Jessie Buckley has made history by becoming the first Irish woman to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards.
The Killarney native took home the award for her role as Agnes in Hamnet, an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Maggie O'Farrell. The film tells the emotional love story that inspired William Shakespeare to write Hamlet.
Buckley’s win marks a historic moment, as only two other Irish women — Saoirse Ronan and Ruth Negga — had previously been nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. Buckley herself had been nominated before, earning a Best Supporting Actress nod in 2022 for The Lost Daughter.
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When her name was announced, Buckley was embraced by her Hamnet co-star Paul Mescal and the film’s director Chloé Zhao. Despite receiving eight nominations, Hamnet’s Best Actress win was the film’s only Oscar of the night.
An emotional Buckley thanked her family during her acceptance speech, revealing they had travelled from Kerry, Dublin and even New Zealand to support her. She also paid tribute to her husband and eight-month-old daughter, calling motherhood “the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.”
Speaking afterwards, Buckley shared a message for people celebrating back home in Ireland: “Don’t go to bed — keep partying!”
