Break a leg Ballyduff!
For hurling and football followers down the years, the month of September was synonymous with the All-Ireland hurling and football finals in Croke Park. For over a century, those September Sundays were part of the sporting fabric of the country. Similarly, for lovers of amateur drama, Athlone in May is the summit, the rainbow at dream’s end, the ‘holy of holys’, as groups from across the 32 counties vie to become crowned All-Ireland champions.
The Amateur Drama Council of Ireland (ACDI) was founded in 1952 and since then, the profile of the All-Ireland finals held annually in the Dean Crowe Theatre in Athlone has gone through the roof. ‘Twould be easier to get a ticket for a Cork v Waterford All-Ireland hurling final - hopes springs eternal! - than for the coming week in the capital of Westmeath.
In recent decades, the Ballyduff Drama Group have been leading contenders nearly every year. All-Ireland wins with ‘ On Raftery’s Hill’ (2004) and ‘ Rabbit Hole’ (2022) are top of the list, but regular Athlone appearances are now nearly taken for granted. The building of St Michael’s Hall in the 1940s gave a home for drama in Ballyduff, though the tradition of entertainment and entertaining goes back a long ways. Pete St John in his ‘Dublin In The Rare Auld Times’ wrote about being ‘ raised on songs and stories’ and ‘twas the same in many parts of rural Ireland also, including Ballyduff.
Recently I came across a piece in The Munster Express newspaper of August 1901 dealing with a ‘Feis’ in Dungarvan on Sunday, August 11th of that year: ‘The members of the Ballyduff (Upper) choir both male and female drove all the way to the ‘ Feis’ in wagonettes (horsedrawn), and on their leaving the town in the evening they were loudly cheered by the people. They were in charge of Mr P O’Fahy and Miss Kiely’. So are traditions made and fashioned.
One thing is certain, that there will be plenty cheering in St Michael’s Hall this Thursday night and in Athlone on next Saturday night. It’s drama All-Ireland week again and Ballyduff are in the final once more. I don’t know how or where or when does Geraldine Canning come up, year after year with such brilliant, challenging and amazing plays - but she does. In the last two years ‘ Rabbit Hole’ and ‘The Welkin’ have been stunning.
This year it’s Jez Butterworth’s ‘ The Ferryman’ with a huge cast including a rabbit, a baby, several children and a goose! It’s a play about ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Set in 1981 but based on the ‘disappearance’ of Seamus Carney ten years earlier, this is an amazing play. Only an experienced group like Ballyduff would attempt to put on such a mind-blowing production. Then that’s the Ballyduff ethos.
CONNECTIONS
Drama in Ballyduff encompasses the community, but stretches farther also. The drama festival each March is probably the best supported of the 37 festivals around the country. Into north and east Cork and south Tipperary, so many of us feel immersed and proud to be ‘part’ of the Ballyduff story. So many actors have joined the group down the years that the support they get is huge.
I’ve been a drama follower all my life and along with the GAA, ‘going to plays’ is an integral part of human existence for me and mine. Connections are important to me, I love tracing family trees and the like and even on-stage links are vital. Geraldine Canning is the leader of the Ballyduff ‘orchestra’ - her grandmother was Mary O’Mahony from Ballynanelagh in Rathcormac. In 1924 in Mount Melleray Abbey, Mary married John Michael Beecher of Tallow, so Ger has close links with all the Bride Valley.
Gráinne Kenny, who plays the part of Caitlin
Carney, is granddaughter of Jack Barry of Bride Street in Rathcormac. A great hurler, Jack was on the Bride Rovers’ team that won the minor hurling county in 1932. He played junior and intermediate for the Rovers and wore the red jersey of Cork.
Kilworth native, Mikie Dunne (Muldoon) comes from a family steeped in community and sporting involvement. His great grandmother was a Mulcahy from the ‘High Road’ in Rathcormac!
And so it goes, that’s what tradition and community involvement is all about. On tonight, Thursday in St Michael’s Hall, ‘The Ferryman’ will be staged for the final time in the run-up to Athlone. Then on Saturday, May 4th it will on to that famous stage in the packed Dean Crowe Hall in Athlone for the Ballyduff Drama Group. They will carry the hopes, aspirations and best wishes of us all and all we can say in that great old dramatic tradition is ‘Ballyduff, break a leg’!