‘Bionic’ Brenda lifts another award

’I’M like a bionic woman,’ joked actress Brenda Fricker, her arm in a sling, as she arrived at the Kerry Film Festival to accept yet another award.

The 63-year-old Oscar winner, who broke her left shoulder in a fall earlier this year, was presented with the inaugural Maureen O’Hara Award by acclaimed film-maker Jim Sheridan, at a function in Tralee.

“Like every award, it’s an honour, a privilege, a delight and a surprise to get,” said Ms Fricker, adding she was looking forward to getting back to work in films.

’I’ve had a new shoulder with a steel plate put in and it’s still very painful. Only for the accident, I’d be in Vancouver making a film called The Second Tuesday which had offered me a good role and a good paycheck.

’It’s an opportunity I’m very sorry to have missed, but I’ll be back as soon as my shoulder is cured. I’ve some radio work to do in the meantime,’ she said.

Her award was a specially-commissioned, handmade piece by Dingle Peninsula potter, Louis Mulcahy, featuring the classic Greek actor’s masks for comedy and tragedy.

Ms Fricker won the 1989 Academy Award for best supporting actress for her performance as Christy Brown’s mother in Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot. Working again with Sheridan, she co-starred with Richard Harris in The Field, based on the play of the same name by John B Keane.

The Dublin-born actress, whose mother, the late Bina Murphy, hailed from Gneeveguilla, Co Kerry, made a point of arranging to meet some of her Kerry cousins while in Tralee.

Her first cousin, Richie McAuliffe, from Gneeveguilla, and his wife, Breda, were among the attendance at the presentation ceremony.

Maureen O’Hara, who lives in Glengarriff, Co Cork, was unable to attend the presentation but said at the time of the announcement it was a privilege for her to have Brenda Fricker pick up the inaugural award.

“Her Oscar-winning role as Mrs Brown in My Left Foot is one of the great highlights in Irish acting,” she said.