Eileen Walsh

Eileen Walsh is an Irish actress who grew up in Cork and followed her older sister Catherine into the profession, attending theater workshops despite having had no plans to act. Her first big stage part arrived in 1996, when as a student she played Runt in Disco Pigs, sharing the stage with Cillian Murphy. She worked with Peter Mullan on Miss Julie and took the title character in Janice Beard 45 WPM, both in 1999, then starred in When Brendan Met Trudy the following year. Her turn as Crispina in The Magdalene Sisters (2002) earned a London Film Critics' Circle nomination for British Supporting Actress of the Year, and playing the lonely housewife Breda in Eden brought her Best Actress at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. She later took roles in The Children Act (2018) and Wolf (2021), and in 2023 she collected the Kerry Film Festival's Maureen O'Hara Award.