{"id":512288,"date":"2026-06-22T08:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T08:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/512288\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T08:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T08:34:13","slug":"sorcha-furlong-id-like-to-grow-old-gracefully-ish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/512288\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorcha Furlong: “I’d like to grow old gracefully-ish”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celebrating 26 years playing Orla Molloy on Fair City, fan favourite Sorcha Furlong sits down with Janice Butler to discuss her enduring love of acting, the joys of motherhood and the support that helps her through difficult times.<\/p>\n

Actress Sorcha Furlong has played fan favourite Orla Molloy in Fair City for 26 years. In that time, she has lived life as fully off-screen as on.<\/p>\n

Dodging heavy rain showers on our shoot in Barberstown Castle, a stone’s throw from her home in West Dublin, she\u2019s in good form, having just finished a run of the stage production Happiness Then in Dublin.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve been double jobbing,” she says. “I was feeling my age with it,” she laughs. Even though she\u2019s spent her life on screen, she admits to being slightly uncomfortable posing in front of the camera. “I don\u2019t like all the focus on me,” she remarks.<\/p>\n

Sorcha was 23 when she started working on Fair City, for what was meant to be only a few weeks. In what turned out to be a significantly longer gig, her character, Orla, has married Wayne Molloy and Paul Brennan, cheated on him with Lenny, and experienced a severe health crisis with her son Junior. Orla often finds herself engaged in petty Carrigstown gossip and deception; it\u2019s been quite the ride.<\/p>\n

“It seems absolutely mad. I thought I was only coming in for a couple of weeks, but you don\u2019t feel the time pass. I think that\u2019s a good sign when you\u2019re working on something you love. Every year, I\u2019m thankful that I get a contract; I never take that for granted,” she comments.<\/p>\n

\"Sorcha<\/p>\n

Sorcha\u2019s character has been involved in some big storylines over the years, and as a mother herself to a teenage daughter (Stella, 16), she says the storyline in which her on-screen son Junior was seriously ill really hit home. “The Junior story affected me deeply as a mam. It\u2019s extremely important to me that we try to reflect as accurately as possible what families in this situation are going through,” she says.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s nice to be the topic of watercooler moments, she remarks that she\u2019s content when her character Orla is in the background. “It\u2019s great getting a chunk of the pie and getting a storyline you can research and get stuck into. But it\u2019s also nice when you\u2019re in the background of other people\u2019s stories because you might not see certain actors for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, so it\u2019s nice to be involved with whatever they have going on. We all get a piece of the pie, and that\u2019s the way it goes,” she says.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Lucan, Co Dublin, Sorcha always wanted to be an actor. Her grand uncle was Joe Lynch, who famously played Dinny Byrne in Glenroe, but Sorcha remarks that her family weren\u2019t involved in the showbiz world.<\/p>\n

Her father, Dave, is in the “rag trade”, and her mother Patricia works in retail. “They\u2019re not anyway enamoured by the business. It certainly wasn\u2019t something that was pushed on me; if anything, my parents were encouraging me to get a ‘proper\u2019 job, but they did support me when I wanted to be an actor,” she recalls.<\/p>\n

She went to the Gaiety School of Acting as a teenager and then on to study theatre in college. “It was something that I always wanted to do and not for the adoration or the fame but for the love of it.”<\/p>\n

\"Sorcha<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been able to combine screen work with Fair City and her love of theatre over the years. “They\u2019re both completely different experiences. Theatre is an adrenaline rush. You are connecting with the audience, and you want to hold that connection with them and bring them on that journey. I love the stage, and I think it makes me a better screen actor, because it grounds you,” she says.<\/p>\n

Music is a big passion of hers, too, and she has been gigging since she was 19. However, over the years and especially since becoming a parent, she says she had to prioritise the sort of work she takes. “You take the work that you love, and I\u2019m lucky I\u2019m in a position that I love what I do,” she says. “I need to be around for the chaos that is life,” she laughs.<\/p>\n

When she\u2019s not on Fair City, she works in the family business, a menswear label called House of U, where she works with her dad and cousin. “I got into the family business,” she says. “It\u2019s lovely to get that time with my dad and cousin; it works well,” she adds.<\/p>\n

At home, it\u2019s Sorcha and her daughter Stella, who she says is her “world”. “I always knew I wanted kids. I was 33 when I had Stella, and I just can\u2019t imagine not having her. She\u2019s the best thing that\u2019s happened to me, but don\u2019t tell her I said that!” she laughs.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s hard when you\u2019re parenting a teenager because you do have to let them go a little bit, but then you want to protect them too. I think because it\u2019s just the two of us; she\u2019s my life, and I probably need to loosen the rein. But it\u2019s a different dynamic when there\u2019s just two of you,” she adds.<\/p>\n

Sorcha credits her family, her parents and sister Louisa, who live close by, for their help with childcare over the years. “I\u2019d be lost without them,” she says sincerely.<\/p>\n

\"Sorcha<\/p>\n

She\u2019s had a difficult few years personally \u2013 her marriage to Fair City writer Ken Harmon, who she married in 2019, ended during Covid. He passed away suddenly in 2024. While they were no longer together, the loss is hugely felt by her and the team at Fair City. She\u2019s emotional when talking about it, and unsurprisingly, she doesn\u2019t want to say too much.<\/p>\n

“My family and friends get me through as well as memories and my daughter. It\u2019s sad, of course it\u2019s sad, it\u2019s absolutely devastating. He was a big part of my life and a lot of people\u2019s lives, so it\u2019s absolutely hard. But that\u2019s all I really want to say about it; it\u2019s very raw.”<\/p>\n

She adds that the Fair City family are hugely supportive of each other, and they have gone through so many life experiences together, both good and bad. “We\u2019ve all gone through personal stuff in our time on the show. We\u2019ve lost colleagues, people have had babies, people have been sick. When you work 12 hours a day with a group of people, it is like a family. People are there for you no matter what, in good times and in bad times,” she says.<\/p>\n

Sorcha turns 50 next year, and when the styling team on the shoot were packing up, the conversation turned to Botox. Sorcha announced she had recently got it done for the first time, and later I ask if she minds putting that on the record. “Of course not,” she says. I ask her why now?<\/p>\n

“A lot of my friends have had it done, so I just thought I\u2019d try it. They were all laughing at me, ringing up asking them questions, and calling me a Botox virgin,” she laughs. “I\u2019m on a bit of a skin journey, but I\u2019m not looking to do anything drastic. I got the minimum amount because I\u2019m an actor; I need to be able to move my face.<\/p>\n

“It wasn\u2019t really for vanity, just more to see what it would do. I certainly don\u2019t want to look like I\u2019m frozen. I\u2019d like to grow old gracefully-ish. I have stretch marks and life marks, and I am proud of them,” she adds.<\/p>\n

Ageing doesn\u2019t bother her, she says, and she\u2019s happy in her skin and where she\u2019s at in life. “I don\u2019t think about it until I say to myself I\u2019m going to be 50, how did that happen?” she laughs. “But work is going great, Stella is great, so I focus on those things; age is just a number.”<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also found huge joy in the new member of the family, a cockapoo puppy called Stevie (after Stevie Nicks) that they got last year. “He\u2019s absolutely gorgeous, and he\u2019s great company for me. He\u2019s filled a little hole I didn\u2019t know was there,” she gushes. “He\u2019s been great for me; I didn\u2019t expect to love him so much.”<\/p>\n

As for the world of Orla in Fair City, things are crazy as ever for her, juggling a busy life, a little like Sorcha herself. “She\u2019s managing Vino\u2019s, she\u2019s going for the interview for the job in the prison, she\u2019s doing Tiny Tours, and be a mum”, she says. “So she\u2019s a lot going on, but that makes it interesting.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celebrating 26 years playing Orla Molloy on Fair City, fan favourite Sorcha Furlong sits down with Janice Butler…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-512288","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\/512288","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=512288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}