Brenda Fricker, the Oscar‑winning Irish actor best known to millions as the Pigeon Lady in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, has died at the age of 81 in Ireland, her agent confirmed on Friday, 17 July. Phil Belfield, announced her death but did not disclose a cause, leaving fans and colleagues mourning a performer whose face and voice had quietly threaded through decades of film and television.
After a long period in which Fricker had largely withdrawn from public life, occasionally surfacing in interviews but no longer a regular presence on screen. For many viewers outside Ireland and the UK, she was frozen in memory as the gentle, watchful figure surrounded by birds in a New York winter.