Who is Yvonne McGuinness, Cillian Murphy’s wife?

9 January, 2024

Yvonne Guiness and Cillian Murphy

Yvonne McGuinness, wife of Oppenheimer and Peaky Blinders actor Cillian Murphy, hit the headlines this week after the pair made a rare red-carpet appearance at this week’s Golden Globes awards.

Murphy won Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, at the event for his portrayal of the father of the atomic bomb and he thanked his wife and family for their support during his acceptance speech.

The speech received much attention as well for the fact his wife kissed him before going up to accept the award – and left lipstick on his cheek. Taking to the stage to make his victory speech, Murphy joked: “First question, do I have lipstick all over my nose? I am just gonna leave it.”

Here’s everything you need to know about McGuinness.

Where did the pair meet?

The pair met at the start of Murphy’s career when he was touring in a play called Disco Pigs in the ’90s. Speaking about the moment he met his wife to The Guardian in an interview from 2016, Murphy explained: “That time, making Disco Pigs, was kind of the most important period of my life…The people I met there remain my closest friends….They shaped me in terms of my tastes, in terms of what I wanted to do with my life.

“And it was around the same time I met my wife,” he continued. “She came on tour with us. It was so exciting, 20 years ago or whatever it was — we were all just kids, trying to find our way — but such a special, special time.”

What does Yvonne do?

McGuinness is a talented professional artist, creating work that, according to her website, “encompasses film, performance, sculptural and textile elements, sound and writing”. “She has an interest in embodied experience of place and belonging by staging live, public, interventions and performances which create surreal and dynamic moments of interaction and connection to place, time and communities,” it added.

McGuinness’s performance installations see her “working with place, time and community” and her past work includes ‘Before The Last Sun Sets’, which was held in Lough Key Forest Park in 2019 and ‘The Central Field’ which took place in Adamstown in South County Dublin in 2018. McGuinness also has a master’s degree from the Royal College of Art, London.

She has been married to Cillian for 20 years…

The pair were married in 2004 and have two children together. They keep their lives away from the spotlight as much as possible. Speaking about his life and work in an interview with GQ in 2019, Murphy said: “[The] work-life balance thing is hard. I have an amazing wife and I couldn’t do this without her and her understanding. But it is a struggle.”

McGuinness and Murphy lived apart while filming Peaky Blinders…

Speaking to The Guardian, Murphy explained that he had to live apart from his family while filming Peaky Blinders. He explained: “It’s cancelled life. You go home to your tiny apartment at the end of the day and you feed yourself for sustenance and you learn the lines for the next day and you try to get as much sleep as you possibly can. Which isn’t much. And then you get up and do it again.”

But they are very supportive of each other’s careers…

McGuinness has been thanked by Murphy for her support throughout Murphy’s career. “I have an amazing wife and I couldn’t do this without her and her understanding,” Murphy said to GQ in 2019.

More recently, in a speech accepting his Desert Palm Achievement Award at the Palm Springs International Film Awards in January 2024, Murphy once again thanked his McGuinness and his family for their support.

As per PEOPLE, he explained: “I don’t ever really get to do this too often, I want to say thanks to my family. Two-thirds of them are sitting down there. We had to leave one of them at home doing exams.

‘But just thanks for putting up with me — putting up with the half me and the shadow me and the absent me, the remains of me when I’m doing a film like this or work in general. You’re always there. I love it. So thanks, guys.”

The pair moved back to Ireland after their children started to get “posh” English accents

After years living in London, the pair moved back to Ireland in 2015, moving to Monkstown.

As noted on Evoke, their children started to develop what Murphy described as “posh English accents” and they decided to move home as a result. “It’s kind of an Irish story to move away, do your thing and come home, that seems to be a common narrative for Irish people. And then we wanted the kids to be Irish,’ Murphy explained.

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