Maria Doyle Kennedy Movies

Northern Ireland's civil unrest is the backdrop for this tense drama. In Belfast in 1975, a bomb blast rips open a pub in a Protestant neighborhood, killing the patrons inside. Following this attack, representatives from the Irish Republican Army and local Loyalist forces call a mutual truce, which angers foot soldiers on both sides of the fence. Kenny (James Frain) is the leader of a rabid anti-IRA faction. His best friend is Ginger (Ian Hart), a violent man who has no remorse about killing Catholics. Kenny and Ginger wait out the truce alongside Leonard (Michael Gambon), politically the best-informed of Kenny's group; Eddie (Gary Lydon), Kenny's second in command; and Tommy (Ruaidhri Conroy), a teenager new to the fighting. Ann (Maria Doyle Kennedy), Kenny's former wife, has become involved with a kind man named Liam (John Lynch). While Liam is apolitical, he's a practicing Catholic, which, combined with Kenny's jealousy, puts his life in great danger as he tries to find his way home using a supposedly safe route. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An IRA volunteer tries to leave his life of violence behind -- only to discover it's waiting for him in America -- in this drama based on a story by leading man Stephen Rea. Dowd (Rea) is a convicted terrorist with the Irish Republican Army who is serving a sentence in a prison in Northern Ireland. While his girlfriend Roisin (Maria Doyle Kennedy) patiently waits for his release, Dowd feels that he has no real future to offer her; the path he's chosen in life is not an easy one to move away from. After a visit from Roisin, Dowd is returning to his cell when he finds himself in the middle of a group of prisoners attempting an escape; Dowd impulsively joins them and turns out to be one of only two convicts to make it out alive. With forged papers, Dowd sneaks into the United States, where he takes a job as a dishwasher and lives in a dingy welfare hotel in Manhattan. While trying to mediate a domestic dispute among his neighbors, Dowd is stabbed in the back; a group of Guatemalan exiles who share an apartment in the building, led by Tulio (Alfred Molina), come to Dowd's rescue and treat his wounds. Dowd becomes friends with Tulio, his friend Paco (Jorge Sanz), and his daughter Monica (Rosana Pastor), and in time, he learns why they've come to the United States. The CIA operative who tortured and killed Tulio's father now lives in New York City, and they have come to assassinate him. However, Tulio and Paco have no experience in political violence, and no talent for it; Dowd soon finds himself drawn into their plan as he helps them organize a serious attempt on the CIA man's life, a situation that becomes all the more complicated when he finds himself falling in love with the beautiful Monica. The supporting cast includes Pruitt Taylor Vince, Paul Giamatti, Brendan Gleeson, and Coati Mundi, a former member of the adventurous R&B group Kid Creole & the Coconuts. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Gregory Underwood is an idealistic teacher whose head is full of the columns of the liberal magazines he religiously reads. He feels he is a citizen of the world, but he does most of his living inside his head. Voluptuous music teacher Belle is crazy about him and determined to engage him in an adult relationship. But Gregory is infatuated with one of his brighter students, Frances. Inspired by Gregory's teaching, Frances gets involved in a campaign against global injustice and in particular against a suspected arms dealer and local businessman, Fraser Rowan. When she tries to get Gregory involved, his moral pomposity is put to the test. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

An elderly Irish man (Dermot Healy) thinks about his life as he sits alone in a shabby room in London. He recalls his childhood along the Western Coast of Ireland, and then his days as a laborer as he moved to London from his native land. With no central narrative, I Could Read the Sky concentrates on images of Ireland and England (photographed on both film and videotape), remembered moments with people from the old man's past, and a poetic narration drawn in part from the book of the same name by Timothy O'Grady and Steve Pike. This debut feature by Nicola Bruce made the film festival circuit in 1999, showing at the Edinbugh, Galway, Montreal, and Toronto Film Festivals. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast over Britain's ITV1 in 2000, the two-part mystery miniseries Thursday the 12th began with the discovery of an unidentified body on the estate of Marius Bannister (Ciaran Hinds), a wealthy dentist and politician. As an investigative TV reporter Julian Glover sifted through the particulars of the case, the viewer was introduced to the dramatis personae: Bannister; his wife, Nina (Maria Doyle Kennedy); their troubled adopted teenaged son, Martin (Jim Sturgess); and Nina's predatory sister, Candice Hopper (Elizabeth McGovern). In Rashomon fashion, a series of flashbacks indicated that any one of these worthies had motive aplenty to be a murderer -- and in fact, one of them was the victim. The key to the mystery was in the hands of Marius' supposedly senile father, Edgar Bannister (Peter Vaughan). In the U.S., Thursday the 12th first aired over the Bravo cable network on June 4, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Tudors presents the rarely dramatized, tumultuous early years of King Henry VIII's nearly 40 year, omnipotent reign (1509-1547). In addition to his famous female consorts and 20+ year marriage to Catherine of Aragon to the infamous dalliance with Anne Boleyn, the series delves in to Henry's most notable political relationship and the deconstruction of the Roman Catholic Church in England.