New faces
This select group includes one or two well-known faces and names as well as those whose careers are on the ascendant at home and on the international stage.
Already a veteran actress at the ripe old age of 16, Carlow girl Saoirse Ronan has already been nominated for the highest accolade of her profession — an Academy Award, while Wicklow-born Katie Taylor claimed her third successive world boxing title in 2010 — and she’s still only 24.
From the world of fashion there’s Galway-born designer Úna Burke, whose work has already caught the attention of pop superstar Lady Gaga, and Donegal- born Faye Dinsmore, who has not only modelled on the catwalks at Paris Haute Couture Week, but has also appeared in a Robbie Williams’ video and was recently chosen from thousands of contenders to become one of the international faces of Galaxy chocolate. Plus there’s Cork designer Alice Halliday — her work has been picked up by Florence and the Machine.
Meanwhile, flying the flag for the boys is 22-year-old Robert Sheehan who’s originally from Portlaoise and can count TV presenter Jonathan Ross among his numerous fans.
Robert, who has been acting since childhood, is currently to be seen in the E4 drama The Misfits.
Here is our pick of the ones to watch in 2011…
NOW based in Paris, 21-year-old Faye Dinsmore from Ballintra, Co. Donegal has just signed with leading international model agency IMG in Paris.
“I’m so excited and very, very lucky,” says Dinsmore. “And I have to say a big thank you to my big sister/model Lesley for all her advice and help.”
Dinsmore moved from Donegal to Dublin when she was 19 to study French and Classics at Trinity College.
“You could say I was ‘discovered’ there by the Irish designer Ciarán Sweeney, who encouraged me,” she says.
Just over a year ago, the young model hit the headlines when she was chosen to appear in a Robbie Williams video. Like the hundreds who showed up to audition for the part in a London studio, the Donegal student had no idea what she was auditioning for.
“We just showed up. No one knew what it was for because, I suppose, if they had mentioned Robbie Williams, all sorts of people would have shown up,” she explains. “I brought along my portfolio and they filmed me walking up and down and then I was picked with five other girls. Robbie was in the studio as well working on other parts for the video but I honestly wasn’t star-struck or anything. I was not a Robbie Williams fan growing up.”
Last summer Dinsmore modelled on the catwalk of Eric Tibusch at Paris Haute Couture Week. “I’m incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to do what I’m doing right now,” she asserts.
Boasting an astonishing 200,000 fans on Facebook, it’s small wonder Dinsmore has caught the eye of the international modelling world. Most recently the Donegal girl was chosen as one of the international faces for Galaxy chocolate.
Above all, she says, she’s most proud of being welcomed to the Rootstein Hall of Fame (the world’s leading Mannequin design company) and having her very own mannequin made.
Her inspiration, she says, is her mother.
ORIGINALLY from Portlaoise, 22-year-old Robert Sheehan has been acting since childhood, making one of his debut appearances in Aisling Walsh’s acclaimed feature film Song for a Raggy Boy at the age of 14.
He worked throughout school but, after a year of college, decided to commit to acting full-time. “I failed my final exam and just never went back,” he says. “I never had any great five-year plan or anything.”
The approach appears to be serving him fine: in 2010, Sheehan appeared in the second season of Britain’s Misfits series, filmed the Irish drama Back to Jack with Carey Mulligan, and took a turn as the rival to a fictionalised, teenage version of a certain bespectacled rock icon in Killing Bono.
“I never aspired to be in a band, but being onstage is a very cool feeling,” Sheehan says. “It’s like you’re the lord of the room. It’s hard to croon and run around doing big scissor kicks while also trying to play, though. I’m still mastering that.”
Set in Ireland, Killing Bono, which goes on general release in April 2011, is a film about music critic Neil McCormick’s youth and “life as a failed rock star”. It’s based on his memoir I Was Bono’s Doppleganger and follows Neil and Ivan, two brothers attempting to become global stars as old school friends U2 become the biggest rock band in the world.
Sheehan was most recently seen in the RTÉ gangland drama Love Hate, but is perhaps best known for playing the leading role of Nathan on the hit E4 series The Misfits, which has broadcast to rave reviews and record audience figures since it debuted in late 2009. The series was awarded the 2010 BAFTA for Best Drama last June which Robert had the honour of accepting at the awards ceremony.
The gritty series, which counts Jonathan Ross among its celebrity fans, has just returned for a second series on E4.
“Apparently there were five people who got on the Tube on Halloween as Misfits,” says Sheehan. “Down to geeky Simon’s desert boots, that’s a testament to its popularity.”
Rumoured to be the next face of Burberry, 16-year-old Saoirse Ronan is currently busy promoting her latest film The Way Back, in which she stars alongside fellow Irish actor Colin Farrell. Though born in New York, Saoirse moved to Ireland when she was three and was raised by parents Paul and Monica in Co Carlow. Her father, an actor in his own right, is probably best known for his roles in films like The Devil’s Own and Veronica Guerin.
Saoirse was filming in New Zealand when it was announced that she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Atonement (2007). At the age of 13, she became the seventh youngest actress to be nominated for an Academy Award, and was also ranked No 23 on Entertainment Weekly’s “30 Under 30” actresses to watch.
Director Peter Jackson cast her as the lead character in his 2009 film The Lovely Bones based on an audition tape she sent in from Ireland. They were so impressed by the tape that they didn’t even meet her prior to offering her the role. Later that same year, Time magazine ranked her performance in the film as the third greatest female performance of 2009, just behind Mo’Nique and Carey Mulligan, and ahead of screen legend Meryl Streep.
Of her career, Saoirse says: “It’s not work, it’s more of a passion. It’s so much fun and it really makes you feel great at the end of the day. You feel like you are after accomplishing something.
“Acting is one of these things that I can’t really describe – it’s just like, why do you love your mum and dad? You know, you just do!
“Be the person I’m playing. That’s what acting is. You’re pretending to be someone else.”
ROSCOMMON-born designer Úna Burke had barely finished her MA in fashion artefacts from Central Saint Martin’s in London in 2010 when she was commissioned to design garments for superstar Lady Gaga.
Since then, Burke’s extraordinary leather creations have been in demand by enthusiastic stylists, fashion agents, photographers and even book publishers.
As for Lady Gaga, unsurprisingly, Burke has become a fan. “I think she’s really good because she’s different and I think it is really interesting that she is not afraid to make herself ugly and unattractive and to take on weird shapes. And her songs deal with real topics.”
Burke attended Carrick-On-Shannon Community School and studied Fashion Design at Limerick School of Art and Design before moving to London.
“I’ve always been interested in fashion and fine art, so I ended up making a collection of sculptural pieces based on the human body and trauma,” says Burke of her debut collection.
“I was interested in how the mind deals with trauma. What is really interesting is how you heal and change, and leather changes too, so the whole thing goes back to fine art.”
The 30-year-old’s work has already been featured on the pages of international fashion bibles such as Vogue Italia, Elle, and W magazines; featured in exhibitions in London, Ireland, Austria, Germany and Italy, and has been photographed by fashion legends including David Bailey and Jonas Akerlund.
For spring/summer 2011, Burke has developed a new range of handbags, cinch belts and abstract body pieces, all of which were shown during London Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week last September.
“My inspiration in fashion would be the late Alexander McQueen,” she explains.
IN NOVEMBER 2010, Katie Taylor won the International Boxing Association (AIBA) World Female Boxer of the Year award at a ceremony in Kazakhstan for the second year running.
The 24-year-old has already made Irish boxing history on a number of occasions, since the age of 15.
On September 18, 2010, she went on to claim her third successive world title at the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championship in Barbados.
In the 60kg weight class, she again defeated China’s Cheng Dong in the final.
This was Taylor’s 100th career win. En route to that gold in September she beat five opponents from the most heavily populated countries in the world — India, Brazil, Russia, USA and China.
Born and raised in Bray, Co Wicklow, Taylor started boxing in 1998. She comes from a family with a boxing background — her coach at St Fergal’s Boxing Club in Bray is her father, Peter, who was 1986 Irish senior light heavyweight champion boxer. Mother, Bridget, is a boxing referee.
It was on October 31, 2001 — at age 15 — that Taylor first made Irish boxing history in the first officially sanctioned women’s bout ever held in Ireland. She fought 16-year-old Alanna Audley (now Alanna Murphy) of Belfast at the National Stadium in Dublin in the first of three female contests on a 16-bout amateur card. Taylor won over three 90-second rounds by 23-12.
Her most recent victory sends out a strong signal of intent to all the pretenders to her throne, ahead of the London Olympics in 2012. In short, she’ll be the one to beat.
Taylor has, over the years, actively pursued her dream of making women’s boxing an official Olympic sport.
The 2012 AIBA Women’s World Championships in China will act as the only Olympic qualifier for female pugilists.
“This is what I want to do with my life and something that I love doing every single day of my life. I’m so lucky and privileged to be living this lifestyle,” she says.
“When I have a few weeks off I catch up with my friends, but after a week or so, I just can’t wait to get back in to the boxing club and start training. I’m living the dream I suppose; this is what I’ve always wanted to do.”
WHEN she draped a lace table cloth on a dress-making stand and thought of Florence and the Machine, Alice Halliday hit on a winner.
Four weeks of intricate beading and embellishments followed before the cape was complete. Thus began an adventure that involved a gamble on a garment and it paid off with the kind of publicity most young designers only dream of.
Singing sensation Florence Welch loved Halliday’s shimmering swarovski-encrusted, floor sweeping creation so much she brought it on tour, unveiling it during various performances on stage. “Flo loves it, thanks for lending it to us. It really looks great on her,” Welch’s stylist Aldene Johnson told Halliday. “I was ecstatic, in total disbelief. I never knew anything would come of it,” the 22 year old graduate from Skibbereen said.
The story began that fateful day when she picked up the lace tablecloth in a charity shop for cancer research in Epsom for the princely sum of £2.
The oval shaped piece of fabric looked more like something you would see on your granny’s sideboard back then, but Halliday was putting the finishing touches to her graduate collection for her degree course at the University for Creative Arts in Epsom, just outside London and she had something special in mind.
She took it home to her dress-makers stand and tied a ribbon around the neck to make a cape.
Halliday set about embellishing the cape first with an edging of dark sequins, followed by a painstaking process of beading, to which she added a layer of vintage swarovski crystals.
The total cost of materials amounted to £60, but the process was labour intensive. Halliday spent the guts of four weeks working night and day to finish the piece in time, enlisting the help of her college friends and sister Libby, in a bid to beat the clock.
“When I stood back and looked at it, I thought immediately of Florence, because that’s just what she would wear,” Halliday said.
Two weeks after Halliday’s collection graced the catwalk at Graduate Fashion Week in London — a huge event open to all universities in England that teach fashion degrees — she bit the bullet and contacted Florence’s stylist, Aldene Johnson. She emailed a picture of the cape with an offer to lend it to the flame haired star to wear on stage.
Johnson liked the cape and the pair met in London the day before Halliday returned home to west Cork for the summer.
“I was a bit nervous handing over the cape. It was something I’d put so much love and work into and there I was, handing it over to a stranger, not really knowing if I’d ever see it again,” Halliday said.
She featured in the online edition of Vogue last August as the young designer of the cape revealed at the Splendour in the Grass festival in Queensland last July.
Reviewers raved online about the caped performance, bouncing descriptions such as ‘magical’ and ‘incredible’. Halliday remained in the dark until Johnson emailed to inform her of the event and she subsequently set about building a collection of photographs of the star resplendent in her cape.
“She looked amazing, it really suited her, it was just how I imagined,” the young designer said.
“She paired it with a vintage lace wedding gown and it all went together really well.”
Florence wore the cape once again at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles on November 6.
So what next for the piece of fabric that changed the course of a young designer’s future?
“I’m tempted to place it on an online auction site, just to see how much it might be worth, but in the end I think it might mean too much to me. I really can’t say at the moment,” Halliday said.
For the girl that started off selling her own range of clothes and accessories in shops and markets around West Cork aged 12, it’s no surprise that 10 years later this industrious young talent has a bright future ahead of her.
The daughter of a cartoonist dad and an artist mum, Halliday recently sold her wares, which include earrings, rings, brooches, waistbelts, wristbands and headbands, at a new Indoor Christmas Market in the west Cork village of Leap, where her collection wasside-by-side with her mum Claire’s photographic greeting cards, her sister Libby’s crochet work and her aunt Sukey Sindall’s applique designs.
“The market is going really well, we are all delighted with the level of interest. From here? Who knows? I would love someday to have my own label. I’d love to be able to show at London Fashion Week — that would be amazing.”
Visit alicehalliday.carbonmade.com to purchase online.
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