Local pride in Summerhill at actor Barry Keoghan’s Bafta success

Barry Keoghan’s success at the Baftas has brought pride to his family and the inner-city Dublin community where he comes from.

Keoghan won best supporting actor on Sunday evening for his role in Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin.

He dedicated his award to his late mother and “also for the kids that are dreaming to be something from the area where I came from. This is for you.”

Keoghan grew up in Summerhill, a place that has known its share of deprivation and misfortune. The drugs epidemic which ravaged the area took his mother, who died of a heroin overdose when he was only 12.

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Keoghan and his brother Eric spent seven years in foster care – he had 13 separate placements – before they were raised by their grandmother Patricia, aunt Lorraine and older sister Gemma.

On Sunday, Gemma posted on her Facebook page: “Well done Barry, couldn’t be prouder. Roll on the Oscars, you got this.”

His Bafta win was a proud moment for his old secondary school, O’Connell Secondary School on North Richmond Street. The school has produced many famous past pupils including two former taoisigh, John A Costello and Seán Lemass, the broadcasters Michael O’Hehir and Pat Kenny, and fellow actor Colm Meaney.

Keoghan first indulged his passion for acting in the school, and footage has surfaced in recent years of him acting in a school production.

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His former teacher Conor Flood recalled Keoghan had been a student with an “enormous smile on his face. He has kind of evolved into that same positive adult, no matter how many Christian Dior outfits he has on him.

“He loved acting from day one. He loved Christmas concerts which he was a part of. He shone when he was on stage,” he told RTÉ News.

Mr Flood said there were a lot of pupils of the school who would have been enthusiastic, but “Barry would have had that focus on what it was that he wanted to do”.

Mr Flood said Keoghan’s dedication to the people of the area where he grew up was a “beautiful thing to do. The whole family are part of the fabric of this area, as are most of our kids.”

O’Connell School pupil Darragh Flynn-Kenny said Keoghan had been a “real inspiration to kids from this area, particularly in working class areas like this where there is a stigmatism. Even if it is acting or football, it gives you that bit of drive to push on and do it.”

Another pupil, James Johnston, said: “I feel like I can get ahead and follow my dreams.”

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Tadhg O’Driscoll described Keoghan’s path from “the north-inner city to a Hollywood celebrity” as an “inspiration to everyone in the school and to everyone around the north inner-city.

“It goes to show you that anyone, whoever you are, you can do what you like if you really believe in it.”