Do You Remember?

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Jonny

Newry Library in association with NI Screen presents a nostalgic look at the past through the medium of digital film. The event is on Wednesday 23rd May starting at 3.15. Admission is free but booking is essential. Contact 028 3026 4683 or newry.library@librariesni.org.uk

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Life and Death of Cyril Wiltshire, Castle Street .. [1]

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Cyril Wiltshire

Ed and Bria Herron, Newry teachers by profession and, long into their well-deserved retirement teachers still at Newry U3A, are among the most popular and the best-esteemed of that august body of lovely people.  Indeed they continue to this day to invest enormous energy and enthusiasm into their work, so much so that their French classes regularly spill into the corridors of my old Alma Mater.

Their own love story -and life story – I hope will one day soon be told in these pages, for it is truely a remarkable tale.

But first, we are pleased to tell the tale of Bria’s father, Lance Corporal Cyril Elwyn Wiltshire of the Fifth Battalion, Welsh Regiment, who fell at Calvados, France on 21 July 1944 aged just twenty-five years.

Much of this tale is reproduced from his letters and his diaries.  Cyril was of 38 Castle Street Newry.

… more later …

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Results: 2012 Newry Drama Festival

Posted on April 1, 2012 by John McCullagh

The opinion of the Adjudicator seldom tallies with my own – and so it is again.  I will report however, without comment, the final results from the 2012 Diamond Jubilee Newry Drama Festival.

Premier Award : Rosemary Drama Group, Belfast : When we are married
Runners-up: Ballyduff, Waterford: The Crucible
Third: Silken Thomas: Jerusalem
Fourth: Newpoint: Beauty Queen of Leenane

Most Ambitious Choice: Silken Thomas : Jerusalem
Best Producer: Rosemary
Best Actor : Liam Quinlivan as Rooster in Jerusalem
Best Actress: Eithne Bell as Mum in Beauty Queen of Leenane

Best young actor: Rosemary
Audience Award : Rosemary
Best Stage Manager: Ballyduff
Best Decor: Ballyduff
Best Lighting: Ballyduff
Best Moment of Theatre: Silken Thomas
Best Music and Sound: Ballyduff
Best Costumes: Ballyduff
Best Technical Production: Silken Thomas
Scholarship: Rosemary

A long week’s rest is called for.

It won’t happen!

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2012 Drama Festival closes …

Posted on March 31, 2012 by John McCullagh

To write a New Age English allegorical drama so radical as Jerusalem – as Jez Butterworth has done – with a degenerate drug dealer as hero and with all its attendant  violence and foul language, and almost instantly enjoy huge success with it in New York and London, and have it acclaimed as a modern classic, is quite an achievement.  Yet it was more than much of our audience last evening could stomach and many left, while a section of those who remained expressed grave reservations,though admiring the cast for its consummate performance.

Every one to his or her own taste.  I, for example will not attend tonight’s Palace Players performance of Night, Mother because I could not cope with the subject matter (the calm, planned suicide of a daughter before her mother).  Yet this play won a Pulitzer Prize.

I thought Silken Thomas’ Jerusalem was magnificent: a triumph in every field of dramatic endeavour.  Too good – I suspect – for Newpoint’s sake, who may have to settle for runners-up spot, or less.  I have about 14 hours to be proved wrong.

The Kildare team will most assuredly win Most Ambitious Choice and, I suspect, best set.  They may take far more accolades than that!

It has been a good festival all round with packed houses and full attendance at the Fringe Events too.  With the single reservation of such an inappropriate and dreadfully morbid choice of play for Final Night, I warmly commend the Newry Drama Festival Committee for their efforts on the occasion of their Diamond Jubilee.

… end …

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Eithne Bell for Best Actress?

Posted on March 30, 2012 by John McCullagh

There was high praise indeed, and rightly so, last evening from our adjudicator Walter Ewart for Newpoint’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane.  I believe he was greatly impressed with every aspect of this interpretation, from the stage crew to the set, to the lighting, sound script, props, costume, the directing and most especially the acting performance.


Eithne Bell came in for especial mention for a scintillating performance as the old mother.  It was a flawless and courageous portrayal of a scheming, selfish old woman (Declan, her husband confided to me that she wasn’t acting!) and I suspect she will win the Best Actress award.

I have been in general agreement all week with Walter Ewart, and again, when the only reservation he expressed was about a slight lack of menace and impending madness earlier on in the play.  Patricia McCoy (as the Beauty Queen) was her usual impressive self and played perfectly off the mother character.   The two men, Donal O’Hanlon and Donal Kearney also strongly played their respective roles.

For Ewart, the best moment of theatre was the emptying of the p**s-pot into the sink.  We loved it.  But for me, it was her fall, as a lifeless corpse, from the rocking chair to the floor.  Brilliant!  And very courageous!  As was her struggle on the floor, when she was again attacked by her mad daughter.

I had a few minor quibbles (Eithne’s very synthetic grey wig, torrential rain, but no wet on characters entering the house, reference to muddy boots but no mud, no background rain sound when TV/radio switched on, Kennedy portrait rocking perilously on wall at each entrance/exit) but I hope the team will prevail to go to the Ulster Finals.

I have not seen it yet but I suspect the main threat will come from Silken Thomas who tonight give us Jerusalem.  This is the performance I have been most eagerly anticipating.

Don’t miss it.

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Newpoint: Beauty Queen of Leenane

Posted on March 29, 2012 by John McCullagh

I know you really will want to go to the Town Hall tonight at 8.00 pm to support our local Newpoint Players who are performing Martin McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane.

 

 

Eithne Bell and Patricia McCoy have already shared the “Best Actress” award for their roles and Sean Treanor has won a Best Producer award.  They all (Donal O’Hanlon and Donal Kearney are also on stage) could do with another win to help them to the Ulster and perhaps the All-Ireland Finals.

Your support would be much appreciated!

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Welcome the Fiddler!

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Sean Crawford
This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Sean Crawford articles

So how do I spend my time in retirement, you ask?  Very pleasantly, on the whole.  Some days indeed, I am so occupied I cannot get in all the jobs I have engaged myself to do.

I play the organ in church.  Somewhat like myself, it is ancient and unpredictable.  Between Masses, benediction services, novenas, Holy Hours, missions, First Fridays, and so on, I am fairly often seated at the organ, which I play very ‘charitably’, for, verily, ‘my right hand knoweth not what my left hand doeth!’
Any time I meet a pretty young girl – and this town is full of them – I’ll say, ‘I’ll play the bridal march at your wedding.’ They always say, “Ach, Mr Crawford, you’ll have to get me a boy first!”  I notice that they always sigh when they tell me this.  In order to keep their young hearts up, I answer them thus:

“Look here, daughter, I never promised a girl that I’d play at her wedding, that I didn’t fulfil my promise.”  And it is so.  The first wedding I played at was in 1912.  Even considering that Lent is a close season, and Advent another,  have played for a brave few brides in that half-century.

I hope that, dressed in their bridal raiment, they will be waiting for me at the golden gates of heaven, as the blessed welcome the merry ‘Fiddler of Dooney’.

… more later …

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Noble Ploughman: .. end …

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Michael J Murphy
This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series Michael J Murphy

Since man first turned the soil with his crude spade, revolutionary changes have merged into a progress which has created new worlds above the soil.  But it is still the same soil, and generally speaking producing the same foodstuffs for generally the same purpose.


As each scrape rises, turns and is folded over by the board, the furrow is fresh with dark-brown soil, from which rises a not unpleasant but queerly sour scent of earth.  One is gradually minded of some great rtevelation being unfolded:  as if the invisible veil of Time itself were being drawn off the great facts, the sacrifices and the stories now in the cold print of the history books.  One even feels the close, natural kinship which exists between man and earth – of which only those in constant communion with the earth are aware.

The land was dug with spades before the plough was invented.  When I see fields that, within living memory, were spade-dug by man, I marvel at such herculean tasks.  Ploughs then were few and far between.

There are a few wooden ploughs still retained for sentimental reasons or as museum pieces.  The spade was not been done away with.  It is still used for gardens and allotments and for digging round stones which the plough must pass over.  I have seen ploughmen with fast teams thrown clear of the handles after hitting such a stone.  Though most of the great ones are well-known.  Their location is passed down from generation to generation – as is the location of underground shores or drains.

” …. an’ about two perches out from the big bush in Paddy’s Hill field there’s a bad stone!  Now, watch yourself there!  I remember being thrown … ”

It is such hidden stones that make the blacksmith’s forge “thronged ground” during the ploughing season, for almost everyone who enters has a sock to be mended or ‘squared’ or pointed with steel.  The ‘sock’ by the way is a detachable part of the plough which fits onto the sole-plate and which cuts the scrape underneath.  The ‘coulter’ – an iron knife on the forward beam, slices the sod.

In the forge the men talk of the incidents which occurred during their labours that day; about teams, ploughs and horses; and then go to their homes with the mended socks in readiness for renewed work the next day.

It seems a humble calling:  but all great labours are remote and inconspicuous.  For the song of the plough sings gently of the most distinguished labour in the civilized world.  Men labour that men may live when clay-clogged footsteps walk in fresh brown furrows after a team of pulling horses.

… end …

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Weekend Breaks: Clarence

Posted on March 26, 2012 by John McCullagh

How time flies!  Already we have seen one third of all the plays in the 2012 Newry Drama Festival!

Bart’s opening on Friday night was competent, distracting and pleasant:  I expect no kudos to come their way though.

Ballyduff (Saturday) and Nenagh (Sunday) were both outstanding in their own different ways:  Waterford displayed an exceptionally talent youth section and the production was excellent.  Tipperary gave a masterly technical performance, especially in set, lighting, costume and sound.  I expect them to win an award in the latter category.  Both performances however left room for improvement.  The Judge was weak in The Crucible:  the over-ornate and technical set restricted the cast of Jekyll and Hyde.

The best is yet to come.  I look forward especially to Silken Thomas’ Jerusalem (Friday) and Newpoint’s Beauty Queen of Lenane (Thursday).

Tonight it is Clarence with Weekend Breaks.

Attend and enjoy!

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The Good Earth

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Michael J Murphy

Moving slowly over the crest of a gentle hill, man, horse and plough are silhouetted against the evening sky.  They seem like shadowy ghosts from a dim era that have returned as a quiet reminder to a world dominated by and crazed about speed.

We cannot put back the clock: but it does seem wrong now to associate ploughing with the tractor and the petrol engine:  impossible not to feel moved by that scene, with horses straining, their nostrils quivering and blowing out huge trumpets of vapour: to be without the creak of leather harness, straining team and the voice of the ploughman directing the team …  and of the plough itself, as the board scrapes against the rising, turning sod.

Without the plough, Empires would crash and Kings would die:  for the song of the plough is a song of life.  Perhaps that is why poets and artists never tire of depicting plough and ploughman, and the obedient teams.

“Lily? … Hop off, mare! … What are yeh doing, Daisy? … Up on it.  Get outa that, ponies – Ah- h… !  Lily! … Daisy! … Come ‘ere now!  Come ‘ere with yous !”

When one joins a ploughman and takes a ‘scrape’ it is impossible to escape the symbolism which the turning earth stirs in one’s mind.  A rare feeling of the awful importance of the humble task really sings in one’s blood.

The earth is so conservative: and landsmen just as conservative as a result.

… more later …

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