Colm O Maonlai

A seasoned actor of screen in his native Ireland, Colm Ó Maonlaí joined the cast of BBC Eastenders in April 2002 playing the sexy fireman, Tom Banks. He quickly captured the hearts of a legion of fans, who felt sad when he left the show in November 2002 after his character's death in a house fire. Before landing his role in Eastenders Colm had starred in numerous films and made several TV appearances, including popular series Ros na Run on TG4, this one in gaeilge (Irish language). In fact Colm is a fluent Irish speaker. Born in Dublin, in a talented family (Colm's mother Eithne Lydon was an actress and his brother Liam is Hothouse Flowers lead singer), Colm grew up in Dublin and West Kerry, one of the Gaeltacht (Irish speaking) areas of Ireland. He trained at Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied theatre arts. Colm did a few plays and some TV commercials but his big breakthrough came when he was noticed in a London café by the film director Marcus Thompson who offered him a role in the movie Middleton's Changeling, which starred, among the others, Ian Dury.In addition to his acting talents, Colm is also a musician, he can play tin whistle and bodhrán (a celtic drum). In the 90s he joined Shane MacGowan's band The Popes for the album "The Snake". It's also worth mentioning Colm did the backing vocals on Waking Ned Devine original soundtrack and Maire Breatnach's "Angels Candle", beside working with many other artists. In 2002 Colm teamed up again with director Marcus Thompson. Set against the magical landscape of Wiltshire, A Place To Stay movie, is a romantic story of love between a traveller and a gypsy woman, starring Colm Ó Maonlaí and Amanda Ray-King as the star-crossed lovers. After several guest TV appearances and a short Irish movie (Rógairí), Colm has joined the cast of RTE's TV show Fair City. His character is Rory Goff, an undercover cop.