Peter Caffrey:The actor Peter Caffrey, who has died aged 58, was best known for his roles in the TV drama Ballykissangel and films such as I Went Down.
He started his acting career on stage in Dublin in the early 1970s and went on to become a familiar face in British and Irish film and television.
From Terenure in Dublin, he was born in 1949. On leaving school he entered a seminary, but subsequently decided that the priesthood was not for him and left.
He began his new life with a weekend trip to Paris. There, in an art-house cinema, he saw his first "adult" movie. He recalled that during a scene featuring a naked woman frolicking in a field of daffodils, a member of the audience lost patience and shouted: "Give over the art and get on with the filth!"
Returning to Dublin, he joined with Susan Slott, Michael Sheridan and others in Metamorphix Productions, a UCD-based drama group. He next worked for five years with Jim and Peter Sheridan as a member of the Project Arts Theatre Company.
It was a productive and exciting period, and with acting colleagues like Paul Brennan and Johnny Murphy he began to make a name for himself.
The Irish Times praised his "heartwarming" Michael Collins in GP Gallivan's Dev (1977). His "astonishing performance" in Jim Sheridan's Waiting for Beckett (1978) won praise from Kane Archer: "Peter Caffrey is an actor well on his way to acquiring a breadth of technique and an authority of a considerable order."
Maev Kennedy wrote that he played the part of Fitz, in The Risen People (1980), "with humanity and unpretentious nobility". She was also impressed by his performance in The Liberty Suit (1980): "Peter Caffrey's soft geniality breaks into very plausible violence."
His other plays from that period include The Trials of Lenny Bruce (1975) and Tom Murphy's The J Arthur Maginnis Story (1976).
In 1983 he moved to England. Among the plays he appeared in were The Crucible at the National Theatre, Aristocrats at the Hampstead Theatre and A Handful of Stars at the Bush Theatre. A highlight of his stage career was his lead role in Children Of A Lesser God in the West End.
In time, he became best known for his film and television work. He first appeared on screen in Kieran Hickey's Criminal Conversation (1980), followed by Neil Jordan's Angel (1982), and went on to act in numerous films in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Night Train (1998), A Love Divided (1999) and Rat (2000).
He received widespread praise for his performance in I Went Down (1997), a witty and well-observed exploration of the world of gangsters and vendettas set in Ireland. One critic considered him "excellent" as Frank Grogan, "the world's most talkative hostage".
His television work included the RTÉ series Bracken, Father Ted, Peak Practice and Coronation Street.
Ill-health struck in 1992 when he was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth, an illness which it was feared could end his career. However, he staged a remarkable recovery and, returning to Ireland, secured the role of Pádraig in the TV drama series Ballykissangel. Despite suffering a debilitating stroke just over seven years ago, he planned to return to acting and was due to appear in an independent movie, Sweet Dancer.
He is survived by his sisters Linda, Sheila and Carol.
Peter Caffrey: born April 18th, 1949; died January 1st, 2008