![\"Peadar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/5238199_4_articleinline_Peadar_20Cox_20is_20a_20finalist_20in_20the_20Best_20Continuing_20Drama_20Sc.jpeg\" "\\"Peadar")
Peadar Cox was a finalist in the Best Continuing Drama Script category of the WGI Zebbie Awards<\/p>\nA scriptwriter for Ros na R\u00fan, and recent finalist in the Writers\u2019 Guild of Ireland Zebbie Awards, Peadar Cox has a U2 story from which he demurs from dining out on \u2013 because it ages him.<\/p>\n
Before this Glanmire-based writer, actor and former teacher worked on the Irish language soap opera screened on TG4, he taught Irish to the U2 band members, apart from Adam Clayton, at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin.<\/p>\n
It was his first teaching job. Peadar swears that he is only a few years older than the members of the mega-famous band, who recently celebrated 50 years together as a group.<\/p>\n
Peadar, who studied English and Irish at (UCD) University College Dublin, fell into teaching with a degree that was well suited to the profession.<\/p>\n
He recalls that Larry Mullen was good at Irish while Bono \u201cwas OK at it. I have a letter from him saying he wasn\u2019t the greatest at Irish but that I was the best teacher, or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an effort to make learning Irish more enjoyable, Peadar used to teach the pupils Irish songs such as B\u00e1id\u00edn Amhlaoibh. He didn\u2019t have to encourage Paul Hewson, Dave Evans and Larry Mullen when it came to music.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had already started playing music,\u201d recalls Peadar.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI remember walking by one of the classrooms after school hours where they would be rehearsing. They got a lot of support from the teachers in Mount Temple.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
While U2 had a game plan, Peadar\u2019s own career was never really planned. He says he followed his heart.<\/p>\n
Peadar Cox was a finalist in the Best Continuing Drama Script category of the WGI Zebbie Awards<\/p>\n
Born in Mullingar, the eldest of ten, Peadar and his family moved around a lot as his father was in the army and was stationed in different barracks around the country. He lived in Galway, Castlerea, and Athlone, followed by Kildare, before going to UCD.<\/p>\n
He was interested in performance and got parts in Gilbert & Sullivan operas while at boarding school in Castlerea.<\/p>\n
Around that time, he wrote sketches. But at UCD, Peadar says he didn\u2019t feel confident enough to act in plays at Dramsoc.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen one day in third year at the Freshers\u2019 exhibition, a guy grabbed me. He knew I spoke Irish and he signed me up to the Cumann Drama\u00edochta (drama group). So I had a fantastic year there doing plays in Irish.\u201d<\/p>\n
After university, Peadar says he was \u201cvery keen\u201d to get into RT\u00c9 \u2013 \u201cto do anything. I think I wanted to be in front of the camera. I applied for anything that came up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI applied for a news reading job but didn\u2019t get that. I applied for a radio producer job but hadn\u2019t a clue what that was. RT\u00c9 came back to me. They knew I had Irish. I got to do some radio plays.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just a young fellow, working with people I admired. But then it all stopped and I started teaching at Mount Temple.\u201d<\/p>\n
After four years there, Peadar decided to come to Cork to practise his yoga and run a health centre with Tony Quinn.<\/p>\n
Peadar, who studied yoga – a passion of his \u2013 used to think he would combine it with psychology. But he had dropped psychology after first year at UCD as he didn\u2019t like the approach taken there.<\/p>\n
After 15 years at the health centre, Peadar wanted to do other things and says his career at Academy Street came to a natural end.<\/p>\n
To earn a crust, he resumed teaching for a while, on a part-time basis. He took singing lessons with John O\u2019Flynn of the Irish Operatic Repertory Company.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin a couple of months, I was on the stage of the Cork Opera House, in the chorus, doing La Traviata. I was in heaven. I just loved it.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was a great time in Cork in the 1990s. You had David Gordon doing choreography. Then I started taking acting classes with Catherine Mahon-Buckley. We did Big Maggie. I got a good review from Declan Hassett (formerly of the Echoand Examiner.)\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI went on to do plays with Pat O\u2019Driscoll. At the time, TG4 was starting and someone said I should try there with my Irish.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Peadar was disappointed that he didn\u2019t get work out of an audition with TG4, some time later, \u201csomeone gave my name to someone else and I got into Ros na R\u00fan in 2001 and stayed acting there for ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peadar played the villain, Daniel McLaughlin. The soap opera had some hard-hitting storylines over the years, including one on domestic abuse, with Peadar playing opposite Joan Sheehy (who played his on-screen wife Nancy.)<\/p>\n
The plot got a lot of attention at the time and both actors got IFTA nominations out of it.<\/p>\n
The first gay kiss on Irish television happened on Ros na R\u00fan in 1997 which, says Peadar, was an example of how the soap pushed the boat out.<\/p>\n
The Irish language has served Peadar well. He does some work coaching actors in Irish, including the star Stephen Rae.<\/p>\n
\u201cStephen was in the film Black \u201947. He is very committed to Irish and I worked with him on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peadar joined the Ros na R\u00fan script team, having realised the character of Daniel was unlikely to live on long term.<\/p>\n
Each episode of the soap is 30 minutes long. There is the main story line and three other sub stories.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou structure it and create scenarios,\u201d explains Peadar. \u201cWriting dialogue is what I like the most.\u201d<\/p>\n
Irish has made something of a comeback and Peadar is delighted to have carved out a career as Gaeilge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t speak Irish at home but my mother was a teacher and was very good at Irish,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was always a very favourable attitude towards it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Peadar, it has been fortuitous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A scriptwriter for Ros na R\u00fan, and recent finalist in the Writers\u2019 Guild of Ireland Zebbie Awards, Peadar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,38747,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-637591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-cork-arts","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637591","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=637591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}