Sinéad Keenan is returning to our screens in Unforgotten – but she is not the only member of her family who is a TV star.
The 47-year-old’s sister Gráinne Keenan, who is an actress, has starred alongside her in the ITV crime drama too.
Their brother Rory Keenan also caught the acting bug – and has appeared in multiple hit TV shows including Peaky Blinders.
He is also married to a Hollywood star wife.
And the showbusiness connections do not end there as Sinéad’s husband works in the TV industry as well.
Here is everything you need to know about Sinéad including her famous family and perfect meet-cute with her husband.
Who is Sinéad Keenan’s husband?
Sinéad met her husband, TV director Chris McGill, twenty years ago when they were in a Royal Shakespeare Company production in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
‘We were in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I was playing Hermia; he was playing a fairy! He was the understudy Lysander to my Hermia,’ she told The I.
The couple now live in Shakespeare’s hometown with their two sons aged seven and nine-and-a-half.
Who is Sinéad Keenan’s sister?
Sinéad comes from a famous family – with her two siblings, Rory and Gráinne, also actors.
Gráinne even plays her on-screen sister Debbie in Unforgotten. She is also known for starring in thriller Blood alongside Line of Duty’s Adrian Dunbar, Martin Freeman comedy Breeders and film The Wife with Glenn Close.
Meanwhile, Rory, 44, has featured in the Katherine Ryan Netflix comedy The Duchess, BBC historical drama War & Peace and crime drama Peaky Blinders. He is married to actor Gemma Arterton.
Reflecting on her family’s shared profession, Sinéad told The I: ‘It’s our normal, but I suppose it is unusual for three siblings to be in the same job… It’s punishment for something, I’m sure.
‘I was very shy. They were both a lot more gregarious and chatty. We were sent to speech and drama classes – I think more for them to harness whatever that was and for me to come out of my shell a bit more and get a bit of a personality.’
Sinéad said her parents were not initially keen on her acting dreams so instead she studied history and sociology at University College Dublin. However, they changed their mind after she played Eliza Doolittle in an amateur production.
What has Sinéad Keenan been in?
Sinéad started her career in Irish soap Fair City which she said was a ‘brilliant training ground’ and compared it to an ‘apprenticeship’ when speaking to The i.
After leaving the soap, she moved to London and was cast in movie On the Nose with Robbie Coltrane, short-lived sitcom The Cassidys and ITV’s Moving Wallpaper.
Sinéad also booked guest roles in TV shows including Murder City, Taggart and Doctors.
Her breakout role, though, was Nina in the BBC Three supernatural comedy-drama Being Human which also starred Russell and Aidan Turner.
Sinéad’s other credits include the Jimmy McGovern drama Care, Little Boy Blue, for which she was nominated for RTS and Bafta awards, Silent Witness and David Tennant’s final episodes of Doctor Who.
In 2023, she made her debut as DCI Jess James in Unforgotten after Nicola Walker stepped down from playing DCI Cassie Stewart.
Unforgotten airs tonight on ITV and ITVX at 9pm.
Inside Sinéad Keenan’s private life including famous TV star siblings
