Brenda Fricker, the first Irish actress to win an Oscar for her role as Bridget Fagan Brown in the 1989 film My Left Foot, has died at the age of 81.
The Irish character actor died in Dublin on Thursday night, local time, after a period of ill health, her agent said in a statement.
Fricker, described as among the most respected Irish actors of her generation by the Irish Times, won the best supporting actress award for playing the determined mother of Christy Brown, a writer and painter who was born with cerebral palsy and could control only his left foot.
The Irish-made drama also landed Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Brown, the first of his record three best actor Oscars.
Brenda Fricker and Daniel Day-Lewis at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, in 1990. (AP: Bob Galbraith/File)
Fricker also starred in another renowned Irish film of that era, The Field, and went on to play supporting roles in 1990s US films, including So I Married an Axe Murderer, A Time to Kill and Home Alone 2, where she played the kindly Pigeon Lady opposite Macaulay Culkin.
“She was an amazing actress, amazing character, a forceful personality,” My Left Foot director Jim Sheridan told a popular lunchtime phone-in show on national broadcaster RTE that was dedicated to Fricker’s career.
“She was vibrant and full of life and had her own opinions. She took no prisoners, let’s put it that way.“
Fricker said she was stunned when she won the Oscar, never thinking it was possible.
In her acceptance speech, she thanked Brown “just for being alive” and paid tribute to his mother, saying “anybody who gives birth 22 times deserves one of these”.
She later spoke of how the award doomed her to being typecast in mother roles.
Later in life, she said she used the weighty statuette to prop open her bathroom door.
Brenda Fricker won an Academy Award for her portrayal of the determined mother of Christy Brown in My Left Foot. (Ferndale Films/Collection Christophel via AFP)
Fricker, who appeared in more than 90 films and television shows between 1964 and 2024, was perhaps best known for her role in the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, where she played a homeless woman who befriended Culkin’s character in New York’s Central Park.
She also featured in the original cast of the BBC medical drama Casualty, and appeared alongside Cate Blanchett in Veronica Guerin, the story of an Irish investigative journalist who was murdered in 1996.
Born in Dublin in 1945, Fricker received the city’s highest honour earlier this year when she was awarded the Freedom of the City.
In her autobiography She Died Young: A Life in Fragments, Fricker describes both happy childhood escapades with her sister, Grania, and her struggles to overcome sexual violence and mental health issues, which caused her to be institutionalised several times.
Published in September 2025, the book appeared on the Irish Sunday Times bestseller list.
Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister, Simon Harris, said the country had lost a national treasure.
“She truly was among the greatest exports this country has ever produced and an ambassador for Irish talent on the world stage,” he said.
Fricker was married to director Barry Davies from 1979 until they divorced in 1988.
She became pregnant several times but suffered miscarriages, which led to severe depression much of her life.
Reuters/AP
