Eamon Farrell, the father of Irish Oscar nominee Colin Farrell, died in Dublin on Wednesday, April 9. The former Shamrock Rovers star was in his 80s.
Eamon, formerly of Castleknock and later Glasnevin in Dublin, "passed peacefully after a long illness bravely borne, in the loving care of his family and the excellent staff of the Whitworth Ward, Beaumont Hospital," a notice on RIP.ie states.
Eamon is described as the beloved husband of Eileen and loving father of Eamon, Catherine, Claudine, and Colin, and the beloved brother of the late Tommy, Maureen, and Sean.
He is sadly missed by Rita, his step-children, his grandchildren, in-laws and partners, nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours, and friends.
Reposing will be at his home on Friday, April 11 for family and friends. A funeral mass will be held on Saturday, April 12, at the Church of Our Lady of Victories on Ballymun Road, followed by cremation at Glasnevin Crematorium.
Leading tributes on Wednesday was Shamrock Rovers FC, which Eamon joined when he was 18 years old.
The club noted that Eamon and his brother Tommy were both on the team that beat Shelbourne in the FAI Cup final in 1962 played in front of an attendance of 32,000.
The death has occurred of former Rovers player Eamon Farrell.
— Shamrock Rovers FC (@ShamrockRovers) April 9, 2025
Eamon joined Rovers in 1960 at 18 years of age from the famous schoolboy nursery club Home Farm.
A half back who was a minor and schoolboy Ireland international, Eamonn played alongside his older brother Tommy during… pic.twitter.com/Jnhihh1nS4
Colin has said that while his parents grew up working class in Dublin, he and his siblings were more middle to upper-class.
"Dad played football till he was 26 or 27," Colin told the Daily Mail in 2010, "after that he owned a fish-and-chip shop by a golf course, The Little Chip Inn. Honest to God, he never let us forget the wit of that.
"Then he had a restaurant. He has a health-food store in Dublin called Down To Earth."
Eamon's notice on RIP.ie on Wednesday says that he was the former proprietor of Health Matters.
When he was younger, Colin was expected to follow in his father's footballing footsteps, but instead, Hollywood was calling.
“I wanted to be a footballer, but I wasn’t good enough,” Colin told The Times in 2012.
“Certainly, when I was 13 or 14, I knew for sure that I’d dropped the ball, so to speak.
"I mean, my dad was kicking a punctured tennis ball up against the wall in his back garden from the time he was 4, on his own, 6 hours a day. So by the time he was 9, he was like that black-and-white footage of Maradona – he could make that ball speak. The knowledge of the game, it was so deep in the marrow of who he was.
"I just… didn’t want it enough. He always used to say that to me: ‘You’re not hungry enough,’ and he was right.
"But I was obviously hungry enough to get on a plane to LA.”
In 2015, Eamon announced that he had gotten engaged to his partner Eileen Pollard, a widow.
"We met through mutual friends and have always got on well together, but I never would have thought I'd see the day when I would consider being married again. It's wonderful," he told The Herald at the time.
"Eileen used to go on weekends away with pals and I would be away with my friends, but we used to miss each other, it was terrible being apart. So after one of those weekends I asked Eileen if she would marry me," he said.
"We had spoken about it before, but it's a different thing talking about it and doing it.
"Both my knees are wrecked from the football, so I couldn't go down on bended knee," he added with a laugh.
"Eileen will put the ring on on Christmas morning. I only asked her on Monday, so hardly anyone even knows yet.
"We have the blessings of all our families too, which is important," he added.
Indeed, Colin was on hand for the wedding celebration in Cyprus in July 2016.
Meanwhile, Colin contributed a poem dedicated to his father to "Sons and Fathers," a charity book in aid of the Irish Hospice Foundation.
More recently, Eamon got a sweet shoutout from his son when Colin accepted his Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series SAG Award for his lead role in "The Penguin."
Running short on time, Farrell squeezed in thanks to his family, including his siblings Claudine, Catherine, and Eamon, "my mom Rita, my dad Eamon," as well as his two sons.
You were certainly spreading the love, Colin 😭#SAGAwards pic.twitter.com/bGsZDAAuzP
— SAG Awards® (@SAGawards) February 24, 2025
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