Cork-born actress Eileen Walsh stars in the new movie Small Things Like These, which premiered at the Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin this week.
The movie, based on the best-selling novel by Claire Keegan, tells the story of a coal merchant who looks into the events occurring at a local convent, forcing him to confront the complicit silence of a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church.
Eileen plays alongside Cillian Murphy, though it is not the first time the Irish thespians have acted together.
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Here, we look at her professional and personal life.
Family and early career
Eileen is one of five siblings who hail from Quaker Road in Cork City.
The actress's sister Catherine is also in her field of work and is renowned for her appearances on the stage. Eileen initially followed her sister into theatre acting, but did not think she would make it her full time career at the beginning.
She secured a place in Trinity College's drama course but deferred for a year, before getting a role in Rough Magic's Danti-Dan which led her down the path of a professional actor.
One day, she met Enda Walsh in Bewley's and this chance meeting led her to score the lead role of Runt in his play Disco Pigs, the film adaptation of which would lead Small Things Like These co-star Cillian Murphy to stardom.
They worked on the play together in the mid-90s, but Eileen missed out on the film auditions as she did not know they were happening.
"The film was cast before I even knew it. I bumped into somebody on the street who said they'd just auditioned and I didn't even know they were casting. My heart was broken," she told The Independent.
Eileen's parents gave her support and were always excited to see her various performances.
Her father passed away in 2015, and she said he would have loved to see her appear in the Abbey's performance of The Plough And The Stars in 2016.
"Anything that involved a red carpet, my father just thought that was the best thing," she told the Irish Examiner at the time.
Relationships
Eileen met her husband Stuart during her play performance of Disco Pigs.
"We met at the Edinburgh Festival. My hair was incredibly short and needed a cut and Stuart was the barber," she told The Independent.
"We all met our partners on the show- Enda met Jo [Ellison] who was working in the box office. Pat [Kieran, the director] met his missis and Cillian Murphy met his wife."
The couple have two daughters, Tippy and Ethel Rita Jeanne, both teenagers.
Working with Cillian Murphy
The acting duo were both involved in Dosco Pigs, and have professionally reunited in their new film.
She told The Six O'Clock Show last year: "So I play Cillain's wife in it and we have five daughters, his role is about a man trying to find himself during Christmas week."
"It's really incredibly beautiful".
When asked about working with him, she joked: "He's horrible sure, I wouldn't trust him as far as I'd throw him".
"No, he's amazing and he's just incredibly committed and he has a huge heart."
"And when it comes to the work, he is willing to just give everything over."
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