Ciaran Hinds

Ciarán began his career at The Glasgow Citizens Theatre. He has worked at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, the Druid Theatre in Galway and at the Gate and Abbey Theatres in Dublin. He has also played leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. His many television appearances include: ‘Rome’, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’, ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Prime Suspect Three’ and ‘Persuasion’. Film credits include: ‘Circle Of Friends’, ‘Titanic Town’, ‘The Road To Perdition’, ‘Jonjo Mickybo’, ‘Calendar Girls’, ‘Lara Croft’, ‘Veronica Guerin’, ‘The Phantom Of The Opera’, ‘Miami Vice’ and ‘Munich’.

I grew up in North Belfast in the 1950’s and 60’s, which I remember now as a time of innocence, invention and imagination. The Waterworks on the Cavehill Road provided us with a great arena to indulge many pastimes, whether it was sailing homemade model yachts on the reservoir, playing whatever sport we had in mind - ranging from international cricket to Gaelic football via wheelbarrow racing - or picking off imagined hordes of Red Indians or Japanese soldiers who were advancing over the brow of the Cavehill Mountain high above us. The Cavehill provided us with many bicycle paths and cowboy trails; most school holidays Mitch Campbell, Joe McAuley and myself could be found up there, either in the bluebell woods that my Grandfather Gibson first introduced me to, or even higher up on the rocky incline known as Napoleon’s Nose - we favoured the left nostril, as I remember. The Cavehill Road turns into the Limestone Road where I attended Holy Family Primary School, and just behind it, in Newington Street, lived the woman who was to have a profound influence on my life, the remarkable Patricia Mulholland, who, from the 1940’s to the 1980’s, taught generation after generation the beauty of Irish dancing with patience, skill and supreme elegance.