival production of Saint Joan at the Off-Broadway Phoenix Theatre. Theatre critic Elliot Norton called her performance the finest portrayal of Joan in memory. Siobhán McKenna’s popularity earned her the cover of Life magazine. She received a second Tony Best Actress nomination for her role in the 1958 play, The Rope Dancers.
Her most memorable roles were as Pegeen Mike in The Playboy of the Western World and, as mentioned, as Shaw’s St Joan, but also in Brecht’s St Joan of the Stockyards, parts especially suited to the intensity of feeling and conviction which always marked her acting.
Her one-woman presentation, Here are the Ladies, won much acclaim, particularly for her performance of Molly Bloom’s soliloquay from Joyce’s Ulysses.
Films included Dr Zhivago and Of Human Bondage. Among her many awards was a D.Litt from Trinity. Her final stage appearance was in Druid Theatre’s 1985 Bailegangaire.
Siobhan McKenna was a member of the Irish Council of State from 1975 to 1986. After battling lung cancer, she died in Dublin on November 16, 1986, and is buried in Galway. Denis O’Dea predeceased her in 1978.