The Woman In The Wall’s Philippa Dunne talks gaslighting, Sinéad O’Connor and that hopeful final episode

The Woman In The Wall: Amy Kane (HILDA FAY), NIAMH (PHILIPPA DUNNE), Anna (LYNN RAFFERTY)

Credit: BBC

Under Her Eye


The Woman In The Wall’s Philippa Dunne talks gaslighting, Sinéad O’Connor and that hopeful final episode

By Kayleigh Dray

2 years ago

9 min read

Warning: this article contains spoilers for The Woman In The Wall finale.


And just like that, The Woman In The Wall ended… albeit not in the way viewers might have been expecting.

The BBC series, for those just catching up, followed Lorna Brady (Ruth Wilson), a woman who was incarcerated in a convent when she was just 15 years old. There, she gave birth to a daughter in terrifying conditions, only to have the infant cruelly taken away from her.

Understandably, the trauma she endured in the convent cast a heavy shadow over the rest of her life, and she frequently endured bouts of sleepwalking and memory loss as a result of her trauma. The Woman In The Wall began its story after one such episode, when Lorna returned to her home to discover a dead stranger lying on her floor.

Naturally, she took it upon herself to hide the woman’s body behind her living room wall (hence the title of this piece). And, just as naturally, she soon found herself at the centre of Detective Colman Akande (Daryl McCormack)’s murder investigation – albeit for a murder apparently unrelated to that of former nun Aoife (Fiona Bell).

As it turns out, though, Aoife was 100% connected to the death of Father Percy (Michael O’Kelly): she had, years ago, assisted the villainous priest in snatching children away from mother and baby homes and selling them to new families in exchange for “donations”. And she had, on the night of his death, confronted him with the evidence of their former sins.

Exclusive: take your first look at Ruth Wilson in BBC thriller The Woman In The Wall

Credit: BBC

It turns out, of course, that Lorna didn’t kill Aoife: the latter had suffered a seizure that made it seem as if she were dead, woken up trapped inside the walls of Lorna’s home, and wound up dying in the attic (clutching all of the paperwork detailing the whereabouts of the missing children, no less). 

Colman urges Lorna to tell the police that she has no memory of Aoife. That she wasn’t in her right mind. Lorna, however, refuses to do so, instead taking solace in the fact that she was never mad after all.

“I just love the way she said, ‘I’m not mad; I was never mad,’” says Philippa Dunne, who starred in the series as Lorna’s best friend, Niamh. 

“So many women have been locked up for speaking out and put away under the label of being mad. That a woman who speaks her mind and continues to speak her mind is seen as histrionic.

“Lorna probably felt so close to madness at so many stages in her life, but knew the one thing was that she actually wasn’t. All she wanted was to be listened to, to be heard, to be taken seriously. She wanted the truth to be heard. She wanted somebody to just help her, but it’s easier to call someone mad and kick them in the bin than to say, ‘Yes, what is it that you need? How can I help you? What can we do to make this better for you?’”

We must let the victims be heard

Dunne adds poignantly: “That ending was her ultimate vindication… I loved seeing that weight lifting from her as she slipped the yoke of ‘the mad woman’ in her own mind. Because, you know, if people keep telling you that you’re mad, you’ll likely start to go, ‘Well, maybe I am.’ For her, it was her answer. That’s all that mattered to her. So it was, for me, a very, very fitting ending.”

Nun (MARIE RUANE) in The WOman In The Wall

Credit: BBC

Dunne – best known for co-writing and starring in the RTÉ comedy The Walshes, as well as her roles as Anne Flynn in Motherland, Geraldine Devlin in Derry Girls and Ria in This Is Going to Hurt – is incredibly passionate about her work on The Woman In The Wall. 

In it, she stars as the aforementioned Niamh, a character whom she says “facilitates a platform for the survivors [of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries] to be listened to, and represents the advocates out there who campaign for their voices to be heard.”

And that role, for her, was incredibly important, as she feels we cannot ever stop talking about this harrowing chapter in Irish history.

“When the news [of what happened at the Magdalene Laundries] became mainstream, I was a teenager. And, of course,  there were other abuses that preceded that came to light,” says Dunne. “It was just another disclosure of awfulness in the history of the country, [and] it was probably an open secret in Ireland. That’s been one of the most eye-opening parts of being involved in this programme, because it never occurred to me that the rest of the world, and people in England, you know, don’t know anything about it. They’ve never heard about it. I’m sure it was in the news. But it was just such an…

“Well, it was such a massive revelation at the time. And there are people who are still alive and who were affected by what happened. I think it’s important to keep talking about it. I don’t think it should be allowed to be forgotten.”

Lorna Brady (RUTH WILSON) in The Woman In The Wall

Credit: BBC

Dunne adds: “It’s important to continue to talk about these things, and, you know, bring the darkness into the light as it were. We must let the victims be heard, let the survivors be heard. And remember, too, that there’s intergenerational trauma there: the survivors, their children, the children that were taken from them. 

“You know, they all have a story. Their lives have been deeply affected by what happened. And we can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”

The final episode of The Woman In The Wall was particularly poignant as, just a few months after her death, and in a powerful testament to her legacy, the late and great Sinéad O’Connor could be heard singing The Magdalene Song – a tune she gave to the makers of the TV drama.

She had, of course, been sent to a similar institution when she was just a teenager, and was famously outspoken about the Catholic Church during much of her professional career.

“She was an extremely brave woman who wasn’t afraid to be vocal and say what needs to be said and spoke for so many,” agrees Dunne. 

“She just was fearless, and she just didn’t give up. She needed to keep talking about these things, and that’s what is so fundamental to the [message of this series]: you have to keep talking about these things. And you know, Sinéad wouldn’t be quiet and she wouldn’t be stopped. She just continued to say the things out loud that needed to be said.”

Sinead O'Connor (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

Credit: Getty

Drawing parallels between Lorna and Sinéad, Dunne continues: “They were both absolutely vilified and made out to be crazy women. And, you know, just… Sinéad was the woman who wouldn’t stop talking, who just wouldn’t go away. And there was so much pressure on her to just stop talking

“She wouldn’t, because she’s an incredible, incredible powerhouse. To just have her speaking for so many who couldn’t? Yeah, I really feel sad for how she was treated and the way she was made out to be something else. Her purpose was to speak the truth and the damnation she received was horrendous.”

Her life was dictated by so many others

While the history of the Magdalene Laundries is horrific – and while the finale featured further appearances from institutional villains (or “wolves in sheep’s clothing”, as Dunne dubs them) who tried to derail Lorna’s quest for the truth – the series ended on an unexpectedly hopeful note.

Colman came to visit Lorna in prison, where he told her that her long-lost daughter, Agnes, had been taken overseas and raised in Boston, Massachusetts.

Her American family had told her that she was adopted, and Agnes had been looking for her birth mother ever since. Indeed, Colman had even arranged a call between the two and, just before the credits rolled, we saw Lorna pick up the phone to speak to her daughter for the very first time.

“I liked how it left us with that phone call because the series was filled with so much darkness,” muses Dunne. “It’s the ultimate hope. And I liked that it leaves a space between them too, because it’s the next part of Lorna’s story: how do you start or confront a relationship with a child that you’ve never met, under these circumstances?

“It’s kind of giving her back her story, and letting her choose what she does next. We’re not there to watch because Lorna’s life is finally in her hands, whereas everything else was never in her hands. So many decisions were taken away from her. And her life was dictated by so many others. This is her grand moment of hope.”

Philippa Dunne headshot

Credit: Emma Bullivant/EB Image

Does that mean, then, that there is a glimmer of hope for those viewers who are already baying for a second season?

“I can’t pretend to be in the writers’ heads,” laughs Dunne. “I really don’t know what they might be thinking. If it wants to be its own standalone thing, it totally can be. But, as you say, we might want to see more and figure out more of the story. And also, do more people get called to justice? Are more loose ends tied up? Does Colman ever learn more about his own past? I don’t know, and I don’t know [if a second season is on the cards]; I won’t guess and I don’t know if I’m allowed to guess.”

While Dunne is reluctant to talk about the future of this series, and unable to talk about the TV projects she has lined up next, she does reveal that she’s creating her own content.

“I’m mostly writing these days,” she says. “One’s a dramatic idea. One is a comedy idea. One is a film that I’m writing good friends. I’ve a few things on the boil, but it takes forever to write something and it takes forever to them for them to come to fruition, if at all. So I’m just plugging away hoping that someday I get something. Yeah, because 99% of this business is rejection and you just have to keep flinging words at the wall until something sticks. So that’s what I’m doing.”

Finally, she allows that she “would like to think that, in some way, a fragment of [the real survivors’ stories] have been told in The Woman In The Wall, and that it might open the doors for more discussion so that more people get their voices heard. That maybe they can grasp a moment of peace from it.

“I don’t think it’s my place to dedicate the series to anyone,” adds Dunne. “But if there’s a positive to be drawn, I would hope it has spoken for somebody.”

The Woman In The Wall is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer. 

Images: BBC/Emma Bullivant/EB Image

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