Smother actor Dervla Kirwan talks about the importance of staying relevant, standing up to ageism, her own struggles with mental health and the joy of playing great female roles. Here she tells Andrea Smith about growing into her power as a woman.

He is currently lighting up our TV screens in series 2 of the RTÉ One drama series Smother, but there is far more to Dervla Kirwan than being an accomplished and compelling actor.

She’s eloquent, intelligent and deeply reflective, and as someone who works in an industry that judges women harshly - even brutally - Dervla is ultra-conscious of the need to remain visible as she enters her 50s.

Not just for herself, but for other women in all walks of life who find themselves ignored as they age.

“I met a woman in the street who said to me, ‘You have to keep relevant Dervla, you have to keep fighting to be seen, because we need to see ourselves through you,’” says the actress who grew up in Churchtown in Dublin.

Admitting that she is “jaded” with the “same old stories” surrounding older women, Dervla was thrilled to be chosen to play Val Ahern in Smother. Val is the very strong matriarch of a dysfunctional family, and Dervla loves that she is so strong and at the heart of all the drama.

“I felt, for the first time, that Smother was a script that matched my inner aspirations and struggles as a woman,” she says. “Maybe because I felt, like so many women, that we’re invisible after a certain age. I know we’ve got our Helen Mirrens and Judi Denches and all of that wonderful little cabal, but that's a very English thing. It's really important to see Irish women presenting a very contemporary view of the country post-church control.”

Val is central to everything that unfolds after her philandering husband Denis (Stuart Graham) is found dead at the bottom of a cliff near their home in Clare in series 1. If you missed it, you can catch up on RTÉ Player. She also has to deal with the various troubles experienced by her three daughters, Anna (Gemma-Leah Devereux), Grace (Seána Kerslake) and Jenny (Niamh Walsh).

“I couldn’t believe my luck to be offered a beautiful part like this, and to go to the west coast of Ireland to film something so well-written by Kate O’Riordan (Mr Selfridge, The Bay),” says Dervla. “I also thought it was a chance to be part of an Irish-led drama that was really raising the game and set in contemporary Ireland.”

SMOTHER

Series 2 has us on the edge of our seats as an unknown person knows that the family told lies about who killed Denis and is taunting them. Another big shock is that Denis’s secret son Finn (played by former Coronation Street star Dean Fagan) turns up to stir more drama for Val, which Dervla really welcomed.

“I’d always said to the producers that the ghost of Denis had to rear his head at some stage,” she laughs. “I felt that a man like him who had three daughters would be deeply disappointed because he wanted a male progenitor, so he’d go off to have one.

Val knew he was sleeping around because his sexual appetite was insatiable, and while she had become inured to it, that inability to be faithful to her destroys a person over the years.”

Smother was shot in Lahinch and produced by Treasure Entertainment with BBC Studios. Dervla feels that many people will identify with the complicated family dynamics, rivalries and secrets that cause so much strife for the Aherns.

“I felt that the part was something that would fit me like a glove because I know this material,” she says. “I know the psychology and I understand these people.

While we may have grown up with The Brady Bunch and the aspiration of television to have perfect family relationships, that's not the case as we all come from dysfunctional families.”

Dervla now lives in Hampshire, England, and is married to actor Rupert Penry-Jones, whom she met when they starred together in a production of A Dangerous Corner in 2001. They were married in 2007 and have two children, Florence (17) and Peter (15).

“My family is everything to me and I love them very much,” she says. “I find it challenging being a mum at times as I'm always questioning myself, but I’m very communicative with my children.”

“They’re very good and very reasonable kids, but I feel so sorry for them because their parties and socialising have been curtailed by the pandemic. We don't even know what will happen with their exams this year.”

Dervla started acting from the age of 13 with Betty Ann Norton, simply because her next-door neighbour had been to drama classes and encouraged her. “It's a miracle I became an actor really,” she muses, “I didn't come straight out of the womb tapdancing with jazz hands, and was away with the fairies when I was a kid and always in my head.”

She remains very close to her mother Maureen and her two sisters at home - her father Peter sadly passed away a few years ago. “My mum is great craic and highly intelligent and quite rebellious, so the apple doesn't fall far from the tree,” Dervla laughs. “She’s a wonderful woman.”

EARLY CAREER

While many parents of Dervla’s folks’ vintage wouldn't have encouraged their children to pursue anything other than a steady, pensionable job, the actress is grateful to her own parents for not standing in her way.

There were two factors working in her favour, she explains. One was that her parents were very progressive, dynamic people who were stuck in boring jobs themselves. The other even more crucial factor was that she was chosen at 16 for a role in a Billy Roche play, A Handful of Stars, in London. This was on the back of a TV show she had appeared in through Betty Ann’s school.

It was, she says, a “magical fairy dust” beginning to her career. “My mother went to London with me, and because the producers took a leap of faith, and I did my audition with this big British director who helped me get my agent, it was a no-brainer for my parents,” she says. “So I’ve had a lot of luck, but also a lot of failure, in my life.” Although she was accepted into the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Dervla ended up not taking the place as she was already getting work. She has had many stage, TV and film roles here and abroad, although Irish fans will probably remember her most fondly for playing pub landlady Assumpta Fitzgerald in the series Ballykissangel.

She also played the alcoholic ex-girlfriend of Colin Farrell’s character in the 2009 film Ondine, and appeared in the popular Netflix mini-series, The Stranger, in 2020.

While she has had a very good experience of being Irish and living away, Dervla was sad when Brexit caused such divisions in the UK and around Europe. Overall, living in England has gone well and she describes the people there as “really lovely.”

“I’m very grateful to the country for giving me a career when I couldn't find it in my own country, and that’s the truth,” she says.

FAMILY LIFE

Dervla's husband Rupert (who dated Kylie Minogue two years before they met) is also a very successful actor, with leading roles such as Adam Carter in Spooks, Clive Reader in Silk and DI Joseph Chandler in Whitechapel under his belt.

He also has a role in the forthcoming American superhero film, The Batman, and Dervla says he’s a very open and relaxed person.

He also works very hard and is often away filming.

“Having a family kind of put the kibosh on me travelling a lot, so I spent most of my 40s slaving away in theatre,” she admits. “It wasn't that I disappeared - I worked my butt off and grew as an actor.”

Dervla admits that one of her challenges has been a “terrible lack of self-belief,” which is evident when she downplays her incredible acting talent.

“I know I'm not the best, but it doesn't matter because I love it and that’s why I've persevered,” she says, modestly.

It was a decade ago that Helen Mirren famously criticised sexism and ageism in Hollywood and accused the film industry of worshipping "at the altar of the 18 to 25-year-old male and his penis." Dervla has also felt this struggle in her career, but is determined to stay visible and make her voice heard. She says that Irish women are wonderfully strong, and as a country, our collective suffering in the past has given us a tremendous capacity for empathy and kindness.

STAYING RELEVANT

The Dubliner is adamant that age and the ageing process should never curtail anyone’s optimism for life, and she is glad that women are speaking out more freely on issues that affect them. “I’m menopausal and menopause is another weird taboo that has thankfully been lifted,” she says.

“All it takes is for us to have a genuine meeting of minds and to talk authentically to each other. I don't want to bullshit anyone. I don't have the answers. There are loads of things that have happened to me that were incredibly destructive and painful in my life as a woman, such as the sexism and misogyny I've experienced.”

Dervla says that the acting world is very different now to when she started. “If I lodge a complaint now, it will be listened to,” she says. “Back then, if somebody was being sexual or predatory towards me, there was nowhere I could go to say it or get advice on handling it, which was terrible. You were just told to get on with it.” When it comes to challenges, a major one was that Dervla suffered with the eating disorder bulimia for 16 years, starting during her Ballykissangel days. “I think it was very much a reaction to the anger I felt and to not having a voice,” she admits.

“It's all about mental health and that's what triggered it, but I’m through it and am stronger than ever before.”

She’s at pains to point out that sexism and misogyny have been experienced by women everywhere and not just the acting profession. In discussing the impossible standards placed on women by men in power, she references Victoria's Secret models. After a New York Times report containing accusations of bullying and harassment at the company was published, various prominent models came forward to lodge complaints.

“Things are changing because women are speaking up and standing up to billion-dollar industries,” she says. “We’re exhausted by these ridiculous, unattainable visions of beauty, and those industries have had to listen to us and change their ways.”

One thing Dervla would love to see is women banding together and understanding that we are “all in this together” rather than competing with one another.

“We've been left out in the cold, and we've been separated and isolated or pitted against each other, because someone's more beautiful, or younger, thinner, richer or more intelligent,” she explains.

“We need to let go of all of that and do what the men do. Look, obviously I get threatened by brilliant people because everyone does, but you have to override that ego. You have to say, ‘No, I'm not going to feel diminished. I'm going to try and learn from that person.’

That's the way I want to live my life. I understand that everyone wants the latest, newest, shiniest gadget, but experience does count.”

When the first episode of Smother aired last year, Denis made a speech at Val’s 50th birthday party revealing that they were getting divorced and she was moving in with her younger lover, Carl (Thomas Levin). Denis met his end a few hours later, sparking a thrilling whodunnit?

Dervla actually celebrated her own 50th birthday last October, but happily it was a much less dramatic - and murder-free - occasion! “I literally just had my family there and it was beautiful and very quiet,” she says.

“People put so much into the idea of being 50, and while I found it utterly shocking, a limb didn’t fall off or my eyes didn’t pop out so it was a bit of an anticlimax. It's funny because these deliveries of face cream I bought online have just arrived, but really I just felt invigorated and full of optimism.”

Part of this invigoration relates to Dervla’s appreciation of being at a great point in her career, after what she describes as the “cumulative years of slaving away.” She felt that if she had turned 50 and wasn’t as professionally fulfilled as she is now, it would have been “doubly hard.”

“I’ve been slogging away at this job for years.” she points out. “I’m under no illusion about getting older, but equally, I feel lucky at being alive because what's the alternative? I have my health, touch wood, and have a lot to be grateful for and I'm really looking forward to this decade.”

Catch series 2 of Smother on Sundays at 9.30pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player