Occupation Actress Name Moira Deady Spouse John Hoey (m. ?–1978) | Notable work The RiordansGlenroe Role Actress | |
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Movies This Is My Father, The Tiger's Tail, Angela's Ashes, 35 Aside Similar People John Boorman, Paul Quinn, Alan Parker, Damien O'Donnell | ||
Moira Deady Hoey (1922 – 15 November 2010) was an Irish actress.
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She starred as Mary Riordan, "the quintessential Irish mammy", in The Riordans from 1965 until the show was cancelled in 1979. She later appeared as Nellie Connors in Glenroe. She played Mrs Coffey in The Irish R.M. She had roles in such films as This Is My Father and Angela's Ashes (as the money-lending Mrs. Purcell).
Raised in Kinsale, County Cork, she later resided in Greystones, County Wicklow. She began acting by traveling around Ireland as part of fit-ups (traveling theatre troupes).
She married fellow The Riordans actor Johnny Hoey (who played "Francie Maher"). He died on 10 August 1978, aged 69. The couple had four children. Fans often thought she was married in real life to actor John Cowley who played "Tom Riordan", her television husband.
In 2009, she reunited with the cast members of The Riordans for an RTE documentary on the programme. rural drama series, The Riordans. She was one of a small number of Riordans actors to work on both its successor series Bracken and Glenroe.
Death
She died, aged 88, on 15 November 2010 in Loughlinstown Hospital, County Dublin. Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport Mary Hanafin commented on her part in Irish history: "In her role as the matriarch of The Riordans homestead, she was ever present, each Sunday, on our television screens dealing with the changing landscape and domestic issues that Ireland as a country was experiencing".
John Boland, writing in the Irish Independent, called her "everyone's mammy and the conscience of a nation" while reflecting that her death meant all the senior cast members of The Riordans were now deceased. Hundreds attended her funeral on 18 November at Holy Rosary Church, Greystones.