Brenda Fricker has died at the age of 81, and Ireland has lost one of the finest actresses it ever produced. She passed away peacefully in Dublin on Thursday night after a period of ill health, and the news has landed hard across the Irish film and television community, where she was regarded not just as a brilliant performer but as a genuine national treasure. Her agent Phil Belfield said it best: we will never see her like again, and the world is lesser for the lack of her.

Fricker made history in 1990 when she became the first Irish woman to win an Academy Award, taking home Best Supporting Actress for her devastating performance as Christy Brown’s mother in MY LEFT FOOT, opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. It’s hard to overstate what that moment meant, both for her and for Irish cinema on the world stage. In her acceptance speech she thanked Christy Brown simply for being alive and dedicated the Oscar to his mother, joking that anybody who gives birth twenty-two times deserves one of these. That warmth and dry humour ran through everything she did.

American audiences will forever know her as the Pigeon Lady in HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK, a role that introduced her to a generation who had no idea they were watching an Oscar winner. But her body of work stretched far beyond that, from her years on CASUALTY and CORONATION STREET in the UK, to A TIME TO KILL and SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER in Hollywood, to her later Irish work in VERONICA GUERIN, HOLDING and THE MIRACLE CLUB. Born in Dublin in 1945, she was honoured with the Freedom of the City earlier this year, and had recently published a candid memoir, SHE DIED YOUNG, which became an Irish bestseller.

Ireland’s deputy prime minister Simon Harris called her one of the greatest exports this country has ever produced, an ambassador for Irish talent on the world stage. It’s difficult to disagree. Brenda Fricker gave Irish audiences a sense that our stories, our accents and our people could stand on the biggest stages in the world and win. Rest easy, Brenda. Thank you for everything you gave us.