McCann’s career includes parts in many plays from the Irish literary canon, including Tarry Flynn, The Shaughran, and the Gate Theatre‘s highly acclaimed production of Seán O’Casey‘s classic Juno and the Paycock in the 1980s (McCann plays the “Paycock” (Captain Boyle) opposite Geraldine Plunkett as Juno and John Kavanagh as Joxer Daly) as well as a subsequent production of O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars.
McCann develops a particularly fruitful relationship with the playwright Brian Friel. He plays the role of Gar O’Donnell, the public figure, in a film adaptation of Philadelphia, Here I Come! in 1970 and, despite popular belief, he never plays either public or private Gar on stage. He gives a landmark performance as Frank Hardy, the title character, in Faith Healer in 1980 (a role he reprised in 1994), continuing his relationship with Friel through productions of Translations (1988) and Wonderful Tennessee (1993).
Friel says that McCann’s work “contains extraordinary characteristics that go beyond acting … it is deeply spiritual.” Perhaps McCann’s most renowned role is as Thomas Dunne in Sebastian Barry‘s The Steward of Christendom. He wins the London Critics’ Circle Theatre Award (Drama Theatre) as best actor for this role in 1995. He reprises this role in a 1996 production at the Gate Theatre, Dublin and, following a twelve-week run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1997, his “performance of unarguable greatness” (The New York Observer) had Newsweekhailing him as “a world-class star,” and The New York Times referring to this “astonishing Irish actor…widely regarded as the finest of them all.”
On the London stage, McCann plays in Prayer for My Daughter opposite Antony Sher (1978), and is Jean to Dame Helen Mirren‘s Julie in Miss Julie (1971). This is filmed for the BBC, and he much later plays Judge Brack with Fiona Shaw in the title role of Henrik Ibsen‘s Hedda Gabler, a production filmed for the BBC in 1993.
His best-known film role is as Gabriel Conroy in The Dead (1987), starring opposite Anjelica Huston and directed by her father, John Huston. Significant late roles include Bernardo Bertolucci‘s Stealing Beauty (1996) and in John Turturro‘s Illuminata (released in 1999, after McCann’s death).
McCann’s television work includes the featured role of Phineas Finn in the BBC’s serialised adaptation of Anthony Trollope‘s The Pallisers, Willie Burke in RTÉ‘s Prix Italia drama entry The Burke Enigma (1979) and Barney Mulhall in RTÉ’s Strumpet City (1980), as well as many one-off parts.
McCann plays in Bob Quinn‘s Irish language film Poitín (1979) and in Quinn’s somewhat experimental The Bishop’s Story (1995). After hearing that McCann is ill, Tom Collins asks Quinn to make a TV documentary about McCann for RTÉ called It Must Be Done Right (1999), after a remark by McCann on his craft. The film airs on RTÉ a week before McCann’s death.
In his private life, McCann is a quiet and unassuming man, but he battles both depression and alcoholism all his life. He has many friends in Irish theatre and artistic circles but also across all strata of life. His hobbies include sketching and he is passionate about horse racing.
Remembering McCann on the 25th anniversary of his death, Gerald Smyth writes, “In the melancholy of that life-worn voice could be heard the cadences of a lyric heart.”
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 Firhousenational 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)
After spending a year on the continent, Rynne returns to Ireland in 1957 to join the antiquities division of the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) in Kildare Street. One of his first assignments is to participate in the excavations at the Hill of Tara, previously headed by his old mentor at UCD, the recently deceased Professor Seán P. Ó Ríordáin. Already an expert on the Iron Age, he expands his expertise to cover Irish Celtic and early Christian art. He becomes an influential figure at the museum, remaining until 1967 and gaining much valuable experience in archaeological research, cataloguing and display, and is once described as the “true master of the Kildare Street crypt.” Intimately acquainted with the museum’s early Christian artefacts, he is particularly drawn to the eighth-century Ardagh chalice, on which he compiles extensive research notes relating to its dismantling and conservation. Although he is recognised as a leading authority on the chalice, his workload at the NMI and various academic commitments, not least his thirty-five years as editor of the North Munster Antiquarian Journal (NMAJ), prevent publication of his great work on the treasure.
During Rynne’s time at the NMI, he develops a close friendship with its director, Dr. Anthony T. Lucas, and on April 1, 1967 marries his daughter Aideen in the Church of the Miraculous Medal, Clonskeagh, Dublin. That year, he leaves the museum to take up a lectureship in archaeology at University College Galway (UCG), remaining there for thirty-one years until his retirement as professor of Celtic archaeology in 1998. During his professorship, he introduces many innovative changes at UCG, placing great emphasis on the value of well-planned field trips to historical monuments and archaeological sites around Connacht and north Clare, including Poulnabrone in his beloved Burren and Dún Aonghasa on Inishmore, which in 1991 he is first to suggest was built for ceremonial rather than defensive purposes. He often ventures further afield to sites such as the Jorvik Viking Centre, York, and the West Kennet Long Barrow in Wiltshire. Many local expeditions include small excavations, which he continues to conduct on behalf of the NMI.
Despite his heavy workload, Rynne writes close to one hundred academic papers in local and international journals, his expansive subject matter including not only archaeology but also folklore and Irish War of Independence history, the latter interest stemming from his father’s involvement in the formation of the Irish state (1917–23). His editorial tenure at the NMAJ includes the publication in 1975 and 1978 of dedicated issues on Edward MacLysaght and John Hunt respectively, and he is editor of Figures from the Past (1987), the Festschrift for Helen Maybury Roe. He also uses the national press to express his sometimes-eccentric views on various subjects, such as Irish neutrality, the American justice system and running the M3 motorway through Tara. A highly engaging and entertaining speaker, he thrives in front of an audience, be it a small group of students standing in a muddy field or an official address to the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, of which he serves as president from 1985 to 1989. His lectures are marked by his erudite and characteristically passionate delivery, complete with subtle intonation, and he is as comfortable speaking French as he is English or Irish.
Rynne’s legacy cannot be fairly assessed without reference to his largely unpopular stance in the Wood Quay controversy of the late 1970s. When Dublin’s original Viking settlement at Wood Quay is unearthed by archaeologists, he sides with the NMI, which, under the directorship of Joseph Raftery, decides to excavate only a small section of the site before handing it over to developers. This results in the destruction of much unexcavated archaeology. The NMI’s decision results in serious damage to its reputation, with Rynne one of the few archaeologists publicly supporting its unpopular stance. His loyalty to the NMI administration, which includes his father-in-law Lucas, alienates many fellow archaeologists, and is described by Patrick Wallace, then director of excavations at Wood Quay and among the many scholars who campaign to save the site, as “excessive, unnecessary and so unquestioning that it led to his being on the … wrong side during the Wood Quay court case.”
Rynne’s contribution to the history and heritage of his adopted province of Connacht and city of Galway is, however, widely acknowledged as immense. Once settled in UCG, he makes his home in the medieval town of Athenry, where he engages enthusiastically with the local community via lectures, walks and talks on the town’s famous walls and castle. Although Dublin-born, he becomes firmly entrenched in Galway’s colourful past and is instrumental in the founding of the city’s first municipal museum in Comerford House, adjacent to the Spanish Arch, in 1971. Drawing on his considerable NMI experience, he acts as honorary curator for the Galway museum for over a decade, before its move to the present purpose-built building in 2007. Ever willing to disseminate the story of Galway’s past beyond the twin towers of its university, to its citizens and the wider public, he compiles the Tourist Trail of Old Galway (1977). This signposted walking tour of Galway communicates the city’s importance in the medieval world, not only from an Irish, but also from a European and global perspective, and represents an enduring legacy to the self-styled promoter and protector of the city’s heritage.
In the summer of 2012 Rynne suffers a stroke and dies at the age of 79 on June 22, 2012, at University Hospital Galway. He is survived by Aideen, his wife of forty-five years, and their four sons and one daughter. A fifth son pre-deceases him. He is buried in the New Cemetery, Athenry.
(From: “Rynne, Etienne Andrew” by Frank Cullen, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, June 2018)
While in university, O’Callaghan develops an interest in the hammer, having seen the country’s top hammer-throwers practise at the University College Dublin (UCD) grounds, then at Terenure College. At home in Cork for the summer, he does not have access to a hammer, so he collects an old cannon ball from Macroom Castle which he feels might approximate to the required 16 lb. (7.25 kg) weight, has it drilled at a foundry in Mallow and fitted with a handle and wire, and uses it to train at the family farm. In 1926 he wins the Munster title in the 56 lb. (25.4 kg) shot and follows that with an Irish hammer title in 1927. Victory the following year in that same championship qualifies him for the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, which he enters as a complete unknown with a previous best of 166 ft. 11 in. (50.87 m), as against three other contenders who have each thrown well over 170 ft. (51.8 m). The hammer event is staged on July 30, 1928, and, lying third after four rounds, he throws 168 ft. 7 in. (51.38 m) with his penultimate attempt, to defeat the Swedish favourite, Ossian Skiöld, by 4 inches (10 cm), with the American contenders Edmund Black and Frank Conner, still further behind. He becomes the first athlete from the Irish Free State to be crowned Olympic champion. Less than a fortnight later, he wins the Tailteann Games with an Irish record throw of 170 ft. 2 in. (51.87 m).
Over the following years O’Callaghan wins events across Ireland and Europe and continues to achieve pioneering feats, not least in 1931, when he wins six Irish titles in one afternoon: hammer, shot put, discus, high jump, 56 lbs. without follow, and 56 lbs. over-the-bar. On August 1, 1932, he defends his Olympic title at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. With just one throw left in the competition, he trails second behind the Finnish champion, Ville Pörhölä. With his last throw, he claims the event with a distance of 176 ft. 11 in. (53.92 m), becoming the only Irish person in history to win two gold medals at the Olympic games. He seems in prime condition to defend his title for a third time at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, but a dispute in the athletics world brings the suspension of the National Athletic and Cycling Association of Ireland (NACAI) by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF). The subsequent decision not to send a team to Berlin by the Irish Olympic Council denies him the opportunity to win a hat-trick of gold medals.
O’Callaghan remains a dominant force in athletic circles, however. In 1934 he sets the record for the hammer on European soil with a throw of 186 ft. 10 in. (56.95 m) at Enniscorthy, County Wexford. He later achieves an unofficial world record in the hammer in 1937 in Fermoy, County Cork, with a remarkable throw of 195 ft. 5 in. (59.55 m), breaking the old record by more than 6 ft. (1.83 m). As the IAAF still refuses to sanction the NACAI, the record is not ratified, ensuring that the then twenty-four-year-old record of his compatriot, Patrick Ryan, who competes for the United States, remains in place. In total, as well as his two Olympic gold medals, he also wins six Irish championships in the hammer, four Irish championships in the 56 lb. shot, three Irish championships throwing the 56 lb. weight over-the-bar, and one Irish championship in the discus. He also wins the American hammer championship in 1933 and the British championship in the same event the following year. Despite his size, he jumps 6 ft. 2 in. (1.88 m) in the high jump and is Irish champion on three consecutive occasions (1929–31).
After an accident in which a child is killed by a flying hammer, O’Callaghan emigrates to the United States just before World War II and takes up professional wrestling. Attempts are made to set up a match with world wrestling champion Dan O’Mahoney, but this never occurs. He has a high profile, however. Samuel Goldwyn offers him the film role of Tarzan and he plays handball with Bing Crosby before returning home to Clonmel, where he becomes a prominent member of Clonmel CommercialsGaelic football club and manages that club’s senior team to three county championships (1965–67). He is later chairman and honorary president of the club. In 1984 he is made a Freeman of Clonmel, a town where he is known as “the doc” or “Dr. Pat” and revered as a humble, charming, jovial man, with a reputation for particular kindness to his poorer patients. At 6 ft. 1 in. (1.855 m) and sixteen stone (101.6 kg), he is a larger-than-life figure and the focal point of innumerable stories confirming his status as a living legend. In 1960 he is the first person voted into the newly conceived Texaco Hall of Fame. He lives for many years at Roseville, Western Road, Clonmel, and dies there on December 1, 1991.
O’Callaghan is survived by three sons and one daughter. His younger brother Con represents Ireland in the decathlon at the 1928 Olympic games and wins that event at the third Tailteann games in 1932.
(From: “O’Callaghan, Patrick (‘Pat’)” by Paul Rouse, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie)
Actors from every genre of stage and screen show come together in the chapel at Terenure College in Dublin on February 4, 2000, for the funeral of Irish television and film actor Tony Doyle.
Brian Quigley, Doyle’s Ballykissangel character, is written out of the show after Doyle’s death in the first episode of the final series where Quigley fakes his own suicide and flees to Brazil.
The Tony Doyle Bursary for New Writing is launched by the BBC following his death. Judges include his friend and Ballykissangel co-star Lorcan Cranitch. Cranitch subsequently stars in the BBC detective series McCready and Daughter, which had been written with Doyle in mind.
seamus dubhghaill 