Thomas Patrick McKenna (7 September 1929 – 13 February 2011) was an Irish actor, born in Mullagh, County Cavan. He had an extensive stage and screen career. Career Early years Thomas Patrick McKenna was born at Mullagh, County Cavan, Ireland, in 1929 and educated at Mullagh School and St Patrick's College, Cavan. He was the eldest of ten children of Raphael McKenna, an auctioneer and merchant, and his wife Mae. There he became a protégé of Fr. Vincent Kennedy who featured him in the annual productions of Gilbert & Sullivan operas. He was a noted treble and sang in Cavan Cathedral, but later would also become a keen member of the school's Gaelic Football squad representing St Patrick's in the final of the All Ireland colleges competition in 1948. After leaving school he joined the Ulster Bank in Granard, Co Longford, and worked in banking for the next five years. However, he remained set on becoming an actor and when he received a posting to Dublin he soon made a mark on the city's amateur scene appearing with the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society, and the Dublin Shakespeare Society. His employers were not impressed by his extracurricular activities and in 1953 he was posted to the remote town of Killeshandra in County Cavan. McKenna refused to go and resigned his position. Stage McKenna made his stage debut at the Pike Theatre in Dublin in 1953 as John Buchanan in Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke. He played a season at the Gaiety Theatre with Anew McMaster's Shakespearean company, and was a member of The Gas Theatre Company directed by Godfrey Quigley. Through family contacts he sought an interview with the managing director of the Abbey Theatre, Ernest Blythe. Despite Blythe's concerns that "his nose was too long and he would grow fat". he eventually become a permanent member of the company in 1954 and would remain there for the next eight years performing over seventy roles. In 1963 he secured a short leave of absence to go to London (St. Martin's Theatre) with the Gate Theatre's production of Stephen D, an adaptation of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Hugh Leonard which had been a hit of the 1962 Dublin Theatre Festival. The play was well received by the London critics, leading to offers of further other stage work there including "O'Keefe" in J. P. Donleavy's