Hollywood actor Stephen Rea has carried his former wife Dolours Price’s coffin at her Belfast funeral.

A unique opportunity for American audiences to experience the best of contemporary Irish cinema, the 13th annual Irish Film Festival, Boston will showcase an award-winning lineup of Irish feature films, shorts and documentaries from March 22-25.

It’s still early in 2011, but so far the Irish newcomer of the year has to be Colin O’Donoghue. The Drogheda native starred alongside Anthony Hopkins in the Exorcist-style thriller The Rite, which should be out on DVD soon. It was O’Donoghue’s film debut, and though some critics were a bit rough on the film, The Rite spent a week as the number one movie in America in January. O’Donoghue, 30, had previously starred (alongside fellow Irish thespian Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in the Showtime drama The Tudors. Prior to that, O’Donoghue had simply done theater work and television shows for Ireland’s TV network RTE. With his performance in The Rite (which also stars Irish screen veteran Ciaran Hinds), O’Donoghue certainly opened some eyes and set himself up for an interesting career. What’s next for O’Donoghue? He’s playing things coy. “I’ve got something else in the works,” he told About.com. “But I can’t talk about it.”

An English language feature film co-produced by Ireland and the Netherlands “Nothing Personal” has been shortlisted for the European Discovery-the Prix FIPRESCI at this years European Film Academy.