seamus dubhghaill

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

Category Archives: Film, Radio, & Television


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Death of Dave Allen, Comedian, Satirist & Actor

David Edward Tynan O’Mahony, comedian, satirist and actor professionally known as Dave Allen, dies from emphysema in Kensington, London, on March 10, 2005.

Allen is born on July 6, 1936, in a nursing home at 37 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, the youngest of three sons of (Gerard John) Cullen Tynan Allen, journalist, manager of The Irish Times, and raconteur, and his wife Jean Ballantyne (née Archer), an English-born nurse. His paternal grandmother, Nora Tynan O’Mahony, is the first women’s features editor of the Freeman’s Journal, and the poet Katharine Tynan is his great-aunt. Allen loses half a finger on his left hand in a childhood accident which becomes a favourite theme (and occasional prop) in his shows.

After initially attending Beaumont convent school, Allen goes to Firhouse national school, County Dublin, near the family residence outside Templeogue. For a period during World War II, he lives with his mother and brothers at Keenagh, County Longford, where they had moved for fear that Dublin might be targeted by air raids. On returning to Dublin, he goes to Terenure College, run by the Carmelite fathers. His reminiscences in later life often centre on memories of frequent and sadistic corporal punishment, and warnings from priests that adolescent male sexuality is a device of Satan leading straight to hell. His resentment is formative in his lifelong and outspoken atheism.

Allen, who is close to his father, is severely affected emotionally by his death in 1948, after which his relations with the school deteriorate further. The discovery that his father’s drinking and gambling had left the family heavily indebted means that, notwithstanding assistance from journalistic friends, his elder brothers are obliged to leave school and work as journalists to support the family. Restless and even more discontented at school than previously, he often plays truant to visit museums and art galleries. Expelled from Terenure College, he briefly attends the Catholic University School before leaving school at the age of 16. After working as a clerk for the Irish Independent, in 1954 he becomes a journalist on the Drogheda Argus, reporting weddings and gymkhanas. He later attributes this career path to the contemporary tradition of following a family profession.

Moving to London but failing to secure a job on a Fleet Street newspaper, Allen follows his brother John by becoming a “redcoat” attendant at Butlin’s holiday camps in Filey (Yorkshire), Skegness, Margate, and Brighton, performing various functions and telling jokes and stories during intervals between stage acts. In the winters he sells educational toys in Sheffield. Acquiring an agent, he becomes a professional comedian, adopting the stage name Dave Allen. He initially works the declining club and variety circuit, later claiming that he had toured with the last old-style nude tableaux show. In 1959, he makes his first television appearance on the BBC talent show New Faces and realises that television is the medium of the future. He tours with pop singer Helen Shapiro in 1963 and 1964, joined in the latter year by an emerging support band, the Beatles. At this period, he models himself on American stand-up comedians such as Jerry Lewis, focusing his act on discrete gags leading up to a punchline.

While performing in support of the singer Helen Traubel in Australian nightclubs, Allen often reminisces to her off stage about his early life. Traubel suggests that he incorporate such material into his act. Such is the genesis of his mature style of rambling absurdist monologues, which he describes as influenced by the Irish storytelling tradition in general, and his father’s stories in particular. After appearing in Melbourne and Sydney, he becomes the host of a ninety-minute chat show, Tonight with Dave Allen, on Sydney-based Channel 9. Eighty-four episodes are recorded of what becomes one of Australian television’s most successful programmes ever, its popularity boosted by the rumour that he is having an affair with singer Eartha Kitt, his hilarious interviews with eccentrics, and the frequent deployment of dangerous animals onstage.

Allen marries the English actress Judith Stott in Australia on March 9, 1964, a divorcée with one son. They have two children, including the comedian Ed Allen (Edward James Allen). After separating in 1980, the couple divorces in 1983. Returning to England in December 1964 to be with his wife, he establishes a reputation there through well-received performances as a compère at the televised Sunday Night at the London Palladium (1967) and The Blackpool Show (1966). After a slot as resident comedian on The Val Doonican Show (1965–67), he obtains his first stand-alone show, Tonight with Dave Allen, in 1967 on ITV, a mixture of sketches with the monologues for which he becomes best known. He usually performs seated on a barstool, smoking a cigarette, and sipping from a presumed glass of whiskey (actually ginger ale), while musing on the oddities of life, often expressing his suspicion of authority figures. His signature farewell phrase is “Goodnight, and may your God go with you.”

On BBC television Allen headlines two programmes: The Dave Allen Show (1968–69), and Dave Allen at Large (1971–79). He writes much of his own material, compulsively scouring newspapers for items that he can work into his act. He resists suggestions that he should move to an early evening slot, as this would entail restrictions on his material. In the 1970s and 1980s he tours widely with a one-man stage show, “An evening with Dave Allen,” containing more “adult” material than would be allowed on television at the time. His stage performances are less well-received in the United States than elsewhere.

Allen’s treatment of sex and religion involves him in frequent controversies. Priests and the confessional are frequent targets. In 1975, he provokes widespread protests from Catholics over a sketch in which the pope, played by Allen himself, and his cardinals perform a striptease on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. In 1977, his shows are banned from RTÉ. In 1984, the British anti-indecency campaigner Mary Whitehouse formally complains about his televised act, with particular reference to a simulated post-coital conversation. As with many stage comedians, his angry and outspoken stage persona contrasts with a reserved offstage life. He keeps his stage persona distinct from his private life and does not allow his children to attend his shows.

Allen gives occasional straight performances, notably in Edna O’Brien‘s plays A Pagan Place (1972) and Flesh and Blood (1985); in the dual roles of Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in a production of Peter Pan (1973); and in Alan Bennett‘s television play One Fine Day (1979). He has a supporting role in the Australian comedy film Squeeze a Flower (1970). He also presents several documentaries, notably Dave Allen in the Melting Pot (1969); surveying life in New York City, he discusses racism and drug addiction and conducts one of the first television interviews with openly gay men. Other documentaries for ITV include Dave Allen in Search of the Great English Eccentric (1974), and Dave Allen (1978), which deals with American eccentrics. Long fascinated with ghost stories, he publishes an anthology of horror stories, A Little Night Reading (1974).

In the 1980s, Allen is regarded by many fans of the new, politically engaged “alternative comedians” as old-fashioned. His leisurely style contrasts with their quick-fire delivery, and some of his references to the Irish and other ethnic groups are seen as demeaning. He makes a partial television comeback with a six-part BBC One series, Dave Allen (1990), using considerably more outspoken material than he had previously deployed on television.

In 1993, Allen appears in a six-part series for the new ITV London franchise, Carlton Television. Thereafter he moves into semi-retirement, partly because of health problems, while continuing to make guest television appearances. At the British Comedy Awards he is named best comedy performer (1993) and is granted a lifetime achievement award (1996). He occasionally releases videos of older material “to keep myself in the style to which I had become accustomed – a bit of an Irish retirement, actually.” He maintains tight editorial control over his recordings, having been annoyed when his first television shows were chopped and changed when re-broadcast by American networks. They are released on DVD after his death. He presents a six-part BBC series based on his old material, The Unique Dave Allen (1998). After giving his last performance on BBC Radio 4 in 1999, he retires and devotes himself to his hobby as an amateur painter.

After a seventeen-year relationship, Allen marries secondly Karin Stark, a theatrical producer, on December 9, 2003. Their one son is born three weeks after Allen dies peacefully in his sleep as a result of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome on March 10, 2005, in Kensington, London.

A selection of his routines, edited by Graham McCann, is published as The Essential Dave Allen (2005). His obituarists see him as prefiguring the aggressive mocking of authority by the alternative comedians who had once criticised him, and as paving the way for such irreverent and anti-deferential satire of political and religious authority as Not the Nine O’Clock News and Father Ted. The widespread use of the monologue by Irish dramatists such as Conor McPherson in the first decade of the twenty-first century also owes something to his influence.

(From: “Allen, Dave” by Patrick Maume, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, June 2011)


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Death of Micheál Mac Liammóir, Actor & Playwright

Micheál Mac Liammóir, British-born Irish actor, playwright, impresario, writer, poet and painter, dies in Dublin on March 6, 1978. He co-founds the Gate Theatre with his partner Hilton Edwards and is one of the most recognizable figures in the arts in twentieth-century Ireland.

Mac Liammóir is born Alfred Willmore on October 25, 1899. He is born to a Protestant family living in the Kensal Green district of London.

As Alfred Willmore, he is one of the leading child actors on the English stage, in the company of Noël Coward. He appears for several seasons in Peter Pan. He studies painting at London’s Slade School of Fine Art, continuing to paint throughout his lifetime. In the 1920s he travels all over Europe. He is captivated by Irish culture and learns the Irish language which he speaks and writes fluently. He changes his name to an Irish version, presenting himself in Ireland as a descendant of Irish Catholics from Cork. Later in his life, he writes three autobiographies in Irish and translates them into English.

While acting in Ireland with the touring company of his brother-in-law Anew MacMaster, Mac Liammóir meets the man who becomes his partner and lover, Hilton Edwards. Their first meeting takes place in the Athenaeum, Enniscorthy, County Wexford. Deciding to remain in Dublin, where they live at Harcourt Terrace, the pair assists with the inaugural production of Galway‘s Irish language theatre, An Taibhdhearc. The play is Mac Liammóir’s version of the mythical story Diarmuid agus Gráinne, in which Mac Liammóir plays the lead role as Diarmuid.

Mac Liammóir and Edwards then throw themselves into their own venture, co-founding the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1928. The Gate becomes a showcase for modern plays and design. Mac Liammóir’s set and costume designs are key elements of the Gate’s success. His many notable acting roles include Robert Emmet/The Speaker in Denis Johnston‘s The Old Lady Says “No!” and the title role in Hamlet.

In 1948, Mac Liammóir appears in the NBC television production of Great Catherine with Gertrude Lawrence. In 1951, during a break in the making of Othello, he produces Orson Welles‘s ghost-story Return to Glennascaul which is directed by Hilton Edwards. He plays Iago in Welles’s film version of Othello (1951). The following year, he goes on to play ‘Poor Tom’ in another Welles project, the TV film of King Lear (1953) for CBS.

Mac Liammóir writes and performs a one-man show, The Importance of Being Oscar, based on the life and work of Oscar Wilde. The Telefís Éireann production wins him a Jacob’s Award in December 1964. It is later filmed by the BBC with Mac Liammóir reprising the role.

Mac Liammóir narrates the 1963 film Tom Jones and is the Irish storyteller in 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia (1968) which stars Dudley Moore.

In 1969 Mac Liammóir has a supporting role in John Huston‘s The Kremlin Letter. In 1970 he performs the role of narrator on the cult album Peace on Earth by the Northern Irish showband, The Freshmen and in 1971 he plays an elocution teacher in Curtis Harrington‘s What’s the Matter with Helen?.

Mac Liammóir claims when talking to Irish playwright Mary Manning, to have had a homosexual relationship with General Eoin O’Duffy, former Garda Síochána Commissioner and head of the paramilitary Blueshirts in Ireland, during the 1930s. The claim is revealed publicly by RTÉ in a documentary, The Odd Couple, broadcast in 1999. However, Mac Liammóir’s claims have not been substantiated.

Mac Liammóir’s life and artistic development are the subject of a major study by Tom Madden, The Making of an Artist. Edwards and Mac Liammóir are the subject of a biography, titled The Boys by Christopher Fitz-Simon.

Micheál Mac Liammóir dies at his and Edwards’s Dublin home, 4 Harcourt Terrace, at the age of 78 on March 6, 1978. Edwards and Mac Liammóir are buried alongside each other at St. Fintan’s Cemetery, Sutton, Dublin.


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Birth of Eileen Crowe, Stage & Film Actress

Eileen Aice Izabella Crowe, Irish actress, is born at Carlingford Terrace in Drumcondra, Dublin, on March 2, 1899.

Born Alice Izabella, she is one of ten children born to grocer Moses Crowe and Therese Eglinton. From an early age, she shows an interest in the theatre, and regularly attends productions in both the Gaiety and Abbey theatres. Having completed her education, she joins a convent but soon after abandons the idea of becoming a nun. In October 1921, she enters the Abbey School of Acting. She has a career with the Abbey Theatre from 1921 to 1970.

Upon her entry to the Abbey School of Acting, Crowe makes her debut in 1921 in the play The Revolutionist, taking the lead role of Nora Mangan. She plays her last role of Miss Hatty in Grogan and the Ferret, after which she retires. During nearly five decades, she stars in many plays, some of which include The Marriage of Columbine (1921) and Juno and the Paycock (1924). Between 1931 and 1953, she appears in the Abbey Theatre productions of plays by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy including A Disciple (1931), Katie Roche (1936, 1937, 1949, 1953), Temporal Powers (1932, 1937) and The Reapers (1930).

Following her film debut in 1925 in The Land of Her Fathers, Crowe appears in many films between 1936 and 1964 including The Plough and the Stars (1937), The Quiet Man (1952), Home is the Hero (1959) and Girl with Green Eyes (1964), her last film appearance.

Also in 1964, Crowe appears in the Aldwych Theatre‘s production of Juno and the Paycock in London. She works in the Abbey for the vast majority of her career, except for when she is on a six-month tour for Peg O’ My Heart, touring Northern Ireland and England.

In 1924, when the play Grasshopper is being produced, Crowe meets her husband, Peter Judge, also known as F. J. McCormick. They are married in 1925 and the marriage produces a daughter and a son.

Crowe dies at her home in Upper Rathmines Road, Dublin, on May 8, 1978, at the age of 79. She is buried beside her husband in Dean’s Grange Cemetery in Deansgrange, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, County Dublin.


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Birth of Irish Actress Sinéad Cusack

Sinéad Moira Cusack, award winning Irish actress, is born Jane Moira Cusack in Dalkey, County Dublin, on February 18, 1948.

Cusack is the daughter of actress Maureen Cusack and actor Cyril Cusack. She is the sister of actresses Sorcha Cusack, Niamh Cusack, and half-sister to Catherine Cusack. Her father is born in South Africa, to an Irish father and an English mother, and had worked with Micheál Mac Liammóir at Dublin‘s Gate Theatre.

Cusack’s first acting roles are at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In 1975, she moves to London and joins the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) starring in Dion Boucicault‘s London Assurance in the West End. Her work with the RSC continues with an award-winning performance as Celia in As You Like It which includes the Clarence Derwent Award and her first Laurence Olivier Award nomination. She secures a second Olivier Award nomination for her performance in The Maid’s Tragedy by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in 1981, followed two years later with a third Olivier Award nomination as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.

Cusack makes her Broadway debut in 1984 performing in repertory with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Starring opposite Derek Jacobi, she plays Roxane in Anthony Burgess‘s translation of Edmond Rostand‘s Cyrano de Bergerac and Beatrice in William Shakespeare‘s Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Terry Hands. Much Ado is first produced at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1982–83, then moves to London’s Barbican Centre for the 1983–1984 season where it is joined by Cyrano, before both plays transfer to New York‘s Gershwin Theatre from October 1984 to January 1985, for which Cusack received a Tony Awards nomination for her performance as Beatrice, and costar Derek Jacobi wins the award for his Benedick. The production of Cyrano de Bergerac is later filmed in 1985.

During this period, Cusack and her husband, Jeremy Irons, appear in a Shakespeare Winter’s Eve, a major fundraiser for the Riverside Shakespeare Company in New York, along with other members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Following the Broadway run, the plays tour the United States, making stops in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Her connection with the Royal Shakespeare Company continues with a series of leading roles include Portia in The Merchant of Venice opposite David Suchet, Lady Macbeth opposite Jonathan Pryce in Macbeth and Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra in Stratford-upon-Avon and at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket in the West End.

In 1990, Cusack, in the role of Masha, joins two of her sisters, Niamh (as Irina) and Sorcha (as Olga), and her father, Cyril Cusack (as Chebutykin) for a well-received production of Anton Chekhov‘s tragicomedy Three Sisters in a new version by Frank McGuinness, directed by Adrian Noble at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre in London. The production also features Niamh’s husband, Finbar Lynch, as Solenyi and Lesley Manville as Natasha. The production wins the three real-life sisters the Irish Life Award in 1992.

One of Cusack’s best known stage roles is Our Lady of Sligo by Sebastian Barry in 1998, in which she plays the principal role of Mai O’Hara in performances in Ireland, on Broadway and at the National Theatre. For this she wins the 1998 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress, the 1998 Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress and her fourth Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress. In 2006-07 she stars with Rufus Sewell in Tom Stoppard‘s Rock ‘n’ Roll at the Royal Court Theatre in London which transfers to the West End and Broadway, winning Cusack her fifth Olivier Award nomination and her second Tony Award nomination.

In 2015, Cusack returns to Ireland’s Abbey Theatre, where she begins her theatre career. She appears in the world première of Mark O’Rowe‘s play Our Few and Evil Days, acting opposite long-time collaborator Ciarán Hinds. She wins the Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for Best Actress.

Cusack stars with Peter Sellers in the film Hoffman (1970). She guest stars in an episode of The Persuaders! (1971), a TV series starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore, as Jenny Lindley, a wealthy heiress who suspects that a man claiming to be her dead brother is in fact an impostor. In 1975, she makes three appearances in the TV series Quiller as the character Roz.

Cusack and her husband appear together in the film Waterland (1992), in a television adaptation of Christopher Hampton‘s Tales from Hollywood (also 1992), and again in Bernardo Bertolucci‘s Stealing Beauty (1996). Further film work includes Passion of Mind (2000), V for Vendetta (2005), and Eastern Promises (2007), a thriller directed by David Cronenberg. Her performance in The Tiger’s Tail (2007) wins her a first Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She wins the IFTA Award for her performance in The Sea (2013), adapted from the novel by John Banville. She is nominated once more for an IFTA Award for her performance in John Boorman‘s drama film Queen and Country (2014), which premières at the Cannes Film Festival.

Further starring roles include lead roles in Oliver’s Travels (1995), Have Your Cake and Eat It (1997) for which Cusack wins the Royal Television Society‘s RTS Award for Best Actress and Frank McGuinness’s The Hen House (1989) for BBC Television. She stars in the title role of George du Maurier‘s Trilby (1976), in an adaptation for the BBC’s Play of the Month, with Alan Badel as Svengali. She also stars in the BBC mini-series North & South (2004, from the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell) as Mrs. Thornton. She stars in the BBC sitcom Home Again (2006) and appears in the TV series Camelot (2011), which runs for one season. She has featured roles in the mini-series The Deep (2014) and the series Marcella (2016), an eight-episode murder mystery.

Along with other actresses, including Paola Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson and Harriet Walter, Cusack contributes to a book by Carol Rutter called Clamorous Voices: Shakespeare’s Women Today (1994). The book analyses modern acting interpretations of female Shakespearean roles.

Cusack marries British actor Jeremy Irons in 1978, and they have two sons, Samuel James and Maximilian Paul. Prior to marrying Irons, she gives birth to a son in 1967 and places the boy for adoption. In 2007, a journalist for the Irish Sunday Independent, Daniel McConnell, reveals that Cusack is the mother of left-wing general election candidate and now member of Irish parliament Richard Boyd Barrett. The two have since been reunited.

Cusack is a patron of the Burma Campaign UK, the London-based group campaigning for human rights and democracy in Burma. In 1998, she is named, along with her husband, in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the British Labour Party. In August 2010, she signs the “Irish artists’ pledge to boycott Israel” initiated by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

(Pictured: Sinéad Cusack reciting poetry for the British Library in October 2021)


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Death of Donal Donnelly, Irish Theatre & Film Actor

Donal Donnelly, Irish theatre and film actor, dies in Chicago, Illinois, on January 4, 2010. Perhaps best known for his work in the plays of Brian Friel, he has a long and varied career in film, on television and in the theatre. He lives in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States at various times, and his travels lead him to describe himself as “an itinerant Irish actor.”

Donnelly is born to Irish parents in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on July 6, 1931. His father James is a doctor from County Tyrone, and his mother Nora O’Connor is a teacher from County Kerry.

Donnelly is raised in Dublin where he attends Synge Street CBS, where he acts in school plays with Milo O’Shea, Eamonn Andrews, Jack MacGowran, Bernard Frawley (Seattle Repertory Co.) and Jimmy Fitzsimons (brother of Maureen O’Hara), under the direction of elocution teacher, Ena Burke.

Donnelly gets his start in an amateur group calling itself the Globe Theatre Players. It is organised and run by Jim Fitzgerald and Monica Brophy. He then later tours with Anew McMaster‘s Irish repertory company before moving to England where he stars with Rita Tushingham in the film The Knack …and How to Get It.

Donnelly’s breakthrough role comes when he is cast as Gar Private in the world premiere of Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come! directed by Hilton Edwards for the Gate Theatre at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1964. The production subsequently transfers to Broadway where it plays for over 300 performances and establishes Donnelly and Patrick Bedford, who plays his alter-ego Gar Public, as formidable new talents to be reckoned with. They are jointly nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play in 1966.

Donnelly returns to Broadway a number of times, replacing Albert Finney in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg in 1968, playing Milo Tindle in Anthony Shaffer‘s Sleuth and appearing as Frederick Treves opposite David Bowie as The Elephant Man. He also renews his relationship with Brian Friel, appearing in the world premieres of Volunteers at the Abbey Theatre in 1975 and Faith Healer with James Mason at the Longacre Theatre in New York City in 1979, as well as the Broadway premieres of Dancing at Lughnasa in 1991 and Translations in 1995.

For many years, Donnelly tours a one-man performance of the writings of George Bernard Shaw, adapted and directed by Michael Voysey and entitled My Astonishing Self.

Donnelly’s film roles include Archbishop Gilday in The Godfather Part III and as Freddy Malins in John Huston‘s final work, The Dead, based on the short story by James Joyce, where he gains particular acclaim for his performance.

On television, Donnelly plays the lead role of Matthew Browne in the 1970s ITV sitcom Yes, Honestly, opposite Liza Goddard. But from the late 1950s onwards, he often appears in such British TV programs as The Avengers, Z-Cars and The Wednesday Play.

Donnelly is an acclaimed audiobook reader whose catalogue includes Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Voltaire‘s Philosophical Dictionary, and several audio versions of the works of James Joyce.

In 1968, Donnelly records an album of Irish songs, Take the Name of Donnelly, which is arranged, produced and conducted by Tony Meehan formerly of the Shadows.

Donnelly, who is a heavy smoker all his life, dies from cancer at the age of 78 in Chicago, Illinois, on January 4, 2010. He is survived by his wife, Patricia ‘Patsy’ Porter, a former dancer he met working on Finian’s Rainbow, and two sons, Jonathan and Damian. Their only daughter, Maryanne, predeceases him after being killed in a riding accident. A brother, Michael Donnelly, is a Fianna Fáil senator and councillor, and Lord Mayor of Dublin (1990–91).


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Birth of Irish Broadcaster George Hamilton

Irish broadcaster George Hamilton is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on January 2, 1950. He is best known as the chief football commentator for RTÉ, for which he also commentates on other sporting events, such as the Olympic Games. He presents a classical music programme on RTÉ lyric fm on Saturdays and Sundays called The Hamilton Scores.

Hamilton is christened in the same Presbyterian church as George Best. His father Jimmy plays for Cliftonville F.C., but he is a Glentoran F.C. “superfan.”

While a student at Methodist College Belfast, Hamilton is, for a time, principal cellist with the school orchestra. He then studies German and French at Queen’s University Belfast.

Hamilton begins his commentary career with BBC Sport, before joining RTÉ eight years later in 1984. He had previously worked for RTÉ during the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Since 2003, he works for RTÉ lyric fm, Ireland’s classical radio station, on Saturday mornings. For many years, he fronts a popular weekly quiz show on RTÉ, Know Your Sport, alongside fellow commentator Jimmy Magee.

Hamilton is chief commentator for RTÉ Sport‘s coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the ninth one in which he has been involved. He is RTÉ’s chief commentator at UEFA Euro 2012 and commentates on all of Ireland’s matches in the competition. He is involved in the coverage of the Olympic Games since the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

Hamilton is known for his use of colourful phrases and memorable quotes when commentating on games, his phrase describing David O’Leary‘s penalty against Romania in the 1990 FIFA World Cup, “The nation holds its breath,” is used for a book of Irish football quotations, compiled by Eoghan Corry, for which Hamilton writes the foreword.

The sports humour website, DangerHere.com, takes its title from another quote by Hamilton: “And Bonner has gone 165 minutes of these championships without conceding a goal. Oh, danger here…”

On August 16, 2011, Hamilton feels unwell and has a suspected heart attack. He later has several hours of emergency bypass surgery at the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin after being transferred from St. Vincent’s University Hospital. He recovers and resumes both his commentating and radio show.


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Death of Francis MacManus, Novelist & Broadcaster

Francis MacManus, Irish novelist and broadcaster, dies in Dublin on November 27, 1965.

MacManus is born in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny on March 8, 1909. He is educated in the local Christian Brothers school and later at St. Patrick’s College, Dublin and University College Dublin (UCD). 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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Birth of John Cole, Northern Irish Journalist & BBC Broadcaster

John Morrison Cole, Northern Irish journalist and broadcaster best known for his work with the BBC, is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on November 23, 1927. He serves as deputy editor of The Guardian and The Observer and, from 1981 to 1992, is the BBC’s political editor. Donald Macintyre, in an obituary in The Independent, describes him as “the most recognisable and respected broadcast political journalist since World War II.”

Cole is the son of George Cole, an electrical engineer, and his wife Alice. The family is Ulster Protestant, and he identifies himself as British. He receives his formal education at the Belfast Royal Academy.

Cole starts his career in print journalism in 1945, joining the Belfast Telegraph as a reporter and industrial correspondent. He subsequently works as a political reporter for the paper. He gains a scoop when he interviews the then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, who is holidaying in Ireland.

Cole joins The Guardian, then The Manchester Guardian, in 1956, reporting on industrial issues. He transfers to the London office in 1957 as the paper’s labour correspondent. Appointed news editor in 1963, succeeding Nesta Roberts, he takes on the task of reorganising the paper’s “amateurish” system for gathering news. He heads opposition to a proposed merger with The Times in the mid-1960s, and later serves as deputy editor under Alastair Hetherington. When Hetherington leaves in 1975, Cole is in the running for the editorship, but fails to secure the post, for reasons which may include his commitment to the cause of unionism in Northern Ireland, as well as what is seen by some as inflexibility and a lack of flair. Unwilling to continue at The Guardian, he then joins The Observer as deputy editor under Donald Trelford, remaining there for six years.

After Tiny Rowland takes over as proprietor of The Observer in 1981, Cole gives evidence against him at the Monopolies Commission. The following day he receives a call from the BBC offering him the job of political editor, succeeding John Simpson. He has little previous television experience but proves a “natural broadcaster.” Reporting through most of the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, he becomes a familiar figure on television and radio.

Cole’s health is put under strain by the workload, and he suffers a heart attack in February 1984. Returning to report on that year’s conference season, he covers the Brighton hotel bombing, getting a “memorable” interview with Thatcher on the pavement in its immediate aftermath, in which she declares that the Tory conference will take place as normal. An astute observer of the political scene, he is one of the earliest to forecast Thatcher’s resignation as Prime Minister in 1990, in what colleague David McKie refers to as “perhaps his greatest exclusive.”

Cole establishes a strong reputation for his “gentle but probing” interviewing style, for his political assessments, and for presenting analysis rather than “bland reporting.” Held in enormous affection by viewers, he is trusted by both politicians and the public. He is known for speaking in the language used by ordinary people rather than so-called Westminster experts. His distinctive Northern Irish accent leads the way for BBC broadcasters with regional accents.

Cole retires as political editor in 1992 at the age of 65, compulsory at the time, but continues to appear on television, including making programmes on golf and travel. He also continues to appear on the BBC programme Westminster Live for several years after he retired as political editor.

In addition to his journalistic writing, Cole authors several books. The earliest are The Poor of the Earth, on developing countries, and The Thatcher Years (1987). After his retirement as BBC political editor, he spends more time writing. His political memoir, As It Seemed to Me, appears in 1995 and becomes a best-seller. He also publishes a novel, A Clouded Peace (2001), set in his birthplace of Belfast in 1977.

In 2007, Cole writes an article for the British Journalism Review, blaming both politicians and the media for the fact that parliamentarians are held in such low esteem, being particularly scathing of Alastair Campbell‘s influence during Tony Blair‘s premiership.

In 1966, the Eisenhower Fellowships selects Cole to represent Great Britain. He receives the Royal Television Society‘s Journalist of the Year award in 1991. After his retirement in 1992, he is awarded an honorary degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University and receives the Richard Dimbleby Award from BAFTA in 1993. He turns down a CBE in 1993, citing the former The Guardian newspaper rule that journalists can only accept gifts which can be consumed within 24 hours.

In his private life Cole is a supporter of the Labour Party and is a believer in the trades union movement. He considers that the combating of unemployment is one of the most important political issues. He is a British Republican and a committed Christian, associating in the latter part of his life with the United Reformed Church at Kingston upon Thames.

Cole suffers health problems in retirement including heart problems and two minor strokes. In 2009, he is diagnosed with cancer. He subsequently develops aphasia. He dies at his home at Claygate in the county of Surrey on November 7, 2013.

Tributes are paid by journalists, broadcasters and politicians across the political spectrum. Prime Minister David Cameron calls Cole a “titan at the BBC” and an “extraordinary broadcaster.” Labour Party leader Ed Miliband says that “my generation grew up watching John Cole. He conveyed the drama and importance of politics.” The Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond says that Cole is “an extremely able journalist but also extraordinarily helpful and generous to a young politician.” The BBC’s political editor at the time, Nick Robinson, writes that Cole “shaped the way all in my trade do our jobs.”


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Birth of Mick Lally, Stage, Film & Television Actor

Michael “Mick” Lally, Irish stage, film and television actor, is born in the Gaeltacht village of Toormakeady, County Mayo, on November 10, 1945. He departs from a teaching career for acting during the 1970s. Though best known in Ireland for his role as Miley Byrne in the television soap Glenroe, his stage career spans several decades, and he is involved in feature films such as Alexander and the Academy Award-nominated The Secret of Kells. Many reports cite him as one of Ireland’s finest and most recognisable actors.

Lally is the eldest of a family of seven children. He goes to the local national school in Toormakeady and then to St. Mary’s College, Galway. After studying at University College Galway, he teaches history and the Irish language for six years in Archbishop McHale College in Tuam from 1969 to 1975 but quits teaching to pursue his career as a stage actor.

Lally begins his acting career with Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe, Ireland’s national Irish language theatre, and is a founding member of the Druid Theatre Company. He receives an Irish Times/ESB Theatre Award Nomination for Best Actor for his role in Druid’s production of The Dead School. He also becomes a member of the Field Day Theatre Company, and stars in the company’s 1980 premiere of Brian Friel‘s play Translations. He first plays at the Abbey Theatre in 1977 in a production of Wild Oats and goes on to perform in many other Abbey productions.

In 1982, Lally stars in the TV series The Ballroom of Romance alongside Brenda Fricker. From 1983 he plays the role of Miley Byrne in the RTÉ soap Glenroe, reprising the character that he played earlier in Bracken in 1978. In 1979, he wins a Jacob’s Award for his performance as Miley in Bracken. He also has some musical success when “The By-road to Glenroe” goes to the top of the Irish charts in 1990. He is also involved in voice-over work, including a noted advertisement for Kilmeaden Cheese during the 1990s. Other TV appearances include roles in Tales of Kinvarna, The Year of the French and Ballykissangel.

In 1994, Lally plays the character Hugh in The Secret of Roan Inish, and in 1995 portrays Dan Hogan in the film adaptation of Maeve Binchy‘s Circle of Friends. Other film roles included Poitín, Our Boys, The Outcasts, A Man of No Importance and others. In later years, he provides the voice of Brother Aidan in the Academy Award-nominated The Secret of Kells, an animated film directed by Tomm Moore.

Lally appears in several TV advertisements encouraging elderly people to “release the equity tied up in their homes” during the Celtic Tiger.

Mick Lally dies in Dublin on the morning of August 31, 2010, after a short stay in the hospital. The cause of death is reported as heart failure, arising from an underlying emphysema condition. His funeral takes place in Dublin on September 2, 2010. The Irish Examiner comments that the “nation has lost one of its favourite uncles.” Personalities from TV, film, theatre and politics attend, while President of Ireland Mary McAleese sends a letter and Lally receives a standing ovation at the end.


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Death of Frank Hall, Broadcaster, Journalist, Satirist & Film Censor

Frank Hall, Irish broadcaster, journalist, satirist and film censor, dies in Dublin on September 21, 1995. He is best remembered for his satirical revue programme Hall’s Pictorial Weekly.

Born in Newry, County Down, on February 24, 1921, Hall receives little more than a primary education as he leaves school at the age of twelve to work in a local shop. He later works as a waiter in London before moving to Dublin. On his return he joins the art department of the Irish Independent. He subsequently works with the Evening Herald where he writes a column on dance bands.

After that, Hall moves to RTÉ where he works in the newsroom. From 1964 to 1971 he presents Newsbeat, a regional news programme. He also presents The Late Late Show for the opening of the 1964 season, but his lack of success in that seat leads to the return of the previous presenter, Gay Byrne. When Newsbeat ends, he starts writing and presenting Hall’s Pictorial Weekly, a political satire show that runs for over 250 episodes until 1980. A successor show, Hall and Company, runs from 1980 until his retirement from television in 1986. He serves as spokesperson for the Irish jury in the Eurovision Song Contest 1965 and 1966.

Hall wins two Jacob’s Awards, in 1966 and 1975, for his work on Newsbeat and Hall’s Pictorial Weekly respectively.

In 1978, Hall is appointed Ireland’s national film censor. During his period as censor, he is known for his strict application of Irish censorship and his defence of family values. Among the films banned by him is Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which he describes as “offensive to Christians and to Jews as well, because it made them appear a terrible load of gobshites.”

Hall has a long running affair with a young colleague from RTÉ, though married to Aideen Kearney at the time. It is also widely accepted that he has a daughter in 1956 with RTÉ presenter Frankie Byrne, although this is disputed at the time by his family members. His relationship with Frankie Byrne is placed in the public domain in a Mint Productions programme, Dear Frankie, screened on RTÉ in January 2006. In 2010, a play written by Niamh Gleeson, also entitled Dear Frankie, opens in the Liberty Hall theatre. Later in 2012, it opens again in the Gaiety Theatre, going on to play in theatres across the country.

Hall dies of a heart attack in Dublin on September 21, 1995. He is buried in Dardistown Cemetery in Northside, Dublin.