📍Ballintemple, Cork, Ireland
1976 – 1996“Cillian Murphy grew up in Ballintemple, a leafy suburb on the south-east side of Cork city, near the River Lee and the old Blackrock road. His father, Brendan, worked for the Department of Education, and his mother taught French, and several relatives were teachers too, so the house was full of books, language and quiet expectations. He was the eldest of four children, and the family was close, private and unshowy, which suits him still. Music was his first love. He went to Presentation Brothers College, a Catholic boys' school in Cork, where he was more interested in songwriting than in rugby, and with his younger brother Páidi he formed a band called The Sons of Mr Green Genes, named after a Frank Zappa track. They were good enough to be offered a record deal, which they turned down, partly because of the terms and partly because they were still so young. He enrolled to study law at University College Cork, but his heart was elsewhere and he did not finish the year. In 1996 the Cork theatre company Corcadorca cast him in Enda Walsh's play Disco Pigs, as a volatile Cork teenager speaking in a fierce local slang. The play toured the world for two years and began his career. Films followed, from 28 Days Later to Peaky Blinders and Oppenheimer, which won him an Academy Award. Although he lived in London for years, he moved his family back to Ireland, and he still talks about Cork with deep affection, its humour, its stubbornness and the theatre company that first gave him a stage.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today