Liam Heffernan

Liam Heffernan is an Irish actor, theater director and musician best known for his lead role in the critically acclaimed film The Clash of the Ash (1987),[1][2] and later as the traveller Blackie Connors in the long running RTÉ television drama series Glenroe.[3]

Liam Heffernan
Born
Cork
NationalityIrish
Occupation(s)Actor, musician
Years activec. 1980-present

Heffernan's music career began in the early 1980s as the guitarist with Mean Features, who were active during Cork city's post-punk scene.[4] He is currently the lead singer and a guitarist with Big Boy Foolish.

Career

Born in Cork city in the early 1960s, Heffernan's acting career began in 1984 with appearances in various theater parts with the Graffiti Theatre Company.[5] He moved to Dublin in 1986, and played roles in the films The Stranger Within (1990) and The Boy from Mercury (1996). He has since featured in multiple stage productions and television dramas, including full time roles in Ros na Rún and later Fair City, where he played the returned emigrant Luke Dillon.[6]

He directed the award winning 2000 play "Tillsonburg"[7] for Dublin's Focus Theatre and Cork's The Everyman Palace, and in 2003 directed "Brilliant Traces" for the Dublin Fringe Festival.[8] In 2010 he appeared in a well regarded production of Billy Roche's play "The Cavalcaders".[9] His music career began in the early 1980s as the guitarist with Mean Features, who were active during the Cork city post-punk scene for several years, initially as part of the bands centered around the Arcadia Ballroom. The band featured Mick Lynch on vocals and were included on the seminal 1981 live compilation Kaught at the Kampus,[10] described in 2020 by journalist Mike McGrath-Bryan of the Irish Examiner as a "record has come to be regarded as a document of the Cork music scene at an important juncture, helping to set the tone for the city's subsequent musical reputation, with many of the musicians and personalities involved becoming cult figures in their own right."[11]

Heffernan is currently the lead singer and a guitarist with Big Boy Foolish longside guitarist Ricky Dineen.[12] In June 2020, Big Boy Foolish released their debut single "Horsey!",[13][14] described by Mike McGrath Bryan of The Evening Echo as continuing Dineen's sound "along a grinning, black-humored trajectory".[11] McGrath in 2021 wrote that "unsatisfied with nostalgia, the pair have spent the last number of years cultivating a body of idiosyncratic, drum machine-propelled tunes that sit somewhere to the left of the current wave of genre revivalism."[4] Their second single, "Up the Airy", was released in August 2020.[15] Their fourth single "Nunzerkat" was released in January 2021.[4]

Selected roles
RoleProductionYear
Phil KellyThe Clash of the Ash1987 [16]
Uncle TommyThe Stranger within me1994 [17]
UsherThe Boy from Mercury1996 [18]
Blackie ConorsGlenroe1992 - 1999 [19]
KimbalDeich gCoisceim2000 [20][21]

References
  1. Cunningham 1987.
  2. Lord 1987.
  3. Browne 2001.
  4. McGrath-Bryan 2021.
  5. Sheridan 2012.
  6. "Liam Heffernan". Nolan Muldoon Agency. Retrieved 19 July 2020
  7. Colgan 2000.
  8. O'Kelly, Emer. "Bonding, betrayal and buddies bearing grudges". Irish Independent, 16 March 2003. Retrieved 8 August 2020
  9. Lee 2010.
  10. Power 2020.
  11. McGrath-Bryan 2020.
  12. "Red on Red - Episode Sixty Eight - Big Boy Foolish". Cork's Red FM, May 2019. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  13. "Horsey!". Apple Music, June 2020. Retrieved 1 July 2020
  14. O'Driscoll 2020.
  15. Mac 2020.
  16. "Liam Heffernan, Phil Kelly in 'The Clash of the Ash'". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  17. "Liam Heffernan, Irish Actor, Uncle Tommy in 'The Stranger within me'". Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  18. "Liam Heffernan, Actor, Usher in 'The boy from Mercury'". Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  19. "Liam Heffernan, The Pay's the thing". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  20. "Zanzibar Films Ireland - Liam Heffernan". Zanzibar Films Ireland. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  21. "Short Film Production In Ireland". Irish Film & Television Network. Retrieved 21 January 2021

Sources
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