Maggie is a Belfast based actress, writer, director and teacher. After training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, she began by working on the alternative comedy circuit as a singer with the wonderful acapella group Draylon Underground, appearing at such iconic venues as the Comedy Store, Jongleurs and on Radio 4 and BBC2.

1. A Draylon Underground
Draylon Underground. Maggie Cronin, David “Olly” Allman, Soo Drouet, and Matthew Diamond

Since then, her versatility has created a career crossing many genres, including TV, film, stage, radio, audio books and commercials. Highlights so far have included the role of Mary Burns in the Academy Award winning short film The Shore, directed by Terry George and being one of the original leading cast members of Doctors, playing the role of Kate McGuire for over 600 episodes.

Maggie recently filmed the part of Maggie Crawford in The Last Rifleman, starring Pierce Brosnan and directed by Terry Loane, which is now in post production. She was Josie – a hit women with a difference – in short film Gravest Hit, written and directed by Robert Herbert McClean (Savant Garde Films). Gravest Hit was selected for the prestigious LA Shorts International Film Festival, 2021 and Belfast Film Festival 2021 and won ‘Best Ensemble Cast’ Award in the Big Fridge International Film Festival 2022. For BBC Radio 4, she played the part of Maureen McEnroe in Mosley Must Fall, written by Martin McNamara and directed by Anne Isger, it was broadcast in November 2021.

Maggie’s writing includes many plays, monologues and short stories including her solo shows A Most Notorious Woman, about the chieftain and pirate Grace O’Malley, (which won the Stewart Parker Trust/BBC Radio Drama Award and is published by Lagan Press). Another solo show, Greenstick Boy, (a semi-autobiographical show about Punk, Irish dancing, heroin addiction and …Dagenham) was performed at the Bozar Theatre in Brussels as part of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Brussels Platform. In 2008 she was honoured to be awarded the Belfast Telegraph’s “Woman of the Year” in the arts category.

She also graces a mural (in a leather jacket) at the iconic Duke of York’s pub in Belfast alongside such other luminaries as Ciarán McMenamin, Pierce Brosnan and Christine Bleakley! The mural was painted by Danny Devenney, Mark Ervine and Marty Lyons.

In addition to acting and writing, Maggie directs and teaches. Over the past number of years she has directed shows for Emily DeDakis, Green Shoot productions, Outburst Festival, the Lyric theatre’s Learning Department and at Queen’s University, Belfast. She has also taught at numerous venues including the Lyric, at Queen’s, the Rainbow factory and on an individual basis. On top of this busy schedule she is currently undertaking a PhD into the lives of female theatre practitioners in Northern Ireland at Queen’s University, Belfast. It’s been a varied, eclectic and sometimes crazy career so far and she looks forward to the next adventure!