Search Results for 'Brian Merriman'

Maelíosa Stafford did not really have a chance, he was destined for a life in theatre, drama was in his blood, acting in his DNA. His first time on stage was in a Taibhdhearc production his mother was acting in … he was still in his mother’s womb. Both of his parents, Seán and Máire, had made an enormous contribution to the arts scene in Galway and especially to theatre in the west, in various guises as actors, directors, translators of plays into Irish, writers of pantomimes, costume designers, librettists, and drama teachers.

Maelíosa Stafford was an actor, director, producer, and educator and one of the most influential, successful, innovative, and charismatic of Galway artists.

‘The capital, Galway, is a terrible place. It has of course St Nicholas, one of the few remaining preReformation churches; the frontispiece of a Renaissance town house erected as a gateway to the public park; and a medieval fortified house about which they tell the well-known story of the Lynch who hanged his own son when the sheriff wasn't available. At least once a year while I was director of the Abbey theatre we got a play on that. From Miss Edgeworth's account of her travels to Galway it would appear that as a theme for tragedy it was popular a hundred years ago. But even before that I had a lively hatred of the town....'

Ireland’s greatest short story writer is probably the late Frank O’Connor (1903-1966). Born in Cork city, his autobiography An Only Child (1961) is ironically a celebration of his vivacious but fastidious mother, and their survival from his alcoholic, and at times brutal, father.