NICOLE KIDMAN – Oscar-winning actress, face of Chanel, former spouse of Tom Cruise…
… is actually from Longford.
Yes, the Australian star of Days of Thunder, Far and Away and Eyes Wide Shut hails – genetically speaking – from the land of cows and Big Mickey Furniture.
According to research by Fiona Fitzsimons for Irish Lives Remembered Genealogy Magazine, Kidman’s great-great-great-grandmother Mary Bridget Masterson grew up in the hamlet of Rincoolagh, near Granard.
Mary Bridget and her husband left for Australia on the ‘colonial bounty scheme’, under which the New South Wales government paid for workers to come to Australia.
Descendants of Kidman’s ancestors “remain in Granard to this day”, Fitzsimons writes.
We can only hope that Kidman returns one day to do her furniture shopping.
