Susan Lynch

Susan Lynch (born 5 June 1971) is a Northern Irish actress.

Her other film appearances include Waking Ned (1998), Nora (2000), Beautiful Creatures (2000), and From Hell (2001).

Her film roles include Beautiful Creatures (2000), Waking Ned Devine (1998), and the title role in Nora (2000), about Nora Barnacle, James Joyce's wife.

Lynch played Alison Garrs in the award-winning, critically acclaimed, and hugely popular BBC television series, Happy Valley, alongside Sarah Lancashire, Siobhan Finneran and James Norton.

Creator and writer of Happy Valley, Sally Wainwright, wrote the part of Alison Garrs with Lynch in mind.

Lynch has won three Irish Film and Television Academy Awards, including Best Leading Actress for her work in the film County Armagh, Northern Ireland2000 Nora, about Nora Barnacle and her husband, Irish author James Joyce.

A three-time IFTA Award winner, she also won the British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 2003 film 16 Years of Alcohol.

She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, and in August 2004, she starred in The Night Season at the Royal National Theatre in London.

In 2008, she was one of the leads in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot at the Almeida Theatre.

She was delighted that she was able to accept the highly challenging role, particularly in the 2016 series, where her character murders her own son, a product of incestuous rape, when she discovers he has murdered several prostitutes.

In the final 2023 series, Lynch appears again as Alison, where her storyline is happily resolved.

Lynch and her husband, actor Craig Parkinson, lived in Painswick, Gloucestershire.

They have one son together and previously had lived in the Camden area of London.

The couple separated in 2019.

In 2020, she was listed as number 42 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Lynch was born in Corrinshego, County Armagh, Northern Ireland to an Italian mother (from Trivento) and an Irish father.

She has four siblings; her eldest brother is actor John Lynch.