Kerry town celebrates after Jessie Buckley’s best actress Oscars win

Jessie Buckley’s family have said they are proud of the Kerrywoman after she won the Oscar for best actress on Sunday night.

She became the first Irish actress to win the prize, taking home the award for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife Agnes Hathaway – historically known as Anne – in the film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell novel Hamnet.

While Buckley’s parents and three sisters attended the ceremony in Los Angeles, around 60 family and friends watched the 98th Academy Awards in the family hotel and bar.

On Monday, the lobby of the Arbutus hotel was turned into a radio studio as RTE broadcasted a series of interviews about Jessie’s upbringing and career.

The hallway was decorated with a giant picture of Jessie, a poster of the movie Hamnet and balloons – in the spirit of Ms Buckley’s message back home: “Don’t go to bed, keep partying.”

Her cousin Brendan Fuller said the bar was filled with people who had been part of “Jessie’s journey” on Sunday night, some of whom he had not seen since she was on the BBC show I’d Do Anything in 2008.

“It was like a carnival from the get go,” he told the Press Association.

“It was like a reunion and get together, and there was tuxedos and dresses and glitz and glam and everything.”

Asked if there were nerves as the ceremony went on, he said: “There was so much confidence ahead of the Oscars. I’m always more of a realist and a pessimist.

“There’s Rose Byrne, there’s Emma Stone, there’s these incredible actors who did incredibly well, and throughout the night you’re seeing these unbelievable performances and movies who are nominated but don’t get the award.

“It just got shakier and shakier in the room, it went from chatter to kind of a bit more of a simmer down. The best actor award was just beforehand, and then it was really just tense and quiet and nervy.

“When it was announced, I heard it was her name, Jess Buckley, but I was still trying to look around people to make sure it was her that was getting up off her seat.

“(You’re) trying to soak it all in, but it doesn’t actually land at all, at all, I think it, I won’t believe it until I’m holding Oscar – no pressure Jessie.”

As media gathered outside the family Arbutus hotel in Killarney, people stopped to shake Mr Fuller’s hand outside – with some slowing down their drive to ask him how Jessie did at the awards.

Fiona Crowley, who runs a stage school in Killarney that Jessie Buckley worked at while a student, said that her win is “huge” for younger people.

She said boys and girls can look up to people like Jessie and say “God, maybe I could do that”, but also know it is okay to be normal on the global stage.

“I think that’s really important and I think that’s a really good thing.

“I think that’s really important for people to see you can be a mom, you can be somebody who is young, who’s vibrant, but who has lived a life going in different directions, and yet you can still be yourself.

“You don’t have to have a fake accent, you don’t have to have a fake body, you don’t have to have a fake persona. You can actually just be yourself and isn’t that what shines in the end.”

Marie Moloney, deputy chair of Kerry County Council, said they were “so, so proud of her”.

Ms Moloney, who is a lifetime member of the Killarney Musical Society, said she had known Jessie Buckley since she was a young girl.

“She joined the children’s chorus at Killarney Musical Society back in the year 2000 when she was about 10 years of age,” she told PA.

“Subsequently, she came back and she auditioned for a lead role in Carousel and got the lead lead role, went on to receive a nomination for her acting in that role, and won that category with the Association of Irish Musical Societies.

“We feel that we gave her a little kickstart in life, brought her into the world of nominations and awards.

“The Jessie Buckley you see on the Oscar stage, or on any stage is the Jessie Buckley that left Killarney 18 years ago to go into that big world of acting. And she has not changed that one bit.

“She’s still the Jessie Buckley we all love and adore, and she was always so friendly, so kind and so full of fun, and as I’ve said several times to other people, a little bit of devilment thrown in there, too.”

She said her Oscars speech made her “very emotional” and said it was a “beautiful tribute for women and to mothers all around the world”.

She added: “It just goes to show that if you have the belief and the passion and the will to do it (and) hard work, you can achieve that.

“All the young boys and girls that are looking on now and seeing what Jessie has achieved might be saying to themselves, well, I’d like to do that, and I can do that. If she can do it, I can do it.”

She said a civic reception has been approved for Jessie Buckley’s return to the town.