Acomplished director/playwright of the Dublin and New York stage turned filmmaker. Sheridan had eight plays produced including the highly regarded "Spike in the First World War" (1983). "My Left Foot" (1989), his feature debut, was based on the life of writer-painter Christy Brown who was challenged by cerebral palsy. Bolstered by Daniel Day-Lewis' Oscar-winning performance, the film earned international praise, resulting in a flood of offers from Hollywood for the neophyte director. Sheridan, however, chose to remain in Ireland where he wrote and directed "The Field" (1990). Featuring a tour-de-force performance by Richard Harris as a farmer who vigilantly defends his land from an American real estate developer, the film solidified Sheridan's reputation as an "actor's director".

Sheridan has continued to work in Ireland, writing the screenplay for Mike Newell's "Into the West" (1992), a delicate yet rousing "fairy tale" about two gypsy children who go on the lam with a possibly mystical white horse. He reteamed with Day-Lewis for "In the Name of the Father" (1993) to tell the story of Gerry Conlon. Conlon was thought to be the leader of the Guilford Four, a group wrongly prosecuted and imprisoned for 15 years for an IRA bombing. The film elicited condemnation in Great Britain where Sheridan, Day-Lewis and co-star Emma Thompson were accused of making an anti-English film. By contrast, it received glowing notices in the US where some critics likened the pairing of Sheridan and Day-Lewis to that of Scorsese and De Niro.