Cathal Goan is former Director-General of RTÉ and Chairman of Druid Theatre Company. He was born in Belfast and received his University education in University College Dublin where he qualified in Celtic Studies in 1975. He spent two years post-graduate in the Department of Irish Folklore UCD before beginning work as a research officer with The Placenames’ Commission of the Irish Ordnance Survey. He subsequently joined RTÉ as an archivist before becoming first a radio and then a television producer in Current Affairs. In 1990 he became Editor of all RTÉ’s television output in the Irish language and in 1994 he was chosen as the first Chief Executive of the new Irish language television service which was about to be established in Galway. Teilifís na Gaeilge – TG4 – began broadcasting in October 1996 and has gained widespread recognition for the inventiveness and variety of its commissioned programming. In 2000 he returned to Dublin as Director of Television Programming at RTÉ. In 2003 he was appointed Director General (CEO) of RTÉ, a position that he held until January 2011. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Ulster in 2006 in recognition of his services to the Irish language and to broadcasting in Ireland. He was appointed Adjunct Professor in the School of Irish Language, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore and Linguistics in UCD in 2011. He has a life-long interest in Irish music with particular reference to the Irish language song tradition.
]]>Cathal Goan is former Director-General of RTÉ and Chairman of Druid Theatre Company. He was born in Belfast and received his University education in University College Dublin where he qualified in Celtic Studies in 1975. He spent two years post-graduate in the Department of Irish Folklore UCD before beginning work as a research officer with The Placenames’ Commission of the Irish Ordnance Survey. He subsequently joined RTÉ as an archivist before becoming first a radio and then a television producer in Current Affairs. In 1990 he became Editor of all RTÉ’s television output in the Irish language and in 1994 he was chosen as the first Chief Executive of the new Irish language television service which was about to be established in Galway. Teilifís na Gaeilge – TG4 – began broadcasting in October 1996 and has gained widespread recognition for the inventiveness and variety of its commissioned programming. In 2000 he returned to Dublin as Director of Television Programming at RTÉ. In 2003 he was appointed Director General (CEO) of RTÉ, a position that he held until January 2011. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Ulster in 2006 in recognition of his services to the Irish language and to broadcasting in Ireland. He was appointed Adjunct Professor in the School of Irish Language, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore and Linguistics in UCD in 2011. He has a life-long interest in Irish music with particular reference to the Irish language song tradition.
Aindreas Ó GALLCHOIR
Dr Shane Kenna holds a BA in History and Political Science, and an MA and PhD in Irish History from Trinity College Dublin. He has worked in several sites of historical and political importance including Kilmainham Gaol Museum and Archive, Dublin Castle, Government Buildings and Castletown House. Widely published in historical journals and interviewed by RTÉ, the BBC and Newstalk Radio, his first book War In The Shadows: The Irish-American Fenians Who Bombed Victorian Britain was published in 2013 by Merrion Press an imprint of Irish Academic Press. In 2014 Shane has completed a biography of the executed 1916 Rising Leader Thomas MacDonagh as part of the 16 Lives series on behalf of the O'Brien Press (See also bibliography). Further information on Kenna's current research and publications can be found at http://www.shanekenna.ie/.
Dr Shane Kenna holds a BA in History and Political Science, and an MA and PhD in Irish History from Trinity College Dublin. He has worked in several sites of historical and political importance including Kilmainham Gaol Museum and Archive, Dublin Castle, Government Buildings and Castletown House. Widely published in historical journals and interviewed by RTÉ, the BBC and Newstalk Radio, his first book War In The Shadows: The Irish-American Fenians Who Bombed Victorian Britain was published in 2013 by Merrion Press an imprint of Irish Academic Press. In 2014 Shane has completed a biography of the executed 1916 Rising Leader Thomas MacDonagh as part of the 16 Lives series on behalf of the O'Brien Press (See also bibliography). Further information on Kenna's current research and publications can be found at http://www.shanekenna.ie/.
Declan Kiberd is Keough Professor of Irish Studies at University of Notre Dame. He was for many years Professor of Anglo-Irish Literature at UCD and wrote a chapter on Thomas MacDonagh in The UCD Aesthetic. Among his books are Synge and the Irish Language, Idir Dhá Chultúr, Inventing Ireland, Irish Classics and Ulysses and Us. Handbook of the Irish Revival 1891-1922, co-edited with PJ Mathews, has just been published by Abbey Theatre Press (June 2015). He is a former Director of the Yeats International Summer School and of the Abbey Theatre.
]]>Declan Kiberd is Keough Professor of Irish Studies at University of Notre Dame. He was for many years Professor of Anglo-Irish Literature at UCD and wrote a chapter on Thomas MacDonagh in The UCD Aesthetic. Among his books are Synge and the Irish Language, Idir Dhá Chultúr, Inventing Ireland, Irish Classics and Ulysses and Us. Handbook of the Irish Revival 1891-1922, co-edited with PJ Mathews, has just been published by Abbey Theatre Press (June 2015). He is a former Director of the Yeats International Summer School and of the Abbey Theatre.
Dr. Kurt Bullock is an associate professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Irish literature and critical theory and directs senior and master's-level theses. His area of scholarship is the work of Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett; he most recently published two chapters on MacDonagh and the Irish Review last summer: "From Revival to Revolution: Thomas MacDonagh and the Irish Review" in Ireland and the New Journalism (eds. Karen Steele, Michael de Nie); and "Literary Provocateur: Revival, Revolt, and the Censure of the Irish Review" in The Home Rule Crisis, 1912-1914 (ed. Gabriel Doherty).
See also Bibliography for further information on his scholarship
Dr. Kurt Bullock is an associate professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Irish literature and critical theory and directs senior and master's-level theses. His area of scholarship is the work of Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett; he most recently published two chapters on MacDonagh and the Irish Review last summer: "From Revival to Revolution: Thomas MacDonagh and the Irish Review" in Ireland and the New Journalism (eds. Karen Steele, Michael de Nie); and "Literary Provocateur: Revival, Revolt, and the Censure of the Irish Review" in The Home Rule Crisis, 1912-1914 (ed. Gabriel Doherty).
See also Bibliography for further information on his scholarship
Sources
White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.
]]>The Golden Joy is Thomas MacDonagh’s third collection of poetry. According to Lawrence William White, this volume symbolizes MacDonagh’s transition ‘from Christian mysticism to neo-platonism’ where the poet is conceived ‘as divinely inspired mediator between the spiritual world and the physical’.
Sources
White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.
Irish Review
In 1904 Thomas MacDonagh won the first price at the Dublin Feis Ceoil for a religious cantata that he wrote with music by the Italian pianist and R.I.A.M. singing teacher Benedetto Palmieri. The cantata follows the actions of the Israelites as recounted in the book of Exodus until their successful crossing of the Red Sea (Norstedt). It was first performed at the Royal University on the 19th of May 1904 with Palmieri as a conductor. Arthur Griffith’s periodical, The United Irishman, criticized the cantata because it didn’t address more specific Irish subjects. This criticism partly contested the rules in the Feis Ceoil competition which allowed works by Irish-born authors ‘or’ on Irish subject as opposed to works by Irish-born authors ‘and’ on Irish subject (Norstedt). The collaboration between MacDonagh and Palmieri seems to be undocumented. After five years at the Royal College of Music in London (1885-1890), Palmieri worked at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin from 1900 to 1914 before returning to Italy during the wars. Palmieri most notably gave singing lessons to James Joyce who also participated in the 1904 Feis Ceoil winning a third-place medal for tenor solo singing.
Sources
Hodgart Matthew H. J. C. & Ruth Bauerle. Joyce’s Grand Operoar: Opera in Finnegan’s Wake. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Print.
MacDonagh, Thomas (words) & Benedetto Palmieri (music). The Exodus: A Sacred Cantata. London: Doremi, 1904. Print.
Norstedt, Johann A.. Thomas MacDonagh. A Critical Biography. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980. Print.
“Benedetto Palmieri: Joyce’s Singing Teacher.” Music in James Joyce’s Dubliners. Online Exhibition of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. 2014. Web. Accessed 25 May 2015. [https://riamarchives.wordpress.com/music-in-joyces-dubliners/benedetto-palmieri/]
White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.
]]>1904 Vocal Score for Thomas MacDonagh's The Exodus: A Sacred Cantata (Words by MacDonagh, music by Benedetto Palmieri).
In 1904 Thomas MacDonagh won the first price at the Dublin Feis Ceoil for a religious cantata that he wrote with music by the Italian pianist and R.I.A.M. singing teacher Benedetto Palmieri. The cantata follows the actions of the Israelites as recounted in the book of Exodus until their successful crossing of the Red Sea (Norstedt). It was first performed at the Royal University on the 19th of May 1904 with Palmieri as a conductor. Arthur Griffith’s periodical, The United Irishman, criticized the cantata because it didn’t address more specific Irish subjects. This criticism partly contested the rules in the Feis Ceoil competition which allowed works by Irish-born authors ‘or’ on Irish subject as opposed to works by Irish-born authors ‘and’ on Irish subject (Norstedt). The collaboration between MacDonagh and Palmieri seems to be undocumented. After five years at the Royal College of Music in London (1885-1890), Palmieri worked at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin from 1900 to 1914 before returning to Italy during the wars. Palmieri most notably gave singing lessons to James Joyce who also participated in the 1904 Feis Ceoil winning a third-place medal for tenor solo singing.
Sources
Hodgart Matthew H. J. C. & Ruth Bauerle. Joyce’s Grand Operoar: Opera in Finnegan’s Wake. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Print.
MacDonagh, Thomas (words) & Benedetto Palmieri (music). The Exodus: A Sacred Cantata. London: Doremi, 1904. Print.
Norstedt, Johann A.. Thomas MacDonagh. A Critical Biography. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980. Print.
“Benedetto Palmieri: Joyce’s Singing Teacher.” Music in James Joyce’s Dubliners. Online Exhibition of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. 2014. Web. Accessed 25 May 2015. [https://riamarchives.wordpress.com/music-in-joyces-dubliners/benedetto-palmieri/]
White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.
Both plays were produced for the first time in 1915. Pagans will only be published in book form in 1920, whereas Eimar O’Duffy’s The Walls of Athens appeared in The Irish Review in June 1914 and was published in book form in 1915 “on sale at the Irish Theatre” for the price of one shilling net. The setting of Pagans, a drawing room in the Dublin house of Mrs Fitzmaurice is in the Ibsenite style favoured by the Irish Theatre founders, whereas the historic setting of The Walls of Athens required the scenic effects of Jack Morrow (an Irish painter who contributed several plates for the Irish Review) and the costumes of the Dun Emer Guild.
]]>Playbill of the Irish Theatre in Harwicke Street (April 1915) for: Pagans by Thomas MacDonagh; The Walls of Athens by Eimar O’Duffy.
Playbill of the Irish Theatre in Harwicke Street (April 1915) for: Pagans by Thomas MacDonagh; The Walls of Athens by Eimar O’Duffy.
Both plays were produced for the first time in 1915. Pagans will only be published in book form in 1920, whereas Eimar O’Duffy’s The Walls of Athens appeared in The Irish Review in June 1914 and was published in book form in 1915 “on sale at the Irish Theatre” for the price of one shilling net. The setting of Pagans, a drawing room in the Dublin house of Mrs Fitzmaurice is in the Ibsenite style favoured by the Irish Theatre founders, whereas the historic setting of The Walls of Athens required the scenic effects of Jack Morrow (an Irish painter who contributed several plates for the Irish Review) and the costumes of the Dun Emer Guild.
“My writings have been only the prelude to my other work. […] Sooner that you think, Frances, politics will be dropped here, and something better will take their place […] You will not know yourself in the Ireland that we shall make here.” (Pagans)
The character of John was played by Thomas MacDonagh’s brother John, active in the Irish Theatre as actor and manager.
Sources
MacDonagh. Thomas. Pagans. A Modern Play in Two Conversations. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1920. Print.
Norstedt, Johann A.. Thomas MacDonagh. A Critical Biography. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980. Print.
White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.
]]>Thomas MacDonagh's Third Play, Pagans (1915)
Pagans is Thomas MacDonagh’s third play after When the Dawn Has Come (1908) and Metempsychosis (1912) and was first produced in April 1915 by the Irish Theatre in Hardwicke Street for a run of six nights. It is the story of husband and wife, Mr. John Fitzmaurice and Mrs. Frances Fitzmaurice, who have been separated for three years and who reunite in her Dublin house to realize that, despite their love for eachother, they can’t make a fresh start. The play is almost a dramatic version of MacDonagh’s poem ‘John-John’ (Songs of Myself) with the protagonist’s final nationalist speech as arguably one the major structural revision (Norstedt). The play is generally read as mirroring MacDonagh’s personal transition to military separatism (White), particularly due to its epilogue when John accepts the separation from his wife from his wife and announcing how
“My writings have been only the prelude to my other work. […] Sooner that you think, Frances, politics will be dropped here, and something better will take their place […] You will not know yourself in the Ireland that we shall make here.” (Pagans)
The character of John was played by Thomas MacDonagh’s brother John, active in the Irish Theatre as actor and manager.
Sources
MacDonagh. Thomas. Pagans. A Modern Play in Two Conversations. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1920. Print.
Norstedt, Johann A.. Thomas MacDonagh. A Critical Biography. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980. Print.
White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.