[3] The youngest of five children, Emily was born to Noeleen and Eamonn Taaffe in Skerries, Ireland.

The family moved when she was an infant to Tullyallen near Drogheda, County Louth where she lived until university.

Her credits include: Daphne in an adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Nation, Hannah Lambroke in Conor McPherson’s The Veil[citation needed] and Dunyasha in Howard Davies' production of The Cherry Orchard,[5] all at the National Theatre, London.

Taaffe played leading roles in The Comedy of Errors, The Tempest and Twelfth Night for The Royal Shakespeare Company[6] in Stratford upon Avon and in London.

Having begun to expand into screen work,[8] Taaffe had a role in the CBC series X Company, an emotionally driven character drama set in World War II, and in the Victorian era detective drama, Ripper Street.