Famous for his Fair City role, Tom Jordan speaks to Kay Doyle about his acting career and why he’s leaving his own fair city behind.
To many people, Tom Jordan is that familiar face that comes into their sitting room four nights a week. He is Charlie Kelly, a fictional character from the fictional area of Dublin known as Carrigstown – the setting of RTÉs most popular soap, Fair City.
Tom has played the part of Charlie Kelly for 26 years now, and you’d surely be forgiven for getting his name wrong and calling him ‘Charlie’ every now and then. As the song says, Tom Jordan is ‘as Dublin as can be’, born and reared in Marino and later Beaumont, and yet the 78-year-old has recently left his ‘fair city’ behind, calling Co. Roscommon his new home.
“I lived in Beaumont in Dublin from 1962 until last July when I sold my house and moved down to Lanesborough on the Shannon in Roscommon,” he states. “I love it. I’m just two hours from Dublin, and two hours from Galway, which is great because I love the west of Ireland.”
While Tom has great admiration for his home-place and fond memories of his life there, he believes that Dublin has changed, and it’s not a place he wants to spend as much time in these days.
“I used to love Dublin city but I’m not in love with it anymore,” he muses. “It’s all terribly changed from when I was a young man. The lifestyle has changed, the manner in which people communicate is so different than in the country where you’re constantly seeing your neighbours and you’re talking to them, and they all know your name and you know theirs.”
Even though we will see him regularly on our screens over the autumn and winter months, Tom only films in Fair City for ten weeks of the year.
