# Bairbre Dowling

Bairbre Dowling (/barˈba.ra/; Irish: Bairbre Ní Dúnlaing; 27 March 1953 – 20 January 2016) was an Irish actress of screen and stage. She began her career as a child actor in Francis Ford Coppola's first feature film, Dementia 13 (1963). She would go on to appear in 1980's Cry of the Innocent, 1987's The Dead and 1994's War of the Buttons, alongside her then husband Colm Meaney.
On television, Dowling was best known for her role as Josie Tracy on the long-running RTÉ drama serial The Riordans, which aired from 1965-1979. Her other television credits included guest spots on 1st & Ten, Scarlett, Murder, She Wrote, ER, Star Trek: Voyager, Crossing Jordan, and Days of Our Lives.
A veteran of the stage, Dowling began performing at the National Theatre of Ireland in the 1970s. In 1979 she made her Broadway debut as Mary Tate in Hugh Leonard's Tony Award winning play Da, and would go on to appear in over 70 professional stage and radio plays.

## Early life

Dowling was born in Dublin, Ireland, the eldest daughter of actors Vincent Dowling and Brenda Doyle. She had three younger sisters, Louise, Valerie and Rachael, who is also an actress. The family lived on Shanowen Road in Santry, Co. Dublin. Her parents had a relatively progressive marriage, allowing for both to partake in a series of extramarital affairs. One such affair produced her sister Valerie. Although aware of this, Vincent always functioned as the girl’s father. However, their marriage eventually dissolved in 1967 over Vincent’s relationship with a much younger Abbey actress, Sinéad Cusack, daughter of the renowned actor Cyril Cusack. Dowling's affair with Cusack produced a son, Richard Boyd Barrett, who was put up for adoption. Barrett’s paternity was not revealed until after Vincent’s death in 2013.
Dowling formally trained as a dancer, but began acting as a child. She made her screen debut in 1963 as Kathleen Haloran in Academy Award winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola's first feature film, Dementia 13. The film tells the story of Louise Haloran (Luana Anders), a scheming widow who after murdering her husband John (Peter Read), fears that she will be denied an inheritance. Fabricating a story about John traveling to the United States, she joins the rest of the Haloran family at their Irish estate as they hold a memorial for John's sister Kathleen, who drowned in a lake eight years prior. Louise plots to convince Lady Haloran (Eithne Dunne) that she can speak with the dead child. However, her plans are interrupted by the sudden appearance of the girls' ghost, and an axe-wielding murderer.

## Career
### Stage

In 1970 Dowling was part of the company at the Abbey Theatre, where she appeared in The Becauseway (1970) and Rites (1973). In 1977 she worked with her father at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. She shared the stage with her husband Colm Meaney in And a Nightingale Sang in 1985. She was seen on Broadway in Da by Hugh Leonard. In 2011 she appeared in a play by playwright Teresa Deevy, Temporal Powers, a Mint Theatre production presented as part of the Teresa Deevy project.
She established an ongoing presence at the Miniature Theatre of Chester in Massachusetts, often working with her father as director or co-star. In 1992 she starred in Last Tag, and in 1993 in An Audience with Fanny Kemble, a one-woman show by Anne Ludlum, based on the life of actress and writer Fanny Kemble. In 2004, she appeared in Isobel Mahon's So Long, Sleeping Beauty, and in 2007, in The Gravity of Honey, in Dear Liar and in Is Life Worth It? in 2009.

### Film, television and radio

Dowling's first film appearance was in Francis Ford Coppola's Dementia 13 (1963). She acted with her husband in the PBS television film Playboy of the Western World in 1983, in John Huston's 1987 film The Dead, and in the 1994 drama War of the Buttons. She also appeared in John Boorman's Zardoz (1973), and Changing Habits (1997). American television credits included roles in Murder She Wrote, Crossing Jordan, Days of our Lives, Star Trek: Voyager and ER. On RTÉ, she was known for a long-running role in The Riordans.
Dowling was a member of The California Artists Radio Theatre (CART) ensemble and performed in over 30 of their live radio plays.

## Personal life

From 1977 to 1994, Dowling was married to actor Colm Meaney, with whom she had a daughter, Brenda, in 1984.
In 2016, at age 62, Dowling died in New York of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

## Acting credits
### Film

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1963 | Dementia 13 | Kathleen Haloran | |
| 1974 | Zardoz | Star | |
| 1980 | Cry of the Innocent | Maureen | |
| 1981 | The Playboy of the Western World | Margaret Flaherty | Television Film |
| 1987 | The Long Journey Home | MIA Wife | |
| 1987 | The Dead | Miss Higgins | |
| 1994 | War of the Buttons | Geronimo's mum | |

### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1965-1979 | The Riordans | Josie Tracy | Unknown episodes |
| 1986 | 1st & Ten | Dr. Rose | Episode: "California Freeze Out" |
| 1994 | Scarlett | Mrs. Boyle | Episode: "#1.4" |
| 1995 | Murder, She Wrote | Kate Dempsey | Episode: "Another Killing in Cork" |
| 1997 | ER | Dorgan | Episode: "Make a Wish" |
| 2000 | Star Trek: Voyager | Edith | Episode: "Spirit Folk" |
| 2003 | 'Crossing Jordan | Sister Mary Katherine | Episode: "Family Ties" |
| 2007 | Days of Our Lives | Sister Rose | Episode: "#1.10614" |

### Stage

| Year | Title | Role | Playwright | Venue |
| 1970 | The Becauseway | Chorus | Wesley Burrowes | Abbey Theatre |
| 1970 | On the Outside | Anne | Tom Murphy | Project Arts Centre |
| 1970 | On the Inside | Margaret | Tom Murphy | Abbey Theatre |
| 1973 | Rites | Girl | Maureen Duffy | Abbey Theatre |
| 1977 | Hamlet | Ophelia | William Shakespeare | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1977 | Peg o' My Heart | Margaret "Peg" O'Connell | J. Hartley Manners | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1977 | The Glass Menagerie | Laura | Tennessee Williams | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1978 | What Every Woman Knows | Maggie Wylie | J. M. Barrie | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1978 | King John | Blanche of Castile | William Shakespeare | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1979 | Da | Mary Tate | Hugh Leonard | Morosco Theatre, Broadway |
| 1980 | Titus Andronicus | Lavinia | William Shakespeare | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1980 | The Tempest | Miranda | William Shakespeare | Asolo Repertory Theatre |
| 1981 | Much Ado About Nothing | Beatrice | William Shakespeare | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1982 | The Playboy of the Western World | Margaret Flaherty | John Millington Synge | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1982 | The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby | Fanny Squeers / Miss Snevellicci / Peg Sliderskew | Charles Dickens & David Edgar | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1983 | The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby | Fanny Squeers / Miss Snevellicci / Peg Sliderskew | Charles Dickens & David Edgar | Merle Reskin Theatre |
| 1983 | A Child's Christmas in Wales | Mum | Dylan Thomas, Jeremy Brooks, & Adrian Mitchell | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1985 | And a Nightingale Sang | Helen | C. P. Taylor | Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival |
| 1990 | The Secret Rapture | Marion | David Hare | South Coast Repertory |
| 1991 | Macbeth | Lady Macbeth | William Shakespeare | Odyssey Theatre Ensemble |
| 1992 | The Odyssey | Penelope / Calypso / Athena | Homer & Oliver Taplin | Mark Taper Forum |
| 1992 | Last Tag | Woman | Mitch Giannunzio | Chester Theatre Company |
| 1993 | An Audience With Fanny Kemble | Fanny Kemble | Anne Ludlum | Chester Theatre Company |
| 1993 | Dancing at Lughnasa | Maggie | Brian Friel | Studio Arena Theater |
| 2000 | Sheridan, or Schooled in Scandal | Miss Pope | David Grimm | La Jolla Playhouse |
| 2002 | Stella by Starlight | Geraldine | Bernard Farrell | Laguna Playhouse |
| 2004 | So Long, Sleeping Beauty | Glynis | Isobel Mahon | Chester Theatre Company |
| 2005 | The Price | Esther Franz | Arthur Miller | Chester Theatre Company |
| 2007 | Dear Liar | Mrs. Patrick Campbell | Jerome Kilty | Chester Theatre Company |
| 2007 | The Gravity of Honey | Honey Leone | Bruce E. Rodgers | Chester Theatre Company |
| 2007 | The Memory of Water | Mary | Shelagh Stephenson | Ensemble Theatre Company |
| 2009 | Is Life Worth Living? | Annie Twohig | Lennox Robinson | Mint Theater Company |
| 2011 | Temporal Powers | Maggie Cooney | Teresa Deevy | Mint Theater Company |
| 2012 | Anna Christie | Marthy Owen | Eugene O'Neill | Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79 |
| 2013 | Bell, Book and Candle | Aunt Queenie | John Van Druten | The Gene Frankel Theatre |
| 2013 | The Third Policeman | Yet to be Named at the Mic | Flann O'Brien | La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club |

### Radio

| Title | Role | Author | Broadcaster |
| Macbeth | Lady Macduff | William Shakespeare | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| A Midsummer Night's Dream | First Fairy | William Shakespeare | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Twelfth Night | Viola | William Shakespeare | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Little Women (Volume 1) | Meg March | Louisa May Alcott | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Little Women (Volume 2) | Meg March | Louisa May Alcott | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| First Love | Zinaida | Ivan Turgenev | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| The Seagull | Nina | Anton Chekhov | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| An Ideal Husband | Lady Chiltern | Oscar Wilde | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| The Importance of Being Earnest | Cecily | Oscar Wilde | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Hobson’s Choice | Maggie Hobson | Harold Brighouse | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Curtain Calls | Kitty Brophy | Jerry Devine | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Oscar in Limbo | Various | Richard Erdman | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| The Playboy of the Western World | Margaret Flaherty | John Millington Synge | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Seeds of The Abbey | Various | John Millington Synge & Lady Gregory | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Pygmalion | Mrs. Pearce | George Bernard Shaw | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Getting Married | Edith | George Bernard Shaw | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Christmas With CART | Performer | Peggy Webber | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Shadow and Substance | Thomasina Concannon | Paul Vincent Carroll | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| The Dead | Greta | James Joyce | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Letters & Other Beguiling Things | George Simon, Georgie Starbuck Galbraith, Alan Terry, and Katherine Mansfield | Sean McClory | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Anthony & Burr | Maria Reynolds and Theodosia Bartow Burr | Tony Huston | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Blackbeards 14th Wife, Why She Was No Good for Him | Various | Morton Fine and David Friedkin | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| Good Evening, My Name is Jack the Ripper | Various | Morton Fine and David Friedkin | California Artists Radio Theatre |
| If a Body Need a Body, Call Burke & Hare | Various | Morton Fine and David Friedkin | California Artists Radio Theatre |