seamus dubhghaill

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

Category Archives: Free State & Republic (1922-Present)


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Live Aid

live-aid-logo

Live Aid, a dual-venue benefit concert organised primarily by Dublin-born Bob Geldof, is held on July 13, 1985. The event is organised by Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. Billed as the “global jukebox,” the event is held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London, England, (attended by 72,000 people) and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (attended by about 100,000 people).

On the same day, concerts inspired by the initiative take place in other countries, such as the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, Yugoslavia, Austria, Australia and West Germany. It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time. An estimated global audience of 1.9 billion, across 150 nations, watch the live broadcast. If accurate, this would be nearly 40% of the world population at the time.

In October 1984, images of millions of people starving to death in Ethiopia were shown in the UK in Michael Buerk‘s BBC News reports on the 1984 famine. The report shocks Britain, motivating its citizens to inundate relief agencies, such as Save the Children, with donations, and to bring the world’s attention to the crisis in Ethiopia. Bob Geldof also sees the report, and calls Midge Ure from Ultravox, and together they quickly co-write the song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in the hope of raising money for famine relief. Geldof then contacts colleagues in the music industry and persuades them to record the single under the title “Band Aid” for free. On November 25, 1984, the song is recorded at SARM West Studios in Notting Hill, London and is released four days later. It stays at number-one on the UK Singles Chart for five weeks, is Christmas number one, and becomes the fastest-selling single ever in Britain and raises £8 million, rather than the £70,000 Geldof and Ure had initially expected.

The 1985 Live Aid concert is conceived as a follow-up to the successful charity single. The idea to stage a charity concert to raise more funds for Ethiopia originally comes from Boy George, the lead singer of Culture Club. On Saturday, December 22, 1984, an impromptu gathering of some of the other artists from Band Aid join Culture Club on stage at the end of their concert at Wembley Stadium for an encore of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” George is so overcome by the occasion he tells Geldof that they should consider organising a benefit concert.

The concert begins at noon at Wembley Stadium in London. It continues at John F. Kennedy Stadium in the United States, starting at 8:51 EDT. The overall concert continues for just over 16 hours, but since many artists’ performances are conducted simultaneously in Wembley and JFK, the total concert’s length is much longer.

Throughout the concerts, viewers are urged to donate money to the Live Aid cause. Three hundred phone lines are manned by the BBC, so that members of the public can make donations using their credit cards. The phone number and an address that viewers can send cheques to are repeated every twenty minutes.

The following day, news reports state that between £40 and £50 million had been raised. It is now estimated that around £150m has been raised for famine relief as a direct result of the concerts. Geldof mentions during the concert that the Republic of Ireland had given the most donations per capita, despite being in the threat of a serious economic recession at the time. The single largest donation comes from the Al Maktoum, who is part of the ruling family of Dubai, who donates £1M during a phone conversation with Geldof.


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Death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, British writer and physician, most noted for creating the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and writing stories about him which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction, dies of a heart attack in Crowborough, East Sussex, England, at the age of 71, on July 7, 1930.

Doyle is born at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, on May 22, 1859. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, is an Englishman of Irish Catholic descent and his mother, Mary (née Foley), is Irish Catholic. Charles dies in 1893, in the Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries, after many years of psychiatric illness. Supported by wealthy uncles, Doyle is sent to the Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place, Stonyhurst, at the age of nine. He then goes on to Stonyhurst College until 1875. From 1875 to 1876, he is educated at the Jesuit school Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Austria. Doyle later rejects the Catholic faith and becomes an agnostic. He also later becomes a spiritualist mystic.

From 1876 to 1881 Doyle studies medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. While studying, he begins writing short stories. His first published piece, The Mystery of Sasassa Valley, is printed in Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal on September 6, 1879. After stints as a ship’s doctor and a failed medical practice with former classmate George Turnavine Budd, Doyle arrives in Portsmouth in June 1882 and sets up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. The practice is slow to develop and while waiting for patients, Doyle again begins writing fiction. In 1890, Doyle studies ophthalmology in Vienna and moves to London.

Doyle’s first work featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, A Study in Scarlet, is published by Ward Lock & Co. in November 1886. The piece appears one year later in the Beeton’s Christmas Annual and receives good reviews in The Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald.

A sequel to A Study in Scarlet is commissioned and The Sign of the Four appears in Lippincott’s Magazine in February 1890, the last under agreement with the Ward Lock company. Short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes are published in The Strand Magazine.

In December 1893, wanting to dedicate more time to historical novels, Doyle has Holmes and Professor Moriarty plunge to their deaths together down the Reichenbach Falls in the The Final Problem. Public outcry, however, leads him to feature Holmes in 1901 in the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. Holmes is ultimately featured in a total of 56 short stories, the last published in 1927, and four novels by Doyle.

Between 1888 and 1906, Doyle writes seven historical novels, which many critics regard as his best work. He also authors nine other novels and, later in his career between 1912 and 1929, five stories, two of novella length, featuring the irascible scientist Professor Challenger.

He twice stands for Parliament as a Liberal Unionist, in 1900 in Edinburgh Central and in 1906 in the Hawick Burghs, but he is not elected. In May 1903, he is appointed a Knight of Grace of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.

Doyle is a supporter of the campaign for the reform of the Congo Free State, led by the journalist E. D. Morel and diplomat Roger Casement. He becomes acquainted with Morel and Casement and, together with Bertram Fletcher Robinson, they inspire several characters in the 1912 novel The Lost World. When Casement is found guilty of treason against the Crown during the 1916 Easter Rising, Doyle tries unsuccessfully to save him from facing the death penalty, arguing that Casement has been driven mad and cannot be held responsible for his actions.

Found clutching his chest in the hall of Windlesham Manor, his house in Crowborough, East Sussex, on July 7, 1930, Doyle dies of a heart attack at the age of 71. At the time of his death there is some controversy concerning his burial place, as he is avowedly not a Christian, but rather considers himself a Spiritualist. He is first buried on July 11, 1930, in Windlesham rose garden. He is later reinterred together with his wife in Minstead churchyard in the New Forest, Hampshire.


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The Irish Free State Takes Drogheda

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A large Irish Free State force takes Drogheda, County Louth, on July 4, 1922, during the Irish Civil War. They defeat Anti-Treaty fighters who are based at Millmount Fort, a large, fortified complex situated on a great mound on the south bank of the River Boyne.

Millmount has been fortified in historical times since the early 12th century when invading Normans built a mote and bailey on what was probably originally a neolithic passage grave similar to Newgrange. In Irish cosmology, it is often assumed to be the burial place of Amergin Glúingel, whose name indicates that in ancient Irish mythology he was regarded as the originator of the arts of song, poetry and music.

Hugh de Lacy, one of the Normans who comes to Ireland after Strongbow, builds the original fort circa 1172, having been granted the Kingdom of Meath by Henry II of England. Later a stone castle is built on the site. This castle forms part of the defences of the town during the Siege of Drogheda during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. The fort’s English defenders attempt to surrender to Parliamentarian troops under Oliver Cromwell but are massacred when they give themselves up on September 11, 1649. The complex is later called Richmond Barracks. Some of the present buildings, in the courtyard, are built circa 1714. After the unrest and rebellions of the 1790s and the Acts of Union 1800 the complex is re-fortified, and the Martello tower is built.

The fort suffers considerable damage during the Irish Civil War. It is occupied by Anti-Treaty forces and on July 4, 1922, it becomes the target of shelling by the army of the Irish Free State. The Free State Forces under Michael Collins have been given extensive support by the British Army at the express wish of Winston Churchill who insists that the Republican Forces be crushed. Using the same British Army 18-pounder artillery piece which had shelled the Republican H.Q. in the Four Courts in Dublin some days earlier the Free State Forces bombard Millmount fort for several hours before the Republican garrison retreats. The famous Martello tower is all but destroyed during the shelling.

Today, after being restored in 2000, the complex houses the Millmount Museum which houses a wide variety of artifacts of local and national importance. The complex is Drogheda’s most dominant feature, clearly visible from all parts of the town. The Martello tower is affectionately known as “The Cup and Saucer” by locals. The whole fort is a national monument and has been designated as Drogheda’s Cultural Quarter.


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Birth of Seán Doherty, Fianna Fáil Politician

sean-doherty

Seán Doherty, Fianna Fáil politician who serves as Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann from 1989 to 1992 and Minister for Justice from March 1982 to December 1982, is born on June 29, 1944, in Cootehall near Boyle, County Roscommon. He also serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1977 to 1989 and 1992 to 2002 and is a Senator for the Administrative Panel from 1989 to 1992.

Doherty is educated at national level in County Leitrim and then at University College Dublin and King’s Inns. In 1965, he becomes a member of the Garda Síochána and serves as a detective in Sligo before joining the Special Detective Unit in Dublin in the early 1970s. In 1973, he takes a seat on the Roscommon County Council, which had been vacated after the death of his father.

After serving for four years on the Roscommon County Council, Doherty is elected as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Roscommon–Leitrim constituency at the 1977 general election.

In 1979, Doherty is a key member of the so-called “gang of five” which supports Charles Haughey‘s attempt to take over the leadership of the party. The other members are Albert Reynolds, Mark Killilea Jnr, Tom McEllistrim and Jackie Fahey. Haughey is successful in the Fianna Fáil leadership election and Doherty is rewarded by being appointed Minister of State at the Department of Justice from 1979 to 1981. In the short-lived 1982 Fianna Fáil government he enters the Cabinet as Minister for Justice. In this post he becomes involved in a series of controversies.

Doherty’s brother-in-law, Garda Thomas Nangle, is charged with assaulting James McGovern, a native of County Fermanagh, in a public house in December 1981. On September 27, 1982, hours before the case is due to be heard in District Court in the small village of Dowra, County Cavan, McGovern is arrested by the Special Branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) on the basis of entirely false Garda intelligence that he is involved in terrorism. The case against Nangle is dismissed because the principal witness, McGovern, fails to appear in court. The solicitor representing Nangle is Kevin Doherty, Seán Doherty’s brother. This questionable use of Garda/RUC Special Branch liaison, set up under the 1985 Hillsborough Anglo-Irish Agreement, prevents meetings between the Garda commissioner and the RUC chief constable for almost three years.

After Doherty leaves office it is revealed in The Irish Times that he ordered the tapping of three journalists home telephones. The newspaper also discloses that he has been interfering in the workings of the Garda and the administration of justice for both political and personal reasons. He immediately resigns from the party only to rejoin it in 1984.

At the 1989 general election his loses his seat in Dáil Éireann to the independent candidate Tom Foxe. He is also an unsuccessful candidate in the elections on the same day to the European Parliament, but he is later elected instead to the Seanad on the Administrative Panel and becomes the Cathaoirleach (Chairman) of the 19th Seanad.

In January 1992 the phone tapping scandal returns to haunt Fianna Fáil. Doherty announces in a television interview that he had shown transcripts of the conversations to Charles Haughey while Haughey was Taoiseach in 1982 although he had previously denied this. Haughey denies the claim also, but is forced to resign from the government, and then resigns as leader of Fianna Fáil. Doherty then regains his seat at the 1992 general election and holds it until his retirement at the 2002 general election.

Seán Doherty dies at Letterkenny General Hospital of a brain hemorrhage on June 7, 2005, while on a family holiday in County Donegal.


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Four Courts Bombardment, Civil War Begins

four-courts-bombing

On June 28, 1922, the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State bombards the Four Courts in Dublin, which anti-Treaty forces had taken by force, and the Irish Civil War begins.

On April 14, 1922, a column of 200 men led by Rory O’Connor occupies the Four Courts, hoping to provoke an armed confrontation with British forces which are in the process of evacuating from Ireland following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty the previous winter which had split the Irish Republican Army (IRA) into two opposing factions. The occupation is a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the Provisional government who seeks a smooth transition to a viable independent Irish state in the 26 counties of Southern Ireland.

On June 22, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson is gunned down by two IRA assassins and on June 26, the Free State Army Deputy Chief of Staff General J.J. O’Connell is kidnapped by the Four Courts IRA garrison. Michael Collins has also shipped guns issued by the British to arm the new Irish Army to Northern IRA units to defend themselves from Ulster loyalists.

Collins, no longer able to resist British pressure, receives two 18-pounder artillery guns and a stock of 200 artillery shells from the store at Kilmainham. The guns are set up at Parliament Street and Winetavern Street and Bridgefoot Street and Usher’s Quay across the River Liffey from the facade of the heavily fortified Four Courts where the Anti-Treaty IRA has barricaded themselves. Free State troops establish a cordon around the building, closing streets with riflemen and machine gunners occupying windows and rooftops. Among the IRA leaders inside are Chief-of-Staff Joe McKelvey, Director of Engineering Rory O’Connor, Quarter Master General Liam Mellows, commander of the IRA’s 2nd Southern Division Ernie O’Malley, Commandant Paddy O’Brien, Commandant Tom Barry and many others. The IRA mostly drawn from 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 1st Dublin Brigade are armed with rifles, five Thompson submachine guns and two Lewis machine guns as well as an armoured car nicknamed “The Mutineer.”

The bombardment begins on June 28 as artillery guns supervised by Emmet Dalton begin blasting the Four Courts at point blank range every fifteen minutes from across the River Liffey. The complex of buildings also comes under a hail of rifle and machine gun fire. However, the strong stone walls of the 18th century Four Courts hold out. A number of the shells overshoot their target and land near General McCready’s British Army headquarters. IRA leader Ernie O’Malley later claims to have witnessed a gun crew fighting a duel with a sniper in the dome of the courts. The failures of the first day lead the impatient British to offer two more 18-pounders as well as heavy howitzers and aircraft in order to destroy the Four Courts once and for all.

On the 29th, Free State troops storm the eastern wing of the Four Courts, suffering three fatalities, 14 wounded and taking 33 prisoners. The republicans’ armored car, “The Mutineer,” is disabled and abandoned by its crew. Early the following day Paddy O’Brien is injured by shrapnel and Ernie O’Malley takes over military command in the Four Courts. By this time the shelling has caused the Four Courts to catch fire. In addition, orders arrive from Oscar Traynor, the anti-treaty IRA commander in Dublin, for the Four Courts garrison to surrender, as he is unable to reach their position to help them. At 3:30 PM on June 30, O’Malley surrenders the Four Courts to Brig. Gen. Paddy Daly of the Free State’s Dublin Guard unit.


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Death of Actress Maureen O’Sullivan

maureen-osullivan

Maureen Paula O’Sullivan, Irish American actress best known for playing Jane in the Tarzan series of films starring Johnny Weissmuller, dies in Scottsdale, Arizona, of complications from heart surgery on June 23, 1998.

O’Sullivan is born in Boyle, County Roscommon on May 17, 1911, the daughter of Evangeline “Mary Eva” Lovatt and Charles Joseph O’Sullivan, an officer in the Connaught Rangers who serves in World War I. She attends a convent school in Dublin, then the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Roehampton, England. One of her classmates there is Vivian Mary Hartley, future Academy Award-winning actress Vivien Leigh. After attending finishing school in France, O’Sullivan returns to Dublin to work with the poor.

O’Sullivan’s film career begins when she meets motion picture director Frank Borzage, who is doing location filming on Song o’ My Heart for 20th Century Fox. He suggests she take a screen test, which she does, and wins a part in the movie, which stars Irish tenor John McCormack. She travels to the United States to complete the movie in Hollywood. O’Sullivan appears in six movies at Fox, then makes three more at other movie studios.

In 1932, she signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. After several roles there and at other movie studios, she is chosen by Irving Thalberg to appear as Jane Parker in Tarzan the Ape Man, opposite co-star Johnny Weissmuller. She is one of the more popular ingenues at MGM throughout the 1930s and appears in a number of other productions with various stars. In all, O’Sullivan plays Jane in six features between 1932 and 1942.

She stars with William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man (1934) and plays Kitty in Anna Karenina (1935) with Greta Garbo and Basil Rathbone. After co-starring with the Marx Bros. in A Day At The Races (1937), she appears as Molly Beaumont in A Yank at Oxford (1938), which is written partly by F. Scott Fitzgerald. At her request, he rewrites her part to give it substance and novelty.

She plays another Jane in Pride and Prejudice (1940) with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson and supports Ann Sothern in Maisie Was a Lady (1941). After appearing in Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942), O’Sullivan asks MGM to release her from her contract so she can care for her husband who has just left the Navy with typhoid. She retreats from show business, devoting her time to her family. In 1948, she re-appears on the screen in The Big Clock, directed by her husband for Paramount Pictures. She continues to appear occasionally in her husband’s movies and on television. However, by 1960 she believes she has permanently retired. In 1958, Farrow’s and O’Sullivan’s eldest son, Michael, dies in a plane crash in California.

Actor Pat O’Brien encourages her to take a part in summer stock, and the play A Roomful of Roses opens in 1961. That leads to another play, Never Too Late, in which she co-stars with Paul Ford in what is her Broadway debut. Shortly after it opens on Broadway, John Farrow dies of a heart attack. O’Sullivan sticks with acting after Farrow’s death. She is also an executive director of a bridal consulting service, Wediquette International. In June and July 1972, O’Sullivan is in Denver, Colorado, to star in the Elitch Theatre production of Butterflies are Free with Karen Grassle and Brandon deWilde. The show ends on July 1, 1972. Five days later, while still in Denver, deWilde is killed in a motor vehicle accident.

When her daughter, actress Mia Farrow, becomes involved with Woody Allen both professionally and romantically, she appears in Hannah and Her Sisters, playing Farrow’s mother. She has roles in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and the science fiction oddity Stranded (1987). Mia Farrow names one of her own sons Ronan O’Sullivan Farrow for her mother. In 1994, she appears with Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers in Hart to Hart: Home Is Where the Hart Is, a feature-length made-for-TV movie with the wealthy husband-and-wife team from the popular weekly detective series Hart to Hart.

Maureen O’Sullivan dies in Scottsdale, Arizona, of complications from heart surgery on June 23, 1998, at the age of 87. O’Sullivan is buried at Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery, Niskayuna, New York. She is survived by six of her children, 32 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren. Michael, her oldest son, is killed at age 19 in a plane crash in 1958.


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U.S. Vice President Joe Biden Arrives in Ireland

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Vice President of the United States Joe Biden arrives in Ireland on Tuesday, June 21, 2016, for a six-day visit. He arrives with his brother and sister, his daughter and five grandchildren and is welcomed to Ireland by Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Charles Flanagan.

Biden then travels to Government Buildings where he is formally welcomed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Kenny says he hopes Biden enjoyed his visit and Biden says that he himself has visited Ireland several times privately, but never as vice president. He adds that he had promised his late son Beau that he would make a family trip to Ireland, “Unfortunately Beau didn’t make it, but we decided that we would bring the whole family.”

Biden, an Irish American, speaks of his great-grandfather who emigrated from Ireland, and he also speaks of the pride his family feels in their Irish heritage.

Kenny presents Biden with a hurley and a sliotar, to which the Vice President responds, “I have witnessed one game and I have one regret, that they don’t have this in the United States. I played American football and American baseball in high school and college, but this would have been … this is a dangerous game.”

Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Kenny in the evening and meets with the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, the following day at his official residence, Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin‘s Phoenix Park. As he signs the visitors’ book, he paraphrases another famous Irish American, former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who had visited the Republic of Ireland 53 years earlier. His written entry makes reference to a speech made to Dáil Éireann in June 1963, when Kennedy said, “our two nations, divided by distance, have been united by history.”

During his visit Biden visits County Mayo and County Louth, where his ancestors originated, in addition to several engagements in Dublin and a stop at Newgrange. He also arranges to fit in a round of golf with Kenny.

Biden speaks at an event at Trinity College, Dublin on the morning of Friday, June 24 and delivers a keynote address to an American Ireland Fund event in Dublin Castle in the evening. He addresses the Irish American experience, the shared heritage of the two nations, and the values of tolerance, diversity and inclusiveness.

On Saturday, June 25, Biden visits various locations in County Louth including the Kilwirra Cemetery and Newgrange in County Meath.

Biden returns to the United States following a lunch with Kenny on Sunday, June 26.

(Pictured: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden signing the visitor’s book as Irish President Michael D. Higgins look on at his official residence, Áras an Uachtaráin)


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Birth of Audie Murphy, Decorated Soldier & Actor

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Audie Leon Murphy, one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II, is born to sharecropping parents of Irish descent in Kingston, Texas on June 20, 1925.

As a child, Murphy is a loner with mood swings and an explosive temper. He grows up in Texas, around Farmersville, Greenville, and Celeste, where he attends elementary school. His father drifts in and out of the family’s life and eventually deserts them. He drops out of school in fifth grade and gets a job picking cotton for a dollar a day to help support his family. After his mother dies of endocarditis and pneumonia in 1941, he works at a radio repair shop and at a combination general store, garage and gas station in Greenville.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Murphy’s older sister helps him to falsify documentation about his birthdate in order to meet the minimum-age requirement for enlisting in the military. Turned down by the Navy and the Marine Corps, he enlists in the Army. He first sees action in the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Then, in 1944, he participates in the Battle of Anzio, the liberation of Rome, and Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France. He fights at Montélimar and leads his men on a successful assault at the L’Omet quarry near Cleurie in northeastern France in October.

Murphy receives every military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. He receives the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrates at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off an entire company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, then leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.

After the war, Murphy embarks on a 21-year acting career. He plays himself in the 1955 autobiographical film To Hell and Back, based on his 1949 memoirs of the same name, but most of his roles are in westerns. He makes guest appearances on celebrity television shows and stars in the series Whispering Smith. He is a fairly accomplished songwriter. He breeds American Quarter Horses in California and Arizona and becomes a regular participant in horse racing.

Suffering from what would today be described as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Murphy sleeps with a loaded handgun under his pillow. He looks for solace in addictive sleeping pills. In his last few years, he is plagued by money problems but refuses offers to appear in alcohol and cigarette commercials because he does not want to set a bad example.

Audie Murphy is killed on May 28, 1971 when the private plane in which he is a passenger crashes into Brush Mountain, near Catawba, Virginia, twenty miles west of Roanoke in conditions of rain, clouds, fog and zero visibility. The pilot and four other passengers are also killed. On June 7, 1971, he is buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. In attendance are United States Ambassador to the United Nations George H.W. Bush, Chief of Staff of the United States Army William Westmoreland, and many of the 3rd Infantry Division. His gravesite is the cemetery’s second most-visited gravesite, after that of President John F. Kennedy.

(Pictured: Audie Murphy as Tom Smith in the television series Whispering Smith, 1961)


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“The Beauty Queen of Leenane” Wins Four Tony Awards

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After being nominated in six categories, Galway’s Druid Theatre Company wins four Tony Awards on June 8, 1998, for its production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, a 1996 comedy by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh.

The play receives its world premiere when the Druid Theatre Company opens the production at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on February 1, 1996. It then tours Ireland, stopping off in Longford, Kilkenny and Limerick. It transfers to London‘s West End, where it opens at the Royal Court Theatre on February 29, 1996.

The Druid production returns to Ireland to embark on an extensive national tour, playing in Galway, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Fermanagh, Donegal and Derry amongst others. The play returns to London where it is revived at the Duke of York’s Theatre on November 29, 1996, for several months.

The play is produced as part of Druid’s Leenane Trilogy, which includes two other plays by Martin McDonagh, in 1997 where it plays as part of another Irish and UK tour, which includes stops at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin and the Royal Court Theatre in London again.

The play receives its American premiere opening Off-Broadway on February 11, 1998, presented by the Atlantic Theatre Company at the Linda Gross Theater. It transfers to the Walter Kerr Theater on Broadway where it opens on April 14, 1998. It receives six Tony Award nominations, winning four for Best Supporting Actor (Tom Murphy), Best Actress (Marie Mullen), Best Supporting Actress (Anna Manahan), and Best Director (Garry Hynes), the first female recipient of a Tony Award for directing a play.

The play is produced in Australia in 1998 and again in 1999. The 1999 production is a tour by the Royal Court Theatre Company, appearing at the Adelaide Festival Centre (May – June 1999) and Wharf 1 (July 1999) and directed by Garry Hynes. The production returns to Ireland in 2000 as part of a final national tour.

The play is revived in July 2010 at the Young Vic Theatre in the West End, starring Irish actress Rosaleen Linehan. The production transfers to Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre where Linehan reprises her role opposite Derbhle Crotty. It then returns to the Young Vic for another run, closing in September 2011.

The Druid Theatre Company presents a revival in 2016–2017. The production starts in Ireland in Galway at the Town Hall Theatre in September 2016, and then tours to The Everyman in Cork, the Lime Tree Theatre in Limerick and the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. The play then tours in the United States starting in November 2016. The play runs at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in November 2016 then opens at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City, running from January 11, 2017, to February 5. The production returns to Ireland, playing at The Gaiety Theatre from March 28 to April 15, 2017.


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Birth of Rosaleen Linehan, Stage, Screen & Television Actress

rosaleen-linehan

Rosaleen Linehan, Irish stage, screen and television actress born Rosaleen Philomena McMenamin, is born in Dublin on June 1, 1937.

Linehan has appeared in many comedy revues written by her husband Fergus. She has appeared onstage in, among other plays, Blithe Spirit, House of Bernarda Alba and Twelfth Night. She is nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Kate in Brian Friel‘s Dancing at Lughnasa at the 1992 Tony Awards. She stars as Winnie in Samuel Beckett‘s Happy Days on stage and on screen as part of the Beckett on Film project, having already played the role in a 1996 production at the Gate Theatre opposite Barry McGovern.

In 1972, Linehan wins a Jacob’s Award for her RTÉ Radio comedy series Get an Earful of This. She is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Irish Theatre Awards in 2008.

In film, Linehan appears as Nurse Callan in Ulysses, May Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1977), Aunt Fitzeustace in Fools of Fortune, Mrs. Canning in The Butcher Boy, Peggy Owens in About Adam, Mrs. Matson in The Hi-Lo Country and Millie O’Dowd in The Matchmaker. In television, she is a voice artist on the Irish language children’s TV series Inis Cúil in 2005 and appears in Hugh Leonard‘s BBC sitcom Me Mammy. More recently, she plays Deirdre O Kane’s mother in Bitter Sweet.

Linehan and her husband live in Dublin and have four children and eight grandchildren. Her father Daniel McMenamin was a Teachta Dála for Donegal from 1927 to 1961.