Rosaleen Linehan

Who is Rosaleen Linehan?

Rosaleen Linehan is an Irish stage, screen and television actress.

She has appeared in many comedy revues written by her husband Fergus. She has appeared onstage in, among other plays, Blithe Spirit, House of Bernarda Alba and Twelfth Night She was nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Kate in Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa at the 1992 Tony Awards. She starred as Winnie in Samuel Beckett's Happy Days on stage and on screen as part of the Beckett on Film project, having already played the role in a 1996 production at The Gate Theatre opposite Barry McGovern.

In 1972, Linehan won a Jacob's Award for her RTÉ Radio comedy series Get an Earful of This. She was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Irish Theatre Awards in 2008.

In film, she has appeared as Nurse Callan in Ulysses, May Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Aunt Fitzeustace in Fools of Fortune, Mrs Canning in The Butcher Boy, Peggy Owens in About Adam, Mrs Matson in The Hi-Lo Country and Millie O'Dowd in The Matchmaker. In television, she was a voice artist on the Irish language children's TV series Inis Cúil in 2005, appeared in Hugh Leonard's BBC sitcom Me Mammy and most recently played Deirdre O Kane's mother in Bitter Sweet.