Mary O'Malley (director)

Mary O'Malley (née Hickey 28 July 1918 Mallow, County Cork – 22 April 2006 Booterstown, County Dublin) was an Irish theatre director and, with her husband Pearse, co-founder of Belfast's Lyric Players Theatre, now more usually known as the Lyric Theatre, Belfast.[1]

Life

At the age of thirteen, whilst stopping off in Dublin, on the way to begin her first year at Loreto Secondary School, Navan, she attended the Abbey Theatre. Later that year O’Malley would write and direct her first play, The Lost Princess.

After she finished at Loreto, Mary moved with her mother to live near her brother, Gerard, in Dublin. In her spare time she attended productions at the Abbey and Peacock theatres and quickly became immersed in Dublin’s social and theatrical scenes, becoming a key member of the New Theatre Group, and joining countless societies such as the Irish Society for Intellectual Freedom.

On 14 September 1947, Mary married Armagh-born doctor Pearse O’Malley in University Church, Dublin and soon afterwards moved to Belfast.[2]

She was elected to Belfast Corporation in May 1952, as an Irish Labour Party councillor for the Smithfield ward.

In 1959, she founded Threshold literary magazine.[1][3][4]

In March 1951, she started Belfast’s Lyric Players Theatre, initially at Ulsterville House[5] and, the following year, in the former stables at the back of her home in Derryvolgie Avenue, off the Malone Road.[1] A self-taught and tireless director, she fought against a tide of cultural populism and indifference in Northern Ireland during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s to pioneer the new theatre. As their repertoire grew, O’Malley felt it necessary to provide a permanent theatre for the company, and in the 1961 the Lyric Players Theatre became a non-profit association.

In October 1968 a new, purpose-built Lyric Theatre opened on Ridgeway Street.[6][7] The date of the official opening was chosen by O'Malley as an homage to US President John F. Kennedy's Amherst address, 26 October 1963, in which he affirmed the role of the artist in society.[8]

In 1976, she retired to Wicklow.[2] Her autobiography, Never Shake Hands with the Devil, was published in 1990.

The Lyric Players Theatre archives are held at NUI Galway.[9]

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References
  1. Adams, Bernard (29 April 2006). "Mary O'Malley". The Independent. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  2. Henry, Lee (6 February 2008). "Mary O'Malley Changed the NI Stage". Culture Northern Ireland. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  3. Frank Shovlin (2003). The Irish literary periodical, 1923–1958. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-926739-2.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 20 February 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. Grene, Nicholas ; Morash, Chris (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre. Oxford University Press.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. Christopher Murray (1997). Twentieth-century Irish drama. Manchester University Press ND. ISBN 978-0-7190-4157-0.
  7. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-02-20. Retrieved 2009-05-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. Coyle, Jane (29 October 2018). "The Lyric Theatre at 50: a cultural bridge in a divided city". The Irish Times. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  9. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-06-19. Retrieved 2009-05-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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