She already has a loyal fan base thanks to TV’s time-travelling romance Outlander, but now Caitriona Balfe’s role in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast is set to propel her to Hollywood stardom and Oscar glory.
Balfe, 42, was born in Dublin before moving with her six siblings close to the Irish border in Tydavnet, County Monaghan, where her father was a police sergeant in the Garda Síochána.
A lover of theatre and voracious reader, a teenage Balfe studied drama at Dublin Institute