Pauline Flanagan

Pauline Flanagan (29 June 1925 – 28 June 2003) was a County Sligo-born Irish actress who had a long career on stage. American television audiences best knew her as Maeve Ryan's sister, Annie Colleary, on the soap opera Ryan's Hope in 1979 and again in 1981. She later returned to the show as Sister Mary Joel.

Her family was deeply political and supported the Republican (anti-Treaty) side during the Irish Civil War. Both of her parents, Patrick and Elizabeth (née Mulligan) Flanagan, both served as Lord Mayor of Sligo. She was good friends with fellow Irish actresses Joan O'Hara and Paddy Croft. Flanagan spent much of the early 1950s touring with Anew McMaster, where she met Harold Pinter at the Gate's Pinter Festival.

She appeared in many Broadway plays, starting in 1957 with Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood. She starred in the 1976 Broadway revival of The Innocents. She appeared on Broadway in Philadelphia, Here I Come! in 1994.

She appeared Off-Broadway, several times with the Irish Repertory Theatre, including Juno and the Paycock (1995) and A Life (2001) She appeared in the Harold Prince play Grandchild of Kings at the Irish Repertory Theatre in February 1992, receiving the 1992 Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Best Actress. Other Off-Broadway work included Yeats: A Celebration. She appeared in the play Summer, by Hugh Leonard at the Hudson Guild Theater, directed by Brian Murray. (Summer premiered at the Olney Theatre, Maryland, in August 1974.)

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