{"id":466304,"date":"2026-05-03T11:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/466304\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T11:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:02:10","slug":"gary-lydon-actor-best-known-for-banshees-of-inisherin-role-dies-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/466304\/","title":{"rendered":"Gary Lydon: Actor best known for Banshees of Inisherin role dies \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gary Lydon, the actor best known for his collaborations with playwright Billy Roche and with directors such as Martin McDonagh<\/a> and Steven Spielberg<\/a>, has died.<\/p>\n

Lydon was born in London<\/a> in 1961 to Irish parents but moved as a child to Wexford<\/a> town, where he recently appeared in a production of Roche\u2019s kitchen-sink drama Of Mornington, alongside his son, James.<\/p>\n

Lydon worked extensively in theatre, television and cinema. However, he will be best known to Irish audiences for roles in medical drama The Clinic, where he played counsellor Patrick Murray, and crime drama Love\/Hate, in which he played a chief superintendent. <\/p>\n

He also portrayed taoiseach Brian Cowen<\/a> in The Guarantee, Colin Murphy\u2019s 2014 dramatisation of the bank guarantee that nearly brought down the economy, while his recent screen roles included playing a garda in Martin McDonagh\u2019s The Banshees of Inisherin.<\/p>\n

Lydon was nine when he and his family moved to his father\u2019s native Wexford. \u201cIt was kind of a shock to the system,\u201d he told The Irish Times last March<\/a>. \u201cIn London, I was in a mixed school. When I came to Ireland, I went to the Christian Brothers, which was quite austere compared to London.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sense of being an outsider stayed with him and was arguably a defining feature of his acting: he was drawn to characters who didn\u2019t quite fit in. But he was also intensely proud to be Irish. <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember when learning Irish, instead of beidh m\u00e9, I wrote beg m\u00e9 and the Christian Brother ridiculed me in front of everyone,\u201d he recalled. \u201cBut I\u2019m quite a defiant person and I really got into the Irish. I got really good at it in primary school and got a good grade, ultimately, in the Leaving Cert.\u201d<\/p>\n

His acting life began in the southeast with Billy Roche\u2019s Wexford Trilogy of plays, in which he starred in the mid-1980s. \u201cThere was a pub in Wexford called the Imperial, and I used to go in there sometimes. Billy Roche was in a band, and I used to see him onstage. He was involved in a theatre company, doing a play by Woody Guthrie. That\u2019s where, theatrically, I met him,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cBilly\u2019s first play was called The Boker Poker Club; it became A Handful of Stars. I did that in Wexford and then it was taken on by the Bush Theatre in London. Myself, Aidan Gillen and Dervla Kirwan went over. From that, I got an agent and ended up back living in London for a while.\u201d <\/p>\n

It was in London that he would appear in the world premiere of Martin McDonagh\u2019s The Cripple of Inishmaan. He would work again with McDonagh in The Banshees of Inisherin and with McDonagh\u2019s brother, John Michael, in The Guard and Calvary.<\/p>\n

As a character actor, he was hugely respected in the theatre world. But despite starring alongside household names such as Benedict Cumberbatch and Clive Owen, the bright lights never held much appeal, and he preferred the quietness of Roscommon, where he lived with his wife, Kara Doherty, daughter of the late Fianna F\u00e1il TD Se\u00e1n Doherty. <\/p>\n

He recently started his own theatre company: its first production was Roche\u2019s Of Mornington at Wexford Arts Centre. <\/p>\n

He never quite lost his English accent and always saw himself as a product of two worlds \u2013 an Irishman born in London, a kid from Wexford who ended up working with some of the biggest names in stage and screen. <\/p>\n

\u201cMoving to Wexford from London was a bit of a culture shock,\u201d he said once, \u201cbut I\u2019m glad I did because it\u2019s a lovely town to grow up in. I still have a bit of an English accent \u2013 but I can do the Irish accent all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wexford Arts Festival paid tribute to the \u201cbeloved\u201d actor who had only recently returned to stage in the production Of Mornington, where he played a deeply flawed, down-on-his-luck former celebrity snooker player.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough heartbreaking, it is fitting that his final role on our stage was performed alongside his son James Doherty O\u2019Brien in a terrific performance as Mike, the young vulnerable snooker player with a suspect past,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lights in the theatre world are dimmer due to the loss of Gary, but we will cherish the memories of his performances with reverence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gary Lydon, the actor best known for his collaborations with playwright Billy Roche and with directors such as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,146260,79020],"class_list":{"0":"post-466304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-irish-film-television-awards","13":"tag-martin-mcdonagh"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116510310260460063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}