a sudden blow

There was a time, long ago, when he was young and not so self-confident: an accountant’s son from the Isle of Wight who, even after he took the audacious step in his teens of pursuing an actor’s life, still felt he needed someone “to draw me out from the cold, passionless Anglo-Saxon that I feared I was,” he writes. That someone turned out to be a young woman from a celebrated family of Irish actors, “my girl from Dublin, wild, raucous, damaged, and quite quite lovely.”

— Jeremy Irons talking about Sinéad Cusack in an interview for Vanity Fair, 2017 (x)

Int.  Where did you meet Jeremy, and when? Sinéad.  Well, we met while I was doing London Assurance and he was doing Godspell. Int.  Oh, I see. Sinéad.  Because the Wyndham's Theatre and the Albery Theatre — there was one stage door for the two theatres and I met him at... Int.  At the stage door. Sinéad.  Well, not quite, I used to see him at the stage door, this tall figure, but I actually met him at a dinner party given by a mutual friend of ours... and it was instant. Int.  Ooh, one of those, eh? Sinéad.  [Laughing] One of those. Int.  He was splendid in Godspell, wasn't he? Sinéad.  [Excitedly] Oh, yes, he was wonderful! But unfortunately I met him... we started walking out together before I had seen the show, because I was doing London Assurance, so I couldn't... but one matinee — I would have been able to see three quarters of a matinee, so I decided to go without telling him. I was very worried about this visit to the theatre because I thought... say I discover he is a terrible actor, say I discover he is reeeaally, I mean, without possibility or hope as an actor — what will I do? Would that change my attitude to him? So I went to the theatre and I sat in the stalls, and I was sitting in an isle seat and I don’t know if you remember but John the Baptist, which was the character that Jeremy played, used to have this wonderfully dramatic entrance from the back of the theatre down the isle. So I was sitting crouched very small in my seat and I heard the back doors of the auditorium open, then the sound of a shofar horn being blown — I thought very weedily indeed, I though ‘that’s not very good’. Then I heard this voice and I thought ‘who’s that?’, I said ‘that can’t be Jeremy’, and this voice — it was a very nice voice, a very plesant voice, but it didn’t have any of Jeremy’s qualities and I thought ‘oh dear, the personality of the man doesn’t relate at all to his stage personality’, and as he went by I looked up and it wasn’t him at all. He was stuck in a traffic jam in Stratton and that was the only performance he missed in the entire time he played the show.

— Sinéad Cusack, from ‘Bob Holness’ Celebrity Interview’. Bob Holness’ 1987 interviews with both Sinéad and Jeremy are available at this link (x).

Evening Press, 28 March 1978.

New/old video of JEREMY IRONS and SINÉAD CUSACK at the premiere of The Man in the Iron Mask in Leicester Square, London, March 1998.

Jeremy Irons, Cannes Film Festival, 1997.

There are two Cyril Cusacks for me. I mean, there's Cyril Cusack the actor, and then there was Cyril Cusack the father... a difficult man. I remember one evening, I had just finished my show in London... Sinéad called me and said 'you have to come to Islington, we are having dinner with Dad and it's very difficult', and Cyril was there, giving it out, well in his cups... and I suppose it was half an hour later that I thought 'we have to stop this' so I said 'Cyril, c'mon, we're going home. C'mon, up we get', and I led him home, got to Vincent Terrace where he lived, opened the front door and helped him up the stairs — sort of pushing him up the stairs, telling him to go to bed... and he turned round to me and said 'I'll fight you, you fucker. I'll fight you every inch of the way'. And I said 'good on you, and I'll give you a fight back'.

— Jeremy Irons talking about his father-in-law for the documentary 'Cyril Cusack: Lár and Stáitse', 2022

MS. CUSACK 1959

Dear Cyril,

Thanks for letter from West 73rd Steeet. I suppose (& hope) one of the Aer Lingus Swans has safely carried you home to — not only Maureen & the children, but, also, to the dog, the hins, & the donkey. A very charming picture that of Maureen & her two girls under their parasols — the mother looking as young near as the girls; while the meditative Paul looks out thoughtfully over the world.

Paul is something of a poet. I remember a charming little poem of his some years ago; but I shouldn't suggest the life of a poet to him, for it is a hard one, except you have a job already in the C. Service or in a Bank. I hope Maureen is as fit as ever now, & her arm can circle the new life as cleverly & as closely as ever it did; tho' she should give up doing of or thinking of too many things, & think of herself at least before the donkey, the dog, & the hins; for these simple lovable things take a lot of time from us, & a lot of energy out of us [...]

— Sean O’Casey in a letter to Cyril Cusack, from ‘The Letters of Sean O’Casey’ (published 1975)

Sinéad Cusack in the make-up chair during production of 'The Last Remake of Beau Geste' in Dublin, September 17, 1976.