Kilkenny and Cillian Murphy - more than just a tenuous link!

Irish actor Cillian Murphy recently made history by becoming the first Irish-born actor to win an Oscar for Best Actor at the Academy Awards.

In his acceptance speech, he dedicated the award for his performance as J Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, to “peacemakers everywhere” and thanked his “partner in life and art” Yvonne McGuinness and his two sons, Malachy and Aran.

Notably, his wife Yvonne McGuinness is a Kilkenny native, and is also a dedicated and successful artist in her own right, who regularly exhibits here in Kilkenny.

She hails from Kilkenny's well-known McGuinness family, and is a niece to Kilkenny and Irish TD, John McGuinness.

Cillian and Yvonne's first encounter reportedly took place around the time that he starred in the play Disco Pigs (prior to the film) back in 1996.

They went on to get married in 2004 and soon after the wedding Cillian was involved in the production of Breakfast on Pluto, which was primarily filmed locally in Callan.

His performance in the Callan-shot film earned him an IFTA Award for Best Actor and also earned him a Golden Globe Awards nomination for Best Actor, helping cement his credentials as an actor.

Recently, in 2023, Cillian was spotted regularly on the Kilkenny-Wexford border in New Ross to film a version of the award-winning ‘Small Things Like These’ by author Clare Keagan.

Murphy’s Oscar win follows other successes on the awards circuit – with a Golden Globe, a Bafta and a Screen Actors Guild award bagged for his starring performance in Oppenheimer.

The 47-year-old said he was “overwhelmed” by the win and is “a very proud Irishman”.