Puppy love for smitten Saoirse and her beau
ENJOYING the late summer sunshine, Saoirse Ronan’s affections seem divided between her boyfriend and her dog… and occasionally the bagel she chose for breakfast, too.
The four-time Oscar nominee was pictured out for a stroll near her West London flat with beau Jack Lowden and her four-yearold Westie-golden-retriever cross, Fran. They took time to relax in a park before sitting down outside a Notting Hill bakery.
The famously down-to-earth Saoirse, who received her latest Academy Award nomination for playing iron-willed Jo March in the recent adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, couldn’t have looked less like an A-lister.
She was dressed down in a trendy denim skirt, tights and a pair of studded leather monk-strap shoes from shoemaker Church’s, priced at €660.
The 26-year-old, who grew up in Co. Carlow, has made no secret of the love she has for Fran. But the origin of the name she chose is less adorable: he’s named after Nidge’s drug-dealing friend in the popular, if gruesome, Love/Hate TV drama.
Saoirse admitted that ‘only Irish people’ would understand the name of her pooch, saying: ‘Fran from Love/ Hate is my favourite character and I love [actor] Peter Coonan in it. I’ve told him this and I called my Fran after him.
‘Originally we wanted a boy dog and then we met Fran and we were like, “No, it’s only ever been you.” So she got the name. So technically she’s Frances, but she’s named after a drug dealer from inner-city Dublin.’
Earlier this year, the MoS confirmed that Saoirse was dating 29-year-old Jack, who played her husband Henry in the 2018 movie Mary Queen Of Scots. Lowden initially denied the relationship – despite them appearing ‘extremely close’ at a party in New York.
Saoirse’s most recent role, in Francis Lee’s Ammonite, is that of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage who meets Kate Winslet’s palaeontologist, and romance ensues. It has already been tipped for Oscars.
Her dog is named after Love/Hate character