A Great Night Out!

Programme for Wasters, performed by The Passion Machine Theatre Company, 1985

The Passion Machine Theatre Company first performed in 1984, presenting the play Drowning by Paul Mercier. The aim of the company was to produce plays that reflected the life of real Dubliners and would be accessible to an audience that might not be attracted to the  type of theatre currently available in Dublin. The writer Roddy Doyle and the actor Brendan Gleeson were both involved in the early days of the company, which had series of successes with plays such as War and Studs, both reflecting the concerns of the Dubliners of the late 20th.  Wasters tells the story of a night in which six disenchanted Dubliners meet at their waste ground drinking plot and what transpires as a result. Brendan Gleeson plays the main character, Bonzo. Read more »

Photograph of Beatles Fans in Dublin, November 1963, from The Irish Independent, 7th November 1963

Image (c) The Irish Independent

Beatlemania hit Ireland on 6th of November 1963 when the Fab Four played in the Adelphi Cinema in Dublin. Accounts of the night include descriptions of cars overturned, windows broken and mass faintings from the young ladies in the huge crowds desperate for a chance to see their idols. During the concert itself, very little of the group could actually be heard because of the on-going screaming and the attendants were concerned for public safety when large numbers of people left their seats to twist and shout in the aisles.

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Programme of The Country Boy, performed in the Gas Company Theatre, Dublin 

Dublin theatre audiences will have many fond memories of the Gas Company Theatre in Dun Laoghaire, where punters made their way through gas appliances in order to reach the auditorium. This production from the 66 Theatre Company was performed after the Company had taken over the operation of The Gas Company Theatre from the Globe theatre. The theatre originally opened in 1954 and closed in 1971. The Country Boy was written by John Murphy and first performed in 1959 in Belfast. It deals with themes of emigration and rural decline in Ireland. This performance features the young Emmet Bergin in the role of the main character’s brother Eddie, who returns on a visit from America to the family farm in Mayo. Bergin continued a distinguished career on stage and in film, but is perhaps best known as Dick Moran in the long-running RTE series Glenroe. Read more »

Gaiety Theatre Pantomine Programme, Christmas 1994.

This is one of the many pantomine programmes held in the Special Collections of Dublin City Library and Archive. The pantomine was the traditional Christmas outing for Dubliners, young and old alike.

Further information on the panto in Dublin.

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 Tatarstan State Ballet Programme, 1995

Until the 1990s, for Irish dance-lovers, a trip to the ballet almost invariably meant a trip to London, as there were few if any performances on home ground. With the increasing prosperity of the country, however, came the possibility of Irish tours from foreign countries, most particularly from former Eastern bloc states. This tour of the Tatarstan State Company had one Irish dancer in the troupe - 20 year-old Katherine O'Malley, the first Irishwoman to dance with a Russian company since the days of the celebrated Ninette de Valois.

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Dublin Grand Opera Society Programme - Peleas and Melisande

The Dublin Grand Opera Society was founded in 1941 and during its first decade, despite the austerity of the War years and after, managed to bring a series of high level European companies to play in Dublin. The young Pavorotti performed in Dublin as a member of the chorus of Rigoletto in 1963 and played football with the Irish players during his visit. The sponsors of the DGOS (later Opera Ireland), included the luminaries of Dublin society such as JB Yeats, Bethel Solomons, the art dealer Victor Waddington and owners of Jammet's restaurant. Debussy’s setting to music of Maeterlinck’s symbolist play was first performed in 1893. This performance was by the Opera Comique from Paris. Read more »