Bairbre Dowling

 ( 1953 Births ) 

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 upon murdering her husband John (Peter Renaday), fears she will be disinherited. Fabricating a story about John's absence, she joins the rest of the Haloran family at their estate in Ireland as they hold a memorial for John's younger sister Kathleen (Dowling). Louise plots to convince Lady Haloran (Eithne Dunne) that she can speak with the deceased child. However, her plans are interrupted by the sudden appearance of the girls' ghost, and an axe-wielding murderer.

During her tenure at Great Lakes, Dowling was cast as a replacement in the original Broadway theatre run of Hugh Leonard's Tony Award winning play Da at the Morosco Theatre (1979). The following year she appeared as Miranda in William Shakespeare's The Tempest at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida (1980). The production was included in the Burns Mantle Yearbook of Best American Plays, 1979-1980.

In 1985, Dowling and Meaney relocated to Los Angeles, California, where she would continue to work regularly on stage. In 1990 she appeared as Marion in David Hare's The Secret Rapture at South Coast Repertory. The following year she played Lady Macbeth in the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble's production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth in downtown Los Angeles. In 1993 she appeared as Penelope, Calypso, and Athena, in Oliver Taplin's ambitious stage adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey at The J. Paul Getty Museum, produced by Mark Taper Forum. Later that year she reunited with her father to appear in Mitch Giannunzio's Last Tag at the newly formed Chester Theatre Company, now a premiere theatre in the Berkshires. Dowling returned to Chester Theatre Company the following summer to appear as the titular Fanny Kemble in Anne Ludlum's An Audience With Fanny Kemble. Later that year she appeared as Maggie in Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa at Studio Arena Theater in Buffalo, New York.

In 2000 Dowling appeared as Miss Pope in David Grimm's Sheridan, or Schooled in Scandal at La Jolla Playhouse. Then in 2002 she starred as Geraldine in Bernard Farrell's Stella by Starlight at Laguna Playhouse. In 2004 she returned to Chester Theatre Company to star in the American premiere of Isobel Mahon's So Long, Sleeping Beauty. She would return the following year to appear as Esther Franz in Arthur Miller's The Price. In 2007 she would return to Chester Theatre Company again to star in a double-bill of Jerome Kilty's Dear Liar and Bruce E. Rodgers' the Gravity of Honey. In 2009 she relocated to New York City, appearing Off-Broadway as Annie Twohig in Lennox Robinson's Is Life Worth Living? at the Mint Theater Company. She would return to the Mint in 2011 to appear as Maggie Cooney in Teresa Deevy's Temporal Powers. The production was named a "Critic's Pick" by The New York Times. In 2013 she appeared as Marthy Owen in a site-specific production of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie at the Waterfront Museum's Lehigh Valley Barge No. 79, produced by Spleen Theatre. The following year she appeared as Aunt Queenie in John Van Druten's Bell, Book and Candle at Gene Frankel. Later that year Dowling would make her final stage appearance in an adaptation of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club.

After previously working as a child actor, Dowling returned to the silver screen as Star in Academy Award nominated filmmaker John Boorman's 1974 science fantasy epic Zardoz. In 1987 she appeared as Miss Higgins in Academy Award winning filmmaker John Huston's final film, The Dead, based on the James Joyce novella of the same name. Her final film appearance came in BAFTA winning filmmaker John Roberts' 1994 drama War of the Buttons, playing Geronimo's Mum opposite her real life husband, Colm Meaney.

Dowling died in 2016 from complications of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. She was 62.

• Bairbre Dowling at the Teresa Deevy Archive
• Bairbre Dowling at Mint Theatre Company
• Bairbre Dowling at The Abbey Theatre Archive
• target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Bairbre Dowling at the British Film Institute