Fionnuala Flanagan was born on December 10, 1941. She is an Irish actress based in Hollywood who has appeared on American TV in Rich Man, Poor Man and Murder. Fionnuala wrote, among others, and in various feature films.

Her weekly-series stints have included "Aunt Molly Culhane" in "How the West Was Won" (1977), which earned her a second Emmy Award nomination. Actress played "Lt. Guyla Cook" in "Hard Copy" (1987) and "Kathleen Meacham", wife of a police chief played by John Mahoney in "H.E.L.P." (1990). She is also well known for her guest appearances in three of the "Star Trek spin-offs". Flanagan guest starred in the "Star Trek: Deep Space" Nine episode Dax, the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode Inheritance as Data's "mother", and she also appeared as the Vulcan "Ambassador V'Lar" in Star Trek: Enterprise. Fionnuala also recently guest starred in the episode "Flashes Before Your Eyes" of Lost.

She appeared with Helen Mirren in Some Mother's Son, written and directed by Terry George, as the militantly supportive mother of a Provisional Irish Republican Army hunger striker in 1981. Subsequently, she spoke at a memorial hosted by Sinn Fein at the Citywest Building in Dublin for Irish republicans and their kin who were killed during the latest installment of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

She with her husband (since 1972), Dr. Garrett O'Connor, also an Irish nationalist, are known to give lavish parties at her Hollywood Hills home for people in the "Irish community".