Roscommon Intermediate Ladies v Meath in All-Ireland Semi-Final on Sat. the 25th.
I have been reading and hearing about Roscommon Intermediate ladies thrilling victory over Laois last week-end in Moate. Apparently it was heart-stopping stuff. Team manager Michael Finneran (former Roscommon senior football midfielder) is quoted in the Roscommon People as follows “That was an unbelievable game. I don’t think I have ever been involved in a game like it. My nerves are shot at the moment. It’s hard to describe what happened out there”. Those sentiments have been re-echoed in the local sports pages accounts and by those lucky enough to have been present. I must admit I have not been at many ladies football games down the years though I remember being at an under-age one in Nenagh, Roscommon v Waterford, perhaps four or five years ago. One of the many stars of the team is Boyle’s Roisin Wynne daughter of Anne and Gary. The team now faces Meath in the All-Ireland Semi-Final in Hyde Park on Saturday the 25th at 1. So this is a real opportunity to see and support the team and I imagine many more Roscommon supporters will have been alerted by last week-end’s heroics and result and wish to be there on the 25th. So put it in your diary for that week-end.
‘A Skull in Connemara’ Boyle Connection
From heroics on the sporting field I move to a very different stage that being the stage of the Olympia Theatre in Dublin. Decadent Theatre Company from Galway is presenting Martin McDonagh’s (3 Billboards and all that) middle- of three- play ‘A Skull in Connemara’ is in the Olympia until Saturday September 1st. The lead actor is Pat Shortt and the Boyle connection is Jarlath Tivnan. • • • •While Pat Shortt may be one of the country’s finest and unsung actors (see The Garage) the tremendously energetic performance of Jarlath has been exciting the attention of the critics.
While praising Pat Shortt’s restrained performance the theatre critic of The Irish Times, continues with; “However, it is Tivnan who steals the show with his explosive energy as Martin, swinging between baffled simplicity and psychopathy as he drives the plot on. Scene Three, in which he and Mick smash the skulls of the recently exhumed, is performed with an irreverent joy that you will, surely, never see anywhere else again”.
•So if you are from Boyle or its surrounds and live in the capital a visit to this production is worthy of consideration and maybe mention it here and there!
Heritage Week Walking Tour of Boyle Thursday 23rd at 7.
During the highly successful Arts Week I enjoyed taking two groups on a walking tour of Boyle. As part of Heritage Week I will be doing a similar ‘tour’ which is being promoted by Una Bhan. It takes place on Thursday the 23rd of the coming week starting at King House at 7. It is very surprising all the material that one can reference doing those trips. One continues to learn in this process so it will take a good while to reach the finished article.
P.S. One of the locations I visit is the Plunkett Home area. This was where Boyle Workhouse once stood. I am surprised that no frontal photograph of The Workhouse has emerged apart from a picture taken by Mary Fallon of a portion of the building as it was being demolished. If anyone comes up with one a number of people would be very pleased to see it.
Maureen O’Sullivan Remembered …Film from Videos of Her 1988 Return to Boyle.
This month is the 30th Anniversary of the return of Maureen O’Sullivan to her native town of Boyle on August 7th/8th 1988. It was a really great event and still resonates. Her trip was extensively recorded on video by Donal Farrell and Michael Beirne for the visit’s Organising Committee. Brendan McGee is currently editing a film of Maureen’s visit from those videos. The quality is not perfect but pretty good. There will be a showing of this documentary covering the visit on Tuesday evening, August 28th, at 7.30 in the upper auditorium in King House. It will run for the considerable length of nearly 1 and a half hours. A section of the ‘film’ (I’ll call it for convenience sake) will cover a concert in The Royal Hotel on the Sunday evening of her visit in which many of the best of Boyle entertainers participated. The star of course was Maureen herself but the people of Boyle were outstanding ‘extras’ over that memorable week-end. Many of you will pop up in this ‘film’.
