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[CULTURE] · Ireland, United States · 100 sources

Irish actress Brenda Fricker dies at 81

Actress Brenda Fricker died in Dublin at age 81 after a period of ill health, her agent Phil Belfield confirmed. Fricker was the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award, receiving the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1990 for her role as Bridget Fagan Brown in My Left Foot. She was also widely remembered as the “Pigeon Lady” in Home Alone 2 – Lost in New York, a role that made her a beloved figure for generations. Over a six‑decade career she appeared in more than 90 film and TV productions, including the BBC medical drama Casualty, The Field, A Time to Kill and Veronica Guerin. Tributes poured in from colleagues, the Irish government and U.S. ambassador Edward Walsh, who called her “a giant of Irish cinema.” Fricker’s memoir She Died Young was published in 2025, and she had recently been awarded the Freedom of the City of Dublin.

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