Carmel McSharry was born in Dublin in 1930.   Her career has been spent mostly in the United Kingdom.   She made her television acting debut in 1957 in episodes of “Emergency-Ward 10”.   Her other television credits include “Gideon’s Way”, “No Hiding Place”,”Beryl’s Lot” and “The Liver Birds”.   Her films include “The Day the Earth Caught Fire”, “The Leather Boys” and “Little Lord Fauntleroy”.   Her stage appearances include a revival of “Oliver” with Jim Dale in the London Palladium in the mid 1990’s.

Profile from “Familiar Unknown”:

Of course, Carmel McSharry was born in Ireland, but she has graced a number of classic UK TV shows over the years. With her wary, alert eyes and anxiously disapproving expression, she’s made something of a speciality of the busybody business.  She was Carol’s ‘mam’ in the later series of ‘The Liver Birds’ and played Mrs Hollingbery, the endearingly impervious foil to Alf Garnett’s rants in ‘In Sickness And In Health’ after Dandy Nichols passed away. She was in the ’60s Michael Medwin sitcom ‘For The Love Of Mike’, but her big break from playing servants and nosy parkers came in the early ’70s when she starred in ‘Beryl’s Lot’, the popular ITV comedy about a middle-aged housewife who decides to embark on an ambitious course of education and self-improvement. After that she went on to appear in wartime drama ‘Wish Me Luck’ and the usual ‘Ruth Rendell Mysteries’, ‘Casualty’,