Oscar-nominated director Jim Sheridan has talked candidly about his difficult connection with his late father, recalling the heartbreaking final moment he and his father shared and admitting that “somewhere deep down” he blamed him for his brother’s murder.
The renowned Dublin director makes an appearance in a special hour-long St. Stephen’s Day episode of Keys to My Life, an RTÉ program where host Brendan Courtney meets Irish celebrities who discuss how their homes have influenced their life.
During his visit to his childhood home, a boarding house off of Sheriff Street in Dublin, the director of My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father reflected on how his adolescence influenced his relationship with his father, Peter Sheridan.
“I was a little monster by the time I was sixteen or seventeen. I recall battling with him about everything and taking him on,” he recalled.
“This got very serious when my brother died, because somewhere deep down, I blamed my father for his death – who had nothing to do with it.”
Frankie, Sheridan’s younger brother, passed away in 1966 at the age of ten from a brain tumor.
“He was only 10, so everybody in the family believed they were somehow responsible for his death,” Sheridan stated.
“I can still recall the day and the exact instant dad passed away. I simply slipped down the wall. It was challenging for me because it coincided with my transition into adulthood.
He recalled a time when one of his teeth fell out after his father struck him in the face.
“I was in such a rage, I went upstairs and pulled a mirror off the wall and went down, kicked the door in and held it up in front of my dad and said, ‘Look at yourself’,” the director stated to Courtney.
Later in life, Sheridan claimed, he learned to forgive his father.
“I always made him the bad guy in films and plays, and then one day I realised, it’s just a product of our history – that all the fathers are bad fathers, and he’s a great guy,” said the actor.
“I started telling him, ‘I think I’ll make a movie about a good father. And in The Name of the Father, I created Giuseppe [Conlon, Gerry Conlon’s father].
“My dad is here with my mother on the first night of the movie; she is the model for the mother, and he is the model for the father.
“I love you,” he said in this ear as he came down and gave me a hug in The Savoy. I gave him a look, but I didn’t return the “I love you” greeting. I was really taken aback.
Two weeks later, he passed away. I didn’t see him again.
Sheridan remembers his first paid job in the arts when he presented the RTÉ children’s show Motley. Sheridan was the first person in his family to attend university, attending University College Dublin (UCD).
“I got fired because one week they didn’t have enough to cover after the Angelus, and I had to ad-lib for 15 minutes, so I got all the kids and talked about school – had they ever been beaten or slapped in school,” he explained.
“The Director General came in, tapped me on the shoulder, and told me, ‘You’re fired.'” I went to the canteen after that. You were discussing corporal punishment on television, and Archbishop McQuaid was right.
After graduating from UCD in 1972, Sheridan accepted a position at the bank, where he met and wed Fran, his cherished wife. Three daughters, Tess, Kirsten, and Naomi, were later born to the couple.
The family ended up experiencing a great deal of stress and financial strain as a result of Sheridan and Courtney’s vacation to their seaside Dalkey house.
“It’s still difficult to revisit it,” the director remarked as they arrived at the residence. It resembles post-traumatic stress disorder or anything like.
The couple began dismantling the old cottage on the property after purchasing it in order to construct a contemporary glass-facade home that overlooked the ocean.
“We began demolishing the old cottage in 2001 and continued until 2005. Permissions from the Department of the Marine, the Valuation Office, and other agencies were required,” he stated.
“The build was tough, because the old cottages were in a concrete structure – whereas we were trying to build in the sea and the Valuation Office asked us for a million to acquire the lease from the government.”
The cost of the building soon became unmanageable.
“Building a house is a separate business, and I’m not good at it; it’s a mess. I’m good at making movies and managing a staff. I hold myself responsible for that.
“I was paying a huge mortgage on Dalkey, 20 grand a month or something,” he added, discussing the mounting stress. We sold a number of our homes to cover the mortgage. We were so focused on getting our debts paid. God bless Fran; she had a difficult period.
Fran died of a Covid-related disease in 2021, only one year before the couple’s fiftieth wedding anniversary.
“Her passing away was shocking. You feel as though a part of you is stuck and you don’t want to go on. “You must continue on, you must move on,” he added.
“It might have exacerbated where she was at, but we had great times here too,” Sheridan said in response to Courtney’s question about whether Fran’s illness could have been triggered by the stressful financial situation with the Dalkey house.
“My mother was still alive, and she was very happy to be here, and I think proud of the fact that I’d come from Sheriff Street and got here.”
On Friday, December 26 at 8 p.m., RTÉ One and RTÉ Player will broadcast Jim Sheridan’s one-hour special edition of Keys to My Life.
