seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Soap Opera


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Birth of Anna Manahan, Stage, Film & Television Actress

Anna Maria Manahan, Irish stage, film and television actress, is born on October 18, 1924, in County Waterford in what is at the time the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland).

Manahan receives two Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play nominations for her performances in the 1968 production of Lovers and the 1998 production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, the latter for which she wins at the 52nd Tony Awards.

Manahan is also nominated for two Drama Desk Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award in a career that spans more than 60 years. She interprets the works of, among others, Seán O’Casey, John B. Keane, John Millington Synge, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Martin McDonagh, Christy Brown, and Brian Friel.

Manahan’s career begins when, as a young woman, she is recruited by the legendary Irish impresarios and theatrical directors Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards. She later marries stage director Colm O’Kelly, who dies not long afterward of polio, which he contracts after swimming in the Nile during a theatre tour of Egypt. They have no children and she never remarries. She is known professionally by her maiden name. In 1946 she appears in a production by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy, The Wild Goose, where she plays the part of Eileen Connolly. This is performed by Equity Productions in the Theatre Royal, Waterford.

In 1957, Manahan plays Serafina in the first Irish production of Tennessee Williams‘s The Rose Tattoo and achieves unexpected notoriety when she and several other members of the cast are arrested for the possession of a condom on stage.

Manahan plays a minor role in the Irish cult soap opera The Riordans (1960s), and as Mrs. Mary Kenefick in the TV comedy Me Mammy (1970s). She also plays the lead in the Irish comedy series, Leave It To Mrs O’Brien (1980s) and Mrs. Cadogan in The Irish R.M. (1980s). Most recently she plays Ursula in Fair City, for which her niece, Michele Manahan (daughter of Michael Manahan), is a writer.

Manahan has an extensive theatre portfolio having played at theatres throughout Ireland including the Abbey Theatre, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, the United States and Australia. She wins the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Mag in Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane on Broadway. She previously receives a Tony nomination in 1969 for Brian Friel’s Lovers.

The Irish playwright John B. Keane writes the play Big Maggie specifically for Manahan. In 2001 she stars in Keane’s The Matchmaker with veteran Irish actor Des Keogh. In 2005 she stars in Sisters, a new play by Declan Hassett that is also written for her and for which she is nominated for a Drama Desk Award in the category of Outstanding Solo Performance. The production tours Ireland and is staged at the International Festival of World Theatre in Colorado and also plays at the 59E59 Theater in New York City in 2006.

Manahan appears in films starring, among others, Laurence Olivier, Peter Cushing, Kenneth More, Christopher Walken, Maggie Smith, Albert Finney and Brenda Fricker, and with John Gielgud in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1977).

Manahan receives the Gold Medal of the Éire Society of Boston in 1984 and thus joins the company of past recipients such as John F. Kennedy, and film makers John Ford and John Huston. She receives an honorary doctorate in letters from the University of Limerick in 2003. She is granted the freedom of the city of Waterford in 2002 in recognition of her life’s achievement in the arts. She thus becomes the 28th Freeman of Waterford since Isaac Butt in 1877.

In 2004 Manahan starts to play the role of Ursula in Fair City. All About Anna (2005), a documentary on her life and work is made by Charlie Mc Carthy/Icebox Films for RTÉ Television. In 2008, she becomes the first ever patron of the Active Retirement Ireland organization.

Manahan dies of multiple organ failure on March 8, 2009 in Waterford. She had suffered from a longterm illness.

Her funeral is held on March 11, officiated by her “longtime friend” the psychoanalyst, poet, and priest Bernard Kennedy. “As the final curtain falls, the lights dim, the auditorium becomes silent, we remember her” he says. Describing her as a woman of faith (who “sought to bring the word of God alive”), he says she had brought everyone together to be present at “her last great exit from this great stage of life,” saying her life’s work had drawn people from all over the world. “Anna believed in the empty tomb of the Resurrection and she believed the empty tomb could be filled by hearing the word take the place of the emptiness,” he says. “She knew the bedsits which preceded the Tony nomination.”

Manahan is buried in Ballygunner Cemetery, Knockboy, County Waterford.


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Birth of Mario Rosenstock, Actor, Comedian, Impressionist & Musician

Mario Rosenstock, Irish actor, comedian, impressionist and musician, is born in London, England, on August 31, 1970.

Rosenstock first comes to the attention of the Irish public playing the role of Dr. David Hanlon in the soap opera Glenroe in the 1990s.

However, he is now best known for the popular Gift Grub segments which have featured on The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show on Today FM since May 1999 which Rosenstock creates alongside Paul McLoone, a radio presenter with Today FM and frontman of the Northern Irish pop-punk/new-wave band, The Undertones.

Gift Grub is a series of comic sketches, impersonations and parodies that featured Rosenstock assuming the personae of Bertie Ahern, Ronan Keating, Colin Farrell and Roy Keane among many others. He also provides the manic voice of Right Price Tiles radio spokesperson “Daft Dave.”

Rosenstock performs an impersonation of José Mourinho in a parody of a song from the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This spreads like wildfire on Internet message boards and eventually it is played on a Sky Sports broadcast. Mourinho hears the song and enjoys the impersonation so much he asks Rosenstock to perform a private show for him and the Chelsea F.C. squad. Rosenstock later releases, with Mourinho’s blessing, a single version of “José and his Amazing Technicolor Overcoat.” He also releases another song (“I Sign a Little Player or Two“) on the internet with a parody of Mourinho in an interview then breaking into song.

In 2005, Rosenstock stars as Keano in the comedy musical play I, Keano, which concerns Keane storming out of the Republic of Ireland national football squad during preparations for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

In 2005, Rosenstock achieves the Christmas number one single in the Irish Singles Chart, with a parody of Will Young‘s song Leave Right Now (which itself is a Christmas number-one in 2003). The parody concerned Roy Keane’s controversial departure from Manchester United and his falling-out with Alex Ferguson. 

Between December 2007 and May 2009, Rosenstock works on a puppet comedy series entitled Special 1 TV (originally known as I’m on Setanta Sports), which is presented as a parody weekly football talk show hosted by “José Mourinho.” He voices all the puppet characters on the sketch, with the exception of “Rafael Benitez,” who is performed by Keith Burke, including the main character Mourinho, his studio co-hosts “Sven-Göran Eriksson” and “Wayne Rooney,” and regular phone-in callers like “Alex Ferguson,” “Arsène Wenger,” “Roy Keane” and “Mick McCarthy,” as well as the non-football-related characters, Nelson Mandela, Willie Nelson, Barack Obama and Tom Cruise.

Rosenstock receives the Outstanding Achievement Award at the 11th annual PPI (Phonographic Performance Ireland) Radio Awards in 2011.

In November 2012 his new show called The Mario Rosenstock Show starts on RTÉ2. A second series of the show begins to air in September 2013.

Rosenstock is married, with two children. His uncle, Gabriel Rosenstock, is one of Ireland’s most notable Irish language poets and member of Innti with Michael Davitt, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Liam Ó Muirthile. Rosenstock’s grandfather George is a doctor and writer from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. He never speaks German again after the war out of shame. His grandmother is a nurse from Athenry, County Galway.


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Death of Joan O’Hara, Stage, Film & Television Actress

Joan O’Hara, Irish stage, film and television actress, dies in Dublin on July 23, 2007. She is one of Ireland’s most popular actresses and is, at the time of her death, recognisable to television viewers as Eunice Dunstan, a gossip in Fair City on RTÉ One.

O’Hara is born in Rosses Point, County Sligo, on October 10, 1930, the daughter of Major John Charles O’Hara, an officer in the British Corps of Royal Engineers and his wife, Mai (née Kirwan). One of her sisters, Mary (born 1935), is a soprano/harpist. Her brother Dermot (born 1934) now lives with his family in Canada. She attends the same Ursuline convent school as fellow actress and friend Pauline Flanagan.

O’Hara lives most of her life in Monkstown, Dublin, with a stay in London, with her husband, the poet and architect Francis J. Barry. The couple has four children: Siubhan, Jane, Guy, and Sebastian, an author/playwright, whose works include The Steward of Christendom, and the Booker-shortlisted novels A Long Long Way and The Secret Scripture. She is also a year-round sea-swimmer.

O’Hara is a member of the renowned Abbey Players and performs in many plays in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, including those by Seán O’Casey, Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats. She appears as Maurya in the 1988 film The Dawning. She appears in a number of other films, including Ron Howard‘s Far and Away, Da, Footfalls, Home is the Hero and just before her death, How About You. In this her final film, she stars with Vanessa Redgrave and her friend Brenda Fricker. The strength of her performance and bravery in carrying it out is acknowledged by the cast and crew in a standing ovation.

More recently, O’Hara is best known for appearing in the popular Irish television soap opera Fair City, broadcast on RTÉ One. She joins the soap in 1994, portraying the character Eunice Dunstan until her death in 2007. Thus, she is described as both one of Ireland’s most popular actresses and as one of the finest actors of her generation on her death. She admires in particular Samuel Beckett, Federico García Lorca and Ingmar Bergman. While she takes a no-nonsense approach to her craft, famously giving the advice that when in doubt, one should relate to the fireplace, she is educated at the Abbey School of Acting and has a deep appreciation and knowledge of theoretical approaches to acting and is an admirer of the European and American avant-garde. As actor Alan Stanford says after her death, “She had the most amazing energy. She was in the truest sense one of the last of the greats.”

Joan O’Hara Barry (she keeps her maiden name as her stage name) dies in Dublin on July 23, 2007, of complications from heart disease, aged 76. Her death is announced on RTÉ News the following day.


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Birth of Pauline Flanagan, Stage & Television Actress

Pauline Flanagan, Irish-born actress who has a long career on stage, is born in Sligo, County Sligo, on June 29, 1925. She is best known in the United States for her role as Annie Colleary, on the television soap opera Ryan’s Hope in 1979 and again in 1981. She later returns to the show as Sister Mary Joel.

Flanagan is born to Patrick and Elizabeth (née Mulligan) Flanagan, who are strongly nationalist and republican, and support the Republican Anti-Treaty during the Irish Civil War, both serving as Lord Mayor of Sligo. Her paternal family, originally from County Fermanagh, are driven out by anti‐Catholic pogroms and resettle in Sligo, where her parents manage a retail business. She is good friends with fellow Irish actresses Joan O’Hara and Paddy Croft. She spends much of the early 1950s touring with Anew McMaster, where she meets Harold Pinter at the Gate’s Pinter Festival.

Flanagan appears in many Broadway plays, making her debut in 1957 in the first Main Stem production of Dylan Thomas‘s Under Milk Wood. She stars as Mrs. Grose in the 1976 Broadway revival of the William Archibald play The Innocents. She also appears on Broadway in Brian Friel‘s play Philadelphia, Here I Come! in 1994.

Flanagan also acts in Off-Broadway productions on several occasions with the Irish Repertory Theatre, including Harold Prince‘s Grandchild of Kings (1992), Seán O’Casey‘s Juno and the Paycock (1995). and Hugh Leonard‘s A Life (2001). For her performance in Grandchild of Kings, she receives the 1992 Outer Critics Circle Awards nomination for Best Actress. Other Off-Broadway work includes Yeats! A Celebration by William Butler Yeats.

Flanagan appears as Myra White in Hugh Leonard’s play Summer (1974), both in the original production at the Olney Theatre Center in Olney, Maryland, and at the Olympia Theatre in the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Flanagan is nominated for the 1982 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for Medea in which she performs on Broadway in 1982.

In 1997, Flanagan wins the Barclays Theatre Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in Jennifer Johnston‘s The Desert Lullaby: A Play in Two Acts, at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast. The Barclays Theatre Awards are for outstanding regional theatre (including opera and dance) in the United Kingdom.

In 2001, Flanagan wins a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, for her performance in Frank McGuinness‘s Dolly West’s Kitchen at The Old Vic in Waterloo, London.

A resident of Glen Rock, New Jersey, Flanagan dies at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey, on June 28, 2003, one day before her 78th birthday, of heart failure following a battle with lung cancer. She is survived by her husband, George Vogel (whom she married in 1958), a sister, Maura McNally, and her daughters Melissa Brown and Jane Holtzen.


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Birth of Joan O’Hara, Actress of Stage, Film & Television

Joan O’Hara, Irish stage, film and television actress, is born in Rosses Point, County Sligo, on October 10, 1930. She is one of Ireland’s most popular actresses and is, at the time of her death, recognisable to television viewers as Eunice Dunstan, a gossip in Fair City on RTÉ One.

O’Hara is born and raised in Rosses Point, the daughter of Major John Charles O’Hara, an officer in the British Corps of Royal Engineers and his wife, Mai (née Kirwan). One of her sisters, Mary (born 1935), is a soprano/harpist. Her brother Dermot (born 1934) now lives with his family in Canada. She attends the same Ursuline convent school as fellow actress and friend Pauline Flanagan.

O’Hara lives most of her life in Monkstown, County Dublin, with a stay in London, with her husband, the poet and architect Francis J. Barry. The couple has four children: Siubhan, Jane, Guy, and Sebastian, an author/playwright, whose works include The Steward of Christendom, and the Booker-shortlisted novels A Long Long Way and The Secret Scripture. She is also a year-round sea-swimmer.

O’Hara is a member of the renowned Abbey Players and performs in many plays in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, including those by Seán O’Casey, Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats. She appears as Maurya in the 1988 film The Dawning. She appears in a number of other films, including Ron Howard‘s Far and Away, Da, Footfalls, Home is the Hero and just before her death, How About You. In this her final film, she stars with Vanessa Redgrave and her friend Brenda Fricker. The strength of her performance and bravery in carrying it out is acknowledged by the cast and crew in a standing ovation.

More recently, O’Hara is best known for appearing in the popular Irish television soap opera Fair City, broadcast on RTÉ One. She joins the soap in 1994, portraying the character Eunice Dunstan until her death in 2007. Thus, she is described as both one of Ireland’s most popular actresses and as one of the finest actors of her generation on her death. She admires in particular Samuel Beckett, Federico García Lorca and Ingmar Bergman. While she takes a no-nonsense approach to her craft, famously giving the advice that when in doubt, one should relate to the fireplace, she is educated at the Abbey School of Acting and has a deep appreciation and knowledge of theoretical approaches to acting and is an admirer of the European and American avant-garde. As actor Alan Stanford said after her death, “She had the most amazing energy. She was in the truest sense one of the last of the greats.”

Joan O’Hara Barry (she keeps her maiden name as her stage name) dies in Dublin on July 23, 2007, of complications from heart disease, aged 76. Her death is announced on RTÉ News the following day.


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“The Riordans” Ends 15 Year Run

the-riordans-title-cardThe Riordans, a drama about life in a rural Irish village and the most successful serial in the history of Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), running from 1965 to 1979, comes to an end on May 11, 1979. It is the second Irish soap opera made by RTÉ (then called Telefís Éireann).

In 1964 the fledgling Telefís Éireann launches Tolka Row, a soap opera set in a working class part of Dublin. Its success is immediate, with its actors becoming household names. One year later, aware that Ireland is still a largely rural country, and of the immense popularity of rural-based radio shows on RTÉ Radio (then called Radio Éireann), Telefís Éireann decides to create a new rural soap opera, set on a family farm. Located in Dunboyne, The Flathouse, owned by the Connolly family, is the setting for this programme.

The show is called The Riordans after the name of the central family, who are two middle-aged parents, Tom Riordan and his wife Mary Riordan, together with their oldest son, Benjy and other siblings, including brother Michael and sister Jude, all of whom except Benjy have left farming for other careers and have more adventurous personal lives.

The Riordans is set in the fictional townland of Leestown in County Kilkenny and proves to be a revolutionary television programme, both in Ireland and internationally. Its most dramatic innovation is in the use of Outside Broadcast Units (OBUs) to film most of each episode on location in the countryside. This is a marked innovation. Previously soap operas had all been studio-based, with even supposed exterior filming all done with studio sets built in sound stages. This breaks the mould of broadcasting in the soap opera genre and inspires the creation of its British equivalent, Emmerdale Farm (now called Emmerdale) by Yorkshire Television in 1972. In 1975 The Riordans begins to be filmed and transmitted in colour, having been available in monochrome only up to then.

The show undergoes a number of changes in the mid-1970s, most notably moving from a half-hour to one-hour format, as well as a change in theme tune. The decision of actor Tom Hickey to leave the series causes some problems. His character, Benjy is not killed off but goes abroad “on the missions.” While the show has declined somewhat from its heyday, it still regularly battles with The Late Late Show to top the TAM ratings. The production team is surprised when one episode, which unusually departs from the 1970s and focuses on Tom Riordan as a young man in the 1930s at a family céilí, is critically acclaimed by the media and many older viewers, who view it as an accurate representation of life on an Irish farm in the 1930s and 1940s.

With its considerable popularity, large cast of respected actors and high production values, and its central location on the schedules of RTÉ 1, few expect the show to be axed, let alone so suddenly. There is considerable surprise, and a lot of criticism, when the new Director of Programming at RTÉ, Muiris Mac Conghail, decides that the show has run its course and so axes it in May 1979. Part of the justification is cost as it is one of RTÉ’s most expensive shows to produce.

(Pictured: The Riordans title card)