The funeral takes place today of Mrs Anna Sheridan (78), who was the mother of film director Jim Sheridan and playwright Peter Sheridan. She died last weekend at the Blackrock Clinic, Dublin, after a short illness.
The Sheridan family life in north inner city Dublin, where the seven Sheridan children were raised, is the subject of Peter Sheridan's recently published book 44: A Dublin Memoir.
In the book, Anna Sheridan emerges as a warm and resourceful woman who took in lodgers to make extra money to pay for her children's education. She saw two of her sons achieve considerable success in their creative fields of work. Jim and Peter Sheridan came to prominence in the late 1960s at the Project Arts Centre, where they wrote, directed and acted in plays. Among Jim Sheridan's credits are the films My Left Foot, Into the West, In the Name of the Father, and The Boxer. Peter Sheridan wrote and directed the plays Mother of all the Behans and Diary of a Hunger Strike.
Their father, Peter Sheridan snr, was active in theatre in their community, and both parents travelled to Hollywood for the Academy Awards in 1990, the year My Left Foot won two Oscars. Both also played small parts in In the Name of the Father, as did Peter jnr. Anna Sheridan also appeared in The Boxer. Both films were partially filmed in the inner city Dublin area where she had lived much of her life.
Anna Sheridan heard her son Jim pay special tribute to his father at the premiere of In the Name of the Father, when he told the audience he had been looking for a story about a good father, and that Peter Sheridan snr had been the model for Guiseppe Conlon, "a good father". Peter Sheridan snr died in 1994.
Anna Sheridan is survived by sons Jim, Peter, John, Gerard, and Paul, and a daughter, Ita. A sixth son, Frankie, died aged 11.
The Sheridan creative genes continue to flourish: Anna Sheridan's granddaughter, Kirsten Sheridan (22), recently won the Irish Film Best Newcomer Award, a £10,000 Miramax scriptwriting award, and the top prize for a short film at last month's Dresden Film Festival.
Anna Sheridan's funeral is after 11 a.m. Mass today, at St Vincent de Paul Church in Marino, followed by burial at Glasnevin.
