Connor O'Neill

Connor Aloysius O'Neill was a fictional Northern Irish character in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, played by Patrick Harvey. He first appeared in 2002.

He is best known for his friendships with Toadie Rebecchi and Stu Parker with whom he lived at No.30, now better known as the House of Trouser for their slovenly lifestyle.

Connor had relationships with Michelle Scully, Lori Lee, Carmella Cammeniti and Serena Bishop. He has a daughter, Maddie, from his relationship with Lori.

Arrival
He first arrived in Ramsay Street as a backpacker. He had met Jack Scully whilst the latter was playing football in England. Scully claimed if Connor was ever in Erinsborough, he could stay with the family. He did not expect Connor to take him up on the offer, and his parents were more than a little surprised when Connor turned up at #26 out of the blue. However, they took him in and Joe Scully liked having him around.

Connor arrived on the same flight as a returning Mal Kennedy - if fact, they sat next to one another - but they got their bags mixed up. This led many to mistrust the new arrival. When he was found with Tad Reeves' wallet, Toadie quickly blamed Connor and he was forced to admit he was illiterate to prove his innocence to Tad. His refusal to admit this to anyone else led to a number of incidents but came to a head when he poisoned Michelle Scully by confusing lemonade with floor cleaner. He found people supportive and Libby Kennedy tutored him.

In his early stay he developed a relationship with Michelle Scully, with Joe taking this surprisingly well. He also grew close to Nina Tucker. Connor discovered that shy Nina was an excellent singer and encouraged her, appointing himself her manager. Michelle and Connor's relationship became troubled by Nina's crush on Connor but survived it.

Early storylines
Connor's role at Joe Scully's company, Ozebuilt, caused jealousy and one of the other employees reported him to immigration. With Connor facing deportation, he and Michelle fled Ramsey Street and contemplated marriage to held allow Connor stay. However, due to Michelle's age this proved impossible. Another plan to elope to New Zealand also failed when Steph Scully convinced Connor not to go through with it. Connor phoned Joe and planned to return to London. However, Joe convinced him to stay, explaining his illiteracy as the reason for his illegal status. But Joe and Lyn Scully decided they no longer wanted Connor to live with them and he left #26. This put an end to his relationship with Michelle, though she maintained that she would win him back.

He soon found work at Lou Carpenter's odd-job man around the Pub and, in doing so, grew closer to Toadie and Stu, the residents of #30. In the meantime he had been sleeping in his Ute. Michelle discovered this and arranged for Connor to move into #30.

When Michelle left for New York, Connor became involved with Lori Lee, setting up a t-shirt business together. Connor attempted to prevent the relationship becoming serious but she soon fell pregnant. She considered an abortion but instead returned to her family in New Zealand.

Lou sacked Connor when he found Connor had been selling his old poems. However, Lou's business partner, Max Hoyland, rehired him as a barman. During this period, he once more became close to Nina after her split from Jack Scully. Jack was annoyed and threatened to reveal the truth about Lori's departure, but Connor told Nina herself, damaging Jack more than himself. However, Nina soon departed to Bombay.

Love triangles
Following Nina's departure, Connor became involved with co-worker Carmella Cammenetti. However, her gangster father Rocco was hostile to anyone involved with his daughter. They attempted a secret relationship, but Trixie Tucker discovered them and told Rocco. Rocco caught them and sent Carmella away to a school in Italy.

Connor was again threatened with deportation when his visa - which only allowed him to work as a barman for three months - was about to run out. Max offered him a position as trainee manager and agreed to sponsor Connor. However, it was required that Connor display a "special skill". This was achieved by an old family beer recipe. The original intentions for this storyline involved Connor marrying Nina in order to stay, however actress Delta Goodrem's departure from the series due to cancer caused the storyline to be changed.

A return visit from Carmella led to their relationship being re-kindled. This was followed shortly by the return of Michelle, who found Connor and Carmella kissing. This love triangle was resolved when Michelle gave Connor a book of Irish poems, winning him over despite the fact she lived in New York. However, Jack revealed what had happened between Connor and Lori. Michelle attempted to deal with this and the couple spent a night at Lassiter's hotel, giving Connor a makeover. However, Connor had another surprise visitor - this time Lori, with Connor's daughter Madeleine. Connor was initially uncomfortable around Maddy, while Michelle was persuaded by her family to return to New York.

Connor became a more competent father and became close to Lori once more. However, Jack Scully became jealous of their relationship, putting Connor down and eventually stealing Lori away. However the couple did not last and Lori moved, with Maddie, to Lorne. He saw Maddie regularly, but on one occasion Toadie's cousin Stingray took her to the skate park without permission and lost her. She was found safe, and Stingray was the subject of Connor's fury, but when Lori found out she said her trust had been seriously damaged.

Hijinx at #30
In the meantime, Toadie, Connor and Stingray built "Cake-taker", a robot for a Robot Wars style competition at the pub. It proved successful until it was defeated by "Powder Puff", a robot built by Toadie's jealous girlfriend Sindi Watts, along with Jack Scully and Summer Hoyland.

Toadie and Connor then found they could make money pretending to be women on internet dating sites. Connor received a great deal of attention from one user, Jaguar, who sent him gifts. However, Conner then discovered that "Jaguar" was none other than Lou Carpenter. He attempted to break the news to Lou gently, then to break up with him in the guise of "Carol" (the woman he had been portraying). However, Lou was persistent and did not realise his mistake until he made advances at another woman called "Carol" in the pub. Lou was prepared to fight her husband until Connor confessed and was chased out of the pub by Lou.

Relationship with Carmella
While running from Lou, Connor bumped into a returning Carmella. She hired him as her driver but manipulated and bullied him, still annoyed at being dumped for Michelle. When Connor discovered that Carmella's claims to have a boyfriend were lies, Connor put his foot down and the two began to grow close once more.

The relationship hit trouble when Carmella's domineering mother, Lucia, found out Connor had a child.

Carmella attempted to assist Connor when Lori and her new boyfriend, Nick, planned to move to Adelaide. Connor clashed with Nick and Carmella offered to use her father's connections to resolve the situation. Connor disapproved and the two temporarily split up. Ultimately, following Toadie's advice, Connor took his daughter and refused to return her until Nick and Lori spoke to him about their plans. Amidst the chaos, Lori saw Nick's true colour's and dumped him, resolving to stay in Lorne and give Connor more access to his daughter.

Connor attempted to impress Lucia Cammenetti by accepting her offer to become junior editor of her magazine, "All Her". Though his friends attempted to help his, he was soon forced to admit to Carmella he still had some illiteracy problems. Carmella decided to help him improve his skills, and as they spent more time together, she suggested she move in to #30. This caused trouble due to the masculine environment created by Connor, Toadie and Stu in "The House of Trouser". The residents agreed to a two-week trial for Carmella, much to Connor's dismay. Lucia remained apprehensive and set Connor a number of challenges, all of which he passed.

After moving into #30, Carmella began to suspect she may have a stalker, after she received a number of mysterious gifts including perfume and a necklace. Carmella hired her driver, Frank Romano, as a bodyguard. Connor became paranoid and attacked a man he saw staring at Carmella. The man turned out to be Carmella's co-worker who she had recently turned down for a date.

Believing themselves to be safe, the pair let their guard down until Connor was kidnapped by Frank, who it emerged was the real stalker. He was tied up in a building which was due for demolition by David Bishop, the town councillor. Meanwhile, Frank revealed himself to Carmella and was arrested by Stu, but failed to reveal Connor's whereabouts. Fortunately Connor managed to free himself moments before Bishop demolished the building.

Carmella was damaged by the events and grew distant, especially when Toadie revealed Frank had been granted bail. Carmella took a gun and went to take the situation into her own hands. Connor stopped her, and she went into counselling with Karl Kennedy. She was advised to get away for a while and left Connor to travel Australia.

Connor was devastated by her sudden departure. His mood was lightened slightly when he, Stu and Toadie engaged in a prank-war with one another but after the Scarlet Bar was robbed at gunpoint whilst he was working there, he decided he too should get away and went to spend time with Lori and Maddie.

"The Shamrock"
Upon returning, Connor was disappointed to find then, following Toadie had given up on his burgeoning wrestling career as "The Lawman". In order to entice Toadie back into wrestling, he himself developed a character - "The Shamrock" - and began to train for his first match. The match was a disaster until Connor was rescued by Toadie. The two set up popular tag team and were asked to present a low-budged wrestling television series about wrestling called "The Choke Hold" from the living-room of #30.

However, Connor began to fear he was spending too much time with Toadie and had dreams involving them living together as an elderly couple. He tried to distance himself.

Relationship with Serena Bishop
When Toadie inherited a bikini shop - "Bounce" - from a client, Connor became excited at the idea of running the shop on Toadie's behalf, claiming it was his lifelong dream. Connor had little success until he came up with the idea of a "Miss Erinsborough" competition. Toadie insisted on hiring a female employee, much to Connor's annoyance, and hired Serena Bishop. The two were prickly towards one another at first, but soon realised they had feeling for one-another. However, Connor refused to act on these feelings, Serena being several years his junior. He found this particularly difficult when, on a photo-shoot for "Bounce", where Serena acted as the model, they were forced to share a bed. Still, he managed to resist Serena's advances.

Consequently, Serena left "Bounce" but Connor could not stop thinking about her. He announced he loved her in front of her parents, David and Liljana Bishop, who were less than pleased. When the pair asked Connor to persuade Serena to continue with her plans to go to University, they decided to tease David and Lil by pretending the pair wished to have children immediately.

Plane Crash
When Lori contacted Conner telling her she needed $50,000 to fund an ear operation for Maddie. Connor tried to get money from several sources - including Paul Robinson, who had funded an operation to restore Stu's eyesight - but to no avail.

At this point, Carmella returned. She felt she had recovered from her stalking incident, and hoped to re-kindle her romance with Connor. She was disappointed to find he was in a relationship with Serena, and offered to pay for Maddie's operation if he agreed to spend some time with her. Connor took the money, but made it clear that he was with Serena now. Carmella threatened Connor that the money had been obtained through illegitimate means and that her father's connections now wanted it back. This prompted Connor to rob "Bounce" in order to repay her.

When Carmella found out what Connor had done she was horrified - she had actually been loaned the money by her Mother - and anonymously returned it to "Bounce" and apologised to Connor. However, Serena saw them together and dumped Connor when he told her the truth.

With Stu growing suspicious of Connor's story that the money had been stolen from "Bounce" in an armed raid, Connor came clean to Toadie who was irate. However, before Toadie could gather his thoughts, Connor left to join Serena several of his neighbours on a joy flight to celebrate Lassiter's 20th Anniversary. Toadie had a ticket too, but refused to join Connor. Connor resolved to own up to the police following his return, and he and Serena reconciled while on the plane.

However, disaster struck when a bomb planted on the plane by Robert Robinson exploded and the plane crashed into the Bass Strait. Connor and Serena were trapped inside the wreckage and had to take off their life-jackets in order to escape. Keeping afloat on a piece of the wreckage along with Serena, Connor passed out.

He awoke later, washed up on the shore of Tasmania along with Dylan Timmins. Dylan was also on the run from the law, having been framed for robbery, and believing themselves to be the only survivors, resolved to avoid the search parties and fake their own deaths. This involved living rough for a few weeks before moving up North. Connor believed he would be more use to his daughter dead than alive. Connor found living rough very difficult and was largely dependent on Dylan to provide for him.

When the two left the bush they discovered that Dylan's girlfriend, Sky Mangel, had survived and that his brother Stingray had taken the blame for the robbery and was in prison. Serena, however, was still missing. Dylan decided to return to Erinsborough and clear his brother's name, though Connor made him promise not to reveal his own whereabouts.

He was discovered weeks later living rough by Harold Bishop, who was working for the Salvation Army. Connor moved into #24 with Harold, who was grieving the loss of his family - David, Lil and Serena - in the plane crash. Harold sought solace in caring for Connor and encouraged him to distance himself from Toadie, who had not had a chance to reconcile with Connor since their argument, and was unsure of his feelings towards Connor. However, Harold began to act strangely towards Connor, using him as a replacement for David by dressing him in his dead son's clothes. When he accidentally called Connor "David", Connor decided the best way to help Harold was to move back into the House of Trouser.

He received a warning from the police for his embezzlement.

Private Eye
Having helped Toadie at the law-firm, Connor became interested in the prospect of becoming a private investigator and took a crash university course. He carried out investigations for Paul Robinson, who believed Connor's housemate Ned Parker was having an affair with Paul's girlfriend Izzy Hoyland; on Karl Kennedy's girlfriend Jenny; and for Dylan, who believed he had been set-up be Paul's son Cameron Robinson, costing him his job. In the latter case, Connor found no incriminating evidence, failing to realise that not only had "Cameron" (actually identical twin Robert Robinson) set up Dylan, but he had also placed his brother in a coma and planted the bomb on the joy flight.

Connor was then contacted by Lucia Cammenetti who informed him that Carmella went missing on Christmas Day. She wished Connor to find her. Connor discovered that she was at a convent, and intent on becoming a nun. Carmella still believed Connor had died in the plane crash. Connor tried to talk her out of becoming a nun and invited her to stay at #30 while she thought it through.

Once more, the two grew close and shared a kiss. However, Carmella felt nothing and returned to the convent.

Departure
Carmella's choice made Connor think about his own life - all of his friends had successful careers and Stu had left Ramsey Street. He felt his life was lacking direction. When Lori announced she was moving back to New Zealand with Maddie, he saw no reason to stay in Erinsborough, and realised that, despite having come to Australia with the intent of travelling, he had stayed on the same street for four years. Thus he resolved to take six months out to travel the country.

He said his goodbyes to his neighbours - and gave Toadie the recipe for his beer, claiming he was "as good as family" - prepared to leave. However, moments before his departure, Carmella phoned him to say she had been at a hospice where one of the coma patients, "Robert Robinson", looked exactly like Paul Robinson's son. Realising that Cameron had a twin, who the family believed was missing in England, Connor raced over to #22 where he met "Cameron" outside and told him the news. He was invited into the house, where Robert pretended to phone his father, before asking Connor to stay for a beer. As Connor insisted that he really needed to go, Robert grabbed in an aggressive manner him and told him he had to stay.

Disappearance
Though Connor was not seen again, Robert was seen driving Connor's Ute away from Ramsey Street with the back covered with a tarp. Shortly afterwards, it was observed that "Cameron" had dug up a large portion of the front garden at #22 in order to plant an Irish rose bush. Thereafter, it was implied that Connor was buried beneath the bush.

Though Toadie became upset that he had not been contacted by Connor, he comforted himself by saying that Connor is probably too busy impressing girls at pubs.

However, as Toadie became close with Katya Kinski, Robert (now uncovered and in hiding), sent Toadie a box containing an Irish rose from the aforementioned bush. Toadie was alarmed and called the police. However, when the bush was dug up, all that was found was a garden gnome with a joke attached. It said "How do you get a one armed Irishman out of a tree? Wave to him". Toadie was incensed and sickened by Robert's actions, believing for some time afterwards that his best friend was dead.

However, this was changed by the discovery of Connor's wallet, found in Beijing by the Chinese police. It would have been impossible for Robert to have gone to China, and Robert seemed genuinely confused about its appearance, leading Toadie to believe Connor was still alive. Later in the episode Toadie and some of the other characters gathered in the street to reminisce about Connor.

On Friday 16 March 2007, Connor sent some Saint Patrick's Day gifts to Toadie, proving that he is still alive. The box also contained a gift for Ned Parker and a gift for Max and Steph Hoyland. There was no return address or other contact information for Connor on or inside the box, apart from the Customs tag showing it had, indeed, been mailed from China. Further, Toadie recognised the handwriting as Connor's, proving beyond a doubt that it was not an elaborate set-up from a still-imprisoned Robert to fool the authorities.