Supergran Brenda Foley spins and wins €23,000! Musical society’s fun Bandaoke night for Funny Girl show
THERE were wild celebrations in the Newbawn, Courthoyle areas as Brenda Foley won a cool €23,000 on the National Lottery Winning Streak game show on RTÉ One.
The proud grandmother was cheered on by her large family on the show as she won over a massive audience, taking home a whopping €23,000 in cash prizes in the process.
The Winning Streak ticket was bought from Rita Greene at Greene’s supermarket, Clonroche.
Before the show the patchwork enthusiast said that her phone hadn’t stopped ringing since she was selected to appear on the show and she was overwhelmed with the well wishes and messages of support from family, friends, neighbours and the community in Courthoyle in general.
The mother to seven children, six girls (Joan, Deirdre, Anne, Theresa, Majella, Angela and Breda) and one son (Liam), Brenda’s favourite hobby is patchwork and she is a member of the ‘Crazy Quilters’ group who meet every fortnight in Craft Central in New Ross. The group work on a number of patchwork projects and use the meetings to catch up with one another.
Apart from daughter Deirdre, who lives in Australia, the rest of the family cheered her on from the audience last weekend in RTE. Brenda also has 15 grandchildren most of whom watched their gran on the telly.
Brenda has no plans for what to do with her winnings just yet as she is going to wait until the dust settles on her amazing win. NEW ROSS MUSICAL SOCIETY’S annual ‘Bandaoke’ night of music and fun takes place on Friday, February 15, in the Theatre Tavern, New Ross.
This is an opportunity for any budding singers and karaoke lovers to sing with a live band, namely Trilogy from New Ross.
The band will provide a full playlist but requests are welcome also. There is no cover charge but all proceeds from the raffle will go towards defraying the costs of the society’s upcoming production ‘Funny Girl’ at St Michael’s Theatre, running from March 4 to March 9.
The award-winning musical society’s members are looking forward to presenting the 1963 musical Funny Girl which starred Barbara Streisand. Showing at the theatre at 8 p.m. nightly, this will be the society’s 51st consecutive production.
The semi-biographical plot is based on the life and career of Broadway star, film actress and comedian Fanny Brice – featuring her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nick Arnstein and featuring such beloved songs such as; ‘People’, ‘Sadie, Sadie’ and ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’.
Derek Shannon takes the reins as director, Philip Kennedy is musical director, Anne-Marie Cooney is choreographer and Paul Malone is production manager.
The main cast consists of Yvette Walsh, Keith Flanagan, Teresa Buckley, James Dobbs, Seán O’Brien, Carmel Rowe, Catherine French, Phyllis Smith, Trevor Kent and Niamh Murphy, as well as other well-known faces. One very well-known face, and a newcomer to the society, is celebrity TV chef Edward Hayden who will be taking on the role of Florenz Ziegfield. A society spokesperson said: ‘We would like to welcome Edward to the society and look forward to working with him over the next couple of months.’
Tickets cost €12 and €15 available from St Michael’s Theatre Box Office on 051 421255 or www.stmichaelsnewross.com