![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2bbb011d-255f-40ab-b3d1-aa1cdcb02181.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBest known as Biddy from Glenroe, Mary McEvoy is thrilled to play a well-written character with their own story arc.\n<\/p>\n
In the film Abode, Mary plays Peggy, a woman who receives a visit from a former suitor (Brendan Conroy) keen to rekindle a romance. But her son is not happy \u2014 and does what he can to keep them apart.<\/p>\n
Written and directed by Irish filmmaker Liam O Mochain, Abode features a stellar cast that also includes Mary Murray, Marion O\u2019Dwyer and Stephen Jones. The feature film includes five stories connected by the theme of home and what that means to the different characters in the film. \u201cIt\u2019s a film with a theme of \u2018home\u2019 that will resonate with so many people,\u201d says O Mochain.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mary as Peggy, who gets a visit from an old admirer, played by Brendan Conroy<\/p>\n
\u201cA theme that is always relevant, no more so than today. The stories are a mix of drama and comedy, inspired by true stories, events or incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary was glad to work with O Mochain, who she previously teamed with on another film, Lost and Found. \u201cTo use very non-cinematic language, he\u2019s not up himself,\u201d she says of the filmmaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s telling the story, he knows what he wants, and he\u2019s spinning all the plates. He\u2019s a producer, he\u2019s a director, he\u2019s a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also relished the opportunity to bring a rounded female character to the film, adding that often, women of this age are on screen because they\u2019re another character\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t have their own story arc, they don\u2019t have their own centre, they don\u2019t have their own line in the film. You\u2019re there because you\u2019re the lead\u2019s mother. Liam\u2019s women exist in their own right, they have their own stories to tell. They\u2019re not an appendage to someone else\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Gail Brady, Jed Murray and Matthew O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n
It helped, she adds, that she got to work with top Irish actor Brendan Conroy. \u201cBrendan and I have worked in lots of things over the years, and our paths have crossed so many times. He\u2019s an amazing actor, and he\u2019s the sharpest dresser I have ever come across, just a great guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary has starred in dozens of TV shows and movies including Striking Out, Bridget & Eamon and the horror comedy Extra Ordinary. On stage, she\u2019s starred in such iconic plays as Dancing at Lughnasa and The Matchmaker.<\/p>\n
But for many of us, she will be best remembered as the straight-talking Biddy Byrne, whose marriage to Miley in Glenroe was Ireland\u2019s Sunday-night water-cooler moment before we even had water coolers.<\/p>\n
![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/753dd0d6-588d-4d41-ba17-803d8831f57a.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Mary in Abode<\/p>\n
News in 90 Seconds – Wednesday, November 12<\/p>\n
The show was a life-altering casting which turned her into a household name and she played Biddy for 16 years. It comes as a surprise to hear that when she left Glenroe, she thought that could have been the end of her acting career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I left Glenroe I thought I wouldn\u2019t work again. I actually retrained as a TEFL teacher. I thought if I was teaching English as a foreign language, I wouldn\u2019t have to be getting over the Biddy barrier every time, because they wouldn\u2019t know who I was.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a subsequent casting in The Chastitute, she says, that helped change her mind and she would go on to enjoy a theatre career spanning over two decades.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rose Henderson and Liam O Mochain<\/p>\n
Why did she feel leaving Biddy behind also meant leaving acting?<\/p>\n
\u201cI was never burdened with a lot of self confidence vis-\u00e0-vis my career. In that Ireland that was then \u2014 I think it\u2019s a big difference now \u2014 you weren\u2019t encouraged to believe in yourself as an actor.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther actors would, but the powers that be wouldn\u2019t tell you that you were valued. [I thought] this is my one hit wonder, even though I\u2019d done theatre before that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had been in it for 16 years and I thought: \u2018That\u2019s it now\u2019 and I was perfectly happy for that to happen. Then it all started to grind up again, and I started doing theatre.<\/p>\n
“It was 2000, going on 26 years ago. It was very different then, and the whole atmosphere around television and the arts was different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary was born and raised on a farm, and has long joked that being able to drive a tractor helped her seal the Glenroe deal. \u201cI didn\u2019t have to act being familiar with getting over a gate, it was there within me.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/86c19f31-6587-4049-8418-4ca224e45a7e.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Stephen Jones in Abode<\/p>\n
Back in 2003, she and her long-term partner Garvan returned to the family farm where she grew up in Co Westmeath permanently, a decision she is glad she made.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, it\u2019s been wonderful for me. It\u2019s been literally earthing for me. I don\u2019t farm animals for slaughter, I just have lots of beautiful pets that I look after, and rescues and things, and that\u2019s lovely, and that keeps me sane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the years, fitness has also been a greatly beneficial part of her life, so much so that in 2022 she trained as a Pilates instructor. \u201cI walked in and I was by far the oldest person on the course. I don\u2019t know why I thought that there would be people pushing 70 who wanted to be a Pilates teacher!\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why it was such a surprise to me, but there was a huge sense of pride in doing it. What my body learned to do and became capable of doing in just the short year that I qualified \u2014 it\u2019s extraordinary what the body can do.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mary in Glenroe<\/p>\n
\u201cI do Pilates because it\u2019s extremely good, and I found a gym, which is literally eight minutes from my door, and it\u2019s in the middle of the country, in a field, and it has become church for me. Not just from the point of view of working out three times a week, but also the sense of community.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of future ambitions, Mary says she would like to take up running again. And although she says she is \u201cvery content\u201d with her life, she\u2019d be open to further acting roles. \u201cI\u2019d like a nice acting job where I had to wear a frock. I\u2019d love to wear a frock. I never had to wear frocks.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Best known as Biddy from Glenroe, Mary McEvoy is thrilled to play a well-written character with their own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-141202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}