Brendan O'Carroll

Brendan O'Carroll (born 17 September 1955) is an Irish actor, comedian, director, producer and writer best known for the foul‑mouthed matriarch Agnes Brown in the stage and television phenomenon Mrs. Brown's Boys. He grew up as the youngest of eleven children in Finglas, Dublin, where his mother Maureen, a Labour Party TD, raised the family on a shoestring after his carpenter father Gerard died when Brendan was only seven. Leaving Saint Gabriel's National School at the age of twelve, O'Carroll tried a variety of jobs – from waiter to milkman – before finding his calling on the Irish comedy circuit, eventually becoming a regular guest on The Late Late Show. Between 1991 and the present he has released four stand‑up videos, written a never‑produced boxing screenplay, and presented the RTÉ quiz show Hot Milk and Pepper. In 1992 he created a short radio play that evolved into the Mrs. Brown's Boys franchise, a family‑run theatre company that later translated into a wildly successful television sitcom and a 2014 feature film that topped the UK box office for two weeks. O'Carroll’s personal life is tightly woven into his work: his sister Eilish, wife Jennifer Gibney, and children Fiona, Danny and Eric all appear on the show, and he frequently draws on his own dyslexia and large Irish family for comedic material. He was awarded the Irish Film and Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 for his lasting contribution to Irish entertainment, and continues to tour the stage and develop new content from his home in Davenport, Florida.