Colm Meaney on being the busiest Irish actor ever

[Sherman A1]

How many films and TV shows has Ireland's own Colm Meaney been in during his long career in show business? Whatever number you're thinking of, you probably need to increase it because, according to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) the star of The Snapper, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Intermission has featured in 139 films and TV shows since his screen debut in 1973. When Ray D’Arcy puts it to him that this stat makes him the most-credited Irish actor of all time, ahead of the likes of Gabriel Byrne and Pierce Brosnan, Colm comes back with a deeply-considered and self-reflective reply:

"That’s probably due to the fact that I, you know, do any old crap."

Of course he’s not being serious there – although the dubious-sounding TV series The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns does appear on his IMDb filmography – but he does sound genuinely surprised that next year will be the 50th anniversary of his first screen appearance in Hatchet, an episode of RTÉ’s Thursday Play Date. And he does point out that he’d been working in the theatre for years before his first screen role.

But it’s his latest screen role that Ray wants to talk about first. Colm stars in a film called Confession as Father Peter, who’s locking up his Boston church one night when a wounded man with a gun bursts in:

https://www.rte.ie/culture/2022/0208/1278487-colm-meaney-on-being-the-busiest-irish-actor-ever/