Moe Dunford will be returning to our screens in an upcoming RTÉ series which looks at addiction and alcoholism.
It’s something the actor knows about all too well as he tells VIP Magazine that his father was an alcoholic when he was growing up.
Speaking ahead of The Dry premiering, he explains that his father decided to “turn his life around” at the age of 50.
“When I was going to acting college I met my dad on Dame Street. I was going to Temple Bar and he was going to Trinity. I said, ‘What are you doing?” and he said, ‘I’m going to college’,” he explains.
“He was in the Armed Forces, he did a multitude of jobs, he ran a pub for a while and the pub went down. He was an addict, an alcoholic I should say,” he tells us.
“He turned his life around at 50 and went to Trinity to be a psychologist, he worked in prisons and in addiction centres.”
Moe is beaming as he speaks about his father as he should be. Although he laughs as he remembers that his father won’t let him get too big for his boots.
“I brought him to [the set of] Vikings once, I asked him what he thought. He knocked on the walls and he said, ‘This isn’t real, I work with addicts’.”
However, it looks like The Dry has impressed his father, telling us: “He said when he watched episodes one, two and three [of The Dry], he said, ‘It’s one of the first shows I’ve seen which shows the idea of AA, how it works, asking yourself difficult questions, and how alcohol doesn’t differentiate between class’. It was a proud moment to show dad and how he got that message.”
The Dry airs on Wednesday at 9.35pm on RTE One and the RTE Player.
