Will Cash or Irene discover them next week on Home and Away in the UK as Harper battles to hide her runaway sister Dana at the Beach House?
After her sister Dana (Ally Harris) was set up by her ex-boyfriend Olly for stealing medicine from the hospital where she worked, Harper (Jessica Redmayne) travelled to the bay to ask her old friend Cash (Nicholas Cartwright) for assistance in clearing her sister’s record.
Harper has briefed Cash on Dana’s situation, but she hasn’t disclosed that she is hiding Dana; instead, she has only stated that she doesn’t know where she is.
The following week, after the two threw away Dana’s phone to keep her from being found, Dana is discovered looking for Harper’s phone in an attempt to call Olly. Dana is certain that things can be resolved if she can simply speak with Harper, even if he reminds her that it was him who initially got them into this situation by lying to the police.
Cash unexpectedly knocks on the door as the two are arguing. While Harper informs Cash that she was speaking with a salesperson on the phone, Dana withdraws into the bedroom. As of right now, Cash hasn’t heard back from the city’s local area command about his request to view Dana’s case file.
Irene (Lynne McGranger) thinks Harper is in the shower when she hears it running, but Harper comes out of her room, giving the two a near miss. Harper apologises to Irene, telling her that she has to wait for the shower to warm up, but the water bills are not paid for by themselves.
Dana finds Harper’s phone unattended and begins drafting a message to Olly after overhearing Cash inform Harper that the city LAC is now purposefully unwilling to turn over the case file. Just in time, Harper reappears and stops her, asking, “Do you want to be caught?!”
Dana, tired of being told what to do, decides to get some fresh air and leaves the house, running the serious risk of being discovered and taken into custody by the authorities.
Fortunately, Harper persuades Dana to come back inside before she attracts any notice, and that evening, Dana stays cooped up in the bedroom while Irene extends an invitation to Cash to join them for dinner.
The next day, the couple gets a break when Irene abruptly says she’s heading to her granddaughter (see below), who is quite pregnant with twins, for a visit.
Cash returns in the interim, having at last obtained access to Dana’s file, and he observes that there are many unanswered questions. The entire argument rests on the fact that Olly could have easily stolen Dana’s medication shop pass, which was utilised to gain entry, and that the sole available CCTV in the area was inexplicably inoperable.
Is Cash making a mistake?
However, more crucially…
Who is the grandchild of Irene?
We are clueless! This is the first time in Irene’s past that there has ever been a reference to a granddaughter who is now old enough to be having children. As is the case with most situations involving questions of continuity, the programme purposefully omits any specifics—not even naming the granddaughter.
We were aware of Irene’s three children for the first twenty-five years on the show: Finlay (Tina Thomsen), Damian (Matt Doran), and Nathan (David Dixon/Craig Ball).
Paul and Mark, Finlay’s two children that we know about, were both born in 1997.
The 26-year-old grandsons of Irene are Paul (L) and Mark (R).
Following Irene’s surrogate role for Finlay and her partner Barry (David Woodley), Paul’s birth was shown on film. A few weeks later, Fin unexpectedly became pregnant herself shortly after travelling to the US to carry out the surrogacy process, and she gave birth to Mark off-screen.
Even though both of Irene’s grandchildren are now 26 years old and have been longtime fans of the show, as well as Lynne McGranger herself, urging it to utilise their presence, the boys have never gone to see Irene in Summer Bay and have only been mentioned a few times over the years.
For longtime fans, this picture of Finlay, taken 19 years after her departure, was confusing.
Nevertheless, Irene was observed in 2016 glancing at a picture of Finlay’s kids, which featured a girl and a boy without any context. At the time, this was attributed to a bad prop choice because Fin had received the most references of all of Irene’s children without even hinting at a girl.
Damian underwent a significant metamorphosis in his latter episodes of the show.
Damian, Irene’s youngest son, became a priest after being last seen in 1996. It is evident that he is quite unlikely to have had any children, considering he was last heard to be residing in New Zealand.
After being released from jail in 2002, Nathan—who was last seen on the show—reformed and married Grace O’Connor (Mary Docker), an Irish nurse he had met in Summer Bay. It’s likely that the couple has a daughter who is up to 20 years old but has never been addressed because we’ve never heard if they have kids.
When Nathan was last seen, it was in 2002 (he was shown in red with his future wife Grace, celebrating his 30th birthday).
Of course, there is still another son, but despite all the commotion that surrounds him just a few years ago, he seems to have already been forgotten. After being mistreated by her uncle when she was fourteen years old, Irene disclosed in 2015 that she had given birth to a kid. Her long-lost son Mick Jennings (Kristian Schmid) was then brought into the show.
Mick, Irene’s son, later relocated to Washington after being released from a mental health facility.
We will not delve into all the intricacies you can read in his profile, but he did end up “fathering” Luc, Irene’s grandchild, through his rape of Billie Ashford. Although the show gave us a continuity bomb this year by revealing that Luc was going to be five, she is now six years old and lives in Cyprus with her quasi-stepfather, VJ Patterson (Matt Little).
