From the Abbey Theatre to following the Dublin hurlers

 

Artistic director of the Abbey Theatre Fiach Mac Conghail

 

 

Michael Moynihan

THE eagle-eyed spectator at Dublin-Galway in Tullamore two weeks ago may have clocked, among the sky blue faithful, an unusual spectator.

Fiach Mac Conghail’s day job is artistic director of the Abbey Theatre: “I work as CEO and I programme the work rather than directing the plays. I’m the gaffer.”

The bainisteoir bib?

“Exactly. I’m no maor uisce.”

When the working day is done, though, Mac Conghail is a die-hard Dublin hurling fan.

“I was awful at hurling. I never really played the game at all. But I went to Coláiste Eoin in Booterstown, in Dublin, and I was taught there by Colm Mac Sealaigh, a teacher who ended up working with the development squads in hurling in Dublin, so I was reared in a strong hurling school.”

The passion for hurling is genetic, clearly, as one of his daughters plays underage camogie for Dublin (“a huge thrill to see”). This weekend, with the Leinster final, he describes as “a dream come true”.

“For those of us who’ve been following it, we saw it with the colleges, we saw it at underage, and though the national league final was a great result, the game in Tullamore was the one for me. That was a mighty win.”

Still, aesthetes and hurling? Is it a lazy assumption to see that as an unusual combination?

“Ah, it is. Two of the guys I talk to most in theatre are Andrew Bennett the actor, who’s a hurler from Limerick, and Tom Hickey, who’d be known to many people for playing Benjy Riordan on television – he played corner-forward for Kildare.

“Tom McIntyre the playwright played in goal for Cavan, so there’s a lot of links between the GAA and acting. When we’re not talking theatre we’re talking sport, and it’s a passionate thing for all of us.

“It’s not just GAA, either. Jim Nolan the playwright is a big Waterford United fan, while Pat Kiernan of Corcadorca is a huge Cork City fan.”

Though a love of QPR also blooms in the Mac Conghail household, thanks to the Francis-Bowles-Givens side of the ’70s, hurling is the game.

“When you take the skill of hurlers — take a couple of weeks ago, when Dublin had Ryan O’Dwyer sent off, having lost Tomás Brady already to injury. Liam Rushe goes back to centre-back and the kind of game he played, at just 21 – he was man of the match in my view.

“Looking at a guy like that, a guy who’s an amateur but knowing the skills he’s developed... when I have American actors over I show them hurling games and they think we’re wild, but the actual skill involved, conveying to them how few people get injured – we can forget how unique hurling is and how it makes us different to every other country in the world.”

Where’s the great GAA play, then?

“It features in The Man From Clare by John B Keane but I think the GAA is in the background in a lot of plays because it’s such a big part of our lives.

“One thing that I’m proud of, though, is that a game of hurling was played on the Abbey stage last year when we put on a play by Tom Kilroy – a Kilkenny man – called Christ Deliver Us. So hurling was played on the stage here last February twelve months – beat that!”

*Translations by Brian Friel opens this week at the Abbey Theatre, see abbeytheatre.ie

 

 

 

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/buI1N-dhQ88/post.aspx

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