Irish Examiner view: Cillian Murphy playing a blinder

Final series of iconic show 'Peaky Blinders'

Cillian Murphy in a scene from Peaky Blinders.

Peaky Blinders, which ranks up there with The Sopranos, The Wire, and Game of Thrones, for the loyalty it commands among its followers, will begin its swansong this Sunday.

While part of the TV show’s success can be attributable to many factors, including a thunderous soundtrack, the charismatic presence that commands the show has been created by outstanding Cork actor Cillian Murphy.

Murphy, from Douglas and now living in Dublin, is one of the world’s greatest stars, a description he would probably dislike, of both stage and screen. 

A veteran of 52 movies, he will next year play Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was 41 when he observed the first nuclear explosion in 1945. Murphy is 45.

He was introduced to acting after being inspired by Corcadorca’s production of A Clockwork Orange while he was undertaking a soon-to-be-jettisoned law course at UCC. His breakthrough came in the Enda Walsh classic Disco Pigs in 1996, where he played a dangerously maladjusted teenager.

The legal profession’s loss was culture’s gain.

It will be sad to see the end of Thomas Shelby, but we can be sure that he will go out with a bang. 

And Murphy will be around for a long time to adopt new persona that will keep us both entertained and pensive.