This week on Home and Away in Australia, the trauma of last week’s shocking events takes its toll on Irene, as she falls off the wagon for the first time in 9 years.
Those who’ve kept up with our articles will know that Back to the Bay exclusively revealed a big upcoming story for Irene (Lynne McGranger) six weeks ago, after we saw some intriguing scenes being filmed at Palm Beach in March.
Recent weeks have seen Irene taken in by conwoman Bronte (Stefanie Caccamo), who she’d met whilst at a hospital in the city for her annual healthcheck, and had been led to believe she was suffering from an autoimmune disease.
After pouring her heart out to Irene, Bronte had been invited to stay at the Beach House whilst she awaited test results. It was soon revealed to the audience that it was all a big scam, and Bronte quickly stepped things up a gear by claiming her test results showed she only had a few months to live.
It didn’t take long before Bronte slipped into conversation that there were clinical trials going on in Canada, but the fact that it would cost $100,000 to take part meant it was far out of reach. Taking the bait, Irene and the wider Summer Bay community were soon pulling together to set up a crowdfunding page.
Irene even encouraged Bronte to sue the diner after claiming she’d been victim of the benzine contamination, but later agreed with Leah that they would instead donate $25,000 each to Bronte’s cause.
Dana (Ally Harris) was the only person throughout all of this to actively doubt Bronte’s claims, much to the annoyance of Irene, but when she convinced Bree (Juliet Godwin) to look up Bronte’s medical records, they found she didn’t exist anywhere in NSW.
Bronte and her co-conspirator Chase (Joshua Mehmet) attempted to silence Dana by kidnapping her, but it was already too late. With Bree confirming Dana’s suspicions, and the facts around Dana’s disappearance not adding up, Rose (Kirsty Marillier) was soon investigating.
When John (Shane Withington) and Xander (Luke Delaney) spotted Bronte driving Irene’s car, they followed her to the remote location where Dana had been taken. When John managed to raise the alarm, Dana was saved and Bronte and Chase were arrested.
Encountering Irene one last time in the police station, Bronte cruelly pointed out that Irene only had herself to blame. All she’d needed was a stupid old woman gullible enough to believe her.
Although everyone is being returned their money, Irene is still wracked with guilt for bringing Bronte to the bay, particularly since it’s also caused a fracture in Xander and Dana’s relationship that they’re not sure they can work through.
“Irene has always prided herself on being a great judge of character,” Lynne tells TV Week. “And of course, with Bronte, this has gone completely down the toilet.”
When John and Leah (Ada Nicodemou) took Irene and Dana out for dinner at Salt, Irene was notably distracted when the barman poured out a whiskey for John.
She later returned home having bought a bottle for herself, but as she cracked it open she had second thoughts, and rang a helpline begging them to talk her out of drinking again.
Sadly, it’s not enough.
This week, as reported in TV Week, Irene fails to turn up for work at the diner the next morning after being unable to drag herself out of bed, so a concerned John goes around to check on her.
His attempt to help only causes further upset for Irene though, and after booting him out, Irene brings out the bottle from her hiding place under the sink.
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She pours herself a glass, and despite doing all she can to fight it, she takes a swig, followed by another.
“The shame and despair that she feels is why she goes back to alcohol because it’s an escape for her as most alcoholics know,” Lynne continues.
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After polishing off the bottle, Irene gingerly makes her way down to the diner coffee cart, where Leah and Marilyn (Emily Symons) notice that she’s a bit out of sorts and clumsily fumbling around everywhere. When she butts in to Xander and Dana’s conversation about their relationship, it’s plain to see that something is seriously wrong.
Will her friends be able to help her before it’s too late?
We already knew that Irene would be taking a break from the show this year, as Lynne McGranger prepared for an upcoming theatre production, and this latest storyline seems to be paving the way for her temporary departure.
After jetting off for a short break in the UK in March, Lynne went straight into rehearsals on her return and is now starring as Liz in new comedy musical ‘The Grandparents Club’, which opened in late May and is touring theatres in NSW, ACT and Victoria until 4th August.
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“(I’ll be going for) just a little while, not leaving anything permanently,” Lynne revealed on Seven’s The Morning Show earlier this year.
“I came from revue-type situations, from community theatre, all of that,” she explained of the production. “I’m getting back to my roots, singing and dancing, interacting with the audience. I can hold a tune and I can belt-out a number, but I’m no Aretha Franklin!”
Although early fans of the show will remember Irene first appeared back in 1991-1992 as an alcoholic, abusive mother to kids Nathan (David Dixon/Craig Ball), Finlay (Tina Thomsen), and Damian (Matt Doran), she was then played by Jacqy Phillips.
Episode 1000 saw Finlay and Damian believing Irene was dead after she drunkenly fell down the stairs
When Irene returned to Summer Bay on a permanent basis in 1993, Lynne McGranger took over the role, and it would be 16 years before she had to play the character as inebriated.
Though there had been some close calls during those years.
In 1995, Irene found herself outcast by her friends after taking the side of killer Dodge (Kelly Dale) on his return to town, who won her over after telling her he’d shared a cell with Nathan.
Irene was left humiliated when it turned out that not only had Dodge faked his death to frame Steven Matheson (Adam Willits)—who Irene had vilified following Dodge’s disappearance—but that he was also responsible for killing her own estranged husband Murdoch (Tom Richards) a few weeks previously.
With housemate Marilyn (Emily Symons) at that point unaware of the ‘no alcohol’ rule in Irene’s house, she had bought a bottle of wine to put in a casserole, and promised Selina (Tempany Deckert) that she’d get rid of whatever was left over.
However, Marilyn forgot, and the open bottle was sat on the kitchen shelf waiting for Irene to find it. Thankfully, she was able to resist temptation.
In 1998, Irene hit another low point after being dismissed from Summer Bay High as Donald Fisher’s (Norman Coburn) secretary, him having realised she’d faked her secretarial skills and was secretly recording their conversations to type up later.
Having previously left the Bayside Diner, which had undergone a trendy revamp that she felt out of place in, Irene was left without a job for the first time in years and struggling for money.
Sitting down with a bottle of wine as she tearfully flicked through her family photo album, Irene knocked a glass over onto photos of grandson Paul, which brought her to her senses.
It wasn’t until 2009 that we saw Lynne’s Irene fall off the wagon for the very first time, following a particularly traumatic event. Irene had gone on a sailing trip with new boyfriend Lou De Bono (David Roberts), but their yacht was found drifting a few weeks later around 100km off the coast.
As police officer Angelo (Luke Jacobz) and his colleagues approached, an intoxicated Irene shot at them, wounding an officer.
It was revealed that Lou had disappeared from the boat one evening whilst Irene slept. Paranoid that whoever got Lou would come back for her, and unable to work the radio, Irene had been stranded at sea for several days and so resorted to drink.
Unable to provide a satisfactory explanation to the police for what had happened, Irene was held in prison on remand.
Lou’s vengeful ex-wife Donna (Suzie McKenzie) then paid a prison officer to smuggle alcohol into Irene’s cell, in an attempt to further discredit her.
When forensic evidence on the boat proved that there was at least one more person present, Irene was released. But she continued to drink.
Things came to a climax when Annie (Charlotte Best) found Irene’s hidden bottle of gin, in its hiding place in the cupboard under the sink, and poured it away. After failing to wrestle the bottle out of Annie’s hands, Irene slapped her across the face.
This was the wake-up call Irene needed to seek help, and she attended AA meetings.
Irene maintained her sobriety for another six years, until troubled Olivia Fraser-Richards (Raechelle Banno) returned to Summer Bay in 2015. After Irene discovered that Olivia was cutting herself, Olivia admitted that she had been subjected to abuse from a family friend back in London.
Olivia’s story brought up painful memories for Irene, who went on to admit to Olivia and Leah (Ada Nicodemou) that she too had been abused by as a teen by her Uncle Pete.
Irene was hiding a bigger secret though, and it was the weight of this that caused her to drown her sorrows with a bottle of vodka.
Irene was found by Leah in tears on the kitchen floor, after she accidentally smashed the bottle and cut her hand. When Leah used a nearby baby blanket to stem the bleeding, Irene was horrified to realise what she’d done, and began to lash out.
Irene later admitted that she had given birth to a child following her Uncle Pete’s abuse, and the baby had been taken into care. Unable to even hold the baby before it was whisked away, she didn’t even know if she’d had a boy or a girl.
Even with the weight of a decades-old secret off her mind, Irene made no attempt to hide her continued drinking, with the effects of her relapse far more widely felt in the community this time around.
She lashed out at Olivia, claiming she was a leech, whilst Alf’s attempts to talk her round also went ignored, even when he poured her grog down the sink.
After Irene showed up inebriated to Zac (Charlie Clausen) and Leah’s wedding, housemate Chris (Johnny Ruffo) took Irene home and attempted to take her hip flask away, only to be met with a slap.
It was again this moment of violence that brought Irene around and stopped her drinking, and as she spoke with Leah, Irene decided to put her demons to rest by finding out what had become of her baby. That would end up being a whole other ordeal the following year, with her son revealed to be Mick Jennings (Kristian Schmid).
With Irene now facing her third relapse over the space of 15 years, will she be strong enough to pull herself through once again?
