seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Leinster School of Music & Drama


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Death of Veronica Dunne, Operatic Soprano & Voice Teacher

Veronica Dunne, Irish operatic soprano and voice teacher also known as Ronnie Dunne, who is described as “an Irish national treasure,” dies on April 5, 2021. After a successful operatic career at the Dublin Opera and the Royal Opera House in London, she focuses on voice teaching in Dublin, where she trains future international singers. The triennial Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition is established in 1995. She receives the National Concert Hall Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

Dunne is born in Dublin on August 20, 1927. She is the youngest of three children of a well-to-do family. Her father works as a master builder whose construction firm builds the church in Foxrock, Dublin, in the early 1930s. She begins singing when she is 11 years old. She studies initially in Dublin with Hubert Rooney. She then sells her pony for £125 in order to fund her dream of studying music in Italy. She goes to Rome in 1946 to study with Soldini Calcagni and Francesco Calcatelli. Her family meets with Sarsfield Hogan, the secretary of the Department of Finance at the time, to discuss the issue of her monthly allowance, which would breach foreign exchange controls. Sarsfield permits her to receive the money on the condition that she return to Ireland in the future and teach her young compatriots to sing.

Dunne makes her operatic debut in Dublin in 1948 as Micaëla in Georges Bizet‘s Carmen with the Dublin Grand Opera Society, and appears there in 1949 as Marguerite in Charles Gounod‘s Faust. She wins the Concorso Lirico Milano in 1952, which brings her the role of Mimì in Ruggero Leoncavallo‘s La bohème at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan, which in turn brings her a contract from the Royal Opera House in London, where she first appears as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. She performs at the house alongside Joan Sutherland and Kathleen Ferrier. In 1958, she appears as Blanche in the first performance at the house of Francis Poulenc‘s Dialogues of the Carmelites. She also performs with the Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, and Wexford Festival Opera. She returns to the stage in 2002 to appear as Countess in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky‘s The Queen of Spades at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin.

Dunne gives a number of world premieres of works by contemporary Irish composers including Never to Have Lived is Best (1965) by Seóirse Bodley, as well as Irish Songs (1971) and The Táin (1970) by James Wilson.

Dunne is appointed a voice teacher at the then Dublin College of Music (today Technical University Conservatory of Music and Drama) in 1962. She is awarded an honorific doctorate in 1987. She retires in 1992, but continues to teach at the Leinster School of Music and the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Her students include Patricia Bardon, Orla Boylan, Mary Brennan, Tara Erraught, Lynda Lee, Colette McGahon, Anthony Kearns, Suzanne Murphy, and Finbar Wright, who have all sung in the major international opera houses. In 2014, at the age of 87, she continues to teach 39 hours per week.

The triennial Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition, established by the Friends of the Vocal Arts in Ireland in 1995, awards bursaries in her name. Recipients included Orla Boylan, Sarah-Jane Brandon, Tara Erraught, Pumeza Matshikiza and Simon O’Neill. She receives the National Concert Hall Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

Dunne marries Peter McCarthy in 1953. The couple has two children.

Dunne dies at the age of 93, on April 5, 2021. Irish President Michael D. Higgins pays tribute to Dunne, saying that she “captivated millions with her singing” and adding, “The legacy she leaves lies in the talents of those scores of others whose talents and performances she unlocked with her enthusiasm, energy and commitment as a teacher and friend.”


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Death of Máirín Cregan, Playwright & Novelist

Máirín Cregan, Irish nationalist who is involved in the 1916 Easter Rising and Irish War of Independence, dies in Dublin on November 9, 1975. She makes her name writing for children, as well as writing plays and novels for adults.

Mary Ellen Cregan is born in Killorglin, County Kerry, on March 27, 1891, to Morgan Cregan and Ellen O’Shea. Her father is a stonemason from Limerick. The family are strong believers in the Gaelic revival movement and Cregan herself learns the Irish language and performs songs at Gaelic League concerts. Although she goes to primary school locally, she goes away to secondary school to St. Louis Convent in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan. After finishing school, she becomes a teacher, working in Goresbridge, County Kilkenny from 1911 to 1914.

In September 1914 Cregan goes to Dublin to study music in the Leinster School of Music, under Madame Coslett Heller. It is while she is in Dublin that she becomes friends with the Ryan family, who are strong nationalists as well as interested in the Gaelic League and Sinn Féin. She begins to sing for concerts which are fundraisers for the Irish Volunteers. The last concert is just two weeks before the Easter Rising.

During Easter week Cregan is sent to Tralee with “automatics and ammunition” by Seán Mac Diarmada. While she is carrying a violin case of munitions, she is also carrying details for the wireless technology needed for communicating with the SS Aud, the boat which is carrying more weapons for the rebellion. The communications with the SS Aud go wrong when the car carrying the Volunteers goes off a pier and the occupants are drowned. She is still in the area to assist with the surviving Volunteer, who unfortunately knows nothing of the details for the SS Aud. She is not easily able to get back to Dublin, because owing to the Rising the city is cut off. By the time she gets back, her friends have been arrested.

When Cregan is going to school in Dublin she is also working in a school in Rathmines. Like many of the teachers, she loses her job after the rising because of her connection to the rebels. However, she is able to get new positions over the next few years in both Ballyshannon and Portstewart until she marries. In Ballyshannon she experiences the early expressions of support and sympathy, but Portstewart is a Unionist enclave with many houses flying union flags on polling day in 1918.

Cregan is a member of Cumann na mBan and with them is active during the Irish War of Independence. She is given a medal for her participation. On July 23, 1919, she marries Dr. James Ryan in Athenry, County Galway. His entire family had been deeply involved in the Easter Rising, as well as the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. They have three children, Eoin, who becomes a Senator, Nuala (Colgan) and Seamus.

The family is initially based in Wexford during the War. The house is often raided when the British soldiers are looking for her husband and Cregan herself is arrested in February 1921 for refusing to put up martial law posters. Later the family sells the house and remains mobile while she works for the Sinn Féin government, and her husband is in prison. It is during this time that she works as a courier to the continent and to London. After the war, they purchase Kindlestown House in Delgany, County Wicklow, where they remain for the rest of their lives.

Cregan works as a journalist for The Irish Press and The Sunday Press. Her political awareness and involvement mean that her work there is on political articles.

Cregan’s first book for children is Old John and gains her considerable international success and attention. Sean Eoin is also published in Irish and is illustrated by Jack Butler Yeats. Her work is also aired on the BBC and RTÉ. Rathina wins the Downey Award in the United States in 1943. She also writes two plays: Hunger strike (1933), based on experience of her husband’s involvement in such a strike, which is broadcast on Radio Éireann on May 5, 1936, and Curlew’s call (1940).

Cregan dies on November 9, 1975, in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, and is buried in Redford cemetery near her home in County Wicklow.

(Pictured: Máirín Cregan and her husband, Dr. James Ryan)


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Birth of Máirín Cregan, Nationalist, Playwright, & Novelist

Máirín Cregan, Irish nationalist who is involved in the 1916 Easter Rising and Irish War of Independence, is born in Killorglin, County Kerry, on March 27, 1891. She later makes her name writing for children, as well as writing plays and novels for adults.

Mary Ellen Cregan is born to Morgan Cregan and Ellen O’Shea. Her father is a stonemason from Limerick. The family are strong believers in the Gaelic revival movement and Cregan herself learns the Irish language and performs songs at Gaelic League concerts. Although she goes to primary school locally, she goes away to secondary school to St. Louis Convent in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan. After finishing school, she becomes a teacher, working in Goresbridge, County Kilkenny from 1911 to 1914.

In September 1914 Cregan goes to Dublin to study music in the Leinster School of Music, under Madame Coslett Heller. It is while she is in Dublin that she becomes friends with the Ryan family, who are strong nationalists as well as interested in the Gaelic League and Sinn Féin. She begins to sing for concerts which are fundraisers for the Irish Volunteers. The last concert is just two weeks before the Easter Rising.

During Easter week Cregan is sent to Tralee with “automatics and ammunition” by Seán Mac Diarmada. While she is carrying a violin case of munitions, she is also carrying details for the wireless technology needed for communicating with the SS Aud, the boat which is carrying more weapons for the rebellion. The communications with the SS Aud go wrong when the car carrying the Volunteers goes off a pier and the occupants are drowned. She is still in the area to assist with the surviving Volunteer, who unfortunately knows nothing of the details for the SS Aud. She is not easily able to get back to Dublin, because owing to the Rising the city is cut off. By the time she gets back, her friends have been arrested.

When Cregan is going to school in Dublin she is also working in a school in Rathmines. Like many of the teachers, she loses her job after the rising because of her connection to the rebels. However, she is able to get new positions over the next few years in both Ballyshannon and Portstewart until she marries. In Ballyshannon she experiences the early expressions of support and sympathy, but Portstewart is a Unionist enclave with many houses flying union flags on polling day in 1918.

Cregan is a member of Cumann na mBan and with them is active during the Irish War of Independence. She is given a medal for her participation. On July 23, 1919, she marries Dr. James Ryan in Athenry, County Galway. His entire family had been deeply involved in the Easter Rising, as well as the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. They have three children, Eoin, who becomes a Senator, Nuala (Colgan) and Seamus.

The family is initially based in Wexford during the War. The house is often raided when the British soldiers are looking for her husband and Cregan herself is arrested in February 1921 for refusing to put up martial law posters. Later the family sells the house and remains mobile while she works for the Sinn Féin government, and her husband is in prison. It is during this time that she works as a courier to the continent and to London. After the war, they purchase Kindlestown House in Delgany, County Wicklow, where they remain for the rest of their lives.

Cregan works as a journalist for The Irish Press and The Sunday Press. Her political awareness and involvement mean that her work there is on political articles.

Cregan’s first book for children is Old John and gains her considerable international success and attention. Sean Eoin is also published in Irish and is illustrated by Jack Butler Yeats. Her work is also aired on the BBC and RTÉ. Rathina wins the Downey Award in the United States in 1943. She also writes two plays: Hunger strike (1933), based on experience of her husband’s involvement in such a strike, which is broadcast on Radio Éireann on May 5, 1936, and Curlew’s call (1940).

Cregan dies on November 9, 1975, in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, and is buried in Redford cemetery near her home in County Wicklow.

(Pictured: Máirín Cregan and her husband, Dr. James Ryan)