seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Category Archives: Film, Radio, & Television


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Launch of RTÉ Lyric FM

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RTÉ Lyric FM, an Irish 24-hour classical music and arts radio station owned by the public-service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), is launched on May 3, 2016. The station, which is based in Limerick, County Limerick, is available on FM throughout Ireland, on Sky UK digital satellite in Ireland and the United Kingdom, and via the Internet worldwide.

RTÉ Lyric FM develops from FM3 Classical Music, which begins broadcasting on November 6, 1984. FM3 broadcasts classical music on the RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta (RnaG) network at breakfast time, lunchtime and in the evenings. The station is rarely marketed, except via promotions on RTÉ Radio 1, and has low listenership ratings. It is probably best known for occasionally simulcasting the stereo soundtrack of movies being shown on the RTÉ television channels prior to RTÉ’s deployment of NICAM digital stereo.

As Raidió na Gaeltachta expands broadcast hours, FM3’s service hours changed to 7:30 PM until 1:00 AM and 6:30 AM until 8:00 AM. Eventually it stays on air until breakfast time when RnaG comes back on.

On May 1, 1999, RTÉ puts in place an additional national FM transmitter network, and it is decided to separate FM3 from Radio na Gaeltachta, and expand its remit to include other types of minority music. The resulting station is Lyric FM (currently styled RTÉ lyric fm). It also moves from Dublin to Limerick as part of a policy of regionalisation. At the time of the station’s launch, RTÉ lyric fm’s digital studios in Cornmarket Row, Limerick, are the most advanced in the country.

RTÉ Lyric FM wins PPI National Station of the Year for the second time in 2004.

In May 2009, the station celebrates 10 years broadcasting. This is celebrated with a concert by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and RTÉ Philharmonic Choir. Current presenters include Marty Whelan, George Hamilton, John Kelly, Liz Nolan, Paul Herriott, Niall Carroll, Lorcan Murray, Bernard Clarke, Aedín Gormley, and Ellen Cranitch.

RTÉ Lyric FM attracts an audience share of 1.6%. The current head of the station is Aodán Ó Dubhghaill.

Recent schedule changes have caused some dissent amongst listeners and the station has been accused of dumbing down. A petition is also launched to save the Sunday early morning programme “Gloria” presented by Tim Thurston.


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Birth of Gloria Hunniford, Television & Radio Presenter

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Mary Winifred Gloria Hunniford, Northern IrishNorthern Irish television and radio presenter and singer on programmes on the BBC and ITV, is born into a Protestant family on April 10, 1940 in Portadown, County Armagh. Her father is a member of the Orange Order.

Hunniford starts as a BBC production assistant in Belfast and a local radio broadcaster. In the 1970s and 1980s, she is the presenter of Good Evening Ulster and on the ITV Network Sunday Sunday and We Love TV. She also appears on Lily Savage’s Blankety Blank and on Call My Bluff. She is a regular reporter on This Morning and The One Show.

From 1998 to 2003, Hunniford presents Open House with Gloria Hunniford for Channel 5. In August 2010, she appears as a panellist/presenter on the ITV daytime programme 3@Three. Since 2009, she has co-presented Rip Off Britain, a consumer complaints programme on BBC One with Angela Rippon and, for the first two series, Jennie Bond, and then, for the third series, with Julia Somerville replacing Bond. Together, the trio of Hunniford, Rippon and Somerville also present Charlie’s Consumer Angels.

In 2012, Hunniford presents the BBC One documentary series Doorstep Crime 999. From September 8, 2014, she is a presenter on ITV chat show Loose Women. She is previously a guest panelist in 2003. From September 2014 to July 2015, she appears on the panel in 31 episodes of the programme, three of which she anchors. As of April 6, 2017, she has appeared 93 times, four of which she anchors and two where she is a guest panelist.

In 2014, Hunniford presents the first series of the BBC One programme Home Away from Home. Gyles Brandreth presents the second series. She also presents three series of Food: Truth or Scare with Chris Bavin from 2016.

Hunniford makes a health and exercise video called Fit for Life and also appears on the UK music video of the Muppets cover to “She Drives me Crazy.” She has written an Irish Cookery Book with her sister Lena entitled Gloria Hunniford’s Family Cookbook.

On The Alan Titchmarsh Show on May 6, 2011, Hunniford reveals her support for David Cameron‘s Conservative-led coalition government, describing herself as “a bit of a David Cameron fan,” although she criticises the government’s decision to continue giving aid to Pakistan when it is making cuts in the UK.

In August 2014, Hunniford is one of 200 public figures who are signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September’s referendum on that issue.


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Birth of Irish-German Actor, Michael Fassbender

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Michael Fassbender, Irish-German actor, is born in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany on April 2, 1977.

Fassbender’s mother, Adele, is from Larne, County Antrim, while his father, Josef Fassbender, is German. According to Fassbender family lore, his mother is the great-grand-niece of Michael Collins, the Irish leader during the Irish War of Independence. When he is two years old, his parents move to Killarney, County Kerry, where they run the West End House, a restaurant where his father works as a chef. His parents move to Kerry as they want their children to grow up in the countryside rather than the industrial backdrop of their previous residence in Germany. He is raised Catholic and serves as an altar boy at the church his family attends. He has an older sister, Catherine, who is a neuropsychologist.

Fassbender attends Fossa National School and St. Brendan’s College, both in Killarney. He decides that he wants to be an actor at age 17 when he is cast in a play by Donal Courtney. At 19, he moves to London to study at the Drama Centre London, a constituent school of Central Saint Martins. In 1999, he drops out of the Drama Centre and tours with the Oxford Stage Company to perform the play Three Sisters. Before he finds work as an actor, he works as a bartender and postman. Other jobs include labour work, market research for the Royal Mail and working for Dell computers.

Fassbender’s feature film debut is in the fantasy war epic 300 (2007) as a Spartan warrior. His earlier roles include various stage productions, as well as starring roles on television such as in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) and the Sky One fantasy drama Hex (2004–05). He first comes to prominence for his role as Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) activist Bobby Sands in Hunger (2008), for which he wins a British Independent Film Award. Subsequent roles include in the independent film Fish Tank (2009), as a Royal Marines lieutenant in Inglourious Basterds (2009), as Edward Rochester in the 2011 film adaptation of Jane Eyre, as Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method (2011), as the sentient android David 8 in Prometheus (2012) and its sequel, Alien: Covenant (2017), and in the musical comedy-drama Frank (2014) as an eccentric musician loosely inspired by Frank Sidebottom.

In 2011, Fassbender debuts as the Marvel Comics supervillain Magneto in X-Men: First Class and goes on to share the role with Ian McKellen in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), before reprising it again in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and Dark Phoenix (2019). Also in 2011, his performance as a sex addict in Shame earns him the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice International Film Festival and is nominated for Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards. In 2013, his role as slave owner Edwin Epps in the slavery epic 12 Years a Slave is similarly praised, earning him his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 2013, he appears in another Ridley Scott film, The Counselor. In 2015, he portrays the title role in the Danny Boyle-directed biopic Steve Jobs (2015) and played Macbeth in Justin Kurzel‘s adaptation of William Shakespeare‘s play. For the former, he receives Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG nominations. In 2015, he produces the western Slow West, in which he also stars.

In December 2014, Fassbender begins dating Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, whom he met on the set of The Light Between Oceans. The two marry in a private ceremony on October 14, 2017, in Ibiza, Spain. As of 2017, they reside in Lisbon, Portugal.


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Birth of Patrick Magee, Actor & Director

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Patrick George McGee, Northern Irish actor and director of stage and screen known professionally as Patrick Magee, is born on March 31, 1922, in Armagh, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. He is known for his collaborations with Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, as well as creating the role of the Marquis de Sade in the original stage and screen productions of Marat/Sade. He also appears in numerous horror films and in two Stanley Kubrick films, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon.

McGee is born into a middle-class family at 2 Edward Street in Armagh. The eldest of five children, he is educated at St. Patrick’s Grammar School, Armagh. He changes the spelling of his surname to Magee when he begins performing, most likely to avoid confusion with another actor.

Magee’s first stage experience in Ireland is with Anew McMaster’s touring company, performing the works of William Shakespeare. It is here that he first works with Pinter. He is then brought to London by Tyrone Guthrie for a series of Irish plays. He meets Beckett in 1957 and soon records passages from the novel Molloy and the short story From an Abandoned Work for BBC Radio. Impressed by “the cracked quality of Magee’s distinctly Irish voice,” Beckett requests copies of the tapes and writes Krapp’s Last Tape especially for the actor. First produced at the Royal Court Theatre in London on October 28, 1958, the play stars Magee and is directed by Donald McWhinnie. A televised version is later broadcast by BBC Two on November 29, 1972.

In 1964, Magee joins the Royal Shakespeare Company, after Pinter, directing his own play, The Birthday Party, specifically requests him for the role of McCann. In 1965 he appears in Peter Weiss‘s Marat/Sade, and when the play transfers to Broadway he wins a Tony Award. He also appears in the 1966 RSC production of Staircase opposite Paul Scofield.

Magee’s early film roles include Joseph Losey‘s The Criminal (1960) and The Servant (1963), the latter an adaptation scripted by Pinter. He also appears as Surgeon-Major James Henry Reynolds in Zulu (1964), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), Anzio (1968), and in the film versions of Marat/Sade (1967) and The Birthday Party (1968). He is perhaps best known for his role as the victimised writer Frank Alexander, who tortures Alex DeLarge with Ludwig van Beethoven‘s music, in Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange (1971). His other role for Kubrick is as Redmond Barry’s mentor, the Chevalier de Balibari, in Barry Lyndon (1975).

McGee also appears in Young Winston (1972), The Final Programme (1973), Galileo (1975), Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980), The Monster Club and Chariots of Fire (1981) but is most often seen in horror films. These include Roger Corman‘s The Masque of Red Death (1964), and the Boris Karloff vehicle Die, Monster, Die! (1965) for AIP; The Skull (1965), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Asylum (1972), and And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973) for Amicus Productions; Demons of the Mind (1972) for Hammer Film Productions; and Walerian Borowczyk‘s Docteur Jekyll et les femmes (1981).

Patrick McGee dies of a heart attack at his flat in Fulham, London on August 14, 1982, at the age of 60, according to obituaries in The Herald and The New York Times. On July 29, 2017, a blue plaque is unveiled in Edward Street, Armagh to mark Patrick McGee’s birthplace.


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Birth of Actor Patrick Malahide

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Patrick Gerald Duggan, British actor known professionally as Patrick Malahide, is born in Reading, Berkshire, England on March 24, 1945. He is known for his roles as Detective Sergeant Albert Chisholm in the TV series Minder and Balon Greyjoy in the TV series Game of Thrones. His stage name comes from Malahide Castle, where his mother once worked as a cook.

Duggan is the son of Irish immigrants. His mother works as a cook while his father is a school secretary. He was educated at Douai School, Woolhampton, Berkshire. He studies experimental psychology for two years at the University of Edinburgh but leaves school feeling unsatisfied and decides to try his hand at acting. Prior to making it as an actor, he sells bone china to U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany.

Duggan makes his television debut in 1976 in an episode of The Flight of the Heron, followed by single episodes of Sutherland’s Law and The New Avengers (1976) and ITV‘s Playhouse (1977). He then appears in an adaptation of The Eagle of the Ninth, and his first film is Sweeney 2 in the following year. In 1979 he begins a nine-year stint as Detective Sergeant Albert “Cheerful Charlie” Chisholm in the popular TV series Minder.

Duggan’s television appearances include dramas The Singing Detective (1986) and Middlemarch (1994), and he plays Ngaio Marsh‘s Inspector Roderick Alleyn in The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries (1993–1994). His films include Comfort and Joy (1984), A Month in the Country (1987) and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001). In 1999, he makes a small appearance in the introduction to the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough as a Swiss banker named Lachaise working in Bilbao. He plays Mr. Ryder in the 2008 film adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, and from 2012 to 2016 portrays Balon Greyjoy, the father of Theon Greyjoy, in the TV series Game of Thrones. He portrays Magnus Crome in the 2018 film Mortal Engines.


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Birth of Novelist & Broadcaster Francis MacManus

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Francis MacManus, Irish novelist and broadcaster is born in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny on March 8, 1909.

MacManus is educated in the local Christian Brothers school and later at St. Patrick’s College, Dublin and University College Dublin. After teaching for eighteen years at the Synge Street CBS in Dublin, he joins the staff of Radio Éireann, precursor to the Irish national broadcasting entity RTÉ, in 1948 as Director of Features.

MacManus begins writing while still teaching, first publishing a trilogy set in Penal times and concerning the life of the Gaelic poet Donncha Rua Mac Conmara comprising the novels Stand and Give Challenge (1934), Candle for the Proud (1936) and Men Withering (1939). A second trilogy follows which turns its attention to contemporary Ireland: This House Was Mine (1937), Flow On, Lovely River (1941), and Watergate (1942). The location is the fictional “Dombridge,” based on Kilkenny, and deals with established themes of Irish rural life including obsessions with land, sexual frustration, and the trials of emigration and return. Other major works include the novel The Greatest of These (1943), concerning religious conflict in nineteenth-century Kilkenny, and the biographies Boccaccio (1947) and Saint Columban (1963). In his last two novels, he descends into the depths of theological debate: The Fire in the Dust (1950) is followed by American Son (1959), a remarkable dialogue between conflicting modes of belief which reveals the strong influence of Roman Catholicism on the author.

Francis MacManus dies of a heart attack at the age of 56 in Dublin on November 27, 1965.

The RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story Award is established in his memory in 1985. The competition is run by RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster, and is open to entries written in Irish or English from authors born or resident in Ireland. The total prize fund is €6000, out of which the winning author receives €3,000. Sums of €2,000 and €1,000 are awarded to the second and third prize winners.


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Claire McCollum Proposes to Alastair Clarke

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Claire McCollum, newsreader at Downtown Radio in Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland, makes headlines herself on February 29, 2000 when she proposes on air to Dungannon and Ulster rugby star Alastair Clarke and he accepts.

McCollum is born on June 5, 1974 in Carrickfergus, County Antrim. An MA graduate at the University of Dundee, she begins her career in broadcasting with Macmillan Media in 1997. She also works as a researcher for CNN and as a newsreader on Downtown Radio.

McCollum joins UTV in March 2000. As well as presenting and reporting for UTV Sport, she has also presented UTV News bulletins and Sport on Sunday.

In February 2009, McCollum announces she is leaving UTV as part of a voluntary redundancy scheme at the station. In an interview with a regional newspaper, she announces her intention to become a freelance broadcast journalist.

Following her departure from UTV, McCollum builds up her portfolio with BBC Northern Ireland. She becomes synonymous with many of Northern Ireland television’s highest profile events. She co-hosts BBC Proms in the Park at Titanic Slipways, the Olympic flame arriving at Belfast City Hall and the Clipper Homecoming in Derry.

McCollum also presents and reports on two series of the popular BBC Northern Ireland consumer programme In Your Corner and covers many major sporting events including the North West 200, Commonwealth Games in Manchester, Northern Ireland’s Football World Cup qualifiers, Tennis Legends in Belfast and the Belfast International Horse Show. She is also a regular presenter on Balmoral Agricultural Show and Children In Need programmes and hosts the second glittering ‘Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing’ extravaganza for Children in Need.

McCollum and Clarke have two children and reside in her hometown of Newtownabbey, County Antrim.


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Death of Dermot Morgan, Comedian & Actor

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Dermot John Morgan, Irish comedian and actor who achieves international renown for his role as Father Ted Crilly in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted, dies of a heart attack on February 28, 1998, in Hounslow, London, England.

Morgan is born in Dublin on March 31, 1952. Educated at Oatlands College, Stillorgan, and University College, Dublin (UCD), Morgan comes to prominence as part of the team behind the highly successful RTÉ television show The Live Mike. Morgan makes his debut in the media on the Morning Ireland radio show produced by Gene Martin. Between 1979 and 1982 Morgan, who has been a teacher at St. Michael’s College, Ailesbury Road, plays a range of comic characters who appear between segments of the show, including Father Trendy, an unctuous trying-to-be-cool Catholic priest given to drawing ludicrous parallels with non-religious life in two-minute ‘chats’ to camera.

Morgan’s success as Father Trendy and other characters leads him to leave teaching and become a full-time comedian.

Morgan’s biggest Irish broadcasting success occurs in the late 1980s on the Saturday morning radio comedy show Scrap Saturday, which mocks Ireland’s political, business, and media establishment. The show’s treatment of the relationship between the ever-controversial Taoiseach Charles Haughey and his press secretary P.J. Mara prove particularly popular. When RTÉ axes the show in the early 1990s a national outcry ensues. Morgan lashes the decision, calling it “a shameless act of broadcasting cowardice and political subservience.”

Already a celebrity in Ireland, Morgan’s big break comes in Channel 4‘s Irish sitcom Father Ted, which runs for three series from April 21, 1995, until May 1, 1998. Writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews audition many actors for the title role, but Morgan’s enthusiasm wins him the part.

Father Ted centres on three disparate characters. Father Ted Crilly, played by Morgan, lives a frustrated life trapped on the fictional Craggy Island. Irish TV comedy actor Frank Kelly plays Father Jack Hackett, a foul-mouthed and apparently brain-damaged alcoholic, while child-minded Father Dougal McGuire is played by comedian Ardal O’Hanlon. The three priests are looked after by their housekeeper, Mrs. Doyle, played by Pauline McLynn, with whom Morgan had worked on Scrap Saturday. Father Ted enjoys widespread popularity and critical acclaim. In 1998, the show wins a BAFTA award for the best comedy, Morgan wins a BAFTA for best actor, and McLynn is named best actress.

On February 28, 1998, one day after recording the last episode of Father Ted, Morgan has a heart attack while hosting a dinner party at his home in southwest London. He is rushed to hospital but dies soon afterwards. Morgan’s Requiem Mass in St. Therese’s Church in Mount Merrion, south Dublin, is attended by the President of Ireland Mary McAleese, her predecessor, Mary Robinson, and by political and church leaders, many of whom had been the targets of his humour in Scrap Saturday. He is cremated at Glasnevin Cemetery and his ashes are buried in the family plot in Deansgrange Cemetery.


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Ciaran Carty Hails Irish Language Film “Poitín”

ciaran-cartyOn February 26, 1978, film critic Ciaran Carty hails the Irish language film Poitín for its deromanticization of the west.

Poitín is partially conceived as a response to The Quiet Man, also set in the coastal area of Connemara, and its sentimental portrayal of the Irish landscape. Poitín tells of a small community centered on a home-distiller of Irish moonshine whiskey, or poteen.

In Gaelic dialogue, using local actors, with Cyril Cusack as the moonshiner, it shifts between a humorous, whimsical account of two men’s bumbling attempts at theft and a harsh series of revenges. Director Bob Quinn, a strong advocate of Gaelic culture, calls it “a horror story told amusingly.” Carty suggests that Quinn “implicitly deromanticizes the Robert Flaherty image of the rugged West as a place of primal dignity where man does noble battle with the elements.”

Since incurring the wrath of his first editor in 1960 by making Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho his film of the year, Carty has consistently championed the arts, developing a career as one of Ireland’s leading critics and broadcasters. He serves as deputy editor of the Sunday Independent (1961–65) before becoming arts editor for the Sunday Tribune (1985–2011). Since 1988 he has edited the New Irish Writing page for both the Tribune and the Irish Independent, and is curator of the prestigious annual Hennessy Literary Awards. He is the author of Confessions of a Sewer Rat (1995), a two-volume biography of the artist Robert Ballagh (1985, 2011), and has co-edited, with Dermot Bolger, two anthologies of Hennessy fiction (1995, 2006).


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Death of Actor T. P. McKenna

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Character actor Thomas Patrick McKenna, known professionally as T. P. McKenna and for his stage, film, and television work, dies at Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead, London on February 13, 2011, following a long illness.

McKenna is born in Mullagh, County Cavan on September 7, 1929. A prolific theater actor throughout his career, he makes his stage debut in Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams at the Pike Theatre in Dublin in 1954.

McKenna makes his film debut in the IRA–Nazi drama The Night Fighters (1960) and from this uncredited beginning he moves up to tenth billing in The Siege of Sidney Street (1960). His next major movie is Girl with Green Eyes (1964), by which time he has also started a successful television career, making his TV debut in Espionage (1963) and over the next few years appears in several more TV shows. His versatility enables him to play three characters in The Avengers (1961). He is also featured in such well-regarded shows as Adam Adamant Lives! (1966), Dixon of Dock Green (1955) and The Saint (1962).

Meanwhile, McKenna’s film career develops along literary lines, and he is featured in Brendan Behan‘s The Quare Fellow (1962), the Sean O’Casey biopic Young Cassidy (1965) and James Joyce‘s Ulysses (1967). He takes smaller parts in such epics as The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969).

British films such as Perfect Friday (1970) and Villain (1971) allowed McKenna to showcase his suave, urbane persona before trying something different in the controversial Straw Dogs (1971). He appears alongside a young Anthony Hopkins in All Creatures Great and Small (1975) before starring with John Gielgud for the second time, this time in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1977). Over the next few years his co-stars are as diverse as Leonard Rossiter (Britannia Hospital (1982)), Timothy Dalton (The Doctor and the Devils (1985)), Ben Kingsley (Pascali’s Island (1988)) and Dolph Lundgren (Red Scorpion (1988)). Not all of these films are successes, but he always gives good value for the money and develops themes of his, such as an interest in Irish issues, in The Outsider (1980). His last released film is Valmont (1989), which is unfortunately completely overshadowed by Dangerous Liaisons (1988), which is based on the same novel.

Over the years McKenna makes numerous guest appearances in TV series such as Minder (1979), Casualty (1986), Lovejoy (1986), Inspector Morse (1987), Heartbeat (1992) and Ballykissangel (1996). He is also prominent in TV movies and series, featuring in Charles Dickens‘ Masterpiece Theatre: Bleak House (1985), Stendhal‘s Scarlet and Black (1993) and an adaptation of Henry James‘ The American (1998).

McKenna dies on February 13, 2011, at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, at the age of 81 following a long period of illness. He is buried alongside his wife at Teampall Cheallaigh Cemetery in his native County Cavan.

Following his death, tributes are paid by President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Prince Charles, and Ireland’s Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport Mary Hanafin, who says that McKenna was “one of a great generation whose talents on the screen and stage both at home and abroad gave us all great pride in his accomplishments.” In County Cavan, he is commemorated by the T. P. McKenna Drama Scholarships (VEC) and the T. P. McKenna Perpetual Trophy presented as part of the Millrace Annual Drama Festival.