In 1949, Quigley made his first film appearance, in Saints and Sinners. He appeared in two Stanley Kubrick films: first as the prison chaplain in A Clockwork Orange (1971), and then as Captain Grogan in Barry Lyndon (1975). In British television, he played a has-been gangster in the serial Big Breadwinner Hog (1969). His theatre roles include the Irishman in Tom Murphy's The Gigli Concert, for which he won the Harvey's Best Actor Award in 1984.
In the 1950s, Quigley co-founded the Globe Theatre Company, whose members included his wife, Genevieve Lyons. The company was disestablished in 1960. During the same period, he produced the radio soap opera The Kennedys of Castleross.
