Lynne McGranger has revealed that the final Home and Away storyline for Irene Roberts was drawn from a painful real-life loss, with the plot inspired by Jess Redmayne’s mother and her early-onset dementia. McGranger said the material was beautifully done, but also deeply sad.
The disclosure adds a fresh layer to the departure that ended her 33-year run as Irene, a character she had made one of the most recognisable on Australian television. Her exit last year was described as the end of an era, and McGranger had already called leaving her dream role bittersweet, saying she was proud of the story that would see Irene out of the Bay.
The reason the detail matters now is that McGranger has spelled out where the emotion came from. Speaking recently about the storyline, she said the idea came from Redmayne’s mother, who was diagnosed with early-onset dementia in her 50s and died a few years ago. In Irene’s final scenes, the character, living with degenerative Alzheimer’s disease, chose to sell her house and travel the world while she still could.
That real-world link gives the farewell more weight than a standard soap exit. McGranger said she had worked every day with people she loved, respected and now considered family, and that is part of what made the storyline land so hard. She said it made her very happy because it was beautifully done, but she also called it incredibly sad.
Her comments also sit alongside a remarkable awards season. In 2025, McGranger won the Silver Logie for Best Lead Actress in a Drama and the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television. She said the Silver Logie blindsided her, joking backstage that if she had known what was coming, she would have left years ago.
McGranger’s farewell now stands as more than a long-running character’s exit. It is a case of a soap storyline being rooted in a family’s grief, and the result was a send-off that matched the scale of the role she played for 33 years. What remains unresolved is the exact final on-screen date of Irene Roberts’ departure, but the emotional shape of her exit is already clear.
