--- name: "Siobhán McSweeney" canonical: "https://film.one/person/siobhan-mcsweeney" fi1m_id: "siobhan-mcsweeney" imdb_id: "nm2836709" tmdb_id: 1742631 wikidata_id: "Q26736706" roles: ["Actor"] born: "27 December 1979" reviewed_on_fi1m: 5 average_fi1m_score: 76 average_as: "actor" average_over: 5 updated: "2026-10-20T04:05:43.453692+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Siobhán McSweeney ## Identity Siobhán McSweeney - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/siobhan-mcsweeney - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** siobhan-mcsweeney - **IMDb ID:** nm2836709 - **TMDB ID:** 1742631 - **Wikidata ID:** Q26736706 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siobh%C3%A1n_McSweeney, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q26736706, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2836709/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1742631 Actor. Born 27 December 1979 in County Cork, Ireland. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 27 December 1979, County Cork, Ireland - **Active:** 2013–present - **Also known as:** Siobhan McSweeney - **Average Fi1m score:** 76, as actor, over 5 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 76 (3), 2020s 76 (2) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 77 to 80 across 4 titles - **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 3 at 60–79, 0 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 0 of 3 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Comedy 3, Drama 3, Crime 2, Action & Adventure 1, Mystery 1, Sci-Fi & Fantasy 1 - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siobh%C3%A1n_McSweeney, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q26736706, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2836709/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1742631 ## Streaming the US now - **Netflix:** [*Derry Girls*](https://film.one/tv/derry-girls.md) (83) - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Amandaland*](https://film.one/tv/amandaland.md) (80) - **Disney+:** [*Extraordinary*](https://film.one/tv/extraordinary.md) (72) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Siobhán McSweeney > Siobhán McSweeney gets her laughs by withholding: a held stare, a pause, a verdict delivered without moving. Sister Michael in *Derry Girls* made her, and the question since has been whether television will let her do anything else. Watch Sister Michael in *Derry Girls* receive a piece of news. A girl has a plan, or an excuse, or a grievance, and the headmistress hears it out with her face unmoved and then says something short. McSweeney gets the biggest laughs of the series by moving the fewest muscles. She looks at the pupils the way one looks at weather: something to be endured, not argued with. We laughed at her more than at anyone else in a well-cast programme, and nearly always at a pause rather than a line, because the pause told us exactly how little the speech had impressed her. It took a while. She had been working since 2006, with a small part in Ken Loach's *The Wind That Shakes the Barley* and years of theatre and jobbing television, including *The Fall* and *No Offence*, before Lisa McGee's sitcom arrived in 2018 and ran to 2022. The screen work that followed shows what it did for her: *Extra Ordinary* (2019), *The Electrical Life of Louis Wain* (2021), the series *Extraordinary* and *Holding*, and since 2021 *The Great Pottery Throw Down*, where she presents rather than acts. What she does is take up room. She is a large presence and she plays it as authority rather than apology, which is rarer than it should be for women in comedy, where size is usually the joke. In *Derry Girls* the joke is never her; it is the girls, and she is the fixed point they bounce off. Her stated ambition is to "wrestle plays away from the trope of the frail actress, the dainty wrist", and on screen she has managed it mostly by standing still and letting other people flap. The caveat is that television has so far asked her mainly for variations on that look, and she has said she is pushing against it. Della in *Amandaland* (2025) is a case in point. It is a good comedy, and it belongs to Lucy Punch and Joanna Lumley; it does not ask McSweeney for the held stare, and she is one more voice in an ensemble we thought took time to feel like a group. She is not wasted. She is also not the reason to watch. She spent a decade in dramas before anyone noticed, and nobody has yet built a series around finding out what the stillness does when nothing is funny. Until someone does, *Derry Girls* is where to start: five noisy girls and one woman who will not be moved. ## Biography Siobhán McSweeney is an Irish actress and presenter. She is best known for playing Sister Michael in the Channel 4 sitcom *Derry Girls* (2018–2022), for which she won a BAFTA Television Award. She grew up in Aherla, County Cork, and earned a science degree at University College Cork before moving to London in 2001 to train at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She also trained at École Philippe Gaulier in Paris. Her other screen credits include *The Wind That Shakes the Barley* (2006), *The Fall* (2013), *No Offence* (2015), *Alice Through the Looking Glass* (2016), *Extra Ordinary* (2019) and *Extraordinary* (2023). In 2025 she appeared as Della in the BBC series *Amandaland*. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (5) - *Amandaland* (2025), Fi1m 80, as Della — [page](https://film.one/tv/amandaland.md) - *Extraordinary* (2023), Fi1m 72, as Mary — [page](https://film.one/tv/extraordinary.md) - *Derry Girls* (2018), Fi1m 83, as Sister Michael — [page](https://film.one/tv/derry-girls.md) - *No Offence* (2015), Fi1m 73, as Ruth Cheetham — [page](https://film.one/tv/no-offence.md) - *The Fall* (2013), Fi1m 73, as Mary McCurdy — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-fall-2013.md) ## Complete filmography (23) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Madfabulous* (2026), as Blanche - *National Theatre Live: The Playboy of the Western World* (2026), as Widow Quin - *Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue* (2025), series, as Lisa Davies - *Amandaland* (2025), series, as Della — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/tv/amandaland.md) - *Maddie + Triggs* (2024), series, as Narrator (voice) - *Spud* (2024), as Spud · Director, Executive Producer - *Extraordinary* (2023), series, as Mary — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/tv/extraordinary.md) - *Redemption* (2022), series, as Jane Connolly - *Holding* (2022), series, as as Bríd Riordan - *The Electrical Life of Louis Wain* (2021), as Dr Cooke - *Happy Days* (2021), as Winnie - *Nowhere Special* (2020), as Pam - *Scrubber* (2020), as Scrubber - *Anthony* (2020), as Luighsearch Kelly - *The Widow* (2020), as Eileen - *Extra Ordinary* (2019), as Boring Noreen - *Derry Girls* (2018), series, as Sister Michael — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/tv/derry-girls.md) - *Porters* (2017), series, as Alice - *Alice Through the Looking Glass* (2016), as Witzender - *No Offence* (2015), series, as Ruth Cheetham — Fi1m 73, [page](https://film.one/tv/no-offence.md) - *London Irish* (2013), series, as Aoife - *The Fall* (2013), series, as Mary McCurdy — Fi1m 73, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-fall-2013.md) - *The Wind That Shakes the Barley* (2006), as Julia (uncredited) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/siobhan-mcsweeney