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THE COBWEB
I haven’t as yet been discovered by Hollywood (or even by Dunlavin!) I was however an amateur actor. In the spring of 1965, I played Trooper Devane in The Cobweb’s Glory with the Lacken Theatre Company. This is a play with six characters, teeming with misunderstandings, conspiracies drama, and side-splitting comedy. The “Cobweb” of the title was a greyhound and could be considered the star of the show. His real name was Sam and racing wasn’t really his thing. He was owned by a family in Ballyknochkan. The Cobweb was owned by Jerimiah Gilhooley and trained by Trooper Devane.
We played to full houses in Lacken, Valleymount, and
surrounding parishes. Everybody gave a good account of themselves.
Nobody forgot any lines or bumped into the furniture. My character’s
line “Do I look like a man that would eat sausages” always got
thunderous applause. Trooper has stolen sausages, for the greyhound,
from Bessie Costello, the woman of the house. But I believe the
audience's hilarity had something to do with a certain reputation that
yours truly had which I won’t go into here. Stephen Sweeney, an artist
and suitor of young Nora Mary had a line, “A most artistic
strangulation.” Every night at rehearsal, without fail, he would deliver
it as,” A most artistic strangulisation.” However, by opening night,
the producer’s insistence had paid off and the line was uttered with
perfection. (The same producer put a lot of effort into trying to
convince me to slow down my speech. The message eventually partly sank
in. But it took almost fifty years.)
Trooper Devane managed, each night, to threaten the Bailiff
Matt Dunne with a dung fork without stabbing anyone. Sam didn’t
misbehave on stage. Until . . . one night we put on the play, as a
favour to the producer’s friend, for a fundraiser in Greenane in the
far-flung backs of Wicklow.
Things went well until, in the middle of act three, Posh and
excited Belinda Hanratty breezed in from stage left brandishing a cup
with the Cobweb in tow. The dog had won a race that would cure all
Jerimiah Gilhooley’s financial ills. Jerimiah wasn’t at the race. He had
stayed at home as he was grounded with the gout. Breathless Blinda was
giving a full account of the dog’s performance,
“ . . . He passed Zut. He passed Kilnascreena Hero, then . . . then . . .”
The Parish Priest’s cat appeared beside the prompter in the
wings. Instinct took over and The Cobweb reverted to type. In the
resulting melee, Belinda Hanratty and her old flame Jeremiah Gilhooley
were thrown together in a manner not specified in the stage directions.
The play was written in 1946 by three Listowel writers who
used the nom-de-plume Bryan Michael O’ Conner. The fact that it has
stood the test of time was proven recently by a production under Joe
Murphy in Saint John’s Theatre, Listowel;. It’s available on YouTube;
"Cobweb" on YouTube
Our “Cobweb” has long since gone to that Boarding Kennel in the sky.
The producer and two of the actors from that production are
now on a Celestial stage. And the rest of us are waiting in the wings.
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Speaking of Listowel, Frances Kennedy, third from left in pic,
who played a blinder as the formidable Bessie Costello has brought out a
15-track CD Close the Half Door.
Here is a link to the Play List Track: Half Door Play List
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CD available from; https://frances-kennedy-
* * * * *
A young man from Warsaw married a local girl and they live in
the area. He is a very nice fellow and he suffers from Thanatophobia,
which as you erudite readers know is a severe and sometimes permanent
anxiety about one’s own death. I met him at Punchestown races and he was
in a state. “Mattie,” he said, “my wife is planning to poison me.”
“Listen,
Jakub, says I, “Your wife comes from a very respectable family. She
has a good pedigree. If she was a greyhound pup I’d buy her and there is
no way that she would poison you. What makes you think that?“
He explained, “She left the drawer of her dressing table open and I saw a bottle with a label, Polish Remover.”
* * * * *
With the death of Bill Meek, April 15th, we lost a great
singer/songwriter, folk-song collector, writer, civil rights activist,
and broadcast journalist. Here is a recording of him singing one of his
own compositions, Heroic Crubeen.
Heroic Crubeen wav
As part of one of his many projects, Bill sat hour after hour
interviewing Paddy Maloney. The result was “Paddy Maloney and the
Chieftains.”
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It includes more than a hundred photographs showing everything
from Paddy Maloney meeting the Pope in 1980 to the Chieftains playing on
the Great Wall of China. I’m lucky enough to own a copy of the book
which, as far as I know, is now out of print. If you can manage to
track down a copy it will be well worth the effort.
He was famous on both sides of the Atlantic and further afield. Of his trip to South America he wrote the following;
“Visiting South America in 1987 will always remain a
highlight of my life, both professionally and otherwise. It all began
when my brother-in-law John Redmond, then attached to the Irish embassy
in Buenos Aires, suggested the idea that as a radio producer/presenter
with RTÉ (the Irish national broadcasting station) I might consider
making a documentary series on the Argentine community of Irish descent.
My response was one of enthusiastic interest, but tempered by caution
as it was a time when there were many cutbacks in radio budgets, and
projects involving travel abroad were subject to close scrutiny at the
highest administrative level. Nonetheless, I went ahead with preparatory
planning and duly submitted a proposal. To my delight, indeed almost
amazement, the submission was approved. Thereafter on May 25 (a
coincidental but nevertheless appropriate date), I found myself -
microphone in hand - in the centre of Buenos Aires.”
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Bill Meek recording a group of Bolivian street musicians in Recoleta, Buenos Aires.
* * * * *
My own neck of the woods is once again in the news. I would like
to share part of an Irish Times article, of April 27t, with you;
“A group of parents of
children attending a County Wicklow primary school has expressed anger
at the school’s decision to exclude teaching about “same-sex
friendships” and contraception from relationships and sexuality
education (RSE).
Education Equality, a voluntary
parent-led rights group, said that it was “appalled” that Lacken
National School in Blessington had told parents in a letter of April 5th
last that “teachers do not cover topics such as contraception and
same-sex friendships” in the school’s RSE programme. Parents were told
in the letter that “children who ask questions in class on content
outside the designated curriculum are encouraged to discuss the issues
with their parents. “Parents are informed and asked to talk to their
child,” the letter continued. . . “
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See you in June
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