Ex-TD Mary's cousin was in The Waltons
There are few Irish people who have never seen “The Waltons”, the US drama programme, which was about a rural family leading up to World War II – and former TD Mary O'Rourke has just revealed there was a local link to the show, through her family.
One human interest story on the series featured the character “Daisy Garner” in 1978, who was engaged to “John Boy Walton” in the 1977/78 season.
The actress who played Daisy was Deirdre Lenihan whose father was Liam Lenihan, Mary O'Rourke's uncle.
Liam emigrated to the US in the 1920s and became a journalist with the New York Herald Tribune.
He was caught up in the McCarthy communist witch hunts of the early 1950s.
Mary O’Rourke reveals in her new best-selling book, ‘Letters of My Life’, that after her uncle was accused of being a communist, he changed career and became an actor on the Broadway stage starring in many plays including ‘Juno and the Paycock’, and ‘All My Sons’.
His daughter, Deirdre followed in his footsteps and her character had a pivotal role in The Waltons.
Mary, an ex-TD and ex-minister met Deirdre when she attended a Lenihan family reunion arranged as part of The Gathering in 2013 at The Hodson Bay hotel, which was owned by Mary O'Rourke's father, Paddy Lenihan.
With Deirdre on that visit was her husband, James Sloyan, also an actor, who has also had an illustrious movie and television career. He had high-profile roles on the classic movie, ‘The Sting’, and on the ‘Star Trek’ series, among others.
In ‘Letters of My Life’, while talking about Deirdre playing Daisy, Mary O’Rourke writes: “I used to watch this story about a poor American family avidly with my children when they were young and never knew that it was you, Deirdre. How I would have dined out on that in Athlone had I known!”
“Acting must be in the blood, I always say that if you embrace the world of politics as Brian, Paddy (Mary’s brothers) and I all did, you are forever on stage anyway. Politics is a form of acting in many ways.”
‘Letters of My Life’ was number 8 in the Irish hard cover non-fiction list last week.