The Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) has announced that Irish actor Colm Meaney will be honoured with the Irish Academy Award for his lifetime achievement.
His career, spanning five decades, has seen him work with renowned filmmakers including John Huston, Robert Redford, Michael Mann, Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan, Alan Parker, Warren Beatty and Ron Howard.
He has appeared alongside actors such as Al Pacino, Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Bruce Willis, Anjelica Huston, Hugh Grant, Nicolas Cage, John Malkovich, Julie Walters, Brian Cox and Samuel L. Jackson.
Meaney will be presented with the award in the presence of industry colleagues, friends and family.
The 22nd Anniversary IFTA Awards Ceremony will take place on Friday, February 14th at the Dublin Royal Convention Centre.
The 2025 IFTA nominations will be announced next Tuesday, January 14th.
Meaney said: “To say I was surprised when I got the news that IFTA wanted to give me this award, would be an understatement. I was truly shocked. To be asked to join this long list of very illustrious previous recipients is a huge honour, and I'm thrilled and looking forward to a good night in Dublin on the 14th of February. Thank you to the Academy. It's a source of great pride and joy.”
Meaney starred in all three films in Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy in the 1990s - The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van, winning the hearts and minds of audiences everywhere and receiving a Golden Globe nomination in 1994 for his lead performance in The Snapper.
While continuing to work in Irish productions, he gained global recognition as Miles O’Brien in the Star Trek franchise, and has appeared in Irish and international films such as Intermission, The Dead, The Last of the Mohicans, Con Air, Layer Cake, Under Siege, Far and Away, Marlowe, Tolkien, Seberg, The Damned United, The Banker and Die Hard 2. From 2011-2016, he played the villainous role of railroad magnate Thomas C. Durant in the AMC series Hell on Wheels.
In the past year, Meaney has starred opposite Barry Keoghan in Bring Them Down and opposite Liam Neeson and Kerry Condon in In The Land of Saints and Sinners, as well as a lead performance in The Problem With People. He will soon be seen in Jim Sheridan’s Re-creation alongside Aidan Gillen and Vicky Krieps, and in TV series The Panic and Safe Harbor.
