Evanne Kilgallon: "I don't think there was ever a question I'd pursue acting"

Evanne Kilgallon remembers the exact moment everything changed for her. She was five-years-old in the Hawk’s Well Theatre in Sligo. It was the opening night of Annie, and just before the curtains opened, she was shaking with excitement.

“That’s where my love for performing really began,” the actor tells me, her words hanging in the steam from her cup of tea.

Since that fortuitous night many moons ago, Evanne has gone on to diversify her thespian portfolio with a range of brilliant roles and credits. Most recently, she was a regular in the Sky series Small Town, Big Story, helmed by showrunner Chirs O’Dowd, which also stars Christina Hendricks and Paddy Considine.

It’s a show of unexpected turns and local charm, which lingers somewhere between Northern Exposure and X-Files. Evanne plays the stalwart, wise-beyond-her-years barmaid Shelley, who seems to be the only sane person in the quirky fictional town of Drumbán.

When Evanne received a call from casting director Amy Rowan, she was doing a play in Bewley’s and commuting via bus between Kilkenny and Dublin.

“I had to tape three scenes, which is quite a lot. But I love when you get that opportunity,” she enthuses. “So I went home and made my boyfriend David film the scenes with me. I only had one callback with

Chris O’Dowd, Amy Rowan and David Rawle, who played my friend Sonny in it. Then I got the news that I booked the job, and I felt absolute relief.

“I’m only three years out of college, so it’s great to have gotten a gig within that time. When you’re in it, it feels like you’re never going to get a good gig. I loved the plays I was doing, but they just don’t pay the bills and it’s exhausting coming up and down. So it was really rewarding to get onto a show that would guarantee work for a set time at a certain standard”.

Evanne Kilgallon. Photo: Abigail Ring

Filming kicked off in Wicklow towards the end of 2023, and wrapped up in 2024. The scale and fast pace of production was unlike anything Evanne had experienced before, with demanding work days that began long before sunrise.

“It was a really tight turnaround,” she recalls. “Because we were filming on location in Wicklow, there was a really early start. I’d get up around half-four, then I’d get picked up at quarter-past-five and drive two-and- a-half hours. Then I’d get in hair, make-up and costume. From day one, it was an elevated experience unlike anything I had done before, in terms of the scale.

“But everyone was so nice. Chris is a brilliant director. He made everyone feel like they were important, and that their opinion mattered. I really loved filming it.”

It was a long time coming for the Kilkenny-based actor, who got her start in Sligo’s Chapel Lane Studio Centre for Performing Arts. After years of youth theatre, choirs and dance classes, she showed no signs of slowing down.

“Basically anything I could do that was performative or creative, I was doing it,” she offers. “Then when it was time to decide what to do with my life, I don’t think there was ever a question I’d pursue acting. Of course, there was some fear around it, but my mom just said, ‘If you don’t do it now, you’ll regret it.’

“At that point, I wanted to do musical theatre, and there’s only one place in Ireland that teaches it to degree standard. But the head of dance there was my dance teacher growing up, and I figured I needed to go further. So I auditioned for the Institute of the Arts in Barcelona and got in!

“After a year there, I realised that musical theatre actually wasn’t my journey, and my tutors encouraged me to do straight acting, which is funny because I never even thought of that.”

After finishing her degree, Evanne returned home and decided to live in Dublin. But with the rising cost of living, she was forced to recalibrate. Hoping to remain near enough to the capital’s hustle and bustle – and certainly the opportunities – she set up a base in Kilkenny with her partner, David Keenan, the Dundalk singer-songwriter. As the hometown of her mother, Evanne came to adore the Marble City.

Her usual haunts in town steer away from nightlife, and take on a more wholesome, daytime vibe. A self-professed “hot beverage gal”, she much prefers coffee to pints on any given day.

“Coffee is more my thing, because I don’t really drink, save for once or twice a month when I’m with friends,” she says. “Like many of us, I drank a lot in college, but when I came home, I realised I actually didn’t need it. So I’m more intentional when I do drink on occasion. It’s so much more enjoyable.

“But I have some great café recommendations. My top three – in no particular order – are: Wild Tails, Low Lane and Café la Coco. They all do a really good matcha latte, which is my go-to drink at the moment.

“I’m also into iced lattes with syrup, which I haven’t really had before. But it’s like an adrenaline rush straight to the heart. I’m experimenting with syrups at the moment, as I’m new to the scene, but I really like hazelnut.”

Knocknarea.

It’s easy to feel a kinship with Evanne, who’s soft-spoken, open and possesses a certain unbridled kindness that’s rare to come by. Not to mention, she gives top-notch recommendations, whether that be a local café or a trendy restaurant. When asked how she’d spend a perfect day in Kilkenny, she answers in true Evanne fashion.

“Okay, so this is going to sound so pretentious,” she bashfully offers, “but I’d get up and go to a Reformer Pilates class. It’s challenging, but I always feel great after it. I know that sounds so wanky, but I really enjoy it!

“Once that’s over, I would get an iced matcha from one of those three spots I mentioned before. I’d take a walk through Castle Park and by the river. Hopefully it’s a warm sunny day, with a light breeze where it’s enough to wear one outer layer of clothing.

“Then I’d head to all the charity shops and browse. I find going to the charity shops is like a creative endeavour in itself. I love finding pieces of clothing that people have lived in. You’ll often find things you can’t find anywhere else. I just love cyclical fashion – I’d say 90% of my wardrobe is second-hand.

“After that, I would go to the Butler Gallery and have a little walk around. Then I’d get something for lunch in the Left Bank. They do a great chowder.”

On to the early evening.

“I’d probably go home and do something creative like paint or crochet,” she says. “I’m really into upcycling frames at the moment. I have so many prints that I bought in college and they’ve been sitting in a box under my bed for ages. I figured they’re too good to waste, but I need a nice frame for them and I don’t want to pay loads of money. So I’m buying loads of plain ones in charity shops and just painting over them.

“If I were to have dinner somewhere, I’d probably eat in Rive Gauche. It’s this great restaurant that has amazing French decor. Then I’d probably see a show at The Set or Watergate. Then I’d come back home, have a packet of biscuits and go to sleep around 11. That’s my perfect day in Kilkenny. Gallery, thrift shopping, good food, sun, nature… it doesn’t get much better than that.”

While maintaining a base in Kilkenny, the city’s proximity to Dublin also allowed Evanne to keep up her career on the stage and screen. It also opened her up to a completely new art form – playwriting.
“When I came home to Ireland, my first gig was with the Glass Mask Theatre on Dawson Street,” she recalls. “It’s a small 50-seater in the round, so the audience is right up close to you. After doing two or three plays with them, the director Rex asked me if I would write a play for their final show of 2022. I don’t know why, but I said yes and figured I’d see what happens.”

Her first production was AN LÁR, which means “middle” or “centre” in Irish. The play follows two characters Dorchas and Solas, which translates to “darkness” and “light”, and is set in an Irish mythic purgatory.

“I had just lost two women in my family in close succession at the time of writing, one of whom went before her time,” Evanne says. “It was a really tough time. But I knew I wanted to write a play that was quite feminist and featured female characters. I’m really inspired by Irish mythology, paganism, the Irish language and anything magical, which all factor into AN LÁR.

“It’s really about old Ireland vs. new Ireland, and I wrote it 80% in English and 20% in Irish. It’s also a musical! David wrote the music for it and that went down really well. It was a very surprising experience and a good way for me to find my voice. I realised I work a lot through dark humour.

“Then the next thing I wrote after that was Jester’s Privilege, which is about a jester with an eating disorder, and was set in an institution. It was loosely based on my own experiences with disordered eating.
“I actually started writing a new play last week! It’s about the last true mystic or seer in Ireland. The play is based on this young girl in an academy for the mystic arts. So, again, I’m often dealing with anything magical or mystical in Irish culture, the Irish language and female characters.”

As a lover of all things fantastical and folkloric, Evanne is keen to shed light on her native Sligo, a landscape rich in mythological associations.

“Sligo is home to the most magical places in Ireland,” she beams. “I love Strandhill. You’ve got the dunes, you’ve got Killaspugbrone, which is the ruin of an ancient church. Knocknarea is especially mystical. It’s this mountain near Strandhill, with a huge man-made mound at the summit.

“It apparently houses the body of Queen Maeve, who was buried standing up, facing her enemies in Ulster. She has a very interesting lore about her if you’re interested in ancient Ireland. So much of it is in Sligo, it truly stands apart from the other sites. There’s a palpable magic out there.”

• Evanne stars in Small Town, Big Story, available now on Sky Max and NOW.

The new edition of Best Of Ireland is available to pre-order now – also featuring Vogue Williams, Evanne Kilgallon, Niall Quinn, Andrea Mara, Robert Grace, Demi Isaac and more...