Widely regarded as one of Ireland’s finest actors, Cyril Cusack was born in Durban, South Africa, on November 26, 1910. He was the son of an Irish father, James Cusack, a mounted policeman in Natal Province. His mother, Alice Cole, was an English Cockney chorus girl.

Cyril Cusack. Stage debut at seven.

When he was six, Cyril moved to Ireland with his mother, where she met an actor, Brefni O’Rourke. They set up their own theatrical company, putting on melodramas and pantomimes across the country.
Mr. Cusack made his stage debut at the age of seven, and in later years described his family’s life on the road as “a glorious adventure.” He said he went to almost every school in Ireland.
He got a law degree at University College, Dublin, but decided on a career in acting.
In 1932, he joined the Abbey Theatre, appearing in 65 plays in 13 years. Occasional tours with plays in Britain helped establish his reputation
He formed his own touring company in 1945, and in the 1950s had regular film roles in Hollywood. In 1963, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Old Vic the following year.
In a long career, Mr. Cusack appeared in a wide variety of films including “Odd Man Out” (1947), “Waltz of the Toreadors” (1962), “Fahrenheit 451″ (1966), “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” (1966), “The Taming of the Shrew” (1967), “The Day of the Jackal” (1973), “True Confessions” (1981), “Little Dorrit” (1987) and “My Left Foot” (1989). He was also a poet and published his first collection in 1928.
His work won critical acclaim and awards in the United States, Paris, two doctorates from Irish universities and an award for achievements by Irish people in Britain.
Sinead, Sorcha and Niamh - his daughters by his first marriage - appeared with him in “The Three Sisters” at London’s Royal Court Theatre and Dublin’s Gate in 1990, the first time he had worked with all three.
Sinead is married to the film actor Jeremy Irons and Sorcha’s husband is the Shakespearean actor Nigel Cook.
Mr. Cusack, who had homes in London and Dublin, died on October 7, 1993, at his London home. He was 82. He was survived by his second wife, Mary, the mother of his youngest daughter, Catherine. His first wife, also Mary, who died in the 1970s, was the mother of their sons, Paul and Padraig, as well as their three daughters. His family said at the time of his death that he had been ill for a long time with motor neuron disease.

Irish actor Donal McCann: Understated but emotive.

Donal McCann was born in Dublin on May 7, 1943. One of the most acclaimed Irish actors of his time, his often understated but emotive, transfixing style won him widespread recognition.
He went Terenure College in the 1950s and it was there that he began thinking of a career on stage. The college had a stong Shakespearian tradition and it became clear to some of his teachers that he was “actor material”.
However, he first studied architecture in Bolton Street, though this was short-lived. He then worked as a copyboy on the Irish Press newspaper. He eventually went to the Abbey School of Acting in the early sixties, from where he joined the company.
His father John had been the Lord Mayor of Dublin, a Fianna Fáil man and was also a playwright. Donal starred in one of his plays. His first big part in theatre came when he was cast as Tarry Flynn in the Patrick Kavanagh adaptation of that novel. At the age of twenty, he got his first big film role in the Disney production “The Fighting Prince of Donegal“.
Over the years he has acted in innumerable stage and screen productions. But, he will perhaps be best remembered for his TV role in “Strumpet City” in the seventies and in John Huston’s film, “The Dead”. Later he was highly acclaimed for his role in “The Steward of Christendom“.
Although he spent most of his career at the Abbey and Gate theatres in Dublin, his reputation grew in England and the United States. In 1997 he won praise for his performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Sebastian Barry’s ”Steward of Christendom” as a Lear-like, senile Roman Catholic Dublin police chief torn between loyalty to Britain and the emerging independent Irish Free State.
Critics said he was probably never better than as Gabriel Conroy, the kind but unloved and unloving husband in John Huston’s film adaptation of James Joyce’s story ”The Dead” (1987). He performed to wide acclaim in several plays by his friend Brian Friel.
While Donal McCann appeared in many films, he considered himself primarily a stage actor, particularly a character actor. But his roles were large in plays like Friel’s ”Faith Healer’‘ and Samuel Beckett’s ”Waiting for Godot,” in which he was Estragon.
His work included a film of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Strindberg’s ”Miss Julie.” He also had the lead role in Hugh Leonard’s ”Da” and in 1988 began to win recognition in New York as Captain Boyle, the comic-tragic drunkard coward in Sean O’Casey’s ”Juno and the Paycock.”
After one performance of ”Juno,” Katharine Hepburn went backstage in tears and said, ”How did you learn to do that?” Mr. McCann, as quick-tongued offstage as on, said, ”By watching you.”

Devil and a Saint

Michael Colgan, the artistic director of the Gate, said: ”Donal’s genius is that he always proves the writer right, proves the director right and proves the audience right just for being there. That is why he’s the greatest actor we’ve ever had. He is both a devil and a saint, and he has suffered for it. But that’s also where he gets his great power.”
Sebastian Barry said his style was ”extravagant minimalism.”
His work was interrupted by depressions and by his alcoholism until he stopped drinking in the late 1980s. He could joke wryly about it. ”It was worth having something to get away from,” he said in 1998, ”but nobody made me drink.”
He said that he was a devout Christian but did not consider himself Roman Catholic. ”God takes my life forward,” he said, after his cancer was diagnosed. ”I would like to leave the theatre for a while. I’m not in a panic to do anything. I’m not ambitious for anything.”

Donal McCann and Anjelica Huston in a scene from 'The Dead'

In an interview on RTE in 1998, he said: ”I always took myself for a character actor. An actor’s job is to serve writing. It’s not self-advertisement.”
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper he said: ”There is a suggestion that everyone would like to be a Hollywood actor, that doing well-paid rubbish is what we all aspire to. It’s ludicrous. I’m not going to hire a soapbox to denounce the whole thing, but this desire to be known, I just don’t understand it.”
His films, some made for television, included ”Illuminata,” produced by John Turturro in 1997; ”Hedda Gabler’‘; ”The Miracle”; ”Out of Africa,” and ”Cal,” produced by David Puttnam, about the sectarian warfare in Northern Ireland.
He had been battling cancer for some time when he died on July 17, 1999, in Dublin at the age of 56. He was survived by his sister Margaret.

Gay Byrne. Longest runningTV chat show.

Born in Rialto, Dublin, on August 5, 1934, when Gay Byrne was young the family moved to the South Circular Road. His parents came from the Bray area of Co Wicklow, and his father worked for Guinness. Educated by the Christian Brothers at Synge Street, he started his working life in insurance. In 1958 he moved to broadcasting, becoming a presenter on Radio Éireann. He also worked in England with Granada TV and the BBC. While at Granada, he became the first person to introduce The Beatles on TV.
He joined the newly set-up Telifís Éireann (later RTE) in 1961 and introduced many popular programmes such as Jack Pot, Film Night and the Rose of Tralee. However, his most popular and successful programme was the Late Late Show, which became the world’s longest running chat show, running from 1962 until 1999. In 1964 he married the harpist Kathleen Watkins and they have two daughters, Suzy and Crona.
The Late Late, as it was popularly referred to, started originally  as an eight week summer filler. The show was moved to the Saturday night slot and it became a forum where controversial topics such as the Church, contraception, homosexuality and compulsory Irish were discussed openly for the first time in Ireland.
It was famously said by Dail deputy and Catholic conservative Oliver J Flanagan, in a reference to the show, that “there was no sex in Ireland until Teilifís Éireann went on the air.” Bishop Michael Browne of Galway called him “a purveyor of filth” after the host asked a woman if she had worn anything on her wedding night. He conducted his shows with charm and neutrality and had a knack of putting people at their ease, sometimes coaxing them to say more than they had intended.
His popularity grew such that he has been referred to as “the most famous man in Ireland”. It is widely accepted that the show greatly influenced the shaping the new Ireland that emerged in the second half of the 20th century, a point made by President McAleese. In 1985 the Late Late moved to a Friday night slot.

Late late highlights:

• Encouraging then EU Commissioner Padraig Flynn to talk about the difficult upkeep of his three houses.
• Interview with Annie Murphy, Bishop Eamon Casey’s onetime lover and mother of his son.
• The Dubliners show.
• The interview with Gerry Adams.
• When he called the winner of a prize car live on air only to discover the woman’s daughter had died since she had entered the competition.
• Interview with Terry Keane who revealed she had had a long-term affair with Charles Haughey.

He was famously gifted a Harley Davidson motorcycle by Bono and U2 on his last night hosting the Late Late Show. The bike was later auctioned for charity.
Gay Byrne was also a successful radio broadcaster. Radio Éireann gave him a 15-minute slot on Monday nights which he used to play jazz, his first broadcast for the station being in 1958. But he is best known on radio for The Gay Byrne Show (1972-1999), a two hour morning discussion and music programme in which his personal style, soothing voice and common sense approach to life endeared him to listeners.
Broadcasting aside, he presented The Rose of Tralee Festival for 17 years, until 1994, and compered the finals of the Castlebar Song Contest in 1966 and 1967. He has won numerous television awards and has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin. In 1989 he wrote his autobiography entitled The Time of My Life. In 1999 he was awarded the freedom of Dublin City.
He has been unfortunate in his nest egg investments. He relied on accountant and  friend Russell Murphy to manage his finances, only to discover on the accountant’s death in 1986 that most of his savings had been secretly squandered.
Since retirement he has remained close to the limelight. In 2009, he recorded a TV series for RTE series called The Meaning of Life in which he interviewed public figures about issues of faith. He has hosted a Sunday afternoon jazz series on Lyric FM Radio. Also, in March 2006, he became chairman of the Irish Road Safety Authority. He and his wife have downsized from their house in Howth to an apartment in Sandymount.

In August, 2011, he was approached by the Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin about running for the presidency of Ireland. He was to turn down the offer. At one point, according to an opinion poll, he was seven points ahead of Micheal D Higgins who was subsequently elected President.

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