Travelling Roadshows and Fit-Ups, visited Skehana regularly.

By Gerry Costello

An early memory of the 1960s were the travelling roadshows that travelled the countryside and arrived generally to the same locations in every parish usually every year or so. They would arrive unannounced in Skehana at an open site that was about 50 yards from my home house at about 8.00am, move in their mobile homes, set up a large tent and other accompanying  side shows like swinging boats, a rifle range (strictly for adults only), or bumping cars. Some would have a large closed in trailer that would house a generator while others would have the ESB arrive by the afternoon to give them a temporary connection. It’s funny how they could arrive in Skehana at about 8.00 am and have the ESB connected to the site by 3.00 or 4.00 in the afternoon while today, such an operation would take weeks if not indeed months to install such a service.

Anyway, by about 8.00 pm or 9.00 pm they would be ready to put on the first show with doors opening at 7.30pm. This usually began with the showing of a black and white film, followed by a short play, usually two acts with a raffle during the interval. I can remember well that the Lyons Family used to have six prizes in six boxes and if you had the winning ticket you picked a box. One would contain a booby prize and I can remember one night when Patrick Commins was presented with his prize – a baby’s dummy teat  “Jesus what the hell would I be doin’ with a yoke like that” was what we heard all around the tent followed by laughter and applause!

There was a time when the travelling roadshow or fit-ups were an integral part of the theatrical scene in Ireland and Britain. For over a century, travelling companies visited small towns, villages, rural communities that had no established theatres of their own, bringing Shakespeare, melodrama, pantomime and circus (as well as a touch of glamour, glitter and excitement) to people who would otherwise never have had the opportunity to enjoy live shows. Some English companies came over to Ireland, but we had our own great names too, like Anew McMaster (the young Harold Pinter learned a lot of his craft in the McMaster company), The Carrickford Family Roadshow – Robert Carrickford who played Stephen Brennan in Glenroe,  John Cowley (Tom Riordan on TV), Annie D’Alton (John Crowley’s wife in real life and Minnie Brennan on ‘The Riordans’), Louis D’Alton, Mícheál MacLíammóir and Hilton Edwards all ascended to the world of Theatre and TV from the fit-up shows. Today, alas, only the circus continues to tour. Fit-ups more or less died out in Britain with the dawn of the 20th century, and the establishment of permanent theatres in all major towns. They hung on in rural Ireland a lot longer, but we saw the last of the great Irish companies on the road in the 1960s. The coming of television had finally killed off the travelling troupers.

During the years of the travelling road show, the shows were never really heavily promoted when a car with a loudspeaker on the roof went around the villages during the day to let people know that it was show time again and the word spread quickly throughout the outside villages and outlying areas also that the ‘show crowd’ had arrived. People met each other on the roads as they travelled on bicycles, at the local shops, chatted at the local water pump or well so news spread quiet quickly in this way.  As a result of this intense local communication and word of mouth even on that first day, the opening night, a large crowd would be present. Local communities were starved for entertainment in those years as television was not available to the masses and even though radio was available, it was not in every house. Even then you had only one Irish station, Radio Eireann. The station opened at 8.00am but only ran until 10.00am. It then closed until 1.00pm, opened for a short time and closed again from 3.00pm until 5.00pm when it re-commenced broadcasting until 11.00pm before finally closing down for the night. The music played was mainly classical, the majority of the content was not suited towards country folk so people usually just turned it on for the news. Digressing a little here for a moment there was a very popular programme on radio at the time called ‘Take the floor’ presented by Din Joe (Denis Fitzgibbon) which was Irish dancing on radio! All you heard was music in the background with feet tapping the floor as the guest artists danced the reels and jigs. Hard to believe that Irish dancing on radio was a big attraction. One other little thing I noticed in the 1960s was that if a priest died, in any parish in the country, it was announced on the radio news bulletins at 6.30pm and at 10.00pm at a minimum. I can remember when our PP, Canon Loftus died in Menlough, it was announced on the Friday news at 1.30pm, 6.30pm and 10.00pm, together with a short resume of his life as a priest.

So the travelling roadshow was a very important part of Irish life, Irish culture and a welcome diversion and an uplifting and fun experience to people in remote communities whose only outing each week may be to Sunday mass, the local shop and a few pints in the local pub for the men folk. The roadshows were usually family owned and run. While the usual show was a film and play some shows would run added extras such as a local talent competition for singers, dancers and local musicians. I remember also seeing a rifle range at one show while another popular feature were the swinging boats. There were also some gaming machines in the tent but it was by no means what one would class as gambling.

Once I remember the Hayes Travelling Show doing a sketch to the soundtrack of the Jimmy Kennedy song, ‘South Of The Border’. It was done against a completely dark set, in the darkness and both Frank Hayes and his sister, Martha, wore black costumes trimmed with luminous material, studs, sequences and buttons all coated with phosphorus, with similar headgear. All of the trim on the garments was phosphorus coated also and glowed in the dark. The act went down a storm. First, the song was popular as it was banned on radio because of its storyline, (a man and a girl who was about to join the nuns falling in love). Songs in those days were banned for little or no reason at all. The audience were also seeing something that was ghost like in appearance and magical for its time. For the rest of the two weeks or so while they were on location, people came in their droves from far and near to see the magical dance portraying the man and nun falling in love. The Hayes family then left for Kilkee which was their usual routine each year.

Other families who travelled with their shows to this area in my memory were The McFaddens, The McCormacks, The Lyons family, The second last show I remember was the Hayes family and then the Mullins family being the very last one to ever arrive in Skehana. They did about 11 days in October 1967. Television had arrived and the magic lantern of the Travelling Roadshow was dimming.

Please continue to scroll down this page where you will be treated to clips of documentaries in addition to stories as told through the lens of owners and performers of the travelling roadshows.

 

Roadshow comes to the village.

Arrival of McFadden's Roadshow to Athlone.

By Helen Corley

The following is a story told by Helen Corley about the arrival of McFaddens Road Show to Athlone. This would be typical of every village in Ireland.

“So little ever happened in our village that anything out of the ordinary was greeted with great enthusiasm by all. I was eleven when the hand-written notices were displayed in the shop windows. McFadden’s roadshow was coming to the parochial hall. Starting on Sunday night, we were to be treated to five nights of music, song, dance and drama. The excitement was unbearable.

On Sunday evening, rows of bicycles lined the Chapel railings and the wall down to the hall. Dozens of girls and fellows from outlying areas converged outside the hall, even the corner boys, anxious to experience excitement, abandoned their positions and headed towards the hall. The hall, with green painted walls was filled within minutes. Every available hard backless bench and form was filled to capacity.

The show started with five dancers dressed in glittering suits and dresses tap-dancing and singing “There’s no business like show business”. This opening night was a “Variety show”, We watched a magician make an egg disappear. He must have been so disheartened to hear the boos and shouts telling him it was up his sleeve. The troupe of dancers returned and were followed by a comedian who reeled off funny stories. Next came a man , who we were told had a very famous brother. He sang ‘Fraulein’, ‘The old house’ and ‘Mother Machree’. The whole hall erupted into a cacophony of cat-calls and piercing whistles as a girl in a tight lurex dress who was introduced as the niece of a famous actress sang “If i were a blackbird” and “My bonny lies over the ocean”. After the final tap-dance there was a stampede towards the door.

The following night, the hall was so full that anyone leaning against the wall was drenched from the condensation. The play being staged was ‘Maria Martin and murder in the red barn’. We saw Maria meeting her lover and arranging to elope with him. We heard a shot and saw her lying dead as her lover fled but he didn’t get far because the lights went out and he fell over the box that held her going away clothes. We remained in darkness while a man playing an accordion sat with two flash lamps trained on him.

The following nights Willie Reilly and his Colleen Bawn and East Lynn passed without mishap. For me, the highlight of the week was the “Talent Contest”. I cringe with shame when I remember standing on the stage belting out “The happy wanderer” while the compère looked into what he called the applause meter and declared me the winner. I got two little china dogs and a clip on the ear from my mother, when I arrived home, for making an exhibition of myself.

Recently I found those dogs and I was transported back in time to that dismal hall where people so hungry for company and entertainment travelled miles to sit on hard forms and escape for a few hours the loneliness and desolation that was rural Ireland of the 1950s.” 

 

 

Farewell To The Fit-Ups

Story of Paddy Dooley from Headford.

From The Irish Independent.

The heady days of the travelling fit-up shows are remembered by Portmarnock man Paddy Dooley. At the tender age of 16 years, Paddy ran away from the Salesians Order where he was studying for the priesthood, to join a touring fit-up company. The ‘Fit-Ups’, were the travelling shows that went from town to town around Ireland. They were so-called because the actors literally transformed or fit up each town hall they visited, from arranging the seating to organising the lighting and building the stage. Paddy’s CD, ‘Farewell to the Fit-Ups’ is a tribute to days gone by and includes a selection of 12 beautiful monologues – most of them never before recorded! He explains his reasons for recording the recitations. ‘Being part of the fit-ups for over 30 years transformed my life totally. I feel I owe this CD to the great audiences of those years and to the fit-up artists who were servants to their great art,’ said Paddy, a fit and handsome 73-year-old. Born in Headford in Co Galway, Paddy doesn’t remember his family being particularly artistic.

‘I don’t really know where my love of theatre and acting comes from. But when I was younger I loved sitting round the radio with my family listening to the Abbey plays. Perhaps it started there.’ He has forever regretted the effect his running away from home in 1946 had on his darling mother. ‘My mother was very religious. She was an adorable woman and I loved her very much. I felt remorse for years. I remember the look on her face, a mix of joy and sadness. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been involved with organising events for the senior citizens, to give something back.’

Paddy joined a company called the Tara Players run by John Cowley and Annie Dalton. They later became household names when they starred in ‘The Riordans’, the long running RTE television series. Paddy has performed in a wide range of roles, from parts in O’Casey’s and Yeats’ plays, to sketches in plays such as ‘Murder in the Red Barn’ and ‘The Girl of the Golden West’. ‘I remember my first day with the fit-ups. I arrived on the bus from Galway and was met at the station by some of the actors who brought me to my digs. I remember feeling very hungry and the smell from the oil lamps up at the hall. ‘I was put up on stage that first night and I was so nervous. I was more an actor than a singer or entertainer but I soon learned and I loved it.’

Around this time Paddy met and married a young English actress, Liz Luling and started his own touring company ‘The Starlight Players’. The couple had two daughters and they toured all over the country performing. Sadly, Liz died and the children moved back to England to Liz’s parents to be educated. Later on Paddy met Rachael Glynn and married her. The happy-go-lucky family continued to tour around Ireland. But the good times cannot last forever. By the late 1960s Paddy and Rachel have four children and Rachel is keen to settle somewhere so they can be educated.

Television took its toll on the size of the audiences and they decided to settle in Portmarnock, firstly in Rose Cottage Caravan site, run by Phyllis Duffy, and later in a house on the Carrickhill Road. ‘For 22 years I was part of the never ending world of the travelling show. It was such a joyful time though that’s not to say we didn’t have difficulties. We often didn’t have much money and could nearly go hungry,’ said Paddy. Although the Dooleys have organised Fit-Up Reunion Dances for 12 years it was only last year that he had the idea of producing a CD.

‘I was at a funeral and the nuns from Scoil Íosa heard I was in the fit-ups. They said I should record some monologues. So I was in Germany with my daughter during the summer and I went into a studio and recorded them.’  Amazingly as he hasn’t recited many of the monologues in 30 years Paddy remembered them off-by-heart. ‘I never had a script and I did each recitation in one take. I was dead letter perfect, as they say in this business.

‘The CD is a tribute. I feel I owe it to the audiences who came to the shows as in a few years there’ll be no one left who remembers. Whatever you do make sure you do it sincerely. Don’t be smart as it comes across to the audience.’ ‘Farewell to the Fit-ups’ – Paddy Dooley’s CD produced by his daughter Lorna has just been released. The CD is available in the shops in Portmarnock or it can be ordered from Paddy on (01) 8463774.

 

 

The Greatest Show on Earth

Life on the road with the travelling roadshow

Andrea Smith - Interview with Irish Independent Apr. 25th, 2010.

 

 

The greatest show on earth:

A perfect double act, Mikey and Tara Gerbola grew up playing clowns in family circuses, says Andrea Smith. Many children used to threaten to run away and join the circus at some point, but there was never any danger of that in Mikey and Tara Gerbola’s case. They were already there! The Gerbolas seem tailor-made for one another: they both grew up in family circuses; their first roles were as clowns as children; and neither could ever imagine doing anything else in life. “Although Tara is the complete opposite to me,” says Mikey, who grew up in Fossett’s Circus. “I’m more of a listener than a talker, but we always know what each other is thinking. She’s gorgeous, and she gets better looking every year. Circus and funfair people tend to know one another, but Tara and Mikey were barely aware of each other’s existence. Tara once came to the show with her aunt, prompting Mikey to remark that she was gorgeous, but too young. She was only about 15 then, and he was seven years older. As a child, Tara was part of her parents’ travelling roadshow, The McFadden’s, which was a circus at one stage, and would later become a funfair.

Her parents, George and Alice, had a house in Killenard, Co Laois, where the family lived from October to April. She recalls life being tough at times on the road, particularly when there was pressure to catch up at school for the time missed.”I loved it though, and always felt that the circus was a magical place,” she says.Having started at the age of five as a clown, Tara moved on to aerial, wire and roller-skating. When she completed her Leaving Cert, she trained in trapeze in the US and, upon her return, went to work at her uncle’s circus, Big Top.

Meanwhile, Mikey grew up as the youngest child of a very large extended family in Fossett’s Circus. He had a great childhood, living alongside all of his cousins, and his winters were spent living with grandparents in England. Aged eight, he began performing as part of a clown act with his dad and uncle, who were collectively known as Bobo, Tony and Mikey. When he was in his mid-20s, Mikey’s sister Caroline began getting worried about his reluctance to socialise, so she persuaded him to attend the annual Showman’s Dance. “I was kind of a recluse for a while, because I just worked and didn’t socialise,” he admits. “I had no time for anyone, bar me and my work, and life was pretty boring. As soon as we arrived at the dance, I saw Tara there looking fantastic, She was wearing this little bustier, and there was me with no dress sense at all. I looked like a hick.”

They finally got talking at some point of the night, although Mikey recalls being too shy to kiss Tara goodnight. They started dating, but for the first six months of their relationship, Tara’s mother Alice was seriously ill with a terminal brain tumour. She died aged 45, when Tara was 19, and prior to her death her family nursed her through her illness. Tara found it difficult to accept her mother’s illness, because she was so lively, vivacious and full of life. “It was so hard for us as a family, because my younger sisters were only 9 and 12,” she says. “It was almost a relief when she died, because we couldn’t bear to see her suffer any more. Mikey stuck by me through thick and thin, and he kept me sane all through that time.” After Alice passed away, Tara went back to work at Big Top, and Mikey drove miles to see her after work as often as possible. This was difficult, as they never seemed to be in the same end of the country.

Such was life on the road in the Road Show.

 

 

Sandy Kelly

Her family had a 'fit-up' travelling roadshow.

Sandy Kelly.

 

The Early Days

Sandy Kelly has had many remarkable moments in her lengthy musical career. Born Philomena Ellis, in Sligo, in 1954, she had one younger sister, Barbara, who sadly passed away in October 2018, and her baby brother, Francis, who died when he was five months old. Her family business was a ‘fit-up’ roadshow which travelled the country entertaining people long before cinema came to rural Ireland. “I was born into a family of travelling entertainers, or ‘fit-ups’ as we were called. My grandfather, originally from Belfast, was the founder of the Dusky Dan Variety Show, and my father, Frank, who passed away in January 2013, carried on the tradition. There was no cinema or television in rural Ireland back then so crowds flocked to our visiting roadshows. One of my first memories is of arriving in a village on a horse-drawn trailer. The ‘venue’ would consist of a small canvas circus-like tent for the show. We lived in the caravans that travelled the countryside”.

“Now, I realise that I was moulded like a robot for showbiz which, looking back, wasn’t always such a good thing for a child. I quickly learned the value of applause. For a while, I didn’t appreciate the fact that I was an entertainer. I wanted to be a ‘regular person’ living in a house, going to school and church, so when I was nine I went to live with my grandmother. My classmates called me ‘the showman’s daughter’. I even studied accountancy for a while — but I ran back on stage when I realised I could earn more in one night with my father’s band than I could in a week at a normal job. The best advice I ever got was from my grandfather, Dan Ellis — ‘never make excuses when you go out on stage’. To this day I never do. I go out to entertain and take the audience away from their worries. They don’t want to hear about my problems”.

A stroke of luck

Sandy Kelly was sitting in a local radio station in Cavan on an ordinary day in 1989, when the telephone rang. The presenter, who had just aired her latest single, a cover version of Patsy Cline’s country classic Crazy, answered the call, then handed her the receiver. “There’s an American fella on the phone and he wants to speak to you,” he said.  Sandy put the phone to her ear and said, “Hello.”  ……….. “Hello,” boomed the voice at the other end of the line, “my name’s Johnny Cash.” Sandy, who didn’t believe the caller, replied, “Yeah, and I’m Dolly Parton, pull the other one, it has bells on it!”
But it really was Johnny Cash.

“He had been doing an Irish tour and was driving up the country with June (Carter) on his way to play a gig in Omagh,” says Sandy. “He asked me if I would like to come along and meet him. I said of course, so he told me to come back-stage and say hello when I got there. For a minute I thought I was dreaming!  I immediately called my husband, Mike, and asked him to meet me with a change of fresh clothes, and I headed for Omagh. When I got there I saw one of my own fans standing outside with a camera. I asked him if he would stand by, and get ready to take a picture of me with Johnny as Johnny came through the stage door. I told him it might be my only chance to get a picture with him, and he said he would do his best.  The stage door opened, out came Johnny and I jumped in for a picture. When I looked around my friend was after fainting, and was lying flat out on the ground with the camera on his chest. Johnny’s security guards came and lifted him up and put him lying on the bonnet of a car – it was all a bit crazy”.

Johnny Cash

“I introduced myself to Johnny, and he brought me back-stage. He called in his band and asked if I wanted to sing some Patsy Cline songs on stage with him that night. I sang four songs with him including Crazy and I Fall To Pieces. Afterwards he asked if I had any plans to go to Nashville. I told him that I had visited there in 1984, and had plans to go back soon. He told me to get I touch when I arrived. I went over that same year, and I looked him up. He invited me out to the house to meet his family, and production team. And then he asked me to record Woodcarver with him. It was such a wonderful experience.”

A normal lifestyle

I don’t live showbiz. I’m quite shy when I’m off-stage. I find it difficult to mix on a normal social level. But I’m the cheekiest person when I’m performing; it’s nearly like a split personality. I work in a world full of egos, so my most admired trait in others is modesty. Especially when someone is very talented. I’d advise anyone on their way up that the key to success is not talent alone, but talent and persistence. And, you need to be ready for your big break — because you will probably only get one chance. I spent years being ready physically, cosmetically, vocally. And nothing happened. Then suddenly, my career took off when I met Johnny Cash.

One of my biggest faults — and I have many — is never taking time out for myself.

I’m a neat freak. Any free time is spent doing housework and cooking. My idea of happiness is having my family sitting around the dinner table. Misery is when someone is missing. My father passed away recently, leaving a massive void in my life. My biggest challenge so far has been having a special needs daughter — purely because of the worry of what will happen to her when I am no longer here. But our family are known for longevity. My mum’s mum lived to 106. I believe in a spirit world, not heaven and hell as presented by catholicism. But I do pray everyday, it stops me feeling alone, especially when I’m touring. I never go anywhere without a relic and rosary beads.

 

Lyons Family Roadshow

One family's history of the Travelling Roadshows.

Maurice Lyons.

 

 

The following story has been written exclusively for me by Maurice Lyons who was born into the Travelling Roadshow and has lived through, and experienced life behind, the bright lights and the glamour that we, the public, experienced and were entertained by them during a time when life was simple but tough for everybody. I am extremely thankful and grateful to Maurice, who now resides in Australia, for sharing his life’s experience with us and recording this story as it is a valuable piece of history and heritage of everyday life for the show people that we enjoyed and looked forward to so much during our childhood.

Gerry Costello

 

The Roadshow.       By: Maurice Lyons 

There have been show people travelling Ireland since the 1800s, some were small circus, some were theatrical troupes and others would perform tricks or strongman acts at fairs. They all spent time in small villages  or towns making a living. In 1905 my grandfather gave up teaching to embark on a dream he had, that was to have a troupe of actors and tour Ireland. He gathered actors and actresses. One of the actresses was a lady from England called Elizabeth Stevenson who had answered an advertisement in the actors equity pages. They toured for a few years  before they decided to get married and so George Lyons and Elizabeth Stevenson became Mr & Mrs Lyons, my grandparents. They had four children three boys and one girl – Hubert, Brian, Ronald. Still touring they moved from town to town staying in digs wherever they went. Around 1916 George collapsed on stage in a town called Middleton, alas, he did not recover and died.  Soon after that, the troupe broke up and went their separate ways leaving my grandmother to fend for herself and four children. In those days there was not any government handout or Social Welfare.

Making a living in difficult times.

One had to make a living in some way and the way that she choose was to acquire a Magic Lantern slide projector with slides of various plays and songs. These she mounted on a bicycle and while her children were left in the digs she would cycle to small villages that had a hall where she set up the projector to give a show. I do not know how much she charged at that time but it would only be a few pennies. If the hall had a piano she would play along with the slides and if no piano was available in a hall, then she would play and sing to the sound of her mandolin. She was an accomplished musician on lots of instruments. I am not sure how long she used the magic lantern for, but she later acquired a silent 35mm projector plus some films. By now all this was too much to carry on a bike, so a trap and horse were purchased. This allowed her to move around more and do some of the more remote villages where folk had never seen movies. She still sang and narrated  during the showing.

Education.

Around this time actors equity informed her that, as she was a widowed member, they would educate her children at their college outside of London. So the two eldest were sent off to England, coming back to Ireland at holiday time. So my father Brian and my uncle Hubert used to travel by rail and sea to the college located at Langley. As they were both quite young and travelled alone they both had labels pinned to their clothes letting people know where they were going. My father told us that they never had any trouble as people were very kind and helpful to them on their trips. My grandmother who was very British was often asked if she was worried about touring in the country as this was during the troubles of 1918 but she would look at those that asked and say, “why should I be worried, I am raising an Irishman’s children”. Once in a village in county Cork she was preparing to leave her digs to travel to another town when her landlady told her that there were two men wanted to talk to her. When she saw the men, one asked how long before she left. She told them it was none of their business. Then the fellow said that they were going to blow up the bridge and were waiting until she had passed over it and they would like her to go as soon as possible which she did. Then they blew it up. She always said that she was treated with great respect wherever she went and she had great love for the Irish people.

Life with the Lyons Roadshow.

Whilst my uncle and father were been educated in England, back in Ireland during the winter and summer my grandmother continued to tour with the two remaining children. She did find the drag of finding digs for the family very hard  so she decided to buy a horse drawn caravan  to house the family. At a later stage she told us that it was more like a tin shed than a caravan  but it was still better than digs. As she toured she amassed a number of 35mm films including a few that I remember her telling me about, Uncle Toms Cabin, The Volga Boatman, The Sheik and some comedy ones, Charlie Chaplin, Andy Gump, Hal Roach and there were more but I have forgotten their names.

Upgrading the show.

At some time my aunt Hilda was also packed off to England to get her education leaving only Uncle Ronnie at home. Alas, he never was sent to college, something that annoyed him for a long time which I can understand. At 18 years, uncle Hubert left Langley Hall School and went on to become a Christian brother.  My father Brian also left shortly after that and returned to be with his mother on the show. Soon after that they built what was known as a booth. The sides were wooden panels bolted together the roof was canvas laid on rafters. It was 30 feet long and 20 feet wide  at one end was a white screen and at the other end and outside was a wagon with the projector inside. Seating was basic flat benches for about 100 people and standing room for about the same. It could be erected in a couple of hours, was water proof and in winter freezing cold.  Dismantled it all would fit on one trailer which was towed by a Ford Model B lorry. Journeys were short  between three to five miles from one village to another. We remember that at that time very few cars were around  and cinemas were only in the larger towns out of the reach of most people. After my father got home, both he and uncle Ronnie started to upgrade the show  acquiring more films which were available to buy, but could not be shown to the public without getting the rights to do so, but that never stopped them and as they only stayed a few weeks anywhere they were hard to trace. This was common to all the picture shows of the time.

New .

In the early 1930s they got projectors which run on 110 volts and had sound heads on them, (the early projectors were hand cranked). Of course they also had to have generators to power the projector. Times were very tough in the 1930s as there was a recession.  Lots of men had no work making them angry and at times this caused groups to stand outside the show at picture time yelling and sometimes stone throwing took place. They were never very bad but it was annoying.

Marriage and war.

1936 my father married my mother who was from a family of show people called The Mullins. She was one of 5 daughters. They all stayed with the original show for a few years, but then mom and dad split from the others  and formed their own picture show building with their own booth and having all their own equipment. By modern standards some of the shows looked primitive but back in the 1930s it was really good looking. The show consisted of two living wagons, one projector wagon and a lorry and the booth. When the war began petrol was rationed and they were only allowed 20 gallons per month. It was not enough to run the generator never mind a lorry. Even buying on the black market, they only managed to get enough for the generator, so the lorry went and horses were acquired. This was a pain, as the horses had to be found grazing for their stay in all the villages and many a time some young brats would have fun by opening gates and letting the horses roam. Dad reckoned the best day ever was when petrol rationing ended and he rushed out to get a lorry and car. As soon as the lorry came, the horses had to go which was a bit sad as they had served us well over the years

Accommodation.

From 1930 until about 1946 most showmen’s wagons were very basic as there was a limit to what horses could pull, but when rationing ended better wagons began to appear on many of the shows. In the late 1940’s ours were still boxes on wheels. We did had three living wagons, one was the kitchen, one was the children’s wagon and a trailer for mom and dad. In winter they were cold places except for the kitchen wagon which had a Stanley No. 7 range in it. This was used for heating and cooking and it was also where we kids played games like Ludo, Draughts, Chess and card games. Up until about 1957 we only had Tilly lamps in the wagons. Around that time we started to hook up to the ESB which made a great difference. Mind you we were not alone as a great amount of the country folk were just getting power to their homes.

Most schools had no power and their heating was just turf fires. The toilets in these schools were very primitive just open drop boxes which stank. I remember going to school down the Castletown/Bearhaven  peninsula in a few places where they handed out slices of bread covered in jam and a glass of milk to every kid and whether you wanted it or not you had to take it. This was because lots of kids had no breakfast before school and no lunch. Money was scarce so the local council made sure at least the kids had food.

The post war years.

Now we will  jump to 1949, we were in a place in west cork called Rosscarbry. One day we had a visit from a newspaper wanting to know if we would agree to have a feature in their paper. This was THE TIMES PICTORIAL. Dad agreed and a few days later two people from the paper came along. One had a camera and  lots of photos were taken. A week on the later front page was the Lyons family. We felt very proud of this. Mind you Rosscarby had another happening,  the local parish priest did not like his people attending a picture show and he forbade them from the alter from attending the show. One night he even drove his car in and tried to block the way into the show. He failed in his efforts and the people just walked past him. Later that night as the people were leaving he drove his car down the road with headlights blazing on the people shouting at them. Dad hopped in to our car and drove right up to his bumper and gave him a lecture (no bad language as dad never swore). the next day dad wrote to the bishop and the following Sunday the priest had to apologise from the alter. This was one of many run-ins we had with the church who felt they were in charge of everything in the parish. Most of them never gave any trouble, it was just a few. Later that year in the town of Blarney my youngest brother Hubert was born. He was born in mom and dad’s trailer. Our cousin had come to help with the birth  as both mom & dad did not want a hospital involved due to the state of the hospitals in those days.

Going to school.

Schooling was by the local  national school. The day after we set the show up, if it was a school day we were sent off to the nearest school. We would face up to the master and explain that we were from the show and would attend school while we were in town. We were always treated with great respect and treated as if we had been there for ever and given the same lessons as the rest of the kids except we explained that we did not do the Irish language as it did vary quite a bit from county to county. I don’t know how many schools we went to  but it was at least 14 per year and never had a bad experience and the rest of the kids were always friendly.

Summer.

Every summer dad would always try to have the show by the coast so we could get to the beach every day (when it didn’t rain). We only spent one summer in Clare and I must admit we loved it.  Denis, our eldest brother, even jumped in to save a young fellow from drowning in Liscannor. I will always remember Liscannor for the boiler they had on the green on a Friday. They would fill it with crabs and boil them. Then anyone could help themselves. We had some great times in county Clare where the people were the best in the country. Galway people were very distant and the worst were the Kilkenny folks. Sour and miserable is my memory of them  or maybe it was just me. It can’t be all bad as one brother and one sister was born in county Kilkenny. Most of our time were spent in Munster where every few years we would revisit  places that were good for us as regards customers. The show would consist of two films one was the main one then shorts or a serial over 4 nights. Admission was 1s 6d for adults and by now we could seat 250 people and in winter we heated the booth. In some areas we would run a shooting gallery after the films were over, sometimes staying to 2-3 o’clock as the locals loved to compete with each other for a trophy.  We also had swinging boats which were a good money maker though dad never really liked them he was a picture show man. Every now and then we would meet other shows. It was always nice to meet with families like Roses, Mullins, Courtneys, Cullens, Costellos,  Hudsons, McCormacks and lots more but my memory is  fading.

Workmen.

Up until about 1953 we had a workman with us to help on the moving days and around the show during the week. There was never a lot for them to do except on the days we were moving. Those that I can remember were nice blokes who usually stayed for 12 months with us before they got bored and left. They got 30 Shillings (€1.88 in Euro today) a week and full board. Mind you their quarters were fairly cramped but the food was good. One fellow used to eat 12 potatoes at a sitting. I remember that we as kids buried his hat when we were at the beach one time. We got into trouble with dad when we could not find it again.  Another man who came and went a few times was a gentleman named Ned Lane. He was a hell of a nice guy  who was AWOL from the army but it did not worry him. When we visited the army camp at Nad, they knew about him in fact, and didn’t want him back. Over the years we met Ned many times. The last time we met him was in Kiskeam, Co. Cork where he settled down with his wife and child. I remember him telling us his father was a sailor on a ship that went to the Antarctic .

Transport.

Over the years we had many cars but only two trucks. One was a Fordson model B and the other was a 2 ton Bedford. Now as they did very little mileage,  dad hated paying the road tax on them  so a few months a year he would dodge paying it. He never got pulled up for it.In 1957 we changed our old Fordson Model B lorry for a Bedford 2 ton (not new) lorry which was quite an upgrade for dad the old model B had a crash gearbox so you had to get revs right to change gears, plus it had a hand operated wiper on it (actually a vacuum operated one, but it never worked well).

Polio outbreak.

That year (1957) we had just finished the ring of Kerry. We left Sneem and pulled into the next place whose name I have forgotten. We set up all the show and had it all ready to go when dad was talking to a local and found out that a polio case had been reported just down the road. Not wanting to be tainted with coming from an area where polio was, we pulled down the show right away and early next morning headed down the Castletown/ Bearhaven peninsula to get far away from it  ending up in a little place called Ardgroom where we set up. A week later the Little Duffy’s circus passed by. They were also escaping from the polio outbreak.

Coming into the 1960s.

We had a good time down the peninsula. One little place we were in was called Cahemore. We got patrons who used to row from Dursey island, get a local taxi and come to our show. Some had never seen a movie before. After the show they walked about five miles to the shore and rowed back to the island. They were great people on the island. Next to where we were set up, a travelling creamery would set up to collect the milk from the farmers every morning. They mostly used donkeys and horse carts then and there were not many tractors around there.

Church v show.

Another run in we had was with the church was in Blarney. One evening at about 7.00pm, an hour  before the show started  there was a knock on the door. Dad opened it and there were two men outside. One said that he was from the priest and that the priest said that the show could not be on that night as he was running a concert in the local hall. The two of them left with a flea in their ear. Later on when the lights went on and doors opened these two men were standing at the gate stopping anyone from entering. For a while  there were quite a few people standing outside afraid to pass them until two elderly women said to the crowd  “To hell with them we want our fun too”. Then they pushed them aside and came in. We never heard any more about it.

Bad luck.

One time we were in a place called Tower outside Cork when our uncle Tommy Mullins was passing with his picture show on his way to Courtbrack. He hated passing a show on moving day as he reckoned it would bring bad luck. Anyway after a short stop he went on his way. Two days later his show burnt down. The Booth, Operating Wagon and all his films were burnt. He was lucky that his living wagons escaped. It was all because his offsider lit a match whilst looking for a film. The head of match flew off and it resulted in the fire.  Films were highly flammable. When dad heard about it we packed up and moved up to the same location as uncle Tommy and aunt Vera. Once we were operating, we began to help get him back up and running with help and donations of equipment from other show people. The Booth and a projector wagon were rebuilt  and a projector fitted up. A selection of films found their way to him from lots of other folk. Three weeks later he was ready to roll. The sad part was that aunt Vera was expecting their first child and with the drama  that took place she lost the baby. At times like this show people come together and helped out even if they had their differences in the past.

Winter could be harsh

We had, up until this time (1957), always travelled all year around. Winter could be hard with storms that made us sometimes get up in the middle of the night and remove the canvas from the roof of the booth to prevent it being blown away. In 1957 dad decided to spend winter in Ballincloher. Co Kerry in a nice location owned by some friends. We operated the show three nights a week for a couple of months. It was great to be in the one place for so long. The family who owned the land were a real old fashioned farming family and had hearts of gold. We had known them for a long time. I remember that once they had two sows ready to give birth and as the weather was very cold they put a divider in their big kitchen and had one sow either side where they gave birth to 24 piglets. The pigs stayed there for two weeks until they were strong enough to be moved to the sheds. Every day the kitchen was scrubbed and cleaned and I don’t remember it smelling. It would not pass today’s standards but these animals were valuable and these litters were money for the family. They had electricity to the house, but the old man would only allow one bulb in the kitchen. The rest of the rooms had oil lamps which was strange, but they were a great family.

Stories & anecdotes.

Over the years dad told us many stories which as kids reckoned were funny, but were not at the time. One was when they were still using horses. He had got a new horse a few week prior to moving the show through Cork city. The new horse was pulling a wagon with dad driving. Just as they were on the bridge over the Lee the horse decided to drop dead. Well there is not much you can do with a dead horse but to call the knackers  who took a few hours to get there and remove dead horse at dads expense. Another horsey story was a fellow showman was having a hard time and asked if he could borrow one of dads horses for a few weeks. So horse and tackle were lent to him. A few months later we were in some place and dad was talking to a local fellow  who mentioned he had bought a nice horse from a showman plus the tackle. Guess who the showman was …….. the same one we lent the horse to and yes it was the same horse. Lucky for him it was years before we met up with him again and by then dad had forgiven him.

Family.

There is so much that one could write about, but it would take forever to put it all into this story. My sister Hilda, was educated  at boarding school and went on to teach and then to work in a bank. Denis, my eldest brother, who left the show after a row with dad went to work in Doncaster. My brother Brian left a few years later to go to England, but came back to show business. My young sister Betty Anne, went to England to be with Hilda. My younger brother Hubert John, had a great talent as a painter sign writer but never pursued it. He and I stayed with the show till the end.  All of my family I have always loved and will for ever.

The coming of television.

Television, in the early 1960s put an end to the picture show as people no longer had to leave the comfort of their homes to be entertained. In 1963 we joined up with brother Brian to run Bridge  Amusements  which was owned by the Mac Donald family. We had a really great year. It was such a change from the picture show. The MacDonald’s did not want to run the show so we had it all to ourselves. Plans were made for the following year and our last gig was in Middleton but alas, MacDonald died and left a lot of complication’s behind, too many to be sorted out easily. We decided to give up and move to London, never to return to show business.

To conclude.

One little thing worth mentioning was that in 1966 I was lucky enough to marry my lovely wife Ruth who came from Middleton, the same town that my grandfather collapsed on the stage and died all those years ago. In 1968, my brother Brian moved to Australia. Two years later in 1970, Ruth and I followed suit and that is where we now live and will one day die there. There are many stories that will soon be lost about show people from the 1900’s. Most of the old timers have passed and only a few remain. There are so many stories out there that I have never even heard  and lots that I could tell and maybe one day I shall write up a few more. Like lots of things in life, no one really cares until it is too late. So there it is, I was born in a caravan on the village green in Kiskeam, County Cork, twelve thousand miles from where I will die.

Maurice Lyons  22 June 2019

Note:  In 1967 the Lyons Roadshow, which was being run by the Mullins family at that stage, was the last show to ever set up in the show site at Esker in the Skehana area.  The name on the projector wagon was Ronald Lyons, who was an uncle of Maurice, and Maurice’s mother was from the Mullins family, so there were close family ties between the Lyons and Mullins families. While they were here in Skehana, Sally and Marie (cousins of Maurice) attended Garbally National School and Marie was in my class there. Maurice tells me that later on, Sally married Tom Duffy of Duffy’s Circus and still travels with the Circus. The Mullins family are still in the fun-fare business. 

Many thanks and much appreciation goes to Maurice Lyons for writing this truly wonderful story of his life with the family roadshow.  We are honoured to have been given the story and allowed the hosting of this historical gem on our website and again our sincere thanks and best wishes go to both himself and his wife Ruth in Australia. Good health and long life to you both.

 

The McFadden Roadshow

An afternoon in the company of Harry and Eileen McFadden.

Gerry Costello

 

 

The McFadden family would have been the most famous and the most well known family in the show business world when travelling roadshow families were the only people to bring films, theatre, variety shows, shooting galleries, bagatelle, swinging boats and many other amusements to the people in rural Ireland,. The show people, as they were known as, travelled down backroads and boreens to small villages and settlements during the 1800’s and on until the late 1960’s when television began to become the more popular medium of entertainment in those rural and backward areas of every county in Ireland.  So popular were the McFadden roadshow, that even sometimes when some other family spent a week or two in the local area here in Skehana/Menlough that everybody assumed it was the McFadden roadshow that was here.

And so today, June 28th. 2019, Sean Conneely and myself travelled to Rocky Valley, Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow to spend an afternoon in the delightful company of Harry and Eileen McFadden at their most beautiful home looking out on the Wicklow mountains. Harry told us that his fathers people were in Belfast in Hollywood Arches going back 160 to 170 years ago. His father went into a riding school there and became a genius with horses. he then toured his own small amusement show. He toured all of Ireland in the hard times and during the troubled times. Later on he ran a picture show and was one of the first to have the talking picture shows in Ireland. He went from town to town and stayed approximately two to three weeks in each showing a different film each night. After that the whole family went into the variety show business.

The Family

Harry had four more brothers with himself, George, Johnny, Jimmy, Teddy and they put different shows on the road. Harry and his wife Eileen, formerly Eileen Mirth, whom incidentally also came from the show business world also, toured nearly every town and village in Ireland with their own show. Harry is today in his 90th. year with his wife Eileen in her 88th. year and Harry is the last of the five McFadden brothers still living.

When Harry and Eileen’s family grew up, their son Harry and daughter Thelma went into the funfair business. A few years ago, Harry (Snr.) and his wife Eileen decided to retire and fully settle down in the beautiful location of Kilmacanogue in Co. Wicklow. The Fox McFadden Funfair is still thriving and now another generation of the family is being groomed to take up the baton going forward.

The Early Days

At the time of Harry’s growing up life in Ireland was not easy for most people and he recalls that it was not any more difficult for them than it was for the people if Ireland that he came in contact with along the way. At that time there were twenty or thirty different variety shows travelling the towns and villages. They used to book halls. The McFadden’s had an advantage in the sense that they built their own mobile theatre and they could hire a field or a site off a farmer in any location and erect their own mobile theatre and they could stay there as long as they liked. That cut down on the expenses of paying for Halls. Another huge advantage of doing this was that they could visit any village in any location as not every village or even rural parish had a hall in those days. Furthermore, all of the more remote villages were craving for entertainment, glamour and a diversion from the humdrum everyday existence that they survived in, that it was a great sense of  occasion and a most welcome site to see the Roadshow arrive in the village. If we think back, there was probably only one radio in most villages in those days if they were lucky enough to even have the one. When Harry and Eileen were travelling in those days they had around fourteen of a company. They would be able to sing and dance and able to play parts in the plays and drama that Harry and Eileen would put on. Dramas such as “East Lynne”, “The Song of Bernadette”, “Noreen Bawn”, etc. The programme was changed every night. They worked down to the audience and the audience got familiar with them and they got a good reaction and feedback which was reward to them plus the financial remuneration was also most rewarding and kept the show on the road.

Facilities

They had to be resourceful also as they had to dabble in everything. They built and maintained their own theatre, their own trailers, seating, mechanical works, electrical maintenance, etc. They were also one of the first to have a heated mobile theatre for their patrons. They also had their own accommodation to maintain and look after as well. They had American style mobile homes which were well equipped with full modern facilities such as fridges, washing machines, hot and cold water, shower rooms, flush toilets, etc. “At that stage’, says Harry, “we used to run our own generator. My dad was the first man to ever light an electric light bulb in the town of Roscommon from his own generator”.

Eileen McFadden

Eileen was also born into the show business word formerly being Eileen Mirth. her father was from England. her mother and father started a theatre in Ireland and travelled the thirty two counties. They did variety and drama. Eileen did some singing and guitar playing. Her music was country & western. She also did tap dancing and performed as an acrobat also. This was her life until she met Harry. When she was nineteen, her father became ill and around Christmas time, she joined McFadden’s Roadshow just as a job to earn some money and probably with the intention of helping her parents out. She continued on with the stage show and eventually, they both got married she moved to southern Ireland. They went on to have three children.

Galway City

They were the first tented show that ever went into Galway under canvas. It was a major step for them going into the big city from the rural travelling and they were taking a huge step into the unknown. The first night they were there they opened for twelve pounds which was very, very small and would not cover the costs. They had done an extensive publicity campaign beforehand and felt a bit disillusioned on the opening night. The second night they took forty pounds and it went to fifty pounds the third night. The show steadily got more popular and they remained there for the seven weeks of Lent. Harry says, “The people were so nice and friendly and all were so good to us. They were marvellous times”.

Education

In their young days, they had to go to school in whatever village they were set up in for the few weeks while they were there. “It was a little bit awkward”, states Harry, “because you were in a strange school every three or four weeks but we used to go to the same villages every year, we used to do a particular run and when we would come back to the same villages the teachers got to know us and we got a little bit of education and we managed to survive”. He went on to say that “while we did not get all that much education going to school, the same emphasis was not on education as it is today. Today it’s essential. We did make sure that all our children went to school and on to college, so thank God they have a full education”.

The War Years

During the war years Harry was quite young, but his parents, John and Florence, continued to tour all the villages during that time and received no trouble at all, but were always aware that they were dangerous times. There were shootings and ambushes here and there but they continued to keep the show on the road throughout these difficult times. They made very good friends with a gentleman in a little village called Ballinalee. It turned out that he was the Blacksmith in the village. Harry’s father, John McFadden, and him got very, very friendly but some weeks prior to that there was a big ambush in the village and on the same night Harry’s father was walking along the road looking for a horse that escaped from the field where they had set up the show. A man on a bicycle came along, stopped and took out a revolver and put it to John’s head, was about to pull the trigger but for some reason stopped and asked John who he was. he told the man that he was with the show and was putting the horses back into the field from where they had broken loose. On hearing this the gunman told him to go to bed, put out all lights and not to come out again until morning. Weeks after that on their final night in that village the Blacksmith was in the caravan with his mum and dad as had become his normal routine now almost nightly since they had arrived. At this time he was a bit down and sad and Harry’s mother, Florence, asked if he were alright. He said “I’m fine,  you know I’ve only got to know you and your husband over the past three weeks and I’ve never got so fond of anyone in all my life, and to think that I was within a fraction of blowing your brains out that first night I met you on the road”. It turned out that he was the gunman on the bicycle that night. Later on as years went by they found out that he was Lt. General Sean McKeown. There was an ambush planned for that night and his orders were to ensure that nobody would observe what was happening and he was to patrol the roads and shoot anyone that he met. He was commonly referred to as Lt. General Sean McKeown, the “Blacksmith of Ballinalee”.

Hired hands

At most times Harry would have twelve to fourteen hired hands. They would be variety artists, singers and dancers and would also lend a hand to the set up and dismantling of the show as required. Usually they would do one to three years with the McFaddens and might move on to other shows and people who performed in other shows moved to join McFaddens. It was a great draw for artists to join McFaddens because they did three months summer season in places like Salthill, Bundoran, Ballybunnion and that was handy for the rest of the artists because it was also a holiday for them at the seaside. There was little opposition between the various roadshows and any that existed was friendly. They were all a good old crew and helped each other like one big happy family. Many small shows went from hall to hall but at the peak of things there were about fifty doing the circuit.

Superstitions

Some artists had certain superstitions. One was it was deemed unlucky to whistle in the dressing rooms. Harry tells us that this one may still exist amongst some of todays acting fraternity. Another one was that they would be concerned if they were to see ivy growing on a hall where they were to perform but Harry himself never believed in such things and never observed these traditions. He would never let himself believe in anything lake that.

Family Tragedy

Harry’s brother, Johnny was drowned in a bathing tragedy at Glenamaddy, Co. Galway on August 15th. 1947 at the age of 25 and is laid to rest in Glenamaddy.  His parents, John and Florence, are also laid to rest alongside Johnny as is his brother, James (Jimmy), who passed away on May 26th. 2014. Harry and Eileen also had a daughter, Sylvia, who was a singer/songwriter and entered and sang one of her compositions, “Don’t Walk Away” in the 1981 National Song Contest. Sadly, Sylvia passed away some time later.

The Customs Officer

A incident took place in the Menlough/Brierfield area back in 1947 and was reported in the Tuam Herald of August 16th. 1947. The report stated that there was uproar in a travelling cinema marquee at Brierfield, Menlough, when a Revenue officer made an inspection. The  story goes on to say that the inspector arrived to inspect the half tickets that the customers held against the half that was held by the show owner, John McFadden. The show was interrupted by the inspector, P.J. Frost, and members of the audience were so annoyed by this intrusion that some threw clods at Mr. Frost eventually forcing him to abandon his inspection. The incident ended up in Derreen District Court before District Justice Sean McGiollarnath. It transpired that John McFadden produced 197 half tickets on the night which corresponded to the amount of people at the show. The Justice Justice further stated that Mr. Frost should have brought police protection with him on the night if he felt there was going to be any trouble and dismissed all charges against the McFadden Roadshow. Harry remembers and recalls the incident with much amusement. He told us that at that time the cinemas had to pay entertainment tax. When you bought your roll of tickets you also had to buy a roll of stamps and each ticket had to have a stamp stuck on. The customer bought their ticket at the box office, the door person received the ticket at the entrance, tore it in half and the door person retained one half and the customer retained the second half. Occasionally an inspector would call in and check the audience half tickets for stamps and would check the total audience against the quantity of halves held at the door. Harry recalls also that there was an inspector by the name of Frost who was exceptionally zealous in the pursuit of his duties. At that time also, the local Sargent in the area was particularly fond of John McFadden, got word that the inspector was calling on that night and made sure that John was aware of the imminent arrival so everything was above board. The inspector, Harry recalls, slipped and fell on the way in, probably ruined his clothes in the mud and was obviously not impressed, especially when the audiences’ welcome was not too friendly.

Names and Places

Harry went on to recall names and places they visited. He well remembers Paddy Joe and Maura Burke from Menlough. He remembers the show site at Esker (Skehana) and the old castle at Garbally. Garda McEvoy, the Cullen family, Cathy and Brendan Duddy all from Monivea. He used to play football with Tom Hussey and Joe O’Neill in Glenamaddy before the shows there at night. In every village they went to they were well received and made life long friends along the way.

The Clergy

The clergy were great in general but a few could be very difficult as they did not like the idea of a variety show coming into their parishes as they considered that it was inappropriate entertainment. They had that little bit of power then which has, thankfully, evaporated nowadays. One of Harry’s great friends is Fr. Brian D’arcy. Fr Brian was actually their Chaplin in the Show-business and they still keep up contact with each other. Harry says that if anyone were to ask him what would be the definition of a good priest, he would just turn to them and say Fr. Brian D’arcy. He recalls being in a village once and thinks it was Dunmore. At that time, Harry himself used to do a comedy spot in the variety show and would tell jokes. Some of the jokes were what we would describe as ‘over the edge’. At that time the priest would come an odd time in the middle of the performance and stand at the back of the hall. Harry would spot him from the stage and naturally would ‘calm down’ his jokes a little. The priest knew this and one day told Eileen, Harry’s wife, to tell Harry that the next time he was doing his act not to bother about him, let them fly as he liked a good joke as well as the next man.

The Coming of Television

The coming of television, the Singing Lounges and bingo took its toll on the travelling variety shows. Many of the artists of the variety shows were now looking towards RTE and the shows there, like Tolka Row, The Riordans, Glenroe, for more permanent and settled work. People like John Cowley (Tom Riordan in The Riordans), Anne D’alton (Minnie Brennan in The Riordans), Robert Carrickford (Stephen Brennan in Glenroe) were all part of the Fit-ups and variety road shows that travelled around Ireland. Artists were getting harder to employ as television was taking some of the better ones off the road. Harry McFadden found that while many nights they would be filled to capacity but should there be a big bingo on locally or if there was a TV programme that commanded a high following then their business was well down. He saw the writing on the wall and decided to change out of the business which left them with two options. They could either start a circus or go into the amusement business. Harry opted for the amusement business and by doing this covered a lot of the festivals around the country. He opened the first Strawberry Festival in Enniscorthy about 35 years ago and their funfair has been there every year since.

Retired

Harry and Eileen are now retired but their son Harry (Jnr) and daughter Thelma each have their own funfair business and they are keeping the business going at present. They are both enjoying life and a happy retirement in their most beautiful home in Rocky Valley, Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow overlooking the Wicklow mountains and enjoying the wonderful views from this idyllic and peaceful location.

 

 

Louis D'Alton

His wife Annie in Skehana roadshow with John Cowley

Patrick Maume

 

 

Louis D’Alton (1900 – 1951), writer and actor, was born Louis Dalton at Fairview, Dublin, on 24 May 1900, eldest of five children (of whom two sons and a daughter survived to adulthood) of Frank Dalton, actor and theatre producer, and his wife Catherine (née Lynch). Louis later adopted the D’Alton spelling of his surname, in which he was imitated by his brother and sister. The Daltons ran a travelling ‘fit-up’ theatre company and roadshow, which toured Britain and Ireland; the children were educated at various schools in England. Frequent moves meant that the Dalton siblings found it difficult to form outside friendships and became very close to one another. After living for some time at Southend in Essex, the family returned to Dublin in 1915 to prevent Frank Dalton’s being conscripted; early in 1916 Louis joined the Irish civil service as a junior clerk. His impressions of the Easter rising are given (slightly fictionalised) in his first novel, Death is so fair (1936).

D’Alton was active on the fringes of the IRA during the war of independence (mainly as a messenger) and in 1921 resigned his clerkship rather than take an oath of allegiance to George V. He subsequently studied art and briefly worked as a cartoonist for Dublin Opinion and as a bookkeeper, before joining the travelling theatre company of Victor O’Donovan Power (d. 1933), author of the popular ‘Kitty the Hare’ stories. Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s D’Alton worked with various travelling companies, a lifestyle that forms the backdrop to his second novel, Rags and sticks (1938).

Early in his acting career D’Alton began writing melodramas in the style popular with provincial audiences. Although these were not published and have generally not survived, they left a lasting impression. His mature work often adopts the stock stories of melodrama but then develops them into narratives darker and more critical of Irish society than conventional melodrama. Recognition of the superficial conventions and the expectations that these set up often meant that audiences missed the depth of D’Alton’s disaffection with Irish society – a result at once protective and frustrating for the writer. This disaffection is visible from D’Alton’s earliest published work. Death is so fair is an anti-romantic portrayal of the war of independence centred on a clerical student who abandons his vocation to join the IRA, believing freedom will bring a new golden age peopled with saints and scholars. His ideals are shattered by the harsh experience of the struggle; drawn into sexual sin and into complicity in the murder of a (probably) innocent man, he is consumed with guilt, gives himself up to the Black and Tans, and is summarily shot dead. Such dark portrayals of the independence struggle, deliberately challenging the quasi-religious nationalism of Patrick Pearse and Terence MacSwiney were not unprecedented: the influence of Liam O’Flaherty is perceptible, and some seedy aspects of D’Alton’s portrayal of the old IRA – such as the execution of ‘spies’ on slender evidence and the use of politically motivated bank raids for personal enrichment – may reflect small-town gossip gathered on his travels.

Although D’Alton had been brought up as a catholic, in adult life he was an atheist who made a point of refusing to attend mass. Illegitimacy and sexual repression are recurring themes in his work; Rags and sticks was banned by the Irish censorship board. He was annoyed when his play ‘The Spanish soldier’ (1940), in which a neurotic veteran of the Irish brigade formed by Eoin O’Duffy is healed of a psychosomatic paralysis and regards this as a miracle, was taken for a genuine miracle play. However, favourable depictions of religious vocations in D’Alton’s plays were not necessarily cynical attempts at crowd-pleasing; they may serve the function of highlighting the discrepancy between a society’s professed and real values, or provide a variation on the theme of personal initiative and purpose-seeking. ‘The money doesn’t matter’ (1941) contrasts the dedication of missionary orders, which provide medical assistance in African without proper funding and at risk of their members’ lives, with older and more prestigious orders, which are implicitly accused of snobbery, idleness, and greed.

D’Alton’s mature dramatic output begins with ‘The man in the cloak’ (1937), an expressionist treatment of the life of James Clarence Mangan and the first of his plays to be produced at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Thereafter he wrote exclusively as a dramatist. (He is listed in some of his works as author of a short-story collection, but if this was ever published it has escaped both his biographer and the NLI.) D’Alton briefly worked as second producer at the Abbey (January–May 1939) but resigned for undisclosed reasons; he organised a financially unsuccessful provincial tour by the Abbey’s second company in 1940.

‘To-morrow never comes’ (1940) is a psychological thriller depicting the state of mind of a man who becomes a murderer through financial pressure. After ‘The Spanish soldier’ D’Alton is alleged to have vowed that he would ‘never write a serious play again’, and his later work is less formally inventive, though he remained a master of plot construction. ‘The money doesn’t matter’ (1941), a dark comedy about a self-made businessman’s fraught relationship with his adult children (one of whom, to the irritation of his father, becomes a missionary priest), led to controversy when Frank O’Connor protested that an alcoholic character was a caricature of Lennox Robinson. ‘Lovers’ meeting’ (1941) strained D’Alton’s relations with the Abbey management after he objected to the insistence of the director, Ernest Blythe, that a character who commits suicide should be presented as mad – D’Alton thought this decision a rational response to her being forced into a loveless marriage. The play features a murder, a hanging, a suicide, a potentially incestuous relationship, a forced match, and a woman consumed with concealed guilt; Abbey audiences, misled by its farmhouse kitchen setting and mistaking the eccentricities of a subsidiary character for comic relief, treated it as an Abbey ‘kitchen comedy’.

Early in 1942 D’Alton formed his own drama company, which toured provincial Ireland with some success until 1944. At this time D’Alton initiated a correspondence with Sean O’Casey, initially over performing rights for the older playwright’s works, which led to a deep friendship that lasted for the rest of D’Alton’s life. D’Alton may have shared some of O’Casey’s leftist political beliefs. In the late 1940s, when Sean O’Faolain criticised The Bell under the editorship of Peadar O’Donnell for ‘autoantiamericanism’, D’Alton wrote an unpublished rejoinder, stating that in a future war America would not respect Irish neutrality, and criticising Marshall aid as an attempt to buy Ireland for $18 million. (This episode has been attributed to the second world war, but careful reading shows that it belongs to the later period.)

D’Alton married the actress Ann Mulhall at Carlow on 9 February 1925; they had one daughter. The marriage broke down in 1944 as the result of a short-lived though ‘very serious’ affair between D’Alton and the actress Eithne Dunn, after which Anne D’Alton had a retaliatory affair with the actor John Cowley. The D’Altons separated and subsequently divorced. This led to the disintegration of the D’Alton touring company; D’Alton went to England to work with the British forces entertainment company Entertainment and National Services Association (ENSA). He returned to Ireland in 1946, and in February 1947 the Abbey produced his comedy ‘They got what they wanted’ (filmed in 1951 by the Associated British Picture Corporation as Talk of a million, directed by J. P. Carstairs). On 29 September 1949 D’Alton married the actress Eithne Mulhall, whom he had met in ENSA, at Kensington registry office; there were no children of this marriage. In July 1950 D’Alton was diagnosed as suffering from Hodgkin’s disease, which brought about his death at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, St John’s Wood, London, on 15 June 1951. He emphasised his final separation from catholicism by ordering that his body be cremated. John Cowley married the the actress Annie D’Alton (who played Minnie Brennan in The Riordans) in 1953 – two years after her first husband, the dramatist Louis D’Alton, had died.

After D’Alton’s death the Abbey Theatre gave the first performances of three plays written in the last two years of his life: ‘The devil a saint would be’ (1951) is a comedy about an old woman who has visions of a somewhat dubious saint, and ‘Cafflin’ Johnny’ (1958) depicts an unsuccessful emigrant who returns to his provincial home to find that he has been mythologised in his absence as a folk hero. The best-known of these posthumously produced plays, generally regarded as D’Alton’s finest work, is ‘This other Eden’ (1953), a reworking of John Bull’s other island by George Bernard Shaw It depicts the erection in a small town of a monument to a hero of the war of independence (modelled on Michael Collins and the rapidly muffled revelation that the idolised hero left an illegitimate son, a naive idealist whose response to the discovery that everyone but him knew his true parentage is to blow up the hall built in his father’s honour (after which he is persuaded to emigrate to England); the dialogue contains numerous sarcastic references to such matters as the alleged wealth of religious orders, the domination of small-town social life by authoritarian clerics, the exploitation of workers in tariff-protected industries (the local gombeenman protests that his employees do indeed receive a living wage since none have starved to death recently), and the desire for social and intellectual freedom as a motive for emigration. The play was received as a light-hearted comedy and proved immensely popular. The film version (1959, directed by Muriel Box), which makes some minor changes, is regarded as the most accomplished of the adaptations of Abbey Theatre productions by Ardmore Studios.

D’Alton’s plays retained an amateur and provincial clientele for some time (the theatrical publisher P. J. Bourke bought the rights from his estate in the 1960s and republished several of them), but they ceased to be performed when television became popular and amateur theatre and provincial touring companies declined. However, D’Alton attracted renewed critical attention in the early twenty-first century as exemplifying the limits of contemporary expression of discontent with de Valera’s Ireland.

 

 

Robert Carrickford

Glenroe star began his career in the travelling roadshow.

Gerry Costello

 

 

Robert Carrickford (4 January 1928 – 15 March 2016) and born in Ballyshannon was a member of one of the oldest theatrical families in Ireland – his grandfather having founded the Mechanic’s Theatre which predated the Abbey Theatre. The Carrickford’s became a household name and, as soon as Robert was old enough he then toured Ireland, extensively in what were known as “The Fit-Ups”, playing a different town for a few days, year in-year out.

A Director in his own right, he continued to mount his own productions and appeared in main-stream theatre with all the leading Companies, Gemini, The Abbey, Edwards & McLiammoir, and toured Hong-Kong, America and Belgium with prestigious Irish plays.

However, it was his long-running character of Stephen Brennan in ‘Glenroe’ that made him a household name, despite having appeared in sixteen other films and TV series and, as Father Gogan in ‘The Riordans’. He also appeared in other TV Productions and films such as:  Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, The Ballroom of Romance, The Irish RM, The Outsider,  Anne Devlin, The Ted Kennedy Jr. Story to name but a few.

His energy and drive, considering his incredible stage and television workload, will be long-remembered.

This page was added on 14/06/2019.