Ruth McCabe has had a hugely successful career in acting, both on stage and on screen.
The award-winning actress's big break came when she played opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, a film based on the life of Christy Brown, an Irish writer and painter with cerebral palsy.
She also played Kay Curley in The Snapper, Wyn Ryan in Silent Witness and received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Mary in That They May Face The Rising Sun.
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But what people may not know is that Ruth originally played an iconic Fair City character, however she was eventually replaced.
Ruth originated the role of Kay McCoy, the bar owner who fell in love with priest Malachy.
Consumed by his love for Kay, Malachy eventually left the priesthood so the loved-up couple could marry. One of the character's most prominent storylines was when Kay had an abortion after discovering that her and Malachy's baby would be born severely disabled and probably wouldn't survive after birth - which attracted a mass amount of complaints from viewers at the time.
While many Fair City viewers will remember Sheila McWade playing the long-running character, it was originally Ruth's role.
Sheila replaced Ruth in 1990, a year after the character was introduced, and stayed in the role until 2008.
On replacing Ruth, actress Sheila told the Irish Independent back in 2001: "At that time, I thought, 'I don't know if I want to do this or not,' because it's reputation was so ... you'd walk through town shielding yourself, not looking anyone in the eye for fear of you getting abuse heaped upon you.
"There's this snobbish attitude that because it's something that the masses view, it's lowest-common-denominator stuff. I think that's rubbish. It's either good or it's bad. I happen to think that now it is very, very good, and it's certainly the jewel in RTE's crown."
Although Ruth didn't stick with Fair City, she has enjoyed major success since.
She won an IFTA in 2011 for Best Supporting Actress in Television for her role in Single Handed and she went on to star in the Oscar-nominated Philomena in 2013 alongside Judi Dench.
She was part of Sky’s hugely successful Irish comedy TV show Moone Boy and you might also recognise her as Grano from RTE comedy Damo and Ivor.
Other credits include Aisha, Joyride and That They May Face the Rising Sun.
While Ruth has enormously enjoyed her acting career, she recently revealed that The Snapper came at a great time for her from a financial point of view.
"The job happened, I got it in November, in the mouth of Christmas it was a badly needed wage packet," she told Ireland AM.
"It was fantastic, it was great to work on it. And then, unlike a lot of stuff, we got royalties. So I have enormous good will for it."
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