Ria Mooney was an Irish stage and screen actress, artistic director of the Abbey Theatre and director of the Gaiety School of Acting.
10 Facts About Ria Mooney
1.
2.
Ria Mooney was the first female producer at the Abbey Theatre.
3.
Ria Mooney was born in Rathmines, a suburb of Dublin, on 30 April 1903.
4.
Ria Mooney started acting as a child, sang with the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society as a teenager, and studied art at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art.
5.
Ria Mooney played the part of Rosie Redmond in The Plough and the Stars on 8 February 1926, when the players were attacked during a riot in the theatre.
6.
Ria Mooney went on to play prominent roles in the period's most important Irish plays by O'Casey, Teresa Deevy, Carroll, Shiels, Robinson, Lady Gregory and Synge.
7.
Ria Mooney was shocked at his sudden death of a heart attack in 1941.
8.
Ria Mooney left the Abbey in 1944 to direct the Gaiety School of acting.
9.
Ria Mooney leased the old Queen's Theatre in September and continued in residence there until 1966.
10.
Ria Mooney took the opportunity to employ younger actors, many of whom she knew from her time teaching at the Gaiety.