The pay’s the thing

We have 4,000 actors in this country, but most earn less than €12,000 per year. How do they survive? Colette Sheridan meets five actors and finds out

Liam Heffernan says it helps to be around other actors during periods of unemployment and inset as Blackie from Glenroe. The Cork-born actor took up a new role in the country’s leading soap, Fair City, earlier this year.Picture: Maura Hickey

THE recent headline-grabbing report about actor, Joe Purcell, convicted of stealing €58 worth of groceries, highlighted what jobbing actors have always known. Acting is a tough job and requires an ability to diversify — or sign on the dole between jobs — in order to survive.