For a startling period of my life, I reported the Troubles in Ireland for the BBC. I lived in Dublin and was called out to all sorts of incidents that, if taken together, add up to a war – bombings, assassinations, riots, shootings, robberies, jailbreaks, kidnappings, and sieges.
Back in 2014, at the One Young World Summit in Dublin, I shared my story of my escape from North Korea to China in 2007. I had no idea what was coming or what to expect.
Broadchurch’ was very naturalistically shot, in many respects, whereas ‘Dublin Murders’ has a slightly heightened element cinematically, because there is a supernatural, ominous quality – particularly in the woods.
I’m only ambitious in the sense that I want to work in as many different media as I can and to play characters which are different to me and to each other. I want to do work that frightens me or challenges me, be it in Dublin or Zimbabwe. I just want to be working.
As a chind in Dublin, I can remember having my plate piled high with four or five vegetables – and I’m convinced to this day that my mother’s home cooking helped to ward off illness.
It’s a big con job. We have sold the myth of Dublin as a sexy place incredibly well; because it is a dreary little dump most of the time.
I loved the energy of Dublin and the fact that it’s so close to the sea, with beauty spots such as Howth so close to hand.
Damnation’ and ‘Dublin Murders’ are the first lead roles I’ve gotten to do. The more time you spend in front of the camera, the more you begin to relax in front of it.
Dublin is really fun, and Irish people are hilarious.
The Good Friday Agreement and the basic rights and entitlements of citizens that are enshrined within it must be defended and actively promoted by London and Dublin.
I remember, I was doing ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ in London in the early ’70s, and friends of mine had come over from Dublin, and they’re knocking on the stage door after the show saying, ‘Colm, come on, let’s go for a drink.’ I knew that if I went with them, I wouldn’t be able to do my job the next day.
We’ve done shows – we’ll be in Dublin, and it will be nonstop pandemonium to the point where you think the crowd is going to implode, because they’re making so much noise and they’re so excited.
I didn’t know how to weigh ideas about poetry. Nothing in the life I lived as a student – and later as wife and mother at the suburban edge of Dublin – suggested I had the wherewithal to do so. But I did have a unit of measurement. It was the measure of my own life.
Everyone knows everyone because we’ve all worked in theatre. All of our ‘Dublin Murders’ crew came from ‘Game of Thrones’. Also, we only drink in two pubs in Dublin, so we always bump into each other.
I did play with Dr. Strangely Strange a couple of years ago – that difficult third album, ‘Alternative Medicine,’ 1997. It was great to see them all. They’re very special people and they were very good to me in Dublin in the 1960s.
My father was from Belfast; my mother was from Crossmolina. I grew up in Dublin.
My family, although they’re very large on both my parents’ sides, they don’t know much about their family tree. Occasionally, they try to dig, but they can’t get very far, and it’s baffling. In Dublin, it seems that so many public records were wiped out; it’s proven to be very difficult, so I know very little.
When I go home, I go to my house in the countryside. I don’t hang out in Dublin. I go home to be with my family and have a rest and so on. I don’t know anything about the Irish music scene, and I’ve never felt part of it.
Fabulous place, Dublin is. The trouble is, you work hard and in Dublin you play hard as well.
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