Colm Meaney is an Irish actor, best known for his roles in television and film, particularly for his work in the Star Trek franchise.
Colm Meaney's Early Life
Colm Meaney was born to a working-class family in Dublin on May 30, 1953. From a young age, he was interested in political activists such as Rudi Dutschke and Daniel Cohn-Bendit. As an early teen, he joined Sinn Féin due to their left-leaning policies, politics would be an influence throughout his career. He was also interested in becoming an actor, mainly influenced by attending Christmas pantomimes at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin with his family but also from movies such as Lindsay Anderson’s If....(1968) and The Reckoning (1970).
He attended O’Connell's Christian Brothers Secondary school in Dublin where he helped form a students union. However, this created upset by a Catholic organization that called for the Union to be dismantled, and in response, the students held protests making the local news.
Early Career of Colm Meaney
After trouble at school, Meaney left home to attend a fisherman college in the northwest of Ireland. For six months he learned the trade of becoming a fisherman, studying topics such as navigation and net mending. After completing the course Meaney went on to work on a fishing trawler but after 6 weeks, he realised how difficult the trade was and decided to revert to his idea of being an actor.
In the short term, he landed himself a job as a lounge boy in the Parnell Mooney, a pub that actors from the Gate Theatre would frequent. Still trying to figure out how to get into acting, Meaney told one of the actors, Donal McCann, that he wanted to be an actor. McCann advised Meaney to go to the Abbey School of Acting.
When Colm Meaney was 18 he joined the prestigious Abbey Theatre School of Acting in Dublin and after completing his studies he was credited in several productions with the Irish National Theatre.
After his time with Abbey Theatre, he moved on to London to join John McGrath’s agitprop theatre group 7:84 performing in working men’s clubs, theatres, and arts centers. He loved his time with 7:84 as their productions known for its political and socially conscious productions. It was during this time in the UK he landed his first TV role in a show called Z-Cars on BBC One.
Moving to the USA
In the early 80's Meaney moved to New York to begin work in theatre. He decided he wanted to work on TV and movies so decided to move onto LA by the late 80's, the scene was more active there than in New York. He landed parts shows such as Remington Steele, Moonlighting, Omega Syndrome and in 1987 appeared in the pilot episode for Star Trek: The Next Generation "Encounter at Farpoint." Over the years his character, Miles O'Brien, in The Next Generation became more frequent and in 1993 he left from a a main role in its spin-off Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. His portrayal of O'Brien, a working-class chief engineer, made him a fan favorite. He appeared in a total of 225 episodes across the two series, making him one of the actors with the most appearances in the Star Trek universe.
Colm Meaney's Hollywood career continued but he returned to Ireland to also work on some Irish projects. The Roddy Doyle comical musical, The Commitments (1991), seen him play the role of the hilarious Mr. Rabbitte who was a big Elvis fan and father of a typical working-class Dublin family. The Commitments was a massive hit in Ireland brining Meaney into Irish stardom. Other Irish projects included Into the West (1992), The Snapper (1993), War of the Buttons (1994), The Van (1996), Intermission (2003) - also starring Colin Farrell.
At the same time Colm's movie career was also making traction as he appeared in Hollywood movies such as Dick Tracy, Die Hard 2, The Last of the Mohicans, Under Siege, and Con Air, just to name a few. To date Meaney has appeared in over 80 movies and 61 TV shows.
