“I loved meeting family." - English actress embraces Mayo heritage

Shannon Lavelle picked the perfect time to visit Mayo for the first time in nearly two decades. The Wigan-born actor was in the home county of her grandparents in August as the county basked in glorious sunshine with the All-Ireland football final celebrations in full swing.

It is nearly 20 years since the 27-year-old was last in Mayo and as her week-long holiday in Achill came to a close she told The Mayo News she did not want to leave.

“I will be back in Achill as soon as I can,” she explained with a laugh while sitting in the foyer of the Plaza Hotel in Westport.

“We stayed with dad’s cousin in Currane. She has the most beautiful view of the sea, so we just sit there every morning and just stare at it. It is really gorgeous.

“I was nine the last time I was here and to be honest I don’t know why it has been so long. It is such a beautiful place, I love it.”

Shannon’s grandparents, Tony and Sarah Lavelle (née Patten) were natives of The Valley and Currane in Achill and her late father Brian spent the majority of his summer holidays in Achill with his own siblings.

Brian passed away aged 39 from cancer when Shannon was just seven-years-old and she admits that her return to Achill has been emotional.

“My dad passed away with cancer when I was seven and I never got to experience it with him. But hearing all these childhood stories of him in Achill through my uncle and my cousins, it has been really lovely. He would get up to all sorts of mischief,” she laughed.

Family ties

“I loved meeting family and am lucky to be part of it. They have shown me around and told stories of my dad which is special. Learning more about dad’s childhood is something I was desperate to find out more about coming over. He is not here to ask him stories about Achill so it’s lovely to hear from his cousins and my uncle and what they got up to.

“I came to Achill a bit when I was younger but I did not quite appreciate it the same as I do now. My uncle said the same thing. My mum said to him, why did my dad not bring her here all the time and my uncle just said because it was normal to them. He did not appreciate it the same way as he does now.”

Wearing her Mayo GAA jersey, Shannon says she feels really at home in Achill and Ireland having lived in Dublin for a number of months over the last three years while filming the television series, ‘The Hardacres’.

As well as catching up with relatives, Shannon says her highlights of the week include the traditional music session in The Valley House and getting to see the Sam Maguire up close while in Castlebar.

“I was at home in England and left work early to watch the game. It was amazing.

“I nearly lost my mind watching the final. I was so gutted that I wasn’t in Mayo for it. I could only imagine the atmosphere but the buzz is still in the air,” she said, adding that going to a Mayo match in the new year is on the bucket list.

Sliding doors

The last three years have been a rollercoaster for Lavelle who has just finished filming a remake of the British television crime drama, ‘Dalziel and Pascoe’.

After graduating from drama college she struggled to land any acting roles and was all set to join her sister in Australia when a role in the period drama ‘The Hardacres’ came up.

“It was a bit of a sliding doors moment really,” she recalled. “I was days away from going to Australia. I even had my leaving party so my family won’t let me live that down.

“I just went for an audition and got a recall for it. It had been a few days and I thought I hadn’t got it. But my agent called and said I will have to put a pause on my Australia plans because I got the job. It was just the most unbelievable feeling it really was.”

Shannon plays Eliza Hardacres in the Channel 5 period drama series which is set in Liverpool in the late 1800s but the series was entirely filmed in Dublin and Wicklow. It was Shannon’s first ever role in television and she admits it was a step into the unknown for her.

“I was petrified on the first day on set. I didn’t have a clue how anything worked on a set or anything like that. With it being an Irish production the crew were just the most loveliest people and the cast of Hardacres were just the most gorgeous people. It was such a great job filming it.”

Shannon followed this up with a recurring role in the BBC series ‘Riot Women’ in 2024 and in 2025 she filmed series two of The Hardacres.

She continued her upward trajectory in British television when she was cast as a detective in a remake of ‘Dalziel and Pascoe’. It is an exciting time for Shannon who was not expecting such a prominent role in the show which she expects the new show to be a hit when it is aired on ITV in early 2027.

“I had an audition not long after series two of Hardacres for a really small character in a couple of scenes. Then my agent phoned me a couple of weeks later to say they wanted to offer me one of the supporting leads. I was like ‘what’. I could not believe it. I was so grateful.

“It is such a different character from someone in the 1800s to a modern detective. It was fun and really interesting to learn the ins and outs of being a detective and their day to day work. I was always fascinated with crime and police shows and it was really cool to step into that world.

“I think it should be big because Kerry Godliman and Nina Singh who play Dalziel and Pascoe are so good in it and Kerry’s character is hilarious. I think it will do very well.”

Childhood dream

Shannon says that it was never her childhood dream to be an actor but caught the bug when she was in secondary school and credits it for helping her overcome shyness when she was a teenager.

“I really loved acting and performing. I saw it really as a hobby but the older I got I threw myself into it and gave it a go.

“I decided to study it in college and did a performing arts program and then I went to drama school and got a degree. It is such a difficult industry to get into so I have been blessed that I have but it was three and a half years before I got my first job.

“You have to be a bit delusional if that’s the sort of thing you want to get into. Each year would go by and I would be like still nothing but something will come. You have to trick your brain into believing it will come. My mum would always say you need a plan b but I was like ‘no I will see how it goes’. Thankfully it is working out so far.”

Like all actors, Shannon has dreams of appearing on the Big Screen with aspirations of starring opposite stars like Irish Oscar winner Jesse Buckley. Other actors she looks up to include Liverpool born actor Stephen Graham who she described as a fantastic actor and someone who inspires her.

“He has a presence on a screen and an ability to transform into so many different characters. Sometimes you can watch an actor so many times but if you remember them from one thing. They are always that character in your mind. But his character feels so real every time and like an actual person who would live down the road. It is a masterclass,” she says.

For now Shannon is concentrating on auditioning for more roles on the small screen but in the meantime she has taken the decision to base herself in Dublin after growing to love the city.

This year she also got time to explore more of Ireland with regular road trips to places like Derry, Kilkenny, Cork and Galway while also taking in Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Belfast before going to Achill.

While she was born and bred in the north of England and has a broad Wigan accent, she has embraced her Irish heritage and expects to make regular trips west to Mayo.

“It means everything to me, it really does. I think if anyone has a connection to Ireland or a place like Achill it is something they should treasure and be really proud of. I feel so lucky to have a big part of me Irish. It is such a stunning country but there is also the history of it that I love.

“It is the best place in the world.”