Jeremy Irons already has an Irish wife and an Irish castle — so how fortuitous to find ancestors who hail from the auld sod.

The actor was born in Cowes on the Isle of Wight and his father warned him not to look into the family history as he would find “only boring accountants”. But he signed up for the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? hoping to find roots in Cork, where he bought a castle and painted it pink. “When I first went to Cork I felt like I was coming home,” Irons purred.

“I married an Irish woman, Sinead (Cusack), but I felt a real empathy with Ireland, not just with this Irish girl.”

And as luck would have it, the Beeb found that David McCreight, an old Irons who owned a linen mill, once lived 20 miles from the actor’s abode in Ballydehob. Said Irons: “It was a strange feeling of validation, not dissimilar to winning an Oscar. And with my great-great-great-great-grandfather working 20 miles down the road — that was quite extraordinary.”

Well, sorry to disappoint Jeremy, but with 64 great-great-great- great-grandparents, the chances of one of them coming from Ireland’s second most populous county seem reasonable enough.

Sunday times

Oct 1, 2006

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