Ella Lily Hyland on swapping her starring TV roles for the Abbey stage: ‘I can feel the fear, but it’s fine’

The Carlow actress on her agent’s white lie before landing the lead role in Amazon Prime series Fifteen-Love, grappling with Daniel Mays in an upcoming Disney+ show and finally treading the boards of the Abbey Theatre for her new play Grania Ella Lily Hyland. Photo: Euan Cherry/Getty Images Since the first cohort of graduates left the Lir just one decade ago, Trinity College’s drama school has been a key player in Irish acting. It has opened up a whole new world to many of the students who passed through the academy.

Ella Lily Hyland is one of them. Growing up as an only child in Carlow, the 25-year-old had a drama teacher she adored and she performed Shakespeare monologues long before she understood what she was saying. Her mother, a hairdresser and yoga teacher, was involved in amateur dramatics, and Hyland spent a summer in Dublin with the National Youth Theatre (NYT) when she was 16.



She hadn’t heard of the Lir until then. Join the Irish Independent WhatsApp channel Stay up to date with all the latest news.