Biography

Moira Deady, Mrs Hoey (13 March 1922 – 15 November 2010) was an Irish actress.

She starred as Mary Riordan, "the quintessential Irish mammy", in The Riordans from 1965 until the show was cancelled in 1979. She later appeared as Nellie Connors in Glenroe. She played Mrs Coffey in The Irish R.M. She had roles in such films as This Is My Father and Angela's Ashes (as the grandmother.Raised in Cork City, County Cork, she later resided in Greystones, County Wicklow. She began acting by traveling around Ireland as part of fit-ups (traveling theatre troupes).She was a member of Equity Players in 1946, who toured a programme of Abbey Theatre and other famous plays.In 1954, she married fellow The Riordans actor John "Johnny" Hoey (who played "Francie Maher"). John Hoey died on 10 August 1978, aged 69. The couple had four children, Kevin, Mary, Bernadette, and Brenda. Fans often thought she was married in real life to actor John Cowley who played "Tom Riordan", her television husband.In 2009, she reunited with the cast members of the rural drama The Riordans for an RTÉ documentary on the programme. She was one of a small number of Riordans actors to work on both its successor series Bracken and Glenroe.