Dearbhla Molloy

Dearbhla Molloy is an Irish actress born in 1946 and originally from Dublin, Ireland, whose career has spanned stage, television, and film across Ireland, Britain, and the United States. She grew up on Yellow Walls Road in Malahide, County Dublin, the eldest of seven children born to John Molloy and Evelyn Ryan. Molloy attended an Irish-language school and completed her Leaving Certificate at sixteen. Too young at that point to enter university, she enrolled in a drama course at the Brendan Smith Academy and was accepted by the Abbey Theatre at eighteen.

Her early stage career was built at both the Abbey and Gate theatres in Dublin, after which she toured Britain with an Abbey production. She subsequently joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, and in London's West End she played Gertrude opposite Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. Her theatrical work in Britain has also included productions at the National Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse, the Almeida, the Haymarket, the Duke of York's Theatre, the Tricycle Theatre, and the Young Vic, among other venues. Her credits across these stages encompass productions such as The Hostage, Arcadia, Hinterland, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Juno and the Paycock, In Celebration, and Doubt: A Parable.

Molloy's Broadway career extended from 1991 to 2018 and included four productions: Dancing at Lughnasa, A Touch of the Poet, Outside Mullingar, and The Ferryman. Her Broadway debut came in 1991 with Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, a play about the lives of a group of sisters in pre-war rural Ireland. She received a Tony Award nomination for that production, though the award went to her co-star Bríd Brennan. The production also brought her a Theatre World Special Award and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance, both in 1992. She received a second Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in 2009. Molloy has appeared extensively in the work of Irish playwright Brian Friel throughout her career.

In April 2017, Molloy appeared in The Ferryman at the Royal Court Theatre in London, a production that subsequently transferred to the Gielgud Theatre. Her performance earned her an Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and the production later moved to Broadway in 2018.

On television, Molloy has appeared in GBH, playing Michael Palin's wife, as well as in New Tricks, Midsomer Murders, Waking the Dead, Foyle's War, Killer, Sex the City and Me, The Bill, and the 1960s RTÉ drama series Tolka Row. In 2009 she joined the cast of the British soap opera Coronation Street as the mother of Michelle Connor, a role she reprised for two episodes in 2015. Her film work includes Tara Road, The Blackwater Lightship, and This Is the Sea.

In her personal life, Molloy married Bobby Carlisle at twenty-one, and the couple had a son, Rory. They separated after five years, and Molloy pursued a divorce in England and an annulment in Ireland. She later married Brian de Salvo, from whom she was divorced in 1995.